Blog For Arizona

Comments on "Charter School Board Conflict of Interest" Post

by David Safier

After Mary Gifford read my last post, AZ Charter School Board Conflict of Interest?, she called, wanting to correct the record, which I told her I would be happy to do. I mentioned that she can comment directly on the blog so her ideas won't be filtered through my words. She said she understands that, but she would relay her facts and ideas to me. I'll do my best to represent what she said accurately.

Gifford felt I didn't represent her relationship with K12 Inc. accurately in my last post. I wondered if she had "moved on" from her position as head of Arizona Virtual Academy. Her correction indicates to me that I was correct in the general if not in the specific. Rather than being directly associated with AZVA as she was in the past, Gifford is currently the Regional Vice President for Student Services for K12. Her job is to oversee the company's virtual academies in a number of western states, including Arizona. She lives in Arizona as she has for many years, so my statement that she may have moved to Virginia was incorrect.

My primary hunch that Gifford was an employee of K12 as the head of AZVA before, but now she has what I called a "corporate function," turns out to be correct.

However, I was wrong to say she is connected with K12 International Academy. I went back to the K12 website and found I had clicked to the wrong page and got my facts wrong. I apologize for the error. However, K12 Inc. and the K12 International Academy share a common address in Herndon, VA, and they are both mentioned on the website.

Toward the end of our conversation, Gifford commented that my inaccuracies might have been subtle, but she wanted to correct them. I've done my best here.

She was also concerned I misrepresented what I called a conflict of interest in her position on the AZ State Board for Charter Schools where she has served for about 10 years, first as Governor Hull's appointee, then as Horne's Superintendent Designee.

Gifford said she has held this position in part because of her expertise on charter schools. A google search revealed a long standing involvement in charter schools and some impressive credentials. In the mid 90s she headed the Goldwater Institute's Center for Market-Based Education and wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on the topic of charter schools. She spoke regularly on the topic at national conferences. And her ongoing relationship with K12 and directorship of AZVA add to her comprehensive understanding of the field.

Refuting the idea of a conflict of interest, Gifford emphasized that she is a strong believer in the value of charter schools, and so she has a stake in maintaining high standards and holding the schools accountable. She says both her own character and the credibility of the Charter School Board are important to her, which is why she asked me to correct the record.

I have to say that I'm not convinced that the regulations governing charter schools are as rigorous as they should be, and I feel the Department of Education errs on the side of advocacy as opposed to oversight when it comes to charter schools. Ms.Gifford and I disagree on those issues, but I think we both agree it's important to get the facts straight.

All gimmicks, all the time - the offshore drilling fraud (Part 2)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In an earlier post, I explained how the obstructionist Republicans have blocked energy legislation in Congress that would have actually lowered the price of gas at the pump, and marginally increased domestic oil and gas supplies. Blog For Arizona: All gimmicks, all the time - the offshore drilling fraud

For the sake of argument, let's assume the obstructionist Republicans currently throwing a temper tantrum actually get their way.  How much offshore oil are we actually talking about? 

"About 86 billion barrels of additional oil may lie offshore, according to the US government's Energy Information Administration," and then continued: "Of that amount, about 18 billion barrels are subject to the moratorium." Blog For Arizona: All gimmicks, all the time - the offshore drilling fraud  That's it.  A drop in the barrel, so to speak, in the world supply of oil on the global market.

Moreover, even if the offshore moratorium were lifted today, the oil companies simply do not have the oil drilling ships and offshore rigs to drill for the oil, or skilled employees to man them (despite what the howling mad attack dogs of talk radio and the McMedia misrepresent to the public daily).

The global shortage of drill-ships has created a critical bottleneck.  The world’s existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years. Some oil companies have been forced to postpone exploration while waiting for a drilling rig, executives and analysts said.  Dearth of Deep-Sea Drilling Ships Hinders Offshore Oil Search - NYTimes.com

“The crunch on rigs is everywhere,” said Alberto Guimaraes, a senior executive at Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company that has discovered some of the most promising offshore oil but has been unable to get at it.

“Almost 100 percent of the oil companies are constrained in their investment program because there is no rig available,” he said.

As a result, drilling costs for some of the newest deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico — the nation’s top source of domestic oil and natural gas supplies — have reached about $600,000 a day, compared with $150,000 a day in 2002.

The most recent report (8/8/08) from ODS-Petrodata, a firm that tracks drilling rigs, ODS-Petrodata | Weekly Rig Count states that "In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the number of rigs under contract slipped by two after two jackup contracts ended, while total fleet size was unchanged.  With 103 of 123 mobile offshore drilling rigs under contract this week, fleet utilization in the region stands at 83.7 percent."  With 630 out of 694 rigs available under contract (worldwide), offshore rig fleet utilization is 90.8 percent."  This is maximum utilization; there is little spare capacity.

Update: McCain's developing campaign bundler scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On Friday, the McCain campaign announced that it would be returning $50,000 in campaign contributions raised by Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a Jordanian citizen, from members of a single extended family in California, the Abdullahs, along with several of their friends. The Raw Story | McCain campaign to return 50K in donations ; McCain Campaign Returning $50,000 From Fla. Bundler - washingtonpost.com

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said some of the people solicited by Abu Naba'a had no intention of supporting McCain for president.

"We thought it was an issue that there were people giving to the campaign who had no intention of supporting or voting for John McCain," said Brian Rogers, a campaign spokesman. "So we thought it was an appropriate measure at this point."

The contributions raised by Abu Naba'a were "bundled" and submitted instead by McCain campaign bundler, Harry Sargeant III.  This kind of thing raises red flags.

At the same time, the campaign sent a letter to everyone whose donations went through Sargeant, reminding them that federal law bars campaigns from accepting contributions from foreign nationals and that all donations must come from their own funds, without reimbursement.  The Raw Story | McCain campaign to return 50K in donations

Greg Sargent at Talking Point Memo reports that Campaign Money Watch will request an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the McCain campaign bundling activities, not just by Harry Sargeant III but also Hess Oil executives. TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Group To Ask Justice Department To Probe McCain's Bundlers

David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch confirms to me that they'll make the formal request on Monday, and MoveOn also is demanding a Federal probe in an email that just went out to supporters. Donnelly says that his group's request is being triggered by McCain's letter to the donors whose contributions had been bundled by Sargeant.

Donnelly said that the letter, which advised the donors of the legal ins-and-outs of such contributions, didn't go far enough in trying to determine what had happened.

"What he didn't say was, `Tell us who was responsible for giving you money to give to me, and we'll urge the authorities to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law,'" Donnelly said. "The letter raises the question, 'Is the McCain campaign covering for his bundlers?'"

Asked why Sargeant, whose company holds a huge contract to deliver fuel to military bases in Iraq, merited an investigation, Donnelly said: "An executive from a company that has a billion dollar contract to deliver oil to U.S. bases in Iraq possibly violated election law to funnel contributions to McCain. We think that warrants an investigation."

And on the Hess matter, Donnelly said: "An office manager for an oil company that stands to gain millions in profits from offshore drillingmakes donations for the first time this cycle to McCain, and did it at the same time nine other Hess donors do. That's worth an investigation."

Moreover, Sam Stein at the Huffington Post reports yet another lobbyist connection to the McCain campaign on behalf of a company owned by Harry Sargeant III. McCain Bundler Turned To McCain-Friendly Lobbyist In Contract Dispute:

Harry Sargeant, who has raised more than $500,000 for the McCain from a host of unlikely donors, owns a refinery and fuel supply company that has spent large sums of money lobbying the government since 2000. Moreover, in 2006 the company, Trigeant Petroleum, brought on board a lobbyist with strong connections to McCain in an effort to win congressional support in its fight over a terminated contract with the Department of Defense.

It could not be immediately determined whether McCain or any other member of Congress intervened on Trigeant's behalf. The Arizona Republican's office did not return request for comment. The company ultimately succeeded in settling its suit with DoD for several million dollars. But the widening extent of Sargeant's business interests adds another layer of intrigue to concerns that he was bundling cash for the presumptive Republican nominee in hopes of future political favors.

* * *

Started by Sargeant in 1985, Trigeant Petroleum quickly became a player in the energy supply industry. In April 2004, the company was contracted by the Department of Defense to provide diesel and motor fuel to the Iraqi populace after a Jordanian company failed in the task. The deal was worth $76,956,988 over the course of a year. Several months into the contract, however, the Iraqi government asked for the arrangement to be terminated.

* * *

When the Department of Defense acquiesced to the Iraqi government's wishes, Trigeant was left with fuel literally in transit. Not willing to simply take the hit, the company filed a suit saying that as part of their contract, the U.S. government had to cover the costs of the material they had already lifted.

In 2006, Trigeant hired Otto Reich Associates at $60,000-a-year to build congressional support for the firm's claim that it should be compensated for losses.  The choice of lobbyists seemed logical. The firm touts its capacity to deal with international economics...

But Reich Associates also advertised another asset: proximity to power. On the firm's website, in the "About Us" section, is a picture of the founder Ambassador Otto J. Reich shaking hands with none other than John McCain. Below is a quote from the Senator praising the lobbyist...

* * *

In addition to exchanging rhetorical pleasantries, Reich has been a prominent endorser of the presumptive Republican nominee, is reportedly advising McCain on Latin American affairs, and has donated $30,000 to committees supporting the Senator.

According to forms filed with Congress, Reich wrote that he was paid to "inform members of Congress and other senior government officials of the existence of Trigeant, Ltd.'s claim against the Defense Industry Support Center of the Defense Logistics Agency, of the Department of Defense, and to seek their support for a favorable resolution of the dispute."

Which members Reich met with and what type of advocacy he did on behalf of Trigeant is difficult to quantify. The lobbying firm did not return requests for comment.

But around that time, Trigeant's suit with the Department of Defense was finally settled, with the company awarded $3.25 million for the costs it incurred at the end of its contract. McCain's Senate office did not return a request for comment as to whether or not he was contacted about the case.

* * *

"[Sargeant] had nothing to do with John McCain until he started making these campaign contributions," he said. "I'm not sure [he] even knew who John McCain was at the time."

Indeed, a review of campaign contribution records shows that Sargeant's support of McCain did indeed start only during this election cycle. Prior to bundling for the Arizona Republican, he raised cash on behalf of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as well as Hillary Clinton.

Once the primary ended, Sargeant came fully on board. Moreover his brother Dan, who serves as vice president of Trigeant, also raised cash on behalf of the presumptive Republican nominee, donating $4,600 in late January. On March 5, 2008, both Sargeants served as an "Event Chairman" for a "Floridians For McCain reception," an event that raised an estimated $400,000 plus for McCain. McCain is now reviewingdonations brought in by Sargeant.

For the card carrying members of "The John McCain Protection Society," the McMedia who are not reporting this developing scandal, Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic asks you this pointed question Marc Ambinder (August 08, 2008) - Just Asking...

If there were a group of questionable donations all with the name Abdullah

that were funneled through a guy in Jordan

who is a Jordanian national

who is under investigation for war profiteering

and it were Barack Obama

instead of John McCain

would this be a bigger deal?

AZ Charter School Board Conflict of Interest?

by David Safier

This is interesting. I wrote yesterday about Arizona Virtual Academy sending student papers to India to be commented on and scored. To get official confirmation for my information, I spoke with Mary Gifford at the school. I summarized parts of our conversation in that post.

I was nosing around the internet today and came across the minutes of a June, 2008, meeting of the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools. Mary Gifford is one of the eight members of the board. Her title is Superintendent Designee. I looked up the term "Superintendent Designee" in the Arizona Statutes concerning charter schools. There it is in 15-182, the first named member of the board:

The state board for charter schools is established consisting of the following members:

1. The superintendent of public instruction or the superintendent's designee.

It means exactly what it sounds like. If Tom Horne -- or whoever is Supe at the time -- isn't there, the designee speaks and votes for the Supe.

One of the primary tasks of the Charter School Board is to oversee charter schools. Yet a top administrator of one of the schools speaks with the Superintendent's voice.

Conflict of interest, anyone?

THIS IS CURIOUS: I went on the Arizona Virtual Academy website to find Gifford's title. I couldn't find her name anywhere in the list of administrators, teachers or support staff. Yet when I googled "Arizona Virtual Academy" + "Mary Gifford," I found her listed at various times as Entity Administrator and Contract Signer, AZVA Director and, on the 2008 State Report Card for AZVA, as Principle (yes, I spelled that as it's written. It's not a typo).

Has Gifford moved on?? This may be a clue. When I returned her call, it was to a phone with a 571 area code. That's an Arlington, Virginia, area code. K12 International Academy, which I assume is K12 headquarters, is in Herndon, Virginia, which is just a bit northwest of Arlington, near the Washington-Dulles International Airport.

If Gifford is now working directly for K12, Inc., it makes some of her somewhat evasive answers during our interview even more evasive. I'll tell you more when I find out her current status.

UPDATE: It looks like maybe my hunch was right. Here is a press release with Gifford listed as the contact person announcing the new Texas Virtual Academy at Southwest. That sounds more like a corporate function than something she would do as head of AZVA.

If Gifford is working for K12 and not as part of AZVA, let me run a few dates by you. The press release is dated Oct. 24, 2007. The Charter Board meeting where she's listed as the Superintendent Designee is June 9, 2008. That would mean Gifford is acting at Tom Horne's surrogate at a time when she's employed, not by a state charter school, but a publicly traded corporation that runs online charter schools all over the country.

Has the conflict of interest just escalated? Maybe I'm wrong. If so, someone please correct me. I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation for all this.

MAKE A COMMENT OR SEND ME AN EMAIL: Lots of people out there can add information to this story about AZVA's educational outsourcing. If you're one of those people, please click the "Comments" link below or email me directly.

McCain has a campaign bundler scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

McCain campaign bundler Harry Sargeant III, a Florida Republican, has bundled more than $140,000 in campaign contributions for John McCain, largely from individuals of modest means who have never contributed to a presidential candidate before.  While reading what follows, keep in mind that it is illegal for foreigners to contribute their own money to U.S. campaigns. 

(In an earlier post Blog For Arizona: The Double Talk Express: McCain is a Fraud on Campaign Finance Reform I reported that the Rothschild family hosted a campaign fund raiser for McCain when he was in London, for which the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a complaint with the FEC, which remains pending).

As reported by Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post Bundler Collects From Unlikely Donors - washingtonpost.com:

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Taco Bell stores in Riverside, the owners of a liquor store in Colton.

* * *

Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit -- who now serves as a consultant to his company -- Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election.

* * *

The 2008 presidential campaign, which could see each side spend close to $500 million, has heightened the importance of "bundlers" such as Sargeant, who not only write checks themselves but also recruit scores of other donors to give the legal limit of $2,300. Questions about such donor networks have repeatedly emerged as points of stress for the campaigns.

* * *

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."

Donors reached by phone or interviewed in person declined to explain who asked them to make the contributions.

Ibrahim Marabeh, who is listed in public records as a Rite Aid manager, at first denied that he wrote any political checks. He then said he was asked by "a local person. But I would like not to talk about it anymore."

* * *

[N]adia and Shawn Abdalla, who are not registered to vote, said in an interview that they recalled writing a check to an organization in Miami, because a person with that organization was a friend of their mother's. They said they could not remember his name.

Nader, 39, and Sahar Alhawash, 28, of Colton, Calif...  declined to comment about the donations.

* * *

Abdullah Abdullah, a supervisor at several Taco Bell restaurants in the Riverside area, and his wife have donated $9,200 to McCain.

Reached at work, Abdullah said he knows little about the campaign. "I have no idea. I'll be honest with you," he said.  "I'm involved in the restaurant business. My brother Faisal recommended John McCain. Whenever he makes a recommendation, we do it."

Faisal Abdullah, 49, said he helped organize all of the contributions from members of his family. When he was asked who solicited the contributions from him, he said: "Why does it matter who? I'm telling you we made the contribution. We funneled it through the channel in Florida because that's the contact we had. I was responsible for collecting it."

$97 Million Surplus at the AZ Ed. Dept.?

by David Safier

According to The Skinny in the current Tucson Weekly:

State agencies didn't spend all the money they anticipated, so there's an extra $189 million still left in those bank accounts. That includes $97 million from the Department of Education and $54 million from AHCCCS, the state's health-insurance program.

$97 million Tom Horne & Co. couldn't find a way to spend in Arizona's schools? Aren't our schools a wee bit underfunded?

There must be more to this story.

McCain annoys conservatives, gets spanked by Democrats

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In one of the most inexplicable moves to date, John McCain aired a web-ad yesterday, "Dems Praise McCain," extolling his willingness to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats in an effort to revive his now defunct "maverick" image.  The ad includes clips of Democrats saying nice things about McCain (the most recent of which is more than two years old).

This was stupid! stupid! stupid!  All the ad does is serve to remind conservative Republicans why they distrusted and despised John McCain in the first place.  The ad will only serve to depress more conservatives who may decide to stay at home and simply not vote in November because they do not have a candidate they can support.

The DNC rapid response team was quick to respond to the McCain ad with an ad of its own making the point that John McCain and George W. Bush are one and the McSame.  The McCain of 2000 would not vote for the McCain of 2008.  Oh, so true! This was a lose-lose move by the McCain campaign.  His campaign team continues "fumbling, bumbling, stumbling..." as Boomer at ESPN would say.  Why hasn't McCain fired these losers?

MIT announces "major discovery" primed to unleash solar revolution

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced a major scientific breakthrough in the development of large-scale solar power generation. 'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution - MIT News Office:

"With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

* * *

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

* * *

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

* * *

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years."

Earlier last month, MIT also announced another major scientific breakthrough in solar power generation MIT opens new 'window' on solar energy - MIT News Office:

"The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar concentrator." "Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges," explains Marc A. Baldo, leader of the work and the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel. In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40," Baldo says.

Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years--even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost. That, in turn, would substantially reduce the cost of solar electricity.

* * *

"Professor Baldo's project utilizes innovative design to achieve superior solar conversion without optical tracking," says Dr. Aravinda Kini, program manager in the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, a sponsor of the work. "This accomplishment demonstrates the critical importance of innovative basic research in bringing about revolutionary advances in solar energy utilization in a cost-effective manner."

* * *

Mapel, Currie and Goffri are starting a company, Covalent Solar, to develop and commercialize the new technology."

You guys at MIT rock!

For more information you can contact the MIT News Office, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, (617) 253-2700, newsoffice@mit.edu

I also suggest that you get a subscription to Science magazine and contribute to the National Science Foundation.  You should also contact your elected representatives to educate them about these recent scientific breakthroughs and to encourage them to support an "Apollo Project" for the development of large-scale solar energy generation now.

AZ Online Charter School Outsources Education

Note from Mike Bryan: David Safier has been doing a great job covering aspects of the education scene on BlogforArizona that are largely ignored by the MSM (and he's become quite a wit with his missives from the McCain "Ranch"). In his first endeavor at an investigative piece, on outsourcing at one of Arizona’s online charter schools, David has brought together an impressive amount of material and information, and this post is just his first cut at bringing this material into public view.

I hope you will take time to read his post, and stop by regularly to read what David exposes next about the state of Arizona education.

by David Safier

In 2006, Arizona Virtual Academy (AZVA) began outsourcing the grading of middle school student papers to India, apparently without parents’ knowledge or consent. When some parents guessed what was happening from comments on their children’s papers, they complained, and the school promised to end the practice. But AZVA continued to send middle school papers to India for most of the school year and possibly longer. The practice was implemented at the high school during the 2007-2008 school year, and the school says it is currently considering whether to use the paper scoring service at the high school level for the current school year.

This feels wrong to me on a number of levels.

• First, AZVA is a for profit school, and I suspect it outsourced parts of its students’ educations to cut costs without regard to the impact on the students’ learning.
  
• Second, the school decided to leave the parents in the dark about the outsourcing, which is a serious breach of trust between school and parent.
  
• Third, Arizona requires fingerprints and criminal history checks of all personnel, which could mean the school is in violation of state law.

When I taught high school English, I found the best way to help students improve their writing was by learning their individual strengths and weaknesses and helping them improve paper by paper. When paper grading is farmed out to strangers like this, with a different stranger grading and commenting on each new assignment, teachers lose one of their most valuable teaching tools, and students lose the personal instruction that is so critical to writing growth. It looks like AZVA is attempting to educate on the cheap by hiring fewer teachers than it needs and outsourcing some of the work to India to take up the slack.

I spoke with Mary Gifford at the Arizona Virtual Academy about the school's practice of sending student papers to India to be scored and commented on. Toward the end of this post, I'll write about our interview.

I invite anyone who knows more about this situation – parents, AZVA staff and others - to add what you know in the comments at the end of this post. A wonderful feature of the blog format is that it allows readers to add and correct information while expanding the scope of the discussion.

About Online Charter Schools
Most people know very little about Arizona’s charter school system and even less about online charter schools. Even a knowledgeable, experienced state legislator I spoke with recently wasn’t clear on the concept of online charter schools until I explained it. So here is a brief explanation to get readers up to speed.

Charter Schools are basically public schools run outside the public school system. Once a school is granted a charter, it receives state funds for every student it enrolls. In many ways, charters run like private schools with some, but not much, oversight from the State Department of Education, though unlike private schools, the students are required to take the AIMS test.

Online Charter Schools like AZVA have no buildings and no classrooms. Their students work from home and can live anywhere in the state. (The students are not “home schooled” in the usual definition of the term, since home schoolers receive no state funds and have virtually complete freedom from state regulation.) Online students get much of their instruction and curriculum through the internet, though they may get some of it in the form of textbooks and other materials. Students’ contacts with their teachers usually happen online or over the phone. Sometimes an online school will host events, but since the students are scattered all over Arizona, that kind of contact is limited.

Arizona Virtual Academy’s Use of Offshore Education Workers
Arizona Virtual Academy is a for profit school which was based in Tucson until fairly recently when it moved to Phoenix. It is one of many online schools run by a publicly traded corporation, K12 Inc., which was started by Bill Bennett, Reagan’s Education Secretary, and others. According to K12 Inc.’s 2007 public offering, AZVA brought in $14 million in 2007, which accounted for 10% of the corporation’s income.

That’s fourteen million Arizona tax dollars.

Sometime in 2006, probably near the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, AZVA began sending middle school students’ papers to India to have them commented on and scored by educational workers. This involved multiple interactions between each student and the assigned Indian worker for each paper – planning the paper, writing a first draft, writing a second draft, etc. The school didn’t inform parents they were doing this.

AZVA lists a teaching staff of about 80 teachers on its website, so parents had every reason to believe the local staff was responsible for their children’s educations, including grading and commenting on papers. But when parents saw the first set of papers, some of them could tell by the way the comments were worded that the graders weren’t from the U.S.

The parents complained quickly and loudly to AZVA. I can’t say with certainty what happened next. My understanding is that AZVA promised parents the school would no longer use people in India to score student papers. In fact, the practice continued at least until the spring of 2007. It may have been discontinued after that in the middle school, but it was picked up at the high school, where student papers were sent to India during the 2007-2008 school year. According to Mary Gifford at AZVA, the school is considering continuing the practice at the high school for the 2008-2009 school year.

(As an aside, I'm not questioning the education or training of the people doing the paper scoring in India since I haven’t seen their work. India is known for producing a well educated workforce, and these people are possibly competent to perform the tasks required of them. The qualifications of the people doing the outsourced work are not the issue here.)

Socratic Learning, Inc.
Through K12 Inc., Arizona Virtual Academy contracted with Socratic Learning, Inc., to handle the outsourcing of student papers to India. Socratic Learning, based in Plano, Texas, contracts with schools and offers private tutoring as well. It has a history of misrepresenting its workers as being based in the U.S., which led the New York City Public Schools to cancel its tutoring contract in August, 2006 – the same timeframe when AZVA began using Socratic Learning’s services.

Socratic Learning had a contract to tutor students in New York schools. The work was done online after school. Socratic claimed it had “a network of tutors on different college campuses,” and the tutors themselves claimed to be from Texas. In fact, all the tutors were located in Chennai, India. The NY Schools likely would not have uncovered this deception, except that they were investigating the company’s promise to parents that their children would get free laptop computers if they completed the tutoring program. According to a lengthy report from Richard J. Condon, Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District, in the process of investigating the giveaway which violated the school district’s rules, the investigator uncovered Socratic Learning’s attempt “to disguise the fact that the on-line tutors who were employed to have contact with New York City schoolchildren were located in India.”

For the NY Public Schools, the most troublesome part of the deception was that they had no idea who these tutors were. “In one of the more significant failures,” Condon wrote, “Socratic permitted its employees to interact with New York City public schoolchildren without obtaining the proper fingerprint and background checks.” The school system forbids any direct contact between students and people who have not completed a background check. Though Socratic Learning agreed that the term “direct contact” as used by the Department of Education includes internet communication, it “attempted to dispute the definition and proclaimed that Socratic should be exempt from the security procedures related to this type of interaction.”

An interesting side note: K12 Inc. filed a Letter of Intent to acquire Socratic Learning on July 3, 2007, then withdrew its Letter of Intent on September 28, 2007.

Arizona Laws and Regulations about Fingerprinting
AZVA knowingly deceived the families of children enrolled in the school by not mentioning that it sent student papers to India to be scored and commented on. It may also be true that the school compounded the deception by continuing the practice after promising parents it would stop.

But there’s another layer here, a possible violation of state law. Like New York, Arizona’s schools have regulations regarding fingerprinting and background checks.

In a 2002 document addressed to “Charter School Holders, Administrators & Staff,” Kristen Jordison, then the Executive Director of the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, explained the fingerprinting requirements for charter schools. It breaks the requirements into two basic categories: Charter school personnel who have teaching duties directly or indirectly, and all other charter school personnel. The personnel with teaching duties must obtain a Fingerprint Clearance Card, and the others must have a Fingerprint Criminal History Check.

In a Q&A section, Jordison explains that the law, SB 1008,

Requires all charter school persons to be fingerprinted pursuant to laws associated with fingerprinting of non-certificated personnel. Prior to employing, you [the charter school operator] are required to make documented, good faith efforts to contact previous employers of the person to obtain information and recommendations that may be relevant to the person’s fitness for employment as prescribed in A.R.S. 15-512.F.

Do the workers in India fit the legal definition of teacher or other personnel? Since they are commenting on and scoring papers which are required parts of the students’ coursework, it could be argued that they fit into the category of “teacher.” If not, they most probably qualify as other charter school personnel, even if they haven’t been hired directly by the school. If the school contracts with a cleaning service, the custodians hired by that service who work in the school would be considered school personnel and be required to have background checks. The same would apply to workers hired by Socratic Learning.

Do workers who are halfway around the world need to be fingerprinted for background checks? For the New York Public Schools, the answer was a definite yes. And anyone who knows anything about the growing problem of adults prowling the web for underage people to exploit, the answer has to be yes as well.

AZVA did not see the need to require fingerprints or background checks on the people who score student papers. It maintains that there is no direct contact between student and scorer, and the papers are scrubbed of any information that would identify the student.

My Interview with Mary Gifford of the Arizona Virtual Academy
Ms. Gifford confirmed that my basic facts are correct. AZVA used Socratic Learning to send student papers to India. She said she believed Socratic Learning was no longer in business (the company still has a website, though I did not check if it was still being used), and in any event AZVA has not used Socratic Learning since Fall, 2007. She said she did not know the name of the company AZVA used with high school students during the 2007-2008 school year. Those contracts were handled by K12 Inc., she said, which supplies the school’s curriculum.

Gifford dodged the question of whether all parents were informed that the school planned to send middle school papers to India. She made vague assertions that parents were informed verbally during town hall meetings, but she did not know of any written information that was handed to the parents about using an outside scoring service. I commented that not all parents would have attended the meetings and asked if AZVA communicated with parents about this using some form of computer-based communication sent to the parents’ homes. She said she wasn’t sure. When I asked if the school would have archived communications of that nature to the parents, she repeated that she wasn’t sure if there was electronic communication on the subject.

Gifford said only two parents complained. She said they noticed that the comments on student papers used the wrong gender pronoun to refer to the student. The school found a third student where the gender was incorrect and contacted that family. She said she did not know if parents discussed this issue online. The school has a number of avenues for parents to communicate with other parents, but she said the school doesn't look at parent-to-parent communication. I asked if any more parents complained to the school later about the use of an outside scoring service. She said she wasn’t aware of any complaints.

Gifford is well aware of the laws concerning fingerprinting and background checks I wrote about earlier. However, she said, because of the way AZVA has set up the transmission of papers, the regulations do not apply to any outside scoring service, whether it is based in India or the U.S. She said that student papers first go though an AZVA teacher, who scrubs the papers of names and other personal information, so the scorer has no idea the identity of the student. She compared it to the people hired by Arizona to score the AIMS essays. She said the AIMS scorers are not fingerprinted, and the papers are sent to scorers all over the country.

There’s More to the Story
This is a first pass over the basic information about Arizona Virtual Academy sending student papers to India. There is a great deal more to be said on this matter. As an outsider, I don’t know all the details about what the parents did and didn’t know, nor have I checked the information about the use of paper scorers with high school students. But I know I'm concerned about the for-profit school's feeling that parents can be misled about who is commenting on and scoring student work. K12 Inc, which runs the school, had the option of cutting each teacher's student load and hiring more certified staff so each teacher would be responsible for all phases of his or her students' work. Instead it chose to use less expensive labor in India. That sounds like a corporation that cares more about the bottom line than the quality of its students' educations.

If you are involved with Arizona Virtual Academy in any way and can confirm or refute anything I have written, or you have information to add, please make comments to this post.

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If you want to send an email rather than putting a comment online, click on the “Email Me” button on the right column of the blog.

McCain flip-flopped on offsore drilling for oil company campaign donations

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

McCain had long supported the ban on offshore oil drilling in environmentally sensitive coastal areas, protected by an executive order signed by President George H. W. Bush, and regularly renewed by Congress.  McCain's reputation as a "maverick" and an "environmentalist" with his McMedia "base" was premised upon his opposition to the Republican Party's position on this issue.  In fairness, oil companies have not been big campaign contributors to McCain in past campaigns.

Well, those "maverick" principles went by the board when McCain was in need of campaign cash.  McCain reversed his long-standing opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling (but continues to oppose drilling in ANWR, no doubt an attempt to maintain a bit of "maverick" by opposing his party's position while trying to have it both ways). The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling: 

Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

* * *

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld reported on August 4th at Talking Points Memo TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Multiple Oil Company Executives Gave Huge Contributions To Electing McCain Just that:

Ten senior Hess Corporation executives and/or members of the Hess family each gave $28,500 to the joint RNC-McCain fundraising committee, just days after McCain reversed himself to favor offshore drilling, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Nine of these contributions, seven from Hess executives and two from members of the Hess family, came on the same day, June 24th, the records show. The total collected in the wake of McCain's reversal for the fund, called McCain Victory 2008, from Hess execs and family is $285,000.

McClatchy News reported McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/06/2008 | Did New York couple give $61,600 to McCain, GOP? that:

Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain's decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

* * *

Hess, among the nation's five biggest oil companies, conducts deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as well as off the coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Rocchios donated $4,600 to McCain's campaign in February and another $57,000 at the June fundraiser.

* * *

A former FEC official said that it's possible that the Rocchios had the means to make those hefty contributions — their first reported donations to a federal campaign. But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that their donations also could trigger a complaint or otherwise catch the eyes of the agency's enforcement staff, tasked to ensure that companies or wealthy individuals don't illegally circumvent contribution limits by using employees or other third parties as "conduits'' for cash.

The staff might wish to determine whether the couple is too "under-employed'' to be making donations that large, the official said.

Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld reported today at Talking Points Memo TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | High-Ranking McCain Campaign Officials Were Paid Lobbyists For Hess:

It turns out that two high-ranking McCain campaign officials, one of whom is also one of McCain's more prolific bundlers, were both were paid lobbyists for Hess for roughly three years, according to disclosure forms.

The two lobbyists are Wayne Berman, McCain's national finance co-chairman, and John Green, who's been the McCain campaign's chief Congressional liaison since March. Both men worked for a firm called Ogilvy Government Relations. The firm has been paid $800,000 by Hess from 2005 up to the present, including $720,000 during the period that both of the two lobbied for the company, the forms say.

Berman, a prolific fundraiser and bundler for McCain, appears to still be lobbying for Hess.  The most recently filed form shows that he was lobbying for the company as late as mid-July. Green took a leave of absence from Ogilvy to join the campaign, but was still on the Hess account up through the first quarter of 2008, the forms show.

There's no suggestion of any wrongdoing here. And it's unclear precisely how the two lobbyists' work is linked to the recent Hess fundraising for McCain, or even whether there's any connection at all.

* * *

"That John McCain's campaign also has Hess lobbyists as two of its top advisers raises additional questions about how McCain and the RNC came to raise $300,000 from Hess employees, including the controversial contribution reported earlier this week," said David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch.

"Hess oil would stand to make a killing from offshore drilling," Donnelly continued. "Berman and Green were their lobbyists. Did they play any role in lining up these contributions?"

Which brings us back to the ongoing problem of lobbyists working for the McCain campaign who are drafting his policies for him, while benefiting either personally or benefiting their clients. In this case Hess Oil, a major offshore oil developer who will directly benefit from this policy.  (It's not about "Joe Sixpack" having to pay $4 gallon for gas). There is also the possibility that companies and wealthy individuals are illegally circumventing contribution limits by using employees or other third parties as "conduits'' for cash to the McCain campaign.

Something is definitely rotten in Denmark (and I don't mean Shell Oil).  But is anyone in the McMedia reporting on this potentially explosive scandal?  Of course not!

The McMedia instead distracts you with the repetition of the Republican talking points mocking Obama for his statement about maintaining proper air pressure in tires and regular tune-ups.  Keeping your tires properly inflated is at least the equivalent of new offshore drilling in terms of how much money you'll spend on gas. In fact, as Time reported the other day, it is potentially better than new drilling -- if everyone actually did it Americans would consume three percent less gasoline, while drilling would only meet one percent of our overall oil needs.  "In other words," Time said, "Obama is right."

In fact, John McCain has already conceded the point.  “Obama said a couple of days ago, says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,” McCain said.  And yet, McCain is continuing to use this line on the stump to mock Obama, falsely asserting this is his energy policy. 

Barack Obama, out of exasperation, responded "It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.  They think it's funny that they're making fun of something that is actually true."

It's worse than that, Barack.  The professionals who run Republican campaigns are making fun of and mocking the voters and our democratic process. They see voters as uninformed and ignorant yahoos, lemmings who can easily be led over the cliff to vote against their own self-interests by manipulating their emotions and prejudices with simple bumper-sticker slogans and gimmicks.  This is Madison Avenue marketing.  They are selling McCain to you like they sell you cars. 

And you the voters too often have allowed yourselves to be played by these evil bastards and prove them right.  So they continue to do this election after election, and you the voters complain about it. Well, now is your opportunity to take a stand and say "enough is enough!"

All gimmicks, all the time - the offshore drilling fraud

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Earlier this year, John McCain proposed his "federal gas tax holiday" gimmick for the summer.  I guess he was too busy fund raising from lobbyists to actually show up to work in the Senate to push for enactment of his own proposal.  That's leadership.

Now John McCain and his Republican allies in Congress have latched onto yet another gimmick (this is what they do best), demanding that Congress return from its August recess and vote on a bill to open all offshore coastal areas for oil drilling - as their oil company masters have instructed these loyal servants to do.

Before Congress left on recess, obstructionist Republicans in Congress, with a handful of oil state Democrats, managed to defeat a series of bills intended as amendments to a comprehensive energy package that would have actually reduced the price of oil and gasoline and slightly increased domestic supplies. 

They defeated the DRILL Act (use it or lose it") requiring oil companies to use the 68 million acres of federal oil and gas leases they currently possess but are not currently exploring or producing oil and gas on. House turns down 'use it or lose it' drilling bill -- dailypress.com They defeated a pair of bills to rein in rampant speculation by index funds and  hedge funds in the oil futures markets. Gas could fall to $2 if Congress acts, analysts say - MarketWatch ("Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals," according to Gheit. "Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.")  And they defeated a bill to release reserves from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a temporary emergency measure to prevent further erosion of the U.S. economy caused by skyrocketing fuel prices. Oil Prices Gain After Defeat Of U.S. Reserve Bill Oh, and they also failed to extend renewable energy and energy-efficiency tax credits. Bill renewing clean energy credits fails vote | Markets | Reuters

Republicans are the loyal servants of the oil companies.  They aren't interested in a comprehensive energy package that would end America's addiction to oil.  They are the pushers working for the oil cartels who want to keep Americans addicted to oil and coming back for another fix.  The offshore drilling gimmick is just a grand distraction. It is really about a federal land grab by the oil companies, as I have previously discussed.

Here is a reality check on the gimmick of offshore drilling.  Reality Check On Offshore Drilling, Most Americans Support Lifting The Ban, But Experts Say Gas Prices Wouldn't Change - CBS.

According to the federal government's own Department of Energy, drilling off America's coasts would not have a significant impact on domestic oil production or prices before 2030. And off-shore leasing wouldn't even begin before 2012.

Why? Because the leasing process is cumbersome. And currently, there aren't enough rigs or workers or refineries to handle more oil.

Then there's this. Most of the U.S. offshore oil, almost 10 billion barrels, lie off the coast of California. But at the current rate of U.S. consumption - about 20.7 million barrels a day - that would be burned up in 16 months.

"It would have a pretty modest effect even when it did start flowing," said U.C. Berkeley energy researcher Severin Borenstein.

Borenstein says it might drop pump prices as much as 25 cents a gallon in 10 years or more, but: "I think it is very unlikely that we will ever see oil prices that get us back to $2 a gallon or even $3 a gallon."

And from the good folks at Media Matters Media Matters - Hannity falsely suggested no oil in areas already available to oil companies for drilling:

"The Boston Globe noted in a June 20 article, "About 86 billion barrels of additional oil may lie offshore, according to the US government's Energy Information Administration," and then continued: "Of that amount, about 18 billion barrels are subject to the moratorium." Indeed, DOE's Energy Information Administration's 2007 Annual Energy Outlook stated that there were 18.17 billion barrels of "technically recoverable resources currently off limits in the lower 48 OCS." A similar report by the Federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) stated that "[t]he MMS estimates that the resources in OCS areas currently off limits to leasing and development total 18.9" billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil resources. That same report estimated that there were a total of 85.88 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil resources on the OCS, irrespective of the moratorium. In addition, in its Inventory of Onshore Federal Oil and Natural Gas Resources and Restrictions to Their Development, the Bureau of Land Management estimated that only 38 percent of oil accessible under federal land is covered by existing prohibitions."

Like all other scientific studies produced by the U.S. government, these Republicans reject scientific research in favor of their "faith-based" ideological dogma.  "I know what I believe, don't bother me with the facts."  Republicans are all about Madison Avenue marketing: they are selling you a product that you really don't need, but their advertising is designed to convince you that you need to have it.  Don't be a fool.

This bit of political theater is particularly galling coming from John McCain, who has not been to work in the Senate since last April.  As noted at the Huffington Post  McCain: I'll Come Back To Senate For Oil:

Indeed, by this point in time, the nation's capital is likely foreign land for the presumptive Republican nominee. In all, McCain has missed 63.3% of votes in the 100th Congress: 399 votes all together.

Here are a few of the most notable issues that, unlike off shore drilling, couldn't persuade the Senator into legislative action:

-Medicare Reimbursement Cuts, 7/9/08

-The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 7/9/08

-The New GI Bill, 6/28/08

-A $44 Billion Stimulus Package (McCain was in D.C. at the time) 2/7/08

-Equal Pay Legislation, 2/23/08

-All 15 Key Environmental Votes, according to the League of Conservation Voters

The folks at MoveOn.org have put together this new ad to drive home the point:

The Real "Celebrity" Politician: John McCain

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

John McCain has released a second swiftboat attack ad on the "celebrity" theme(again designed expressly for consumption by the McMedia - shouldn't the campaign be charged with the "fair value" of all this free advertising the networks are giving him?)

Maureen Dowd - whom I cannot stand - nevertheless insightfully pointed out in her opinion Op-Ed Columnist - McCain’s Green-Eyed Monster - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com:

Some of McCain’s old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned.

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

“Now somebody else is the celebrity,” the colleague continued, while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley, with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains.

John McCain parlayed his "celebrity" status as the dashing admiral's son returning home from a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp as a "war hero" into a political career. He has carefully crafted his "war hero" status over the years. It was his entree into politics, and it has defined his sense of entitlement to high office ever since. McCain believed that he could ride his "war hero" status into the Oval Office, but now along comes this new kid on the studio lot who is younger, smarter, more handsome, and has demonstrated box office appeal.  McCain has turned into the embittered has-been actor envious of the rising young star, like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard:

Joe Gillis:   You're Norma Desmond.  You used to be in silent pictures.  You used to be big.

Norma Desmond:  I am big.  It's the pictures that got small.

And like the demented Norma Desmond, John McCain has been telling us for the past decade, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

McCain has, in fact, racked up a rather impressive list of television and movie appearances that would make any young up-and-comer actor or actress jealous. The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) has what is purported to be a complete list of credits for McCain's television and film appearances. John McCain (I)  Check out this list. With this number of appearances, John McCain must be a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Union.

McCain's most notable appearances have been his guest appearances on Saturday Night Live.  Particularly in 2002 when he hosted SNL.  McCain played the creepy husband "Dave" who was freaking out his wife.  After the Sturgis Bike Rally this week, I'm sure Cindy McCain can relate to the freaked-out wife in this skit.

I searched for clips of the episode on YouTube, but oddly enough the embed codes for the posted clips have been disabled at the request of the poster.

Update: Another McCain at The Center of a Bank Collapse And Government Takeover?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Mark Nicholas at politicalbase.com is one of the few reporters covering this developing news story.  Last week Andrew McCain, son of Senator John McCain, suddenly resigned from the board of directors of Silver State Bancorp and Silver State Bank. 

Nicholas reports that his departure was quickly followed by the sudden resignation of Corey L. Johnson as President and Chief Executive Officer of Silver State Bancorp and as Chief Executive Officer of Silver State Bank, the Company's wholly-owned bank subsidiary. The Company also announced the resignation of Silver State Bancorp's and Silver State Bank's Chairman of the Board, Bryan S. Norby. Political Base - Connecting the Dots of Money, Media & Politics

The bank announced a management reorganization, Silver State Bancorp Announces Management Reorganization - MarketWatch, and announced devastating second quarter losses significantly steeper than anticipated.  Silver State Bancorp Reports 2008 Second Quarter Financial Results - MarketWatch

As Mark Nicholas notes, there is still no answer why McCain's son quit the board of this failing bank.  Mark Nickolas' Blog: Still No Answer Why McCain's Son Quit Board Of Failing Bank Nicholas provides a useful timeline of events and then speculates:

So, what accounts for the mysterious departure from the bank by McCain and his refusal -- as well as the bank's -- to comment on why he left? After all, he is the son of the Republican nominee for president during the middle of the biggest banking crisis in 20 years and he served on the board and audit committee of a bank that is clearly failing.

Did Andrew McCain run from the bank knowing it was on the verge of failure and did not want to be seen as an officer of another bank failure in the middle of his father's presidential bid? Did he leave after discovering financial irregularities as a result of his position on the Audit Committee? Was he involved in any improprieties? Did it involve Douglas French's sudden resignation in mid May, over whom McCain would have had responsibility? Why has Silver State's share price tumbled 85 percent (to just $1.28 today) since McCain joined the bank's board in April?

We simply don't know.

Nicholas also offers a tantalizing clue as to what may be a possible reason for the troubles of the bank:

But there's another major issue that I've discovered that is hovering over Silver State, and that has to do the April 7 and July 1 timeline entries above concerning CMKM Diamonds (a massive stock fraud scandal that even The New York Times has spent time covering). It may have nothing to do with McCain's departure or it may have everything to do with it. His sudden exit leaves many questions like these unanswered.

Nicholas cites an unconfirmed report from Mark Faulking (unknown to me) who reported that:

But a little diamond mining company from Canada that turned out to be the biggest penny stock fraud in history might become a major problem for McCain’s campaign as well. Insiders with CMKX defrauded over 50,000 shareholders of in excess of $250 million. A large portion of that money was run through a single Silver State Bank branch in Las Vegas. In all, former CMKX CEO Urban Casavant and reputed mastermind John Edwards (no, not that John Edwards) opened over 100 bank accounts at Silver State, and ran tens of millions of dollars through the bank.

...The scam finally came crashing down in late 2005 when the SEC finally delisted CMKX...and recently filed charges against eleven individuals and three companies in the CMKX case...Silver State Bank has not been charged in the CMKM Diamonds case, although they did fire an employee named Patricia DeCosta, who approved most of the transactions...

...The fact remains that Silver State Bank never filed a single Suspicious Activities Report (SARS) while 50,000 CMKX shareholders lost their entire investments.

Andrew McCain served on Silver State Bank’s Audit Committee.  This would have been among his duties and responsibilities.  He may be called upon to answer for the bank.

Mark Nicholas noted that the bank was to hold a conference call at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, August 4, 2008 to discuss the management reorganization and second quarter losses.  He has not yet posted an update on the conference call at his web site www.politicalbase.com.

The Original Maverick?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

John McCain has begun airing an ad called "the original maverick." 

Talk about being presumptuous and arrogant! The "original" Maverick was James Garner (right) as Bret Maverick in the classic western-comedy TV series Maverick (1957-1961).  The other Maverick brothers on the TV series were Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick), Roger Moore (Beauregard Maverick), and Robert Colbert (Brent Maverick), below.

As I have said many times here, and will continue to do so, the mythical "straight talking independent maverick" McCain was fabricated out of whole cloth by the McMedia. It is a lie.  He never really existed.  It is a fraud perpetrated upon the American people.

The Obama campaign has been quick to respond with its own ad speaking truth to the lie of McCain's "the original maverick."

McCain offers his wife for the "MIss Buffalo Chip" topless beauty contest

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

(No, that's not Cindy.  This is Jessica, the 2008 cover girl for the Miss Buffalo Chip beauty contest)

John McCain's "do anything, say anything" for a vote campaign took him to the anything-goes Sturgis Bike Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, where he courted the biker veteran vote amid naked beauty pageants, nude mud wrestling events, public nudity and drunken brawls.

McCain's speech was sandwiched in between the "Ringing Wet & Wild" women's mud wrestling event and the "Miss Buffalo Chip" contest.  McCain, speaking to the annual biker convention at the Sturgis Bike Rally said:

“I was looking at the Sturgis schedule and noticed that you have a beauty pageant and so I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers from the (mostly male) crowd. “With a little luck, she could be on the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

You don't believe it?  Watch it here:

So McCain took his wife and young daughter to Sturgis - wholesome family fun (not!) - and offered his wife as a contestant in the Miss Buffalo Chip beauty contest, which always ends with the tops coming off (and sometimes the bottoms).  That's what the Miss Buffalo Chip contest is about.

McCain should publicly apologize to his wife and daughter.  Cindy McCain just stood there and waved her hand to the crowd, unaware of what her idiot husband had just got her into.  McCain should fire his campaign advance team for their embarrassing lack of knowledge about the Sturgis Bike Rally.

While many of these bikers are veterans, for a candidate who also needs to cater to the right-wing Christian Taliban wing of the Republican Party, McCain may be courting disaster by mixing politics with naked women, drunken brawls and public debauchery.

And just where is the moral outrage from Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, et al., over McCain's demonstrated lack of "family values"?  Can you imagine the howl from these self-righteous hypocrites if Barack Obama had done something this stupid to his wife and young daughters?

P.S.

What is McCain going to do for an encore?  Campaign for votes on the strip club circuit?  "Yo, Cindy, jump up on the stage and give the boys here a pole dance!"  This man is an embarrassment to his family, to his party, and to his country.  He is unfit to lead his party or the country.  It is time for Republicans to draft a nominee at the Republican convention who will honorably represent the core values of the Republican Party.

We'll Always Have Paris

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Paris Hilton puts the hurt on John McCain with her own attack ad - take that old man.  And Paris has a more comprehensive energy policy than McCain too!

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

The Devil and John McCain

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The McCain campaign late last week began airing an Internet ad (again specifically designed for consumption by the McMedia), in which the campaign mocked Obama as "The One."  (The over-the-top bit with Charlton Heston as Moses may actually help Obama with Jewish voters and NRA members).

But the real story of the past week was John McCain's Faustian deal with "The Fallen One," Karl Rove and his minions (aka Beelzebub and the winged monkeys who flew out his ass), like Steve Schmidt (pictured at right), a veteran of Bush's 2004 campaign who is managing the McCain campaign.

John McCain, of his own free will, chose to trade his soul in exchange for his last chance to realize his life-long ambition of becoming president of the United States.  McCain lie prostate before The Fallen One and supplicated himself with the entreaty "Oh, Fallen One, I freely give to you my soul in exchange for your help to realize my life-long ambition of becoming president.  Do what you must, do whatever it takes.  I will be your obedient servant, oh lord and master."

And so it came to pass that the mythical "straight talking independent maverick" of 2000 was no more.  The mythical McCain died and has departed us.  His memory will live on only as a footnote in the history books.

OK, this version of what happened may be a bit overstated - or not.  The fact is that McCain version 2.0 has destroyed his brand name of the "straight talking independent maverick."  The McCain that is being peddled to the American people by his campaign today is the real McCain who always existed inside the mythical "straight talking independent maverick" but was seldom permitted to be seen by anyone but his closest associates.

The fraud that the McCain campaign is perpetrating upon the American people reminds me of the movie Weekend at Bernie's, in which a couple of wise-guys try to convince everyone around them that Bernie, who is dead, is actually still alive for their own benefit and enrichment.  (Hat tip to StopThinkVote.com for the photoshop).

The truth is that the mythical "straight talking independent maverick" was entirely fabricated out of whole cloth by the McMedia.  He never really existed.  It was a lie perpetrated on the American people.

McCain has always been a political opportunist, a chameleon who is constantly reinventing himself to appear as someone that he believed the American people wanted to see. 

A hat tip to Billmon at the Daily Kos for his excellent summary of McCain's career. Daily Kos: The Great White Hope (a must read):

[A]nyone who’s studied McCain’s career with any intellectual detachment at all (as opposed to the hagiographic tendencies of his media cheerleading claque) could have told you: The truth about John McCain is that he'll do just about anything and say just about anything to win. He always has. He's just been more clever (and cynical) than most in how he goes about it.

McCain’s primary talent has always been his ability persuade simple-minded people (i.e. his media cheerleading claque) that he is flipping or flopping as a matter of great personal principle and at great possible cost to his political career – even as he has used his various flips and flops to climb the greased pole and become the presidential nominee of his party.

* * *

But McCain and his new team of Rovian handlers now realize they won't have a prayer in November unless they can motivate the conservative base and (to use Lee Atwater's charming phrase) "strip the bark" off Obama. And they have to do it NOW, so McCain can pivot back to a softer, more upbeat message in September.

So that's exactly what McCain is doing – instantly, unapologetically, without shame or embarrassment. His enormous cynicism about the political process and his contempt for the voters – not to mention his vast sense of self-entitlement - have led McCain to take exactly the same low road as the Bush family and its various henchmen (Atwater, Rove): Whatever works; whatever it takes.

And so it’s finally dawning, even on some members of his media "base" (ever the hapless clowns in our political theater of the absurd ) that McCain isn’t quite the straight-talking, straight-shooting military man of honor they thought he was.  The White Knight has morphed into the Great White Hope – the GOP machine’s last, desperate chance to avoid the mortal humiliation of being defeated not just by a Democrat, not just by a liberal, but by a liberal Democratic black man.

McCain and the Race Card - The Corporate Media's Role

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In my last post, I discussed how Republicans since Lee Atwater and Ronald Reagan have fore-sworn the overt form of racism which lasted well into the 1970s in favor of a more subtle form of racism which speaks in coded language.  (This has its roots in the "Southern Strategy" first adopted by Barry Goldwater in 1964, and later adopted as the official political strategy of the GOP by Richard Nixon in 1968.)

Today I will address the corporate media's role in defending the status quo of privileged WASP elitists who believe that they are endowed with a god-given birthright to lord over us, the ignorant unwashed masses of humanity - that would be you and me by the way.

From the beginning of the primary season, the McCain campaign, the White House, the RNC and their surrogates have been steadily feeding talking points into the corporate media, talking points that in reality are racially charged code words. (Sadly, the Hillary Clinton campaign engaged in this also).

I was going to name names in the corporate media, but my research indicates that every network anchor, political reporter, talking head pundit and conservative commentator in television, radio and newsprint have repeated these racially charged code words ad nauseam for many months now, giving them the imprimatur of legitimacy as a topic for discussion while astutely avoiding any discussion of the underlying racism in using such coded language. This has begun to change only in recent days.

What I am referring to is the constant repetition that Barack Obama is presumptuous, arrogant, cocky, overly confident, too self-assured, etc.  The Daily Show demonstrates this point in this clip:

These are all words which conservatives applied to George W. Bush as positive leadership traits in 2000.  But these words carry a double-entendre meaning when applied to an African-American man.  They are racially charged code words that have come to be understood for "uppity Nigger."  "Mind your place, boy!"

As Bob Herbert noted with respect to McCain's recent swiftboat ads, they are "designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women."  Op-Ed Columnist - Running While Black - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

"The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black."

And it is the sole reason that he is an African-American that Barack Obama cannot respond to these malicious racist attacks because the flip-side to these GOP attacks, should he call them out on their racism, is to portray him as the stereotypical "black victim."  It's always a win-win situation. The GOP will fabricate the impression that Obama is demanding special treatment and privileges because he is black.  There was already an element of this in McCain's whining about Obama being a media darling and receiving "special treatment" from the media.  This from the man who, more than any politician in living memory, has enjoyed the protective cocoon of "The John McCain Protection Society" from the media, "his base."

This new line of attack was rolled out on Sunday.  Cracker attacker Sen. Lindsey Graham, in the warm embrace of Fox News Sunday, while discussing Obama's innocuous comment about not looking like the presidents on our currency stated that "there's no doubt in my mind that what Senator Obama is trying to suggest -- that he's a victim of something."  Yeah, you would be lying, cracker.

As Eugene Robinson explains Eugene Robinson - Who's Raising Race? - washingtonpost.com:

The key words are "victim" and "racist" -- which Obama did not say. Graham puts them in Obama's mouth because of their power to alienate.

With the first loaded word, Graham is trying to tie Obama to a stereotype: the Great African American Victim. He's playing to the annoyance some whites feel at being reminded of racial sins committed long before they were born or even long before their families came to this country.

As Graham well knows, Obama has taken great pains to sanitize his campaign of even the faintest whiff of victimhood. Obama understands that in order to be elected president, he has to come off as the least-aggrieved black man in America.

Most of his supporters understand this, too. They know that he can't react with anger when his love of country is questioned over a flag pin. They see that he can't be seen to take offense when his self-confidence -- a quality shared by every U.S. senator I've ever met -- is portrayed as arrogance, as if he had somehow reached beyond his station by thinking he is worthy of being elected president.

Robinson continues, "The second of the bombshell words that Obama didn't say -- but that Graham would like you to think that he said -- is an even bigger canard. He called me a racist has become a popular and convenient refuge of scoundrels."

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, also a guest on Fox News Sunday, accurately reminded Graham that Obama "has never said that he believes that John McCain is a racist." Graham wouldn't acknowledge his point.  This is because the McCain campaign is running a fact-free campaign. 

Rather, McCain has approved a "fear and smear" campaign of lies, distortions and racially coded language.  And the corporate media is his willing and complicit partner in this crime against the American people and our democracy. 

If Dante were to write The Inferno today, he would include a lengthy chapter about the special ring of hell reserved for the media whores in the corporate media.  It is little comfort to imagine this vision of hell as their eternal damnation.  Our democracy demands justice now.

School Sports Play the Tax Credit Game

by David Safier

(TASL) This is going to be one of those rare posts where I don't know where I stand on an issue. I have to admit, I'm confused.

The top story in today's Star sports section is, TUSD athletes pay more to play this fall. TUSD is raising its pay-to-play fee from $30 per sport to $50. The max any family can pay is $200, no matter how many of their children participate, and students whose family can't afford the fees will still be allowed to play.

So far so good. Anyone who read earlier posts of mine know I'm skeptical about spending our limited education dollars on intramural sports when we need more and better paid teachers, new textbooks, up-to-date equipment and all those other things that are central to a child's education. Until the state comes to its senses and funds schools at a reasonable level, the first cuts should go to the programs that have the least educational value. By my way of thinking, the first on the chopping block should be the very expensive, let's-make-this-look-as-close-to-professional-as-we-can competitive sports programs. So making the families pay more of the cost is OK by me.

But here comes the part that has me scratching my head. The article states, "The fee is a tax credit for parents." That means this is not so much a fee paid by parents as a transfer of some extra state money to Tucson School District.

Tax credits come straight off the taxes you owe. Here's a simple example: A family spends $200 to participate in sports. When tax time rolls around, the family owes $2,000 in taxes. Take away the $200 tax credit, and the family's tax bill is $1800. The pay-to-play fee doesn't actually cost the family a penny.

To be sure I got this right, I contacted the reporter at the Star, Becky Pallack. Sure enough, that's how she understood the situation as well. But just to be certain, she suggested I call TUSD, which I did. Julie Versluis in the Finance Office confirmed my understanding, but then she said something that made a light bulb go on over my head. When parents pay for their children to participate in sports, she said, they get a tax credit receipt, and that allows them to deduct the amount from the taxes they owe.

Sound familiar? It should if you do what every taxpayer who cares about public education should do -- give $200 per person or $400 per couple to a public school or schools of your choice before December 31 at no cost to you. It's a tax credit, so you'll get 100% of the money back when you pay your taxes, and the schools get a couple hundred much-needed dollars in their coffers.

The pay-to-play money comes out of that $200-400. And that's where I'm flummoxed.

On the one hand, I encourage everyone to give money to the public schools of their choice and get a tax credit. (The bad part about the tax credit system is -- surprise! -- it favors the schools in the wealthiest communities, which tend to have more people giving money, but at least it's an infusion of much needed cash. It's not perfect, but you take what you can get.)

On the other hand, I want parents to feel the financial pain of paying for their children's sports participation. If they get hit where it hurts -- in the wallet -- they might realize that schools need more money and everyone should bear part of the burden. But what actually happens is nothing more than a wink-wink-nudge-nudge between schools' athletics departments and the parents. The parents pretend to pay, but eventually, the money comes out of the state coffers, not their pockets.

The other problem is, when you give your educational tax credit dollars, you can specify that it be used for art, music, field trips, sports or other activities of that kind. But the pay-to-play credit goes straight into the sports program. If the parents had a choice, some of them might have placed it elsewhere.

This tax-and-spend liberal says, Arizona needs to give our schools the money they need to give our children the best possible education, which means the state government needs more money. The best way to do that is to raise taxes on those who can afford it. In the meantime, let's figure out every way we can to funnel more state dollars into our underfunded schools -- in other words, let's exploit the educational tax credit system for all it's worth. But forcing those dollars into competitive sports programs is upping the funding for the school program with the least educational value while taking it from other programs that are less visible and exciting but pack more educational bang for the buck.

Like I said, I'm confused.

McCain and the Race Card

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Geez!  I go out of town on business for a few days and the McCain campaign decides to go bat sh*t crazy.  How about a heads-up next time, boys?

When last I examined the McCain campaign's in-house swiftboat attacks on Barack Obama, I briefly touched upon the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears "Celebrity" ad. 

Talk about sending a mixed message.  For many weeks the McCain campaign had been trying to portray Obama as an out-of-touch elitist egg-head from Harvard.  Now all of a sudden the McCain campaign wants to portray Obama, as Jake Tapper of ABC News reported, as a "ditz," or an "air-head" whose only claim to fame is their celebrity status?

First, the McCain campaign stepped all over its own previous campaign message with this contradictory message.  Clearly the campaign is throwing sh*t at the wall to see what, if anything, sticks.  This spells "d-e-s-p-e-r-a-t-i-o-n." 

Second, for an attack ad to be effective it has to have an air of believability to it.  This ad does not.  No one, not even John McCain, believes that Obama is anything less than a highly educated, articulate, successful and skilled politician (and constitutional lawyer and law professor, I might add), who came up through the hard-ball ranks of Illinois politics from the south side of Chicago.  That ain't bean bag, let me tell you.  Obama defeated the well-oiled and vaunted Clinton machine at its own game, something no Republican was ever able to do.  Obama is a politician who is both respected and feared by the Republicans.  Don't let anyone tell you any differently.

One interesting aspect of this "Celebrity" ad that I had not fully considered but I have heard discussed from commentators ranging from John Stuart at The Daily Show to a talking heads panel discussion at This Week with George Stephanopoulos was the subtle sexual overtone to the ad (a black man and two white women), similar in a way to the "Call me Harold!" ad the GOP aired against Harold Ford in his senate race in 2006.

I personally do not know John McCain to be a racist.  He tends towards misogyny, not racism.  He is frequently disrespectful towards women particularly with his tasteless humor and vulgar comments aimed at women, for example, Janet Reno, Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and even his own wife. 

McCain is more of a political opportunist when it comes to race.  He opposed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in Arizona until it cost the state a Superbowl and the attendant revenue, then he suddenly found religion and supported the King holiday.  McCain opposed an attempt by the Arizona legislature several years ago to ban affirmative action programs (when he was honing his "independent maverick" image), but now, as the presumptive GOP nominee, says he supports the divisive Ward Connerly anti-affirmative action initiative which may appear on the ballot this fall in Arizona (in an attempt to convince his GOP conservative base of his pro-White credentials, just like Saint Ronnie - infra).  McCain will go whichever way he thinks the wind is blowing on matters of race.  He is a man without any firm principles or convictions. 

Republicans since Lee Atwater and Ronald Reagan have fore-sworn the overt form of racism which lasted well into the 1970S in favor of a more subtle form of racism which speaks in coded language.  For example, Ronald Reagan began his 1980 general election campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi - site of the infamous murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and Shwerner (historically portrayed in the movie Mississippi Burning) during Freedom Summer - and delivered a speech about "states rights," long understood as code language for "segregation."  This was Saint Ronnie's wink and a nod to racist white voters in the South that he stood with them and against African-Americans.  Don't let anyone tell you any differently.

Lee Atwater's protege was Karl Rove, and he and his acolytes are now running the McCain campaign.  These A-holes would not hesitate to inject racism into this campaign, both subtle and overt if necessary, if they become more desperate.  (I fully expect to see a "Willie Horton" genre ad).

McCain's "Celebrity" ad, similar to the Harold Ford ad from 2006, uses images of white women with images of Obama to subtly suggest the age-old "brute" caricature of Black men that developed during the Jim Crow era of segregation.  "Black brutes are depicted as hideous, terrifying predators who target helpless victims, especially White women." The Brute Caricature (Ferris State University).

"The 'terrible crime' most often mentioned in connection with the Black brute was rape, more specifically, the rape of a White woman.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, much of the virulent, anti-Black propaganda that found its way into scientific journals, local newspapers and best-selling novels focused on the stereotype of the Black rapist.  The claim that Black brutes were, in epidemic numbers, raping White women became the public rationalization for the lynching of Blacks."

"In 1900, Charles Carroll's The Negro a Beast claimed that Blacks were more akin to apes than to human beings... and said that mulatto brutes were the rapists and murderers of his time."  The Brute Caricature 

Viewed from this historical context, McCain's misogynist joke about the woman who enjoyed being savaged (raped) by "that magnificent beast" (a gorilla) can take on a whole different meaning.  (I have infrequently heard white's refer to African-Americans with the hateful racist terms "yard ape" and "porch monkey," demonstrating the lasting influence of racists like Charles Carroll).  Unfortunately, racism is still alive and well in America.

The Black brute caricature has become ingrained in American popular culture.  One does not need to be overtly racist in order to conjure up this racist stereotype through imagery and coded language.  Here is a classic example from the movie Blazing Saddles (1974):

The McCain campaign feigned indignant outrage over Barack Obama allegedly "playing the race card" by stating his entirely accurate forecast that "Republicans are going to try to frighten you" ("fear and smear" is the McCain strategy) and that he does not look like those other presidents on our currency (dead white guys?  An accurate observation). 

"Playing the race card" is a tactic by which a white candidate will bait his African-American opponent through attack ads into alleging that he is being a racist, and then the holier-than-thou white candidate can claim that his opponent is "playing the race card" (and when carried to the extreme, "engaging in reverse discrimination" against whites.  Expect to hear this insanity from Fox News and talk radio).

First, there is absolutely no strategic or tactical advantage to Barack Obama to inject race into this race.  He has no desire to do so, and has astutely avoided doing so. Obama would like nothing more than a race in which he is the candidate who just happens to be an African-American, not the African-American candidate (which is how the McCain campaign wants to portray him).

Second, in order for the white candidate to cry foul and disingenuously allege his opponent is "playing the race card," he must first tacitly admit that he was baiting his African-American opponent through attack ads into alleging racism in the campaign.  McCain has, in fact, stated that "I am proud of my campaign ads" and "we think it's got a lot of humor in it, we're having fun and enjoying it."  So McCain's idea of "fun" is lying about his opponent?  And he is enjoying a "fear and smear" campaign?  This is not the campaign McCain promised the American people. 

I have not done an exhaustive search, but my research so far shows no statements by Barack Obama alleging racism in this campaign.  To the contrary, Obama responded to the feigned indignant outrage from the McCain campaign by saying "In no way do I think John McCain's campaign was racist. I think they are cynical. Their team is good at creating distractions and engaging in negative attacks."  So the McCain campaign jumped the gun by playing their "playing the race card" card.

By the way, I seem to recall that Britney Spears endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 (delivering the all important GOP trailer-trash vote), and Paris Hilton's parents are maxed out contributors to the McCain campaign (this is how McCain demonstrates his gratitude, by demonizing their daughter?  More misogyny from McCain). 

It turns out that Paris' mom, Kathy Hilton, is a  pretty savvy political observer.  She objected to McCain's attack ad stating:

"I've been asked again and again for my response to the now infamous McCain celebrity ad. I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/03/kathy-hilton-calls-mccain_n_116625.html  Amen to that! Sounds like Kathy Hilton is more politically astute than the A-holes running McCain's "fear and smear" campaign.