Interesting page on her website.: http://giffords.house.gov/2010/10/us-rep-gabrielle-giffords-calls-for-foreclosure-moratorium.shtml

Other people who have stood up to banks: Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, Julian Assange, Paul Wellstone.

It would be interesting to compare and contrast the rest of the targets on Sarah Palin's hit list: http://i.imgur.com/gs0t7.jpg

Targeted Democrats: Ann Kirkpatrick (Arizona), Harry E. Mitchell (Arizona), Gabrielle Giffords (Arizona), John Salazar (Colorado), Betsy Markey (Colorado). Allen Boyd (Florida), Suzanne M. Kosmas (Florida), Baron P. Hill (Indiana), Earl Pomeroy (Alabama), Charlie Wilson (Ohio), John Boccieri (Ohio), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pennsylvania), Christopher Carney (Pennsylvania), John M. Spratt, Jr. (South Carolina), Tom Perriello (Virginia), Alan B. Mollohan (West Virginia), and Nick J. Rahall II (West Virginia).

[edit: These people were targeted because of healthcare politics and geographic vulnerability and the shooter seems to be a lone nutjob. I'm withdrawing my bank conspiracy theory.]

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
^Assuming my conspiracy theory has any truth to it, how did Bank of America fail with Blagojevich? He was arrested, impeached and removed from office. Was he not successful neutralized?


It was very much successful in that regard, but mainly because of what Blegojevich said on tape. The calls themselves were recorded well before his arrest, so at most it would seem that BoA may have accelerated an inevitable process. The "failure" was him only being convicted of lying to the FBI, but you're right that it didn't matter since he was already removed from office.

I think it's fairly common for people/businesses to sit on incriminating evidence when it suits their interests (business partners), but release it if needed. It would be a little different if BoA (or whoever) were fabricating evidence, but Rod and Spitzer were both doing things they knew would result in their removal from office if discovered by the public.

I'm not as familiar with the legality of what Assange has been doing, but most of the hate pointed towards him seems to stem from the government cables rather than corporate leaks. He wasn't exactly trying to be discrete about it and pissed off a lot of well-funded groups besides BoA.

BoA probably had reason to investigate all three guy, and they definitely had reason to use anything they found, but I haven't seen anything indicating there is more to it than that (unless maybe they were using illegal methods to obtain the information).

We shouldn't have to defend his sex life in order to defend the important work he is doing with WikiLeaks. I hate how the media and FOX conflate these two separate things. This is the same thing they did to Eliot Spitzer when he pissed off Wall Street. The sad part is that sex-obsessed Americans eat it up every time. None of this is any of our business.

Also, Geraldo is such a pathetic, compassless hack. How many times has he changed his political views to keep himself employed? Talk about your media whores. Someone hand me a chair so I can break his nose again.

They may or may not be connected. I find the timing very suspicious. This would not be the first time an enemy of the corporate state has been smeared with a sex scandal. Spitzer is most recent example that comes to mind. >> ^entr0py:

"WikiLeaks Targets Corporations; Assange Arrested Days After"
It seems like you're implying the two things are connected. You know we've been following the legal wrangling over the rape allegation for months now. And as Shep mentioned, Assange revealed he had that info on Bank of America over a year ago.

Alternate title: Are Rand Paul's politics sleazier than Eliot Spitzer's love life?

Glenn is a fantastic commentator on political issues. He really handles these interview scenarios well too. Here is his latest Salon column on the flotilla issue.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/03/israel/index.html

And shame on Spitzer. Lecturing on "divergent" views on morality . . . like when investigators discovered his $80 000 prostitute binge and the press proceeded to crucify everything he stood for because of it, leading to his resignation. I and many others defended him because of his strong moral stance on key issues, like his willingness to tackle white collar crime. You would think he would have learned a deeply personal lesson on the harm of promoting bogus moral viewpoints, but I guess not.

YT: "It is a Crime to attack a ship on International Waters. Israel Doesn't own it. Due to this blockade, 60% of the Children in Gaza have anemia, the entire Palestine Economy has collapsed.

When the blockade was first imposed, the Israel Prime Minister's top aid - The purpose is to put the Palestine people on Diet.

Here's what Glenn had to say about his appearance..

I was just on MSNBC talking about Israel, the Gaza blockade and the flotilla attack with Eliot Spitzer, who was guest-hosting for Dylan Ratigan. It was a rather contentious discussion, though quite illustrative of how Israel is (and is not) typically discussed on American television, so I'm posting the whole 8-minute segment below. Two points: (1) before I was on, Spitzer had on an Israel-defending law professor, followed by Netanyahu's former Chief of Staff, and both of them (along with Spitzer) were spewing pure Israeli propaganda in uninterrupted and unchallenged fashion; at the end of Spitzer's discussions with them, he asked them to "stick around just in case," and once I was left, he brought at least one of them back on to respond to what I said without challenge; (2) literally 90 seconds before my segment was about to begin, the new cam and sound system I just acquired stopped working, forcing me to unplug everything and use only my laptop cam and mic, which caused the technical aspects to be less than ideal (though still perfectly workable)"

Military lawyers imminent.

I just want to make sure you have the facts straight.

Bill Clinton
John Edwards
Eliot Spitzer
Gary Condit
Gavin Newsom
David Paterson
Barney Frank

These are the most famous politicians that I am actually familiar with. I didn't do any research on obscure politicians from the sticks. I'm sure we can all agree that I could go on, but what's the point. Same as the republican party - there are more than have been previously mentioned.


Paterson is still Gov of NY so he obviously didn't resign
Newsom didn't resign
Clinton didn't resign
Edwards didn't resign or get pushed out of anything. He had already removed himself from the Presidential race before anyone knew about his infidelity.
Condit didn't resign even though there was more than just cheating involved in his scandal.
Barney Frank is still "spraying it, not saying it" to this day.
Only Spitzer resigned.

Edwards and Clinton have continued to be active in politics since their affairs were made public. Clinton remains popular among some democrats (he was very active during the last Presidential election) and Edwards gave an interview last week in which he stated, "What happens now? If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me. There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue. . . . The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him, but there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

I guess he thinks the world needs him. Doesn't sound like a resignation to me.

And don't get me started on all the TAX evasion scandals this year: Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner to name the two biggest.


You guys are all so cute with your delusions and wild imaginations, though. It was a nice attempt at winning the game of "partison politics."

It's pretty clear to me who has a "holier than thou" attitude here on the sift and on the news.

^ I'd like to see the same thing, though not limited just to sex scandals, and keeping score on which party is more likely to call for their scandal-laden representative to resign.

On the above chart, only Craig and Foley were asked to resign by their party. In the Democratic scandals I can recall from the last few years, all of the representatives got calls from the party leaders to resign (Blago, Edwards, Kilpatrick, Spitzer, even Ohio AG Marc Dann). The ones who didn't go quietly got pushed out by bipartisan coalitions (in the Blago case, nearly unanimously).

True that!

My point is that I hate when we play the "Democrats are ALWAYS right and republicans are always wrong game (or vice versa)." Just call a spade a spade.

Again, those were just off the top of my head and I just remembered another one: David Paterson, current Gov. of NY. I'm sure there are others, I just don't care to look.


I just want to make sure you have the facts straight. Paterson is still Gov of NY so he obviously didn't resign, Newsom didn't resign, Clinton didn't resign, Edwards didn't resign (he had already removed himself from the Presidential race), and Condit didn't resign. Only Spitzer and Hart resigned, not 'all but one' like you stated.

Edwards and Clinton have continued to be active in politics since their affairs were made public. Clinton remains popular among some democrats and Edwards gave an interview last week in which he stated, "What happens now? If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me. There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue. . . . The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him, but there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

I guess he thinks the world needs him. Doesn't sound like a resignation to me.



In reply to this comment by Citrohan:
In reply to this comment by deedub81:
^I'm pretty sure he's not gay. Didn't he cheat with a lady?



...and don't try to make this a partisan thing. It's a SCUMBAG thing. I could give you a few examples of the infidelity of prominent Democrats from off the top of my head:

Bill Clinton
John Edwards
Eliot Spitzer (Gov of NY involved in Prostitute Scandal)
Gary Hart (Ran against Bush Sr. in '88)
Gary Condit (The guy involved in the Chandra Levy Murder Scandal)

...but Republicans ARE on a roll right now. Pitiful.
Gavin Newsom (Dirtbag Mayor of San Freaksisco)


Yes, the Republicans are on a roll NOW compared to the list you provided. This is the second such incident in so many weeks where as the examples you listed are old news. I mean come on, Gary Hart? That was over twenty years ago! Yes, Democrats do get caught up in a mess like this, but the difference, as in the case of Spitzer, they RESIGN or step aside (as all but one of your examples did). Ensign, the mens room toe tapper Craig, prostitute and diaper aficionado David Vitter stay on, despite the wishes of their constitutes. These examples are off the top of my head as well, but a big part of why I remember them is because they happened with in the last two years or less.
As fair as it being a partisan thing, if Al Gore’s home’s carbon footprint and his use of private CO2 spewing jets are fair game in the “Who’s a Hypocrite Game” , then any Family Values politician that acts like this is fair game as well. You know, that thing about what people in glass houses should avoid doing.

BTW Gary Hart did NOT run against Bush in 1988. Hart didnt even make it past two primaries.

^I'm pretty sure he's not gay. Didn't he cheat with a lady?



...and don't try to make this a partisan thing. It's a SCUMBAG thing. I could give you a few examples of the infidelity of prominent Democrats from off the top of my head:

Bill Clinton
John Edwards
Eliot Spitzer (Gov of NY involved in Prostitute Scandal)
Gary Hart (Ran against Bush Sr. in '88)
Gary Condit (The guy involved in the Chandra Levy Murder Scandal)

...but Republicans ARE on a roll right now. Pitiful.

Oh, and Gavin Newsom (Dirtbag Mayor of San Freaksisco)

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:And I have nothing but contempt for people who get mad at ONE guy for being a jackass, and then laugh at another guy for being a worse jackass.

I don't think anybody was laughing at the jokes, these are time filler throw away lines. What people are laughing at is the massive whine fest the Palins started.

When Sarah decided to use her daughter to make a political point about the sexual activity, and moral/legal choices of minors, she put her on the public stage, Bristol jokes are totally in bounds. More to the point these jokes focused not on Bristol, but on Spitzer and ARod. Saying she got knocked up, which Bristol did, does not in any way imply she was raped, thats just a Palin whine-fest construction.

I'm not a hypocrite.

In Internet discussions where everything can be text searched you would be better off not making claims which are demonstrably false.

That's pretty funny. I like how they were up in arms about Spitzer, who announced he was resigning almost immediately, but Vitter still has a job.

I mostly feel sorry for Larry Craig, though.

@blankfist, I missed something, which exercise in nation-building was the product of a Democratic president in the last 50 years?

As for national debt, look at the history, Reagan and Bush made it go up, Clinton made it go down, Bush made it go up. Only neocon Presidents favor deficit spending.

You want to blame both parties for something, pick something easy like lying, taking money from lobbyists, deregulating media, sex scandals, supporting the military industrial complex, and pork-barrel spending that benefits the political allies of the politician (and the customers of those lobbyists).

Nation building and fiscal irresponsibility is a Republican thing, at least during my lifetime.

>> ^dag:
I'm not sure I buy the conspiracy KP - that these were "Bush Operatives" - the mainstream news explanation rings true to my ears. He was transferring large sums of money out of his bank account which automatically tripped the alarms.
If you think it's a conspiracy that they fingered him based on the money transfers- then you would have to believe conversely that "normally" the FBI would turn a blind eye to a high-ranking politician's escapades - which is more disturbing to me.


There are 1.2 million of those "automatic alarms" every year thanks to the PATRIOT Act. Nobody would have found it if they hadn't been searching for Spitzer in the database. The federal Justice Department never gets involved in an individual's prostitution case unless there's a political assasination at stake.

Also, this days they aren´t cheap! ask spitzer!

In reply to this comment by choggie:
For one to not have Baracknophobia is dangerous and foolhardy.....and fuck Jon Stewart, and the shitty Comedy Central embed screen, that looks like a cheap Brazilian whore's make-up....