Bob Schaffer Campaigning to be Next Potted Plant in US Senate

Bob Schaffer and his peanut gallery have been hammering Mark Udall for his so-called "U-turn" on offshore drilling. Udall has supported expanded offshore drilling on a case-by-case basis along the eastern seaboard based on the Gang of 10 plan, as a compromise tied to a plan to achieve long-term independence from oil by transitioning to renewables and vastly improving fuel efficiency.

Mark Udall is responding to a crisis caused by decades of horrific energy policy culminating in Dick Cheney's 2001 secret energy task force designed to cement US dependence on oil--a plan that Bob Schaffer "fully support[s]" and voted for in Congress.

By criticizing Mark Udall for changing positions in the face of a crisis, Schaffer is suggesting that he himself would never respond to a crisis. In other words, he wants to be just like our current potted plant, Wayne Allard--one of the most unpopular US Senators from any state, famous for doing nothing at all.

Bob Schaffer laments the gridlock in Washington while promising to be a key part of it. His bizarre world view is demonstrated in this clip, where he bemoans the fact that the corporation that just posted the largest profit in history isn't making enough money:

The Rest of the Story

Just as Bob Schaffer did when he read the first half of Mark Udall's resolution to prevent George W. Bush from invading Iraq, Bob Schaffer has been pushing a video on YouTube showing only the first part of his answer to the original question. We bring you the rest of his answer, and it isn't pretty.

Big Oil Bob's Big Oil War Profiteering

While we tend to find the rhetoric of "war profiteering" to be a bit overheated, the fact remains that Bob Schaffer went to Iraq at the height of the war to negotiate contracts with the Kurdistan regional government against the wishes of President Bush, the State Department, and the Iraqi national government.

Liberal activist group Progress Now asks the question: Would you support a candidate who voted for the war and then went to Iraq to profit from it?



We believe that there are lots of companies and people who profit from war, and that is at least a somewhat unavoidable consequence of privatizing our military to corporations like KBR. More important to us as independent, security-conscious voters is the possibility that Bob Schaffer's actions of supporting a regional regime inside of and in opposition to the national regime in Iraq will destabilize the country, prolong the war, and cause needless loss of American soldiers as well as civilians.

Rebutting Bob Schaffer's Sleazy Attack

Vince Carroll of the Rocky Mountain News gets it exactly right.

Carroll begins:

Republican Bob Schaffer has spent the week suggesting that his opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Udall, is a hypocrite because he sponsored a resolution in 2002 denouncing Saddam Hussein in the strongest terms, stipulating that he possessed a variety of terrible weapons and describing Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The resolution was even billed as a "preliminary authorization for the use of force against Iraq."

If you fail to look closely, you could easily conclude that the supposedly anti-war Udall was actually on the same page as the congressional majority that ultimately did authorize war - and that Udall's vote against their resolution amounted to splitting hairs.

That's rubbish. Schaffer should cut it out.

Here's where Mark Udall stood on the war in 2002 and where he stands on it today:

DeGrow's Bleating Demonstrates His an Schaffer's Ignorance on Oil Shale

Like a couple of '49ers, Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer have jumped on the oil shale bandwagon pointing to Shell Oil's in situ process experiment as "proof" that oil shale development is ready for prime time. Only it isn't proof, and Shell is the first to admit it.

Let's look at the actual facts:

* Shell Oil only proved that the process is possible on about one acre of land. There is no proof that their freezing/heating process is scalable to commercial production levels.

* According to a RAND Corporation study, Shell's process would require 3 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. To put that in perspective, it's about a Lake Dillon of water every year for each million barrels of daily oil production.

* The process is also energy-intensive, requiring the ground around a drilling site to be frozen, and the ground within the site to be heated for several years. Several coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants would have to be constructed, each of which would have its own water requirements.

* Infrastructure to transport the needed water and power, refine the extracted oil, and treat the produced wastewater would have to be constructed.

Add to this that Shell is one of the leading opponents to commercial leasing because it will take at least five more years to even make the decision whether their experiments were successful. They, understandably, don't want to be forced into the land speculation business only to find the value of their holdings collapse if the process turns out to be unfeasible.

So ask Western Slope residents where they'll come up with 8-10 Lake Dillons per year of water, and where they'd like to have those coal power plants, railroad tracks, pipelines, refineries, waste processing plants, and high-tension wires placed. Because all of that will have to be figured out if (and only if) Shell can make its process commercially scalable. The only other option is strip mining, which has similar water requirements and produces waste of a larger volume than the shale that's mined.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The Ben DeGrow spaghetti factory has been running at full tilt, throwing every noodle it manufactures to the wall and finding nothing will stick.

Let's go through the distortions one-by-one:

1. Calling for increased fuel efficiency and an orderly transition to alternative fuels does not raise the price of gasoline, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow says it does.

2. Mark Udall is not opposed to developing domestic petroleum resources, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer says he is. What he is opposed to is raping the most ecologically and economically sensitive land when the oil companies have already leased 68 million acres and aren't drilling.

3. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will never make a noticeable dent in gas prices, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer say it will. Bush's own Energy Information Adminsitration says that best case it will reduce gas prices by a penny in ten years. Even John McCain is opposed to drilling in ANWR.

4. Oil shale is a boondoggle. Always has been, and by all accounts always will be. Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer dancing around like a couple of drunken '49ers every time the topic comes up doesn't change that fact.

5. Drilling on the Roan Plateau will not affect gasoline prices at all, because you can't make gasoline out of natural gas, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow suggests that it will.

6. And finally, if Bush had not run up the national debt through wars of choice and giveaways to the oil and pharmaceutical companies, we'd still have a strong dollar. Experts say that if the dollar were as strong against the euro as it was ten years ago, oil would be trading at $80/bbl. What does Ben DeGrow and his Senate candidate have to say about that?

Unincorporated Boulder County Liberal

Bob Schaffer must think that if he says "Boulder liberal" three times and clicks his heels that Jack Abramoff and Bill Orr will go away.

Not that there's anything wrong with hailing from Boulder, home of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute, and other notable conservative individuals and organizations. But when Bob Schaffer uses the term "Boulder liberal" and simultaneously claims through his henchman Dick Wadhams that Mark Udall moved to Eldorado Springs to avoid his "boulder roots," but also that Udall's house is not in Eldorado Springs but in Boulder he is just plain wrong.

Lynn Bartels: "Here's the kicker: Udall has never lived in Boulder's city limits."

Never. Not before, not now. Schaffer and Wadhams have access to the same maps everyone else does. They know better. They are not merely incorrect, but they are lying. Spreading a falsehood with the intent to deceive.

If there's one word that sums up Bob Schaffer's candidacy, it has to be 'dishonest.' Schaffer has been obfuscating his own positions, lying about Mark Udall's, and wasting so much oxygen on the deliberate falsehood of "Boulder liberal" that we wonder if there is any truthfulness at all in his campaign.

Bob Schaffer has a well-documented, fringe-conservative record. It's a record that served him well as professional politician since age 25. Until Schaffer edited his bio to make himself look like a moderate (with no evidence to back that up), his claim was that Republicans have lost because they aren't right-wing enough. Schaffer should run on his record. He's going to have an uphill battle if everything that comes out of his mouth is unsupported by facts.

A Idiot

One of Bob Schaffer's bloggers has taken us to task (breaking his no name-calling pledge in the process) over our supply and demand analysis. Their primary argument is that electricity prices are regulated, therefore supply and demand don't apply.

Were it true that prices were fixed by the government, they would be right. However they are not. When the electric utilities want to change prices to respond to market forces (such as supply and demand), they apply to the PUC for a rate adjustment, and in almost every case the PUC approves it without question. So the price may not swing wildly on an hourly basis (thank goodness) but it does change in response to market forces.

But take a look at alternative energy and you'll find that those rates are not subject to the PUC. From Xcel Energy's Windsource signup page: "The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has approved the use of market pricing concepts for Windsource rather than the regulated rate methods." In other words, with renewable energy comes a free-market pricing model.

So if you're a lover of the free market and Colorado's scenic environment and you want to help curb global warming (the existence of which Bob Schaffer's supporters at the Independence Institute continue to deny, even as Bush himself has acknowledged it is a serious, manmade problem that needs addressing) then you should look at Windsource and other renewable energy programs.

Does it cost more? For now, yes (about $14/mo for the average electric bill). Wind farms aren't built for free. But we are happy to pay a little more in the short term to help build the renewable electricity infrastructure. It creates jobs, helps the environment (not just global warming but things like acid rain and asthma-causing soot pollution), and reduces our dependence on fossil fuels. When the infrastructure is built out, costs will come down. And programs like Windsource are opt-in. Can't afford the $14? That's OK, don't pay it.

Bob Schaffer's Bloggers Should Pay Attention to Bob Schaffer

Our friends in Bob Schaffer's peanut gallery have taken some pleasure in recent days by accusing Mark Udall of wanting higher energy prices by supporting renewable energy.

Not only is the logic dizzying (anybody who has ever taken a basic high school business class knows that more energy supply means lower energy prices), but they are also slamming their own candidate at the same time.

You see, Big Oil Bob Schaffer has been putting a fair amount of effort of late in hiding his oil industry background, instead saying that he's been all about the wind and solar. And now one of the myriad of "nonprofit organizations" that has poppoed up to support Bob Schaffer is now running TV ads touting Bob Schaffer's supposed support for renewable energy (a claim that his voting record clearly disputes).

So while the weirdos at the Independence Institute and the rest of the Republican Party insult our intelligence with bizarre and unsubstantiated claims of higher prices from renewable energy, their candidate is running far, far away from them by making himself look more like Mark Udall every day. That's because Mark Udall has it right on energy policy, has for years, and people like Bib Oil Bob Schaffer are only now starting to catch up.

It's interesting how the far-right weirdos at the Independence Institute tout the free market and then demonstrate that they don't even have a basic understanding of basic market principles such as supply and demand. If Bob Schaffer wants any chance at winning, he should signal to his base that they shouldn't be attacking Mark Udall for positions that Bob Schaffer evidently holds. Some might see that as disorganized, or possibly even hypocritical.

Bob Schaffer's Handler is a Bald-Faced Liar and Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Dick Wadhams in regards to Jerry Tan, brother of Willie Tan and co-owner of Tan Holdings Corporation, et.al., and big donor to Bob Schaffer's congressional and 2004 Senate campaigns (watch the video):

There is no record of that...of I'm aware of...of that gentlemen being convicted or investigated for anything like that that I'm aware of.

The Weekly Standard:

Tan, the recipient of the largest labor fine in U.S. history, is a Chinese tycoon who owns clothing factories throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory exempt from U.S. immigration, wage, and labor laws. Tan paid Abramoff millions of dollars to ensure that the exemption continued. And Abramoff was successful in doing just that. [emphasis supplied]

Jerry Tan's company, Tan Holdings, was fined 9 million Dollars for labor violations. Eric Singer, either you were lied to or you allowed Dick Wadhams to use truly Clinton-esque word gymnastics to wiggle out of the truth. You should follow up and set the record straight.

Family Research Council Endorses Bob Schaffer

Meet Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, which has just tossed its endorsement behind Bob Schaffer:



That's right, he just said that global warming is good, because it's a sign of the end times.

Bob Schaffer should come clean with Coloradans and state whether he agrees with the Family Research Council's longstanding, well-documented hate propaganda such as:

...one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order.

FRC's other endorsements today include Marilyn Musgrave for her work on amending the Constitution of the United States to discriminate against gay people.

Ill-Tempered Bob Schaffer

All the buzz has been about the temper tantrum Bob Schaffer threw in his interview with journalistic neophyte Jeremy Pelzer at PolitickerCO, posted yesterday.

Pelzer tried to get a question in about Bob's forced abortion problem, and Bob went completely nuts. Read it. It's a fascinating window on the world of Bob Schaffer, who lacked the temperament to be an effective Congressman, and whose ill temper is not going to allow him to get anything done in the U.S. Senate.

Pelzer should post the audio of his interview with Schaffer. It's not that we don't trust Pelzer's transcription skills, just that we believe the medium of print doesn't fully capture the essence of Schaffer's reactions.

Sad

It's really disturbing how much the Republican Party has lost its way in Colorado. It's a party so bereft of ideas and talent that the best they can do is to call Mark Udall and those who support him names. Dick Wadhams thinks that if he says "Boulder liberal" enough, Mark Udall will turn to stone. And Ben DeGrow and his crew of College Republican chums call the Sierra Club "environmental extremists."

Note to Ben: ELF is an environmental extremist group.

The Sierra Club is to environmentalism as Lutherans are to Christianity. The Traditional Values Coalition, on the other hand, is to Christianity what ELF is to environmentalism.

Bob Schaffer has been chummy with Lou "Lucky Louie" Sheldon and the TVC since way back before their Saipan sweatshop and parasailing tour together. Bob Schaffer and his supporters are so extreme that they think anyone to their left is an extremist.

Blame the Victim, Kill the Messenger

That was Jack Abramoff's strategy on behalf of his sweatshop owner clients in the Northern Mariana Islands. After taking his $13,000 Jack Abramoff-financed parasailing junket to Saipan, the capital, Bob Schaffer gleefully implemented that strategy in Congress, going so far as to engage in witness intimidation the night before he was to testify at a Sept. 16, 1999 hearing, held in Washington even as most of the city had evacuated as a result of Hurricane Floyd. The witness was an indentured servant who had been rescued from his servitude by a human-rights organization and flown to Washington to share the plight of his fellow guest workers before Congress in hopes that people like Bob Schaffer would have a heart and actually do something. How naive he was, because Shaffer opened fire on him with both barrels.

Today, Schaffer is continuing to read from Jack Abramoff's playbook, attacking human rights champion Wendy Doromal. Today's story, an improvement over past articles in the Rocky Mountain News in that they actually spoke with people other than Dick Wadhams of the Schaffer campaign and Taylor west of the Udall campaign, fails to break much new ground in terms of information, but shines a bright light on Schaffer's strategy and intentions.

Schaffer's orders as a Congressman were to discredit the human rights workers, destroy the credibility of the victims of human rights abuse, and blame the whole thing on Bill Clinton. Today, the strategy is the same--discredit Wendy Doromal, cast aspersion on the victims of forced abortion, and blame the "left wing." Even today, Bob Schaffer continues to carry water for his sweatshop-baron benefactors--the ones who have given Schaffer over $30,000 either directly or via an Abramoff conduit such as the Traditional Values Coalition or disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay.

Read the Fine Print

We'll reprint the only factual information contained within the hackery spewed forth by Bob Schaffer via his mouthpiece Dick Wadhams as channeled through Rocky Mountain News stenographer Lynn Bartels:

U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall took $1,500 in contributions from two firms that once employed disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

[skip to the bottom]

In fact, the money came from Abramoff's employers' PACs.

That's right. Nothing to do with Abramoff, Abramoff's lobbying, his clients, his schemes to defraud Indian tribes, or his support for the sweatshops and their associated "free-market" forced abortions.

Two of the largest lawfirms in the world have PACs, and those PACs gave Udall a total of $1,500 during the time that Abramoff was in the employ of the companies associates with the PACs.

Meanwhile, Schaffer accepted thousands in tainted money from the likes of Tom DeLay, to say nothing of the thousands more he took directly from the sweatshop moguls themselves, and then to say nothing of the $13,000 parasailing junket he took on Abramoff's dime. All of this is documented fact. Let's review:



There's nothing in this story that should ever have been reported by Lynn Bartels. Shame on her for not checking her facts.

Fundraising Numbers are In

Mark Udall continues to trounce Bob Schaffer in the fundraising numbers:

Both U.S. Senate candidates surpassed $1 million in donations during the first three months with Udall collecting $1.46 million and Schaffer taking in $1.02 million, the filings said.

Udall got about $250,000 from political action committees, while Schaffer reported almost $400,000 from his part of the joint fundraiser with President Bush in January.

So Udall shows a healthy amount of business support, while almost half of Bob Schaffer's money came from George W. Bush's fundraiser for him.

Sounds about right. Schaffer is more Bush than Bush, which delights only the 1/4 of people who still support Bush, and the business community showed by its pretty overwhelming support of Referendum C in 2005 that the extreme anti-tax agenda of Bob Schaffer and Doug Bruce is bad for business.

Of course all of this money was raised before the news hit about Bob Schaffer's support for forced abortions and preventing people from going to church in one part of America, and his professed support for taking the system that gave rise to those abuses nationwide. It will be interesting to see if the far right of the far right keeps supporting Schaffer now that these facts have come to light.

What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?

That seems to be the common thread, along with attacking the Denver Post, of the very few Republicans online who have made even a remote attempt to defend Bob Schaffer.

As if answering those questions would change their minds; these are people whose support of Bob Schaffer is partisan not principled, and we understand that. In 2004 we very much disliked our Presidential candidate yet we supported him anyway both as good Democrats and because Kerry would have been the lesser of two evils.

Given that, I'm not sure those are questions these people really should be asking. They are not going to like the answer.

It begins to unfold this morning on SquareState, where a memo documenting a meeting between Jack Abramoff's staff and Bob Schaffer's staff was uncovered and posted along with a document detailing the sex slavery of a 15 year-old girl.

Burning Bridges Might Not Be the Best Game Plan, Dick

Dick Wadhams:

Pressed this week, Wadhams distanced his current campaign from that of his former bosses.

"There’s only one idiot named George Allen," Wadhams said of the former Virginia senator and governor.

But Schaffer, he says, is "is perhaps one of the most articulate people I’ve worked for." Referencing the infamous "macaca moment", Wadhams said, "Bob is not going to make a mistake like that."

But just a week ago, Bob Schaffer stated that he thought the immigration system in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands should be a "model" for the entire U.S. Coincidentally, the United States Senated just voted 91-4 to outlaw that very system which led to forced abortions, child labor, sex slavery, and a booming sweatshop industry.

As Congressman George Miller stated upon the bill's passage, "Jack Abramoff is now in prison and Tom DeLay has resigned in disgrace. Very few people would defend the status quo in the CNMI, which has done such damage to workers and their families over the years."

Bob Schaffer is one of those people.

Bob Schaffer's going to need all the help he can get, including donors and supporters of that "idiot named George Allen" who was once held up to be the Republican heir-apparent to the White House. Perhaps alienating Allen and his supporters is not the best way to go, Bob.

Josh Marshall Gets It (mostly)

Talking Points Memo has a piece up about Dick Wadhams' bad string of luck lately. But Josh misses the mark here:

Our best guess is that Schaffer basically missed the Abramoff scandal, at least compared to how people experienced it in Washington. Schaffer was elected in 1996 and term-limited himself after the end of his third term, leaving DC in early 2003. He then tried and failed to get the Republican senate nomination in 2004. There is something called newspapers and the internet. But it just doesn't seem to have registered with him how radioactive Abramoff and his clients had become.

This is not about Abramoff, it's about Schaffer's moral failings. We imagine Schaffer would have blindly supported the sweatshop industry even if Abramoff weren't the intermediary.

Schaffer either genuinely thinks sweatshops are A-OK and he wasn't influenced by the thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from sweatshop moguls, or he doesn't think thay are A-OK but is willing to say so because he got thousands in campaign contributions from sweatshop moguls.

Who cares if Abramoff was the middleman (even though the evidence that he was is about as convincing as the evidence that water is wet). The fact that Schaffer is, as Rep. George Miller put it so eloquently yesterday, one of the few people who would defend the exploitative system in the CNMI is really telling.

Either Schaffer is a principled sweatshop proponent or an unprincipled sweatshop proponent. Is one better or worse than the other?

Abramoff is just the icing. Schaffer's extremism and corruption is the cake.

Another Day, Another Sweatshop Schaffer Shocker

Last night, Talking Points Memo posted a story documenting Schaffer's long ties to Jack Abramoff's sweatshop industry clients that began with a Jack Abromoff-sponsored trip paid for by money funneled through supposedly Christian front-group Traditional Values Coalition.

This morning, the Denver Post piles on:

The two instances, in which Schaffer endorsed Fitial in ads in island newspapers, show that Schaffer has had close and enduring ties with key politicians on the American protectorate, extending relationships he developed while on a fact-finding mission there in August 1999. They also show that Schaffer was part of a concerted and public campaign by Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources to boost Fitial's public career when he became key to extending a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract for Abramoff from the island's government.

It strains credulity for anyone to claim Schaffer didn't know who Abramoff was, had never met him, or that Preston Gates was "just another lawfirm." Schaffer has still not denied any of the charges. In fact, Schaffer has yet to say one word about the controversy.

Dick Wadhams, on the other hand, is beside himself and can't seem to cough up a lucid quote. To the Post, his only response was that the Post was performing a "character assassination." We have news for Wadhams: you can't assassinate a character that is already dead. Schaffer committed character suicide by getting in bed with the sweatshop industry 10 years ago.

Not a Good Day for U.S. Senate Candidate Bob Schaffer

Last evening, smelling blood in the water, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall picked up on the Denver Post's earlier reporting of Bob Schaffer holding the immigration system in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands out as a model for how he thinks the U.S. immigration system should work, and provided some background on how that really worked--women "getting beaten, raped or coerced into having abortions."

This morning, the Denver Post reported in a front page story about Bob Schaffer's Jack Abramoff ties and his so-called "fact-finding mission." Among the facts that Bob apparently found were that he looks really bad in shorts, parasailing is fun, and "palm-studded beach resort[s]" are more fun when his stay in one is free thanks to Jack Abramoff. The wife thought so too.

The Post can't drop a bombshell like that without the whole universe picking it up. It is literally a blogswarm of epic proportion. Later in the morning, TPM came out with this video as a brush-up on some of the history of the Abramoff scandal:



Then, outdoing themselves, TPM revealed further background on the implicit Abramoff-Schaffer connection via the explicit and very public connection between Schaffer and sweatshop executive and Abramoff crony Ben Fitial.

The story comes out more and more by the hour, and Schaffer has yet to say one word in his own defense. Things are not looking good for Bob Schaffer. Not good at all--nor should they; he's created a big mess for himself. Schaffer once commented that he was the Dr. Phil of the Republican Party.

Heal thyself, Dr. Phil.

Update: We almost missed the AP coverage with this gem from Dick Wadhams who (literally) sounds like a broken record:

"We do look forward to when Boulder liberal Udall has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Colorado for Boulder liberal Udall to defend Sen. Reid's involvement with Abramoff," he said.

Poor Dick sounds like he's just about over the edge.

Schaffer Shocker: New Revelations in Bob Schaffer/Jack Abramoff Scandal Story

And we thought investigative journalism was dead.

Intrepid Denver Post reporter Mike Riley has apparently been a busy bee. He snagged this picture of Schaffer parasailingfact-finding in Saipan. He's managed to blow open Bob Schaffer's ties to Jack Abramoff, and Schaffer has essentially no defense other than to claim what will very likely be disproven, and may have been already:

Opponents "are trying to leave the impression that Bob went gallivanting off to the Mariana Islands with Jack Abramoff, who Bob has never met, never talked to and wasn't even aware was around back then," [Schaffer Campaign Manager] Wadhams said.

But just below that in the article:

At the time, Schaffer's staff also flagged the role of Abramoff's firm in the Marianas trip. In an August 1999 memo, Schaffer was told that travel arrangements to the Mariana Islands had been made by Preston-Gates. Handwritten notes on the agenda point out that a lunch meeting was with several current or former clients of the firm, including the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council.

How long do you suppose it is before Riley or another intrepid reporter or blogger turns up evidence to refute Wadhams' claims?

But let's keep our eyes on the meaning of this story. As commenter JohnSmith noted on the story:

Schaffer was there, the abuses were well-documented before he went and in the ten years since, and he still thinks it's a "model" system. Either he's still on the take from sweatshop owners in Saipan or he's completely in denial.

This is not a "Big Labor" dispute, this is an ongoing investigation by the federal government under both the Clinton and Bush administrations spanning over ten years, with mountains of documentary evidence. Ignorance is no excuse, so Schaffer's position must either be genuine or paid for. Either way, this story deserves further scrutiny.

Schaffer's Jack Abramoff Ties

ColoradoPols is beginning the blogswarm on what seems at this early juncture to be a big story:

We can't believe he brought up the Northern Marianas experience with immigrant labor as a good thing. Seriously, we're floored by this. You may not understand exactly what we're talking about yet, but by the time Democrats get through reminding you of the whole sordid story featuring Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and forced abortions (you read that correctly) you will--everybody will.

We referenced the Denver Post story that led this off this morning, noting that Schaffer's immiigration stance has been all over the map in the last few weeks. But at the bottom of the story was the true nugget, his admiration for the Northern Mariana Islands and their system of immigration. A system, it turns out, that he got a look at first-hand:

And guess who went along in 1999 to 'check out the situation?' That would be Rep. Bob Schaffer, who has also taken thousands of dollars in campaign money from Saipan politicians linked to this same congressional squashing of human rights reforms. There are literally hundreds of stories out there on the Saipan labor rights issue, which subsequently emerged a key part of the Abramoff scandal.

What's really, really amazing to us is that we spent about 5 easy minutes searching up gobs of damaging information linking the Northern Marianas, Jack Abramoff, and Bob Schaffer.

Indeed. It will be interesting to see what unfolds from this little slip of the tongue.

Schaffer Schuffle on Immigration

Mike Riley has an interesting piece today's Denver Post further teasing out the phony triangulation on immigration that Schaffer is trying to pull, likely just so he can hang on to what little business support he has.

A couple of weeks ago, Schaffer was unwilling to talk about immigration because he was not ready to stake out a position. Now he's billing himself as to the left of Mark Udall and John McCain on immigration. That may help him with the business community, but it's certainly not going to help him with the base.

The model he says he wants to follow is that of the Northern Mariana Islands. You'll remember that's the place where convicted felon Jack Abramoff, et. al., lobbied to quash an investigation in to the horrible conditions there, to prevent the islands from gaining a Congressional delegate, and to exempt the islands from federal minimum wage laws and workplace safety standards. Says Congressman George Miller:

Let’s remember what they paid for: a protection racket that sheltered a sweatshop industry that systematically exploited tens of thousands of impoverished foreign workers -- mostly Asian women -- who were little better than indentured servants; a sweatshop industry that earned some of the heaviest fines in U.S. history for violating labor laws; an industry repeatedly cited by the Departments of Justice, Interior and other federal agencies. They were defending a corrupt immigration system that regularly approved visas for non-existent jobs, resulting in hundreds of women being forced into the sex trade, including prostitution. [emphasis supplied]

Bob Schaffer in the Post article above:

"The concept of prequalifying foreign workers in their home country under private-sector management is a system that works very well in one place in America," he said of the islands' program. "I think members of Congress ought to be looking at that model and be considering it as a possible basis for a nationwide program."

Some of the reported consequences of the program that Bob Schaffer thinks works so well are sweatshops, virtual slavery, human trafficking, child labor, prostitution, and forced abortion. And now he wants to bring that kind of program here.

Dick Wadhams Thinks the Sunrise is a U-Turn

Mark Udall said it was night time at midnight, but now it's noon and he claims it's day time? That's a U-turn! That hypocrite!

Yeah, not so much.

Dick Wadhams claims Mark Udall has changed positions on the Roan Plateau because he's now trying to get Bill Ritter's incremental-drilling plan written into law when he used to support a total moratorium.

I read it differently. He and John Salazar had the drilling moratorium in the energy bill, but Congress stripped it out because it didn't have the votes. Now they are going for middle ground, just trying to get the most protection for the Roan that they can.

When some people fail, they try again. But Wadhams, reflecting the attitude of his candidate Bob Schaffer (permanently etched in the Congressional Record), thinks 'my way or the highway' absolutism is the way Coloradans want to be represented. In Schaffer's world it's better to be a righteous failure than it is to compromise and get half of what Coloradans want.

Coloradans are tired of ideologues. They want a Senator who is willing to work hard to accomplish what is achievable for Colorado--strong and principled, but willing to be flexible when necessary. Bob Schaffer is not that, and Wadhams represents his point of view well.

Earmark Reform Needed

The Denver Post has an interesting but unnecessarily "gotcha" article up about two earmarks sought by Mark Udall before he swore off earmarks for the year.

It is better have Congress doling out that money than some agency that is totally unaccountable to anyone, given that Bush has refused to do his job when it comes to oversight and management. Congressional candidate contributions are public record. That at least provides some level of accountability now that the Democratic Congress has made requesters of earmarks also public information.

And really-- some career procurement agent with three kids working on $40,000 salary is going to find $6,850 a far more appealing incentive to award a contract than a U.S. Congressman. Considering that Udall has received similarly large amounts from many many donors who do not have federal contracts, it's not really fair to tie the two together.

The fact is that there are not a lot of people who can afford to give that kind of money to a political candidate. Those who can afford it are typically business executives who would be the type to get federal contracts. Not many stay-at-home moms, mechanics, or other regular working folks are in the market for federal contracts.

So you have a limited pool of people capable of fulfilling federal contracts, and a limited pool of people capable of making large donations, and the two pools of people significantly overlap. It's definitely coincidental, and without some evidence it would be irresponsible to report it as causal. Correlation does not imply causality.

On the other hand...

That's not to say the system doesn't provide the appearance of a conflict just in terms of donors and contract recipients, but that's a political issue not an ethical issue. However, when you add in all of the internal favoritism, political horse trading, committee assignments, seniority, and all the other stuff that goes on in the (once) smoky back rooms of Congress, the system is still broken.

Udall and Marilyn Musgrave are wise to suspend further earmark requests until the system is reformed. Many reforms need to be put into place. We know who the earmark winners are, but we don't know who the losers are. That's just as important. There isn't adequate time for the public to review those earmarks, and there isn't enough transparency on how they are allocated, whether there was any competition, and a whole host of other problems.

With sunlight as the best disinfectant, we can have a system where the earmark system is good enough to come back. With a perfect system (which we will never have, but we can try), state and local governments, small businesses, etc. would not need to be lobbying dozens of federal agencies for a piece of the federal budget when it comes to things like defense, national parks, and interstate highways. They could go to their Senators and Representatives for earmarks, and the Congress--under the full light of the sun--could debate and allocate those resources in a very public and accountable way. Imagine how much local tax money you'd save if your city, county, and state didn't have to pay lobbyists to work the federal system, spreading around largesse among low-paid federal workers, or promising lucrative jobs in exchange for federal contracts.

Earmarks can be good. Right now they aren't. Good for Marilyn Musgrave and Mark Udall for drawing a line in the sand.

Дуже Дякую, Роберт!

Here we thought we were being clever this morning saying that Bob Schaffer would make a great Senator from the dark ages, but this web video shows that he's already a great Senator for the Ukraine.



Hat tip: Udall v. Schaffer

Document the Atrocities

In our last post, we shared a couple of whoppers that Bob Schaffer told the public, captured by Colorado Media Matters. And while Colorado Media Matters documented two big ones, the whole love-fest between former state Senators Schaffer and Andrews was loaded with whoppers. And not just whoppers, but outrageous statements.

Listen to the whole thing, but make sure you remove all sharp objects form your immediate vicinity beforehand.

It's curious how Schaffer and Andrews believe that by deluding themselves into thinking that the far-right of the authoritarian far-right is moderate, while libertarians (like Mark Udall) are to the right of that. It's really twisted.

By their logic, James Dobson and Pat Robertson are moderates, but David Harsanyi and Dave Barry are far-right extremists. According to Schaffer's thinking, Mark Udall is a "Boulder liberal" but he's also a far-right extremist.

By Schaffer's logic, religious mandates such as the ten commandments in every public school classroom, jailing gays, and charging doctors with murder is moderate, but not enforcing those selective religious mandates makes you a far-right extremist.

Schaffer really would be a perfect Senator for the dark ages.

Is Bob Schaffer a Liar?

Yes. Yes, he is.

Summary: Discussing the Colorado U.S. Senate race on KNUS 710 AM's Backbone Radio, host John Andrews failed to challenge his guest, Republican candidate Bob Schaffer, when Schaffer misrepresented Democratic opponent U.S. Rep. Mark Udall's record on a bill to establish a Department of Peace and a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

Read the whole thing. You can even listen to it and hear his curled-lip, righteous sneering. Bob Schaffer's dishonesty is legion; but here's a perfect opportunity to hear it for yourself, packaged neatly into about a 30-second clip.

Schaffer is like a mobius strip. It's a twisted, one-sided, endless loop. No matter which way you go with one, you always end up back where you started.

I Saw "The Passion"

And to me it was nothing more than blood pornography. It was gratuitous violence for the sake of inflaming anti-Semitic sentiments. It glorified and glamorized the torture and murder of Jesus Christ.

As a Christian, I know the tenets of my religion are centered on Christ's life and His resurrection, and the redemption of those who persecuted Him. Our church fought against gory violence in the movies and on TV. And we certainly didn't find inspiration in it.

Bob Schaffer, on the other hand, celebrated the movie.

"I saw 'The Passion' ... and it really put me in the right frame of mind for launching a campaign," he told the National Review in 2004. "It taught me that there's no way I can lose."

A snuff film taught Bob there's no way he can lose.

The Proof is in the Comments

If you really want to know who is pulling the strings in the Bob Schaffer for Senate campaign, just look at the comments on the Rocky's analysis of Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer's voting records during the time they were in Congress simultaneously.

I wish the Democrats' little lie about "Big Oil Bob" was true: but Aspect Energy is an independent producer (not exactly Big Oil!) of lots of different energy sources, including wind projects.

In fact one of Bob key projects for Aspect was to help create a bi-partisan coalition to support more efficient wind energy tax credits. Our wind energy affiliate developed the first significant project on an Indian reservation (in California) and also worked on projects in other states including Colorado.

The wind tax credits currently are biased against indpendent developers of wind projects in favor of big power companies. Bob worked hard to try to even the playing field.

Alex Cranberg, Chairman
Aspect Energy, LLC

That's Alex Cranberg, Republican insider and funder of various shadowy campaigns to destroy public education, who also happens to be Schaffer's employer.

Aspect is an oil company. It is a lie for Cranberg to claim it isn't.

From the front page of Aspect's web site:

From 1998-2006, Aspect and its partners spent $940 million to drill over 525 wells. Together they recognized a success rate of 59% finding 703 Bcfe in reserves worth $1.89 billion (PV10). For wells in which Aspect was the Exploration Operator: From 1998-2006, Aspect and its partners spent $540 million to drill over 318 wells. Together they recognized a success rate of 61% finding 437 Bcfe in reserves worth $1.25 billion (PV10).

Aspect and its affiliate companies will have combined revenues of ~ $360 million in 2007 and expected exploration and development capital expenditures of $180 million. Combined daily production net to Aspect and its affiliates is currently ~ 18,300 boe/day.

Aspect spent over a billion and a half dollars since 1998 drilling for oil. Sure, they're no ExxonMobile or ConocoPhillips, but to claim that any company that can afford to blow $1.5 billion in ten years isn't "big" is ridiculous on its face.

Funny how Cranberg implies they're some sort of renewable energy company yet there's not a single mention of wind or any other renewable energy on the front page of the company's web site.

Also funny how Schaffer's consistent claims that he isn't a lobbyist are exposed as lies by his boss's futile attempt to deny Schaffer's big oil ties.

In fact one of Bob key projects for Aspect was to help create a bi-partisan coalition to support more efficient wind energy tax credits.

By this very statement, Cranberg is either claiming that Schaffer lobbied for tax credits "for Aspect," or that Schaffer was doing Aspect's bidding when he was in Congress. Either he is a lobbyist or he was in the back pocket of Cranberg when he was in Congress. We can't say for sure, because Cranberg doesn't give a time frame for the "key projects for Aspect."

Holding Their Feet to the Fire

Colorado Republican activists have been busy setting up a network of blogs so loaded with falsehoods and deception that anyone who follows the news would be able to detect the lies.

Unfortunately, not everyone in this great state stays current with the ins and outs of politics (who blames them?), and the Republican noise machine is counting on that.

They know that just before the election there will be a flurry of people searching the Internet for information on the candidates. And they think that by pumping out lies from multiple blogs and linking them all together that they will be seen as authoritative by search engines and thus make their lies visible to the less informed.

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion and political philosophy. Disagreement and dissent is at the heart of a vibrant democracy. But a vibrant democracy also requires us to work together, have an honest debate, and work out our differences with reason and compromise.

This network of Republican activists is not interested in reason or honesty. They spread lies and distortions in hopes that it will stick. They are about tearing down the other, rather than promoting their own positions.

We'll expose their lies and show you the truth. And then voters can make up their own minds.