Court Fight in the Heart of Dixie

 

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Paseur would have a much better case if she accused CFIF of being a pro-business group, and Shaw of receiving most of his contributions from business interests that want to limit monetary damage awards in civil lawsuits. In fact, most of his campaign funds have come from political action committees with names like Lawsuit Reform PAC and the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee (ACJRC PAC), and the donors to those PACs overwhelmingly tend to be corporations that do business in the state, such as Alfa Insurance and Compass Bancshares. The Alabama media have not identified any contributions to Shaw from oil companies or their PACs, or from other PACs that received money directly from oil companies.

It's true that two ExxonMobil lobbyists are involved in running a number of the PACs that have given to Shaw: Bob Geddie and Stephen Bradley. It's also true that it can be difficult to untangle the real sources of funds in Alabama, where it's common for PACs to give to one another and send their money through a sort of maze of committees. And Shaw has been careful not to deny that he may have received contributions linked to a certain oil company: "I'm sure there may be some individuals that have connections to ExxonMobil," he said.

But if oil and gas money is playing much of a role in Shaw's campaign, it has remained a hidden one. And neither we nor the Paseur campaign has the goods to prove that the Center for Individual Freedom is a front for Big Oil.

Not Yet a Justice
One of Shaw's ads wraps up by saying that Shaw is "serving Alabama with Supreme Court experience." What with all the images of Shaw in judicial robes, one might think that he was an incumbent running to retain his Supreme Court seat.

That's not the case. According to Shaw's own Web site, he worked as an attorney for two Alabama Supreme Court justices for 16 years. That means he might know where the legal pads are kept and what happens to a case once it arrives at the court, but it's a far cry from being Justice Shaw. "Supreme Court experience" is a nice – and misleading – way to dress up a staff job. In 2000, Shaw was elected to the state's Court of Criminal Appeals, where he currently serves.

Republished with permission from factcheck.org.

Sources
Velasco, Eric. "PACs shield donations in alabama Supreme Court race." The Birmingham News, 19 Oct. 2008.

Velasco, Eric. "State Supreme Court race includes attacks, big spending." The Birmingham News, 14 Oct. 2008.

"US court slashes $3.6 billion verdict against Exxon Mobil in natural gas royalties case." The Associated Press, 1 Nov. 2007.

Beyerle, Dana. "State bar moves to tone down campaigns." The Tuscaloosa News, 15 Oct. 2008.

"Coalition of 60 Groups Call for a Revised 'Gang of Ten' Energy Compromise." PR Newswire, 19 Aug. 2008.

"Leading Evangelical and Conservative Leaders Send Letter Urging Senate to Reject Lieberman-Warner." U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, 18 March 2008.
2005 Annual Report. The Carthage Foundation, p. 1.

Velasco, Eric. "Supreme Court hopefuls feud over a Democrat ad that implies candidate Greg Shaw is accepting money from oil companies." The Birmingham News, 10 Oct. 2008.

© 2008

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  • Posted By: Krohn @ 11/02/2008 11:22:58 PM

    The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

    This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

    David Horowitz summarizes it as:

    "The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
    unquote

    Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

    That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

    As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

    So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

    Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

    Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

    Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

    Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !

  • Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 11/02/2008 6:01:31 PM

    Obama's Links To Radicals Starting To Surface!! www.newsmax.com/timmer

    Obama-Farrakhan Ties Are Close, Ex-Farrakhan Aide Says

    A former top deputy to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan tells Newsmax that Barack Obama???s ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had ???an open line between them??? to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.

    ???Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn???t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,??? said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.
    White broke with the group in 1995 and is now a professor of African-American history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
    White said Obama was ???part of the Chicago scene??? where Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and radicals would go to each other???s events and support each other???s causes.
    ???Even though Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, within the black community, the political and militant nationalist community is very small. So it wouldn???t be uncommon for [Obama and Farrakhan] to show up at events together, or at least be there and communicate with each other,??? White told Newsmax.
    The Anti-Defamation League has denounced Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam as a ???hate group.???
    Farrakhan has called Jews ???bloodsuckers,??? ???satanic??? and accused them of running the slave trade. He has labeled gays as ???degenerates.??? In a 2006 speech, the ADL again condemned Farrakhan when he said: ???These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. ??? It's the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It's wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!"

  • Posted By: Nins @ 10/24/2008 1:04:49 AM

    Watch the crowds at McCain/Palin rallies on this video:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/bravenewfilms

    Then ask yourself seriously: "Do I want this to be my America?"


    Afterwards, watch this political video with Andy Griffith, Opie and the Fonz. It's a blast from the past.

    http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/cc65ed650d

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A new ad goes too far when it says Medicare will be "bankrupt" in eight years.