For two years, Maniaci aired exposés about a mob-owned distillery in Partinico that was violating Sicily’s antipollution statutes and pouring toxic fumes into the atmosphere. At one point he chained himself to the distillery’s security fence in an effort to get police to shut it down. (It closed in 2005 but reopened last year after a legal battle.) He identified a house used by Bernard Provenzano and local Mafia chieftains to plan killings and other crimes: authorities confiscated it and knocked it down. In 2006 he got the scoop of a lifetime, joining police as they raided a tin shack near Corleone and captured Provenzano. The Mafia has burned Maniaci’s car twice and repeatedly threatened to kill him; in 2008 a pair of hoodlums beat him outside his office. Maniaci went on the air the next day with a bruised face and denounced his attackers. After the beating, he declined an offer of round-the-clock police protection, saying it would make it impossible for him to meet his “secret sources.”Read More......
This morning, the Democratic National Committee pointed out that O'Donnell is also described in a ZoomInfo entry as having achieved a "certificate" in "Post Modernism in the New Millennium" from the "University of Oxford." The Zoom Info entry was labled, "user verified."Read More......
ZoomInfo, which has spent the day looking into this, has sent over a statement detailing what happened with this profile. According to the company, O'Donnell's profile was claimed in 2008 through something called a "double opt-in process."
The company says this process cannot function without "response to a verification e-mail message." ZoomInfo is not releasing that email address, citing privacy. But here's the rub: The company is confirming that they have identified the emailer:
We can say, however, that the email address was not of an anonymous nature -- that is, the address was not from a personal free email service and contained identifying information. ZoomInfo's Terms of Service require users to agree that they will not "impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent" their affiliation with a person or entity.The company is also confirming that O'Donnell -- or whoever claimed the profile -- would have had ample opportunity to change any wrong info, and that after it was claimed, it could not be changed any other way:
All persons who claim profiles on ZoomInfo have the opportunity to review, update, delete and change information that ZoomInfo has compiled from other sources. In addition, persons who claim their profiles may add information of their choosing, including employment and educational history. All employment history (titles and companies), educational background, etc. is "locked" when the registrant claims the profile. Our automated system does not add any new titles, companies or educational records to claimed profiles, even if we find new Web articles and update a profile with these references.In other words, ZoomInfo knows who claimed this profile and verified the information. And in response to my questions, it's not disputing the idea that it was claimed by O'Donnell or someone apparently authorized by her to do so. Keep in mind: The company could say this wasn't done by O'Donnell or someone authorized by her without violating the poster's privacy.
Many wealthy Democratic patrons, who in the past have played major roles financing outside groups to help elect the party’s candidates, are largely sitting out these crucial midterm elections.
Democratic donors like George Soros, the bête noire of the right, and his fellow billionaire Peter B. Lewis, who each gave more than $20 million to Democratic-oriented groups in the 2004 election, appear to be holding back so far.
The donors’ reluctance stems from a variety of factors, including pessimism about the party’s prospects in November, but also President Obama’s strong condemnations of this kind of independent activity, both during the 2008 campaign and after he was elected.Democratic consultant Mike Lux explains more about how the anti- strategy has killed Democratic donations. Read More......
If you can build a factory overseas which produces the same goods for less, meaning more profit for you, why would you build it in the US?Then he lists the ways. A good read, highly recommended.
Until that question is adequately answered, by which I mean “until it’s worth investing in the US”, most of the discretionary money of the rich will either go into useless speculative activities like the housing and credit bubbles, which don’t create real growth in the US, or they will go overseas.
There are a number of ways this question can be answered.
Nearly one in every four U.S. homes sold in the second quarter was a deeply discounted foreclosed house, putting the market on pace to work through distressed properties in about three years, RealtyTrac said.Read More......
Banks stepped up foreclosures through the summer and will take over a record 1.2 million homes this year, up from around 1 million last year and about 100,000 in 2005 before the housing bust, according to a forecast from the real estate data company.
Foreclosed homes accounted for 24 percent of all second-quarter sales, at an average price discount of more than 26 percent compared with homes not in the foreclosure process.
President Obama will give his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a send-off Friday as Mr. Emanuel officially announces his departure from the West Wing to run for mayor of Chicago, officials familiar with the decision said.Can some enterprising reporter ask candidate Rahm his position on same-sex marriage? I suspect Rahm will be seeing and hearing a lot from LGBT activists as he campaigns over the next few months.
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, at his daily briefing on Thursday afternoon said that the president will give two personnel announcements on Friday morning from the East Room of the White House. Mr. Gibbs, admitting that he was being purposely “oblique,” would not confirm whether the announcements would concern Mr. Emanuel.
The two officials, who declined to be named in advance of the official announcement, confirmed that Mr. Obama plans to name Pete Rouse, a senior adviser, to replace Mr. Emanuel. Mr. Rouse has been at the president’s side since Mr. Obama arrived in Washington nearly six years ago as a senator, serving as his chief of staff.
President Obama is at it again, this time scolding Democratic voters in the pages of Rolling Stone:Jane goes on to present a compelling case of how the White House has previously written off elections early in order to escape blame. Is she right? I'm not sure. But for the life of me I have no idea how maligning your own voters inspires more of them vote. Read More......[I]f people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place...The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible.When people scratch their heads and wonder how a campaign based on hectoring your supporters expects to turn out voters, the answer is, it doesn't. And you don't see anyone who's actually running for office this November engaging in it. They well know that your job is to inspire and energize voters in advance of the election. Obama did too -- when he was running for office himself.
No, this isn't about getting voters to the polls in November. It's about setting up a narrative for who will take the blame for a disastrous election. And once again, the White House doesn't care if they make matters worse in order to deflect responsibility from Obama.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) confirmed Wednesday afternoon that his net neutrality bill was effectively scrapped after Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) declined to support the legislation.Read More......
In a statement, Waxman urged the Federal Communications Commission to reassert its authority to regulate broadband access providers. Doing so would allow the FCC to create its own net neutrality rules -- an effort that was thrown into doubt when a federal court ruled the agency overstepped its authority by sanctioning Comcast for allegedly violating broadband rules.
Waxman said he and his staff had worked with public interest groups, Internet service providers and Web content companies to try to reach an agreement around a bill that all parties could support. Waxman, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said he had also kept Republican members on the committee abreast of his work. He said it was essential to gain Republican support for the bill.
Cyclist Alberto Contador, winner of the 2010 Tour de France, has said he has tested positive for a banned substance.Read More......
Contador's press officer said he had tested positive for clenbuterol during a rest on the Tour in July.
In a statement, the spokesman added that the Spanish rider was the victim of "food contamination" and would hold a news conference later on Thursday.
Cycling's governing body, UCI, later confirmed that Contador had been provisionally suspended.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 69 percent of Americans believe free trade agreements with other countries have cost jobs in the United States, while just 18 percent believe they have created jobs. A 53 percent majority—up from 46 percent three years ago and 30 percent in 1999—believes that trade agreements have hurt the nation overall.Read More......
Moreover, that rising skepticism extends across the political spectrum—a sign that continued trade expansion may be no easier for Republican leaders to promote if they regain control of Congress than it has been for Democrats.
While 65 percent of union members say free trade has hurt the U.S., so do 61 percent of Tea Party sympathizers. Democratic pollster Peter Hart and his Republican counterpart Bill McInturff, who conduct the NBC/WSJ poll, say the greatest shift against free trade has come among relatively affluent Americans, or those earning more than $75,000 a year.
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