By Lyle Hickman, VoterWatch Staff

The last time Alaska was mentioned in our Transparency Recap, Senators Ted Stevens and John Cowerdy were named, being brought up on alleged charges of corruption with connections to VECO oils. This time, the CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) blog titled, "Sarah Palin Ran 527, which raised corporate money, for Ted Stevens," directs our attention back to Alaska.

By Lyle Hickman and Billy Hallowell, VoterWatch Staff

Today's Transparency Recap starts way up north with our coldest state, Alaska. According to Talking Points Memo's, Republican Senator Ted Stevens was "arraigned last week on seven counts of false statements". After a federal indictment, without stagnation, Stevens regrouped and organized a rally. According to Talking Points Memo: 

By Eric Margulies, VoterWatch Staff

This week’s edition of the Transparency Recap commences with the
implementation of a major step in the arena of governmental transparency. On
August 1^st, The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of
2007 saw its first act of realization take place as information pertaining
to lawmakers’ assets, liabilities and lobby-related-expenditures and gifts were
posted on the House Clerk’s website.

However, a quick perusal of the disclosure database proves slow and somewhat
difficult to navigate given its complex interface. In addition, the files can
only be viewed in .PDF format meaning that for many who are without the software
required to open .PDF files, the information is lost. Dan Auble at the Capital
Eye Blog writes about the current flaws with the system of disclosure and how
the Center for Responsive Politics is already seeking to remedy them:

From one of citizenJoe's readers. Thought it was posting for all to see:

I'm sitting at a small used car dealership in North Carolina and it probably seems as far distant from the hustle and bustle of financial markets and Washington D.C. as one could get. Good! It is my personal belief that we have heard every story, from nearly every angle, every perspective and every political point of view out there until we quite frankly have had our fill. What about real people, real life, and actual experience to at least get a distant glance of real world life for the "common Joe?" I know that the polls and reviews are out there trying to do just that, but really now, how much can we really glean from them?

Here then, my current wonderings and comments. Today I am amazed by the young couple that just left my office. Here are there top three questions they asked that left my head aching:

#1 If we don't make our payments you're saying the bank can take our car?

#2 If we are late on our payments does it count against us?

#3 Nobody cares if we pay those credit cards do they?

There has been a lot of recent concern about private contracting in Iraq; I have commented on it myself. While browsing the New York Times site a few days ago, I came across more, and not entirely what I was expecting. I don't know about you, but when I think about private contracting, I think of security agencies like Blackwater USA. But no: the subject of scrutiny is this time electrical contractors.

According to this article, there have been, "... at least 283 electrical fires [that] destroyed or damaged American military facilities," and this is just in the past six months; back in 2006, a fire at a base close to Tikrit resulted in the deaths of two soldiers. Soldiers have a lot to fear if they go to Iraq - they should have to worry about electrical outlets.

This week’s Transparency Recap opens with a Corruption Chronicles blog entry entitled “‘Nonpartisan’ La Raza Council Endorses Obama.” The National Council of La Raza was founded in 1968 in Washington D.C. as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. While the organization touts nonpartisan status, Judicial Watch (via its blog, the Corruption Chronicles) is charging partisan support for the presumed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. According to Corruption Chronicles:

“...La Raza President Janet Murguia stood by as Los Angeles’ renowned Chicano mayor (Antonio Villaraigosa) praised the Illinois senator during the group’s annual convention in San Diego. A former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman, Villaraigosa assured the crowd of thousands that Obama is Latinos’ best hope for reforming the nation’s federal immigration policies.”

With the New Yorker's website crashing under the rage of liberals apopleptic over its current cover (for the two readers who haven't heard: Michelle and Barack dressed in Muslim terrorist garb), many Democrats and other Obama supporters will want to talk about how offensive the New Yorker is being - but rather than harping on its insensitivity, liberals should focus on the New Yorker's flat out half-brained idiocy.

The cover may be offensive, but saying so is not in the liberal tradition, which encourages freedom of expression, even - or especially - in the form of political satire.

What liberals are probably intuiting - if not saying outright - is that the cover is just plain stupid - that is, if the New Yorker has any desire to see Obama elected president, which presumably it does.

Any Republican strategist - and a growing number of Democratic political consultants - will tell you two things about campaigns: fear makes voters vote conservative and nothing evokes fear more than a picture (no matter what clever commentary it comes with).*

If you think Wall Street knows how to bet on the future (and you'd have good reason this year to think not), you might be curious to see where it's putting its money in the current election cycle.

Open Secrets keeps track of how much candidates and their parties pull in from different industries each year (from individuals working in those industries, industry "PACs" that bundle money and - before 2002 - corporate and union "soft money"). Some industries are historically wedded to one party - lawyers love Dems and the oil industry can't get enough of Republicans - but Wall Street, it turns out, tends to vote for the winners.

Smart that; while it's good to keep in the good graces of all politicians and it is wise to get "your guys" in office, smartest yet is to always have the winners like you just a little more.

Kevin Martin, the FCC Chairman who I have the smallest of crushes on - no, not because of his boyish good looks (which don't hurt), but because of his ability to partially satisfy and disatisfy the left and right at all times (the sign of a true moderate) - has done it again: proposed a lukewarm intervention that has no one thrilled or particularly upset.

He's going after Comcast, one of the internet's "pipelines," for intentionally slowing down customers from sharing mega-digital files - but with no guns ablaring (he's not proposing a fine). It looks like Comcast even knows that it did a no-no and has already pretty much caved.

Martin's cautious approach gives hope to "net neutrality" folk who think the web should remain an open highway - with users and providers freely exchanging digital bits without any interference of tolls or priviliged "fast lanes." 

As those readers who hastled cJ to annotate our "hey, it's your democracy too" line (see above right) will probably know, our founding fathers never had it in mind to turn the US into a democracy.

Indeed, the idea kind of scared them. Among the problems with pure democracy, "tyranny of the majority" - where 51% of us could vote to take away the rights of 49% of us or just generally drive the nation into a ditch - ranked high. Yet, today it's almost a default belief that "the more democracy the better."

Rick Shenkman, author of the at times lambasting but mostly just fun "Just How Stupid Are We?", tries to remind us that more democracy is not necessarily a good thing - especially when its people are easily taken in by political soundbytes and theatrics.

Telling "The People" that they're not smart enough to run the country (which, with the power of polling, we kind of do today) should be unpopular, but Shenkman's book is 19th on Amazon's political books' list, which suggests that some of us are willing to take a bracing look at our own ignorance.