Salon.com > Adele M. Stan

The Kochs’ very bad week

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Were there a way for a few billion clams to wipe a week off the calendar, one imagines that Charles and David Koch, the multibillionaire principals of Koch Industries, would like to see the final week of March 2012 vaporized, at least in the public mind. For the Kochs, it was a week of bad news: a new documentary about their political activity and corporate negligence was making a splash -- on the same day a story broke announcing an FBI investigation of two Wisconsin groups tied to Americans for Prosperity, the political ground organization they founded and fund. (Full disclosure: AlterNet is a supporter of the documentary, "Koch Brothers Exposed," and I appear in the film.)

The (other) scandal that might sink Cain

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:00:00 +0000

In a hallway outside the ballroom in the National Press Club, a mustachioed man looked ill at ease as he was mobbed by reporters asking questions about sexual harassment allegations made against his boss, GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain, on the Politico Web site the night before.

Mark Block, whose face is now familiar to thousands as the Smoking Man in the Cain campaign's latest video, told reporters that Cain was unaware of any settlements paid to the two women who made the accusations while Cain served as president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, as Politico reported. But the reasons for Block's discomfort likely went beyond Cain's situation to his own. Just hours before Politico burst forth with its explosive accusations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel laid out a case that suggests significant illegal campaign activity on Cain's behalf by a nonprofit organization, Prosperity USA (also known as America's Prosperity Network), controlled by Block and linked to David Koch's Americans for Prosperity. As AlterNet has reported, Block, the former director of AFP's Wisconsin chapter, has long been known for playing dirty in politics.

License to kill?

Thu, 18 Jan 2001 23:18:00 +0000

The campaign for Sen. John Ashcroft's seat in the U.S. Senate probably began in earnest after the late Mel Carnahan, Missouri's Democratic governor and Ashcroft's would-be opponent, vetoed a controversial bill known as the Infant's Protection Act. Proponents touted the act as a ban on late-term, or so-called "partial-birth," abortions, and from his bully pulpit on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Ashcroft made hay off his rival's veto.

During an October 1999 speech in support of the Partial Birth Abortion Act, which he co-sponsored with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., Ashcroft said: "Tragically, the Missouri partial birth infanticide bill was vetoed despite its overwhelming passage by the bipartisan Missouri General Assembly." This had followed a previous statement Ashcroft issued in April 1999, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, calling on Carnahan to "sign this important bill." Later, during his failed campaign against the late Carnahan (whose widow, Jean, has taken his Senate seat after he was killed in a fatal air crash in October), Ashcroft launched a radio ad that attacked the governor, saying he had "vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortions."

Inside the Republican pro-choice coalition

Sat, 29 Jul 2000 21:51:00 +0000

As the delegates to the Republican Platform Committee strode into the Pennsylvania Convention Center yesterday for the party's quadrennial assessment of its mission, they found themselves greeted at the door by the welcoming committee of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition (RPCC). Politely applauding the approach of each delegate, the ladies cried out, "Yay, delegates! Help us out!" With one of the group's signature yellow T-shirts pulled over her smart black outfit, Carole Harper, president of the Morris County (N.J.) Republican Women's Club, held open the door for Chuck Cunningham, former field director of the Christian Coalition and current director of federal affairs for the National Rifle Association, all the while beaming a gracious smile.

Within moments, Dina Merrill, the actress and heiress who sits on the RPCC board, emerged from the building, evicted on account of the yellow T-shirt she flaunted under her trim, unbuttoned purple blazer. No yellow T-shirts in the hall, she had been told. Merrill had entered the building with Susan Cullman, the group's co-chairwoman, and fellow board member Jennifer Blei Stockman, who had both declined to mar the understated palette of their tailored suits with the offending garment. They made it as far as the lobby before being turned around. When a police officer told them to move across the street, the pro-choicers politely moved on, with no choice words conferred upon the cop.

Abortion battle

Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:38:00 +0000

"Just once I'd like to see a ticket that I could be excited about," said Susan Cullman, national co-chair of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition. Settled in front of the television in a hotel suite, surrounded by her troops, Cullman had just watched George W. Bush debut Dick Cheney as the Republican vice presidential candidate -- the very same Dick Cheney who, as a six-term congressman from Wyoming, boasted one of the most stalwart anti-abortion records on Capitol Hill.

For Cullman and the rest of the coalition, Bush's decision to tap Cheney served as the disappointing end to a running mate search after he publicly elevated a number of pro-choice candidates, including Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and New York Gov. George Pataki.

"[Cheney] even voted for a bill that would have defined a fetus as a person from the moment of conception!" said Lynn Grefe, the group's national director, from one corner of the pink couch she shared with Cullman.

"From conception!" Cullman exclaimed. "That's not even a fetus. Isn't that a zygote?"

The return of Miriam Makeba

Mon, 15 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

South African singing legend Miriam Makeba first came to the U.S. in 1959 for a gig at the Village Vanguard, then New York's hippest jazz spot. Soon she was the toast of the town, attracting Miles Davis, Sidney Poitier and even Elizabeth Taylor and Bing Crosby to her shows.

In 1960, as her mother lay dying, Makeba applied for a visa to return home for a visit, and was denied -- as she would be until the end of apartheid. In its clumsy attempt to marginalize the indefatigable singer, the white South African government inadvertently granted Makeba a three-decade run as black South Africa's de facto ambassador to the Western world, where she acquired the appellation "Mama Africa."

Under the tutelage of Harry Belafonte, Makeba pleaded the case of her people to audiences across America during the height of this nation's civil rights struggle. In 1962, she performed at President Kennedy's famous birthday party in Madison Square Garden (also on the bill that night: Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday"). By 1967, she had a top-selling song on the Billboard singles charts; today that infectious dance tune, "Pata Pata," has found new life in commercials, and has been re-recorded for her new CD.