REMOTE CONTROL: How big are the stakes in the so-called network neutrality debate now raging before Congress and federal regulators? Consider this: One side in the debate actually went to the trouble of hiring people off the street to pack a Federal Communications Commission meeting yesterday — and effectively keep some of its opponents out of the room. Broadband giant Comcast — the subject of the F.C.C. hearing on network neutrality at the Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts — acknowledged that it did exactly that. Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said that the company paid some people to arrive early […]
QUESTION THE PARKING AUTHORITY: Inky Finds PPA Worker Comp Claims Are Astonishingly High
INQUIRER: Battling fires and fighting crime is risky work, to be sure, but those jobs have nothing on writing parking tickets. Or so it would seem, if workers’ compensation claims are any indication. Over the last four years, employees at the Philadelphia Parking Authority have reported being hurt on the job more than twice as often as city firefighters or police officers. As a result, the Parking Authority spends far more on settling workplace-injury claims: $1,558 per employee, compared with the firefighters’ average of $1,084 and the Police Department figure of $833, according to an Inquirer analysis of city and […]
NOW HIRING: Party Hacks, Spin Merchants, Fixers, Bagmen, Glad Handers, Knee-Breakers & Hatchet Men
BY DAVE DAVIES OF THE DAILY NEWS When Philadelphia Building Trades leader Pat Gillespie’s home phone rang late Thursday night, he wasn’t prepared for what he heard.”Hello, Pat? This is Barack Obama,” a voice said. “Who the hell is this?” Gillespie responded. But it really was the presidential candidate, phoning the influential labor leader in anticipation of a Building Trades Council endorsement meeting the next day. Obama’s 15-minute chat with Gillespie is just one measure of the fact that the smoldering Pennsylvania campaign efforts of Obama and Hillary Clinton are about to flare to life. Both campaigns will open offices in […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
WHEN ANCHORBABES ATTACK: Alycia Lane Set Free “I just want to say I’m so glad this is over,” said former CBS anchor Alycia Lane, as she left a New York City courthouse this morning. “And I want to thank all of those who supported me and believed in me. And I just look forward to moving on with my life now.” At the hearing (and as we reported would happen) Lane’s attorney David Smith and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Michael Greenman agreed to an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, or ACD. It’s essentially a six-month-long slow dismissal of her case. […]
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: Nader To Fuck It All Up
[Artwork by MILA JOHNSON] POLITICO: Ralph Nader, 74, announced on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’ll run as a third-party, anti-corporate candidate for president this fall, which would be likely to drain votes from the Democratic nominee and provide a huge boon to Republicans. Democrats say they will work behind the scenes — and use court challenges, if necessary — to try to thwart his access to ballots. The longtime consumer activist said on “Meet the Press” that Washington has become “corporate occupied territory” and that none of the current presidential candidates are sufficiently addressing corporate crime, labor rights or […]
WORTH REPEATING: It’s The Incompetence, Stupid!
FRANK RICH: Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work. But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean […]
AZ Campaign Chair Indicted; Lobbyist Denials Disputed
THE NATION: Another GOP congressman has been indicted. This time it’s Rick Renzi [pictured below right, during what looks like a War On Drugs photo-op], indicted by a federal grand jury in Arizona today on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and extortion as part of a multimillion dollar land deal that allegedly improperly benefited Renzi and his business partners. Renzi, who announced his retirement in August, also happens to be a close ally of Senator John McCain. Renzi is a co-chair of McCain’s campaign in Arizona. The Arizona Republic describes the two men as “close.” In June 2006, McCain […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
THIS JUST IN: Milton Street Convicted Of Tax Evasion, But Beats Fraud Rap INQUIRER: The jury in the federal trial of T. Milton Street Sr. rendered its verdict today, convicting him of three counts of tax evasion for failing to file returns in 2002, 2003 and 2004; acquitting him on four counts of mail and wire fraud; and deadlocking on two charges that he filed false returns in 2000 and 2001. Codefendant John H. Velardi Sr. was acquitted on three counts of wire and mail fraud. The jury, which was drawn from nine counties, as far west as Lancaster and […]
HOT DOCUMENT: A Warning From Anonymous
DEAR PHAWKER, Just got back from working (video & sucking dick for dollars) at a hacker’s convention in DC. And Elvis, I’m scared. It was a whole lot less comic-book-guy than I expected. These guys are smart, scary and could speak for hours without me understanding one word. They had video screen captures of sites offering complete identities, credit cards, bank accounts… the “fullz,” at 50 for $20. They laughed at how easy it was to steal a complete identity – they did it live and showed real identities. A lot of Tom Cruise types with strange faraway looks. Theta […]
POTUS: ‘U Can’t Say Dallas Don’t Luv U, Mr. Obama’
STAR-TELEGRAM: DALLAS — Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to […]
NEWS CLUES: ‘Painfully Localized’ Edition
THIS JUST IN: Uncle Miltie Jury Deadlocked, Could Mistrial INQUIRER: The federal jury considering fraud and tax charges against T. Milton Street ended a second full day of deliberations telling the judge they were deadlocked on seven charges. But U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis did not declare a mistrial, telling the 12 jurors he and the defense and government lawyers had decided that “you need to continue discussing the case.” At that point, shortly before 4 p.m., the jury decided to stop deliberations for the day and return tomorrow to resume their review at the federal courthouse in Center […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Trouble With Hillary
THE POLITICO: Hillary Rodham Clinton started the year flush with cash, but by the beginning of this month, she’d blazed through most of it — spending $11 million on ads, $3.8 million on messaging guru Mark Penn and $1,300 at Dunkin’ Donuts, just to name a few expenditures — leaving her campaign woefully unprepared for an extended battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. About $15 million — or more than half of the New York senator’s January spending — went to a cadre of high-priced consultants. Though much of the cash went through the campaign media buyer for ad time, […]
BREAKING: NYT Drops Blonde Bombshell On McCain
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity. When news organizations reported that […]