Scrapbook
Scrapbook Guess Who's Coming to Lunch We understand, especially after the last couple of weeks, that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller Ill's job description includes enduring any number of slings and...
...Correction Last week we wrote that Sen...
...Indeed, it's "almost a throwback...
...Executive Director Richard Karpel explained the reason: "Our goal is to increase editorial diversity at AAN papers...
...And, "it's refreshing to see at least one of this year's applicants doing something that the alternative press built its reputation on...
...McCain says his PAC only raises hard money...
...Evil is happy refusing funds to American clinics overseas that counsel abortion and evil is happy drilling for oil in Alaska...
...For example, we need you to clarify your remark that 'scrupulous respect for civil rights and personal freedom' will be maintained even under this new policy...
...McCain's Soft Spot for Soft Money John McCain, the Arizona Republican, is the world's biggest foe of soft money...
...Well, not always...
...IFS reminds me of a late-19th-century muckraking daily, back when publisher/editors wore their hearts on their sleeves...
...The critiques of the papers that didn't make the cut were posted on the AAN website, and several were rejected for legitimate-sounding reasons: bad writing, poor reporting, a too-cozy relationship between the business and editorial sides of the operation...
...Why...
...Trevor potter, a McCain adviser and ex-FEC commissioner, cited McCain's words to justify double fund-raising accounts for leadership PACs...
...The judges praise the Sun as "interesting," possessing "energy and considerable wit throughout...
...Patrick Leahy had requested of Miguel Estrada, a Bush judicial nominee, copies of all memos Estrada had written for his law firm...
...The request—no less outrageous—was actually for materials Estrada generated when he worked in the solicitor general's office...
...Because soft money corrupts politics...
...They can raise $5,000 each election cycle in hard (or regulated) money from donors and, in a separate account, pick up $5,000 in soft money per donor for use in state or local campaigns...
...But the reason the IFS was rejected is clear: too conservative...
...But he must be even more of a glutton for punishment than we imagined to have agreed to be a luncheon speaker at the American Muslim Council's annual convention on June 28...
...Sounds like maybe Tony wants a job writing editorials for the New York Times...
...The Scrapbook is glad it doesn't run the FBI...
...What an Alternative With some notable exceptions—the New York Press and Boston Phoenix prominent among them—the so-called "alternative weekly" newspapers are most useful when they're crumpled up underneath logs to start a fire...
...Say what...
...The AMC is one of those groups that once upon a time, way back before September 11, expressed sympathy for the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and support for terrorist outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah...
...and evil will sit there, carefully chewing pretzels and fondly flipping through the scrapbook [no relation to this page, as far as we know] reminiscing about the 131 people he executed when he was governor, while his wife reads Dosto-evsky in the corner...
...When it comes to so-called leadership political action committees—McCain's is called Straight Talk America—they are entitled to raise some soft (unregulated) money...
...But the critique that caught The Scrapbook's eye was the rejection of the Independent Florida Sun, a weekly published in the Sunshine state's panhandle...
...No, it's Joe Scarborough, the Republican who was one of the wittier and well-liked denizens of the cable TV circuit before he retired from Congress last year...
...Many of those who work on such papers, however, take themselves very seriously...
...These are PACs run by elected officials that dispense money to other candidates in their party...
...An AMC press release characterized the federal raids in March on several businesses in Northern Virginia suspected of aiding terrorist groups as follows: "National Muslim organizations have described the raids as what appears to be 'a fishing expedition by federal authorities' using 'McCarthy-like tactics' in a search for 'evidence of wrongdoing that does not exist.' Brothers and Sisters this is YOUR community that has been attacked...
...Jerry Falwell...
...It's not that we have a problem with such inspirational lines as "I hope you are aflame with vision, ambition, and hope...
...Right, Dick...
...All the God-and-flag sh— disturbs me...
...The right-wing church columnist has no place in AAN...
...Evil is happy pinching pennies while 40 million people worldwide suffer and perish from AIDS...
...So who is this crazy right-wing publisher...
...And he says Democrats who want their national party to have two accounts, one for hard money, one for soft, are making "an extraordinary leap" from what the new law requires...
...The issue came before the Federal Election Commission last week as it began looking into rules to implement the campaign law enacted after years of effort by McCain...
...It's the tiresome harangue against the Bushes that made us lose it: "Evil is always happy to enter, sit down, abolish the Clean Air Act, and the Kyoto accords, and refuse to participate in the World Court or the ban on landmines...
...We feel that Director Mueller addressing the Muslim community at our convention can serve as a bridge builder— provided there is first a fundamental acknowledgement and protection by the Justice Department of the rights and liberties of Muslim Americans...
...Meanwhile, the AAN board of directors approved a plan to create a foundation to help fund the Academy of Alternative Journalism at Northwestern's prestigious Medill School of Journalism...
...But all has changed since last fall, right...
...So here's the AMC's offer: We will insult you, then you must suck up to us, then we will deign to let you speak to us...
...Axis of Kushner Of all the remarks inflicted on graduating college seniors by their commencement speakers this year, none may be as stomach-churning as these from playwright Tony Kushner at Vassar College on May 26...
...And here is the AMC's June 3 letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft complaining about the new surveillance policies announced by Ashcroft and Mueller to improve the FBI's ability to gather intelligence on terrorists: "The announcement last week by the Justice Department of its new policy permitting blanket government spying on any mosque or Muslim organization, however, has raised issues and questions in our community which we feel you must directly address now...
...Still, the judges recommended against admission: "Generally speaking, Republicans are too constipated to publish alternative papers, which makes this applicant from Florida's Redneck Riviera all the more perplexing...
...Thus, we request an immediate meeting with you to discuss this issue...
...Consider the recent activities of the Association of Alternative News-weeklies, a self-described "diverse group of 121 non-daily free-circulation papers...
...If he says so...
...David Duke...
...There were a few substantive comments, too...
...Nifty, huh...
...When the group held its annual convention last weekend in Madison, Wisconsin, the admissions committee voted to accept just one of the 14 new applicants—giving the group an admissions rate that's more competitive than Yale Law School...
...Come again...
...Scrapbook Guess Who's Coming to Lunch We understand, especially after the last couple of weeks, that FBI Director Robert S. Mueller Ill's job description includes enduring any number of slings and arrows, some more outrageous than others...
...There's some honest journalism here mixed in with a lot of pandering to the military, the religious right, and the Bushes...
...Because McCain said so on the floor of the Senate when campaign finance reform was being debated this spring...
...Now the AMC specializes in maligning federal law enforcement officials...
Vol. 7 • June 2002 • No. 39
