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Insider Report: Charge: Bush Stole Mexican Election Special From NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
Is it Florida redux? It's not clear whether the Mexican election, now certifying Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN), will turn into a crisis like America witnessed in Florida after the 2000 election. Already the two elections have one thing in common: left-wingers are claiming George Bush stole the election. And yes, that includes the Mexican election. Three days before Mexicans went to the polls, London-based journalist and blogger Greg Palast, an American, wrote, "George Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections."
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Then on July 3, in an article titled "Grand Theft Mexico" that appeared on guardian.co.uk, Palast wrote this: "As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is too close to call. But they will call it – after they steal it." Palast says that the FBI, acting under the guise of counter-terrorism, had obtained Mexico's voter files through a contract with information broker ChoicePoint, the database company whose list Jeb Bush used in 2000 to "scrub" voters from voter rolls. "The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency," declares Palast. ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Ga., says that it returned or destroyed its Mexican files when it learned that collecting voter information violated Mexican law. Says Palast: "It's impossible to know whether the FBI destroyed its own copy…or whether these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy."
No matter, the word is out, Bush "Floridized" the Mexican election.
2. Canadian Premiere: Al Gore's Hot Air Al Gore is in for the cold shoulder should he ever pay a visit to the oil and gas rich Canadian province of Alberta. "I don't listen to Al Gore in particular because he's a Democrat, and not only that, he's about as far left as you can go," says Ralph Klein, the province's Conservative premier. He was reacting to Gore's comments in Rolling Stone that processing oil sands is a huge waste of energy that also harms the landscape of Western Canada. "For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a home for four days…It's truly nuts. But you know, junkies find veins in their toes. It seems reasonable to them because they've lost sight of the rest of their lives." Gore's remarks had Klein, who recently returned from a trip to Washington to promote Alberta's oil and gas industry, seeing red. "I don't know what he proposes the world to run on," the premier retorted. Maybe hot air."
3. Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer Plot 2006 Strategy How well Democrats do in November's congressional races may depend on the political shrewdness of two liberal stalwarts: Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel and New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer. They have personally targeted vulnerable Republicans and recruited candidates. For example, Emanuel persuaded retired NFL quarterback Heath Shuler to challenge eight-term Republican incumbent Charles Taylor in North Carolina's 11th Congressional District, while Schumer was instrumental in recruiting former Republican James H. Webb in Virginia to take on Sen. George Allen. The New Yorker also intervened to block a primary challenge from Pennsylvania liberals opposed to the candidacy of Robert P. Casey Jr., a pro-life Democrat who is considered the party's best candidate to defeat Sen. Rick Santorum. "I want to win," Schumer told the LA Times. "Democrats are tired of losing." Emanuel and Schumer are also shaping media messages and choosing campaign staffers for dozens of races all across America. "They do this 24/7 at 100 percent velocity every day. This is the focus we need," says Democrat insider Steve Elmendorf, former top aide to ex- House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo). They may have taken pages taken from former House Speaker New Gingrich's 1994 playbook, when he led the GOP to majorities in both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. But Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, are no slouches when it comes to retail politics. Emanuel cut his political teeth working for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and was a senior aide to Bill Clinton. Schumer is a relentless fundraiser and tireless media hound whose talent for molding winning campaign themes and putting together first-rate political organizations helped him topple three-term Republican Sen. Alphonse D'Amato in 1998.
4. Anschutz Meeting Causes Waves in Britain A visit to billionaire Philip Anschutz's Colorado ranch by Britain's embattled Deputy Prime Minister is adding fuel to the scandal fires that are burning in the UK and could lead to the collapse of Tony Blair's Labor government. Even in Britain politics makes strange bedfellows. Anschutz is a stalwart conservative Republican who lately has been backing family friendly Hollywood films like "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Ray." The left-leaning John Prescott, Blair's deputy, was already under fire for cheating on his wife with his secretary. Now he's under investigation for the secret visit last July which is being probed as a possible conflict of interest. That's because Anschutz, who runs a wide-ranging empire in telecommunications, sports, and entertainment, is the owner of London's landmark Millennium Dome which he wants to turn into a mega casino.
"Having considered the matter, [the commissioner] thinks there is probably enough substance in the allegation to warrant further investigation," a spokesman for Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, told Reuters. Conservatives, who are smelling blood, and disgruntled Labor Party members are calling on Blair, who vowed that Labor would be "whiter than white" when it came to power in 1997, to sack Prescott. But insiders say that dismissing the deputy prime minister, who has close ties to Labor's extreme left wing, could ultimately bring down Tony Blair's government.
5. Bloomberg Still Looking at 2008 NewsMax and Insider Report gave you the early warning first: Republican New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is seriously pondering an Independent bid for the White House in 2008. While the major media have been focused on ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been busy crisscrossing the country trying to drum up support for a run at the White House, Michael Bloomberg, his successor, has also been sounding a lot like a candidate. At a recent Greenwich Village fundraiser for Congressman Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), Bloomberg was asked about an'08 run, to which he replied, "Absolutely not." Then he added, "And anybody who's running will say exactly that." According to the New Republic, New York public relations "eminence" Howard Rubenstein related that Bloomberg priced out an Oval Office run at a dinner party in April: "I could easily put up half a billion," the mayor said. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has been staking out positions on national issues – stem cell research (he's for it), immigration reform (he favors the Senate bill which offers illegal immigrants a road to citizenship), and global warming (he believes it's a threat). Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, told the New York Times that Bloomberg had been building on the political legacy of moderate New York Republicans like Nelson A. Rockefeller and Jacob K. Javits. "It's hard-headed, but liberal on social issues and fiscally responsible," said Mr. Wittmann, who has worked for Senator John McCain. If Bloomberg runs, it will likely be welcome news to Republicans. GOP strategists tell NewsMax he would likely pull liberal voters from the Democratic column to his line, much like Congressman John Anderson did when he ran in 1980 against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Whether Bloomberg throws his hat into the ring remains to be seen, but it seems that the job of New York mayor, once a political graveyard, may no longer the end of the road.
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