Daniel Schulman

Senior Editor

Based in DC, Dan covers politics and national security. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, the Village Voice, the Columbia Journalism Review, and other publications. Email him at dschulman (at) motherjones.com.

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Bonner's Latest Astroturf Admission (Plus More Fake Letters)

—By Daniel Schulman

| Tue Aug. 18, 2009 3:21 PM PDT

Rep. Ed Markey's Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has released a new batch of bogus letters sent to members of Congress by Bonner & Associates, including one the DC-based PR and lobbying firm previously told the committee was genuine but admitted on Monday was also a fake. The letters claim to be from representatives of local senior citizens groups concerned that climate change legislation will drive up energy costs for the elderly in an already "volatile economy."

Founded in 1984 by Jack Bonner, a former GOP Senate aide and Republican National Committee staffer, the company specializes in Astroturf campaigns—efforts to create the illusion of grassroots support around the positions of its corporate clients. The firm accomplishes this by, among other things, convincing citizens, nonprofits, and others to sign letters to lawmakers in support or opposition to various issues.

Bonner's astroturfing techniques are dodgy in their own right, but the company took them to an even shadier level as the climate change bill authored by Markey and Henry Waxman neared a vote in the House. Bonner's role in crafting the phony letters first emerged in July, after the legislation had already passed, when a local paper reported that the firm had sent forged letters to Virginia Democrat Tom Perriello purporting to be from minority groups opposed to the climate change bill. It was later revealed that Bonner, working on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, had targeted two other congressional Democrats, Kathy Dahlkemper and Christopher Carney, with this deceptive campaign. Both of the lawmakers, who represent districts in Pennsylvania, ultimately voted against the Waxman-Markey bill.

Jack Bonner has claimed that the letters were the work of a rogue "temporary employee" whom the firm fired when his or her actions came to light. ACCCE, meanwhile, has expressed "outrage" over the letters, even raising the possibility of taking legal action against Bonner.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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Robert Novak's Heaven

—By Daniel Schulman

| Tue Aug. 18, 2009 9:50 AM PDT

Robert Novak has died at the age of 78, after battling brain cancer for the past year. There are plenty of remembrances of the legendary conservative columnist popping up (see here, here, and here), but Think Progress has unearthed a priceless quote from Novak discussing his vision of the hereafter in 2007: “I’m going to a place where there are no blogs.”

Meet the Birthers

Who are these people, really?

—By Rachel Morris and Daniel Schulman

| Sun Aug. 9, 2009 5:21 PM PDT

Ann Coulter thinks they’re "cranks." Right-wing radio kingpin Michael Medved prefers to call them "nutburgers." Their ranks include a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, a Clinton conspiracy theorist, a habitual presidential candidate, and a professional poker player. They’re convening amateur grand juries and suing the President—not to mention suing each other. Meet the birthers: people who believe, despite truly overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and has illegally usurped the presidency.

Orly Taitz

Born in the former Soviet republic of Moldavia, Taitz is a peroxide-blonde SoCal dentist with a law degree from an online academy and a black belt in Taekwondo. More than anyone else, she has vaulted birthers—their preferred nomenclature is "doubters" or the "eligibility movement"—into the public eye.

In 2008, Taitz helped to bring a lawsuit on behalf of Alan Keyes, disputing the validity of Obama's birth certificate. This year, she hit the headlines again when she filed another lawsuit from an Army reserve major who charged that "Barry Soetoro" was not his lawful commander in chief. Both suits were rejected, prompting Taitz to accost Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Antonin Scalia at public events to demand an investigation into the matter. All of this has won her generous, but not always flattering coverage from television personalities like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and David Shuster, who Taitz has described as "brownshirts."

Recently, Taitz has caused a rift among the birther ranks by circulating a document that she claimed was Obama's Kenyan birth certificate. A federal court threw it out after determining that it was a fake—later it emerged that the document may have been a prank played by an Obama supporter. This fiasco led leading birther Andy Martin to denounce Taitz as an "obvious crackpot."

[Read the full article]

Shocker: Ethics Committee Clears Dodd and Conrad

—By Daniel Schulman

| Fri Aug. 7, 2009 12:40 PM PDT

After a yearlong investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed complaints against Senators Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) for their participation in Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" VIP loan program. (I can't say this is unexpected, since the House and Senate members who sit on the congressional ethics committees aren't exactly known for taking fellow lawmakers to task.) Informing Dodd and Conrad they'd been cleared of wrongdoing, the committee gave the Democratic senators the mildest of rebukes:

While the Committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by Committee rules that your Countrywide mortgages violated Senate ethics rules, the Committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a Senator.

The ethics committee also told the lawmakers that participating in "a program with the name 'VIP' should have raised red flags for you"—a major understatement if you ask me.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Inside the Sausage Factory: Blackwater Edition

—By Daniel Schulman

| Thu Aug. 6, 2009 9:01 AM PDT

McClatchy's Mark Seibel and the News & Observer's Jay Price probably wish their email thread, discussing whether to cover the latest Blackwater allegations, didn't wind up splashed on the front page of Gawker, but I'm kinda glad it did. It offers a peek inside the sausage factory into the very real struggle reporters are having over whether—and how—to cover this story, which seems more like the plot of last season's 24 than a real-life crime drama. We're talking charges that Blackwater founder Erik Prince not only is out on a religious crusade to kill Muslims, but had informants whacked; allegations of child prostitution and gun-running; accusations of a wife-swapping and sex ring run out of the company's Moyock, North Carolina compound. Compared to this, allegations of tax evasion and money laundering seem downright tame.

These accusations were contained in the anonymous declarations of two ex-Blackwater employees, filed in connection with a series of civil suits brought on behalf of Iraqi civilians. These ex-employees say their identities must not be revealed because they fear retribution if their names are made public. But if we don't know who these guys are, we can't parse their motivations for coming forward, or whether they are really in a position to know what they say they do. John Does 1 and 2 say they've learned from former colleagues that "one of more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, about Erik Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances." Yet they provide no details of who these victims were, omitting the most important clues for reporters who want to pursue this wild tale. Frankly, it's tough to know what to believe, which is likely convincing many journos to give this story a wide berth.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]