Blackwater Founder Erik Prince gave $10,000 to back Green Party Romanelli

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.attytood.com%2F2006%2F10%2Firaq_mercenaries_supporting_po.html

You may have heard of Blackwater USA. They're the shadowy, Virginia-based soldier-for-hire company with roots in the U.S. military intelligence community. It has reaped untold millions in Pentagon and Homeland Security contracts since the advent of the Bush administration, from the fires of Fallujah to the floodwaters of New Orleans.

Simply put, Blackwater USA is not the kind of company you'd expect to get behind the Green Party, with its far-left platform that ostensibly seeks to pull the United States out of Iraq and end the type of military actions that have proved to be such a good source of new business for the mercenary industry.

Yet, new Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by Attytood (thanks to blogger Bernie O'Hare for the initial tip) showed that that founder and owner of Blackwater USA, Erik Prince, and his wife donated $10,000 -- the legal maximum -- on July 21 to the once obscure Green Party of Luzerne County, the group that apparently spent well over $100,000 in a now all-but-failed bid to get its U.S. Senate candidate, Carl Romanelli, onto the November ballot.

Last summer, Attytood and other sites like TPMMuckraker told you how all of the initial $66,000 raised by the Scranton-area branch of the "ultra-liberal" party in fact came from GOP and far-right sources, including California's leading pro-life activist -- the Green Party is supposed to be rabidly pro-choice -- and a lobbyist for a division of Halliburton and Chevron. Many of those conservatives had also given money to Sen. Rick Santorum, who would actuallly benefit from the Green Party candidate because it would siphon liberal Democrats put off by the socially conservative views of their party's nominee Bob Casey.

The new records show that the $66,000 was the smaller portion of the iceberg. In the three-month quarterly period that ended on Oct. 15 (Sunday), the Green Party took in another $90,899 in new money, most of which went to the party's efforts to get on the ballot. Again, it appears that most of the money came from GOP or conservative donors with some ties to Santorum.

Bob Guzzardi, the one-time 12th Street Gym owner here in Philly whose fervid backing of Santorum touched off a firestorm of criticism among his heavily

[orleans]

1. doing their best to split the way our party will vote? n/t

[Richard Steele]

2. Since there is no other possible reason, then YES. Yes they are. nm

[bluedogyellowdog]

3. No surprise

There are more dirty tricks elsewhere in the country too.

In NY-26, Christine Murphy, the Green candidate who was thrown off the ballot for lack of valid signatures, who could potentially have thrown the race to the Foley-enabling Tom Reynolds, it turns out was not even a member of the Green Party. Nobody in the NY state greens even knows who she is. By all appearances she was a stealth candidate put up and entirely funded by the Republicans. Good thing she's off the ballot.

And I'd like to know more about who the mysterious "Independent Green Party of Virginia" is who is running candidates in most of the VA congressional races, and the U.S. Senate race. The national Green party disavows them. They appear to be entirely the creation of two people, and where's their funding coming from? Somebody needs to look into who these clowns are and who is really behind them, 'cause if you look at the polls in the Senate race Webb is within 2 points of Allen but "IndyGreen" Gail Parker is pulling 2%. She could very well cost us the election.