WASHINGTON -- Experts on Pakistan doubt that a U.S. plan to triple aid to the country will help domestic conditions, and are extremely concerned the money could be spent on unauthorized pursuits like strengthening defenses against India---perhaps even winding up in the hands of American enemies--rather than helping the U.S. win the war on terror.

President Obama recently signed the "Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan" Act, which gives Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid a year over the next five years.  Lawmakers say they hope the $7.5 billion in funding will reduce anti-American sentiment and help bring stability to the region. The money is supposed to go toward Pakistan's social and economic development, funding things like schools, roads and water purification, but Pakistan could ultimately also receive military aid from the legislation.

The measure, however, comes on the heels of media and academic reports that the U.S. has been unable to account for how Pakistan has spent the vast majority of recent military aid funding.

Harvard scholar Azeem Ibrahim notes in his academic report entitled "How America is Funding Corruption in Pakistan" that the Army spent most U.S. aid money "on types of military equipment that are practically useless against terrorists."

"It bought an air defense radar system costing $200 million, for example, even though the terrorists in the frontier region have no air capability," Ibrahim pointed out in his study. "The military bought F-16 fighter jets, aircraft-mounted armaments, and anti-ship defense systems. And the U.S. Department of Defense signed off on it."

Ibrahim concludes that "U.S. taxpayers have funded Pakistani corruption and undermined the fight against terrorism and militancy."

The Associated Press reported in early October that only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid intended for the military given to the country between 2002 and 2008 actually made it to the Pakistani military.

The article noted that Pervez Musharraf served as both chief of staff and president of Pakistan during the time the aid was misused,  "making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies."

Musharraf himself suggested in a mid-September televised interview that he may have violated the terms of earlier U.S. aid deals because he believes it is not possible for the country to separate arms funded by the U.S. to assist in the war on terror from other weapons it may have purchased to defend itself from India.

"There is nothing like equipment having been given to us which will only be used against Taliban," Musharraf said. "This is not a physical possibility, we are not organized that way. The units and the regiments will carry that equipment wherever they go, whether it is on the western front or the eastern front. And as far as Pakistan is concerned, when our security is threatened, whether it is from Taliban we will use it against them, and if it is from the East, from India, we will certainly use all our equipment, all our resources--whatever the source--against that threat."

Even with Musharraf out of power, experts do not think the U.S. has any means of evaluating how Pakistan will spend the billions of dollars in aid.

"They'll do it again. They've cheated us before and now they're asking for a higher price," Boston University Professor Thomas Barfield told Raw Story. "This money is supposed to go to help people of Pakistan, but we have no way of tracking that and even if they do get it, they never say its from us so it doesn't win us a lot of friends. It's an awful lot of money but we've given Pakistan an awful lot of money before and the track record has not been very good."

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Professor Christine Fair agreed.

"We have no way of knowing what they will use the money for," Fair told Raw Story. "There is no transparency in Pakistan's budget, especially on nuclear issues. That has been the ongoing saga for years. I don't know how we would have any visibility or means of accounting for how that money is spent."

Although the bill prevents Pakistan from using either the aid money, or money saved because of US funding, to bolster Pakistan's nuclear program, presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar has dodged media questions about those terms of the agreement.

The Dawn, a major English language newspaper in Pakistan, quoted Babar as saying about the nuclear conditions: "We will cross the bridge when we come to it."

Former New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer,who spent years covering the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, said in a phone interview with Raw Story that even if the U.S. dollars themselves aren't used to bolster nuclear programs or aid American enemies, the dramatic increase in assistance gives Pakistan more space in its own budget to spend money on potentially controversial items.

"Any time you give a country aid for one purpose, you are freeing its money to be used for another purpose," Kinzer told Raw Story. "It would be foolish for us not to believe that Pakistan will ask for all the aid it can from the US to do whatever we want it to do, and then use whatever money it can raise on its own to do what it wants to do, and one of those things is funding its nuclear program."

But U.S. lawmakers continue to champion the bill as "landmark legislation."

Andy Fisher, spokesman for Indiana Republican Sen. Dick Lugar who co-sponsored the measure in the Senate with Sen. John Kerry, told Raw Story that Lugar is not concerned about misuse of funding in the aid bill.

"There are substantial oversight provisions that actually kept getting strengthened over the past 1.5 years," Fisher said. "In fact the bill has been criticized as being too restrictive and having too much oversight by some people in Pakistan."

Kerry's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Raw Story over the past month.

Even as experts and Indian officials express concerns over the aid bill, Pakistani officials have called the $7.5 billion in American aid "peanuts" and people throughout the country have said it amounts to U.S. intervention into Pakistan's affairs.

Pakistan could also eventually receive money for military assistance from the legislation, if they pass reviews on whether Pakistan is helping fight terrorism and cease the spread of nuclear weapons first. The measure is full of waivers, however, that allow the U.S. Secretary of State to exempt Pakistan from some of the conditions. Some Pakistani publications have mentioned "the bill is far less prescriptive and stringent in its language than the original version" and "the language related to nuclear proliferation is markedly toned down," as American lawmakers struggled to make the package palatable to Pakistani officials.

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Professor Christine Fair noted the aid conditions are so lax it doesn't even spell out how Pakistan will be judged on whether it is helping to fight terrorism and cease nuclear proliferation before the country can get access to military funding,

"There's no metric of what satisfactory progress may be," Fair said during an interview with Raw Story. "Basically the secretary of state just has to say it's fine."

Lugar's spokesman maintains the measure is vital to the future of relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.

"The stability of Pakistan is extraordinarily important in terms of the region and U.S. security in terms of trying to reduce the possibility of terrorist elements to recruit people and continue to operate in Pakistan and on the Afghan/Pakistan border," Fisher said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "The view we heard in the hearings over the past few years is the investment in trying to develop civil institutions in Pakistan is far cheaper than military operations in Afghanistan or elsewhere that are essentially trying to get at the same goals of stability."

In early October, though, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials still have serious concerns about the Taliban's presence in Pakistan. The article noted that fundraising and recruitment posters had appeared on walls across Quetta "asking people to contribute their money, vehicles and son to 'fight against occupying forces' across the border in Afghanistan."

Bill Roggio, the managing editor of The Long War Journal, says reports exist that at times Pakistan has "paid off the Taliban."

"Sometimes those reports said the money came directly from US funds that were allocated to help in the war on terror," Roggio told Raw Story. "But, it doesn't really matter. If Pakistan is paying the Taliban to do or not do something, then in some way the aid money is directly going to our enemies."

Sanjay Puri, executive director of the U.S. Indian Political Action Committee, said he supports help for domestic needs in Pakistan but has similar concerns about the lack of accountability for how the country's leaders spend U.S. taxpayer dollars.

"If there is no accountability, there is no transparency, and money has a way to going to wherever the most powerful ideology is in Pakistan," Sanjay Puri told Raw Story. "There are people in the Army or [military intelligence agency] who have an ideological sympathy towards activities of the Taliban and extremists. It is a very thin line in Pakistan at this point."

A Fox News host is scheduled to make several appearances next week at events and forums where he will "discuss the dangers of government-forced health care," alongside the head of the anti-tax and anti-health care reform group Americans for Prosperity.

John Stossel, a former co-anchor of ABC's 20/20, is hosting a new show on the Fox Business Network called "Stossel," which is described as featuring "in-depth reports on domestic and international libertarian issues" like civil liberties, the business of health care and Social Security.

The network refers to Stossel as a journalist on its website---in fact, "one of the most talented and thought-provoking journalists in the field."

But some, like The Plum Line's Greg Sargent, wonder whether the network that "is embroiled in a high-profile battle with the White House over its legitimacy as a news outlet" should be allowing "one of its proudly touted journalists to participate in an event decrying Obama’s health care reform proposals as 'government-forced health care.'”

Fox has been under attack for its alleged "fair and balanced" coverage since White House Communications director Anita Dunn recently said Fox operates as a "wing of the Republican Party."

Dunn's views were reinforced last weekend by several top Obama advisers, including David Axelrod who told ABC's "This Week" that “it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news. It's pushing a point of view."

Stossel's appearance at anti-health care reform rallies, some blogs argue, undermines the arguments of people like Tucker Carlson, a Fox News Contributor,  who penned an item for The Daily Beast Friday saying "the Obama people aren’t at war with Fox because it’s conservative."

"They’re angry because Fox has embarrassed them," Carlson writes. "Its correspondents ask hard questions."

Stossel will join Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips and Peggy Venable, the group's Texas president, as well as Canadian small business owner Shawn Danko in Arkansas town hall events scheduled for Texarkana, Little Rock, and Jonesboro next Thursday.

Fox spokespeople did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment.

If your idea of fun is trying to save America from the ills of President Obama and "pro-Obama forces," then there's a new computer game for you.

The multi-player online game "2011: Obama's Coup Fails," is set in a time where Obama is trying to toss out the Constitution, ban guns and merge the U.S. with Canada and Mexico into a "North American Union." (See image right; click to view larger version.)

The game creators, which include 40-year-old Brooklyn resident Michael Russotto, tell Mother Jones magazine they're not trying to capitalize on "anti-Obama paranoia," but rather get "the most publicity."

In this virtual world, the magazine notes that players can also add to their fun by making up news headlines about events like Michelle Malkin writing the Second Declaration of Independence or Hillary Clinton using children to shield herself from attacks.

Russotto told the magazine, "There's a lot going on with Fox, the White House, and we wanted to capitalize on that."

In the game's premise, the GOP is about to regain control of both houses of Congress, but Obama decides he will not swear in the new members of Congress, he'd rather have a North American Union instead and ban firearms. And the revolutionaries(or online players) are fed up and attempting to regain control---even though a few counties are now in the hands of groups like the "Cong" aka former Democratic Congressional leaders and the Federal Reserve.

Fox News has been shut down, Glenn Beck has been found dead of a suspicious aspirin overdose and the contestants are challenged to join the patriots, capture Obama and defeat his troops and the 'Cong,'  in this imaginary online world.

The creators' website www.usofearth.com describes the virtual revolution as "an action packed, satire-filled war game that takes place in the not-so-distant future, " i.e. just after November 2010 elections. The game creators, which Mother Jones reporter David Corn refers to as "Ron Paul-loving libertarians," say they're less-interested in partisan views than getting attention and they're working up a new game that will appeal to the left called "Ambush Bush."

However, promotional information on the website reads "It does seem our biggest enemies are not from outside our borders. ..Reality is far more scary and ominous than fiction. Obama is putting real Marxists into power all over America and you can listen to these people in their own words. Be Afraid America. Freedom hangs in the balance."

A blog that appears on the site features updates on today's news, including a Thursday post entitled "When is a Nazi comparison not Out of Bounds?" It explains "White House interim communications director Anita Dunn is desperately trying to avoid the fate of her historical doppelganger sister in arms, Leni Riefenstahl," a Nazi propagandist.

Russotto says thousands of people have signed up to play the game already.

A retired General who served more than 30 years in the U.S. Army and helped train Iraq's military between 2003 and 2004 called former Vice President Dick Cheney an "incompetent war fighter."

National Security Network Senior Adviser and Retired General Paul Eaton made the comments after Cheney criticized Obama in a Wednesday night speech for "dithering" about whether to substantially increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Obama has been under pressure from his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to add as many as 40,000 to 60,000 U.S. troops on the ground.

"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters," Eaton said in a statement released Thursday. "They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it.  2.  Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11."

Cheney's criticisms of Obama came during his Wednesday night acceptance speech for the Center for Security Policy's "Keeper of the Flame" award.

“President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” the former vice president said of the current administration's approach to Afghanistan.

Eaton rejected those comments, adding that "the only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes."

Eaton said he appreciates the "profound deliberations" that Obama and military commanders are having about Afhgan war strategy, and would "dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics" into those discussions.

Rachel Maddow is joined by Ret. Major General Paul Eaton to discuss why former Vice President Dick Cheney is the last person anyone should listen to about successful prosecution of war and productive foreign policy.

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Oct. 22, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

At least two rock stars whose songs have been reportedly used to torture Guantanamo Bay detainees are demanding the federal government release details of the use of music by the U.S. government during interrogations of prisoners.

The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo is working with musicians in their latest effort to drum up public support for Congress to close U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine are both putting their names to Freedom of Information Act requests to be submitted Thursday that demand the government come clean about how music was used to potentially torture suspected terrorists. The music of both Reznor's and Morello's bands have been linked to alleged detainee torture in the past, and both musicians are now hoping their effort to declassify the information will push Congress to close U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured -- from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts -- playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums," said Morello. "Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me -- we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."

The Associated Press notes that a November 2008 report by the Senate Armed Services Committee into the treatment of detainees in U.S. custory  "makes several references to the use of loud music as an interrogation tool."

"At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture," Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, an independent research institute that will officially file the FOIA request, told the Associated Press.

Blanton's group says that according to already public documents and interviews with former detainees, the playlist for potential torture included cuts from AC/DC, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, Marilyn Manson. They also say a cat food jingle, the Barney theme song and an assortment of Sesame Street tunes were played in detainee cells.

A spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo told the AP that the U.S. has not used loud music on detainees since the fall of 2003.

The Freedom of Information Act request is seeking "all documents, including but not limited to intelligence reports, briefings, transcripts, talking points, meeting minutes, memoranda, cables, audio/visual recordings and emails produced by the Central Intelligence Agency concerning the use of loud music as a technique to interrogate detainees at U.S.-operated prison facilities at Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan during 2002-the present."

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports the hip-hop band The Roots is also signing onto the request.

"When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people -- we were angry. Just as we wouldn't be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure, we wouldn't allow him to use it to torture other human beings. Congress needs to shut Guantanamo down," the statement from The Roots said.

Staffers working for a Republican vying for a New York Congressional seat called the police to a parking lot where a reporter for the conservative publication The Weekly Standard had been trying to get her to answer questions about her support for union card-check legislation and various health care reform proposals.

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate in a November 3rd special election to represent New York's 23rd congressional district, ran into Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack after a campaign dinner at a local Elks Lodge.

McCormack said he wanted to get clarification on Scozzafava's stance on union card check legislation.  In his own report of the event, after he asked New York Assemblywoman Scozzafava whether she supports the Employee Free Choice Act (she said she does) "someone from her campaign placed himself between" the candidate and the reporter.

The staffer told McCormack he should direct all inquires to the campaign's spokesman, but the reporter continued to ask the candidate other questions, including whether she would oppose any health care bill that raises taxes (she responded "What kind of taxes?"). McCormack says he spotted Scozzafava walking to the parking lot and he continued questioning her, this time asking whether health care reform legislation should exclude coverage for abortions (she didn't answer).

Scozzafava got in her car and McCormack got in his own car---only to be approached by a police officer minutes later.

"Officer Grolman informed me that she was called because "there was a little bit of an uncomfortable situation" and then took down my name, date of birth, and address." McCormack said, adding that the police officer told him "Maybe we do things a little differently here, but you know, persistence in that area, you scared the candidate a little bit."

According to McCormack, Officer Grolman said the candidate "got startled, that's all" but told him "It's not like you're in any trouble."

Matt Burns, spokeswoman for Scozzafava, told Politico whether you agree with the candidate or not "she should still be afforded a basic level of respect. Reporters asking tough questions is expected and welcomed, but acting like John McCormack did last night shows a complete lack of decency.”

“This self-described reporter repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style) while our candidate was doing what she is supposed to be doing: speaking with voters," Burns said. "And then he followed the candidate to her car, continuing to carry on in a manner that would make the National Enquirer blush. I have no doubt he intended to follow her home, too. His actions were reprehensible. Those are the facts.”

Scozzafava is a moderate Republican running against Democratic nominee Bill Owens and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.

The head of South Carolina's Republican Party will not ask two county GOP leaders to resign after authoring a newspaper editorial that praises Sen. Jim DeMint for being like a "Jew" who is "watching our nation's pennies."

The letter appeared in Sunday's edition of the South Carolina newspaper The Times and Democrat, and was authored by James S. Ulmer Jr., who chairs the Orangeburg County GOP, and Edwin O. Merwin Jr., who chairs the Bamberg County GOP.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," they wrote. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

Both Ulmer and Merwin have issued statements of apology.

According to South Carolina newspaper The State, Ulmer said in an e-mail he was repeating something he'd "... heard many times in my life, truly in admiration for a method of bettering one's lot in life. I admit that perception is indeed reality to many and that I could have certainly worded that sentence much better. I sincerely apologize for this great error.

He added that he "meant absolutely nothing derogatory by the reference to a great and honorable people."

Merwin's statement said he wished "to deeply apologize for any material included in that letter that would be considered anti-Semitic in any way.”  He said he has "always abhorred in the past, and shall continue to do so in the future, anti-Semitism in any form what so ever."

One of South Carolina's two Jewish lawmakers called on state GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd to denounce the comments and remove both men from their positions.

The Associated Press and the South Carolina newspaper The State reported Tuesday that Floyd had denounced the comments made by Ulmer and Merwin in their letter but would not ask them to step down over the incident.

"It was an offensive and inappropriate comment that Jim and Edwin have rightly apologized for. These kinds of stereotypes are absolutely unacceptable” Floyd said in a statement Tuesday morning. “It goes without saying that some people will continue trying to exploit this mistake for political gain, but as far as we're concerned, their apology ends the matter."

As Raw Story reported Monday, Merwin and Ulmer's original letter was intended to be a rebuttal to South Carolina State Rep. Bakari Sellers, the vice chair of the state's Democratic party.

Sellers had suggested in an opinion piece published Sept. 30 that DeMint has been doing a poor job bringing in federal dollars for projects in South Carolina.

"Sen. DeMint cedes his funding allotments to other states by not requesting projects on behalf of South Carolinians," Sellers opined. "Like Sen. DeMint, Sen. Graham regularly supports measures to restrict earmarks. However, he works vigorously to secure funding for South Carolina because he understands the present reality: If we don't get it, it goes to other states."

U.S. Army commanders in Iraq had an advisory suicide prevention plan, but no mandatory steps to follow when dealing with at-risk soldiers like the one accused of killing five troops at a military mental health clinic last May, according to a review of military procedures.

Sgt. John Russell is accused of shooting and killing five soldiers after an altercation at a counseling center located on a U.S. base in Iraq five months ago.

According to the Associated Press, the report found that no Army publication provides step-by-step details to a unit on how to implement a suicide watch and that security at the Combat Stress Clinic at Camp Liberty was "inadequate."

"It paints a picture of soldier less than two months from the end of his third deployment who began to show obvious signs of unraveling weeks before the clinic shootings," the AP noted. "The report describes a man whose problems were known and who received some counseling, yet at critical times did not appear to get the help he needed."

Russell's own unit was aware of his suicidal thoughts for at least three or four days before the tragedy, but there was no 24-hour suicide watch on him until the morning of the shooting. His fellow soldiers described him as saying he was "sick and tired of life and believed everyone hated him."

A company commander told investigators that they did not have the personnel available to continuously monitor Russell, who was on his fourth visit to the mental health clinic the day the tragedy occurred.

The review says Russell's clinic visit the morning of the shooting was cut short when he became "verbally non-compliant" with clinic staff, who called military police for help. The military police sent Russell back to his unit, but within an hour he took a loaded M-16 rifle from another soldier, stole an SUV and went back to the counseling facility where he is alleged to have killed the five troops.

An Army Times article about the report says the investigation found that "many of the patients seen by the center’s staff are 'potentially violent,'" and there are "inadequate locks'" on the clinic building’s exterior doors.

"Minor physical security improvements would have made the facility safer for the staff members and patients alike," the report found.

The report also noted communication difficulties for military police; those officers had no policy about how to warn potential victims at the base of a credible threat and poor radio communication that forced them to meet in person to share information about the suspect.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg dodged questions Monday about whether comments from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani made at weekend campaign events on his behalf were intended to ignite racial controversy.

Giuliani warned Sunday that crime rates could skyrocket if Bloomberg doesn't win re-election---Bloomberg's main opponent is the African-American Democratic nominee and city controller Bill Thompson.

“I worried daily that the city might be turned back to the way it was before 1993 -- and you know exactly what I'm talking about,” the New York Post said Giuliani told a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews at an event sponsored by Brooklyn's Bourough Park Jewish Community Council. "This community remembers the fears, the worries and the crimes -- and the great fear of going out at night and walking the streets."

During the year referenced by Giuliani, New York had it's first and only black mayor---David Dinkins--was in office. Dinkins was mayor from 1990 to 1993. City Councilman Bill de Blasio, a Democrat running for Public Advocate, said he was "appalled" by the Giuliani comments.

“Giuliani’s comments verge on race-baiting,” he said per the New York Times. “Bloomberg should disavow those comments and show that he doesn’t buy into that kind of rhetoric.”

Bloomberg himself hinted that New York could go the way of Detroit.

“We all know that cities have gone through great boom times and then turned around and collapsed. Take a look at Detroit,” he said. “I think that was really because of economics as opposed to some other things. But Detroit went from a city where it was a great city with lots of good-paying jobs to a city that’s basically holding on for dear life.”

The Village Voice noted that Detroit has had black mayors since 1974 and the New York Observer quoted Giuliani biographer and historian Fred Siegel as saying the Bloomberg comments were "indefensible."

“If this isn’t a rude, racial invocation, then you don’t mention Detroit," the paper quoted Siegel saying.

Bronx Democratic Chairman Carl Heastie, an African-American, also called on Bloomberg to "denounce" Giuliani's comments which he called "code words" to scare Jewish voters.

"His comments yesterday, using code words to try and strike fear in the hearts and minds of persons in the Jewish faith should be condemned," Heastie said. "I call upon Mike Bloomberg to denounce Giuliani's statement, and to apologize to his veiled reference to Detroit as well."

On Monday Bloomberg sidestepped questions about Giuliani's comments during an afternoon police union endorsement event.

“We’ve successfully resisted attempts to divide this city for the past eight years," Bloomberg said. "I’ve worked well with virtually everyone. I don’t point fingers, I try to lower the volume and the temperature, and not raise it. I’m not going to start trying to raise it now.”

The New York Observer said Bloomberg similarly dodged a second question about Giuliani's comments: “Look, I’ve always tried to bring people together, and not to divide them. I can only speak for myself. Our campaign really is built around the belief that we can bring all New Yorkers together for a common vision.”

True/Slant's Michael Roston noted that Bloomberg has had a large lead in the mayoral race in most polls, and said he sees joint appearances of Giuliani and Bloomberg as something else: "Instead of finishing off this race with dignity, the 2009 mayoral contest in New York City is being transformed into a proxy for Albany 2010," when Giuliani is expected to campaign to be New York governor.

The White House is distancing itself from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, meeting directly with CEOs of major American companies, more often than with the lobbying group that has long-represented business interests, several media reports said Monday.

President Obama's administration enjoyed the support of the U.S. Chamber early on, when the organization rushed to embrace his economic stimulus plans last winter. Recently, however,  there has been a significant chill in relations: Since June, senior White House officials, sometimes including Obama himself, have met with executives from more than 55 companies -- including Eastern Kodak, Kraft and Amazon.com last week -- while criticizing the Chamber for ad buys supporting "free enterprise" after their support of government bailouts of companies.

“We prefer the approach — particularly in this climate — where the actual people who are on the front lines, running businesses, trying to create jobs, come and advise us on policy,” senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said in an interview for a POLITICO article entitled "White House plan: Neuter the Chamber."

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein notes that the Chamber's $100 million "free enterprise" ad campaign, which chamber leaders say is being used to create jobs, is also aimed at killing regulatory reform.

Obama recently criticized the ad buy, saying  "You might have seen some of these ads — the ones that claim local butchers and other small businesses will somehow be harmed by this agency. This is, of course, completely false — and we’ve made clear that only businesses that offer financial services would be affected by this agency."

"I don't know how many of your butchers are offering financial services," Obama joked.

Jarrett told the Huffington Post: "We were hoping to have a constructive dialogue with the Chamber and it is regrettable that they decided to spend a huge amount of money launching this campaign."

Chamber leaders, however, believe the White House is trying to divide the business community to advance their positions on things like health care reform and climate change legislation.

"If they are trying to do things constructively, than why don't they reach out to the many, many organizations in this town instead of to small groups of very prominent CEOs, who, interestingly, they vilify regularly," Josten told Huffington Post. "I can't believe, for instance, that they get better feedback on trade. I doubt there are any groups they have spoken to that are telling the administration to do what it is doing..."

The U.S. Chamber boasts a membership of 3 million. Mother Jones magazine recently reported its membership hovers closer to 200,000. But even some long-time Chamber members themselves have been wary of the group's positions on high-profile issues like health care reform and climate change bills. Wal-Mart executives do not agree with the group's opposition to including a public option in health care reform legislation.

Numerous high-profile Chamber members, including Apple, cut ties with the group recently because of its stance on climate change legislation. Nike also abandoned its position on the Chamber's board, but remains a member of the Chamber itself, because of concerns about the group's climate change positions. The Chamber opposes Environmental Protection Agency efforts to regulate carbon through the use of the Clean Air Act.

White House officials say they are still open to meeting with Chamber representatives whenever they request a meeting, and point out they have sat down with the Chamber multiple times over the past few months.

Jarrett, however, doesn't mind capitalizing on the Chamber's membership woes.

“We’re seeing very prominent members resigning from the Chamber, so our question is, ‘Well, then does it still represent the community’s interests?’” she said to Politico.