Is your company being bullied by customers? | SmartBlogs SmartBlogs

Baron Christopher Hanson

The outdated mantra ?the customer is always right? has been challenged in recent years ? and with good reason.

Unfair customers scream at airline, hospitality, and event personnel routinely. In a challenging economy, emotions at all kinds of ?cash registers? can run high. Some customers cannot afford what they desperately want, or get to where they desperately need to be, quickly enough.

These restricted purse strings combined with shorter deadlines and increased stress ?? often generated by reductions in staff and customer service resources ? have led to greater frictions between patrons and proprietors.

In 2011, I wrote an article for Harvard Business Review on diagnosing workplace bullying among employees and bosses. That framework helped companies distinguish between hard-charging workaholics and deliberately sinister workplace bullies more fairly.

Conversely, this article is about sinister customers who cross the line and bully your business model. When their cash and time become desperate, some customers (clients, patrons, or members) can transact irrationally, even awfully. Perpetuating the problem, desperate companies make the classic error of ?taking money from strangers? due to their own cash-flow challenges.

Like a shark, bully customers can smell a drop of blood in an ocean of water. Bullying customers are usually dishonest, uncivil, verbally abusive and do not pay well. Their tactics border on scam artistry.

Conversely, high-expectation customers want what they want ? right now ? exactly and perfectly every time. Although challenging, high-expectation customers are usually honest, civil and pay well for exceptional value or treatment.

In my view, honest, courteous and well-paying customers are always right. Deceitful, manipulative fiscally bullying customers are always wrong. Bending over backwards to serve the former while eliminating the latter is the thesis.

As a turnaround strategist, my firm advises business owners and C-suites experiencing expensive, painful and debilitative transactional bullying. We?ve turned around businesses in niches perceived as highly customized ? architecture, advertising, interior design, sports-car restoration, event and wedding planning, etc.

Graphic credit: Baron Christopher Hanson

Hands-on client experiences from 2008 to 2013 allow me to conclude that the perceived weaknesses of a business, combined with desperate customers and evadable transaction policies, may actually entice bully customers.

Although each case was initiated and concluded differently, every client had been browbeaten psychologically and bullied fiscally by varying degrees of manipulative and deceitful customer patterns.

To be fair, gray area certainly exists between X) mutually healthy business negotiation and Y) unfair transactional bullying. An experienced architect in Michigan explains the disparity:

?Client bullying is a real problem for those of us in design roles. The intangible, lengthy creative process of architecture almost invites a bullying mindset. While good clients are appreciative, bully clients do not have a true budget, so they use their checkbook as a weapon. They attempt to weaken the value of our service by belittling our work and our people. The worst clients will deliberately waste your time, demand more options or changes, and then attempt to assign blame on you for their indecision, ultimately calculating strategies to delay or discount payments.?

Bottom line: The fiscal implications of bullying customers in today?s economy are reaching a tipping point.

A quick case study

From 2009 to 2011, a successful yet overwhelmed fine art dealer was experiencing new patterns of fiscal losses. Although a highly accomplished MFA curator, the business owner?s retail policies were too friendly and liberal. The stationery was beautiful, but the legal language and roster of transactional policies in writing were lackadaisical.

One bully client after another sensed the gallery?s transactional weaknesses and took unfair advantage. It was also discovered that a bully artist had somehow acquired the bulk of the gallery?s wall space, marketing budget, exhibition schedule and press ? all while transacting with clients behind the dealer?s back. Expenses skyrocketed while revenues and profits tanked. The business was getting bullied from all sides.

Paraphrasing the helpful ?E-Myth? series of books by Michael Gerber, ?a stool with only two competent legs will not work.? The art dealer?s overall cash register strategy was assumed incomplete and unsustainable.

The art dealer finally conceded that her methods of transacting were collectively inviting trouble. So the probing process began. The gallery?s defenses were comprehensively overhauled. Starry-eyed interns were replaced with experienced professionals. Bully clients and artists were shown the door.

New transaction strategies and proficiencies were trained and installed. The company?s ?cash register strategy? was overhauled psychologically, legally and financially. Eight months hence, gallery revenues have tripled. Profits have doubled. Debt is zero.

Solutions

Our work in risk mitigation has developed organically over two decades by combining forensic accounting analysis with on-site transactional mapping ? more bluntly, playing good cop/bad cop inside client companies to thwart losses upfront. I often ask bullied clients (and their employees) to read the obscure Asian classic ?Thick Face, Black Heart? by Chin-Ning Chu. She writes:

?Two people can read the same book on lion taming. They can enter the lion?s cage dressed identically. They can use identical gestures and words to command the lion. But the results may not be the same. One of them will get the lion to jump through the hoop. The other may end up a gruesome mess on the floor.?

To be clear, there is a difference between firing customers and queuing qualified prospects more carefully. The strategy is to prevent bad eggs from getting on the bus in the first place. One of my favorite examples of customer analysis and queuing management is El Al Airlines. Each passenger to and from Israel must endure hours of intense interviews and security checks prior to boarding.

The first step for a bullied business owner is to confront four transactional deficiencies:

1. Poor prospect negotiation and customer queuing
2. Lack of written transactional policies and guidelines upfront
3. Weak or inexperienced front-line employees incapable of maintaining transactional boundaries (lion taming)
4. Zero legal, accounting, or business strategy counsel in place

In my experience, chaotic, sloppy, unprofitable organizations routinely exude evidence of multiple transactional deficiencies simultaneously.

The second step is for bullied business owners to proactively implement a cash register strategy. If bullying customer regimes are common inside your business model, then your cash flows and HR culture are at risk fiscally. When a company stands up for itself as a team ? from the C-suite through to each ?cash register? location ? bully customer regimes vaporize.

Baron Christopher Hanson is the principal and lead consultant of RedBaron Consulting in Charleston, S.C., and Washington, D.C. A former rugby player, Harvard graduate, and expert on workplace and transactional bullying, he can be reached via?baron@redbaronUSA.com or via Twitter @RedBaronUSA.

Source: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2013/03/13/is-your-company-being-bullied-by-customers/

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When hungry, Gulf of Mexico algae go toxic

Mar. 12, 2013 ? When Gulf of Mexico algae don't get enough nutrients, they focus their remaining energy on becoming more and more poisonous to ensure their survival, according to a new study by scientists from North Carolina State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The study shows that harmful and ubiquitous Karenia brevis algae, which cause red tide blooms across the Gulf of Mexico, become two to seven times more toxic when levels of phosphorus, a major algal nutrient found in fertilizers and human waste, are low. Like wearing a suit of armor, producing highly toxic cells allows the algae to defend themselves against opportunistic waterborne grazers like zooplankton.

Red tide blooms in the Gulf are linked to fish kills and other ecological and economic damage in the region, and are also linked to respiratory ailments in humans. These blooms occur annually in the Gulf, but it's hard to predict where or when they'll occur or how long they'll last.

Drs. Rance Hardison and Damian Shea, co-authors on a paper appearing online in the journal PLOS ONE, say that the findings could help coastal managers make better predictions about the harmful effects of red tide blooms.

"Public-health managers can test phosphorus levels in waters across various Gulf locations," Hardison said, "and know that low levels could indicate highly toxic red tide blooms. Then they can close nearby shellfish beds or take other measures to keep sea life -- and humans -- safe."

The researchers tested five different K. brevis species from varied geographic locations and limited some samples' growth by withholding phosphorus while allowing others to enjoy a full diet of phosphorus. Depending on the species, algal cells with limited access to phosphorus had 2.3 to 7.3 times more toxin than algal cells that were filled up with phosphorus.

"At the end of a red tide bloom, when the nutrients are used up, K. brevis cells produce a burst of toxicity. Now we understand the biological mechanism behind some of the varied toxic levels seen in Gulf algal cells," Shea, an NC State professor of biology and environmental toxicology, said.

The irony of the inverse relationship between phosphorus and algal toxicity is not lost on the researchers. In a modern-day catch-22, excess nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen play key roles in fueling algal growth and harmful algal bloom development. As bloom density increases, cells use up the available nutrients such as phosphorus. This slows the growth of K. brevis cells, causing them to become more toxic. Previous research conducted by Hardison, a NOAA oceanographer who received his Ph.D. from NC State, showed similar effects when nitrogen was the limiting nutrient.

"We believe the findings will be useful to help model future toxic algal blooms and how harmful they'll be," Hardison said.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Carolina State University.

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Journal Reference:

1. Donnie Ransom Hardison, William G. Sunda, Damian Shea, Richard Wayne Litaker. Increased Toxicity of Karenia brevis during Phosphate Limited Growth: Ecological and Evolutionary Implications. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58545 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058545

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/Xv704HDMuEs/130312171620.htm

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Catalysts that produce 'green' fuel

Public release date: 12-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Federica Sgorbissa
pressroom@sissa.it
39-040-378-7557
International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA)

At SISSA a precious molecule for solar energy is being simulated

The energy produced by solar panels, be it heat or electricity, has to be used right away. It is hard to store and preserve and also its transportation can be rather complicated. Creating solar cells capable of producing energy in an easily storable and transportable way, that is to say fuel, is therefore the future challenge of solar energy. For this reason the scientists at SISSA are working on a catalyst that imitates and improves what nature has been able to do for millions of years.

Plants turn solar energy into sugars, the true "green" fuel, through photosynthesis. In such process a key role is performed by catalysts, molecules that "cut and paste" other molecules, and that in this specific case oxidize water, that is to say separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. Hydrogen (already a fuel itself, yet very hard to handle) is used at a later stage in the synthesis processes that produce sugars from hydrogen and carbon atoms. But scientists are seeking to obtain artificially the same typology of process by using inorganic catalysts, which are faster and more resistant than natural ones (which are very slow: just think of how much time a tree needs to grow). Effective yet costly and limited materials already exist in nature.

"The crucial part of artificial photosynthesis is water oxidation. We have simulated the way a molecule of Ru4-plyoxometalate (Ru4-POM) functions is this process. Such complex reaction requires catalysts just like the natural process does", explains Simone Piccinin, a researcher of SISSA and of Istituto Officina dei Materiali (CNR-IOM) and lead author of the paper. Ru4-POM was chosen because its effectiveness had been already demonstrated in previous occasions in experiments carried out by the group of ITM-CNR and of Universit di Padova that was the first to synthesize the molecule and that has also taken part in this research.

"What was still missing was the comprehension of the process, so we have accordingly reproduced the electronic behavior of the molecule through numeric simulations," underlines Stefano Fabris of SISSA and of CNR-IOM, who has coordinated the theoretical work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "We have thus observed that the active sites of the new molecule, that is to say those that convey the reaction, are four atoms of Ruthenium."

"Ruthenium is costly are rare, but now that we know how the atoms that cause the oxidation process have to be arranged we may replace them one by one with cost-effective elements trying to obtain the same level of effectiveness of Ruthenium." concluded Fabris.

###

Besides SISSA, CNR-IOM and Universit di Padova also Elettra Sincrotrone of Trieste has taken part in the study.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 12-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Federica Sgorbissa
pressroom@sissa.it
39-040-378-7557
International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA)

At SISSA a precious molecule for solar energy is being simulated

The energy produced by solar panels, be it heat or electricity, has to be used right away. It is hard to store and preserve and also its transportation can be rather complicated. Creating solar cells capable of producing energy in an easily storable and transportable way, that is to say fuel, is therefore the future challenge of solar energy. For this reason the scientists at SISSA are working on a catalyst that imitates and improves what nature has been able to do for millions of years.

Plants turn solar energy into sugars, the true "green" fuel, through photosynthesis. In such process a key role is performed by catalysts, molecules that "cut and paste" other molecules, and that in this specific case oxidize water, that is to say separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. Hydrogen (already a fuel itself, yet very hard to handle) is used at a later stage in the synthesis processes that produce sugars from hydrogen and carbon atoms. But scientists are seeking to obtain artificially the same typology of process by using inorganic catalysts, which are faster and more resistant than natural ones (which are very slow: just think of how much time a tree needs to grow). Effective yet costly and limited materials already exist in nature.

"The crucial part of artificial photosynthesis is water oxidation. We have simulated the way a molecule of Ru4-plyoxometalate (Ru4-POM) functions is this process. Such complex reaction requires catalysts just like the natural process does", explains Simone Piccinin, a researcher of SISSA and of Istituto Officina dei Materiali (CNR-IOM) and lead author of the paper. Ru4-POM was chosen because its effectiveness had been already demonstrated in previous occasions in experiments carried out by the group of ITM-CNR and of Universit di Padova that was the first to synthesize the molecule and that has also taken part in this research.

"What was still missing was the comprehension of the process, so we have accordingly reproduced the electronic behavior of the molecule through numeric simulations," underlines Stefano Fabris of SISSA and of CNR-IOM, who has coordinated the theoretical work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "We have thus observed that the active sites of the new molecule, that is to say those that convey the reaction, are four atoms of Ruthenium."

"Ruthenium is costly are rare, but now that we know how the atoms that cause the oxidation process have to be arranged we may replace them one by one with cost-effective elements trying to obtain the same level of effectiveness of Ruthenium." concluded Fabris.

###

Besides SISSA, CNR-IOM and Universit di Padova also Elettra Sincrotrone of Trieste has taken part in the study.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/isoa-ctp031213.php

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Ten ways writers can prepare for success, part I | onewildword

In my last post, ?Preparing for success as a writer: where preparedness and opportunity meet,? I wrote about being prepared when opportunity presents itself. Some people call this ?luck? but, in reality, we create our own luck.

So, what are some ways writers can become more prepared and be ready when opportunity comes knocking? Below are ten ideas:

1. ?Write every day. The act of writing everyday will make you a better writer. The writing doesn?t always have to be on your work-in-progress, but you need to write. Even if it?s only for 15 or 20 minutes. Write. Write poetry, short stories, scenes, blog posts, letters or emails, articles. Just write.

2. ?Learn your craft. Always be willing to work hard and learn new things. Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses and commit to overcoming your weaknesses. Read. Take classes. Write. Practice may not ?make perfect? but it surely makes progress. When you get a new skill down, you?ll be proud of yourself, which will improve your self-esteem and your writing.

3. ?Go fear-ward. I realized while starting my fantasy book that my strength was writing about characters and my weakness was understanding plot. The word ?plot? frightened me. So I took the mystery and fear away by reading, studying, and taking classes on the subject of plot. I overcame my fear and when I did that, ideas started to pop up everywhere.

4. ?Attend writers? conferences. Attend conferences or workshops not only to learn but to make connections with agents, publishers, and other writers. Collect their businesses cards and immediately put them in a database so they won?t get lost (speaking from personal experience). You never know when one of these connections will come in handy. At one conference, I made a connection with a woman who told me if I ever wanted to do a book signing or promo in her area that I could stay at her home. I made a note on the back of her business card and entered it in my database for future reference.

5. ?Research publishing options. In today?s market we have a variety of ways to publish. Do you want to pursue traditional publishing with an agent and publisher? Do you want to self-publish? Go with a small press? Think about how you want to publish and do your research. In fact, it?s a good idea to research all these options. Read blogs by experienced authors. Talk to them at writing conferences.

In my next post, I?ll list five more ideas.

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Source: http://onewildword.com/2013/03/11/ten-ways-writers-can-prepare-for-success-part-i/

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Recovery slow as Japan marks 2 years since tsunami

TOKYO (AP) ? Amid growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of recovery, Japan marked the second anniversary Monday of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and has displaced more than 300,000.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the government intends to make "visible" reconstruction progress and accelerate resettlement of those left homeless by streamlining legal and administrative procedures many blame for the delays.

"I pray that the peaceful lives of those affected can resume as soon as possible," Emperor Akihito said at a somber memorial service at Tokyo's National Theater.

At observances in Tokyo and in still barren towns along the northeastern coast, those gathered bowed their heads in a moment of silence marking the moment, at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake ? the strongest recorded in Japan's history ? struck off the coast.

Japan has struggled to rebuild communities and to clean up radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, whose reactors melted down after its cooling systems were disabled by the tsunami. The government has yet to devise a new energy strategy ? a central issue for its struggling economy with all but two of the country's nuclear reactors offline.

About half of those displaced are evacuees from areas near the nuclear plant. Hundreds of them filed a lawsuit Monday demanding compensation from the government and the now-defunct plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, for their suffering and losses.

"Two years after the disasters, neither the government nor TEPCO has clearly acknowledged their responsibility, nor have they provided sufficient support to cover the damages," said Izutaro Managi, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

Throughout the disaster zone, the tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are impatient to get resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials say.

"What I really want is to once again have a 'my home,' " said Migaku Suzuki, a 69-year-old farm worker in Rikuzentakata, who lost the house he had just finished building in the disaster. Suzuki also lost a son in the tsunami, which obliterated much of the city.

Further south, in Fukushima prefecture, some 160,000 evacuees are uncertain if they will ever be able to return to homes around the nuclear power plant, where the meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation into the surrounding soil and water.

The lawsuit filed by a group of 800 people in Fukushima demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen ($625) a month for each victim until all radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades. Another 900 plan similar cases in Tokyo and elsewhere. Managi said he and fellow lawyers hope to get 10,000 to join the lawsuits.

Evacuees are anxious to return home but worried about the potential, still uncertain risks from exposure to the radiation from the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.

While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval in people's lives, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents.

"I don't trust the government on anything related to health anymore," said Masaaki Watanabe, 42, who fled the nearby town of Minami-Soma and doesn't plan to return.

Yuko Endo, village chief in Kawauchi, said many residents might not go back if they are kept waiting too long. Restrictions on access are gradually being lifted as workers remove debris and wipe down roofs by hand.

"If I were told to wait for two more years, I might explode," said Endo, who is determined to revive his town of mostly empty houses and overgrown fields.

A change of government late last year has raised hopes that authorities might move more quickly with the cleanup and reconstruction.

Since taking office in late December, Abe has made a point of frequently visiting the disaster zone, promising faster action and plans to raise the long-term reconstruction budget to 25 trillion yen ($262 billion) from 19 trillion yen (about $200 billion).

"We cannot turn away from the harsh reality of the affected areas. The Great East Japan Earthquake still is an ongoing event," Abe said at the memorial gathering in Tokyo. "Many of those hit by the disaster are still facing uncertainty over their futures."

The struggles to rebuild and to cope with the nuclear disaster are only the most immediate issues Japan is grappling with as it searches for new drivers for growth as its export manufacturing lags, its society ages and its huge national debt grows ever bigger.

Those broader issues are also hindering the reconstruction. Towns want to rebuild, but they face the stark reality of dwindling, aging populations that are shrinking further as residents give up on ever finding new jobs. The tsunami and nuclear crisis devastated local fish processing and tourism industries, accelerating a decline that began decades before.

Meanwhile, the costly decommissioning the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant could take 40 years as its operator works on finding and removing melted nuclear fuel from inside, disposing the spent fuel rods and treating the many tons of contaminated wastewater used to cool the reactors.

Following the Fukushima disaster, Japan's 50 still viable nuclear reactors were shut down for regular inspections and then for special tests to check their disaster preparedness. Two were restarted last summer to help meet power shortages, but most Japanese remain opposed to restarting more plants.

The government, though, looks likely to back away from a decision to phase out nuclear power by the 2030s. Abe says it may take a decade to decide on what Japan's energy mix should be.

___

Associated Press writers Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Emily Wang in Kesennuma, Japan, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/recovery-slow-japan-marks-2-years-since-tsunami-062833461.html

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With new group, Obama team seeks answer to Karl Rove

By Samuel P. Jacobs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - On Wednesday, some of President Barack Obama's most dedicated donors will fly to Washington and pony up $50,000 to attend a fundraiser for Organizing for Action, a progressive new kid on the block trying to counter the likes of Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.

Obama will give a speech to the group, an independent non-profit that is trying to use the data, know-how, and connections of the president's campaign to improve the chances of passing new gun laws and immigration reform.

Their host will be Jon Carson, a soft-spoken political operative who trained as a civil engineer. As the group's executive director, he has been given the task of reviving one of the most successful campaign machines in history, and providing a counterweight to the multimillion-dollar empires managed by Republican strategist Rove and conservative billionaire activists David and Charles Koch.

On the face of it, Carson, a former Peace Corps volunteer, seems an odd fit for the snarling world of deep-pocketed, partisan organizations that came into their own in the 2012 campaign, unbridled by a Supreme Court decision allowing unrestricted amounts of money to flood into U.S. politics.

A survey of colleagues and even political rivals tends to bring back one word for Carson: "nice," not necessarily the most desirable trait in politics today.

Compared to other top campaign advisers, Carson, 37, has maintained a low profile throughout the last four years working at the White House as an environmental adviser and then as director of the Office for Public Engagement.

Through a spokeswoman, Carson declined a request for an interview.

While the White House describes the organization as independent, Obama will dine with the group's donors and give a speech at Wednesday's event, billed as the "Founders' Summit" for the two-month-old organization.

If the president is able to pass meaningful reform to gun laws, increase taxes on the wealthy, or squeeze new immigration laws through Congress, it will be thanks in part to Carson.

FROM SWAMPS TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Raised in small-town, western Wisconsin, Carson grew up in a place proud of its organic farms and hockey games where lawyers skated with firemen. In high school, Carson spent summers wading through swamps to assist geography professor Stanley Trimble in his research of the Mississippi River.

"He was really into streams," said Trimble, who later taught Carson when the young man moved west to pursue a master's degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Carson was into Democratic politics too, volunteering for a state assembly race while attending University of Wisconsin-Platteville. The insurgent candidate Mark Kastel said his 1996 campaign was centered on attacking the influence of special interest money in politics ? just the sort of charges Carson now faces at Organizing for Action.

From there, with detours to graduate school and building water systems in Choluteca, Honduras while in the Peace Corps, Carson hopscotched from one campaign to the next. Managing Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth's losing congressional campaign in 2006, Carson connected with Obama advisers, which led to a role in the Illinois senator's presidential campaign the next year.

In 2008, Carson was appointed national field director for Obama, charged with leading the 770 volunteer offices. He earned a reputation as a numbers geek like Obama senior adviser David Plouffe. In his memoir about the campaign, Plouffe wrote that he once flirted with the idea of leaving his post as campaign manager and wanted Carson to be his replacement.

After the Obama campaign, Carson joined the White House where colleagues said he was ribbed for ill-fitting suits and speaking Spanish with the prairie twang of his native Wisconsin.

Eventually becoming director of the White House's public outreach effort, Carson and his colleagues were best known for responding to online petitions addressed to the White House. In January, Carson replied to hundreds of thousands of petitioners from Texas and other states, saying the Obama administration would not let the states secede from the United States.

'ORGANIZING FOR ACCESS'

Organizing for Action has been dogged by accusations from campaign finance reform advocates and Republican organizations that the group was fundraising on the promise that it could grant access to the president.

American Crossroads, the group led by Rove, a former top aide to President George W. Bush, mocked its new rival as "Organizing for Access" in a web video.

As a non-profit focused on social welfare issues rather than political campaigns, Organizing for Action is not obliged to disclose its funding. But in response to the criticism, the group announced last week that it would voluntarily declare the source of any donations above $250. While open to donations from unions, the group said it would bar corporate money.

It has yet to release the names of early donors. Some events at Wednesday's conference will be open to the media, giving a first indication of which bold-faced names from the Obama campaign have signed up to support the new group.

For the most part, Democratic donors have brushed off the criticism as mock outrage.

"Oh my god! A president is helping raise money for something where you might be able to meet him?" said Dick Harpootlian, a money bundler for the president, who hired Carson a decade ago to assist with turnout efforts for the South Carolina Democratic Party. "C'mon, guys. This is the real world. I don't know who the hell out there thinks that people who raise money don't get to meet the president."

?NO ONE HAS EVER TRIED TO DO THIS'

On a daily basis, representatives from the group send out emails to millions of Obama supporters, a list that the group says is the largest in political history, encouraging volunteers to knock on doors and call Republican lawmakers to promote Obama's program, especially on immigration and tax reform.

"We have one simple goal which is to advocate for the passage of the president's legislation," said Jim Messina, Obama's former campaign manager and the chair of Organizing for Action.

In its first advertising campaign launched last month, the group targeted a dozen Republican lawmakers with online messages encouraging them to support universal background checks for potential gun owners.

Conservative activists say they are not intimidated.

"History would suggest that Obama's brand is much stronger in a campaign context," said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads. "It's unclear that he would be able to sign up volunteers and donors in support of a policy initiative like gun control."

Mitch Stewart, the Obama campaign's 2012 battleground state director, led Organizing for America, a similar group started in 2009 that tried to rally support for the president's health care proposals. He said the new group could have a very large impact on legislation, while cautioning that the enthusiasm around a campaign is difficult to match in a legislative fight.

His group's troubles may be a cautionary tale. In 2010, a report in Politico described Organizing for America as "a soulless, top-down machine that's alienating the base, even as some state party officials complain that the group is stepping on their toes."

If the new group does succeed, the next question will be whether an organization managed by Obama's allies and founded on Obama's campaign apparatus can outlast Obama's presidency.

The fashionable term among current and former Obama aides about Organizing for Action is that it will be "sustainable."

One former Obama organizer picked an unlikely precedent for the group: the National Rifle Association, arguing that Carson could stand up a group for the left that has the power to cajole lawmakers into toeing the progressive line.

"We're figuring this out as we are going along," Messina said. "No one has ever tried to do this."

(Reporting By Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/group-obama-team-seeks-answer-karl-rove-050201250.html

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Egyptian Soccer fans rampage over court verdicts

The sun sets during clashes between Egyptian protesters and riot police in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 9, 2013. Security officials say a protester has died during clashes between police and hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators in central Cairo. The officials say the protester died Saturday on a Nile-side road where clashes have been taking place daily between anti-government protesters and police near two luxury hotels and the U.S. and British embassies. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

The sun sets during clashes between Egyptian protesters and riot police in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 9, 2013. Security officials say a protester has died during clashes between police and hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators in central Cairo. The officials say the protester died Saturday on a Nile-side road where clashes have been taking place daily between anti-government protesters and police near two luxury hotels and the U.S. and British embassies. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

An Egyptian protester runs with a teargas canister during clashes with riot police in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 9, 2013. Security officials say a protester has died during clashes between police and hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators in central Cairo. The officials say the protester died Saturday on a Nile-side road where clashes have been taking place daily between anti-government protesters and police near two luxury hotels and the U.S. and British embassies. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

An injured security official is carried from a police officers club in the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek, after protesters set fires following a court verdict in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 9, 2013. Fans of Cairo?s Al-Ahly club have stormed Egypt?s soccer federation headquarters and a nearby police club, and set them ablaze after a court acquitted seven of nine police official on trial for their alleged part in deadly stadium melee. (AP Photo/Mohammed Asad )

Egyptian soccer fans of the Al-Ahly club celebrate in front of their club in Cairo, Egypt, after an Egyptian court confirmed death sentences against 21 people for their role in a deadly 2012 soccer riot that killed more than 70 people in the city of Port Said, Saturday, March 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An Egyptian man walks on the grounds of a police officer's club as a fire set by protesters burns in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 9, 2013. An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed the death sentences against 21 people for taking part in a deadly soccer riot but acquitted seven police officials for their alleged role in the violence, touching off furious protests in Cairo that torched the soccer federation headquarters and a nearby police club.(AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO (AP) ? Egyptian soccer fans rampaged through the heart of Cairo on Saturday, furious about the acquittal of seven police officers while death sentences against 21 alleged rioters were confirmed in a trial over a stadium melee that left 74 people dead.

The case of the Feb. 1, 2012 stadium riot in the city of Port Said at the northern tip of the Suez Canal has taken on political undertones not just because police faced allegations of negligence in the tragedy but also because the verdicts were announced at a time when Egypt is in the grip of the latest and most serious bout of political turmoil in the two years since Hosni Mubarak's ouster.

Saturday's verdicts also were handed down against the backdrop of an unprecedented wave of strikes by the nation's police force over demands for better working conditions and anger over what many believe are attempts by President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood to take control of the police force.

Tensions over the riot ? which began when supporters of Port Said's Al-Masry club set upon fans of Cairo's Al-Ahly club after the final whistle of a league game that the home team won ? have fueled some of the deadliest street violence in months. Police guarding the stadium, meanwhile, faced allegations ranging from not searching people entering the stadium to failing to intervene to stop the bloodshed.

Shortly after the verdict was announced Saturday, angry fans of Cairo's Al-Ahly club who had gathered in the thousands outside the team's headquarters in central Cairo went on a rampage, torching a police club nearby and storming Egypt's soccer federation headquarters before setting it ablaze.

The twin fires sent plumes of thick black smoke billowing out over the Cairo skyline, prompting Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to dispatch two army helicopters to extinguish the fires.

At least five people were injured in the protests over the verdict, a Health Ministry official told the MENA state news agency.

Some demonstrators in Port Said also burnt tires on the city's dock to prevent vessels from coming in and released speedboats into traffic lanes of the Suez Canal in attempts, foiled by the navy, to disrupt shipping in the vital waterway linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

A spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority said shipping was not affected and 41 vessels transited the waterway on Saturday.

General unrest also continued elsewhere in the Egyptian capital, which has seen unrelenting demonstrations and clashes between security forces and an opposition that accuses Morsi of trying to monopolize power in the hands of his Islamist allies.

Two protesters also were killed and 19 injured in clashes elsewhere in the capital that appeared unrelated to the soccer violence, national ambulance service chief Mohammed Sultan said. The fighting occurred near two luxury hotels and the U.S. and British embassies.

The court's decision upheld the death sentences issued in late January against 21 people, most of them Port Said fans. The original verdict touched off violent riots in Port Said that left some 40 people dead, most shot by police.

On Saturday, the court announced its verdict for the other 52 defendants in the case, sentencing 45 of them to prison, including two senior police officers who got 15 years terms each. The two were charged with gross negligence and failure to stop the killings.

Twenty-eight people were acquitted, including seven police officials.

Defense lawyers claimed the case has been flawed from the start with prosecutors collecting evidence in an "unorthodox" fashion and overlooking key aspects of the tragedy such as the fact the floodlights were turned off during the attack on the Al-Ahly fans and the nearest exit gate was locked.

Many of the 74 victims died of suffocation or blows to the head.

Morsi's aides denounced Saturday's violence and sought to dismiss the notion of a country in chaos.

Ayman Ali, a senior presidential aide, called on the media not to provide a "political cover" to the violence sweeping the country and dismissed as exaggerated claims that the country's police force was in disarray.

Another presidential aide, Bakinam el-Sharqawy, lamented that the focus on protests and violence created an image of instability in Egypt that kept foreign investors away.

In anticipation of more violence, authorities beefed up security near the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police force, with riot police deploying in the streets around the complex in central Cairo.

The president of the international soccer governing body FIFA appealed for calm.

"I call on football fans in Egypt to remain peaceful. Violence is never a solution and is contrary to the spirit of sport," Sepp Blatter tweeted.

Earlier at the courthouse across town, Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid read out the verdict live on TV, sentencing five defendants to life in prison and nine others to 15 years in jail. Six defendants received 10-year jail terms, two more got five years and a single defendant received a 12-month sentence.

The court's decision on the nine Port Said security officers on trial was among the most highly anticipated ? and potentially explosive ? verdicts. In the end, the judges sentenced the city's former security chief, Maj. Gen. Essam Samak, and a colonel both to 15 years in prison, while the others were acquitted.

Al-Ahly's fans accuse the police of collusion in the killing of their fellow supporters, arguing that they had advance knowledge of plans by supporters of Port Said's Al-Masry to attack them. They also accuse them of standing by as the Al-Masry fans attacked the visiting Al-Ahly supporters.

The court rulings can be appealed before a higher court.

Many residents of Port Said say the trial is unjust and politicized, and soccer fans in the city have felt that authorities were biased in favor of Al-Ahly, Egypt's most powerful club.

In Port Said, a city that for weeks has been in open rebellion against Morsi, the Islamist leader, several hundred people, many of them relatives of the defendants, gathered outside the local security headquarters to vent their anger. They chanted slogans against Morsi's government and the verdicts. Police pulled out of the city on Friday after days of battling protesters in deadly clashes. The army has taken over security in the city, a move that was warmly welcomed by residents.

Some people in a cafe watching the verdict live on TV hit their heads in frustration, while others broke down and wept. Some said they can live with the verdict because an appeal leaves room for hope.

"There's still an appeal process. God willing, our rights will be restored," said Islam Ezzeddin, a local soccer fan. "We are not thugs. I hope to God when there's an appeal, that we feel we live in a country of law and justice."

However, the national railways chief, Hussein Zakaria, ordered trains headed to Port Said to terminate their services at Ismailiya, another Suez Canal city south of Port Said. He said the measure was taken out of fear for the safety of passengers.

Late on Saturday, activists in the city declared the start of a new general strike, with bands of protesters moving around the city pleading with business owners to shutter down.

___

Batrawy reported from Port Said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-09-ML-Egypt/id-09261b5a14fe4006ba3d83dff1c3a64a

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