Corruption

The Politico reports that the White House under Rahm Emanuel orchesterated the Scozzafava endorsement of Bill Owens in NY 23.

Fearful that the party had almost no chance of winning the Nov. 3 New York special election after Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava abruptly announced Saturday that she was dropping out, high-ranking national Democrats immediately began working to secure her endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens, POLITICO has learned.

 

 

On Sunday afternoon, their vigorous efforts paid off as Scozzafava bucked her own party and issued a statement supporting Owens over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, a coup for Democrats who recognized that their best remaining chance of winning the Republican-leaning seat on Tuesday was to swing disaffected Scozzafava supporters their way. By Sunday night, Scozzafava had taped her endorsement and it was being delivered via robo-call into targeted district households.

 

 

The story of how it went down began in Washington, where the White House and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quarterbacked the effort to secure Scozzafava’s endorsement.

And if you think the real reason for this 11th hour betrayal was about helping her district, please. We are talking about an Albany politician, now.

Scozzafava was offered material inducements for her endorsement from Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. 

Also critical was Silver’s assurance, in a phone conversation with Scozzafava, that the state Assembly Democratic caucus would embrace her if she chose to switch parties, now viewed as a real possibility after her endorsement Sunday of Owens.

 

 

June O'Neill, until earlier this year the New York Democratic Party chair, played an even more important role in courting Scozzafava, according to one New York official, because they “go to the same social events—church bingo night and the high school dance.”

It now seems highly likely Scozzafava is going to switch parties and be assured of various legislative perks---maybe even a chairmanship-- from Speaker Silver. And she will be assured  of  hige financial backing from the NY Democrats for her re-election. And who knows how many "member items" are going to be dangled her way?

There's an old saying that an honest politician is one who stays bought. I suppose we will see in a few days if that describes Ms. Scozzafava

In March, I wrote about the GOP opportunities that follow from the conviction of South Philly machine Democratic State Senator Vincent Fumo. The recent news of Democratic corruption out of New Jersey (mayors, rabbis, and body-parts, oh my!) and the emerging consensus that this fundamentally damages Jon Corzine's already difficult re-election, when combined with outrage at farcically light sentencing creates real opportunities for Republicans.

Let's go over the facts and see how much this helps Pennsylvania Republicans in 2010:

1. Pat Meehan, one of the Republican candidates for Governor got the initial indictments against Fumo. Tom Corbett, the other one, has his own story to tell about indicting Fumo and his operation. If Chris Christie ends up winning in New Jersey, there will be a ready-made media narrative comparing New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

2. That narrative will be a little emphasized because southern New Jersey is almost entirely in the Philadelphia media market. It will be non-national political news relevant to both parts of the the Philly media market.

3. Corruption is the sort of thing that suppresses Democrat-leaning independent turnout in formerly Republican suburbs in Bucks and Montgomery countes, and, to a lesser extent, in Chester and Delaware counties. And the South Philly turnout operation that Fumo was so effective at selling is probably somewhat reduced in effectiveness. Democrats can't win statewide without huge margins out of southeast Pennsylvania. You couldn't build a better script for reducing those margins.

Grab the popcorn. This will be fun to watch.

Over the last few days I've traded a fair number of e-mails with folks very familiar with New Jersey politics.

The consensus is Jon Corzine will not be living in Drumthwacket in January 

Now I'm not saying that Chris Christie is an absolute lock to win--this is New Jersey after all. But Corzine already has lost and the power structure in the national and state Democratic party is going to have to hold a  "Barry Goldwater" meeting with him in the next few weeks. They will execute the old "Torricelli switch"

The internals of recent New Jersey polls are horrid for Corzine.  His job approval wasn't very high to start with, and now it's down to 33%.  He loses badly on handling the state budget and dealing with corruption. And , oops, looks like the corruption issue got back on the front pages in a big way.

The problem with Corzine is he sold his background as a former honcho of Goldman Sachs as evidence that  a) he would manage state budgets and the economy well and b) he was too rich to be corrupt.  Since neither  problem got resolved on Corzine's watch, all he has left is to try and trash Christie.  But that means that a rather large number( 17% +/-) of NJ voters who already have rejected Corzine will need to decide Christie would be even worse. That's a tall order even with unlimited resources. And now it may be simply impossible in the wake of the corruption dragnet.

Were this just about Corzine, the NJ Democrats might just let the chump lose and figure out how to make Christie a one term wonder.  The problem is that NJ voters think the State legislature is equally incompetent. They are now running at 28% approval. And yep, the Democrats control the legislature. Good for them only one house is up this year, and they hold a 48-32 edge.

But here's where Corzine kills the rest of his party. The Democrats took over the Assembly primarily by flipping seats in South Jersey. And Corzine is well on his way to getting crushed in all the counties south of Trenton; losing the Philly suburbs by 18 points and the shore counties by 35 points.  

A 10 point Corzine loss might look respectable if he can still win huge in Newark and Hudson County, but if he loses most of the state's real estate by high double digits the GOP could flip the four legislative districts they would need to oust the Democrats from Assembly control.

So the rest of the party is gonna want to find someone who gives the party a fighting shot at holding the Governor's office, or at least, giving suburban swing voters a reason to hit the reset buttom before sweeping the Republicans back in downballot. And an alternative is right in the wings, State Senate President and former Acting Governor Richard Codey. While Codey's proposals weren;t always popular, he left office in pretty good stead.

Codey would at the minimum force the Christie camp to relaunch their message as well; and might well serve to reduce turnout of apolitical suburban fiscal conservatives eager to spit in Corzine's eye. 

So, I expert Corzine to start getting veiled messages from his co-partisans in New Jersey that they would prefer an alternative. He may be getting them under the radar already; I suspect the visibility will increase so as to drive the point home. How many times can your allies say "no f**king way" before people stop believing you?

I then expect Corzine to be summoned to DC for a "strategy session" with Rahm Emanuel. The purpose of this meeting will be to determine what prestigious sounding economic post can be presented to Corzine so he can drop out "to serve the nation in this time of economic  crisis".  Maybe make Corzine yet another "czar" of something like Third World debt relief or what not.

The White House will not want to see both Democratic held governorships flip to the Republicans this fall.. They already probably have done all they can in VA to save the seat; but VA's demographics provide little room for error for even the best Democrat. NJ's clearly a better bet to hold; but not with a candidate the voters have no use for. 

Both parties have done this in New Jersey--swapped out an unpopular nominee right before an election. In 2002 the NJ Democrats swapped out sleazemeister Senator Robert Torricelli for the aging but respectable Frank Lautenberg. And the GOP had Acting Governor Don DeFrancesco step down for former Congressman Bob Franks; who still lost his primary to Bret Schundler.

The deadline here is whatever a pliable New Jersey Supreme Court will allow to be; so I suspect one more batch of bad polls will appear before the impetus to execute this reaches a boil.  My guess is this all comes to a head in the first half of September.

The NJ and national GOP needs to start thinking now about how it is going to react to a "Torricelli Switch". Forewarned is forearmed!    

I am a big fan of a transparency agenda, but I wonder who is supposed to be held responsible for violations. My view of transparency is that we use it to force light on the bad actors. But the bad actors are the government officials, elected or otherwise, not the lobbyists. They are the ones who violate the the public trust. And, furthermore, if they are getting bribed, they should be accountable for that.

A couple of recent posts on the subject seem to miss this point.

In a series of posts at the Sunlight Foundation's blog, Paul Blumenthal and John Wonderlich discuss the limitations on lobbying in the stimulus and bailout bills. Paul summarizes part of John's post with:

The justification being given by the administration for these rules is that they do not want the stimulus funding process to be mucked up by lobbyists seeking bits and pieces of the $700+ billion bill for unworthy projects. However, as John notes, we are seeing unregistered influencers go to lobby for stimulus funds. We are also seeing this happen in other large pots of money. Take for example the $700+ billion bailout handled by the Treasury Department:

If something gets "mucked up" by someone ... aren't government officials doing the mucking? In Congress, lobbyists don't write bills, Congressmen do. In the executive branch, either politcal appointees or civil servants write legislation. It seems to me that the incidence of accountability has to rest on the government official. Right? I mean, if someone is passing out the goodies inappropriately ... they are.

For an executive branch official, lobbying mostly means educating the official and making an argument. Perhaps grassroots pressure is brought on, but that is ultimately the problem of the politicals. If there is a quid pro quo, whether an expensive gift, cash, or whatever, it is a crime and should be dealt with, very harshly and expeditiously, through the criminal system.

For Congress, there are political contributions also and political pressure from interest groups. That's why we disclose contributions, and that's why all the contributions should be disclosed immediately and for all contribution levels, especially online contributions. And interest groups apply pressure. That's what they are there for. The unions are doing that on card-check. The business groups are fighting it.

IPDI's Julie Germany writes up GWU professor Jonathan Turley (no conservative) on this point. Turley offers a much more pointed set of reforms:

Turley’s suggests that we:

• Put 75% of the responsibility of the current political crisis on the members of Congress.

• Go back to core principles of what we are trying to achieve in order to fix the system. Go back to Madison’s idea of democracy. Force the factions that divide us into the open. Create systems that prevent back room dealing and special deals that are hidden from the public. Part of the solution is to reform Congress, instead of trying to reform lobbyists.  

• Force Congress to get rid of the things that cause temptation. Get rid of all gifts, other than symbolic gifts donated to the office they serve. Get rid of earmarks. Require total disclosure of all family members who work for lobbyists.

• Address the fact that the system is too detached from its constituents and that incumbents have all the power. This city loves the fact that Congress doesn’t change, but it’s killing this country. This includes allowing other parties to rise in the political system, changing the electoral college, and reforming the way primaries are held.  

The best summary is "reform Congress"  not "reform lobbyists". Let us make Members accountable for their decisions. After all, that's who we vote for. That is who bears the brunt of the criticism. Or should.

If someone does something wrong, we should have the information to wrap it around their necks and hang them in the public's eye. We should be able to help their electorates destroy their careers. Ultimately, I don't see what lobbyists really have to do with that.

When progressives get angry on Congress for doing things they don't like, like David Sirota and the cramdown legislation, Sirota cites a BusinessWeek piece about lobbyists targetting moderate Dems:

Industry lobbyists are organizing home state bankers to pressure moderate Democrats they hope will be receptive to limiting the kinds of loans eligible for cramdown. One target: Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.

What did these lobbyists do that was so bad? Have a bunch of constituents (bankers) call him and meet with him? Did they explain the logic of this (insane) legislation and how it hurt them? Did Bayh ultimately buy that logic? If so, what is wrong with that?

Or is he alleging that Bayh took bribes, either through contributions or gifts or whatever? If so, what are they?

Or are these lefties just whining because Bayh ultimately thought it was a bad idea, and they couldn't muster arguments that were good enough? In that case, their problem is that they should be electing "Better Democrats", that is people who share their ideas.  Some of them get that idea.

But again, what does that have to do with lobbyists?

And isn't a transparency agenda -- like Obama's -- that focuses on lobbyists, not government officials, basically intellectually bankrupt?

Not surprisingly, the silence surrounding ACORN’s latest antics has continued from the main stream media (MSM). Even after a couple of weeks where the Washington Examiner  has run two editorials and Bertha Lewis was caught lying by Lou Dobbs. I was gearing up to write a scathing report on ACORN and the Census when startling new evidence was obtained that directly relates to recent articles about ACORN and their questionable alliances. Some of these partnerships do not meet the standard definition of illegal activity, but in some ways they appear to harm a great deal of people. Funders, board members, ACORN members and tax payers. The question becomes how can one serve ACORN and still maintain their integrity.

Aaron Dorfman is the Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Its website describes the NCRP as: 

“For more than 30 years, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has served as the country’s independent watchdog of foundations. Over time, institutional grantmakers, federal and state governments, and individuals have taken our recommendations and turned them into policy, such as our promotion of comprehensive financial reporting for foundations as well as the inclusion of advocacy organizations in the Combined Federal Campaign…”

Here is their mission statement :

Our MissionNCRP promotes philanthropy that serves the public good, is responsive to people and communities with the least wealth and opportunity, and is held accountable to the highest standards of integrity and openness.

According to his biography

“Aaron Dorfman is the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the nation’s premier philanthropic watchdog organization. Before joining NCRP in 2007, Aaron Dorfman served for 15 years as a community organizer, including ten years as executive director of People Acting for Community Together (PACT) in Miami, Fla. and five years as head organizer for Minneapolis and Miami chapters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Like many of ACORN’s relationships it appears to be fine and a fine example of how community organizers can make a difference, but according to emails recently obtained; Dorfman appears to be working more to protect ACORN’s interests than that of the NCRP.In July of 2008 the New York Times broke a story about the embezzlement of nearly 1 million dollars by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Dorfman wrote a piece on the scandal:

“As an outrageous breach of the public’s trust, ACORN’s case is a textbook example of horrendously weak governance combined with extremely poor judgment. While the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) serves primarily as a watchdog of foundations and other grantmaking institutions (not of all nonprofits), this case is certainly worthy of comment due to the scope of the issues involved.In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that ACORN is a member of NCRP, that I worked for the organization from 1992 to 1997, that a senior ACORN executive served previously on NCRP’s Board of Directors, and that current NCRP board members are executives with foundations that fund extensively ACORN and its affiliates. Additionally, NCRP is currently working on new research that documents the positive impact of policy advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement, and ACORN’s work will be included in that research.Despite these connections between ACORN and NCRP, it is important to stress that no organization should be arrogantly allowed to take the public’s trust for granted.”

As one can imagine there were some seriously ruffled feathers at ACORN. In a message dated Friday, July 25, 2008 Nathan Henderson James writes:

Subject: RE: for you PR folk, maybe this isn't news to you, i just got it...

Aaron told me it was coming. Overall it's not much different from what other charity watchdog types have said and it says a few of the same things as the Drier/Atlas piece.I did tell him I thought the language was a bit hyperbolic.Overall, while we may not like the piece, politically it strengthens his position with his board, his funder relationships, and his developing ally relationships vis a vis being able to have our back going forward.Nathan

Another message sent the same day goes into further detail:

“Subject: RE: for you PR folk, maybe this isn't news to you, i just got it...

I'm sure that he would listen to any feedback we have on his posting. I also feel that if we point out the inaccuracy and ask him to post a clarification or errata or whatever then he will feel obligated to do so. I think there is value in him hearing from us that parts of us are not feeling so keen about him because of this posting.I do think he has our back and that this posting, which used language that was really over the top on several occasions, was much more like a Senator voting against their bill so they can move to reconsider later when they have the votes. He's positioning himself to be our advocate with people like Marge Tabankin and Garra LaMarche.Also, its a blog, so I think he/NCRP would be open to someone posting a response, if we want to go that route. Nathan

Once again, this information can be construed many different ways and ACORN will try to defend it as internal speculation, but an email from Dorfman (embedded below) clears up any confusion as to what is going on here.

Hey Kevin,

I’m looking forward to our call Wednesday. I have had several recent conversations with funders which have helped me shape the recommendations I will share on the call. I continue to believe that this whole situation can be extremely beneficial to your fundraising efforts.Congratulations on the WSJ press last week, by the way.

On a related note, I wanted to let you know that I have intentionally not driven traffic to the critical blog piece I posted on July 21st. We have a monthly e-news letter that links to all our major work, and the e-news is what drives traffic from our constituents to the blog. We purposely did not include a link to the critical post in our July e-news, which was sent out at the end of the month. My strategy is that I will write a piece soon that says, “wow, look at how effectively ACORN is addressing these problems they faced. the problems were bad, as I noted in my prior post, but now they’re doing everything right to fix it.” Once I’m credibly able to write that piece and post it, I’ll start driving traffic to the positive piece which will only mention the negative piece in passing. If you have comments, criticism or suggestions for me on that front, I’m certainly open to hearing you out.Let me know if you have specific items for the call, other than what’s been mentioned here. --Aaron

What can be gleamed from the conversation is that the NCRP is now participating in crisis PR for ACORN at the expense of its board and funders. Instead of being a watch dog, they have become ACORN lap dogs. Dorfman also shared proprietary NCRP funded information with ACORN.

From: Aaron Dorfman [mailto:adorfman@ncrp.org]Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 5:17 PMTo: polnat3@acorn.orgSubject: prospects

Hi Kevin,

It was good to speak with you earlier today. I hope the advice I offered will be of use to you.As promised, attached is a list of funders you might want to consider as prospects. It's the nation's top 100 social justice funders as ranked by the percentage of their grant dollars that fit agreed-upon social justice criteria. The definition used to generate this list, although imperfect, is attached. It was established by the Foundation Center a few years ago and is based on NCRP's past work to define social justice philanthropy…As I mentioned on the phone, this list is proprietary and absolutely not for publication or distribution. It is a custom data analysis that NCRP will be using in some future work. I am providing it to you because I value the work of ACORN and its affiliates and because I know I can trust you to ensure it is not distributed beyond a few staff members you consider key to the effort.As we discussed, feel free to reach out again if you think I may have useful information regarding specific funders from whom you hope to seek funding.Best regards,Aaron

P.S. I am also attaching a one-pager about NCRP's project to generate new funder interest in supporting advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement. Our first study site is New Mexico, second will be North Carolina, and we think Minnesota may be third. Lisa Ranghelli is heading up the research on this for us and is in New Mexico this week getting started on the first report. NM ACORN's work will certainly be featured prominently. As this project generates new prospects, we will certainly share those with you, too.

As I have reported in previous blogs about ACORN and the Sandlers, the Ratners, banks, unions, politicians and corporations; these relationships rarely benefit the American people or even ACORN’s own core constituents. Dorfman did write a new article on ACORN a mere three months later entitled It’s time to invest in ACORN again:

It’s time for funders to resume funding ACORN, and to consider major new investments in the organization in the coming year. In times like these, the country needs ACORN back at full strength.I wrote a critical blog posting about ACORN’s embezzlement scandal a few months ago, and I’ve been following the situation ever since. I’ve been extremely impressed with the openness and leadership of Bertha Lewis, their new Interim Chief Organizer and I am convinced that ACORN is systematically addressing the problems that led it into such trouble.Has ACORN fixed everything in 90 days that needed fixing? Of course not. But it’s clear that the organization is committed to solving the problems and they are well on their way to doing so.The most important development is that the organization’s board is much more engaged than it ever was under the leadership of Wade Rathke. When they finally learned about what happened, they took decisive action, and they are now attempting to fulfill their proper roles of governance and oversight. They’ve identified their weaknesses and are seeking training in the areas where they need help. There is still some controversy on the board, and it’s going to be a messy process, to be sure. But my overall assessment is that funders should have confidence that the board is now properly engaged and that the ship is sailing in the right direction.”

Sailing in the right direction? Controversy on the board? If anyone has been following this; the board broke off into two factions with the reformers calling themselves the ACORN 8. They filed a lawsuit against ACORN for complete access to the books and to try and stop them from destroying documents. These same board members had their rights violated when they were kicked off the board without a formal vote or notice and banned from the offices (as CNN reported). I think it is obvious that Dorfman understates the issue in order to deceive the very funders that his group so vigorously serves as a watchdog for. According to the Capital Research Center, some of these policies that seem to favor ACORN have gained public attention:

“A newly released report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) signals the latest step in a continuing war on donors being waged by nonprofit radical advocacy groups with a left-wing political agenda. These groups, representing political activists and special interests, have developed a social theory to justify the claims they make on philanthropists’ money. According to them, philanthropy betrays its highest ideals unless it gives them grants.”

If Congressman Nadler (D-NY) continues with his refusal to call a hearing on ACORN, other “strategic” partnerships will continue to flourish and deceive at the expense of American taxpayers.

A lot of people wonder who the next leaders of the Republican Party should be.  I don't know.  But you know who it shouldn't be?   Anybody who thinks the current elected Senator from Alaska should resign so that the corrupt former Senator Ted Stevens can be brought back to the Senate.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Citizenship is not something people think about, until its underlying attitudes are lost to the culture. Its notable that in socialist paradises like Canada and the U.K., governments are having to teach active citizenship in the schools to combat the natural lesson of socialism--citizenship is about entitlement.

Nowadays we discuss democracy in terms of elections, but its power lies in the the personal sense of ownership, the individual's sense of responsibility towards the community. The famous tale of Thermopylae in which three hundred Spartans defended their country against thousands of invading Persians is really a demonstration of the relative power of citizens over royal subjects. The Persians were willing to kill for their emperor, but the Spartans, Thespians and Thebans were willing to die to defend their communities, Moreover, the Greeks elevated their sacrifice to a supreme expression of democratic virtue. The citizen had transcended the ancient tribal paradigm. A man would naturally give his life to protect his family, but the Greeks sense of family was transformed--their countrymen were now their family.

The Romans understood the power of this concept and incorporated it into a symbol of the Roman Republic--the Fasces. Its symbolism is obvious--strength through unity. The Romans forged a durable empire less through conquest (which of course every transient empire had done until then...), then by extending Roman citizenship to conquered people. The concept was so powerful, it has been copied universally, although imperfectly every since. American national symbolism is replete with fasces (the arrows in the eagles claw, the pillar's of Lincoln's throne within his monument, 'E Pluribus Unum" on our money...)

Yet symbols are only reminders of abstract facts. When the facts disappear, the symbol becomes meaningless--or worse, available for hijacking. The Swaztika used to be a good luck charm and was used on maps to mark temples, but its modern meaning is altogether different these days.

This is a long, but necessary prelude to understand something Dallas News columnist Rod Dreher wrote.

Dave was hot. And Dave was pretty much right on the money. We talked for a while longer about Bernie Madoff, AIG, the government bailouts, how the responsible are going to have to bear the burdens for the irresponsible – and how those most to blame for this catastrophe are likely to get away with it.

"My dad, he's in his 80s now," Dave said. "He's only got a fourth-grade education and has been a working man all his life. Even now, he can't wait to get up in the morning and get out to work on appliances. I talk to him every night, and we talk a lot about this economic mess. Sometimes he'll get to crying, saying he doesn't know where this country is going, and it scares him."

My wife came outside with a check. Dave put it in his overalls pocket, picked up his toolbox and went to his next job. I thought about him all day long. Dave is just one ordinary working stiff, but he was onto something, and he was onto something big.

What happens when people like him become convinced that the system is set up to reward lobbyists, lawyers, rent-seekers, developers, corporate interests, special-pleaders and sundry freeloaders lining up to nuzzle the ever-expanding government teat – all at their expense? What happens when the repairman loses faith in the institutions of government, of commerce, of civil society? When the kind of man who makes up America's backbone concludes that nobody else seems to believe in the common good anymore, so why should he?

I fear we're going to find out before too much longer. And we're not going to like it.

We may find three hundred men to stand in the breech to defend their countrymen with their lives, but we will consider them suckers rather than heroes. AIG employees, many of them no longer with the company, received "retention" bonuses, and for all the grandstanding by Barney Franks etal, the Democrats knew about it, in fact, they engineered it. Rome was looted by its "citizens" long before Alaric and his Visigoths appeared at the gates, and so it is with this country as well. The top to bottom corruption of our democratic institutions has destroyed the real source of our power--our unity.

We've talked about it several times here on the blog; the hostile takeover of smaller unions. It has been Andy Stern's main modus operandi (President of the Service Employees International Union or SEIU). The idea is to roll into the territory of a local, smaller union, make back room deals with the employers to get their assistance, and then lead a forced take over of that smaller union eventually to vote it out of existence. Thereby the little unions that might stand in the way of the mega unions are eliminated and the mega unions now controlling everything from the top down get more even more massive.

It's a perfectly legitimate strategy, of course... except for the fact that it makes the lie to every purported "principle" that unions claim to have. Local control becomes dashed and democracy summarily eliminate, yet local control and democratic process are the central themes of unionism. Without them they are little different than the supposedly evil corporate maters bent on domination that union claim their employers are. If a union member cannot feel that his local representatives are actually there for him then that impersonal attitude is no different than uncaring masters of industry.

Yet, this strong-arm takeovers of smaller unions is the current rage among big unions. And it is being noticed.

Last week there was a big pow wow of 12 of the nation's biggest unions. They mean to join together to work toward enlarging unionism in the American workplace. But the smaller unions are balking because they know that the larger the union group is the more chance they will be eliminated.

The 12 could not agree upon a plan to create a governing council and one of the reasons is power.

The larger unions want to create a powerful executive committee, and one divisive issue is how much power medium-size and small unions would have. The small unions oppose demands that they be forced to merge into larger unions.

And they are right, too. If this council or umbrella organization is created it will naturally tend to aggregate more and more power unto itself and that power WILL tend to eliminate smaller, weaker entities.

If unions start such an group, small unions are doomed. And, we will see that unions aren't at all interested in democracy or local control. They are only interested in amassing power, the sort of power that will corrupt unions hopelessly.

Let's hope these smaller unions are smart enough to understand that.

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!

Well, great: 

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has called on U.S. Sen. Roland Burris to resign, CNN reports.

"I would ask my good friend Sen. Roland Burris .. to step aside and resign from the office," Quinn said during a press conference moments ago. 

He also said he supports a bill to fill U.S. Senate vacancies with a temporary appointee by the governor, followed by a special primary and general election. "There's just too much of a cloud of controversy over the appointment process," Quinn said.

Let's review the sequence of events that got us to this point. 

The Democratic Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich gets busted for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat. The Democratic legislature vows to strip Blagojevich of his appointment power. Oh, wait, never mind. Then they dither on impeachment for more than a month. Meanwhile, Blagojevich calls their bluff and appoints Burris to the Senate seat. Harry Reid and Senate Democrats vow to block the appointment. Oh, wait, never mind. Because Burris promised them there was no quid pro quo, they seated him. Meanwhile the Democratic President from Chicago floats effortlessly above it all, virtually without comment. 

If there ever was an accountability moment that could be pinned to Democrats at both the state and Congressional level, this is it. But beyond the sheer comedy of it all, I don't hear the vaunted conservative echo chamber systematically trying to nail Michael Madigan and Harry Reid to the proverbial post for the fraud that was perpretrated against the people of Illinois and America.

Or maybe I'm missing something? 

On the main page, Jon Henke offers a template for Republican mea culpa that should allow us to move forward.  I agree with the assessment that we owe the American people an explanation of where we went wrong AND (let's not forget) where we went right over the past eight years.  That said, such a mea culpa has to concentrate on the issues where we actually WENT WRONG as opposed to the one major issue where George W. Bush sacrificed his personal popularity to lead the United States (and the entire world) to a better tomorrow.

On that note, these are the seven legitmate issues for a Republican Mea Culpa:

1) Terri Schivao

2) Harriet Miers

3) TARP and Bailout Nation.

4) 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills

5) Duke Cunningham, et. al.

6) 2005 Highway Bill

7) Continuing and expanding Carter/Clinton "affordable housing" policies.

Things that have NO PLACE on this list: IRAQ, Medicare Part D, Katrina, Missle Defense, or ANYTHING related to the War on Terror.

Agnostic: No Child Left Behind, Immigration.

Thoughts/Suggestions?!?