Culture of Corruption

Like the day you vote to give the tycoons on Wall Street  $700 Billion

It just might be the wrong day to put the hit on the American Bankers Association for three large. Especially when you lambasted your predecessor for soliciting cash from folks who worked with her committee, and now you sit on the Financial Services Committee. 

http://davidcappiello.com/dc/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/

The bailout is NOT going to go away as an issue for awhile, I suspect.

A couple of days back I blogged about a CT Democrat lawmaker who thought a sex abuse allegation could be swept under the rug for $100K. http://thenextright.com/ironman/hush-hush-voices-carry

Well, we did not have to wait 'til Tuesday for this guy to hang it up, he smelled the latte tonight and announced he's quitting, effective immediately 

 http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20171365&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=665579&rfi=6

but the damage has been done to the CT Democrats, as this afternoon Speaker James Amann confirmed that his party's sernior leadership knew back in 2004 that Rep. Wilber was being sued over alleged abuse to a girl who was 11 at the time of the incident, and blithely blessed his re-election bids and contributed heavily to his re-election bids http://www.courant.com/news/local/statewire/hc-20200022.apds.m0835.bc-ct--lawmoct20,0,3433000.story http://www.everydayrepublican.com/2008/10/20/breaking-news-wilber-to-resign-for-health-reasons/

What is even more sad is that the Democrats always had a huge majority in the state house; even though Wilber's seat leans Republican it's not like they'd have missed him had he stepped down and a new candidate lost. So much for caring about protecting children from abuse, eh?

But, the CT Democrats are really picking winners these days. Their candidate in a Bridgeport district, Auden Grogins, is representing (at taxpayer expense) the most heinous criminal in CT history, Joshua Komisarjevsky.  http://connpolitics.tv/index.php/2008/08/13/atty-for-cheshire-murder-suspect-wins-pr 

Given the moral compass of George Wilber and Auden Grogins, is there any surprise which political party traditionally opposes effective measures to protect women, children and  seniors in CT?

As for that other hush money scandal, Florida's Tim Mahoney is now out one spouse, http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7284e030-a7c2-461d-b456-ea593392c67f&rss=762 and one political party ad campaign http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Politics/story?id=6073940&page=1. Hey, there are a lot of nice tiki bars in Florida for guys in a midlife crisis looking for affection. Life could be worse. At least you won't have to worry about Rahm Emanuel anymore.

Evidently there's now a run on Democratic politicians being revealed for buying their way out of morally reprehensible behavior. First (soon to be former) Congressman Tim Mahoney, now a CT Democratic legislator one-ups the Florida fraud. 

 State rep. paid woman $100,000 to settle childhood sex abuse allegations

Documents left with The Register Citizen Thursday suggest Wilber was accused of sexually abusing a girl from the time she was 11 years old. The woman is now in her 40s.

http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20169751&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=665579&rfi=6

Since the court settlement did not admit guilt on Wilber's part, he says he is fit to serve the voters of northwest CT in the legislature, claiming that since he "coached Little League" the charges were meritless. Yeah, right, you always just throw $100 large at a spurious claim. 

The CT Republican chairman begs to differ 

  It is clear by Rep. Wilbur has not been candid with the voters of the 63rd district," said Healy. "They allegations and the facts surrounding this incident are extremely serious and demand a full accounting by Rep. Wilbur. If he doesn't, Rep. Wilbur should do the right thing and resign

http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20169955&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=665579&rfi=6

Amazingly Wilber isn't even the first CT Democrat implicated in this sort of sordid debacle. Former Rep. Jefferson Davis is now on a state sex offender list after copping a plea to indecent behavior with an adopted son  http://www.sor.state.ct.us/pls/sor/wsor$offender.queryview?P_SPBI_ID=273319&Z_CHK=31034 

Perhaps Rep. Wilber will step down after this bombshell admission. Or , like the other Democrats fond of paying hush money, the voters will need to wait "'Til Tuesday" in a couple of weeks to be rid of these reprobates.

I have to link to Gateway Pundit on this one. While the post is specifically about the Tim Mahoney scandal, I have a more global point to make

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/10/dem-leaders-knew-mahoney-sex-scandal.html

Check out Mahoney's TV ad; the one where he proclaims that he is "keeping Congress clean"

Folks, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel played us for a bunch of rubes in the last election.

Now, did we deserve our shellacking?, sure we did . But let's look at the facts.

The Democrats ran against the fiscal imprudence of the Bush administration and the lack of ethics in Washington. And what did they do-----spend money even faster and become even more ethically obtuse than the last crowd running Capitol Hill.  John Doolittle using lobbyist money to pay spouse; meet Speaker Pelosi.

Worst of it, they knew that's what they were going to do and simply scammed the angry voters into blaming it all on the Republicans.   They were going to pass a law or too they'd promptly ignore and start looting Washington themselves.

And ethics? Hey they think that's just a lever to get those faith based voters bitter at the Republicans long enough to vote for Democrats who will enact a secular agenda. 

Rahm Emanuel recruited Mahoney to run in this district and had an opportunity to knew Tim Mahoney's character or lack thereof. My guess is he knew he was a sleaze from the word go and fell on the floor laughing he had scammed the voters of Florida.  

So, what about this year?

America sees Barack Obama promising to "cut taxes for 95% of America".  It's a seductive promise, but one no more grounded in reality than Mahoney's ethics agenda.  

Neither are the claims by congressional Democrat challengers that they will "fix Washington". More support for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid is going to fix what, exactly? 

Tim Mahoney is a window into the soul of the Democratic Party---a party that will say anything to gain power and then once it has it, use it to the detriment of the voters whom they scammed into gaining the power.

I hope Americans hear the theme song from CSI when they vote November 4.   

In 2006 Democrat businessman Tim Mahoney denounced his opponent, Rep. Mark Foley, for his role in the rather sordid House Page scandal. Mahoney forced Foley to resign and quit the campaign and then his lawyers prevented the Republicans from placing the replacement candidate's (state Rep. Joe Negron) name on the November ballot. Given all this, Mahoney eked out a narrow win in a Democratic year. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/elections/keyraces/676/

Whatever his flaws, one would have thought Mahoney would be mildly moral given his path to office. Nope. Not even close.

Congressman's $121,000 Payoff to Alleged Mistress

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5997043&page=1

Guess this was all a public investment in "a world that is safer, more moral."

Worse still for the Democrats is one of their top leaders, Rahm Emanuel, is alleged to have known about this disgraceful conduct and to have counseled Mahoney on how to avoid political fallout. Of course, Emanuel recruited Mahoney in 2006 at a time when Foley looked like a shoo in, which leads one to surmise Emanuel knew about Foley's misdeeds before they went public, too, and now is merely trying to protect his political investment. 

Evidently, as per Wikipedia Mahoney has been holding himself out as a potential opponent to Senator Mel Martinez  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010#Mel_Martinez_of_Florida

Another possible challenger is Rep. Tim Mahoney (FL-16), who defeated Mark Foley in 2006 after revelations about inappropriate relations between Foley and his staff surfaced. If he is reelected in 2008, he will have proven his ability to win in a Republican-leaning congressional district, which potentially could make him a strong candidate in a statewide run.

Perhaps Mahoney should pursue his statewide ambitions, as he can follow in the footsteps of two prominent Democrats in this part of the country who paid for sexual pleasure --Eliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey 

I await with baited breath the pleas from Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Party Chairman Dean and Florida Democrat Senator Nelson for this sleazeball to resign from the House and quit his embarassing re-election campaign.

We forced Foley to quit. Evidently the "most ethical congress in history" doesn;t feel the need to take similar action.

We should take some action , though This should be a Republican seat, as it includes such places as Hobe Sound and Port Charlotte  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida's_16th_congressional_district and we have a good candidate http://www.tomrooney.com/ already running.

We ought to hang this one on the Democrats. They talk the talk, lets make this guy walk

Obama Receives $2.5 Million in Fundraising Help from Recipients of Earmarks

According to Newsweek, last summer, watchdog groups requested that Illinois Senator Barack Obama share records involving his smaller donors. He declined, and now new information is surfacing around his campaign accepting small donations from apparently nonexistent people whose contributions add up to sums exceeding the legal limit by a factor of four. While some of these small donors are now creating problems for Senator Obama, there are a number of large donors that have been causing him trouble for some time now.

The simple magnitude of donations to Senator Obama from recipients of his earmarks is staggering. He directly received over $500,000 dollars in donations from people who sit on the board of organizations he earmarked money to. Beyond that, he received a total of about $2,000,000 dollars in fundraising help from bundlers who received earmarks. In total, these $2.5 million in contributions raise important questions about Sen. Obama’s earmarking habits. This article highlights troubling cases in which Sen. Obama has given taxpayer money to some of his biggest fundraisers.

In 2008, Sen. Obama increased the Adler Planetarium earmark by 900% when the chairman and two vice chairmen together gave close to $250,000 to his presidential campaign. This story, originally researched by our group, made it to top level news organizations such as the Washington Times, Hot Air, Red State, The National Review and number of other news outlets. After further research, it has become clear that Senator Obama is handing out taxpayer money to more than just the members of the Adler Planetarium.

I guess I have to take a break from following my own senior senator Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) since he skeddalled off to Ireland and may have slipped back into the country while eluding the press.

Now I have another ethically challenged Senator out there, and I can share my knowledge of the financial services field to explain this latest faux pas.

The line in the title is from The Graduate, but plastic in the form of credit cards has made many young men in Delaware (a hotbed of finance) very rich. One, of whom, was Senator Joe Biden's son. 

 A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups.

David Wade, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said that "after working in the Clinton administration in the Department of Commerce on Internet privacy and online commerce issues, Hunter consulted for five years as an expert on these very same issues at a time of enormous expansion in online banking."

At the time Hunter Biden was receiving consulting payments from MBNA, he also was a Washington lobbyist at a firm he had co-founded.

"He was not a lobbyist for MBNA, and his work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill. Zero. Nothing," said Wade. 

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080825/ap_on_el_pr/biden_mbna

This story is getting some attention on Digg. So digg it!

Obama funnels federal money to top campaign contributors

Although earmarking large sums of money to top supporters and fundraisers is a popular practice in both houses of Congress, not many people would expect such questionable activity from a shining star of liberalism and reform like Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Sadly, he is following a pattern of conspicuous allocations of federal funds. Just as he handed a million dollar earmark to his wife’s employers in 2006 (immediately after which her pay shot up from $121,910 a year to $316,962), Sen. Obama is now drastically increasing earmarks that go to his biggest supporters.

 In 2006, Sen. Obama requested an earmark $300,000 to replace and update the projector system at the Adler Planetarium. In 2008, he requested $3,000,000 for replacement of the projector system and other equipment in the Sky Theater. For reference, this is three times the amount he earmarked for the HIV/AIDS Policy and Research Institute at Chicago State University.

While the Adler Planetarium earmarks look normal on the surface, there is a catch. The Chairman and two of the Vice Chairman of the Adler Planetarium Board of Trustees raised a total of almost $250,000 for Sen. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. The Adler Planetarium was probably pleasantly surprised when they found that their earmark increased by $2.7 million dollars, in other words, by a factor of ten.

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Frank Clark, stands out amongst Obama supporters. On Sen. Obama’s website, Mr. Clark is listed as a bundler who raised in excess of $200,000 for the Senator’s Presidential campaign. In 2004, Mr. Clark donated $5,000 to the then State Senator Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. In 2005, Mr. Clark became the Chairman of the Board at Adler Planetarium, and in 2006 Sen. Obama earmarked $300,000 to the Planetarium. Then, in the same year that Mr. Clark’s involvement in the Obama campaign skyrocketed to raising an excess of $200,000, Sen. Obama’s earmark for the Adler Planetarium increased tenfold to $3,000,000.

Mr. Clark isn’t the only problematic donor. Two of the Vice Chairmen of the Board, Brian Cressey and Peter Thompson are also significant donors. Between donations from Mr. Thompson and the Cressey household, Sen. Obama received $13,800. The most significant donor here is Mr. Cressey. As a first time donor, Mr. Cressey gave the maximum possible individual donation in essentially one big check. What makes this even more troubling is that Mr. Cressey had never given to Sen. Obama before 2008, the year in which the Adler Planetarium’s earmark increased tenfold.

The fact that three ranking members of the Adler Planetarium’s Board donated huge sums of money (at least $200,000) is interesting by itself. The fact that these enormous contributions came in the same year that Sen. Obama increased their earmark by 900% is truly unsettling. 

Written by David and Daniel Byler

For good reasons, the Democrats have successfully tarred Republicans with "corruption." We have and have had criminals in our midst like Ted Stevens, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, and others. We have done an inadequate job of shooting our own criminals in public, although the response to Stevens is encouraging.

In that context Sean makes an important point:

Voters who remember the results of liberal excess in the 1970s grow increasingly few and far between. Most voters don’t recall that the scandals which engulfed the GOP Congress were preceded by similar scandals that plagued Democrats for most of the 80s and early 90s; how many people today remember that the Democratic Speaker and Majority Whip both resigned as a result of separate ethical scandals in the 101st Congress?

People have certainly forgotten the old tales of Democratic corruption. We are also failing to tell today's stories of the corruption of Democrats and their allies. Some of this is media bias, but some is that we are not doing a good enough job of generating our own content. We have had Nancy Pelosi raising the minimum wage for everywhere but where she has financial interest. We have Ben Nelson giving earmarks to companies run by his children. Paul Kanjorski, Chris Dodd, John Murtha, etc. We have systemic union corruption. We have groups like ACORN who, at the least, establish incentive structures that encourage election fraud.

Where are we telling these stories?

He makes a good point. We need to find a top-tier replacement for Ted Stevens. -Patrick

Ousting the sticky fingered Ted Stevens is rather obviously a GOOD IDEA.

But, its far from enough. Our track record in 2006 shows abysmal execution in getting good replacement candidates up on the ballot.

Needless to say, the ones we stuck by through think and thin got shown the door, too. But we failed to take advantage of our fresh start in many races through piss poor execution and planning.