Change We Can Believe In - UPDATED

UPDATE: Now that the trial of the Governor-from-Hell, Blagojevich, has begun, questions about the role of the White House and presidential associates in 'helping' to pick candidates will continue to bubble up.  Just ask Paterson and Ford about the WH cherry-picking candidates in New York.

Hannity not-withstanding, it's pretty obvious that the vague White House offer, extended by the hand of Bill Clinton, to give Joe Sestak an unpaid advisory position for dropping out of the Democratic Senate primary (against Arlen Specter), will never land the White House in real legal trouble.  The real problem is the appearance that the White House that promised to usher in change, and clear out 'politics-as-usual,' is playing the usual game.  Gibbs' utter inability to give a straight answer to any specific question was on full display during yesterday's press briefing:

'White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated Tuesday that Rep. Joe Sestak was not offered a spot on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board but refused to say what was dangled in front of the Democrat in an attempt to remove him from a Senate primary. ... Sestak indicated Friday he was offered a spot on the PIAB by former President Bill Clinton, who was acting on behalf of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.  “I heard presidential board and I think it was Intel,” Sestak said to reporters, describing his conversation with Clinton.  White House counsel Bob Bauer said Friday that Sestak was offered a spot on “a presidential or other senior executive branch advisory board.”  However, Sestak would have been ineligible for such a post. Sestak and the Obama administration both said the congressman would have kept his seat in the House if he took a spot on the PIAB. But the PIAB is comprised of individuals who are “outside the government.”'

Gibbs even seemed unable to explain why he couldn't give a specific answer on the contents of the explanatory memo issued last Friday by White House Counsel, Robert Bauer: '“Whatever’s in the memo is accurate,” Gibbs said, adding that he would “check.”'  To add to the White House's self-immolation, it appears that similar offers were made to Andrew Romanoff who is running as a Senate candidate in Colorado.  Apparently, Jim Messina (White House Deputy Chief of Staff) was dispatched to offer a White House position to Romanoff if he would agree to clear the way for Sen. Michael Bennett in the Colorado Democratic primary.  The Romanoff deal is even less sticky, legally, than the Sestak offer since Romanoff was not a declared candidate at the time.  Again, however, it appears that the more things change in D.C., the more they stay the same.  This impression is only reinforced when the parties involved and the White House refuse to specifically answer any questions about the offers on the table.

Calls for Rangel to Step Down from Chairmanship

Jackie Kucinich reports at Roll Call that Rep. Boehner has asked that Rep. Rangel step down while ethics investigations into Rangel's serial memory problems are ongoing.

'Boehner’s request comes a week after reports that Rangel failed to disclose $600,000 in assets as well as tens of thousands of dollars in income on his 2007 financial disclosures. ...

“As chairman of the powerful House committee, entrusted with the responsibility of writing the tax laws that affect every law-abiding American citizen, you, along with the Speaker and other leaders of the majority party, have an obligation to help set the pace when it comes to standards of official conduct,” Boehner wrote. “By relinquishing the gavel voluntarily while the Ethics panel does its work, you would demonstrate your respect for this obligation.”

A spokesman for Rangel said Republican attempts to remove Rangel from his post are ill-timed, saying the ethics committee should be allowed to finish its investigation.

“Congress has a comprehensive, bipartisan process for reviewing any allegations made against a Member — the House ethics committee. Chairman Rangel himself initiated the request for the committee to review the allegations made against him,” the spokesman said. “Any action by the Minority Leader or others to prejudge the outcome of that bipartisan process would unfairly undermine the work of the ethics committee.”'

Rangel has repeatedly been under the gun for 'forgetting' to disclose numerous funding sources and to pay taxes, and has been protected by the House Democrats from investigations until recently. While the Ethics Committee is now formally investigating Rangel, Speaker Pelosi has stated that she will not discipline him unless and until he is found guilty by the committee. Perhaps the strangest aspect to this entire matter are the tough and punitive IRS rules, slipped into the health care bill, which would target even accidental tax violators. So far, he's unwilling to put himself through the same ringer he's demanding that other taxpayers be put through.

'Rangel's bill would:

* Punish those who fail to alert the IRS to potentially questionable tax exemptions.

* Bar the IRS from waiving penalties against taxpayers who clearly erred in good faith.

* Double fines in certain circumstances.

"The bill raises penalties and eliminates many of the reasonable defenses that taxpayers have always been able to use when honest mistakes are uncovered," one lawyer told The Post.

In fact, the bill increases fines "in some cases even for honest mistakes," the expert added.

Republicans yesterday ripped Rangel's attempt to go after taxpayers, given his own failure to pay taxes on rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic and his extensive reporting problems with his financial-disclosure statements to Congress'

Barney Frank Loses All Semblance of Dignity

At a speech at Harvard, a student (Joel Pollack) asked Barney Frank how much, if any, responsibility he bore for the economic meltdown. Frank attacked Pollack, essentially calling him a right-wing conspiracy tool, and refused to answer the question. Pollack was dignified, quiet and respectful, but persistent. When Frank said he hadn't been the Chair (of the House Financial Services Committee,) until 2007, and asked what he could have done anyway, Pollack asked about better monitoring of bonuses and Frank's ties to Frannie and Freddie. Scores Pollack - 1, Frank - 0.

One thing is clear, Barney Frank permits no one to question him, ever. Not about the money he took from Frannie and Freddie, not about his ties through his former partner with Fannie and Freddie, not about his repeated defense of their lending practices and refusal to permit regulation, not about his current roll as a powerful chair - never.

I'll say this for Frank; he never fails to astound with his level of deception, hypocrisy and downright nastiness. Neither do some of these other clowns:

The bribery of Sen. Dodd

The Washington Times has published an article that walks right up to the line of accusing Sen. Dodd of outright bribery and corruption. According to the article:

'As Democrats prepared to take control of Congress after the 2006 elections, a top boss at the insurance giant American International Group Inc. told colleagues that Sen. Christopher J. Dodd was seeking re-election donations and he implored company executives and their spouses to give.
The message in the Nov. 17, 2006, e-mail from Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, was unmistakable: Mr. Dodd was "next in line" to be chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the insurance industry, and he would "have the opportunity to set the committee's agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.
Now, two years later, Mr. Dodd has emerged as a central figure in the government's decision to let executives at the now-failing AIG collect more than $218 million in bonuses, according to the Connecticut attorney general - even as the company was receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). He acknowledged that he slipped a provision into legislation in February that authorized the bonuses, but said the Treasury Department asked him to do it.'

Sounds like bribery to me. Of course, Dodd blames the whole mess on the hapless Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers. Barney Frank likes to say that the AIG executives took bribes by accepting their bonuses. That's rich coming from Frank, who took large amounts from Fannie, Freddie and AIG, but if one accepts it on its face, then demanding re-election funds surely qualifies as a bribe.

Why Politicians Shouldn't Direct Federal Funding

Los Angeles Rep., Maxine Waters, is under investigation for ties to a bank to which she has lobbying ties. According to the LA Times:

A month before Congress enacted the bailout program, Waters helped set up a meeting between the chief executive of the bank, representatives of other financial institutions and Treasury officials. "When a member of the financial services committee calls, you pay special attention," said Jeb Mason, who was a high-ranking Treasury official last fall.

Ms. Water's husband was on the board of the bank until last year, and remains a stock holder (reported holdings as of 2007 were $500,000).

Waters was a senior member of the congressional committee dealing with the financial crisis when OneUnited Bank -- one of the nation's largest minority-owned institutions -- received $12 million in bailout funds.

This type of corruption is a perfect illustration for the long-standing argument on this blog: earmarks or any other Congressional authority that allows Congress to specifically direct federal funds to individuals, special projects, particular contractors, etc. will inevitably lead to corruption. At the very least: contracts should undergo a competitive and transparent bidding process, Congressional members must be required to disclose any financial or lobbying ties, and local and state governments should have some control over dissemination of funds.

In 2007, that most liberal of publications, The Nation, fully agreed that earmarks lead to corruption. Now? - nary a peep. Most of the media has been able to realize that at the least, President Obama isn't bringing pledged change to the system. Change can always come later, right? The champion of this issue, Sen. McCain, understands that we are still in a 'business as usual' mode in Washington, and that is unlikely to change.

Pretty Soon, We'll be Talkin' Real Money

Last night, the Senate passed the omnibus spending bill, allowing the measure to move to President Obama's desk where he's expected to immediately sign it. The bill is only a budget-filler to take the government through until September, when the trillion-dollar-plus budget for 2010 is expected to come up.

I don't object to passing a budget - it's a necessary exercise. But the $8-billion in pet projects really bug me, and the fact that a number of prominent Republicans/traitors support the earmark process makes it doubly hard to swallow.

The big immediate excuse by all for those earmarks?
"It is in America's best interest to close the book on the last administration and let the new one hit the ground running," said Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Please; Congress holds the purse-strings and determines what is in and out of the budget. Even if President Bush had personally requested each and every earmark (the largest requester by dollar value is Murtha, and the largest by number of earmarks is Shelby), blaming what is chosen today on something that originally came up for debate on a prior Administration (Bush refused to sign this bill until some of the earmarks were removed) is the height of childishness.

Here is a list of all the earmarks by dollar value. Strangely, one of the other reasons offered up for allowing the bill to pass as is, is that the earmark dollar value, as a percent of the total budget, is small, and that focus on that small amount is simply diversionary. Wow! $8-billion is such a small amount that you shouldn't worry your pretty little head about it. Now go back to the corner and play with your dolls. Here's a thought - I don't care if the amount is only $1-million. It's the corruption and waste that bothers me.

The long-term excuse for continuing the earmark culture is that the money would be spent anyway, and Congressional members are simply ensuring a 'fair share' for their individual states. This is an amazingly duplicitous argument. It would be reasonable to fight for a block of money to go to one's state or district, and then let the local and state governments go through their normal budgeting and allocation process. Instead, by having Congress decide which individuals projects are funded, local and state governments, and the normal bidding process are circumvented. This power can only lead to corruption in the end, and that end result is the reason McCain has been screaming about earmarks for twenty years.

Update #3: Burris Must Go

The newly sworn-in Senator from Illinois, Roland Burris, is now in hot water himself. He is now being called to task (the word perjury is being bandied about) for his testimony before a House panel at which he denied inappropriate contacts with Blago's administration.

"I did not donate one single dollar nor did I raise any money or promise any favors for the governor," he said, adding that anyone who suggested otherwise was "playing partisan politics."

Anytime a politician says things like this (think, "I did not sleep with that woman..."), I become suspicious. Call it my cynical nature, which was honed by living near DC (when a certain mayor was brought low by a drug and prostitution ring), Chicago (when a certain governor was brought low by a complex funding scandal that included license plate for illegal truckers out of Florida), and South Florida (hanging chads anyone?).

Burris is denying that he committed perjury, but the Republicans in Illinois smell blood in the water:

Earlier Sunday Burris issued a statement.

"I wish to supplement my answer with other events that I have been able to recall, to make certain the record is complete. ... I recall that Governor Blagojevich's brother, Rob Blagojevich, called me three times to seek my assistance in fund-raising for Governor Blagojevich," he wrote.

The disclosure reflects a major omission from his testimony in January. Burris, who entered the Senate the same week he testified at the panel, said he filed the affidavit because he didn't have the opportunity to lay out all the facts during his live testimony, a claim Durkin rejected.

Durkin said the information was evidence withheld by Democrats. Cross said he only learned about the affidavit after reading about it in the news on Saturday, even though the Illinois Democratic Majority Leader Rep. Barbara Currie received the affidavit on Feb. 5.

"I think somebody in the Burris camp finally realized that these conversations were probably on tape," Cross said explaining why he thinks the information became public.

The Chicago Sun-Time broke this story today, and Illinois lawmakers are already talking about hearings and removal from office.

Here we go again!

UPDATE #1:
Burris is insisting that his amended statement to the House panel is consistent with his original statement, and that he has done nothing wrong, and that he did not file the affidavit out of fear that his conversations with Blagojevich had been recorded.

UPDATE #2:
Burris is apparently losing all trust and respect, even among his own party members, as he changes (or 'amends') his story repeatedly. The Chicago Tribune is now calling for his resignation, as are members of both parties in the Illinois Congress. One wonders if Illinois will ever get a government that even approaches honesty.

UPDATE #3:
This has become a joke. Illinois is now the laughingstock of the nation. Sen. Burris must put his state and nation ahead of himself and resign. If he's incapable or unwilling to be that responsible, than the Senate should remove him - now!

Dreams of my father and tribe

Let me state at the outset something I emailed the other day to a regular reader. I do not believe Obama is a Muslim. I came to this conclusion, not so much because of his denials and membership in a church, but because he seems too corrupt; a practitioner of the politics of convenience; to be ideologically committed to any one belief. He is leftist, because those ideals got him elected and bring him money. He associates with believers in black-liberation theology (a slight variation of the liberation theology as practiced in South America) because its leaders in Chicago hold a great deal of power. He argues for attacking Pakistan because it makes him look tough. He has business and personal dealings with people most of us would refuse to break bread with (because they are unrepentantly violent, not because they thought something ridiculous in their twenties), because it garners him support and power and jobs.

All of that said, I think it's clear that Obama's 2006 odyssey to Africa was not so much a Congressional fact-finding mission (despite being billed and paid for that way, and despite the fact that no other Congressional members were part of it), but a personal one. An odyssey to 'find' his father, connect with his roots and tribe, and (cousin or not) campaign for Odinga. He was hot-to-trot when it came to slamming the political corruption endemic in Kenya and Kibaki administration (despite the improvements it made over prior administrations), but made nary a mention (despite being joined at the hip for two weeks) of Odinga's corruption, ties to communism and agreements with Islamists to implement Sharia law if their support garnered him the Presidency. This despite highly publicized reports in various Kenyan papers, the BBC and CBS. In fact, there are not a few similarities between the Presidential campaigns of Obama and Odinga. Both are the young 'agents of change.' Both have strong ties to current and former communist parties and leaders. Both have received help from Islamist organizations. Both seem to use these various associations, not so much because of personal belief, but out of convenience and for power.

Obama has repeatedly ridiculed John McCain for focusing on corruption in campaign finance and through the earmark system (Obama's personal requests amount to $1M/daily). His own corruption is the probable motivator. Of course, the sad end to all of this is the horrible violence, murder and mayhem that Odinga's supporters enacted when he lost the election. No one (except perhaps Kibaki himself) claims that the election was truly fair. But it wasn't worth the slaughter that Odinga wrought on the country in vengeance. Or perhaps to him it was, since it garnered him a power-sharing deal and the Prime Minister's post. Let me know what you think of the videos below.

Obama and Odinga

My last post may have seemed a little off the wall. After all, only the conservative bloggers and some disgruntled Kenyans are reporting that Obama campaigned for, donated money to, and took money from Odinga, right? Apparently, not anymore. The Washington Times (click on blog title for link) reported on Sunday on the relationship between Obama and Odinga. After watching the slaughter in Kenya this past spring, and looking at other reports on the lack watch on foreign donors to the Obama campaign, it seems reasonable to conclude that Sen. Obama is captured by the corrupt politics of Chicago and Washington. No wonder he keeps dismissing Sen. McCain's calls for an end to earmarking and 'taking' in the beltway. Why would he want to dry up his sources of funding? So much for change, and you're right, Sen. Obama, the ACORN sure doesn't fall far from the tree.

Roots of a crisis

This first link will take you to the side-by-side comparisons from Rep. Blunt's office of the bailout package changes: http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Comparison_of_original_Paulson_bailout_to_compromise_proposal.html

The second link is for House hearings from 2004 where the GOP was calling for new and stiffer regulation of Frannie & Freddie and the Dems were defending them against all comers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Remember, Sen. Dodd - #1 recipient of money from Freddie & Fannie. Sen. Obama - #2 with only 2 years in the Senate. Frank Raines is now on Obama's staff.

How many times will we allow them to mess with our markets and our money?