Tag Archive: Corruption


Government On The Friends And Family Plan

 

 

” In his stirring speech to the 1984 Democratic National Convention, then-New York governor Mario Cuomo used an extended metaphor of the whole nation as a family. So maybe it should come as no surprise to discover that his son, current New York governor Andrew Cuomo, uses the New York State government as a jobs program for his friends and their families. The Empire State Development Corporation in particular is chock-full of his donors and friends, and their young sons–not to mention Cuomo’s political advisers.

He’s not alone in spending (other people’s) money to help family and friends. TheWashington Post reported in December on the family-friendly atmosphere at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority:

Meet the Kulle family: mom Helen, daughter Ann Kulle-Helms, son-in-law Douglas Helms, son Albert, daughter-in-law Michele Kulle and Michele’s brother, Jeffrey Thacker.

They all worked for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. All at the same time.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Morning Bell: A Bumper Crop of Food Stamps

 

” Where do food stamps come from?” 

 

Cartoon by Glenn Foden

 

 

” They come from taxpayers—certainly not from family farms. Yet the “farm” bill, a recurring subsidy-fest in Congress, is actually 80 percent food stamps and other government nutrition programs.

It has become the norm that Congress lumps billions—even trillions—of dollars in taxpayer-funded programs together into huge bills. This allows them to sneak in plenty of special-interest pork.”

 

 

 

Illustration by Glenn Foden

 

 

 

 

How They Got Away With It

FILE PHOTO TAKEN APRIL 18, 2012

” This time, it’s about sex. An all-too-detailed report on the Vito Lopez scandal reveals that the once-powerful assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic leader harassed and humiliated his female staffers — demanding that they wear sexy clothes, playing with their hair, plying them with alcohol, luring them to hotel rooms and sticking his creepy hand up their skirts.

Perhaps most depressing of all was the reaction from Assembly Democrats when told their leader had turned a blind eye to despicable, potentially criminal behavior and put young women in harm’s way:

They excused him. They forgave him. They defended him. They praised his leadership.

Above all, they scoffed at the idea that the Manhattan Democrat’s 19-year reign as speaker should end.

The key to understanding all of this, as with so much of the corruption in Albany of late, is the corrosive culture of the Legislature.

And that begins and ends with the Democrat-controlled Assembly’s near-absolute boss rule.

As soon as they get elected, like it or not, Democrats forfeit virtually all of their power to Silver — who’s now been speaker for 19 years running — as their party leader and speaker.

Assembly members are independently elected, yes. They have their own ideas and their own duties to their districts and constituents.

But as soon as they cross the Capitol threshold, they basically become Silver’s employees.

He singlehandedly determines what laws his members can bring to the floor and pass, what committees they sit on, what hearings they hold and how much cash they’re allotted to hire staff and rent office space. He can even manipulate their salaries by awarding — or taking away — leadership posts that come with extra stipends ranging from $9,000 to $41,500.”

 

 

 

 

 

Audit THIS! Tea Party Groups To Protest At IRS Offices Nationwide On Tuesday

 

 

irs-protest

 

 

 

” PROTEST THE CORRUPTION – PROTEST THE CRIMINAL OBAMA IRS

Thanks to Barack Obama the Tea Party is once again outraged and motivated.

The Tea Party Patriots on behalf of Tea Party, Patriot groups, 9/12, liberty activists, and the American people, we are calling for anyone and everyone to protest the IRS’ complete abuse of power on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at noon local time.” 

 

 

 

 

Mark Levin: “It’s Time To Kill The IRS”

 

 

Mark_Levin

 

 

” MARK LEVIN: “Yes, we’re going to cover the ins and outs of this — we’re going to come into the weeds, but folks, it’s time to kill the IRS. That’s the bottom line. This agency has been corrupt since its founding. And the bigger the government gets, the more corrupt it gets, the more ubiquitous it gets. And I don’t just mean political partisanship and cronyism, I mean its abuses. We must fight the expansion of the IRS under Obamacare. We must fight to kill the IRS or critically wound it — politically — with either a flat tax or a fair tax. Now is the time to advance a liberty agenda. Now is the time to advance a Constitutional agenda.” (Mark Levin Show, May 15, 2013)”

 

 

 

Video at the link

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obamite Thuggery Has Long History

 

 

 

” It was Michael Barone who first wrote that Barack Obama was a practitioner of “gangster government.” Barone was right. The plethora of scandals now engulfing the administration, combined with all sort of prior scandals that a lapdog media largely ignored, show that this regime is thuggish beyond repair.

As they say in the game of bridge, “let’s review the bidding.”

* One of the most outrageous early examples of the vilest sort of hardball came in the case that we at The Washington Times(when I was there) called “Walpin-Gate.” When Gerald Walpin, the well-respected Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service, dared to point an unwanted focus on a close personal ally of the Obamas, not only did the White House fire himwithout the necessary notice to Congress but also smeared Mr. Walpin with the clear insinuation that he was becoming senile.

The message was clear: “Mess with us and we’ll mess with you in a way you ain’t never been messed before – and it’s gonna hurt.”

* Obama himself had two well-publicized, airport-tarmac run-ins with Republicans governors. “Careful,” he warned Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal when visiting the Bayou State after the oil spill. “This is going to get bad for everyone.” He also publicly berated Supreme Court justices during his State of the Union speech.

* Again and again, top Obama officials in federal agencies issue threats – sometimes veiled, sometimes explicit – to private citizens and businesses to not even say anything displeasing to Obamites. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does it. The EPA has tried it repeatedly. The Obamites do it to the oil companies and to so many others that columnist David Freddoso has written a whole book about it.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lax State Rules Provide Cover For Sponsors Of Attack Ads

 

State_Money_Politics

 

 

” While much criticism has been lobbed at the federal system for failing to adequately identify who is spending money to influence campaigns, 35 states have independent spending disclosure laws that are less stringent than federal election law.

In fact, in 30 states it’s impossible to total how much money outside groups are spending on campaigns, information that is mostly available when it comes to federal contests.

That’s according to a new 50-state analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which graded the states on disclosure requirements for super PACs, nonprofits and other outside spending groups.”

 

 

    To see in detail how your state ranks in the battle against soft money click Report Card .

 

 

Report Card

” The National Institute on Money In State Politics graded each state by the strength of their independent spending disclosure laws through April 2013. It looked at:

  • Does the state require reporting of independent expenditures, political spending that urges voters to support or oppose a candidate but is not coordinated with the campaign?
  • Does the state require reporting of the target, the identity of the candidate who is the subject of the independent spending?
  • Does the state require reporting of position, whether the spending supports or opposes the target
  • How does the state monitor “electioneering communications” — advertising that airs close to an election that names a candidate but does not urge viewers to vote for or against the candidate?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Obama’s Chicago-Style IRS

 

 

 

” It’s official. President Obama is worse than Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon’s White House had Chuck Colson compile an “enemies list” of people it believed were opposing the Nixon administration’s politics. The purpose of the list was to encourage the IRS to audit and harass those listed. The IRS refused.

Fast forward 30 years. President Obama rails against the tea party movement. His Department of Homeland Security suggested early in his administration that groups that oppose big-government spending should be looked into as possible terrorist threats. And, surprise, the IRS set up a special unit to harass tea party groups that oppose big government. Obama’s White House claims not to have sent a memo asking the bureaucrats to do this. It didn’t have to.

This is an unprecedented level of corruption. Didn’t anyone in the IRS object to these attacks? It seems like everyone involved was a willing participant in this abuse of power on the president’s behalf. This isn’t one corrupt politician wishing the IRS would annoy his “enemies.” This is a good chunk of the federal government willingly bending to the will of one politician. This is how the city of Chicago works. Everyone knows what to do without telltale memos.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABC Political Analyst: IRS Scandal Emanates From The White House

 

 

 

“I will tell you this on the IRS front. I’ve worked in this town for over 20 years in the White House and on Capitol Hill and I can say with a very strong sense of certainty that there are people very close to this president that not only knew what the IRS were doing but authorized it,” he said, being careful not to blame Obama directly for the scandal.

“It simply just does not happen at an agency level like that without political advisers likely in the West Wing certainly connected to the president’s ongoing campaign organization,” he added.

Hardin was not the only person to make the charge.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MCCONNELL: IRS REVELATIONS ‘JUST THE BEGINNING’

 

 

” The scandal, McConnell said, extends up the chain. “The Obama effort to shut up opponents isn’t limited to the IRS,” he stated. “It applies to the FCC [Federal Communications Commission], SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], FEC [Federal Elections Commission], HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] …. And you remember, the Obama campaign last year published a list of eight businessmen who it believed were enemies.”

He also added that the recent IRS revelations were “just the beginning of the story. This is no little thing. This is a big thing. The good news about it is they finally got caught. They finally messed with an agency everybody fully understands. When they try to quiet the critics through other agencies, it doesn’t get attention. This does. Everybody understands the IRS and how powerful they are. This is just one example of an administration-wide effort to silence critics.” “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cuomo Staffers Elect To Quit

 

 

 

” Disenchanted members of Gov. Cuomo’s administration, embarrassed by the worsening government scandals and convinced that Cuomo won’t be president, will soon leave their jobs — just as the governor is stepping up plans to run for re-election next year.

Several “significant departures’’ are expected in the coming months, sources told The Post.

“A lot of people are looking to get out. They’re tired and, frankly, it’s not the best place to work,’’ said a source with first-hand knowledge of the situation. “There’s a lot of abuse that’s involved in working for the governor, and more and more people are saying, ‘What do we need this for?’ ’’ the source continued.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National Editorial: Did IRS Dirty Tricks Against Tea Party End In Cincinnati?

 

 

 

 

To understand the moral context of the IRS’ admission that it improperly targeted conservative Tea Party and Patriot nonprofits during the 2012 presidential campaign, it helps to know that Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have something in common besides twice being elected to the Oval Office: All three appear to have been quite willing to use the most intrusive powers of the federal government against their political opposition.

Unlike the Nixon scandal, there is as yet no evidence that Obama or one of his top aides ordered the IRS to go after the conservative groups, but then it was only on Friday that Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS tax exemption unit, admitted the “inappropriate” actions while answering a question during an American Bar Association conference.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11 Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Should Be Abolished

 


” If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.  It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people.  The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years. 

The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”, and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy.  But why do we need a bunch of unelected private bankers to manage our economy and print our money for us in the first place?  Wouldn’t our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates?  And according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. 

So why is the Federal Reserve doing it?  Sadly, this is the way it works all over the globe today.  In fact, all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank.  But the truth is that there are much better alternatives.  We just need to get people educated.

The following are 11 reasons why the Federal Reserve should be abolished…

 

 

#2 The Federal Reserve Is Systematically Destroying The Value Of The U.S. Dollar

 

The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

If you do not believe this, just check out the inflation chart in this article.

The Federal Reserve systematically penalizes those that try to save their money.  Inflation is a tax, and the value of each one of our dollars goes down a little bit more every single day.

But over time, it really adds up.  In fact, the value of the U.S. dollar has fallen by 83 percent since 1970.

Anyone that goes to the grocery store on a regular basis knows how painful inflation can be.  The following is a list that shows how prices for many of the things that we buy on a regular basis absolutely skyrocketed between 2002 and 2012

Eggs: 73%

Coffee: 90%

Peanut Butter: 40%

Milk: 26%

A Loaf Of White Bread: 39%

Spaghetti And Macaroni: 44%

Orange Juice: 46%

Red Delicious Apples: 43%

Beer: 25%

Wine: 60%

Electricity: 42%

Margarine: 143%

Tomatoes: 22%

Turkey: 56%

Ground Beef: 61%

Chocolate Chip Cookies: 39%

Gasoline: 158%

Even the price of water has absolutely soared in recent years.  According to USA Today, water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country.

So how can the Federal Reserve get away with claiming that we are in a “low inflation” environment?

Well, what Ben Bernanke never tells you is that the way that the government calculates inflation has changed more than 20 times since 1978.

The truth is that the real rate of inflation is somewhere between five and ten percent right now, but you will never hear about this on the mainstream news.” 

 

 

Read them all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senators Kill Amendments Tied To Bill On Immigration; Border Security Issue Put On Back Burner

 

 

 

” The Senate immigration bill survived its first tests Thursday as a core group of Republicans and Democrats held together, killing efforts to require full border security requirements before legalizing illegal immigrants.

Kicking off the first votes on immigration this year, the Judiciary Committee held a daylong session on border security where senators agreed to require that the entire southwestern border be secured to 90 percent “efficiency.”

But the committee defeated Republican efforts to put that requirement and others before legalization. Members also rejected following through on a 2006 law that ordered the government to build 700 miles of two-tier fencing on the 2,000-mile-long border.”

SEE RELATED: Senate bill doesn’t stop most illegal immigration: Fed study

 

 

The screwing of America continues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OBAMA SPENT $11.45 MILLION PER ‘GREEN JOB’ CREATED

 

 

” In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to create 5 million “green jobs” if elected president. However, an analysis by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) finds that since 2009, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) $26 billion loan program created just 2,298 permanent jobs, at a cost of $11.45 million per job created.

In his New York Times bestselling book Throw Them All Out, Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer revealed that 80% of Department of Energy loans went to companies owned by or connected to President Barack Obama’s top campaign fundraisers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Trippy Idea Or Fiscal Genius? Two Pols Idea To Smoke Away The Deficit

 

 

” What if the United States could shrink the federal deficit and get high at the same time? Two congressmen calling for the legalization of recreational marijuana say it’s not such a trippy idea.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) say marijuana legalization is a common sense fiscal policy that could save the government billions of dollars through a combination of tax revenues and savings from not pursuing costly enforcement and incarceration.

“We are trying to rationalize federal drug policy,” Blumenauer tells Top Line. “We’re spending too much money on enforcement for something most Americans think should be legal, and we’re losing revenue. And we’re going to create federal train wreck if we don’t fix it.”

They say the federal government is behind the curve of states like Washington and Colorado, where recreational marijuana is regulated and taxed.”

 

 

 

 

Pigford Forever

 

 

 

 

” At the time of his premature death, the great provocateur Andrew Breitbart was more than a year into a grinding crusade to bring attention to a little-known class-action settlement called Pigford, which had begun with plausible accusations that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had discriminated against a small number of black farmers, but which had spiraled into a billion-dollar, open-ended government kickback machine for untold thousands that showed no signs of letting up. The Pigford case represented everything Breitbart raged against in the American political order — large-scale cronyism, corrosive and cynical identity politics, unrepentant hypocrisy, and the predictable indifference of the mainstream media. A handful of conservative outlets reported on the story at the time — including NR — and a handful of liberal outlets dedicated only as much ink to these stories as it took to dismiss them. But in Breitbart’s lifetime,Pigford never cracked into “the conversation”; it never came to be seen as emblematic of a deeper corruption endemic in Big Government.

Perhaps that will now change with the publication, by no less an arbiter of “the conversation” than the New York Times, of a deeply reported 5,000-word piece on Pigford and its descendants that, if anything, reveals the truth to be worse than was previously thought.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feinstein’s Hubby Wins CA High Speed Rail Contract

 

cal_hsr

 

” Out of the entire universe of those who could have won the first phase construction contract for California’s high speed rail boondoggle, who would stand out as the last person who would win it if there were no political patronage.

Put another way, who is the most likely person to win it if there is political patronage?

Both questions have the same answer: Richard Blum, the husband of California senator Diane Feinstein.

So, who won the contract? Blum, of course, as the principle owner of Tutor Perini, the lead firm in the three-firm consortium selected by the California High Speed Rail Authority.

The Perini-Zachary-Parsons bid was the lowest received from the five consortia participating in the bidding process, but “low” is a relative term. The firms bid $985,142,530 to build the wildly anticipated first section of high speed rail track that will tie the megopolis of Madera to the global finance center of Fresno. Do the division, and you find that the low bid came in at a mere $35 million per mile.

And that doesn’t include the cost of rolling stock (that’s engines and cars to the normal among us). Nor does it include the cost of electrifying the route. Does it at least include the cost of land acquisition? No, it does not.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gangs And Politicians In Chicago: An Unholy Alliance

 

 

A gang member and a politician

 

 

 

“A few months before last February’s citywide elections, Hal Baskin’s phone started ringing. And ringing. Most of the callers were candidates for Chicago City Council, seeking the kind of help Baskin was uniquely qualified to provide.

Baskin isn’t a slick campaign strategist. He’s a former gang leader and, for several decades, a community activist who now operates a neighborhood center that aims to keep kids off the streets. Baskin has deep contacts inside the South Side’s complex network of politicians, community organizations, and street gangs. as he recalls, the inquiring candidates wanted to know: “Who do I need to be talking to so I can get the gangs on board?”

Baskin—who was himself a candidate in the 16th Ward aldermanic race, which he would lose—was happy to oblige. In all, he says, he helped broker meetings between roughly 30 politicians (ten sitting aldermen and 20 candidates for City Council) and at least six gang representatives. That claim is backed up by two other community activists, Harold Davis Jr. and Kublai K. M. Toure, who worked with Baskin to arrange the meetings, and a third participant, also a community activist, who requested anonymity. The gang representatives were former chiefs who had walked away from day-to-day thug life, but they were still respected on the streets and wielded enough influence to mobilize active gang members.”

 

 

 

 

HT/ Instapundit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read This If You Still Think Teachers Unions, Educrats Care About Kids

 

 

 

” On Sunday, The Washington Post ran a house editorial that should shame not just all the education bureaucrats and rank-and-file teachers in the District of Columbia but all across the country.

The basic points of the editorial are not at issue:

1. D.C.’s publicly funded charter schools outperform conventional public schools. That’s one of the reasons why 40 percent of the District’s kids voluntarily enroll in them and why thousands are on waiting lists.

2. D.C.’s charter schools get about $16,000 in funding per pupil, compared to $29,000 per pupil for traditional schools.

3. The District’s education establishment has made it next to impossible for charters to rent closed school buildings in a vindictive move to screw over competitors offering a cheaper, better alternative.”

 

 

 

 

 

Lawmakers, Aides May Get Obamacare Exemption

 

Obamacare

” Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

When asked about the high-level bipartisan talks, Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said: “The speaker’s objective is to spare the entire country from the ravages of the president’s health care law. He is approached daily by American citizens, including members of Congress and staff, who want to be freed from its mandates. If the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will.” “

 

 

 

HT/ Dan Riehl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WALMART, AMAZON BACK STEALTH INTERNET SALES TAX BILL

 

 

 

 

” Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Walmart, Amazon, and some Republicans are fighting to ram through an Internet sales tax bill to raise revenues and crush smaller e-commerce competitors.

The “Marketplace Fairness Act” (S. 743), a retread of a bill introduced in February by Rep. Mike Enzi (R-WY), was introduced last Tuesday and may be rushed to a vote as early as April 22nd using a Senate rule that side-steps committee debate and goes straight to a vote. 

If passed, the law would require online merchants with over $1 million in annual sales to collect sales taxes for 9,600 state and local taxing authorities, a move that could dramatically increase overhead costs for smaller e-commerce sellers.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the Internet tax bill would benefit big online sellers like Amazon and Walmart who can more easily absorb the added costs:”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHERIFFS, IMMIGRATION AGENTS: NO ONE CONSULTED US ON IMMIGRATION BILL

 

 

” Law enforcement officials from around the country coalesced on Thursday against the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, arguing that it did not solve of the nation’s immigration law problems and railing on the senators involved for not including law enforcement experts in their creation of the bill.

“Almost one month ago, we asked for a meeting with the Gang of Eight to discuss law enforcement concerns,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents’ union president Chris Crane said at a Thursday press conference. “They told us they weren’t taking meetings but they were meeting all along with special interests and pro-amnesty groups. Finally, after public pressure grew, I got a late Monday night meeting with Sen. Rubio the day before this almost-1,000-page bill was introduced. I raised my many public safety concerns and pleaded with him not to drop the bill until these public safety concerns with law enforcement were addressed. They dropped it anyway.”

Crane went on to say that he thinks the bill will “put the public safety at risk without doubt. It fails on interior enforcement, it’s amnesty first, enforcement perhaps never.

“Unfortunately, I do not believe that the Gang of Eight is a group that we can trust with a matter so important to the safety of American communities and security of our nation,” Crane said.”

 

 

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Vitter: Why Do Democrats Get 3 Times As Many Obama Stimulus Grants As Republicans?

 

 

 

” President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill contained funding for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program grants. Democratic districts have received $356,109,553 from the program, compared to just $132,272,695 for Republican districts.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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