Imagine: In the days following the public revelations of the accounting scandal at Enron, then-CEO Ken Lay convened a news conference. He forcefully expressed his disgust with the actions of his subordinates and vowed to begin “cleaning house” at the company. Taking a few turns to slam the company’s critics and the reporters who had uncovered the scandal, he stressed that, this time, there would be a thorough revamp of the company. He even said that people would be fired! Reassured, reporters, lawmakers and regulators shrugged and went back to their daily lives.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis and Former Enron CEO Ken Lay

Substitute Bertha Lewis for Ken Lay and ACORN for Enron, in this hypothetical situation, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what was asked of us at Lewis’ tour-de-force theatrical performance at the National Press Club earlier this week. She alternated between attacking her critics, expressing disgust with the actions of her employees caught on tape by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and vowing to pursue a lawsuit against the filmmakers for capturing on film her employees’ misdeeds. Oh, and by the way, she really, really—she means it this time—intends to “clean house” at ACORN.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank captured the surreal tableau best:

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Sorry to interrupt the previous open thread, but, are you kidding me?

We await word from the Baseball, Basketball and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. Have at it…and, really, really tip your waitress now.

We thought politicians had retired this pose:

Open thread. Play nice. Tip your waitress…

The good folks at Let Freedom Ring pass on this news:

Let Freedom Ring today submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding answers after The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched a massive investigation into Humana’s role in influencing the healthcare reform fight.  Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) called for the investigation, slamming Humana for inciting fear among its beneficiaries.  

The FOIA letter requests “access to and copies of all correspondence, notes, emails, faxes, telephone logs, office visit logs, records of meetings and related documents exchanged between United States Senator Max Baucus’ office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (CMS) directly or indirectly related to a letter that Humana, Inc. sent to its Medicare Advantage policyholders suggesting that proposed health-care legislation could lower their benefits.”

 “We filed the FOIA letter today to dig deeper into the possible political pressure that was applied to CMS, and what implications that could have in the middle of a pitched fight over the future of healthcare,” said Let Freedom Ring President Colin Hanna.  “Our letter requires the government to provide timely and complete information that could shine some sunlight on what is driving the investigation.

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Federal stimulus spending may evoke images of hard hats and road construction, but around $14 million has been allocated for projects at Montana State University that range from researching volcanic action in the Andes mountains and treatment of periodontal disease to funding to assist with productions of Shakespeare.

A total of $14.38 million in federal stimulus funds has been allocated for about 35 different projects to date at Montana State University, according to university officials. The grants are funded by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February to spur economic growth and create jobs.

Critics of the funding say it misses the mark of the goals set by Congress and amounts to wasteful spending. Supporters say the research does have an economic impact and will produce numerous long-term positive benefits.

The spending was criticized by National Taxpayers Union Vice President for Politics and Communication Pete Sepp. He said many taxpayers think of stimulus spending as long-term job creation in the private sector and not “expeditions to the Andes or, more up close, expeditions into people’s gums.”

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Politico has the latest on the gathering clouds surrounding Ways and Means Committee Chair, Rep. Charlie Rangel:

Embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.) is headed for more trouble as the House ethics committee announced Thursday it has expanded its investigation to include Rangel’s financial disclosure reports, which show hundreds of thousands of dollars in previously undeclared personal assets and income.

The growing investigation comes as Rangel continues to fight off Republican attempts to oust him from his chairmanship – the House voted largely along party lines on Wednesday to allow Rangel to keep his gavel while the ethics panel continues its months-long probe of the Harlem Democrat.

The ethics panel also disclosed Thursday that it has issued nearly 150 subpoenas as part of its year-long Rangel investigation, interviewed 34 witnesses and combed through thousands of pages of documents related to the New York Democrat’s personal finances. The vote to widen the already sprawling investigation was unanimous.

In July, Rangel quietly filed amended financial disclosure documents, going back to 2001, showing at least $600,000 in assets that he had never previously declared.

Read the whole thing here:

Speaking recently a Steamboat Institute conference, I explain that big government is America’s fiscal challenge, not whether the spending is financed with taxes or borrowing.  This issue is important because the statists are trying to create the conditions for a big tax hike. We got huge spending increases under Bush, and now Obama has picked up the baton and is racing in the same direction. Needless to say, the politicians don’t care about deficits when they are spending money. But when it is time to discuss tax policy, deficits suddenly become a giant threat to the economy and turning more of our money over to the political class is the only solution.

The Q&A session (which can be seen here) also is interesting. I pontificate about the financial crisis, Keynesian economics, the rule of law, and tax competition (both videos courtesy of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity).

From the great folks at Sen. Tom Coburn’s office:

Political scientists lobbying Congress for federal subsidies

The National Science Foundation spends about $8 million annually to support political science research

Research sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Air Force attempts to predict individuals’ political affiliation based on Facebook profiles

Congress earmarks $3 million to a company owned by Goldman Sachs and two private equity funds

Congress raids the military’s maintenance budget to pay for $5 million earmark for digital scrapbooks

The Federal Aviation Administration has spent more than $270 million in federal stimulus grants on projects that scored poorly on the agency’s own national priority rating system

Department of Homeland Security steers nearly $1 million in federal funding, typically distributed to fire departments, to ACORN

One learns a new language upon first wading into the world of ,what’s favorably called by the Al Gores and Jacques Chiracs of the world, “global governance”. That term, used in all seriousness and intended as a compliment, means the web of international agreements (typically in the name of the environment), committing the prosperous world to agree to  do things it would never enact via its own democratic processes. New words such as “subsidiarity” and “additionality” are forged and tossed around like Mardi Gras beads at earnest negotiating sessions and in deathless texts. It’s Esperanto for the bossy jet-setters racked with guilt over your lifestyle.

Another of my favorites is “capacity building”, which means wealth transfers to prepare a poor society to receive a larger wealth transfer in the future. You see, certain among those societies our green superiors are trying to hector into behaving in a certain way – which is all of them – are not yet able to deal with the financial windfall due them from the Kyoto Protocols of the world. These international agreements frankly are more about redistribution than anything else. For example, Kyoto is in no way about actually reducing “greenhouse gas emissions”, but instead it creates a Ponzi-like scheme of paying other countries to sell you pieces of paper saying that you reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

And a good thing, too, because those few countries who are covered by Kyoto have all – like the rest of the world – increased their actual emissions since agreeing to this “historic emissions reduction pact.” Still, as we approach the December deadline for agreeing to a successor, Kyoto will be nonetheless be hailed for its accomplishment. Maybe by this they mean the recent cooling.

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ACORN just can’t seem to stay away from hookers.

The activist group, which has long worked with criminals as it preys on the weak and the troubled, is on the verge of yet another public relations catastrophe. 

That’s because a cross-dressing Ohio male escort whom ACORN registered multiple times to vote was convicted of full-fledged vote fraud in addition to the lesser crime of voter registration fraud. A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason (an elected Democrat) confirmed yesterday that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

The conviction of Darnell Nash (shown in photo above), apparently known by several aliases including Serina “Sexy Slay” Gibbs, is hugely significant for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that ACORN has long maintained that vote fraud, as opposed to the lesser crime of voter registration fraud, essentially never happens.

It appears to be another historic first for ACORN.

ACORN’s Ohio chapter had a run-in with another alleged prostitute last fall.

A woman named Shari Bell who was allegedly a crack cocaine user, prostitute, and ACORN worker, was arrested on drug and prostitution charges in October. Bell was arrested by Cincinnati police after she allegedly offered an undercover cop sex for money. Police found a crack pipe in the pocket of her coat.

Real the full story at American Spectator.

Last week, I told you about a ridiculous FEMA firefighter grant that was awarded to ACORN in Louisiana.  Because of this website’s coverage of the issue and your action, the story grew, and FEMA finally made a statement saying that they would permanently withhold that grant from ACORN.  Thank you for raising awareness of this clear waste of first responder funding that could go to countless needy volunteer firefighter organizations or other first responders.

This week, I wanted to make you aware of a growing concern about the U.S. Census and illegal aliens and how the two could drastically affect congressional apportionment and possibly your own state’s congressional representation. 

In the past, some states have included illegal aliens in the collection of census data, and this has often resulted in the allocation of additional congressional seats to those states – at the expense of other states that lose seats because of the skewed data. 

Illegal aliens shouldn’t be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress.  I don’t believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they laid out our current system of representation.

Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country.  We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws.

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The allegations raised in “White House Creates ACORN for the Arts” and prior stories about the NEA enlisting artists who receive government grants to support President Obama’s political goals certainly raise a number of issues.  Foremost among them is whether such actions violate White House policy and potentially federal law.  The White House Counsel was concerned enough about the conference call that it was compelled to issue new guidelines for public outreach meetings, noting that some of the comments on the call may have been “misunderstood as seeking to inappropriately politicize activities of the NEA.”  But beyond violating these White House guidelines, which could result in further forced resignations but little else, what is really at issue with the alleged conduct?

By seeking to enlist the private sector in lobbying for the President’s agenda, the alleged conduct may have violated the Anti-Lobbying Act (18 U.S.C. §1913), which as Ben Shapiro pointed out in a previous piece, explicitly provides:

No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation, whether before or after the introduction of any bill, measure or resolution proposing such legislation, law, ratification, policy or appropriation.

The Anti-Lobbying Act, according to government handbooks, prevents government employees from engaging in “substantial ‘grass roots’ lobbying campaigns … expressly urging individuals to contact government officials in support of or opposition to legislation …. Provid[ing] administrative support for lobbing activities of private organizations”

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If you tried to buy a homeowners’ insurance policy for much more than the actual value of your home, no one would sell it to you.  The reason is that having such a policy would enable one to prosper financially were the home somehow to be destroyed.  This creates for you, what is called a “moral hazard“.   You have a significant financial incentive to do something wrong.  It is anathema for the insurance industry designed to protect against risk to enable such a risk.

So what if you were a government bureaucrat in possession of the power to help a business to prosper financially by doing something wrong?  Imagine if you had the power to wave your pen and deliver one million new clients to a purveyor of a particular product.  Some might say you have a moral hazard.   Just as insurance companies have a duty not to create that risk, so do those in charge of taxpayer funds.

In New York, some public employees concerned about side effects, and their civil liberties, are protesting because Dr. Richard Daines, New York State health commissioner has mandated that they receive the h1n1 vaccines or be fired.   Did the Governor order this?  No, an unelected bureaucrat essentially placed the order with the vaccine manufacturers.

In Missouri, prior to 2002, all mandated vaccines were voted into law by Legislators.  In that year, the appointed Director of the Department of Health added to the list of mandated vaccines, a compound against Chicken Pox.  With one stroke of the pen, a single bureaucrat created a demand for fresh orders for hundreds of thousands of doses of the vaccine, annually.  One can speculate about the profit in those orders.

In Texas, Governor Perry, usually a solid conservative got loopy over the Gardasil fervor and mandated that girls in his State receive the controversial vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease.   Girls as young as nine years old now have the State forcing upon them conversations about promiscuity and sexually transmitted disease.

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From Steve Beatty, Pelican Institute’s investigative reporter:

More than two years before an ersatz pimp and prostitute raised troubling questions about Acorn Housing Corp.’s financial advice, Louisiana officials criticized the organization’s bookkeeping as it denied the group tens of thousands of dollars from a potential $1.5 million state contract.

The office overseeing the contract recommended against rehiring Acorn Housing in part because it couldn’t document its work.  The contract was designed to inform low-income residents about the Road Home program and help them apply for post-hurricane benefits.

A much smaller $53,000 contract that Acorn Community Land Association had with the state attorney general’s office also was criticized for thin financial justification, though the group got its full payment and was recommended for future work. The contract was to tell hurricane victims of non-discriminatory housing policies as they sought temporary rentals.

In both contracts, the state files contain promotional materials extolling the virtues of paying for an ACORN membership – a solicitation expressly forbidden under the contracts.

“If you are not rich, you need to join your ACORN community group and work on the problems affecting you,” reads one flier in the attorney general’s file.

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WorldNetDaily reports:

Just one week before Michael Savage was scheduled to debate via video link at the Cambridge Union in England, the co-presidents of the two-century-old society informed the top-rated radio host they have canceled the event.

As WND reported, the invitation from the Cambridge Union Society for the Oct. 15 debate was issued in July after Savage was banned from entering the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government along with Muslim extremists and leaders of hate groups.

In an e-mail today to Savage producer Beowulf Rochlen, Cambridge Union leaders Julien Domercq and Jonathan Laurence wrote, “It is with great regret to inform you of the difficult decision we have taken to cancel the event.”

Domercq and Laurence pointed to problems with the cost and feasibility of setting up the necessary video link, but they also cited “legal issues.” (more…)

ACORN –

Let’s be honest, the only way to watch Keith Olbermann is drunk–blind drunk. That would explain his anemic ratings and his small but loyal following. Real drunks always frequent the same bars.

Since Olbermann is dedicating his show tonight to White House talking points on health care, I figured I might as well make it interesting by creating a drinking game for it.

Note: I don’t recommend watching Countdown, there is always something more entertaining and informative on the Watching Paint Dry network, but if your morbid curiosity gets the better of you make sure you have booze handy.

Take a drink every time Keith does one of the following:

• Says “sir” in anger. (Three if it’s a “How dare you, sir!)
• Mentions Sarah Palin (Two if he throws in a pejorative like “failed” or “quitter” first, three if he talks about Trig and the health care he got.)
• Each time he mentions the bogus 44,000 people who die each year for lack of health insurance number.
• Each time he mentions 46, 47 or 50 million uninsured. (Do a shot if he uses the new 30 million number.)
• Praises Canada, France or the UK. (Second sip when he says long lines are a lie.)
• Each time he says “death panel” and Palin.
• Each time he claims Republicans have no plan or solutions. Do a shot when he says Republicans want people to die.
• With every mention of Rush, Hannity, Beck or Levin (aka people with an audience).
• Finish your drink each time he exploits someone’s personal health care horror story and presents it as the norm.
• Chug from the bottle if he mentions the fact that Medicare rejects more claims than any other insurance plan in the country.
• Finish the bottle if he tells the truth about anything, accidentally or on purpose. (I was going to say that you take a drink each time he lies but I don’t want to cause a nationwide wave of alcohol poisoning.)

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From today’s Financial Times:

When Andrew Breitbart first saw video footage of workers from Acorn, a community activist group, telling two undercover reporters how to set up a brothel and avoid paying taxes he knew he had a big scoop on his hands.

The conservative commentator also knew the series of undercover videos, which caused an outcry when he released them last month on his BigGovernment website, would be dismissed by what he calls the “mainstream media”.

“The mainstream media are not story driven, they are ideology driven,” he says in an interview with the Financial Times. “They are universally left of centre and they protect their own . . . their raison d’être is to put pressure on anyone that would dare challenge their aggressive ideology.”

The media outlets criticised by Mr Breitbart, which include CNN and the New York Times, reject accusations of bias. However, Mr Breitbart argues that liberal bias is inherent and admits to pursuing his own ideological aims through his websites. His policy has been rewarded with plenty of online traffic: September brought almost 11m unique users to his sites and 35m page views.

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UPDATED 10/8 9:37 PDT.

Revealing audio after the jump.

Anne Leary is a conservative blogger found at http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/.  She claims to have recently met Bill Ayers at the Reagan National Airport.  She approached him and out of the blue, he claimed to have written Barack Obama’s bestseller Dreams from My Father. Was he joking?  Serious?

I wanted to have Anne Leary on my radio show right away to see if she was reliable and to see what Ayers may have been trying to tell her.  I have been actively tracking Jack Cashill’s investigation into the possibility Bill Ayers was Obama’s ghostwriter for Dreams.  I was very skeptical of the story at first but Jack’s research and Christopher Andersen’s favorable book on the First Couple both supported that Ayers did, in fact, play a significant role in Obama’s book (which President Obama claims he wrote with no help).

You can read Jack Cashill’s comprehensive investigations: (more…)