Scott Rasmussen’s latest poll findings on the voters’ top issues is pretty interesting:

For nearly two years, economic issues have held the top spot in terms of importance among voters.

But the latest national telephone survey shows that 83% now view government ethics and corruption as very important, placing it just ahead of the economy on a list of 10 key electoral issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.

The great blog, Powerline speculates:

Still, it’s a striking change. What caused it? The only thing that has happened in the last couple of weeks that can account for the shift, I think, is James O’Keefe’s and Hannah Giles’ exposure of the incredible depth of corruption to which ACORN, closely identified with government at all levels and the Democratic Party, has fallen. That may also explain why 43% of voters say President Obama has done a “poor” job of “addressing government ethics and reducing corruption.”

Those waiting for the “even one individual can make a difference” number to come up, please come to the window to collect your winnings.

Yesterday, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee torpedoed efforts to require Mediciad applicants to show IDs. We noted that, with fraud running at around $100 billion in Medicaid and Medicare, this might not have been the wisest vote. Well, it turns out Democrats on the Senate Committee are perfectly fine with a 10% fraud rate.

Today, the Committee voted on an amendment from Sen. Cornyn which would have delayed expansions in Medicaid until steps had been taken to get its error/fraud rate down to 3.9%, the average of all government programs. Details below:

Cornyn Amendment #C30 to America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009

Short Title: Reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program.

Description of Amendment: Prior to implementing the mandatory Medicaid program expansions in the Chairman’s Mark, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must certify that states have implemented program integrity and quality improvement measures specified in the Chairman’s Mark and that the Medicaid program’s average Payment Error Rate Measurement is less than 3.9 percent.

Offset: No offset needed.

 Republicans

CHUCK GRASSLEY -yes, ORRIN G. HATCH -yes, OLYMPIA J. SNOWE -yes, JON KYL -yes, JIM BUNNING -yes, MIKE CRAPO -yes, PAT ROBERTS -yes, JOHN ENSIGN -yes, MIKE ENZI -yes, JOHN CORNYN -yes

Democrats

MAX BAUCUS -no, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER -no, KENT CONRAD -no, JEFF BINGAMAN -no, JOHN F. KERRY -no, BLANCHE L. LINCOLN -no, RON WYDEN -no, CHARLES E. SCHUMER – no, DEBBIE STABENOW -no, MARIA CANTWELL -no, BILL NELSON -no, ROBERT MENENDEZ – no, THOMAS CARPER -no

Not Agreed to (10-13)

From the Sacramento Bee:

Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office has opened an investigation into the controversy surrounding videos that purportedly show members of community organizing group ACORN giving advice on how to open a brothel.

In a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dated Sept. 25, Chief Deputy Attorney General James M. Humes said the office has “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” The governor had asked Brown two weeks ago to look into the incidents.

The probe was sparked by a series of hidden-camera videos in which a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute are advised on how to set up a prostitution business by people identified as workers for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The videos were taken in Washington D.C., San Diego, San Bernardino and cities in several other states.

Members of the organization are also under investigation in other states for alleged irregularities in registering voters.

Schwarzenegger issued a statement praising Brown’s decision to investigate. “I am outraged and deeply concerned by these allegations,” the statement said. “If these reports are true, they warrant prosecution under the fullest extent of the law.”

Keep on Truckin’:

Grateful Dead archive receives $615,175 federal grant; “The ultimate goal… is that everyone will have a Grateful Dead experience”

Renovation project at the Bill Clinton presidential center will receive $2.5 million of federal stimulus funds

North Carolina Department of Transportation spending $1.2 million of federal stimulus funds to renovate a lighthouse and another $3 million to paint a bridge

Congress approves $250 million increase in its own budget

(more…)

From the “Dude…No Waaaay” folder, comes this story from Santa Cruz:

One of the most popular bands in rock ‘n’ roll history will have its legacy including photos, show tickets, toys, posters and recordings preserved online thanks to a federal grant. The Grateful Dead Archive, housed at the McHenry Library, has been awarded $615,175 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to photograph and scan collection images and upload them. The public will be able to access the online collection and offer fans the opportunity to contribute to the collection by digitally submitting photos.

Christine Bunting, head of special collections and archives at McHenry, said the school will use the grant over 2½ years to archive what she said is the world’s largest public collection of Dead memorabilia.

“The ultimate goal of making the archive digital is that everyone will have a Grateful Dead experience,” Bunting said.

Feel free to write your own joke in comments. Read the whole story here, and Keep On Truckin’.

As ACORN’s faux independent review gets under way, ACORN’s advisory committee, made of up key liberal allies, is watching it closely, as seen in a fresh media advisory issued by David Redlener of The Advance Group and obtained by ACORNcracked.com.  That’s because ACORN is a critical component to the Left’s agenda for America.

Remember during the bank bailouts the justification was because they were “too big to fail.”  Well, to the liberal Left, ACORN is too big to fail.  It has its hands in too many things and runs an effective ground operation through registering voters, turning them out on Election Day, as well as managing ballot initiative campaigns as a tool to boost Democratic turn-out.

Consider Professor Peter Dreier’s analysis of ACORN’s use of ballot initiatives, from a 2005 article he wrote:

ACORN’s strategy to inject this issue into state ballot measures is another important step. In early 2004, ACORN initiated a statewide ballot initiative in Florida to raise the state minimum wage, registered thousands of residents, mostly in low-income, minority neighborhoods in cities, to increase turnout on election day, and won a decisive victory the following November. On its own, this is an impressive accomplishment. Since its victory in Florida, ACORN and its labor allies have begun talking about grassroots minimum-wage initiatives in other states in 2006, particularly where Democrats have a chance to expand, or hold on to, key offices. Campaigns are already underway in Ohio, Michigan, and Arizona, and ACORN is exploring possibilities in six other states and several cities. The strategy is designed to increase voter turnout and to provide candidates with a clear economic-justice issue.

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“But whether you try to implement some or all of these recommendations, there must be someone committed to follow-up. There must be a review mechanism, and a means of holding people accountable after any final decisions are made. If you do not make some hard choices now and ensure they are carried out, they almost certainly will be made for you.”

–Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg Eisenberg LLP, in a prophetic legal memo to ACORN dated June 19, 2008, the day before ACORN’s national board ousted ACORN founder organizer Wade Rathke

ACORN’s lawyer warned ACORN 15 months ago to begin fixing its massive internal problems or face certain catastrophe. It chose to do nothing.

The advice from Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg Eisenberg LLP came in the form of an eerily prophetic legal memo to ACORN dated June 19, 2008, the day before ACORN’s national board fired disgraced founder Wade Rathke.

Vadum_TheKingsleyMemo_CapitalResearchCenter –

The memo is a kind of Holy Grail for ACORN researchers. One source of mine keeps a copy in a safety deposit box. I’ve lost track of how many people have asked me over the last year if I knew how to get ahold of it. One source told me that there are many people who would “kill” to gain possession of it. This is a bit of an exaggeration perhaps, but not much. (more…)

I am reaching the conclusion we on the political Right may have been deceived by Americans for Limited Government (ALG).

As readers of Big Government know, late last Friday, ALG issued a press release claiming it had received an offensive e-mail from Dateline NBC producer, Jane Stone. Within hours, the Rightroots had been mobilized and the story when viral.

Known as the “Bite me Jew boy” e-mail, both Ms. Stone and NBC were pilloried by the Right. Throughout the weekend, Matthew Vadum chronicled the exchange of statements and press releases here on this site.

So Now What?

It’s been five days and ALG has yet to provide indisputable evidence to prove its claim and NBC continues to back Ms. Stone’s assertion she never sent the e-mail in question.

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President Obama recently reiterated his plan to fix the regulation of Wall Street and said it was time to “put an end to the idea that some firms are too big to fail.”

Amen.

But the president doesn’t need a new law or a new oversight committee, like the one he proposes, to end the concept of too big to fail.  He could, and should, simply make a speech declaring that from this day forward, any company, no matter how big or small, will be allowed to fail. If Bank of America or AIG or Chrysler goes bankrupt, so be it. Obama should unequivocally proclaim, “There will be no more bailouts. Period.”

If given, that kind of speech would surely be the most popular thing Obama’s done since becoming president. Arianna Huffington and other liberals angry that ‘crony’ capitalists are getting corporate welfare would love it. Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, and fiscal conservatives who truly opposed President Bush’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout would love it. Libertarians and independents would be ecstatic to see the end of a system that protects—and even rewards—businesses that make bad decisions. (Only Wall Street firms enjoying the taxpayer safety net would be upset.)

Unfortunately, while Obama hints at ending “too big to fail” policies, his financial reforms actually continue to encourage the reckless financial behavior that helped get us into this mess.

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When President Obama first announced his desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons, I laughed out loud. After all, what’s not to chuckle at?

Would he next offer future generations the gift of flight, like Britain’s Natural Law Party, or promise to abolish death like would-be Russian presidential candidate Grigory Grabovoi, shortly before he was jailed for accepting money to reincarnate a non-existent victim of the Beslan Tragedy?

Of course not, I thought. It’s just the usual political waffle, nothing to waste time thinking about. The president was striking a pose, attempting to sound statesmanlike, that sort of thing. All politicians indulge in this type of empty, grandstanding rhetoric and Obama’s personal weakness for it is well established. Meanwhile he had presented Russia with an opportunity to get rid of a lot of old weapons they didn’t really want any more, without losing face. Perhaps that was the plan: a conciliatory gesture to the Bear in the hope that it would help in other areas. Good luck with that, by the way.

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I was pleased to see the two colleagues either chosen to flank, or who elbowed their way up front to surround, Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer when they introduced their “cap-and-trade” energy rationing scheme on Capitol Hill today. This Senate answer to the House’s California-Massachusetts Axis seeking to divine the nation’s future economic policy by means of environment policy — Beverly Hills’ Henry Waxman was the House bill’s co-author, along with Ed Markey — were boxed in by none other than one of the more intellectually and politically open members of that august body, self-styled Socialist Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Ben Cardin (D-MD).

Mr. Sanders’ high-profile support for the program moving individual energy use decisions from producers and consumers to the benevolent state requires no commentary. But it is Mr. Cardin who caught my eye, for reasons relating to his own candor.

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