Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2011 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The members of the House of Representatives on the list, in alphabetical order, include:

• Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
• Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
• Rep. David Rivera (R-FL)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
• Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
• Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY)

Spencer Bachus (R-AL): He has become the face of a congressional “insider trading” scandal that has rocked the Washington establishment as 2011 draws to a close. Rep. Spencer Bachus, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was one of the principal targets of a 60 Minutes investigative report on the scandal, which aired on CBS in September 2011.

The report was based, at least in part, on the book Throw Them All Out by author Peter Schweizer, which outed a slew of members of Congress who allegedly profited in the financial markets by trading on insider information. Bachus was not the only congressman cited by 60 Minutes, others included Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but the Alabama Republican stood out for his remarkable “good fortune” in shorting the stock market. (more…)

Today, in 1922, the U.S.S.R. was created. So much tragedy to follow…

President Obama has not been defeated. He still occupies the White House, and that will continue until next November. But the nation is readying itself for what will prove to be a high octane race for the presidency. President Obama will have a mountain of cash to spend and will attempt to campaign energetically. I say “attempt” because he’ll find defending his administration will be much harder than his last campaign when he was a fresh-faced Senator billed as an outsider who used rhetoric and platitudes in place of actual accomplishments.

Team Obama will likely select only a few issues. The economy, of course, will be a big part, because he can’t very well ignore it. So he’ll spin it in a way to suggest he actually saved it from collapse. In the process, he will not even so much as mention our nation’s debt and deficits.

Instead, he’ll the talk up the bold raid into Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden and the recent withdrawal from Iraq. He’ll leave out things like Russia, China, Iran, and forfeiting our missile defenses and snubbing our allies in Eastern Europe, our strained relationship with Israel and the quickly deteriorating situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Domestically he’ll speak of progress, sacrifice, and the pains his administration helped to soften. He’ll not mention his divisive comments that he and Eric Holder have made and the social resentment he stirred through class warfare. Lastly, we can expect amnesia over our nation’s credit downgrade and the ever-climbing debt ceiling. (more…)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – At least $12.5 million and counting has blanketed the airwaves ahead of next Tuesday’s Republican presidential caucuses, with hard-hitting commercials awash in ghoulish images and startling claims. Most are coming from a proliferation of new independent groups aligned with the candidates.

To hear the ads tell it, Newt Gingrich is a “serial hypocrite,” Rick Perry “double dips” as governor and the “liberal Republican establishment” is plotting to anoint Mitt Romney as the party’s presidential nominee. The attacks, the bulk of the commercials on the air, reflected the volatile state of the race five days before the first votes of the GOP presidential nominating contest.

After a slow start, the ads in Iowa are coming on fast and furious.

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President Barack Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina sent out an official reelection campaign video wherein he said talk of Mr. Obama having a billion dollar campaign war chest is “bullsh*t” because “we don’t take PAC money unlike our opponents. We fund this campaign in contributions of $3 or $5 or whatever you can do to help us.

Mr. Messina’s plea for Obama supporters to chip in “$3 or $5″ leaves the impression of a presidential campaign divorced from big money donors. Furthermore, the claim that Mr. Obama will not accept PAC money leaves the impression that his fundraising efforts are removed from the influence of lobbyists or Wall Street. Nothing could be further from the truth.

From the New York Times:

Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid.At least 15 of Mr. Obama’s “bundlers” — supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others — are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign.

Because the bundlers are not registered as lobbyists with the Senate, the Obama campaign has managed to avoid running afoul of its self-imposed ban on taking money from lobbyists.

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As brutal election results reflected, the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) was a scandal-plagued outfit circa 2006. I don’t relish the current ORP leadership fight, but if we don’t want second terms for President Obama and Senator Sherrod Brown we must avoid repeating our mistakes. Party chairman Kevin DeWine’s old-guard ways – combined with his public betrayal of Governor Kasich – make it hard to believe ORP can be effective with DeWine in charge.

Quick hits: this fall, a consultant with ties to Chairman DeWine produced $179,000 in advertising for one of the Big Labor fronts smearing Kasich’s union reform bill. A glance at last year’s ORP campaign expenditures reveals -

• $753,680 spent in the incredibly close Kasich-Strickland race
• $1.3 million spent in the secretary of state race, for DeWine ally Jon Husted – including $375,245 in the GOP primary
• $1.5 million spent in the attorney general race, for Kevin DeWine’s cousin Mike DeWine

If those figures don’t raise your eyebrows, there’s more. In the early aughts, Brett Buerck was a recognized name in Ohio Republican circles. Then, suddenly, he was known more widely… and not for a good reason.

Brett Buerck (BYOO-rik) is president of Florida-based Majority Strategies. In 2004, he was fired as an aide to former House Speaker Larry Householder after a federal grand jury began subpoenaing records on Householder’s fundraising practices. The U.S. Justice Department later declined to prosecute Buerck.

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The designer of Ronald Reagan’s economic plan is endorsing former Speaker Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination for president. Arthur Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates, and the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics, also co-authored “Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status” (Threshold, 2010) with Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and a member of the Journal’s editorial board.

Mr. Laffer, who plans to join Mr. Gingrich in Iowa on Thursday for a formal announcement of his endorsement, said, “Newt has the best plan for jobs and economic growth of any candidate in the field.”

Mr. Laffer added:

Like Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts and pro-growth policies, Newt’s low individual and corporate tax rates, deregulation. and strong dollar monetary policies will create a boom of new investment and economic growth leading to the creation of tens of millions of new jobs over the next decade. Plus, Newt’s record of helping Ronald Reagan pass the Kemp Roth tax cuts and enacting the largest capital gains tax cut in history as speaker of the House shows he can get this plan passed and put it into action.

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The same man who oversaw MF Global’s $1.2 billion in missing funds, Bradley I. Abelow, is also currently listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website as the current chairman of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board.

From the Washington Times:

During two days of recent congressional hearings into how as much as $1.2 billion disappeared from MF Global customer accounts, the chief operating officer of the imploding investment firm responded again and again that he did not know.

Yet as the House and Senate interrogated Bradley I. Abelow and other top executives at MF Global Holdings Ltd., lawmakers did not mention Mr. Abelow’s role as a financial adviser for the Environmental Protection Agency, which as of Tuesday listed him as the chairman of its financial advisory board.

Even as he finds himself the public face of a bankruptcy and admitted to lawmakers that he had no idea how client funds disappeared, Congress and the administration have voiced no public concern about Mr. Abelow’s role advising the $8.6 billion government agency on its finances.

Mr. Abelow also served as former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s chief of staff before Mr. Corzine went on to become MF Global’s CEO.  Interestingly, current EPA Administrator Lisa Smith also previously served as then-Gov. Corzine’s chief of staff.  Whether the Corzine connection played any role in Mr. Abelow’s appointment to the chairmanship of the EPA’s Financial Advisory Board is as yet unclear.

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From The Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.

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In heaping scorn on Mitt Romney’s presidential prospects, George F. Will points to Romney’s poor record at winning votes. He points out that Romney has won 5 out of 22 elections in which he has run, making a batting average of .227.

Will could have gone further. He doesn’t mention that Romney has never won a primary in the South where the Republican party is at its strongest, and where the country as a whole is moving. Thanks to shifting demographics, the South recently picked up 7 new electoral delegates. That is good news for Republican candidates come the general election, but first they must survive the South’s primary contests.

As it appears that there will be no definitive winner in either Iowa or New Hampshire, it is in the South where the contest will be decided. Historically, South Carolina has been the tie-breaker. In 1980, South Carolina picked Reagan over George H.W. Bush. In 2008, it picked McCain over Huckabee.

Neither McCain nor Huckabee are running this time around, which gives Mitt Romney an opening. But Romney didn’t even bother campaigning there in 2008, preferring the Nevada caucuses instead, so it remains to be seen how successful he will be in the “first in the South” primary.

South Carolina's Gov. Nikki Haley supports Mitt Romney (Photo: wtlx.com)

But now Romney is giving it a try. To be viable in South Carolina, Romney needs endorsements to knock Newt Gingrich down from the lead he enjoys in the polls. In comes Tea Party-backed Governor Nikki Haley to the rescue, who is stumping for Romney all over the Palmetto state. It remains to be seen how influential her endorsement really is. Haley’s support among South Carolinians has imploded since she was elected. Only 35% of voters approve of the job she is doing, according to a recent poll, and Romney has received under thirty percent of Republican support in every poll taken in South Carolina. (more…)

At the same time hacker group Anonymous was hacking Stratfor Global Intelligence and now a second veterans’ owned website which sells military-inspired merchandise, giving part of their proceeds to charity, they were also circulating what they call “a snapshot of what Anonymous thinks will be useful for your survival in case of a violent revolution in your country.” The 15 page document is available here via Scribd. The excerpt below is the foreword for the document. As website Zerohedge notes, one or two hacks of system critical financial institutions could easily produce widescale chaos, setting the stage for any number of significant events of this nature.

This Guide is for civilians who feel they are about to be caught up in a violent uprising or revolution to overthrow the oppressive government of their country. Although a revolution in favor of the people is a joyful thing when seen from the outside, it can be a bloody mess for those inside it. This guide will give you some basic ideas and tips for how you and your friends/neighbors/family can stay safe in the violent turmoil around you. It is not a ready-made recipe, but it contains general survival tactics and strategies.

Don’t panic, stay cool headed. • Take a break and rest if your body needs to relax, lack of sleep is a major weakening factor. • Avoid consuming mind altering substances like alcohol and drugs. They will cloud yourand act rationally. You are also arming the regime with propaganda that the crowd is made up of a bunch of intoxicated rioters. Don’t allow your movement to be portrayed in an unfavourable light. judgement and ability to think

The document’s index lists the following sections:

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The Occupy Wall Street movement got big cheers at a recent international gathering of “resistance fighters” mainly third world communist parties, and front organizations, in Dhakar, Bangladesh.

A delegation attended from the ruling communist party of North Korea, plus cadre from the ultra militant US Workers World Party.

The Third International Conference of the International Anti-Imperialist and Peoples Solidarity Coordinating Committee met in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from Nov. 27 to 29. The conference’s theme was “Imperialist Attack: Economic, Political, Cultural and Military Aggression and Occupation.” Special reference was made to imperialist aggression in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Cuba and the Democratic Peoples ­Republic of Korea.

The international program opened with an outdoor rally of 20,000 militants organized by the Socialist Party of Bangladesh, a co-sponsor of the assembly. It was followed by a militant march through the capital city’s crowded streets.

The 800 official delegates represented anti-imperialist forces from 24 countries. There was strong representation from South Asia, including from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Two women guerrilla fighters were sent from Nepal. The DPRK sent a delegation. Resistance organizations were represented from Middle Eastern and African countries, including Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Sudan, Iran, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco and Chad.

Straight from Tahrir Square in Cairo, an Egyptian delegate gave greetings from the revolutionary people of Egypt. A representative from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militantly greeted the assembly. Additionally, representatives came from Europe, the United States and Canada.

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Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Minority Leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told Big Government this week that her mother wants to leave Congress–and that she remains in Washington only at the behest of her campaign donors.

During a telephone interview, Ms. Pelosi–speaking from a friend’s home in New York City–described her mother’s predicament:

She would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay so badly. They know she wants to leave, though. They think she’s destined for the wilderness. She has very few days left. She’s 71, she wants to have a life, she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.

Pelosi’s revelation is significant, given that her mother pushed to serve as Minority Leader after the Democrats’ historic losses in the 2010 midterm elections, and that many Democrats–including President Barack Obama–are campaigning on the expectation that she will be restored as Speaker if they can retake the House in 2012.

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With the new year just around the corner, Reason.tv is looking back at some of our favorite videos of 2011.

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Sobriety checkpoints have become big business for California law enforcement agencies over the last decade. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration paid for 2,553 checkpoints last year, resulting in hundreds of arrests for driving under the influence. Authorities say the checkpoints explain why deaths caused by drunken drivers have dropped to an all-time low in the golden state.

Since 1995 the checkpoints have also resulted in the seizures and impoundment of thousands of vehicles driven by sober motorists who just happened to have no drivers license. The 30 day impounds cost unlicensed drivers well over $1,000 on average. Large numbers of the non-DUI impounds have involved cars driven by illegal immigrants.

Enter California Democrat Assemblyman Gil Cedillo. The lawmaker, who is a member in good standing of the National Council on La Raza, has tried unsuccessfully nine different times since 1998 to get bills passed in the California State Legislature that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. “One Bill Gil”, as he is referred to by some because of his repeated efforts legalize illegal drivers, has now managed to get through the back door what he could not get through the front door.

Starting January 1st a new law, authored by Cedillo, will prohibit cops from impounding the cars of drivers who have no license as long as another licensed driver can drive it away. Presumably the unlicensed driver will shortly thereafter resume driving their car, illegally.

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Michael Barone has a thoughtful piece on the Iowa caucus in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. He writes in “As Iowa Goes, So Goes Iowa” that the Iowa caucus often doesn’t decide who wins the primary, let alone the general election.

Iowa Republican caucuses have a poor record in choosing their party’s nominees. In the five presidential nominating cycles with active Iowa Republican caucus competition, the Hawkeye State has voted for the eventual Republican nominee only twice—in 1996 for Bob Dole, in 2000 for George W. Bush—and only once was the Iowa winner elected president.

Part of the issue Barone notes is just how few Republicans actually participate.

In a state of three million people, a bare 119,000 Republicans showed up for the caucuses [in 2008]. Some 60% of them identified as evangelical or born-again Christians—a far higher percentage than in any presidential contest in any large non-Southern state that year.

By contrast, in the 2010, over 600,000 Iowa Republicans voted in the general election and more than 200,000 voted in the gubernatorial primary. This year fewer Republicans will vote in the Iowa caucus, despite a deeply unpopular incumbent Democratic party.

Why are so few Republicans showing up to vote in Iowa? Perhaps it’s because the Iowa Republican caucus is for insiders.

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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu

Although it’s being deployed in several states like Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and others, there are still many who have never heard of the Colorado Model. What’s worse, despite all the Left’s bemoaning of the “vast right wing conspiracy,” Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or whatever enemy they can dream up, there is still nothing like the Colorado Model on the Right.

In sum, the Colorado Model is one of the Left’s most effective stratagems that was “built” to turn “red states” into “blue states” over a very short period of time (with the exception, perhaps, of the 2010 election cycle). When combined with the tactics of Saul Alinsky and his disciples, the Colorado Model is akin to a Soviet platoon armed with AK-47s mowing down a militia armed with slingshots.

According to a 2008 expose in the Weekly Standard, the Left, in 2004 and 2006 “routed Republicans, capturing the governorship, both houses of the state legislature, a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats.”

Conceived by four rich liberals, the Colorado Model is a fairly simple strategy:

Eric O’Keefe, chairman of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance in Chicago, says there are seven “capacities” that are required to drive a successful political strategy and keep it on offense: [1] the capacity to generate intellectual ammunition, [2] to pursue investigations, [3] to mobilize for elections, [4] to fight media bias, [5] to pursue strategic litigation, [6] to train new leaders, and [7] to sustain a presence in the new media. Colorado liberals have now created institutions that possess all seven capacities. By working together, they generate political noise and attract press coverage. Explains Caldara, “Build an echo chamber and the media laps it up.”

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Mitt Romney currently maintains a long-standing lead in New Hampshire, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average, 17 point ahead of Newt Gingrich and 18 points to Ron Paul. This is not surprising, as Romney has lived in New Hampshire for the last four years. At this time in the 2008, campaign Romney similarly had a lead, although not as pronounced, and went on to lose to John McCain 38%-32%. Could a similar upset be awaiting Romney in this cycle as well?

New Hampshire is the first of 21 open caucus or primary states in this Republican election cycle; meaning you do not have to be a registered Republican in order to vote in the primary. Thus, the swell of votes from independents, which make up 42% of state voters, can turn the tide for a lackluster campaign in New Hampshire.

In 2008, more than 520,000 people cast their ballot in either the Democrat or Republican primary. More than 210,000 of those votes were by independents. It was, in fact, independents who secured a victory for John McCain; McCain received a smaller share of Republican votes than Mitt Romney. Independent voters overwhelmingly supported John McCain to Mitt Romney (40% to 27%) and Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton (41% to 31%). Barack Obama only lost the New Hampshire primary by 2.5%.

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China is suffering a brutal economic “hard landing” as the pay-back for their massive Keynesian stimulus spending to revive economy growth after the 2008 credit crisis. China’s stimulus bought two years of economic boom, but the cost of this instant gratification was unleashing venomous run-away inflation that forced the central government to hammer the economy this year. Touted by most Wall Street analysts as the world’s engine of growth, we now learn that regional Chinese governments are so cash-strapped they are refusing to make interest and principal payments on their bond debt. Given the state integration of banks and the economy, if Chinese local governments are unable to pay their debts, who will bail-out China’s economy?

China Daily reported this morning: “China’s biggest provincial borrowers are deferring payment on loans just two months after the country’s regulator said some local government companies would be allowed to do so.” After the economy shrank by 8% during the 2008 worldwide credit crunch; Chinese authorities responded with epic spending of borrowed money. Adjusted for the differences in size of economies, the China stimulus was twice the size and happened in half the time for the U.S. stimulus programs. But now that the world’s economies have again stalled and the European sovereign debt crisis is about to spark a deflationary spiral, the cash-flow of China heavily indebted provincial governments has evaporated.

China’s Zhou Mubing, Vice-Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, announced in October the first Chinese national audit determined local governments had $1.7 trillion dollars in debt. Given China has 1/3 of the GDP as the United States, Chinese provincial government debt is twice the debt load of U.S. state and local governments. More than half this debt was issued in the last three years and Chinese state-owned-banks hold 79% of the debt.

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