Aldrich testified about his volunteer efforts on behalf of the Democrat party, which included knocking on doors and handing out brochures.  McDonough’s defense attorney, Brian Premo, pointed out that Aldrich’s name is on 13 of the allegedly fraudulent ballots.  Aldrich however, said that “He was not involved in any wrongdoing, and had no reason to believe anything illegal was happening…”

Perhaps more intriguing was the testimony of James Welch, Chairman of the Rensselaer County WFP.  A 2009 report by the Times Union indicates that some of the absentee ballots were returnable either to Democrat or WFP operatives, including Welch and Aldrich.  In a statement at that time, Welch claimed that “my conduct was strictly proper”.

However, on January 26th, State Police Investigator John Ogden testified that Welch was given a cooperation agreement to testify in the case.

Despite such lofty status as Chairman of county WFP, Welch apparently had little idea of how the rules involving absentee ballots worked, even though it would impact the integrity of his party’s ballot line.

From the Troy Record:

James Welch, the chair of the county Working Families Party at the time of the primary, rounded out Monday’s testimony. Welch said that on the morning of the primary, John Brown called him to ask if he could put Welch’s name on the “release to” line on five absentee ballot applications. Welch said he didn’t understand what Brown meant, since he wasn’t familiar with the applications, but said that Brown assured him it was a good move because “it would look better” to have a WFP member’s name in that slot instead of a Democrat’s name.

He said he asked Brown if that was allowed, and when Brown assured him it was, he agreed. Brown pled guilty to a felony late last year and is looking at six months behind bars.

John Brown was a former Democrat Councilman.

Welch went on to state that he received a phone call later in the week, in which Brown suggested that “We should get our stories straight.”  Welch responded, “It sounds like you’re asking me to commit perjury in a courtroom setting.”

The question is, why would Welch or any member of the WFP need a cooperation agreement to testify?  If they were truly simply ignorant of the process, naive pawns in the voter fraud being schemed by the Democrats, then why wouldn’t their honest testimony be enough.

Worse, Welch seemingly isn’t the only member of the WFP who was ignorant of the voter fraud being perpetrated upon innocent people using their ballot line.  Karen Scharff, co-chair of the Capital District WFP at the time, the branch which controlled Welch’s Rensselaer County arm, had this to say:

It’s extremely troubling that local Democrats in Troy appear to have committed fraud in an attempt to win a primary fight with Troy Republicans for our ballot line.”

The really troubling matter with Scharff’s WFP is that they’re a stone’s throw away from the influence of the
New York Communities for Change – formerly known as ACORN.  At the time that this ballot fraud in Troy was allegedly being carried out, the two organizations had several ties:

As for Scharff, who co-chaired the Capital District Branch and thus oversaw Welch’s county branch, she also shares a history with the uber-corrupt ACORN:

Welch’s testimony is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

Rusty can be contacted at the Mental Recession

In January, Judicial Watch obtained additional documents about meetings held between Estelle Rogers, Director of Advocacy for the ACORN organization Project Vote, and officials from the Obama White House and the DOJ.

Judicial Watch is investigating the extent to which Project Vote, which once employed Barack Obama, has been working with the Obama administration to use voter registration laws to register greater numbers of low-income voters, widely considered to be an important voting demographic for the Obama presidential campaign.

Judicial Watch was already well aware that the DOJ was heavily involved in this scheme based on documents previously obtained, but the latest batch of records implicates the Obama White House directly!

According to the records, obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed on August 19, 2011:

• On April 27, 2009, Estelle Rogers wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sam Hirsh regarding an upcoming meeting on April 30, 2009. In addition to Rogers and Hirsh, other attendees included: Nicole Kovite, Director of Public Agency Project for Project Vote; Spencer Overton, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy; and two officials from the Obama White House: Celia Muñoz, then-Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and recently promoted to Director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Tino Cuellar, Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy. (Muñoz, you will recall, is the former senior vice-president of the National Council of La Raza who has been funneling tax dollars to radical Mexican separatists ever since she joined the Obama White House.)In her email, Rogers referenced documents she forwarded in preparation for the upcoming meeting on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), to which Hirsch replies that he looked forward to “reading these materials” and to “seeing everyone on Thursday.”

• On February 23, 2011, Rogers wrote to Associate Deputy Attorney General Robert Weiner, asking him to “make some headway with Attorney General [Eric] Holder in enforcing Section 7 of the NVRA.” The email notes that the DOJ had not yet filed any Section 7 lawsuits, which Rogers dubbed “deeply disappointing.” The first such DOJ lawsuit (against Rhode Island) was filed on March 18, 2011, less than one month later. Of particular note, is Rogers’ comment that “We have received oral assurances from [Assistant Attorney General Thomas] Perez on several occasions that enforcement action was imminent,” suggesting that Rogers was privy to internal discussions inside the DOJ regarding pending legal action.

• On March 29, 2011, Rogers wrote to Associate Attorney General [Thomas] Perrelli, urging him to review and “make improvements” to a document she was sending following another meeting held on March 17, 2011, between Project Vote and the DOJ on Section 7 compliance with the NRVA. Accompanying the document was a previous letter she had sent to the Civil Rights Division plus “additional comments on the Q and A.”

These documents raise fundamental questions about the politicization of the DOJ under Eric Holder and demonstrate that the ACORN-connected Project Vote is throwing its weight around the DOJ and driving the agency’s voting rights agenda.

And, evidently the Obama White House is now directly implicated in this growing scandal. It is now clear that Project Vote and the Obama/Holder DOJ are conspiring to file DOJ lawsuits to help re-elect Barack Obama. This collusion between Project Vote and the Obama administration is a significant threat to the integrity of the 2012 elections.

To have Project Vote involved in DOJ voting rights enforcement is like having the Mafia run the FBI! And Estelle Rogers is one of Project Vote’s key “bosses.”

As Director of Advocacy for Project Vote, Estelle Rogers ‒ a former attorney for ACORN, which was besieged with charges of corruption before declaring bankruptcy in November 2010 ‒ is a primary contact person on policy matters at Project Vote at both the state and federal levels and has been actively involved in voter registration issues. Using the threat of a lawsuit under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), Project Vote has aggressively sought to manipulate voter registration laws in various states in an effort to increase the registration of people receiving public assistance.

On August 4, 2011, Judicial Watch released documents obtained from the Colorado Department of State showing that ACORN and Project Vote successfully pressured Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election seasons. Following the policy changes, the percentage of invalid voter registration forms from Colorado public assistance agencies was four times the national average. Project Vote also sought a “legislative fix” to allow people without a driver’s license or state identification to register to vote online.

In addition to pursuing public agency registration cases in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia and New Mexico, Project Vote and the NAACP filed a lawsuit on April 19, 2011, against the State of Louisiana alleging violations of the NVRA. Less than three months later, on July 12, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division/Voting Section sued Louisiana on the same grounds, claiming that “Louisiana officials have not routinely offered voter registration forms, assistance and services to the state’s eligible citizens who apply, recertify or provide a change address for public assistance or disability services.”

The DOJ’s March 11, 2011, lawsuit against Rhode Island led to policy changes intended to increase the number of voter registration applications processed by “public assistance and disability service officers.” These two lawsuits, filed within five months of each other, are the first such lawsuits filed by the DOJ since 2007.

Project Vote and ACORN have both been linked to massive voter registration fraud. A total of 70 ACORN employees in 12 states have been convicted of voter registration fraud. And as documented in a July 2009 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of the 1.3 million registrations Project Vote/ACORN submitted in the 2008 election cycle, more than one-third were invalid. (And don’t believe the line that ACORN is dead. As we documented in our special report “The Rebranding of ACORN,” the corrupt organization is alive and well and ready to wreak havoc in the 2012 elections.)

A storm is fast approaching in 2012. The integrity of our elections is under attack by ACORN and Project Vote. And it now appears that the Obama administration is complicit in a plot by these community organizations to steal the elections. Trust Judicial Watch to do what it can to uphold the rule of law against this very real challenge to our election system.

This from our first article in an ongoing investigation conducted by the MacIver News Service. Future stories will focus on any official reaction we receive from the University and an indepth look at Rogers’ Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

Joel Rogers Says College Credits May Be Available to Those Who Help Build Liberal Alternative to ALEC

[Madison, Wisc…] One of the University of Wisconsin’s most renowned liberal professors attempted to recruit his students to work on an elaborate private political project while final grades in their class were pending, the MacIver News Service has learned.

At the conclusion of his end-of-the-year email to his UW Law School students, Professor Joel Rogers wrote: “I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina [sic] and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that (no money, but possible credit), or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.“

Rogers is the Director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, educational, and charitable organization. COWS was founded in 1992 by Rogers, a professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions. COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Social Science Building.

According to its website, COWS current and past funders include: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, theCarolyn Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Garfield Foundation, Living Cities, the Joyce Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

This last semester, Rogers taught a class titled: Law & Contemporary Problems: Public Law & Private Power to approximately a dozen students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Coursework was completed in December, but grades had not been issued at the time he sent his email to students. Rogers’ email was provided to MacIver News Service by someone who received the email from one of Rogers’ students. The MNS has confirmed the authenticity of the email, although we have not found a student who was willing to comment on the record.  Read more>>

My state’s National Education Association (NEA) affiliate, the Ohio Education Association (OEA), takes millions in fees from non-members each year. Operating on NEA’s model, OEA insists all teachers be forced to pay for the union’s non-political business. This would be well and good, if OEA conducted any non-political business.

From the union’s mission statement:

OEA believes that for those whose business is public education, activism is an obligation.

OEA has the same definition of “activism” as every garden variety leftist group: Demand bigger government under the guise of fairness and equality. For example, ACORN’s 2005-06 Political Program (hat tip: Publius’ Forum) lists OEA as a “Coalition Partner” -

We see the combination of these efforts as key to maintaining and expanding the level of electoral participation by more progressive voters in the state, along with playing a role in pushing voter alignment along axes of community concerns and economic security.

In other words, OEA worked with ACORN to push the entitlement mindset and get entitlement-minded voters to the polls. For… the children?

More recently, OEA was listed as a state partner of “Health Care for America NOW” (a lobbying group devoted to socialized medicine) and the Ohio Voter Fund (a coalition of leftists against voter ID).

NEA and its state affiliates are enthusiastic cheerleaders for Keynesian deficit spending, though I wouldn’t want the task of finding a math teacher who insists one minus two equals jobs!

Honestly, NEA’s entire “Education Votes” blog could be an Obama 2012 campaign site. NEA publicly endorsed Obama’s reelection last July, ending hours of heated debate among no one: every Big Labor affiliation and stump speech flies in the face of the lie that partisanship is limited to official campaign spending.

When the public union stranglehold was threatened in Ohio last winter, OEA’s class war machine went into overdrive at the expense of willing and unwilling dues-payers alike. Progressive talking points come easily to a group that instructs members to indoctrinate children on the glories of unionism!

NEA bosses take advantage of the goodwill teachers generate, paying themselves and Democrats handsomely while claiming credit for members’ hard work. Unless you look forward to the second Obama term NEA is sinking millions into, be sure your friends and family know teachers’ unions want higher taxes and bigger government.

There’s much more evidence than what I’ve listed here, and I’ll continue highlighting the ugly Progressive truth about NEA and its partners here in Ohio.

For more from Ohio, follow Jason on Twitter: @jasonahart

Don’t get me wrong; there is much to dislike about him. His method of ‘community organizing’ preys on people’s fears and anxieties. They exacerbate and prolong racial tensions. And, his ultimate aim is a utopian marxist state. All that said, he is very good at what he does and understands progressive movements and how to create and maintain them better than just about anyone.

So, I was curious to read his recent take on the Occupy Movement:

Nonetheless, listening closely to the whole meeting, it was hard to escape the conclusion that as committed as many were, they were groping for a plan for the future. There was no consensus on that question, and really very little debate or discussion. Several people raised the issue during the “soapbox” session, which allows open mic griping that everyone can easily ignore. In fact most people left the room during that section to visit elsewhere in the coffeehouse.

As an organizer, I would venture to predict that there is a hard debate coming between occupants committed to a program and plan going forward and occupants committed to the process and trusting that something will emerge. Logically one would think that this sort of thing simply works itself out, but after listening to a 45 minute debate of sorts as they struggled to decide where to meet again twixt and tween the Plaza and our Fair Grinds Common Space, I wondered if that was possible or the group would simply split into various Occupy this and that’s without being able to sustain the Occupy core.

It’s possible to chalk this up to sour-grapes, criticizing a movement he didn’t help create. However, as someone who has spent a great deal of time reading the minutes of OccupyWallSt’s meeting minutes, I think Rathke is exactly right. There is no there, there beyond a slick focus-group tested marketing slogan. And you can’t build a real movement on a slogan.

If the Occupy crowd is starting to lose hard-core believers like Rathke, the rest of the democrat-media industrial complex can’t be far behind.

Ron Paul

It seems, that when it comes to defense, Ron Paul is stuck in 1776. He seems not to realize that America’s enemies, real or potential, Russia and China, and Iran chief among them, have a very long reach. The continental US is only partially protected by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans . The enemy can now attack the American homeland with ICBMs, biological weapons, cyber warfare, dirty bombs smuggled across the Mexican border – any number of deadly methods of mass destruction.

Just as frontier forts would have outposts to warn of Indian attack, the US needs people all over the world to protect not just her friends and allies, but the American homeland itself.

Why then does Ron Paul, a man so supremely rational in many areas, have such a blind spot when it comes to US national security?

The answer, in my opinion, is that Ron Paul’s justified distrust at the growth of government power in many unconstitutional areas, has irrationally created an antipathy to Federal Government activity in one of its few legitimate areas – national defense.

Further, Ron Paul’s libertarian suspicion of big government defense spending , has been deliberately fostered and encouraged by the most anti libertarian elements in the land – the US hard left.

Ron Paul, and many libertarians think they can work with the left to achieve libertarian ends.

The hard bitten Leninists and disciplined Marxists of the left know they can use naive libertarians to achieve their ends – particularly to gut America’s defenses to the benefit of their foreign masters.

In short, the US left is using Ron Paul and other libertarians, to do what their armies and intelligence services have long dreamed of – destroying America’s military superiority, and with it, US national sovereignty.

By promoting the left’s defense policies, Ron Paul, a man of patriotism beyond question, could be unknowingly betraying his own country to its enemies.

The degree to which Ron Paul buys into leftist anti defense views was well illustrated in 2010.

That year, The Sustainable Defense Task Force was formed in response to a request from far left Massachusetts Democratic Representative Barney Frank , working in cooperation with Representative Ron Paul and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden; to “explore possible defense budget contributions to deficit reduction efforts that would not compromise the essential security of the United States”.

What did the much heralded report recommend?

The Taskforce’s proposals included cutting nuclear deterrence, reducing the fleet by 57 ships, including two carriers, canceling the Joint Strike Fighter, “severely curtail missile defense” (a direct quote from the report)., retiring four Marine battalions, reducing the military by 200,000 personnel, cutting defense research spending by 50 billion over ten years, and increasing health care fees for military personnel.

Daniel Greenfield of the excellent Sultan Knish blog, points out that many of the groups contributing to the report were funded by the notorious leftist billionaire, George Soros.

But Soros was not the only sinister influence here. Several report contributors had direct ties to the Marxists of Democratic Socialists of America, and indirect ties to the Communist Party USA . Members of both organizations have been convicted of spying for hostile foreign powers. Both have ties to radical regimes such as Cuba and Venezuela. Both want to overturn US capitalism and replace it with Marxist socialism.

Other contributors have ties to the ultra-leftist Institute or Policy Studies, once described by British analyst Brian Crozier, as the “perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB.

Another associated with the Council for a Livable World – America’s oldest and best funded ‘peace” Political Action Committee. The Council was founded in 1962 by Hungarian expatriate Leo Szilard, a former Manhattan Project physicist, a Marxist and reported Soviet spy. Council for a Livable World has helped finance hundreds of pro “peace” leftists into office, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Sustainable Defense Taskforce commissioners Barney Frank and Ron Wyden.

Barack Obama in 1994, with Council for a Livable World chairman, and Democratic Socialists of America affiliate , Jerome Grossman

On February 4, 2010, the Council for a Livable World announced that David Bonior would become the next chair of PeacePAC, the organization’s arm that endorses candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. At the time Bonior commented,

“I am honored to be selected as the next chairman of PeacePAC. I look forward to working with the experts on the committee’s Board of Directors to endorse and help elect strong, progressive candidates in the 2010 elections.

A former Democratic Party Whip, Bonior has, since 2007, been an open member of Democratic Socialists of America.

The Project on Defense Alternatives, coordinated the work of the Task Force. Carl Conetta drafted the main body of the Task Force report in ongoing consultation with Task Force members who “developed or digested proposals from the diverse sources cited in the report” . A sub-committee of the Task Force reviewed the final draft before publication. Conetta was assisted in overseeing the report by his Project on Defense Alternatives co – director, and fellow Taskforce member Charles Knight- a long time member of Democratic Socialists of America.

D.S.A. member, and report author Charles Knight

Knight wrote an article for Boston Democratic Socialists of America’s The Yankee Radical of October 2001, entitled “Defense Budget Blues”

It is important to note that George Bush has now fully joined the ranks of wartime Keynesians. He has a majority coalition with Democrats to spend the country out of the recession it is now entering. In the short term the left in this country cannot hope to advance a better option. We must instead focus on deepening our analysis and story of this time in history so that when our country tires of vengeful war and its repercussions we have done the groundwork to lead the country in a different direction.

Part of that story should be that 90+% of military investments have nothing to do with countering terrorism or with defending our homeland and that if we desire not to be a target of terrorist hate in the future we need to change our country’s stance in the world.

The economic self-interest of contractors is an important fact of the political economy, but the central impetus for high military budgets comes from the utility of military power to US elites in their efforts to enhance their position of dominance across the globe. We are seeing that power in action now.

Nevertheless, I believe that the majority of Americans do not share that interest in dominance with conservative elites. We must learn to provide a viable security option for this majority of Americans.

Connetta and Knight’s organization is the lead project of the Boston based Commonwealth Institute.

Interestingly, four of the Institute’s seven board members have been identified members of Democratic Socialists of America – Charles Knight, Richard Healey, Guy Molyneux and Cynthia Ward. A fifth, S. M. Miller has at least been a long time D.S.A. affiliate. Richard Healey is the son of the famous, late California communist Dorothy Healey, and is a former staffer with the Institute for Policy Studies. Healey also serves on the board of Rosenberg Fund for Children, which is run by the sons of executed Soviet “Atom Bomb spies’, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

One notable former board member of the Project on Defense Alternatives, was Dr Philip Morrison, Professor, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who died in April 2005. Morrison had been a Communist Party member, a Manhattan Project scientist, and was suspected of being a Soviet spy – code names “Relay” or “Serb”.

Other Taskforce members also had known radical associations;

• • William D. Hartung: Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, a leftist ‘think tank” headed by Steve Coll, a former Occidental College contemporary of Barack Obama’s. Hartung also serves on the Advisory Committee^, of Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
  • Christopher Hellman: , National Priorities Project, which is a partner organization of the Institute for Policy Studies. The N.P.P. “analyzes and clarifies federal data” so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent. Board members include Jen Kern, of the D.S.A. front American Rights at Work, who previously worked in the ACORN national office, “providing research support for local ACORN organizers nationwide on issues from insurance and banking discrimination to jobs, education and minimum wage”, two Taskforce members Paul Kawika Martin and Miriam Pemberton, Albany New York academic Lawrence Wittner, a member of Democratic Socialists of America, and Connecticut academic Vijay Prashad, a long time affiliate of the Communist Party USA.
  • Heather Hulburt: National Security Network, and a senior adviser with leftist New York “think tank” Demos, also a partner organization of the Institute for Policy Studies. Incidentally, both Barack Obama and his former communist “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones, are former Demos Trustees, while Demos CEO Miles Rapoport has a long history with D.S.A.

Judith LeBlanc with Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, 2002

• Paul Kawika Martin: Political & Communications Director with Peace Action, the US’s largest “peace” umbrella group. Peace Action was formerly known as the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, a well documented communist front. Mr. Martin ” uses his expertise on nuclear weapons, international relations, and US foreign policy to mobilize Peace Action’s 100,000 members and lobby Congress for social change.” His recent travels include trips to ,Cuba and Iran. Martin also works very closely with Judith LeBlanc, who is Peace Action’s national field organizer. LeBlanc is a vice-chair of the Communist Party USA and chairs it’s Peace and Solidarity Commission, the body charged with directing the US “peace movement” and liaising with foreign communist and terrorist organizations. Most recently LeBlanc was organizing Peace Action activist to lobby the Senate “Committee of 12″ to institute massive defense spending cuts.
• Laicie Olson: Senior policy analyst Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and board member Council for a Livable World.
• Miriam Pemberton: Institute for Policy Studies, and the peace and security editor for Foreign Policy in Focus. Pemberton leads a group that producesthe annual “Unified Security Budget for the United States.” Other recent publications include “The Budgets Compared: Military vs. Climate Security.” She has authored two reports comparing the budgets for military and climate security in FY2009 and FY2010, and with William Hartung published “Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War”.
• Prasannan Parathasarathi: Founder of the 25% Solution, which is “building a citizen movement for cuts in the Pentagon budget”. Parathasarathi is married to fellow Boston College academic, and long time Democratic Socialists of America member Juliet Schor . Incidentally Schor was one of several D.S.A. and Institute for Policy Studies leaders who set up the radical New Party in the early 1990s. One of their most well known and successful members was Barack Obama. The Coalition for Peace Action ’s 32nd Annual Conference for Peace was held on November 13, 2011 at Princeton University. The Conference was entitled “Smart Security: Reducing Military Spending to Fund Urgent Needs at Home.” The event featured talks from Dr. Prasannan Parthasarathi, and Judith LeBlanc of the Communist Party, who “encouraged the audience to be hopeful about our political progress, and to be involved with the current Occupy movements around the country”.

, Prasannan Parthasarathi , left, Judith Leblanc, center

Clearly Ron Paul and Barney Frank’s Sustainable Defense Taskforce was totally dominated by the hard left – people with an interest in transforming America through socialist revolution.

How did get Ron Paul get sucked into this leftist scam? Did he not care who wrote his country’s defense policies? Did he not do due diligence on the people he entrusted with such a huge responsibility?

Either Ron Paul was extremely negligent in checking the bona fides of those he entrusted with such a vital responsibility, or he just didn’t care that anti – American Marxists were involved.

I think Ron Paul was probably negligent. He was o blinded by his own prejudices, that he was willing to a deal with the devil to get publicity for his cause.

That a serious contender for the presidency of the United States could be so careless over such a vital issue speaks volumes about his judgement.

Ron Paul may have blinded by the left, but he is guilty of at least partially closing his eyes of his own accord. Candidate Paul should publicly admit his error, and vow never to repeat it, or he should leave the presidential race and return to Congress.

Ron Paul is the best there is on financial and economic matters. That is the field where he can best serve his country, and the cause of liberty.

unfortunately, he clearly doesn’t have the understanding of defense issues required of a man who aspires to the highest office in the free world.

• Attorney General Eric Holder
• President Barack Obama

Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:

• Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius

Attorney General Eric Holder: Attorney General Eric Holder now operates the most politicized and ideological Department of Justice (DOJ) in recent history. And revelations from the Operation Fast and Furious scandal suggest that programs approved by the Holder DOJ may have resulted in the needless deaths of many, including a federal law enforcement officer.

Fast and Furious was a DOJ/Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “gun-running” operation in which guns were sold to Mexican drug cartels and others, apparently in hopes that the guns would end up at crime scenes. This reckless insanity seems to have resulted in, among other crimes, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican criminals in December 2010. Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene of his death.

The Fast and Furious operation by itself should have resulted in Holder’s resignation, but it is the cover-up that has prompted serious calls for Holder’s ouster.

On May 3, 2011, in a House Judiciary Committee hearing chaired by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Holder testified: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” Newly released documents show he was receiving weekly briefings on Fast and Furious as far back as July 5, 2010. It appears Holder lied to Congress. Judicial Watch sued the DOJ and the ATF to obtain Fast and Furious records. The Judicial Watch investigation continues.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Holder’s corruption and abuse of office, Fast and Furious is just the tip of the iceberg.

On February 23, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that DOJ lawyers would no longer defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), as applied to homosexual couples. DOMA had passed Congress by a vote of 85–14 in the Senate and a vote of 342–67 in the House. President Clinton signed the act into law on September 21, 1996.

Judicial Watch filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the DOJ (including one on behalf of the Family Research Council) for records related to this pro-homosexual marriage decision. This failure to defend this federal law is unprecedented and raises serious questions as to whether President Obama and Eric Holder are upholding their oaths of office and following the Constitution’s command to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

The DOJ continues to stonewall the release of information regarding Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s participation in Obamacare discussions when she served as Solicitor General. In addition to forcing Judicial Watch to file a lawsuit to obtain this information, Holder’s DOJ thumbed its nose at Congress by failing to release this material to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Kagan’s judicial confirmation hearing. Holder continues to personally resist requests from Judicial Watch and Congress for additional information on this controversy. Kagan’s role in these discussions is especially significant now that the U.S. Supreme Court has announced it will consider challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare in Spring 2012.

New revelations emerged in 2011 about the DOJ’s Black Panther scandal. Judicial Watch uncovered evidence that the liberal special interest group National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) may have had an inappropriate amount of influence on the DOJ’s decision to drop its voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense. This comes on the heels of sworn testimony that the Civil Rights Division of the Holder DOJ makes enforcement decisions based upon race.

Most recently, Judicial Watch obtained shocking documents suggesting the Holder DOJ is conspiring with scandal-ridden Project Vote (President Obama’s former employer and ACORN front) to use the National Voter Registration Act to increase welfare voter registrations. One former ACORN employee (and current Project Vote Director of Advocacy), Estelle Rogers, is even helping to vet job candidates for the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Division! ACORN and Project Vote have a long record of voter registration fraud.

Seeming to affirm ACORN’s hijacking of the DOJ, Holder recently said in a speech that he plans to use “the full weight” of the agency in 2012 to attack states that are enforcing laws that protect against fraud in the voting booths. This speech ended the pretense that the DOJ is independent from the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign – as it repeated almost verbatim the partisan arguments made by the Democratic Party against voter ID laws.

Holder must go. Pick your reason – Black Panthers, race-based decision making, abandoning the Defense of Marriage Act, Fast and Furious killings and lies, or turning the DOJ into an arm of the radicalized left – but Holder must go.

President Barack Obama: President Obama makes Judicial Watch’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for a fifth consecutive year (the former Illinois Senator was also a “Dishonorable Mention” in 2006). And when it comes to Obama corruption, it may not get any bigger than Solyndra. Solyndra was once known as the poster child for the Obama administration’s massive “green energy” initiative, but it has become the poster child for the corruption that ensues when the government meddles in the private sector. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September 2011, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs and the American taxpayers on the hook for $535 million thanks to an Obama administration stimulus loan guarantee.

Despite the Obama administration’s reticence to release details regarding this scandal, much is known about this shady deal. White House officials warned the president that the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program was “dangerously short on due diligence.” Nonetheless, the Obama administration rushed the Solyndra loan through the approval process so it could make a splash at a press event. The company’s main financial backer was a major Obama campaign donor named George Kaiser. While the White House said Kaiser never discussed the loan with White House officials, the evidence suggests this is a lie. And, further demonstrating the political nature of the Obama administration’s activities, the Energy Department pressured Solyndra to delay an announcement on layoffs until after the 2010 elections. Despite the public outrage at this scandalous waste of precious tax dollars, President Obama continues to defend the indefensible and has refused to sack anyone over the Solyndra mess.

President Obama continues to countenance actions by his appointees that undermine the rule of law and constitutional government:

• Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct “community” organization ACORN. In July 2011, Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing organization which has a long history of corrupt activity. In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.In 2011, JW released a special report entitled “The Rebranding of ACORN,” which details how the ACORN network is alive and well and well-placed to undermine the integrity of the 2012 elections – evidently with the assistance of the Obama administration.

• Barack Obama apparently believes it is his “prerogative” to ignore the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law when it comes to appointing czars. According to Politico: “President Barack Obama is planning to ignore language in the 2011 spending package that would ban several top White House advisory posts.” Obama said this ban on “czars” would undermine “the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” In other words, Barack Obama believes he must ignore the U.S. Constitution to protect the U.S. Constitution. Many Obama administration czars have not been subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate as required by the U.S. Constitution. In 2011, JW released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive report on the Obama czar scandal, entitled “President Obama’s Czars.”

• In an historic victory for Judicial Watch and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama White House, a federal court ruled on August 17, 2011 that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service. The Obama administration now will have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under the law. The Obama White House continues to fight full disclosure and has stalled the release of records by appealing the lower court decision. Judicial Watch gave Obama a “failing grade” on transparency in testimony before Congress in 2011. Read the testimony in full, as well as additional congressional testimony during a hearing entitled “White House Transparency, Visitor Logs and Lobbyists.”

• In 2011, the Obama National Labor Relations Board sought to prevent the Seattle-based Boeing Company from opening a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) showing this lawsuit was politically motivated. Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing NLRB staff cheerleading for Big Labor, mouthing Marxist, anti-American slurs and showing contempt for Congress related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing, including email correspondence attacking members of Congress. And it starts at the top. Obama bypassed Congress and recess-appointed Craig Becker–who is connected to the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and ACORN–to the NRLB.

• Obama’s corrupt Chicago dealings continued to haunt him in 2011. Obama’s real estate partner, campaign fundraiser, and Obama pork recipient Antoin “Tony” Rezko was finally sentenced to jail this year, as was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is now set to serve 14 years for attempting to sell Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. The FBI continues to withhold from Judicial Watch documents of its historic interview of then-Senator Obama about the Illinois corruption scandal. The FBI interview was conducted in December 2008, about one month before Obama was sworn into the presidency.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: While Attorney General Eric Holder was busy attacking states seeking to protect themselves from uncontrolled illegal immigration in 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano presided over a campaign to bypass Congress and provide amnesty to millions of illegal alien lawbreakers, all in an obvious attempt to garner more Hispanic votes for Obama’s reelection.

At first, Napolitano’s campaign was begun in stealth. But in 2011 the Obama administration finally admitted that illegal alien amnesty is now the official policy of the United States of America, courtesy of Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to The New York Times:

The Department of Homeland Security will begin a review on Thursday (November 17, 2011) of all deportation cases before the immigration courts and start a nationwide training program for enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers, with the goal of speeding deportations of convicted criminals and halting those of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.

Don’t believe for a second DHS’s line that criminal illegal aliens won’t find themselves “outside the department’s priorities.” This is an outright lie.

In 2011, Judicial Watch uncovered documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) proving that immigration officials were urged to use “prosecutorial discretion” to dismiss deportation proceedings against a wide variety of illegal alien criminals — including those convicted of serious crimes such as sexual assault, solicitation of murder, aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, and kidnapping, as well as numerous drug charges.

And to highlight the depth of this amnesty scheme, consider the case of Carlos Martinelly-Montano, the drunk-driving illegal immigrant from Bolivia who killed a Catholic nun and severely injured two others in Prince William County, Virginia, on August 1, 2010. Napolitano ordered an investigation into Montano’s background but initially refused to release the agency’s findings — until Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit. On March 3, 2011, Judicial Watch finally got hold of the “cleaned up” version of the Homeland Security report (after a lengthy back-and-forth with DHS).

And what did Judicial Watch uncover? Montano should have been deported, but thanks to the illegal alien sanctuary policies of the federal government, local authorities and the courts, he was allowed back onto the streets.

Evidently, Janet Napolitano believes her agency may simply choose to ignore illegal immigration laws to help Obama get reelected. Moreover, the DHS seems more than willing to stonewall and obfuscate in order to conceal its questionable activities. As some key of members of Congress wrote Napolitano:

“This new [backdoor amnesty] policy undermines the rule of law and intrudes on the role of Congress to make the law, while denigrating the role of the executive to carry out the laws enacted by Congress.”

Napolitano’s attempt to rewrite immigration law on her own is an affront to constitutional government.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius: What did Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discuss during all of those secret Obamacare meetings she held with Vice President Biden and Big Labor leaders? Obamacare waivers would be an excellent guess.

In September 2011, HHS announced an arbitrary cut-off to waiver applications, which had skyrocketed to 1,472 unions and companies seeking to get out from underneath the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul. At the time of the cut-off, approximately 50% of the waivers granted covered employees of unions, even though union workers represent about 12% of the total workforce!

From the beginning, HHS has kept these waivers shrouded in secrecy. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against HHS on December 30, 2010, and yet the agency refuses to explain to the American people how decisions were made regarding which organizations received or did not receive a waiver.

While HHS was disproportionately doling out waivers to unions, JW also obtained documents from HHS that provide new details on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote Obamacare. The total cost of this campaign, which notably targets Obama’s electoral coalition, could reach as much as $200 million over the next five years.

And this is how HHS describes the key to success for this campaign: “Health and program-related messages are processed by the target audience according to a particular reality, which he or she experiences. Attitudes, feelings, values, needs, desires, behaviors and beliefs all play a part in the individual’s decision to accept information and make a behavioral change.” In other words, the Obama administration is paying hired guns a lot of your money to manipulate American taxpayers into “accepting” the Obama way and “changing” their behavior.

This is certainly what HHS was trying to do with a series of three Medicare television advertisements featuring actor Andy Griffith. As Judicial Watch uncovered through FOIA, the Obama administration spent $3,184,000 in taxpayer funds to produce and air the advertisements on national television in September and October 2010. According to FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, the advertisements intentionally misinformed the American people.

And then there’s health care rationing. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), which is under the auspices of HHS, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for prostate cancer, be placed under a controversial “review.” After enormous public scrutiny, CMS relented and recommended the potentially lifesaving drug be covered by insurance. According to a Judicial Watch investigation, while the Obama administration claimed the cost of Provenge had nothing to do with their review process, records obtained by JW suggest otherwise (Medicare, the FDA, and private companies are legally prohibited from denying approval of a medical treatment based solely on cost).

And then there is Sebelius’s war on the Catholic Church and other “conservative” religious organizations. Sebelius’s HHS has written Obamacare regulations to punish long-held religious views that don’t comport with liberal ideology and would force hundreds of religious institutions to drop insurance coverage or risk running afoul of Sebelius’s pro-abortion Obamacare regulatory scheme.

The constitutionality of Obamacare may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. But in the meantime, Kathleen Sebelius has turned HHS into a political machine, using underhanded tactics to stack the deck in favor of Obamacare, while greasing Big Labor and other Obama political campaign allies.