Posts Tagged ‘Capitol Hill’

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

EXCLUSIVE–Inside Occupy DC: ‘Obama Is Not Why the US Park Police Are Letting Us Stay’

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

As Washington, D.C.’s Democrat-dominated government attempts to evict Occupy protestors from their McPherson Square encampment, only a few blocks from the White House, the protestors have found an unlikely ally: the U.S. Park Police (USPP).

The federal-municipal confrontation has sparked speculation that President Barack Obama is protecting the Occupy protestors from city administrators.

The Occupy activists, however, seem to believe otherwise.

Big Government headed into the heart of the snow-bound encampment for an exclusive on-site interview with an Occupy DC demonstrator who does not believe the USPP is acting on orders from the Obama administration.

The Occupy DC Encampment under Washington, D.C.'s first snowfall

The activists are familiar with the details of the political fight that began when the D.C. Mayor and the District Council wanted the Occupy sites finally shut down for health reasons, but USPP refused to do so in the name of the First Amendment.

The theory that the White House was pressuring USPP not to enforce District of Columbia statutes emerged Tuesday, January 24, during a Congressional hearing, when National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis fielded questions from Republican lawmakers.

U.S. Representatives were mystified as to why the USPP has not responded to District requests to finally shut down the encampment, and why the overnight sleeping ban in federal parks had not been enforced.

“Each of our First Amendment demonstrations (is) a little bit unique. And this one is, let’s say, unprecedented. The core of their First Amendment activity is that they occupy the site,” Jarvis told lawmakers. “We felt that going in right away and enforcing the regulations against camping could potentially incite a reaction on their part that would result in possible injury or property damage.”

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Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

EXCLUSIVE: D.C. Soft on Leftist Protestors–Pelosi Asked U.S. Capitol Police Not to Arrest Demonstrators on the Hill

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tried distancing herself from the Occupy movement this week after OWS protestors disrupted Capitol Hill and even assaulted a police officer.

That’s a far cry from her original comments to ABC anchor Christiane Amanpour in October in which she expressed veiled support for the movement.

But what are the former speaker’s real positions on unlawful protestors who stir up trouble on the Hill and is she alone in her demonstrator-sympathetic views?

I was not surprised last year when Pelosi came out in defense of the OWS movement because she had secretly sympathized and aligned herself with the unlawful protestors demonstrating against the war during the Bush administration—and inappropriately asked U.S. Capitol Police not to arrest unlawful protestors who invaded her office or any other area of the Hill.

During my time as a Washington, D.C. prosecutor from 2007-2009, I was charged with the task of prosecuting all unlawful protests that took place in the District especially those at the U.S. Capitol White House and national monuments.

In fact, I investigated and prosecuted so many protestors that Code Pink nicknamed me the “protestor prosecutor,” in the wake of successfully convicting Desiree Ali-Fairooz, the woman who accosted former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

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Wynton Hall

Could New Insider Trading Law Make the Practice Worse?

by Wynton Hall

Yes, says Yale Law Professor Jonathan Macey in an article in today’s Wall Street Journal.

From WSJ:

On closer examination, it appears that what Congress really wants is to keep making the big bucks that come from trading on inside information but to trick those outside of the Beltway into believing they are doing something about this corruption. For one thing, the rules proposed for Capitol Hill are not like those that apply to the rest of us. Ours are so broad and vague that prosecutors enjoy almost unfettered discretion in deciding when and whom to prosecute.

Congress’s rules would be clear and precise. And not too broad; in fact they are too narrow. For example, the proposed rules in the Stock bill are directed only at information related to pending legislation. It would appear that inside information obtained by a congressman during a regulatory briefing, or in another context unrelated to pending legislation, would not be covered.

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Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

SEIU Sends #OccupyCongress to Invade the Hill

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Sources on Capitol Hill tell Big Government that SEIU has organized a major effort to ‘Take Back the Capitol’ this week with a collective of community, labor and Occupy groups that are dedicated to “show Congress what democracy looks like, shine a light on corporate greed and the human suffering it has caused, and demand justice for the 99%.”

According to Congressional sources, Occupy protestors have been visiting one Congressional office after another and demanding to speak with representatives while loitering in their waiting rooms and chanting. ‘Trackers’ are also being spotted roaming the hills of various Congressional buildings.

Joanna Burgos, Deputy Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee described the trackers as, “people with cameras who are trying to track a member or politician on a certain issue. Its just part of the videos you see used all the time. I think their goal is to get them to say something on camera or say something. They tape a lot of their protests and put them on YouTube.”

Some of those videos have already been posted at a site for Think Progress, which describes itself as nonpartisan organization, but was voted the “Best Liberal Blog,” in the 2006 Weblog Awards.

One Think Progress piece posted at 1:57 pm today featured video of protestors occupying U.S. Representative Joe Walsh’s (R-IL) office, reporting that, “These protesters asked to meet with the congressman. The Chief of Staff, Justin Roth, said that Walsh was busy and could only meet with them later but offered to meet with the protesters himself. ‘“I think we’ll stay,”’ said one protester. Roth shrugged and the protesters sat down and decided to occupy the office until Walsh arrives.”

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider told Big Government that although they’ve been “monitoring more activity on the Hill today then yesterday,” there has only been one arrest.

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Wynton Hall

Is the STOCK Act a Toothless Paper Tiger?

by Wynton Hall

Since the publishing of Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out, support for the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act to ban members of Congress from using private information for personal profit has jumped from four cosponsors to 131. Yet in the wake of yesterday’s Senate hearings on the subject, several Capitol Hill observers are asking: does the bill, in the present forms being considered, go far enough?

Hardly, say insider trading experts and Washington watchers.

UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge calls some versions of the bill under consideration “bizarre and toothless.” Equally unimpressed with the bill’s language is Atlantic Monthly senior editor Megan McArdle. “Will someone please guard the damn guardians?” writes McArdle.

One member of Congress who is pleased with the STOCK Act is Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Yesterday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has come under fire for having acquired Visa IPO shares that resulted in a 203% profit while thwarting critical credit card reform bills, appeared to shrug off the urgency of passing the bill. “I would hope that it’s not as necessary as the whoop-de-doo over it makes it seem. But I do think that we all disclose what we do.” And Speaker of the House John Boehner’s comments yesterday seemed to leave open the question of whether such legislation is even needed. “The hearings are a step in the right direction to determine whether there’s a need for such a bill to move. We’ll let those hearings proceed,” said Boehner.

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Ben  Domenech

Henry Waxman and the New American Way

by Ben Domenech

One of the dirty little secrets of Capitol Hill is that most politicians – even the ones the horserace-focused media depicts as irredeemably ideologically divided – actually have no coherent driving ideology. The secret is revealed only occasionally. If powerful oversight chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) hadn’t reconsidered his plans this week to call the CEOs of major companies into committee chambers for his version of Beltway blackmail, the American people might have had an opportunity to witness it being revealed.

Waxman originally called the hearing in a characteristic fit of pique. After more than nine months of labor, the House of Representatives had finally given birth to the gargantuan ogre of Obamacare. Yet before the Democratic leadership could finish tousling the hair of the prop children at their signing ceremonies, corporate America started following the law, in the most inconvenient manner possible: they reported to their investors and employees the effects the new legislation would have on their benefit plans.

In each case, the analysts employed by major companies like AT&T, Verizon Communications, Caterpillar, Deere & Co. and others did their job: they delivered reports detailing the ramifications – higher premiums, dropped drug coverage, and forcing their employees into taxpayer-funded plans – thanks to the new bill. Waxman, infuriated, demanded the CEOs of these troublesome companies turn over all internal communications about the predicted results, as if he thought they would reveal some devious Republican plot, instead of the simple mathematical calculations of the green eyeshades and the diligent efforts of company lawyers to ensure that the companies complied with federal disclosure laws.
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Andrew Breitbart

Barack Obama’s Helter-Skelter, Insane Clown Posse, Alinsky Plans to ‘Deconstruct’ America

by Andrew Breitbart

UPDATE: The bounty is now $100,000 for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled at Congressmen John Lewis and Andre Carson.

***

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.


The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.


That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

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Christopher C. Horner

Cap-and-Trade Really Is Cap-and-Tax

by Christopher C. Horner

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).

the-goracle

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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