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Let’s just cut to the chase: your fearless leader Andrew Bretibart is our guest today and we cover the panoply of conflicts that seem to follow Andrew where ever he goes. A brief list: Most of Twitter, the folks in the parking lot of the Sears Center, Glenn Beck, Shirley Sherrod, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Harvey Fierstein. And that’s just in the first ten minutes. We also talk about the Tea Party, the mid-terms, and we get a valuable lesson in crowd control.

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Mary Curtis at PoliticsDaily:

Though it may be a mix-up or a misunderstanding, it doesn’t look good. On the tape, Norton notes that colleagues on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have already received donations. “I’m handling the largest economic development project in the United States now,” she says. “I’m simply candidly calling to ask for a contribution.” She then helpfully supplies an address.

The call could be examined to see if it breaks House ethics rules, and could not come at a worse time for Democrats trying to maintain their majority in the House and Senate in November midterm elections. Ethics violations by Republicans helped get Democrats elected in the last two election cycles when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to “drain the swamp.”

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The indiscreet voicemail, left by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) for a lobbyist, sounded a bit like a “shakedown”, which is no big surprise.

I know from first-hand experience that Ms. Norton can use veiled threats and thuggish behavior when she wants to have her way.

During my time as the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), I was the recipient of late night phone calls at my home, during which Holmes wanted to “discuss” why GSA wasn’t doing more to house government agencies in certain parts of the District of Columbia, in particular, in areas where gentrification was occurring slowly.

Norton’s voracious appetite for “more” often led her to raise her voice and make veiled threats.  Once, she even trumped up a meeting where she advocated for more business on behalf of a real estate organization that I later learned had donated to her campaign.  When I protested these tactics and refused to attend further such meetings, the political pressure was cranked up and political unpleasantness became the norm.  Norton always claimed she was just doing her job.

Many Americans may be shocked to hear Holmes’ indiscreet voicemail, but, from my experiences in Washington, it seems that Holmes may have learned these tactics from the top leadership of her party.  Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Majority Whip, has been especially thuggish in the past, screaming and issuing threats at the homes of federal agency leaders, should one of his pork projects be questioned.

The “gimme”, as practiced by some Democrat legislators, can range from subtle and respectful, as is probably appropriate for any request, to disrespectful and threatening.  It seems as if there are some legislators who want to make sure there is no doubt in your mind that if you don’t cough up the goods during the shakedown, then negative consequences will occur.

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Tonight, Delegate (or in her self-absorbed world, Congresswoman) Eleanor Holmes Norton responded to reports that she put the squeeze on a lobbyist. Of course, she tried to change the subject:

The conservative blogger, Andrew Breitbart, best known for his misinformation concerning Shirley Sherrod, is trying to mislead again. He is circulating a voice mail of a standard request made by candidates to potential donors who do not know the candidates or their work. Norton, therefore, identified herself as a subcommittee chair and the kind of work she has done in subcommittee. Norton is a longtime supporter of public financing of campaigns, but barring that, candidates from all parties regularly raise funds in calls by first identifying who they are and what they have done. The call was made from campaign headquarters. Her request fully complied with legal and ethical requirements.”

Go here to see if her voicemail was a “standard request.”

Of course, this isn’t Eleanor Holmes Norton’s first brush with possible ethics’ violations. In fact, her first election for Congress was almost derailed by the revelation that she and her husband had decided not to pay DC income tax for seven years.

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A couple weeks ago, House Member Eleanor Holmes Norton made a fundraising call to a lobbyist. The lobbyist wasn’t available, so Holmes Norton left a voicemail.

We have been given a copy of that message. The audio is below.

By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the article linked above, Politico noted:

In August, Pelosi and other top leaders wrote members, saying, “We need to know your commitment is to maintaining a strong Democratic majority now” and pleading with them to call “to let us know what you are able to do and when.”

The pressure is especially strong on members from “safe” districts, who need little campaign money of their own to win reelection. The catch, though, is that many of these members haven’t amassed vast campaign war-chests, for the simple reason that they haven’t needed them. So, they are scrambling to meet their Pelosi-imposed obligations. Holmes Norton is from one such “safe” district–the District of Columbia.

In the following voicemail recording, Holmes Norton seeks a campaign contribution from the lobbyist and even mentions that she hadn’t previously asked  for a donation. Such is the pressure Speaker Pelosi has placed on the members. But, it is the content of Holmes Norton’s message that is interesting. (Note: the first few seconds of the recording, where the name of the lobbyist is said by Holmes Norton, have been redacted by the source.)

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Her message raises many concerns.

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Harry Reid’s comments have prompted a warning… to Republicans!

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is warning Republicans against trying to make hay out of Harry Reid’s comments about Barack Obama’s skin color and lack of a “Negro dialect.”

The nonvoting member of Congress said Reid’s opponents “will not find a welcome mat in the black community” if they try to seize on his remarks.

Thanks to the white washing of black history by liberal academics, the Democrat Party, and the media, Republicans don’t have a welcome mat in the black community now. Talk about a threat with no teeth….

That said, Eleanor Holmes Norton (IF she can be intellectually honest with herself) should look at all the things Democrats like Reid have done TO blacks instead of for them.

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This is big government at its finest hour. The Democrats have officially killed a successful private school voucher program banishing more than 3,300 low-income children back to the DC schools they so desperately wanted to escape. The Heartland Institute reports:

The leaders of D.C.’s school choice movement, Kevin P. Chavous (former D.C. Councilman) and Virginia Walden Ford (executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice), today issued the following statement:

“House and Senate Appropriators this week ignored the wishes of D.C.’s mayor, D.C.’s public schools chancellor, a majority of D.C.’s city council, and more than 70 percent of D.C. residents and have mandated the slow death of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.

The decision to end the program, a decision buried in a thousand-page spending bill and announced right before the holidays, destroys the hopes and dreams of thousands of D.C. families. Parents and children have rallied countless times over the past year in support of reauthorization and in favor of strengthening the OSP.

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