What are the limits of partisan support?

Repeatedly during the February 2nd  ”Fast and Furious” hearings led by the Chairman of the House Oversight committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) , Democrats were coming out in force praising Holder for his excellent work. Democratic Congresswoman Maloney from California commended Holder for his favorable accomplishments as the acting Attorney General. Even if Holder is not found guilty of a crime, is he not guilty of incompetence over his ineptitude in running the Department of Justice?  But his party members continue to exalt him and one can only wonder for how long.

This was Eric Holder’s sixth time testifying with the investigation and in attendance offering words of support was Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee and Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio who informed Holder at the hearing “I prayed for you this morning.”

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The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a nightmarish piece of legislation moving the House Judiciary Committee currently which Hollywood is pushing hard for. The Tinsel Town lobbyists are in full press on Capitol Hill, doing all they can to get the legislation out of committee and up for a vote. The problem is, SOPA in no uncertain terms is a direct assault on a free internet.

One of the reasons many of us get our news and entertainment from the Net these days is because we find the legacy media lacking. We have turned our backs on old media because it has failed to serve us. We no longer have to tolerate obvious and unceasing news bias, or watch only boxed and packaged melodrama. We are now free to pursue news and entertainment where we like with the click of a mouse or a swipe of the Ipad.

Hollywood, and most of legacy media are unhappy about this and would prefer that we continue to listen to their propaganda and watch their terrible movies. I mean, how many sequels can these guys crank out? SOPA seeks to put we the media consumers back in line.

SOPA is being sold as a way to stop the piracy of movies and music from overseas sites, and this is a problem, but the bill goes much further than just addressing this issue.

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The 25 richest members of Congress and the 25 “poorest” members of Congress break fairly evenly along partisan lines, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Of the top 25 wealthiest members of Congress, 13 were Republicans and 12 were Democrats.

As for the “poorest” members of Congress, 10 were Republicans and 15 were Democrats.

The findings, which were based on the lawmakers’ 2010 financial disclosures, list Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) as having a net worth of – $4,732,002, making him the poorest member of Congress.

At the opposite end of the financial spectrum is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) whose listed net worth of $448,125,017 puts him at the top of the Congressional wealth chart.

Recent studies have shown that the wealth gap between elected officials and average Americans has widened considerably in recent years.

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Republicans were in an “Internet uproar” last week over a false report that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson had called them “jack-booted thugs.” Meanwhile, deeply troubling statements that EPA officials did make have hardly stirred a ripple in the blogosphere.

At a recent hearing before a House oversight panel, three Obama administration witnesses — National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Administrator David Strickland, EPA Assistant Air Administrator Gina McCarthy, and EPA Transportation and Air Quality Director Margo Oge – denied under oath that motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards are “related to” fuel economy standards. In so doing, they denied plain facts they must know to be true. They lied to Congress.

House Government Oversight and Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) put it more diplomatically: “Your statements under oath misrepresented the relationship between regulating greenhouse gases and regulating fuel economy.” By “obstinately insisting” that regulating greenhouse gases and fuel economy are “separate and unrelated endeavors,” the officials “impede the Committee’s important oversight work.”

Why did they “misrepresent” and “impede”? Had the officials answered truthfully, they would have to admit that California’s greenhouse gas motor vehicle emissions law, AB 1493, which EPA approved in June 2009, violates the Energy Policy Conservation Act’s (EPCA) express preemption of state laws or regulations “related to” fuel economy. The officials would also have to admit that EPA is effectively regulating fuel economy, a function outside the scope of its statutory authority.

Strongly Related

That greenhouse gas emission standards implicitly regulate fuel economy is evident from the agencies’ own documents. As EPA and NHTSA acknowledge in their joint May 2010 Greenhouse Gas/Fuel Economy Tailpipe Rule (pp. 25424, 25327), no commercially available technologies exist to capture or filter out carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor vehicles. Consequently, the only way to decrease grams of CO2 per mile is to reduce fuel consumption per mile — that is, increase fuel economy. Carbon dioxide constitutes 94.9% of vehicular greenhouse gas emissions, and “there is a single pool of technologies… that reduce fuel consumption and thereby CO2 emissions as well.”

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One of the key attorneys in the Pigford “black farmers” lawsuit has confirmed, on camera, what we at Big Government have argued for months: that the $2.7 billion Pigford settlement has been corrupted by fraud on a massive scale.

On September 23, 2011, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., attorney Faya Rose Toure (a.k.a. Rose Sanders) described a conspiracy to defraud the federal government, involving claimants, attorneys, and members of the clergy.

The original Pigford plaintiffs were black farmers who sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for racial discrimination.

Sanders related how class-action lawyers later recruited claimants by sending representatives to black churches, where they allegedly told congregants that they were eligible for “reparations,” even if they had never farmed.

Sanders’s claims were at least partially corroborated at the press conference by Gary Grant, President of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, who indicated that he knew of the involvement of preachers in Pigford-related fraud.

What Sanders reveals in the clip below ought to be enough to cause the supervising judge, Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, to suspend the settlement process.

It ought to be enough to prompt the FBI to re-open investigations into the lawyers and organizations involved.

It ought to be enough to encourage Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to fire up his magic investigation machine, and start issuing subpoenas–not just regarding the Pigford settlement, but also the Obama-created settlements for women, Native American, and Hispanic/Latino famers who are alleging discrimination.

Watch the clip, then I’ll take you through some of the points that Pigford attorney Sanders is making.

And so after all of that, they are now accusing the farmers of fraud. There is a problem. There are people who are out there hustling, and taking advantage of black farmers. And some of them are our people. They are the ones that are misleading the people, making them believe they are in the lawsuit, making them believe they are eligible. I actually went to a meeting in Alabama, where these white lawyers from Texas had hired–you were there [“Yes, maʼam. And they're still calling me and trying to get me to fraud.”]–hired black people, hired black people to go into all these black churches and they literally told black people: “Oh, you didn’t have to farm. It doesn’t matter if your grandfather never farmed. If you ever thought about farming, youʼre eligible for this lawsuit.” So these people are thinking this is more of a like reparations-type lawsuit. They donʼt know any better. So when they sign up, they just donʼt know. But the government is determined to prosecute [them], and to limit this process, and that is something I think we need to be outraged about. I think we need to somehow get to the NAACP, and I have talked to the NAACP–we’ve got to have a coalition. We–frankly speaking, we’ve got to get away from some of our differences, because our needs are greater than our differences…

Let’s start at the beginning. (more…)

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) have focused on the Justice Department in their investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, in which U.S. officials deliberately sold American guns to Mexican criminals that were later used to kill a U.S. border agent.

Questions have arisen about the involvement of Attorney General Eric Holder, as new evidence has arisen that Justice Department officials may have wanted not only to target Mexican druglords but also to create anecdotal evidence to support tighter gun control rules.

A look back at the early days of the Obama administration suggests that responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious. may go even higher.

Source: AP http://tinyurl.com/cj4lz3

In the spring of 2009, both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed American gun-running for violence in Mexico’s drug wars.

On March 25, 2009, for example, Clinton stated in Mexico City: “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.” She also announced new efforts to stop gun-running.

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the Obama Administration’s view of business — it publically treats corporations with distain while privately promoting crony capitalism helping their favorite corporations with bailouts and subsidies. GM, Chrysler, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and any company trying to make an electric car, solar panel or wind farm. But by far Google is their favorite crony. As Rep. Darrell Issa, the incoming Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, plans his oversight hearing schedule, the incestuous relationship between the $22 billion corporate behemoth and the Obama White House should be worthy of some Mr. Issa’s worthy oversight agenda.

It’s no secret that Google was one of corporate America’s biggest Obama backers donating over $800,000 to his presidential campaign. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt actively promoted his candidacy and helped pay for the Obama inauguration.

And what has Google got for its “investment” and relationship in the Administration? In Washington, there is an old saying – “Personnel equals policy.” In the case of Google, it’s clear the tail is wagging the dog. Former Google policy maker Andrew McLaughlin, was named White House deputy chief technology officer in June where he’ll be in a position to shape policy that affects Google’s rivals creating a disadvantage for Google’s competitors.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Glen Templeton \”God Bless Good Old Boys\”

Harvard Professor V.O. Key, Jr stated in his seminal work, “The Responsible Electorate”: “The most effective weapon of popular control in a democratic system is the capacity to throw a party from power.”    That weapon is aimed at San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts who hijacked the peoples’ House.

There has been much said about the Tea Party blaming its views on right wing talk show hosts and political pundits.  Many believe the Tea Party was formed by a Democratic Party and Administrations false conclusion that their success in the 2008 election was a vindication of their beliefs, the swing of the electorate response to the campaign positions taken, an indication of the intuitive mood of the people and, finally, as the respect it represents by an intelligent electorate.

Key concluded:  “This narcissistic approach assumes it’s most repulsive form among election winners who have championed intolerance, who have stirred the passions and hatreds of people, or who have advocated causes known by decent men to be outrageous or dangerous in their long run circumstances.”  The great Presidential scholar Richard Neustadt called it the pivotal nature of character to Presidential performance and James Barber of Duke University enhanced it with his classic book “Presidential Character”.  They both concluded that it was character more than policy that determines Presidential performance.

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A stinging report was issued yesterday by Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  The report, titled “Analysis of the First Year of the Obama Administration: Public Relations and Propaganda Initiatives,” outlines a host of propaganda activities conducted by the Obama administration at the direct expense of the American taxpayers.  It notes in part,

“The Obama Administration frequently used federal resources to promote the President’s agenda. In many cases, the Administration relied on the reach and resources of federal agencies and their personnel to promote certain of the President’s favorite programs. The White House also leveraged ties to the arts and entertainment community to embed propaganda in the content of television programming and artwork. These propaganda efforts violated appropriations riders and federal law prohibiting the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes.”

“The White House also used its inherent visibility advantages to multiply the effectiveness of websites containing misleading and controversial information. The White House used its resources to push visitors to websites that urge grassroots activism based on false and misleading information. The President’s right to sell his policy recommendations to Congress and the public is not disputed; however, using the resources of the federal government to activate a sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaign is an abuse of office and a betrayal of the President’s pledge to create “an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

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On April 22nd we published an article entitled IndyMac Attack: Did Schumer, Paulson, Soros, and the CRL Kill the Bank and Profit From Its Collapse? We summarized the story as follows:

At the end of 2007, hedge fund billionaire John Paulson invested $15 million in the leftist non-profit, Center for Responsible Lending, their largest single donation ever. Around the same time, Paulson and his employees contributed over $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, headed, at the time, by Sen. Chuck Schumer. Roughly six months later, CRL and Sen. Schumer both launched a highly public attack on the California-based mortgage lender, Indymac. The lender failed, wiping out the investment of thousands of people. Roughly six months after that, John Paulson, in partnership with George Soros, bought up the remnants of Indymac for pennies on the dollar.

…a top executive of CRL when this deal went down, Eric Stein, is now working at the Treasury Department, heading up the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Mr. Stein will be the chief federal official designing regulations to protect consumers. Right.

At the time, we asked if this could all be coincidence.  Today, we are getting closer to answering this question.

As reported by hedge fund blog AbsoluteReturn+Alpha, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is probing John Paulson on his relationship with the Center for Responsible Lending.

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Issa Responds to Bertha Lewis Charge that ACORN the Victim of Republican McCarthyism

WASHINGTON. D.C. – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) issued the following statement today in response to comments made by ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis at the National Press Club where she accused Republicans of ACORN McCarthyism:

“Was it Republicans who embezzled millions from within their own organization and have yet to report the embezzlement to the IRS or Labor Department?  Was it Republicans who conducted the internal review that highlighted the lack of firewalls between their charitable and political activities?  Was it Republicans who hired a man convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and money laundering to raise funds and register voters in Oklahoma?  The fact that ACORN’s leadership refuses to even acknowledge and accept responsibility for the state of their organization is disturbing and brings into question the sincerity of ACORN’s pledge to reform their organization.”

While ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis addressed the National Press Club, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Republican Staff were reviewing new internal ACORN documents that shed further light on ACORN’s intent to capitalize on the opaque nature of their funding structure in order to fund its partisan political activities.  (more…)

Press Release

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
http://republicans.oversight.house.gov

News Release

Treasury IG Agrees to Request by Issa and Collins to Conduct a Review of ACORN

September 24, 2009

WASHINGTON D.C. –Treasury Department Inspector General, J. Russell George agreed to comply with a request submitted by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-Maine) to conduct a review of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and of the IRS’s oversight of nonprofit organizations.

Read the whole release here.

***Full interview below***

Today Chris Wallace interviewed ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis and noted ACORN critic Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA).

Politico reports on the interview here:

Issa to ACORN: Will you come before Congress?

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) challenged ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis on Sunday to come before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to explain how her group used its federal funding, which Congress voted to cut off last week.

“Will you come before Chairman Towns … and give the kind of disclosure to where the Government Oversight and Reform Committee could know that you are doing work with firewalls, as you say, so the American people know that their dollars don’t end up doing political activities prohibited by law?” Issa, the committee’s ranking Republican, asked on “Fox News Sunday.”

Lewis would not commit specifically to go before the committee to explain how they group separates its charity, political and federal funding. (more…)

ACORN is not only a radical organization devoted to undermining the American system of government: It is a massive, ongoing criminal conspiracy that should be investigated for possible violations of federal racketeering laws.

With a long history of lawbreaking that is finally getting media attention, the poverty pimps of ACORN are currently in retreat across the nation, and an upcoming voter registration fraud trial may reveal embarrassing information that disrupts the operations of the embattled radical activist group. This is in addition to the undercover child prostitution sting videos revealed in recent days on this website.

The testimony will come soon from former ACORN Las Vegas field director Christopher Edwards. Charged with election fraud by Nevada’s Democratic attorney general, he cut a deal last month with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 17.

ACORN stands accused of enforcing voter registration quotas with its employees and offering bonuses for extra registrations. Nevada law forbids the use of such incentives on the theory it encourages canvassers to file fraudulent registrations. No wonder: ACORN registers “Mickey Mouse” and various celebrities, out-of-state residents, and dead people, every election cycle.

As part of the plea deal, Edwards, whom state investigators consider to be the mastermind of the incentive program, has agreed to testify against former regional director, Amy Busefink, and against ACORN, which is a co-defendant. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Edwards acknowledged he conspired with Busefink and ACORN to create the “Blackjack” incentive program that gave canvassers an extra $5 for submitting 21 or more registration cards each day. The daily quota was allegedly 20 forms.

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