Redstate

Posted at 4:03pm on Jun. 24, 2008 How dare John Cornyn demand ethics and disclosure from sitting Senators?

By Jeff Emanuel

Texas Senate Ethics Committee ranking member John Cornyn (R-TX) will introduce an amendment to the controversial mortgage/lender bailout bill that would require Senators to list their residential mortgages as liabilities on their financial disclosure forms.

The amendment, which would take effect next year, would require Senators "to disclose the date the mortgage was acquired, the rough amount, the interest rate, the term and the name and address of the creditor."

According to Roll Call, the proposed amendment, which has reportedly garnered support from at least five other Ethics Committee members, "appears designed to address the fallout from the revelation that Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the housing bill’s sponsor, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) received favorable mortgages from Countrywide Financial."

As reported here before, Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, had suspicious dealings with Countrywide Financial, the mortgage lender Sen. Barack Obama -- for whom Dodd has been a pledged Superdelegate since February -- has been railing against on the campaign trail even while appointing another beneficiary of the organization to help vet his potential Vice Presidential candidates.

Despite his shady dealings and preferential treatment from the lender (or perhaps because of it), Dodd's name is on the landmark mortgage-bailout legislation now pending in the Senate, which will bail out Countrywide, among others, using an obscene amount of taxpayer dollars.

Posted in Chris Dodd | Congress | Countrywide Financial | Culture of Corruption | Ethics | Ethics Reform | John Cornyn — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:25am on Apr. 29, 2008 For Obama, it is always your problem

Obama, voter-ID laws, and Obama's faux-reform agenda

By Soren Dayton

John Fund has a provocative piece on voter fraud in today's WSJ. He contrasts the reformist records of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, no conservative, with that of Barack Obama. We learn more about Obama's background, his record of reform, etc. The tastiest bits:

Barack Obama has approached Chicago politics differently. ... All of this may be smart politics, but it is far removed from Mr. Obama's call for transcending the partisan divide. Then again, Mr. Obama's relationship to reform has always been tenuous. Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, notes that, while Mr. Obama supported ethics reforms as a state senator, he has "been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state, including at this point, mostly Democratic.

So we have the irony of two liberal icons in sharp disagreement over yesterday's Supreme Court decision. Justice Stevens, the real reformer, believes voter ID laws are justified to prevent fraud. Barack Obama, the faux reformer, hauls out discredited rhetoric that they disenfranchise voters.

The story that emerges from this is one that is becoming familiar. It is never Obama's problem. Ethics are not a problem for him and his friends. Only the other, Republicans. Racism is not a problem for his friends. Only for the other, like his grandmother. And when he says something offensive, it is not because he misspeaks. It is because you misinterpreted.

In Obama's worldview, he can help you overcome the bad people so you can become like him. Because it is never your fault, and he is never, ever associated with bad people. Together with him, "Yes, we can."

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Electoral Corruption | Ethics | Reform — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:53am on Mar. 11, 2008 Spitzer Follows Familiar Script

Will Spitzer Follow McGreevy Or Clinton?

By California Yankee

Washington Post correspondent, Libby Copeland, reminds us that we have seen it all before:

First, we watch the news conference. There's Spitzer, with his wife by his side. He says, "I want to briefly address a private matter." Then he expresses remorse (albeit vaguely) and promises to "dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."

Then, we call Mark Geragos, the high-profile criminal defense attorney, who -- as it happens -- has not actually seen the news conference. He proceeds to describe the news conference that he has not seen.

"You've got to have the dutiful wife and you have to have the 'it's a private matter,' " Geragos says. "And remorse for the past and plans for the future."

[. . .]

"If you don't have the spouse with you, the signal sent is one of abject debauchery and guilt," says Eric Dezenhall, a crisis management consultant. "When the wife or the family is with you, that suggests, well, somebody close to this person loves them and thinks they're worthwhile."

The early signs suggest that, unlike former New Jersey Governor McGreevy, Spitzer will pull a Clinton and fight to remain in office.

Posted in Corruption | Ethics | Governor Spitzer | Sex Scandal | State Politics — Comments (31)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:30am on Jan. 17, 2008 Dem Sugar-Daddy Stryker caught hurting seniors again!

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

If the way a man's business is run is any reflection of the sort of person he is then it turns out Jon Stryker really isn't a very nice guy at all.  In fact, he might be the worst kind of man.  The kind who takes advantage of the sick and infirm to line his pockets and fund his pet political projects.  We learn today that the Food and Drug Administration has cited his company for providing faulty and destructive health care products that have necessitated multiple otherwise unnecessary surgeries on patients in failing health.  The devastating effects on senior citizens may be the direct result of the Stryker Corp cutting corners to generate additional profit.

Posted in Breaking News | Ethics | fraud | Jon Stryker | Michigan — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:35am on Jan. 7, 2008 MI Governor hits a new low: Granholm playing political games with Human Services

By RightMichigan.com

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Some interesting details began to emerge over the weekend regarding the sudden three-hundred-plus million dollar budget surplus the State miraculously discovered after closing the books on 2007.  When all was said and done there was about $350 million sitting in the bank that the good folks in Lansing hadn't expected to be there and before they got a chance to figure out the where and the how and the what-now a creeping, insidious spin started to permeate the press almost instantly.

While people like House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche suggested immediately that something was amiss the administration began talking to the press and "reminding" them that with projected deficits facing the State in 2008 this money was almost like a Christmas miracle.  They shouldn't question it, they should just note that this will help balance the books in the coming year.  It's a subtle move.  Just don't address the "where" and the "how" and talk about the money in "conservative" terms.  Talk about how it will help avoid future tax increases.  Because no one likes tax hikes in an election year.

All of a sudden no one remembers to ask where it came from or what the appropriate response really is (did I hear someone say "refund").  Heck, some folks in the press even lose their minds and start printing flat out lies.  Take the big headline story from the Associated Press over the weekend:

Faced with a $1.75 billion shortfall, lawmakers and Granholm increased revenue by $1.3 billion by raising the state income tax on Oct. 1 and placing a surcharge on the new Michigan Business Tax that took effect Jan. 1. They also trimmed or restricted spending by more than $400 million.

Some House Republicans say the surplus shows the government wasn't as desperate for new revenue as it claimed during last year's budget negotiations.

"Normally finishing financially in the black is a job well done, but I can't look at it that way when the wallets of hardworking families of Michigan were just squeezed because the state said it needed more money or else," GOP Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer of Kewadin said in a release last week.

Representative Elsenheimer brings up a good point.  And the article is presenting the "conservative" angle, so what's the problem?  Where's the inaccuracy or the bias?  Go back to that first paragraph.  Not only was it a $1.4 billion tax hike complete with a $900 million compliance cost (making it a $2.3 billion tax hike on businesses) that's not the sentence that'll drive you crazy.  "They also trimmed or restricted spending by more than $400 million."

Patently false.  Unequivocally untrue.  The FY2007-2008 budget was the biggest budget in the history of the State of Michigan.  Spending increased over FY2006-2007.  There was no trimming.  There was only restricting if you go with the strictest definition of the word and assume that the fact they didn't spend a hundred billion dollars buying every Michigan child a pony represents some sort of fiscal restraint.  

But the article has done it's job.  It's muddied the waters.  It's protecting the entrenched Democrat big government interests in Lansing (as the MSM is want to do) and put on a nice coat of camouflage by talking to Republicans to make the piece look bipartisan.  And still the question remains... where exactly did this extra cash come from?

For the answers we'll go to this morning's lead editorial in the Detroit News:

Half the surplus in the General Fund is the result of unexpectedly strong revenues in the last couple of months of the budget year. The other half is the result of what are known as "lapses," or unspent appropriations that are returned to the treasury. Three-quarters of this amount came from the Departments of Health and Human Services as the result of reductions in their spending in the last quarter of the budget year, according to an analysis by the state Senate Fiscal Agency published late last month.

It should be remembered that these departments, along with the State Police, were embarrassed when it was revealed that they had overspent their appropriations for the 2006 fiscal year by about $50 million and state lawmakers were not informed until after the gubernatorial election.

Posted in Breaking News | Budget | Ethics | Granholm | Michigan | tax hike | taxes | www.RightMichigan.com — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »