Every time another ACORN scandal comes to our attention ACORN claims that they did not know anything about what was going on and that a few rogue employees should not be used to judge the whole organization.
But now we are learning that might not be the case, according to a memo that was sent by an ACORN lawyer to the group in June of last year the organization was warned about certain “systemic institutional concerns.” The lawyer warned ACORN that if they did not clean up their act that it would be cleaned up for them. It now appears as if her prediction is on the verge of coming true.
ACORN fired their founder the day after this memo was written, a possible sacrificial lamb, but they never made any effort to change their corrupt ways and now the bill is finally due.
ACORN can deny that they actively engage in voter fraud, tax fraud, and partisan political campaigns as an organization but the evidence shows us that the contrary is true. ACORN as a whole is corrupt and they were warned and still did nothing to change.
One has to wonder if the timing of this memo had anything to due with their reluctance to institute structural changes and reforms. After all, there was a presidential race at the time and one of the candidates has strong ties to the organization. Besides actively trying to commit voter fraud to help this candidate get elected it is possible that they also did not want this scandal to break for fear that it would have hurt his chances to become president.
ACORN’s legal problems could just be beginning and it is not a moment too soon, but more accurately 15 months too late.
Democrats stop citizen verification requirement in healthcare reform bill
When Joe Wilson shouted out “you lie” during the president’s address to a joint session of congress he was referring to the issue of whether illegal aliens would be eligible for healthcare under the proposals being debated in congress.
While there was technically no language in the bills that would grant illegal aliens access to free healthcare, there was no language in the bills that required a person to verify his citizenship. This is a loophole that would allow illegals to get free healthcare– there would be no questions asked to any illegal that applied for healthcare.
President Obama, after Joe Wilson’s outburst, issued a memo stating that the loophole should be closed and that citizenship verification language should be added to the bill, this was an admission that Joe Wilson was right on a technicality.
During the healthcare debate today Republicans tried to insert language into the bill that would require the citizenship verification that President Obama called for– only to have it thwarted by Democrats.
So while the bill calls for a person to provide his or her name, birthplace, and social security number there is no language in the bill that would require them to prove that they are in this country legally. That is the point that Joe Wilson was trying to make all along, that is the point that the president conceded when he asked that the language be added to the bill, and that is the point that Republicans tried to make by inserting language that would have made it harder for illegals to cheat the system.
Without the specific language in the bill that would require a person to prove they are a citizen of the United States the door is open to fraud. Anybody will be able to apply for free healthcare and receive it, citizen or not, because the Democrats have ensured that nobody who applies for free healthcare will have to prove that they are eligible for it.
Republicans turn up the heat on Charlie Rangel
Tax Cheat
Charlie Rangel’s tax problems have been well documented here in the past, I am not going to list them again. The fact that a man with such tax problems is actually the chairman of the committee that writes tax laws, and the fact that Democrats refuse to ask him to step down while he is under investigation, is a serious bone of contention with me. Equally frustrating is the Republican’s apparent lack of a backbone in forcing the Democrats to confront Charlie Rangel and demand he at least step aside until the investigation is over. Republicans with their inaction are just as guilty as the Democrats who have been defending this tax cheat, until now.
Rep. John Carter has issued Charlie Rangel an ultimatum; either resign by next week or Republicans will introduce a resolution to force his resignation.
Carter’s press release was written with a certain get-out-of-town-by-midnight flair: Carter “says he will give Chairman Rangel until next week to voluntarily resign the chairmanship of Ways and Means, or he will introduce a Privileged Resolution to force his removal,”
His reasoning:
To allow Mr. Rangel to continue to serve as Chairman is the same as allowing a confessed bank robber to serve as Chairman of the Banking Committee during the trial
The chances of anything coming from this with the Democrats controlling congress are virtually non existant but at least Republicans are starting to take a stand. By forcing this issue Americans will be able to see where their representatives stand on this issue and vote accordingly in 2010.
If nothing else comes from this at least it will serve the purpose of exposing those who are willing to overlook Charlie Rangel’s tax hypocrisy. If the House of Representatives is unwilling to take action perhaps the people will in the next election.
Which is more important, the Olympics or Afghanistan?
Which is more important, the Olympics or the war in Afghanistan? This is an issue that I alluded to in this post but that I would like to elaborate on further now.
The question seems simple enough. We are in a war, a war that I support, in which Americans are dying every day. The general in command of the war has stated that unless he is given more troops the mission will fail. President Obama has heard the warnings of the general and is now faced with a decision– does he agree with the general and give him the troops that he needs, does he tell the general that no more troops will be sent to Afghanistan, or does he cut and run from Afghanistan? The president has been unwilling to take a stand on the war in Afghanistan, he promises a decision but as of yet has offered none. To me the decision comes down to one basic premise– if the mission will fail without the extra troops you commit the troops needed to secure victory. If you are unwilling to do this than you admit defeat and pull all of the troops out of Afghanistan, there is no reason to shed the blood of more Americans if you are not going to give the general the troops that he needs to win the war. Further bloodshed would be for a futile and unattainable goal– by General McChrystal’s own admission.
He has not made a decision on the war even though he has known the situation there for quite some time now. He just doesn’t seem to have the time to make a decision in which the lives of American heroes lie. Or he doesn’t have the guts to do what it takes to win the war for fear of inflaming the far left that helped to get him elected, if so he is delaying a decision for political reasons.
But.
The 2016 Olympic committee is in the process of naming the cities that will host the games and the president is flying off to Denmark in order to fight for his hometown and to try to convince the committee to bring the Olympics to his home town.
He has quickly made the decision that it is of the utmost importance that the Olympics be held in his adopted hometown, probably because of a windfall that will just coincidentally monetarily benefit his former colleagues in Illinois and possible himself down the road.
So perhaps the question that I posed, which is more important, the Olympics or the war in Afghanistan, isn’t as simple as I had thought. At least for the president. According to his actions one can believe that the president believes the Olympics are a bigger issue, and more important, than the war in Afghanistan.
He can’t make a decision on Afghanistan yet he has time to fly to Denmark to fight for his hometown hosting the Olympics? It would seem to me that he could make a little time to figure out what he wants to do in Afghanistan but evidently the president has more important things on his mind– the Olympics.
As a candidate Barack Obama said that he would listen to the generals on the ground before making decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan– he has listened to General McChrystal, the last remaining question is, did he hear him?
If the president decides to send more troops to Afghanistan I will support him, if he chooses to withdraw from Afghanistan I will support him even though I think it is the wrong decision, however if he chooses to leave troop levels the same and ignore the general’s advice altogether I will never support that decision. That decision would be irresponsible considering we will be continuing to allow our troops to fight in a war that the commanding general said is unwinnable with the current troop levels.
But the president remains MIA on this issue as he flies to Denmark on the taxpayer dollar in order to secure the Olympics for Chicago and that is the biggest sin of all. It is time that the president got his priorities straight. It is time to make a decision on Afghanistan no matter how unpopular it may be.
The Olympics can wait, our troops cannot. Obviously the war in Afghanistan is more important, I just wish the president saw it that way as well.
Senate Finance Committee votes against the public option
The healthcare reform debate resumed today and in a small victory the Senate Finance Committee voted to kill the public option. Ignoring the public sentiment Senators Jay Rockefeller and Chuck Schumer introduced separate amendments to the healthcare reform bill that would have added the public option to the bill. Both were rejected.
The pendulum has swung once again on this debate. Every time that we hear that the public option is dead somebody performs CPR on it and revives the debate. The American people have spoken, we told the government exactly how we felt about the public option but people like Rockefeller and Schumer seem to have forgotten that it is the people who hire them. They work for us, the represent us. We are their boss and we have told them “NO PUBLIC OPTION!”
Luckily the majority of the Senate Finance committee were smart enough to listen, even if it was only because they are afraid of losing their re-election bid, and have voted down both amendments. But this is not the end, we can all rest assured that the public option will come up again and again and again during this debate.
Because of this it is more important than ever that you keep calling your senators and your representatives to voice your opposition to the public option. The public option proponents are relentless, they know that if the people lose interest in the debate they will be able to sneak the public option into the bill. That is why we must stay vigilant.
This may have been a victory but it was only a single battle in the healthcare war.
It is time for Obama to make a decision on Afghanistan
It was revealed in a report that Gen. Stanley McChrystal claims that without more troops being sent to Afghanistan the mission “will likely result in failure,” and now we have learned that President Obama has only talked to the general once since McChrystal took over in Afghanistan.
We also know that Barack Obama has gone on record saying that the is not comfortable with using the word “victory” when it comes to Afghanistan.
Barack Obama has yet to make a dicision about troop levels even after this startling report, he has only found the time to talk to the commander on the ground one time. The time for a decision is now. But the president apparently has what he considered bigger issues on his mind; he is running around trying to secure Chicago as a site for the next Olympic games.
The problem seems to be the president considers the war in Afghanistan to be a political problem instead of a military problem. The question is simple, do we send more troops, the answer is not. He is looking for a solution that will hurt him the least politically.
While our men and women are dying in Afghanistan our president is distracted and seems to be ignoring them. As he delays a decision more Americans are dying every day. The general in charge in Afghanistan has basically said that without more troops Americans will continue to die until the war is lost. There is no time for this indecision by the president– we either go all in or we get out.
All I am asking for is a decision. I support sending more troops and securing Afghanistan but if the president thinks that it is time to get out than why delay the withdrawal any longer? If he does not fully believe in the mission there, it would be better for us to get out now than to let Americans die for a cause the president does not believe in.
It is time for the president to make a decision, one way or the other.Take a stand Mr. President.
Our political system is broken, but how do we fix it?
This January will mark the conclusion of my third year blogging. The longer that I blog the more that I realize our whole political system is broken. We have strayed so far from where our founders had intended.
Republican or Democrat it really makes no difference, both parties are run by special interest groups and lobbyists. The average American person has very little input anymore into how the country is run. The American people are left to decide upon the lesser of two evils.
Special interest groups run commercials costing millions of dollars during every election cycle, the group that runs the most convincing commercials has their man elected president while nobody is representing the average American person.
The question that I ask is how do we fix the system? The answer is, I just don’t know. But I do have a suggestion for a starting point. If we cannot stop the special interest groups perhaps we can do the next best thing. Reform of this magnitude cannot start at the federal level, it must start at the local level– the state level.
Special interest groups and lobbyists raise millions of dollars for whichever party they support. The DNC and the RNC reap the benefits of this effort. But the national Democrat and Republican parties are allowed to send some of their donations to state elections. We see this infusion of national money being sent to senate, representative, and gubinatorial races in all of the closely contested state elections across the country. This takes the voice of the people away from the people and provides the federal legislature with too much influence.
I would suggest that national money should not be allowed to be used in state elections, and donations from non-residents to state elections should not be allowed. Let the people who are running for the senate and for the house rely on the people of their states for all of their donations. Only individual residents of the different states should be allowed to donate money to a candidate running in their state. How can the national Democrat or Republican party know what is in the best interest of the people of the different states? How can a person who does not live in a particular state know what is best for that state? Let the person who most appeals to the people he or she is going to represent win the election instead of the candidate that has the most money funneled into his campaign from out-of-staters.
This would give the state governments back to the people of the states, as the founders had intended. With state governments back in the hands of the people and out of the pockets of the federal government we can then turn our attention on the federal government.
ACORN is funneling money to political and money making efforts
Another day brings yet another controversy to ACORN. The hits just keep on coming. The latest ACORN scandal, found in documents released by Sen. Grassley, reveal that the supposedly non-profit organization has been funneling money that was supposed to help the poor to political and profit making allies instead. More than half of the money that ACORN received in 2006 went to such causes instead of where it was intended to go– to the poor.
According to the Grassley report, charities “are being used to raise monies which are then funneled to other charities or to other organizations for purposes other than what the donor may have intended. . . . Dollars raised for charitable [purposes] appear to be used for impermissible lobbing and political activity.”
It would appear that ACORN is using their tax exempt charitable status as a front for a political agenda. Who woulda thunk it?
ACORN portrays themselves as a champion of the poor and oppressed people in this country but we are learning that this is nothing more than a front for their true goals of pushing a political agenda. This comes as no surprise, the only surprise is that they are finally being called on it.
There is nothing more dubious than for an organization that claims it is raising money for the poor to take more than half of the money that it has raised and send it to political and money making organizations instead of giving the money to the people that it claims it is trying to help.
This is just further proof that ACORN isn’t as interested in helping people as it is in helping a political party. A full investigation is warranted, ACORN should lose federal funding permanently, and they should be forced to return all taxpayers dollars that they have received over the years.
Massachusetts GOP files injunction to stop Deval Patrick’s senate appointee
Yesterday the Massachusetts state senate approved a change in the succession law so that Governor Deval Patrick would be allowed to appoint Ted Kennedy’s successor to the senate. This was done as Ted Kennedy’s a sort of last wish for Ted Kennedy– the man who had the succession law changed so that if John Kerry won the presidency in 2004 Republican governor Mitt Romney would not be allowed to appoint a successor. Yesterday, just four years after changing the succession law to remove a gubernatorial interim senate appointee the state senate has reversed itself, Deval Patrick signed the legislation and appointed Paul Kirk as interim senator.
Except in the case of an emergency, a law passed in Massachusetts can not go into effect for ninety days. Governor Deval Patrick actually declared a state of emergency and appointed Paul Kirk to the senate.
The state GOP has now filed asuit in an attempt to block the appointment on state constitutional grounds. It is clear that Governor Patrick has misused his power in declaring a state of emergency for a reason such as this. This is just so brazen it is almost unbelievable. Ted Kennedy had been incapacitated for the last year of his life, he was not able to perform his job. Massachusetts only had one active senator for a year. There was no state of emergency then and there is not a state of emergency now.
I don’t hold out much hope that the state court will do anything about this. Massachusetts lawmakers have a history of ignoring the state constitution and nothing has been done to stop them. Several years ago on a binding ballot referendum the voters voted to cut the state income tax– the legislature decided that they were not going to do it even though it was constitutionally mandated. And this isn’t even the first time that Deval Patrick has said to hell with the state constitution. The people of the state followed all of the proper procedures to have the question of gay marriage added to the ballot as a binding referendum question, the state constitution mandated that this question be added to the ballot. One of Deval Patrick’s first acts as governor was to stop this question from making it to the ballot– he was successful. The will of the people, and the constitution, was thwarted.
So this type of deal is nothing new to Massachusetts, they are used to having their state constitution trampled on. But that does not make a move like this any less insidious. The Massachusetts legislature was under heavy pressure from national Democrat leaders to change this law and appoint a pro-healthcare reform senator before the special election in January. That is what they did when they appointed the former healthcare lobbyist to Ted Kennedy’s senate seat.
The state government put the will of the federal government ahead of the will of the people. There might not be anything more legislatively contemptible, or suspect, than what the Massachusetts legislature just did to their constituents.
We will see if the court agrees with me at 8:00 this morning. Even if the court agrees with me it does not mean Governor Patrick will listen.
Republicans hold early fundraising advantage over Democrats
The early fundraising numbers are in and Republicans are enjoying a fundraising advantageover Democrats with the election of 2010 in the not too distant future. Included in the donors are 70,000 first time political donors and independents who may have voted for Obama who are now having second thoughts.
The early returns are in on the Obama administration and the administration should be slightly concerned about the trends so far. It is still very early in the process, far too early to predict what will happen in just over a year, but the early results are certainly encouraging.
Many people were so disgusted by President Bush and enthralled in the idea “change” that they never asked themselves what “change” actually meant. People now see what “change” is and they are rejecting it. At least so far, if these trends keep up there is a chance that Republicans will gain control of at least one of houses. This would be a major blow to the Obama administration.
The Obama administration still has time to recover, if the election was held this year Obama would be in trouble. But the election is not being held this year, that it why it is so important that we stay vigilant and keep the pressure on the administration. We can take this country back we just need to keep fighting. Now is not the time for complacency
