democratic corruption

Maxine Waters (D) case delayed via Democratic incompetence?

That’s what the Washington Post reports, at least (H/T: The Daily Caller). To refresh people’s memories: Rep. Waters used her position on the House Financial Services Committee to intervene on behalf of OneUnited Bank, which happens to be a bank with a personal connection with Waters. The case was set to go in September, only to be delayed at the last second. It will be looked at in the next Congress, much to the displeasure of Democrats.

Highlights from the WaPo article:

The ostensible reason for the delay of the Waters case is that new information in the investigation was suddenly deemed necessary for a proper prosecution. Current Ethics chair Zoe Lofgren (D) took this event as an opportunity to try to get two investigators fired; this was blocked by Rep. Jo Bonner (R), who is the current Ranking Member*.
Lofgren allegedly mucked up the investigation from the start by not being aggressive on subpoenaing either Rep Waters and/or Rep. Barney Frank (chairman of Finance) and his staff.
Lofgren also allegedly encouraged an unseemly haste to the proceedings, from trying to lock in a pre-election trial date to cutting investigators’ allotted time to present their case by four-fifths.
By all accounts, Lofgren had also not prepared herself or her committee for a scenario where Rep. Waters was prepared to fight the charges; thus creating a leadership crisis when Waters did not make a deal.

Continue reading Maxine Waters (D) case delayed via Democratic incompetence?

Boxer pot aide should have gone with different drug.

You have probably read or heard by now that one of Senator Barbara Boxer’s used-to-be-senior-aides got busted for trying to bring pot into Capitol Hill. I say ‘used-to-be’ because they fired him, of course: aside from the bad image generally, as the Politico article notes Sen. Boxer is currently being a War on Some Drugs warrior when it comes to pot legalization. Now, I will not pretend that I do not have a certain rough sympathy for the fellow, coupled with a healthy contempt for his underlying arrogance. As someone privately commented to me on the matter, it must be pretty bad having to got to work for a Senator like Boxer every day: you’d almost need a painkiller. And/or a powerful anti-nauseant. As this is thus only indirectly Sen. Boxer’s fault, I’m not inclined to rake her personally over the coals for this.

However, I would like to know why she’s buying her own contraband – to wit, purchasing the endorsement of a woman who is up on ethics charges for using her position to profit family members. And no, I’m not joking or exaggerating. Continue reading Boxer pot aide should have gone with different drug.

Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09) saves Shorebank after all.

Back in May it was reported that the failing, yet politically-connected Shorebank in Illinois was to be bailed out. The bank actually closed last Friday, but was resurrected yesterday and turned into a new bank – one that will of course have no obvious relationship to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), who lobbied very strenuously to save Shorebank… even though it’s not based in her district. It is, however, the bank that Schakowsky’s convicted felon husband Robert Creamer used to partially extricate himself from the consequences of his fraud scheme; the bank provided critical assistance to Creamer that allowed him to avoid default – which would have beneficial effects on his sentencing a decade later*. There is a strong whiff of this transaction being part of a quid pro quo – with the latter half being paid off, well, right about now.

If you’re wondering why Jan Schakowsky can get away with having her and her husband being tied up in a dirty bank deal without censure by the House of Representatives, while Rep. Maxine Waters is currently facing ethics charges for her and her husband’s involvement with OneUnited, the answer’s easy: Schakowsky is white, and is thus simply fundamentally real to Democratic leadership in a way that no African-American Member of Congress could hope to be to them. It should not be a surprise that House ethics investigations are being allowed to continue only against those legislators whose seats are considered locked-in by the Democrats anyway.

Yes, let me clear: I’m explicitly calling the House Democratic leadership a bunch of racists. They are, you know. And it’s never more obvious than when you consider the things that they don’t do, when they don’t have to.

Moe Lane

PS: Joel Pollak is the GOP candidate for IL-09, and he’s been all over this topic. I’ve met him: he’s a good guy. Check him out.

Continue reading Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-09) saves Shorebank after all.

#rsrh White House coffee klatch with lobbyists.

Hi! This post is for the benefit of whomever, starting next January, is going to be in charge of soon-to-be Chairman Darrell Issa’s Oversight and Government Reform investigation team. I think that there’s a non-trivial chance that this New York Times report of the White House evading its own ethics rules by deliberately meeting with lobbyists off site (and thus, without having to to log in lobbyist visits) for ‘coffee’ may abruptly become not available after November, so I’m taking the time to reproduce the names of everybody in the article after the fold.

You know. Just in case anybody in the 112th Congress’s Oversight committee wanted to have a chat with any of them. Continue reading #rsrh White House coffee klatch with lobbyists.

‘Most Ethical Congress in History.’ Man, that never gets old.

I’m going to miss laughing at that notion, starting January 2011.

Forget ‘outraged’: if anyone is surprised, then they haven’t been paying attention.

Lobbyists and corporate officials talked bluntly in e-mail exchanges about connections between making generous campaign donations and securing federal funds through members of an important House Appropriations subcommittee, according to not-yet-public documents reviewed by ethics investigators.

In summer 2007, for example, senior executives at [Innovative Concepts] tried to figure out which of them would buy a ticket to a wine-tasting fundraiser for Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense. At the time, the company sought help from Moran’s office in securing contracts through special earmarks added to the defense bill.

[snip]

The fundraiser was hosted by the PMA Group, a powerful lobbying firm whose unusual success in obtaining “earmarked” contracts from members of the military subcommittee was a key focus of a recent House ethics investigation.

Moran raked in $91,900 in campaign checks to his personal campaign and leadership PAC that day. He secured an $800,000 earmark for Innovative Concepts in the 2008 defense appropriations bill.

Or they don’t really want to. Which I can sort of understand; after all, the revelation that one has not only been lied too, but that one has enthusiastically participated in being lied to in order to get… nothing at all? Yes, that would strike someone squarely in the self-worth. I’d feel sorry for that, except that I have to live in the same corrupt political atmosphere.

At any rate, feel free to read the whole article, particularly the bits where the Democratic-run legislature let off the all-but-one Democratic appropriators, despite the fairly clear understanding that money was expected, and that money would be taken. Also, note that Jim Moran has at least two people on the GOP ready to replace him: Matthew Berry, who just picked up the uber-critical Volokh Conspiracy endorsement (via Instapundit); and Patrick Murray, who I just missed interviewing at CPAC. I would say that they’d both be superior to having Moran in that seat, and it’d be true: it’d also be implicitly insulting to either to suggest that they wouldn’t automatically clear that particular bar anyway.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

What were Rahm Emanuel’s (D) links to Tim Mahoney (D), anyway?

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

No, I don’t have any updates to the FBI investigation of former Congressman Mahoney (D, FL-16) and whether he used campaign funds to pay off one of his mistresses, sorry. That’s going to be a quiet kind of story until the FBI finishes said investigation; after all, Mahoney was brutally sacrificed to the media gods by the Democratic Party desperate to have that story not derail their 2008 Congressional campaign. People who may find themselves accused of anything similar, please note: don’t count on a payback for your loyalty – even if you happen to be innocent, which Mahoney was almost certainly not.

Which brings me to my next point. Rahm Emanuel. Name was linked to Mahoney’s back then – something about sanitizing the record – but nobody in the media was interested in pushing on that for very long. But now that Rep. Emanuel is COS Emanuel, and now that we’re reminded that Emanuel’s a Freddie Mac guy who entered into lucrative contracts on the DCCC’s behalf with his landlord’s polling firm (it’s claimed that it was a complete coincidence that he wasn’t paying rent), one does have to ask: what, exactly, did Rahm Emanuel have to do with Tim Mahoney’s little payoff problem?

And can we get an answer under oath? I only ask because there’s been an awful lot of Democrats Behaving Badly stories in the news lately.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

“Jack Mur-tha… come out to play-a-yay…”

While we’re all busy watching the Democrats Keystone Kops their way through their debt bill passage, the next news cycle’s story is busily chugging along:

Firm tied to Murtha closes PAC

PMA Group, the lobbying firm tied to Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) that was raided by federal agents back in November, has closed its political action committee, the latest sign of the company’s implosion.

PMA filed a “termination report” with the Federal Election Commission Thursday, notifying the agency that it would be shutting down its PAC. The PAC refunded its last $29,423 to the contributors, including Mark Magliocchetti, brother of PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti.

[snip]

But PMA has essentially collapsed; most of PMA’s lobbyists have bolted the firm, with one group breaking off to form its own lobbying outfit, while others have sought employment with other lobbying organization.

Continue reading “Jack Mur-tha… come out to play-a-yay…”

Is the fix in with Rangel?

Bill Alliston asks the question: Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. “I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the Ethics Committee organizes they ought to be able to dismiss this,” National Journal’s CongressDaily quoted the Rangel as saying.

If so, it’s hard to imagine that the Select Committee on Ethics will have devoted anything more than a cursory glance at the various issues raised. Consider just one aspect, for which documents are in the public record: Rangel’s financial disclosure forms. We took a look at his filings going all the way back to 1978, the first year members were required to disclose information on their personal finances, and found 28 instances in which he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold, as the operative House rules at the time required.

Read the whole thing, of course. More backup here – and there’s been more since then, of course; of which this is merely one example. And yet, he’s plainly quietly confident… and Speaker Pelosi is just plain quiet. So why is that, anyway?

Mind you, I already know, and I’ll be saying “I told you so” when House Democrats “clear” Rangel.