The White House Is Accused Of Federal Crimes In Specter,Bennet Races. And The House Of Cards Comes Down

White House Accused of Federal Crime in Specter, Bennet Races

By Jeffrey Lord Thanks Paul for bird dogging this story.

"Whoever solicits or receives … any….thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both." -- 18 USC Sec. 211 -- Bribery, Graft and Conflicts of Interest: Acceptance or solicitation to obtain appointive public office
 "In the face of a White House denial, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak stuck to his story yesterday that the Obama administration offered him a "high-ranking" government post if he would not run against U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary."
-- Philadelphia Inquirer
February 19, 2010
"D.C. job alleged as attempt to deter Romanoff"
--Denver Post
September 27, 2009
A bombshell has just exploded in the 2010 elections.
For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.
The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet in Colorado.
On Friday, Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrat challenging Specter for re-nomination, launched the controversy by accusing the Obama White House of offering him a federal job in exchange for his agreeing to abandon his race against Specter.
In August of 2009, the Denver Post reported last September, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina "offered specific suggestions" for a job in the Obama Administration to Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff, a former state House Speaker, if Romanoff would agree to abandon a nomination challenge to U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. Bennet was appointed to the seat upon the resignation of then-Senator Ken Salazar after Salazar was appointed by Obama to serve as Secretary of the Interior. According to the Post, the specific job mentioned was in the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Post cited "several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post."
The paper also describes Messina as "President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop." Messina's immediate boss is White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
Sestak is standing by his story. Romanoff refused to discuss it with the Denver paper. In both instances the White House has denied the offers took place. The Sestak story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported by Thomas Fitzgerald, can be found here, While the Denver Post story, reported by Michael Riley, from September 27, 2009, can be read here.
In an interview with Philadelphia television anchor Larry Kane, who broke the story on Larry Kane: Voice of Reason, a Comcast Network show, Sestak says someone -- unnamed -- in the Obama White House offered him a federal job if he would quit the Senate race against Specter, the latter having the support of President Obama, Vice President Biden and, in the state itself, outgoing Democratic Governor Ed Rendell. Both Biden and Rendell are longtime friends of Specter, with Biden taking personal credit for convincing Specter to leave the Republican Party and switch to the Democrats. Rendell served as a deputy to Specter when the future senator's career began as Philadelphia's District Attorney, a job Rendell himself would eventually hold.
Asked Kane of Sestak in the Comcast interview:
"Is it true that you were offered a high ranking job in the administration in a bid to get you to drop out of the primary against Arlen Specter?"
"Yes" replied Sestak.
Kane: "Was it Secretary of the Navy?"
To which the Congressman replied:
"No comment."
Sestak is a retired Navy admiral.
In the Colorado case, the Post reported that while Romanoff refused comment on a withdrawal-for-a-job offer, "several top Colorado Democrats described Messina's outreach to Romanoff to The Post, including the discussion of specific jobs in the administration. They asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject."
The Post also noted that the day after Romanoff announced his Senate candidacy, President Obama quickly announced his endorsement of Senator Bennet.
The discovery that the White House has now been reported on two separate occasions in two different states to be deliberately committing a potential violation of federal law -- in order to preserve the Democrats' Senate majority -- could prove explosive in this highly political year. The 60-seat majority slipped to 59 seats with the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, and the election of Republican Senator Scott Brown. Many political analysts are suggesting Democrats could lose enough seats to lose their majority altogether.
This is the stuff of congressional investigations and cable news alerts, as an array of questions will inevitably start being asked of the Obama White House.
Here are but a few lines of inquiry, some inevitably straight out of Watergate.
* Who in the White House had this conversation with Congressman Sestak?
* Did Deputy Chief of Staff Messina have the same conversation with Sestak he is alleged to have had with Romanoff -- and has he or anyone else on the White House staff had similar conversations with other candidates that promise federal jobs for political favors?
* They keep logs of these calls. How quickly will they be produced?
* How quickly would e-mails between the White House, Sestak, Specter, Romanoff and Bennet be produced?
* Secretary of the Navy is an important job. Did this job offer or the reported offer of the US AID position to Romanoff have the approval of President Obama or Vice President Biden?
* What did the President know and when did he know it?
* What did the Vice President know and when did he know it? (Note: Vice President Biden, in this tale, is Specter's longtime friend who takes credit for luring Specter to switch parties. Can it really be that an offer of Secretary of the Navy to get Sestak out of Specter's race would not be known and or approved by the Vice President? Does Messina or some other White House staffer -- like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- have that authority?)
* What did White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel know, and when did he know it?
* What did Congressman Sestak know and when did he know it? Was he aware that the offer of a federal job in return for a political favor -- his withdrawal from the Senate race -- could open the White House to a criminal investigation?
* What did Senator Specter know about any of this and when did he know it? .
* What did Governor Rendell, who, as the titular leader of Pennsylvania Democrats, is throwing his political weight and machine to his old friend Specter, know about this? And when did he know it?
* Will the Department of Justice be looking into these two separate news stories, one supplied by a sitting United States Congressman, that paint a clear picture of jobs for political favors?
* Will Attorney General Holder recuse himself from such an investigation?
While in recent years there have been bribery scandals that centered on the exchange of favors for a business deal (Democrat William Jefferson, a Louisiana Congressman) or cash for earmarks (Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham), the idea of violating federal law by offering a federal job in return for a political favor (leaving two hotly contested Senate races in this instance) is not new.
Let's go back in history for a moment.
It's the spring of 1960, in the middle of a bitter fight for the Democratic presidential nomination between then Senators John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Stuart Symington and the 1952 and 1956 nominee, ex-Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.
Covering the campaign for what would become the grandfather of all political campaign books was journalist and JFK friend Theodore H. White. In his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the President 1960, published in 1961, White tells the story of a plane flight with JFK on the candidate's private plane The Caroline. The nomination fight is going on at a furious pace, and White and Kennedy are having another of their innumerable private chats for White's book while the plane brings JFK back from a campaign swing where he spoke to delegates in Montana. 
The subject? Let's let White tell the story.

The conversation began in a burst of anger. A story had appeared in a New York newspaper that evening that an Eastern Governor had claimed that Kennedy had offered him a cabinet post in return for his Convention support. His anger was cold, furious. When Kennedy is angry, he is at his most precise, almost schoolmasterish. It is a federal offense, he said, to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor. This was an accusation of a federal offense. It was not so.

Let's focus on that JFK line again:
"It is a federal offense, he said, to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor."
With a fine and jail time attached if convicted.
What Larry Kane discovered with the response of Congressman Sestak -- and Sestak is sticking to his story -- combined with what the Denver Post has previously reported in the Romanoff case -- appears to be a series of connecting dots.
A connecting of dots -- by Democrats -- that leads from Colorado to Pennsylvania straight into the West Wing of the White House.
And possibly the jail house.
"It is a federal offense," said John F. Kennedy, "to offer any man a federal job in return for a favor."
And so it is.
 

Bible Study In Government Run Schools

FRANKFORT, KY - Kentucky may follow the lead of Texas and other states in allowing Bible classes to be taught in public schools.



Kentucky's Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved legislation that would effectively return the Bible to the state's classrooms.

Democratic state Sen. David Boswell of Owensboro is sponsoring the legislation, which he said is modeled after a measure approved by Texas lawmakers some two years ago.

Boswell said he believes the legislation is constitutional because the Bible will be taught from a literary perspective, not a religious one. He said it calls for teaching, not preaching, the Bible.

The proposed Bible courses would be offered as electives, meaning schools could choose whether to offer them as a social studies credit and students could decide whether to take them.

Does this look like 350-400 people to you? Buffoon Fest 2010 Union Fiesta

The crowd listens to speakers The future of America. ick. Does anyone out there think this is even close to 350 people? The only ones that seem to be saying how many people were there are the left wing bloggers. It is good to finaly see a peaceful rally with the left wing.  Now the other thing that bothers me about the left wing and their rallies is they call us astroturf and blaming us for organizing and taking funds for organizations. But look at them and in addition to HCAN and OFA, the following groups were sponsors:

Repower America	AFL-CIO
United Food & Commerc. Workers	SEIU
MichUHCAN	MI Citizen Action
UAW	Mich. Universalist Social Just. Net.
Reform Immigration of America	Planned Parenthood of MI
Women's Internatl. League for Peace & Freedom	Progress Michigan
AFSCME Council 25	America Votes Action Fund
Unite HERE Local 24	MoveOn.org
Ameinu Detroit	MOSES
Michigan Voice	ACCESS
Interfaith Council on Peace & Justice	Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring of MI
Health Care Now	SE Mich. Jobs with Justice
Detroit Metro Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice	Detroit Area Peace with Justice Network
Gray Panthers of Metro-Detroit	Mich. Alliance to Strengthen Soc. Sec. & Medicare
Mid-MI Coalition for Health Care Reform

These people are all just a Big Labor shill. They are the Progressive movement Glenn Beck has talked about. These are the fringe 21% of Americans that want to make the other 79% bend to their wants. The fringe can't hurt us unless we let them. This Progressive war on America and the majority of Americans isn't over yet. They are regrouping and ready to "do what they must to get free health care". The unions wont pay for it but they will give money to make sure we do have to pay for it. Ask yourself why are the unions so interested in health care reform? We know it aint to save the businesses. Because that would be a first for a union.  We need to call these liberals out and shame them. If you here a liberal talking dumb let them know how dumb they sound. Bring them back to reality no matter how pissed they get. Give them proof of how dumb they sound. Like these people saying that this picture is wrong but the sign in sheet,that they have is right. That's just dumb. If these people on the left weren't serious it would be a lot more funny.

Glenn Beck Hit It Out Of The Park At CPAC

Full Video: Glenn Beck’s CPAC Speech

This video has a long intro but it's worth the wait. Glenn Beck is great in this speech at CPAC. He is one of the best speakers I've seen in a long time. What do you think of Glenn Becks speech?

Art Laffer on Stimulus

Things have not been working the way Obama and Congress said they would. In fact if you bet against them you would be right almost 100% of the time. Now I understand that Obama has never been in the real world and he needs time to adjust to it and his new job. But the facts still remain that Obama is wrong almost always. And being wrong so often you would thing he would be wrong in a way that is good for America. Now soon Obama wont be able to blame everybody and his Grandmother for what is going wrong in the country and with his booksmart planes. Soon he will blame his own admin. I can already tell that Obama never blames himself for anything. That isn't a leader that leads as AL pointed out in another post. But maybe as the Conservative movement takes shape we may be able to lead our President to victory over this recession. I still have hope for Obama. And he seems wishy washy enough to go with the strongest flow. As spring nears and more and more rallies take shape,we will see it effect Congress. November will be the thing that will make Obama stand up for the Conservative movement. The Democrats think the unemeployed want extentions. No they don't. They want the jobs that were promised for the first jobs/stimulus bill. We have been waiting patiently for Obama and the Democrats to do what they promised they would. We watched them bail out the unions at the Big Two,the unions in the government and they bailed out the banks. Giving the unemployed a check for $25 a week isn't what they wanted. They want the governemnt to get out of the way of the businesses they will end up working for. It is the private sector and the non-union employees that have bared the brunt of this recession on their backs. Over the last 5 years the private sectors average pay went from $41,700 to $41,300 a year. The union governemnt jobs went from $59,000 a year to $71,000 and next year it will go up to $75,000. This is all a bunch of BS.  And these same government employees have a pention plan like none other. They can retire when they are 50 with 90% of their pay in many cases as long as they get their 30 years in. They can't get fired. Isn't that about right Bruce? You were a government employee until you "retired" didn't you? Why don't you tell us how that works out for you? Being able to retire long before you are even 60. Is that fair or is it greed? Will it be fair if you union members don't have to pay for your "cadillac"health insurance to help pay for the health care reform you want? Is it fair that you put that tax on the people that make almost half as much as you union government emploees . We the people are getting sick and tired of getting bullied by the greedy unions. It is time they start paying and recieving just like we do. We employee them not the other way around.

Vice President Biden gave a mini media tour to defend the $787 billion stimulus package on its first anniversary -- while saying the country is in "deep trouble."
In a USA Today op-ed, Biden touted jobs created, taxes cut and infrastructure projects started because of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. "The best is yet to come," he added.

We've gotten the act moving ahead of schedule, and most projects are coming in under budget. A tough, independent group of inspectors general is on the lookout for fraud, and we've killed scores of projects that don't pass muster. Your tax dollars are being used wisely and quickly to turn the economy around.

Americans know this downturn isn't over yet -- we have a long way to go before we are over the economic chasm left by the Great Recession. Year Two of the Recovery Act will build on the successes of Year One, continuing to generate jobs while seeding the transformative investments needed to ensure that our economy remains the world's strongest.

On CBS's "The Early Show," Biden said he understood why people were angry. "We get it," he said. But he said the White House was doing better than Congress.
"Washington, right now, is broken. I don't ever recall a time in my career where to get anything done, you needed a supermajority, 60 out of 100 senators."
"I've never seen it this dysfunctional," he said.

Biden also talked about national security, saying he was less worried about a large-scale terrorist attack than a lone bomber.                                                                                                                                      OK, I have some issues with what honest Joe Biden said.  First off he calls Washington more "disfunctional". Is that the Republicans fault even though they have the majority in Washington? Is it disfunctional that the Blue Dog Reagan Democrats agree with the Republicans and the American people. And does this admin. really think that 96% of Americans just are too dumb or ignorant to understand that the stimulus package "worked"? Come on Joe when 7% of Americans thinkl that Elvis is still alive I'd have to say that only Washington DC thinks the stimulus worked. Maybe that is because it only worked for Washington. Heck, Obama said that Mighigan got 180,000 jobs and Biden says 96,000 jobs. These guys can't keep their stories straight. That is a sign of a lie. And I see a lot of that going on in Washington.                                               Now this one bothers me the most. They have been telling us about the economy and the jobs when they were running for office. They called it the worse recession since the Great Depression. If that was true,and it is looking more true since they took office, then why did they put the jobs package in the second half of the stimulus spending jobs bill? Their first year they have done nothing short of attacking businesses. They attacked and put fear in the businesses that give us jobs. And now in an election year they decide to focus on jobs. But see they think that 96% of Americans are too dumb to understand the difference between Wahington reality and the American reality. Jobs should have been job one for this admin. Did they start the fire so they could sell us the hose and water? Their words and actions aren't matching up. Washington is out of cantrol and they are blaming the Republicans. Give me a break and start taking reponsability for the actions of your administration and their effect on the culture of Washington. I don't think 96% of Americans are too dumb to know jobs creation when they see it. They were the ones that defined what the Stimulus would do. And what would happen if we didn't do the Stimulus Jobs Bill. Americans listened to what you told them and now they are learning not to listen to the BS they are selling us. How dumb are they to be so far on the fringe of "believers" without any tangable evidence? They are the Elvis lives "believers".

Five Army Translators Arrested In Fort Jackson Poison Plot

Five Army Translators Arrested in Alleged Fort Jackson Poison Plot

CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.

The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.

A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, DC area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.

In Hard Times People Do Crazy Things

What a shame. This man had a problem with life and the cards he was dealt so thought he would kill some IRS workers. This man was crazy. Not a right wing nor a left wing wacko. He was just a wacko. He burned his house and then this. Thank God,once again,THANK GOD no one but this psycho was killed. I'm afraid that as more and more Americans loose hope and income they will start doing crazy things like this. We have been seeing a rise in crime and violence because of the economy. This isn't Bush's fault,Obama's fault,Democrats or Republicans fault. It is one man acting on his own to bring distruction onto the Federal government IRS. Please spend some time to talk to God tonight. Ask Him to be with all the people in the world. He is where hope is. We are the greatest nation the world has ever known. And with the help of our Lord and Savior we will get through this hard time better then we were before these times. For any of you that might be loosing hope,don't. Those that made it out of the
Great Depression came out better for it. We are still "one nation under God". And as long as you believe that then you have hope. God bless you all both left and right.

I have the flu open thread

Generation Zero the documentary

Generation Zero - 60 Second Movie Trailer from Citizens United on Vimeo.