Democrats Beat Democracy To Death

This weekend we will be bringing you a series of articles that may escape your notice otherwise, but that we feel are important enough that you should know about them.
In this article, one of our favorites, Michelle Malkin, asks whatever happened to the transparency the Obama administration promised us?

In 2006, the minority party in Congress issued a dire report on the “unprecedented erosion of the Democratic process.” Democrat Rep. Louise Slaughter, then the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, authored the scathing document. She blasted the majority Republicans’ violations of “procedural fairness,” short-circuiting of debate, and late-night meetings “to discourage Members and the press from participating” in legislative deliberations. My, how history repeats itself.

Fast-forward to 2009. The Imperial Congress has returned. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Democrats have met the enemies of deliberative democracy and it is them.

Three years ago, the Democrats complained of House Republicans rushing through conference reports “before Members could read them.” Sound vaguely familiar? They urged their colleagues in power to “spend more time on major, substantive legislation” instead of ramming things through. Déjà vu, anyone? The Slaughter report pleaded for more transparency and public access: “Regular order should be the rule, not the exception.” Instead of meeting late at night or early in the morning, the Dems called on the majority to operate “during regular ‘business’ hours so that Members and the press can attend and participate.”

Three years later, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is jamming a 1,900-page health care takeover bill through Congress for a hasty Saturday vote while members of her own party revolt against strong-arm tactics. Upwards of 40 pro-life Democrats have objected to the plan’s government abortion subsidies. Majority leaders evaded sunlight by keeping a compromise amendment on the matter out of the version of the bill made available to the public. As of Thursday afternoon (less than two days before the scheduled vote), Pelosi had yet to decide whether to permit an abortion ban amendment to her health care bill.

Pelosi’s “most ethical,” open, and transparent House ever ordered Capitol police to block a GOP staffer from attending the public unveiling of the health care reform plan last week. A week before that, Democrat Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to prevent them from meeting when Democrats weren’t present

Read the rest of this entry 

If You’ve Got The Money Honey, Obama’s Got The Time

You too can be a part of the most ethical administration in history.
As long as you are willing to dig really deep and buy a ticket.
The ticket prices are pretty high.
But that’s just to keep out the riff-raff.

Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, I am shocked, shocked to discover that access-peddling is going on in the Obama White House. Perks for deep-pocketed donors? Presidential meetings for sale? The stale, Chicago odor of pay-for-play wafting from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Knock me over with a feather.

Despite the president’s claimed distaste for the campaign finance practice known as “bundling” (rounding up aggregate contributions from friends, business associates, and employees), the House of Obama has been a campaign finance bundlers’ paradise from Day One. A new report by Matthew Mosk of the Washington Times just confirms the gob-smackingly obvious: It’s business as usual in the era of Hope and Change. O’s wealthiest Democrat donors have received lavish receptions, golf outings, bowling dates, and movie nights with Obama.

And internal Democratic National Committee documents acquired by the Times reveal that “high-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.” Yup, they’re just haggling over the price.

Many Obama bundlers have secured slots on federal advisory panels and commissions. Still more have benefited from the time-honored patronage tradition of rewarding political benefactors with ambassadorships. Clinton did it. Bush did it. And despite all his fantastical, Balloon Boy-level rhetoric of bringing a “new politics” to Washington, Obama’s done it, too.

His ambassador to London, Louis Susman, is a Chicago crony with no diplomatic experience who bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Team Obama and is known as “The Vacuum Cleaner” for his fundraising prowess. His ambassador to France, entertainment mogul Charlie Rivkin headed up Obama’s California fundraising operations, raking in $500,000 for the campaign and another $300,000 for the inaugural. His ambassador to Spain, Boston money man Alan Solomont, also bundled the same amounts for the campaign and inaugural.

Read the rest of this entry

Voting Rights For African Americans Challenged

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and the Obama adminsitration is going to tell African American voters what they can do.
The fact that they didn’t ask for any help and don’t want any help is beside the point.
The DOJ is going to tell them what they have to do.
Even if it does violate their rights.

Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.

The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect…Read the rest of this entry

An ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing

You gotta’ love moderate Republicans.
I say you have to because I can’t stand them!
It seems that their main principal is that they have no principles.

Here’s the dirty little secret about political candidates and officeholders labeled by the mainstream media as “moderate Republicans”: There’s usually nothing moderate about them. Consider the case of “moderate Republican” Dede Scozzafava, the GOP nominee in the New York 23rd congressional district’s special election.

Handpicked by local party pooh-bahs and supported by Beltway GOP leaders, Scozzafava is vying to replace former GOP Rep. John McHugh, who abandoned his seat to accept President Obama’s nomination as Army Secretary. There’s certainly no urgency to tack left. The upstate New York district is as safe a Republican district as they come. The GOP has triumphed in every election there since 1871. Obama eked out a victory in the district last fall, but the Democrats have no real traction on the ground.

And the mood of the electorate near and far is far from electric blue. It’s not just Tea Party activists and health care town hall protesters displaying discontent with Big Government in Washington. A recent Gallup Poll reported that self-identified conservatives now outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states — and that more Americans nationwide now say they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

Scozzafava is an abortion rights advocate who favors gay marriage. It would be one thing if Scozzafava balanced that social liberalism with fiscal conservatism. But as a state assemblywoman, she voted for massive tax increases, Democratic budgets and a $180 million state bank bailout. She also supported the trillion-dollar federal stimulus package — which every House Republican voted against.

More troubling, Scozzafava in past elections has embraced…Read the rest of this entry

News And Views 10-10-09

All the news you need to know.
The only place you need to go.

Fighting starts over Obama prize

DNC humor Czar has no sense of humorFinally,someone speaks out in defense of Glenn Beck

Wht the GOP should give O a prize

Dems change stance on miltary and Afghanistan

The Etiquette Czar’s Rules for Patriotic Protest

Don’t be impolite.

Don’t raise your voice.

And whatever you do, don’t ask legitimate questions.

The White House press office is now Miss Manners’ office. President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs took to the television airwaves this week to criticize congressional town hall protesters for “yelling.” Gibbs’ underling, Bill Barton, chastised voters not to “disrupt” and “scream.” Instead, he advised America to engage in a “spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it.”

What constitutes “spirited?” How do they define “vigorous?” When does forceful dissent become intolerable disruption? Herewith, the Obama Etiquette Czar’s Official Rules for Patriotic Protest. Keep this guide with you at all times to avoid being flagged by the Democrat politeness monitors.

*No shouting. Congressional representatives cannot sell Obamacare with mobs of unruly senior citizens and small business owners interrupting to press them on specific sections of the bill. Limit your objections to a library whisper (30dB or less) and only…Read the rest of this entry

Continuing Czar Corruption

The man who promised America “The most ethical administration in history” sure knows how to pick ‘em.

We  reported earlier on the corruption and incompetence of Obama’s Czars,  however it seems like this will prove to be a story that will continue to unfold.

The most recent news regards Car Czar Steve Rattner.

Rattner has been the focus of a long running probe by the Securites and Exchange Commission as well as the Attorney General of the State of New York.

The investigation is focusing on a “pay for play” scheme involving Rattner’s former firm, the Quadrangle Group.Although Rattner has not (yet) been accused of any wrongdoing, two former members of the firm have been indicted on federal corruption charges.

The probe is centered on a 100 million dollar deal Quadrangle made with a state pension fund.

With the American auto industry still teetering on the brink of disaster, it seems a little odd that the man tasked with overseeing it’s rescue would resign of his own accord after less than a year.
Unless he had bigger things (like possibly facing prison time) on his mind.

Congressman James Sesenbrenner is seeking a Congressional investigation of Climate Czar Carol Browner after learning that she demanded that auto industry executives were to keep no records in regards to talks with those same executives regarding new fuel economy (CAFE) standards for American automobiles, as first reported by Michelle Malkin.

Taxpayer funds are being used for these programs, you would think we would be entitled to a record of the proceedings.

That aside, the stringent standards that Browner demands will add hundreds of dollars to the cost of the average American-made vehicle, making them even less desirable to the average consumer.

Green Jobs Czar Van Jones is a  self-proclaimed Communist, and has also spent time in jail.

In a 2005 interview, Van Jones stated “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.”

How is it that I have not seen any media reports regarding the President Of The United States appointing an avowed Communist to a top-level position in his administration?

To come back to Carol Browner for a moment, until she was picked to be Climate Czar, she was one of the 14 leaders of the Socialist organization Commission For A Sustainable World Society.

Hey, let’s give Obama credit where credit is due.

He may be falling flat on his face in regards to having an ethical administration, but at least he is practicing diverisity.

He’s a Marxist.
Van Jones is a Communist.
Browner is a Socialist.

An administration loaded with tax cheats, former jail inmates, ex-lobbyists, Communists and Socialists.

Mr. Obama has a different version of the word ethical than does the average American, wouldn’t you say?

People In New York Need To Lighten Up About Air Force One Flyover

Once again, Michelle Malkin reports on the things that the rest of America’s media choose to ignore.

It seems that President Obama feels that the thousands of New Yorkers who were terrified when Air Force One was circling Manhattan are making a big deal out of nothing.

Click Here to read how Michelle reports on how President Obama joked about all of it.