Culture of Corruption

Via Jammie Wearing Fools: 

President Obama claims that political considerations did not influence the Energy Department’s green energy loan program, but newly-released internal emails show that his administration subsidized Nevada companies in order to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., win his 2010 reelection campaign.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released emails revealing both that the White House — including the president himself — was involved in approving loans to green energy companies and that the DOE officials regarded loans as a way for the White House to help Reid by giving him a way to brag about bringing federal money into Nevada.

Now just imagine the media's reaction if this were 2004 and the story involved Bush and oil companies.

 

Back On the Domestic Front

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act in February when she called for re-electing President Obama during an official department appearance, the Office of Special Counsel said Wednesday.

Friends of Obama: Why is Jon Corzine Not on Trial?

Jeff Carter:  Came across this article on May 29 that talks about the continuing saga of MF Global and Jon Corzine. It’s amazing that this epic financial scandal gets no consistent main stream media coverage. Over a billion was stolen. Corzine is in Madoff territory.

And yet he continues to raise money for Barack Obama. 

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Punching Back Twice as Hard

The Romney Campaign continues to impress:

Loud and rowdy supporters of Mitt Romney in Boston drowned out an attempt by President Obama campaign’s top strategist to attack the former Republican governor on his home turf.

In a morning news conference on the steps of the Massachusetts Statehouse,David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obama’s senior strategists, tried mostly in vain on Thursday to level Mr. Obama’s latest broadside on Mr. Romney’s record as governor of the state.

Instead, he was booed, heckled and chanted down by supporters of Mr. Romney who refused to let up even for a moment as Mr. Axelrod and Democratic state lawmakers sought to make their case.

With cameras rolling, the Republican hecklers yelled “We Want Mitt!” and “Broken Record!” and held signs that said “Go Back to Chicago!”

Better still:

Romney launched a sneak attack of his own, holding a news conference at the headquarters of Solyndra, the bankrupt solar energy company that received $535 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration. According to reporters traveling with Romney, the campaign did not tell the press about the event until the bus was actually on its way to Solyndra.

"The reason for keeping it quiet is because we knew if word got out that Solyndra would do everything in their power and the Obama administration would do everything in their power to stop us from having this news conference," a Romney aide told reporters, according to an ABC News account. "But taxpayers made a substantial investment in Solyndra, there are serious questions about what happened at Solyndra, why that investment was selected, what happened to that money."

 It's definitely not 2008 anymore.

Update:  In sending supporters to Axelrod rally, Romney fulfilled his promise.

Forget Bain

Obama's public-equity record is the real scandal.

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. 

Click the link for a list representing just some of these Obama public-equity failures.  Then there is this:

. . . fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it’s not the president’s job “to make a lot of money for investors.” Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine.  

Hat tip to Instapundit. 

Mickey Kaus Asks

How does Obama bribing Reverend Wright differ from John Edwards bribing Rielle Hunter?

Friends of Obama: Jeremiah Wright Claims Close Obama Ally Offered $150,000 Bribe in 2008 to Shut Up

Ed Morrissey, at HotAir, has this report:

In his new book on Barack Obama titled The Amateur, Edward Klein caught up with Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s minister and friend for 20 years and pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The Hillary Clinton campaign nearly derailed Obama’s nomination by digging up Wright’s incendiary and controversial sermons at TUCC, including exhortations like, “God damn America!” and saying that 9/11 was nothing more than America’s chickens coming home to roost — among many other statements. Obama later proclaimed ignorance of Wright’s rants despite his long association with TUCC, and eventually renounced Wright and TUCC entirely when Wright wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.

In his on-the-record interview with Klein, Wright claims that an Obama ally offered him $150,000 to keep his mouth shut and stop preaching until after the election, in excerpts published by the New York Post . . . .

According to Wright, Obama [also] met personally with his then-pastor to ask him to do the same, although Obama apparently didn’t offer money for his silence. 

Read the whole thing.  Plus, additional thoughts from Legal Insurrection.

Gangster Government

Over at Powerline, the latest on "the Obama campaign’s invitation of fraudulent and illegal giving through the disabling of basic credit card/debit card verification devices."

Stimulus Fail

"Heavily Democratic states with lower poverty rates, lower unemployment rates, lower bankruptcy rates, and lower foreclosure rates received most of President Barack Obama's $825 billion Stimulus."

The Obama Adminstration's Top 15 "Achievements"

To counter conservative claims that the Obama administration has failed to achieve anything in three plus years, The Lid has compiled an entire list of notable achievements:

• Going to war in Libya without first seeking congressional approval.
• The administration's screwing of the primary GM investors so he could give the company to his buddies in the UAW.
• Offering Joe Sestak a White House job to drop out of the Senate race against Arlen Specter 
• Offering Andrew Romanoff a White House job to drop out of the Senate Race against Michael Bennett.
• Dropping an already won case against the New Black Panther's.
• Refusing to prosecute African Americans for Civil Rights violations. 
• Ignoring a court order to ease up on restrictions against deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, instead issuing tougher restrictions.
• Circumventing the Senate by setting up a "shadow cabinet" of Czars.
• Obama's Justice Department’s refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Ignoring his constitutional responsibility to defend laws passed by Congress.
• Firing (and slandering) AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin after because he was investigating Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson a friend of the Obamas.
• Practicing crony capitalism and wasting taxpayer money with Green energy loans to Solyndra and other failing companies. 
• No bid contract given to a company owned by major Obama donor for a small pox vaccine that doesn't work.
• Fast and Furious: Giving guns to Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to take away guns from law abiding Americans. 
•  Making recess appointments when congress was not in recess.
• Trampling on the Catholic Church's first amendment rights by forcing them to pay for procedures and drugs that their faith bans.
• The GSA and Secret Service scandals neither of which should be blamed on Obama directly, both of which show his poor management of the federal government.

Hat tip to the Astute Bloggers.

Obama Campaign Continues Practice of Accepting Illegal Donations

Last month, there was some controversy over the Obama SuperPAC's acceptance of a million dollar donation from Bill Maher.  Less attention, however, has been given to the fact that the Obama campaign itself counts Fort Hood shooter Nadal Hisan, Adolf Hitler, Usama Binladen, Joseph Stalin, and Illegal Contributor,  among its donors. 

As Bryan Preston reports, it does so because:

the Obama campaign’s web site lacks the security code field. The  [Republican candidates] require it, and will not accept donations unless the security code and payment information match up.

Obama’s campaign implemented the same lack of verification in 2008, but the mainstream media never called them on it. It appears as though that episode has prompted a repeat in 2012.

This means three things are likely true. One, the Obama campaign disabled the verification system. The verification system is turned on on web sites that accept credit cards, by default. I used to manage the website for the Texas Republican Party, so I know this from personal experience. Someone had to take the action of turning it off on the Obama site. Two, the Obama campaign can accept donations without the identity of the donor being positively verified. Three, not only can people in foreign countries donate to the Obama campaign in violation of federal campaign law, so apparently can identity thieves who have access to stolen credit card numbers. People who do not know that their credit cards have been compromised may not notice small amounts in the $3 dollar donation range that the Obama campaign has been targeting, when such donations show up on their statements.

 It also means that Obama donors can easily circumvent federal limits placed on the amount one can donate to a candidate by simply using different names.

Bill Whittle: Merchants of Despair

Friends of Obama: Jon Corzine

It would appear  that Obama's Wall Street ally, and former Senator, Jon Corzine lied during his testimony before Congress.

Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in one of the brokerage’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) accounts in London, according to an e-mail sent by a firm executive.

Corzine testified that he never intended a misuse of customer funds at MF Global, and that he doesn’t know where client funds went.
“I did not instruct anyone to lend customer funds to anyone,” Corzine told lawmakers in December.

I wonder when we can expect charges to be filed?

Friends of Obama: Tony Rezko

Claim: $400K from Tony Rezko to then Senator Barack Obama.  Is that legal Patrick Fitzgerald?

Daniel T. Frawley, a former business partner of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, claims he gave Rezko $400,000 that Rezko gave to then U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

This claim comes through Frawley’s emails to, and conversations with, Robert “Bob” Cooley, former Chicago mob lawyer turned government informer and author of the book on Chicago corruption entitled “When Corruption Was King.”

 For those that don't recall, Tony Rezko is a former Chicago politcal fundraiser and, more importantly, one of Obama's most important early fudraisers.  He was a member of Obama's U.S. Senate campaign finance committee.  He also allegedly helped Obama purchase a Chicago home.  On November 23, 2011, Rezko was sentenced to 10 1/2 years in prison for fraud and bribery.