Saturday, June 30, 2007

B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Broom)



"Grab your buckets, grab your brooms. We're going to have to do a clean sweep because there has been a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."
-- Clean-as-the-wind-driven-snow New York Senator Hillary Clinton on the Bush administration.


Clinton Wants 'Clean Sweep' After Bush
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, AP
Posted: 2007-06-30 14:49:04


MIAMI (June 29) - "A clean sweep" is needed at the White House because President Bush has fostered "a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence," Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday.The Democratic presidential candidate told nearly 1,000 women at a fundraiser that she would have much work to do at the White House if she won election in 2008.


"After eight years of the Bush administration, we are going to be shocked by what we find," the New York senator and former first lady said. "Somebody said to me the other day if there was ever a time for a woman president it's now because we're going to have to do a lot of cleaning."


First off, I haven't heard anything this sexist (or stupid) in a long time. Women can fight alleged cronyism and corruption because they are good at cleaning? Would anyone else get away with saying something half as idiotic? Hillary will escape scrutiny over such a statement, of course. The media lack the guts to confront her.


Second, Hillary and Bill are the Queen and King of corruption and cronyism. Pardons for cash come readily to mind when I think of Clinton corruption. When it comes to cronyism, who can forget the firing of the White House Travel Office staff so Hillary could have her Arkansas people employed there?


The woman is a sociopath.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Miserable Failures: Public Confidence in Democratic Congress at 14%



Confidence in Congress Down in the Dumps
by Frank Newport

Congress is now nestled at the bottom of the list of Gallup's annual Confidence in Institutions rankings, along with HMOs. Just 15% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in HMOs. By way of contrast, 69% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the military, which tops the list.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

2007 Minnesota Legislature: More Said than Done

Rep. Randy Demmer (R-Hayfield) (left) and Rep. Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) (right) swing by the Olmsted County Republicans Central Committee Meeting for a brief legislative report after a Rochester Chamber of Commerce event.

"When everything was said and done, more was said than done." - MN House Republican Leader Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) on the 2007 Minnesota legislative session.

It was quite the treat to have Minnesota House Republican Leader Rep. Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) stop by the Olmsted County Republicans Central Committe Meeting tonight. Rep. Seifert reported on how out of touch with the reality of the session DFLers are. One of the legislators who dutifully voted for spending bill after spending bill but didn't vote for the tax bill to pay for them now claims to be a "fiscal conservative." That's liberal "logic" for you.

Rep. Demmer summarized the defeat of liberal abusive taxation aspirations in Minnesota by saying that, at the end of the day, "the tail wagged the dog." They may have taken over both the state house and senate but Governor Pawlenty and Republican legislators stopped DFLers in their tax-and -spend tracks.

The liberal spin machine is in full gear. They have spent the last five months in St. Paul trying to tax Minnesota into oblivion. Now Reps. Kim Norton, Andy Welti and Tina Liebling, as well as Sen. Ann Lynch, will pretend they spent the last few months trying to improve the lives of Minnesotans instead of implementing senseless legislation and abusive taxation.

DFLers want to make Minnesota a "better" place to live and work by taxing and legislating everything that lives and works. Yeah, that makes sense. To liberals.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Governor Veto

Yesterday's Rochester Post-Bulletin Pawlenty-bashing editorial, Pawlenty's veto hurts Rochester, families, was yet another half-baked liberal commentary disguised as political analysis. For a much fairer and more accurate examination of Governor Tim Pawlenty's courageous stand against abusive taxation, look no further than the following op-ed from today's Wall Street Journal. Thanks to Carla Nelson for forwarding it to me.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL REVIEW OUTLOOK

Governor Veto
June 5, 2007; Page A22

If he's looking for tips on handling Nancy Pelosi, President Bushmight want to consult Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota. The Republican Governor is using his veto power to good effect on policy and making himself more popular.

Last month the Democrats who run the Legislature in St. Paul pushed through a big tax and spending increase in their $35 billion state budget. Last week Mr. Pawlenty responded by vetoing all six of the spending and tax bills the Democrats sent him. The usual media and interest group suspects are upset, but Mr. Pawlenty is rallying his own supporters and making himself a defender of the taxpaying middle class.

In Minnesota, as in many other states last November, Democrats picked up big majorities in both the state House and Senate. First on the Democratic wish list was a budget plan of the kind now being promoted by the party's Presidential candidates: Offer a few tax savings to the middle class but whack "the rich" with a huge tax hike, and use the revenue windfall to finance teacher pay raises, "universal health care," $200 million in subsidies for the Mall of America, and even a pay raise for legislators. The Democratic plan would have raised the state's top marginal income tax rate to 9.7% from 7.85%. That's right up there with California, New York and New Jersey in the top five of confiscatory taxation states.

Democrats also proposed a gas tax hike, a new real estate tax, and a tax on cell phones. In all, Democrats wanted to raise some $5 billion in income taxes, and new taxes on gas, beer, real estate transactions, cell phones and even a strange new death tax: a tripling of taxes on hearses. These would have raised taxes by about $2,000 for every income tax filer in the state. The Minnesota League of Taxpayers parodied the budget plan as here a tax, there a tax, everywhere a tax, tax.

Every Republican in the House voted to sustain Mr. Pawlenty's veto, and the state GOP, which fractured last year, is unifying around the fiscal debate. "We ran the table on the Democrats," says Mike Wigley, the chairman of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. "We got no new taxes, no bonding bill for the first time in a decade, and a budget lower than what the Governor proposed at the start of the year."

Mr. Pawlenty is under pressure from Democrats to negotiate a new budget, but he holds the political high ground. One reason Congressional Republicans were run out of their majority was because they lost their "brand" identity as conservative fiscal stewards. Mr. Pawlenty narrowly survived re-election in that dreadful Republican year. Now he's shrewdly expending political capital to good effect to beat back Democratic tax-and-spend policies that could damage Minnesota for years to come.

Are Republicans in Washington paying attention?

Monday, June 04, 2007

The Real Culture of Corruption


Rep. William Jefferson Indicted on 16 Counts
NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, June 4, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years, according to a Justice Department official who has seen the document. Among the charges listed in the indictment, said the official, are racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official. Almost two years ago, in August 2005, investigators raided Jefferson's home in Louisiana and found $90,000 in cash stuffed into a box in his freezer.



No word yet on whether DEMOCRAT Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will demand DEMOCRAT Rep. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson's resignation.