Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detailing federal investigations into the alleged corrupt activities of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The documents reference serious allegations of corruption and voter registration fraud by ACORN as well as the Obama administration’s decision to shut down a criminal investigation without filing criminal charges.Read it all here.
The documents include background information on two specific complaints filed in October 2008 by Lucy Corelli and Joseph Borges, Republican Registrars of Voters in Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, respectively, during the 2008 election season. . . .
The FBI and Department of Justice opened an investigation. However, the Obama Justice Department, while noting that ACORN had engaged in “questionable hiring and training practices,” closed down the investigation in March 2009, claiming ACORN broke no laws.
Jurors found in October that Langford, a Democrat, solicited cash, loan payoffs and designer suits from William Blount, the former head of a Montgomery, Alabama-based securities firm, and Albert LaPierre, a consultant. In return, Langford, then president of the Jefferson County Commission, used his power to bring Blount into deals, including a $3 billion refinancing of the county’s sewer debt led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. . . .The Democrat culture of corruption permeates deep into the party.
Jefferson County’s sewer financing nearly bankrupted the state’s most populous county during the credit crisis. Interest payments rose as high as 10 percent in 2008 after bond insurers guaranteeing the debt lost their top ratings because of losses on unrelated mortgage-backed securities.
Memphis Mayor Herenton's tied up in another scandal, this one involving a questionable land deal with a man that has received numerous no-bid contracts from the city.
Known as "King Willie" because of his tyrannical misuse of power, the mayor lives in a $529,400 house at 5281 Horn Lake Road, a rather nice neighborhood. Here's an aerial view of his 5 bedroom, 4 full bath home.
He also owns an adjoining lot at the corner of Horn Lake and Dubois Drive, which has been appraised by the Shelby County Assessor of Property at $45,000.
In October 2005, Herenton sold the lot to E.W. Moon, LLC (view the warranty deed) for $50,000. Then just months later, in May 2006, Moon gave the property back. Gave, as in "for free". (View the quit claim.)
Herenton is now building a home on the lot and sees "nothing improper" about the deal with Moon, even though Moon has received $702,000 no-bid city road design contracts from the mayor since 2002. (The mayor is the man that approves city contracts. As I understand it, the city council can't do anything except make recommendations.)
Reached in his Los Angeles office, Moon said he didn't give or loan Herenton $50,000, but said he forwarded the money to the mayor because he intends to buy the house when it's finished. Moon said he doesn't have a written contract on the house but does have an oral agreement to buy it.
"You don't have to put everything in writing. We're friends,'' he said.
Indeed. And you don't have to exchange money in the light of day, either. It takes really good, trustworthy friends to move money under the table. And this looks like a good way to move money under the table — only they got caught.
But so what? It seems that these actions don't even violate Memphis' ethics rules!
This is not the first time that this particular lot has made Willie money. According to records on the Shelby County Register of Deeds site, Herenton sold this lot to Joyce P. Kelly in 1996 for $35,000. Then in 2003, Kelly sold it back to the mayor for $28,000 — after seven years of real estate appreciation as high-dollar houses sprung up all around it. After all, it is located in Banneker Estates, a gated community that Herenton has developed and in which his own home is located.
The name Joyce Kelly is a familiar one in Memphis politics, as it is the name of the mayor's girlfriend and sometimes fiancee. She first entered the public light in 1989, when County Commissioner Pete Sisson charged Herenton (who was Memphis City Schools Superintendent) with promoting Joyce Kelly to principal of Corry Junior High while she was having an affair with Herenton (Thaddeus Mathews has a scan of the story).
Cross posted at TennWatch.
The prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case on Monday advised Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, that he would not be charged with any wrongdoing, effectively ending the nearly three-year criminal investigation that had at times focused intensely on Mr. Rove.The NYTimes spends most of the rest of the article indicting Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Typical.
Update: An Ldotter suggests creating a new word:
Fitzzle- the fizzling out of a manufactured, trumped-up charge.Now that's funny, I don't care who y'are.
Vodka Pundit observes:
It's really too bad this news didn't come out on Friday. The reactions from the wackos at the Kos Konvention would have been priceless.Yep, an opportunity missed.
Update II: RightWingProf reports that there is some good news for liberals.
Blackfive celebrates. A sample:
Bite me Joe Wilson and your silly, scarf-wearing wife. Suck it Firedoglake and Kos and every other deranged lefty collection of wankers who spent so much effort over nothing, well an attempt to bring down W's brain isn't nothing, but it sure didn't work out now did it? Hey can we get a definitive ruling that Joe Wilson is a lying, self-promoting, man whore?Michelle Malkin declares this Rove Derangement Syndrome Day.
Moonbats are hoping that Rove got a ride because he "flipped on Cheney". Here's just one comment extracted from those posted at AmericaBlog (via TigerHawk):
Well, it is possible he turned on Cheney, but does anyone think that ANY of these criminals will ever face justice? They are teaching young Americans to break the rules and laws of our country. I want to go back to the national discussion on oral sex. It was a much better conversation to have with your child. I keep telling my son that the behavior of Bush & Co. is traitorous and not the way ANY presidency is run.For additional hilarity, check out the Top Ten (Themed!) ‘Progressive’ Reactions To The End of Fitzmas from Decision '08.
Technorati Tags: Karl Rove, Patrick Fitzgerald, Fitzmas, Plame Game, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joe Wilson and Other Liars, Liberal's Cemetary of Dreams.
House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.HT to Schneier on Security
Here's a thought:
What could be simpler? No more union extortion. No more NRA heavy-handedness. No more millionaires buying a senator. No more exorbitantly expensive political campaigns that run for two years.
If you belong to a group that backs a candidate they'll let you know and you make the decision to support them (or not).
Strict ethics rules would prevent gifts, including expensive dinners. Strict reporting rules with teeth behind sentencing would put a stop to third-party activities like throwing expensive fund raisers. Contributions to PACs are perfectly acceptable, but the PACs can't give money to politicians or run ads: they are restricted to doing research, writing white papers, trying to get to a politician to give a point of view (sans money in a white envelope) and mailings to members supporting a candidate.
And don't give me any weepy arguments about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech belongs to individuals (like the right to bear arms), not to PACs. And if the Supreme Court can declare the McCain-Feingold stomping on the Founding Fathers as constitutional, then this will certainly pass muster.
But the article contains the answer to the question, "Why will nothing really change?"
Both parties are striving to find a delicate balance that ends some of the abuses exposed by the Abramoff scandal while not damaging their political prospects.So once again the foxes are in charge of the henhouse and reform will consist of more rhetoric than action — from either party.
Technorati Tags: Campaign Finance, Campaign Finance Reform.
First, some history. District 29 was previously held by John Ford, one of the most disgraceful politicians to ever occupy the political landscape in Memphis. John Ford is a member of the Ford dynasty which has controlled Memphis politics for decades but whose power appears to be fading. 
John Ford was arrested in the FBI sting Tennessee Waltz and he resigned, leaving the seat open.
John's sister, Ophelia Ford, ran for the seat against Republican Terry Roland. The Fords have occupied this seat for 32 years and no one believed it could be taken away. It is a heavily Democrat area occupied by mainly African-Americans that feel indebted to the Fords for having taken care of them for so long. The Fords are black and Roland is a white businessman. Bush received only 20% of the votes in this district.
Incredibly, on election night Roland seemed to be on his way to win. With all the precints in save one, Roland was up by 84 votes. At the last minute a ballot box was found that just put Ophelia over the top by 12 votes. The Ford powerhouse had delivered another last-minute miracle save.
Then the investigations began. Guess who voted? Dead people. Felons. People living in empty lots. Seemingly orchestrated by the Ford family as well documented by Thaddeus Mathews but a lot of credit must go to John Harvey, a lieutenant with the county's sheriff's department, who performed exhaustive research of the voter rolls and found:
... hundreds of voters who apparently have two active voter registrations, and several appear to have voted twice in the same election.One last bit of information: in November of 2004 Republicans took a majority in the Tennessee Senate for the first time since reconstruction.
And so the stage was set for a challenge to the Ford family and yesterday's shocker:
The state Senate voted 17-14 Tuesday night to void Shelby County's special Senate District 29 election and remove Ophelia Ford from her brother's former seat, but must do so again Thursday before it becomes effective.Ophelia , of course, abstained from the vote. Republican Micheal Williams of Maynardville also abstained. He is the chairman of an investigating committee that will make its report on Thursday and Williams felt the Senate should wait for that report.If Thursday's vote is the same, Ford would lose the seat immediately and the Shelby County Commission would appoint an interim senator to serve until the Nov. 7 general election.
Without Williams' vote, Republicans needed one Democrat to cross over and they got it from Don McLeary of Humboldt who stands for reelection this fall.
Ophelia immediately played the race card:
"It's about racism. It's about 'Jim Crow'-ism," Ford said after the vote. "I'm black. It is 85% black vote in that district, District 29. They want this seat." She may file a federal lawsuit over the ouster, she said.One wonders what dead voters have to do with race. Ah well.
Ophelia 's next move will be a play made famous by Gore in 2000: she'll try to litigate her way into office:
She said she will file a federal court suit challenging her removal. A federal court challenge, on civil rights grounds, is seen as the only legal avenue to contest her removal because the Tennessee Constitution gives the Senate sole authority to seat its members, a provision that would likely remove state courts from the process.
This is a great boost for Terry Roland who has worked tirelessly from the beginning of the campaign. Roland enthused:This is great. This is the will of the people. This is what democracy is all about. I can't believe I'm part of it.
It remains to be seen how much of this stain will rub off on Harold Ford, Jr.'s campaign to take the federal senate seat to be vacated by Bill Frist.
On a final note, what should happen now is that the Shelby County Commission is to appoint a temporary replacement until a permanent replacement can be elected in November (both Ophelia and Terry are promising to run). The Commission has seven Republicans and six Democrats — although it should be noted that while all six Democrats are true-blue Democrats, not all seven Republicans are really all that Republican. I do not believe that the interim Senator will be a Republican no matter what the press thinks.
HT to TeamGOP
Say Uncle is impressed.
Bob Krumm says Ophelia is politically tone deaf and notes the distraction from other issues.
Blogging for Bryant says the State Senate did the right thing.
Update: Ophelia Ford was able to find a sympathetic judge to issue a temporary restraining order against the Tennesse State Senate, thus blocking the resolution that throws her back on the street. From TeamGOP:
Reportedly, Memphis Federal District Court Judge Bernice Donald, used the fair voting act to stop the duly elected state Senators in Tennessee from upholding their duties.Perhaps Judge Donald believes that the fair voting act was to protect dead voters and felons.
It should also be noted that Judge Bernice Donald was nominated to the bench on Pearl Harbor Day in 1995 by none other than William Jefferson Clinton. Will we never stop suffering from that man's legacy?
Technorati Tags: Ophelia Ford, Terry Roland, Tennessee Senate, Tennessee Politics, Ethics, Vote Theft, Democrat Corruption, Harold Ford, Jr., Tennessee, Memphis, Memphis Politics.
BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges, among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrat who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?The leader of the National Democrat Party went on national television and unequivocally stated that no Democrats had taken money from Abramoff. Zip. Zero. Nada.DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true.
BLITZER: But through various Abramoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.
DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either. There is no evidence...
BLITZER: What about Senator Byron Dorgan?
DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.
BLITZER: Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, we got to leave it right there.
Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, always speaking out bluntly, candidly.
Just how big of a lie is this? Acting under the assumption that giving money to the Democrat Party is like giving money to all Democrats, let's examine the money given to various Democrat party entities (taken from the complete list of recipients at Capital Eye):
| Recipient | Total | From PAC | From Indiv |
| Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte | $423,480 | $207,980 | $121,500 |
| Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte | $354,700 | $261,200 | $16,000 |
| Democratic National Cmte | $64,720 | $40,000 | $720 |
| Democratic Party of Michigan | $23,000 | $23,000 | $0 |
| Democratic Party of Oklahoma | $15,000 | $15,000 | $0 |
| Democratic Party of North Dakota | $10,000 | $5,000 | $5,000 |
| Democratic Party of South Dakota | $9,500 | $8,000 | $1,500 |
| Democratic Party of Minnesota | $9,000 | $9,000 | $0 |
| Democratic Party of New Mexico | $6,250 | $1,250 | $5,000 |
| Democratic Party of Montana | $5,000 | $5,000 | $0 |
| Democratic Party of Washington | $500 | $0 | $500 |
| Grand Total | $922,150 | $575,430 | $150,220 |
That's three national Democrat organizations and another eight state level Democrat party organizations. Ah, but Abramoff is a "Republican" lobbyist, right? So let's compare to the Republican party:
| Recipient | Total | From PAC | From Indiv |
| National Republican Congressional Cmte | $498,000 | $365,500 | $64,500 |
| National Republican Senatorial Cmte | $436,500 | $152,500 | $154,000 |
| Republican National Cmte | $326,000 | $15,000 | $1,000 |
| 2002 President's Dinner Cmte | $50,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Republican Party of New Hampshire | $20,000 | $20,000 | $0 |
| Republican Party of Mississippi | $15,000 | $15,000 | $0 |
| Republican Party of Kentucky | $10,000 | $10,000 | $0 |
| Republican Party of New Jersey | $5,000 | $0 | $5,000 |
| Republican Party of Oklahoma | $2,500 | $1,500 | $1,000 |
| Republican Party of Oregon | $2,000 | $2,000 | $0 |
| Republican Party of Wisconsin | $1,000 | $1,000 | $0 |
| Grand Total | $1,366,000 | $582,500 | $225,500 |
That's four national Republican organizations and another seven state level Republican party organizations. Democrats received 40 percent of the national and state-level funds from Abramoff! In fact, Democrats received 39 percent of national funds and a whopping 58.5 percent of state funds!
Now add the fact that 40 of the 45 members of the Senate Democrat Caucus accepted cash from Abramoff, his associates, and Indian tribe clients. [HT to the Gateway Pundit]
In fact, take a look at the list of 106 House and Senate Democrats that accepted money from Abramoff (extracted from the complete list of recipients at Capital Eye). Or if you want the raw data (organized by me into categories), download the spreadsheet.
Lifelike Pundits says that Howard Dean Is a Pathalogical Liar:
I mean, sometimes it's frustrating to look at someone just lie and know that someone like Barbra Streisand or David Letterman might just believe him, but deep down, it's comforting to know that you are on the right side. What a fool.Tim Worstall observes:
The only answer is small government.Lean Left applies his intellect to address a different aspect of the issue with In Defense of Keeping Tribe Money:
There seems to be this notion that giving back all the money a politician ever got form anyone who ever did business with Abramoff clients is the right thing to do. I don’t agree with that. Abramoff’s clients have the right to participate in the political process.Say Anything notes:
Trying to spin this off as a “Republican only,” or even “Republican mostly” scandal does the issue a grave disservice. Pretending that this corruption is the problem of one party and not the other denies the problems at the heart of the issue.On the other side of the ethical fence, DailyKos says Dean sets Wolf straight and has yet to issue a correction.Our politicians in Washington are corrupt. Its high time we stopped the partisan finger-pointing and addressed root causes.
Technorati Tags: Jack Abramoff, Wolf Blitzer, Scandals, CNN, Democrat Lies, Howard Dean.
I don't know which is sadder--Earle's ignorance of 28 year old case law prior to the first indictment or his decision to retain the conspiracy charge, knowing the case law, when he reindicted DeLay.And:
Incompetence and ignorance of the law is bad enough in a prosecutor who has held office for 30 years. Intentionally charging a non-existent crime is something altogether different.Money quote from In the Matter of Ronnie Earle: I Accuse (Part I):
But Earle’s decision to re-indict DeLay for the Election Code conspiracy, after being informed about Baker, has to go down as one of the most sinister and improper prosecutorial actions in Texas history.An extensive post titled In the Matter of Ronnie Earle: I Accuse (Part II):
Until Mr. Earle came along, and rushed to include a money laundering count against Tom DeLay, no prosecutor in Texas was dumb enough to charge that checks were "funds" under the statute. The rest of them could read.Wisenberg provides excellent coverage of the events of the trial as well as biting commentary. It is evident that he believes that the whole thing will go away very soon. Follow the case by reading the DeLay category regularly.
HT to The Corner via non-blogging Advised by Wolves.
State and federal investigators say that a leak may have been an early warning sign that the soil beneath the levee was unstable and help explain why it collapsed. They also say if authorities had investigated and found that a leak was undermining the levee, they could have shored it up and prevented the catastrophic breach. ...Once again, the bureaucratic and corrupt hierarchy of New Orleans is found wanting."This is very, very significant," Van Heerden says. "These poor folks had these seeps, and it was indicative that the water was already getting under the system and weakening the system."
Only one in 10 Americans said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leaking of a CIA operative's identity, according to a national poll released Tuesday.Thirty-nine percent said some administration officials acted illegally in the matter, in which the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, was revealed.
Aside from scandals and investigations, Freeh says Clinton let down the American people and the families of victims of the 1996 Khobar Towers terror attack in Saudi Arabia.After promising to bring to justice those responsible for the bombing that killed 19 and injured hundreds, Freeh says Clinton refused to personally ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to allow the FBI to question bombing suspects the kingdom had in custody — the only way the bureau could secure the interviews, according to Freeh.
Freeh writes in the book, “Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library.”
On March 26, 2004, the Federal Election Commission fined two "leadership" political action committees associated with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California for making illegal contributions during the 2002 campaign.The FEC also fined three congressional campaigns that failed to return excessive contributions made by Pelosi's PACs, after they were determined to be illegal. The FEC action was in response to a complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center on Oct. 25, 2002. ...
During the debate, Pelosi complained of "extremists in the Republican Party who have repeatedly tried to undermine campaign finance reform" and of "sneaky tactics employed by the Republicans" to weaken Shays-Meehan.
Pelosi's committees violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). Its limitations on contributions are the most fundamental tenet of campaign finance reform. Passed during the 1970s in the wake of Watergate, FECA is the long-cherished accomplishment of Common Cause. A visit to the Common Cause Web site, however, reveals not a word about Pelosi's shredding of the law -- but quite a lot about DeLay.
Less than a month before the November election, the U.S. Department of Justice threatened to sue Washington state because it was moving too slowly in mailing military ballots overseas.Note that the military overwhelmingly votes Republican, and then consider this:At that point Washington was the only state that hadn't mailed its overseas ballots.
[King] county issued a total of 15,289 military and overseas ballots. Of those, 12,694 were returned and all but 220 were found to be valid and counted, according to statistics from the King County elections division.King County got its ballots out on time and achieved a ballot return rate of 82%. Meanwhile Island County missed the deadline by a few days and almost 1,000 ballots were mailed late.
In an election won by a mere 129 votes, the disenfranchisment of the military is responsible for the Democrat "win". Had more military voters been able to make their vote count, Democrats wouldn't have been able to invent enough votes across the entire state to make up the difference.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director has been indicted on charges of causing false campaign finance reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Justice Department said Friday.The indictment of David Rosen, unsealed in Los Angeles, focuses on his fund-raising for an Aug. 12, 2000, gala for Clinton in Los Angeles. The New York Democrat was still first lady at the time....
In one instance, Rosen obtained and delivered a fraudulent invoice stating the cost of a concert associated with the gala was $200,000 when he know that figure was false, according to the indictment. The actual cost of the concert was more than $600,000.