Conservative Wanderer

“A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.” — Ronald Wilson Reagan

Monthly Archives: March 2009

Another Obama Appointment, Another Tax Problem

Same song, next verse:

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius has corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding “unintentional errors” _ the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that was obtained by The Associated Press. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

She and her husband paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to amend returns from 2005-2007.

Are there no elected Democrats who paid their taxes correctly and on time?

NY Times Allegedly Buried Anti-ACORN, Anti-Obama Story

Before I start, let me say that I am not at all sure about the reliability of this report. It is posted here simply as a “for what it’s worth” item.

If it turns out to be true, however, it’s gonna be a real problem for Obama, ACORN, and the NY Times.

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”

Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.

During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.

Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to “reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”

Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel:

“Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer.”’

Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story — on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.

Given the well-known leftward slant of the Times, it’s certainly plausible that they’d kill a story like that.

PETA’s Culture Of Death

Some PETA news that you probably won’t hear from the leftymedia:

WASHINGTON DC – Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) published documents online showing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed 95 percent of the adoptable pets in its care during 2008. Despite years of public outrage over its euthanasia program, the animal rights group kills an average of 5.8 pets every day at its Norfolk, VA headquarters.

According to public records from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed 2,124 pets last year and placed only seven in adoptive homes. Since 1998, a total of 21,339 dogs and cats have died at the hands of PETA workers.

Despite having a $32 million budget, PETA does not operate an adoption shelter. PETA employees make no discernible effort to find homes for the thousands of pets they kill every year. Last year, the Center for Consumer Freedom petitioned Virginia’s State Veterinarian to reclassify PETA as a slaughterhouse.

And you thought they actually cared about animals, rather than just advancing a lefty agenda.

Okay, Now I Am Confused

The confusion starts with this report from the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — The Obama’s administration’s leading plan to fix General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would use bankruptcy filings to purge the ailing companies of their biggest problems, including bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would in essence split both companies into their “good” and “bad” components. The government would like to see the “good” GM to be a standalone company, according to an administration official. The “good” Chrysler would be sold to Fiat SpA, assuming that deal is completed, this person said.

GM and Chrysler have had bankruptcy attorneys devising plans for such a move in recent months.

President Barack Obama’s task force has told both companies that the administration prefers this route as a way to reorganize the two auto makers, rather than the prolonged out-of-court process that has thus far frustrated administration officials.

GM looks increasingly like it will be forced into filing for bankruptcy protection, sometime in mid-to-late May, in a plan where the automaker breaks into two companies, the surviving entity a “new GM” that maintains key brands such as Chevy and Cadillac and some international units, say several people familiar with the situation.

Two big, confusing questions occur to me:

  1. If this was the plan all along, as the “bankruptcy attorneys devising plans for such a move in recent months” would seem to indicate, why didn’t either President Bush or President Obama (depending on exactly when said attorneys started their plan-devising) just stand back and let them go into bankruptcy? Especially confusing is the report’s indication that Obama’s administration “prefers [the bankruptcy] route.” If so, why not just do it?
  2. Again, if this was the plan, even as late as last week, why the political thuggery of forcing GM CEO Rick Wagoner out?

The only thing I can think of is that Obama didn’t wanna upset the UAW… but then, bankruptcy for GM at any time will anger the UAW, because the bankruptcy judge would be free to rewrite the union contracts–and probably would.

So why all the unnecessary fol-de-rol if all Obama is gonna do, in the end, is send GM and Chrysler to bankruptcy court?

As I say, it’s got me confused.

No Wonder Senator Dodd Was Willing To Help AIG Employees Keep Their Bonuses

The Washington Times has the smoking gun:

As Democrats prepared to take control of Congress after the 2006 elections, a top boss at the insurance giant American International Group Inc. told colleagues that Sen. Christopher J. Dodd was seeking re-election donations and he implored company executives and their spouses to give.

The message in the Nov. 17, 2006, e-mail from Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, was unmistakable: Mr. Dodd was “next in line” to be chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the insurance industry, and he would “have the opportunity to set the committee’s agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.

“Given his seniority in the Senate, he will also play a key role in the Democratic Majority’s leadership,” Mr. Cassano wrote in the message, obtained by The Washington Times.

Mr. Dodd’s campaign quickly hit pay dirt, collecting more than $160,000 from employees and their spouses at the AIG Financial Products division (AIG-FP) in Wilton, Conn., in the days before he took over as the committee chairman in January 2007. Months later, the senator transferred the donations to jump-start his 2008 presidential bid, which later failed.

Now, two years later, Mr. Dodd has emerged as a central figure in the government’s decision to let executives at the now-failing AIG collect more than $218 million in bonuses, according to the Connecticut attorney general – even as the company was receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). He acknowledged that he slipped a provision into legislation in February that authorized the bonuses, but said the Treasury Department asked him to do it.

Do I see a bit of reciprocal back-scratching there?

“The message seems clear: The boss says I want you to support the senator,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which studies political fundraising and ethics. “And I think the employees got the message.”

Yep, I think I do.

Each of the seven AIG-FP executives to whom the Cassano e-mail was sent made two $2,100 contributions to the Dodd campaign – one for the primary and another for the general election campaign. The records also show that five of their wives also contributed $4,200 each to the Dodd campaign. The executive vice presidents are Alan Frost, David Ackert, Douglas L. Poling, Jake DeSantis, Jon Liebergall, Robert Leary and William Kolbert.

Mr. Cassano, who resigned in February after AIG-FP posted losses of $11 billion, followed his own advice. He and his wife gave Mr. Dodd’s campaign $4,200 each.

Political fundraising in the workplace is legal, but a request from a boss may be viewed as a requirement, campaign watchdogs said.

“Implicit in this [e-mail] is the presumption that, at best, noncompliance will not be looked up favorably … at worst, it may have negative consequences on the employees,” Ms. Krumholz said.

Mr. Dodd’s campaign paid for events at AIG, as well. His Senate campaign recorded paying $400 at AIG Food Services on Dec. 7, 2006, about two weeks after the e-mail was sent. In March 2007, his presidential campaign paid AIG-FP $250 for a room rental fee, according to election commission filings. The payments could have been recorded weeks after the events took place.

Sure looks like corruption to me. Any lefties wanna try defending this?

US “Not Prepared” To Thwart North Korean Missile Launch

Now we know why Obama was so keen to keep Gates as SecDef… the guy is walking on tiptoes around the North Koreans:

The United States can do nothing to stop North Korea from breaking international law in the next 10 days by firing a missile that is unlikely to be shot down by the U.S. or its allies, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Appearing on “FOX News Sunday,” Gates said North Korea “probably will” fire the missile, prompting host Chris Wallace to ask: “And there’s nothing we can do about it?”

“No,” Gates answered, adding, “I would say we’re not prepared to do anything about it.”

Mind you, it’s not because we can’t do anything about it:

Last week, Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, said the U.S. is “fully prepared” to shoot down the missile. But Gates said such a response is unlikely.

“I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it,” Gates said. “But I don’t think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point.”

And, note, this is not a peaceful missile test:

Gates said while he doesn’t think North Korea has the capability yet to shoot off a long-range nuclear-tipped missile, “I don’t know anyone at a senior level in the American government who does not believe this technology is intended as a mask for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile.”

In other words, Gates is prepared to sit back and let the North Koreans take one more step towards having an ICBM that can carry a nuclear warhead, even though we could probably knock it down and at least demonstrate that capability to Kim-Jong Il and any others that are trying to develop nuclear missiles… like, say, Iran.

And Obama seems to be accepting that view–if not actively encouraging it.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Take a look at these pictures from the response to the Red River flooding and you’ll see one word over and over… “volunteer” (and its plural form, of course).

While the Coast Guard and National Guard are also there helping, for the most part these people are standing on their own two feet and helping themselves and their neighbors… not waiting for a check from the gubment.

That’s the American way. You do what you can yourself, and then you help your neighbor.

For those who wanna use this to advocate socialism/communism, there’s one big difference… these people are helping their neighbors willingly, not under government coercion or the threat of same.

Let Failing Companies Fail

This guy makes a lot more sense than the endless bailout-mania does:

“If companies fail, you need to let them fail,” former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden told the Senate Banking Committee Thursday. Mr. Breeden went on to trash almost every premise behind Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s year of bailouts. “We seem to have policy makers who either don’t understand it or are afraid to use it,” he said of Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code.

Turning to Mr. Geithner’s latest idea of an overall regulator of systemic risk, Mr. Breeden said: “It won’t work to try to assign planning for every potential risk in the economy to a single agency unless we want a centrally planned economy like the old Soviet Union. . . . It is particularly hard for me to see a case that any single group of regulators did such a good job [in anticipating the current crisis] that they deserve becoming the Über Regulator of the country.”

And then he does offer one good reform idea:

Mr. Breeden proposed a simple reform in which courts would be given the resources to quickly process an AIG-sized bankruptcy. He recommended “a special ‘systemic bankruptcy’ court composed of federal District or Circuit Court judges with prior experience in large bankruptcy or receivership cases,” much as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court specializes in weighing warrant requests related to foreign spying in the U.S.

So why aren’t the Democrats doing this? Simple… government money = government power, and they’re all about more power for the government (to be fair, some Republicans are as well, but not to the degree that Democrats are).