Here’s a couple more examples of the ludicrous things Gov. Palin’s opponents have tried to pull. Regardless of what they say, I can’t believe they actually take these things seriously—but they know that their complaints don’t have to be serious, substantive or reasonable to drain her energy and money. This is a campaign of persecution using the legal system as its tool, nothing more, nothing less; honor requires us to try to stop it.
Another look at the ludicrous lengths to which some people are going out of fear of Sarah Palin. No one should have to put up with this sort of nonsense.
In her Evansville speech, Gov. Palin mentioned that
the people of Evansville sent her chocolates on her birthday (which she shared with reporters), some doughnuts (which she served at an Oil & Gas meeting), and a hockey stick autographed by the Evansville Youth Hockey Association.
Does that sound nefarious to you? Bear in mind that folks in Evansville also offered to host a fundraiser for SarahPAC, and the Governor turned them down. Didn’t matter—she got hit with an ethics complaint for the little things she did accept. The complaint was roundly dismissed, but that doesn’t make the legal bills go away.
So, let’s see. The Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), which among other things runs AmeriCorps, starts investigating the mayor of Sacramento, Kevin Johnson, and his nonprofit foundation, St. HOPE Academy; the foundation had applied for AmeriCorps money for a project called the Hood Corps. When Gerald Walpin audited the program,
The IG audit found that the program misused virtually all its funds and did little of what was outlined in its grant proposal.
Specifically, the audit found that Johnson and other officials of Neighborhood Corps used AmeriCorps volunteers to recruit students for a charter school run by its parent program, improperly paid at two school employees with AmeriCorps funds for duties they did not perform, improperly used volunteers to perform personal errands for Johnson (including washing his car and driving him to personal appearances) and used the AmeriCorps volunteers to engage in political activities in connection with a board of education election.
Rooting out abuse of government funds—clearly he’s doing his job well; that deserves a raise, or at least a pat on the back, right? Nope—because you see, Johnson isn’t just a former NBA star or a mayor, he’s a friend and supporter of Barack Obama. As a result, Walpin didn’t get a commendation, he got a pink slip.
Of course, that’s not the only case IG Walpin has investigated; he also found significant problems in an AmeriCorps project at the City University of New York. Despite his findings, however, the CNCS decided it didn’t feel like doing anything about it.
Funding for the largest AmeriCorps program—the Teaching Fellows Program, run by the Research Foundation of the City University of New York—is in abeyance pending resolution of widespread problems identified in a recent audit. Although Walpin recommended that funding be curtailed and that previous funds (perhaps as much as $75 million) be repaid to the corporation, the corporation has said it will take no action on that matter.
Walpin concluded that nothing was being gained by the grants to CUNY and that the money was simply being used to subsidize an existing and funded program.
That’s not to say, of course, that the administration isn’t doing anything about this—they did, after all, remove the embarrassing IG who insisted on making an issue out of it. What’s more, to ensure that nothing so disturbing happens again, Michelle Obama is kindly donating the services of her chief of staff Jackie Norris, who was appointed as a senior advisor to the CNCS. In the absence of a CEO (the last appointee for that slot having withdrawn her name last month), Norris will have particularly great influence; and word is that Michelle Obama is taking the lead in the selection of a new CEO for CNCS as well. After all, we have to make sure that whoever runs this corporation is willing to toe the administration’s line.
Which isn’t how it’s supposed to be, especially when it comes to IGs; these folks are supposed to be insulated from executive pressure, as Byron York notes:
Last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which was designed to strengthen protections for IGs, who have the responsibility of investigating allegations of waste, fraud and abuse within federal agencies, against interference by political appointees or the White House. Part of the Act was a requirement that the president give Congress 30 days’ notice before dismissing an IG. One of the co-sponsors of the Act was then-Sen. Barack Obama.
The Act also requires the president to outline the cause for his decision to remove an IG. Beyond saying that he did not have the “fullest confidence” in Walpin, Obama gave no reason for his action.
There are two big questions about the president’s actions. One, why did he decide to fire Walpin? And two, did he abide by the law that he himself co-sponsored?
According to Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a strong advocate of inspectors general, Walpin received a call from the White House Counsel’s office on Wednesday evening. Walpin was told that he had one hour to either resign or be fired. Senate sources say Walpin asked why he was being fired and, according to one source, “The answer that was given was that it’s just time to move on. The president would like to have someone else in that position.” Walpin declined to resign.
Grassley fired off a letter to the president on Thursday saying that, “I was troubled to learn that [Wednesday] night your staff reportedly issued an ultimatum to the AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin that he had one hour to resign or be terminated,” Grassley wrote. “As you know, Inspectors General were created by Congress as a means to combat waste, fraud, and abuse and to be independent watchdogs ensuring that federal agencies were held accountable for their actions. Inspectors General were designed to have a dual role reporting to both the President and Congress so that they would be free from undue political pressure. This independence is the hallmark of all Inspectors General and is essential so they may operate independently, without political pressure or interference from agencies attempting to keep their failings from public scrutiny.”
Ed Morrissey offers an interesting comment on this:
Congress gave IGs this level of protection precisely to avoid this kind of action by the White House. Obama doesn’t want IGs investigating his cronies and political allies, and the evidence for this is rather clear from the way the White House handled it. Instead of going to Congress, which the lawyers in the White House should have known was the correct procedure, they attempted to intimidate Walpin out of his job first. Apparently they didn’t have a good enough case for the proper procedure.
What we’re seeing here is a clear case of Chicago-style cronyism and machine politics on the national stage. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone; I certainly saw it coming, and I was far from the only one. After all, this is how Barack Obama learned to do politics; this is the system that formed him. How else is he going to govern? How else would he behave? This is a man who has repeatedly said that his formative experience as a young man was as a community organizer—with ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which includes among its activities political intimidation and massive voter-registration fraud for political and financial profit. ACORN doesn’t practice transparency and accountability—why would we expect Barack Obama to do so? Why would we expect him to govern with a high level of integrity when the people and environments that shaped him as a politician don’t reward integrity?
The bald truth is that we elected as president a Chicago machine politician and community organizer for a corrupt organization that considers fraud an appropriate tool for advancing its political agenda and filling its coffers, and we now have an administration run by people who are used to operating in those ways and on those principles; we should not expect any of them to be other than what they have been. Rather, we should expect national politics to look a lot like Chicago writ large—and so far, that’s what we’re seeing.
We’re seeing an administration that admits that the $800 billion it demanded be spent as “stimulus” is already being misappropriated, misused, and even flat-out stolen—Joe Biden went so far as to say, “Some people are being scammed already”—and can’t seem to be bothered to do anything about it. After all, the money is going to liberals, isn’t it? And we’re seeing an administration whose preferred response to the voter-registration fraud investigations going on against ACORN in numerous states is not to launch a federal investigation, but rather to give them billions of dollars. That’s why Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has introduced the Taxpayer Protection and Anti-Fraud Act,
which would restrict access to taxpayer dollars available through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for groups that have been indicted for violations of state or federal laws.
“No one has a right to federal funds,” she said. “We have a fiduciary responsibility as members of Congress to establish criteria by which groups can gain access to federal dollars. I believe we should be able to raise the bar above indictment and not be restricted solely to convictions. This in no way denies someone their due process rights in court.”
Under her new bill a determination would be made on a “case by case” basis to determine whether or not a particular organization should be eligible for federal support, despite indictments.
The White House, predictably, is opposed; but it seems clear to me that the government needs to be careful about giving out money, and that if there’s enough reason to issue an indictment against an organization, the government should at least be required to take notice of that indictment and evaluate it carefully before giving that organization so much as one red cent. (If you agree, sign the petition.) To the current administration, giving money to groups like ACORN is just business as usual; to my way of thinking, that’s precisely the sort of usual business we need to do away with. The Chicago machine is bad enough in Chicago; there’s nothing we can do now to keep it out of D. C., so we need to do everything we can to keep it from putting down roots and taking over. We’re all Chicagoans now; let’s do our best to make sure we don’t stay that way.
Why? Dan Calabrese of the North Star Writers Group has part of the answer:
So, Republicans, you’re looking for people who can serve as faces of a party on the upswing. What qualities would we want to see in such people?
Maybe these:
- They’ve served in public office and have actually governed effectively.
- Rather than just talking about fiscal responsibility, they’ve made it happen under their watch.
- When possible, they’ve made sure the private sector would take the lead in crucial initiatives.
- They’ve taken on corrupt, entrenched interests to make government more responsive to the people it serves, even when those interests were fellow Republicans.
- They pull no punches in criticizing Democrats, but they do so with a positive outlook and a pleasant demeanor.
- They’re not intimidated by the inevitable crap they will catch from the media, celebrities and whomever else.
- They have an enthusiastic following upon which to build.
- Finally, if you’ve got all of the above, it can’t hurt if you also look fantastic.
As he notes, there’s one person who fits all eight of those criteria: Sarah Palin.
Calabrese understands that it’s stupid to judge the Governor by the mockery she gets from those trying to take her down. He poses the GOP the key questions:
If you read substance-challenged media like Politico, you think it’s all about unnamed GOP operatives grumbling about the way her scheduler works, or GOP senators (who refuse to put their names on the record) finding her annoying.
Have you ever listened to Palin talk about policy? Have you examined her record in Alaska? Do you know the political courage she has demonstrated achieving crucial goals there?It’s especially important to listen to Palin’s discussion of policy matters now, as compared with during the presidential campaign, because then she was hamstrung by the need to tout the McCain campaign’s discombobulated message. Now that she is free to craft her own message, and can base it on her own record, she is exponentially more compelling.
Those of us who’ve followed her career without prejudging her know that Gov. Palin is strong across a wide range of policy issues; we know she’s an effective, innovative governor who consistently puts principle first, even at the cost of fierce opposition from many in her own party (to say nothing of the folks who are supposed to be the opposition). Still, it’s refreshing to see that Calabrese gets it:
The way she governs Alaska represents a principled, serious approach that is missing in the conduct of far too many Republican officeholders. What’s more, the way she talks about the excesses of the Obama Administration shows that she not only sees the problems we are creating for ourselves, but understands the alternatives we should be championing. . . .
Palin knows her stuff, backs it up with action and expresses herself with the perfect mix of substance and agreeable style.
Calabrese’s column is explicitly not intended to champion Gov. Palin for the GOP presidential nomination; instead, he’s trying to do something much more basic and, I think, more important. His thesis is that the Republican Party needs to embrace, and support, and promote—and lean on—every significant Republican whose track record shows intelligent, successful application of conservative principles to the real issues that face America, not in Washington, but in actual executive roles around this country.
As he says, there’s no need to take sides, because conservatives are really all on the sameside, and the more people we have like Bobby Jindal and Mitch Daniels, the better; but it does mean recognizing that on substance, Gov. Palin belongs at the head of that list (and that those who don’t see that have been “focused on nonsense instead of what really matters”). Calabrese’s advice here is absolutely spot-on, and something the GOP mandarins badly need to take to heart; though he doesn’t quote Ben Franklin here, what he’s saying reminds me of the old sage’s words, which are squarely on point for today’s Republican Party:
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Calabrese’s column is absolutely vintage. Read the whole thing, and pass it on; and if you can, join the webathon and donate.
(Cross-posted, edited, from “Dan Calabrese: ‘Nail, Meet Hammer. BANG!’” at Conservatives4Palin)
It’s no secret, of course, that I’m a supporter of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Even if I weren’t, though—even if I were one of the Beltway types pulling for Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush, let’s say—I would be angry at the way in which Gov. Palin’s opponents in Alaska have chosen to use an onslaught of ludicrous, frivolous “ethics complaints” to try to bring her down by bankrupting her with legal fees. (It’s not just me calling these complaints frivolous; the head of the committee responsible for addressing them, a Murkowski appointee who owes the governor nothing, has dismissed them all with that judgment, and has been musing in recent weeks about ways to make complainants pay for their complaints.) So far, not one of these complaints has passed even the first smell test, yet her enemies will stop at nothing to try to grind her down and bury her with legal debt defending herself for such actions as wearing a warm coat when she showed up for the start of the Iron Dog snowmobile race.
Unlike so many of our professional politicians, Gov. Palin is not a rich member of our nation’s elite class, and she doesn’t have a trust fund or a private fortune to use to pay her lawyer; she’s a blue-collar woman with a blue-collar husband. As such, she started a legal defense fund to cover her legal bills, but her ankle-biting opponents have driven her bills up over a half-million dollars, so she has a long way to go. As such, my colleagues over atConservatives4Palin have launched a webathon, running through June 22, to help retire as much of her legal debt as possible.
I understand that these are tough economic times, and in general, I tend to be one who’s skeptical of donating money to politicians or parties, so I understand that point of view; but if you’re in a position to help, I encourage you to do so—whether you’re a supporter of Gov. Palin or not.
That might seem to be a strange thing to say, but hear me out. I firmly believe that one of the reasons why the political elite has tried so hard to marginalize and destroy this woman—elitists on the Right as well as on the Left—is that she’s not one of them; she’s not from the elite class, she didn’t rise through any of our political machines, and so she’s not beholden to them and they have no leverage on her. Our monoclonal political class likes its grip on power; sure, they have their ideological differences that reflect the differences in beliefs that exist in the rest of the country, but their deepest loyalty is to their class, their deepest commitment to business as usual. They are not truly representative in any meaningful sense.
If we want to change that, we need to elect people—liberals as well as conservatives—from outside that class, people who truly are a part of we, the people rather than “we, the Beltway.” Gov. Palin isn’t just a conservative politician, she’s a complete outsider to the Beltway, someone who came from a normal (if somewhat uncommon) American family, upbringing, and life. As such, she’s a test case for this: can any politician who is truly of the people, by the people, for the people long endure?
I don’t expect many liberals to support her, much less vote for her, because like anyone else, in general, liberals should vote for people who share their political principles, and she doesn’t; but I do think that liberals should be pulling for her to succeed, to thrive, to win re-election in 2010 and the GOP nomination in 2012, even if they then want her to lose in November. Why? Because if she succeeds, if she triumphs, she will show other potential citizen candidates that it can be done, and it can be endured, and it’s worth doing; if she succeeds, she will be followed, she will be emulated, and we will see others—in both parties—walking the trail she blazed. If Republican and Democratic voters are going to reclaim our parties for the principles in which they’re supposed to believe, it’s going to require candidates who are beholden to us rather than to the structures of those parties—and if that’s going to happen in our generation, it has to begin here, with Sarah Palin. We cannot let her be snuffed out if we want to see anyone else who isn’t machine-approved (and machine-stamped) run for anything much above dogcatcher.
As such, I’ll say it again: liberals who would like to see the Democratic Party break free of the corruptocrats who run it have just as much vested in Gov. Palin as conservatives who would like to see the GOP break free of the domination of its own trough-swilling pigs, and just as much reason to help her overcome this challenge. If you can, please give, so that this abuse of Alaska’s ethics laws will cease, and Gov. Palin can be on about the business for which she was elected.
Two good interviews for Gov. Palin today, with Matt Lauer this morning and Wolf Blitzer this evening; they did want to talk about David Letterman’s vile behavior as well (Blitzer only briefly, Lauer at greater length), but beyond that she got substantial time to talk about the progress on the Alaskan natural-gas pipeline, the state of American politics, and the political future. Both Lauer and Blitzer did their jobs very well, I think, conducting interviews that were respectful without merely being puffballs, and Gov. Palin did well in answering their questions and making her points.
This is a nifty piece of comedy, I think. (HT: Chris Forbes)
and some people just aren’t willing to let the truth get in the way of taking down a political opponent. It appears that Conor Clarke of The Atlantic fits in at least one of those categories; less than a week after one memorably inept attempt at a hatchet job on Sarah Palin, he’s taken another wild, factually-impaired swing. I’m not sure what he’s trying to prove, but if it’s that he’s a complete tool, he’s managed that much, anyway.
Not to put too fine a point on it, GM is doomed (probably, anyway) because the Obama-Pelosi administration has put them in a position in which the kind of bold leadership that could produce a turnaround is impossible. Though Barack Obama might declare that he is “not running GM,”
The President is so busy not running GM that he had time the night before to call and reassure Detroit Mayor Dave Bing about the new GM’s future location. GM is being courted to move its headquarters to nearby Warren, Michigan. And Mr. Bing told the Detroit News that he had received a call Sunday evening from the President “informing me of his support for GM to stay in the city of Detroit with its headquarters at the Renaissance [Center].” . . .
We don’t know whether GM should stay in Detroit. But we do know that the location of a company’s headquarters is one of those decisions typically not made by people who are busy not running the company.
This is exacerbated by the fact that, whether President Obama is interested in running GM or not, there are 535 members of Congress who are most certainly interested in micro-managing GM—since, after all, GM plants, dealerships, distribution centers, etc. now qualify as some of the pork they can bring home to, or at least keep in, their districts.
The latest self-appointed car czar is Massachusetts’s own Barney Frank, who intervened this week to save a GM distribution center in Norton, Mass. The warehouse, which employs some 90 people, was slated for closure by the end of the year under GM’s restructuring plan. But Mr. Frank put in a call to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and secured a new lease on life for the facility.
Mr. Frank’s spokesman, Harry Gural, says the Congressman discussed, among other things, “the facility’s value to GM.” We’d have thought that would be something that GM might have considered when it decided to close the Norton center, but then a call from one of the most powerful Members of Congress can certainly cause a ward of the state to reconsider what qualifies as “value.” A CEO who refuses the offer can soon find himself testifying under oath before Congress, or answering questions from the Government Accountability Office about his expense account. To that point, Mr. Henderson spent Wednesday with Chrysler President Jim Press being castigated by the Senate Commerce Committee for their plans to close 3,400 car dealerships. Every Senator wants dealerships closed in someone else’s state.
As Mr. Gural put it, Mr. Frank was “just doing what any other Congressman would do” in looking out for the interests of his constituents. And that’s the problem with industrial policy and government control of American business. In Washington, every Member of Congress now thinks he’s a czar who can call ol’ Fritz and tell him how to make cars.
Given Congress’ track record, and given the way leadership by committee normally works out, I don’t think it’s too much to predict that GM isn’t going to survive this.
Update: People are noticing, Mr. President . . . (HT: The Anchoress)