CommentaryMag:

Republicans Turn Up the Heat

It seems as though the Democrats haven’t quite put Eric Massa out of sight.

House Republicans know a good thing when they see it:

The House voted 402 to 1 Thursday to send the ethics committee a GOP measure calling for an investigation into how Democratic leaders handled allegations of sexual misconduct by former Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.). But a senior Democratic aide said the ethics committee never shut down its investigation of the Massa scandal in the first place – despite the fact that numerous sources familiar with the investigation told POLITICO, the Washington Post and other media outlets Wednesday that it had. … The GOP resolution, offered by Minority Leader John Boehner, calls on the ethics committee to create a special investigative subcommittee to look into the Massa allegations and report back to the full House by June 30 on the results of the inquiry.

This, of course, will keep the scandal brewing and test whether the Democratic leadership in fact had an inkling of what was going on. Moreover, the overwhelming vote suggests that the Democrats know they have a problem with ethics and with transparency.

More….

Meanwhile, from the AP:

GOP loses bid for ethics probe of Dem leaders

***

The resolution introduced by Boehner would have given the ethics committee no choice about investigating what Democratic leaders knew about Massa. Instead, the House voted 402-1 to allow the ethics committee to decide its next step.

The committee has five members from each party, but a tie vote would kill any proposal to investigate Democratic leaders.

The committee ended its investigation of Massa on Wednesday because his resignation took his case out the committee’s jurisdiction.

More….

And, from The Washington Post:

Massa aide contacted Pelosi’s office in October with concerns about lawmaker

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was contacted by a top aide to then-Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) in October with concerns about the lawmaker’s behavior toward young, male staffers, a congressional source with knowledge of the investigation into Massa’s actions said Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, the House ethics committee announced that it had closed its investigation of Massa, citing the fact that the Democrat resigned from the House on Monday and was no longer under the panel’s jurisdiction.

Joe Racalto, Massa’s chief of staff, told Pelosi’s director of member services in October that he was uncomfortable with Massa’s behavior, specifically that the lawmaker was living with several male staffers and routinely used sexually explicit language with them. The call to Pelosi’s director of member services was prompted, according to the source, by the fact that Massa made a lunch date with a young, male staffer who worked in Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) office.

According to a person briefed on the call, Racalto was concerned that the lunch followed a pattern of Massa trying to spend time alone with young, gay men with no ostensible work purpose. Racalto, according to the source, also alerted Frank’s chief of staff at the time.

Neither Racalto nor anyone from Pelosi’s office responded immediately to requests for comment Wednesday night.

More….

• Robin of Berkeley: “Brain-Dead in Berkeley”
• Robin of Berkeley: “Is Obama a Narcissist?”
• Terminally ill sentenced to premature death in UK’s NHS”
• Rights versus Wants

-

One of the greatest defensive lineman, ever.

But more important, he was a class act in real life.

Football Hall of Famer, TV star Olsen dies at 69

“He was ferocious and fearless on the football field and then the other probably more important aspect of his personality was he was a true gentleman,” said fellow Hall of Famer Jack Youngblood, Olsen’s teammate with the Rams in Los Angeles. “We all know what a wonderful, tremendous football player he was, but he was so much more than that.”

More….

The press seems to think so….

Question of the century: If Republicans controlled the White House, held a 59-41 majority in the Senate and controlled the House with a 255-178 majority while the country continued to suffer through a deep recession, would the AP (and the MSM) identify Democrats as part of the problem?

Job-focused voters weary of D.C. games

They just don’t get it in Washington.

There’s a gaping disconnect between what Americans care about and what President Barack Obama and Congress, Democrats and Republicans are actually doing. A new Associated Press-GfK poll tells the story: contempt for lawmakers, a bare majority approving of what Obama is doing. [Bold added.]

Or just listen to Robert Watson.

He backed Obama in 2008. He lost his job at a direct-mail company in the Great Recession. He has been looking for work ever since. Neither Obama nor Congress, Watson says, is addressing what really matters: “I’m still unemployed.”

More….

Yep, sure sounds like those nasty old Republicans are still screwing up the economy.

Facing an election-year backlash over runaway spending and ethics scandals, House Democrats moved Wednesday to ban earmarks for private contractors, sparking a war between the parties over which would embrace the more dramatic steps to change the way business is done in Washington.

Earmarks, which lawmakers use to direct federal money to specific projects, have long been a target of reformers seeking to limit spending abuses. Wednesday’s announcement is considered a way to block no-bid federal grants to private contractors who can afford to hire well-connected lobbyists to plead their cases, and although it will not have a major impact on overall spending, Democrats hailed it as a key step in restoring trust in Congress.

“It ensures that for-profit companies no longer reap the rewards of congressional earmarks and limits the influence of lobbyists on members of Congress,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., linking the move to early decisions to ban gifts from lobbyists and forbid privately financed travel.

Democrats made the move to bar earmarks for for-profit entities despite fierce resistance from many rank-and-file lawmakers who rely on them to spread federal money around their districts and consider them crucial to their political fortunes.

Republicans responded by proposing a moratorium on all earmarks, even those for non-profits such as universities. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said voters would reward Republicans in the November midterm elections for taking on special interests.

More….

Remember all the security precautions our patriotic universities put in place after 9.11.01 to make sure terrorists couldn’t use student visas to hide on campus? Well….somehow, someway, something went awry.

Eamonn Higgins has never earned a college degree in his own name, but prosecutors allege that for the past seven years the 46-year-old has been going to school non-stop for dozens of other students.

Higgins, of Laguna Niguel, was charged Monday with operating a ring of illegal test-takers who allegedly helped dozens of Middle Eastern nationals obtain U.S. student visas by passing English-proficiency exams for them — and then helped them hold onto those visas by taking college courses, passing finals and writing term papers in their names.

The allegations outlined in court papers reveal a potentially dangerous security breach in the country’s student visa system and underscore the vulnerability of a tracking process that relies on schools and testing centers to verify the identities of people taking the mandated exams. [Bold added]

More….

NRA News’ investigative reporter Ginny Simone takes a look at the global gun control goals of the United Nations. By pushing for a binding international treaty aimed at superseding the U.S. Constitution, the United Nations is committed to rendering Americans’ Second Amendment rights to own a firearm meaningless. Simone interviews past and current U.N. officials and politicians and examines the debates at the United Nations Small Arms Summit to expose the international anti-gun agenda.

Good thing a conservative didn’t say this:

“…he’s a nice person. he’s very articulate. This is what’s been used against him, but he couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him a state trooper to flag down the traffic…”

Notice how Matthews glossed over the remark as though he didn’t hear it.

BTW: If YouTube takes down the video, which they probably will, try this site.

What if there were no stop signs, and a major corporation was charged with inventing one? They’d brief their agency and let them do it. Sorta. Welcome to corporate creativity, where groupthink and endless revisions help good ideas get executed.

This article, published in 1995, is even more appropriate today….

By Charley Reese, Orlando Sentinel, 1995:

Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything on the Republican contract [with America in 1995] is a problem created by Congress.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress. Unjust tax laws? Congress wrote them. Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do.

Americans dying in Third World rat holes on stupid U.N. missions? Iraq and Afghanistan? Congress allows it.

The annual deficits? Congress votes for them.

The $4 trillion $12 trillion plus debt? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S. Constitution. If it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not authorized.

Then read your Constitution. All 100 percent of the power of the federal government is invested solely in 545 individual human beings. That’s all. Of 260 million 308 million Americans, only 545 of them wield 100 percent of the power of the federal government.

That’s 435 members of the U.S. House, 100 senators, one president and nine Supreme Court justices. Anything involving government that is wrong is 100 percent their fault.

I exclude the vice president because constitutionally he has no power except to preside over the Senate and to vote only in the case of a tie. I exclude the Federal Reserve because Congress created it and all its power is power Congress delegated to it and could withdraw anytime it chooses to do so. In fact, all the power exercised by the 3 million or so other federal employees is power delegated from the 545.

All bureaucracies are created by Congress or by executive order of the president. All are financed and staffed by Congress. All enforce laws passed by Congress.

All operate under procedures authorized by Congress. That’s why all complaints and protests should be properly directed at Congress, not at the individual agencies.

You don’t like the IRS? Go see Congress. You think the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency is running amok? Go see Congress.

Congress is the originator of all government problems and is also the only remedy available. That’s why, of course, politicians go to such extraordinary lengths and employ world-class sophistry to make you think they are not responsible. Anytime a congressman pretends to be outraged by something a federal bureaucrat does, he is in fact engaging in one big massive con job. No federal employee can act at all except to enforce laws passed by Congress and to employ procedures authorized by Congress either explicitly or implicitly.

Partisans on both sides like to blame presidents for deficits, but all deficits are congressional deficits. The president may, by custom, recommend a budget, but it carries no legal weight. Only Congress is authorized by the Constitution to authorize and appropriate and to levy taxes. That’s what the federal budget consists of: expenditures authorized, funds appropriated and taxes levied.

Both Democrats and Republicans mislead the public. For 40 years Democrats had majorities and could have at any time balanced the budget if they had chosen to do so. Republicans now have majorities and could, if they choose, pass a balanced budget this year. [They did, 1998-2000]. Every president, Democrat or Republican, could have vetoed appropriations bills that did not make up a balanced budget. Every president could have recommended a balanced budget. None has done either [until fiscal 1998-2000].

We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that’s what majorities in Congress and presidents in the White House wanted. We have troops in various Third World rat holes Iraq and Afghanistan because Congress and the president want them there.

Don’t be conned. Don’t let them escape responsibility. We simply have to sort through 260 million 308 million people until we find 545 who will act responsibly.

~~~~~

Snopes.com: Journalist Charley Reese (now retired) was part of the Orlando Sentinel’s staff for three decades between 1971-2001, during which time he (among other duties) penned a thrice-weekly column which was distributed to other newspapers nationwide by King Features Syndicate. During the 1980s Reese wrote the first version of an editorial opining that 545 people (i.e., the President of the United States, plus all the members of Congress and the Supreme Court) “are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country,” and he has amended, updated, and republished that piece several times since then. The version cited above is taken from the 7 March 1995 edition of the Orlando Sentinel, where it ran under the title “Looking for Someone to Blame? Congress Is a Good Place to Start.”