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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (8102)	3/2/2009 6:09:24 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 103300

Obama's urban commissar another Corruptocrat: Another day, another scandal from Team Obama Adolfo Carrion, his nominee to be his urban czar had a nice pay-to-zoning changes game going on as president of the Bronx, the New York Daily News reported. Ah, unprecedented scrutiny. “Carrion often received contributions just before or after he sponsored money for projects or approved important zoning changes, records show,” the Daily News reported. City zoning laws are supposed to protect residential areas from commercial areas and industrial areas. But like every other government regulation, zoning laws give enormous power to those who enforce them. I have no doubt that this was a pay-to-play scheme. Check out Carrion’s statement: “Thousands of people who share the Borough President’s vision for building a stronger Bronx and a stronger city have contributed to Carrion NYC. Teachers, parents, police officers, firefighters, members of the business community and concerned citizens have all contributed to the borough president’s efforts to strengthen the Bronx and stimulate the local economy and he is proud to have such wide-ranging support.” That’s an awful lot of zoning changes to make. No wonder he’s going to Washington to gt out of all that work. Hey, remember in November when the Washington Post said: “Now, as President-elect Barack Obama assembles his administration, an army of lawyers volunteering on his transition team are vetting his potential picks with unprecedented scrutiny of their personal, financial and professional backgrounds.” Unprecedented scrutiny? The guy in charge of vetting is the husband of Derry Noyes, who ran a very well-connected business of designing stamps out of her home for the post office (it is who you know, folks) without getting paying her business taxes or even getting the license to have the business in their home. (Tax Professor Blog says she may be exempt from the law.) Small wonder we have the Most Corrupt Cabinet Ever, including: Chief of staff: Democrat Rahm Emanuel put his Chicago residency in the name of a charity to avoid property taxes and failed to list his free rent in DC as income, thus failing to pay his taxes. Treasury secretary: Timothy Geithner refused to pay all his taxes until he was vetted for this $190,000+ a year job. He’s so bad that Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd voted the guy down. Commerce secretary: Unfilled only because of a corruption investigation of Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s first choice. Education secretary: Arne Duncan as CEO of Chicago schools oversaw a no-bid contract for cappuccino machines. I’m curious as to why schools need cappuccino machines. Can’t first-graders drink regular coffee like the rest of us? CIA director: Leon Panetta was suddenly very popular as a high-paid guest speaker before banking groups just before that $700 billion TARP was thrown over the banking system. And finally, Secretary of state: Democrat Hillary Clinton. From pocketing $100,000 for a cattle futures trade made in her name by a lobbyist, to White water, to Filegate, to Travelgate, to Monicagate, to the Mark Rich pardon, to Norman Hsu, to hubby investing overseas, to hubby collecting $50 million in speeches, to hubby pocketing money from the Saudis… (Have I left anything out? Probably.) Mrs. Clinton is the most corrupt official ever appointed to a Cabinet post. Carrion will fit right in. blogs.dailymail.com

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (8102)	3/2/2009 6:32:48 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

Limbaugh blasts Steele, the GOP POLITICO By: Jonathan Martin March 2, 2009 12:07 PM EST dyn.politico.com On the same night he was offering the keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Rush Limbaugh drew criticism from an unlikely source: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.” Steele’s criticism made him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host, and prompted a furious counter-assault by Limbaugh on his show Monday afternoon in which he told the locquacious RNC chair to pipe down and recognize that he's not a "talking head media star." But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject. “Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats know they lose an argument with the Republican Party on substance so they are building straw men to attack and distract,” said RNC spokesman Alex Conant. “The feud between radio host Rush Limbaugh and Rahm Emanuel makes great political theater, but it is a sideshow to the important work going on in Washington. RNC Chairman Michael Steele and elected Republicans are focused on fighting for reform and winning elections. The Democrats’ problem is that the American people are growing skeptical of the massive government spending being pushed by Congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi.” Limbaugh, asked to respond, said he’d save his counter-attack for his listeners. “I’ll handle it on the radio,” he wrote in an e-mail. He did just that, lacing into Steele and saying the recently-elected party leader was “off to a shaky start.” "You know who needs a little leadership? Michael Steele and those at the RNC,” Limbaugh said, part of an unusual counter-attack against the elected head of the GOP. “I hope the RNC chairman will realize he’s not a talking head pundit, that he is supposed to be working on the grassroots and rebuilding it and maybe doing something about our open primary system and fixing it so that Democrats don’t nominate our candidates,” Limbaugh said, his voice rising. “It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you’re having a tough time pulling off.” Steele, Limbaugh said, had “taken the bait” by the media. Limbaugh also offered a harsh assessment on the state of the GOP. "I'm not in charge of the Republican Party, and I don't want to be," he said. " I would be embarrassed to say that I'm in charge of the Republican Party in the sad-sack state that it's in. If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it's in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife because I would have presided over a failure that is embarrassing to the Republicans and conservatives who have supported it and invested in it all these years." In an interview on CNN with D.L. Hughley, Steele assured that he, not Limbaugh, was in charge of the party before saying that he wanted to put the right-wing talker “into context.” “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer,” Steele said. “Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes it’s incendiary, yes it’s ugly.” Steele’s comments, first noticed by NBC producer Chris Donovan, are sure to rankle Limbaugh in part because they validate the liberal critique of the conservative force: that he’s merely an “entertainer.” That’s one of the phrases often used by Democrats who seek to diminish Limbaugh. MSNBC’s liberal talk-show host Keith Olbermann, for example, frequently mocks his broadcast adversary as “comedian Rush Limbaugh.” Steele’s broadside comes as top-level Democrats are working to portray Limbaugh as the face of the GOP and daring anybody in the party to separate themselves from him. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs jumped on an opportunity to discuss Limbaugh Monday, saying at the press briefing that reporters should ask Republicans if they side with the talk show host. "Do they want to see the President's economic agenda fail?" asked Gibbs of the Republicans, citing the talker's comments earlier this year and over the weekend at CPAC about the Obama agenda. "You know, I bet there are a number of guests on television throughout the day and maybe into tomorrow who could let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend. A liberal coalition has already aired two ads tying congressional Republicans to Limbaugh and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday that the conservative is the “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.” Emanuel also noted that Republicans face repercussions for criticizing Limbaugh. “When a Republican did attack him, he was — clearly had to turn around and come back and basically said that he's apologizing and was wrong,” Emanuel noted. He was referring to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) who last month took a shot at Limbaugh to POLITICO only to appear on his program the next day and plead momentary “foot-in-mouth disease.” Conant, the RNC spokesman, didn’t say whether Steele would go on the show. Andy Barr contributed to this report. WATCH: Limbaugh addresses CPAC on Feb. 28: © 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC