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To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	2/24/2010 10:39:23 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Sestak stands by his story: WH offered him a job By: David Freddoso Online Opinion Editor 02/24/10 1:26 PM EST The White House dirty deal that we reference in today's editorial is for real, says Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa: <<< U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak said Tuesday he stands behind his contention that the Obama administration offered him a federal job if he would back away from a Democratic primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter. "Yes, I was offered a job," Sestak said. But the Delaware County Democrat won't say who made the offer or disclose the position offered. >>> We note in the editorial our concern that the president appears to be handing out positions of public authority as political consolation prizes. Does it remind you of anyone? Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	3/16/2010 1:58:08 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

GOP Lawmaker: White House Job Offer to Sestak Would Have Been a 'Crime' FOXNews.com A GOP lawmaker says that the White House committed a "crime" if it offered Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak a federal job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. "That would be a crime to offer anybody a federal job," Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News on Friday. For example, the California Republican said it would be a crime if he offered a staff job to anyone to help him win an election. "It's the same for the executive branch," he said. "You can't promise ambassadorships to contributors and even worse, you cannot manipulate the races by saying we'll give you something else if you drop out. You can't do it." Sestak, who is aggravating Democratic leaders by challenging Specter for the Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, said last month that the White House dangled a federal job in front of him last summer in an attempt to entice him to drop out of the state's Democratic primary. Sestak has refused to elaborate on the circumstances but has acknowledged that the job was a high-ranking position. Issa is seeking answers but the White House isn't talking. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised Fox News on Tuesday to provide answers. But since then, Gibbs has stonewalled reporters. Issa wrote a letter to the White House counsel on Wednesday demanding information on Sestak's claim. "While the White House may think this is politics as usual, what is spectacularly unusual is when a candidate – a U.S. Congressman no less - -freely acknowledges such a proposal," he wrote to White House counsel Robert Bauer. "Almost always candidates keep quiet about such deals, and for good reason – they are against the law." Issa told Fox News that he is trying to give the White House an opportunity to tell its side of the story. "Right now, they're doing the 'I won't confirm or deny,' and for us, it leaves two possibilities," Issa said. "One is the promise of transparency in this administration is just shot. The second one is even worse, which is either Sestak is lying or the administration has done something wrong and is covering it up and they should be the first to want to clear that up even if they're not wanting to support transparency as they said they would when they came to office." Sestak stood by his claim this week. "And I answered that yes, and I answered it honestly," Sestak told Fox News when asked if the White House offered him a job to not get in the primary. "I would never get out for a deal," he said. "If I were to get out as I told this person, I would get out because it was the right thing to do. And the person responded, 'Yes, I knew you'd say that but…'" Sestak declined to confirm that the position was for Navy secretary. "As I said, there's nothing to be gained by focusing on this politics stuff," he said. Specter told a local radio station Friday that Sestak could be committing a crime himself if the allegation is true and he hasn't reported it to the proper authorities. "There's a crime called misprision of a felony," Specter said. "Misprision of a felony is when you don't report a crime. So you're getting into pretty deep areas here in these considerations." Click here to watch the Issa interview. Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Major Garrett and FoxNews.com's Stephen Clark contributed to this report. foxnews.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	3/20/2010 4:18:50 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

[T]he job offer stories -- either individually or in tandem with one another -- have generated little interest among major news media. Anatomy of a Scandal: The Curious Case of Joe Sestak's Job Offer By James Rosen FOXNews.com Rare is the Washington scandal where both the accuser and the accused refuse to talk about the charges. But silence has been the norm in the case of Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., who alleges the Obama administration offered the second-term congressman a "high-ranking" job if he would abandon his primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. In the aftermath of the allegation, Sestak remains a challenger to Specter, the five-term Republican who defected to the Democrats last year, in the Keystone State's May 18 primary. And while the White House repeatedly dodges questions about the supposed job offer, Sestak is keeping mum. "There's nothing to be gained by focusing on this politics stuff," Sestak told Fox News recently. The story behind the potentially explosive charge remains vague. The allegation first surfaced in an interview Sestak gave last month to Philadelphia television anchor Larry Kane. A veteran journalist, Kane was previously best known for his coverage of The Beatles' 1964 American tour, and for a memorable appearance John Lennon made, delivering a zany weather report, on Kane's local Philadelphia TV broadcast in 1975. "Were you ever offered a federal job to get out of this race?" Kane asked Sestak on an episode of Comcast Network's "Larry Kane: Voice of Reason." "Yes," Sestak replied. "Was it the Navy secretary?" Kane followed up. "No comment," said Sestak, adding. "I would never get out for a deal. I'm in this for the Democratic principles." "OK," Kane cut in. "But was there a job offered you by the White House?" "Yes," Sestak replied. Asked if it was a "big" job, Sestak declined further comment. By Feb. 23, the allegation arose at the White House daily press briefing. "I have seen some stuff that (Sestak) said, but I have not looked into this," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. Four more times over the next three weeks, Gibbs deflected reporters' questions about the Sestak allegation. Click here to watch Gibbs' responses to questions about Sestak. "I have not made any progress on that," Gibbs said on March 1. "I was remiss on this and I apologize. ... Let me check into that." Shortly thereafter, Rep. Darryl Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to White House Counsel Robert Bauer to request an explanation from the Obama administration. But Gibbs was still not forthcoming. "I don't have anything additional on that," he said at the March 11 press briefing. "Are you ever going to have anything additional on that?" he was asked. "I don't have it today," he said. The next day, it was more of the same from Gibbs: "I don't have any more information on that." Finally, on March 16 -- three weeks after he was first queried on the issue -- Gibbs produced his first substantive response. The press secretary's comments appeared to confirm that someone in the administration had indeed been in touch with Sestak, but Gibbs also suggested -- with equal opaqueness -- that the discussion had not been improper in any way. "I've talked to several people in the White House," Gibbs said on March 16. "I've talked to people that have talked to others in the White House. I'm told that whatever conversations have been had are not problematic." He added: "Whatever happened is in the past..." Sestak, meantime, also proved unwilling to elaborate on what he had originally told Kane. In an interview on March 10 with Fox News' Bret Baier, Sestak said the offer was made "last summer, before I got in the race," and that he had rejected it. "I would never get out for a deal," Sestak told Baier. "If I were to get out, as I told this person, I would get out because it was the right thing to do. And the person responded, 'Yes I knew you'd say that.'" But beyond that Sestak would not budge: "To go beyond that, Bret, doesn't serve any purpose. ... Everything else is nonsense and doesn't help the working families." By contrast, the White House was swift and explicit in denying a similar allegation made last fall. In September, The Denver Post reported the claim by Andrew Romanoff, the former speaker of the Colorado statehouse, that White house Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had offered Romanoff a job in exchange for Romanoff's abandonment of his primary challenge against Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. Romanoff said he turned the offer down; White House spokesman Adam Abrams was quoted in the article as saying, "Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration." Some analysts argue such offers, if they were indeed made, would constitute violations of federal law, specifically, Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code, Section 211, which covers "bribery, graft, and conflicts of interest." The statute imposes a fine and/or possible imprisonment on anyone who "solicits or receives ... any money or thing of value in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States." Still, the job offer stories -- either individually or in tandem with one another -- have generated little interest among major news media. Mark Feldstein, a former TV correspondent who is now a professor of journalism at George Washington University, told Fox News this disinterest owes to two factors: the White House's treatment of the stories, and the perception that such dealings are common in the nation's capital. "The White House is certainly being cagey," said Feldstein, "and they're handling it the same way that they handled it with their (former) social secretary (Desiree Rogers), when those folks snuck into the White House under her watch: They're trying to clamp down the lid, keep it mum and hope it goes away. And so far, largely, it has." The public, Feldstein suggested, is unlikely to get too worked up about the Sestak allegation. "This kind of 'I'll give you a job if you do X or Y,' or 'I'll give you a favor if you do X or Y' is the way Washington works, on both parties," he said. "Much as in the health care debate, when senators were bought off with exceptions in their states: Nebraska, Louisiana, and so forth. So, like sausage-making, it's not a very pretty sight." foxnews.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	5/26/2010 6:16:49 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Look Who's Behind the White House/Sestak Stonewall By: Michelle Malkin National Review Online After three months of zipped lips and feigned ignorance, the Obama White House is finally taking real heat over Pennsylvania Democratic congressman Joe Sestak’s consistent claims that the administration offered him a job to drop his Senate bid. Now it’s time to redirect the spotlight where it belongs: on the top counsel behind the Washington stonewall, Bob “The Silencer” Bauer. On Sunday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs glibly asserted that “lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak. And nothing inappropriate happened.” With whom were these conversations had? Gibbs won’t say. Neither will Attorney General Eric Holder, who dismissed “hypotheticals” when questioned about Sestak’s allegations last week on Capitol Hill by GOP congressman Darrell Issa of California. Holder is simply taking his cue from the commander-in-chief’s personal lawyer and the Democratic party’s legal boss. You see, on March 10, Issa also sent a letter to Bauer, the White House counsel to the president, requesting specifics: Did White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel contact Sestak? Did White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina (whom another Democrat, Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, has accused of offering him a cabinet position in exchange for his withdrawal from the primary)? How about the White House Office of Political Affairs? Any other individuals? What position(s) was/were offered in exchange for Sestak’s withdrawal? And what, if any, steps did Bauer take to investigate possible criminal activity? Bauer’s answers? Zip. Nada. Zilch. While the veteran attorney ducked under a table with the president, Gibbs stalled publicly as long as he could -- deferring inquiries about the allegations one week by claiming he had been “on the road” and had “not had a chance to delve into this,” and then admitting the next week that he had “not made any progress on that,” refusing the week after that to deny or admit the scheme, and then urging reporters to drop it because “whatever happened is in the past.” But the laws governing such public corruption are still on the books. And unlike Gibbs, the U.S. code governing bribery, graft and conflicts of interest is rather straightforward: “Whoever solicits or receives . . . any....thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” Bauer is intimately familiar with electoral law, Barack Obama, ethics violations, and government job-trading allegations. And he’s an old hand at keeping critics and inquisitors at bay. A partner at the prestigious law firm Perkins Coie, Bauer served as counsel to the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Obama for America. He also served as legal counsel to the George Soros-funded 527 organization America Coming Together during the 2004 campaign. That get-out-the-vote outfit, helmed by Patrick Gaspard (the former Service Employees International Union heavy turned Obama domestic-policy chief), employed convicted felons as canvassers and committed campaign-finance violations that led to a $775,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission under Bauer’s watch. As I’ve reported previously, it was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully in 2008 to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama’s ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. It was Bauer who attempted to sic the Justice Department on AIP funder Harold Simmons, and who sought his prosecution for funding the ad. And it was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Obama’s behalf. More significantly, Bauer has served as Obama’s personal attorney, navigating the corrupted waters of former Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich’s pay-for-play scandals in Illinois. Bauer accompanied Obama to an interview with federal investigators in Chicago. And he’s got his hands full fighting Blago’s motion to subpoena Obama in the Senate-seat-for-sale trial -- a subpoena that included references to a secret phone call between Obama and Blagojevich; an allegation that Emanuel floated his own suggested replacement for Obama’s seat; an allegation that Obama told a “certain labor union official” that he would support (now-White House senior adviser) Valerie Jarrett to fill his old seat; and a bombshell allegation that Obama might have lied about conversations with convicted briber and fraudster Tony Rezko. With not one, not two, but three Democrats (Sestak, Romanoff, and Blagojevich) all implicating the agent of Hope and Change in dirty backroom schemes, “Trust Us” ain’t gonna cut it. Neither will “Shut Up and Go Away.” What did Bob “The Silencer” Bauer know, when did he know it, and how long does the Most Transparent Administration Ever plan to play dodgeball with the public? — Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc. .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	5/26/2010 6:53:13 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Weiner: White House should come clean on Sestak By: David Freddoso Online Opinion Editor 05/24/10 1:11 PM EDT Also from Morning Joe this a.m., Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said that the White House is letting the White House bribe allegations by Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., get out of control. He said the White House needs to come forward with information about what conversations actually occurred. Sestak, while running a primary against establishment favorite Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., alleged that the White House offered him a job in the administration if he would drop out of the race. At the time, the allegation and Sestak's refusal to name names made him seem high-minded and principled. But now that he is the Democratic nominee and has the White House's backing, his evasive answers on the topic are damaging. As Weiner points out in the clip below [see @ link below], the very fact that people are discussing Sestak's allegation is a sign that the White House should be making the relevant information public in order to stem the damage. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	5/26/2010 7:15:32 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

White House's Axelrod: Sestak is a liar By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 05/25/10 12:20 PM EDT Appearing on CNN, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod said there was "no evidence" the White House offered retired Admiral and Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak's a job to get out of the Senate primary with Arlen Specter. Here are the money quotes from Axelrod's apperance on John King USA: <<< "These allegations were made, they were looked into, and they were found to be unwarranted." "When the allegations were made, they were looked into, and there was no evidence of such a thing ... I don't know that the Congressman would disagree with what I'm saying here." >>> Of course, there is evidence -- we have the testimony of Sestak himself, a retired Admiral and sitting U.S. congressman who has repeatedly claimed that this occurred. Further, the Denver Post ran a report that citing the Deputy White House Chief of Staff by name making similar offer to Andrew Romanoff who is challenging Democratic Senator Michael Bennet in the Colorado Senate primary. There's no good outcome here for the White House. Either the White House did something illegal here or their party's Senate candidate in Pennsylvania is a delusional fabulist. But regardless, their prolonged foot-dragging here only appears to be making things worse. Video of Axelrod's appearence on John King's CNN program below: CNN video Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	5/26/2010 9:30:32 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Congressman: White House Job Offer to Sestak May Be an 'Impeachable' Offense FOXNews.com Rep. Joe Sestak's allegation that the White House offered him a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Arlen Specter is a crime that could lead to the impeachment of President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa said. But the decision by the Pennsylvania congressman not to elaborate on a so-called deal also could become a political problem as Sestak tries for the U.S. Senate seat. The White House reportedly is going to formally address the allegation in the next few days. In the meantime, Issa, R-Calif., is one of many inside and outside Washington who want the Democratic Senate primary candidate to explain in detail what offer the White House made. "It's very clear that allegation is one that everyone from Arlen Spector to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable," said Issa, who is threatening to file an ethics compliant if Sestak doesn't provide more details about the alleged job offer. Sestak, a former vice admiral in the Navy, first alleged in February that the White House offered him a high-ranking position in the administration last summer if he would sit out the primary against Specter, who won the backing of the White House and state Democratic leaders for switching parties. The allegation is considered one of the factors that helped him defeat Specter, who was viewed as unscrupulous in doing whatever he could to keep his seat, including changing his party to win White House support for an uphill re-election battle. But now, Sestak has to go into the general election, where his opponent, former Republican Rep. Pat Toomey, is willing to use the topic as referendum on both Sestak's and Obama's credibility. "Congressman Sestak should tell the public everything he knows about the job he was offered, and who offered it," Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey said in a written statement. "To do otherwise will only continue to raise questions and continue to be a needless distraction in this campaign." And Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a close ally of the president, said Sestak can't continue to lay out the charge without backing it up. "At some point, Congressman Sestak needs to make it clear what happened," he said. Issa said this allegation is bigger than the Senate race. "For Joe Sestak, he can dance around it and he may or may not be a senator," he said. "But for the White House, this problem's not going away. Adm. Sestak is in fact a very reliable source." Ann Marie McAvoy, a former federal prosecutor, said the White House could have a problem on its hands depending on what the facts show. "If they were simply offering him a job because they thought he was a qualified person for it and there was no request made that he in essence drop out of the race, it would be different," she told Fox News. "This is why there really needs to be an in depth investigation. There needs to be witness interviews and so on to figure out what happened, who said what, what were the other circumstances surrounding it." Issa has called on the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor but Attorney General Eric Holder has said that won't be necessary. "We assure you that the Department of Justice takes very seriously allegations of criminal conduct by public officials," Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich told Issa in a letter. "All such matters are reviewed carefully by career prosecutors and law enforcement agents, and appropriate action, if warranted, is taken." Weich said a special prosecutor won't be needed because the Justice Department "has a long history of handling investigations of high level officials professionally and independently, without the need to appoint a special counsel." But McAvoy said any allegation of wrongdoing shouldn't be left to the Justice Department to decide. "Someone in the administration had this conversation which means that would be the person mostly likely who committed the crime if there is a crime," she said. "So you have the people who are representing the people who potentially committed the crime are making the determinations as to whether anything wrong happened. That's not the way it's supposed to happen." Issa compared any potential cover-up to the Watergate scandal of the Nixon era.the White House Tuesday of a cover up similar to the Watergate scandal. "It's not about what was done wrong. It's about the cover up," Issa told Fox News. "And right now, there's a cover up going on at the White House 10 weeks after the allegation." .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	5/28/2010 5:33:46 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

It's an ObamaNation Michael Ramirez from Creators Syndicate creators.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/2/2010 9:29:10 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Sestak was ineligible for job Clinton offered By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 05/29/10 12:52 AM EDT In a little-noticed passage Friday, the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the job he was reportedly offered by former President Bill Clinton. And indeed a look at the Board’s website reveals this restriction: <<< The Board consists of not more than 16 members appointed by the President from among individuals who are not employed by the Federal Government. Members are distinguished citizens selected from the national security, political, academic, and private sectors. >>> As a sitting member of Congress, Sestak was not eligible for the job. And since the White House intended for Sestak to remain in his House seat, he would not have been eligible for the board after this November’s elections, provided he was re-elected to the House. The statement from White House counsel Robert Bauer did not specifically mention the intelligence board, but speaking to reporters Friday, Sestak said of his conversation with Clinton, “At the time, I heard the words ‘presidential board,’ and that’s all I heard…I heard ‘presidential board,’ and I think it was intel.” In addition, the Times reported that “people briefed on the matter said one option was an appointment” to the intelligence board. But the White House could not legally have placed Sestak on the board. Did the White House not know that? The apparent contradiction is sure to create more questions from Republicans who want an independent investigation of the affair. Why would the White House — normally pretty careful in such matters — offer Sestak a job he couldn’t take? Were there in fact other offers made to Sestak? So far, there has been little discussion of the fact that the Bauer statement said “options for executive branch service were raised with [Sestak].” The plural “options” certainly suggests that more than one job was presented to Sestak, but Sestak himself says his conversation with Clinton was very brief — less than one minute. Whatever the case, if the White House intended Bauer’s statement to put the Sestak issue to rest, it was probably mistaken. UPDATE: A spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, who is pursuing the Sestak matter in his role as ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sends the following reaction: <<< Are we to believe that Rahm Emanuel, a former Member of Congress himself, dispatched President Clinton to maneuver Admiral Sestak out of the Senate Primary by dispatching him with an unpaid appointment that Congressman Sestak couldn’t even accept if he wanted to? What’s more likely, that two of the most politically sophisticated people in American political history didn’t do their due diligence or that the narrative told by the White House is a not-so-brilliant work of fiction? >>> In addition, a spokesman for Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who on Friday asked FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate the Sestak matter, says: <<< This is just another strike against the Administration’s story. Why bring in a big gun, like former President Clinton, to offer a meager job to Sestak that he wasn’t even eligible to accept? Either the administration is completely incompetent or there is a cover up. That’s why I’ve called for the FBI to get involved. We’re clearly not going to get a straight story from Sestak or the White House without an official investigation. >>> Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 12:42:45 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

AP: White House admits job offer also made to Andrew Romanoff in Colorado senate race By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 06/02/10 5:28 PM EDT The Associated Press is now reporting that in addition to Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a job offer was also extended to senate candidate Andrew Romanoff on the condition he stop challenging incumbent Democratic Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colo., in the Centennial State's Democratic primary: <<< Administration officials dangled the possibility of a job for former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff last year in hopes he would forego a challenge to Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Administration officials on Wednesday declined to specify the job that was floated or the name of the administration official who approached Romanoff, and said no formal offer was ever made. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not cleared to discuss private conversations. >>> The Denver Post reported last fall that "multiple sources" confirmed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina made an offer to Romanoff. Just last week, I wrote that "White House reporters need to ask about Romanoff job offer, too," -- so good work AP. This will revelation will no doubt increase scrutiny on the White House, which is already defensive over the allegations that the Sestak job offer was illegal. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 12:56:57 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Romanoff confirms -- White House suggested three jobs, produces email evidence By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 06/02/10 9:12 PM EDT Earlier today, the White House admitted that they had offered Andrew Romanoff a job to get out of the Colorado senate primary. Now Romanoff is confirming the story, saying the White House offered him three different jobs. He has even released the email from the White House with the job descriptions. Politico has the story: <<< Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff confirmed Wednesday that Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff, suggested three administration jobs that would be available to him last September if he dropped his plans to run against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who had the support of the White House. Romanoff said he informed the White House that he would stay in the race. The revelation comes days after the White House confirmed that Rep. Joe Sestak was approached about an unpaid position in the administration if he dropped his campaign against Sen. Arlen Specter. But in this case, Romanoff was offered paid positions in the administration, a clear difference from the Sestak case. In a statement to the media, Romanoff attached an email from Messina – dated Sept. 11, 2009 – listing the three jobs, two at USAID and one as director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, with a page-long set of job descriptions. >>> Nonetheless, Romanoff is remaining a tad squirrelly about the whole thing saying, "Mr. Messina also suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race. He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions. At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina’s assistance in obtaining one.” In any event, we'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming days, I'm sure. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 12:59:51 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

White House: Romanoff applied for job with administration By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 06/03/10 7:24 AM EDT The White House has just released a statement saying that Colorado Democratic Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff, who yesterday said White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina “suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race,” had in fact applied for a job with the Obama administration in late 2008 and early 2009. “Andrew Romanoff applied for a position at USAID during the Presidential transition,” says a statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “He filed this application through the transition on-line process. After the new administration took office, he followed up by phone with White House personnel.” But Romanoff didn’t get the job. Then circumstances changed, and Romanoff’s chances of employment in the Obama administration improved dramatically. Last September, when Romanoff was planning to challenge White House favorite Sen. Michael Bennet in the Colorado Democratic primary race, the White House says Messina got in touch with Romanoff to see if he’d be interested in the job he applied for earlier — plus a couple of others. According to Gibbs, after President Obama endorsed Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, the White House “wanted to determine if it was possible to avoid a costly battle between two supporters.” So Messina “called and emailed Romanoff… to see if he was still interested in a position at USAID, or if, as had been reported, he was running for the US Senate.” By all accounts, Romanoff said he was committed to running for Senate. He “was no longer interested in working for the administration, and that ended the discussion,” the White House says. “As Mr. Romanoff has stated, there was no offer of a job.” Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 1:24:30 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Rep. Darrell Issa: Romanoff job offer renders Obama "brand" ruined By: Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor 06/03/10 2:23 PM EDT Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking minority member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sees irreparable damage being done to the Obama brand as a result of the growing White House bribe jobs scandal. Former Colorado House Speaker Anthony Romanoff is challenging Sen. Michael Bennett, D-CO, in that state's Democratic senatorial primary. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said earlier today that Obama's deputy chief of staff Jim Messina discussed employment possibilities with Romanoff earlier this year but only after the latter had applied for a federal position. It is illegal to offer a federal job to somebody in return for their doing something designed to influence the outcome of a congressional election. Issa isn't buying the White House version of the Romanoff events. "If things were as benign and innocent as the White House is trying to make it sound, there would have been no need for Messina to have sent an e-mail detailing three positions that would be available to Romanoff should he withdraw from the Colorado Senate primary," Issa said. "If it were as simple as following up on an application, Messina would have taken no for an answer after speaking with Romanoff, instead he persisted with the intent of coercing him with the implied promise of a job. Clearly, that was the intent, which was conditioned on Romanoff exiting the primary which is bare-knuckle Chicago-style politics-as-usual. Can anyone imagine a scenario where Romanoff exits the primary and doesn't get the job?" Last week, the White House was embroiled in controversy over Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Joe Sestak's allegation that last February he was offered a job by somebody in the Obama White House in return for his dropping his Democratic primary challenge of Sen. Arlen Specter, D-PA. The White House said Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel recruited former president Bill Clinton to talk to Sestak but that nothing illegal was said during their conversation. An indication of the growing seriousness of the scandal is seen in a Politico story in which the accompanying photographs sandwhich Obama between Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Mayberry Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife, portrayed in the popular TV sitcom, "The Andy Griffith Show," during the 1960s. Politico's Jonathon Allen and Carol E. Lee quoted a senior House Democrat saying "it is baffling 'how one group of people can be so good at campaigning and so bad at politics' — a phrasing nearly identical to that of a second veteran House Democrat who expressed the same sentiment." Also today, Issa asked White House counsel Bob Bauer to provide detailed information about all electoral races in which Obama or his aides have sought to influence, asking for "full and complete list of all elections in which the White House engaged in efforts to persuade specific candidates to drop election bids and if a job or any other thing of value meant to entice a candidate to withdraw from or not to enter the race was offered, [to] specify to whom it was offered, and by whom it was offered." Issa also asked Bauer to provide copies of a "written commitment to preserve all records and communications related to any attempts by the White House to clear the field in Democratic primary elections." Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 1:26:53 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

On Romanoff, Obama has no idea By: David Freddoso Online Opinion Editor 06/03/10 4:00 PM EDT President Barack "the Buck Stops with Me" Obama likes to say he's "taking full responsibility" whenever he's talking about something he knows people won't really blame him for. But what happens when he encounters something that people might actually blame him for? When it comes to the Romanoff job offer, for example, he supposedly didn't even know about it. Really. Jim Messina acted alone. And when it comes to the Sestak job offer? Obama has been been too busy rocking out with Paul McCartney and interfering with Gov. Jindal's attempts to save his state's coastline to discuss the matter with his spokesman. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 1:38:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Ambinder’s willful blindness on the Romanoff job offers By: David Freddoso Online Opinion Editor 06/03/10 5:02 PM EDT In his “nothing-to-see-here” post on the White House job offers to Andrew Romanoff, Marc Ambinder really stretches the limit for me. His zeal to defend the White House against anything and everything seems to spoil his appreciation of the relevant fact, eloquently set forth earlier today by our own Byron York. Romanoff’s job prospects in the Obama administration were apparently zero when he applied, but suddenly and dramatically improved when he began talking about a run for Senate. To avert one’s eyes from this is a tall order for someone who just wrote a self-important 1,100 word screed on how conservatives don’t call out a few marginal figures who hold, for example, that President Obama is a Muslim. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/4/2010 2:13:46 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 35834

The Summer of Corruption: The Plot Thickens By: Michelle Malkin National Review Online In Chicago politics, there’s an old term for the publicly subsidized pay-offs and positions meted out to the corruptocrats’ friends and special interests: boodle. In the age of Obama, Hope and Change is all about the boodle. So it was with the stimulus. And the massive national-service expansion. And the health-care bill. And the financial-reform bill. And the blossoming job-trading scandals engulfing the White House. There’s always been an ageless, interdependent relationship between Windy City politicos and “goo-goos” (the cynical term for good-government reformers). Chicago-style “reform” has always entailed the redistribution of wealth and power under the guise of public service. And it has inevitably led to more corruption. In March 2010, this column first took note of allegations by Democrats Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff that the White House had offered them jobs in exchange for dropping their respective bids against Obama-favored incumbent senators Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet of Colorado. White House legal counsel Bob “The Fixer” Bauer’s attempt to bury questions about the Sestak affair with a Memorial Day-weekend document dump failed. So has the attempt to make Rahm Emanuel-enlisted former president Bill Clinton the sole scapegoat. Bauer’s memo mentions “efforts” (plural, not singular) to woo Sestak. But the White House refuses to divulge what offers besides Clinton’s were extended. Moreover, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has now denied that Team Obama was involved in the one Clinton offer that has been publicized -- an unpaid appointment on an intelligence board for which Sestak was ineligible. After months of silence, Romanoff finally stepped forward this week to acknowledge that the White House had dangled several positions before him, too. He released e-mails detailing not one, not two, but three different paid positions offered by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina -- whose boss, Emanuel, was subpoenaed this week by impeached former Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois to testify in his Senate pay-for-play corruption trial. So, can I say “I told you so” now? In July 2009, when Culture of Corruption was first released, liberal critics scoffed: How could you possibly write a 400-page book about Barack Obama’s rotten administration when he’s only been in office six months?! When I proceeded to rattle off case after case of Chicago-style back-scratching, transparency-trampling, and crooked special-interest-dealing in the new White House, liberal critics such as The View’s Joy Behar interjected: B-b-b-but what about Bush? Why don’t you write a book about Bush? Wha-’bout-Bush? Wha-’bout-Bush? Wha-’bout-Bush? When I pointed out that I had reported extensively on cronyism in the Bush era (see Harriet Miers, FEMA, and the Department of Homeland Security), and when I further pointed out that while the Bush-bashing market overflowed, there remained a massive vacuum of critical analysis of Obama, liberal critics sputtered: So what? Doesn’t every administration have corruption? When I patiently explained that no other administration in modern American history had set itself up as loftily as the Hope-and-Change reformers had done, or when I cited endless examples of Obama’s broken promises on everything from lobbyists to transparency to Washington business as usual, liberal critics changed the subject again: RACIST FASCIST EVIL FOX NEWS RIGHT-WING HATE-MONGER! Two major job-trading scandals plus the start of the Blago trial this past week -- on top of a year’s worth of uninhibited White House wheeling and dealing, broken transparency pledges, Justice Department stonewalling, and brass-knuckle bullying of political opponents -- have finally turned the once-derided thesis of my book Culture of Corruption into conventional wisdom. Obama sold America a Chicago-tainted bill of goods. A nation of slow learners is finally figuring it out. -- Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc. .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/6/2010 12:25:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Romanoff job offer would have been a bigger deal if Bush had done it -- says Washington Post? By: Mark Hemingway Commentary Staff Writer 06/05/10 9:05 PM EDT It's practically a parlor game among conservatives to note how often problems under Obama get ignored when the media would have crucified George W. Bush for had they happened on his watch. So it's a little jarring to see the Washington Post making this same point in a hard hitting editorial about the Romanoff/Sestak job offers: <<< If this is not a quid pro quo -- a federal job in exchange for dropping the Senate bid -- it is uncomfortably close. Substitute Karl Rove for Jim Messina and imagine the uproar if the Bush administration had engaged in such a baldly political exchange. >>> Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/6/2010 1:19:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Sestak the Unqualified By: Daniel Foster The Corner Byron York digs deeper into a point I made the day the Obama administration's Sestak memo was released -- namely: <<< In short, it appears that there is no "advisory position" in existence that Sestak would 1) be qualified for and 2) consider preferable to a Senate run and 3) allow him to retain his House seat. >>> I was thinking of the two presidential boards I knew of: the Economic Recovery Board and the Intelligence Advisory Board. Byron rightly points out that there is a third -- the newly-created Management Advisory Board, aimed at improve "productivity, the application of technology, and customer service" in government. But like the other two, the PMAB excludes government employees. So does just about every two-bit council and commission in the Executive, on separation of powers concerns: <<< Even a lesser group, like the recently recast President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, is made up of "distinguished individuals and representatives from sectors outside of the federal government." Rep. Sestak would be ineligible for all of them. There's a good reason for the rules. Having a member of Congress serve on a presidential advisory board would violate the separation of powers. "An advisory board is the president's way to get confidential advice, and if you have a member of Congress on the board, are they functioning as a member of the president's board or as a member of Congress?" asks a former White House lawyer. In any conflict with Congress, a president could never claim privilege over the advice he received if a member of Congress were part of the board giving him the advice. "From a separation of powers view," says another former White House attorney, "a president wants command and control over his executive officers, and he wants input to come either from a member of the executive branch or a person reporting only to the executive branch." >>> So how to explain the Sestak offer? Either the Obama administration (and President Clinton!) didn't know the relevant rules, or they didn't mind lying to Sestak, or they don't mind lying to us. .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/6/2010 1:40:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Krauthammer's Take By: NRO Staff The Corner From Thursday night’s Fox News All-Stars. On the Sestak and Romanoff affairs: <<< In the Romanoff case, the White House is trying to stay just this side of the legal line by using the word "dangling" rather than "offering." And look, the White House says there wasn't a quid pro quo, so that's why it's sort of kosher. But: Gibbs admitted what the quo was … [when] he said the president has an interest in clearing the field. So clearly the objective was getting him out of the race. That's the quo. And the quid was the three jobs. . . . This is pretty on-the-line. In the Sestak case, I think there’s less evidence of bribery, but the real issue there is veracity and lying. The story from the White House [and the] story from Sestak don't stack up. The White House said, in the statement from the White House lawyer, that there were inquiries made over the months of June and July. Sestak has said there was one call, under a minute. Well, that doesn't match. So there are lies here, there’s something being covered up. What were the other offers? Who made them? So I think it‘s two different cases but in each of them it looks real bad. ... In journalism, one instance is an anecdote, three is a trend, [and] here we are hovering in the middle at two. >>> On Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wanting first to secure the border and President Obama wanting first comprehensive immigration reform: <<< There is something very odd about this. The executive is required under the constitution to execute the laws. We have laws about immigration. The government, by its own acknowledgment, has failed 10 million times to enforce it. (Since there are that many illegals in the United States.) And now it says: We'll only enforce it if we get comprehensive reform, i.e., we are not going to enforce existing law until we get a change in the law or new law. [But] you can't hold an existing law hostage -- [hold up] enforcement of it -- to a legislative agenda you have. You have to enforce the law. I do not understand how they can say this with a straight face in a constitutional democracy. You have to enforce the law. >>> .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/6/2010 1:57:26 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 35834

LBJ and Sestak/Romanoff Rich Lowry The Corner Obama's defenders have fastened on a case where LBJ's White House offered a job to Congressman Joe Kilgore to get him out of a senate primary against Sen. Ralph Yarborough. Fair enough. This shows that this kind of horse-trading has a long pedigree. It's also a sign of what's become of Obama's promises of a new kind of politics that his supporters are running back to LBJ for precedent. Here's an interesting passage in one of the conversations between Kilgore and LBJ aide Walter Jenkins that shows they didn't consider such a deal entirely appropriate, even back then: <<< Kilgore: Yes, but I think that there’d be an awful lot of people who would remember. I just don’t believe I could do it [accept an appointment]. I think then I couldn’t ever convince some people that there wasn’t some sort of a quid pro quo. Jenkins: Well— Kilgore: And while you and I would both know that wasn’t true, I just don’t want to run the risk of living my life having people thinking it was true— Jenkins: Well, there wouldn’t be. But . . . I’m sure that you trust us and we trust you, and there wouldn’t have to be. .

To: Sully- who wrote (33199)	6/14/2010 9:40:32 AM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 35834

Obama's Treachery By Geoffrey P. Hunt American Thinker Obama's White House stands accused of tampering with U.S. Senate primary elections involving Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Andrew Romanoff in Colorado. Both Democratic primary challengers apparently were urged to drop out of their races by White House operatives in exchange for a job. The details remain murky as storylines from White House officials, along with Sestak and Romanoff themselves, are both evasive and implausible. But this much is clear: Election tampering by Obama treads upon the very foundation of American exceptionalism -- free elections in a representative democracy. Cynics and apologists alike brush aside this scandal. It's business as usual, both political parties do it, you have to be naïve to believe this kind of electioneering is rare. In fact, Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania, on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, had the gall to assert that this kind of election manipulation shows presidential leadership in getting things done. Well, election tampering and transparent corruption are not business as usual unless you're a Democrat. Whether it be suppression of the black vote in the south for a hundred years after the Civil War, Tammany Hall politics at the turn of the 20th century in New York, machine politics in Chicago, or bribes and payoffs for votes on health care and stimulus funding, the failure to prosecute polling place intimidation by the Black Panthers in Philadelphia or Acorn voter registration fraud, this is the Democratic Party Way, the Obama Way. In a quote attributed to Robert Gibbs, Obama's mouthpiece, "The White House has a legitimate interest in avoiding messy Democratic Party primaries. ... Presidents, as leaders of their parties, have long had an interest in ensuring that supporters didn't run against each other in contested elections." Oh really? Should presidents bribe rivals to get them out of the way? Indeed, free elections are messy. President Obama himself said so in his commencement address this year at the University of Michigan: "U.S. politics long has been noisy and messy, contentious, complicated" -- a repeat of lines in his 2010 State of the Union, "Democracy in a nation of 300 million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy. That's just how it is." Apparently it's too messy, excessively contentious, and inconveniently complicated for Obama and his operatives to honor the bedrock principle in American governance. The Founders, especially James Madison, had great difficulty with direct democracy for good reason. Representative democracy instead offered stability and a check against mob rule. And a greater number of representatives would be an inoculation against corruption by the cabal of too few. But a reliance on representative democracy placed a heavy burden on the process of electing those representatives. "[S]uffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters" (From the Federalist No. 10). The symbolism of free elections in a representative democracy is best depicted in the 1851 painting The County Election by Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham, now owned by and displayed in the St. Louis Art Museum. Bingham, who painted a series of mid-19th-century political scenes, shows a typical small-town election somewhere in rural America. This painting evokes the characteristic ritual of American representative democracy, free exercise of suffrage. Of course, in 1851, universal suffrage was not yet the norm. Yet the scene evokes a "noisy, messy, contentious, and complicated process," as Obama would say. Simultaneously subtle and athletic -- with suasion and vote-prodding from a snort of hard cider, heated words, raised voices, muscular posturing, and even a newspaper editor's rant. And despite the sweaty, dusty, and strong breath elements of electioneering, the sacred ritual of a fully accessible process -- even Election Day mischief-making and influence-peddling, but all in the open, where voters can actually cast a ballot for their choices -- is at the heart of the American system of governance. Obama, riding the wave of a popular coronation, has been imposing governance through the raw power of an unbridled majority and has little patience for this sort of pluralism, especially when it interferes with his agenda. It's hard to imagine Obama endorsing Bingham's brand of representative democracy. Obama's hollow complaints against assaults on democracy, notably his condemnation of the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United vs FEC during his State of the Union address, are hailed by his Democratic Party bedfellows. Yet how easy it is for these same party hacks and shameless partisans to either ignore or rationalize Obama's own assault on democracy when he manipulates federal election primaries. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed -- and, by the way, was enabled by a far greater proportion of Republican than Democrat U.S. senators -- Democrats and liberals have been grandstanding self-promoters decrying voter disenfranchisement. But where is this purity of process when it comes to arriving at the actual names on the ballot? And who are now the champions of suppressing free speech through revival of the Fairness Doctrine and eliminating the U.S. Senate rules on the filibuster and cloture? The Democrats. Who are now advocating the regulation of journalism through the Federal Trade Commission? The Democrats. Obama and his operatives cannot escape the stench from their wholesale corruption of American governance. And their amateurish bungling is neither amusing nor defensible. Tampering with federal elections is only the latest in long line of brazen, cynical manipulations. Only a few among today's political class, notably Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), have the courage to call out such treachery by demanding an independent inquiry. How long will their courage hold out? .