This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Politics

  • So where’d the money go?

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    Mother Harriette

    I can’t believe that this story hasn’t grown legs. No one outside of the blogosphere and the Beltway has heard of this potentially $30 million rip-off by relatively low-level government employees. I work across the street from the DC Tax and Revenue Office and two of my workmates from Baltimore have never heard of the scam. It’s 30 MILLION BUCKS, for cryin’ outloud.

    The worst part? The Feds don’t know how much was stolen or where it went according to the Washington Examiner;

    The number of phony checks recorded by the scandal-ridden D.C. tax office continues to grow, but a critical question remains: Where did the money go?

    If cashed, the bogus checks would have cost the District more than $40 million, according to a report published by The Washington Post, and a similar tally was reached by The Examiner.

    But investigators cautioned that it is far from certain what amount was ever actually stolen from the city tax coffers. Tax office thieves may have prepared checks that for various reasons were never cashed.

    Law enforcement officials have told The Examiner that the case is probably much more complicated than adding up fraudulent-appearing check approvals from city records.

    The Washington Post reported Sunday that $44.3 million in false payment approvals could be found in a review of tax record offices dating to June 1999. An analysis by The Examiner has found $41.5 in questionable approvals.

    It’s so bad that the Feds are going to give immunity to one of the suspects so they can just get an outline of what the hell happened;

    A former tax office employee has been offered one day of immunity to tell prosecutors what she knows about the largest corruption scandal in D.C. history.

    Diane Gustus is facing up to 100 years in prison on charges that she helped co-worker Harriette Walters siphon off tens of millions of dollars through a series of phony tax refunds and dummy companies.

    But authorities have given her limited immunity for a meeting this week in the hope that she can help unravel the conspiracy and help the government track down the stolen money, sources with intimate knowledge of the case told The Examiner.

    Yeah, lets get some bigger government and give them more of our money because they’re so careful with how it gets spent.

  • Clinton gets ugly (well, moreso, than usual)

    So the second prettiest woman in the Democrat field of presidential candidates has begun to fall behind a bit, and out come the ugly sticks (Washington Post, Anne Komblut);

    With a new poll showing her losing ground in the Iowa caucus race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) mounted a new, more aggressive attack against Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Sunday, raising direct questions about his character, challenging his integrity and forecasting a sharp debate over those subjects in the days ahead.

    Clinton has hammered Obama recently over his health-care proposal, arguing that he is misleading voters because it omits millions of people and would not lower costs. But Sunday, in a dramatic shift, she made it clear that her goal is to challenge Obama not just on policy but also on one of his strongest selling points: his reputation for honesty.

    “There’s a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we’re willing to fight for,” Clinton told reporters here. She said voters in Iowa will have a choice “between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who’s walked the walk.”

    Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama’s character, she replied: “It’s beginning to look a lot like that.”

    So, it looks like Robert Novak’s predictions back in mid-November are coming to pass, despite Clinton denials to the contrary;

    Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.

    This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s now discarded plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

    But Clinton’s cohorts denied it;

    Clinton’s camp swung back, denying they were spreading rumors about Obama or that they planted information with Novak, wondering why Obama would want to fall into a “Republican trap” to “pit Democrats against Democrats.”

    So it looks like Novak does know what he’s talking about – let’s see what surfaces from non-Clinton sources in the next few weeks, since the Clinton campaign dosen’t want to get any splash back on their candidate.

  • Romney Won’t be President

    In one of the all time stupid moves, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has decided to give a speech about his Mormon faith.
    While Jack Kennedy gave a speech about his Catholicism and it helped him, Mormonism is not Catholicism.

    The edge many Republican candidates have held over their Democrat opponents is the support of the Evangelical Christians of the nation. Highlighting the differences between LDS beliefs and those of Evangelical Christians can only hurt any Mormon candidate.

    While Mormon teaching is, in many areas inline with mainstream Christianity, however, it is not the same. The Romney campaign’s best option was to gloss over these differences until after Mitt was either THE Nominee or, preferably, the President. They blew that. His campaign will not survive the loss of the Evangelical Christians.

  • Final chapter of the Scott Thomas Beauchamp saga

    Franklin Foer has written the final chapter of the “Shock Troops” saga. Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee fame writes at Pajamas Media;

    It takes him fourteen pages, but Franklin Foer finally makes an admission regarding Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s posts in The New Republic.

    …in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

    Foer’s opus begins 13 pages earlier and attempts the impossible feat of justifying his editorial leadership at The New Republic from the time period leading up to the publication of Beauchamp’s work to the fourteen-page long screed that culminated in the pained retraction above.

    It’s beyond me why it has taken this long – except that I know the Left has taken a page from the Clinton book. They wait a sufficiently long time hoping no one is paying attention, or sick and tired the whole thing, when they finally admit they were wr…uh…wr…uh…wr…uh…wrong.

    Spree at Wake Up America has the transcripts and background leading up to this point. Bloggers are declaring victory, once again. Of course, this blogger said it was BS back when it began – I took a personal interest when I found out it was my last company, A 1/18th Infantry, and wrote a piece that is still one of the highest traffic posts on this blog though it was written back in July. In August, Beuchamp recanted, but we already knew it was a fantasy because GI Jane posted an email she’d gotten from Beauchamp’s First Sergeant.

    Michele Malkin says “Buh-bye, Franklin Foer“. Jimbo at Black Five says “Please fire Foer“. DrewM at Ace of Spades says;

    I’ve read it all now and it’s a sad story about people who should have known better but were blinded by their faith in The Narrative. TNR was like Fox Mulder, they wanted to believe.

    Actually, it’s more than that. Everyone who had spent more than a day in the infantry was telling these guys they were wrong, but they’re so steeped in their elitist bullshit culture that tells them everything they need to know is in books, they disregarded people with actual experiences similar to Beauchamp’s fantasies.

    If they’d stopped and swallowed their pride for a moment and asked actual authorities, instead of the gumballs that tell them what they want to hear, they could have avoided this whole mess from the start. And apparently, according to Michele Malkin’s transcripts, Foer knew Beuachamp was lying back in August. By not apologizing back then, he needs to lose his job.

    Now Foer calls it “The Fog of War“, invoking Tzun Tzu as an excuse for his own journalistic failures. The last four months have had nothing to do with war, Franklin. You should have called the “Fog of Leftist Manipulation”.

    Patterico quotes Foer;

    When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that.

    Horseshit. Your magazine has no standards – especially if you’re blaming your writers for your own shortcomings. Beauchamp gave you exactly the stories you were looking for – you used him just like you used the entire military for sensationalist journalism. Maybe Mad or Cracked can use your brand of journalism.

    See Blue Crab Boulevard‘s “Fouteen Pages and Run For Cover” for more links and a perfect cartoon. Allahpundit writes;

    On the very first page, Foer introduces Beauchamp’s pieces as exercises in “how war distorts moral judgments.” That’s what they wanted to hear, that’s what they got. Their explanation for why they have to cut Beauchamp loose now: War distorts mental judgments, too. Perfect.

  • Court upholds immigration laws in VA

    Earlier this year, Prince William County, VA passed legislation that would require anyone to prove they’re legal residents of the county before they participated in any county programs. Seems reasonable doesn’t it? Well, not according to the illegal residents of Prince William County (surprise), so they took the County to court. 
    They were handed their collective ass yesterday in court, according to Seth McLaughlin of the Washington Times;

    A federal judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prince William County’s [Va.] new ordinance denying services to illegal aliens. 
    Judge James C. Cacheris said during a brief hearing at U.S. District Court in Alexandria that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the resolution passed earlier this year by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

    Judge Cacheris said he will issue a written ruling at a later time detailing his decision. 
    The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed the lawsuit last month on behalf of plaintiffs who included illegal aliens and the Woodbridge Workers Committee, an organization of day laborers in Prince William County.

    But county attorneys argued that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate they had suffered any harm under the measures, which have not been fully implemented. 
    “This is a big win,” said Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. “This is the best shot that some of the best litigators in the country can throw at our resolution against illegal immigration. I think that is very telling.”

    So what’s the result going to be? Well, I wrote back in October that Ike Leggett, Montgomery County (Maryland) Supervisor (across the Potomac River from PW County) has already accepted the inevitable – instead of passing similar laws that would prevent illegal immigrants from invading Maryland and draining us of our resources (the resources that we pay for with our tax dollars) Leggett just criticized Prince William County instead;

    “When one jurisdiction tries to force people to move around, they don’t leave,” Leggett said. “They either shift the burden from one community to another, or they go underground. That’s why this is not a solution.”

    The result will be expanded services for illegals in Montgomery County, Maryland at the expense of legal residents because Maryland legislators are more interested in appearing humane to the world than protecting their own citizens.

    (Crossposted at Red Maryland)

  • Disenfranchisement is Wrong, Isn’t it? Unless Democrats Do it.

    Michigan Democrats have been disenfranchised by their party. Their votes will not count during the run up to the Presidential election. The Democratic party ripped their votes away, because Michigan decided to hold it’s primary in January, because party rules, prohibit states other than New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina from having their primaries prior to February.

    When Florida scheduled its primary early, the Democrats, punished them too.
    What the Hell?

    I thought Democrats were against disenfranchisement unless the denied voters were members of the military…

    Aren’t the votes of Floridians and whatever you call people from Michigan valuable? I’m sure the DNC will want those votes in November. Hell, were I a democrat in Florida or Michigan and my vote was taken, I’d be livid. I wouldn’t stand for this. This might even encourage people to throw their votes to the Republicans out of spite.

    Spiteful votes work too, I’m sure whoever the Republican candidate turns out to be will welcome them.

  • I am a One Issue Voter, and so are you

    We hear about one issue voters, people whose passion for one specific issue overrides all other considerations. I have, until this morning, believed those people to be abjectly stupid.

    I was driving along, minding my own business when it hit me, like a bat. I am a one issue voter…EVERYONE is a one issue voter.

    It isn’t guns or drugs. Not gays or terrorists, nor abortion or taxes. Except it is all those things and all other things also.

    What is this illusive singular issue? Right and Wrong. My votes go to those candidates whose actions, and record show their agreement with my ideals of right and wrong. The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is almost always the case for conservatives.

  • Yet Another Phony Soldier

    In reference to the Hillary Clinton plant, Keith Kerr at the CNN/YouTube Republican debate the other night, David Horowitz received this email (h/t Atlas Shrugs);

    In spite of my current distractions at home I am forced to enter the public arena to express my outrage at the current republican debate as managed by CNN. Gay Keith is not a brigadier general. He is not even an active duty retired army officer. He spent his years as a reservist solely in the state of California military bureaucracy. His bio is published in the gay organization dedicated to voiding the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy.

    For details. You must note that Kerr was retired from the inactive army reserves in the grade of colonel. With the exception of a few years served on active duty as a lieutenant his entire service was in the reserves in California. He was placed in retired reserve status with the California National Guard reserves and promoted to brigadier general in that federally unrecognized status.

    It damn sure is tough to be a lying sack o’shit in the age of the internet, ain’t it? In case you don’t remember who General Kerr was, Michele Malkin can refresh us;

    The tallest plant was a retired gay vet, one “Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr,” who questioned – or rather, lectured – the candidates on video and in person about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans open gays from the military.

    Funny. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was exactly the policy CNN adopted in not telling viewers that Kerr is a member of Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual- Transgender Americans for Hillary.

    Hot Air has “CNN Defending their Vetting Procedures“