…plotting to pass Net Neutrality.

I’ve written in this space for a while about who the real Astroturfers are in the Net Neutrality fight. Google – and its puppets like Free Press – are promoting this idea that it’s a struggle between big telecommunications firms, and the little guys. Except the little guys are actually bigger Internet firms. The corporations pressing for Net Neutrality are Fortune 500 and even Dow Jones Industrial Average firms, with billions in cash ready to be spent on Net Neutrality, trying to defeat Proposition 8, or even promoting Barack Obama.

That last one makes the FCC’s rush to regulate look bad, given all the placements of Google people within the Obama administration as well as the nearly one million dollars that Google employees gave to the Obama-Biden campaign. How do we know that the secretive Obama White House isn’t directing the FCC to pay off Google?

After all, we know he’s giving donors special treatment. In fact, it has come out that FCC Chairman Genachowski himself was a major fundraiser for Obama, pulling in over a half million for the campaign. Why shouldn’t we believe that this is all a big circle of back scratching in the Obama adminstration, when he refuses to release the kinds of information we need to determine otherwise?

The President has played political games with information all along. He dangles his birth certificate on a string in order to distract the right. He’s keeping as little of the Obamacare agenda in writing as possible, because he knows if we read it and expose his plans, we can win the fight, so we end up with ridiculous spectacles like a Senate committee voting on a bill that hasn’t been written yet. And now he’s playing footsie with donors in secret.

We must encourage and join Senator McCain and Representative Blackburn in their fresh legislative efforts to stop the Google/Obama Net Neutrality scheme. We cannot allow this kind of quid pro quo to go unchallenged.

(Via @vermontaigne) Three of them.  Need I add that Charlie Rangel is currently under investigation by that committee?

Charlie’s “angels” on the committee include Congressmen Ben Chandler of Kentucky, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Peter Welch of Vermont. All have received donations from Rangel.

Two of them - Chandler (KY-06, R+9*) & Butterfield (NC-01, D+9) - are apparently keeping it, too.  Considering that Rep. Rangel has given money to 119 Congressmen since the ethics probe began last year, you could almost not blame them.  Or almost not blame Rangel for acting as if he was above the laws that he writes:

Congressman Rangel has been arrogant in refusing to discuss how, as the man who writes this country’s tax laws, he failed to report over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions as required by the House, lapses under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

“I recognize that all of you have an obligation to ask questions knowing that there’s none of you smart enough to frame it in such a way that I’m going to respond,” Rangel said.

Almost.  But trust me, Charlie: the GOP takes back the House in 2010, we’re going to find it really easy to make you respond to the question.

Moe Lane

*Ben Chandler has already acquired a Republican challenger: Matt Lockett.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Hassan Nemazee was more recently a heavy donor and bundler for both the Clinton and Obama Presidential campaigns, bringing in over half a million for the new President; he was also a major bundler for the Presidential Inaugural.

NY Businessman Charged With $74 Million Bank Fraud Against Citigroup

A New York man was charged with allegedly defrauding Citigroup Inc. (C) out of $74 million in loans.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigations say Hassan Nemazee, with residences in Manhattan and Katonah, N.Y., fraudulently applied for the loans for Nemazee Capital Corp., of which he is chairman and chief executive.

Federal prosecutors contend Nemazee obtained the money by giving the banking giant “numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in Nemazee’s name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents.”

And I originally had him down as ‘former’ national finance chair for the DSCC, except that I’m seeing no signs that he quit the job (screenshot here).

See also AoSHQ & @AmandaCarpenter. [Also, Dan Riehl, who's doing some more research on the topic.]

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Just follow these easy steps!

1. Create AKPD Message & Media, a public relations company that specializes in astroturfing.
2. Attach yourself to the campaign of the candidate that eventually wins the 2008 Presidential election.
3. Disengage yourself from AKPD Media, but under circumstances where the company ‘owes’ you 2 million dollars, which it will then pay back over time (we call this ‘income’).
4. Become a Senior Advisor to the President.
5. Have the President negotiate a tone-deaf deal between the White House and lobbyist group PhRMA to get the pharmaceutical industry to support health care rationing.
6. ‘Discover’ one fine summer day that AKPD Media, the company that you created and which is still paying you money, has been given a fat advertising contract by PhRMA to astroturf health care rationing.
7. Profit!

See The Conservatives, Michelle Malkin, Protein Wisdom, Bloomberg, & Hugh Hewitt for more.

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Let’s have a contest.

It’s fitting that Michelle Malkin’s new book is out and rocketing up the charts. Having Eagle Publishing as our Beltway Overlord has its advantages because they also own Regnery Publishing, which published Michelle Malkin’s book. So I can give away a free copy without stealing back my copy, which I’ve sent to my dad to read.

So here’s the contest:

Write a letter to flag@whitehouse.gov disclosing your personal sins as a right-wing healthcare informant. Blind copy contact@redstate.com on the email.

We’ll review the emails and highlight the best of the best.

The user community will then vote for the very best one.

That person will win a free copy of Culture of Corruption.

NOTE: You’ll have to use a real email address because that’s how I’ll contact the winner.

I’m sure you’ve seen Matt Lauer lose his cool interviewing Michelle Malkin.

And if you want a really fun time, watch Michelle dominate the nags at the View. Poor old Joy Behar was left swallowing her spittle.

Michelle’s book is now #1 on the New York Times list, which is sending the left into a frenzy of antagonism.

I’ve read it. It’s awesome. And I don’t just say that because Regnery published it. It’s a great read. I gave away several free copies at the RedState Gathering and my dad has “borrowed” my copy.

Get your own copy here.

Tomorrow, the United States Senate’s Homeland Security Committee just might vote Tara O’Toole out of committee and send her to the floor for confirmation.

The committee may want to look again. Nominated by Janet Napolitano, there is a late breaking disparity in Ms. O’Toole’s testimony — disparate enough to suggest she is hiding some very close times to John Murtha. And the tangled web of lobbyists, high dollars, and corruption just might infiltrate the Department of Homeland Security.

Ms. O’Toole is the head of the very well respected Center for Biosecurity. According to written testimony to the United States Senate on June 10, 2009, in response to a question about ties between Ms. O’Toole’s Center for Biosecurity and a group called the Alliance for Biosecurity, Ms. O’Toole told the Senate

the Alliance for Biosecurity [is] a group initiated by the Center for Biosecurity in 2006. . . . The Center for Biosecurity receives no money from any member of the Alliance and funds all costs associated with running the Alliance out of our philanthropic funds. No biotech or pharmaceutical firm provides the Center with financial support of any kind.

Odd, in new written testimony to the Senate — testimony not even fully publicly available — Ms. O’Toole now claims there are no “financial connections” between the Center for Biosecurity and the Alliance for Biosecurity. In fact, Ms. O’Toole now disavows all connections between the Center and Alliance.

Why?

Well, let’s follow the money.

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Michelle Malkin has done it again — another best seller. Her new book Culture of Corruption is soaring to #1 on the best sellers lists and it’s no secret why — it is a devastating blow to Barack Obama and, unlike the reality based community, is actually based on real facts.

Naturally, the leftist horde has assembled to attack her and seek to discredit her. No, they are not seeking to discredit her book, but her personally. That’s natural. Michelle did a hell of a job documenting everything she says with lots and lots of notes.

Her book is particularly timely because of the healthcare debate. In the book, she documents how Barry O’s wife got a job via earmarks at the University of Chicago’s hospital and then administered a program engaged in patient dumping.

The high-paying “community affairs” post was another make-work job no one else at the university needed to do until Michelle Obama came along. And it was a job no one else needed to fill after she left. In January 2009, Mrs. Obama’s indispensable job was eliminated as part of a massive restructuring to cut annual budget costs by 7 percent. . . . Unfortunately for many of Chicago’s poor, Mrs. Obama didn’t depart until after she helped engineer a rather un-progressive and unkind plan to dump low-income patients with non-urgent complaints from the medical center.

It’s all there and all documented. It’s also a number one best seller. It’s available right here.

Oh, and full disclosure, Regnery Publishing, which is also owned by RedState’s Beltway Overlords, published the book. That just means I got a free copy to review.

Some details from the story (covered here and here):

• Yes, in fact: there was trafficking in human organs involved.  At least one individual has been brought up on charges of attempting to sell a liver.
• The list of individuals and charges can be found here: we’re looking at conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and again, at least one charge in trafficking in human organs.  There are at least two Republicans on the list; but the Hudson County Democratic Party organizational chart is probably going to end up looking like there was a sudden outbreak of the bubonic plague.
• There is currently no indication that Governor Corzine was aware that numerous Democratic officials were allegedly involved in any conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and/or trafficking in human organs.  He apparently missed it completely.
• The FBI raided Community Affairs Commissioner (and NJ Cabinet member) Joseph Doria’s office, presumably in relation to their investigation of conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering, and/or trafficking in human organs charges; Doria has resigned.
• Gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie (R) is also involved in this up to his eyeballs; in the sense that he was the one that started the investigation two years ago as a… I believe the term is, ‘crusading US Attorney.’
• An attempt to get a statement from Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Hudson County Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was unsuccessful.  There has been no press release and/or statement made at the time that this post was written.

And that’s how it stands at the moment.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Wow. I wonder if Chairman Murtha - the one who delivered all the earmarks - knew that his brother was apparently somehow implicated in this fraud. I also wonder who else on the House Appropriations Committee knew. After all, the entire committee is responsible for vetting earmark requests and at least making a minimal attempt to determine that they are spent in compliance with the law:

A contracting firm that had hired the brother of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) as its lobbyist took the proceeds from a Murtha-provided, $8.2 million Air Force earmark and distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to other companies represented by the Congressman’s brother for items that were not part of the project, the Justice Department charged Thursday…

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I can’t say I blame them; it’s hard to have confidence in a crook.

WHEREAS Senator Dodd has violated either in fact or in appearance or both, in the several ways herein elaborated, the trust placed in him by his constituents,

THEREFORE We the members of the Kent Democratic Town Committee conclude that it is the legitimate responsibility of the people to intervene and to reject those political representatives who have become enamored with achieving and maintaining their own position and power at the expense of the citizens,

WE RESOLVE that Senator Dodd does not deserve our support, and that through his pattern of behavior, he has become a symbol of what is wrong with our electoral system and deserves our vote of NO CONFIDENCE.

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False disclosures, conflicts of interest, lying about the implications of his new disclosures… he’s really racked up quite a list of offenses in one financial filing:

A new appraisal of the Irish cottage owned by Sen. Christopher Dodd concludes that it is worth about three times as much as Dodd has been reporting on his financial disclosure forms…

Dodd has been criticized for understating the value of the cottage in his disclosure forms. Questions also have been raised about his original purchase of the cottage with a Kansas City businessman, William Kessinger, whom he met through longtime friend and campaign contributor Edward Downe.

It is unclear when the new appraisal was done, although a spokesman for Dodd said Friday that it was after questions arose in the press about the cottage and its value earlier this year. Courant columnist Kevin Rennie had raised the questions.

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John Murtha has disgraced his office in a host of ways since he was first elected to Congress: from his willingness to entertain bribes during the Abscam investigation, to his delivery of millions in taxpayer dollars into the hands of friends and associates, to his slandering of former Marines. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that he’s also willing to forego some of the responsibilities of his office.

One of the jobs of a Member of Congress is to attempt to ensure that federal funds are spent honestly and wisely. Some elected officials take this seriously; others more or less ignore it. I can’t recall a Member of Congress who specifically claimed that it was not his responsibility - until now:

Mr. Murtha is treated like a god throughout the two-day event, with contractors literally bending down almost on their knees to talk to him. He is forced often to sit, due to recent knee surgery. That ended at a brief news conference Friday morning.

His office had just announced $110 million in federal contract awards to local firms, but a reporter wanted to get his reaction to the federal investigation of Kuchera Defense Systems, which is among the congressman’s biggest campaign contributors. The imposing, white-maned 76-year-old flashed some righteous anger.

“So what’s that got to do with me?” the 6-foot-6-inch former Marine replied. “What do you think, I oversee these companies? That’s the Defense Department’s job. That’s not my job. You guys write these stories [but] you don’t have a clue what this is all about.”

“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, then left out a back door…

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I guess the Obama Administration has decided to cut out the middleman and go directly to hiring people who already have criminal records, eh? Did the Obama “vetting” team somehow miss this?

In the annals of vetting, this will go down as the most laughable miss ever: Vivek Kundra, the D.C. official tapped by Obama to run government technology, pleaded guilty to a theft charge in 1997.

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A leading figure of the Philadelphia Democratic machine fell today.  Former State Senator Vince Fumo was convicted on 137 counts:

A federal jury in Philadelphia has convicted once-powerful former Pennsylvania state senator Vincent Fumo of every one of the 137 counts against him, including the serious charges of conspiring to defraud the Pennsylvania Senate, a nonprofit organization he founded, and the Independence Seaport Museum of millions of dollars. The Senate conspiracy count was the first of the counts being returned Monday against Fumo.

The 65-year-old Philadelphia Democrat was charged with defrauding the senate, the nonprofit, and the museum of more than $3.5 million, and destroying e-mail evidence.

Fumo ran the South Philadelphia Italian Democratic machine for years. There have been stories about menus of votes (give Fumo so much money and get so many votse) floating around Philly politics for a generation.

There are several real stories in this for Pennsylvania politics.

First, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has been weakened. Its ability to turn out votes out of South Philly has been significantly reduced. This is both a body and a money operation. Both have been diminished. And a smaller Democratic margin out of Philadelphia means less of a need for a higher Republican margin in the small counties.

Second, this is a big coup for Pat Meehan, the former US Attorney who first convicted Fumo on two counts back in 2007. Putting a leading Democrat in jail will help solidify his base in Southeast Pennsylvania, which is a powerful floor to work from in a Pennsylvania primary.

Third, and especially if Meehan wins his primary, this will polarize the debate in a Pennsylvania general election. With Tom Corbett at AG and a recent high-profileDemocratic conviction, Republicans are bound to hit the differences hard.

(Followup to this post)

The bad news, of course, is that majority party Democrats are adamant against having any investigation into whether there are links between campaign contributions and earmarks in bills - which is very interesting, given that they control Congress, and thus can presumably make sure that the proceedings are fair…

The House voted Wednesday to kill a resolution calling for an ethics investigation into potential quid pro quo between lobbyist campaign donations and lawmakers.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sponsored the proposal that would have forced the House Ethics Committee to launch a probe into ties between the source and timing of campaign contributions by lobbyists and subsequent legislator requests for special projects or earmarks.

While open-ended, Flake’s resolution was a direct response to the ongoing federal investigation into the PMA Group, a lobbying company accused of making fraudulent donations to lawmakers using names of people who did not exist.

The firm, which has contributed millions to politicians in the last decade, has close ties to senior Democratic appropriators including Reps. John Murtha D-Pa., and Pete Visclosky,D-Ind. The FBI raided PMA’s headquarters in November and is investigating the group’s founder and president, Paul Magliochetti, a former Murtha aide.

Ah. That might be the problem, right there.

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Apparently, he’s going to be part of quite the throng. Via Red County and Dave Evans for Congress comes this WaPo report:

Hurry, hurry, hurry. Congress will begin its 2009 travel season in earnest this weekend with two spectacular codels — trips for House congressional delegations — that are not to be missed.

On Saturday, Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House delegation to NATO’s parliamentary assembly, and his wife will lead a delegation of 13 lawmakers — plus 10 spouses — on a fine nine-day jaunt starting at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

[snip]

The huge number of members, spouses and staffers, plus military escorts, will require taking one of the bigger military jets, but we’re told these trips are an important use of taxpayer money.

No, of course he has no obvious legislative reason to go. As Dave Evans further notes:

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Pithily put:

Mr. Burris’s story has more twists than the Chicago El, and none of them good. Caught in a swirl of accusations of perjury and calls for his resignation from state Democrats and Republicans alike, Mr. Burris said yesterday, “I welcome the opportunity to go before any and all investigative bodies, including those referred by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the Senate ethics committee to answer any questions they have.” When that opportunity arises, why should anyone believe him?

Link.

We’re really not going to entertain serious arguments that Burris was being honest in answering the questions asked of him concerning his dealings with Rod Blagojevich, right? I mean, everyone has the right to a defense but that doesn’t mean that all defenses are equally credible, does it?

Despite my disgust with the shenanigans of the erstwhile governor of my state, and despite a similar disgust with the unwillingness of my state’s legislature to authorize a special election for the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama–can’t run the risk that the seat go to a Republican after all; democratic republicanism only works for some people if they win elections–I was always in favor of the Senate seating Roland Burris, our new Senator, when he was appointed to the position by former Governor Rod Blagojevich. I had assumed–and was given no reason to believe anything to the contrary–that the appointment was free of the taint that surrounded so many of Blagojevich’s actions while Governor and while I wanted the law to be changed so that a special election would occur, the law is nevertheless the law.

Of course, these were my beliefs before I had the chance to read this:

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother solicited U.S. Sen. Roland Burris for up to $10,000 in campaign cash before Blagojevich named Burris to the coveted post — something Burris initially failed to disclose under oath before an Illinois House impeachment panel, records and interviews show.

Burris acknowledges being hit up for the money in a new affidavit he has sent to the head of the House committee that recommended Blagojevich be removed from office.

The affidavit is dated Feb. 5 — three weeks after Burris was sworn in to replace President Obama in the Senate.

[. . .]

Burris’ statement offers the third version of events he has given about his discussions concerning the Senate seat, to which Blagojevich appointed him in late December, after Blagojevich was hit with federal corruption charges that included an allegation he tried to sell the Senate appointment.

More here.

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