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It’s all the Tea Party’s fault

Remember “Not Me”? He was the famous invisible cartoon gremlin in the newspaper comic strip “The Family Circus.” Whenever toys were left on the floor or other school-age disasters struck, the kids in the comic pointed their fingers at “Not Me.” Today, “Tea Party” is the juvenile left’s new “Not Me” — an all-purpose scapegoat for every crime and disaster.

On Thursday morning, a disturbed pilot flew a small plane into an Austin, Texas, office complex that contained an Internal Revenue Service office. Several workers in the building were injured, and Joseph Andrew Stack, the pilot, was killed in the crash. Local authorities suspect he set his house on fire — from which his wife and daughter escaped — before taking off on his deadly journey. Investigators found a Web posting, identified as Stack’s “suicide manifesto,” in which he railed against tax laws, inequity, government, and crony capitalism. He also targeted “puppet” George W. Bush, murderous healthcare insurers, and the pharmaceutical industry.

The “manifesto” ended:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Stack had deadly grudges that transcended partisan lines. But within minutes of the story breaking, a furious left-wing blogger at the popular Daily Kos website — where countless Democratic leaders have guest-posted — fumed: “Teabag*** terrorist attack on IRS building.” The article immediately cast blame on the anti-tax Tea Party movement: “After months of threats on the United States government, and government institutions, the Anti-Government forces known as the teabag***s have struck with their first 911 (sic) inspired terrorist attack.”

At the eponymous mega-website of Arianna Huffington, a 2,000-plus comment thread was filled with allusions to “teabag***s”:

I would bet he has a membership card to teabag nation and the Glenn Beck fan club!
Tea bag bomb.
Good to see natural selection still works! Tea party Unite!
This guy sounds just like a teabag***.
Oh please. This has tea bags dripping all over it.
I hope teabag***s are proud!! … Great opening day for CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) isn’t it??
This guy sounds like a Tea Partier first class! Maybe that movement is more DANGEROUS to our freedoms than they let on! Be afraid America, BE VERY AFRAID!
He was a Tea Party Terrorist.

In the early aftermath of the suicidal pilot’s attack, there was no evidence that Stack belonged to a Tea Party organization. In any case, no law-abiding Tea Party group would ever condone what he did. But it didn’t stop the haters from immediately smearing advocates of limited government. And it’s just the latest in a long line of calculated attempts to paint the vast majority of peaceful Tea Party activists as terrorist threats to civil society.

This week, absurd liberal pundits and bloggers also tried to connect the tragic University of Alabama-Huntsville murders to the Tea Party movement. No matter that the alleged killer, Amy Bishop, was an Obama-worshiping academic who repeatedly got a soft-on-crime pass. Or that Democratic Rep. William Delahunt of Massachusetts was the former prosecutor involved in dropping charges against Bishop in the deadly shooting of her teenage brother. Or that liberal-dominated campus officials apparently looked the other way in response to Bishop’s several red-flag flashes of violence leading up to the U of A shootings.

Tea Party-bashers claimed that the murders were a manifestation of racist conservative influence on the American landscape. Reuters Foundation fellow Jonathan Curiel picked up the theme: “The ‘results’ that the Tea Party movement envisions include less government — and less of Obama.”

Curiel bemoaned the rejection of a post-racial society by tying together the Alabama massacre and the rise of the Tea Party movement more explicitly. Proof of anti-Obama bigotry, he wrote, could be found in “last week’s shooting in Alabama, where a disgruntled white professor murdered three minority professors; and the growing success of the Tea Party movement, which is overwhelmingly white and increasing (sic) vocal in its violent dislike of the nation’s first black president.”

The same warped worldview blamed Tea Party conservatives for Kentucky census worker Bill Sparkman’s insurance-scam-inspired suicide and for Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn’s rampage (despite his published rants against Fox News).

The smear merchants, of course, are simply following Rahm Emanuel’s advice to exploit every crisis. Pointing fingers at the Tea Party gremlin demonizes the left’s most potent political opponents. This is the blame-gamers’ ultimate agenda: criminalizing dissent.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

If you’re like me, President Obama’s condescending tone
during Wednesday’s State of the Union address became annoying.

He upbraided the Republican minority; he chastised his own
party’s legislators; he publically excoriated the United
States Supreme Court; he blasted former administrations;
and he told the Joint Chiefs of Staff exactly how it was
going to be on the explosive issue of homosexuals openly
serving in the military.

In fact, the only government official who remained above
blame for any of the nation’s problems was… himself.

The closest President Obama came to accepting personal
responsibility was to admit that on the healthcare issue he
was culpable for, “…not explaining it more clearly to the
American people.”

As if anyone could explain the 2,000-plus pages of each
version of the ObamaCare bills!  I am deeply concerned that
the Obama White House, which has done so much to dominate
Congress and manipulate the legislative process, is now
openly attacking the judicial branch!

++Political attacks on Justices Alito and Roberts

The President’s public humiliation of Supreme Court Justices
seated in front of the Democratic side of the chamber was
outrageous.  The impact of his strong criticism of their
recent decision in “Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission” brought Democrats leaping to their feet to
join his condemnation!

The Justices were forced to endure the sustained applause of
his criticism – and then hear his emphatic promise to
circumvent their decision!  This breach of civility had
the effect of intimidating the Supreme Court Justices.

This political theater was painful to watch and constituted
a serious affront to the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Just two days later, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), President
Obama’s chief advocate and “water carrier” in the United
States Senate, began complaining to the press that both
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito had “misled”
Congress during their confirmation hearings.

The chorus then grew to include Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)
and Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

The political point?  Don’t think about crossing the
tyrannical Obama/Pelosi/Reid power axis, even if you’re
seated on the highest Court in the land!

++One more reason why we MUST “Take Back America”

After watching the President’s new “combative posture” he
displayed in the State of the Union address, I have become
more committed than ever to Liberty Counsel’s campaign
for a return to national sanity.

We cannot allow the radical Obama/Pelosi/Reid power axis
to take any more ground!

The 2010 State of the Union address made it perfectly clear
that President Obama and his crowd are not going to give up
on ANYTHING they said they wanted from the beginning -
including Cap and Trade, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell,” passage of the discredited ObamaCare legislation,
and all the other frightening proposals the President
laboriously mentioned in his speech.

We want to tell the media, our elected representatives,
government bureaucrats – and whoever else needs to hear
about it – that tens of thousands of Americans REFUSE to
stand silently by while socialist Democrats take our
nation apart, plank by plank!

If President Obama gets even a small part of the radical
agenda he poured over for more than an hour on Wednesday
night, America will be in grave danger of becoming a
socialist nation!

America will experience change this year.  The question is
what kind of change.  Will it be the radicalism of Obama, or
will it be a return to the sound principles of the Founders?

Thank you and God bless America!

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

Martin Luther King Jr. Held These Truths. Do You?

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and admonished America to return to its First Principles. In his I Have a Dream Speech, he announced his dream that “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” He longed to see a day when all “would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’” Dr. King did not talk about remaking America. His dream was one which, in his words, was “deeply rooted in the American dream.” It hearkened back to the principles upon which our country was founded. It was not a rejection of our past, but a vision of hope based on the principles of our past.

Dr. King held firm to the truths of the Declaration of Independence in a time when the situation of African Americans appeared hopeless. Based on a series of arbitrary and unjust policies, African Americans were denied basic protections of the rule of law. Segregation prevented access to public accommodations, and many were reduced to poverty as a result of these injustices. Dr. King did not ask African Americans to be satisfied with their condition, nor did he denounce America as an unjust nation. Instead, Dr. King assured his listeners that their circumstances were contrary to America’s creed. He used the central principle of the Declaration – natural human equality – as a rallying cry for civil rights.

Dr. King held that the principle of human equality is the foundation of the Declaration’s statement of natural rights. We are all equal because we all participate in a common human nature. Since we are all equal, we are all entitled to the basic rights that are derived from human nature. From these First Principles, Dr. King understood that all Americans—regardless of skin color—should have access to the rule of law, public accommodations, and thereby have the ability to pursue economic opportunities and, ultimately, happiness.

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It’s quiet. It’s early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is still asleep. The day is coming. In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met. For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day’s demands. It is now that I must make a choice. Because of Calvary, I’m free to choose. And so I choose…

I CHOOSE LOVE… No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves.

I CHOOSE JOY… I will invite my God to be the God of circumstances. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical… the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

I CHOOSE PEACE… I will live forgiven. I will forgive so that I may live.

I CHOOSE PATIENCE… I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I’ll invite him to do so. Rather than complain that the wait is too long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.

I CHOOSE KINDNESS… I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for such is how God has treated me.

I CHOOSE GOODNESS… I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I will accuse.

I CHOOSE FAITHFULNESS… Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My associates will not question my word. My wife will not question my love. And my children will never fear that their father will not come home.

I CHOOSE GENTLENESS… Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.

I CHOOSE SELF-CONTROL… I am a spiritual being. After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will not, rule the eternal. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – Galatians 5:22,23

To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest with the peace that passes all understanding.

Take Courage! Healing Can Be Yours!  

The other day, while standing in the check-out line at the local grocery store, the individual in front of me gazed at each of the tabloid newspapers on display, and selected one of each to purchase along with her other selected items. I was once again amazed to see someone pay for those items. Have you ever noticed some of the headlines on those tabloids?

• “Osama Captured By Rednecks”

• “Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees”

• “Kitten Guilty Of Murder”

• “Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby”

• “Dick Cheney Is A Robot”

• “Terrorist Plot To Blow Up Internet On 1-11”

It’s amazing what some folks will believe. But, its even more amazing at what many people don’t believe! In Mark 5, we read that a man named Jairus wanted to have Jesus pray for his daughter to be healed. But, while en route to see his daughter, Jairus‘ daughter died. Jairus‘ friends told him to stop bothering Jesus, because the girl was already deceased.

Jesus‘ response to these people is still His response to people today to those who desire to be healed – “Don’t be afraid – just believe!”

My friend, Evangelist Tiff Shuttlesworth, once said to me that if health care gets any more expensive, Pentecostals are going to have to start believing in divine healing again! Although said in humor, it emphasizes a simple truth – to receive a healing from God, you must believe that God is a healer!

This Sunday at WFA, we continue our series of messages built on the passages where Jesus tells his followers to “Take Courage!” In the parallel passages of Matthew 9 and Mark 5, we read of two healings – one interrupted by the other! The Lord encouraged one of the individuals healed, when He told her “Take courage! Your faith has made you well!” As we examine these passages of the two accounts of healing, we trust that you will be encouraged. Don’t miss our message – “Take Courage! Healing Can Be Yours!”

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009

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Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.”  The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him.  In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat.  In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms.  Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms.  However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued.  Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate.  The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up.  Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power.  The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign.  Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence.  According to The New York Times:  “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…”  The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban.  Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair.  (These are potentially criminal offenses.)   It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank.  As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending.  Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.”  Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a “federal regulator,” and Treasury granted the funds.  (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.)  Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).  For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated:  “I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis.  That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate.  I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.”  Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008.  Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system.  (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?)  It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties.  In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash.  Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008.  However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009.  The timing is important.  According to CNN:  “Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG’s impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28.  That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.”  Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed “household help” ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington” list.

5. Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won’t be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General.  Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes:  obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro’s Cuba.  Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism.  Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers.  His record in the current administration is no better.  As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House.  For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder’s former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s.  The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.  On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations.  Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama.  There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign.  And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws.  Holder’s controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.  Holder’s politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.

6. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.  Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal:  Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.  According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named “Senate Candidate A” in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat.  Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich.  Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat.  According to Reuters:  “Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich — later charged with trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat — at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor’s aides about his desire to be appointed.”  Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate.  Three of those changing explanations came under oath.

7. President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration.  However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House.  Consider just a few Obama administration “lowlights” from year one:  Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell the President’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder.  (Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.)  Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires.  The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade “artists” to promote the Obama agenda.  According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation.  President Obama has installed a record number of “czars” in positions of power.  Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president.  And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions).  Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write:  “The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”  Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama’s “ethics” record — and we haven’t even gotten through the first year of his presidency.

8. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement.  Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them.  Case in point:  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel.  Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2008 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline.  These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s 11th hour cancellations and changes.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA’s use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations.  The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise.  Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques.  Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list.  (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)

9. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons.  The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group.  PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman’s largest campaign contributor.  Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients.  And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity?  Earmarks — tens of millions of dollars in earmarks.  In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it.  Following an FBI raid of PMA’s offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions.  According to The Hill, in April, “Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills.”  When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone.  As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post.  They include:  Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.).  Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, “cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file.”  The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha’s nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts:  “Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military.”

10. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly “forget” to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property.  He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding.  On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth.  (He somehow “forgot” about $1 million in assets.)  And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this?  He apparently resorted to making “campaign contributions” to dig his way out of trouble.  According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate:  “The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently ‘wrangling’ other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles…Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.”  Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it.  That’s why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

Planned Parenthood: The Bigger Picture

by The Association of Mature American Citizens    |     Found in the Simply Jedediah category

Jedediah Bila

By Jedediah Bila, Author and Political Commentator

Planned Parenthood has once again proven what many know all too well:  the organization’s mission, despite its charming title, has little to nothing to do with family planning or parenthood.

Footage released on December 9, 2009 from a Live Action undercover investigation in Appleton, WI titled The Rosa Acuna Project, reveals a Planned Parenthood counselor and an abortion doctor providing medically inaccurate, misleading information to a female “patient” in order to encourage her to have an abortion.  Some of the more alarming statements include:  “It’s not a baby at this stage or anything like that,” “You know, women die having babies,” and an insistence that the “fetus” does not possess a heartbeat, but rather a “heart tone.”  According to Live Action, leading embryologists Dianne Irving and Ward Kischer have labeled the statements by the counselor and doctor in the video “scientifically erroneous and absurd.”  The video complements former Texas Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson’s declaration that “Planned Parenthood really tries to instill in their employees and the women that are coming in for abortions that this is not a baby, that this is just a mass of cells.”

This is not the first time Live Action, a self-proclaimed non-violent “youth led movement dedicated to building a culture of life and ending abortion…” has brought Planned Parenthood’s dishonorable activities to our attention.  Their summer 2008 Mona Lisa Project exposed several acts of negligence on the part of Planned Parenthood to report cases of statutory rape.  In another Live Action undertaking, Planned Parenthood clinics in Ohio and Idaho were eagerly willing to accept donations from a caller—an undercover actor—who wished to ensure that his/her money was targeted toward aborting African-American babies.  Despite these occurrences, Planned Parenthood snatched $349.6 million of government funding in 2007-2008.  Visit Live Action’s national Planned Parenthood Violations Map for a peek into what your hard-earned tax dollars have really been up to.

Although these findings are heinous enough, there is a bigger picture that must be acknowledged.  Planned Parenthood has been long championed by the left as an honorable protector of women’s rights in much the same manner that the National Organization for Women—despite a single-issue, pro-abortion agenda and an ongoing commitment to crucify pro-life females—has been promoted as a beacon of feminism.  The results?  Thousands of women flock to Planned Parenthood each day with the false expectation of impartial guidance and sound medical advice.  They join NOW because their college Female Studies professors—and the NOW website—tell them that Sarah Palin “is a woman who opposes women’s rights.”  And ultimately, they head to the voting booths and pull the lever for the likes of Barack Obama because academia failed to mention that feminism and ownership of one’s body has everything to do with personal responsibility and the gift of womanhood, and nothing to do with the left’s sanctimonious right to kill.  FYI—NOW, the supposed champion of the rights of all women, features a page on their website devoted to “Fighting the Right Wing.”

Planned Parenthood, NOW, and the “feminist” left have long been the architects of a powerful disservice to women in the name of protecting them.  The distortions should not and cannot be tolerated, so let me break down just a few final equations:

Planned + Parenthood = Abortion Crusade.

NOW + Feminist Left = Oppression of Pro-Life Voices.

And while I’m at it, Hope + Change = Government Overtake of Your Liberty.

There comes a time to say enough is enough. That time is now.

Jedediah Bila is an author and commentator living in New York City. She holds a Master of Arts from Columbia University and completed her first novel in December of 2009. For more information on Jedediah, please visit JedediahBila.com.