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Nearly Half of United States Considering Arizona-Style Immigration Legislation

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Twenty-two states are now in the process of drafting or seeking to pass legislation similar to Arizona’s law against illegal immigration. This is occurring despite the fact that the Obama administration has filed a lawsuit against the Arizona law and a federal judge has ruled against portions of that law – a ruling that is now being appealed.   Next month, two Rhode Island state lawmakers, a Democrat and a Republican, will travel to Arizona to speak with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, local sheriffs, and other officials about how to better craft their own bipartisan immigration bill for Rhode Island, which already has been enforcing some federal immigration laws.    Meanwhile, 11 Republican state lawmakers from Colorado traveled to Arizona this week to meet with officials there on how to craft legislation for the Mile High state.    In addition, Alabama House Republicans announced this week that they would seek to “push an illegal immigration bill similar to the recently approved Arizona law.” This law would “create a new criminal trespass statute that allows local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants for simply setting foot in Alabama,” said Alabama’s House Minority Leader Mike Hubbard.    In Florida, proposed legislation against illegal immigration has been retooled to address some concerns raised by a federal judge who blocked the proposed bill, though it would still allow Florida state police to enforce immigration law.    In all, there are 22 states considering copycat legislation from the Arizona law against illegal immigration, according to the  Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee  (ALIPAC), a group that advocates for stricter immigration enforcement. These illegal immigrants, deported to Mexico on Wednesday, July 28, 2010, are shown near the Nogales Port of Entry in Sonora, Mexico. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)Arizona’s law mirrors federal law. It requires local law enforcement officers during a lawful stop to determine the immigration status of an individual by asking the person to show identification that residents are already required to carry by law; and it authorizes law enforcement to securely transfer verified illegal aliens to federal custody.    The law prohibits racial profiling and gives state residents the right to sue local agencies for not complying with the state law.   In the lawsuit challenging the Arizona law, the Obama administration said the United States should not have a “patchwork” of 50 different immigration laws. In late July, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled against most of the major elements of the Arizona law, halting their implementation.  That ruling is now in the appeals process.    “We do not expand on federal law,” Florida state Rep. William Snyder, the sponsor of the bill in his state, told CNSNews.com. “We do not change penalties. The goal is not to create a new immigration framework at the state level.”   Snyder, the chairman of the Florida House Criminal Justice Committee, said his staff attorneys have taken the decision by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton into consideration in re-crafting their bill for the next state legislative session.    Snyder said the office of state Attorney General Bill McCollum has reviewed the legislation, as have committee attorneys, and they believe it will withstand a potential legal challenge from the Obama administration.    McCollum, a GOP candidate for governor, supports the legislation. However, Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-Independent candidate for U.S. Senate, opposes the proposal.  Alfredo Salas, 28, shows his license Thursday shortly after being pulled over and let off with a warning for a cracked windshield by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office during a crime and immigration sweep. (AP Photo/Amanda Lee Myers)”We will continue to work with the language,” Snyder said.    In Rhode Island, a bill that was introduced late in the session last year, and thus never reached a vote, is expected to be reintroduced in the 2011 session. Its two lead co-sponsors hope to have a bipartisan bill that will withstand a legal challenge after they meet with Arizona officials.    “It exactly mirrors the Arizona law,” Rhode Island state Rep. Peter Palumbo, a Democrat, told CNSNews.com. “We will tweak the bill.”   Palumbo will be going to Arizona with Rhode Island state Rep. Joseph Trillo, a Republican.    Their legislation would essentially codify an existing executive order signed in 2008 by Gov. Donald Carcieri, a Republican, mandating immigration checks on all new state workers and ordering state police to assist federal immigration officials.   This is Carcieri’s final year in office, so Palumbo said it is important to put the force of law behind what has already been Rhode Island policy. State troopers report illegal immigrants they encounter for speeding and other offenses to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.   Because of the executive order in 2008, corruption was discovered in the Department of Motor Vehicles, with drivers licenses being sold to illegal aliens,  Palumbo said.     In New Jersey, state Rep. Allison Little McHose, a Republican, introduced a series of proposals that focused primarily on requiring employers to verify the legality of workers, and preventing state benefits from going to illegal aliens.    “New Jersey continues to be a sanctuary state for illegals because they know they can come to the state and receive many free benefits, like medical care,” McHose said in a statement. “The benefits may be free for those receiving them, but not the rest of the public because these costs are borne by the taxpayers.”   Other states with proposals that mirror the Arizona law are Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.   “We are very pleased to announce 22 states are now following Arizona’s lead to pass versions of a law that has the support of 60 percent to 81 percent of Americans according to polls,” said ALIPAC President William Gheen in a statement. “State and federal candidates are rushing to display their support for Arizona’s law and immigration enforcement. We will not stop until all American states are protected from this invasion as mandated by the Constitution of the United States.” Crossposted at NB sister site CNS News

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Nearly Half of United States Considering Arizona-Style Immigration Legislation

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Fox News’ NewsCorp donates $1 Million to Republican Governors Association

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Unlike the national political parties and federal candidates, the governors’ associations can take in unlimited amounts from corporations, and companies are showing their interest. News Corp., the media company controlled by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch, gave the RGA $1 million in June. Wellpoint Inc., the biggest U.S. health insurer, contributed a total of $500,000 to the Republican group. Republicans, fueled by record fundraising, are poised to win most of the state governorships in November, which would give them an advantage in congressional redistricting and a new pool of talent for national office. “The Republican Party was not going to be rebuilt out of Washington,” said Mike Schrimpf, an RGA spokesman. “Our party has always fared best when our leaders came from the states.” The Republicans’ biggest corporate donor was New York-based News Corp. Teri Everett, a spokeswoman, said the company “actively supports organizations that advocate a pro-job, low tax, economic growth agenda.” News Corp. opposes proposed federal rule changes that would weaken the position of its Fox network in negotiations with cable companies. Governors may have a stake in the issue. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-16/republicans-set-for-gains-in-u-s-govern… added by: jeffissleeping

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Charlie Gasparino: GE Execs Encouraged CNBC Staff to Go Easy on Obama

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On last night’s ‘O’Reilly Factor,’ Fox Business Network reporter Charlie Gasparino claimed that during his time at CNBC, General Electric Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt suggested to senior CNBC staff that they were being too hard on President Obama. Gasparino did not say that it became official CNBC policy to tone down criticism of the president. But he claimed that “the question of whether they were being fair to the president was brought up” and that he had “never heard that before.” Keep in mind that at the time GE stood to make a whole lot of money from some of Obama’s key policies. NBC and its affiliates have conspicuously shilled for such policies before. Even absent an official NBC or CNBC policy criticizing the president, the incident demonstrates a profound lack of journalistic neutrality. There has always been a looming conflict of interest at GE’s television arm. The possibility that higher-ups suggested reporters go easy on the president raises all sorts of questions about the abilities of NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC to fairly and accurately report the news. O’REILLY: You worked at CNBC, that’s a business network. GASPARINO: Sometimes opinion. O’REILLY: Did you see left-wing stuff there? GASPARINO: Well it was interesting. There was – and it turned out to be true, I think the New York Post reported it – there was this issue where Jeff Immelt, chairman of GE, which used to own NBC Universal, called in some of the senior staff, and clearly was worried, according to the people I spoke to who were in that meeting, about the possibility that we were becoming too anti-administration. This was when the Obama administration first took over, and some of the spending plans came out, and the markets reacted. O’REILLY: So Immelt himself intruded on the editorial position of CNBC because he felt that you weren’t giving Obama a fair shake? GASPARINO: They will deny it, officially, but from what I understand, and I spoke with people there, people got called into this meeting, and they were basically, not exactly read the riot act, but the question of whether they were being fair to the president was brought up. I’ve never heard that before. The most interesting aspect of Gasparino’s claim is the circumstances under which CNBC’s editorial position was reportedly brought into question. Gasparino is claiming that when the Obama administration first released its spending plans, markets reacted poorly, and CNBC, being a business network, reported those facts and, presumably, opined that Obama’s spending plans had something to do with poor market activity. But General Electric at the time was hoping to profit handsomely from policies that would benefit a few companies, including GE, at the expense of the majority of the economy. Cap and trade is a perfect example. According to the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney , “GE has also launched a venture dealing in ‘greenhouse gas credits,’ which are literally worthless until Congress starts limiting greenhouse gas emissions.” GE has extensive investments in alternative energies, the values of which would skyrocket under a plan making fossil fuels more expensive. Cap and trade will hurt most businesses by raising the cost of energy, which in turn raises the cost of just about everything. So while GE stands to gain, most businesses stand to lose. GE has invested in government, so to speak. It has made investments that will only pay off if and when the federal government intervenes. So while the larger business community may be crying out for a free market, GE stands to make far more money in a decidedly unfree market (at least in a few prominent sectors). If CNBC were to channel the attitude of the business community generally on many prominent Obama initiatives, it would actually be running against the grain of its parent company’s financial interests. All of this makes Immelt’s intervention in CNBC editorial policy very fishy. It once again raises the specter of a massive conflict of interest at General Electric’s communications arm. Yet even reporters and commentators who claim concern about journalistic ethics – especially when it comes to “corporate media” – have adopted a see-no-evil attitude towards this conflict. NB’s Matthew Sheffield wrote in 2008 : We often hear lefties rage against Rupert Murdoch for allegedly harming the objectivity of his employees by forcing his “right-wing” politics on them. At the same time, however, our journalistic bluenoses routinely turn a blind eye to flagrant corporate-sponsored journalism such as “Green” or the equally disturbing case of an Australian company literally banning its employees from criticizing its own “Earth Hour” campaign. We all know the reason why media-beat reporters are unconcerned by such actions of course. It’s because they support liberal policy goals. Sadly, in the eyes of many left-leaning journalists, good journalism is liberal journalism. As troubling as the fact that NBC News has willingly prostrated itself before its corporate master is, it’s probably less disturbing than the fact that the entire “Green” campaign seems to have been cooked up by NBC Universal’s own parent company, General Electric, as a way to make money for itself… Is “green” journalism the new yellow journalism? It’s sure starting to look that way. The slogan for the campaign is “Awareness. Activation. Results.” A news company should not be trying to lobby for “results.” NBC and MSNBC owe viewers a tremendous apology. Add CNBC to that list, but don’t expect an apology.

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Charlie Gasparino: GE Execs Encouraged CNBC Staff to Go Easy on Obama

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As Freddie Begs for More Cash, AP’s Zibel Perpetuates Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Myths

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

There are quite a few shaky assertions in Alan Zibel’s Associated Press report yesterday about Freddie Mac’s latest quarterly loss ($6 billion), its latest bailout installment request to the U.S. Treasury ($1.8 billion), and the cumulative taxpayer bailout amounts that have been paid out to Freddie Mac and big sister Fannie Mae thus far ($148.2 billion) — too many to cover in a blog post. So I’ll concentrate on the howlers present in just a single paragraph near the end, wherein the AP reporter attempts to explain why the two formerly government-sponsored mortgage giants that are now government-bailout enterprises ran into the ditch. The verbiage pretty much states the meme that the establishment press seems to want the public to swallow about what went down, and who’s to blame: During the housing boom, Fannie and Freddie faced political pressure to expand homeownership and competitive pressure from Wall Street to back ever-riskier loans. When the market went bust, defaults and foreclosures piled up, and the government had to take them over. Zibel treats the two giants as if they were innocent bystanders in a boom that “just so happened” to coincide with the political pressures it faced. Nonsense. It’s more accurate to say that Fan and Fred fed the boom to the point of being its major cause . Many already know that in 1999, Fannie Mae announced looser lending standards (Fred soon followed; go here to see what this specifically meant). Even the New York Times was a bit concerned at the time: In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s. ”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.” Probably much more important is something that is about the best-kept secret outside of the Wall Street Journal in the establishment press. In a December 29, 2009 article, the aforementioned Wallison conveyed an assertion by Edward Pinto, who is certainly in a position to know, that, as far back as 1993, Fan and Fred “routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A.” In other words, they deceived the financial markets and the ratings agencies on a massive scale about the underlying quality ofhundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of securitized mortgages. If Zibel isn’t aware of this, he should be. If this has anything to do with “competitive pressure,” I’d like him to explain how that’s the case. It’s also not written in stone that “the government had to take them over.” Perhaps it felt obligated because of the implicit guarantees against default (they were not explicit, despite Zibel’s claim that they were), but the legal requirement for Uncle Sam to take over Fan and Fred in troubled circumstances was not there. Zibel wants readers to believe that Fan and Fred were really just victims of a “market (that) went bust” during the final year of the Bush administration. No sir, it has become painfully apparent that they sowed the seeds of that bust by committing fraud on what may be an unprecedented scale all the way back to the early Clinton years. Taxpayers are now reaping the whirlwind. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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As Freddie Begs for More Cash, AP’s Zibel Perpetuates Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Myths

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Cramer: Democrats Not Fed Policy to Blame for Economic Malaise

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Surprise – the Federal Reserve announced it will keep the Fed funds rate between zero and 0.25 percent. OK – it’s not really much of a surprise. However, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has responded to the slowing economic recovery with restraint, not tinkering with interest rates and showing a continued willingness to buy mortgage-backed securities and long-term Treasury bonds. And that was roundly applauded by the markets, and CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer. “Here’s what you need to know about the Fed,” Cramer said. “They’re not in the way. I’m a Fed-is-friend, Fed-is-foe guy.” On CNBC’s Aug. 10 “Street Signs,” during his “Stop Trading” segment, Cramer explained that the Fed is acting appropriately and noted it wasn’t the Bernanke that was holding the economy back. Who is to blame? It’s Congress, according to Cramer, with its complicated health care bill and even more indecipherable financial regulation bill. “I’ve never over-intellectualized anything,” Cramer said. “Fed said good things, buy. He didn’t say anything. Also, Bernanke … I heard someone say he was good in 2008. What – did he like get bad? What, is he like Tiger Woods? Bernanke is delivering. He’s not the problem. It’s a Congress that wants to make it so you don’t know how much it cost to hire a person because of health care. It’s a Fin-Reg bill that no one can figure out. I got guys calling me at major banks saying, ‘Jim, can you help me with the Fin-Reg?’ I don’t know the Fin-Reg. The Fin-Reg is impossible to understand. All I know is that it cuts profitability. Bernanke is not cutting profitability. He’s on the side of the good guys.” So what will people buy? As long as there is a perpetual fear in the economy, people will continue to put their money into treasury bonds, according to the “Mad Money” host. “Bonds never quit because a lot of people feel like we’re – look there’s enough guys that think this is 1934 – they will keep buying bonds,” he continued. “There’s this 1934 group of people, OK? And then there’s this group of people I would describe as being 2003 coming out of dot-bomb period.” And for now, Cramer said the Federal Reserve under Bernanke’s leadership was doing everything it could to aid the economy, despite Congress’ actions. “And what I would emphasize is that Bernanke – we can sit there and look at that statement and talk about whether it’s Treasuries versus mortgage-backed. What he’s saying is, ‘Listen, I know there’s no business being done in this country, and I’m going to do my best. This is a giving-her-all-she’s-got, Captain.'”

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Cramer: Democrats Not Fed Policy to Blame for Economic Malaise

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Iran Preparing Mass Graves for US Soldiers ahead of ‘extensive war’

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Iran has dug mass graves in which to bury U.S. troops in case of any American attack on the country, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard said. The digging of the graves appears to be a show of bravado after the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said last week that the U.S. military has a contingency plan to attack Iran, although he thinks a military strike is probably a bad idea. The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear program is geared merely toward generating electricity, not bomb. Gen. Hossein Kan'ani Moghadam, who was the Guard's deputy commander during the 1980s, said graves have been dug in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province, where Iran buried Iraqi soldiers killed during the ruinous 1980-88 war between the Islamic republic and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime. “The mass graves that used to be for burying Saddam's soldiers have now been prepared again for U.S. soldiers, and this is the reason for digging this big number of graves,” Moghadam told The Associated Press Television News late Monday. He did not say how many were prepared. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/iran-digging-mass-graves_n_676612.html added by: jeffissleeping

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National Day Awards 2010

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The National Day Award is given annually to those who have made outstanding contributions in public service or community work. This year, a total 3,195 individuals who have made a difference will be recognised. The man who plays a pivotal role in Singapore#39;s national water agency PUB has topped the list of recipients of this year#39;s National Day awards. PUB Chairman Tan Gee Paw will be given the Distinguished Service Order. 67-year-old Mr Tan Gee Paw has devoted his entire career to th

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National Day Awards 2010

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As GM Plans IPO, AP Finally Makes Prominent Reference to Drivers’ ‘Resentment’ of Bailout

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In what I believe is the first direct acknowledgment by the wire service of what so many have known for so long, the Associated Press’s Tom Krisher wrote the following in an August 5 story about plans for an initial public offering by government-controlled General Motors (bolds are mine throughout this post): Ever since the Obama administration gave the automaker a $50 billion dollar survival loan last year, many drivers have scorned the company and bought cars from rivals. Even though GM has cut costs, changed leadership, and reported its first quarterly profit since 2007, the resentment will linger as long as taxpayers have a 61 percent stake in the company. Actually, the “resentment” goes back to December 2008, when the Bush administration bowed to pressure to use Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to “temporarily” loan a combined $13.4 billion to GM and Chrysler. Also, the total bailout dollars involved are at least $63 billion when GMAC is included, as it should be. If you have relied exclusively on AP reports and its news feeds to subscribing publications since then, Krisher’s assertion that “drivers have scorned the company” would more than likely be the first time you have seen an AP reporter record that observation. Any AP reporter covering the company almost any time in the intervening 20 months could have observed the existence of the scorn and resentment. But if this factor has ever been directly cited by an AP reporter covering the car industry until now, I haven’t seen it. In January 2009, the first month after those “loan” funds were disbursed, year-over-year sales at GM fell 49% . In previous months, the struggling automaker’s year-over-year declines had been in the 30% range. In just one month, the company’s sales decline in the recessionary economy went from roughly matching those seen at archrivals Ford and Toyota to about what cratering Chrysler was experiencing. GM’s sales plunge of 42% during last year’s first five months was far worse than Ford’s or Toyota’s, though not quite as bad as Chrysler’s. During 2009, I only recall two instances where AP got into the neighborhood of explaining what was really going on. The first was in  a May 1, 2009 story in the wake of April’s sales releases: Detroit’s Big Three is becoming Ford and the other two. While its rivals stay afloat with billions in government aid, Ford grabbed a bigger slice of the American car market in April with record sales of its fuel-efficient Fusion. … Most of those gains (at Ford) came at the expense of General Motors and Chrysler, which unlike Ford are dependent on federal help. Later in the report, the AP’s Kimberly S. Johnson and Dan Strumpf quoted an analyst who tied Ford’s success to Chrysler being in bankruptcy court and GM’s near-certain arrival there. Clearly those concerns were relevant, but the unmentioned scorn and resentment were already quite visible. An early June 2009 Rasmussen poll confirmed it : “The government bailout and takeover of General Motors remains very unpopular among the public. Just 26% of Americans believe the bailout was a good idea, and nearly as many support a boycott of GM products.” The other instance of near recognition came in the eighth paragraph of an early November 2009 report (covered at NewsBusters ; at Bizzyblog ) about October’s sales results. In that item, Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin wrote: Ford Motor Co.’s sales rose 3 percent and it gained U.S. market share for the 12th time in 13 months as its critically acclaimed vehicles continue to grab buyers from rivals. Ford has benefited from consumer goodwill because it didn’t take government bailout money or go into bankruptcy protection, as General Motors and Chrysler did. That’s fine, but it’s one thing to note that customers like the company that wasn’t bailed out. It’s quite another to assert that many resentful customers and potential customers abandoned GM and Chrysler because they were bailed out. Also, Ford wasn’t necessarily the only beneficiary of anti-GM and anti-Chrysler sentiment. So why now? Why did the AP have to wait for GM Chairman Whitacre to say what he said before acknowledging what all of us already knew? Has the wire service seen protecting the company as part of its mission until now? If so, why? Finally, Krisher cannot prove his claim in the opening excerpt that “the resentment will linger as long as taxpayers have a 61 percent stake in the company.” It’s very likely — I would suggest virtually certain — that the resentment will linger until the government sells its entire stake in the company. It’s also not unreasonable to believe that for some, especially those who remember how the government and the company “ripped off” unsecured bondholders during bankruptcy proceedings, the resentment will last a long, long time even if the government fully divests. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .

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As GM Plans IPO, AP Finally Makes Prominent Reference to Drivers’ ‘Resentment’ of Bailout

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Our Rangel Game: Which Eugene Robinson Is It?

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

On August 5, 2010, The Washington Post published a short editorial by Eugene Robinson with the title “Charlie Rangel’s no crook.” But on October 9, 2009, the same Eugene Robinson penned a column titled ” Charlie Rangel’s Cloud: An Ethics Case Could Drag Democrats Down.” The closer we get to elections, Robinson seems to get progressively less impressed with the case against Rangel. This is his new Rangel-name-is-cleared line: Charlie Rangel’s no crook. He’s right to insist on the opportunity to clear his name, because the charges against him range from the technical all the way to the trivial. All right, there’s one exception: On his federal tax returns, Rangel failed to declare rental income from a vacation property he owns in the Dominican Republic — a mortifying embarrassment for the one-time chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code. But certain facts about this transgression rarely get mentioned. For one thing, Rangel’s so-called “villa” can’t be very palatial, since it cost only $82,750 when he bought it in 1987. For another, Rangel has already filed amended tax returns and paid everything he owed, plus penalties and interest. The remaining charges are yawn-inducing. Even assuming that the allegations, as presented to the House Ethics Committee, are wholly true, the case against Rangel has a Gertrude Stein problem: There’s no there there. Compare that mistakes-were-made line to what Robinson wrote last fall:  House Democrats had better start taking the ethics allegations against Rep. Charlie Rangel seriously. I know it’s difficult for those steeped in Capitol Hill’s hermetic culture to understand, but a verdict of “mistakes were made” — which a lot of Democrats would like to reach — doesn’t cut it in the real world. Strange as it seems. Seriously. Welcome to Eugene vs. Eugene. He is seriously beating himself up. There’s more from last year: If you win big majorities in both the House and Senate by railing against a “culture of corruption” in Washington, as the Democratic Party did, voters tend to get the wacky notion that you actually mean what you say. The violations that Rangel is alleged to have committed are, inconveniently for him, easy for anyone to understand. The most serious, perhaps, is the allegation that he failed to pay taxes on about $75,000 in income from renting out a beach house that he owns in the Dominican Republic. For the chairman of the House committee that writes tax legislation not to pay his fair share in taxes would be as bad as, say, for the secretary of the Treasury not to pay his fair share in taxes. (Hold it, maybe that’s a bad example .) The most stunning alleged violation is more of a technicality: That on required financial disclosure forms, Rangel failed to list more than $500,000 in assets. The average citizen isn’t likely to have half a million bucks somehow slip his mind, since the average citizen doesn’t have anything near half a million bucks. And we’re not talking easily overlooked “Antiques Roadshow” assets — a dusty painting in the attic that turns out to be the work of a second-tier Old Master, or a rickety chair in the basement that experts date as 18th century. What Rangel failed to declare were liquid assets — a credit union account worth more than $250,000 and an investment account also worth more than $250,000 — plus some real estate he owns in New Jersey and assorted stock holdings. If you quoted this column back to New Eugene, he might accuse you of being a partisan Republican hack. New Eugene also had this to say on MSNBC’s Morning Joe (as MRC’s Rachel Burnett found). Scarborough said the messes around Rangel and Maxine Waters aren’t good for the Democrats as a whole, even though Joe likes Maxine “very much.” Robinson replied that Rangel’s replies were changing his formerly tough journalistic mind: On the other hand, it is what happens if you run against culture of corruption; you actually crack down and ramp up the ethics committee and, you know, look for the stuff you find it. I think my assessment of the two cases would actually be a bit different from yours, actually. I haven’t read that deeply into the Waters case but that really sounds pretty bad. I mean, on its face it sounds like there should be a refusal by her and stayed away from that. I have, however, gone through Charlie Rangel’s 32-page response to the charges against him. And it’s still very bad for him politically . I think he’s not without any legs to stand on, however. We keep saying 13 ethics charges. It really boils down to three or four incidents and when you actually look at them, you know, some of them are not all that troublesome. So I actually understand why he wants to have his day in court. PS: In 2005, Robinson giddily looked forward to Tom DeL:ay in jail in a piece titled “Immoral Majority.”   So pardon me for going way beyond schadenfreude to outright giddiness at the prospect that the Hammer will finally get nailed. It may be too much to hope that the former House majority leader — and how good it feels to write “former” — will actually be convicted and do jail time. The indictment for criminal conspiracy returned by a Texas grand jury on Wednesday is for alleged campaign finance violations that are the rough equivalent of money laundering, which is not the easiest crime to prove in court. Five years later, and Eugene’s still waiting for that conviction. 

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Our Rangel Game: Which Eugene Robinson Is It?

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Was WikiLeaks Leaker Lashing Out Against ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’?

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Army Spc. Bradley Manning may face some serious charges for allegedly leaking tens of thousands of classified military documents to the website WikiLeaks. The leak could have serious consequences for the war effort. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen claimed that WikiLeaks “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.” In investigating the leak, will the media explore every plausible motivation on Manning’s part, even in spite of strong resistance from the forces of political correctness? We’re about to find out. Manning was openly gay, and possibly transgendered. The UK Telegraph gleaned a number of posts from his Facebook page in which he expressed what seems like intense depression, and occasionally disdain for the US military. There is evidence that he took part in protests against the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Did he leak the information in question as an act of protest or vendetta against military policies of which he disapproved? It’s not at all clear. But shouldn’t the mainstream press at least note that possibility? The evidence of that motivation, mind you, is at this point far from conclusive. But given the evidence, it is appropriate to pose the question. The UK Telegraph reported last week (emphasis added): The US Army intelligence analyst, who is half British and went to school in Wales, appeared to sink into depression after a relationship break-up, saying he didn’t “have anything left” and was “beyond frustrated”. In an apparent swipe at the army, he also wrote: “Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment,” and quoted a joke about “military intelligence” being an oxymoron… Mr Manning, who is openly homosexual, began his gloomy postings on January 12, saying: “Bradley Manning didn’t want this fight. Too much to lose, too fast.” At the beginning of May, when he was serving at a US military base near Baghdad, he changed his status to: “Bradley Manning is now left with the sinking feeling that he doesn’t have anything left.” Five days later he said he was “livid” after being “lectured by ex-boyfriend”, then later the same day said he was “not a piece of equipment” and was “beyond frustrated with people and society at large”. His tagline on his personal page reads: “Take me for who I am, or face the consequences!” … Pictures on Mr Manning’s Facebook page include photos of him on school trips during his time in Wales and at a gay rights rally, where he is holding up a placard demanding equality on “the battlefield” . Does the possibility that Manning’s opinions on DADT motivated him to leak the documents in question have any bearing on the validity of the policy itself? Of course not. No one is suggesting that Manning’s homosexuality in itself motivated him to allegedly leak these documents, and therefore that homosexuals should be banned from the military. The only relevant issue is Manning’s motivation in committing the alleged offense – the rantings on his Facebok page provide a key insight into a possible motivation that any responsible reporter would be remiss in dismissing out of some concern for political correctness. Of course the media has not been keen on drawing out possible motives when the explicit mention of those motives could offend some protected group. We saw the same trend after the Fort Hood shootings, when journalists simply could not bring themselves to proclaim that Maj. Nidal Hasan was a Muslim and motivated by his faith. He may have yelled “Allahu Akhbar” while opening fire on unarmed servicemen, but the first five media outlets to report on the shooting didn’t mention the shooter’s religion. Chris Matthews wondered whether it was “a crime to call al Qaeda” – as Hasan had – and CNN actually misquoted a soldier shot by Hasan to cast doubt on the cries of “Allahu Akbar”. So far in the case of Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, the mainstream press seems similarly averse to even considering the possibility that the Army Specialist was acting out against military policy to which he was strongly opposed. Ace contends that “If it doesn’t advance The Narrative, it never really happened,” and that the press will remain silent. Is he right? We’ll see.

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Was WikiLeaks Leaker Lashing Out Against ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’?

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