Posted on 04/07/2005 8:53:53 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
The media's out for DeLay's scalp
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I'm not crazy about doing this, either, but I have to. This media pile-on today, circling the wagons around Tom DeLay, the New York Times and Washington Post.
Let's look at the Washington Post story. It's by Jeffrey Smith and James Grimaldi.
"A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements. DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay's trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign. It is unclear precisely how the money was transferred from the Bahamian-registered company to the nonprofit. The expense-paid trip by DeLay and four of his staff members cost $57,238, according to records filed by his office. During his six days in Moscow, he played golf--"
He played golf in Moscow? You can play golf in Moscow? "--met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a friend of Russian oil and gas executives associated with the lobbying effort. DeLay also dined with the Russian executives and two Washington-based registered lobbyists for the Bahamian-registered company, sources say. One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe related to his representation of Indian tribes."
There's a picture, and the story goes on and on and on.
There's a picture here, too, and I'm not going to pretend that I know the laws and rules, but I do know a hatchet job when I see it, folks, and this is a hatchet job.
There is a photo accompanying this story and who do you see who is not mentioned under the other photo as being in it? Alexander Haig is in this photo. All the so-called guilty are in this photo.
The suspicious, mysterious characters that supposedly lined DeLay's pockets are all in this photo and Alexander Haig is in this photo, but Alexander Haig's name does not appear in the caption under the photo. DeLay is not in the picture, either.
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer paid the biggest FEC fine ever for violating spending limits in his spending campaign. You don't read about that. [Link below]
Hillary Clinton's California fund-raiser has been indicted for underreporting money raised for her campaign, and lying about the sources of the money to violate spending limits. [Link below] And we hear nothing further about that, and we don't get stories about either Schumer or Hillary being tainted by virtue of their association with people who have been indicted. In Schumer's case, he paid the biggest FEC fine ever.
Nancy Pelosi's aide, we just learned thanks to the Washington Times, had the story yesterday, he went on a junket to Spain for several days, paid for a group that received over a million dollars in federal grants thanks to Pelosi after donating something like a thousand or $2,000 to her PAC, and the head of this group also contributed money to her PAC. [Link below] So where are the front-page stories on these ethics questions? They're nowhere to be found.
Now wait, don't misunderstand. This is not my attempt to exonerate DeLay by saying, "The other guys do it too." Don't confuse me with that. I'm just trying to illustrate that this is a media hatchet job here.
The only person alluded to as having any guilt in anything in this Washington Post story is Jack Abramoff, one of those lobbyists: "Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe."
He's the only guy in this whole story, including DeLay, that is referenced as having broken any laws.
So because I'm not an expert on the laws and the rules on all this, I scoured websites today in feverish show prep, and I came cross David Frum's diary at National Review Online, and it's very good. [linked at end]
We have an inside-the-Beltway guy who is objective enough to see this, and here's basically what he says.
"Seems to me that this morning's front-page attack on Tom DeLay by the Washington Post isn't a story about Tom DeLay at all. The story makes clear that DeLay did nothing wrong.
In 1997, he took a trip to Russia paid for (as far as he had any reason to be aware) by the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas. The Center's president, Amy Ridenour, even came along for the trip. The Post describes DeLay's activities on the trip thus:
'During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin...' As if DeLay flew to Moscow in order to hit the links. In fact, the United States had some heavy decisions to make about aid to Russia in 1997 and 1998, and it's not surprising that the then number-three man in the House of Representatives would want to see the situation for himself.
It now turns out that the Center [And this is the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas] defrayed the cost with some doubtful donations from lobbyists, including Jack Abramoff, now the central figure in a major federal investigation of corruption and influence-peddling. Abramoff was representing Russian oil and gas interests with a special interest in influencing US policy toward Russia. Abramoff also joined DeLay and Ridenour on the mission.
"These dots can certainly be connected in a way that presents an ugly picture of Jack Abramoff's activities. It could easily be suggested that he was trying to circumvent bans on lobbyist-paid travel in order to gain access to a powerful member of the House of Representatives, just the latest in a long list of unsettling allegations about the longtime conservative activist turned multimillionaire lobbyist.
But the Post is not satisfied with bagging Abramoff.
They want DeLay too, or rather, they want DeLay more.
Instead of seeing DeLay as Abramoff's target, they want to insinuate that Abramoff was DeLay's tool.
And that case has not even begun to be made.
Meanwhile, by amazing coincidence, the Times this morning also offers a big attack feature on DeLay.
The Times story makes the point that DeLay's campaign and political action committees - ie, his contributor-funded organizations, not his taxpayer-funded office - employed his wife and daughter at various times, paying them some $4,000 a month each.
This practice is not illegal nor is it, alas, even all that uncommon, as the Times itself acknowledges in its story.
But while we're on the topic of doubtful practices, can we notice this, please?
The Times story is sourced to - and is packed full of quotations from - a series of groups whistled up by George Soros for almost the exclusive purpose of attacking DeLay. (You can read some of the details here.) [Get hot link at Rush's above-linked web site].
Maybe the Times should be alerting its readers to the true identity of those sources of these shocked-and-appalled quotations?
Or even balancing this bought-and-paid-for expertise with comments from some genuinely disinterested and impartial observers?"
But no, this they don't do.
So, yeah, there are these two stories both trying to make DeLay out to be intimately involved in corruption and neither story makes the case.
In fact, this little business about DeLay paying some people, family and staff. The figure the Times uses is $500,000 over a number of years.
If you do the division, what he was paying these people that added up to $500,000 over a number of years would indicate they're underpaid on an annual basis.
Something like $40,000 a year or whatever it was they were paid. It's absurd.
But the message has gone out: Get DeLay, and they're not going to stop until they can do it, just mark my words on this.
I predicted this, although not against DeLay.
I thought that they would be hammering Bush, trying to impeach him, and that may still happen if Bush does something they think they could make that move on, but there's so much going on here.
They still want to get even for what they think Newt did to Jim Wright and what we all did to Clinton with impeachment, and absent a Democrat agenda, absent a list of items that they stand resolutely for, and go to the country and say, "This is why we ought to be running the country," because they don't have that, they have to run around now and they're trying to get the hammer and they've been trying to get the hammer for a long time, and I think what the ultimate objective here is to wear down DeLay's colleagues.
I think they want the Republican leadership to get nervous and antsy over all the criticism, because they don't like it.
They don't like being criticized by the post or the New York Times and the leadership will eventually say, "This is bogging us down, it's all going to make the news, what we're doing here legislatively is not making the news, Tom, you've got to fall on the sword." That's what they hope will happen with this, or worse.
But I just wanted to alert you to it because it's being talked about.
It's all over the media as though it's the biggest story come down the pike in years, and it isn't.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, folks, you just have to love the NRA. Representative Tom DeLay pummeled by Democrats for alleged ethics lapses, not violations, lapses, will be the keynote speaker at the NRA's annual convention, begins April 15th in Houston. With an estimated 40,000 attendees and over 350 exhibits, this year's annual meetings and exhibits promises to be among the best in NRA history, the NRA announced.
If Dingy Harry shows up, you know what he'll come back and say? "Boy, I couldn't believe all the guns there at the NRA convention."
Here's the latest on DeLay. Republican House leaders said today that they know this series of attacks in the Washington Post, the New York Times, are bogus, they back DeLay, the NRA having him as their big speaker at their annual event.
And conservatives are now joining together to back him, except certain conservative pundits who cut and run inside the Beltway.
He's going to be honored at a dinner next month by scores of conservative groups as well.
So I doubt that the effort by the press to cause the Republican leadership to cut and run will succeed, but that's what they're aiming at.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Articles... (Washington Post: A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html
(NY Times: Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader) (must register to read)
(NRO: David Frum's Diary) http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp
Cybercast News Service: Rep. DeLay Will Keynote NRA Convention Next Week) http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200504%5CCUL20050406c.html
Links to: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0107052clinton1.html
Hillary Campaign Finance Director Indicted Rosen charged with fudging numbers for 2000 Hollywood fundraiser
JANUARY 7--The finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2000 U.S. Senate campaign was indicted today on federal charges of filing bogus financial reports with the Federal Election Commission. According to the below indictment, David Rosen reported the false numbers in connection with a "Hollywood tribute" honoring Clinton. Investigators allege that a "wealthy individual" paid more than $1.1 million to underwrite the Clinton gala and that those payments were delivered through "several corporate entities controlled by him." While that whopping sum should have been reported to the FEC as an "in-kind contribution," prosecutors charge that Rosen covered up the real source of the money, and even caused the creation of a fictitious $200,000 invoice to aid his scheme. The August 2000 fundraiser was billed as a "Hollywood Tribute to William Jefferson Clinton," though the funds raised went to his wife's campaign kitty. The bash was held as the Brentwood estate of radio mogul Ken Roberts. While the so-called wealthy individual (referred to only as "C-1") is not named, he is clearly Peter Paul, an Internet entrepreneur who helped organize the bash. Clinton is not mentioned by name in the indictment,instead referred to only as "Senator A." The fundraiser was largely orchestrated by Aaron Tonken, a notorious L.A. con man who last August was sentenced to five years in prison following a guilty plea to a pair of fraud counts. The 39-year-old Tonken, who made his living defrauding donors and underwriters of charity events, now resides in the federal lockup in Taft, California, where he is scheduled to remain until April 2009. (10 pages)
Click here to see copy of actual 10 page indictment: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0107052clinton1.html
Democrat Ethics Scandals That Don't Interest the Media:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com 4-6-05
Links to:
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 11:00 a.m. EDT
Nancy Pelosi's Ethics Questioned
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/4/5/110157.shtml
In what pundits are calling a quid pro quo for her hard line on the ethics of House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is under fire for an adviser’s nine-day, $4,475 junket to Spain and Germany last April, a trip primarily paid for by a nonprofit transportation-research organization Pelosi had helped to secure Federal Transit Administration monies, according to a report in the Washington Times.
According to the report, the president of WestStart-CALSTART also gave money to Pelosi’s political action committee at the same time.
The trip is fodder for some Republicans, who say Pelosi and others have been going overboard when criticizing DeLay on ethics charges.
"Given the actions of the minority leader vis-a-vis the majority leader and other Republicans, I’m having a little trouble finding where the outrage is coming from these groups that continue to pound on Republican members," a senior Republican lawmaker said on the condition of anonymity.
Although the Pelosi camp has issued a statement maintaining that the disputed trip was within House rules, the anonymous lawmaker told the Times that nothing distinguished Pelosi’s actions from those of DeLay and other Republicans that she has criticized.
"I think the minority leader ought to be subject to the same type of scrutiny as other members," he said, adding that the questions about Mrs. Pelosi rise to the point of an ethics complaint.
Apparently there was little attempt at subterfuge – with WestStart-CALSTART announcing just before the trip that Pelosi had helped the group secure $1 million from the Federal Transit Administration for a bus rapid-transit program. Furthermore, a month after the adviser’s trip, the group dispatched a press release thanking her for a $2 million grant for a fuel-cell program.
According to campaign records revealed by the Times report, WestStart-CALSTART Chief Executive Officer John R. Boesel also gave $1,000 to one of Pelosi’s political action committees in 2003 and $1,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Boesel said there is no link between the staffer’s trip and the grants, noting that Pelosi had backed his projects for more than a decade. Boesel also emphasized that the programs in question have drawn support from both parties and that his political donations have been divvied up to both parties.
Despite such disclaimers, Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center, which has targeted Pelosi’s campaign fund-raising in the past, said, "I think it looks like she’s doing legislative favors for donors because she is."
The controversy arises as Republicans mount an offensive against what they think is a coordinated attack by Pelosi and allied groups on DeLay.
Democrat Ethics Scandals That Don't Interest the Media:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com 4-6-05
Links to:
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york050503.asp
May 5, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
Schumer’s Campaign Violations
The FEC hits the campaign-finance “reformer” with a hefty fine.
New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, an outspoken advocate of campaign-finance reform, has been hit with one of the biggest fines ever imposed on a member of Congress by the Federal Election Commission for violating campaign-finance laws.
The FEC ruling, handed down in March, ordered Schumer's 1998 senatorial campaign to pay a civil penalty of $130,000. The campaign was also ordered to return $120,455 in illegal contributions, bringing the total of fines and restitution to slightly more than a quarter-million dollars. The campaign paid the sum in April.
According to FEC records, only three cases involving federal candidates have resulted in higher fines than the one levied on Schumer's campaign. No senatorial candidate has ever been so severely penalized.
At issue in the FEC action were more than 750 contributions, totaling about $915,000, dating from Schumer's 1998 race against Republican Alphonse D'Amato. The FEC found that each of those donations exceeded the $1,000 limit then in effect for contributions to a candidate during a primary or general election.
The FEC said most of those excess contributions were within the $1,000 to $2,000 range.
The FEC also found that the Schumer campaign failed to file notices required by law for $89,500 in contributions given in the last days of the 1998 campaign. The Schumer campaign also filed late notices for $186,500 in contributions.
After an FEC audit discovered the violations in 2001, some of Schumer's defenders downplayed them as "technical." But the size of the fine suggests the FEC viewed the infractions as a serious matter. At the least, the violations suggest a relaxed attitude on the part of the Schumer campaign toward the rules regarding the reporting of campaign contributions.
And the punishment might have been worse. It appears that Schumer's campaign benefited from a change in FEC rules, adopted last November, which in effect reduced the number of violations that were subject to fines. Had the Schumer campaign been judged by the FEC's old rules, the $130,000 fine might have been much higher.
The FEC cleared Schumer of personal responsibility for the violations. "The Commission does not allege and there is no finding that U.S. Senator Charles Schumer engaged in any wrongdoing in connection with the findings in this agreement." His 1998 campaign treasurer, Steven D. Goldenkranz, was named in the report.
When asked about the FEC judgment last week, a Schumer spokesman promised to make a written comment, but so far has not made one.
The 1998 Schumer race against D'Amato was, at the time, the most expensive in history, with the Schumer campaign spending nearly $17 million. Now, as he prepares to run for reelection next year, Schumer has already amassed nearly $15 million, making him the most successful fundraiser in the Senate.
I think it is very telling that the only conservatives to cut and run are "inside the beltway" types. These are probably the same buffoons that want the democrat party to continue to exist.
I wonder if they are the same ones who thought the USSR would be around forever.
"I think he was using the phrase 'circle the wagons' wrong when he said this. It's defenders who circle the wagons around someone." ~ Dr. Frank fan
When Rush said it that way, he was probably thinking about how the left implements one of the tactics that Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky advises them to use. It involves "surrounding and freezing " their target. They followed Alinsky's tactics to the "T" when they went after Newt. They're doing the same thing to DeLay. They figure that by taking DeLay out of commission, they will be able to prevent President Bush from getting his agenda through Congress.
The details:
[Saul] Alinsky defined "obtaining power" as a key tactic of organizing his "mass jujitsu." His formula for attack: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it."
Read on:
New York Daily News Published: 1/17/00
Author: BARBARA OLSON
"He who fears corruption fears life." - Saul Alinsky,
"Rules for Radicals"
This quote immediately came to mind after my reading of Hillary Rodham's Wellesley College senior thesis - a document kept under lock and key since the 1992 elections.
Back then, when researchers and journalists were searching for information on the newly elected First Couple, Wellesley suddenly declared that it would seal the thesis of any graduate who became President or First Lady.
A few weeks ago, however, I came into possession of Hillary's suppressed thesis.
In those 75 pages, the future First Lady reveals herself as someone steeped in the political lore and history of one of America's most political cities. No, not New York - Chicago. There she began her political journey from Goldwater girl to leftist icon.
The thesis' title, "There is Only the Fight ... An Analysis of the Alinsky Model," exposes Clinton's strong ideological attachment to her most influential mentor, Saul Alinsky.
Reading this work makes it clear why she had to remove it from public view, for Alinsky, who died in 1972, was a radical social activist who preached grass-roots organizing and intense, confrontational politics.
While Clinton was studying under Alinsky, he was preparing what would be his final and most important book: "Rules for Radicals," published less than two years after Hillary graduated from Wellesley and only one year before his death.
Alinsky's hold on Hillary is astonishingly evident in her thesis, which is replete with his yet-unpublished political tactics. The thesis reveals that he was moving from local organizing efforts to a new arena - the national stage.
She wrote: "His [Alinsky's] new aspect, national planning, derives from the necessity of entrusting social change to institutions, specifically the United States government."
Alinsky, we can now see, taught Hillary the political tactics that she successfully deployed in Arkansas and the White House and is now beginning to use in New York.
What were his lessons?
Alinsky defined "obtaining power" as a key tactic of organizing his "mass jujitsu." His formula for attack: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it."
This principle has become the essence of the Clinton rapid-response tactic and a key aspect of Hillary's attacks on what she has dubbed "a vast right-wing conspiracy."
The Clinton White House has adhered to Alinsky's rule that "ridicule is man's most potent weapon" and followed his advice to "let nothing get you off your target."
Hillary discusses another Alinsky rule - "power is the very essence, the dynamo of life" - in her thesis. Clearly, she had absorbed his lesson that one must first obtain power to achieve real change.
But nowhere in her thesis - or in her later life - does she seem to recognize the classical liberal critique that the relentless pursuit of power is antithetical to democracy.
Perhaps the most prescient part of the thesis is a quote from a profile of Alinsky in The Economist: "His charm lies in his ability to commit himself completely to the people in the room with him. In a shrewd though subtle way, he often manipulates them while speaking directly to their experience."
Although her thesis was written several years before she cornered Bill Clinton in the Yale Law School library, Hillary had come to recognize the potential power of a man of exceptional charm.
Alinsky recognized the potential of his student and offered her a paying job to develop organizers for "mass power-based organizations."
Hillary's thesis confirmed the offer and called it "tempting." But she decided law school was a better place to develop the skills necessary to effect the changes in government she has spent so much of her life trying to achieve.
Hillary's thesis received an A. So far, her political acumen in New York has yielded her at best a C-. But her story continues to unfold.
Barbara Olson is the author of "Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton." 73 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1035840/posts?page=73#73 12-10-2003
*
BILL, HILLARY, SAUL, AND MORAL RELATIVISM Saul Alinsky and the Lessons He Taught Bill and Hillary FR ^ | 03/23/00 | The Wanderer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/886451/posts
R. Emmett Tyrrell references Alinsky quite often in his just released book Madame Hillary: The Road to the White House.
*
Saul Alinsky - The Religious Left follows him "religiously". Their magazine: Sojourners
Rev. Jim Wallis, Editor, Sojourners Magazine
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=Soj0003&article=000311
*
Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky in "Rules for Radicals":
"The first rule of power tactics is: power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/886451/posts
This happens about every four years. The left-leaning media wants to prove how powerful it is by running a prominent conservative Republican out of Washington. They did the same thing with Newt Gingrich. Ben Bradley of the Washington Post used to brag about how the media establishment could knock off people like John Sununu. They are appalled by the fact that a conservative Republican holds a position of power. Helen Thomas is another one of the media fossils who think they're important because they're in Washington. It's past time the "grey eminences" of the media who think they run the country got put in their place. They're "journalists" (if you believe them), not officeholders or representatives. They were never elected to anything, and are accountable to no one.
Delay's name constantaly keeps coming up associated with scandal. While I'm not saying he's guilty, I think he should play the game a little cleaner than most due to his high profile. If he can't do so then he should resign. The conservative movement is more important than his greasing of his own pockets.
They are like all gutless entrenched bureaucrats who fear to do or say anything that they think will "make waves" and cause them to lose their spot on the public teat. Rush has their number big time. bttt
You are a babe in the woods.
Get up to speed and stop falling for it when the left puts Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" tactics into practice.
If you don't get with it now before Hillary really gets into gear for her run in 2008, you'll be an even bigger liability to the conservative cause than you are now.
See my post at #6 in this thread and wise up.
Forget the conspiracy theories.
When we elect gutless mentalities - we get gutless results.
Neither President Bush, NOR Tom DeLay are in that catagory, however.
Unlike the gutless, Tom DeLay can't be manipulated by RATS, so they are merely employing Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" against him like they do against anyone who refuses to fall into line with their agenda. bttt
See #6
???? Worked Reagan's campaign in 1980 and have been active in Republican politics ever since. Nice try.
Get up to speed and stop falling for it when the left puts Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" tactics into practice.
Stop quoting books and get into the real world. Delay has been a good soldier, but the Republicans are getting fat and lazy, just like the Dem's were with running the house for 40 years, and I'm afraid they are starting to make the same mistakes that the Dem's did. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and the Reps have that power in the House. If you can't see how bad the Rep's have become with their record-breaking budgets you've total lost touch with the movement my friend.
If you don't get with it now before Hillary really gets into gear for her run in 2008, you'll be an even bigger liability to the conservative cause than you are now
Oh please. Hillary will eat our lunch BECAUSE the Republicans aren't going to do anything about illegal immigration and she will. And if that happens it won't be because of me, but because of people like you and DeLay who put these "politicans" over the movement and the nation.
Oh, yes, was it Berger stealing from the National Archives?
Sorry, Rush, incorrect metaphor. "Circling the wagons" is something you do to protect someone, not to attack them...
Citing your "credentials" doesn't impress me. You have a naive, negative attitude - that makes you a liability to the cause. End of story.
You beat me to it.
"Sorry, Rush, incorrect metaphor. "Circling the wagons" is something you do to protect someone, not to attack them..." ~ Stone Mountain
To repeat myself:
When Rush said it that way, he was probably thinking about how the left implements one of the tactics that Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky advises them to use.
It involves "surrounding and freezing " their target.
They followed Alinsky's tactics to the "T" when they went after Newt. They're doing the same thing to DeLay. They figure that by taking DeLay out of commission, they will be able to prevent President Bush from getting his agenda through Congress.
The details:
[Saul] Alinsky defined "obtaining power" as a key tactic of organizing his "mass jujitsu." His formula for attack: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it."
Read more in #6
See #6 and #18
Rush used the word "Circling" but meant "Surrounding".
So, the indians in every old western I've ever seen were trying to protect the pioneers as they circled their wagons? :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.