This'n'That; May 16th[democRATs;Murtha;ACORN;Beck;ACORN]

Credibility? WHAT Credibility?? [Lack of credibility seems a part of the democRAT definition. Most of them by observation, "wouldn't know the truth if it hitt'em over the head!" Mr Murtha is THE WORST OFFENDER of the truth, but they're all "guilty as sin!!"] The Democrats' Credibility Problem by Armstrong Williams The Washington Post has yet another story this morning on the travails of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his seeming cavalier attitude regarding how he spends other people's money. The story today reports his nephew, 49-year old Robert Murtha, collected over $4 million in Pentagon contracts. And what does he offer for this princely sum? A new emerging defense platform? Some high-tech radar guidance system? Nope — warehouses. Yes, storage space designated as “engineering services.” Rep. Murtha remains defiant as ever. His they-won't-take-me-alive attitude mocks every working American and betrays a central piece of the Democrats' platform when they vowed to end eight years of tyrannical Republican reign — end the corruption. I've used many a pen lamenting the foolish dealings of Republicans and their spending ways, but what Democrats like Murtha are doing goes beyond the pale. Why? They have no shame in their dealings. In fact, they almost seem proud of tossing millions in contracts to their friends and cohorts. Just yesterday, The Washington Times ran a front-page story on how Democrats are secretly drafting climate protection bills with the environmental lobby. I've heard of political payback, but does it have to be so public and defiant? What should concern every American is the ease with which the majority party controls the levers of power and spending. Have an idea? Democrats will fund it. No sense if it will work or advance the country? No problem, we'll just blame Republicans and say our four years of this spending mess can't possibly be worse than the eight they dragged us through. What's most troubling is the personal credibility of Democrats like John Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). When you can ignore the public record that states you were told a torture technique would be used on terrorists to glean information, only later to state repeatedly you had no knowledge of the instance, “period,” then you have a credibility problem that doesn't end there. It permeates all facets of public policy, and poisons those around you. Now, I know I'll get the usual token ribbing about my own wrong choices and bad judgment made in the past. I've atoned for those decisions. And unless folks like John Murtha start owning up to the mistakes they have made, their credibility problem will fester and infest until the public no longer has the stomach for such abuses. More ACORN Fraud [Now the State of Nevada is getting into the act!! This has to be the dirtiest organization on the planet.... pretty easy to tell-Fluffy obama is funding it though the porkulus plan!!] Criminal charges have been filed against the corrupt taxpayer-funded "community group" best known for its fraudulent voter registration drives and its close ties to president barack obama. Nevada's attorney general has charged the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which strives to register low-income citizens, with more than two dozen felonies for operating a fraud-infested voter registration drive in the state during the 2008 presidential campaign. ACORN illegally compensated workers to register voters based on a corporate mandated quote system, according to Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. Because canvassers were illegally required to meet quotas to keep their jobs, thousands of registrations with fake names and addresses were submitted throughout the state. In fact, during its 2008 drive authorities raided ACORN's Nevada offices after the group submitted multiple forms with bogus names, including pro football players from another state. It turns out that ACORN hired convicted felons to register voters in Las Vegas and in fact got many from a transitional housing facility operated by the Nevada Department of Corrections. In a search warrant affidavit one ACORN employee said many of the canvassers were "lazy crack-heads" who were not interested in working and just wanted the money. The Nevada raid marked the third time in weeks that the Chicago-based group got busted for falsifying voter registration forms during the 2008 presidential campaign. Weeks earlier ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in the key battleground state of Florida and in New Mexico's most populous county (Bernalillo). In its complaint made public this week Nevada authorities reveal that ACORN illegally offered canvassers a bonus program known as "blackjack" or "21 plus" if they brought in more than the required 20 voter registrations a day to keep their jobs. The bonuses offered extra money per shift, according to the complaint. ACORN has been in trouble for falsifying information to register new voters in numerous other states, including Milwaukee, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Colorado to name a few. In 2007 the group settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State after seven workers were caught submitting about 2,000 fake registration forms. Incredibly, the radical leftist group continues to receive massive amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars for its various community programs. Earlier this year ACORN got a multi billion-dollar infusion for "neighborhood stabilization activities"-from the monstrous economic recovery bill that was supposed to create new jobs and offer an immediate tax relief to stimulate the ailing economy. Glenn Beck On ACORN [Don'cha just wonder how Glenn Beck has time "for a life?!?!" He does three hours-five days a week on radio and one hour a day-six days a week on TV. All this 'face-time' on radio and TV has to involve incredible amounts of research into each area he presents. I for one, applaud him for presenting a listening and viewing alternative for the "non-KoolAid drinker." The piece below is quite revealing in that is shows how crooked the ACORN organization is and Fluffy obama's employment with and dependence on; the included crooks!!] The easy thing to do and the right thing to do are rarely the same. Easy and right almost never walk hand-in hand. Last summer and fall, even some in the mainstream media (yes, if one can believe they’re capable of taking a break from hard hitting stories about “American Idol” and Madonna’s boyfriends) began looking into their voter registration practices. Here are some highlights from a recent piece from John Fund, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Online: “ Nevada officials charged ACORN, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms last year. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, says he believes 48% of ACORN’s forms “are clearly fraudulent.” Prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa., also charged seven Acorn employees with filing hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations before last year’s general election. ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson calls the Nevada criminal complaint “political grandstanding” and says that any problems were the actions of an unnamed “bad employee.” But Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General, told the Las Vegas Sun that ACORN itself is named in the criminal complaint. She says that ACORN’s training manuals “clearly detail, condone and . . . require illegal acts,” such as requiring its workers to meet strict voter-registration targets to keep their jobs. Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007. The group signed a consent decree with King County (Seattle), requiring it to beef up its oversight or face criminal prosecution. In the 2008 election, ACORN’s practices led to investigations, some ongoing, in 14 other states. ACORN’s relationship to the obama campaign is a matter of public record. Last year, Citizens Consulting Inc., the umbrella group controlling ACORN, was paid $832,000 by the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states. Fluffy obama distanced himself from the group’s scandals last year, saying “We don’t need ACORN’s help.” Nevertheless, Fluffy got his start as a community organizer at ACORN’s side. In 1992, he headed a registration effort for Project Vote, an ACORN partner at the time. In 1995, the Fluffer represented ACORN in a key case upholding the new Motor Voter Act — the very law whose mandated postcard registration system ACORN workers use to flood election offices with bogus registrations. As for the Nevada indictment, ACORN isn’t worried. “We’ve had bad publicity before, and all it does is inform the community that we’re here working for the community,” Bonnie Greathouse, ACORN’s head organizer in Nevada, assured the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week. “People always come forward to our defense. We’re just community organizers, just like the president used to be.” Granted, I’m not a publicist, but I am a thinker, and I have to say that these charges go a bit beyond “bad publicity.” This whole thing stinks, and the stench just gets worse as the days roll by and more facts come out. There are plenty of basically good organizations that have done bad things, but ACORN is that shameless exception that has gone all bad. But here’s the thing—some people from inside the organization have done the right thing by coming forward and speaking out—they’re blowing the whistle and we need to make sure we’re listening. I recently had two separate conversations with former ACORN board members—they’re part of a larger group that’s been dubbed the “ACORN 8,” and they want two things—those who broke the law to be held accountable, and quite simply, they just want their organization back. They agree that ACORN used to operate with the best of intentions, but satisfying greed and making money—and in this case we’re talking about millions of dollars—became the easy rather than the right thing to do. Here’s a bit of those conversations: GLENN BECK: So, what is it? I said to Marcel, I think I said to you earlier, that this is all about votes, and you said, “No, this is all about the money.” Explain that. MARCEL REID, ACORN CHAIR, WASHINGTON, D.C.: This is all about the money. This isn’t — well, you can do it, Karen. KAREN INMAN, FIRED ACORN BOARD MEMBER: Right. Basically, what happens is the organization, I think, had a good message to begin with, and then they looked to see how much money they generated and how much power they got. And so, instead of having it trickle down — trickle up from the membership, which is what it is supposed to be, they’ve looked and said, “Hmm, we can get X amount of dollars here. We’ll convince our membership that this is what we should be working on.” BECK: It seems to me that they are using me, and people like me, by calling racists and everything else, to generate outrage to help raise money. And then, also, they are using the lowest of our society, using them, and then throwing them to the lions and saying, “You know, well, it was a rogue employee,” which also helps them, too, doesn’t it? How? REID: Of course. Because it gives them cover, you know? It says consistently that the very same people they were supposed to be enabling are the same people that we sacrificed. But wait—there’s more! GLENN BECK: OK. Now, tell me where I’ve gotten it wrong — because I don’t see this really at all about politics, what’s going on in ACORN right now is just about money. MICHAEL MCCRAY, FORMER ACORN BOARD MEMBER: Well, what I would say about that, Glenn, is that really what you need to look at in terms of ACORN is governance. I mean, what we have is an organization, a venerable organization that had a very beautiful mission and a lot of committed supporters. What’s happened over time, though, is that there are certain leaders and senior staff members that have kind of, for the most part, hijacked the organization, and they’re using it for their own personal games. BECK: Can you tell me about Dale Rathke and his brother? MCCRAY: Well, Dale Rathke is the founder of — I mean, Wade Rathke is the founder of the organization, and he is an incredible organizer. And it was his vision that allowed ACORN to progress to kind of where it is today. Unfortunately, with, you know, absolute power comes some corruption, and the board members found out about eight or nine months ago that there had been $1 million embezzlement by his brother. BECK: But there hasn’t been any prosecution. There hasn’t really been — nobody has really investigated this mission dollar – this missing million dollars. Nobody has paid for this, criminally speaking? MCCRAY: That is correct, Glenn. And don’t you find it very interesting that even when after word that $1 million embezzlement came out and the fact that board members and executive committee members covered up the embezzlement, that the only people that had been punished were the people that were trying to get to the bottom of where the money go? So there you have it—when news of corruption and embezzlement arose, those in the right were fired by those in the wrong. And perhaps worst of all, the weakest and poorest of our neighbors have been abused, neglected and exploited in the process. Those whom ACORN was designed to serve the most have been victimized the most. That’s quite a one-two punch. I’ve been saying all along that we’ve got to stop thinking of cases like this in terms of “right and left.” Lies, deception, and the clawing for money and power are non-partisan. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, this is a simple matter of RIGHT and WRONG. We’ve got to stop thinking about it as Politics and start thinking about it as CRIME. We need more people like Marcell, Michael and Karen…those who’ll put their personal principles ahead of their professional goals. (And tragically, by coming forward these men and women have had their safety threatened—I urge you to pray for them as I am.) Look, I live in the real world…I know that life is a full contact sport, especially when there are millions of dollars at stake. But if we don’t keep a firm grasp on our moral center and a keen eye on those who say their acting and spending for the public good, we stand to lose a whole lot more than money. Politics gets people crazy, and sometimes the simple truths can be obscured by a lot of fancy talking. At the end of the day, it’s really quite simple: There are good guys and there are bad guys, but they don’t always wear hats so we know who’s who. But at least this time…when it comes to ACORN…I’m seeing those in the black hats pretty clearly. And after being lucky enough to talk to some of those in the white hats, I hope you see them, too. Til Nex-Time....