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ALG Condemns House for Blocking Resolution Removing Rangel as Committee Chair
From Americans for Limited Government:
October 7th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned members of the House for voting to refer a resolution that would have removed Congressman Charlie Rangel as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
“Once again, the Democrat-controlled House has voted to sweep outright corruption under the rug on behalf of a fellow party member who failed to report more than $1 million in outside income as required by House rules,” Wilson said.
“The least Congress can do is not have Rangel serving as Chairman of a committee that deals with taxes while an ‘ongoing’ ethics probe into his undisclosed income is taking place,” Wilson added.
The Resolution, proposed by Congressman John Carter, called for Rangel to be removed as Ways and Means Chairman until the Ethics Committee concludes its probe.
Instead, the House voted 246 to 153 to refer the resolution to the Ethics Committee. “A vote to refer the Rangel resolution to the Ethics Committee was a vote against the resolution, plain and simple,” said Wilson.
Rangel is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, but Wilson stated that the committee may be deliberately stalling, writing in a letter last month to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, “[T]he Ethics Committee — comprised of some of Mr. Rangel’s most ardent apologists — has clearly decided to turn its ‘internal investigation’ into an ‘eternal investigation.’ And justice delayed has long since become justice denied.”
According CBS’ Marcia Kramer, Rangel may have gone as far to “influence” members of the Ethics Committee to look the other way: “CBS 2 HD has discovered that 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.
The report continues, “Charlie’s ‘angels’ on the committee include Congressmen Ben Chandler of Kentucky, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Peter Welch of Vermont. All have received donations from Rangel.”
“The House Ethics Committee is a joke. And despite months of inquiry into known and blatant infractions of law and House rules, no action has been taken,” Wilson said, comparing the delay to the speed that Congressman Joe Wilson had a resolution brought against him for shouting “You lie!” at Barack Obama during a joint session of Congress. On September 15th, the House voted 240-179 in a resolution against Congressman Wilson, just six days after the speech.
Wilson cited several transgressions that he said could have already been acted upon by the House at large:
1) failure to report over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions as required by the House,
2) failure to disclose at least $650,000 in assets he had previously failed to list on his House financial disclosure forms,
3) failure to disclose to the IRS or on his financial disclosure forms $75,000 in rental income for a beach villa in the Dominican Republic,
4) violation of state laws by claiming three primary residences and broke municipal laws by maintaining four rent-controlled apartments,
5) violation of House rules by using congressional letterhead to solicit donations for an education center bearing his name at City College of New York, and
6) delinquency in paying his property taxes on two New Jersey parcels and failure to report the sale of a $1.3 million brownstone.
“There was no reason why these repeated violations could not have been addressed today by the House,” said Wilson
Americans for Limited Government recently a petition website, RangelOutNow.org, to encourage Attorney General Eric Holder to immediately investigate Rangel’s “repeated violation of public disclosure laws… [and] exactly how Mr. Rangel came into at least $650,000 in undisclosed income, and to audit the extent of his income.”
Wilson also called upon Holder to “prosecute Mr. Rangel to the fullest extent of the law for any and all infractions of the law.”
Said Wilson, “This is completely upside down. The Ethics Committee is supposed to act on a non-partisan basis. But instead, it is stonewalling the conclusion of the Rangel investigation. And now the House majority has made it clear that no matter what the ethics probe produces, they will do nothing to remove Rangel from his powerful chairmanship. Nancy Pelosi is encouraging the culture of corruption in Washington to blossom.”
Attachments:
ALG President Bill Wilson Letter to Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, September 16th, 2009.
“The Man Who Knew Too Little,” by Carter Clews, August 31st, 2009.
Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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Coburn: Senate Votes to Prioritize Pork Over National Defense
October 6, 2009
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released the following statement after the Senate rejected Coburn amendments that would have forced Congress to shift earmark funds back toward vital operations and maintenance. By a vote of 25 to 73, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Dr. Coburn that would have restored to the troops $165 million earmarked within the Defense appropriations bill’s maintenance and operations accounts for congressional earmarks.
“In a time of war it is unconscionable for members of Congress to divert funds from vital operations to less-than-vital parochial pork projects. I regret the Senate voted today to protect their pet projects at the expense of our troops,” Dr. Coburn said.
The Pentagon has also expressed concern over the excessive amount of earmarks Congress has requested:
“Every dollar that we are forced to spend on things which we do not need requires us to take money from things which we do need. And the people who lose in that trade-off are our troops and the taxpayers,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman.
The operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts ensure military readiness by providing much needed funds for training troops for combat and for maintaining tanks, airplanes, ships, and related equipment such as the purchase of spare parts. O&M accounts also fund a wide range of activities such as civilian personnel management and payments, transportation expenses, health care, and child care. In May 2009, the U.S. Navy ran out of O&M funding and had to reduce training hours for carrier air wings and at-sea time for some ships. The earmarks funded in the 2010 Defense appropriations bill raid these accounts that are essential to the protection of our troops and our nation’s defense to pay for $165 million or earmarks not requested by the military.
“The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines. American families are prioritizing and eliminating waste in their own budgets, it is a disgrace that Congress has refused this common sense approach to spending taxpayer dollars,” said Dr. Coburn.
Coburn amendments to the bill included:
Amendment 2566 — To restore over $165 million in operations and maintenance funding to members of the Armed Forces to prepare for and conduct combat operations by prohibiting funding of earmarks from operations and maintenance accounts, defeated by a vote of 25 to 73.
Amendment 2565 — To require the National Guard and Reserve Component to submit their modernization priorities to the entire Congress, and seek input from Secretary of Defense Gates, defeated by a vote of 28 to 70.
Coburn amendments accepted:
Amendment 2563— To require all reports authorized in this bill be publicized and accessible to the public once completed.
Amendment number 2585 — To restore $100 million in operations and maintenance funding to members of the Armed Forces to prepare for and conduct combat operations by accounting for the August 2009 Congressional Budget Office economic assumptions and reducing funding for low-priority research and development earmarks.
Michael Savage to Debate Free Speech at Cambridge Union Oct. 15th
(San Francisco, CA) Michael Savage, ’shock-jock’ author of over 25 books with a radio audience of 10 million listeners who was banned from entering the United Kingdom in May by Gordon Brown will argue against the insanity of ‘political correctness’ on Thursday, October 15 at 8:00pm GMT. Savage will appear via internet link to argue his case for freedom of speech.
Quoting Winston Churchill, who said, “You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse – a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic…” Savage will attempt to ’save England from a descent into mental slavery where petty bureaucrats dictate what can and cannot be discussed.”
“The Cambridge Union has been following you with great interest in recent weeks,” reads the invitation, dated July 2. “The decision to ban you has caused quite a stir and we are keen to know how your situation progresses…” Founded in 1815, the Union is the world’s oldest debating society, previously hosting many high profile figures including Ronald Reagan, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger and Sir Winston Churchill himself.
“This debate should awaken all free British citizens to the disastrous state the Brown government has created,” says Savage. “By speaking passionately about freedom of speech, I hope to appeal to the British people and the incoming conservative leadership to remove my name from their list of murderers and terrorists.”
Rep. Issa Responds to ACORN’s Bertha Lewis
Issa Responds to Bertha Lewis Charge that ACORN the Victim of Republican McCarthyism
WASHINGTON. D.C. – House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) issued the following statement today in response to comments made by ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis at the National Press Club where she accused Republicans of ACORN McCarthyism:
“Was it Republicans who embezzled millions from within their own organization and have yet to report the embezzlement to the IRS or Labor Department? Was it Republicans who conducted the internal review that highlighted the lack of firewalls between their charitable and political activities? Was it Republicans who hired a man convicted of multiple counts of conspiracy and money laundering to raise funds and register voters in Oklahoma? The fact that ACORN’s leadership refuses to even acknowledge and accept responsibility for the state of their organization is disturbing and brings into question the sincerity of ACORN’s pledge to reform their organization.”
While ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis addressed the National Press Club, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Republican Staff were reviewing new internal ACORN documents that shed further light on ACORN’s intent to capitalize on the opaque nature of their funding structure in order to fund its partisan political activities.
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On Fox News’ America Newsroom: “ACORN is so opaque to all of us because of its unique status as a non-profit taxable entity that really we have no way of knowing and if you’ll cover up a million, you’ll cover-up five million. Our bigger question is not how much opaque they were in the past; it’s whether or not Bertha Lewis as CEO is ever going to change the company to be more conventional as a non-profit the way the Red Cross or other organizations are which tend to be very transparent.”
CBS: Bertha Lewis Rails Against ‘Modern-day ACORN McCarthyism’
From CBS News:
Bertha Lewis, the chief executive of embattled community group ACORN, told reporters at the National Press Club today that her critics are engaged in “modern-day ACORN McCarthyism” born in part from the group’s history of “going after the rich and the powerful,” the New York Times reports.
While defiant, Lewis did acknowledge that her group had its problems: She said videos showing ACORN employees advising conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute “made my stomach turn,” according to CNN. “It just made you sick,” she added. The group has appointed an investigator to examine why the behavior took place.
But Lewis refused to make apologies for her 40-year-old organization, which she said wasn’t going anywhere. Congress, she said, can’t destroy the group by withholding federal funding: “We didn’t have government funding for years,” she said to illustrate that point, according to Politico. “We may not have government funding in the future.”
ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been receiving about $2.5 million to $3 million each year from the federal government, Lewis said – only about 10 percent of its annual budget. The rest of its funding comes from membership dues and private donors.
Read the full article here.