Election watchdogs have fined Joe Biden's 2008 presidential campaign more than $219,000 for sloppy bookkeeping and accepting excessive contributions, including a discounted flight on a private jet.
The audit was released Friday by the Federal Election Commission. It determined that the Biden campaign accepted an illegal corporate contribution in the form of a round-trip flight between New Hampshire and Iowa in June 2007 for three people. The Biden campaign paid GEH Air Transportation $7,911 for the first-class airfare, but regulators say the campaign should have paid the charter rate of $34,800.
The FEC also found that the Biden campaign received at least $106,000 in donations that were over the limit, and the campaign was ordered to pay the U.S. Treasury more than $85,000 for stale-dated checks.
The Biden campaign also failed to disclose more than $3.7 million in payments and roughly $870,000 in debts.
The audit was conducted in part as a condition of Biden's accepting taxpayer funds for his campaign through the presidential public financing system.
Biden, who's now the vice president, campaigned for president for nearly a year before dropping out in January 2008 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.
Elizabeth Alexander, a spokeswoman for Biden in the vice president's office, on Saturday said the campaign would pay the fines.
"Some repayment is commonplace after presidential campaign audits and the repayment ordered here is relatively small. Payment is due to the Treasury 30 days after the FEC issues its formal ruling and Biden for President will comply with that," she said.
You've seen the reports about Van Jones, President Obama's onetime "green jobs czar," and Cass Sunstein, his equally volatile "regulatory czar," and Fox News show host Glenn Beck has put together a list of dozens of such appointees.
Now here's the newest White House promotion: "Health food czar" Sam Kass.
"In a comical move even for a czar-happy president who has rewarded dozens of cronies with distinguished titles, the White House has named the Obamas' personal Chicago cook as 'Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives,'" reports the Washington government watchdog Judicial Watch.
"It's no joke, even though it sounds like a bad one. The Chicago chef's rapid ascension ... has been kept under the radar for the last month," Judicial Watch said.
"Sam Kass went from being a 20-something, Windy City gourmet cook -- privately paid by the Obamas to feed them -- to big-time White House adviser in a matter of months," the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2010 00:00 ||
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In the latest stop on his Recovery Summer tour, rock star President Barack Obama landed in Holland, Michigan Thursday, insulted its congressman, handed American stimulus dollars to a Korean corporation, and proclaimed Obamanomics a success even as Michigan has lost 94,000 jobs since his Recovery Act was enacted.
All in all, another day in the life of an increasingly unpopular president who seems to be living in an alternative universe.
That universe insists that government is the source of jobs, and so Obama was in Western Michigan to declare another victory in Washingtons mission to create a new green economy.
But the green economy looks like a lot of green for the well-connected. The president handed $150 million in stimulus money over to Korean CEO Peter Bahnsuk Kim of LG Chem. LG Chem is an $11 billion Korean conglomerate that hardly seems a candidate for the American Recovery Act. No wonder the program is so unpopular.
Accompanying Obama was Governor Jennifer Granholm - Obama praised her as one of the best governors in America even as she presides over the nations second highest unemployment rate who has been complaining that Washington Republicans are denying her the $500 million in stimulus money she needs to plug Michigans Medicaid budget hole. So here she was in West Michigan celebrating $150 million for Corporate Korea. Huh?
Obama said his benevolence would create 300 jobs in Holland but thats $500,000 per job. At least its a bargain compared to the $ $1.25 million per job Obama spent on two solar companies in Arizona over the July 4 weekend.
The president cheered that LG Chem batteries will go into GMs electric plug-in Chevy Volt "so when you buy one of these vehicles, it will be stamped 'Made in America. But precious few Americans will buy the $40,000 Volt (thats BMW 3-series sticker territory) as they are targeted at well-healed consumers making over $100,00 a year in places Silicon Valley.
West Michigan is suffering 12 percent unemployment yet President Audacity of Hope had the audacity to suggest that the stimulus efforts we took we are no longer bleeding jobs." In fact, since his $1 trillion Recovery Act was passed a year ago, Michigan has lost nearly 100,000 jobs.
Obama couldnt even get his manners right. Ever the partisan, he took a shot at his host, Holland Congressional representative Pete Hoekstra who was in the audience. Despite opposing the Recovery Act, Hoekstra attended the ground-breaking ceremony, he told The View, out of respect for the office of president.
The respect was not returned. "Some made the political calculation that it's better to obstruct than to lend a hand, sneered Obama at the end of his remarks. Now that doesn't stop them from being at ribbon cuttings, but that's OK."
And then the president jumped in his 10 mpg Caddy limo and headed to the next stop on his tour to transform what Americans drive.
#4
#3: November is our only hope to kneecap this idiot. Posted by: NCMike
No, but it's the best hope we have at the moment. Remember, "soap box, ballot box, cartridge box". It was good enough for our Founding Fathers, and it's good enough for me. Just keep re-reading the Declaration of Independence. It's a REAL message of hope.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/17/2010 17:48 Comments ||
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#5
The Founding Fathers went to war over a tea tax, we're not worthy.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
07/17/2010 20:23 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Election watchdogs have fined Joe Biden's 2008 presidential campaign more than $219,000 for sloppy bookkeeping and accepting excessive contributions, including a discounted flight on a private jet. 
You've seen the reports about Van Jones, President Obama's onetime "green jobs czar," and Cass Sunstein, his equally volatile "regulatory czar," and Fox News show host Glenn Beck has put together a list of dozens of such appointees.
