State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio apologized yesterday for rear-ending a family of four on Sunday afternoon and fleeing the scene, an accident that left one person with minor injuries, a Cambridge neighborhood shaken by his actions, and questions about what prompted his lapses behind the wheel.
It is the latest chapter in Galluccio's checkered driving history: The 42-year-old senator has had repeated problems, including at least two previous accidents involving alcohol. In an interview yesterday, Galluccio refused to say whether he had been drinking alcohol before Sunday's incident.
The Cambridge Democrat hit the family's car with enough force that he left an imprint of his license plate on their van, which helped police track and cite him Monday with leaving the scene of an accident.
"It was very poor judgment and I have to accept responsibility for it,'' Galluccio, a former Cambridge mayor and city councilor, said in a 9-minute interview at his State House office.
Did he then resign?
Galluccio declined to answer numerous questions, however. He refused to say, for example, where he was coming from or where he was going.
The incident is yet another example of a Massachusetts politician in trouble with the law. Galluccio said he did not plan to resign his seat or step down from his prominent post as Senate chairman of the Joint Committee on Higher Education.
"I'm here today to do my job, and that's what I plan on continuing to do,'' said Galluccio. "There are no excuses for it,'' he said. "I'm embarrassed. I'm facing that.''
A citation was issued to Galluccio for leaving the scene after causing property damage and personal injury. If he is found to have left the scene, he could have his driver's license revoked for 60 days, said Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Given the gentleman's history, it might be considered a good investment on behalf of the citizenry to assign him a professional driver. I think appropriate to put it under "health insurance".
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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If it weren't for the fact it was massachusetts, it'd be an episode of "name that party..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/08/2009 0:30 Comments ||
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#2
Why do i get the vision of another time, another place, another senator involved in an accident( and leaving the scene); only this one involved a bridge and a single female, not an entire family........
#3
That was long ago and far away, another life in fact... and besides, this one was caught and apologized -- and will lose his licence for a bit since he clearly left the scene of the accident.
#4
tw - this is Massachusetts. Gov Weld (!) pardond him for one of his past two OUI's, and he beat the rap the other time. I'm not betting on a conviction of any sort in this case.
#6
I wonder how much liability insurance he has. He'll need a lot, with 4 suits against him. The only question is how much, not if. I hope they sock it to him.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
10/08/2009 9:56 Comments ||
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#7
Yeah, I was hoping a story about getting a ouiji board out for ted's endorsement and instead got this, following by "Arrrghhh yAAAA!
#8
Massachusetts is a no fault insurance state - drive like a horse with your ass on fire, run people down, it doesn't matter - its not your fault you are an idiot and we MUST insure you. This alcoholic B-astard should be taken off the road, but no. Its the law, sound familiar?
Try the BS national healthcare system legislation, Your a drug addict with a death wish, you F AIDS infected prostitutes, coming attractions a la the Democrats
(Bloomberg) -- At least 47 school-age children in Chicago have been killed in homicides, mostly by guns, since the month President Barack Obama took office. I think they mean "killed in homicides, mostly WITH guns." The guns weren't running around by themselves. Guns are tools, used by PEOPLE. Sheesh, only one sentence and Bloomberg's already revealed their biased agenda.
The latest youth homicide in his adopted hometown was different only in that the attackers used splintered railroad ties and were captured on video broadcast globally. Oh right, no guns.
The Sept. 24 attack prompted Obama to send his attorney general and education secretary to Chicago today after the killing tarnished the city's drive to win the 2016 Olympics. "The savage beating of Derrion Albert, recycled on television, embarrassed Chicago and the nation," said the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a civil-rights activist and founder of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition. "You can't ignore the case."
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder plan to appear at City Hall with Mayor Richard Daley in what the Obama administration described as a search for solutions to youth crime. They also will meet privately with students and parents.
Chicago's violence has long burdened Obama's political career, including the embarrassment of a missed vote as a state senator that hurt his 2000 bid for Congress. Duncan, 44, a Chicago native and Obama friend, admits to "total failure" in curbing violence during his seven years as chief of the nation's third-largest school system, which serves more than 400,000 students, 85 percent of them living below the poverty line.
Some gun-control advocates question the administration's timing as Duncan and Holder arrive after a highly publicized beating that didn't involve a gun.
Missed Opportunities
"Where there have been opportunities for the president to speak out about the issue of firearm violence, he has missed any number of opportunities," said Thom Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.
Doing so in the Albert case "provides the cover" to address youth violence without confronting the gun lobby, said Mannard, whose group's board of directors included Duncan until he left for his current post.
The administration defended its record.
"President Obama is committed to combating violence on our streets and in our schools, both in Chicago -- which has been particularly hard hit -- and around the nation," White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement. "The administration has focused on the issue of youth violence from the outset."
The beating death of Albert, 16, an honor student, renewed outrage and prompted a call to action in a city where 398 students were shot in the past 12 months, said Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Public Schools. Four teens have been charged in connection with Albert's killing.
Obama Sermon
The incident happened less than five miles from a church where Obama gave a sermon in July 2007 challenging the government, the gun lobby and the public to stop gun violence.
"Our playgrounds have become battlegrounds," he told a standing-room congregation. "Our streets have become cemeteries. Our schools have become places to mourn the ones we've lost. The violence is unacceptable." The meddling do-gooders only want to focus on guns and racist victim-mongering, with no mention of, say, efforts to maintain stable two-parent families, or parental responsibility for the criminal actions of their minor children.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Only if Chicago school chilluns had a whole period devoted to singing the praises of Obama.
Posted by: ed ||
10/08/2009 1:07 Comments ||
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Gun control has never been a substitution for self control. Until communities have their own Anbar Awakening for their own interest, no amount of government 'concern' or 'redistribution' is going to solve the problem. Communities must realize most of their problems are created by the person in the mirror and directly address it or continue to exist in the environment they create for themselves. One of the key obstruction to change is loyalty to blood over loyalty to community.
#3
Unfortunately of little concern unless one must live there. It is barbarity in its most basic form, the barbarity with a subtle difference. Sir Richard Burton, the famous explorer, was right when he said "mere barbarism rarely disgusts: it is the unnatural union of civilization with savagery that makes the gorge rise." The incongruities are not grotesque enough to be amusing; they are merely ugly and painful. Remove civilization and the problem disappears.
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song, and a thigh-bone beating on a tin pan gong.
Vachel Lindsay
"Many members" of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.
They all do it, so really, it's ok.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms.
"I want to tell you, there are many members who, if you go back over all of their records, over all of the years, you're going to find that there were disclosures that were not made," Waters said during an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning.
Names please ...
Republicans are seeking to force Rangel from his position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee by offering a privileged resolution from Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) to mandate Rangel step aside.
Waters defended Rangel, saying the Harlem congressman is making an effort to correct the records and pay his debts.
"What happens is, unfortunately with the requirements for disclosure that we all have, mistakes are made," she said. "And you do get a chance to correct them. And so it looks as if he is correcting those mistakes."
Waters said that Rangel should not step down from his chairmanship, but should continue working until ethics investigations into his finances have concluded.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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The state's top ethics watchdog has slapped former Spitzer aide Darren Dopp with the maximum $10,000 fine for his role in orchestrating in disgraced governor's Dirty Tricks plot.
The action by the state Commission on Public Integrity comes more than a year after it released a blistering report detailing the effort in 2007 to discredit then-Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican, by leaking confidential police information to the Albany Times Union newspaper.
Two other former Spitzer aides were spared fines after pleading guilty to civil charges in 2008, but Dopp, the governor's former communications director, decided to fight. A hearing officer who reviewed the case issued a report in August supporting the commission's action.
In a statement, Commission Chairman Michael Cherkasky slammed Dopp for misusing Bruno's state police security detail to spy on the former Senate leader.
"Such misconduct erodes public confidence in both the integrity and the independence of our state police," Cherkasky said. "To assess him anything other than the maximum penalty would send the wrong signal to those who might consider similar actions in the future."
Dopp, who said he learned about the fine from The Post, said he intended to sue the commission.
"With this decision, I become the first public information officer in history to be sanctioned for releasing public records in response to a media request," Dopp said. "This decision is unfounded, erroneous and tainted."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Sen. Max Baucuss (D-MT) health care overhaul would cost more than $2 trillion. It would expand the deficit. But he has carefully and methodically hidden those facts so well that he has completely hoodwinked nearly all the major media.
The media are reporting that the Baucus bill would reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. Wrong.
The Baucus bill assumes that Congress will allow the sustainable growth rate cuts in Medicares physician payments to occur beginning in 2012. Yet Congress has routinely and repeatedly blocked those cuts, making Baucuss assumption preposterous. The CBO handled the issue delicately, but essentially said, Sure, provided that the sun rises in the west in 2012, then yes, this bill would reduce the deficit.
That means Baucus will come up at least $200 billion short on the revenue side, making his bill a budget-buster.
The media are reporting that the Baucus bill would cost just $829 billion over 10 years. Wrong.
As Donald Marron observes, that number omits as much as $75 billion in new federal spending. It also omits a $33 billion unfunded mandate on state governments.
But the worst part is that the Congressional Budget Offices preliminary cost estimate omits the cost of the private sector mandates in the Baucus bill. In Massachusetts, those costs accounted for 60 percent of the total cost of reform. That suggests the actual cost of the Baucus bill $829 billion plus $75 billion plus $33 billion, times 2.5 is well over $2 trillion.
Yet the CBO score pretends those costs arent even there. Its like a mystery novel thats missing the last 50 pages. And the media arent even curious.
In the words of Brad DeLong, why, oh why, cant we have a better press corps?
(CNNMoney.com) -- You don't need a Ph.D in economics to know that the government fiscal year that ended last week was ugly for the budget.
Much attention has been paid this year to the record-high spending and deficit accrued because of the financial and economic crisis.
But one of the driving factors that has gotten less notice: plummeting tax revenue. The crisis, after all, walloped company profits and savaged Americans' income stream. Through the end of August, Uncle Sam collected 25% less in tax revenue for the year than he did during the same period a year earlier. The two biggest culprits -- a 56% drop in corporate income tax revenue and a 20% drop in individual income tax revenue.
On balance, the Congressional Budget Office expects that tax receipts will be 14.9% of gross domestic product this year, well below the historical 18.3%average.
While revenue forecasts for next year are better, the CBO estimates tax receipts will only make up about 15.7% of GDP.
But two factors could lower that estimate. The first is whether or not the projections for economic growth and the unemployment rate prove too optimistic. If they do, that would reduce how much tax revenue Washington collects. The other factor is whether or not lawmakers pass a host of tax-break extensions that are under discussion. Some of those breaks are safety-net provisions that were part of the economic recovery act passed in February, while others come from a bevy of provisions that typically get extended every year.
Possible contenders for extension that could further reduce revenue include:
the tax credit to help laid-off workers buy health insurance under Cobra;
the federal income tax exemption for the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits;
relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax for 2010, which could affect revenue collection for both 2010 and 2011;
the first-time home buyer credit of $8,000, which expires Nov. 30; and
the research and development credit for businesses.
The cost of such tax extenders would depend on how they're structured.
But their cost might be offset somewhat by other tax measures. For instance, roughly $10 billion could be raised if lawmakers, as expected, retain the estate tax for 2010, said Dan Clifton, the head of policy research at Strategas Research Partners.
On the other hand, should lawmakers cook up any new tax breaks during 2010 in the name of stimulus or job creation or any other issue, that could further compromise revenue collections, unless lawmakers stick to their promise to pay for any new tax cuts.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Any takers on the idea that the cash society is just now getting revved up? Off the books action is alive and well throughout the country.
#2
No more stock market and real estate bubble profits to tax. Lot's of taxpayers will be maxing out their capital losses deduction for the next 30 years.
Posted by: ed ||
10/08/2009 1:14 Comments ||
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There was a time many decades ago when most of the government's income was obtained from tariffs on imports, aka 'external revenue' 'Internal revenue' was an innovation which is now thought of as government's sole support.
Yeah, mentioned his hypocrisy, along with conh-bandit's, when it came to either supporting or denouncing polanski.
Note that despite being a soc9alist heir, mitterand is not that much of an idiotarian, especially compared to the others - what saves him is that he's not an actual, professional politican, but a real entrepreneur in culture, theatre, teevee host, older movie specialist,...
But, his "fondness" for young boys from morocco notably is an open secret, though, in all fairness, so is the curent Paris mayor's own one, and none of the Enlightned Elites are calling for his head; in that regard, frédo mitterrand here pays the price for being an atypical (with a definite conservative cultural side, and not part of the herd) leftist.
Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, who has survived multiple Republican attempts to oust him as Ways and Means Committee chairman, may be headed for more trouble on the ethics front. Of course the CBC sticks by Rangel as they did with Cold Cash Jefferson. Not limited to just the CBC ...
The House ethics committee met privately Thursday and is expected to issue an announcement about its sprawling Rangel investigation later today, according to Democratic and GOP insiders. Several members of the committee -- including those on the special subcommittee investigating Rangel -- came and went from the ethics panel offices Thursday afternoon in the Capitol basement without commenting on the matter.
Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), ranking Republican on the panel, said the "full committee will be issuing a statement this afternoon." Bonner declined to give any details on that announcement.
Rangel said he has not heard from the ethics committee as of Thursday afternoon. "No, I haven't," he said.
It's unclear what the secretive ethics panel will say, but the committee has been conducting a wide-ranging probe of the veteran New York Democrat. The committee is looking into Rangel's use of rent-stabilized apartments in a Harlem luxury building, his fundraising on behalf of the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College in New York, a tax provision for a million-dollar donor to the center and his failure to pay taxes on a vacation home in the Dominican Republic.
Rangel has also been pulled into a parallel investigation into lawmaker trips to the Caribbean. A special investigative subcommittee is looking into whether five members of the Congressional Black Caucus took trips in 2007 and 2008 paid for by the Carib News Foundation, and there are questions whether the trips were improperly paid for using corporate funds.
Rangel, 79, has denied any wrongdoing, but he recently submitted revised financial disclosure reports showing hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal assets that he had never previously declared. On Wednesday, he survived a Republican attempt to oust him from the Ways and Means Committee.
Several sources familiar with the Rangel probe believe the ethics committee will announce that it is again widening the investigation to include issues raised by those revised disclosure reports.
Reps. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) said they couldn't talk about it as they left a meeting of the ethics committee in the basement of the Capitol.
"You'll have to ask the chairman," Welch said.
But Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the ethics committee, brushed off reporter inquiries on Rangel as she left the meeting. Just what we need, a leftist Welfare Queen chairing the committee.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and other Democratic leaders have resisted GOP efforts to force Rangel to give up his gavel at the powerful Ways and Means Committee, arguing the ethics committee should be allowed to complete its work first.
If the ethics committee makes a major announcement on the Rangel case, however, it will be harder to hold off the Republican resolutions.
#2
Friday dump is still old school MSM. That burial opportunity is diminishing. It'll end when the net becomes a magnifying glass not only of the data, but the linkage to even more pertinent data, compounding the event over the weekend without control, spin, or influence of the dumpsters.
#3
kicking the can down the road: The House ethics committee expanded a sprawling investigation into Rangel Thursday, digging into allegations stemming from an August restatement of his personal finances, in which he under reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets. The ethics committee action which was unanimous came a day after House Democrats turned back a Republican attempt to force Rangel from his Ways and Means chairmanship while the investigation, now in its second year, is completed.
Theres growing concern at the piling up here of issues, said one Democratic lawmaker who asked not to be identified talking about Rangel. People are willing to give some time to the process, but not an infinite amount of time. There will come a time, if this goes unresolved, when the drip, drip, drip will become a torrent.
Two Mississippi Democrats, Gene Taylor and Travis Childers, have already bailed on Rangel, voting against him on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday night, Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., who is running for the Senate, chose not to sign a Black Caucus letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in support of Rangel.
Meek told POLITICO that his vote to refer the Rangel matter to the ethics panel was enough of a statement of his position.
Im not on every letter that the Black Caucus puts out, Meek said. I didnt feel that it was something I had to break my neck on.
To be sure, the great majority of the Democratic caucus and Speaker Nancy Pelosi still seem willing to stick with Rangel until the ethics investigation is complete.
But even the slightest erosion of Democratic support will have Republicans crowing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/08/2009 19:10 Comments ||
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I wish they could dig even deeper--private investigator or something. The Dominican Republic is one of the main waystations for drug shipments from South America. Vacant property owners can claim deniability if a cartaker gets caught with the goods. The USVI also allows fantastic tax breaks up to as much as 90% for investing there, as Charlie has in rum, besides the revenues it brings in.
In a Congress filled with fiefdoms of special-interest spending, one man is king Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. In 2008, Murtha earmarked $192 million for his district. Thus far this year, hes only managed to earmark $134 million. But give him time.
The jewel in Murthas pork crown is the airport in Johnstown, Pa. That would be the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport.
A Washington Post exposé revealed that Murtha has steered more than $200 million in federal funds to his namesake over the past 15 years, including more than $25 million for runways to handle heavy military planes that dont fly there, $8 million for a radar system that isnt used and $800,000 in stimulus funds to repave an alternate runway though the main one sees little traffic.
The Murtha airport has only three daily commercial flights all to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. About 30 people use the airport on a daily basis. According to the Post, every flight to and from Murtha receives a federal subsidy of $147 per passenger, twice the national average for the program that supports air transportation to rural communities.
Rep. Don Young and former Sen. Ted Stevens, Republicans from Alaska, had funding for their Bridge to Nowhere rescinded before it was built. Murtha actually has an Airport for No One.
Last month, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., introduced an amendment that would have prevented any future federal funds from flowing to the airport. If we cannot cut the funding for this little airport in Pennsylvania, named after the congressman that helped get it $200 million, the Post quoted him as saying, if we cannot look at the facts in this particular case, and decide as a Congress to stop this, then there is nothing we can cut here, then there is no such thing as waste.
The amendment was defeated when 53 senators, including 51 Democrats, voted against it. A similar measure was defeated earlier in the year in the House along a party line vote, 263-154.
Even in the midst of economic hardship, Congress cant muster the courage tell one of its biggest spendthrifts, Enough! And thats one of the major reasons why the public holds the institution in such low esteem.
#4
The only way to get rid of Murtha is to cut the flow of funds to his district - which means a conservative majority (and not a majority of the rinos the Republican party is now).
Once the funding dries up people in his district might realize that he's been insulting them all along.
#5
Once the funding dries up people in his district might realize that he's been insulting them all along.
This goes back to the comment yesterday about there are some [too many] who want to remain on the Plantation. That's an equal opportunity Plantation, membership regardless of color, race or creed. They know they're jacking everyone else and don't really care. They're not fools, but co-conspirators.
#6
Murtha's district had plenty of reason to fire him in 2008 but re-elected him; I figure he'll never get voted out.
Yet McCain won his district (barely), go figure. They like the pork he brings in, though, so I agree he'll continue to be reelected (35 years and counting).
We need more Joe Wilson-types to call these slimeballs out. Otherwise, we'll be lucky to pick up 20 seats, much less take back the House.
#7
actually, a lot of Republicans have high levels of pork barrel projects in their district and some of these are as useless and unproductive as the Murtha airport
This may be what procopius meant with his 'plantation' remark (or it might not).
Posted by: lord garth ||
10/08/2009 13:22 Comments ||
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I'll never figure out how he does it, unless it's his staff who manages to pull these things off and they cluelessly take courage from him. The guy is barely qualified to drool, let alone pull this kind of stuff off.
Rep. Steve Israel gamely tried to explain the proposed health care reform Monday night, but was often shouted down during his town hall-style meeting at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood.
Israel (D-Huntington) at one point pleaded with those in the crowd yelling at him to "stop calling me a liar and listen." Judging by the ever-increasing decibel level, he did not win over many converts.
Shouts of -- "Stop printing money," "We don't care what you think," and "You're a moron" -- permeated the 90-minute session, which drew far more than the 450 people who filled Van Nostrand Theatre. Scores more were not allowed inside after a Suffolk fire marshal closed the doors.
People opposing the proposed health care reform outnumbered those in favor, though both sides strove to outshout each other during the question-and-answer period.
A typical scene came after Anneliese Lanza of Huntington asked, "Why can't we just fix the part of health care that is broken when what is needed is tort reform?" The anti-reform portion of the crowd broke into a raucous standing ovation chanting "tort reform."
"You're saying tort reform now, but if something happens to you, you'll be the first one to want to take the case to a judge and jury," Israel said. "I don't believe a member of the United States Congress should decide when you can go to court."
Israel, who supports the public option, which would allow people to purchase insurance through a government program, said he does not expect to support every aspect of the final reform bill.
"I'm not going to draw any lines in the sand," he said. "I'm not going to vote against 60 percent of what I want because I can't get 40 percent of what I want. There is no perfection."
Israel explained how the proposed legislation will affect Medicare -- it will eliminate overpayments to doctors in the Medicare Advantage program; that undocumented immigrants won't be covered; that the federal government would administer the public option just as it does Medicare and Medicaid; and that "the days of insurance companies dropping your coverage because you get sick will be over."
After several people began shouting concerns about rationed health care, Israel said he hears daily from constituents who have been dropped by their health insurance companies after becoming ill.
"If you can't get medical care because your insurance company doesn't want to pay for it, you've been rationed out of health care," Israel said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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"I'm not going to draw any lines in the sand," he said. "I'm not going to vote against 60 percent of what I want because I can't get 40 percent of what I want. There is no perfection."
But, but, but, he put people back to work and built the Autobahns. He really wasn't ALL bad. Behold! Keynesian logic.
ACORN wants people to register to vote -- as long as they're Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash.
Here is a first-hand account of how it happens. In February 2008, Fathiyyah Muhammad of Jacksonville, Florida, heard that ACORN was paying people three dollars for each voter they could register. ACORN paid her three dollars for each voter she registered, but Fatiyyah Muhammad says that the group threw out her votes and fired her when she brought them registrations of Republican voters.
Fathiyyah Muhammad voted for Obama. "I'm a Republican," she says, "and this was the first time that I voted for a Democrat since JFK.... I'm one of those rare birds, a black conservative Republican, and actually this is the black conservative capital of the country, Jacksonville, Florida." She is an entrepreneur and a great American: she makes custom caps for her businesses Bilal's Custom Caps and Only in America. She and her James have made custom caps for politicians, sports heroes, musicians, and others. "America," she says, "is the place you can live your dreams if you work at it." She's a can-do woman with a great American spirit, and when she saw what was breaking in the news about ACORN, she came forward; I interviewed her Monday morning.
"This is my first experience" with ACORN, Muhammad said. "This was before Obama got the nomination, long before then....I heard about this group that was paying $3.00 per person, to go out and to get people to sign up to vote. So I went over, I thought that well this is a good way to make some money because I know everybody, you know. I went over there and this guy signed me up and everything, and gave me my little pad, all this stuff."
Muhammad went to the ACORN office in Jacksonville. There she encountered a young man speaking to a room of about twenty people. "He was telling us, you know, about his experience, he was from Brooklyn, he wasn't from this area. He was just here recruiting people to register people to vote. They had a big office here, and I would say maybe about ten or twelve people at there."
She went to work: "Well, I went out and got a lot of people, homeless people, but of course I signed everybody up as a Republican, and I would have put people had they been Democrats." She was not forcing people to sign up as Republicans: "You could put down anything you wanted." But when she got back to ACORN, a group leader was not pleased: "So I showed what I had, and he said, "No, no, you a fraud, there can't be any black Republicans,' and oh, he just kind of hung me out to dry.... But of course their main aim was to register only Democrats. They're not interested in registering Republicans."
She saw ACORN officials in Jacksonville throw out the Republican registrations she made. "They just discarded those, they weren't valid. All of the registrations... they just threw those out." Yet she says that she is sure that the people she registered were actually going to vote: "Yes, they all were going to vote, I just didn't want to get anybody just to get the three dollars, I wasn't desperate for three dollars."
ACORN did not honor its agreement to pay three dollars for each registered voter. "He took my papers," says Muhammad, "didn't pay me anything and I just left, I just figured that this is just another scam.... Everyone else got paid, all the other people got paid, but I didn't. And I didn't make a big deal about it, I just figured that it was another one of life's experiences."
Fatiyyah Muhammad didn't know anything about ACORN at that time. She didn't know that ACORN has been doing this for a long time. As far back as November 2006 the organization was indicted for some 40,000 illegal voter registrations, and that was before any of the recent revelations.
Now Fatiyyah Muhammad says: "I can't believe that they got away with it for so long." And she wants her story to be told: "How are you going to shine a light on the laundry if you don't want to come out and say what happened?"
Fatiyyah Muhammad is unafraid to shine that light. And her testimony is another nail in the coffin of the community organizers of ACORN and their stealth agenda.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Not really news. Been reading about this since the late 1980's.
Posted by: ed ||
10/08/2009 1:19 Comments ||
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It's another nail in the coffin, ed. This nail being an American Black Muslim woman entrepreneur who is Republican. How are they going to call her a racist?
By Dana Milbank
Bertha Lewis, the head of ACORN, is one tough nut.
She came to the National Press Club on Tuesday, ostensibly to report on the community group's "internal probe" into the ACORN workers who were caught on tape advising people posing as a pimp and a prostitute. But Lewis made it clear that, far from apologizing, she was on a "set-the-record-straight tour" -- and a tour de force it was.
The internal review by ACORN's board, disclosed this week by the Louisiana attorney general, that $5 million had been embezzled from the group rather than the $1 million previously alleged? "This is speculation, completely false and not based on any documentation or any audit or anything other than two disgruntled former board members," Lewis reported.
Accusations of voter fraud after ACORN workers filled out voter registrations for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys? "An utter fabrication and a work of fiction that was created by the people who wrote it."
The report by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee that ACORN created a "shell game that funneled charitable funds to for-profit organizations"? "Another stretch of allegations of how to pound on ACORN. . . . It's just false."
And, of course, the secretly recorded videos of ACORN workers providing help to people claiming they wished to set up an underage-prostitution business? "These highly edited tapes," Lewis said, "don't tell the whole story." ACORN's accusers "have to stoop to break the law in order to create something sensational," she added.
In creativity, the ACORN boss's denials were matched only by her assignments of blame. She blamed her predecessor: "I don't think it's fair to judge me, as I'm cleaning up a previous administration." She blamed the powerful: "We've seen this play before, whether it was the civil rights movement or whatever, when you organize poor people to have real power, what you do is often turned against you." And most of all, she blamed Republicans: "The RNC . . . because we've been inflated as the boogeyman, raises almost $2 million a day, every day, and this form of modern-day ACORN McCarthyism has got to stop."
Assigned only a minor role in this orgy of blame were ACORN and Lewis herself. "My biggest weakness is a certain naivete about folks coming after you," she said in a moment of self-interested introspection. "I guess maybe others might have known and could have set up some other barriers and could've been better with media and PR."
But really, this isn't about PR. Without question, much of the assault on ACORN has been politically motivated, stirred up by conservatives and Republican politicians. Also beyond doubt: That ACORN does some good and important work in poor communities. But Lewis, in playing the victim, is her own worst enemy. Forget the film of the pimp and prostitute: Watching a film of Lewis's performance yesterday would probably be enough to cause lawmakers to cut off ACORN's federal funding.
"I admit I am not a graduate of the Wharton School of Business," she said in a mocking tone as she discussed her qualifications to run the embattled group. Her selling point: "I'm clean and I'm relatively competent."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Without question, much of the assault on ACORN has been politically motivated, stirred up by conservatives and Republican politicians.
Of course that's why the Democrat AG of Nevada, one among several, is going after them for violations of the law concerning voter registration. When its widespread and systematic its RICO.
#5
What she could have said, "I apologize for ACORN'S criminal acts. ACORN will be great again. If you work for ACORN and broke the law, you have 24 hours to go down under your own power to the police and confess. Tomorrow, I will start kicking butts out of our offices, down the street, and into the police stations with boxes of documents."
A top Senate Democrat said just because other presidents have created "czars" to carry out administration policy does not mean President Obama is right to follow their lead - and warned that Congress may have to step in and keep White House appointees in check.
Senators say the arrangement goes against the Constitution because many czars are never vetted by Congress, even though they have a major role in making policy.
But there may be few options for reeling them in. Experts told Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who convened a hearing on the issue, that the tools available are either to cut off funding for the positions or write laws to control how much authority Congress gives the president.
"While there is a long history of the use of White House advisers and czars, that does not mean we can assume they are constitutionally appropriate," said Mr. Feingold, chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Constitution subcommittee.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/08/2009 00:00 ||
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Senators say the arrangement goes against the Constitution because many czars are never vetted by Congress, even though they have a major role in making policy.
Actually goes back to one of the causa bellum of the English Civil War on who the King could appoint without the approval of Parliament. It's also one of the features of the Constitution, in that the founding fathers, still remembering their English heritage, explicitly wrote requirements for agents of the Executive to be subject to the Legislative Branch. For example, the President nominates officers, but Congress approves commissions.
But there may be few options for reeling them in.
Congress has the power of the purse. If it can cut funding for specific defense purposes, it can cut funding for other Executive activity. It's simply a question of will.
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.
State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio apologized yesterday for rear-ending a family of four on Sunday afternoon and fleeing the scene, an accident that left one person with minor injuries, a Cambridge neighborhood shaken by his actions, and questions about what prompted his lapses behind the wheel.
"Many members" of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.
The state's top ethics watchdog has slapped former Spitzer aide Darren Dopp with the maximum $10,000 fine for his role in orchestrating in disgraced governor's Dirty Tricks plot.
Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, who has survived multiple Republican attempts to oust him as Ways and Means Committee chairman, may be headed for more trouble on the ethics front. 
Rep. Steve Israel gamely tried to explain the proposed health care reform Monday night, but was often shouted down during his town hall-style meeting at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood.
ACORN wants people to register to vote -- as long as they're Democrats. Republican registrations go into the trash.
By Dana Milbank
A top Senate Democrat said just because other presidents have created "czars" to carry out administration policy does not mean President Obama is right to follow their lead - and warned that Congress may have to step in and keep White House appointees in check.
