DC Democrats are the richest pols

Wealth is not in and of itself bad, but when the wealthy run around wildly spending other people’s money that’s practically criminal. So, we find it less than amusing that the spendthrift Democrats — check Omaba’s recent spending spree — are also the richest elected officials in Washington, DC.

The Web political publication, The Hill , just issued its list of the 50 richest politicians in DC, and eight of the top 10 are Democrats, which we list below.

Of the 50 richest members of Congress, The Hill says 26 are Democrats and 24 are Republicans.

What’s especially irritating is that Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry heads the list and he’s the guy we recently wrote about because he docks his new $450,000 sailing yacht in Rhode Island to avoid paying the Bay State’s sales and excise taxes. What a hypocritical cheapskate!

Of course, after the story hit every newspaper in America and many abroad, Kerry said he’d pay the $70,000 in taxes even though his boat would still be moored in RI. Kerry is the poster boy for adage, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Here are the top 10 richest elected officials according to The Hill , where you can read the full list.

S. John Kerry, D-MA, 167M
R. Darrell Issa, R-CA, 164M
R. Jane Harman, D-CA, 112M
S. Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, 80M
S. Mark Warner, D-VA, 72M
R. Jared Polis, D-CO, 71M
R. Vern Buchanan, R-FL, 50M
S. Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ, 48M
S. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, 43M
R. Harry Teague, D-NM, 40M

Richest Politician Skirted Taxes

It only took two days of bad press to get the Democrataic Senate hypocrite John Kerry to cave in and pay his tax bill, as the AP reported.

Kerry is a free spender of tax dollars, but when it comes to his own money, he's obviously a bit tighter. Of course, all of that money really isn't Kerry's, a good bit of it comes from his wife who inherited the Heinz ketchup fortune from her late husband, also a politician.

Kerry recently commission the 76-foot yacht, christened Isabel, at a boatyard in Rhode Island. Therefore, it was naturally convenient for Kerry to have the boat legally moored in Rhode Island. The location also allows Kerry to avoid paying the sales tax plus annual excise tax, which total about $70,000 in Massachusetts.

If Kerry were only as stingy with tax dollars that would be nice.

We might note, too, that the Isabel is said to spend a good bit of her summer moored off of Nantucket Island, the millionaires island, where the Kerry family has a summer home.

A couple of broadcast reports the Kerry Yacht Fiasco and interesting. One is WBZ-TV, Boston, and the other isFox News'

US Says Repeal ObamaCare

60% of US voters want Obamacare repealed — “the second straight week that support for repeal of Obamacare is at 60% or above,” according to the Rasmussen Report.
And...
36% Oppose repeal.
45% Strongly Favor repeal.
27% Strongly Oppose repeal.

Plus…
62% believe Obamacare will increase the federal budget deficit.
58% think it will raise the cost of healthcare.
51% say the new law will hurt the quality of healthcare.
(Rasmussen 5-31-10)

Obama’s disaster: Unemployment

Gallup Daily tracking finds that 20.3% of the U.S. workforce was underemployed in March — a slight uptick from the relatively flat January and February numbers.

A rise in the percentage of part-timers wanting to work full time (from 9.2% to 9.9%) is responsible for the March increase in underemployment.

Unemployment saw a slight, but insignificant, decline in March.

Six in 10 underemployed Americans are not hopeful they will find work or move from part-time to full-time work in the next four weeks. That translates to 12% of the workforce that is both underemployed and not hopeful they will find their desired amount of work.

The lack of change suggests that underemployed Americans anticipated long-term difficulties in finding work well before the administration's formal announcement was made.

The Gallup report was released April 1, 2010.

US 47-50% Pro-Con On Obamacare

"Americans are now about evenly split in their reactions to the healthcare bill's passage: 47% consider it a good thing and 50% a bad thing. The divided, but slightly negative, assessment is similar to what Gallup found in recent months prior to the final House vote," the polling company reported today, Monday 3-29-10.

Poll: Kill ObamaCare

A week after the House passed ObamaCare, 54% of voters favor the law’s repeal, including 44% who Strongly Favor repeal, according to the latest Rasmussen survey.

The poll also shows that 42% oppose repeal, including 34% who Strongly Oppose repeal.

Rasmussen said these number are “virtually unchanged” from last week’s poll results.

84% of Republicans favor repeal.
59% of Independents favor repeal.
25% of Democrats favor repeal.
1% of black Democrats favor repeal.
55% say the plan will increase healthcare costs.
17% say it will reduce healthcare costs.
49% say it will reduce care quality.
60% say it will increase the federal deficit.

The Rasmussen president Scott Rasmussen said: "The overriding tone of the data is that passage of the legislation has not changed anything. Those who opposed the bill before it passed now want to repeal it. Those who supported the legislation oppose repealing it."

Remember Scott Brown? That vote didn’t count either

In voting for Scott Brown to fill the US Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts voters demonstrated:
1. Dissatisfaction with the direction of the country,
2. Antipathy toward federal government activism, and
3. Opposition to the Democrats' health-care proposals.

Those are the conclusions (1-22-10) drawn from a Jan. 20-21 poll sponsored by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University's School of Public Health, and released by The Post, which says the statistics show “how dramatically the political landscape has shifted during President Obama's first year in office.”

63% of Massachusetts’ special-election voters said America “is seriously off track,” the newspaper reported. “Nearly two-thirds of Brown's voters say their vote was intended at least in part to express opposition to the Democratic agenda in Washington.”

Among all Massachusetts voters — including those who voted for Brown’s opponent, state attorney general Martha Coakley — 48 percent oppose said they oppose Obama’s healthcare proposals while 43 percent support them.
Among Brown's supporters, however, eight in 10 said they were opposed to Obama’s healthcare proposals, and, 66 percent of them strongly opposed them.

President Lincoln would have cried

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared and prayed at Gettysburg Pennsylvania that "...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

But a little over 200 years later, 219 self-important Democrats in the House of Representatives voted FOR Obamacare; this despite the fact that the majority of Americans had repeatedly told them that they did not approve of the proposed legislation.

Before the House vote was taken, 56% of American voters said they opposed Obama's plan while 40% approved of it. And for six months before the House vote, all major national polls demonstrated close, but consistently negative, public attitudes of both Obamacare and Obama himself, to say nothing about House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid.

Eric Holder

Controversy is rampant over US Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to bring 9/11 masterminds, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) and his accomplices, to civil trial in New York City — dodging a military tribunal. Yet, that’s only one facet of the whole story.

The other very major aspect of the KSM trial story is all about the man now responsible for prosecuting the civil case, US. Attorney General Eric Holder.

At one stage of his career, when he was an assistance attorney general for President Clinton, Holder could straddle an issue pretty well. At one moment he was a strong anti-terrorist prosecutor; and at the next, he was a lenient and forgiving counselor advising the President.

It is this apparent lack of personal moral conviction and professional candor that earned him pointed criticism during his January confirmation hearing — and is especially relevant now as he approaches the trial of KSM et. al.

Sen. Cornyn Questions Two Legal Opinions

Texas Sen. John Cornyn was among those who questioned Holder’s confirmation, with the transcript appearing in the Congressional Record and available via GovTrack.us.

Sen. Cornyn began his comments noting that Holder “served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton Administration, and if there is any public service that is more illustrative of how someone will actually perform as attorney general, I think it would be in performing as deputy attorney general.”

On that foundation, the Senator pointed out that two of Holder’s actions (which are relevant in the KSM trial controversy) as deputy attorney general provide grounds for questioning his qualifications for being the US AG. They are:

  • The recommendation that President Clinton commute the sentences of 16 Puerto Rican separatist terrorists; and
  • The recommendation that President Clinton pardon the billionaire fugitive Marc Rich.

The legal opinions provided to the President in both instances “raised serious questions about Mr. Holder’s judgment and independence from the wishes of his political sponsors — key qualities I would hope the Senate would want for any attorney general: independence, adherence and fidelity only to the rule of law — and good judgment.”

Sen. Cornyn stated that Holder’s recommendations to President Clinton on these two cases demonstrated “a failure to understand the profound threat posed by radical Islamic terrorism…. [characterized by Holder's] misjudgments and shifting opinions with regard to the war on terror.”

Let’s look at the two cases on which then-assistant AG Holder advised President Clinton, and then we’ll look at how his opinions change as his bosses changed.

1. FALN and Los Macheteros

“The FALN was a clandestine terrorist group devoted to bringing about the independence of Puerto Rico through violent means. Its members waged open war on the United States, with more than 150 bombings, arsons, kidnappings, prison escapes, threats and intimidation, which resulted in the deaths of at least six people and injuries to many more between 1974 and 1983.”

“The most gruesome attack was in 1975 in lower Manhattan. Timed to explode during the lunch hour, the bomb decapitated one of the four people killed and injured another 60. In another attack in Puerto Rico, Los Macheteros opened fire on a bus of U.S. sailors. Two American sailors were killed and nine were wounded.”

“In August 1999, President Clinton offered clemency to 16 members of two Puerto Rican separatist terrorist organizations, FALN and Los Macheteros. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder made the recommendation that he should do so.”

“These unrepentant terrorists … were given clemency by the Clinton administration [even though they] never even petitioned for clemency. They never even asked for it.”

These Presidential actions were, at the time, widely believed to have some political motivation. “Indeed, the Clinton White House discussed how these clemencies would affect then-Vice President Gore’s political standing within the Puerto Rican community.”

Despite this being a fairly material issue, during his confirmation hearing “Mr. Holder has refused to answer some questions… [and] it appears he is invoking executive privilege [to not answer Senate questions]. But it is very odd because this apparent assertion of executive privilege comes despite the fact that President Clinton waived executive privilege for all testimony concerning these commutations [about the Puerto Ricans]….”

“In a letter to the House of Representatives, President Clinton’s lawyer explicitly stated President Clinton “will interpose no executive privilege objections to the testimony of his former staff concerning these pardons, or to other pardons and commutations he granted.”

“Nonetheless, Mr. Holder continues to assert he is not authorized to testify about the so-called options memorandum, which is part of the record underlying these commutations…. Because President Clinton has waived this privilege, this assertion of privilege is apparently now being made by the present administration of President Obama,” Sen. Cornyn stated.

2. Marc Rich Pardon

Sen. Cornyn proceeded and said, “The next concern I have has to do with the Rich pardon … on the very last night of the Clinton administration… at the time [when] Mr. Rich was No. Six on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.”

“In 1983, then-US attorney Rudy Giuliani in the Southern District of New York obtained an indictment of international commodities trader Marc Rich and his business partner, Pincus Green. The indictment charged 65 counts of tax evasion, racketeering and trading with the enemy.

“Specific charges include illegally trading with the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian terrorist regime in violation of US energy laws and a trade embargo against Iran.

“Indeed, Mr. Rich made a fortune trading with the Ayatollah’s regime at the same time that 52 American diplomats were still being held hostage in the US Embassy in Iran. Mr. Rich profited by trading with Cuba, Libya, and South Africa during apartheid — all despite US embargoes. Rather than face these charges head on, Mr. Rich simply fled to Switzerland where he remained a fugitive for 17 years. Federal law enforcement, with help from the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies, expended substantial resources in an effort to apprehend Mr. Rich

“In an effort to avoid his extradition, though, Mr. Rich went so far as to renounce his US citizenship, and he tried to become a citizen of Bolivia. It is hard to imagine a more inappropriate candidate for a pardon than a fugitive from justice accused of trading with the enemy….

“According to those involved in the pardon process, including President Clinton and Marc Rich’s lawyer, Eric Holder was more responsible for this controversial decision than any other member of the Clinton administration with the exception of the President himself….”

“Mr. Holder appears once again to simply have given President Clinton the answer he wanted.”

“The Rich pardon recommendation is the most recent major action by Mr. Holder as a public official. I believe the evidence casts doubt on his independence and his judgment once again. My greatest concerns, however, are that Mr. Holder fails to fully understand the unique challenges and threats posed to our country by radical Islamic terrorism….”

Holder’s Changing Opinions

“I find it especially troubling that Mr. Holder’s legal views on national security have seemed to shift, depending upon the political mood of the day and the audience to whom he is speaking.

“Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Holder voiced support for the Bush administration’s interpretation of the status of terrorist detainees. Mr. Holder said, in January 2002 that al-Qaida terrorists

“‘… are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war.’

“He went on to endorse indefinite detention of terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and argued that such prisoners should not be afforded Geneva Conventions protections so that they could, in fact, be interrogated to provide actionable intelligence.

“He did insist, as did the Bush administration at the time, that these detainees should be treated humanely, though. But more recently, as the political winds have shifted, Mr. Holder has chastised the Bush administration for policies he now seems to believe defy the law.

“There is a disturbing Jekyll-and-Hyde quality to Mr. Holder’s legal pronouncements concerning our counterterrorism policies.

“I wish to quote from an Associated Press article entitled “Obama AG pick defended Guantanamo policy,” dated November 22, 2008. Asked whether terrorism suspects could be held forever, Holder responded:

“’It seems to me that you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war.’

“Holder said in a CNN interview in January 2002:

“’And it seems to me that you could probably say, looking at precedent, that you are going to detain these people until the war is over, if that is ultimately what we wanted to do.’

“Just weeks later, Holder told CNN he did not believe al-Qaida suspects qualified as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.

“’One of the things that we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located. Under the Geneva Convention, you are really limited to the amount of information that you can elicit from people.’

“Holder said it was important to treat detainees humanely, but he said they

“’…are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war….’

“Since then, however, these arguments have been heavily criticized, as we know, by human rights activists and leading Democrats,” and Holder’s opinions have changed.

Sen. Cornyn told Congress that Holder “said in June of 2008 that,

“’We must close our detention center at Guantanamo Bay.’

And in a speech to the American Constitution Society. Holder said,

“’A great nation should not detain people, military or civilian, in dark places beyond the reach of law. Guantanamo Bay is an international embarrassment.’”

Sen. Cornyn further stated that “Holder added he never thought he would see the day when

‘‘the Supreme Court would have to order the President of the United States to treat detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention.’

“These sharply contrasting legal conclusions were made, again inexplicably by one and the same person, Eric Holder, the nominee for the highest law enforcement officer in the United States. One can only wonder what he truly believes,” Sen. Cornyn said.

“In a 2008 speech to the liberal American Constitution Society, he attacked many of the same legal positions he once held as

“‘making a mockery of the rule of law.’”

“In that same speech, Holder called for a ‘reckoning’ over the Bush administration’s ‘unlawful practices in the war on terror.”

And then Holder “accused the Bush administration of ‘act[ing] in direct defiance of Federal law’ and railed against counterterrorism policies that he claimed

“‘violate international law and the United States Constitution.’”

“In this way, Mr. Holder appears to have already publicly prejudged a potential prosecutorial question that may come before him as Attorney General, without knowing all the facts.

“Now, it is one thing to change your mind, but it is quite different to change your mind and then attack the very same position you once held as one that could only be held in bad faith, describing it as ‘making a mockery of the rule of law.’”