Tag Archives: Lobbying

Videos

CRISIS: Is Obama’s Department of Justice enabling voter registration fraud?

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First, from The Other McCain, a 3-minute summary of the case.

To get a longer summary of the case, you really need check out this PJTV interview with several people connected to the case – Peter N. Kirsanow, who is on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, former Department of Justice attorney Hans von Spakovsky, Todd F. Gaziano who is also on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and another former Department of Justice attorney J. Christian Adams.

The smaller story is that the New Black Panther voter intimidation case was dismissed by political appointees of the Obama administration.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama’s handpicked U.S. Justice Department officials are ignoring civil rights cases in which the alleged victims are whites and they abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party that resulted in a “travesty of justice.”

Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, testified at a hearing before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, after outcries from citizens’ groups and public-interest organization over the Justice Department’s stonewalling a full investigation.

Coates alleges that DOJ officials, for political reasons, dismissed intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms—one was brandishing a nightstick—and allegedly hurling racial slurs.

However, the Justice Department reportedly prevented him from testifying and subsequently transferred him to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina.

But what is the worst thing in the Coates testimony? I think it’s this thing below, which Spakovsky mentioned in the PJTV video.

From Verum Serum. (H/T Ace of Spades)

Excerpt from Coates’ testimony:

In June 2009, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) issued its bi-annual report concerning which states appeared not to be complying with Section 8′s list maintenance requirements. The report identified eight states that appeared to be the worst in terms of their non-compliance with the list maintenance requirements of Section 8 [of the Voting Rights Act]. These were states that reported that no voters had been removed from any of their voters’ list in the last two years. Obviously this is a good indication that something is not right with the list maintenance practice in that state. As Chief of the Voting Section, I assigned attorneys to work on this matter, and in September 2009, I forwarded a memorandum to the CRD Front Office asking for approval to go forward with Section 8 list maintenance investigations in these states.

During the time that I was Chief, no approval was given to this project, and my understanding that approval has never been given for that Section 8 list maintenance project to date. That means that we have entered the 2010 election cycle with eight states appearing to be in major noncompliance with the list maintenance requirements of Section 8 of the NVRA, and yet the Voting Section which has the responsibility to enforce that law has yet to take any action.

Ooops, here’s another bombshell in Coates’ testimony, from Hot Air.

Excerpt:

It contains at least one bombshell, which is that Obama appointee Loretta King ordered Coates to stop asking applicants whether they supported race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.  The question became necessary because of resistance in the Civil Rights division from career attorneys to enforce the law when it resulted in African-American defendants rather than victims…

Coates says:

In the spring of 2009, Ms. King, who had by then been appointed Acting AAG for Civil Rights by the Obama Administration, called me to her office and specifically instructed me that I was not to ask any other applicants whether they would be willing to, in effect, race-neutrally enforce the VRA.  Ms. King took offense that I was asking such a question of job applicants and directed me not to ask it because she does not support equal enforcement of the provisions of the VRA and had been highly critical of the filing and prosecution of the Ike Brown case.

Stay tuned. And this may explain why the Democrats are able to win elections despite not being competent to govern.

And don’t forget Obama’s former employer ACORN, which is also being investigated for voter fraud. And the NAACP was also mentioned in the PJTV video.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit notes that Robin Carnahan, who is now for a Senate seat in Missouri, refused to clear dead people from voter roles. Gateway Pundit has a nice picture of Obama hugging Robin Carnahan.

Commentary

Rich Wall Street donors abandoning Democrats

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Story here in the leftist Washington Post. (H/T Wes Widner, ECM)

Excerpt:

A revolt among big donors on Wall Street is hurting fundraising for the Democrats’ two congressional campaign committees, with contributions from the world’s financial capital down 65 percent from two years ago.

[…]In reviewing the FEC records, The Post analyzed fundraising data for New York City and its suburbs in New Jersey, on Long Island and north of the city — a region that had become an outsized source of Democratic campaign cash. In the 2008 cycle, 28 percent of the two committees’ itemized individual contributions came from the region. Manhattan alone accounted for 20 percent.

In this election cycle, the percentage raised in New York is less than 10 percent of the total.

More than 600 regular donors from the New York area — whose four- and five-figure checks added up to $10 million for the DSCC and DCCC in 2006 and 2008 — have so far abandoned their effort to retain the Democratic majorities.

Take Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase, who is known for his close relationship with President Obama.

In 2006 and 2008, he donated $65,000 to the Democratic committees. This election cycle, he has not contributed at all to the DSCC or DCCC. At the end of March, however, he gave $2,000 to the campaign of Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is seeking to claim Obama’s former Senate seat. A spokeswoman for Dimon noted that he has given to individual Democratic candidates, just not to the campaign committees.

Other prominent Democratic donors who have not given to the Democrats this year include Leon Black, a co-founder of the $53 billion New York-based Apollo Global Management a private-equity firm, and his wife, Debra Black. The couple gave more than $200,000 to Democratic congressional committees over the previous two election cycles but have not given this year, according to the latest disclosure documents. A spokesman for Apollo declined to comment.

Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive and chairman of Goldman Sachs, has not donated to the Democrats, either, after giving $50,000 in the previous two cycles. A company spokesman declined to comment.

The problem has been particularly acute for Senate Democrats, whose previous DSCC chairman, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), had strong connections to Wall Street.

Wow, bet you never knew that big Wall Street bankers were all Democrats, did you?

News

Trial lawyer lobby running a 6.2M deficit as economy tanks

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Story from the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The trial lawyers lobby has been awash in debt and bleeding members – just as it embarks on a national campaign to block any clampdown on medical malpractice lawsuits as part of President Obama’s health care overhaul.

The American Association for Justice, the most prominent group representing plaintiffs’ attorneys, has seen a shake-up in its executive suite and has struggled to deal with what appears to be a mounting budget shortfall. To help it fight congressional efforts to make it harder for patients to sue doctors and lawyers, it recently sent out an extra solicitation to its members, asking them to fork over money for a lobbying campaign.

The most striking evidence of its financial woes is a swift decline in income, which resulted in a more than $6.2 million deficit in its operating budget for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2008, the most recent year for which data are available.

The biggest hit to its books was in membership dues, which dropped from $28.6 million in 2005 to $19.2 million in 2008, according to the annual AAJ financial report for that fiscal year filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Trial lawyers raise health care expenses for patients and doctors.

Consider this article from the Weekly Standard.  (H/T The Heritage Foundation)

Excerpt:

There are credible estimates that serious tort reform could save the country between $100 and $200 billion annually in wasteful spending, as doctors practice defensive medicine to preempt lawsuits. … Now Obama says he’s going to study the issue. “I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today,” he said.

That would be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, whose resume includes eight years as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association.

So Obama has chosen a former industry lobbyist to run tort reform.

Why are people cynical about health care reform?

According to Howard Dean, the trial lawyer lobby prevented the Democrats from including tort reform in the health care bill. They helped to elect Obama, and so Obama could not oppose them in his health care bill. The Democrats are a party dominated by special interest groups who contribute nothing to the economy.

Don’t forget that Obama picked a union lobbyist to be in charge of creating manufacturing jobs!

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