Democratic leaders in the House and Senate criticizing GOP groups for allegedly funneling foreign money into campaign ads have seen their party raise more than $1 million from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies.
House and Senate Democrats have received approximately $1.02 million this cycle from such PACs, according to an analysis compiled for The Hill by the Center for Responsive Politics. House and Senate GOP leaders have taken almost $510,000 from PACs on the same list.
[…]“Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court and his adversaries over the bogus charge of foreign money tainting elections – while leaders in his own party had taken more than a million dollars from the foreign cookie jar,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, the political group at the center of the controversy.
“The hypocrisy here is just stunning,” he said.
Now is it illegal to get donations from “foreign donors”? No – the money comes from American employees of foreign corporations. But Obama is a hypocrite for making it sound so scary and ominous when his party collects twice as much as the party he is vilifying.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed yesterday the Conservative party “will not rest” until the day it abolishes the long-gun registry.
[…]Mr. Harper predicted the “registry will someday be abolished” because it will continually be opposed by the people who understand it–whom he identified as “rural Canadians, hunters, outdoors men and women (and) police officers.”These people will never accept this registry because they know it is ineffective and wasteful. And the party I lead will not rest until the day it is abolished.”
See, the interesting thing is that this is exactly the kind of issue that Harper can use to drive rural voters, some of who vote Liberal or Socialist (NDP), towards the federal Conservative Party in the next federal election. Canadian rural voters tend to be further to the left than American rural voters.
Look at how the left-wing parties are squirming:
The Harper government has gone on the offensive this week in trying to draw attention to Liberal and NDP MPs who were once opponents of the long-gun registry but are now poised to vote in favour of it. Government House leader John Baird has said those MPs have been pressured by “Toronto elites” to switch their votes and will be held accountable by voters in the next election.
In Thunder Bay, NDP MPs John Rafferty and Bruce Hyer, on record as registry opponents, have yet to declare their intentions for next Wednesday’s vote on Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner’s bill to kill the registry.
The bill handily passed a preliminary vote last November, with the help of 12 New Democrats and eight Liberals. The margin this time is expected to be razor thin. The Liberals have been ordered to vote along party lines, while the New Democrats have said they have the six vote-changers they believe they need to save the registry.
And fiscal conservatives also hate the long-gun registry. It was supposed to cost 2 million dollars to implement, but it actually has cost over 2 billion dollars. What a waste! And with no demonstrable effect on crime rates, since law-abiding hunters don’t commit crimes.
First, watch this video with the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie. (H/T National Review)
Oh, he’s not amused! Grah!
The National Review notes that this is not an isolated incident:
I’m not usually the conspiratorial type, but watch Gov. Chris Christie explain how the Obama administration disqualified the state of New Jersey from hundreds of millions in education funds because some clerk in Trenton turned in the wrong excel spreadsheet:
Democrats in Washington have already shown a willingness to withhold federal education dollars from states that don’t follow their preferred tactic for navigating the recession: giving teachers raises like it’s the Gay ’90s. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more punishment for a state that committed the crime of balancing its budget.
If New Jersey balances its budget, then the federal government has less leverage to intrude into New Jersey’s affairs. And Democrats oppose state autonomy and federalism – so they are not pleased with Christie.
Politics may have played a role in the awarding of some Obama administration education reform grants, say pro school-choice groups that believe the reforms did not go far enough.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced Tuesday that nine states and Washington, D.C. qualified for “Race to the Top” grants in the second phase of a program that rewards states for promoting charter schools — public schools run by non-governmental entities, which tie teacher evaluation to student performance.
With 18 states vying for a $3.4 billion pie, the department awarded grants to the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Only Delaware and Tennessee received grants in the first phase of the program.
[…]However, while accountability standards were raised, teacher unions have played an inordinate role in determining a state’s reform plan, said Robert Enlow, president of the Foundation for Educational Choice.
[…]He cited Indiana, which had a strong reform plan, but failed to get the full support of the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA), despite a plea from Tony Bennett, the state superintendent for public instruction.
“It is clear – from the reviewers’ comments of the two RttT [Race to the Top] winners – that one factor is crucial to a successful application: Strong statewide support from the teachers’ union,” Bennett wrote in the April 8 letter.
In a letter of response, ISTA President Nate Schnellenberger told Bennett the union would not support the state’s reform plans.
The inclusion of states such as Hawaii and Maryland, and the exclusion of states with marked improvement such as Louisiana and Colorado makes the grants suspect, said Jeanne Allen, the president of the Center for Education Reform, who said the competition ends “not with a bang but with a whimper with a majority of competitors winning –10 of the 18 — and many, it appears, for political reasons, as these states offer little or nothing to fundamentally improve schools and learning for all children.”
“This program is supposed to stimulate and is getting credit for stimulating charter schools, accountability and performance of teachers,” Allen told CNSNews.com. “It is not backing up those statements. The money didn’t necessarily go to states that do all those things.”
Second, the district’s party affiliation matters in where the money is spent. (We still don’t know how much it matters compared to other factors.) The average Democratic district receives 81 percent more than the average Republican district. Even after taking out the money spent through state capitals, the average Democratic district receives at least 30 percent more than the average Republican district.
One thing I don’t like about Obama is all of this bullying and cronyism. Why can’t he just do the right thing, like not killing the Washington, D.C. voucher program which helps poor children to go to better schools? They’re just kids, and they’re poor – let ’em have a chance at a good education like Obama’s children have. Why does he always have to give billions of dollars to his special interest groups, instead of letting them compete so that the customer can choose the best offer? If unions have the best offer, let them get the sale. If not, then let someone else get the sale.
WINTERY KNIGHT 