Surprise! Obama All-time Leading Recipient of News Corp. Donations

Obviously, he's in the back pocket of the evil Rupert Murdoch.

Political donations by News Corp., its employees and their families were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with President Obama the all-time leading recipient, according to a report from the Sunlight Foundation.

The transparency watchdog noted Tuesday that Democrats received 51 percent of contributions while Republicans received 49 percent, despite the firm's highly publicized links to the GOP, such as a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association in August.

News Corp. is the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox News, among others. The firm is currently under scrutiny in both the U.S. and U.K. over allegations its subsidiary News of the World hacked into voice mail accounts and bribed public officials.

"Obama being listed as the company’s top recipient might surprise some people because of its highly publicized involvement with his political rivals, like Sarah Palin who was the vice presidential candidate in 2008 and reportedly still under contract with Murdoch-owned Fox News as a paid commentator," wrote Sunlight's Ryan Sibley.

More here.

Hypocrisy, you say? Feh. Obama likes to talk one game and play another. Heck, it hardly caused a ripple last year when he railed against BP and then was revealed to be their largest recipient.

Inconvenient truths.

So clearly News Corp., its subsidiaries and employees are fair and balanced when it comes to political donations. I wonder whether we could say the same about other large news organizations?

Update: More details on past recipients.

While Obama is by far the all-time leading recipient, he's followed in order by Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Gray Davis and Howard Berman. See if you can detect a common thread between them (hint: they're all Democrats).

Chuckie Schumer's also in the top ten. Considering Schumer was also the biggest recipient of Bernie Madoff money when he ran the DSCC, this daily double should qualify him for some kind of award.

The top recipient from News America Holdings was also a Democrat, Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey.

For 2009-2010 from News America Holdings, the top recipients with $10,000 each were Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Berman and Schumer.

Meanwhile, the fabulously wealthy Kerry, who served in Vietnam, is the top political stakeholder in News Corp, with an estimated $600,002 to $1,250,000.

Granted, that's his wife's money.

Update: In a stunning development, a George Soros flying monkey from Media Matters put a unique spin on these revelations.

If it seems like Obama got a lot of money from News Corp. employees, that’s because he got a lot of money from a lot of people in 2008.

Soros is really getting his money's worth, huh?

Sesame Street Senator: 'Republicans Have a Vendetta Against Elmo'

Please, Babs, update the playbook.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that House Republicans want to strip government funding of PBS because they have a "vendetta against Elmo."

Boxer made the comments during a floor speech where she made the case for her bill that would ensure that the president and lawmakers are not paid if a government shutdown occurs.

Boxer said that the cost of four hours of the Iraq war would be enough to keep PBS funded — and the popular fire-red children's character on the air.

Boxer believes that the GOP has more than just a vendetta against Elmo. She added that Republicans hold a "vendetta against healthcare" and a "vendetta against clean energy."

Not to mention a vendetta against stupidity. That will be the toughest battle of all.

Chamber of Commerce Hammers Boxer

Twenty-eight years of bad hairdos and bad economic policy. Essentially you could take the content of this ad and run it against any long-term Demcorat incumbent this year.

Dude, Where's My Backlash?

Nearly two weeks into transformational change and "free" healthcare, the numbers just keeping looking worse for Democrats. Of course if you listen to them we should all be trembling in a corner somewhere worried that a backlash is coming if we dare to criticize these buffoons.

How's that working out now?

President Obama headed to Maine to tout the benefits of health care reform Thursday, but one place Democrats don’t seem to be feeling any benefit right now is in the polls.

A fresh Gallup survey out Thursday has Republicans moving back ahead of of Democrats in generic ballots, with 47% of voters saying they’d vote for an unnamed Republican while 44% say they would back a Democrat.

This is not good news for Democrats.

“These results suggest the Republicans would have a strong showing if the midterm elections were held today," said Gallup pollster Jeffrey Jones. "Since Republicans usually vote at higher rates than Democrats, the Republicans’ edge in voter preferences would likely exceed what the registered voter results indicate.

The poll numbers could spell doom in the midterm elections.

“A Republican advantage among all registered voters in midterm elections has been rare in Gallup’s 60-year history of tracking congressional voting preferences," said Jones, "happening only a few times each in the 1950, 1994, and 2002 election cycles — all years in which Republicans had strong Election Day showings.”

The poll doesn’t directly blame health care reform for Democrats’ woes, but it does find a dramatic jump in voter enthusiasm since the reform passed. Many Democrats believed they needed to pass health reform to keep their base motivated, and the survey finds the percentage of Democrats saying they are very enthusiastic about voting in November leaping from 25% to 35% since March 21.

But the percentage of enthusiastic Republicans also jumped, from 43% to 50%.

Oops. Now wonder the Democrats are in hiding during the recess, even after their alleged "victory" over the American people.

Even Babs Boxer is sending out the warning to soon-to-be extinct Democrats, but she's got a secret plan: Run against Karl Rove.

But Boxer took the attacks by at least one Republican, Karl Rove, a former top political guru for President George W. Bush, as a badge of honor.

"Karl Rove is the architect of the most disastrous economic policies this country has ever seen," Boxer said in response to comments by Rove suggesting the senator is beatable this fall. "So if Karl Rove is against me, I think that's in my favor."

Carly Fiorina Announces Senate Bid

Carly Fiorina has announced her bid to challenge Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, and in so doing has given the Republicans another headache.

Strike one will be the lingering gossip surrounding her ouster as CEO of Hewlett Packard. She was forced out of that position in what became a very public and messy public relations event.

Strike two is her being selected to be Sen. McCain's advisor on economic matters during his campaign for president. At least one story that I came across in looking into this was how she was on record advocating for the version of the Cap-and-Trade bill that is currently making it's way through the halls of Congress. Taking this sort of stand may serve her well in the liberal land of California, but given the rate at which California is bleeding jobs because legislation like this it may not hold much sway a year from now when the lights are being turned out all across the state.

Strike three would be for comments she made, when as a member of the McCain campaign in response to a question asked of her regarding Sarah Palin's qualifications to run a major corporation. Her answer only gave fuel to the Democrats argument that her [Palin's] experience was no better then their main man Barry O, and quickly led to her departure from the campaign staff.

Palin supporters are not the sort who forget things easily.

This is what will put the Republican establishment in a bind. All of those reasons above cause great angst among conservatives across the country, but will no doubt endear her to the masses in California. So what is the national Republican campaign committees to do? I am all for getting rid of Barbara "Ma'am" Boxer, but unless Carly can show us how she is somehow different then Boxer, not just merely a more tactful version, then I don't think she is gong to feel the love from what used to be the base of the Republican party.

Major Democrat Fundraiser Charged With Fraud

Democrats and fraud, perfect together. And in what should be considered a stunning development, the word Democrat actually appears in the Reuters headline.

The U.S. attorney in New York on Tuesday charged a New York investor and major Democratic fund-raiser with a $74 million scheme to defraud Citigroup Inc (C.N).

Hassan Nemazee, 59, was charged with one count of bank fraud, and faces up to 30 years in prison plus a fine. His lawyer Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Nemazee was a national finance chair of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, and a supporter of John Kerry's run for the White House in 2004.

He typically donates more than $100,000 annually to Democratic political candidates, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Charles Schumer, and sits on the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee .

Bill Clinton, when he was president, nominated Nemazee to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

Prosecutors said Nemazee, the chairman and chief executive of Nemazee Capital Corp, sought to induce Citigroup's banking unit to lend up to $74 million based on fraudulent and forged documents suggesting that he had hundreds of millions of dollars of accounts available as collateral.

They said Nemazee also provided Citigroup with fake references so that when the bank would try to confirm details about his accounts, it would actually be contacting him. The scheme lasted from December 2006 to this month, the prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said federal agents stopped him on Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Rome, and that he repaid a more than $74 million loan to Citigroup the following day.

Sounds like he was going to abscond like another Clinton pal, Marc Rich.

Chuckie Schumer ought to be pleased to find out another of his major fundraisers now faces prison, just like his pal Bernie Madoff.

In addition to Nemazee and the now-imprisoned Norman Hsu, I wonder how many other criminal fundraisers were helping Hillary Clinton?

Here's a rundown of Democrats Nemazee contributed to: Also included are Democrat Senators Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand, Frank Lautenberg, Dick Durbin, Carl Levin, and Jay Rockefeller.

I'll wait with breathless anticipation for all of them to comment and offer to return his dirty money.

Michelle Malkin already has material for a new chapter of her best-selling book.

Democrat Senate Aide in Kiddie Porn Sting

Frankly, I have to admit I'm surprised he's been fired. I figured the guy is a candidate for some counseling and a group hug knowing the Democrats and their tolerance for law-breaking.

A senior aide to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was fired from his post last week after he was charged with distributing and receiving child pornography.

Jeffrey P. Rosato, an aide to Boxer and a senior policy adviser on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was arrested last Friday, the same day he was fired from Boxer's office, and charged with one count each of receipt and distribution of child pornography. He appeared in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance, but he is forbidden to have access to children or computers.

According to an FBI affidavit, an unnamed person "distributed more than 600 files containing graphic images and movies of child pornography to an undercover detective that [the person] believed was a 13-year-old boy" over the course of more than 15 online chats during a three-week period in January. In that person's computer, the FBI found information suggesting the person had exchanged pornography with Rosato.

Investigators also found pornographic photos and movies of children on Rosato's laptop computer during a Nov. 4 search of his Alexandria home, according to the affidavit. "Many of the images and videos depict prepubescent boys engaged in sexual acts," it said.

Rosato's attorney, Patrick N. Anderson of Alexandria, did not return a call seeking comment.

Seems to be a lot of this going on with aides to Senate Democrats.

Last month, a former Senate aide, James Michael McHaney, was sentenced to three years in prison on a federal charge of possession of child pornography. McHaney, 28, was arrested last year in a sting and fired from his job in the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

As we noted here at the time, the McHaney story was quickly glossed over by the media. Curious how Rosato was busted a week ago and only now is the story making news.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link. Ace also links. Thanks!

Bush to Relax Endangered Species Rules, Moonbats Hardest Hit

Let the caterwauling begin.

Oh wait, it already has.

The changes would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that might harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

...
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

"This proposed regulation is another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door," she said. "If this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the gray whale."
...
"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act."

Anything that can help ease the strangelehold these environmentalists have on our economy and development is a positive thing, hysteria and cliches by special interest notwithstanding.

You have entire areas restricted from development because of piping plovers and other obscure creatures.

As the left so often likes to say, let's use a common sense approach toward this issue and stop restricting progress in deference to environmental extremists.

Owe, Brother: More Headaches for Mrs. Clinton

As if Mrs. Clinton didn't have enough problems. Now she has to deal with one of her deadbeat brothers.

Owe, brother!

Hillary Rodham Clinton's youngest sibling is a deadbeat dad who owes tens of thousands of dollars in child support to his politically connected ex, The Post has learned.

In a disclosure that could prove embarrassing for his sister, Anthony Rodham has stiffed his former wife, Nicole Boxer, out of $75,000 in child support, as well as $55,000 in alimony, a source close to the case said.

Including interest and various fees and expenses, the presidential candidate's brother now owes Boxer - the daughter of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) - more than $158,000, the source said.

The revelation that Rodham is delinquent with his payments won't be a welcome development for Hillary Clinton, coming as the too-close-to-call battle for the Democratic presidential nomination reaches a fevered pitch and with the first votes to be cast in Iowa in exactly two weeks.

Barbara Boxer has not endorsed a candidate in the race.

Nicole Boxer received judgments from a Washington judge ordering Rodham to pay up earlier this year, but the cash-strapped business consultant has yet to fork over the hefty sums.

"He has consistently been a deadbeat dad when it comes to paying child support and spousal support, despite the courts telling him over and over again that he must meet his obligations," a source close to Nicole Boxer said.

Her brothers have been a constant source of embarrassment for Mrs. Clinton. No wonder we don't see them in any commercials telling us how lovable and funny she is.

He and his brother Hugh embarrassed the Clintons in 1999 with a politically perilous plan to import hazelnuts from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

He also became a figure in the "Pardongate" scandal, when it was revealed that he lobbied Bill Clinton to pardon two embezzlers.

Rodham made headlines again shortly after his split from Nicole, when he was attacked at his family cottage in the Berkshires by a man who claimed he saw Rodham having sex with his girlfriend.

Rodham later testified that he "might have" smoked pot with the woman.

Maybe brother Tony should had gotten some more cash during Pardon-gate and he wouldn't have such financial troubles now.

The timeline seems especially damning in this case. Bill Clinton issues a pardon for the Gregorys in March 2000. Two months later, Anthony Rodham begins collecting checks from the company owned by the Gregorys. Over the next 20 months, Rodham gets 16 checks, all marked as loans as cover for the disbursements on United Show's books, until it totals $107,000. Rodham never makes a payment on these loans, and six months later, United Shows files for bankruptcy, leaving its creditors high and dry -- but not Rodham.

Of course, with the Clintons, this will be dismissed as old news.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Kid Playing With Matches Started California Wildfire

OK, so it wasn't global warming, wasn't Iraq, and it wasn't Blackwater.

Officials: Boy with matches started fire

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

"He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," Hecht said in a statement.

The unapologetic insane troika of Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Randi Rhodes were unavailable for comment.

By the way, isn't it curious how quickly the national drive-by media fled California?

Fugitive Clinton Donor Turns Himself In

Fugitive Norman Hsu, sugar-daddy to the Democrats, has turned himself in.

In a stunning development, the Associated Press used the word Dem in the headline.

Top Dem fundraiser turns himself in

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - A top Democratic fundraiser whose criminal past has roiled the campaigns of top presidential candidates turned himself in Friday in California, where he had been a fugitive for more than 15 years.

Judge H. James Ellis ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and jailed on $2 million bail. The judge declined Hsu's request to immediately reduce the bail by half, instead scheduling a Sept. 5 hearing to consider the request.

Hsu pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he'd defrauded investors of $1 million in a bogus investment scam. He was facing up to three years in prison when he skipped town before his 1992 sentencing date, Deputy Attorney General Ronald Smetana said outside court.

Hsu also resigned from the board of trustees of The New School and from the board of governors of The New School's Eugene Lang College. The college received a federal appropriation secured by Clinton last year, but a spokesman for the school said Hsu was not involved in seeking money for the school.

Friday's 10-minute hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court was the culmination of a stunningly quick fall from grace for a disgraced California businessman who remade himself in New York apparel executive and benefactor of Democratic causes and candidates, including presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose campaign designated Hsu a "HillRaiser" — a title given to top donors.

Federal Election Commission records show Hsu donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates since 2004. Though a top fundraiser for Clinton, he also donated to Obama's Senate campaign in 2004 and to Obama's political action committee.

After reports surfaced this week of his fugitive status, politicians at all levels scrambled to distance themselves.

Obama's campaign said Thursday it would give to charity the $2,000 Hsu contributed to his 2004 Senate campaign and the $5,000 Hsu gave to his political action committee, Hopefund.

Hsu's $43,700 in donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $2,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also will go to charity, both groups announced.

Clinton joined the other candidates, returning $23,000 in contributions that Hsu made to her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac. But his close association with her campaign put Clinton on the defensive just as she prepared to ramp up for an intense post-Labor Day campaign stretch.

California officials who said they would get rid of donations from Hsu include Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House members Mike Honda and Doris Matsui.

Earlier this week, Hsu said he thought the criminal charges had been taken care of when he completed his bankruptcy proceedings in the early 1990s.

"I have not sought to evade any of my obligations and certainly not the law," Hsu said in a prepared statement.

According to Smetana, Hsu told investors he had a contract to buy and sell latex gloves, but he never purchased the gloves and had no contract to sell them.

After he failed to show up for sentencing, investigators believed Hsu had fled to his native Hong Kong, Smetana said.

Smetana said he has agreed to let Hsu post $1 million cash bail, He also said prosecutors are likely to again argue for a prison time when Hsu finally keeps his sentencing date with the judge.

"He stole $1 million," Smetana said.

That $2 million bail could have made for a lot of dubious $2300 donations to Democrats.

Oh well.

Now instead of Democrats pretending to be magnanimous and donating Hsu's dirty money to charity, let's find out where the money came from in the first place.

The Democrats will be desperate to put this burgeoning scandal aside, and will proclaim it "old news" by next week. But they need to be held accountable and the GOP needs to remind the public of this every day between now and November 8.

Previously: The Mysterious Norman Hsu.

Boxer and The Pantsuit Want to Silence Critics

If the account of Senator Inhofe is true, and I have little reason to doubt him, the two peas in the socialist pod want to shut down conservative talk radio.

No doubt the absurd report produced by Clinton hack John Podesta yesterday was just part of the initial onslaught.

If these two nitwits think they can pull a Hugo Chavez and stifle free speech in this country, then they're dumber than I thought; and I've never held either in very high intellectual esteem.

Bring. It. On.

Shed Your Burqas!

Yes, it's the return of the ERA, and I'm not talking about earned run average.

Democratic Lawmakers to Reintroduce ERA

Liberal Democrats in the Senate and House plan to resume "the fight for women's equality" on Tuesday, when they reintroduce the Women's Equality Amendment.

Sens. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, both of New York, plan to join Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, in making the Tuesday afternoon announcement.

This time around, supporters say they hope "women will finally achieve official equality in America." But a conservative group said women's rights activists are "fighting old battles."

First proposed in 1923, the ERA states: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.

Michelle Malkin has more.

Rock Star Goracle Plays Capitol Hill

Environmental extremist and gaseous windbag Al Gore takes to Capitol Hill today to lecture us all once again on the myths of global warming. Or climate change. Or whatever he and his cronies will decide to call it next. This is sure to turn into a circus and we'll be told that debate is over and we're all doomed.

Leading up to this, there are an assortment of stories this morning. Check out this absurd piece from the Contra Costa Times.

Boxer criticized for Gore e-mail

Attackers say call for campaign contributions in thank-you letter to former vice president is ethically questionable

Al Gore, global warming rock star, will grab the media spotlight today before Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee -- and Boxer is using Gore's appearance to help raise money for her 2010 re-election campaign.

In an e-mail sent earlier this month, Boxer asked her supporters to sign an online thank-you card to Gore "for his many years of leadership and hard work," which she plans to give to him today. So far, more than 63,000 people have signed the card, according to a campaign consultant.

Next to the link for signing the card is a link to "contribute today" to the Friends of Barbara Boxer, which takes the user to instructions on how to donate online.

One campaign finance watchdog, Melanie Sloan, called the e-mail "inappropriate, coming close to an ethical line," because it suggests a link between a congressional hearing, legislative activity and campaign contributions.

Critics are referred to as "attackers" and Gore is called a rock star in the first sentence. No editorializing there.

Be it unethical or of questionable legality, it doesn't matter. Barbara Boxer is a Democrat. She can do as she pleases.

Not to be outdone, the Washington Post slavishly fawns over The Goracle:

Gore Returns to Capitol Hill a Hero and a Target

Al Gore wowed moviegoers and Hollywood elites with his Oscar-winning documentary on global warming. Today he faces a far tougher audience in Congress.

The 2000 Democratic presidential nominee will testify about the urgency of addressing climate change in two appearances on Capitol Hill before panels that include skeptics of the sort that Gore probably hasn't met on the red carpet.

For instance, Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, once called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people." The other witness scheduled to appear at the House Energy and Commerce Committee is Bjorn Lomborg of Copenhagen Business School, who asserts that global warming is real but argues that "the trouble is that the climate models show we can do very little" about it.

Look for Inhofe and Lomborg to be called deniers at some point. The audience will likely be stacked with environmental wackos and other assorted leftist nutcases preaching apocalyptic doom.

"He's the leader on global warming," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the environmental committee and who invited Gore to testify. "He's world-famous," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), another fan, who attended the premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth" and requested a personal photo op with Gore this afternoon.

Sounds like they want his autograph. Goodness, can they gush a little more?

Meanwhile, as noted over at Hot Air, actual scientists from NASA, not divinity school dropouts like Gore, note the sun could actually play a role in the earth's temperature rising all of one degree the past century. This is truly shocking news. Perhaps climatologists like Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer will put down their pom-poms and subpoena the sun to come down and explain itself.

Long-term climate records are a key to understanding how Earth's climate changed in the past and how it may change in the future. Direct measurements of light energy emitted by the sun, taken by satellites and other modern scientific techniques, suggest variations in the sun's activity influence Earth's long-term climate. However, there were no measured climate records of this type until the relatively recent scientific past.

Scientists have traditionally relied upon indirect data gathering methods to study climate in the Earth's past, such as drilling ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica. Such samples of accumulated snow and ice drilled from deep within ice sheets or glaciers contain trapped air bubbles whose composition can provide a picture of past climate conditions. Now, however, a group of NASA and university scientists has found a convincing link between long-term solar and climate variability in a unique and unexpected source: directly measured ancient water level records of the Nile, Earth's longest river.

In the end, expect a circus-like atmosphere on Capitol Hill and nothing of substance to arise out of this sham other than excessively fawning coverage from the networks.

Sister Toldjah exposes more Goracle hypocrisy.

UPDATE: After showing up late and avoiding the GOP, in his typical understated fashion, The Goracle warned of a planetary emergency. How original.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who organized the first congressional hearings on climate change three decades ago, returned to Capitol Hill today to urge lawmakers to address a ``planetary emergency'' by passing legislation to cut emissions that cause global warming.

``The consequences of inaction would be devastating to both the environment and the economy,'' Gore said in remarks to a joint hearing of the energy and science committees in the House of Representatives. He previously served on both panels.

Gore called for a freeze on the level of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., followed by mandatory reductions. He also backed revising the tax code to discourage such pollution; raising fuel-economy standards for cars; having the U.S. spearhead a new international climate change treaty; requiring companies to disclose their carbon emissions; and banning the construction of new coal-fired power plants that can't capture and contain carbon pollution.

In other words, wreck the economy.

UPDATE II: Hot Air has had continuous coverage today. Turns out Gore delivered a copy of his testimony almost 24 hours late. What a fraud.

The Enemies Within

Over at Front Page, an expose of the political frauds doing the best to defeat us.

Meet the Domestic Enemy

No foreign enemy could have engineered a strategy more likely to cripple America’s war effort in Iraq than has the homegrown political Left. Modeled after the age-old technique of inducing "cultural pessimism" by means of relentless criticism, it is a strategy that casts the U.S. as a nation motivated by nothing more noble than a dual lust for oil and empire; a nation guilty of unspeakable war crimes and human rights violations; a nation morally unfit to impose its will on any other government in the world; and a nation doomed to fail militarily against a foe whose resistance is allegedly inspired by a high-minded, inextinguishable yearning to free itself from the yoke of American oppression. Promoted by political charlatans and sympathetic media outlets, this depiction aims to demoralize the American people and crush their political will to do what is necessary to win the war.

Boxer, Rangel, Waters. All the usual suspects. Oh, and the Communist group Code Pink.

Code Pink, it should be noted, was co-founded by the pro-Fidel Castro, pro-Hugo Chavez communist activists Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans. In 2004, this organization helped establish Iraq Occupation Watch, whose stated objective was to thin out U.S. forces in Iraq by causing soldiers to seek discharges as conscientious objectors. During the last week of December 2004, Code Pink joined Global Exchange and Families for Peace in donating a combined $600,000 in medical supplies and cash to the families of the terrorist insurgents who were fighting American troops in Fallujah, Iraq.

Code Pink and the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus are ideological soul mates. Unfortunately for America, the OICC can do something Code Pink cannot do: set American policy.

Read the whole thing.

Have You Seen This Clinton Supporter?

The FBI is looking for fugitive Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who apparently has fled to Pakistan.

A Pakistani immigrant is wanted by federal authorities on charges he channeled $30,000 in illegal contributions to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential war chest.

The FBI is hunting Los Angeles businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who vanished soon after his grand-jury indictment for violating federal election laws last May.

Clinton's camp has denied any knowledge of Jinnah's scheme, which is also alleged to have funneled more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the political action committees of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

Jinnah, 56, a cellphone and frozen-yogurt businessman, allegedly collected campaign donations from family members, friends and employees at fake fund-raising events - then reimbursed them. The scam allowed him to evade the $2,000 limit on individual contributions to candidates, the feds say.

More from the Los Angeles Times.

Jinnah's case has been handled with discretion by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, which recently lost a high-profile case against former Clinton campaign official David Rosen. Rosen was acquitted of charges of filing false reports about a Hollywood fundraiser given for Clinton in 2000.

The indictment of Jinnah, handed down in May without a news release, mentions only the initials of the committees that received the illegal donations, referring to them as "HP" and "FB." However, the charging document filed against Stuart Schoenburg, who authorities say is a co-conspirator, identifies one of the committees as HillPac, the leadership committee Clinton formed after her first Senate campaign and which she still uses.

Though Clinton cannot use HillPac to fund her presidential campaign directly, it has allowed her to donate to Democratic candidates and organizations, as well as to pay some political staff and travel expenses.

The Times was able to identify donations to Boxer's campaign by cross-referencing dates and contributors' initials listed in the indictment with campaign finance records. The "FB" in the indictment stood for "Friends of Barbara Boxer."

Clinton and Boxer aren't the only ones mentioned.

Later that year, Jinnah hosted a luncheon fundraiser for then-First Lady Clinton at his house, an event depicted in a photo posted on the website Pakistanlink.com. Jinnah hosted a second fundraiser for Clinton in October 2004.

That year, he also helped form the Pakistani American Leadership Center, which describes itself as a coalition of Pakistani Americans seeking to further U.S.-Pakistan ties. It has helped persuade more than 70 House members to join the Congressional Pakistan Caucus.

The group was particularly jubilant when Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), who had previously sponsored a bill targeting Pakistan for sanctions related to its nuclear program, agreed to become a member.

Oh, and just in case The Pantsuit has another in a long series of memory losses (oh, there are those billing records!), she was photographed with the fugitive.