Obama Ambassador Accuses GOP of 'Playing Politics' With Israel

This would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic.

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on Wednesday accused GOP presidential candidates of “playing politics” with Israel.

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry both suggested this week that the U.S. should threaten to withhold aid from the Palestinian Authority over its expected United Nations request for statehood.

“I think Gov. Perry ought to really consider the real-world implications of that for Israel. Because the security assistance that the United States provides the Palestinian Authority benefits Israel directly and Israelis are well aware of that,” Rice said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Apparently only Obama is allowed to play politics over Israel.

Mayor Ed Koch, his longtime aide George Arzt confirmed, received an unexpected invitation to a gathering of dignitaries the American President typically hosts during his New York visit. This is far from a private audience, but it does seem to be the beginning of a courtship of the former New York Mayor who emerged as a real thorn in Democrats' side this summer. Koch had not, Arzt said, been invited to the event in Obama's first two years, and the invitation is hardly a reward for loyalty.

For people who claim they have such a great relationship with Israel they sure have to remind us enough.

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?

Hypocrisy Meter Explodes: After Shedding 36K Jobs, Obama Adviser Immelt Tells Businesses to Start Hiring

Not only did this Obama stooge not pay any taxes on $5 billion profits, his company has shed 36,000 jobs since 2009 (H/T).

Now as Obama's unemployment rate threatens to sink his presidency, here comes Jeffrey Immelt to lecture business owners.

"The people who are part of the business sector, the people in this room, have got to stop complaining about government and get some action underway," he told the group. "There's no excuse today for lack of leadership. The truth is we all need to be part of the solution."

Hmm. Sounds like shared sacrifice.

Immelt is the chair of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He said the group has made a number of recommendations for changes in government policies that should be able to help job creation, such as the executive order announced Monday asking independent agencies to rid their books of old and outdated regulations.

Immelt said he is committed to working with Obama on other moves that can help hiring, and that he expects to have proposals by the end of the year that should help to create up to 1 million jobs.

Why doesn't he start at GE?

On the upside, Immelt is actually creating some jobs.

In Mexico.

Michelle Obama's Healthy Diet: French Fries and Fat Cakes

Please, lecture us some more about eating well. They report with a straight face that she speaks of eating healthy, then she digs into the fatty grub the rest of us aren't supposed to have.

Obama Unveils New Dietary Guidelines, Then Pounds Some Chili Dogs

It would be one thing if he and his wife didn't constantly lecture us about what to eat if they actually practiced what they preach. Instead, she runs around wolfing down cheeseburgers and short ribs and he stuff his pie hole with chili dogs and fries. Well, I guess he at least works it off with all that golf.

When his wife unveiled the USDA's new nutritional plate yesterday, there definitely wasn't a space for chili dogs.

But that didn't stop Barack Obama wolfing down two in Toledo today - with fries and an extra bowl of chili on the side.

The president happily munched on the unhealthy meal before he visited the city's Chrysler factory, and even teased one of his hosts for ordering ketchup, a faux-pas in his home town of Chicago.

According to USA Today, he told representative Marcy Kaptur: 'Marcy just wants ketchup. By the way, as an aficionado of hot dogs, you shouldn't put ketchup on hot dogs... I'm trying to teach my girls.'

Obama: Using Force to Topple a Dictator is a 'Dumb War'

Well, that was then, this is now. Let me be clear, the guy is a two-face hypocrite.

President Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator in 2002, said that using military force to topple a murderous dictator amounted to a “dumb war” and should be opposed.

The “dumb war” Obama was criticizing was the planned invasion of Iraq and the murderous dictator was its leader, Saddam Hussein. Obama, speaking at an anti-war rally in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002 said that while Saddam was a brutal tyrant, that was not enough to justify using military force to remove him from power.

“Now, let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein,” said Obama in his speech. “He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied U.N. resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.”

"... After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again," said Obama. "I don't oppose all wars. ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

Obama argued that deposing Saddam militarily was not necessary, because Iraq posed no “direct threat” to the United States.

Yeah, well, neither is Moammar Khadafy. thanks to George W. Bush and his dumb war in Iraq, which caused Khadafy to terminate his nuclear program.

FLASHBACK, 2007: Fringe Anti-War POTUS Candidate Upbraids His Future Self

Remember how George W. Bush kept us all in the dark about his intentions in Iraq?

Me neither.

Of course, Bush could have allowed C-SPAN into the Situation Room and Obama still would have gotten his panties in a bunch about transparency. Oh well. Now keep in mind this is the same guy who one week ago launched a war kinetic military action against Libya and didn't bother giving Congress a clue until three days later.

The American people? We're penciled in for a debriefing this coming Monday.



Via Breitbart.

Cross-posted.

Weiner: Libya is Like the Start of the Holocaust or Something

Bit of an awkward analogy, we think.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said on Tuesday that the civil war in Libya was like the onset of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide in that it demanded action from the forces of good.

"My view is that there are times in American history — Rwanda was one, bombing the tracks during the onset to the Holocaust, that we could have sent a bomber wing in to take out the tracks, we didn't do it — we look back and we see we should use military force to try and defend people who can’t defend themselves," Weiner said Monday on the Don Imus show in New York.

“If we are a powerful country one of the ways we use our power is for good," Weiner said. “What’s the purpose of being a powerful country if we are not using it to defend people?”

How about we start by defending the unborn?

Change! Federal Employee Who Complained About Obama's So-Called Transparency Gets Demoted

Used to be a time when the left scurried to the aid of whistleblowers. Heck, they make movies about them all the time. But those days are long over folks.

Welcome to Obamaworld.

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the demotion at the Department of Homeland Security “appeared to be an act of retaliation.” The committee is investigating the political reviews of records requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime,” said Issa, R-Calif.

The department said it had done nothing wrong.

Issa urged Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to remind employees about their rights and whistle-blower protections, to make agency managers “aware of the consequences for retaliation against witnesses who furnish information to Congress.”

Issa accused the administration of improperly demoting Catherine Papoi, the former deputy unit chief in charge of the Freedom of Information Act. His charge raised the stakes in the broad congressional inquiry into President Barack Obama’s promises to improve government transparency.

Funny, but the networks somehow managed to avoid this story last night.

“Denying or interfering with employees’ rights to furnish information to Congress is against the law,” Issa wrote in a five-page letter to Napolitano that was obtained by The Associated Press. “Federal officials who retaliate against or otherwise interfere with employees who exercise their right to furnish information to Congress are not entitled to have their salaries paid by taxpayer dollars.”

The department said Papoi was not technically demoted because she never lost pay or benefits. Yet Papoi’s new boss, Delores J. Barber, took over Papoi’s title and moved into Papoi’s office. Papoi, who has a law degree, earns between $99,628 and $129,517. Under the federal employment system, a demotion usually involves loss of a pay grade.

Papoi, who applied for the new position awarded to Barber, is on leave. The department said a panel of career employees recommended Barber over Papoi. The political appointee whom Papoi accused of illegal behavior, chief privacy officer Mary Ellen Callahan, chose Barber for the job in December.

H/T Audrey Perry.

A reminder this is Sunshine Week in Washington.

Hypocrisy Meter Explodes: Democrat 'People's Convention' Accepts $10 Million in Corporate Cash

For all their blather about being for the little guy and standing up to those evil corporations, isn't it just a little hypocritical for the Democrats to be accepting a $10 million line of credit from a large corporation? Of course it is. But hypocrisy is the name of their game, so it'll simply be ignored.

Duke Energy Corp., whose CEO is leading the fundraising for the Democratic National Convention, is guaranteeing a $10 million line of credit for the event.

The credit line from Fifth Third Bank is apparently the first time such an arrangement has been used by any Democratic convention organizers.

A Duke spokesman said stockholders, not rate-payers, would be on the line if the convention's host committee defaults. But the head of the committee said it may never have to draw on the money.

"It is just security in the event of a cash shortfall," Will Miller, acting executive director of the Charlotte organizing committee, said Friday. "The host committee is obligated to pay it back, and the host committee will pay it back."

Some suggest the arrangement is tantamount to a large corporate contribution at a time when the party is touting new rules that bar corporate cash and individual contributions over $100,000. Democrats have pledged "a people's convention" and say the line of credit doesn't violate the new rules.

Just more of the old do as I say, not as I do bit the Democrats have turned into a fine art.

Republicans have called the new restrictions "sleight of hand." They say Duke's loan guarantee is more of the same.

"We said it then and we'll say it again, this rule isn't worth the paper it's written on," said party spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. "It proves the 'policy' was nothing more than a PR move from the very beginning."

Follow the money, of course. There's something in it for Duke.

Duke faces increasingly heavy costs from federal environmental rules, and will shutter some of its old coal-fired power plants rather than upgrade them. The utility also plans to build an $11 billion nuclear plant in South Carolina that has to be approved by state and federal regulators.

UNC Charlotte public policy expert David Swindell has said Rogers' involvement can only help Duke in seeking energy subsidies from the Obama administration. Others say the company could at least expect goodwill from the party that controls the White House.

"Duke may not be angling for a particular payback, but certainly they are currying favor with the Democratic Party," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of Washington's Center for Responsive Politics. "If it buys goodwill without having to spend a dime, Duke will feel it's been a good deal for them. Their shareholders may not like the risks."

It's costing more and more to be useful idiots these days.

H/T Byron York.

We All Must Sacrifice: Michelle Obama Sports $1000 Handbag

The sacrifices she makes for all of us. No doubt she'd opt for a $5000 handbag, but that would be too obvious, so in a nod to national sacrifice as urged by her husband, Queen Michelle scales it back to a mere $1000 bag. You can carry a lot of change in that thing.

It’s a Reed Krakoff two-tone ribboned large tote, and you can get it at Mr. Krakoff’s website for $990, plus shipping I guess. But we don’t worry about shipping. Fedex it, in fact.

No wait a second, you can’t get it, because it’s already sold out, at least in the teal color she got.

Love it with the blue slippers, BTW. It just WORKS, okay?

I don’t know, go ahead Mrs. Obama, tote around anything you want. If you’ve got spare the cash, be my guest. C’mon now, what’s she supposed to walk around with, a plastic shopping bag from the Giant?

Just, please – please please please please please – don’t put on any more cheapskate clothes and allow press coverage anointing you the Fashionista of Affordability.

A year ago Mrs. Obama appeared on the Today show in a $35 dress. You would have thought she eliminated poverty in Bombay.

How much you want to wager that bag was made using non-union labor?

Selective Outrage: NY Times Suddenly Concerned American Politicians Sympathized With IRA

Of course there's only one politician they're concerned about here.

For Representative Peter T. King, as he seizes the national spotlight this week with a hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims, it is the most awkward of résumé entries. Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

So now to the New York Times the IRA is unequivocally a terrorist group. Not freedom fighters, not militants, the name typically reserved for Islamic terror groups. Their agenda is all too transparent: Peter King supports terrorists, therefore his holding hearing on radical Islamists in America makes him a hypocrite.

In later years, by all accounts, Mr. King became an important go-between in talks that led to peace in Northern Ireland, drawing on his personal contacts with leaders of I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and winning plaudits from both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the former president and the British prime minister.

When he hung around with Bill Clinton, he was their kind of guy. Now he's going after those the Times sympathizes with and he's the enemy. Selective indignation.

Mr. King, son of a New York City police officer and grand-nephew of an I.R.A. member, offers no apologies for his past, which he has celebrated in novels that feature a Irish-American congressman with I.R.A. ties who bears a striking resemblance to the author.

Of comparisons between the terrorism of the I.R.A. and that of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Mr. King said: “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.”

Memo to the Times: The New York City and Boston areas are filled with Irish immigrants and the sons and grandsons of Irish immigrants, with a countless number who either had ties or sympathies with the IRA. This goes back 90 years, back to a time when my grandfather was expelled from Ireland for suspected ties to the IRA. That came after he was conscripted into the British Army as a 16-year-old to fight in World War I, and he was fortunate to survive numerous injuries.

Yes, New York Times, a lot of people looked upon the IRA not as a terrorist group, but as those fighting for independence from Britain. Their actions and collaboration with radical leftists and terror groups -- again, groups the Times openly has sympathized with over the years -- left a bad impression upon many of us who later wanted nothing to do with them, family ties or not. The events of 9/11 also provided a stark realization for many: If we're going to unequivocally denounce terrorism, you better be consistent. But for the Times, they prefer hypocrisy over consistency.

Even Mr. King’s critics acknowledge a fundamental difference between the violence carried out by the I.R.A., which usually sought with varying success to minimize civilian casualties, and that of Al Qaeda, which has done the opposite. The I.R.A. was responsible for 1,826 of 3,528 deaths during the Northern Irish conflict between 1969 and 2001, including those of several hundred civilians, said the historian Malcolm Sutton.

We wonder, where was the Times all these years denouncing St. Edward of Hyannisport for his support of the IRA?

Kennedy was no doubt a dedicated servant of Congress and a passionate believer in combating poverty, but his lasting legacy on this side of the Atlantic was to poison Anglo-American relations for a generation. It’s not often said aloud but many British people when they first saw United 175 hit the World Trade Centre felt, alongside shock, pity and a sense of solidarity with the American people, also a feeling of “now you know what terrorism is like, will you stop funding the murder of our people?”

For years Kennedy was the bang-drummer-in-chief for brainless Irish-American IRA sympathisers, dimwits who shouted “troops out of Dublin!” and sang maudlin songs from the comfort of Boston and New York, giving money for strangers 3,000 miles away to murder their neighbours.

For despite the pseudo-Marxist justifications the IRA used, which was obviously lapped up by useful idiots on both sides of the Irish Sea and across the Atlantic, their goal was always ethnic cleansing against their neighbours, the people who Americans still call “the Scots-Irish”.

This pathetic effort at smearing King has been ongoing for months now, calling him a terrorist lover. But dare to call liberals terrorist lovers when they bend over backwards to rationalize away Islamic terror and they immediately wail about themselves being smeared and whine about McCarthyism. Now how ironic is it they're calling him the new McCarthy?

So if King is the new McCarthy by warning about homegrown terrorism, what does that make Attorney General Eric Holder?

Also, if the Times is now so grossly offended by the ties of Peter King and the IRA dating back to 1982, why is it just last week they slobbered all over convicted terrorist Lori Berenson? The group she belonged to was designated a terror group years ago, along with "the real IRA."

Union Leader: 'I Think the Democratic Party is in Crisis'

Democrats just love having it both ways. As they egg on the unions in Wisconsin, urging them to keep on fighting, they've gone and scheduled their 2012 national convention in a state where unions have no collective bargaining power.

With the American labor movement newly energized by its most serious threat in years, the Democratic Party's decision to hold its 2012 convention in the least union-friendly state is causing friction with a key constituency.

The Democratic National Committee selected Charlotte to show confidence in the party's ability to win crucial swing states in the South, including North Carolina, that President Barack Obama carried in 2008. But the choice isn't sitting well with some union leaders.

"I think the Democratic Party is in crisis and they're trying to figure out who are they really going to represent," said Angaza Laughinghouse, president of the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union.

Workers around the nation have rallied in solidarity with union brethren fighting Republican efforts to curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio. But the issue is a moot point in North Carolina, one of two states where all public workers are prohibited by law from engaging in collective bargaining.

In many other ways, Charlotte makes perfect sense as the site of the convention. A bustling city of more than 700,000 with a popular Democratic mayor, the Queen City is both a center of the American banking industry and a symbol of the New South.

But it's in a state where just 3.2 percent of workers belong to a union, the lowest percentage in the country.

Ironically enough, while Obama claims Wisconsin's efforts to reign in spending is an "assault" on workers, his own federal workforce doesn't have collective bargaining either, a fact the media ignores. If he really cared about "the workers," why didn't he and the Democrats address that while they had unchecked power for two years?

Despite the rank hypocrisy, neither side is going anywhere. They're hopelessly co-dependent.

"The Democrats are following a strategy they've been pursuing for 20 years or more, in which they try to win over the swing voters while to some extent ignoring their base," she said.

Part of the Democratic establishment, though, has moved to back the protests of public sector unions, most notably the group Organizing for America, Obama's political arm within the Democratic National Committee. Obama himself has called the Wisconsin proposal "an assault on unions."

Imagine the whining if the GOP held their convention in North Carolina.

'We Have to Stop Demonizing Anyone We Disagree With'

So says Arianna Huffington, seen here at an event Thursday with a disheveled Sean Penn, a guy who's never demonized anyone. He just wants them imprisoned if he disagrees with them. Anyway, the Huffster, who enjoys speaking out of all three sides of her mouth, uttered the fantastically laughable line while discussing her bus caravan to the "non-political" Smugapalooza in DC today.

Millionaire blogger Arianna Huffington is picking up the bus fare for more than 10,000 New Yorkers headed Saturday to Comedy Central's "Rally to Restore Sanity."

"It was a moment of irrational exuberance," Huffington joked in an interview with the Daily News, admitting she never expected so many people to take her up on the offer.

Now, about 250 buses later, Huffington, founder of the popular Huffington Post - the left-leaning news and opinion website - is believed to be forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars to drive New Yorkers to Washington and back home again.

She declined to say how much she's ponying up for the trip.

Dubbed by Huffington "the Sanity Bus," Citi Field in Flushing, Queens, is the staging ground for today's 6 a.m. departure.

Huffington also handed out free "flipcams" to 200 riders who wrote one-line sentences saying what they would do "to restore sanity" in America.

"Taking a stand for sanity is not a partisan position. It's neither right nor left. It's reasonable. We have to stop demonizing anyone we disagree with," Huffington said.

Well, that's nice. Maybe she should start with her own cesspool, where a front page story has the inmates up in arms this morning as they smear Andrew Breitbart as a bigot.

Or you can scroll down a bit and watch the "millionaire blogger" yuk it up with Keith Olbermann, a man of journalistic virtue and integrity who never would demonize anyone, right?

Also appearing on her front page is Feisal Abdul Rauf, the guy who's bringing us the Ground Zero Mosque. His stock in trade is calling anyone who disagrees with him extremist bigot.

Each of us wants more for our children then we want for ourselves. It is up to all of us to work together to help break the cycle of fear, mistrust, misunderstanding, and violence that threatens the peace and stability of the entire world.

Leaving the world a better place than we found it by reversing this downward spiral hatred and ignorance for our children and our grandchildren is truly the "Game Changer" that we all need to strive for.

So yes, I agree with "millionaire blogger" Arianna Huffington. Let's stop demonizing anyone we disagree with. You first, sweetie. We're just sure whenever a Republican is demonized today she'll be the first to intervene and chastise the offending party.

Update: We eagerly await the denunciation from the "millionaire blogger" about the signs displayed today by the people at the rally she bused people to. Thanks for commenter Hucbald for reminding us of this gem from Spicoli.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

There He Goes Again: Climate Clown Al Gore Leaves Car Idling for an Hour, Uses Jet in Lieu of Public Transportation

At what point does the hypocrisy end with this buffoon? Look, I understand liberals are the biggest hypocrites on the planet, but if this guy is breaking laws, as he apparently is here, why isn't he held to account?

Al Gore -- He did it again.

Recently, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore toured again. Or maybe he does that all the time. This time, he turned up in Gothenburg (Sweden) for the usual alarmist talk. In advance, all distinguished guests were politely advised to – if possible – use any form of public transportation to go to the event, in order to minimize CO2 emissions.

Intriguingly, the Master of World Climate himself arrived in a rental car (with or without driver is unclear), from the airport, and subsequently left the engine running for the entire lecture. That is to say, about one hour. Incidentally, local legislation prohibits – for very good environmental reasons, i.e. pollution – any car engine running on empty for more than 60 seconds. Fines are severe. As far as I know, he was not fined.

It starts to form a pattern.

After the ceremony in the Norwegian capital Oslo, it is customary that the laureate is invited to the Swedish capital Stockholm, for a cordial visit. The train ride, supposedly the environmental choice according to Mr. Gore, is approximately four hours. However, he opted for the cosier ride with one of the Swedish government aircrafts. As these can, according to the rules, only be used when a cabinet member is on board – and as the Swedish government after a short ceremonial visit – offered to fly him to Frankfurt (Germany) for his flight to the US, you can calculate both the manpower and the fuel used for this grand tour against man's destruction of the planet.

'He Cares More About Saving His Career As a Politician Than With Keeping His Word'

I'm shocked--shocked I tell you--that Blubbering Barney Frank would be a two-faced lying hypocrite.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, in an intensifying clash with GOP upstart Sean Bielat, has pledged not to take campaign cash from lenders that got federal bailouts — yet has raked in more than $40,000 from bank execs and special interests connected to the staggering government loans, a Herald review found.

Frank vowed in February 2009 that he wouldn’t accept campaign donations from banks that received money under the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or political action committees tied to such institutions.

But Frank has hauled in thousands from top execs at Bank of America, Citizens Bank, Wainwright Bank, JP Morgan Chase and other institutions that received billions in TARP money.

Just yesterday, Frank made new campaign finance disclosures showing he received $17,000 from top executives of Bank of America — including $2,000 from CEO Brian Moynihan. B of A received $45 billion in bailout money. In all, Frank has hauled in at least $27,000 since 2009 from bank execs — and $13,000 from PACs — connected to banks that received TARP funding, including:

• $5,000 earlier this month from the Bank of America Corp. Federal PAC;

• $10,000 in August and September from the Bipartisan PAC/ Bank of New York Mellon Corp.; Mellon received $3 billion from TARP;

• $2,000 in June 2009 from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC, which counts TARP recipients B of A, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo among its members; and

• $1,000 in March from U.S. Bancorp PAC; the Minnesota-based bank received more than $6 billion in TARP funds.

“Now that he’s in the political fight of his life, Barney Frank tossed aside his phony pledge and lined his pockets with cash from his closest allies — Wall Street executives,” said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Tory Mazzola. “He made a promise to voters, but obviously he cares more about saving his career as a politician than with keeping his word.”

In a statement last night, a Frank spokesman said the congressman has declined to take contributions only from the top 10 TARP recipients, but he noted he would accept donations from those institutions once they repaid their debts.

Homina homina homina...

H/T Dan.

Meanwhile, here's The Barney Shuffle:

'A Threat to Our Democracy'

Looks like the Democrats have some explaining to do.

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.

The PACS are funded entirely by contributions from U.S. employees of subsidiaries of foreign companies. All of the contributions are made public under Federal Elections Commission rules, and the PACs affiliated with the subsidiaries of foreign corporations are governed by the same rules that American firms' PACs or other PACs would face.
...
Republicans with groups under fire from the White House say the hefty campaign contributions illustrate Democratic hypocrisy.

“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.

Obviously this foreign money is some kind of threat to out democracy, right?

Of course not. But made up smears against the Chamber of Commerce have led to that absurd statement.

On "Meet the Press" Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs directly called out the executive vice president for government affairs at the Chamber, challenging him to prove the group's claim that foreign money isn't used in the funding of its political ad campaigns.

"Bruce Josten could simply open up the books," Gibbs said. "It's a pretty easy solution to simply show the American people where the money is coming from."

Host David Gregory asked Gibbs whether Democrats' assertions about the Chamber funding ads with foreign dollars are "more smoke than fact."

"Absolutely not," Gibbs fired back.

Axelrod responded to a question about whether voters would prefer that Democrats focus on issues such as the economy by maintaining it was an issue of the economy, as Republican wins could mean danger for the administration victories of healthcare and Wall Street reform.

"Ask these folks why they feel it's necessary to keep these funds secret," he said. "We tried to make them public, even the Democratic funds -- Democratic-leaning funds. We don't think anybody should keep these things secret."

He called the financing controversy "a threat to our democracy."

He has zero evidence to support his ridiculous claim, yet here it's documented his own people are raking in foreign contributions.

Thanks to Hot Air for the links here and here.

Cheeseburgers for Me, But Not for Thee

She constantly is harping on what everyone else is supposed to eat, then the hypocrite shovels cheeseburgers and fries into her piehole, a gushing Milwaukee TV station reports.

First lady Michelle Obama thrilled staff and customers when she made a surprise visit to Miss Katie's Diner on the city's near west side.

Mrs. Obama met her cousin and her cousin's daughter for lunch at the restaurant.

Jennifer Laschen waited on their table. "I've been doing this for 25, 30 years and I've never had such a thrill, such an honor to wait on a first lady in my life," she said.

Laschen said the first lady ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Mrs. Obama took pictures and signed autographs for the staff at the diner and their customers.

I guess they don't have salad on their menu.

This all sounds so familiar.

Let's Move!

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Obamas in 2009: 'Hey, Give the Kids Some Privacy'; Obamas in 2010: 'Hey, Our Kids Have Braces, Dance to Hip-Hop and Want to Save the Tigers!'

After parading their kids all over the place during the election in 2008, the Obamas lamented their lack of privacy once they got to Washington.

During the interview, a candid Malia talked about decorating her new bedroom and giving her father advice on greeting her friends. Afterwards, Obama said the publicity hadn't been "healthy."

Well, forget that. Bet you didn't know their television and computer time and every other intimate detail of Malia and Sasha.

Twelve-year-old Malia Obama wears braces, toots a flute and is after her father to save the tigers. Younger sister Sasha, who is 9, shoots hoops like her basketball-loving dad and dances hip-hop.

Both girls get up at 6 a.m. to get ready for school.

Barack and Michelle Obama put their girls off-limits to the news media after they moved to the White House, saying they wanted to keep their daughters' lives as normal as possible. But tidbits about the private doings of the youngest children to live in the White House since the Kennedy family do dribble out. Often they come from a surprising source: Mom and Dad.

So as with everything they do, it's do as we say and forget what we said last year. Oh, and if you look at us cross-eyed, it's racist or you're picking on our kids.

The first lady is also guilty of breaching the privacy wall she and her husband put up around the girls.

"Malia's one issue for her father is saving the tigers," Mrs. Obama told an audience of young children visiting the White House. "So we talk about the tigers at least once a week and what he's doing to save the tigers." Tigers apparently are Malia's favorite creature.

Mrs. Obama also has revealed that:

_Both girls play the piano; Malia also plays the flute.

_Sasha likes to dance hip-hop. The girls also are working on their tennis game.

_They are not allowed to watch TV during the week, and weekend viewing is limited.

_The girls can only use the computer during the week if they need to for school assignments.

The White House says the Obamas are just behaving like, well, parents when they talk about Malia and Sasha.

That's all well and good, but don't go around using your kids as political pawns to drum up sympathy for dreadful public approval.

Random thought: How long until we see Save the Tigers legislation?

Sweet Irony: Kerry Hailed Legislation Ending 'Blatant Tax Evasion'

Ah, such laws are merely for the little people, not the wealthy, hypocritical elitists like John Kerry.

Now that Sen. John Kerry has cut a check for something in the neighborhood of $500,000 to cover use and excise taxes on his new $7 million high-seas plaything, Isabel, he gets to sail off into the sunset in peace. But not before we bring you one final postscript.

As you know, the senior senator purchased his New Zealand-built, 76-foot floating palace back in March and ported her in Rhode Island, a state which repealed its boat sales and use tax back in 1993. By doing so, the senator could dodge some $437,500 in state sales taxes and an annual excise tax bill of $70,000.

Of course, Kerry insisted all along that he would be paying whatever dough he owed, but we notice he didn’t fork it over until four embarrassing days after the Track first broke the story!

Which is rather ironic, considering that back in March, when Kerry was taking delivery of his new yacht, he was applauding passage of legislation designed to end “blatant tax evasion.”

The new law, Kerry said, would put an end to a system that allowed “powerful people to hide assets abroad and evade our tax laws.”

“It repulsed me,” he continued, rather dramatically, “that while the average American plays by the rules and pays taxes, some of the biggest corporations avoid paying their fair share.”

One minor quibble with the item is I doubt it was Kerry who cut the check paying off the tab. We suspect it came from his wife's trust fund.