#1
I like Joe, he's an pompous lying assclown of the highest order. I just don't want him in any position of power, authority, speaking on behalf of the US or Americans. If he wants to resign and just speak on behalf of Democrats, I'm favorable with that
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/29/2009 22:00 Comments ||
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U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson's rundown Sacramento house, which became the scourge of the neighborhood and a sore point with an investor who thought he had bought it out of foreclosure, has drawn the interest of a House ethics panel.
The Office of Congressional Ethics contacted real estate investor James York, who bought Richardson's house at a foreclosure auction last year, only to have Washington Mutual take it back after he had recorded the deed and return the house to the congresswoman. The office also has interviewed at least two of the Long Beach Democrat's Sacramento neighbors, asking about their efforts -- and their expenses -- to tidy up the front- and backyards of Richardson's two-story house. The city declared the house a public nuisance on one occasion and "blighted" on another.
Leo Wise, staff director and chief counsel of the ethics office, said its policy was to neither confirm nor deny investigations. He said House members are notified when their activities are reviewed.
Richardson's office declined comment. "We can't comment on conversations involving others that we haven't been a part of," her press secretary, Michael Eagle, said in an e-mail.
The independent Office of Congressional Ethics was created last year to answer critics who said the House was reluctant to investigate its own members. Its board consists of eight members, half appointed by the House speaker and half by the minority leader. They cannot be federal employees or lobbyists. If the panel determines there should be further investigation, it can turn its findings over to the House Ethics Committee.
Richardson bought the house in the tree-lined upper-middle-class Curtis Park neighborhood for $535,000 in early 2007 after she was elected to the Assembly. She already owned two houses, one in her Long Beach district and the other in San Pedro. She has defaulted six times on both homes.
After serving briefly in the Assembly, Richardson was elected to Congress in a special election later and moved out of the Sacramento neighborhood nearly two years ago. The Sacramento house went into foreclosure in early 2008. Richardson also owed about $9,000 in property taxes at the time.
York bought the house in May 2008 for $388,000 and recorded the deed. He sent in a crew and began remodeling, to the joy of neighbors. It wasn't long before Washington Mutual took it back and returned it to Richardson.
How can you take back a house after the deed has been recorded?
York sued, and the case was settled with each side agreeing to keep details secret. JP Morgan Chase, which bought Washington Mutual last year, said it would be a violation of customer privacy to discuss the case. The company would not say whether the ethics office had contacted the firm.
York said he received the letter from the ethics panel about May 1 and faxed it to his attorney.
Earlier in the month, a representative of the ethics office called Janet Carlson and Peter Thomsen, who live across the street from Richardson's house. Both said the investigator asked questions based on a Los Angeles Times article about Richardson's house. They said he seemed interested in how much money they had spent to clean up her property and whether that might constitute gifts that could violate House rules.
Carlson said she had spent about $160 sending her gardener to mow Richardson's overgrown lawn several times and to have neighborhood children rake the leaves.
Thomsen said his wife would walk across the street with the garden hose and water the dying ivy hanging on a chain-link fence. Thomsen, a retired banking executive, said he was asked briefly about the foreclosure and the house's return to Richardson.
When Richardson was elected to Congress, the house deteriorated further: The paint peeled, much of the grass and many plants died from lack of water, and weeds grew 3 to 4 feet high in back. Rats began breeding in the backyard and spread to the house next door.
Neighbors finally complained in e-mails and letters to Richardson, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic officials, but to no avail.
Like they listen to us leetle people ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/29/2009 10:24 ||
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"There's a sense building among Republicans that 2010 is going to be a far better political environment than 2008 or 2006," said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "Part of that is because we have a Democratic president and a Democratic-controlled Senate and House that are promoting fiscally dangerous policies for the future of the country. Part of it is we don't have the burden of Iraq as we did in 2006 and don't have the economy on the Republicans' watch as we had in 2008."
In one sign of the reconfigured landscape, Republican candidates lead in the polls in this fall's closely watched gubernatorial elections -- in New Jersey and Virginia. In New Jersey, where first-term Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine trails his challenger by double digits, a far-reaching corruption investigation has led to the resignation of one member of Corzine's Cabinet and insider speculation about whether Corzine should be replaced on the ticket in November by a more viable Democratic nominee.
Corzine, who has shown no indication he's willing or interested in stepping down, isn't the only Democratic governor buffeted by the political winds. A handful of Democrats whose seats are up for election in 2010, including Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, have recently seen their approval ratings plummet below 40 percent -- dangerous territory for an incumbent.
In New York, Gov. David Paterson faces similarly daunting numbers, and other first-term Democratic governors from Ohio to Iowa to Colorado have also seen their approval ratings move in the wrong direction. In Pennsylvania, a recent Quinnipiac University poll reported Gov. Ed Rendell with the lowest approval rating of his two terms in office.
"What's hurting the Democrats badly is that people are afraid of the deficit and spending. They don't see signs of economic growth, and people are worried," said GOP pollster John McLaughlin. "If you look at the economy right now, voters gave the Democrats benefit of the doubt, they thought the stimulus would work, employment would recede -- and they're finding out now it's not the case."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2009 08:55 ||
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#1
It will be interesting to see if the electorate really understand that government is not the answer to our economic problems, except for the government's getting out of the way.
#2
Since the majority of the population doesn't pay income taxes, but are tax eaters, what do they care? Economic development takes a long time. Government largess is instant and the checks arrive reliably every month.
Posted by: ed ||
07/29/2009 15:59 Comments ||
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An aide to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has resigned under pressure after she labeled Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. a "racist" and dubbed President Obama "O-dumb-a" in a Facebook rant defending racial profiling.
"I get it -- white men have dominated for hundreds of years and there's a lot of anger there. But HOW MUCH MORE can the white people do to correct past injustices of their ancestors?" wrote Lee Landor, 24, who had worked as deputy press secretary for Stringer. "If Mr. Big Shot Harvard would have kept his mouth shut, shown his ID and not started yelling at a police officer, he never would have been arrested. So please, its time to get over this 'It's because I'm black' bull- - - -" she added.
Landor resigned from the $45,758-a-year job Monday after being told "jump or be pushed," according to a source.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2009 08:57 ||
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#1
Landor resigned from the $45,758-a-year job Monday after being told "jump or be pushed," according to a source.
Posted by:Fred
If the jump or be pushed comment is found to be true and accurate I wonder if there would be a case for a "wrongful termination" suit? Hmmmmmm.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
