Recently in Democrats Category

Evidence emerges that Jesse Jackson fils is as much of a financial scamster as his old man. This story brings to mind the series of New York Post columns I did on how Jesse Sr. used his non-profits to spread money around, apparently illegally. My columns are hard to find online, but this piece I did for NRO years ago more or less sums up my findings:

As was reported last year by the New York Post, the Chicago dailies, Fox News Channel, and almost nobody else, Jackson threatened to hold up several media mega-mergers on spurious racial grounds. When the companies involved made donations to at least one of his organizations, as well as provided business for his family members, friends, and contributors, Jackson's opposition evaporated.

Critics called the Wall Street Project a scheme by Jackson to leverage his moral standing as a civil-rights leader to make those in his inner circle rich. As I reported in my Post column, the tax-exempt CEF quintupled its revenue -- from $2 million in 1998 to $9.7 million in 1999 -- in the same year that Jackson signed off on the corporate mergers, all of which depended on the Federal Communications Commission for approval. The FCC was then headed by Jackson pal William Kennard.

This information was discovered on the CEF's [Citizenship Education Fund, a Jackson front group -- RD] publicly available tax returns, which upon inspection, turned out to have been incompetently executed. Whether there was intention to deceive is a matter of conjecture. There were glaring errors and omissions, including the salaries of CEF's top five paid employees. Under fire, Jackson's accountants tried to plug the gaping holes by filing an amended IRS Form 990 -- and flopped a second time.

Wells Fargo Bank was listed as having made a $200,000 contribution. The bank said it had no record of that. Coors Brewing did not give $25,000 to CEF, as the tax form claimed, but to PUSH For Excellence, another Jackson entity. A $15,000 contribution credited to the New York City Board of Education had actually come from the Securities Industry Association. And so forth.

Jackson's CEF lied to the IRS once, and got caught. They lied a second time, and got caught. And so far, nothing has happened to them. As Bill O'Reilly used to say, "You try that."

I had to go through the federal forms filed by Jackson's people. They were pathetic. Clearly the Jackson people never worried about being audited, and as it turned out, they didn't have to worry. He's Jesse Jackson, and you're not. Republicans were terrified of making an issue of this. The racism accusation thing, as usual. Those Jacksons are something else, I tell you. And nobody will ever lay a hand on them.

I think Nancy Pelosi is lying about whether or not she knew about CIA waterboarding earlier in this decade. I think she did, and is now embarrassed by that fact. Says Marty Peretz:

Every top Democrat is trying to cover her or his ass. Now that they are making such a fuss about the Bush administration having held everything in secret the news that it hadn't is mortifying to the Democrats now in power.

E.D. Kain notes something particularly interesting about Congressional Democrats:

To me, Pelosi's denial (and accusation against the CIA) lays bare a deeper truth about the Democrats. Without Obama they'd be nearly as big a mess as the Republicans. Most of them are complicit in the Bush torture program and the wars. The party is almost headless without Obama - led by the fickle and hardly inspiring Reid/Pelosi duo. After Obama, if conservatives learn anything over the next eight years - yes, I'm predicting it will be eight - unless the Democrats get some sort of order and discipline and more importantly, some grander vision, then I think the GOP should have no trouble at all coming in and cleaning up.

A complete shocker:

Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said on Tuesday he would switch to the Democratic party, presenting Democrats with a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama administration's new agenda.

In a statement issued about noon as the Capitol was digesting the stunning turn of events, Mr. Specter said he had concluded that his party had moved too far to the right, a fact demonstrated by the migration of 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans to the Democratic Party.

"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Mr. Specter said, acknowledging that his decision was certain to disappoint colleagues and supporters.

If Al Franken prevails in his ongoing court case in Minnesota and Mr. Specter begins caucusing with Democrats, Democrats would have 60 votes and the ability to deny Republicans the chance to stall legislation. Mr. Specter was one of only three Republicans to support President Obama's economic recovery legislation.

I don't blame Specter for doing this, as he may well have lost the GOP primary to Pat Toomey. Besides, he's not popular among Republicans in general. But if he weren't facing a Toomey challenge, I doubt that changing parties would have crossed Specter's mind. Still: boy, are the Republicans screwed.

This is big. Howard Ahmanson, the California philanthropist, religious conservative and personal friend of Your Working Boy, has announced that he has left the GOP and become a Democrat. Here is his column:

WHY I REGISTERED DEMOCRAT

By Howard Ahmanson

About six weeks ago, I, a known leader of the Religious Right in California, decided to reregister in the Democratic Party. Why did I do this?

Well, I think I was reading about the budget struggles and threatened purges in the Legislature, and I was getting more and more tired and disgusted of it, and I realized that, had I been a Republican assemblyman, I could have hardly escaped being purged myself. The Republican Party of the State of California seems to have decided to narrow itself down to one article of faith, which may be described as NTESEBREE: No Tax Shall Ever Be Raised Ever Ever.

Now, I'm concerned about this constant tax ratcheting, but I don't think this is the answer. The Democratic Party in California, however, is now so big and diverse and all-inclusive that it has ABSOLUTELY NO PRINCIPLES WHATSOEVER. The Hollywood and San Francisco establishments within the Party may hold to some pretty detestable principles, but the party as a whole?

I have not changed any of my opinions. There is not a single right-wing opinion I hold that some section of the Democratic Party doesn't support it. Opposed to "marriage equality" and freewheeling abortion rights? A lot of Democrats of color will agree. And also many of them will agree on the importance and social justice of vouchers and tax credits for non-government schools. Opposed to fiscal irresponsibility? A lot of Silicon Valley Democrats will probably agree. Opposed to "urban redevelopment" schemes that run small business and residents out of the way for the benefit of the politically important? Got a high view of property rights? Lots of Democrats, including Robert Cruickshank and Senate President Darrell Steinberg, agree with me to a considerable degree.

I describe myself as a "social conservative, an economic moderate," and to a considerable extent a property libertarian. By "economic moderate" I mean that the philosophy of "starve the beast" has failed. The beast will feed welfare and pork and starve infrastructure. If we want to confront irresponsible spending, we have to confront it directly. We have to confront directly the issue of the role of government and what we want it to do and not do. And when we do want government to do something, we want it to have enough money to be able to do what it does pretty well (at least considering it's a government), but we have to fight the mentality of entitlement. The whole mentality entitlement is dangerous. The nearest thing we have to entitlements are property rights, and they are to defined things that actually exist. And all other rights, in the end, depend on property rights; freedom of speech, religion, and press is freedom in a place, or it is nothing. I am not one to radically abolish all welfare programs, as I was in my wild youth - and Social Security and Medicare are welfare, whether you like it or not - but the attitude of entitlement, especially to resources that may not even clearly exist, makes it impossible to pursue any kind of a rational fiscal policy.

We're all watching the GOP rip itself up, but Joel Kotkin sees a potential civil war brewing among the Democrats -- between its "gentry" and its populists. Fascinating piece. Excerpt:

Although peace now reigns between the Clintons and the new president, the broader gentry-populist split seems certain to fester at both the congressional and local levels - and President Obama will be hard-pressed to negotiate this divide. Gentry liberals are very "progressive" when it comes to issues such as affirmative action, gay rights, the environment and energy policy, but are not generally well disposed to protectionism or auto-industry bailouts, which appeal to populists. Populists, meanwhile, hated the initial bailout of Wall Street - despite its endorsement by Mr. Obama and the congressional leadership.

Geography is clearly a determining factor here. Standout antifinancial bailout senators included Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Jon Tester of Montana. On the House side, the antibailout faction came largely from places like the Great Plains and Appalachia, as well as from the suburbs and exurbs, including places like Arizona and interior California.

Gentry liberals, despite occasional tut-tutting, fell lockstep for the bailout. Not one Northeastern or California Democratic senator opposed it. In the House, "progressives" such as Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank who supported the financial bailout represent districts with a large concentration of affluent liberals, venture capitalists and other financial interests for whom the bailout was very much a matter of preserving accumulated (and often inherited) wealth.

Green issues will also be a big fault line between liberal constituencies, Kotkin predicts: