Right Pundits

Nancy Pelosi has been outed for paying her husband out of public funds. She has spoken out against such practices in the past but defends her use of PAC funds to pay her husband as being legitimate. Read about it below and see photos and a video of her.

Poor Nancy Pelosi. She was so excited when the democrats got elected to control the House of Representatives and the Senate two years ago. As Speaker of the House, that made her second in line for the Presidency, just behind Vice President Dick Cheney. It made her the most powerful woman in America. She was just beside herself with excitement.

Under her leadership the Congress has earned the reputation as the ‘Do Nothing Congress’ and enjoyed the lowest approval ratings of any Congress since …. well, as far as I know of ANY Congress. Her Congress is currently overseeing the fall of the American economy and her style of ‘leadership’ is to rant, rave, whine and assign blame to anyone other than herself or her own insiders. See the video below of her reaction to one of the most important periods of time during her tenure as the Speaker of the House.

How embarrassing that this is the democratic leadership that has been in control of our government for the past two years.

Another aspect of her leadership is to speak out loudly about how others should conduct themselves as Congressmen. She has made declarations that it is unethical for Republicans to receive PAC funds. In fact, she lobbied heavily for the 2006 democratic take over of the House and Senate by declaring the Republicans had presided over a ‘culture of corruption’ At the time, several Republican Congressmen, including former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, had received between $5,000 and $15,000 in PAC funds since the 1990s when the Political Action Committee was formed by DeLay to help raise funds for campaign expenses.

And now we find out that Pelosi has paid her own husband, Paul F. Pelosi, almost $100,000 out of her PAC Funds. The money has gone to his real estate and investment firm, Financial Leasing Services Inc. In addition, her husband has taken over as treasurer of his wife’s committee.

She says that what she expects of others doesn’t necessarily apply to her.

“She’s followed all the appropriate rules and regulations in terms of records and paperwork,” said Brendan Daly, Mrs. Pelosi’s spokesman. “When [former treasurer] Leo McCarthy became ill, she thought that it was best that that firm did the accounting and she’s paid fair market value in San Francisco.”

Convenient arrangement for her husband to be overseeing the books. But I’m sure its all on the up and up.

The more we learn, the more we understand why this Congress has been incapable of accomplishing anything and why they have an approval rating in the teens.

Meet Gwen Ifill, a long time PBS journalist, moderator and managing editor who will be moderating the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday evening. Read her biography and see photos and a video of her below.

Gwen Ifill is a moderator and managing editor for PBS‘ ‘Washington Week’ and is a senior correspondent or “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” She is also a supporter of the Presidential hopeful of Barack Obama. In fact, she has written gushing articles of his for magazines from the perspective of a campaign insider. She has also written a book entitled: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, scheduled to hit the bookstores on January 20, 2009, inauguration day. To say she has a personal and financial interest in the outcome of the presidential race is an understatement.

In spite of all that, she’s been selected to be the moderator of the Vice Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin on Thursday night. She’s been given a great deal of leeway in the format of the debate, the questions she can ask and how she conducts the overall atmosphere of evening. The debate will be held at Washington University in St. Louis on October 2nd.

Her peers say that her personal feelings towards Obama will not influence her fairness and conduct in the execution of the vice presidential debate.

Gwen Ifill was born on September 29, 1955 in New York City. She is 53-years-old. Her parents are Urcille Ifill, Sr. and Eleanor Ifill. Her father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister. Both of her parents emigrated from the Caribbean. Her father from Panama and her mother from Barbados. Gwen was their fifth child. The family moved frequently throughout New England because of her father’s work.

Ifill graduated from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications in 1977. She has received 15 honorary degrees. She serves on several boards including Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. She has also received a number of awards for excellence in journalism.

Ifill’s first job out of school was as a reporter for the Boston Herald-American. She then went to the Baltimore Evening Sun, where she started her focus on politics and her on air career, hosting a news show. She has worked at the Washington Post and The New York Times. In 1994, she became a congressional correspondent for the NBC News and started appearing as a guest on shows like Meet the Press and Washington Week.

In 1999, Gwen started working for PBS. She has been with the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the Washington Weekly since that time.

Ifill moderated the first vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards.

This video of children singing in support of Barack Obama and “change” had a really creepy cult-like feel to it that I did not like at all. The children are adorable, of course, but I doubt they truly understand the election. After all, at that age, I was supporting Walter Mondale out of pity because no one else seemed to like him very much.

Hat tip to good guy.

I realized that this creepy just-drank-the-Kool-Aid video reminded me of another that I had seen a little while ago. Below is a video of North Korean children singing to their beloved Dear Leader. These children have no idea that they are singing in support of the worst dictator in the history of modern times. They just smile and sing. Except for the race of the children, the videos are quite similar in their creepiness and that vague sense that these kids are being used by adults who should know better.

No, I’m not saying that Barack Obama is the same as Kim Jong Il (though Kim Jong Il has expressed his support for Obama’s candidacy). However, using children in your political propaganda always seems a bit exploitive and wrong. Obviously, the adults in this video that support Obama have gotten these kids to parrot their beliefs in this very poorly written song and badly choreographed dance. Since kids can be trained to say anything, Obama’s video, like the North Korea video, smacks of brainwashing.

Check this out.

Katie Couric sat down with Sarah Palin for a second interview tonight. This time, John McCain joined them. They discussed ‘gotcha’ journalism among other things. Read about it below, see photos and a video of the interview.

As everyone knows, Sarah Palin sat down for an interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric last week. We all know it because one sound byte from that interview has played on a continuous loop over the past week. That one segment has been mocked, discussed and used as evidence of Palin’s incompetence by virtually everyone who is just aching to see her fail.

One would think that one exchange between the two women was the entire interview. I have wondered what else was discussed.

One would also think that her admission of not knowing John McCain’s entire voting history over his 26 years in the Senate was a death blow to her candidacy. I have a hard time understanding that considering the multiple blunders made by Joe Biden. Didn’t he, himself, tell Katie Couric that Obama’s campaign ads were ‘terrible’ just the week before? Or Biden’s statement this week that the Obama campaign does not support using clean coal for fuel because it pollutes the atmosphere. But we haven’t heard that continuously.

Hasn’t Obama made some pretty frightening statements during interviews or just off the cuff? Remember him calling a waitress, ‘Sweetie’? Remember him saying that Iran was just a little country so it couldn’t be that dangerous? Remember him telling the world that we need to bomb Pakistan? The list of his dangerous statements are virtually ignored by the media and he is running for President. No one seems to think his lack of understanding of foreign policy or lack of experience disqualifies him for the Presidency. However, the endless recounting of every word that comes out of Palin’s mouth that can possibly be twisted into a ‘gaff’ is held up as proof positive that she’s just not ready.

Well, we get to hear that when we aren’t hearing that she and her family, right down to her newborn baby, are guilty of every conceivable perversion known to mankind.

Read the rest of this entry and see photos and the video

Tony Rezko has been visiting the Chicago prosecutor’s offices fueling speculation that he may be spilling his guts about the Chicago political dealings between himself and Governor Rod Blagojevich and Senator Barack Obama. Read about it below and view a video of a Chicago news report of Obama’s connections with Rezko.

Barack Obama has not missed a beat in his campaigning in spite of the turmoil of our country’s economic problems and a deep, angry division within the American population. In fact, he didn’t even bother to show up to his job at the Senate to vote ‘present’ in the bail out vote earlier today. He just skipped it altogether. However, he didn’t skip lecturing other Representatives on their responsibility to be there and participate in finding a solution. Avoidance of taking a stance has worked well for him …. so far.

Unfortunately for Obama, his ability to completely avoid taking responsibility for any of his associations, lack of voting and lack of action may be coming to a close. Or not. Who knows. Nothing he does or doesn’t do seems to make its way into Saturday Night Live skits or other major news outlets for public mocking.

His former good friend, pretend neighbor, fundraiser, financier and political favor-doer, Tony Rezko, is apparently talking to prosecutors. Rumor has it that Rezko doesn’t want to have to serve out his complete sentence for his June conviction of mail fraud, wire fraud, attempted extortion, money laundering, corruption and being a scumbag. The only way for him to get a lenient sentence is to tell what he knows about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama.

His sentencing is scheduled for October 28th. He has to make a deal before then or he will have to serve out his complete sentence. Could this be why we are seeing Obama turn gray before our very eyes? Or just one of the reasons Obama seems to be so stressed with the campaigning? Perhaps its at least part of the October Surprise people are waiting for.

Time will tell.

Video

Here is the shocking speech by Nancy Pelosi in the United States House of Representatives on September 29th, 2008. Video and transcript below. The Pelosi speech almost single-handedly killed the bailout bill and sent the stock market crashing.

It was all over but the fat lady singing when the Democrat Speaker took to the House floor. Republican leader John Boehner had secured just enough votes from Republicans to assure passage. All that was left were the normal congratulatory speeches filled with platitudes that politicians do at great moments in our history.

But when Pelosi spoke, rather than deliver a magnanimous speech of gratitude for all sides who participated, she chose an inopportune time to make a blatantly political speech. The leader of the Democrat party railed against George Bush’s term in office, the Republican minority in Congress, and Republican economic principles that promote individual responsibility.

By the time the dust settled, fully twelve votes had switched sides and the bill was defeated. Nancy Pelosi was shocked, but should she be? Where was the Democratic leadership in our nation’s hour of need?

The answer is politicking. Nancy Pelosi played politics with our nation’s foremost crisis and as a result started a market collapse by dumbfounded traders. The results will be retraction, recession, and possibly even a new Great Depression. Businesses will stop hiring and people will lose their jobs. Did Pelosi cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, or is it millions?

Time will tell. Read reactions.

Instead of leadership the American people were subjected to this among many other rants from the Democrat leader, encouraged for days by the Obama campaign to play politics with our nation’s future:

“Today we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years with the failed economic leadership … We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future.”

Photos

October is just two days away. Not only does the month bring the World Series, Oktoberfest and Halloween, but also another American tradition: The October Surprise.

The term “October Surprise” refers to an attempt to smear a political candidate with an unforeseen disclosure in October in an effort to discredit him/her in the eyes of the public. Usually, it occurs too late in October for the smeared candidate to recover in time for the November election.

Here are some notable October Surprises from the past:

1980. The Iran Hostage Crisis. Ronald Reagan was comfortably ahead in most polls against a much-maligned President Jimmy Carter. Iranian revolutionaries had been holding American hostages in Tehran for months, making Carter look weak and ineffectual. Carter was working feverishly to get the hostages released in an attempt to save his floundering campaign. According to the rumors, Reagan’s campaign negotiated directly with the Iranians to delay the release of the American hostages until after the November election in order to prevent a late surge for Carter. The allegation has never been proven, despite Congressional hearings and numerous books on the subject. The most popular book was entitled “October Surprise,” causing the phrase to enter common usage.

1988. Willie Horton. Technically, George H.W. Bush’s anti-Dukakis ads regarding Willie Horton came out in September, so this was more of a September Surprise. Under Dukakis’ governorship, Massachusetts ran a weekend furlough program for incarcerated criminals in order to aid their rehabilitation. After escaping from custody while on a weekend furlough, convicted felon Willie Horton brutally raped a woman after beating and stabbing her fiance. The ads denounced Dukakis’ “soft on crime” policies for allowing Willie Horton to walk out of jail. There’s no doubt the ads hurt Dukakis as Bush cruised to a comfortable victory. Many academics and journalists accused the ads of playing to America’s most rac*st fears, as Horton was black and his victim was white, though all of the facts in the ads were true.

1992. Casper Weinberger Indictment. Days before the Presidential election, an independent counsel indicted former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. Weinberger denied any knowledge of arms being sent to Iran in exchange for money to be transferred to the Contras in Nicaragua. However, just days before the election, the press started to question whether George H.W. Bush was involved in the Iran-Contra affair because of the indictment.

2000. George W. Bush’s DUI. This was probably the most ineffective attempt at an October Surprise in history. The Gore Campaign, caught in a tight race, released evidence of a 1976 Driving Under the Influence charge against George W. Bush. The entire country shrugged its shoulders at a 25-year-old DUI.

2004. Swift Boat. The anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had such an impact on the campaign that “swiftboating” is now used as a verb in political circles. Technically, the “Swift Boat” campaign was not an October surprise as the allegations that Kerry had lied about his service on a Swift Boat during the Vietnam War had been around throughout the summer and fall. Several veterans that served in Vietnam with Kerry challenged his version of the facts surrounding his “heroism.” They also stated that Kerry was anti-war and unpatriotic after his service. The Swift Boat ads had a noticeable impact on the polls when they were aired. Many attribute the ads to Bush’s victory in 2004.

With October Surprises having become a routine part of American politics, many in the blogosphere are wondering what will be revealed in 2008. Since McCain was already hit with his share of surprises in 2000 during the Republican primaries, most of the focus has been on what possible new disclosures are lurking in Obama’s closet.

Here are some of the most blogged-about possible surprises:

1) The Whitey Video. Supposedly, sometime in 2004, Michelle Obama publicly railed against “Whitey” (using it as a derogatory term for white people) in a speech regarding America’s domestic problems. Rumor has it that the GOP has it on videotape and is waiting for the right time to unleash it. I have a hard time believing this one. If such a video existed, wouldn’t it have been released by now? And if the speech occurred in public, wouldn’t someone who remembered it have come forward by now?

2) Obama was not born in the U.S.A. A lawsuit in federal court alleges that Obama was born in another country and demands that he release a copy of his original birth certificate. Supposedly, the Certificate of Live Birth that he released in the summer is a forgery. Again, as with the Whitey Video, I’m skeptical about this one. The Certificate has been verified by government officials, so this would have to be a very far-reaching conspiracy if there is one.

3) Osama Bin Laden’s location is known and he will be killed or captured right before the election. I hope this is true. Of course, confirming or denying something this high level is beyond my blogging skills.

4) Rev. Wright makes a comback in some way. Probably true. Even if nothing new happens, we’ll be seeing clips of Rev. Wright in October for sure.

Of course, there’s the possiblity that the October Surprise will be an actual surprise, even to the blogosphere, with the GOP unearthing something totally unexpected. As evidenced by the above, the GOP is much better at October Surprises than the Democrats (Bush’s DUI was a joke). Surely, they will come up with something masterful against this unvetted and controversial member of the Chicago political machine?

P.S.: October 3 is also the birthday of one of our contributing writers, Wendy Sullivan. Can there be a better present than a surprise that sinks Obama?

Once again, Saturday Night Live demonstrated their discontent for the Republican Party. I guess this shouldn’t come as a shocker for most, but it is still worth pointing out so that people’s awareness of this are made fresh. It should be no surprise that NBC would produce politically bias television. Two weeks ago it was Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton portrayed giving a speech together. Though some fun was poked at Hillary, she was portrayed as far more intelligent and sophisticated than Palin. Tonight, Tina Fey makes Palin seem about as dumb as a brick. Let’s face it, the portrayal of Palin tonight and two weeks ago reached a level of bias that was so blatant, that I could no longer simply say it’s just a joke. Rather, these are statements of opinion, like an editorial cartoon, if you will.

After the Palin/Couric parody, SNL turns to the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. They lay into McCain and only lightly dig on Obama. The digs on Obama are almost mockingly kind. McCain, like Palin, is made out to be a bumbling idiot, while Obama is the intelligent, articulate one. The digs on McCain directly mock what he actually said at the debate. For Obama, it’s almost like SNL had to sit there and think about how they can manufacture some dig about Obama that isn’t actually relevant to the real situation.

Of course, the Huffington Post believes this SNL skit is almost exactly the same as the real interview. While Palin continues to strengthen her ability to “think on her feet,�? she has the right ideas. That is what is important in this election. I guess a lot of people think that speech giving is the most important part of this election. That, and hating on Bush. Well if that’s the case, then Obama is probably your man. But if you think that prudent foreign policy in crisis times like now is important, and if you think it’s important to keeping spending and taxes at bay, then you will need John McCain. And if you are worried about what vice presidents say, just remember that Obama’s VP choice said that Obama doesn’t have enough experience. Take his word for it.

For the Obama faithful, please see this video before you say anything further about Sarah Palin:

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