Pelosi's Disconnect From Reality
Nancy Pelosi announced today that House Democrats were forming a
Waste, Fraud and Abuse Truth Squad. Here's part of her statement:
Pelosi is also rekindling the "Culture of Corruption" campaign.
Posted Friday, August 25, 2006 3:19 AM
July 2006 Posts
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"The Democratic Truth Squad will keep the Bush Administration honest by documenting and exposing waste, fraud and abuse. Democrats are committed to a new direction in the way our government does business so taxpayer's money is handled responsibly."It's interesting that Pelosi would suggest that the nation needs a change of direction and only Democrats can deliver it, especially when it comes to New Orleans. The reality is that New Orleans Democrats are the cause of the waste, fraud and abuse in rebuilding New Orleans. Check out this Fortune Magazine article says about Democratic corruption:
Today, the Truth Squad is releasing a new report on wasteful procurement spending in response to Hurricane Katrina. In the year following Hurricane Katrina, citizens of the Gulf Coast needed government to be at it best. Instead, according to the report, they got the cronyism, corruption and incompetence that have been far too commonplace under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress.
- [Frierson's]string snapped at the end of November, when the state legislature scuttled a bill to reform the state's levee boards, which are entrusted with maintaining its flood defenses. Critics have long charged that the eight boards in southeast Louisiana did everything but take care of the levees. Rather than coordinate their efforts, they competed for money and influence. Some boards operated their own police forces; the central New Orleans board even ran a marina and an airport, both of which lost money. "People were saying that they were not going to bring their families back" if the legislature continued to entrust the levees to these fiefdoms, Frierson says. "Right then and there, I decided this was the issue."
- Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, for its part, turned its attention to ending Orleans Parish's practice, unique in the country, of having more than one tax assessor, seven, in fact, some controlled by the same families for decades. The multiple-assessor scheme has long been denounced as corrupt; it generates improbably low assessments that drain the city of tax revenue. So opaque is the system that when the administration of Mayor Ray Nagin put assessed property values online, the assessors threatened to sue.
- First was a group assembled by the Urban Land Institute, a real estate industry think tank. In mid-November the ULI team presented a preliminary plan: Begin rebuilding on the highest ground, then work down, turning the lowest areas into parks or wetlands. When the group delivered its proposal at a public hearing, reaction was immediate, vehement, and negative. Nagin skipped the meeting, letting his office announce that he had business in Washington. (In fact, he was vacationing in Jamaica.)
Pelosi is also rekindling the "Culture of Corruption" campaign.
"We need a new direction that restores honesty to the People's House," Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said recently, emphasizing one of her party's campaign messages as scandal-scarred Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio abandoned his re-election race.Get real, Ms. Pelosi. It isn't that Republicans are pure as the driven snow. It's that Democrats are just as corrupt, if not more so:
Then, as part of a separate bribery investigation, the FBI searched Rep. William Jefferson's home and said they found $90,000 stashed in the Louisiana Democrat's freezer. He claims innocence but faces a dozen challengers this fall. In West Virginia, Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan is the subject of an investigation into federal money given to nonprofit groups that contributed to his campaigns. He denies wrongdoing. Republicans plan to run ads to help Chris Wakim win the district.Don't be surprised to read that Wakim beat Mollohan this November. In fact, I'll be bold enough to say that Democrats are in far worse shape than they think. And don't be surprised if Jefferson isn't indicted this year, too. It'll be interesting to see if Democrats will force him to resign.
Posted Friday, August 25, 2006 3:19 AM
July 2006 Posts
No comments.
