The Other Side Online

This was sent to me by Phil Hoge, and it exactly says why Doc Hastings has got to go.  Horrendous manipulation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42692339#42692339

Mr. Hastings voted for the 2012 Budget that the House passed last week. The Ryan plan, as this budget is called, does not run a budget surplus until about 2040. Here is what David Stockman (R) wrote about it today:

“By 2014, for example, the Ryan plan does not save a dime from the $2.2 trillion baseline for Social Security, Medicare and national security spending. Then it extends all the Bush tax cuts at a cost of $350 billion while instructing the states to reduce spending for the poor by $100 billion and the Congress to slice domestic discretionary spending by 25 percent. That toxic brew is likely to find few takers — even at a Mad Hatter’s tea party.”

Stockman declares that Obama’s proposal is slightly better than the Ryan plan. I enjoyed reading his entire op-ed piece because he takes a stab at both Keynesians and supply-siders, all couched in everyday language within everyone’s grasp.

I found an example of supply-siders searching for validation in the Republican Staff Commentary titled “Spend Less, Owe Less, Grow the Economy” dated March 15. The paper presents four examples of fiscal contraction that the authors believe led to economic expansion. In every case – Canada, Sweden, New Zealand and Ireland – there were significant forces at work that were never mentioned. The April 18 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, p. 35, briefly critiques each of these cases with a rebuke to the contraction/expansion believers.

I used to write to Mr. Hastings to tell him that the Bush Administration economic policy was unsustainable. Because Mr. Hastings not only made bad decisions, but led the way on trillions of borrowing; he is accountable for the 40% loss of value of the dollar between 2001 and 2008 and for other conditions that led to the Great Recession.

Your Personalized Receipt

This is a government website. You do not need to identify yourself. Just enter numbers for your income tax, social security and medicare payments. You will get a detailed list of where your money goes. Print it out if you’d like to keep a record.

In previous posts I spoke about the PDC complaint lodged in regards to the “Citizens For Safer Streets & Lower Taxes” strong mayor campaign expenses. Since BS has cleared up one of the three issues by twice amending their C-4 return of Feb 2nd, on April 1st – 10 weeks late, I have thus, amended our complaint! Click here for pdf of complaint. The big issues are non-payment for almost $10,000 in radio ads and $4,000 in checks written to Yakima Valley Publishing for “printing and campaign services”. An FCC complaint has also been filed regarding their FREE advertising. It’ll take a lot of BS to spin this quagmire!

The Senate Majority Leader says it was the riders. The House Speaker says it was the money. One of them is being disingenuous. Republican leaders initially asked for $33 billion of cuts and negotiated an agreed $38 billion by this morning. Have you read any of the riders? How can you suppose that the arch-conservatives who voted for these riders were ever serious about writing a compromise budget?

Much like I posted last week, except by an authoritative figure, this was posted on Joe Romm’s climate progress blog. It is by Tom Kenworthy, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

On March 31st, the House Natural Resources Committee held yet another hearing to tie rising gas prices to an oil industry agenda. The panel’s Grand Oil Party leadership continues to ignore reality. It’s not the Obama administration’s supposed imposition of “regulation after regulation, roadblock after roadblock” that’s holding up more domestic oil drilling, as claimed by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), the committee chairman. He acts as if his panel can help reduce gas prices at the pump by hiding the truth and smacking the Obama administration.
The facts are simple:

– As the head of the Energy Information Administration told Hastings’ panel the other day, opening up more federal lands to oil drilling will have at best a marginal impact on gas prices and even if there is a reduction it could be erased by OPEC cutting production.
– The oil and gas industry has failed to use more than two-thirds of the offshore leases they hold in the Gulf of Mexico and more than half of those they hold onshore.
– The industry has almost 7,200 drilling permits on federal lands that it hasn’t used yet, according to BLM data obtained by E&E news.
– In Wyoming alone, the oil and gas industry has idled nearly 12,000 natural gas wells that were actually producing. The cause? A “downturn in pricing” – in other words, low natural gas prices, according to Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission supervisor Tom Doll.
– The United States has 1,738 drill rigs actively exploring for or producing oil and gas right now, a 20 percent increase over a year ago. That’s more than the rest of the world has combined, not including Russia and China where the company that collects the data, Baker Hughes, says reliable information is not available.
The truth is that drilling and production are largely dictated by world energy markets and the industry drills and produces when it thinks it can make the most excessive profits. And when prices are down, the industry counts on people like Hastings allowing them to stockpile leases and drilling permits until prices rise. Americans will only stop being harmed by spiking gas prices when they are no longer hostage to the oil industry.

For the second day in a row an amendment appears on the PDC reports AFTER a blog is posted at The Other Side. This time Citizens For Safer Streets & Lower Taxes amended their amended return of the day before! But I gotta say this: It looks like they finally got that part of our complaint correct. Remember 2 blogs ago, March 30), we pointed out in the complaint to the PDC that the Bru Crew (Bruce Smith et al) had neglected to account for $5,453.90. That same day (March 30) they filed an amended C-4 to show the expenses for that amount. However, as pointed out in my yesterday blog (March 31), all the expenses were reported paid to Bruce Smith! What a revolting development that would have been!

So after my March 31st blog they have now amended their amended report to show that the $5,453.90 was paid to Smith, Phillips & DiPietro for yard signs, web design, consultant fees and newspaper ad production. We, here at The Other Side will accept that as the explanation of expenses. It is certainly more logical that the committee pays a professional firm for services rather than BS, the Vice Chair of the committee. These expenses were supposed to be reported on their C-4 filing due on JAN 18, 2011. Ten weeks ago! But that would be following the rules. Something their committee has some problems with.

So that clears up that part of the complaint. Remaining to be explained are the total of $4,074.83 to Yakima Valley Publishing for “printing and campaign services” on Jan 20 and Feb 4th. This raises eyebrows because BS doesn’t have a printing press and his “campaign services” as the Vice Chair of the committee have an unethical ring to it.

And then there remains a pesky little item regarding $9,858 of IN KIND radio station ads. This is probably the most important part of our complaint. Somewhere the radio stations have to have been given money for these political ads. If they haven’t then Townsquare Media and New Northwest Broadcasters have crossed the line on political ads. They will have chosen sides. They require all other campaigns to pay cash up front before ads are run. They appear to be giving Bruce Smith some special treatment. A new low in Public Disclosure and transparency will have been reached if the PDC or FCC allows these kinds of transactions for political campaigns.

Bruce Smith’s strong mayor campaign committee, Citizens For Safer Streets & Lower Taxes filed an amended C-4 Wednesday, Mar 30th, that attempts to account for the $5,443.90 that was missing from their earlier reports. (see my March 30th blog) Now I see why BS didn’t want to disclose this information during the campaign. The entire $5,443.90 was paid out to none other than Bruce almighty!

This raises even MORE questions for the right wing guru. Questions that would have inevitably arose had they filed their reports properly. Add to the payments of the now reported $5,443.90 to the puppet master, an additional $4,074.83 that was also paid to him and you have a total of $9,518.73 in payments from the Citizens For Safer Streets & Lower Taxes committee written to Bruce’s company. I wonder how much of that $9,518.73 stayed in BS’s pockets? Did he do “trade outs” with vendors and retain cash for himself? Due to their shoddy reporting, that is a fair question to ask and an above board committee should be able to provide a satisfactory answer to clear up ambiguities.

I wonder how Citizens For Safer Streets & Lower Taxes campaign donors feel about Bruce being paid a $500 consultant fee while serving as Vice Chair of the committee. He also was paid $1301.91 for printing and “campaign services”.

Looks like BS has found himself a cash cow! But maybe he has a perfectly logical and ethical explanation for all this smoke screened reporting. Ya think? Nah, the words “logical” and “ethical” do not fit in the same sentence with Bruce Smith. And then of course there is the murky shenanigans of $9, 858 of IN KIND radio ads BS donated. How much, if any, real money was transacted? Probably none. The radio stations have the appearance of taking sides in the campaign. They have made trades with the devil! There is more to come on this continuing saga!

Bruce Smith’s Citizen’s for Safer Streets & Lower Taxes committee have filed PDC reports that are bizzare to say the least! Ethical questions and fuzzy math dominate their reports. They have $5,453.90 UNACCOUNTED for! Plus Bruce Smith has received checks for more than $4,000 for printing and campaign services. Come on. Bruce doesn’t do print work and it sure looks unethical to be receiving money from your own committee that he is Vice Chair of! BS’s treasurer, David Flink works for him.

Let’s follow the money here. How does BS provide inkind contributions for radio ads? Media ads are normally paid for with cash before they are run. Does anyone believe BS would plunk down almost $10,000 for radio ads and then donate them to a political campaign committee? Truth is he wouldn’t contribute a single penny. If he’s getting the ads through trade outs and this becomes acceptable practise, then the bar has been lowered for all political committees. Media companies have made it very clear that political ads are paid cash, up front, before any ads are run. The murky world of trade outs opens up a pandoras box for future reporting of expenses.

There are many dark clouds in their reporting. So much so that I have lodged a complaint to the PDC to seek answers to shed light on their total lack of transparency. Sure looks like some strange stuff goin on! A complaint? Why now? Why not. BS is planning a November rerun and the public deserves accurate reporting of contributions and expenses. Stay tuned. When we get some answers we’ll post them here.