Christine O'Donnell under fire again

Pick a "news source" (are there any real ones left?  I'm not sure there are any locally in Delaware anymore...maybe The Blaze nationally) this week and you'll see stories about Christine O'Donnell being investigated by the FBI, the FEC and perhaps even MI:6.  There are two things that I gather from this:

1.) The so-called media is OBSESSED with anything that can make conservative women look kooky, insane or fringe. 
2.) The last week of the year is a VERY slow news time.

The "investigation" is nothing more than following up on the FEC filing by CREW.  CREW is a Soros funded left wing "ethics group" who has levied charges against Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel (two obvious Democrat "crooks") to prove it's non-partisan roots.  However, roots are often found in funding sources and group leadership so let's look at those two pieces.

Funding
CREW was started in 2003 by Melanie Sloan (we'll cover her later).  In 2006, when George Soros' "Democracy Alliance" was coming under fire by the Washington Post, an article spotlighting the funding sources for left wing groups was published.

Likewise, a Democracy Alliance blessing effectively jump-started Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It bills itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group committed to targeting "government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests." Alliance officials see CREW as a possible counterweight to conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, which filed numerous lawsuits against Clinton administration officials in the 1990s. A CREW spokesman declined to comment.

Shocking!  While CREW has denied Soros links in the past, intrepid bloggers gathered information about CREW sourcing when the leftist group filed ethics charges against who else but....Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.


Although CREW denies any ties to George Soros, they indeed receive funds from the Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation, as well as the Open Society Institute – all Soros front groups.

So, CREW has received money from almost every Soros front group on the map including the Democracy Alliance which takes money from rich Progressives and spreads it around to deserving progressive groups.

From their website:

We are a first-of-its-kind partnership of changemakers who are committed to a stronger democracy and a more progressive America.

Launched in 2005, the Democracy Alliance (DA) was created to build progressive infrastructure that could help counter the well-funded and sophisticated conservative apparatus in the areas of civic engagement, leadership, media, and ideas.

Today the DA provides an innovative opportunity for individuals to leverage their progressive philanthropy by connecting their own efforts with those of other investors/donors, high-impact organizations, and visionary political strategists and leaders.

We play a leadership role in building the movement infrastructure needed to execute and advance a progressive agenda. Our network helps form a more integrated and cohesive progressive community creating greater impact as a result of our collaborative giving strategy.

Leadership

As we talked about above, the second indicator of the ideals of an organization (funding being the first) is the leadership of the group.  *While doing research for this post, I found the following website which tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about CREW and their crew.  I have added some pictures to the bottom of this post.*

So let's look at the CREW leadership starting at the top with Executive Director Melanie Sloan. Sloan is a former federal prosecutor who made news representing Valerie Plame and Joseph C. Wilson in a civil suit against the Bush Administration (which the Obama Administration threw out on it's face).  She was publicly admonished by a judge int he Scooter Libby trial for attempting to try the case in the media (playing on public opinion is a tactic many liberal lawyers like to use).

Melanie has another hiccup when it comes to bringing this complaint against O'Donnell.  Sloan also worked for Joe Biden whose former seat was being contested by O'Donnell and Coons.  In fact, the CREW suit came after Vice President Biden had called and spoken with Congressman Castle after the September primary.  Congressman Castle and the DEGOP had filed complaints with the FEC to look into slanderous allegations of the misuse of campaign funds in a last ditch effort to entangle O'Donnell in a scandal and steal the Republican Primary election.  Fortunately the Republican voters in Delaware are not the stupid sheep that Castle and the DEGOP leadership must have believed they were.  (In fairness to the Delaware GOP, Chairman Tom Ross has stated that the FEC complaint lodged by attorney Michael Toner was on behalf of the national Republican Party and that he was FORCED to sign the document by party insiders.)  The DEGOP tried to pull back their complaint when they found the claims unsubstantiated and when O'Donnell became the GOP nominee but were told that ALL FEC complaints are investigated. 

O'Donnell won the primary on September 15th, Biden spoke with Castle on September 16th and CREW filed their complaint on September 20th.  The complaint was practically identical to that of the DEGOP complaint and contained testimony from two questionable sources. 

The first source was a disgruntled former campaign volunteer (a family member of O'Donnell's former boyfriend) with a grudge and a chip on his shoulder (apparently his complaint was over a reimbursement of $150 for which no paperwork was ever filed).  The other source is another disgruntled former campaign staffer who was replaced after just a week and a half due to incompetence. 

Next, let's look at how the CREW leadership defines itself:

U.S. Senator Conrad Burns of Montana charged that CREW was "maliciously false" and "partisan hacks" in calling him corrupt in 2005. The Billings Gazette reported that CREW defended itself:^[8]

"We are progressive," said Naomi Seligman, the group's deputy director... "We do work within a larger progressive infrastructure." Seligman suggested her group is the progressive counterweight to Judicial Watch, a group from the right that calls itself "a non-profit, public interest law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption"... "We've gone after a fair number of Democrats, even in this study," Seligman said, [and Burns] "should be answering the charges, not slinging charges."

In reality, CREW has "called out" some of the more obviously criminal Democrats (Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel) but they have not sunk their teeth into them the way they have Republicans.  Apparently “a fair number of Democrats” is subjective….in 2005 the numbers were 10 R’s and 3 D’s although the GOP WAS in control then and so were more likely to be corrupt.  In 2010, with a Democrat leadership in place, 16 R’s and 10 D’s were targeted.  The self described "Progressive" group has also targeted Sarah Palin and just about every candidate that Palin endorses. 

*added content*