Senator DeLuca has a FIOIA problem

Senator Anthony DeLuca seems to have a problem with FOIA requests. Namely, he doesn’t feel like they apply to him. The embattled Senator has escaped prosecution under the HATCH Act for his roles as both an administrator in the Office of Labor Law Enforcement and as State Senator and been challenged for his leadership position by his own party for his ethics and transparency problems. Earlier this year, Senator DeLuca refused to give an account of the time he spent working each of these taxpayer funded jobs. Despite pressure from the News Journal and other journalists, to turn over his timecard records and show that there was no overlap between his work in the executive branch and his work in the legislative branch, DeLuca carried on holding back his timecards for more than six months. When he finally did release them, the records indicated no conflict (of course) but the fact that he allowed the Attorney General’s office to make the case that the release of his time records were a matter of national security is evidence that he simply doesn’t respect the offices he holds. As an elected official who holds a job in both the legislative branch and the executive branch, it’s his duty to disclose to the public when he discharges his duties in each arena. Today, the News Journal is reporting that Senator DeLuca’s office is once again in violation of FOIA compliance and this time he’s not being protected by the Attorney General’s office. His office has once again refused to show the taxpayers of Delaware the records of his department’s work investigating the labor practices of Delaware businesses. For some reason, Senator DeLuca believes that he lives above the law. Maybe it’s the fact that in the 12 years that he has been in office, he has never faced an opponent, maybe it’s that he’s survived leadership challenges in the State Senate or maybe it’s just a complex that he has now that he’s spent more than a decade in the legislature but whatever the case, it’s about time we went ahead and shattered this worldview that he doesn’t need to be accountable to the people who elected him or to the people who entrust him with the ability to govern them.

Delaware voters,
Though you and I may not agree on everything, I think we can all agree on one thing, it’s time for Senator DeLuca to be replaced. He doesn’t feel like the rules apply to him. Whether it’s spending money for extra security doors for his office (as if that REALLY had something to do with his “safety”), failing to comply with the initial FOIA request for his timecards and ACTUALLY ALLOWING the AG to make a ridiculous claim that it would be a national security risk for us to know if there was any overlap in his work with the executive and legislative branches or this latest refusal to comply with FOIA and ethics laws, it’s clear that Senator DeLuca just doesn’t get it. We need a cleaner government with people who value the rules of the system and who genuinely WANT the people to see what goes on in Dover. I’m that person. I will do everything in the open and with complete transparency. I’ll tear the security door down myself, comply with FOIA requests BEFORE the deadlines and make sure that you all know what I’m doing before you even HAVE to ask. Also, I can promise you this, should I be fortunate enough to win, I would only seek two terms. That’s it, just two terms. No dynasty here, won’t have enough time to earn a pension, won’t need lifetime medical benefits or any of the other legislative retiree perks. Save that and give it to the folks who need it. I just want to go to Dover and shed some light and spread some truth. I’m even willing to put this pledge in writing. We have absolutely GOT to change the way business is done in Dover if we’re EVER going to achieve our shared goals of prosperity, transparency and openness.

Sincerely,
Evan Queitsch
Candidate 11th Senate District - http://www.evanqforde.com/

Occupy Wall Street Protestors Only Have Themselves to Blame

We’ve all seen the Occupy Wall Street protests on the news.  Whether it is the images of college aged children prancing through tent cities, marches with hundreds and thousands of protestors or even the riotous actions in places like Oakland, reactionto it has been mixed and has cut across party lines.  What began as a seemingly homogenous ball of anger has now begun to define itself.  Their demands are as mixed as their support though and it continues to feed the idea that they are a disorganized band of rebels.  That comes in part, from the MANY factions involved and in part from the fact that most of them are radical groups.  The images themselves lend us to wonder, where do we stand while the many different demands are perplexing as well.

But what it really all comes down to is this, these Occupy Wall Street folks are protesting the wrong thing.  They should be protesting…themselves.

Huh?  I know, stay with me here.

What is it the Occupy Wall Street crowd is consistently saying?  It’s all the fault of those greedy Wall Street bankers and the corrupt corporations right?  They’re consistent in saying that this banking crisis is due to Wall Street greed.  That the banking crisis we have today is because of Wall Street greed. 

So we’ve established that the problem, at least in their eyes, is greed mixed with corruption, right?  And what’s the leading cause of greed and corruption?  A lack of ethics and morality is the answer to that question.  Clearly, if Wall Street was ethically and morally grounded, there wouldn’t be deliberate over speculation intended to drive the price of products up, loans made without proof of income, residency or identification and you wouldn’t see mortgage backed securities packaged in those Credit Default Swaps.  You wouldn’t see these things, all labeled as the culprits of the fall of the market in 2008 because quite simply, they’re not ethical or moral.  You wouldn’t see Fannie and Freddie aligning with the Unions and ACORN to send thousands of protestors to stand on the lawns of bank CEO’s and managers chanting to make more risky loans and you wouldn’t see the bankers cutting a deal with Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to ensure their losses on these risky mortgage loans would be covered with taxpayer dollars.  And what, of all things, is the largest driving factor of positive morals and ethics?  The answer is clear again, religion and faith.  You can argue about individuals here and there buy by and large, of the hundreds of millions of Americans who believe in God and who truly live that lifestyle out, you will see morals and ethics prevail.  And who are the leaders in the fight to get rid of faith and push God out of the way?  The same people at Occupy Wall Street...

So these same people who have destroyed morality and ethics in America by attacking faith and trying to destroy God, are now protesting the fruits of their own labors!  You’d think they would be happy with these results since they were the only possible result of their battle against God.  You would think that the folks protesting this greed and corruption would be those who have been fighting FOR faith and FOR God but instead, those people, many of whom found themselves at home in the TEA Party where morals and ethics are at the forefront, have largely come out AGAINST the movement whose means are over the top and misdirected at best or mean-spirited and evil at worst.  These people, who created a culture of corruption, are now upset at the corruption.  Hard to wrap your head around it until you realize that…creating the crisis was the whole point to begin with. 

Yanno, like tear down capitalism, the American Republican and our financial system and replace it with One World Socialism.

CREW Exposed

A new website out today delves into the realm of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). You may remember CREW from previous posts on this blog as well as from the recently dismissed charges against Christine O’Donnell. Like most CREW complaints, the one against O’Donnell was dismissed by the U.S. Attorney because they were completely fabricated. As we broke here on this blog, CREW violated their IRS mandate to remain non-political when they attacked Christine O’Donnell during the campaign and they violated federal law when they filed a knowingly false affidavit signed by David Keegan whose entire smear campaign of lies was simply designed to keep Christine from running again.

The new website also delves into the partisanship of CREW. A quick look over the founders of CREW shows the partisan angle. Norm Eisen who was Deputy General Counsel to Obama’s transition team joined Daniel Berger, a massive donor to Democrat campaigns (including Christine O’Donnell’s opponent Chris Coons) and Clinton pollster Mark Penn to start CREW in 2003 as a way to compete with the conservative ethics groups that had questioned Bill Clinton’s philandering in the White House. They needed a face for the organization and so they tapped another ultra-liberal Democrat to head up CREW, Melanie Sloan. Sloan came with plenty of leftist credentials, she’d worked for Representative John “Read the bill” Conyers in the House, she then worked for Senator (now VP) Joe “Stand up Chuck” Biden and she also worked for NY Democrat Chuck “3 branches of government?” Schumer when he was in the House of Representatives. Sloan isn’t the only leftist in the mix, in fact, the website finds that “there isn't a single current or former CREW staffer with comparable experience working for a conservative organization or Republican politician.”

As if that weren’t enough, the new site exposes CREW’s record of attacks against Republicans over Democrats. The chart below clearly shows that CREW files more complaints against Republicans than Democrats and it clearly shows that the actions taken by the ethics committees lean more toward Democrats than Republicans. What does that mean? It means that CREW is either REALLY ineffective as a “watchdog” or it’s just out to be a Democrat Attackdog.

Let’s look at the Senate ethics complaints as an example. As you can see above CREW’s Senate ethics complaints are around 90% against Republicans. Meanwhile, the Senate ethics committee actions are 60% against Democrats 40% against Republicans. This is simply a perfect illustration of the reason why Christine O’Donnell’s complaints about CREW are entirely valid. They are a partisan group out to destroy Republicans, prop up Democrats and do the bidding of radical leftist donors like George Soros. Their list of donors reads like a Who’s Who of radical leftwing groups. The Open Society Institute, the Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation and the Silberstein Foundation to name just a few are all major donors to CREW. Interestingly, CREW was also a MAJOR advocate for the DISCLOSE Act (written by Delaware’s own Mike Castle) which would have required groups to disclose their donors if they engaged in any political activity. However, CREW refuses to disclose its own list of donors. 

In the end, the new site shows the bias and hypocrisy of CREW at a time when their legal status has come into question. With O’Donnell fighting back against their lies, this new website exposing CREW’s left wing motivations is yet more evidence that CREW is everything O’Donnell says they are. Mean, nasty, partisan hacks doing the bidding of left wing billionaire extremists like George Soros and left wing political machines like the Democrat Party. Kudo’s to The Center for Consumer Freedom for standing up to CREW and calling them out on their hypocrisy.