Bob McCarty Writes

At first glance, one might think David Catron’s a bit crazy for beginning his piece at American Thinker today by describing Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) as a man who, “for all of his well-documented faults, has performed at least one valuable public service.”  In reality, he’s spot-on.

Under the headline, Pay-to-Play Politics, the SEIU and Obamacare, Catron follows that subdued applause for “Blago” with this explanation:

He has made it clear to the meanest intelligence that our new President-elect emerged from a hopelessly corrupt political culture.  Barack Obama oozed from the same stinking Chicago swamp that produced Blagojevich, and a man whose formative years were spent wallowing in the muck with such creatures isn’t likely to be long in White House before the stench of pay-to-play politics begins to pervade the place. That this has important implications for the future of health care in this country has already been demonstrated by a brazen episode of cronyism involving one of America’s most prestigious health care institutions, the University of Chicago Medical Center.

If the American people allow the tentacles of Chicago-style pay-to-play politics to reach into the health care reform arena, we’re likely to see a decline in health care delivery similar to the one already being experienced by citizens of the United Kingdom as described in the opening paragraphs of a Telegraph article published today:

NHS records show that 3,645 people died as a result of “patient safety incidents” - including botched operations and the outbreak of infections - between April 2007 and March 2008. The figure was 1,370 higher than two years earlier.

Patient groups have warned that the true toll is likely to be higher because some hospitals do not record all incidents.

Food for thought.

Why does Congress do so little to enact real immigration reform legislation? A new report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform offers answers.

The report, Immigration Lobbying: A Window into the World of Special Interests (pdf), is the first and only study of lobbying on immigration policy and reveals a scope of influence previously unknown.  Inside the report’s 38 pages are details of how, during the past three years, dozens of well-known American corporations, representing virtually every sector of the economy, have committed extensive resources lobbying for increased immigration, more foreign guest-workers, and amnesty for illegal aliens.

Furthermore, it exposes how many of these same corporations have pressured Congress to provide them a cheap labor supply have recently been pink-slipping their existing workers and seeking federal taxpayer bailouts.

FAIR’s immigration lobbying report uncovers how in the past three years, 521 corporations, trade associations, business groups, labor organizations, government entities, educational institutions, and non-profit groups attempted to influence key congressional immigration-related legislation. Only about 2 percent of these organizations supported reductions in immigration and enhanced enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. The rest — 98 percent — fought for increased immigration, amnesty and more foreign guest workers.

In addition, FAIR’s report shows that over 58 percent of the lobbying on immigration between 2006 and 2008 was carried out by American corporations and business and trade associations ranging from high tech to agriculture.

Their primary goals included:

• Amnesty for the estimated 13 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S.
• Dramatic increases in both low-skill and high-skill foreign guest workers.
• Increased admission of foreign students to U.S. universities, and subsequent entry to the U.S. labor market.

“This new report demonstrates conclusively that the hallmark of corporate concern about immigration policy has been to increase their own access to cheap foreign labor,” stated Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “Equally evident from this lobbying investigation is that the public interest has been almost entirely absent from efforts to influence the direction of U.S. immigration policy.

“In the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, many of these companies are simultaneously asking for more cheap foreign labor while laying off existing U.S. workers. It’s contradictory behavior and shows an appalling lack of community and corporate responsibility,” observed Stein. “With the exception of a small number of public interest advocacy organizations like FAIR, nearly every lobbying dollar spent on influencing immigration policy has been focused on bringing cheaper labor to this country, rewarding illegal immigration, and building ethnic political constituencies.

“Given the damage that these interests have already inflicted on hard-working American families, we hope that the incoming Obama administration will restore some modicum of public interest to this important policy debate,” said Stein.

The #3 Texas Longhorns never gave up.  Despite giving up a touchdown to #10 Ohio State with less than 3 minutes to go in the game, the Big 12 South squad from Austin kept their composure, marched down field and scored with 17 seconds to go to defeat the Buckeyes in a squeaker in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.

Though I had predicted a much larger margin of victory (i.e., 56-21) in my “crystal ball” post of Dec. 28, I had it half right — the Buckeyes scored 21 points.  At the end of the day, however, my predictions record for the bowl season stands at 5-3 and the Big 12 Conference record in the bowls is 4-2.

Next up: #1 Oklahoma vs. #2 Florida in the BCS National Championship in Miami.  The game airs on Fox, beginning at 7 p.m. EDT.

My Prediction: Oklahoma wins, 42-30

The scandal that led to the withdrawal of Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson may be “just the beginning of a string of scandals unlike anything we’ve seen in American history,” Richard A. Viguerie said today.

Viguerie used a late-afternoon news release to share his thoughts about Richardson, the current New Mexico governor and former Clinton cabinet member who faces a grand jury investigation into whether he exchanged infrastructure-related state contracts for political contributions.

“The federal government is on the verge of handing out hundreds of billions of dollars of so-called ‘economic stimulus,’” said Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. “You can rest assured that big contributors and others with the right political connections will get big chunks of that money, and that a lot of it will never be accounted for. Much of it will go for ‘green’ energy projects that will turn out to be scams, and for public works projects that make the Capitol Visitor Center and ‘The Big Dig’ look like money well spent.”

The Capitol Visitor Center was originally planned to cost $71 million, its “final” budget was $265 million, and it eventually cost $621 million. The Big Dig was a Boston highway project that, by the time all political interests had been satisfied, cost four times the original estimates even with inflation taken into account.

“Cost overruns, the use of substandard materials with resulting injuries and deaths, payoffs to political interests such as environmentalists and neighborhood groups, and out-and-out bribery on government contracts — that’s what the American people better prepare themselves for, if the politicians have their way on this ’stimulus,’” Viguerie said.

“Blagojevich? Richardson? You ain’t seen nothing yet!

“Already, it is hard to read or watch the news without being bombarded with stories of politicians being credibly accused of wrongdoing, being indicted, being sentenced. Throwing a trillion taxpayers’ dollars into a corrupt system will only make the system more corrupt.”

This explosion of corruption “is a serious threat to our democracy,” Viguerie said. “It is the Chicago-ization of American politics.”

The FDIC issued a news release Friday to let the world known the agency’s board had approved a letter of intent to sell IndyMac Bank to a thrift holding company controlled by IMB Management Holdings LP.  Though one of the men involved in purchasing the bank shares the same last name as Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, members of the mainstream news media have failed to acknowledge that fact.

A Los Angeles Times report Saturday listed John Paulson as one of two hedge-fund operators (the other being billionaire George Soros) among a small group of owner-investors, while an article published Friday in the San Jose Business Journal noted that the limited partnership includes John Alfred Paulson, the same man.  Neither article, however, deemed it worthwhile to report that the man involved in purchasing a large failed bank shared the same last name as the man who oversees the nation’s banking system, Secretary Paulson.

Noticing that, I decided to see if any other news outlets had seen fit to address the nagging question, “Is John Alfred Paulson related to Henry M. Paulson?” After all, even the pseudo-journalists behind the desk at ESPN Sports Center know enough to toss in an occasional “No relation” upon noticing that two unrelated players who share the same last name.

Surprising me again, none of the articles I found — neither the above-mentioned articles nor others published in the Wall Street Journal Jan. 5, at Bloomberg.com Jan. 3 and via Associated Press Jan. 3 — addressed the question.  That’s when I decided to ask people who should know.

I called IMB’s corporate offices early this afternoon and was told to send an e-mail inquiry to Armel Leslie at Walek & Associates, IMB’s Madison Avenue public relations counsel.  Twice given the opportunity to respond to the question, “Is John Alfred Paulson related in any way to Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson?” the PR specialist responded by e-mail as follows:  “No relation” and “Yes, no relation.”

Though I had an answer, I was not yet convinced; therefore, I called the Treasury Department Public Affairs Office in Washington, D.C., and asked them to field a nearly-identical question, “Does Secretary Paulson have any immediate relatives by the name of John Alfred Paulson?”

With true bureaucratic efficiency, the buck was passed at least twice during my phone call before I was dispatched with a promise that someone would call me back with the answer.  Unfortunately, that was almost five hours ago.

Is John Alfred Paulson related to Henry M. Paulson? Perhaps not, but that’s not what motivated me to write this article.  Instead, my chief concern was the news media’s seemingly-collective decision to ignore any possible connection between the men.  That kind of collusion, I fear, might portend a much greater problem for our nation’s future than banking failures.