Boehner to Joe: No Glenn Beck Junket!

Calling it unethical, Speaker John Boehner prohibited Joe Walsh from accepting Glenn Beck's invitation to junket to Beck's "Restore Courage" rally in Israel next Wednesday. The House Ethics Committee rejected this use of taxpayer dollars as too political. Gee, ya think?

Of course, Joe sees it differently. Here's the video of Joe and Beck having a phone interview about the Ethics Committee decision yesterday live on Beck's new internet "TV show." It is not scintillating television -- Beck and his co-host do everything but fall asleep on camera -- but it is an interesting insight into the mind of a Congressman who won't support Medicare or Social Security, but sees nothing wrong with taxpayers sending him to Israel.

Of course not. He's going over there to support "God's work." Don't ya know, the Bible says that God needs 144,000 Jews to convert to Christianity and a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem in order for Armageddon to occur. Come on, despite appearances, Joe Walsh can't make the end of the world happen all by himself, but he can certainly do his part! And so can the American taxpayers. All we need to do is send him to Israel. Say -- that's a great idea. Maybe they'll keep him.

Deadbeat Walsh, plus court documents

What do you call someone who welshes on his bills, doesn't pay his taxes, loses his driver's license, is a deadbeat dad and lectures others on fiscal responsibility? Congressman Joe Walsh, of course.

Here's Lawrence O'Donnell's take on the hypocrisy that is Joe Walsh:


Rep. Joe Walsh, banned from The Last Word

And here's a bonus: all 82 pages of the documents Joe Walsh's ex-wife filed in December in an attempt to get Walsh to pay Years of back child-support payments ($117,000+) and other expense obligations (another $9K) plus attorneys fees. Good luck with that, Mrs. Walsh. But don't hold your breath.


Petition for RTSC Against Joe - Part 1 [12!7!10]

***Breaking News....A Dead Beat Dad***

 

"Tea Party Rep. Joe Walsh sued for $100,000 in child support"

That is the headline in the Chicago Sun Times this morning (7/28/11)

Laura, Joe's ex-wife is suing Congressman Walsh for $117,437.00 in back child support.  Of course we have due process in this country so we aren't going to say Joe is on the hook for this much, but if you read the article, he is on the hook for something.  The article goes on to back up the claims of Walsh's fiscal indiscretions that we knew about.  

Many of us wish these types of infractions on personal integrity and core values had made bigger headlines in 2010.  Instead, Joe was able to find a band of merry-men to distract the public from the real issues and faux issues.

This morning the Tea Party and 912 Patriots have egg on their face.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/6720892-417/tea-party-rep.-joe-walsh-sued-for-100000-in-child-support

Money for Education, but not in the U.S.A

Not to long ago, as a matter of fact, a year ago, then Candidate Walsh was beating the drum for his Tea Party followers saying we need to abolish the EPA and the Department of Education.  


Recently, a story released by Sam Stein of the Huffington Posts provides the reader with some insight regarding Freshman Republicans lobbying federal agencies for millions of dollars despite the drumbeat of out of control government spending.


Our or maybe your own Congressman Joe Walsh wrote the Department of Agriculture on February 14, asking for $7,498,015 in cash and commodities contributions for the American Nicaraguan Foundation and Fabretto Children’s Foundation — groups that run education, health and nutrition programs in Nicaragua. 

Joe why is it ok to spend millions abroad for education, but not at home?

Prediction: Joe's Running...in the 14th

UPDATE: Joe is holding a "Cup of Joe with Joe," on Saturday June 18...guess where? In Antioch, in the new 14th District. Perfect record so far. No events outside the new 14th since the new maps were passed. Coincidence? We think not.

*********
Since the new Congressional maps were announced, we've been watching Joe Walsh's movements. He has marched in four parades (Wauconda, Lake Villa, Johnsburg, and, yesterday, Harvard) and had one Cup o Joe (Woodstock). What do those five locations have in common? Right. They are in the new 14th District.

QED: Joe Walsh wants to be the 14th district congressman.

Don't expect to see him much in the rest of the 8th District from now on. Good riddance.

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Thanks, Joe Walsh. You ARE Destroying Medicare.

Many, um, older voters in the 8th District recently received this mailer about Joe Walsh. "Thank you. Congressman Joe Walsh," it says. "For Voting to Improve and Protect Medicare." Wha? Didn't he just vote for the Ryan Budget (HR3) that would give $6000 insurance vouchers to Medicare recipients in order to afford to give MORE tax cuts to the rich? Yes, he did.

So what could this possibly be? Another bill that will save Medicare from being destroyed? Hardly. Let's pick it apart, shall we?

1. "Thank you, Congressman Joe Walsh for voting to improve and protect Medicare." In Congressman Walsh's opinion, expressed at his town halls, Medicare is irretrievably broken so "something" must be done to "save it." Yes, HR3 will save the government money on Medicare. It will give seniors vouchers for approximately $6000 to go onto the private insurance market and replace their Medicare with insurance. This assumes that insurance companies want to insure people who are highly likely to become sick. Does Joe Walsh believe in the tooth fairy, too?

2. The smiling seniors in the photo are NOT voters in the 8th District, happily endorsing Joe Walsh. They are actors. The image can be purchased, for not very much money, from istockphoto.com.




3. The back of the brochure, there is a headline: "Ending Waste and Abuse in Medicare." HR3 does nothing to accomplish this except promote shorter lives among seniors who can't get adequate (or any) medical coverage. Death panels, indeed.

4. Continuing down the list of "benefits" of HR3 (all posted in blood-red, no less):

"Waste is dramatically reduced."According to conservative site TheDaily.com, "Rep. Ryan wants to squeeze out such waste by turning Medicare from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. This means that instead of paying for a limitless array of medical services for every senior, as is the case now, the government will give seniors a fixed annual sum to use toward their health coverage. Stripped of doublespeak, that means sick people cost too much. When you run out of coverage, tough luck. It will save the government lots of money if you just die. So we can give tax breaks to the rich. (Also no mention of getting rid of actual waste like money that will now be spent fighting our insurance claims. Did you notice that?)

"Current Medicare recipients are protected -- no changes for people 55 and older." People 55 and older would have to be living in caves not to care about someone younger -- children, grandchildren, anyone? -- who would be hurt by this when they get older.

"Sick and poor seniors would actually receive more money for their Medicare coverage."
Yes, they'll get a bigger "insurance support" than healthier, wealthier seniors. But which group do you think insurance companies will run to give coverage to? One guess.

"And future generations will have better sources for their health care as they grow older." If you like being at the mercy of the insurance companies now, wait until you get old and sick!

And the real kicker: Paid for by 60 Plus Association...

What might 60 Plus be? They were founded in 1991 by right-wing direct mailer Richard Vigourie. And according to John Rother, executive vice president of AARP, an independent investigator hired by them found that 60 Plus is a corporate front group sponsored primarily by the pharmaceutical industry. What interest might big Pharma have in enacting Medicare "reform"? Oh, maybe the fact that Medicare limits the amount of money that can be spent on name brand drugs? Nah, that couldn't be it.

Thank you, Joe Walsh, for being on the side of big pharmaceutical companies and rich people who want tax breaks.

(We can't wait to dig into Joe's Federal Election Commission filings next quarter.)

The Evolution of a Town Hall

I had an email from an 8th District Constituent who attended the Schaumburg Town Hall this Week for Congressman Walsh.  As a matter of fact, this was his fourth Walsh Town Hall.  The below is a reprint of the email and goes to show that Joe is realizing his district is more than his band of merrimen.  

"I'm XXXXX and I attended the Joe Walsh Town Hall meeting in Schaumburg last night. This was my fourth one. I attended his very first one in Lake Zurich in December even before he was sworn in. The second was at Harper College. the 3rd was in Deer Park. Last night's meeting was very different from the first two, in more ways than one. The first two were very similar to what I imagine would be a Walsh campaign rally. A real love fest, if you will. Last night was no love fest. He was challenged frequently, sharply, and rapidly when he would put something up on his "power point " presentation that just didn't ring true and was meant to mislead. Also, the crowd wasn't quite so one-sided. In fact, it was about half and half of those in attendance, but about 70 to 80% of the questions and remarks were not Walsh/Tea Party friendly at all. Mr. Walsh showed that he could adjust to the crowd and some of his views were different than the ones he espoused in the first two Town Halls I attended. 

Example #1  In December, he said the "defense budget is untouchable, wouldn't cut a thing as long as there was even one uniformed U.S. service person stationed abroad." Last night, after a few challenges, he said the defense budget was on the table. 

Example #2  I  guess he's heard enough about G.E. not paying taxes and the oil companies getting huge tax breaks, so he sounded like he was going after those also. However, he is of the 'drill baby drill' ilk and on this he has not changed.

As far as money in politics, he has backed off his December motto of "there should even be more money in politics' and now it's " my direct contributions are limited by law" (outlining many of the restrictions placed on direct contributions to candidates) but he unsuccessfully tried to downplay how corporation contributions to outside groups ARE unrestricted thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. The crowd would not let him get away with this sly deception and let him know it. Those who pointed this out were applauded.

One last thing about the issues - his whole theme was the debt, the deficit, the debt, the deficit but the crowd had other issues in mind, especially the Ryan plan - which by the way, he said he didn't agree with everything in it but failed to say what.

Now for my analysis of Joe Walsh himself. I give him much credit for having all these Town Halls and listening to the voices of his constituents. Of course he pats himself on the back vigorously for this but he still deserves credit. Also, he makes the point that those elected to Congress should not necessarily be blamed for "trying out what they believe in." He's a terrific salesman and most of us would have a difficult time doing what he does, as far as the town halls. That being said, his policies are way out there and his Tea Party crowd's "solutions"  are even further "out there" as you can imagine. The ones I spoke with have terrible ideas about taxes and regulations and you'll never convince them otherwise. Fortunately, I think these people are a minority but they are his people, lock, stock, and barrel.

Where Is All That Money Coming From

We took the liberty of borrowing an excellent comment from the Eye on Lake County (www.lakecountyeye.blogspot.com)


Walsh's Chief of Staff (Justin Roth), was a political hack and lobbyist for the Insurance and Bank lobby for many years. On January 5, 2011, Walsh started out as the poorest member of Congress - but has now raised almost $400,000 in the 1st Quarter of 2011. I wonder if Walsh ever explained any of this to his Tea Party followers in The Great Awakening, Barrington Tea Party, Palatine Tea Party, Northern Illinois Patriots, or the 9-12 Patriots. I'm guessing Walsh never mentioned it to his followers. Now you know why Justin Roth is Walsh's Chief of Staff.

Walsh's District Director (David Carlin), is another political hack. He already had at least one big political paycheck in DuPage County - and his connections to Pat Brady and Kirk Dillard made him valuable to Walsh. The Illinois Republican Party (IRP) Insiders think they now have instant credibility with all those Tea Party supporters through Walsh. Nothing could be further from the truth because the Tea Party Leaders are in the dark about the deal Walsh has cut with the IRP. Now you know why David Carlin is Walsh's District Director.

By the way, Walsh lent $28,500 - (supposedly his own money) to his campaign in 2010. You can verify this by looking at the FEC (Federal Election Commission) filings. So how did Walsh do that? Where did all that cash come from?

Walsh is broke. He wasn't even paying his bills. Walsh lost his expensive Evanston Condominium to Foreclosure just a year earlier. His highest ever income was once $35,000 for a single year. Walsh also has a few kids attending some very expensive Universities. So who's paying for that? Where is all this money coming from? Be prepared for more money stories from this clown.

One last item, if you look at any of his FEC filings, you will see what cash was raised, what bills were paid, and how much debt was still outstanding at the end of each Quarter. But if you flowchart the Walsh cash flow, it doesn't add up.

At the end of 2010, Walsh claimed he still had almost $400,000 in debts. And for the 1st Quarter of 2011, he raised almost $400,000 and spent about $100,000 including paying himself back on some personal loans to the campaign, but he also decided to skip out on almost all of the $400,000 in debt he had at the end of 2010. He is now disputing almost all of it.

Here is the website to look up the FEC reports yourself:

http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00473579

A BIG FAT LIE

Politico covered the Walsh Interview from this past weekend and deemed Joe a liar.

http://www.politifact.com/

Failure to Pass 5th Grade Math or Fuzzy Math????

Congressman Walsh appeared on network television this past weekend.  During the interview, he was asked 
"Can you really sustain what everyone is calling for just by cuts in public services? Doesn't there need to be revenue-raising mechanisms?"

Walsh replied that the best way to raise revenues is to grow the economy. "You get taxes and regulations off the backs of businesses so that revenues can increase".

According to Walsh and in his own words "Every time we've cut taxes, revenues have gone up. The economy has grown."

Here is a chart from the Office of Management and Budget that tells a different and factual story.

We know members of the Tea Party have taken to distortion in recent months.  Whether is it is blatant lying on the floors of Congress, or steering mis-informed constituents down the wrong path of reality.

One very popular news post picked up this piece Sunday evening.  Over 5,000 comments (we could only wish for that kind of traffic here) and I couldn't find one that labelled our Congressman as knowing what he was talking about.  The majority found him a joke.  

Disgrace...Just An Absolute Disgrace

Time and time again, Joe Walsh has been caught lying to the media and lying to his constituents.  On one hand he says he does not represent his district and then when the camera is on him, he spouts off Tea Party Talking Points for which have little validity.  Now he is spouting to the media that we.... his constituents want him to support a government shut-down.



Well Joe the moderate and progressive voters of your district have this to say:

  NO WE DONT'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We do agree with you in that we do have a fiscal mess.  However these fiscal challenges didn't occur in the last two years, four years or even ten years.  This fiscal train wreck started with a very flawed "trickle down" economic theory that started over 25 years ago.

We don't have a deficit problem, we have a revenue problem!

The traffic on our blog is really picking up, so while you may choose not to leave comments, we thank you for stopping by and encourage  you to call or FAX Congressman Walsh

Phone: (202) 225-3711

Fax: (202) 225-7830

NASCAR Joe Gets Pushback

The Crowd was not so friendly at Joe Walsh's Town Hall meeting in Grayslake last night. About half of the crowd was disinclined to applaud Walsh's signature lines about repealing "Obamacare" and shutting down the government. One audience member even had the temerity to call him on his use of the "O" word. "You know it's not really called that, right?" she said.

Next, Walsh started attacking teacher's unions and teachers, the source of all evil, apparently. Several teachers got up to respond, one of whom Walsh intimidated into silence. Then a retired teacher got up to tell his story of being born in England but finding the opportunity for a satisfying teaching career in the United States. He had the question of the night, "Why are you so mean to anyone who doesn't agree with you?"

Walsh also squirmed under the questioning of several people who had looked closely at his voting record. Why did you vote against cutting funds for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which the military doesn't want? "We can't weaken the military!" And why did you vote to allow funds for the Department of Defense to sponsor a NASCAR vehicle? "I was new in Congress -- he, he -- and they don't give us much time to think about these votes. It was a mistake!"

Sure it was, NASCAR Joe.

RECESS TIME AGAIN!

   Who is getting more




As of this post, it has only been 74 days since the 8th District Congressman Joe Walsh was sworn into office.....597 days until he is voted out!.    

As of this post, Joe is back in District for two weeks.  One need only look at the Congressional Calendar to know that the 112th is spending more time in their district than they are in D.C.....only 32 days in Washington as of March 18th.   


Just yesterday the Daily Herald reported that during a breakfast meeting in Palatine, Joe said" We are engaged in a fight for life" and "It's a big fight about freedom and the nature of government....It's a fight we have to have as a country" 


While I prefer to use the term compromise rather than fight, the reality is we do have serious budget challenges facing this great nation.  Challenges that cannot be adequately addressed when you are sitting at home or even meeting with constituents.  These challenges need our representative and even our mis-representatives working in D.C. to present a plan of action, not just rhetoric.


Joe, you have already earned over $49,000.00 in salary for working 32 days.  How about showing us something.  


Is this what "Taking our Country Back" is all about?  Nothing for something?

Walsh Votes Against The Middle Class

The House primarily worked on two bills this week and both were focused on adding angst to homeowners who find themselves in a bit of a pickle as a result of having mortgages that exceed the current value of their home.

H.R. 830 is the FHA Refinance Program Termination Act.  This legislation that Walsh voted "Yay" takes away funding to help struggling homeowners.

Over the course of the last two years, many steps have been taken to help struggling homeowner stay in their homes.  Despite the FHA Programs available to help with restructuring and refinancing, many homeowner have faced miles of "red-tape".  Yet this red-tape was not government red-tape but rather a created bureaucracy of the banking industry who really doesn't care about your personal situation.  Instead of working to ensure these programs get to work for the people, Walsh and company took the "easy button" approach and just axed the whole program.  The White House WILL veto this bill if it makes it to the President's desk.

H.R. 836 was voted for by Walsh which is the Emergency Mortgage Relief Termination Act.  Another tool for struggling homeowners that Walsh thinks is no good.

What is ironic about these actions by our Districts mis-Representative is that working class Americans will only use "foreclosure" as a last resort and will work feverishly and fret to avoid the stigma.  However if you know anything about Joe Walsh, you know he took the easy way and foreclosed on his 10th District Condo (primary residence) in 2008.  Walsh speaketh with forked-tongue.

Joe Walsh Votes to add 12.9 Billion dollars to the Deficit

Blue Special has been re-tooled to become a watch of our newly elected Representative from the 8th Congressional District of Illinois. We will focus on the truth of how Congressman Walsh votes and let the commenters stage the flow of conversation based on the post.

Today we start 57 days into Congressman Walsh's term. To bring you up to speed, Mr. Walsh voted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. A law that only 18% of Americans believe should be repealed. (H.R.1)

Mr Walsh who ran on a platform of less government voted to extend the government's intrusive "eaves dropping on Americans" (H.R. 514) , and most recently voted to block the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing new rules that prohibit broadband providers from interfering with Internet traffic on their networks. The rules prohibit phone and cable companies from favoring or discriminating against Internet content and services, including online calling services like Skype and Web video services like Netflix that could compete with their core operations. Mr Walsh along with other Illinois Representative sold you down the river to the giant Telecoms.

Today, Mr Walsh voted to add $21.9 billions dollars (21,900,000,000.00) to the deficit by repealing new reporting measures put in place as a result of the Affordable Health Care Law.

(H.R. 4)