Freedom Line Blog

While responsible politicians like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) are busy proposing a bold reform of Medicare, others in Congress are engaging in less helpful behavior on the public dime.

To wit:

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., embarked on a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with four Occupy DC protesters who have gone without food since Dec. 8 to advocate for D.C. voting rights.

Ellison, the first Muslim to serve in the House, met with the hunger strikers Thursday and pledged to read their declaration – which calls for full voting rights for District residents as well as legislative and budget autonomy – on the floor of the House of Representatives to enter it into the congressional record.

Not to be outdone in the brazen department, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) berated former Senate colleague and multi-millionaire Jon Corzine for his MF Global failures.  Apparently, though, there is at least one other reason for Stabenow’s outrage:

The Democratic senator who savaged Jon Corzine at a high-profile Capitol Hill hearing this week had another reason to go hard on her former colleague — she recently pressed him for campaign contributions but didn’t get any.

“She would literally call once every two or three weeks,” one Corzine intimate said of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (DMich.).

“She called all the time.”

But to no avail.

Sources in Corzine’s inner circle said they were “stunned” and “amazed” by Stabenow’s attack.

The two had served together in the Senate, but Corzine hasn’t delivered with contributions in some time.

So far this year, Corzine’s name has not appeared on Stabenow’s campaign finance reports.

Records show he last donated to her in 2006, contributing $2,000. Corzine and his then-wife, Joanne, each gave Stabenow $1,000 in 1999.

Thankfully, both Ellison and Stabenow are up for reelection next year.  Perhaps their antics will inspire some enterprising campaign lawyer to put together the first Super PAC to defeat loudmouth liberals.

How about it, Renee?

During his closing argument for New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine’s re-election campaign, President Barack Obama moved back the goalposts on when elected leaders should be held accountable for their actions:

Listening to Jon’s opponent, you’d think New Jersey was the only state going through a tough time right now,” Obama told almost 19,000 gathered inside the Prudential Center in Newark. “I have something to report: We have the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. By the way, that didn’t start under Jon’s watch, that didn’t start under my watch. I wasn’t sworn in yet.”

Obama quipped there was a little revisionist history or selective memory on the part of Republicans and other critics who seek to hold Corzine responsible for New Jersey’s economic woes.

“A little amnesia about how we got into this mess,” Obama explained. “This crisis we are living . . . came about because of the same theories, the same laxed regulation, the same trickle-down economics that the other guy’s party has been peddling for years. And you know, look, we’re not interested in relitigating the past, and I’m more than happy to go and do the work that’s required to get this economy moving again. I think about it every day. Jon Corzine thinks about it every day.”

One problem with Obama’s remarks; Corzine was sworn in before the economic recession hit – by two years. And it’s not like Corzine can say he’s just a community organizer with scant business experience. As head of Goldman Sachs during part of its “master of universe” phase, Corzine – along with former colleague and successor, Hank Paulson – knows how to make money under a lax regulatory system.

In fact, Corzine apparently knows how to “spread the money around” to take care of his former corporation while serving in government.

As for the president, apparently he thinks a re-election campaign is not the right forum to “re-litigate” the past four years of the current administration. Good to know. I guess that means a politician can only be criticized when he’s termed out of office. Thank goodness for Jon Corzine!