Friday, January 11, 2013

Extry, Extry, Michele Bachmann Not Nice

Over a year after she dropped out, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has refused to pay five staffers from her failed presidential bid, according to a former top campaign official. Peter Waldron, her controversial former national field coordinator, told Salon the dispute started when former Iowa straw poll staffers refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would bar them from discussing any "unethical, immoral, or criminal activity" they witnessed on the campaign with police or reporters.

Waldron said the staffers are owed a mere $5,000, and that Bachmann has more than $2 million in her campaign account, but has refused to pay unless the staffers sign the agreement. Bachmann still hasn’t paid presidential campaign staffers
Can you do that? Can you hire somebody and make them sign a pledge that they will not report you for doing illegal things? Maybe I'm naive, but I never heard of that before. Well, maybe like the Mafia, but ...

And even worse to get the work out of them first, and then tell them they have to promise not to rat on the boss if they want to be paid.

There's more at the link, but there are a few angles to this.
“I feel a moral obligation to see that my Christian brothers and sisters are paid for worked performed in good faith. I’ve continually communicated by telephone and email with Mr. Pollack for 1 year but he broke every promise made to me to pay the staff. I appealed to Dr. [Marcus] Bachmann for help. I appealed to Representative Bachmann’s Chief of Staff Robert Boland to intercede with Mrs. Bachmann on behalf of her loyal Iowa staff — all of whom are married, all have children,” Waldron said in the press release.

“It is sobering to think that a Christian member of Congress would betray her testimony to the Lord and the public by withholding earned wages from deserving staff,” Waldron added.
Well, I'll say this, it is hard to assert the you hold the high moral ground when you rip off the people who worked to help you.

Snark aside, it is a deadly prejudice of Christians to think that they are some how "more good" than anyone else -- as if other people don't have consciences, or can't tell right from wrong, or have no motivation to behave ethically. They really seem to believe that they are less likely to lie, or to cheat somebody, to be mean, to make stupid choices, to be bigots, to commit sexual offenses, to be greedy, and the result is that they just make more elaborate and unbelievable excuses when they do evil things, which they do just as often as anybody else.

Oh, this is rich, referring to Bachmann's campaign as "unnatural!"
“They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michelle’s attorneys, and we just refused,” he told Salon. “We’ve been lied to at every turn.”

“This story is important. I’ve got five soldiers, as it were, five men who are willing to stand and not capitulate to this unnatural pressure that is coming from the Bachmann campaign. It’s just immoral what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to shut us up. You want to get paid? You gotta sign this agreement and not talk to either the police or lawyers,” he continued.

10 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

"Michelle Bachman's old presidential campaign staff says she still hasn't paid them. So, like the rest of us, even they're poorer for having known her."

-John Fugelsang

"Viewpoint"/Current TV

January 11, 2013 8:33 PM  
Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

What kind of "immoral" activity could the Bachmanns have been concerned about?

Speculation might be fun, but not terribly productive. In any event, leaving the answer to such a question unanswered may well be as damning to them as actually knowing what worries them?

January 12, 2013 9:35 PM  
Anonymous Progress! said...

January 2, 2013
Montgomery County holds first same sex weddings in courthouse

Five couples had arranged for same sex marriages ceremonies Wednesday

When Joe Rouch and Jeff Aberle, of Gaithersburg, planned their wedding, they wanted to be first and they wanted to be surrounded by friends and family.

Wednesday they fulfilled those plans becoming the first same sex couple to be married at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Rockville in a 9 a.m. ceremony, just one half hour after the Office of the Clerk of the Court opened for the day,

Same sex marriages became legal in Maryland Jan. 1, but the courthouse was closed that day, Loretta Knight, clerk of the court for Montgomery County, who performed the ceremony, explained.

She said five same sex couples had made appointments for weddings to be performed on Jan. 2.

Rouch said he and Aberle have been together for 13 and 1/2 years and considered going to Washington, D.C., Massachusetts or even Canada to get married.

“But we waited to see what would happen in Maryland, in our home state,” he said. “We wanted our family here and that's the most important thing.”

In addition to the almost 20 family members and friends attending the ceremony, Rouch and Aberle shared the day with two-month-old Jamie Michelle, a little girl they are in the process of adopting.

“She's our little flower girl,” Rouch said, holding the baby who was dressed in pink and white for the occasion.

After the men exchanged vows Knight asked them if they would like to add anything.

“Thirteen and 1/2 years,” Aberle said to his spouse, “I never thought I'd be here standing with you.”

He said it all felt different as soon as they exchanged rings.

“It was real,” he said.

Joe's mother, Joyce Rouch, of North Potomac said she thought [the wedding] was wonderful.

“I thought they might have a civil union but not the real wedding,” she said.

Outside the courthouse same sex marriage supporters from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union greeted the couple with signs reading “Celebrate Marriage Equality” and “Labor Supports Equality.”

“UFCW is supporting gay marriage,” Jay Pascucci, of Silver Spring, said. “We just tried to get people here to celebrate on the first day that same sex couples could get married legally in Maryland.”

As newlyweds came out of the courthouse, supporters handed them pink flowers to congratulate them.

“We haven't had any negativity, people are very supportive,” Pascucci said.

January 13, 2013 8:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Former Secretary Of State Colin Powell delivered some harsh words for the GOP as a whole on Sunday.

In an appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Powell noted that there is a "dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party."

"What do I mean by that?," he explained. "What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities."

Powell specifically pointed to October 2012 comments by former Alaska Gov. and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin on the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

"When I see a former governor say that the president is 'shuckin' and jivin' -- that's a racial-era slave term," Powell said, referring to Palin's words on Obama's response.

Powell added that Republicans had become too preoccupied with the candidate-selection process, losing sight of the group's overall message.

"You've got to think first about what's the party actually going to represent," Powell said. "If it's just going to represent the far right wing of the political spectrum, I think the party is in difficulty. I'm a moderate, but I'm still a Republican."

Powell was the first African American to fill the role of Secretary Of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001-05. Despite maintaining his allegiance to the Republican Party, Powell has been an ardent supporter for President Barack Obama, giving him a 2008 vote and a 2012 endorsement.

"I think we ought to keep on the track we are on," said Powell in October 2012, commending Obama on the economy and Iraq War.

Top Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu turned heads after the announcement, suggesting that Powell's Obama endorsement was motivated by race. That statement prompted former Powell Chief Of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson to make Republican-Party comments similar in nature to Powell's Sunday remarks.

"My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people -- not all of them, but most of them -- who are still basing their positions on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists, and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that's despicable."

January 13, 2013 3:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ChristianNewsWire: Michele Bachmann Refuses to Pay Iowa Presidential Staffers After 375 Days

January 13, 2013 3:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

No sign of bad anonymous for a while now. He must be overcome by shame in his hypocrisy and depression over the Romney loss and the anti-marriage people losing every gay marriage ballot question on Nov 6.

January 14, 2013 11:45 AM  
Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/13/world/europe/france-marriage-rights-protest/#cnn-disqus-area

January 14, 2013 7:55 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Snark aside, it is a deadly prejudice of Christians to think that they are some how "more good" than anyone else -- as if other people don't have consciences, or can't tell right from wrong, or have no motivation to behave ethically.

They really seem to believe that they are less likely to lie, or to cheat somebody, to be mean, to make stupid choices, to be bigots, to commit sexual offenses, to be greedy, and the result is that they just make more elaborate and unbelievable excuses when they do evil things, which they do just as often as anybody else.”

--
They’ve verbally accepted Jesus into their hearts, they’re saved! (as in “safe”) -- God Himself couldn't prevent them from “entering” heaven.

What they miss is that God can’t make you forgive yourself.

January 15, 2013 5:16 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/13/world/europe/france-marriage-rights-protest/#cnn-disqus-area

January 15, 2013 5:22 AM  
Anonymous Follow the money.... said...

Ex-aide: Bachmann hid money to Iowa senator

DES MOINES — A former campaign aide for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann claims the one-time presidential candidate hid thousands of dollars in payment to an Iowa state senator so he wouldn’t violate Senate ethics rules.

Peter Waldron served as national field coordinator for the Bachmann for President campaign from July 2011 to January 2012. In a notarized complaint to the Federal Election Commission, Waldron claims several violations of federal election laws by the campaign.

One pertains to Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, R-Milo, who Waldron claims was paid $7,500 a month for his role as Iowa state chairman for the Bachmann campaign.

“I’m not talking about any of this,” Sorenson said when reached at his home Thursday afternoon. “I know nothing about how people were paid in the campaign.”

Asked if he was paid by the campaign, Sorenson responded, “No. This has been hashed out over the last year and a half. You can look at the articles. I stand by all my previous statements.”

Waldron claims the payments were funneled through a third party, C&M Strategies of Colorado operated by Guy Short. In essence, Waldron said, the Bachmann campaign would overpay C&M Strategies for its work and C&M Strategies would then cut a check to Sorenson for his work on behalf of the Bachmann campaign.

If true, the alleged scheme may violate the Senate ethics rule against state senators being employed by political campaigns.

The rule reads, in part, “A senator shall not accept employment, either directly or indirectly, from a political action committee or from an organization exempt from taxation under section 501(c)(4), 501(c)(6), or 527 of the Internal Revenue Code that engages in activities related to the nomination, election, or defeat of a candidate for public office.”

Violations of the ethics rules can result in reprimand or censure or “other appropriate sanction, including suspension or expulsion from membership in the senate.”

Sorenson left the Bachmann campaign and endorsed Ron Paul for president in late December 2011, just days before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. Bachmann, who months before won the Republican Straw Poll in Ames, came in a distant sixth place behind Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. She suspended her campaign shortly after and subsequently won re-election to her Minnesota congressional seat.

January 23, 2013 8:41 AM  

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