The Washington Post has the full story.

Here's the flowchart, so you understand who is making this allegation:

Washington businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson, who pleaded guilty Monday to federal conspiracy charges in a case that has focused largely on D.C. Mayor Vincent C. GrayÂ’s (D) 2010 campaign...

It is Thompson making these allegations to federal prosecutors, in his plea bargain. He implicates a Hillary advisor, who is not named in the government documents, but whose identity is known.

Thompson...

... told federal prosecutors that Clinton aide Minyon Moore asked him to fund pro-Clinton efforts in four states and Puerto Rico costing $608,750 during the hard-fought 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, the documents show.

So Thompson makes these claims against Clinton aide Minyon Moore.

Moore denies this (through a spokeswoman), and says he didn't know what Thompson was up to. He's claiming that he asked Thompson to do legal things, not illegal ones.

But Thompson, in his discussions with authorities, depicted Moore as playing a far more intimate role in the off-the-books campaign than was previously indicated — securing the money and helping guide the strategy by feeding internal campaign documents and receiving messages about the media coverage.

...

MooreÂ’s alleged participation in the scheme could have violated federal campaign finance laws, which prohibit officers or agents of a campaign from soliciting or arranging for illegal contributions. Election lawyers said pursuing charges against Moore could be difficult, however, because the five-year statute of limitations has expired.

The scheme involved funding "street teams," I guess to get out the vote.

The new court filings, submitted as part of ThompsonÂ’s guilty plea, lay out internal e-mails and other details portraying Moore as a central player who asked Thompson to finance the operation and then provided him and White with internal campaign strategy.

...

The documents say that Moore, who was a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign responsible for minority outreach, asked Thompson to fund the operation. The effort aimed to drive up voter turnout for Clinton in a string of key primary states as she was battling Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

There is, it is said, no evidence that Hillary knew of these matters.

Hot Air highlights an important part of the story:

The effort included people from League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), even though the organization supposedly refrains from endorsements. It’s a 501(c)4, according to its website, although it takes a little digging to find the reference. That makes it the same as those conservative groups attacked by the IRS — a category which is designed for groups that are primarily oriented to “social welfare,” and which cannot endorse or work for candidates. The “street teams” provided by LULAC and funded through off-the-books cash distributed campaign materials for Hillary, the papers allege, among other activities.

The Free Beacon has more on LULAC, including their own statement:

The money was routed through Troy White, a marketing director who pleaded guilty to insurance violations last September, and through a group identified in the plea agreement as “Civic Organization A.”

The unnamed group is LULAC, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

A LULAC spokesperson would not immediately confirm whether it was “Civic Organization A” when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon. However, she said the group was cooperating with federal investigators on the case.

“We are cooperating with the investigation, but we can’t comment on any specific matters,” said LULAC spokesperson Paloma Zuleta.

She referred further questions to LULAC counsel Manuel Escobar who did not return a request for comment.

I just got an email from Lois Lerner, saying that she was "going to look into these serious allegations" and "finally bring the Tea Party to justice."

Um, that's a joke, in case anyone's not sure.

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NBCNews headlines that the GOP "may" reap the benefits of Obama's poor standing.

But that seems obvious -- even if it's remarkable that NBC would confess the obvious -- so I'm linking the neutral WSJ instead.

President Barack Obama is struggling to overcome widespread pessimism about the economy and deep frustration with Washington, notching the lowest job-approval ratings of his presidency in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

...

Mr. Obama's job approval ticked down to 41% in March from 43% in January, marking a new low. Some 54% disapproved of the job he is doing, matching a previous high from December, when the botched rollout of his signature health law played prominently in the news. The latest survey also showed the lowest-ever approval in Journal/NBC polling for Mr. Obama's handling of foreign policy.

The article notes that Obama's decline in approval is partly due to Democrats' disappointment in him. A new high of 20% of Democrats disapprove. Even his largest power source within the "Coalition of the Ascendant" -- blacks, Hispanics, and women -- support him less.

One factor in his favor: Obama still commands a large enough reservoir of support among white women, the WSJ opines, to hold him above Bushian levels of unpopularity, and perhaps blunt any GOP incursions into Democrat-held territory.

Right track/wrong track is at 26% right track, 65% wrong track.

The WSJ goes on to note five takeaways from the poll.

They say that the impact of Obamacare is "uncertain."

Uncertain? Yes, because Democrats still manage to keep parity with their "fix Obamacare" message:

Thirty-five percent said Obamacare is a good idea, while 49% said itÂ’s a bad one. For Republicans trying to parlay opposition to the law into victory in 2014, the outlook is muddled. Thirty-seven percent of Republicans and 55% of Democrats said their views of the health care law will not necessarily reflect their vote for Congress. Forty-eight percent would support a Democrat who wants to fix the law, compared with 47% who would vote for a Republican who favors repeal.

One incredible thing: Point Five is that the public supports both Spending More Money and Cutting Spending.

Sixty-seven percent said they are more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who will bring home federal dollars and projects; the same share of respondents support cutting federal spending.

Incredible.

There is America's political dysfunction in a single number. 67% want more federal pork, and 67% also want the federal government to cut spending.

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (452)
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They've expanded/extended the so-called "hardship exemption" by executive fiat again.

The hardship exemption now includes not only poverty or extreme personal distress, but "feeling inclined to vote for Republicans this year."

Obviously it's completely political.

[L]ast week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.

This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice....

That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts.

But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

The new "interpretation" of the hardship exemption requires only that someone state his belief that there are better plans out there, which of course there are. Therefore anyone can legally ignore the mandate, just by certifying this belief.

Obamacare will be on the ballot in November, as it was on the ballot yesterday in Florida 13. Jim Geraghty sees no point to the Democrats' spin that David Jolly "underperformed" in a Republican-leaning district (which nevertheless voted for Obama).

David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, declared, “If Dems couldn’t win an Obama CD with a solid candidate against a flawed R, expect a rough November… Bottom line: #FL13 result suggests House GOP still on track for gains this November, perhaps in 5-15 seat range.”

We know the real fight in November is in the Senate races, and you know whatÂ’s less Democrat-friendly territory than this R+1 swing district? The states of West Virginia (R+13), North Carolina (R+3), Louisiana (R+12), South Dakota (R+10), Alaska (R+12). Arkansas (R+14) and Montana (R+7). Those are all currently Democrat-held seats. And there are seven of them.

If last nightÂ’s result means that a halfway decent Republican candidate can win on Republican-leaning territory by hammering away at ObamacareÂ… then the odds of the GOP winning the Senate look very, very good. That means that the competitive Senate races in places like Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, and VirginiaÂ… thatÂ’s all gravy. Bonus seats. A cushion for the tougher set of seats up for reelection in 2016.

Almost hard to believe, isnÂ’t it? Amazing what happens when Democrats get to enact the laws they want.

Posted by: Ace at 09:07 AM | Comments (547)
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David Jolly defied most predictions (including mine!) and beat back the better-funded, more recognized Alex Sink by just under a 2% margin. His campaign staff, which had gotten some nasty shots from "concerned Republicans", stuck to the basics and got their voters out.

Democrats were overjoyed at their dominating presence in the in-person early vote (turning in ballots at an eight point clip better than the Republicans) and were cautious about their performance in the mail-in/absentee returns (they trailed Republicans by about five points in the end after keeping the margin to just 2% for much of the reporting cycle). With over 70% of the vote already in before polls opened yesterday, Team Jolly needed a big Tuesday turnout. more...

Posted by: CAC at 08:20 AM | Comments (271)
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Well this is something.

Geraghty has his own commentary. The main article he discusses is from the Journal-Sentinel.

With growing tax collections now expected to give the state a $1billion budget surplus in June 2015, WalkerÂ’s bill will cut property and income taxes for families and businesses, and zero out all income taxes for manufacturers in the state.

It's probably too late for that last part to cause any uptick in manufacturing jobs for before the 2016 election. However, it may still be early enough for that to draw factory defections to Wisconsin.

Posted by: Ace at 07:29 AM | Comments (302)
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A journalist finds out what it's like to actually work for a living. Hilarity ensues.

Joke's on him of course. There's no reason to work for a living when you can just have gangster government do your bidding.

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Quote of the Day

"Perhaps, like me, you have wondered how it is that so many people, otherwise honest, can adopt without demur the Orwellian anti-language of Political Correctness; how it is that so many people, otherwise rational, can adopt without demur the paradoxes, self-contradictions and logical absurdities involved in relativistic morality, materialistic ontology, subjective epistemology, and the other nuggets of vacuous blither forming the foundations of modern thought; how it is that so many people, otherwise possessing good taste, can without demur fund and support and praise the blurry aberrations of modern art, praise ugliness, despite beauty; how it is that so many people, otherwise good and peaceful, can praise and support and excuse the hellish enormities and mass murders of figures like Che and Mao and Stalin and Castro; or can view with cold eye the piles of tiny corpses heaped outside abortion mills, and make such enemies of the human race into heroes; or can rush to the defense of Mohammedan terrorists with freakish shrieks of 'Islamophobia!' and 'Racist!' even thought to be wary of Jihadists bent on your destruction is rational rather than phobic, and even thought Mohammedanism is a religion, not a race; how otherwise happy, moral, reasonable and decent people can not merely excuse sexual perversion, but will be swept up in a fervor of righteous indignation even if someone points out the biological or Biblical reality of the situation; and likewise excuse lies in their leaders, and adulteries, and abuses of power, and abuses of drugs, and any number of things these otherwise ordinary people would never do themselves.

"And, finally, perhaps, like me, you have wondered why it is that these people who are otherwise civil nonetheless can neither explain their positions nor stop talking, and their talk consists of nothing, nothing, nothing aside from childish personal attacks, slanders, sneers, and accusation, accusation, accusation.   Why are they so angry? Why are they so noisy? Why are they so blissfully unaware of the vice, injustice, ugliness and evil they support?

   -- John C. Wright in  Restless Heart of Darkness - Part Four

Why Harry Reid Hates, Hates, HATES, HATES the Koch Brothers

It's not personal - he's just a good soldier following his party's Alinskyite strategy.

According to the Times, Democrats are convinced that Koch-bashing is a "politically shrewd" endeavor, and is grounded in "Democratic-funded research." The Times editorial board has been beating this drum for weeks, denouncing the Koch brothers and their "right-wing political zeppelin," and all but pleading with their readers to donate to cash-poor Democrats.

Reid was especially moved by a recent presentation at the Senate Democratic retreat emphasizing the need to "pick a villain." The majority leader's lunatic outbursts on the Senate floor are intended to raise the Kochs' public profile and, more importantly, to rally the Democratic base, specifically the pro-cancer wing.

Switched at birth: Harry Reid and the Unhappy Idol

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