I guess it shouldn't be surprising, given that this is the same state that gave us Boss Tweed. It is a bit disheartening to see that politicians can be bought for so little money:

A high-ranking Democratic New York State senator was arrested on Tuesday and charged with trying to buy a place on the Republican ticket in the city's mayoral race, in what prosecutors said was part of a bribery scandal that reflected pervasive corruption in New York politics.

Five other politicians, three Republicans and two Democrats, were also arrested and charged with collectively accepting more than $100,000 in bribes in meetings that often took place in parked cars, hotel rooms and state offices, according to court papers.

Authorities described the scheme - potentially one of the biggest political scandals to hit New York in years - as an attempt to game the city's first wide-open mayoral election in more than a decade. New York will vote in November for a new mayor to replace Michael Bloomberg, whose third term wraps up at year's end.

The charges center on State Senator Malcolm Smith, a Democrat from Queens, who was widely considered a long-shot candidate for City Hall. Prosecutors say he made payments to a city councilman to set up meetings with top New York Republicans to assist in getting him on the mayoral ballot.

Smith and the councilman, Daniel Halloran, a Republican from Queens, were among the six politicians arrested on Tuesday morning.

Later on Tuesday, all six appeared in federal court in White Plains, and were ordered to post $250,000 in bail. They face charges including bribery, extortion, and wire and mail fraud.

"From time to time the question arises, how common is corruption in New York?" Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference. "Based on the cases that we have brought and continue to bring, it seems downright pervasive."

And that's not the only one. Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stephenson was arrested for accepting $22,000 to help some businessmen by legislating out any potential competition for their adult day care centers. NYTimes' Gail Collins:

Our New York gang comes pretty cheap. Although perhaps it’s heartening to realize that America is still a country so filled with promise that even the chairman of the Bronx Republican Party can dream of one day being indicted for taking a $15,000 bribe. There are hardly any Republicans in the Bronx to chair — the party leader himself, who got the job when his predecessor went to the clink, actually lives someplace in the suburbs.

One of the stranger elements to the New York story was word that a Bronx assemblyman named Nelson Castro has been wearing a wire for the feds for virtually his entire political career. He originally got into trouble when election officials noticed nine voters were registered as living with him in his one-bedroom apartment. Unable to demonstrate how all that worked out, Castro agreed to cooperate with authorities and became the F.B.I.’s own social networking system. Nobody knows yet what else showed up on the Castro tapes, but the assemblyman announced his resignation this week, expressing pride “of my accomplishments and the many benefits that I have secured on behalf of my district over the last four years.”

So, here’s a hopeful thought: maybe you can hit a point of ethical bankruptcy where, for want of anybody else to sell out, all the plotters betray each other.

And while I applaud the rooting out of corruption, the point remains that this is small potatoes. While the US Attorneys bemoan the pervasive corruption of politicians (an inherently corrupting position) in New York state, we still have federal politicians who are legally grafting the system all over the country.

You know how every time they're in control, Republicans grow the government and run into the ground to prove that government is inefficient and bloated? Well, I think it's time to realize that the GOP is now determined to prove that their cries of voter fraud are true...because they're the ones committing it.

This is really maddening:

On Monday I saw a really interesting story coming out of Harrisonburg on Facebook:

"I just saw a guy throw a bag of trash in my cardboard dumpster and speed off. I went to get the bag and throw it in the trash dumpster. In the bag was a folder containing FILLED OUT VIRGINIA VOTER REGISTRATION FORMS!! I called the Harrisonburg Registrars office and they sent the police who said they really didn't know what to do in a case like this because its never happened before. The police took the forms and left. I'm really concerned because today is the last day in Virginia to register to vote and if these forms are tied up while trying to figure out what to do, will these people be allowed to vote??? I'm tagging you Lowell since I thought you might want to follow up on this. I spoke with Debbie at the Harrisonburg office and police spoke with Doug at the Rockingham county registrars office" Who would drive up to a dumpster on the registration deadline day to throw away completed voter registration forms and why?
The car that drove up was a black Toyota Camry with Pennsylvania license plates. Who would be in the Valley from Pennsylvania and have a bunch of completed voter registration forms that they wanted to destroy?

Once this story hit Facebook, a number of people pointed out to the person who witnessed this crime that the state GOP "Victory Office" was just a couple blocks away. Yesterday afternoon, guess what car was parked in front of the office?

Yep, a black Toyota Camry from Pennsylvania.

I guess when you've got so little to run on and you know you can't win legitimately, the only thing left is to commit a federal crime and cheat voters of their right to vote. That "ends justify the means" attitude perfectly sums up Republican logic.

But wait, there's more:

UPDATE: Sources close to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office are telling me that Strategic Allied Consulting is involved in this. This is the same group that was in the national news two weeks ago for their "registration" drive in Florida that had forms with made up voters.

Even more interesting. Strategic Allied Consulting shares a Virginia headquarters with two other notables.

#1- American Crossroads- the superpac founded by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie

#2- The office of Virginia State Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel.

Oh Karl...how unsurprising to find your name connected to this. I'm gonna go out on a limb right now and say that Virginia's wingnut Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will do absolutely nothing about this kind of blatant crime, but he sure was at the forefront of making one of the more stringent voter ID laws in the nation.

UPDATE: An arrest has been made.

Colin Small, a 31-year-old resident of Phoenixville, Pa., worked for Pinpoint, a company hired to register voters on behalf of the Republican Party of Virginia. Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice.

Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson’s office said there was no indication that the activity was widespread in their jurisdiction and said the conduct “appears to be limited in nature.” His office said there is a possibility that additional charges may be filed.

And his LinkedIn account lists his job as Grassroots Field Director for the RNC. The sheriff might want to consider that this goes beyond a single local incident.

You may remember this video segment of Amber Hahn who appeared on Fox & Friends back in February as an angry parent who was fuming that Wisconsin schools were teaching their children about the history of unions and collective bargaining. In Fox-verse, unions are an immoral gathering of hooded people, cloaked in secrecy trying to destroy the company they work for by all means necessary.

This morning, Fox & Friends hosted an "upset Wisconsin parent" to discuss her objection to Wisconsin public schools' teaching of labor union history. Left unsaid during the segment: The parent, Amber Hahn, is also a local GOP official.

Fox & Friends, which asked last week if teaching labor history in Wisconsin schools is "pro-union propaganda," used the interview with Hahn to renew its attacks. A graphic that aired during the segment asked if Wisconsin schools are "pushing the union agenda," and co-host Gretchen Carlson asked Hahn if she thought the lessons on unions are "biased." At the end of the interview, Hahn thanked the hosts for "bringing light" to the issue.

As Media Matters pointed out, Fox News repeatedly uses GOPers either in office or who have run for a seat to push an anti-union agenda in WI since the people have spoken out about Scott Walker's radical anti-worker agenda without the necessary transparency required. It's fraudulent news coverage even if it's on Fox & Friends.

Raw Story caught the latest from Amber Hahn and it ain't pretty:

Columbia County Republican Party chair Amber Hahn resigned on Friday after drunkenly crashing a car carrying herself and her three children, according to The Wisconsin State Journal.

Hahn, 35, crashed her car Thursday night while driving drunk. No other vehicles were involved and fortunately no one was injured. Police were summoned by the car's On-Star call system.

Jane Kohlwey, the Columbia County District Attorney, also a Republican, has requested that a special prosecutor from neighboring Dane county handle the case. Ms. Hahn, a Poynette School Board Member and volunteer firefighter said in her resignation statement, "It is clear to me now that I have lost focus and I am trying to do too much. I have an addiction to alcohol and need to address it."

Listen, alcoholism is no joke so I hope she gets the help she needs if that's the truth of it, but masquerading as an outraged parent to attack the history of "unions" which changed the lives of all working Americans is truly awful under any circumstance. I am grateful that her children walked away unscathed.

Fox News faces no consequences for their actions though and that is the bigger story here in the end.

This follows a continued pattern of Conservative behavior which runs from the veins of Richard Nixon's dirty tricks playbook which is far dirtier than we knew. Before Breitbart got his operation up and running---you may remember Michelle Malkin attacking twelve year old Graeme Frost because he appeared in an ad supporting SCHIP.

And this: Child stalking: Michelle Malkin defends attacking 11-year-old girl: "No Shame, No How"

Or Michele releasing personal phone numbers of the students at UC Santa Cruz so they could get attacked.

Lying and or intimidation is all part of their world as long as it gets them closer to the results they want.

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Not that you need confirmation of the Republicans' bad faith in the current 'negotiation' or anything, but Kevin McCarthy's disingenuous performance on State of the Union with Candy Crowley yesterday puts it all into perspective. I'm not sure what it's going to take to get people to shake their collective fists at Republicans, but at some point we need to start flooding them with protest letters over their conduct.

Here are McCarthy's big lies, told in the span of about 10 minutes.

Big Lie #1: House Republicans have passed 9 bills that would create 500,000 jobs

Please, don't spit coffee on your monitor/phone/ipad/device at that claim. I'm not sure what bills Republicans have passed that don't kill jobs, but here's what the man said:

So from the premise that where Republicans have been in the short time they have been in the majority, we've laid out a framework to put us on a new path. Energy policy reform, where we spend the money and create jobs here.

We've passed nine bills that would create more than half a million jobs that have been lingering in the Senate. So I don't think the premise of where we have been has always been out in front. There are not enough -- there are no votes on the Republican side. But even when the Democrats...

I went looking for the bills and I found this little bit of propaganda put out by John Boehner's office. Here are some of the bills they claim are stalled:

• HR 1229, 1230 and 1231, overriding the President's moratorium on offshore drilling and expanding the scope and area allowed for offshore exploration.

  As part of those bills, offshore drilling would be expanded off the coast of Virginia, Florida and California. But of course, domestic oil production isn't really a job creator. In fact, our domestic oil production is higher than it's ever been. It is, however, a Koch Industries priority profit item.

• Paul Ryan's budget plan
  For debunkery on this one, let's turn to John McCain's economic adviser, Mark Zandi, via our own Jon Perr:

  For his part, Moody's Mark Zandi concluded that the Ryan budget's draconian spending cuts supported by 235 House Republicans and 40 GOP Senators would make the job creation picture much, much worse. While acknowledging that "Congressman Ryan's budget plan is too heavy on near-term spending cuts, while President Obama's is too light on long-term deficit reduction," Zandi nevertheless warned that the Boehner party would lead the U.S. to a staggering loss of 1.7 million jobs over the next two years:

  In the Ryan plan, lower future deficits and debt result immediately in lower interest rates than under the president's plan. Ten-year Treasury yields are more than 60 basis points lower in 2012 and more than a percentage point lower by 2014. Yet this is not enough to offset the negative near-term economic consequences of the Ryan plan's more aggressive spending cuts. Real GDP in 2012 under the Ryan plan is $123 billion lower than in the president's plan and there are 900,000 fewer payroll jobs in the U.S. By 2014, real GDP is almost $200 billion lower and there are 1.7 million fewer jobs under the Ryan approach than is the case under the president's.

  Not seeing that 500,000 jobs yet. Still looking. Moving on to the next point....

• Repealing Dodd-Frank Act, on the pretense that it kills jobs for "small business."

  McCarthy to Crowley:

  Economists will tell you if you raise taxes on small businesses, which are not growing right now, you only harm the economy more. So let's end the uncertainty.

  To be clear here, we are not talking about small businesses like Mom and Pop's Ice Cream Parlor down on Main Street. We are talking about small businesses like Koch Industries, a privately-owned company owned by a holding company, which is a Subchapter S corporation. Heather has more on that particular lie here. But again, repealing Dodd-Frank does not create jobs, no matter how long Wall Street and the financial sector hold their breath and stomp their feet.

And that's really all they've done. They've repealed a whole bunch of legislation that kills more jobs, passed a whole bunch of legislation that kills our environment, jobs and endangers the planet along with the economy, and of course, declared war on women with repeated passage of anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-family, anti-health bills.

Still not seeing that 500,000 jobs, so let's move on to his next lie.

Continue reading »

Check this out. One of Gov. Scott Walker's big time CEO donor types got caught funneling a ton of cash illegally to his campaign. Wisconsin voters must be getting very, very tired of all this garbage coming from Walker and his peeps.

Railroad CEO charged with campaign law violations:

A major donor to Gov. Scott Walker was charged Monday with funneling more than $60,000 in illegal campaign contributions through his railroad employees over five years.

William Gardner, president and chief executive officer of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., has agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts - one for exceeding the campaign contribution limits and a second for giving company and personal funds to associates so they could make political donations, mainly to Walker but to others as well. Individuals can give no more than $10,000 to gubernatorial candidates.

As part of a separate settlement, the railroad paid a civil forfeiture of $166,900 - the largest ever imposed by state election officials. Seven employees will each pay $250 forfeitures as well.

Under Gardner's criminal plea deal, prosecutors ask that Gardner be sentenced to two years' probation.

"Because he was cooperative and accepted responsibility at the outset - providing much of the evidence against himself - we are not recommending jail time," said Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf, who investigates election and campaign matters.

Although Milwaukee prosecutors handled the case, the charges were filed in Washington County, where Gardner lives. Each of the two felony counts carries a maximum penalty of 3 1/2 years of combined prison and extended supervision and a $10,000 fine.

Gardner issued a statement Monday acknowledging his mistakes.

In that written statement, the 63-year-old railroad executive said he didn't initially realize that what he and others were doing was improper. The criminal complaint says Gardner took several steps to conceal the scheme and that the illegal contributions came to light only when his ex-girlfriend alerted state officials...read on

By Hook or By Crook must be Walker's motto. There's a lot of sneaky stuff going down in Wisconsin these days ever since Scott Walker came to town.

Here's a take from The Daily Page:

The amount given by Gardner and his workers ended up totaling around $53,800, with almost $50,000 of that going to the Friends of Scott Walker. Gardner had been encouraging his employees to personally donate to the campaign, then reimbursed them via company funds – a big no-no in both state and federal law, as it violates the maximum contributions allowed by a business and the rights of employees not to be told who to support by an employer.

The Walker campaign returned most of that money in May of 2010, once the case was made public, but according to the GAB some $20,000 remains unaccounted for.

I attended the GAB press conference about the investigation and indictments yesterday – you can read my full write-up of it here.

Is it "I'm not a witch" Christine O'Donnell?

Is it Andrew Breitbart?

Is it Rand Paul and his merry band of curb-stompers?

Or maybe it's Cryin' John Boehner?

Every day, the team of C&L pores through hours of programming and news to find stories for you examples of the crooks and liars that infect the public discourse. By my estimation, we've done upwards of 5,000 posts this year. That's a whole lot of crooks and liars.

So, tell us, who were the standouts this year?

I'm pulling clips to provide Nicole Sandler, who is substituting for Randi Rhodes this week, and we'll be discussing it on her show Monday. Listen in to hear if your choices were used.

Since 2005, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has put together a report on the Most Corrupt Members of Congress every year. It's a crowded field, what with Rangel up on ethic charges and Vitter and his diapers, but one name did rise to the top:

Roy Blunt is a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate in Missouri. For the last 14 years, Rep. Blunt has served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the state’s 7th congressional district. As a member of Congress, Rep. Blunt came under fire for a variety of issues including employing the same corrupt tactics that forced his mentor, former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, to resign. Rep. Blunt’s ethical issues were documented in CREW’s 2006 report on the most corrupt members of Congress.

In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed the role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors. Notably, Philip Morris/Altria and its subsidiaries contributed at least $217,000 to campaign committees connected to Rep. Blunt from 1996 to 2006.

Also in 2003, Rep. Blunt helped his son, Andrew Blunt, by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. Andrew Blunt lobbied on behalf of UPS in Missouri, and UPS and FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt from 2001 to 2006.

Family connections have also helped another of Rep. Blunt’s sons, former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Gov. Blunt received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists and lawyers when he ran for governor of Missouri in 2004, half of whom had provided financial support to his father. Earlier in 2000, when Matt Blunt was running for Secretary of State, Rep. Blunt was involved in an apparent scheme, along with Rep. DeLay, to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt’s campaign committee.Rep. Blunt and his staff had close connections to convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded then-Majority Leader DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by then-Speaker Dennis Hastert, then-Whip Blunt, and then-Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, which endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. Mr. Abramoff had donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.

There are nine others in the report, which includes Democrats Kendrick Meeks and Alvin Greene, "Independent" Charlie Crist and Tea Party favorites Marco Rubio and JD Hayworth.

It's not what you think. Boehner isn't afraid of undue influence by lobbyists. It's something far more puerile:

Some Republican congressmen have been warned to keep their distance from the female lobbyists who prowl Capitol Hill.

Sources say House Minority Leader John Boehner has told GOP congressmen who partied with lobbyists "to knock it off." His spokesperson said, "Boehner has always told all our members that they will be held to the highest ethical standards."

Yeah, ethical. That's not usually a word I associate with Republicans, but it does strike me as typical that Boehner is fearful of these wicked women "prowling" around the halls of Congress, waiting to lead some poor man astray.

Of particular concern apparently is Rep. Lee Terry, a married Republican congressman from Nebraska, who was seen drinking and carousing with a female lobbyist:

Who, particularly is [Boehner] targeting? Maybe Rep. Lee Terry of Nebraska, whom a Post reporter overheard asking a female lobbyist “Why did you get me so drunk?” at the Capital Hill Club, until he realized the reporter was nearby and changed the subject to her family.

Of course, he's not the only one:

Meanwhile, a Kansas City blog posted photos of Missouri Rep. Sam Graves dining with a blond lobbyist from the Patriot Group at a DC restaurant. His office didn't respond to our repeated requests for comment.

And lobbyist Glenn LeMunyon's DC row house has been a hot spot for lobbyists who want to meet House members, including California's Duncan Hunter, Pennsylvania's Bill Shuster and Terry.

LeMunyon uses the house as an office during the day, a fund-raising space Some nights, and a place for congressmen to mingle after-hours with lobbyists.

Not to get all Shock Doctrine-ish on you or anything, but this interview in the Washington Post got my attention. It represents the very worst that could possibly happen to us all...Republicans winning back the House of Representatives and naming John Boehner as Speaker of the House.

Take a stroll with me through Speaker Boehner's world.

If the GOP were to gain the upper hand, and Boehner were elected as speaker, the question is what he and his party would do with that power. Boehner listed three priorities. First, he said, was a renewed commitment to fiscal discipline -- a test his party badly flunked the last time it was in the majority.

Now, fiscal discipline means different things to different people, but to John Boehner it means something like this with regard to financial regulatory reform:

"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon. There are faults in our regulatory system, some in terms of transparency, most as a result of ineffective enforcement by the bureaucracy who have no idea what these financial products look like today.

In Speaker Boehner's world, everything that just took place in our financial markets is the fault of the regulators, not the abusive practices of the industry itself.

This is because Speaker Boehner is the handmaiden and poster child for corporate ownership of politicians. There's a list here of his 2009 Gold donors -- those giving the maximum to his PAC in addition to his campaign committee. Among them: KochPAC, CapitalOne Financial Corp PAC, Bank of America Corp PAC, etc. etc. The list goes on and on.

But let's move on to Speaker Boehner's next agenda item:

Second, he said, was to engage in "an adult conversation with the American people" about the need to rein in entitlement spending.

So...that would be spending for things like Social Security and Medicare? Because, well...it's good to starve seniors and let them die? Who was it who invented death panels again? Oh right...Republicans.

And the final agenda item for Speaker Boehner is a kinder, gentler kind of bipartisanship. Seriously.

And third, he wants to increase bipartisan cooperation in the House.

This is so laughable I'm speechless. Watch the video at the top of this post for an example of the Boehner flavor of bipartisan cooperation. It's a little bitter, and a whole lot hot.

But he does elaborate:

Boehner said there will be plenty of disagreements with the White House if Republicans are in charge of the House. But he added: "A lot of scar tissue's been built up, by both parties, over the last 10 years. It needs to be solved for the long-term good of the country."

Too late for that. The cat is out of the bag and it meows repeatedly: Speaker Boehner wants to cut open the old wound, pour some salt in it, roll it around and then administer poison to the dying patient.

Lest you feel I'm too harsh, I'm glad to report that Speaker Boehner has some kind thoughts for everyone who supported that public option and thinks the health care reform bill stinks without it:

He was explicit about health care. "We believe that the health-care bill needs to be repealed and replaced," he said. Beyond saying Republicans would scrub the budget for wasteful spending, a pledge regularly made and ignored by politicians of both parties, he offered no examples of what programs Republicans would actually cut.

That one needs a translation, too. "Repeal and Replace" really means "Repeal and Die."

And finally, Speaker Boehner wants to remind us all that the nasty rancorous tone of the debate is all Barack Obama's fault.

Boehner also said Obama bears considerable responsibility for the poisoned politics in Washington. "I remember all the conversations with the president about post-partisan politics. He's done nothing to solve that. I remember all the conversations with the president about working in the middle. None of that. It wasn't about the specifics about this, that or whatever. It's about the overall direction he's gone. He has not lived up to his promises."

Hmmm. So let's see now. This would be the same John Boehner who threw an hour-long hissy fit on the House floor, called President Obama a "leftist" (when you stop laughing so hard, remember that David Gregory didn't bother to challenge him on that either), promised to do everything within his power to make it difficult to pass health care reform, advocated layoffs of police and firefighters rather than compromise on the stimulus bill, and called President Obama a socialist before lying about calling him a socialist.

But it's the President who has killed bipartisanship. Beam me up, Scotty.

(If you're committed to denying cryin' John Boehner the Speaker position, Justin Coussoule can use your support. He's running a sharp campaign in Ohio against Mr. Tobacco Lobbyist Speaker wannabe.)

The Republican Party has planned two big initiatives this week. They are set to filibuster an extension of unemployment benefits for the tens of thousands of Americans who can't find work.

At the same time they've launched their rebranding effort ahead of the 2010 elections. The effort is called "America Speaking Out." It's a fairly expensive campaign with a new website, produced videos, integrated voting tools and an expensive set at the Newseum to launch the effort.

The whole thing would be fine and Democrats could just spend their time mocking the odd platform ideas (like repealing Section II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) if it was being paid for by a party committee like Michael Steele's RNC. Except that Republicans don't want Michael Steele anywhere close to their election platform. They decided to run the entire project from their minority offices in the House of Representatives.

That means that everyone reading Crooks & Liars is paying for the Republican Party's 2010 election re-branding efforts and helping foot the bill for the Party's platform in 2010.

They can't even claim that the effort isn't about the 2010 election. Kevin McCarthy, the NRCC's recruiter for 2010, said it was all about the 2010 elections in an appearance on ABC News this morning.

"There are a number of seats that you get just by being 'no,'" Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican spearheading the effort, told ABC News. "But you don't get a majority by just being 'no'. You've got to say what you're for."

Eric Cantor, the GOP's No. 2 in the House, said this about their new effort:

"Look, we understand we were fired in 2006 for a reason," Rep. Cantor said in an interview. "We have learned and we have grown. The election gives us a chance to say we get it."

Here's the deal. The RNC is going broke. The national committee is bleeding staff. The RNC's online operation is actually the worst political effort in politics at the moment, their website is actually still in Beta and they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build it. They don't have the experience or the money to launch a Party re-branding effort. And Republicans in Congress hate and distrust Michael Steele. They don't want him to anywhere near their 2010 message.

And because of that taxpayers have to pay for the GOP's 2010 re-branding effort. By my estimation, the cost of the website, the video, the staff time, and the glitzy launch today at the museum may have cost taxpayers at least $100,000 -- and it's only the first day.

All that taxpayer money because the House Republicans don't trust Michael Steele and the RNC.

The Republican Party thanks you for bailing them out.