Messina's history of primary meddling and bribery

As we've reported, Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, locked in a heated Democratic primary with White House tool Arlen Specter, has alleged that the Obama Administration tried to bribe him. According to Sestak, Obama's henchmen offered him a high-ranking post in the administration if he dropped his primary challenge to Specter. Many have speculated that the position was Secretary of the Navy, as Sestak is a former admiral. White House press flack Robert Gibbs has refused to deny the allegations on four separate occasions.

We've been wondering for weeks: Who made the bribe? Sestak is almost certainly telling the truth, so who's the culprit? Rahm Emanuel and Patrick Gaspard are likely suspects, but another name has emerged today: Jim Messina. Messina is Obama's deputy chief of staff -- and he has a history of this sort of corruption.

From the September 27, 2009 edition of the Denver Post:

Not long after news leaked last month that Andrew Romanoff was determined to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Michael Bennet, Romanoff received an unexpected communication from one of the most powerful men in Washington.

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.

Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency, sources said.

Then, the day after Romanoff formally announced his Senate bid, Obama endorsed Bennet.

Romanoff was the Colorado Speaker of the House at the time. The Denver Post spends the rest of the article arguing that such bribery is commonplace in Washington. But that's simply not the case. Even with political mastermind Karl Rove at the helm, George W. Bush's administration never offered anyone a job in exchange for dropping out of a race. Further, according to U.S. Code 18, Section 595, someone who “uses his official authority for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate of the District of Columbia or Resident Commissioner, shall be fined under the title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” This is criminal activity.

Messina is essentially Rahm Jr. -- he shares his boss' love of profanity and Machiavellian political tactics. But he's also far less visible than Emanuel, shunning the press and preferring privacy. He seems like the perfect choice to bribe a bothersome Democrat politician.

Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican of California, is threatening to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Sestak flap. If he succeeds, one of Obama's top political henchmen could find himself facing criminal charges.

Obama plans massive land grab

Obama is determined to pay back environmentalists in whatever way possible. Now the greens are getting the ultimate reward from the president: lots and lots of land, snatched up from private citizens.

Often, presidents will set aside a portion of land as a national monument by executive order, a power given to them under the 1906 Antiquities Act. These land grabs are always controversial and probably unconstitutional, but no one's gotten around to fixing the law yet. In 1996, Bill Clinton outraged the nation when he announced the creation of the 1.7 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. There was no congressional vote and the good people of Utah weren't consulted.

Now comes word that Obama might create not just one, but fourteen new national monuments. Their creation would require huge amounts of land in nine states: California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. This land grab would affect thirteen million acres, more than eleven million more than got Clinton in so much trouble. Think about it: Obama is planning to take sizable chunks of land in the West and declare them the property of the federal government, by fiat. If the fourteen sites are taken at once, it would be the largest land grab in American history.

And in what must be a huge coincidence, several of the sites are home to large oil and natural gas deposits. The Otero Mesa in New Mexico is believed to hide large amounts of natural gas. The San Rafael Swell in Utah is already home to dozens of oil and gas fields. And Montana's Northern Prarie is one of the oldest gas fields in the state. If Obama invokes the Antiquities Act, all drilling would be banned at these sites. The economic impact could be devastating.

But that's Obama's M.O. after all: Use whatever powers he has to stop fossil fuels from being produced while throwing away money on windmills.

Naturally the Obama administration is trying to keep this a secret. We only know about it because of a memo leaked from the Department of the Interior. In a desperate attempt to stop the president, Sen. Jim DeMint rushed an amendment to the Senate floor that would block Obama's theft. The amendment was voted down along party lines.

Watch DeMint railing against the president and note how others in the chamber keep talking over him.

It's inappropriate that we call these lands "monuments" because monuments are testaments to greatness. And this isn't about American greatness, it's about environmental delusions. If Obama claims this land, it will stop ranching, mining, energy production, and numerous other cogs in America's engine. People will lose their jobs, their property, and their freedom. Their travel will be restricted. Sounds more like a dictatorship.