Tuesday, February 28. 2006
Roll Call reports that President Bush's favorite turd blossom, Karl Rove, will headline a Santorum fund raiser next Tuesday night.
Friday, February 24. 2006
Sean Hannity, co-host of the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, is apparently no longer content just to ask Rick Santorum softball questions every time he shows up on Sean's show. Hannity will be in Western Pennsylvania tomorrow to attend a fund raiser for Rick. Here's what the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat says:
A newsman? No way
A scheduled appearance here Saturday by a big-name conservative talk-show host has raised more than a few eyebrows.
Sean Hannity, co-host of the Fox News “Hannity and Colmes” political talk show, will appear at a fund-raising breakfast with U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who is seeking re-election.
Said G. Terry Madonna, a Pennsylvania political analyst, “The talk shows are part entertainment, part politics.”
That’s clearly the case with Hannity.
Thursday, February 23. 2006
In Survey USA's latest poll Rick Santorum comes in 98th out of 100 U.S. Senators in terms of net approval rating. 43% of respondents say they approve of Rick's job performance, while 46% disapprove. That gives Rick a -3% net approval rating. And this poll was conducted before the news about Rick's mortgage, PAC and charity issues came out. That's bad... if you're Rick. Here's the poll.
Here's yesterday's cartoon from Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News.  Click here to visit Signe's cartoon archive.
Wednesday, February 22. 2006
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee claiming that Rick Santorum's $500,000 mortgage from Philadelphia Trust Co. violates the Senate Gift Rule. From the CREW press release:
Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, stated "the public has the right to expect that Senators -- just like everybody else -- will follow the rules. Sen. Santorum's decision to accept a loan not available to other people in his financial position demonstrates his contempt for the rules. This is particularly ironic given that Sen. Santorum has long attempted to position himself as the poster child for public morality."
Sloan continued, "ethical trespasses have become the norm for Sen. Santorum, which begs the question: how serious is Majority Leader Frist in changing the way in which the Senate does its business, considering he appointed Sen. Santorum to be the point person on ethics reform?"
Tuesday, February 21. 2006
Will Bunch's sidebar to his American Prospect article that we told you about yesterday has now been posted. It concerns Rick Santorum's charity organization that seems to have some serious problems, including not being properly registered with the State of Pennsylvania. Here's an excerpt: In 2001, he launched the Operation Good Neighbor Foundation. The charity, which seeks to award money to faith-based groups and other organizations that combat poverty and social ills like teen pregnancy, has a Web page loaded with photos of a smiling Santorum, posing with oversized checks and leaders of community groups. So far, according to the site, the Senator’s charity has doled out $474,000.
But public records show that the group has raised considerably more than that since its inception in 2001.
A review of federal tax returns filed by the foundation for 2001, 2002, and 2003 shows that the charity spent just 35.9 percent of the nearly $1 million raised on its charitable grants, while spending 56.5 percent on expenses like salaries, fund-raising commissions, travel, conference costs, and rent. Charity experts say that charitable groups should spend at least 75 percent of their money on program grants, and that donors should beware of organizations that spend as little as Santorum’s has.
...
Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project, a good-government group, questioned why Operation Good Neighbor would hire lobbyists and political operatives instead of charity professionals. “It looks like another pocket to fill,” Ruskin said, adding: “Senator Santorum is obviously a man with many pockets.”
Many pockets indeed, pockets which seem to be large and full.
Monday, February 20. 2006
Will Bunch, the intrepid Philadelphia Daily News reporter, has penned an extensively researched new piece for the American Prospect about Rick Santorum's personal finances, which, as its lede says, "suggests that the Senate GOP might want to reconsider making him its ethics czar." Bunch has put a summary of his investigation up on his Daily News blog, Attytood. Here are two highlights:
1. Santorum and his wife received a $500,000, five-year mortgage for their Leesburg, Va., home (pictured at top) from a small Philadelphia private bank run by a major campaign donor — even though its stated policy is to make loans only to its “affluent” investors, which the senator is not.
Good-government experts said the mortgage from Philadelphia Trust Co. raises serious questions about Santorum’s conduct at a time when he is the Senate GOP’s point man on ethics reform. They explained it would be a violation of the Senate’s current ethics rules if Santorum received something a regular citizen could not get.
2. A political action committee chaired by Santorum, America’s Foundation, spends less money on direct aid to GOP candidates — its stated purpose — and more on expenditures than similar PACs. And its expenditure reports are littered with scores of unorthodox expenses for a political committee, with charges at coffee and ice cream shops and fast-food joints as well as supermarkets and a home-hardware store.
Friday, February 17. 2006
More than six months after the release of It Takes a Family, Christianity Today has reviewed Rick Santorum's book. Even more surprising than the fact that it took them six months to review the book is the fact that they gave it a bad review. They call it an "example of how not to fight the culture wars." Here's more:
It didn't surprise me when (on page 296) Santorum came to the obligatory reference to Andres Serrano's Piss Christ—"a piece of 'artwork,' funded by the National Endowment of the Arts"—that he referred to Serrano as "José." Santorum and his researchers can't even be bothered to get the name of one of their favorite villains right. We expect more than this from one who styles himself a champion of the common good.
Well that makes it official, absolutely no one likes Rick's book.
Thursday, February 16. 2006
The Philadelphia City Paper reports that, at an event earlier this week in Philadelphia, Rick Santorum said the following:
"If you don't think we're in a war, then think again," said Santorum, justifying President George Bush's wiretapping procedures to listen in on possible terrorist conversations. "Most people don't believe there is war. And the war could have been avoided. Now we're in a war, but it's a different kind of war." (Emphasis ours)
WHAT? Did we miss something? Most people don't believe we're in a war? Rick can you please tell us who these people are? Are they the people who fell for President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" routine?
Or perhaps some people forgot that we were in a war because they heard you tell them to serve their country by displaying your bumper stickers.
Monday, February 13. 2006
Friday night Rick Santorum spoke to the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee. Rick thanked them for sticking by him even though he sometimes makes their work difficult with things that he says and does, which led to an unwanted round of applause. He told his audience that he'll probably continue to do and say controversial and unpopular things, which caused at least one attendee to audibly shout, "NO". However, he said that he'll always tell them the truth. Judging from his recent statements about travel, the K Street Project, and Grover Norquist, we assume that Rick must have had his fingers crossed when he said that he'll always tell the truth. Here's the video:
Sunday, February 12. 2006
On Thursday we told you about a Senate committee hearing in which Rick Santorum said, "The only traveling I do is to and from my state and driving my kids all over the place." We explained that Rick had clearly forgotten a number of trips he went on over the last few years. But we didn't realize just how bad Rick's memory problems are.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has found 9 more trips that Rick has taken in the last two years, all of them on corporate jets that he only had to reimburse at the rate of first-class airline tickets. Here's how the Inquirer puts it:
It's a tempting offer for the time-strapped elected official: fly by private jet, courtesy of a corporation, without the hassle of long lines and lost luggage.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) took advantage of the perk 10 times in the last two years, paying more than $18,000 - a fraction of the true cost of the flights - to six companies with legislative interests before Congress, according to campaign-finance documents.
At least six of those flights came at a time when he advocated positions favorable to two of the companies: BellSouth Corp. and UST Public Affairs Inc., a Connecticut smokeless-tobacco company.
How is it that Rick could possibly have forgotten about all of those trips on private jets? Do you think he forgot about them when he voted on legislation that was important to the companies the jets belong to?
Thursday, February 9. 2006
Yesterday the Senate Rules and Administration Committee held a hearing on lobbying reform. Apparently Rick Santorum had a memory lapse when he brought up the subject of third-party travel (travel paid for by lobbyists or other organizations). Here is an excerpt from the Lexis-Nexis transcript:
SANTORUM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to talk about one particular area that has not come up in detail in the discussion so far, and that's the issue of travel -- because I know those of us who have been working on this, we've been getting a lot of pushback from members with respect to third-party travel.
And I just want to -- for full disclosure, I'm at the bottom of the third-party travel in the United States Senate. The only traveling I do is to and from my state and driving my kids all over the place. (emphasis ours)
The problem with that statement is that Rick seems to be forgetting about his trips to Rome, Florida, Ohio, and Rome again. And, of course, his fundraising trip to Florida aboard Walmart's private jet, which he was only required to reimburse at the rate of a first-class ticket. Why do you think Rick's memory has been failing him so badly over the last few months?
Wednesday, February 1. 2006
We just found out that Rick Santorum is hosting his very own Super Bowl party in Pittsburgh. Here are the details, don't forget to RSVP! GO STEELERS!!!
Sunday, February 5, 2006
Starting at 5:30 p.m.
Sheraton - Station Square
300 W Station Square Dr
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Free Food and Beverage - Cash Bar
RSVP - Attendees Only
E-mail info@rcac.net
Telephone (724) 837-3968
Norm Ornstein in Roll Call and Tom Ferrick in the Philadelphia Inquirer have unearthed more statements, made as far back as 1998, that make Rick Santorum's assertions that he wasn't involved in the K Street project and that the K Street project didn't pressure lobbyists to hire Republicans seem increasingly suspect. Ornstein:
From a Sept. 13, 2004, Roll Call piece by Brody Mullins:
“As recently as this summer, the GOP failed to convince the Motion Picture Association of America to hire a Republican to succeed Jack Valenti, who is set to retire as Hollywood’s man in Washington after a long and legendary tenure.
“Instead, the trade association announced in August that it had hired former Clinton administration Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.
“The move infuriated Republicans. Santorum even raised the issue of Glickman’s hire at a closed-door meeting of high-ranking Republican Senators.
“‘Yeah, we had a meeting and, yeah, we talked about making sure that we have fair representation on K Street,’” Santorum said soon after the hire. “‘I admit that I pay attention to who is hiring, and I think it’s important for leadership to pay attention.’”
Ferrick:
The public record is replete with references of Santorum leading the effort to get lobbyists to meet with GOP legislative leaders in regular sessions. The aim was twofold: to get the Republican message out, especially to friendly lobbyists, and to get lobbying firms to hire more Republican-friendly lobbyists. It has a lovely symmetry.
Santorum is on the record complaining publicly about industry groups' picking Democrats over Republicans to lobby.
As his chief of staff, Mark Rodgers, told the National Journal in 1998, the message of the K Street effort was simple: "Hire Republicans." Do you think Rick didn't get that message?
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