Tea Party-Backed Rep Joe Walsh Lists No Child Support Debt On Financial Forms
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a Tea-Party darling who has made a name for himself on the talk show circuit lecturing Democrats to get the nation’s finances in order, has been under fire in recent weeks over charges that he’s a deadbeat dad, owing more than $100,000 in child support.
Last Thursday, Walsh told constituents at a townhall that he plans to “privately and legally” fight his ex-wife’s claims that he owes more than $100,000 in child support, which he called “wildly inaccurate.” A recent Chicago Sun-Times article reported that his ex-wife is suing him for $117,000 in unpaid support.
Yet, even if Walsh owes just $10,000 in unpaid child support, he could face the added headache of House Ethics Committee scrutiny. Walsh, who was elected in 2010 in a narrow victory over former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) in the Tea Party-induced wave, does not list any child support debt on his financial disclosure form, as required for any liability worth more than $10,000.
“Rep. Walsh is required both by law and by congressional ethics rules to list debts in excess of $10,000 on his financial disclosure forms, including child support back payments,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman.
“Technically, he could be taken to task by the Ethics Committee or even the Justice Department for failure to file proper disclosure forms, but in all likelihood the Ethics Committee and Justice would be satisfied if Walsh were to file amended forms,” Holman explained.
But Walsh is in a bit of a bind. Filing an amended form would require him to admit to owing at least $10,000 in back child support, what would amount to an ugly political liability that could knock him out of his role as one of the top spokesmen for the Tea Party GOP freshmen class.
Some talking heads are already taking action. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell last week said he had banned Walsh from his show until the Republican pays the child support he owes his wife and children. He also played a video of Walsh saying, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt on the backs of my kids” before noting that Walsh allegedly owes those kids $117,347 in child support, the Huffington Post reported.
Walsh’s ex-wife, Laura Walsh, says he failed to provide full child support for roughly five years from 2005 to 2010, from 2008 to 2010, the time of his election, she said he paid no support. After he was elected to Congress, which pays a salary of $174,000 a year, Walsh resumed full payments for their three children.
Laura Walsh’s suit also accuses Walsh and a girlfriend of taking international vacations while Walsh said he was too poor to pay child support.
Laura Walsh filed for divorce in December 2002 after 15 years of marriage. According to her suit, Walsh was $1,000 a month short of his commitment for 28 months during November 2005 to March 2008. Walsh allegedly paid nothing from 2008 until resuming in late 2010. She has asked the court to garnish his wages.
Susan Crabtree, Talking Points Memo, August 9, 2011
“Day Of Prayer And Fasting”: Rick Perry’s Houston Dog Whistle
The definition of a political “dog whistle” is a communication (or series of communications) that convey to key members of an interest or constituency group gratifying but potentially controversial affirmations of their views without the mainstream media or the broader electorate catching on. By that standard, Rick Perry’s big “day of prayer and fasting” in Houston over the weekend was a very successful dog whistle.
Mainstream and secular-conservative media coverage of the event (dubbed “The Response,” itself a dog whistle reference to an ongoing series of dominionist events operating under the brand of “The Call” aimed at mobilizing conservative evangelicals to assume leadership of secular society) generally concluded that it was a largely “non-political” gathering–just some Christians upset about the bad economy and their own moral failings who got together to pray over it.
A few reporters who watched and listened more carefully, and had a Christian Right decoder ring on hand, had a very different take. Religion Dispatches’ Sarah Posner, who knows the ins and outs of dominionist thinking exceptionally well, and who attended the Houston event, explained its intent as an act of political mobilization:
“[C]ommand” and “obedience” were the day’s chief buzzwords for many speakers, as repentance was required on behalf of yourself, your church, and your country for having failed to commit yourself to Jesus, for having permitted abortion and “sexual immorality,” for failing to cleanse yourself of “filthiness,” and to repent for having “touched what is unclean….”
The people who gathered at Reliant Stadium are not just Rick Perry’s spiritual army, raised up, as Perry and others imagine it, in the spirit of Joel 2, to sound an alarm and prepare the people for Judgment Day. They are the ground troops the religious right set out four decades ago to create, and duplicate over generations, for the ongoing culture wars. One part of that army is people like Perry himself, supported by religious right political elites who aimed to cultivate candidates, advocates, and political strategists committed to putting God before government.
That a sitting governor would laugh off charges that his “instigation” of an exclusively Christian–and, more specifically, a certain kind of Christian–event is proof of the success of the cultural and spiritual warriors, who believe they are commanded to “take dominion” over government and other spheres of influence. Perry is their man in a high place, in this case an especially courageous one, willing to rebuff charges from the “radical secularists” that he’s crossed the line between church and state. That makes him something much more than just a political or spiritual hero; he is an exemplar.
Slate’s Dave Weigel was also in Houston, and his report debunks the talk of the event being “nonpolitical” by understanding, like Posner, the political freight of the particular strain of evangelical Christianity mostly represented there:
[According to] Pete Ortega, one of dozens of people who’s come up from San Antonio on buses from John Hagee’s church…there is nothing political about the event, he says. He just wants to praise Perry.
“If this is successful here,” he says, “I think other governors, or other politicians, will come out of the closet. Christianity is under attack, and we don’t speak out about it.”
That’s the brilliance of what Perry has done here: These ideas don’t contradict each other at all. He doesn’t need to talk about politics, or do anything besides be here and understand this event. The religion is the politics. These worshippers understand that if they can bring “the kingdom of God” to Earth, economic problems, even macroeconomic problems, will sort themselves out….
The soon-to-be Republican presidential frontrunner, who is best known among liberal voters for raising the prospect of secession and for presiding over hundreds of executions, has just presented himself as a humble messenger of obvious biblical truth. “Our heart breaks for America,” he says. “We see discord at home.
We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government.” It’s one day since S&P downgraded America’s bond rating, in part because the agency worried that conservative Republicans had proved that they would never agree to a debt-reducing bargain that included tax increases. Perry was pulling off an impressive act of transference.
Observers who don’t get any of what Posner and Weigel are talking about are in effect assisting him in the effort to execute his dog whistle appeal to activists whose world-view is entirely alien to nearly all secular Americans and most mainstream Christians. But just because much of the country can’t hear it doesn’t mean it cannot serve as a powerful inducement to political activity in a presidential nominating process where small determined groups of people can have a big impact.
By: Ed Kilgore, The Democratic Strategist, August 8, 2011
Crime Pays: Mitch McConnell, Hostage Taker
This quote from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been making the rounds today, and with good reason. It’s interesting from a variety of angles.
After [the debt-ceiling fight] was all over, Obama seemed to speak for revolted Americans — the kind of people who always want a new Washington — when he described the government as “dysfunctional.”
But at the Capitol, behind the four doors and the three receptionists and the police guard, McConnell said he could imagine doing this again.
“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” he said. “Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”
Let’s unpack this a bit.
First, after this brutal fiasco undermined the economy and made the United States an international laughingstock, the leading Senate Republican fully expects to do this again. McConnell believes his party has “learned” the value in pursuing this, regardless of the consequences. I wonder if voters might want to consider this before the 2012 elections.
Second, it’s a little surprising to hear him concede that “most” Republicans didn’t think the hostage should be shot. If that’s true, maybe next time, Democrats shouldn’t pay the ransom?
And third, note that McConnell was quite candid in his choice of words. It’s not just Democrats talking about Republicans taking “hostages” and demanding “ransoms”; here’s the leading Senate Republican using the exact same language. In other words, Mitch McConnell admitted, out loud and on the record, that his party took the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, demanded a ransom, and they fully intend to do it again.
Given all of this, it’s rather bizarre for Republicans to complain about being equated with terrorists. As Dave Weigel noted yesterday, “If you don’t want your opponent to label you a hostage-taker, here’s an idea: Don’t take hostages.”
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly-Political Animal, August 3, 2011
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 