It’s official. Congress is run by deadbeats. And by deadbeats, I don’t mean lazy couch surfers stuffing their faces with cheese puffs while someone else pays the rent. No I’m referring to folks who continually make ridiculous pledges to all sorts of special interest groups while defaulting on the one pledge they have as their own personal cause: marriage. Not only that but it now appears that one congressman in particular, Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who divorced his first wife Laura in 2002, is being sued for $117,437 by said wife for back child support which he hasn’t paid for nine years.
The same guy that has appeared on nearly every news show in the last two weeks touting a balanced budget amendment or no debt ceiling increasing is apparently no stranger to not meeting one’s financial obligations. In his now famous YouTube video, he explains to President Obama:
You’ve spent money like a drunken sailor for three years and now you tell us it’s time to get serious about spending? …
You see president Obama, the American people don’t trust politicians, yourself included. Unless we force politicians to balance the books every year, they won’t. The only way to do this is through a constitutional amendment. …
I don’t have your bully pulpit but I can speak into a camera. You don’t like ultimatums? Tough. Here’s my ultimatum: I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!
Interesting advice considering his method of handling his own financial obligations seems to be: “Just ignore it and it will go away.”
But everyone knows not to piss off an ex-wife who has been supporting your three children for the past nine years. And by that I mean, don’t loan yourself money or send yourself on expensive vacation trips around the world with your current girlfriend all the while telling your ex-wife that you have no money. According to the Chicago Sun-Times:
Before getting elected, he had told Laura Walsh that because he was out of work or between jobs, he could not make child support payments. So she was surprised to read in his congressional campaign disclosures that he was earning enough money to loan his campaign $35,000.
“Joe personally loaned his campaign $35,000, which, given that he failed to make any child support payments to Laura because he ‘had no money’ is surprising,” Laura Walsh’s attorneys wrote in a motion filed in December seeking $117,437 in back child support and interest. “Joe has paid himself back at least $14,200 for the loans he gave himself.” …
In 2004, Laura Walsh complained in a motion that despite her ex-husband’s claims of poverty, he took a vacation to Mexico with his girlfriend and another to Italy. The following year, he complained in a court filing that his ex-wife mailed him a motion while she knew he was in Nicaragua doing charitable work with one of their children.
It’s likely that the trip to Nicaragua was in regard to charitable work considering Walsh is an avid supporter of educational, health and nutrition programs in foreign countries paid for with our tax money (just not national education programs paid for by our tax money). According to the Huffington Post:
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), for instance, wrote the Department of Agriculture on February 14, asking for $7,498,015 in cash and commodities contributions for the American Nicaraguan Foundation and Fabretto Children’s Foundation — groups that run education, health and nutrition programs in Nicaragua.
But wait! There’s more!
Some of his financial problems — including losing his Evanston condo to foreclosure — were documented before his out-of-nowhere victory last fall in the 8th Congressional District in Chicago’s north and northwest suburbs. …
Keith Liscio, who said Walsh hired him to be campaign manager — Walsh disputes that — has sued Walsh for $20,000 in salary he said Walsh owes him. Both sides are trying to settle that case. …
In addition to the foreclosure on his condominium, Walsh was haunted during his campaign by disclosures of liens on his property from unpaid bills and staffers abandoning his campaign, saying he wasn’t paying them. (Sun-Times)
But wait! There’s more!
In court documents, after his ex-wife, Laura Walsh, asked a judge to suspend his driver’s license until he paid his child support, Joe Walsh asks his ex-wife’s lawyer: “Have you no decency?” …
Staffers learned during the campaign that Walsh was driving on a suspended license. His license was suspended twice in 2008 for his failure to appear in court, and he was cited in 2009 for driving on a suspended license, according to the Illinois Secretary of State. (Sun-Times)
There is even more so take a look at the Sun-Times piece.
Nevertheless, you know you’ve done something terribly wrong when the MSNBC Hammer comes down on you!
Lawrence O’Donnell, host of “The Last Word” has put his foot down and officially banned Rep. Walsh from his show explaining:
It is time to deny deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh, some advantages. In order to teach deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh, a lesson about family values – yes, the very same family values that so many republicans try to exploit politically while failing to come close to living up to them in their own lives – deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh, is, hereby banned from this program.
He can go tell his lies about his family values and his sense of fiscal responsibility elsewhere. I can only hope that a ban on deadbeat dad politicians who lie about their family values will extend to all political television programs on all networks, but I can only control this hour. If you want to hear the ravings of deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh, you will have to go elsewhere.
Damn, Lawrence! Now where o’ where is poor little ole Joey Walsh going to go to tell us all about how to be fiscally responsible? What network on Earth would dare have this guy on after you so eloquently explained why he should be banned? Gosh, I can’t even think of one.
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