John Dennis, a free market advocate who founded a successful office design company, has clearly recognized the threat to our economy which has been manifested by the left and the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Thus, he has decided to directly challenge her by entering the Congressional race in the 8th district of California.

John Dennis, an accomplished businessman and entrepreneur, has been a pro-liberty Republican for a quarter century.

Born in Jersey City, the son of a longshoreman and a city hall clerk, he grew up in one of the city’s toughest public housing projects.

After graduating from Fordham University with a degree in business administration, John co-founded Humanscale, which became one of the world’s top 10 design firms, specializing in office ergonomics.

Freedom Watch – John Dennis interview

The Constitutionally conservative Dennis is taking on an opponent who believes that any question concerning our country’s founding document is ‘not serious’.

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

Liberals such as Pelosi scoff at the idea that legislation should somehow be related to the rule of law, which is based upon our Constitution. Instead, she sees her position as a vehicle to gain power through the exchange of handouts and political contributions.

Under Nancy’s watch, California has been shaken to its core by the loss of $100 billion from its state pension funds, a burden which could push the 8th largest economy in the world into bankruptcy.

California’s two huge government pension funds reported whopping annual losses today of about one-quarter of their portfolios.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest in the nation, today posted a preliminary drop of $56.2 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. The second-ranked fund, the State Teachers’ Retirement System, reported a preliminary loss of $43.4 billion.

At the root of the problem are corrupt placement agents, who swiped huge fees from the state while saddling its taxpayers with billions in bad investments.

America’s largest public-pension fund, Calpers, revealed that a former board member had reaped more than $50 million in fees for arranging investments that could saddle state taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses…

The disclosure stands to embarrass Calpers, a longtime champion of good corporate governance. It also promises to cast the fund even deeper into conflict in California, because the burden of Calpers’s soured investments stands to fall flatly on taxpayers who are already reeling from a huge state budget deficit and steep unemployment…

Calpers’s disclosure also renews questions over the role of the middlemen who collect fees from private-equity firms, hedge funds and other investment firms eager to manage a slice of these vast public assets.

Nancy ‘The Nepotist’ Pelosi has used her nephew Laurence to swindle millions from CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System, through the homebuilder Lennar, Laurence’s former employer.

In an email to the San Francisco Bay View, Laurence Pelosi verified that he was a Lennar senior executive in March of 2004 at the time San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, his cousin for whom he had served as mayoral campaign treasurer, had signed the Hunters Point Shipyard Conveyance Agreement at the behest of Laurence’s Aunt Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

On the Edge

– Pelosi CalPERS Scandal (starts at 3:30)

MacFarlane Partners, which had been an investment adviser for CalPERS , resigned from the pension fund due to scrutiny. The company was involved in a deal with Lennar, managed by Laurence Pelosi, which lost nearly $1 billion for the state.

The real estate investment manager who led the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest pension fund, into a money-losing land venture has resigned as an adviser to the fund, a spokeswoman for MacFarlane Partners said on Saturday…

MacFarlane Partners Inc is a real estate investment management firm in San Francisco that manages $10 billion in assets for some of the world’s largest pension plans and institutions, according to its website.

The firm came under fire for a $970 million investment it managed for Calpers into LandSource Communities Development LLC, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

After sticking California taxpayers with the tab, Laurence Pelosi left Lennar and joined Morgan Stanley, where he managed the sale of the distressed property.

Calpers put more than $1 billion in the urban program. MacFarlane also helped the pension fund pay $970 million in cash and property to Lennar Corp. for a stake in LandSource Communities Development LLC in January 2007. The 15,000-acre (6,000-hectare) tract north of Los Angeles, known as Newhall Ranch, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2008 after failing to restructure debt…

REIT Newshound, an industry newsletter, first reported yesterday that Calpers replaced MacFarlane with Stockbridge Real Estate Funds, another San Francisco investment firm, citing an unnamed person. A Stockbridge spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment today.

Calpers last year said it had hired Morgan Stanley to review land deals it made with joint-venture partners and real- estate advisers, including the LandSource project. LandSource owned more than 50 development communities with more than 33,000 homesites at the end of 2007, according to court records.

Morgan Stanley is among the top 20 contributors to House Speaker Pelosi. Under the management of her nephew, the firm purchased over 11,000 properties from Laurence’s former employer Lennar for less than half of the orignial value.

In 2004, Congresswoman Pelosi helped secure an $82 million dollar federal deal for Lennar. The land was given by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom for the nominal sum of one dollar.

Lennar, the Florida-based conglomerate, is the number one home builder in America. It boasts a portfolio of about $1.3 billion, yet was able to purchase one of four parcels of the Naval Shipyard from the city for $1 and with the aid of Mayor Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who received $82 million from the defense budget to help with the clean up.

The agreement was negotiated by several leading liberals including Congressman John Murtha, Mayor Willie Brown, and Senator Barbara Boxer.

The agreement came a few weeks after the Navy sent Newsom a letter saying that it was having doubts about going ahead with an agreement that was announced with great fanfare in Washington in January 2002 by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, then-Mayor Willie Brown and Navy Secretary Gordon England.

When he was in Washington last Wednesday, Newsom met in the Capitol offices of Pelosi, the House minority leader, with Pelosi, Navy Assistant Secretary Hansford T. Johnson, representatives of California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a big gun brought in by Pelosi to convince the Navy the time for delays had passed.

Murtha, the powerful ranking Democrat on the House military appropriations subcommittee, made it clear to the Navy that he wanted a binding agreement signed by Wednesday. Another meeting was held in Pelosi’s offices Wednesday, minus Newsom, and the Navy signed the accord.

The time has come to kick Nancy ‘The Nepotist’ out of Washington. We must replace her with a citizen who truly believes that the Constitution is the basis of our law and not a hurdle which must be leapt to achieve power.

To pledge support for John Dennis and other freedom candidates, visit thisnovember5th.com