Da' Nanny State strikes again
The Energy Department is slated to finalize efficiency standards for beverage vending machines on Monday that DOE says will initially increase costs but recoup them in energy savings over several years. And if you believe anything this gummint tells you, I can get you a good deal on a bridge....
The standards will, over 30 years, save the amount of energy consumed annually by more than 830,000 U.S. households in a single year, the rule states, while providing cumulative greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2042 that equal the emissions from 2 million cars annually. They speculate. But the same gummint can't properly handle giving out money for cars. (Not that it was proper to begin with....)
The final rule will apply to machines made or imported into the United States beginning three years after publication.
DOE said there will be just a slight impact on vending industry employment. "Based on DOE's interviews with manufacturers of beverage vending machines, DOE expects minimal plant closings or loss of employment as a result of the standards," the rule states. Any plant closings or loss of employment is too much -- unless said loss of employment is by the clowns who thought this crap up. Link is to the rule's summary. Link to full rule (PDF) is here.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/28/2009 18:11 ||
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#1
Just another example of the cancer of Euroism. The Beltway and EUcrats competing to see who can build the largest pile of paper or biggest PDF files on regulating every nit in existence.
#2
wow. I guess tenants aren't smart enough to request energy efficient machines without the heavy boot of gubbamint regulation. The trouble with these regulatory agency is that if they don't push this shit forward, they're accused by Donks and Whack lefties (one and the same, I know) of "doing nothing!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/28/2009 19:47 Comments ||
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Well now.
I don't have a big problem with this. The DoE has been pushing energy-saving standards for lots of electrical appliances, from refrigerators to computers (e.g., Energy Star), for a few years now. It's likely done a fair bit of good. If vending machines are next up on the list, I don't have a problem with it.
I do hope the DoE recognizes the concept of "diminishing returns" ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/28/2009 20:55 Comments ||
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I'd suggest that you google California Air Resources Board to see the "activist" bureaucracy in action, technology be damned. How much does a vending machine consume? How often do you see a POS old-time machine?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/28/2009 21:13 Comments ||
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...listening to ”Reflections on Sen. Kennedy … Lion of the Senate” on the Diane Rehm Show on the drive home last night, I was deeply moved to hear Newsweek’s Ed Klein tell guest host Katty Kay about Kennedy’s love of humor. How the late senator loved to hear and tell Chappaquiddick jokes, and was always eager to know if anyone had heard any new ones. Not that Kennedy lacked remorse, Klein quickly added, seeming to intuit that my jaw and perhaps those of other listeners had just hit the floorboards. I gather it was a self-deprecating maneuver on Kennedy’s part, exercised with the famous Kennedy charm, though it sounds like one of those “I guess you had to have been there” things.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/28/2009 12:51 ||
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History books will teach that Senator Kennedy was a “Statesman”. They will tell of his ability to “cut deals” across party lines while never compromising his principles. His personal and political downfalls will be folded into the collective Kennedy tragedy. The narrative of a man of redemption will eclipse the unimpressive beginnings to his legislative career. All his ambition will become altruism and all his privilege will turn out to be selfless sacrifice. Whether Senator Edward Kennedy is worthy of such blind praise is debatable but what’s not debatable is America has a penchant for post-mortem white washes.
#4
Fox (among others) is carrying his historical revision ceremony. Fortunately there's NFL pre-season football on. They can't bury this load fast enough for me
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/28/2009 19:45 Comments ||
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Rep. Charles Rangel failed to report as much as $1.3 million in outside income -- including up to $1 million for a Harlem building sale -- on financial-disclosure forms he filed between 2002 and 2006, according to newly amended records. The documents also show the embattled chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- who is being probed by the House Ethics Committee -- failed to reveal a staggering $3 million in various business transactions over the same period.
This week, Rangel filed drastically revised financial-disclosure forms reflecting new, higher amounts of outside income and numerous additional business deals that had not been reported when the reports were originally filed.
In 2004, for instance, Rangel reported earning between $4,000 and $10,000 in outside earnings on top of his $158,100 congressional salary. But the amended filings show that after the sale of a property on West 132nd Street, his outside income that year was somewhere between $118,000 and $1.04 million.
The forms filed by House members provide for a range of value on such transactions, so the precise number isn't publicly known.
Rangel also lowballed his income by as much as $70,000 in 2002, $46,000 in 2003 and $117,000 in 2006, records show. Only in 2005 did Rangel reveal his total outside income.
Members of Congress are required to disclose all their assets and outside income in an effort to expose possible undue influences.
Rangel's office insists the Harlem Democrat did not conceal any outside income from the IRS and is paid up on his taxes.
They also assured us previously that he had disclosed everything in his House reports ...
The Post revealed yesterday that Rangel is in arrears on New Jersey property taxes -- for property that for more than 15 years he failed to disclose to Congress and the public.
Another area of wide discrepancy in his financial-disclosure forms is where he's required to list financial transactions. Every year between 2002 and 2007, Rangel failed to include all his deals for the year, according to records.
On his 2002 and 2003 financial-disclosure statements, Rangel did not include any transactions whatsoever, according to papers on file with the House clerk. But the amended records filed this month show as much as $310,000 in business deals in 2002 and up to $80,000 in transactions in 2003.
Who precisely would do a 'business deal' with Chuckles?
In 2004, Rangel left off his disclosure form as much as $430,000 in stock transactions, amended records show. One of those deals he did include as a transaction on his original disclosure was the sale of the brownstone on West 132nd Street.
But in the same report, Rangel failed to include proceeds from that sale as outside income. That has been revised in the amended report. Despite the reported sale, city records still show Rangel is the owner of that property.
His nephew, Ralph, who appears to live in the building, wouldn't answer questions yesterday. Rangel's office declined numerous requests yesterday for explanation.
The problems with Rangel's 2004 disclosure report were so glaring that apparently they caught someone's attention, forcing Rangel to write a letter correcting his failure to fully disclose transactions that year.
"I listed only the real-estate transactions in which we were involved in calendar year 2004 on the transactions schedule because I was not aware of such details as the date and magnitude of the transactions involving our securities holding in the Merrill Lynch account," he wrote in a May 2006 letter to House Clerk Karen Haas.
#1
A dire consequence of prehistoric lunar warming.
Posted by: ed ||
08/28/2009 10:12 Comments ||
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So were the astronauts handing out bogus rocks, or did the politician pawn it & not tell anybody?
I think you know which one I'm betting on...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/28/2009 10:39 Comments ||
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Proof the moon landings were staged. The Petrified Forest and the moon look eerily alike. At least in 1950's B&W sci-fi movies.
Posted by: ed ||
08/28/2009 11:19 Comments ||
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This makes me suspect that the petrified piece of The True Cross of Jesus that I bought from an itinerent peddler may actually be a moon rock instead.
A Brooklyn federal judge on Wednesday gave a boost to Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to shut down the sale of tax-free cigarettes on Long Island Indian reservations.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Carol Amon issued a preliminary injunction against the stores, barring them from selling tax-free smokes while the case moves forward.
The mayor says tobacco stores on the Poospatuck reservation may only sell smokes to tribe members - but sell enough for each resident to smoke 19,200 cigarettes a day.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Da Mayor should take a page out of Massachusetts play book and get the state to post spies at the store. Then the cops can set up road-blocks and stop the people that are illegally importing fags.
Of course when Mass tried this to stop residents from driving to NH to purchase tax free booze the NH staties started arresting the "spies" (aka MA staties). Do the Indians have a police force?
#2
Yes and no. It really depends upon when the state entered the union, the conditions specified in the statehood act or prior treaties in place when the nation was formed between the original 13 states and their aboriginal inhabitants. Throw in various rulings on specific finding by the Supreme Court on individual claims between tribes and states, it's not something that is hard case.
You get stupid bureaucrat tricks like this. No rational person wants a shoot out on the rez which looks like Wounded Knee Part II. The finger pointing and careers would be down the drain. There's not enough room under any bus to handle that kind of fall out.
The United States is poised to dump a critical missile-defense agreement with two of its most dependable NATO allies. The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is going to scrap the "third site" anti-missile system scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were scheduled to be deployed by 2013. Now the plan appears to have been shot down. The lesson is that the next time we offer such things, accept them immediately, on the double condition that they be built immediately, on an unbreakable contract, and must stay in place for a long time.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) has named his former chief of staff, George LeMieux, to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Sen. Mel Martinez (R). Crist himself is running for the seat, which will be up for election next year.
In picking the 40-year-old LeMieux, Crist signaled that personal loyalty and political instincts mattered more than possible concerns of cronyism. LeMieux will likely also serve as a surrogate for Crist on the campaign trail.
LeMieux was Crist's deputy when he served as the state's attorney general, and LeMieux subsequently coordinated Crist's successful campaign for governor. He served as Crist's chief of staff for one year before joining the law firm of Gunster Yoakley & Stewart.
LeMieux beat out former Rep. Clay Shaw, among others, for the seat. He will resign from his position as chairman at Gunster to serve in the Senate Let the games begin....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/28/2009 17:48 ||
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cronyism, n. When a Trunk pick a colleague who they know and trust, usually white male of experience. Not to be confused with inexperienced or diversity selection determined by color, race or gender, or anyone else for that matter named by a Donk [see pending fill of seat for Massachusetts].
A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties. Ya Think?
Details of a revamped version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 emerged late Thursday, months after an initial version authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., was blasted in Silicon Valley as dangerous government intrusion.
"In the original bill they empowered the president to essentially turn off the Internet in the case of a 'cyber-emergency,' which they didn't define," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which represents the telecommunications industry.
"We think it's a veryveryveryveryveryvery bad idea ... to put in legislation," he told FOXNews.com.
Clinton said the new version of the bill that surfaced this week is improved from its first draft, but troubling language that was removed was replaced by vague language that could still offer the same powers to the president in case of an emergency. The new improved bill is a tad more...'open-ended'.
"The current language is so unclear that we can't be confident that the changes have actually been made," he said. In other words, "We don't want you to read this, just approve it."
The new legislation allows the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online -- a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president "amorphous powers" over private users. Another Chris Matthews 'tingly feeling' there
"As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET News.
A Senate source familiar with the bill likened the new power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when he grounded all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, CNET News reported. Aircraft were used as weapons to kill people. Cyber attacks on our financial and military systems might be grounds for this. However, information on the internet might hurt the One's feelings and possibly inform the public of the truth. We certainly CAN'T have that.
Spokesmen for Senator Rockefeller and the Commerce Committee did not return calls seeking comment before this article was published. And Bush was the 'intrusive' President with all that wiretapping and other assorted geegaws. Go read the rest.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/28/2009 15:23 ||
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Aw, why should Jay get all the credit? The co-sponsors of this turd are Senators Bill Nelson of FL, Evan Bayh of IN, and one of our favorite RINO's, Olympia Snowe of ME.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is inviting the public to weigh on in the national health care debate on Thursday. The second-term Republican is hosting a town hall meeting in Lake Elmo. Bachmann has equated the proposal for a public health insurance option with rationing. She has said people don't want the government to control health care. She told a Christian radio station earlier this week that Minnesotans have been waiting for the chance to speak out on Democrats' proposal to overhaul health care.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Video of her crushing a heckler on Hot Air. Looks like we got another Thatcher in Minn-ee-so-duh.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/28/2009 14:56 Comments ||
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Some booed him. Others shouted him down. But for the most part, scores of residents on Wednesday listened to Rep. Rush Holt's take on the contentious issue of health care reform.
Squeezed to the rafters of the auditorium at the Middletown Arts Center, the mixed crowd of supporters and opponents of amending the nation's health care system did not get a chance to grab a microphone and tell the Democrat from the state's 12th Congressional District what they really thought of him.
Instead, they wrote questions on pieces of paper before tossing them into a box. Boy scouts reached in and handed them to Holt.
"On average, Americans are living sicker, dying younger and paying more," Holt said. "The health care system in this country is broken. It's not working."
A small-framed, bespectacled physicist, Holt occasionally spoke forcefully to hecklers, saying he would not respond to questions shouted at him from the crowd, but only to the inquiries submitted before the start of the meeting.
"It's not helpful when you interrupt because others cannot hear," said Holt to one man who kept shouting at him.
Hundreds not admitted
With the auditorium's capacity at 258 people, it didn't take long for the space to get filled and for hundreds of people to be left outside.
Unlike at other town hall meetings related to health care, where several sessions were held to allow everyone a chance inside, only one session was held on Wednesday.
Middletown Police Chief Robert Oches said he made the decision to only allow one session.
"This was what was agreed upon beforehand," said Oches, who staffed several officers to work overtime to manage the crowd. "It was too late to change plans."
Oches pointed out several venues in the township that have a larger capacity than the Middletown Arts Center, including Middletown High School North's auditorium and an arena at Brookdale Community College.
"We want to make sure no one gets hurt," Oches said. "It's a public safety issue for me and nothing else."
Zach Goldberg, a spokesman for Holt, said the congressman intends to hold more town hall meetings on the issue in the near future.
"In the past, (258) was a sizable number for a town hall meeting," Goldberg said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Had you asked, Congressman, I bet you would've found out many folks don't like the Republican health plan, either.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/28/2009 6:15 Comments ||
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On average, Americans are living sicker, dying younger and paying more," Holt said.
Which explains why the life expectancy for Americans continues to increase.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/28/2009 7:15 Comments ||
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Well, I know I'm feeling sicker and paying more come every April 15th. As for dying younger, that's what socia1ists want because old people are a drain on their money (our taxes).
Posted by: ed ||
08/28/2009 8:58 Comments ||
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Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas announced Thursday he won't seek re-election, saying that after 36 years in the spotlight, it was time to call it quits.
In a surprise announcement he attributed mainly to personal reasons, the 58-year-old Republican said he wouldn't run for another two-year term next year but had no plans to seek other elected office.
"...As any farmer knows after many years working sunup to sundown, seven days a week, there comes a time to turn over the reins to fresh arms. For me, that time is approaching. After 36 years as a public servant, 28 of those years in statewide office, with what will be eight years as governor, and through 15 statewide elections, I will have held center stage long enough for anybody.' Douglas, who'd said in recent months that he planned to run again, made the announcement midway through his fourth term in a room packed with longtime aides, supporters and some political opponents. He wasn't specific in saying why he didn't want to continue in the job, saying only he'd been in public service long enough. "I know there will be some speculation as to what is next, so I want to lay a few questions to rest immediately: I am not running for president. (Wife) Dorothy has a divorce lawyer on speed dial if I ever utter that crazy idea," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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The late cultural critic Neil Postman used to pose a simple question to gauge whether a new technology was worth the investment: "What is the problem," he would ask, "to which this is the solution?"
That question occurred to me last week as I contemplated the looming U.S. Senate candidacy of Carly Fiorina.
The Republican, who was ousted as chairwoman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2005, took a first step in that direction last week by filing tax papers for a political fundraising committee. Her quarry in November 2010 will presumably be Barbara Boxer, a Democrat in her third Senate term.
Fiorina hasn't yet said anything specific of her goals in this race -- her spokeswoman told me she's still doing "due diligence to see if she wants to run or not." But judging from her numerous TV appearances and op-ed essays, she offers standard GOP fare, with a few inconsistencies thrown in.
For example, she thinks chief executives of companies that accepted federal bailout money should resign, but she objects that the Obama White House forcibly bounced Rick Wagoner as chairman of General Motors Corp.
She's also against government limits on executive pay (her kiss-off from HP brought her more than $40 million in severance and other compensation).
Having recently undergone treatment for breast cancer, she wrote in an op-ed piece in July that California should maintain its "commitments" to its "cancer-fighting community."
As befits a candidate for an office with the power to mandate but no responsibility for administration, she didn't specify how much the state should spend on this worthy goal, where the money should go, or what other priorities should make way for the one she chose to support.
Since Fiorina has no political experience -- and on the evidence of her career at HP and her mixed performance as an advisor to the John McCain presidential campaign, not the greatest of political skills -- it looks like her pitch will be heavily based on her business background. Now is as good a time as any to review that career. Fiorina began her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard with tremendous eclat. She was recruited in July 1999 at the age of 44 from telecommunications company Lucent Technologies Inc., where she was known as a bold manager unafraid to face down the old-boys' network of engineers.
That enchanted the board of HP, a historic Silicon Valley company that had been rotting from the inside. Dell was eroding its PC business and Lexmark its signature printer business. Looming over everything as king of the high-tech hill was IBM.
The first female CEO of a Fortune 20 company, the charismatic Fiorina thrilled HP's huge workforce by combining "the aspirational rhetoric of the New Economy with a keen eye for HP's long-neglected historical strengths," as the author George Anders wrote in 2003.
She scored bonus points with the HP faithful by launching a renovation of the Palo Alto garage where Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded the company in 1939.
The honeymoon didn't last. As I observed following her ouster, Fiorina was the antithesis of HP's self-effacing founders. She was caught up in her own mythology and enveloped herself in clouds of McKinsey & Co. consultants. Her slashing of 10,000 employees during the 2000 high-tech crash dimmed her appeal to the rank and file, and when her quarterly financial projections proved consistently over-optimistic, she lost credibility on Wall Street too.
Her 2002 acquisition of the stagnating computer maker Compaq represented a doubling down of HP's bet on the low-margin PC market. It also provoked a ferocious battle with some of the founders' children, a mortifying and very un-HP development.
Nor did the deal do much to fire up HP. Its shares kept lagging the Nasdaq index and barely kept pace with the S&P 500 index. Amid widening disaffection with her management, the board sacked her in February 2005. The bottom line: HP shares declined about 60% during her tenure.
Fiorina's memoir, "Tough Choices," hit the bookstores 20 months later. That may seem like an eternity to someone anxious to move on to a new act, but a tad rushed as introspective stock-takings go. Anyway, it was time enough for her to sharpen the barbs for her adversaries at HP.
Indeed, the book is shot through with episodes in which Fiorina describes herself being brow-beaten by board members into taking some ill-advised action, then accepts pro-forma blame. ("I acquiesced," she writes of one director's demand. "It was a mistake and it was mine.")
That's having things both ways -- gallantly accepting responsibility for a blunder, but pinning the guilt on others.
Fiorina's successor at HP, Mark Hurd, is the un-Carly in the same sense that she was the un-Bill and David. Recruited from NCR Corp., he's completely lacking in her brand of fabulousness but makes up for it with what associates say is an intimidating command of financial data and company minutiae.
My guess is that Hurd won't be writing a personal memoir any time soon, and if he ever does it will be indescribably boring. On the plus side, Hurd's HP is regarded today as perhaps the nation's premier computer maker and a contender in the growing market for IT services. On his watch, its shares have more than doubled in price, handily outstripping the Nasdaq and S&P.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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oh yeah look for more hit pieces as this rce takes off. "Her slashing of 10,000 employees during the 2000 high-tech crash dimmed her appeal to the rank and file" Umm businesses do that ALL THE TIME. She is not the most articulate so I hope she is practicing her one liners, I was thinking of "Address me as Senator because I am going to throw that loathsome bitch out of office" Just spitballing here.
#3
Hilzik has a reputation for being a mendacious, obfuscating turd. On the other hand, Fiorina really does seem to have been widely disliked at HP, and gave a really achingly awful speech at the convention last year.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/28/2009 11:14 Comments ||
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I don't see how he gets off describing her as charismatic. I've seen her speak and she is anything but. Lackluster is more like it, both as a speaker and in her performance as a corporate CEO. I'm afraid Boxer would tear her to shreds and leave her on the floor. I sure hope we can get a better candidate.
#6
this is almost as bad an idea as running John McCain for president was. she doesn't connect with anyone, is a lackluster(at best) communicator) and has a huge list of "even thoughs"*
* as in when someone asks you who you are going to vote for you say "even though she holds liberal positions that are identical to her opponent, i am going to vote for her"
Posted by: abu do you love ||
08/28/2009 16:24 Comments ||
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#7
Fiorina is an arrogant ass. She ran HP into the ground and left with a multimillion dollar severance package when the board finally had enough and threw her out. Surely in a state the size of California the GOP can find a better candidate than her.
Voters are annoyed by Mayor Bloomberg's nonstop TV ads, but he's still steamrolling toward a third term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
His job approval rating is 66% favorable, up 3% from last month.
And if the general election were held today, he would trounce his likely Democratic opponent, Controller William Thompson, by 15 points - up five points from the prior poll.
The poll of 1,290 registered voters, conducted Aug. 18-24, found that nearly 80% have seen the mayor's TV commercials.
Those who saw the commercials were asked if they were annoying or informative, and 47% said annoying, 41% informative and the rest didn't know or wouldn't say.
Asked if the ads made it more or less likely they would vote for Bloomberg, 18% said less likely, 15% said more likely, 64% said no difference and 3% didn't know or wouldn't say.
"Mayor Mike might be wasting his money on that zillion-dollar TV buy," said Quinnipiac polling director Maurice Carroll.
Bloomberg, who is paying for his own campaign, spent $36.6 million as of his last disclosure report a month ago, including $12.6 million for TV ads.
There were no changes from a month ago in the Democratic primary races for mayor, controller or public advocate.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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It's what you chumps get for watching TV.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/28/2009 10:49 Comments ||
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Will House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D. Md. 5th) find a way to duck out of a ribbon cutting and leave the public with unanswered questions on Friday when he shows up in Lexington Park to cut the ribbon at 3 pm at the corner of Coral Place for digging up Great Mills Road to build a fancy brick median strip?
Hoyer was heckled and booed three weeks ago in Utica, New York when he appeared with a freshman Democrat in that district to push for high speed trains. Oddly enough, Hoyer has done little thus far to advance commuter rail in his own district but promised ST. MARY'S TODAY to look at Nashville's system, which is the most low cost start up commuter rail operation in the nation.
Hoyer's confrontation with several New Yorkers who were asking questions about the Obama Administration drive to create a new national health care plan at the same time that Medicare and the Postal Service, two examples of government efficiency cited by the President in recent speeches, are going broke, made national news.
Hoyer, usually unflappable and quick on his feet was photographed lecturing a citizen with his finger pointing at the man. Three days later Hoyer held a healthcare roundtable at Calvert Memorial Hospital which was closed to the public, according to a press release from his office.
Hoyer was asked by ST. MARY'S TODAY why he was afraid to meet with his constituents and he said that the closed meeting was at the request of doctors at the hospital.
After Hoyer's secret meeting, he flew off to Israel for a week with 8 Congressmen on a junket which he said was paid for by the Israel-American Foundation.
Congressman Hoyer's office announced last Friday that he has scheduled a single Town Hall for Health Care at Northlake High School on Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 6 pm. The meeting location will only hold 1,000 people and the school parking lot is not available until 5 pm.
With Hoyer's district spanning all of Charles, Calvert, St. Mary's and most of P.G. County outside of the beltway, it is conceivable that he may be able to hear from about 30 people in the time allotted. If he bloviates on the three or four different Democrat plans presently bouncing around Capitol Hill, he may use up half the time set aside for this event himself.
Given Hoyer's availability for various occasions in the district, with the closed to the public meeting in Prince Frederick and this single event in Waldorf next week, it is clear that the public may have to hunt the congressman down and get questions in at other public events. But he'll still be reelected, and probably by a wide margin. People who worry about reelection aren't as arrogant as he is.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Compare wid PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > GROWING POVERTY AND DESPAIR IN AMERICA.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 31% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-nine percent (39%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8. Seventy-seven percent (77%) now view the President as politically liberal, the highest total to date.
A Rasmussen video report notes that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's unfavorable ratings have grown to a new high at 64%.
In a nationwide poll. But only her district can vote for/against her, so that's the only poll that counts, just as the world does not have a vote in the American presidential election.
In New Jersey's race for Governor, Republican Chris Christie continues to lead incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Seventy-seven percent (77%) now view the President as politically liberal, the highest total to date.
#2
But only her district can vote for/against her, so that's the only poll that counts, just as the world does not have a vote in the American presidential election.
On the other hand, if she can be hung around the neck of Dems in close races, this is still good news.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu told a relatively friendly overflow Monroe Chamber of Commerce crowd that she would likely oppose any government insurance option in health care reform and lobby against a proposed energy tax known as Cap and Trade.
Landrieu, D-La., who spoke during a chamber luncheon today, also met with local doctors earlier and briefly addressed about 15 demonstrators opposing a public insurance option and Cap and Trade.
When asked after her speech if the senator would support a public option under any circumstances, she said, "Very few, if any. I'd prefer a private market-based approach to any health care reform that would extend coverage."
"I'd like to cover everyone -- that would be the moral thing to do -- but it would be immoral to bankrupt the country while doing so," Landrieu said.
As to Cap and Trade, Landrieu said, "I'm not supporting that approach, but I'm open to hear modifications."
"I'm going to be as strong a voice as I can that we still need oil and gas in America," she said. "We don't need less drilling. We need to do more as we move toward a greener grid."
Donna Griffin of Ruston was among the demonstrators outside the Civic Center.
"We're not just protesting a health care bill, but all government spending," Griffin said. "We're taxed enough already. I think it's time we cleaned house in Washington. We should get rid of the Democrats and Republicans -- all of them."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
We should get rid of the Democrats and Republicans -- all of them.
That's the point Nancy "They're a bunch of Nazis" Girl Pelosi has missed. It's not the Trunks in the fore of all this, though they seem to be nudging slightly ahead of the bear that is gaining on both of them.
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy's death apparently reached the saturation point quickly with TV audiences. His death overnight was news at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. By 8 p.m., few people cared to watch the tributes to him on television. At 8 p.m., CBS-TV's "Ted Kennedy: The Last Brother" drew but 4.6 million viewers. Its rating of 0.9 (among people 18-49 -- the prime target of advertisers) was the lowest among the four major networks. Third-place was a rerun of "Bones," which had a 1.2 rating with 4.5 million viewers. At 10 p.m., ABC's "Remembering Ted Kennedy" drew less than 4 million viewers, easily last in that timeslot.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
I told my wife to turn off the sound at least when the local news came on about this character. It would not help the Feng shui of the room, as that character was one giant dirigible of negative qi.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/28/2009 1:23 Comments ||
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#2
Even those who dislike him have to admit that his death brings an end to an era of Kennedy influence, that dates to the 'thirties.
#6
Maybe it's a big deal to some liberal baby boomers, and the older generation. But for anyone born after the mid-60's, not so much. (Especially if they never lived in Massachusetts and/or DC.)
He was a bum, and was booed by the student body at Harvard when he made a speech stumping for POTUS. The speech was made to a large class that was not permitted to leave their seats after the lecture was finished, the students serving as a ready-made large (captive) audience.
It did not go well.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/28/2009 10:29 Comments ||
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#8
Well, of course nobody watched it--they showed it opposite a rerun of Criminal Minds and a Mythbusters marathon and the Operation Repo episode where the Renaissance Faire guys use their swords to defend their Prius from the tow truck.*
*I did not make that one up.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/28/2009 11:10 Comments ||
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#9
I hope not, Mike, it sounds awesome.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/28/2009 14:55 Comments ||
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#10
He's no Michael Jackson.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/28/2009 15:44 Comments ||
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#11
You're correct joe, cause Teddy certainly was into a lot of women.
President Barack Obama's supporters have marginalized upstart protesters by referring to them as angry Astroturf mobs doing the bidding of talk radio and Big Pharma. Yet, there is, in fact, a radical, divisive, mass movement on the march -- on the left.
In his seminal work on mob behavior, "The True Believer," Eric Hoffer provides a compelling analysis of the conditions necessary for a revolutionary movement to attract a mass following. He writes:
"For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap. The men who started the French Revolution were wholly without political experience. The experienced man of affairs is a latecomer. He enters the movement when it is already a going concern." [Emphasis ours.]
Posted by: Fred ||
08/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
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#1
Even in the original article, I didn't see any "empasis added". Proofreaders laid iff, I guess.
Interesting, though - the San Francisco Examiner. Did they put this on page 2,876?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/28/2009 6:09 Comments ||
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#2
Op-Ed page, and apparently, my proofreader has been laid iff, too.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/28/2009 6:11 Comments ||
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#3
The author actually nailed it. Conservatives (and those with conservative 'roots' despite conflicting ideology) need to get iff the pot and be prepared to do more than just wave an angry fist. Proving the premise wrong with a landslide in '10 would be a great start...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Jules Crittenden, "Forward Movement"
A Brooklyn federal judge on Wednesday gave a boost to Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to shut down the sale of tax-free cigarettes on Long Island Indian reservations. 
A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.
Some booed him. Others shouted him down. But for the most part, scores of residents on Wednesday listened to Rep. Rush Holt's take on the contentious issue of health care reform.
Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas announced Thursday he won't seek re-election, saying that after 36 years in the spotlight, it was time to call it quits.
The late cultural critic Neil Postman used to pose a simple question to gauge whether a new technology was worth the investment: "What is the problem," he would ask, "to which this is the solution?" 
Voters are annoyed by Mayor Bloomberg's nonstop TV ads, but he's still steamrolling toward a third term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
Will House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D. Md. 5th) find a way to duck out of a ribbon cutting and leave the public with unanswered questions on Friday when he shows up in Lexington Park to cut the ribbon at 3 pm at the corner of Coral Place for digging up Great Mills Road to build a fancy brick median strip?
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu told a relatively friendly overflow Monroe Chamber of Commerce crowd that she would likely oppose any government insurance option in health care reform and lobby against a proposed energy tax known as Cap and Trade.
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy's death apparently reached the saturation point quickly with TV audiences. His death overnight was news at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. By 8 p.m., few people cared to watch the tributes to him on television. At 8 p.m., CBS-TV's "Ted Kennedy: The Last Brother" drew but 4.6 million viewers. Its rating of 0.9 (among people 18-49 -- the prime target of advertisers) was the lowest among the four major networks. Third-place was a rerun of "Bones," which had a 1.2 rating with 4.5 million viewers. At 10 p.m., ABC's "Remembering Ted Kennedy" drew less than 4 million viewers, easily last in that timeslot.
President Barack Obama's supporters have marginalized upstart protesters by referring to them as angry Astroturf mobs doing the bidding of talk radio and Big Pharma. Yet, there is, in fact, a radical, divisive, mass movement on the march -- on the left.
