(Bloomberg) -- A former counsel to the Bergen County Democratic Organization in New Jersey pleaded guilty two days before he and the party's ex-chairman were scheduled to go on trial on corruption charges.
Dennis J. Oury, 59, admitted conspiring with Joseph A. Ferriero, the former chairman, to defraud the borough of Bergenfield, New Jersey, of his honest services. Oury, the former municipal attorney in Bergenfield, implicated Ferriero, saying they hid their interest in a grants-writing firm and tried to influence government officials to secure business.
"Did you have an understanding with Joseph Ferriero that neither of you would publicly disclose your involvement" in the firm, Governmental Grants Consulting, or GCC, U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler asked Oury in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. Oury agreed.
Before their indictment in September 2008, Ferriero was one of the most powerful political figures in New Jersey. Ferriero and Oury were indicted by former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey for seven years. Christie is running as the Republican candidate to unseat Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine in the November election.
Oury, who faces up to 20 years in prison, also admitted failing to file a federal income tax return in 2006. Chesler set sentencing for Jan. 7.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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Oury, who faces up to 20 years in prison, also admitted failing to file a federal income tax return in 2006.
The public-broadcasting-insider newspaper Current passed along a survey from The Chronicle of Philanthropy on executive compensation at large nonprofits in 2008. The salaries can be higher than the current presidential salary of $400,000 (and the current congressional salary of $174,000). The list includes national executives and leaders at large stations like WNET (New York), WETA (Washington), WTTW (Chicago), and KCET (Los Angeles.)
Former NPR C.E.O. Kenneth Stern, who departed in 2008, is atop the pubcasting list, receiving $1,319,541 as part of his four-year contract. Another former exec, PBS C.O.O. Wayne Godwin, who served from 2000 to 2008, was paid $398,063. Current PBS C.E.O. Paula Kerger, $534,500, up from $424,209 at end of fiscal 2007.
Rounding out the list, in descending order: Laura Walker, CEO of WNYC Radio, $474,808; Al Jerome, KCET president, $426,688; Jeff Clarke, CEO, Northern California Public Broadcasting, $406,501; Neal Shapiro, WNET president, $400,570; Sharon Percy Rockefeller, WETA president, $391,904; Thomas Conway, WNET v.p., $374,321; Daniel Schmidt, WTTW president, $347,491.
William Kling, Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media president, $347,217; Jonathan Abbott, WGBH president, $337,870; Jon McTaggart, MPR/APR CEO, $313,967; Joseph Bruns, WETA executive v.p., $303,108; Linda O'Bryon, Northern California Public Broadcasting chief content officer, $282,360; Paula Apsell, senior exec producer at WGBH, $278,209; Dean Cappello, chief creative officer, WNYC Radio, $272,072; Deborah Hinton, KCET exec v.p., $251,446; Dennis Haarsager, NPR interim CEO, $219,369; and Reese Marcusson, WTTW CFO, $214,397.
This comes after we learned from The Washington Post a few weeks back that NPR weekend anchor Scott Simon brings home more than $300,000 a year. It's always worth remembering these numbers at pledge-drive time. How far will your donation go?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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And so the social contract is broken once again by the public, not the private, sector.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/30/2009 5:54 Comments ||
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Betcha Michael Moore is on his way to NPR headquarters to wrap it in crime scene tape. Yep.
They are from the government, and they don't want you to help.
Lisa Snyder's neighbors in Middleville, Mich., left for work every morning before the school buses arrived. So she told her friends she'd watch their three kids at her house before school. She didn't get paid for it. She didn't get reimbursed for Cheerios or juice boxes.
So what did Lisa get for her trouble? Threatened with prosecution.
The state declared her yard an illegal day-care operation. She either had to stop, get licensed or go to jail.
"We're just friends helping friends," Lisa says. But that's not good enough now that the nanny state has turned on the nannies.
I thought about poor Lisa when I picked up yesterday's Herald and saw the draconian regulations the Patrick administration is foisting on Bay State babysitters. Starting in January, day-care workers must write regular "progress reports" on the "cognitive, social and emotional skill developments of infants and preschoolers."
Who is that report for? Will it be filed with the state? What the heck will be in it?
"Day Care Report No. J/254-B. During the last three months, Client 004 (AKA Timmy) seemed to progress from simple 'goo goos' to more complex 'gaa gaas.' Emotional reaction to Tinky Winky remains negative."
Day care workers will also have to write curricula and prove they're providing quality educational experiences - when they're not brushing the kids' teeth.
That's right - the new regs include a tooth-brushing mandate, either after meals or at least once every four hours. (Gov, we've got flossing issues at the Little Snowflake Daycare. Call in the toothbrush inspectors!)
Folks, regardless of the new state mandate declaring them "educators," what we're talking about here are "babysitters." It's a noble calling but it's not rocket science. I just want them to keep my kids from hurting themselves, pooping themselves or doing these things to or on the other kids.
Some parents want aggressive, academic-oriented early childhood training and they're willing to pay for it. Other parents just want their children safe, cared for and engaged until they can get home. Either way, would you rather have the day-care worker writing up a state-mandated progress report or playing "Godzilla Ate Candy Land" (my daughter's favorite!) with your kid?
If Patrick mandates that every day-care worker become a skilled educator with a lesson plan and toothbrush timer, he's going to drive smaller providers out of business. Women who earn desperately needed income caring for neighborhood children will find it difficult to meet these mandates.
Meanwhile, the big companies with big bureaucracies will simply crank out these meaningless reports and pass on the expense to cash-strapped working parents. As a result, good providers and their desperate customer parents will go off the books and underground.
So why is the Patrick administration doing it? Day care reform has hardly been a hot topic of late.
Is the goal to drive private providers out of business and force more parents into government-run day-care thus creating jobs for unionized government workers?
Or is this yet another expression of the liberal assumption that whether you're running a day care or watching the school bus stop, the government can always do a better job?
Either way, Patrick needs to give the genius who came up with this plan a serious timeout.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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How about making every driver meet heavy equipment [professional trucker] standards and licensing to operate a motor vehicle? Makes as much sense. However, we're talking self justifying bureaucrats here, so no sense necessary.
#5
Licensed daycare is pretty much the norm but extending the requirements for baby sitting is ridiculous. They tell you how many carrots must be in the fridge and monitor the relatives and friends that come to visit. Government paid daycare for single parents is the real reason they want to extend the school day/year. We have it in the low income areas but local control has kept the burbs on a regular school schedule. The burbs consistently score higher on standardized tests and the kids earn sports scholarships for the team sports they are disciplined enough to play.
#6
So we don't have the freedom to place our kids under the care of who I choose now? I can't be trusted to make a decision here? Well, what am I qualified to do? That seems to be the shorter list these days.
Kind of makes it obvious what liberals think people are capable of doing. And what they are capable of doing themselves.
Arizona Senator John McCain was the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008, but he's always had a challenging relationship with the GOP's base voters. He's a maverick. They're Republicans.
A new Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey finds that 61% of Arizona Republicans think McCain has lost touch with those in his own party. That's up eleven points from 50% in May. Only 33% of the Republican faithful in the state believe McCain has done a good job representing GOP values. The good news for McCain is that his numbers aren't as bad as some of his colleagues. Nationally, 74% of Republican voters say their representatives in Congress have lost touch with the GOP base. That's pretty bad news for the Pubs. Marketing yourself as the vanilla alternative to the Dems isn't an exciting marketing strategy.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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My stomach turns more by seeing McShame than when seeing Obama.
#2
What the Donks fail to grasp, is that those polled probably would simply say the entire Beltway government is out of touch with the population [but not the special interest groups], however the pollsters are keen about avoiding asking such.
if Johnny Mac had beliefs in touch with his base, he would have won in November.
i salute his service in uniform, but cringe at his performance in DC
Posted by: abu do you love ||
09/30/2009 8:35 Comments ||
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"My friends"
What a worthless, smug, jerk. He ran a losing campaign because he wanted to demonstrate his Absolute Mavericky Moral Authority, refusing to get in Obamas face with all the crap we read in RB and see demonstrated in teh news every day now. Jeremiah Wright? Off limits. Lack of experience? Off limits. Acorn? Off limits. McCain should take himself and that worthless POS daughter of his off to Sedona and STFU. He's dead to me
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2009 8:41 Comments ||
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#5
Macain is old news. Who cares want anyone thinks of him now? How is it relevant to dealing with the mess we are in now? Get over it and get to work on the present and the future.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/30/2009 9:17 Comments ||
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#6
I imagine there are plenty in Arizona who feel backstabbed by McCain on the issue of illegal immigration, so to them, at least, he's hardly 'old news'.
#7
Well said Frank. Megan McCain is a joke, a willing useful idiot for dems to parade around on Maher's show and the View. She tries to wear the (R) like a gucci bag, it's a brand not a belief. I wish Arizonans would do the right thing and vote Mccain out of office.
#10
Do you really think all of us conservatives were all set to vote for the nationalization of the banks permanent debt-indentiture of the nation until he went and partnered with Sarah Palin?
#11
all he had to do was pick a reasonable running mate and victory would have been his, how hard would that have been.
746 dear, are you still miffed that it wasn't you that got the telephone call? You must remember, the purpose of the vice presidential candidate is to look pretty and bring in votes. I mean, do you remember who FDR picked for his first two runs for the big job? Or what people thought about the man he picked the third time round -- the one who actually got promoted?
Are you talking about John Nance Garner, who entered political immortality by describing the Vice Presidency as "not worth a bucket of war piss.", Henry Wallace, at best a communist tool?
#13
I'm sick of having to hold my nose and vote for so-called Republicans like McCain who are only nominally different from Democrats. In the end I voted for McCain only because Obama scares the bejeebers outta me. How many people didn't vote because McCain looks like a feeble old man who is out of touch, not just with his base but with reality?
#14
I really hope you guys can get off your ideological purity kick. If the DEms always nominated someone good, that would be okay. But they don't. So I need a GOP alternative I can actually vote for. If McCain, tough on for policy, opposed to any flavor of Obama care, opposed to any rollback of any of the Bush tax cuts, etc, etc is STILL to "moderate" for you, you are pretty far gone.
And yeah, TW, picking Palin was a mistake and pushed a lot of waverers into voting for BHO. Like me, for instance.
The GOP base is harming the GOP. As the Dem base did to the Dems, till Clinton tamed them. They are growling about Obama, but are still pretty much caged.
If the DEm lefty base DOES resurge, AND the GOP base succeeds at purgint "RINOs" a new centrist party will arise.
#15
frank reads like a mirror image of the stuff on Kos, moveon, huffington etc.
Taking stuff from the echo chamber too seriously. Ignoring the knowledge of people who do polling, who look at what actually moves voters. Emotionalizing every issue, catastrophizing everything, demonizing the opponent.
But go ahead and defeat all those 74% of GOP congressmen in primaries. Try it, see how it works out.
#16
I dunno, LH, I managed to hold my nose and vote for the grumpy old man despite agreeing with most/all of what Frank wrote.
The Republicans should indeed be a 'big tent' party, and a Pub in Maine is likely different than a Pub in Arizona. That said, Pubs shouldn't be lite-Dhimmicrats.
As to Palin, I think that was a wash. Her selection caused you to vote for BHO, it caused me to vote for Johnny Mac.
The GOP base long has wanted to purge RINOs but recognize that without 'em, the GOP would never win another election. There's a difference in voting for a RINO and voting for Specter, as the latter recently demonstrated. So RINOs who manage to stay with us on the big things will be fine (or at least should be).
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2009 13:10 Comments ||
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Nimble Spemble:
Same difference but wrong excretion.
"Not worth a bucket of warm spit"
Jonh Nance Garner
#18
well steve, you arent as ideologically pure as many of your commentors.
I dont think Palin was a wash. Or rather if she was, the GOP is doomed. If large portions of the GOP base WONT vote for someone as DEEPLY conservative as McCain, without someone like Palin on the ticket, then the GOP wont have the math to win a national election. Or they will only win when the Dems screw up, and then they will have one term presidencies, like the Dems from 1968-1992.
#21
Deeply conservative? With all the bailout shit he voted for?
We could ditch ideological purity and nominate Marx with Stalin as his running mate and by the end of the week they'll be denounced as running-dog capitalist enemies of the working class.
If not wanting trillion-dollar-a-year deficits is your idea of ideological purity, then yeah, I guess we're just rigid assholes.
I wanna ask though, as someone from the South, why y'all are so eager to get the nation under the same sort of debt servitude that was used as the primary social control mechanism of the late 19th century South? Y'all have spent the last fifty years turning Health Care into something you get at the Company Store and sit around acting so SHOCKED that it winds up getting more and more expensive each year. And then call the rest of us rigid ideologues.
#22
I don't think McCain was especially conservative. A lot of Pubs agreed. He was conservative on certain issues and middle-ish on others. I don't think McCain has a well-thought out ideology (as say, Reagan did or Cheney does). That's not necessarily a handicap, but it does become necessary when times get tough for a president.
You might not like Palin, and you're not alone. I do know that the Dhimmicrats fear her -- I know that by the way they attacked her.
You are correct: I'm not as idoelogically pure as some here. My loss, I suppose.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2009 13:27 Comments ||
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#23
really hope you guys can get off your ideological purity kick. If the DEms always nominated someone good, that would be okay. But they don't. So I need a GOP alternative I can actually vote for.
I don't see us 'teabaggers' (Your word, LH, not mine) changing our belief system in order to support republicans that are liberal enough for you to vote for.
picking Palin was a mistake and pushed a lot of waverers into voting for BHO. Like me, for instance.
I call bullshit. Be honest, who could McCain have picked as his VP to secure your vote?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2009 13:27 Comments ||
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Nimble Spemble, thank you for remembering the key bits of information I forgot, and GolfBravoUSMC for making it perfect. liberalhawk, Sarah Palin tilted people in both directions -- a great many women were appalled at how the Barack H. Obama's campaign talked about Hillary Clinton and how he gamed the primaries, and were happy to have a strong woman to vote for, regardless who stood at the head of the ticket. I agree that a good many conservatives forgot that you go to the election with the candidate you've got, and punished the Republican ticket for lacking their particular flavour of ideological purity instead of weighing the odds that the Democratic candidate might be even further from their desired agenda. This country's founders deliberately designed a system that requires compromise, and voters on both sides of the aisle would do well to remember that.
Of course, now we have idiots claiming that those guys are about to get violent because of... something or other, it keeps changing.
As for Senator McCain, so long as he is closer to his voters' values than his opponents, he'll hold on to his seat. I'd rather have him there than an Obama-beholden Democrat, which is likely to be the alternative.
#26
SP was the ONLY reason I voted for McCain. I am pleased to hear that LH and I differ on this subject. I also am surprised that Steve White and I agree on something. :)
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/30/2009 14:14 Comments ||
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#27
The only reason I voted for McShame is the fact he wasn't Bambi.
Deeply conservative my ass... He is as big government and entitlement as the libs are.
I want the government to stay the hell out of my life and affairs and social issues. Small government, lots of personal choice. McShame and his bill to suppress speech before a campaign vote is just one of those things I despise him for.
As an old school libertarian, I don't see many in either party that support my views. Most likely why I despise most politicians on both sides.
#28
"I don't think McCain was especially conservative. A lot of Pubs agreed. "
well thats the problem. that alot of pubs think like that. Just as the DEms problem are the nut jobs who think Obama is a conservative.
"He was conservative on certain issues and middle-ish on others.
IE much like Obama, who is liberal on some issues, middleish on others. IE like EVERY pol who has a chance nationally, or in a swing state.
"I don't think McCain has a well-thought out ideology (as say, Reagan did or Cheney does). "
Well first, I think he did, it just was more complex than the left right dimension. As for Cheney, I dont see as he won election on his own anywhere outside Wyoming. As for Reagan, he was seen as pretty pragmatic in many ways. He sure didnt do much to assuage the far right on social issues. He didnt cut back domestic spending all that much. And perhaps more important, he had a sunny view of America, not the catastrophic paranoid style of todays right.
"That's not necessarily a handicap, but it does become necessary when times get tough for a president."
I am not going to debate whether McCain would have been a better president than Palin. Or Bush.
"You might not like Palin, and you're not alone. I do know that the Dhimmicrats fear her -- I know that by the way they attacked her."
Nah, they attack her the way GOP attacks Max Waters, or Michael Moore, or Soros. Its cause shes an easy target, and attacking her makes the GOP look bad.
I know I personally think Palin would be a far weaker candidate than say, Tim Pawlenty. I dont think the Dems would get much traction NOW by attacking Pawlenty now.
#30
"Somehow this does not surprise me. Still happy with that choice?"
Probably happier than a lot of folks to my left, since I NEVER saw him in messianic terms. I think hes done an excellent job on the economy, environment, etc. For Policy more mixed, but no disasters SO FAR. Too much we dont know. And of course the Afghanistan decision is hanging fire at this moment.
#31
"I don't see us 'teabaggers' (Your word, LH, not mine) changing our belief system in order to support republicans that are liberal enough for you to vote for."
I wouldnt expect a liberal. Just someone like McCain, who as SW said, is a mix of some conservative positions and some middleish ones. And yeah, you dont have to nominate anyone I would consider voting for. Or other centrists. Not if you dont care about winning elections outside the south, plains and rockies.
#32
"liberalhawk, Sarah Palin tilted people in both directions -- a great many women were appalled at how the Barack H. Obama's campaign talked about Hillary Clinton and how he gamed the primaries, and were happy to have a strong woman to vote for, regardless who stood at the head of the ticket."
IIRC, Most of the women I know found the Palin victim of sexism thing more than a bit condescending and hypocritical, and wanted nothing much to do with her.
But then I live in virginia, a radical left elitists Yankee state. Oh, wait a minute.
But go ahead, if you think Palin adds strength to the GOP, by all means, go ahead and keep her central to GOP politics. Good luck with that.
#33
"Of course, now we have idiots claiming that those guys are about to get violent because of... something or other, it keeps changing. "
because of carrying guns to rallys and making snarky remarks about it, maybe? Cause of really heated rhetoric? Cause of all this birther bs, and the "hes a muslim" BS, etc etc. I mean TW, dont you read the stuff people say on this site?
#36
"McCain-Feingold
McCain-Leiberman
Illegal Immigration craven
TARP Bailout"
I am sorry the right is wedded to the idea that money is speech. Doesnt play out that way in the center.
McCain - Leiberman -which one was that?
Immigration - again, most of the country isnt as paranoid about illegals as y'all are, and is ready for a compromise.
TARP - the left is all mad about that too, cause they dont understand macroeconomics, either. Meanwhile back in the real world banks are paying the money back, the economy is slowly recovering, and Bernanke is headed for a Nobel.
#37
Yes, I do read what people post here, liberalhawk. Sometimes it hurts me. Sometimes I speak up about that. Posters at Progressive sites write about becoming violent too, as well you know. For the most part people on both sides are venting, and foolishly, which is why the moderators keep a lid on things here -- we don't want to get Fred in trouble for stupid posturing.
Broadhead6, we don't say teabag. Apparently it means something ugly when talking politics these days. You mean Tea Partier. Separately, about a third of American voters are middle of the road Independents. So their views will be taken into account whether the purists like it or not.
#39
as it was I thought about voting for him. Pawlenty would have made me at least somewhat more likely.
AS long as we're not assuming the above statement means it would have been a winning strategy for the GOP, I agree with you.
The fact is, two limp republicans on a ticket is not what has won in the past. The head of the ticket needs to have some conservative bonafides (or seen as having them) as with Reagan or W. I can think of no other VP more conservative that Darth Cheney. So I suspect Palin conservatism was not a ticket killer.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2009 15:48 Comments ||
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#40
Im not attacking fred, TW, I love the way he aggregates info about the GWOT, gritty, factual stuff about the doings in Punjab and Bangla and Mauretania. And does so with a light, ironic touch. and opens it to comments, well doing the hard job of policing the horrible stuff (from both sides) such a topic tends to attract.
what I meant was, can't you see how MUCH really nasty, hateful, even violence justifiying stuff there is among the comments? Enough to really be of concern?
And yeah, there is hateful stuff on the left. I think for the last 8 years I have expressed my concern with that. And yeah, to quite a considerable extent the garbage we are getting on the right now, is the fault of the Michael Moores and the like who did the equivalent from the left, and who kept our national dialog (already suffering from Clinton Derangement Syndrome) on the decline.
As Mercutio said "A plague on both your houses". He died however, so I dont think just plaguing both houses is really a sound solution.
#41
TARP - the left is all mad about that too, cause they dont understand macroeconomics, either. Meanwhile back in the real world banks are paying the money back, the economy is slowly recovering, and Bernanke is headed for a Nobel.
Nice way of accusing us of not understanding macroeconomics, or economics for that matter.
Some of the grassroots on the left are mad because the govenrnment has done what they wanted, taken control of the economy, and the result has been what they've always been told was the bad thing about free enterprise, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Since they have no intellectual framework for economic freedom, they're just on the treadmill doing the feedback cycle, gonna fix the last cycle of government expansion with another cycle of government expansion...
Kinda like how the Kuomintang inflated away their currency and the Chinese revolted against the resulting "capitalist" failure.
#42
I agree LH. That's a nasty pox and should be whiped out. Unfortunately, the left is infected with it and needs to be quarantined for the good of the whole. :)
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2009 15:52 Comments ||
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#43
"I am sorry the right is wedded to the idea that money is speech. Doesnt play out that way in the center."
--center of where? Mars?
You just made my points for me about McCain not be a conservative - like I first postulated, thanks.
mccain-leiberman - cap and trade.
mccain-kennedy - immigration
Why did mccain back away from even the mention of illegal immigration pathway amnesty if the country was so ready for a compromise? Are most folks ready for amnesty and was there some kind of poll saying so?
Yes, why be paranoid when our elected leaders cannot or will not maintain their constitutional oaths and protect the integrity of our territorial boundaries? Oh, you meant we right wing gun-toting Tea Partiers (TW) are just paranoid about brown skin people...guess I'll have to tell my right wing latino cousins about how racist I am - and therefore they are.
Obama tripling down on Bush's debt is smart macro-economics? Taxing and borrowing our nation out of debt? Thank God I don't understand it then...I suppose the CBO must be some Right-Wing doom-gloom org as well...
#44
if the Liberal "hawk" disagrees with me, I know I'm on the right path.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2009 19:38 Comments ||
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#45
btw - I voted for McCain - only because he was better than Obama. If you voted for Obama, LH, you voted for noted genius and foreign policy expert Joe "The Sheriff" Biden - a heartbeat away from the presidency, so spare me your thoughts. My cat is smarter - she didn't vote for Obama
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/30/2009 19:44 Comments ||
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#47
Well there it is. I voted for McCain for a good few reasons. Armed Forces vs Ivy League Lawyer, Deeper understanding of the world vs grandstanding face time, decades in Washington vs. freshman senator. Oh, and not as far left as it was becoming apparent. The vice president pick for me was a non factor, the chances of vice president becoming president being so small. The economy had just taken a hit and I wanted a president who could lead and inspire confidence, not some slogoneering crowned nero. And if the duo was important, then I fail to see how a cocain sniffing ivy league lawyer and another ivy league lawyer who refers to himself in the third person trumps a longtime senator and governor of a state which must be involved in international issues no matter how devisie I find either of the latter 2.
Its a leadership question dammit, not high school popularity contest. Looking at it now I think I made the right choice.
#48
Liberalhawk wants GOP-centrist candidates. Fine. Tell me where they are amongst the Democrats (and please don't tell me "Obama").
Joe Lieberman was sort-of one, until the left tried to dump him. He's an independent, in case anyone forgets, And by the way, he did a 180-degree course change on some of his positions when he ran with Mr. Gore. Guess that's the advantage of being middle-of-the-road - you can move to either side of the line when it suits you.
One thing about all this talk about "lack of civility" reminds me of growing up in New England in the 60s. Our family was associated with, but not in, politics. Civility in the 'good old days' meant the Democrats and Republicans drank together after the legislative day. But the Democrats were in charge - always. The Republicans played the genial second bananna. It was the nerd-kid hanging amongst the cool-kids.
Once in a while, the Democrats threw them a bone by passing a piece of their sponsored legislation. Ninety-nine percent of the time though, they'd reflexively vote against it because, as one now-retired legislator turned newsman said, "a Republican was going to vote for it" .
It's interesting that, during G.W. Bush's first term, McCain veered to the right when faced with a recall petition that was gathering both signatures and momentum. As soon as it was safe, he tacked back.
Being successful in politics requires a certain degree of skill that the less-charitable would describe as 'sociopathic'. Having those skills when being (or trying to be) a leader means ruin - for the individual and too often for whoever is being led. One can be both a politician and a leader, but one side will dominate.
McCain used to be a leader, of a sort. He isn't one now. Dole was a leader turned politician and is still is a bit of both, in a lesser but important way. Reagan was a rare mix of both, as was Lincoln, FDR, and Truman. Nixon was a politician. The Clintons, both of them, are politicians.
#49
LH, you should have prefaced your comments about how terrific Obama has been on the economy and the environment with a "food/drink alert" warning.
I think maybe, since you are in Virginia, yes...the economy might be improving there. After all, only the federal government is hiring lately. But in flyover country, eh, not so much. It kinda sucks out here. Michigan is an absolute basket case. You can't blame all that on Bush for much longer...
And as far as the environment goes, I'm not looking forward to the effect cap & tax is going to have on my winter power bills. Sorry, but when it's around -40, I'm gonna do what I have to in order to keep the Tsarevich (and the newest little member of our clan, due in March) warm. Maybe this is a brilliant idea where you live, but in areas where it gets frostbitten in the winter or baked to a crisp in summer, it's not so wonderful.
(Please don't give me a condescending "you don't have to live there" speech, either. When the choice is a job in the lower arctic or unemployment for the Tsar, well, yeah, I do kinda have to live here for now unless YOU personally want to pay all our bills. Hopefully not for longer than 2 years if the damage Obama is doing to this country isn't irreversible.)
(CNN) -- Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, is making it known he's not happy with President Obama's recent meddling in the state's 2010 gubernatorial race.
"The whole thing to me was not presidential," Rangel told the New York Daily News over the weekend. "It wasn't good for the president, and it wasn't good for the governor."
The comments came a week after the New York Times reported that administration officials had asked New York Rep. Gregory Meeks to convey to embattled Gov. David Paterson that Obama would prefer he not run for re-election next year.
The Times reported that the White House is concerned about Paterson's dismal poll numbers becoming a drag on the entire Democratic ticket in New York next year, and would prefer Andrew Cuomo -- the state's popular attorney general -- carry the party's banner instead.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Nah. Rangel and Patterson come out of the same NYC machine and they don't want the Chicago machine butting in. Cuomo's not from that machine and they don't want him supported effectively from outside the state.
#4
All that can be said then, is may the best man win. Or woman, as the case may be. ;-) I think it's a lovely idea that the two party machines fight -- let each expose the faults and misbehaviours of the other, leaving the voters to exercise preference.
The Senate Finance Committee voted down a government-run "public option" as part an overhaul of the nation's health-care system Tuesday, rejecting the first of two amendments offered by Democrats.
The panel's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and four other Democrats sided with Republicans in opposing a public-option amendment offered by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). Baucus said he voted against the politically volatile provision because he feared that a bill including it would not get the 60 votes it would need to pass on the Senate floor. The committee voted 15 to 8 to reject the amendment.
After the vote, the panel began debating a second public-option amendment introduced by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
"We are going to get at this, and at this, and at this, until we succeed, because we believe in it so strongly," Schumer said in offering his amendment. He disputed Baucus's contention that a health-care reform bill including the public option could never pass the Senate, saying the more Americans hear about its benefits, "the more they like it."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Barry appears to be losing both airspeed and altitude.
#2
I cringe everytime I see reporting that the Public Option is dead, or that the Dems have given up....... THEY LIE like the proverbial rug, and we cannot ease off the pressure! Furthermore, Amnesty is coming and that requires even more effort, or the demographics of the electorate in America will be shifted leftward permanently, and it will be time for unimagined ideas.......
Drawing on his family's violent past, the Democratic congressman told roughly 75 people gathered at a private health-care forum Saturday morning that opponents of Democrat-backed health-care legislation had gone too far. He cited, as an example, 10,000 signs distributed at a recent Washington protest that read, "Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy." Teddy's dead. The mawk pushers demanded that the healthcare fiasco be named after him. The healthcare fiasco is now dead. I see nothing wrong with the slogan.
Patrick Kennedy is the last member of his storied family to hold federal office. We're almost rid of the lot of them...
His father, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, died one month ago after battling a brain tumor. His uncles, former President John F. Kennedy and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated. "My family's seen it up close too much with assassinations and violence in political life. ... he said, waving the bloody shirt...
" It's a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally," Kennedy told the nurses, union officials and AARP members finishing their breakfasts at the invitation-only event in the Providence Marriott hotel. That sorta name calling never happened before Chimpy McBushitler...
"It's fine for people to debate the issue and attack the issue, but when they go and stoop to the level of the vitriolic rhetoric that we've seen this debate turn up, it's very, I think, dangerous to the fabric of our country." Somehow the country seems to muddle through. The vitriol poured upon Jefferson, Andy Jackson, and Lincoln was even more rancid than anything being dished up by the Dems today...
In a subsequent interview, Kennedy went further in warning that angry opposition could create physical danger for elected leaders. Young ladies of good breeding used to come down with the vapors, too. Then they stopped wearing their corsets too tight. Perhaps Baby Kennedy should give that a try?
"I will note that there were a number of prominent security people in this country who spoke very openly this past week that ... that there are consequences in terms of trying to protect public officials. There are consequences to violent rhetoric," he said. "Some people can see through TV ratings and right-wing talk show hosts that just try to create some theater, but unfortunately, there are some that can't see through it. "You know how simple-minded the populace is..."
"And that's the danger in it. There is definitely freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not allow yelling 'fire' in the middle of a crowded movie theater." Apparently it doesn't allow hollering "No, thankew!" at a crowded political rally.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#7
"It's a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally"
#8
" It's a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally,"
Unless of course we happen to have empirical proof that you're just a worthless, drunken, drug-sodden s#1tbag...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
09/30/2009 9:16 Comments ||
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#9
Can we pass a law to keep the kennedys from ever speaking or reproducing ever again? Once waste of skin after another stealing my oxygen.
#12
" It's a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally,"
#13
"It's a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally"
When you start listening, people will back off because they will only go as far as they deem necessary to get their point across. The fact that they go as far as they do reflects more about you than it does about human nature.
Yup. Thats the point. imagine "Bury X policy with Reagan" in the days after Reagans death. Rudeness either way.
" The mawk pushers demanded that the healthcare fiasco be named after him."
The propagandistic naming of bills has been going on for years, by both parties, and is a bad idea. Really, as if anyone who disagrees with a particular set of post 9/11 security policies isnt a patriot? Id say thats worse than mawkish.
"The healthcare fiasco is now dead. "
The fiasco whatever you mean by that may be dead, but its still a pretty good bet that a bill including payorplay, individual mandates, close to universal coverage, etc will become law. Probably without a public option, but possibly with a trigger for a public option.
#17
"That sorta name calling never happened before Chimpy McBushitler..."
That sort of thing from the michael moore set was disgusting. I said so repeatedly. That many mainstream Dems refused to distance themselves from it was a shame on them. And, I think, it hurt Kerry in 2004.
You can choose to be different, to be the GOP equivalent of the Leiberman Dems. Or you can choose to be the GOP equivalent of Michael Moore. Your choice. But be warned, it doesnt win votes from the center.
And yes, it harms the country we all claim to love.
#18
"Jefferson, Andy Jackson, and Lincoln was even more rancid than anything being dished up by the Dems today... "
What.The. Fuck.
You ARE aware that Lincoln was killed by an assasin's bullet, arent you?
This site sometimes follows Israeli affairs.
In Israel there was wild demonization of a PM in the early 90s. His name was Yitzah Rabin. You might recall what happened to him.
One can muddle through. One can have horrid demonization without assasinations. one can have it with assasinations, and the polity can be largely unaffected. You can have assasinations, and the polity is poisoned in subtle ways. Or, you can have democracy fall. Theres NO guarantees which way it will go, once you head down that road.
Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln were indeed vilified, during and after office, in ways that people today just wouldn't tolerate. I think that was his point. We managed to 'muddle through', though (as you point out) there was no guarantee that we would.
What Patrick and the hard left want to do is to close off debate. They've tried several ways to get that done lately. Recently those who disagreed with them were 'racists'. Now they are encouraging violence (the Left loves that one; Limbaugh has been encouraging violence all his life apparently). The whole point is to make whole areas of debate off limits so as to freeze the political position in their favor.
Orwell understood this better than anyone.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/30/2009 13:17 Comments ||
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#20
And who killed the Kennedys?
Lee Harvey Oswald: A communist defector to the Soviet Union
Sirhan Sirhan: A racist, anti-Jewish Arab inculcated as a child in the kill the Jews and their supporters ideology.
Guess what,? None of those groups are protesting Obama's and Dems cronyzation of 15% of the US economy. Matter of fact, at least one of those groups, and maybe both, are violently in support of Patrick Kennedy's position.
Posted by: ed ||
09/30/2009 13:37 Comments ||
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#21
"And who killed the Kennedys?"
-Ed, I thought it was you & me? (hat tip Mick & Keith)
#22
The only violence I've heard about in connection with the health care debate has been instigated by union goons. We've seen videos of goony donk enforcers pushing non-violent citizens out of town hall meetings for having the temerity to disagree. That's been about the size of it. That massive demonstration they had in DC against ObamaCare was strictly non-violent and well mannered. Some of the signs were indicative of a robust debate but, hey, that's democracy.
Don't like it? Try China or Russia. Try Iran.
I suspect the Nancy Pelosis and Patrick Kennedys of the world would love it if there really was some good, old fashioned rioting so they could play the victim and then crack down in police state fashion. It's a comfortable, familiar role for them and they play it so very well. Always with the compassion, they are. Always the sob story. But it isn't gonna work this time. If they want violence they're gonna have to start it themselves and they may not like the result.
"Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln were indeed vilified, during and after office, in ways that people today just wouldn't tolerate. I think that was his point. We managed to 'muddle through', though (as you point out) there was no guarantee that we would."
We had a civil war in 1860, we almost had secession during the war of 1812. I think our goal is better than muddling through. This sites focus is, you know, the WOT. We could lose 100,000 to an AQ nuke (far less than the losses during the Civil war) and we could "muddle through".
"What Patrick and the hard left want to do is to close off debate. They've tried several ways to get that done lately. Recently those who disagreed with them were 'racists'. Now they are encouraging violence (the Left loves that one; Limbaugh has been encouraging violence all his life apparently). The whole point is to make whole areas of debate off limits so as to freeze the political position in their favor."
On the contrary, they are just engaging in free speech themselves. They are no more cutting off speech than when folks here call out idiocies on the real hard left. I mean ANSWER and so on.
As for Orwell, he didnt mean what you seem to think he means. Indeed, Orwell was very negative about just the kind of ideological rigidity, code words substituting for thought, etc that passes for argument among many of you.
#26
The Brit is correct. This greatly effect the most basic need of every person. Their health. It would seem to me that on an issue this personal and critical, violence would not be unexpected.
If the left can state that religious terrorism is a response to the wests actions and should be addressed by the west not taking action, surely they must also think that not taking action on healthcare reform would stop any violence taken in opposition to it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2009 18:24 Comments ||
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Who can blame the Iranians for thinking they have Mr. Obama's number? The more that soft diplomacy doesn't work, the softer diplomacy becomes. Robert M. Gates, the president's defense secretary, says he's sure Mr. Ahmadinejad intends to build nuclear weapons, but he doesn't know what anyone can do about it except talk some more. "The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time." (But when that time runs out, couldn't the military just buy some more?)
There are signs that the Europeans, so eager only a year ago to march to the music of the piper from Hyde Park, are sobering up like the millions of independent voters who have stepped out of the parade in America. The buzz about Barack Obama at international conferences is no longer about how strong and artful he is in the presidential role, but how naive and artless reality has revealed him to be. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France is said to have told confidants that he thinks the American president is "weak."
Clark Judge, a recent delegate to the annual Global Security Review conference in Geneva, sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was surprised by the emerging "wide skepticism" of the president. "The impression emerged for me," he says, "that Mr. Obama's riveting rhetoric is in danger of turning from a plus to a minus." One former foreign minister scorns the president's "pointless rhetoric, no matter how elegantly expressed."
Reality is an unforgiving teacher, and inevitably grades on a steep curve. Mr. Obama imagined last year that he was auditioning to replace Martin Sheen on the television serial "West Wing." He's learning better now.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
If/when the electorate turns against 'pointless rhetoric', it will be morning again in America.
The New York Times, still smarting after losing scoops to Fox News, has thrown in the towel, vowing to avoid future embarrassment by monitoring the cable channel. We have a better idea -- it's called reporting.
An Illinois senator rises to the highest office in the land on pillars of a spectacularly slimy political organization, a group with a long record of voter fraud, theft, thuggery and partisanship. As sexy as such a story might seem, the New York Times didn't consider it news.
That's why the Times got scooped by outlets such as Fox News, for which it has nothing but contempt, on revelations that led to the fall of community organizing behemoth Acorn.
The wound was self-inflicted, rooted in little more than the partisanship of protecting a favored president. It left the field clear for a couple of journalism students to show that Acorn staffers openly encouraged pimping, child prostitution, human trafficking, mortgage fraud and tax evasion.
It's right there on tapes posted to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com. Unlike the disdainful Times, Fox ran with it, toppling a behemoth of political power.
Fox's judgment now seems to play the role the Times' once did, and the Times is no doubt left wondering how it could have lost out on yet another one.
It's not the first: It missed the John Edwards mistress and baby scandal in campaign 2008; it missed the National Endowment for the Arts press conference shilling for Obama;
To be fair, I doubt anybody played a recording of that teleconference for the editors of the New York Times. They hadn't an NEA Deep Throat, unlike Mr. Breitbart.
it also missed the debacle over the seamy background of "green jobs" czar Van Jones.
Now it's missed the Acorn scandals -- all because of its "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues dominating Fox News and talk radio," according to managing editor Jill Abramson, who will now "assign an (unnamed) editor to monitor opinion media."
Baloney. Those Fox stories had impact because they were fact-, not opinion-based. The public agreed, and the politicians were forced to act. The Times' "monitor" idea smears Fox as an opinion outfit whose product must be handled with tongs.
In fact, it's ideological bias that keeps Times journalists from covering the news with impact. The newspaper of record should be reporting the news "without fear or favor," as its motto says -- not simply by accepting the liberal line.
If they happen to hit their favorite politicians, too bad. Because if they don't do this, they aren't newsmen. By taking a cheap shot at Fox and then bitterly following it instead of leading, the Times blows its credibility even more than its missed scoops do.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
To be fair, I doubt anybody played a recording of that teleconference for the editors of the New York Times. They hadn't an NEA Deep Throat, unlike Mr. Breitbart.
1. A Deep Throat wouldn't go to the Times. The best he/she could expect would be to be ignored; they would also have to worry about being turned in.
2. The Times problem is that they ignore stories even after Fox or Briebart report them. They seem to have the idea that if a tree falls in the forest but the Times doesn't report it then it never happened.
#5
Last night I couldn't find the remote and watched Joy Behar's new show on HLN. She had Bette Midler on and she cited that she feared that Glenn Beck's demagoguery could incite a Rwanda type clash in the US that could result in the demise of a half a million people. Wow! Where's Sigmund Freud when you really need him?
#8
It's not the first: It missed the John Edwards mistress and baby scandal
Not exactly missed as much as chose not to pursue. Their mealy mouth excuse was they couldnt find a credible second source. Of course, that didnt prevent them from printing a salacious and totally non-sourced hit piece on McCain during the same period.
#12
This won't work for them either. Simply watching Fox and reporting on stories Fox breaks is going to help Fox make a further laughing stock out of the Times.
The only way they are going to see another decade is to remarket themselves as a paper for coastal sophisticates or to stop shouting about how much integrity they have and actually get some. Which would require a complete reboot of the entire institution. Bawwing about and attacking people who beat them to stories isn't going to work. Neither will following them to a story. I think they know this and that's why I think this new position isn't about getting to the stories Fox beats them too, it's about collecting ammo to use against Fox when Fox makes a mistake. I firmly believe this new postion is about sliming the competition.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
09/30/2009 18:48 Comments ||
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#13
They could raise their price if they positioned themselves as bird-cage liner . . . .
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.
They are from the government, and they don't want you to help.
Arizona Senator John McCain was the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008, but he's always had a challenging relationship with the GOP's base voters.
(CNN) -- Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, is making it known he's not happy with President Obama's recent meddling in the state's 2010 gubernatorial race.
The Senate Finance Committee voted down a government-run "public option" as part an overhaul of the nation's health-care system Tuesday, rejecting the first of two amendments offered by Democrats.
Drawing on his family's violent past, the Democratic congressman told roughly 75 people gathered at a private health-care forum Saturday morning that opponents of Democrat-backed health-care legislation had gone too far. He cited, as an example, 10,000 signs distributed at a recent Washington protest that read, "Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy."
Who can blame the Iranians for thinking they have Mr. Obama's number? The more that soft diplomacy doesn't work, the softer diplomacy becomes. Robert M. Gates, the president's defense secretary, says he's sure Mr. Ahmadinejad intends to build nuclear weapons, but he doesn't know what anyone can do about it except talk some more. "The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time." (But when that time runs out, couldn't the military just buy some more?)
The New York Times, still smarting after losing scoops to Fox News, has thrown in the towel, vowing to avoid future embarrassment by monitoring the cable channel. We have a better idea -- it's called reporting.
