Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) explained to Glenn Beck on his TV show last night how the radical left-wing activist group ACORN uses the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to shake down banks.
The federal government, in effect, threatens banks into lending money to risky mortgage borrowers, Bachmann said. The CRA allowed groups such as ACORN to use the law to push banks into doing things they didn't want to do.
CRA helped to change the way U.S. financial institutions operate. It didn't cover all mortgages, but the law opened the door for community organizers to weaken lending standards. ACORN pressed hard for the legislation that forced them to take on riskier borrowers. To seek a race-based kind of social justice, CRA prohibited banks from restricting loans to more affluent, creditworthy markets, a business practice now known by the epithet "redlining." The statute gave federal bureaucrats discretionary authority to make trouble for banks that failed to lend enough money to "underserved" minority communities.
After CRA took effect, ACORN and groups with similar goals entered the shakedown business. At one ACORN conference, Jesse Jackson urged an aggressive approach: "Why did Jesse James rob banks? Because that's where the money was." This megaphone-assisted panhandling intensified when the Clinton administration put the CRA on steroids. CRA allowed activists to blackmail lenders into handing out mortgages to people with little regard for their ability to keep up payments. Banks felt the heat from community organizers and CRA examiners and instead of fighting, they made loans they shouldn't have made, and they paid out millions of dollars in protection money to ACORN and its brethren.
If banks refused to play ball with ACORN, they risked receiving a failing CRA report card from government bureaucrats.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
You don't have to have either an armed revolution, or pressure from abroad, to take over a country.
#2
Jesse "Shakedown Artist" Jackson, ACORN, and the whole lot of them [Congressmen included who aided and abetted] should be prosecuted under RICO. Serving hard might straighten things out. They have just about destroyed the country. They are picking the bones now. On the other hand if we become Zimbabwe these guys will have to scramble to avoid some third world approach to the problems they have created.
#3
The lenders in Southern California didn't need any shakedowns to have been promoting these silly loans for years on billboards and other advertising. It was simply a very lucrative business....while it lasted.
Women in the State Legislature -- both Democrats and Republicans -- led an intense effort Friday to get State Sen. Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, to resign, or face expulsion proceedings, after his assault conviction a day earlier. By day's end, a split along racial and ethnic lines developed in the Democratic conference on whether the freshman senator should keep his seat.
Monserrate was acquitted Thursday in a nonjury trial on felony charges of slashing his girlfriend's face last December. But security cameras captured the lawmaker dragging the woman from the Queens apartment building where the injury occurred, en route to a Long Island hospital, which resulted in a misdemeanor assault conviction for using too much force.
Some Democrats called for the resignation of Monserrate, a former New York City police officer, for his role in what prosecutors described as a jealousy-fueled rage. But Sen. Ruben Diaz of the Bronx defended Monserrate, saying he was "found guilty of trying to do good by forcing his girlfriend to go to the hospital for treatment." Diaz also accused his colleagues of hypocrisy for supporting then-Sen. John Sabini of Queens last year following following drunken-driving plea -- but not Monserrate.
The controversy is more than just Monserrate's fate. Democrats hold a 32-30 majority in the State Senate. If Monserrate resigns, some say a special election might not be able to be held until early next year. So the Democrats would need Republican help to get the 32 votes needed to pass legislation -- such as measures to reduce the state deficit.
Monserrate also faces up to a year in jail.
Insiders said the misdemeanor conviction was the worst possible outcome for Senate Democrats because it keeps the issue festering. A felony conviction would have led to Monserrate's automatic expulsion, and an acquittal would have blunted the resignation demands.
The resignation demands came fast and furious Friday. State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said Monserrate should resign "for the sake of his constituents, the institution of the Senate and the Democratic Party." "Domestic violence is a scourge on our society," she added. "We're held to a high standard in the Senate, and I would expect he would understand that and resign immediately," said Sen. Neil D. Breslin, D-Albany. Other Democrats joined in those calls, with some saying they will push for expulsion proceedings if Monserrate does not resign.
The position of Buffalo-area Senate Democrats were unclear. Sen. Antoine M. Thompson, D-Buffalo, did not return a call seeking comment, but a Thompson aide left a voice mail message noting the Senate leadership "has been considering further action on Monserrate. Sen. William T. Stachowski, D-Lake View, could not be reached to comment.
Local Republicans were not shy. "It's an outrage that he's still in the Senate," said Sen. Catharine Young of Olean. "He needs to go immediately. Lawbreakers cannot be lawmakers."
Monserrate declined to comment.
Democrats opposed to ousting Monserrate include Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada of the Bronx. "As it relates to Albany business, I think it's something that should be put behind us now," Espada said. Last year, he and Monserrate formed a Hispanic-led alliance that led to last spring's coup allowing Republicans to regain control of the Senate temporarily.
Espada termed efforts to get Monserrate to resign as "misplaced attention" by lawmakers who should be spending their time weighing ways to reduce the state's deficit. "We don't need to retry this matter in the Senate," Espada said.
The state's chapter of the National Organization for Women, meanwhile, urged Democratic leaders to find "the courage to oust him for his behavior." NOW also criticized State Supreme Court Justice William M. Erlbaum, the judge in the nonjury trial, saying he ignored the 40 stitches on the woman's face, as well as testimony by hospital workers and the video.
"So the question now is: Will the Democratic leadership turn a blind eye for political expediency, or will they do the right thing? History intimates it is highly unlikely that the Democrats will rid themselves and New York of Sen. Monserrate, even though they could hold a special election and easily fill his seat with another Democrat," the NOW statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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found guilty of trying to do good by forcing his girlfriend to go to the hospital for treatment
Hummm.... Iran needs immediate surgery and long-term dental.
Pork-barrel spending is hardly new in Washington. But Winslow Wheeler, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, which conducted a study on this year's defense budget, said that "in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year."
Congress cut the administration's request for operations and maintenance, or O&M, by a total of about $3 billion. Instead of spending for training, repairs, spare parts, supplies, weapons, ammunition and the like, it allocated $2.8 billion for 778 different projects designed to enhance individual legislators' prestige, bring money to home districts or pay off campaign contributors.
#1
A gun law like this will turn most Americans into criminals. There is no way I will register my weapons.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/18/2009 17:35 Comments ||
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#2
First the bad news...per Snopes, this thing is out there, it's real and it's exactly as bad as you fear it could be.
Now for the...well, let's just call it the not so bad news. Both the Snopes article and the Thomas Register state that this PoS has zero co-sponsors, which indicates its chances of making it out of committee, much less actually passing both houses of Congress, are basically zip-point-doodoo.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
10/18/2009 17:44 Comments ||
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#3
I should have added - don't let the fact that this particular law has zero chance of passing make you complacent. Eternal vigilance, etc...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
10/18/2009 17:46 Comments ||
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#4
This bill was introduced by Bobby Rush. Cofounder and deputy defense minister of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, which clashed repeatedly with Chicago police. Two Panther leaders were shot to death by police in a 1969 raid.
Now: U.S. congressman for 15 years in Illinoiss First District
I doubt that this bill will ever see the light of day. Anyone supporting this bill in any place but Chicago would be committing political suicide. I doubt that most Americans would register their guns and thus would become lawbreakers under this bill. The bill was named after a teenager who was shot to death by another youth on a bus in Chicago. As I recall Chicago has draconian gun laws and those do not prevent anything. You end up with a bunch of thugs being the only ones armed with illegal guns. What do they give a flip about gun registration. Rush has got to be the village idiot. Didn't a bunch of young thugs beat an honor student to death with 4x4s while on his way home from school. Chicago clean up your own act. The draconian gun laws are being challenged by the same attorney who successfully challenged the Washington D.C. gun laws.
#1
Found on another website, seems appropriate here, hats off to the original poster/creator:
New Element Discovered
The Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science (Gv)
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
In fact, Governmentiums mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (Adm), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
-
The only thing Id change with this is the name. Id call it Obamic Governmentium.
#2
Gee, where have I seen that before? Oh yeah - in an email sent to me about 400-500 times by a buncha old coots and political-mouthbreathers whose entire interaction with the internet seems to be the 'forward' button on their email app.
The rise of conservative "tea party" activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans. They are breathing life into the party's quest to regain power. But they're also waging war on some candidates hand-picked by GOP leaders as the most likely to win.
In upstate New York, Dede Scozzafava, 49 years old, is the choice of local party leaders to defend a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, an abortion-rights candidate who could appeal to independents. Doug Hoffman, 59, is a local accountant backed by tea-party activists who has jumped into the race declaring himself the real conservative.
Mr. Hoffman has siphoned so much support from Ms. Scozzafava that their Democratic rival has vaulted into the lead, according to a poll released Thursday. The election is Nov. 3. "I am not your run-of-the-mill politician, and maybe that's why the Republican bosses didn't like me," Mr. Hoffman told a recent health-care forum sponsored by the Upstate New York Tea Party. In an interview, Ms. Scozzafava acknowledged her discomfort at the event. "I knew it wasn't going to be an easy audience for me," she said.
Republicans are poised to pick up a number of seats in next year's congressional elections, pollsters estimate, on the back of a deep recession, public unease about the growth of government and the size of the nation's deficit. Anti-Obama activism manifested in rallies and town-hall meetings has galvanized conservatives, injecting enthusiasm into the Republican base.
But these newly energized conservatives present GOP leaders with a potential problem: The party's strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity, who may then gravitate to other candidates or stay at home. It's a classic dilemma faced by parties in the minority -- tension between those who want a return to the party's ideological roots and those who want candidates most likely to win in their districts.
"The potential that the Republican Party puts up candidates that fail to excite the support of this movement is very real," says Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, University of Minnesota.
The race in upstate New York is a somewhat extreme example of this phenomenon. No one is suggesting the tea-party movement will cause the GOP to lose seats overall next year. As the only congressional election this fall, the race stands an early test of the party's ability to navigate these conflicting impulses.
In Florida, Republican leaders were elated when popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist agreed to run for the Senate. He has adopted policies such as an aggressive approach to global warming that appeal even to Democrats. Those very policies infuriated conservatives, as did Mr. Crist's decision to campaign with President Barack Obama on behalf of the president's $787 billion stimulus package.
"He was Judas to the Republican Party in the state of Florida and across the country," says Robin Stublen, 53, of Punta Gorda, co-state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, a loose national coalition. "He sold us out for 13 pieces of gold."
A spokesman for Mr. Crist said the governor made sure stimulus dollars went to items important to Florida voters.
Mr. Crist has drawn a primary challenge from Marco Rubio, a former Florida House speaker, who is aggressively seeking tea-party members' support.
The GOP scored another potential coup when Republican Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk decided to seek Mr. Obama's former Senate seat, now held by Democratic Sen. Roland Burris. Mr. Kirk, however, voted for a Democratic climate-change bill in the House, prompting about 30 people to hold a tea-party protest at his office. Many activists vow never to support him.
In New Hampshire, Republican leaders praise Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte as a new breed of telegenic Republican, even while some conservatives attack her record as state attorney general. Former Rep. Rob Simmons, who is seeking a Senate seat in Connecticut, and Rep. Mike Castle, who just announced his Senate candidacy in Delaware, face similar scorn. RINOs have demonstrated that they will support Democrats and the Democrat platform before they will support Conservatives. And the Conservatives have had enough of it.
#1
There little difference between Afghan tribes and RINOs in that both practice the 'strong horse' politics. That's why RINOs should never control the levers and purse strings of a party.
#3
Um, nope, DMFD. Case in point, Olympia Snowe. That dumb bunny's vote is gonna be used as proof of "bipartisanship" on health care, and will give the other RINO's an excuse to vote for that monstrosity.
#4
This article is rubbish- the CV of the 'journalist' was no surprise. (Los Angeles Times, NPR, Columbia University, etc. etc.)
The party's strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity[...]
No, the party is running candidates who are weak/non-existent on the ECONOMIC core. Ms. Scozzafava, for instance, is endorsed by New York's WFP. That means ACORN to the rest of you. She may also have some campaign-funding mischief- I don't know about that personally (she is upstate, I am City.)
Several of the others mentioned are associated with the stimulus or the anthropogenic global warming scam. Those are tea-party red-lines, as I understand it.
If the WSJ doesn't want to hire minimally knowledgeable writers, they can die with the rest.
#5
Hereby declare is open season on RINOs. Challenge them all and kick then to the curb. The next political compromise should come from the left and not from the right.
#6
There is a danger in running RINOs as was evidenced by McCain. He looked very much like a Democrat. We ended up getting BO. I think the very problem is not having ideological purity and getting blurred with the Democrats.
#9
That dumb bunny's vote is gonna be used as proof of "bipartisanship" on health care, and will give the other RINO's an excuse to vote for that monstrosity.
I don't know, Cornsilk Blondie... they mocked the 1 vote=bipartisanship claim on Saturday Night Live last night.
.5MT, I don't think you need worry about the Paulites. They're too busy getting stoned to cause the rest of us any trouble... kind of like khat chewers, only less dribbly green.
Illinois state Sen. James DeLeo (D-Chicago) -- who has made public statements questioning the existence of the Chicago mob -- was credited by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office with trying to help the widow of one of Chicago's most infamous slain mobsters.
The Northwest Side lawmaker is listed in a secret hiring database the then-governor's aides kept as the political sponsor for Anne Spilotro, the widow of murdered mob associate Michael Spilotro.
She's among 146 "recommended" job candidates linked to DeLeo by Blagojevich's office, though it isn't clear for what job. Thirty-nine of them wound up being hired or promoted, according to the records, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, making DeLeo one of the top go-to guys at the Statehouse for jobs inside the Blagojevich administration.
'I'd remember that name'
"There's names on there I've never recognized," DeLeo said when shown copies of the job lists bearing his name. "I don't even know where they came from, who hired them. I have no idea who most of those people are.
"It makes me angry people's names are on a list with my name coded in there [and] that I don't even recognize any these names."
DeLeo said he knew Anne Spilotro but had no idea why she was on his jobs list. "Would I remember that name? Would I remember that name?" DeLeo repeated. "I'd remember that name. I would remember that name."
Michael Spilotro's brother, Anthony Spilotro, was once the Chicago crime syndicate's Las Vegas boss. The bodies of the brothers were found buried in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield after they were beaten to death in a 1986 mob hit.
In 2007, Anne Spilotro testified in the landmark Operation Family Secrets mob trial that she felt ripped off by DeLeo and another investor who bought her business in the late 1980s, after her husband was killed.
Spilotro, an employee of the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation since 1998, ...
... perfect place to stash a mob moll ...
... said she never discussed changing jobs or a promotion with DeLeo. "I haven't even talked to him for years," she said.
Another name on DeLeo's jobs list is the daughter of Marty Gutilla, managing partner of Tavern on Rush, the bar DeLeo co-owns with Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and others. Shauna Gutilla Kelley, a $99,924-a-year division head for the Illinois Commerce Commission, was hired by Blagojevich's administration in August 2003. Since then, her salary has risen 59 percent, state records show.
DeLeo denied persuading Blagojevich's administration to hire or promote her -- though he acknowledged recommending Kelley for a state job "two administrations ago," under now-imprisoned former Gov. George Ryan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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For a second, I thought this article was about one of my homies. Guess I'll have to give it some time...
The bodies of the brothers were found buried in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield after they were beaten to death in a 1986 mob hit.
Representative Earl Blumenauer should be experiencing the most fulfilling days of his more than 35 years in public service.
The liberal Democrat from Portland, Ore. -- known for his bowties, his Trek bicycle and a pragmatic brand of progressivism -- embraced Barack Obama's presidential candidacy early in 2008 and campaigned hard alongside him, steadily gaining confidence that the young senator from Illinois was the ideal liberal remedy to eight years of conservative dominance.
Now political reality has set in, testing Mr. Blumenauer's faith that Mr. Obama's election and big Democratic majorities in Congress would yield quick advances in the progressive agenda.
Instead of forging ahead, Mr. Blumenauer, 61, finds himself fighting to retain one of the touchstones for liberals this year, a public insurance option in the health care overhaul, and is watching his hopes of curbing global warming grow cold in the Senate. Mr. Blumenauer, a seven-term congressman, is bracing for a tough vote on sending more troops to Afghanistan while he frets about the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay remaining open.
"It has been a hard landing for a lot of the people that I represent," Mr. Blumenauer, referring to his largely liberal constituency, said as he assessed the first months of the Obama administration.
As health care legislation moves to the floor with other major issues close behind, the question for Mr. Blumenauer and those who share his ideology will be whether they relent on some of their core beliefs to support less satisfying compromises, despite being in what, on the surface, is a commanding political position.
"It is still something that I am struggling with," he said.
Mr. Blumenauer is just one example of what might be called the Frustrated Left, a substantial caucus of Congressional Democrats who dreamed that Mr. Obama would usher in a new era of liberal problem-solving only to see Congress and the new administration collide with the old problems of partisanship, internal disagreement and the challenge of mustering 60 votes to get just about anything done in the Senate.
While Congressional leaders try to appease moderate and conservative Democrats who can provide the crucial votes for passage, more liberal Democrats from safer districts sometimes simmer, feeling that they are being taken for granted while it is assumed they will get on board when the time comes.
On health care, Democrats are growing more optimistic that they can find a compromise approach to creating a government-run insurer to compete with the private sector -- an issue that as much as any other has split the party's liberals and moderates -- even as progressive voices outside of Congress insist that there be no compromise.
"The fact is that Earl Blumenauer could stop a bill going through that does not have a public option in it," said Jane Hamsher, founder of the progressive blog firedoglake.com. "Is it his loyalty to the party, partisan politics over principle? We are going to get to see that."
Mr. Blumenauer strongly favors a public option and in late July was one of more than 60 Democrats who signed a letter to the leadership saying that, essentially, they would not back a final bill without an acceptable public plan. But on health care -- as on other domestic issues, global warming and foreign policy -- he must weigh whether it makes more sense to take what he can get as opposed to standing firm and perhaps seeing the overall effort collapse.
"It would be very hard for me to do," Mr. Blumenauer said of voting for a final health care overhaul without a public plan. "But if it gets to the point where the choice is doing some things that will make a significant difference without a public option or letting the whole thing die, that too would be hard."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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"It would be very hard for me to do," Mr. Blumenauer said of voting for a final health care overhaul without a public plan. "But if it gets to the point where the choice is doing some things that will make a significant difference without a public option or letting the whole thing die, that too would be hard."
So this is a story about a man with morals. And the end of the story, as noted above, is that he is willing to sell out those morals. Ahhh. That's so .... something.
The federal government, in the face of allegations it was trampling on free speech, has closed its investigation of a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under President Obama's health reform plan.
U.S. health officials announced Friday that private insurers can send seniors information on health-related issues as long as they allow their members to opt out of receiving the communications, apparently ending its probe of Humana.
"While we feel it is important to protect Medicare beneficiaries from potentially unwelcome marketing and other communications, we also recognize plans' interest in contacting their enrollees on issues unrelated to the specific plan benefit that they contract with CMS to provide to those enrollees," Teresea DeCaro, acting director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Drug and Health Plan Contract Administration Group, wrote in a memo.
Republicans, who had slammed Obama officials for launching the probe, welcomed the news but still expressed concerns.
"I am relieved that the administration is no longer misusing its regulatory authority to prohibit plans from communicating to seniors factual information about the Medicare cuts in health care reform," Rep. Dave Camp, the senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a written statement.
"However, I remain concerned that CMS overstepped in issuing its gag order as a result of undue political pressure to penalize anyone who dare speak out against the Democrats' health care bill," he said. "We still need to get the answers to how and why this gag order was issued."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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More than a year ago, Andrew -- a Hoosier, superdelegate and former leader of the Democratic Parties in both Indiana and DC -- switched from backing then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to then-Sen. Barack Obama just days before the May 6, 2008 Indiana primary.
And this week President Obama nominated his wife, Anne Slaughter Andrew, to be the ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica.
She's "currently the Principal of New Energy Nexus, LLC and advises companies and entrepreneurs on investments and strategies to capitalize on the New Energy Economy," the White House press release says. "Andrew has successfully advised companies in her corporate environmental/energy law practice, serving as Of Counsel at Bingham McHale and as Co-Chair of the Environment/Energy Team at Baker & Daniels, and also serving as a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Patton & Boggs."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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Dare Mr. Wife be any relation to SGT SLAUGHTER???
A federal judge has ruled that Virginia violated the voting rights of military service members and other Americans overseas when officials failed to mail more than 2,100 absentee ballots in time for last year's presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Richard Williams also ordered Friday that the Virginia Board of Elections count and certify the absentee ballots.
The ballots from military service members and others living outside the state were the focus of a lawsuit filed by Republican candidate John McCain's campaign, which alleged that they weren't mailed in time for overseas voters to return them before the polls closed Nov. 4.
The missing ballots would not have swung the election in Virginia where President Barack Obama won by nearly 233,000 votes.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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I believe that Virginia is trying the same stunt again this year.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/18/2009 1:06 Comments ||
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#2
Yes, one party has amply demonstrated through actions to seek to disenfranchise one specific group of its citizens from having their votes counted. It's also the one that constantly tries to smear its largest competitor with doing exactly that to other groups. Pure Freudian projection.
The ranking Republican on the Senate's energy committee on Saturday signaled she could vote for a revised version of Democrats' forthcoming cap-and-trade bill.
In an interview to air Sunday on C-SPAN, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) explained she would "keep her mind open" during debate over the hotly contested carbon-reduction proposal, a version of which has already passed the House. The Alaska Republican also suggested she could vote for the final bill if it expands domestic oil drilling and better funds nuclear power.
"When you see changes to the land coming about ... what is causing the loss of the sea ice that adds to the erosion issues, yes, in Alaska we are seeing change," Murkowski told C-SPAN. "That's why I have been one of those Republicans who has stepped out front a little bit more on the issue of climate change."
Murkowski's stated interest in working with Democrats on cap-and-trade legislation is good news to the majority party, which failed to court more than a handful of House Republicans to vote for their carbon-reduction measure earlier this year. Ultimately, scoring a key Senate Republican's early commitment to a compromise could help Democratic leaders shore up more GOP support as their bill progresses through Congress.
But Murkowski is not the only prominent Republican recently to signal a willingness to negotiate the details of cap-and-trade with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Senate bill's chief sponsor.
Already, the majority party has scored preliminary support of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who stressed last week in an op-ed he co-authored with Kerry that the two lawmakers "have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future that will revitalize our economy, protect current jobs and create new ones, safeguard our national security and reduce pollution."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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If Cap 'n' Trade really was about stopping global warming shouldn't the Alaska delegation be against the legislation? Couldn't Alaska use a little warming up?
#2
Make a deal with the dems that they will keep their end of the bargain? Shame on you Senator Murkowski. Looking for a wee bone for Alaska. Begging the traitor dems. We are screwed. The trunks are bloody invertebrates.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2009 1:25 Comments ||
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Murkowski is a train wreck, as was her father, Ted Stevens and most Alaska R's.
The Rev. Al Sharpton threatened to sue conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for writing in a column that the civil rights leader played a role in two New York race riots.
In a column published by the Wall Street Journal today about his derailed bid to become part-owner of the St. Louis Rams, he accuses Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson of making comments that helped get him booted from a group that was trying to buy the NFL team.
Limbaugh derided Sharpton as having played "a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot" and the "1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."
Those comments prompted a quick retort from Sharpton, who called both allegations false.
Sharpton was not present for or involved in the rioting in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section in August 1991, during which hundreds of blacks were involved in attacks on the neighborhood's Jewish residents. He did deliver a eulogy at the funeral of the youth whose death in a traffic accident triggered the violence, but that didn't happen until the violence ended.
Sharpton also wasn't present on Dec. 8, 1995, when a lone, black gunman burst into Freddie's Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned business in Harlem, started shooting and set the building on fire. Seven people died. There was no riot.
Sharpton's organization had, like other black groups, been involved in picketing the business over its plans to expand into space occupied by a black-owned business, but he said he couldn't be blamed for the madman's rampage.
"Unless Mr. Limbaugh apologizes and clarifies his statements, attorneys for Rev. Sharpton will move forward with a lawsuit," said a written statement released today by Sharpton's spokeswoman. "He has the right to criticize Rev. Sharpton, but he does not have the right to accuse him of criminal activity, and riots and murders are criminal."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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Sharpton was not present for or involved in the rioting in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section in August 1991, during which hundreds of blacks were involved in attacks on the neighborhood's Jewish residents. He did deliver a eulogy at the funeral of the youth whose death in a traffic accident triggered the violence, but that didn't happen until the violence ended.
And --
Sharpton also wasn't present on Dec. 8, 1995, when a lone, black gunman burst into Freddie's Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned business in Harlem, started shooting and set the building on fire. Seven people died. There was no riot.
Thus spoke this reporter aka Journalist, leading one to believe, Rush is lying...... mmmmm, mmmmm mmmmmm
Begun as a loosely affiliated groundswell of Constitution-waving protesters in tri-cornered hats, the Tea Party movement is now starting to rock the political establishment in key arenas.
The growing numbers of Americans coming out to the Tax Day Tea Party, the Fourth of July Tea Parties, and then the 9/12 Tea Party march on Washington are going back to their home districts and keeping up -- even intensifying -- the fight for smaller government and more transparency on spending and taxation.
In places like New York, Florida, California, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, local, state, congressional, and gubernatorial seats are suddenly being tugged to-and-fro by the new and unruly political force.
The upshot?
The street energy is welcome for an otherwise moribund Republican party looking for new moorings amid a tumultuous electorate.
The downside is that early examples shows that, in the short run, Tea Party-sponsored candidates could make it more difficult for Republicans as they -- Ross Perot-like -- split races as they target both "tax and spend" Democrats and those they like to call RINOs, or "Republicans-in-name-only."
"In the Republican primaries, especially, the Tea Party movement could be a very significant force" -- and not always in the Republicans' favor -- says Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.
In New York's 23rd congressional district, Democrats may ultimately thank Tea Party conservatives for backing businessman Doug Hoffman, a Conservative Party candidate, in a three-way congressional race in November -- the sole national race this year.
Mr. Hoffman's supporters have pulled voters away from the Republican moderate, Dede Scozzafava, leaving the Democrat, Bill Hoffman, with the lead, according to polls. The "NY-23" battle, as it's called, is already causing rifts in the Republican party, with Tea Party activists booing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for backing Scozzafava.
In Florida, former Republican House Speaker Marco Rubio is courting Tea Party activists in a primary challenge to Gov. Charlie Crist, whom Tea Partiers see as a "Judas" for supporting the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law by President Obama in February.
In a perhaps unwelcome strike for Republicans near the President's home turf, Tea Party activists have turned against the bid by Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican, to seek Obama's former Senate seat, citing Mr. Kirk's support for a climate change bill.
Other Tea Party targets for scorn include Senate-seekers such as Republican up-and-comer Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware, and former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut. Tea Party activists also could play a role in Republican primary matchups in Texas (Rick Perry versus Kay Bailey Hutchinson) and in Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey versus Arlen Specter).
"The American people are finally standing up and saying no to political correctness and no to the hijacking of our freedoms, liberty and our culture," says Tea Party activist Lloyd Marcus. "It's not about Republican or Democrat any more. It's about character and principle."
In Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader John Boehner have both egged on the Tea Party activists, trying to "align the GOP with the protesters' frustrations," says the Wall Street Journal.
"It's really interesting to see how the Republican party and its various entities try to sort of harness [the Tea Party movement]," says Andrew Moylan, government affairs manager at the National Taxpayers Union, which helped organize the 9/12 Tea Party protests in Washington. "The fact is it's really grown and become an incredible force that we're only now beginning to see the practical effects of."
To be sure, some, moderate Republicans have started calling out their Tea Party wing (see Monitor writer Brad Knickerbocker's take here) -- epitomized by Fox News' Glenn Beck and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- as ultimately deleterious to the party's chances to grab hold of key independent voters in swing states.
Risking the alienation of divided partisans is commonplace, history shows, when a particular party has suffered heavy defeat
"The people that get knocked off are your moderates and you become smaller and more ideologically extreme," says Peter Beinart, a senior fellow at the liberal New America Foundation and a Daily Beast columnist. "The Republicans are still early on in that process. They're in a ditch, but they haven't stopped digging yet."
Pollsters say many Democratic lawmakers -- especially in blue states where Democrats made dramatic inroads last year -- are likely to be vulnerable in next year's elections because of the growing deficit, unemployment, healthcare votes, and other hot-button issues facing the country.
Yet even six months ago, few political observers could have intuited the prairie fire speed and ferocity of the Tea Party movement -- or its already considerable impact on the national political debate and looming political races.
The 9/12 event in Washington, in particular, "was a landmark event," says Mr. Moylan at the NTU.
Like the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, he says, "Here was this outgrowth of frustration about policies in the country and problems that were going on, a huge outpouring of people, and then they translated it into action. That's going to be the measure of the Tea Party movement: How it can translate [protests] into action."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
the RINOs are desperately trying to assert that they are needed otherwise the "party will split". How about the Party adjusting to fit in the tea party platforms?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/18/2009 8:15 Comments ||
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#2
Yet another sign that the Beltway crowd just doesn't get it at all.
#3
Yep, that is what my local Tea Party is doing - looking for candidates - Dem, Lib or Repub - who are strict Constitutionalists, support the free market, and reducing the role of the federal government to something more like the founders intended. Yes, we are thinking long-term, which probably does have the Beltway Establishment starting to piss their pants.
The old-line Repub establishment seems to be desperately flailing around, trying to figure out how they can be seen as being in charge of all this new-found energy and involvement, but the funny thing is, most of us are almost as furious and exasperated with them as we are the Dems. I kind of like Bill Quick's term, which Instapundit linked last night; he called them s**t-sandwich Republicans, as in (quoting inexactly here) "You better take a bit of that s**t sandwich and pretend it's delicious jam as you vote for us - for after all, we aren't Democrats."
Well, the insurgents are here - and the Repub leadership may very well turn into something like the Whigs, of the 1850's.
#4
"You better take a bit of that s**t sandwich and pretend it's delicious jam as you vote for us - for after all, we aren't Democrats."
But you see the people out here don't see a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. You have both gotten us into the "jam (or s**t)" we are in.
#5
But you see the people out here don't see a dime's worth of difference between the two parties. You have both gotten us into the "jam (or s**t)" we are in.
I suspect a lot of people staying home instead of holding their nose and voting for the imperfect republican _did_ get us into the pile of sh_t we're been in since 2006. As much as I dislike certain RINOs, the Democrat ascendancy in Congress _HAS_ been much worse than the Republicans have been.
If you don't like the current crop of Republicans, there _are_ primaries for that purpose. Using the general election for that purpose has brought the country somewhere between 15-20% unemployment and a Democratic supermajority bent on washing away as many industries as they can.
#7
I think we now have a third political party. Call it the Tea Party. I actually think that a Tea Party Convention should be held just before the 2010 Elections, with representatives from all 50 states, to select their nominee. Does not have to be a "Tea Party" candidate, it can be candidates who honor the consititution, Republican, (as much as I hate to say it) Dem, Independent.
#8
Why not go all the way and start nominating "Tea Party" candidates TODAY, and support them. We might see enough Tea Party wins to destroy both the Democheat majority and scare the sh$$ out of the Repuglycons. There is not one word in our Constitution about political parties. They have no more "right" to post candidates than anyone else. A single person running as an "Independent" is hard-pressed to compete, but being supported by a third or more of the electorate as THEIR candidate could cause some heads to explode. Depending on the person running, I'd be willing to not only vote for them, but work for them in their campaign.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/18/2009 20:52 Comments ||
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Want to know how to deal with a momentous issue of war or grand strategy? You could do a lot worse than check out what Vice-President Joe Biden thinks -- and plump for the opposite.
Mr Biden was chosen as Barack Obama's running mate last August because he was old, white and supposedly knew a lot about foreign policy. I say "supposedly" because really Mr Biden's overseas expertise amounted to having spent a long time as chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee, knowing the names of lots of world leaders, and being able to josh around amiably with them during congressional junkets across the globe.
What Mr Obama overlooked was that Mr Biden, who served as a senator for tiny Delaware for 36 years, had never run anything in his life, or taken decisions rather than talking about things, at legendary length. Even in the United States Senate, that august body which each week produces enough hot air to transport 1,000 six-year-olds across America, Mr Biden -- who sports hair plugs and a set of porcelain-enhanced gnashers that would blind a polar bear -- is renowned for his wordiness.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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Actually, and I'm not being facetious, Biden is probably the wisest (intelligence*reality perception) member of the current USA administration.
(CNN) -- White House communications director Anita Dunn fired back at criticism from TV commentator Glenn Beck on Friday, saying that a Mao Tse-tung quote Beck took issue with was picked up from legendary GOP strategist Lee Atwater.
White House communications director Anita Dunn says she picked up a Mao quote from a legendary Republican. "The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater from something I read in the late 1980s, so I hope I don't get my progressive friends mad at me," Dunn told CNN.
As for Beck's criticism: "The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing."
On Thursday night's program, Beck showed exclusive video of Dunn discussing the communist leader, who was responsible for a cultural revolution in 1966 that included re-education camps and setting the army and students on witch hunts against his opponents. Millions of Chinese suffered or died, most notably teachers, writers, political opponents or anyone deemed a "reactionary."
Dunn, taped in a speech in what appears to be a church, said the leader's philosophies were a guidepost for her own strategy on politics. She also praised the philosophy used by religious icon Mother Teresa. "The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is 'you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before."
The comments set Beck into a tirade. "It's insanity. This is her hero's work," he said. "She thinks of this man's work all the time? It would be like me saying to you, 'you know who my favorite political philosopher is? Adolf Hitler.' Have you read Mein Kampf? [She wants to] fight your fight like Hitler did," Beck said.
Dunn recently blasted Fox News saying that the cable news organization often operates as either "the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."
"When he [Obama] goes on Fox, he understands that he's not really going on it as a news network at this point. He's going to debate the opposition. And that's fine. He never minds doing that.
"They're widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party. Take [the GOP's] talking points, put them on the air, take [the GOP's] opposition research, put them on the air," Dunn said.
Fox News in a statement to CNN said its programming was comparable to the editorial page of a newspaper.
Still, Beck wasted no time Thursday in using Dunn's comments to blast the Obama administration for promoting what he deems a radical agenda. "America, how many radicals is it going to take? How many radicals surrounding our president before you understand that when the president said he wants to transform the country, he wants to transform it all right," Beck said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/18/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Anyone who thinks she was joking should listen to that tape of her speech before they make a comment.
#2
Here is a perfect opportunity for Obama to say Dunn acted stupidly. Think he'll do it? Me neither.
Posted by: ed ||
10/18/2009 1:59 Comments ||
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#3
No sale.
1) Who uses ironic references to political strategists when speaking to a high-school audience?
2) How many 17-18 yr olds know who the hell Lee Atwater was? Why should they even care?
I trust that the right-wing hate machine people doing reporters jobs are trying to hunt down ANY reference to Atwater and Mao... by anybody. What was this book? 1 gets you 10 that NO such quote exists.
#6
Anita Dunn reminds me of the villainous Russian Colonel Rosa Klebb in "From Russia with Love". She successfully poisons James Bond by means of fugu venom tipped dart hidden in her shoe.
#7
She is who she is and that quote was not irony--she meant it no matter how you spin it or nuance it or how you pass the buck back to Beck and FOX. She is an admirer of Communist thug who killed millions. I recall some quote about putting lipstick on a pig back during the election season.
#8
She is an admirer of Communist thug who killed millions.
That's the real point, isn't it -- not that she looked up Mao in the Book of Famous Quotations for a zinger, but that she doesn't have a problem with all that Mao did.
Lee Atwater might have used the quote, but he never admired the murder of millions of people.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/18/2009 11:12 Comments ||
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#9
After watching her speak on U-Tube, I get the impression that we have been invaded by an Alien Species from Outer Space, that Geco/Lizzard Tongue thing is a dead give-a-way
#11
I heard her audio and was amazed to hear of Mao and Mother Theresa in the same breath. Glenn Beck may be over the top at times, but ad hominem attacks by the WH is SOP for criticisms of their policies by anybody.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/18/2009 15:49 Comments ||
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#12
AP - the audio doesn't do justice. Watch the weird lizard-like lip licking presentation to get the whole icky feel
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/18/2009 16:12 Comments ||
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#13
Over-statement is inherent to heated rhetoric. That is why statesmen declare clear positions that negate rant. Or maybe Hussein O isn't a statesman?
I can't say I like Beck, but I don't go ape-shht when I disagree with him.
#14
At WikiAnswers, the question was posted, did Lee Atwater say sarcastically that Mao was one of his favorite philosophers. The answer was no. Lee Atwater quoted Mao to make a point but he never said sarcastically that Mao was one of his favorite philosophers. Dunn is bald faced lieing.
#15
"The Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater from something I read in the late 1980s, so I hope I don't get my progressive friends mad at me," Dunn told CNN.
#16
Notice that Ms. Lizard Lips keeps bringing up the dead (Mao, Mother Teresa, Lee Atwater)? None of them are available to comment if she even got their remarks correct, much less in the proper context. I'm guessing....nope, not even close.
#17
After watching her speak on U-Tube, I get the impression that we have been invaded by an Alien Species from Outer Space, that Geco/Lizzard Tongue thing is a dead give-a-way
#1
It's both astounding and sad but, if this article is correct, the incidence of AIDS in the adult black male population of DC is well above 5%.
Posted by: lord garth ||
10/18/2009 13:49 Comments ||
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#2
The solution is obvious - we must spend more money!
Well, at least it's obvious to a Democrat.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/18/2009 14:24 Comments ||
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#3
One more failure of our government. The US Constitution dictates that Congress should manage the City of Washington, DC. Congress has unconstitutionally shed itself of that responsibility by "giving" DC self-government. The reason they weren't given self-government in the first place is because it would become a political sewer, supported by Federal dollars, but not supervised in how those dollars were spent. DC is now a cess-pool of corruption and disease. There's no chance of changing anything until we get rid of the "old" crowd and their staff.
Every current member, and any living former-member, of Congress should be hanged for their dereliction of duty. Use the lamp posts along the MALL, and let the bodies hang there until they rot.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/18/2009 18:35 Comments ||
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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.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) explained to Glenn Beck on his TV show last night how the radical left-wing activist group ACORN uses the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to shake down banks. 
Women in the State Legislature -- both Democrats and Republicans -- led an intense effort Friday to get State Sen. Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, to resign, or face expulsion proceedings, after his assault conviction a day earlier. By day's end, a split along racial and ethnic lines developed in the Democratic conference on whether the freshman senator should keep his seat.
The rise of conservative "tea party" activists around the country has created a dilemma for Republicans. They are breathing life into the party's quest to regain power. But they're also waging war on some candidates hand-picked by GOP leaders as the most likely to win.
But these newly energized conservatives present GOP leaders with a potential problem: The party's strategy for attracting moderate voters risks alienating activists who are demanding ideological purity, who may then gravitate to other candidates or stay at home. It's a classic dilemma faced by parties in the minority -- tension between those who want a return to the party's ideological roots and those who want candidates most likely to win in their districts.
Illinois state Sen. James DeLeo (D-Chicago) -- who has made public statements questioning the existence of the Chicago mob -- was credited by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's office with trying to help the widow of one of Chicago's most infamous slain mobsters.
Representative Earl Blumenauer should be experiencing the most fulfilling days of his more than 35 years in public service.
The ranking Republican on the Senate's energy committee on Saturday signaled she could vote for a revised version of Democrats' forthcoming cap-and-trade bill.
The Rev. Al Sharpton threatened to sue conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for writing in a column that the civil rights leader played a role in two New York race riots.
Begun as a loosely affiliated groundswell of Constitution-waving protesters in tri-cornered hats, the Tea Party movement is now starting to rock the political establishment in key arenas.
Want to know how to deal with a momentous issue of war or grand strategy? You could do a lot worse than check out what Vice-President Joe Biden thinks -- and plump for the opposite.
(CNN) -- White House communications director Anita Dunn fired back at criticism from TV commentator Glenn Beck on Friday, saying that a Mao Tse-tung quote Beck took issue with was picked up from legendary GOP strategist Lee Atwater.
