November 30, 2007
Presidential hopeful Delaware Sen. Joe Biden stated unequivocally that he will move to impeach President Bush if he bombs Iran without Congressional approval.Biden spoke in front of a crowd of approximately 100 at a Seacoast Media Group forum Thursday, which focused on the Iraq War and foreign policy. When an audience member expressed fear of another war with Iran, he said he does not typically engage in threats, but had no qualms about issuing a direct warning to the oval office.
“The President has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran and if he does, as foreign relations committee chairman, I will move to impeach,” said Biden, which was followed by a raucous applause.
Biden said he is in the process of meeting with constitutional law experts to prepare a legal memorandum saying as much, and intends to send it to the President.
When resident Joel Carp asked Biden why not impeach now given what has already been done, Biden said it was a valid point but might not be constitutionally valid and potentially counterproductive. A case for impeachment must have clear evidence, he said, and blame should be directed at the right parties.
“If you’re going to impeach George Bush, you better impeach Cheney first,” said Biden, which also received applause.
Now letÂ’s look at a couple of points here.
1) “The President has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran
I believe that Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states that “[t]he President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States…”, gants operational control of the military to the President. As such, he does, in fact, have the authority to order an attack if it is in the national security interests of the United States.
2. and if he does, as foreign relations committee chairman, I will move to impeach
There are some minor provisions of the Constitution related to impeachment that would make this problematic. After all, Article I Section 2 makes it clear where the power to impeach lies – with the House of Represenatives.
The House of Representatives . . . shall have the sole power of impeachment.
Therefore, Joe Biden has absolutely no authority to impeach anyone from his high and exalted status as foreign relations committee chairman.
Of course, in the event articles of impeachment are passed through the House of Representatives, Biden will be but one vote out of 100 when the Senate exercises this power, as per Article I, Section 3.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation.
Now even there, we have an interesting issue. Removal of an impeached individual requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Even in cases in which there is manifest evidence of actual criminal conduct, as in the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, the partisan divide in the Senate is likely to prevent the removal of an impeached president. Biden knows quite well that there are at least 34 Republicans – and at least one Democrat – who will vote against impeachment based upon what amounts to a policy difference, something which cannot legitimately be seen as constituting “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” under Article II, Section 4.
So in the end, all this statement by Joe Biden tells us is that he doesn’t know sh!t about the Constitution – or that he is willing to sh!t on the Constitution for partisan purposes. In either event, he is clearly unfit to hold any office under the Constitution.
Interestingly enough, Joe Biden also made a point which explains why none of the other Democrat candidates is fit to be President, either.
"I ask you a rhetorical question: Are you prepared to vote for anyone - at this moment in our history - as president who is not capable of being secretary of state? Who among my opponents would you consider appointing secretary of state? Seriously. Think about it."
I did – and wept for my country at the prospect of having any of this crop of Democrats serve as president at this moment in our history.
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The Gallup Poll found that independents and Democrats are twice as likely to rate their own state of mental health as fair or poor than Republicans are.Only 8% of Republicans rated their state of mental health as fair or poor.
17% of independents said fair or poor.
15% of Democrats said fair or poor.
At the other end of the scale, 58% or Republicans rated their mental health as excellent.
43% of independents said excellent.
Only 38% of Democrats said excellent.
So we now have empirical evidence to support what we already knew – the Democrats are nuts!
H/T Don Surber
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A day after admitting to reporters that "the surge is working," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., one of the most ardent critics of President Bush's war policy, issued a statement Friday softening that assessment, this time calling it "a window of opportunity."
* * * "The military surge has created a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government," Murtha's statement read. "Unfortunately, the sacrifice of our troops has not been met by the Iraqi government and they have failed to capitalize on the political and diplomatic steps that the surge was designed to provide.
"The fact remains that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily, and that we must begin an orderly redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as practicable."
I wonder why the change? This could explain it (H/T Captain Ed).
But Pelosi, who is scheduled to speak to a Democratic National Committee event in Virginia on Friday, will surely face tough questions from reporters regarding Murtha's statement on the surge."This could be a real headache for us," said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Pelosi is going to be furious."
Translation – Murtha put Party ahead of Country on this one.
So let’s see – he was for victory before he was against victory before he was for victory and is now firmly against victory.
I guess that make Murtha AmericaÂ’s biggest loser.
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November 29, 2007
Now if he will only admit he tried to railroad the Haditha marines for political purposes.
U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy."I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves."
Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda.
He said Iraqis need to duplicate that success at the national level, but the central government in Baghdad is "dysfunctional."
In other words, he is saying what those of us in the conservative blogosphere have been saying for months. And while I agree with him tha there is more to be done by the Iraqi government, I think he's wrong on one point. That government is no more dysfunctional than the accomplishment-free Democrat-controlled Congress we have in this country.
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An elderly widow is forking out £2,000 a month for drugs to stop her going blind - because the NHS won't fund them.Dorothy Robinson, 87, who suffers from neovascular macular degeneration, went blind in one eye four years ago after being told there was no treatment available on the NHS.
Now the great-grandmother has been warned she will lose sight in the other eye unless she receives injections to treat the condition. But the NHS in Cambridgeshire has said it will not fund them so Dorothy has put her hand in her own pocket.
Oh, that’s right – the last time Hildebeast attempted to impose government control it would have become illegal to pay for medical treatment. Someone like Mrs. Robinson would simply have to go blind.
Just say no to the Democrats and their plans to play with your health.
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But not this bad, at least not normally.
I confused two individuals in my memory, and really said some particularly negative things above. I was so certain that Linda Howell had been Gary Gillen's Party Secretary that I didn't go back to earlier articles to double check. I was wrong, as that position had, in fact, been filled by Nancy Porter. As such, I made made statements that should not have been made about Linda Howell. I sincerly apologize for my mistakes and the harsh words that followed.
This post has been appropriately amended to reflect my error.
I will strive to do better in the future.
Thank you, Chris, for pointing out my egregious error.
Despite the attempts of the previous leadership to decapitate an organization within which they had sown dissension, the Fort Bend GOP has selected new leaders and stands ready to face the future.
Fort Bend County Republicans elected an interim party chairman, secretary and treasurer to fill posts vacated earlier this month due to resignations.Rick Miller, was elected as the county Republican Party chairman Monday evening by a vote of the party's executive committee during a meeting at the Fort Bend County courthouse.
Miller defeated Linda Howell, who is currently the party's vice-chairman. Pat Hebert was elected secretary and Frank Hester was voted to the treasurer's position.
Howell’s attempt to gain the top spot is particularly amusing. After all, she is one of those who resigned, having spent the last 18 months serving as previous chair Garry Gillen’s lap dog. Had she ever opposed Gillen along the way, in particular by refusing to resign along with him, she might have stood a chance. However, what the party needs in Fort Bend County is not someone tarred by their association with Gary Gillen – especially not as the party faces multiple investigations due to possible malfeasance and violations of fiduciary obligations during the Gillen era.
MillerÂ’s observation after his election is a good one.
“We have to organize. We have to put things in the past behind us and move forward,” Miller said in remarks after his election as interim chairman. “We have to quit calling each other names, and writing things about each other that just aren’t appropriate.”
Indeed, this is advice that all Republicans need to follow.
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November 28, 2007
The Democratic National Committee plans to announce Wednesday night that it has canceled the final presidential debate in its fall series because of a potential writers strike at CBS News, a sponsor of the debate."Due to the uncertainty created by the ongoing labor dispute between CBS and the Writers Guild of America, the DNC has canceled the Dec. 10 debate in Los Angeles. There are no plans to reschedule," a statement from DNC Communications Director Karen Finney says.
So remember Americans -- when it comes down to a choice between communicating with you or sucking up to organized labor, YOU LOSE. Not only have several of the candidates indicated they wouldn't go to the debate, they have said they won't appear on any CBS News programs until the dispute is settled. That should tell you everything you need to know about the business climate under a Democrat administration under any of these folks -- it would be anti.
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General Keith Kerr who appeared as a “spontantous” questioner on CNN’s YouTube Republican Debates hosted by Anderson Cooper is a member of the Hillary Clinton campaign. But this was not mentioned upfront, Kerr treated as a regular, spontaneous questioner. Shouldn’t that have been made clear to the audience? Or does CNN think it’s OK to sandbag the GOP candidates with a Hillary operative without mentioning it?In fact, he was so interesting to the CNN folks that they not only had his YouTube video question but he was there in person to ask follow up questions.
And then there were the other folks who asked questions.
***
The best thing about Republicans agreeing to do the CNN/YouTube debate is that it created yet another invaluable opportunity to expose CNNÂ’s abject incompetence.
Retired Brig. Gen./gays in the military lobbyist/Hillary-Kerry supporter Keith H. Kerr wasnÂ’t the only plant at the CNN/YouTube debate. The plant uncovering is in full-swing over at Free Republic.
Example: “Journey,” a.k.a. “Paperserenade,” the girl who asked an abortion question, is a declared John Edwards supporter.
So far, the count is one Hillary staffer, one prominent Obama supporter, and a couple of strongly pro-Edwards questioners. I'm curious -- how many out and open GOP questioners were there during the Democrat version of this debate? I think the answer was ZERO.
I'm curious -- what would be the Democrat spin if FOXNews had hosted such a debate for the Democrats and picked a bunch of GOP activists to do the questioning? Oh, that's right -- FOXNews is "so biased" that the Democrats won't even go on a debate they host, even when the questions are being asked by respected journalists and the event is being sponsored by Democrats. But planted questions and questioners abound when Republicans go on "objective and unbiased" CNN with journalist reality-show host Anderson Cooper as "moderator".
Who says that there is no left-wing bias in media?
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November 27, 2007
They are Deceased-Americans.
"People hear now and then of accusations of dead people voting," he said, "but these are examples of dead people continuing to give and give and give."The Democratic committee received the most campaign money from deceased donors, nearly $225,000, according to USA TODAY's tally of federal campaign-finance data compiled by CQ MoneyLine, a non-partisan group. The Republican National Committee was the second-largest recipient, with about $93,000.
Come on, folks! A person's political activity ought to come to an end after they die. I realize that disenfranchises a large Democrat voting bloc, but common sense ought to prevail here.
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Should the Salvation Army be able to require its employees to speak English? You wouldn't think that's controversial. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding up a $53 billion appropriations bill funding the FBI, NASA and Justice Department solely to block an attached amendment, passed by both the Senate and House, that protects the charity and other employers from federal lawsuits over their English-only policies.The U.S. used to welcome immigrants while at the same time encouraging assimilation. Since 1906, for example, new citizens have had to show "the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English." A century later, this preference for assimilation is still overwhelmingly popular. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 87% of voters think it "very important" that people speak English in the U.S., with four out of five Hispanics agreeing. And 77% support the right of employers to have English-only policies, while only 14% are opposed.
So the policy she is blocking is overwhelmingly supported by most Americans, including most Hispanic Americans. But Nancy needs teh support of a few key legislators to impose her partisan agenda, and they don't care what the American people want. As a result, a measure with bipartisan support may not be enacted -- and with it, funds for crucial programs are being delayed.
I'm curious -- what does Slick Nick Lampson have to say about this mess -- he of the strongly pro-Pelosi voting record despite representing a strongly Republican district? And what does prominent local blogger and NASA employee John Cobarruvias have to say? Or will they remain mute, continuing to be partisan yap dogs doing the bidding of their mistress?
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Red Cross President and CEO Mark W. Everson has stepped down after revelations he was "engaged in a personal relationship with a subordinate employee," the organization announced Tuesday.The Red Cross Board of Governors asked for and received Everson's resignation after it "concluded that the situation reflected poor judgment on Mr. Everson's part and diminished his ability to lead the organization in the future," the Red Cross said in a statement on its Web site.
Everson, 53, said in a written statement that he was leaving the $500,000-per-year job "for personal and family reasons, and deeply regret it is impossible for me to continue in a job so recently undertaken."
Everson -- who is married and has two children -- joined the Red Cross as president and CEO last May.
The organization became aware of Everson's relationship with a female Red Cross employee 10 days ago, Chief Public Affairs Officer Suzy C. DeFrancis told CNN in a telephone interview.
"I think the board acted very quickly," she said, adding that the woman remains in her job.
head of the organization has an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, cheating on his wife. He is forced out over poor judgment and the harm he did to his authority and the organization by his actions.
I'm curious, though -- where the folks are defending him because this is "just about sex."
Too bad he was President of the Red Cross and not President of the United States -- after all, he certainly got held to a higher standard than one William Jefferson Clinton.
I wonder if Mrs. Everson will now be seen as the leading candidate for her husbands former position -- after all, if marriage to a philandering former leader is good enough for the United States of America, it out to be good enough for the American Red Cross.
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Brian Bates is a 36-year-old business owner in charge of Doraville's annual Police Appreciation Day.He's active in his neighborhood association and staunchly supports popular police Chief John King, who became a major issue in elections earlier this month.
So Bates' victory in a race for city council didn't come as a major surprise in this town of about 10,000 residents. But, it was, in fact, groundbreaking.
Bates is now the state's first openly gay Republican elected to office – a development that has gained the attention of politicos and pundits across the country.
Georgia Equality, the state's largest organization supporting gay rights, says he's the first openly gay Republican to win a race in the Deep South.
I'll be interested to see how he does in office. Is it his intent to be a gay REPUBLICAN or a GAY Republican? Time will tell.
Personally, I hope he is successful in office, and if he rises higher politically I will judge him in precisely the same manner that I judge other candidates -- without regard to sexual orientation, but with regard to the issues and his qualifications. I'll likely agree with him on some things and disagree with him on others -- just like every other Republican office holder.
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Mr. Kennedy, who will work with a co-writer, is expected to write candidly about his personal history, including the 1969 Chappaquiddick accident in which he drove a car off a bridge on MarthaÂ’s Vineyard, resulting in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a former member of Senator Robert F. KennedyÂ’s staff. He will also write about his unsuccessful bid for the presidency.
Want to bet he doesnÂ’t offer a dime of reparations to the family of the girl he left to drown while he slept off the liquor and looked for a patsy to take the fall?
After all, being a Democrat means never having to say youÂ’re sorry.
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Hillary Clinton's campaign team are furious that an unsubstantiated rumour of a lesbian affair with her exotic aide de camp Huma Abedin, which has been doing the rounds of 'underground' blogs and websites in recent weeks, appears to have gone mainstream after reports in foreign papers addressed the subject of dirty tricks on the US presidential campaign trail.The problem started with a report in the London Times on Thursday. 'Hillary Clinton has been accused of having an affair with Huma Abedin,' read the caption under a photograph of the two trouser-suited women (above left) striding across the tarmac to catch a plane. The next day, the Russian newspaper Pravda wrote a similar round-up which concluded: "Hillary and her aide, Huma Abedin, do live together at home and on the road, but the only way to nail Clinton would be to catch them together in a lesbian action."
The rumour of a lesbian love affair appears to have been been started in August 2007 by the New York freesheet, the Village Voice. Although neither the Times nor Pravda made any attempt to claim the story was true, some Americans have taken the reports in two of the world's most famous newspapers to heart. Not least Hillary's own team. "This does not even qualify as tabloid trash... it's ridiculous and reckless," a Clinton aide said at the weekend.
On the other hand, they are more than willing to peddle this line of crap with significantly less substantiation.
The boy happens to be real, and his “stage name” is Benjamin Nicholas. One of the politicos Big Head DC has learned he’s alleged to have been involved with is the married Sen. Trent Lott, 66, who unexpectedly announced his retirement on Monday. Lott is well-known to have been against a plethora of gay rights issues throughout his terms in Congress. He was also good friends with Sen. Larry Craig throughout his time in Congress.Nicholas told Big Head DC today via e-mail that he didn’t want to go on the record to talk about his dealings with Lott, because, said Nicholas, “Trent is going through his fair share of scrutiny right now and I don’t want to add to it.”
However, e-mail and other records confirm that the two have met on at least two occasions.
“All I can say at this point is no comment,” Nicholas told us. “It’s the professional thing for me to do.”
Sorry, folks, but you cannot have it both way. Stories like these, both of which are unsubstantiated, are either both out of bounds or both acceptable. Either a public figure’s sexual orientation is open to question, or it isn’t – and given rumors about Hillary and lesbianism dating back 15 years, I think the Clinton story is probably MORE important and appropriate than whether Trent Lott swings like a pendulum do, despite all the allegations of hypocrisy from the allegedly gay-friendly, effectively homophobic Left. After all, one is running for President, and so we have an absolute right to know, don’t you think – especially since it would give us the reason that Bill Clinton has had to resort to a pattern of abuse of office, sexual assault, and fellatio with fat chicks to satisfy his sexual needs, namely that his wife didn’t because of her urgent craving for some carpet with a side order of thighs.
And are you offended by the paragraph directly above this one? Intended as satire, it is no more outrageous than the comments made on a great many Democrat-leaning sites today.
So, denizens of the Left, you must decide. Are the sex lives of politicians -- all politicians, not just the ones you hate, not just the ones who don't vote the "straight" gay agenda -- open for public scrutiny and commentary? Or does there exist a zone of privacy that must be respected, one which ought be pierced only in cases of flagrant extramarital affairs or criminal charges?
FYI -- I vote for the latter, and therefore find both stories inappropriate.
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November 26, 2007
A friend of mine, talking about the Democratic presidential candidates, tossed out a wonderful mixed metaphor: “This is awfully weak tea to have to hang your hat on.”The notion that Bush & Co. had fouled things up so badly for Republicans that just about any Democrat could romp to victory in 2008 was never realistic. What’s interesting now, with the first contests just weeks away, is the extent to which Democratic voters are worried about the possibility that none of their candidates have the stuff to take the White House.
This election, the most important in decades, cries out for strong leadership. The electorate is upset, anxious and hungry for change. But “weak tea” is as good a term as any to describe what the Democrats are offering.
So what's the problem?
The problem for voters is that very little leadership has emerged from the many months of frenetic Democratic fund-raising and politicking.For all the noise and incessant posturing, we still donÂ’t have a clear sense of where Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or any of the others would take the country.
That is because none of them has a vision beyond arguing that they are not George W. Bush. They are intent upon running against an incumbent who cannot stand for reelection.
Herbert, of course, offers a vision -- the same warmed over liberal cliches about health care, surrender in Iraq, and taking on the alleged racism of those who want American borders secure and immigration laws enforced.
Unfortunately, Herbert overlooks the problem facing the Democrats -- there are no inspiring candidates in the race, once one scratches the surface.
Hillary? She thinks marrying power constitutes competence.
Obama? All image, no substance.
Edwards? Run left, but without sincerity.
The rest of the pack? Oh, puh-leeeeeeez!
Frighteningly, the only hope for substance the Democrats could have had was Al Gore doing a Richard Nixon and rising from the political grave.
What am I saying? Don't be surprised when the returns come in and the next president is a Republican.
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1) We're talking about participants in the legal sex trade in Nevada.
2) Ron Paul's libertarianism is at least theoretically open to prostitution as a legitimate industry and personal choice.
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel owner.Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, said he was so impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he decided to raise money for him.
"I'll get all the (working girls) together, and we can raise him some money," Hof told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'll put up a collection box outside the door. They can drop in $1, $5 contributions."
Now I'll contrast this with Ron Paul taking money from Nazis. The key thing here is that we aren't talking about hate mongers supporting the campaign. Reasonable people can argue about the propriety of prostitution, something that cannot be done about the genocidal racist ideology of other Ron Paul donors. At worst, this is simply amusing.
On the other hand, here's some info I could have done without.
Hof was accompanied to the Paul news conference by television news personality Tucker Carlson, who is traveling with Paul for a magazine article he is writing."Dennis Hof is a good friend of mine, so when we got to Nevada, I decided to call him up and see if he wanted to come check this guy out," said Carlson, who hosts the show "Tucker" on MSNBC.
This produces images that I really didn't need to have in my head (Tucker+bowtie+hooker=ICK!). But it also raises another question -- the propriety of Carlson seeming to recruit supporters for a candidate he is covering.
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In a big strategic shift, Rudy Giuliani hammered Mitt Romney’s record Sunday on three fronts, saying it was time to “take the mask off and take a look at what kind of governor was he.”Using some of the toughest language of his campaign, Giuliani, in an interview with Politico, slammed Romney on health care, crime and taxes. At the same time he portrayed the one-time moderate as a hypocrite on a host of social issues who lives “in a glass house.” It was easily the most sweeping attack Giuliani has delivered against Romney in this campaign.
“He throws stones at people,” Giuliani said in an interview on his campaign bus. “And then on that issue he usually has a worse record than whoever he’s throwing stones at.”
The Romney camp responded by calling Giuliani's attack "nasty" and offering a point-by-point rebuttal.
Judging by Giuliani's rhetoric, he has appeared for weeks to be running more against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, than any of his Republican foes. But as his poll numbers have dipped in this critical state, the former New York mayor has stepped up his campaign schedule and TV presence and also begun to take dead aim at Romney, whom polls show as the GOP front-runner here.
“I think there’s a difference between a guy who gets results, real results, that were applauded nationwide and somebody who had a mixed record at best as governor,” Giuliani said.
Rudy is lucky in one regard -- there is no way that Mitt Romney could be his running mate due to the geographical proximity of their home states. In a Giuliani Administration, Mitt Romney would have to be content with a cabinet position (Treasury, Commerce), while Rudy would have to do the same in a Romney Administration (Attorney General, Homeland Security). That let's him be a bit more free with his rhetoric.
Unfortunately, with that freedom comes the need to take care to not damage Mitt Romney too badly. After all, he could still be the nominee, and too savage an attack could leave Romney damaged goods in the general election. This is the same dilemma that the other GOP candidates face with Rudy, who has been the front runner -- how to score points without damaging Giuliani too severely in the general election
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November 25, 2007
The head of the Federal Communications Commission is struggling to find enough support from a majority of the agencyÂ’s commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly.The five-member commission is set to vote on Tuesday on a report, proposed by Kevin J. Martin, the agencyÂ’s chairman, that would give the commission expanded powers over the cable industry after making a formal finding that it had grown too big.
After news reports this month that Mr. Martin supported the finding — along with the commission’s two Democrats — the cable industry heavily lobbied the commission and allies in Congress to kill the proposal. Those efforts may be paying off.
Only in the most rare instances should government be protecting a monopoly. And then only with fledgling industries that will not grow without such protection or when an economy of scale dictates that only one provider can economically provide goods and services efficiently. Cable falls into neither of these categories.
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As the Democratic presidential candidates debate whether Americans should be forced to obtain health insurance, the people of Massachusetts are living the dilemma in real time.A year after Massachusetts became the only state to require that individuals have health coverage, residents face deadlines to sign up or lose their personal tax exemption, worth $219 on next yearÂ’s state income tax returns. More than 200,000 previously uninsured residents have enrolled, but state officials estimate that at least that number, and perhaps twice as many, have not.
Those managing the enrollment effort say it has exceeded expectations. In particular, state-subsidized insurance packages offered to low-income residents have been so popular that the programÂ’s spending may exceed its budget by nearly $150 million.
But the reluctance of so many to enroll, along with the possible exemption of 60,000 residents who cannot afford premiums, has raised questions about whether even a mandate can guarantee truly universal coverage.
Additional concerns have been generated by projections that the stateÂ’s insurers plan to raise rates 10 percent to 12 percent next year, twice this yearÂ’s national average. That would undercut the planÂ’s secondary goal of slowing the increase in health costs.
Personally, I'm interested in seeing how this impacts the Romney campaign. After all, mitt signed this measure into law before he left office, and it has been mentioned by some as a signature accomplishment. However, he has not proposed a federal program along these lines, and has come out against a national insurance plan, preferring to leave the matter to the states.
In the end, though, this provides ammunition for both sides of the health care debate -- those favoring it able to show that only a single-payer system can get universal coverage, and those opposed able to point to the price increases as a natural consequence of government interference with the health care market.
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And as we see changes that point towards victory, what do they say?
As violence declines in Baghdad, the leading Democratic presidential candidates are undertaking a new and challenging balancing act on Iraq: acknowledging that success, trying to shift the focus to the lack of political progress there, and highlighting more domestic concerns like health care and the economy.Advisers to Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama say that the candidates have watched security conditions improve after the troop escalation in Iraq and concluded that it would be folly not to acknowledge those gains. At the same time, they are arguing that American casualties are still too high, that a quick withdrawal is the only way to end the war and that the so-called surge in additional troops has not paid off in political progress in Iraq.
* * * “The politics of Iraq are going to change dramatically in the general election, assuming Iraq continues to show some hopefulness,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s and a proponent of the military buildup. “If Iraq looks at least partly salvageable, it will be important to explain as a candidate how you would salvage it — how you would get our troops out and not lose the war. The Democrats need to be very careful with what they say and not hem themselves in.”
The problem is that they are going to have to explain how they have any credibility left after declaring the war lost and indicating their lack of resolve to win. They are going to have to explain why America should trust them to make hard, unpopular choices in the name of national security even in the face of declining poll numbers. And they will have to explain why their response to an improved situation on the ground in Iraq today is the same as their response to the gloomy outlook that the Democrats capitalized on in 2006.
In other words, why is the only solution offered by todays Democrats the same one we saw in Saigon in 1975?
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November 24, 2007
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.And that's not the only conspiracy theory with a huge number of true believers in the United States.
The poll found that more than one out of three Americans believe Washington is concealing the truth about UFOs and the Kennedy assassination - and most everyone is sure the rise in gas prices is one vast oil-industry conspiracy.
Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was "not likely," according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
The findings followed a 2006 poll by the same researchers, who found that 36 percent of Americans believe federal government officials "either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action" because they wanted "to go to war in the Middle East."
In that poll, 16 percent said the Twin Towers might have collapsed because of secretly planted explosives - not hijacked passenger jets flown into them.
And what hit the Pentagon? Twelve percent figured it was a US cruise missile.
No wonder Ron Paul goes on the air with Alex Jones. No wonder you get his whack-job supporters disrupting other candidates' events. No wonder he has these big fundraising days. Americans have clearly lost their minds, and are willing to believe any sort of stupidity, no matter what the evidence to the contrary!
H/T Michelle Malkin, Dave Lucas, Right Wing Nut House, JammieWearingFool
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But Hillary Clinton is right on manned space flight, as are (as far ad I can tell) the bulk of the Republican candidates.
The major presidential candidates pummel each other daily on issues ranging from the Iraq war to health care. But when it comes to President Bush's ambitious initiative to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is all but alone in staking out a formal position -- and it's one that lends support to key aspects of the president's effort.She initially outlined the need for a "robust" human spaceflight program last month during a Washington speech on science policy, despite being broadly critical of the Bush administration's record on scientific issues.
The question of future manned space exploration took on greater prominence this week when Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made clear that he is not enamored with NASA's effort to build a new spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon and beyond.
In a position paper on education unveiled in New Hampshire, Clinton's rival advocated delaying for five years the program to build the new multibillion-dollar Constellation spacecraft and using the savings to fund a variety of education initiatives.
Asked for a response, Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker said, "Senator Clinton does not support delaying the Constellation program and intends to maintain American leadership in space exploration."
I was nine years old when last man walked on the Moon. I am now 44, and if the current schedule is followed, I will be 56 when I next see man walk on our closest neighbor. And despite having been told as a child that I should expect to see humans on Mars by now, I do not know that I will live to see that mission accomplished.
Our manned space program, quite sadly, was allowed to degenerate into a mere cargo hauling and repair service since the end of the Apollo program over 30 years ago. It is high time that we seize the initiative and resume the task of exploration. If we can do so in cooperation with the Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Indians (all currently seeking to reach the moon and possibly beyond) and Europeans, then it should be done. if not, then we still must continue to reach beyond this planet and into the rest of the Solar System -- and beyond, as the technology develops.
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November 23, 2007
As we are in the midst of a presidential election in a time of divided government, some on the uninformed Left insist that George W. Bush is a latter-day Hitler.
Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam takes apart this meme in a column in the International Herald Tribune.
Decades ago I lived in countries that had been occupied by Hitler, where no one made casual comments about Nazism. Even the most fervent dissidents in pre-glasnost Prague or Moscow never likened the totalitarian regimes of the crumbling Soviet empire to Nazi Germany, because they knew something about history. East Bloc dissenters knew that if they had criticized Hitler the way they criticized Leonid Brezhnev and his flunkies, to paraphrase that memorable line from "The Matrix," they would already be dead.The problem with history is that we never know where we are in it. Are we in the America of John Adams, who championed the Alien and Sedition Acts? Or in Abraham Lincoln's America, where rights to habeas corpus were suspended? Perhaps Bush resembles Woodrow Wilson, who successfully curtailed free speech here in 1917.
Somehow I don't think Bush's liberal critics will be comparing him to Lincoln, Adams or Wilson. Hitler makes for a better headline.
I understand that some folks in this country do not like the President. I know I did not like the last one, and if his wife occupies the Oval Office 18 months from now I won't like her, either. But the sort of absurd, inflammatory rhetoric, coated liberally with historical ignorance and contemptuous venom, that makes the Bush=Hitler comparison is not just offensive, it is absurd. Indeed, I'd go so far as to call it akin to Holocaust denial in its rejection of historical fact and its minimization of the true scope of the evil done by the National SOCIALIST regime.
And let's be honest -- if Bush were really Hitler, Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and the self-styled resistance freedom fighters of Code Pink and International ANSWER would be nothing but ashes blowing in the breeze at some American Auschwitz. That they can make such a comparison without legitimately fearing such a consequence is the proof of how vacuous their argument really is.
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November 21, 2007
Think Progress has a video up of former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. In it, Huckabee calls former Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s revelation that Bush may have known about the leak / was involved in one way or another in the cover-up, etc., “stunning.” He also said: “They deserve to be thoroughly examined, investigated, and the truth brought to the American people.” Adding that “President Bush should personally respond to the charges.”
Too bad that both Huckabee )and Michael van der Galiën of The Van Der Galiën Gazette) fell into the same trap that the Left and the media did when this transparent publicity ploy was released yesterday. McClellan wasn't accusing Bush of anything untoward, as today's statement unambiguously states.
But then again, one really only had to read the words of the excerpt in an unbiased way to see that there was nothing there accusing the President of wrongdoing. Indeed, I'd argue that one would have had to have already been inclined to find presume wrongdoing to reach such a conclusion based upon the excerpt.
UPDATE: Looks like some folks are really invested in this -- wonder if we will get mea culpas now that the publisher has issued the clarification?
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The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself.
First, let's note that this tells us absolutely nothing that we did not know 24 hours ago, namely that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were sources -- after Plame was outed by Richard Armitage -- of information about the lying Plame/Wilson couple.
What's more, we already knew that Bush, Cheney, and Andrew Card were involved in formulating a response to questions. So again, nothing new here.
And, of course, all five of those individuals were involved in formulating the responses to questions about the disclosure of information -- but we already knew that, too.
The question, left unanswered by the excerpt, is that of who knew what and when. Nothing in the excerpt comes close to answering that question. There is no claim that the President knew that what he said to McClellan was not correct. There is no claim that the President was attempting to mislead McClellan rather than having been misled by others.
Interestingly enough, we do have evidence that McClellan is NOT accusing the President of intentionally misleading him -- courtesy of Larry King and CNN.
KING: Scott, were you lied to?MCCLELLAN: Well, Larry, I said what I believed to be true at the time. It was also what the president believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given. Knowing what I know today, I would have never said that back then. As you heard me say in that clip, I said that those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. I did speak directly with them and I was careful about the way I phrased it at the time, even though I believed what they had told me to be the truth.
The excerpt from the book gives no indication that McClellan has changed his position since giving that interview in March. If one therefore interprets the excerpt consistent with what McClellan said in that interview, then it is just telling us that George W. Bush was misled by others, and that he directed his press secretary to pass on information that he believed to be true. That shouldn't surprise anyone.
In other words, this is excerpt is a big nothing-burger -- but one which the talking heads will try to use to generate lots of hot air during the slow news period between now and the Monday after Thanksgiving.
A 151-word excerpt from the memoir of Scott McClellan, chief spokesman to President Bush in 2006, was not meant to be as tantalizing as it sounded, according to the publisher of the book.
After a day of wide coverage and swift reactions on the Web, the publisher, Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs, told MSNBC that Mr. McClellan “did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him” about two senior aides’ roles in leaking the identity of Valeria Plame Wilson, a C.I.A. operative, to the conservative columnist Robert Novak and others in 2003.
How does that square with the book excerpt, where Mr. McClellan wrote that “the President himself” was “involved” in his offering false information to the press about the leak? Mr. Osnos offered an explanation to Bloomberg News:
“He told him something that wasn’t true, but the president didn’t know it wasn’t true,'’ Osnos said in a telephone interview. “The president told him what he thought to be the case.'’
When we wrote about this yesterday, that was clearly one of the possible outcomes, although one that will disappoint opponents of the president who were hoping for him to be directly tied to one of the biggest scandals of his administration.
“Sorry, suckers,” Greg Sargent wrote at The Horse’s Mouth, “It looks like McClellan will actually exonerate Bush for his role in Plamegate.”
In other words, as I said to begin with, these it is all a nothing-burger with a side order of hot air.
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Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, buoyed by strong support from Christian conservatives, has surged past three of his better-known presidential rivals and is now challenging former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the lead in the Iowa Republican caucuses, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll.Huckabee has tripled his support in Iowa since late July, eclipsing former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Huckabee now runs nearly evenly with Romney, the longtime Iowa front-runner.
Frankly, I would not have expected this one. Given his history of raising taxes (plus a natural inclination to distrust any Arkansas governor), I would not have expected him to get much traction at all, and I had thought that his recent rise in the polls is a temporary one. But with a quarter of Iowans polled supporting him, I have to wonder if his campaign is for real.
A Mormon and a baptist preacher on the GOP ticket in 2008 -- it has some real possibilities for defusing the religion issue.
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November 20, 2007
The top three Democratic presidential contenders remain locked in a close battle in Iowa, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) seeing her advantages diminish on key issues, including the questions of experience and which candidate is best prepared to handle the war in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll.Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) draws support from 30 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared with 26 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for former senator John Edwards (N.C.). New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson received 11 percent. The results are only marginally different from a Post-ABC poll in late July, but in a state likely to set the tone for the rest of the nominating process, there are significant signs of progress for Obama -- and harbingers of concern for Clinton.
Let's remember what happened in Iowa in 2004 – the victory by John Kerry shot down frontrunner Howard Dean and propelled the Massachusetts Senator to the nomination. How much momentum would a victory by Obama give the Illinois Senator – and how much harm would it do the current frontrunner? Could that early victory – combined with the front-loading of the nominating process, be the force that destroys the chances of the former First Lady to claim the office once held by her philandering husband? Only time will tell.
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November 19, 2007
The Commission on Presidential Debates has picked Oxford, Miss.; St. Louis; Nashville; and Hempstead, N.Y., as the sites of the presidential and vice-presidential debates in the general election campaign next year.New Orleans took offense at its omission, with a leader of one Louisiana advocacy group saying she had been told that the city had not recovered sufficiently from Hurricane Katrina to act as host of such an event. New Orleans was one of 16 finalists and has attracted major conventions since the hurricane devastated much of the city more than two years ago.
And, of course, those who continue to pimp Hurricane Katrina are upset that New Orleans did not get a debate.
The omission of New Orleans drew a sharp reaction from Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, who said the commission had “lost sight of the public interest it was chartered to serve.”Anne Milling, founder of the advocacy group Women of the Storm, said Paul G. Kirk Jr., the commission’s Democratic co-chairman, had told her that New Orleans was “not ready” to be host of a debate, although, she said, the city surpassed all logistical requirements.
“Politics trumped the correct moral decision,” Ms. Milling said. “Supposedly, many people said that they would not be comfortable coming here,” because New Orleans stands as a rebuke to the federal government’s response to the hurricane.
What a load of crap. I've never understood anyone's interest in going to the right armpit of America (Detroit is the left armpit) for any reason whatsoever. And that was before Katrina.
Personally, I think there were better choices for these debates.
America's four largest cities are each in a different section of the country.
Hold one debate each in New York, LA, Chicago, and Houston. No one can doubt the availability of facilities for each city. We'd have one on each coast, one in the Midwest, and one in the South. What more could be asked for?
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Nothing about Bill Clinton's sexcapades was ever found to be illegal. All the commotion was over whether he lied about it.
Yeah, he merely obstructed justice to prevent complete investigation, lied to the American public, and accepted disbarment in order to avoid becoming the first former president to stand trial for crimes committed while in office. Hardly the picture McCarthy wants to paint, of a Clinton who did nothing wrong. And, of course, she overlooks the fact that perjury is a felony – you know, something that is illegal.
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November 18, 2007
So did an overwhelming majority of legislators in both houses of Congress.
So what is the delay in enacting the provision given this support?
It's been less than a week since New York's Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to climb down from their support of driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has moved to kill an amendment that would protect employers from federal lawsuits for requiring their workers to speak English. Among the employers targeted by such lawsuits: the Salvation Army.Sen. Lamar Alexander, a moderate Republican from Tennessee, is dumbstruck that legislation he views as simple common sense would be blocked. He noted that the full Senate passed his amendment to shield the Salvation Army by 75-19 last month, and the House followed suit with a 218-186 vote just this month. "I cannot imagine that the framers of the 1964 Civil Rights Act intended to say that it's discrimination for a shoe shop owner to say to his or her employee, 'I want you to be able to speak America's common language on the job,' " he told the Senate last Thursday.
Pelosi, it seems, is caving in to the Hispanic Caucus. In typical Democrat fashion, she is declaring that the minorities must prevail over the majority of Americans and their representatives.
Living in Texas, I've seen the problems that arise when employees do not all speak the same language. There is one local fast food restaurant that I no longer patronize because the linguistic confusion in the kitchen regularly results in orders that are incorrectly made. The city recently hired a contractor to work on water lines that run, in part, through my yard -- and they had to call a supervisor on the cell phone in order to explain to my wife who they were and what they were doing digging up the back yard because not one member of the work crew could speak English.
The last time I checked, the overwhelming majority of Americans spoke English as their first language. Employers ought to be able to require that employees be able to communicate with that majority without a translator.
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The government alleges that in 2002 Jefferson, a Democrat, asked a lobbyist for a U.S. oil services company for payments of $10,000 a month for a family member. In exchange, Jefferson said he would help the company promote business in Africa. The lobbyist turned down the request, according to the document.Jefferson later made a deal to urge NASA to do business with a U.S. rocket launch services and technology company, according to the filing. The company is accused of agreeing to pay Jefferson's family business and a relative in exchange for his help.
For all teh Democrats complain about the "corrupt" Tom DeLay, there was never an actual allegation of making a personal profit off the sale of his office. Indeed, the offense with which the rogue partisan hack from Austin has charged him is related to technical issues of how political donations are disbursed to political campaigns, not the sale of any office.
But then again, since when have the Democrats (especially Louisiana Democrats) been the party of clean government?
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November 16, 2007
Gov. Spitzer said at a private fund-raiser that he wants a Democratic-controlled state Senate to legalize gay marriage - a highly divisive and controversial issue - as one of its first priorities in 2009, a witness to the remarks told The Post.Spitzer, a gay-marriage proponent, pledged to help Democrats next November win the three Senate seats they need to gain the majority.
"One of the first things we're going to do when [Senate Minority Leader] Malcolm Smith is [majority] leader is gay marriage," the witness recounted Spitzer as telling some 60 people who paid up to $10,000 each to attend the event in Greenwich Village Wednesday night.
"Everybody applauded when he said that," said the witness, who was among senators, Democratic activists and lobbyists at a fund-raising event for the Senate Democratic Committee. It was held in the library of the elegant West 13th Street home of HBO's "Oz" creator Tom Fantana.
Two other witnesses, including an elected official, said they couldn't recall Spitzer's exact language, but added that the governor suggested a Democratic-controlled state Senate would follow the state Assembly's action this year in passing, for the first time ever, a gay-marriage bill.
Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson denied the governor said a Democratic-controlled Senate would make gay marriage a top priority. She said his reference to the Assembly passing a gay-marriage bill "was the line greeted with applause."
It is a top priority for Spitzer, of course, because we know that New York state has no other problems that need to be addressed in a more pressing, urgent manner. And we know that even though polls show that a majority of New Yorkers (like other Americans) oppose the gay marriage agenda, this is the most important thing that the unpopular, scandal-plagued Spitzer can focus his attention upon for the betterment of the lives of the people of his state. Seems to me that he is again wedded to an extreme ideology pushed by the far-left supporters who propelled his campaign than he is on the needs and desires of all New Yorkers.
But this time he did make one interesting move -- he indicated that he will not make this push until after the 2008 presidential election. I wonder -- how big a chunk of his butt did Hillary chew off after the "licenses for illegals" debacle?
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Federal agents raided the headquarters of a group that produces illegal currency and puts it in circulation, seizing gold, silver and two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.Agents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the "Liberty Dollar" headquarters during the Thursday raid, Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code, said in a posting on the group's Web site.
The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it produces are illegal. NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.
Now there are some things that the group says that reasonable people can sympathize with. For example, I think their underlying idea that money ought to be backed by specie rather than simply issued by fiat is an excellent idea, and that deviation from it has caused much of the inflation we have been saddled with since the gold & silver standards were abandoned and US currency was allowed to float in value.
That said, however, the "strict constitutionalists" of NORFED decided to ignore that provision of the Constitution that allows only Congress to authorize the issuance of money.
And while Ron Paul's campaign has disavowed NORFED and its activities, this is just the latest of the strange doings among Paul's supporters. is it any wonder that folks have begun to refer to them as RonPauLunatics?
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November 15, 2007
Residents in New Hampshire and Iowa have received phone calls raising questions about Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, his Mormon faith and the Vietnam War-era military deferments he received while serving as a missionary in France.Western Wats, a Utah-based company, placed the calls that initially sound like a poll but then pose questions that cast Romney in a harsh light, according to those who received the calls. In politics, this type of phone surveying is called "push polling" — contacting potential voters and asking questions intended to plant a message in voters' minds, usually negative, rather than gauging peoples' attitudes.
A spokesman for the company would not comment on whether it made the calls. "Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling," its client services director, Robert Maccabee, said in a statement released Thursday night.
The 20-minute calls started on Sunday in New Hampshire and Iowa. At least seven people in the two early voting states received the calls.
I'm sorry, Mr. Maccabee, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is most certainly a freakin' duck.
What was in the calls?
Among the questions was whether a resident knew that Romney was a Mormon, that he received military deferments when he served as a Mormon missionary in France, that his five sons did not serve in the military, that Romney's faith did not accept blacks as bishops into the 1970s and that Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is superior to the Bible."It started out like all the other calls. ... Then all of the sudden it got very unsettling and very negative," said Anne Baker, an independent voter from Hollis, N.H.
"Whatever campaign is engaging in this type of awful religious bigotry as a line of political attack, it is repulsive and, to put it bluntly, un-American," Romney spokesman Matt Rhoades said. "There is no excuse for these attacks. Governor Romney is campaigning as an optimist who wants to lead the nation. These attacks are just the opposite. It's ugly and divisive."
Sabrina Matteson, a Republican from Epsom, N.H., said she got a call on Wednesday.
"The first 15 or 20 questions were general questions about the leading candidates," she said. "Then he started asking me very, very negatively phrased questions about Romney. The first one was would you have a more favorable, less favorable, blah, blah, blah, impression of Mitt Romney if you knew that his five sons had never served in the military and that he considered working on a presidential campaign as public service or some such question."
The questions sound biased towards McCain, and but there are connections between Western Wats and folks involved in both the McCain and Giuliani campaigns. Current speculation is that this call may be coming from a 527 organization. If so, what is the organization and who is it serving as a surrogate for?
I'll say it flat out -- any candidate whose campaign sponsored this call would be unfit to receive the nomination. Any 527 that engaged in this sort of behavior ought to be rejected by decent Americans, and those involved with the group's operation should be blackballed by every campaign. And the failure of any candidate to denounce this sort of tactic of attacking Romney's religion must be denounced by every candidate, Republican and Democrat, as such bigotry has no place in American politics.
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November 14, 2007
The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate — let alone overcome a presidential veto — Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren't giving up.
Excuse me, but giving up is precisely what this bill is about. They'd rather quit than fight, even though there has been tangible progress and vast improvements in the situation in Iraq. While it has been slower coming than anyone would have liked, the fact is that it is here -- and the Democrats still insist upon a cut-and-run policy because military defeat helps their own electoral prospects.
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Mitt RomneyÂ’s presidential campaign has television ads and mailings on standby to attack Rudy Giuliani but so far has not used them because of an internal dispute about the risks of a backlash in going negative on the Republican front-runner, according to numerous sources in and close to the Romney campaign.With the first caucus and primary voting just seven weeks away, some of RomneyÂ’s top backers in early states said privately they are urging his high command in Boston to start drawing sharp and hard-hitting contrasts or risk letting the former New York mayor glide to the GOP nomination on the strength of his much higher national profile.
So far, the tough shots from Romney have not been fired. Some top strategists warn of a “murder-suicide” scenario, in which Romney might draw blood from Giuliani but get splattered himself if voters are turned off by attacks and take it out on the attacker.
Frankly, i see both sides on this one. Going too negative could hurt Romney with the voters -- one of the things i like about him has been his positive message about why he is the right candidate rather than negative attacks on other candidates. But at the same time, it is important to draw a contrast between yourself and you opponent -- and since Rudy's claim to fame is hwo he ran NYC, it is important to challenge him on it and show how there may be problems with that narrative.
The biggest danger, though, is giving ammo to the enemy. Think back to 1988, where a second-tier candidate named Al Gore sought to paint front-runner Michael Dukakis as soft on crime by highlighting the case of Willie Horton, a lifer granted regular weekend furloughs who used one to commit rape and murder in another state. Months later, that same material became devastatingly effective in the hands of surrogates for George H. W. Bush (and, eventually, the Bush campaign itself).
Still, I think that the Romney campaign must draw the distinction now -- and provided it maintains an overall positive tone, the Romney camp can afford to attack the front-runner.
Posted by: Greg at
11:02 PM
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Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any."I don't have — I don't maintain — a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records," he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn't sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, "It could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time."
I'm sorry, but his scrubbing of the documents strikes me as pretty questionable. It reeks of incompetence, and a lack of openness.
But then again, maybe what he meant to say was that he has no record. After all, his appeal seems to be that he is young, hip, and black -- and he doesn't need official records to document that.
Posted by: Greg at
10:51 PM
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday came out against granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, after weeks of pressure in the presidential race to take a position on a now-failed ID plan from her home state governor.Clinton has faced criticism from candidates in both parties for her noncommittal answers on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's attempt to allow illegal immigrants in his state to receive driver's licenses. Spitzer abandoned the effort Wednesday.
"I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal," Clinton said in a statement. "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system."
I have to agree with the Obama campaign on this one. When it takes two weeks and gyrations that result in no less than six distinct positions on what ought to be a simple yes or no answer to the question. And that she waited until after the plan was dead to give her final answer indicates a lack of both principle and spine. We need a leader in the White House, not an indecisive follower.
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Posted by: Greg at
10:42 PM
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Paul, a long-time incumbent, was first elected to Congress in 1976. After a detour to run against Phil Gramm for the Senate in 1984 and for president as a libertarian in 1988, the former physician took over the district 14 seat in 1997.ItÂ’s assumed heÂ’ll seek reelection in the Republican primary next March, at the same time heÂ’s still running for president. ItÂ’s entirely possible that Paul will be wreaking havoc in early-primary states across the country just as his base in Texas implodes. What kind of impact would that have on his presidential candidacy? It would be like a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station hearing that his home back in Texas burned down and firefighters discovered a meth lab in the smoldering embers. The trip home would, at once, be both devastating and embarrassing. Because NASA is based in PaulÂ’s district, the metaphor may fit.
Angst over Paul has been building for years. In 2004, disgruntled Republicans asked me to find encouragement for challengers. We polled his suburban Houston district and found that voters resist his contrarian and stark libertarian perspective that even sells out local interests. When told that “Ron Paul consistently opposes taxpayer funding for NASA and wants to eliminate the agency,” 61 percent of Republican primary voters said this information would make them less likely to vote for Paul’s reelection. Similarly, a 54 percent majority said they’d be less likely to vote for Paul when told he “was one of only four Republicans in Congress to vote against President Bush’s plan to encourage faith-based charities.” The list of negatives was long.
To be fair, the 2004 polling also found that his voters endorsed some of the quirky congressmanÂ’s actions, particularly his refusal to take a congressional pension and his vote to allow airline pilots to carry guns after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But there was significantly more bad news than good in that poll for Rep. Paul. But detractors were unsuccessful is recruiting a suitable opponent.
Zoom ahead to this election cycle, almost four years later. Recent polling by another Texas Republican pollster confirms that PaulÂ’s electorate doesnÂ’t appreciate the increasingly leftish libertarian bent of PaulÂ’s voting record. In the eyes of voters, Paul is now also wrong to oppose the Patriot Act, off base on energy policy that affects Texas enormously, and to be faulted for knee-jerk opposition to the fight against terror in the Middle East.
The difference this time is that PaulÂ’s critics have a bona fide challenger lined up: Chris Peden, a mainline social conservative who has distinguished himself opposing the tax hijinks of local elected officials. If Paul files to run for both Congress and the presidency by the Jan. 2 deadline, heÂ’ll likely lose to Peden on March 4. ThatÂ’ll be OK, though. Dr. Paul can just move to New Hampshire where the libertarian Free State Project might try and elect him their first governor, leveraging the boost in name ID and image that his presidential bid will have wrought. Good riddance.
I've met Chris Peden a number of times, and he is a good guy -- a real conservative. And I know many folks in Paul's district just itching to get rid of him -- and I'll be glad to make the 5 minute drive into the district to offer my support to Peden.
But I'm shocked at a mistake in the article. NASA is not located in Ron Paul's district, though I believe it was at one time. It has been a part of CD22 for several years, put there to ensure that Tom DeLay would look out for the interests of the space program. Johnson Space Center is currently (mis)represented by Nick Lampson (D-Carpetbag), pending the return of Congresswoman Shelley Sekula Gibbs to office (or the election of one of several other fine GOP candidates) after the 2008 election.
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The Oregon State Bar has asked Gov. Ted Kulongoski to respond to allegations that he lied about his knowledge of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of an underage girl.The bar, acting on complaints by conservative radio talk show host Lars Larson and Newberg resident James Johnson, has given Kulongoski until Nov. 30 to give his account "concerning his knowledge of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's misconduct."
Kulongoski spokeswoman Patty Wentz said Kulongoski "absolutely" will respond to the bar's request by the deadline.The governor, an "inactive" member of the bar, has hired a private lawyer, Roy Pulvers, of the Portland firm Hinshaw & Culbertson, to represent him. The bar's letter was sent to Pulvers, rather than directly to the governor.
Chris Mullman, the bar's assistant general counsel, is reviewing the complaint to determine whether to reject it or begin a more formal investigation.
The complaint stems from statements by Goldschmidt's former speechwriter Fred Leonhardt that he told Kulongoski details about Goldschmidt's abuse in 1994, while the two were at a party, and that they discussed it on several other occasions. Kulongoski has said on numerous occasions that he never heard allegations or rumors that Goldschmidt had sex with a minor when he was Portland's mayor in the 1970s.
Although Leonhardt's statements were first made public in The Oregonian in 2004, they have resurfaced in recent weeks as the state investigates similar allegations of lying by Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto. Leonhardt says he first heard details of Goldschmidt's misconduct from Giusto, who had been Goldschmidt's driver.
Somehow this critical bit of information was left out of the entire article. Any informed reader would know the answer, though – the child molesting Goldschmidt and the justice obstructing Kulongoski are both proud Democrats. Why aren’t the Democrats at the oh-so-liberal Oregonian willing to claim them as such?
H/T Don Surber
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12:40 PM
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