Playing Politics
Rep. Michele Bachmann kicked off her presidential campaign on Monday in Waterloo, Iowa, and in one interview surrounding the official event she promised to mimic the spirit of Waterloo's own John Wayne. The only problem, as one eagle-eyed reader notes: Waterloo's John Wayne was not the beloved movie star, but rather John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer.
A new 32-page comic book entitled "Political Power: Hillary Rodham Clinton" details the behind-the-scenes machinations of Clinton's contentious 2008 presidential run against then-Sen. Obama, up through his nomination of her as secretary of state. It's a follow-up sequel to the Bluewater Production's first comic book of Clinton, which focused on her early life.
During Monday night's GOP debate in New Hampshire, CNN's John King, the moderator, had a hard time keeping the candidates under the 30 second-per-answer time limit. So he resorted to what sounded a lot like grunting. Instead of interrupting the candidates forcefully, King would signal that their time was up by uttering "uh" over and over again or repeatedly saying "all right" or "OK." The tactic wasn't very effective, but King did succeed in annoying many people who tuned in to watch the debate.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday met with representative delegates of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC). But while the meeting was meant to shore up bipartisan support for Israel from American Jewish political organizations, it quickly became a partisan bickering match, with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Debbie Wasserman Schultz, using the platform to tell Republican Jews to stop doing what they're doing.... Sitting in front of Netanyahu, the DNC chair asked the RJC to "pledge to refrain in 2012 from using Israel as part of the issues in campaigns...." RJC executive director Matt Brooks [said]... ""They decided to hijack these meeting in order to, in front of the prime minister, put a gag order in effect to prevent us from speaking out on Israel...." Asked about Netanyahu's reaction, Brooks said Netanyahu was "clearly uncomfortable and at one point said, 'do you guys want me to leave the room and give you guys some privacy?'"
On the merits, Judge Sumi takes an expansive view that all that flows from an Open Meetings violation is subject to being voided. The alleged violation took place at a committee meeting which merely moved the legislation to a full vote. The actual vote approving the legislation complied with the Open Meetings Law under any scenario. Beyond these procedural problems, Judge Sumi made a fundamental -- and unbelievable -- mistake. Judge Sumi found (Opinion at page 10, Findings of Fact and Conclusion of Law no.79) that there was "no conflicting Senate" rule which would contradict Open Meetings Law time requirements. But there was such a rule, Senate Rule 93(2), which provides that no notice to the public, other than posting on a bulletin board, is needed for a committee meeting when the Senate is in special session. In her findings of fact (nos. 15, 29, 57), Judge Sumi found that the Senate was in special session at the time of the committee meeting at issue. At no point in her decision does Judge Sumi address Senate Rule 93. If there were an argument why Rule 93(2) was not a conflicting rule of the Senate, one would have expected Judge Sumi to address it.
In a decision issued Thursday, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi said she would freeze the legislation because GOP lawmakers on a committee broke the state's open meetings law in passing it.... Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) filed a complaint saying that GOP legislative leaders had not given proper notice to the public in convening a conference committee of lawmakers from both houses to approve Walker's budget-repair bill.... [Uh-huh....]
It's one thing to titillate progressive theatergoers with scenes of physical abuse and psychological torture and lines like "You're f—ing f—ed." But David Mamet had at last gone too far. He'd turned into a f—ing Republican.
Mildred "Patty" Baena's daughter is breaking her silence about her mom's scandal -- claiming the ONLY reason people care about it is because Arnold was in an interracial affair. [Until i read this, I had no idea about "race" being any kind of factor in Da Governator's betrayal of his marraige, nor does it make any difference.]
"On my radio show yesterday, I used vile and inappropriate language when talking about talk show host Laura Ingraham. I am deeply sorry, and I apologize. It was wrong, uncalled for and I recognize the severity of what I said. I apologize to you, Laura and ask for your forgiveness. It doesn't matter what the circumstances were. It doesn't matter that it was on radio and I was ad libbing. none of that matters. none of that matters. What matters is what I said was terribly vile and not of the standards that I or any other person should adhere to. I want all of you to know tonight that I did call Laura Ingraham today and did not make contact with her and I will apologize to her as i did in the message that I left her today.
Left-leaning Ed Schultz has been suspended from MSNBC for referring to fellow host Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut" and "talk slut" on his syndicated show Tuesday. [Next week, he'll be an MSNBC VP]
So much for civility, at least at MSNBC — the home of the "Lean Forward" mantra. On his Tuesday radio program, liberal talker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz took a shot at conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham for her criticism of President Barack Obama's trip to Ireland, where he enjoyed a Guinness, while the Midwestern United States was being hit by severe weather... "So much for civility, at least at MSNBC — the home of the "Lean Forward" mantra. On his Tuesday radio program, liberal talker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz took a shot at conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham for her criticism of President Barack Obama's trip to Ireland, where he enjoyed a Guinness, while the Midwestern United States was being hit by severe weather..."
Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that "Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994." Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.
I hereby release into the public domain the following graphics to anyone and everyone to use, totally free, gratis, no rights reserved, etc. ... the ever-so-useful Race Card [and rubber stamp].... Our progressive betters intend to sling plenty of incendiary accusations at us no matter what we do, so we might as well start countering the meme now....
the MSM isn't about The News, it's about The Agenda, and what they do is no different than what they accuse Big Business of doing. Only instead of conspiring through a secret monopoly with other companies to fix prices, they conspire through a secret monopoly of other media outlets to create a version of the truth —which we call The Narrative.... It's a form of Orwellian GroupThink intentionally designed to turn up into down, wrong into right, lies into truth. And it's a testament to how horribly misguided and failed the Left's ideas are that the undeniable power of the MSM hasn't yet been able to turn America into a member of the European Union....
The motivation is political — a cynical effort to restrict voting by traditionally Democratic-leaning Americans. In more than 30 states, GOP legislators are on the move, from a sweeping rewrite of Florida's election laws to new rules for photo identification in Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina and more than 20 other states. As a result, 11% of Americans —21 million citizens of voting age who lack proper photo identification — could be turned away on Election Day. And these people tend to be most highly concentrated among people of color, the poor, the young and the old.
Is grandma about to be thrown off a cliff? Wait until you see the latest shocking Medicare ad.
The Esquire story, written by Mark Warren, spread across the Internet moments after being posted on the magazine's website Wednesday morning. Esquire has said it was a joke and Warren told TheDC he has no regrets about posting it. "He is an execrable piece of s---," Warren said of Corsi. [Such good old reasoned thinking is hard to argue. Gagggg]
[Jones editorial cartoon with classroom, "Foreign Policy" on the chalkboard, Obama as child with all A+'s, Bush with D-, and teacher saying "You must have cheated off George!!!" Seriously! Not just stupid but about as lame as political cartoons get. Oh, hey, Bush got better grades in college than John Kerry. Obama got... oh, that's right, we don't know what Obama got. F-, Cartoonist Jones!]
Graduate communications student Benjamin Haas had earlier been given permission by the school to burn the flag. But because he lacked a local burn permit, he agreed instead to read a statement in an area of the university known as free speech alley. As Haas read the statement, a crowd around him erupted into cheers and jeers, many shouting "Go to hell, hippie, go to hell." "You had a lot of people on both sides of the debate getting into a lot of fights," said James Haralson, manager of Tiger TV, the university television station. "The students started yelling obscenities at him. People started throwing bottles at him."
"...it has taken three years of national controversy for a sitting president to grudgingly dole out a milksop of compliance with the laws of the country, this is the best lesson from today."
Just hours before her arrest, the libtalker who disrupted Tuesday evening's town hall meeting with a Florida congressman took to the airwaves to rail against the freshman incumbent, looking to pack the event with fellow "progressives". ... In this opening segment, she disparagingly calls West a "tea-bagger", which has a obscene connotation.... it certainly is fascinating to see the same Democrats who furiously denounced conservative protestors at their meetings in 2010 exhibiting far more extreme behavior in 2011....
U.S. Rep. Allen West's first town hall meeting since voting for a controversial Medicare proposal saw three hecklers removed -- one in handcuffs -- from a generally supportive crowd of about 500.... "What you have seen happen previously is you get such a line of people and a lot of folks want to come up and proseletyze for six or seven minutes and you're really not getting to the questions that people want to have answered," West said after the meeting. West, who has gone back and forth with critics at his previous meetings, said the written format was not an effort to avoid tough questions. "I don't duck," West said. During the meeting, West had responded to a question about Medicare when Nicole Sandler of Coral Springs, a former radio host on the liberal Air America network, began shouting from the audience. Other audience members began shouting at her and a police officer led her out....
The Goldwater Institute, a think tank and advocacy organization dedicated to the limited-government principles of its namesake, plans to sue, if necessary, to see that Arizona's constitution is respected. So the city, which has been dilatory regarding documents sought by the institute, is threatening to sue the institute, which warned bond rating agencies and others about its possible constitutional lawsuit. Glendale correctly says that the lawsuit will add a risk premium to its cost of borrowing.... John McCain, who holds the Senate seat once occupied by Barry Goldwater but does not hold Goldwater's views about governmental minimalism, calls the institute's actions "disgraceful" and "basically blackmailing": "It's not their role to decide whether the Coyotes should stay [here] or not." Well. Constitutions do not impress the co-author of the McCain-Feingold assault on the First Amendment (his law restricts political speech)....
Make no mistake: The knock-down, drag-out battle in Wisconsin is based on total self-interest, pushing for past privileges, recast as workers' "rights" that ultimately could bankrupt that state. One would think "collective bargaining rights" are immutable, found in the Bill of Rights, or in The Universal Rights of Man, to hear the public union officials and their lackeys in the Legislature. It is simply not so. No matter how often the Orwellian construction of "rights" is flung to describe collective bargaining, it does not make it so. A lie, a mantra repeated incessantly, is not truth, no matter how fervently held.
If the federal government shuts down come Friday, House Speaker John Boehner may be in for quite a mess at his Washington, D.C. residence if some Facebook users have their way. A Facebook event, entitled "If Boehner shuts down the government I am taking my trash to his house," has popped up and is gaining steam as the shutdown showdown ramps up on Capitol Hill. If the federal government shuts down, one of the District's services that will stop is trash pickup. "Speaker John Boehner is ready to shut down the government, including District of Columbia city services like trash collection," it says on the page. "Well, if he won't allow us to use OUR TAX DOLLARS to pick it up, maybe we should just BRING IT TO HIM." [At least these jerks are ADMITTING they are the politics of GARBAGE!]
Prior to the election, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus was heavily criticized for her decision to keep the county results on an antiquated personal computer, rather than upgrade to a new data system being utilized statewide. Nickolaus cited security concerns for keeping the data herself — yet when she reported the data, it did not include the City of Brookfield, whose residents cast nearly 14,000 votes.
U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid on Friday said Republicans want to shut down the government because they want to deny funding to women's health clinics. ... they think there's nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings... [Idiot-a$$hole meter needle buries itself. Someone get this man a glass of warm milk and tuck him into bed. He's gone.]
Here's something to keep in mind as Democrats risk a government shutdown in order to preserve federal subsidies of Planned Parenthood. From the Center for Responsive Politics
About a dozen representatives of Kloppenburg's campaign were seated at tables in a conference room at the administration building, poring through poll books to see the number of voters and then looking at tapes of votes that were recorded by voting machines. A smaller contingent from Prosser's campaign were on hand to review the proceedings.
As America struggles to shed the bonds of a left-wing establishment that brooks no dissent and means to keep its hegemony over the public purse, Wisconsin's battles from the courthouse to the governor's mansion show, at the least, that there is plenty of life left in the old republic.
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