From L.A. Times Blogger Andrew Malcolm: Thanks to John Harris over at Politico for his fascinating window into how the incestuous political/media world of Washington really operates and how careful TV viewers of American politics need to be these days...What's different in the revelation about this group, however, is that one of them (Emanuel) is a key operative in the current administration with a huge political stake in getting its message out its way, and the other three can go on TV as alleged observers and pass along the talking point line that best benefits their pal Rahm. All free, until now, of any apparent conflict or caveats.
At least three participants are unfairly maligned in “Frost/Nixon”: David Frost, who is portrayed as a washed up, witless dandy; Jack Brennan, Nixon’s aide-de-camp, who is cast the heavyweight protecting Nixon from himself; and former President Nixon, who is portrayed by Frank Langella as doing and saying things Nixon simply did not do or say...
Our de-valued worthless dollar. Printing and pumping vast loads of money in to the system must be stopped and stopped now. It may already be too late. Must see!
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is under consideration for the Commerce secretary post in President Obama's Cabinet, raising the prospect that Democrats could gain a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats in the Senate, according to two officials familiar with the selection process.
From a political perspective, the selection could prove a gift to the Democrats. If Gregg were to resign from the Senate, his replacement would be chosen by New Hampshire's Democratic governor, John Lynch.
Al Gore braved a midwinter snowstorm yesterday to tell a Senate committee that the world is heating up and the only thing that can save us is "conservation and renewables." Gore's testimony, of course, was a prelude to the national debate that will soon be taking place over global warming. "We're firing with real bullets here," commented Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) at one point.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she didn’t come to Washington to be “bipartisan”, one day after shuttling through an $819 economic stimulus bill without a single Republican vote...Pelosi expressed no regrets over passing the stimulus measure without any GOP support. Republicans followed their leaders in objecting to the bill on the grounds that it was put together without GOP input, and that it would not do enough to stimulate the economy.
“The president’s agenda is reflected in this legislation,” the Speaker said. “People vote for what they believe in. Clearly, Republicans did not believe in [that] agenda … I think they probably voted their conscience.”
(Kinda like when Ms. Pelosi abolished Gingrich's long-standing fairness rules last week, I guess... - Roland)
Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims with "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.
Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."
Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is absolutely, positively inconceivable that anyone aboard the miraculous US Airways Airbus whose pilot made a safe water landing after birds were sucked into the engines would expect US Airways to fork over a ton of money to them.
This was one great story: a pilot makes a split-second decision to ditch into the frigid waters of the Hudson River, a decision that saved everyone on board from certain death.
But it didn’t take long for the vultures to swarm, the heads to spin with visions of big dollar signs, and the pure greed to hijack this otherwise-wonderful tale.
One disgruntled flier who got a bloody nose and some bruises says it’s still too early to decide just how emotionally distressed he is as a result of the incident.
“I just want to be made whole,” he sniffed to a reporter.
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell had a message for Democrats, or anyone else contemplating trying to reimpose the fairness doctrine: The move could undermine the justification for existing localism and children's TV regulations, and could be used against public radio.
He also suggested it would not come back wearing a big sign saying, "it's me, the fairness doctrine," but would likely instead be rebranded.
The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming.
How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?
Gov. Rod Blagojevich was unanimously convicted at his impeachment trial and thrown out of office Thursday, ending a nearly two-month crisis that erupted with his arrest on charges he tried to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. Blagojevich becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.
After a four-day trial, the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict him of abuse of power, automatically removing the second-term Democrat. Democratic Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, one of his critics, immediately became governor.
In a second 59-0 vote, the Senate further barred Blagojevich from ever holding public office in Illinois again.
The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
"He's from Hawaii, O.K.?" said Mr. Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. "He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there."
Could this be the same Barack Obama who said last May that,
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say "OK"... That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."
And could this be the same Barack Obama who is looking to sign a stimulus bill that would spend billions of dollars installing millions of "smart meters" that would enable your power company to prevent you from being as comfortable as Bambi on hot and cold days?
While Bambi is warm-and-toasty in the Oval Office, is he considering the plight of Michigan's Marvin Schur, a 93-year World War II veteran, who was recently found frozen to death courtesy of a malfunctioning electricity "limiter" device installed by his power company?
Change has come to Washington. Elitism is dead. Long live elitism.
MSNBC's Chris Matthews summarily announced: "We all want to be protective of Caroline Kennedy." When one of his guests, Michael Smerconish, merely asked what her qualifications were, an appalled Matthews said: "Wow."
Political reporter Ron Brownstein elaborated on "wow," saying: "Well, that's pretty rough. That's pretty rough. I mean, but she has got, at least publicly, a very private persona, one of quiet grace and elegance and intelligence."
A controversial ordinance that became law Friday extends the ban on smoking even to residents' apartments and condos.
"I'm more like the stick than the — what was it you called me? — the pointy tip," Buckman said, sitting by the phone as he waited for the first sniff of statutorily sanctionable smoke. "But it's all part of the job. They enact 'em. I'm paid to enforce 'em."
The law is the first of its kind in California, going far beyond the statewide prohibition against lighting up in businesses, restaurants and bars. In Belmont, it is now illegal to smoke inside any multistory, multiunit dwelling. The City Council says enforcement should be "complaint driven," which means neighbors have to rat each other out before officer Buckman can bring evildoers to the nicotine-stained bar of justice.
Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.
The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday the United States has 'a lot of damage to repair' after eight years of the Bush administration. Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Clinton, who has talked to more than three dozen foreign counterparts over the phone since taking office last week, said the world has expressed an appreciation for the new direction that President Barack Obama has outlined for American foreign policy.
THIS is not the kind of message our Secretaries of State should be making...particularly in front of our enemies. Witnessing the havoc being wreaked by the sixties generation on this country over the last eighteen years or so, I'm perplexed how 'The Greatest Generation' could have ever managed to saddle us with the worst. -Roland
The surest sign yet that Alaska's Republican Gov. Sarah Palin intends at least to be in position for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination contest...The creation of such a financial entity commits her to nothing. But [it] will allow Palin to position herself to compete by legally collecting donations to travel and speak on her own behalf...It'll also permit her to raise and distribute campaign donations to like-minded GOP supporters seeking office.
First the good news: your approval ratings have jumped dramatically in the last two weeks. You are now at 15% approval which is your highest in the last eighteen months. Primarily, this is due to your decision to stay away from all press conferences that do not use teleprompters.
The restoration of the Fairness Doctrine has enabled us better to manage the information coming out about the various problems of the Administration. The New York Times is continuing to work with us on getting your message out to their 86 subscribers, who are behind you 100% of the time.
"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."
So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic "stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.
Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren't likely to help the economy immediately.
The news is full of stories about how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich attempted to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. But media have been hesitant to show the pattern of close Obama associates involved in scandal.
"'Pay to play' means you've got to give something to get something," said Alan Lichtman, professor of history at American University. "So, you want a contract, you want a job, you've got to give something to the decision maker." It is an epidemic amongst FOBs -- friends of Barack.
According to the institute, the measure currently includes plans for:
* An electronic health record "for each person in the United States by 2014."
* A national coordinator to develop a "nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information."
The institute said the medical privacy rule established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 already allows personal health information to be passed along without patient consent for treatment, payment and "oversight." The recipients of such information could be any of the people in the 600,000 organizations in the industry.
"Nobody wants to stop the proper use of good technology," Blevins said, "and for some people privacy is not an issue."
But she said the bottom line is that patients "would end up losing control of his or her personal health information."
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of U.S. voters worry that Congress and President Obama will increase government spending too much in the next year or two, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Only 17% have the opposite concern and are more worried that Congress and the president will cut taxes too much.
(And yet these same voters elected the most liberal government in US history to run things? What the hell did they expect? -Roland)
After President Barack Obama’s back-to-back meetings with GOP lawmakers Tuesday to discuss his $825 billion economic package, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs praised the “very cordial” tone of the gatherings and effused: “I think we will have Republican support for this bill.”
He obviously hadn’t talked to any Texas Republicans. The GOP’s Houston-area lawmakers emerged from their closed-door session with Obama impressed with his sincerity and his outreach attempt but uniformly unimpressed with the costly plan designed to jump-start the stalled American economy.
“Redistributing hard-earned tax dollars will do far more to expand the power of the federal government than it will to stimulate the economy,” said Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston. “This legislation is a Trojan horse that liberals are using to ultimately turn America into France, because it contains massive expansion of multiple federal programs that are utterly unrelated to stimulating the economy.
The explosive new claims will be detailed in U.S. network NBC's current affairs show Dateline this week...The show hired a private investigators agency in March 2007 to find McDermott and now believe they are getting close.
'He's alive - there's no doubt in my mind, this guy's alive,' lead investigator Philip Klein told the programme.
'Maybe in his mind if he stages his death, the insurance policy will pay off his debts and he can leave his child a gift by pretending he's dead.'
Responding to President Obama’s recommendation to Republican congressional leaders last week that they not follow Limbaugh’s lead, the conservative talkmeister said on his show that Obama is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party."
Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., did not take kindly to this assessment in an interview with Politico Tuesday.
“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Gingrey said. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."
Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that ACORN, the low-income advocacy group under investigation for voter registration fraud, could be eligible for billions in aid from the economic stimulus proposal working its way through the House.
House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities."
He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds.
Among the millions of people who are excited by the election of President Obama is Ashley Judd, as she demonstrated at the 40th birthday luncheon for NARAL Pro-Choice America at the Hilton Washington Tuesday.
After flubbing a few lines, Judd, who emceed the event, stopped and said, “I need to take a breath. I get so excited.”
After a brief slide show featuring Bush and other anti-abortion politicians, during which the crowd booed and hissed, Judd remarked, “It’s so nice to live in America again.”
Thank you, $uckers: As Congress merrily bankrupts the American taxpayers with handouts to corporations like Citi, Citi buys itself a brand new $50 million toy
Beleaguered Citigroup is upgrading its mile-high club with a brand-new $50 million corporate jet - only this time, it's the taxpayers who are getting screwed.
Even though the bank's stock is as cheap as a gallon of gas and it's burning through a $45 billion taxpayer-funded rescue, the airhead execs pushed through the purchase of a new Dassault Falcon 7X, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The French-made luxury jet seats up to 12 in a plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center, according to Dassault's sales literature. It can cruise 5,950 miles before refueling and has a top speed of 559 mph.
On Sunday afternoon Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist Bill Kristol — in an email exchange with Big Hollywood — agreed to debate Matt Damon on his Hollywood home turf after being informed the 38-year old actor ridiculed Kristol in an interview in the Miami Herald.
“He’s an idiot — he wrote that we should be grateful to George Bush because he won the Iraq war. We! Won! The! War!”
As the sponsor of the event, Big Hollywood is offering $100,000 to Damon (or to the charity or carbon credit of his choice) to publicly debate Kristol at a mutually agreed upon time, date and venue.
"And on the fifth day, subpoenas were served to Obama senior staff." That's how Doug Ross of Director Blue puts it, describing the import of the story the media chose to ignore. In the deadest news hole of the week, Saturday, the list of subpoenas served by Patrick Fitzgerald was released. It contained: A veritable "who's who" of Obama staffers, surrogates and affiliates were among those served with subpoenas.
I truly hate to draw attention or possibly throw any business to a particularly gangrenous sore on the ass of society such as the online services offered by Ashley Madison Agency, but it's necessary to highlight them when I believe so wholeheartedly that organizations like this are not only part of the reason this once great country has lost its moral bearing, but is proof positive that they are further assisting its demise. Destroy marriages, destroy families, destroy the foundations of society and you can bring a country to its knees. From blowjobs in the White House to websites that offer dating services for already married persons to unchecked greed on Wall Street and in Congress, we're a people in serious need of a reality check. Just google this outfit and you'll find dozens of hits, many including threads containing plenty of bilge from morons supporting this kind of service.
Here's how Goldberg summed the book up: "This is not a book about the same old media bias. This time journalists cross a very bright line. This time they stopped being witnesses to history and they were intent on helping to shape history. They moved from media bias to media activism. In my whole life I have never seen the media get on board for one candidate the way they did this time around and -- this is very important -- they did it without even a hint of embarrassment."
"There should be an end point to all of this spending.say two years...The plan was written by the Democratic majority in the House primarily. So yeah, I think there has to be major rewrites, if we want to stimulate the economy," McCain said. "I am opposed to most of provisions in the bill. As it stands now. I would not support it."
An employee of a financial trading firm at 7 World Trade Center was charged with arson after he went to his office in the early morning hours yesterday while inebriated, got trapped in an elevator and used cleaning fluids to try to light a fire in an effort to get help, authorities said.
Ryan V. Brinkerhoff, 24, of Jersey City, was being held by Port Authority police and was to face charges in State Supreme Court in Manhattan for the series of events that brought city firefighters to the building at 3:52 a.m.
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