I just pushed out my first posting and noticed two very humorous typos.
Oy… 🙄
One of these days, I will learn; don’t blog until you have enough coffee in your system. Blogging while still waking up can have some unintended consequences. 😯 😮
I got to cut out those late nights. Facebook games are just not that important.
I must confess, I laughed out loud, when I saw this:
It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assembly member Tom Ammiano’s AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It’s the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time — and generally, they are non-controversial. This one was the same — no substantive opposition, it passed both houses easily — and normally, the governor would sign it with little fanfare.
But no: Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill — and sent Ammiano and the legislators a remarkable veto letter. The letter says nothing about the substance of the bill; in fact, the language is really convoluted and it’s hard to figure out what the gov is really saying.
With all due respect to those in Government out in California. It might have something to do with the fact that Tom Ammiano shouted “Kiss my Gay ass!” at a Democratic Party dinner that Arnold showed up at.
However, over at the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, the Governor’s office says the following:
When asked about the intent of the message, Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said that “like every veto message, it says why the governor vetoed the bill.”
Okay. What about the other message in the letter?
“As far as what it says on the left-hand margin, that’s just a strange coincidence,” McLear said. “When you do so many vetoes, that’s bound to happen.”
Then, less than a minute after hanging up the phone, McLear sent Washington Wire a list of other veto messages in which the letters on the left-side of the statement spell out different words. Senate Bill 115, about religious exemptions to public employees, spells out “ear.” Assembly Bill 1276, concerning international trade, says “poet.”
And Senate Bill 674, about oversight of fertility clinics and cosmetic surgery centers, spells out “soap.
Plausible. It would have been a very strange coincidence.
As for Mr. “Kiss my Gay ass!” Ammiano….:
Ammiano said he didn’t notice the hidden message until the Bay Guardian pointed it out today. “It was a little bit of shock and awe,” he said, adding: “I thought it was pretty funny.”
He said he will reintroduce the bill next year. “Hopefully, we’ll have a clean slate,” Ammiano said.
Sounds to be like the media and some Bloggers are making a bigger deal about this, than actual people involved in said incident. Which is about typical for the Liberal Media. Just look at how they handled Bush and the Iraq War.
I have to give this man credit; he is a man of conviction, for that alone, he is a true patriot.
Via the Washington Times:
When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
The reaction to Hoh’s letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer,” Holbrooke said in an interview. “We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him.”
While he did not share Hoh’s view that the war “wasn’t worth the fight,” Holbrooke said, “I agreed with much of his analysis.” He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that “if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure,” why not be “inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won’t have the same political impact?”
Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. “I recognize the career implications, but it wasn’t the right thing to do,” he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the “second-best job I’ve ever had,” his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
“There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed,” he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys.”
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.
As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because “I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right.’ “
“I realize what I’m getting into . . . what people are going to say about me,” he said. “I never thought I would be doing this.”
The underlined parts up here are the parts that I think are the most inspiring. Some Conservatives and even some MilBloggers might want to slam this guy. Well, I will not be counted among that group. I have said on this blog many times that I felt that Bush basically screwed us in the long run, for trying to fight two wars at the same time. That belief is becoming clearer now, eight years on and we’re still trying to catch Osama Bin Laden —- and that task is becoming more of a difficult task everyday. There is plenty of blame to go around; Bush is not the sole person responsible for this terrible screw up. The whole “We have to fight them there, so, we don’t have to fight them here..” line is a bit worn thin now, seeing that there has been people arrested on terror plotting charges here now.
Again, I applaud this man for having the courage to stand up and dissent. Some may knock him, but not sane thinking Americans, who see things through the long lens; like me.
The Round up for ALL sides of the Political fence: The Washington Independent, The Moderate Voice, Top of the Ticket, Abu Muqawama, Matthew Yglesias, JustOneMinute, New York Times, Neptunus Lex, Firedoglake, ABCNEWS, MoJo Blog Posts, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, The New Republic, Salon, The Atlanticist, BLACKFIVE, Jules Crittenden, The Daily Dish, Guardian, Mudville Gazette, Rethink Afghanistan, Newshoggers.com, Atlas Shrugs, Chicago Boyz, RedState, Newsweek Blogs, LewRockwell.com Blog, Wall Street Journal, Taylor Marsh, MyDD and Politics Daily
I have an idea as to why Lieberman is doing this; well, I have several different ideas:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.
Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.
“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”
Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line.”
His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.
Lieberman did say he’s “strongly inclined” to vote to proceed to the debate, but that he’ll ultimately vote to block a floor vote on the bill if it isn’t changed first.
“I’ve told Sen. Reid that if the bill stays as it is now I will vote against cloture,” he said.
via Joe Lieberman: I’ll block vote on Harry Reid’s plan – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com.
Here is my official theory as to why Lieberman is doing this. For one; I believe that Lieberman is doing this to get back at the Senate Majority leader for his scolding of him for supporting John McCain during the 2008 election. Another theory I have is that Lieberman is attempting to garner support amongst the Conservative leadership on the hill. Maybe Lieberman is going to try for a run as a moderate to Liberal Republican in the not-so-distant future in the Senate. Either that, or Lieberman knows that he will never be elected as a Republican or a Democrat ever again and he is doing this, thinking that it will, someday be seen as his last great feat to save the Country from out of control socialism.
Either way, I believe that any chance of Lieberman getting back into the Democratic Party just totally dissolved. At this point, if I were a Democrat, I would want Lieberman’s head on a platter.
Others: Michelle Malkin, Townhall.com, Weekly Standard, The Corner, AmSpecBlog, The Greenroom, JOSHUAPUNDIT, The Moderate Voice,
The Short Video:
The Long Video:
RedState has more on this rather strange buffoon.
Dan McLaughlin writes:
Far be it from me to suggest that Alan Grayson should tone down his act. Hey, he’ll probably get another cookie from his enablers.
Ya think? Good Lord. 🙄
Next time some idiot calls me a extremist; please, show them this.
Last week I ripped on Glenn Beck for not having Doug Hoffman on his Television show and he ended up having Mr. Hoffman on his Radio show, and now he had Hoffman on his Television Show. Mr. Beck, I salute you. Thank you from everyone that supports Hoffman!
Here’s the Video: (Via AllahPundit at HotAir.com)
Yeah, Beck’s a bit a paranoid goof. But, he is a very patriotic paranoid goof, who is on our side. 😛 and that’s always a plus. 😀 Besides, I will take someone like Beck, over some overrated egotistical jackass like Olbermann, who likes to insult the American people, any day of the week.
Heh… Now this is funny:
Via AutoBlog:
On its way to doing the 1/4-mile in 11.07 seconds at 128 mph, a Hennessy-tuned 700-horsepower Cadillac CTS-V hit .99 longitudinal G as it left the start line. By the end of the run the phone inside the car was ringing, and it was your friendly neighborhood OnStar representative wondering “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ok, not quite… but they did have some questions
(H/T Say Uncle)
With friends like these….: (H/T Insty)
Disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer thinks people who own shares in mutual and pension funds should pressure the directors and executives of America’s great corporations to silence the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Spitzer, aka the “Client Number Nine” who famously kept his socks on while dallying with Emperor Club VIP hookers, now accuses the chamber of misrepresenting its members. How? By lobbying against “the reform of markets, health care, energy policy and politics that we have all been calling for.”
Spitzer’s solution is for mutual and pension fund owners to demand that the corporations cancel their chamber memberships, thus denying the nation’s most influential business voice of the lifeblood of every trade association — dues revenue. It comes as no surprise to hear such demands from Spitzer, who as New York attorney general posed as an ethical champion while using the mere threat of state-sponsored litigation to force corporate boards and executives to take actions that clearly weren’t in the best interests of their stockholders.
Lest anybody gets the idea that Spitzer can be considered a credible source on issues of corporate ethics, let’s review a few facts about his own misuse and abuse of the public trust. During his successful 2006 campaign for governor, Spitzer loudly announced his return of more than $124,000 in campaign contributions he had received since 2003 from lawyers with the Milberg Weiss law firm in New York. The firm and four of its senior partners had been indicted on 20 counts as a criminal enterprise by the Justice Department for paying an estimated $11.7 million in bribes to plaintiffs in at least 150 cases going back to 1981. The firm received $250 million or more in tainted legal fees from the cases.
[…]
These facts perhaps shed light on why Spitzer sat on his hands in 2004 when the Washington Legal Foundation filed an official complaint with him concerning Milberg Weiss. So anytime Spitzer gets the urge to lecture the U.S. Chamber or anybody else on ethics, he would be well-advised to put a sock in it.
via Memo to Spitzer: Put a sock in it | Washington Examiner.
You don’t suppose that paper has a problem with Spitzer, do you? 🙄
I mean, the guy messed around and all. But good grief! Act like he was some sort of politician! Oh, Wait.
A sad bit of news: (H/T Gateway Pundit)
KABUL (AP) – A series of helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans in insurgent-wracked Afghanistan on Monday, the U.S. military said. It was one of the deadliest days of the war for U.S. troops.
In the first crash, a chopper went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight with insurgents, killing 10 Americans—seven troops and three civilians working for the government. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident in the south, two other U.S. choppers collided while in flight, killing four American troops and wounding two more, the military said.
U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province’s Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.
via BreitBart: US: 14 Americans killed in 2 helicopter crashes.
I think it would be a good thing to remember all of our service men in our Prayers this day.
I just hope this is all worth it.
So says Gallup:
PRINCETON, NJ — Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
Think of this the next time some screwball poll comes out in favor of the Democrats. The reason the pollsters are able to get the results they want is by oversampling the Socialist Democrats.
(H/T Confederate Yankee)
Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.