The Road to European Socialism just got a bit shorter

Via the New York Times, it seems that the economic socialist stimulus plan has passed a procedural vote:

Senate Democrats on Monday advanced the $838 billion economic stimulus bill, clearing a major procedural hurdle by a razor thin margin with the help of just three Republicans. A vote on final passage of the bill is expected on Tuesday.

The Senate vote, by 61 to 36, to close debate on the stimulus, symbolized the partisanship that still grips Congress despite President Obama’s call for new cooperation. It also highlighted the rising power of the centrist Republicans who cast the critical votes. Under Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture and usher a bill to a vote.

Those votes, by Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, along with the 56 Democrats and two Independents who regularly vote with them, followed a succession of floor speeches by Republicans criticizing the stimulus as a bloated, wasteful spending bill.

But supporters of the measure said that a good, bipartisan effort had been made at drafting a compromise bill.

“I am proud of the bipartisan work that we have done during the last 10 days,” said Ms. Collins, who supplied one of the three crucial Republican votes. “As with any major legislation, this bill is not perfect, but it can go a long way toward creating jobs and addressing the dire economic crisis facing our nation.”

The majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said: “The United States senators from both parties met the seriousness of the economic crisis with an earnest approach to solving this emergency.”

Well, as you can see, the Republican Party, the part that is supposed to be the party of small Government and low taxes, has once again capitulated to “The One.” Remember this come election time.

Local News – ACORN to Sponsor Detroit Mayoral Candidates Forum Tonight

Acorn, much noted for their voter fraud, is sponsoring a Forum for the Detroit Mayoral Candidates.

As Detroit gets closer the Feb. 24 mayoral primary election, the candidates are getting another opportunity to put their ideas before voters.

The community group ACORN is sponsoring a forum on foreclosures at St. Paul AME Church on Hunt Street in Detroit tonight at 6.

All candidates are expected to be there — except Detroit businessman Dave Bing, who said he has a scheduling conflict.

via Detroit Mayoral Candidates Forum Tonight – Detroit Local News Story – WDIV Detroit.

Hmmmm… I just wonder, will ACORN allow the voter fraud in the Detroit Mayoral Election like they did in the election of  B. Hussein Obama?

Notice also, that WDIV never mentioned the voter fraud at all? Now, why I am not surprised. 🙄

Fire strikes Beijing Hotel Complex

Holy Moses…. This is wild…:

Via the New York Times:

A fierce fire engulfed one of the Chinese capital’s most architecturally celebrated modern buildings on Monday, the last day of festivities for the lunar new year when the city was ablaze with fireworks. By late evening the blaze was still raging and the cause remained unknown, but it seemed clear that the 34-story structure, not yet completed, had been rendered unusable. The building, a luxury hotel and cultural complex designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, is part of China Central Television’s new headquarters, an angular two-legged behemoth built to coincide with the Beijing Olympics last year.

Firefighters, their ladders only reaching up a dozen or so floors, could do little to contain the blaze, a spectacular wall of flames eerily reflected in the glass skin of the adjacent CCTV tower.

The CCTV complex was a hugely expensive trophy of the pre-Olympics building boom, the result of many billions of dollars that the ruling Communist Party had devoted to making Beijing a city of the future. The main CCTV tower appeared untouched by the fire.

The 241-room Mandarin Oriental hotel, which had been due to open this summer, was unoccupied at the time, hotel executives said.

According to Chinese television, the fire began at 8:27 p.m., although witnesses said they spotted flames as early as 7:45 p.m. Within 20 minutes, they said, the fire had spread from the lower floors to the building’s crown. Black smoke drifted across the night sky, obliterating a full moon.

The authorities blocked off a thoroughfare known as the Third Ring Road, which runs adjacent to the complex. Subway cars running underneath the site were briefly halted, stranding thousands of passengers. Frantic police officers tried to shoo away huge crowds as sirens wailed and fireworks lit up the skyline. People watching noted that the timing of the fire — coming at the end of the spring festival — was inauspicious.

While errant fireworks were suspected as a possible cause, fires of such magnitude are nonetheless highly unusual in Beijing.

Videos:

Of course, the Alex Jones crowd is trying to compare it to WTC-7. Proving that you cannot fix stupid. What happened at WTC-7 was that airlines destroyed the Twin Towers and the falling debris from the towers damaged key structural members and the resulting uncontrolled fires led to the collapse hours after the rest of the complex. Anyone who says otherwise is insulting the dead. Which is something Alex Jones is good at. 🙄

Why can’t people just accept the damned truth and be glad they even got it. Damned morons. 😡

Communist Leader says "Obama working to nationalize U.S. economy"

Just as I suspected….:

President Obama is “considering” a radical agenda to nationalize the U.S. financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank, and private industries such as energy and other sectors whose future is “problematic” in private hands, claims the leader of the Communist Party USA.

In a major speech focused on Obama titled “Off and running: Opportunity of a lifetime,” CPUSA leader Sam Webb also alleges Obama’s administration is considering turning education, childcare, and health care into “no profit zones;” rerouting investment capital from military infrastructure

to “green economy” projects and public infrastructure; and waging a “full scale” assault on global warming.

“We now have not simply a friend, but a people’s advocate in the White House,” declared Webb at a recent speech in Ohio for People’s Weekly World Communist newspaper.

“An era of progressive change is within reach, no longer an idle dream. Just look at the new lay of the land: a friend of labor and its allies sits in the White House,” Webb proclaimed.

via Communist: Obama working to nationalize U.S. economy — WorldNetDaily.com.

You can bet your sweet royal behind that if this “economic stimulus” fails, the doors will be opened to nationalization of our Banks, Businesses, Oil companies and everything else eventually.  We as Americans must stand up and fight against this sort of tyranny!

16 illegal aliens sue Arizona rancher

Now this is totally messed up!:

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett’s wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.

The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.

Attorneys for the immigrants – five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States – have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.

The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at “gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women.”

In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett’s dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, “My dog is hungry and he’s hungry for buttocks.”

via Washington Times – 16 illegals sue Arizona rancher.

Let me get this straight…… A man defends his land against unwanted intruders and he’s being sued?!?!?! Something is wrong with America. I would have just shot them all. Told the law that they charged me or tried to attack and I was simply defending myself. It would have been my word against theirs.  But this guy shows a little aggression and brandishes a gun and he gets sued? Oy.

Of course, these are Obama’s people and thanks to the stupid idiot Republican Party who ran an idiot moderate, and a dumb assed harpy bitch. We are going to see a bunch more of this.  Welcome to Liberal America people! Because it is only going to get worse from here! 🙄

Others: Townhall.com, Debbie Schlussel and Infidel Bloggers Alliance

A great video

Here Milton Freeman schools Communist liberal asshat Phil Donahue:

Reaction in the Blogsophere has been postive, except for some Communist Liberal Idiot, that just does not get it. (she writes at my hometown paper, which says quite a bit.)

Others: Macsmind, TigerHawk, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, Wizbang, Sister Toldjah, Scared Monkeys

(via Memeorandum)

Radical Eco-Activist gets 22 Years for 1999 Arson at MSU

Justice Served or Overzealous Justice?  You Decide.

A radical activist who helped set a $1 million fire to protest research on genetically modified crops was sentenced Thursday to nearly 22 years in prison _ even more than the prosecution recommended.

Marie Mason decided to “elevate her grievances beyond the norms of civilized society” through fire and destruction, U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney said. The case _ which was prosecuted as domestic terrorism _ was “about an abandonment of the marketplace of ideas,” he added.

The explosion and fire caused more than $1 million in damage to Michigan State University’s Agriculture Hall on New Year’s Eve 1999.

In her plea agreement, she also admitted causing another $3 million in damage through other acts from 1999 to 2003, including destroying homes under construction in the Detroit area and Indiana and setting fire to two boats owned by a man who formerly raised minks.

The 47-year-old Mason, of Cincinnati, had acted on behalf of the radical group Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, which has been implicated in a spate of similar crimes, mostly in the West.

She had pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and arson after reaching a deal with prosecutors. The prosecution had been aided by Frank Ambrose, her former husband, who cooperated with the FBI.

The investigation was cold until spring 2007, when a man looking for scrap cardboard found gas masks, an M-80 explosive, maps and anti-government writings in a suburban Detroit trash bin.

They belonged to Ambrose, who apparently was trying to shed remnants of his past. The FBI searched his home, and he became an informant, blowing the whistle on himself and Mason and going undercover to record 178 conversations with other activists.

At MSU, Mason and Ambrose targeted a campus office that held records on research related to moth-resistant potatoes for poor parts of Africa. Computers, file cabinets and desks were doused with a flammable liquid. Vapors contributed to an explosion, and the fire got out of control.

The explosion burned Mason’s hair and prevented her from finishing the message, “No GMO,” on a wall, a reference to genetically modified organisms.

via Woman Gets 22 Years For ’99 Mich. Campus Arson, Radical Activist Gets 22 Years In Prison For $1 Million Arson Fire At Mich. Campus In 1999 – CBS News.

The Libertarian in me says; A lady gets 22 years for setting fire to a Eco-Lab, but a President and his cabinet deceive the American people into a war that had nothing to do with September 11’th and he is sitting in Texas. Something is wrong with America.  For the record, nobody was killed as a result of this fire, 4000+ of our finest young people are dead. The fire cost what? 1 Million?? How much is the Iraq war costing us; 1 Trillion? Does anyone else see the oddball nature of this? Of course, the Fascist Neo-Con’s just love this conviction. That’s because they just love tossing around that word, “Terrorism.” That’s because it serves their masters well.

Thankfully, Mason’s lawyer is appealing this judgment, and I believe it is warranted, I believe this crime is wrong, but 22 years is extremely excessive.

Update: Jazz Shaw who writes at the Moderate Voice,  kind of agrees with me.

Colorado McCain Staffer picked up on Child Molestor Charges, Liberal Blogs fawn over story

Here’s the new Meme for the Liberal Blogsphere for the weekend or this day at least.

Via the Colorado Liberal Independent:

Police arrested the former manager of Sen. John McCain’s Pueblo presidential campaign office Wednesday on charges he sexually assaulted a 5-year-old boy left in his care so the boy’s mother could attend a rally for McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, The Denver Post’s Howard Pankratz reported Thursday afternoon.

It’s the second arrest on charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in position of trust in a week for Jeffrey Claude Bartleson, 52, who has faced similar allegations at least five times since 1982 without being convicted of a crime, according to the Pueblo Chieftain’s Nick Bonham.

Two detectives have been assigned full-time to the investigation and are looking into allegations Bartleson lured victims through church groups, his work as a sponsor at a hospital drug rehab unit, and during involvement in political work.

I just have to ask, do you think that if President Barack Hussein Obama’s Campaign Manager had been picked up for oinking some kid, that the media would be all over it, like this?

I somehow very highly doubt it. 🙄

…besides that, why wasn’t this kids Mother watching her son more closely?

Whoops! Republican Representive Blows Security Cover

Um, Ooops!

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat’s out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

A delegation led by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, arrived in Iraq earlier today, and because of Rep. Peter Hoekstra , R-Mich., the entire world — or at least Twitter.com readers—now know they’re there.

“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.

Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.

Nobody expected, though, that a lawmaker with such an extensive national security background would be the first to break the silence. And in such a big way.

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the lawmakers’ trip, but included details about their itinerary in updates posted every few hours on his Twitter page, until he suddenly stopped, for some reason, on Friday morning.

Since it’s already a matter of public record, here are some of Hoekstra’s twitter dispatches, typos and all, delivered in just 140 characters or less:

“On the way to Andrews Air Force base.12 hour flight to mid east. Be back on Mon instead of tues. Votes mon. I’ll keep you posted,” he wrote on Feb. 4

In his last dispatch today, he wrote: “Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here [sic].”

via CQ Politics | Congressman Twitters an Iraq Security Breach.

Had a Democrat done this, Michelle Malkin would have went into meltdown mode. Heckuva Job Pete! 🙄

(speaking of “Whoops!”… Corrected stupid grammar error… D’oh!)