Tag: Republicans

Faux Conservative Arlan Spector "Republicans Support Stimulus, Don't Want 'Fingerprints' On It"

Oh Please, this is about the lamest damn thing ever….

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who broke with his party to support President Obama’s stimulus package last week, said before the final vote Friday that more of his colleagues would have joined were they not afraid of the political consequences.

“When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today,” said Specter, “one of my colleagues said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ My Republican colleague said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ I said, ‘Are you going to vote with me?’ And he said, ‘No, I might have a primary.’ And I said, ‘Well, you know very well I’m going to have a primary.'”

Specter, along with centrist Maine Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, joined with Democrats last week to move the stimulus bill forward. Specter said he doubted there would be any more Republican votes than those three Friday night.

“I think there are a lot of people in the Republican caucus who are glad to see this action taken without their fingerprints, without their participation,” he said.

Specter was asked, How many of your colleagues?

“I think a sizable number,” he said. “I think a good part of the caucus agrees with the person I quoted, but I wouldn’t want to begin to speculate on numbers.”

via HuffPo Says: Republicans Support Stimulus, Don’t Want ‘Fingerprints’ On It.

Name one, Arlan, name just one. I dare you. Truth is, there were no other supporters, nobody self-loving Republican, Conservative or Libertarian would ever vote for a bill of this sort. This bill is nothing more than watered down, and in some places; not-so-watered down communism!

I find it absolutely amazing that Sen. Arlan Specter would stoop to outright lying about something as paramount as this bill.

Others: Gateway Pundit

Senator Judd Gregg withdraws his nomination for Commerce Secretary, White House Shocked

Now this is a shock 😮

President Obama’s choice for Commerce Secretary, Senator Judd Gregg, withdrew his nomination on Thursday. He said there were “irresolvable conflicts” between him and the administration.

“It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me,” Mr. Gregg said in a statement. “Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.”

The withdrawal comes one week after Mr. Gregg was named to become the third Republican member of the Obama Cabinet. It is the second time that the Commerce Secretary position has been vacant within the last month.

Mr. Gregg, a Republican of New Hampshire, had not resigned his seat in the Senate. He has been away from the Senate floor this week, presumably preparing for his confirmation, and did not vote on the administration’s economic stimulus plan.

via Gregg Withdraws as Commerce Secretary Nominee – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

Unreal. I believe that Obama’s idea of Bipartisanship is going down in flames. Obviously, the White House was caught off guard.

Update: Yup, the White House was caught off guard.

More via Memeornadum

Free Speech Attack: Grand Rapids TV Station pulls American Family Association's Program on Radical Gay Agenda

This is disgraceful and a bit local to me here. This comes via the Detroit Free Press:

WOOD-TV 8 has decided not to air a controversial, one-hour paid program sponsored by the American Family Association due to criticism from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

“Speechless: Silencing Christians” targets the “radical homosexual agenda” and has garnered enough criticism to cause the Grand Rapids television station to pull the program.

After proposing that the program be moved from the Monday slot prior to President Barack Obama’s 8 p.m. news conference to a Saturday afternoon spot, the station made the decision to pull the program altogether.

“We made a gesture of the 2-3 p.m. Saturday time period. It’s been 24 hours and we had no response,” station General Manager Diane Kniowski told the Grand Rapids Press in a statement Wednesday.

“Our station is being bombarded with calls and messages, and we find ourselves in the middle of someone else’s fight. Ours was a fair offer and we are removing ourselves from this matter,” Kniowski said.

According to the Grand Rapids Press, “In a letter promoting the program, the American Family Association asserts that most Americans get their ‘information about the homosexual movement from the secular news media and Hollywood, which not only support but promote the gay agenda. What people know is tainted by pro-homosexual propaganda.'”

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, initiated a national action alert in response, urging people to call the television station and ask that the program be canceled.

“At a time when America is striving to come together, the AFA continues to use LGBT Americans as a wedge issue to divide us from reaching our basic equality,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

This is just another attack on the freedoms that Americans enjoy; freedom of speech, and for that matter, who says that gay people should be equal? I don’t care what they do behind closed doors, but when they try and rewrite the Constitution, I got a problem with it. I believe that the AFA has just as much of a right to say what they wish, as does the HRC. This attempt to intimidate a TV station into not broadcasting something like this, is just another case of Liberal fascism. Plain and simple.

I will be e-mailing this Blog entry to FOX NEWS and to Rush Limbaugh.

Members of the Black Press not Happy with President Obama

I have some very different feelings than you think about this story, I will explain below…:

After the first black president completed his first prime-time press conference, the black press was red hot.

“We were window dressing,” said Hazel Edney, a reporter with the National Newspaper Publishers Association, also known as the Black Press of America. “We were nothing more than window dressing.”

As the media filed into the stately White House East Room on Monday night, the reporter was shocked to find herself in the front row. Alongside her were the top news agencies, Associated Press, Reuters; also up front, 86-year-old Helen Thomas, who started covering presidents 50 years ago.

Alongside the most prominent journalists in America was Tiffany Cross from Black Entertainment Television. Like Miss Edney, she didn’t know why she was in first-class while all the television networks – every single one – was exiled to the steerage compartment.

“I really don’t know why I’m up here,” Miss Cross said with a shy smile.

While most on the front row got to pose a question to President Obama, the two reporters from the black press did not. Nor did any other black-press reporter, for that matter.

“This was like Reagan, when he’d put all the blacks up front,” said another prominent but visibly peeved black-press reporter who asked to remain anonymous. “He oughta’ be ashamed.”

via Washington Times – CURL: Obama snubs black press.

As I said above, I have mixed feelings about this report; I tend to believe that this report is one those “Let’s stir the pot and see what happens,” kind of reports. President Obama, to his credit, did not run a “Black Power” Presidential campaign, if he had done so, the American people would have been turn off and President Obama would not have made it out of the Primary.

As much as I respect the reporting of the Washington Times and their Conservative stance, I believe that this story is nothing more of the rattling of the race baiting sabers that the Far Right Wing bunch are known for. Yes, that is correct, I am a moderate Conservative and I am admitting that there is a certain bit of reverse race baiting that goes on in those circles. It is a sad fact, but it is the truth.

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.

Funny News: Ann Coulter is being Probed

This is a bit interesting….:

Ann Coulter is being probed. Following our Jan. 11 column, Connecticut’s Elections Enforcement Commission is making a “thorough investigation” of whether the conservative pundit broke the law by voting in the Nutmeg State while living in New York City, according to a commission spokeswoman.

Officials are responding to a formal complaint filed by Coulterwatch.com blogger Dan Borchers. “For over 10 years, Ann Coulter has gotten away with illegal, immoral and unethical behavior, ranging from plagiarism to defamation, perjury to voter fraud,” claims the conservative Borchers. Coulter declined to comment, but in the past has branded Borchers a stalker. He says the FBI has determined he poses no threat.

Meanwhile, private eye Joe Culligan, whose WebofDeception.com brought Coulter’s Connecticut voting record to light, has been poking into Rahm Emanuel’s living arrangements.

via New York Daily News: Ann Coulter under investigation.

Ann Coulter, being um, Probed?!?! Ha! Wishful thinking on her part, I’m sure. 😛 😉 😀 😆

I’d rather oink a goat! 😮

The only woman in the world that is so totally unfuckable. (Did I just say that?)

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?

Japan could serve as a lesson to the United States

Barack Obama could learn a lesson from Japan. There’s a very good article in the New York Times today, on the mistakes made by the country of Japan in the 1990’s to fix their failing economy:

The Hamada Marine Bridge soars majestically over this small fishing harbor, so much larger than the squid boats anchored below that it seems out of place.

And it is not just the bridge. Two decades of generous public works spending have showered this city of 61,000 mostly graying residents with a highway, a two-lane bypass, a university, a prison, a children’s art museum, the Sun Village Hamada sports center, a bright red welcome center, a ski resort and an aquarium featuring three ring-blowing Beluga whales.

Nor is this remote port in western Japan unusual. Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan’s troubled experience. While Japan is not exactly comparable to the United States — especially as a late developer with a history of heavy state investment in infrastructure — economists say it can still offer important lessons about the pitfalls, and chances for success, of a stimulus package in an advanced economy.

The Lesson to be learned here is:

“It is not enough just to hire workers to dig holes and then fill them in again,” said Toshihiro Ihori, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo. “One lesson from Japan is that public works get the best results when they create something useful for the future.

But the real lesson to be learned here is the follow and pay special close attention to what is said here:

In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan’s Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations.

Gee, is that not what Ron Paul said ALL ALONG, while he was running for President of the United States? For Ron Paul’s troubles and hard work he was slandered, maligned  and marginalized by the Neo-Conservatives who hated him and the Liberal Democrats who were sacred to death of him.

I highly suggest that you read the rest of this article. The United States could learn much from this lesson that Japan had to learn. We could very well end up causing more harm than good to our economy.

Others: Glenn Thrush’s Blogs, Hot Air, A Blog For All, Cafe Hayek, Weekly Standard and QandO