Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?
In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.
Apparently, these are some of the members who had the opportunity to show which side of the "birther" issue they were on and chose to vote present. It appears to show that there are more Democrat birthers than Republican birthers in the House of Representatives. It is a sad, sad situation indeed.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/...
I call them birfers. Like 9/11 troofers only dumber. Others call them birthers. They are the people who believe that President Obama was born outside the United States and therefore is constitutionally barred from being president.
Um, his mother was a U.S. citizen. Hello? It does not matter where he was physically born. John McCain was born in Panama.
But these losers — members of the John Birfer Society — will never be satisfied.
The House of Representatives apparently had too much time on its hands on Monday and passed a resolution declaring that commemorated the 50th anniversary of statehood for Hawai’i — and declaring Barack Obama a native of the 50th state.
The vote was 378-0.
55 congressmen (35 Democrats, 20 Republicans) did not vote (or, in honor of the president’s legislative record, they voted present).
The list of non-voters included Democrats Henry Waxman and John Murtha, and Republican Dr. Ron Paul.
I should be surprised.
I am not.
The list is here.
Note: 88.8% of the Republicans voted for the resolution — only 86.3% of the Democrats did.
I heard the wings are great.
If you are a taxpayer, you're paying about $550,000 for a pound of frozen sliced ham. That's right. Compliments of Obama's stimulis. It's right here and here.
So who is in charge of this? Ohhh Nooooo!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
WASHINGTON — Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling.
On Friday, citing in an e-mail "Frank Ricci's troubled and litigious work history," the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way drew reporters' attention to Ricci's past. Other advocates for Sotomayor have discreetly urged journalists to pursue similar story lines.
Specifically, the advocates have zeroed in on an earlier 1995 lawsuit Ricci filed claiming the city of New Haven discriminated against him because he's dyslexic. The advocates cite other Hartford Courant stories from the same era recounting how Ricci was fired by a fire department in Middletown, Conn., allegedly, Ricci said at the time, because of safety concerns he raised.
The Middletown-area fire department was subsequently fined for safety violations, but the Connecticut Department of Labor dismissed Ricci's retaliation complaint.
No People for the American Way officials could be reached Friday to speak on the record about the press campaign.
"To go after so sympathetic a plaintiff as Frank Ricci . . . is a new low in the politics of personal destruction," said Roger Pilon, the director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies. "If they were smart, they'd keep a low profile."
This story would be worthy of the Onion if it weren't true.
The chairman of a House ethics probe into a Caribbean conference attended by members of the Congressional Black Caucus is himself a CBC member who attended the same event in 2005.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), the former judge chosen to chair the ethics probe, has vowed to lead a fair investigation into trips taken by CBC members to St. Maarten in 2008 and Antigua and Barbuda in 2007.
But the ethics watchdogs that have called for an investigation into whether corporations paid for the trips, which would violate House ethics rules, question whether a CBC member should be leading the official probe set up by the House ethics panel.
They also argue that it is improper for someone who attended the Caribbean conference to lead an investigation into whether it violated House rules.
This is, to me, just more evidence that we are becoming just another banana republic. Here is my bold prediction on how this investigation will end:
Rep. Butterfield will release the results of his investigation in time for the Congressional elections stating, "After thoroughly investigating my brothers and sisters in the CBC I have concluded that absolutely nothing wrong was done by these upstanding citizens. I also investigated myself and found that I was fair and impartial."
It pains me so to report this.
SPECTER FADE SESTAK'S PITCH. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak is attempting to turn Sen. Arlen Specter's recent woeful polling numbers into cash for his presumptive U.S. Senate campaign.
Sestak cited the Franklin & Marshall College survey numbers in a fundraising e-mail distributed to potential donors. The Delaware County Democrat has all but formally announced he will challenge Specter in next year's primary.
"We've got a race!" Sestak wrote. "The latest poll finds a strong majority -- 57 percent -- of Pennsylvanians believe that Arlen Specter does not deserve to be reelected to the Senate, that it's time for a change."
Those numbers fly in the face of Gov. Ed Rendell's prognostication that Sestak "will get killed" if he takes on Specter.
So do numbers reflecting Specter's job approval rating, which have taken a massive nosedive, from 52 percent in March to 34 percent in June.
Although online surveys are hardly scientific, 81 percent of respondents to a recent poll on the Daily Kos Web site indicated they believe Sestak will beat Specter.
How grim are the five-term incumbent's prospects? Albert Paschall, a senior fellow at the Harrisburg-based Lincoln Institute, suggested in the Daily Times of Delaware County that Specter soon might be in need of a gold watch to commemorate his retirement.
Something in a Timex, perhaps?
MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN? Specter's new Democrat colleagues certainly are being generous to his re-election campaign.
House Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont each have donated $10,000 to Specter, as has Democrat-turned-independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Pitching in $5,000 each were Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan wrote a $4,000 check and Sens. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico each ponied up $2,000.
The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper, speculated that the generous donations might be an attempt to make up for the considerable sum Specter lost by defecting from the GOP.
He has refunded more than $100,000 to irate contributors who assumed they were giving their money to a Republican -- right up until the moment Specter turned turncoat.
Given Specter's atrocious polling numbers, we're thinking a less reckless way for his fellow senators to have spent their money would have been to toss it from the top of the Washington Monument
I guess it is one of those late night infomercials in the New York/Conneticut area.
Remember back in January when we were told by Obama that if we passed the massive stimulis spending bill unemployment would peak at 8%. But if His plan didn't pass, unemployment would reach 9%. Well, the numbers are in. And now, with the stimulis, unemployment is 9.5%!
He told us what would come if we trusted him with 800 billion dollars and it looks like we have been had. Now, just think about what he is saying he'll do for health care and what the reality will be with his record.
President Obama held an "online town hall" health care meeting in Annandale, Virginia today. It was televised and, coincidentally, I happened to catch the emotional centerpiece of the production on CNN. Obama gave a long introductory pitch in support of his health care plan, and then opened the floor to questions. Obama and his staff made a point of assuring the audience that the President had no knowledge of the questions:
VALERIE JARRETT: I'm going to be in charge. Thank you very much, Mr. President. So in my opening remarks, Mr. President, I mentioned that when you released your YouTube video over the weekend, we received literally hundreds of video questions from all across the country. Your staff looked through all those questions and have selected a cross-section that represents -- a broad cross-section of the kinds of questions that came up.
I want to emphasize that the president has not seen the questions ahead of time, absolutely not.
President Obama first took a question from a guy who asked why we don't just adopt socialized medicine. Then followed this supposedly random selection of the next questioner:
STAFF: Now about a question from the audience?
OBAMA: All right.
STAFF: Please, a show of hands?
OBAMA: And what I always do here is I go girl-boy-girl-boy so that I don't get into trouble here. (LAUGHTER) All right. This young lady right here?
Since somebody was pointing at you, so I figured -- do we have a microphone for folks in the audience so that everybody can hear the question? OK. I think there's somebody coming from this direction. There you go. You can just hand her the -- hand her the mike.
QUESTION: Good afternoon, Mr. President. I'll try not to cry.
What followed was, nevertheless, a tear-jerker. The woman told a story of woe about having kidney cancer and being unable to obtain health insurance. The high point came when Obama gave her a hug and, to applause from the audience, promised to find a way to help her.
Following their colloquy, Obama reinforced the idea that he didn't know who she was:
OBAMA: But what was your name again?
QUESTION: My name is Debbie. I'm...
OBAMA: Debbie is a perfect example of somebody who we should, in a country this wealthy, be able to provide coverage for her health care problems. ... So, Debbie, you are Exhibit A, and we appreciate you serving -- sharing our story.
So: who, exactly, was Exhibit A? The Associated Press has a little more information:
President Barack Obama wanted to put a human face on his plans to overhaul health care, and a Virginia supporter did just that Wednesday. Fighting back tears, Debby Smith, 53, told Obama of her kidney cancer and her inability to obtain health insurance or hold a job.
The president hugged her--she's a volunteer for his political operation--and called her "exhibit A" in an unsustainable system that is too expensive and complex for millions of Americans. ...
Smith, of Appalachia, Va., is a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama's political operation within the Democratic National Committee. She obtained her ticket through the White House.
There may be a limit to the cynicism of the Obama White House, but I don't think we've reached it yet
http://www.powerlineblog.co...
The New York Times is covering President Obama's health care town hall-style meeting today in Northern Virginia rather credulously. This is the orchestrated political event that will feature a hand-picked audience and pre-screened questions about Obama's health care plan for the nation.
In one story, the Times bills it as Obama's effort to "steer health debate out of the capital."
A blog post echoes that storyline, simply referring to Obama's "selling his plan to the public."
Those two write-ups, and an update on the town meeting, as it starts, all explain that the president will take questions from the audience (and, Facebook and Twitter!) without ever mentioning that the content of both the audience and the questions was governed by the White House.
It struck me that I remembered New York Times approaching coverage of President Bush's Social Security town halls somewhat differently, back in 2005 when Bush was similarly seeking to take the "debate out of the capital" and "sell his plan to the public."
Indeed, a quick search reveals that in February 2005, according to the Times, Bush was taking "Social Security to 2 'town halls.' That story notes the "orchestrated" nature of the political event:
To make his case, Mr. Bush held two town-hall-style meetings with younger and older workers, events that recalled some of the most carefully orchestrated, and successful, moments of his re-election campaign last year. There were teachers, preachers, recent retirees and a widow, all embracing elements of his message.
In another story, the Times described one part of Bush's "road tour" thusly:
At the "town hall" meeting in Kentucky, Mr. Bush sought to emphasize the benefits of his Social Security plan for rural populations, part of a strategy to win over specific groups of voters to using personal accounts as part of an overhauled program of retirement benefits for younger workers.
When does a "town hall" become a town hall, without need of scare-quote qualification, one might wonder? (When Clinton and Gore held Social Security town halls in the late 90s, they were just plain town halls. Although, one story notes rather deep into the article that the AARP picked questions.)
Both White Houses are entitled to hold such events, which are inherently and sensibly orchestrated to benefit each executive. The press is right to note that fact while reporting them. Odd that the Times chose to do that only for the Bush administration, huh?
I guess their journalistic skepticism is now more properly termed, "skepticism."
