The Democrats are doomed: the newest political prognosticator has spoken.
Yes, that’s a photoshop.
Category: Uncategorized
#rsrh Obamaspill Schism?
For once, Anderson Cooper gets it more or less right that when it comes to Obamaspill when he notes that the regular media is not the enemy.
To this administration, the regular media are instead vile and impious heretics, and if they do not like being told that they may not get within 65 feet of any direct evidence of the federal government’s failure to master the spill, well… perhaps they should consider themselves fortunate. Another age would have them be the centerpiece to an auto de fe for their obstinacy. Continue reading #rsrh Obamaspill Schism?
Blago subpoenas Giannoulias.
A pleasant beginning to the week, no?
First it was President Barack Obama, then White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, now U.S. Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias is joining the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial subpoena list.
Giannoulias is in the middle of a hard fought campaign against Congressman Mark Kirk for the right to fill the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Obama.
So there’s no doubt that being dragged into the Blagojevich trial is not welcome news for the Democratic candidate’s campaign.
Staffing news comes in threes.
So, in the last forty-eight hours or so, we’ve learned:
- Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is either leaving his job, or being shoved out of it, in the very near future;
- White House Budget Director Peter Orszag is going to be likewise leaving his job… not that anybody can tell the difference, given that WE DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE A BUDGET THIS YEAR BECAUSE DEMOCRATIC POLITICIANS ARE A PACK OF COWARDS*;
- and Commander of US forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal has just decided to commit career suicide by badmouthing the Ambassador of Afghanistan – via the magazine Rolling Stone.
Anyway, it’s a trifecta: a Chief of Staff who can’t keep the White House running smoothly, a Budget Director who can’t create a budget, and a top military guy who can’t keep his mouth shut about the civilian powers**. That’s one heck of an executive branch staffing record that the White House is accumulating there – and it’s only Tuesday. At this rate, we’ll wake up on Friday to the news that Steven Chu*** has just burned down the Department of Energy as part of a tragic toasted bagel accident.
But at least they have Obama!
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this John Dickerson article on what last night’s results really mean, but this last paragraph is probably the one that needs to be most referenced:
The night showed just how limited Obama’s political power is. He said he’d work all-out for Specter, but he didn’t campaign for the senator in the final days. That may have been a wise reservation of his political capital (he’s already been ineffective in previous races), but it also demonstrated how much has changed since 2008, when Obama was talked about as a force that could remake the political landscape. Critz won by running away from Obama’s signature achievement, and Lincoln, whom he supported, was forced into a runoff. For a president who is still far more popular than the Democratic Congress he aims to help, yet who is unable to translate much of that popularity to do so, this condition may be best described as limbo.
Hiatus.
Hiatus.
I’m taking a break.
Rotten mood. Here. Have some of the Ludwig van.
Good news: Crist isn’t giving that money back.
This is good news…
Gov. Charlie Crist told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on April 30 that he would “probably” give refunds to donors who don’t approve of him leaving the GOP. Some donors to his U.S. Senate campaign were told before the switch that they would get their money back or pro-rated refunds.
No more. A couple of hours before Crist officially becomes an NPA voter, campaign spokeswoman Michelle Todd said there will be no refunds. Asked whether that amounts to a flip-flop, she said, “We have never made an official statement before. It is now the official statement. They donated to the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign, and it’s still the Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate Campaign.”
…for three reasons: Continue reading Good news: Crist isn’t giving that money back.
The implication of the House Rules Committee.
The House Rules Committee. People usually call this one of the most important House committees out there, which is in my opinion untrue: it simply is the most important House committee. The reason that I say that is because the Rules committee has ultimate control over how and in what way a bill is presented and debated; add that to its ability to dictate appropriate amendments leads to an effective result of Rules being the gatekeeper for House legislation. The membership is deliberately skewed heavily in favor of the majority party (currently over two-to-one), and majority party membership on that Committee is at the discretion of the Speaker of the House. In other words, if a Member of Congress disapproves of the way that the Rules Committee operates, the only way to show disapproval is to vote for somebody else for Speaker of the House.
The Democratic vote to re-elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House for the 111th Congress was 255 For, 1 Not Voting. Every action – and every flawed piece of legislation – that made it past the Rules Committee since then is thus the responsibility of those 255 Members of Congress who authorized giving control of the American legislative agenda to Speaker Pelosi.
And that is why there is no such thing as a “conservative” Democratic politician. That first vote defines all the rest.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
Ed Case hires a Blago Boy for HI-01 race.
Because surely you don’t think that getting Establishment Democratic support from the mainland comes free, do you?
With corruption running rampant through the ranks of the Democrat party in Washington, Hawai’i Democrat candidate Ed Case looked the other way when he hired Washington political consultant Fred Yang of Hart Research to do his polling. Yang has previously worked for disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Before you dismiss that language (ultimately from the HI GOP) as being just a bit overheated, check out what the well-known right-wing mouthpiece Huffington Post said about Yang, back when he was better known as ‘Advisor B:’ Continue reading Ed Case hires a Blago Boy for HI-01 race.