January 12-14, 2007
Jan 12 08:13 Bipartisan Group Hands Reid His First Loss Jan 12 08:41 So Much For Fiscal Moderation Jan 12 11:48 More On Carter Center Resignations Jan 13 12:15 Boxer's Disgusting Diatribe Jan 13 13:28 As The Liberals' Clock Ticks Jan 13 14:43 Just Heartbreaking Jan 14 03:21 They're At It Again
Prior Years: 2006
Bipartisan Group Hands Reid His First Loss
According to this article, Harry Reid was handed a stinging defeat during a procedural vote on earmark reform.
The Senate's new Democratic leaders, the fragility of their thin majority on display for the first time, were set back Thursday when nine Democrats joined with Republicans in support of stricter House-passed rules on lawmakers' pet projects. Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV), was forced to delay a final vote on a measure he opposes after losing 51-46 a parliamentary attempt to kill it.This should be considered a shot across the bow for Reid. It's got be disturbing to him to think that that many Democrats would bolt on him on such an important early vote. The first votes with a new majority are historically seen as a test of party loyalty. Here's why the senators bolted:
"If we're going to go through all this process, if we're going to change the laws and try to tell the American people that now you can see what we're doing, let's don't try to pull the wool over their eyes," said Sen. Jim DeMint, (R-SC), sponsor of the amendment. Among the Democrats siding with DeMint were possible presidential candidates Barack Obama, (D-IL), and John Kerry, (D-MA), freshmen Jim Webb of Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a tough reelection bid in 2008.Reid tried playing games with earmark reform. He wanted to make it look like he was serious about earmark reform but he didn't want to put real teeth into the legislation. Thanks to the work of Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, Reid was exposed for the phony that he is. He should be embarrassed to have written language that would eliminate a paltry handful of earmarks. Might this explain why Robert Byrd was for earmark reform? It's easy being for 'reform' when the reform is purely cosmetic.
DeMint insisted that the Senate definition would catch only about 5 percent of earmarks, saying that in most instances lawmakers insert their pet projects not into the bill itself but into the explanatory report language that accompanies the bill and is not subject to a vote. Sen. Tom Coburn, (R-OK), said that of some 12,852 earmarks found in bills last year, only 534 would be subject to Senate disclosure rules.
This Reid quote says it all:
"It's important that the Senate rules be amended slowly and with careful bipartisan deliberation," Reid said, stressing that the House didn't spend much time on their version and the Senate approach was "so much better."Sen. Reid is embarrassed by this defeat so he tried painting the best picture he could. It won't work. Sen. Reid doesn't get it that alot of people are watching this reform bill because it represents the biggest budgetary reform the Senate will likely take up this year. The people who pay attention to this stuff won't settle for watered-down half measures. They're demanding serious legislation that eliminates earmarks.
Posted Friday, January 12, 2007 8:15 AM
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So Much For Fiscal Moderation
The charade ended almost before it started. Here's what I'm talking about:
Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Ron Carey today released the following statement after House Democrats repeatedly blocked a series of tax relief measures, including tax relief for individuals and small businesses.I've said numerous times that increasing taxes is genetic to Democrats. They don't have any inhibitions that prevent them from raising anyone's taxes. There isn't a tax that they aren't happy raising. House Democrats have giftwrapped the House majority to the GOP already. Not only have they proven that they'll raise taxes, they've also proven that they'll prevent tax cuts.
"After promising to govern as fiscal moderates, House Democrats today demonstrated that they will not stand up for Minnesota's middle class by voting down tax relief for individuals and small businesses. After obscuring their true views on taxes and spending for months, Democrats in the legislature continue to reveal their firm opposition to tax relief for hard working Minnesotans."
While we have a $2 billion surplus.
This better serve as a wakeup call to GOP faithful. We need to get to work ASAP to return to GOP control of the House. To not retake the House would spell disaster for taxpaying Minnesotans.
The GOP faithful should use this quote as their rallying cry for 2008:
"We're a fiscally moderate caucus," Kelliher said of the sprawling 85-member majority that now includes significant numbers of moderates from the suburbs, exurbs and rural areas.You can put all the lipstick on that pig and it still won't matter. Kelliher can spin this all day long and not change peoples' minds. This issue is a loser for Democrats. Period.
Posted Friday, January 12, 2007 8:42 AM
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More On Carter Center Resignations
Here's the link to the official letter of resignation by those Carter Center advisers. Suffice it to say that there's some strong condemnatory comments included in the resignation letter.
In its work in conflict resolution the Carter Center has always played the useful and constructive role of honest broker and mediator between warring parties. In your book, which portrays the conflict between Israel and her neighbors as a purely one-sided affair with Israel holding all of the responsibility for resolving the conflict, you have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.I can't disagree with these advisers saying that President Carter has become a pro-Palestinian advocate. What I'm wondering is why they didn't notice sooner. During his presidency, he attempted to appear fair-minded. Over the past 15 years, he's cozied himself up to the most disgusting dictators in the world. He's certified as clean Chavez's electoral 'victory' even though it was proven that Chavez had threatened would be voters. He negotiated the agreed framework by which North Korea got nukes. He advocated not cutting funds to Palestine just because Hamas got elected.
The facts in dealing with the conflict are these: There are two national narratives contesting one piece of land. The Israelis, through deed and public comment, have consistently spoken of a desire to live in peace and make territorial compromise to achieve this status. The Palestinian side has consistently resorted to acts of terror as a national expression and elected parties endorsing the use of terror, the rejection of territorial compromise and of Israel's right to exist.
There isn't a justification for Jimmy Carter to take the Palestinians' side on the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. The Palestinians have terrorized Israel. Israel has worked hard, though not perfectly, to make a two state solution happen.
In the past you would inject yourself into this world to moderate between the two sides in the pursuit of peace and as a result you earned our admiration and support. Now you repeatedly make false claims. You wrote that UN Security Council Resolution 242 says that "Israel must withdraw from territories" (p. 38), but you know the word "must" in fact is not in the resolution. You said that since Mahmoud Abbas has been in office there have been no peace discussions. That is wrong. You wrote that Yassir Arafat told you in 1990 that, "The PLO has never advocated the annihilation of Israel" (p. 62). Given that their Charter, which explicitly calls for Israel's destruction, was not revised until the late 1990s, how could you even write such a claim as if it were credible?It's sad that Jimmy Carter, who once had a solid moral compass, has abandoned that compass. He's now seen as a truth-challenged individual by anyone who's paying attention. It's also sad that Carter has portrayed things as fact when they're far from the truth. The p. 38 statement is proof of Carter's disengagement with the truth.
I strongly recommend that you read the entire resignation letter.
Posted Friday, January 12, 2007 11:50 AM
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Boxer's Disgusting Diatribe
By now, everyone has heard about Barbara Boxer's disgusting diatribe. With people speculating why she did it, it's important to remember Boxer's anti-Condi history. Here's what Sen. Boxer said at Dr. Rice's confirmation hearing as Secretary of State:
Boxer was particularly aggressive, pointing out what she said were inconsistencies in Rice's statements about the imminent threat of nuclear weapons in Iraq. "This is a pattern here of what I see from you," Boxer said. "It's very troubling...It's hard for me to let go of this war because people are still dying."My personal theory is that several things contribute to Sen. Boxer's hostility towards Dr. Rice. One is that Dr. Rice just isn't a liberal. Another factor is that Dr. Rice has a great record of accomplishment in her field of expertise. Sen. Boxer is considered a back bench bombthrower, a loudmouthed single issue advocate. In short, this is about Sen. Boxer's professional jealousy. Another thing that I believe contributes to this is that Dr. Rice spent several years at Stanford as both a political science professor as well as Stanford's provost. In other words, Dr. Rice has a reputation of having gravitas. Gravitas isn't something that Sen. Boxer's ever had. Sen. Boxer's 'claim to fame' is for having a shrill voice and for being a nag.
She said Rice has not acknowledged those deaths, has not laid out an exit strategy for Iraq and has been unwilling to admit mistakes, including going to war over weapons of mass destruction found later not to exist. "If you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you will rethink it," Boxer said.
According to this NY Times article, Sen. Boxer is spinning Thursday's incident. Here's an example of that spin:
"What I was trying to do in this exchange was to find common ground with Condi Rice," Ms. Boxer said, adding that "my whole point was to focus on the military families who pay the price."What a crock!!! The day that Sen. Boxer tries finding common ground with Dr. Rice in a spirit of bipartisanship is the day I'll start watching for alien spaceships landing in my yard. Sen. Boxer is lying through her teeth. She's telling us now that she sought common ground with this but her tone of voice was that of an angry woman hoping to pick a fight. Boxer's was a confrontational tone of voice.
"They're getting this off on a non-existent thing that I didn't say," Ms. Boxer said. "I'm saying, she's like me, we do not have families who are in the military. What they are doing is a really tortured way to attack a United States Senator who voted against the war."
People who've followed politics for any length of time know that Sen. Boxer has always been about confrontation with any Republican. They know that she's a divisive, bomb-throwing, mean-spirited person.
Senator Boxer read excerpts from a radio interview with an American family that lost a son in Iraq. "You can't begin to imagine how you celebrate any holiday or birthday," Ms. Boxer said. "There's an absence. It's not like the person's never been there. They always were there and now they're not and you're looking at an empty hole."I still don't understand the substantive reason for Sen. Boxer pursuing this line of questioning. It's obvious that the biggest reason for it was to accuse the Bush administration of not caring about the families whose children have died in conflict. In other words, Sen. Boxer wasn't interested in questioning the policy. Her role was to do a hatchet job on the administration.
Ms. Rice replied, "I can never do anything to replace any of those lost men and women in uniform, or the diplomats, some of whom ..."
Ms. Boxer cut her off. "Madame Secretary, please, I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions."
That's why I don't buy into her saying that she was trying to find common ground with Dr. Rice.
Posted Saturday, January 13, 2007 12:16 PM
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As The Liberals' Clock Ticks
Who knew that one hundred hours didn't equal one hundred hours? That's what happens when you use a liberal's clock.
The clock is ticking for House Democrats, but it's hard to tell what time it is. On Friday, for example, the House was in session for a little more than eight hours. Only five of them, however, ticked off on new Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 100-hour clock for quickly passing a six-bill agenda that Democrats promised voters last fall.Only a liberal would count it that way. Nevertheless, what's been 'accomplished' isn't surprising. Democrats have broken a string of campaign promises. The one I wanted to focus on this time is their promise of letting Republicans have a bigger say in the agenda than Democrats had under Republican rule. It's documented that Pelosi hasn't allowed amendments to the legislation.
With passage of a bill to make the government negotiate for lower Medicare prescription drug prices, Pelosi, (D-CA), is two-thirds of the way done, in under a quarter of the allotted hours, according to her count.
That's because just as the official clock for a basketball or football game stops for time-outs and commercial breaks, Democrats aren't counting the minutes spent on business unrelated to those six designated bills.
So while the House had been in session for nearly 56 hours since the 110th Congress was sworn in Jan. 4, the clock on Pelosi's Web site suggested that less than half that time, 23 hours, 34 minutes, had elapsed by the close of business Friday.
"We're just counting the legislative hours," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill explained.
In fact, there hasn't even been committee work done on the legislation. Pelosi said that there wasn't a need for that since the issues had been discussed before. The impression she wanted to make was that they wanted to get these things done ASAP.
We know that that's a facade because they broke another campaign promise. That would be the promise of working 5 days a week. They broke that promise the first scheduled full week.
There's another benchmark that Ms. Pelosi's 100 hours agenda should be measured against, specifically, the Contract With America. The Contract had 10 items on it; 2 constitutional amendments and eight legislative goals. All eight legislative goals are now the law of the land. I'd doubt that people will even know what Pelosi's 100 Hour Agenda was by this time next year.
One thing that the Pelosi House will be remembered for is corruption. With Alan Mollohan and John Conyers chairing committees, John Murtha chairing a powerful Appropriations subcommittee and Cold Cash Jefferson still lingering around, it's hard not to think of them as utterly corrupt.
Will the Pelosi House get anything worthwhile or longlasting done? The clock is ticking.
Posted Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:29 PM
Comment 1 by Beach Girl at 13-Jan-07 01:38 PM
Like your blog. You know of the 910 Group, right?
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 13-Jan-07 03:31 PM
I've heard of it but I'm not part of it.
Just Heartbreaking
That's Hillary Clinton's description of the situation in Iraq. This should be seen as her playing to the extreme anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. This should be seen as her poor imitation of her pander bear hubby.
"I don't know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work," she said. "And in the absence of a commitment that is backed up by actions from the Iraqi government, why should we believe it?"In other words, Hillary is saying that the fight in Iraq isn't worth it if Iraqis don't help, which sounds reasonable until you examine the consequences. Leaving Iraq without defeating the terrorists guarantees more terrorist attacks on American soil. It guarantees Iran setting up a puppet regime in Baghdad. It means al Qa'ida gets a new training ground.
What's so great about Hillary's strategy? I can't find anything worthwhile in her policy.
Instead of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, as President Bush plan, Clinton said it is time to start re-deploying U.S. troops out of Iraq. "That would really demonstrate to the Iraqis that we don't have an open-ended commitment," she said. "We are not going to be here providing protection for their leaders, which we do. We are not going to be here standing by and trying to be called in from time to time as they see fit. That is not in the cards."It isn't worth my time to listen to Hillary. Instead, we should make clear that our goal is victory. We should fight and win. Fighting and winning isn't a concept Democrats can grasp because they don't have the steadfastness to win militarily. The fact is that Democrats, Hillary chief amongst them, don't have the will to kill all the terrorists, which is the only solution to this global jihad.
I have a couple questions for Hillary and like-minded Democrats who want to abandon Iraq: Don't you know that walking out on the Iraqis will cause every Arab nation to not trust us anytime soon? Don't you get it that by giving up on Iraq, you embolden terrorists everywhere around the world? Or is it that you just don't care that that's what would happen? God help us if that's the case.
In the end, the only thing heartbreaking in Iraq is Hillary's willingness to throw the Iraqi patriots under the proverbial bus.
Then again, Hillary doesn't understand the concept of patriotism. She never will, either. (Yes, that's me questioning her patriotism. I can't for the life of me think of what's patriotic about betraying our allies and endangering innocent Americans. Can you?)
Posted Saturday, January 13, 2007 2:49 PM
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They're At It Again
The NY Times has resumed their never-ending quest of helping our terrorist enemies. Here's their latest attempt to undermine national security:
The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering. (Ed.- emphasis added)Notice that this isn't taking in hundreds of thousands of names. It says that it's been done on "hundreds of American s." That's hardly being abusive. In fact, I'd argue that it's rather restrained.
The CIA has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.
Banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions receiving the letters usually have turned over documents voluntarily, allowing investigators to examine the financial assets and transactions of American military personnel and civilians, officials say.
I expect John Conyers to take this up in his committee. This paragraph says why he's interested in it:
Government lawyers say the legal authority for the Pentagon and the CIA to use national security letters in gathering domestic records dates back nearly three decades and, by their reading, was strengthened by the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act.I've written a few times lately about Conyers' desire to gut the Patriot Act. Don't think that he won't see this as a perfect opportunity to exploit.
I'd further suggest that the credibility of this reporting is suspect because we're getting this information leaked. If there's anything that makes me suspicious of a report, it's when the information was acquired through a snitch with an agenda.
If the government's lawyers are right that the Patriot Act strengthened the use of national security letters, then it's reasonable to assume that there's regular oversight done on this program. If that's the case, then we don't need to read about it in the NY Times.
I'd further add that it's suspicious that Eric Lichtblau, one of the reporters that exposed the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program, another important tool in preventing terrorist attacks, is one of the reporters for this article. Does the NY Times hire Mr. Lichtblau each time they want to tell terrorists about the tools the U.S. is using in preventing terrorist attacks? Or do they just keep such subversives on payroll for use during Republican administrations?
Obviously, they didn't use the likes of Mr. Lichtblau to expose Bill Clinton's Echelon program. Furthermore, they didn't use Mr. Lichtblau to write about Bill Clinton's use of warrantless searches in other cases. Are we to believe that that's pure coincidence? Or should we just believe that the NY Times has it in for Republicans? They certainly don't have it in for Democrats.
It's time we got rid of reporters with such a history of undermining our war efforts. He's potentially endangering millions of lives with his reporting. That isn't reporting; it's subversion.
Posted Sunday, January 14, 2007 3:22 AM
Comment 1 by Trekant at 14-Jan-07 11:05 AM
Congratulations on making the move successfully. We need more attention to the very things you are writing about.
Comment 2 by nbpundit at 14-Jan-07 08:01 PM
Exposing how the feds go after information on terrorism is like
lifting someone's house keys and
unlocking the door for the thieves
to enter with no warning.
It should be noted that when this
country is again attacked due to
this kind of behaviour these people
be the first who pay the price
for their treachery.
I hope they sweat in their sleep.
