News Today

It can be a costly thing to cross the President.

Just ask U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, former GOP House leader Dick Armey, former New York lt. gov., conservative activist Betsy McCaughey and even Fox News’s Glenn Beck, who have all seen their finances threatened by activist groups after speaking out against Obama and his plans.

Donohue has been the most recent target. Environmental activists, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), have recently started a campaign to pressure him to resign from the board of Union Pacific Railroad or from his longtime post as head of the nation’s top business lobby.

“One way or another, there has got to be a potential for conflict in his two roles,” Pete Altman, the NRDC’s climate campaign director, said of Donohue. “How can you represent a federation of businesses if you are obligated to serve the best interests of one of them?”

Donohue is just the latest case of an Obama critic being attacked for their views. Earlier this year Fox News commentator Glenn Beck infuriated Obama supporters when he called the president a “racist” and accused him of having a “deep-seated hatred for white people.”

In response ColorofChange.org set out on a successful campaign to drive advertisers away from Beck’s talk show. According to Color of Change about 60 firms have agreed to pull their ads from his show. Shari Anne Brill, director of programming at Carat USA, said she hasn’t “heard of any show that has survived an advertising pullout of this magnitude.”

Former GOP House leader Dick Armey was forced to quit his position in late August as an adviser at DLA Piper, a lobbying firm in Washington. His resignation came after MSNBC and others publicly questioned whether his opposition to Obama’s agenda was tied to DLA Piper clients.

“It was the best-paying job I ever had. It was a better-paying job than I ever thought I’d have,” said Armey. “It had been my anticipation and expectation that I would remain in that firm, in that job, at that salary range, for the next 10 years.”

Conservative activist Betsy McCaughey also recently had to resign from the board of Cantel Medical Group after the firm was connected to McCaughey’s claims that Obama’s health care reform would lead to “death panels.”

Source:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27682.html#
ColorofChange.org

A couple things to go over real quick…

First off sorry I haven’t posted this weekend, it’s been quite an eventful week for news, especially in the world of foreign policy. I plan on catching up with that later. Secondly, it may have already come to your attention that comments are not working. Today.com is trying to work out a solution to the problem and hopefully comments will be back up and running soon.

Okay. Here’s a couple items of interest for you guys…

A Declaration of Independents, from Politico - Neat little story about some of the independent party governor candidates that are looking to make an impact in the next election.

This Iran missile thing could get ugly, real quick.

Military considers lifting ban on women serving in submarines.

Recovery.gov, the website promised by President Barack Obama to track the stimulus dollars, is up and running.

Alright, that’s all for now, I’ll try to get something else up here later tonight.

The always colorful Jim Traficant, a former Ohio Representative who was released earlier this month after a 7-year stint in federal prison on corruption charges, had some interesting things to say earlier today on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Traficant’s rant (while not the worst rant of the day) touched on everything from the IRS, and anti-tax tea parties to the “big whorehouse” that is the U.S. Capitol.

“Stimulate this,” Traficant said. “That’s what I’m saying.”

Traficant wasn’t all rants and raves though. In the interview Traficant advocated replacing the income tax with a 25 percent fair tax retail sales tax. This is a controversial idea that has grown a lot of traction recently, even with other bloggers here on today.com.

“I want to get the IRS, kick them in the crotch real good,” he said.

Traficant also made an apology over a statement he said in the House of Representatives years ago.

“Years ago on the House floor on a foreign aid debate, I called the members of the House of Representatives a bunch of political prostitutes,” he said. “They demanded my words be stricken. They jumped up like 100 TV evangelists.”

“I want to apologize to all the hookers in America for having associated them with the United States House of Representatives,” he continued. “Yeah, I think it is a big whorehouse and they better start taking care of America and stop worrying about the Middle East and worry about the Midwest.”

When questioned by Matthews Traficant didn’t rule out the possibility of another run in politics either.

“I would have to look at the variables on it,” he explained. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I may run.”

Source:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27505.html#

Are you fricking kidding me? This whole United Nations meeting is a joke. Did anyone catch Libya’s leader earlier today?

Moammar Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Khadafi — I couldn’t even tell you which one is the correct spelling. All three news channels broadcasting the event (CNN, MSNBC and FOX) spelled his name differently and a google news search for Libya brought up three different spellings as well.

For this post, I suppose we’ll settle on Gaddafi.

Anyways, to kick off the U.N. General Assembly Moammar Gaddafi took the podium directly after President Barack Obama spoke. What happened next was baffling.

From calls to abolish the Security Council because it had turned into a “terror council, to demanding $7.77 trillion in compensation to Africa from its past colonial masters, questions about who killed the Kennedy’s, Somali sea pirates, even the jet lag he experienced flying to New York — I kid you not, for over ninety minutes (he was alotted twenty) the United Nations let this man ramble on about nothing. NOTHING.

They literally had to change translators halfway through the speech because his rambling had gone on too long.

In fact, in the time that Gaddafi took to get through his speech (which, mind you, was written on torn out pieces of notebook paper) the U.S. Senate was able to hold hearings on and approve a resolution to condemn the “lavish” welcome home ceremony Libya gave last month for the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.

Our Senate wants an apology. I say we kick him out, or at least make him take that tent down (Editors Note - I guess they did make him take the tent down). Yeah, after being denied access in Central Park and in Englewood, N.J. this guy just sets up a huge Bedouin tent on one of Donald Trump’s properties in Bedford.

This is just ridiculous, the whole thing. His speech, his tent, the fact that he’s even on a United Nations security council. It’s a joke really. Only in a format as ridiculous as the United Nations is a man like this given creedence to, much less introduced as the “King of Kings.”

Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=axvgOvJmgEno
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090923/pl_nm/us_usa_libya_2
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_after_obamas_debut_spech_at_un_assembly_khadafy_and_irans_leader_take_to_the_pod.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/23/2009-09-23_libyan_despot_moammar_khadafy_chastises_united_nations_for_failing_to_prevent_wa.html

After attracting 27 co-sponsors in the Senate and 290 in the House (over 2/3rds of the House!) HR1207, or the Audit the Fed bill, will go to hearing in the House Finance Committee on Friday at 9 a.m.. You can even watch the hearing live.

The Federal Reserve is part of the Federal Government, but acts without any of the regular checks and balances. The Fed may even have more influence on your life than any other part of the government, but it’s completely independent of any corrective influence. Even Congress can’t even be sure it really knows what the Fed is doing.

As of right now, (Obama wants to expand the Fed’s powers) the Federal Reserve regulates banks, influences interest rates, and determines the size of our money supply through a complex process (Open Market Operations) that involves buying and selling securities and government debt. Through this process the Fed’s policies determine the value of your money, the health of the economy, and the rates you pay to borrow.

However, the Fed’s decision-making process is secret, transcripts of meetings don’t become available until five years later and The Comptroller General, head of the Government Accountability Office, is legally prohibited from auditing the Fed’s Open Market operations, and several other important Fed activities.

This wasn’t how are country was supposed to be run. In fact our constitution was designed to protect the people against this sort of thing. While a certain level of secrecy and independence are necessary to protect the Fed from partisan political influence, the system we have now leaves too many Americans in the dark about the Fed’s actions.

The first step towards ending the monopoly that the Federal Reserve has over our money supply is for this Audit the Fed bill to pass. DownsizeDC.org has a great campaign on this issue that I would suggest you all sign and pass on to your legislative representatives.

Just days after U.S. special envoy George Mitchell left Israel without reaching a deal for the resumption of peace talks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with President Barack Obama in New York. The trilateral meeting, which will take place on Tuesday, will be immediately followed by seperate individual meetings between Obama and each of the leaders.

While it would be foolish to expect anything too substantial to come out of Tuesday, the meetings have to be considered a step in the right direction and at the very least a small victory in foreign policy for the Obama administration — a victory that comes at a good time with Obama preparing to appear at the openings of the United Nations General Assembly and the G20 economic meetings in Pittsburgh.

“The sides agreed to this because of their respect for the president and his standing,” a White House official said. “We still have work to do to get to the point where we can relaunch talks.”

The goal of the meetings will be to get both sides back on track towards reaching a peace agreement. The two sides have been locked in a stalemate for months now. One of the main issues standing in the way of progress right now is the settlement issue, something Obama wants to stop and something the Palestinian’s demand a total freeze of before resuming peace talks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knows a thing or two about the difficulties of negotiating between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

“I well remember that brilliant sunny afternoon on the South Lawn of the White House when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands,” she said. “And I well remember the disappointment at Camp David despite enormous efforts to try to finally forge that peace agreement when it was not successful.”

“However, I believe that the commitment evidenced by my husband and the commitment evidenced by President Obama to be in this from the very beginning, never to be deterred, … is the best way for America to demonstrate our absolute belief that this issue is at the core of so many other challenges we face,” Clinton continued. “And we are going to do all we can to persuade, cajole, encourage the parties themselves to make that agreement.”

Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/20/meeting-talks-obama-netanyahu-abbas
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27347.html

Odd moment in the political world. A couple of days ago Chuck Todd made the mistake of underestimating Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s passion for proper health etiquette when he let out a sneeze during a White House press conference.

“We’ll have Elmo give Chuck a special briefing,” the secretary said. “Elmo knows how to sneeze.”.

You see, rather than burying the sneeze in the crook of his arm (the proper sneezing technique, as described by Elmo in a public awareness commercial a couple of weeks ago), Todd sneezed into his hand (tsk tsk tsk…) causing Robert Gibbs and pretty much the entire White House press corps to burst into laughter.

“I mean, what is that about? Jeez,” Sebelius exclaimed while demonstrating the proper sneeze-in-sleeve technique. “I don’t know. Who’s got some Purell? Give that to Mr. Todd right away.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/kathleen-sebelius-lecture_n_290782.html

Pretty amusing video about this whole Joe Wilson “You Lie” debacle. Props to Corbin Bernsen and Eric Appel at FunnyOrDie.com for making the video and thanks to my friend Erica for tipping me off about it. Enjoy!

“YOU LIE” with Joe Wilson from Corbin Bernsen

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor, consumer advocate and head of the committee charged with overseeing the Wall Street bailout funds has come up as a possible candidate to take the senate seat vacated from the death of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.

Warren simply repeated “I have a job” during an interview on Thursday on Fox Business, where she was asked several times if she’d rule out accepting an appointment to the position.

“Warren would be a pitch-perfect candidate,” wrote Ethan Porter on True/Slant. “The values that drive her public career are the same values that drove Kennedy’s.”

Warren’s credentials are pretty strong. Besides being a Harvard professor, Warren has been one of the most outspoken voices of opposition to Wall Street’s greedy antics. As a watchdog for the Wall Street bailout, Warren has been relentless (though too often unsuccessful) in hounding both the Treasury Department and the various financial institutions to explain where the taxpayer money was being spent.

“Throughout the financial crisis, she has been the voice of the common person in policy debates,” said Porter. “We urgently need her–and what she represents–in the Senate.”

Along with her work with the T.A.R.P. funds Warren has also proposed and designed a Financial Product Safety Commission (FPSC) that would place restrictions on the type of risky financial products that led to the 2008 economic collapse. Despite fierce opposition from the banking industry the FPSC has been renamed the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and will be due for a vote in the House Financial Services Committee in the fall.

In a congress that earlier this year was described by Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) as being owned by the banks, Warren’s voice would be a welcome change and her nomination would be a smart move for the Democrats.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/18/elizabeth-warren-for-sena_n_291804.html
http://trueslant.com/ethanporter/2009/09/16/draft-liz-warren-for-kennedys-seat/
http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6528

Irving Kristol, the political writer and publisher who earned the nickname of the “godfather of neoconservatism” passed away on Friday at the age of 89.

Kristol was the husband of historian Gertrude Himmelfarb and father to neoconservative commentator William Kristol, an editor of The Weekly Standard.

Kristol was active in publishing for more than half a century, writing essays and reviews for The New Leader and Commentary and The Wall Street Journal. He released several books over his career and co-founded a seminal neoconservative journal, The Public Interest. Kristol also taught at New York University, worked for several years as a senior editor at the Basic Books publishing house and in the 1950s headed the anticommunist magazine Encounter.

Kristol’s conservative brand, neoconservatism (a name coined by socialist author-activist Michael Harrington), focuses less on government spending than on moral and cultural issues. For the last decade it has been the driving force behind the Republican party.