Harry Reid Had Talks With Rod Blagojevich
Much has been made (at least here), about president-elect Barack Obama’s/Rahm Emanuel’s involvement in the Blagojevich scandal but there is another prominent Democrat who made several phone calls to Blagojevich and spoke directly with him about filling Obama’s senate seat. Harry Reid.
Now Harry Reid is defending his interference in a state issue. He is not denying that he spoke with Blagojevich but claims that Blagojevich is misrepresenting the conversations.
Harry Reid claims that Blagojevich is trying to deflect the attention away from himself by trying to implicate Harry Reid.
Gov. Blagojevich appears to be trying to distract attention from his daunting legal problems and damaged credibility by distorting information about private phone calls between himself and other public officials. It is regrettable and reprehensible
An admission by Harry Reid that he did talk to Blagojevich. Harry Reid is trying to separate himself from his conversations with Blagojevich but the fact is that he was in negotiations talks with Blagojevich about the senate seat.
Gov. Blagojevich’s efforts to try to tarnish others while the cloud of suspicion continues to grow over him are shameful, as are his efforts to further betray the public trust and sow seeds of division. As each day passes it becomes increasingly clear that Gov. Blagojevich is not fit to lead, and he should resign
Senator Reid, you were involved in the selection process to replace Obama’s senate seat with a man, who by all accounts, it was fairly obvious was illegally trying to sell that seat. Yet we are to believe that you didn’t understand what was going on.
Senator Reid had to have understood what Blagojevich was up to even if he wasn’t involved in any wrong-doing and now that Blagojevich has been caught he is trying to distance himself. Perhaps it is Harry Reid who should resign.
Senator Reid had no business meddling in a state affair in the first place and now that the corruption of Blagojevich has been made public he is running from where he shouldn’t have been.
Here is more from Harry Reid:
I am not going to get into a public debate with a guy accused of selling a Senate seat
But he was in private talks with the “guy accused of selling a Senate seat”, wasn’t he? And we will never know what exactly the conversations included, will we? And that is probably the way Harry Reid prefers it, we will never know what precisely what was said or inferred or negotiated, but the one thing that we do know is that Harry Reid talked to the “guy accused of selling a Senate seat” in private about that seat.
We are just supposed to take Harry Reid’s word for it that he had no idea what was going on.
The Democrats Plan to Physically Stop Roland Burris From Taking His Senate Seat is Unconsitutional
As despicable and deplorable as I find Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich there is something that I find just as deplorable if not more so. And that is the Democrats who have decided that they will physically stop Blagovejech’s senate pick, Roland Burris, from entering the senate and taking his rightful seat.
As I have written, I find Blagojevich despicable but the fact is he hasn’t been convicted of a crime yet, he is innocent until proven guilty, and he is still the governor of Illinois. As governor he is allowed to pick senate seats in a situation such as this where the previous senator no longer holds the seat.
The constitution gives him that right under Article 1, Section 5 and there is judicial precedence set in this matter.
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case called Powell v. McCormack that the Senate could refuse to seat a member only if that person failed to meet the minimum qualifications set out in the Constitution, those being age, residence and citizenship.
This means that it is unconstitutional for the Democrats to block Roland Burris from taking his rightful seat in the senate. Not that the constitution means anything to them anyway.
There is a way for them to remove Senator Burris if they see fit however, while Article 1, Section 5 prohibits the senate from blocking Burris’ entrance to the senate it does provide a means to remove him.
The senate can remove him by a two thirds vote for any reason after he is seated. As this article points out that is the only way the Democrats can prohibit Burris from serving.
Until and unless Blagojevich is convicted of a crime or resigns he has the constitutional right to appoint Barack Obama’s successor and as disgusting as that may be it must be accepted.
Republicans to Filibuster Democrat Plans to Seat Al Franken
An interesting little game is playing out in Minnesota and with the Democrat party. Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken are locked in a disputed senate race that is in the midst of yet another recount.
Norm Coleman won the original vote as well as the first recount before Al Franken miraculously “found” some votes that weren’t counted and he is now in the lead.
Beacuse Norm Coleman’s senate race is still undecided he will not be allowed to sit in on the senate proceedings when they resume on Tuesday. He will have no input and no vote as well as no seat on the floor. Makes sense to me. How can a senator be seated when we don’t know who that senator should be?
Since he has not been certified a winner in the race, Coleman may have to give up his privileges as a senator, including his desk on the floor, his personal office and his right to vote on legislation, according to Democratic aides familiar with the rules.
On the other hand, Democrats are trying to seat Al Franken in the senate even though the race is still undecided.
Some have suggested that Franken could be seated provisionally
This has drawn the ire of minority leader John Cornyn who has promised to filibuster any attempt to seat the as of now unelected Al Franken.
This is a very, very serious matter,” Cornyn said. “I can assure you that there will be no way that people on our side of the aisle will agree to seat any senator without a valid certificate
While the election still isn’t certified neither candidate should be allowed a seat on the floor. It seems obvious to me. Yet the Democrats are counting their chickens before they hatch, they assume that because Al Franken is winning this recount that he should be allowed a seat on the senate floor. This battle for the senate seat could go on for quite a while and as long as it does neither man should be allowed to sit on the senate floor.
I am sure that Democrats will complain that this is the obstructionist politics as usual and they should know about obstructionist politics. It is they who have obstructed over the last eight years. But this isn’t about obstructionism it is about the rules of the senate, it is about what is right and wrong.
Al Franken is probably going to win the seat but until he does he shouldn’t be allowed to sit in it.
Obama’s Ties to Norman Hsu May Be Examined During Hsu’s Trial
The Smoking Gun is reporting thisstory that president-elect Barack Obama’s connections to Norman Hsu are going to be investigated.
In case you didn’t hear and you probably didn’t because the media didn’t find the Norman Hsu story newsworthy, Norman Hsu is was a major Democrat fundraiser who was arrested earlier this year for running a pyramid scheme with donations.
While Hsu donated mostly to Hillary Clinton Barack Obama also has connectionsto Norman Hsu and those connections might come up during Hsu’s upcoming trial.
This can’t be the way that Barack Obama envisioned his time as president-elect beginning. First he was involved in the Rod Blagojevich senate seat selling scandal in which we learned that Barack Obama lied to us about his staff’s involvement and now we have a disgraced fundraiser with ties to Obama who goes on trial soon.
This is just one more shady tie to Obama and there are many. They say that you can judge a man by the company that he keeps and in Obama’s case it appears to be true as one by one all of his associations prove to be controversial.
Military Poll Shows Concern About Barack Obama
Army Times has released a poll about how military personnel feel about president-elect Barack Obama. 60% of military personnel surveyed are either pessimistic or uncertain about Barack Obama. They are concerned about both his lack of military service and his lack of experience at leading military personnel.
Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified
Much of the uncertainty comes from Obama’s pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq on a set timetable rather than listening to the generals on the ground. (Of course his position on Iraq troop withdrawal has changed so often nobody knows what his position is.)
How are you going to safely pull combat troops out of Iraq?” said Air Force 1st Lt. Rachel Kleinpeter, an intelligence officer with the 100th Operations Support Squadron at RAF Mildenhall, England. “And if you’re pulling out combat troops, who are you leaving to help support what’s left? What happens if Iraq falls back into chaos? Are we going to be there in five years doing the same thing over again?
Here is a chart that shows the results of the poll.
RNC to Draft a Resolution Calling President Bush a Socialist
I have been here defending President Bush for almost two years through thick and thin. During the whole amnesty for illegal immigrants fiasco I jumped ship, there was no defending such a deplorable bill. But I came back, that is until the bailout fiasco.
That is when I left the president for good. Perhaps I am not being fair to myself with that statement, I did not leave the president, he left me, or rather, my position on the government’s role in the private sector. I will not be defending him here any more. He sold out the party and the country.
I have been condemning the bailout bill as socialization. The government has nationalized (taken over) several industries in manner that would make Hugo Chavez proud. So proud in fact that Chavez mocked the president for finally realizing that socialism is the wave of the future. Talk about embarrassing!
Now the RNC is drafting a resolution to condemn the bailout bill and also calling President Bush a socialist, as well as congressional Republicans who also went along with this foolhardy bailout bill. The RNC is using this issue to try to reconnect with their core voters, people like me who are totally upset and disgusted with the actions of the president and the party in regards to this bailout bill and nationalization of the economy, Wall Street, the mortgage industry, and most recently, the auto industry.
We can’t be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms
Now that is music to my ears. Let’s just hope that the conservatives in the party are able to retake the leadership positions on the party and restore Republicans as the party of limited government.
This is the issue that caused John McCain to lost the election. After running as the candidate who would cut spending and oppose earmarks he ran to Washington to sign the pork filled, spend-a-holic bailout bill portraying himself as the opposite of who he was running as. Republicans who felt that a conservative couldn’t win in the current political environment nominated a RINO, a Democrat lite, and when voters are faced with voting for a Democrat-lite or the real deal, they will choose the real deal.
Hopefully Republican leaders are now realizing this and are in the process of becoming the party of conservatism once again.
If enacted, the resolution would put the party on record opposing the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, which passed Congress with Republican support and was signed by Mr. Bush, and opposing the bailout of the auto industry
This is a winning position with voters across the board and on both sides of the aisle. Something like 75% of all voters think that the bailout bill is wrong. The RNC can hope to capitalize on this by taking the position that a true conservative would have had in the first place. In fairness to congressional Republicans, they did oppose bailing out the auto industry but they were overruled, or should I say, undermined, by the president.
The RNC realizes that this whole issue was the final undoing of the Republican chances of winning the White House and now they are positioning themselves for the 2010 election. The RNC resolution will also condemn president-elect Obama’s new New Deal.
The resolution also opposes President-elect Obama’s proposed public works program and supports conservative alternatives,” while encouraging the RNC “to engage in vigorous public policy debates consistent with our party platform
While president-elect Obama has a plan to further the socialization of America it is important that we never forget that the current path toward socialism was started by President Bush. We must not forget it and the RNC must not forget it. We cannot have another John McCain as our next nominee for president.
Hopefully the RNC is going to get us back on track and on the path of true conservatism, they are off to a promising start with this resolution. It will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere. Maybe conservatives have learned their lesson from the last election. I hope so, time is running out, we need to take back our country from the socialists before it is too late. If it isn’t already.
Here is the text of the resolution:
WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill effectively nationalized the Nation’s banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism; and WHEREAS, what was needed, and is still needed, to fix the banking industry is not a bailout, but rather a commitment to fiscal responsibility.
Fiscal responsibility, that is the tune that rings true every time. The RNC claims that they are ready for a fight on this issue, I hope that they are. The Republican party is in disarray and looking for direction. There is an internal battle in the party in terms of the direction the party should turn.
This is our chance for conservatives to take the party back. We have to.
Church Invests $200 Million in Al Gore’s “Green” Company
The Church of England has decided to go green and because of this idea they have given the company Generation Investment Management $2oo million. This company just happens to be owned by none other than Al Gore.
Let’s see if I have this straight; Al Gore is the leading voice on the issue of global warming. Al Gore has even won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in raising awareness about global warming. Al Gore also stands to make a profit with his company because of global warming.
Are you with me so far? Do you see where I am going?
Putting two and two together I would come to the conclusion that the more people who are aware of global warming and the more people who believe the earth is warming the better it is for companies that stand to make a profit from global warming. Therefore the more people that think that global warming is real the more profitable Al Gore’s company is. To take it one step further, the more people who believe that global warming is real the more money Al Gore makes.
How convenient is that that the man who is the leading voice on global warming also stands to make a profit from it? What a coincidence.
The global warming hoax has been quite profitable to the former vice president and presidential nominee as his company was valued at about $5 billion. I am sure Al Gore is really concerned about the planet and not about making money though, it just happens to be the case that while he cares so damned much about the environment and the destruction we are causing the planet that he also seems to be becoming a rich man at the planet’s expense. Or should I say he is becoming a rich man not at the planet’s expense but at the expense of the consciences of those that he has fooled into believing that we are destroying the planet and heating the earth?
I don’t begrudge Al Gore for making money but I do begrudge the fact that he is making money on something as phony as this issue. He is nothing but a common swindler on the level of Bernard Madoff who bilked the rich for billions of dollars with his Ponzi scheme. Only Al Gore’s scheme will make Madoff look like a shoplifter when all is said and done.
With global warming being taught to our children as fact and with politicians going along with the scam in the interest of raising tax revenues and passing restrictions on the American people this is only the beginning. There is allot of money to be made out there on the global warming bandwagon and Al Gore has positioned himself perfectly as the voice of warning on the issue as well as the man to pay if we want to save the planet from the hysteria that he has almost single-handedly created.
It is almost genius what Al Gore has done and he should be admired for it, if only it wasn’t going to cost all of us so much in our freedoms and our money.
Protesters Gather Near Obama’s Vacation House
In an era when Cindy Sheehan can get basically unlimited media coverage for camping outside of President Bush’s house to demand a meeting with him, (even though she had already had a meeting with him), it seems odd that this protest goes almost totally unreported.
The media could not get enough of Cindy Sheehan and the likes but suddenly they don’t care about protesters who are interrupting the president-elect while he is on vacation ducking the Blogo controversy and Hamas/Israel conflict.
Even the article I linked to above throws a disclaimer on the protest held in front of a security checkpoint near Obama’s vacation house by saying that it doesn’t match up with the Cindy Sheehan protest. Why is that?
Protesters gathered to voice their opinions on the war on terror, the Gaza-Hamas-Israel conflict, and Palestine- important issues to say the least. The president-elect is going to have some difficult decisions to make. He can’t make everyone happy even though his glorious rhetoric made 52% of Americans believe that he could.
I think that this story was newsworthy, hell, it would have been newsworty over the last eight years. What changed?
Perhaps the media is just afraid to report stories like this. Let’s take a look at a few of the stories from the last year:
- Obama’s staff already threatened television stations with revocation of their FCC licenses when they spoke ill of him during the campaign.
- OBama has already thrown reporters off of his plane because they wrote articles for newspapers that he doesn’ like.
- Obama has sent out truth squads to harass people who ran television ads that he did not approve of.
- A sheriff already been investigated for using Obama’s middle name.
- An anti-Obama writer already been detained in Kenya suspiciously while he was on his way to a press conference.
- Obama’s campaign harassed a radio station that was critical of him.
Obama is already growing tired of the press and is ducking them at every chance. It appears that Obama has a thin skin when it comes to reporters and if you want to keep access to Obama you must not be critical of him.
Nobody wants to lose press credentials, licenses, or access to Obama so he has the press in his back pocket and it started well before his election.
Obama Remains Silent About the Hamas/Israel Conflict
Has anyone else noticed that Barack Obama has yet to even release a statement condemning the violence between Hamas ans Israel? What is he waiting for?
During the campaign such an attack would have prompted Obama to make a statement, perhaps he doesn’t take a stand because he can no longer just wait for McCain to take a stand and then take the opposite side. He no longer has that luxury.
His apologists will claim that he is not yet president and because of this he doesn’t want to interfere but this was not the case during the election when Russia invaded Georgia. He made a statement then. At that point it seemed as though America had three presidents- Bush, McCain, and Obama. At that point neither McCain nor Obama were concerned about interference, both candidates wanted to appear tough and both candidates released statements.
In Obama’s statement then he claimed that he talked to the Georgian president and offered him condolences over the loss of life. He also condemned the violence.
Now however he is silent. Why is this the case? Suddenly he is leaving it up to President Bush, would it really be so hard for him to just release a statement condemning the violence without placing blame on one side or the other? I don’t think so.
Is this the same man who as a candidate went to Europe and campaigned as a global president? Is this the same man who did in fact interfere in the United States foreign policy as a candidate when he visited Iraq during the campaign?
Now suddenly he doesn’t want to interfere? Something is odd here. Barack Obama the candidate would have said something, Barack Obama the president-elect is suddenly keeping to himself and minding his own business until he becomes president. I think that Barack Obama should let us know where he stands on this conflict instead of letting the lame duck president handle it.
We need to know which side Barack Obama is on.
Congress Set to Recieve $5,000 Pay Raise on Thursday
On Thursday congress will be getting a pay raise of almost $5,000 in their $169,000+ salary. They will be getting this raise automatically as they do every year. Congress has the power to stop the raise, they just need to vote to stop it. So far they have refused. While many ordinary Americans struggle in this economy the congress will be getting a nice little raise.
The fact that the pay raises are automatic every year is a stroke of genius. No politician in his right mind would vote himself a raise in this economy so instead the raise is automatic, allowing the congressmen cover to avoid voting for a raise. The raise could be stopped with a vote, but that doesn’t appear likely to happen. Instead of voting for a raise the raise will just slip in under the cover of darkness with no vote and barely any media coverage.
Brilliant.
But some in congress are mounting what is most likely a futile attempt at stopping the raises. Rep. Jim Matheson finds these raises unconscionable and is fighting to bring the issue to a vote.
In a situation where there aren’t many people in this country who are seeing their salaries go up, and in fact a lot of people are losing their jobs, the notion that Congress should be having an automatic pay raise without even a vote just doesn’t pass the smell test
He is being joined by the head of an organization called Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.
While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise
This issue is nothing new to Rep. Matheson, he has tried every year to force congress to vote on the issue of pay raises, he has failed every year but he feels that the economic downturn could push public opinion to his side enough that politicians will be forced to listen this year.
He doesn’t just talk the talk either. He gives the amount of his pay raise that he receives every year to charity.
As I wrote earlier this is a brilliant way for the congress to give themselves raises. You can rest assured that there would be an onslaught of media coverage if the congress had decided to vote themselves a raise, especially in this economy. But instead this will slip through without much notice by the American people, just the way they like it.
Congress, instead of at least appearing to be sensitive to the plight of ordinary Americans by voting against a pay raise when many Americans are fearful of their jobs, will instead let a pay raise go into effect while many Americans don’t know whether they will have a job in the new year. And it will on be done on the down low without the media attention that would accompany a vote on a pay raise. It will just slip in silently. Just the way it was envisioned.
At least as a symbolic gesture congress should stop this raise to show the American people that they understand that times are tough. They should act responsibly in an economic crisis and stop this automatic pay raise. To do otherwise shows an elitist attitude and an unwillingness by them to do the sacrificing that we are constantly being told that we must do by these very same elitist snobs. These people are just plain arrogant and lets face it, what have they done over the years that justifies any type of raise whatsoever?
