I'd call this your classic buried lede. Everybody is focussing on the Gingrich-related aspects of this this, but I think something more scandalous is going on.
At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee--where she worked--had jurisdiction, official records show.What I'm wondering is, what exactly is the benefit to taxpayers if Tiffany gets a break? Will I be able to buy this at a 20% discount now? Will an army of diamond-cutters be recruited for jobs? I don't even care if they offer a $3.99 breakfast at Tiffany, it's not worth it. Whatever their discounts, I'd rather spend my tax money on infrastructure.
Filings by Tiffany’s lobbyist, Cassidy & Co., and other government records show that the firm’s spending on “mining law and mine permitting-related issues” in Congress, as well as the Forest Service, the Interior Department, and Interior’s Bureau of Land Management shot up sharply between during the period when Callista Gingrich was chief clerk at the House Agriculture Committee.
Tiffany's annual lobbying expenditures rose from about $100,000 to $360,000 between 2005 and 2009, according to records assembled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization.
The Forest Service, which comes under the committee’s jurisdiction, oversees mining, including silver mining, in federal forests.
The facts are startling. Almost 14 million Americans are unemployed. Oil prices are at an all-time high. Obamacare is bringing socialism to our doorstep, and the national debt is over $14.3 trillion. Yet, our President is too busy gallivanting around Europe with his Irish cousins, to focus on rebuilding our economy and strengthening our nation.-- Michele Bachman, via email
...Watch my video now and join my money bomb to ensure Barack Obama is a one-term President. I need your help right now to show Barack Obama that he is no match for our conservative base. We've set a goal to raise $240,000 in 24 hours, but we can only do this if you act now.
...My family and I are prayerfully considering what the next 18 months or so may bring. We've seen incredible support pouring in; the Team Bachmann momentum is building and very encouraging as we look to our next steps. With your generous support right now, we can continue this momentum and connect with conservatives nationwide.
"We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. … And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"-Republican Presidential Hopeful and Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain
"Vice speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Adam Martynyuk, on the right, throttles deputy Oleg Lyashko during a session in the chamber of the Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. According to reports, Lyashko had just asked Martynyuk to let him make a speech, which Martinyuk refused to do on procedural grounds. Lyashko then apparently called his interlocutor a Pharisee, at which point it was on."
- h/t bOING bOING
What time exactly will the Rapture take place?
The ExGovernator's messy personal life is all over the news this week, and he IS a political figure, so here goes. The question being thrown around is, would he have been elected if it was known then that he had fathered a child outside of his marriage? Did he use any state funds to keep the situation quiet?
I don't care, and you shouldn't either.
If you hire a guy for a job, it's none of your business what they do with their sperm. If they do the job then keep them; if they don't then fire them. Even if they have someone hidden in the podium orally servicing them while they're giving a speech. If the guy makes it through the speech, LEAVE HIM ALONE. It's not your problem, it's his. Unless you want the government regulating your sex life, then you shouldn't try to regulate the government's.
However, since everybody seems to think that a politician's personal life IS of importance, then paying state money to keep it quiet becomes an expense on the par of a clothing budget. The attempt to make it into an issue is no more than a search to officially penalize someone for something you just don't like.
Ditto for Palin's family, Newt's wives, Ensign's mistress, Edwards' mistress, and especially Clinton's intern. People are people and unless you're electing them to have sex with their spouses, it's a non-issue.
YouTube - Newt Gingrich: "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood.": ""
Now that those free-spending liberals are not running congress any more, we can finally bring down the national debt. That's what the big budget wars were about last April! Finally, our children can breathe a little easier.
Hold on, let me get some asthma medicine.
It turns out the six-month spending bill Congress passed in April increased discretionary outlays through the remainder of the fiscal year by a bit over $3 billion. In other words, total direct spending will be higher by the end of September than if Congress had just set spending on autopilot for the remainder of the fiscal year back in April.And after that, they should be able to keep the military costs down by keeping them out of the main budget and appropriating through emergency spending measures instead. Worked before! When it's emergency money, it's not from the budget! Just the taxpayers.
Total discretionary outlays in 2011 will be $3.2 billion higher as a result of the legislation, CBO estimates--an increase of $7.5 billion for defense programs, partially offset by a net reduction of $4.4 billion in other spending," reads a just-released report from the Congressional Budget Office -- Congress' non-partisan scorekeeper. Analysts there conclude that increase is due in large part to the fact that the six month spending bill shifted defense spending to more immediate activities, which means the bills will come due sooner than later."
The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result.-Ronald Reagan
"The Blacks" who have a good relationship with Donald Trump may be disappointed to learn that he has dropped out of the presidential race. He released a statement about it!
"After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the Presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election".The statement coincided with an announcement he made from a podium at the NBC "Upfronts" presentation, suggesting that the choice was made to ensure another season of his top-rated (for NBC) reality show. You either run the country or you star in a reality show! The founding fathers won't let you do both!
Republican Federal Communications Commission commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker is planning to leave the agency for a job at Comcast Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter.So on one hand, Obama appointed her in early 2009, so we should blame the Democrats for this startling display of graft. On the other hand, she's a Republican. There's nothing to be done about it either. You can refuse to give a lobbyist a government job, but you can't prevent an ex-politico from getting a job as a lobbyist.
Ms. Baker is expected to announce her departure as soon as this week for an unknown position at the Philadelphia-based cable giant. Comcast declined to comment, a company spokeswoman said.
...Baker’s move to Comcast comes just four months after she voted, along with three of the agency’s other FCC commissioners, to approve Comcast’s $13.75 billion deal to acquire control of NBC Universal from General Electric Co.
I find out today that Mitch Daniels will probably not run for President! Nooooooo! Why not, Mitch?
..the biggest factor holding him back from the race is actually Daniels' wife, Cheri Daniels, who does not want the media snooping into their marriage history....That's because in 1993, Cheri left Mitch with their four young kids to marry another man in California. Four years later, she came back to Indiana, and the Daniels' remarried. Cheri has never spoken about what happened, and Daniels has only said, "If you like happy endings, you’ll love our story."Certain people whose tweets I follow have used this as an occasion to snark, "Aren't families off-limits now?" Atta boy, Mitch. Don't reload - retreat! Still I wonder if Republicans learned anything from the Bush administration. When confronted with a threat of something that hasn't happened and you can't produce any evidence for, you don't quit. You attack the whole country that the "threat" is coming from.
In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".Hat tip BoingBoing. Just think how many lives would have been saved if this signing policy had gone in place earlier!
Now that Republicans are running Congress, they can finally give unemployment the attention it deserves. and it's working!
It's not just George Bush who is upset that OBL was killed! Look at this tweet from state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. Maybe ALL opponents of "Obamacare" want to have sex with the ghost of the terrorist mastermind!
The administration said Wednesday they will not release a photo. McCain told reporters he did not think the photograph needed to be released. “My initial opinion is that it’s not necessary to do so. I think there’s ample proof that this was Osama bin Laden,” said McCain, a Vietnam War veteran.Via Politico, emphasis mine.
In response to the hue and cry about releasing the evidence of Osama Bin Laden's death - well let's face it, why would you expect people to buy the photos at face value? People who don't believe we killed Bin Laden now aren't going to be convinced by pictures. Shopped! I can tell because of the pixels.
If the photos come out in any official capacity, there is a segment of the population that simply won't believe them. On the other hand, if they come out via Wikileaks and Obama decries the appearance of them on the public scene, that should put the matter to rest. Word to the wise!
Thought I was kidding yesterday?
WASHINGTON — President Obama invited former President George W. Bush to join him at ground zero in New York City on Thursday to mark the killing of Osama bin Laden, but Mr. Bush declined, a spokesman for the former president confirmed on Tuesday.Which is very nice of the White House, but let's face, it, Bush is going out of the way to be conspicuously absent at this event. And it's not like he's a guy who is squeamish about executions. Bush will probably spend the day in prayer, on a mat facing Mecca.
“President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday,” said his spokesman, David Sherzer. “He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror.”
The White House did not confirm that the invitation had been made or comment on Mr. Bush’s decision.
God help me, I'm back to reading Where Are My Keys again, I guess to see what kind of spin is coming out of the events of last weekend. Yeah, you know which events.
If I'm not mistaken, Bin Laden wouldn't have been found and killed at all if it hadn't have been for the enhanced interrogation techniques used on prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If that's not the spin, please correct me. My feeling is that Leon Panetta (who was my congressional representative when I was in Junior High! Go, local boy!) is going out of his way in this clip to point out that the information obtained was duplicated in other, less odious, less Darth Vadarish sources. We would have found Chez Bin Laden without tossing away the moral high ground, and we managed to kill him without doing that other Bush standby, bombing the entire country of Pakistan in case he's around there somewhere.
In fact, the whole operation seems to have been accomplished by thinking how Bush would handle it and doing the opposite. Small strike team, detective work, verifying before acting. And success instead of failure.
But let's assume that the vital clues were obtained through torture, like my usual suspects are claiming. How are they crowing about this? Bush had this information for six years! And if so, why didn't he do anything with it? I can understand failing to act on the intelligence preceding 9/11, because there is always a high noise level with terrorist threats. But Bin Laden's whereabouts? Like the right is saying, HE KNEW WHERE THE COMPOUND WAS! And don't tell me Bush was afraid to attack a house - he took out an entire country on a tip from a single source. This is not a cautious man.
The only way it makes sense is if Bush was protecting Bin Laden. Bush obtained the intelligence and sat on it.
Puts this clip in a whole new light, doesn't it?
I hope they mix his body parts with bacon and drop it over Mecca. But I guess since our President's middle name is Hussein that's not likely to happen.-commenter "Woody" at Where Are My Keys.
The one item today on World Net Daily that DOES mention Bin Ladin is an exclusive interview with Abu Saqer of Jihadiya Salafiya, an Al-Qaida leader. What I'm wondering is how come World Net has exclusive access to this Al-Qaida leader? What did they have to trade with him to get this access?
Since there are much more widely-read news sources in the west, World Net Daily must have been especially accommodating to Al-Qaida in order to get this article. I mean, in a giving-aid-and-comfort-to-the-enemy kind of way. It's one thing to report on what a source says, but to cultivate an exclusive, well, I'm just saying that given how WND and Al-Qaida are both so much against the President of the United States it's a little suspicious.
If they loved America, it would be called AMERICANet Daily, wouldn't it?
So over the weekend, American forces located and killed Osama Bin Ladin in Pakistan. I mention this to readers of WorldNet Daily, who seem to have other fish to fry.
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