January 31st, 2011
Activist group Judicial Watch is appealing a decision by the Air Force to withhold documents related to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of military airplanes. (more)
January 18th, 2011
Pro-life activist Randall Terry announced he will challenge President Barack Obama in a Democratic primary for the sole purpose of running graphic pro-life advertisements on national television during the election year. Terry said he expects to “wound” Obama politically, and told The Daily Caller he plans to do so by airing pro-life advertisements during the 2012 Super Bowl and AFC and NFC championship games. (more)
January 4th, 2011
They’re here and they’re queer. But don’t assume they’re all jumping on the gay marriage bandwagon, Katie Couric. The Against Equality collective — a group of gay activists who oppose gay marriage — has been “quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion.” The result? A compelling pocketbook, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. (more)
December 30th, 2010
1.) Will Paul Ryan’s ‘Road Map’ remain trapped in the glovebox? — The ‘Road Map’ that Rep. Paul Ryan devised when he saw that America was lost in the fiscal woods has received plenty of kudos over the years. Now that Republicans control the house, the bigger question is, Will anybody use it? “Passing the Road Map as part of the House budget would likely go nowhere in the Senate and would undoubtedly draw the president’s veto even if it made it to his desk,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “But it would be a conscious decision by Republicans to do more than say no to Obama’s plan, moving beyond mere opposition to advocating a vision of their own.” Reps John Boehner and Eric Cantor refused to comment when TheDC asked about the Road Map’s role in restoring America’s fiscal sensibilities. Doug Mainwaring, a Maryland Tea Party activist, was less reserved: “If the Republican leadership doesn’t get behind Mr. Ryan and actively promote the Road Map, I predict that Tea Partiers will be looking for a new crop of congressmen in 2012.” (more)
December 28th, 2010
1.) Big business still Obama’s Achilles heel — When John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan, was named to the head of the Business Roundtable, “one of the first people to call” him was Valerie Jarrett, a personal advisor to Pres. Obama. Jarrett no doubt wished to communicate that Pres. Obama was game to work with the BRT (“We go play hoop!”), a gesture that the White House hasn’t made toward the professional left in ages now! Engler’s not here to play, however. According to The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward, “much of the group’s work on health care over the next two years will be looking for how Obama’s health care overhaul might ‘threaten’ the ability of employers to continue providing insurance.” Maybe the BRT should do what Waffle House and a number of unions did, which is lobby for exemptions from some of obamacare’s requirements? That leaves the issue of the mandate, and prices popping through the roof when healthy people decline insurance while sick people buy it up. Also: the totally unenforceable nature of it all. Back to the drawing board! (more)
December 16th, 2010
1.) It’s official: Everybody hates Genachowski’s plan to regulate the Internet — And yes, we do mean everybody: The lefty nutters at Free Press, former comic Al Franken, Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, and now, a group of Senate Republicans. The beef from the left–Franken, Free Press, and the supposed two million Americans who accidentally signed petitions thinking they were entering a contest for free Krispy Kreme–is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed framework does not do enough to control the Internet. For instance, liberals are unhappy that cable companies would still have incentives under Genachowski’s policy to invest in creating faster, stronger, and better services, access to which could be priced at a higher rate than existing Internet services. Meanwhile, Republicans and McDowell are concerned about what the regulations would do–namely, establish “an unjustified and unnecessary expansion of government control over private enterprise.” In the middle of it all is Genachowski, a bureaucrat with the heart of a Marxist and the vertebral integrity of a plane-crash survivor. The FCC votes on Dec. 21. Don’t miss it. (more)
December 10th, 2010
| Obama must convince liberal rich people that it is OK for them to keep their money – We’re gonna need a bigger shoe: Carbon footprint of Cancun climate conference significantly larger than last year – WaPo finds GAO flat-out lied in for-profit report – Indian ambassador groped by TSA for second time in three months – Cruel irony: This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner earned it, but can’t attend – Earmarks may be dead in the House, but phone-marks are alive and well |
| 1.) Deep Democratic pockets may dry up after tax-cut deal – “President Obama’s advisors are confident that liberals dismayed by his agreement to extend tax breaks for the wealthy will forgive him by the time the 2012 election kicks into gear,” reports the LA Times. But will less forgetful and more moneyed liberals be as starry-eyed? The Times found that “some stalwart party donors are vowing to withhold funds because of their anger over the tax-cut deal.” Hedge fund manager Art Lipson, for instance, told the paper, “I do not plan to support Obama and his reelection effort,” because Obama is not willing to steal more of Lipson’s money. The Times counters its own thesis by pointing out that the DNC raised some big bucks “despite anger in the liberal wing about the lack of a public option in healthcare reform and the slow pace of repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military.” New York Magazine’s John Heileman explained best what Obama must do to keep the money rolling in: “If he is going to climb up on top of Casa Blanca and urinate all over congressional Democrats, he will need to learn the trick that Bill Clinton mastered: doing it with such a big bright smile that they mistake his piss for Champagne.” |
| 2.) Cancun climate conference run by hypocritical clowns – “In the middle of all the global-warming demagoguery and calls for developed nations to shell out $100 billion per year by 2020 in climate reparations to help less-developed countries cope with the unfair burden of climate change, one thing has very obviously not changed,” notes The Daily Caller’s Amanda Carey–”the hypocrisy.” Yes, that’s right. There was lots of “Do what I say, but not as I do,” at this week’s freakout fiesta. “The carbon footprint of the Cancun conference is five times larger than it was for the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, despite the fact that attendance this year was significantly lower,” writes Carey. “The figure of the carbon footprint released by the Mexican government is 25,000 tons.” The pollution caused by guests’ use of private jets, round-the-clock but oft-empty shuttle buses, and electricity use at the resort’s five-star hotel will be “offset” by planting trees in nearby poor-person communities. |
| 3.) The GAO lied, stock prices dived – In August, the Government Accountability Office released a damning report exposing unethical recruiting practices by some of the country’s top for-profit colleges, many of which make the bulk of their profit from government-backed student loans. The Department of Education seized on the findings as evidence that new regulations for the for-profit industry were needed. The feeding frenzy had begun: Liberal bloggers, then mainstream papers like the New York Times, wielded the GAO report like a bludgeon, causing for-profit stocks to plummet. This week, the Washington Post uncovered its own unethical practice: The GAO had lied. And it had lied to such an extent, in fact, that it quietly released a heavily revised version of its report in late November. For some reason, “Oops” just doesn’t seem adequate, does it? |
| 4.) TSA gropes the wrong diplomat – “The foreign minister said Thursday that it was unacceptable that the Indian ambassador to the United States was patted down by a security agent at a Mississippi airport, and that he would complain to Washington,” the Associated Press reports. “The ambassador, Meera Shankar, was returning from giving a speech at Mississippi State University last week when she was pulled out of line at the airport and given a pat-down by a female Transportation Security Administration agent. Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna said this was the second time the ambassador had been chosen for a pat-down in the past three months.” If only Ambassador Krishna were an American politician, she could forego the screening process altogether! |
| 5.) Winner of Nobel Prize actually earned it this year– “Imprisoned in China and with close family members forbidden to leave the country, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is to be represented at the prize ceremony here on Friday by an empty chair,” reports the New York Times. Not since 1935, when Adolf Hitler imprisoned Count Carl von Ossietzky in a concentration camp, has a Nobel prize winner been prohibited from attending by his government. In response to the news, Pres. Obama payed Xiaobo the highest compliment an egomaniac can pay another human being: “Mr Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was.” Meanwhile, the Russian government has suggested that Australian activist Julian Assange should have won the award for nearly giving Hillary Clinton an aneurysm. |
| 6.) Earmarks are only half the problem – While the House may have taken up an earmark ban, there’s nothing to stop representatives from ordering their pork over the phone. “They still will be able to call or write to federal agencies to ask that funds are spent on projects they recommend, and there’s currently no official record of how often representatives and senators do this,” reports TheDC’s Matthew Boyle. “Though the process, dubbed ‘phone-marking,’ doesn’t forcibly require those federal agencies to grant a congressional members’ request, they frequently do because of the clout representatives and senators carry in Washington. Brian Riedl, a fellow for The Heritage Foundation, said the only difference between phone-marks and earmarks is that there is no ‘paper trail’ of members’ requests. Riedl said federal agencies grant the requests more often than not for fear of their budgets being cut by spurned legislators.” Will Republicans take up a phone-mark ban as well? Probably not! |
October 28th, 2010
Liberal organizations are one-upping the Tea Party’s “Don’t tread on me” slogan with a new “You can’t stomp on me” campaign. Liberal organizations MoveOn.org, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and CREDO are uniting in reaction to the incident on Monday when a volunteer for Republican Rand Paul’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Kentucky literally stomped his foot on activist Laura Valle, leaving her with a concussion. (more)
August 9th, 2010
It’s rarely convincing when Tea Party activists brush off attacks on the movement by claiming that the bad apples at their rallies are really agents provocateurs. That’s just too convenient. Sometimes, the people who make you look bad actually are part of your movement. But a videographer at this weekend’s Fancy Farm political celebration in Kentucky hounded a man wearing Rand Paul swag and holding up a racist anti-immigrant sign, badgering him to reveal who he was. The cameraman caught back up with him when, later, the man walked with supporters Paul’s opponent, Jack Conway. (more)
August 1st, 2010
Most men have their hands full with one woman. By his own admission, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has bedded over 2,000. But the 84-year-old sex icon is more than a mere Lothario. The just-released documentary “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel” portrays Hefner not as a soft-core pornographer, but as an outspoken proponent of the First Amendment. (more)
July 26th, 2010
The Alvin Greene for U.S. Senate campaign is currently being run partly from the small South Carolina town of Manning, partly from Los Angeles and partly from Austria, according to the new consulting firm that has taken the reins of perhaps the most famous senatorial campaign in the country. (more)
July 24th, 2010
LAS VEGAS, NV — It is well known that you should never stand between a blogger and a free lunch, but at NetRoots Nation, all rules get thrown out the window if you’re doing it for a cause. (more)
July 19th, 2010
Some of the most conservative and combative Republicans running for Congress are convinced that the media have it in for them. (more)
July 19th, 2010
(CNN) — Tea Party activist Mark Williams says he’s done discussing the controversy stirred up by his attack on the NAACP, accusing a fellow movement leader of turning the debate into “a World Wrestling style personality conflict.” (more)
July 14th, 2010
A group called “Main Street Bites Back” released a video that is quickly going viral and calls on Fox News host Glenn Beck to run against President Obama in 2012. (more)
June 30th, 2010
Voting has begun for a new German president in what is being seen as a test of the popularity of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. (more)
June 23rd, 2010
In the usually decorous environs of a full federal appeals court hearing, 11 black-robed judges Tuesday provoked surprised laughter as they debated whether an activist’s Nazi salute to the mayor of Santa Cruz was an act of free speech or a disruption of public order. (more)
June 7th, 2010
News reports suggest that CNN may be planning to hire disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to replace the departing Campbell Brown. Should CNN now be called the Criminal News Network ? Let’s remember that Spitzer violated the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting a woman across state lines for the purposes of prostitution – a crime for which a Republican New York State supreme court justice was charged, convicted and jailed in 2009. (more)
May 18th, 2010
BIR ZEIT, West Bank (AFP) – Renowned Jewish-American scholar and activist Noam Chomsky, who was barred from the West Bank by Israel earlier this week, on Tuesday delivered a lecture to Palestinian students by video link from Jordan. (more)
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