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October 10, 2009

DC's 2nd Annual Virtual Road Trip


Due to last year's exciting response to DC's Virtual Road Trip to the Waxahachie Grange 33rd Annual Apple Doll Festival, DC has decided to do it all over again...
But this year's shimmering destination is
The Carrot Museum.

Bring your permission slips, smiles, a healthy lunch, and check for $1500 (made out to Goomba Nature Trails, LLC) to this blog on October 25, 2009. Mailing instructions will be provided to you at that time.

DC (outstanding in his field)

Don't worry. Obama's in charge!

Michelle Knows Best


Dear Michelle,
It seems like only yesterday I was young and without responsibility. Now I'm a single mom with a 2-year old son and it seems to take all my energy caring for him and working a full-time job. Is there a way to make this easier? Am I being selfish for wanting a few moments for myself now and then?

Kathryn
Tulsa, OK

Dear Kathryn,
A reporter once asked me in a press conference, “So, how do you get so much done?” I said, "I'm arranging state dinners, taping interviews, traveling across the globe, I'm a woman with a full plate. I think that folks like you out there should understand how women like me, who weren’t born and raised with all the privileges you White people have had, feel a passion about doing what is right.


Barack and I made a point of doing the same thing when we lived in Chicago – making the concerns of Chicago's communities our own, because we have been on both sides of the bridge. We had an activity in our household when it was time for BET, and all of us gathered around the TV cheering on people of color who were doing wonderful things that were beyond belief. And I just think, wouldn’t it be great if that kind of spirit was happening right down your street in your community?

Just think of that.
Women in communities across the city, mothers on the South Side, mothers who grew up in Cabrini, even poor mothers who live in poverty and degradation look to me as an example. I hope I've inspired you.

Michelle



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Obama Currently Third in Heisman Balloting


Off a remarkable run of success in fostering peace both overseas (Afghanistan) and at home (Beer Summit), Pres. Barack Obama is now running a strong third in the Heisman race.

Of course, Texas A&M QB Jerrod Johnson -- the overwhelming preseason favorite -- retains a strong lead in early polling, even after A&M's 46-19 humiliation last week at the hands of a mediocre Arkansas team.

In perhaps a surprise to some, Texas rugby punter Justin Tucker is presently second with Heisman voters.

To help Pres. Obama's quest to become the first world leader to win the Nobel Prize, Tour de France, and Heisman Trophy in the same year, join the Washington Examiner's effort.

October 9, 2009

On the 7th hole he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Golf

The Greatest Round Ever Played!

Eat your heart out Tiger Woods! Stand aside David Duval and Annika Sörenstam! Wake up, Guinness Book of World Records!

Your money, your victories, even your 59's, do not come close to matching the inexplicably unsung exploit of a modest little man from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK): the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il.

AnyoneforTee believes it is time to set the record straight and give full credit to a man who played a par 72 course in just 34 strokes.

And before you say "Impossible, he can only have played nine holes", beware!

Like my shades, David?No lesser authority than Pyongyang Golf Club's resident professional, Park Young Man, together with Kim's 17 armed bodyguards, can attest that Kim played the full eighteen, all holed out, off the back tees on a crisp autumn morning in October 1994. "He is an excellent golfer," said Mr. Park.

Standing on the tee of the 340-meter (370-yard) dogleg par four first hole at Pyongyang GC, Park noted that "Dear Leader Comrade General Kim Jong-Il, whom I respect from the bottom of my heart, scored two on this hole." But there was even better to come, as Kim's amazing round included a world record five holes in one!

But, we hear you ask, how does a man with a country to run, a 1.2 million man army to command and 22 million people to keep on the verge of starvation, find the time to work at his golf game? Answer - he doesn't!

Small, but perfectly formedThe Dear Leader, faithful to the national philosophy of 'Juche', or self-reliance, has never had a lesson. Indeed, his heroic 38 under par score was his first and only round of golf! When he learned that this was a full 25 strokes better than any other human had ever achieved, far from being tempted to take the game up seriously, he decided that there were greater challenges to his intellect and atheletic ability, and has not touched a club since.

So why have we not heard more about the greatest round of golf in the history of the game? AnyoneforTee understands that politics has once again reared its ugly head.

Western media are under pressure to isolate and vilify Kim's stalinist paradise, and are encouraged to play up its role in the 'Axis of Evil'. Governments, aware of the potential lobbying power of the world's 60 million golfers, many of whom are opinion leaders in the highest echelons of society, fear a tidal wave of adoration - similar to the recognition given to Tiger Woods - if news of Kim's golfing prowess is made public. So it has been suppressed and as a result gone largely unnoticed - until today!

Tim FinchemIn search of an 'official' comment, we went to US PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. Seemingly embarrassed by our questions, Finchem finally, and grudgingly, broke the code of silence, putting a very different spin on the story. "Yes, it's an amazing achievement, but he's just too good. We don't want him over here. We're lucky he's got a day job as a ruthless tyrant and a fully paid up international terrorist. Otherwise this man could be really evil if he was let loose on the guys on tour - he'd nuke 'em for sure!"

Perhaps recognising the economic potential of his phenomenel talent, Kim has also been wary of releasing too much information that could help Western powers. There are no photographs, for example, of Kim's golf swing. We do not know if he played left- or right-handed, nor which type of grip he used. Some experts have even speculated that to make such a quantum leap in golfing skills, he must have discovered an entirely new 'secret' to the game, far beyond anything that the great Ben Hogan may have found. We may never know.

Could someone get me the number of Tiger's hairdresser?Yet, even without revealing his secret to the world, the little man with bad hair from North Korea has done the golfing world a great service. For as the debate about the impact of technology on the modern game rages, as journeyman pros wonder if they can ever hope to compete with Tiger Woods, and as experts predict that Tiger himself may lose interest in the game because of the lack of serious competition, we can see that there is no need to worry. Until today's so-called 'Masters of the Game' can shave substantially more than a shot a hole off their best ever scores, the ultimate challenge of the lowest round will remain out there. Knocking Kim Jong-Il off the top of the Dear Leaderboard will not be easy.

Obama wins Tour de France

Congratulations

Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Peace Prize


Let's consider who the Nobel Committee considered less worthy than Barack Hussein Obama to receive to Nobel Peace Prize:

Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. -- not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.)

Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years - not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.

h/t to MoonBattery

New Health Care Talking Points





The health care debate is on fire again.



Here are some hard-hitting talking points with links to the best information gleaned from the interwebs. Feel free to email, tweet, fax, post in a blog, or disseminate in any way, shape or form. Modify as you see fit. Send to conservatives, liberals, friends, enemies, Senators and Reps. Let's get this information out.
  • 40% tax on health-insurance plans: This will hit the middle class like a heart attack! http://tr.im/Ba6I
  • The Health Care Freedom Plan Insures More Americans in Half the Time at No Cost http://bit.ly/W6YK4
  • Obama said: "Government-run health care with higher taxes…is wrong." http://3.ly/teW
  • By a 57% - 37% margin, voters say Congress should not approve a health care overhaul with only Democratic votes http://3.ly/wUk
  • ObamaCare…creative accounting: Immediately hitting Americans with higher taxes, but delaying benefits for at least 2½ years http://3.ly/ZNk
  • Contact Olympia Snowe. Just do it. It only takes a few minutes, and it could make a difference. http://tr.im/B8N3
  • If your family earns less than $250K a year…you will not see your taxes increased a single dime…I repeat…Not one single dime http://3.ly/CL5
  • Baucus plan: expensive…breaks Obama's tax pledge…based on insane expectations…leaves millions uninsured http://tr.im/B88q
  • CBO score based on unrealistic assumptions, e.g., doctor-reimbursement rates would be cut by 25% http://bit.ly/1Gx90v
Great work by RightKlik

AWARD CONFUSES AMERICANS

(New York) Commissioner of Baseball Allan H. (Bud) Selig this morning shocked the sporting world by awarding the 2009 World Series Championship to the Grass Valley T-Bones, a slo-pitch softball team owned by little known political blogger Nickie Goomba.

Goomba offered a confused comment on the award, saying:
"My daughter came into my bedroom and told me we had won the World Series. I guess that Kraut bastard Selig can now sleep at night without looking over his shoulder. Of course I'm surprised. I never expected this award, but it's not about me. It's about Nickie Goomba's team. There's no "I" in Nickie Goomba."
The team's star Pitcher, 63-year old Daisy "Pops" Cutter, best summed up the T-Bones' collective response by raising a withered liver-spotted finger and declaring "We're Number One!"

Gratitude


Short post, short story.

The Gunny Sergeant told the Captain that the company was surrounded by Japs. "Good", said the Captain. "Now we know where they are!"

The bait box of lefty Euro trash known as the Nobel Committee has awarded the Nobel Prize to Little Barry. Remember, this is the assortment of clowns who awarded a shared prize to Intifada Carter and Rat Face Arafat, two human pustules, one of which remains unlanced.

Stay cool. It's a strange world. Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make stupid.

October 8, 2009

Our Time Will Come







Not yet. This is still a land of revolution by election and not donkey carts to the nearest lamp post. This risky system, this Republic isn't yet tragically and desperately wrong in its ways; what's wrong is the band of elected worms who thrive in the eddy of moral sewage in Washington, and the smaller pools in every state and town in this nation.

There is nothing in their eyes but a swarm of bats. We want simple, modest men and we get a Harry Reid, the cretinous rope man in every sepia tintype of Old West lynch mobs. We want the success and distaff perspective of a powerful woman, a woman to confirm the old hopes of feminism, and we get Nancy Pelosi, the stupid, toothgrinding, uber grandma with a switchblade in her apron pocket - or maybe worse, the ideological slurry leaking from the head of Olympia Snowe.

We want simple wisdom and we get the lightless Jack-o'-Lantern head of Dick Durbin, the brute stupidity of John Kerry, or the slobbering hackery of Tom Harkin or Arlen Specter. Add your names: the 10W-30 Chuck Schumer, the bug-eyed, blue-blazered Lindsey Graham, the silver-suited senile Robert Byrd, the post-mortem pallor with personality to match of John McCain, the sleazy, carpet-bagging old-money Rockefeller or the permanent Tiki head vapidity of Mitch McConnell. And when they aren't shameless, grunting swindlers like Rangel, or forehead-slappingly stupid like Maxine Waters, the best you can say is that they have the qualifications of warm doorstops.

And these are just the ones we know about. These shards of glass under the national saddle have us galloping to nowhere, or somewhere near the edge of ruin, every day. They don't have the right! This week Gallup told us that overall approval for Congress was at 21%, with Democrat approval just under 50%, Independents at 16% and Republicans at 9%.

Howling into your pillow is faint relief for your nausea and disgust. Every revolution is preceded by the desertion of the middle class - desertion not from the country but from the incompetence, guile and degradation of those who would steal from and rule you, rather than govern. That's where it starts. It doesn't matter if some of them are better than others. Get rid of all of them.

This is all part of the Chicago plan!!!

Don't lose your focus!

In the very near future, the American public will be bombarded with news of a crisis on every front. The Sunday news shows will be trying to nail down answers to explain all manner of disasters on the horizon. The White House will say little and the demands for action will grow and grow. The focus of Americans will diffuse from one central issue to 5 or 6 issues. And Socialist healthcare will be passed sneakily under the smokescreen provided by Rahm and President Hussein.

Here are today's news headlines:

Two polls show unease over Afghanistan among American public

Obama's Pakistan problem

Swine Flu Pandemic has arrived


Obama under fire over falling dollar


Obama considers new Climate Protection restrictions

Gun Control on the way?


FHA Shortfall Seen at $54 Billion May Lead to Bailout


House Republicans Press Obama on Jobs Creation


Keep focused. Don't stop faxing, writing, emailing, phoning and speaking out against this cynical move. The Democrats are working toward causing fatigue within the opposition to ObamaCare.

WE ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLE! DON'T BE FOOLED!

October 7, 2009

GOP Senators About to Fold on ObamaCare?


Update: Reid's "Brilliant" Two-Step: Get Cloture on a Bill Withouth Public Option, Then Slip In Public Option By Amendment.

Erick Erickson at RedState.com reports:

I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.

Go to the action center and start calling.

Already, Senate Democrats are looking to pass healthcare by attaching it to unrelated legislation — the back door Brian Darling has repeatedly warned us about.

Republicans are starting to waver on this.

Call now. Tell the GOP to stand firm in opposition to the Democrats’ health care plans.

h/t Ace of Spades HQ
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option -- making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster -- and then adding the provision later as an amendment.

The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.

"It's brilliant," said a top Senate Republican aide. "It gets you your votes on cloture for a package that does not include a public option."

Reid has not revealed whether he will use this tactic, but he's considering it.
"We haven't made any decisions yet," his spokesman, Jim Manley, said. "We have different options -- that is one."

Senate aides suggest that after passage in the upper chamber, the Senate bill -- public option included -- could then be sent to the House, allowing the lower chamber to simply pass Reid's legislation instead of taking up its own bill. That route would avoid a protracted and contentious battle to meld two different bills and might allow President Obama and Democrats to achieve their goal of passing health care reform by year's end.

Open-government proponents slammed the tactic, saying it would be a bait-and-switch gambit for the Senate to put forward a bill without a public insurance option, only to slip it in later.

Democrats Push Reid to Let Public Read Health Care Bill

A group of eight Democrats today asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the health care reform bill to be posted online for 72 hours before a vote on the measure and once again before a vote on the conference report that will meld the House and Senate versions.

The senators told Reid that health care reform should be more transparent and easier for their constituents to understand. A CBS poll released last month showed that two-thirds of Americans say the issue is confusing and just 31 percent say they have a clear understanding of what reform will mean for their own care.

The senators wrote, "At a time when trust in Congress and the U.S. government is unprecedentedly low, we can begin to rebuild the American people's faith in their federal government through transparency and by actively inviting Americans to participate in the legislative process."

The senators are borrowing the idea from Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, who offered an amendment during the Finance Committee debate that would have put the health care reform bill into legislative language, scored it by the Congressional Budget Office, and put it online for the public to read for three full days before the committee voted on it.

When he introduced his idea, Bunning said, "Quite frankly, I think Americans are tired us us taking the easy way out, tired of us not reading or having the time to read the bills. They expect more from us and we should deliver it." The Democrats are asking Reid to deliver on all three of Bunning's suggestions.

When Bunning introduced his amendment last month, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) accused him of trying to stall progress on health care reform and the committee rejected the amendment.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) crossed party lines to vote for it and took the lead on circulating the letter among her colleagues this week. Seven other moderate Democrats signed on: Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Lieberman (independent Democrat) of Connecticut, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Jim Webb of Virginia.

"We believe the American public's participation in this process is critical to our overall success of creating a bill that lowers health care costs and offers access to quality and affordable health care for all Americans," the letter concluded. The Finance Committee has posted the final version of its bill online prior to the committee vote, but the bill has not yet been scored by the CBO and remains in conceptual, rather than legislative, language.

PoliticsDaily

October 6, 2009

Time Capsule reveals a forgotten past

"It made me feel like I was going back in time." - Mayor Morris Maglie

When the California city of Franklin Falls dug up a time capsule over the weekend, officials were amazed at how well the contents and the box that contained the artifacts had aged.

Buried in an enameled capsule that was encased in concrete and buried about twenty-two feet deep, the time capsule weathered the beating of California's climate. A plaque placed on the side of the capsule stated it would be opened in October of 2009 by Franklin Falls' mayor.

And so it was.

The 2005 time capsule, buried in front of Cap McCrarey Park, was crafted years ago by workers at Poulter, Stimmit and Company, neighboring city Larchville's sewer pipe and architectural terra cotta factory known more for its work with clay than ceramics.

"It was in pristine condition," said Sally Maglie, chairwoman of the city's 4th birthday party on Saturday. "It was a timeless work of art that those guys from Poulter, Stimmit created."

Inside, there were photos of the 2005 Franklin Falls Council, a Time magazine, handprints from schoolchildren, a letter from the then-mayor Morris Maglie, a picture of Franklin Falls founder Morris Maglie and newspapers.

Pope John Paul II graced the Time cover of April 11, 2005. Inside was an advertisement for a new Ford F150 truck that listed for $21,835.

Newspapers stored in the box were the Franklin Falls PennySaver, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sunday Sacramento Bee. A daily copy of the Chronicle cost seventy five cents, and The Sunday Bee cost two dollars.

The Bee, dated September, 2005, featured a photograph of yet another soldier's coffin arriving from Iraq, and stories about a two new office buildings being built in Sacramento, and President George W. Bush apologizing for the 3.7% national unemployment rate. The capsule also included poems and essays from Franklin Falls High School students. Mayor Morris Maglie randomly chose one of the poems and read it to the assembled throng.

Franklin Falls
by Jennette Silas (11th Grade)

I get home
Sink into my regular depression
Self pity, self loathing
Self analysis
What a wimp

I hate this life
What comes ahead
What was
What is
We are born to die

Go to school
Work for fifty years
Die
Another ant come and gone
That's all we are

If you think you're different
You're Wrong
If you choose optimism
Congratulations

I wish I could
I try, but my brain
Won't have it

Cursed to a life of self pity
Self loathing, pessimistic.
I hate this place.

The "Four Years of Greatness" celebration in Cap McCrarey Park, which included a parade and fireworks, was attended by about 40 people, Maglie said.

"The biggest surprise was the condition of the 4-year-old time capsule," Maglie said. "They did such a great job with that. Everything was packaged well and in great condition."

Contents of the 2004 time capsule will be displayed for public viewing, Walker said.

At that time, officials also will bury a 2009 time capsule, to be exhumed in 2013.

For any of you who are interested...

October 24th
8:30 am - 2 pm
Fresno Fairgrounds

A Training Event

How to transform yourself into a Government Butt-Kicking Activist
Four Training Sessions

Expert Speakers
Lunch and Materials Provided

Tickets: $15 in advance / $20 at the door

Space is limited

I'll be there, and I'll look forward to grabbing
some dinner with any of you who find
a way to be there. Heck, is there
anything prettier than Fresno at Harvest time?


For more info, Click HERE

The Corrupt and Greedy American Medical System Gets its Come-uppance

3 Americans share Nobel in medicine

Three Americans - two of them women - won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for work that used simple pond organisms to uncover a key part of the aging process in our own cells.

It was the first time that the prize for medicine went to two women - Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California San Francisco and Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University. The other winner, Jack Szostak, is a biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Their work in the early 1980s clarified the nature of molecular-scale structures called telomeres - sometimes likened to the caps at the ends of shoelaces because they keep our genetic material from fraying. As we age, our telomeres inexorably shrink, causing the death of our cells and, eventually, us.

The study of telomeres has since opened up vast avenues of research not only in aging but in cancer and other diseases. "Those of us in the field have been asking, 'When in the world is the Nobel committee going to get around to this?' " said Joseph Gall, a biologist at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore.

In cancer, tumor cells often manage to turn off the telomere aging clock - allowing more rapid, uncontrolled division, and researchers are experimenting with drugs to turn the clock back on.

(More...)

October 5, 2009

This is a post from Opie's site. The battle has begun.

When the story of this legislation is told, don't be the one who says "I should have done something!"

FIRE UP THE PHONES, MELT THE FAXES

Our legislature, apparently, is going to attempt to pass Obamacare in the next few days. It is crucial to contact the 13 members of the Senate Finance Co
mmittee and let them know how you feel about this. No on Cloture is a good idea for a talking point. I'm not sure the emails in this list work. I tried a couple and got delivery failure notices. I hear these guys change their email addresses regularly.

Senator Evan Bayh (IN)
Chief of Staff: Thomas Sugar (thomas_sugar@bayh.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-5623 / (202) 228-1377 fax
Indianapolis (317) 554-0750 / (317) 554-0760 fax

Senator Michael Bennet (CO)
Chief of Staff: Jeff Lane (jeffrey_lane@bennet.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-5852 / (202) 228-5036
Denver (303) 455-7600 / (303) 455-8851 fax

Senator Joe Lieberman (CT)
Chief of Staff: Clarine Riddle (clarine_riddle@lieberman.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-4041 / (202) 224-9750 fax
Hartford (860) 549-8463 / (866) 317-2242 fax

Senator Bill Nelson (NE)
Chief of Staff: Tim Becker (timothy_becker@bennelson.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-6551 / (202) 228-0012 fax
Lincoln (402) 441-4600 / (402) 476-8753 fax
Omaha (402) 391-3411 / (402) 391-4725 fax

Senator Blanche Lincoln (AR)
Chief of Staff: Elizabeth Burks (elizabeth_burks@lincoln.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-4843 / (202) 228-1371 fax
Little Rock (800) 352-9364 / (501) 375-7064 fax

Senator Mary Landrieu (LA)
Chief of Staff: Jane Campbell (jane_campbell@landrieu.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-5824 / (202) 224-9735 fax
New Orleans (504) 589-2427 / (504) 589-4023 fax

Senator Mark Pryor (AR)
Chief of Staff: Bob Russell (robert_russell@pryor.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-2353 / (202) 228-0908 fax
Little Rock (501) 324-6336 / (501) 324-5320 fax

Senator Mark Warner (VA)
Chief of Staff: Luke Albee (luke_albee@warner.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-2023 / (202) 224-6295 fax
Abingdon (276) 628-8158 / (276) 628-1036 fax

Senator Mark Begich (AK)
Chief of Staff: David Ramseur (david_ramseur@begich.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-3004 / (202) 224-2354 fax
Anchorage (907) 271-5915 / (907) 258-9305 fax

Senator Robert Byrd (WV)
Chief of Staff: Barbara Videnieks (barbara_videnieks@byrd.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-3954 / (202) 228-0002 fax
Charleston (304) 342-5855 / (304) 343-7144 fax
Martinsburg (304) 264-4626 / (304) 262-3039 fax

Senator Thomas Carper (DE)
Chief of Staff: Jim Reilly (james_reilly@carper.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-2441 / (202) 228-2190 fax
Wilmington (302) 573-6291 / (302) 573-6434 fax
Dover (302) 674-3308 / (302) 674-5464 fax
Georgetown (302) 856-7690 / (302) 856-3001 fax

Senator Jim Webb (VA)
Chief of Staff: Paul Reagan (paul_reagan@webb.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-4024 / 202-228-6363 fax
Danville (434) 792-0976 / (434) 972-0960 fax

Senator Jon Tester (MT)
Chief of Staff (Deputy): Mary Walsh (mary_walsh@tester.senate.gov)
Washington, DC (202) 224-2644 / (202) 224-8594 fax
Billings (406) 252-0550 / (406) 252-7768 fax

Thanks to Opus#6

Ready or Not... Here it comes!!


Health care reform: Privately, Barack Obama strongly backs public option

White House discreetly labors to weave coalition on health care
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, has been canvassing centrist Democrats to explore ways they might support a new government plan. "I have talked to every one of our conservative members, and they are open to some kind of public option," he told reporters recently.

And at a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats last Tuesday, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., marshaled polling data that in dozens of districts represented by conservative Democrats, a majority said they would back a requirement that Americans get health insurance as long as there was a public option.
By Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook
Chicago Tribune


WASHINGTON - -- Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.

President Barack Obama has long advocated a so-called public option, while at the same time repeatedly expressing openness to other ways to offer consumers a potentially more affordable alternative to health plans sold by private insurers.

But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.

Among those regularly in the meetings are Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle, aides to Reid, and Senate finance and health committee staff, both of which developed health care bills.

At the same time, Obama has been reaching out personally to rank-and-file Senate Democrats, telephoning more than a dozen lawmakers in the last week to press the case for action.

Administration officials are also distributing talking points and employing other campaign-style devices to rally support for passing a bill this fall.

The White House initiative, unfolding largely out of public view, follows months in which the president appeared to defer to senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill as they labored to put together gargantuan health care bills.

It also marks a critical test of Obama's command of the inside game in Washington in which deals are struck behind closed doors and wavering lawmakers are cajoled and pressured into supporting major legislation.

"The challenge is to go to the (Senate) floor, hold the deal," said Steve Elmendorf, a lobbyist who was chief of staff to former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt. But "they are more involved than people think. They have a plan and a strategy, and they know what they want to get and they work with people to get it."

With the Senate Finance Committee wrapping up work on its legislation and moving toward a formal committee vote this week, senior Democrats in the House and Senate are furiously working on detailed compromises to ensure enough Democratic votes to pass health care bills out of the two chambers later this month.

(More...)

Islamist Crack Houses


I'm angry today.

Today and for a long time to come, at least eight families are desolate for the losses of their sons in Afghanistan. They died at a small post "in the east", somewhere near the border with the Islamist crap hole known as Pakistan.

I know what this place was like. It was one of those small listening posts that all armies, in every age, have established to tempt or observe the savages in the brush, valleys, jungles and rock piles on the margins of the bigger potential battlefields, where the view is clear.

We had them everywhere in Vietnam. Tiny ones, and even big ones, like the Westmoreland blunder known as Khe Sanh. Many of their brave occupants, of all branches, simply disappeared. Their bodies were never found and their horrid last moments imagined like a tongue probing a painful tooth.

A strategy which includes isolated posts, is one of the tactics of a guerilla war.
We don't hear that expression anymore; we call it nation-building. It's the last attenuated principle of the old liberal internationalism that emerged after WWII. It was saturated with First World benevolence and Western confidence in our own ascendancy. The Cold War only concentrated our effort to project the beliefs that existed long before the Cold War began.

Today, we are, at home, a nation petrified in our cultural defenses by liberal multiculturalism, political correctness and doubt. We send our beautiful young to die in a struggle against Islamists (anyone who protests that word can go to hell)in a place and for a people not worth a single American life. In that place, the people have dragged their hideous metaphysics unmodified from century to century, and now our blood is soaking their soil to either defend their choices or alter their path. Which one is it?

A Western nation that won't defend its own borders and culture; a nation that martyrs itself for retrograde cultures, a nation which pursues a masochistic enterprise for the health of a new Islamic Republic, is a nation confused about its own relative value and identity - a nation asking for a defeat and reckoning so horrible that future historians, if there are any, will shake their heads in wonder and contempt.

Insubordination in the Ranks??


Obama furious at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan

The relationship between President Barack Obama and the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan has been put under severe strain by Gen Stanley McChrystal's comments on strategy for the war.
The general has responded with a series of candid interviews as well as the speech. He told Newsweek he was firmly against half measures in Afghanistan: "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn."
Alex Spillius of The Telegraph

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, yesterday did little to allay the impression the meeting had been awkward.

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

(More...)

October 4, 2009

What happened in Copenhagen?

I'm just an ole Country Boy without much book smarts. But I can pretty much figure out how the IOC (International Olympic Committee) operates. I watched the whole process unfold in Salt Lake City some time back, so it's obvious to me that there are complex but clear-cut rules to getting named an Olympic site. Los Angeles followed the rules. So did Atlanta. So did Beijing. And you can bet your butt that Rio knew exactly what the rules were.

Let me share them with you:

Stage 1. When the process begins, and interested cities are to make known their intention to compete for the Olympic Games, those cities must bribe everybody in site. Effective bribes include vehicles, houses, jobs, cash, securities, girls, boys, and even political favors. This is the easiest and least demeaning stage of the process. Eventually, the list of 'most attractive' cities is whittled down to four. This is when Stage Two begins.

Stage 2. You begin bribing again. The amounts get larger, and the giving of these bribes must be accompanied by hollow flattery and energetic ass-kissing. These transactions are often made more difficult by the necessity of laughing at coarse jokes while humoring the greediest pack of assembled international prostitutes since Idi Amin's Annual Golf Tournament & Clambake. In the end, the city most skilled in bribery wins the Olympic nod.

Here is the measure of how ineffective Barack Obama is as a leader and problem-solver. The City of Chicago LOST A BRIBERY CONTEST.

Chicago was outbribed by Rio de Janeiro... a city best known for parades, dancing, and slums.

Chicago was outbribed by Madrid. Madrid's a swell place, but it's biggest civic event, Community Day, is celebrated every May by tossing tomatoes at a goat.

Chicago was outbribed by Tokyo. Japan is a country only 25 miles long and 6 miles wide with a population of 430 million people. They can barely supply their citizens with raw fish and noodles but, still, even Tokyo made Chicago (and Obama) look like a schoolgirl nervously gripping a bouquet of daisies.

Chicago has been the home of Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley, Dan Rostenkowski, "Big Bill" Thompson, "Bugs" Moran, Johnny Torrio, Sam Giancana, Tony Accardo, Frank Calabrese and Rod Blagojevich.

These guys used to bribe politicians and mucky-mucks as effectively as I clean a fried chicken drumstick. C'mon!! Obama shows up to this Copenhagen showdown with Oprah and his wife there to provide muscle.

He's a fool. He's a wimp. And if this guy expects to represent Chicago or the United States of America, he'd better grow a pair. He's dealing with gangsters, thieves and tyrants now.


Hat Tip to Michael


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