Daily Archives: February 8, 2011

February 8, 2011 · 8:43 PM

CREW RELEASES SEARCHABLE VERSION OF ISSA DOCUMENTS

Congressman Darrell Issa's Official 111th Cong...

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Rep. Darrell Issa has proposed to go after the Obama administration with the full force and weight of his house oversight committee. 

Issa has publicly stated that he feels the Obama administration is the most corrupt in American history.  (What a joke, given the previous administrations predilection for absurd and corrupt behavior, not to mention breaking the law domestically and internationally by waterboarding “enemy combatants”.)

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has been investigating Issa and his committment to big business…

CREW

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) praised Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) release of almost 2,000 pages of information related to his letters to corporations, trade groups and research organizations regarding government regulations.  Rep. Issa posted the information as one large PDF on the website of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which he chairs.

[...]

In an effort to aid the chairman in reaching his stated transparency goals, CREW has scanned the document with character recognition software. As a result, it can now be searched for key words and phrases. The searchable documents can be seen here.

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· 7:48 PM

Michele Bachmann Asked By FEC For Information On $1.5 Million In Donations

Huffington Post

The fundraising prowess of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is being called into question this week, as Roll Call reports that the FEC is asking her campaign’s treasurer to itemize nearly $1.5 million in individual donations.

In a series of three letters, FEC campaign finance analyst Benjamin Holly asks Bachmann treasurer Andy Parrish to account for a number of contributions dating from the October filing period until a report submitted nearly two weeks after the election.

Parrish has since told USA Today that the request is not unusual, and that he plans to abide by its demands by the Thursday deadline.

“The campaign had more than 100,000 donors, demonstrating a broad base of support, but also requiring a large record-keeping operation,” he said. “The campaign will continue to ensure that it acts in full compliance with FEC rules.”

Bachmann shattered fundraising records on her path to victory in the election cycle’s most expensive House race, bringing in a grand total of $13.2 million in donations, including a whopping and unprecedented $5.4 million in a three-month period.

The congresswoman’s campaign ran into similar filing problems last year, due to errors in her campaign finance reports. The inquiry was later addressed without any further issue.

For more on the specific FEC requests, check out Roll Call.

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· 4:35 AM

Egyptian Revolution – “I Will Die Today!”

 Mario Piperni

“We will not be silenced, whether you’re a Christian, whether you’re a Muslim, whether you’re an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or another! We will never be silenced!”

We live on a planet where almost 2 billion of its inhabitants live and die under the rule of dictators, a group of which there is no shortage.  Foreign Policy estimates there are at least 40 dictators in the world today.

…the cost of all that despotism has been stultifying. Millions of lives have been lost, economies have collapsed, and whole states have failed under brutal repression. And what has made it worse is that the world is in denial. The end of the Cold War was also supposed to be the “End of History” — when democracy swept the world and repression went the way of the dinosaurs. Instead, Freedom House reports that only 60 percent of the world’s countries are democratic — far more than the 28 percent in 1950, but still not much more than a majority. And many of those aren’t real democracies at all, ruled instead by despots in disguise while the world takes their freedom for granted. As for the rest, they’re just left to languish.

I’m one of those who has always taken his freedom for granted. I’ve never lived under an oppressive regime and I do not know what it feels like to march in protest to rid myself of a dictator who has ruthlessly suppressed my rights.

It is with that thought in mind that I watched the video below shot by a young Egyptian.  It’s gone viral but if you haven’t yet seen it, do so. 

You’ll find it difficult to not be moved by it.

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· 3:42 AM

Chamber claps twice for Obama

I think The President should not have gone over to the US Chamber of Commerce to try and get them to help in creating jobs here in America.  Oh I know it’s called the United States Chamber of Commerce, but their vested interest is making its member corporations happy, not in America’s unemployed.

If that means outsourcing valuable American jobs to save the corporations’ “bottom line” so that their executives can continue to receive unprecedented amounts in bonuses, then hey, that’s what The Chamber does.

No amount of personality or concessions in the form of deregulation will change these people’s’ minds.  The President should have by-passed this group.  The same group, by the way, who spent hundreds of millions on defeating the Democrats in the last election.

Politico

The good news for President Obama: The Chamber of Commerce broke into applause twice during his speech Monday morning to welcome his ideas.

The bad news: They clapped just twice, in a 35-minute address.

Obama himself acknowledged early on that he doesn’t have the best relationship with the Chamber. (“Maybe if we had brought over a fruit cake when we first moved in, we would have got off to a better start,” he joked.)

The first applause line came halfway through Obama’s remarks, as he spoke of opening up new markets and selling more American goods in other countries.

“I’ll go anywhere to be a booster for American businesses, American workers and American products,” Obama said, to which the audience broke into applause. Then, in an ad-libbed moment, Obama remarked, “And I don’t charge a commission.”

The only other applause for Obama came at the end, when Obama once again hit the right note in calling for bringing jobs back the United States.

“That’s good for everybody,” he said. “So if I’ve got a message, that message is: ‘Now’s the time to invest in America.’ ” As the audience applauded, Obama repeated, “Now’s the time to invest in America.”

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· 3:25 AM

Sarah Palin’s Speech Honoring Reagan: America Is On A “Road To Ruin” (In other words:) It’s Midnight In America

Sarah Palin is so “not ready for prime time”.   The woman is an absolute train wreck…

Alan Colmes’ Liberaland

Speaking at a centennial event by the conservative Young America’s Foundation honoring Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin gave the opposite of a “morning in America” speech.

Revisiting themes familiar from her 2008 campaign, she said the nation was being shackled by high debt and taxes, dense government regulation and rising spending, often for programs that don’t work. She said a rush toward green energy was overlooking the nation’s oil and natural gas reserves, a choice that will cost jobs and drive up pump prices.

She blamed Washington leaders – an apparent reference to the Obama administration – for doing “everything in their power to stymie responsible domestic drilling.”

“This is dangerous. This is insane,” she said. “This is not the road to national greatness, it is the road to ruin.”

Palin seemed to equate our current direction with socialism, whining, “We could choose one direction or the other, socialism or freedom and free markets.” Not everyone present thought she invoked the spirit of the late president, particularly Reagan’s son Ron.

“Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She’s doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news,” Ron Reagan says.

“She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been,” said Reagan, a political independent whose politics lean left.

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· 2:39 AM

Report: Keith Olbermann To Current TV

Keith Olbermann 3

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I was just thinking yesterday, just how much I miss Keith Olbermann.  I thought about the fanfare that would occur after his contractual hiatus was over.  I imagined his fans would be waiting with baited breath to see “Olby” on the air again…somwhere.

Now it appears that fans like me may not have to wait the entire six months after all.  We’ll see…

Mediaite

Shortly after Keith Olbermann was suspended last fall, narly 250,000 fans signed an online petition in support of the embattled anchor. Many suggested that was the best evidence that Olbermann’s next venture would be a Internet-based one. Well now we know that may not be entirely true, as the NY Times is reporting that the former MSNBC anchor will announce tomorrow plans to join Current TV, the struggling cable network founded in part by Al Gore.

Earlier today we reported that Olbermann and partners were announcing big new plans tomorrow during a conference call. Given the reported non-compete clause on any television network, we surmised that Olbermann might be announcing some sort of Internet project. This theory was somewhat supported by a tip that pointed out that a simple whois search reveals that the domain names “theolbermannshow.com” and “thekeitholbermannshow.com” were registered January 19th, 2011, just two days before his last appearance on MSNBC. Turns out that it now looks like Olbermann will be returning to television, albeit one with a much, much smaller reach than MSNBC.

Writing for the NY Times Bill Carter and Brian Stelter report:

Keith Olbermann, the former top-rated host of “Countdown” on the news channel MSNBC, will announce his next television home on Tuesday, and people familiar with his plans pointed Monday to a possible deal with the public affairs channel Current TV.

Neither Mr. Olbermann, his representatives, or executives from Current TV would comment on the move, but they did not deny that the channel, which counts former Vice President Al Gore as one of its founders, will become at least one partner in Mr. Olbermann’s future media plans.

One of the people with knowledge of the plans said Mr. Olbermann would have an equity stake in Current TV. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by their employers to comment in advance of the official announcement.

On Monday a public relations agency hired by Mr. Olbermann scheduled a Tuesday morning conference call for an announcement about his next job. “He and his new partners will make an exciting announcement regarding the next chapter in his remarkable career,” the agency wrote in an e-mail.

Read the full report at the Media Decoder blog at NY Times.

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· 2:22 AM

Late Night Music – Nina Simone

My mom played Nina Simone records quite often.  I distinctly remember the Porgy and Bess album.  Ms. Simone had a unique, deep voice, but she worked it to her advantage.  

Lately, Sinnerman has been a favorite of mine…

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