Draining the Swamp

[piqaboo]

Not voting is the only way of expressing displeasure with your own candidate without showing support for someone else. Can you show me any other way to express it?

show up. write in.

[Shapley]

Write-in candidates have to be registered to count, and you have to fill in their name correctly for the vote to count. If there are no write-in candidates on the ballot, a write-in vote counts as a no vote, so it accomplishes the same thing.

I always show up, but I don't vote for a candidate in all elections. If there are two or more candidates in a particular race, and all of them are equally repugnant, I don't vote for one. There is almost always at least one race or issue I care enough about to get me to the polls. Not everyone is that concerned, and for them I say that staying home is a valid option.

[OperaTenor]

WaPo

” It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation's intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.”

[snigger] and they haven’t even taken over yet [/snigger] Honestly, I can see now how much fun OT had poking fun when the Republicans were calling the shots.

Of course this decision might be based on the noble thought that draining the swamp might be environmentally unfriendly. All they need to do is to get some really good waders.

To be fair, I never was much impressed with the recommendations. They seemed more concerned with putting a dress on a pig rather than replacing the pig.

But it is funny to see the Democrats sloughing off promises before they’ve even taken over

Here, let me quote you and help blow it up completely out proportion some more.

Are you that desperate to dig up "dirt" to counter the last six yars of Republican slime?

Not to mention y'all keep making that invalid assumptiion about my party affiliation.

:p

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Not to mention y'all keep making that invalid assumptiion about my party affiliation.

I had you figured for a Socially Responsible Contrarian, did I guess wrong?

[BigJon]

We are having real trouble draining the swamp here in PA. Most of the worst Republicans got booted or retired before the elections, (but sadly not the two worst.) The Democrats just keep reelecting them. Now the lead sleaze of the Democrat party wants to open up another avenue for the passage of corrupt cash to the politicians and their cronies.

[OperaTenor]

Not to mention y'all keep making that invalid assumptiion about my party affiliation.

I had you figured for a Socially Responsible Contrarian, did I guess wrong?

A gold star for you, dearie.

[Trumpetmaster]

xx

[Haggis@wk]

Mark Tapscott: Pelosi preparing new shackles for free speech

” WASHINGTON - Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has cooked up with Public Citizen’s Joan Claybrook a “lobbying reform” that actually protects rich special interests and activists millionaires while clamping new shackles on citizens’ First Amendment rights to petition Congress and speak their minds.


Pelosi tried earlier this year to move H.R. 4682, the “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006,” which is now cited by Public Citizen’s Web site as the vehicle it is helping the incoming speaker to craft for the new Congress. The proposal Claybrook is helping craft for introduction early in 2007 is expected to be essentially the same bill Pelosi put forth this year.

That is bad news for the First Amendment and for preserving the kind of healthy, open debate that is essential to holding politicians, bureaucrats and special interests to account for their conduct of the public business.

The key provision of the 2006 bill was its redefinition of grassroots lobbying to include small citizens groups whose messages about Congress and public policy issues are directed toward the general public, according to attorneys for the Free Speech Coalition.

All informational and educational materials produced by such groups would have to be registered and reported on a quarterly basis. Failure to report would result in severe civil penalties (likely followed soon by criminal penalties as well).

In addition, the 2006 bill created a new statutory category of First Amendment activity to be regulated by Congress. Known as “grassroots lobbying firms,” these groups would be required to register with Congress and be subject to penalties whenever they are paid $50,000 or more to communicate with the general public during any three-month period.

In other words, for the first time in American history, potentially millions of concerned citizens involved in grassroots lobbying and representing viewpoints from across the entire political spectrum would have to register with Congress in order to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

I plan, - in the interest of fair play, wot? – to withhold commenting on this until after the first of the year and see if this does, in fact, comes true.

In the past decade or so I have come to believe that there is a unorganized attack on the first amendment from both sides of the political spectrum from McCain’s attack on political speech to, possibly, this.

I view these trends with the hindsight of how much free speech in Europe has been curbed and grow increasingly dismayed.

A law like this will finally prove Nicole Marie’s fears of government limiting free speech to be accurate, just that it doesn't appears to be coming from the side of the aisle she expected.

[BigJon]

Why does anyone still give Claybrook the time of day? She has been shown, over and over, to be a crank and a crackpot.

[Haggis@wk]

BJ,

To paraphrase another thread;

crank and crackpots Democrats

[Haggis@wk]

Let’s party like it’s 2007!!!!
Nancy Pelosi will throw herself a four-day party to celebrate her ascension to House Speaker. And, as the Washington Post explains, she's trying to shed her image as a San Francisco Democrat. According to the Post, Pelosi "is planning events that will highlight select parts of her personal life while muting her liberal voting record and ideology."

I find it more than passing curious that she even CARES about her image to a group of Americans who find her politics too liberal for their tastes; Lord knows she has disparage that group, which includes me, often enough. Now she wants to somehow project a more “moderate” image? And I never thought I would use that word in the same paragraph that uses Pelosi’s name.

Why?

I mean if, in over four years, Hillary hasn’t been able to convince people she’s moving right, why would Pelosi even attempt to undertake a similar exercise? And let’s not forget that Hillary started a heckofva lot closer to the middle than Nancy could even hope to consider.

Is it ego or preemptive? Is she just preening or is she laying the groundwork for something more sinister?

(Ed. “Oh Great. Thanks Mister ‘there-is-a-dark-and-scary-conspiracy-here’, NOW I’m starting to worry.”)

Pelosi's plans include visits to Catholic churches in Baltimore and Capitol Hill, apparently to make-over her image, Pelosi wants to wrap herself in Catholicism.

Yeah, that’ll work.

She is an unabashed vocal proponent of abortion rights, including the right of women to have partial birth abortions. Since the Catholic Church considers abortion to be murder this leads me to wonder to what extent church authorities are going to cooperate with using their places of worship for a public relations stunt.

[Haggis@wk]

Editorial: Is Pelosi serious about cleaning up the House?

” There is so much wrong with the Conyers situation that Pelosi shouldn’t have to think twice about nixing Conyers’ chairmanship. Let us look at how the Conyers scandal epitomizes the ethics mess in the House:
First, releasing its report late on Friday before the New Year’s holiday weekend made it clear that the House “Ethics” Committee intended to minimize public understanding of the Conyers scandal. This is classic Washington Establishment manipulation of the news cycle to insulate itself against public accountability.

Second, Conyers responded to the “Ethics” committee by “accepting responsibility” for a “lack of clarity” in asking aides to work on his re-election campaign while on the official payroll instead of going on a campaign staff, as the law requires, and to do personal chores for him. The allegations came from senior staff members, including a former chief of staff, not interns or other short-term aides who might have questionable motives.

Third, the “Ethics” committee report also concerned a second investigation of Conyers from 2003 on allegations that his aides also worked on the Carol Mosely-Braun presidential campaign and JoAnn Watson’s Detroit City Council race. Would Conyers have applied the same slipshod legal standards to his Bush impeachment effort?

Fourth, the Conyers scandal shows it’s still business as usual for the “Ethics” committee. Pelosi should demand that Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., the committee leaders who signed off on the Conyers report, be removed permanently from the panel and barred from leadership of other House panels.

Finally, Pelosi should heed former White House chief of staff and ex-congressman Leon Panetta, who said “you can attack one party for having a lack of ethics, but if any of your own members have problems, it dulls the message with the American people, they begin to put everybody in the same box.” In other words, whenever one member of the House has an ethics problem, it damages the credibility of all members of the House, including most especially its most visible leader, the speaker.”

Better and better. Darn we need a "sharpening knives" icon.

Shapely, bud, I gotta tell you, have no accountability to justifying your party's goofier antics is so enervating. No wonder OT reveled in it!

[OperaTenor]

I see a whole lot of smoke, but no fire.

There goes that liberal MSM again.

Also, please show me where I said I was in love with the Democratic Party?

[Haggis@wk]

I was just pointing out that complaining with no expectation that you can contribute to the solution has a uniquely enervating spirit.

Also, please show me where I said I was in love with the Democratic Party?

I not sure if you ever did, I certainly can’t recall off hand if you did. But I did sense a feeling that you felt so disempowered that you took great joy in complaining about things the Democrat minority (which you might or might not have love) could do nothing about while the Republican majority (and I can't recall any comments about your love for them!) could do whatever it wanted.

Now I can't wait for the Democrats to start saying that they need a united Congress and Presidentcy in the next two years while complaining about the Republican one for the last six.

But your comment

I see a whole lot of smoke, but no fire.

does interest me. Do you think Conyers should get the chairmanship?

The House Ethics Committee scolded Conyers for using official staff to work on his re-election campaigns and to perform personal chores for him. The latter is a breach of ethics, but the former is a violation of election law.

It's a big problem for me, especially for the man who would run the House committee on law enforcement. And remember, this is not smoke, he’s admitted to breaking the Federal Election Law.

Do you think it would be hypocrisy on Pelosi's part if she supports his appointment?

[barfle]

Also, please show me where I said I was in love with the Democratic Party?

I do recall a brief flirtation with Libertarianism, until you discovered that it meant being responsible for your own medical bills. Of course, under a Libertarian administration, medicine would be much cheaper because it would be far more open to competitin.

[Haggis@wk]

Protesters disrupt press conference on lobbying reform

” Led by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier, the protesters chanted "De-escalate, investigate, troops home now" as Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., began outlining the Democrats' plans to ban lobbyist-funded travel and institute other ethics reforms. The press conference was held in the Cannon House Office Building in an area open to the public.”

This is one of those “reap what you sow” moments. Did you notice that after Nov no one in the new Democratic majority was talking about Cindy?

The antiwar crowd in the Democratic party destroy it once, they could do it again.

[Haggis@wk]

Pelosi ready to make history as new speaker

” A new Congress convenes today with a narrow Democratic majority lording over a despondent Republican minority.

While the full weight of Republicans' powerlessness sinks in after 12 years of control, Democrats are celebrating the historic election today of the first female speaker of the House.

"We have waited over 200 years for this time to come," Mrs. Pelosi said on the eve of her selection as speaker, a position that makes her second in line to the presidency after Vice President Dick Cheney.

"We will not just break through a glass ceiling, we will break through a marble ceiling," she said. "In more than 200 years of history, there was an established pecking order -- and I cut in line."

After calling herself "the most powerful woman in America," Mrs. Pelosi flexed her right muscle like a weight lifter to much applause at an event yesterday titled a "women's tea."

"All right, let's hear it for the power," she screamed as the jubilant applause continued.“

I see a whole lot of smoke, but no fire.

Oh yeah, lots and lots of smoke.

Gawd! I'm glad the Democrats won!!!!!

[jamiebk]

Pelosi ready to make history as new speaker

” A new Congress convenes today with a narrow Democratic majority lording over a despondent Republican minority.

While the full weight of Republicans' powerlessness sinks in after 12 years of control, Democrats are celebrating the historic election today of the first female speaker of the House.

"We have waited over 200 years for this time to come," Mrs. Pelosi said on the eve of her selection as speaker, a position that makes her second in line to the presidency after Vice President Dick Cheney.

"We will not just break through a glass ceiling, we will break through a marble ceiling," she said. "In more than 200 years of history, there was an established pecking order -- and I cut in line."

After calling herself "the most powerful woman in America," Mrs. Pelosi flexed her right muscle like a weight lifter to much applause at an event yesterday titled a "women's tea."

"All right, let's hear it for the power," she screamed as the jubilant applause continued.“

I see a whole lot of smoke, but no fire.

Oh yeah, lots and lots of smoke.

Gawd! I'm glad the Democrats won!!!!!

As you say, Haggis....."Welcome to reality"

[Shapley]

Protesters disrupt press conference on lobbying reform

I wonder if Ms. Sheehan will carry her "U.S. Out of New Orleans" slogan to the Democrats as well.

[piqaboo]

I'm sad. Pelosi's blowing it. She has the chance to at least give the appearance * of a clean slate, but she's not willing to buck the tenure that put her in charge. So she'll end up rapidly with very little credibility.
Its bad when even NPR is aghast at the records of some folks holding committee chairs.

* I dont approve of going "for the appearance", but she should at least have been able to fool me if she wanted not to keep her word. Its not like I'm going to dig into their past records, or even remember they have 'em.


On another note, NPR is pissing me off. They are routinely using poor grammar, and asking stupid questions. The only other good news station around (KNX1070) spends too much time on ads & sports, and being an LA station, doesnt cover local traffic.

Is Condi going to retire early, so she can run for president or VP?