Representative Goode should check himself, fore’ he wrecks himself. Tragically, this assface used to be a Democrat. Like Senator Coleman, we’re happy to be rid of him.
Corrupt:
In 2005, Goode again faced controversy when a major corporate campaign donor, defense contractor MZM, Inc., was implicated in a bribery scandal that resulted in the criminal conviction and resignation of California congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Although Goode insisted that his relations with MZM were motivated solely by his interest in bringing high-paying skilled jobs to his district, in December of that year he donated the $88,000 received in MZM contributions to regional charities.
On July 21, 2006 Richard Berglund a former supervisor of the Martinsville, Va. office of MZM Inc., pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Goode’s campaign. Court papers indicated that he and MZM owner Mitchell Wade (who previously pleaded guilty) engaged in a scheme to reimburse MZM employees for campaign donations.
Bigoted:
“The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”
“We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country,”
“I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America”
Want to vent about this pathetic hatemonger? Go here if you’re so inclined…
[
AP via CNN]:
South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson has been exceeding expectations in his recovery from emergency brain surgery last week
The final point in the wire piece was that there exists ‘ample precedent for senators to continue to hold office while incapacitated’. Sen. Johnson’s successor would be appointed by Governor Mike Rounds. a Republican, so it’s safe to say that Sen. Johnson stepping down would swing control of the Senate back to Republicans [50-50 + Cheney].
I would think that Senator Johnson should stay in office as long as there is ample hope he will return.
How long do you think a Senator should serve if he/she becomes seriously ill? I started a thread in the Forum for anyone interested in sharing their opinion, comments are still cool too though…
Katherine Kersten has published three pieces on the flying imams in two weeks, the third discussing “
The real purpose behind the imam publicity blitz”. In other words, she pushes a story for a couple weeks then dissects her own temporary obsession,
coming to the startling conclusion that minorities don’t like being profiled, and the Democrats are behind it all in an obvious effort to make America less safe. Duh.
Kersten seems convinced the imams are terrorists, were definitely planning something on Flight 300, and in a shocking twist - are in cahoots with…wait for it…Democrats:
“The End of Racial Profiling Act has languished until now. What did it need to reinvigorate it? New congressional leadership, and that’s coming in January. But it needed something else in this media age: a high-profile incident to jump-start it.”
What better than the media circus at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Nov. 20?
Kersten’s insinuation that Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. John Conyers, and/or Speaker-elect Pelosi are in cahoots with the imams [whom she asserts are terrorist-connected] in a coordinated effort to pass the End of Racial Profiling Act is as hilarious as it is sad. That being said, I think passing the End of Racial Profiling Act would be a step in the right direction, and I hope that Democrats in Congress have a strategy to get it done.
Does Katherine Kersten really believe that supporting the rights of individuals not to be searched, detained, or pulled-over based on their race or faith means you’re in cahoots with terrorists?
Do you?
Discuss your perspective in the forum…
[PI]: Coleman tried to pass the waiver by attaching it to other health care-related bills. Sometimes objections
were raised to other provisions in those bill. Other times, colleagues whose own CAH efforts had been defeated voted against his. And then there were colleagues who had promised support but didn’t deliver.
If Sen. Coleman can’t deliver a 4.5 mile waiver so Ah-Gwah-Ching can get a hospital in place with a Republican majority in the Senate, how can Minnesotans expect Smilin’ Norm to get anything done for Minnesota now that he’s in the minority?
When the chips were down, Coleman’s Republican friends deserted him. Coleman noted how many Democrats supported him from the House, yet he still couldn’t get it done. Why? Because on the Senate floor, when the votes come down, he’s weak.
Coleman’s lame excuses in the Pilot-Independent: “If I’d had 20 minutes more, I think we could have passed it.”
“We ran out of time”
“The clock simply ran out.”
Breaking [
Strib]:
Rep Mark Olson pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he assaulted his wife during a domestic dispute Nov. 12. In a court appearance that lasted less than one minute, a pre-trial hearing was set for Jan. 19, and Olson left the courtoroom quickly refusing to comment.
Jeff Fecke noted some SCTimes quotes @ MinMon:
“I have a lot of support and I don’t see any reason why this would keep me from being able to represent people. It just won’t look good for a while,”
And of course, after being rightly held accountable for his actions by his party:
“Maybe it means I’m an independent now,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ve always been sort of independent.”
[
AP]:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2004, said Monday he is planning to run again because his party isn’t pushing hard enough to end the war in Iraq….
I like some of Kucinich’s positions, but I think it’s safe to say he has fundraising and electability issues…
The domain says
www.algore04.com, but the page title says ‘Al Gore 2008’, and the favicon says ‘08 as well…
Interesting…
McClatchy via Strib: Is Obama peaking too early? Will Obama ever not be peaking?!??
“I’m suspicious of hype,” he said upon arriving in Manchester. “That my 15 minutes of fame has extended somewhat is surprising to me and baffling to my wife.”
When Presidential hopefuls head to New Hampshire more than a year out, not that many people generally notice. Politicos and wonks, activists and officials are usually some of the only groups that will take significant notice of their arrival and speeches. Obama drew 150 members [average for a visit to NH now: 4-5] of the media and sold out everywhere - yeah - they had to move his book signing to a CONVENTION CENTER.
The only problem with Obama, if there is one, is that it’s possible he’s being rushed along. Media consultants and sycophants are a convincing bunch, and I’m sure there are lots of really smart, really expensive people telling Barack things like, ‘if you want it, it’s yours’. I’m not so sure.
Obama may still prove too young and new to national poilitics to sit atop a Presidential ticket, but who do you possibly put at the top above him? Hillary simply doesn’t work in this equation, as she still carries too much public persona readioactivity…not exactly a uniter.
There is one person I can think of that is smart enough, experienced enough, and enough of a political celebrity - you might remember him, he used to be the next President of the United States…
What Democratic ticket would you like to see take shape for 2008?
During today’s Iraq Study Group Press Conference:
You’d better listen to the associate justice there, because when I was working on this word for word she said I was using split infinitives. And I told her I didn’t even know what they were, had trouble with adverbs and things like that.
But I can tell you this - since leaving public life and this chamber where I was the toast of the town one day and toast the next, it’s a strange place, but I see the American people and the sadness to me is that the American people see the Congress and this administration as dysfunctional. Which is very sad for someone who loves the institution.
Continue reading ‘Fmr Sen. Alan Simpson, Possibly My Favorite Republican’
I’m not writing this to take Mr. Reinan and Ms. Tomson to the woodshed, rather, I think this is aimed at their respective online editors…
This is a GREAT story about the Blogging Nun - here’s another one - NICE! Right? I love stories about bloggers 
Sadly, the Blogging Nun will probably not get too much traffic from the great coverage, because both pieces FAIL TO LINK DIRECTLY TO HER BLOG.
Continue reading ‘Reporters Write Great, But Technologically Illiterate Pieces on Blogging Nun’
[AP via
Strib]:
The United States faces a “grave and deteriorating” situation after three years of war in Iraq, a high-level commission warned bluntly today, recommending enhanced diplomacy to stabilize the country and hopefully permit the withdrawal of most combat troops by early 2008.
Some analysis after the full report is released @ 11am….
When President Bush made the recess appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the UN, it was
classic W logic -
who better to run the UN relationship on the American side than an outspoken, unabashed critic of the UN?
Bush’s tough love approach to the UN was as condescending as it was wrong. For one to believe that Bolton would be an effective reformer at the UN because he was so critical of it relied on a huge leap of faith - that John Bolton had the diplomatic skill, happy inflexibility, and depth of personality to own the role as a positive, effective, consensus-building change agent (especially on the Security Council). Many Senators were unwilling to make that leap, and who can blame them? Except, of course, President Bush:
“They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time. This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation.”
Diplomatic success always has been totally lost on President Bush. The Dam of the Senate has ensured, for the time being, that an unqualified, indeed dangerous appointment has died on the vine that is the Foreign Relations Committee.
Thank you very much, Constitution.
Reuters has a nice roundup of key Bolton facts…
I’m always interested when Michael Brodkorb asserts that a couple Republican State Reps and a staffer agreeing with him constitutues, ‘concern’ in St. Paul. By that definition,
there are significant concerns in St. Paul about the general fitness of any number of Republicans in the State House, but I digress…
MDE’s argument is that the creation of the Minnesota Heritage Finance Committee coinciding with Rep. Margaret Anderson Kelliher being elected Speaker is a conflict of interest for Rep. Kelliher, since her husband, David Kelliher, is currently serving as legislative liason for the Minnesota Historical Society.
As per usual, Brodkorb leaves out a few facts that quite inconvieniently torpedo his accusations of impropriety. I spoke with a highly placed source familiar with the story, and low and behold - Brodkorb’s way off the mark.
Fact 1) Recusals. Since her husband began working for the MN Historical Society, Rep. Kelliher has recused herself from any vote having to do with the MN. Historical Society.
Fact 2) No Discosure Required. Under Minnesota law, legislators are not required to disclose anything that is not of direct economic benefit
Fact 3) Role. David Kelliher is Legislative Liason for the Minnesota Historical society, his function is to inform elected officials and the public about the legislative activities of the MSH - NOT lobby elected officials.
This isn’t the first time Brodkorb has made a mountain out of a molehill and invented impropriety…
Excerpts from the
Human Rights Campaign site:
Prevention: F
The only federal funding stream for sex education in our schools remains limited to unproven and medically inaccurate abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that fail to teach youth how to protect themselves from HIV…the Bush administration added additional restrictions to these federally funded abstinence-only programs mandating that “the term ‘marriage’ must be defined as ‘only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife,’ and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.”
Care and Treatment: D
Years of inadequate funding levels for the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act turned this year’s reauthorization of this crucial program into a zero-sum game pitting states with newer and emerging HIV/AIDS epidemics against those that have been the traditional epicenters of the disease
Research: F
In February of this year, the president released his fiscal year 2007 budget which proposed flat-funding NIH, specifically cutting $15 million for AIDS research.
Global AIDS: C
In April, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report reviewing the expenditure of HIV prevention funds through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. Current law mandates that 33 percent of PEPFAR prevention funds must be dedicated to abstinence-until-marriage programs.
Ending AIDS-Related Stigma/Discrimination: F
When our nation’s leaders use same-sex couples as political scare tactics and deny law enforcement resources to confront violence driven by anti-gay violence, it is clear that they do not understand the implications that fueling homophobia has on creating a culture that is up to the task of ending HIV/AIDS.
Representative Goode should check himself, fore’ he wrecks himself. Tragically, this assface used to be a Democrat. Like Senator Coleman, we’re happy to be rid of him.
Bigoted:
People Are Shouting
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