Archive for the ‘congress’ Category

Breaking Gabrielle Giffords (D AZ8) shot: Extra hour tonight DTG on DaRadio?

Posted: January 8, 2011 by datechguy in congress, opinion/news
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Update 12: Did I actually see Jane (I’m not a member of the NVA but I love to pose on their AA Guns Fonda) say this?

@SarahPalinUSA holds responsibility. As does the violence-provoking rhetoric of the Tea Party

The victims of the killing fields of Cambodia were not available for comment.

Update 11: Michelle Malkin is all over this and has some interesting screen captures.

Update 10: I wish it wasn’t true but there is already a Memeorandum thread with Tbogg, TPMDC, Crooks and Liars and Clustershock all blaming Palin. Can we safely say that all three of these sites can and should be avoided on general principle? And glenn reports Kos is airbrushing his site.

Update 9: Stacy McCain is all over this and will be joining us for a special 2nd hour of DaTechGuy on DaRadio to talk about this subject along with Barbara Espinosa reporting from Arizona and Val Prieto from Babalu Blog (who is my primary guest).

Update 8: this is from his YouTube channel:

Books:

I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.Books:

Ooooo boy.

Fox is reporting that 12 people were shot at the event along with Gabrielle Giffords (D AZ-8). We don’t know motive or details but this reports suggests that it might have been a target of opportunity:

The Democrat, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting a “Congress on Your Corner” event at the Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

At least five other people, including members of her staff, were hurt. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known.

Giffords was talking to a couple when the suspect ran up firing indiscriminately and then ran off, Michaels said. According to other witnesses, he was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody.

The tragic irony is that her husband is was in the service and she is wounded.

We have no idea if she was targeted specifically, if this was a nut with an agenda, a nut without an agenda or something more. It it a bit disgusting to see that already some are trying to make hay of this.

Ah a tweet from the left blaming Palin, I guess Rahm’s idea of not letting a crisis go to waste is being taken to heart by at least one person, but then again it’s only one tweet.

The Anchoress reports that there is no shortage of people trying to make hay of this:

Giffords shooting horrific; so are flying theories: http://usat.ly/e4NSjp! “Right did this cuz Palin urged!” “Left did this to blame Palin”

Within 24 hours we will know a lot more, I would urge folks on both sides to keep a cool head until we know more. Remember the Bill Sparkman fiasco.

Update: it’s getting ridiculous:

She was on Palin’s target map, ah the right did it.

Ah she is Jewish maybe a Palestinian did it.

Ah she is against the repeal of Obamacare the tea party did it

Ah she is pro border fence, the open border people did it.

Ah she likes McDonalds more that Burger King, the Burger King people did it.

Do you get the idea? Let’s cut this stuff out and pray for her and her family and also for the gunman and his (her?) family as his soul has issues. There’s plenty of time for political fights later.

Update 2: NPR and Fox reports she and several others are dead. Horrible!

Update 3: Gateway has a story here. Always remember that service carries risks and one should honor service when it is offered.

Update 4: The Anchoress updates

It is appalling to note that some on the social media circuits are already letting the conspiracy theories fly according to their agendas – some on the left are already tweeting about Sarah Palin and gun imagery and some are not beneath bringing the full-crazy and wondering if this was done purposely to blame Palin. Not the time, folks. It’s kind of disgusting when you hear someone is shot and the first thing you do is try to figure out how to fit the terrible news to your political worldview. Blame the gunman.

Update 5: Hotair here

Let’s not forget this is the risk every person takes when they become a public figure.

Update 6: I think we can safely say that the Anchoress admonishment can be directed directly to Tboggs at firedoglake. To call him dishonorable is redundant. No word if firedoglake is going to do anything but Eric Boehert is apparently being dishonorable too, but on the plus side apparently she is in surgery and still alive! First bit of good news!

Update 7: Confirmed we will be having a second hour tonight on DaTechGuy on DaRadio tonight specifically on this subject. Apparently the shooter is Jared Loughner and his myspace page is down, last entry was “Goodbye Friends”. If correct sounds like the guy wanted to go down loud. Joe Taxpayer has nailed it in this tweet:

My tea party friends on facebook are offering prayers. My liberal friends on facebook are offering blame.

A lot of people today are really revealing a lot about themselves and none of it flattering.

Roxeanne De Luca hits the nail on the head

Posted: January 7, 2011 by datechguy in congress, opinion/news
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…in this post about the actual fear of democrats concerning an obamacare repeal:

The liberals, who could barely pass ObamaCare with a 78-seat margin in the House and a 20-seat margin in the Senate, as well as a socialist in the White House, do not want us repealing that. They may never see majorities like that again, and they will never, ever have the support of the electorate for nationalizing health care again – not if we repeal and replace, not when Europe collapses and Canadians keep fleeing here for health care. 2010 was their very last chance to get it through, and if we kick it out now, the socialist wet dream is gone.

The Democrats handed us a weapon when they ensured that benefits would not kick in until 2014 (the purpose of which was to ensure that this “budget-neutral, deficit-reducing” programme would have ten years of revenue and six years of expenditures). We do not have the same reliance problems with ObamaCare as we do with Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, and welfare. As Mark Steyn keeps hammering away on, once these things are in, they are never coming out. That’s why conservatives need to get this out now – now, before the private insurance market is completely dead; now, before the liberals can scream too much about people whose only source of medical care is the federal government; now, before the bureaucrats are in place. To analogize: if you are on the side of cancer, that last thing you want is for the patient to get a lumpectomy while the disease is still localized. Republicans are ready, scalpel in hand, and “Operation Demoralize” (great term, Prof. Jacobson!) is fear-mongering over sponges that are sometimes left in the body after surgery.

This post is what you would call a “must read”.

What a shock 300k Fitchburg appropriation gone

Posted: January 7, 2011 by datechguy in congress, economy, local stuff
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When I wrote about Massachusetts getting the government it deserves I included this paragraph to the voters:

Maybe it will be the shock when you discover that all these democrats that you returned to congress are now in the minority and all of those tax dollars taken from you that they returned in lump sums at .82 cents on the dollar will not be coming back since they don’t have the clout to gain them and the republican house where all spending must originate is unlikely to approve them. If you had sent even a single republican to the house at least in one district there would be clout, but nope, no can do. You will miss that .82 cents on the dollar, but don’t worry the feds will meet you halfway. They will still take that dollar it was part of.

Well lo and behold we have a new congress and guess what the Sentinel and Enterprise reports isn’t coming

A $300,000 appropriation to help complete renovations at the ARC Community Services building on Main Street has hit a stumbling block and will likely not be approved by Congress, said ARC President Mary Heafy.

Despite news that the U.S. House of Representatives had approved the $300,000 appropriation, the office of U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-Amherst, informed Heafy this week that there’s a 99 percent chance the money will not come through.

But but I thought we HAD to re-elect John Olver and company because of all he could bring home for Fitchburg et/al?

“We were hesitant at first to announce publicly that the appropriation was approved, but officials for Olver said they were confident it would be approved based on past experiences.”

Of course they were. After all it wasn’t as if there was any kind of nationwide movement or something concerning wasteful spending was there?

Heafy said she received a letter stating that the fiscal 2011 Transportation HUD Appropriation Bill, which included the $300,000 for ARC Community Services, had not been passed by Congress but would be brought back up during its next session.

Oh in the next session, and tell me how many representatives do we have in the republican majority in that next session? Hmmm nearly, nearly one.

However, Republican leadership has stated it will not allow any earmarks to be approved in the bill when Congress takes it up in session again, Hunter Ridgway, Olver’s chief of staff, said Wednesday.

It looks like those who voted for Congressman Olver based on bringing home the bacon need to remember the disclaimer that investors have become familiar with “past performance is no indicator of future gains”.

Add to that democrat states like NY and Mass losing seats and republican states like Texas gaining them wholesale I suspect that it will be a long time before Mr. Olver and company have the clout in the house to raid the treasury.

We will as always get the government we deserve and will have to live with the votes we’ve cast, until at least 2012.

And this column is called POST PARTISAN

Posted: January 6, 2011 by datechguy in congress, media
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David Ignatius took less that 48 hours after the new republican congress to be in office to lead with this headline:

Is Darrell Issa the new Joe McCarthy?

The meat of the article is even worse:

When you see the righteous gleam in Issa’s eye, recall other zealous congressional investigators who claimed to be doing the public’s business but ended up pursuing vendettas. I think of Robert F. Kennedy’s ruthless pursuit of labor “racketeering” when he was chief counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. And, more chilling, I think of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s use of that subcommittee to probe what he imagined was Communist Party subversion in America.

I don’t think the POST PARTISAN column needs to be renamed. I just think it needs to have punctuation added. Name it. POST: PARTISAN! At least that would be accurate.

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