Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

It looks like the prez is going to have to wait for some of his appointments a bit longer:

By scheduling pro-forma sessions on Mondays and Fridays, lawmakers can take away Obama’s ability to make recess appointments.

Obama had 115 executive- and judicial-branch nominees pending on the Senate’s executive calendar as of Wednesday afternoon.

Bad sign for the president considering the incredible majorities he has in both houses. But as Father Z reports the Washington is not the only place where there are a lot of open seats waiting to be filled:

There are at present quite a few important curial positions and sees around the world which usually have cardinals… but don’t.

At the time of this writing, I believe there are 103 voting cardinals (men who have not turned 80 years old). By the end of November two more cardinals will hit 80 (Tumi, Pujats), bringing the number of voting cardinals down to 101. By the end of next February, four more (Panafieu, Vidal, García-Gasco, Ruini – sadly) – 97. By the end of April two more (Keeler, Sebastiani) – 95. So, an American and two Italians will have dropped from the list, leaving 10 Americans and 15 Italians as electors.

I won’t even pretend to know the inside baseball of the Vatican but with an elderly pope, the men who are elevated to cardinal now will have a lot to do with the direction of the church for decades.

I finally found a new John Olver sign in Fitchburg

Hey a John Olver sign

And is there any more appropriate location for a sign promoting a democratic member of congress…

The perfect setting

then a closed business?

And in case you think it is a stunt, lets go to the video!

Democrats it’s all yours.

About 15 years ago when the first talk of civil unions came up when people were talking about a constitutional amendment to enshrine actual marriage explicitly in the constitution the media and the pols pooh poohed the entire idea saying that nobody is talking about Gay Marriage and the idea it was going to come up was nonsense.

People who had more sense on the state level decided not to take chances and passed constitutional amendments to their own state constitutions.

Interestingly enough we are seeing this phenom again in Oklahoma:

Oklahoma is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban state judges from relying on Islamic law known as Sharia when deciding cases.

The ban is a cornerstone of a “Save our State” amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that was recently approved by the Legislature.

The amendment — which also would forbid judges from using international laws as a basis for decisions — will now be put before Oklahoma’s voters in November. Approval is expected.

Well this is a victory for liberals surely, Sharia law being so oppressive to women and gays and restrictive on sex etc etc I’m sure that our friends on the left will be cheering the chance for the voters to reject such a set of misogynistic rules right? Apparently not:

Reps. Duncan and Moore’s “us vs. them” mentality exemplifies the mainstreaming of extreme right-wing Islamophobia. Once hawked by fringe figures, the “creeping Sharia” delusion is finding champions among staunch conservative leaders like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose crusade against all-things-Islamic culminated in his call for “a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States” at the Value Voters Summit this month.

Ah it’s all about Islamophobia, there is actually no reason why Sharia is something to be worried about, it can’t happen here. Next thing you will be telling me is that honor killings are taking place in America or something.

Jay Nordlinger identified these people long ago:

During the Cold War, we used to speak of anti-anti-Communists. These were people (on the left) who were not exactly pro-Communist. But they so hated the anti-Communists, they were . . . well, anti-anti-Communists — the best, the fairest name for them.

Today, there are anti-anti-Islamofascists. They are not on the Islamofascist side in the War on Terror. But they hate those who are fighting, or attempting to fight, the Islamofascists more than they could ever hate the Islamofascists. They are anti-anti-Islamofascists.

The similarities between yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists and today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists would make a very good essay — perhaps by David Pryce-Jones or Norman Podhoretz. Of course, many of today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists were yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists — I mean, the same people, in the flesh.

The day these people hate actual oppressors as much as they hate their pseudo oppressors will be a marvelous day for this country, and for themselves.

Yesterday we had two points of discussion and debate, lets revisit them on day 2

#1 Poll? What Poll?

They talked a bit about Christine O’Donnell yesterday and touched on Saturday Night Live’s skit on her. Fair enough NBC show, MSNBC cross promotion. However after going on yesterday about how Sarah Palin numbers were so bad and talking about how the GOP threw away a senate seat last week the fact that Christine O’Donnell has picked up Six points in the polls in Six days, trailing by less than double digits (this is without a Mike Castle Write-in and with no favorable press coverage).

Consider, Up by 8 Barney Frank felt the need to bring in Bill Clinton! Does that mean that Chris Coons, much less well-known than Frank will need to book the ex president’s in Delaware? I think not. The contrast between a beautiful woman who in her early 20’s was talking abstinence in 1996 and a president who at the same time was being serviced by a young girl the same age that O’Donnell was at the time would not be the image the Democratic party needs.

#2 Nobody reads that Washington Post rag

We are in Day two. Mika and company are in their second day of doing Colbert stuff. Apparently Mika’s Paris Hilton radar is getting weaker and Apparently the Front Page of the Washington Post doesn’t carry the clout with Morning Joe that it once did.

We are now in the 7 a.m. hour of the second day this week. (7:16 a.m.) Morning Joe has done Colbert clips yet the DOJ scandal is still totally unreported on the show. It is a startling omission. One might have made the excuse that there was the big cross over and the president etc yesterday but still have not found time for even a mention of the DOJ scandal or the testimony thereof.

It is very nice of them to try to provide material for the WCRN show that we hope to have up before the election but guys, you can report on it. I’m sure the media will ignore something else before that day.

Update: Just showed another O’Donnell joke hit, everyone is laughing but still not a word of the 6 points in 6 days that have been picked up. I can’t wait to see their faces Nov 3rd.