Sen. John Ensign of Nevadaresigned his Republican leadership post Wednesday, one day after confessing marital infidelity. Aides refused to answer questions about records showing that a woman on his political payroll received a promotion and a pay raise around the time he said the affair began in late 2007. Nor would Ensign or aides respond to reports of an earlier affair, in 2002.
Ensign, 51, has said he intends to remain in the Senate.
The Nevada lawmaker is a member of the Christian ministry Promise Keepers and has championed causes pushed by the GOP‘s conservative religious base while seeking to raise his political profile for a possible presidential campaign.
He offered to resign as head of the Republican Policy Committee in a phone call with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the party leader.
“He’s accepted responsibility for his actions and apologized to his family and constituents. He offered, and I accepted, his resignation as chairman of the Policy Committee,” said McConnell, R-Ky.
OK, everyone is human, we’re all fallible, blah blah blah. I understand all that. The problem is, once these guys get elected and they live within the Washington bubble for any amount of time, they start to believe they’re infallible. They think the rules apply to the people they govern, not themselves. And this isn’t just a Republican problem, obviously. It happens in both parties. I’m not just talking about infidelity. I’m talking about ethics, personal responsibility, the rule of law. Increasingly, our leaders in Washington are living in a parallel universe. They look upon their constituents as if they are gods, wielding power and implementing their superior will.
I’m sick of it.
So long Ensign. You deserve to be expelled and it’d be great if you could take a few more with you.
They didn’t meet as children. They’re 20 years apart in age. Yet, Simon and Schuster, the big time New York City publisher, thinks there’s a story for George Obama to tell. In fact, he’s worthy of an entire memoir. George is Barry’s half brother, and another on a growing list of Obama family members to cash in on the fame of the most recent White House occupant.
Little is known about George Obama. The book, tentatively titled “Homeland” and to be written with author-journalist Damien Lewis, will tell of George Obama’s fall into crime and poverty as a teenager and his eventual embrace of community organizing — a passion shared by the president — and of advocacy for the poor, an identification so strong that he chooses to live among them.
“Even had George Obama not been our President’s half brother, his story is moving and inspirational,” David Rosenthal, Simon & Schuster publisher and executive vice president, said in a statement Sunday. “It is an object lesson in survival, selflessness and courage.”
Little is known about George Obama. The book, tentatively titled “Homeland” and to be written with author-journalist Damien Lewis, will tell of George Obama’s fall into crime and poverty as a teenager and his eventual embrace of community organizing — a passion shared by the president — and of advocacy for the poor, an identification so strong that he chooses to live among them.
“Even had George Obama not been our President’s half brother, his story is moving and inspirational,” David Rosenthal, Simon & Schuster publisher and executive vice president, said in a statement Sunday. “It is an object lesson in survival, selflessness and courage.” (AP)
Riiiight.
I bet there’s a political action committee being put together right now for ol’ George. And why not? He has become a community organizer after a life of crime. After all, it worked for his half-brother, and that’s all it takes to be elected U.S. President these days.
Has the clothing market gotten so bad that to be noticed you must put up an ad that has nothing to do with jeans but everything to do with orgies?
Apparently.
So, you’re a mom and you’re taking your kids out for a walk and all at once they look up and say, “Mommy, what are those three people doing?” Awkward, to say the least. But the point is, why should anyone be forced to confront a question like that? Frankly, I’m sick of this kind of thing. Are you? If you are, get in touch with the parent company of the Calvin Klein brand. Give them a piece of your mind. You can find the details here: www.pvh.com/contact.aspx.
Let’s put an end to this crap and send a signal to Calvin Klein and others like ’em (did someone say, Abercrombie and Fitch?)
Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer is doing whatever he can to get back into the spotlight…heck, any spotlight for that matter. His latest remarks come on the heals of the Senate take over in Albany, NY.
“Yes, the Senate takeover is being orchestrated by a rogue’s gallery of politicians and their associates, grabbing for power in a base, self-interested way,” the disgraced ex-governor wrote in his latest column on Slate.com.
“If you look at the upheaval from a different angle, it begins to make sense and to seem like a step forward in New York politics.”
“The use of that power by two Democratic senators, though perhaps for questionable purposes, is emboldening others to use their leverage to bargain for worthwhile causes,” like same-sex marriage,” wrote Spitzer.
U.S. Representative Barney Frank loves to be in front of the camera answering questions. Well, actually, he likes to be in front of the camera when he can answer questions he likes. Ask him something he doesn’t like, and he walks.
Like he did just now on CNBC.
Our represtatives in congress act like kids on an elementary school playground. If they don’t get their way, the take their ball and go home.
The U.S. economy continues to lose jobs, and everyone agrees that more will be lost before we bottom out. Everyone except Barack Obama. In Obamaland, we’re not losing jobs at all. He’s creating them, as Karl Rove points out.
Mr. Obama has an ingenious approach to job losses: He describes them as job gains. For example, last week the president claimed that 150,000 jobs had been created or saved because of his stimulus package. He boasted, “And that’s just the beginning.”
However, at the beginning of January, 134.3 million people were employed. At the start of May, 132.4 million Americans were working. How was Mr. Obama magically able to conjure this loss of 1.9 million jobs into an increase of 150,000 jobs?
As my former White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto points out on his blog, the Labor Department does not and cannot collect data on “jobs saved.” So the Obama administration is asking that we accept its “clairvoyant ability to estimate,” and the White House press corps has let Mr. Obama’s ludicrous claim go virtually unchallenged.
While its pretty clear that a majority of the American public are still hypnotized by The One, they won’t stay that way for long. In fact, I’ll venture to say that they’ll send a message to Obama on November 2, 2010, the same message they sent Bill Clinton in 1994.
You may have heard about the Democrats plan to use a speed reader to assure the voters that the bills they pass are actually being read. Well, it’s true, as evidenced by the video below.
Steve Anderson is a pastor in Arizona. He’s also been known to harrass people who are in authority over him. On May 10th, Mother’s Day, Pastor Steve asked too many questions when he tried to cross the border back into the U.S.
The result? Well, let the video tell the story.
And it gets better than that…here’s video Pastor Steve took himself, almost like he was prepared for something to happen.
Stopped at checkpoint. Refuses to cooperate. Probable cause to search the vehicle is developed. He is ordered out of the vehicle for the search. He refuses. Keeps doors locked. Refuses to exit. Argues. Told that he is under arrest. Continues to argue. Gets the door forced open and is arrested. Seems cut and dry to me.
Kids…this is the face of stupidity.
Pastor Steve and his wife have a blog where they provide play-by-play of the events surrounding their “activism”. And don’t miss all the videos of Steve’s fifteen minutes of fame. Feel free to browse – it’s a hoot.
Oh, and one more thing. Wonder what it’s like to sit in Pastor Steve’s church on Sunday? Here’s a taste…
I’m sure I’m late to the party on this one, but it’s definitely worth a second watch if you’ve already been down this road once before. Steven Crowder does a great job with this.
I love waking up on a Monday morning to find little nuggets like this in the news.
Of course, nothing is as it seems to be when you live inside the MSM “bubble”. Dowd claims that her plagiarism was inadvertent. In fact, she says she didn’t even read the blog she’s accused of lifting. Her explanation is she was talking with a friend last week about what she intended to write and the friend then gave her the following line:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
For comparison purposes, let’s look at the original quote from the blogger in question, Josh Marshall:
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Those of you with a quick eye will see that Dowd simply switched out “when the Bush crowd was” for Marshall’s “when we were”.
Let’s get back to reality for a moment. When you talk on the phone what’s the likelihood that you hear the caller on the other end recite a sentence of this length and you remember it long enough to then be sure you type it out exactly as “heard” when you write your NYT column?
Not likely.
There’s no way Dowd innocently used Marshall’s words. It’s not possible. If she was so enamored with her friends words, she would have asked her if she spoke them off the cuff or if she had read them somewhere else. Being the seasoned writer Dowd is, there’s no way the thought to inquire the source would have escaped her.
For Dowd’s excuse to be plausible, the conversation with her friend would have had to have gone like this:
Friend: “More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
Dowd: “Hey, that’s good stuff. Can you repeat what you just said? I want to use it in my column.”
Friend: “Sure, no problem, let me repeat it to you.”
Sorry – that’s not the way it works. More likely, the “friend” emailed a link to Dowd which she happily clicked on and read straight from Marshall’s blog. She most likely thought no one would suspect for a moment that SHE took the quote from a blog. No, she probably thought everyone would belive the blogger took the quote from her! Cut and paste, and now the words are hers!
So, what’s next? Aside from the obligatory correction we’ll see in tomorrow’s NYT, will executive editor Bill Keller comment? Should he?
For as long as bloggers have been around, the MSM has derided them as non-professional, reckless, haphazzard, and unethical. Today, those exact words describe the actions of Maureen Dowd.
