The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Allen West Asks, ‘Hey, How Come Congress Is Getting So Many Days Off?’

Posted on | December 17, 2010 | 14 Comments

After taking a look at the congressional calender for 2011, the newly elected Congressman from Florida’s 22nd District sent a letter to Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Page 1 and Page 2 in PDF format) and issued this press release:

Congressman-Elect Allen West has questions surrounding the Congressional calendar released last week and has written a letter to House Majority Leader-Elect Eric Cantor to reflect those concerns.
“As we know, Congress needs to work to create jobs, reduce the deficit, strengthen our economy, limit the size of government and contend with a plethora of national security issues,” West said. “How are we to do that when, among other things, we start off being in session only ten days the entire month of January?”
Congressman-Elect West is concerned with the fact that Congress is only in session 123 days, only one-third of the entire year. He points out that Congress will not even meet the mark of 90 days in session until September of 2011, just a matter of days before the end of the Fiscal Year.
“I am sure we both agree that the issues before us today require the members of Congress to go beyond what has been the accepted practice in the past to meet the challenges of the future,” West writes to Cantor.
West is also concerned with the “retreats” in the month following the swearing in – some of them taxpayer funded- for members of Congress. Congressman-Elect West has already decided he will not attend at least two of the retreats.
“We have to show the American people we are going to be different than years past,” West said. “We are there for one reason and one reason only, to work for the constituents of the districts we are so privileged to represent. I hope that if it becomes clear that we are not meeting the promise we made to the American people, leadership will modify the schedule in order for us to accomplish the important task we have before us.”

News coverage from CNN, National Journal and The Hill.

Category: Allen West, Congress

Death of Omnibus Boosts GOP

Posted on | December 17, 2010 | 2 Comments

Defeating Harry Reid’s pet pork package gets Republicans off on the right foot going into the 112th Congress:

Senate Republicans sought to build momentum on Friday after successfully forcing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to beg off a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote a valedictory e-mail to GOP supporters cheering the death of the omnibus bill.
“You did it. Facing pressure from you, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday night he was withdrawing the Democrats’ last-minute, 2,200-page-long, $1.1 trillion spending bill,” Cornyn wrote, crediting Republican wins in Senate races this fall for the victory.
Reid pulled the spending bill from the Senate floor after Republicans signaled they would not support the legislation . . .

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

The defeat last night of the OmniPorkulus bill, as the Boss Emeritus calls it, gives us a chance to revisit the long-held — and long-true — belief that both parties are equally addicted to pork-barrel spending.

Ed links to a column by Byron York that argues Republicans really did get the message of the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections.

Meanwhile, the passage of the tax “compromise” leaves liberal Ezra Klein perplexed:

The tax deal passed last night, and without changes. Liberals don’t really like it. Conservatives don’t really like it. Even people who supported the deal — myself included — don’t really like it. It’s tempting to say that this broad spectrum of gnawing dissatisfaction just shows that the bill was a true compromise, with everyone getting a little and giving up a bit. And maybe it was. But it was a compromise that said something bad about our political system, not something good: It said we’re operating without a clear theory of what’s gone wrong in the economy, or how to fix it.

Who is this “we,” Kemosabe? “What’s gone wrong in the economy” is the collapse of a speculative bubble, followed by a misguided attempt to re-inflate the bubble through Keynesian interventionism. As I tried to tell all you genius experts two years ago: “It Won’t Work.”

As for “how to fix it,” the answer is equally simple: Stop!

Stop the endless deficit spending, stop the endless extension of unemployment benefits, stop trying to “fix” the housing market with further interventions, stop trying to “fix” deflation  by having the Fed buy Treasury debt, stop the government takeover of the health-care industry — stop just about everything that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama have been doing since January 2009.

Once you’ve stopped doing the wrong things, that will be about half of the solution. The other half of the solution — actually doing the right thing — will probably have to wait until January 2013, when the next president is sworn in and we rid ourselves of Barack Obama, who now looks much less like the messiah Ezra Klein once worshipped and a lot more like the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll notes that ObamaCare is the next big target in GOP sights.

Category: Barack Obama, Congress, Republicans, Senate, Taxes

The Unknown Tea Partiers

Posted on | December 17, 2010 | 2 Comments

Da Tech Guy goes door-to-door and discovers Tea Party sentiments pervasive among small businessmen:

. . .  mechanics, car dealerships, accountants, dry cleaners, manufacturers big and small, tire stores, restaurants, diners, barber shops, liquor stores, dentists and doctors, car washes, computer repair guys, investment specialists and even tutors. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Category: Da Tech Guy, Tea Party

LIVE AT FIVE – 12.17.10

Posted on | December 17, 2010 | 8 Comments

TOP NEWS
Pork-packed Spending Bill Withdrawn In Senate

GOP support for pork evaporates as deadline looms

Nine Republican senators withdraw support for bill, leaving Reid no option but to pull it

Oklahoma man on death row put down with pentobarbital
Animal euthanasia drug used for first time

Twenty Dead In Ivory Coast Riots As Gbagbo Refuses To Cede Power
ECOWAS official calls on defeated president to step down, prevent further bloodshed



POLITICS
Tax Compromise Passes House

Ready to sign an extension of the very tax rates he was elected to rescind

Liberal Democrats’ opposition crushed, alternatives defeated, bill expected to be signed on Friday

Obama Announces Support For UN Indigenous Rights Declaration

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) To Be Treated For Prostate Cancer

Michigan, Four Other States Appeal To Supremes To Block Carp



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Blackberry Torch Lights Up RiM Results, Forecasts
Visa, Mastercard Hit Hard By Fed’s Proposal To Slash Interchange Fees
Google Launches Body Browser
Yahoo Plans To Shut Down AltaVista, Other Services



SPORTS
It’s Official: Vikings Heading For The U

Crews work to clear ice and snow from the University of Minnesota's TCF Stadium

Ticket-holders for Bears game to be accommodated on a first-come, first serve basis; no beer to be sold and no outside food or drinks.

Defending Volleyball Champs Penn State Sweep Texas

Ainge: Rondo Out For Two Weeks With Ankle Sprain

Coyotes Sign Emergency Goalie As Bryzgalov Goes Down With Flu



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Is It Possible We’ll Always Be Obsessed With Winona Ryder?

Winona Ryder


The GQ interview.  Includes bonus Mel Gibson anti-Semitism. RTWT.

It’s Twins For Mariah Carey

Blake Edwards Dead At 88: Created “Pink Panther” Movies

Lindsay Lohan 100 Days Sober – But Being Stalked

Network Formerly Known As SciFi Cancels “Stargate Universe”



FOREIGNERS
Assange Free On Bail After Nine Days In Jail
Obama To Lean On Pakis, Afghan Tribal Chiefs To Help Defeat Taliban
Singh, Wen Sign Six Bilateral Sino-Indian Agreements, But Affirmation of “One China” Policy Not Among Them
EU Rules Foreigners May Be Banned From Dutch Marijuana Clubs



BLOGS & STUFF
Megan McArdle: Where Freedom Goes To Die – The Center for Science in the Public Interest
Big Government: The Death Panels’ First Move Is To Take Away Avastin For Cancer Treatment
Sense Of Events: What “Obama tax cuts”?
Jammie Wearing Fool: James Meeks Thinks Only Blacks Should Be Considered Minorities


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Worst Dating ‘Strategy’ Evah!

Posted on | December 16, 2010 | 13 Comments

This is sick and pathetic:

An Oklahoma City man seeking sexual stimulation acted severely autistic and wore diapers to con baby sitters into caring for him, police reported.
He told police he did it “for a sexual purpose,” court records show.
Mark Anthony Richardson Jr., 21, twice this year fooled baby sitters into watching him at their homes in Oklahoma City, police reported. The baby sitters told police he would get sexually aroused when they cleaned him while changing his diapers, police said.
Police said he grabbed the breast of one baby sitter’s 18-year-old daughter during an overnight stay in September. Her mother told her “to go back to sleep because he did not know what he was doing,” police reported.

Disgusting. Almost as disgusting as publishing national security secrets in an attempt to impress Swedish socialist women. But I think we’ve discussed that before, right?

Category: Crime

Women Never Lie About Rape

Posted on | December 16, 2010 | 3 Comments

Except when they do:

Heidi Jones was suspended from her position as a weather woman for WABC/Channel 7 after she was charged with allegedly filing a false police report.
Jones allegedly told police on Nov. 24 that a Hispanic man had attacked and attempted to rape her while she was jogging in Central Park in late September. Police said that she told them that he dragged her off the jogging path and only let her go after passerbys spotted them. She also allegedly told them that after the man had been waiting for her outside of her apartment and told her “I know you went to the police.”
After an investigation, discrepancies were found in Jones’ story, which was extremely vague. Police said that when confronted she admitted to making up the story. She explained that she was going through personal and professional stress and thought the story would give her sympathy and attention.

Maybe Michael Moore can cite this in defense of his claim that the Swedish rape charges against Julian Assange are “a bunch of hooey.” But probably not, huh?

Category: Crime

Julian Assange Likes Spunk

Posted on | December 16, 2010 | 7 Comments

CNN’s got the online dating profile of the WikiLeaks dude from 2006:

WARNING: Want a regular, down to earth guy? Keep moving. I am not the droid you’re looking for. Save us both while you still can. Passionate, and often pig headed activist intellectual seeks siren for love affair, children and occasional criminal conspiracy.
Such a woman should [be] spirited and playful, of high intelligence, though not necessarily formally educated, have spunk, class & inner strength and be able to think strategically about the world and the people she cares about.

It was that “spunk” line that got me, and never mind the double-entendre. No, I was thinking of a famous line from the first episode of the old Mary Tyler Moore Show:

Lou Grant: You know what? You’ve got spunk.
Mary Richards: Well, yes . . .
Lou Grant: I hate spunk.

Julian Assange is no Lou Grant.

Category: WikiLeaks

Oh, Boy! House Democrats Trying to Screw Up Lame-Duck Tax ‘Compromise’

Posted on | December 16, 2010 | 7 Comments

Understand that (a) I hate this godawful bipartisan monstrosity as an unwarranted sellout by Senate Republicans and (b) there’s very little chance that the House Democrats can screw things up so completely as to wreck the deal. But yet there is a glimmer of hope:

A final House vote on President Obama’s tax proposal could be delayed after Democratic leaders were forced to pull a procedural measure off the House floor Thursday.
The House was set to vote on the rule governing debate on the broad tax bill, but the measure was withdrawn at the last minute when leaders realized it was likely to be rejected. Liberals opposed to the deal Obama struck with Republicans were upset that the procedure approved by the House Rules Committee on Wednesday did not allow them a clean opportunity to vote on the legislation the Senate passed on Wednesday. A final vote on the tax deal had been planned for Thursday evening.

Never underestimate the stupidity of House Democrats. It’s “Panic at the Disco,” says Nice Deb. As Ed Morrissey says, they wanted to do the old “deem-and-pass” trick, but had a “screw up” on a parliamentary maneuver. Here’s one of the great “principles” liberals are fighting for:

The change, offered by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), would renew the 2009 inheritance tax at 45 percent for individuals with estates worth more than $3.5 million, a level identical to the rate passed by the House last year. The bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday sets the estate tax at 35 percent for individuals with an exemption beginning at $5 million.

Good Lord — 45 percent? That’s not taxation, that’s theft.

Suppose that beautiful young Taylor Swift were to marry handsome young Jake Gyllenhaal, and they had a baby. You can bet that would be one of the cutest babies in the history of the w0rld.

Now, suppose that there were some kind of horrible accident — say, Taylor and Jake went sailboarding near the Great Barrier Reef and were both eaten by sharks.

OK, so the world mourns the tragic loss of the country songstress and her movie star husband — and then the IRS swoops in to grab 45 percent of their estate, which otherwise would have gone the couple’s adorable little orphaned baby.

Why do liberals hate orphans so much?

And while we’re at it, why is Gyllenhaal “taking it slow” with Taylor Swift? Close the deal, Jake. If you think you’re going to do better than that, you’re wrong.

Category: Taxes
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