Tag: Harry Reid

It Would Also Make California a Laughingstock

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/op…

By Arnold Schwarzenegger

September 24, 2010

Los Angeles Times

It would also make California a laughing stock.

Governor Smokenator,Just Say Now,Yes on 19

But you already did that.

Republican Governor of CA, Arnold Schwarzenegger Smoking Pot

We Will Be Watching: Victory for the DREAM Act

Originally posted at Citizen Orange.

The fate of almost a million lives could be decided in the next six hours.  As a voter, as a millenial, as a migrant, as a Guatemalan, I’m writing to say that I will be watching along with the vast majority of those who will determine the future of the United States of America. 

If you already haven’t heard already, Harry Reid is going to offer the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act up as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.  The Senate is scheduled to vote on taking up the Act tomorrow at 2:15 p.m.  If you haven’t called you’re Senator yet in the support of the DREAM Act please do so now by calling:

888-254-5087

It is imperative that you focus on these Senators.  If you’ve called already, call again.  If you’ve called again, ask five friends to do the same.  If you’ve done all that, here are some more actions you can take.

The Tea Party Express — a PAC without bounds?

This .org website gives a whole new meaning to Industry ‘Front Group’.

TeaPartyExpress.org



larger

It’s a page designed to solicit Donations — and little else.

The Home link — goes nowhere;  (ie. back to the Contribute Page)

The About link — goes nowhere;

The Media link — goes nowhere;

The Blog link goes to this blogspot page

TeaPartyExpressBlog.blogspot.com

where the lead story is

Don’t Raise Our Taxes – Don’t Repeal the Tax Cuts

and which has this emotive Scary Image:

let me guess, it’s designed to solicit Donations.

Why should you care?

Well it looks like Tea Party Express PAC, just may be breaking Federal Campaigns Laws …

The Stars Have Aligned: The Time Is Now for the DREAM Act

Originally posted at Citizen Orange.

If you haven’t been on facebook, twitter, or following the news, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced yesterday that he would be introducing the DREAM Act as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.  Univision anchor Jorge Ramos tweeted last week that Reid wanted to move the DREAM Act before November.  Now we know how Reid wants to move it.  The DREAM Act could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday of next week.

Is Voinovich just the first brick to Fall from GOP’s Stonewalling Rhetoric?

There is a crack daylight, that may topple the Republican’s Wall of Inaction.

Voinovich breaks with GOP to push for small-business incentives

Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff — Sept 10, 2010

Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that would give President Obama and congressional Democrats a key victory on the economy in the final weeks before the November midterm elections.

In an interview, Voinovich said he could no longer support Republican efforts to delay the measure in hopes of winning the right to offer additional amendments. Most of the proposed GOP amendments “didn’t have anything to do with the bill” anyway, Voinovich said, and amounted merely to partisan “messaging.”

“We don’t have time for messaging,” Voinovich said. “We don’t have time anymore. This country is really hurting.”

Finally a Republican Senator with some Integrity, who is willing work for the folks, that Voted him into Office  (instead of working against their interests, for his own gain …)

Monday Humor: Harry Goes Tea Party, Gates Surges Self, Delay, & Other Stories of After the Crash

( Note:My computer and internet connection has been a bastard all weekend, and then it locked up badly on the first thing I wrote this am, and I can’t get @#$%^&*#$%^& effing iphoto to stop crashing everything else, and photobucket sucks, so you’re getting this instead.  Deal with it.  )

1. Reid breaks with Obama, comes out against Ground Zero mosque.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…


“The First Amendment protects freedom of religion,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said in a statement. “Sen. Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else.”

Reid is the most senior Democrat to come out in opposition to the mosque.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, had questioned the wisdom of building the mosque, too.

We’re all glad that you candidates have so much time on your hands after solving the rest of the nation’s problems, that Sen Reid, via his trusty spokesperson, and Exxon via Shakespalin can get into a pissing match over New York real estate to help get re elected. I know for sure that every am every unemployed Nevadan gets up every am and thinks,  if only the zoning in Manhattan was different, I wouldn’t have lost my house to foreclosure and we’d get more tourists visiting again.  

2.  McChrystal to Teach at Yale in fall of 2010

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-…


The course will be offered in fall 2010 by Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where McChrystal has been appointed a senior fellow.

teach what ?   A graduate course on leadership ?   You’d think that West Point would be interested. Oh, wait….  

3. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates  to Retire Sometime in 2011


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

“I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he said. It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late, with just one year to go in the president’s current term. And, he added, “This is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year.”  

It isn’t ?


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/a…

Gates quickly intervened, taking both programs outside normal channels. He added $16 billion to build more MRAPs on a crash schedule. And he fired the Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen T. Michael Moseley, in part for negligence with the nuclear command, but mainly, according to knowledgeable officials, for his sluggishness on the drones.

So, near the end of 2007, Gates called on Gen. David Petraeus, then the U.S. commander in Iraq and the architect of the counterinsurgency strategy there, to chair that year’s Army promotion board, which would advance 40 colonels to the rank of brigadier general. More than a dozen of the Army’s promising colonels, at least one of whom had been passed over twice, got their stars. With this single stroke, the Army’s culture — the signals sent to the troops of what kind of soldiers get promoted and what kind don’t — changed dramatically.

Even before Obama’s term formally began, Gates launched a three-month review of every major line item in the half-trillion-dollar defense budget, drawing the entire building — the highest-level civilian analysts and military officers — into the process. By April 2009, his teams had compiled a list of 50 programs primed for change. Gates decided to kill, slash, or restructure 33 of them, including some of the services’ most cherished weapons systems.

_______

All told, Congress approved 31 of Gates’s 33 cuts. The other two — the C-17 cargo plane and an alternative engine for the F-35 fighter — Gates has vowed to kill this year.

….  Even before Obama’s term began….  

The article almost doesn’t sound like a puff piece until the part where Gates started waxing eloquent about necon PNAC “military analyst”  Frederick Kagan and the American Enterprise Institute,  Frederick Kagan and his wife  Kimberly Kagan, who runs the “Institute for the Study of War,”   (more links here:  https://www.docudharma.com/diar…    )

are the two hired right wing think tank hacks the Pentagon trots out now and then to make up excuses to keep doing the same thing over and over.

Gates says we aren’t the Soviets in Afghanistan because we didn’t kill a million and displace 5 million more-  ignoring the fact that is what happened in Iraq under Bush, Cheney, L Paul Bremer, and his predecessor, Def. Sec. Rumsfeld.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R…

The humorous part comes from the fact that Gates is pushing for reforms in weapons contracting at the Pentagon in preparation for selling more armaments and weapons to “allies,”  and that he is “passionate, “revved up” and “stoked” about these military budget economies.   Time to deploy that Golden Parachute as a Military Weapons Procurement Consultant Dude !

CA-04: BLM takes Mustangs for BP’s Ruby Pipeline in McClintock’s District

This must give avowed anti environmentalist and overall science denier, Drill Baby Spill, Tea Party Caucus Congressman Tom McClintock of CA 04 a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside, because now the area up around his homey base of right wing zealots, Susanville, is undergoing a wild horse purge with Federal Tax dollars-  for BP and Anadarko Petroleum.   Because he had a staffer rep at the BLM’s planning session per documents at the Dept of the Interior website.

They’re going to take 2000 mustangs off the northern California scrubby ranges and leave a small remnant herd of 500.   The roundup started yesterday, Wed Aug 11th.

There are only about 4000 wild horses in CA.  This removes half our state’s wild horses !   And they’re doing it now during the hot days so it won’t interfere with DEER HUNTING SEASON.

Flat Earth McClintock recently had a hissy fit that the Federal government might transfer some Federal land into a National Park or Monument here up in Northern eastern CA because the government doesn’t “create jobs.”    

Senate Performs Successful Top Kill For BP

This is going to be a mish mash of various links relevant to today’s oil spill news, Tues Aug 3, 2010.  I took one look at the amusing picture of the moonshine still on the open thread and saw instead the Blow Out Protector on the Macondo Oil Well of Doom.

I was trying not to laugh my arse off about a certain fp diary at a certain blog yesterday which was a repeat of a certain breathless Washington Post article announcing that The Oil Spill Was Really BIGGER than they all thought according to the “new” government figures.

Which was as big as the government knew all along, from April 23, 3 days after the blowout, when they were doing estimates based on BP’s internal documents that weren’t released yet, and then the government and BP have colluded since then to lie their a$$es off about.   NOAA released a chart of the potential leak impact on the coast line back in April with the higher number.

3 months minus 5 days times 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.  Duh.  As if BP Tony hadn’t mentioned 60,000 a day back in June in front of Congress, either.

Yes, they really do think we are THAT stupid.

DREAM Now Letters Recap: The CHC Has To Stand With Migrant Youth, Not Against Us

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

Today marks the completion of the second week of the DREAM Now series. I am sorry I was not able to get a letter out on Wednesday.  Too much travel and not enough sleep led me to come down with a soar throat and a fever on Tuesday.  Thankfully, I’m starting to recover, today.  If you’re not getting enough of your DREAM Now fix I recommend reading Matias Ramos’ post on why he stood up during Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) speech at Netroots Nation.

Thanks in part to the supporters of the DREAM Now Series,  Reid is now on board with pushing DREAM Act this year.  Most of the credit for turning Reid, of course, should go to courageous undocumented youth activists for their civil disobedience in Reid’s office and making their presence known during his appearance at Netroots Nation.  While Reid still needs to be pushed, most of our efforts to get the DREAM Act enacted, this year, should now shift towards securing the last few mostly Republican Senate votes we need.  The National Council of La Raza has a list of Senators who have not yet publicly committed to voting for the DREAM Act.  If your Senator is on that list, you better start getting to work. 

DREAM Now Letters Recap: Tell Harry Reid You Want The DREAM Act Now

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

This post will mark the completion of the first week of the DREAM Now Letters.  This social media campaign has been an immediate success, which is in large part due to the historic actions of DREAMers this week

Major bloggers from across the net, which I will link to below, have already cross-posted both Mohammad Abdollahi’s and Yahaira Carrillo’s stories.  The letters even made a brief appearance on memeorandum, a news aggregator that I’m addicted to.

If you haven’t read about it, yet, on Tuesday, 21 DREAM Act youth were arrested on Capitol Hill.  Nativists’ heads are already exploding at the notion that undocumented youth could openly declare their immigration status, get arrested, and not get deported.  David Bennion, my co-blogger at Citizen Orange, has the best write up of the action, by far.  It’s new media at it’s best.  He was actually there while it was happening. 

Kerry, Reid, & Browner Kill Climate Bill During Netroots

Time for the “Couldn’t make this up if I tried” part of the daily dosage of dodder.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010


Climate Bill Would Cut Deficit

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

WASHINGTON –   Congressional budget experts say a climate and energy bill now stalled in the Senate would reduce the federal deficit by about $19 billion over the next decade.

The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was the second positive analysis of the bill by a government agency in a month, but is likely to carry more weight than a similar report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. The CBO is the entity responsible for providing Congress with nonpartisan analyses of economic and budget issues, and lawmakers rely on it for guidance.

An analysis by the EPA last month concluded that the Senate bill, dubbed the American Power Act, would cost households an average of $79 to $146 per year. Kerry and Lieberman said they believe Americans are willing to pay less than a dollar a day to curb global warming, reduce oil imports and create energy-related jobs.

Two weeks later.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010


let’s have a climate meetup to bitch about the bill. RT@ {xxxxxx} Heading to Las Vegas for #nn10, who’s going to be there ?

See you there ! heading out to {xx} for a short flight to LV for #nn10, hope to see lots of impacterinos

Jul 21st via TweetDeck

well known enviroblogger, name redacted  

Reid puts Energy Bill on Ice: with a Chilling Effect on Wind and Solar?

The Energy Bill has been shelved for now — another Price exacted by the Do Nothing Party.

Senate Halts Effort to Cap CO2 Emissions

Democrats Forgo Centerpiece of President Obama’s Energy Plan, as Cap-and-Trade Fails to Lure Broad Support in Congress

By Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal — July 23, 2010

Mr. Reid refused to declare the idea dead. But Thursday’s decision called into question when or whether any legislated cap on greenhouse-gas emissions would reach Mr. Obama’s desk.

Now, businesses, such as wind-turbine makers, that had bet on a greenhouse-gas provision to make alternatives to coal and oil more cost-competitive must recalculate how long it might take for that to happen.

[…] the solar industry is growing at the rate of about 40% a year in terms of electrical power installed and is likely to continue to grow, said Ron Kenedi, vice president of Sharp Corp.’s Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group in Huntington Beach, Calif.

We need some new Senators (at least 60), who actually care about Energy Independence — enough to act.

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