Democrats lock Republicans out of committee room – TheHill.com

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The liberals insist in acting like 4 year-olds who have gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I can’t believe we’ve let ourselves get into this situation of being governed by a bunch of unethical baby-boomers.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to keep them from meeting when Democrats aren’t present.

Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs.

For months Towns has refused Republican requests to subpoena records in the case. Last Thursday Committee Republicans, led by Issa, were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas at a Committee mark-up meeting. The mark-up was abruptly canceled. Only Republicans showed up while Democrats chairs remained empty.

Republicans charged that Towns cancelled the meeting to avoid the subpoena vote. Democrats first claimed the mark-up was canceled due to a conflict with the Financial Services Committee. Later they said it was abandoned after a disagreement among Democratic members on whether to subpoena records on the mortgage industry’s political contributions to Republicans.

A GOP committee staffer captured video of Democrats leaving their separate meeting in private chambers after the mark-up was supposed to have begun. He spliced the video to other footage of the Democrats’ empty chairs at the hearing room, set it to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack” and posted it on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s minority webpage, where it remained as of press time.

Towns’s staffers told Republicans they were not happy about the presence of the video camera in the hearing room when they were not present. Issa’s spokesman said the Democrats readily acknowledged to Republicans that they changed the locks in retaliation to the videotape of the Democrats’ absence from the business meeting even though committee rules allow meetings to be taped.

“It’s not surprising that they would choose to retaliate given the embarrassment we caused by catching them in a lie on tape,” said Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella. “If only they

would use their creative energy to do some actual oversight rather than resorting to immature tactics, but I guess we’re getting some insight into what lengths they’ll go to avoid addressing the Countrywide VIP issue.”

Towns’s office said in a statement the locks were changed on Republicans “because they don’t know how to behave.” As for the video the GOP made, Towns’s office pointed out: “The minority is using taxpayer dollars to make these campaign style videos.”

via Democrats lock Republicans out of committee room – TheHill.com.

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize; Consolation prize for losing Chicago Olympics??!!

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In a striking example of a bunch of liberals living in a fantasy world, the Big B.O. was give $1.4 million today by the Oslo Nobel Institute for essentially doing diddly-squat. Un-freakin-believable!!!!

OSLO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for giving the world “hope for a better future” and striving for nuclear disarmament, in a surprise award that drew both warm praise and sharp criticism.

The decision to bestow one of the world’s top accolades on a president less than nine months into his first term, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” But critics — especially in parts of the Arab and Muslim world — called its decision premature.

Obama’s press secretary woke him with the news before dawn and the president felt “humbled” by the award, a senior administration official said.

When told in an email from Reuters that many people around the world were stunned by the announcement, Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, responded: “As are we.”

via Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize to mixed reviews | Reuters.

U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras

This article goes to show you how badly our nation’s foreign policy is being run right now. An internal political matter of a sovereign state, where the legislative and judicial branch of government are enforcing the constitution of Honduras, is being used as an excuse by our leftists to remove aid from one of the few non-socialist governments in Central America. The ousted President attempted to bypass the constitutional processes in place and revoke his term-limit by means of a  public referendum; something prohibited by the Honduran constitution. Now our State Department is ramping up their opposition to this constitutional action and trying to declare it a military coup, something it is obviously not.

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) – U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a “military coup,” a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.

The official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said State Department staff had made such a recommendation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has yet to make a decision on the matter although one was likely soon.

Washington has already suspended about $18 million aid to Honduras following the June 28 coup and this would be formally cut if the determination is made because of a U.S. law barring aid “to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.”

The official said that $215 million in grant funding from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation to Honduras would also have to end should Clinton make the determination that a military coup took place.

About $76 million of that money has already been disbursed and a second U.S. official said this implied that the remaining roughly $139 million could not be given to Honduras should the determination be made.

Diplomats said that the United States had held off making the formal determination to give diplomacy a chance to yield a negotiated compromise that might allow for Zelaya’s return to power.

Such efforts, however, appear to have failed for now and so the United States is taking steps — including its decision on Tuesday to cease issuing some visas at its embassy in Tegucigalpa — to raise pressure on the de facto government.

“The recommendation of the building is for her to sign it,” said the first U.S. official said of the ‘military coup” determination, saying this was a response to the de facto government’s refusal to accept a compromise that would allow Zelaya to return to power ahead of November elections. (Editing by Jackie Frank)

via U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras | Reuters.

White House projects bigger deficits, bigger debt

Here we go…the fiasco of the Obama administration is exposed…

WASHINGTON – The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House officials predicted Tuesday in a fiscal assessment far bleaker than what the Obama administration had estimated just a few months ago.

Figures released by the White House budget office foresee a cumulative $9 trillion deficit from 2010-2019, $2 trillion more than the administration estimated in May. Moreover, the figures show the public debt doubling by 2019 and reaching three-quarters the size of the entire national economy.

Obama economic adviser Christina Romer predicted unemployment could reach 10 percent this year and begin a slow decline next year. Still, she said, the average unemployment will be 9.3 in 2009 and 9.8 percent in 2010.

“This recession was simply worse than the information that we and other forecasters had back in last fall and early this winter,” Romer said.

The grim administration projections came on a day of competing economic news. The Congressional Budget Office, which has predicted less economic growth than the White House in the past, was also scheduled to announce revised budget projections on Tuesday.

Obama himself may have drowned out the rising deficit news with the announcement Tuesday that he intends to nominate Ben Bernanke to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Bernanke news could neutralize any disturbance in the financial markets caused by the high deficit projections.

The deeper red ink and the gloomy unemployment forecast present President Barack Obama with an enormous challenge. The new numbers come as he prods Congress to enact a major overhaul of the health care system — one that could cost $1 trillion or more over 10 years. Obama has said he doesn’t want the measure to add to the deficit, but lawmakers have been unable to agree on revenues that cover the cost.

What’s more, the high unemployment could last well into the congressional election campaign next year, turning the contests into a referendum on Obama’s economic policies.

via White House projects bigger deficits, bigger debt – Yahoo! News.

Labor Leader Named Head of New York Fed – WSJ.com

Talk about letting the fox in the hen house. This is crazy!!!!!

The Federal Reserve chose a labor leader to succeed a former Goldman Sachs executive as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of New York’s private-sector board of directors.

Denis Hughes, president of the New York state branch of the AFL-CIO, had been serving as acting chairman of the New York Fed board since May, when Stephen Friedman stepped down from the position.

via Labor Leader Named Head of New York Fed – WSJ.com.

Senator Kennedy Wants the Rules to Replace Him Changed—Again

The Wall Street Journal exposes one more scurrilous act being attempted by Teddy before this old socialist kicks the bucket.

Senator Ted Kennedy, who is gravely ill with brain cancer, has sent a letter to Massachusetts lawmakers requesting a change in the state law that determines how his Senate seat would be filled if it became vacant before his eighth full term ends in 2012. Current law mandates that a special election be held at least 145 days after the seat becomes available. Mr. Kennedy is concerned that such a delay could leave his fellow Democrats in the Senate one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority for months while a special election takes place.

“I therefore am writing to urge you to work together to amend the law through the normal legislative process to provide for a temporary gubernatorial appointment until the special election occurs,” writes the Senator.

What Mr. Kennedy doesn’t volunteer is that he orchestrated the 2004 succession law revision that now requires a special election, and for similarly partisan reasons. John Kerry, the other Senator from the state, was running for President in 2004, and Mr. Kennedy wanted the law changed so the Republican Governor at the time, Mitt Romney, could not name Mr. Kerry’s replacement. “Prodded by a personal appeal from Senator Edward M. Kennedy,” reported the Boston Globe in 2004, “Democratic legislative leaders have agreed to take up a stalled bill creating a special election process to replace U.S. Senator John F. Kerry if he wins the presidency.” Now that the state has a Democratic Governor, Mr. Kennedy wants to revert to gubernatorial appointments.

Beacon Hill has long sported heavy Democratic majorities, so the state legislature has the votes to grant Mr. Kennedy’s wish. But does it have the chutzpah? An election is the more democratic option. After witnessing recent attempts by incompetent Governors in Illinois and New York to fill Senate vacancies, Massachusetts voters may have soured on such appointments. Especially when Mr. Kennedy’s motivation for changing the law is so obviously born of partisan interest, not principle.

via Senator Kennedy Wants the Rules to Replace Him Changed—Again – WSJ.com.

The party line…over and over and over again…

Rational…national…is the choice really that hard?

Reprising her return role…

Just who are we talking about, anyway…?