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Richardson
If Bill Richardson is so confident that he acted properly regarding the pay to play allegations in New Mexico, why did he drop his bid to become Commerce Secretary?
Why not just tell the Senate that you are innocent and there was no wrongdoing? Unless the Governor feels uneasy saying this under oath…
Read it here.
Minnesota Senate
Chuck Schumer thinks Al Franken should be seated in the U.S Senate before the judicial process is officially over in the Minnesota recount. But eight years ago, during the presidential recount, Schumer was singing a different tune:
"‘The overwhelming consensus has been behind Gore to go through the judicial process, but to call it a day once the judicial process is exhausted,’ said Senator Charles E. Schumer.”
(New York Times, 12/13/2000)
Senator Schumer, let the judicial process play out, just like you...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
12:55 PM
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The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting today that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had direct communication
with Governor Blagojevich about the now-infamous U.S. Senate appointment process in Illinois. In the
Blagojevich wiretaps, the Gov talks non-stop about wheeling and dealing for the Senate seat.
Are we to believe that was
entirely a one way street? Valerie Jarrett is a close personal friend of Obama. She was his choice.
Rahm was doing the president-elect’s bidding. We know that ultimately it was communicated that
Blagojevich would be offered nothing in exchange for a Jarrett appointment, but was
there any brokering going on in the interim? The tapes will tell…
Here’s the article with the scoop…
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
11:21 AM
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I was shocked and saddened this morning to hear that my dear friend and mentor Paul M. Weyrich died this morning at the age of 66.
Paul was working and writing until the very end, as just yesterday I received a handwritten note from him in which he expressed
the challenges the conservative movement will face in confronting the policies of the Obama Administration.
I’m fortunate that I’m able to call Paul a friend of over 20 years. I got to know Paul very well during the President Reagan years, and I am
a far better person for listening to him and learning from him. The leadership he has provided over the last 35 years has had
a profound influence on me and the conservative movement as a whole.
Paul will be sorely missed and always remembered.
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
12:52 PM
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As if Eric Holder won’t have enough tough questions coming his way at his confirmation hearing, this morning we find out he omitted a
press conference from his Senate questionnaire that he had with the one and only Rod Blagojevich in 2004 over work he was to
do for the Illinois Gaming Board.
Read it here.
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
1:48 PM
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After opining and reporting on the 2008 presidential race as an objective journalist,
Jay Carney, Time Magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief, it going to be VP-elect
Joe Biden’s Communications Director.
I think the fact that a “journalist” like Carney is given a top slot in Biden’s inner-circle
pretty well establishes that Carney is a longtime partisan Democrat in good standing.
NOTE: When I use “journalist” in quotes, it should be translated as “hack.”
So it appears that since 2005, Time Magazine has employed a Democrat operative
as its DC bureau chief. This should be a disappointment to anyone who reads Time
to get educated on the goings-on inside the Beltway. It means that Time readers
are probably getting a biased account of government and politics. It’s a shame.
The following excerpt from a memo written by Time’s managing editor
Richard Stengel is hard to read with a straight face:
“As a reporter and as bureau chief, he...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:29 AM
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With the Rod Blagojevich pay to play allegations concerning President-elect Obama’s Senate seat still carrying the news cycle, it looks like Obama’s Commerce Secretary-Designate Bill Richardson may be hearing from a
grand jury at some point soon.
According to Bloomberg: “The grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into Beverly Hills, California-based CDR Financial Products Inc., which received almost $1.5 million in fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 after donating $100,000 to Richardson’s efforts to register Hispanic and American Indian voters and pay for expenses at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, people familiar with the matter said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked current and former officials from the state agency if any staff members in the governor’s office influenced CDR’s hiring, said the people, who declined to be identified because the proceedings are secret.
Richardson, who is President-elect Barack Obama’s...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
3:34 PM
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“I know he’s talked to the Governor.” These are the words of Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod on
November 23, 2008, when he was asked a question about Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate.
Watch it here. As if this isn’t bad enough, check out
the title of a November 5, 2008 Blagojevich press release: “Governor Blagojevich Congratulates President-elect Obama and Discusses U.S. Senate Seat.”
Read it all here.
Why do these two pieces of evidence matter? Because on December 9, 2008, President-elect Obama made
a public statement in which he effectively denied having contact with Governor Blagojevich
about his replacement in the U.S. Senate. When asked about this troubling contradiction,
Obama’s transition staff stated that Axelrod misspoke.
And that’s the last I’ve heard of it! ...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
11:31 AM
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I always viewed the idea that Barack Obama is a new kind of politician, a post-partisan politician as a stretch.
President-elect Obama is a product of Illinois politics. He spent eight years as a State Senator representing
a district on the South Side Of Chicago. His mayor is named Daley and with that name
comes the phrase “Cook County Machine.” There is nothing new or post-partisan about Chicago politics.
Throughout the presidential campaign, Obama came under fire for allowing shady Chicago
businessman and political fundraiser Tony Rezko to engage in a real estate transaction
that helped Obama buy his Hyde Park mansion. There is no doubt that Obama and Rezko were close, but not as close as Rezko
and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Read about it here.
The reason I bring this up is that early this morning Blagojevich was taken into custody on...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:23 AM
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Why does he think he can win
a race for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania?
To begin with, Pennsylvania is anything but a fringe blue state.
Pennsylvania already has a Democrat Governor (Rendell) and Junior Senator (Casey).
There is no reason to believe Pennsylvanian’s want their statewide officeholders
all governing and legislating from the left. Pennsylvania is a state
that has enjoyed balance in their representation.
Who does Matthews think he is? As far as I can tell, he hasn’t lived in Pennsylvania since
he last tried to run for office in 1974 (he lost a U.S. House primary with 23% of the vote)!
Does he think he’s just going to move back to The Keystone State and say, here I am,
I’m moving back just because my ego thinks I belong in the U.S. Senate?
Well, what does Matthews have to offer Pennsylvania? He’s worked for Jimmy Carter,
Tip O’Neill, and The San Francisco Examiner. To say he’s not exactly the product
of competent moderation is...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
11:26 AM
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Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) was re-elected yesterday by a wide margin of 58% - 42%.
Any coattails from November 4th are gone. Therefore, the Democrats will not have 60 Senators in the their caucus.
The media made a huge deal about the Dems getting to 60, thus becoming a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. They said having 60
votes would clear the way for President-elect Obama’s agenda to sail through the Senate. So, if Sen. Coleman hangs on in Minnesota, the
Democrats will enter the 111th Congress with 58 members caucusing with them. Even if Coleman were to lose, they could only get to 59.
So the most likely final scenario is 56-2-42 (Sanders and Lieberman are Independents caucusing with the Democrats).
But in reality, if you look at the make-up of the U.S. Senate in the next Congress, there will probably be enough moderate Republican support
for Obama’s big priorities (stimulus, bailout, health care, Iraq war, energy) to stop a filibuster anyway. If...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
12:39 PM
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President-elect Obama’s anti-war, left-wing base of support must be on the brink of mutiny.
Throughout the campaign, Obama relentlessly attacked the judgment of anyone who supported
the war in Iraq. Obama was making a deadly serious point about the folks who came down on
the wrong side of this war. His point was: Are the people who got it SO wrong on Iraq really
asking for a promotion? Obama’s line of attack on his hawkish opponents was more than just “politics,”
as it is being dismissed now.
Let’s face it, Obama won the primary because of his opposition to the War in Iraq.
It’s hard to see a scenario where Obama could have beat Hillary Clinton without
this trump card up his sleeve. This means that Obama is now president because the
anti-war left catapulted him there from the beginning.
How does the president-elect repay his early supporters? How does he spell out the
change in direction he championed for 20+ months? He picks HAWKS as his top...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
1:46 PM
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Great headline from the AP yesterday: “President-elect promised change, picking insiders.”
Read the story here. You have to wonder if any Obama supporters are getting angry. The early actions of the Obama-Biden transition come from the same old playbook. Where are the new players?
Where is the new way of doing business? Where is the post partisanship? Where is the change we can believe in?
Do the names Clinton, Emanuel, Klain, Craig, Podesta, Holder, and Daschle illustrate change? This has to be one of the most egregious broken campaign promises of all time, because it drives a spike into the very core of the Obama message. I wonder if the mainstream media will ask
the president-elect about whether his words mean anything – or is he just another politician blowing smoke?
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
9:35 AM
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It looks like Former Clinton Deputy AG Eric Holder will be President-elect Obama’s choice for Attorney General of the United States. Obama is doing a good job of breaking
his #1 pledge to “change” Washington. In his short track record as president-elect, Obama appears to be appointing the same old partisan Washington insiders. So far he has drafted Emanuel, Klain, Craig, Holder, and maybe Hillary herself!?!
Let’s start with Greg Craig as White House Counsel. Craig may be a good lawyer, but all he reminds me of is Monica Lewinsky and impeachment. Is that the image Obama is striving for with his top counsel? Not exactly a breath of fresh air.
As for Holder, all I can think is that Obama must be getting ready to pardon Tony Rezko right out of the gate. Holder is the person at DOJ who was involved in allowing the infamous pardons of Marc Rich in 2001 and the FALN terrorists in 1999.
Read...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:57 AM
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Politico has an astonishing fact posted this morning: “Thirty-one of the 47 people so far named to transition or staff posts have ties to the Clinton administration, including all but one of the members of his 12-person Transition Advisory Board and both of his White House staff choices. Read the entire story here.
This is getting ridiculous! Where is the change we can believe in? How can you move past partisanship
when you bring in folks from one of the most brutally partisan administrations in history? So far 66% of the people called to action by President-elect Obama have ties to the Clinton Administration! How is this the future? How is this change?
Does the president-elect not recall statements like this one he made in December 2007: “As for the Clintons, ‘When I was 20 points down, they thought I was a wonderful guy. So, obviously, things have changed here in Iowa and elsewhere in...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:21 AM
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Is it me or is the Obama-Biden transition of 2008 starting to resemble the Clinton-Gore transition of 1992? Was the idea of “Change,” the central theme of the Obama campaign for two years, just another empty campaign slogan?
With the hiring of Ron Klain as Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s chief of staff, the Obama transition team has once again denied their supporters real change. With Rahm Emanuel and Klain now on board, the incoming White House staff is looking more and more like the hyper-partisan Clinton White House from the scandal-plagued 1990s. This looks like the opposite of “change we can believe in.”
Klain, who was also Al Gore’s Chief of Staff, gained infamy in 1997 for a memo he wrote for Gore concerning fundraising goals for the 1996 elections.
Gore came under intense fire for making fundraising phone calls from the White House as well as attending infamous White House “coffee” fundraisers in the White House.
In the memo, Klain...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
11:48 AM
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Rahm running the White House: Change we need or more of the same?
Despite Tuesday night’s soaring rhetoric about bipartisanship and bringing the country together, President-elect Obama’s first act was to hand the keys to the White House to an inveterate partisan attack dog.
Rahm Emanuel, the Democrat counterpart to Karl Rove, is legendary for his Daley-style of bareknuckle politics. Will President Obama be able to rein him in or will Rahm continue to operate the same way he’s been operating for years?
• Is Hiring “Rahmbo” Really Bringing Change To Washington?
“Emanuel is a 5-foot-8, 150-pound triathlete who earned the nickname ‘Rahm-bo’ during the Clinton administration for his forceful personality and take-no-prisoners attitude.”
(Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2003)
• Is Hiring Someone Who Learned How To “Knock Heads” From The Daley Machine Helping End The Partisan Divide In Washington?
“Emanuel got his political...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:32 AM
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Although the media refused to press President-elect Obama on the whereabouts of his 1983 college thesis entitled Soviet Nuclear Disarmament, now he has reason to find it. Obama, with very little foreign policy experience to speak of, will have an enormous problem on his hands come January 20, 2009.
Two reports out of Russia today indicate that the leadership of the Russian government is briskly moving away from democratic principles at the same time threatening to deploy missiles near Poland (capable of striking NATO) if the United States builds a missile defense shield in Europe. Read it here.
I bet the President-elect wishes he held some hearings at his NATO Subcommittee now.
Who knows where this will lead, but it feels an awful lot like the tensions we felt during The Cold War. Compound that with the report concerning President Medvedev’s proposal...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:57 AM
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In the midst of an economic crisis brought on by irresponsible mortgage lending, President-elect Obama reportedly offered the White House Chief of Staff position to an inveterate partisan that, by his own admission, has a conflict of interest that could prevent him from dealing with the housing crisis in America.
Between his time as a Clinton political advisor and his election to the House of Representatives, Rep. Rahm Emanuel sat on the board of Freddie Mac during a period when the mortgage giant was forced to restate its earnings. To this day, Rep. Emanuel recuses himself from all votes in the House of Representatives pertaining to Freddie Mac due to conflicts of interest.
If he becomes Chief of Staff, will Emanuel recuse himself from meetings discussing the fate of Freddie Mac? Can the Obama White House manage the housing crisis effectively if the Chief of Staff cannot advise the President?
David Bossie, President of Citizens United, said,...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
2:30 PM
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Why would the LA Times accept a never before seen videotape that would shed light on Barack Obama’s foreign policy leanings concerning the Middle East peace process,
if the deal was that they were not allowed to release the tape to the public?
Is it the job of the media to accept new information and then sit on it? Wouldn’t this story help the LA Times sell newspapers? So then, what gives?
It’s easy to see, the LA Times is helping Obama to the finish line.
Read these stories. Media bias is alive and well!
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/28/la-times-refuses-release-tape-obama-praising-controversial-activist/
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-video29-2008oct29,0,5458024.story
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
2:05 PM
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Over the last 10 months, Citizens United has been working tirelessly to try to convince the media to demand that the Obama campaign be more transparent. It hasn’t happened. In a week and a half we may elect a man president that has not been properly vetted. This is a dangerous precedent.
Politico has a fantastic story up today concerning what critical pieces of information the presidential and vice presidential candidates have not made available to the public. Read it here.
The media’s treatment of Obama has been a dereliction of duty frankly. The new candidate that no one knows anything about has been given a free pass. With 12 days to go, Obama has yet to disclose the following:
-College thesis on Soviet Nuclear Disarmament
-Legal clients from his Chicago law firm
-State senate records and schedules
-Medical records (he released a one page letter from his...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
11:18 AM
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The other day I blogged about Joe Biden’s telling statement that if elected Barack Obama would be tested with an international crisis
within the first six months of his administration. And on CNN this morning, former Secretary of State Albright agreed with Biden’s assessment,
even going as far to say that it was a statement of fact.
Watch it here.
This is a significant statement coming from someone who was our country’s chief diplomat for 4 years. She says that it is a fact that there will be an international crisis that the next POTUS will have to deal with sometime between January and June 2009.
Think about that for a minute. Most Americans would rather not have a foreign policy tryout during that crisis.
Americans don’t want to have a discussion about whether or not the president can handle it properly. We are at a moment in history in which we need someone who has already had the tryout...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
5:19 PM
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Joe “Foot In Mouth” Biden wandered dangerously off Obamaland talking points again on Sunday. Playing right into John McCain’s hands, Biden guaranteed that if elected, Barack Obama would be tested by an international crisis within the first six months of his presidency.
John McCain should have called Biden and said thank you.
Undecided voters hearing this must have said hold on one minute. If Biden is guaranteeing an international crisis sometime in 2009, maybe I should vote for the foreign policy expert who is running for president: John McCain. If a crisis is in fact right around the corner, why would I cast my vote for someone who has never been involved in a crisis?
Joe Biden deserves thanks for putting foreign policy back on the radar in this election. We live in a dangerous world. Is it a good time for a rookie?
If you want to watch a fantastic segment on Obama’s dangerously naïve foreign policy agenda, I urge you to check out our...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
12:19 PM
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Two must reads from today's papers - one from David Brooks at the NYT, and the next from Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard. Both are scary (and unfortunately, not incorrect) predictions of what we have in store if Obama takes the White House with large majorities in both houses of Congress.
Brooks:
"The new situation will reopen old rifts in the Democratic Party. One the one side, liberals will argue (are already arguing) that it was deregulation and trickle-down economic policies that led us to this crisis. Fears of fiscal insolvency are overblown. Democrats should use their control of government and the economic crisis as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make some overdue changes. Liberals will make a full-bore push for European-style economic...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:39 AM
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This is a must-read for anyone fed up with the government rewarding people for overreaching on their credit. The editors at National Review have it spot-on.
"Here is what is wrong with McCain’s new housing proposal: It can’t improve on current law without rewarding an unacceptable amount of bad behavior.
"Under the Frank-Dodd housing bill that was signed into law last summer, borrowers qualify for a federally subsidized workout only if they meet the following criteria:
"1) The borrower must live in his house — no investment properties.
"2) The borrower must show that he has been spending at least a third of his income on mortgage payments since March of this year.
"3) He must also show that he can afford to make lower payments if his lender agrees to a write-down.
"This is obviously a narrow slice of borrowers — around 400,000, according to most estimates. It excludes people who borrowed to buy investment properties in order...
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Posted by
David N. Bossie
at
10:49 AM
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