Palin Seeking Divine Intervention

Jonathon Turley rips into Sarah Palin:

Like many bloggers, I find Palin irresistible to watch like a primate without an opposable thumb: a reverse evolutionary wonder that is able to function despite the obvious advantages of other competing mammals. The Tea Party convention (covered adoringly by Fox) was no disappointment with Palin proclaiming that she is prepared to run against Obama and his “hopey, changey” policies. When asked about her priorities for the nation, she quickly rattled off three priorities, including oil/gas exploration and an Administration that openly seeks “divine intervention” so that we can prosper again.

*   *   *

Palin appears to be combining a potent mix of monotheistic faith and monosyllabic words to rally her base. In this faith-based fantasy world, simply calling for divine intervention is likely enough to push the Dow back above 10,000 and restart the housing market. She fails to explain how the crash occurred under Bush who made faith-based politics what it is today. But none of that matters to this crowd, which appears desperate to hear a leader say that it is merely a matter of drilling and praying to return to “the good days.”

If You Own a Cat, You Know Exactly How This Guy Feels

The funniest part is how the cat is completely oblivious to what just happened.

more about “If You Own a Cat, You Know Exactly Ho…“, posted with vodpod

Sarah Palin’s Crib Notes

Just when you thought Sarah Palin could not be more idiotic, Stefan Sirucek at the HuffingtonPost has the exclusive news about her crib notes scribbled on the palm of her left hand.

Palin appeared to use her notes during a Q&A session after her speech.  Sirucek writes:

Crib Notes? This potential presidential candidate and “movement” leader was using crib notes to answer basic questions?

This would mean:

A) That she knew the questions beforehand and the whole thing was a farce. (Likely.)

and

B) That she still couldn’t answer the previously agreed-upon questions without a little extra help.

If true, this is supremely rich coming immediately after a speech in which Palin took a shot at President Obama for using a teleprompter to read his prepared speeches.

You can bet that the President wasn’t reading scribbles off his extremities while he sparred with Republicans and Democrats in an unscripted format in his recent Q&As.

Palin, on the other hand, seems to need a cheat-sheet just to get through a contrived lovefest with a smitten interviewer and an adoring audience.

I’m no fan of the Tea Party movement – if it can be called such – but if this is their leader I actually sympathize with them.

Wow! Another Example of Fox News Bias

From Liberal Viewer:

More on Shelby’s Hold-Up

From Daniel Larison at Eunomia:

What I find most irritating about Shelby’s tactic is that he pretends that his home-state projects are vital to national security. His spokesman even refers to the projects as “unaddressed national security concerns.” He does not try to defend his move as an attempt to secure money and jobs for his state, which is clearly what it is. Shelby’s move may be parochial and self-interested, but one could at least offer some minimal defense of his reasons, albeit not his methods, if he were willing to acknowledge that this is nothing more than an effort to get some federal money back home during an election year. Many of Shelby’s critics are attacking him for his parochialism, but he could at least make the case that he is trying to serve the interests of his constituents. Instead he feels compelled to pretend that this is some high-minded fight over principle and national security. This is cynical nonsense, and it makes his cause an entirely unsympathetic one.

Shelby Holds the Senate and Constitution Hostage

We can’t directly blame Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, he’s simply playing a game whose rules have evolved to allow this kind of absurd behavior.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, is blocking Senate action on executive branch nominations, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said this afternoon in an e-mail.

In response to a question from the Press-Register, Reid spokeswoman Regan Lachapelle confirmed that Shelby has placed a “blanket hold” on most pending nominations.

By placing a hold, a single senator can stop the Senate from voting on a particular nomination, often as a way of gaining leverage on an unrelated issue. It is not clear when Shelby placed the hold or how many nominees are affected. While individual holds are not unusual, Gary Jacobson, a congressional expert at the University of California at San Diego, said he knew of no previous use of a blanket hold.

The hold means that this one individual, Richard Shelby from Alabama, can prevent both the Executive and Legislative branches of the U.S. Government from dealing with the simple constitutional matter of  presidential appointments.  The hold is essentially a filibuster* applied to all of Obama’s nominations, and it will take a 60-vote super-majority to remove it.

*David Waldman at the Daily Kos has a full explanation of the “hold” maneuver.

James Joyner writes more about this for Outside the Beltway, and is a bit sympathetic to Shelby’s position:

Is the use of a blanket hold a sleazy way to get the job done?  Yup.  But I’m not sure what other leverage Shelby has.  The state is represented by two Republican Senators, neither of whom are named Olympia Snowe.  With a Democratic president and 59 Democratic Senators, he has to use every trick in the book to fight for his state.

At PoliBlog, Stephen Taylor considers the matter of “holds” carefully, and reaches this conclusion:

Having said all that, the usage of holds, let alone a blanket hold of dozens of appointees, strikes me as both indefensible and an example of the need for serious structural reform to the Senate.   Yes, the Senate has the constitutional power to advise the President on appointees and it has to consent to those appointments.  However, there is no constitutional reason why an individual Senator ought to have the power to block nominations.  Indeed, the sources of this power are a combination of Senate norms and the filibuster rule—the notion that Senators have any number of personal privileges because of their Senator-ness (so to speak) and the fact that theoretically a single Senator can filibuster the nomination, so why not just assume that the hold is a filibuster?

Taylor is right.  The entire affair is another example of why the U.S. Senate needs to completely overhaul its procedures.

Virginia Seeks Additional 5% Auxiliary Cut from State Colleges & Universities

To help close the state’s $4 billion budget hole, Virginia lawmakers may force each of the state’s higher-learning institutions to redirect 5% of their auxiliary funds to the state’s general fund.  Auxiliary funds pay for things not directly related to a university’s academic mission, such as athletics, housing, and parking.  By law, taxpayer money cannot be used to fund auxiliary accounts.

The proposal buried deep in former Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s two-year budget plan would require each public higher education institution to shave off 5 percent from its auxiliary operations account and redirect the cash to the state’s general fund. The move is part of an effort to close a projected state revenue shortfall that will almost certainly exceed $4 billion.

The universities, however, object to the idea. The entities being targeted by Kaine’s budget knife receive no money from state taxpayers by law, they point out. Seizing cash from such self-supported entities, they say, would inevitably lead to higher student fees for housing, parking and much more.

Every school would be forced to pay out 5% of its available money in auxiliary accounts, but UVa, James Madison University, George Mason University and Radford University have such large balances that their contribution to the state would exceed all the other schools combined.

Pro-Choice Supporters Want Specialty License Plate in VA

Abortion opponents can already select a “Choose Life” license plate in Virginia.  Pro-choice supporters now want a “Trust Women/Respect Choice” plate.

The Senate Transportation Committee yesterday heard testimony from abortion-rights groups seeking approval of Senate Bill 704. It would provide the same revenue-sharing opportunity to Planned Parenthood that is enjoyed by the anti-abortion group that benefits from the proceeds of the “Choose Life” plates.

“It’s unfair to have just one viewpoint expressed,” said Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax, who sponsored the legislation — one of six specialty license plate bills that the panel considered. It has not voted on any.

The ACLU is prepared to sue on their behalf.

On Thursday, ACLU attorney Hope Amezquita told the Senate Transportation Committee that it is unconstitutional to permit a pro-life plate without allowing “all other viewpoints on the same subject” to be emblazoned on license plates.

Pro-life advocates have an ally in Gov. Bob McDonnell, who supports stripping Planned Parenthood of any state funding. And several budget amendments submitted by GOP lawmakers seek to accomplish that goal.

Perhaps the better solution is for the state to avoid entangling itself in controversial questions such as abortion.  Imagine this: neither pro-life nor pro-choice supporters could utilize an official state instrument to express their views, because the state refused to immerse itself in the debate.  Instead, they would have to purchase bumper stickers from privately-owned companies.  What would be wrong with that?

Snow Storm Hammers Virginia’s State Budget

On top of all the other problems, there’s this:

Virginia has already used up its yearly allocation for snow plowing and removal, forcing the state to dip into already depleted transportation funds to tackle this weekend’s winter storms.

“Now, it’s just one more bill to be added to our budget challenges already before us,” Gov. Bob McDonnell said.

The heaviest winter storm season in decades has already pushed Virginia’s spending for clearing and salting roads well past $100 million, McDonnell said. The state normally sets aside $70 million to $80 million to cope with winter storms.

The additional money needed to deal with the storm (plowing roads) will be taken from funds intended for maintenance and repair. The true underlying problem is that Virginia is cannot run a budget deficit. For all the complaining we do about the federal deficit, there are times when deficit spending is a good thing.  This is one of them.

Friday Music Break: Men at Work, “Down Under”

This was one of the biggest hits in the 80s.  Everybody remembers it.  Turns out they stole it!  Who would have thunk it?