Month: June 2011
More Proof Bob Dole Is Senile
We need another Eisenhower.
— Former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), quoted by the Midwest Democracy Project, saying Republicans should nominate Gen. David Petraeus to run against President Obama in 2012.
A Quarter of State Lawmakers Don’t Have a College Degree
25%
Of state legislators do not have a four-year college degree, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education study.
$6.6 Bil in Cash Was Lost or Stolen by Bush Officials, Contractors or Their Counterparts in Iraq
This was easily the most money ever air-lifted into a war zone. It may also prove to be the most lucrative heist of all time. Investigators say a little over half of it — $6.6 billion — is missing.
That’s right — $6.6 billion in taxpayer dollars funds seized by the UN from Iraqi oil revenues was either lost or stolen:
Different Animals: Why Female Officials Don’t Cheat
The shorthand of it is that women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody. Women run because there is some public issue that they care about, some change they want to make, some issue that is a priority for them, and men tend to run for office because they see this as a career path.
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, quoted in a New York Times story on the disparity in scandals between female and male members of Congress.
Redistricting Puts California Republican Party At Risk – Dems Could Add Five New Seats in U.S. House
In years past, these gains would have put California Democrats in charge of the state’s decennial, post-Census redistricting of congressional and legislative districts. It’s also more than likely that the Democrats would have continued the bipartisan practice of carving up the state to, first, protect its majority *and, second, protect incumbents in both parties — insofar as the second objective did not interfere with the prime.
Under the backroom scratch-backing system, it is true that the California GOP would have paid for its losses and for the related fact that GOP registration is down to a historic low of 31 percent in the state. The party would likely have lost a few more seats in the Legislature, but its 19 seats in the U.S. House delegation would likely have remained intact.
But the maps are being redrawn under a radically different redistricting system this year, because in 2008 California voters, in their infinite wisdom, decided via a ballot initiative to hand the responsibility for redistricting to a new 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission — five Democrats, five Republicans and four unaffiliated.
That’s right. Redistricting for the largest state in the union has been handled by a committee of amateurs.
It’s fair to say that political insiders assumed that the CCDC would redraw the map to the advantage of Republicans. But that assumption turned out to be wrong. The redrawn maps, which were released on Friday, revealed a reconfiguration that, while not as radical as it could have been, spells trouble for the GOP. It is, as a GOP political analyst described it, “cause for full-out panic … This is musical chairs with switchblades.”
Remember When?
This graphic is offered by Being Liberal and MoveOn.org for people to post as their Facebook status. We liked it so much we thought we’d post it right here. Enjoy.
News Flash: Democrat Says Nice Thing About Republican!
She did a nice job on the windshield.
— Ben Nesselhuf, chairman of the South Dakota Democratic Party, to the Rapid City Journal, regarding Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who washed windshields at a Sioux Falls gas station while sharing her message about energy policy with drivers. Nesselhuf was a surprise customer. The two served together in the legislature for four years, and chatted cordially for a minute while Noem’s aides took photos and videos of the encounter. When it was all done, Nesselhuf found himself in an unusual situation of saying something nice about Noem.
Cain Would Use Electric Fence, Alligators and Moat to Defend Borders
Put me in charge of the fence and it will be a twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top. And on this side of the fence, I’d have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!
— Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, quoted by Mediaite.
Anonymous Staffer Eloquently Defends Gingrich’s Vacation
In the wake of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s staff quitting his campaign en masse yesterday, the media has typically piled on the former Speaker of the House, saying that this third blow to his campaign (see: criticizing the Ryan budget plan, keeping a $500k account at Tiffany’s) would be deadly. However, like last time, when his then-spokesman Rick Tyler fired off his now classic, unbowed and unbeaten response, an anonymous campaign worker has risen to defend Newt, who just returned from a two-week cruise, in what has come to be known as Newtian Campaign Rhetorical Style:
The travel agent sent Newt on vacation for two weeks. Campaign staffers cannot tolerate candidates who might disrupt their comfortable world. The mass exodus started when the cowardly sensed the absence of the brave. They left timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to hear about the captain’s cocktail party on the cruise ship unloaded their desk drawers, taking their posters and their campaign buttons. Now they are left unemployed by their petty assumptions and sense of abandonment. But surely they could shame him into calling off his vacation. That is the way it always worked before. A lesser person could not have simply turned his back on his staff and cruised off into the sunset. But there, at the ship’s railing, as the ship’s horn blew, emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces — after his luxury vacation.
Rick Tyler’s original response after the jump.
