Month: May 2011

National Enquirer: As Governor, Schwarzenegger Used CHP Security Detail to Escort Young Women to Hotel Rendezvous

Jon Ponder

Hyatt Regency Sacramento
Hyatt Regency Sacramento
It appears that there are indeed more shoes ready to drop in the Arnold Schwarzenegger sex scandal saga. The National Enquirer is reporting that, as governor, Schwarzenegger used his California Highway Patrol security detail to coordinate his assignations with young women in a Sacramento hotel, according to the MailOnline in London:

Arnold Schwarzenegger used state-funded security measures to cover up his many sexual liaisons behind his wife’s back, according to his former security supervisor.

The explosive new claims have triggered a criminal investigation into whether or not the former California governor used tax payers’ dollars to cover up his extra-marital affairs, reports have claimed…

Veteran law enforcement officer William Taylor made the explosive claims exclusively to the National Enquirer and even passed a polygraph test.

[…]

Did Deputies Bar Dems from Gov’s Budget Signing on Orders from the Florida GOP?

Jon Ponder
Uniformed deputies apparently taking orders from the Florida Republican Party bar Democrats from Gov. Scott budget-signing event
Uniformed deputies apparently taking orders from the Florida Republican Party bar Democrats from Gov. Scott budget-signing event

art-assault-floridaPart of the series, Assault on Florida.

Who ordered Sumter County, Fla., deputies to prevent Democrats from attending GOP Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s budget-signing event in the public square at The Villages, a retirement community, on May 26?

And why did the deputies wade into the crowd assembled at the square and confiscate what a Miami Herald reporter described as “anti-Scott signs and liberal-looking pins” on orders from people the Herald reporter identified as “staffers and Republican operatives?”

[…]

Tea Bagger House Member on Why Obama Was Elected: ‘He Was Black’

Jon Ponder

Look, I don’t think this is complicated. He doesn’t really have a history. I say all of this respectfully — he is the least well-known guy we have ever put in the presidency, and there’s no one even close. He’s probably got easily the lightest résumé of anybody we’ve elected.

Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there’s nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white, state senator elected to Congress he wouldn’t have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different. That, combined with the fact that [the media] was just absolutely compliant. They made up their minds early that they were in love with him. They were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that.

– Rep. Joe Walsh, GOPT-Ill., speaking candidly with Dave Weigel, who says of Walsh, “he’ll say anything, and stand by it. In the ongoing contest to become the Tea Party’s ID, he’s in the lead.”

Where Are the Obama Administration Scandals?

Buck Banks

One of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals. Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency, but the current administration has not yet suffered a major scandal, which I define as a widespread elite perception of wrongdoing. What happened, and what are the odds that the administration’s streak will continue?

— Brendan Nyhan, whose research on presidential scandals finds the longest that a president has gone without having a scandal featured in a front-page Washington Post article is 34 months.

Clyburn: Obama’s Political Problems Due to Racism

Buck Banks

You know, I’m 70 years old. And I can tell you — people don’t like to deal with it, but the fact of the matter is — the president’s problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin.

— Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), blaming most of President Obama’s political problems on racism, the Columbia State reports. In particular, Clyburn suggested the “birther” movement is fueled by racism: “I don’t know why anybody didn’t ask for John McCain’s (birth certificate). He wasn’t even born in this country.”

Negate the Hate: How to Turn Westboro Baptist Hate Group Protests into a Force for Good

Jon Ponder
Left: Westboro cultists protesting the Oscars outside Hollywood High School in 2009; right: Lampinelli
Left: Westboro cultists protesting the Oscars outside Hollywood High School in 2009; right: Lampinelli

If there is a bipartisan consensus about anything in this divided country these days, it’s that the Westboro Baptist Church protests at military funerals are an affront to decency.

Across the spectrum — supporters of the military, gay rights activists, Democrats, Republicans, independents and the apolitical — everyone agrees that the Westboro’s Pastor Fred Phelps and his family’s tactic of showing up at soldiers’ funerals with signs proclaiming “God Hates Fags,” “Pray for More Dead Soldiers,” “God Hates America” and “Your Son Is in Hell” is outrageous, unpardonable behavior.

Preying on the grief of the mothers and fathers, husbands, wives and children of soldiers

The Phelpses welcome the scorn, of course. The funeral protests are calculated to provoke outrage, a fact that makes them evil.

[…]