House Democrats in disarray: pull DC voting bill

With Speaker Nancy Pelosi absent, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (pictured) trying in vain to do a “balancing act” the Democrats appeared to be in disarray Thursday as the Democrat sponsored bill to grant Washington, DC, a vote in the House was stalled by Republicans.

House Democrats pulled a bill to grant voting rights to Washington, D.C., after Republicans offered a motion that would repeal the gun ban for the District.

The move is a clear signal that Democrats have lost control of the House floor on the voting rights issue after minority Republicans presented the Democratic majority with a politically unpalatable motion that their conservative members would be forced to support for fear of angering the gun rights community.

Link

Al's warming lies - the REAL 'Inconvenient Truth'

Politicians like to have a scare issue to make us tremble making it easier to raise money -- very little of which goes to fight the cause of the scare.

Today it's Global Warming. Yesterday it was bird flu. Before that it was SARS which was preceded by Acid Rain. Before that it was the Coming Ice Age and so on.

It’s just that the man-made warming scare is one they see as the real winner for them. It will bring in the dollars and political clout they need.

Link

British Airways set corpse in first class seat

A British Airways passenger travelling first class has described how he woke up on a long-haul flight to find that cabin crew had placed a corpse in his row.

The body of a woman in her seventies, who died after the plane left Delhi for Heathrow, was carried by cabin staff from economy to first class, where there was more space. Her body was propped up in a seat, using pillows

Paul Trinder, who awoke to see the body at the end of his row, last week described the journey as “deeply disturbing”.

What did Mr. Trinder expect? The poor lady would not have fit in the overhead compartments.

What other airlines have done differently? Maybe not.

Link

Defiant Bush warned Democrats: no show trials

Were the Democrats bluffing when they wanted open hearings on the judge firings? If so, their bluff was called.

A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides speak about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

In return the Democrats said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

In a late-afternoon statement at the White House, Bush said he would fight any subpoena effort in court.

Bush finally decided to stand up to the Senate Democrats. He is not willing to let them grandstand and publicly bash the Bush Administration, which is the only reason this was started in the first place.

This whole judge firing is just a partisan ploy as reported here. The Senate Democrats know the media will make this sound like another Watergate, yet when Bill Clinton had Janet Reno fire all 93 federal prosecutors there was hardly a ripple because the media reported it as if it was the proper thing to do.

Bush is a ‘lame duck’ president but that's no reason he should allow Schumer et al to make him into a ‘dead duck’ which is their real intent.

Link

Has the New York Times turned over a new leaf?

The New York Times usually bends over backward to coddle and protect liberal politicians. Uncharacteristically, the Times recently bashed Al Gore’s global warming movie (link here).

Now the Times seems overly critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton prompting a scathing retaliation from Bill.

The long love affair between Bill and Hillary Clinton (pictured) and The New York Times seems to be over.

At a fund-raiser at the Trump World Tower apartment of mortgage mogul Keith Kantrowitz, the former president spoke for two hours to a select group that had contributed the maximum $2,300 to Hillary's presidential campaign, and much of his talk was devoted to attacking the Times.

He said his wife wasn't getting a fair shake from the Times.

Clinton said the Times is attacking Hillary because she won't apologize for her vote on the war in Iraq.

The Times had always been super supportive in the past.

The shoe is on the other foot now. Usually it’s conservative politicians who feel the wrath of the New York Times.

Link

Seeking maximum political gain in attorneys uproar

Former Attorney General Janet Reno fired all 93 U.S. attorney’s at the start of the Bill Clinton administration. The media was so overjoyed that a Democrat was finally in the White House they refused to report anything negative about the unprecedented firings.

Now, it’s different as members of the media are eagerly backing up Congressional Democrats who are planning a new, two-track strategy for maximizing the political windfall -- and the disclosure of potentially embarrassing information -- from the Bush administration's firings of eight federal prosecutors, according to top party officials.

What the media is not reporting is that the firing of 8 U.S. attorney’s by the Justice Department was because the U.S. Prosecutors had refused to investigate and prosecute Democrat vote fraud.

Link here and here.

Tennessee mine enriched Gore, scarred land

A newspaper that once backed Al Gore is now critical of the Gore hypocrisy.

Al Gore Jr. received more than $500,000 in royalties from the owners of zinc mines who held mineral leases on his farm near Carthage, Tenn. Now the mines have a new owner and are scheduled to reopen later this year.

Before the mines closed in 2003, they emitted thousands of pounds of toxic substances and several times, the water discharged from the mines into nearby rivers had levels of toxins above what was legal.

Maybe Al Gore should have issued himself enough carbon credits to cover up this story.

Link

Struggling for support of their Iraq policy

A mini-drama in a congressional hallway last week (reported on here) shed some light on the difficulties that Democrats are having in keeping their promise to change the course on Iraq.

They say they have a strategy to reach that goal, but it will take time to line up enough support to pressure President Bush.

They not only don’t have a strategy, they don’t have the votes to stop war funding.

Even if they did, Bush has promised to veto the bill. Link