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Libya no-fly zone a UN decision, "not US": Clinton
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Page 4: Opinion
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Economy
Republicans Pledge New Legislation for Domestic Energy Production
As Democrats call for tapping the nation's emergency oil supply to ease rising gas prices, Republicans pushed Thursday for a raft of new proposals aimed at boosting domestic energy production.

House Speaker John Boehner joined with other Republicans to promise a string of "bite-sized" energy bills, which are expected to deal with drilling, building pipelines and facilitating the development of nuclear power.

"As gas prices go up, the cost of everyday life goes up," Boehner said Thursday, warning that the increase harms the very businesses the country is depending on for a robust economic recovery.

Republicans titled their new push for domestic energy production the "American energy initiative," and vowed to introduce legislation in the coming weeks.

Boehner said the proposals would be divided into "chunks," noting that the days of comprehensive legislation should be over -- an apparent dig at the health care overhaul.

The speaker suggested one bill could deal with expanding the use of natural gas; another could encourage oil and gas exploration while devoting royalties to "green energy development;" and another could promote nuclear energy.
Fuck green energy development dipshits. Work on what works NOW rather than a pie in the sky dream that hasn't proven to work for shit and let the private sector come up with a solution.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/10/2011 18:42 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fuck green energy development dipshits. Work on what works NOW rather than a pie in the sky dream that hasn't proven to work for shit and let the private sector come up with a solution.

Shite yea, what are these Dems planning to do when theres a run on healthfood stores and all the Wild Oats and Trader Joes shelves are empty because everyone stockpiled because it costs 15 dollars to take a trip to buy sprouts and tofu, and tofu costs 6 dollars?
Posted by: Fire and Ice || 03/10/2011 19:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Long as the old-guard Republicans are in charge we will always get token legislation like this. What will be telling is if they counter Obama's new energy-push tommorrow with their own "Drill now, Drill smart, Drill safe" initiative.
Posted by: Charles || 03/10/2011 20:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe, now that high oil prices are built into the economy, this could be a tactic to lower energy prices and bury inflation. We still can't invest those dollars into anything useful until they come back down to where they should be, about in the $20/bbl or so.
Posted by: gorb || 03/10/2011 23:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Wisconsin Republicans bypass Dems on collective bargaining
Repubs in the Wisconsin State Senate have voted to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers after discovering a way to bypass the chamber's missing Democrats.
Maybe the State Senate Democrats shouldn't have moved to Illinois. My friends in the State House hinted at this possibility a couple weeks ago. The big stink (by the left) now is whether or not the vote for this action was held legally (that is, without a 24-hours notice). The Senate Republicans just amended the original Budget Bill to strip all the verbiage EXCEPT the collective bargaining portion (with unchanged wording), therefor the 'action' itself never changed.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 03/10/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Gingrich: Love of country contributed to screwing around
Clinton's probably thinking, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that!"
Newt Gingrich says his passion for his country contributed to his marital infidelity.
Sounds like Hot Lips Houlihan and Frank Burns...
"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," Gingrich said.
Sorry, Newt. No sale...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/10/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Thou shall remember the eleventh commandment".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/10/2011 3:03 Comments || Top||

#2  The ten-to-the-twenty-first power example of a lying politician saying what he thinks will sell. This guy is not, will not be, and has never been presidential material. He and $#@%&@@ BO are cut from the same cloth.

Good line on Clinton's "damn, why didn't I think of that!" Damned near perfect for all of these parasites.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 03/10/2011 6:53 Comments || Top||

#3  --Michael Savage, yesterday about Newt, "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Horniness".
Posted by: Tom--Pa || 03/10/2011 8:10 Comments || Top||

#4  I could care less if he came back to Washington with a whore around each arm. He'd be a damn site better than what we have now.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/10/2011 8:43 Comments || Top||

#5  He loves his country so much that he tried to prove it individually.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 03/10/2011 8:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Besoeker: Gingrich just didn't have the wherewithal. He was a short term thinker, and more interested in "moral victories" than real ones. He wasn't able to keep his House in order, and this mattered because the Senate was heavily populated by RINOs.

Comparatively, the Tea Party candidates are top heavy with ideas. The first echelon of them in the House are stirring up lots of mischief, and getting experience, so that the second echelon, in 2012, is going to revitalize them, right when the Senate goes Republican.

The only question still outstanding is will the Republicans finally field a serious conservative candidate for president, or will it be another scramble to put "whoever" up as the candidate.

No matter what they say, the RINOs always hated Reagan, and truly hated those policies of his that were more conservative. They will fight tooth and nail to stop any serious conservative from becoming POTUS, preferring a liberal Democrat to a conservative.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/10/2011 8:59 Comments || Top||

#7  I'll have to respectfully disagree with your comment ref "short term thinker." One of the few advantages of advancing age is the massive amount of hindsight one accrues. I believe Gingrich has wisened considerably since leaving public office. Do I think he can defeat an Obama-Clinton ticket in 2012? At this stage, unfortunately I do not. Nor do I have any earthly idea who can.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/10/2011 9:37 Comments || Top||

#8  The two messy divorces make him unelectable. I've said it on the 'Burg before & am happy to say it again - Republican women take candidates' gross personal misbehavior very seriously and very personally. Compare this to Quislincgrat women, who've been perfectly willing to overlook rape (see Clinton, William J.) and even murder (see Kennedy, Edward M.) if they agreed with the guy's policy stands. Dunno about y'all, but come November '12, I don't want half the Republican electorate deciding to stay home.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) || 03/10/2011 10:15 Comments || Top||

#9  Besoeker, how can you, or any conservative, forgive this asskissing moment by Newt?



Anyone that flip flops that badly and goes head over heels for big government has no business in the GOP running for president, or even speaking out for the most part.
Posted by: No I am The Other Beldar || 03/10/2011 10:37 Comments || Top||

#10  Newt would suck anyone for a political advantage. I trust the man about as far as I trust the political elite, which is to say none at all since he is one of them.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/10/2011 11:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Iowa goes first. In the Republican caucus the value of good morality is high. If Gingrich gets 5% of the vote there I would be surprised.

Of course, as Ricky notes, the Democrat caucus voters don't have the same values. They gave the morally corrupt Edwards a second place finish.

Unfortunately, I would say those Iowa folks were naive about policy. The Republicans gave Huckabee first place and the Dems gave Obama first place.
Posted by: Lord Garth || 03/10/2011 11:25 Comments || Top||

#12  That left an ugly welt Beldar. Please warn me next time you swing the cluebat.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/10/2011 12:24 Comments || Top||

#13  The only question still outstanding is will the Republicans finally field a serious conservative candidate for president, or will it be another scramble to put "whoever" up as the candidate.

A concern of mine also.

You should post a warning on the Pelosi-Gingrich video.

Climate change? Now there's a winning campaign slogan (sarc on).
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/10/2011 13:21 Comments || Top||

#14  Compare this to Quislincgrat women, who've been perfectly willing to overlook rape (see Clinton, William J.) and even murder (see Kennedy, Edward M.)

It's a prerequisite.
Posted by: gorb || 03/10/2011 13:55 Comments || Top||

#15  If we can't do any better than Newt, we deserve to fall.
Posted by: Jefferson || 03/10/2011 16:30 Comments || Top||

#16  That video... ouch. That ideological infidelity is going to haunt Gingrich more than anything else he has done, even the marital infidelity.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/10/2011 21:31 Comments || Top||

#17  Woah! Slam dunk by Beldar!
See ya, Newt...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/10/2011 21:46 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
NJ about to auction off confidential data
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 03/10/2011 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A couple of Government Auction sites:

www.govliquidation.com

govdeals.com
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/10/2011 0:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Thats government we all know and love - especially eastern bloc nations. Those very same systems were already hacked, but the fool that buys the machines gets to play from home base. ahhh, government answers
Posted by: newc || 03/10/2011 0:45 Comments || Top||

#3  As a 30+ year bit-head this is one of the things that scares me about computers. Been there done that and got a whole closet full of tee-shirts.

The old joke about "to really screw things up you need a computer" is all too true. Whether it's faulty programming or faulty operations or faulty users the results can be catastrophic.

For a personal anecdote from just yesterday. I got a bank statement from the holder of my mortgage saying that I had $998.00 dollars in my savings account with them. Transactions of $1000 deposit and a $2.00 fee.

Only problem was that we had paid off the mortgage and closed the account 3 weeks before that AND stopped the automatic deposit.

The source of the deposits was checked and sure enough there had been no withdrawl/deposit. The offending statement was rechecked and, yep, the account had been closed. So, the computer had credited $1000 that hadn't been received and charged a $2.00 fee on a non-existing account.

How long do you think this will take for them to straighten out?
Posted by: AlanC || 03/10/2011 8:58 Comments || Top||

#4  I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Grace Hooper in the early 80s. One of her observations that stuck with me was her position that the Privacy Act and ADP were mutually incompatible. Something had to give.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/10/2011 11:54 Comments || Top||

#5  P2k, where was that lecture? I was at DEC in the 80's and heard her speak several times. She definitely mentioned this at least once that I heard personally, along with her standard "It's easier to ask forgivness than permission."
Posted by: AlanC || 03/10/2011 12:04 Comments || Top||

#6  At Fort Ben Harrison, at the Army school for ADP at the time.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/10/2011 23:10 Comments || Top||

#7  ..btw, did she hand out nanoseconds too. I still have mine someplace around here. [That was a piece of wire cut to the length of what an electron could travel in that amount of time]
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/10/2011 23:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Dupe entry:
Five years ago, the Libyan government decided to obtain lobbying heft in Washington, D.C. They went to two organizations — the Livingston Group and the Monitor Group — whom they paid $5.4 million for lobbying services.

The story of the selling of Libya to the United States is a fascinating tale of how liberal academics and former members of Congress united to attempt a repackaging of Libya’s Gaddafi family as human rights reformers. PJM has pieced together the story of how the dictatorial regime was shamelessly presented as reformers to Congress and to Washington policymakers.

Gaddafi’s government — officially named the “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” — first hired the Livingston Group, founded by former House Speaker Rep. Robert Livingston. For $2.4 million a year, Livingston, a Republican, represented both Gaddafi and his (somewhat unhinged) second son Saif Al Islam Al Gaddafi. Tripoli then secured the services of the Monitor Group, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, image consulting firm founded by a group from the Harvard Business School. They tried to groom Saif as a “thought leader” in Europe and in the United States, and reportedly received $3 million for the attempted makeover.

With the Monitor Group in the lead, Saif was groomed as a Westernized, sophisticated new generation of young Arab leader. Monitor, which has 30 offices around the world, especially sold Saif to the British public as a new Muslim face for “progressive” Libya. The British political elite bought the image, especially at the London School of Economics — Saif gave the school a gift of $2.5 million, and he was rewarded with a Ph.D.

Last week, news of Saif’s multi-million dollar gift led to the firing of the university’s head.

From South Capitol Street — a stone’s throw from the U.S. Capitol building — former House Speaker Livingston used his Washington Rolodex to contact U.S. Defense and State Department officials, members of Congress, and defense contractors on behalf of the regime. After receiving the $2.4 million retainer, Livingston also agreed to represent Saif on a pro-bono basis. Livingston introduced Saif to human rights activists in Washington as the head of an official “charity” — the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation.

I still wonder just how much of our policies come from influence from foreign sources. More than enough to scare the hell out of me, I imagine.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/10/2011 11:17 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Two U.S. Lobbyists Paid $5.4M By Libya To Boost Regime's Image
Five years ago, the Libyan government decided to obtain lobbying heft in Washington, D.C. They went to two organizations -- the Livingston Group and the Monitor Group -- whom they paid $5.4 million for lobbying services.

The story of the selling of Libya to the United States is a fascinating tale of how liberal academics and former members of Congress united to attempt a repackaging of Libya's Gaddafi family as human rights reformers. PJM has pieced together the story of how the dictatorial regime was shamelessly presented as reformers to Congress and to Washington policymakers.

Gaddafi's government -- officially named the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" -- first hired the Livingston Group, founded by former House Speaker Rep. Robert Livingston. For $2.4 million a year, Livingston, a Republican, represented both Gaddafi and his (somewhat unhinged) second son Saif Al Islam Al Gaddafi. Tripoli then secured the services of the Monitor Group, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, image consulting firm founded by a group from the Harvard Business School.
No mention of their political party affiliation, though they mentioned Livingston's...
They tried to groom Saif as a "thought leader" in Europe and in the United States, and reportedly received $3 million for the attempted makeover.

With the Monitor Group in the lead, Saif was groomed as a Westernized, sophisticated new generation of young Arab leader. Monitor, which has 30 offices around the world, especially sold Saif to the British public as a new Muslim face for "progressive" Libya. The British political elite bought the image, especially at the London School of Economics -- Saif gave the school a gift of $2.5 million, and he was rewarded with a Ph.D.

Last week, news of Saif's multi-million dollar gift led to the firing of the university's head.

From South Capitol Street -- a stone's throw from the U.S. Capitol building -- former House Speaker Livingston used his Washington Rolodex to contact U.S. Defense and State Department officials, members of Congress, and defense contractors on behalf of the regime. After receiving the $2.4 million retainer, Livingston also agreed to represent Saif on a pro-bono basis. Livingston introduced Saif to human rights activists in Washington as the head of an official "charity" -- the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation.
I still wonder just how much of our policies come from influence from foreign sources. More than enough to scare the hell out of me, I imagine.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/10/2011 11:17 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not to say he's not a scumbag, but Livingston never actually served as Speaker.
Maybe his "love of country" made him screw around too...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/10/2011 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  I still wonder just how much of our policies come from influence from foreign sources.

Don't forget the large number of pre-paid untraceable credit card donations from Europe in 2008.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/10/2011 11:49 Comments || Top||

#3  $5.4M payed to an outfit with 30 offices world wide, 1.500 employees.

Not only amoral whores, cheap amoral whores!
Posted by: Phaick Gray7546 || 03/10/2011 17:46 Comments || Top||

#4  4.5M $ is probably not a patch on what Soodies spend per year on PR in USA.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/10/2011 18:13 Comments || Top||

#5  No mention of their political party affiliation, though they mentioned Livingston's...

We had this the other day. They're members of the Harvard Academic Crack Whore Party.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/10/2011 18:22 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2011-03-10
  Libya no-fly zone a UN decision, "not US": Clinton
Wed 2011-03-09
  OIC rejects military action on Libya
Tue 2011-03-08
  Gaddafi sends negotiators to Benghazi
Mon 2011-03-07
  National Libyan Council to seek recognition
Sun 2011-03-06
  Gaddafi forces fight to seize Zawiyah, dozens killed
Sat 2011-03-05
  Qadaffy forces try, fail to retake Zawiyah
Fri 2011-03-04
  Libyan rebels push west
Thu 2011-03-03
  Gaddafi strikes at Brega, rebels eye foreign help
Wed 2011-03-02
  National Libyan Council outlines strategy
Tue 2011-03-01
  Yemen Opposition Rejects Plan for Govt of National Unity
Mon 2011-02-28
  Defiant Gaddafi confined to Tripoli
Sun 2011-02-27
  Ex-minister forms interim govt. in Libya
Sat 2011-02-26
  Anti-Gaddafi protesters control Misrata: witness
Fri 2011-02-25
  Gun battles rage as rebels seize Libyan towns
Thu 2011-02-24
  Gaddafi says no surrender, protesters deserve death


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