Sarah, don’t go we Democrats need you!

Palin to quit as Alaska governor at end of July

Huffington Post, July 3rd, 2009

After Sarah Palin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week she has announced she will be stepping down in a few weeks. In a press conference call this morning, Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin has announced she will not run for re-election and is stepping down as governor.

She had a brief statement. She took no questions. Her commissioners and Lt. Governor were with her at her home. Palin did not relinquish the reigns of the state to the Lt. Governor while running for vice president.

Lt. Governor Sean Parnell will step in as governor at the end of the month. He was defeated by Congressman Don Young in the Republican primary last year.

Rumors of an “iceberg scandal” have been circulating.

Resignation is certainly out of character for Sarah Palin. Senator Mark Begich had a meeting with Sarah Palin two days ago with no mention of her leaving office. Palin’s press secretary, David Murrow had posted on his Facebook page Wednesday, “David Murrow is considering life’s ironies.” He was hired less than a month ago. Yesterday he wrote, “There’s gonna be some fireworks this weekend!”

Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, told Fox News that he thought her resignation was due to the negativity from the media. According to Heath, the governor was unable to be effective while she was constantly having to defend herself against ethics complaints and the media.

You betcha!

Sarah Palin has been a fascinating person on the political scene. She came out of nowhere, became the symbol of Republican conservatives and tried to convince everyone that she had a brain. Whether or not she tries to remain on the national scene, this week’s article in Vanity Fair told us that Sarah is a flash in the pan. Too bad, it would really be great have her as the brains of the Republican party.

Her announcement today seemed to have been written by Mark Sanford’s speechwriter.

Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard says Palin is resigning because she’s tired of the incessant ethics investigations. Others on the net are speculating that a “Iceberg Scandal” of major proportions is about to surface. Stay tuned for more drama from our Republican friends…

So, at last Minnesota gets it’s second Senator

McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 30th, 2009

WASHINGTON — Comedian Al Franken officially won the Minnesota U. S. Senate seat Tuesday, as the state’s Supreme Court ordered that he be certified as the winner of last year’s election and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman conceded.

Franken’s win gives Democrats control of 60 Senate seats, a filibuster-proof majority. That means that Democrats, if they’re unified, will be able to block Republicans from exploiting Senate rules to prevent votes on legislation, enhancing the Democrats’ ability to enact their party’s agenda into law. More…

Senator John Coryn R-TX who declared WORLD WAR III over this issue now says “the courts have spoken and I join Norm…[this decision gives] the American people particularily clear choice next year.”

China Gains in Tangled Bidding at Iraq Oil Auction

New York Times, June 30th, 2009

BAGHDAD — The long-awaited auction of licenses to develop Iraq’s huge oil reserves began Tuesday amid unusual contentiousness, as multinational companies demanded far more revenue from every barrel of increased production than the authorities were willing to allow.

Scores of Chinese, Russian, American and British oil executives, representing 8 of the world’s top 10 non-state oil companies, gathered in a hotel meeting room in the Green Zone. They listened closely on headphones to translations as bids for six oil fields and two natural gas fields were read out and then rushed into consultations.

In the latest indication of China’s aggressive interest, its three main oil companies all bid in partnerships with Western firms, and the first contract went to a pairing of BP and the China National Petroleum Corporation. More…

OpenSecrets.org, June 27th, 2009

The pharmaceutical and health products industry has long been the top dog on K Street. Since 1998, the industry has spent more than $1.6 billion on federal lobbying. Last year alone, it spent more than $234 million — a sum that translates into roughly $125,000 every hour that Congress was actually in session. Furthermore, in the first three months of 2009, it spent more than $66.5 million on these politicking efforts — or about $1.2 million a day that Congress has been open for business. And these figures are just a portion of their overall expenditures. They also spend big on advertising, research, polling and other efforts that don’t get classified as lobbying.

Within this industry, the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America leads the way on lobbying activities, spending more than $20.2 million last year, or $10,750 an hour that Congress was in session. Only six other companies in all sectors combined spent more on lobbying last year. Three other drug companies spent more than $10 million on lobbying in 2008: Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Amgen. Two-dozen others spent between $1 million and $7 million. More…

Just to make you feel more uncomfortable with these numbers, consider the fact that Max Bacus of Montana (Senate Finance Chair) has received more than $3 million from the drug industry.

Back channels of the Republican party are beginning to question the emphasis on social conservative issues like family values, gay marriage and even racial diversity especially as it affects immigration and the Hispanic population. Continuing sex scandals are making the party look ridiculous

Huffington Post, June 27th, 2009

Gov. Mark Sanford’s admission to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina has sparked a debate within the back channels of the GOP over how strongly the party should emphasize morality and religion going forward.

For decades, the GOP has used issues like respect for the sanctity of marriage and the notion of family values as a key component of its political platform and a point of divergence between Republicans and Democrats. A series of sex scandals involving high-ranking officials, however, has drastically altered that equation. And now some strategists are questioning whether the party should rethink the way it emphasizes these matters. More…

Minutemen entered a home in Arivaca and murdered two people.

New Border Fear: Militia Violence

ARIVACA, Ariz. — “Somebody just came in and shot my daughter and my husband!” the woman shouted to the 911 dispatcher. “They’re coming back in! They’re coming back in!”

Multiple gunshots are then heard on a tape of the call. The woman, Gina Gonzalez, survived the attack after arming herself with her husband’s handgun, but both he and their 10-year-old daughter died.

The killings, last month, have terrified this small town near the Mexican border, in part because the authorities have now tied them to what they describe as a rogue group engaged in citizen border patrols.

The three people arrested in the crime include the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a Washington State-based offshoot of the Minutemen movement, in which citizens roam the border looking for people crossing into the country illegally. Former members describe the group’s leader, Shawna Forde, 41, as having anti-immigrant sentiments that are extreme, at times frightening, even to people accustomed to hard-line views on border policing.

New York Times, June 27th, 2009

WASHINGTON — The House passed legislation on Friday intended to address global warming and transform the way the nation produces and uses energy.

The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

The bill’s passage, by 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting against it, also established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year.

At the heart of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy. More…

Major energy-climate bill chugs toward House vote

Associated Press at Yahoo, June 26th, 2009

WASHINGTON – With President Barack Obama lobbying by phone, the Democratic-controlled House churned toward a showdown vote Friday night on historic legislation to reduce pollution linked to global warming and power the nation with cleaner but more expensive energy.

Democrats struggled to solidify a fragile coalition needed for passage and appeared headed for success. “We don’t have the votes to stop this bill,” conceded Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., as the roll call neared on a measure that Republicans said would kill jobs across the country while pushing consumer energy costs higher.

Supporters and opponents agreed the result would be higher energy costs but disagreed vigorously on the impact on consumers. Democrats pointed to two reports — one from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and the other from the Environmental Protection Agency — that suggested average increases would be limited after tax credits and rebates were taken into account. The CBO estimated the bill would cost an average household $175 a year, the EPA $80 to $110 a year, but Republicans and special industry groups said the real figure would much higher. More from Associated Press…

Republicans and special interest groups pull out the stops to say no, no, and no again!

Washington Post, June 26th, 2009

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) today launched the equivalent of a filibuster of landmark climate-change legislation, using special unlimited speaking privileges granted only to party leaders to speak for more than an hour.

Boehner, leading opposition to the bill, was slated to be the second-to-last lawmaker to talk, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) waiting in the wings to conclude a debate that had already been going on for more than five hours. More from the Washington Post…

It’s passed, and now on to the Senate.

Huffington Post, June 26th, 2009

After a tense debate, in which the margin of success or failure never moved beyond a handful of votes, the House of Representatives passed the most sweeping climate change policy ever considered by Congress early Friday evening.

The outcome had remained up in the air up until the actual vote, with the White House and the president himself engaging in a heavy lobbying campaign aimed at restoring Democratic Party unity that seemed to be fracturing. More from Huffington Post…

Family values Governor Sanford took three trips to Argentina paid for by American tax payers…

New York Times, June 24th, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, said he had conducted an extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina, ending a mystery over his week-long disappearance that had infuriated lawmakers and seemed to put his rising political career in jeopardy. He apologized for the affair and the deception surrounding his trip in a rambling, nationally televised news conference Wednesday afternoon.

Governor Sanford, 49, admitted that he had been in Buenos Aires since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as his staff had told reporters. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year — and which he said he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago — he said: “This was selfishness on my part.” More…

More on his tax payer paid trips….

Right wing blogger John Hawkins wants Sanford to resign as governor… but, the double standard continues as he defends Senator Ensign because he was “separated” from his wife when he was cheating on his marriage vows.

Jobless rate rises in nearly all states

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia post unemployment rates rise in May, while only one state - Nebraska - registers a decrease.

CNN Money.com, June 19th, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rate increases in May, the government reported Friday. One state registered a rate decrease, and one state had no rate change.

Several states and regions posted their highest unemployment rate since the report debuted in 1976.

Over the year, jobless rates were higher in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Michigan once again led the nation with a 14.1% jobless rate, up from 12.9% a month earlier, followed again by Oregon at 12.4%, up from 12% in April. Thirteen states have rates above 10%. More…