LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

Charles Signorile has an excellent post about Sen. Jim DeMint's proposed moratorium on earmarks ( link ). He points out the failure of Rep. Boehner's bill in the House, but there is more to that story. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, in his latest email, adds: As part of this effort, Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) launched a website, earmarkreform.house.gov , which served as a hub for information about Republicans' efforts to fix the broken appropriations process and to shine a light on the unethical earmarking practices of the majority. Now, Boehner is being forced to take down the website by the Office of the House Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Daniel Beard, a position Beard assumed with the support of Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic Leadership. The decision was a dramatic reversal on the part of the Office of the CAO, and its timing is suspect. Boehner received approval from the CAO for the website in August. However, it was not launched u...

I have to admit, I laughed through this whole segment, after Dan started speaking about this subject, in response to Chris' first question. In fact, I laughed about this through the entire show. PUH-LEASE!

It's possible that Hillary's nomination process will be so divisive that all of the "new voters" that Obama has pulled in will "stay at home" in greater numbers than the "conservatives" who will "never vote for McCain." Also, will some "Independent" Democrats vote for McCain in protest of a perceived "theft" by Hillary of the nomination? Will they do so in greater numbers than "Ann Coulter" Republicans, who have promised to vote for Hillary over McCain. There will be far more of the former than the latter. I have to add that many Hillary supporters will vote for McCain, if Obama is the Dem nominee. It's the flip side of the coin, but will make it a closer race, because there are fewer Hillary supporters than Obama supporters to be "disaffected," in the general election. GOOD LUCK, HILLARY, BARACK, AND JOHN! Anything's possible!

This is one of the most recent, and biggest of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's 180 degree flip-flops on his "day one, everything changes" pre-election slogan. The New York Racing Association has just been given a 25-year renewal of it's franchise to run the horse tracks in NYS. In addition, he's offering NYC half of this year's 1.1 million dollar taxpayer subsidy that is needed to keep it's Off Track Betting corporation in business. Day one of year two, and everything stays the same. Now, Spitzer is not solely responsible for the NYRA deal (See links to Bruno and the NYS legislature's disgraceful behavior ), and his "splitting the losses" deal is being rejected by Mayor Bloomberg, who is threatening to let OTB go out of business. However, both are indicative of Gov. Spitzer "caving" to the liberal political powers in the state. I can only express my disappointment at the direction he is continuing to take NYS in, and wonder what motivates ...

Mayor Bloomberg weighs in rather nonchalantly, I'd say. Words have meaning, however, and here's what he said about the NYC primary night vote counts: ( link ) "If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud," said the mayor. This is one of the few times I agree with the liberal Mayor of NYC, though I'm still wondering if this was more widespread. Bloomberg's assessment is almost a plea for further investigation. Rob from the Say Anything blog asks, "Where's the Outrage?" -to which I'll add, "Who's in charge of this mess?"

Sen. Clinton won the Massachusetts primary, but Sen. Kennedy has endorsed Sen. Obama. I'm still waiting to hear any news organization ask him if he's willing to go against the "will of the people" of Massachusetts? Even if they know the answer (yes), wouldn't it be interesting to understand his reasoning for this decision? Kennedy doesn't fear the voters' wrath, at this point of his "hiccup" career. As a "lion of the Democratic establishment," he can let others use this argument, attempting to get other "superdelegates" to support Obama, without anyone questioning his personal exception to it. It will be interesting to see how these "superdelegates" split. I guarantee that Ted isn't going to pledge for Hillary, voters be damned. Maybe it should be called the "Un-Democratic" Party.

Crossposted from STOP THE ACLU: Supreme Court Rejects ACLU Domestic Spying Case ... Basically, because: the case had nothing to do with spying on domestic citizens; was supposed to be a secret program; and common sense the ACLU lacks. What it came down to was that none of the plaintiff's had any standing. The ACLU feared that some of their conversations with terrorist representatives might have been listened to, however they couldn't provide any evidence of that. Wake Up America : The ACLU consistently insists that programs such as the NSA wiretapping program goes against civil liberties and opposing opinions just as consistently insist that National Security depends on being able to monitor calls and contacts from the U.S. to terror groups outside the U.S to be able to protect America from further terrorist attacks. The courts are caught in the middle and have to walk a fine line between civil liberties and protecting America because ruling against one may "step on" ...

Here's an update to my last post ( OBAMA "Robbed" In NYS Primary ), starting with an excerpt from Tuesday's NY Post: Doug Kellner, the Democratic co-chair of the state Board of Elections, said a report that Obama received not a single vote in about 80 of the city’s 6,106 election districts was no reason to suspect a conspiracy. Kellner attributed the wrong figures to transcription errors by cops who recorded and transmitted the data on primary night — and, he noted, they’d committed similar goofs before. Hillary Rodham Clinton had the first position on voting-machine ballots. Obama was way over in the fifth position. In between were Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and John Edwards, with Dennis Kucinich in the sixth spot. All but Clinton and Obama had dropped out, but too late to have their names removed. Kellner figures that when the other four received no votes, those zeroes often mistakenly ended up under Obama’s name. "The way the ballot was laid out," he said...

NYS election officials are as inept or corrupt as the rest of the state bureaucracy. That's the kindest way I can frame this story. It looks like "clerical error" is the current excuse for corrupt bureaucrats. In NYC, it was warring factions of the Democratic party practicing their "dark arts" against each other, with Clinton being more powerful on her home turf, of course. Still, this is pretty blatant stuff, and if it is just "clerical error," the statewide returns need to be examined for similar "errors." That probably won't happen, but this story exposes one of the dirtiest political operations in the free world. ( link ) Barack Obama 's primary-night results were strikingly underrecorded in several districts around the city - in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said yesterday. Unofficial primary results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Har...

A legal battle over "executive privilege" is looming, after the US House of Representatives cited Harriet Miers and John Bolton for contempt of Congress. This action was taken because of their refusal to testify about the firings of several US Attorneys, which Congress has no purview over, in the first place. Here's an excerpt from the hill.com (link): Ahead of the vote, Republicans had walked out in an effort to show that they want to work on a permanent update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rather than be part of a "partisan fishing expedition," as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) put it. The contempt vote raises the stakes between the White House and Congress in the battle over the fired U.S. attorneys and could set up a constitutional showdown between the legislative and executive branches. The matter will now be referred to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. If the fight comes to a head without a compromise havi...

Gov. Spitzer's first year in office has seen a liberalization of NY State's parolee releases, with a disturbing trend: ( link ) January 19, 2008 -- ALBANY - Nearly every one of the 225 violent felons authorized for release during Gov. Spitzer 's first 11 months in office had been convicted of murder, records made public by the state Parole Board yesterday showed. The figures revealed that 215 of the inmates granted parole were convicted murderers while the rest had been convicted of either attempted murder or kidnapping. Thankfully, this outrage has not gone unchallenged: ( link ): February 6, 2008 -- ALBANY - Charging that Gov. Spitzer is "very soft on criminals," Senate Republicans yesterday announced legislation designed to stem the recent increase in paroles of inmates convicted of violent felonies such as murder... Last year, Spitzer's first year in office, 235 violent felons, or 17.5 percent, were released from prison, compared with 148 during Republi...

My girlfriend Anna went to the Modell's Sporting Goods store in Times Square after work on Tuesday, to buy me a Valentine's Day gift. After finding the very last (size large) NY GIANTS Superbowl Championship T-shirt, she saw Stephen Colbert (of The Colbert Report) in the store. He came right up to her, and asked her to help him find another GIANTS T-shirt, in size large. Not wanting to tell him that she got the last one, she engaged him in small talk, telling him she loved the segment where he and Mike Huckabee played "air hockey" with a miniature state of Texas. He replied (I paraphrase) "thanks, and we didn't have any writers for that show." They talked a little bit, and she said "he seemed kind of strange," but didn't elaborate, when telling me about it in our nightly phone conversation. He asked her if she was buying the shirt for herself. She said "No! It's for my boyfriend, for Valentine's Day!" He abruptly said ...

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's 2008 budget is a pipe dream, in too many ways to count. The craziest idea in his '08 budget proposal is the so-called "crack tax," which would tax people caught selling illegal drugs. Spitzer wants to sell "tax stamps" to illegal drug dealers, with the promise that NY State tax authorities will not alert law enforcement. The counterpoint to this is that every person convicted of selling illegal drugs in NYS without a "tax stamp" on his packaging will be liable for the taxes, penalties, and interest to the State of NY (as if they will get any revenue from this). Read about it here and here . Another bad idea that Gov. Spitzer floated was selling future lottery revenues for a short-term revenue boost, to a private contractor. I'm not the only one who thinks this is a crazy idea ( link ): The possible sale was also blasted by the Manhattan Institute's E.J. McMahon, who said it could turn out to be "the mother of all ...

NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer didn't make any New Year's resolutions to improve his performance, apparently. After a disastrous first year in office, with perhaps the greatest and swiftest decline in the history of polling, he sounded concilliatory in his latest "State of the State" speech. A closer look at what he's actually doing reveals a different picture. Since I've been out of circulation for a while, I've got quite a bit of Spitzer news to relate. This column deals with the Spygate scandal (No, not the Patriots' Spygate), and the three ongoing probes into this sordid mess. We still don't know if Spitzer instructed his top aides to have the State Police "keep tabs" on his biggest political rival, (Republican) Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. The cenrtal figure, former communications director Darren Dopp, faces fines and censure from the newly-created state Public Integrity Commission, and is still under investigation by the Albany DA, Da...

Eight years ago, I signed a petition to get John McCain on the NY Republican primary ballot. I supported George W. Bush, but I wanted a fair primary, and the NYS Republican party didn't. This year, there is no such controversy, and all GOP candidates are on the ballot. It is a difficult choice, between Romney and NcCain. I was offended by McCain-Feingold, as well as Mac's "pro-amnesty" position on illegal immigration. Those are the two major reasons I am voting for Mitt Romney on Feb. 5th, though he's not favored to win in NY. I will vote for either one of these fine gentlemen, if they are the GOP nominee. I'll just be holding my nose tighter if it's McCain. Anna's voting for Hillary, come hell, or high water. The GOP really has to "step up" this year, if we want to win the general election. I say the GOP should take a page from the NY GIANTS' book, and beat the odds! We're the underdogs, politically, and anything can happen on Tuesda...

The NY Giants have crushed the NE Patriots' dreams of perfection. I predicted this, and am proud of my hometown team. All of the prognosticators favored the Pats, except for Frank, the comedian, on the Fox pre-game show. Anna says she saw Terry Bradshaw predicting a Giants' win, but I didn't see it. Anna and Buffy ( the Cosmic Kitty ) were sitting on either side of me, and gave the Giants the superstitious boost they needed, from my POV. It was enough to WIN THE GAME, but we had to do it in dramatic fashion. Even though Eli stunk up the joint in the middle of the game, he came back, like a knight in shining armor, to win. Thanks to the Patriots, for a great game, but the better team won. Read my previous Superbowl posts: CHRISTMAS PRESENTS: I WISH I GOT THESE WHEN I WAS 12! The GIANTS vs. the "GREATRIOTS": The NFL Network Caved, and Showed a Great Game GIANTS VS. "GREATRIOTS" II: SUPER BOWL! (PS, I'm Back!) SUPERBOWL XLII MEDIA KICKOFF: Belichick, Br...