In a story on Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson's bid for reelection on Sunday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Michelle Miller described the left-wing bomb thrower this way: “Freshman Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson considers himself a fighter….Whether taking on the foreclosure mess or the Republican Party.” Miller briefly referred to Grayson's history of controversial comments: “…this lawyer, former businessman, and economist, has gained notoriety for his partisan remarks on the House floor.” A clip was played of the Congressman proclaiming that Republicans wanted to people to “die quickly” because they opposed ObamaCare. However, missing from the report was any mention of Grayson accusing his opponent of being like the Taliban for having socially conservative views. read more
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Photo: mikenan1 If you think that using creatively recycled materials to build a house is something new, think again. Almost 90 years ago, inventor and engineer Ellis Stenman of Rockport, Massachusetts set out to construct a summer home with thousands of recycled newspapers . Nowadays, his Paper House is not only a popular tourist attraction, but a… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …So will I, but his decision will make more news: When Supreme Court justices enter the House of Representatives in their black robes for the president’s next State of the Union address, Samuel Alito does not plan to be among them. The justice said the annual speech to Congress has become very political and awkward for the justices, who he says are expected to sit “like the proverbial potted plant.” Of course, Alito did not remain impassive at the most recent State of the Union speech by President Barack Obama. He reacted to Obama’s unusual rebuke of the court for its decision in a campaign finance case by shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true.” The 60-year-old justice, an appointee of President George W. Bush, acknowledged with a smile that his colleagues “who are more disciplined refrain from manifesting any emotion or opinion whatsoever.” Alito, answering questions following a speech Wednesday at the conservative Manhattan Institute in New York, also said, “Presidents will fake you out.” The institute provided an online video link to Alito’s talk and question-and-answer session. The president will begin a sentence with an invocation of the country’s greatness, Alito said. If justices don’t jump up and applaud, “you look very unpatriotic,” he said. But, Alito continued, then the president may finish the thought by adding “because we’re conducting a surge in Iraq or because we’re enacting health care reform.” Justices aren’t supposed to react to statements about policy or politics. The better course, Alito said, is to follow the example of more experienced justices like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the recently retired John Paul Stevens. None has attended in several years. “So I doubt that I will be there in January,” Alito said. This is no surprise given Alito’s reaction to Obama’s juvenile criticism of the Court during last year’s speech. I’m sure Obama’s two appointees will be there, Breyer will probably be there, and maybe one other liberal. I don’t think you’ll see any of the conservative or moderate justices there…unless they’re dying to see Obama get up in front of a Congress that now has 50+ more Republicans than last year.
Continue reading …November 3rd: GOP Falls Short This will be the headline in many mainstream media outlets on November 3rd regardless of the outcome of the election. If the GOP wins about the same number of seats as they did in 1994, as Charlie Cook is now projecting , the story will be that the Dems did better than expected because they only lost 52 seats instead of 100 and because they only lost 8 Senate seats instead of the 10 it would take to change control. The media will try to turn this election into a Dem victory lap and a big win for Obama, whose “last minute campaigning saved the day for the Democrats”.
Continue reading …The troubles at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove continue: Crystal Cathedral officials have shown no intention of paying back more than 100 vendors to whom they owe $7.5 million, according to one of the vendors who is waiting for more than $50,000 from the megachurch and lost her house to foreclosure. Kristina Oliver said she was happy to get on a committee for creditors in April. I honestly believed that the church was going to come up with an equitable plan to pay us all,” she said. “But now I know that all they wanted to do was string us along.” Among the vendors for the “Glory of Christmas” pageants still waiting to get paid are Oliver, who supplied camels, horses and sheep for the pageant; wardrobe manager Juliet Noriega; dry cleaner Bruce Johnson, who cleaned the actors’ costumes; props manager Sharon Crabtree, and Carin Galletta, whose public relations firm provided publicity for the pageant. Also in line are PNCEF LLC., an equipment financing company owed $2 million and several television stations that have sued the church for hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to court documents, the Cathedral owes about $7.5 million to unsecured creditors. At least two creditors, including PNCEF, have sought and obtained court-ordered writs, which could cause the megachurch to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Back in May I wrote about several musicians, including a friend of mine, who sued the Crystal Cathedral for nonpayment of fees they earned for performing in CC productions. I ran into my friend a few weeks ago and he told me
Continue reading …They may not win a lot of seats, but a Tea Party caucus could be very influential in keeping the Republicans on the right track : Enough Tea Party-supported candidates are running strongly in competitive and Republican-leaning Congressional races that the movement stands a good chance of establishing a sizeable caucus to push its agenda in the House and the Senate, according to a New York Times analysis. With a little more than two weeks till Election Day, 33 Tea Party-backed candidates are in tossup races or running in House districts that are solidly or leaning Republican, and 8 stand a good or better chance of winning Senate seats. While the numbers are relatively small, they could exert outsize influence, putting pressure on Republican leaders to carry out promises to significantly cut spending and taxes, to repeal health care legislation and financial regulations passed this year, and to phase out Social Security and Medicare in favor of personal savings accounts. That’s the whole idea. Just as the Blue Dogs helped keep the Dems from going completely off the tracks (though they often caved on the big votes) the Tea Party candidates can keep the GOP from falling into their old RINO ways.
Continue reading …With a Dem flop pending for November 2nd, Dem organizations are having problems raising money to defend themselves : A late effort by Democrats to match record fund raising by conservative organizations has come up short, leaving the party more reliant than usual on the campaign efforts of labor unions. A key pro-Democratic group, recently created by top party insiders to build a “firewall” around the Democrats’ majority in the House, said Thursday it hoped to raise $10 million. That’s a fraction of the $50 million that an alliance of GOP groups said Tuesday they would spend to help Republicans in dozens of House races. “We are David vs. Goliath,” said Ramona Oliver, a spokeswoman for the new Democratic group, called America’s Families First Action Fund. Founded this summer, it began raising money after Labor Day to help counter Republican fundraising efforts. It once hoped to help protect up to 30 Democratic House seats, but is now focusing on just 18 campaigns, Ms. Oliver said. In total, outside conservative groups—such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Action Network and American Crossroads—could spend more than $300 million on TV advertisements, campaign mailings and other efforts to elect Republicans to Congress this year. Outside Democratic groups, by contrast, plan to spend about $100 million on those activities. The largest labor unions say they will spend $200 million combined, but most of their focus will be on rallying union voters. You can tell things are pretty bad if they have to spend that much money to rally union voters, and even that effort could backfire given that a great many rank-and-file union members no longer support the Dem agenda. They may be turning out GOP voters. Obama himself has turned out to be a great fundraiser…for conservatives.
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Watch Grey’s Anatomy S7E4: Can’t Fight Biology The new installment of our hospital residents of Grey’s Anatomy, which is entitled “Can’t Fight Biology” is the hospital hit drama TV show’s 4th episode of the 7th season that aired last 10/14/2010 Thursday 9:00 PM on ABC. Things get a bit hostile on every aspect after the result of their obstetrician came with a disturbing news for Derek and Meredith, and Lexie goes out of control after she realize that April and Meredith is drawing closer together. Meanwhile, with a car crash incident, many trauma victims comes in, and Jackson tries to use his physical attributes to stay ahead in the operating room, while Cristina’s self doubt issues is now being carried by her through personal life, like in her house hunting with Owen. Watch Grey’s Anatomy 7×4(0704) Free Online Streaming Full HDTV Episodes Replay of the Latest Season and Video Clip Download Link: HERE
Continue reading …And all you Republicans coming to D.C. in January are going to have to learn to love me: President Obama reveals in a magazine article that he is weighing what to do if Republicans win the House majority next month, and has come up with a novel approach: Make the GOP work with him. In a seeming twist on the post-1994 midterm calculation made by President Bill Clinton — when Republicans pummeled Democrats in the congressional election — Obama said he thinks Republicans will have to move in his direction no matter the outcome of the Nov. 2 vote. “It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible,” he is quoted saying in the Sunday edition of The New York Times Magazine, “either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.” Accusing the public of mistaking his abilities, the president also told the magazine that he’s a little taken aback that voters are disappointed with the current turn of events in his administration. “The mythology has emerged somehow that we ran this flawless campaign, I never made a mistake, that we were master communicators, everything worked in lockstep,” Obama is quoted saying. “That’s not how I look at stuff, because I remember what the campaign was like. And it was just as messy and just as difficult. And there were all sorts of moments when our supporters lost hope, and it looked like we weren’t going to win. And we’re going through that same period here.” The inside-the-White-House account of trouble and turmoil in the administration comes 20 days before the midterm election and is sure to deflate Democrats reluctant to hear the president detailing mistakes from his first 20 months in office. “It’s pretty clear to me based on this interview that the president is saying, ‘I’ve given up, You’re on your own,’” said Democratic strategist Doug Schoen. There’s more at the link . There will be a big difference between what Bill Clinton did after the 1994 election and what Obama is likely to do after this election. Bill Clinton was a professional politician and he understood that in order to have a chance at re-election he would have to moderate his views. His pragmatism allowed him to regain enough of the public’s trust to win a plurality in 1996 and another term in office. Obama, on the other hand, is not a professional politician, but is an ideologue. To him there’s only one way to do thing and that’s to pursue a socialist America without rest. Even a pounding in the midterm election won’t change that. He’ll continue to push a lefty agenda and will hope that blaming Republicans for stopping him will be enough to earn another term. It’s likely to be a very frustrating two years for Obama and the Democrats.
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