The Republican Thread

[mr_genius]

They need a bankruptcy to fix their problems. The boat is sunk, its just a matter of how long it takes to get to the bottom. The reason they aren't moving forward is Obama knows if they go under, the unions get screwed, and he doesn't want to lose votes from one of his strongest groups of supporters.

 

The unions also give tons of money to the Democrats.

 

 

[lostfan]

To be fair, he explains that he has watched/listened to NBC/CBS, NY Times, etc. He's speaking of those who have never listened to Limbaugh who claim they "have heard him", when they haven't. He's not telling liberals who actually have listened to Limbaugh to take the challenge, he's asking those who never even bother, yet believe everything told to them to take the challenge.

 

Which they won't do.

 

For example, I'm a O'Reilly guy, and liberals hate him -- but at the same time have never seen him other than mostly out of context clips. I, on the other hand, have watched hours of Olberman, who is basically the same guy, but on the other side of the spectrum. I don't agree with Olberman very often (I have on very few occasions), but at least I give him his chance rather than just taking someone's word for it because they played some incomplete clip or out of context clip.

You are the exception, not the norm on the bolded. Nobody really does that on either end but it feels good to bash the other group of people and pretend like you're different, like he's doing. When he talks about people who say "I'm not a liberal, I'm a moderate" I feel like he's talking about me, basically because he is. The way he talks to the reader is like "If you don't think Rush Limbaugh makes sense, then you're stupid" in so many words. No, no, I have listened to Rush Limbaugh in the past, and while his point of him being painted out of context is well-taken, I have heard plenty enough to know whether I want to listen to him or not (I don't, which is something that's addressed in that opinion as an example of hypocrisy) and I really don't have to re-confirm this constantly. I know that I don't ever want to hear Sean Hannity speak again, and if Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin both disappeared from the Earth the moment after I hit "Add Reply" I wouldn't care. O'Reilly is actually pretty ok, he's just really opinionated and I think he's misunderstood. I used to listen to Glenn Beck. It's not that I choose not to listen to conservatives, it's which ones, which I feel like is my choice, and it is. Same with liberal hosts. I take Rachel Maddow much more seriously than I do Keith Olbermann, for what that's worth.

 

How many conservatives actually really pay attention to Michael Moore instead of joining the chorus when others accuse him of treason?

[lostfan]

For the very reason that I like to know, first hand, what the other side said/did. For the very reason that article was written.

 

Besides, Olbermann rules (when played by Ben Affleck) : http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/vid...bermann/805561/

 

That skit makes me LMAO.

lol, that skit was just so dead-on. Nobody does completely random self-righteous indignation like Keith Olbermann.

[southsider2k5]

Wagoner is getting $20,000,000 to go away...

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7208201&page=1

 

PAYDAY: GM's Rick Wagoner Drives Away with $20M Retirement

Critic Calls Multi-Million Package "Perfect Example" of Frustration with Industry

By MICHELLE LEDER and JUSTIN ROOD

March 30, 2009

 

Rick Wagoner will leave his post as CEO of bailed-out General Motors with a $20 million retirement package, the company's financial filings show.

 

Although the Treasury Department has barred GM from paying severance to Wagoner or any other senior executive, Wagoner is eligible to collect millions in retirement benefits from his former employer, according to the documents reviewed by ABC News.

 

The Obama administration asked for Wagoner to resign Sunday, as part of its restructuring of the auto industry. President Obama said this morning that forcing Wagoner out indicated it was a time for new leadership.

 

Under Wagoner's leadership, GM lost tens of billions of dollars, took billions in taxpayer-financed aid, and cut tens of thousands of jobs, including announced plans to cut 47,000 employees by the end of 2009.

 

Wagoner's Private Jet Trip to Washington

 

Wagoner was one of the three auto industry CEOs who inflamed Congressional ire by flying to Washington in private jets to ask for taxpayers to bail out their beleaguered businesses. They returned a month later in hybrid cars.

 

Upon his departure, Wagoner becomes eligible for both a "Salaried Retirement Plan" and an "Executive Retirement Plan" with General Motors. The combined value of the plans at the end of last year was $20.2 million, according to the company's filings with the SEC, although compensation experts said his age -- 56 -- may make him ineligible for the entire amount.

 

"Most of that will be paid out as an annuity over five years, the remainder is a small lifetime annuity," GM spokeswoman Julie M. Gibson said in an email earlier today. But in a subsequent "clarification" email after this story published, Gibson said that the terms of Wagoner's final compensation were not yet hammered out. "Specifics on any compensation entitled to, or actually paid to Mr. Wagoner are still being reviewed," she wrote.

 

"I think it's another perfect example of why there's so much frustration among working people," said Tiffany Ten Eyck of Labor Notes, a Detroit-based independent publication covering unions. "I wouldn't mind retiring out of an industry in crisis with a $20 million package."

 

GM has received billions in loans from the U.S. Treasury Department, and recently asked for billions more. Under its agreement with Treasury, it cannot pay severance fees to senior executives. That ban does not appear to apply to retirement benefits, however.

 

Wagoner began his career at GM in 1977, working as an analyst for its New York treasurer's office. Wagoner was promoted to several positions within the company, including managerial roles in Europe and South America, before being named CEO in 2000.

 

Wagoner received compensation topping $63 million during his tenure as a GM executive from 1992 through 2008, according to an analysis of company data.

 

Last November, ABC News cameras spotted Wagoner in Washington, D.C. arriving on GM's $36 million luxury aircraft. He had come to the nation's capital to tell members of Congress that the company was burning through cash, and needed over $10 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds to stay afloat.

 

In a followup visit to Washington in December, Wagoner arrived in a Chevy Malibu hybrid. GM announced plans to sell its corporate luxury jet fleet that same month.

 

Scott Mayerowitz and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this story.

 

Contributor Michelle Leder writes at the financial blog footnoted.org.

[mr_genius]

It's obvious that Obama merely wanted to blame someone as to limit public outrage while continuing to give large returns to the UAW for their extensive campaign bribes. This administration is completely for sale.

 

 

[kapkomet]

It's obvious that Obama merely wanted to blame someone as to limit public outrage while continuing to give large returns to the UAW for their extensive campaign bribes. This administration is completely for sale.

Oh stop it, mr_genius. Obama is all about transparancy and change. I beleive in the Messiah!

[Cknolls]

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/03/30/...8e547489394.txt

 

 

What media bias?

[NorthSideSox72]

http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/03/30/...8e547489394.txt

 

 

What media bias?

Double hearsay from a person who had something big at stake? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but, that is flimsy at best.

 

[Balta1701]

Mr. Murtha, a 76-year-old Marine veteran schooled in the blunt-knuckle deal-making that defined politics here, is contrition-free when it comes to his success.

 

"If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district," Mr. Murtha said. "My job as a member of Congress is to make sure that we take care of what we see is necessary. Not the bureaucrats who are unelected over there in whatever White House, whether it's Republican or Democrat. Those bureaucrats would like to control everything. Every president would like to have all the power and not have Congress change anything. But we're closest to the people."

Link.

[southsider2k5]

Link.

 

Exactly. They don't see a problem with bleeding the system dry, as a matter of a fact, they see it as their duty. Nevermind whose money is actually is.

[Y2HH]

Exactly. They don't see a problem with bleeding the system dry, as a matter of a fact, they see it as their duty. Nevermind whose money is actually is.

 

That's why you're paying your neighbors mortgage.

 

Because what do they care, it's not their money being spent.

[Cknolls]

Abramoff may be peanuts compared to this non-scandal.

 

 

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/03/30...-investigation/

 

 

 

 

[kapkomet]

Abramoff may be peanuts compared to this non-scandal.

 

 

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/03/30...-investigation/

This is "different", my friend. It always is.

[Cknolls]

http://www.global-report.com/perth/?l=en&a=347624

 

 

[Y2HH]

http://www.global-report.com/perth/?l=en&a=347624

 

 

 

Owned.

[NorthSideSox72]

http://www.global-report.com/perth/?l=en&a=347624

 

 

I have no idea what this has to do with the Republican thread, but... awesome.

 

[southsider2k5]

http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/03...8e547489394.txt

 

'New York Times' Spiked Obama Donor Story

 

The New York Times building is shown in New York on June 2008. The Times pulled a story about Barack Obama’s campaign ties to ACORN. (Frank Franklin II/Associated Press)

Congressional Testimony: ‘Game-Changer’ Article Would Have Connected Campaign With ACORN

By Michael P. Tremoglie, The Bulletin

Monday, March 30, 2009

 

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

 

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”

 

Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.

 

During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.

 

Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to “reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”

 

Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel:

 

“Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer.”’

 

Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story — on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.

 

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the ranking Republican on the committee, said the interactions between the Obama campaign and ACORN, as described by Ms. Moncrief, and attested to before the committee by Ms. Heidelbaugh, could possibly violate federal election law, and “ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws.”

 

He also voiced criticism of The New York Times.

 

“If true, The New York Times is showing once again that it is a not an impartial observer of the political scene,” he said. “If they want to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, they should put Barack Obama approves of this in their newspaper.”

 

Academicians and journalism experts expressed similar criticism of the Times.

 

“The New York Times keeps going over the line in every single campaign and last year was the worst, easily,” said Mal Kline of the American Journalism Center. “They would ignore real questions worth examining about Obama, the questions about Bill Ayers or about how he got his house. Then on the other side they would try to manufacture scandals.”

 

Mr. Kline mentioned Gov. Sarah Palin was cleared by investigators of improperly firing an Alaska State Trooper, but went unnoticed by The Times.

 

“How many stories about this were in The New York Times,” he asked.

 

“If this is true, it would not surprise me at all. The New York Times is a liberal newspaper. It is dedicated to furthering the Democratic Party,” said Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of Political Science at Grove City College. “People think The New York Times is an objective news source and it is not. It would not surprise me that if they had a news story that would have swayed the election into McCain’s favor they would not have used it.”

 

ACORN has issued statements claiming that Ms. Moncrief is merely a disgruntled former worker.

 

“None of this wild and varied list of charges has any credibility and we’re not going to spend our time on it,” said Kevin Whelan, ACORN deputy political director in a statement issued last week.

 

Stephanie Strom was contacted for a comment, and The New York Times’ Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Catherine Mathis replied with an e-mail in her place.

 

Ms. Mathis wrote, “In response to your questions to our reporter, Stephanie Strom, we do not discuss our newsgathering and won’t comment except to say that political considerations played no role in our decisions about how to cover this story or any other story about President Obama.”

 

Michael P. Tremoglie can be reached at [email protected]

[lostfan]

^^CKnolls posted that already

[lostfan]

I have no idea what this has to do with the Republican thread, but... awesome.

lol, me either, but I just forwarded it to everybody at work.

[Cknolls]

I have no idea what this has to do with the Republican thread, but... awesome.

 

 

I know I was laughing so hard I had to just put it somewhere. But not its own thread. FWIW.

[Y2HH]

lol, me either, but I just forwarded it to everybody at work.

 

Wasting company resources! YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THIS RECESSION.

[lostfan]

Wasting company resources! YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THIS RECESSION.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...0,2064015.story

 

All charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens to be dropped

The Alaska Republican was convicted last year on seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms.

By Mark Silva and Josh Meyer

5:28 AM PDT, April 1, 2009

The Justice Department plans to drop all charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens, the 85-year old Alaska Republican convicted last year of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from a businessman, according to a news report this morning.

 

Attorney General Eric Holder has concluded that the conviction of Stevens cannot be supported because of problems with the government's prosecution, which had been openly criticized by the trial judge, National Public Radio first reported.

 

The Justice Department would not comment on the report this morning,

 

Justice will withdraw its opposition to a defense motion for a new trial and will dismiss the indictment against Stevens, NPR reported, but that will require a court filing and none had been filed yet.

 

Stevens' lawyer, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., said this morning that he had not been notified that the charges were being dropped but that he planned to attend an already scheduled meeting with Justice Department lawyers at 10 a.m. EDT to discuss the case.

 

"I do not have any confirmation from any government official.,'' said Sullivan, who said he been told by someone outside the department that the charges will be dropped.

 

Sullivan, one of the highest-profile defense lawyers in Washington, has long fought for the charges to be dropped in a case tainted by prosecutorial misconduct.

 

``It's fully justified ,'' said Sullivan, a senior partner at Williams & Connolly who has represented numerous high-profile clinents including Lt. Col. Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.

 

In December, in appealing the conviction, Stevens had asked a federal judge to grant him a new trial, arguing that the case against him had many "deficiencies."

 

The judge in the case repeatedly has delayed sentencing of the former longtime senator – the longest-serving Republican in the Senate -- who lost his bid for reelection in November in the face of the charges against him.

 

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan had criticized prosecutors for misconduct, and held Justice Department lawyers in contempt last month for failing to turn documents over to him as ordered. He called their behavior "outrageous.''

 

Sullivan had ordered Justice to reveal the agency's internal communications regarding a whistle-blower complaint brought by an FBI agent involved in the investigation of Stevens.

 

Holder is said to have based his decision on Stevens' age, the fact that he is no longer in the Senate -- and "perhaps most importantly,'' because the new attorney general wanted to "send a message'' to prosecutors that misconduct will not be tolerated, NPR reported this morning.

 

Holder started his own career in the Public Integrity section of the Justice Department. The attorney general also knows the trial judge, Sullivan, well – the two served together as superior court judges.

 

For Stevens, a powerful Republican leader with 40 years in the Senate, the federal case against him became a career-killer.

 

A month-long trial showed that employees for VEICO Corp., an oil services company, had transformed Stevens' modest mountain cabin into a modern, two-story home with wraparound porches, sauna and wine cellar. Stevens maintained that he had paid $160,000 for the work, believing that covered all the costs.

 

A federal jury in Washington convicted Stevens on seven felony corruption charges stemming from his failure to report gifts and home remodeling work from a powerful oil services industry company. He became only the fifth sitting senator in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony.

 

Stevens, who was convicted in late October, returned home to Alaska a week before Election Day vowing to win reelection.

 

"I'm here to tell you that I am innocent of the charges that have been brought against me, and I will be vindicated," Stevens said then. "And there is one thing you can count on: I will never stop fighting for the people of Alaska.''

 

State Republican leaders still counted on the veteran politician to win reelection despite his conviction. But Democrat Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage, defeated him, helping Democrats gain a greater majority.

 

Stevens had been credited with helping the Alaskan territory win statehood, settling Alaska Native land claims, expanding oil development and bringing home millions of federal dollars for highways, schools, hospitals and rural development.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[StrangeSox]

Heard about that this morning. Holder wanted to "send a message" about withholding information from defense attorneys.

[lostfan]

So the prosecution dropped the ball, basically?