Murtha was hospitalized in December and had to postpone a hearing with Defense Secretary
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime fixture on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending, has died following complications from gallbladder surgery, according to his office. He was 77.
The veteran Democratic congressman recently underwent laparoscopic surgery to remove his gallbladder.
Robert Gates on the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan. The congressman returned to work after a few days in the hospital and helped oversee final passage of the 2010 defense appropriations bill.
Murtha represented Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District since 1974, making him the chamber’s eighth most senior member. According to his biography on the House of Representatives Web site, Murtha was the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress.
He was considered one of “the kings of pork” on Capitol Hill by taxpayer watchdog groups for requesting tens of millions of dollars in earmarks.
Tom Campbell, a former Republican congressman and recent Director of Finance for the state of California, is running in that state’s Republican primary for the nomination to challenge Senator Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in November.
The ad was produced by the Carly Fiorina’s campaign, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. I am posting this not as an endorsement, but in admiration of an exceedingly clever ad. I do not support either one of their campaigns.
Every year we run into a cold snap and every year someone asks where the global climate warming change moonbats are hiding. Trust me folks they are still around.
The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate.
Also known as global warming, climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA’s National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.
“Whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat,” Locke said Monday at a news conference.
Lubchenco added, “Climate change is real, it’s happening now.” She said climate information is vital to the wind power industry, coastal community planning, fishermen and fishery managers, farmers and public health officials.
[ NOTE: The author of this article, Gerard Alexander, will be conducting an online discussion of this subject with the public at the Washington Post site here at 10 A.M. CST today. ]
It’s an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation — as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a “Bolshevik plot” — and the country’s failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. “We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).
Gerard Alexander, an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia, confronts the question that vexes all intelligent, right-thinking Americans, as opposed to, say, those sycophants and hairy brained mouth-breathers who cling to their Prius or their Huffington Post or contempt for people who aren’t like them.
The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, “Nixonland,” progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others. Similarly, in their 1992 book, “Chain Reaction,” Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.
and:
Starting in the 1960s, the original neoconservative critics such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed distress about the breakdown of inner-city families, only to be maligned as racist and ignored for decades — until appalling statistics forced critics to recognize their views as relevant. Long-standing conservative concerns over the perils of long-term welfare dependency were similarly villainized as insincere and mean-spirited — until public opinion insisted they be addressed by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress in the 1996 welfare reform law. But in the meantime, welfare policies that discouraged work, marriage and the development of skills remained in place, with devastating effects.
Ignoring conservative cautions and insights is no less costly today. Some observers have decried an anti-intellectual strain in contemporary conservatism, detected in George W. Bush’s aw-shucks style, Sarah Palin’s college-hopping and the occasional conservative campaigns against egghead intellectuals. But alongside that, the fact is that conservative-leaning scholars, economists, jurists and legal theorists have never produced as much detailed analysis and commentary on American life and policy as they do today.
Cognitive dissonance is defined as holding two incompatible beliefs or when one’s actions are diametrically opposed to one’s opinions. Consider the following results from the same Gallup Poll:
If members of the Left in this country profess admiration for entrepreneurs (82%), are sentimental about small business (95%) and think glowingly of free enterprise (85%), how does a majority also cling to the notion socialism is a good thing (53%) ? And their more strident brethren think very highly of it (61%) ?
If you find yourself amused, baffled and occasionally angry when confronted by these incoherent and irreconcilable people, realize they are deeply confused and yet their ideological ancestors have been at this irrational and illogical project for more than 160 years.
Frederic Bastiat, the brilliant French economic philosopher, wrote in The Lawin 1850, in the last year of his tragically short life:
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
This is a long war, of many battles lasting decades, but we are winning and will continue to win. It began long before our grandfathers were born and will continue beyond the lives of our grandchildren.
Once again, our beloved dear leader, realizing that we must be taught a new set of values, has decided that our wants and needs – indeed, even the demands of his own party – should give way before his perfect wisdom. To wit: Obama Hasn’t Ruled Out NYC Trial for 9/11 Planner
Apparently even the wishes of a Democrat Senator from New York don’t seem to make much difference to his exaltedness:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded: “Based on the security, logistical and cost concerns raised by the mayor and the police commissioner, it is not feasible to have the trials in New York. The administration should realize that and move on.”
Listen to the instruction of our beloved teacher:
Obama said using the traditional judicial method was a “virtue of our system” in which Americans should take pride.
So there.
In other news, continuing his longstanding tradition of always supporting the winner in any contest, the President picked the Indianapolis Colts to win the Superbowl:
In a lighter moment, Obama said the Indianapolis Colts “have to be favored” over the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl, “mainly because they’ve got perhaps the best quarterback in history. I mean, Peyton Manning is unbelievable.”
I have yet to tire of watching this video. When Ailes says in response to a question from Barbara Walters about Sarah Palin:
FOX News is fair and balanced. We had Geraldine Ferraro on for 10 years as the only woman the Democrats ever nominated. Now we have the only woman that the Republicans nominated. [...]
Update on the loser (or as the milblogs like to say, “General Ballduster McSoulpatch”) seen at Annise Parker’s victory soirée :
A Houston man was charged on Friday with allegedly impersonating a U.S. Army general by wearing a uniform decorated with more military honors than earned by famed Gen. George Patton.
The FBI charged 44-year-old Michael P. [...]
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit
From the Rothenberg Political Report:
Note: Stuart Rothenberg is editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report, a non-partisan political newsletter covering U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, Presidential politics and political developments. He is also a twice-a-week columnist for Roll Call.
28 House Seats move toward GOP
After a stunning GOP Senate [...]
