He was arrested in November 2010 by the Florida Highway Patrol for DUI. He had a tested blood alcohol content at 0.139 and 0.141 — greater than the state’s 0.08 legal limit. Troopers also found a half-empty (half-full?) bottle of bourbon in his vehicle.
Who am I?
Virginia’s 11th is an odd-shaped Congressional District stretching from the rural Virginia horse country near Warrenton, then meandering east through the battlefields at Bull Run, and finally racing north headlong towards the uber-metropolian suburbs of Fairfax and Arlington. Nestled near the armpit of the District lies the impressive headquarters of the National Rifle Association. The Washington bad-ass lobbing group, made up of one part gun industry protector and one part hunter’s friend, is the alpha dog among Capitol Hill law pushers. Strangely, this NRA stronghold is represented by the kind of guy the Right loves to hate. Democrat Gerry Connolly is a Harvard-educated, Washington insider who served as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Tuesday, Connolly faced Republican challenger, Keith Fimian, who is a Second Amendment absolutist. Fimian’s views on guns are so extreme that he famously said: “I think that at Virginia Tech, if one of those kids in one of those classrooms was packing heat, I think that would not have happened … The perpetrator of that crime would have thought twice before walking into a classroom if he thought there was any chance of someone being armed and preventing him from doing that.”
Continue reading “Shooting Yourself In The Foot: NRA Candidate Loses in NRA Home District”
Obama signals he may allow rich to keep their tax breaks.
Is this some special negotiating strategy that I’m unfamiliar with? Admit willingness to compromise before negotiations even begin. What idiot came up with that idea?
Personhood USA is a group that is trying to get abortions banned by passing state constitutional amendments that declare a fertilized egg is legally a person. Such an amendment was on the ballot in Colorado yesterday. It was defeated by a 3-to-1 margin, getting only 28% of the vote. How bad does an anti-abortion law have to be to only get 28% of the vote in a fundamentalist stronghold like Colorado?
The dust hasn’t yet settled from Tuesday’s midterm elections—and conservative blogger Erick Erickson, the managing editor of Red State, has already compiled a list of “potential tea party targets” he’d like to see swept from the Senate. The REPUBLICANS on Erickson’s hit list are all up for re-election in 2012. They include Olympia Snowe of Maine, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Bob Corker of Tennessee, and Richard Lugar of Indiana—all Republicans, as Sam Stein wrote in a piece for Huffington Post, “with a penchant for working in a bipartisan fashion.” Erickson is hoping to find candidates who will challenge the incumbents on his list in primaries in the hopes of “improving” the Senate GOP.
The Tea Party made lots of noise and woke the neighbors, but precious few in-roads into the political system. True, Marc Rubio and Rand Paul were big winners but each benefited from some peculiar circumstances. Rubio won in a three way race punctuated by former spurned Repub Governor Crist’s independent bid along with a Democratic challenger who won just enough to split the vote of the rational and give Rubio the nod. Rand benefited from the strong conservative sentiment in Kentucky and what Mark Twain best described this way: “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky because it’s always twenty years behind the times.”
Other Party guests did not fair so well — even in a time of popular disenchantment with government and a bad economy. Unpopular Senator Harry Reid survived a bid from Sharon Angle of “there is no separation of church and state” fame. First Amendment scholar, former Wiccan, and Angle devotee, Christine O’Donnell, sank against Chris Coons by 18 points. Even in far off Alaska, Palin-approved candidate Joe Miller looks to be a loser in a three way race to a write-in candidate and incumbent, Lisa Murkowski.
How did that poster child for The Movement and likely 2012 Presidential candidate, Sarah Plain, do with her endorsements? Well, that sprinkling of Alaskan tea resulted in 33 loses and 27 wins. Not exactly the “Golden Touch.” All in all, the Tea Party can claim some measure of victory, but the win is less than satisfying. After the Party’s hangover, the realization will set in that “winning” requires “fixing” else-wise the fickle electorate will turn you out like yesterday’s newspaper. And that, my revolutionary friends, is the hardest tea to swallow of all.
–Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Retired military chaplains are claiming that it will be impossible to serve both the armed forces and God if they can’t preach that homosexuality is a sin. It is the retired chaplains that are speaking out because, they claim, their active duty brethren would be open to charges of insubordination if they went public.
My idea below the fold.
It’s time for the headphones/earbuds. Today we have 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians in glorious STEREO. Enjoy.
The title of this post just about says it all. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of Caleeforneea, no economic girlie man for sure, has decided to get tough and restrict the use of state-issued debit cards at businesses whose services have been deemed “inconsistent with the intent” of the program.
Considering right wing voter suppression activities, know your state’s laws:
Scroll down to find your state.
-David Drumm (Nal)
Insurance giant AIG was the poster child for corporate greed and a government bailout program run amok. Now in their self-reliant efforts to turn things around and restructure, the insurer needs just one more thing – 22 billion more in taxpayer dollars. The TARP funds will be used to buy “Federal Reserve preferred stock interests in the special purpose vehicles holding two key subsidiaries being sold off, AIA Group Ltd and American Life Insurance Co (ALICO).” When you figure out what that means, let me know. There is one bright spot in this corporate muck however. According to the Treasury Department statement, ” … these assets significantly exceed the amount of the preferred investments, and as such, no losses are expected on those preferred interests.” I’ll file that in the “We’re From the Government and Are Here to Help You” file. Maybe we’ll get this finance mess fixed, when both government and industry resolve to speak English again. I’d back legislation to make that happen.
Source: Reuters
_ Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
We have previously discussed Mary Bale, the cat dumper, here. She sparked an international outrage when a CCTV camera caught her dumping a loving kitteh, named Lola, in a rubbish bin.
Crooks are always looking for new ways to rob, but a Florida high school kid is truly cutting edge. Unable to secure gun, knife, or even billy club to instill fear in his victim, Larry Franklin seized the moment at a local convenience store and brandished what else — a bottle of salad dressing. Immediately successful, our “zesty” thief attempted the ploy yet a second time at another store but fled after the clerk proved himself a meat and potatoes kind of guy and produced a gun in response. Cops arrived to find the health conscious robber making a run for it. The clerk was heard to wonder aloud, why “the kid would bring a Wishbone to a gun fight?”
Source: TruTV
Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger