The Super Majority

Gitmo Prisoners Moving to Illinois

WASHINGTON — Taking an important step on the thorny path to closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, the White House plans to announce Tuesday that the government will acquire an underutilized state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo.

Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will make an official announcement at the White House.

Officials from both the White House and Durbin’s office confirmed that President Barack Obama had directed the government to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a sleepy town near the Mississippi River about 150 miles from Chicago.

Read the Full Article at Fox News

Pelosi’s Hide and Seek Accounting

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s directive for lawmakers to disclose individual office spending online for the first time was billed as a victory for transparency. Well, not really. Earlier this month, the House clerk posted 3,400 pages of expense reports detailing about $300 million in spending on everything from staff salaries to mail, but the effort was a sham. The new disclosure system hides more than it reveals.

Mrs. Pelosi trumpeted the move online for reports that for decades had been released only on paper as providing “a full accounting of Members’ and officers’ spending for official congressional business” that “will expand accountability to taxpayers and the press.” However, instead of including specific details – such as which staffers were taking what trips or what electronics they bought – the speaker has allowed these types of personal expenses to be hidden in broad categories such as “equipment” or “comp. Hardware.” Travel expenses are bundled together with no details about who went where.

Read the Full Article at Washington Times

Did Sugarland Learn Nothing from the Dixie Chicks?

TNT will be ushering in the holidays this year with “Christmas in Washington,” their annual presentation that will air on Sunday December 20 at 8 pm. Sugarland, Usher, Rob Thomas, Neil Diamond and Mary J. Blige are among the musicians that are scheduled to perform. Hosting the show will be George Lopez.

Michael Wright, the executive vice president of TNT, TCM and TBS said, we take a lot of pride in being able to present “Christmas in Washington” every year. We love bringing musical artists together from different genres to put on fantastic holiday concerts. We are especially thrilled this year to welcome so many top name performers to the lineup as well as George Lopez as our amazing host. They will together make this holiday celebration one to remember.

Read the full article at Sugarland Tour

GOP Faces Big Expense Upgrading to Digital Age

The Republican National Committee shelled out $1.4 million dollars over the last six months for Web sites and services, much of which was spent on GOP.com, the party’s major Web presence that was unveiled this month, new Federal Election Commission expense reports show.

The figure is far higher than what experts estimate it should have cost, and five times the amount its Democratic counterpart spent to host and maintain Democrats.org.

The biggest disparity seems to be bandwidth costs–the RNC paid Smartech Corp., a Republican-focused hosting firm, more than a million dollars, plus $22,000 to Eloqua, compared to the DNC’s $203,000 to Sprint, Switch and Data and Servint Corp.–despite the fact that the two sites’ traffic, which determines bandwidth usage and, largely, web hosting costs, was the same.

Read the full article at the Sunlight Foundation

NFL Piles Mountains of Greenbacks Behind GOP

NFL owners, team officials, players and coaches have overwhelmingly favored Republicans with their political contributions, according to a study released Thursday by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The report, which reviewed contributions dating back to 1989, found that combined contributions from players, owners and officials on 22 of the 32 National Football League teams have given more cash to Republicans than Democrats, and that several teams have given more than 90 percent of their contributions to the GOP.

The San Diego Chargers blew away the rest of the field with $2,455,200 in total money contributed, with most of that coming from team owner Alex Spanos, who has given more than $2 million, almost all of it to Republicans.

Read the full article at POLITICO

Democrat’s Senate Supermajority Not as Strong as Advertised

Former comedian Al Franken is now Minnesota’s senator-elect, giving Democrats enough members in the Senate to hit a filibuster-proof majority. But for all intents and purposes, Democrats don’t truly have 60 votes in the Senate.

Like an oasis in the desert, the 60-vote Democratic supermajority is a mirage.

Yes, former comedian Al Franken is now Minnesota’s senator-elect — thanks to the state Supreme Court’s ruling Tuesday — giving Democrats enough members in the Senate to hit a filibuster-proof majority. This is no laughing matter.

But that’s on a really, really good day. For all intents and purposes, Democrats don’t truly have 60 votes in the Senate.

Read the Full Article at Fox News

What Happened to the Patriotism of the GOP?

In 2002, as I put in my time at the Democratic Party tent for Alex Sanders and Jim Hodges at a local festival in Winnsboro, an elderly man walked up to me and told me that the flag that was hanging from the tent was the “Republican flag” and he was shocked that it was hanging from our Democratic tent. That flag was the American flag. Needless to say, I was ticked off, and had that man been forty years younger, I would have told him what I thought of the comment he had made. Instead, I followed the rule I was taught by my parents, and I respected my elder in that situation.

Do you remember those times? The Republicans were running around buying up everything red, white and blue, and rocking out to the Toby Keith lyrics of “we’ll put a boot in your ass, that’s the American way…”? They had the momentum, and I never thought we would see the end of the Republican domination we witnessed in 2002. However, you can only put your boot in so many people’s ass before they get tired of you, and after four years, the Democrats were regaining power, finally winning the White House in 2008.

Read the Full Article at Indigo Journal

A Political Pattern to Stimulus Tour

Since Congress passed President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February, administration officials have traveled to at least 66 events across the country to tout the massive spending program or hand out stimulus cash to grateful local officials.

But a POLITICO examination of the travel reveals a distinctly political trend line: Top officials have hosted events predominantly in states that Obama won in 2008.

What’s more, the examination revealed that Obama officials all but avoided Southern states that Obama lost.

Read Full Article at POLITICO

Judge Sotomayor Meant What She Said

Judge Sotomayor said the following:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Critics have seized on this as evidence that Sotomayor believes in identity politics, or what political scientists call “sociological representation,” the idea that only people of a certain race, ethnicity, or gender, can be competent to speak on certain issues or have certain opinions or represent certain constituencies.

Read the Full Article at South Dakota Politics

Canadian Socialist Leader Stumps for Obamacare

The leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party Jack Layton linked the future of his country’s universal health care system to President Obama’s public health care program in a Washington speech Wednesday.

Many conservative groups have pointed to Canada’s universal health care system as a reason to keep the American health care system in the private sector. Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s campaign, for example, launched an ad campaign last week featuring a Canadian woman named Shona Holmes who was diagnosed with brain tumor and says in the ad the only way she survived was by seeking treatment in America.

Mr. Layton accused groups like this of “sowing the seeds of fear with myths and lies about Canadian health care” and said the futures of the two health care programs are dependent on each other in an address delivered at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Read Full Article at Washington Times