Just when the GOP couldn’t look any worse, Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator is, well, no longer a Republican. Now, whenever Al Franken is affirmed for the Senate (God knows when that’ll happen), the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority, thus, possibly an even more rigorously progressive agenda in Congress.
Specter’s statement this morning:
“I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation. Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”
Wowza! This will be interesting, since Obama likes to tout Specter’s moderate bipartisanship on pivotal issues.
Ugh. I used to like Mike Huckabee as a person (didn’t agree much with his politics), but the more I see him punditizing on television and trying to rationalize his intolerance for others, the less I respect him. And Ann Coulter is just a horrific human being, who instills a worry in me that people, deep down, are simply vitriolic and hateful.
Even if Huckabee said, “well, OK, maybe LGBT folk shouldn’t get fired for their sexual orientation,” it shouldn’t be a big effing deal.
I always wondered how voters interpret the way that Barack Obama properly pronounces certain words (and I’m not only talking about nuclear). One of my personal pet peeves is that we don’t pronounce the names of countries properly, and we’ve had a president who really doesn’t care too much to figure it out. We “Americanize” (also known as “orally mutilate”) the way we say the names of countries like Puerto Rico, or names of public figures like Dmitry Medvedev or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which, if you think about it, aren’t really that hard to say.
But then again, I grew up in New York City, and half of my friends had foreign names because many of them were first and second generation immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Turkey, and so on. We (meaning square American kids with boring names like Michelle) had to pronounce our friends’ names (cool names with Z’s like Rezzan and Zuhair) properly because we respect them, and who they are. We didn’t make up dumb/obvious nicknames because we didn’t care to learn how to correctly pronounce their names.
So why is it so ostentatious that Obama pronounces things properly? He says “Pakistan” with the soft “a,” like “Pohk-eh-stahn.” The National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez writes, “[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It’s annoying.” Well just because a massive block of people do something, doesn’t mean it’s right. A lot of people confuse the words “their,” “there” and “they’re.” Just because so many people do it, doesn’t mean it’s right.
Have they really run out of ways to attack Obama, other than screaming “kill him” and calling him “that one“? Is the right really discouraged that we’ll likely elect a man who values intellectualism? I’ll tell you, if we do end up electing Obama, it will mean to our allies and “those liberal elites” that this country doesn’t mind the nerd over the quarterback… because nerds are hot, and QBs just end up with brain damage by the time they’re 30.
Monica Goodling is probably an excellent example of why nepotism, and discriminatory hiring practices really end up screwing you over in the long run. Not only is she out of a job, but she’s also the face of the Department of Justice’s criminal offense by hiring people who don’t exactly mesh with the Bush Administration’s agenda. According to the report that the DOJ released yesterday (PDF), Goodling had quite a tactic for researching job candidates via Lexis (a legal search engine).
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
Then of course there were the asinine questions that were actually asked in job interviews (!!)
Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.
[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?
Aside from the President, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.
Why are you a Republican?
I’m sure she flagged others who went to such high-profile conservative/Christian schools such as Regent University, or Messiah College, both of which she is a graduate.
Love it for its cheeky, interesting apparel or hate it for its overly hipster gear, we all know about Urban Outfitters. You can walk out of there with a sweet peasant top, skin-tight magenta jeans, the freshest kicks, a few counter-culture books, and an overpriced couch… as long as mummy and daddy are regularly pumping into your trust fund…
But what we didn’t know is that UO’s CEO, Richard Hayne basically has been compared to the conservativeness of Dick Cheney. According to This Is Money, Hayne started the UO in the 1970s, taking it public in 1993, but he still has a controlling share in the company. He doesn’t give interviews because he know he can’t be the perceived face of the company — once people learn that he’s bff with George Bush (meaning he funnels cash to the GOP like it’s no body’s business), they’ll basically abandon the stock and the store.
Shopping in Urban makes you feel like you are somewhere radically Left-wing, an antidote to the corporate blandness of The Gap. But Hayne is a stanch conservative who donates money to Republican politicians, not least Rick Santorum, a now failed Senator whose views on homosexuality are both bizarre and old-fashioned.
