Wacky Town

Sarah Palin has opted out of the Southern Republican fund-raiser because of the bondage club flap. But Michael Steele continues to amaze--his latest fund-raiser has a phone number that provides the donor with phone sex. I'm beginning to like this guy--no more button-down Republican propriety. Go for the gusto, Mike!

Sarah Palin will be appearing at a rally with Michelle Bachman in Minnesota. I can't wait.

The First American Grifter family, the Palins, apparently have another juvenile deliquent in the family. First the unwed mother, then the school bus trasher forced to enlist in the army, and now little Willow, who is wanted for trashing an empty home in Wasilla with her teenage friends. This followed the family's trashing their Hollywood hotel room and stealing all the Academy award gift bags during their stay. Tonight,Sarah's new television program airs complete with interviews not done by her about people who never knew they were going to be on the show--Toby Keith, JJ. Cool and GE's Jack Welch. All three have protested when they found out because not even their agents knew. Fox News just conducted the interviews about 18 months ago--prior to the last election--and wanted a talking head to introduce them.

Rev. Jim Wallis got his revenge. After being attacked by Glenn Beck on the subject of social justice, he offered to have a dialogue about it with Mr. Beck. Instead, Beck took an hour of airtime to personally attack Rev. Wallis for his entire life's work. Friends of the minister wrote op-eds outraged by this. But today on Huffington Post, Wallis gets his revenge by posting a video with an imitation Stars Wars credit and dubbed a scene from Star Wars where he as Alec Guiness tutors Hans Solo--Glenn Beck. A nice touch. What I didn't realize through this whole controversy was that the only reason Beck was going after Rev. Wallis because he sits as an advisor on President Obama's faith-based initiatives.

Progressives are disappointed by President Obama with his plans to open coastal waters for drilling and his embrace of nuclear energy. Is he alienating his base? All I know is that he appears to be trying to win independents and moderate Republicans. As T. Boone Pickens said today, it's unclear whether much oil will be found and that the oil industry has to make new seismic studies because the last of these areas was done 30 years ago. Even though Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Jim Inhofe and Lindsey Graham voiced support for the President's plan, don't expect them to vote on the broader energy bill.

Barney Frank was quite clear about the fate of the banking reform bill in the Senate. Frank said his House bill was unanimously rejected by the Republicans. He supported Senator Dodd's efforts in the Senate but said that Mitch McConnell and the Republican leadership muscled Senator Corker not to support the bill, which he announced yesterday. Frank urges that the Senate Democrats force the Republicans to filibuster the bill openly so that the public gets the hint of who wants to protect the banks.

Frank did admit that he was unsatisfied with his bill's treatment of derivatives. This remains a large black hole in the financial system. Some people estimated there are $75 trillion in derivatives around the world--enough to devour the entire economy of the globe many times over. This was all created by the repeal during the Clinton Administration of the Steagall-Glass Law, which highly regulated these speculative ventures. The primary advocate of de-regulating derivatives was former Texas Senator and McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm. Virtually no one can say what damage can be done by these toxic assets in the future.

We had a march in Washington last week of over 300,000 people demanding immigration reform. Nancy Pelosi has told the Senate that it's in their court since they are holding up some 200 plus bills already passed by the House. Lindsey Graham is holding out his support until President Obama outlines what he wants in the bill. However, don't expect any Republicans to back it even though in years past the conservative think-tanks actually did the background work to support the bill proposed by George W. Bush.

People are wondering what is the Republican gameplan now that they lost healthcare reform. One school of thought is that they can not act because of the nuttiness of their base. Others believe there are serious disagreements on the role of government, now that they have been deposed. Another school of thought believes they are as committed to destroying a Democratic President as they were against Clinton and as Reagan did to Carter with the October Surprise. This school believes that the mantra "We want Obama to fail." takes priority despite the serious condition of the country and the national security threats posed from abroad. I opt for all three.

If you hear Republican talk about the vast expansion of government powers, check to find out what business is having their government welfare check cut. There is a plan to beef up the IRS to prosecute financial crimes and also to collect taxes. On the first subject, Republicans want impunity of the culprits and on the second they want to maintain the IRS contractors who get paid to collect taxes and to conduct audits. The same applied on the student loan reform the Republicans wanted to keep the billions upon billions of subsidies for the banks.

President Obama has committed some errors. Besides closing Burger King in Afghanistan, he is allowing foreign guests to visit his and my favorite eating establishments. The Sarkozys visited Ben's Chili Bowl yesterday, making the place too crowded for the next month. Next in is the Chinese premier. I hope he doesn't go to Five Guys for burgers because when Obama does it that becomes out of bounds for another month. As Yogi Berra used to say," No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Pitching great Roger Clemens was investigated for erectile dysfunction. Apparently, the Feds thought this was a way to prove he used steroids so they persuaded his mistress to testify on the ED issue. Since you want to know, he experienced it six times with her but she said he was a good lover.

I liked Judge Vaughn Walker since the first days of the Prop 8 trial. He ruled yesterday against the National Security Agency that their entire wiretapping program was criminal. The full implications of this are enormous for all the Bush counter-terrorism programs. The Administration argued the case on the basis of State Secrets but lost and some think deliberately. Judge Walker voiced his support for the FISA court system that had existed before the Bush Administration by-passed it. You might recall progressive criticizing then-candidate Obama for voting to grant immunity to the telecommunications companies who participated in the program. But he explained that he wanted to pave the way back to the FISA Court system that had been suspended. Now he has it.

Marc Thiessen suffered a setback this week when classified documents produced in a trial of a Gitmo detainee showed that Abu Zubaydah, who had been tortured, was never a member of Al Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11. Thiessen wrote in his book how invaluable torturing Abu Zubaydah had been in producing actionable intelligence. The current case centers around a detainee accused of being an associate of Zubaydah and therefore an Al Qaeda member. With the release of the documents, the government's case against the detainee has fallen apart. In a similar development, the Administration repatriated four detainees to other countries after concluding they were totally innocent of anything.

While President Obama appears to be closing in on the nuclear reduction treaty, I do not expect it to be ratified by the Senate. I think all this Democratic talk about finding bipartisan cooperation is a smokescreen to keep portraying the Republicans as obstructionists. John Bolton wrote that the treaty violates our sovereignty. It seems to me most international treaties do to some extent.

Also don't expect any applause for the Administration's possible success in getting new sanctions against Iran. The line is that they will not be effective and therefore should not be pursued.

Sarkozy adlibbed at his White House press conference because he wanted people to know how much the leaders of Europe thought of President Obama. "He keeps his word. That is so refreshing to us. We have to trust an American President." Read into that what you will. He named the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister as two leaders who agree with him. I guess we can call Freedom Fries, French Fries now.

Obama is off to Maine, my favorite state, today to push his healthcare bill. Organizing for America printed t-shirts with BFD to commemorate Joe Biden's comments on the signing of the bill. I ordered mine immediately.

Hillary Clinton was cheesed off at Prime Minister Harper of Canada for his Artic Conference. The Nordic states were omitted and it was felt that Canada wrote the agenda without consultation. The Artic Conference relates to energy development in the region and how it is to be coordinated with environmental converns. Harper likes to pretend his George W, but with a sound economy.

The Pope has had a few rough weeks as child abuse stories continue to pour out all over Europe. The Vatican attacked the New York Times for deliberately printing these stories during Holy Week. It's hard to avoid them. The most recent concern the sexual abuse of deaf orphans by priests and a Bishop. Previously, we read stories of the Vienna Child's Choir being molested. Then stories broke about young boys being made sex slaves and being roughly disciplined. Today, the Vatican announced that the Pope had legal immunity. Thomas Donoghue of the Catholic league here in the States blamed the whole thing on gays.