On April 20, 2010 the Worst Man-Made Ecological Disaster in the History of Mankind occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. Today some 3 1/2 weeks later, President Obama has finally addressed the issue head on and expressed Outrage and Disgust...
While I welcome the President's Moratorium on All New Offshore Drilling. I Think It Should Be a Permanent Ban and not just a temporary one. Taking 30 days to further study the issue doesn't sound like genuine outrage and disgust to me. Nor does it sound like a serious solution. It sounds more like polite lip service to a politically volatile topic that's too hot to handle right now.
I Would Personally Prefer and Immediate Halt to All Deep Water Drilling (i.e. drilling at depths of more than 1000 feet). According to the Associated Press, there are at least 30 other drilling platforms currently operating in the Gulf of Mexico alone. They are all using the same kind of reckless technology that made this environmental catastrophe possible.
Technology that the "Tea Party Crowd" has routinely endorsed by chanting "Drill Baby Drill".
Technology that the industry has always called "Fail-Safe".
Technology that John McCain and Sarah Palin called "Proven and Foolproof ".
Technology that on March 31, 2010 - The President himself called, "Completely Safe and Reliable".
Then on April 20, 2010 just three short weeks later, this disaster happened. Now I don't know for sure, if the President is really outraged and disgusted or not. But I do know this much, I Sure Am!
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word "Comments" if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted. And don't forget to check out my new blog Agnostic Thinking found at the following address... http://www.AgnosticThinking.BlogSpot.Com/ Dedicated just to Agnostic/Atheism, Rational Thinking, Gay Subculture And Related Topics.
Showing posts with label The Tea Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Tea Party. Show all posts
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Rush Limbaugh Promised to Leave the Country, And Move to Costa Rica If Health Care Reform Passed - But Apparently He's Not a Man of His Word!
.
No he's is not, since unfortunately he still resides right here in South Florida. Broadcasting His Deceitful Misleading Diatribes from His Home in Boca Raton on a Daily Basis. Which for Me, Is Much Too Close for Comfort!
But Perhaps There Is Hope! Now comes word that the DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) Wants to provide him with a an airplane ticket and a boarding pass
to his stated destination of choice, Costa Rica If you take a moment to read the Boarding Pass, you'll notice that Rush is booked on the very full of hot air and well known airline TEA BAG AIR the ticket is of course class appropriate (none) and will include his Frequent Liar Miles as well as a full three course meal (so there'll be no chance of the big fat buffoon wasting away during the flight). It seems they thought of everything, they even remembered to make it a One Way Ticket.
So if you'd like to encourage The Great Rushbo to accept the ticket and get the F*ck Out of the Country Now, than please join me and others by signing this DSCC petition. Click Here To Sign
Wouldn't it be great if he really left? Yes, I realize he could still broadcast from down there, but at least he wouldn't be living so uncomfortably close.
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word "Comments" if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.
And don't forget to check out my new blog Agnostic Thinking found at the following address...
http://www.AgnosticThinking.BlogSpot.Com/ Dedicated just to Agnostic/Atheism, Rational Thinking, Gay Subculture And Related Topics.
Rush limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar
No he's is not, since unfortunately he still resides right here in South Florida. Broadcasting His Deceitful Misleading Diatribes from His Home in Boca Raton on a Daily Basis. Which for Me, Is Much Too Close for Comfort!
But Perhaps There Is Hope! Now comes word that the DSCC (Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) Wants to provide him with a an airplane ticket and a boarding pass
So if you'd like to encourage The Great Rushbo to accept the ticket and get the F*ck Out of the Country Now, than please join me and others by signing this DSCC petition. Click Here To Sign
Wouldn't it be great if he really left? Yes, I realize he could still broadcast from down there, but at least he wouldn't be living so uncomfortably close.
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word "Comments" if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.
And don't forget to check out my new blog Agnostic Thinking found at the following address...
http://www.AgnosticThinking.BlogSpot.Com/ Dedicated just to Agnostic/Atheism, Rational Thinking, Gay Subculture And Related Topics.
Rush limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Has the Tea Party Movement Infiltrated the US Supreme Court?
As Nina Totenberg reported on NPR's morning edition yesterday, Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, (much like Sarah Palin) is aligning herself with the Tea Party movement and has formed a new organization Liberty Central to promote its ideals. Although she has often worked for conservative politicians and organizations, Thomas' new role is raising questions about potential conflicts of interest for her husband.
(Charles Dharapak/AP photo shows Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, in 2007. Under Supreme Court rules, Thomas would decide for himself when a conflict of interest arose in regard to his wife's political group.)
Virgina Thomas, known as Ginni, has long worked on behalf of political conservatives. She was a top aide to Republican House Leader Dick Armey, and in 2000, while Bush v. Gore was before the U.S. Supreme Court, she was working at the conservative Heritage Foundation, helping to recruit staff for a possible Bush administration. Now she is president and CEO of a political startup called Liberty Central , which advertises itself as linked to the Tea Party movement and its values. As Thomas put it at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, "I have come to know and love the Tea Party Patriots. It has been a privilege to become a bit of an ambassador of sorts for the National Board.
"Her organization, she said, will correct the record and tell the truth that the mainstream media does not. "The hard-left agenda just isn't going down well," she said. Thomas added that "hope and change" — a catchphrase of President Obama's campaign — has now been seen as "a big, old power grab."
Legal ethics experts agree that there is nothing in the Code of Judicial Conduct that prevents the spouse of a judge or justice from taking public political positions.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, author of a leading text on legal ethics, says judges are supposed to ensure that they do not sit on cases in which their spouses have a financial interest.
But, he said, "Ideological issues, as opposed to monetary ones, are not a subject of concern." A judge's spouse, he said, "can have a full political life, and take positions on political issues and legal issues, even ones that come before his or her spouse."
That does not mean that Thomas' role in her new organization is problem-free. She has said she will accept contributions from a variety of sources, including corporations, under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.
Gillers says "the crunch point" will come if Thomas' organization "gets substantial contributions from companies or trade associations that have interests in matters that are pending at the Supreme Court, or headed for the Supreme Court."
Speaking hypothetically, he said that if "it turned out that a justice voted for a particular company, and a week later it's discovered that that company — or the trade association of which it was a member — made a substantial contribution to the justice's spouse's charity or political organization, the public is going to be rightfully suspicious."
Liberty Central lists itself as nonpartisan, but its Web page has a distinctly conservative cast. On the site, Thomas lists herself as a "fan" of Rush Limbaugh and says she is "intrigued" by Glenn Beck. She said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that her group would be active in the November elections, but she did not specify how.
Should her activities raise any questions about a conflict of interest for her husband, he is the person who would decide whether to recuse himself from a case.
Federal judges in the lower courts can be removed from a case over a conflict — but in the Supreme Court, the individual justices make the decision for themselves, and it is not subject to review by anyone else.
"I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court," Thomas says. "My involvement with LibertyCentral.org has been vetted by the Supreme Court ethics office and Liberty Central's own board of directors. There have been many other judges who have spouses that are politically active."
Justice Thomas has declined to comment about his wife's new role, or when and if he might ever recuse himself because of it.
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word comment if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.
(Charles Dharapak/AP photo shows Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas, in 2007. Under Supreme Court rules, Thomas would decide for himself when a conflict of interest arose in regard to his wife's political group.)
Virgina Thomas, known as Ginni, has long worked on behalf of political conservatives. She was a top aide to Republican House Leader Dick Armey, and in 2000, while Bush v. Gore was before the U.S. Supreme Court, she was working at the conservative Heritage Foundation, helping to recruit staff for a possible Bush administration. Now she is president and CEO of a political startup called Liberty Central , which advertises itself as linked to the Tea Party movement and its values. As Thomas put it at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, "I have come to know and love the Tea Party Patriots. It has been a privilege to become a bit of an ambassador of sorts for the National Board.
"Her organization, she said, will correct the record and tell the truth that the mainstream media does not. "The hard-left agenda just isn't going down well," she said. Thomas added that "hope and change" — a catchphrase of President Obama's campaign — has now been seen as "a big, old power grab."
Legal ethics experts agree that there is nothing in the Code of Judicial Conduct that prevents the spouse of a judge or justice from taking public political positions.
New York University law professor Stephen Gillers, author of a leading text on legal ethics, says judges are supposed to ensure that they do not sit on cases in which their spouses have a financial interest.
But, he said, "Ideological issues, as opposed to monetary ones, are not a subject of concern." A judge's spouse, he said, "can have a full political life, and take positions on political issues and legal issues, even ones that come before his or her spouse."
That does not mean that Thomas' role in her new organization is problem-free. She has said she will accept contributions from a variety of sources, including corporations, under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.
Gillers says "the crunch point" will come if Thomas' organization "gets substantial contributions from companies or trade associations that have interests in matters that are pending at the Supreme Court, or headed for the Supreme Court."
Speaking hypothetically, he said that if "it turned out that a justice voted for a particular company, and a week later it's discovered that that company — or the trade association of which it was a member — made a substantial contribution to the justice's spouse's charity or political organization, the public is going to be rightfully suspicious."
Liberty Central lists itself as nonpartisan, but its Web page has a distinctly conservative cast. On the site, Thomas lists herself as a "fan" of Rush Limbaugh and says she is "intrigued" by Glenn Beck. She said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that her group would be active in the November elections, but she did not specify how.
Should her activities raise any questions about a conflict of interest for her husband, he is the person who would decide whether to recuse himself from a case.
Federal judges in the lower courts can be removed from a case over a conflict — but in the Supreme Court, the individual justices make the decision for themselves, and it is not subject to review by anyone else.
"I did not give up my First Amendment rights when my husband became a justice of the Supreme Court," Thomas says. "My involvement with LibertyCentral.org has been vetted by the Supreme Court ethics office and Liberty Central's own board of directors. There have been many other judges who have spouses that are politically active."
Justice Thomas has declined to comment about his wife's new role, or when and if he might ever recuse himself because of it.
Just Thinking
Please feel free to comment below, ( just click on the word comment if the panel is not open). Or you can e-mail me direct at eddieoreilly@hotmail.com and your comment will be posted.
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