The Iranians have said that they will free the 15 sailors as a "gift" to the UK. So, stand down with the nukes, George.
The AP is reporting that Obama raised $25 million in Q1.
Just to review:(in millions)
Clinton - $26 (50k donors)
Obama - $25 (100k donors- 50% were online donors)
Edwards - $14 (40k donors)
Richardson - $6
Giuliani - $15
McCain - $12.5 (45k donors)
Romney - $23 (32k donors)
The previous record for fundraising was $8.7 for the GOP and $8.9 for the Dems. Indiviudal donors are allowed to give $2300 each to their candidate's primary and general election fund. ie, if the candidate does not win the nomination, they do not get to use the money for the general election, and they cannot touch that money for the primary. Big thing to note is how many of the candidates donors "maxed out" their donation in this quarter. Those individuals will not be able to donate again in Q2. What will be important for the duration of fundraising are those small donors who can give and give again, because there total donations don't go over $2300. We'll have more info when it is all released on April 15. I've set up a (two)calendar(s) showing political events here (one for GOP events, and one for Dem events). I'll accept events to go on the calendar.
Newsweeks's Jonathon Alterman predicts that Rove will be out of the White House by the end of the year. He might finally have caught himself up in too many scandals. I look forward to hearings...and his testimony.
Score 1+ for the gays! New Hampshire House passes civil unions.Monica Goodling - the DoJs liason to the White House has said she is invoking the 5th Amendment before being called to testify in front of the Judiciary committee. Yesterday Democrats shapapped her, right in the face. They sent her a letter stating, quite accurately, that you cannot invoke the 5th before being questioned - and you cannot wholesale take the 5th and not testify at all. She has to appear, and invoke the 5th on each question. HAHAHA. I can't wait for that hearing. The one about how two staffers with barely any lawyering experience fired a bunch of US attorney - arguably lawyers at the top of their game. HAHAHA. I can't wait.
Just a reminder - tax day is in a little less than 2 weeks. I strongly recommend, if you have simple taxes to do them online with Turbo Tax - it's free and will let you do federal and state returns. Jen and I got our refunds in about a week. And make sure to claim the federal excise tax credit - if you've every paid for long distance, even on you cellie, you can claim this. hey! free money. so do those taxes and feel free to bitch about how much the feds owe you, how much they've stolen from you, etc.
Here's a game. You are an office worker. You have five minutes to use objects found in an office to kill yourself. It took my almost all of my time, but I was finally able to escape cubeland.
Oh, and from our press conference yesterday, Bush kept throwing around april 15th as the day that the army would run out of funds for our troops in Iraq. Only problem? They won't actually run out of funds until July. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service analyzed funding for US military operations in Iraq, and found that lo and behold, they won't run out of money until July. So, Bush lied....again. He can bitch and moan about how soldiers are going to be without things they need etc. but in reality, they'll be fine - oh except for when he sent them off without the equipment and training they needed in the first place - they still don't have that. But point is, this supplemental bill is not needed before July. Hopefully, by the grace of God, we'll be bringing the troops home by then.
Meanwhile, more kids were caught having sex in school in front of their classmates. 5th graders. 2 pairs. what the fuck?
I heart Roxette.
Remember how we were talking about how for some reason the US gets to keep bases and troops everywhere in the world, and yet, other countries are not allowed to have troops stationed on US territory. Funny that. At any rate, the US now wants to deploy the "missile shield" (i don't know why it's called the missile shield, it has failed to provide reliable protection from long, short and medium range missiles. it should be called the missile sieve.) to Eastern Europe...to protect against, you guessed it, IRAN. Meanwhile, Russia is pissed, they don't really want to have a whole bunch of missiles deployed to their former states. Seems they don't really want missiles on their doorstep. Can't say i blame them. I seem to recall the Soviet Union doing something like this....hmm... what was that event....oh yes, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviets were going to station missiles in Cuba - we were a little pissed about it. Awesome. But now, instead of having JFK at the button, who against the advice of his generals, refused to launch, we have Bush. Fantastic. I think we should move the hands on the Doomsday clock forward another minute.
From a posting at Dkos:
"The facts are stark and the facts are real...Our men and women in uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed us, and wemust not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness"
"...these are signs of a military in decine and we must do something about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. ...[we] have a simple message today for our mend and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!"
Hmmmmm...who could have said that? It sounds remarkably like what Democrats are saying now. "Back-to-back deployments," "shortages of spare parts and equipment," "declining readiness," "undermaning of units," "overdeployment," "not enough time for family." Sounds very, very familiar. So who said this? Bush. At a VFW speech. August 21, 2000. Mother fucker.
Remember that Chiquita banana story from a couple of weeks ago? Chiquita international gave nearly $2M to terrorists groups in Columbia. Those groups were responsible 62 massacres in the area, during the time of the payments. So Chiquita International DIRECTLY financed terrorism. Columbia is now seeking the extradition for prosecution in country of senior executives that approved the payments. It remains to be seen if the US will cooperate.
I think that great innovation can be achieved by the private sector if they are motivated by lots of money, and their opportunity for corruption and cheating is limited. For example the X prize foundation sponsored the competition for the first privately built spacecraft, SpaceShipOne collected the $10M prize. They've now released guidelines for Automotive X. The winner would build a vehicle that got 100 mpg, was easy to mass produce and was appealing to consumers. The vehicles will face real-world tests in 2009. Current mpg, on average, is 20. I know. absurd. Hopefully this competition will be able to do what all the big automotive makes have failed to do - produce a vehicle with excellent gas mileage that is commercially viable.
This is a major bummer.
And here's a bummer for the GOP and Karl Rove. Rep Waxman instructed the RNC to preseve all emails on their servers last week, that had been used by White House personnel. Today he requested all emails from that server "that relate to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes." What fish are next for the frying?
Giuliani takes a another hit today. CNN is reporting that Giuliani has affirmed that he still supports public funding for abortions. The position is the same as his position when he was the mayor of New York City. The religious right may have been able to overlook his three marriages, but I doubt they will be able to ignore his stated position on one of their signature issues.
The AP is reporting that Obama raised $25 million in Q1.
Just to review:(in millions)
Clinton - $26 (50k donors)
Obama - $25 (100k donors- 50% were online donors)
Edwards - $14 (40k donors)
Richardson - $6
Giuliani - $15
McCain - $12.5 (45k donors)
Romney - $23 (32k donors)
The previous record for fundraising was $8.7 for the GOP and $8.9 for the Dems. Indiviudal donors are allowed to give $2300 each to their candidate's primary and general election fund. ie, if the candidate does not win the nomination, they do not get to use the money for the general election, and they cannot touch that money for the primary. Big thing to note is how many of the candidates donors "maxed out" their donation in this quarter. Those individuals will not be able to donate again in Q2. What will be important for the duration of fundraising are those small donors who can give and give again, because there total donations don't go over $2300. We'll have more info when it is all released on April 15. I've set up a (two)calendar(s) showing political events here (one for GOP events, and one for Dem events). I'll accept events to go on the calendar.
Newsweeks's Jonathon Alterman predicts that Rove will be out of the White House by the end of the year. He might finally have caught himself up in too many scandals. I look forward to hearings...and his testimony.
Score 1+ for the gays! New Hampshire House passes civil unions.Monica Goodling - the DoJs liason to the White House has said she is invoking the 5th Amendment before being called to testify in front of the Judiciary committee. Yesterday Democrats shapapped her, right in the face. They sent her a letter stating, quite accurately, that you cannot invoke the 5th before being questioned - and you cannot wholesale take the 5th and not testify at all. She has to appear, and invoke the 5th on each question. HAHAHA. I can't wait for that hearing. The one about how two staffers with barely any lawyering experience fired a bunch of US attorney - arguably lawyers at the top of their game. HAHAHA. I can't wait.
Just a reminder - tax day is in a little less than 2 weeks. I strongly recommend, if you have simple taxes to do them online with Turbo Tax - it's free and will let you do federal and state returns. Jen and I got our refunds in about a week. And make sure to claim the federal excise tax credit - if you've every paid for long distance, even on you cellie, you can claim this. hey! free money. so do those taxes and feel free to bitch about how much the feds owe you, how much they've stolen from you, etc.
Here's a game. You are an office worker. You have five minutes to use objects found in an office to kill yourself. It took my almost all of my time, but I was finally able to escape cubeland.
Oh, and from our press conference yesterday, Bush kept throwing around april 15th as the day that the army would run out of funds for our troops in Iraq. Only problem? They won't actually run out of funds until July. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service analyzed funding for US military operations in Iraq, and found that lo and behold, they won't run out of money until July. So, Bush lied....again. He can bitch and moan about how soldiers are going to be without things they need etc. but in reality, they'll be fine - oh except for when he sent them off without the equipment and training they needed in the first place - they still don't have that. But point is, this supplemental bill is not needed before July. Hopefully, by the grace of God, we'll be bringing the troops home by then.
Meanwhile, more kids were caught having sex in school in front of their classmates. 5th graders. 2 pairs. what the fuck?
I heart Roxette.
Remember how we were talking about how for some reason the US gets to keep bases and troops everywhere in the world, and yet, other countries are not allowed to have troops stationed on US territory. Funny that. At any rate, the US now wants to deploy the "missile shield" (i don't know why it's called the missile shield, it has failed to provide reliable protection from long, short and medium range missiles. it should be called the missile sieve.) to Eastern Europe...to protect against, you guessed it, IRAN. Meanwhile, Russia is pissed, they don't really want to have a whole bunch of missiles deployed to their former states. Seems they don't really want missiles on their doorstep. Can't say i blame them. I seem to recall the Soviet Union doing something like this....hmm... what was that event....oh yes, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviets were going to station missiles in Cuba - we were a little pissed about it. Awesome. But now, instead of having JFK at the button, who against the advice of his generals, refused to launch, we have Bush. Fantastic. I think we should move the hands on the Doomsday clock forward another minute.
From a posting at Dkos:
"The facts are stark and the facts are real...Our men and women in uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed us, and wemust not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness"
"...these are signs of a military in decine and we must do something about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. ...[we] have a simple message today for our mend and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!"
Hmmmmm...who could have said that? It sounds remarkably like what Democrats are saying now. "Back-to-back deployments," "shortages of spare parts and equipment," "declining readiness," "undermaning of units," "overdeployment," "not enough time for family." Sounds very, very familiar. So who said this? Bush. At a VFW speech. August 21, 2000. Mother fucker.
Remember that Chiquita banana story from a couple of weeks ago? Chiquita international gave nearly $2M to terrorists groups in Columbia. Those groups were responsible 62 massacres in the area, during the time of the payments. So Chiquita International DIRECTLY financed terrorism. Columbia is now seeking the extradition for prosecution in country of senior executives that approved the payments. It remains to be seen if the US will cooperate.
I think that great innovation can be achieved by the private sector if they are motivated by lots of money, and their opportunity for corruption and cheating is limited. For example the X prize foundation sponsored the competition for the first privately built spacecraft, SpaceShipOne collected the $10M prize. They've now released guidelines for Automotive X. The winner would build a vehicle that got 100 mpg, was easy to mass produce and was appealing to consumers. The vehicles will face real-world tests in 2009. Current mpg, on average, is 20. I know. absurd. Hopefully this competition will be able to do what all the big automotive makes have failed to do - produce a vehicle with excellent gas mileage that is commercially viable.
This is a major bummer.
And here's a bummer for the GOP and Karl Rove. Rep Waxman instructed the RNC to preseve all emails on their servers last week, that had been used by White House personnel. Today he requested all emails from that server "that relate to the use of federal agencies and federal resources for partisan political purposes." What fish are next for the frying?
Giuliani takes a another hit today. CNN is reporting that Giuliani has affirmed that he still supports public funding for abortions. The position is the same as his position when he was the mayor of New York City. The religious right may have been able to overlook his three marriages, but I doubt they will be able to ignore his stated position on one of their signature issues.
posted by JaLynn at 8:20 AM
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