Dark Days

No Country For Traitors
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela said Friday that he would offer asylum to the fugitive intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, who has been stranded in a Moscow airport searching for a safe haven. (NYT, 7/5/2013)

Excellent choice for Snowden! What with all the transparency in government that he favors......


The Wages of Sin
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a wager that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct. (NYT, 7/7/2013)

If you see us about town walking with a spring in our step, now you know why. Client #9 is back!

We'll reiterate that Republicans are mortified about Mark Sanford. Democrats welcome the return of Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer and lionize Bill Clinton. 


No Worries
In an effort to put President Obama’s health care program back on track, the White House has recruited Chris Jennings, a respected veteran of the Clinton administration, to join the Obama team as a health policy coordinator and strategist, the White House said on Sunday night.
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Mr. Jennings was a registered lobbyist, but has not been one for a couple of years, so he would not have to worry about Obama administration restrictions on lobbyists joining the government. (NYT, 7/7/2013)

We got a laugh out of the hypocrisy here. Obama has spent half of his (admittedly short) political life railing against lobbyists.

We never quite understood the problem with lobbyists. In a representative democracy, groups hire individuals to promote their interests.


Less is Less
The controversy that erupted in May has focused on an ideological question: Were conservative groups singled out for special treatment based on their politics, or did the I.R.S. equally target liberal groups? But a closer look at the I.R.S. operation suggests that the problem was less about ideology and more about how a process instructing reviewers to "be on the lookout" for selected terms was applied to any group that mentioned certain words in its application (NYT, 7/4/2013)

The New York Times breaks its silence on the IRS scandal to conclude, well, it's not really a scandal after all.

This despite IRS officials invoking the Fifth Amendment and overwhelming evidence that conservative groups were targeted. Nothing to see here folks......


Ballot Box
But ballot initiatives on gay rights have overwhelmingly failed, aided by national groups that have run campaigns against them. And Democrats here have said that they do not want to put a civil rights matter on the ballot. (NYT, 7/2/2013)

A stunning - if unwitting - revelation by the Times. Democrats do not want to put gay marriage on the ballot....why? Well the obvious answer is that in many states where it has been voted on, it has been defeated. If the country was united across the board in favor, you could bet your last nickel that Democrats would push for the the issue to be on the ballot. We also loved the comment: "... aided by national groups that have run campaigns against." It makes us wonder why those in favor of gay marriage have not collected money, endorsed candidates who support their cause and run similar campaigns. 

What? They have?


Restricted
The North Carolina Senate gave its final approval Wednesday to legislation adding new restrictions for abortions in North Carolina, even as hundreds of angry protesters descended on the legislature to express their displeasure.
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The updated bill also would prohibit gender-selective abortions, restrict abortion insurance coverage and require a physician to be physically present during an entire surgical abortion and when a woman takes an abortion-inducing drug such as RU-486. (Foxnews.com, 7/3/2013)

The pro-abortion crowd always says that they want abortion to be safe and legal. Sometimes they say they want it to be rare. But in reality, they only care that it is legal. Try to make it safer and rarer and they start screaming about the war on women......