The Friday ‘BushWhack’ing

TGIFF…

• The US economy has lost 533,000 jobs in November, the most since December 1974…
  A majority of Americans, 55%, favor President-elect Obama’s troop plan for Iraq that would see a movement of US troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. (This is one area that if PE Obama falters, people will remember for a LONG time. I’ve said in the past that I agree that we can not withdraw our forces all at once and plunge the region into more chaos, but a 16-month plan like Obama favors, and moving some to Afghanistan is a big step in the right direction, and a majority of people agree with me. Stay tuned.)
• The incoming Obama Administration is considering a change in our current interrogation and detention policies.
• PE Obama’s presidential campaign raised a staggering, and historic, amount of cash in the LONG presidential campaign, closing in on $750 million, more than Bush and Kerry raised combined in 2004 and more than double what Sen. McCain raised in his presidential campaign.
• As more and more information comes out about Rep. Charlie Rangel’s questionable practices, the latest being that between 2004 and 2007 he steered $79,560 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by his son, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he needs to, at the least, step down from his chairmanship. Ms. Pelosi, we’re waiting for you to lead on this, don’t let me us down… again.
• Former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer is an online columnist now… and no, it’s not about romance or sex. Ewwwwww…
• The Minnesota Senate race continues…
• A conservative advocacy group, Judicial Watch, says Sen. Hillary Clinton can’t be nominated for Secretary of State because Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution reads; “No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time.” Translated that means a lawmaker cannot fill a position if the salary for that position has been raised during that lawmaker's term in office. The group therefore says she can’t be nominated, despite the fact that legal scholars say otherwise. (J*d*c*a* W*t*h is obviously trying to do in a courtroom what it couldn’t do at the ballot box – thank you Mr. Sorkin – and beat PE Obama. Constitutional Law Scholars call bullshit, and since I’m much more likely to listen to the experts rather than sore-losing conservatives, I can sum this action up in one word; Fail.)
• And have we mentioned? That the RNC apparently spent more than $150K on new clothes for she-who-must-not-be-named? The RNC released a report – yes, the RNC released the report – that shows they spent a total of about $180,000 for clothes and various accessories for the former Veep candidate and her family, including expenses at outlets like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Toys R Us and Victoria’s Secret (Bill Kristol and Bill O’Reilly just passed out after that image). While I don’t care that it was more than 150K, I do find it interesting that the RNC released the report throwing her under the bus again. The republican party will not regain prominence if the in-fighting doesn’t stop… though it does make for some fascinating theater, doesn’t it?