May 2010

There has been non-stop talk this week about Joe Sestak's job offer by the Obama administration if he wouldn't run against Arlen Specter. Now we have some answers:

Senior White House advisers asked former President Bill Clinton to talk to Joe Sestak about whether he was serious about running for Senate, and to feel out whether he'd be open to other alternatives, according to sources familiar with the situation.

But the White House maintains that the Clinton-Sestak discussions were informal, according to the sources. The White House, under pressure to divulge the specifics of its interactions with Sestak, will release a formal statement later today outlining their version of events, including Clinton's involvement.

As Gregg points out, the fact that Clinton was actually involved in this shows how much the White House didn't want Specter to have to face Sestak in the primary. Regardless, I still don't see anything illegal, or even unethical in this. These are the type of games that happen in Washington all the time. Sure the people are tired of it, but Democratic and Republican administrations have both engaged in the same practices for decades. The Republicans calling for a special prosecutor is nothing more than a grand stand, but given that Clinton is involved now, I'm sure they will push it even more.

UPDATE:

Per a breaking news alert from AP, Clinton suggested an "unpaid, advisory role" to Sestak. So it wasn't even an actual "job", but rather letting Sestak stay in the House and also act as an advisor. Nothing wrong with that.

Tomorrow marks the 5th anniversary of IntoxiNation. I still have my very first post, Here We Go, saved in the system, despite all the changes over the years.

Speaking of changes, you probably noticed I have another new site template. I've been working on this one for awhile and really like it. I'm kind of taking IntoxiNation back to her roots.

Another new thing I've done is using an automatted tagging system. Some of the tags might seem kind of odd, but it all works towards the semantic web, making content easier to search and index.  The older posts don't have tags right now, but the system is churning away trying to get it caught up. It should be there in a couple of hours, then I'll do the clean up.

So here's looking forward to another 5 years and a big thanks to all my readers, some of which have been around since the old Blogger days. You guys are great and make blogging fun.

I’ve blogged about our local GOP in the past and some of the problems he has faced. Well last night the Butler County GOP got together and voted him out of power:

The Butler County Republican party ousted its incumbent chairman Wednesday, May 26, voting instead for a Liberty Twp. trustee backed by some of the party’s biggest names as its new leader.

David Kern, a Tea Party activist, defeated incumbent chairman Tom Ellis in a 108-98 vote of the GOP’s central committee at Tori’s Station.

Kern had strong support from Congressman John Boehner and state Sen. Gary Cates, both West Chester Twp. Republicans who campaigned on Kern’s behalf earlier this week; Boehner in the form of a “robo-call” Tuesday evening and Cates in the form of a letter to the 298 central committee members.

So we have another example of the GOP being taken over by the Tea Party. Of course the new leader is just as out of touch as the outgoing one:

“The anger is not against us. The anger is at President (Barack) Obama’s socialist agenda,” Kern said. “Our goal is to do all we can ... to save our beloved republic.”

And yet people still rate the Democrats higher than Republicans in every public poll. Even Kern’s biggest supporter, John Boehner, helped President Bush turn a surplus into a deficit and grow the federal government. As matter of fact, want to know which party historically raises federal spending when in control of the White House?

BP has begun the “top kill” process of pumping drilling mud into the blow out preventer 5,000 feet below the sea. BP is saying this has a 60-70% chance of working, while President Obama is cautioning that there are no guarantees. At this stage of the game, I am not optimistic at all. So much of this depends on the condition of the blow out preventer, which is already faulty. If it wasn’t then we wouldn’t be in his mess.

Here’s a live feed from PBS you can check it out on.