The Dark Knight is one of my all-time favorite movies. Heath Ledger beat the crap out of every actor who has ever played the Joker (don’t get me wrong…Jack Nicholson was great, but Heath gave the character a whole new personality). There is only one part in the movie that I can’t stand. Democrat senator Patrick Leahy has a bit role in the film. During the fundraiser/party scene, Leahy tells the Joker, “we’re not afraid of you!” I love the sentiment, but I can’t stand that they gave that role to Leahy. I promise you’d never see a Republican senator in any major film–not even a RINO.
Senator Arlen Specter–labelled “Benedict Arlen” by many American conservatives–switched parties after 29 years in office as a Republican. He did so just days after swearing to remain a Republican as a matter of principal. I’m not sure he thought it through, though, because things aren’t going so well for him.
In an effort to make sure Specter is a kept man, Democrats have revoked his seniority.
Specter sits on several subcommittees, and after nearly three decades was the ranking senator on each of them. Some political pundits have called the move by Democrats unprecedented; I believe I predicted something like this when he first announced that he was switching. I said then that they’d find a way to keep him on a short leash. It took them a matter of days to revoke his seniority. Harry Reid told him that Democrat leaders would review his record in 2010, at which point he might be able to “earn” his seniority back. Today, after Dick Durbin offered Specter his chairmanship of the crime subcommittee, Patrick Leahy immediately put the kibosh on the decision, showing absolute incredulity that any Democrat would dare do such a thing.
Specter was offended and promised, “I will be with Democrats on ALL procedural votes.” Harry Reid’s spokesman had this to say to the media after all the hubbub: “Sen. Reid never takes any votes for granted.”
Translation? You’re our bitch now, Specter. Assume the position.
This is the Democrat way of forcing loyalty. They don’t want someone who really has his constituents’ best interests at heart, they want someone who will side with them on every single issue. I promise that any vote that does not coincide with what his new masters want will immediately result in Specter’s being shunned. If he does vote out of step with shrill Democrat demands, he will likely lose his seat; if, in that case, he manages to hang onto it, he certainly won’t ever be given his seniority back by any living, breathing liberal. If he so much as farts the wrong way now he’ll be tarred and feathered.
Remember the Titans is another favorite movie. This reminds me sharply of the scene where Denzel Washington, after being told by the white team captain that they didn’t need any of the new colored players, leans in and says, “Gerry, if you want to get on that bus you will tell me right now…who is yo’ daddy? Who’s yo’ daddy, Gerry? Who’s yo’ daddy?”
Who’s yo’ daddy, Specter? Thaaaaat’s right. Quit whining.
steveflesher
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Tim Tzouliadis wrote a great book that was published last year. It’s call The Forsaken. It is about Americans who went to the USSR during the Depression to work. Many of them never made it back to America. Stalin’s Gulag is where many of them ended up. Very few lived to tell the tale. It’s a great read too.
But this book is also about what happened during Stalin’s reign. Among other things, captured Soviet POW’s who escaped German prison camps during WW II were shot dead upon their return to the USSR. Stalin did not take well to being captured by the Germans.
Well the Democrats can’t pull a Stalin and shoot Specter. The Republican party is not a German POW camp. But the Democrats have gone Stalinesque by castrating their prodigal son and giving him a back door session with a [bleep] so big even an elephant can feel it.
So, one thing that can be certain of the Left, their methods may alter but their ruthless vindictiveness is ongoing. The leopard here has different spots. But it also has fangs and claws too.
Now on to something that I file under “Boy was I asleep at the wheel.”
The county I live in lost $150 million of reserve funds when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Only the state of Florida lost more. How I missed this I do not know. But miss it I did.
One would expect the President and Vice President of the county board of supervisors to resign. At a minimum those two people should resign. This happened on their watch. They bear ultimate responsibility. They were supposed to keep an eye on this. They did not.
But my very liberal county is carrying on as usual. Just earlier this week the VP of the board was in DC begging for a bailout.
This is typical liberal lack of accountability. But, now I know of this. I am not going to stand by and let things remain business as usual. I intend to mount a rush of fed up residents to force these people out. We can’t fire the people running Lehman Brothers. They are out of jobs. But we can go after the people at the local level who were supposed to keep an eye on this and did not.
By the way, I do not support this bailout. It is not the responsibility of people outside of my county to cover this.
John, that sounds like a book I really should read. I hope they have it at the library here.
“John, that sounds like a book I really should read. I hope they have it at the library here.”
I loved it. I was familiar with the history from the TV movie from 1982 called Coming Out of the Ice. This movie chronicled the life of one American man who went there as a teen, ended up in the Gulag and lived to tell.
There are very few archival photos because the Soviets unlike the Germans did not make newsreel films and keep detailed records of their crimes.
One aspect of it that was very interesting was the number of Americans on the Left who traveled to the USSR, touted the great achievements of Stalin and at the same time right under their noses the Soviets were committing some of the worst human rights abuses in history.
John, I recently read a book about the Mitford sisters and was utterly disgusted when I read about them doing the same thing!
The Communist (Jessica Mitford) actually TURNED IN someone who tried to get her to smuggle a note out! And she wasn’t repentful of it AT ALL!
Not to mention the Nazi Mitford, but that’s a whole other can of disgusting worms.
Anyway, I know that was far from an isolated instance (my husband and his family escaped the USSR in the seventies with his mother under threat of Gulag), it was just a reminder to me of the pasts of some of our “celebrities.”
“The Communist (Jessica Mitford) actually TURNED IN someone who tried to get her to smuggle a note out! And she wasn’t repentful of it AT ALL!
Not to mention the Nazi Mitford, but that’s a whole other can of disgusting worms.”
Are you talking about Unity Mitford who tried to blow her brains out for Hitler? Are you talking about Diana Mitford who married Oswald Mosley, the head of the British Union of Facists? Unlike Unity, Diana rotted in jail during WW II.
I am well aware of the Mitford Sisters. What a disagrace they are. Communists, Facists and I suppose nothing in between.
I don’t think the Democrats are trying to force Specter’s loyalty, nor do I think they expected it fully. the day after Specter abandoned the GOP, he voted against Obama’s budget. Not only that, but he was quite adamant in voting against the Employee Free Choice Act when it comes up for a vote, which goes directly against his constituent’s best interest.
Arlen was being completely candid when he told you why he switched. Yeah, the party’s gone crazed right, but Arlen was looking out for Arlen. so while his defection makes me chuckle for what it says about your Party, I am hoping that Joe Sestak challenges him in the Democratic primary and wins. Better to have a real progressive in the fold than to have an opportunist who read the writing on the wall and jumped ship…
Just read one of your post on Sarah Palin. Really interesting. How early the liberal thought she was gone. She still relevant and yet still rubs it on their faces…
Robert- I’m a Dem, have been for many years out of respect for my Papa who fled real fascism in Italy. The Dems no longer represent the people’s interests, only enough to propogate more trough feeders to keep them in power.
And how can you say that the right is the extreme one when their candidate was McCain and ours was a man who has lived his entire life among the far, far, Left? Palin is conservative, but not a hater, like so many liberals these days.
The Dems always say the Repubs have to move left to be viable? Why? They are moving more to their core- less special interest spending, less spending abroad, lower taxation, smaller gov’t- the Bush years weren’t good for those things, although he had mitigating circumstances. If Federal spending and global appeasement were panaceas, wouldn’t Clinton and Bush have us in gravy right now? Yes, Specter is for Specter, but the Dems are shutting down all dissent, whether it’s their own, (Liebermann), talk radio, critics of the census move to Rahmbo, the media, etc. It is the Left that has moved too far left to be palatable to the mainstream, and the polls will change when apathy is shaken- and not by the Change Obama was promising. The Great Uniter? Hardly. He and this God-awful Congress are the ultimate dividers. And they profile gays more than anyone! They insist on an “openly gay” justice- terrific, but they just assume that will make him/her a liberal? What unbearable snobs.
Raysmom, I get very frustrated with the left using gay and lesbian people the way they do. Not all of them do, mind you, but Democrats for the most part simply assume that if you’re gay, you’re a Dem. So if you’re gay (and I’ve come across this I don’t know how many times), you’re automatically expected to toe the party line and get ready to fight for it regardless of what the party is saying–or how outrageous it is.
That’s not only expected by Democrats, it’s expected by Republicans. Because I’m obviously a lesbian my friends from all walks of life at times assume that I’m a liberal Democrat. It’s gotten quite tiring to have to explain why I’m not over and over and over again.
“And how can you say that the right is the extreme one when their candidate was McCain”
I said the party has moved far to the right. Republican voters, to some degree, are still somewhat sane. The people chose John McCain, not the party. Plenty of folks on this forum will tell you that they lost the election because McCain was too moderate. Those same people will tell you that Specter’s defection is a good thing, that they’re, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, purifying the party. The Republican party is quite clearly moving so far to the right that not only would Barry Goldwater not recognize it, I’m not even sure if Reagan would. Remember, Reagan had not only tolerance for moderates, but welcomed them into his “big tent”. Today’s Republicans keep making that tent smaller and smaller, and to their detriment. You think the Democratic Party is too far to the left; the American people don’t share that sentiment, myself included. I’m not a Democrat because I disagree with a lot of their positions. I’d like to see them move left on a lot of issues. I think it’s fair to say that the Democratic party is somewhat centrist; it’s just that conservatives are so far right that any deviation from them is considered far left.