Vitter Tries To Bribe Sec. Salazar; Ed Schultz Silent

Self-described “liberal” talk show host Ed Schultz helped engineer Rep. Weiner’s resignation due to Weiener’s sexting habits.  Schultz spent a considerable amount of time wringing his hands as hard as he could in the days following Weiner’s sexting revelation.  My question, as well as that of plenty of other liberals is, “What about Sen. David Vitter, Ed?”  I first wrote about this last week and am following up on the story now that new news has come to light.

What’s happened is this: Sen. David Vitter made a bribery offer to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (whom I have no love for, as evidenced by my writing history, by the way): Vitter will stop holding up $19,600 of Salazar’s pay raise vote if the Interior Secretary can somehow increase the rate of exploratory drill permits for the Gulf of Mexico.  Money for action = bribe.

This news came out at ~1:30P ET today as CREW filed an official complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee.  Unsurprisingly, I didn’t find any reference to Ed Schultz issuing commentary on the subject yet today.  I don’t expect I’ll find any such reference tomorrow or next week.  Schultz has left Sens. Vitter, Ensign and Coburn untouched during their respective ethics violations and well-documented illegal behavior.

A Democrat sending pictures of his junk?  Schultz feels compelled to hammer home his opinion because TMZ reported on it.

Republicans violating laws and breaking ethics rules?  Schultz ignores them because he thinks he can’t generate ratings if he covers them.

Ed Schultz is an entertainer first and a liberal second (at best).

OK Sen. Coburn Fighting For Pedophiles

Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, introduced an amendment to the reconciliation bill yesterday.  The timing of the amendment should tell every American he would rather fight for “pedophiles” and “convicted rapists” than for the rest of us.

The Senator said his amendment was about preventing erectile dysfunction drugs from going to those disgusting characters.  But when he decided to bring it up makes it clear that he was more interested in campaign ad material than making public policy.  Sen. Coburn has had more than one year to add this language to the health care bills.  His decision to wait until the last possible moment, when proposing it could do the most political damage, makes clear than Sen. Coburn isn’t serving Americans, he’s serving his own crass political ambitions.

Why does Sen. Coburn care more for pedophiles and convicted rapists?  Why does Sen. Coburn hate the rest of Americans?

Random Pieces 7/22/08

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is personally holding 100 bills up in procedural gamesmanship. That’s despite the fact that the bills have no serious opposition and even broad support. That’s despite the fact that Sen. Coburn has been in the Senate as long as Sen. Barack Obama. Do we hear about Sen. Coburn’s inexperience as a reason he shouldn’t be where he is? Of course not. Sen. Coburn is just acting like an ass. He’s playing the Republican playbook of “government can’t work” to an extreme. He and his extremist ideologues want to show the American people just how little work the Congress can do.

In a brilliant and likely unprecedented move, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is gathering the bills into what’s called an omnibus and will bring that to the floor. Instead of taking up time with 100 individual bills, the Senate will consider only one.

Sen. Coburn is up for reelection in 2010. I’ll support his opponent enthusiastically.

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Isn’t it interesting how the price of oil is “plummeting” as Congress looks to pass legislation that would crackdown on unregulated speculation of commodities? Throw this on top of the giant list of examples that demonstrate the market isn’t free, as conservatives have been crowing about for too long. Remember, the price of oil kept going up despite a significant decrease in demand earlier this year.

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Barack Obama’s campaign is launching Solutions for Colorado, which is a good thing. The first two events, however, are being hosted by the most right-leaning Democrats Colorado has to offer: the Salazar brothers.

Our first event is in Pueblo, where we’ll share our ideas on the economy and be joined by Rep. John Salazar. At our second event in Windsor, we’ll be joined by Sen. Ken Salazar to discuss our energy solutions for Colorado.

What about Reps. DeGette or Udall, both of whom have been in office longer and both of whom are more progressive than the Salazars? This is an interesting way to begin these meetings and points toward a likely mode of behavior if Obama is elected President: tacking right in search of the mythical center.

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