Gay Hate Speech straight out of Georgia?

Saxby Chambliss is coming under heavy fire from the Senate Sergeant at Arms for Gay Slurs that may have been placed on blogs by one of his staffers.

The slur was posted Tuesday afternoon to an online article on Joe.My.God about the Senate’s failure to advance a bill repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which prevents gays from serving openly in the military.

The comment, “All faggots must die,” was posted by a user going by the name of “Jimmy.”

blog author Joe Jervis looked up the sender’s IP address and posted it, apparently on a whim.

“I very uncharacteristically checked its IP, which I normally don’t do,” he said. “I have a lot of IT geeks among my readers and they geo-located it immediately. … It was definitely coming through an official federal U.S. Senate server.”

Jervis said his readers traced the address to the local office of either Chambliss or Sen. Johnny Isakson, both Georgia Republicans. The offices are located next to one another.

“My army of geeks was unable to penetrate it directly to the specific computer,” Jervis said.

Isakson’s office flatly denied being the source of the remark, telling FoxNews.com the address “does not match any computer assigned to our office.”

A Chambliss spokeswoman, though, said the incident is under review.

I guess the moral of this story is Don’t make slurs towards Gay Geeks who know how to Trace an IP address. But even better is that the Senator and his staff seem to be trying to sweep this under the rug. Not such a great time in this political season to be making disparaging remarks against any voter blocks.

Maybe the Senator should make his whole staff sit through all three of the High School Musicals and some re-runs of Fame!

This is not the Hat mentioned in article

Sen. John McCain brushed off the semi-controversy over his former running mate’s visor Sunday, attributing the blog and talk show chatter about Sarah Palin’s vacation attire to “hysterical attacks” from the left.

The former Alaska governor was photographed wearing a “McCain-Palin” visor with McCain’s name crossed out while she was on vacation in Hawaii. She claimed she was just trying to go “incognito,” but reportedly cut her vacation short.

McCain told “Fox News Sunday” he understands Palin’s explanation, and said he has a “wonderful relationship” with her family.

“Can’t you take her at her word?” he said. “She’s going to be a force in the Republican Party for a long time and the hysterical attacks on her from the left continue to validate that.”

FOX NEWS

The White House on Sunday sought to preserve the fragile alliance of Democratic liberals and moderates backing broad healthcare reform legislation, with tough decisions looming on abortion and a new government-run insurance program.

Republicans vowed to continue to fight the measure, but admitted they probably were helpless to stop it in the Senate.

Senate Democrats planned a series of crucial procedural votes scheduled to begin at 1 a.m. on Monday, with debate possibly concluding with final Senate passage on Christmas Eve on Thursday.

Asked if Republican senators could do anything to stop the Senate from passing it by Christmas Eve, Republican Senator John McCain told “Fox News Sunday,” “Probably not. But what we can do is continue winning the battle of American public opinion.”

The White House predicted that the bill, President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority, will win final congressional passage, and called it a major achievement even if it does not give Obama and his fellow Democrats everything they want.

“While it is not perfect, the bill pending in the Senate today is not just good enough — it is very good,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.

Democratic holdout Ben Nelson announced his support for the Senate legislation on Saturday after securing language aimed at ensuring federal funds are not used to pay for abortions and winning extra healthcare funds for his home state of Nebraska.

Nelson’s support gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the 60 votes he needs in the 100-seat Senate to pass Obama’s top domestic priority by Christmas.

But Democrats still have a lot of hard work ahead as they look toward ironing out differences between the healthcare bill already passed by the House of Representatives last month and the version Senate Democrats hope to pass this week.

The Senate bill would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor, provide subsidies to help some people pay for coverage and halt industry practices like refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

House and Senate negotiators will have to work out abortion language that satisfies abortion opponents like Nelson and Representative Bart Stupak without chasing off liberal abortion rights supporters. Stupak, who pushed more restrictive language on abortion in the House bill, said the compromise Senate language crafted by Nelson was “not acceptable.”

PUBLIC OPTION

Democrats must decide on including a government insurance program to compete with private insurers. Liberals want the “public option,” which is in the House bill, but not the Senate one. And they will have agree on how to fund the reform, with the House and Senate versions taking two different approaches.

Nelson told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that if the final bill that emerges from the House-Senate negotiations includes a public option, he could not vote for it. He also indicated that if the legislation is paid for the way the House measure proposes, “That would break it.”

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, a fiscal hawk and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the final bill will have to hew closely to the Senate’s version in order win final passage.

“Anybody who’s watched this process can see how challenging it has been to get 60 votes,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Congress has been tied up for months in acrimonious debate over healthcare reform legislation, with Republicans saying the Democratic measure is too costly and too intrusive into the healthcare sector.

Healthcare costs devour 16 percent of the U.S. economy — burdening states and the federal government while also hurting the competitiveness of U.S. businesses — even as tens of millions remain with no public or private health insurance.

White House senior advisor David Axelrod predicted congressional passage but declined to say when he thought the two chambers would iron out their significant differences, or which version he preferred.

“I think it will pass the Congress,” Axelrod said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think we’re going to get it done.”

Republicans said they would continue to erect procedural roadblocks even with Senate passage likely.

More improvements are possible after the bill becomes law, Axelrod said. The Obama administration will seek to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs that have been imported from other countries such as Canada, where medicines often cost less, he said. The Senate turned back efforts to include drug re-importation in the healthcare bill.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, editing by Vicki Allen and Will Dunham)

REUTERS

With the Senate meeting for the second weekend in a row, Democrats assembled the minimum 60 votes needed to force a final vote on the omnibus spending bill, which pays for transportation, justice, foreign, labor, health, education and veterans programs.

The roll-call vote extended for more than an hour as supporters of the measure were rounded up and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an observant Jew, walked more than three miles from his synagogue to the Capitol. “Shabbat shalom,” Mr. Lieberman said in the traditional Sabbath greeting as he entered the Senate chamber still wearing his jacket and scarf.

Three Democrats and 31 Republicans sought to block the final vote, pointing to increases in many agency budgets and the 5,000 home-state projects, typically called earmarks, included in the bill by lawmakers of both parties. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a critic of earmarks, took the floor to list many of the projects, which he said totaled nearly $4 billion.

“You are spending money like a drunken sailor, and the bar is still open,” Mr. McCain told his colleagues.

Republicans also criticized the fact that six different measures were rolled into one.

“We don’t have this money,” said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “We are borrowing it.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat and a member of the Appropriations Committee, pointed out that the individual measures had all been approved by the committee with bipartisan support.

“To come before us today and argue that the majority is cramming these votes and bills down the throats of members without giving them opportunity is to ignore what came before,” he said.

The six bills represent a spending increase of about 10 percent over last year and include a 2 percent pay raise for federal workers. When required spending for Social Security, Medicare and other programs is added in, the measure tops $1 trillion.

The bills were due Oct. 1, but, as has been the pattern in recent years, Congress failed to complete them on time. The government is currently operating under a stop-gap spending law that expires on Friday.

With the omnibus measure headed for passage, the lone spending bill still to be approved is a $600 billion measure that pays for Pentagon operations. Since that is always a must-pass measure, Congressional Democrats are planning to use it to carry along a hodgepodge of final bills for the year.

In addition, Democrats plan to attach a provision that would raise the federal debt limit by $1.8 trillion — a move that has taken on new political significance given the increasing political fight over federal spending.

NY TIMES

John McCain Is mad. During Senate debate Saturday over cuts to Medicare home health care spending, Sen. McCain got very worked up. On at least two separate occasions, Sen. Max Baucus objected to McCain. The Senator from Arizona did not take it too well and was visibly upset. For his part, Baucus seemed to be smirking at McCain’s reactions.

When isn’t John McCain pissed about something nowadays?

Huffington Post

Sarah Palin took on the Washington press, her former running mate, and herself with political one-liners at the Gridiron Club winter meeting.

Referring to her foreign policy comment about seeing Russia from Alaska, the former vice presidential candidate got laughs when she said that coming down from her Washington hotel room, she “could see the Russian Embassy.”

Palin also joked that before settling on “Going Rogue,” she originally thought of titling her book “How To Look Like a Million Bucks For Only $150,000,” in a reference to campaign spending on her wardrobe.

There was also a barb for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign staff, which has criticized her. Palin’s been on a book tour and told the audience the view is “much better from inside the bus than under it.”

As for her media hosts, she said she was glad to appear before a group of intellectuals, “or as I like to call it, a death panel.”

WGME

Sen. Chris Buttars is tired of gays stuffing it down his throat all the time and putting it in his kids face.

Most constituents weren’t really concerned or even shocked about Senator John Ensign’s extra-marital affair with Doug Hampton’s wife, Cynthia Hampton. But they do feel there’s a lot more to this story and $96,000 check that was given to Ensign’s former mistress.

Chuck Muth, a Republican turned Independent, has be calling for Ensign’s resignation even prior to the scandal breaking out. He says Doug Hampton’s allegations about the senator helping him find employment raise red flags that could land ensign in hot water.

“It wasn’t whether ensign helped Doug find work. The real question is whether there were violations with his involvement with Hampton on the lobbying side,” Muth added.

Muth insists Ensign has too much baggage and should resign because he’s an added burden to an already fractured and ailing GOP. Political analyst Mike Sahara says Ensign’s career is not entirely over, since the radio interview on Newsradio 840 KXNT did some damage control. And as a political heavy weight his name and presence could still help in next years elections.

“He’s the most senior elected official in the party. No he cant put it behind but has to address it and move forward,” said Sahara. Ensign is not stepping down, but only time will tell if he will be in fact able to redeem himself and be forgiven by his party and the voters.

“One of the things that people forget is, if I resign, we have a second Senate race,” Ensign said Monday

KTNV

Senator Judd Gregg

A U.S. senator said he would seek to block any legislation containing a measure to remove the Federal Reserve’s shield from congressional audits of the central bank’s interest-rate decisions.

The House Financial Services Committee yesterday advanced a proposal requiring audits of the Fed that was introduced by Representative Ron Paul, a Republican from Texas. Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican and Banking Committee member, said in an interview today that the measure “would do fundamental damage to the strength of our financial structure as a nation.”

“I would not vote for any bill and I would filibuster any bill that had this language in it,” Gregg said, referring to the legislative delaying tactic that requires 60 Senate votes to break.

Gregg’s comments indicate that legislation similar to Paul’s bill, which has more than 300 House co-sponsors, would face resistance in the Senate. That would help the Fed, which opposes the bill on the grounds that it could reduce the central bank’s independence in setting interest rates.

California Representative Brad Sherman, the highest ranking Democrat on the House panel to vote for the Paul amendment yesterday, said in an interview that he expected the provisions to be altered “to some degree” as legislation moves through the House and Senate.

‘Terribly Popular’

“If it’s changed a whole lot, could that imperil the bill’s ultimate passage? Yes,” Sherman said. The Paul audit bill won’t be “terribly popular” in the Senate, he said.

Paul, author of a book entitled “End the Fed” that was published this year, said yesterday that provisions in his amendment would limit interference in monetary policy. The measure, co-sponsored by Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, would exclude any unreleased transcripts or minutes of Fed policy meetings. It calls for an audit of the Fed and its 12 regional banks by the Government Accountability Office within a year after enactment.

The committee voted first, 43-26, to substitute Paul’s proposal for a Democratic measure to retain the ban on audits of monetary policy while requiring more limited audits. Fifteen of 42 Democrats joined the unanimous Republicans on the vote. Then, in a voice vote, the committee attached the Paul measure to the broader bill.

Failed to Sway

A call from Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke two days ago failed to sway Representative David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia, who voted in favor of Paul’s measure.

“I said to him that what we’re interested in doing is sending the right signals to Main Street,” Scott said. “The American people are totally dissatisfied with the way the Fed, this administration have so over-handed, disproportionately leaned toward helping the top of the economic stream.”

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the committee and opposed the Paul measure, said yesterday the issue “may be revisited” when the legislation reaches the House floor.

“It’s going to be seen as weakening the independence of monetary policy with consequent negative implications,” Frank told reporters after the vote. “People are going to be worried about the impact on the dollar, on the interest rate.”

Frank said he expects to finish the legislation in committee on Dec. 1, delaying a vote he had scheduled for yesterday until after lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving holiday. He supported a competing measure from Representative Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat, to retain the ban on auditing monetary policy.

Make the Case

“The Fed needs to make the case for policy independence,” said former St. Louis Fed President William Poole, now a senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington. “The right place for the policy audit” is congressional hearings on monetary policy, not through the GAO, Poole said.

Gregg, 62, who was elected in 1992 and plans to retire from the Senate next year, attributed the Paul legislation’s success to “populist fervor” and lawmakers “pandering” to the public.

If the audit provisions become law, “you will fundamentally harm the stability of the dollar and our ability to fight inflation, because the Fed’s ability to deal with interest rates will be chilled by the fear of congressional oversight,” Gregg said.

BLOOMBERG

The wife of Indiana’s Republican Senator Richard Lugar, Charlene Lugar, was arrested and charged on an alleged drunken hit and run, and a car collision. The Associated Press reports that Charlene Lugar is accused by police of a DUI and “a hit-and-run after hitting a parked car in northern Virginia.”
The news station, CBS, reported the story with the following headline: “Loaded Lugar: Seantor’s Wife, Charlene Lugar, Charged for Drunken Hit-and-Run,” an example of the type of media coverage that has Senator’s Lugar’s office reeling; the repercussions of this type of story can be devastating to a political career.
The Fairfax County, Virginia County Police have Mrs. Lugar’s mug shot, and report that Senator Lugar’s office released the following public statement earlier this week: “At about 6:30 p.m. last evening, November 18th, Mrs. Lugar had a traffic accident in our McLean, Virginia neighborhood. A charge has been filed and a court appearance is scheduled for January. No other persons were in her car or the unattended car she hit. Thankfully, no one was injured. We are deeply sorry and embarrassed that this accident has occurred.” The Senator’s wife, Charlene Lugar is 72; her court appearance is scheduled for January 8, 2010 in Fairfax County General District Court.

CMR