Motley Moose – Archive

In a move that brings Democrats another step closer to a  powerful 60 vote super-majority in the U.S. Senate (assuming Minnesota Democrat Al Franken is eventually seated), Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), the 12th-most senior member of the U.S. Senate has today announced that he is switching his party affiliation.

Clearly, this is political survival instinct at work. As a Republican, Specter is toast come 2010, and the Lieberman Independent route isn’t available to him. If Specter wants a sixth term in our nation’s most vaunted deliberative body, he had little choice but to become a Democrat. Sure, he’s grabbing onto the train before it leaves him behind, but no matter how you spin it this is very bad news for the GOP. There’s little doubt that the once brutish muscle of right wing conservatism has atrophied into a increasingly regional (and irrelevant) flap of underarm skin.

(Proudly cross-posted at C4O Democrats)

I guess so.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning.

Specter’s decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next senator from Minnesota. (Former senator Norm Coleman is appealing Franken’s victory in the state Supreme Court.)

“I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary,” said Specter in a statement. “I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election.”

He added: “Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

Overall, I’m happy. I mean, why shouldn’t I be when we will be assured of 60 Senate votes once Al Franken is seated in Minnesota? Still, I have a few reservations.

Politico Announced today that Senator Arlen Specter has had enough of the GOP – as have many we all know including your intrepid diarist – and is throwing his towel in with the Democratic Party.

President Obama was informed of Sen. Arlen Specter’s decison to switch parties at 10:25 this morning while receiving his daily economic briefing in the Oval Office, according to a White House official.

Obama was handed a note by an aide that read: “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.”

The Cato Institute notes that President Obama seems to be slipping in one of the key promises he made on the campaign trail- full disclosure of the Federal government’s actions in regards to legislation, so we never have a fiasco like the 1,100-page PATRIOT Act being passed in a manner of hours.

On the campaign trail, President Obama promised to post bills online for five days before signing them.

Last week, President Obama signed three new bills into law. None of them received the promised “Sunlight Before Signing” treatment – at least, not as far as our research reveals. (The White House has yet to establish a uniform place on its Web site where the public can look for bills that the President has received from Congress.)

A buddy of mine did a photo shoot this weekend. He’s been working on his photography a lot lately, and he managed to find a new model. Shot for about five hours this weekend, and showed off his work to us this morning.

They were great shots. He’s been experimenting with some filters, and in particular an oil painting effect for his digital work. And his model was amazing. She really shines through, and he was happy because she was so bright, and funny, and professional. Suggested all sorts of settings, poses, knew how to work with light, and really taught him a lot about working, all the while really working the camera for all she was worth.

Thing is, I recognized her. Not just from her pin up work, but from other shoots that she’s done over the years. His model used to do porn. Some if it soft core, some of it a little harder, and interspersed with some really fun pin up work, and other stuff throughout the years.

Now then, I don’t have the rights to the photos–but they were really neat. And I don’t feel comfortable shouting the model’s name to the mountain, because she never mentioned her porn past to my buddy, so advertising it doesn’t seem real fair to her. Mind you, her work is out there, and it’s easy enough to find with a simple GIS of her name, and if you’ve got your Safe Search off, it’s easy to find her hard core work, as well as her pin up modeling. Which is what sort of brings up the reason for this whole little diary.

Here are some more bonus tubes. In other words, tubes I did not think I would have time to do. I take a little break here and there to distract myself from the horror of packing and cleaning, and work on something fun for a bit. Although this week looks to have been anything but fun. Almost makes me glad I missed most of it.

Did the republicans get a whole lot nuttier recently? Or is my lack of exposure to them  re-sensitizing me to irrational thought? My mother seems to think that they are some deep doo doo over this torture issue.

Friday April 24, 2009: The day in 100 seconds.

Sorry, I like going backwards. It would seem that the republicans like it as well.

Thursday April 23, 2009: The day in 100 seconds.

“The world will be back to normal in a year or two”. Really? Just a year or two? I like his optimism. Waaiiiitaminute. That was fox. I am not sure I like the sound of that after all!

Imagine my consternation and moral outrage when I ran across an article this morning, reporting a DC Court of Appeals ruling that Guantanamo detainees are not “persons”! Since when does any court presume to arrogate to itself the right to decide which human beings are persons and which are not? Or to summarily strip that status from an entire group of human beings, simply because they happen to be in US detention? But wait, it gets worse, or so it seems — the court handed down this ruling in response to a request from Obama’s DOJ!

Frieeeends, puleaze ignore the fat man with the oxy’s.

I wish I could go.

Goodness, everyone is giving President Obama a really rough time about the bush hunta crimes.

Like this President did anything wrong. Honestly, I think that President Obama struck the right balance. If he had just released national security documents, the republicans would have grabbed him by the short hairs.

Oh and by the way, some 400 individuals, many of which were following orders, have been convicted of bad behavior over the past eight years. 400 grunts and one General. Hmmmm, makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

I’ve spent a season with the Phoenix, Coyotes running a concern in the Comerica Bank Club. It’s not a bad little gig. I get to put out some fun food, I have a great view of the ice, and there are some other perks too.

But, one of the things that I’ve realized in my time there, is that there brews a burning question in the hearts of sports fans: the quest for the perfect hot dog.

WaPo reports Friday evening that in July 2002 the military agency which provided information and advice on enhanced interrogation techniques to be used against terrorism suspects referred to the employment of tactics which caused “extreme duress” as “torture” and specifically stated that the use of such techniques would result in the attainment of “unreliable information”.