Gov. Chris Gregoire violated state law by soliciting money for a congressional candidate during the legislative session, state regulators said Wednesday.

But Gregoire’s campaign committee, which sent the fundraising pitch, pointed to obvious ambiguities in the state’s guidelines for political donations and said there was no intent to skirt the law.
The issue arose Wednesday afternoon when Gregoire’s campaign committee sent an e-mail endorsing Democrat Denny Heck for the state’s 3rd Congressional District in southwest Washington.
In the e-mail, Gregoire asked her supporters to “take a moment right now to join the campaign by making a donation,” with a Web link to the donation page on Heck’s campaign Web site.
State law, however, bans elected officials from raising money for most political candidates during the annual legislative session. The blackout period, known as the “session freeze,” starts 30 days before the Legislature convenes and continues until lawmakers adjourn for the year.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, state Public Disclosure Commission spokeswoman Lori Anderson said Gregoire’s sales pitch for Heck would fall under that freeze.
“We don’t think that anyone subject to the freeze should be fundraising for other federal candidates, and we’ll work with the incumbents to make that clear to them,” Anderson said.

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who signed the e-mail along with Gregoire, also should not be soliciting donations for a candidate, Anderson said. It was unclear whether the agency would pursue any sanctions against either official................

Should Pennsylvania have a state firearm?
One state senator is giving the idea a shot.
Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, is sponsoring a bill that would designate the Pennsylvania Long Rifle as the state’s official firearm.
Pennsylvania would become the first state in the country to have a state gun, according to the National Rifle Association.
To Browne and his supporters, the measure is a celebration of history and a decidedly Pennsylvanian contribution toward America’s independence....

continuing the theme…

It was surreal to watch a politician announce his top priority is job creation, then spend the next hour listing class-warfare enemies. I hope people making less than $250k per year start hiring like crazy, because everyone with a higher income just became a hated enemy of the state. Why, if they work for a large corporation, they shouldn’t even have free speech rights!

It’s painful to listen to someone who wants to add nationalized banks to his collection of state-run car companies wax poetic about the power of entrepreneurs, then list all the ways he’s going to punish risk-taking and achievement. Anyone who successfully starts a business, and creates jobs through rising profits and expansion, will quickly become a member of the evil $250k Legion of Doom.

High-speed rail projects in California, Florida and Illinois are among the big winners of $8 billion in grants to be announced Thursday by the White House — the start of what some Democrats tout as a national rail-building program that could rival the interstate highways begun in the Eisenhower era.

Thirteen rail corridors in 31 states received funds. The White House, which supplied a list of the grants to reporters late Wednesday, billed the program as “high-speed rail,” although most U.S. projects won’t reach the speeds seen in Europe and Asia…

staggering

[SCOTUS] open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.

This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demogoguery of the worst kind.

...one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.

rly?

...I am not interested in re-litigating the past.

bwaaaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahhahaha

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.

< 1% of the deficit.  IF Congress goes along…

Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.

Which is the very definition of “one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem.”

Now, let me repeat: We cut taxes.  ...  I thought I’d get some applause on that one. ... And we haven’t raised *income taxes* by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.

Nice work-around.  Weasel.

I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.

Take more $$$ out of the economy and enslave

We can’t afford another so-called economic “expansion” like the one from the last decade –- what some call the “lost decade”…

Who?  Who calls it that?  Do I need to get out more—is that it?

… serious financial reform ... We need to make sure consumers and middle-class families have the information they need to make financial decisions.

WTF?!??  Economic predictability?  Only way to do that is to control the Free Market—which is called fascism and/or socialism—and creates the kind of uncertainties that made an economic dip into the Great Depression.  Or to destroy it altogether, which is called communism.

That couldn’t possibly be what Teh iWon meant....  could it?

...we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow.

Wasn’t that the purpose of Porkulous?  “Shovel-ready”?  How’s that workin’ out for US, eh?

Phoenix… Philadelphia… Allentown, Pennsylvania… Elyria, Ohio… Tampa, Florida… Elkhart, Indiana… Galesburg, Illinois… the House…

oooooo!!!  He mentioned My Place!  *applause*

I’m exhausted.  What were your favorite Terminological Inexactitudes?

*term courtesy of Winston Churchill via Tom McClintock

After President Obama told the nation during Wednesday’s State of the Union address that he inherited the huge budget deficits befronting the country, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) turned to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and said, ”Blame it on Bush.”

(from here)

A teenage girl has been pulled out of the rubble in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, a full 15 days after the earthquake struck, rescuers say.
They said she was happy and shocked despite being severely dehydrated and having a leg injury.
Her rescue comes five days after the Haitian government officially ended the search and rescue operation…

Obama called on Congress to “correct” the [ Supreme ] court’s decision last week…

It’s a slow day in a little East Texas town The sun is beating down, and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.....

On this particular day a rich tourist from back east is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmer’s Co-Op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything..
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything.
However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today.

The Oregonian reports that City Hall emptied for about 20 minutes Wednesday morning while firefighters dealt with the burning bagel in the break room of Mayor Sam Adam’s office. There’s no immediate word on who burned the bagel in the toaster oven or what type of bagel it was.

Investigators with the Portland Fire Bureau and officers with the Portland Police Bureau were on the scene of what appeared to be a self-immolation attempt this morning in downtown Portland.
Lt. Damon Simmons of the Fire Bureau said that firefighters responded to the scene about 11:10 a.m. to find a man with serious burns.
“We responded to a report that a person had poured gas on himself and lit himself on fire,” Simmons said. “We arrived and found an adult male with burns. He was taken to Emanuel (Hospital and Health Center) and is going to be serious or critical condition.”

Mike Cheema, who owns India Chaat House across the street, said he saw a man on fire trying to enter Nicholas Ungar Furs at 1137 S.W. Yamhill St. He said the man also had something in his hands, but could not see what it was.
The fur store has been the site of frequent animal-rights protests in the past and Cheema said the man was yelling something about the world ending and animals dying.

A judge will allow anti-war demonstrators to use a unique defense during their trial in Tacoma.

Two women were arrested and charged with civil disobedience after they used their bodies to try to block Stryker vehicles outside Fort Lewis in August 2008. The vehicles were returning from Iraq through the Port of Tacoma and were on their way to be repaired at Fort Lewis.
The two women, Patricia Imani and Brianna Herrera, admit that they lay in the offramp from Interstate 5 in an effort to block the Strykers.
Both women said they should be found not guilty because they had to protest and although it was illegal, it prevented a greater harm.
“We have an obligation to resist, not just a right to resist. That is what these protests have been about since we started to do the human blockades against the Strykers,” Imani said.
“People have been against this war for over eight years and the fact that people came out to resist these wars and take responsibility and stop the crimes of their government, those are the people who should be supported,” Herrera said.
The judge just ruled that the women will be able to use the necessity defense. “That our clients did what they did to prevent the commission of a greater harm,” said defense attorney Larry Hilde , referring to the Iraq War.
“I think this is exciting and this enables us to show that this act of civil resistance. Breaking a lesser law is very important to uphold higher laws,” Imani said.

The trial of two anti-war activists that was to feature the testimony of an historic figure from the Vietnam War era ended in a mistrial Wednesday when a juror allegedly made eye contact with and waved to a witness who had come into court to testify.

Pierce County District Court Judge Margaret Vail Ross said she had no choice but to declare a mistrial in the cases of Patricia Imani of Olympia and Brianna Herrara of Seattle…

You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour…