One-hundred egos...

 Once again, a scumbag Senator is holding up not just one, but two of the President's nominees, this time in the field of science: John Holdren, who is in line to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, Obama's nominee to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

We should rise up, tar and feather the dirtbag Republican Senator who--

Excuse me, what was that?

It's a Democrat who's holding up the nominations?

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has placed a "hold" that blocks votes on confirming Harvard University physicist John Holdren, who is in line to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, Obama's nominee to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to sources who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba rather than questioning the nominees' credentials.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said of Menendez's objections, "We will work to try to address any concerns that he may have."

This is a slightly personal matter to me, as I met Dr. Holdren when he presented an award to my dear old Dad in 2007.

Needless to say, despite the fact that this situation is being driven by an allegedly fellow Democrat, my assessment of the situation is no less harsh.

Mr. Menendez:

You barely won re-election, and maybe the reason it was so close because of narrow-ass bull@$# thinking like this. So shut up, drop the hold or get nothing from this President ever again in the future, because Obama's carrying New Jersey in 2012 with or without you.

Originally posted at Fort McHenry.

Hillary Is Good...

Not too long ago, in the waning days of that "other" President, things were bad with Russia...and I mean, bad. Hell, we spent pretty much all of August shaking our fist helplessly at them as they invaded the Georgian Republic.

Then, we decided that it'd be a great idea to put elements of a missile shield (radar stations, I believe) in Poland and the Czech Republic.

This of course prompted a hostile reaction from the Russians, who were...you know...kinda threatening war over the missile shield. (Okay, just a Nuclear Strike on Poland, same diff.)

I wouldn't say that our relationship with Russia was on a war footing, but it wasn't far off. (By the way, thanks Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham for all the warm thoughts!)

Well, the new guys finally moved into the White house. And almost immediately, a frosty relationship seemed turn, uhhh...frostier.

On top of that, the nation of Kyrgyzstan terminated a deal allowing us to use their airbases to resupply our forces in Afghanistan, seemingly at Russian direction.

But then Joe Biden went to Europe and gave a little speech saying that we needed to hit the reset button on U.S. Foreign Policy.

And we let the Russians know that, while we're going ahead with our plans for the shield, we don't necessarily need the dang thing.

This apparently made the Russians feel better...

And then our new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added an interesting litle kicker. "Gee, of course, if we had help with the Iran-going-nuclear-problem, it'd make this whole missile shield thing go away even faster."

And on top of that, get this...now the Russians are talking about letting us use their airbases as a way for us to resupply our troops in Afghanistan. But, they still want that Missle shield outta there, and won't take any steps unless we physically deploy the dang thing.

See, Previous President? This is the power of talking...



Originally posted at Fort McHenry.