Tidbits and Snippets

A new feature to our blog is "tidbits and snippets" which are blurbs or spots of interest that do not garner total page dominance but do require notable mention.

PALIN ADVISER LOBBIES FOR GEORGE SOROS-FUNDED GROUP: For many conservatives, George Soros may be a bogeyman whose politics often directly conflict with theirs. But many probably didn’t expect a top adviser to Sarah Palin to lobby on his behalf. According to a review of lobbying disclosure reports by Salon, Randy Scheunemann, who runs the lobbying firm Orion Strategies, has worked for years for Soros’ Open Society Policy Center. Over the course of seven years, Scheunemann and his firm have been paid $150,000 by the Open Society Policy Center, Salon reported. As a federal lobbyist, Scheunemann is no doubt accustomed to representing various clients, but fans of the former Alaskan governor might not expect such behavior from her advisers. One would imagine that Glenn Beck has some explaining to do

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SENATOR MARK WARNER: We’re ‘Going To Have To’ Raise The Retirement Age To Keep Social Security Solvent". Senator Warner goes on to say, that because “folks at 25 or 30 years old today aren’t going to get Social Security at 65 or 67,” that we’re “going to have to raise the retirement age slowly, in a slow way that doesn’t affect folks 50, 55. He concluded that “this is just math. We’ve got to do some of these things”.

GLENN BECK professes that the book The Five Thousand Year Leap is what "woke me up." The book lists how the Founding Fathers of the United States used 28 fundamental beliefs to create a society based on morality, faith, and ethics, which book author W. Cleon Skousen asserts resulted in more progress having been achieved in the last 200 years than in the previous 5,000 years of every other civilization combined. The premise of the book and it's 28 fundamental beliefs clearly define Beck's daily leitmotif on Faux news. If you scratch the surface, this mentality has the earmarks and backbone of Mormon meanderings. Skousen, Becks mentor, certainly could lay claim to funding the ideology of Beck's 9-12 project. W . C. Skousen was not a historian so much as a player in the history of the American far right; less a scholar of the republic than a threat to it.

LAME DUCK CONGRESS CONVENES: The so-called "lame duck" session of the Democratic Congress convened today, with members preparing to make decisions on a host of contentious issues that could have major political ramifications for both President Barack Obama and the incoming Republican House majority.

Newly elected House members, meanwhile, were given a daylong orientation on the rules and procedures governing life on Capitol Hill. They are set to take office in January.

MITCH McCONNELL BACKS EARMARKS BAN, After Requesting Nearly $1 BILLION In Pork. The top Republican in the Senate has turned 180 degrees and is now endorsing a moratorium on pork-barrel projects known as "earmarks." Those are special funding requests lawmakers slip into legislation for home-state projects.

Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell says he's heeding the message voters sent in elections that swept Democrats from power in the House. He says he can't accuse Democrats of failing to ignore the wishes of the American people and then be guilty of the same thing.

McConnell's move gives tea party activists a win and heads off a battle with conservatives in his own party in the Senate. House GOP leaders had already endorsed a ban on the practice.

RAND PAUL Again Comes To BP’s Defense: Rand "Aqua Buddha" Paul is making his play for "wing nut" freshman senator of the decade. Paul’s defense of oil company BP PLC came during an interview as he tried to explain his controversial take on civil rights law, an issue that seemed to suddenly swamp his campaign after his victory in the GOP primary.

‘What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, ‘I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,” Paul said in an interview with ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.’ ‘I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.’

It's air apparent that Rand has a limited memory bank, as his own body guard only weeks ago stomped (put his boot heel on the neck) a 'notorious" Soros demonstrator whom approached Aqua Buddha prior to a Senate seat debate.