Free Frank Warner

Democrats say Arlen Specter is not pure enough for seniority

Top Democrats are objecting the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s agreement to recognize Sen. Arlen Specter’s 28 years of Senate seniority in deciding who becomes a chairman of any of the Senate’s powerful committees.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski and others say that, because Specter was a Republican until two days ago, he cannot be viewed as a pure Democrat, and his impure 28 years of Senate experience must not be counted.

“I won’t be happy if I don’t get to chair something because of Arlen Specter,” Mikulski said. “I’m happy with the Democratic order, but I don’t want to be displaced because of Arlen Specter.”

5.6% pure. The Senate Democratic Conference will decide the matter after the 2010 election. Then Specter will have put in one and two-thirds years as a Democrat. To his colleagues in the majority then, he will be 5.6 percent pure.

Frank Warner

AP Fact Checks the deficit Obama ‘inherited’

It’s sobering to look at the new AP Fact Check, most notably on President Obama’s declaration yesterday in Arnold, Missouri:

“Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. ... That wasn’t me.”

As the Associated Press points out, Obama was in the Democratically controlled Congress last October when it approved the $700 billion financial bailout that brought the deficit to $1.3 trillion, and he voted for it. President Bush, who signed the bailout legislation, had plenty of deficits before then, but not one was even half that big.

As far as who caused the financial meltdown that forced the bailouts, the AP doesn’t go there. But if you’re asking, ask Barney Frank.

Frank Warner

For Barney Frank, the revolving door pays – heck, everything pays Barney Frank!

Some call it the revolving door, and each time it revolves, Congressman Barney Frank gets paid off.

Michael Paese, one of Meltdown Barney’s former staffers, has joined the Goldman Sachs investment firm to lobby Frank at the House Financial Services Committee.

Goldman Sachs’ new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Frank. Michael Paese, a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September, will join Goldman as director of government affairs, a role held last year by former Tom Daschle intimate, Mark Patterson, now the chief of staff at the Treasury Department.

So it goes. When you look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when you look at all the banks, insurance companies and investment firms today, it’s hard not to see how they regularly pay off Congress, and that for decades they have been expected to pay off Congress, and particularly Barney Frank.

Democracy at risk. There is real danger here. Throw in TARP, “stimulus” and the other bail-outs, not to mention the secretly arranged “earmark” contracts, and we may have created a ruling class so filthy rich, in a skim-and-bribe system so hopelessly corrupt, that those who hold power can never been removed.

Frank Warner

Sworn against tyranny

On the new banner above, behind the blog name, are Thomas Jefferson’s words, engraved inside the Jefferson Memorial. The full quote is:

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

We’re lucky the United States had founders with ideals like this and with a commitment to the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Frank Warner

Air Force One photo shoot cost $328,000

The photo-op flight of Air Force One over Manhattan two days ago cost $328,000.

The presidential jumbo jet would have cost $300,000 for the three hours it flew over New York City. Each of the F-16 fighter jets that followed it with cameras would have cost about $14,000 for that same time period.

The “training mission” scared thousands of New Yorkers, many of whom still have unpleasant memories of other low-flying jumbo jets.

Passenger list? May we have the names of everyone on this photo shoot? How much did they pay for the ride? And let’s see all the incredibly expensive photos. Heck, we paid for them!

Frank Warner

Steve Eves launches 5/6-ton rocket nearly a mile high

If you’ve ever been a model rocketry nut, take a look at this. At 36 feet tall, this rocket is exactly one-tenth the height of the actual Saturn V that sent our Apollo astronauts to the moon.

Steve Eves of Akron, Ohio, built the nine-engine rocket for about $12,000. The fuel cost another $13,000. The launch four days ago was on the Higgs Farm near Price, along Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The missile weighed 1,648 pounds at lift-off. It is the heaviest and tallest rocket ever launched (and recovered) by an amateur rocketeer. It went nearly one mile up.

Rocket history. Now NASA is talking to Eves about displaying the mini-Saturn V at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Frank Warner

How the Space Station came together

Click here and take a look at USA Today’s excellent use of graphics. With no effort at all, you’ll understand what we’ve been doing with that International Space Station the last 11 years.

Arlen Specter turns Democrat

Sen. Arlen Specter has calculated that the only way he can win re-election next year is to run as a Democrat. Today he announced he is switching political parties.

With Specter giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate, the Democrats now are confident they can do something. What that something is, no one knows.

I wanted the Democrats in full power just to see if they’d drop the cynicism and be real, honest, practical liberals. Now we’ll see if they can handle the responsibility.

Frank Warner

Frankie Manning, king of swing dance, is dead

Five years ago, I saw Frankie Manning at the Commodore Barry Club in Philadelphia. It was his 90th birthday party, and he was dancing Lindy Hop like he was 20.

The crowd sang happy birthday as Manning listened with a smile. It was the usual “Happy birthday, dear Frankie” drone, no swing at all to it.

“That sounded like a funeral,” Manning told the partiers, everyone from University of Pennsylvania jitterbuggers to a few veterans of the Big Band era. “You can do better than that.”

Then he led us through the same words, same notes, with a syncopated hand clap.

“Happy birthday … to you …

“Happy birthday … to you …”

Suddenly we had a new beat. Everyone was bouncing. Everyone was smiling. We all felt 20 years old, even the 20-year-olds.

Frankie Manning, one of the inventors of the great American dance, died yesterday. He was a month shy of his 95th birthday, and still dancing.

Frank Warner

A new look

I’m working on a new look for the blog. I’ve enlisted Thomas Jefferson and the Goddess of Democracy to help out.

Don’t worry. The blog still works the same. Turn the ignition, and you’re on your way to freedom.

Frank Warner