WonderfulPessimist.com

Speaking on This Week with George Stephanopolous, former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called for the resignation of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

“You have the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs asking for 700 billion dollars, and in his initial request, asking for it in such an un-American way that I think he should have resigned. I think Paulson has terminally misunderstood the nature of the American system. Not just no review, no judicial review, no congressional accountability. Give me 700 billion dollars, 700 BILLION dollars! ‘I’ll be glad to spend it for you.’ That’s a centralization of power that is totally un-American.”

Perhaps Paulson could be let back into the community if he wore a magnetic bracelet that tracks his whereabouts.

House Democrats didn’t need a single Republican vote to pass the bailout package on Monday, but by 1 PM Central time, the controversial bill, being sold to the public as a panic measure to stave off a “second Great Depression.”

However, the vote unexpectedly went awry on Monday and was headed toward defeat at 227 against to 206 in favor, when Speaker Pelosi suspended the vote to twist the arms of straying Democrats and try to swing the vote back in favor of passage.

With everything from promises of committee memberships to threats of DNA testing on the table for Pelosi, the failure of the measure with her party in the majority is only the latest humiliation for the Speaker, who has lead the House of Representatives to the lowest-ever approval rating in modern US history, and failed to achieve any accomplishments of note in her two years in power.

While much talk has been bandied about regarding the troubled US stock market and economy, we have not yet experienced a 2008 Black Friday; in fact, there are some encouraging signs in the marketplace, believe it or not.

According to a Times UK article, the British pound, which peaked earlier this year at over $2.00 in value compared to the US dollar, fell to $1.7962 against the dollar, a 10-day low and a sharp decline from the earlier high this year.

The Euro also fell against the US dollar, closing at $1.4340 today (Monday).

While it’s far too early to declare the US dollar out of trouble, it is showing signs of a potential resurgence. This should be an encouraging signs, if the trend continues, in the months ahead; not that the mainstream liberal US media will mention it until after the election is over.

While the corruption charges drove Olmert from power and put Livni in charge of the current coalition government in Israel, at least one former prime minister of Israel - who may run again - is calling for new general elections in Israel, and soon: Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of the conservative Likud Party.

“This is the most decent and democratic thing to do. We need to go to the people of Israel and let them choose,” Netanyahu told Livni by phone Thursday, according to a piece in the Jerusalem Post Online.

“We need to let the people of Israel decide who should be the country’s prime minister and not to leave this decision exclusively to the members of Kadima. He who fears the people’s choice, should not lead.”

Look for leaders like Netanyahu to throw everything, including kitchen sinks, at Livni before too long, here.

Call her Israel’s Hillary Clinton; call her Israel’s Sarah Palin; but whatever you call her, remember that the title is now Ms Prime Minister. Israel foreign minister Tzipi Livni survived a primary battle to become the new head of the moderate Kadima Party and will spend the next few weeks forming a coalition government, or face the threat of early national elections.

With a bottle of Leptovox nowhere in sight, the Israeli centrist will be pressed hard to move a bit to the right by the Ultra-Orthodox Shas party and its leader, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, who has made it clear he wants no compromising on ceding territory in Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Former prime minister and current conservative Likud Party leader Binyamin Netanyahu has already called for Livni to order a new round of general elections, which makes an alliance with the Likud Party unlikely in the formation of a coalition government.

Livni is not the first female prime minister of Israel; that honor belongs to Golda Meier.

Russian puppet President Dimitri Medvedev announced the formation of two new counties inside the independent province of Georgia and said, “We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War.” Puppet Master Vladimir Putin’s lips could barely be detected moving as Medvedev spoke.

All the picture frames in the world won’t hold a new map that includes South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has attempted to recognize by creating them out of thin air following their invasion of Georgia and a delayed retreat.

Russia is certainly using the timing of the political shift in the US to test the mettle of both the outgoing President Bush, as well as both newcomers aspiring to the White House, John McCain and Barry Obama. While we may not be overjoyed with McCain, or even like him much, we here at WonderfulPessimist.com have to admit we’d rather have McCain dealing with Medvedev than Barry, who couldn’t even vanquish the Clintons from his own nominating convention.

FCC commissioner Robert McDowell warned that a return of the so-called “fairness doctrine” could see the long-dead law revised for the age of blogs, and extend government censorship to blogs and other Web sites. Jeff Poor, writing for BusinessAndMedia.org, wrote this:

The commissioner … told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

This ought to be considered scary stuff, folks, whether you’re liberal or conservative. Time for some budgeting and planning to get out the vote and support candidate who don’t support government censorship of new media!

Look, no one is going to deny that even third-world countries like Iran have energy needs. The trouble with the recent announcement by Iran that they are now operating as many as 6,000 nuclear centrifuges is that their leader, President Mahmoud Ahmidinijad is still going around talking about how Israel will “soon disappear off the map.”

Any yet he expects world leaders to trust him and his country with nuclear technology? Hell, no.

Maybe if Iran ever grows up and elects a leader that doesn’t talk like, act like, and actually be a terrorist, maybe then we wouldn’t be so worried about them fueling their country’s energy needs with nuclear plants.

In the meantime… sorry, we just can’t trust ya any more than I can trust the purchase of office furniture to an inexperience intern.

America lost a strong conservative voice this weekend when former Fox News personality and President Bush’s third press secretary, Tony Snow, died at the age of 53, following a long battle with cancer. Snow had long been a best buy among news anchors and commentators, and was a long-standing host of Fox News Sunday prior to joining the Bush Administration.

I can certainly empathize with the Snow family, as my own mother is fighting a losing battle with cancer right now and we know that at best, she only has months left. It’s an incredibly painful reality and WonderfulPessimist.com extends our deepest and most sincere sympathies to all his family and friends.

Only a few months ago, top Democrats and their strategists thought that Fox News Channel was a child of the devil and a place no sainted liberal should ever, ever tread. Or at least they made those sounds to appease the MoveOn.org extremist left.

Now, one of Sen. Hillary Rodham-Clinton’s top aides, Howard Wolfson, is “going native” and joining Fox News after declaring that FNC was the fairest in its coverage after NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN all seemed to Wolfson to be “in the tank” for Obama.

“I thought that Fox’s coverage during the primary was comprehensive and fair and evenhanded,” Wolfson told the New York Times on Monday. “It’s a huge audience, and it is important to have a strong, progressive voice on the network.”

Wolfson joins Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s top campaign strategist for two terms in the White House, on FNC. While it’s not clear yet how the news network plans to utilize the services of Rove and Wolfson, it’s a sure bet they won’t be paid merely to hawk Phentermine.

Here’s one vote for pairing the two on a Hannity and Colmes type debate and interview show. How’s Rove and Wolfson sound?

It’s not exactly as humble as farmhouse sinks, but Israel successfully tested a missle intercept system over the weekend. This system, code-named Iron Dome, is scheduled to be fully operational within a year and is built to defend the country from missle attacks originating from southern Lebenon and the Gaza Strip.

The system is designed to be effective against mortar fire and other small rockets, which have small windows of warning and intercept opportunity. Considering the constant Middle East bruhahah, especially with Iran becoming increasingly emboldened, with Iranian President Mahmoud Achmadinijad frequently talking about a forthcoming destruction of Israel, the time for such advanced defenses us likely in the “no time like the present” category.

As reported, variously, by the LA Times and the Drudge Report, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh signed an unprecedented contract extension with Clear Channel Media and Premiere Radio that will guarantee the host remains in place behind the “golden EIB microphone” he first made famous 20 years ago, through 2016.

The size of the deal is a record for regular, terrestrial radio, checking in at over $400 million for the eight-year extension. That’ll buy a lot of luggage.

Only Howard Stern’s deal with Siruis Satellite Radio eclipses the Limbaugh deal; Stern’s contract awarded him $500 million in contract money and $225 million in stock options for a total compensation package of $725 million over only five years.

Stern and satellite radio aside, however, Limbaugh’s deal is still one of the largest ever signed by terrestrial radio, and places his compensation well ahead of the traditional news media anchors Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer combined.

Still, Limbaugh has done a lot of work to earn the record-breaking compensation package; he has built and maintained one of the largest radio syndication networks for his program in modern radio history, and kept it going for over two decades.

The only X-Factor in the deal for Clear Channel and Premiere comes if Obama is elected in November and the Democrats retain control of Congress; it is strongly believed that in that event, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would push to bring back the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” redesigned to silence voices like Limbaugh, as well as other conservative hosts such as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and others.

Congratulations, Rush!