Tainted Deer Meat And Paying For Presidential Access – Wingin’ It Wenesday

On this edition of "Wingin' It Wednesday" panelist Mike Stagg, Warren Caudle, and Carol Ross joined "Mornings with Ken and Bernie" to discuss the Department of Health and Hospital's stance on deer meat, "paying for access", and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's exclusion from C-PAC.

Here's what the panel had to say:

1. The Department of Health and Hospitals ordered the staff at the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission to throw the deer meat into garbage bins and douse it with chlorine bleach so other animals would not eat it. Do you think we are becoming a "nanny state" by attempting to protect everyone and everything?

Carol started us off:

You're being very kind to call it a nanny state. George Orwell would be very gratified to see this kind of thing going on. And by the way, they justify it by saying no public eating establishment in Louisiana could serve this; this isn't a public eating establishment, it's a private mission who's been doing it for years, and as far as I know no one has died from eating it.
You know people pay a premium price for venison meat in restaurants because it's very nutritious and very low in cholesterol. Only a stupid government bureaucracy would prevent people from eating good food who need it under the guise of protecting them.

Mike Stagg added:

Deer Wasting Disease is transmittable if you eat deer meat. That is what this is about. It's just like mad cow. Just because people are poor doesn't mean you can give them poisonous food. DHH has banned deer meat in restaurants.

Warren Caudle countered:

I think this is a total lack of common sense, however I do not think this meat was processed under USDA inspection.
You have to have USDA inspectors on site when you sell or serve anything to the public. Your little old boudin plants around here have got to have USDA inspectors on site and they're got this long chain of rules and regulations.
But this is just a deal where I think common sense is just totally gone. It's bizarre to say the least.

 

2. Organizing for Action (OFA), a group “closely affiliated” with liberal heavyweights such as billionaire philanthropist George Soros, is offering donors access to President Obama in exchange for $500,000, according to a recent New York Times report.  Do you think this is influence peddling taken to the highest level?

Warren commented:

It's the same old story. It's American politics. I go back to 1991, 1992, Rush Limbaugh was just railing about then President George H.W. Bush, about his "read my lips" pledge and how he'd lose the election.
He just went on and on, then all at once he got invited to the White House, and he spent the weekend in the Lincoln bedroom, and from that point on every time he'd open his mouth it was about how gracious the president was, and the first family, then Bush would call into his radio show, And then when Clinton gets elected, all of a sudden we find out people who had given $100,000 to the campaign were invited to spend a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, and that was the most despicable thing there was.
Whats the difference between all this stuff? Rush Limbaugh was bought and paid for, all these people are bought and paid for, it's American politics. Same old thing, different group.

Mike responded:

If somebody wants to pay $500,000 to see the president and OFA gets the money it's some kind of crime, but if Shelden Adelson wants to give $10 million to Newt Gingrich to go trash Republicans nominees during the campaign that's all good too, but god for bid if somebody wants to give to a Democratic organization to see the sitting president of the United States and somebody will make money off of it.

 

Carol surmised:

More like organizing for corruption.  The difference here is that they're actually with a straight face calling themselves a "social welfare" group, and they're going to have nonprofit status. So unlike those nasty conservative groups who actually have to pay taxes and answer to somebody, these guys are off the hook.
Lets face it, this is very thinly veiled selling access to the president. So how is it that a board seat and four meets with Obama are not cash for access? Cause that's basically what it is. Cash for access has pretty much been the hallmark of the Obama administration.

 

3. Why do you think NJ Gov. Chris Christie has not been invited to speak at CPAC?  (why was Mitt Romney invited)

Mike commented:

That's an excellent question. Some kind of death with for the organization? I don't know.
Chris Christie made that terrible mistake of congratulating President Obama and that didn't sit well. I have no idea why Mitt Romney is invited, it's not like he's a conservative or anything. I can't keep track of it, but I know there's a lot of warfare going on within the Republican party. I think it's going to tear apart the party, and I think it's going to be good for the Democrats

Warren responded:

C-Pac is not a Republican organization.
The Republicans being at war within the party is the same thing the Democrats went through back in the 60s and 70s and everyone wrote them off for dead.
I guess the real thing that upsets me the most about the Republican party is that it's been inundated by liberal Democrats have been basically pushed out of the Democratic party, and they've come over to "save us from ourselves". With Christie, if you don't like 2 of 3 of the things he does then everything he does got to be bad?

Carol surmised:

Christie knew his reelection was going to be tough in a deep blue state like New Jersey. He was having problems before. A lot of people thing he was counting on being Romney's vice-president to save him from reelection. Well that didn't happen. Then came Sandy and the "From Here to Eternity" embrace on the beach with Obama.
He's a very shrewd politician. He's not a dummy. He's moved to the center. Taking on the NRA and attacking the parties leaders is the way to go for Christie in the deep blue state of New Jersey.

Click on the play button below for the complete audio.

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about today’s Wingin’ It Wednesday topics. Who got it right, who got it wrong, and who was way off? Let us know in the comment section.