Ben Smith of Politico.com, reporting on the resignation of Yosi Sargent (former NEA Communications Director who organized and participated in call enlisting artists to support Obama programs): “The White House has sought to downplay the story, which has gotten little mainstream media attention, despite heavy coverage on the right.”
Perhaps that would explain the latest poll findings on national attitudes toward the media, conducted by Sacred Heart University: “A large majority, 89.3 percent, suggested the national media played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect President Obama. Just 10.0 percent suggested the national media played little or no role. Further, 69.9 percent agreed the national news media are intent on promoting the Obama presidency while 26.5 percent disagreed. Some, 3.6 percent, were unsure.”
If Democrats avoid the typical route for passing a bill and use the budget reconciliation process (requiring only 51 votes for final passage), then opponents of a government-run system will need to convince several Democrats that the current bills in Congress are complete garbage and must be opposed, even during cloture votes.
Good news has arrived and a reliably liberal voice on the Democratic side, Ron Wyden (D-OR), has stated that he will not vote for the Baucus Bill in its current form. Other Senators that should be persuaded in the same direction as Senator Wyden: Ben Nelson (D-NE), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Robert Byrd (D-WV), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Arlen Specter (D-PA), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
If you live in one of these states, call your Senator and let them know that you don’t support a government takeover of health care, individual mandates, employer mandates, higher taxes, or a reduction in your Medicare benefits. Here is the Senate switchboard number: 202-224-3121.
The U.S. Department of Transportation today announced an investigation of ACORN because the teenage prostitutes about which ACORN advised would have been transported in vehicles, possibly clunkers. No, that’s a joke. But the Inspector General of the Treasury Department really did authorize an investigation, and more are being sought at both federal and state levels.
Who knew that ACORN could provide such a stimulus package for lawyers?
For those wondering whether the public option will ever get through the Senate, the White House chief of staff just answered the question.
Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, gave an interview with Charlie Rose last night and stated that a public option could not pass the Senate. I wonder if that includes the “co-op” that the Senate Finance Committee is currently considering.
The $787 billion economic recovery package … is stimulating growth in the federal government as agencies hire thousands of workers and spend millions of dollars to oversee and implement the package, according to government records and spokesmen. … That’s helped fuel the continued growth of the federal government, which increased by more than 25,000 employees, or 1.3%, since December 2008…”
Have no fear: John Berry, head of the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management, says the increase is small and temporary. Believe that, then there’s a bridge in Brooklyn for sale with your name written all over it.
In related news, the Labor Department this morning reported that the number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits this week was 530,000. While the number was less than economists expected, that brought the total number of jobs lost since December, 2008 to nearly 4 million, most coming from the private sector. This, despite Congress’ passage of the $787 billion taxpayer-funded stimulus bill.
CNSNews.com is reporting that “House Republicans are seeking a congressional investigation and information from the White House to determine whether the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) pushed politics in a conference call with potential grant recipients.”
The issue erupted when Andrew Breitbart, of ACORN-video fame, published details of the call on his Big Hollywood website in which the White House allegedly worked with NEA officials to encourage its grant recipients to push Obama’s top policy priorities, including health care reform, cap-and-trade and other issues.
According to Rep. John Kline (R-MN), ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee:
The Lobbying Act and the Hatch Act are there to make sure we do not see government personnel and assets used for political purposes. … It does appear laws were broken. I want to work within the jurisdiction where I have it, which is the ranking Republican on the Education and Labor Committee.”
In addition, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent a letter to Obama Sr. Advisor Valerie Jarrett at the White House asking her to provide more information about the conference call, including:
A full and complete list of all participants on the August 10, 2009 conference call.
A full and complete explanation of how invitees to the conference call were selected.
A full and complete description of any consultation of, or opinion provided by, the Office of the White House Counsel or any other advisor regarding the legal implications of the August 10, 2009 conference call specifically and/or the relationship between the White House and NEA generally.
A full and complete description of how the conference call was arranged, including which White House staff initiated contact with, or were contacted by, NEA staff, the role of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the role of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
A full and complete explanation of the White House’s expectations for call participants.
A full and complete list of, any material produced by call participants in response to the August 10,2009 conference call.
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is leading the effort on the Senate side.
If you count Senator Robert Byrd, who is recovering in the hospital from a fall, Democrats now have a “filibuster proof” 60-seat majority in the U.S. Senate.
Today, as expected, Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) picked Paul Kirk Jr. to serve as a temporary replacement for Senator Kennedy. Kirk, like most of the rabble on the Hill, is a lawyer and once served as a health care lobbyist. He will be sworn in this Friday.
Presumably, Kirk will have the easiest job in the Senate. When a cloture motion is filed by the Democrats, vote for it. Nice job to have if you were fortunate enough to work for Senator Kennedy and be well connected in the Bay State.
Wouldn’t it save time if the Massachusetts legislature would just pass a law saying that if the governor is a Democrat, he fills any Senate vacancy, while if the governor is a Republican, a special election must be held?”
“We have to perform well, or we lose our charter. It makes us step up our game.”
Those are the words of Stacey Gauthier, principal of a New York City charter school, explaining why charter schools have so significantly outperformed public schools in a study released this week.
The study, by economics Professor Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University, demonstrates that poorer, inner-city students who spent their elementary school years in charter schools excelled compared to counterpart students in New York’s public system. Remarkably, these charter students’ achievement scores even matched those of more affluent suburban students.
The reason that Professor Hoxby’s study is particularly enlightening is that critics of charter schools and vouchers typically argue that their students are somehow selected from “the cream of the crop.” According to these apologists for public teachers’ unions, more ambitious students and families are the ones who selectively gravitate to charters. But Professor Hoxby compared only students who were similarly-motivated: those who actually attend charters versus students who were motivated to seek entry to charters but were denied random lottery applications to do so.
Imagine how much public schools could improve if faced with the choice described by Principal Gauthier – perform well or lose your charter.
Breaking News from the Miami Herald: “It’s been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He’s sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and ‘Israeli mercenaries’ are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.”
This, dear readers, is the guy that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demand be returned to power as President of Honduras.
The Boston Globeis reporting that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick will announce his choice to fill U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat on an interim basis. He is schedule to make the announcement at a press conference at 11:00 a.m.
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul G. Kirk, Jr., who served as an assistant to Senator Kennedy from 1969-1977, appears to be the choice.
Earlier this week, the Massachusetts legislature changed state law to permit Governor Patrick to appoint an interim Senator, but the legislature stipulated that the Governor would have to wait 90 days or, alternatively, declare an “emergency situation” to name Kennedy’s successor immediately. Not surprisingly, the Governor is choosing to do the latter.
In his weekly descent into leftist frivolousness today, Wall Street Journal token columnist Thomas Frank argues that Democrats have remained far too… get this… “civil” in contemporary political debate. Frank absurdly claims that in response to conservative activism, Democrats “pine for civility, pretending that the argument comes down to the scary rhetoric issuing from the right.”
On what planet is he living? As noted by Tony Blankley in his most recent commentary, Democrats have met citizen activism by labeling them “evil” (Senator Harry Reid), “un-American” (House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer), “racist” (Jimmy Carter) and accusing them of employing “Nazi” tactics (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi). In contrast, Republican leaders have maintained a professional, restrained, rational tone, as illustrated by Senators Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, and Representatives Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Frank proceeds to unfurl his usual litany of anti-capitalist tirades and bogeymen, but that’s nothing new. Asserting that Democrat leaders have somehow taken the rhetorical high road, however, is remarkably silly even for him.
We’ve heard the line time after time. “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor,” exclaims the President during every major town hall and Congressional address. Unfortunately, when it comes to the sausage factory that is Congress, pledges morph into broken promises quickly.
Here is a perfect illustration of how Congress takes the simple (patient->doctor) and makes it maddeningly complex. There is nothing Congress is incapable of ruining, including your relationship with your physician.
It has come to our attention that Barack Obama, the duly-elected 44th President of the United States, today went before the United Nations and appealed for a New World Order.
Based solely upon that empirical evidence, it is your immediate duty to release from your institutions all who have been committed there based on conditions that were previously and erroneously diagnosed as “paranoid delusions regarding black helicopters and the world takeover by the United Nations.”
As should be eminently clear from the above-cited evidence, those unfortunates aren’t loonies at all, just visionaries decades ahead of their time.
Once that considerable space in your institutions has been emptied, you would be well advised to begin preparing more luxurious, though no less secure, accommodations for the 44th President of the United States, whose delusions thus far exposed are yet to be thoroughly diagnosed and categorized, but are being addressed around the clock by the absolute best psychiatrists at the CIA, many of whom have volunteered to work on their own time at their own expense in the interest of national security.
Apparently, Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the New Wizard* of ObamaCare has decided that it is bad form to tax condoms, but really good form to tax insulin pumps and hearing aids and power wheelchairs.
Worried about perceptions that ObamaCare will tax the middle class (it still will, and we will be telling you we told you so for decades), Baucus seemingly decided to exempt consumer items of $100 or less from his previously proposed tax on medical devices.
There are no middle-class people who are deaf, diabetic and lame? What did they do to get screwed?
Do these people really think we are that stupid? Do they think that by applying the tax to the medical device companies, you won’t know it’s going to be passed to you? There’s no one that stupid. Plenty of people docile enough to let it happen, but not so stupid as to not understand this.
*Note that we are using Wizard as a coded expletive rather than Imperial Wizard, which is a better coded expletive, in this context, but would be mischaracterized and get us charged with saying bad stuff and inciting violence.
According to Senate staff, the Senate Finance Committee just rejected a proposal to require the full legislative text (not the summary) and final CBO cost estimate to be placed online 72 hours before a vote.
Before the Committee votes, taxpayers and even Senators won’t have a chance to read the bill or determine its projected cost. So much for transparency and open government.
“AP: Ahmadinejad urges Obama to see Iran as friend”
Learned commentary thereon: Hey, you anti-semitic psychopath, the problem for your people and for ours is that he already does.
In related news, thanks to Canwest News Service, “Canada will boycott Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations on Wednesday, saying his outbursts about the Holocaust and Israel are ‘shameful.'”
Learned commentary thereon: Canada, and only Canada?
Hello. Good morning. We need to use this opportunity for an urgent message to American business, large and small (and even tiny), to American agricultural interests, large and small, regardless of crop, if you are or are trying to sell overseas or buy overseas.
Your president is in the process of starting a trade war with the Chinese over imported tires. He is doing this on behalf of a union, no big news on that. It is, as most protectionist acts in the global village, silly and ill-advised. In this case, the potential upside is infinitesimal and the downside, in an unusually fragile economy, similar unto the scariest Halloween movie in which victims are picked randomly and abruptly for slaughter.
You may not be paying attention now, but you better. Trade wars cannot be contained. Trade wars cannot be limited to the original countries involved. Trade wars cannot be limited to specific products or commodities. You wanna talk political triangulation? Trade wars involve hyperdextrangulation squared.
The problem with trade wars you ignore is that one day you wake up to learn you have become collateral damage, through no fault of your own, never did one thing wrong in or to any country involved. Doesn’t matter. That’s what collateral damage is. You don’t want to become collateral damage. You don’t want to explain to your employees and farm workers and families and children that you are collateral damage.
You have three choices. The first is to call the president and tell him to stop this nonsense before it gets out of hand. The second is to write the president and tell him to stop this nonsense before it gets out of hand. The third is to do nothing and play foreign trade roulette. You do not want to take the third option.
Trust us. We know. We once, shall we say, had some proximity to advising on targets for collateral damage in other countries.
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