[Please note: links to news articles and accompanying headlines and text were valid and accurate at the time of posting but content often changes or is deleted by the original publishers for reasons they feel are warranted…ed]
Family feud: Nancy Pelosi at odds with President Obama
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s increasingly public disagreements with President Barack Obama are a reflection of something deeper: the seething resentment some Democrats feel over what they see as cavalier treatment from a wounded White House. For months, the California lawmaker has been pushing Obama hard in private while praising him in public. But now she’s being more open in her criticism, in part because she feels the White House was wrong — in the wake of the Democrats’ loss in Massachusetts — to push the Senate health care bill on the House when she knew there was no way it would pass. Earlier this month, Pelosi criticized the president’s State of the Union call to exempt defense spending from a budget freeze. And in a White House meeting with leaders of both parties this week, she questioned the effectiveness of his plan to give small businesses tax breaks to hire workers. [Pass the popcorn. The only thing that could possibly hand Obama a chance at a second term would be a takeover of Congress by the GOP in November. Think back when Clinton was president…ed]
Sen. Reid kills Baucus bill, narrows focus of jobs legislation after complaints
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is rewriting a jobs bill after Democrats complained of too many concessions to Republicans. Reid announced Thursday that he would cut drastically back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman. The Finance Committee estimated that Reid’s proposal would cost approximately $15 billion. The Baucus bill, which was estimated at $85 billion, included $31 billion in tax extenders that Reid has decided to leave out. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Reid decided to drop the tax extenders after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to endorse the Baucus package. “We’re going to move this afternoon to a smaller package than talked about in the press,” Reid said. [How’s all that bipartisanship workin’ out for you Congressional Republicans?…ed]
Now Obama Discovers GOP Health Care Proposals?
Oh, the President must be really desperate. After repeating for months that Republicans have no solutions when it comes to health care reform, he now wants to discuss the very ideas he denied existed and has invited Republican leaders to the White House to find a “bipartisan” health care solution. How gracious of him. You’ll have to excuse us for questioning the sincerity of the President’s newfound desire to work together. As Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, virtually every week in 2009, we requested to meet with the President to discuss health care and other central issues. Each time, a polite “thank you” email from the White House was the extent of our bipartisan discussions. It’s interesting that only now – once his big-government dream is on political life support – does the President see a use for Republicans. And it appears that use may be more political than rooted in policy goals. In fact, the President’s invite to Republicans has come pre-packaged with some pretty audacious spin. For starters, this week the President has aggressively tried to frame Republicans as the obstructers to health care passage, unwilling to participate in the process. That’s a pretty tough sell for a President with a 77-seat majority in the House and 59 Democrat Senators in the other chamber. And before taking that line, the President might want to check with his partisan partner, Speaker Pelosi, who famously told House Democrats they would be shut out themselves if they attempted to work with Republicans on health care. That brings us to the second, more laughable, new claim from the White House: that the bill already contains Republican ideas and concessions from Democrats. Right. [Good to see Congressman Price bringing the truth out about this bogus bipartisanship nonsense we keep hearing from Obama and the Democrats. Be sure to have this information available for the TV audience when you meet with the president Mr. Price so the American people can see what’s really going on behind the scenes…ed]
Obama will help select location of Khalid Sheik Mohammed terrorism trial
President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash. Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York. Administration officials acknowledge that Holder and Obama advisers were unable to build political support for the trial. And Holder, in an interview Thursday, left open the possibility that Mohammed’s trial could be switched to a military commission, although he said that is not his personal and legal preference. “At the end of the day, wherever this case is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it’s done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules,” Holder said. “If we do that, I’m not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding.” [What? Obama realizes he mishandled this mess? Amazing! I have an idea, if he is insistent on holding this trial in a civilian court how about Chicago, his adopted hometown? Or if not Illinois, perhaps one of the other 56 states he has visited?…ed]
Obama Officials Wrong on Padilla
During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example from the Bush years to supposedly support his point. “Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we made him an enemy combatant, he didn’t talk. He did talk when he was transferred back into a civilian court.” President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today. Brennan argued: “Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation.” Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s custody and interrogated. [Gibbs and Brennan aren’t wrong, they flat out lied. This administration knows that most people won’t bother fact checking any of their hyperbole and they also know the compliant lamestream media won’t bother questioning anything they are told. We have no choice but to go out and do the research ourselves…ed]
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The Official Unraveling of the Obama Presidency
It can be no secret by now that President Obama did not have a signature achievement his first year in office. Of all his major initiatives, health care, cap and trade, civilian trials for terrorists and the “stimulus” bill – only the so-called stimulus bill was enacted. Hardly a success, as more Americans than not know what Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne do not – that it was a bad idea. Worse for the Democrats — none of those efforts have produced a greater consensus or momentum for them or Obama. To the contrary, the Democrats lost key races in 2009, a Democrat House Member defected to the Republicans, the nation is more divided than ever and the Democrat Party is in disarray — as in the Obama presidency. [The Obama presidency and the Democrats in general are indeed swirling the bowl so now is the time for the GOP to step up and give the people some strong reasons to support what they have to offer the country instead of just sitting back watching the left implode…ed]
Man Up, Obama, or Make Way for President Palin
President Barack Obama is starting to look like the second coming of Jimmy Carter. If he’s going to avoid that fate, the president had better take radical action — and fast. That means doing more than offering belated talk about jobs, or waging ineffectual on-again, off-again bank warfare. What, after all, is the point of bashing Wall Street only to then blow bonus kisses to JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. head Lloyd Blankfein? Obama needs to ditch his professorial, community-organizer mien and start cracking some heads. Unless, that is, he is intent on paving the way for a Palin presidency in 2013. Supporters are crying out for Obama to pull out of his tailspin. In an article in Politico, Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first African-American governor and an early Obama supporter, urged the president to get his act together. “The need is becoming more obvious by the day,” Wilder wrote. “Getting elected and getting things done for the people are two different jobs.” [Somewhere in the middle of a Georgia peanut field epic failure Jimmy Carter is grinning his ass off knowing this “black boy” will most likely finally take that “worst president EVAH!” monkey off his back…ed]
Dear Mr. President: Why We Are Not Hiring
Mr. President, did I really hear you say that businesses aren’t hiring because they can’t get bank loans? Are you kidding me? Please indulge me for a moment, and we can get to the actual reasons. But first, I must add that every time you step up to the microphone — for example, your impromptu presser on Tuesday — the painful decision to shut down my business of eighteen years is validated by your words. And I should thank you for that. For the record, that decision was formalized on November 5, 2008. Check your calendar. [Bit of a long read but worth the time…ed]
Larry Summers: Almost All Economists Believe More Taxes Fuels Job Growth
President Obama continuously tries to portray himself as a friend to the little-man, middle class and small business. Hence his attacks on “fat cats” who “just don’t get it,” while labeling the extravagant bonuses as “obscene,” and “the height of irresponsibility.” Meanwhile, members of his administration, in defending a sweeping small-business aid program Obama announced in his State of the Union, give reason to wonder if they really understand how to help small business. (SNIP) Obama’s chief economic adviser Larry Summers appeared Feb. 9 on the Fox Business Channel to discuss the administration’s economic agenda and defended proposed rate-hikes for those making over $250,000. “Almost all economists who studied these things have that kind of view,” he told Fox’s Liz Claman. [You just can’t make stuff like this up. The Obama administration also thinks the way to get out of debt is to borrow billions more from communist China…ed]
To Cut Debt, Obama Shifts on No Tax Vow
President Obama, still seeking to get Congressional Republicans to join in a bipartisan commission to reduce the federal debt, suggested he would be willing to break his campaign promise against raising taxes on households with less than $250,000 annual income. “The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview on Tuesday with Bloomberg BusinessWeek that the publication released online today. That included not only tax increases, he added, but also spending on the popular government health programs, Medicare and Medicaid, whose fast-growing costs are driving the projections of unsustainable annual deficits in coming years. “What I can’t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table,” Mr. Obama said. “Some would say we can’t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can’t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can’t solve the problem.” [Hey NYTs let me help you with that headline: With His Spending Out Of Control Obama Will Have To Renege On Pledge To Not Raise Taxes On Middle Class. With the way this Democrat Congress and president has been spending money the last 13 months who didn’t know Obama was going to have to flip flop on his no taxes pledge?…ed]
Why Obama Can’t Drop Health Care Reform
What the GOP fails to realize is that President Obama is fighting so hard on health care reform because the issue, for him, is finishing the work of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement. Obama has some influential company in this belief. (SNIP) Obama is disingenuous when he says he seeks GOP input, as Republicans have twice introduced their version of health reform (here) and reintroduced it in late January 2010. He continuously says the GOP has not offered any ideas or a plan for health care reform, but he changes his story when he’s face-to-face with the GOP. The GOP must grasp that when Obama states that “[h]ope and change have been the causes of my life,” he is not lying. He will not change course or come to the realization that his policies are destroying the private sector and bankrupting the country, as some pundits predict. [Fabulous article pointing out the chip on Obama’s shoulder over his perceived “racial inequalities” in this country and the many realities about Martin Luther King most folks probably never knew before…ed]
The Truth Is a Precious Commodity
The problem with Obama’s new hedging on taxing those who make below $250,000, or his administration’s taking credit for victory in the Iraq War that they so once fervently tried to abort, or the flip-flop on renditions and tribunals, or the embarrassments over closing Guantanamo and trying KSM in New York or Mirandizing the Christmas Day bomber, or trashing/praising Wall Street grandees, is not that presidents cannot change their minds as circumstances warrant, or even that all politicians are at times hypocritical. No, the rub is that Obama is not merely flipping and triangulating on issues in a desperate attempt to shadow the polls, but he is doing so on matters that he once swore were absolutely central to his entire candidacy and his signature hope-and-change agenda, critical to the future of the U.S., and proof of his opponents’ either ignorance or disingenuousness. [Without credibility you cannot lead. Obama has has lost all credibility…ed]
Only 8 percent say incumbents should be reelected
A stunning 8 percent of Americans believe members of Congress should be reelected, a staggering indictment of the legislative branch as Democrats prepare to defend their majority in the midterm elections. Eighty-one percent of people surveyed in a New York Times poll believe “it’s time to give new people a chance” to serve in Congress, the worst assessment of Congress since the newspaper began polling on this question in 1992. But the 8 percent figure is staggering. Republicans see it as a reason to throw Democrats out of Congress, while Democrats want to blame Republican obstruction for the overwhelmingly negative feelings reflected in the poll. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, said the House shares in the “frustration of the American people because we have passed the president’s agenda to create jobs” but blamed Republicans for obstructing legislation for short-term political gain. [And the lying spin from the Democrats continues. They have OWNED Congress for the last three + years and the Republicans couldn’t do a damn thing to stop anything they wanted to do. Meanwhile Pelosi and Reid have kicked virtually everything the Republicans have tried to offer to the curb. The American people are pissed off at the DEMOCRATS even if many of them don’t realize it…ed]
At the Washington Cathedral memorial service for conservative icon Jack Kemp last May, many of his loyalists asked the same question: with Kemp’s passing, would his infectious pro-growth optimism also depart our political stage? That profoundly sad day, it certainly seemed possible. Just eight months later, there is a remarkable potential candidate in the Kemp mold who may oppose – and defeat – uber liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). New York Republican, Conservative and Tea Party leaders are talking up the potential candidacy of CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a former advisor to Kemp and Ronald Reagan. [This will be a very interesting situation to keep an eye on. Kudlow would tear this Schumer idiot apart if he were to decide to run against him with the people of New York seriously fed up with this pompous jerk as it is…ed]
Kennedy won’t seek re-election, marking end of era
Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s decision not to seek re-election will leave Washington without a Kennedy in political office for the first time in more than 60 years. The Rhode Island Democrat’s term ends early next year but he says in a television message viewed by The Associated Press on Thursday that his life is “taking a new direction” and he will not seek a ninth term. The video was provided to the AP by Kennedy’s congressional office. The 42-year-old son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy does not give a reason for the decision but says it has been a difficult few years for many people and he mentions the death in August of his father. [Need some more time for rehab there Patrick? Lord knows you could use it. Nice to see our federal government is finally rid of this family. Good riddance…ed]
Storm could mean snow on ground in all 50 states
An Oklahoma forecaster is predicting an unusual weather phenomenon — snow on the ground in all 50 states at the same time. Patrick Marsh, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, says a winter storm passing through the southern U.S. Thursday and early Friday is predicted to leave measureable snowfall in the Deep South, including parts of the Florida Panhandle. [Just saw a weather report on TV and yes snow will touch all 50 states this weekend. Al Gore is reportedly beside himself and burning thousands of his global warming books just to stay warm in his 10,000 square foot Tennessee mansion …ed]
Think Color Of Money, Not Trees When It Comes To ‘Green’ Jobs
President Obama has spent billions on so-called green job programs as part of the economic recovery and plans to spend billions more. He has repeatedly argued this will create good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. But, according to the green groups themselves, these jobs can be highly expensive, often costing well more than $100,000 per job in subsidies and/or tax credits. Just last month, the White House said it was spending $135,294 per job to create 17,000 green jobs. And research commissioned in part by the Sierra Club found that the jobs often pay less than the industry average and, contrary to Obama’s claims, are often outsourced. [Now here’s a great idea. Start up your own “green energy manufacturing” company. Apply for and receive millions in taxpayer subsidies because the free markets won’t support this lunacy. Outsource your product manufacturing to China to save a bundle on payroll (with the few employees you do keep in house subsidized by the taxpayers) Sell your made in China crap to energy companies forced to rely on “alternative energy” sources via government regulation. Then rake in a pile of money on the backs of your hard working neighbors! What a fabulous way to make a living…ed]
Tulsa woman stops home burglary in progress
Something was amiss as Casey Pinkosky and her daughter arrived home Wednesday evening from a 15-minute trip to buy diapers. Leaving her 2-year-old, Evangeline Shannon, in the car, Pinkosky peered into her front window to see many of her belongings in piles, electronics unplugged from walls and her boyfriend’s semiautomatic gun on the sofa near the front door. She opened the door quietly, grabbed the gun and yelled to an unseen intruder to get out of her house. “I’ve got the gun,” she said. As a man bolted out the back door, all Pinkosky saw was a black hooded shirt. She called her boyfriend, Sean Shannon, who then called the Tulsa Police Department’s nonemergency line to report that their home had just been burglarized. [Great example of what NOT to do if you suspect someone is inside your house rifling through your stuff. This woman is fortunate she didn’t run into some hard core gang bangers in this situation especially with her 2 year old daughter left inside a potential get away car. Pretty much everything about this couple screams stupid…ed]
Victim advocates: Alissa Blanton’s murder shows flaws in protection order decisions
Amid his inexpressible grief, Mark Goedecke spoke Wednesday of how he and his daughter, Alissa Blanton, trusted the legal system for two years to stop the aging stalker who killed her this week. “I would like to tell parents that if their child is being stalked or harassed to not take it lightly,” said Goedecke, exhausted and drained of tears. “They don’t want to go through the grief and pain this has caused this family.” Goedecke said he wished he had stopped Roger Troy, the 61-year-old businessman who would not leave his 23-year-old daughter alone. On Monday, a week after a judge denied Blanton an emergency protective order, Troy killed the newlywed in a parking lot near the University of Central Florida and then shot himself. [Top quality training, a firearm and a concealed weapons permit could have been obtained a hell of a lot faster than a useless court order. With a firearm this lovely young lady would have at least had a chance. Rot in hell Roger Troy…ed]
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