links for 2009-03-17

The leader of the nation's largest veterans organization says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan," said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. "He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it."

The next RNC chairman will be Norm Coleman, after he loses his recount fight and big donors see Michael Steele’s March numbers.

California state government's full-time work force continues to grow despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order to freeze hiring amid a historic budget shortfall.

From June 2008 to February 2009, most state agencies either increased or kept the same number of full-time employees, according to a Bee analysis of personnel data. The state also failed to lay off as many part-time employees during the crisis as promised by the governor.
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Not shocking from Schwarzenegger who has failed as California Governor

The furor over the huge federal spending under President Obama – a $1.75 trillion deficit, 13 percent – obscures an even more basic question: Does he know what he is doing?

That is, does he know how to do anything other than spend?

His stimulus package, of course, took no special ability: He left the details to Democrats in Congress. But his two other major initiatives – his banking and mortgage-relief plans – are both flawed and unlikely to solve their respective problems.

oday's liberalism may stand on decades of failed ideas, but it is failure in the name of American redemption. It remains competitive with — even ascendant over — conservatism because it addresses America's moral accountability to its past with moral activism. This is the left's great power, and a good part of the reason Barack Obama is now the president of the United States. No matter his failures — or the fruitlessness of his extravagant and scatter-gun governmental activism — he redeems America of an ugly past. How does conservatism compete with this?