• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-08-24

    • A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com.
      Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

      "You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year," a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.

      Since 9/11, the CIA has had five directors or acting directors.

    • There’s nothing like a summer vacation to rekindle a romance. So maybe a week on Martha’s Vineyard can bring back some of the magic between the Obama administration and the media.

      Before White House press secretary Robert Gibbs left town, he tried to clarify President Barack Obama’s comment that “everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up.” Gibbs explained to reporters that what the president meant was that they were a bunch of bed wetters who made too much out of the implosion of the White House health care strategy.

      Gibbs has grown more sardonic and patronizing as the summer wears on and Obama’s poll numbers wilt.

      The press secretary

    • The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter.
      The recommendation by the Office of Professional Responsibility, presented to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in recent weeks, comes as the Justice Department is about to disclose on Monday voluminous details on prisoner abuse that were gathered in 2004 by the C.I.A.’s inspector general but have never been released.
    • Throughout the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama’s most loyal constituencies were the national press corps and the left wing of the Democratic Party.
      Those on the left loved him because they thought he was one of them. They tolerated all the happy talk about bipartisanship because they were sure that deep in his community-organizing heart Obama shared their premises, their passions and their goals.

      The media loved him because he was a great story and a great campaigner. The press favors dreamy liberals, but it worships success, and Obama was the best of both worlds — a soaring rhetorician with a ruthlessly competent political machine.

      But now both groups are turning on him. As the health care debate enters its decisive weeks, the left doubts President Obama’s commitment, and the press doubts his competence.

      (tags: barack_obama)
    • Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens.
    • Today in the Washington Post, RNC Chairman Michael Steele writes, "Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care. We also believe that any health-care reform should be fully paid for, but not funded on the backs of our nation's senior citizens."

      The classic Bill of Rights has ten provisions; the RNC version for seniors only requires six.

    • American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders.
      The commanders emphasized problems in southern Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents continue to bombard towns and villages with rockets despite a new influx of American troops, and in eastern Afghanistan, where the father-and-son-led Haqqani network of militants has become the main source of attacks against American troops and their Afghan allies.
      (tags: afghanistan)
  • Obamacare

    Obamacare: 47 Million Uninsured Americans?

    Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

    Obamacare supporters continue to mention the figure of 47 million uninsured Americans as justification for health care reform.

    47 Million is a gross exaggeration.

    It’s not 47 million.  It’s not 36 million.  The number of Americans uninsured out of necessity and not economic choice is at most 14 million.  Understanding that will bring a much more balanced approach to health-care reform on a scale commensurate with the problem, rather than a hysterical rush to throw out a system that works for hundreds of millions Americans.

    So, Obama and the Congressional Democrats want to ruin the best health care system in the world for less than 10 per cent of the population.

    Isn’t that like throwing out the baby with the bath water?


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  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day

    Day By Day by Chris Muir August 24, 2009 – Children

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Look for the Obama Administration minions to now channel former President George W Bush as we move towards Labor Day and the return of Congress from summer recess.

    The President has gone on vacation and “The One” will leave it to his surrogates to pick up the pieces of Obamacare and the economy.

    In the meantime, the national GOP is busy recruiting even better candidates to make an electoral run at Democrat Congressional majorities in November 2010.

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