• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-12-09

    • With a good environment this election cycle, Republicans have recruited competitive candidates who could turn otherwise close contests into runaway victories, likely defeats into wins or at least close contests that, if things break right, tip to the GOP.

      Today, there are only 40 Republicans in the Senate. In January 2011, there could be 44, 46 or more if the party runs strong campaigns in contests that haven't jelled yet, or if some Democrats retire instead of risking defeat.

    • Sen. Bob Bennett (R., Utah), the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, predicts that Sen. Olympia Snowe (R., Me.) will not vote for the updated health-care bill recently announced by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.). “I don’t think she’ll vote for this (version),” says Bennett. “She’s given no indication that she will.” Bennett adds that what Reid has hinted publicly about his Tuesday-night “compromise” will lead to “not one single Republican voting for it.” Reid will “need every single Democrat,” says Bennett.
    • Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore, which is good news generally for Republicans and especially ones like Rob Portman who are running for office and have close ties to the former President.
    • There are a couple of problems with Feinstein’s argument, not the least of which is that the Hyde Amendment, the Stupak Amendment, and the Nelson-Casey Amendment all made exceptions for rape, incest, and a threat to the mother’s life. Furthermore, the other potential “tragic circumstances” all have to do with choices the mother made, whether married or unmarried. And none of these pieces of legislation have to do with outlawing abortion altogether, but instead put the responsibility for funding said abortions on the person who wants one.
      Feinstein does have one thing correct; tax dollars go to a lot of things that taxpayers may find objectionable, whether that’s the war in Afghanistan to studies on the effect of alcohol on young adults. However, this is also a non-sequitur in that people may find some public policy objectionable, but that’s not the same thing as subsidizing the personal choices of individuals.
    • In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 – just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.

      How closely did Gore read these emails? Did he actually read any at all? Was he lying or just terribly mistaken? What else has he got wrong?

    • Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.

      Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.
      ++++++++
      Well, this is how Hillary paid off her primary campaign debts against Obama – the American taxpayers. This is outrageous but standard for the Democrat Party in Washington.

    • Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina has assets totaling tens of millions of dollars and would be among the wealthiest members of Congress if elected to the U.S. Senate next year, financial disclosure records show.

      Fiorina, who last month launched a bid to unseat three-term incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is worth at least $30 million and as much as $119.3 million, according to forms Fiorina filed this week in accordance with congressional rules. Those rules require only that assets be reported in wide ranges — one category, which Fiorina checked twice, spans from $5 million to $25 million — making it impossible to say more precisely how much the Republican is worth.

    • Senate Democrats on Tuesday night reached a tentative deal aimed at assuaging moderate Democrats' concerns about creating a new government health insurance option, but the so-called "compromise" would actually move the nation much closer to a government-run health care system than the public option itself.

      Under the terms of deal, as reported by the Washington Post, Democrats would drop the current incarnation of the public option and instead allow the Office of Personnel Management, the entity that runs the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, to oversee the creation of privately administered plans that would be offered on the new government-run exchanges.

      (tags: Obamacare)
    • If negotiators reach an accord at the climate talks in Copenhagen it will entail profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how and where people live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution credits.
      So what is all this going to cost?

      The short answer is trillions of dollars over the next few decades. It is a significant sum but a relatively small fraction of the world’s total economic output. In energy infrastructure alone, the transformational ambitions that delegates to the United Nations climate change conference are expected to set in the coming days will cost more than $10 trillion in additional investment from 2010 to 2030, according to a new estimate from the International Energy Agency.

    • An aide briefed on the negotiations among the gang of 10 offers up the rundown of the most important aspects of the public option compromise being sent to CBO.

      If this trade-off carries the day, the opt out public option is gone.

      In its place will be many of the alternatives we've been hearing about, including a Medicare expansion and a triggered, federally-based public option, the aide said.

      As has been widely reported, one of the trade-offs will be to extend a version of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan to consumers in the exchanges. Insurance companies will have the option of creating nationally-based non-profit insurance plans that would offered on the exchanges in every state. However, according to the aide, if insurance companies don't step up to the plate to offer such plans, that will trigger a national public option.

      (tags: Obamacare)
  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Kevin Jennings

    Day By Day December 9, 2009 – The View From Here

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    The view from here on the Kevin Jenning’s FLAP is one of DISGUST.

    Haven’t you heard? The GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), founded by Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings, was caught teaching middle-school students the sexual art of “fisting.” One has to wonder, considering how in the tank the folks in tinseltown have been for this administration, would these kinds of shenanigans even bother them?

    Why is the Obama Administration and the President himself NOT asking for his immediate resignation?

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