links for 2009-02-11

Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much. If he fails to act decisively, the president risks being overwhelmed, like his predecessor. The costs to the US and the world of another failed presidency do not bear contemplating.

What is needed? The answer is: focus and ferocity. If Mr Obama does not fix this crisis, all he hopes from his presidency will be lost. If he does, he can reshape the agenda. Hoping for the best is foolish. He should expect the worst and act accordingly.

President Obama's economic stimulus plan passed the Senate this morning on a 61-37 vote. Three Republicans joined the Democrats to provide the minimum 60 votes needed to advance the bill: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The Senate version of the package now goes into a joint conference with House leaders, where they will hammer out a compromise bill.

Unless Senator Specter gets his way. Because he's apparently not really "into" compromising. He announced today that when the bill comes around again, he won't vote for it unless it's basically identical to what the Senate passed.
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If Specter goes, so goes Collins and Snowe.

The opening-day headliner for the annual CPAC conservative convention February 26-28, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has pulled out, citing state business in Juneau. "We're obviously disappointed," said a CPAC official. A spokesman for the three-day confab, organized by the American Conservative Union Foundation and others, said that Palin, the popular former vice presidential nominee, had indicated she would be able to attend but cited "duties of governing" in bowing out. Instead, she will send in a taped message. The decision was clearly a blow to many of those planning to be there, who expected to see Palin address the group on the opening day and Obama foe Rush Limbaugh wrap up the convention. Limbaugh is confirmed to speak on Saturday, February 28. One conservative associated with the convention said Palin, who earlier this month attended the prestigious Alfalfa Club dinner, was "making a mistake" by not appearing in person.

A well-connected source in Virginia tells me that at least one Democratic state senator is leaving the party's caucus . . . "Not sure yet if he's going Republican or Independent." This is significant because the Democrats currently have a 21 to 19 majority; a switch could give Republicans control of the chamber, because the Lieutenant Governor, who presides and breaks ties, is Republican William Bolling.

And yes, this source used the pronoun "he."

The Obama administration Tuesday announced a wide-ranging financial sector rescue plan that could send $2 trillion coursing through the financial system.
The plan, which is designed to involve a mix of government and private capital, aims to stabilize the U.S. financial system by injecting capital into banks, helping to determine prices of toxic assets weighing on firms' balance sheets and stemming foreclosures.

"We believe that the policy response has to be comprehensive and forceful," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in his speech Tuesday. "Instead of catalyzing recovery, the financial system is working against recovery. And at the same time, the recession is putting greater pressure on banks. This is a dangerous dynamic, and we need to arrest it."

The conservative group Let Freedom Ring has mounted a last-ditch effort to derail the stimulus, with a round of robocalls in the home states of Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snow, and Arlen Specter, asking residents to urge the senators to switch their positions and vote against the final bill.

"We are doing some interactive automated calling in both Maine and Pennsylvania urging people to call their senators to vote against the stimulus bill today," said Let Freedom Ring president Colin Hanna.

He said they'd placed about 150,000 calls altogether in the two states, and that radio ads are also running in Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

Members of the Obama sycophant Capitol Hill media did their best yesterday to bully Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a press conference just hours before voting to end the debate on the $838.2 billion “stimulus” spending bill. The media, reading straight from the Democrat talking points, asked such questions as “The bill right now is about 45 percent tax cuts. That’s not enough? You can’t support that? Is there any percentage you would support?” A genuinely surprised McConnell replied, “The Senate bill? The only way it could be characterized as 40-some odd percent tax cuts would be if you added in the AMT [Alternative Minimum Tax] fix… every year we do an AMT fix, so simply not collecting a tax that we were never going to levy anyway I don’t find terribly stimulative.”

Outside the business community, to the extent she's known at all, Meg Whitman was the wrong woman on some lists of John McCain's possible vice presidential choices.

Having been Mitt Romney's national finance chair in the Republican presidential primaries — gee, was that a year ago already? — the 52-year-old Whitman moved almost as quickly as Romney to back McCain, helping him raise millions in his unsuccessful general election effort alongside that Alaskan governor.

Now, Whitman herself has announced an "exploratory committee" to run for California governor, which is exploratory in name only. There'll be many more announcing on both sides in coming weeks, elbowing to replace the term-limited Austrian-born incumbent.

While President Barack Obama goes on the road to shore up slipping popular support for the $1 trillion stimulus porkfest that he ordered up from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Walt Minnick, a freshman Democrat from Idaho, is pushing a better idea: The Strategic Targeted American Recovery and Transition Act (START).

Minnick is a member of the Blue Dog caucus of occasionally conservative Democcrats. His START plan is a $170 billion “bare bones” pure stimulus approach that would put $100 billion immediately into the pockets of low- and middle-income Americans, then use the other $70 billion for basic infrastructure projects that create jobs. START requires that all funds not spent by 2010 be returned to the Treasury. START also stops stimulus spending when the nation’s Gross Domestic Product increases in two of three previous quarters, and all START payments are required to be posted on a public website.

The gravity of the financial crisis confronting the Obama administration will come into stark focus today when officials unveil a three-pronged rescue program that may commit up to $1.5 trillion in public and private funds, and possibly more, lawmakers and other officials said.

A conference could be a meeting of House and Senate Democratic staff, after which a bill is presented to members and a vote is quickly scheduled. Or it could be a fully fledged back-room negotiating session with lawmakers from both parties. Most likely, though, the stimulus conference will be a closed process and focused on reconciling the three Republican Senators who voted in favor of their bill with the desire of Speaker Pelosi and chairman Dave Obey to restore cuts in state and education aid. The White House will preside, as presidents can do — and I think the House will conclude, in the end, that some of what's been cut from their first go-round can be funded through later appropriations. The pressure from the White House to get Obama a bill will warp political spacetime more than the density pressure of Democrats in the House.

As noted, “The U.S. attorney's office inadvertently sent the confidential document, a defense sentencing memorandum filed under seal, to The Washington Post after the newspaper requested the prosecution's sentencing memorandum.” Apparently the Post expects readers to believe that Fabian’s allegations against Steele just happened to fall in their laps at the same time Steele was catapulted to a prominent position leading the Republican Party.

President Obama said in his inaugural address that he planned to "restore science to its rightful place" in government. That's a worthy goal. But statisticians at the Commerce Department didn't think it would mean having the director of next year's Census report directly to the White House rather than to the Commerce secretary, as is customary. "There's only one reason to have that high level of White House involvement," a career professional at the Census Bureau tells me. "And it's called politics, not science."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he welcomes talks with United States but they must be based on mutual respect.

Ahmadinejad spoke Tuesday at celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.

He says Iran is ready to hold talks with the U.S. so long as it's in a "fair atmosphere and with mutual respect."
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Israel will be watching Hillary and Obama very closely for any sign of a sell out.

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.
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A back door attempt towards socialized medicine – OUTRAGEOUS

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).