President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year.

It would mark the first year without an increase in Social Security payments since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

Sarah Palin fans can expect to see a new Palin political organization surface as her memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” hits the shelves next month.
There will be an announcement about it coming up,” Palin associate Tim Crawford said Wednesday.

The New York Post reported this week that Palin’s new group will be called “Stand Up For Our Nation.” (News Corp. owns both the Post and The Wall Street Journal as well as HarperCollins Publishers, publisher of Palin’s book.) Crawford, who is treasurer of Palin’s existing political-action committee, SarahPAC, refused to provide any details about the new organization’s purpose or structure.

But Palin supporters say the former Alaska governor and last year’s GOP vice presidential nominee is eager to keep the public’s attention, even as she rakes in big earnings. “She wants to continue to be in a position to help causes dear to her heart and help people close to her,” said Fred Malek, a former fund-raiser for Sen. John McCain.

Why would the Blue Dogs say yes or no now when there’s still so much negotiation to come? Committing this soon only decreases your influence over the final product; so long as The One’s nervous about losing 60 and committed to keeping everyone happy, Nelson and Pryor can more or less set their terms. In fact, to the extent that Snowe’s vote lays down a marker about how far left the bill can go before it becomes too far left, it’s actually a help to the GOP. Politico’s already warning about a Democratic civil war if House progressives decide that Baucus’s plan isn’t nearly socialist enough for their tastes. If Reid buckles and includes a public option, Snowe walks away, the Blue Dogs are denied their political cover, and all hell breaks loose between the centrists and the left. Like her or not, given the electoral realities in the Senate, yesterday’s yes vote isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to fiscal conservatives.

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

The plan, which Fox News has learned was agreed to in principle during negotiations, would constitute the most intrusive weapons inspection program the U.S. has ever accepted.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said publicly Tuesday that the two nations have made "considerable" progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires in December and negotiators have been racing to reach agreement on a successor.

Clinton said the U.S. would be as transparent as possible.
+++++++
Not transparent on Obamacare but will let Russia see our nukes.

WTF?

Russia is weighing changes to its military doctrine that would allow for a “preventive” nuclear strike against its enemies — even those armed only with conventional weapons. The news comes just as American diplomats are trying to get Russia to cut down its nuclear stockpile, and put the squeeze on Iran’s suspect nuclear program.

In an interview published today in Izvestia, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s security council, said the new doctrine offers “different options to allow the use of nuclear weapons, depending on a certain situation and intentions of a would-be enemy. In critical national security situations, one should also not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor.”

What’s more, Patrushev said, Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nukes to repel conventionally armed attackers, “not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”

For some reason, Rush Limbaugh's mooted purchase of a sports franchise has prompted CNN and others to distribute far and wide what appear to be entirely fabricated racist quotes by Rush. As Tim Blair points out:

Bizarrely, nobody running these career-killing “quotes” seems to question why they weren’t of previous interest.

Just so. What's the theory here? He said these things on the air in 2006 and nobody noticed? 2001? Maybe 1995, back when Clinton was blaming him for Oklahoma City? Hey, let's not get hung up on details. Just because nobody can find any evidence anywhere of Rush saying these "quotes" doesn't mean he didn't say 'em. As someone called Jason Whitlock says:

Limbaugh doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt on racial matters.

RUSH: Folks, also, I don't know what to do today. I really don't know what to do. The audio sound bite roster is, again, 95% about me. The reason for my indecision here is that — well, I've talked to you about this before. People lob attacks at you and when you respond to them they think, a-ha, we've hit home runs here. There's so many outrageous, fabricated lies. There is a genuine full-fledged smear campaign being orchestrated by liberal sportswriters and picked up by other liberals in the State-Controlled Media that it's breathtaking. I'm used to being taken out of context, but we have sourced it, we have found where it was found, these fake, totally made up quotes attributed to me which are being repeated without any fact-checking at all by liberal sportswriters

Charles Johnson was against fake but accurate before he was for it.

No link for the idiot. I'll just quote him. From a thread:

Top 10 Rush Limbaugh Racist Quotes.

All out of context, and sarcasm. Right?

That link I've left in provides a flurry of extremely dubious Limbaugh "quotes" — and not a single link or citation. Including the ones created wholesale by noted scholar "zedladdy" and spread by no lesser authority than "cobra."

The Senate Finance Committee's 14-9 vote to send a health-care bill to the Senate floor marked the culmination of months (and months) of debate, hand-wringing and cajoling, and likely set off weeks (and weeks) of debate, hand-wringing and cajoling as the White House seeks to drive the legislation to final passage.

But, yesterday's vote serves as a convenient bookmark in the attempt to reform the health care system and affords us the opportunity to look at some of the winners and losers in the debate to date.

A new Susquehanna Polling and Research survey finds that only 31% of Pennsylvania voters believe Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) should be re-elected, and 59% believe it's time to give someone else a chance.

Said pollster Jim Lee: "When I see a re-elect in the low 30s, that's … near fatal."

In the general election, Specter remains locked in a statistical dead heat with Pat Toomey (R), 41% to 41% with 12% undecided.

In a Democratic primary, Specter holds a 44% to 16% lead over challenger Rep. Joe Sestak (D), with 22% of voters undecided. Interestingly, 18% of those polled said they would not vote for either candidate or would vote for someone else.

As we told you today in reporting the latest Field Poll, Guv Schwarzenegger-loathing is at an all-time high in California. Dude's got a 59 percent disapproval rating among his fellow Republicans.

And that includes a die-hard GOPper like OC Assemblyman and US Senate candidate Chuck DeVore.

Chuck D from the OC went off on Arnold to the San Diego Republican Party Monday night:

"We were told in 2003 that it was important in this historic one-of-a-kind recall that we take a chance on somebody who had not really established a record within our ranks, either as a Republican or as a conservative," DeVore said. "A lot of us have been regretting it ever since."

‘The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Tuesday regarding the Finance Committee vote on partisan health care reform:

“Sen. Snowe called me this morning to let me know that while she continues to have serious, substantive policy reservations with this proposal, she wanted to keep the process moving. I share her concerns about the direction of this bill once it leaves the committee, and her call for transparency before we vote to proceed to any bill on the floor.

"The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate. But what we do know is that the bill written behind closed doors here in the Capitol will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar Washington takeover. We know it will slash a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, add new taxes and raise premiums. That’s not reform.”

While Russia had, until recently, vetoed UN Security Council resolutions against the Iranian nuclear program, Medvedev suddenly hardened his rhetoric, mentioning sanctions as a possible course of action. Either way, it is quite clear that Russia, which borders Iran on the Caspian Sea, does not fear the emergence of its new nuclear neighbor and is even actively aiding the construction of the nuclear station in Iran. Why? The reasons are manifold.

Cary Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and probable candidate for U.S. Senate from California, is starting to look like a viable choice for conservative voters in the Golden State, giving the GOP two conservatives from whom to chose.

Fiorina's bona fides have been a question to many California Republicans because she is a relative newcomer to politics and many are not familiar with her political philosophy or what her campaign will stand for. But her recent hard hitting editorial in the Fresno Bee helps bring her ideals better into focus for the voters.

TMZ has a video of former Olympian and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” reality star Bruce Jenner weighing in on President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win.

“He’s done nothing,” Jenner said. “He’s done absolutely nothing.”

Today, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on Senator Max Baucus’ health care overhaul. Like most Americans, I believe that our health care system needs to be reformed. However, this bill is a tax and spending bill masquerading as a health reform bill. It gives government bureaucrats far too much power and encroaches on freedom more than any legislation since LBJ’s Great Society experiment. It is bad for the country and bad for the economy.

Senate Democrats are pushing a vote on the 1,000-page bill now because the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the bill cost “only” $829 billion over the next 10 years. In truth, the bill raises taxes immediately, but the benefits do not kick in for another four years, so the 10-year numbers are distorted. This is an expensive experiment that cuts Medicare, and exacerbates state government budget problems by dramatically expanding Medicaid without providing additional funding.

The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete.

Call it Plan B for dealing with Iran, which recently revealed a long-suspected nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom.

The 15-ton behemoth – called the "massive ordnance penetrator," or MOP – will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal and will carry 5,300 pounds of explosives. The bomb is about 10 times more powerful than the weapon it is designed to replace.

The Pentagon has awarded a nearly $52 million contract to speed up placement of the bomb aboard the B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials say the bomb could be fielded as soon as next summer.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after talks with Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday that neither country is seeking to impose sanctions against Iran under the current circumstances.

Clinton said sanctions over Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment program would be premature, and that Russia was being “extremely cooperative in the work we have done together” on the issue.

Lavrov said Russia is “in principle very reserved on sanctions, as they rarely produce results.”

He said sanctions should only be used when all diplomatic means have been exhausted, and that “in the situation with Iran, this is far from the case.”

Lavrov also and the U.S. and Russia have shared positions the issue.