President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.
“If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they're going to drop your coverage, because they just can't afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

“This actually provides us the best chance of starting to bend the cost curve on the government expenditures in Medicare and Medicaid,” Obama said.

Assemb. Chuck DeVore may be a GOPer, but he and the NRSC do not get along. Both camps are hurling invective back and forth as they battle over whether one side invited the other to meet — and whether the NRSC is showing too much favoritism to another candidate.

For the first time, Obama’s overall job approval rating has fallen below 50 percent (to 47 percent). In addition, for the first time since Sept. 2007, a plurality (45 percent) sees the Democratic Party in a negative light. And the percentage believing the country is on the wrong track (55 percent) is at its highest level in the Obama presidency.

“This survey underscores what I consider a dramatic and unmistakable change in the political landscape,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. “For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast.”

“The sagging economy is beginning to drag him down,” McInturff added. “This is increasingly becoming President Obama’s economy.”
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Quite a change in one year. The winds of electoral change are blowing.

As Democrats scrambled to meet self-imposed deadlines, Senate Republicans froze the health care debate for at least a day Wednesday by insisting that a 767-page mega-amendment be read out loud in its entirety.

The move was poised take some 12 hours or more and grind Senate business to a halt for the day. It also threatened Democrats' ability to pass a health care bill before Christmas.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, set things in motion around lunchtime Wednesday. As the Senate moved to a sweeping single-payer amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Coburn objected to the common Senate procedure that waives the actual out-loud reading of the proposal.

"I would ask that the amendment be considered as read," Sanders said on the floor.

"I object," Coburn instantly responded.

Senate clerks began with the table of contents and took turns reciting the rest of the bill.

The John Birch Society announces it is cosponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2010, to be held in Washington DC, Feb. 18-20.

JBS will have a double booth with half dedicated to offering educational and promotional materials and the other half housing a TV studio that will stream live video from the booth and broadcast onto JBS LibertyNewsNetwork.tv, a website that will feature archived JBS video and live video streams.

Last year, more than 8,000 attendees were drawn to CPAC. Posted on CPAC's website, The Washington Post called it, “… the preeminent yearly gathering of conservative activists.”

As many JBS members realize, true conservative leaders are hard to find nowadays, especially in a movement dominated by neoconservatives and RINOs (Republican In Name Only). Goals for attending include offering visitors a chance to learn more about JBS and its time-tested, successful grassroots action campaigns, how they can help return the U.S. to

Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation’s only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change. While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act “greener than thou” when talking to reporters.

Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Democrat who sits with Democratic caucus, said Tuesday that he would not rule out running for re-election in 2012 as a Republican.

Lieberman angered his colleagues in the Democratic caucus this week by threatening to torpedo health care legislation if it contains a government-run public health insurance or an expansion of Medicare.

Lieberman said he wasn't sure which party, if any, he would represent in his next election.

"I like being an independent, so that's definitely a possibility," the Connecticut senator said. "But I'd say all options are open."

He called running as a Republican "unlikely" but added that he wouldn't "foreclose any possibility."

Thought Don Henley's lawsuit against California state Assemblyman and U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R) would deter him from continuing to incorporate third-party copyrighted content into his campaign material? Not so much. DeVore has released a new video mocking his opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D). And the video includes a clip of about 8 seconds from "Austin Powers":

When asked about the health care bill and taxpayer-funding of health plans that cover abortion, Sen. Barbara Baoxer (D-Calif.) said on Monday that she supports the “Hyde idea,” in reference to the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funds from paying for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

But a week ago, Boxer voted against an amendment sponsored by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) that would have added language virtually identical to the Hyde amendment to the Senate health care bill.

Looks like Assemblywoman Audra Strickland , R-Moorpark, has been knocked out of the Ventura County treasurer-tax collector race before she even had an official rival running against her for the job.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 this morning to update the eligibility rules for the job. A 1995 law recommended that counties adopt minimum educational and professional job requirements for such positions, but left it up to the counties to decide if and when they would make the change.

Governor Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio are now tied in the 2010 race for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely GOP Primary voters finds Crist and Rubio each with 43% of the vote. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.

Independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman says he expects to support the Democrats' health care legislation as long as any government-run insurance plan stays out of the bill.

Lieberman has been a question mark on the health care legislation for months. To win him over, Senate leaders said late Monday they were backing away from a Medicare expansion Lieberman opposed. They already had dropped a full-blown government insurance program.

Lieberman told reporters Tuesday that if the Medicare expansion and government insurance plan are gone, "I'm going to be in a position where I can say what I've wanted to say all along: that I'm ready to vote for health care reform."

Establishing a joint fundraising committee does not legally bind the candidate and the NRSC in any way. The NRSC can, and has offered to, set up a joint committee with multiple candidates in the same race. In fact, in some ways, setting up a joint committee is better for the NRSC than for the candidate — if an individual has maxed out to a candidate, their check to the joint committee will be directed to the NRSC, thanks to personal contribution limits.

The NRSC is not bound by any of the agreements to spend the money in certain states, either. The party has also set up joint accounts with Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and David Vitter (R-LA). Murkowski and Coburn are unlikely to face serious opposition next year, while Grassley and Vitter are running far ahead of their rivals.

A top Pentagon official said Monday that a US missile defense drill will simulate an Iranian attack, a departure from the usual scenario of a North Korean attack, according to Reuters.
"Previously, we have been testing the GMD system against a North Korean-type scenario. This next test … is more of a head-on shot like you would use defending against an Iranian shot into the United States. So that's the first time that we're now testing in a different scenario," Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the US Missile Defense Agency said at the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington.

According to O'Reilly, an Iranian attack would be more challenging than a North Korean attack because a missile fired from Iran would reach the US "more head on than from the side," and therefore relatively faster.

During the test, expected to cost about $150 million scheduled for January, the US would fire an interceptor missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at a mock-Iranian missil

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

“A day after Sen. Joe Lieberman said he won’t vote for the Democratic health reform bill as currently written, a progressive public policy blog is trying to oust his wife Hadassah as global ambassador for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer group.

“And Firedoglake is hoping to enlist Hollywood stars that work with the group.

“Firedoglake contends that Hadassah Lieberman’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry — she once did public relations for a firm that handled Pharma clients and subsequent consulting for some drugmakers — should disqualify her.

“Among the stars it is contacting: Ellen DeGeneres, Christie Brinkley, Andie MacDowell, Christie Brinkley, Cynthia Nixon, Ellen DeGeneres, James Woods, Jennifer Tilly, Marcia Cross, Mimi Rogers and Neil Patrick Harris.”
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Yeah – way to make friends and influence Senators – Good job!