• Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day February 26, 2010 – Wise Up

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Sam, some wives would be threatened when an EX military cohort of the husband was a partner in a business enterprise, namely the Florida Bar. Zed has enough of a real life bad dream happening at present.

    Talking about “bad dreams” what about President Obama’s health care summit yesterday?

    Via Hengler, a succinct statement of Jay Nordlinger’s point and of what I suspect will be the media consensus tomorrow. Not the only kind words he had for the GOP either:

    The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.

    I watched the health care summit for a little whiole before I was off to the dental clinic and practiced real life health care – in the trenches, so to speak. From what I saw, Obama looked defensive, spiteful and “in your face, I am doing it my way anyway.”

    If Congressional Democrat leaders were hoping that the President would mesmerize the country into providing them cover for budget reconciliation passage of Obamacare with a public option, they failed miserably.

    Obamacare today appears to be just as dead as it was prior to the summit. Watch the Democrats in marginal House districts run for cover and strat repudiating Obama.

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    • Is Tom Campbell an anti-Semite?

      Is Tom Campbell a terrorists sympathiser?

      Is Tom Campbell best described as simply being ‘anti-Israel’; making a habit out of befriending violent, jihadist Palestinians?

      …or is this much to do about nothing?

      Marty Wilson, Carly Fiorina’s campaign manager, made his charges clear this afternoon’s emergency media teleconference stating, “Tom Campbell has a record that is anti-Israel; the voters will have to decide if Tom Campbell is sympathetic to terrorists.”

      In a growing dust-up, Republican candidate Tom Campbell’s past votes, former relationships and numerous campaign contributors have come under great scrutiny from certain media and the Fiorina campaign.

    • Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.

      An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.

      The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.

      Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses “left a lot to be desired”.
      +++++++
      Government run healthcare = FAIL

    • The Obama administration’s determined effort to reduce America’s missile defense capabilities initially seemed to be just standard Leftist fare — of a piece with the Democratic base’s visceral hostility to the idea of protecting us against ballistic missile threats. A just-unveiled symbolic action suggests, however, that something even more nefarious is afoot.
      ++++++++
      Read it all – sadly true…..
    • The President’s Job 1 at the health-care summit, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., is to build the impression that Republicans had their chance, and were players in the process. Then look for a day or so of quiet as Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid take the temperature of their caucuses. After that, the most likely course (“Plan B-1”) is for Dems to try to push comprehensive reform through swiftly on simple-majority votes. This could include POTUS making the case on the road. “Plan B-2” is the a la carte, “skinny bill” approach, which might be even more infeasible, since it would mean months — rather than weeks — of work on an unpopular measure at a time when skittish members are focused on Nov. 2.
      ++++++++
      Probably neither
      (tags: Obamacare)
  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day February 25, 2010 – The Rules

    The Dog and Pony show on Obamacare is about to begin this morning. The President and Congressional Democrats have wasted a year in massaging this supposed “comprehensive” health care reform bill.

    But, as the media gathers and the White House prepares the show, Obama has already floated a Plan “B.”

    President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.

    His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.

    It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents’ health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.

    Officials cautioned that no final decisions had been made but said the smaller plan’s outlines are in place in case the larger plan fails.

    One wonders why this modest proposal took over a year of political machinations to submit?

    BECAUSE OBAMACARE HAS FAILED.

    President Obama should admit his Obamacare health care reform plan is NOT going to pass the Congress, is out of favor with the American public and start working with the Republicans to obtain some meaningful health care reform.

    But, that would be asking alot now, wouldn’t it?

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    • If congressional Democrats decide to pass fixes to the Senate health care bill through reconciliation, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is one of the most important people to bring on board with the plan.

      But Conrad threw some doubt Wednesday on the plan that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been pushing, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated he could accept — to pass the sidecar reconciliation bill with the fixes before the House takes up the Senate bill, as a way to mollify House members who strongly oppose the more conservative Senate measure.

      Conrad, who has been open to reconciliation as long as the fixes are limited, said the order must be reversed. The House must pass the Senate bill first — before either chamber considers the reconciliation package, he said.
      ++++++++++
      Tough to pass a reconcilation bill before the bill it is meant to reconcile passes…..DUH

    • Over at the New Ledger, Pejman Yousefzadeh has a lengthy interview with Tom Campbell, in which he's asked to respond directly to some of what I've written on this blog about his background on Israel and terrorism. There's a lot there, so I wanted to focus mainly on the misleading statements and outright lying.

      As a general rule, I don't like to use the word "lying." But it's hard to come to a different conclusion in this case. Asked about the $1,300 in donations he received from Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who subsequently pled guilty to conspiring to help associates of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Campbell denied it.
      ++++++++
      Wow!
      Tom Campbell intentionally misstates the facts

    • Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.

      That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.

      Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.
      +++++++
      Not a shock at all…..

    • Russia will not support "crippling" sanctions against Iran, including any that may be slapped on the Islamic Republic's banking or energy sectors, a senior Russian diplomat said Wednesday.

      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow last week to press the Kremlin to back tougher sanctions against Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons project.

      This week, Netanyahu called for an immediate embargo on Iran's energy sector.

      "We are not got going to work on sanctions or measures which could lead to the political or economic or financial isolation of this country," Oleg Rozhkov, deputy director of the security affairs and disarmament department at Russia's Foreign Ministry, told reporters.

      "What relation to non-proliferation is there in forbidding banking activities with Iran? This is a financial blockade. And oil and gas. These sanctions are aimed only at paralyzing the country and paralyzing the regime."
      ++++++
      Shocker – NOT

      (tags: Iran Russia)
    • Commercial banks and high-flying investment firms have shifted their political contributions toward Republicans in recent months amid harsh rhetoric from Democrats about fat bank profits, generous bonuses and stingy lending policies on Wall Street.
      The wealthy securities and investment industry, for example, went from giving 2 to 1 to Democrats at the start of 2009 to providing almost half of its donations to Republicans by the end of the year, according to new data compiled for The Washington Post by the Center for Responsive Politics.

      Commercial banks and their employees also returned to their traditional tilt in favor of the GOP after a brief dalliance with Democrats, giving nearly twice as much to Republicans during the last three months of 2009, the data show

      (tags: GOP)
    • A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded "Benedict Brown" for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration.

      Like the four other GOP senators who joined him, the man who won the late Democrat Edward Kennedy's seat says it's about jobs, not party politics. And that may be good politics, too.

      The four other GOP senators who broke ranks – Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher "Kit" Bond of Missouri – also were criticized on Tuesday. But Brown was the big target on conservative Web sites, talk shows and even the Facebook page his campaign has promoted as an example of his new-media savvy.

      "We campaigned for you. We donated to your campaign. And you turned on us like every other RINO," said one writer, using the initials for "Republican-In-Name-Only."

      Drudge Report colored a photo of Brown on its home page in scarlet.

      (tags: Scott_Brown)
  • Ben Bernanke,  Ron Paul

    Ron Paul: Absolutely Bizarre

    Congressman Ron Paul, R- Texas questioning Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Note around 3:20 or so when Bernanke calls Paul’s specific allegations “absolutely bizarre.”

    I thought we got rid of the KOOK, Ron Paul, after the 2008 Presidential election. I guess the young folks at CPAC did not get the message when they voted for Ron Paul for the 2012 GOP Presidential nod. Maybe they should have seen today’s display in the Congress before casting those ballots.

    Make no mistake Ron Paul is NOT a serious politician and is as nutty as a fruitcake.

    Plus, there is an interesting piece today minimizing Ron Paul’s import to the future of the conservative movement.

    Does that mean we need Paul?

    “Congressman Paul is committed to bringing the conservative movement back to its traditional platform of limited government, balanced budgets and a foreign policy of nonintervention,” claims Jesse Benton, Paul’s spokesman.

    If only it stopped there. Paul isn’t a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades. Paul’s newsletters of the ’80s and ’90s were filled with anti-Semitic and racist rants, proving his slumming in the ugliest corners of conspiracyland today is no mistake.

    Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Paul is that thousands of intellectually curious young people will have read his silly books, including End the Fed, as serious manifestoes. Though you wouldn’t know it by listening to Paul or reading his words, libertarians do have genuine ideas that conservatives might embrace.

    I discussed those silly newsletters that Ron Paul either wrote or edited (published under his name but not edited, who knows?) many months ago. But, there is more than just the newsletters and it all points to out of the mainstream political extremism, racism and anti-Semitism.

    Again, I thought we put Ron Paul and his nutsoid rants to bed in 2008.

    Time for him to go now…….actually, it is embarassing……

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  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Obamacare

    Day By Day February 24, 2010 – Fantasies

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    America has definitely awoken from the fantasies of President Barack Obama. Hope and Change, my posterior. Obama has delivered on BIG GOVERNMENT and redistribution – spreading the wealth around – just like he told Joe the Plumber.

    But, in the meantime, the President has begun to plot his re-election strategy while his poll numbers are in the dumpster.

    President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

    The planning for now consists entirely of private conversations, with Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions while focusing ferociously on the midterm elections and health care reform, the Democratic sources said. “The gathering storm is the 2010 elections,” one top official said.

    But the sources said Obama has given every sign of planning to run again, and wants the next campaign to resemble the highly successful 2008 effort.

    Watch the health care summit on Thursday for the latest themes of fantasy from the Obama re-election team.

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    • Seasoned new media veterans Michael Turk, Jon Henke and Matthew Dybwad have signed on to the budding GOP media firm Craft Media Digital, which launched less than two months ago.

      The firm's two founding partners, Brian Donahue and Justin Germany, count among their clients Republican Reps. Joe Wilson (S.C.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), and Thad McCotter ((Mich.).

      The firm also reports that it consults for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and congressional candidates in Kentucky, Wisconsin and Utah.

    • In the House, Campbell led the opposition to the Kosovo war. He pushed for de-linking economic sanctions from the military embargo of Iraq and campaigned on easing sanctions against Iraq in his 2000 Senate campaign.

      Campbell did did defend the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but he was also calling for U.S. withdrawal by 2004. "The day we found Hussein in his spider hole," Campbell wrote, "is the day we should have announced our phased withdrawal." And he always opposed nation-building by the U.S. military: "When police arrest a criminal, they don't occupy a neighborhood for as long as it takes to remedy the social conditions that led to the rise of criminals. Important as that goal might be, it is not the police officers' role."
      ++++++
      Tom Campbell is soft on Israel and soft on terrorism.

      (tags: tom_campbell)
    • Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) remains committed to tackling energy and climate legislation.

      "He affirmed he wants a bill and wants a bill soon," Kerry told a climate change conference at the National Press Club.

      Kerry said the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), which ended Democrats' filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, doesn't change the landscape for the climate bill.

      "It was always going to take more than just Democrats to do this," Kerry said.

      The comments come amid uncertainty about whether a controversial measure to limit greenhouse gas emissions can gain traction in the Senate.
      +++++++
      Note: No mention of Barbara Boxer whose Cap and Trade Bill is her pet project.

    • Among the tax measures that Campbell endorsed was Proposition 1A on the May special election ballot, which was rejected by nearly two-thirds of voters. It would have extended a series of temporary taxes for an additional year or two and created a new "rainy day" fund to hedge against future downturns. Conservative antipathy toward the measure ran so high that one Republican legislator who supported it, Anthony Adams, faced an attempted recall before opting not to run for re-election.

      Campbell also proposed a one-year, 32-cents-per-gallon increase in the state gasoline tax to help bridge the deficit.

      Campbell, a former Stanford law professor and onetime state finance director, says he has nothing to apologize for.
      ++++++++
      The tax issue will punish Campbell in the last weeks of May leading up to the June GOP primary election

      (tags: tom_campbell)
    • Campbell now professes to be a great supporter of Israel and to favor stringent sanctions against Iran. Fair enough, but his opponents have raised serious questions about his past record. It stands out among mainstream Republicans, both in his voting record opposing aid to Israel and in his cozy relationship with CAIR. California voters will have to decide whether they believe his current campaign rhetoric or whether his past record is a more telling reflection of his actual views. One thing is certain: the Democrats will use each and every vote of Campbell’s and each and every campaign donation and association with Muslim fundamentalists as fodder in the general election, should Campbell be the nominee.
      +++++++++
      Tom Campbell will be beat up on his past anti-Israel record like a bad dog…..
      (tags: tom_campbell)
    • Mitt Romney is endorsing former rival John McCain as the 2008 Republican presidential nominee faces a fight to keep his Senate seat.

      Romney said in a statement Tuesday that the Arizona senator's "record of service and sacrifice for America is honored by all."

      The former Massachusetts governor adds that it's "hard to imagine the U.S. Senate without John McCain."

      McCain is facing a Republican primary challenge from former House member J.D. Hayworth.

      McCain and Romney clashed bitterly at time in the 2008 race for the GOP nomination. After McCain pulled ahead, Romney not only endorsed him but energetically campaigned for him.

      McCain's former running mate, Sarah Palin, is also backing him. She and Romney are potential rivals in the 2012 presidential race.
      ++++++
      Not a surprise here.