Oregon voters pass tax increasing measures by big margin

By Harry Esteve, The Oregonian

January 26, 2010, 10:17PM

Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.

The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits.

The results triggered waves of relief from educators and legislative leaders, who were facing an estimated $727 million shortfall in the current two-year budget if the measures failed.

"We're absolutely ecstatic," said Hanna Vandering, a physical education teacher from Beaverton and vice president of the statewide teachers union. "What Oregonians said today is they believe in public education and vital services."

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/voters_pass_tax_measures_by_bi.html

DE: 2010 Sen (Rasmussen 1/25)

Emily Swanson | January 26, 2010

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Rasmussen
1/25/10; 500 likely voters, 4.5% margin of error
Mode: Automated phone

Delaware

2010 Senate (trends)
56% Castle (R), 27% Coons (D)

Favorable / Unfavorable
Chris Coons: 47 / 30
Mike Castle: 66 / 25

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/de_2010_sen_rasmussen_125.php

Via Bigjournalism:

Former Obama economic advisor, Clinton Secretary of Labor, and Berkely Prof. Robert Reich claimed yesterday in his column at Salon.com that Fox News played a role in the conservative resurgence of 1994:

In December 1994, Bill Clinton proposed a so-called middle-class bill of rights including more tax credits for families with children, expanded retirement accounts, and tax-deductible college tuition. Clinton had lost his battle for healthcare reform. Even worse, by that time the Dems had lost the House and Senate. Washington was riding a huge anti-incumbent wave. Right-wing populists were the ascendancy, with Newt Gingrich and Fox News leading the charge. Bill Clinton thought it desperately important to assure Americans he was on their side.

But Prof. Reich overlooked one minor detail: Fox News Channel’s first broadcast wasn’t until October 7, 1996.

http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/01/26/fact-check-reich-claims-non-existent-fox-news-led-conservative-charge-in-1994/#more-12582

'I'm Ellie Light,' California man says: Obama letter writer talks

By Stephen Koff, The Plain Dealer

January 26, 2010, 8:57PM

WASHINGTON -- Ellie Light, the ubiquitous letter writer whose name appeared in newspapers nationwide praising President Barack Obama, appears to really be a male health care worker from California.

A man who identified himself as Winston Steward, 51, of Frazier Park, Calif., says he made up the name "Ellie Light" to protect himself from criticism and possible physical attacks, and used fake addresses across the country to get local newspapers to publish his letters.

"I am Winston Steward and have been sending the letters from Ellie Light," he told The Plain Dealer in an e-mail late Tuesday, following a phone interview in which he said the same. "I hope this ends any confusion and sets the record straight."

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/01/im_ellie_light_california_man.html

SEOUL, Jan 27 (Reuters) - North and South Korea on Wednesday exchanged what appeared to be artillery fire near a disputed sea border with the South off the west coast of the peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported government officials as saying. South Korea's presidential Blue House said both sides were firing into the air and there were no casualties, according to Yonhap. It has called a meeting of top national security officials.

http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TOE60Q019.htm

(CNN) – In the wake of the surprising Massachusetts special election result last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is urging the party's 2010 candidates to define their Republican opponents early.

Specifically, the DSCC wants Democratic candidates to pin down their likely opponents on several hot-button issues, including:

- Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S.citizen?
- Do you think the Tenth Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum healthcare coverage standards?
- Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism, and should never have been created in the first place?
- Do you think President Obama is a socialist?
- Do you think America should return to a gold standard?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/26/dscc-urges-dems-to-define-opponents-early/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_politicalticker+%28Blog:+Political+Ticker%29

Democrats Put Lower Priority on Health Bill

WASHINGTON — With no clear path forward on major health care legislation, Democratic leaders in Congress effectively slammed the brakes on President Obama’s top domestic priority on Tuesday, saying they no longer felt pressure to move quickly on a health bill after eight months of setting deadlines and missing them.

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care.

“We’re not on health care now,” Mr. Reid said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.”

He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.

d

Tab from stimulus program jumps, CBO says

By Stephen Dinan

UPDATED:

The cost of President Obama's stimulus plan has jumped another $75 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, and part of the reason is more people are getting unemployment benefits because they've lost jobs the bill was supposed to preserve.

The nonpartisan CBO, in a new report looking at the country's financial outlook, also found that the country faces giant budget deficits for the foreseeable future and has the biggest debt problem it has seen since just after World War II. The report is designed to give Congress guidance as it prepares to receive President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2011.

The CBO now says the stimulus package, passed by Congress last February, will cost $862 billion over 10 years because of the added unemployment-related costs. The program had originally been estimated to cost $787 billion when Mr. Obama signed it in February.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/26/tab-stimulus-program-jumps-cbo-says/

Forget the deficit; people need jobs

The state of America's union is stark. The economic collapse triggered by the bursting of the housing bubble continues to take its toll.

We know the statistics. Nearly one in five American workers is unemployed or underemployed. That means wages are losing ground. One in three homes with a mortgage is under water. Millions of Americans are headed to losing their homes.

That will leave families adrift, children displaced.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/2010970,CST-EDT-jesse26.article

Lincoln Will Oppose Reconciliation

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) will oppose Dem efforts to move health care legislation through Congress using budget reconciliation, hurting Dems' chances for using the controversial parliamentary maneuver to pass a reform bill.

"I am opposed to and will fight against any attempts to push through changes to the Senate health insurance reform legislation by using budget reconciliation tactics that would allow the Senate to pass a package of changes to our original bill with 51 votes," Lincoln said in a statement on Tuesday. "I have successfully fought for transparency throughout Senate deliberations on health care, and I will continue to do so."

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/01/lincoln_will_op.php

James O’Keefe Arrested in New Orleans

by Publius

Statement from Andrew Breitbart:

“We have no knowledge about or connection to any alleged acts and events involving James O’Keefe at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office.  We only just learned about the alleged incident this afternoon.  We have no information other than what has been reported publicly by the press.  Accordingly, we simply are not in a position to make any further comment.”

Fox leads for trust

Americans do not trust the major tv news operations in the country- except for Fox News.

Our newest survey looking at perceptions of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News finds Fox as the only one that more people say they trust than distrust. 49% say they trust it to 37% who do not.

CBO: Federal deficit projected at $1.35T

WASHINGTON – The Senate Tuesday rejected a plan backed by President Barack Obama to create a bipartisan task force to tackle the federal deficit this year despite glaring new figures showing the enormity of the red-ink threat.

The special deficit panel would have attempted to produce a plan combining tax cuts and spending curbs that would have been voted on after the midterm elections. The measure went down because anti-tax Republicans joined with Democrats who were wary of being railroaded into cutting Social Security and Medicare.

The Senate vote to kill the deficit task force came just hours after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a $1.35 trillion deficit for this year as the economy continues to slowly recover from the recession.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100126/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_budget;_ylt=Aj7znI.fH5SySl1DFIRSw7Gs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNmOGlhNGhwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI2L3VzX29iYW1hX2J1ZGdldARjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzIEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3NlbmF0ZXJlamVjdA--

After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate: Amazongate

By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: January 25th, 2010

Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.

This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:

At first sight, the reference looks kosher enough but, following it through, one sees:

This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The link given is no longer active, but the report is on the IUCN website here. Furthermore, the IUCN along with WWF is another advocacy group and the report is not peer-reviewed. According to IPCC rules, it should not have been used as a primary source.

It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists. One, Dr PF Moore, is a policy analyst:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023598/after-climategate-pachaurigate-and-glaciergate-amazongate/

Crist may be with Obama in Tampa Thursday

Gov. Charlie Crist, who has been taking a steady pounding for his "man hug" with President Obama in Fort Myers last February, says he may be with the president again at the University of Tampa Thursday when the president may announce a major award of high-speed rail money for Florida -- money that state officials say will create thousands of new jobs.

The president and Vice President Joe Biden both plan to be at the UT campus at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2010/01/crist-may-be-with-obama-in-tampa-thursday.html