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Reid Did Not Take Any Lessons from Coakley, Corzine, or Deeds

Posted by Defend America on Monday, March 01, 2010 11:14:43 AM
POLL: Obama's visit just bounced off Reid

Poll shows senator gained little ground in re-election battle

By STEVE TETREAULT
© 2010 LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- During his whirlwind visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago, President Barack Obama mentioned U.S. Sen. Harry Reid by name four dozen times, gave him a big hug and talked him up as if he was a long-lost brother.

In remarks that could not have been more laudatory, Obama repeatedly characterized the veteran Democratic leader as a man "made of very strong stuff" who was making the right decisions for the state back in the nation's capital.

But as Reid faces an uphill path to win re-election to a fifth Senate term, Obama's enthusiastic endorsement does not appear to have improved the Senate majority leader's standing among constituents, according to a new poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Reid got no bounce from Obama's visit on Feb. 19, when the president spoke highly of him at Green Valley High School and to business leaders at CityCenter, polling indicates.

A larger percentage of voters surveyed (17 percent) said they would be less likely to vote for Reid following the president's visit than said they would be more likely to vote for him (7 percent). Seventy-five percent said Obama's visit would have no effect on how they vote.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/obama_s-visit-just-bounced-off-reid-85760197.html
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NY Times Calls for Rangel to Relinquish His Role as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee

Posted by Defend America on Monday, March 01, 2010 11:12:59 AM

Relieve the Chairman of His Gavel Clos

Published: February 27, 2010

Congressman Charles Rangel was far from humbled after the ethics committee admonished him for taking corporate-paid Caribbean junkets in violation of the House ethics code. Rather, the New York Democrat berated the panel’s leaders on the House floor.

The moment was characteristic of Mr. Rangel’s arrogance throughout the investigation, which continues into more serious allegations about his official behavior. It is one more reason why Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who championed ethics reform — should stop protecting him and relieve him of his crucial role as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

...

This should galvanize the committee to conclude its snail-paced inquiry into Mr. Rangel’s behavior, including: his acceptance of rent-subsidized apartments from a Manhattan real estate developer; his failure to pay taxes on rental income from a villa in the Dominican Republic; and his soliciting of a $1 million donation — to a university center named after him — from a corporation with business before Congress. Mr. Rangel, the House’s designated master of fiscal accountability, already deserves to be stripped of his gavel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28sun3.html?th&emc=th
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White House Calls for 'Simple Up-or-Down Vote'

Posted by Defend America on Monday, March 01, 2010 6:18:54 AM

White House: Simple up-or-down vote on health care


By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer – Mon Mar 1, 12:35 am ET

WASHINGTON – The White House called for a "simple up-or-down" vote on health care legislation Sunday as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama's chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.

In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama's intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.

Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama's only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.

"We're not talking about changing any rules here," DeParle said. "All the president's talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?"

DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation's advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul


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'Welfare Always Breeds Contempt'

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 7:04:32 PM

February 27, 2010 7:00 A.M.

When Responsibility Doesn’t Pay
Welfare always breeds contempt.

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen — because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

What’s happening in the developed world today isn’t so very hard to understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they’ve reached the next stage in social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 — or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids — ie, the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 “lowest-low” fertility — the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.

So you can’t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don’t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

By the way, you don’t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian “public service” of California has been metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book America Alone, I put the then–Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn’t going to have a 2040 — not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.

http://article.nationalreview.com/426405/when-responsibility-doesnt-pay/mark-steyn
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Anita Dunn is Now Working for Tory Leader David Cameron

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 7:01:56 PM

Obama advisor working for Cameron

Ken Vogel points out a story with some meaning for the U.S.-U.K. relationship: Anita Dunn, the former communications director who's still a member of the White House's kitchen cabinet, is advising Tory leader David Cameron.

Dunn isn't on staff, and there's no formal conflict-of-interest question. But as Obama pollster Joel Benenson (who works for Gordon Brown) told me and Vogel last year, consultants that close to the White House are extremely "careful" about who they work for, both to be sure clients don't tout them as semi-official U.S. backing, and to be sure they don't get entangled with anyone who would cut against Obama's values or American interests.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/Obama_advisor_working_for_Cameron.html

Tags: Cameron   Dunn  
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Conrad: Reconcilation Won't Work

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 7:00:17 PM

A Separate Headline: Conrad: Reconciliation Won't Work

Feb 28 2010, 11:39 AM ET

Sen. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, on Face The Nation, has a distinct opinion on whether budget reconciliation would work for health care:  yes to fixes, no to the bill itself.

"...reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work. It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation. It was designed for deficit reduction... The major package of health care reform cannot move through the reconciliation process. It will not work... It will not work because of the Byrd rule which says anything that doesn't score for budget purposes has to be eliminated. That would eliminate all the delivery system reform, all the insurance market reform, all of those things the experts tell us are really the most important parts of this bill. The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/02/a-separate-headline-conrad-reconciliation-wont-work/36785

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Pelosi: Health Care Bill Can be Bipartisan Even without Republican Votes

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:55:42 PM
Pelosi: Health care bill can be bipartisan even without GOP votes
Posted: February 28th, 2010 09:03 AM ET

From

Washington (CNN) - The top House Democrat appears to be signaling that her party has all but given up any hope of achieving meaningful bipartisan support for a health care reform bill.

“Bipartisanship is a two-way street,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declares in an interview airing Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

“But let me say this,” Pelosi continues, “The bill can be bipartisan, even though the votes might not be bipartisan, because they [Republicans] have made their imprint on this.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/28/pelosi-health-care-bill-can-be-bipartisan-even-without-gop-votes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%2Brss%2Fcnn_politicalticker%2B(Blog%3A%2BPolitical%2BTicker)&fbid=yXmuYg5HLf3


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Pelosi Says Politicians Should Sacrifice their to Pass Health Care "Reform"

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:52:36 PM

Pelosi: Lawmakers Should Sacrifice Jobs for Health Care

AP

House Speaker Pelosi says lawmakers aren't in Washington for job security but 'to do the job for the American people.'

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."
"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/28/pelosi-lawmakers-sacrifice-jobs-health-care/

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Chris Matthews Compares Republicans to North Korea's Pyongyang Assembly

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:45:34 PM

Chris Matthews Compares The Republicans To North Korea's Pyongyang Assembly.


“Anybody who’s ever watched, by the way, the North Korean assembly meet. Where everybody looks, acts very much in terms of their behavior, very similarly and actually says the same things. Watch the Republicans now. This is the closest thing to Pyongyang

http://storyballoon.org/chris-matthews-compares-the-republicans-to-north-koreas-assembly-obama-health-care/

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Pelosi Says She has Much in Common with the Tea Party

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:43:00 PM

ABC: 'Pelosi Says She Has Much In Common With The Tea Party'


By Noel Sheppard
Sun, 02/28/2010 - 10:59 ET

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has much in common with the Tea Party."

So began an article published by ABCNews.com Sunday about Pelosi's interview with Elizabeth Vargas on "This Week."

"The speaker now says she shares views with movement she dismissed last summer as being 'Astroturf,'" the piece amazingly continued.

And that wasn't CLOSE to being the most preposterous part of the story.

More absurd was how Vargas during this interview actually allowed Pelosi to get away with such a ridiculous comment (video embedded below the fold with transcript and commentary):

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/02/28/headline-pelosi-and-tea-party-share-views


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Fundraiser to Social Secretary

Posted by Defend America on Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:36:33 PM

A fundraiser as social secretary

The promotion of Julianna Smoot to White House Social Secretary is good news for wealthy donors to President Obama's campaign, for whom Smoot -- the chief campaign fundraiser -- is friend and point of contact.

Smoot, who had been working in the relative obscurity of the U.S. Trade Representative's office, will now be the key gatekeeper to the kind of social functions from which donors have complained that this administration, unlike President Clinton's, has barred them.

But the choice to unite money and access in the person of Smoot -- a career political fundraiser whose efforts were downplayed by a campaign eager to focus on small donors -- cuts against both President Obama's broader message of change and against the talking points of her departing predecessor, Desiree Rogers.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/A_fundraiser_as_social_secretary.html?showall

Tags: obama  
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