The day’s top political news:
President Barack Obama’s administration will examine a “buy American” requirement in economic stimulus legislation that has raised concern among U.S. trading partners.
The administration “will review that particular provision.” The president’s advisers understand “all of the concerns that have been heard, not only in this room, but in newspapers produced both up north and down south.”
He refused to say whether the administration supported or opposed keeping that part of the legislation intact. Nor did he say what the president would do if the provision remains once the bill clears the House and the Senate.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the “buy American” measure could hurt Canadian business.. “This is obviously a serious matter,” he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a37pHeTuz_HA&refer=worldwide
The nomination of former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to be President Obama's secretary of health and human services has stumbled upon seriously troubling waters.
One controversy involves a car and driver provided Daschle by a wealthy Democrat. It was a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.
After being defeated in his 2004 re-election campaign to the Senate, Daschle in 2005 became a consultant and chairman of the executive advisory board at InterMedia Advisors.
Daschle is also facing questions about his tax returns – a problem that seems a constant
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/bumps-in-the-ro.html
The Justice Department says it foiled a plot by a fired Fannie Mae contract worker in Maryland to destroy all the data on the mortgage giant's 4,000 computer servers nationwide.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says 35-year-old Rajendrasinh Makwana, of Glen Allen, Va., is scheduled for arraignment Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on one count of computer intrusion.
U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says that on that day, Makwana programmed a computer with a malicious code that was set to spread throughout the Fannie Mae network and destroy all
"Spite or coverup" -- the investigation will reveal the answer.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D961I79O0&show_article=1
Opinion:
The challenges of Michael Steele.
Michael Steele, a former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, was elected to head the Republican Party yesterday – he faces a major challenge.
Steele is an excellent speaker and his visibility (as opposed to the total lack of visibility of his predecessor) will stand him in good stead as he sets sail on a troubled political sea.
First, he must take immediate steps to renew the enthusiasm for the party itself. It must regain its attraction to potential candidates. Its impossible to beat somebody with nobody – that means candidate recruitment will be among Steele’s top priorities.
After all, the elections of 2010 looms.
Finding a means for giving the party a new image will not be an easy one. Certainly, he will need to rush into serious research to provide he and his senior staff with a blue print for how to take on the opposition.
Perhaps his greatest asset as he begins his task, is his opposition in the form of Democrats dominated by extremists. Certainly the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and her Frisco fantasies will give him a plethora of issues he can seize and use. Sometimes, not being what the opponent has become, is the best position politically. Democrats not only hold, but actually dominated both Houses on Capitol Hill as well as the White House.
As Bill Clinton learned, “the looking glass effect” is ever present in politics. It holds that when good things happen in politics, look out! Almost every time, a bit of really bad news is headed your way.
Obama has staked his presidency on the “stimulus package” so-called, which is a massive spending bill with tons of inclusions that anger normal Americans. “Normal America” is Steele’s priority demographic group. They resent giving millions to Obama’s corrupt group: ACORN, that has been notorious for its involvement on election and voter registration fraud. There are other outrages – taxpayer funding of abortion, programs to help people stop smoking, anti STD efforts, and others that have no place in a bill supposed to generate jobs.
Of course, only a fool would expect the government to create jobs – only private business can create real jobs. – Democrats don’t like business either.
Steel’s challenge is daunting.
If he succeeds, he will have to be the sort of magician Newt was at a similar point way back in 1993. Newt won. We wish Steele the best and hope his will also be a successful effort.
Not only do Republicans need success by Steele – the nation does as well.
Buddy
The days’s top b;ogs”
1.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/solid_steele.html
Solid Steele
Larrey Anderson
Michael Steele was elected the new chairman of the RNC yesterday. You can see video of his acceptance speech here.
Steele was one of five people seeking the party’s chairmanship. He won on the final ballot 91 to 77. (Katon Dawson, South Carolina’s state GOP chair, was second.)
Steele is an African American, 50 years old, and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland. He grew up in and around the Washington DC area -- but Steele is far from a beltway insider.
Steele is a lawyer. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991. He is a Catholic and considered becoming a priest at one time in his life. He is married with two sons.
2.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/nancy_pelosis_neoeugenics.html
Nancy Pelosi's neo-eugenics
Geoffrey P. Hunt
The sinister logic behind the Speaker's theory of birth control and economics.
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is no economist, judging by her comments made to ABC's George Stephanopoulus, in asserting population growth in the US would be a drag on economic growth. Population growth usually is an economic stimulant, especially in developed countries.
It always is a stimulant in developed democracies with private property rights and free markets. Otherwise we wouldn't have a consumer society. A vibrant economy depends on an abundant consumer class delivering healthy revenue streams to a diverse assortment of producers and, as we're learning all too painfully, a trustworthy credit system.
We already have evidence where low birth rates correlate with lagging GDP's such as in most European economies, placing extraordinary pressure on a dwindling supply of Gen X.Y and Zs to pay for expansive post retirement entitlements of their aging parents and grandparents. Moreover, European countries with low indigenous birth rates, resulting in shrinking labor pools, have resorted to immigration, which provides guest workers who also contribute to consumer demand. But immigration patterns have led to all sorts of assimilation difficulties, most notably among Muslims.
Disingenuousness on economics and population growth has been a steady Democrat Party diet for years. The Dems long have been the most athletic champions of uncontrolled immigration, arguing the merits of not just diversity, inclusivity and sanctuary from socio-economic oppression, but also robust labor pool more tax
3.
http://www.kgan.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/3964f12d-www.kgan.com.shtml
Tax issues emerge in Daschle nomination
A Senate document obtained by The Associated Press shows former Sen. Tom Daschle recently filed amended tax returns to report over $128,000 in back taxes and nearly $12,000 in interest.
Daschle is President Barack Obama's pick to lead efforts to reform health care.
He's filed amended tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 to reflect additional income for consulting work, the use of a car service and reduced deductions for charitable contributions. The unreported income for that car service totaled more than $250,000 over three years.
A White House spokesman says Daschle's role in the administration, including his nomination to head the Health and Human Services Department, isn't in danger.
Now for the whole articles:
1.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/solid_steele.html
Solid Steele
Larrey Anderson
Michael Steele was elected the new chairman of the RNC yesterday. You can see video of his acceptance speech here.
Steele was one of five people seeking the party’s chairmanship. He won on the final ballot 91 to 77. (Katon Dawson, South Carolina’s state GOP chair, was second.)
Steele is an African American, 50 years old, and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland. He grew up in and around the Washington DC area -- but Steele is far from a beltway insider.
Steele is a lawyer. He graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1991. He is a Catholic and considered becoming a priest at one time in his life. He is married with two sons.
Listen carefully to his short speech. Steele consistently uses the word "conservative" to describe the GOP. While Steele refers often to conservatism, he refers to the GOP as "this party" (not "the Republican Party") on at least four occasions. He uses the term "Republican Party" only once -- at the very end of the speech. It is almost as if he believes the term "Republican Party" is no longer a term of approbation.
Steele is a strong conservative, a pragmatic and principled politician, and, hopefully, a breath of fresh air for a stagnant GOP.
2.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/nancy_pelosis_neoeugenics.html
Nancy Pelosi's neo-eugenics
Geoffrey P. Hunt
The sinister logic behind the Speaker's theory of birth control and economics.
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is no economist, judging by her comments made to ABC's George Stephanopoulus, in asserting population growth in the US would be a drag on economic growth. Population growth usually is an economic stimulant, especially in developed countries.
It always is a stimulant in developed democracies with private property rights and free markets. Otherwise we wouldn't have a consumer society. A vibrant economy depends on an abundant consumer class delivering healthy revenue streams to a diverse assortment of producers and, as we're learning all too painfully, a trustworthy credit system.
We already have evidence where low birth rates correlate with lagging GDP's such as in most European economies, placing extraordinary pressure on a dwindling supply of Gen X.Y and Zs to pay for expansive post retirement entitlements of their aging parents and grandparents. Moreover, European countries with low indigenous birth rates, resulting in shrinking labor pools, have resorted to immigration, which provides guest workers who also contribute to consumer demand. But immigration patterns have led to all sorts of assimilation difficulties, most notably among Muslims.
Disingenuousness on economics and population growth has been a steady Democrat Party diet for years. The Dems long have been the most athletic champions of uncontrolled immigration, arguing the merits of not just diversity, inclusivity and sanctuary from socio-economic oppression, but also robust labor pool more tax
payers and additional consumers (not to mention the means to deliver new Democrat party voters).
So why would Speaker Pelosi now claim a high birth rate creates the opposite effect?
The answer is actually not surprising, just appalling. The Dems, political tribalists posturing as independent intellectuals, captive of the abortion-on-demand and enviro-nihilist herd, have a pathological obsession with shoveling more government spending, i.e. taxpayer subsidies, into population control despite its apparent contradictions and moral failings. Speaker Pelosi's position, perhaps unwitting but undeniable, in its ugliest implication is directly linked to Margaret Sanger's eugenics movement of the 1920s. Sanger's "Planned Parenthood"was just a horrifying euphemism designed among other goals to selectively prune certain populations by design along racial, gender, age, intelligence, physiological and socio-economic lines.
This has been part of the Progressive socio-political doctrine since the 1920s, well documented by Jonah Goldberg in Liberal Fascism.
Yet there is a certain economic logic to the Speaker's theorem, if one takes account of the division of American society into tax payers and tax takers. The latter class consists of the growing population receiving government handouts in one form or another, a growing portion of them exempt from any federal income tax liability. She is tacitly acknowledging the fact that the welfare state is unaffordable -- especially when the middle class needs propping up.
Nancy Pelosi is offering us neo-eugenics, her final solution to the welfare state burden. Calling up the dark ideology of Margaret Sanger, Pelosi suggests we eliminate the people who might populate that permanent underclass.
The Speaker of the House is no moral theologian, having mangled Roman Catholic doctrine over abortion inviting a stinging rebuke from her own prelate, Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco. Does Speaker Pelosi need another dose of knuckle rapping instruction in moral theology from the Roman Catholic Bishops? Sure, but don't expect it to do much good.
3.
http://www.kgan.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/3964f12d-www.kgan.com.shtml
Tax issues emerge in Daschle nomination
A Senate document obtained by The Associated Press shows former Sen. Tom Daschle recently filed amended tax returns to report over $128,000 in back taxes and nearly $12,000 in interest.
Daschle is President Barack Obama's pick to lead efforts to reform health care.
He's filed amended tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 to reflect additional income for consulting work, the use of a car service and reduced deductions for charitable contributions. The unreported income for that car service totaled more than $250,000 over three years.
A White House spokesman says Daschle's role in the administration, including his nomination to head the Health and Human Services Department, isn't in danger.
The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to meet in executive session to discuss Daschle's nomination on Monday.
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