The day’s top political news:
Bill Clinton speaks of vast, right-wing conspiracy
Bill Clinton says a vast, right-wing conspiracy that once targeted him is now focusing on President Barack Obama.
The ex-president made the comment in a television interview when he was asked about one of the signature moments of the Monica Lewinsky affair over a decade ago. Back then, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton used the term "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to describe how her husband's political enemies were out to destroy his presidency.
Bill Clinton was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether the conspiracy is still there. He replied: "You bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gG6zOGWoZh9MbfCgUqOUgbO7djPwD9AVM4780
John Edwards' ex-mistress, Rielle Hunter, targeted by Elizabeth Edwards in blog comments - source
Former presidential candidate John Edwards is said to be ready to admit that he fathered a love child. But Hades may have a skating rink before his wife, Elizabeth, signs off on such a confession.
As a grand jury in North Carolina considers whether Edwards misused campaign funds to cover up the scandal, Elizabeth still can't abide his former mistress, Rielle Hunter.
Word is Elizabeth vehemently opposed the plan, now in place, for Hunter and daughter Quinn to move from New Jersey to Wilmington, N.C., where the Edwardses have a beach house. For months now, Elizabeth, who is said to be talking to a divorce lawyer, also has been sniping at Hunter - painting her as a blackmailing gold digger - in blog comments where she uses the pseudonym "Cherubim," according to a source who knows Elizabeth.
More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation
Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.
"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom." The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.
Having grown up in what – at best – can be called an “unconventional” home and having not shared summer vacation family experiences as a child or with children, Obama has no concept of what total chaos his threat entails for real American families. Ignorance can be a very dangerous thing. Obama is, after all, a product of Southeast Asia. He doesnt fully understand how our families do things.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_re_us/us_more_school
Opinion:
Republicans and their plans for honest health care reform.
Democrats under attack for their schemes and scams designed to take over our health care system and convert it to a socialized medicine operation similar to that of Canada, have a constant response – when they are trapped by fact and truth on the issue, they claim the GOP is simply opposing for the sake of opposition. Democrats charge the GOP opposes reform.
Of course, that charge is just another political lie.
For the record, we present a real GOP reform plan:
A Republican Solution – Empowering Patients, Not Bureaucrats!
Republican Congressman Tom Price invites others to support "THE EMPOWERING PATIENTS FIRST ACT"
Republicans have put forth bold, positive ideas to transform American health care -- without a government takeover of medicine. Before the August recess, I joined with a number of colleagues to introduce H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act. Our solution is built upon the principle that when individuals (not the government, insurance companies, or employers) are given control and ownership, we will achieve full access to coverage and see the entire system move in a positive, patient-centered direction.
The Empowering Patients First Act makes the purchase of health care financially feasible for all Americans, provides access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions, protects employer-sponsored insurance and shines light on existing health care plans through transparency and insurance reform measures. The bill grants greater choice and portability to the patient and gives employers more flexibility in the benefits they offer. This legislation also establishes doctor-led quality measures and prohibits the rationing of care by an unelected federal board, thus ensuring that you get the quality care you need.
Another critical reform is reining in out-of-control costs. The Empowering Patients First Act does this by reforming the medical liability system and establishing Health Plan and Provider Portals to provide standardized information on plans and price and quality information on health care providers. Also, the cost of the plan is offset through decreasing defensive medicine, savings from health care efficiencies, sifting out waste, fraud and abuse, plus an annual one-percent non-defense discretionary spending step-down.
Rather than a government takeover of medicine or allowing the status quo to persist, there is a third path. By empowering patients, we can preserve what is good with our current system and improve what ails it, all without threatening the world class quality of care that we enjoy in America. I hope that you will join me and your fellow colleagues by co-sponsoring the Empowering Patients First Act. For more information, or to co-sponsor, please contact Emily Henehan Murry at emily.murry@mail.house.gov.
YoursTruly,
/s Rep. Tom Price, M.D.
Chairman
U.S. House Republican Study Committee
Republicans offer a real reform plan, and one that will not destroy what is good about our system.
Above all else, should Democrats impose their plan (as Harry Reid threatens to do), Americans would lose the battle for quality care. Obama care – in any form – will impose government-run care and government is an eternal enemy of “quality”.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/26/is-jimmy-carter-racist/?feat=home_commentary
Is Jimmy Carter racist?
Jay Ambrose
Jimmy Carter time and again blames the Middle East's only true democracy, Israel, for the woes in that region while providing excuses for Arab terrorists, and there we have it. This Sunday school-teaching Baptist is an anti-Semite, a hater of Jews, someone whose political views on the subject of Arab-Israeli peace are most persuasively informed by his deep-seated bigotry.
Unfair? Of course it is, but no more unfair than Mr. Carter's own recent blather that the extent of opposition to President Obama's policies is driven by racism, an accusation unfounded in any substantive evidence but owing a lot to a game that certain holier-than-thou liberals especially love to play. It's the old ad hominem ruse, the resort to name-calling instead of logical argumentation when the debate gets tough.
If you happen to believe that increasing the minimum wage has a virtually meaningless impact on national take-home pay while costing people jobs, liberals say you lack compassion. If you believe illegal immigration drives down wages for low-income workers while making it harder for them to find employment, liberals say you are prejudiced against Hispanics. If you believe vastly expanded health care entitlements could be economically ruinous for the United States, some liberals say you are a downright mean, greedy and probably stupid person.
And so now, when something like half the population is getting worried sick about Mr. Obama's massive, nation-altering and unaffordable proposals, the easiest response of supporters is to say it's perfectly clear what's up: racism. Their tune is that these whites out there don't think a black is fit to lead us, are going at him like no one has ever gone at a president before and that it is disgusting, awful, scary.
The fact is, of course, that critics have been going after presidents with vitriol, caricature and worse since the days of the founders, and mentioning Rep. Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie" during an Obama speech in the Capitol proves absolutely nothing.
He was one individual immediately and properly criticized by everyone on both sides of the aisle.
Democrats loudly booed President George W. Bush when he was giving a speech, and although it was outside the chamber, senators such as the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy insisted Mr. Bush lied us into war in Iraq, in effect saying he slaughtered Americans for personal advantage.
I've watched the town-hall protests on TV, and while I think the shouting got out of hand, it was not being directed at a black president. Most of the time, it was being directed at some flabbergasted, pathetically out-of-touch white congressman.
The recent Washington protest was a peaceful affair, and Mr. Carter got it wrong when he said he saw a sign saying Mr. Obama should be buried with Mr. Kennedy. The sign - utterly distasteful, to be sure - said to bury Mr. Obama's health care plan with Mr. Kennedy.
Nothing I read about that protest compared with the shouts of anti-Vietnam college students screaming in the 1960s, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
Yes, of course, absolutely - there's still racism in America. But we just elected a black president in many ways admired even by his critics, we have put all kinds of civil rights laws in place, we have thrown away he worst of the past. And the examples of persisting racism are not all instances of whites manifesting deplorable attitudes about minorities, but the other way around. One thing that seems to me in some subtle way racist is to make the charge of racism without reasonable, intellectually persuasive arguments, to assume its existence based on nothing more than skin color.
The horror of this kind of thing in a democracy, of course, is that it tends to chill discussion because of the fear that criticizing a black president's actions will be taken as tantamount to bigotry. Mr. Carter, who has in fact been accused of anti-Semitic attitudes because of his Middle East stands, ought to know better.
Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado
2.
http://townhall.com/columnists/DougGiles/2009/09/26/acorn_and_their_allies_on_the_left_lambaste_giles_and_o%E2%80%99keefe%E2%80%99s_politics_and_faith
ACORN and Their Allies on the Left Lambaste Giles and O’Keefe’s Politics and Faith
Doug Giles
Let me see if I have this right: ACORN, in five locations coast-to-coast are on tape counseling tax fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, and the coup de grace, how to set up a whorehouse for 12 to 15-year-old El Salvadoran sex slaves, and now ACORN and the Left are POed about it being exposed without ACORN’s consent?!
What else ticks the Left off about ACORN being uncovered assisting in some of the worst kind of scandalous scat known to mankind?
Well, if you Google around you’ll find the “progressives” are peeved not because ACORN had the spotlight bare down on their dirty deeds done on our dime but because of the fact that Hannah is part of the Young America’s Foundation and James, at one time, was a member of the Leadership Institute.
That’s crazy! Run for your life, people! Hannah and James have been influenced by conservative principles and traditional values! Run away!
Yes, according to some the shame should fall on Hannah and James for hanging out with college students who love America and our founding documents. We can’t have that, now can we?
(NOTE: The more desperate Democrats become about covering up the potential criminality of Obama’s own ACORN, the more absurd their attacks will become. Of course the mainstream media – ALL over-the-air TV network news operations and over 90% of ALL daily newspapers, will support the Democrat effort. Ultimately, it’s all a part of the general liberal conspiracy.)
Also, I have to chuckle every time I hear Hannah referred to as a “political activist.” That’s some funny stuff. I have lived with Hannah ever since she came out of her mama’s belly, and I can tell you the extent of her “activism.” Are you ready? Brace yourself. You might want to sit down. Here it comes. She voted this past election for McCain, she went to two YAF.org conferences as a teenager in ‘07 and ‘08, and she interned for the National Journalism Center this past summer writing columns on economics. Oh, and I almost forgot: She went to a tea party last April 15th. I guess that “radical activist” resume puts her right up there with Bernadine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Van Jones and Che Guevara.
Listen all on the left and the right: Hannah’s motive for doing what she did to ACORN was moral, not political. Her BS detector went off on that organization, and she tackled it. It’s that simple. And I can guarantee, those on the right, that if you’re ACORNing around doing equally whacked smack, when Hannah gets freed up from lassoing this tornado you could very well be next. In Hannah’s world, crap is crap no matter how it’s politically framed.
In addition to their political penchants, Giles and O’Keefe’s faith has come under fire. Yep, because they confess they’re sinners who trust in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice for their salvation, they must be bad and crazy radicals.
It seems that conservativism and orthodox Christianity in this twisted theater of the progressive absurd are the evil entities and not poor wittle ACORN. I guess the progressives’ strategy to cover ACORN’s compost can be summed up in a nutshell: lambaste Giles and O’Keefe for their politics and faith and ignore ACORN’s in-frickin’-sane corruption. How quaint. How . . . progressive?
Here’s a little FYI to ACORN and the few media outlets defending ACORN by defaming Giles and O’Keefe’s faith, politics and tactics: You are ticking off the majority of Americans breathing air on our God-blessed United States soil. If you don’t believe me, just ask Frank Luntz.
In addition, you might wanna note that the U.S. Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service severed ties with ACORN because of these videos; the House and the Senate voted in an overwhelming majority to defund ACORN; and the Treasury Department and the DOJ are smelling rats, as well, and are going to take a looky into this organization rightly named after a nut.
For those who’d like to contribute to Hannah’s defense fund, go to www.defendhannah.com.
O’Keefe’s defense fund is forthcoming.
Doug Giles’ new book “If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going!" is now available. Ann Coulter says "Doug Giles is a substantive and funny tour de force for traditional values.” Doug’s talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.
3.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/09/27/a_principled_conservative
A 'Principled Conservative'
George Will
MIAMI -- Florida, a geological afterthought, was the last portion of what are now the lower 48 states to emerge from the ocean, and it emerged halfheartedly: Its highest point is just 345 feet above sea level. But the fourth-most-populous state will loom over American politics next summer when Republicans select a Senate nominee. Their primary will test whether the party has become so risk-averse that it flinches from interesting choices.
The nominee almost certainly will be either Gov. Charlie Crist or Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House (term limits, which he supports, retired him). Leading national Republicans rushed to endorse Crist. In tennis, such decisions are called unforced errors.
Republican Sen. Mel Martinez was elected in 2004. In 2007 the Republican National Committee, worried about declining GOP strength among Hispanics, made Martinez, who was born in Cuba, chairman of the party, a position for someone with a zest for politics. Last December, however, Martinez said he would not seek re-election to the Senate, and last month he said he would not even wait until 2010 to skedaddle. He resigned.
(NOTE: The resignation of Martinez, along with the party switch of Arlan Specter, rid the GOP of two RINOs…and the party is better because of it. As a Florida voter, I will do all I can to make sure Crist’s efforts don’t succeed and work to do all possible to see Rubio is successful. Florida reflects a general cross section of America – that makes it critical we have representation that reflects our convictions and beliefs. Crist cannot fill that bill.)
Not wanting to be a senator is understandable, but it is a nuisance to voters who thought Martinez did want to be, and to Senate Republicans, who number only 40, one short of the total needed to stop a Senate action. In 2010, the GOP and the Democrats both will be defending 19 seats. Because so many companies do business with state governments, governors are fundraising dynamos, so a Crist nomination would not burden the national party, which helps explain why party leaders like him. But that is myopic reasoning.
Crist appeared at a rally with Barack Obama promoting the $787 billion stimulus that got no votes from House Republicans and only three from Republican senators. He is a climate-change worrywart who wants to cap Florida's carbon emissions. He has chosen his former campaign manager to serve as a placeholder in the Senate during the crucial next 16 months.
And in order to reduce property insurance costs, especially for Floridians living near the nation's second-longest coastline, Crist expanded, and vetoed reform of, the state's reckless version of a property insurance "public option." It is government-run insurance that, by offering rates lower than rational assessments of risk would dictate, has driven private insurers to limit their business or even stop doing business in the state. When a huge hurricane hits, Florida -- and U.S. -- taxpayers might have to foot the bill, by which time Crist plans to be in Washington.
Rubio, who is 38 and in a decade might look that old, says Crist will not be there. Crist, says Rubio, "never thought he'd have to run in a Republican primary again." Probably only about 20 percent of Florida's 4 million registered Republicans will vote in the closed primary in late August in a nonpresidential year. So, about 450,000 votes might win it. That many can come from Republicans who are attentive to politics even in late summer because they are ideologically driven.
As is Rubio, which is why National Review, the bimonthly encyclical of the church of conservatism, had him on a recent cover and why the Club for Growth, a group that contributes to Republicans friendly to free markets, should support him. Crist has a large lead in name recognition, and hence in polls. But where Rubio and he are both known, they are neck and neck.
A Catholic and father of four, Rubio, whose parents fled Cuba in 1959, says, "It is hard to be apolitical when you are raised by exiles." He worries that his children's generation "will be the first to inherit a diminished country." His preventive medicine includes limited government, tax reform, spending restraint and removal of all impediments to the entrepreneurship that makes America a place "where poor people can put billionaires out of business."
Florida will not soon be pushed back under the ocean by the weight of its expanding population. For the first time since the Second World War, the state lost population -- 58,000 people -- in a 12-month period (April 2008 to April 2009). In January 2011, one Floridian will leave for the U.S. Senate. He is unlikely to be a former governor at odds with his party's nominating electorate, or the probable Democratic nominee, Kendrick Meek, a hyper-liberal congressman. Rubio intends to prove that "in the most important swing state, you can run successfully as a principled conservative." He probably will.
4.
Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-Al) Statement During Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act
Calling for Full Support for Congressman Ron Paul’s legislation.
WASHINGTON – Congressman Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee, made the following statement today during the Full Committee hearing entitled, “H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009.”
“Thank you Mr. Chairman and I think that appointing Dr. Paul to this position has proved to be a wise decision. Mr. Chairman, this hearing on the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, which is sponsored by our colleague Dr. Paul and the vast majority of the Republicans on the Committee. In his role as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, Dr. Paul has been a consistent champion in the taxpayer and a strong advocate for greater transparency and accountability at the Federal Reserve.
“Americans are tired of paying for Wall Street’s mistakes with costly bailouts, many of which have been funded by the Federal Reserve. Over the last year and a half the Fed has used its authority under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act to conduct a series of extraordinary interventions in the financial markets that have doubled the size of its balance sheet to over 2 trillion dollars. In fact, in testimony yesterday before the committee, the Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker expressed his own misgivings about invoking 13(3):
He said, ‘I have mixed minds about that because I squirm when it's used, frankly. We spent a lot of time trying to avoid its use because we knew if it ever got used, it would become a precedent for the future.’
“That’s why the Republicans on the Committee have introduced our alternative reform bill which actually does not allow the Fed to invoke 13(3). Most of us were at the hearing the day before yesterday when we urged Secretary Geithner to say there would be no bailouts and he would not be invoking 13(3), and he actually declined to say that he wouldn’t use it and use as much as a trillion dollars in a bailout which should of shocked a lot of people and should have been headline news around this country.
(NOTE: The battle on Capitol Hill to protect the American people from liberal scams and schemes goes on unabated. Congressmen Ron Paul and Spencer Bachus continue fighting the good fight and working to force liberals to come clean on what they actually propose.)
“Just this week the Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to extend its program to purchase 1.2 trillion dollars worth of mortgage back securities, and up to $200 billion of agency debt through the first quarter of next year. In fact, before our eyes we’re seeing what Chairman Frank said last year with President Obama and a strong Democratic Senate we can get the Federal Government back in the housing business. We’re seeing that happen. He was right, in fact, we’re talking about the Federal Reserve, they’re the biggest holder of US Government debt, not private companies, not China, not the Middle East, it’s the Federal Reserve. They are buying, according to the Wall Street Journal, 50% of all new treasuries issued by the Treasury. That was in the second quarter. And, they buy a good portion of the GSE bonds that Fannie and Freddie issued.
“So you have on government agency buying another government agency’s debt. We’ve shifted debt from the private sector on to the US Government taxpayers back. And now we have one government agency in a way bailing out another government agency. It’s a classic example of musical chairs, with one Federal Agency bailing out another, and you just wonder when the music stops who is going to bailout the U.S. government? And I think that taxpayers have figured out it’s we the taxpayers, and that’s one reason why we desperately need this legislation.”
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