The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Nancy Pelosi in 'campaign mode'
Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicts job creation and deficit reduction will be the central Democrat themes for the coming year – and that public support for health care reform will rebound once a bill has been sent to President Barack Obama.
On the divisive issue of Afghanistan, the California Democrat ducked the question of how she would vote on increased war funding: “Let’s see what they request,” she said. But she has urged her party, including old allies on the anti-war left, to listen and give some “room” to Obama, recognizing that the president had been “dealt a very bad hand because there was no plan in Afghanistan for years.”
Pelosi made her comments at a year-end roundtable with reporters where she described herself as back in full “campaign mode” and confident House Democrats will retain “a strong majority” after the 2010 elections.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30681.html
House approves $290 billion increase in debt limit
The House on Wednesday passed legislation giving the federal government the ability to borrow a whopping $290 billion to finance its operations for just six additional weeks.
The 218-214 vote sends the must-pass bill to the Senate, which is expected to approve it as its last act before adjourning for the year. The alternative would be a market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
The measure is needed as a result of the out-of-control budget deficit, which registered $1.4 trillion for the budget year that ended in September. The current debt ceiling is $12.1 trillion and is set to be reached by Dec. 31.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091216/D9CKL24O0.html
20 senators demand probe of health-care vote 'threat' from White House
Twenty senators are demanding an investigation into reports the Obama administration threatened to close Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska if that state's Democratic senator, Ben Nelson, didn't join other Democrats in voting for health-care reform.
The group of 20, all Republicans, today called for a hearing in a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the committee's top Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
It has been reported that the Obama Administration threatened the closure of a U.S. military installation for political purposes, thereby bringing into question the integrity of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process. The BRAC process was established to remove political influence so that the decision to close or not to close a military installation could be based upon military utility.
http://webmail.aol.com/30044-144/aol-1/en-us/Suite.aspx
Opinion:
The year ending, but not soon enough on Capitol Hill
Democrats are desperate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally gave up, and delivering a belch of almost $300 billion, called it a year. It was not the sort of year Democrats expected this time last year. They presided over the White House and dominating majorities in both Houses. The world was their oyster.
Pelosi figured she could deliver the Cap and Trade tax scam by mid spring, she finally gained passage in the summer, and only after trading, threatening, and using bare knuckled brute force. She delivered, but by a very narrow margin. There is hope Cap and Trade will die in the Senate from a bad case of public opposition. Not many Americans want to see their family tax liability increase by $3,000 and see $5 a gallon gasoline. Besides, hacked emails proved Al Gore and his minions have been lying their heads off about the entire Global Warming issue. It seems Gore’s people have been cooking the books and lying.
Meanwhile, Obama anticipated his version of health care reform would be a done deal by late spring.
Pelosi passed a version a month or two back, but the Senate debate continues and Harry Reid has kept his plan’s details a secret. We DO know the “public option” device is dead. Good. Barney Frank admitted that was a pathway to Canadian style socialized medicine – a reform called “single payer’.
The more people learn about Democrat health care, the greater the opposition. Some polls these days show opposition to Democrat health care running almost two to one.
The White House continues pushing their “reform”. Of course savvy Americans now understand, “reform” is not the goal. What the real intent of the legislation is now known to be is a liberal take over of the entire health care system.
So desperate is the White House to gain passage, that members of Obama’s staff are reported to have threatened hold out Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska with the closing of the huge Offutt Air Force Base. Such arm twisting methods may be in common use among members of the Democrat Machine in Chicago – but not among Capitol Hill. Now that arm twisting has been revealed with Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel being a top suspect.
None-the-less, the hapless Harry Reid soldiers on, threatening to keep Senators toiling away on health care even if it means they might be voting on it on Christmas Eve.
Obama’s numbers, meanwhile, continue tanking. Not only that, a torrent of Democrats on Capitol Hill is beginning to flow in the form of announced retirements.
As things stand now, next year – the one in which a new Congress will be elected – looks bleak. Of course, politics are never sure fire bets. A lot can happen between now and election day. But for the moment, things are looking up.
This is true even among Republicans. Florida Governor Charlie Crist, considered a “moderate” by many Republicans, is not deadlocked with challenger, a conservative Marco Rubio. This suggests Christ may now be toast – the conservative bandwagon moves on, oblivious of party label.
Merry Christmas.
Buddy
The day’s Top Blogs:
1.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574600002289276662.html
The President Is No B+
In fact, he's got the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year.
KARL ROVE
Barack Obama has won a place in history with the worst ratings of any president at the end of his first year: 49% approve and 46% disapprove of his job performance in the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.
There are many factors that explain it, including weakness abroad, an unprecedented spending binge at home, and making a perfectly awful health-care plan his signature domestic initiative. But something else is happening.
Mr. Obama has not governed as the centrist, deficit-fighting, bipartisan consensus builder he promised to be. And his promise to embody a new kind of politics—free of finger-pointing, pettiness and spin—was a mirage. He has cheapened his office with needless attacks on his predecessor.
Consider Mr. Obama's comment in his interview this past Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes" that the Bush administration made a mistake in speaking in "a triumphant sense about war."
This was a slap at every president who rallied the nation in dark moments, including Franklin D. Roosevelt ("With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph"); Woodrow Wilson ("Right is more precious than peace and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts"); and John F. Kennedy ("Any hostile move anywhere in the world against the safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed . . . will be met by whatever action is needed").
This kind of attack gives Mr. Obama's words a slippery quality. For example, he voted for the bank rescue plan in September 2008 and praised it during the campaign. Yet on Dec. 8 at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Obama called it "flawed" and blamed "the last administration" for launching it "hastily."
Really? Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner designed it. If it was "flawed," why did Mr. Obama later nominate Mr. Bernanke to a second term as Fed chairman and make Mr. Geithner his Treasury secretary?
Mr. Obama also claimed at Brookings that he prevented "a second Great Depression" by confronting the financial crisis "largely without the help" of Republicans. Yet his own Treasury secretary suggests otherwise. In a Dec. 9 letter, Mr. Geithner admitted that since taking office, the Obama administration had "committed about $7 billion to banks, much of which went to small institutions." That compares to $240 billion the Bush administration lent banks. Does Mr. Obama really believe his additional $7 billion forestalled "the potential collapse of our financial system"?
Mr. Obama continued distorting the record in his "60 Minutes" interview Sunday when he blamed bankers for the financial crisis. They "caused the problem," he insisted before complaining, "I haven't seen a lot of shame on their part" and pledging to put "a regulatory system in place that prevents them from putting us in this kind of pickle again."
But as a freshman senator, Mr. Obama supported a threatened 2005 filibuster of a bill regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He doesn't show "a lot of shame" that he and other Fannie and Freddie defenders blocked "a regulatory system" that might have kept America from getting in such a bad pickle in the first place.
The president's rhetorical tricks don't end there. Mr. Obama also claimed his $787 billion stimulus package "helped us [stem] the panic and get the economy growing again." But 1.5 million more people are unemployed than he said there would be if nothing were done.
And as of yesterday, only $244 billion of the stimulus had been spent. Why was $787 billion needed when less than a third of that figure supposedly got the job done?
Mr. Obama also alleged on "60 Minutes" that health-care reform "will actually bring down the deficit" (which people clearly know it will not). He said his reform reduces "costs and premiums for American families and businesses" (though they will be higher than they would otherwise be). And he claimed 30 million more people will get coverage through "an exchange that allows individuals and small businesses" to purchase insurance (though 15 million of them are covered by being dumped into Medicaid and don't get private insurance).
Mr. Obama may actually believe it when he says, "I think that's a pretty darned good outcome" and congratulates himself that he could succeed where "seven presidents have tried . . . [and] seven presidents have failed."
But voters seem to have a different definition of success. And they are tiring of the president's blame shifting and distortions.
Mr. Obama may believe, as he told Oprah Winfrey in a recent interview, that he deserves a "solid B+" for his first year in office, but the American people beg to differ. A presidency that started with so much promise is receiving unprecedentedly low grades from the country that elected him. He's earned them.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of the forthcoming book "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions).
2.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/on_the_brink.html
On the brink
Victor Volsky
After Richard Nixon defused the 1960s student revolt by abolishing the draft, the brain trust of the revolutionary left shifted its strategic focus to Antonio Gramsci's teachings, realizing that it is the intelligentsia, not the proletariat, that is the true revolutionary force in society; that cultural dominance, not violent revolt, is the true path to power. A project known as the Great March through the Institutions was launched. Nearly four decades later, in November 2008, it triumphed in a historic electoral victory; the revolutionary wave crested and deposited in the White House Barack Obama, the most radical president in the history of the republic.
It is a favorite parlor game on the right to speculate whether Obama is a free agent or a puppet.
Actually it is beside the point whether he is the leader of the "progressive" movement or merely its hood ornament. The point is that the radical left came to power eager to grasp the rare moment when all the stars were aligned in its favor, offering the revolutionaries a realistic chance of achieving their long-cherished goal of turning the U.S. into a European-style welfare state. It was now or never. Full speed ahead, and damn the torpedoes!
And so Barack Obama sallied forth to usher in the Age of Aquarius. No one should have been surprised that the man whose entire previous life recommended him as a fervent far-left radical would turn out to be exactly that (after all, the past is prologue). What did come as a surprise to many was his zeal, his devil-take-the-hindmost approach. President Obama threw caution to the wind and at breakneck speed set about remaking America in the socialist mold.
In fact, he had little choice. Obama came to power in no small measure thanks to an economic collapse. But it is this very recession that makes his window of opportunity extremely narrow, at most ‘til the beginning of the 2010 election campaign. Off-year elections nearly always deal a blow to the ruling party, most certainly during economic downturns. Come election time, Obama's honeymoon will be long since over and the electorate will be sure to take out its frustration and anger on his party, further undermining the president's clout. Just ask Bill Clinton after the 1994 electoral debacle of the Democrats.
Given the political landscape the left decided on a drastic approach: President Obama and his Congressional allies would take advantage of their temporary preponderance and go all in on their program to take control of three major sectors: health care, education and energy. Speed was of the essence; while the Republicans are in post-electoral disarray, attack, attack, attack, overwhelm the enemy's defenses, give him no time to regroup, and push through the coveted legislation. All the chips were placed on a blitzkrieg. Using a football analogy, the Democrats threw a Hail Mary pass into the enemy's end-zone, pinning all their hopes on one daring toss.
In short order, a 787-billion "stimulus" (actually, little more than a slush fund for the Democratic Party and its allies) was passed, a cap-and-trade bill began its march through Congress, and the White House opened a massive campaign advancing the centerpiece of Obama's program: the health care reform. If the revolutionaries succeed in pushing through their radical environmental program and socializing the public health sector making up one-sixth of the national economy, America will be transformed beyond recognition. The destiny of the free, capitalist society is hanging in the balance.
However, Newton's Third Law of Motion states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Extending the football analogy, when the offense floods the zone, so too does the defense, and both sides have a chance to come down with the ball. The all-out assault on the American capitalist system launched by the Democrats with Obama as the battering ram has run up against stiff resistance. The unwashed masses have woken up and growled in anger.
The fly-over country, as liberals contemptuously call Middle America, has sensed a real threat to its freedom and rose to defend the American way of life. And for the first time in memory, the stranglehold of the left on the media market has been broken down by the emergence of talk radio, the conservative blogosphere and Fox News TV. The liberals found themselves in unchartered waters.
Unaccustomed to resistance, they thrashed helplessly about. Goaded by the so-called "mainstream" press, which is to mainstream as Cambridge, Massachusetts is to Peoria, Illinois, they lashed out at the opposition as "troglodytes," "Nazis, "KKK," and of course "racists." But this time it didn't work. The situation was too dire for the old reliable standbys to have the desired intimidating effect.
The enormous public debt endangering the future of the country; the sky-high unemployment numbers showing no signs of coming down any time soon; the serial blunders of the Obama administration, showing its ineptitude and confusion; the arrogance of the Congressional Democrats who are apparently intent on shoving the extremely unpopular reform on a reluctant citizenry -- all feed discontent and cement the opposition. Obama's plummeting popularity and the rebellion of the previously loyal segment of the Democratic electorate, the seniors, coupled with the devastating defeats in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, are a grim warning to the Democrats, a harbinger of the disaster to come.
The only hope of Obama and his allies is that the American people, unaccustomed as they are to prolonged activism, will soon get bored and go back to slumber. Will the enraged electorate have the stamina, the staying power to continue the fight to the bitter end, until the internal aggression is beaten back? If it does and the socialist conspiracy is decisively defeated, the radical left will be dealt a crushing blow from which it might take decades to recover. If not, America as we know it, in all likelihood will be finished.
3.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574599961696425696.html
That Health-Care Tax Pledge .
The health-care bills are loaded with taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year.
If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime." So spoke Barack Obama at his first address to Congress in February.
We're about to find out if the President cares about that promise as much he does passing a health-care bill.
Congressional Democrats have loaded up their health bills with provisions raising taxes on the middle-class by stacks and stacks of dimes. And Senate Democrats on Tuesday made clear they won't be bound by the President's vow; 54 voted to kill Idaho Republican Mike Crapo's amendment to strip the bill of taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and individuals earning less than $200,000.
Those tax hits include a mandate of up to $750 a year for Americans who fail to purchase health insurance; new levies on small businesses (many of which file individual tax returns) that don't offer health care to employees; new tax penalties on health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts; and higher taxes on medical spending, including restrictions on medical itemized deductions, as well as taxes on cosmetic surgery. A Senate Finance Committee minority staff report finds that by 2019 more than 42 million individuals and families—or 25% of all tax returns under $200,000—will on average see their taxes go up because of the Senate bill. And that's after government subsidies.
This profusion of tax hikes is central to the Democratic fiction that the Senate bill is budget neutral.
And because many Senate Democrats are cool to the House proposal to fund legislation with a surtax on the "wealthy," many of these middle-tax hikes will likely remain in final legislation. Yet President Obama is embracing the bill.
Democrats are instead trying to claim that some taxes really aren't taxes. The President in September engaged in a debate with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, with the President arguing that the individual mandate isn't a tax since it is for the good of America. Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow says increasing the amount of medical expenses a person must accumulate before deducting them also isn't a tax because "most Americans" don't itemize. Except the millions of middle-class Americans who do.
Democrats have argued their restrictions on health savings accounts simply close "tax loopholes" and therefore also aren't new taxes.
Americans who will be paying more to the IRS can be trusted to know the difference. In April, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the President's tax promise applied to health care. He replied: "The statement didn't come with caveats."
On the evidence in December, it did.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal,
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