ScoThe contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Scott Brown will be sworn in as Massachusetts senator today
Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R), the successor to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), will be sworn in to office this afternoon, giving Republicans 41 seats in the upper chamber.
Brown's entry into the Senate marks the formal end of the Democrats' filibuster-proof Senate majority.
Brown asked top Massachusetts officials Wednesday to take action that would allow him to be seated this Thursday instead of next Thursday.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/79565-scott-brown-to-be-sworn-into-senate-on-thursday
Vulnerable Democrats seek distance from Obama
As Congress begins picking through President Obama's vast election year budget, many Democratic incumbents and candidates seem to be finding something they love — to campaign against.
A Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri denounced the budget's sky-high deficit. A Florida Democrat whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center hit the roof over NASA budget cuts. And an endangered Senate Democrat denounced proposed cuts in farm subsidies.
Heading into an election season in which Republicans are trying to tie Democrats to Obama's unpopular policies, Obama's budget gives his fellow Democrats an unlikely campaign tool — a catalogue of ways to establish their distance from controversial aspects of his administration.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/michael-jackson/sc-dc-obama-dems04-20100203,0,987524.story
Democrats protect backroom deals and bribes on health care
The health care bill is in trouble, but a series of narrow deals — each designed to win over a wavering senator or key interest group — is alive and well, despite voter anger over the parochial horse-trading that marked the rush toward passage before Christmas.
With the exception of Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” which alienated independent voters and came to symbolize an out-of-touch Washington, none of the other narrow provisions that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid inserted into the bill appear to be in any kind of danger as Democrats try to figure out the way ahead.
Not only that, House liberals want to reopen the labor deal struck just days before Democrats lost their 60-vote majority — not to dial it back but to provide more generous protections from the tax on Cadillac insurance plans.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32499.html#ixzz0eZdNMcsY
Opinion:
When truth doesn’t get in the way, it’s easy to sound great – looking at current Democrat strategy.
With a quick twist of the teleprompter, Obama has Democrats sounding as if they have a legitimate handle on running the country. Of course, that requires brushing past troublesome reality such as truth and fact. If you have no problem with spinning fantasy, its easy to make things seem rosy.
Democrats are forced into taking that route. Not only are they troubled by a political reality that predicts a bad election year – one in which some pundits are now predicting they have a shot at retaking both houses – but they are also having increasing problems just trying to do what needs doing to create jobs, repair the economy, and keep the nation secure.
Headlined, but less so than facts reveal, Obama and his crew are taking very deserved hits on their irresponsible handling of the “underwear bomber”. Incredibly, Attorney General Eric Holder’s very political crew granted the Muslim terrorist the same rights afforded US citizens. Democrats have a long record of often siding with perps and being soft on criminals in general, now they are doing the same with terrorists.
They began by closing Gitmo without having given the reality there any study. That decision has come back to bite Obama big time. Now the DOJ is forced to admit they only interrogated the underwear terrorist for 50 minutes.
Such irresponsibility continues liberal Democrat actions suggesting they have little in the way of responsible concern for protecting American lives. Eric Holder is revealing himself as far more political than responsible or able to serve in his position. Political operatives under his command overrode professionals in Justice and prevented prosecution of Black Panthers who threatened anti-Obama voters in Philadelphia with violence – an act of voting intimidation for which the old KKK was famous. It is significant that both groups are made up entirely of Democrats.
There has been a mad scramble to bring the bomber’s family from Nigeria to coax him into seeming to cooperate with interrogators. Interesting theater, but quite lame considering reality and the significance of the threat. Sadly, we will never know how seriously our efforts to get information that could save lives has been damaged.
Obama addressed fellow Democrats today as his Senate group met for a cheer up session. It was clear questions from the audience came from those incumbents whose seats are threatened – a cynical exercise at best.
Obama again tried to lie out of the failure to pass the Democrat health care scam by blaming Republicans. (He usually blames Bush)
In attacking his opponents on Capitol Hill, Obama said:
“If the Republicans say that they can insure every American for free, which is what was claimed the other day, at no cost, I want to know.” (President’s Remarks, 2/3/10)
Republicans were quick to respond to the obvious hyperbole.
The Republican Study committee issued a statement factually noting:
“Okay. Except no one said expanded coverage could be accomplished “for free.” We said it could be accomplished “without raising taxes.” Evidently that distinction is lost on this tax-hiking White House. But the truth is for President Obama to say that Republicans claim our plans will be “free” is a blatant mischaracterization, and he’s smart enough to know it.
“But let’s flesh out the tortured logic that “not raising taxes” means services come “at no cost” and extend it to the President’s own promises. President Obama famously vowed on the campaign trail not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $200,000 a year, thus keeping their taxes static. While that promise has gone up in smoke, if one applies the President’s own new line to that campaign pledge, then he was really promising those Americans would get all their government services for free during his term in office.
“Maybe that’s what the President actually meant. Or maybe he simply doesn’t understand the notion that costs can be covered through spending cuts. Either way, the President’s comments are flat wrong,” the Republicans say. They have it right, of course.
Read that gentile response as reprising the shouted sentiments of Congressman Joe Wilson: “You lie” and the mouthed refutation of another Obama claim: “not true” by Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.
As Democrat political fortunes grow worse, expect Democrats and Obama to provide increases in deviation from the truth. More dangerous is the likelihood we will also face the irresponsibility of Eric Holder and handling of current and future terrorists, and suffer the damage, injury, and loss of life that irresponsibility may allow.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
Did Reuters Yank Article Due to Too Much Truth?
Sometimes, the truth hurts. In the case of an article they published yesterday at 4:04 p.m. Eastern, it appears Reuters editors were afraid writer Terri Cullen’s adventure into truthful journalism might hurt their news agency’s relationship with President Barack Obama — so they pulled it.
Published under the headline, Backdoor taxes hit middle class, the article opened by describing the Obama Administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade as relying “heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.” Four hours and three minutes after it hit the wire, the story was “withdrawn” with a promise that “A replacement story will run alter in the week.”
Why did Reuters pull the story? Business Insider cited a Reuters rep as saying the piece was withdrawn “due to significant errors of fact” and “should not have gone out.” I think it was the language used in the article that prompted Reuters to pull it. In particular, it was a series of phrases shown below that, combined with the one mentioned above, must have made the hair stand up on the back of Rahm Emanuel’s neck:
“…effectively a tax hike by stealth.”
“middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.”
Perhaps the largest contributing factor to the article being yanked is a list of tax break provisions popular among middle-class families that Obama might allow to expire:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;
* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
* Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.
The last line of the story was, perhaps, the proverbial “nail in the coffin” for the Reuter’s piece:
Trickle-down-taxation.
UPDATE 2/2/10 at 1:35 p.m. Central: Just moments after publishing this post, I discovered that Reuters had issued a more-recent advisory regarding the article which reads as follows:
“The Feb 1 story headlined “Backdoor taxes to hit middle class” is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration’s budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.”
2.
Obama's Quagmire of Ambiguity
A Commentary By Tony Blankley
Last week, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote: "Who is Barack Obama? Americans are still looking for the answer, and if they don't get it soon -- or if they don't like the answer -- the president's current political problems will look like a walk in the park. ... Mr. Obama is in danger of being perceived as someone whose rhetoric, however skillful, cannot always be trusted. He is creating a credibility gap for himself, and if it widens much more he won't be able to close it."
A president knows he is going through a hard patch when even his strongest supporters write such things. But, curiously, no commentator has more shrewdly foreshadowed this quagmire of ambiguity in which President Obama finds himself in this cold February 2010 than Mr. Obama himself in his book published in 2006:
"Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can't help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.
"But that is not all that I am. ... I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship. ... I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally.
"Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.
A second, more intimate theme to this book [is] how I, or anybody in public office, can avoid the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, the fear of loss, and thereby retain that kernel of truth, that singular voice within each of us that reminds us of our deepest commitments" (excerpted from "The Audacity of Hope," Crown, 2006).
The "blank screen" passage has been much quoted (including by me a couple of times) and, standing alone, might suggest cynicism. But when considered in the context of the previous few paragraphs and poignant following sentences -- and when read now, after the president's first difficult year in office -- a sadder, possibly tragic, vision emerges.
Perhaps the president has not been tactical and clever in the various different facets of his views that he has shown us: "I am a prisoner of my own biography. ..." If one reads his words that he is "forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized," and his words a few paragraphs down, where he wonders, "How I, or anybody in public office, can avoid the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, the fear of loss" -- one can't help wondering whether his "hunger to please" is in perpetual, inconclusive battle with his innermost visions and judgments.
Of course, we are all a bundle of contradictions, and we all grapple with the tension between pleasing others and being true to ourselves. And Mr. Obama is to be commended for writing with such searing honesty just a year before he started his run for the presidency.
But all of the foregoing would be merely obscure marginalia to the main text of his presidency if, in his first year in office, he had executed his responsibilities with a firm steadiness of purpose. He would not be in the fix he is in now if he had so comported himself that his strong supporter Mr. Herbert (and many other of his cheerleaders) had not felt compelled to rudely question his credibility and wondered out loud who Mr. Obama is.
If the president is to save his presidency from a fatal weakening, he needs promptly to work through his inner dialogue and resolve the contesting urge to be loved with the urge to be true to himself -- in favor of the latter. His State of the Union speech reflected too much of the former.
He could do with a little less public love and a lot more public respect. Take some stands and stick with them. If he thinks we need more deficit spending to stimulate the economy, he shouldn't trot out rhetoric and faux policies in support of deficit reduction. He thereby neither gained the support of fiscal conservatives nor kept the favor of those for more deficits. (See Paul Krugman's brutal New York Times column in which he called the president not a true deficit hawk, but a "deficit peacock," a term he borrowed from an article published by the Center for American Progress) because, as the CAP article said, he "pretend(s) that our budget problems can be solved with gimmicks like a temporary freeze."
If he truly believes he cannot get the health care legislation he wants, he should tell his allies (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in particular) to drop it, now. Give his allies on the Hill firm priorities and guidance. He should not continue to hint at cap-and-trade if he knows it can't happen in 2010. He may disappoint the Greens but gain their respect for his firm leadership.
Whether he wants to "stay the course" or "pivot to the center," the president has the next six months to steadily and unambiguously execute that vision. If he fails to right his image by then -- it will be post-Katrina time for yet another president.
Tony Blankley is executive vice president of Edelman public relations in Washington.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
3.
Democrats are suddenly interested in Obama birth certificate
Senate campaign director has plan to harm Republicans running for office
Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
During this year's U.S. Senate races, it will be Democrats raising the issue of President Obama's eligibility to occupy the Oval Office.
Politico reported Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chief Robert Menendez is distributing a memo to U.S. Senate campaign offices stating Democrats need to demand that their opponents answer a series of questions, including, "Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen?"
The report said Menendez wants to use the questions to "frame" opponents and "drive a wedge" between moderates belonging to the GOP and those who have adopted the tea party standards advocating limited government, lower taxes, fewer regulations and more freedom for Americans.
The Democrat memo said, "Given the pressure Republican candidates feel from the extreme right in their party, there is a critical – yet time-sensitive – opportunity for Democratic candidates.
"We have a finite window when Republicans candidates will feel susceptible to the extremists in their party. Given the urgent nature of this dynamic, we suggest an aggressive effort to get your opponents on the record."
The Politico report listed the following questions for Democrat to ask of Republican opponents:
• Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen?
• Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care 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?
The memo instructs that if a GOP candidate says no, make his or her "primary opponent or conservative activists know it."
Demand the truth by joining the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!
Democrats dominated the Senate agenda in President Obama's first year in office because of their filibuster-proof 60-40 vote majority. But since Republican Scott Brown's stunning victory in Massachusetts, winning a U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Ted Kennedy for nearly five decades, Menendez has urged his party's candidates to "run scared," Politico said.
The website for the Democrat committee already has started demonizing Republicans in the "tea party" movement challenging Washington's tax-and-spend agenda, massive health care takeover and plans for huge new energy taxes.
"Is the angry, irrational mob known as the 'Tea Party' one and the same as the Republican Party?" the site says. "After a summer of yelling about 'socialism' and 'death panels' at town hall meetings, they have mobilized behind a number of Republican Senate candidates. We saw how energized they were in Massachusetts. If more of these candidates are elected in November, it will become harder and harder to make any progress in Washington."
Wall Street Journal blogger James Taranto questioned the logic of Democrats raising the eligibility issue.
"Are we given to understand that the Democrats intend to run for office by raising questions about Barack Obama's eligibility to be president?" he asked. "That has got to be the most brilliant campaign strategy since Michael Dukakis and Max Cleland raised questions about their own patriotism."
One participant in a forum at New Jersey.com said the Democrats obviously just don't understand the level of concern Americans have.
"Menendez you are so far out of touch you have no idea of what you talk about. You don't even know what the tea [party] movement stands for. You somehow think they are all right wing conservatives. How wrong you are. They are from every walk of life from all parties and none. They represent everything good in this country and what has made us great. Thats (sic) something you and yours will never understand. All you know is take take take and spend spend spend. Thats (sic) what the teabager movement wants to stop."
WND has reported efforts to raise the question of Obama's eligibility at the state and national levels. Several state legislatures are working on proposals that would require presidential candidates to submit proof of their eligibility.
Since Obama's election, numerous lawsuits have been filed alleging he did not meet the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen." The lawsuits have asserted he either was not born in Hawaii as he claims or was a dual citizen because of his father's British citizenship at the time of his birth.
The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
However, none of the cases filed to date has been successful in reaching the plateau of legal discovery, so that information about Obama's birth could be obtained.
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