The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Obama Hits Lowest Approval Mark
Independent voters see Pres. Obama in a negative light by a nearly 2-1 margin, according to a new Marist College survey, while almost half of voters say he has failed to meet their expectations.
The poll, conducted Feb. 1-3, showed just 44% of registered voters approving of Obama's job as president. 47% disapprove. But among indie voters, Obama's approval rating sits at a terrible 29%, while his disapproval rating is at 57%.
Obama's 44% job approval rating is the lowest he has scored in any non-internet poll since moving into the WH, according to a review of data compiled by Pollster.com.. While GOPers strive to avoid attacking Obama personally, for fear of offending voters who see him in a favorable light personally, even that aura of invincibility is wearing off. Independent voters view Obama negatively, too, by a 39% favorable to 52% unfavorable margin. All registered voters still see Obama favorably by a 50%-44% margin, but that's down 5 points in just 2 months.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/02/obama_hits_lowe.php
Obama's health care summit: Just for show? Of course.
President Barack Obama's televised dialogue with Republican lawmakers on health care, promised for later this month, has the makings of an entertaining exchange. But the differences between the basic Democratic and GOP ideas are stark — and the two sides have increasingly hardened their positions in this election year.
In a story with more twists than a soap opera, Obama's invitation to congressional leaders of both parties to attend a Feb. 25 meeting can't be dismissed as a mere diversion. Although many Americans have doubts about the Democrats' sweeping plans to cover the uninsured, Republicans can't afford to be perceived as oblivious to the health care insecurities of middle-class families.
Democrat claims that Republicans oppose health care reform are political misstatements, to say the least. What Republicans and most Americans oppose is the specifics of the Democrat scheme – crafted in secret behind the closed doors of Senate Leader Harry Reid’s office – which amount to government take over of health care – sending it in a general direction of the sort of socialized medicine seen in Canada.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100208/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul
Defiant New York Gov. David Paterson Calls Rumors False, refuses to resign
Rumors started after blogs began reporting that the New York Times was working on a story that makes serious accusations against New York Governor David Paterson -- accusations that could force him to resign.
This weekend, Paterson met privately with key Democratic leaders about his re-election plans as questions swirl around the state capitol about a variety of unproven accusations involving the Democratic governor's personal conduct.
Paterson campaign spokesman Richard Fife said the weekend calls had nothing to do with the accusations but were "routine re-election campaign calls." A Democrat close to the situation, though, said the meetings included discussions about whether Paterson would resign or announce he will not run. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/politics/100208-career-ending-scandal-for-paterson-apx
Opinion:
Fox News Bill Sammon: the media hates the tea party movement and Sarah Palin.
The mainstream media can’t handle the truth.
Currently, they are making utter fools of themselves trying to lie out of Fox News’s Bill Sammon’s candid assertion regarding the mainstream media bias against the tea party movement and Sarah Palin. Samman told Fox News Sunday host, Chris Wallace:
“I'll tell you, Chris, the mainstream media hates the Tea Party movement almost as much as it hates Sarah Palin. And the reason is simple. That's because both are a threat. Palin is a threat down the road, whether it be in 2012 or beyond. The Tea Party is a threat because it is galvanizing Republicans."
Politico’s Michael Calderone, demonstrated “it’s the bit dog that hollers”, by noting “Sammon conspicuously neglected to offer any proof that the mainstream media ‘hate’ Palin and the tea partiers, beyond the implication that they must hate them because the mainstream media are hateful liberals”
“Proof”? Pardon me? Read any daily newspapers or listen to any over-the-air network TV news.
Before this incident, I’d never considered Politico a part of the mainstream media – a cabal that has made the term “honest journalism” an oxymoron. Anyone who says the mainstream media is not corrupted by the left is either lying or downright stupid.
Providing reports Sunday regarding the tea party gathering in Nashville and Palin’s address to it, I was impressed by seeing the coverage by the usually conservative Washington Times and that of the very liberal Atlanta Constitution, were written from identical source reports. It seems neither publication actually covered the event in person, and both offered barely muted tongue-in-cheek commentary.
Both were critical of the tea party group’s lack of specific plans – an observation demonstrating the mainstream media’s total inability to grasp or understand the tea party movement. Given the far left extremism of Democrats dominating Capitol Hill, the first obligation in confronting that threat is, as Nancy Reagan once admonished: “just say no”.
The tea party movement is not a political party – and therein lies its power. It is a spontaneous uprising of normal Americans enraged by what they perceive is going on in Washington, and who are demanding change – not the phony “change” Obama used as a campaign ploy – but real change through which liberal extremists are swept from power and denied further access to the levers of power.
As angry as normal Americans of the tea party sort are at liberal politicians, they are even angrier at the mainstream media – a group they see increasingly as favoring distorted reports of government. We note again, audience measurements showing Fox News dominating cable newscasts, show normal Americans are voting with their TV remotes.
Add to Fox News and talk radio, the impact of the Internet on news and information, and a case can be made for the tainted mainstream media being slowly replaced. It’s a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” sort of thing. Growing numbers of Americans understand the mainstream media has fooled them more than once.
Dailies such as the New York Times and Washington Post, have little credibility. Neither does the openly corrupted NBC. If Politico wants to challenge an assertion that network TV news is corrupted – two words suffice as proof: “Dan Rather”.
The mainstream media hates the tea party movement and Sarah Palin because both present major threats to the far left thrust of the current government. It is probable at this moment, that voters who reflect the attitudes and convictions of the tea party uprising, will vote out enough Democrat incumbents to give the GOP control of the House – and maybe the Senate as well.
Liberals have no one but themselves to blame for their predicament.
Of course they, along with their media chums, equally hate Sarah Palin because she can draw a crowd, lead a parade, and raise a ton of political dollars. Palin is the most popular political figure today despite the most vigorous, scurrilous, and mean spirited attack by the mainstream media. Politico officials are in denial of that fact. The media has savaged Palin, her husband, and even her children. The assault has been nothing less than despicable. That fact should suffice for proof.
Understand, I may or may not vote for Palin for President. Certainly I would favor her over Obama or any likely Democrat. I supported McCain because I long ago recognized Obama’s far left extremism and McCain was the sole alternative.
If our political opponents are dumb enough to make foolish assertions such as Politico has done in this instance, then count on me, and others, to take full advantage of it. Politico’s admission that it needs proof the media hates the tea party movement and Sarah Palin, demonstrates how completely tone deaf political elites are.
May the Good Lord always grant me enemies stupid enough to prove that fact without my needing to do so.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
1.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100208/us_time/08599196072600
Tea-Party Convention: Lessons on Palin and the Movement
JAY NEWTON-SMALL
(NOTE: this commentary comes from Time Magazine – part of the liberal media cabal. Nuff said)
Things can get awkward when protesters have to put down their placards and tackle the business of building an organization - networking online and recruiting reliable volunteers, precinct captains and even candidates. The transition is even more uncomfortable when undertaken in the glare of the national media spotlight, as the national tea-party movement attempted to do at its first convention, held in Tennessee over the weekend.
As with any protest movement, consensus proved elusive in two days of debate, but they seemed to agree on five key points:
1. Don't Tread on Me
The tea-party folks are innately suspicious of any institutions. "Keep the change ... I'll keep my freedom, my guns and my money!" read a T-shirt for sale in the lobby. The very term national convention might imply the existence of a leadership, but the activists proudly insist that there is none. "I'm a facilitator; we don't have leaders," one lady told TIME when asked if she heads her local tea-party chapter. "We're all equal in this movement."
In a panel discussion on "Where the Tea Party Goes from Here," Memphis tea-party organizer and convention spokesman Mark Skoda urged delegates to raise the tone of their protests and to avoid unnecessary name-calling of elected officials, including Democrats. "Do not discount the fact that they are still Americans," Skoda said. "Have to have some empathy for that without degrading their noble desire to serve."
"But, wait," a woman in the audience piped up, sounding flabbergasted. "I agree with you, Mark, but some of these guys are a lost cause." Skoda quickly agreed that, indeed, many members of Congress had to go. "Do not ever believe that you are below anybody in elected office," he added.
2. The Party in Tea Party Refers Only to Boston
"Form another party? Why would we want to do that? That's exactly what the Daily Kos wants us to do and we'd just be playing into liberal hands," said Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger referring to a noted liberal blog. While Breitbart's was a common view, there were plenty of contrarians. "I'm kind of split" on the issue, said Angela Montgomery, 42, a retired dietician from Johnson City, Tenn. "I see the problems but I also think that tea partiers would better represent me than Republicans right now."
When Skoda, addressing reporters, reiterated the argument against forming a new party, he hastily added, "Of course, I only speak for myself." Sarah Palin, perhaps unsurprisingly, urged the movement to work within the system. "The Republican Party would be very smart to try and absorb as much of the tea-party movement as possible," she told the crowd. "Because the tea-party movement is the future of politics."
3. We Don't Need a Leader
"The tea-party movement has no leader, and ... neither did the American Revolution," thundered talk-radio host Phil Valentine, who spoke before Palin at the gala dinner. Leaving aside poor old General Washington, if there was one thing all tea partiers could agree upon it was that no one is their leader.
And that was a condition Palin was happy to encourage. "This is about the people," she said. "It isn't about any king or queen of a tea party and it's a lot more than any one charismatic guy with a teleprompter."
Bettina Bibiano, a 47-year-old filmmaker from Los Angeles, said the tea-party movement doesn't need an iconic Obama-like figure. "It's hard for us to unify behind any one person," she explained. "We're not a cult."
4. This We Believe
Small government, lower taxes, greater individual liberties, more power to the states and government strictly by the Constitution and Bill of Rights: these are the general principles all tea-party activists can agree upon, to the extent that there was much discussion about a platform.
Still, some delegates were eager to work their wedge issues. Former Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, who ran for President in 2008 in opposition to the Bush Administration's planned immigration reforms, whipped up the crowd with talk of Obama voters failing civics tests and hinting that they probably didn't even speak English. WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah trotted out the birther claim that Obama wasn't really born in the United States. But such grandstanding had others worried.
"That kind of rhetoric is counterproductive," said former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey, who now runs Freedom Works, a group that works with the tea-party movement. "It feeds into the hands of the left and allows [the tea party] to be portrayed as people who are angry and accusatory, inflammatory. That is not what this movement has been about. We have to keep our eye on the ball; we have to work to stop people who believe the government should control vast sections of the economy."
Armey believes that Obama is bringing up the gays-in-the-military question at this moment specifically to divide the tea-party movement. "He's hoping the grass roots would jump on this and turn away from economic issues," Armey said. "And Obama would just love to change the subject, so my own view is, don't take the bait."
5. President Palin?
At one point on Saturday, some disgruntled Tennessee tea-party activists held a press conference to complain about the cost of attending the event ($549 per person), which they say excluded many supporters. But when asked whether they begrudged Sarah Palin her reported $100,000 speaking fee, they blanched. "Of course not. I love Sarah Palin, we - I think it's safe to say we - all love Sarah Palin," said one of those complaining about ticket prices that presumably helped to pay for her keynote speech. A gushing love of Palin was, in fact, a major point of consensus at the convention. And she loved them right back. "America is ready for another revolution!" she enthused as the audience popped to their feet for the first of many ovations.
Palin, who plans to attend more such events in the coming months, said her speaker's fee would be plowed back into to "the cause." And she plans on helping the movement stump for approved conservative candidates (first up on Sunday was Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is facing a primary challenge from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison). "You don't need an office or a title to make a difference," Palin said, noting that Saturday would have been Ronald Reagan's 99th birthday. "We are now the keepers of conservative values and good works."
2.
Public-sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems
A Commentary By Michael Barone
Growing up in Michigan in the heyday of the United Auto Workers, I long assumed that labor unions were part of the natural order of things.
That's no longer clear. Last month, the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year and now represent only 7.2 percent of private-sector employees. That's down from the all-time peak of 36 percent in 1953-54.
But union membership is still growing in the public sector. Last year, 37.4 percent of public sector employees were union members. That percentage was down near zero in the 1950s. For the first time in history, a majority of union members are government employees.
In my view, the outlook for both private- and public-sector unionism is problematic.
Private-sector unionism is adversarial. Economic studies show that such unions do extract premium wages and benefits from employers. But that puts employers at a competitive disadvantage. Back in the 1950s, the Big Three auto companies dominated the industry and were at the top of the Fortune 500.
Last year, General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt and are now owned by the government and the UAW. Ford only barely escaped.
Adversarial unionism tends to produce rigid work rules that retard adaptation and innovation. We have had a three-decade experiment pitting UAW work rules against the flexible management of Japanese- and European-owned non-union auto firms.
The results are in. Yes, clueless management at the Detroit firms for years ignored problems with product quality and made bonehead investment mistakes. But adversarial unionism made it much, much harder for Detroit to produce high-quality vehicles than it was for non-unionized companies.
As economist Barry Hirsch points out, non-union manufacturing employment rose from 12 million to 14 million between 1973 and 2006. In those years, union manufacturing employment dropped from 8 million to 2 million. "Unionism," Hirsch writes, "is a poor fit in a dynamic, competitive economy."
Moreover, federal laws passed since the 1950s now protect workers from racial and sex discrimination, safety hazards and pension failure. They don't need unions to do this any more.
Public-sector unionism is a very different animal from private-sector unionism. It is not adversarial but collusive. Public-sector unions strive to elect their management, which in turn can extract money from taxpayers to increase wages and benefits -- and can promise pensions that future taxpayers will have to fund.
The results are plain to see. States like New York, New Jersey and California, where public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite sucking the life out of the private-sector economy. Not surprisingly, Americans have been steadily migrating out of such states and into states like Texas, where public-sector unions are weak and taxes are much lower.
Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power -- and dues income -- of public-sector unions.
One-third of last year's $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments -- an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession.
Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party.
But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. Or they may move, as so many have already done, to states like Texas.
Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, "Enough."
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner.
COPYRIGHT 2010 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
3.
White House Health Care Meeting Met With Skepticism On The Hill
President Obama's recently proposed White House health care meeting was immediately met with skepticism on Capitol Hill -- Republicans are wary of the motives behind the move, while Democrats doubt the result will be any different than negotiations with the GOP over the past year.
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, called it "a hollow PR blitz," adding, "Republicans welcome honest discussion, but this event reeks of political gamesmanship." GOP House leaders John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sent a lengthy letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel outlining their many concerns with the meeting.
On the Senate side, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated a willingness to talk as long as the plans that passed the two chambers are scrapped and the two sides start from scratch, which Boehner and Cantor called for as well.
"If we are to reach a bipartisan consensus, the White House can start by shelving the current health spending bill," said McConnell.
Meanwhile, some liberal members aren't convinced Republicans are willing to negotiate and believe the opposing party has simply adopted an obstructionist political strategy -- and the event could provide a televised forum for political posturing.
"If there is an earnest effort to come to some kind of understanding, then it's worth the effort," Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Monday in an interview with RealClearPolitics. "Personally, I'm not optimistic."
President Obama announced the Feb. 25 meeting during an interview with CBS News just before the Super Bowl, hoping the televised effort will help bring transparency and solutions to the Democrats' stalled effort of reforming the health care system. Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate will be invited, though it's unclear which of the many factions in the debate are willing to compromise their priorities to solve the impasse.
For instance, liberals are still pushing the public option, which was left out of the Senate bill after failing to receive enough support and assumed to be a nonstarter in bicameral negotiations. With weather permitting, Grijalva and other Progressive Caucus leaders will meet late this afternoon with several senators, including Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), to discuss the government-run insurance option, an insurance exchange and other reform measures.
"We don't think they're dead," Grijalva said of the progressives' priorities. "I hate to be pessimistic about the White House meeting, but regardless of what happens with that we're still working to get something done."
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