You may have missed it, but on Wednesday, Barack Obama held yet another so-called townhall meeting. This one was to discuss his health care plans and use the new tools of "social media" to do it. Although surrounded by a live audience, the main focus of the event was to reach people using the White House web site, Facebook, and Twitter.
The problem is that there should be some kind of standards when it comes to a townhall meeting. By labeling it as such, Americans get the impression that this is a meeting of average Joes (and Janes) -- people from all walks of life and all parts of the political spectrum -- who can throw out questions to the president. Well... not quite...
As we have seen in many Obama events already, the purpose is strictly to get his message out and NOT hear from the American people, even though that is the stage upon which his sales pitch is being delivered. The White House picks the questions ahead of time, and the audience is generally made up of Obama supporters. Does this sound like a townhall meeting to you?
Rush Limbaugh is suggesting that President Barack Obama and his political operatives already are laying the groundwork for a third term.
You have to wonder if Obama is just trying to lay a foundation for not being a hypocrite when he tries to serve beyond 2016, Limbaugh told his national radio audience. I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next number of years there is a move on the 22nd Amendment.
Limbaugh has a point.
Upon Obama's taking office, Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., introduced legislation in the House to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limits presidents to two consecutive terms or 10 years in office. Serrano's justification for the bill is that, until 1951, nothing prevented a president from serving more than two terms.
Media: They laugh at his jokes. They say he's the smartest guy in Congress. And 90% of them agree with him politically. Small wonder the havoc Barney Frank wreaks on the economy gets so little attention.
A top Republican senator has ordered an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's alleged suppression of a report that questioned the science behind global warming.
The 98-page report, co-authored by EPA analyst Alan Carlin, pushed back on the prospect of regulating gases like carbon dioxide as a way to reduce global warming. Carlin's report argued that the information the EPA was using was out of date, and that even as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased, global temperatures have declined.
"He came out with the truth. They don't want the truth at the EPA," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, a global warming skeptic, told FOX News, saying he's ordered an investigation. "We're going to expose it."
The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.
The city had thrown out the results of a promotion test because no African Americans and only two Hispanics would have qualified for promotions. It said it feared a lawsuit from minorities under federal laws that said such "disparate impacts" on test results could be used to show discrimination.
In effect, the court was deciding when avoiding potential discrimination against one group amounted to actual discrimination against another.
The court's conservative majority said in a 5 to 4 vote that is what happened in New Haven.
('The "conservative majority" said...' Well, gee, Barnes, such a shame that the liberal minority still fails to see the injustice in discriminating against one group to correct the past wrongs done to another group. Great decision, SCOTUS. It was the only correct one. - Roland)
Mariano Rivera recorded his milestone 500th save, preserving Chien-Ming Wang's first win in more than a year, as the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Mets on Sunday with a 4-2 victory at Citi Field.
The long-time closer was summoned from the bullpen with two outs in the eighth inning and stranded two Mets aboard before recording the final three outs in the ninth inning and joining Trevor Hoffman as the only pitchers to record 500 or more saves in Major League history.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) had a few choice words about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) landmark climate-change bill after its passage Friday.
When asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night, Boehner told The Hill, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s--t."
(Finally!! A testosterone moment from House Republicans! Keep up the good work, Mr. Boehner. Don't stop now! Give 'Em Hell! - Roland)
Chavez says a U.S. general shouldn't be raising concerns that Venezuela is buying arms, and the American commander is wrong to argue there isn't a "conventional military threat in the region."
Chavez says the U.S. is a threat to Venezuela, and that's why his government is strengthening its military.
The government checks keeping Candy Czernicki afloat are fast running out. The reason? U.S. states obligated to pay benefits to the swelling ranks of jobless Americans are piling debt onto strained budgets.
Fifteen states have depleted their unemployment insurance funds so far, forcing them to borrow from the U.S. Treasury.
A record 30 of the country's 50 states are expected to have to borrow up to $17 billion by next year, said Rick McHugh of the National Employment Law Project, a nonpartisan advocacy group.
Monica Conyers -- the wife of Democratic House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers -- pleaded guilty to a bribery conspiracy charge in federal court yesterday. Conyers took a bribe in a pay-to-play scheme for a $1.2-billion-plus Detroit sludge treatment contract won the old-fashioned way by SynagroTechnologies. Conyers took "at least $6,000" to change her vote on the sludge contract. The price seems cheap, but according to the linked Free Press report, it represents only the tip of the sludgeberg.
We've written several times about Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison's hajj to Mecca, most recently here. A spokesman for Ellison, the first Muslim congressman, first told the Star Tribune that Ellison paid for the pilgrimage himself. The Star Tribune subsequently reported that the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society paid for Ellison's hajj. MAS spokesman Mahdi Bray heatedly denied the report, describing it as a "myth" and "urban legend" that couldn't possibly be true because "that would be a breach of congressional ethics."...
...Here in Minnesota, the local MAS chapter is notorious for stirring up trouble in a variety of fabricated controversies. It is also at the heart of the story of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in suburban St. Paul, a Muslim school run with taxpayer funds under the supervision of a principal/imam who serves on the MAS Minnesota chapter council. One would think that Ellison's close association with, and indebtedness to, MAS Minnesota might be newsworthy. Think again.
But Ellison's refusal to disclose the cost of his hajj has attracted the interest of the Star Tribune. In "Ellison's privately paid trip to Mecca prompts debate," Eric Roper reports:
Though members of Congress are required to disclose the details of just about any gift they receive, Ellison's office has declined to make public the cost of his trip, estimated at several thousand dollars, maintaining that it was "personal." His spokesman also says the ethics panel didn't require disclosure of the figure.
(Franken? Ellison? What the hell is going on in the great state of Minnesota? - Roland)
Despite a marvelous last minute speech by John Boehner in which he outlined some of the more outrageous elements of the Democrats' overnight 300-page amendment to the most un-Constitutional massive government power grab in history, aka House Energy Bill or Cap and Trade, eight Republicans crossed the aisle to give the Left its victory over freedom and liberty in this country. And all this despite nearly ten years of flat-lining global temperatures AND rising CO2 levels. The bill goes next to the Senate.
The Republicans:
Mary Bono Mack - California
Mike Castle - Delaware
Chris Smith - New Jersey
Frank LoBiando - New Jersey
John McHugh - New York
Leonard Lance - New Jersey
Dave Reichert - Washington
Mark Kirk - Illinois
(If these RINO's are in your district, we encourage you to contact him or her to express your displeasure...or pleasure, whatever the case may be...with their actions today. I don't know how a so-called Republican could possibly have voted in good conscience for this thing. - Roland)
Fiscal Policy: The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on an anti-stimulus package that in the name of saving the earth will destroy the American economy. Smoot-Hawley will seem like a speed bump
(We here at the Saloon realize that the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett have grabbed the headlines today, but far more important issues confront us as Americans. Please read. Please call your congresspeople. Stop Cap and Tax now. My children, your children, THEIR children will thank us. - Roland)
The poll, administered June 12-16, found that 72 percent of respondents favored the creation of a government health-insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.
It also said 50 percent of respondents thought the government would do a better job providing medical coverage than private insurers, up from 30 percent in 2007; and that 59 percent thought the government would be better at holding down costs, up from 47 percent two years ago.
But critics including pollster Kellyanne Conway say the results are inaccurate because they are heavily skewed toward those who voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
In addition, other indicators point toward a repeat of the defeat Hillary Clinton's proposed government-run faced in the early ‘90’s.
Meanwhile feel free to peruse the site for all the latest on the issues that confront us as a nation...from health care to illegal immigration. And don't forget to call and write you congresspeople and senators. It's your duty!
ABC News has abandoned all pretense of journalistic integrity in its bid to be the administration’s official salesman for ObamaCare. ABC flatly rejected Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay’s request to add opposition views to ensure all sides of the health care debate were represented in the “town hall” forum.
Not only that, ABC News Vice President Kerry Smith responded by saying, “ABC News alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the President.”
As if that wasn’t enough, ABC then rejected an ad from a conservative group trying to counter the liberal health care agenda.
This is the week that we get our full dose of health care "news" on ABC. The special which airs on Wednesday is a townhall format in which Barack Obama will answer "tough" questions from the audience as picked by ABC News.
Conservatives and other media critics have been up in arms ever since ABC News announced the format. Diane Sawyer, co-host of ABC's "Good Morning America" recently went on the air to defend the program and deny that it was a glorified infomercial. She actually said she is proud of the program, because it's important to have a debate on this serious issue. Note to Dianne... it might just be me, but I thought it takes two opposing sides to have a debate. Right?
More>>>
*FLASHBACK* Courtroom explodes in laughter when Diane Sawyer says journalists are fair
White House officials who fired whistleblower Gerald Walpin last week have sparked a series of investigations that pose both political and policy threats to the Obama administration.
Describing the probe into the dismissal of the AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, one Capitol Hill source on Thursday compared Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s demand for facts in the case to a row of dominoes ready to tip over.
From NYT: President Obama’s choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.
The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant
Irish property prices have plummeted since 2002. But a "cottage" in County Galway owned by Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has tripled in value during the same period, according to a financial disclosure form filed by the Senator this month.
There are two possible explanations for this remarkable turn of fortune. Maybe Mr. Dodd is luckier than a leprechaun. Or could it be that he paid well below the market price when he bought out a co-owner in 2002 and had undervalued the property accordingly? If it's the latter, then Mr. Dodd received a "gift," in IRS parlance, and should have declared it on his financial disclosure form that year. He did not. Oh, and by the way, the seller at that low, low price has been the business partner of a man for whom Mr. Dodd lobbied to receive a Presidential pardon.
Che had a very bloody (and typically cowardly) hand in this slaughter, one of the major anti-insurgency wars on this continent. Eighty percent of these anti-communist guerrillas were executed on the spot upon capture, a Che specialty. "We fought with the fury of cornered beasts," is how one of the lucky few who escaped described this desperate freedom fight against the Soviet occupation of Cuba through their proxies Fidel and Che.
In 1956 when Che linked up with Fidel, Raul, and their Cuban chums in Mexico city, one of them (now in exile) recalls Che railing against the Hungarian freedom-fighters as "Fascists!" and cheering their extermination by Soviet tanks.
In 1962 Che got a chance to do more than cheer from the sidelines. He had a hand in the following: "Cuban militia units commanded by Russian officers employed flame-throwers to burn the palm-thatched cottages in the Escambray countryside. The peasant occupants were accused of feeding the counterrevolutionaries and bandits." At one point in 1962, one of every 17 Cubans was a political prisoner. Fidel himself admits that they faced 179 bands of "counter-revolutionaries" and "bandits."
According to Gallup, five months into the Obama administration — which The Times insists reflects the will of the American people — 40% of Americans call themselves conservatives, 35% moderates, and 21% liberal.
The radio personality, whose national audience exceeds 8 million, then asked the rhetorical question: If a plurality of Americans are conservative, why is there a “neo-Marxist in the White House” who’s successfully implementing a socialist agenda?
The answer, said Savage, is because we have a “neo-Marxist media.” This isn’t name-calling but an accurate assessment of what might be called a partnership in crime — Barack Obama and the mainstream media
Responding to criticism from former President George W. Bush, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama's victory last year was a repudiation of Bush's policies.
In a speech this week, Bush came off the sidelines for the first time since the beginning of the Obama administration to lob criticisms at Obama for his economic policies and his decision to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Gibbs said Thursday that many of those policies were debated during last year's election.
"We kept score last November, and we won," Gibbs said.
(And the country lost. Congratulations. What a juvenile response. Now, could we PLEASE find some adults to run the country in 2010? - Roland)
As indignation turned to outrage Thursday among critics of an ABC News prime-time special on President Obama's health care policy, The Washington Times has learned that ABC employees gave 80 times as much money to Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign for president than to his rival's.
According to an analysis of campaign donations by the Center for Responsive Politics, conducted at The Times' request, ABC employees in several divisions donated $124,421 to the Obama campaign, compared with $1,550 to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.
Scheiner, 71, was Obama's doctor from 1987 until he entered the White House; he vouched for the then-candidate's "excellent health" in a letter last year. He's still an enthusiastic Obama supporter, but he worries about whether the health care legislation currently making its way through Congress will actually do any good, particularly for doctors like himself who practice general medicine. "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.
Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama's team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn't see anyone who's actually in the trenches. "I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven't been struggling in it," he says.
Scheiner, like most others in his profession, thinks that it should be harder to sue doctors and that awards should be capped. He says that he and other doctors must order too many tests and imaging studies just to avoid being sued.
Before selling his practice, he watched his income decline over the years to what he calculated to be $22 a7+n hour ($2,100 every two weeks after withholding for taxes, health insurance and malpractice insurance.)...Scheiner thinks that any health reform should involve paying primary-care doctors better so they don't have to rush through appointments to make ends meet.
(I see. Pain for thee, but not for me. You, sir, are a hypocrite. - Roland)
Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.
In an interview Wednesday morning with The Washington Times "America's Morning News," Mrs. Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, said the questions have become "very intricate, very personal" and she also fears ACORN, the community organizing group that came under fire for its voter registration efforts last year, will be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts.
"I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home," she said. "We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."
(Good for her! If only we could find a few more Republicans in Washington with her guts. - Roland)
One might think that Barack Obama's obsession with Jewish settlements in the West Bank would wane a bit, given the events in Iran. But to think this would be wrong. The President has applauded the vigorous election debate in Iran (the one between protestors and those who arrest and shoot them?), and ridiculed the cause of the protestors by arguing that Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are really not too far apart in their views
I try really really hard to avoid the term "Orwellian," but I can't help it here: This is Orwellian word use on steroids to the googleplex degree. Byron York reports that the White House is calling the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin an act of "political courage." When thuggery is called courage, when corruption is called integrity, when ignoring the spirit of the law is called judiciousness.... well, then, that's when this firing becomes defensible. This is a sinister White House.
A journalist who has uncovered evidence of al-Qaeda involvement in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 has been threatened with a lawsuit by powerful U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Government officials blamed the crash of TWA Flight 800, which killed 230 people, on a mysterious mechanical malfunction, while the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168, was quickly labeled the work of domestic "right-wing" terrorists.
Accuracy in Media has long maintained that Clinton Administration officials concealed the truth about both incidents.
But at a news conference at the National Press Club, investigative reporter Peter Lance said that "the greatest mass murder in U.S. history," the attack on 9/11 which occurred during the administration of President George W. Bush that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, has still not been thoroughly investigated.
Last September Sen. Barack Obama promised that under his health-care proposal "you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves." On Monday, President Obama repeated that promise in a speech to the American Medical Association. It's not true.
The president is barnstorming the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation -- the Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).
Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit proof of enrollment to the federal government, you'll be tracked down and fined (sections 3101 and 6055)
This was supposed to be a red-letter week for national health care, as Democrats started the process of hustling a quarter-baked bill through Congress to reorganize one-sixth of the economy on a partisan vote. Instead it was a fiasco.
Most of the devastation was wreaked by the Congressional Budget Office, which on Tuesday reported that draft legislation from the Senate Finance Committee would increase the federal deficit by more than $1.6 trillion over the next decade while only partly denting the population of the uninsured. The details haven't been made public, but the short version seems to be that President Obama's health boondoggle prescribes vast new spending without a coherent plan to pay for it even while failing to meet its own standards for social equity.
Finance Chairman Max Baucus postponed the health timeline, probably until after Congress's July 4 vacation. His team will try to scale down the middle-class insurance subsidies and make other cuts to hold the sticker shock under $1 trillion. (Oh, is that all?) Mr. Baucus also claims he's committed to a bipartisan consensus, yet most Republicans have been closed out of the negotiations, and industry lobbyists have been pre-emptively warned that even meeting with the GOP will invite retribution.
President Obama is feeling the heat lately for his limp foreign policy postures, showcased now more than ever with the increasing violence and chaos following Iran’s presidential election...Since the announcement of Ahmadenejad’s victory, Obama’s response has been more than unimpressive, it’s been plain impotent. If Iran is the ringing red phone, Obama is putting the call straight to voicemail.
President Barack Obama faces growing concerns among voters over government spending, the auto industry bailout and other economic policies, according to two opinion polls released on Wednesday. Obama, who took office in January, remains popular with Americans, although his overall job approval rating slipped to 56 percent, down 5 points from April, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll
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