This is getting rather repetitive (Washington Examiner) “Let’s see it,” a frustrated Sen. Jeff Sessions said on the Senate floor Monday afternoon. “Let’s bring it forward.” By “it,” Sessions meant a Democratic proposal for a 2012 federal budget. In recent days Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, has been asking, pushing,
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Surprise! Harry Reid, Democrats, Say No to Any 2012 or 2013 Budget Bill
File this under “Well, Crap.” Kimberley Strassel has a real upper of a column at the Wall Street Journal today: “Reimagining Speaker Pelosi.” While the GOP and the Right are focused on the fight for the White House and getting rid of President Obama, there’s a creeping political menace that too many are not seeing: The 2010 takeover of the House could be short-lived. Conservatives are by nature optimists. They are intensely focused on retaking the White House and the Senate. But what if, in that optimism, they are missing a growing threat? That threat is to the House of Representatives. Republicans claimed a sweeping victory there in 2010, a win that stopped President Obama’s marauding legislative agenda. Yet that has led to a certain Republican nonchalance about the House in 2012. What the optimists are missing is that the House remains the linchpin of all their future ambitions. A Republican presidency will mean little with Speaker Nancy Pelosi redux. Mr. Obama may well win re-election. What leverage will a Republican-run Senate have in the face of that, and a Democratic House? Or consider the possibility that Republicans botch both the Oval Office and the Senate. True, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), under Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, is aware of the challenge and is energetically fund-raising and recruiting. True, the party is already coaching its newer members about the rigors of re-election. And true, John Boehner and Eric Cantor are going all out to collect money for their members. The speaker alone raised some $46 million in 2011—nearly double his take for the entire last election cycle. What Messrs. Boehner and Cantor know is that they’ll need all this, and more. The House is no sure thing. Read the whole thing for a sobering account of what could happen if the Right and the GOP don’t get their act together.
On Wednesday, the Republican-led House of Representatives took a major swipe at President Obama’s health care law, as it voted to repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Support program (known as the CLASS Act). CLASS is, by all accounts, a financially-troubled and complex portion of the controversial overhaul; it deals with providing affordable, long-term care insurance to Americans in need. This provision in the health care law has been troublesome for some time now. Back in October, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she wasn’t able to find a way to make the voluntary program financially solvent. But the White House, despite these challenges, hasn’t yet been supportive of repealing it. Under the program, workers would pay a monthly premium during their careers and collect a daily cash benefit if they become disabled later in life. The White House describes the program as follows: The Act provides Americans with a new option to finance long-term services and care in the event of a disability. It is a self-funded and voluntary long-term care insurance choice. Workers will pay in premiums in order to receive a daily cash benefit if they develop a disability. Need will be based on difficulty in performing basic activities such as bathing or dressing. The benefit is flexible: it could be used for a range of community support services, from respite care to home care. No taxpayer funds will be used to pay benefits under this provision. The program will actually reduce Medicaid spending, as people are able to continue working and living in their homes and not enter nursing homes. Safeguards will be put in place to ensure its premiums are enough to cover its costs. The Associated Press further explains the plan: The CLASS Act was supposed to address the crisis in long-term care coverage. Currently some 10 million Americans need long-term care, and that number is expected to hit 15 million by 2020. But only about 8 percent of people buy private long-term care insurance. …monthly premiums would be used to finance benefits of at least $50 a day for those needing long-term care. The money would go for services at home or to help with nursing home bills. But government actuaries determined that unless a large number of healthy people signed up, premiums would have to soar to unaffordable levels to meet the growing needs of the disabled. “House Republicans voted to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act last year, but Democrats stood behind the president in defense of their landmark bill. Now, Republicans are trying to take it apart, piece by piece,” ABC News reported . The vote to strike down the act ended with 267 for and 159 against, as 28 Democrats joined in favor and all 239 voting Republicans showed their support for it. Republicans have targeted the program as part of their overall goal of dismantling the health care overhaul law. Action on the bill in the Democratic-controlled Senate is uncertain. One of the few changes Congress has been able to bring about concerned a requirement for small businesses to file more health care paperwork. “Republicans are committed to repealing and defunding it, piece by piece if necessary,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the health care bill after the CLASS Act vote. Experts have concluded, said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., that “the CLASS program can’t be operated without mandatory participation so as to ensure its solvency.” Unless it is terminated, he said, “it poses a clear danger to the fiscal health of our budget and to the American taxpayer.” The administration finally has come to the conclusion “that we knew even before the bill passed, that this was unsustainable, it was unworkable, it was fatally flawed,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La. But Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the Republican goal was to “tear down and dismantle programs that provide health care in the United States.” He said “the solution is to amend the program to make it work, not just repeal it and leave nothing in its place.” Waxman isn’t alone in his criticism. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) penned an op-ed for Politico that railed against the Republican action : In the past, lawmakers would have worked together to amend existing law to address a serious national crisis like long-term care. But in our charged partisan environment, too many people would rather score political points than solve problems. They view repealing CLASS as a tactical step toward undermining health care reform – without putting forward any real alternatives for families who have nowhere to turn. Repealing CLASS won’t do anything to solve our nation’s long-term care crisis. Legislation rarely starts out perfectly – indeed, the Republicans’ own Medicare prescription drug bill left a huge coverage gap, forcing seniors to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. It is only because Democrats rejected the “throw out the baby with the bathwater” approach to legislating, and figured out a solution, that this gap will finally be closed and seniors can save millions on prescription drugs. More evidence that the battle over the American health care system is far from over. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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This Is the Portion of Obamacare That the House Voted to Repeal
As potential opponents have spent the better part of the last year at each other’s throats, the Obama campaign has been quietly building up their war chest. POLITICO reports that the President’s reelection campaign raised $40 million in the last three months of 2011, ending the year with $82 million in the bank and $3 million in debt. A separate joint fundraising committee supporting Obama’s reelection and the Democratic National Committee, reported raising $24 million in the fourth quarter, spending $23 million and finishing the year with less than $1 million on hand. The Obama campaign also released a list of 450 major bundlers who combined to collect at least $74.4 million for his campaign and the DNC. Some on the list of big money bundlers live up to the stereotype from Obama’s critics of who most supports the President; entertainment elites living in Hollywood and New York. Top fundraisers include movie producer Harvey Weinstein, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Eva Longoria, gay power couple James Costas of HBO and former White House interior decorator Michael Smith, and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Wintour is the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. Shamed investor and former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was also on the list individuals having raised over $500,000 for the Obama campaign. AP notes that list includes two fundraisers linked to Solyndra LLC, the California solar company that received a $528 million federal loan and then later declared bankruptcy, prompting a federal investigation. Steve Spinner, an Energy Department adviser, raised at least $500,000 and Steve Westly, a venture capitalist who was an unpaid adviser to the department, raised between $200,000 and $500,000.
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Obama campaign clocks in $82 Million for 2011
My latest column examines the Obama administration’s continuing war on religious health care professionals, which I spotlighted when the ACLU first launched its salvo against Catholic hospitals in 2010. What’s noteworthy now is the united front that Catholic bishops (who have traditionally taken big government positions) are now taking against the Obamacare abortion edict. Better late than never. The Anchoress and LifeNews have excellent coverage of the controversy — see here , here , here , and here . As I mention below, the Becket Fund is representing two schools suing over the unconstitutional abortion mandate in federal court. Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio is sponsoring a bill to restore the conscience clause protections for health care providers of faith. This outrageous power grab is one which both fiscal and social conservative can rally behind. Every one of the GOP presidential candidates should be raising it on the campaign trail, in debates, and media interviews. Send messages to @HHSGov and @WhiteHouse . The grass-roots revolt is growing. NCHLA has a petition and action alert info here . Where’s the MSM? Mostly AWOL, as usual. Related news: Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer research has finally halted grants to Planned Parenthood. And: Pfizer recalls 28 lots of birth control pills . *** First, they came for the Catholics by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2012 President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It’s about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who’s next? This weekend, Catholic bishops informed parishioners of the recent White House edict forcing religious hospitals, schools, charities, and other health and social service providers to provide “free” abortifacient pills, sterilizations, and contraception on demand in their insurance plans – even if it violates their moral consciences and teachings of their churches. NARAL, NOW, Ms. Magazine, and the Feminist Majority Foundation all cheered the administration’s abuse of the Obamacare law to ram abortion down pro-life medical professionals’ throats. Femme dinosaur Eleanor Smeal gloated over the news that the administration had rejected church officials’ pleas for compromises: “At last,” she exulted, the Left’s goal of “no-cost birth control” for all had been achieved. As always, tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. “Choice” is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper. Like the rising number of states who have revolted against the individual health care care mandate at the ballot box and in the courts, targeted Catholics have risen up against the Obamacare regime. Arlington (Va.) Bishop Paul Loverde didn’t mince words, calling the U.S. Department Health and Human Services order “a direct attack against religious liberty. This ill-considered policy comprises a truly radical break with the liberties that have underpinned our nation since its founding.” Several bishops vowed publicly to fight the mandate. Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Michigan asserted plainly: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.” It’s not just rabid right-wing politicos defying the Obama machine. Pro-life Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania denounced the “wrong decision.” Left-leaning Bishop Robert Lynch threatened “civil disobedience” in St. Petersburg, Florida, over the power grab. Lefty Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that Obama “botched” the controversy and “threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus” by refusing to “ balance the competing liberty interests here .” White House press secretary Jay Carney blithely denied on Tuesday that “there are any constitutional rights issues” involved in the brewing battle. Yet, the Shut Up and Hand Out Abortion Pills order undermines a unanimous Supreme Court ruling issued just last week upholding a religious employer’s right to determine whom to hire and fire. And two private colleges have filed federal suits against the government to overturn the unconstitutional abortion coverage decree. Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the non-profit law firm, the Becket Fund, which is representing the schools boiled it down for Bloomberg News: “ This is not really about access to contraception. The mandate is about forcing these religious groups to pay for it against their beliefs .” How did we get here? The first salvo came in December 2010, when the American Civil Liberties Union pushed HHS and its Planned Parenthood-championing secretary, Kathleen “The Shredder” Sebelius , to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn. The ACLU called for a litigious fishing expedition against Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide “emergency” contraception and abortions to women. In their sights: Devout Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who revoked the Catholic status of a rogue hospital that performed several direct abortions, provided birth control pills and presided over sterilizations against the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care. ACLU and the feminists have joined with Obama to threaten and sabotage the First Amendment rights of religious-based health care entities. The agenda is not increased “access” to health care services. The ultimate goal is to shut down health care providers – Catholic health care institutions employ about 540,000 full-time workers and 240,000 part-time workers – whose religious views cannot be tolerated by secular zealots and radical social engineers. Is it any surprise their counterparts in the “Occupy” movement have moved from protesting “Wall Street” to harassing pro-life marchers in Washington, D.C., and hurling condoms at Catholic school girls in Rhode Island? Birds of a lawless, bigoted feather bully together.
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First, they came for the Catholics
**Written by Doug Powers Late last year it was reported that California’s high speed rail project wouldn’t be completed for 22 years and would end up costing about $100 billion , which is three times the initial estimate. The project received over $2 billion from the stimulus. Gov. Jerry Brown now says the cost won’t be nearly that much, because somehow carbon fees levied on businesses (some of which would no doubt flee the state) will fund a good portion of the construction: “It’s not going to be $100 billion,” the Democratic governor said on ABC 7′s Eyewitness Newsmakers program. “That’s way off.” Brown’s remarks come as his administration prepares revisions to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s latest business plan. Brown is trying to push the project through an increasingly skeptical Legislature following a series of critical reports. “Phase 1, I’m trying to redesign it in a way that in and of itself will be justified by the state investment,” Brown said. “We do have other sources of money: For example, cap-and-trade, which is this measure where you make people who produce greenhouse gasses pay certain fees – that will be a source of funding going forward for the high speed rail.” Brown said, “It’s going to be a lot cheaper than people are saying.” Wait a minute. So if industry stops spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere right now (thereby of course saving the planet from global warming) there won’t be enough cap/trade money for the government to build the latest bankruptcy-inducing glimmer in Joe Biden’s eye? I’ve yet to hear a more convincing argument for going green. Not unlike the government taxing tobacco and using some of the money to pay for SCHIP , the “green” movement has developed a Catch-22 dependence the very things they seek to eliminate. So keep those smokestacks spewing filth and pay those carbon fees, California industry, because Moonbeam has a “green” rail system to pay for so the planet can be saved from global warming! At least it helps explain recent decisions like this . I’m amazed by a bureaucratic mindset that believes forcing a portion of the price tag of a bloated project onto select areas of the private sector will lower the cost to the government, and therefore the taxpayers. Take it away, Governor: **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Jerry Brown: C’mon, California’s High Speed Rail Will Be Way Cheaper Than $100 Billion
Alternate headline: “Joe Biden: On the wrong side of every foreign policy question of the last 35 years” In a story headlined ” Joe Biden Advised Against the Osama Bin Laden Raid ,” ABC News reports this today: Vice President Joe Biden confessed this weekend that he advised President Obama not to launch the mission that ultimately killed Osama bin Laden last spring. During remarks at a Democratic congressional retreat this weekend, Biden explained that when it came time to make the final decision, he had some lingering uncertainties about whether the 9/11 mastermind was in the suspected compound in Pakistan. “[President Obama] got to me. He said, ‘Joe, what do you think?’ … I said, ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go.” So, on the one major decision that President Obama has gotten right, Biden was wrong even on that — much like, um, all of his stances on major foreign policy questions. Funny — until you consider he’s next in line for the presidency. h/t: Jake Tapper
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Joe Biden explains why he should NEVER be president (or VP for that matter)
You have to wonder if the Democrat big wigs are starting to get a bit nervous about the Occupiers, wondering if they will continue to be “mostly peaceful” up to the election, and particularly during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. In many liberal cities, they have passed laws against “camping” on public property. The
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Mostly Peaceful Oakland Occupiers Mostly Peaceful To The Tune Of 300 Arrested
Rick Santorum opposed TARP. He didn’t cave when Chicken Littles in Washington invoked a manufactured crisis in 2008. He didn’t follow the pro-bailout GOP crowd — including Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich — and he didn’t have to obfuscate or rationalize his position then or now, like Rick Perry and Herman Cain did. He also opposed the auto bailout, Freddie and Fannie bailout, and porkulus bills. Santorum opposed individual health care mandates — clearly and forcefully — as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters. He voted against cap and trade in 2003, voted yes to drilling in ANWR, and unlike Romney and Gingrich, Santorum has never dabbled with eco-radicals like John Holdren , Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi . He hasn’t written any “Contracts with the Earth.” Santorum is strong on border security , national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement. Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed . He won Iowa through hard work and competent campaign management. Santorum has improved in every GOP debate and gave his strongest performance last week in Florida, wherein he both dismantled Romneycare and popped the Newt bubble by directly challenging the front-runners’ character and candor without resorting to their petty tactics. He rose above the fray by sticking to issues. Most commendably, he refused to join Gingrich and Perry in indulging in the contemptible Occupier rhetoric against Romney. Character and honor matter. Santorum has it. Of course, Santorum is not perfect. As I’ve said all along, every election cycle is a Pageant of the Imperfects. He lost his Senate re-election bid in 2006, an abysmal year for conservatives. He was a go-along, get-along Big Government Republican in the Bush era. He supported No Child Left Behind, the prescription drug benefit entitlement, steel tariffs, and earmarks and outraged us movement conservatives by endorsing RINO Arlen Specter over stalwart conservative Pat Toomey. I have no illusions about Rick Santorum. I wish he were as rock-solid on core economic issues as Ron Paul. And I wish Ron Paul was not the far-out, Alex Jones-panderer on foreign policy, defense, and national security that he is. If Ron Paul talked more like his son, Rand Paul, about the need for common-sense profiling of jihadists at our State Department consular offices overseas and if he talked more about the need for strengthened visa screening and airport security scrutiny of international flight manifests, I might have more than a kernel of confidence that he would take post-9/11 precautions to guard against jihadi threats and protect us from our enemies foreign and domestic. But he doesn’t, so I can’t support Ron Paul. Mitt Romney has the backing of many solid conservatives whom I will always hold in high esteem — including Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement stalwart Kris Kobach, former U.N. ambassacor John Bolton, and GOP Govs. Nikki Haley and Bob McDonnell. With such conservative advisers in his camp, Romney would be better than Obama. And a GOP Congress with a staunch Tea Party-backed contingent of fresh-blood leaders in the House and Senate will help keep any GOP president in line. Romney’s private-sector experience and achievements are the best things he’s got going. Only recently has he risen to defend himself effectively. But between his health care debacle, eco-nitwittery, and expedient and unconvincing political metamorphosis, Mitt Romney had way too much ideological baggage for me in 2008 to earn an endorsement — and it still hasn’t changed for me in 2012. Then there’s Newt, who has long made a career out of trashing progressive Saul Alinsky while employing his tactics at every turn. I’ve been making this point for years and have chronicled his dalliances with leftists as long as anyone in the conservative blogosphere. Many grass-roots conservatives were awakened to Newt’s double-talk and double-dealing during the NY-23 race . Inconvenient truth: Newt’s transgressions are not from decades ago. It’s not ancient history. It’s here and now. Readers of this blog know the truth: It’s not just “the GOP establishment” that’s repulsed by Gingrich’s combination of moral baggage and K Street/Beltway culture of corruption. It’s the very grass-roots that Gingrich’s cheerleaders purport to represent. Remember October 2009? From reader Barnaby, who sent back his crossed-out Republican solicitation forms with a “NO RINOS” sticky note for Newt Gingrich: Remember the rebuke in Dubuque? May 11, 2011: Guy: Speaker Gingrich, what you just did to Paul Ryan is unforgivable. Gingrich: I didn’t do anything to Paul Ryan! Guy: Yes, you did. You undercut him and his allies in the house. Gingrich: No, I… Guy: You’re an embarrassment to our party. Gingrich: I’m sorry you feel that way. Guy: Why don’t you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself. Lest we forget, this election is not about choosing a showboat candidate to run against John King or Juan Williams or Wolf Blitzer. It’s not about “raging against” some arbitrarily defined GOP “machine.” For many grass-roots conservatives across the country, Romney and Gingrich are the machine. And at this point in the game, Rick Santorum represents the most conservative candidate still standing who can articulate both fiscal and social conservative values — and live them. *** Side note: Unlike many bloggers and pundits weighing in on GOP 2012, I have zero connections to any of the final four GOP candidates’ campaigns. I have neither received a single penny from, nor donated a single penny, to any of their campaigns. I have not served as any kind of consultant or adviser to any of the campaigns. I have not written any speeches or talking points or briefing papers for any of their campaigns. I have not organized any blogger calls or social media efforts for any of their campaigns. I have not spoken to Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich since interviewing them for Hot Air at CPAC in 2006, and as far as I can recall, I have not communicated directly with either Santorum or Paul. My first and only contact with Santorum’s campaign came last week when a spokesman called to assure me that Santorum was not withdrawing from the Florida primary or the race in general and was in it for the long haul. So much for my “establishment” credentials, eh? *** Santorum is headed to Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nevada. “The Rick Santorum for President Campaign will expand nationally this week with campaign stops in Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nevada in the coming days,” a spokesman MAtt Beynon said in a statement. Santorum is slated to make several stops in battleground states over the next few days, but did not appear to be heading back to Florida, where Republicans go to the polls on Tuesday. Santorum is expected be in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday when the Florida results are known. After winning Iowa — the first state to chose which Republican they want to face Obama in November — Santorum’s campaign has struggled to catch fire. In Florida — a winner-takes-all race — the former senator has not appeared much and is barely avoiding a vote share in single digits according to polls, putting him in third place behing Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Nevada will vote just four days after Florida, while Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri all vote on February 7th. Santorum had put campaigning in Florida on hold Sunday, as his daughter, Bella, was hospitalized just days before a key primary vote. Two days before Florida’s winner-takes-all primary, Santorum spent the day in Pennsylvania, where his three year-old was admitted to a Philadelphia children’s hospital. *** A reader writes: I read your “For Santorum” article on your website. You wrote the argument against Newt clearly and completely. While Romney’s been on both sides of issues, Newt has been on both sides at the same time. I think Newt would be almost as combative and adversarial to a Republican congress than a Democratic one… *** Question of the day: Who is the “machine?” Secondary question of the day: If you were a simple machine, what kind of machine would you be — inclined plane, wheel & axle, lever, pulley, wedge, or screw?
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For Santorum
