Organizing for America, the powerful activist organization with some 13 million email addresses that grew out of the Obama campaign, has launched a new website -- http://radio.barackobama.com. The website provides users with the name of a talk show that's going on right at that moment and what is being discussed. Users can listen live to the radio program directly from the website.
The purpose of the website is supply the President's supporters with liberal talking points on health care reform. Supporters are then encouraged to call in to conservative talk radio shows armed with the talking points provided and "report your call."
It's not exactly the fairness doctrine, but it doesn't seem transparent either. If you can't beat 'em, astroturf 'em
Friday, February 26, 2010
Astroturfing: Obama plans to flood conservative talk radio with liberal talking points
“A Reading Guide to the Senate Bill’s Backroom Deals”
the Senate Republican Policy Committee has compiled “A Reading Guide to the Senate Bill’s Backroom Deals.”Keep it handy:
The White House recently released its own health care proposal[ii] in the form of changes to the 2,733 page legislation (H.R. 3590) that passed the Senate in December.[iii] While the proposal purports to remove the “Nebraska FMAP provision” that saw 49 other states funding Nebraska’s Medicaid largesse (known as the “Cornhusker Kickback”), it does not address other deals negotiated by Democrats in the Senate legislation. Many other backroom agreements are included in the Senate bill, which the White House has now endorsed as the platform for Democrats to enact “health reform” into law:
Page 428—Section 2006, known as the “Louisiana Purchase,” provides an extra $300 million in Medicaid funding to Louisiana.[iv]
Page 878—Section 3201(g), known as the “Gator Aid” provision, shields certain Florida residents from Medicare Advantage cuts. In December, 57 Senate Democrats voted not to extend this special deal to all Medicare beneficiaries.[v]
Page 2132—Section 10201(e)(1) provides an increase in Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments for Hawaii, meaning 49 other states will pay more in taxes so that Hawaii can receive this special benefit.
Page 2222—Section 10323 makes certain individuals exposed to environmental hazards eligible for Medicare coverage. The definition used in the bill ensures the only individuals eligible will be those living in Libby, Montana.
Page 2237—Section 10324 increases Medicare payments by $2 billion in “frontier states.”[vi]
Page 2354— Section 10502 spends $100 million on “debt service of, or direct construction of, a health care facility,” language which the sponsors intended to benefit Connecticut.[vii]
Page 2394—Section 10905(c) includes language exempting Nebraska Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Michigan Blue Cross/Blue Shield from the new tax on health insurance companies, despite an Administration-released report calling Michigan Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s 2009 rate increases “disturbing.”[viii]
Page 2395—Section 10905(d) exempts Medigap supplemental insurance plans sold by Mutual of Omaha, headquartered in Nebraska, from the new tax on health insurance companies.
These specific agreements and provisions also do not display the full scope of the White House’s legislative deal-making. For instance, the head of the pharmaceutical industry said the Administration approached him to negotiate a secret arrangement with his industry: “We were assured, ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal.’”[ix] And former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean publicly admitted at a town hall forum that “The reason that tort reform is not in the [health care] bill is because the [Democrat Members] who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers.”[x]
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Unionized Rhode Island Teachers Refuse To Work 25 Minutes More Per Day, So Town Fires All Of Them
A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.About time people started standing up to them.
Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers' union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.
The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. This exemplifies a nationwide trend in which public sector workers make far more than their private-sector counterparts (with better benefits).
Let's hope so.The school superintendent has responded to the union's stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.
A sign of things to come?
ACORN funder confimed to head Corporation for National and Community Service
Democrats just can't stay away from ACORN. Even as scandal piles on top of scandal, they continue to embrace the organization. The latest is that the Senate just confirmed Patrick Corvington as chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Corvington and ACORN have quite the history [...]
The foundation Corvington worked for also funded the AFL-CIO, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, National Coucil for La Raza and other extreme left-wing groups.
Why liberals are lawyers' puppets
When President Obama and his liberal Democratic allies squeal at the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to exercise freedom of political speech, somebody should ask them why they aren't as horrified by the enormous campaign expenditures by the one industry that treats liberal politicians like chattel servants.
The industry in question is the bar of big-money plaintiffs' lawyers. A study called "Trial Lawyers Inc.," released Feb. 9 by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, tells the tale.
For years, during every election cycle, lawyers as a whole have donated more money than any other industry to federal and state political campaigns. This largesse included $780 million for federal and $725 million for state elections in the past decade alone. The bulk of that cash comes from plaintiffs' attorneys. Each cycle, 90 percent or more of that jackpot-justice cash goes to Democrats. Plaintiffs' firms are four of the top seven donors to the campaigns of embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, also is deeply in political debt to these lawyer groups.
How Congressional Black Caucus got around McCain-Feingold
In the wake of the Citizens United v FEC decision by the Supreme Court, Democrats in Congress have pledged legislative action to restore the rejected components of the McCain-Feingold legislation, claiming that they have a mission to stop corporate influence on elections. Some have suggested amending the Constitution to limit the First Amendment. However, as the New York Times reports today, one select group of Democrats have had no problem cultivating corporate influence, and doing so by working around the McCain-Feingold restrictions their party claims to champion [...]
Now, consider that $55 million in light of the outrage expressed over the last few weeks over the court’s Citizens United decision. Here’s Barack Obama, scolding the court during the State of the Union speech: [...]Open the floodgates for corporations? Spend without limit? Bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests? Maybe Congress should first pass a bill that stops members of Congress from shaking down corporations to pay off mortgages. The CBC has spent the windfall on annual casino outings, big Beltway parties, golf trips, and more. In one instance, they held a fundraiser for scholarships and spent more on the caterer than they did on funding education.
Where did the rest of the $54 million go over the past five years? It went to establishing Congressional incumbents into a power network that illegitimately handicaps challengers in Congressional elections. And what let them do it? The campaign finance laws that Democrats insist were blocking corporate influence before Citizens United.
In Black Caucus, a Fund-Raising Powerhouse
WASHINGTON — When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.
Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town.
It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.
From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times, an impressive amount even by the standards of a Washington awash in cash. Only $1 million of that went to the caucus’s political action committee; the rest poured into the largely unregulated nonprofit network. (Data for 2009 is not available.)
The caucus says its nonprofit groups are intended to help disadvantaged African-Americans by providing scholarships and internships to students, researching policy and holding seminars on topics like healthy living.
But the bulk of the money has been spent on elaborate conventions that have become a high point of the Washington social season, as well as the headquarters building, golf outings by members of Congress and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.
Obamacare vs. the United States Constitution
Public support for ObamaCare legislation is dismal. According to a February 2 – 3 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, among 900 registered voters surveyed, only 23 percent want it enacted. Fully 70 percent disagree. Among them, 47 percent would start over, and 23 percent would do nothing. (Margin of error: +/- 3 percent.)
Nonetheless, ObamaCare is like a quietly rumbling volcano -- dormant, but not yet dead. President Obama and Washington Democrats oscillate between tears over their stalled pet project and cheers that “We’re moving forward,” as Obama recently chirped. The White House’s February 25 bipartisan healthcare summit is a sulfurous puff of smoke that should worry ObamaCare opponents.
Consequently, those who want to stop this ruinous measure should keep highlighting its shortcomings until this initiative is extinct.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Obama Espoused Radical Views in College
As a college student, Barack Obama expressed Marxist views, including the need for a new socialist U.S. government, according to a student who says he shared the future president’s opinion at the time.
Such views by a college student may not be surprising. And like most students who hold radical views, Obama’s positions, at least publicly, have evolved substantially.
However, this new window on Obama’s youth and early political thinking demonstrates how little is known about the background of America’s 44th president. [...]
For the next several hours, they discussed Marxism.
“He was arguing a straightforward Marxist-Leninist class-struggle point of view, which anticipated that there would be a revolution of the working class, led by revolutionaries, who would overthrow the capitalist system and institute a new socialist government that would redistribute the wealth,” says Drew, who says he himself was then a Marxist.
“The idea was basically that wealthy people were exploiting others,” Drew says. “That this was the secret of their wealth, that they weren’t paying others enough for their work, and they were using and taking advantage of other people. He was convinced that a revolution would take place, and it would be a good thing.”
Drew concluded that Obama thought of himself as “part of an intelligent, radical vanguard that was leading the way towards this revolution and towards this new society.”
Democrats, Meet Your Biggest Nightmare
Scott Brown deserves credit, of course, for fighting an amazing campaign. But I think it's the Paulettes in Massachusetts who have the most to teach us. Such as:
1. There are a lot of voters out there who agree with us. Poll after poll shows that conservatives make up the largest voting bloc in America. It's high time we conservatives actually believed it.
2. There is no substitute, absolutely none, for personal, grassroots involvement in campaigns. Too many of us want to just "mail in" our support. That way, none of our neighbors will know that we are actually (gasp!) conservative. Go back and reread #1. There's a good chance your neighbors are conservatives, too.
3. Democrat and ACORN fraud cannot overcome a tidal wave of conservative and like-minded independent voters, even in liberal Massachusetts and New Jersey. For far too long we have accepted the inevitability of losing because of Democrat voter fraud. Then we just throw in the towel and don't even try to defeat the entrenched liberals. I'm certainly not saying fraud doesn't exist and that we don't need to be diligent in our efforts to combat it. But ACORN is no match for energized, intelligent, informed conservatives.
4. We have to get involved early. Signing up to make telephone calls the last weekend of a campaign, while better than nothing, isn't good enough. It was almost sad to see busloads of SEIU members rolling into Boston for President Obama's speech two days before the election. Outside of giving the media a thrill and depressing Beltway conservatives, the whole effort was a waste of time. Primaries for this year's congressional elections are starting now.
The time for conservative involvement is yesterday. Brown's win taught us that no seat is 100% safe. (My dream is to see that proved again in Barney Frank's district.) My own congressman is a blue dog Democrat who voted for cap-and-trade. I wonder if he has any idea what's in store for him this election year.
So here's to you, Paulette, and all your fellow patriots in Massachusetts. I can almost hear our Founders saying, "Ya done good!"
With absolute power, Team Obama grows stupid
How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.
The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.
House GOP Leadership Wants Obama to Redraft Health Care Reforms from Scratch
Obama recently announced he would invite Republicans to a televised health care summit on Feb. 25, aimed at jump-starting the stalled negotiations.[...]
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told the president’s chief of staff on Tuesday that Republicans would “rightly be reluctant” to attend a bipartisan health care summit on Feb. 25 if President Barack Obama wants to negotiate on the bills already produced in the House and Senate instead of starting from scratch.
In a letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Boehner and Cantor wrote, “If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate.”
Perhaps they should take him up on his offer to go through both the house and senate bills "line by line." Either that, or start over with a blank sheet of paper.
CNSNews.com - Poll: Majority of Americans Support Cutting Size of Government Workforce
(CNSNews.com) -- A Rasmussen Reports poll shows that 58 percent of Americans support cutting the size of the government workforce to reduce the deficit, while 22 percent oppose the idea and 19 percent are “not sure.”
Perhaps 25% are receiving large checks from the government.
Senate stops Craig Becker nomination
Labor lawyer Craig Becker's nomination for a seat on the National Labor Relations Board failed on Tuesday afternoon, as a few Senate Democrats joined a unified Republican front to block a key Obama White House nomination.
Some Senate Democrats were upset that the GOP was able to pull off another filibuster.
Some blogger is happy about it!!!
75% Are Angry At Government’s Current Policies
Voters are madder than ever at the current policies of the federal government.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 75% of likely voters now say they are at least somewhat angry at the government’s current policies, up four points from late November and up nine points since September. The overall figures include 45% who are Very Angry, also a nine-point increase since September.
Just 19% now say they’re not very or not at all angry at the government’s policies, down eight points from the previous survey and down 11 from September. That 19% includes only eight percent (8%) who say they’re not angry at all and 11% who are not very angry.
75% Are Angry At Government’s Current Policies - Perhaps the 25% are getting big checks from the government.
Newt Gingrich and John Goodman: Ten GOP Health Ideas for Obama - WSJ.com
We don't need to study lawsuit reform for one minute longer.
By NEWT GINGRICH AND JOHN C. GOODMAN
'If you have a better idea, show it to me." That was President Barack Obama's challenge two weeks ago to House Republicans regarding health-care reform. He has since called for a bipartisan forum, not to start over on health reform but to "move forward" on the "best ideas that are out there."
The best ideas out there are not those that were passed by the House and Senate last year, which consist of more spending, more regulations and more bureaucracy. If the president is serious about building a system that delivers more quality choices at lower cost for every American, here's where he should start:
Brent Bozell : Obama's Balloon Hits the Dirt - Townhall.com
It was only a year ago that liberal elites in Washington were shoveling dirt on conservatism. James Carville was writing boastful books about 40 years of Democrat dominance, boasting in his typical way that he could call "time of death" on the Republican Party. Liberals believed their hype that Barack Obama would be that black FDR they pictured on the cover of Time magazine.
Now newspaper headlines read otherwise: "Where did the hope for Obama go?" The hot-air balloon has crashed to Earth, and you can tell conservatism is back with a swagger. You can tell because the media's daily output has gone from breathless valentines for Obama to angry denunciations of Tea Party protesters.