1) Live From Washington! It's Obama health care drama
President Barack Obama summons anxious Democrats and aloof Republicans to a White House summit Thursday — live on C-SPAN and perhaps cable — and gambles that he can save his embattled health care overhaul by the power of persuasion. Adversaries and allies alike were surprised by Obama's invitation to reason together at an open forum, as risky as it is unusual.
Ahead of the meeting, the White House will post on its Web site a health care plan that modifies the bill passed by Senate Democrats last year. The modification is an effort to address the concerns of their House counterparts.
Both bills are a government takeover of 1/6 of our economy.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100221/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul
1a) Health Care Nuclear Option – Liberals Ready to Launch
The Health Care Nuclear Option, also known as reconciliation, is being considered by liberal politicians to insure that Obamacare makes it to the President’s desk by Easter. According to The New York Times, the plan is to have the President submit reconciliation legislation to be posted on the internet this weekend. The legislation will be crafted in a manner so that it can be passed using special reconciliation procedures created solely to enact laws to reduce the deficit as part of the annual budget. The next step is for the President to conduct his half day bipartisan summit at the Blair House on February 25th. With that faux-bipartisan stunt over with, the President will be free to pass legislation in a partisan manner that tosses aside the regular rules of business in the Senate (emphasis mine).
Here is how the NYT writes it up:
“President Obama will put forward comprehensive health care legislation intended to bridge differences between Senate and House Democrats ahead of a summit meeting with Republicans next week, senior administration officials and Congressional aides said Thursday.
The legislation is being crafted in a way to allow for partisans in the House and Senate to pass the legislation without any support from Republicans and it a way that avoids a 60 vote threshold of a filibuster in the Senate.
Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.”
Yet again, the Obama Administration has tossed aside transparency and has crafted this legislation behind closed doors.
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/19/health-care-nuclear-option-–-liberals-ready-to-launch/
2) Morning Bell: A No-Cost Stimulus That Can Create Real Jobs for the American People
In today’s Wall Street Journal, former President Bill Clinton’s pollster Doug Schoen writes: “Sen. Evan Bayh’s stunning decision to retire should serve as more than a wake-up call to Democrats. It should spur a fundamental re-examination and reorientation of the party’s policies, practices and approaches leading into the fall election. Let’s be clear. The Democratic brand is in trouble — big trouble. … The Democrats need to do a number of things. First and foremost, they need to recognize there is only one fundamental issue in America: jobs.”
Unfortunately, the White House is not getting the message. Where Schoen urges President Barack Obama to “go back to square one” on health care, The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is doing the exact opposite: they are set to introduce their own health care bill on Monday that is specifically designed to pass the Senate through reconciliation on a strictly partisan vote (emphasis mine). And when the left is not continuing to shove a government takeover of health care down the throats of the American people, they are working on a second stimulus plan that repeats all of the same big government borrow-and-spend mistakes of the first.
…If deficit spending were the path to real-world economic growth, then the Greek economy would be booming. It’s not. There is an alternative. There are some no-cost measures our federal government could take that could create the space for American entrepreneurship and private investment, resulting in real long-term job growth. Heritage fellow James Sherk identifies eight such measures, including:
-Freezing all proposed tax hikes and costly regulations at least until unemployment falls below 7 percent;
-Freezing spending and rescinding unspent stimulus funds;
-Reforming regulations to reduce unnecessary business costs, such as repealing Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act;
-Reforming the tort system to lower costs and uncertainty facing businesses;
-Removing barriers to domestic energy production;
-Suspending the job-killing Davis-Bacon Act (DBA);
-Passing pending free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama; and
-Reducing taxes on companies’ foreign earnings if they bring those earnings home.
2a) GOP wants televised jobs debate
House Republicans are taking a page from the president's playbook by challenging Democrats to a televised debate about job creation.
The top two Republicans in the House sent a letter Wednesday daring their counterparts — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — to engage in a public discussion over ways Congress can provide a boost to the economy.
Their call comes as Democrats struggle to find consensus on a job creation package and in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit.
"Clearly, we need a different approach to developing legislation that will get Americans back to work," Republican leader John Boehner and party Whip Eric Cantor wrote to Pelosi and Hoyer. "Therefore, in the interest of complete transparency on the single most important issue of the day for most Americans, we ask that you join us for an open discussion so that we can begin to change a process that has not only polarized this Capitol building but this country as well."
See: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33081.html
3) Rep. Michele Bachmann: President Obama is 'intending to fail'
…“If everyone is exceptional, then no one is exceptional,” she said. “Decline can happen quickly, even to a great nation. It’s a sobering thought.”
Moving to her criticism of the president’s spending, Bachmann pointed to a chart of rising federal deficits.
“This is intending to fail,” she said.
“They have left us holding an invoice of $105 trillion in unfunded federal liabilities,” she went on, alluding to the federal government’s entitlement programs. “Sounds to me like someone is choosing decline.”
…Looking back into history more than once, Bachmann recalled one Democrat, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who she described as "taking a manageable recession and turning it into a Great Depression." Obama is setting the nation on the same course, she claimed, supporting policies like national healthcare and energy reforms, and growing the budget deficit by trillions.
Obama's policies also fly in the face of those rights envisioned by the Founding Fathers -- who have been invoked by nearly every speaker at CPAC so far -- particularly liberty and freedom.
See: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33189.html
4) A Toothless Commission On Spending Is No Substitute for True Leadership
The recent debt limit increase passed by Congress has sparked a national debate on how to adequately reverse out-of-control federal spending. After much congressional hand-wringing recently over what budget process reform to attach to the must-pass increase in the debt ceiling, support for a bipartisan commission crafted by Senate Budget Committee leaders Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) crumbled. Lawmakers realized that the framing of the commission would most likely lead to tax increases with little real spending restraint with the same back-room deals of which Americans have become weary.
Yes, Obama could say, “Oh look! The Committee says I have to raise taxes!”
4a) White House begins groundwork to avoid blame for tax increases
President Obama on Thursday indicated that tax increases on people who make less than $250,000 a year will be on the table when a deficit commission makes its recommendations later this year on how to resolve the nation’s fiscal imbalances.
“Everything’s on the table. That’s how this thing is going to work,” Obama said Thursday, moments after signing an executive order creating the 18-member commission.
But the White House has already begun to lay the groundwork for their argument that such a recommendation by the panel should not be blamed on the president (emphasis mine), who vowed during his campaign not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000.
“The president will not sit on the commission and the options they present will not necessarily reflect administration policy,” a White House official told The Daily Caller.
…Many economic experts see no alternative to raising taxes across the board in order to reduce the federal deficit, which is projected to hit $1.6 trillion this year.
Conservatives, however, see the problem mostly as a spending problem, and are skeptical of the president’s commission because they believe it will inevitably lead to higher taxes (emphasis mine).
YES!!!!!!
See: http://dailycaller.com/2010/02/18/white-house-begins-spade-work-to-avoid-blame-for-tax-increases/
5) Top U.S. Climate Official: 15 Years With No Global Warming Is Not a Trend
(CNSNews.com) - When asked yesterday whether she agreed or disagreed with one of the world’s top climate-change scientists that there had been no statistically significant global warming over the last fifteen years, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Jane Lubchenco would only say “that it is inappropriate to look at any particular short period of time to discern the long-term trend.”
See: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61525
6) State-Run Media Tries to Link Lunatic IRS Murderer to Tea Parties
RUSH: It is amazing. Here we had a guy who hated George W. Bush, who hated the Reagan tax cuts of 1986, this guy that flew the airplane into the IRS building, and the media is doing everything it can to connect this guy to the tea party movement! Meanwhile, a real lunatic, this professor from the University of Alabama Huntsville who killed her brother, who opened fire on six or ten other professors, they still have not attached her to any political party, other than to say she was obsessed with Obama. But they're not blaming Obama and they're not trying to tie this woman to some fringe of the Democrat Party. It's another page right out of the playbook, so predictable. I said yesterday that this was going to happen, and it is happening. And we're going to chronicle that and a lot more.
See: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_021910/content/01125107.guest.html
7) Holder admits nine Obama Dept. of Justice officials worked for terrorist detainees, offers no details
Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.
Holder's admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee "the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department."
In his response, Holder has given Grassley almost nothing…
…Finally, it is possible that there are more than nine political appointees who worked for detainees. Holder tells Grassley that he did not survey the Justice Department as a whole but instead canvassed several large offices within the organization.
Bottom line: Holder revealed no names beyond the two already publicly known. He revealed no cases from which Justice political appointees recused themselves. The letter, which will likely be interpreted on Capitol Hill as a thumb-your-nose statement, is sure to anger Republican senators more than satisfy them.
8) Five Muslim Soldiers Questioned at Fort Jackson in South Carolina
CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were questioned just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.
Patrick Jones, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer for Fort Jackson, confirmed for CBN News Thursday afternoon that an investigation was ongoing.
Prior to this posting, CBN News learned that these details were also confirmed by a government official with knowledge of the investigation.
The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.
A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the "Fort Jackson Five" may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C., area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.
Coming as it does on the heels of November's Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news could have major implications.
9) Official: Russia to deliver missile defense to Iran: System would make strike against Tehran's nuclear reactors more difficult
TEL AVIV – Despite announcements to the contrary, Russia still plans to deliver its S-300 advanced air-defense missiles to Iran, according to a senior Egyptian security official speaking to WND.
The official said Russia also intends to see the system delivered to Syria, from which it can also be transferred to the Hezbollah militia operating in Lebanon.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Moscow, where he reportedly asked the Russians to cancel a contract with Iran to deliver and install the S-300 system. Israeli newspapers quoted sources in Netanyahu's entourage stating Russia agreed to cancel the sale.
The S-300PMU1 is a mobile system designed to shoot down aircraft and cruise missiles. Analysts say the S-300 system would make any Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities more difficult.
Just after Netanyahu's visit, the Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian official as saying the delivery to Iran of the S-300 has been delayed for technical reasons.
"The delay is due to technical problems. The delivery will be carried out when they are resolved," said Alexander Fomin, deputy head of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.
However, the Egyptian official speaking to WND said Russia still intends to deliver the system to Iran within the next month. The official said there are also plans to see the system deployed in Syria, where Russia maintains a large naval fleet unseen since the Cold War days. The official said Syria intends to transfer the S-300 to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
An Israeli security official said Israel is monitoring the situation.
See: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125525
10) “War preparations heat up in the middle east”, “Netherlands Parliament member convicted of hate speech’ in The Hal Lindsey Report
On this week's edition of "The Hal Lindsey Report," war preparations heat up the Middle East. Hezbollah sends 5,000 soldiers to be trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard near Tehran. Their mission? A sweep from Lebanon through northern Israel to the Galilee region. Apparently, it will be part of a future coordinated uprising in Israel. Iran is shipping weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. How do we know? Some of their barrels - packed with explosives - washed up on Israeli beaches last week.
…And then, just to drive the point home, I'm going to share a dramatic story that's unfolding as I write this. Mr. Geert Wilders is a Member of Parliament in The Netherlands. In fact, the party he leads is expected to become the largest party in the parliament come the next election. However, Mr. Wilders is currently on trial. He faces two years in prison if he is convicted of 'hate speech.' His crime? He criticized Islam. You'll hear Mr. Wilders' thoughts from his own mouth. You'll say to yourself, "Hey, I agree with everything he says!" Then you may say, "Am I next?" If America continues down this path of reckless multiculturalism and political correctness, we may all be next.
See: http://www.hallindsey.com/the-hal-lindsey-report-2192010/
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