Fundraising push from Sebelius draws scrutiny from key GOP senator
[FoxNews-AP]
Published May 11, 2013
April 17, 2013: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent push to encourage health care executives and nonprofit organizations to make donations to organizations working to implement ObamaCare is drawing criticism from a key Senate Republican who questions whether she has a conflict of interest.
HHS spokesman Jason Young confirms that Sebelius in recent weeks has asked various charitable foundations, businesses executives, churches and doctors to make financial contributions to nonprofit organizations, such as Enroll America, that are helping to implement President Obama’s health care overhaul.
Young said there is a special section within the Public Health Services Act that allows the HHS secretary to solicit financial support for nonprofit organizations conducting public health work. He said most of the solicitations have occurred through telephone calls, but in some speeches as well.
“For the last several months, the secretary has been working with a full range of stakeholders who share in the mission of getting Americans the help they need and deserve,” Young said. “We have always worked with outside groups and the efforts now ramping up are just one more part of that work.”
The fundraising pitches were first reported by the Washington Post. Young said Sebelius made no fundraising request of entities regulated by HSS, such as drug companies, hospitals or insurers.
Some lawmakers and advocacy groups have voiced concerns in recent weeks that many consumers will have a hard time navigating the health coverage options available to them next year as a mix of government programs and tax credits for private insurance kicks in.
The administration has recently announced it would be directing $200 million to states, private groups and local health centers so that they can hire workers who can help consumers pick the insurance plan best for them. The fundraising pitches appear to be another step along those lines. Beginning Oct. 1, people can start signing up for coverage through new state and federal health exchanges.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that soliciting money from health care executives is absurd.
“Moving forward, I will be seeking more information from the administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law,” Hatch said.
Hatch’s criticism comes as House Republicans plan yet another vote to try to repeal ObamaCare.
In his remarks at a Mother’s Day-themed event at the White House on Friday, Obama said his signature health care law “is here to stay.”
“There’s a lot that this law is already doing for Americans with insurance,” the president said. “There’s a lot more that’s going to happen for folks who don’t have insurance.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Rand Paul’s immigration plan: Border security before probationary legal status
[HotAir.com]
posted at 12:01 pm on March 19, 2013 by Allahpundit
The AP claimed this morning that Paul was set to endorse a path to citizenship in his speech today. Not so, countered conservatives on Twitter: Read his prepared remarks and you’ll see that citizenship is never mentioned. Which is true, and also irrelevant.
The whole point of Paul’s speech is GOP rapprochement with Latino voters; he spends nearly two-thirds of it extolling Latinos’ work ethic, reminiscing about his friendships with Latinos growing up in Texas, name-checking Jaime Escalante and Pablo Neruda, and of course citing the ancient canard that Latinos are really just Republicans who don’t know it yet. (He mentions abortion and gay marriage as particular areas of overlap.
In fact, younger Latinos support legal abortion in all or most cases and nearly 60 percent of Latinos overall support state recognition of gay marriage.) There’s no earthly way that Paul, having made a conciliatory pitch that florid, would ultimately turn around and insist that illegals be forever barred from seeking citizenship. In his op-ed on immigration today at the Washington Times, he actually refers to them at one point as “undocumented citizens.”(!) When pressed on the issue in the Q&A after his speech, he said this:
So no, he won’t create a special path to citizenship to help move illegals quickly through the green-card process but there’s a path to citizenship through normal channels in the end. Then again, with the singular exception of Jeb Bush, whom no one believes is serious anyway, every prominent Republican politician I can think of supports a path to citizenship eventually. That’s my whole point: If you’re trying to build goodwill with Latinos, there has to be. But what about the rest of Paul’s plan? Quote:
The first part of my plan – border security – must be certified by Border Patrol and an Investigator General and then voted on by Congress to ensure it has been accomplished…
With this in place, I believe conservatives will accept what needs to come next, an issue that must be addressed: what becomes of the 12 million undocumented workers in the United States?
My plan is very simple and will include work visas for those who are here, who are willing to come forward and work…
Citizens, Subjects and The Greatness of Rand Paul’s Filibuster
[RedState.com]
For a Day, Just For a Single Day – It Felt Like We Had An Actual US Senate
By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary) | March 7th, 2013 at 12:00 PM
Keeping The Subjects From Getting Uppity Since 2009
There are two ways you can relate to the entity that governs you. You are either a citizen or you are a subject. There is a significant difference between the two. This difference involves the number of rights you enjoy and the amount of freedom of action and thought you get to exercise. Tupac Shapur sums it succinctly: Real n—– do they wanna do, b—- n—– do what they can.
In a philosophical sense, Senator Rand Paul just asked Attorney General Eric Holder which class we, the average American fit. Can we do what we want or do we what we can? Or more directly; can the people in charge of the government do what they want? Because if the government can do what it wants, then the people are not citizens, they are subjects, they have to do what they can.
Gun dealers report striking ammunition shortages
[DailyCaller.com]
February 18, 2013
Gun owners are stockpiling ammunition in the midst of the ongoing national dialogue about gun-control legislation.
The USA Today reports that ammunition prices have skyrocketed in the last year, with some gun dealers limiting the quantity of ammunition that customers can purchase.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation — which represents ammunition makers, retailers, hunters and sport shooters – attributes the shortages in part to the increased popularity of sport-shooting and hunting. In fact, hunting license sales increased 9 percent from 2006 to 2011, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Participation in skeet shooting is also growing 3-5 percent annually.
However, retailers largely attribute the increased demand for ammunition to expected or threatened policy changes. Owners and sellers of guns say that the run on ammunition began around the time of President Barack Obama’s re-election.
Top US Companies Plan Layoffs Because of Obamacare
[Newsmax.com]
Friday, 09 Nov 2012 04:00 PM
By Bill Hoffman
Nearly a dozen top United States companies plan to start laying off hundreds of employees with the implementation of Obamacare, according to the non-profit political action group FreedomWorks.- Welch Allyn — a manufacturer of medical diagnostic equipment in central New York — which says it will cut 275 employees, about 10 percent of its workforce, over the next three years.
- Dana Holding Corp. — a global auto parts manufacturing company — which warned of layoffs due “$24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. healthcare expenses.’’
- Stryker — a medical device manufacturer — which plans to close its facility in Orchard Park, N.Y., eliminating 96 jobs in December. They also say they’ll slash 5 percent of their global workforce, about 1,170 positions.
- Boston Scientific — a medical device manufacturer — said it plans to cut between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs, while shifting investments and workers overseas to China.
- Medtronic — a medical device maker — which cut 500 positions over the summer, with 500 more set to be eliminated by the end of 2013.
RNC Protester Arrested Carrying Machete
[Breitbart.com]
by Breitbart News – August 26, 2012
Police arrested a Tallahassee man protesting at the Republican National Convention for carrying a machete into the Event Zone.
According to authorities, Jason T. Wilson had a “full size” machete (pictured left) strapped to his leg at a Sunday protest.
When deputies approached Wilson, they said he continued to walk away despite orders to stop.
“When deputies caught up to Wilson, he advised he did not have to stop and that he was allowed to carry whatever he wanted,” HCSO spokesperson Larry McKinnon said.
When deputies attempted to physically stop him, Wilson allegedly began resisting arrest and was physically restrained.
The police have not connected Wilson to any particular organization or entity protesting at the RNC.
Although formally organized left-wing protesters promise “non-violent” tactics, they plan to disrupt businesses and not cooperate with police investigating other protesters who may damage property or harass private citizens. An anonymous individual threatened to “legitimately rape” conservative activists Brandon Darby and Lee Stranahan at the convention.
Should Romney Apologize for Romneycare?
[Townhall.com]
July 9 , 2012, by Byron York
It’s always been a challenge for Mitt Romney to explain the differences between Romneycare and Obamacare. The two programs share a lot of the same features — mandate, penalties, subsidies, exchanges and others. Romney has consistently argued that those provisions are acceptable, even good, at the state level, but not acceptable, and in some cases not even constitutional, at the federal level.
The problem isn’t just that Romney frequently finds himself making detailed explanations, which is never a good thing in politics. The problem is that it always sounds a little odd to voters for Romney to say that when he did it in Massachusetts, it was a great thing, but when Barack Obama did it nationwide, it was a terrible thing.
Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision, Romney’s job has gotten even harder — so hard that there will likely be growing pressure on him to admit that Romneycare, his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor, was a mistake.
The problem is the court’s ruling that Obamacare’s individual mandate is a tax. Even though most Republicans had wanted to see Obamacare struck down, many embraced the mandate-is-a-tax ruling because it allowed them to accuse the president of raising taxes.
McConnell Ready to Cut-and-Run from Repeal?
[Breitbart.com]
Posted: July 3, 2012 by Joel B. Pollak
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to be waving the white flag on repealing Obamacare. The Tea Party is ready to fight. The Republican National Committee appears to be ready to fight. But the day after the Romney campaign backed away from the argument that Obamacare is now a tax, the GOP’s leadership in the Senate is sending signals that it may be willing to give up before the battle over Obamacare truly begins.
Local ABC affiliate WHAS-TV in Louisville, KY reports that McConnell told constituents he would work to repeal Obamacare, and thought he would have the votes in the Senate to repeal it–but that he did not expect to succeed: “If you thought it was a good idea for the federal government to go in this direction, I’d say the odds are still on your side, because it’s a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place.”
However difficult repeal might be from a procedural point of view, it can be done–and the odds are definitely in favor, if polls reflect probabilities. The country is split evenly on the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling, yet the majority still wants the law repealed. That is the majority for which Republicans, and the Republican nominee, ought to speak. Yet for some reason, Republican leaders refuse to lead. What are they afraid of?
Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’
[CNSNews.com]
Former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke (AP Photo)(CNSNews.com) – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.
When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.
“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.
Cocky, Condescending Journalists Declared ObamaCare Would Be Upheld, Maybe by a 8-1 Vote
[Newsbusters.org]
By Scott Whitlock | June 27, 2012 | 22:48
Although no one knows how the Supreme Court will rule, Thursday, on ObamaCare, journalists over the past few months have dismissed and derided the concept that the President’s signature legislation could be declared unconstitutional. CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin predicted an eight-to-one vote upholding the law. Former New York Times Court reporter Linda Greenhouse said that Americans who think the law is unconstitutional are “wrong.”
Appearing on the March 23 Situation Room, Toobin hyped, “I actually think that Chief Justice Roberts and perhaps even Justice Scalia and Justice Alito might join Justice Kennedy in upholding the law.” He added, “In striking this law down, it would really be a big change in constitutional law, and I’m not sure this court is ready to do it.”
On March 19, Toobin appeared on Starting Point and rejected the anti-ObamaCare argument as “weak”:
ANCHOR SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: So the bottom line is, is making people buy health insurance a legitimate use of the power of Congress?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Correct, and the challengers in these laws have said, ‘No, this is not something Congress can do.’ What I wrote in The New Yorker this week, what I think is that basically that is a really weak argument, in that the United States Congress has been regulating health care for years, has been involved in this market for years, and this is a perfectly ordinary use of Congress’s power.
(Once he heard oral arguments, Toobin reversed himself. The journalist declared the Obama position a “train wreck” and suggested it would be shot down.)
Increasingly Shrill Liberal Journalists Attack ‘Legitimacy’ of Supreme Court Ahead of ObamaCare Ruling
[Newsbusters.org]
By: John Bates| June 25, 2012 | 16:50
The Difference Between Wide Receiver; Fast and Furious [Marked difference!]
[FrontPorchPolitics.com]
Written on June 23, 2012 at 8:15 am by FPP
While the White House, Eric Holder, and the liberal talking heads continue blaming Bush for the Obama administrations fumbles in the Fast and Furious gun walking operation gone bad, they cannot see the distinct difference between operation Wide Receiver and operation Fast and Furious. The differences are fairly profound and distinct.
The main differences are these: Wide Receiver involved Phoenix-based ATF agents, working with Mexican law enforcement in an attempt to build a case against violent Mexican drug smugglers. Fast and Furious on the other hand was an effort to make a case against American gun dealers and the Second Amendment of the United States. Both were orchestrated by their respective administrations with completely different goals. One was to go after criminals and the other was to go after the Constitution and law abiding citizens.
Romney to Latinos: Obama ‘Taking Your Vote for Granted’
[Breitbart.com]
Posted CWN: June 23, 2012
by Tony Lee
President Barack Obama has taken the Hispanic vote for granted, according to Mitt Romney in a much-anticipated speech to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) in Florida on Thursday.
“He’s taking your vote for granted,” Romney said of Obama. “I’ve come here today with a simple message: You do have an alternative. Your vote should be respected.”
Romney was referring to Obama’s inaction on immigration even though Democrats were in the majority in the House and Senate when he became president.
Romney said Obama, because he cannot sell his economic policies that have left more Latinos (11% as opposed to 8%) unemployed than the general population, will simply tell Hispanics that “things could be worse” and “imply that you really don’t have an alternative.”
‘Not Amnesty,’ Napolitano Says: ‘It Is An Exercise of Discretion’ [Oh, Really?]
[CNSNews.com]
The program, announced Friday, would grant as many as 800,000 younger illegal immigrants immunity from deportation and allow them to qualify for federal work permits.
Fast and Furious amnesia hits Attorney General Eric Holder during House testimony
[FoxNews.com]
Published June 07, 2012
Attorney General Eric Holder frustrated his most fierce Capitol Hill accuser and other GOP lawmakers Thursday when asked about the Justice Department’s Fast and Furious weapons sting and which high-ranking Obama administration officials knew about the botched operation.
Holder sidestepped questions by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa about whether he or other Justice Department officials had even started to pull together Fast and Furious documents requested in an October 2011 subpoena Issa sent the agency.
“Nothing has come from your department, not a shred of paper,” Issa said tersely during a House Judiciary Committee meeting.
Issa, R-Calif., is a member of the committee. He also is the chairman of the chamber’s Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs, from which he issued the subpoena. The requests were largely related to an ill-conceived and executed Fast and Furious tactic known as “gunwalking,” which has been linked to the 2010 death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Mainstream Media Escapes From Wisconsin
[Breitbart.com]
June 05, 2012 by Joel B. Pollak
Today’s New York Times is covering the Wisconsin recall election…on page 11. Not even the editorial page could be bothered–only op-ed columnists Joe Nocera and David Brooks weigh in. (Nocera laments the decline of unions; Brooks can’t quite bring himself to defend Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, calling his methods “obnoxious.”) A cause that fueled front-page headlines and editorial exhortations has been quietly abandoned.
As to the coverage itself, the Times focuses on the fatigue of the voters. “I hope this all stops,” says the first person quoted in the article on the recall election. Halfway through, the Times reminds voters that the vote has something to do with unions and collective bargaining. It meekly offers a suggestion that Democrats could actually win, and cites “some” who “wonder” if the recall election could be close enough to force a recount.
The ostensibly more conservative Chicago Tribune does even worse, pulling a bait-and-switch on its readers. The front page refers to an article about the Walker recall on page 9–which turns out to be a mere two-paragraph sidebar that mentions the most favorable poll for Milwaukee mayor and Democrat challenger Tom Barrett, putting him only three percent behind the incumbent. A photo of former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama at a fundraiser in New York City leads the paper’s national news section.
Evidence: Trayvon Had Bruised Knuckles, Zimmerman Broken Nose
[Breitbart.com]
May 15, 2012 – by Ben Shapiro
[BREAKING: George Zimmerman's maternal great-grandfather was Black; Zimmerman is a Democrat]
Meanwhile, the Trayvon Martin autopsy shows that other than his gunshot wound, the only injury on Martin was that the skin on his knuckles was broken. Combined with the evidence from Zimmerman’s medical report, the logical conclusion is that Martin was beating up Zimmerman severely before Zimmerman shot him.
Zimmerman was eager to get back to work, and visited the doctor, according to ABC News, to “get legal clearance to return to work.” Zimmerman was not hospitalized the night of the shooting. As ABC News reports, “In addition to his physical injuries, Zimmerman complained of stress and ‘occasional nausea when thinking about the violence.’” The doctor made notes suggesting that it was “imperative” that Zimmerman visit a “psychologist for evaluation.”
Facebook IPO Promises Needed Revenue for California
[Newsmax.com]
Tuesday, 15 May 2012 04:25 PM
Facebook Inc’s initial public offering, in addition to minting a number of billionaires and millionaires, will offer something of a financial lifeline to cash-strapped California — generating more than $2 billion in revenue for the state. The state’s budget watchdog said on Tuesday it expects the IPO will generate $2.1 billion in revenue for California through the 2013 fiscal year. The outlook comes a day after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a revised budget plan to address a swelling deficit for the tarnished Golden State.
Facebook, the No. 1 social network, expects to raise $12.1 billion in what would be Silicon Valley’s largest-ever initial public offering, dwarfing Google Inc’s 2004 market debut. Facebook, based in Menlo Park Calif., on Tuesday raised its target price range for the IPO to between $34 and $38 per share. With enthusiasm for the historic offering running high, investors stand to reap capital gains while the company’s 3,500-plus workers could grow wealthy through stock units and options — all of which would translate into tax revenue for the state.
CBS/NYT: Romney 46, Obama 43 Among Registered Voters
[RedState.com]
Monday, May 14th at 7:59PM EDT
No Spinning This As Good News For Obama
Posted by Dan McLaughlin (Diary)
In a long election season, it’s never wise to get too high or too low over any one poll. Presidential elections are won at the state level, but statewide polling is fairly sporadic at this stage of the race, so we’re stuck reading national polls a lot. But the latest poll is bad news for President Obama.
We all know the major issues by now to look for with individual polls: some polls are adults, and are totally useless, because only registered voters can vote. Polls of likely voters, in turn, are vastly more accurate and less Democratic-biased than polls of registered voters, many of whom also don’t show up to vote. Most polls are also reported after weighting to achieve some guesstimate of the partisan breakdown of the general electorate among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Even polls that don’t feature egregious hackery are an inexact science, because they rest on the pollster’s current assumptions about the D/R/I split and the ‘screen’ they use to decide who is a likely voter. If the shape of the electorate is not as projected, the poll will be wrong.
EPA’s Plans for Implementing UN’s Agenda 21
[PatriotUpdate.com]
Friday, May 4, 2012
One of the most successful grassroots campaigns during the past year has been the Stop Agenda 21 movement both at the local level and state level. However, we haven’t heard as much about Agenda 21 implementation at the national level.
Of course, there were President Bill Clinton’s establishment of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development by executive order in 1993 and President Obama’s “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance” executive order in 2009. And, many federal agencies have been incorporating sustainability into various aspects of their organizations. Still, virtually all Stop Agenda 21 grassroots activity has been focused on the local and state levels.
The establishment of Clinton’s President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) started a pattern of denial by federal government agencies regarding any connection with the United Nations Agenda 21. Even though the PCSD was clearly established in 1993 in support of the UN’s Agenda 21 and its Sustainable Development proposals from the UN’s ’92 Earth Summit in Rio, the PCSD’s statements and documents never referred to the UN and Agenda 21. We have evidence that federal officials were taking pains to make the PCSD appear to be completely separate from the UN’s Agenda 21 because J. Gary Lawrence, an advisor to the PCSD, said the following in 1998:
Still the Land of Dreams: 150 Million Want to Immigrate to U.S.
[CNSNews.com]
(CNSNews.com) – It has become a cliché for politicians who want to provide some sort of pathway to U.S. citizenship to the estimated 11.2 million illegal aliens living in the United States to say that these illegal aliens will need to “go to the back of the line” first.
However, there are already about 150 million adults living in countries around the world who would migrate to the United States if they could, according to a Gallup survey released on Friday.
That does not count any children these 150 million would-be immigrants might want to bring with them to the United States.
To arrive at this figure, Gallup interviewed 452,199 people at least 15 years or older in 151 countries around the world from 2009 and 2011. Gallup asked: “Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country? To which country would you like to move?”
The 150 million people whom Gallup estimated would like to come to the United States includes 22 million Chinese, 15 million Nigerians, 10 million Indians, 8 million Bangladeshis, 7 million Brazilians, 5 million Filipinos, 5 million Japanese, 5 million Mexicans, and 3 million each from Vietnam, Kenya and the United Kingdom.
In Liberia, 37 percent of all adults want to leave their homeland and move permanently to the United States of America. In Sierra Leone, it’s 30 percent. In Dominican Republic, it’s 26 percent. In Haiti, it’s 24 percent. And in Cambodia, it’s 22 percent.
By far, according to Gallup’s survey, America is still the No. 1 land of dreams for would be immigrants.
No other countries come close.
But the United Kingdom and Canada rank No. 2 and No. 3 after the U.S.—with 45 million people wanting to migrate to the U.K. and 42 million wanting to migrate to Canada. Like the U.S., both the U.K. and Canada are English-speaking nations that have representative governments and relatively free economies.
In 2010, meanwhile, according to a report published in March by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the United States granted Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status to only about 1,042,625 people–of whom 66.3 percent were relatives of people already in the United States.
Additionally, a majority—54.3 percent—of the foreign nationals who were granted LPR status were already inside the United States and merely had their status “adjusted.” In fact, of the approximately 1,042,625 million people granted LPR status in the United States in 2010, about 566,576 were already inside the United States. Only about 476,049 were allowed to come to the United States as legal immigrants from somewhere outside our borders.
And those who were allowed to immigrate here legally from outside the U.S. borders fit mostly into very narrow categories of legally permitted immigration.
“Four major principles underlie current U.S. policy on permanent immigration: the reunification of families, the admission of immigrants with needed skills, the protection of refugees, and the diversity of admissions by country of origin,” the CRS said in a report published in March. “These principles are embodied in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”
Even those who fall into the preferred categories of immigrants—such as relatives of people already in the United States—have to wait for many years to get a visa to come to this country as a legal immigrant.
According to CRS, “relatives of U.S. citizens and LPRs are waiting in backlogs for a visa to become available, with the brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens now waiting over 11 years, with even longer waits for siblings from Mexico and the Philippines.”
“Married adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens who filed petitions over 10 years ago (December 1, 2001) are now being processed for visas,” said CRS. “Prospective family-sponsored immigrants from the Philippines have the most substantial waiting times before a visa is scheduled to become available to them; consular officers are now considering the petitions of the brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens from the Philippines who filed almost 24 years ago.”
The Pew Hispanic Center published a study in February 2011 that estimated there were 11.2 million illegal aliens in the United States in 2010.
What’s At Stake in Michigan?
[RedState.com]
Posted by Dan McLaughlin (Diary)
Monday, February 27th at 2:17 PM EST
Here’s why tomorrow’s Michigan primary is so important: it’s about establishment confidence in Mitt Romney and the last outside chance of getting another entrant in the race.
There are, as I’ve noted previously, a number of different types of “establishment” vs “grassroots” divides in the GOP, but you don’t have to have any particular definition of ‘establishment’ to recognize that Romney’s candidacy leans heavily on the support he draws from traditional ‘establishment’ or ‘insider’ sources: money from big-dollar fundraisers, endorsements from big-name elected officials, and covering fire from right-leaning journalists at major mainstream publications and conservative journals. Romney has depended, time and again, on his ability to get out of trouble by having the resources to go more negative than whatever opponent he’s targeting: more money to dump on negative ads and a bigger chorus of voices amplifying those attacks.
Aside from Mormon support – which is somewhat sui generis to Romney – some of Romney’s structural support comes from people who know him personally or identify with him as a fellow wealthy businessman; some comes from people who fear running a bold-colors conservative; and some comes from those who, whether or not they’d support a conservative in theory, fear Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich as electoral liabilities, Santorum for his overly outspoken social conservatism, Newt for his long train of baggage. (It’s obviously Santorum represents a serious threat to Romney at present.)
CBO: Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression
[USNews.com]
CBO: U.S. enduring the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression
Posted: February 17, 2012 RSS Feed Print
After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today.
[Dems Tout GOP Payroll Tax Plan as Political Victory.]
And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven’t sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.
The CBO made its comments in a report examining the long-term effects of joblessness, and possible policy options to boost employment, including unemployment insurance reforms and job training programs. The report came at the request of Democratic Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, but Republicans quickly jumped on the chance to bash President Obama’s stimulus program, which is also reaching its three-year anniversary today.
Media Matters enjoyed fundraising surge at start of Obama administration
[FoxNews.com]
Published February 15, 2012
Media Matters — Shown here is Media Matters founder David Brock.
Media Matters enjoyed a surge in fundraising after the start of the Obama administration — nearly doubling its revenues in the first two years of the president’s administration, according to tax returns obtained by The Daily Caller.
The Daily Caller found that Media Matters and its lobbying arm Media Matters Action Network raked in $14.6 million in 2010, compared with $8.1 million in 2009.
The nonprofit organization, whose tax-exempt status has been questioned by several lawmakers curious about its political activities, saw its fundraising on the rise, according to the latest available returns, even though about half of the groups earnings in 2010 came from just 21 donors, including two unidentified contributors who gave more than $1 million apiece.
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