Robert Gibbs and the Sestak Stonewall

By: Byron York
03/13/10 6:38 AM

At Friday's White House briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked, for the fifth time in less than three weeks, about Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak's charge that the White House offered Sestak a high-ranking job if Sestak would drop his challenge to Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. And for the fifth time, Gibbs refused to answer the question of whether the White House offered a bribe to protect the fortunes of a key political ally. The story started on February 18, when Sestak told a talk radio host that the offer had come last summer, when Sestak was considering a run against Specter. Sestak, a retired Navy admiral, was asked whether he was offered the position of Secretary of the Navy. "No comment," Sestak said. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the White...

House aide confirms Slaughter Solution never used before; Still, 'they are moving down that road'

By: Mark Tapscott
03/12/10 6:18 PM

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have never before been asked to pass legislation by "deeming" it approved under a House rule instead of following the process required by the U.S. Constitution in which they actually vote on the proposal itself, according to a senior aide to House Republicans. The procedure - dubbed by critics as the "Slaughter Solution" - is the brain-child of House Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, who, at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, is trying to fashion a rule that would allow the House to move toward passage of a health care reform bill without a recorded vote on the Senate version. Like the Senate, which adopted its health care reform measure on Christmas Eve, the House passed its version last year....

Stupak: "I am a definite 'no' vote"

By: John McCormack
03/12/10 4:24 PM

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., tells National Review's Robert Costa that the House Democratic leadership is "ignoring" him. The good news: Stupak affirms he won't cave in and is a "definite 'no' vote" because Democratic leaders have made it clear the abortion language won't be fixed. The bad news: "At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve," says Stupak. "The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions." If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says....

Pelosi: Health care reform will finally allow artists to focus on being unemployed, comfortably

By: Mary Katharine Ham
03/12/10 3:08 PM

From Rachel Maddow's show last night, here's a jaw-dropper from the woman who brought you, "We have to pass the bill, so you can find out what's in it." As I keep saying, the Democratic message mavens are working overtime, apparently to woo the all-important swing vote in Williamsburg to health care: "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." If Pelosi wants us to imagine it, let's do it with a few caveats, shall we? If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members...

Slaughter says House still has options on health care procedure despite parliamentarian's ruling

By: Susan Ferrechio
03/12/10 2:21 PM

House Democratic leaders say they are prepared to take up the Senate health care bill, even though it appears it cannot be passed simultaneously with a second bill that would make corrections to it. I talked to Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, the panel that will be responsible for formatting the way the House debates and votes on health care reform. Congress Daily reported last week the Slaughter was considering a rule that would deem the Senate bill passed only after the House approved the second bill that makes corrections to it. The Senate parliamentarian, however, ruled on Thursday that the Senate can only take up a reconciliation bill if the original Senate bill is first signed into law. "We knew that," Slaughter told The Examiner. "That's not...

Detroit going back to farmland

By: Michael Barone
03/12/10 2:11 PM

In Joel Kotkin’s New Geography blog Richard Cristiano asks whether deconstruction is the fate of urban America. Case in point: Detroit, where Mayor Dave Bing’s Community Development Futures Task Force has presented its Neighborhood Revitalization Strategic Framework. As Cristiano writes: Twelve years ago, British urban historian Sir Peter Hall wrote in “Cities in Civilization” that Detroit “has become an astonishing case of industrial dereliction; perhaps, before long, the first major industrial city in history to revert to farmland.” Hall may have been prescient. This week, Mayor David Bing released the “Neighborhood Revitalization Strategic Framework," a landmark document that suggests that vast sections of Detroit be razed and returned to...

In defense of citizen journalism

By: Mark Tapscott
03/12/10 2:05 PM

Thousands of traditional journalists who lost their jobs in recent years have begun reappearing with online news operations, many of which also use citizen journalists. The two sometimes mix about as well as oil and water....

Obama: Washington treats tax dollars like Monopoly money

By: Charlie Spiering
03/12/10 1:52 PM

President Obama has been spending his week doing 'campaign-style' events to promote his version of health care reform. But how can he continue to blast "Washington" for wasting money when he is the one occupying the White House, and his party controls Congress? From a transcript of his speech in Missouri: As we were driving in, I was saying, boy, it's just good to be back in the Midwest, this is about as close as I've been to home in a while. And part of the reason it's just good to be back is because Washington is a place where tax dollars are often treated like Monopoly money -- they're bartered and traded, and they're divvied up among lobbyists and special interests, and where waste -- even billions of dollars of waste -- is accepted as the price of doing business. When we...

Ben there, done that: Rep. Chandler, D-Ky., is a 'no.'

By: David Freddoso
03/12/10 1:23 PM

From the PlumLine: “Congressman [Ben] Chandler’s position on the bill remains the same,” Chandler spokesperson Jennifer Krimm tells our reporter Ryan Derousseau. “He expects to vote against the...

Update: 'No verse about "deeming" in Schoolhouse Rock'

By: David Freddoso
03/12/10 1:40 PM

As a subtle rejoinder to those whining about health care and the filibuster as if it somehow overturns what we learned in civics class, Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., sends a short e-mail on the so-called "Slaughter Solution," by which House Democrats avoid a vote on health care and simply "deem" it passed in a House rule: We’re pretty sure there’s no verse about “deeming” in Schoolhouse Rock. It begs the question: why vote on anything at all? Instead of going to the polls next November, Americans can just deem who will represent them in Congress. UPDATE: The American Prospect's Tapped blog offers up Democratic Party talking points defending this parliamentary trick....

Video: Stewart mocks Biden for 'punishing' Israelis by 'showing up late to dinner'

By: Charlie Spiering
03/12/10 12:56 PM

Last night, John Stewart highlighted the diplomatic 'slap in the face' by Israelis to Vice-President Joe Biden during his trip to Israel and Biden's response. Watch below:...

Pot meet kettle: Former NYT editor thinks Fox News isn't objective

By: Mark Hemingway
03/12/10 12:18 PM

Howell Raines, the former New York Times editor who left the paper under a cloud after following the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal, has an op-ed in the Washington Post taking his fellow journalists to task for not assailing Fox News: One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history? Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous...

USA Today Gets It Wrong on Gitmo

By: John McCormack
03/12/10 10:43 AM

From a USA Today editorial: "The fact is that many of those whom Liz Cheney is quick to brand as terrorists have been released from Guantanamo — including about 530 by the Bush administration, which admitted many posed no long-term threat." The Bush administration never admitted that "many posed no long-term threat." Almost all of their transfers and releases of detainees contained some risk; the same is true of the Obama administration's transfers and releases. Obama's head of the Gitmo detainee task force has admitted as much on the record in an interview with BBC News. Remember: the climbing recidivism rate is currently at 20%, with 3 or 4 new recidivists discovered every month. The Obama administration is now even more aware than the previous administration was of the threat...

Health care His-Panic, part II: Pelosi loses another "yes" vote

By: David Freddoso
03/12/10 10:11 AM

Whether or not he is serious and will hold firm to his position, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., has thrown the health care ball back up into the air. Gutierrez said yesterday on MSNBC that his concerns over immigration provisions "are enough to say I can't support this bill." Gutierrez voted "yes" in November when the House considered its now-defunct version of the health care bill. Statements like this, from such liberals as Reps. Mike Capuano, D-Mass., Mike Arcuri, D-N.Y., and Gutierrez may just be bluffs, and should not be taken as definitive. They may still roll under pressure. But given that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., probably has to convince a dozen or so "no" votes to switch to "yes," it isn't helpful to have a handful of "yes" votes turning "no." "They are enough to say I...

They just can't resist those closed doors

By: Mark Tapscott
03/12/10 9:43 AM

House Democrats are spending a lot of time behind closed doors as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and other Democratic leaders seek that magic number of 216 votes in favor of putting a federal bureaucrat between you and your doctor. But regardless whether they get to 216, there are a couple of other numbers that really get to the basic fraud underlying Obamacare. This exchange between Fox News' Bill Heller and Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-RN, lays it out: Heller: If we're going to provide insurance for 30 million additional Americans, where we getting the money to pay for that? Bachmann: Well, what will happen is we will have reduced care, and that will lead directly to rationing of care. If you are pulling $500 billion out of the system, and putting in 30 million more...

Federal student loan takeover attached to health care bill -- what could go wrong?

By: Mark Hemingway
03/12/10 9:38 AM

Well, Democrats may be lacking votes but they're certainly not lacking in chutzpah: Democratic Congressional leaders struck a tentative agreement on Thursday that breathes new life into President Obama’s proposed overhaul of federal student loan programs. The deal would bundle the bill into an expedited budget package along with the Democratic health care legislation, which would allow for both measures to be passed by the Senate on a simple majority vote. Without the deal, the student loan bill would have been unlikely to pass because it lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. I can't imagine that this will be viewed as anything other than an arrogant move, and one that would diminish the chances of health care reform being passed even more....

Morning Must Reads -- Delusional Democrats

By: Chris Stirewalt
03/12/10 9:13 AM

New York Times -- Democrats Struggle to Finish Health Bill There are lots of problems with getting Obamacare through Congress. Examiner colleague Susan Ferrechio outlines two big ones today: the defeat of a convoluted procedural plan and the declaration of an impasse on subsidizing elective abortions. But big issue is that there is no bill to pass yet. Part of the reason that the White House had to abandon its March 18 deadline so quickly is that even having embraced the procedural end-around of budget reconciliation to prevent a Republican filibuster, Democrats can’t agree on what will be in the plan. Nancy Pelosi says the House will soon pass the Senate bill and then both Houses will pass curative legislation. But the contents of that 100-page remedial bill are still...

Ryan: The health care games begin in the House Monday

By: David Freddoso
03/12/10 8:29 AM

Phil Klein of The American Spectator spoke to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., yesterday, who says Democrats will pass a "shell" bill out of the Budget Committee on Monday, which they will alter later. Ryan also emphasized that reconciliation isn't the real ballgame here: He also warned against focusing too much on the reconciliation process in the Senate. "Reconciliation is a distraction," he said. "Once the House passes the Senate bill we have the massive new entitlement." In effect, the House vote is all that matters....

Want to kill an industry? Tax it, like Colorado

By: Mark Tapscott
03/12/10 8:23 AM

Colorado Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter decided not to seek a second term despite the fact he was elected in the midst of a massive resurgence by his party that also saw it take over the legislature in the Rocky Mountain state. Should be a good time to get another term, right?...

Murders way up under Chavez -- still not too much worse than DC numbers earlier this decade

By: David Freddoso
03/12/10 7:59 AM

From Reuters: Homicides in Venezuela have quadrupled during President Hugo Chavez's 11 years in power, with two people murdered every hour, according to new figures from a non-governmental organization. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), whose data is widely followed in the absence of official statistics, said the South American nation has one of the highest crime rates on the continent, with 54 homicides per 100,000 citizens in 2009... When Chavez came to power in 1999 there were 4,550 homicides whereas in 2009 there were 16,047, the OVV said. Chavez blames income inequities created by past governments. Obviously, that's why murders have gotten so much worse under his rule. Worse than Venezuela's deterioration, perhaps, is the fact that it isn't entirely out of line with...

Michael Elliott: China can grow, but can it innovate?

By: Mark Tapscott
03/12/10 7:56 AM

Fortune contributor and Time International editor Michael Elliott has a thoughtful piece today that looks at the other side of China's economic explosion and notes that most of the phenomenal growth is the result of government flooding the market with money and directing it to favored firms....

Pelosi Gets Tough on Ethics

By: Nate Beeler
03/12/10 12:49 AM

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Oklahoma provides picture of coming nationwide unfunded state pension crisis

By: Mark Tapscott
03/11/10 6:21 PM

So you get home in the evening from a hard day at the office and grab your mail. There, you find an official-looking envelope from the State of Oklahoma. You open it and read it. And then you faint. Why? It's a bill for $9,000. That's your family's share of the $14.8 billion required to fund the state's Teacher Retirement System and other state-level public sector pensions that Oklahoma politicians have for years been making more generous without providing a way to pay for that generosity. So you, the taxpayer, get hit with huge bill. This imagined scene is anything but beyond the possible, as CapitolBeatOk.org's latest report demonstrates. And Oklahoma is far from being unique in having such a problem. As the Pew Center on the States reported recently, almost every state in the...

Q: How Much Does It Cost to be a Federal Judge in Rhode Island? A: About $700,000

By: John McCormack
03/11/10 6:20 PM

Ed Whelan flags a report that trial lawyer John J. McConnell, who was nominated by the president to a district judgeship in Rhode Island, donated nearly $700,000 in the past 20 years to various Democrats. Whelan writes that McConnell's "poor rating" by the ABA "ought to set off alarm...

White House: Indonesia is not a vacation!

By: Julie Mason
03/11/10 5:58 PM

Gibbs: This is not a vacation at all. President Obama is skipping the annual Gridiron Dinner this year -- heaven forfend! -- because he is taking the family to Indonesia during the girls' spring break from school. The Indonesia stop is part of a six-day trip that will also bring Obama to Guam and Australia. The White House initially claimed Obama was skipping the Gridiron -- for the second year in a row -- because he wanted his kids to see the country where he spent four of his formative years. But now the administration says Indonesia is no vacation: Q: One other thing. Indonesia has been portrayed by some, in some articles, as more of a vacation trip than a policy and diplomacy trip. How much of it is a vacation, taking the family along? Gibbs: It's not a vacation at...

Eric Withholder: AG failed to disclose SCOTUS brief on detainees

By: David Freddoso
03/11/10 5:27 PM

From the New York Times online today: WASHINGTON — During his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to disclose that he had signed a brief urging the Supreme Court not to uphold President Bush’s claim that he could imprison an American citizen as an “enemy combatant,” the Justice Department acknowledged on Thursday. “The brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” said Matthew A. Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed. In any event, the Attorney General has publicly discussed his positions on detention policy on many occasions, including at his confirmation...

It's official now: ObamaCare will fund abortions if it passes

By: David Freddoso
03/11/10 4:25 PM

House Democrats have given up on fixing the Senate ObamaCare bill's abortion problem, the Associated Press reports: Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said Thursday that the leadership will try to secure the necessary 216 votes to pass the bill without reworking the divisive abortion provision. The Senate version of health care reform would loosen current rules about federal money going to pay for abortions. The House version did not, and as a result a number of pro-life Democrats supported it. Because abortion cannot be fixed through an accompanying reconciliation bill, it looks like pro-life Democrats are out of luck with three bad options. They will either kill ObamaCare with their "no" votes, go back on their word and disappoint constituents by voting "yes," or...

Gibbs keeps dodging questions about Sestak job offer

By: David Freddoso
03/11/10 4:12 PM

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dodged once again when asked by Fox News' Major Garrett about the job offer the White House supposedly made to Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., to get him to drop his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. Brett Baier...

Roll Call: Senate Parliamentarian gut punches ObamaCare

By: David Freddoso
03/11/10 4:00 PM

Democrats in Congress had held forth hope that they could vote almost simultaneously on the Senate version of ObamaCare and on a companion fix-up reconciliation bill. The order matters, because it would reassure some skittish House Democrats who would otherwise oppose health care reform. Unfortunately, David Drucker writes, the Senate Parliamentarian is having none of it: The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday. The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said. House Democratic leaders have been...

Massa's campaign contributors list is a Who's Who of the left's special interests

By: Mark Tapscott
03/11/10 3:54 PM

Disgraced former Rep. Eric Mass, D-NY, has a campaign fund worth more than $644,000, according to OpenSecrets.org's Capital Eye blog. That's what's left from among "millions of dollars" contributed by "hundreds of people and political action committees" to elect the upstate New Yorker to his first term in 2008....
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