New Hampshire reporter to announce candidacy for phantom congressional seat UPDATED!

By: Mark Tapscott
11/20/09 7:49 AM

Grant Bosse will announce today that he is seeking a seat in Congress by becoming a candidate for New Hampshire's 00 congressional district.

Bosse, an investigative journlist associated with the Watchdog.org group, is thus the first candidate in the nation to announce for one of the estimated 440 phantom congressional districts in which officials with President Obama's economic stimulus program credited their program with creating thousands of jobs at a cost of more than $6.4 billion.

Why is he doing it? "Because even a fake district needs real leadership," Bosse said. For more details, go here. Bosse is expected to be only the first of a wave of candidates announcing in the next few days for phantom congressional districts.

The Examiner has been unable to confirm reports that the New Hampshire development may be the start of a national movement to convert existing congressional seats into phantom districts to match the likelihood of fulfillment by most Washington politicians of their many promises on issues like health care reform, job creation, and "reaching across the aisle in a spirit of compromise for the nation's good."

UPDATE: We have video!

Bosse announces. Watch it here.

Louisiana Tea Party Protesters to picket Landrieu for $100 million health care sell-out

By: Mark Tapscott
11/20/09 7:31 AM

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, has been the subject of intense speculation this week that she has sold her vote for Obamacare in return for $100 million worth of federal goodies for the Bayou State. Jonathan Karl at ABC reported the details of the $100 million payoff yesterday.

Lousiana Tea Party Protesters are planning protests today at Landrieu's four state offices, following a conference call last night in which 20 organizers confirmed plans.

Santa Cruz's superior intellects on Palin book

By: Mark Tapscott
11/19/09 11:01 AM

Owners of a Santa Cruz bookstore are offering buyers of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's runaway best-seller a free bag of nuts to go with their purchase, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

"We know some customers have to buy it because it's on some uncle's wish list, but it's not a big seller for the Santa Cruz market," Casey Coonerty-Protti told the Sentinel.

The bookstore's customers must all be Harvard, Berkley, and Yale graduates.

Geithner refuses to release Bush administration TARP documents to Judicial Watch

By: Barbara Hollingsworth
11/18/09 6:47 PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the reason Obama administration is still refusing to release Bush-era documents about the massive government bailout, says Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “Their guy [Geithner] was involved in this last year, and now he’s running Treasury.”

The group filed two Freedom of Information lawsuits against the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, both of which have ignored dozens of months-old FOIA requests.

“We are now more than a year and trillions of dollars into the government bailout and answers are in short supply. What was Congress told about the so-called financial crisis and who was lobbying the Fed for taxpayer cash? The taxpayers are paying for this bailout and they deserve to know the truth,” Fitton said.

Judicial Watch is specifically requesting records pertaining to a Sept. 18, 2008 congressional briefing on the financial crisis attended by then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senators Charles Schumer, D-NY, Chris Dodd, D-CT, and Richard Shelby, R-AL.

“That’s when they came in and said the sky is falling and laid out the worst-case scenario if TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was not passed,” Fitton told The Examiner. “I suppose there was a lot of misinformation and threats issued at this meeting that sc...

Watchdog.org issues state- by-state breakdown of jobs in phantom congressional districts

By: Mark Tapscott
11/18/09 11:21 AM

G. Edward DeSeve, President Obama's chief aide overseeing Recovery.gov doesn't think a few data entry errors are anything to worry about. But investigative reporters from around the country with Watchdog.org have identified multiple phantom districts in all 50 states.

In Arizona, for example, Recovery.gov invented 14 new congressionl districts containing $84 million worth of stimulus spending. In tiny Idaho, 10 phantom districts received $1.2 million in stimulus spending. Even Puerto Rico, which is not a state and has no congressional districts, is credited by Recovery.gov with having 11.

Maybe this incident sheds light on why Obama thinks there are 57 states?

Survey finds only 43 percent would re-elect Obama now

By: Mark Tapscott
11/17/09 5:03 PM

Only 43 percent of voters surveyed by the Zogby/O'Leary Poll would vote for President Obama less than a year after he was elected, or about the same level of support President Clinton won in 1992 in a three-way race with the first President Bush and former EDS executive and national political gadfly Ross Perot.

Perhaps even more worrisome for the president is that only 37 percent of independents queried in the survey said they would support Obama. That figure appears to be consistent with exit polling following the Virginia and New Jersey governorship races which indicated a seismic shift among independents away from Obama and to Republican candidates Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie.

And on the question of trust, Obama also fell far short of his performance during the 2008 presidential race. A year later, Zogby/O'Leary find that 42 percent of voters say they do not trust the Obama White House “at all” to gain passage in Congress of legislation that will create new jobs in 2010, and another 11 percent say they don't have much trust that the president can succeed on that score.

The survey is conducted by pollster Brad O'Leary in conjunction with Zogby International.

“President Obama’s popularity with the voting public has been eroding for some time, but these numbers really drive home the point,” said O’Leary. “Most voters don’t trust ...

Obama's recovery chief thinks Recovery.gov is a 'great success,' says data errors aren't important

By: Mark Tapscott
11/17/09 12:01 PM

G. Edward DeSeve, the man running President Obama's economic recovery effort has a post up today on Recovery.gov that deserves a special place in the Out-of-Touch Government Officials Hall of Fame.

DeSeve is Special Advisor to the President, Assistant to the Vice President and Special Advisor to the OMB Director for Implementation of the Recovery Act.

Titled "Looking at the big picture on the Recovery Act," DeSeve claims all those "mistakes," like the thousands of jobs created in congressional districts that don't exist or counting raises as jobs created by stimulus funding, "are relatively few and don't change the fundamental conclusions one can draw from the data."

DeSeve might as well have said "nothing to look at here, folks, now move along." Or perhaps "hey, it's close enough for government work, so what's the problem?"

As anybody who knows elementary statistics can attest, entering one piece of bad data can render an entire database useless, or worse, produce analytical results that bear absolutely no relation to reality.

DeSeve also claims some of the mistakes are "frustrating typos and coding errors that don't undermine information at the heart of the data." But when hundreds of "frustrating typos and coding errors" are found in a database, competent database analysts and statisticians know you go back to ...

Obama creates stimulus job creation miracle, doubles size of Congress

By: Mark Tapscott
11/17/09 7:37 AM

President Obama claims to have saved or created hundreds of thousands of jobs, but he isn't telling the American people about what is arguably his most amazing economic recovery accomplishment yet - He has doubled the size of Congress and it only cost about $6.4 billion!

You only thought Congress has 435 congressional districts. Thanks to the Obama stimulus program, 440 new districts have been created. How? By creating new congressional districts out of thin air, or bringing back old congressional districts long ago left in the dustbin of redistricting history, or .... well, I'll let Bill McMorris of Watchdog.org tell the tale:



"According to data retrieved from recovery.gov, nearly $6.4 billion was used to “create or save” just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress–which, for the record, counts 435 members–in early 2009.

"The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about America’s political or geographic landscape. More than $2 million was given to the 99th District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district. In order to qualify for 99 districts, North Dakota would have to have a population of almost 60 mi...

Stimulus update: $514K per job 'created or saved' in Dayton

By: David Freddoso
11/14/09 10:42 PM

The Dayton Business Journal reports:

The Dayton area overall has created or saved more than 623 jobs as a result of the $320 million in stimulus funding that has been awarded.

If you don't live in Dayton, you'll be happy to know that the federal government took your tax dollars and spent $514,000 per job to get Daytonians back to work. And that's assuming, contrary to our experience ,so far that the jobs reported as "created or saved" are for real.

Former ACORN fund raiser gets Obama judicial nomination. Yes, you read that right

By: Mark Tapscott
11/13/09 9:13 AM

President Obama's first federal court nominee was Judge David Hamilton of Indiana. If you are drinking your morning coffee as you read what follows here, you might want to put down your cup before reading further:

Among Hamilton's "qualifications" is the fact that he is a former fund raiser for ACORN. That fact was conspicuously left out of the White House statement announcing Obama's nomination of the federal district judge for a position on the Seventh Circuit federal appeals court.

Even though it was only for a month, the fact Hamilton would work for any length of time for ACORN is disturbing. And there is no evidence that he has ever subsequently reputiadated his association with ACORN.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a Senate confirmation vote on Hamilton's nomination for Tuesday, Nov. 17.

As the American Civil Rights Union's Ken Klukowski details in an oped posted earlier this morning here on washingtonexaminer.com, Hamilton is an ACLU big-wig who also has a deeply hypocritical view of Christianity:

"He has also shown surprising hostility to people of Christian faith. He ruled that any prayers uttered in the Indiana statehouse that invoke the name of Jesus Christ are unconstitutional and cannot be permitted. "Nor can anyone offer a prayer that is 'sectarian' or 'pervasively Christian.' Oddly, although prayers mentioning Jesus are someh...

Obama to weed out Bush political appointees who careered in; Establishes new political test for career jobs UPDATED!

By: Mark Tapscott
11/12/09 11:33 AM

John Berry, President Obama's director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has issued a new directive that is clearly designed to weed out any Bush administration political appointees who "careered-into" the civil service.

The directive also effectively establishes a partisan political factor in hiring for career civil service positions in the federal bureaucracy. Berry's agency oversees the federal government's 1.9 million career civil servants.

The OPM was created during the Carter administration to replace the old Civil Service Commission, which was once headed by Teddy Roosevelt in his pre-White House days. The career service was intended to end the spoils system in which federal jobs were used by presidents to reward supporters.

In double-speak language that would make a Soviet apparatchik blush, Berry justifies his directive as merely an attempt to prevent political interference of the career civil service:

"Beginning January 1, 2010, agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level under the provisions of title 5, United States Code.

"OPM will review these proposed appointments to ensure they comply with merit system principles and applicable civil service laws. I have delegated decisionmaking authority over thes...

DeMint, Coburn, Hutchinson, Brownback introduce term limits constitutional amendment

By: Mark Tapscott
11/10/09 2:06 PM

Four Republican senators have introduced a constitutional amendment to limit senators to no more than two six-year terms in office, and representatives no more than three two-year terms. To become law, the amendment must be approved by two-thirds majorities of both the Senate and House, and by three-fourths of the states.

Senators Jim DeMint, South Carolina, Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Texas, and Sam Brownback, Kansas, are the co-sponsors.

The 22nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits presidents to no more than two terms in office. Fifteen states have term limits for various officials, as do many local governments across the country.

DeMint said the amendment is needed because the power of incumbency has grown so great:

"Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians. As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power," DeMint said.

"I have come to realize that if we want to change the policies coming out of Congress, we must change the process itself. Over the last 20 years, Washington politicians have been ree...

Pelosi was for three-day "read the bill" rule before she forgot it on Obamacare

By: Mark Tapscott
11/08/09 6:36 PM

There are two ways to view this video of a 2005 floor speech by then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, condemning Republican leaders for not allowing members three days to read "a bill of thousands of pages" before voting on it.

The video is posted on Breitbart TV and is well worth watching in the aftermath of Speaker Pelosi's legislative blitzkreig of the past week to gain passage of her version of Obamacare at all costs. It was done with not even a token nod in the direction of allowing the sort of legislative transparency she promised voters during the 2006 campaign enroute to becoming House Speaker.

The most obvious and immediate take on the video is disgust with the unsurpassed hypocriscy of Pelosi in forcing the Obamacare bill through to passage despite its massive size, its gigantic implications for changing the daily lives of every American, and its enormous impact on the financial integrity of the government.

But let's not forget the context in which Pelosi's 2005 speech was delivered. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other leaders of the Republican majority that held power prior to 2006 were routinely doing exactly what Pelosi just did wth Obamacare - jamming continuing resolutions consisting of thousands of pages and costing trillions of dollars through Congress with barely enough time to read the titles, much less the entire text.

Bottomline: A binding...

Boston firm shifts 'green jobs' to China

By: Mark Tapscott
11/06/09 8:35 AM

President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are spending billions of tax dollars to subsidize development of "green jobs" - positions for people and companies designing and manufacturing alternative energy sources such as biomass, wind and solar.

One of Obama's buddies, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, is also a vocal advocate of such subsidies. Last year, Patrick put Massachusetts taxpayers' money where is mouth is by backing a $58 million package of incentives and subsidies to Evergreen Solar, which manufacturers collector panels used in solar energy units.

Now barely a year later, Evergreen has announced that it is moving its final assembly phase to a factory in China, according to the Boston Globe. The firm's Devens, Massachusetts, plant currently employs 577 full-time and 230 contract workers in designing and manufacturing the silicon wafers and cells that are then assembled into panels.

A company spokesman declined to say how many jobs will be shifted to the new assembly plant in China, according to the Globe.

"In exchange for receiving $58.6 million in grants, loans, land, tax incentives, and other aid to build in Massachusetts, Evergreen pledged that it would add 350 new jobs, a goal that it has, to date, far surpassed. However, the company disclosed in a financial filing yesterday that it would write off $40 million worth of equipment at Dev...

China's state-owned energy firm buys U.S. off-shore leases UPDATED!

By: Mark Tapscott
11/05/09 8:22 AM

Gas prices here in the U.S. are creeping back up towards the $3-per-gallon mark even as news breaks today that China's state-owned energy firm just closed a deal to buy interests in four development leases on the American Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Gulf of Mexico.

The deal, which requires approval of the U.S. government, is between Norway's Statoil and China National Off-Shore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). This is the same CNOOC that would have bought Unocal four years ago for $18.5 billion but for pressure from Congress, according to The New York Times, quoting an energy industry trade publication.

Because it must be approved by the U.S. government, the Statoil/CNOOC deal puts President Obama and Ken Salazar, his Secretary of the Department of the Interior, which controls OCS leasing, in a difficult position.

If the administration approves the deal, it will be more vulnerable to charges that the White House is being careless with U.S. national security issues in the energy sector, and that it is putting the interests of a foreign power before those of U.S. energy consumers.

If Obama and Salazar reject the deal, it will likely complicate relations with China, the emerging Asian superpower that defense experts predict will be able at will to challenge U.S. legitimate national security interests around the globe in the near future.

The deal also focuses renewed attention on Sala...

So you want to know why Hoffman lost to Owens in NY-23?

By: Mark Tapscott
11/04/09 6:07 PM

Former Readers Digest editor-in-chief and Corporation for Public Broadcasting board chairman Ken Tomlinson explains everything about why Conservative Party of New York congessional nominee Doug Hoffman didn't quite pull off a "Buckley" - winning a three-way race.

It all goes back to Jim Buckley, Spiro T. Agnew, Charles Goodell, and Christine Jorgensen. And yes, I know I just revealed my age. Go read Tomlinson anyway, in The Weekly Standard. Actually, American Conservative Union chairman David Keene explained everything and Tomlinson provides a typically evocative report from an absolutely delightful lunch.

VA, NJ and NY weren't the only states with elections yesterday

By: Mark Tapscott
11/04/09 1:47 PM

Those high-profile gubernatorial and congressional races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York got most of the headlines, but the genuinely revealing contests may well have been some of the down-ballot contests held in Maine, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

In Maine, a referendum to repeal the state's recently enacted gay marriage law won 52-48 percent. despite a massive outpouring of resources by gay rights groups. Gay marriage advocates spent an estimated $4 milion defending the law, while opponents reportedly spent about $2.5 million.

Turnout was higher than expected for an off-year election, according to Maine officials, and there were about 100,000 absentee ballots cast in the election, an indication of intense voter interest. Maine is the 31st state to vote on the marriage issue, and in every case, the traditional definition of a man and a woman has won majority support, though not always by decisive margins.

In Pennsylvania, partisan control of the state's highest court was up for grabs in the contest between Republican Joan Orie Melvin and Democrat Jack Panella. It was a heated battle, with Panella raising in excess of $2.3 million just through Oct. 19. Melvin had raised only $733,000 by that point, but still won 52-48 percent, according to Judgepedia.

The Pennsylvania contest could have big national implications because the GOP will now have a majority of the state supreme cour...

Boehner says NY GOP ignored warnings from NRCC

By: J.P. Freire
11/04/09 11:31 AM

At a meeting of Washington conservatives this morning, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, expressed pride over GOP success in last night's election. But questions about NY-23 remain -- so I asked him whether there was an effort to get New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, the GOP nominee in that race, to endorse Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. "There was a huge effort," he replied. When asked about rumors that the New York Republican Party picked Scozzafava because of the advice of Washington insiders who felt she would be a more electable candidate, Boehner rolled his eyes. "We told them to hold off on a decision, to work with us, but they went ahead and did it." So if she was a rotten egg, why spend money? "All the money spent on that race was anti-Owens money, not pro-Scozzafava money." UPDATE:

Boehner's response obviously doesn't cover for the anti-Hoffman web ads put out by the NRCC, accusing the third-party candidate of only being in it for himself. Or the active ripping on Hoffman, like in this statement to National Journal:

"[Conservative] Party bosses in New York have been sold a bill of goods in the form of Doug Hoffman's deceptive smoke-and-mirrors campaign, but fortunately they aren't the ones deciding this election," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the NRCC, which has produced Web ads attack...

Nothing purple about Virginia now

By: Mark Tapscott
11/03/09 10:28 PM

One year ago, Barack Obama did something that no Democrat had done since LBJ, carrying Virginia for Democrats in a presidential race, garnerng 53 percent of the vote in a record turnout. Democrats everywhere pointed to Virginia as the bell-weather state, moving from being solidly red to purple and on its way to being fully blue.

What a difference one year makes! Or more precisely, what a difference is made by a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a complete government take-over of the one-sixth of the economy represented by the health care system, and a world apology tour in which an American president repeatedly confessed the nation's alleged international sins.

Bob McDonnell appears headed to winning 58-60 percent of the vote, as are both of two GOP running mates, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, and Ken Cuccinelli, as Attorney General. The GOP almost certainly will gain seats in the state House as well, perhaps as many as 10.

What does it mean for next year's congressional races? Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform offers this thought:



“Obama received 53 percent of the vote in Virginia in 2008. Watch what percentage of the vote the Democrat gubernatorial candidate Deeds receives. Then compare the drop off in Democrat vote percentage to the winning margins of sitting Democrats. That will tell you how many Dems may lose in 2010--No popular Obama on the ballot and no Bu...

32 years for Uncle Sam to recoup cost of job created by economic stimulus

By: Mark Tapscott
11/02/09 2:02 PM

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air did some calculating on the time required for the federal government to receive back in taxes what it cost to create each job under President Obama's economic stimulus program. Here's what he found:

"At an effective tax rate of 15%, it would take 32 years and five months — almost the entire career of the person holding it. At an effective tax rate of 20%, it would take less … just 24 years, four months.

"Or let’s consider the administration’s wildest claim, that of a million jobs saved or created at $159,000 per job. At the 15% effective tax rate, it would still take almost 21 years to pay back the principal; at the 20% rate, 15 years, seven months. And bear in mind that this calculation applies all of the federal taxes paid to paying back the cost of the stimulus that created the job."

Go here for the rest of Ed's analysis. See especially his observations regarding the apparent absence in the Obama White House of anybody with any genuine private sector management or budgeting experience.

Obama now a 40 percent president?

By: Mark Tapscott
11/02/09 1:35 PM

It's the last frantic day before Election Day 2009 and the question on everybody's mind in the nation's capitol is simple - What will tomorrow's results indicate about the political status of President Obama and the Democratic majority in charge of Congress?

Republican pollster Brad O'Leary took at a look at the latest data on the Virginia and New Jersy gubernatorial races, plus the NY-23 special congressional election in upstate New York and offered the following possibility:

“New York’s 23rd is a high priority for the White House, and still the Democrats can’t top 35% in that race. And it’s looking like the Democrats’ gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey won’t top 40%. This shows that Obama’s new level of support among all American voters may be about 40%. Americans are definitely hungry for change, but it isn’t the brand of change Obama is selling.”

Tuesday will tell the tale.

If Interior Department can't stop off-shore energy, NOAA has a backup plan

By: Mark Tapscott
11/01/09 3:47 PM

Urban zoning in cities and suburbs divides land up into bite-size parcels and typically makes their use and development dependent upon securing approval from multiple levels of planning bureaucrats in government. But imagine if government tried to apply the same nghtmarish process to the ocean floor.

Sound outlandish? Don't bet on it. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator Jane Lubchenco is working with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on just such a plan, according to WhatAboutAlaska.com. The plan would seek to impose on 1.76 bilion acres of the American Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) the same sort of block-by-block bureaucratic controls that environmentalists and others have used for years to stifle development on land.

Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is clearly slow-walking his department's proposed five-year plan for developing the immense oil and natural gas resources under the OCS. So the NOAA/CEQ initiative might be seen as the backup plan for preventing off-shore drilling should the five-year plan somehow fail to throw sufficient obstacles to development.

The CEQ is headed by Obama appointee Nancy Sutley, a former Clinton administration appointee under EPA Administrator Carol Browner, who is now director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

'Republican' Scozzafava endorses Democrat against Conservative Party's Hoffman UPDATED!

By: Mark Tapscott
11/01/09 2:49 PM

Only hours after suspending her campaign for the good of the Republican Party, liberal Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava has now endorsed Democrat Bill Owens for in Tuesday's special election to fill the upstate New York congressional seat vacated by Rep. John McHugh, R-NY.

In a statement published by the Watertown Daily Times and linked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee web site, Scozzafava encouraged voters to support her former Democratic opponent instead of Conservative Party of New York nominee Doug Hoffman, who is in a dead heat with Owens, according to polls. "I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same," Scozzafava said. "In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He will be an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York. Bill understands this district and its people, and when he represents us in Congress he will put our interests first." In her statement Friday announcing suspension of her campaign Scozzafava said "I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my party will emerge stronger ..." UPDATE: No surprise, says CP head Mike Long, chairman of the Conservative Party of New York is not surprised to hear of Scozzafava's endorsement of Democrat Bill Owens: "We a...

Scozzafava suspends campaign in face of declining support

By: Mark Tapscott
10/31/09 11:20 AM

It's official now, liberal New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava has suspended her campaign as the Republican nominee to succeed Rep. John McHugh, R-NY, in the Empire State's 23rd congressional district.

Scozzafava released the following statement earlier this morning: "Today, I again seek to act for the good of our community," Ms. Scozzafava wrote in a letter to friends and supporters. "It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. "I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my party will emerge stronger and our district and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations." Scozzafava's wthdrawal came hard on the heels of a Sienna Institute poll showing her campaign had imploded in barely a week since her husband called the cops on John McCormack, a reporter for The Weekly Standard, who persisted in asking her questions about her support for abortion on demand and granting of legal rights on the basis of an individual's sexual preference. The Sienna poll show the race in a dead heat between Democrat Bill Owen...

Pelosi bill creates Health Care Super Czar

By: Mark Tapscott
10/30/09 5:31 PM

President Obama has appointed more than three dozen "czars" to oversee various parts of the federal executive branch, but none of them would have power even remotely like that to be granted under the latest House version of Obamacare to the newly created position of Health Choices Commissioner.

The Colossus of Rhodes allegedly stood astride an entrance to the harbor of a great Greek shipping city as one of the ancient world's seven wonders, but not even that guy could match the reach of Pelosi's HCC, who would be responsible for:

* Managing both the government-run health insurance program and the regulations overseeing all health insurance plans offered by private insurance companies, including those sold to individuals and those offered through employers.

* Negotiating rates to be paid to the nation's 788,000 practicing physicians and 5,708 hospitals.

* Create and then assess fines for individuals and companies that fail to comply with the new government-run health care program's multitude of regulations.

In other words, Pelosi's HCC will be the boss, judge, and jury presiding over one-sixth of the U.S. economy. If you think I am making this up, perhaps you will find a former congressman's analysis to be more persuasive. Check out these and more facts about Pelosi's Health Care Super Czar at the Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog in a post by former Rep. Ernest Istook of ...

Paranormal legislative activity captured on video in nation's capital

By: Mark Tapscott
10/30/09 2:54 PM

Sure, it's Halloween and weird stuff happens just in the normal course of things in Washington, D.C., but this extraordinary video of an alien concept stalking an innocent couple on Capitol Hill has to be seen to be believed. And trust me, if you watch it, you will believe.

Newly disclosed emails link White House directly to NEA politicalization scandal

By: Mark Tapscott
10/30/09 12:02 PM

Former actor and present White House associate director of public engagement Kalpen Modi was directly involved in planning the controversial conference call hosted by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) flack to encourage tax-supported artists to create propaganda for President Obama, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The emails reveal that Modi worked with now-former NEA national communications director Yosif Sargant in planning the August 10 conference call that was first revealed by Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood.com web site. Participants in the conference call were encouraged to use their talents to generate public support for the Obama agenda in Congress.

Here are four of the most illustrative emails, according to Judicial Watch:



· August 10, 2009, 10:23 am. Email from Yosi Sergant to Kalpen Modi: “[The call is] organized by me…I’d ask you to come on and give the exact spiel you gave on Saturday. Walk them through the WH Arts Policy. They won’t know it. Then I will take them into United We Serve and the NEA.” · August 10, 2009, 10:29 am. Email from Kalpen Modi to Yosi Sergant: “Oy. This would be awesome to be a part of. Let me know if you think it’s going long, or maybe I can get someone from here to do it if I can’t because of the ...

All 40 GOP senators want Reid Obamacare draft posted on web

By: Mark Tapscott
10/30/09 11:26 AM

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a copy of the draft Obamacare bill drawn up behind closed doors in his office to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring. That sparked a letter signed by all 40 Republicans in the Senate asking that the full text of the bill be posted on the Internet for public examination.

Here's the text of the letter, which was initiated by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC:

"On Monday, you announced that you had sent health care legislation to the Congressional Budget office (CBO). As you know, this legislation will have a profound impact on the lives of every American, including the next generation who will be forced to pay for it. Our national debt stands at nearly $12 trillion, with a deficit of $1.4 trillion. The health care bill will likely be more than 1,000 pages long and is the single most important legislation we will consider and debate this year in Congress.

"With an issue this large and complex, we need full transparency at every stage in the legislative process. President Obama was elected, in part, on his promise to bring greater transparency to the workings of the federal government. The American people and every member of Congress should be allowed to read the bill that was sent to CBO. The bill should be made available for taxpayers to read and learn how the federal government is spending their money. We are writing ...

Which part of judge's decision does Obama White House not understand?

By: Mark Tapscott
10/29/09 9:00 PM

Last year, federal Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) is covered under the Privacy Act. In that decision, Lamberth tartly added that “...this court holds that under the Privacy Act, the word ‘agency’ includes the Executive Office of the President, just as the Privacy Act says.”

So this year, the Obama White House comes back in the same case and asks Lamberth to grant a motion for summary dismissal, arguing that “the White House is not an agency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and it necessarily follows that it is not an agency subject to the Privacy Act.”

Amazing, but true. This exchange is the latest installment in one of the longest-running courtroom dramas from the Clinton administration,Alexander v. Federal Bureau of Investigation, aka "Filegate." Remember that one, when 400 FBI highly sensitive background investigative files on Republican luminaries mysteriously turned up in the Clinton White House.

Just "a bureaucratic miscue," explained President Bill Clinton at the time.

One of those luminaries sued for invasion of privacy, and with the active participation of Judicial Watch, the case has remained alive for all these years since it was first filed in 1996. If Judicial Watch wins this case, the White House and the FBI could then be held liable for damages for viol...

13 new tax hikes found in 1,990 page House Obamacare text

By: Mark Tapscott
10/29/09 5:34 PM

Here's the list of tax hikes included in H.R. 3962, the revised House version of Obamacare, otherwise known as "The Affordable Health Care for America Act." The text of this bill runs to 1,990 pages, all of which can be read here in pdf format. The page number references to each of the tax hikes noted below correspond to those in the pdf.

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently un...