Several state legislators have reached out to me recently with questions about the nature of severability and Obamacare. Since some Redstaters seem to have questions as well, I thought I’d explain a bit about what this means. Most laws of large size and scope have something called a “severability clause” attached to them. Essentially, this means that if one part of a piece of large | Read More »
The White House’s announcement today that they will bypass the nomination process of the United States Senate to recess appoint Donald Berwick as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is an act of unconscionable hubris. The White House claims this act is in response to “Washington game-playing”, accusing Republicans of planning to “stall the nomination” as long as possible. This is | Read More »
Rob Long uses two datapoints — the stunning decline of Barack Obama’s popularity, and the rise of Hillary Clinton’s — as the basis for a timeline of the unthinkable: could Hillary Clinton challenge Obama in 2012? There’s certainly space for a McGovernesque movement here — I think the important datapoint here is the activist left’s fundamental rejection by the White House, borne out in the | Read More »
Tonight, President Obama will speak to the country from the Oval Office for the first time in an effort to recover from his disastrous response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The president will try to push back against the perception among the American people that he and his administration don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to the spill—a | Read More »
“Any health care funding plan that is just equitable civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.” – Donald Berwick President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick as the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a gathering far less attention than a certain | Read More »
So what should we expect tomorrow morning on the Senate floor? Peter Fotos, The Heartland Institute’s director of government relations, did a pre-Christmas Eve interview with me hashing out where we stand. Give it a listen here. One thing worth noting that we don’t discuss in the podcast is President Obama’s rather incredible series of interviews this week. He has taken to friendly outlets — | Read More »
This content requires the most recent version of the Adobe Flash Player. Get this version below:Get Flash On its face, the invitation of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony is a brilliant and savvy political move. During the 2008 campaign, much was made of then-candidate Obama’s ability to potentially crack the longtime Republican hold on evangelical Christians. And while | Read More »
This content requires the most recent version of the Adobe Flash Player. Get this version below:Get Flash If you’re a football fan, you know all about scripted plays – the method behind those precision-based offenses that can come out onto the field running a prepared order of plays, no huddle, picking up yards with ease. If they’re successful, they can set the tone for the | Read More »
One of the few moments in the debate between Republican Joe Biden and Democrat Sarah Palin (follow the link) when I raised my eyebrow and said, “That sounds off” from either side – on the whole, there were only a few exaggerations during the evening – came when Joe Biden mentioned the the idea that both he and Obama had warned against the Bush administration’s | Read More »
Plenty of late-breaking thoughts on the first debate around the sphere today, including my own minor submissions. But the one that’s worth your time to read is Pete Wehner’s thought process on the overall challenges the McCain campaign faces – here’s his third point, but you should read it all over at Commentary: What helps a campaign immeasurably is when the charge it makes seems | Read More »
I’m no fan of Congressman Roy Blunt, but purposefully lying about what any Congressman says is pretty low, especially when it’s of the “let’s cut out the first four words and last eight words of this television quote to make it seem like he’s saying the opposite of what he just said” variety. Which happens to be what the Obama campaign just did: REP. ROY | Read More »
Note: Head on over to FRCAction to view streaming video of this weekend’s conference. You want proof about how successful the Sarah Palin pick has been in coalescing and motivating the socially conservative base of the GOP? Look no further than the subdued schedule today at the FRCAction Values Voter conference in Washington, DC. A year ago, the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit propelled | Read More »
One of the most pointed accusations Sarah Palin lodged against Barack Obama was the fact that, despite not authoring a single significant piece of legislation, he’s found the time to write two memoirs. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in | Read More »
“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – [my campaign has] a budget of about three times that just for the month.” “This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the | Read More »
Jake Tapper, hardest working man in the 08 cycle, continues his coverage of the ever declining mental faculties of Joe Biden, Senator. For all the coverage given the family affairs of Governor Sarah Palin, precious little has been given to the rambling, bizarre statements of Smilin’ Joe Biden since his convention speech. And there’s so much good stuff here, too! Just the other day in | Read More »
Well, that’s one way to rebut a rumor. The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child. Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant | Read More »
Jeff Emanuel has a full rundown of Obama’s attempt to photoshop himself into the West Wing, and it struck me as I was reading it: I wonder if the set designer in question has ever been to the White House? The funny thing about the cinematic depiction of the White House and the West Wing is that it’s always so grand and impressive. In reality, | Read More »
The New York Post reports: But the set is designed to evoke the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, not the Acropolis, said staging supervisor Bobby Allen, a Spears set vet. “We’ve done Britney’s sets and a whole bunch of rock shows, but this was far more elaborate and complicated and we had to do it in far less time,” said Allen, of RDA Entertainment. | Read More »
It’s an odd thing to watch the Democratic Convention in Denver. The messages just aren’t consistent – there’s an off-kilter feel to the whole thing. Just take Mark Warner’s remarks last night for example. Here’s a guy who’s viewed as the future of the party, whose withdrawal before the presidential stakes was shocking to a lot of people, and who – if Barack Obama loses | Read More »
In the history of the modern televised convention, has any major candidate lost significant polling ground in the week prior to the convention? It’s shocking to me that Obama, headed into what should be a glorious public display of support and a great coming together of the Clinton-Obama horde, seems to have dropped 7-8 points in national polling in just the past ten days. I | Read More »
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