MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton tried to minimize the fallout that is already hitting the ground inside the Beltway:

“It was just a discussion. We’re not aware of anything specific.”

Why does the Left always preface its defense of the indefensible with “It was just…?” “It was just about sex.” “It was just talk.” “It was just a fetus.”

We all know the seething hatred liberals still harbor for Reagan, twenty years after he left the White House and five years after his death. This, despite the fact that he rebuilt our nation’s military, gave Americans reason to feel good about their country’s future again and helped to help free millions of Eastern Europeans from communist oppression, all after the misery of the Carter years.

Can they be so partisan and petty to want to rewrite history after an airport had already been renamed in our 40th president’s honor?

I know, I know. Rhetorical question.

- JP

What say you, Judge Sotomayor?

Sen. Cornyn’s Daily Question for Judge Sotomayor
Question 15: Thursday, July 2, 2009

Is the Constitution color-blind?

Explanation: In his famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), Justice Harlan wrote that “‘our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.” This powerful concept reflects the essence of the Constitution’s guarantee of Equal Protection of the laws: The Government should not treat people differently on account of race.

Judge Sotomayor’s record raises the question of whether she agrees with this aspiration. First, Judge Sotomayor has suggested that there may be “inherent physiological . . . differences” among individuals of different races and ethnicities. She has also suggested that the vision of colorblindness is in “perpetual tension” with the value of ethnic diversity. See Sonia Sotomayor, A Latina Judge’s Voice, 13 Berkeley La Raza L.J. 87 (2002). Second, Judge Sotomayor joined the opinion blocking the New Haven firefighters’ lawsuit in Ricci v. DeStefano – an opinion that the Supreme Court reversed just this week on the ground that New Haven’s conduct was “antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race.”

I think Justice Harlan was right: The Constitution is color-blind. In the upcoming hearings, I hope Judge Sotomayor will explain whether she agrees with Justice Harlan or whether she has a different view of the Constitution.

See Senator Cornyn’s previous 14 questions for Judge Sotomayor here.

With that in mind, it makes sense that they’ll do their best to destroy the reputation of anyone who points out what they’re up to, or who points out how expensive this will be. As a result, when the CBO released its estimate of the cost of the revised HELP Committee plan, the gang at ThinkProgress immediately attacked Republicans for allegedly responding to the plan before they had all the facts:

A couple of weeks ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary score of the health care legislation under consideration in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The bill was estimated to cost $1 trillion over 10 years, while reducing the number of uninsured by “only” one-third. As many informed bloggers noted at the time, the cost estimate was incomplete because the legislation that the CBO reviewed did not contain language about a public health insurance plan or an employer mandate.

Nevertheless, Republicans seized on the opportunity to engage in merciless political attacks, citing the incomplete CBO score as proof that health care reform is not worth doing…

In other words, the addition of the public plan dramatically reduced the overall cost of the bill and ensured coverage of almost all Americans. So what excuses will McCain, Boehner, Graham, and other Republicans offer now? Their attacks were not only found to be baseless, but their concerns about the costs and coverage have also been addressed.

What excuses will McCain, Boehner, Graham, and others offer? Probably that the plan will actually cost well over $1 trillion - as ThinkProgress noted in an update to this post!

UPDATE Read CBO’s letter here. Jonathan Cohn explains why the final cost of the bill will likely be somewhere between $1-1.3 trillion.

Cohn’s argument - which ThinkProgress apparently endorses - is that it might be accurate to say that the bill costs $600 billion and leaves more than 30 million uninsured. But Cohn notes that Senate rules prevent the HELP bill from including a Medicaid expansion that would cover about 20 million more, and raise the total cost to between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion. That section of the bill will be added before the Senate votes. Once that is done, the Senate Democrat bill will leave maybe 15 million or so without coverage, at a total cost of more than 1 trillion.

I wonder if ThinkProgress wants to take another stab at figuring out just who jumped the gun.

Note: If you’re interested in this topic, you really need to be reading Philip Klein at the American Spectator, and/or following him on Twitter. Klein also points out that all of these estimates rely not on actual CBO data, but on data supplied by the CBO, as edited and presented by Senators Dodd and Kennedy. As long as you trust their candor and impartiality, you’ll trust this data.

Despite what one thinks of her potential benefit or damage to the rule of law in the United States, it seems that Ms. Sotomayor’s journey to the Supreme Court bench has hit a couple of speed bumps.  First it was her borderline-racist statements implying that a “wise Latina” judge would reach better conclusions than a “white male who hasn’t lived that life,” and the fact that her comments were not an isolated incident, contrary to the spin of the Obama administration.  That particular episode seemed to be defused by th administration, as it seems to (at the time) have had little impact on her popularity.  But it appears the latest, more significant courtroom events have had an impact on the public’s perception of Ms. Sotomayor.

This week the Supreme Court’s Ricci v. DeStefano decision directly reversed one of Sotomayor’s rulings. The court ruled 5-4 that the firefighters in question were discriminated against, in contradiction with Sotomayor’s opinion.  And although the decision was 5-4, all nine SCOTUS justices disagreed with her disposition on the case.  But here’s the key - the Obama lapdog media heavily covered the story and made it crystal clear that it was her ruling that was overridden, a fact that I suppose was undeniable, thus making it pretty much mandatory that they report it.  This apparently has had a discernible impact on her public perception.  The Rasmussen polling firm found that “37% now believe Sotomayor should be confirmed while 39% disagree.”  This reflects a twelve-point decline in the public support for Sotomayor from before the Supreme Court ruling.  Prior to the Ricci ruling, there was already debate about Sotomayor’s reversal rate at the Supreme Court level.  One could argue that the drop in popularity is, in part, a delayed reaction to the accumulation of information that has been made public since her nomination, combined with the Court’s ruling.

On Wednesday, on his blog, William Jacobson pointed out how a month ago the polling information was important in pointing out how “Obama apparently found the American political center in appointing her” … and he asks “does that mean the polls still are relevant when the polls are not so good?”  Heh…good question, sir.

So now does that mean that this polling result indicates that Obama should have second thoughts about his support for Sotomayor?   Her ruling on the Ricci case jives with her previous racially-tinged comments and brings cause for concern about how she will continue her affirmative action activism from the bench.

There are 6,000 precinct captain positions for the Republican Party in Maricopa County. Of those, only 2,000 or filled. In other words, one-third of the precinct captain positions are filled. More bluntly, three-tenths of one percent of the registered Republicans in Maricopa County, AZ are actively engaged in their party.

Back in February, 200 people showed up at a tea party protest in Maricopa County. Assume, if you will, that half are not actively involved in the local Republican Party. That makes 100 people who were so hacked off at out of control government that they showed up at noon on a weekday to protest.

If those 100 people each became a precinct captain, they would have enough impact to make significant changes in the Maricopa County Republican Party. Why? Because of the 2000 named captains, not all are actively engaged. And of those who are, not all can show up at a meeting because of schedule conflicts.

If the 100 stand strong, they can approve the larger leadership of Maricopa County.

Just 100 people.

Yes, let’s remember that 300 Spartans held off the Persian Army. Small numbers compared to the thousands of well armed Persians (sorry, Pej).

Small numbers working well together can be powerful numbers. It just takes some dedication.

Because of ballot access laws in the several states, it is virtually impossible to organize and operate a third party. Look at the Libertarians. They have been around for years and have zero nationally elected politicians and very, very few at the local level. Same with the Greens. And remember 1992? The Reform Party stormed onto the scene only to rain out.

If we are to fundamentally change this country, we will do so through the existing party apparatus. And it is damn easy if you work at it with some friends.

Think about the numbers. Take, as another example, Bibb County, Georgia, where I live. If you show up at a precinct meeting, you are probably going to become precinct captain because no one shows up. Then you have a good chance of becoming Area Captain because, again, few show up.

If you do it with your friends, pretty soon you are bringing your delegates to the county convention and picking your county chairman who then gets to have a say at the state level. Better yet, if you coordinate with like minded members of the RedState Army in other parts of your state, pretty soon you’ll control your state party.

Then you have real power.

Ever hear of the “Butterfly effect“? To quote wikipedia, “Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.” You know it better as a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan causes a storm in California.

Put in more relevant context — you showing up at your county Republican Party meeting causes a wholesale, long term readjustment in the Republican Party.

Friends, we can’t spend all day on RedState bitching and moaning about the state of our country and the state of the GOP. You don’t have to invest your money, just your time and talent.

We need a lot less preaching and a whole lot more doing. The power of small numbers of people willing to show up at a political party meeting gets amplified over time. If you are willing, you and your like minded friends can take over and change the Republican Party.

At the RedState Gathering on August 1st, we’re going to spend an hour talking about this topic and how to take our online activities offline to make a real difference.

For weeks leading to his arrest, Zelaya flouted the constitutional authority of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court, and claimed for himself extra-constitutional control of his nation’s military and political institutions. Every institution from the Electoral Tribunal to the Supreme Court ruled that his actions were unjustified and illegal. Zelaya’s open defiance of democratic norms has set Honduras on a path toward violence, instability, and tyranny.

I am hopeful that as President Obama grows in office, he will eventually turn away from despots like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, and Zelaya, and give the United States’ full-throated support to the people of any country who are fighting for the same values we cherish and defend in America. The people fighting for freedom around the world, in Iran and Honduras, should never have to wonder which side America will choose between freedom and tyranny.

President Obama’s call for the reinstatement of Zelaya is a slap in the face to the people of Honduras. And the resolution written by the Organization of American States tramples over the hopes and dreams of a free and democratic people.

The rule of law is working in Honduras. President Obama should not undermine the democratic institutions that guarantee freedom by forcing an illegitimate President back into power.

This is not an ideal transition, but Hondurans are adhering to their constitution. The United States should support the Honduran people and their legitimate leaders in their brave and heroic stand for freedom and the rule of law.

Job losses accelerated last month to 467,000, “an unexpectedly large amount.”

The unemployment rate rose to 9.5%, the highest level since August 1983.

According to the Associated Press, unemployment is actually much worse:

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.5 percent in June, the highest on records dating to 1994.

Even before the June unemployment numbers were announced, the Los Angeles Times reported many of the jobs are gone forever.

Also, instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes: General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, for example, closed hundreds of dealerships. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. cut tens of thousands of positions.

It didn’t have to be like this. Obama’s $787-billion so-stimulus plan should have been more about creating jobs, rather than a vehicle to fund “every liberal, entitlement cause under the sun.”

As James Pethokoukis wrote, Obama’s stimulus boondoggle was a ruse. Some two-thirds of the Obama stimulus is not intended to be spent until after 2009. Obviously, immediate “stimulus” was not the primary intent of Obama’s stimulus. If it had been, the plan would have been front-loaded. The main goal of the Obama stimulus was to make a down payment on Obama’s health care, energy and education agenda.

Maybe now that even Obama admits unemployment will break 10 percent, the Obama stimulus ruse will be seen for the great deception it was.

The sharp decline in Gallup’s Index of Investor Optimism in June — particularly the plunge in expectations for the economy — suggests that investors may be losing some of their hopes for an immediate improvement in the U.S. economy later this year. This is consistent with the leveling off of consumers’ mood over the past few weeks and the drop in the consumer sentiment index on Tuesday.

Gallup’s job-market and consumer spending measures suggest that the reality on Main Street has not improved substantially over the past couple of months. Perhaps the average investor and the American consumer see the fragile nature of the current U.S. economy more clearly than do those on Wall Street.

As Nouriel Roubini says:

Job report suggests that green shoots are yellow weeds turning into brown manure. Jobs & hours & wage losses are pushing down labor income

How do you like the ’stimulus’ so far?

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands….

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data…

The Journal analysis, based on information published in the Congressional Record, also shows that taxpayer-funded travel is a big and growing perk for lawmakers and their families. Some members of Congress have complained in recent months about chief executives of bailed-out banks, insurance companies and car makers who sponsored corporate trips to resorts or used corporate jets for their own travel.

Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free…

Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.

On the first day, lawmakers toured a breeding center for giant tortoise and land iguanas before dining with scientists, according to an itinerary for the trip. The next morning, lawmakers headed to the Galápagos National Park while their family members had the option of hiking, swimming or shopping. That afternoon, the group boarded a boat to visit a sea-lion colony and search for white-tip sharks.

When lobbyist-funded vacations were banned, the intent was not to replace them with taxpayer-funded ones. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ought to get called on the carpet to explain why Congress suddenly views the Defense Department and State Department as travel agencies who book and pay for lawmakers’ family vacations.

And perhaps the next time a panel of corporate executives gets called on the carpet to answer questions about overly generous bonuses, they ought to ask the Congressional Star Chamber to answer the same questions first.

Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

The payroll decline was more than forecast and followed a 322,000 drop in May, according to Labor Department figures released today in Washington. The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent.

Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will limit any recovery.

Most media outlets have started engaging in pro-Obama “it’s not that bad” spin. But this is a harsh reality. Unemployment will keep going up. Wages will stagnate. The Obama stimulus plan is not working.

Sadly, we all knew that before the stimulus passed Congress. But it still passed and now we’ve added trillions of dollars to the deficit for nothing.

For the next 15 days we’ll roll out the agenda, revealing a bit more each day.

You can still register and stay at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta in Buckhead for a super low price.

Registration will be cut of on July 15, 2009.

Go here to register and get the special link to reserve your hotel room.

6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.: Cocktail Reception.

7:00 p.m.: Special Presentation of John Ziegler’s Media Malpractice with popcorn, of course.

Join Erick and the RedState contributors at the hotel bar after the movie.

More of the agenda tomorrow.

Register now.

For $25,000 to $250,000, the Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

The offer—which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters—is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

This is disgusting, but not surprising. The media has become increasingly ideologically tilted in the past few years with the New York Times editorial page editors increasingly controlling the direction and slant of front page news stories.

Now the Washington Post is going to make you pay to play. You want access to reporters to cover your side of the story? Cough up the cash. More damning, the Obama administration appears to be playing along.

Do you think they would if the Washington Post stopped giving the administration favorable coverage? Probably not.

The upside, of course, is that conservatives can now compete on a more level playing field. Having large donors and corporations on our side, we can buy off the Washington Post it would seem. And we can get access to Obama administration officials to chew them out before the Washington Post ignores us, apologizes for us showing up, and kowtows to Barry O’s editorial wishes anyway.

And the mainstream media wonders why it keeps losing money.

They would also be required to pick up an as yet undetermined percentage of the insurance plans for part-time employees, as well. This alone will insure that part-time jobs across the nation are terminated for the destructive cost involved in having them.

Or, conversely, many full-time jobs will be eliminated if the costs of insurance is so steep and that of part-timers less so. Either way, jobs will be lost because of these new, never before seen expenses.

According to the draft legislation in the House, businesses would be required to pay the federal government a fine of 8 percent of their payroll if they do not offer a basic insurance package to their employees. The House bill has yet to determine how large a small business must be before they are forced into this requirement.

Let’s think about what this means, though. This new mandatory expenditure will greatly drive up the costs of business for small and medium sized businesses and force many of them to close up shop. They will not be able to compete with the larger corporations that will have the resources to offer insurance plans even for part-time workers.

This means the permanent elimination of mom-and-pop business nationwide and the proliferation of large, corporate held shops of all sorts. From the corner market and small book store to the local garage and sandwich shop, small businesses will be hounded out of business by overweening government mandates. This will naturally open the business to even more national chains of all sorts.

It seems to me that the self-same people that claim they want nationalized healthcare are the same sort that decry the giants like WalMart. But here they are pushing an idea that will give them more WalMats from sea to shining sea!

Seems a bit illogical of them, doesn’t it?

Energy policy is going to loom rather large, running up the 2010 elections; should KBH resign her seat to run for Governor, it would be helpful to have this guy in there.  Heck, I wouldn’t mind having him in there now.

Moe Lane

PS: He’ll be at the RS Gathering.

Full disclosure: I am in regular contact with the Michael Williams campaign, and I endorse him as a replacement to Senator Hutchison, should she resign her Senate seat.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The poll is a catalog of bad news for Corzine.  Here are the lowlights:

• Just one in five voters (21%) say New Jersey is on the right track.
• Among all voters, 54% say their view of Corzine is unfavorable, while 31% say their view is favorable.
• Only two-thirds of Democratic voters (66%) support Corzine, while one in five (20%) say they prefer Christie.
• In contrast to Obama’s 61%-29% approval rating, Corzine’s approval stands at 36%-49%.
• Asked which candidate is better described as “honest, trustworthy,” Christie comes out ahead by 33%-24%.
• Asked which candidate better “understands the concerns of the average person,” Christie wins 40%-28%.

All of this bad news for Corzine comes in a poll in which Christie has his worst showing since April.

It also comes after Corzine has been relentlessly attacking Christie on his strength, his integrity, by alleging Christie engaged in unethical practices as U.S Attorney for Newark.  Those attacks have not moved Christie’s numbers very much, and they have failed to bring Corzine anywhere near comfortable territory for an incumbent.

His high negatives, low polling numbers, and voters’ lack of confidence in his leadership all point to a difficult summer for Corzine as he tries to hold on to his office.  If Christie can avoid being labeled as an acolyte of former President George W. Bush, who appointed him as U.S. Attorney, and demonstrate to voters that he has the ability to govern, Christie will likely be sitting behind the governor’s desk come next January.

Yes, you. I don’t care if you work in a campaign, or just sell your services to campaigns. I’m talking to you.

We at RedState.com do enjoy asking our readers to give money to candidates. When a good Republican needs help, we want to find that help. And one thing you guys have already figured out is that nifty website widgets draw attention and can fire up donors.

So please, when you make those widgets, design them to be flexible. Help us help you by making them resizeable, or at least available in a variety of sizes. Don’t make them a javascript which embeds unknown HTML and runs unknown code on our site, possibly conflicting with other code or even our ads, forcing us to take down the widget and helping nobody.

A Flash widget is best. Make it as easy on us to embed your widgets as Youtube makes it to embed their videos. With those, we can paste in the code, change the size if we want, and ship it. The easier and more reliable that process is, and the more compatible your widget is, the more likely it is we’ll be able to drive money to your candidate or client.

And I’m sure it’s not just us who has these problems. So by helping us, you’ll help others make your widgets work, too.

Thank you.

h/t Drudge, Breitbart: http://www.breitbart.tv/white-house-reporters-grill-gibbs-over-selected-questions-for-obama/

See the attached video with CBS news and Helen Thomas taking Robert Gibbs to the woodshed on Obama and co.’s attempts to control the press. Thomas called this a pattern of planting questions as both denounced the process. Gibbs’ reaction was to belittle and ridicule the rep from CBS and Thomas both, which produced some interesting reactions from the surrounding press corps members. Hmm, maybe the usual m.o. of ridiculing those who criticize you and expecting that to end the issue for the press doesn’t work here Mr. Gibbs.

Much has been made of the “honeymoon” or “lovefest” between Obama and the press. This seems to be the part where the press’s eyes are finally opening a bit to who they got into bed with. Underneath their liberal instincts, the MSM is still on some level fiercely protective of their trust to protect the integrity and freedom of the press. Obama and co effectively here cheated on them and then blamed the victim. And belittling Helen Thomas, a veritable icon for what a White House press corps member would aspire to be is akin to the Obama and co. love team striking the beloved grandmother of the profession.

Perhaps the Obama team thinks other matters are more important now than their relationship with the press and that the press’s goodwill at this time doesn’t matter. Perhaps they think everything they read on Kos and agree amongst themselves and their supermajority is beyond question. They have become infatuated with their perceived mandate and believe they are not accountable to the press. Maybe, just maybe they are about to find out they are wrong.

“Rural broadband build-out” has become a new Golden Calf of Liberalism….

(Note that it says “a” not “the” - it’s just one of them, but a relatively new one….)

Default here to Open Thread….