By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 18th at 04:23 PM  | 

Last November, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R) took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal in an effort to publicly repudiate the ongoing talk about states increasing personal and national debt by accepting multi-billion dollar bailouts from Washington. In an op-ed titled “Don’t Bail Out My State,” Sanford wrote: I find myself in a lonely position. While many states and local governments are | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 18th at 03:09 PM  | 

“We, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race,” said average American Eric Holder, Attorney General for the Obama administration, in a speech to Justice Department employees earlier today. Holder, whose speech was meant to honor Black History Month, went on to call America “a nation of cowards” which “never been at ease with…frank conversations about the racial matters that | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 18th at 12:50 PM  | 

Late yesterday, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (Democrat) succumbed to pressure and gave up on her attempt to hold state employee paychecks and taxpayer overpayment refunds hostage for $225,000,000.00 in ransom. Sebelius’s overspending on unnecessary programs, and unwillingness to heed warnings last year from the Republican-led state legislature that a failure to trim budgetary fat would lead to a 2009 crisis, put Kansas’ state government in | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 18th at 11:27 AM  | 

Only twelve Senators voted against TARP, the Big 3 auto bailout, and the Porkulus boondoggle. Who were they? (Answer below the fold) Speaking of which, does anybody else out there have some good trivia? Let’s make this an open thread, with a slight emphasis on brain-expanding question-and-answer in the comments. My personal favorite subject is ancient history

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 17th at 12:00 PM  | 

Faced with a shortage of funds this year and unwilling to cut the bloated state budget, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is planning to welsh on the state’s debt to taxpayers who overpaid in 2008 and to put a hold on paychecks owed to state employees until the Republican-controlled state legislature allows her to break state law by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from already  | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 17th at 08:25 AM  | 

On Iran, that is: Sen. Benjamin Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland, says Obama agrees with George W. Bush: “Iran’s got to stop financing terrorist activity. Iran’s got to give up its desire to become a nuclear weapons power. Its as clear as that.” But what does Ben Cardin (D-MD) really know, anyway? After all, this is the guy who claimed the Patriot Act of 2001 | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 16th at 03:35 PM  | 

For years now, Iran has been training and equipping militants and terrorists in Iraq, despite the abject refusal of Western press to report on it and the U.S. and other governments to do anything about it. Now, Iran is providing “small-level” assistance to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, as well, according to General David Petraeus, commanding general of United States Central Command (CentCom). Despite being on | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 16th at 12:18 PM  | 

It doesn’t get much simpler or more clear-cut than this. During his campaign, President Obama promised that he “will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.” The so-called “stimulus” bill was passed by the Senate just before midnight on Friday night (after Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, arrived on | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 15th at 06:46 PM  | 

Administration officials confirmed late last night that the U.S. will assist the United Nations in planning and executing the fourth edition of the UNESCO-sponsored “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” President Obama has yet to announce whether or not the U.S. will attend the conference, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland this year. Senior administration officials, including UN ambassador Susan Rice | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 14th at 04:29 PM  | 

A post-Porkulus video from the Whip’s office: Kudos once again to the House GOP, which held the line in unanimity not once, but twice, against the Democrats’ Porkulus charge. Senator McConnell, the day you rein in Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe and lead your caucus in holding the line on a transformational piece of legislation like this, we might have space for a | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 14th at 10:03 AM  | 

What do Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe have in common? Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe are, together, the reason we will be, come Monday (or Friday, if President Obama departs entirely from character and keeps his word for once), $787,000,000,000.00 further in debt, with nothing but ultra-funded pet pork projects in heavily Democratic districts to show for it. Bravo, Arlen Specter, | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 09:37 PM  | 

We’ve already seen House Democrats unanimously approve, and then completely ignore, a resolution calling for the $800 billion so-called “stimulus” bill to be made available in final form to the American public for 48 hours before a final vote was taken on it. The American people ended up getting no time, and Congress itself only got ten hours — from 11pm Thursday night, when the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 09:27 PM  | 

At some point this evening, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (D) will be the 60th and final vote in favor of the Porkulus. The vote is being held open while President Obama sends a private jet to pick him up in Ohio, where he has been attending his recently deceased mother’s viewing, and brings him back to cast a ballot for the $800 billion bill neither | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 04:20 PM  | 

While visiting Caterpillar headquarters in Peoria, IL, yesterday, President Obama instructed employees of the construction company to tell their representative, Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), to support his $800 billion spending package. On the floor of the House this morning, Schock announced that not one single employee came up to him after Obama’s speech — and that, contrary to the president’s claims, every one of the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 04:03 PM  | 

Watch him on the House floor early this afternoon stating the obvious: that not one single member of the House of Representatives had read the 1,000-page, $800,000,000,000.00 borrow-and-spend bill they were about to vote on, and that the unanimously-passed instruction that Americans receive 48 hours to read the bill before its passage had been knowingly — and dishonestly — scrapped. Throwing the bill onto the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 10:29 AM  | 

According to the Drudge Report: Rep. John Culberson, TX claims the “stimulus” bill must be urgently voted on today — because Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leaving at 6:00 PM for an 8 day trip to Europe! … Pelosi is hoping to lead a delegation to Europe; there’s a meeting with the Pope and an award from an Italian legislative group. Who cares if nobody has | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 10:15 AM  | 

Here’s a nice little tidbit: the so-called “stimulus” bill includes a provision that allows state legislatures (like, perhaps, South Carolina’s) to override their Governors’ (like, perhaps, Mark Sanford, R-SC) decision not to accept borrowed bailout funds, simply by passing a concurrent resolution. In other words, state legislatures can override the GOP Governors out there who have kept their respective spines and integrity intact, and force | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 13th at 09:46 AM  | 

Below, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) takes us on a brief tour of the 1,073 page “stimulus” package, which was released last night at 11:00pm (after K Street had gotten good and done with it), and on which floor action was to commence at 9am today. One Hill staffer emailed me that he had to “re-load the printer twice” with paper in order to print the | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 12th at 07:31 PM  | 

Yesterday, I posted the following: Given his penchant for “misremembering” conversations (and for apparently misreading people entirely despite years of close contact — see Exhibit A, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for an example), we can’t be sure that President Obama is even accurately recounting what Caterpillar CEO James Owens said to him in their conversation. However, here‘s what he seems to think went on: President Barack | Read More »

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 12th at 06:20 PM  | 

Note: Ron Robinson noted this in the diaries. Ah, change we can believe in: We’re receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can’t get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What’s more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists. E-mails one key Democratic staffer: “K Street has | Read More »