Harrycare in trouble: Dems bail, Lieberman supports filibuster

By Michelle Malkin  •  October 27, 2009 01:56 PM

FNC’s Major Garrett tweets that Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh is “uncommitted” on Harry Reid’s “public option” plan announced yesterday.

Politico’s Manju Ranu reports that Joe Lieberman supports a GOP filibuster:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.

Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid’s has said the Senate bill will.

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”

Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line.”

His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.

Who will Reid blame now?

House Speaker Pelosi Issued Unprecedented Demands for Military Aircraft and Wasted Taxpayer Resources with Last Minute Cancellations

Requests for Military Travel

House Speaker Issued Unprecedented Demands for Military Aircraft and Wasted Taxpayer Resources with Last Minute Cancellations

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC — March 10, 2009

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s multiple requests for military air travel. The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes. The following are a few highlights from the documents, which are linked in full below:

• In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi’s team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?…[T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case’…” The email also notes that Pelosi’s office had, “a history of canceling many of their past requests.”
• One DOD official complained about the “hidden costs” associated with the speaker’s last minute changes and cancellations. “We have…folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc.”
• The documents include a discussion of House Ethics rules and Defense Department policies as they apply to the speaker’s requests for staff, spouses and extended family to accompany her on military aircraft. In May 2008, for example, Pelosi requested that her husband join her on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) into Iraq. The DOD explained to Pelosi that the agency has a written policy prohibiting spouses from joining CODEL’s into combat zones.
• Documents obtained from the U.S. Army include correspondence from Speaker Pelosi’s office requesting an Army escort and three military planes to transport Pelosi and other members of Congress to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral services of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Pelosi noted in her letter of August 22, 2008, that such a request, labeled “Operation Tribute” was an “exception to standard policy.”
• The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. “It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable…The speaker will want to know where the planes are…” wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset [s]peaker.”
• During another email exchange DOD staff advised Kay King that one Pelosi military aircraft request could not be met because of “crew rest requirements” and offered to help secure commercial travel. Kay King responded: “We appreciate the efforts to help the codel [sic] fly commercially but you know the problem that creates with spouses. If we can find another way to assist with military assets, we would like to do that.”

Speaker Pelosi came under fire in 2007 for requesting a 42-seat Air Force carrier to ferry the Speaker and her staff back and forth between San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was allowed access to a 12-seat commuter jet for security reasons after the events of 9/11.

“Taken together, these documents show that Speaker Pelosi treats the Air Force like her personal airline,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Not only does Speaker Pelosi issue unreasonable requests for military travel, but her office seems unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money with last minute cancellations and other demands.”

Documents

• Pelosi staff emails
• Pelosi staff emails
• Pelosi staff emails
• Pelosi authorization letters
• DOD FOIA response letter
• Documents regarding travel on military aircraft in the custody of the US Air Force
• US Air Force Weekly Travel Reports
• Pelosi authorization letters and CODEL participants lists from the US Army
• Pelosi authorization letters and CODEL and Tribute documents from the US Navy
• DOD documents regarding former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s use of military aircraft
• Comparison of Pelosi and Hastert flights

Democrats suffering ‘Obama Hangover’

October 27th, 2009

Los Angeles Times

Democrats like Deeds are running from Obama’s record

As he is quick to point out, President Obama is presiding over two wars, a sour economy, and an epic fight to rebuild the nation’s health care system.

Now he has tacked on state and local political races. With an off-year election fast approaching, Obama is stepping up his commitment to Democratic candidates in hopes that an infusion of campaign charisma might pump up turnout.

What the party is finding, though, is that the electricity of 2008 is tough to recapture. Some Democratic candidates running for local office around the country call the phenomenon the “Obama Hangover.’’ It is proving tougher to recruit volunteers and get people to vote.

“It’s like the morning after the party,’’ said Michael McGann, a Democrat running for clerk of courts in the Philadelphia suburbs. “The party was wonderful and exciting. The day after it’s like, ‘Gee, I don’t want to do that again for a while.’ ’’

Obama is trying to inspire voters with the “fired up; ready to go’’ fervor that made last year’s race riveting political theater.

Read More:

Obama’s embarrassment

October 27th, 2009

By MICHAEL BARONE, New York Post

Obama is too embarrassed to go to Berlin to celebrate the fall of the wall

PRESIDENT Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenha gen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympic Games for Chicago, apparently can’t find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can’t be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent America ably in Berlin.

Still, it seemed an odd decision to me — until I went back and got the speech that candidate Obama delivered on July 24, 2008, to a crowd of 200,000 in the Tiergarten in Berlin. As I reread the text, it struck me that there would be an embarrassing contrast between what Obama said in Berlin 15 months ago and many policies he has been pursuing as president.

Some conservatives were irritated that Obama introduced himself at the Tiergarten as “a fellow citizen of the world.” But before that, he declared himself “a proud citizen of the United States,” and of his 46 paragraphs only one was devoted to an apology for America’s misdeeds, “our share of mistakes,” “times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.” Quite a contrast here from the more profuse apologies he has made abroad this year.

Obama, in seven stirring paragraphs, also recounted America’s airlift of food and fuel to Berlin when the Soviets cut off land access in 1948. True, at one point he suggested that the Berlin Wall came down because “there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.” But he also spoke of “the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate,” evidence of Soviet oppression.

Read More:

The whiff of fascism becomes a stench

Clarice Feldman

Herb Dennenberg, once Pennsylvania’s Commissioner of Insurance and a Professor at the Wharton School, describes in The Bulletin, how the whiff of fascism in this Administration is turning into the stench of fascism. He starts with a reminder of the many ways Obama has acted to stifle opposition views and manipulate public opinion and concludes: I’ve emphasized one aspect of fascism — its objective of the forcible suppression of opposition. But it also qualifies under the other elements, including the suppression of private enterprise and putting it under centralized government control. That is one hallmark of the Obama Administration, it expands government, contracts the private sector and places new and unprecedented power in the hands of a centralized, expanding government bureaucracy. This government expansion also is a restriction of our freedom because as the government gets bigger, the individual citizen gets smaller. Consider some of the belief systems of his Czars. Ron Bloom, the manufacturing czar thinks the “free market is nonsense.” He also agrees with Chinese tyrant Mao Tse Tung that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. Anita Dunn, a communications director, also a big fan of Mao, expresses those views even when speaking to young students. And there is Mark Lloyd, Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC, who views tyrant Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as his model. The White House is brimming with socialists, communists, radicals and hate-America types. The only ideology not found there is one that respects American values and believes in American exceptionalism. h/t:Lucianne.com

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