The Political Class

Democrats campaign against Obama as Howard Dean and pollster Frank Luntz call his plan suicide.

U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln's latest ad:

 

Howard Dean had this to say about Obamacare:

Passing the healthcare proposals before Congress will "hang out to dry" every Democratic incumbent running for reelection this fall, Howard Dean said Thursday.

Dean, a physician by training who's a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said that Democrats in Congress -- and President Barack Obama -- would do themselves more harm than good by passing the current healthcare bill.

"The plan, as it comes from the Senate, hangs out every Democrat who's running for office to dry -- including the president, in 2012, because it makes him defend a plan that isn't in effect essentially yet," Dean said during an appearance on the liberal Bill Press Radio Show.

Dean, who has clashed publicly with the White House over the healthcare proposals favored by the administration, said that by passing the bills under consideration, Democrats would essentially be conceding defeat to Republicans.

Frank Luntz:

"You will See Democrats defeated in places that haven't elected Republicans since 1994"

 

If you think these thoughts, comments and commercials will alter Obama's plan you are way off base. Those elected democrats are nothing more than the Chinese hoards thrown at the allied troops in North Korea. Their leaders don't care how many are lost. It's just about the planned objective.

Pay attention class - Obama/Soros/ACORN/SEIU does not care. Their organizations will not only still be around but will have actually gained power through the bloodbath. Hint to Democrats - when Obama said "fundamentally changing America" he also meant changing the power structure in the DNC.

Obama and Pelosi prepare"Smaller" Health Care Proposal?

Full story here. But on the talk shows this weekend they told us that Pelosi had the votes to pass the current version?

UPDATE: White House and Democratic sources hasten to add late today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not mean to suggest the new plan would constitute a retreat from comprehensive health care reform.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the speaker was trying to say the new Obama health care proposal would take its policy cues from the Senate health bill and the ideas Obama posted online a week ago.

Elshami did not deny Pelosi's comments about a "much smaller" bill could fairly be interpreted as suggesting a step back from the Senate bill. Instead, Pelosi has come to regard the Senate bill itself as "much smaller" than the House bill, Elshami said.

White House officials also said Obama's not dramatically scaling back his proposal. No one was prepared to discuss a price tag, but it appears the ballpark 10-year figure of $1 trillion remains.

The revisions, it appears, will focus on adding GOP ideas on tort reform and selling insurance across state lines. White House Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes spoke extensively to Fox today about White House staff dealing with these two issues over the weekend (see post below).

Government Motors Recalls 1.3 Million Cars

Freep.com reported:

General Motors said tonight it will recall 1.3 million cars in North America to replace a power steering motor that could fail, following a federal probe launched in January.

GM said the recall would cover 2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalts, 2007-10 Pontiac G5s and similar models sold in Canada and Mexico.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Agency in January had opened a probe of 905,000 Cobalts from the 2005 through 2009 model year following 1,132 complaints of power steering failures that could make the cars hard to control. The complaints included reports of 14 crashes and one injury.

“After our in-depth investigation, we found that this is a condition that takes time to develop. It tends to occur in older models out of warranty,” said Jamie Hresko, GM vice president of quality, in a statement. “Recalling these vehicles is the right thing to do for our customers’ peace of mind.

Chavez loses power.

We have written about Chavez taking over the energy industry in his country. The results of course are rolling blackouts and brownouts. So this is priceless.

Now if you could create electric energy from pure leftist bullshit then the lights would never go off in his country.

 

Technorati Tags: chavez,electric power

George Soros at centre of hedge funds betting against crisis-hit euro?

From the Daily Mail. Full story here.

The man who broke the Bank of England in 1992 is said to be at the centre of a plot to cash in on the demise of the euro.

George Soros's investment business Soros Fund Management is among a group of heavyweight Wall Street hedge funds which have launched a series of massive bets against the euro.

The bets came after an all-star 'ideas dinner' in New York where some of the world's most powerful currency speculators argued that the euro will plunge to parity with the U.S. dollar.

The single currency has been under enormous pressure because of Greece's debt crisis, plus financial worries in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

The euro traded at $1.51 in December, but has since fallen to $1.34.

Traders are borrowing 20 times the size of their bet, boosting their potential gains and losses so that a euro move to parity with the U.S. dollar could represent a 'career' trade.

If investors put up $5million to make a $100million trade, a five per cent price move in the right direction doubles their initial investment.

Details of the secretive dinner emerged in the Wall Street Journal just days after Mr Soros warned in a newspaper article that the euro could 'fall apart' even if the European Union can agree a deal to shore up support for stricken Greece.

He said: 'Makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large a portion of euroland to be helped in this way.'

Mr Soros, who made more than $1billion when the pound was ejected from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday.

Those evil capitalists! Oh wait - he's a socialist.  

 

Technorati Tags: george soros,euro,hedge,currency trading

Princeton University hires communist Van Jones.

Van Jones does not have a degree in science nor economics but yet Princeton has hired him teach a seminar on those subjects. So much for a Princeton education. The Washington Post fawns over him in their coverage here.

He will have a one-year joint appointment as a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for African American Studies and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he will teach a seminar on environmental and economic policy.

Eddie Glaude Jr., who chairs the Center for African American Studies, said in an interview that Princeton was eager to welcome "the leading voice in the environmental justice movement," even if it sparks some debate on campus.

"All of this is designed to create a vibrant intellectual environment for the exchange of ideas," said Glaude, adding that he had just hosted a visit by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele this week. "Universities are places for diverse voices to engage in conversation, relatively free from sanction and constraint, and to examine divergent ideas."

Jones will commute to Princeton from Washington, where he lives with his family, and will spearhead a "green opportunity initiative" as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Jones said he would spend his time at the think tank examining how to push for "green enterprise zones" that would encourage clean technology development in poor urban and rural areas; for an aggressive national renewable energy standard; and for a "Home Star" program that would provide federal incentives to make homes more energy-efficient.

This guy is amazingly dumb. He wants to push for "green energy zones" in poor urban areas. Does he want the poor to pay MORE for electricity? Anyone that looks into the cost of solor power can tell you that unless the government gives you equipment for free then it costs more per kilowatt than the electric company charges. Oh wait - I forgot who we are talking about. Maybe that is what he wants.

 

Technorati Tags: van jones,princeton

Feinstein Seeks To Block Insurance Rate Increases Across The Nation

Full story here.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Friday that she plans to introduce legislation that would bar insurance companies from enacting health insurance premium rate increases that the Secretary of the Health and Human Services deems to be unjustified.

The bill would create a national Medical Insurance Rate Authority, which would be able to prevent such increases. Feinstein's announcement follows reports that Anthem Blue Cross had intended to jack up premiums for certain policyholders in California by as much as 39 percent.

A report published Thursday by HHS found that health insurance companies have requested dramatic premium hike increases over the past year in states beyond California -- 56 percent in Michigan, 24 percent in Connecticut and 23 percent in Maine.

Dear insurance company: If your costs are going up then tough - you can just go out of business.

Die die die,

Dianne Feinstein

 

Technorati Tags: Dianne Feinstein,insurance rates,congress

Photo Evidence: Michelle Obama keeps socialist books in The White House Library

Say Anything reports:

I arrived in Washington DC today to cover CPAC and since I was in town, and since CPAC doesn’t really get rolling until tomorrow, I tagged along with some Scott Hennen Show listeners on an extensive tour of the White House as part of the Common Sense Travel Club.  One of the stops on the tour (which was wonderful by the way) was the White House library.

Now, according out the person who guided our tour, the library is stock with books picked out by the First Lady, Michelle Obama.  Being a bit of a bibliophile, I started to peruse some of the books on the shelves…and lookie, lookie what I found (click for a larger view):

By itself, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  But in the context of Anita Dunn saying Chairman Mao is her favorite political philosopher?  In the context of the Mao ornament on the White House Christmas tree?

In the context of Obama’s economic policies?

Well, I’ll let you make your own call.

Da - is good reading for cold Soviet Washington winter.

 

Technorati Tags: obama,books,white house,socialist,michelle obama,library

Exposing The Story Behind Goldman's Record Profits - Part 2: The Role Of The Taxpayer.

Zerohedge.com is covering taxpayer money that ended up paying the bills at Goldman Sachs. Full story here.

Do Goldman employees deserve any compensation, much less the $16 billion paid out in salaries and bonuses in 2009 when one considers that the firm would not only have no money to pay, but would be defunct had the US taxpayer not stepped in and bailed them out? Should this money have been used to prepay the firm's $20 billion TLGP exposure instead, thus truly making the firm independent of taxpayer support, instead of just claims to Goldman's public funding independence? Will the wave of public anger, now that President Obama has suddenly and inexplicably done a 180 degree turn and sides with the middle-class instead of the financial executives, take Goldman down at the next black swan occurrence? Is Goldman hypocritical in claiming it did not need a bailout after it rushed to become a bank holding company? Is Goldman a doomed business model which relies solely on the existence of the "greater fool" to sell to? Will its monopolist and ever-larger dominant status result in an implosion in the financial industry (especially with the DOJ continuing to deny there is any anti-trust problem)? All these questions and more seek answers in the just released Part Two of the PBS series "Is taxpayer money behind profits at Goldman Sachs."

I'm just shocked that PBS ran this story.

Climategate Scientist admits No Global Warming in last 15 years.

 

The Daily Mail has the astonishing story. Link here.

• Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
• There has been no global warming since 1995
• Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Data: Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be'

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. 

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

Waiting to see if ABC, CBS or MSNBC picks up this story and reports any part to the American public.

 

Technorati Tags: phil jones,global warming,hockey stick graph,climategate