Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.
Among registered voters in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, 48 percent say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district if the midterm elections were today, 45 percent the Democrat. That’s a rare level of GOP support in nearly three decades of polls.
ABC News Poll: Doubts About Obama, Economy, Help Republican Rise – ABC News.
How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.
The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.
With absolute power, Team Obama grows stupid | Washington Examiner .
The vote on Craig Becker’s nomination — the first controversial vote since the Senate Democrats’ 60-seat majority shrank by one last week — highlighted the difficulty that Democrats will have trying to push union-friendly legislation through Congress.
Only 52 senators voted to cut off debate on the nomination, eight short of the number needed, and 33 were opposed. Many senators weren’t present because of an impending snowstorm.
Vote on Obama labor nominee spells trouble for unions | McClatchy.
Exaggeration and alarmism have been a chronic weakness of environmentalism since it became an organized movement in the 1960s. Every ecological problem was instantly transformed into a potential world-ending crisis, from the population bomb to the imminent resource depletion of the “limits to growth” fad of the 1970s to acid rain to ozone depletion, always with an overlay of moral condemnation of anyone who dissented from environmental correctness. With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot — a crisis sufficiently long-range that it could not be falsified and broad enough to justify massive political controls on resource use at a global level. Former Colorado senator Tim Wirth was unusually candid when he remarked in the early days of the climate campaign that “we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”
Climate Götterdämmerung – The Editors – National Review Online.
Stimulus Plan A didn’t work to create jobs or reduce unemployment. That was the $165 billion of tax rebates and money for states in February 2008.
Plan B flopped too.
On Jan. 19, in a closed-door meeting in Washington, D.C., two top executives from Toyota Motor Corp. gave American regulators surprising news.
Evidence had been mounting for years that Toyota cars could speed up suddenly, a factor suspected in crashes causing more than a dozen deaths. Toyota had blamed the problem on floor mats pinning the gas pedal. Now, the two Toyota men revealed they knew of a problem in its gas pedals.
The two top officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “were steamed,” according to a person who discussed the meeting with both sides. As the meeting closed, NHTSA chief David Strickland hinted at using the agency’s full authority, which can include subpoenas, fines, and even forcing auto makers to stop selling cars.
Delay in Response Led to Rift Between Toyota and U.S. Regulators – WSJ.com.
Over and over, Obama has sought to “extend a hand’’ to Iran’s rulers – taping a message of goodwill for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year; remaining silent after the rigged Iranian election in June; insisting that “dialogue between our two countries’’ would go on despite the government’s bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters – and each time the regime has pointedly declined to unclench its fist. Khamenei’s reply to Obama’s New Year greeting was to accuse the president of having “insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day.’’ He spurned Obama’s private overtures with public contempt; to negotiate with the United States, he said in November, would be “naïve and perverted.’’
Gentle diplomacy with Iran will not work – The Boston Globe.
Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn’t just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.
F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote “The Road to Serfdom” in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader’s Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies.
RealClearPolitics – Increasing Government Power Threatens Freedom.
It has been nearly a year and a half since Sarah Palin became a household name in America and the world over. Despite the fact she was on the bottom half of a losing ticket and hasn’t held public office in more than half a year three cable networks provided live coverage of her address to the Tea Party Convention last Saturday night in Nashville. Is there any other private American citizen who could command that sort of undivided attention?
If you’ve been paying attention to the left-wing punditry these days, you may be under the impression that the nation’s institutions are on the verge of collapse. Or that the rule of law is unraveling. Or maybe that this once-great nation is crippled and nearly beyond repair.
You know why? Because the 40 percent (or so) political minority has far too much influence in Washington. Don’t you know? This minority, egged on by a howling mob of nitwits, is holdingprogress hostage using its revolting politics and parliamentary trickery.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Pennsylvania voters finds Toomey out front 47% to 38%. Five percent (5%) prefer another candidate, and 10% are undecided.
A month ago, Toomey posted a 49% to 40% lead over Republican-turned-Democrat Specter.
Specter is running comfortably ahead of his Democratic Primary challenger, Congressman Joe Sestak. Toomey, for the second month in a row, leads Sestak 43% to 35%. Given that match-up, seven percent (7%) like some other candidate, and 15% are not sure whom they’ll vote for.
In December, Toomey led Specter by four and Sestak by six.
Thirty-five percent (35%) of U.S. voters now think Republicans and Democrats are so much alike that an entirely new political party is needed to represent the American people.
Nearly half (47%) of voters disagree and say a new party is not needed, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Another 19% are not sure.
Interestingly, the identical number of Republicans and Democrats – 32% – say a new party is needed. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Democratic voters and 49% of GOP voters disagree.
But voters not affiliated with either party have more mixed feelings. Forty percent (40%) think a new party is needed; 36% don’t.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds that in a three-way congressional contest with a Tea Party candidate on the ballot, the Democrat earns 36% support. The GOP candidate comes in second with 25% of the vote, while the Tea Party candidate picks up 17%. Twenty-three percent (23%) are undecided.
In early December, the Tea Party candidate came in second with 23% of the vote, while the Republican finished in third with 18%. The Democratic candidate attracted 36% of the vote in that contest, too.
Tea Party Candidate Now Comes In Last On Three-Way Generic Ballot – Rasmussen Reports™.
It was more a plaintive plea than a political observation. His top legislative priorities are going nowhere and he’s searching for a way to get them out of lockup.
In this 13th month of his presidency, he’s anxious to pass a jobs bill and be seen addressing an unemployment rate that only last week declined from double digits. And his efforts to enact bills on energy, financial regulatory reform and especially health care are stuck in Congress despite the solid majority his party holds in both chambers.
Obama Says Bipartisanship, But What He Wants Is GOP Surrender – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co will close its five-diamond property in Las Vegas this May, after the hotel struggled with a slide in demand and revenue.
“It’s nothing the hotel did. It’s a simple lack of business and a decline in the tourism industry,” said Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl.
Back in May, POLITICO analyzed the press briefings and found that the instances of laughter — as indicated by “(Laughter)” being noted in the official transcript — occurred more than 10 times per day during press secretary Robert Gibbs’s briefings.
But the laughter has been reduced by half in recent months: In the first six months of the Obama administration, briefings produced an average of 179 laughs per month. Over the past six months, the average has dropped down to 89.
Press room laughter dies down – PATRICK GAVIN | POLITICO CLICK.
