I have grown so tired of listening to the same old shop worn talking points of the corrupt and failed Democrat Party, that basically hasn’t changed it’s spiel since the Depression Era of the 1930′s, that I wanted to give the Sharon Angle campaign the opportunity to counter the vintage Dem line that she wants to end Social Security.
On this YouTube video, she explains that she wants to stop tax and spend politicians like the soon-to-be-defeated Harry Reid, who have used Social Security as their piggy bank for decades.
There is an old cliche that says “the Opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings.” When you get the Boston Globe publishing opinions like the one excerpted below, she is on stage front and center and the performance is coming to a close.
~~John Cronin~~
the bostonglobe.com
Did you know this is supposed to be Obama’s “summer of recovery” for the economy? If we are an ailing patient, our condition has gone from stable to critical. The Dow, consumer confidence and housing are all headed in the wrong direction while unemployment and taxes are trending upwards. Not to worry. When Speaker Pelosi is dethroned and Senate Leader Harry Reid is defeated, we will see the Fall and Winter of Recovery.
Rifle through a stack of Tea Party candidate resumes, and Joe Miller’s will stand out.
The man who wants to turn a fellow Republican, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, out of office is a graduate of Yale Law School and West Point, a decorated combat veteran and former judge. Many Tea Partiers share his disdain for Washington, its political gridlock and mounting debt, but not his credentials.
The message he conveys, though, is straight from the Tea Party script: He fears the nation is veering toward socialism and insolvency. He says Murkowski is too liberal.
To Miller, Alaska’s senior senator is complicit in the ballooning U.S. debt and spending and has a voting record that would make a Democrat proud. His agenda envisions a federal government with reduced limits. He would cut off federal dollars for the United Nations, gradually privatize Medicare and Social Security and disband federal departments that aren’t spelled out in the Constitution, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Education Department.
“The problem,” he says, “is incumbency.”
In an election year marked by Tea Party activism, Miller is part of the next wave of Republican primary candidates counting on a public weary of Washington and the stale economy, and eager for fresh faces. In more than a dozen primaries in the months ahead — among them Oklahoma, Kansas, Tennessee, Colorado, Arizona, Washington state and Florida — Tea Party candidates are determined to upend the status quo and capture GOP nominations.
Could Miller be the next Rand Paul or Sharron Angle — Tea Party-backed candidates who stunned GOP powerbrokers in Kentucky and Nevada?
Murkowski, a moderate and the first woman elected to Congress from Alaska, “is pretty safe but you never know,” says Judy Eledge, president of the Anchorage chapter of the Alaska Federation of Republican Women.
Eledge, who is not aligned with either candidate, says Murkowski’s biggest challenge will be reassuring conservatives. On Friday, the senator announced her opposition to President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan.
As a state legislator, Murkowski voted to raise alcohol taxes and against a bill to restrict publicly funded abortions. As a member of the GOP Senate leadership, she has displayed a centrist streak. Independents who make up more than half Alaska’s registered voters can vote in the Aug. 24 primary, which analysts say will benefit the incumbent.
Miller has gotten a boost from endorsements from Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Express and local Tea Party groups. But Murkowski has $2 million in the bank and has a familiar name in Alaska politics. Her father, Frank Murkowski, was a governor and senator. As governor, he appointed his daughter in 2002 to the Senate seat he had held.
Former Alaska lawmaker Andrew Halcro, a friend and supporter of Lisa Murkowski, says her moderate brand of politics fits well in a state where most voters don’t belong to any party. But the prevailing sour mood in the U.S. poses a threat.
“Like a lot of states, you have an angry populace” in Alaska, Halcro says. “If I’m Lisa, I am worried because these guys have an appealing message — down with government, down with incumbents.”
Surprises are the norm this year.
Three-term Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah was ousted by Tea Partiers at the state GOP convention in May. Tea Party darling Angle engineered a come-from-behind victory in Nevada over an establishment-preferred candidate and will challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November. Rand pulled off a surprise win in Kentucky’s Senate race over a party favorite. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was forced out of the GOP by Tea Party-backed Marco Rubio and is running as an independent. In South Carolina, Palin’s support and Tea Party activists helped GOP state Rep. Nikki Haley emerge from a crowded field to capture the GOP nod for governor.
In Colorado, the GOP Senate nomination appeared destined for a former lieutenant governor, Jane Norton. But Republican prosecutor Ken Buck has emerged as a rising Tea Party star by blending grass-roots organizing, a message of ideological purity and a folksy appeal he shares with candidates such as Angle.
In Tennessee, a Tea Party Republican seeking a congressional seat in a crowded field has made headlines by opposing construction of a suburban Nashville mosque. Candidate Lou Ann Zelenik says the “Islamic training center” is part of a political movement “designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee.”
“Until the American Muslim community finds it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization … we are not obligated to open our society to any of them,” Zelenik says. She hopes to replace Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon, who is retiring after 13 terms.
In Washington state, former professional football player Clint Didier is questioning the Republican credentials of party-recruited candidate Dino Rossi in the scramble to take on three-term Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.
The true test of the Tea Party candidates is whether they can attract moderate and independent voters to win in November.
Nevada Democrats have seized on the widely debunked conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the U.S. to attack Tea Party darling Sharron Angle, the Republican running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The Nevada Democratic Party, seeking to brand Angle’s views as too extreme, points to her campaign website touting the endorsement of the Declaration Alliance, a group that believes Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. and therefore is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president despite confirmation from the Hawaiian government that he was born there.
On its website, Declaration Alliance declares that it supports Angle and expresses “reasonable doubt” to the “constitutional eligibility” of Obama to be president.
A spokesman for Angle has said she’s not a so-called “birther,” but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from pressing the issue. They note that Angle’s campaign has scrubbed its website of her many controversial issues except the group’s endorsement.
“It’s not enough for a spokesperson to say ‘she’s not a birther’ and leave it at that,” Phoebe Sweet, a spokeswoman for the Nevada State Democratic Party said in a written statement. “Given so many other things that have come out of her mouth, stating her belief that the president is legally qualified to serve our country would be the least controversial.”
Angle stunned the Republican establishment this month with a come-from-behind primary victory that has emboldened supporters of the vulnerable Reid, a four-term senator. They believe her conservative views will doom her candidacy.
So far, Angle has stumbled out of the gates as she has retreated in the face of attacks on her positions, including support for phasing out Social Security over time. She has proposed privatizing the entitlement program – an initiative that former President George W. Bush failed to achieve. She has said on her website that Social Security and Medicare are “broken and bankrupt.”
National Republicans have said Angle needs to reintroduce herself to the public for the November election. But Democrats are determined to define her first.
“It’s no surprise that Sharron Angle holds some extreme and dangerous ideas – we already know she wants to kill Social Security and Medicare, thinks families with two working parents are wrong and wants to make Nevada the nation’s nuclear waste dump,” Sweet said in the statement.
“But to tout the endorsement of a group that – despite incontrovertible evidence to disprove their crackpot conspiracy theory – questions the citizenship of the president of the United States is both embarrassing and deeply troubling. Sharron Angle must come out of the bunker and clarify her true belief.”
Read more at foxnews.com……
[Editor's Commentary: Whatever Sharron Angle's "true beliefs" are, they are light years away from the destructive policies of the craven and totally incompetent failed administration that is currently in power. The hacks of the Nevada Democrat Party have got a lot of nerve criticizing Angle or anyone else that is attempting to halt the ruinious legislation that spews out of the worst assemblage of corrupt politicians that the long suffering American citizenry has had to endure. The ludicrous attempt to demonize Angle over the so called "birther" controversy is like comparing a "hoot owl to a hurricane." The real scandal is the Democrat Party, lead by the feckless, clueless and soon to be ex-President Obama and his enablers that have come close to destroying a great country. It will take at least a decade to repair the damage done by this collection of financial imbeciles and yet we have some third rate ward heeler in Nevada obsessing over the nonexistent scandal of Angle's alleged involvment in the "birther" controversy. Pathetic.
Sharron Angle, following her come-from-behind Republican Primary win Tuesday, has bounced to an 11-point lead over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada’s closely-watched U.S. Senate race.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Nevada, taken Wednesday night, shows Angle earning 50% support while Reid picks up 39% of the vote. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
A month ago, Angle led Reid 48% to 40% but ran poorest against the incumbent of the three GOP primary hopefuls as she has for months.
Reid will try to portray Angle, a Christian conservative who drew heavily on Tea Party support for her win, as unacceptable to the state. Still, the race for now continues to be about the incumbent, who earned 61% of the vote when he was reelected in 2004 but whose support in this election cycle against any Republican candidate has never risen above the low 40s.
Despite their hotly-contested primary, Republicans already appear to be solidifying behind Angle who now earns 88% support among voters in her party. Reid draws 68% support from Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party prefer Angle by 10 points.
During intense primary battles, supporters of one candidate often say they won’t vote for the party nominee in November. That was the case in 2008 as a large number of Hillary Clinton’s supporters said they were not likely to support Barack Obama in the general election campaign. However, by Election Day, most Clinton supporters came home and voted for their party’s nominee.
Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle said Monday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has “waterboarded” the economy.
Speaking during an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Angle said that her powerful Democratic opponent has “truly failed,” especially when it comes to the economy.
“He has pretty much waterboarded our economy for the last year and a half,” Angle said, rattling off the state’s high unemployment and home foreclosure statistics.
Angle offered little other criticism of Reid’s actions on the economy, instead focusing most of her fire on the Nevada Democrat’s long career.
“The real problem is Harry Reid,” Angle said. “He’s had 24 years to do something for Americans. And he hasn’t done it.”
Democrats have attacked Angle over a series of past comments and associations, painting the tea party favorite as outside the mainstream
Angle was unapologetic about her tea party connections Monday, asserting that “we’re the mainstream in America.”
“We have seen the silent majority that has refused to be silent any longer,”she said. “It’s really mainstream America saying: We’re tired of Harry Reid and his cronies and his corruption.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38495.html#ixzz0qr5iZSr5
Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle may be surging in the polls at just the right time as she battles other Republicans for the chance to slug it out with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – seen by some as the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress.
Angle, a staunch conservative Republican state assemblywoman, is now leading two polls this week ahead of Tuesday’s primary, powered in two short months by the support of Tea Party activists.
Reid has one of the worst personal approval ratings in all of Congress, which also has record low disapproval ratings.
But the race remains unpredictable in a state where unemployment is 13.7 percent.
A Suffolk University poll gives Angle 33 percent of the vote in the GOP primary, over businessman Danny Tarkanian at 26 percent and former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden at 25 percent.
One primary night seems to have shattered nerves across the Capitol.
Instead of toeing the party line, two Democratic senators broke away and handed Harry Reid an embarrassing – albeit temporary – loss on financial reform because they wanted more aggressive measures. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) seems to have reversed a plan to vote with the Democrats to advance the Wall Street bill, further upsetting the once smooth path to passage for the bill.
The takeaway message from Tuesday night is that nobody’s safe, and they feel like they might be punished by voters for actually being bipartisan.
The unpredictable swings signal that this is going to be a long five months for congressional leaders if they want to build any consensus deals on legislation.
For weeks, the White House strategy on financial regulatory reform remained an open question: Would President Barack Obama water down his bill just to get something passed — the way he did on health care?
A Palinesque “Hell no!” was the answer coming from the White House on Wednesday as the president, his senior aides and his allies on Capitol Hill issued an ultimatum to Republicans fighting Democrats’ plans to overhaul financial oversight.
“For the president, you have to be willing to accept a strong bill,” said White House press secretaryRobert Gibbs, after Obama emerged from a contentious meeting with GOP congressional leaders.
“If the effort to get this close is simply to take steps to weaken that legislation, that’s not what the president is interested in.”
Democrats are so emboldened that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is prepared to bring the Banking Committee bill to the floor with no major concessions to Republicans and essentially dare them to vote against the measure, senior leadership aides said.
At a time when Wall Street is as reviled as government, Democrats are willing to gamble that at least one Republican — and maybe as many as a half-dozen — will break ranks. At the same time, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is betting he can hold his caucus together to deny Democrats even a single vote.
“It’s been two and a half years since this crisis started, more than a year since we first laid out a comprehensive set of reforms,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithnersaid during a rare appearance at the White House daily briefing alongside Gibbs.
“I think we know what we need to know. … It’s just time to decide and time to move,” he added.
The hard-line, limited-compromise approach reflects a belief among Democrats, buoyed by recent polls, that they enjoy huge advantages on regulatory reform that eluded them on health care. Unless the GOP can succeed in painting the reform effort as a path to new bailouts — and Senate Republicans are trying to do just that — the politics of the issue seem to be almost entirely on the Democrats’ side.
But before they take on the minority, Senate Democrats are trying to smooth over internal conflicts. For weeks, White House officials have been quietly working with Senate leaders, including Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), on the list of amendments liberals plan to introduce when the measure comes to the floor.
The goal, according to several people close to the situation, is to green-light those amendments that force Republicans to take tough votes, while minimizing votes that divide the Democrats’ left and right wings.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s campaign announced it took in $1.5 million last quarter, far outpacing Reid’s Republican challengers and adding to the war chest that he’ll use against whoever emerges from the divided GOP field. On the Republican side, developer Danny Tarkanian’s camp said he raised more than the $330,000 he took in last quarter and former state GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden reported bringing in $500,000.
That total’s a drop-off from the $819,000 Lowden raised in the last three months of 2009, but she’s vowed to match it with a half-million from her substantial personal fortune — a move Democrats say shows Lowden may increasingly plan to self-fund her campaign. Other GOP candidates haven’t reported their totals yet.
AND — THIS IS NOT A DRILL: Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter and former Arizona Rep. J.D. Hayworth are mounting two of the country’s highest-profile primary challenges to incumbent senators, and both showed this week that their efforts can’t be dismissed. Halter reported raising $2 million since announcing his campaign against Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln on March 1. That sum that would be strong for an incumbent senator in a larger state, across a three-month period, let alone for an Arkansas challenger in just one month. Lincoln has said only that she raised more than a million dollars in the quarter that ended Wednesday, and has more than $4 million stowed away.
Hayworth’s camp, meanwhile, says it brought in over a million dollars for the first quarter to fund the ex-congressman’s challenge to Sen. John McCain. It’s worth waiting for more specific figures before drawing firm conclusions about Hayworth’s viability — particularly since his team seems to be fudging its one-month fundraising numbers for March — but a seven-figure haul wouldn’t be anything to scoff at.
Senate Republicans have suceeded in forcing Democrats to send the health reform reconciliation bill back to the House for another vote, after Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ruled early Thursday morning that two minor provisions violated the chamber’s rules and couldn’t be included in the final bill.
Democrats believe the provisions — technical changes to language about Pell Grants for low-income students – are so minor that they don’t threaten to derail the reconciliation package, which includes a series of fixes to the reform bill that has already been signed into law by President Barack Obama.
But clearly Democrats are anxious to put the health care voting behind them – given the painful history of the past year of close votes and near-death experiences on the bill – and want nothing to pop up now that could give them headaches.
It’s also possible that Republicans can force more changes to the bill when the Senate reconvenes at 9:45 a.m., with a vote on the bill scheduled for 2 p.m. It wasn’t clear early Thursday morning when the House would vote, but both chambers are anxious to wrap up business to get out of town for the two-week Easter recess.
All told, 16 lines of text will be removed from the 153-page bill to strip the Pell Grant language, Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley told reporters as business on the Senate floor wrapped up early Thursday morning.
The House has already passed the reconciliation bill, on Sunday night when it approved the landmark health reform measure. But since the House and Senate must pass identical versions of the reconciliation bill to put the fixes into law, the reconciliation piece must go back to the House for a second vote.
And the reconciliation bill includes several provisions that are must-haves for House members, including eliminating the Cornhusker Kickback and other state-specific deals and putting off a tax on “Cadillac” insurance plans until 2018.
“We are confident the House will quickly pass the bill with these minor changes,” Manley said Thursday morning.
During my recent interview with Ari David, he mentioned that he perceived his generation as ‘Reagan / South Park Conservatives’. It is with this reference in mind, that I make this point.
During South Park Episode 1205, a sub-plot saw the character ‘Cartman’ poses as a Latino high school teacher named “Mr. Cartmenez” at a under-preforming urban high school. During this time, “Mr. Cartmenez”, installs the values of ‘cheating‘ to motivate, and improve the lives of his students.
LANGUAGE WARNING
Much like this example, the final scoreboard was 219 vote for Health Care Reform. The final score does not count the kick backs, the arm twisting, or back room deals needed for the final vote. Nor did it count the fact the bill being voted upon, was an incomplete Senate version, originally passed merely as a procedural vote pending a final amendment. All that counted for Pelosi at the end of the day, was the 219 ‘Cartmanesque’ votes for Obamacare.
Now Obama and the Democrats have to sell (convince people), what they passed by force was worthwhile. What you will instead see, will be the Democrats still attacking those raising reasonable concerns over Obamacare. What Pelosi and her ilk showed, was their ignorance conquers all when emotional rationalization, and self justification are added. When the dust settles, the middle class will see what Obamacare offers, and how much it will hinder them. That is, if the dust can be allowed to settle.
Act 2: Orchestrated Distractions: And so starts the next thorny issue of public debate on Immigration Reform. Any rage over Health Care Reform, or worrying about Obamacare will be pushed aside while a new battle is fought.
Welcome to the tactic of Orchestrated Distraction. Compared to the 12 months it took to pass Obamacare, November 2nd is a hard deadline they can’t get around. So expect the push for Immigration Reform, Economic Reform, Cap & Trade to be rammed past the House and Senate. Even if Obama loses the Democrat controlled House in November, Obama gets everything he needed in time. Even if the Senate loses a few Democrats in the Mid-terms, Obama can still pass everything he want in the Senate, by tweaking the rules and pushing for reconciliation with the 51 remaining Democrat votes.
The fact is this, Obama and Pelosi wont let the dust settle until they are finished implementing the most expensive social engineering program the world has ever seen. After which, a few billion spent on Iraq, and Afghanistan for eight plus years of warfare will be viewed as a bargain.
Hold onto your hats folks, we’re not even close to the end.
Yeah, at the very least until a Republican takeover of Congress in November and worst case, the end of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Emanuel Presidency in November 2012.
Brilliant analysis by Newt Gingrichon why the GOP was kicked to the curb in 2006 and again in 2008. Both elections were “performance elections” and not “personality elections.”
If the GOP stays on it’s present course, where it treats the upcoming 2010 mid-terms as a “performance election” then we will pick up 30-35 seats in the House and perhaps reemerge as the majority in the Senate. With the voters behind us, together we can start dismantling Obama’s leftist Utopia one brick at a time.
We have something awful right now: four years of Obama’s incompetence and socialism. If conservatives of all parties don’t start pulling the rope in the same direction, we will have something worse: four more years of Obama’s incompetence and socialism. Please take the time to read Mr. Wright’s brilliant analysis of our current political milieu. Then take his advise and vote for the awful party instead of the evil party this November and that will buy us time to clean the mess up.
~~John Cronin~~
By C. Edmund Wright
The debate over third parties and how bad the Republicans are comes down to this: evil versus awful. That’s it. Your next Congress and your next president will be either from the evil party or the awful party. Whatever perfect virginal party that is out there yet to be formed will not come to fruition in time to save the republic.
Besides, no one in politics is perfect, and virgins are almost equally rare.
Threatened with the loss of liberty with the “fundamental change” on the way from the Obama crowd, none of us on the right should luxuriate in irrelevant and phony purity. There’s a reason they call government “making sausage.” No one who has ever actually been in the sausage factory can remain pure. You can only do that if you remain irrelevant. Irrelevance will not stop the evil of a government take over of our society.
Irrelevance is cathartic. It feels good. It is liberating. It is still irrelevant. A progressive Republican may sometimes be awful, but it is not the same thing as a progressive Democrat. (Please see 2009 health care vote for some recent compelling evidence.) These differences have real impact on everybody’s freedom.
Newbies to this history-making movement may assume that they are the first Americans to ever have this anti-Washington outrage. Our schools and media certainly have not emphasized these traditions. It is somewhat analogous to Obama thinking American history started at his birth and American greatness started at his inauguration.
Consider that it was precisely the conservatives within the Republican Party who sounded the loudest alarms against Obama. And by “within the Republican Party,” I include party officials, elected officials, media figures and voters who readily identify themselves as Republicans. These are all people “within the Republican party.”
It is a mistake to judge the national party by Michael Steele and his staff. Most folks who insist on doing this cannot name another person who ever held this job. It is not relevant. It is a glorified fund raising admin job.
And it is no secret that McCain and others like David Brooks and Colin Powell were blind to who Obama was in varying degrees. But so were so many independents and moderates and un-affiliated voters who are suddenly enlightened.
Suddenly enlightened? Yes. Remember, Obama won in 2008 but would lose today.
As flawed as many Republicans are — and I have written extensively on this very subject on this very website — the folks who were right about Obama were the not so flawed Republicans. The very folks who rightly warned of a government run by the terrible tri-fecta of Obama-Reid-Pelosi were mostly the same folks who warned of the dangers of having folks like McCain represent the party.
And what did those prescient Republicans get for being right? They were ridiculed and lampooned by the Beltway pundits, pollsters and strategists who said that making this clarion call was a huge mistake. The independents and neophytes rejected this warning by the Republican right and voted in droves for Obama. Others “disgusted with both parties” stayed home.
And guess what? Every single one of them now is governed by Obama, Reid and Pelosi. How did that equal disgust with both parties work out for them?
Not well. After a year, many have decided they do not like it. They have decided now to join the outrage over the liberal — er progressive — takeover of the nation.
Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.
History and perspective are critical here. They teach us this: that today’s choice is between the awful Republican Party and the evil Democratic Party. Awful can be rehabilitated, starting with the good that is in the party. It has happened twice in the last 30 years. Evil is evil. Period. There is a difference.
And one should never harp on the awfulness of the Republican progressives without praising the Republican conservatives. Moreover, it is critical that you contrast the evil left as the only other option. Perfection is not on the ballot. I didn’t create the situation of evil versus awful. Facts are stubborn things.
History always teaches us this too: that under Reagan, the GOP was barely in control of the conservatives yet magnificent and long lasting good was done for us and freedom everywhere. Today, it’s barely under the control of the moderates. The needed change is not that difficult. Regardless, we must make it because the GOP is the only thing between us and a socialist state.
Scott Brown’s cloture vote was awful. If he votes for the actual bill, that would be more awful. Call it that. I’ll join you. No, I’ll beat you to it. Together we can try and purge this thing from the party and shift more influence to the Rubios and the DeMints and the Coburns and many, many other greats in the awful party.
But Coakely or Kennedy would have matched Brown’s cloture vote and gone him one better with a vote for evil Obama Care. Take your choice. It’s all you have currently.
Conservative radio host Mark Levin is criticizing Glenn Beck’s widely publicized CPAC speech this weekend attacking Republicans.
Beck trashed the GOP as being “addicted to spending” during the keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee Saturday and has been a major advocate of the tea party movement, even suggesting the formation of third party of grassroots conservative activists.
But on his show Monday night, Levin called on Beck to “stop dividing us” and suggested he “stop acting like a clown.”
“What I see across the horizon today in my 40 years or so of conservative activism is unity like I’ve never seen before,” the popular radio host and author said, which was first flagged by the blog Radio Equalizer. “It’s unity not because of hate for [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell or [House Minority Leader John] Boehner or whatever. It’s contempt for this president and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid and what they are doing to this nation.”
“That’s what’s happening. That’s what’s going on,” he continued. “If Republicans deserve a lashing they should get it. But they are holding the fort and they deserve reinforcements.”
Levin also warned Beck to be wary of the mainstream media and told the Fox News host to stop “acting like a clown.”
“The mainstream media is not your friend. It will promote you for the purpose of destroying you,” he said, seemingly alluding to the somewhat favorable coverage of Beck’s speech. “Be careful playing footsie with the mainstream media.”
“Decide what you are,” Levin added, “A circus clown, self-identified, or a thoughtful and wise person. It’s hard to be both.”
Is the next senator from Nevada a Wall Street executive who has spent most of the past three decades on the East Coast?
John Chachas thinks so. And, given the weakness of the Republican field and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s abysmal poll numbers, Chachas could be right.
Chachas, 44, who has been mulling over the race for month, recently quit his job as managing director at the investment bank Lazard Ltd. and, fueled by a $1.3 million personal donation (he says he can put more of his own money in if need be), has become instantly relevant in a Republican primary field currently led by former state party chair Sue Lowden and businessman Danny Tarkanian.
Chachas said that attacks on his decades working in the financial sector — he served as an adviser to the boards of directors for a number of media companies — amounted to “politically charged noise.” But he acknowledged that in an electoral climate so averse to the idea of Wall Street executives lining their pockets, he will have to tackle that negative image “head on” during the campaign.
Polling suggests, not surprisingly, that Chachas is an absolute unknown in the state and trails both Tarkanian and Lowden by double digits. He hopes to solve that problem in the coming days with a battery of ads designed to introduce him to Nevada voters as an outsider to the political process who has spent his life “giving advice to healthy and not-so-healthy businesses.”
The question on voters’ minds this fall, Chachas argues, is who has the right experience to make the government work again for average people. His answer: “We need more people from business who know how to fix it.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is expected to publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.
The administration’s bill will aim to jump-start the stalled healthcare overhaul and comes just days ahead of a planned televised White House summit with congressional Republicans, who are calling on Democrats to scrap the bills and start over with a far less sweeping proposal.
Democrats are struggling to push healthcare legislation over the finish line in the face of sagging public support and solid Republican opposition bolstered by recent election victories in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.
The legislation the White House will post on its website is expected to reflect common ground negotiated over the past several weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders.
Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.
“I believe that’s the path we are going to take,” a senior congressional Democratic aide said.
But it is not clear, even to congressional Democrats, what the White House will include in its legislation and whether Obama will try to add proposals aimed at attracting at least some Republican support.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not signed off on any final agreement, several Democratic aides have said.
