Even before the polls closed, the recriminations – something short of panic, and considerably more than mere grumbling – had begun. On a high-level campaign conference call Tuesday afternoon, Democratic donors and strategists commiserated over their disappointment in Obama. A source on the call described the mood as “awful.”
“People feel betrayed, disappointed, furious, disgusted, hopeless,” said the source.
Less expansive but equally telling were the remarks of House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, who in a conversation with reporters Tuesday morning said bluntly that Obama would take some blame for the two special election losses.
“I think every election reflects on the person in charge, but do I think it is an overall statement on the president alone? No,” said Hoyer. “Do I think it will be interpreted as being a statement on Obama? That’s probably correct.”
A senior Hill Democratic aide was more direct in attempting to explain the New York loss: “The approval ratings for the guy at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue cratered.”
A Turner consultant, Steve Goldberg, validated that assessment: “It was all Obama — not even a thought of anything else.”
The president’s feisty new jobs plan has probably preempted open revolt in his party – though a Bloomberg poll released Wednesday morning found that 51 percent of Americans don’t believe it will help lower the unemployment rate. Senior party figures are on board with – or are at least resigned to – the White House’s leadership. And some Democratic insiders sought to put a better face on their diminished state - before adding that they wanted to see a tougher Obama.
“Let’s face it - it has been a tough summer for Democrats,” said Jack Quinn, a top lobbyist and former White House Counsel to President Clinton. “But I really do think that people are feeling better.”
Quinn said, however, that Obama must confront the GOP.
“They didn’t get the House and say, ‘We want half a loaf.’ They’ve said, ‘we want the whole goddamn oven,’” he argued. “It’s time for the president to really draw some hard lines here.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), among the most senior House Democrats, sketched out those lines.
“The Republicans want us to repeal the 20th century, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, to turn us back to the robber barons running the country, and to eviscerate the environmental and other regulations to protect public health and safety,” said Waxman. “And to cut spending in ways that would be very harmful to people who rely on government.”
Just keep talking. You're doing wonders for the GOP.
Don't worry about any of this. As of tomorrow night we'll be entering the new era of fiscal responsibility or something by lopping off 37 cents in federal spending now that Obama will pretend to be a fiscal conservative or populist after a year of bankrupting us.
Thanks to a recently filed Congressional expense reports there's new light shed on the Copenhagen Climate Summit in Denmark and how much it cost taxpayers.
CBS News Investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports official filings and our own investigation show at least 106 people from the House and Senate attended - spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer.
For 15 Democratic and 6 Republican Congressmen, food and rooms for two nights cost $4,406 tax dollars each. That's $2,200 a day - more than most Americans spend on their monthly mortgage payment.
CBS News asked members of Congress and staff about whether they're mindful that it's public tax dollars they're spending. Many said they had never even seen the bills or the expense reports.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is a key climate change player. He went to Copenhagen last year. Last week, we asked him about the $2,200-a-day bill for room and food.
"I can't believe that," Rep. Waxman said. "I can't believe it, but I don't know."
he can't believe what he doesn't know. Sure, that makes sense.
But his name is in black and white in the expense reports. The group expense report was filed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. She wouldn't talk about it when our producer tried to ask.
Questions are for the little people. How dare CBS try to question The Queen!
By the way, I have just as much contempt for the Republicans wasting our money on this fiasco. The hubris and arrogance of Pelosi and Waxman, however, is beyond the pale. They are so out of touch with what's going on in this country and they're so arrogant to not even answer questions about recklessly spending our money. Imagine their shock when they're voted out of the majority in November.
Note also this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what was actually spent. Don't forget TelePrompter Man brought at least 60 people along for this failed junket.
Recall a wave of manufactured outrage when Republican Congressman Joe Wilson reminded Barack Obama he was lying through his teeth about ObamaCare not funding abortion. Democrats and their handmaidens in the media all reacted with horror at the accusation and moved on to more important issues, like destorying Rush Limbaugh and declaring war on Fox News.
But the dirty little secret is they still plan to fund abortions in defiance of the Hyde amendment and this is now causing headaches within the Democratic Party.
House Democrats are at an impasse over whether their remake of the nation's health care system would effectively allow federal funding of abortion.
At least two dozen anti-abortion Democrats believe it would, and while their opposition is unlikely to stall the legislation in the end, they are at odds with Democratic leaders just weeks ahead of anticipated floor action on the bill.
Lawmakers on the other side say they've compromised as far as they can to address the anti-abortion lawmakers' concerns by specifying that people receiving government subsidies to buy health insurance couldn't use that money for abortions.
Negotiations to find common ground have not yielded fruit.
"We have a difference of opinion at the moment we cannot bridge," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where the abortion language was approved. "We have done everything we can to ensure that there will be no federal funds for abortion services."
Waxman said he's still working on the issue with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., the leader of the anti-abortion group. On Thursday the two had an earnest discussion on the House floor but afterward they said nothing had really changed.
Stupak, who's on the tall side, made a joking reference to Waxman's diminutive stature when asked whether their conversation had yielded a meeting of minds. "I'm a little taller. Our minds don't meet," Stupak said.
The main point of contention is the proposed new federal subsidies that would help lower-income people purchase health care coverage from private plans — and potentially from a new government-sponsored plan — within a new purchasing exchange.
Currently a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion — except in cases of rape and incest or if the mother's life would be endangered — and applies those restrictions to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortion for low-income women to do so with their own money. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and military and other programs.
But the Democrats' health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions.
Stupak says language specifying that someone obtaining an abortion must use her own money, not federal money from the subsidies, doesn't go far enough because it's impossible to clearly segregate funds in that way.
"Once you get the affordability credits (subsidies) in there, that's public funding of abortion. We're not going there," Stupak said. "How do you get past the affordability credits is really the issue. And we can't."
Naturally, this isn't sitting well with Big Abortion.
NARAL recently sent a letter to supporters singling out Stupak for criticism and asking them to call their members of Congress to make sure he doesn't prevail.
On the other side, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said it can't support a health overhaul bill unless the anti-abortion language is strengthened.
Unless an eleventh-hour agreement is reached, Stupak intends to carry through on a threat he's been holding over House leaders for months: to block action on the larger health overhaul bill unless he's allowed to offer a stand-alone amendment during floor debate to include the Hyde amendment restrictions in the health overhaul bill.
Funny how we don't see any of the Obama-approved media talking about the civil war over abortion in the Democratic Party. Just imagine the derision from the left if this was happening in the GOP. We'd be hearing nonstop stories of how social conservatives were tearing the party apart.
Instead, that sound we hear from the Obamamedia is silence.
Update: Well, that's a face palm for me. Suffering apparent short-term memory loss, I forgot Wilson told Obama he lied about illegal aliens being covered under ObamaCare, not abortion. It's getting tough keeping track of all their lies.
Earlier today, in between doing all of the stuff most of us do on the weekends I happened to catch Dennis Kucinich on tv responding to a question about the health takeover plan the Democrats are trying to ram through and while I didn't catch the question his answer seemed to involve saying that veterans healthcare is government run and that is a good thing. I couldn't believe somebody would say that. Using the VA health system as some sort of example of a success story for government run healthcare is ludicrous. It is no more successful then any other thing our federal government oversees from the postal system to Amtrak.
As proof here is a report I found over at Andrew Breitbarts Big Hollywood web site by Jeani DiCarlo. The story is about a VA hospital in Los Angeles in the wealthy Brentwood section of town, that piece by piece, the property it sits on is being given away and taken in a series of backroom deals, throwing the veterans it is supposed to serve into the street. The video is very powerful and pay attention near the end when the one veteran says "If there is one easy target, an easy category of American citizens to take advantage of make it the veterans..."
Why doesn't it surprise me that Representative Nostrils, Henry Waxman (D-CA) is linked to this?
This land is slowly being doled out to special interest groups that benefit Mr. Waxman and his friends who are known as the “Westside Political Machine.” Sadly, he is not the only one doing this; politicians all over the country are “giving” land they do not own to special interest groups. Eighty-five acres of Veterans’ lands were just annexed in Chicago. Where did it go to? Who got it?
If they will do this sort of thing to veterans why should any of us be any different? What if the hospital in your area sits on some prime real estate? Will politicians take it away for some greater public good such as a park or like in this case to allow Hollywood production companies to ply their trade?
Why is the VA doing this? Who at the VA is authorizing this? Does anyone care or do Americans just wish veterans would remain in the shadows so that they can go about their lives oblivious to the sacrifice and price paid to ensure our way of life?
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has had an eventful couple of weeks to say the least, believes House Republican opposition to climate change legislation and the stimulus indicates they’re cheering against the good ol’ US of A.
“It appears that the Republican Party leadership in the Congress has made a decision that they want to deny President Obama success, which means, in my mind, they are rooting against the country, as well,” the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman told WAMU radio host Diane Rehm on Tuesday morning, promoting his new book, “The Waxman Report.”
So now voting against economy-crushing legislation is unpatriotic? Seems to me legislation specifically designed to stifle economic growth is un-American.
Of course, Democrats openly rooting for our defeat in Iraq was merely dissent, the highest form of patriotism. These turds spent eight years undermining George W. Bush at every turn, yet if you questioned their patriotism they squealed like stuck pigs.
Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), quickly demanded an apology from Waxman — who clashed with Boehner during the climate change vote last month.
“That is an outrageous statement, and obviously Chairman Waxman owes the American people an apology,” Steel wrote in an e-mail to POLITICO.
“Frankly, this sort of irresponsible rhetoric smacks of desperation from a chairman who just forced members of his own party to walk the plank on an unpopular national energy tax and is having trouble convincing them to do it again on a government takeover of health care,” he added.
It'll be curious to see the anemic sales for his book. Obviously "The Waxman Report" isn't a book on grooming advice for men.
It's currently No. 382 on Amazon. The publisher wisely left his face off the cover. No doubt that would frighten away potential customers.
The ugliest man on the planet was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital today. Reports are he wasn't feeling well, but our spies divulged Henry Waxman was being treated for severe ugliness.
While you're all being bamboozled by Barack Obama's lastest follies, keep in mind you're about to be whacked with the biggest tax hike ever. Be sure to send thanks to the ugliest man ever, Henry Waxman. That's if you can afford to send a thank you once this boondoggle hits home.
THE House votes this week on the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- which claims to be about slowing global warming, but in fact is a massive tax hike that would vastly expand the federal government's power over the economy.
Indeed, the Waxman-Markey bill (as it's commonly called, after its two chief sponsors) would be the largest tax increase in world history, as well as transfer vast wealth from consumers to big-business special interests.
And it would put Washington in charge of people's lives in a way not seen since the Second World War -- which was the last time Americans needed ration coupons to buy gasoline, food and other commodities.
The core of the complex 1,201-page bill is what's called a "cap and trade" system. This would put a cap or limit on greenhouse-gas emissions -- mainly on carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and natural gas, three fuels that provide more than 80 percent of America's energy. And the law lowers the cap every few years -- ordering emissions to drop 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent below by 2050.
The "trade" part of the scheme would let companies buy and sell the government-issued ration coupons. Thus, a business closing down a factory and moving overseas could sell its no-longer-needed coupons to a firm that's still trying to stay in business.
Cap-and-trade backers tell us that it's a reasonable, effective way of replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and higher energy efficiency. But it's proving anything but reasonable or effective in the European Union, which started a similar scheme several years ago. The prices of ration coupons have fluctuated wildly, electric rates have risen steeply and emissions haven't gone down (at least not until businesses began curtailing production in this recession).
But even if it produced the promised results, cap-and-trade wouldn't be worth it.
For starters, the bill's sneaky, indirect tax is still a tax -- and a huge one. This would vastly increase fossil-fuel prices -- which would make greens happy by making higher-priced alternatives such as wind power competitive, but would make Americans as a whole miserable, by forcing us to use less energy and pay much more for it.
Realize, too, that almost every recession of the last 60 years, including today's mess, has followed a sharp rise in energy prices. Why would we want lawmakers to mandate a recession?
Understandably, Waxman-Markey's supporters pretend the bill's impact won't be too severe. But independent economic studies have estimated the costs from $1,500 to more than $3,000 per year for the average family.
Keep in mind that's on the low end, to be kind. Expect your tab to be at least double that number.
The Democrats love free speech. As long as you agree with them. They're always willing to hear one side of every issue.
UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
“The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”
According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.
“The Democrats have a lot to learn about the right of free speech under the US Constitution. Congress Henry Waxman's (D-CA) refusal to expose Al Gore's sci-fi comedy-horror testimony to proper, independent scrutiny by the House minority reeks of naked fear,” Monckton said from the airport Thursday evening.
Nothing like transparency and openness in government
The carbon footprint of Barack Obama's inauguration could exceed 575 million pounds of CO2. According to the Institute for Liberty, it would take the average U.S. household nearly 60,000 years of naughty ecological behavior to produce a carbon footprint equal to the largest self-congratulatory event in the history of humankind.
The same congressfolk who are now handing out thousands of tickets to this ecological disaster only last year mandated the phased elimination of the incandescent light bulb — a mere carbon tiptoe, if you will. The whole thing seems a bit unfair.
Speaking of catastrophes, Henry "Nostrilitus" Waxman, reigning titleholder of Ugliest Man Alive, is about to unleash another one upon us.
And, on the day millions of Americans were freezing their collective backsides off, new Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman announced that Congress would fast-track climate change legislation. Waxman claimed "inaction on the climate issue is causing uncertainties that make it more difficult to emerge from the recession," according to The Associated Press.
Waxman's methane emission would merely reek if it weren't so catastrophically sad. I learned long ago that any dissent on climate alarmism will be met with unflinching fury, but is there anyone who can genuinely argue that inaction on "climate issues" (formerly known as global warming) has had a fundamental impact on the economic downturn?
Our plight will, in actuality, likely be exacerbated if Waxman gets his way. Playing on the public's fear of climate change, we are about to almost certainly see a nationalized energy policy and price controls through cap and trade.
You think the economy is bad now? Wait until this crew is finished with us.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ordered a broad, swift investigation of Wall Street and will demand testimony from Bush administration officials and captains of finance, congressional officials said.
House Democrats plan an aggressive look at the administration’s role in this weekend’s meltdown, and explore further regulation and government structures that would be taken up under the new president.
Republican aides accused Democrats of trying to shift blame with a series of “show trials,” but acknowledged that key officials will wind up cooperating.
The hearings will take place over the next few weeks, the officials said. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who regularly appears on Capitol Hill, will be called to testify as part of the investigation.
I guess we can also expect to see Jamie Gorelick called to testify as well. How about Obama adviser and former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines?
Yeah, right.
Maybe all those idiots on Wall Street who've been pouring money into Democrat coffers will finally realize who their enemy is.
Henry "Nostrilitus" Waxman denies that he and his taxpayer-funded henchpersons are monitoring Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity.
There are two possibilities at play.
One, he's come under such ridicule from all three of them, or two, he and his goons realize they have Hillary Clinton's frontgroup Media Matters to do the job for him.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on Wednesday denied that he is conducting or ever planned to conduct a congressional investigation of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin and called on a conservative magazine to retract its report that he asked investigators to compile information on the popular conservative talk radio hosts.
"The American Spectator report about a congressional investigation into talk radio is completely false," Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement to Cybercast News Service. "There is no investigation."
Waxman was referring to a report Monday that he "has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows" to build a case for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
Naturally, I'm skeptical of anything coming out of Waxman's mouth since all he lives for is petty investigations of Republicans, and think it's likely some staffers flapped their gums a bit much and Waxman realized how stupid he looks.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on Wednesday denied that he is conducting or ever planned to conduct a congressional investigation of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin and called on a conservative magazine to retract its report that he asked investigators to compile information on the popular conservative talk radio hosts.
"The American Spectator report about a congressional investigation into talk radio is completely false," Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement to Cybercast News Service. "There is no investigation."
Waxman was referring to a report Monday that he "has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows" to build a case for bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
Somehow I doubt the New York Times would get all hot and bothered if a Democrat administration hired a bunch of ACLU lawyers or appointed one to the Supreme Court, but when someone from the dreaded Big Oil has anything to do with their obsession over global warming, then it's time to stop the presses and start the investigations.
A House committee released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.
In a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the official, Philip A. Cooney, who left government in 2005, defended the changes he had made in government reports over several years. Mr. Cooney said the editing was part of the normal White House review process and reflected findings in a climate report written for President Bush by the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.
They were the first public statements on the issue by Mr. Cooney, the former chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Before joining the White House, he was the “climate team leader” for the American Petroleum Institute, the main industry lobby.
He was hired by Exxon Mobil after resigning in 2005 following reports on the editing in The New York Times. The White House said his resignation was not related to the disclosures.
Read the rest. Henry "Nostrilitus" Waxman suspects a conspiracy. But of course.
The documents “appear to portray a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change,” said a memorandum circulated by the Democrats under the committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California.
We're rapidly getting to the point where it will be considered criminal to be a Republican or work for the oil industry.
They have nothing to offer but fear itself.
