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Evan Bayh will not seek reelection

Sen. Evan Bayh will not run for re-election, a decision that will shock Democrats and Republicans alike in Indiana. In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision. “After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned,” he said. “My decision was not motivated by political concern,” he added. “Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for re-election.” Bayh had never lost an election, from his first win in 1986 as secretary of state, his wins for governor in 1988 and 1992 and his election to the U.S. Senate in 1998 and 2004. [The latest Democrat to see what’s coming in November jumps off the sinking ship Obamatanic…ed]

Democrats exiting the sinking ship?–Part 22: Massachusetts

Democrat Bill Delahunt has represented the 10th congressional district of Massachusetts since 1996. Since his first election he has never had significant opposition. He won the seat 54%-41% in 1996 and received between 64% and 70% of the vote in general elections from 1998 to 2006. In 2008 he had no Republican opponent at all. This year looks different. In the January 19 special Senate election Republican Scott Brown carried the 10th district 60%-40%. Now the Boston Globe reports that Delahunt is considering retiring rather than running for reelection. [His connection to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and the last paragraph of this article sums up nicely why this Democrat will make the wise decision to just go home and hang out in front of the fireplace…ed]

‘Oddball’ portrait of Amy Bishop emerges

As authorities searched for clues into what could have sent a University of Alabama neurobiology professor on an alleged killing spree, friends and family yesterday described Braintree native Amy Bishop as an awkward introvert on the brink of losing her teaching job. Bishop’s husband, James Anderson, told the Herald his wife had been fighting the university for over a year about a tenure denial, and several months ago received a final decision. She was upset, but not overly emotional, approaching her appeal “like a game of chess,” he said. Police in Huntsville, Ala., charged Bishop, 44, with capital murder after she allegedly opened fire on six colleagues at a faculty meeting Friday, killing three. Afterward, she calmly called her husband and asked him to pick her up as if nothing had happened, said police Chief Henry Reyes. (SNIP) Bishop acknowledged at the time being questioned in the bombing attempt of a Harvard medical doctor evaluating her on doctorate work, a professor with whom Bishop was known to quarrel, Fluckiger said. Reyes confirmed he is working with the FBI to learn more about why Bishop was a suspect in the attempted bombing of Dr. Paul Rosenberg, who received a double-pipe bomb in the mail on Dec. 19, 1993. [This is the woman, a far left moonbat who was OBSESSED with Obama, Democrat congressman from Massachusetts Bill Delahunt declined to press charges against when she shot and killed her brother. Read the police report here…ed]

New White House communications strategy: More retorts to Republicans, more ‘high-profile’ Obama events

Good news! According to the Washington Post, the White House is retooling their communications strategy:

White House officials are retooling the administration’s communications strategy to produce faster responses to political adversaries, a more disciplined focus on President Obama’s call for “change” in Washington and an increasingly selective use of the president’s time.

The messaging adjustments are the result of an end-of-the-year analysis in which White House advisers said the president’s communications team had not taken the initiative often enough and had allowed drawn-out debates in Congress, and relentless criticism by Republicans, to drown out his message.

“It was clear that too often we didn’t have the ball — Congress had the ball in terms of driving the message,” communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. “In 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative.”

There are no words for how insane this all sounds. So the White House feels they need to respond to criticisms more aggressively then they already have? In fact, the White House has been so aggressive on this front they look defensive and petty. [Yeah, keep digging that hole Obama administration. I keep hearing of people who think Obama was born in Kenya but I’m starting to think he was actually hatched out of a foil packet because if his skin was any thinner it would have a reservoir tip at the end…ed]

Senator: VP comments ‘insulting’

Sen. Scott Brown thinks Vice President Joe Biden was “off base” when he suggested Sunday that the Massachusetts Republican get his facts straight on the legal procedures for military tribunals. “It was insulting,” said Brown, who frequently jabbed the administration during his Senate campaign for giving suspected terrorists legal representation. On CBS’s “Face the Nation” last weekend, Biden shot back that he doesn’t “know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried in a military tribunal, you get a lawyer, too.” (SNIP) Brown said he is particularly incensed by Biden’s remarks because he’s served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for more than 30 years and is currently the Guard’s top defense attorney in New England. “I know the military rules and regulations and procedures from A to Z,” Brown said. [This is a teachable moment for the rest of the GOP. The Obama administration’s new approach to take on Republican criticisms quickly blows up in their faces thanks, once again, to this moron Joe Biden. Way to go Senator Brown, don’t take any crap from these clowns…ed]

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The Washington, D.C., Disconnect

The disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country has never been greater. Why can’t the political class in D.C. produce a fiscal product that voters, taxpayers, and investors are willing to consume? According to the Washington Post, voters want smaller government and fewer government services by a large 58 to 38 percent margin. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reveals that 61 percent of voters believe tax cuts help the economy, that 59 percent think tax cuts are a better job-creation tool than increased government spending, and that another 59 percent believe higher deficits hurt the economy. Rasmussen also reports that a full 83 percent of Americans blame the deficit on the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending. And get this: In a whopper of a poll result, the New York Times reports that 75 percent of Americans dislike Congress. [Larry Kudlow for U.S. Senate replacing that idiot Chuck Schumer. Spread the word…ed]

Who’s to Blame?

In Federalist Paper 45, James Madison, the father of our Constitution, explains, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected.” Other founders gave similar assurances about the limitations that the constitution set on the federal government. If our founders could see today’s federal government, it would be unrecognizable to their vision. In fact, their vision has been turned upon its head, so that the powers of the state governments are “few and defined” and those of the federal government “are numerous and indefinite.” [Brilliant article from the esteemed Walter E. Williams. A must read…ed]

President Obama Signs Law Raising Public Debt Limit from $12.4 Trillion to $14.3 Trillion

Behind closed doors and with no cameras present, President Obama signed into law Friday afternoon the bill raising the public debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion. The current national debt is $12.3 trillion. Check out the National Debt Clock, which tells you your share of that — roughly $40,000 per citizen, $113,000 per taxpayer. [Behind closed doors with no television cameras around Obama just slapped an extra 1.9 trillion dollars on the backs of future generations…ed]

Obama’s National Defence Review ignores Iran and Islam in favour of… climate change!

Under American law, every four years the US Defence Department must present to Congress a comprehensive review of the security threats and challenges to America. The security picture presented in the review provides the justification for planning and creating the appropriate military forces and capabilities. The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is supposed to be a non-partisan and objective strategic document – free of partisan politics. After all, the duty to protect the nation and its citizens is supposed to take a higher priority than subsidies to labour unions, or hand-outs to party loyalists. (SNIP) However, it’s not what is in the document that surprises the reader – it’s what was left out. There presence of two elephants in their living room apparently escaped the notice of American’s top civilian and military leaders. Islamic radicalism does not receive any mention whatsoever in the American Defence Review and the threat posed by a nuclear Iran is mentioned in only one general sentence at the end of a document (page 101). To put this lack of discussion in proportion, contrast this non-discussion with other security issues mentioned in the document. For example, the security effects of climate change are highlighted and discussed in depth in eight pages of the document. [Nothing like having our priorities straight…ed]

Obama’s Own Begin to Turn on Him

When a presidency and an agenda are collapsing at the rate that President Obama’s are, it isn’t long before his party begins to distance itself from him. We’ve seen plenty of signs of this lately. Politico.com has a story today titled “Family feud: Nancy Pelosi at odds with President Obama.” According to the story: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s increasingly public disagreements with President Barack Obama are a reflection of something deeper: the seething resentment some Democrats feel over what they see as cavalier treatment from a wounded White House. Then there are the comments by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who said, “He [Obama] says ‘I’m for clean coal,’ and then he says it in his speeches, but he doesn’t say it in here. And he doesn’t say it in the minds of my own people. And he’s beginning to not be believable to me.” [Now that Obama’s own party is starting to turn on him he is like a cornered animal which makes him even more dangerous especially knowing what’s coming in November. There can be no question he is scheming as we speak to go around Congress and attempt to ram his agenda down our throats via UNCONSTITUTIONAL executive orders…ed]

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Family feud: Nancy Pelosi at odds with President Obama

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s increasingly public disagreements with President Barack Obama are a reflection of something deeper: the seething resentment some Democrats feel over what they see as cavalier treatment from a wounded White House. For months, the California lawmaker has been pushing Obama hard in private while praising him in public. But now she’s being more open in her criticism, in part because she feels the White House was wrong — in the wake of the Democrats’ loss in Massachusetts — to push the Senate health care bill on the House when she knew there was no way it would pass. Earlier this month, Pelosi criticized the president’s State of the Union call to exempt defense spending from a budget freeze. And in a White House meeting with leaders of both parties this week, she questioned the effectiveness of his plan to give small businesses tax breaks to hire workers. [Pass the popcorn. The only thing that could possibly hand Obama a chance at a second term would be a takeover of Congress by the GOP in November. Think back when Clinton was president…ed]

Sen. Reid kills Baucus bill, narrows focus of jobs legislation after complaints

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is rewriting a jobs bill after Democrats complained of too many concessions to Republicans. Reid announced Thursday that he would cut drastically back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman. The Finance Committee estimated that Reid’s proposal would cost approximately $15 billion. The Baucus bill, which was estimated at $85 billion, included $31 billion in tax extenders that Reid has decided to leave out. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Reid decided to drop the tax extenders after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to endorse the Baucus package. “We’re going to move this afternoon to a smaller package than talked about in the press,” Reid said. [How’s all that bipartisanship workin’ out for you Congressional Republicans?…ed]

Now Obama Discovers GOP Health Care Proposals?

Oh, the President must be really desperate. After repeating for months that Republicans have no solutions when it comes to health care reform, he now wants to discuss the very ideas he denied existed and has invited Republican leaders to the White House to find a “bipartisan” health care solution. How gracious of him. You’ll have to excuse us for questioning the sincerity of the President’s newfound desire to work together. As Chairman of the Republican Study Committee, virtually every week in 2009, we requested to meet with the President to discuss health care and other central issues. Each time, a polite “thank you” email from the White House was the extent of our bipartisan discussions. It’s interesting that only now – once his big-government dream is on political life support – does the President see a use for Republicans. And it appears that use may be more political than rooted in policy goals. In fact, the President’s invite to Republicans has come pre-packaged with some pretty audacious spin. For starters, this week the President has aggressively tried to frame Republicans as the obstructers to health care passage, unwilling to participate in the process. That’s a pretty tough sell for a President with a 77-seat majority in the House and 59 Democrat Senators in the other chamber. And before taking that line, the President might want to check with his partisan partner, Speaker Pelosi, who famously told House Democrats they would be shut out themselves if they attempted to work with Republicans on health care. That brings us to the second, more laughable, new claim from the White House: that the bill already contains Republican ideas and concessions from Democrats. Right. [Good to see Congressman Price bringing the truth out about this bogus bipartisanship nonsense we keep hearing from Obama and the Democrats. Be sure to have this information available for the TV audience when you meet with the president Mr. Price so the American people can see what’s really going on behind the scenes…ed]

Obama will help select location of Khalid Sheik Mohammed terrorism trial

President Obama is planning to insert himself into the debate about where to try the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, three administration officials said Thursday, signaling a recognition that the administration had mishandled the process and triggered a political backlash. Obama initially had asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to choose the site of the trial in an effort to maintain an independent Justice Department. But the White House has been taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York. Administration officials acknowledge that Holder and Obama advisers were unable to build political support for the trial. And Holder, in an interview Thursday, left open the possibility that Mohammed’s trial could be switched to a military commission, although he said that is not his personal and legal preference. “At the end of the day, wherever this case is tried, in whatever forum, what we have to ensure is that it’s done as transparently as possible and with adherence to all the rules,” Holder said. “If we do that, I’m not sure the location or even the forum is as important as what the world sees in that proceeding.” [What? Obama realizes he mishandled this mess? Amazing! I have an idea, if he is insistent on holding this trial in a civilian court how about Chicago, his adopted hometown? Or if not Illinois, perhaps one of the other 56 states he has visited?…ed]

Obama Officials Wrong on Padilla

During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued. He then pointed to an example from the Bush years to supposedly support his point. “Jose Padilla was made an enemy combatant so that we could get him to talk,” Gibbs said. “And guess what happened when we made him an enemy combatant, he didn’t talk. He did talk when he was transferred back into a civilian court.” President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the same point on Tuesday in an op-ed for USA Today. Brennan argued: “Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one’s determination to resist cooperation.” Brennan and Gibbs are wrong. In fact, Jose Padilla only started cooperating once he was transferred into the military’s custody and interrogated. [Gibbs and Brennan aren’t wrong, they flat out lied. This administration knows that most people won’t bother fact checking any of their hyperbole and they also know the compliant lamestream media won’t bother questioning anything they are told. We have no choice but to go out and do the research ourselves…ed]

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Poll reads Palin’s palm: no chance in 2012; 71% of Americans don’t think she’s qualified to be prez

Looks like the bloom is off the Rogue. More than half the nation – 55% – see Sarah Palin unfavorably, and 71% believe the “Going Rogue” author is not qualified to be President, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll Thursday. The former Alaska governor and Tea Party darling said recently she will consider running for the White House, but both those numbers are new lows for her and don’t augur well for a national political run. “More problematic for Palin is that even in her own party 52% think she’s not qualified for the presidency – up by 16 points from an ABC/Post poll in November,” writes ABC News pollster Gary Langer. [After nearly two years of relentless attacks on this woman from the left wingers in conjunction with the lamestream media it’s no wonder an ABC/Washington Post poll came up with these numbers. Why didn’t these same ABC/Compost peeps concern themselves with Obama’s SERIOUS lack of experience when he was running for president? An agenda perhaps?…ed]

Why Real Men Get Their Hands Dirty

The other day I asked a client for her new cell number. She blushed with embarrassment, held up her left hand, and confessed that she had scribbled the number on it. I immediately lifted my hand to show off the word “cheese” in bold blue. We both laughed. All over America, people have print on their hands: Pick Up Tom; Buy Milk; Call Mom. But to the Democrats and the MSM, Sarah Palin’s writing notes on her palm is shameful. Blasting Palin is nothing new. The Democrats, aided and abetted by the MSM, have been doing this from day one. They’ve ridiculed her clothes, her body, her family — anything they can think of. With lessons learned from Saul Alinsky, the Left uses ridicule as their most potent weapon. They know that public humiliation can flatten their victim, render him or her helpless and speechless. The Left relies on ridicule because they have nothing else to go on. [“Many Americans oppose Obama’s addiction to the teleprompter because we don’t know who is programming his words. We know who wrote on Palin’s hand — Palin!” HAH! Money!!…ed]

Republicans gain on Obama, public welcomes GOP power to block

A new poll shows Republicans making solid gains, and President Obama losing ground, in public opinion on the most important issues facing the country. The survey, by the Washington Post and ABC News asks the question, “Who do you trust to do a better job handling” a particular issue — President Obama or the Republicans in Congress? Obama has out-polled the GOP on the question from the moment of his swearing in, but the poll shows his advantage shrinking dramatically. Asked who they trust to better handle the economy, those surveyed pick Obama over the GOP by 47 percent to 42 percent, giving the president a five-point margin. But in November, in the same poll, Obama led by 15 points. Last July, he led by 23 points. And last February, he his lead was 55 points. So in the course of a single year, Obama’s lead over Republicans has shrunk from 55 points to five. [There isn’t a mainstream poll in the land that doesn’t reflect this country’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama…ed]

Democrats in worst shape in the last 50 years

In my Examiner column today I try to answer the question: how could a team that produced such a successful presidential campaign have produced such an unsuccessful policy agenda? The metrics are pretty clear: Barack Obama got the highest percentage of the vote for a Democratic candidate for president since 1964 and now he has plunged his party into its weakest position in the polls since that time. For confirmation, look at the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls on the generic vote for Congress: 45% Republican and 42% Democratic. Rasmussen Reports, which interviews only those who pass a screen as likely voters, has it 44%-36% Republican, ABC/Washington Poll has it 45%-42% Republican, NPR’s bipartisan poll has it 44%-39% Republican and Gallup has a 45%-45% tie. Democracy Corps, a Democratic outfit which has earned respect for its results, has Democrats ahead 46%-41%. [More bad news for Obama and the Democrats. Keep in mind Democrats have owned Congress for the last three years and the White House for the last 13 months and the Republicans couldn’t stop or impede anything they wanted to do since Jan. ’09, until last months election of Scott Brown that is…ed]

Former President Bill Clinton Gets Two Stents in Coronary Artery

Former President Bill Clinton was taken to a Manhattan hospital late this afternoon and two stents were installed in one of his coronary arteries, his office said. Clinton, 63, was transported to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan for a condition related to his heart. The former president’s counselor Douglas Band released a statement saying that Clinton is in “good spirits.” [Word had it he was playing “five fingers up her skirt” with a couple of nurses just before the anesthesia kicked in…ed]

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Congressman: Murtha Died After Intestine Was Damaged in Surgery

A Pennsylvania congressman and longtime friend of the late Rep. John Murtha said late Monday the congressman’s large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery and the complications led him to be hospitalized. The Pennsylvania Democrat died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., where he was admitted on Jan. 31. The gallbladder surgery was performed days earlier at the National Naval Medical Center, in Bethesda, Md., which didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. The gallbladder surgery was performed days earlier at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Rep. Bob Brady said an infection developed and that Murtha had a fever when he was admitted to the Virginia hospital. Brady called Murtha his “buddy” and says he’ll remember him forever. “There will never be another Jack Murtha,” Brady said. “He went out on top of his game.” [Yeah this crooked Democrat went out on top of his game all right. He made Judicialwatch’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009 list. Reminds me of that Clarence Darrow quote: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure”…ed]

Poll shows voters abandoning prez in droves

President Obama’s overall approval rating has sunk to a new low — and independent voters who propelled him to the White House have gotten downright sick of the job he’s doing, according to a devastating poll released yesterday. Obama’s job-approval rating has tanked to a dismal 29 percent among independents, the Marist College survey found. His disapproval rating is nearly twice as high — 57 percent. Obama’s overall approval among all registered voters hit a new low of 44 percent, the lowest of any poll that uses people to survey voters. The near-total loss of independents could prove catastrophic for Democrats if the trend holds through Election Day this year. [I can honestly say that my opinion of this president’s policies and their effect on America has never wavered, never wobbled, never varied. My opinion has remained rock steady. It’s about time the rest of the country came on board…ed]

I Was a Teenage President

The Obama administration resembles nothing so much as a big house in the suburbs where the parents are away for the weekend. In the absence of any responsible person to take charge, the Teenager-in-Chief is letting the rest of the adolescents run wild. They’ve maxed out their parents’ credit cards and have begun working on their overdraft lines in earnest, as the T-I-C’s budget, which proposes a $1.5-trillion deficit for the coming fiscal year, attests. With “what, me worry?” aplomb worthy of a Mad Magazine cover boy, Barack Obama delivered to Congress a bloated document which proposes that more than 40 percent of federal spending be done with borrowed money, and some of the rest courtesy of renewed taxes on America’s “rich” — those people and small businesses making unholy annual incomes greater than $250,000. [If this article wasn’t so true it would actually be fairly humorous…ed]

Robert Gibbs Scrawls Notes on Hand, Mocking Sarah Palin

Following President Obama’s surprise appearance at the White House press briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs garnered laughter from the press corps by holding up his hand to reveal that he had written notes on his palm in black marker. Gibbs’ move was a jab at Sarah Palin, who was shown to have written notes on her hand at a speech at the Tea Party convention Saturday after making an implicit criticism of the president for using a TelePrompTer. [Seriously, are there ANY flippin’ adults working in this administration?…ed]

Administration Again Cuts Funding for Scholarship Program That Helps Low-Income D.C. Kids

In his fiscal 2011 budget, President Barack Obama makes further cuts in funding for the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program for low-income, mostly minority students. Obama stopped funding altogether for the OSP in his 2010 fiscal year budget, but after protests from parents and school choice advocates, the administration decided to let children already receiving scholarships continue to do so until they graduate from high school. In the new budget, however, funding for the OSP is slashed by $4 million — from $13 million to $9 million – $1 million of which is for administrative costs. [You can’t keep them under your Democrat thumb once they grow up unless you keep them dumb AS they’re growing up. Don’t worry for the Democrats though, they can get away with crap like this. The parents of these kids living in DC who are about to get hosed will continue to check the big ‘D’ on voting day…ed]

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