According to this DC Examiner article, Michael Burgess just introduced a bill to restore the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. The bill’s name is the DC Student Opportunity and Choice Act.
“The DC school voucher program has been undeniably successful for the student who have had the opportunity to participate, [...]
Thursday afternoon, I had the privilege of interviewing House GOP Policy Committee Chairman Thad McCotter on a variety of subjects.
We started with the health care debate going on. I started by saying that, from an outsider’s perspective, it looked like Senate Democrats were like a dog chasing its tail. Chairman [...]
I’ve read a number of articles recently about how the TEA Party might hurt the GOP if the TEA Party goes the third party route. I don’t doubt that the Democrats, both the elected officials and those in the Agenda Media, want to stir up trouble. The bad news for [...]
Tarryl’s Stib op-ed in this morning’s edition is a perfect example of a politician who hopes that the people will read the headline, then skip the substance behind the issue. The subject of Tarryl’s op-ed is H.R. 4173, which I’ve nicknamed as the “Too Big To Fail Bill.” Here’s [...]
I’ve always appreciated people who kept their sense of humor when facing adversity. That’s probably why I appreciate Rep. Thad McCotter’s wit and snarkiness in this year end review:
Democrats’ Year End Review: Coming Out of Left Field
Washington, DC – As the House prepares to wrap up its 2009 legislative agenda, [...]
Though I agree with Chairman Sutton that figuring out Minnesota campaign finance law isn’t difficult, I don’t agree with him when he says that the DFL doesn’t share in the blame for Speaker Kelliher’s mess. I’m saying that after reading this quote:
For instance, lobbyist Ted Grindal said Tuesday that [...]
Basing my opinion on Scott Rasmussen’s polling, I’m betting that Charlie Crist’s chances of replacing RINO Mel Martinez in the U.S. Senate are slim and dwindling. Here’s what Mr. Rasmussen’s polling shows:
Governor Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio are now tied in the 2010 race for [...]
After reading Keith Ellison’s latest e-letter, the first thing that popped into my head was that it was typical of DFL economics 101. Here’s part of Rep. Ellison’s e-letter update:
One of the top priorities I have in the Congress is building lasting prosperity for families in the Fifth Congressional District [...]
Another day of LTEs in the St. Cloud Times, another liberal attack Michele Bachmann. That’s as surprising as finding out that President Obama is a narcissist. We’ve all seen the DFL use lies to advance their agenda. This time, though, it’s too far over the line to not slap [...]
After reading the CBO’s letter to Sen. Evan Bayh, there’s no way I can call the Democrats’ legislation health care reform without feeling like I’m being dishonest. Here’s the first part of the letter that jumped out at me:
In addition, the proposal would: establish a mandate for most legal [...]
It’s amazing the type of BS that this administration has tried peddling. This morning, it’s OMB Director Peter Orszag’s turn to get fisked. Here’s the fantasy that he’s peddling:
The Journal makes three fundamental claims. The first is that health reform represents a huge risk to the federal budget, and [...]
Last night, the Democrats ‘caved’ on expanding Medicare to appease Sen. Lieberman. Sen. Reid tried projecting a positive tone:
“Democrats aren’t going to let the American people down,” Majority Leader Harry Reid said after a closed-door meeting called to discuss last-minute trade-offs in the legislation that President Barack Obama has [...]
Last week, the campaign finance spat that Speaker Kelliher got involved in didn’t seem like that big a deal. Thanks to new revelations, though, it’s beginning to feel like this scandal might be with us awhile.
Tony Sutton has used the best analogy I’ve heard yet in explaining why Speaker [...]
Mark Dayton isn’t the sharpest knife in the DFL’s drawer but he’s sunk to a new low with his latest campaign slogan:
While almost all the DFLers argue that the wealthy should pay their “fair share,” Dayton is the most explicit and aggressive about it.
“Read my lips: Tax the rich,” [...]
Liberal pundits have claimed that 2010 wouldn’t be another 1994 bloodbath because things are different this time. Specifically, they’ve said that one of the reasons why Republicans won 54 seats that election was the extraordinary amount of open seats that fell into the GOP’s hands.
Of course, that’s revisionist history, with [...]
I just got TMLC’s press release on breaking news that a Board Of Inquiry, aka BOI, has found Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani not guilty of misconduct. Here’s the heart of their statement:
ANN ARBOR, MI – Late last Friday afternoon (Eastern Standard Time), after three hours of deliberation, the military Board [...]
It isn’t surprising that President Obama’s unpopularity keeps rising, especially considering his pursuit of the most radical agenda in U.S. history. Thus it comes as no surprise that his JAR has taken another major hit:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 24% of the nation’s [...]
If you believe this article, which I wholeheartedly do, then it’s entirely plausible that women will lead the next conservative movement. I don’t care who leads conservatism’s next revolution as long as there’s room for everyone who prefers limited government and low taxes over the Obama/Pelosi/Reid model.
WHEN Stacy Mott, [...]
When I read this article, I couldn’t help but think that these must be terrible times for Democrats. Here’s what supposedly passes as good news for Democrats:
GOP leaders would like to dismiss the refusal of the Ohio Republican Party’s screening committee to endorse former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine of [...]
President Obama has talked alot about getting the deficits in order. The omnibus appropriations bill he’s about to sign proves that he’s all talk:
The 1,000-plus-page bill brings together six of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress had been unable to pass separately even though the new fiscal year [...]
Democrats are whining that Sen. McCain has started voicing opposition to their misguided legislation. Here’s one of their pathetic arguments:
Democrats say Mr. McCain is part of a broad Republican effort to kill the health-care bill, President Obama’s top agenda item, and deal a devastating political blow to the administration. [...]
Ted Strickland’s lackluster term as Ohio’s governor appears to be headed for a screeching halt according to Scott Rasmussen’s latest polling:
Unemployment in Ohio has jumped to 10.5%, the state is wrestling with an $851 million budget shortfall, and Governor Ted Strickland has proposed delaying a tax cut approved in [...]
Thursday afternoon, I interviewed Rep. Michele Bachmann about H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. One of the first points Rep. Bachmann made was that it centered too much power in the executive branch.
According to the legislation’s language in Section 1101, the “Council and [...]
Ultraliberal activist Robert Borosage has posted something at the Huffington Post that essentially says that the Democrats didn’t throw away enough of your money:
President Obama is sensibly focused on jobs, unveiling a new initiative yesterday in the wake of the jobs summit. Elements included everything from new infrastructure spending [...]
Wednesday, Gov. Pawlenty’s office issued a press release concerning LGA funding. Here’s Gov. Pawlenty’s statement:
GOVERNOR PAWLENTY ANNOUNCES DECEMBER LOCAL AID PAYMENTS WILL NOT BE UNALLOTED
Saint Paul - Governor Tim Pawlenty today wrote to city and county leaders to inform them he does not intend to take executive action to [...]
If there’s a question that Dick Morris asks in his latest column, it’s whether the Democrats are really stupid enough to pass health care. Here’s a sample from his column:
Will you listen to the elderly who absorb 40 percent of medical care and not to the AARP, which you [...]
It’s understandable that a politician facing a difficult election cycle would put on a brave face and pretend that his party will be fine. That’s what Steny Hoyer is doing in this interview:
Countering the emerging narrative that next year’s midterm elections will be a replay of 1994, when Republicans [...]
It’s long been my contention that Amy Klobuchar isn’t a moderate. Thanks to her voting to slash Medicare’s home care budget, not to mention voting for slashing $460,000,000,000 from the overall Medicare bill, we now have proof that she’s willing to put a higher priority on partisanship than on [...]
My first reaction to Steny Hoyer’s whining presentation was that he should whine from a different hymnal because this speech was from a discredited hymnal:
“One of our two great parties is now an organization committed to an unprecedented level of lockstep opposition to the president,” said Hoyer. “A ‘Party [...]
I just finished participating in a blogger conference call, aka BCC, with John Thune that dealt primarily with health care issues.
One of the bloggers that participated asked why Republicans were offering reasonable amendments to the bill. Specifically, he asked if these amendments might not make the bill more palatable and [...]
The post’s title says it all. According to Open Congress, Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken voted to cut Medicare’s home care budget by 14.5 percent:
By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home [...]
I gave this post a provocative title so I’d get your attention. This isn’t a dissertation on death panels. Rather, it’s a look at the consequences of upcoming federal restrictions on health care. Thanks to Nat Hentoff’s article, we now know that the system being proposed has amajor flaw [...]
Sunday, I watched At Issue With Tom Hauser. Hauser’s interview of Neil Johnson got my blood boiling. When you read this partial transcript of the interview, you’ll understand:
Hauser: We’re gonna talk now with someone who has some thoughts on what’s being debated in Washington. He is Neil Johnson, the executive [...]
According a chart compiled by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, the House Democrats’ Health care bill would create a monstrous marriage penalty.
The chart put together by these committees relates to the “Public Health Insurance Option.” According [...]
George Will’s column on climate change is the best explanation of what went wrong with the science supposedly supporting climate change. Here’s a blast that’s certain to leave a mark:
The Financial Times’ peculiar response to the CRU materials is: The scientific case for alarm about global warming “is growing [...]
DFL leadership is salivating thinking about passing a $1,000,000,000 bonding bill when they should be prioritizing fixing Minnesota’s economy:
House Speaker and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said during one of the flurry of press conferences following Wednesday’s release of the November economic forecast that she would like [...]
Saturday afternoon, I attended Michele Bachmann’s Christmas party in St. Cloud. There she revealed what I already knew: that Speaker Pelosi has painted a big bullseye on Michele’s back. I think that’s because Speaker Pelosi hates Michele’s principled opposition to Speaker Pelosi’s radical agenda.
Michele’s principled opposition to Speaker Pelosi’s agenda [...]
Doug Grow’s post on the SEIU’s endorsement process reveals alot about the SEIU. Thanks to Dr. Maureen Reed’s challenging Tarryl Clark in a primary, we now know alot more about this process:
On Sept. 9, Reed appeared before a group of union leaders representing the East Central Area Labor Council. [...]
Larry Pogemiller has thrown more than a couple hissy fits over Gov. Pawlenty’s economic policies. In all the time that I’ve been watching, I’ve yet to hear him articulate a plan on what a Pogemiller economic plan would look like, though I suspect that it’d start with raising taxes and [...]
Thursday afternoon, I participated in a blogger conference call with Assistant Minority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Thad McCotter. It was immediately understandable why Rep. McCotter is the Chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee.
The topic du jour was jobs, specifically why the Democrats’ stimulus hadn’t produced any and [...]
Prior to this post, most people probably haven’t heard about Aaron Ament. I certainly hadn’t heard of him prior to this. Ament is one of the founders of Stand Up America PAC. According to this article, Stand Up America PAC has targeted Michele Bachmann, Joe Wilson, Eric Cantor, Jean [...]
CQPolitics is reporting that Maureen Reed won’t abide by the DFL endorsing convention for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s seat. This isn’t a total surprise as there were some hints last week that that’s the path that she’d be taking:
I told Isaacson that that sounded pretty close to declaring that [...]
True to form, the only people attending President Obama’s job summit will be people who agree with him. I’m confident now that I know that the Obama administration will have a photo-op event with the people who’ve created this robust economy.
Confirmed attendees include liberal economists credited with shaping the [...]
Republicans got another bit of good news Tuesday when Rep. John Tanner, (D-TN), announced that he’s retiring at the end of this term:
Tanner released a statement late tonight confirming the news. “Betty Ann and I had considered retiring in 2007 at the end of the 110th Congress, were it [...]
Last night, I got this statement from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office on President Obama’s speech at West Point:
After several long months of deliberation, I’m pleased that the President has finally decided to follow the recommendation of our commanding officer in Afghanistan and deploy more troops to the country. As the [...]
President Obama’s speech at West Point tonight was a different speech than any I’ve ever seen him give before. It seemed disjointed and unorganized. Several things he said stood out for me tonight, starting with this comment:
Under the banner of this domestic unity and international legitimacy, and only after [...]
The first telltale sign that the Democrats are in trouble in 2010 is found in Scott Rasmussen’s polling. Rumor has it that the DNC and the Obama administration have started buying Maalox by the case. Here’s why they’re justified:
Voters remain more confident in Republicans than in Democrats this month [...]
I’m not shocked to find out that John Murtha doesn’t think military victory is achievable in Afghanistan. He’s been a defeatist since the 1980s.
Democratic Rep. John Murtha, just back from a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, said
Monday that he never got a clear definition of what constitutes an “achievable [...]
When Ahmadinejad committed voter fraud in Iran, the people rioted. The Obama administration sided with the Iranian mullahs. When the Chavez-backed thug tried an end run around the Honduran Constitution, the Honduran Congress took the proper steps to remove him. The Honduran Supreme Court then ruled that President Zelaya tried [...]
It isn’t surprising that the DFL is intent on putting together a gigantic bonding bill which they’ll tout as their jobs bill. While it’s true that the bonding bill will include important infrastructure maintenance projects, it’s statistically provable that there are thousands fewer construction jobs after 2 $1,000,000,000+ bonding [...]
