John McCain Reviews ‘Going Rogue’
November 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Sarah Palin’s new book, Going Rogue, contains a certain amount of score-settling aimed at former McCain campaign aides, so what does John McCain think of the book?
McCain received a signed copy of Going Rogue on November 12th and reported on Saturday that he enjoyed reading running mate Sarah Palin’s new memoir.
“I enjoyed the book and she and I are dear friends. I talked to her on the phone yesterday. We got along fine,” said McCain in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum.
In Going Rogue, Palin explained how she was denied the chance to deliver a concession speech and was often referred to as ‘Going Rogue,’ providing Palin with the title for her memoir. Reports have stated that tension between McCain aides and Palin has continued after the campaign. Steve Schmidt, former top McCain aide said last week that Palin’s description of him in her book was a “fabrication” and “total fiction.”
Despite the tension between Palin and McCain’s aides, McCain continues to say he’s proud of Palin, proud of the campaign they ran and he’s moving forward.
McConnell: It’s a ‘Monstrosity of a Bill’
November 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says the proposed health care legislation would raise taxes, increase health care costs and damage medicare. He says senators should have a hard time supporting it. (Nov. 21)
Unfortunately we can’t tell who is telling us the truth.
Fact Checks on Palins New Book
November 19, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
The differences in statements and fact in her book are not as contradictory as most people would have expected. Though there are some caveats.
Fact-checking Sarah Palin
Here are some of former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s claims in “Going Rogue,” her new book released this week:
Frugal Governor
Palin: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.
Facts: Although travel records show she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With airfare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000.
Campaign Donors
Palin: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.
Facts: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500. She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife, and $30 from a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers’ offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oil-field services company.
Federal Bailouts
Palin: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to President Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”
Facts: Palin blurs the lines between Obama’s stimulus plan – a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts – and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed.
Conflicts of Interest
Palin: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free – this to illustrate her stance against conflicts of interest as a public servant.
Facts: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a zoning exception so she could sell her family’s $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property. She asked the City Council to loosen rules for snowmobile races when she and her husband owned a snowmobile store. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snowmobile race in which her husband competes.
Climate Change
Palin: Says Obama has admitted that the climate change policy he seeks will cause people’s electricity bills to “skyrocket.”
Facts: She correctly quotes a comment attributed to Obama in January 2008, when he told San Francisco Chronicle editors that under his cap-and-trade climate proposal, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” as utilities are forced to retrofit coal-burning power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Obama now argues that climate legislation can blunt the cost to consumers.
How did you Senator vote on the stimulus package?
October 5, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Alabama
Sessions (R) No; Shelby (R) No.
Alaska
Begich (D) Yes; Murkowski (R) No.
Arizona
Kyl (R) No; McCain (R) No.
Arkansas
Lincoln (D) Yes; Pryor (D) Yes.
California
Boxer (D) Yes; Feinstein (D) Yes.
Colorado
Bennet (D) Yes; Udall (D) Yes.
Connecticut
Dodd (D) Yes; Lieberman (I) Yes.
Delaware
Carper (D) Yes; Kaufman (D) Yes.
Florida
Martinez (R) No; Nelson (D) Yes.
Georgia
Chambliss (R) No; Isakson (R) No.
Hawaii
Akaka (D) Yes; Inouye (D) Yes.
Idaho
Crapo (R) No; Risch (R) No.
Illinois
Burris (D) Yes; Durbin (D) Yes.
Indiana
Bayh (D) Yes; Lugar (R) No.
Iowa
Grassley (R) No; Harkin (D) Yes.
Kansas
Brownback (R) No; Roberts (R) No.
Kentucky
Bunning (R) No; McConnell (R) No.
Louisiana
Landrieu (D) Yes; Vitter (R) No.
Maine
Collins (R) Yes; Snowe (R) Yes.
Maryland
Cardin (D) Yes; Mikulski (D) Yes.
Massachusetts
Kennedy (D) Yes; Kerry (D) Yes.
Michigan
Levin (D) Yes; Stabenow (D) Yes.
Minnesota
Klobuchar (D) Yes.
Mississippi
Cochran (R) No; Wicker (R) No.
Missouri
Bond (R) No; McCaskill (D) Yes.
Montana
Baucus (D) Yes; Tester (D) Yes.
Nebraska
Johanns (R) No; Nelson (D) Yes.
Nevada
Ensign (R) No; Reid (D) Yes.
New Hampshire
Gregg (R) Not Voting; Shaheen (D) Yes.
New Jersey
Lautenberg (D) Yes; Menendez (D) Yes.
New Mexico
Bingaman (D) Yes; Udall (D) Yes.
New York
Gillibrand (D) Yes; Schumer (D) Yes.
North Carolina
Burr (R) No; Hagan (D) Yes.
North Dakota
Conrad (D) Yes; Dorgan (D) Yes.
Ohio
Brown (D) Yes; Voinovich (R) No.
Oklahoma
Coburn (R) No; Inhofe (R) No.
Oregon
Merkley (D) Yes; Wyden (D) Yes
Pennsylvania
Casey (D) Yes; Specter (R) Yes.
Rhode Island
Reed (D) Yes; Whitehouse (D) Yes.
South Carolina
DeMint (R) No; Graham (R) No.
South Dakota
Johnson (D) Yes; Thune (R) No.
Tennessee
Alexander (R) No; Corker (R) No.
Texas
Cornyn (R) No; Hutchison (R) No.
Utah
Bennett (R) No; Hatch (R) No.
Vermont
Leahy (D) Yes; Sanders (I) Yes.
Virginia
Warner (D) Yes; Webb (D) Yes.
Washington
Cantwell (D) Yes; Murray (D) Yes.
West Virginia
Byrd (D) Yes; Rockefeller (D) Yes.
Wisconsin
Feingold (D) Yes; Kohl (D) Yes.
Wyoming
Barrasso (R) No; Enzi (R) No.
GOP: Dems Ignoring Public’s Health Care Concerns
October 3, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
The Democratic-run Congress is ignoring the public’s concerns in the rush to pass legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system, Republicans say.
“The American people expect us to get this right and to do it in an open, honest and bipartisan debate. That’s what they deserve,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in his party’s radio and Internet address Saturday. “But thats not what theyre getting from the Democrats on Capitol Hill.”
The Senate Finance Committee is the last of five committees to take up health care legislation, which tops President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.
The committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., negotiated with top Republicans for weeks before talks broke down. Baucus’ bill leaves out a primary demand of many Democrats _ a government insurance option _ and it has a lower price tag than other Democratic proposals.
But Isakson and other Republicans say it’s still too costly and would require too much government intrusion into the health care system. Only one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, appears to be considering supporting it.
At its core, the bill is designed to expand health insurance coverage to millions of people who lack it, employing a new system of federal subsidies for lower-income individuals and families and establishing an insurance exchange in which coverage would have federally guaranteed benefits.
Insurance companies would be prohibited from refusing to sell insurance based on a person’s health history, and limits would be imposed on higher premiums based on age.
Bill O’Reilly weighs on why he likes Palin
October 3, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Democrats may equate the name Palin with the sound of sharp nails clawing a chalkboard but so much the better, says Miller, a show business pro who understands a thing or two about shtick and the art of pushing peoples’ buttons.
“I mean, she drives the right people crazy,” he told O’Reilly. “Do I think she’s going to outsmart you? No. But do I think that, in some way, she has an appeal with people that practiced politicians might never have? Yes, I do.”
If you judge by the numbers, there’s no debate he’s right about that. Palin’s upcoming memoir Rogue is ranked No. 1 both on the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble bestseller lists – and this, still a full month and a half before the book is scheduled to go on sale.
As they look to 2012, the Republicans already have a media superstar in their stable. The one caveat: Palin remains a lightening rod for controversy. So it was that after readers responded to our post reporting the advance success of Rogue, I came across a post by one person who goes by the handle “two-cats.” He wrote: “Comic book, soap opera baloney is more like it. I shall not be reading anything by this woman…not interested in anything she has to say (or, rather had written for her) and it infuriates me that a ding-a-ling like her gets so much media attention.”
Read it all at CBS NEWS
John Ensign Investigation to Proceed: Marital Affair
October 3, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide, current and former officials said Friday.
“Whenever allegations of improper conduct are brought to the attention of Senate Ethics Committee, we open a preliminary inquiry,” said Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the committee.
The inquiries will most likely examine whether Mr. Ensign, a Nevada Republican, or Douglas Hampton, his one-time administrative assistant, broke the law after Mr. Hampton, immediately upon leaving his Congressional job last year, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office. Mr. Hampton, as a senior aide, was subject to a one-year lobbying ban, lawyers who specialize in ethics law said.
Read the Full Article at NY TIMES
Pelosi: GOP has double standard in health care rhetoric debate
October 1, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped congressional Republicans on Thursday for holding Democrats to a higher standard in the rhetoric employed in the often acidic health care debate.
Rep. Alan Grayson isn’t backing down from his controversial remarks made on the House floor.
Rep. Alan Grayson isn’t backing down from his controversial remarks made on the House floor.
“Apparently, Republicans are holding Democrats to a higher level than they hold their own members,” she said on Capitol Hill. “If anybody’s going to apologize, everybody should apologize.”
Pelosi made her remarks after being asked to comment on a controversial speech made this week by Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, who said on the House floor that Republican health care plans call for sick people to “die quickly.”
GOP leaders charged Grayson with crossing a rhetorical line and demanded an apology. Grayson responded by apologizing not for his remarks but for the government’s failure to enact health care reform sooner. Video Watch Grayson defend his remarks »
“I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America,” he said.
Grayson cited a Harvard University study released this month that said 44,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.
That prompted a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee to issue a stinging rebuke, saying Grayson is “doubling down on his despicable remarks, and he is dragging his party with him.”
On Thursday, a GOP legislative leader from Grayson’s home state of Florida criticized him for making light of the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.
“Regardless of one’s position on the issue of health care reform, comparing the American health care system to the systematic murdering of over 6 million Jews is totally outrageous and unfit for someone holding public office,” Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner said.
“Congressman Grayson should apologize to the Jewish community and the families of those whose loved ones were brutally executed. I’d also encourage Mr. Grayson to take a walk tomorrow afternoon to the U.S. Holocaust Museum so he can witness for himself just how offensive and inappropriate his statement is.”
Pelosi in turn argued that Republicans regularly make statements about health care on the House floor “that relate to death.” The “points have been made,” she said. “Now it’s time for us to keep the focus on health care.”
Grayson, a Democrat who represents a central Florida swing district that includes Orlando, defended his recent remarks Wednesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”
“What I mean is, they have got no plan,” Grayson told Wolf Blitzer. “It’s been 24 hours since I said that. Where is the Republican plan? We’re all waiting to see something that will take care of the pre-existing conditions, to take care of the 40 million Americans who have no coverage at all.
“That’s what I meant when I said that the Republican plan is ‘don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.’ ”
Grayson said the Republicans who he believes are obstructing health care reform are “foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.”
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Calling for universal health care, he slammed “whoever it is that’s causing the Republicans to fight tooth-and-nail against anything, absolutely anything.”
“Those are the people who are really disserving Americans,” he said.
