Thursday, May 31, 2012

CNN

Obsession? CNN Devotes Over Half Hour of Coverage Thursday to Obama Campaign's Attack Strategy

By: Matt Hadro | May 31, 2012 | 19:22

CNN devoted over four times the coverage to the Obama campaign's new attack strategy on Thursday than it initially gave to the largest religious lawsuit in U.S. history. Over 32 minutes of airtime on Thursday focused on President Obama's campaign attacks on Mitt Romney, including video clips of the campaign's new attack ad.

In contrast, when a dozen lawsuits were filed on by 43 Catholic institutions including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdioceses of Washington and New York, CNN's coverage totaled less than seven minutes total on that day, May 21, and on the next morning's Starting Point.

Sierra Clubs

Sierra Clubs Natural Gas

The green lobby picks its next fossil fuel target.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

New York High-Taxing

Escape From New York? High-Taxing Empire State Loses 3.4 Million Residents in 10 Years

By Elizabeth Harrington

May 29, 2012

Passengers at New York’s JFK international airport. (Photo: JetBlue)

(CNSNews.com) – New York State accounted for the biggest migration exodus of any state in the nation between 2000 and 2010, with 3.4 million residents leaving over that period, according to the Tax Foundation.

Over that decade the state gained 2.1 million, so net migration amounted to 1.3 million, representing a loss of $45.6 billion in income.

Where are they escaping to? The Tax Foundation found that more than 600,000 New York residents moved to Florida over the decade – opting perhaps for the Sunshine State’s more lenient tax system – taking nearly $20 billion in adjusted growth income with them.

Hillary Veep?

Columnist: Hillary Clinton will be veep candidate

Published: 6:08 PM 05/21/2012

By Meagan Clark

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Washington Times columnist Joe Curl predicted Monday that President Barack Obama will replace Vice President Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential running mate in November.

“The Great One, Sir Barack Hussein Obama, will replace the bumbling, buffoonish Mr. Biden with Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, maybe at the Democratic convention, maybe just before, in a last-ditch effort to win re-election,” Curl wrote.

Obama has a likely hold on 252 of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win. Mitt Romney has a likely 266. Obama, Curl writes, needs a game-changer: Enter Hillary Clinton, to attract female voters.

Clinton won 18 million votes in the 2008 primaries, and last month her approval was as high as it’s ever been — 65 percent, according to a Washington Post/ABC poll. Fox News polling shows Biden’s approval hovering at 41 percent.

Curl also notes that women have replaced Obama with Romney as their standard-bearer. In April, Obama held a 49 percent share among women, with Romney at 43 percent. The latest CBS/NY Times poll shows Romney leads with 46 percent, with Obama trailing at 44 percent.

Most critically, swapping Biden for Clinton makes 2012 another revolution, this time based on gender instead of race. Clinton would be the first female vice president, and only the third to run (after Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin).

In addition, Clinton could appeal to voters Obama is losing: white working- and middle-class Americans.

Michelle Obama once called herself “the most powerful woman in Washington,” Curl wrote. But the president, he added, knows that replacing Biden with his secretary of state “will be his only path to re-election.”

“One state Democratic leader even tells me the bumper stickers are already printed,” he wrote, “sitting in a warehouse in (where else?) Little Rock, Ark.”

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Consumer confidence

May 29, 2012 1:40pm 958 Comments

Holder to brief black pastors on campaign 2012

byJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Attorney General Eric Holder, the IRS, and the liberal lawyers at the ACLU will brief several hundred pastors in the African American community on how to participate in the presidential election -- which the Congressional Black Caucus chair expects will help President Obama's campaign.

"We will have representatives from nine denominations who actually pastor somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10 million people, and we're going to first of all equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501c3 status with the IRS," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., told MSNBC today.

"In fact, we're going to have the IRS administrator there, we're going to have the Attorney General Eric Holder there, we're going to have the lawyers' organization from around the country, the ACLU -- all giving ministers guidance about what they can and cannot do," he noted.

Cleaver said they would not tell pastors which candidate to support. They will let them know who to regard as the bad guys, though (hint: not Democrats). "We're going to talk about some of the draconian laws that have cropped up around the country as a result of the 17 percent increase in African American votes," Cleaver said, describing voter ID laws as a form of Jim Crow-style "poll tax" on seniors and black voters.

The CBC chairman is confident that "President Obama is going to get 95 percent of the [African American] vote," and wants to keep that turnout high. "We want to let them know that there is a theological responsibility to participate in the political process, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition," he said.

Consumer confidence plunges in May

Updated: May 29, 2012 - 10:23AM

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NEW YORK -Americans' confidence in the economy in May had its biggest drop in eight months as consumers fretted about slow hiring, a big stock market drop and the global economy, says a private research group.

The Conference Board says its Consumer Confidence Index now stands at 64.9, down from a revised 68.7 in April. It was the biggest drop since October 2011.

Economists were expecting a reading of 70, according to a FactSet poll of analysts. The current level is below February's 71.6, which is the highest level it's been in a year.

Consumer confidence is widely watched because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. The measure is significantly below the 90 reading that indicates a healthy economy. But the current level is well above the 40 it hit last October.

But the latest reading is expected to be well above the 40 figure reached last October and the all-time low of 25.3 in February 2009.

Unclear sailing for John F. Kerry

But when the Herald called the Nantucket tax collector’s office last week, there was no record of any bills or payments in Kerry’s name. A spokeswoman for Kerry said the senator’s accountant had tried repeatedly to get the tax bill from Nantucket, but couldn’t get a response. The taxes, amounting to roughly $100, were finally paid in full last December, according to Kerry’s office.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1061134921

Veterans vote

May 28, 2012

Veterans Give Romney Big Lead Over Obama

Veterans responsible for Romney's advantage among men overall

by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday of May, honors the men and women who died while serving in the American military.

If you can read this thank a teacher. If you're reading this in English thank a soldier.

Obama--Bain Capital

President Obama Won’t Be Returning His Donations From Bain Capital

By Hunter Walker 5/24 8:33pm

President Obama (Photo: Getty)

Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama still accepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from three Bain executives.

His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt told The Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for President highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation, when in fact, his goal was profit maximization,” said Mr. LaBolt. ”The President has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression, manufacturing and the auto industry revived, and support his agenda to build an economy that lasts where America outinnovates and outeducates the rest of the world and economic security for the middle class is restored.”

On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden defended the attacks on Mr. Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Though he insisted he wasn’t “criticizing private equity firms,” Mr. Biden said there were many examples of Mr. Romney and his Bain colleagues causing tremendous harm.

“You hear all these stories about his partners buying companies … where they load up with a tremendous amount of debt. The companies go under, everybody loses their job, the community is devastated, but they make money,” said Mr. Biden. “They make money even when a company goes bankrupt, when workers lose their jobs.”

Earlier in the week, President Obama described Bain and other private equity firms as a “healthy part of the free market” filled with many ”folks who do good work.” However, he also said the priority of private equity companies is to “maximize profits,” which is “not always going to be good for businesses or communities or workers.” Because of this, he said Mr. Romney’s work at Bain Capital isn’t good preparation for the presidency.

“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you are missing what this job is about,” President Obama said. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity. But that’s not what my job is as president. My job is to take into account everybody, not just some.”

Krauthammer

Krauthammer Slams Media’s ‘Appalling Double Standard’ on Teenage Romney v Obama’s Wright

By: Brent Baker | May 17, 2012 | 20:26

Reacting to Mitt Romney’s discomfort toward proposed independent expenditure ads reminding Americans of President Obama’s connections to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, on FNC Thursday night Charles Krauthammer delivered a rebuke to the media’s presumption raising Wright would be illegitimate. Kauthammer sure didn’t hold back:

I think there is an appalling double standard here. It’s okay for the Washington Post to run a five thousand word front page story on a prank that Romney, at the age of 15, committed. And yet it’s somehow illegitimate, the low road or whatever, for people to bring up the fact that the adult Obama had a 20-year relationship with a racist anti-American preacher whom he considered, spoke about, wrote about as his mentor and spiritual advisor.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Female Staffers

Senate Dems Betray Lilly

Senate Democrats pay female staffers less than male staffers

Sen. Patty Murray / AP

BY: Andrew Stiles - May 24, 2012 5:00 am

A group of Democratic female senators on Wednesday declared war on the so-called “gender pay gap,” urging their colleagues to pass the aptly named Paycheck Fairness Act when Congress returns from recess next month. However, a substantial gender pay gap exists in their own offices, a Washington Free Beacon analysis of Senate salary data reveals.

Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference—Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)—three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers.

Three years after supposedly accomplishing this with Lilly Ledbetter.

4:06 PM, May 24, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER

After the Lilly Ledbetter Act passed in Congress and was signed into law, President Obama and Senate Democrats were self-congratulatory.

Obama suggests we keep "Washington" out of the arguments against his health-care plan.

“We passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- the first bill I signed -- so that equal pay for equal work is a reality all across this country," Obama said, praising himself and his colleagues. "We are very proud of legislation we have passed … to guarantee gender pay equity with the Lilly Ledbetter law," Democratic senator Ben Cardin said, offering himself and Democrats more praise. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, also a Democrat, likewise offered congratulations to herself: "I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish so far… the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ensures that all Americans are paid the same regardless of age, gender, race, or ethnicity."

Nevertheless, with an election coming in November and with Republicans supposedly waging a war on women, the pay equity Lilly Ledbetter bill does not appear to have been enough--even for these very same Democrats.

The next battle on Capitol Hill for Democrats will again be to use this women's issue for political gain.

The first stop will be to bring another pay equity bill to the Senate floor. As Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said yesterday on Capitol Hill, "Madam President, it is almost universally acknowledged that Republican obstructionism has reached new heights in the Senate… We could be considering the Paycheck Fairness Act, ensuring American women receive equal pay for equal work."

One wonders, of course, if the Lilly Ledbetter bill was so great, why would they need to do this drill all over again?

It's a way to raise support and funds, a senior Senate Republican aide explains. And it's cynical and destructive.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

"The Amateur"

"The Amateur" to debut at Number One on the New York Times bestseller list

A book only the media could ignore.

by John Hayward

05/23/2012

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Comments

Edward Klein’s new book about President Obama, The Amateur, has already made some news, particularly with regard to allegations that an ally of Obama’s offered the odious Reverend Jeremiah Wright a $150,000 bribe to keep his mouth shut during the 2008 presidential campaign. And the title of the book is a quote from Bill Clinton, who was said to be urging his wife to challenge Obama for the Democrat nomination in 2012.

That’s pretty sensational stuff, but the media has been studiously ignoring Klein’s book. NewsBusters noted on Tuesday that none of the mainstream media networks have interviewed Klein on the air, or offered a serious discussion of his work. ABC News very briefly mentioned the “amateur” quote from Clinton on their website, but that’s about it.

Needless to say, that’s very different from the way the mainstream press treats provocative books about people they dislike.

It looks like the public hasn’t been ignoring Klein’s book, however, because Regnery Publishing (around whose metaphorical water cooler we HUMAN EVENTS writers gather) announced today that The Amateur will debut at Number One on the New York Times nonfiction list for June 3^rd.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Bush-era tax cuts

CBO says US likely to fall off 'fiscal cliff' if Bush-era tax cuts allowed to expire

Published May 22, 2012

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A new government study released Tuesday says that allowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire and a scheduled round of automatic spending cuts to take effect would probably throw the economy into a recession.

The Congressional Budget Office report says that the economy would shrink by 1.3 percent in the first half of next year if the government is allowed to fall off this so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1 -- and that the higher tax rates and more than $100 billion in automatic cuts to the Pentagon and domestic agencies are kept in place.

There's common agreement that lawmakers will act either late this year or early next year to head off the dramatic shift in the government's financial situation. But if they were left in place, CBO says it would wring hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget deficit that would "represent an additional drag on the weak economic expansion."

Iran on Israel

Iran committed to ‘full annihilation of Israel,’ says top Iranian military commander

Published: 11:29 PM 05/20/2012

By Reza Kahlili - The Daily Caller

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Iran is dedicated to annihilating Israel, the Islamic regime’s military chief of staff declared Sunday.

“The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said in a speech to a defense gathering Sunday in Tehran.
His remarks came on the day International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano flew to Tehran to negotiate for inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. They were reported by the Fars News Agency, the media outlet of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.
While many within the Islamic regime, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have often stated that Israel should be annihilated, until Sunday no one in the nation’s leadership has announced Iran’s determined intention to carry it out. (RELATED: Iran rattles sabers: ’11,000 missiles ready to launch’ at Israel, US targets)
Josh Block, a Middle East expert and former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, told The Daily Caller that it’s unwise to shrug off the threats of a top Iranian military commander.
“When they say it, they mean it,” Block said. “That is the lesson of history. We had best heed that reality. You can be sure the Israelis already understand it.”
Block is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute who worked in the Clinton administration’s State Department. He told TheDC that the U.S. should be concerned about “an Iran that could give nuclear technology to their terrorist allies, including those like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.”
In a statement, American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris said Firouzabadi’s comments “should also put to rest, once and for all, the fanciful views of those remaining political leaders, diplomats, and journalists who contend that Iran is a ‘peaceful’ nation which has simply been ‘misunderstood’ by the global community.”
Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, and U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, have both said recently that Iran is a rational actor in the international arena and that the Iranians will consider the implications of their actions.
Block also told TheDC that “the radicals and pseudo-experts at places like Plowshares, Media Matters, NIAC [the National Iranian American Council], writers for ThinkProgress, the New America Foundation and on and on” are “useful idiots and regime apologists” for Iran who continue to believe irrationally that Iran does not have the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. (RELATED: TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein: More proof Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran)
They “are the same cranks,” he said, “who claim Iran has been ‘misquoted’ or ‘mistranslated’ and never called for the ‘annihilation’ of Israel. Well, I am sure they will find some way to continue their charade, but only to their further discredit.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/20/iran-committed-to-full-annihilation-of-israel-says-top-iranian-military-commander/#ixzz1vYTPbTxd

Monday, May 21, 2012

Al Sharpton

Bias by the Numbers: Sharpton Calls Romney 'Willard' 194 Times In the Last Month on MSNBC

By: Tim Graham | May 21, 2012 | 16:50

As much as Obama supporters like the Rev. Al Sharpton take exception to the haters who use the president's full name -- "Barack Hussein Obama," most recently disdained in the Ricketts super PAC memo revealed by the New York Times -- what about liberals who make fun of the name "Willard Mitt Romney"?

No one is fonder of that playground ridicule that Rev. Sharpton, who loves referring to Romney as "Willard" on his MSNBC talk show "Politics Nation." In fact, an MRC analysis of the last 25 Sharpton shows -- from April 16 through May 18 -- found Sharpton tossed the name "Willard" 194 times, or almost eight times a show. Friday's program contained 16 "Willards."

Medical Device Tax

Health Care Reform, Device Tax

What is the medical device tax?

The $20B tax was included in the Affordable Care Act that was signed into law in 2010. The amount is based on a 2.3% excise tax that will be levied on the total revenues of a company, regardless of whether a company generates a profit, starting in 2013. Many companies will owe more in taxes than they generate from their operations. The result will be devastating to innovation, patient care and job creation.

What is MDMA’s position?

MDMA was against the medical device tax from the beginning, and continues to work for a full repeal of this onerous provision. The overwhelming majority of innovation from the medical device industry comes from smaller manufacturers who work closely with clinicians and engineers to develop the therapies and treatments of tomorrow. If it is not repealed, this tax will stifle innovation, harm patient care and weaken the position of the United States as the global leader in medical device innovation.

MDMA has pointed out that there is no data or studies that show the costs of this "innovation tax" will be offset due to an increased pool of insured beneficiaries receiving treatment. In fact, since the majority of products impacted are used in acute care settings where there are legal obligations to treat a patient, the effect of expanded coverage is not likely to increase utilization.

MDMA continues to work with elected officials and our members on the bipartisan proposals to eliminate the medical device tax to ensure that patient care, innovation and job creation continue to thrive.

http://www.medicaldevices.org/issues/Health-Care-Reform%2C-Device-Tax

Sunday, May 20, 2012

News

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Letterman

David Letterman Mocks Romney's Wealth Despite Being Worth $400 Million

By: Noel Sheppard | May 19, 2012 | 15:52

You want to see a perfect demonstration of almost unimaginable media hypocrisy?
On Friday, CBS Late Show host David Letterman mocked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wealth despite being worth $400 million (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

Friday, May 18, 2012

Palestinian Authority

The P.A. Hate Machine

Obama reinstated financial aid to Palestinian Authority under false pretense, expert says

BY: Adam Kredo - May 18, 2012 3:38 pm

The Obama administration justified releasing more than $192 million in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority with false information, according to an Israeli expert who monitors the Palestinian media’s constant promotion of violent, hateful rhetoric.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Obama Birth

Kliphnote: Does it make a difference?

If Obama admitted he was born

on the moon the Left-heads would defend "The One", no matter what.

Obama could pitchfork a baby into

a dumpster and they would find a way

to defend him. Fools all!

Obama's literary agent says he was 'born in Kenya'. How did the mainstream media miss this?

By Tim Stanley US politics Last updated: May 18th, 2012
244 Comments Comment on this article

Conservatives claim that Obama manipulated his Kenyan roots to gain attention

Whatever you think of Breitbart.com’s punishing vetting process, it has exposed just how little work the mainstream media did in investigating candidate Obama back in 2008. Not all of Team Breitbart’s revelations have been election-deciders, but they have often been stuff that a simple Google would have uncovered. If they revealed tomorrow that he’d had his own cross-dressing-themed sitcom on primetime TV in the 1980s, I wouldn’t be surprised.

The latest find is a fascinating inversion of the birther conspiracy. Breitbart.com has discovered that in 1991 Barack Obama’s literary agent (who also represented New Kids on the Block) published a booklet that included a biography of the future President. The audience was “business colleagues” in the publishing industry and it was designed to promote Obama’s anticipated first book (later abandoned) called Journeys in Black and White. Here’s how it describes the author’s origins.

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.

The key phrase here is “was born in Kenya" – and this bio line was apparently being used as late as 2007.

Today, the President has satisfied all right-minded folk that he was in fact born in Hawaii. Breitbart.com itself has always rejected the absurd cult of birtherism. In fact, this story is really the opposite of birtherism – Breitbart infers that in the past Obama encouraged people to think that he was born abroad in order to establish an identity as an authentic, exotic voice in the debate on racial politics.

Obama’s old literary agent has issued a terse statement to the effect that the wording was all her fault and she never consulted her client. If that’s true, she’s a bad agent. A different agent, quoted by Breitbart.com, disagrees. He told the website “that while ‘almost nobody’ wrote his or her own biography, the non-athletes in the booklet, whom ‘the agents deal[t] with on a daily basis,’ were ‘probably’ approached to approve the text as presented.”

If we accept that Obama didn’t provide the biography, it would seem highly unlikely that he didn’t get a chance to vet it. Accepting that he didn’t do that either, it’s incredibly strange that the literary agent approached by Breitbart.com does not remember Obama calling the agency to register a complaint and make a correction. My mother spent a lot of her childhood in Grenada. If my literary agent told people I was born in the Caribbean, I’d at least pick up the phone to set the record straight.

Look beyond the sordid details and the big story here is that this nugget wasn’t part of the wider discussion had back in 2008 about Obama's background and credentials. And why not? The documents were easy to find – the one that showed that “born in Kenya” was still being used in 2007 was on the Internet.

As for Obama, the vetting continues and Republicans have yet more to play with – with the focus, sadly, once more on race. For those who think that the Tea Party media is being obsessive and nasty, think of this as an exercise in levelling the playing field. If The Washington Post is going to write about how Mitt Romney once cut the hair of a guy it presumes was gay (because, well, his hair needed cutting), then Breitbart.com probably thinks it has every just cause to shout about every occasion that Obama ate a dog or told someone he was half-Phoenecian to get their vote. Tit for tat, although the Rightwing's tat is a little better researched.

Tags: andrew breitbart, Barack Obama, birthers, Breitbart.com, Elizabeth Warren, New Kids on the Block

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Obama budget

544-0

99 Percent of Senators reject Obama’s budget

BY: Andrew Stiles - May 16, 2012 5:17 pm

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) proposals to solve the country’s debt and deficit crisis continue to be far more popular with elected officials than those put forward by President Obama.

Senate rejects Obama budget in 99-0 vote

By Erik Wasson and Daniel Strauss - 05/16/12 04:30 PM ET

A budget resolution based on President Obama’s 2013 budget failed to get any votes in the Senate on Wednesday.

In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.

It’s the second year in a row the Senate has voted down Obama’s budget.

Obama's 2012 budget failed 97 to 0 last May after Obama himself last April said he wanted deeper deficit cuts.

The House earlier this year unanimously rejected Obama's budget.

The White House sought to provide cover for Democrats to vote against the Obama budget resolution before the vote, arguing the resolution offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was different from Obama’s budget because it did not include policy report language.

Democrats made the same point on the floor Wednesday in explaining their votes.

The Senate also voted on four GOP budget blueprints, which were all defeated.

GOP probe uncovers deal between Obama and drug cos

byPhilip Klein Senior Editorial Writer

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Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry’s support for his national health care law. Despite Obama’s promises during his campaign to run a transparent administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever since.

But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.

“What the hell?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is now Obama’s campaign manager, complained to a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”

This reference to “our deal” came two months before the final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line, “FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.” At the time, Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA.

The email was uncovered as part of investigation into Obama’s closed-door health care negotiations launched by the House Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight panel.

“In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this agreement were kept from both the public and the House of Representatives,” the committee’s Republican members wrote in a memo today.

On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the Senate that didn’t mention any involvement by the White House.

“The investigation has determined that the White House, primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations while the role of Congress was limited,” the committee members wrote. “For example, three days before the June 20 statement, the head of PhRMA promised Messina, ‘we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.’ Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the Legislative Branch was shut out in an email to a PhRMA representative: ‘I think we should have included the House in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten anywhere if we had.’”

Read the full memo here.

David Letterman

Talking head

Although famously low-key off-camera, Letterman is one of late night television's biggest stars. "Late Night With David Letterman" earned him $40 million this year, more than rival Jay Leno. (Letterman owns a stake in the show.) This year he had Oprah Winfrey as a guest. The two publicly patched up a long-standing rift. And earlier this year he scooped the world when Britney Spears appeared on his program to announce her pregnancy. Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, is responsible for hit shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond," which just ended its nine-year run.

Earnings estimates are for June 2005 to June 2006. Figures rounded off where appropriate. Exact figures available on Forbes.com. Includes dollars earned solely from entertainment income. Management, agent and attorney fees have not been deducted. Estimates by forbes; sources include Billboard, Pollstar, Adams Media Research, Nielsen SoundScan and Nielsen BookScan. Rankings are generated by combining earnings with other metrics: Web mentions on Google press clips compiled by LexisNexis; TV/radio mentions by Factiva; and number of times a celebrity's face appeared on the cover of 26 major consumer magazines.

Obama past presidents' bios

White House under fire for adding Obama policy plugs to past presidents' bios

Published May 16, 2012

FoxNews.com

- WH under fire for adding policy plugs to presidents'...
- White House rewrites history

The Obama White House is drawing ridicule for appending the official online biographies of nearly every president over the last century in order to link President Obama's accomplishments to the former commanders in chief.

The Obama team went into the pages of U.S. presidents dating back to Calvin Coolidge to add friendly looking "Did you know?" fact boxes to the end of their bios. Those additions were used to plug a host of Obama administration initiatives, ranging from the health care overhaul to the so-called "Buffett Rule" to his green-energy policies.

For instance, the following line was added to the official bio of the late President Ronald Reagan: "In a June 28, 1985, speech, Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multimillionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule."

The White House is coming under heavy criticism from conservatives for the changes, and not just to Reagan's page.
Late Tuesday, the White House defended itself, claiming the staff was merely adding links to other pages.

"No biographies have been altered," a White House official told Fox News. "We simply added links at the bottom of each page to related whitehouse.gov content, which is a commonly used best practice to encourage people to browse more pages on a site."

The additions do include links, but they're more than that. Each one finds a way to tout an Obama administration policy or practice in the process.
There's this at the bottom of the Franklin D. Roosevelt biography, for instance:
"On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations."

And this, at the end of President Lyndon Johnson's, drawing a link between his signing of Medicare and Obama's signing of the health care overhaul:
"President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965 -- providing millions of elderly health care stability. President Obama's historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the 'donut hole.'"

The changes also link Harry Truman's call for civil rights to the Obama administration's push to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." And they link Jimmy Carter's creation of the Department of Energy to Obama's push for an "all of the above" energy approach today.

The Obama accomplishments cited range from the significant to the mundane.
On the bio of John F. Kennedy, the Obama staff cited the current president's decision to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps with a "presidential proclamation," as a way to link the current administration to Kennedy's -- which launched the Peace Corps.
The only post-Coolidge president whose page is so far untouched is that of Gerald Ford.

Conservative blogs and publications ripped the White House Tuesday for the move, even starting a Twitter hashtag #ObamaInHistory to mock him. The Republican National Committee launched a tumblr page called: "Obama in History -- World Changing Events You Didn't Know Obama Played A Part In."
The page goes on to show pictures of Obama standing with historical figures ranging from Einstein to Elvis to The Beatles. It also shows Obama at the Berlin Wall and Stonehenge.