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When Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Major General Robert Harding was President Obama’s latest nominee for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), she said, “Mr. Harding has the experience and perspective [emphasis added] to make a real difference in carrying out the mission of the agency. If there was ever a nominee that warranted expedited…consideration in the Senate, this is it.”
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When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced last Friday that the economy lost only 36,000 jobs in February, the usual choristers took that as good news. Christina Romer, the Chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers said, “Today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with the pattern of stabilization and gradual labor market healing we have been seeing in recent months.”
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Last month, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) pushed back against the Obama administration’s plans to create a “standalone” Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and some Washington-watchers held their breath to see if Corker would hold his ground.
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When U.S. Postmaster General John Potter recommended eliminating Saturday delivery service in order to save money, he was merely responding to the postal service’s continuing inability to make money, or even cover its costs, delivering the mail. In a microcosm, the postal service’s difficulty is reflective of the government’s attempt to operate anywhere outside the constraints of the Constitution.
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The Census Bureau is facing an uphill battle to obtain all the information being demanded in the short form arriving in the mail at every household in the country, starting this week. As usual, the government is making a simple task complicated by reaching far beyond what the Constitution allows. Article I, Section 2 states:
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Now that the Department of Transportation is opening a formal investigation into the 2009-2010 Toyota Corolla over possible steering problems while the government is continuing with hearings by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 24th, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on February 25th, and by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on March 2nd about Toyota’s “timely” response to braking and accelerator complaints, some are beginning to question “Why?”
More than that, the questions are “Why just Toyota?” and “Why now?” Some are asking “Is there something else going on here?”
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The “Mount Vernon Statement” to be announced today at the start of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. is a “broad statement of principle aimed at giving a coherent framework” to the Tea Party and other activist movements on the right.
It also sounds eerily familiar.
The statement is available at www.themountvernonstatement.com, which declares:
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The unrelenting attacks on Toyota are a metaphor for similar attacks on the free-market economy by its detractors.
Up until August, 2009, Toyota had become the premier automobile manufacturer in the world. Through its “relentless pursuit of perfection” (Toyota’s Lexus brand’s marketing slogan), Toyota enjoyed increasing sales and profitability through its successful efforts to serve its customers better than its competition.
In August, a horrendous car crash involving a family driving a Lexus automobile killed the driver, Mark Saylor, a California Highway Patrol officer, his wife and daughter, and his brother-in-law. A recording of a passenger’s frantic 911 call, lasting 52 seconds, was broadcast throughout the media and pushed Toyota into the unwelcome and unaccustomed spotlight of negative public attention. That attention continues today.
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Now that the GOP has all but shelved the litmus test for candidates to receive money and support for their mid-term election campaigns, a closer look at that “test” reveals a tepid attempt to reinvigorate “conservative” principles into the big tent GOP.
The Republican National Committee, meeting in Hawaii to hammer out their platform, briefly considered a resolution from James Bopp, an RNC vice-chairman from Indiana and general counsel for National Right to Life, requiring candidates to state publicly their agreement with at least eight of ten listed “conservative” positions. Bopp said that his resolution was “designed to bring conservatives, some of whom have gravitated to the independent ‘tea party’ movement, into the GOP fold.” He expressed concern that “disaffected conservatives” would back third-party candidates and take support away from Republicans running in the same race. He added:
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This change allegedly reflects the impact the Brown win in Massachusetts last week had on politics in general, but also that it had not been anticipated by Obama or the Democrats.
“The entire political community was caught a little bit unawares on that one,” said David Axelrod, White House senior advisor. The impact of Brown’s win on Obama’s healthcare bill was significant in that it deprived the Democrats of the opportunity to push the bill through the Senate without a Republican vote.
When Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced her support for three prominent Republicans, her Facebook statement entitled “Ride the Tide with Commonsense Candidates” resounded with laudibles such as supporting those who offer “commonsense government,” and those “who promise to fight FOR the people and AGAINST politics as usual.” She referred to the Massachusetts election as “truly amazing,” and a “demonstration of the momentum we all share in the fight for the values and policies that will get our country back to work. The commonsense conservative principles of liberty and fiscal responsibility are on the rise…”
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Yesterday the New York Times concluded that Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat resulted from Democrat complacency, Republican tentativeness, and Tea Party activism. Based upon interviews with more than 30 individuals involved in the race, the Times traced the rise of Brown from relative obscurity over the past month to victor on Monday.
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With polls predicting a clear win by Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election for the Senate seat vacated as a result of Senator Ted Kennedy’s death last summer, and the Democrats determined to pass Obama’s healthcare bill, the White House and Democratic congressional leaders are scrambling to put together Plan B.
As noted here, there are several options under consideration.
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Despite President Obama’s quick flight to Boston on Sunday to try to rescue Martha Coakley’s faltering bid for the Senate seat vacated last summer, polls and others think his efforts just may be too late.
Speaking at Boston’s Northeastern University, Obama said: “Understand what’s at stake here, Massachusetts. Where we don’t want to go is backwards. I need leaders like Martha by my side so we can kick [passage of healthcare] into high gear, so we can finish what we’ve started.”
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Tea Party activists are trying to take over the Republican Party from the ground up, according to the New York Times.
There are many pieces to the Tea Party puzzle, described as a “diverse, rambunctious and Internet-connected network of groups.” This includes Tea Party Nation which describes itself as a “user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God-given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers, [who] believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country.”
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From obscurity to prominence to possible victory, Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown’s campaign for Teddy Kennedy’s seat in a special election on Tuesday, January 19, is receiving national attention. From a 30-point underdog, Brown has campaigned for the seat—which he says “With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat” — with his pledge: “I will send this [Obama healthcare] bill back.” And in so doing he has closed the gap so that several prominent pollsters are saying the race is too close to call.
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According to Newsweek, the dollar isn’t weakening, and even if it is, it isn’t Obama’s fault. On Tuesday, Daniel Gross iterated all the reasons that, according to conservatives, the American dollar should weaken. Conservatives, he said, blame the actions of the Federal Reserve with the lowering of interest rates to zero, printing money, and expanding the monetary base. They also blame the Obama administration for running up huge deficits in its efforts to restart the faltering economy.
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The Republican primary in Florida, which pits Governor Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio, is being watched carefully as a harbinger for the impact the Tea Party may have on the midterm elections. Six months ago Crist was leading all challengers, according to Rasmussen Reports, but now Crist is tied with former state House Speaker Marco Rubio.
On social issues, Crist takes traditional conservative positions including support for gun rights and capital punishment, and opposition to elective abortion and same-sex marriage. He supported John McCain’s candidacy for President in 2008, but got in trouble by supporting Obama’s stimulus bill.
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The announcements by Democrat Senators Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) last week that they will not be running for reelection in 2010 raised both concerns by Democrats and hopes of Republicans.
Senator Dodd’s announcement has been examined thoroughly elsewhere on this site, but Senator Dorgan’s announcement was an unexpected bombshell that followed announcements by Alabama Representative Parker Griffith that he was switching parties from Democrat to Republican, along with the retirement announcements from two Democrats from Tennessee and another one from Kansas. The battles that are currently raging in Nevada for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s seat and in Pennsylvania for Democrat Senator Arlen Specter’s seat, along with the battles in Illinois and Delaware to fill the Senate seats formerly held by Democrats Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden, indicate more than just a midterm election shift.
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The 60 percent gain in stocks since March was largely caused by secret government purchases of stock-index futures, the CEO of TrimTabs claims.
The Plunge Protection Team (PPT), otherwise known as the Working Group on Financial Markets, has been the target of conspiracy theorists ever since an article in the Washington Post in 1997 first shed light on the operation. The Working Group was created by Executive Order following Black Monday’s market crash on October 19, 1987, when the stock market declined more than 20 percent in a single session. Its purpose was to give recommendations for legislative and private sector solutions for “enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of financial markets and maintaining investor confidence.”
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