WALLACE: You’re not suggesting that Obama would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I’m not suggesting that, I’m saying if he did, things would dramatically change if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and secure our allies. I think people would shift their thinking a bit.
During a question-and-answer session after her speech, Palin was asked what could be done to address the country's biggest problems.
"It would be wise of us to seek some divine intervention in this country," she replied.
Whatever issue arises, whether it is a failed terrorist plot in Detroit, the healthcare bill, economic doldrums or the 30,000-troop surge to Afghanistan, the White House instinctively fields Mr Axelrod or Mr Gibbs on television to explain the administration’s position.
My tax concern is for say the small business man that comes in over say 250 grand to 350,400 grand [gross] a year and he gets hits hard on taxes.
Palin: Obama could win votes by playing 'war card'
Feb 7 09:55 AM US/Eastern
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sarah Palin says that if President Barack Obama "played the war card," he could improve his chances of being re-elected.Palin says that declaring war on Iran or showing stronger support for Israel might convince voters that Obama is tougher than they think on national security and doing all he can to protect the U.S.
Otherwise, according to Palin, Obama won't be re-elected if he continues on his current path.
Protest inside the protestA protest movement barely a year old protesting itself is part and parcel of the wild and wooly world of the tea party, indicative both of its philosophical (if not racial and class) diversity and the difficulty the literally thousands of independent tea party groups face as they attempt to harness widespread anger and disaffection to change the electoral math in Washington.
Japanese media criticize Toyota chief for response
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writers
Sat Feb 6, 7:32 am ET
TOKYO – Japanese media sharply criticized Toyota's president Saturday for what they called a delayed and unconvincing explanation for the massive car recall that has sullied the world's biggest automaker, a Japanese corporate icon.
"Words are not enough," the top Nikkei business daily commented in an editorial. "The company's crisis management ability is being subjected to severe scrutiny."
"Utterly too late," the nationwide Asahi newspaper said of Toyota's delayed reaction since the crisis arose Jan. 21 with a global recall of millions of vehicles. "The entire world is watching how Toyota can humbly learn from its series of recent failures and make safe cars."
There is high-level government concern in Japan about Toyota's quality fiasco. Cabinet ministers have expressed alarm and urged the company to move more quickly.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama earlier this month ordered Industry and Trade Minister Masayuki Naoshima to convey the message. Consumer affairs minister Mizuho Fukushima also called Toyota's reaction "too slow." Transport Minister Seiji Maehara, who oversees auto regulation, has urged Toyota to consider a recall for the Prius brake problem.
“Trust me, after taxes, a million dollars is not a lot of money,” Steele said.In the AP report, I found it odd that these lines were added:
Ford later asked the audience of mostly college students, "Who in here makes a million dollars a year?"
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) painted an Orwellian vision of health care reform yesterday, claiming that critics of the Democrats’ plan could be denied coverage.
Armey prides himself on his intellect and rationality, but his years in Washington have taught him the political uses of irrationality and even outright fantasy. He told me he does not believe some of the most extreme charges that emerged in the debate over health care reform — for example, that “death panels” will tell elderly people when it’s time to die — but he welcomes the energy and passion that such beliefs bring to his side. “You know that expression: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” he asked. “Are their fears exaggerated? Yeah, probably. But are Obama’s promises exaggerated? I may think it’s silly, but if people want to believe that,” he said, referring to death panels, “it’s O.K. with me.”
PERINO: Incumbents across the board should be concerned. And that's Republicans and Democrats.
HANNITY: Republicans? Blanche Lincoln is down 23 points in the current poll.
PERINO: Right. But Republicans shouldn't rest on their laurels. I think that any incumbent is in danger. And so I think that they have to all take a look at that. Republicans are obviously favored. I think they have a better record on these things, but they're going to have to put forward some proactive pieces.
HANNITY: Yes, I agree. It can't just be anti-Obama, which is what you're saying. They have to have a positive agenda, which by the way, I'm working on.
hold - An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure.
The news of the day is that Sen. Richard Shelby has placed a "hold" on every single pending Obama nominee, until the Democrats give in to his blackmail and fork over a few billion dollars in defense pork for Alabama.
Consider the famous debate in 1793 over the legality of George Washington’s unilateral proclamation of American neutrality in the ongoing European wars. Hamilton, writing as Pacificus, supported the proclamation based on a broad reading of the president’s “Executive power.” He also argued that the president’s authority to execute, and thus to interpret, treaties gave him the power to determine whether the United States was at war or at peace. Madison, writing as Helvidius, took issue with both points and accused Hamilton of trying to incorporate British royal prerogatives into the Constitution that had stripped the executive of the king’s power to determine war and peace. Within six years after they co-authored The Federalist Papers and five years after the Constitution was ratified, Madison and Hamilton sharply disagreed, each with plausible arguments, about what the Constitution says about a simple question of presidential power. The text and the original understanding of the eighteenth-century Constitution, taken alone, are less sure guides to presidential power in our very different world.
Republicans find loophole in budget ploy to push through healthcare legislation
By Alexander Bolton - 02/03/10 06:00 AM ET
The HILL
Another option for Democrats would be to seek a ruling by the parliamentarian that Republicans are simply filing amendments to stall the process. But such a ruling could taint the final healthcare vote and backfire for Democrats in November.
Comment Policy - WARNING: Polite comments will be responded to politely; however, if you use a knife, then we will use guns.
As Obama seeks to right his presidency and his agenda amid falling poll numbers and ballot box losses...
According to the poll, 63 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist; 39 percent think Obama should be impeached; 24 percent said Obama wants “the terrorists to win”; and 31 percent agreed with the statement that Obama is “a racist who hates white people.”
Officials: FBI cracked bomb suspect through family
Feb 2 09:39 PM US/Eastern
By MATT APUZZO and PETE YOST
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nigerian man accused of trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day has been cooperating with investigators since last week, discussing his contacts in Yemen and providing intelligence in multiple terrorism investigations, officials said Tuesday.
FBI officials continue to question Abdulmutallab, working in collaboration with CIA and other intelligence authorities, the official said.
Terror Suspect Has Provided Intelligence, Officials Say
by Dina Temple-Raston
February 2, 2010
The suspect at the center of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner has been giving federal authorities valuable intelligence for weeks, NPR has learned.
Officials familiar with the case tell NPR that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been naming names of people he knew had trained with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and has been helping authorities locate al-Qaida training centers he allegedly visited while he was in Yemen.
His information was at least partly responsible for the arrest of 10 people in Malaysia last week, officials said. Malaysian authorities rounded up a handful of students, including one Nigerian, who are thought to have been part of an al-Qaida cell.
KLEIN: Those are good guys. I think you're a good guy. We come from the same neck of the woods. But, I think that your pal Glenn Beck is pedaling a lot of hateful crap. I mean, you know, the.
O'REILLY: But he's funny. He's doing it in a funny way. What's hateful about it?
KLEIN: Oh, he's doing in -- I thought the part where he described the president as intentionally steering the airplane of state into the ground was hilarious.
O'REILLY: Oh, come on.
KLEIN: And the stuff about Obama not being an American citizen.
O'REILLY: He's got a blackboard out there. He's got a phone to the White House. Look, he is every man sitting on a bar stool. Why shouldn't every man have a show?
Gates Shakes Up Leadership for F-35
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and THOM SHANKER
Published: February 1, 2010
NY Times
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that he was replacing the general in charge of the Pentagon’s largest weapons program — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — and withholding $614 million in award fees from the contractor, Lockheed Martin.
Mr. Gates said the program manager on the F-35, Maj. Gen. David Heinz of the Marine Corps, would be replaced by a higher-ranking general whose name would be announced soon.
“A number of key goals and benchmarks were not met,” he said, adding that “the taxpayer should not have to bear the entire burden of getting the J.S.F. program back on track.”
Every four years, Congress requires the Pentagon to produce its Quadrennial Defense Review, an assessment of long-range strategy and the budgets to pay for them. In unveiling the review Monday, Michèle A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said the strategy document for the first time jettisoned a historic planning requirement that the American military prepare to fight two major conventional wars at the same time.
UPDATE 1-US missile test mimicking Iran strike fails
Pentagon report shows growing Iran missile capability
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co (RTN.N), the Defense Department said.
The Missile Defense Agency said that in Sunday's test both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, had performed normally.
"However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected," the agency said on its web site. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.
David Altwegg, the Missile Defense Agency's executive director, said the layered, multibillion-dollar missile defense continued to be dogged by insufficient attention to detail by the Pentagon's top contractors. But he said it was too early to assess blame for the miss.
"We have problems with all our primes," Altwegg told a Pentagon budget briefing. He said it would probably take months to pin down exactly what went wrong. "Across the enterprise ... quality is a disappointment," he said.
Small businesses see 'good stuff' in Obama budget
By Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY
2/1/10
"I think the administration is really trying to work with small business," says Molly Brogan, a spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association.
On Monday, the president outlined a series of initiatives to aid small businesses in the $3.8 trillion budget plan he sent to Congress.
On the agenda:
•Filter $30 billion in TARP funds to community banks for small-business lending.
•Eliminate capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses.
•Increase the Small Business Administration's budget 21% to $994 million. That money would go to help SBA increase its loan guarantees, as well as provide more money for natural disaster assistance and entrepreneurial counseling.
•Give small businesses a payroll tax credit of $5,000 for each new hire in 2010.
•Require all but the smallest businesses to set up automatic-payroll-deduction retirement accounts and provide a $1,000 tax credit for businesses setting up a plan.
"There isn't a centralized right-wing conspiracy, but it really is a vast right-wing conspiracy."
Joseph Farah found his calling in Obama-bashing
By Peter Wallsten and Faye Fiore
January 27, 2010
Los Angeles Times
In 1990, Farah moved upstate to become editor of the Sacramento Union, which was losing money. "We just thought the way to go was to be unabashedly conservative in our approach," Farah said at the time. His political leanings flourished. Rush Limbaugh, a relatively unknown local radio host, caught Farah's ear, and Farah persuaded him to write a daily political column, which he put on Page 1.
Obama Proposes One-Year Extension of Payroll Tax Credit
CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
Feb. 1, 2010 – 1:32 p.m
Among the major tax provisions in the administration’s fiscal 2011 budget is a one-year extension of the “Making Work Pay” tax credit, which was a critical part of President Obama’s campaign platform and the 2009 stimulus law.
The payroll tax credit is set to lapse at the end of 2010; extending it for a year would cost $61.2 billion.
Obama has touted the tax cut’s breadth, emphasizing at last week’s State of the Union that it helped 95 percent of working families.
Obama also is proposing to make permanent almost all of the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 by Bush, except for those that benefit individuals who make more than $200,000 and married couples who make more than $250,000.
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