Free Republic

If you want to know who is having a worse day than the DCCC*, the DSCC**, or the DNC***, try the Progressive Change Congressional Committee. You see, last week they issued a pledge in support of net neutrality that was signed by ninety-five candidates. Every single one of them lost. (pause) Oops? Moe Lane (crosspost) *Fairly obvious. **Yes, of course the DSCC will claim that they did a great job in losing one-third of their at-risk caucus, while ensuring that none of our seats flipped. They can also claim that the moon is made of green cheese. ***There’s a lot...

Senator Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has been seeking $1.5 billion in disaster relief for rice and cotton growers in Arkansas and other Southern states who were hurt by heavy rains. The White House seems all too eager to oblige an important Democrat who is in a very difficult re-election race. [snip] Congress and the administration need to work together to come up with a rational aid program to help farmers who are in real trouble. Ms. Lincoln will have to find a better way to save her job.

Tonight, inside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office in the Capitol, Democrats huddled, trying to hammer out last-minute deals on their health-care bill. Throughout the evening, staffers and members streamed in and out, offering reporters few details about the deliberations. Rep. Mike Doyle (D., Pa.) emerged at 9:15 P.M. and played coy, saying little in response to questions about any potential abortion deal. John Lawrence, Pelosi's chief of staff, left at 9:25 P.M., telling reporters that there are still "a couple of different options on the table" with regard to regional-disparity problems in proposed Medicare reimbursements for local hospitals. Other...

Stupak evidently met with Pelosi tonight. And has a press conference scheduled for the morning ... On my Twitter feed, I see Diana DeGette (radical liberal feminist, if you need a broadbrush label — Yuval wrote everything you ever need to read about her a few years ago here) is not happy. My understanding if a fix were to happen via an enrollment corrections bill, the Senate would have to pass it first. I would think Barbara Boxer would sooner give up her seat (which she might have to) than allow that happen ... for one thing. UPDATE: Here's how...

I've just read the transcript [1] of the president's remarks about Haiti, the ones he made on January 15. He noted that, in addition to assistance from the United States, significant aid had also come from "Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, among others." Am I missing another country that truly weighed in with truly consequential assistance? Ah, yes. There it is. Right there "among others." Yes, the country to which I refer is "among others," that one. The fact is that, next to our country, Israel sent the largest contingent of trained rescue workers, doctors, and...

Over at the Spine, Marty Peretz writes about the struggles of Martha Coakley, Democratic candidate in the special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. (Marty called this one a while ago.*) And the news is indeed alarming, according to Public Policy Polling: The massive enthusiasm gap we saw in Virginia is playing itself out in Massachusetts as well. Republican voters are fired up and they're going to turn out. Martha Coakley needs to have a coherent message up on the air over the last ten days that her election is critical to health care passing and Kennedy's...

There are more places to go for local news but less news to find there, and the great majority of actual reporting still comes from newspapers, according to a study of the Baltimore area that is scheduled to be released on Monday. Looking at six major story lines that developed over one week last July, 83 percent of the reports in local news media “were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information,” said the study, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center. Despite diminished resources of established news organizations, “of the stories that did...

Lawmakers who want to extend health coverage to illegal immigrants will not block the passage of the final health care reform bill so long as the White House offers a substantive promise to start pushing comprehensive immigration legislation this year. Democrats who want a comprehensive bill that reforms immigration law but also offers a pathway to citizenship have threatened to vote against health care if illegals aren't included in the new system, making immigration one of the sticking points as Democratic leaders negotiate the final details. Democratic leadership aides believe that a firm White House promise of a comprehensive immigration...

It’s been a tough first year for President Obama, as critics throughout the body politic bemoan that Mr. Change-We-Can-Believe-In is looking more and more like Mr. Politics-As-Usual. With the coming new year, however, POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image. He could start by ditching golf. Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old...

Democratic leaders hit a rough patch Friday in their push for sweeping health care legislation, as they tried to fend off criticism of their proposals from a top Medicare official, Republicans and even members of their own party. Slogging through a 12th day of debate on the legislation, the Senate found itself at an impasse over a proposal to allow imports of low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other countries. Democratic leaders tried to kill or neuter the proposal, offered by a senior Democrat, Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota. The Medicare official, meanwhile, said that total national health...

On the Warmergate scandal, the Settled Scientists seem to be settling on Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit, as the designated fall guy. George Monbiot in The Guardian: It’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them... There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject...

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the target of an elaborate hoax by the Yes Men leading some major media outlets to believe that it had reversed its opposition to the Kerry-Boxer climate bill pending approval in the Senate. Now it seems the chamber has officially expressed support for legislation that would cut carbon emissions — but still in confusingly vague terms. Apparently, the organization sent a letter to Senators Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe (full text), the party leaders in the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee where the bill is being amended, supporting climate change...

I've been thinking for a couple weeks that Joe Lieberman is the Democrats' biggest potential problem. The rest of the party has a strong incentive to pass health care reform and avoid a 2010 catastrophe. But Lieberman? He's not a Democrat and won't be running on the Democratic ticket in 2012. Moreover, my read on him is that he's furious with the party, resentful of President Obama (who beat his friend in 2008) and would relish a Democratic catastrophe. Of course, I can't prove this. But look at Lieberman's reason for why he now says he'll vote to sustain a...

Conversations on the Hill this afternoon suggest Harry Reid has done himself some damage with the failed vote on the fix to the Medicare doctor payment formula. He lost significantly more Democrats than he expected, and seemed to lose control of what was in essence the first health care reform vote on the Senate floor. The Democrats are now arguing that they knew they would lose this vote (though not even Reid is arguing he knew he would lose this badly) but wanted to bring it up so that Republicans could not use the doc fix issue as a killer...

n a departure from prevailing economic theory, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded Monday to two social scientists for their work in demonstrating that business people, including competitors, often develop implicit relationships that supplement and resolve problems that arise from free-market competition. The prize committee cited Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons,” and Oliver E. Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley, “for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm.” Ms. Ostrom becomes the first woman to win the prize for economics. Her background is...

Suppose this year's Nobel Peace Prize had gone to the scores of Iranians now on trial for having protested the fraudulent re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June. For the three defendants who were sentenced to death over the weekend, a Nobel might have made all the difference in the nick of time. At a minimum, it could have validated their struggle. Our friends in Oslo had a different idea, which means that the fate of the three defendants—known officially by their initials M.Z., A.P. and N.A.—are at the mercy of Iran's appellate and supreme courts. It's a slender hope in...

In 2009 about 40% of income taxes will go towards debt interest payments. If you think those town hall meetings over health care were fierce, wait until Americans come to understand the threat to our national financial survival posed by the interest on the government's credit card. When the government spends more than its revenue, there is a budget deficit. These deficits are paid for by Washington selling interest bearing Treasury securities. If the government were ever to default on its promise to pay periodic interest payments or to repay the debt at maturity, the United States economy would plunge...

It’s not often that the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize wonders whether he actually wants it. But that thought must have crossed Barack Obama’s mind when he was awoken at 6 a.m. this morning and told the stunning news. For Obama, winning the award after just nine months in office—for having created “a new international climate” of peace—is, at best, a mixed blessing. At home, conservatives are already sneering that the award, granted on the basis of so little tangible accomplishment, further demonstrates Obama’s hollow celebrity status. Remember the McCain campaign "Celebrity" ad featuring Paris Hilton and images of...

Okay, I'll admit that I have some issues with the Olympics, but I think that even Mary Lou Retton should be outraged over Barack Obama's decision to fly to Copenhagen later this week to lobby for Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer games. First of all, consider the optics: the fate of comprehensive health care reform is hanging by a thread up on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon is awaiting the commander-in-chief's word on the way forward in Afghanistan, and Obama's going to take time out of his busy schedule to schmooze with the Princess of Liechtinstein and the...

President Obama intends to keep wooing the public to support for his health care goals in a scheduled Monday night appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” Polls suggest he has had mixed results so far. Most critical, however, is his private effort to persuade one person: Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. And that effort appears to be going very well. Ms. Snowe has not endorsed either Democratic health care bill in the Senate. No Republican has. But in an interview, she offered a surprisingly robust endorsement of Mr. Obama’s skepticism about expanding government too much, his...