With a number of polls showing a sustained level of opposition to the Democrats’ health care reform efforts more than five months after passage, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration has “a lot of reeducation to do” heading into the midterms.
While some surveys – namely the Kaiser Family Foundation monthly tracking poll – have suggested an uptick in support for the reforms, most other surveys continue to show a steady level of opposition to the new law that remains higher than the favorable opinions of it.
“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.
With several vulnerable House Democrats touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal, Sebelius said “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.
“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.
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Sebelius: Time for ‘reeducation’ on Obamacare
Dem Rep. steered scholarships to relatives
Longtime Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has awarded thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four relatives and a top aide’s two children since 2005, using foundation funds set aside for black lawmakers’ causes.
The recipients were ineligible under anti-nepotism rules of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provided the money. And all of the awards violated a foundation requirement that scholarship winners live or study in a caucus member’s district.
Johnson, a Democrat, denied any favoritism when asked about the scholarships last week. Two days later, she acknowledged in a statement released by her office that she had violated the rules but said she had done so “unknowingly” and would work with the foundation to “rectify the financial situation.”
Initially, she said, “I recognized the names when I saw them. And I knew that they had a need just like any other kid that would apply for one.” Had there been more “very worthy applicants in my district,” she added, “then I probably wouldn’t have given it” to the relatives.
Brewer condemns report to UN mentioning Ariz. law
AP,
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer demanded Friday that a reference to the state’s controversial immigration law be removed from a State Department report to the United Nations’ human rights commissioner.
The U.S. included its legal challenge to the law on a list of ways the federal government is protecting human rights.
In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Brewer says it is “downright offensive” that a state law would be included in the report, which was drafted as part of a UN review of human rights in all member nations every four years.
“The idea of our own American government submitting the duly enacted laws of a state of the United States to ‘review’ by the United Nations is internationalism run amok and unconstitutional,” Brewer wrote.
Obama meets with Bloomberg to discuss economy… while playing golf
POTUS is golfing with Mayor Bloomberg today, and they prefaced their game with a 15-minute discussion of the economy in the clubhouse at the Vineyard Golf Club. Seeking more details. CBS’s Mark Knoller, hailed by many including the WH for his command of presidential data, says the two men have not golfed together before. After their conversation they headed to the driving range, and then the links. Also in the foursome: Vernon Jordan and trip director Marvin Nicholson.”
The President and Mayor Bloomberg took the opportunity to discuss plans for short- and long-term economic growth at a pivotal point in our recovery,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin. POTUS invited the Mayor about a week ago. The mayor met POTUS at the golf club — he did not travel with him in the motorcade.
Obama brings Arizona immigration feud before UN Human Rights Council
Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one.
The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance for slavery, and his version of our long and despicable history of discriminating against and oppressing minorities, women, homosexuals, and the handicapped. After each complaint, he addresses how he is delivering us from ourselves, patting himself on the back for such initiatives as ending “torture,” promoting Affirmative Action, and passing health care legislation.
In his section on “Values and Immigration,” he praised the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to provide better medical care for detainees and increase “Alternatives To Detention” (e.g., letting them go). Then he turned to the one state that has had the temerity to stand in his way of fundamentally transforming the American electorate:
A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.
Glenn Beck to host major rally in Washington this weekend
When Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck comes to Washington this weekend to headline a rally intended to “restore honor” to America, he will test the strength – and potentially expose the weaknesses – of a conservative grass-roots movement that remains an unpredictable force in the country’s politics.
Beck, who is both admired and assailed for his faith-based patriotism and his brash criticism of President Obama, plans in part to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. as an American hero. He will speak on the anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech, from the spot where King delivered it.
Some “tea party” activists say the event, at which former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is also scheduled to speak, will have a greater impact than last September’s “9/12″ march along Pennsylvania Avenue. Though the attendance figures for that anti-tax rally are disputed, it was the first national gathering to demonstrate the size and influence of the tea party movement.
But with just a few days before the Beck rally, basic questions linger, including how big it will be and whether the event, which Beck says is nonpolitical, will help or hurt Republicans in November. Also unanswered is whether Beck can pull off the connection to King without creating offense – or confrontation with another event the same day led by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Conservative Dem lawmaker jokes about Speaker Pelosi dying
Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright (Ala.) on Wednesday ducked a question on whether or not he would vote for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) by joking that she “might even get sick and die.”
Bright, a centrist Blue Dog who voted against the healthcare reform law, made the comments in response to a question about whether he’d support Pelosi to retain the Speaker’s gavel.
Speaking at a local Chamber of Commerce event, Bright “joked that Pelosi might lose her own election, decide not to run for the speaker’s job or otherwise not be available,” the Montgomery Advertiser wrote.
He then suggested “jokingly” that Pelosi could fall ill and die in the coming months, thus preventing him from having to vote for her as Speaker. His remarks reportedly drew laughter from the audience.
Ebay, Adobe, EA Games leaving California over confiscatory tax rate
Computer software giant Adobe, computer game monster EA Games, and Internet auction king ebay are abandoning California to set up shop in Utah. Why? California’s horrid business climate and high taxes.
Adobe Systems, maker of a suite of graphics programs such as Adobe PDF, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, have announced that they are building a $100 million facility in either Salt Lake City or in nearby Utah County, Utah. The facility will bring thousands of jobs to Utah over the next few decades.
In May the Internet auction company ebay also announced a major new facility to be built in Salt Lake City. The $287 million data center will also bring hundreds of new jobs to the Bee Hive State.
Not to be forgotten, games maker Electronic Arts opened its new facility in July in Salt Lake City where around 100 employees are already at work.
These companies fleeing California’s horrid business climate are not alone. There has been a steady flow of businesses out of California for the better part of a decade. As California’s political morass worsens, as its budget woes increase, and as her politicians are proven incapable of making the hard budgetary decisions to take power from unions and chop unnecessarily lavish social programs, the state’s jobs are bleeding out. California is an a freefall the end of which is still unseen.
Obama’s failed stimulus program cost more than Iraq war
Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.
The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush’s economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker’s Randall Hoven points out, that’s the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation’s Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.
The key point in the mantra is an alleged $3 trillion cost for the war. Well, it was expensive to be sure, in both blood and treasure, but, as Hoven notes, the CBO puts the total cost at $709 billion. To put that figure in the proper context of overall spending since the war began in 2003, Hoven provides this handy CBO chart showing the portion of the annual deficit attributable to the conflict.
Border Patrol joins ICE agents to condemn Obama Administration
On the heels of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ 258-0 “vote of no confidence” against their superiors, U.S. Border Patrol agents are slamming President Barack Obama’s administration especially Attorney General Eric Holder.
“We are receiving reports… that Eric Holder and DOJ have signaled that they [will continue to] challenge SB1070. If this development wasn’t so sad, it would be funny,” according to the membership of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544, which represents U.S. Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Arizona.
While lamenting the disinterest in the Obama Administration for border security and immigration enforcement, Local 2544 officials said in a statement,
“Now, [Attorney General Eric] Holder and DOJ [Department of Justice] apparently have found resources to challenge SB1070. This is an obvious political ploy, and Americans should be outraged [that] they actually go after a state for trying to do something about the out-of-control illegal immigration mess.”
“How many times have Americans heard lawmakers, mayors, governors, and immigration advocates when asked about Arizona enforcing immigration law, claim that their police officers aren’t authorized or trained to enforce immigration laws?” asks a career law enforcement officer from New York.
“Well, either these government leaders are too ignorant to hold office or they’re out-and-out lying to the American people,” said former NYPD detective Sid Franes.
Dems retreat from lie that health care law will reduce costs
Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and the deficit and instead stressing a promise to “improve it.”
The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by FamiliesUSA — one of the central groups in the push for the initial legislation. The call was led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups and other health care allies. It was based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters, John Anzalone, Celinda Lake and Stan Greenberg
The presentation concedes that groups typically supportive of Democratic causes — people under 40, non-college-educated women and Hispanic voters — have not been won over by the plan. Indeed, it stresses repeatedly, many are unaware that the legislation has passed, an astonishing shortcoming in the White House’s all-out communications effort.
“Straightforward ‘policy’ defenses fail to [move] voters’ opinions about the law,” says one slide. “Women in particular are concerned that health care law will mean less provider availability — scarcity an issue.”
The presentation also concedes that the fiscal and economic arguments that were the White House’s first and most aggressive sales pitch have essentially failed.
Waters dismisses evidence in ethics case as ‘staff chatter’
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Friday brushed aside a key piece of evidence in the ethics case against her as “staff chatter.”
Waters continued her public defense in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” maintaining her innocence and accusing ethics investigators of doing “sloppy work.”
The embattled California Democrat is accused of breaking conflict-of-interest rules by using her position to arrange a meeting in 2008 with Treasury officials for the failing OneUnited Bank, in which her husband was a stockholder and former board member. The bank eventually received $12 million in bailout funds.
Asked about an e-mail between her chief of staff and grandson Mikael Moore and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that the ethics panel used in its case, Waters was dismissive.
“So what does that mean? Is that the kind of e-mail that is sent between staff? It’s more staff chatter than anything else. It does not identify that he took any action,” she said.