That’s a political man-bites-dog headline. The issue being debated is the proposed U.S.-Korean Fair Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) — actually it’s a managed trade deal, detailed in over a thousand pages of fine print. The leviathan arrangement is filled with favors, exceptions, obligations, and restrictions and micro-manages commerce from cows to cars — sweetheart transactions for Wall Street elites and multi-national corporations. (more)
Sen. Jeff Sessions struck a defiant tone Monday toward President Obama in advance of the State of the Union address, saying he does not think the president is serious about deficit reduction and that the GOP should fight him the same way that Newt Gingrich fought Bill Clinton in the mid-90′s. (more)
1.) Remember: The five worst reactions to the Loughner shooting — Washington never fails to disappoint. While normal people cry in response to tragedy, the buttinskys on Capitol Hill are attempting to legislate away the pain. The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody rounds up the dumbest of the dumb, from a plan to “encase the entire House and Senate floor with Plexiglass so the tourists can’t throw things at members of Congress,” to a Republican-proposed law that would make it illegal to carry a firearm within 1/5 of a mile “of any ‘high-profile’ public official.” In a lapse of judgment that will go unpublished by his base, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn argued that the FCC–on which his daughter is a commissioner–should bring back the Fairness Doctrine. “You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.” And people say Congress doesn’t listen… (more)
An organization I run, The National Republican Trust PAC, raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help Scott Brown win the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat vacated upon the death of Ted Kennedy. That organization will now do everything possible to see that Brown is defeated by a primary opponent when he faces reelection in 2012. Why? Because there is no difference between him and a Democrat. (more)
After decades of work for some of this country’s most powerful lobbying firms, Lanny J. Davis, the lawyer who once helped defend President Bill Clinton from impeachment, is suddenly scrambling to defend himself. (more)
According to a George Washington University study, the Obama administration issued 16,200 regulations in 2009. In comparison, just 28,400 regulations were issued in the period from April 1996 through December 2000. If this doesn’t get your jaw dropping, a 57% increase in the staffing and the federal funds devoted to developing and enforcing federal regulations should have you shaking your head. Also, in order to get an accurate picture of regulators run amok, you need to add to these 16,200 regulations the thousands of regulations included in the financial reform bill, the food safety bill and the health care bill, all passed in 2010. Finally, a full picture of regulators on steroids can be plainly seen if you also add the final weeks in December 2010, when Obama’s regulators continued to issue rules and vote on regulations that had been defeated or vigorously opposed in Congress. (more)
1.) Big business still Obama’s Achilles heel — When John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan, was named to the head of the Business Roundtable, “one of the first people to call” him was Valerie Jarrett, a personal advisor to Pres. Obama. Jarrett no doubt wished to communicate that Pres. Obama was game to work with the BRT (“We go play hoop!”), a gesture that the White House hasn’t made toward the professional left in ages now! Engler’s not here to play, however. According to The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward, “much of the group’s work on health care over the next two years will be looking for how Obama’s health care overhaul might ‘threaten’ the ability of employers to continue providing insurance.” Maybe the BRT should do what Waffle House and a number of unions did, which is lobby for exemptions from some of obamacare’s requirements? That leaves the issue of the mandate, and prices popping through the roof when healthy people decline insurance while sick people buy it up. Also: the totally unenforceable nature of it all. Back to the drawing board! (more)
For the most part, Republicans since the midterm elections have gone from the party of “No” to the party of compromise. (more)
As I reported earlier today at FrumForum, Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. (more)
Brand new Congressmen don’t take office until January, but they’re already consumed with worry about the national debt. They’ll face a vote next year to raise the debt ceiling beyond its current $14.3 trillion (about $47,000 apiece for everyone in America). (more)
Does anyone else notice the eerie similarities between Julian Assange and Bill Clinton? Aside from the anti-American attitudes they both share, Assange exposed U.S. national security secrets, as did Clinton while he was president. Both were undone by claims of various forms of sexual harassment, which, however disturbing, were minor compared to the subversive activities in which they were routinely engaged. Both are self-aggrandizing, needy narcissists who require power in order to bed women. And both victimized Hillary Clinton. (more)
From the “Kyoto II” talks in Cancun, National Journal reports a surprising story, if one almost predictable, as well, given President Barack Obama’s current unraveling and fast-fading loyalty to campaign promises. Specifically, in “U.S. Tells the World It Will Pass Climate Bill,” we read that the Obama administration is seeking to forge an international “global warming” commitment on the premise that the administration will then coerce Congress into passing domestic legislation consistent with treaty promises made to China, Europe, et al. (more)
Jackie Gingrich Cushman is the editor of the new book, “The Essential American: A Patriot’s Resource.” (more)
The U.S. strides the globe as a colossus, stronger than any other state and more dominant than any empire at any time in human history. The entire militaries of “rogue” states have less total firepower than one American carrier group while terrorist groups create more popular angst than extreme danger. The U.S. faces no existential threat like it did during World War II and the Cold War. (more)
Vice President Joe Biden is huddling with the Obama administration’s stimulus oversight czar and a key former Clinton administration scandal guru after postponing the Obama White House’s first face-off with top GOP oversight chairman-to-be Rep. Darrell Issa. (more)
Here are the top three ways Washington will be different after this week’s midterm elections: (more)
When you’re President of the United States, you can lose a vote, you can lose popular support, and you can lose a round of golf. But you’re never, ever supposed to lose the biscuit. (more)
On the same day House Republicans will release their new governing document, former President Bill Clinton advised Democrats to issue their own written agenda that contains policy ideas before November the midterm elections. (more)
New York City is swarming with global leaders, progressive thinkers, and business executives this week for an annual meeting hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). Beginning in 2005, CGI is Clinton’s idea of what collaboration between government and the private sector should look like: businesses assisting in goodwill missions around the world. (more)
Between now and the November 2 election there are several dangers that stand between conservatives and the overwhelming victory that present polls predict. (more)
