The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats' (88%) and Republicans' (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the prior high of 52 points for Bill Clinton.
Obama isn't going to win over the GOP voters -- or those GOPers on Capitol Hill. He needs to keep his base secure and keep his promises to voters. That's how he won.
...Well, it looks like the conservatives have taken the first step down that road.
What's that old adage? Beware of the unintended consequences. Clearly, that's something that neither the Supreme Court nor the Republican Party factored in before crowing about the heinous Citizens United v. FEC ruling last week.
For all his high-falutin' talk of free speech and transparency and being able to face down those big bullying unions, it has apparently never occurred to Sen. Jim DeMint that SCOTUS just opened doors to multi-national corporations--i.e. FOREIGNERS--meddling in our elections.
...
Margaret Ali
Chair, Universal Peace Federation (UPF)
Dear Ms. Ali,
I wish I could travel to London to participate in the Genocide Awareness and Holocaust Commemoration you're holding next week. No one puts on a show quite like the Rev. Sun Myung Moon--all those crownings and gold and holy hankies--and I'm sure, as a part of the Moon empire, UFP will organize the event in accordance with the True Father's directives.
Will the True Father will be there to provide his special perspective on the cause of the Holocaust? Surely, if any Jews are attending, they'd want to hear Rev. Moon repeat lines like these:
Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed 6 million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents.I'm also wondering what else you'll be doing to reach out to any Jews who might attend. Something simple, personal, and heartfelt is called for. Something that will touch them and move them.
Perhaps you could let them sniff your holy hankies.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
WellPoint: The Indiana-based insurer spent $4.7 million lobbying Congress last year, an increase of 21 percent from its expenditures in 2008.
UnitedHealth Group: The largest of all health insurance companies spent $4.5 million on lobbyists last year, an increase of 7 percent from 2008.
Humana: The insurance mega-company "showed the biggest increase in its lobbying spending among…insurers." It spent $3.2 million lobbying in 2009, which is an 80 percent increase from 2008.
America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP): The health insurance industry's lobbying group spent $8.9 million on lobbyists in 2009, a 20 percent increase from the previous year.
While health insurance companies spent generously on lobbying over the last year of the health care debate, their contributions are easily dwarfed by those of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, which spent $123.3 million on lobbying in 2009, nearly double its 2008 expenditures, has vigorously fought progressive health reforms, climate change legislation, and progressive labor laws. Two weeks ago, insurers were revealed to be secretly funneling millions of dollars to the Chamber for anti-health reform ads. It is unclear, however, if the the Chamber's $123 million lobbying total includes additional insurance industry money
The Republican minority in the Senate has used and abused the practice of filibusters to obstruct the Democrats' agenda. The number of Senate cloture votes, which require a supermajority of 60, "more than doubled — from 54 to 112 — from the 109th Congress (2005-2006) to the 110th (2007-2008), according to the Senate historical office." James Fallows points to this Wikipedia chart for evidence of how "a-historical the current Senate practice" is:
The White House is giving new indications that it is preparing to go to battle against this abuse. At a fundraiser last week, Vice President Joe Biden said, "No democracy has survived needing a supermajority."
Biden's communications director, Jay Carney, further made the case: "When one looks at the soaring number of cloture votes required to do business in the Senate — double the numbers of a decade ago, triple the numbers of 20 years ago — it raises a legitimate question about whether this power is being used to protect the minority or merely to obstruct action and progress."
In an interview today with TV One's Roland Martin, White House senior adviser David Axelrod waded into the controversy:
"The Republican strategy in the Senate is to turn 50 into 60, in other words no longer do you need a majority to carry the day in the Senate. You need 60 votes for everything because the Republicans are filibustering every single bill," he said. "We need to call that out, and they need to explain to the American people whether throwing a wrench into everything at a time of national emergency is the appropriate policy. They want to win and election and take us back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place."
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) has proposed legislation that would gradually lower the number of votes the Senate majority would need to block filibusters from 60 to, ultimately, a simple majority. More and more Democratic Senators appear to be increasingly agitated about the issue. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told blogger-activist Mike Stark this week that the Democratic caucus was "working through" how to get around the 60-vote threshold for moving legislation. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told Rachel Maddow this past week that she "would love" to change the filibuster rule, but that it's "not realistic." And today on ABC's This Week, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) railed against the Republicans' "unprecedented" use of the filibuster.
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I just stumbled across this 1997 Ronald Bailey (yes, it's in Reason, but it's good) article on neoconservatives' attitudes towards evolution. It's probably the first thing I've ever read about neoconservatism that made sense to me, in terms of explaining motivations.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#drafts/12665ce09a40513c
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