Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson joined a bipartisan effort on Wednesday to block the administration from trying the Sept. 11th suspects in civilian courts.
Nelson (Neb.) signed onto legislation offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.) to require military commission trials for those suspects. Nelson made the announcement in a conference call with reporters, primarily citing the costs of security for the trials.
Known as one of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats, Nelson has been somewhat of a thorn in the side of the Obama administration recently.
Nelson cited a letter that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent to President Barack Obama, protesting the decision to hold the trials in his city because of the associated security costs. Nelson said recent estimates have reached $1 billion.
“Mayor Bloomberg was right that New York City should not have to bare the burden of this unfunded mandate from the federal government, but neither should American taxpayers,” Nelson said. “Given the immense costs and associated risks, I believe that trying those charged with the attacks of 9/11 in military commissions is the appropriate course of action.”
Republican congressional leaders are responding warily to President Barack Obama’s invitation to a televised, bipartisan discussion on health care, emphasizing that they remain determined to discard health care reform legislation as it currently exists.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, who said he would be “pleased” to have a “real, bipartisan conversation,” called the Democratic legislation a “job-killing, trillion-dollar government takeover.”
“The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access,” he said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement, “We know there are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf.”
A spokesman for Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican whip, was even blunter: “Unless the president and Speaker Pelosi are willing to scrap their government takeover and hit the reset button, there’s not much to talk about.”
And Rep. Tom Price, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, called Obama’s proposed meeting a “hollow PR blitz” — unless Obama starts from square one on a health care bill.
“The only constructive discussions will start with a blank sheet of paper,” he said in a statement. “The American people have soundly rejected the president’s Big Government approach to health care, and tinkering at the margins of it will not bring about bipartisan consensus. Enacting positive health care reform still remains possible, but it will require the president to accept that his plan is a nonstarter with the American people.”
[ht to politico ]
Posted by Matt
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Tea Party activists gathered in Tennessee this weekend grappled with a central question looming over the burgeoning political movement: Where does it go from here?
Organizers here seek to shift the focus from staging political rallies to winning elections. “The Tea Party movement is growing up,” said Judson Phillips, a Nashville-based criminal-defense lawyer who organized the National Tea Party Convention. “If 2010 is another year of rallies, we’ve lost.”
Building a coherent movement won’t be easy. The Tea Party activism that sprang up last year remains a loosely organized concept, held together by the broad beliefs that politicians in both parties are out of touch, that fiscal responsibility has run amok and that the public view of America has dimmed.
But the movement—guided by thousands of independent and conservative activists who organize mainly through online social-networking sites—is prone to infighting over its leadership and ties to the Republican Party. There are also tensions between those who think the Tea Partiers should remain a grassroots organization, and those willing to partner with more-established groups who can offer guidance on how to organize and run campaigns.
“The current form of this movement is fresh and young and fragile,” said 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in a keynote address at the convention Saturday. “Let us not get bogged down in small squabbles. Let us get caught up in the big ideas.”
Ms. Palin may not be an official leader of the movement, but her appearance Saturday—televised live and attended by 1,100 activists—underscored her ability to capture the spirit of the conservative grassroots.
The former Alaska governor has embraced the Tea Party in public remarks, and she is stepping up her participation in the movement, with Saturday’s speech and appearances at Tea Party rallies in Nevada and Massachusetts in the next two months. She said she intended to endorse, and campaign and raise money for, conservative candidates in 2010.
[ht to WSJ]
Posted by Matt
President Obama’s preparing to meet new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown face-to-face. The White House says it’s only a matter of coordinating schedules.
But even before meeting Obama, Brown and the White House found themselves in a fight over the job-creating results of the stimulus faster than you can say “Tea Party” or “Recovery Act.”
“The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job,” Brown said at his first official Senate press conference.
Asked again if he really meant President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus “didn’t create one new job,” Brown plowed ahead.
“That’s correct. In Massachusetts, it hasn’t created one new job and throughout the country, as well, It may have retained some, but it hasn’t created any new jobs.”
To put it mildly, the White House begs to differ.
“The Recovery Act has saved or created 53,000 total jobs in Massachusetts,” said Jay Carney, spokesman for Vice President Joe Biden, citing statistics from the White House Council on Economic Advisers (CEA). ” Moreover, Massachusetts state and local governments, businesses and community organizations have already reported directly funding over 9,000 jobs in the last year.”
Carney said the 9,000 jobs represent only “a portion of the total $8.4 billion” in stimulus funds sent to Massachusetts.
Biden overseas stimulus funds and is the law’s most ardent and voluble defender. It’s perhaps an unintended tribute to the fractious ways of the Capitol — and the bruising economic debates the recession has inspired — that Brown and Biden found themselves sparring moments after Biden presided at Brown’s swearing in.
Carney suggested Brown take note of “serious economists of all political points of view” whom he said “estimate” stimulus dollars have “created or saved between 1.5 and 2.4 million jobs across America.”
It’s a sensitive subject for a White House looking apprehensively toward Friday’s jobless report. Obama’s budget project annual average unemployment above 7 percent through 2013. The jobless rate averaged 5.8 percent in 2008 (Page 13, Analytical Perspectives Fiscal Year 2011).
“It is beyond dispute,” Carney said, “that if it were not for the (stimulus), as many as 2.4 million more Americans would be unemployed today.”
Brown’s office, probably still trying to organize itself, had no immediate response.
On Jan. 13 the CEA reported that $413 billion in stimulus funds had been spent on tax cuts, subsidies or direct project payments by the end of 2009. The report also said the stimulus “raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by 1.5 to 2 million.”
On Dec. 1, Doug Elmendorf, director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, wrote that between 600,000 and 1.6 million more people were employed than would have been without the stimulus. CBO also estimated stimulus spending through the 3rd Quarter of 2009 had boosted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1.2% to 3.2% .
On Jan. 14, the conservative Heritage Foundation argued the stimulus failed to meet initial White House projections on job creation, leaving a 6.8 million gap between promises and current reality.
[ht to FN]
Posted by Matt
A screengrab of the 30-second Census Bureau television ad that will air during Sunday's Super Bowl. (Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau)
You thought Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad was the only one causing a stir? Think again.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has criticized the Census Bureau’s decision to spend $2.5 million for a 30-second ad during Sunday’s game. The spending decision, McCain argues, is “symptomatic of the spending practices of the federal government and the Congress in a way that is completely out of touch with what’s going on out there in the real world.”
McCain said Wednesday night, during an interview on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren”, that the ad buy is an example of “what feeds the tea parties. This is what feeds the anti-incumbency mood that’s out there, an out-of-touch Congress and an out- of-touch administration.”
McCain also Tweeted his concerns on Thursday: “While the census is very important to AZ, we shouldn’t be wasting $2.5 million taxpayer dollars to compete with ads for Doritos!”
The Census Bureau said that its deal with CBS, which will broadcast the game, includes not only the 30-second ad during the third quarter, but some “added value” in a special arrangement with the network: two 30-second spots during the pregame show and two or three live, explicit on-air mentions of the 2010 Census by CBS Sports pregame show anchor James Brown.
“We think this is a pretty good deal for the taxpayers,” said Steven J. Jost, the Census Bureau’s associate director for communications.
Last year’s Super Bowl was seen by 98.7 million people, and Sunday’s audience are expected to be consistent with the record ratings for this year’s AFC and NFC Championship games.
The ads are part of the Census Bureau’s multimillion-dollar advertising and outreach campaign, launched last month, which includes a mix of television, radio, print and Web advertisements.
The ad airing during the game was directed by Christopher Guest and stars Ed Begley Jr. and other alums of Guest’s cult-classic films, such as “A Mighty Wind,” “Best in Show” and “For Your Consideration.”
Officials said Thursday morning that they did not know the total cost of producing the ad, saying that it was part of a four-day shoot for five different 30-second spots and a mock “behind-the-scenes” video intended for online audiences and currently showing on YouTube.
The agency defended the Super Bowl spot Wednesday night on its blog after receiving questions from other news outlets.
“The first goal of our promotion efforts is to raise awareness of the when and how the Census works,” the agency said. “We have a very limited window of opportunity to achieve our goals Jan. to April, and therefore need programming that delivers high ratings. We did not choose the Super Bowl at the expense of some other programming. We went where the audience was to be found, as part of a package with CBS.”
The Census Bureau added, “The Super Bowl is rare, in that viewers are just as tuned in to see the commercials as the program itself. Commercials that air on the Super Bowl have a multiplier effect. Advertisers are mentioned in multiple news media outlets and viewers will typically look to view them online almost immediately after airing. Therefore, airing once in the Super Bowl creates significant buzz leading to additional viewing potential.”
[ht to Washington Post]
