Dayhoff Soundtrack: Washington Examiner Politics Sat. EXTRA

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Washington Examiner Politics Sat. EXTRA

Examiner Politics Saturday EXTRA: Weekend breaking news & comment from The Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blogger

David Freddoso - No Choice '08: McCain and Obama were both going to get us into more wars
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spoke yesterday from the Senate floor in support of the unauthorized military action in Libya. McCain argued that, for the sake of national unity, the Congress should pass a resolution approving the use of force, even though President Obama, in clear contravention of the War Powers Act and the Constitution, insists that Congress has no role in approving wars. Read More

Timothy P. Carney - Highway spending is a subsidy for driving
President Obama says he wants to decrease oil imports and stop oil subsidies, yet at the same time, he's subsidizing oil consumption -- by spurring new highway spending. When I tell the story of the oil executive who told me that his biggest subsidy is highway spending, people sometimes tell me this is wrong -- that gas taxes cover the cost of highways. But they don't. Read More

Philip Klein - AARP still playing it both ways on Social SecurityI had been meaning to write a blog post arguing that today's Wall Street Journal report likely overstated its claim that AARP was making a major shift toward more openness on cutting Social Security benefits, but the group's CEO has beat me to it. Read More

Michael Barone - Gangster Government at Treasury?

If this article by professors at Harvard Law School and Indiana University Business School is correct (hat tip to Paul Caron’s taxprof blog and Glenn Reynolds's Instapundit), the Treasury acted contrary to law when it ruled that post-bankruptcy General Motors could utilize $45 billion in pre-bankruptcy net operating losses to reduce any corporate income taxes it may owe. Read More

Mark Tapscott - Judicial Watch: Tax dollars for La Raza skyrocket after Obama appoints one of its leaders to White House post
Should anybody care when a radical left-wing special interest group gets a big boost in federally funded grants and contracts after one of its most visible leaders is appointed to a key White House job? That's exactly what happened after President Obama appointed Cecilla Munoz, the National Council of La Raza's (NCLR) senior vice president, as his director of inter-governmental affairs, according to an investigation by Judicial Watch. Read More

Conn Carroll - Pawlenty’s Obamacare problem
Why did T-Paw back off his Obamneycare line at Monday’s debate? Could it be because his own health care proposals are too close to Obamacare for comfort? Earlier this month I noted a striking similarity between the way Obamacare plans to cut Medicare and Pawlenty’s Medicare proposal. Read More

Philip Klein - ATM industry not happy about Obama comments

The Automated Teller Machine industry is not happy about President Obama's comments that the development of ATMs has cost jobs. Here's a sampling of some of the feedback I've been getting. Mike Lee, CEO of the ATM Industry Association, emailed me the following response: Read More
David Freddoso - Redistricting update: New map in Michigan

What you see here is Detroit, the next locus of the redistricting wars. The new congressional map proposed by the Republican-majority state legislature in Michigan achieves the Republicans’ goals – eliminate one Democrat, and shore up all the Republicans. Read More

Operation Fast and Furious should end Holder tenure

By: Examiner Editorial

Watergate cliches though they are, two questions beg to be asked about the exploding Fast and Furious scandal at the U.S. Department of Justice: What did Attorney General Eric Holder know and when did he know it concerning the underlying concept, operational protocols and legal status of Operation Fast and Furious?

Weiner's woes: No skillz to pay the billz

By: Michelle Malkin

"There is life after Congress for Anthony Weiner," New York Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey grimly assured reporters on Thursday before his resignation announcement. But Weiner's life has been nothing but Congress. Nothing but government. Nothing but taxpayer-subsidized self-perpetuation. In other words: the life of a pathetic public leech.

A new paradigm for the Left?

By: David Limbaugh

If you compare the Carter malaise with the Obama debt doomsday machine, any GOP 2012 presidential candidate should sail to victory with greater facility than Ronald Reagan did in 1980. But will she or he? I am optimistic but also believe that in making his economic case, the Republican candidate will have different challenges because of the ongoing growth of our welfare state and the attitudes it has ushered in, along with heightened class warfare.

NLRB assault on Boeing will cost countless jobs

By: Diana Furchtgott-Roth

SEATTLE -- It's a cloudy day in Seattle. On the road leaving the airport, one of Boeing's plants stretches out next to the highway, just before the cranes of the port. I am in Seattle to speak to Women of Washington, a nonprofit women's group focusing on public policy issues, on why America isn't creating jobs and what to do about it.

In praise of the pulchritudinous Michele Bachmann

By: Emmett Tyrrell

So there are two. Two pulchritudinous ones, that is. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are very beautiful, and the feminists tell us, "So what?" Well, they never say "So what?" when an attractive male, usually a Democrat, comes onstage. They call him charismatic.

Examiner Local Editorial: Bad old days of D.C. government corruption are back

By: Examiner Editorial

Hard as it is to believe, major scandals involving Mayor Vincent Gray's campaign and transition team are being eclipsed by almost daily revelations of venality and highly questionable judgment by members of the D.C. Council. With six of 13 council members, including the chairman, currently or previously under ethics clouds, D.C.'s hard-won reputation as a professionally managed, modern city has quickly eroded.

Obama is packing the government with Big Green ideologues

By: Ron Arnold

President Obama has packed his Cabinet agencies with left-wing ideologues, just like President Roosevelt tried with his 1937 "Supreme Court packing bill." Roosevelt failed, but Obama is still at it.