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RedState's Morning Briefing for Friday, March 20, 2009
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Morning Briefing for FRIDAY, March 20, 2009
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1. Those DVDs Obama gave Gordon Brown? They were Region 1 after all
In other words, the Brown’s can’t even watch the movies.
2. Democrat Bobby Rush (D-IL) Wants To Let Eric Holder Take Your Guns Away
He thinks you must be checked for mental disorders before buying a gun.
3. Palin rejects nearly half of federal stimulus funds
Obama Fails To Stimulate Alaska’s Governor
4. Did Obama Just Throw the Gay Community Under the Bus?
The Leading Congressional Opponent of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Just Got a Promotion
5. The Obama CYA Act of 2009
Rushing to cover their rears, the Democrats haven’t stopped to ask if it is even constitutional
6. The Tim Geithner Dead Pool
The Fates have picked up the scissors and are prepared to cut the thread
1. Those DVDs Obama gave Gordon Brown? They were Region 1 after all
In other words, the Brown’s can’t even watch the movies.
Remember everyone speculating as to whether the DVDs that Barack Obama gave to Gordon Brown instead of a gift of substance were Region 1 or not? Turns out they are Region 1, and thus not playable in the UK.
2. Democrat Bobby Rush (D-IL) Wants To Let Eric Holder Take Your Guns Away
He thinks you must be checked for mental disorders before buying a gun.
It sounds innocuous. Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL), on January 6, 2009, quietly filed the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009 (H.R. 45) in the United States House of Representatives.
While the nation has been distracted by the bailouts, the stimulus, the AIG bonuses, and Britney Spears’ comeback, Congressman’s Rush’s legislation has been winding its way through Congress. Right now it is before the Judiciary Committee.
Should the legislation become law, the second amendment would be fundamentally damaged. While distracted by pocketbook issues, Americans might want to pay attention to this.
3. Palin rejects nearly half of federal stimulus funds
Obama Fails To Stimulate Alaska’s Governor
Governor Sarah Palin announced today that she is proposing legislation which will allow Alaska to accept only a little more than half of the federal stimulus funds for which her state is eligible. Palin gave several examples that underlined her reasoning for wanting to reject the funds. In total, if the bill were passed, $515 million (55%) of the nearly $1 billion would be rejected by the state.
Stating that she was wary of federal “strings,” attached to the stimulus funding, the governor asked, “Will we chart our own course, or will Washington (D.C.) engineer it for us?”
4. Did Obama Just Throw the Gay Community Under the Bus?
The Leading Congressional Opponent of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Just Got a Promotion
President Obama is reportedly set to nominate California Representative Ellen Tauscher for the post of Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
If you consult Ms. Tauscher’s biography, her work on arms control and non-proliferation makes its first appearance in the 12th paragraph (in a bio with 14 paragraphs overall). Her work in this area is apparently not as important as her work on Wall Street, her leadership on the Transportation Committee (including getting funding for a tunnel in her district), or her work on public school funding - all of which get prominent mention before non-proliferation issues.
There’s another interesting thing about Ms. Tauscher: she is the sponsor of legislation to undo the military’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy. She reintroduced the legislation on March 3 — about two weeks before her nomination was announced. It has 134 cosponsors as of today - nearly one-third of the House, just a few weeks after introduction. When she introduced the bill, she planned to hold hearings to educate the public, and suggested that Secretary Powell could lead the effort to sell repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It seems as if Ms. Tauscher had done a good job of laying the groundwork for an effort to repeal the measure in the House.
5. The Obama CYA Act of 2009
Rushing to cover their rears, the Democrats haven’t stopped to ask if it is even constitutional
The House is debating HR 1586, a bill that would tax bonuses given to employees of bailed out businesses. The bill would tax “90 percent of the TARP bonus received by the taxpayer.” The TARP recipient’s employer must have received the money from “the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008″ (the TARP bailout), “the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation”, “members of the same affiliated group” (units of the TARP recipients, FNMA and FHLM monies), and affiliated partnerships. Conservatives in the House and Senate need to use this debate as an opportunity to debate how this provision was placed in the Obama so called Stimulus bill and forbidding future bailouts.
This effort in the House and Senate to tax bonuses is not much more than a cover your backside vote to protect the Obama Administration and liberals in Congress who requested, through Treasury, that the AIG Bonus Protection Amendment be put in the Stimulus. If conservatives in the Congress want to show some leadership, they need to use the bonus debate to fight the further nationalization of private enterprise.
Conservatives are outraged by the bonuses, because taxpayer monies are being used to reward failure. It seems patently unconsitutional to retroactively tax recipients of these bonuses, yet Congress seems to be putting a legislative Band-Aid over the bailout problem in an effort to do something about the bonuses. Congress should forget about the bonuses, abolish the TARP and investigate how this controversial provision was added to the Stimulus bill if they want to make this debate productive.
6. The Tim Geithner Dead Pool
The Fates have picked up the scissors and are prepared to cut the thread
Tim Geithner should probably start packing his stuff. Now. Because what we have in the article in today’s Washington Post called “How the Fed Failed to Tell Obama About The Bonuses” is nothing more or less than an attempt to load up Mr. Geithner with unique responsibility for the AIG bonus fiasco, set him ablaze, and send him drifting out to sea.
When one cuts through all the hooey, this is the narrative that the White House and its media accomplices would like for you to believe: the risk-averse bureaucrats in the Fed made a unilateral decision to allow AIG to award bonuses to the guys who nearly brought AIG down. They did so without consulting with the White House, or much of anyone else. They did so without realizing that it would be a political disaster. The guy at the Fed who did this was Tim Geithner, who, by the way, is now at Treasury and still screwing up royally although The One retains complete confidence in him.
This is nonsense on its face.
According to the Post, the Fed was informed back in January that bonuses would be awarded in the amount o $165 million by March 15.
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