President Barack Obama lost a major backer this week for his re-election bid this fall.
The San Francisco Chroniclereports that philanthropist Susie Tompkins Buell (pictured, right), who’s donated millions to progressives and Democrats over the years, will not be giving any money to Obama for his campaign. The paper says she’s been disappointed in the president’s approach on environmental issues such as climate change.
“I would just love to write my big check … or have a high-dollar dinner here,” she said in the article. “I can’t.”
So what?: Thursday’s news won’t hurt Obama’s attempts to raise money. He is expected to raise $1 billion for the general election later this year. The Wall Street Journal and CBS News both report that he already raised $29 million for his re-election last month.
At the same time, though, this is a big blow.
Buell, the co-founder of ESPRIT clothing, originally backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, and even formed a political action committee for her called WomenCount. It continued to operate after she bowed out, with a purpose of “battling the gender bias in our media and political process.” In that same Huffington Post article, she described it as a “Moveon.org for Women.”
The news about Buell does provide support to a theory that’s existed for quite some time that many Democrats and Obama supporters are disappointed that he hasn’t been even more extreme.
President Barack Obama may be able to exhale for now.
In the wake of enormous controversy, Obama came out Friday with the announcement that an accommodation will be made for the birth control coverage featured in the 2010 healthcare law. Under the change, if a charity or religious organization has issues about providing birth control to female employees, then it would be available through insurance companies, which would have to provide direct coverage.
Obama was warned about this birth control policy by his own Vice President and other advisers, but proceeded anyway before Friday’s announcement.
Obviously much of this was directly related to Obama boosting his re-election chances, but hidden beneath this controversy are telling signs of his political philosophy, view on the Constitution and the power he seeks to wield.
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If you followed the 2008 election and paid attention, you probably heard plenty about Obama and his connections to Saul Alinsky, another community organizer from Chicago.
Alinsky, who died in 1972, was author of the book Rules for Radicals. The Obama administration has continued to deny any links between the President and Alinsky. What many may not have seen is a 1972 interview with Playboy, in which Alinsky gives his thoughts on religion and its role in his life and society.
“The great atomic physicist Niels Bohr summed it up pretty well when he said, ‘Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question,”’ Alinsky said. “Nobody owns the truth, and dogma, whatever form it takes, is the ultimate enemy of human freedom.”
He goes onto say that “conflict is the vital core of an open society; if you were going to express democracy in a musical score, your major theme would be the harmony of dissonance. All change means movement, movement means friction and friction means heat. You’ll find consensus only in a totalitarian state, Communist or fascist.”
So if conflict is the goal, then let’s see: There was the health care debate, budget debate, Occupy Wall Street. Now there’s been the birth control issue.
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Before he was elected, Obama gave what has now become a famous speech known as the “Call to Renewal” in 2006.
Many conservatives and evangelicals will remember this speech, because it’s when Obama said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation and a Hindu nation and a nation of non-believers.”
At one point, Obama rails on secularists, stating they are “wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square” but later adds that ”democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.”
He later goes on to discuss politics.
“…Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality,” Obama states. “It involves compromise; the art of what’s possible. And at some fundamental level, religion doesn’t allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God’s spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences.”
Did Obama not know that his birth control policy would conflict with the Catholic church’s beliefs?
Once again, some perspective is found from Alinsky.
“The organizer is constantly creating new out of the old,” he wrote in Rules for Radicals. “He knows that all new ideas arise from conflict; that every time man has a new idea it has been a challenge to the sacred ideas of the past and the present and inevitably a conflict has raged.”
In this case, though, the issue goes well beyond birth control.
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Before he became President, Obama riled up a crowd while campaigning when he mentioned the Constitution.
“Don’t mock the Constitution,” he said, referring to his critics. “Don’t make fun of it. Don’t suggest it’s un-American to abide by what the Founding Fathers set up. It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years.”
It’s ironic when you consider the series of moves he’s made over the last three years. Later next month, the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether Obamacare is constitutional. His recess appointments also came under heavy criticism, and recently conservatives and leaders within the Catholic church said his birth control policy violated the First Amendment.
“… The American people know what our President has apparently forgot, that religious liberty cannot be doled out in little pieces to appease certain interest groups or political constituencies,” wrote Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. “They want the President to start upholding the oath of office he took to support and defend the Constitution – all of it, including Americans’ fundamental right to religious liberty.”
Obama got a roar of applause when he was on the campaign trail, but he’s also said before that the Constitution is a “remarkable document” but it’s also an “imperfect document.” He also has said “the Constitution can be interpreted in so many ways.”
The Daily Caller pointed out that after Congress established a provision for this year’s spending bill, which prohibits the National Institutes of Health from using any of its $30.7 billion taxpayer funds for pro gun control purposes. In that article, Obama clarifies his stance on the matter.
“I have advised Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress’s consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient,” he says.
The website clearly points out: Nowhere in the Constitution is the President given this power.
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In a Sept, 2009, article in World Net Daily, author Aaron Klein provides a glimpse of Cass Sunstein, who was then Obama’s newly appointed regulatory czar.
Early on in the piece, Sunstein offers up his views on President Obama, and the power he should have, which was discussed in much greater detail in a 2006 paper he wrote for Yale Law School entitled, “Beyond Marbury: The Executive’s Power to Say What the Law Is.” The paper delves into an 1803 case – Marbury v. Madison, in which the Supreme Court declared it’s “emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
“There is no reason to believe that in the face of statutory ambiguity, the meaning of federal law should be settled by the inclinations and predispositions of federal judges. The outcome should instead depend on the commitments and beliefs of the President and those who operate under him,” Sunstein writes.
That was in Year One of the Obama administration. Fast forward to late last year when Obama made three recess appointments.
Former Attorney General Edwin Meese and Todd Gaziano, who served under three Presidents in the U.S. Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, both pointed out in the Washington Post this was a clear violation of Article I, Section 5, in the Constitution, which says neither house of Congress can adjourn for over three days without consent of the other house.
In this case, the House didn’t provide that consent. Not that it mattered.
“When Congress refuses to act and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them,” Obama said in a USA Today article. “I have an obligation to act on behalf of the American people.”
Is it simply just acting, or changing?
“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth — truth to him is relative and changing,” Alinsky wrote. “Everything to him is relative and changing.”
So I had the debate on and was also doing laundry at the same time.
I kept scribbling down some notes and thoughts along the way (some of which will turn into individual posts). But here’s what was left following Thursday night’s Republican Debate:
… Newt Gingrich mentioned the citizen panel early on that he would implement to help with the country’s immigration issue. It’s a nice idea, but how do those panel members become qualified? Will it be a mixture of races, and how do you look for potential racial bias in those candidates? …
…I love the concept of American Express or Visa running the guest worker program. …
… Proof I do think Ron Paul is spot on sometimes: When he mentions that resources should be pulled from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and devoted to our country. …
…Wolf Blitzer baited Newt when he asked if Mitt Romney was “still the most anti-immigrant candidate?” …
… Does anyone really believe Newt Gingrich benefits from a pissing match with Mitt Romney? …
… “Our problem isn’t 11 million grandmothers.” – Hilarious line from Mitt …
… When asked if Ron Paul would release his medical records, I enjoyed how he responded. “Obviously, it’s about one page even if it’s that long,” Paul said to Wolf Blitzer. Then joking, he cracked, “There are laws against age discrimination so you better be careful.” …
… Rick Santorum had an excellent debate. I thought he was superb when he held Mitt Romney’s feet to the fire regarding Romneycare. The governor was backed into a corner, and Santorum kept the pressure on, especially when Romney said his health care plan “works pretty well.” …
…Some of Wolf Blitzer’s questions were completely pointless. …
…Secularists and moral relativists are clawing and gnashing their teeth I’m sure after Newt Gingrich’s response about the role of religion in his potential presidency. “Anyone who’s President is faced with such decisions that they should go to God,” Gingrich said.
Throughout tonight’s State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama kept throwing out military metaphors for the Congress.
“At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition,” he said. “They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.
“Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.”
The State of the Union speech continued onto a variety of other points, but the military metaphors leave you wondering: How much of a reach can you make? Does he really believe Congressional leaders are the same as military leaders?
The fact is that it was a poor metaphor and made zero sense. Servicemen have to obey orders of their superiors, regardless of whether they agree or not. Military leaders also aren’t on the battlefield, influenced by lobbyists and earmarks.
The State of the Union concluded with more military talk again, where Obama said it doesn’t matter what your race, sexual preference, or political orientation is.
“When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one Nation, leaving no one behind,” Obama said.
Obama also told the story of the Seal Team 6 who went and took down Osama Bin Laden. One soldier mentioned how the only way the mission succeeded is that each member did its job.
“…The mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back,” he said.
If we want to keep with this metaphor, shouldn’t Obama turn to one of his generals in the Senate and order him to stop stonewalling countless bills that can’t even be voted on?
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson has announced that he will be endorsing Newt Gingrich in the 2012 campaign.
“Newt is the guy who can articulate what America is all about,” Thompson said on the Sean Hannity show. “He’s not afraid, he’s tough, he’s experienced. We’ve got to stand up to the establishment on both sides of the aisle and the news media and carry this thing through.”
Thompson discussed the state of the nation, saying the numbers coming out of Washington were “understated” and based on “faulty projections of growth and things of that nature.” He also said “we’re at a tipping point in this country.”
“I think the American people are fed up with all that and are asking the question, ‘Who is going to be bold enough, smart enough, articulate enough to carry the mail?’ To beat Barack Obama and start the difficult task of righting this American ship?”
So what?: It is always interesting to see who backs who, and Fred Thompson remains a beloved figure among conservatives. Many were glad when he entered the 2008 election, but it was a huge disappoint when he bowed out early in the GOP primary. Back then, it seemed like he simply had no passion or desire to really pursue the presidency.
He is a no-nonsense conservative, though, and isn’t going to follow GOP talking points and do the popular thing.
Thompson joins former Congressman JC Watts of Oklahoma, another popular conservative who also came out to endorse the former Speaker of the House late last year.
FOX News is reporting that Newt Gingrich is projected to win tonight’s South Carolina Primary.
“Gigantic victory,” Ed Rollins, the former campaign manager for Ronald Reagan, said on FOX News.
Many wondered if the ABC interview with Gingrich’s second ex-wife would play a role in tonight’s South Carolina Primary results. However, the Christian Science Monitor published a poll from Public Policy Polling, which said Newt Gingrich was getting 37 percent of votes entering today’s election, followed by Mitt Romney (28), Rick Santorum (16) and Ron Paul (14).
The poll also stated that just 31 percent of voters believed Marianne Gingrich’s allegations, and 35 percent thought they were lies. According to the report, 51 percent also said they weren’t concerned with what was mentioned in the interview.
The one intriguing part remaining with tonight’s South Carolina primary results is who will finish third.
(Note: We’ll update this later tonight, with additional quotes and numbers.)
6:31 p.m. cst – Fox News is projecting that Rick Santorum will finish third.
8:08 p.m. cst – With 67 percent of votes reported, Newt Gingrich is at 41 percent, followed by Mitt Romney (26) and Rick Santorum (18).
So what?: If you watched Newt Gingrich during the two debates this week, you have to believe his performances gave him an enormous boost.
The long held opinion has been that Newt Gingrich would pound Barack Obama in a debate, and now this victory in the South Carolina primary should rejuvenate his campaign, especially on a national level. The winner of the South Carolina primary has gone on to win the GOP nomination every year since 1980.
Now, plenty of questions remain entering the upcoming Florida primary, which is Jan 31:
1.) Money bomb?: Watch and see how much influx of money Newt Gingrich receives after today’s victory, which will be essential in Florida, where advertising is extremely expensive.
2.) The Establishment: Ed Rollins predicted on FOX News that Establishment Republicans will begin to mount an attack against Newt Gingrich over the next two to three weeks. The Establishment and the mainstream media has been behind Mitt Romney, and has been saying this campaign is already over and that conservatives should get behind Romney.
3.) The other two: You will have to question how long Rick Santorum and Ron Paul can remain in the campaign. Santorum has two very solid debates heading into the South Carolina primary and had been endorsed by numerous social conservative groups.
There was plenty of talk in last night’s South Carolina debate about the GOP candidates releasing their tax returns.
Newt Gingrich had released his an hour before the debate began. Ron Paul joked, saying he “hadn’t thought it threw” and that he would “probably be embarrassed to put my financial statements up against their income.” Rick Santorum does his own taxes and said he couldn’t release them cause they’re at his house. Mitt Romney was also put on the spot and said he would release them in April when he does his current taxes.
“I know there are some who are very anxious to see if they can’t make it more difficult for a campaign to be successful,” Romney said. “I know the Democrats want to go after the fact I’ve been successful. I’m not going to apologize for being successful.”
Romney later went on to point out that when you release things “drip by drip” that the Democrats come out with an array of attacks. He’s right on the attacks, but he should put on his big boy pants and just be ready for it if he’s the nominee.
While CNN and other mainstream media outlets would like to make tax returns a huge issue, you’re probably left thinking, “That’s really not the issue.” Doesn’t this have way more to do with transparency?
The transparency issue is an easy one that Republicans could pounce on once the general election arrives.
Back in 2009, President Barack Obama came out and boldly declared his administration would be a transparent one.
“The way to make government accountable is to make it transparent, so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they’re being made and whether their interests are being well-served,” Obama said.
“For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said if there was a defensable argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over.”
In early 2010, Obama was called out for the lack of transparency that came with the passing of Obamacare. He told Diane Sawyer in a Politico article that mistakes had been made in the process.
“…Part of what I had campaigned on was changing how Washington works, opening up, transparency,” he said. “The health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters that we just don’t know what’s going on. And it’s an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals.”
In a March 2010 article in the Los Angeles Times, Andrew Malcolm points out how one of the exemptions to turn down Freedom of Information Act requests was used 70,779 times in the first year of Obama’s administration. Compare that to the final budget year of the Bush administration, which was 47,395.
The article also points out how the Associated Press looked at 17 key agencies and how they dealt with FOIA requests. There were 466,872 denials, up 50 percent from the 2008 fiscal year.
Where this really comes into play is with ”Fast and Furious”, which has seen Congress get stonewalled by the Justice Department and call into question what Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the botched operation.
It’s all layed out on a silver platter.
Question is: Will Republicans take advantage of it?
If you want to learn a little more about ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross, start with his journalism philosophy.
In a sit-down interview at Penn State University, Ross was asked about the litmus test he uses to determine what stories he’ll pursue and which ones he won’t.
“In terms of what I will pursue, I want to go after every story I think is meaningful,” he says. “By that I mean, I don’t want to go after the small fry.”
It’s a candid interview, and includes several insights that many Americans would love from today’s journalists. Now, though, Ross is in the news for tonight’s interview with Marianne Gingrich, the ex-wife of former Speaker of the House and GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. While he’s been called the “gold standard” of investigative journalism, a closer look reveals someone who’s approach is highly questionable and full of contradictions.
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“It’s tough to challenge an entrenched system. I always admire the whistleblowers. They’re unusual people, because they sort of act like most normal people wouldn’t. They’re offended by slights and small things and really hold institutions to a high standard, and when they’re not met they are determined to blow the whistle. I live off those people. And I think what they do invaluable, and it’s very, very American I think to stand up to power and authority.”
- Ross, in the Penn State interview
Comments like those from Ross bring up further questions about tonight’s interview. Does he consider Marianne Gingrich a whistleblower? Since she’s not a “small fry”, what’s her objective with suddenly coming out and talking again?
As a member of ABC News, which has drawn heavy criticism, many viewers will also be quite skeptical as to why this interview is being aired just days before the South Carolina primary. If they dig a little more, they would also discover this story’s already been told in much greater detail in an Esquire magazine article.
A source told Robert Costa of National Review that those close to Newt know that Marianne Gingrich has been unhappy about how their marriage ended for a while.
“The real response from people who know him is disappointment with Marianne for doing this, and sadness about the whole situation,” the source says in the article.
Ross was on The View this morning to discuss the interview and tried to downplay its significance. He did point out, however, that Newt Gingrich has been a strong proponent of family values and against same-sex marriage during the 2012 campaign.
“These are troubling questions but they are questions of character,” he said.
Ross claimed in the Penn State interview that he leaves his opinion out of his stories, and just presents facts to the viewers. He also said he was proud of the objectivity among the ABC News investigative team.
“You’d have a hard time figuring out what anybody’s political affiliation was,” he said. “What we like is a good story.”
How many honestly believe that? And is their definition of a “good story” what most Americans believe is a slanted, agenda-driven one?
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If you go on the basis that Ross’ stories are void of opinion, then you’ll wind up being even more confused when you take a look at some of the other pieces he’s done.
Back in 2008, he did look into Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko – both of whom had connections with then candidate Barack Obama. Watch those videos and you’ll be left wondering if there’s anything substantive you’re left with.
Ross was in the news earlier in the campaign trail for a reported tussle with members of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s staff. He was trying to ask if her migraines have hindered her role in Congress, and was pushed back by members of her team. He tried to brush it off, saying he was “fine” and that it was overblown to say he was “roughed up.”
Perhaps the best part of that exchange is when Bill O’Reilly calls him out and says “I don’t know if it’s that penetrating.” Ross pauses and questions him.
“Even if she has migraine headaches and she missed a vote or two, everybody has maladies and everybody gets ill once in a while,” O’Reilly said. “I don’t think this is incapacitating.”
Bachmann wasn’t the only one Ross has gone after. Last November, he was reporting on the women who were coming forward, accusing then candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment.
On Good Morning America, he mentioned how there’s a possibility of all the accusers doing a press conference together ”so they can all tell their stories of Herman Cain, with the sense of safety in numbers.”
President Barack Obama has rejected the permit for the Keystone Pipeline this afternoon.
The State Department says that TransCanada, which is wanting to build the Keystone pipeline, will get the chance to submit another application for the project. Obama has also come out and said this move is due to the Republicans and their attempt to enforce an early deadline for a decision to be made.
“The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact,” Obama said in The Guardian. “This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the state department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.”
Environmentalists have praised the decision, while GOP candidates have come out and criticized Obama for not being serious about providing Americans with additional jobs. Numbers have varied, but reportedly up to 20,000 jobs could have been created by the Keystone pipeline, which would run from Canada into southeast Texas.
The importance of this decision goes beyond just jobs, however:
1.) Not having the Keystone pipeline, plus the increased risk of Iran’s threats of closing the strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, put Americans at risk for higher gas prices.
2.) This will also give Republican candidates more ammunition in the 2012 Election regarding Obama and just how serious he is with creating more jobs, or keeping more Americans dependent on the government.
In an article on the Heritage Foundation website, Curtis Dubay – a Senior Tax Policy analyst – points out the flaws of Obama’s budget he submitted to Congress last year, which included limited interest deductions and reducing the foreign tax credit.
“These policies are designed to keep jobs in the U.S., but they would have the opposite effect in reality,” Dubay writes.
“U.S. corporations operating internationally are at a sizeable disadvantage compared to their foreign competition, because the U.S. corporate tax rate is the second highest in the industrialized world and will be the highest when Japan reduces its rate on April 1 this year.”
Thomas Donohue, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce President, also told Business Week that this sends out a signal that job creation isn’t a “high priority” for the President.
“The president’s decision sends a strong message to the business community and to investors: keep your money on the sidelines, America is not open for business,” Donohue said. “By placing politics over policy, the Obama administration is sacrificing tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs in the short term, and many more than that in the long term.”
3.) This also raises more questions and creates further talk about Obama and appealing to his base, which includes environmentalists.
The President claims to want the best for this country, but today’s decision regarding the Keystone Pipeline could leave many voters wondering if he truly understands not just how to grow an economy, but how to create jobs and get America to be more self sufficient when it comes to natural gas and oil.
Endorsements are nice and great, but very few carry any weight.
Sarah Palin, though, is one of those few exceptions. The former Alaska governor came out and told Sean Hannity on his television show she would vote for Newt Gingrich if she lived in South Carolina.
“If I had to vote in South Carolina, I would vote for Newt,” she said.
So what?: Whether you like her or not, Palin’s name carries weight, especially with Tea Party conservatives.
Palin is still a beloved figure, and many were disappointed when she decided not to jump into the 2012 Presidential Election. She continued to be a force during the 2010 mid-term elections, as she campaigned throughout the country for several conservative candidates.
Palin says she wants the debates to continue so the GOP candidates can be properly vetted, adding that America made a mistake of not vetting Barack Obama in 2008.
“I want to see that take place this time because America is on that precipice,” she said. “It is that important, and we need that process to continue.”
Palin has the right idea, but she knows full well that the mainstream media chose not to ask Obama any hard questions and played a huge role in him winning the presidency. She also knows that this process continuing will only benefit who becomes the GOP nominee as they head into the general election, where the attacks will only get worse and the scrutiny will be far greater.
The question, though, exists: Is Palin hoping like many conservatives to simply watch Newt in a debate with Obama and how that would play out?
Probably. But her voice and opinion could play a huge difference when voters cast their ballots in South Carolina.
