The Light: Hillary

To my recent post about Palin and the new McCarthyism. Michelle Malkin had this post about how President Obama will be spending his Labor day, “Obama spending Labor Day with real thugs.” Wanna guess who? That’s right, Richard Trumka.

And why would Malkin say such a thing in her post? This is why:

[snip] Trumka and Obama will cast Big Labor as an unassailable force for good in American history. But when it comes to terrorizing workers, Trumka knows whereof he speaks.

Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama’s teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago.

Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka.

Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: “I’m saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you’re likely to get burned.” Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?

[...]

In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to “kick the s**t out of every last” worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation, the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were “violent activities … organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh, yeah – just a bit. It goes on from there, and I recommend you read the rest.

The bottom line is this man, Trumka, who called for this level of violence, is now the head of the AFL-CIO, and hanging out with the President of the United States on a regular basis. There is something very wrong about that.

And how about Trumka’s recent target, Gov. Palin? Well, this is something that might surprise you – and then again, maybe not. Alert NQ reader Sybill highlighted just the kind of person Sarah Palin is. This video sure says a lot:

Right? About the only other person at that level I can see jumping in and doing something like this is – you got it – Hillary Clinton. Wow.

Another alert NQ reader, Yttik, provided the following video to close this out today. Given the attacks Tea Party members and Sarah Palin have been enduring since its inception, it seems a fitting end for someone who has come to represent the Tea Party movement. And it is toe-tapping good, too:

Dang straight. That’s “We, the people,” and we DO have a voice.

Thanks for the links and suggestions, folks. Talk about this, or anything else on your mind today!

Could be, according to the AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, if she doesn’t watch her words.

Okay – I have to stop right there. Can I just tell you how much I resent it when men tell women how they should talk? That would be a big pet peeve of mine. So, from the get-go, I am already irritated with this man. You might be, too, after you hear what he has to say:

Am I right? What a piece of work Trumka is. Never mind that Palin resigned her position because of the incessant, ceaseless hounding by Democratic operatives filing frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, taking her time and money, as well as taking her attention away from the state for which she was supposed to be working. I imagine if someone hounded Trumka mercilessly for every word he had spoken, every deed he had ever committed, he, too, would have resigned his position, be it a mine worker or AFL-CIO president. But he has never experienced anything along those lines, not even close. Easy for him to pass judgment.

And passing judgment is exactly what he is doing. This seems to be the theme for the week with Vanity Fair publishing the worst kind of baseless smear masquerading as an article by Michael Gross on Sarah Palin, using anonymous sources, and operating from the most misogynistic point of view. Even her most outspoken detractors find this article sexist.

Just who is Richard Trumka that he feels he can arrogantly condescend to Sarah Palin and tell her to watch her mouth? Well, he’s an ally of Obama’s, for starters. I am sure that is not a surprise, is it? There is more to him, to be sure, as the following video highlights:

Yep – this frequent visitor to the White House also calls for a world-wide tax, and is a great “progressive” of the country. Great.

Well, as you can imagine, Gov. Palin didn’t exactly take his words lying down. As the Christian Science Monitor reported in its article by Dave Cook, “AFL-CIO President to Sarah Palin: “Change Or Be Linked With McCarthyism,” she had plenty to say back to Mr. Trumka:

[snip] Palin, Alaska’s former governor, responded to Trumka’s comments last week on her Facebook page. She noted that her husband is a proud former union member. Addressing his criticism of her language, Palin said, “It’s kind of ironic that a union boss has the gall to accuse anyone of threatening violence. After all, we remember the violent attempts by [the Service Employees International Union] to intimidate those who wanted to make their voices heard in last year’s town halls. And unlike Trumka, I never threatened that any effort to break a picket line would lead to violence.”

Palin added, “I never called union members ‘thugs.’ You lie. I called some union leaders ‘thugs.’ And I refuse to apologize for that because they have acted like thugs – at least in this day and age.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

Oh, SNAP – I think Palin took this round, don’t you?

McCarthyism – good grief, how did Trumka possibly make THAT leap? No doubt, he expected a ratchet response from her, that she would tone down her rhetoric lest she be compared to someone of McCarthy’s reputation. She didn’t bite, and gave it right back to him.

Love her or hate her, that woman has more intestinal fortitude than most of her detractors could even imagine. What it really says to me is that they are afraid of her, hence the constant desire to tear her down, whether by the president of the AFL-CIO or some Vanity Fair writer.

We’ve seen this before. It is the MO of those who are threatened by powerful women. Hillary Clinton gets this a lot, too. Who can ever forget the treatment she received from her husband’s presidency through the 2008 election? Only now is she starting to get her due, after so many years of doing an incredible amount of work.

It begs the question: why? Why are these people so threatened by powerful women? Powerful men are treated like gods (just look at Obamessiah), even if they have done little or nothing to have that power. It often seems that powerful women must be torn down at all and any cost. If you can use their kids to do it, so much the better. It is a disturbing trend, one I cannot wait to see end. One day, some day…

By the BP oil spill crisis, and it is certainly worthy of our attention, don’t think things have stopped going on in Washington, DC.

Actually, come to think of it, there is a connection between the BP oil crisis and one major issue in DC, the Obamacare program. That connection is – wait for it – labor unions.

Yep, Obama still refuses to waive the Jones Act, which would allow foreign ships and oil skimmers to come in so as not to upset the labor unions. The oil continues to gush from the earth’s surface, harming our marine life, our ocean, and too many people’s livelihoods at a time when jobs are already hard enough to come by (newest unemployment data for today skyrocketed to 472,000 jobless claims this week).

Add to that the moratorium Obama put on deepwater drilling, despite Salazar’s advisers advising against the moratorium, and many more people will be struggling before too long, especially in the Gulf. Like they need any more hardship. Obama even admitted as much, yet he is determined to go forward with his plan, halting any more drilling.

But how are the unions related to Obamacare promises that our health care, if we have it, will remain unchanged? Well, as it turns out – SURPRISE – most of us WILL have our current health care changed by Obamacare. Which group will not? You know the answer, labor unions:

Watch the latest video at FOXNews.com

That’s right, unions will be grandfathered in as this article highlights, “New Rules Could Make 66 Percent Of Employer Plans Lose ‘Grandfathered’ Status.” Gee, none of us who were following this massive takeover saw that coming, did we? Oh, right – we DID, and were told we were just haters for it. Well, we’re hating now:

New rules from the Obama administration that regulate health care plans that existed before the reform bill was passed highlight the difficulty the administration faces in both reforming the system and allowing people to keep the plans they like.

Under new regulations issued Monday, anywhere from 39 percent to 66 percent of employer plans will lose their “grandfathered status” by 2013, according to estimates included with the rules.

For plans that do not fall under the grandfathered status, employers would have to find a plan that complies with the health care bill passed March 23. Whether or not costs for the new plans will be less than grandfathered plans has yet to be seen.

Small businesses would be harder hit than large employers, losing grandfathered status for as few as 49 percent and as many as 80 percent of plans. Employers may keep their plan if it does not raise its prices beyond “reasonable changes” and if it does not cut substantially cut benefits for a particular condition.

Oh, there’s a big surprise. Small businesses, the backbone of our economy, are going to be taking the biggest hit here. Golly, too bad no one said anything about this before. That’s snark, just in case you missed it. Hell to the yes we were saying it. Again, we were roundly discounted. How many times do I have to say this? We were RIGHT:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reiterated a saying that President Obama said many times during the health care debate: “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it,” Sebelius said at a press conference Tuesday.

But experts say the new regulations reflect the limits to which that promise can be kept.

“Given the direction that President Obama wanted to go with health care, his promise that people could keep their existing plans was always a dicey one,” said Tevi Troy, former HHS deputy secretary under President Bush and visiting senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

The administration said that it would “take into account reasonable changes” that insurers routinely make in response to changes in cost and availability but would not outline details about what “reasonable changes” might be.

The regulations stipulate that insurers may make changes to their plans, but only to increase benefits or adapt to consumer protections outlined in the health care bill.

“They give all Americans with health insurance some important protections this year and create a path to the consumer-friendly health insurance marketplace of the future,” Sebelius said.

The new rules mandate that new individuals may not be added to grandfathered health plans after a business merger or restructuring so that grandfather status is not traded as a commodity. Thus companies will likely have employees with two different types of health care coverage, if the companies stay with their current plan.

Troy anticipates that insurance companies will try to freeze their plans to retain their grandfathered status for as long as possible.

“Freezing is not sustainable,” Troy told the Daily Caller. “The majority of plans will lose their grandfathered status in relatively short order, which I suspect was the unstated intent of both the legislators and the regulators.”

Here’s the bottom line. MANY of us knew this was going to happen. Many of us knew this was a hugely flawed bill from the get-go, not the least because the vast majority of the people voting on it hadn’t read the damn thing. With its jumping off point being big giveaways to Big Pharma, it could only go downhill from there, and did.

At what point do the people who buy every single word coming out of Obama’s mouth finally accept that they are being had? How many times must we say, “We told you so” before they will remove their blinders, their rose-colored glasses, or whatever it is that is keeping them from seeing the truth of who this man is? Despite his strong words, he is selling out the Gulf to the unions. Despite his claims to the contrary, those of us not in unions are likely to be screwed when it comes to health care, while the only ones NOT feeling the pain will be the unions.

Obama is not working in OUR best interest, but in the UNION’S best interest. As I have said before, they are sure getting their money’s worth with him. And what are we getting? Oh, you know that, too – the shaft.

Wow, what a night Tuesday night! This is shaping up to be the Year of the Women, finally. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina took California, two women with tremendous resumes in the private sector. Nikki Haley won big in South Carolina, though she does have to have a run-off June 22nd. She is fully expected to win that election. Sharron Angle, the Tea Party pick, will face off against Harry Reid in Nevada. And Blanche Lincoln beat her Democratic challenger, Lt.Gov. Bill Halter.

Senator Lincoln is the one Democrat in this bunch, and I have to say, I am THRILLED she beat Halter. As you no doubt have heard, Halter was supported by MoveOn.org, and the big unions, which poured MILLIONS of dollars into Arkansas (around $10 million), so her win is a big push against the power of the unions, as well as the far left agenda. Here she is celebrating her win:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Lincoln isn’t done – she has a strong challenger in November, but beating the organized union and MoveOn.org backed candidate is huge, make no mistake. It can also be construed as a bit of a referendum on Bill Clinton v. Obama. Clinton endorsed Lincoln, and the Unions/MoveOn are Obama backers. Maybe the Old Dawg still has it…

Nikki Haley, with the backing of both Gov., Sarah Palin and First Lady (of SC) Jenny Sanford, won the vast majority of votes (49%) with her closest competitor, Gresham Barrett, at 22%. Here is Nikki Haley after the election:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Should Haley win come November, she will be the first woman governor in SC, and the second Indian American governor in the US (along with Bobby Jindal).

Meg Whitman talks about her win, and her upcoming race against Jerry Brown (or “Gov. Moonbeam,” as Karl Rove referred to him on “Fox & Friends Weds. morning). In her speech, Whitman gives a shout-out to Carly Fiorina on her win to face Barbara Boxer:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

And speaking of Carly Fiorina, here she is in her speech following her win, a win which will pit her against long time senator, Barbara Boxer. She returns the favor to Whitman, with a “Holla” to her, too:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Sharron Angle, the Tea Party backed candidate, will be facing off again st Harry Reid in the Fall. Oh, I cannot begin to tell you how badly I want her to beat Reid. Even when I still considered myself a Democrat (before 5/31/08), I was not a fan of Reid’s, and my opinion of him has only gone down from there. Here’s Angle after her win:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

Wow. Again, what a night. I might add, I have said a number of times, that after the Democratic Party eviscerated the best candidate they could have had to be the first woman president, I have no doubt that the first woman president will come from the Republican Party.

Honestly, it has been interesting to me to see how the Republican Party seems to support its women in positions of power far more than the Democrats do. You know, the party that claims to be the party for women. After the misogynistic treatment of Clinton by the DNC itself, compared to the treatment by the RNC with Palin, as well as other powerful women in the RNC, I just knew the Demos had blown their chance in a big, big, big way. Oh, sure, the Democrats have a few women senators and representatives, but none of them are on a par with Clinton. Hell, Obama is not on a par with Clinton, never will be (I think he knows that, too – that’s why he was always putting her down to try and build himself up).

When you look at a field like this, all of these powerful, successful women who are Republicans, you just know that our first woman president is going to come from this kind of group. That is assuming Hillary Clinton is telling the truth when she says she will not run for president again, though since Obama has made such a mess of things in such a short period of time, I am not sure she COULD win in this climate.

November will be must see with Boxer having a strong, accomplished woman like Fiorina facing her, Reid having Angle facing him, Whitman against “Gov. Moonbeam,” and Sheheen having the very popular Haley against him. Things don’t look great for Lincoln against her Republican opponent, though. Maybe Bill will show up for her again…

Stay tuned – November is not that far away!

Yet another crack in the Obama devotion from many in the MSM is surfacing. My colleague, Linda Anselmi, came across this article recently, and passed it on. This time, the focus is Obama’s bullying tendencies. This is not a new concept to me – I have been writing about what a bully Obama is since March of 2008. But the author of this piece works for CNBC. Yep – the Central Network (for) Barack Constantly. To see this headline come out of ANYTHING related to NBC is pretty startling, Obama is a Bully: Kneale.

Wowie zowie – no mincing words, just putting it out there. Welcome to the party, Mr. Kneale:

Will someone please rein in our relentlessly hectoring President? Barrack Hussein Obama has taken his gift for inspirational oratory—one of the traits that got him elected—and turned it into something darker and more insidious.

Oh, just stop right there. “Inspirational oratory”? You mean the vapid statements written for him that he read off TOTUS, or this:

I couldn’t listen to it all, either. Hardly eloquent, though, by any stretch of the imagination. Back to the point at hand:

Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of “bully” back into what Teddy Roosevelt had called the bully pulpit.

Obama’s latest broadside came over the weekend, when he vehemently criticized the state of Arizona and its (Republican) governor for passing a tough new law on illegal immigration.

The President called the measure “misguided” and all but labeled it un-American. He even ordered the Department of Justice, before the ink on this bill-signing has even dried, to examine the civil-rights “implications” of the new law. Seems like the courts and rights groups could handle that once any problem actually emerges.

Can you remember any other modern President, wagging a finger from on high, so directly and bitterly criticizing a new law passed by any state?

This is hubris at best and ignorance of the Constitution at worst. The U.S. was founded in part on the precept of states’ rights as an important counterweight to a rapacious federal government. Thus a President must step softly here, questioning gently but avoiding rancor and browbeating.

Hold the phone – are you saying this so-called(by himself and his image creators) Constitutional Scholar doesn’t know the Constitution? Maybe it’s because this is a trumped up title, especially according to those who actually had to work with him at Chicago Law School. You know, at the position he was given by a Board member because he couldn’t get it on his own merits. That one. I know – a mere technicality, especially for his supporters.

Back to the article:

The new state law itself is disturbing, even detestable, and I don’t like it. It forces immigrants to carry with them proof of their legal status and lets cops demand to see the “papers” of anyone (read: any foreign-looking person) to make sure he didn’t sneak into the country. It smacks of Nazis in the Jewish ghetto in Poland.

HOW does this smack of Nazism? Legal immigrants in this country are REQUIRED to carry their Green Cards anyway. Why, if not to be able to produce them on demand? No one is talking about rounding up a bunch of people and putting them in ghettos or concentration camps. They are talking about, with probable cause, to ensure that someone who is engaging in questionable activities is an American citizen or LEGAL immigrant. This is a red herring, meant simply to distract from the issue. Sheesh.

Back to the Obama the Bully:

But it is the law, and Arizona’s people duly elected the legislators who voted for it. They acted, moreover, on an issue the feds clearly have botched—immigration—and are trying to protect the state’s citizens from an influx of drug-cartel violence from Mexico.

Rather than trash an entire state, Bam could have privately lobbied Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and urged her to veto the bill. Or he could have said, simply, that he hoped to pass better solutions at the federal level.

That would have been statesmanlike, but this President gets pouty whenever anyone dares to disagree with him. He seems to view dissension not as healthy public debate but as a suspicious, pernicious challenge to his omnipotence and popularity.

Obama the Bully, at his State of the Union address, had the temerity to criticize the Supreme Court of the United States for its new ruling that companies have a right to free speech in political campaign advertising (a right that unions already enjoyed, by the way). He did this as the justices themselves sat before him in the audience, paying their respects to a leader who showed them none.

Perhaps President Obama had forgotten an American civics lesson: The Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land. It is unseemly and disrespectful for a President to so bluntly and blatantly question the justices’ judgment and intent—especially right in front of their faces.

I can’t remember of any other President in my memory having done this. Nixon maybe? An unfortunate comparison, indeed.

Another civics lesson Obama seems to have missed is what is in the Constitution of the United States, and what is in the Declaration of Independence, again, not so great for an alleged scholar:

Right. I don’t know why Kneale is so surprised by this lack of decorum from Obama. He has done nothing but demonstrate a complete and utter lack of regard for decorum, stepping lightly, or exhibiting any modicum of humility, despite his claim that he is humble (missing the point of the word):

Similarly, President Obama maligns Wall Street for trying to have a say in financial reform and lobbying for its interests, though this input is a vital ingredient in any democratic process. Yet Obama doesn’t criticize giant unions like the AFL-CIO and the SEIU when they similarly lobby on fin-reg.

Why? Because the unions agree with him. Even though Wall Street has a far more legitimate claim to get involved in this debate than do the unions, which represent only 7% of the private work force and essentially should have no dog in this fight at all.

Hmm, now that I think about it, nor can I recall any other modern President who has spent so much effort lambasting his immediate predecessor. Reagan didn’t do it to Carter. Clinton didn’t do it to the first George Bush.

And the worst part is, we’re barely calling out Obama the Bully on this behavior at all. We are becoming entirely too accustomed to it, failing to see it for what it really is: a striking lack of civility, and an overflow of divisiveness, from a President who had promised to give us precisely the opposite.

Great – more from SEIU, the union that represents about 2 million people. Someone tell me again why they are so powerful? Are they now taking over for their sister organization, ACORN, since ACORN has been disgraced? Regardless, it is obscene for them to wield as much power in this country as they do, especially with Obama.

Yes, Obama is a bully. Anyone who TRULY watched him throughout the Primary Campaigns, or the Election Campaigns, knew that.

If you continue to doubt the bullying nature of Obama, check out this article in which he and his team call out SWAT cops on a peaceful gathering of Tea Partiers in Quincy, IL, Team Obama Calls Out Swat Team on Tea Party Patriots!. As you can see from the photo below, there was real cause for concern on the part of Obama and his people:

Ooohhhh, scary grandmotherly-looking women singing patriotic songs as you can hear in this clip (H/t to Logistics Monster):

Quite a difference from this recent protest in Arizona:
Yep, there is no doubt that Obama is a bully. There is also no doubt we are living in Upside Down World when SWAT cops are brought in against peaceful protesters, yet there is not an overwhelming presence in AZ when people are completely out of control. It is simply astonishing. Don’t you think?

For anyone who may have been hiking in the Himalayas or something, and missed it, this is an election year. The entire House of Representatives is up for re-election, which should prove to be mighty interesting. But there are quite a few Senators up for re-election, too, including Senate Majority “Leader,” Harry Reid of Nevada.

Again, when I still considered myself a Democrat up until May 31, 2008, I was already disenchanted with Harry Reid. He was weak, ineffective, and seemed to have as his mantra, “Go along to get along.” He has only gone downhill in my estimation since Obama took over the White House with his antagonistic, argumentative, style, cramming bills down people’s throats we don’t want. And again, I have written before about my “hope” that Nevada will “change” this particular senator for another.

It looks like I might get my wish, according to this article, “SENATE POLL: Lowden Leads Republican Pack; Numbers show front-runner would beat Reid.” Oh, yeah – that is just music to my ears:

Sue Lowden has established herself as the far-ahead GOP front-runner in Nevada’s U.S. Senate race and the Republican most likely to beat Sen. Harry Reid, even with a Tea Party candidate on the Nov. 2 general election ballot, according to a new poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Six weeks before early primary voting starts, Lowden’s closest GOP rival, Danny Tarkanian, has failed to catch fire with Republican voters in the past few months, the survey found. Meantime, Sharron Angle lost some conservative support, putting her out of the running along with two other long-shot contenders, investment banker John Chachas and Las Vegas Assemblyman Chad Christensen.

As for Reid, the poll shows the Democratic incumbent’s popularity dipping to a new all-time low with 56 percent of registered Nevada voters saying they have an unfavorable opinion of the senator, while about four in 10 people say they would vote for him on Election Day — not enough to win.

“Reid is hoping third party candidates, particularly this Tea Party guy, will draw enough votes that he can win, but I don’t see that happening,” said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the survey. “Everybody knows who Reid is, and voters don’t have a good opinion of him.”

Other political analysts said it’s too soon to count Reid out, particularly since he and the state Democratic Party have a sophisticated get-out-the-vote machine and he’ll have up to $25 million to spend if the Senate majority leader reaches his record fundraising goal for the 2010 election.

“I still think he’s going to win, although it’s not going to be pretty,” said Erik Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. “He has to win back all those centrists and conservative Democrats who are driving down his numbers. They don’t have to love him, but they have to like Harry Reid more than they like Sue Lowden, who’s a solid candidate but she has plenty of vulnerabilities.”

If Lowden wins the primary it could help energize a key pillar of Reid’s support, the unions, which have a long-running battle with Lowden for fighting organized labor while running several casinos. She lost her state Senate seat in the mid-1990s in part because unions worked against her.

I am not anti-union by any stretch, but I think some unions have become so big and powerful, they have become what they originally opposed.

A case in point is the creation of a third party in my home state of NC by none other than the SEIU. Or should I say, ACORN II (two, too – pick whichever one you want). Remember, SEIU was also started by none other than ACORN founder, Wade Rathke. All of that is to say, unions seem to be exerting far too much influence in our elections these days.

Back to Reid’s potential opponent:

According to the Mason-Dixon poll taken in early April, if the Republican primary were held today:

? Lowden would win 45 percent of the vote.

? Tarkanian, 27 percent.

? Angle, 5 percent.

? Christensen, 4 percent.

? Chachas, 3 percent.

Sixteen percent were undecided with the other seven GOP hopefuls not registering support.

In the previous Mason-Dixon poll for the Review-Journal in February, Lowden also led Tarkanian by 18 points — 47 percent to 29 percent — with Angle picking up 8 percent and Chachas 1 percent.

In a general election matchup with three named candidates — including Scott Ashjian, who has filed under the Tea Party of Nevada banner — the new April poll showed:

? Lowden would win with 46 percent of the vote compared with 38 percent for Reid, 5 percent for Ashjian and 11 percent undecided.

? Tarkanian and Reid would end in a dead heat with 39 percent of the vote each, while Ashjian would pick up 11 percent of the vote and with another 11 percent undecided.

In the previous February survey that tested Reid in a matchup against an unnamed GOP nominee and an unnamed “Tea Party” candidate, the senator came out ahead with 36 percent of the vote compared to 32 percent for the Republican, 18 percent for the Tea Party candidate and 14 percent undecided.

But the latest survey shows Ashjian won’t likely make much of a difference in the race.

Nevada voters who recognize his name don’t like him much: 1 percent had a favorable opinion of him compared with 13 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. Another 27 percent were neutral and 59 percent didn’t recognize the Las Vegas businessman’s name.

Ashjian’s candidacy also is in question since the Independent American Party and a member of the local Tea Party movement have challenged his right to be on the ballot. They allege that he filed as a “Tea Party” candidate several hours before he officially switched his party registration from Republican.

I wonder if they spoke with the all of 35 Reid supporters who showed up in Searchlight when the Tea Party rally was in town when they did the poll:

The statewide telephone poll questioned 625 registered voters who said they vote regularly in state elections. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. For the GOP primary survey, pollsters questioned 300 Republicans, and the results had a 6 percentage point margin of error.

The survey was taken Monday through Wednesday, the same week the 70-year-old Reid was kicking off his re-election campaign with a three-day bus tour of mostly rural Southern and Northern Nevada.

Starting from his hometown of Searchlight one hour south of Las Vegas, the Reid road trip aimed to reach voters face-to-face to persuade them the Senate majority leader hasn’t forgotten his small-town roots, and to highlight projects he has helped fund, including clean energy solar and geothermal plants.

Reid dismisses surveys, saying “I’m not a poll guy” and the only poll that counts is on Election Day even as his campaign says privately that its internal polling and focus groups show the senator ahead.

The Reid campaign also contends the Mason-Dixon poll isn’t a true ballot test because it doesn’t include the full general election slate of eight candidates, including the Democratic senator who faces little-known primary opposition, the GOP nominee, several nonpartisan candidates and one each from the Independent American Party and the Tea Party of Nevada, and “none of these candidates.”

Also, the Reid campaign insists that once a Republican nominee is chosen, the senator will be able to make a case for why voters should send him back to Washington for a fifth Senate term instead of a freshman Republican lawmaker whose record and positions Reid is prepared to pick apart.

“I think we’re going to see some differences once we are up against a single Republican opponent,” said Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid. “We’re prepared to run a race against any of those Republican candidates that could emerge” from the primary.

Yeah, okay – whatever helps you sleep at night, people. At least Reid will be helping the economy in Nevada with all that money he’ll be spending:

For now, Reid and his campaign are hotly focused on Lowden and have been attacking her on a near daily basis. This past week, from the campaign trial, Reid criticized Lowden’s record on veterans after she released a TV campaign ad with a Vietnam veteran praising Lowden for touring with Bob Hope’s USO show in Vietnam several decades ago and for supporting veterans in the Legislature.

The Reid camp also made fun of Lowden for telling a campaign audience in Mesquite that they could save health care costs by “bartering” with doctors and paying cash for treatment.

“That’s her answer to health care reform?” Summers asked.

Lowden defended her bartering statement by noting that some patients are paying cash now instead of using credit cards or going through insurance companies to pay for medical procedures.

“Many doctors are giving discounts,” Lowden said before slamming the Reid campaign for following her around with a video camera. “They’re so desperate that they are going to videotape everything I do so they can try and extract some morsel they think will be controversial.”

Lowden said she expected she would be on the receiving end of brutal Reid campaign attacks since someone from his camp said last fall that the senator would “vaporize” his opponent.

“I think that my positive campaign in this primary is working,” Lowden said. “I’m pretty happy that we are focused on June 8 and apparently Harry Reid is focused on our Republican primary, too.”

Despite her claim to focus on the “positive” side of the campaign, Lowden has given as good as she’s got in her battle with Reid, and her campaign had made clear she’ll fight fire with fire.

She has called Reid out of touch with reality and Nevada, which has a record high unemployment rate of more than 13 percent and record home foreclosures.

“He built nothing,” Lowden said of Reid, who has helped secure federal funding worth hundreds of millions of dollars for everything from environmental projects and parks to industry and education over his four decades in public office. “I did and all the people who pay taxes in Nevada built whatever he says he built. That’s our Nevada taxpayers’ money, and if he’s taking credit for that shame on him.”

With Lowden showing the most momentum and early voting starting May 22, the former state senator and casino executive appears headed toward victory in the primary unless she makes a game-changing mistake or one of her opponents manages a surprising comeback, political analysts said.

“Now is a real good moment to begin pulling ahead because that primary is getting real close,” Herzik said. “Tarkanian’s got to get something to distinguish him from Lowden, and he doesn’t have it. If voters are choosing between Lowden and Tarkanian, then Lowden wins.”

Tarkanian’s campaign credited Lowden’s early, six-figure TV ad campaign for putting her ahead of the GOP pack, and is counting on a late surge with stepped up TV and radio ads for a comeback. He’s launching a new TV ad Monday, featuring supporters talking about the leadership style of the real estate businessman and former University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball star, his campaign said.

“We have not gone into full campaign mode with advertising,” said Jamie Fisfis, a consultant for Tarkanian who said his internal polling shows his client doing well. “Obviously we expect things to change. Our goal is to be ahead on June 8 not April 8.”

Chachas, an Ely native and multi­millionaire who came home from New York to run a partly self-financed campaign, has been upping his profile with a six-figure TV and radio ad campaign to highlight his family’s Nevada roots and his financial expertise. He also has erected billboards in rural and Northern Nevada, where many primary voters live, to attract more attention.

Angle and Christensen are competing for the same slice of conservative Republican voters, but have little to show for it so far and not much expected given their slim campaign coffers.

“Angle, Chachas and Christensen are nonfactors as long as they remain in single digits,” pollster Coker said. “This late in the race they are now afterthoughts for most GOP voters.” (Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.)

In the scheme of things, we don’t have long to wait to see the outcome of this race. As for Reid, it’s a good thing he’s “not a poll guy,” since every poll I have seen has him losing. I can only hope so. From his poor leadership to his hand picking of a very green senator to run against the most qualified candidate we’ve had in years, I would do a little happy dance if Reid got the boot (and with my crappy knees, that’s saying something). Here’s hoping the people of Nevada feel the same way!

So Mr. Transparency and his Pelosi-led crew have been mighty busy over the past couple of weeks. Okay, okay, his entire presidency thus far. But the past couple of weeks have been particularly bad. First there was the whole health care bill rammed down our throats.

But also inside that Health Care bill was a massive change to Student Loans. I am all for student loans – I used them for graduate school myself. But what the heck do Student Loans have to do with Health Care? Just another budgetary trick by the “Transparency” Party. And today, President Obama will be signing THIS piece into law:

Then there are Obama’s recess appointments. Now, all presidents do this, that we know. But there was one person in particular who was opposed by both Democrats and Republicans. The following sets the stage:

Oh, yes. This Becker guy, friend to the SEIU is JUST who we need in a Labor position, isn’t he? Well, you know what’s coming. Obama appointed him despte all of the opposition:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

So Student Loan overhaul was used to “balance” the Health Care costs (and we know it really didn’t, given the double dipping shell games used in that procedure), but another victim of the budget is a benefit. It applies to the spouses of those serving in the Armed Services:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

I hope the Pentagon is able to figure out a way to restore this benefit. It is an important benefit to those who serve the country, too, by supporting their spouses in the military.

Obama will be meeting today with French President Sarkozy. Unlike other allies who have visited the White House recently, Sarkozy will actually have a dinner in his honor. Why, you might ask? What makes him more important than, say, Netanyahu? Because Obama wants to ask him to send more troops o Afghanistan. I mean, really, after the way he has treated the British, he can’t exactly go with hat in hand to them, can he? No, to our friends he is arrogant; to our enemies, he is solicitous. Go figure.

Oh, and one last thing, also a direct result of Obama’s “Transparent” Health Care Law. Rep. Henry Waxman is a bit miffed that all of these big corporations are coming out saying how much this law is going to cost them, thus cost new jobs, and put more people into government run programs (which I contend was Obama’s intent all along). He is demanding that they come to the Hill and testify April 21st. And they better bring all of their paperwork showing how they came to these conclusions:

Waxman’s demands for documents are far-reaching. “To assist the Committee with its preparation for the hearing,” he wrote to Stephenson, “we request that you provide the following documents from January 1, 2009, through the present:

(1) any analyses related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T; and (2) any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T. We also request an explanation of the accounting methods used by AT&T since 2003 to estimate the financial impact on your company of the 28 percent subsidy for retiree drug coverage and its deductibility or nondeductibility, including the accounting methods used in preparing the cost impact statement released by AT&T this week.

Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

The particular problem for the companies involves the prescription drug coverage they offer retired workers. In 2003, when President Bush and the Republican Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement, they offered a tax break to companies that continued to provide drug coverage for their retirees, rather than forcing them into the Medicare system. The new national health care bill ends that tax break, making it more expensive for the companies to continue offering the coverage. Ultimately, some analysts believe, the companies will stop covering the retirees, pushing them into the government system.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? Waxman, because these companies are harshing Obama’s buzz from getting this thing passed is demanding something from these corporations that WE didn’t get from Congress. Yes, the irony, the irony.

Not to mention some validation – I knew the government was trying to force more people into the government run system. Yeppers – just another piece of the Obama pie. I am sure more will be coming out about this issue in the intervening time before the Trial On The Hill.

So – what else is flying under the radar today? Let’s hear it!

If you mean the White House and some unions, the answer would be a resounding, YES! W.H., Labor To Vote-Switchers: We Won’t Forget. You may recall that I wrote about this very real possibility recently in, “Toddler in Chief Throws A Temper Tantrum,” based on a story from The Telegraph (U.K.).

Now, it seems, not only is the White House threatening Democrats who didn’t toe the Party Line, but a number of unions, including SEIU, are threatening, too:

Senior White House and organized labor officials are warning the handful of House Democrats who supported health care legislation last year only to oppose the final measure on Sunday that they shouldn’t expect assistance for their reelection campaigns this fall.

The five who switched from yes to no — Reps. Michael Arcuri of New York, Marion Berry of Arkansas, Daniel Lipinski of Illinois, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Zack Space of Ohio — have so annoyed top Democrats that there is also open talk of finding opponents to ensure they pay a steep political price for changing their vote.

“We’re looking at candidates we can trust to run against them, either through a primary or in the general election,” said Service Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, noting that recruitment conversations were already under way.

Of the five who switched, Burger said flatly, “They should not expect help from us.”

Karen Ackerman, political director of the AFL-CIO, said local union members were deeply disappointed in the vote-switchers — and that the locals will determine whether to endorse the incumbents.

“There are no guarantees, and they have a lot of work to do to attempt to repair that relationship. It may be repaired or it may not be repaired,” Ackerman said.

Top aides to President Barack Obama also made clear that they’ll prioritize their political time and resources this year with an eye on those who did or did not stand with them on the toughest vote of the election cycle.

“There is not a whole lot of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to spare on a good day,” said one senior White House official. “We’re going to have to focus on our friends.”

Another top Obama aide, asked about the group of five, responded simply: “We appreciate the people who hung with us.”

Yikes. Yep, those sound like threats to me. And that’s not all:

In the West Wing, where aides spent hours pleading with the members to stick to their original votes, there is a feeling that the group unnecessarily imperiled passage of the bill for reasons that defy political logic.

White House officials and other party leaders say that, having already supported health care once, the members will still be attacked by Republicans for the original vote and will now face additional anger from their own political base for opposing the final version of the historic bill that is now law.

“They have the vote, but now they lack the accomplishment,” said a senior Obama aide, adding that the group’s members have endangered their own prospects at the polls because the so-called “surge voters” who came out to back the president in 2008 will be tougher to motivate.

“The prescription for winning tough races is to generate turnout from many of the folks that came out in 2008,” the aide said. “I would think this would make it harder to do that.”

Another White House official made the case that “the public is not going to make the distinction [between the two votes], and they’re going to get hammered.”

On Capitol Hill, there is a sense of puzzlement mixed with frustration among colleagues of the five.

One senior Democratic House member was withering: “They were without backbone.”

I’m sorry, WHO was “without backbone”?? The people who were bought by the White House? The ones who bucked the will of their constituents? Or the ones who did as their constituents wanted? Perhaps this is the problem with many in DC – they do not understand basic English. Maybe they just don’t know what the term means. That might explain it. There’s more:

And, this member said, the group made an already difficult election cycle for House Democrats that much more difficult.

“That group that said ‘yes’ and then ‘no’ are the most challenging members now for us [to defend in November],” the member said.

Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, didn’t defend the political calculus of those in the group but said that his focus was solely on keeping the seats in Democratic hands and that he’d stand by the incumbents.

“We will help all our guys,” said Van Hollen. “If others want to pick and choose, that’s up to them. Our job is to make sure that we remain in the majority.”

Of the five, Berry, who is retiring after this term, is the only one who will definitely not be on the ballot in November — and seemingly the one with the least to lose by staying in the “yea” column.

But the strong suspicion among top Democrats is that Berry switched his vote as a favor to his chief of staff, Chad Causey, who is running to succeed him and has indicated that he would have opposed the legislation.

Yeah, okay, that makes sense – not.

Now the unions start weighing in:

Alan Hughes, president of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, said his organization was “highly disappointed in [Berry’s] vote” and noted that Causey and the other Democrats running for the seat Berry is vacating would be sitting for interviews at the state federation’s convention this weekend in Hot Springs.

“We’re going to drill the hell out of them,” Hughes said, alluding to their positions on health care and other issues important to labor.

Arcuri and Space, both second-term members from districts previously held by Republicans, are widely viewed as having switched for the most purely political reasons.

“Fear in politics is a very powerful thing, and these guys were just fearful of losing their seats,” a top White House aide said.

In New York, liberals have already begun wooing one of Arcuri’s former primary opponents to run against him.

Les Roberts, a Columbia University professor, has said that he’s considering running in the Democratic primary as well as on the Working Families Party ballot line.

In the run-up to the vote, Arcuri said he was unhappy that Medicare was still not allowed to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and had worries that taxes on medical devices may have an adverse impact on his district.

Well, those sound like good reasons to me. Taxes ARE going to go up, as are insurance premiums, and drug prices. All thanks to Obama pandering to Big Pharma. But hey – why let some facts interfere with threats, right? Right:

In Ohio, local chapters of SEIU and UFCW announced Monday that they would no longer support Space, who already faced a difficult reelection in his rural eastern-Ohio-based district after he supported the energy bill last year.

Space indicated he was concerned that the final version of the bill might tax the health care benefits of his middle-class constituents.

Lipinski and Lynch are the most puzzling switchers in the group — both hail from heavily Democratic, big-city districts.

Lipinski cited concerns about abortion, but his position was undercut when Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and other anti-abortion Democrats still voted for final passage of the bill after Obama issued an executive order reiterating the ban on federal money being used on the procedure.

What angers Democrats about Lipinski is that he suffers from diabetes, and it has long been thought in Chicago political circles that he is in Congress in part to have access to a gold-plated congressional health care plan.

The view among party officials is that Lipinski’s father, a conservative-leaning Democrat who previously held his son’s seat and engineered the succession, thought it would be good politics to oppose the bill.

“He could not articulate to us why he was doing this,” a senior White House official said of Lipinski.

While the Illinois primary has already taken place, an independent could still file to run against Lipinski this fall.

As for Lynch, Democrats believe he’s still bitter over the lack of support he received when he considered running in the special Senate race for the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and thought that, by changing his vote, he could separate himself from other 2012 primary hopefuls vying for the seat now held by GOP Sen. Scott Brown.

But it’s difficult to see how such a position could be advantageous in a Democratic primary in a state such as Massachusetts.

“John Kerry tried to disabuse him of that notion but could not,” said a senior White House official, referring to the Bay State’s senior senator.

“Everyone I talk to is baffled by Lynch’s votes,” said the AFL-CIO’s Ackerman, noting that the congressman, a former ironworker, comes out of the labor movement.

Lynch, for his part, said he opposed the bill because it didn’t do enough to crack down on insurance companies.

But progressives in Massachusetts are already courting a potential primary opponent, Harmony Wu, to run against Lynch.

Well, considering by some estimations premiums are going to go UP $2,100 not DOWN $2,500, as Obama claimed they would, I can see why these representatives are concerned. Heck, taxes ARE going to go UP to, exposing another Obama lie. There is GREAT concern about the cost of this bill for New York City, for example. Why? Because NYC will have to pay $6.5 BILLION a year to DC in taxes as a result of this bill:

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

That figure is JUST for the city, not including the rest of the state. Holy moley. That’s a big chunk of change. $200,000, as Megyn Kelly pointed out, is NOT a lot in the city. No kidding. Oh, what a great bill this is.

So, yes, these folks are indeed being threatened. By their own party members, I might add. Just more of the Obama Hope-y, Change-y Unicorn Rainbow – Chicago style. I can’t wait to see what’s next…

Or so it seems since Obama, despite all of the Town Halls, all of the polls (here’s one), the Tea Party protests, all of it, is going on with his huge push for his Healthcare bill, and it is most definitely his.

Even in the face of mounting opposition within his own party, and even among some liberals like Dr. Marcia Angell (who, by the way, is being demonized by some progressives as being “anti-woman” for opposing this bill. That is some logical leap, as in, it has lept away from being logical). Dr. Angell highlights that this bill as written is a gift to the pharmaceutical companies (Obama made his deal with them before any bill was ever even written) and the INSURANCE companies, the same ones Obama demonizes in his speeches. Yet, on Obama goes, as this article by Charles Krauthammer brings home, Onward with Obamacare, Regardless:

So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts’s devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives.

After 34 speeches (as of 3/4/10), three sharp electoral rebukes (Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) and a seven-hour seminar, the president announced Wednesday his determination to make one last push to pass his health-care reform.

The final act was carefully choreographed. The rollout began a week earlier with a couple of shows of bipartisanship: a Feb. 25 Blair House “summit” with Republicans, followed five days later with a few concessions tossed the Republicans’ way.

Show is the operative noun. Among the few Republican suggestions President Obama pretended to incorporate was tort reform. What did he suggest to address the plague of defensive medicine that a Massachusetts Medical Society study showed leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals, tests and procedures being done for no medical reason? A few ridiculously insignificant demonstration projects amounting to one-half of one-hundredth of 1 percent of the cost of his health-care bill.

As for the Blair House seminar, its theatrical quality was obvious even before it began. The Democrats had already decided to go for a purely partisan bill. Obama signaled precisely that intent at the end of the summit show — then dramatically spelled it out just six days later in his 35th health-care speech: He is going for the party-line vote.

Unfortunately for Democrats, that seven-hour televised exercise had the unintended consequence of showing the Republicans to be not only highly informed on the subject, but also, as even Obama was forced to admit, possessed of principled objections — contradicting the ubiquitous Democratic/media meme that Republican opposition was nothing but nihilistic partisanship.

No kidding about the Blair House seminar. We suspected that was the case before it happened, and its hours long drama did nothing to dispel that initial suspicion. Not that that stopped Obama, then or now, despite the outcome. A big ol’ oopsie daisy” for the Democrats on that one:

Republicans did so well, in fact, that in his summation, Obama was reduced to suggesting that his health-care reform was indeed popular because when you ask people about individual items (for example, eliminating exclusions for preexisting conditions or capping individual out-of-pocket payments), they are in favor.

Yet mystifyingly they oppose the whole package. How can that be?

Allow me to demystify. Imagine a bill granting every American a free federally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak on Monday, also home delivered. Provision 3: a dozen red roses every Tuesday. You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls? Of course.

However (life is a vale of howevers) suppose these provisions were bundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paid for and managed — say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half a trillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicare solvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak and flowers), 118 new boards and commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulation dictating, for example, how your steak is to be cooked. How do you think this would poll?

Perhaps something like 3 to 1 against, which is what the latest CNN poll shows is the citizenry’s feeling about the current Democratic health-care bills.

Uh, yeah – I don’t know how many more ways Americans can say we do not want this bill as written, yet Obama and the Democrats continue their push regardless of the sentiment, and the concerns, like cost:

Late last year, Democrats were marveling at how close they were to historic health-care reform, noting how much agreement had been achieved among so many factions. The only remaining detail was how to pay for it.

Well, yes. That has generally been the problem with democratic governance: cost. The disagreeable absence of a free lunch.

Which is what drove even strong Obama supporter Warren Buffett to go public with his judgment that the current Senate bill, while better than nothing, is a failure because the country desperately needs to bend the cost curve down, and the bill doesn’t do it. Buffett’s advice would be to start over and get it right with a bill that says “we’re just going to focus on costs and we’re not going to dream up 2,000 pages of other things.” (Disclosure: Buffett is a director of The Washington Post Co.)

Obama has chosen differently, however. The time for debate is over, declared the nation’s seminar leader in chief. The man who vowed to undo Washington’s devious and wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of “budget reconciliation.” The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote.

Surprised? You can only be disillusioned if you were once illusioned.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Well, true that. Those of us who were watching with eyes wide open, and not high on Hopium or drunk on Kool Aide, were never “illusioned.” As Obama’s tenure continues, we marvel that so many are STILL “illusioned.” Kinda makes you wonder just what the hell it takes to finally get through the closed minds of his supporters. Buying GM didn’t do it; taking over banks didn’t do it; giving away the store to the unions didn’t do it; his lack of experience and leadership didn’t do it; and now this healthcare debacle isn’t doing it. What in the hell does it TAKE to get through to them?

To be honest, I don’t think I want to know. How about you?

You may recall that when Bush was president, it was like pulling teeth trying to find out just who had visited the White House. Let’s just say he dug in his heels a bit on releasing that information. Maybe it had something to do with Cheney’s “secret” Energy Meeting, who knows, but it was a battle.

I am sure you will be SHOCKED to learn that Obama is acting in much the same way. I know, I know - what a surprise. Ahem. Well, it seems some one has been doing a little investigative journalism, something in VERY short supply of late. But get this - I tell you, you better be sitting down - in this case, it was - WAIT FOR IT -
MSNBC. YES, the very network to which we routinely refer as “MSNBO”! Once I recovered from the shock of it all, I couldn’t wait to see just how transparent President Obama was compared to Bush. (I wonder if there is a way for us to do a pool on these kinds of things, like for NCAA basketball or something?)

This is what MSNBC uncovered in this report:

Obama Names 110 White House Visitors

The White House on Friday released a small list of visitors to the White House since President Barack Obama took office in January, including lobbyists, business executives, activists and celebrities.

No previous administration has released such a list, though the information out so far is incomplete. Only about 110 names —and 481 visits —out of the hundreds of thousands who have visited the Obama White House were made public. Like the Bush administration before it, Obama is arguing that any release is voluntary, not required by law, despite two federal court rulings to the contrary.

The emphasis there is mine. This is a bit of a schizophrenic opening. On the one hand, they want to champion that Obama released 110 names - Woohoo!! On the other hand, they have to acknowledge that, once again, President Obama is using the SAME arguments as Bush. Moreover, this “Constitutional Scholar” is doing so in clear violation of not one, but TWO federal court rulings! Maybe the KoolAide was made improperly that day, I don’t know, but the report continues:

Under the Obama White House’s policy, most names of visitors from Inauguration Day in January through the end of September will never be released. The White House says it plans to release most of the names of visitors from October on, and that release is due near the end of the year. There are limitations there as well, including potential Supreme Court nominees, personal guests of the First Family, and certain security officials.

The names released Friday include business leaders and lobbyists with a lot to gain or lose from Obama policies. They include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (whose foundation is pushing for changes in teacher pay), former AIG chairman Maurice Greenberg, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Chevron CEO David O’Reilly, Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JP Morgan’s James Dimon, Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis, John Stumpf of Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley’s John Mack, State Street bank’s Ron Logue, BNY Mellon’s Robert Kelly, labor leader Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International Union (22 visits)*, American Bankers Association CEO Ed Yingling, community bankers president Camden Fine, and lobbyists Heather and Anthony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta led Obama’s transition team.

Besides Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt are also on the list. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC. One of NBC’s parents is GE.)

Advocates and nonprofit leaders include National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is interested in health policy.

So, this is how Obama is paying these people and organizations back, by having them in the White House? I bet Kim Gandy was just all aflutter after she threw ALL women under the bus to endorse Obama over a life-long women’s advocate. There is more on her below.

I know many readers will be interested in this White House guest:

Democratic donor and businessman George Soros visited with White House aides twice.

Yes, indeedy, a major funder of Moveon.org has been to check up on his biggest investment - ahem - twice.

We’re just getting started:

Political figures include former Sen. Thomas Daschle, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, former Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. Al Franken, former Vice President Al Gore, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, and Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf.

Celebrities at the White House include Oprah Winfrey, actors Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Denzel Washington, and tennis star Serena Williams. Journalists include Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner in economics.

Conservative religious leader Gary Bauer visited, as did liberal civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Okay, the last two, along with Oprah, are NOT a surprise. Gary Bauer? Just a tad surprising.

For anyone who wants to see more:

Msnbc.com has put the full list in a handy PDF file, and also in an Excel file for those who like to sort.

One guest is mighty interesting:

Not that Bill Ayers

The White House warns that many names that may appear familiar — and controversial — do not in fact refer to the most famous people to carry those names. Jeremiah Wright is on the list, but it’s not the president’s former pastor. This Michael Jordan is not the basketball player. This Michael Moore is not a filmmaker. The William Ayers who took a group tour of the White House isn’t the former radical from Chicago who figured so prominently in the 2008 campaign. And the Angela Davis on the list has a different middle initial than the activist and former fugitive.

The White House could have avoided some of that sort of confusion by providing more information on the visitors, such as an employer name and the city they hail from. For example, is the Shawn Carter who attended a poetry reading the same one who goes by Jay-Z and had campaigned for Obama?

“This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information,” a White House special counsel, Norm Eisen, wrote on the White House blog.

If you spot a name on the list that bears investigating, please drop us a note.

Of COURSE we will just trust Obama and his spokes-minions when they assure us that this Bill Ayers could not POSSIBLY be domestic terrorist - Capitol Building and Pentagon bomber - long time friend and mentor Bill Ayers! He is just some guy who wanted to visit the White House Gift Shop and pick up a couple of Marine One helicopter models for his boys. I am sure of it. Sheesh. Really? They expect us to believe this crap? Evidently - they got plenty of other people to believe that kind of crap and more, so why stop now?

Okay - if you are consuming any liquids right this minute, I suggest you put it down when you read this:

Limited release

Despite the accompanying White House claim of “transparency like you’ve never seen before,” the Obama White House continues to take the same legal position as the Bush White House, arguing that the records are not public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Only limited “voluntary releases” are being made to settle a lawsuit filed by an advocacy group, though a federal judge has twice ruled that all the visitor logs are public. (Again, emphasis is mine.)

Yet there are severe limitations to the transparency:

Most of the visitors from Inauguration Day to September will never be released by the White House under this voluntary disclosure — unless the public can guess their names. The White House policy doesn’t allow members of the public or press to ask for “everyone who visited health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle,” or everyone who visited on May 4, or everyone from the American Medical Association. Only individual names can be checked.

I know, right? Didn’t this sound just a little pissy?? From someone at MSNBC?? The bigger picture is that the Obama Administration is BREAKING THE LAW. Hell to the YES, that information falls under FOIA - this is OUR White House, not the Obamas. We most definitely DO get to know every single John Smith and Jane Doe who cross the threshold of the White House. You better believe we do.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it is a start:

The list released at 4:30 p.m. Friday includes just about 110 names with 481 visits. Those names were among those requested by members of the public so far, for visits during the period from Inauguration Day through July. (That’s why we know of visits by the wrong Bill Ayers, the wrong Angela Davis, etc., but we don’t know of visits by countless unnamed lobbyists.) Members of the public who used the White House online form to check names did not receive a personal reply indicating whether or not the request was received, or whether the name appeared on the list, so the system provides no feedback. Does the absence of Bill Clinton’s name on the list mean that he has not been to the White House, or that the request wasn’t received by the White House online system?

A request for the complete records of all visitors from the first months of the administration, filed by msnbc.com, was rejected by the White House, and an appeal is pending. The news organization requested the names of all visitors to the Obama White House beginning with Inauguration Day. Msnbc.com has filed an administrative appeal with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.

Say whaa?? The White House rejected a request from their lapdog “news” source?? Huh. There’s a shocker. Welcome to the “Under The Bus” club, MSNBC!

The Wall Street Journal focused on the most frequent visitor to the White House. He was mentioned in the list above, but without the acknowledgment of the frequency:

SEIU’s Stern Tops White House Visitor List

Promising “transparency like you’ve never seen before,” The White House released its visitor log this evening under a new voluntary disclosure policy.

The log chronicles 481 visits to the White House from individuals ranging from Jay-Z to Bill Gates from January through July.

The list includes William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Moore, Robert Kelly (R. Kelly), Malik Shabazz, and Michael Jordan.

But the White House said those aren’t the guys you’re thinking of. Nor is the log complete.

Ahahahahahahaha!!! I just cannot get enough of this one - sure, they aren’t the same people. Yeah, okay, we believe you. NOT. And because it is just so much fun to see them squirm, I am keeping in the part that is repetitive of the article above, especially the quotes from Eisen. Oh, what a funny guy:

“A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few ‘false positives’ – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else,” Norm Eisen, a special counsel to the president, writes on the White House blog. “The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.”

Adds Eisen: “This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.”

Uh, ya know, I think we are all smart enough to not get all confused by this incredible level of “transparency.” Beginning with, we actually know the definition of “transparency,” something Eisen and Obama apparently do not.

And then there is this:

One thing is clear: *Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern holds sway at the White House, where he’s listed for 22 visits—the top number on the logs. Visitors in the top 10 also include former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, and NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan.

So THAT’S what Gandy and Keenan got for stabbing Hillary Clinton and, well, WOMEN, int he back - visits to the White House. I guess there is something gained by selling your soul, though, personally, I don’t think it is worth it. But that’s just me.

Anywho - yes, the President of the SEIU, again, the union co-founded by the founder of ACORN, Wade Rathke, is the TOP visitor at the White House. The SEIU has been in the news quite a bit, especially for holding California hostage - threatening that their good buddy, Obama, would not give the state any federal stimulus funds if it had the audacity to expect the union to cut wages like everyone else so the state wouldn’t go bankrupt. NOW we know how the union was able to do that. All those visits to the White House apparently paid off - for the union, not California, the state with one of the largest budgets around (as in 5th in the world). What makes this more egregious is that California pays a lot into the federal tax system and receives little comparatively speaking. And this union is allowed - by the White House - to hold it over a barrel. Yep, all those meetings seemed to do the trick!

Aren’t you just so heartened by all of this “transparency”? And by seeing who Obama is welcoming into our White House? Yeah, me, too. As long as the Obama Administration continues to thumb its nose at Federal Law, I reckon we should be “thankful” for this (no, not really - it’s BS that they are still sitting on so much information).

Oh, but if you can just GUESS who might else have been there and submit that form asking them, maybe you can confirm some other folks who have been there, too. Lemme know what you find out, okay? I am sure we would all just love to know…