Editorial Page Editor Mark Tapscott was voted Conservative Journalist of the Year for 2008 by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and he was inducted into the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in 2006. Before joining the Examiner in 2006, he was director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy and founded its Database 101 Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting Boot Camps at the National Press Club. He's a former assistant managing editor and managing editor for two other Washington region daily newspapers. He is also proprietor of Tapscott's Copy Desk blog.
It looks like another hit piece against Charles and David Koch is coming. A couple of Bloomberg reporters have been digging dirt on the Kansas brothers who own one of the world’s largest private corporations. The Kochs have for years devoted part of their substantial private wealth in support of political activities and causes with which they agree.The Kochs are libertarians who believe free enterprise, individual liberty and the rule of law are the best creators and guardians of prosperity and opportunity for everybody.
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Some of my friends among the congressional tea partiers are all hangdog about the debt-ceiling deal, seeing it as yet another lost opportunity to turn things around in this rotten borough known as Washington, D.C.
I understand the feeling, but they do themselves a disservice.
To see why, imagine a baseball hurled by the pitcher at 95 mph. That ball looks like an aspirin to the batter, who sees it for only a split second as he decides whether to swing his bat.
If the batter makes contact, something magnificent happens: The ball comes to a dead stop in an instant.
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With everybody in Washington breathing deep signs of relief that earlier today the Senate passed the debt-ceiling deal approved yesterday by the House, and President Obama quickly signed the measure into law, it behooves us all to contemplate what would have been had this happpy day not come around.
Recall that Obama told us that verily, surely the world would end on Aug. 2 if something wasn't done by today to enable him and the rest of Washington professional political class continue the world's biggest bank heist.
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It's still too early to reach definitive conclusions about the debt-ceiling compromise yet because nobody has seen the actual legislative text that will be voted on by the Senate and House today. But it seems clear that tax reform is about to become a key issue on the national public policy agenda and it is not at all clear what the compromise does on that front.
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For those who have high school or college-age kids, this video produced by Wilson Getchell as an entry in Powerline's recent contest for the Power Line Prize lays out the stakes of the debt-ceiling debate in about as stark and factual terms as possible, but does so in a very entertaining way.
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Political junkies should take note: All five of Iowa's representatives in Congress voted against House Speaker John Boehner's final compromise plan to resolve the debt-ceiling impasse. Iowapolitics.com has details:
"All five of Iowa's congressmen -- three Democrats and two Republicans -- this evening voted against legislation authorizing a limited increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit in exchange for more than $900 billion in spending cuts.
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has made some incredibly naive, ill-informed and downright goofy statements before but her comment yesterday about why House Democrats oppose House Speaker John Boehner's debt-ceiling crisis bill surely must take the cake for absurdity:
"What we're trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We're trying to save life on this planet as we know it today," Pelosi said.
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President Obama will announce dramatically higher Corporate Average Fuel Economic (CAFE) standards for cars and trucks today. The new fleet average requirement is expected to be 54.5 mpg, which will require massive downsizing of automakers' products and huge price increases, all for barely measurable gains in clean air.
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Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, blasted opponents of the Boehner plan yesterday, borrowing a phrase from a Wall Street Journal editorial that described such opposition as representing "the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell into GOP Senate nominees."
Angle has now released a response, which, among much else, reminds McCain that in the end the Hobbits actually won the day and saved the world. The former Nevada GOP senate nominee called herself a "TEA Party Hobbit." This could be the start of a new branding movement among Tea Partiers:
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Republicans have gained a 10 point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen Reports latest national survey on who the public most trusts to deal effectively with economic issues.
The 10 point lead is the widest margin held by either party in months and has opened up in recent weeks as President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have become the central players in the debate over how to deal with the approaching debt-ceiling crisis.
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Looks like Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will not appear on the Ames Straw Poll ballot, according to IowaPolitics.com.
Here's the site's report:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have been left off the ballot for the Aug. 13 Ames Straw Poll.
The decision was made today in a meeting of Iowa's Republican State Central Committee, which finalized the ballot with nine names.
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President Obama's senior appointees at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget took another step this week toward a potentially epic confrontation with Congress by ignoring a document subpoena issued by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
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New York City residents and businesses depend upon coal-generated power sources for only about 10 percent of their electricity and other energy.
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Have you noticed the unstated assumption shaping much of the reporting and commentary on the Gang of Six (Go6) plan and the Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011 (CCB) just passed by the House?
One of the Gang of Six - Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, conceded yesterday that the Go6 plan consists only of "concepts" that he and his five cohorts on the group agreed to after six months of behind-closed-doors dickering. The Go6 plan hasn't been put into legislative language, therefore, Durbin admitted, the proposal "is not ready for prime time."
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While President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, his chief deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin, Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Kent Conrad, and the liberal mainstream media were hailing the Gang of Six (Go6) outline of a proposal to raise taxes by more than $1 trillion, House Republicans, joined by a scattering of House Democrats, actually did something yesterday about the debt ceiling and the federal deficit.
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