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HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is hosting insurance company CEOs at the White House today for a meeting. News coverage is based on the assumption that the White House is going to berate them for not getting with the program and supporting their government-run health care schemes. That’s odd, since the industry will profit immensely from a plan which forces Americans to buy their products or face criminal penalties.

But the insurance execs are probably also expecting Thank You cards for the millions in donations they’re giving to Democrats. For the fundraising numbers President Obama hopes you don’t see, check out “Who’s Really In Their Pocket?”

Not long ago, a United States Senator from Illinois took to the floor to rail against the parliamentary tactic of reconciliation, declaring:

Under the rules, the reconciliation process does not permit that [full and fair] debate. Reconciliation is therefore the wrong place for policy changes … In short, the reconciliation process appears to have lost its proper meaning. A vehicle designed for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility has been hijacked to facilitate reckless deficits and unsustainable debt.

That Senator was Barack Obama, and the year was 2005.  But this afternoon, President Obama is expected to call for Democrats to hijack the reconciliation process to ram through their $2.5 trillion government-run health care experiment.  And while the measure under consideration in 2005, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, made tough budget choices for which the reconciliation process was intended, the health care bill clearly does not.

In fact, the more one considers the ... more

President Obama’s fantasy vision of a world without nuclear weapons has been the foundation for his latest proposal to permanently reduce America’s nuclear arsenal. And Obama thinks that other countries with nuclear weapons will follow suit. But how did Russia respond yesterday

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia will build a new strategic bomber, a move that comes as the nation tries to upgrade its aging military arsenal. Putin said in televised remarks that work on the bomber must follow the development of a prospective stealth fighter, which made its maiden flight in January and was hailed by the government as a big step in military modernization efforts.

Obama’s nuclear cuts draws cheers in Moscow, but yesterday’s announcement should serve as a clear indication Obama’s new proposal for nuclear posture is a dangerously naïve strategy that has already been rejected by the American people. Obama’s cuts would also halt the testing and creation of new nuclear ... more

During the campaign, candidate Obama promised that he would close the “revolving door” between the administration and lobbying firms:

First, we will close the revolving door that has allowed people to use their Administration job as a stepping stone to further their lobbying careers.

It appears, however, that the revolving door is being used without any trouble.  Politico’s “Morning Money” reports today that Damon Munchus, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Banking and Finance in the Treasury’s Office of Legislative affairs and former member of the Obama-Biden transition team,  is leaving the Treasury to go a lobbying and consulting firm. 

Obama promised to crack down on the influence lobbyists have in Washington, but as we pointed out before, that has hardly happened.  In fact, MSNBC’s Dylan Rattigan declared 2009 to be “the year of the lobbyist.”  With the “revolving door” in full use, it looks like 2010 may be “the year of the lobbyist part II.”

One wonders if Munchus’ eagerness to ... more

On CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tried to ridiculously lower the bar for bipartisanship, saying “The bill can be bipartisan, even though the votes might not be bipartisan.” Watch below.

Democrats have unsuccessfully pushed this notion before, when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said “"The test of bipartisanship is not just how many Republican votes you have." Dems are doing this because they’re so desperate to spread the blame for their horribly unpopular health care bill. How unpopular is it? So bad that three in four Americans want Congress to either scrap the bill and start over or just stop outright. Now that’s real bipartisanship.