newsalarmonline.com

Hope. Change.:

References to a cap on carbon emissions and a campaign pledge to spend $150 billion on clean energy technologies disappeared from the White House website in June — even as the Senate was still trying to pass legislation implementing those priorities.

Peter Bray, president of Versionista, a Portland, Ore.-based company that tracks changes to the White House site, said the Obama administration made “whole-cloth” changes to its Energy & Environment issues site on June 10.

Deleted items include a section titled “Closing the Carbon Loophole and Cracking Down on Polluters” that offered broad-brush goals for “protecting American consumers” and “promoting U.S. competitiveness.”

Also eliminated was President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated campaign call to spend $150 billion over a decade on “energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy.”…

The website changes came with little fanfare at the same time that environmental groups were pleading with Obama to take a more proactive role to find the votes for a sweeping climate bill. The president’s prime-time address from the Oval Office on June 15 drew criticism from activists when he didn’t mention the words “carbon,” “greenhouse gases,” “global warming” or “cap and trade.”

I’m thinking the White House knows now what a loser those ideas are and wants them out of the way for the midterms in November. Better to let Harry Reid and his energy bill swing on his own out there rather than join him in his political suicide.

Harry Reid is one of the few leading Democrats to part ways with Obama over the Ground Zero Mosque. Could there be a close election in his near future?

The Senate’s top Democrat says a mosque should not be built near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada on Monday became the highest profile Democrat to break with President Barack Obama, who on Friday backed the right for the developers to build a mosque near ground zero.

In a statement, Reid said the first amendment protects freedom of religion and he respects that, but the mosque should be built somewhere else.

Critics have said the location of the mosque is insensitive because the terrorists who struck were Islamic extremists.

Reid is in a tight campaign for re-election in Nevada. His opponent, Republican Sharron Angle, earlier in the day called for Reid to say whether he agreed with Obama.

This is one of the rare occasions when I agree with Reid, which means he has run pretty far to the right on this issue. He must be pretty worried about Sharron Angle or he wouldn’t be differing with Obama like this.

Let’s see how many Democrats who aren’t in tight races will agree with Harry (of course, just about EVERY Democrat is in a tight race).

Harry wins for this statement at a recent event involving a largely Hispanic audience:

“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be Republican.”

How is that any less offensive than saying all blacks look alike or all Asians are bad drivers (yes, you can make an argument for that second one)?  No Republican could even make a blanket racial statement like that and get away without a public flogging from the media and political class.  They’d be out of a job in a flash.

However, in Democratland people are not individuals, they’re part of groups, and all members of those groups are expected to vote and think alike.  That’s why liberal heads explode whenever a conservative black, gay or feminist shows up.  They’re not acting according to the playbook.

Will this hurt Harry?  Of course not.  He and other Democrats will still get a large share of the Hispanic vote, especially after stringing them along with the Arizona lawsuit and the denunciations of enforcing our immigration laws.  However, Harry’s comment is a good window into Dem thinking.

Harry Reid’s famous statement about Iraq that “the war is lost” is now subject to reinterpretation by his campaign.  In other words, he didn’t say what you heard him say.  From Matt Lewis: 

Back in April 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) famously said the Iraq War “is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.” 

Now, Sharron Angle’s team is pointing out that Reid is engaged in a bit of historical revisionism. 

Angle’s argument is based on what Zac Petkanas, a Reid spokesman,said this past weekend:

“Senator Reid’s comment was in agreement with General Petraeus’ assessment that the Iraq War could not be won by military force alone and that a political solution was also needed as part of a two-part strategy — which President Bush refused to pursue.”

Uh-huh. Matt goes on to show how silly that statement by the Reid spokeshole really is:

In fact, Reid was not in agreement with Petraeus, nor was he inclined to believe anything he might say about the surge.

Just days after declaring “the war is lost,” Reid appeared on CNN’s “The Situation Room” and was informed that Petraeus would come to the Hill and say the surge is working. When asked, “Will you believe him when he says that?” Reid responded, “No, I don’t believe him, because it’s not happening. All you have to do is look at the facts.”

Reid also voted against condemning MoveOn.org’s attacks on Petraeus, which called him “General Betray Us.”

Nice try, Harry. Enjoy your retirement.

Gee whiz, what new level of stupid has Harry Reid hit this time?

The Senate’s top Democrat argued Ford Motor Co. probably would have collapsed if the government hadn’t bailed out its top two competitors.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., chided Republicans for opposing Democratic efforts on a number of fronts and defended the Obama administration’s auto bailout.

“Isn’t it a good thing today in America that we have an automobile manufacturing sector? If it had been up to them, General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler definitely would be gone,” Reid said on the Senate floor today.

“We decided that they need help, just like New York City needed help 25 years ago.”

GM and Chrysler received a $62 billion government bailout — with the Bush administration rescuing the companies with $17.4 billion near the end of its White House tenure. The Obama administration provided about $45 billion to restructure the two companies in bankruptcy.

But Ford executives have never said the company would have collapsed if the government hadn’t bailed out its cross-town rivals.

In December, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford Jr. met with President Barack Obama and praised him for rescuing GM and Chrysler.

“The way he stepped in with GM and Chrysler and preventing the collapse of the supply base was something they did swiftly and forcefully and it worked,” Ford said.

If the bailout helped Ford it helped because Ford didn’t need it or accept it. A lot of people bought Fords rather than buy from a government-owned company. Ford gained instant credibility at GM and Chrysler’s expense.

However, to suggest that Ford would have collapsed if their competitors GM and Chrysler weren’t bailed out is simply ludicrous.

Sharron Angle is Harry Reid’s opponent in the Nevada Senate race.  Reid is doing everything he can to portray her as “extreme” and “out of the mainstream”, or even “crazy” if he can get away with it, but as Mark Tapscott points out in his piece she has a history of taking on the big guys and winning:

“Sharron Angle’s first foray into activism was when her son was held back in kindergarten in 1983 and ‘the poor little guy was made to feel like a failure. He hated school.’ She wanted to home school him, but the school system and the courts said no. Her response was to open a one-room school with a Christian-based curriculum. It soon had 24 students.

“‘I didn’t realize how many other parents were angry with the school system,’ she recalls. She charged $125 a month to cover the cost of supplies but taught for free. (Mrs. Angle has a degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno.)

“In 1985 she rallied hundreds of parents behind her successful effort to pass a bill through the Nevada legislature allowing parents to home school anywhere in the state. The result of her effort is that in Nevada home schooling has become a popular alternative to the public schools, and Mrs. Angle is referred to as the ‘home school heroine.’”

You want change to believe in, there it is, friends and neighbors. One concerned citizen resolves to make something right and overcomes all the opposition to make it happen.

But the home schooling effort wasn’t Angle’s first encounter with obstinate politicians and unresponsive government. In 2003, she drew national attention with her steadfast opposition as a state legislator to a massive tax increase proposed by Nevada’s governor, who was a Republican.

She fought the governor and his legislative allies to a draw, only to see the state supreme court step in and over-rule the state constitution. At that point, I suspect that most politicians, including the majority of those who call themselves conservatives, would have meekly backed off and accepted the allegedly inevitable.

Not Angle. Moore describes what happened next:

“When the bullying failed, the Nevada Supreme Court, in a spectacular abuse of the constitution, allowed the tax hike to go through without the two-thirds vote. The justices decreed that the money was needed for the schools and that the right to an adequate education took precedence over a procedural safeguard.

“The next day, Ms. Angle recalls, ‘I went into the conference room and was told there’s nothing you can do, Sharron. It’s all over. The Supreme Court has the last word. And I said, No, it’s not over.’

“She spearheaded a movement to get the Supreme Court replaced. In the next election in 2006, voters threw out five of the seven members of the Nevada Supreme Court; the other two had retired. ‘It was a referendum on that tax increase vote,’ she argues. ‘And the new court came in and reversed that decision and made our constitution whole.’”

That’s precisely the kind of political guts and mettle that is in too-short supply in politics. More important, such inner political strength will be absolutely essential after November if the GOP regains a majority in one or both chambers of Congress with a voter mandate to stop and reverse the liberal train wreck at both ends of Pennylvania Avenue.

Harry Reid is such a despicable little rodent of a politician I don’t think even the big money from liberal special interest groups will keep his career alive. He’s rightfully to blame for advancing so much of Obama’s destructive agenda and he’ll pay for it with his job in November.

From beyond the grave a little old lady smacks Harry Reid around:

Election 2010 has just heard from a member of the Silent Majority.

You know, from a deceased person.

Chances are good you never met Charlotte McCourt during her 84 years, but I’m willing to bet you’ll be hearing about her in the coming days now that her obituary has taken Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to task. It’s the kind of small story that has the potential to ricochet like a bullet through the campaign showdown between incumbent Reid and Republican challenger Sharron Angle.

Not because McCourt, who died July 8 after a long illness, was a political player or business powerbroker, but precisely because she was neither of those things. She was a homemaker, proud mother and grand mother and wife of 67 years to Patrick McCourt.

And she was at one time a loyal supporter of Harry Reid.

Her obituary, printed in Tuesday’s Review-Journal, reads in part, “We believe that Mom would say she was mortified to have taken a large role in the election of Harry Reid to U.S. Congress. Let the record show Charlotte was displeased with his work. Please, in lieu of flowers, vote for another more worthy candidate.”

Ouch.

McCourt was born Dec. 25 in Wellington, Utah and was a 40-year Nevada resident. She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Perhaps by coincidence, Reid’s re-election hangs in no small part on his ability to encourage conservative and religious Democrats to support him. He is also a member of the LDS faith.

Mrs. McCourt was not just any old lady, she had a direct political connection to Reid.  This comes from one of the comments in the story:

Charlotte McCourt was a force of nature she stood for all things that were right and just, she was not just a strong supporter of Harry Reid she was his manager when he first started to run for the U.S. Senate, she help him win.
But she was very unhappy with him and the fact that he has forgotten the people of Nevada and who his employer’s really are.

As a sideline, I have to ask – how many LDS members are pro-abortion? How many support half the stuff Harry Reid has supported in Congress? Why should ANY of them vote for him?

It’s the same situation with Catholics who continue to vote for people like Nancy Pelosi or John Kerry (and many, many others) who openly support policies that contradict church teaching. Something is wrong with these people.

And speaking of Reid, he recently told a reporter that there are no illegal aliens working in construction in Nevada.  That statement is patently false, and he’s taking heat for it.

Some guy named Rory is running for governor of Nevada.  He apparently has some black sheep in his family because he has chosen not to mention his last name in his advertising:

Nevada gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid (D) is on the air with his first campaign ad and it’s missing one thing: his last name.

Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), doesn’t say his name at any point during the ad, but it prominently features his campaign logo, “Rory 2010.”

Observers noticed that throughout the gubernatorial primary, Rory Reid seemed to distance himself from his father, who faced high disapproval ratings from voters.

It looks like, for now, Rory Reid is staying with that strategy, although Harry Reid’s numbers have been steadily improving and strategists believe Sharron Angle’s winning the Republican Senate nomination will help return Sen. Reid to Washington.

Rory Reid’s website also neglects to mention his last name on its main banner, which reads “Rory 2010.”

The bio section also lacks Rory Reid’s last name. It’s titled “Meet Rory” and doesn’t mention his parents in the paragraph about his personal life. “Rory, 47, grew up in Nevada attending public schools, as do his three great kids. He attended Brigham Young University, graduating with a dual degree in international relations and Spanish, and continued his studies there through law school. He and his wife, Cindy, have been married for 22 years,” the bio reads.

Can you blame him? If I was related to Harry Reid I’d want to hide it too.

There were many pundits who felt that Sharron Angle was the weakest of the three GOP candidates running to take on Harry Reid in November.  Well, even if she is, she’s still beating Reid:

Sharron Angle, following her come-from-behind Republican Primary win Tuesday, has bounced to an 11-point lead over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada’s closely-watched U.S. Senate race.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Nevada, taken Wednesday night, shows Angle earning 50% support while Reid picks up 39% of the vote. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

A month ago, Angle led Reid 48% to 40% but ran poorest against the incumbent of the three GOP primary hopefuls as she has for months.

Reid will try to portray Angle, a Christian conservative who drew heavily on Tea Party support for her win, as unacceptable to the state. Still, the race for now continues to be about the incumbent, who earned 61% of the vote when he was reelected in 2004 but whose support in this election cycle against any Republican candidate has never risen above the low 40s.

Despite their hotly-contested primary, Republicans already appear to be solidifying behind Angle who now earns 88% support among voters in her party. Reid draws 68% support from Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party prefer Angle by 10 points.

I’m confidant that nearly all of the GOP voters will rally behind Angle, even if they supported the other two candidates in the race. Harry Reid is just too detestable to let stay in office over petty party disagreements.  He’s well on his way to becoming the next Tom Daschle, a Dem Senate Majority Leader voted out of office.

Harry Reid and his all-Democrat band have plans for a huge banking bailout bill that, as usual, will not do what they say it will do and certainly won’t cost what they say it will cost.  Harry may be in for a rough day:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has set up a showdown procedural cloture vote today at 5:00 pm to advance the Democrats’ partisan finance bill (S.B. 3217).

All 41 Senate Republicans have pledged to filibuster saying, among other things, the bill institutionalizes taxpayer bailouts of companies the government deems “too big to fail.”

Negotiations continued over the weekend, but no compromise had been reached as of deadline.

In a Fox News Sunday appearance, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered last week’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report as an example of his party’s accurate legislative assessments.

(As reported on HUMAN EVENTS, the CMS report exposed the vast array of budget gimmicks proving Obamacare would not control costs as Republicans warned all along.)

McConnell said the report proves Republicans are more credible assessing the impact of the massive pieces of legislation being railroaded through Congress by Democrats.

“We want to make sure they don’t have the same kind of approach on financial services that they did on health care,” McConnell said.

At one point it looked like Olympia Snowe would give Reid the 60th vote he needs to proceed with the bill, but she may be backing off given the lack of enthusiasm by other Republicans. Let’s hope so.