Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi faced off on Saturday against entrenched Republicans and reluctant blue dog Democrats and managed to pull together just enough votes to pass the president’s health care reform bill.

Pelosi couldn’t resist gloating about the victory by claiming that it was a bipartisan effort thanks to the lone GOP vote from Louisiana Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao who joined the Democrats once it became clear the bill would pass with or without his vote.

At first blush this claim looks pretty ludicrous.  After all how can anyone in their right mind say that one vote out of 220 represents a true bipartisan effort?  But Pelosi was right she was just focusing on the wrong set of votes.  Thirty nine Democrats stood up to Pelosi and voted against the bill which represents a far greater percentage of the overall vote than the one Republican on the other side.

President Obama promised to reach across the aisle and end the bickering that had become the the norm in Washington.  Instead his actions have only widened the divide as evidenced by Saturday’s vote in the House and it will probably be an even tougher fight in the Senate.

Now that the House has put the health care vote behind them many of the Democrats who voted in favor of the bill will now be forced to defend their votes to angry constituents when they face re-election next year.

If the momentum built up from the tea parties continues into next year’s election November 2010 could be Obama’s Waterloo.

What a difference a year makes!  Just last November then Sen. Barack Obama fueled by anti-Bush and anti-Republican sentiment swept fellow Sen. John McCain to capture the White House.  Exuberance and optimism filled the air as the Democrats also increased their numbers in the Senate and House giving them a feeling of invincibility as they planned to roll back the Republican agenda of the previous eight years.

After his inauguration in January everything started to go downhill fast.  Obama’s promise to not employ lobbyists in his administration was undone by a series of waivers,  the vaunted transparency initiative to make government more accountable is still stuck in a web of secrecy as the administration has learned that being too transparent also means exposing how the government really runs which isn’t a pretty picture.

Obama also promised an ethical administration but has been bogged down by ethical lapses that should have been resolved in the vetting process but were either ignored or overlooked.

In addition to the administrative issues that have dogged Obama during his first year in office have been the legislative failures with both the climate change and health care reform bills that formed the centerpieces of his agenda proving to be far more contentious that he expected and forcing him to abandon his pledge of bipartisanship that he made during the campaign.

Of course Obama’s biggest failure to date has been the economy.  As part of his hope and change strategy he led his supporters to believe that he knew how to turn the economy around and get people back to work.  Well he has been in charge for almost ten months now and despite a promise that unemployment wouldn’t top 8% if his $787 billion stimulus bill was passed the Labor Department announced today that the rate was 10.2% last month marking the first time in 26 years that it had topped the 10% mark.   Home foreclosures have been hitting new records every month despite the actions of the White House to provide relief.   Yet despite these failures he continues to push for more government aid in the hope that it will actually do some good.

But on Tuesday voters including many of those who voted for Obama one year ago started to abandon him in droves in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections.

In Virginia former Attorney General Bob McDonnell cruised to a surprisingly easy win capturing 58% of the vote and bringing with him fellow Republicans for Lt. Gov. and Attorney General.  Plus the GOP picked up six seats in the House of Delegates by ousting Democrat incumbents in Democrat strongholds.

New Jersey was a tighter race as incumbent Gov. John Corzine struggled to overcome corruption scandal issues and managed to garner just 44% of the vote  in a heavily Democrat state.

The White House downplayed the results and said the election wasn’t about Obama but local politics.  If that’s the case then why did Obama make five visits to New Jersey and do robocalls for Corzine if it wasn’t at least partially about him?  Or consider the odd statement the White House put out about the potential loss Creigh Deeds was facing in Virginia by saying that if Deeds loses it was due to the fact he didn’t align himself closely with the president.

Democrats also point to exit polls that showed a majority of voters saying they approved of Obama and that the economy and jobs were the major factor in the results.  Well maybe I’m missing something here but isn’t the president largely in charge of the economy  and jobs?

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in his column today the myth that Obama’s victory last year signaled an FDR- like realignment was demolished by Tuesday’s results.

In Virginia where Obama won by six points, Bob McDonnell won by 17 – a 23 point swing.  In New Jersey went from plus 15 for the Democrats to minus 4- a 19 point swing.

The key to this change of sentiment was the independent voter.  Last year independents swung narrowly for Obama but in Virginia they voted Republican by a 33 point margin and in New Jersey by an even more shocking 30 points considering the make up of that electorate.

I guess Obama and the Democrats can take some solace in capturing the seat held by former Republican Rep. John McHugh.  But even that is somewhat illusory.  They won 49-46 with about 5% going to the Republican who dropped out and then supported the Democrat.  For a Conservative Party candidate to enter the race late, receive no money from the RNC  and then almost pull out a victory isn’t a big victory for the Democrats.  They’ll hold that seat until the next election, but it is far more likely that the GOP will reclaim it if they run a real campaign.

The only Democrat that I saw that was willing to be honest about the results Tuesday was Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia who said they got “walloped”.

Now that the bloom is off the rose will the Democrats and Obama try and listen to the voters in an effort to save themselves embarrassment next November?  Don’t bet on it.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis came to Washington D.C. this week as part of what she called her “set the record straight tour” but sounded more like a “don’t blame me tour” to many in the audience.

Lewis whose organization has come under fire for voter registration irregularities and more recently for workers who advised a fake pimp and prostitute on how they could set up a house of prostitution with ACORN’s help passed most of the blame to her predecessor who left after allegedly embezzling $5 million from the organization.

According to Lewis workers who broke the law by falsifying voter registration cards were actually reported by ACORN to the authorities and blamed them for not prosecuting the violators rather than address any laxity in ACORN”s hiring policy.

When addressing the foreclosure crisis Lewis said that had the financial institutions followed ACORN’s guidelines which she claimed advised only issuing sound loans there wouldn’t have been a crisis.  But it is the very same Community Reinvestment Act that Lewis cites as the solution to affordable housing for low income people that fueled the problem as banks were forced to make loans that didn’t follow sound business practices.

Lewis accused those that attacked her organization as being a part of a modern day ACORN McCarthyism and that only last week members of Congress were asked if they were or have ever been a member of ACORN to back up her claim.  It sounds good but I doubt that it was true

As for the lawsuit ACORN has filed against filmmakers James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles Lewis said that “Nothing trumps breaking the law”, and pooh poohed any notion that that what they uncovered was important.  In other words discovering that an organization that depends on government taxpayer dollars employs people who are willing to break the law to help set up a house of prostitution is not germane

If one were to believe Lewis ACORN is nothing more than an innocent victim of some misguided employees and opponents who want to see them fail.

For the rest of us we know better.

 A new high school opening in Loudon County, Va.  next year and  named after the Tuscarora Indian tribe has left the principal to negotiate a political minefield as she chooses the school’s mascot.

Once upon a time before the politically correct thought police took over the landscape choosing a mascot was a fun and easy exercise.

But now the principal faces the challenge of finding a name that will evoke school spirit and pride while at the same time avoiding offending any and all ethnic groups and minorities.

The principal  Pamela Paul-Jacobs told the Washington Post last week that in choosing a mascot that  she wanted to pay respect to the Tuscaroras’ heritage and didn’t want to create controversy.

That controversy meant that names like Squaw, Warriors and Indians were out before anyone had a chance to vote.

After the school board in Montgomery County, Md where I live outlawed Indian names as mascots in 2001 Poolesville High School was forced to drop their beloved mascot after 50 years to become the Falcons.  My old high school which was also known as the Indians for the first 30 years of its existence is now the Warriors after re-opening after being closed for nearly 20 years.  I’m sorry but as happy as I am that the school has been given new life, I will always be an Indian.

How did we get here?  Well one reason is that activists on the issue received the backing of the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Society who have jumped on the anti-Indian mascot bandwagon by claiming there is a  growing body of research showing that the mascots create a hostile learning environment for Native American students and hurt their self-esteem.

This is another case where the feelings of the majority are being ruled by the supposed feelings of the minority.

For those at schools that have resisted the call to drop their Indian named mascots they see the names as evoking pride and honor. 

I know that when I was going to high school that it never occurred to me that the name Indian was demeaning to anyone and none of my Native American friends ever complained about the mascot.   Our mascot evoked  not only a sense of pride but one of what I’ll call toughness.  In sports you want an edge and as a athlete I would have more fear of an Indian or Warrior than a Falcon or Clown.

Paul-Jacobs thought she found a winner in the name Tribe as it conveyed a sense of family and people coming together for a greater cause, the collective group.

But fearing the PC police she decided to consult with Teresa Morris, founder of the Coastal Carolina Indian Center and a descendant of Tuscarora Indians.

Morris told Paul-Jacobs that she was honored that the school community chose the name Tuscarora but felt that was as far as it should go fearing people showing up to a game wearing war paint and making Indian chants which would be disrespectful.

Rather than the Tribe Morris suggested the state bird which is the cardinal.

Won’t that offend bird lovers who might worry that the mascot will be a meaner looking bird?

In the end Paul-Jacobs decided to drop Tribe from the list and instead will choose from Timber Wolves, Huskies and Tigers.

Political correctness run amok.  You betcha!

On Wednesday night president Barack Obama told the American public that the economy is recovering and that things are better than they were seven months ago when he assumed office.

One of the statements he made to back up his claim was that home sales were increasing.

Yes it is true that home sales are on the rise but according to the National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index the increases are being driven by two factors:-lower priced homes and an $8,000 federal tax credit that will expire on November 30^th.

Home prices across the nation have dropped steeply partly because of the bursting of the housing bubble but also in large measure due to foreclosures (which exert downward pressure on home prices)  that as of August were up 18% from the year ago period and are at near record levels.

The NAR estimates that 2 million people will take advantage of the tax credit resulting in an additional 350,000 sales that wouldn’t have taken place without the credit.  That sounds good but according to calculatedrisk.blog.com taxpayers paid $45,000 per additional house sold when you factor in the total of the expected credits the government will issue.  Plus since they were for lower priced homes the impact on the economy will be minimal.

So even though home sales are increasing they are largely being driven by factors other than an improving economy as Obama claims.

The president is either ignoring or unaware of a ticking time bomb that will only put further pressure on the economy and home sales, interest -only loans.

According to an analysis of interest-only loans done for the New York Times there are 2.8 million active loans worth $908 billion.

A little more than half of those loans will reset within the next two years and provide a severe test for both the housing market and the economy as the interest-only provision expires and principal is added to payments

Estimates are that depending on the size and term of the loans the resets will increase mortgage payments anywhere from 20 to 75 percent.

That will push many homeowners to the brink as home prices have fallen dramatically during the recession and incomes have stagnated at best leaving many borrowers owing more than the house is worth.

As Yogi Berra said “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

The clock is ticking away on this bomb and growing a little louder every day.

An effort to evaluate public school teachers in New York by the Department of Education through the use of reports has seemingly failed as most of the teachers have never received them.

According to the New York Times the city distributed 12,000 reports for any teacher that taught fourth through eighth grades for the last two years to see how well they did in educating students.

The reports which are not going to be released to parents uses standardized test scores to determine how much teachers have helped students improve year over year and whether they are successful with particular groups that were previously identified as struggling.

At the urging of the teacher unions the state legislature last year passed a law prohibiting the use of standardized test data in tenure decisions.   The unions also managed to get the city to agree to not make the reports public.

The school system recently graded the schools and gave 97 percent of them a grade of A or B.   At the same time the teacher reports rated 20 percent of them as “low” performers  and 60 percent as “middle”  performers.  There is a real disconnect here.

One of the reasons that the teachers haven’t received their reports can be summed up by the attitude of Odelphia Pierre the principal of Public School 129 in Harlem.  Pierre told the Times that she was worried how the reports would affect morale and told the teachers they could view the reports if they wanted.  She added that she didn’t want the teachers to be “distracted” in the middle of of the year.

She sounds like she is applying outcome based education standards to her teachers where high achievers are slowed down until the lower achievers have caught up so that the underperformers won’t have their feelings hurt.

If Pierce wants to be a a good administrator then she needs to use the report along with some other criteria to evaluate her staff and weed out the laggards who aren’t helping the students progress and succeed rather than continue to carry them and provide a substandard education.

In addition the legislature should show some backbone and rescind the law that prevents the reports from being used in tenure decisions and the city should release the reports to the parents.  They have a right to know of the teachers they entrust their children to are doing a good job.  With 80 percent at the middle to low level it doesn’t look like that is the case.

The Obama administration is hailing the success of the $3 billion cash for clunkers program that saw nearly 700,000 people trade their older gas guzzlers in for sleek new energy efficient models.

If one were to judge the program solely on the basis of how many cars were sent to the scrap heap and the short term boost that the new care sales gave to the beleaguered auto industry then maybe it was a success.

But the program was a spectacular failure as a way to implement environmental policy.

According to Michael Wara an assistant professor at Stanford Law School and a faculty fellow at the university’s program on energy and sustainable development the program cost the government $200 to $400 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions avoided.   Compare that to the recently passed climate change bill in Congress which pegged the cost to be $28 per ton by 2020.

Wara’s most conservative estimate has the cost of carbon dioxide avoidance at $201 per ton but that is based on the assumption the clunkers would have been driven another 100,000 miles each.  With many of the cars barely running that is an unlikely scenario.

If the cars could have lasted another 50,000 miles the cost would double to $402 per ton  or  $303 per ton at 75,000 miles or more than ten times the cost estimate in the climate change bill.

Just like the climate change bill which will impose huge costs on businesses and the public to reduce greenhouse gases the cash for clunkers program has proven itself to be yet another wasteful government program that was promoted as both an economic stimulus and a way to help save the environment.

In the end our children and grandchildren will pay the price of this clunker of a program for generations to come.

Dear Diary,

Yesterday I drove to Hagerstown, Md along with a friend of mine and his teenage son to attend a town hall meeting being hosted by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md) at Hagerstown Community College.  We left Brookeville at 11 and arrived shortly before noon for the event.

As we made our way towards the college we encountered many anti-Obamacare protesters and knew immediately we were in for quite a day.

At the entrance to the school  a man directing traffic informed us that the theater was full and said we could turn around if we wanted.  By the looks of it his advice was being largely ignored as car after car made the turn towards the theater parking lot.

The lot wasn’t quite full when we arrived but when I looked over towards the theater I could see a very long line of people waiting to get in.   When we got to the end of the line my friend quicky surmised that we wouldn’t make it in as the theater could only hold 450 people and the crowd looked like it numbered  nearly twice that.  Despite temperatures that hovered around 90 degrees combined with the noon day sun and the typical Washington area humidity of 90 percent or so  everyone in line seemed to be enjoying themselves as they held out hope that they would make it inside.

After the police announced that the theater was full about half of the people that were out of luck left but the rest just kept hanging around chatting and carrying their signs.  I stayed with my friend for close to an hour and interviewed a few people with my flip camera about their thoughts on the health care plan.

The reaction was interesting.  One young man wearing an Obama sticker on his shirt and holding a Healthcare First sign originally agreed to speak with me but after I told him who I worked for he respectfully declined.  I had better luck with some of the people who were carrying signs against the Democrats plan  and managed to find a pro-Obamacare nurse who was more than willing to go on camera so to speak.

Just before I left I spoke with a couple of older women.  One was from Europe and told me about government health care in her country and the other was from Canada and recounted the story of her brother who had cancer and needed and MRI .  He waited months for an appointment and did eventually receive one in April of this year.  The only problem is that he died in March at the age of 58.

Based on news reports Sen. Cardin got another earful from the attendees and rightfully so in my opinion. At the same time I give him credit for holding the meeting though based on the turnout I wonder if his staff couldn’t have found a larger venue to accommodate the crowd.

As for the angry mob accusations being tossed about by liberals and the press, yes people are angry but they aren’t violent. Are they organized?  Maybe some of them, but I came on my own volition as did most of the people I spoke to except the Obama supporters who were carrying Organizing for America signs.  So exactly who is organizing a mob?

Traditionally August represents the dog days of summer with family vacations, trips to the beach and little if anything happening in Washington as politicians go on recess until after Labor Day.

But so far August has been anything but the slow hazy days of summer for members of Congress who during the recess have been hosting Town Halls on president Obama’s health care plan.

At event after event concerned citizens have appeared in droves to voice their concerns, some very vocally about the plan and are asking how this is better than the current system and how much it will ultimately cost taxpayers.

For the congressional hosts this has been an unexpected and unwelcome response.  After all they had no intention of wading into the proverbial lions den and thought that demand for a national health care system would actually be something their constituents wanted.

As the politicians have struggled to defend a bill that most of them haven’t read and have been photographed in some cases with their head in their hands the DNC and the White House are now trying to come to the rescue.

The DNC is running ads calling the Obamacare protestors an “angry mob” and trying to portray them as right-wing kooks or outlaws.

President Obama is so unhappy with this outpouring of negative sentiment that he has sent out an e-mail urging supporters to attend future Town Halls to counter the protests.

Both the DNC and the White House are complaining that the anger expressed at the Town Halls is not a result of any genuine outpouring from the public but has been orchestrated by conservative groups and lobbyists like former congressman Dick Armey who represent the pharmaceutical industry

Yet as the Obama e-mail clearly showed the White House was counter organizing in an effort to blunt the protests.

Maybe I am missing something but this seems hypocritical to me. Also what does this say for any type of protest like the Million Man March?  Was that not organized and orchestrated by the left who arranged for transportation to ensure a large turnout?

By wading into the issue and criticizing those that aren’t buying into his plan of nationalized health care Obama has shed the last remnants of any appearance of bipartisanship that existed and has shown  a lack of respect for the office of the president when he starts fighting with the very people he represents.

What the public is saying at these Town Halls and at the Tea Parties that have taken place throughout the year is reminiscent of Howard Beale in the movie Network when he said “I’m mad as hell and not going to take this anymore.”

The Democrats in Congress and the president should take note if they want to remain in power in 2010 and beyond.

As the month of July comes to an end many cities around the country are experiencing the unexpected in cooler than normal temperatures.

Recorded temperatures through July 17^th in New York City are 4.4 degrees below normal with the hottest day only reaching 85 degrees.  If the temperature doesn’t top 90 degrees at least one day in the last two weeks of the month it will mark the first time that has happened since 1996.

Washington,  D.C. is experiencing a similarly cooler than normal July with temperatures running about 4 degrees below normal and having topped the 90 degree mark just 5 times as of last Sunday.

Other cities that are enjoying a more pleasant summer are Memphis which is on track to record its seventh coolest July since 1850 and Cleveland where temperatures are running 2.5 degrees below normal.  In Bluefield, West Virginia the airport even recorded a record low temperature one night this month.

So what does all this mean? That maybe just maybe temperatures vary over time bringing us hotter than normal summers or cooler than normal winters and therefore lend credence to the theory that global warming or climate change is a myth.

It is interesting to note that as much of the country experiences a much milder summer than expected advocates for global warming measures have been strangely silent.  Yet if they were really interested in global warming they should be elated at the cooler temperatures since that means fewer air conditioners running which translates to lower energy use and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Normally the media is replete with stories of suffering and death due to the hot weather in the summer and making the link to global warming.  But now that temperatures aren’t breaking any records on the upside the media has strangely lost interest in the weather as they watch the global warming bubble burst.