RNC Chairman Michael Steele Threatens Party Members

In a interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele said he was open to primary challenges to the three Republican senators who voted in favor of the federal stimulus package --Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania and the two senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Spector is up for re-election in 2010.

"My retribution is the retribution of the voters in their state. They're going to have to go through a primary in their state," Steele said, adding that the RNC would follow the lead of the state parties in choosing which Republicans to back with campaign money. "When the state party says we're going to endorse a candidate, the RNC is behind them. When the state party says we have a problem with them, so does the RNC."

Some state parties are already punishing members who have crossed the aisle in recent weeks. The California Republican Party voted to withhold party funding in the 2010 election from the six GOP state legislators who voted in favor of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's compromise budget two weeks ago. The budget included the largest tax increase in the state's history to balance a $42 billion shortfall.

"The measure was "approved swiftly and without debate Sunday as the party's twice-annual convention wrapped up in Sacramento. An earlier version of the measure contained stronger language, calling for a censure," writes the Associated Press. "Supporters said Sunday's resolution sends a strong message to politicians that there will be consequences for breaking their no-tax pledge."

Obama's Next Big Battle: Affordable Health Care
The President Gets Ready to Rock the Boat as He Tackles Health Care Reform
By David Muir
March 1, 2009

President Obama plans to move ahead this week with an ambitious plan to overhaul the country's health care system.

It is likely to be a messy and costly political battle.

The latest ABC News poll shows that 53 percent of Americans are concerned about being able to afford necessary health care, and 33 percent are "very concerned."

During the presidential campaign, both sides called for repairs to the ailing system. Now the question is: how?

Franklin Roosevelt couldn't do it; nor could Truman, Kennedy, Johnson or Clinton. Both Clintons, in fact.

But President Obama will try again.

There are 46 million Americans without insurance and that number is quickly growing, as the ranks of the unemployed balloon in this economy.

"The cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year," Obama told Congress Feb. 24.

Obama is asking for $634 billion in his new budget to be put aside over the next 10 years as a sort of health care fund. He says some of the money will come from taxing the wealthy and through trimming the fat in current government programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The budget calls for also taking, over 10 years, $175 billion in fees that the government now pays insurance companies to cover more than 10 million people in private Medicare. The administration has said that that such private plans cost 14 percent more than traditional Medicare.

In his weekly video address Saturday, Obama acknowledged that "the insurance industry won't like the idea that they'll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that's how we'll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families."

Others that might suffer under his budget include hospitals, drug makers and home health services. All have powerful lobbying groups.

The ambitious plan comes during the worst economic crisis this country has seen in a generation. Health care reform wasn't achievable in even the best of times. Now, it could be that much harder.

Just today, the White House again offered an ambitious timeline.

"Look, we want to get health care reform done this year, and we want to do it in a way that doesn't add to the deficit and that also helps bend the curve over the long term," said Peter R. Orszag, Obama's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said this morning on "This Week."

Orszag said that heath care "is the key to our fiscal future."

The health care debate is likely to pick up steam as the week moves on. Tomorrow, Obama is expected to nominate Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services and Thursday, he'll host a nonpartisan health care summit at the White House.

Mad Thought Of The Day
By: Madeleine Begun Kane

Are Republicans insane? Their bombastic rants and stimulus bill obstructionism could easily lead to that conclusion.

But I think there’s a more basic explanation. Republicans are simply being consistent with their long-held GOP credo:

     If at first you don’t succeed, make sure your successors don’t either.

Ticketmaster/Live Nation Merger: National Association of Ticket Brokers Irate
By Alfred Branch Jr.

Angered over negative comments made this week by Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino about the secondary ticket market, the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB) is calling for an emergency meeting of its members next month to decide a course of action.

During separate hearings before U.S. Senate and House subcommittees to discuss their companies' proposed merger, Azoff twice, and Rapino at least once, blasted the secondary ticket market for being a problem, wishing aloud that it should be outlawed.

"The secondary market is a mess," Azoff told the House subcommittee, and calling for it to be abolished, Rapino told the Senate subcommittee, "We spend $2 billion each year on promoting and producing artists for a 4 percent margin on ticket sales, but we don't see a dime from the secondary market."

Both companies have reportedly called on well-connected lobbying firms to try to gain government support for the merger, which is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Justice Department on possible antitrust grounds.

“Opposition is beginning to increase against this merger in the secondary market," said Don Vaccaro, founder and CEO of TicketNetwork, parent company of TicketNews. "Brokers are very upset at the lack of credibility with Michael Rapino's statements that Live Nation doesn’t participate in the secondary market, which brokers believe is simply not true.”

Senate Passes D.C. Voting Rights Bill, 61-37
By Kate Phillips

By a vote of 61-37, the Senate passed a bill providing full voting representation for the nation’s capital in the House of Representatives, nearly ensuring that the measure will become law this time around. While advocates were declaring victory already, a court fight almost definitely looms over the constitutionality of giving the District of Columbia voting privileges in the House that are akin to those of the 50 states.

The measure, if it became law, would increase the size of the House of Representatives to 437 from 435, adding not only a seat from the District of Columbia but also one from Utah. The Western seat was added in a compromise deal a few years back, to help attract Republican support and because officials contended that the state was deprived of an additional congressional district through an undercount in the 2000 Census. (Also Utah’s Republican lean would also help balance out the normally Democratic tilt of the district.)

The House has yet to take up the measure this session, but is certain to repeat its passage of the bill in previous years. (Representative Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, indicated that his chamber would take up a similar measure next week.) And President Obama has indicated his support for giving the district representation.

The Senate bill plainly states that the measure does not give the district representation in the Senate, but Republican opponents have argued that this legislation could allow that to happen at some point later on.

How Comes The Obama Gets To Be A Presidents?

Dear Pastor,

The other day after family prayerings in our living room, Pa turned on the TV as usual and we started in on watching the Mr. Hannity's Show.  Mr. Hannity was talking about our Lord Jesus as usuals and then brought him up a picture of the gang city rapper he called, "Obama." Pa turned as red as an Injun's butt and threw the Bible right in the TV!  He turn it off and says we needed to pray again. "Why Pa?  Why?" I says.  And Pa turns up in me any says, "That THING is going to be the Presidents of these here United States!" So Pastor, How comes the Obama Gets to be a Presidents?

Johnny Eastfall
Age 27
Landover Baptist Rural Institute for the Continuing Education of Home Schoolers

Dear Johnny,

Don't feel like you are alone with this question. You are a sweet Christian child and you must know that millions of Real Americans™ are asking the same thing. And your Pa ain't alone in his anger and rage.  The answer about why the Obama was electated is that we are living in the last days, Johnny.  The Lord Jesus is gonna be hot-footin' back to Earth within the next four years to torture and kill everyone who doesn't love Him. Praise His Holy Name!

Johnny, the word, "Obama" in ancient Baptist Hebrewish is pronounced, "Aboma." Your Pa knows that. Jesus warned us about "the Obama-nation" or as Republicans and Christians like us have come to call it, "the Abomination" in Matthew 24:15-16:

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation (The Obama), spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (The White House) - Then let them which be in Judaea (Washington, DC) flee into the mountains (Freehold, Iowa)."

So my boy, you needn't worry about why sinners flippantly cast their votes and souls into the Lake of Fire. Some of those folks just did it cause they felt sorry for Negroes. The good Lord cast folks' lot in life for a reason, and your Pa is angered because he thinks them coloreds is getting uppity. God's fiendish final solution for baby-killers, homo-lovers, liberals, and everyone who doesn't belong to this church was put in play long before any of us drew our first breath. A-men? 

Johnny, you just need to sit tight. Keep praying like you do, honor your pa and keep at watching Mr. Hannity. He'll tell you what's what and what's for, just leave the rest to the Lord and trust in Jesus. 

I do think it is time you let your parents and school chums know they should keep their barn doors open for visitors. Folks will be leaving the big cities real soon, searching for a vestige of hope and faith here in Freehold, Iowa. For you see, the Obama will begin making decisions on day one about the economy, war, foreign affairs and more. These so-called, "conscious decisions" which will act as little ticking time-bombs put in place to slowly erode America's place in the world and ruin every aspect of American life as we know it today.  But you are too young to understand the adult Republican mind, boy.  Just keep reading the Bible, and you'll understand it all when you're old and smart enough.  

In Jesus' Name,

Pastor Deacon Fred