Beware any Republican who might fall for President Barack Obama’s sales pitchTuesday for his $825 billion economic stimulus plan. A vote for the legislation will disqualify you from receiving the Club for Growth’s“Defender of Economic Freedom” award.

The conservative economic advocacy group issued the warning just hours before Obama was to meet with Republican members of the House of Representatives and the Senate in hopes of drumming up more support for his economic recovery plan.

“No congressman can vote for the stimulus bill and claim to be a defender of economic freedom,” Club for Growth President Pat Toomey said in a statement. “In fact, the Democrats’ package is the antithesis of economic freedom. The bill is a paragon of government run amok, a ballooning deficit, fiscal irresponsibility, and political greed.”

So far congressional Republicans have been cool to the Democratic-backed legislation, arguing it spends too much and gives too little in tax cuts. But with U.S. job losses mounting and consumer confidence crumbling, it may be difficult for many lawmakers to vote against the legislation Obama says is urgently needed to keep the economy from falling deeper into recession.

scorecard of up to 100 points. Every year its economic freedom trophy goes to those who earn a score of 90 or better. The group advocates conservative economic policies that include making President George W. Bush’s tax cuts permanent, limiting government and cutting spending.

Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Snow cleared from Capitol grounds ahead of visit from President Barack Obama)

WASHINGTON - Don’t rub your eyes. Despite the early hour, you weren’t seeing things whenWhite House Press Secretary Robert Gibbssomehowmanaged to be in two places at once.

He showed up on ABC and NBC morning television shows at the same time to talk about how President Barack Obama has no hard feelings toward Republicans who refused to vote for the economic stimulus, and in fact had them over to the White House last night for a cocktail party among other guests.

It was a neat trick, Gibbs being questioned on different channels by different TV personalities about the same issue at the same time.

The party must have made for some interesting conversation over drinks, or perhaps it was all smiles since Obama got the bill passed and Republicans had their (no) say.

More bad economic news. U.S. weekly jobless claims rose by 3,000to 588,000 and U.S. durable goods orders posted another decline in December, falling 2.6 percent.

Obama to meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner this afternoon. Economic concernsdominate the Washington landscape. The Federal Reserve can’t cut interest rates much more or it would have to pay banks to take

And one word on the health front from the FDA- Peanuts. Throw out anything made with peanuts processed by Peanut Corporation of America in Georgia over the last two years.

(Obama walks with Gibbs between meetings with Republicans on Capitol Hill)

By Denise Williams (Political
Machine - Politics Blog, Opinion and
Analysis - AOL News)

Filed under: Gaffes, Media Republican Texas Congressional Representative Dick Armey seems to think that debating a woman on a national news program is like a prattling wife.

Tonight's MSNBC's Hardball segment with Chris Matthews, Joan Walsh (editor- in-chief at Salon.com) and Dick Armey proved sexism in the media to a tee. The discussion started out about Rush Limbaugh, but quickly degraded into a cocky Armey dismissing every word of Walsh's.

I'm still trying to pick my jaw off the ground on this. It took the New York Times Bob Herbert in the next segment to tell Matthews that Armey needed to apologize to Joan Walsh and the viewers.

While the segment needs to be watched in toto, the really nasty stuff starts at the 10 minute mark:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

By Matt Lewis (Political Machine -
Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis -
AOL News)

Filed under: Republicans I was just on MSNBC talking El Rushbo. Gotta love how my liberal counterpart said Rush was "almost treasonous". Which side is name

If you thought Sarah Palin was going to just fade away, you clearly weren’t listening when she said the only difference between ahockey mom and apit bullwas lipstick.

The Alaska governor, who was the Republican nominee for vice president in the race that John McCain lost to Democrat Barack Obama last year, is already laying the groundwork for another run at something.

She has started her own political action committee, SarahPAC, complete with a website. And she’s learned a trick from Obama — the site’s main feature is a page where you can put down your name and donate $25 or $5,000 or more.

“Welcome to SarahPAC, Sarah Palin’s official PAC,” the site says. “Dedicated to building America’s future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.”

renaissance that will build a better future for all,” the site says. “Health care, education and reform of government are among our key goals.”

The site’s home page shows Palin against a backdrop of Alaska’s sweeping mountain vistas.

While declaring it is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee, SarahPAC has a full biography of the former vice presidential candidate.

It notes she made history by becoming the first woman governor of Alaska and the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket.

“Gov. Palin has a long record of achievement and experience in public office,” it says, including her service as governor, hertime asmayor of the town ofWasilla and her stint on the Wasilla City Council.

Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Palin campaigns for Senator Saxby Chambliss in Georgia in December)

For the second Tuesday in a row, President Barack Obama heads up to Capitol Hill. Last week it was to be inaugurated. Today it’s to woo Republicanlawmakers and try to build momentum for the $825 stimulus package.

Faced with growing economic problems, as more big companies lay off workers and troubles mount in the housing and financial sectors, Obama will meet with House and Senate lawmakers to build support before debate begins on Capitol Hill on the stimulus package.

He will have separate meetings with the House Republicans andSenate Republicans in the early afternoon. The White House says the meetings are to “seek input” on the stimulus plan. The House and Senate are expected to approve the package by the middle of next month regardless of whether Republicans embrace it.

The Congressional Budget Office issued a report late on Monday saying the stimulus package falls billions of dollars short of Obama’s goal to pump most of the money into the eco nomy quickly.

the Senate as Treasury Secretary, was sworn in on Monday night and he vowed quick action to help fix the economy.

On the morning talk shows: A California woman will now have to feed and dress one extra baby. She shocked doctors — who had expected her to have seven babies –by giving birth to octuplets.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Geithner’s wife Carole watches as he is sworn in as Treasury Secretary)

By Michael Kraskin (Political
Machine - Politics Blog, Opinion and
Analysis - AOL News)

Filed under: Economy, Obama Administration Naturally, the big story of the day is the passing of the massive $819 billion stimulus bill. I'm going to call this a win for Obama, because he has spent the last two days lobbying congress for its passage.

However, it passed without a single Republican vote. A serious blow to the bipartisan spirit Obama was hoping to

The sleeper story of the day is that Eric Holder, Obama's choice for Attorney General, was voted out of committee 17-2 with 6 republicans voting for his appointment. Eric Holder has been possibly the most controversial nominee by Obama due to his ties to the Clinton pardoning of Marc Rich and other questions concerning his qualifications.

By Michael Kraskin (Political
Machine - Politics Blog, Opinion and
Analysis - AOL News)

Filed under: Viral Video, Obama Administration Is the weather getting you down? John Oliver of The Daily Show explains why it's Obama's fault, after all, it happened on his watch. Of course if you're one of the million who lost power, not even this will be able to cheer you up.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Obama's Smug Little Bubble Daily Show Full Episodes

President Barack Obama faces his first big political challenge as the House of Representatives is due to vote on a $825 billion package to stem the U.S. recession.

Despite a trip to Capitol HIll to woo Republicans on Tuesday, most House Republicans are expected to oppose the proposal. But Democrats were confident they had enough votes to get the package approved as they seek a final bill for Obama to sign into law by mid-February.

The Federal Reserve meets to review options on how to restore U.S. growth, with a statement by the Federal Open Market Committee around 2:15 p.m. EST (1915 GMT). The Fed is discussing how to revive the economy now that traditional interest-rate cutting tools have been exhausted. Fed officials are expected to discuss uncoventional measures to improve financial market operations.

At the White House, Obama will meet with a group of business leaders from across the country in amid-morning meeting to discuss the impact of the weakening economy on businesses and workers. He will make remarks on the

He then turns his focus to national security issues, traveling to the Pentagon with Vice President Biden for a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other senior officials to discuss the situation

President Barack Obama, steeled by Chicago’s harsh winters, had some unsolicited advice for shivering Washingtonians on Wednesday — toughen up.

Obama took a joking digat residents of Washington, his new adopted home, after his daughters’ school was closed because of icy streets and sidewalks in the nation’s capital.

“My children’s school was canceled today, because of what? Some ice,” he said to laughter as he spoke to reporters while sitting down with corporate executives to discuss his economic recovery plan.

private Sidwell Friends school, pointed out, Obama added, “in Chicago, school is never canceled. … You’d go outside for recess. You wouldn’t even stay indoors.”

“We’re going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness,” he said in an amused tone.

Asked whether was calling Washingtonians wimps, Obama — who moved his family from Chicago before his presidential inauguration last week — said, “I’m saying when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don’t seem to be able to handle things.”

Online Publications Still
Think They Can Get Away
With Charging For Access

As various news publications struggle to find new business models, they keep jumping back to the idea of "if we could just get people to pay..." And, then they look at the very, very, very few success stories online of charging for content (such as the Wall Street Journal) and think "hey, we can do that..." Except, they can't, for the most part. The WSJ gets away with it because the level of their reporting really is heads and shoulders above others on certain topics -- and it happens to be on topics which matter significantly to many people (i.e., they can make money based on that info). Unless you have both very specialized and highly valuable content that is not well covered elsewhere, you're going to have trouble charging. And, of course, even then you might have trouble. Cutting off people through a subscription wall presents additional problems, such as convincing any new readers you're actually worth it compared to all the free content out there -- and, most importantly, staying a part of the relevant conversation. These days, that's a lot more important than the content itself (though few newspapers recognize it yet). Also, focusing on charging simply opens up an opportunity for others to create similarly compelling and valuable content for free... and siphoning away your paying readership.

So, it's pretty surprising that anyone thinks that U.S. News and World Report has even the slightest chance of making it work, but folks at the magazine apparently think people will pay $20/year for an online subscription. It's difficult to see how this would work -- considering that there's plenty of (free) competition that covers similar material (and already has a better reputation for it). It seems like a last gasp effort by a U.S. News that has greatly trimmed back over the past couple of years.

While ISPs have been reluctant to admit to agreeing to be a part of the RIAA's three strikes plan, if you had to take a guess who would be involved, AT&T and Comcast would probably lead the list (along with Cox, which has already admitted to doing so). So, it probably comes as no surprise that News.com has confirmed from internal sources that, indeed, both AT&T and Comcast have agreed, in principle, to participate-- though neither will admit to it publicly for fear of public backlash. Of course, in places like where I live, what do they have to fear? The only options for

broadband here are... AT&T DSL and Comcast cable. So it's not like there are alternatives. It shouldn't impact me directly, since I don't engage in any file sharing, but the principle of the thing is quite bothersome (not to mention the false positives that occur). No matter what other issues one might have with Verizon, the company should be given credit for (a) actually investing in much faster fiber networks and (b) being willing to openly stand up to the entertainment industry over the years. If only FiOS were actually available where I live.

Gordon Brown was forced to admit that the UK is in 'a deep recession', despite claims that the UK was well prepared