Insider Report
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. DeMint Plays Key Role for Rubio
2. Gingrich Mulling Run for President in 2012
3. Oversight Could Void Healthcare Reform Bill
4. Eliot Spitzer Eying TV News Post
5. Geologist: Global Cooling Has Begun
6. We Heard: Al Gore, Al Franken, Bradley Prizes
1. DeMint Plays Key Role for Rubio
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is “blazing a new trail” by helping to bankroll the campaign of a candidate in another state: Senate hopeful Marco Rubio in Florida.
DeMint has set up a personal political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, to sponsor the candidacies of conservative fellow Republicans, and Rubio has become a primary benefactor, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
The fund gave Rubio the maximum direct donation, $10,000, and reported spending $93,472 on independent fundraising efforts — mainly for Web advertising and e-mails for Rubio — through March 31, the most recent campaign finance reporting deadline.
DeMint’s PAC stated on its website that it raised an additional $239,771 in individual donations forwarded to Rubio’s campaign, bringing the total haul to more than $343,000 so far — about 1 of every 20 dollars that Rubio has raised for the race.
Issue-oriented political action committees have contributed to campaigns for many years, but this is the first time a member of Congress has used a personal PAC to help bankroll another candidate in another state, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, told the Sentinel.
“They’re blazing a new trail here,” she said.
DeMint has said he may run for president in 2012. Seeking allies, he set up the PAC “to make major investments in a handful of conservatives running for the first time,” said Matt Hoskins, a DeMint aide.
DeMint’s PAC has supported other Senate candidates including Rand Paul in Kentucky, but more than half the money the PAC has raised has been for Rubio’s campaign.
DeMint has also campaigned with Rubio several times and introduced him to key conservatives, according to the Sentinel.
Rubio, former speaker of the state house, trailed then Republican rival Charlie Crist in the polls when DeMint first came to bat for Rubio’s candidacy. But over the winter Rubio moved ahead of Crist, who has now left the Republican Party to run as an independent.
A new Rasmussen poll shows Rubio with 39 percent of the vote, Crist with 31 percent, and Democrat Kendrick Meek with 18 percent, with 12 percent undecided.
Rubio’s campaign spokesman Alex Burgos said: “At an early stage, when this campaign needed to show signs of life, Senator DeMint’s support was a jolt of support to Marco and to the campaign.”
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2. Gingrich Mulling Run for President in 2012
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he’ll decide early next year whether to run for president in 2012 — and he’s convinced that President Barack Obama has little chance of being re-elected.
Gingrich said there is “more of a possibility now” that he’ll seek the White House than when he was considering a run before the 2008 election.
He told Politico that he and his wife Callista will weigh whether he could raise the resources for a serious run, and consider if “the case for basic change [is] clear enough, and powerful enough, that articulating it and carrying it is a legitimate part of my role as a citizen.”
He said: “This is a decision that will change the entire rest of our lives, and I think we’re taking it with our daughters and our son-in-laws and our grandchildren.”
Gingrich, whose book “To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine” was just published, said he believes Obama has “about one chance in five of getting re-elected.”
Gingrich has called Obama the “most radical president in American history.”
He said Republicans will pick up enough seats in the House to gain control, and the GOP even has a chance of winning the Senate if they can defeat Barbara Boxer in California.
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3. Oversight Could Void Healthcare Reform Bill
An oversight by Democrats who wrote the healthcare reform legislation could result in the entire bill being declared unconstitutional, according to one analyst.
The problem: The bill lacks a “severability” clause, which stipulates that if any part of a law is stricken down as unconstitutional, the rest of the bill remains.
Greg Scandlen, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, said: “Apparently, there was no severability clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was.
“Virtually every bill I’ve ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional, the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one. That will likely mean that the entire law will be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution.”
The provision in the bill most likely to be challenged on constitutional grounds is the mandate requiring Americans who aren’t previously covered by insurance to buy a plan, according to Investor’s Business Daily (IBD).
Another provision that could be challenged is the expansion of Medicaid that forces states to boost their spending on that program.
“The bill writers and lawmakers who voted for it without reading it were unprofessional,” an IBD editorial states.
“That was obvious in the haste in which the 2,400 pages of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were passed and signed into law. The Democrats’ rush to get the bill through was a clear act of desperation that looked like the work of novices — or despots.
“It was hurried House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said that ‘we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.’ Evidently it had to pass for her party to find out what wasn’t in it, namely the shield of a severability clause.”
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4. Eliot Spitzer Eying TV News Post
Television and radio outlets have approached former New York x. Eliot Spitzer about hosting a news show, according to published reports.
Speculation about a media move by Spitzer, a Democrat who resigned in March 2008 over a prostitution scandal, was touched off when the Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that CNN had spoken with Spitzer about taking over the 8 p.m. time spot soon to be vacated by Campbell Brown.
“The network is even considering bringing in disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer,” the Examiner stated.
Spitzer told the Examiner there had been no talks with CNN, and CNN declined to comment on the report.
“People close to Spitzer said the CNN job would fail to offer Spitzer the platform he is looking for,” according to the Washington Post, which reported on Thursday that “several” media outlets have approached Spitzer about a job.
A source said: “He’d want to be unburdened to say what he thinks.”
One consideration weighing against a move to CNN could be the stiff competition he would face in the 8 p.m. time slot. Brown’s show attracts an average of 591,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Co. ratings, while MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann draws 1.03 million and Bill O’Reilly pulls in 3.34 million on Fox News.
But a move to MSNBC could be in the works for Spitzer. He appears often on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and recently filled in for anchor Dylan Ratigan on the network, “where the left-of-center politics are more amenable to his analysis about regulation reform, Wall Street abuses or other issues he is asked to comment on,” the Post reported.
And a source told the Post: “Spitzer has been courting MSNBC, and they have been courting him.”
But Spitzer could have greater ambitions. Asked by a New York television news show if he would consider a return to public office, he responded: “Am I ruling it out? No.”
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5. Geologist: Global Cooling Has Begun
A prominent American geologist declares that global warming has ended and “even more harmful” global cooling has already begun.
Dr. Don Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, delivered that warning in a scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16.
Dr. Easterbrook said the earth has consistently shifted between periods of warming and cooling over the course of thousands of years.
There were cooling periods between 1880 and 1915, and between 1945 and 1977, and warming periods from 1915 to 1945 and from 1977 to 1998, according to Dr. Easterbrook, and temperatures have been cooling since 1998.
Easterbrook is the author of eight books and 150 journal publications. He serves as associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, and was U.S. representative to the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] International Geological Correlation Project.
He writes in his paper:
“That global warming is over, at least for a few decades, might seem to be a relief. However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming and a cause for even greater concern.”
According to Easterbrook, a recent study showed that twice as many people are killed by extreme cold than by extreme heat.
Global cooling will have an adverse effect on food production because of shorter growing seasons, cooler growing seasons, and bad weather during harvest seasons, he said.
“This is already happening in the Midwestern U.S., China, India, and other places in the world. Hardest hit will be third world countries where millions are already near starvation levels.”
Cooling will also lead to an increase in per capita energy demands, especially for heating.
“World population is projected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050, an increase of 50 percent,” Easterbrook pointed out. “This means a substantial increase in demand for food and energy at a time when both are decreasing because of the cooling climate.”
Among Dr. Easterbrook’s conclusions:
“Numerous, abrupt, short-lived warming and cooling episodes, much more intense than recent warming/cooling, occurred during the last Ice Age, none of which could have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2.
“Climate changes in the geologic record show a regular pattern of alternate warming and cooling with a 25-30-year period for the past 500 years . . .
“Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”
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6. We Heard . . .
THAT Al Gore and his wife Tipper have bought an $8.87 million ocean-view home in ritzy Montecito, Calif.
The 6,500-square-foot home has five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a wine cellar, swimming pool, and six fireplaces, the Miami Herald reported.
Montecito, near Santa Barbara, has listed among its residents Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas, and Steve Martin.
Three years ago, global warming crusader Gore added solar panels and other energy-saving features to his 10,000-square-foot mansion near Nashville, Tenn., after he was criticized for the home’s high energy use.
The Herald made no mention of solar panels at the Montecito home.
THAT former “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien headlined a fundraiser for an old “Saturday Night Live” pal, Sen. Al Franken.
The Monday reception and dinner at a private home in Minneapolis, which cost at least $500 to attend, raised money for Franken’s political action committee.
Franken was in Washington, D.C., and did not attend.
THAT The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has announced this year’s recipients of the Bradley Prizes for outstanding achievement, awarded annually to prominent scholars and engaged citizens.
The 2010 Bradley Prize recipients are: Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner; Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal; Bradley A. Smith, Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault designated professor of law at Capital University; and John B. Taylor, Mary and Robert Raymond professor of economics at Stanford University.
“These accomplished and respected individuals are being recognized for achievements that are consistent with the mission statement of the Foundation, including the promotion of liberal democracy, democratic capitalism, and a vigorous defense of American institutions,” Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation, said in a statement.
The recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 16. Each award carries a stipend of $250,000.
Founded in 1985, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation supports “limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutions.”
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