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Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up
Daily Kos — ... the White House, the Democrats eliminated $200 million to expand federal assistance to states that want to provide family-planning services to poor women. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the money would eventually save about $400 million by cutting unwanted pregnancies. But it became a big rallying point for social conservatives. (“Won’t fewer people mean fewer taxpayers?” demanded columnist Cal Thomas.) So goodbye family planning. Karl Rove joins the GOP chorus that wants the economic stimulus to fail because it would be ...

You lost
The Reaction — By Creature Karl Rove: Democrats are betting that Americans now embrace centralized, top-down government and are willing to pay for it. They are wrong and will suffer politically for their misjudgment. This from the man whose own math predicted an enduring Republican majority. How's that working out for you, Karl?

Pandemic Preparedness
The Nation: Top Stories — ... the economic recovery.) Dr. Anne Schuchat, the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Interim Deputy Director for Science and Public Health Program, explained to reporters on Saturday that, because the cases that have been discovered so far are so widely spread (in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas), the outbreak is already "beyond containment." That's unsettling. To many Americans, genuinely scary. Not faked-up, politically-self serving scary , like the arguments former White House political czar Karl Rove advanced in February to frame opposition to ...

Great moments in political foresight
Political Animal — ... pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy. Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey's attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient. And his partisan attacks on his efforts seem not just creepy, but dangerous. On Feb. 5, the same as Collins unfortunate remarks, Karl Rove had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining about stimulus package, in part because it included ...

In Attempt To Placate The Right Wing, Collins and Specter Endorsed Pandemic Flu Funding Cut
Think Progress — ... On February 5, Karl Rove took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue against President Obama's Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act because, in his view, the spending was not targeted to create or preserve jobs. In particular, Rove complained about the fact that the bill included " ...

Republicans stripped pandemic preparedness from stimulus (because no one could have imagined...)
At-Largely — ... worried that a deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico could go global and derail any global economic recovery." Before U.S. markets opened, the Wall Street Journal reported: "U.S. stock futures fell sharply Monday as the outbreak of deadly swine flu stoked fears that a possible recovery in the global economy could be derailed." That's unsettling. To a great many Americans, the latest developments are genuinely scary. Not faked-up, politically self-serving scary , like the arguments Rove advanced in February to frame opposition to the stimulus package Obey crafted in ...

Can Swine Flu Stimulate the Economy?
The Corner on National Review Online — ... several Republicans argued against (and succeeded in getting Democrats to remove) an $870 million expenditure for pandemic preparedness in the stimulus package. It's a Republican outrage, he nearly shouts from the web page, putting politics ahead of health. It's not that the Republicans argued in favor of pandemics, Nichols graciously acknowledges. But in fact, they didn't even argue against spending government money to prepare for pandemics. The argument advanced by Karl Rove in a Wall Street Journal op-ed was that unlike manufacturing and other industries, the job market in ...