Your opinion on the job that President Obama is doing so far (1 Viewer)

[Statorama]

Obama's "economic recovery" celebrates 2 year anniversary

Obama Recovery Still Feeble After Two Years

Economy: Without a lot of fanfare, the Obama economic recovery officially turned 2 this month. Anyone think we're better off than we were two years ago?

On Tuesday, a trio of reports gave fresh evidence that the answer to this question is no.

Single family home prices dropped in March to their lowest level since April 2009; the consumer Confidence Index tumbled to a six-month low of 60.8; and regional manufacturing is slowing. In the Chicago area, it fell to its lowest level since November 2009.

Yet if you listened to President Obama and his cheerleaders in the press over the past two years, the answer should have been a resounding yes.

Obama promised way back in February 2009 that his $830 billion stimulus plan would unleash "a new wave of innovation, activity and construction" and "ignite spending by businesses and consumers."

In June 2010, he announced that the recovery was "well under way" and that it "is getting stronger by the day." A couple months later, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner penned a New York Times op-ed headlined "Welcome to the Recovery."

And all along, media simply parroted the White House line, extolling every "green shoot" they could find, celebrating every time a handful of jobs got created, while constantly acting surprised by the ongoing "unexpected" bad economic news.

But the fact is that the Obama recovery is one of the worst ever. Certainly the worst since the Great Depression. It's so bad, in fact, that even 24 months after the recession officially ended there are few places beyond the stock market and corporate profits that have shown much, if any, improvement. A few examples:

• Jobs: The number of people with jobs has barely changed since June 2009 — up just 0.4%.

• Unemployment: While the unemployment rate has dropped a bit, the number of long-term unemployed is up by a third, and the average length of unemployment is now a staggering 38 weeks.

• Earnings: Median weekly earnings are down slightly between Q3 2009 and Q1 2011, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Housing prices: The National Association of Realtors reports that median price for existing home sales dropped 10% since June 2009.

• Gas prices: Pump prices climbed 52% over the past two years, according to the Department of Energy.

Yet, incredibly, Obama continues to escape blame for this sorry state of affairs. A Rasmussen survey in May found 54% of the public still blames President Bush, while just 39% blame Obama's policies.

The disconnect is stunning, but it nevertheless offers Republicans a huge opportunity, if they will seize it, to decisively claim the pro-growth label.

To do that, they first need to hammer home the fact that Obama's growth-smothering policies are solely to blame for the economy's two-year rut. Then they must focus on clearly needed pro-growth tax cuts and regulatory relief to turbocharge the private sector.

Sure, spending cuts and Medicare reform are important issues. But the millions of families still worried about keeping their jobs and their homes also need to hear how the GOP can get the economy moving again.

 

[Statorama]

Obamacare "high risk pool" numbers significantly lower than estimated

Another day, another lie used to prop up Obamacare exposed. Remember those "millions and millions" of people that couldn't get insurance due to pre-existing conditions? Turns out there's not even 20,000.

I've predicted that lots of parts of Obamacare will not work the way they're expected to. But here's one I wouldn't have predicted: the high-risk pools, which were meant to tide people over until 2013, have signed up just 18,000 people as of March.

There were supposed to be millions of people who were uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions. We heard lengthy testimony about their terrible plight. I don't think it's too strong to say that this fear--that you could get sick and no one would insure you, that's right, you, Mr. & Mrs. Middle-Class Voter--was one of the main reasons offered for the health care overhaul. It was estimated by Medicare's Chief Actuary that around 400,000 would sign up (the CBO estimated 200,000, but only because they assumed that HHS would use its authority to limit enrollment in order to stay within the $5 billion budgeted for the program). So where are all the uninsurable people?

The explanations so far offered don't sound very convincing to me. Suzy Khimm channels Nancy Pelosi to suggest that the political controversy over Obamacare has somehow prevented people from finding out about high-risk pools. I could certainly see how that would account for fewer-than-expected signups . . . but a 95% reduction? It sort of strains credulity to say that only 18,000 uninsurable people in the whole country are aware that the pools exist--at least, if you believe that all the rest of the uninsurable people care about getting health insurance.

Then there are those who claim that the problem is excessively stringent requirements. But the requirements aren't really all that stringent. You have to have been denied coverage by an insurer or offered insurance at a rate twice or more what a healthy person would pay. Annoying, to be sure. But it's not some monumental hurdle that only the most heroic and motivated uninsurables could surmount; after all, the way that you know you're uninsurable is that, well, companies refuse to insure you.

The only argument that makes even a little bit of sense is that the premiums are high. But the people doing the projections knew that the premiums were going to be high. And besides, they're not, like, insanely high; the average monthly premium in North Carolina is $285 with a $3500 deductible, down from maybe $400 last year. I'm not downplaying that amount--it's a big hit on an ordinary budget--but for someone who's got a serious pre-existing condition, this should be money well spent. I don't know how to reconcile the previous claims of large numbers of uninsurables who were going without needed insurance and treatment, with the current claim that there are now only 18,000 people in the whole country who are a) uninsurable and b) able to afford several hundred dollars a month in health care premiums. Even adding together all three factors, cost, lack of awareness, and the need to provide proof that insurance was refused, I don't understand how the estimates could have been so far off.

The administration is now loosening the requirements (you just need a note from a doctor or nurse saying you've been sick in the last year) and lowering premiums. But this doesn't mean that they're finally covering more "uninsurables"; it just means they've decided to use the money allocated for those people to cover someone else. They're changing the "high-risk pools" to something that looks a lot more like simply subsidizing insurance. But the goal wasn't to spend the $5 billion that HHS got in its budget; the goal was to provide insurance for people who want to buy insurance, but can't find a company willing to write it.

Since we don't seem to be able to find many of those people, HHS is using the money to cover anyone who lacks insurance and can get a doctor to attest that they've been sick in the last year. They will eventually no doubt claim that the high-risk pools were a success, relaxing the conditions until they can say they've covered 200,000 or so people. But the mystery will not have gone away. Where are the unsinsurables? And why didn't they want to buy insurance?

 

[Statorama]

Half of the jobs added in the last employment statement were by McDonalds

According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. However, this report from MarketWatch suggests data is much worse than that:

McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

If Morgan Stanley is correct, about half of last month's job growth came from the venerable fast-food chain. That is hardly the sign of a healthy economy.

 

[Statorama]

Who will save us from this "Recovery"?

Private-sector job growth is anemic, new jobless claims are still well over 400,000, the unemployment numbers are grim, manufacturing has slowed to a crawl, home prices are falling again, the dollar keeps sinking, 44 million people are now on food stamps, layoffs continue, consumer confidence has hit the skids and the stock market lost 280 points Wednesday and 38 more yesterday.

Welcome to Recovery Summer II.

Meanwhile, Washington is enmeshed in the debt-limit fight, with Aug. 2 as the latest supposed drop-dead date for raising the nation's credit-card limit. Tuesday, in a 318-97 bipartisan landslide, the House rejected the administration's request for a "clean bill" -- one with no spending cuts attached -- to extend the debt ceiling from $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion; 82 Democrats voted with the Republicans.

For what it's worth, Moody's is warning that, absent some agreement to avoid short-term default, it may downgrade the nation's credit rating. "We are on the verge of a great, great Depression," charged analyst Peter Yastrow.

And where was President Obama as this disastrous week began? Just back from a European mini-vacation, he was out on the links again on Memorial Day, playing his 70th round of golf since he took office. Leading from behind, anybody?

"Leadership should come from the top," Rep. Paul Ryan is said to have told Obama the other day, when the president met privately with congressional Republicans to discuss deficit reduction.

Others in the room characterized the talks as "frank" and "productive" -- diplomatic speak for contentious and heated.

Good. This is an argument the country desperately needs to have.

Two years into the Obama administration, the country's finances are a looming calamity. An unemployment rate of more than 8 percent has become the new normal, and even that understates real unemployment, because so many Americans have simply left the job market.

The $800 billion stimulus was a complete failure, unless you count "government jobs saved" as a useful goal. "Quantitative easing" -- the Federal Reserve's printing money to buy Treasury debt -- has already failed twice, yet it's being contemplated again.

And does anyone doubt Obama and the Democrats would have hiked taxes last fall had they not suffered such a humiliating defeat in the 2010 election?

We're heading for disaster on an epic scale, yet the president's poll numbers have ticked up modestly, and surveys show that he remains personally popular, despite his ruinous policies. Therein lies the Republican challenge for 2012: how to tie the disastrous effects of Obama's economic program to the man himself and make the electorate understand they're one and the same.

Because by now it's impossible for the Democrats to argue that the country's on the right track or that their economic program hasn't been given enough time to work. Nothing they publicly promised has come true, and this is before the ship of state hits the looming iceberg of ObamaCare, whose rollback still must be a top GOP priority.

"Leading from behind" -- a phrase used by an anonymous Obama adviser in an interview with The New Yorker -- is not getting the job done. After two years of unelected czars, increasingly burdensome regulations, executive orders, unread bills rammed through Congress, photo ops, White House parties, international vacations and an endless succession of speeches as the solution to every ill, Americans are hungering for leadership.

The candidate who can best frame the argument as one of national economic survival -- and who won't hesitate to take the fight to the other side -- is the one who will be the next president.

Because leading from the front beats leading from behind every time -- especially when the fate of the nation is at stake.

 

[jamny]

link

Obama's chief economic advisor resigning

Austan Goolsbee, head of the president's Council of Economic Advisors, is returning to his University of Chicago post. His departure shakes up the White House team as the nation's recovery sputters.

Reporting from Washington— Austan Goolsbee is stepping down as chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, the White House announced Monday night, shaking up the economic team just as the recovery is sputtering.

Goolsbee, one of the administration's primary spokesmen on the economy, will return to his position as an economics professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, the announcement said.

A White House official said the president would have "loved" for Goolsbee to stay. But Goolsbee, who has served in the Obama administration from day one, might have jeopardized his employment at the university by remaining in government.

The university's faculty handbook says leaves of absence don't normally last beyond one year. A University of Chicago spokesman declined to comment on Goolsbee's status. Neither Goolsbee nor his press spokesman immediately returned messages requesting comment.

Goolsbee, 41, was appointed to the chairmanship nine months ago, replacing Christina Romer, who had resigned to return to UC Berkeley. Before that, he was part of a senior circle of economic aides who charted a path to the fragile economic recovery.

No president likes to lose a trusted confidante — a role Goolsbee played as campaign advisor and then as senior government official. But for Obama, the problem isn't so much personnel as policy.

Goolsbee's departure comes as a recent spate of troubling economic news is sparking fears that a full recovery could be years away. Unemployment rose to 9.1% in May — its second consecutive monthly increase — and housing prices have dropped to their lowest level since 2002.

Obama has few tools with which to create jobs on a scale that will reduce the unemployment rate. The Republican-controlled House won't go along with ambitious new spending plans that might stoke hiring. The $800-billion-plus stimulus package has played itself out, and Congress is consumed by a debate over cutting federal deficits.

"The problem for the president is he can't act unilaterally and there are no willing partners,'' said Neera Tanden, chief operating officer at the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the White House.

In a prepared statement, Obama said: "Since I first ran for the U.S. Senate, Austan has been a close friend and one of my most trusted advisors. Over the past several years, he has helped steer our country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and although there is still much work ahead, his insights and counsel have helped lead us toward an economy that is growing and creating millions of jobs."

Goolsbee said in a statement: "While I am looking forward to returning home to Chicago, I will always be proud of the years I have spent working for this president. I believe that his judgment, his courage in confronting the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and his commitment to the American people have made a tremendous difference for the nation."

As one of Obama's most high-profile economic advisors, Goolsbee has been a target of criticism.

"With anemic job growth, plunging economic confidence and no real plan to rein in the debt, this departure is just the latest sign that the president has no answers for Americans concerned about the economy," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said Monday night.

Turnover within Obama's economic team has been heavy. Since taking office 2 1/2 years ago, Obama has lost Romer, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, budget chief Peter Orszag, and Jared Bernstein, who was Vice President Joe Biden's top economic advisor. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has been in place from the beginning, however.

Apart from the private advice Goolsbee dispensed, he filled an important communications role. A more fluid public speaker than Geithner, Goolsbee often appeared on national TV shows to explain the administration's attempts to stabilize the economy, which is likely to be the dominant issue in the 2012 presidential race.

He is also friendly with Obama, and confident enough in their relationship that he once joked in a guest appearance at a comedy club that the two might have been separated at birth "in a village in Kenya."

 

[jon_mx]

Obama may regret these words....

Obama: "I'm not concerned about a double-dip recession"

 

[Sarnoff]

Actual unemployment vs. the administrations predictions: http://www.economics21.org/blog/revisiting-unemployment-predictions

Thank god for that stimulus! Worked so well it's probably time for another one.

 

[Statorama]

Obama may regret these words....

Obama: "I'm not concerned about a double-dip recession"

It would be the centerpiece of my commercial strategy if I were Tim Pawlenty.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Obama may regret these words....

Obama: "I'm not concerned about a double-dip recession"

"Read my lips..."

 

[Statorama]

The opposite of Reaganomics

The Coming Crash of 2013

On Inauguration Day, 2009, President Obama seemed so politically blessed by the timing of developing economic trends. I expected that based on American economic history, recovery from the recession should have occurred some time during 2009. Even the longest previous recession since the Great Depression would have resulted in a recovery in summer 2009, as the recession began in December 2007.

Moreover, prior American history had shown that the deeper the recession the stronger the recovery. So I was expecting President Obama to pass his economic recovery plan, as foolhardy and ineffective as I believed it would be, and then to ride a wave of adulation as the economy roared back later in the year, which it should have done just on its own according to long established rhythms of the business cycle.

So even I have been surprised by the reality that President Obama's economic policies have been so disastrous that they have prevented any real recovery from getting off the ground, at what is now three and a half years since the recession began.

In America, the economy does not fall into stagnation and just lie there for years, which is the narrative of the Obama Administration, thinking the American people are too stupid to know their own country. Our economy has periodically fallen into recessions, but recovers to show robust economic growth within a year or two. That is why chief White House economist Austan Goolsbee, who does know better, is playing with us when he says as he did last Friday in response to the May jobs report, "there are always bumps on the road to recovery, but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years."

The Worst Recovery Since the Great Depression

How much time do Obama and Goolsbee think they have to do their job right for the American people? In every other recession since the Great Depression, the overall trajectory of the economy has been dramatically better after two years. But not this time. Since the Great Depression, recessions have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously being 16 months. Yet, in May, 41 months after the recession began, unemployment rose yet again, to 9.1%. America has now suffered the longest period with unemployment that high since the Great Depression.

The depression for African Americans continued, as unemployment among them rose again to 16.2%. Hispanics continued with unemployment at double digit depression levels as well, with unemployment among them also rising again to nearly 12%. For teenagers, the depression level unemployment persisted at 24.2%; for black teenagers, over 40%. The U6 unemployment rate, counting those marginally attached to the labor force who have given up looking in the Obama "recovery," and those stuck in part time unemployment for economic reasons, continued at nearly 16%.

While the Reagan recovery, a real recovery from a similarly deep recession, averaged 7.1% real economic growth over the first 7 quarters, the Obama recovery has produced less than half that at 2.8%, with the last quarter at a dismal 1.8%. While the Reagan recovery produced nearly 20 million new jobs, and civilian employment rose by almost 20%, today America still suffers 6.8 million fewer jobs than when the recession started over 3 years ago. The labor force participation rate has fallen to its lowest level almost since the Reagan recovery started over 25 years ago. As the Wall Street Journal explained on Monday:

This is an important economic measure because it reflects the opportunities that Americans perceive in the marketplace. In the long boom from the Reagan years through 2000 or so, the labor force participation rate took a historic leap upward as women, immigrants and others entered the job market…. It has now fallen off a cliff, and we doubt that is what Mr. Goolsbee means when he hails the "trajectory of the economy."

I have previously discussed why this happened. Obamanomics doggedly followed the opposite of Reaganomics in every detail. The centerpiece of Obamanomics was the old-fashioned Keynesianism that was a proven failure and left for dead 30 years ago. That was reflected most of all in Obama's February 2009 trillion dollar stimulus package. That didn't work because borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion dollars back into the economy does not add anything to the economy on net.

And borrowing two trillion for the stimulus instead still wouldn't have done it, for the same reason. Those calling for still more of the same Keynesian snake oil are just self-identifying themselves as hopelessly deluded fools who must not be taken seriously ever again. Worse than not working, Obama's trillion dollar stimulus already drove us to the brink of bankruptcy. Going for still more now as advocated by the mentally blinded would be walking off the cliff with our eyes closed.

Great Depression 2.0

Hard as it may be to imagine, where we are headed under Obamanomics will be worse than where we have been. The economic indicators are increasingly flashing economic decline already. Once the Bush tax cuts were extended to 2013, I didn't expect to see that until then, for all of the reasons below. But Obamanomics keeps deteriorating faster than even I expected.

Already scheduled now under current law in 2013 is the expiration of those Bush tax cuts, which President Obama has refused to renew for single workers making over $200,000 a year, and couples making over $250,000. Also scheduled to go into effect in 2013 under current law are all the tax increases of Obamacare. Together, these job killing tax policies would result in a sharp increase in the tax rates on the nation's small businesses, job creators, and investors for virtually every major federal tax.

These taxpayers would see their income tax rates jump by nearly 20%, the capital gains tax rate increase by nearly 60%, the total tax rate on corporate dividends increase by nearly three times, their Medicare payroll tax rate increase by 62%, and the death tax rise from the grave with a 55% rate. This would go way beyond the outdated Obama talking point about returning to the Clinton tax rates, adding up to a top federal tax rate of 44.8% on wage income alone, besides all the tax increases on capital income, on the way up to a 62% top federal tax rate.

Yet President Obama continues to propose still more tax increases on these small businesses, job creators, and investors. Besides proposing a further $321 billion tax increase on them in his 2012 budget, by limiting or phasing out their tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, sales taxes, state and local income taxes, and medical expenses, he proposed in his April 13 national budget address an additional trillion dollar increase on them through further deduction limitations. Then he called as well for an automatic tax increase trigger that would raise taxes still further on them if "our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy." Senate Democrats have discussed adding a 3% surtax on incomes over $1 million.

Meanwhile, American businesses continue to suffer from virtually the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world, leaving American companies uncompetitive in the global economy. Yet under President Obama there is no relief in sight. Instead he continually proposes still further tax increases on American business.

President Obama and the Democrats doggedly pursue these tax policies because they believe ideologically in socialist wealth redistribution. But openly raiding small businesses, job creators, investors, and American companies is crippling for the economy, particularly this weak economy. This ends up hurting working people and their families the most, as they lose the jobs, wages, and opportunity they need for a decent life.

Besides this tax tsunami, President Obama is implementing another trillion dollar plus cost burden on the economy through the EPA's cap and trade tax policy. That is one central feature of President Obama's war on production of traditional, low cost, energy, shutting down drilling, extraction and pipelines from the northern tip of Alaska, down through Canada, to the energy rich Western states, through Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico. Obama keeps issuing statements that he is opening drilling or permitting or exploration here and there, only to have it shut down by his bureaucracy soon thereafter. All of this will only raise energy prices higher and higher through to 2013, squelching the economy still further.

President Obama doggedly pursues this because he and his advisers believe ideologically that higher energy prices and less energy production and use are good for the environment. But this extremist view of what is good for the environment is a catastrophe for the economy, jobs, and working people.

This is just the beginning, however, of President Obama's reregulation burden on the economy, which is estimated to be rapidly rising towards $2 trillion, or over $8,000 per employee, in annual costs even before EPA's calamitous cap and trade really begins. That is close to 10 times the corporate tax burden, and double the individual income tax burden. With another 4,225 federal regulations already in the pipeline, and the new regulatory burdens from Obama and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill still to come, how high will that burden be by 2013?

Then there is the Fed and the effects of its monetary policy. The Obama Administration has cheered on the Fed's loose-as-a-bordello monetary policy, with near zero interest rates for years now, and the printing presses cranking out reams of cheap money. But once the Fed ends this monetary crack, the artificial pump up for the economy ends as well, and the underlying weakness of the economy is revealed. That appears to be what is happening now, as QE2 ends.

If the Fed stands pat, the downturn will feed on itself, fueled further by all of the above contractionary policies. If the Fed is spooked into resorting to QE3 and the return to easy money, that will cause the inflation started by QE2 to surge. Indeed, once the Fed goes down that road, it surely will not try to cut back again until the 2012 election is past, to avoid a nasty downturn in the middle of President Obama's planned reelection victory tour. Inflation would consequently surge all through next year, cutting the real wages of working people and their families further.

Right after the election, the Fed will stop the merry go round to finally pull the plug on burgeoning inflation. But that extended monetary malpractice will only make the downturn withdrawal from the monetary crack high all the more nasty.

From the comprehensive tax rate increases, to the soaring energy costs, to the costly regulatory burdens, to the monetary policy mindlessness, all of this adds up to one whopping double-dip downturn in 2013. The extended unemployment exploding into double digits will be effectively another depression. Once it starts feeding on itself, there is no telling just how far it will go.

But with the deficit already at $1.6 trillion or so this year, America cannot handle another recession, let alone effectively another depression that will cause the deficit to soar well beyond any possibly manageable levels. World financial markets cannot bear that load, and will not even try. Indeed, it is the Fed's monetary policy working the printing presses overtime for QE2 that has financed the purchase of the debt for the current all-time record deficit.

Our Choice in 2012

Because of the willfully mindless irresponsibility and ideological self-indulgence of Obamanomics, America is mortally vulnerable to another recession at any time soon. The result would be precisely the national bankruptcy of Greece, where we cannot raise in the world credit markets the further debt to finance what will be well over half of our budgeted federal spending. We are already borrowing and adding to the debt to finance 43% of our federal spending today.

That is bad enough for a puny, insignificant nation like Greece, where riots increasingly leave the government dysfunctional, with the EU likely to take over the country effectively. But what is the effect when that happens to the world's supposed superpower? America financed World War II by running up our national debt to its all-time record as a percent of GDP (for now). But that won't be possible when we have already run ourselves into national bankruptcy.

Our potential military enemies will be quite aware of this historic vulnerability of America. Just as Reagan brought us Peace through Strength, Obamanomics will be inviting War through Weakness. With a 2013 American economic collapse that will also disable the entire West, the world's uncivilized rogues from Russia, to China, to North Korea, to the Middle East Islamists dreaming of renewed world conquest, will all be tempted probably beyond resistance and reason to strike. They don't need even to attack the homeland to deal America a decisive defeat. They can just decimate our suddenly overwhelmed allies, from Israel to South Korea to Taiwan to our allies in the Middle East, let alone some even in Europe.

The only way to get off this bullet train to oblivion is to radically reverse Obamanomics in dogged detail. The American people get one more chance to do that in 2012.

 

[BoneYardDog]

The Obama administration once again has sided with Argentina -- and by default, against Britain -- in the ongoing dispute over the island chain at the center of a 1982 war. In a move one British conservative analyst called "hugely insulting to Britain," the Organization of American States earlier this week adopted a declaration calling for negotiations between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the "sovereignty" of the Falkland Islands. While the U.S. delegation did not speak in support of the measure, it ultimately joined a consensus adopting it.

 

[BoneYardDog]

How did this slip to the 4th page??? His lies need to stay on page 1...

Obama's Commerce Pick Hits Another GOP RoadblockAircraft manufacturing heavyweight Boeing Co. has been caught in a firestorm of controversy, pulled between unions and politicians, for a decision to open a non-union plant in Charleston, SC, a move that landed the company in hot water with the National Labor Relations Board and now has ensnared President Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, announced Monday that he will oppose the nomination of John Bryson, also a member of Boeing's board of directors since 1995, until the president voices support for the aircraft manufacturer.The senator said he wants Obama to "tell the country we think Boeing's a good, ethical company, and they've done nothing wrong," according to the senator's spokesman, Kevin Bishop. Graham made the comments to a Mauldin Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

He is quite the uniter... Yet another pathetic example of his lack of leadership and inability to lead...

 

[Statorama]

Why Obamacare is losing in the courts

When we first articulated ObamaCare's fundamental constitutional flaws in these pages nearly two years ago, our objections were met with derision by the law's defenders. Those who have been following the unfolding litigation are no longer laughing.

Three U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals are poised to render decisions on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the coming months. Despite hundreds of briefing pages and numerous oral arguments, government lawyers have yet to address the law's most basic constitutional infirmity. Only a "general police power"—the right to enact laws alleged to be in the public interest without regard to interstate commerce or some other federal legislative authority—can support the law's centerpiece, the "individual mandate" that all Americans purchase health insurance. The Constitution denies that power to the federal government, reserving it to the states alone.

In enacting the individual mandate, Congress purported to rely on its power to regulate interstate commerce and, in the process, reach individuals who are already engaged in that commerce. But the individual mandate does not regulate commerce, interstate or otherwise. It simply decrees that all Americans, unless specially exempted, must have a congressionally prescribed level of health-insurance coverage regardless of any economic activity in which they may be engaged. Requiring individuals to act simply because they exist is the defining aspect of the general police power that Congress lacks.

The government's lawyers, recognizing this fundamental constitutional reality, have tried to rewrite the law so that it can withstand judicial scrutiny. They have claimed that the individual mandate is a tax, despite common sense, judicial precedent, and numerous statements to the contrary by the law's sponsors and President Obama. They have also argued that ObamaCare does not actually impose a mandate on inactive citizens, but rather regulates how individuals will pay for their health care. As Solicitor General Neal Katyal recently put it, the mandate is "about failure to pay, not failure to buy." This is plainly wrong. The law requires that everyone have health insurance—without regard to whether or how they buy or pay for medical services.

Congress, of course, could regulate how actual, not hypothetical, health care is bought or paid for. There are also ways in which Congress could, constitutionally, achieve the near-universal health-care coverage it sought by passing ObamaCare. Most directly, it could raise taxes to pay for universal coverage. But this option would carry far higher political costs than the scheme Congress actually adopted, which effectively shifts the costs (and ultimately the inevitable need to raise taxes) to the states.

That's why ObamaCare is so constitutionally pernicious. Our Framers adopted a dual-sovereignty architecture, dividing powers between the national government and the states. As Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in United States v. Lopez (1995), this division achieves two goals. It protects individual liberty, and it ensures that voters can identify which level of government is responsible for what policies so that a proper accounting can be made at the ballot box.

Consistent with the fundamental principle that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers, more than 220 years of case law requires that exercises of the commerce power be grounded in a meaningful, judicially enforceable, limiting principle. ObamaCare's defenders can't articulate such a principle.

They began with the claim that there was no difference between activity and inactivity, since both involved decisions, and thus could be reached under the commerce power. Having largely abandoned this unwinnable argument, they now claim that the mandate does not really compel individuals to buy insurance, but merely regulates their inevitable future health-care consumption.

But because the future consumption of nearly all existing goods and services is inevitable across the entire population, this argument means that Americans can then be compelled to purchase an infinite variety of goods and services chosen by Washington. Far from limiting what government can do, this is the ultimate enabling principle. Even Soviet apparatchiks, who told producers what to make, did not dare tell people what to buy.

ObamaCare's defenders have sought to manufacture another limiting principle. They claim that health care is unique because everyone will use medical services, health-care costs can be financially ruinous for uninsured individuals, and others will then have to pick up the slack by subsidizing consumers who do not pay their medical bills. Yet any number of national markets, including the housing market, share these same characteristics.

Thus the administration's position comes to this: What is one unconstitutional law, more or less, among friends? Health care is simply more important than any other issue. And Congress can be trusted to act responsibly, imposing purchase mandates only when they are essential. That's why Congress can mandate medical insurance but would never require Americans to buy broccoli. The courts have always found such promises constitutionally insufficient.

The courts will also see through claims by ObamaCare supporters that the law's opponents are trying to "re-litigate" the New Deal. The New Deal is not at issue. Both before and after the Supreme Court accepted the constitutionality of federal economic regulations in the late 1930s, it has consistently stated that there are limits on federal power and, in particular, on Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. It has upheld those limits in a number of cases, making clear that federal regulation cannot reach into areas too remote from legitimate federal concerns.

If ObamaCare is to be upheld, then the Supreme Court will have to abandon these precedents, along with the plain meaning of the Constitution. It will also have to concede that our federal system is in fact not one of divided authority between federal and state governments, but one in which the states merely act as Washington's administrative enforcers. There is every reason to believe the court would never entertain such a notion.

 

[Statorama]

Corrupt Obamacare Waiver process is like a scene from Atlas Shrugged

In a column about the revolving door between big government and the lobbying world, here’s what the irreplaceable Tim Carney wrote about the waiver process for folks trying to escape the burden of government-run healthcare.

Congress imposes mandates on other entities, but gives bureaucrats the power to waive those mandates. To get such a waiver, you hire the people who used to administer or who helped craft the policies. So who’s the net winner? The politicians and bureaucrats who craft policies and wield power, because this combination of massive government power and wide bureaucratic discretion creates huge demand for revolving-door lobbyists. It’s another reason Obama’s legislative agenda, including bailouts, stimulus, ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, tobacco regulation, and more, necessarily fosters more corruption and cronyism.

This seemed so familiar that I wondered whether Tim was guilty of plagiarism. But he’s one of the best journalists in DC, so I knew that couldn’t be the case.

Then I realized that there was plagiarism, but the politicians in Washington were the guilty parties. As can be seen in this passage from Atlas Shrugged, the Obama Administration is copying from what Ayn Rand wrote – as dystopian parody – in the 1950s.

Nobody professed to understand the question of the frozen railroad bonds, perhaps, because everybody understood it too well. At first, there had been signs of a panic among the bondholders and of a dangerous indignation among the public. Then, Wesley Mouch had issued another directive, which ruled that people could get their bonds “defrozen” upon a plea of “essential need”: the government would purchase the bonds, if it found proof of the need satisfactory. there were three questions that no one answered or asked: “What constituted proof?” “What constituted need?” “Essential-to whom?” …One was not supposed to speak about the men who, having been refused, sold their bonds for one-third of the value to other men who possessed needs which, miraculously, made thirty-three frozen cents melt into a whole dollar, or about a new profession practiced by bright young boys just out of college, who called themselves “defreezers” and offered their services “to help you draft your application in the proper modern terms.” The boys had friends in Washington.

This isn’t the first time the Obama Administration has inadvertently brought Atlas Shrugged to life. The Administration’s top lawyer already semi-endorsed “going Galt” when he said people could choose to earn less money to avoid certain Obamacare impositions.

So if you want a glimpse at America’s future, I encourage you to read (or re-read) the book. Or at least watch the movie.

 

[greenroom]

So it looks like this thread is not really about opinions but just about posting about how you dislike Obama. And pulling articles that reflect your position.

Keep up the good work

 

[Statorama]

So it looks like this thread is not really about opinions but just about posting about how you dislike Obama. And pulling articles that reflect your position. Keep up the good work

Plenty of room if you'd like to post something positive. My opinion is that he's the worst President this country has ever had. His actions (and in-actions) have caused this recession to go on far longer than it should/would have. Roosevelt inherited a far worse economy than this dunce. Obama had an unbreakable filibuster proof supermajority in both houses and could have passed anything he wanted. What he wanted, it turned out, was to steal a trillion dollars from the American taxpayers and call it stimulus.He's a thief, a liar, and a cad. I cannot wait until his inevitable tumble into Carter-like irrelavance. I have yet to see him, in any demonsterable way, showcase even average intelligence. He can read other people's speeches just fine. I guess that displays a rudimentary intelligence, but that's not enough for me.I can continue saying how much I think he sucks if that benefits you in some way.

 

[Statorama]

"Gunwalker" noose getting tighter

Rumors began to fly over a week ago that a .50 BMG weapon supplied to Mexican drug cartels by the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) was used to bring down a Mexican military helicopter in May. According to CBS News, the use of that weapon can be confirmed, and it turns out the helicopter was one of two fired upon by suspected cartel members.

The raid on the cartel that the helicopters were supporting was successful, netting more than 70 weapons, including the helicopter-down .50 BMG rifle and other weapons traced back to the botched ATF Operation Fast and Furious, also know as “Gunwalker.”

To date, the ATF operation, which encouraged gun shops in the American southwest to sell weapons to suspected criminals and let them carry the weapons across the border, has resulted in an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers shot with ATF-supplied weapons. While the theory behind the plot was different, the end result is no more deplorable than Iran’s arming of Iraqi terrorists.

At least two American law enforcement officers have been murdered with ATF weapons as well. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed with “Gunwalker” firearms in Arizona, while ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata was killed in an ambush in Mexico with a gun the ATF allowed to be sold to a cartel gun smuggler in Dallas.

The damning evidence that the U.S. Department of Justice agency is a major supplier of cartel weapons will go in front of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week, in what could be a damning indictment of the ATF’s senior leadership and Eric Holder’s leadership of the Department of Justice.

Attorney General Holder has apparently ordered the DOJ to fight Congressional oversight, with the DOJ and ATF ignoring seven letters and a subpoena from the committee. Neither Holder nor ATF Director Ken Melson will answer questions — which may lead to them being held in contempt of Congress.

Holder and Melson have little reason to tell the truth about what happened with Operation Fast and Furious, which may be the most incompetent ATF operation since the agency’s ill-advised 1993 raid of the Branch Davidian compound left four agents dead and 16 wounded. (After the raid failed, the Justice Department then had the FBI take over a siege which ended in the deaths of 74 men, women, and children.) In responding to the subpoena and the letters directed to the agencies by Congress, they may reveal not just glaring incompetence, but perhaps open a door to political motives for the gun-running that point higher in the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama has long pushed the 90 percent lie, a bit of fiction in which he claims that 90 percent of cartel weapons in Mexico originate in U.S. gun shops along the border.

The fact of the matter is that of the 100,000 weapons that had been recovered by Mexican authorities at that time, only 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. He was only fabricating the truth by 81 percent.

Now that we know that the ATF directed U.S. gun dealers to allow more than 2000 — and as maybe as many as 2,500 — of those 7,900 guns, it now seems that something approaching a third of the guns sold by dealers to the cartels were conveyed at the order of Barack Obama’s Justice Department. Not only was the president lying about the percentage of guns coming from the U.S. in order to drum up support for gun control measures, his executive branch agencies were responsible for padding the numbers almost another 50 percent.

In addition to the civilian guns, the U.S. government is indirectly responsible for many of the cartels’ heavy weapons as well, though there is no indication that the Justice Department or ATF had any hand in what appears to be greed, graft, corruption, and theft south of the border.

Our executive branch has armed narco-terrorists as violent as any of the jihadis we’ve faced in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they owe it to the nation to explain both how and why.

 

[timschochet]

So it looks like this thread is not really about opinions but just about posting about how you dislike Obama. And pulling articles that reflect your position. Keep up the good work

Plenty of room if you'd like to post something positive. My opinion is that he's the worst President this country has ever had. His actions (and in-actions) have caused this recession to go on far longer than it should/would have. Roosevelt inherited a far worse economy than this dunce. Obama had an unbreakable filibuster proof supermajority in both houses and could have passed anything he wanted. What he wanted, it turned out, was to steal a trillion dollars from the American taxpayers and call it stimulus.He's a thief, a liar, and a cad. I cannot wait until his inevitable tumble into Carter-like irrelavance. I have yet to see him, in any demonsterable way, showcase even average intelligence. He can read other people's speeches just fine. I guess that displays a rudimentary intelligence, but that's not enough for me.I can continue saying how much I think he sucks if that benefits you in some way.

It's amazing that you can believe this and how virulent you are. And your post is filled with so many falsehoods:1. The stimulus package was not a trillion dollars. If it had been, I would have supported it even more. 2. The stimulus package was not theft. It was voted on by Congress. Nothing was "stolen from the American taxpayers."3. The stimulus package was a necessity and a positive for America. Without it, the economy would have been much worse.4. Obama is not close to being the worst president we've ever had. He's better than the last president we had, who is responsible for the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. Obama is not a great president, and I can't support him because I disagree with him on some fundamental issues. But he is probably above average as president.5. He's not a thief, liar, or cad. I have never seen an example of his bad intentions for the American people. If you have an example, I'd like to see it. What astounds me, Stat, is that you claim to be a conservative, and you don't like liberalism. Obama is one of the least liberal Democrats we've ever had as POTUS.

 

[Saints-Man]

...4. Obama is not close to being the worst president we've ever had. He's better than the last president we had, who is responsible for the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. Obama is not a great president, and I can't support him because I disagree with him on some fundamental issues. But he is probably above average as president.5. He's not a thief, liar, or cad. I have never seen an example of his bad intentions for the American people. If you have an example, I'd like to see it. ...

Especially

 

[RCon]

It's amazing that you can believe this and how virulent you are. And your post is filled with so many falsehoods:1. The stimulus package was not a trillion dollars. If it had been, I would have supported it even more.

You're really going to castigate the guy for exaggerating/rounding up to a round number? Also, your support for the stimulus is irrelevant to whether it was good policy.

2. The stimulus package was not theft. It was voted on by Congress. Nothing was "stolen from the American taxpayers."

While true that it wasn't theft, it did put the taxpayers on the hook for paying it off.

3. The stimulus package was a necessity and a positive for America. Without it, the economy would have been much worse.

You cannot know or prove this. There are plenty of people, including credible economists, who believe the recession may have dipped further but that the economy would be on much more solid footing now had we not done the stimulus. Recent economic data certainly indicates that the stimulus did not have any lasting, positive effects.

4. Obama is not close to being the worst president we've ever had. He's better than the last president we had, who is responsible for the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. Obama is not a great president, and I can't support him because I disagree with him on some fundamental issues. But he is probably above average as president.5. He's not a thief, liar, or cad. I have never seen an example of his bad intentions for the American people. If you have an example, I'd like to see it.

He has certainly broken promises, which may qualify him as a liar, depending on your definition. Personally, I think it's way too early to judge Obama or Bush 43 as presidents. It may even be too early to judge Clinton.

 

[Statorama]

What astounds me, Stat, is that you claim to be a conservative, and you don't like liberalism. Obama is one of the least liberal Democrats we've ever had as POTUS.

HE'S A GD MARXISTLook through this thread. It's page after page of how he is intentionally trying to drive this country into his utopian marxist vision.

As long as you're not for Obama and cannot support him, I'll let this go. That's enough for me. But sheesh man, he has told bold faced lies. He has robbed the American taxpayers of billions of dollars. Forgiving billions of dollars of loans to his union cronies, that will somehow manage to pour billions of dollars into his campaign coffers!!! He is the low bar for all future presidents. As somewhat of a history nerd, I can say he's easily the single worst person to ever hold the title President of the United States.

 

[jamny]

link

Obama Administration May Be Held in Contempt of Congress

Presidential administration officials have been held in contempt only 12 times since Watergate in the 1970s, but number 13 may be on its way. Attorney General Eric Holder has refused to supply the House Oversight Committee with requested documents surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the lethal and botched operation in which thousands of semi-automatic weapons were illegally sent over the border and into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The operation resulted in the death of thousands of Mexican citizens and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and involved the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (a division of Holder’s Justice Department.)

Yesterday, during a hearing on Capitol Hill examining whether the DOJ must respond to a lawfully issued and valid Congressional subpoena, multiple witnesses confirmed that the DOJ is not above the law and must, in fact, comply with the subpoena. The witnesses, which included Commissioner on Wartime Contracting Professor Charles Tiefer, American Public Law Specialist at the Library of Congress Morton Rosenberg, and Legislative Attorney Todd Tatelman, confirmed it is a Constitutional duty for Congress to oversee and question executive branch activities.

“The Justice Department is not immune from these investigations,” Rosenberg said.

The hearing sustained that both the House and Senate Congressional Oversight Committees have the absolute right to pursue and obtain information surrounding actions taken by the executive branch, as was the Founding Fathers’ intention in limiting the size and power of the President and his administration. Legally, the executive branch can decline providing the Congressional Oversight Committees with requested documentation only when the President invokes a Privilege Law, which shields the release of certain information. In this case, President Obama has yet to do so, and at this point in time, the House Oversight Committee has full rights to the requested documents.

The Obama Justice Department has been stonewalling the House Oversight Committee for months, citing ongoing investigations within the DOJ surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, in addition to claiming the House Oversight Committee does not have the authority to access the requested information.

“As things stand now, they owe you the documents,” Professor Tiefer said while giving testimony, adding there is no Constitutional basis for the DOJ’s refusal.

 

[Sarnoff]

http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/14/obamas-war-on-the-rule-of-law

Obama's War on the Rule of Law

The Bush administration's worst policies live on in Obama's White House.

A. Barton Hinkle | June 14, 2011

Evidence that the growth of government is a one-way ratchet continues to mount in Washington, where President Obama's pieties about abiding by the rule of law are eclipsing "one word: plastics" as a punch line.

The day after he was inaugurated, Obama promised that the rule of law would be a touchstone of his presidency. Apparently this was not a solemn vow but rather a sop to those liberals and progressives who had fumed over the Bush administration's traducing of the Constitution. For eight years the printing presses of the left had been smoking with the heat generated by articles such as "Bush's War on the Rule of Law" (Harper's), "Cheney's Law" (PBS) and others far too numerous to list.

The brief against Bush encompassed numerous charges: his use of signing statements to provide a pretext for disregarding parts of certain legislation; the indefinite detention without trial of suspected enemy combatants in Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay; the use of military tribunals; the Patriot Act; his administration's use of warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition; the use of national-security letters to comb through private information; and so on. Policies such as these "evoked the specter of tyranny," put America on the slippery slope to fascism, and were generally bad for children and other living things.

With Obama's election, the nation supposedly said goodbye to all that. The clouds broke, the fog lifted, and the sunlight of civil liberties once again bathed the nation in its golden hue. Except: Nothing like that happened. Instead, the Obama administration adopted every single one of the policies listed above. Some of the more principled progressives have voiced outrage and a sense of betrayal. The more partisan types have politely averted their gaze.

But Obama has not confined his disdain for the rule of law to the Bush inheritance. He has carved out new realms for it.

Take Libya. The president started a war—or "kinetic military action"—without bothering to give Congress formal notification. The War Powers Resolution says a president may do something like that in exigent circumstances, but the action must be limited to 60 days. The administration has blithely let the deadline pass.

Last week, Virginia Democratic Sen. James Webb gave a stirring call to accountability: "Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere? … Were we rescuing Americans in distress? … No, we were not." The administration ignored Webb, too. Say what you will about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, at least he got congressional assent before launching it.

But that is not all. Consider the many waivers the administration has granted—around 1,500, though it is hard to keep up when the precise number grows so fast—to ObamaCare. Many of them—unions and the AARP, which supported ObamaCare, now have waivers from it—bear a distinctly political tinge. None of them bears the color of legitimacy: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act contains no statutory provision for the granting of waivers to itself. Neither has the administration offered any rationale for the approval or denial of waivers, despite its claims to transparency, and FOIA requests, and lawsuits.

But that is not all, either: Remember how the administration gave precedence to the United Auto Workers' claims upon Chrysler over the claims of the company's secured creditors—a direct contravention of U.S. bankruptcy law. Or how it mau-maued BP into creating a government-administered compensation fund in advance of any judgments against it. Or its Orwellian reinterpretation of labor law to stop Boeing from moving a plant from Washington state to South Carolina.

Critics on the right accuse the administration of socialism, but its economic approach more closely resembles fascism properly understood—in which the means of production are privately owned but business decisions are centrally made through a policy of dirigisme. Socialism and fascism are incendiary words, tossed about by people who are upset that they have not gotten their way. That does not render them entirely inapplicable.

Rulebooks, of course, are for losers. Nobody winning a big hand at poker demands that everyone stop to make sure they're playing according to Hoyle. Hence when Bush won the White House, Democrats rediscovered their constitutional scruples; with Obama in office, Republicans have rediscovered theirs. A pity that so many care about the rules only when they're in no position to enforce them.

A. Barton Hinkle is a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This article originally appeared at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

 

[timschochet]

What astounds me, Stat, is that you claim to be a conservative, and you don't like liberalism. Obama is one of the least liberal Democrats we've ever had as POTUS.

HE'S A GD MARXISTLook through this thread. It's page after page of how he is intentionally trying to drive this country into his utopian marxist vision.

I have looked through this thread, and studied this guy pretty closely. I just don't see the Marxism. He's certainly a statist, but nearly every president since FDR has been a statist, and Obama's hardly the worst of those. Richard Nixon, a Republican, was more statist than Obama has been.

 

[Statorama]

What Obama has done to the economy

The Labor Department said on Wednesday its Consumer Price Index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.3 percent, the largest gain since July 2008, after rising 0.2 in April.

Core inflation was lifted by steep rises in motor vehicle and apparel prices and economists had expected the measure, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve, to rise 0.2 percent last month. …

But in the 12 months to May, consumer prices rose 3.6 percent, the biggest jump since October 2008, and well above expectations for a 3.4 percent increase.

It rose without including food and energy. Taking those into account, Obama's "recovery" is hurting us much worse than the numbers indicate.

 

[Statorama]

Bipartisan group of Congressmen hope to stop Obama's illegal actions in Libya

“With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who led the 10-member anti-war coalition with Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

 

[Statorama]

US economy in worse shape than Greece

Thanks a lot, Barry and W.

When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries, Pimco's Bill Gross told CNBC Monday.

 

[Statorama]

Obligatory "Obama makes fun of the unemployed" link

 

[Statorama]

Obama regulations to cause electricity bills to skyrocket 40 to 60 percent in the next few years

FINALLY, a campaign promise he's living up to. Good thing there aren't any people that work in coal plants. Those people would lose their jobs if they did.

Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.

The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation's electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered.

 

[Phil Elliott]

"Ah, gee, I guess those shovel-ready jobs weren't quite shovel-ready. "

 

[BoneYardDog]

The White House responded Wednesday to a congressional outcry over U.S. military action in Libya, saying that President Obama has the authority to continue the campaign even without authorization from U.S. lawmakers.The administration argued that the U.S. has a limited, support role in the NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya. Because U.S. forces are not engaged in sustained fighting and there are no troops on the ground there, the White House says the president is within his U.S. constitutional rights to direct the mission on his own.The White House said that the mission has cost the U.S. $800 million as of early June and estimated that a total of $1.1 billion will be spent through the beginning of September.The administration's defense of the Libya mission came in response to a non-binding House resolution passed earlier this month that chastised Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for U.S. involvement in Libya. A bipartisan group of lawmakers also filed a federal lawsuit. The resolution gave the administration until Friday to respond to a series of questions on the mission, including the scope of U.S. military activity, the cost of the mission, and its impact on other U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The report for lawmakers marks the first time administration officials have publically explained why they believe the president can keep U.S. forces involved in the Libya mission without violating the War Powers Resolution. That measure prohibits the military from being involved in actions for more than 60 days without congressional authorization, plus a 30-day extension.

 

[jon_mx]

Because U.S. forces are not engaged in sustained fighting and there are no troops on the ground there, the White House says the president is within his U.S. constitutional rights to direct the mission on his own.

Very arrogant and weak justification. That rightfully should piss people off.

 

[Statorama]

Obama's NLRB boosting unions and killing jobs

Here's a truth-in-advertising warning to foreign investors about this week's glossy White House sales pitch: Even as President Obama promises he's "taking steps to ensure that we remain the destination of choice for investors," his National Labor Relations Board is putting the screws to America's employers.

The most obvious example is the NLRB's ham-fisted attack on aircraft-manufacturer Boeing. Arguing that the company moved production of some of its Dreamliner jets to right-to-work South Carolina from Washington state in order to punish a union, the board ordered Boeing to close its new South Carolina plant and do the work back in Washington.

Obama insists he wants government to "partner with the private sector" to create jobs, but the NLRB's action will have the opposite effect. Indeed, it could cost 1,000 existing Boeing jobs in South Carolina, and eliminate still more jobs that would've been created once the new production line was fully up and running.

Add in the chilling effect: Any businesses looking to expand will have to worry that the heavy hand of the NLRB could come down on them should they shift work to one of the 22 right-to-work states.

Bill Gould, who served on the NLRB during the Clinton administration and agrees with much of what the NLRB is doing these days, has called the Boeing challenge "unprecedented."

But the Obama NLRB has clearly signaled that it puts the interests of Big Labor ahead of everything else, including its proper role as neutral enforcer of the nation's labor laws. Examples from just this year:

* The board is pushing to give unions the right to enter a workplace even if their intent is to harass customers and employees. The NLRB says companies shouldn't be allowed to treat union officials any differently than they do charitable organizations they let on their premises, such as the Girl Scouts or the Red Cross.

* It wants to force employers to post pro-organizing notices in about 6 million workplaces, most of which aren't unionized, under the guise of informing workers about the National Labor Relations Act. But the posters wouldn't inform these workers about aspects of the law the unions don't like -- such as the right to vote out a union or withhold union dues spent on politics.

* The board is moving ahead with lawsuits against Arizona and South Dakota over provisions in their state constitutions -- enacted through ballot initiatives last fall -- that require secret ballots for union-organizing votes. Labor unions, in an effort to expand their ranks, have been pushing hard for the opposite -- a "card check" system that would let them know who has and hasn't voted to organize. The NLRB's lawsuit conveniently fits into this effort.

* The NLRB is also pushing to let unions cherry-pick groups of workers within a company to organize, without giving those who oppose the union the opportunity to vote, changing an established definition of a "bargaining unit" that has been in place for more than 50 years. The result would be a costly, chaotic mess for businesses trying to juggle multiple unions and different sets of work rules, benefits and wage rates.

* The board is now pushing through rules that eliminate key checks and balances from the process by which a workplace can be unionized -- in the name of speeding things up, it's upending decades of precedent to make it easier for unions to force themselves on workers, who will have less information.

In all this, Obama shares full responsibility. He not only appointed the NLRB's acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, he did an end-run around Congress by using a "recess appointment" to put Craig Becker, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, on the board over bipartisan objections.

In this year's State of the Union speech, the president said that to "win the future," the country has to "make America the best place on Earth to do business." If he really wants to achieve that, he must tell the people he's appointed to run the National Labor Relations Board: Arbitrary, costly and unfair enforcement of labor laws isn't the way to win the future or attract foreign investment.

 

[Statorama]

Obama's treatment of America's friends and enemies

Want Obama to cozy up to you? Become an enemy of the U.S. or say you want to destroy Israel.

President Obama this month opened the White House and, with it, the stature of a presidential photo-op to one of the worst dictators in Africa: Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba.

The Bongo family (his father ruled the oil-rich nation for over 40 years) has stolen a big chunk of the impoverished nation’s gross domestic product, press reports say. The riches have allowed the Bongos to live a life of ostentatious luxury. They buy million-dollar homes in Hollywood and France and spend gobs of money on around-the-world shopping trips.

Even the mainstream media noted the oddity of an American President on June 9 putting down the red carpet for such an unsavory despot.

“The family that has ruled the African nation of Gabon for decades has been accused of taking bribes, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and presiding over a system rife with corruption, but that hasn’t stopped President Obama from inviting President Ali Bongo of Gabon to the White House Thursday,” said ABC’s Brian Ross.

One dictator on one day at the White House might be excused as playing diplomacy with the hand you’re dealt.

But there seems to be a pattern with this President of reaching out to the worst, while snubbing the best.

A year before Bongo came to town, the leader of a staunch ally visited the White House. There was no red carpet. No photo-op. No dinner. Obama treated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like a troublesome kid he had to scare straight.

Netanyahu was shuffled off to an office where the President abruptly left the meeting with the words “let me know if there is anything new,” according to The Times of London, after he failed to get the prime minister to give in to the Palestinians.

When Netanyahu returned this spring, he did get a photo-op. But Obama dissed him once again. He laid the framework for the visit by delivering a speech that said Israel had to shrink its borders, putting Netanyahu in the awkward position of having to publicly reject the suicidal plan.

Obama’s tortured outreach to the Muslim world has found Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referring to Syrian henchmen Bashar Assad as a “reformer.”

When they met, Obama bowed before the Saudi Arabian king. That country’s money and ideology have done more to fuel radical Islam than any other’s.

Obama often criticizes Jerusalem, but rarely mentions Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization that vows to destroy Israel.

It was Obama’s outreach to the renegade regime in Iran that started his troublesome tilt away from Israel. Obama believed the magic of his presence would convince Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the one fueling deadly insurgents in Iraq and a nuclear weapons program at home, to sit down and talk.

One of his first acts as President in 2009 was to send a personal letter to Iran’s ultimate leader, Ayatollah Ali Kamenei, seeking a discussion on issues of mutual interest, such as Tehran’s determination to build nukes and destroy Israel.

He also cut a video to the Iranian people, calling Iran one of the world’s “great civilizations.”

“We have serious differences that have grown over time,” Obama said. “My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.”

When Ahmadinejad brutally put down a rebellion after he won what the regime calls an election later that year, the White House was mostly silent.

Two years later, what some view as a show of weakness has gotten the U.S. no where. Iran is still trying to kill U.S. troops and make nukes.

Ahmadinejad proclaimed this week he is forming an anti-West axis of Iran, Russia and China to make life even more difficult for America.

At the same time the White House was talking nice to despots in Iran, it was planning to pull the rug out from under two loyal European allies.

The increasingly authoritarian regime in Moscow did not like George W. Bush’s deal to place missile interceptors in Poland and an advanced radar in the Czech Republic to protect Europe from Iran’s gathering storm. Hillary Clinton wanted to “reset” relations with Russia. So the Obama people would move closer to one-party rulers in Russia and move away from newly democratic Eastern Europe.

Obama dumped the missile defense deals to make Vladimir Putin happy. It highly embarrassed Poland and the Czech Republic, who had invested much political capital to win over opponents. Just last week, the Czech defense minister announced he was pulling out of the minor missile defense role the White House offered in place of the Bush plan to host a far-looking tracking radar.

The White House was busy in 2009 offending old friends, too. And there is no better old friend than Great Britain. After the 9-11 attacks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair rushed to Washington in a show of solidarity in a war still being fought 10 years later.

He loaned as a symbol of this alliance a bust of Sir Winston Churchill. In an earlier era, with the world at war, Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt formed a special alliance to defeat another fanatical enemy.

Britain wanted to extend the bust loan during Obama’s time. But the president sent it packing—literally.

Hugo Chavez

There is no more anti-American, anti-democratic leader in this hemisphere than Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Chavez denounces the U.S.A. regularly as he forges closer economic and military ties with Iran and other Socialist rebels in South America.

When Obama and Chavez met for the first time in 2009 at the Summit of the Americas, the two smiled warmly and exchanged a power hand shake.

Obama initiated the meeting. He always does with these kinds of people. There is no indication he in any way protested Chavez’s Cuba-like crack-down that sees a free press, free enterprise and free speech disappearing.

“Everywhere in Latin America, enemies of America are going to use the picture of Chavez smiling and meeting with the President as proof that Chavez is now legitimate, that he’s acceptable,“ Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, told NBC’s “Today“ show.

Like Israel in the Middle East, there is no better friend to the U.S. in South America than Colombia. It is fighting drug-smuggling Marxist guerrillas cheered on by Hugo Chavez from over the border.

Yet whom did candidate Obama single out for criticism in South America. Who else? Colombia.

“I’m concerned frankly about the reports there of the involvement of the Colombian administration with human rights violations and the suppression of workers,” he said in a raw attempt to win labor support by opposing a free trade treaty with Bogota.

Obama has stopped his overt outreach to Iran. Perhaps reality has checked his belief he can sweet-talk fanatics. Now, let’s end talk of a “reformer” running Syria and a “reset” for Moscow authoritarians, and a photographed power handshake with the man who threatens to stop South America’s remarkable climb to free markets and democracies.

 

[Statorama]

Obama skirted Congress with action in Libya

The entire article is worth a read, but a small throw-away line caught my attention

After several meetings and phone calls, the rival legal analyses were submitted to Mr. Obama, who is a constitutional lawyer, and he made the decision.

(edit to add: insert me mugging for the camera like Jon Stewart here)Say what? Constitutional lawyer? By who's measure? Has he ever published papers on or argued a constitutional case? He got a quota job at the University of Chicago straight out of law school. That doesn't make you a constitutional lawyer. Even as a "professor", his classes involved equal protection and civil rights (when he wasn't using that time to run for office or write his first book)

 

[Statorama]

Reports show Obama Administration cut pensions of non-union workers at GM

Union pensions, of course, were uncut. Might come back to haunt him in the general, as those 20,000 cut pensions were all in Ohio.

These messages reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions.

Republican Reps. Dan Burton and Mike Turner say that during the GM bailout, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner decided to cut pensions for salaried non-union employees at Delphi, a GM spinoff, to expedite GM’s emergence from bankruptcy.

At a Wednesday hearing, the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending started pushing the Treasury Department for answers on the effects of the bailout and on how much of a role the department played in picking winners and losers.

 

[Statorama]

Did Obama Administration and the Washington Post get caught working together to derail the Project Gunrunner investigation?

Wow. Was the Washington Post EVER a credible source of news?

A spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told The Daily Caller that the Washington Post is the only news organization to bite on new misleading sentiments from the Justice Department.

A Wednesday Washington Post story used anonymous Justice Department sources to bash Issa’s investigation into Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious.

The anonymous sources claimed that Issa attended a classified April 2010 briefing for members of Congress and their staffers about the programs that have allowed American guns into Mexican drug cartels’ hands.

Issa spokesman Frederick Hill told The Daily Caller the Post is the first newspaper to run these DOJ claims, but not the first one the Justice Department went to with them.

“We have had people who have contacted us before the Washington Post,” Hill said. “They told us people in the Justice Department were trying to push this story and I think a number of publications didn’t think it was credible or, for whatever reason, decided not to run it.”

Hill said there was a briefing that Issa attended back in April 2010 on a similar subject. “There were questions at the time about the number of U.S. weapons that were ending up at Mexican crime scenes,” he said. “Basically, [it was about] the efforts of the ATF to stop cartels from doing this.”

Did Project Gunrunner or Operation Fast and Furious come up at that briefing at all? Hill says “they certainly did not.”

EDIT TO ADDObama Administration doing some major backpeddling

A spokeswoman with the DOJ objected to Hill’s comments about the department being the source of the Washington Post article’s information

 

[Statorama]

Obama uses national crisis to tap our Strategic Oil Reserves

The national crisis? He's got an election coming up and his poll numbers are down.

Politics: With Democrats' poll numbers in the dumps, President Obama has decided to release some of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserves to cut prices at the pump. Problem is, its only real "strategic" purpose is politics.

The White House announced Thursday that for only the third time in history, the U.S. would release 30 million barrels of oil from the national stockpile.

America's 727 million barrel-strong reserve, buried deep in the salt domes of Texas and Louisiana, was created in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. It's always been meant to cushion the U.S. economy against shocks from sudden disruptions in oil supplies.

The spigots have been opened just twice — in 2005 by President Bush, who released 11 million barrels after disruptions from Hurricane Katrina, and in 1992 by President Bush Sr., who tapped 20 million barrels in the wake of the Gulf War. President Obama's release — which is far bigger than either of those two emergencies — is supposedly in response to disruptions from Libya, which isn't even a U.S. supplier. It isn't our crisis.

Instead, Obama has said this release is part of a "coordinated" effort by the International Energy Agency to lower world oil prices and "save" the global economy.

It's more than that, given that the IEA's 60 million barrel release amounts to twice Libya's daily lost output. This looks a lot more like a blatant effort to manipulate oil prices globally, using U.S. resources.

Frankly, the president doesn't have a right to do that.

The SPR is not and never has been an open-market mechanism for lowering world prices. It's an emergency supply for us alone, and so this release amounts to a misuse of American resources.

Obama's willingness to go along with these international bureaucrats doesn't speak well for him.

One, it suggests that he thinks the reserves are his to use as he sees fit, rather than a tool for use in an emergency.

It also suggests that he thinks he can control the economy by using government's vast resources, something that after two years of failure ought to give him pause.

Then there's the temporary political benefit to his own sagging popularity over soaring energy prices.

Prices are high not because of Libya, but because of Obama's own failed energy policies — which is based on little more than punishing oil producers.

Despite the fact that the U.S. has vast energy reserves, Obama has no will to open them to development.

Worse, the White House has sought to halt even known sources of energy, through a "permit moratorium," which has sent U.S. drilling rigs fleeing to Africa.

"We have energy right here in America," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas. "If the Obama administration would just cut the bureaucratic red tape, we could tap into our nation's vast natural resources."

But what's policy compared to politics? For Obama, his action on behalf of the IEA suggests a belief that the reserves are his to play with for political benefit.

It's no substitute for a sound energy policy that will secure America's energy future. It's short-term politics that sets a bad precedent. And it won't work.

 

[ren hoek]

The White House responded Wednesday to a congressional outcry over U.S. military action in Libya, saying that President Obama has the authority to continue the campaign even without authorization from U.S. lawmakers.The administration argued that the U.S. has a limited, support role in the NATO-led bombing campaign in Libya. Because U.S. forces are not engaged in sustained fighting and there are no troops on the ground there, the White House says the president is within his U.S. constitutional rights to direct the mission on his own.The White House said that the mission has cost the U.S. $800 million as of early June and estimated that a total of $1.1 billion will be spent through the beginning of September.The administration's defense of the Libya mission came in response to a non-binding House resolution passed earlier this month that chastised Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for U.S. involvement in Libya. A bipartisan group of lawmakers also filed a federal lawsuit. The resolution gave the administration until Friday to respond to a series of questions on the mission, including the scope of U.S. military activity, the cost of the mission, and its impact on other U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.The report for lawmakers marks the first time administration officials have publically explained why they believe the president can keep U.S. forces involved in the Libya mission without violating the War Powers Resolution. That measure prohibits the military from being involved in actions for more than 60 days without congressional authorization, plus a 30-day extension.

Does anybody know where I can find video of what these drone attacks look like? It's good to see the Obama war machine spreading hope and change around the world.

 

[greenroom]

We need to change the tite of this thead to: Statorama hatred towards Obama

 

[Statorama]

We need to change the tite of this thead to: Statorama hatred towards Obama

There's a lot of room in the thread for positive stories about Obama My email is jammed with dozens of Obama stories daily. Not a lot of positive ones. The intelligencia that was enraptured with Obama's empty "hope and change" rhetoric are finally coming around.

You think I've been tough on him? Once all of his shenannigans are pulled out into the light of day, history is going to show him as being the most destructive President this country has ever seen.

 

[Statorama]

Nice article calling into question Obama's status as "Worlds Greatest Orator"

Just a snip

True, Obama was persuasive enough to get elected president--but that was with a hapless opponent, a dour nepotist as his intraparty rival, a public fed up with the other party, and a media-driven cult of personality.

Part of that cult of personality is the myth that he is the World's Greatest Orator, a myth the Times evokes with its hazy recollections of times when he was "highly persuasive." When was he highly persuasive? When he sold the public on the so-called stimulus and ObamaCare? When he campaigned for Democrats in 2010? When he rallied public support for his last change in Afghan policy, an increase in the U.S. troop presence?

The truth is, there's an Emperor's New Clothes aspect to Obama's supposed status as the World's Greatest Orator. We've heard the myth of his eloquence over and over, yet he keeps "unexpectedly" making gaffes or tin-eared statements.

 

[TobiasFunke]

We need to change the tite of this thead to: Statorama hatred towards Obama

There's a lot of room in the thread for positive stories about Obama My email is jammed with dozens of Obama stories daily. Not a lot of positive ones. The intelligencia that was enraptured with Obama's empty "hope and change" rhetoric are finally coming around.

You think I've been tough on him? Once all of his shenannigans are pulled out into the light of day, history is going to show him as being the most destructive President this country has ever seen.

I LOVE the suggestion that your email is jammed with messages from the intelligentsia that used to support Obama. I kind of think that maybe intelligent people don't send out spam political emails and conspiracy theories intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I also love that you misspelled "intelligentsia." And shenanigans. Did you pick up those kind of spelling shenannigans from the intelligencia?

 

[Statorama]

I LOVE the suggestion that your email is jammed with messages from the intelligentsia that used to support Obama. I kind of think that maybe intelligent people don't send out spam political emails and conspiracy theories intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The emails aren't directly from the people involved, just passed along by avid readers.BTW, glad to see the only argument people have with my opinions are spelling errors.

 

[TobiasFunke]

I LOVE the suggestion that your email is jammed with messages from the intelligentsia that used to support Obama. I kind of think that maybe intelligent people don't send out spam political emails and conspiracy theories intended to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The emails aren't directly from the people involved, just passed along by avid readers.BTW, glad to see the only argument people have with my opinions are spelling errors.

It wasn't an argument, it was a compliment. Your dedication to your craft is impressive. Nobody could ever argue with you (or at least your online persona) about Obama. It would be like arguing with Charles Manson that Sharon Tate was a nice lady and deserved to live a long full life. Kudos, and keep up the good work. This really is a fascinating read.

 

[Mr Two Cents]

Sharon Tate is to Manson as xxxxx is to Obama. I am sure there is a point. Hey he could open up a thread on each article and have you all try to defend each one individually. Consider it easier on yourself you don't have to open this one up at all and try to defend anything. I kind of wish he would as a matter of fact, I would love to see see how you could defend the worst president in our history.

 

[Statorama]

Obama Administration responsible for thousands of lost jobs in the scientific community

Adding to the problem is the Food and Drug Administration, which has become overly restrictive and risk-averse, has made it very difficult (and even more expensive) for companies to bring replacement drugs to market.

To trim expenses, companies began to outsource research to India and China. It started as a trickle, but soon became a tsunami, leaving many thousands of highly intelligent and well-trained professionals with nothing to do -- a shameful waste of talent.

When Pfizer -- facing the looming expiration of its Lipitor patent and a poor research pipeline -- bought Wyeth for its portfolio of products in 2009, it cut about 25,000 jobs, with more to come.

 

[TobiasFunke]

Sharon Tate is to Manson as xxxxx is to Obama. I am sure there is a point. Hey he could open up a thread on each article and have you all try to defend each one individually. Consider it easier on yourself you don't have to open this one up at all and try to defend anything. I kind of wish he would as a matter of fact, I would love to see see how you could defend the worst president in our history.

People who are interested in a real dialogue open up threads individually about particular issues related to the president around here all the time. Myself and many others around here frequently have interesting conversations with intelligent people with whom we disagree on various issues. If you'd like I'd be happy to direct you to some of them, but they're really not that difficult to find.

 

[Statorama]

Sharon Tate is to Manson as xxxxx is to Obama. I am sure there is a point. Hey he could open up a thread on each article and have you all try to defend each one individually. Consider it easier on yourself you don't have to open this one up at all and try to defend anything. I kind of wish he would as a matter of fact, I would love to see see how you could defend the worst president in our history.

People who are interested in a real dialogue open up threads individually about particular issues related to the president around here all the time. Myself and many others around here frequently have interesting conversations with intelligent people with whom we disagree on various issues. If you'd like I'd be happy to direct you to some of them, but they're really not that difficult to find.

Right on. Open communication and sharing of thoughts is the roadmap to education. I take people's silence as an admission that the opinion presented is factual and no longer warrants further discussion.

 

[timschochet]

Obama Administration responsible for thousands of lost jobs in the scientific community

Adding to the problem is the Food and Drug Administration, which has become overly restrictive and risk-averse, has made it very difficult (and even more expensive) for companies to bring replacement drugs to market.

To trim expenses, companies began to outsource research to India and China. It started as a trickle, but soon became a tsunami, leaving many thousands of highly intelligent and well-trained professionals with nothing to do -- a shameful waste of talent.

When Pfizer -- facing the looming expiration of its Lipitor patent and a poor research pipeline -- bought Wyeth for its portfolio of products in 2009, it cut about 25,000 jobs, with more to come.

The opinion piece you cited mentions nothing about Obama. Is there any evidence of a change of direction in the FDA's policies since he took office?