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

[Statorama]

My 13 year old business grew net 20% last year and we're on pace for 25%+ this year. In recent years flat to 5% was normal.Seems like the people complaining loudest about capitalism "disappearing" are people who have never owned a business in their lives.

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

 

[ericttspikes]

My 13 year old business grew net 20% last year and we're on pace for 25%+ this year. In recent years flat to 5% was normal.Seems like the people complaining loudest about capitalism "disappearing" are people who have never owned a business in their lives.

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

marketing and business communications of all things. i really have no idea why we're seeing the spike now since advertising and marketing is supposedly getting hammered. one positive is that we're small and lean with low overhead and have established good relationships over 13 years with a wide range of businesses. i have no illusions that fortunes can reverse and because of the constant drum beat of "bad news" the past two years, i haven't wanted to hire even though we could use the help. we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for two years and remained conservative even with exploding revenue. i just try not to watch the news and keep busy working.ironically, it seems "workers" are the most vocal, or the most fearful, about the supposed red-wave of socialism while most business owners i know are just putting their noses to the grindstone and being creative in challenging times. from my perspective capitalism is alive and well. economic challenges create opportunity to those able to seize it. that's a great thing about capitalism, you control your own destiny. as i've experienced, working for someone isn't secure at all. but having been let go in my youth made me appreciate social safety nets like unemployment insurance. as a business owner i hate paying into it, but understand the importance. it is strange why employed people are up in arms about "social" programs since they have the highest probability of using them. as i said, i don't like paying into the systems but understand that if that safety net wasn't available capitalism just wouldn't be possible. it's kind of the same rationale why the US pays billions to other countries in aid. without viable customers, we're all sunk.

 

[ArcticEdge]

My 13 year old business grew net 20% last year and we're on pace for 25%+ this year. In recent years flat to 5% was normal.Seems like the people complaining loudest about capitalism "disappearing" are people who have never owned a business in their lives.

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

 

[Schlzm]

My 13 year old business grew net 20% last year and we're on pace for 25%+ this year. In recent years flat to 5% was normal.Seems like the people complaining loudest about capitalism "disappearing" are people who have never owned a business in their lives.

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

marketing and business communications of all things. i really have no idea why we're seeing the spike now since advertising and marketing is supposedly getting hammered. one positive is that we're small and lean with low overhead and have established good relationships over 13 years with a wide range of businesses. i have no illusions that fortunes can reverse and because of the constant drum beat of "bad news" the past two years, i haven't wanted to hire even though we could use the help. we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for two years and remained conservative even with exploding revenue. i just try not to watch the news and keep busy working.ironically, it seems "workers" are the most vocal, or the most fearful, about the supposed red-wave of socialism while most business owners i know are just putting their noses to the grindstone and being creative in challenging times. from my perspective capitalism is alive and well. economic challenges create opportunity to those able to seize it. that's a great thing about capitalism, you control your own destiny. as i've experienced, working for someone isn't secure at all. but having been let go in my youth made me appreciate social safety nets like unemployment insurance. as a business owner i hate paying into it, but understand the importance. it is strange why employed people are up in arms about "social" programs since they have the highest probability of using them. as i said, i don't like paying into the systems but understand that if that safety net wasn't available capitalism just wouldn't be possible. it's kind of the same rationale why the US pays billions to other countries in aid. without viable customers, we're all sunk.

I'm just curious about one thing really, do you provide your employees with health coverage and if so will the currently proposed changes affect you in any kind of +/- way? Also it seems that you were very smart in seeing the potential for serious downfall in the markets and took the required steps to stay afloat as a business. Seems your abilities as a business owner have kept you safe more than any current or past federal policies.SchlzmETA: Also I wasn't pissing or moaning about the article I posted, was just about the hard core rehtoric that was being used in it, I mean seriously when the Ruskies are bagging on us for being the most marxist nation in the history of ever that is pretty rough.

 

[ericttspikes]

My 13 year old business grew net 20% last year and we're on pace for 25%+ this year. In recent years flat to 5% was normal.Seems like the people complaining loudest about capitalism "disappearing" are people who have never owned a business in their lives.

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

marketing and business communications of all things. i really have no idea why we're seeing the spike now since advertising and marketing is supposedly getting hammered. one positive is that we're small and lean with low overhead and have established good relationships over 13 years with a wide range of businesses. i have no illusions that fortunes can reverse and because of the constant drum beat of "bad news" the past two years, i haven't wanted to hire even though we could use the help. we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for two years and remained conservative even with exploding revenue. i just try not to watch the news and keep busy working.ironically, it seems "workers" are the most vocal, or the most fearful, about the supposed red-wave of socialism while most business owners i know are just putting their noses to the grindstone and being creative in challenging times. from my perspective capitalism is alive and well. economic challenges create opportunity to those able to seize it. that's a great thing about capitalism, you control your own destiny. as i've experienced, working for someone isn't secure at all. but having been let go in my youth made me appreciate social safety nets like unemployment insurance. as a business owner i hate paying into it, but understand the importance. it is strange why employed people are up in arms about "social" programs since they have the highest probability of using them. as i said, i don't like paying into the systems but understand that if that safety net wasn't available capitalism just wouldn't be possible. it's kind of the same rationale why the US pays billions to other countries in aid. without viable customers, we're all sunk.

I'm just curious about one thing really, do you provide your employees with health coverage and if so will the currently proposed changes affect you in any kind of +/- way? Also it seems that you were very smart in seeing the potential for serious downfall in the markets and took the required steps to stay afloat as a business. Seems your abilities as a business owner have kept you safe more than any current or past federal policies.SchlzmETA: Also I wasn't pissing or moaning about the article I posted, was just about the hard core rehtoric that was being used in it, I mean seriously when the Ruskies are bagging on us for being the most marxist nation in the history of ever that is pretty rough.

health care is the biggest bottom line killer going for us. also, being a small business (under 10 employees) premiums are way expensive. it got so ridiculous that we simply just stopped offering packages and just give a small "bonus" each month so employees can fend for themselves. the partners have Blue Cross, but it still is ridiculous. we've considered health savings accounts, but never made the jump. we also do quite a bit of work for large companies HR departments, and the benefits as most workers know (knew) them will be a thing of the past in 10-20 years at the current pace. in addition to cutting many benefits yearly, many large companies have started referring to "total compensation" as a workers pay, that includes any benefits. i just don't see how businesses can remain competitive providing sweet health benefit packages going forward unless something is done to contain costs.as far a my business goes, any serious attempt at reforming health care is a net positive. i've read reports that even the threat of a competitive government offering has triggered cost reductions in some existing plans.

 

[Schlzm]

Bail Bondsman? Gun Salesman?

marketing and business communications of all things. i really have no idea why we're seeing the spike now since advertising and marketing is supposedly getting hammered. one positive is that we're small and lean with low overhead and have established good relationships over 13 years with a wide range of businesses. i have no illusions that fortunes can reverse and because of the constant drum beat of "bad news" the past two years, i haven't wanted to hire even though we could use the help. we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop for two years and remained conservative even with exploding revenue. i just try not to watch the news and keep busy working.ironically, it seems "workers" are the most vocal, or the most fearful, about the supposed red-wave of socialism while most business owners i know are just putting their noses to the grindstone and being creative in challenging times. from my perspective capitalism is alive and well. economic challenges create opportunity to those able to seize it. that's a great thing about capitalism, you control your own destiny. as i've experienced, working for someone isn't secure at all. but having been let go in my youth made me appreciate social safety nets like unemployment insurance. as a business owner i hate paying into it, but understand the importance. it is strange why employed people are up in arms about "social" programs since they have the highest probability of using them. as i said, i don't like paying into the systems but understand that if that safety net wasn't available capitalism just wouldn't be possible. it's kind of the same rationale why the US pays billions to other countries in aid. without viable customers, we're all sunk.

I'm just curious about one thing really, do you provide your employees with health coverage and if so will the currently proposed changes affect you in any kind of +/- way? Also it seems that you were very smart in seeing the potential for serious downfall in the markets and took the required steps to stay afloat as a business. Seems your abilities as a business owner have kept you safe more than any current or past federal policies.SchlzmETA: Also I wasn't pissing or moaning about the article I posted, was just about the hard core rehtoric that was being used in it, I mean seriously when the Ruskies are bagging on us for being the most marxist nation in the history of ever that is pretty rough.

health care is the biggest bottom line killer going for us. also, being a small business (under 10 employees) premiums are way expensive. it got so ridiculous that we simply just stopped offering packages and just give a small "bonus" each month so employees can fend for themselves. the partners have Blue Cross, but it still is ridiculous. we've considered health savings accounts, but never made the jump. we also do quite a bit of work for large companies HR departments, and the benefits as most workers know (knew) them will be a thing of the past in 10-20 years at the current pace. in addition to cutting many benefits yearly, many large companies have started referring to "total compensation" as a workers pay, that includes any benefits. i just don't see how businesses can remain competitive providing sweet health benefit packages going forward unless something is done to contain costs.as far a my business goes, any serious attempt at reforming health care is a net positive. i've read reports that even the threat of a competitive government offering has triggered cost reductions in some existing plans.

The biggest thing that is bothering me about the proposed plans and the negative affects it could have on businesses such as yours is the speech being used about forcing ALL business owners to provide health coverage via fed or private plan. I think that could be a killer for not only businesses but business markets, competitive waging and job growth. Schlzm

 

[Statorama]

It should feel awesome, but it doesn't. Watching Obama, who derided Bush's surge strategy in 2007, send 21,000 troops into Afghanistan in 2009. Watching the guy that was praised as the one that would "bring our boys home" and "end this terrible war" actually escalate the fighting over there. I agreed with Bush doing it, and I agree with Obama doing it. I just wish Bush would have gotten the positive press (or at least no negative press) like Obama is getting regarding the war.

Kind of strange how the people that voted for Obama are suddenly not so concerned with the war in Iraq or the troops over there. If Obama does it, it just has to be ok. I mean, I haven't seen any protests, have you? Where are all those anti-war nutjobs these days? Oh wait, that was back when mean and nasty Bush was doing things. Where's the outcry to show the photos of the bodybags coming back? That was a popular outcry when Bush was in office, but suddenly not even a whisper now that Obama is in charge.

That's why we call you guys sheep. You have principles until your party tells you to have different principles. Now that Obama is in office suddenly your highest priorities are where the Obama's are going on their next date or how Michelle's arms look in a sleeveless gown. You're not concerned with the shocking reality that soon you will be able to Buy (GM), Finance (Citi), and Insure (AIG) a car through the Federal Government. You're not concerned that North Korea has had 3 successful nuclear weapons tests. You guys sure had plenty of outrage for Bush's shennanigans.

Check out this article from 2008 and think about it

Obama, Democrats, and the Surge

They were against it before it worked.

by Peter Wehner

07/28/2008, Volume 013, Issue 43

This is the week that the Democratic party ran up the white flag when it comes to the surge in Iraq. Leading the surrender was none other than Barack Obama, the Democratic party's presumptive nominee for president and among the most vocal critics of the counterinsurgency plan that has transformed the Iraq war from a potentially catastrophic loss to what may turn out to be a historically significant victory.

On Monday, Obama wrote a New York Times op-ed in which he acknowledged the success of the surge. "In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge," Obama wrote, "our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda--greatly weakening its effectiveness." A day later, Obama gave a speech in which he declared for the first time that "true success" and "victory in Iraq" were possible. In addition, the Obama campaign scrubbed its presidential website to remove criticism of the surge.

The debate, then, is over, and the (landslide) verdict is in: The surge has been a tremendous success.

Obama, in typical fashion, is trying to use the success of the surge he opposed to justify his long-held commitment to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq as quickly as possible. But turning Iraq into a winning political issue won't be nearly as easy as Obama once thought. He has stepped into a trap of his own making.

The trap was set when Obama repeatedly insisted that his superior "judgment" on Iraq is more important than experience in national security affairs. Judgment, according to Obama, is what qualifies him to be commander in chief. So what can we discern about Obama's judgment on the surge, easily the most important national security decision since the Iraq war began in March 2003?

To answer that question, we need to revisit what Obama said about the surge around the time it was announced. In October 2006--three months before the president's new strategy was unveiled--Obama said, "It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we've been in right now."

On January 10, 2007, the night the surge was announced, Obama declared, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." A week later, he insisted the surge strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." And in reaction to the president's January 23 State of the Union address, Obama said,

I don't think the president's strategy is going to work. We went through two weeks of hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; experts from across the spectrum--military and civilian, conservative and liberal--expressed great skepticism about it. My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we're going to change the dynamic in Iraq and start seeing political commendation is actually if we create a system of phased redeployment. And, frankly, the president, I think, has not been willing to consider that option, not because it's not militarily sound but because he continues to cling to the belief that somehow military solutions are going to lead to victory in Iraq.

In July, after evidence was amassing that the surge was working, Obama said, "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

Obama, then, was not only wrong about the surge; he was spectacularly wrong. And he continued to remain wrong even as mounting evidence of its success gave way to overwhelming evidence of its success.

But Obama is not alone. Virtually the entire Democratic party, including every Democrat running for president, opposed the surge. For example, Senator Joseph Biden--considered by some pundits a foreign policy sage--declared, a few days before the surge was announced, "If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake."

Hillary Clinton, on the night the surge was announced, said, "Based on the president's speech tonight, I cannot support his proposed escalation of the war in Iraq."

Senator John Kerry said this in February 2007: "The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn't the answer--in fact, it's a tragic mistake. It won't end the violence; it won't provide security;  .  .  .  it won't turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won't deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won't rein in the militias."

Kerry's fellow Massachusetts senator, Ted Kennedy, declared that any troop increase would be "an immense new mistake."

Representative Dennis Kucinich, in this instance speaking for the mainstream of his party, put it this way: "It has been proven time and time again that troop surges don't work."

In April 2007, Senate majority leader Harry Reid declared the Iraq war "lost" and insisted, "This surge is not accomplishing anything."

Also in April, Senator Christopher Dodd said, "We don't need a surge of troops in Iraq--we need a surge of diplomacy and politics. Every knowledgeable person who has examined the Iraq situation for the past several years--Baker and Hamilton, senior military officials, junior officers--has drawn the same conclusion--there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong."

In September 2007, Senator **** Durbin, the Democratic majority whip, in anticipation of congressional testimony by General Petraeus, said, "By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."

A month later Representative David Obey, asked if the surge strategy was working, offered the view that if violence is decreasing in Iraq, it may be because insurgents "are running out of people to kill."

In February of this year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the success of the surge in Iraq. "Are you not worried, though, that all the gains that have been achieved over the past year might be lost?" Blitzer asked.

"There haven't been gains, Wolf," Pelosi replied. "The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure."

And as recently as last month, Governor Bill Richardson, when asked if he was ready to concede that John McCain had been right in proposing the surge because it seemed to be having a positive impact, answered, "Absolutely not."

Democrats, then, have compounded their initial bad judgment about the surge with reckless obstinacy. As ethno-sectarian violence in Iraq rapidly declined, as al Qaeda absorbed tremendous military blows, and as political accommodation and legislative achievements have emerged, Democrats, rather than welcoming the progress, grew agitated. They embraced with religious zeal the belief that the Iraq war was lost; they therefore viewed the success of the surge as a terribly inconvenient development, one they sought to deny to the point that they looked silly and out of touch. Worse, Democrats acted as if they had a vested interest in an American defeat.

Rarely has a political party been so uniformly wrong, in such an obvious way, on such an important matter. And when Americans cast their vote on November 4, they should carefully consider how Barack Obama and the entire Democratic party fought ferociously and relentlessly to undermine a policy that has worked extraordinarily well and may yet prove to be among the most successful military plans in modern times.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

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[Brutis]

I posted cuz I wanted another post count.

 

[Statorama]

Is Obama clinically insane?

What If Obama's Out of His Mind?

Seriously. And don't act as if you haven't wondered. Because if we ask nothing else about our presidents, we should ask if they're madmen.

By Charles P. Pierce

What if he's crazy? Do we trust him, even though he's not talking amiably to the empty air? Are we comfortable having him around, even though he's the only one not playing with his toes in the punch bowl? Do we just ignore him, over there in the corner of the room, talking about the fact that there's not enough food, and that the sink in the kitchen is backing up, and that the fire in the laundry room is getting out of control, and that there's a hole in the floorboards where the stove just fell through while all the rest of us are worrying about the giant carnivorous bat-creatures — the ones only we can see — that are waiting to come swooping in through the windows if we dare open them to let a little fresh air into the place? If the village is full of idiots, what do you call the guy who has to sit on the wall and get the dung flung in his direction?

Listen to him. He's talking in what seems to be a glossolalic deluge of issues. One plan a week, each thrown out there while we're still digesting the previous one. He's moving too fast for us to keep up with him. He's talking a private language, to himself, like crazy people do, because he certainly can't be talking to us, his strange, atrophied people, our capacity for large projects and great achievement, let alone for the participation in enlightened self-government that such projects and achievements require, something safely kept reserved for HBO historical miniseries. The muscles have gone slack, the nerve endings gone dead. He's talking about phantoms, about ghosts, about things that aren't really there. He's speaking in tongues is what he's doing.

It took a county commissioner from Ohio to convince me. It is important to note here that county commissioners are of a lower political phylum than most other politicians. They do not walk entirely upright across the savanna, and their political thumbs are not necessarily opposable. As witness Mike Kilburn, a commissioner in Warren County in Ohio. In April, the county was supposed to receive $373,000 in federal stimulus money from President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. This money was meant to go to the laudable purpose of buying buses and vans for the rural communities. The Warren County Board of Commissioners turned down the money, and Kilburn announced, with a curious kind of pride, "I'll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama's filthy money."

Until that moment, I didn't fully realize how deeply what Obama's been trying to do had penetrated the entire country, and how deeply it had sunk into the lizard brain that had controlled American society for the previous eight years. On January 20, Barack Obama became president of a deranged nation. He did so apparently taking no notice of the fact that a good portion of the country, a country that otherwise repeatedly voiced its support for him in poll after poll after poll, continued to be completely out of its mind. He was calm and reasoned, and he spoke in measured tones about the challenges he and the nation were facing. And then he seemed to go manic on us.

Early this year, he put together an economic team full of Clintonian retreads and fashioned an economic plan that somehow joined John Maynard Keynes and Charles Schwab, arguing for economic stimulus spending while simultaneously hiring some overfed foxes — Larry Summers? Again? Is there a hiring hall somewhere for these people where they all sit around and wait for administrations to change? — to watch a chicken coop that their own economic philosophies helped burn to the ground. He went to Europe and wowed the crowds. He scored the biggest victory won by an American president over pirates since Thomas Jefferson. He got his kids a dog.

One week in early April, he got up before the country and said that it was time for comprehensive reform of the immigration laws, an issue guaranteed to inflame the passions of a goodly number of his fellow citizens to no good effect. A week later, he made a pitch for high-speed rail transportation. He went to Europe to mend fences, and he went to Latin America and told them that it's time to build bridges again, even to Cuba. He'll be on to health-care reform any day now. There isn't a single major public issue of the past twenty years that he hasn't at least addressed, and he's acted on most of them. At the same time, he shifted his promise to reinstate the ban on assault weapons to the back burner, and he was noticeably dilatory on the subject of the torture that had been carried out under the administration prior to his. If it's possible to move judiciously and precipitously at the same time, Obama managed to find a way to do it.

And what happened? Well, he got a lot of what he asked for, but he did so in the same deranged country out onto which he gazed in the third week in January, so nobody was entirely sure what had been accomplished. It all went by too fast. He was asking for feats of long-term memory in a country with a nasty case of ADD. By the time he was talking about immigration and supertrains, the political culture was still trying to figure out what he was up to with his economic plan. The putative opposition, the Republican party, had gone out of what was left of its mind. On April 15, all around the country, there was an inchoate outburst of public disapproval. There were caricatures of him dressed as Hitler and as Lenin, which is a considerable, if utterly ahistorical, parlay. There was the spectacle of thousands of lower-middle-class people making the noise of hundreds and expressing outrage that Obama intended to raise the marginal tax rate on people making more than $250,000 a year to somewhere around where it was during Ronald Reagan's second term. It was a pathetically thin if noisy spasm of ill-conceived outrage. And then, at last, there was Commissioner Kilburn, acting as though he were being asked to accept a briefcase full of unmarked hundreds from Pablo Escobar instead of being asked to take some of his state's own federal tax dollars back in order to make sure his elderly constituents had an easier time getting to the Wal-Mart.

That's when it became clear what Obama had done. By acting so quickly on so many things, he had forced upon his political opposition a kind of instant obsolescence. He had arranged things so that the country could look at the contortions of the lizard brain in comparison with the frenzy of political activity, and those contortions looked tepid and ineffectual, something out of a different and slower time. Say what you will about the policy implications of seeming to do everything at once. Politically, it came onto his opponents like Stonewall Jackson's soldiers pouring out of the forest at Chancellorsville. The basic, important subtext to what so bothered Commissioner Kilburn and so convinced me was that, Jesus, this guy's liable to do anything. In a radically different context, Richard Nixon once called this the "madman" strategy.

Think about it. Jack Kennedy told us we were going to the moon, but he gave us a decade to do it, which might as well be a century, the way we look at politics today. Bill Clinton came into office wanting to do everything, but he chose to try to do everything one thing at a time. His opponents realized that if they could jam him on the early stuff — health care, certainly, but before that, gays in the military — they could gum up his whole agenda until he began to trip over his own ****, figuratively and otherwise. They forced a small-scale presidency on a man desperately in love with big ideas until he said "The era of big government is over" in front of Congress because it was more dignified than saying "uncle." If nothing else can be said of Barack Obama's first days in office, it can be said that what Clinton said about big government was at best considerably premature. The sudden reemergence of big government left all the people who'd built their careers on what they perceived was its grave — and there are nearly as many Democrats about which this can be said as there are Republicans — scrambling to dust off arguments that they never thought they'd have to use again. ("Socialism!" hasn't gotten this kind of workout since the death of Robert Taft.) They may never catch up with the sheer velocity of what they're trying to stop. The received wisdom was that big government was clumsy and moved too slow. Obama has turned that wisdom on its head. Big government is now too fast and agile for the people who want it to die. They can't get a clear shot at it anymore.

It is an accelerated age. Everything moves faster. We have grown accustomed to speed and, though we may rail against all those things that have been lost because they couldn't keep up, we have accepted the acceleration that our technologies have brought to every aspect of our lives, including our politics and what we expect from them. Political dilemmas arise in the wink of a pixel. Crises erupt instantly and all at once together. Obama may be the first politician to grasp fully the implications of this, and he has used that realization to his consummate advantage. He's fashioning political leadership to this accelerated age, making energy and forward movement something very close to an ideology in and of itself, the way Kennedy used the burgeoning technological promise of the Space Age to energize his New Frontier.

Of course, Obama's doing so in a political context of accumulated inherited crises — a financial catastrophe, two wars of dubious prospect, a vandalized constitution, and a fundamental unease with the American identity that had its roots in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the country's panicked reaction to them and the exploitation of that reaction by the greedy and the amoral — the way that Franklin Roosevelt addressed the myriad issues arising from the Great Depression. He is trying everything in order to see what works. He has lashed New Deal politics to New Frontier "vigah" and thrown the whole thing into overdrive to meet the challenges of an accelerated age. In doing so, he is attempting to solve the crisis in American identity by dealing all at once with the more concrete crises that he's inherited. In doing so, he is reestablishing the American identity as a people who can solve the problems of their own making.

And so far, the country has followed him; an AP poll in late spring showed that, for the first time in a long while, more Americans believed the country was headed in the right direction than otherwise. This has had the effect of squeezing the opposition down to its craziest essentials until it now looks like a sharp, clear diamond of pure insanity. That's where Commissioner Kilburn comes in, but he's not alone. The Republican governor of Texas talked seriously about secession, which worked out so well for the country the last time. A Republican congresswoman from Minnesota proposed a constitutional amendment to keep the dollar as the official U. S. currency in perpetuity, because she thought an international cabal was trying to replace it with the euro, or the franc, or perhaps live chickens. Who could say? Other Republican politicians declined to comment without getting a "Mother, may I?" from Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News found a ratings bonanza in a raving lunatic named Glenn Beck, who is what the Peter Finch character in Network would have been had the movie been written by fourteen gibbering marmosets. Not only is there no serious opposition left to what Obama is doing, there isn't even any effective opposition to it, a curious distinction that a number of Republicans made their careers on during the Clinton years. Obama has not only outpaced the serious ideological objections to what he has done; he's also neutered the ridiculous ones, which often can do far more damage.

Obama has outpaced it all, and he has brought much of the country with him, albeit groaning as its atrophied muscles of self-government are thrown all at once into a kind of sprint. It may not last. The country had been adrift for so long that it may not have the stamina to keep up with the dizzying agenda that is being put before it. It may well have forgotten how to debate three things at once, or how to keep four thoughts about five things in its head at the same time. But that is what it is being asked to do again — to live up to what had become the hollowest of its boasts during a period in which a president cut our taxes during wartime and asked us to face down our enemies by heading to the mall. It was leadership by lassitude and misdirection. For such an allegedly epochal time, events seemed to slow down, largely because so much was done behind closed doors. There was no perceptible movement because few people were allowed to see what was really going on. This past six months has been different. The pace of what Barack Obama has done — and the number of things he has tried to do — has forced a renewed sense of civic involvement on all of us, if only to simply keep up, if only so that we don't sound ignorant at cocktail parties, or on unemployment lines.

So is Obama crazy? Good question.

Some people — they call themselves "birthers" — who believe that the president is Kenyan-born and so not eligible to be president (and also in unicorns) have made it their cause to mandate that future presidents establish their Americanness beyond the shadow of a doubt before being allowed to offer themselves as national candidates. But after the last eight years, it is the sanity of the president that we ought to be more inclined to care about. If there were no other baseline qualification for the job, it should be that one. Of lesser concern during times when presidents aspire to do small things, certainly, but as we find ourselves at present in the maelstrom of the Obama Revolution, we can only hope that the president is as sober as he appears to be. For he may have campaigned on hope, but he's governed with implacable audacity.

 

[RBM]

I saw his best friend Rev Wright on my screen earlier. Didnt hear the story though

Anybody?

 

[urbanhack]

**Angry White Male Alert**

 

[Statorama]

**Angry White Male Alert**

 

[SteevieG]

Mr. Obama is, sadly, showing that he is in WAYYYYY over his head.

 

[TheFanatic]

Net increases in the last week:strongly approve 10mildly approve 5mildly disapprove 3strongly disapprove 6neutral/no opinion 0Keep up the good work!

New Aliases registered this week: 18Wonder where those votes went?

Wait, when this poll was weighted with about 3 times as many strongly dissaprove than the rest of the population of the U.S. (by percentage) I brought up the notion of aliai being used and was scoffed at. But now that it leans the other way, then there are definitely aliai in use Hey, Stat, why not go outside? See the sky other than via a jpg. Don't worry, Obama is not going to be waiting at the edge of your yard to take your gun and make you property part of a communal property scheme to put everyone on equal footing. Seriously, what a sad life you lead. There has to be some other hobby out there for you other than bashing the president. I mean even Jim11 is starting to point at you and snicker....

 

[Statorama]

Obama compared to Putin

No. 2 House Republican compares Obama to Putin

Jun 11 06:48 PM US/Eastern

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The No. 2 Republican in the House on Thursday compared President Barack Obama's plans for the auto industry to the policies of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, saying the White House has stripped credit holders of rights and given them to Democratic allies.

"They said, 'Set aside the rule of law, let's strip secured creditors, bondholders, of their rights. Take them away outside of the bankruptcy process and give them to the political cronies and the auto workers' unions," Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"It's almost like looking at Putin's Russia," added Canton, the GOP's House whip. "You want to reward your political friends at the expense of the certainty of law?"

The Obama administration this week set bonus limits on companies that have received billions of dollars in federal bailout money and appointed a "special master" with power to reject pay plans he deems excessive.

Conservatives eagerly compare such government "meddling" and Obama's governing style to leaders half a world away.

"Like Obama, Putin has a fawning media that is intimidated by an uncertain marketplace and looking for any help to stay afloat," John Feehery, a conservative consultant and veteran House Republican spokesman, wrote Wednesday on his blog.

In a wide-ranging interview, Cantor said that Obama's economic rescue plans and Democrats' sweeping overhaul of the health care system will sour with recession-weary voters before the 2010 midterm elections. He predicted Republicans will retake control of the House.

While acknowledging that Democrats may well have the votes to push Obama's health plan through Congress with few or no Republican votes, "it will be at a huge political cost," Cantor said.

"The Democratic agenda is unraveling," he said, elucidating what's become the Republicans' main talking point in recent weeks. "My sense is by November of 2010, (there will be) an electorate that really wants to see a check and a balance on unfettered power."

Democrats enjoy a 256-178 majority in the House, with one vacancy. Republicans would have to have a net gain of 40 seats in November 2010 to reclaim a majority. Cantor said they would begin by looking at the 49 districts that voted for Republican John McCain for president last year but are represented by Democrats.

Republicans are in a titanic struggle over who speaks for the GOP and what the party stands for, conservative principles alone or a "big tent" approach that can accommodate centrist members in the name of growth. Focusing on conservative principles cost the GOP a Senate seat when Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party, putting Obama's party in reach of a crucial 60-seat Senate majority.

The most visible Republicans at present have been deeply unpopular outside the GOP's conservative base: former Vice President **** Cheney, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"The issue for us is rebuilding a governing majority that is comfortable with differences that can transcend the divisiveness and unify behind the principles that we know our party has succeeded on," namely limited government and individual rights, Cantor said.

 

[Statorama]

Hey, Stat, why not go outside? See the sky other than via a jpg. Don't worry, Obama is not going to be waiting at the edge of your yard to take your gun and make you property part of a communal property scheme to put everyone on equal footing.

That's why I don't play this character on weekends.

 

[perry147]

Obama compared to Putin

No. 2 House Republican compares Obama to Putin

Jun 11 06:48 PM US/Eastern

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The No. 2 Republican in the House on Thursday compared President Barack Obama's plans for the auto industry to the policies of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, saying the White House has stripped credit holders of rights and given them to Democratic allies.

"They said, 'Set aside the rule of law, let's strip secured creditors, bondholders, of their rights. Take them away outside of the bankruptcy process and give them to the political cronies and the auto workers' unions," Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"It's almost like looking at Putin's Russia," added Canton, the GOP's House whip. "You want to reward your political friends at the expense of the certainty of law?"

The Obama administration this week set bonus limits on companies that have received billions of dollars in federal bailout money and appointed a "special master" with power to reject pay plans he deems excessive.

Conservatives eagerly compare such government "meddling" and Obama's governing style to leaders half a world away.

"Like Obama, Putin has a fawning media that is intimidated by an uncertain marketplace and looking for any help to stay afloat," John Feehery, a conservative consultant and veteran House Republican spokesman, wrote Wednesday on his blog.

In a wide-ranging interview, Cantor said that Obama's economic rescue plans and Democrats' sweeping overhaul of the health care system will sour with recession-weary voters before the 2010 midterm elections. He predicted Republicans will retake control of the House.

While acknowledging that Democrats may well have the votes to push Obama's health plan through Congress with few or no Republican votes, "it will be at a huge political cost," Cantor said.

"The Democratic agenda is unraveling," he said, elucidating what's become the Republicans' main talking point in recent weeks. "My sense is by November of 2010, (there will be) an electorate that really wants to see a check and a balance on unfettered power."

Democrats enjoy a 256-178 majority in the House, with one vacancy. Republicans would have to have a net gain of 40 seats in November 2010 to reclaim a majority. Cantor said they would begin by looking at the 49 districts that voted for Republican John McCain for president last year but are represented by Democrats.

Republicans are in a titanic struggle over who speaks for the GOP and what the party stands for, conservative principles alone or a "big tent" approach that can accommodate centrist members in the name of growth. Focusing on conservative principles cost the GOP a Senate seat when Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party, putting Obama's party in reach of a crucial 60-seat Senate majority.

The most visible Republicans at present have been deeply unpopular outside the GOP's conservative base: former Vice President **** Cheney, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"The issue for us is rebuilding a governing majority that is comfortable with differences that can transcend the divisiveness and unify behind the principles that we know our party has succeeded on," namely limited government and individual rights, Cantor said.

No, Bush was far more like Putin with the domestic spying, torture memos and egotistical sense of grandeur.He must have gotten the two confused.

 

[Statorama]

Lots of Hope but very little Change : Obama backtracking on regulatory reform

Is Obama Flubbing the Financial Fix?

The Administration's backtracking on regulatory reform has some critics saying that a rare opportunity is being squandered]/b]

By Jane Sasseen

Old habits die hard—especially bad ones, and especially when they're backed by well-heeled lobbyists and a powerful congressional committee chairman.

It was hard not to draw that conclusion over the past week, as Wall Street and Washington alike prepared for President Barack Obama's much-anticipated June 17 speech outlining the Administration's proposals to overhaul financial regulations. Despite the promise of tough reforms from the President and his top economic officials, the Administration—in its decision to put off tough political battles over regulatory turf and reining in executive pay—appeared to be backing away from the stiffest moves that were on the table.

With the worst of the crisis appearing to recede, the political will to take on those tough constituencies appeared to be fading as well. With it may go a once-in-a-generation opportunity to aggressively tackle some badly needed changes in the U.S. financial system.

"Is the drive for reform losing steam? Yes, absolutely," says Daniel Clifton, a Washington-based policy analyst at institutional broker Strategas Research Partners. With Congress signaling that it is unlikely to act on the President's financial-system reforms until the fall, Clifton and other observers warn that this week's regulatory plan could be highly vulnerable to attack for five months. Short of an unexpectedly sharp return of crisis in the financial sector, which would force the Administration and Congress to conclude that the costs of retaining much of the status quo intact are too high, Clifton believes the push for reform "will lose a lot more momentum by October."

The aim of the Administration's regulatory plan, largely developed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is to create a more effective and powerful regulatory structure that would have a better chance of preventing the sort of unseen and out-of-control financial excesses that brought about the current global crisis. In an op ed article in the June 15 Washington Post, Geithner and Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, said their goal is "to create a more stable regulatory regime that is flexible and effective; that is able to secure the benefits of financial innovation while guarding the system against its own excess." The plan will try to rein in systemic risk by "raising capital and liquidity requirements for all institutions, with more stringent requirements for the largest and most interconnected firms." It will give the Federal Reserve the power to unwind financial holding companies whose failure could threaten the world's economy. And it will try to strengthen consumer and investor protections on products ranging from "credit cards to annuities."

needed: a systemic risk regulator

Much of the debate has focused on the need to create one overarching regulator with the broad authority to prevent the buildup of systemwide risk. The lack of such a "systemic risk regulator" made it harder for the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and other banking regulators to foresee the crisis and take steps to prevent it. And regulators from Geithner on down have also argued that it made things far more difficult for them to react quickly and effectively when the credit system seized up.

Just as important, debate has also centered on how best to modernize the overlapping, often ineffective regulatory structure that now oversees the financial sector. Today, for example, four different—and often competing—regulators oversee the banking sector. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) this surplus of agencies, all failed in varying degrees to prevent the excessive risk-taking and poor practices that led to the crisis. Moreover, the sense that some agencies were easier than others on their charges allowed some financial institutions to engage in "regulatory arbitrage" in search of the overseer that interfered least in their operations.

That's why a wide range of analysts and policymakers in recent months have argued that this hodgepodge of different agencies needs to be consolidated, with clearer lines of authority and stronger regulatory rules. And, in a series of leaks and trial balloons that have hit the headlines in recent weeks, the Administration appears to have considered such a wide-ranging consolidation. But the White House apparently has tabled that consolidation for now—and the reasons for that reassessment are ominous for the prospects of attaining effective reform.

Not surprisingly, such plans sparked strong behind-the-scenes opposition from many in the financial-services industry who want to hold off radical change. Despite the industry's weakened position, it remains an enormous fund-raising source and still holds enormous sway with many on Capitol Hill. Plus, consolidating the regulatory structure would also mean reallocating the authority of the various congressional oversight committees. It may make little sense in the modern financial world for the Commodities Futures Trade Commission to continue to regulate financial derivatives, along with the agricultural derivatives—pork bellies, corn futures and the like—that it was originally mandated to oversee. But giving up sway over those financial products would also mean a big cutback in the power, influence, and fund-raising prospects of the agricultural committees that oversee them in the House and Senate.

congress rushes to shield power and pork

No sooner did reports emerge that the Administration was considering such a move than powerful congressional voices such as Barney Frank, head of the House Financial Services Committee, threw cold water on the idea. "If S&L crisis wasn't enough to radically overhaul how we regulate banks, this won't be, either," says Jaret Seiberg, a financial-services policy analyst at Washington Research Group, referring to the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis. "There are entrenched political interests in favor of the status quo; they have no interest in radical reform."

As a result, the Administration now seems to be backing away from its original reform plans. Instead, it will likely ask the Fed to take on the powerful new role of systemic risk regulator, while leaving most of the various other agencies intact. Rather than eliminating the regulatory redundancies and strengthening the survivors, Geithner plans to rely on implementing stiffer rules to improve how the regulators oversee their charges.

The question, of course, is whether that will be enough. Many are far from convinced. Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund who has been sharply critical of the Administration's approach to the banking crisis, argues in a recent post on his widely read blog that the planned reforms are far too timid. "The wave of 'reforms' this fall will likely not solve anything," he says. Instead, Johnson argues, the U.S. is simply at the beginning of what could be a 5- to 10-year fight to change the structure of economic and political power of the financial sector in the U.S. to ensure that "it can never again run us into a crisis that results in doubling the national debt."

Greg Valliere, chief Washington policy strategist at independent equity researcher Soleil Securities, thinks the systemic risk regulator may be more aggressive than many in the financial sector are expecting. But he, too, believes the Administration is throwing away a broader chance for reform. "I do think it's a missed opportunity if we continue to have the whole alphabet soup of agencies," Valliere says.

once bogged down, it's tough to un-bog

Does the Administration's apparent pullback represent capitulation to powerful forces that oppose change, or is it simply a smart political tactic that will allow the Administration to achieve many of its goals now and come back for more later when they might be more politically achievable?

"The congressional reaction has to play into their decision-making. Obama is not king; he's the President," says Clifton. Add too many devisive elements to the package, and pretty soon the coalition of interests gunning to shoot it down will be far larger than the coalition willing to support it. Don Ogilvie, the independent chairman of Deloitte's Center for Banking Solutions and a former CEO of the American Bankers Assn., has a similar take: "People in key positions…said 'that's going to be a fight,' and fights take a long time in Washington." Citing "the old 80-20 rule," Ogilvie argues that it's easier to get 80% of something done if you leave behind the 20% that would take 80% of the effort to accomplish.

"If you want to get something done in Washington, it's always a good idea to get it done quickly," says Ogilvie, "because if it bogs down, it tends to be pretty difficult to un-bog."

Geithner adamantly denies that the recovery and a diminishing sense of crisis are lowering the impetus for reform. "I don't see any signs of that yet," he said at a press briefing before leaving for the G-8 talks over the weekend.

And following those talks in Italy, Geithner reiterated his commitment to a strong package of reforms to lessen the risks both at home and abroad. The Administration's upcoming proposals will not only include comprehensive reforms for the U.S., Geithner said in a statement, they will also offer more conservative standards for oversight of the most active international financial institutions as well as global markets such as derivatives.

"Because risk does not respect borders, we will put forward several international proposals in our reform package that will help to raise standards globally," Geithner said.

obama's m.o.: Lots of Talk, Less Action?

Still, some critics sense that the Administration is about to fumble an opportunity—and follow a pattern increasingly seen throughout this Administration's policy agenda: strong language followed by actions that appear far weaker than the rhetoric.

Take the Administration's new proposals on executive pay. For months, officials from the President on down have been talking about the need for wide-ranging changes to the executive-pay practices they believe contributed to the financial crisis. Yet when Geithner announced a series of proposals on June 10 aimed at reigning in excessive compensation and ensuring that pay structures don't encourage traders and executives to take excessive risks to boost short-term pay at the expense of the long-term stability of their companies, the measures were much less stringent than many had expected—or corporate executives had feared.

"They've proven to be fairly moderate in this area," says Michael S. Melbinger, head of the compensation practice at Chicago's Winston & Strawn, who says the measures don't go much beyond what is already becoming best practice at many companies. Moreover, despite backing for legislation that would authorize shareholders to hold nonbinding votes on executive compensation packages—so-called say on pay measures—and tighten requirements for members of board compensation committees, it is far from clear how the Administration's proposals would truly limit the risk-taking and poor judgment that led to big pay packets followed by the collapse of many financial firms.

"The Administration has put forth several principles for executive compensation that should be followed, but people have understood these principles for a long time," says Jesse Fried, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and co-author of Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation. "It can't hurt to have the Treasury Secretary repeat them, though mere repetition is not that helpful. Unless the balance of power between shareholders and executives shifts, I don't see any change coming."

still encouraging debt-driven consumption

Or look at the frequent talk, since the crisis began, of the need to rebalance the U.S. economy away from consumption toward encouragement of more savings and more investment. Over the long run, few quibble any more with the notion that debt-laden U.S. consumers can no longer be the primary engine for growth not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy as well. But while there is much talk of the long-term need to reduce consumption to sustainable levels, in the short run little or nothing is being done to encourage that shift.

Quite the contrary: Current policies seem designed to get consumers to crank up the debt and consumption machines again. That's the inevitable outcome of current proposals to offer large tax credits for first-time home buyers—even those with little or no savings to make a down payment—or encourage car owners to turn in their old clunkers by subsidizing the purchase of a new car. While certainly useful for getting the economy going in the short term, such moves would do little to spur the inevitable cutbacks in debt that are required.

"Consumer spending is over 70% of GDP. Obama is not going to let it drop to 65%," says Clifton. "He can do the right thing and let the consumer deleverage—and he can also be a one-term President. It's not going to happen."

This isn't solely an American phenomenon. As the sense of crisis recedes, similar questions are arising across the globe over whether governments will pull back from needed changes. As much as the U.S. needs to boost its savings and investment, a healthier global economy will also require the Chinese to lessen their dependence on exports and put more into domestic consumption. While many in China's leadership see a need for fundamental reforms, there are also plenty of others who believe that as the worst of the crisis passes, nothing that extensive is needed.

"Like any leadership, there are people in government there who hope that things will just go back to the way they were," says one senior U.S. Administration official. That could be said of many in the U.S. government as well.

 

[TheFanatic]

Hey, Stat, why not go outside? See the sky other than via a jpg. Don't worry, Obama is not going to be waiting at the edge of your yard to take your gun and make you property part of a communal property scheme to put everyone on equal footing.

That's why I don't play this character on weekends.

Riiiiggghhhhttttt.... Don't you have your own thread you are supposed to be playing in rather than this one?

 

[Statorama]

Hey, Stat, why not go outside? See the sky other than via a jpg. Don't worry, Obama is not going to be waiting at the edge of your yard to take your gun and make you property part of a communal property scheme to put everyone on equal footing.

That's why I don't play this character on weekends.

Riiiiggghhhhttttt.... Don't you have your own thread you are supposed to be playing in rather than this one?

That's on another board.Back to the show!....

Obama has whistleblower fired

Gerald Walpin speaks: The inside story of the AmeriCorps firing

By: Byron York

Chief Political Correspondent

06/14/09 7:00 PM EDT

Dispute that resulted in firing involved stimulus money

Also: See UPDATE below; Grassley protests, demands information, including any role of First Lady

The White House's decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin came amid politically-charged tensions inside the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that runs AmeriCorps. Top executives at the Corporation, Walpin explained in an hour-long interview Saturday, were unhappy with his investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama. Walpin's investigation also sparked conflict with the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento amid fears that the probe -- which could have resulted in Johnson being barred from ever winning another federal grant -- might stand in the way of the city receiving its part of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. After weeks of standoff, Walpin, whose position as inspector general is supposed to be protected from influence by political appointees and the White House, was fired.

Walpin learned his fate Wednesday night. He was driving to an event in upstate New York when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform. "He said, 'Mr. Walpin, the president wants me to tell you that he really appreciates your service, but it's time to move on,'" Walpin recalls. "Eisen said, 'You can either resign, or I'll tell you that we'll have to terminate you.'"

At that moment, Walpin says, he had finished not only a report on the Sacramento probe but also an investigation into extensive misuse of AmeriCorps money by the City University of New York, which is AmeriCorps' biggest program. Walpin says he told Eisen that, given those two investigations, neither of which was well-received by top Corporation management, the timing of his firing seemed "very interesting." According to Walpin, Eisen said it was "pure coincidence." When Walpin asked for some time to consider what to do, Eisen gave him one hour. "Then he called back in 45 minutes and asked for my response," Walpin recalls.

The method of Walpin's firing could be a violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which requires the president to give Congress 30 days' notice, plus an explanation of cause, before firing an inspector general. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was a co-sponsor of that legislation. In the case of Walpin, Eisen's efforts to force Walpin to resign could be seen as an effort to push Walpin out of his job so that the White House would not have to go through the 30-day process or give a reason for its action. When Walpin refused to quit, the White House informed Congress and began the 30-day countdown.

Eisen's phone call came after months of increasing conflict inside the Corporation for National and Community Service. "We issued two reports that the management of the Corporation and the board of directors didn’t like, because they criticized what the board was doing," Walpin recalls. There is no question that Walpin discovered misuse of federal money in Kevin Johnson's program, known as St. HOPE, and at City University of New York. But as a result of those investigations, relations between Walpin and top executives became frosty, and he says they cut him out of Corporation business that should normally include the inspector general.

The heart of the matter is a dispute that began last year over Walpin's recommendation that Johnson and St. HOPE be barred from receiving and using federal grant money. The process is known as "suspension and debarment," meaning that Johnson would be suspended from receiving federal funds under any current arrangement and might ultimately be barred from receiving any such funds in the future. "The whole purpose of suspension and debarment," Walpin says, "is to say that somebody who was involved in the misuse of government funds in the past should not be trusted with federal funds in the future."

In the course of his investigation, Walpin found Johnson and St. HOPE had failed to use the federal money they received for the purposes specified in the grant and had also used federally-funded AmeriCorps staff for, among other things, "driving [Johnson] to personal appointments, washing his car, and running personal errands." Walpin came to the conclusion that Johnson and St. HOPE should be subject to suspension and debarment. But it was not Walpin's decision to make; there is another official at the Corporation whose job it is to make that call. In September 2008, after reviewing Walpin's evidence, the official decided to order a suspension, with the distinct possibility that it would lead to a permanent debarment.

That was during the Sacramento mayoral campaign, and the suspension quickly became a matter of controversy. Johnson's critics raised the possibility that, as mayor, the suspension would mean the city could not receive federal funds. Johnson dismissed the matter. "That's absurd," he told the Sacramento Bee. "As mayor, I'm going to go out there and shake down as many resources as I can for Sacramento."

But the issue did not go away after Johnson defeated the incumbent mayor and took office. It became far more pressing in late January, when Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill and Sacramento officials hoped that millions of federal dollars would soon arrive. Johnson's suspension seemed like an insurmountable obstacle to getting all that money. On March 21, the Sacramento Bee reported that, "The city of Sacramento likely is barred from getting federal money -- including tens of millions the city is expecting from the new stimulus package -- because Mayor Kevin Johnson is on a list of individuals forbidden from receiving federal funds, according to a leading attorney the city commissioned to look into the issue." The issue was explosive. What if there were all that federal money raining down and Sacramento couldn't get any because its mayor had been found to have misused federal money in the past?

As this was happening, the matter was also under consideration by the local U.S. attorney's office after Walpin referred the matter to the office for a criminal inquiry. Since January of this year, the office has been headed by an acting U.S. attorney, Lawrence Brown, a career prosecutor who took over after the departure of the previous, Bush-appointed U.S. attorney. The office decided not to pursue criminal charges against Johnson, but also entered into settlement talks with Johnson and St. HOPE. What resulted was, according to Walpin, highly unusual.

Settlement talks would normally cover the issue of whether Johnson would be required to give the misused federal funds back to the government. But amid the frenzy surrounding the possible denial of federal stimulus funds, Brown wanted to negotiate not only some sort of repayment scheme but also an end to Johnson's suspension. Walpin learned about that during a March telephone conversation with Brown. "He said he wanted to settle," Walpin recalls, "and he said that lifting the suspension had to be part of it because that was the 800-pound gorilla in the way of a settlement."

Walpin was adamantly opposed to a lifting of the suspension; after all, he had recommended that Johnson not only be suspended but be barred for receiving future federal funds. Walpin says that after that, he was cut out of the settlement talks; Brown worked directly with top officials of the Corporation, who seemed eager to work out a deal in a case involving a high-profile Obama supporter and lots of stimulus money. (The Corporation is now headed by Alan Solomont, a philanthropist and Democratic fundraiser appointed by President Obama.)

Together, Brown and the top Corporation brass negotiated a deal. Johnson and St. HOPE would pay back about half of the $850,000 in AmeriCorps grant money it had received, and the suspension against Johnson would be lifted.

Walpin was very unhappy. First of all, he said it was a terrible deal for the U.S. government, because St. HOPE was essentially insolvent and would never pay the money back.[/b Second, he felt lifting Johnson's suspension would dilute the effectiveness of future investigations; why should grant recipients worry about their misconduct if any sanctions can be so easily lifted? In the end, Johnson was not suspended, not debarred, and was probably not going to pay the vast majority of the money back.

Walpin told the Corporation's board of directors of his opinion. He told other officials. And he sent a report to Congress. "I was bringing Congress in to try to get its assistance in putting a spotlight on this," he says.

Walpin's actions undoubtedly angered top officials at the Corporation, and most likely at the White House as well. It would not be long before he was summarily dismissed. But he has no regrets. Whatever happens, he wrote recently, he is proud that he "refused to go along with the U.S. attorney's office and the Corporation in bowing to the media and political pressure that resulted in this hasty settlement, contrary to the interests of the United States government."

For background on the Walpin firing, read my earlier story here.

UPDATE: Grassley protests, demands information, including any role of First Lady

Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, has sent a letter to Alan Solomont, head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps. Describing Walpin's work as "legitimate" and "meritorious," Grassley expressed concern that Walpin was fired in part for complaining to Congress about interference in the St. HOPE probe by the top management of the Corporation. "I am very concerned about the appearance that the IG’s communication with my office about this matter may have contributed to his removal," Grassley wrote to Solomont. "Inspectors General have a statutory duty to report to Congress. Intimidation or retaliation against those who freely communicate their concerns to Members of the House and Senate cannot be tolerated. This is especially true when such concerns are as legitimate and meritorious as Mr. Walpin’s appear to be."

Saying that "it is vital that Congress obtain a full understanding of the role that you and your colleagues at [the Corporation] played in these matters," Grassley asked Solomont to provide all records, email, documents, and other communications relating to Walpin's firing. He specifically asked for Corporation records involving contacts with the U.S. attorney's office, the White House, and the Office of the First Lady. "No records related to these matters shall be destroyed or otherwise made inaccessible to Congress," Grassley wrote. For the full text of Grassley's letter, see below.

Dear Mr. Solomont:

As a senior member of the United States Senate and as the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Finance (Committee), it is my duty under the Constitution to conduct oversight into the actions of the executive branch, including the activities of the Corporation for National and Community Service (Corporation). In this capacity, I must ensure that the Corporation properly fulfills its mission of addressing a critical community need as the nation’s largest grantor supporting service and volunteering organization, as well as maintaining adequate accountability of millions of dollars in Federal funds.

An issue was recently brought to my attention by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), which concerns the misuse of Federal grant funding by St. HOPE Academy, a grantee of the Corporation. The investigation conducted by the OIG found evidence of the misuse of $850,000 of Federal grant funds provided to St. HOPE Academy from 2004 to 2007. It was reported that this particular investigation was contentious. Furthermore, according to some recent reports this investigation may have been a contributing factor in the decision to remove Inspector General Gerald Walpin. I am very concerned about the appearance that the IG’s communication with my office about this matter may have contributed to his removal. Inspectors General have a statutory duty to report to Congress. Intimidation or retaliation against those who freely communicate their concerns to Members of the House and Senate cannot be tolerated. This is especially true when such concerns are as legitimate and meritorious as Mr. Walpin’s appear to be.

In September 2008, after reviewing the facts that the OIG investigation presented, the Corporation’s Debarment and Suspension Official (Official) determined that the grantee’s two principals, Kevin Johnson and Dana Gonzalez were responsible for six acts of diverting grant funds to non-grant purposes, and found that “immediate action is necessary to protect the public interest.” In total about $850,000 was misused.

As a result, the OIG requested that the Official suspend all future Federal grant funding to both St. HOPE Academy and Kevin Johnson and Dana Gonzales individually. The Official ultimately suspended St. HOPE Academy and its principals “from participating in Federal procurement and non procurement programs and activities.” None of the respondents exercised their right to submit facts objecting to the suspension.

On April 9, 2009, a settlement lifting the suspension was executed by the Corporation’s General Counsel (GC), the designated Corporation Official, and the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California (USAO). For reasons that I do not yet understand, the OIG was excluded from this proceeding and the settlement lifting the suspension, was done in complete disregard of the OIG’s findings, as well as the previous determination of wrong doing identified in the Notice of Suspension. Perhaps the settlement agreement was reached without any input from the OIG, because less than half of what was misused by the Corporation grantees is being returned to the taxpayer and the OIG would not have agreed to this arrangement. In fact, an argument can be made that not even half of the misused funds is being returned, because the settlement does not require that payment in full be made. Rather the settlement places the grantees on a type of payment plan that will occur over a decade; to date less than 10% of the misused money has been recovered.

Not only did the evidence demonstrate that Johnson, Gonzalez, and St. HOPE misused about $850,000 in Federal grant funds, but they also acknowledged that they did not document the expenditures as required. And yet, Mr. Johnson continues to have access to Federal funds through the city of Sacramento, primarily because the settlement agreement ignored the Suspension and Debarment procedures {(2C.F.R §§180.700(b), 180.800 (a)(4),(b)} that the Federal Government put into place in order to prevent such grant misuse. These procedures are intended to protect Federal agencies by making the grantee’s accountable for the misuse of Federal funds under their control. Based upon the documents in my possession, it seems that the facts of this investigation were substantially disregarded and the blatant waste of federal taxpayer dollars were handled with little more than a slap on the wrist. In the St. HOPE matter, Mr. Johnson, rather than paying for legitimate expenses under the program, he used the AmeriCorps members, paid for with taxpayers’ hard-earned money, to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands, and wash his car. Now, and because of the favorable settlement, Mr. Johnson can have access to millions of taxpayer dollars as the mayor of Sacramento.

After conducting the investigation into the grant fund misuse and then referring the case to the USAO, the OIG was excluded during the settlement arrangement. The OIG subsequently objected to the settlement arrangement by the USAO for obvious reasons. Moreover, according to documents in my possession, St. HOPE Board members ignored a Federal subpoena and erased Mr. Johnson’s emails during the course of investigation. This was discovered after Mr. Johnson’s replacement as Executive Director of St. HOPE, Rick Maya, resigned on the same date of the Settlement Agreement because of various improprieties and potential obstruction of justice issues by St. HOPE Board Members.

In light of the removal of the Inspector General, it is vital that Congress obtain a full understanding of the role that you and your colleagues at CNCS played in these matters. Accordingly, please provide any and all records, email, memoranda, documents, communications, or other information, whether in draft or final form, related to:

1) the performance of Gerald Walpin as Inspector General;

2) the removal of Gerald Walpin as the Inspector General;

3) contacts with the United States Attorney’s Office;

4) contacts with officials in the Executive Office of the President;

5) contacts with officials in the Office of the First Lady;

6) St. HOPE Academy;

7) Kevin Johnson;

8) or CUNY.

No records related to these matters shall be destroyed or otherwise made inaccessible to Congress. Subsequent to the production of the documents requested above, I request that you provide a detailed briefing to my staff regarding what steps you are taking to ensure that funds are not similarly misused in the future.

Thank you in advance for your prompt attention to this matter. We look forward to hearing from you by no later than June 19, 2009…

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

Ranking Member

Committee on Finance

 

[TheFanatic]

I was doing some political discussions on some forum for the KC newspaper during my hiatus for suggesting a couple of possible titles to a movie Larry Flint was doing with a Palin look alike

There was this guy on the board who would throw our articles all the time to rip this guy or that guy. I really don't remember what side of the aisle he was on but remember that he was WAAAYYYYY on one side of the aisle, whichever side that may be. Well in these articles he would post he really wanted to get his point across and make sure people read certain lines of the article. At first he would change the font color for the really important points to a different color. But that wasn't enough. So then he would use a second color to grab your attention again. Soon he couldn't stress the important points with just two colors so the number of colors kept expanding. Then he used bolding, and italics, underlines, and increased font sizes. Sometimes individually, sometimes all together. In a few short weeks he went from a guy that posted articles and highlighted a couple of key points with different color fonts to someone who's ever post was an article consisting of text in a kaleidoscope colors with multiple combinations of italics, underlined, bolds and increased font sizes.

I'm starting to see that same evolution with Stat here.... GBGB Stat!!!

 

[bueno]

Last week, Obama signed four more bills without first posting them on the web for five days, as he promised during his campaign.

(all kidding aside, this is actually the kind of thing I'm disappointed with about Obama. I bought into the BS that he would make these kinds of things transperant, which I found to be a very refreshing idea. I hadn't really ever heard a candidate for President say he'd do something like that. If Obama could get that started, and get the people used to having that kind of access, every subsequent president would have to continue doing it. We wouldn't tolerate anything less. With his popularity, Obama has the opportunity to usher in a new era of governmental responsibility to the people and he's just not keeping up his end of the bargain.)

True enough.ETA: I'm disappointed he hasn't done it yet but I still hold out hope that somewhere halfway into his presidency he'll turn to more transparent government. Possibly, he thinks it's best to go ahead with what he wants to get pushed through, without the headaches of a public debate on it, or more resistance than necessary, and later on he'll open things up. I don't like it, it's not what he promised, but if he does open it up halfway through, I'll give him partial credit.

I translate this as you saying that he is going to get his personal agenda rammed through in the dark and then make things transparent when he's done. Hypocrisy???

 

[fsword]

Last week, Obama signed four more bills without first posting them on the web for five days, as he promised during his campaign.

(all kidding aside, this is actually the kind of thing I'm disappointed with about Obama. I bought into the BS that he would make these kinds of things transperant, which I found to be a very refreshing idea. I hadn't really ever heard a candidate for President say he'd do something like that. If Obama could get that started, and get the people used to having that kind of access, every subsequent president would have to continue doing it. We wouldn't tolerate anything less. With his popularity, Obama has the opportunity to usher in a new era of governmental responsibility to the people and he's just not keeping up his end of the bargain.)

True enough.ETA: I'm disappointed he hasn't done it yet but I still hold out hope that somewhere halfway into his presidency he'll turn to more transparent government. Possibly, he thinks it's best to go ahead with what he wants to get pushed through, without the headaches of a public debate on it, or more resistance than necessary, and later on he'll open things up. I don't like it, it's not what he promised, but if he does open it up halfway through, I'll give him partial credit.

I translate this as you saying that he is going to get his personal agenda rammed through in the dark and then make things transparent when he's done. Hypocrisy???

Maybe he just wants it harder to undo what he has done if what he has done is a failure? Or, maybe it's the ultimate power play? Too bad he doesn't believe Americans are wise enough to support his NEW ideas and he has to instead ramrod legislation in such a loathsome manner. Too bad he doesn't give American's more credit; but who can blame him when those same Americans were wise enough to elect him.

 

[bueno]

I wish I had the kind of time Stat had. Maybe I just need to invest more in Olin. Or at least in their products.

 

[Parrothead]

Well, according to Biden, his guessing ability really sucks..

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Keep #####ing, fellas. It makes me hopeful.

 

[Statorama]

I was doing some political discussions on some forum for the KC newspaper during my hiatus for suggesting a couple of possible titles to a movie Larry Flint was doing with a Palin look alike

There was this guy on the board who would throw our articles all the time to rip this guy or that guy. I really don't remember what side of the aisle he was on but remember that he was WAAAYYYYY on one side of the aisle, whichever side that may be. Well in these articles he would post he really wanted to get his point across and make sure people read certain lines of the article. At first he would change the font color for the really important points to a different color. But that wasn't enough. So then he would use a second color to grab your attention again. Soon he couldn't stress the important points with just two colors so the number of colors kept expanding. Then he used bolding, and italics, underlines, and increased font sizes. Sometimes individually, sometimes all together. In a few short weeks he went from a guy that posted articles and highlighted a couple of key points with different color fonts to someone who's ever post was an article consisting of text in a kaleidoscope colors with multiple combinations of italics, underlined, bolds and increased font sizes.

I'm starting to see that same evolution with Stat here.... GBGB Stat!!!

I don't have those kinds of font/size skills But hey, here's another article on the Obama scandal

Can Republicans in Congress get to the bottom of President Obama's sudden -- and suspicious -- decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin? The answer is no -- unless some. Democrats show interest in what could possibly be the first scandal, or at least mini-scandal, of the Obama administration.

In dismissing Walpin, the president seemed to trample on the law -- a law he himself had co-sponsored as a senator -- that protects inspectors general from political influence and retribution. In addition, it appears that at least part of the reason Walpin was fired was for the tenacity he showed in investigating misuse of AmeriCorps money by a friend and supporter of the president, Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento, California. Walpin got the goods -- evidence of Johnson's serious misuse of federal dollars -- and the inspector general ended up getting fired for his troubles.

So the Walpin case is just the kind of thing the watchdogs of good government in the House and Senate might investigate. But Democrats enjoy solid majorities in both houses, and thus control what will be investigated, and how any investigation will proceed. As the minority party, Republicans have little power to do anything.

"We can't move something through a committee," says one Republican Senate aide. "We can't issue a subpoena. But we can write letters, and we can jump up and down."

That's pretty much what Republicans are reduced to doing now. They are asking the administration for information -- politely -- and are trying to get the message out through the press. That's all they can do.

They're not particularly optimistic about getting help from the other side. Would Majority Leader Harry Reid really have any interest in a tough probe of a Democratic White House, a Democratic AmeriCorps, and a Democratic mayor who just happens to be a friend of the president?

The committee that would normally be expected to look into the matter would be the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees AmeriCorps. But the chairman is Sen. Edward Kennedy, who in April joined President Obama to celebrate the passage of the $5.7 billion Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which will triple the size of AmeriCorps. Kennedy is highly unlikely to support an investigation that might tarnish his favorite program.

Inspectors general as a whole are watched over by the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, headed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Some Republicans hope -- a little -- that Lieberman will lend a hand, but they're not holding their breath.

The one lawmaker who has shown real interest in investigating the AmeriCorps matter is Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Throughout his career, Grassley has been something of a guardian angel for inspectors general, and he was on the Walpin case from the very beginning.

But Grassley is not just a Republican, he's also on the Senate Finance Committee, which really doesn't have much jurisdiction over this particular matter. So he did what Republicans can do -- he wrote a letter, to Alan Solomont, the former Democratic fundraiser who now heads AmeriCorps.

"It is vital that Congress obtain a full understanding of the role that you and your colleagues…played in these matters," Grassley wrote. "Inspectors General have a statutory duty to report to Congress. Intimidation or retaliation against those who freely communicate their concerns to members of the House and Senate cannot be tolerated. This is especially true when such concerns are as legitimate and meritorious as Mr. Walpin’s appear to be."

Grassley asked AmeriCorps to hand over all records and e-mails and documents and other information about the Walpin firing. But if Grassley is the only one doing the asking, the administration doesn't really have to comply.

In 1993, just after Bill Clinton was elected and Democrats controlled both the House and Senate, a lone Republican congressman, Rep. Bill Clinger, wanted to investigate the suspicious firings of the White House Travel Office staff.

But majority Democrats had no inclination to pursue the matter. Clinger tried and tried, wrote letter after letter, and jumped up and down, but he didn't begin to get results until after November 1994, when Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress.

When it comes to investigating allegations of wrongdoing, Republicans today are right back where they were in 1993.

 

[CrossEyed]

So I see none of Obama's supporters are bothered by the fact that if you do your job and catch an Obama buddy breaking the law your job will be in danger. Hope, change, transparency....baloney.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

So I see none of Obama's supporters are bothered by the fact that if you do your job and catch an Obama buddy breaking the law your job will be in danger. Hope, change, transparency....baloney.

Wait, what are we talking about here?If it's one of Stat's articles, just assume that no one has read it. Seriously...

 

[Statorama]

Mass layoffs in May tie the record set under Obama's watch in March

Remember when we just HAD to get that stimulus package passed? The one that will start trickling money down in 2011-2012 (just in time for the Obama re-election campaign).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of mass layoffs by U.S. employers rose last month to tie a record set in March, according to government data released on Tuesday that suggested the labor market has yet to stabilize.

The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions -- defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer -- increased to 2,933 in May from 2,712 in April, resulting in the loss of 312,880 jobs.

It was the largest loss of jobs connected to mass layoffs on records dating to 1995.

While signs have emerged suggesting the 18-month-old U.S. recession has begun to ease, the labor market continues to deteriorate.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent in May, the highest in nearly 26 years, and economists expect a report on July 2 to show it climbed further to 9.6 percent this month.

The economy has lost six million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Economists polled by Reuters expect the economy shed a further 368,000 jobs in June.

 

[Chadstroma]

Mass layoffs in May tie the record set under Obama's watch in March

Remember when we just HAD to get that stimulus package passed? The one that will start trickling money down in 2011-2012 (just in time for the Obama re-election campaign).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of mass layoffs by U.S. employers rose last month to tie a record set in March, according to government data released on Tuesday that suggested the labor market has yet to stabilize.

The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions -- defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer -- increased to 2,933 in May from 2,712 in April, resulting in the loss of 312,880 jobs.

It was the largest loss of jobs connected to mass layoffs on records dating to 1995.

While signs have emerged suggesting the 18-month-old U.S. recession has begun to ease, the labor market continues to deteriorate.

The U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent in May, the highest in nearly 26 years, and economists expect a report on July 2 to show it climbed further to 9.6 percent this month.

The economy has lost six million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Economists polled by Reuters expect the economy shed a further 368,000 jobs in June.

And that we had to pass it right away because there was no time to read the document and actually debate the merits of it on what had been thrown in there. WE HAVE TO PASS IT NOW OR WE WILL NEVER RECOVER!!!!

 

[tommyboy]

memo to dems/libs/obama-team/sycophant gub'mint hangers-on

you can't spend your way out of debt and you can't have half or more of the people on the government dole. Its just math.

i don't care what party you're in, you need to reduce government spending while at the same time your income goes down. National income is way down, so our spending needs to be reduced accordingly. This is true at the household level, the city level, the county level, the state level and the federal level.

that being said, what happened under Bush and continues times 10 under Obama is an abortion of fiscal responsibility.

 

[bueno]

I remember the liberals being all over Bush at the loss of 2 million jobs. We lose 6 million under a liberal president and not a peep.

 

[tommyboy]

So I see none of Obama's supporters are bothered by the fact that if you do your job and catch an Obama buddy breaking the law your job will be in danger. Hope, change, transparency....baloney.

Wait, what are we talking about here?If it's one of Stat's articles, just assume that no one has read it. Seriously...

we're talking about Obama firing the Inspector General, when its against the law to do so, a law he voted "yes" to pass as a senator actuallyhttp://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared...a_fires_gov.php

 

[tommyboy]

I remember the liberals being all over Bush at the loss of 2 million jobs. We lose 6 million under a liberal president and not a peep.

actually there's so many examples of this from both sides i've decided not to even bother with it anymore. Its just human nature I suppose. Repubs do it too.i think the best example of this actually is when bill keller of the New York Times decided against keeping state secrets secret when he ran the stories about wiretapping and money monitoring in europe but chose recently to hush up a story about his own reporter being kidnapped by islamic terrorists. What that tells you is when it comes to avg joe American safety, exposing state secrets is fine, but when it comes to his own employee, exposing anything is verbotten. I find that kind of hypocrisy startling.

 

[Chadstroma]

memo to dems/libs/obama-team/sycophant gub'mint hangers-on

you can't spend your way out of debt and you can't have half or more of the people on the government dole. Its just math.

i don't care what party you're in, you need to reduce government spending while at the same time your income goes down. National income is way down, so our spending needs to be reduced accordingly. This is true at the household level, the city level, the county level, the state level and the federal level.

that being said, what happened under Bush and continues times 10 under Obama is an abortion of fiscal responsibility.

Don't use that word! Now some will support it out of being pro-choice. Choose to live or choose to go bankrupt. My country and I get to choose!

 

[bueno]

I remember the liberals being all over Bush at the loss of 2 million jobs. We lose 6 million under a liberal president and not a peep.

actually there's so many examples of this from both sides i've decided not to even bother with it anymore. Its just human nature I suppose. Repubs do it too.i think the best example of this actually is when bill keller of the New York Times decided against keeping state secrets secret when he ran the stories about wiretapping and money monitoring in europe but chose recently to hush up a story about his own reporter being kidnapped by islamic terrorists. What that tells you is when it comes to avg joe American safety, exposing state secrets is fine, but when it comes to his own employee, exposing anything is verbotten. I find that kind of hypocrisy startling.

Human nature or not, it's hypocritical.

 

[urbanhack]

I remember the liberals being all over Bush at the loss of 2 million jobs. We lose 6 million under a liberal president and not a peep.

If we aren't going to blame Bush for 9/11, which happened in September of his first year; are you really going to blame Obama for all of this in June of his first year?

 

[Statorama]

Obama backs Marxist Dictator in Honduras in his attempt to be "President for Life".

The Honduran Supreme Court had ordered the despot to be removed from office, yet Obama calls it a "coup".

 

[Statorama]

Obama backs Marxist Dictator in Honduras in his attempt to be "President for Life".

The Honduran Supreme Court had ordered the despot to be removed from office, yet Obama calls it a "coup".

Honduran people/courts tell Obama go to hell

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Rejecting the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Honduras' interim leaders dug in for a fight on Thursday after governments across the region demanded the deposed leftist be restored to power.

In the worst crisis in Central America in a decade, Zelaya was toppled by troops and whisked out of the country on the weekend in a widely condemned coup after he angered opponents with plans to amend the constitution to lift term limits.

The Organization of American States on Wednesday issued a weekend deadline for the interim government to reinstate Zelaya, in a standoff that is testing U.S. President Barack Obama's administration after he promised an era of better relations with the region.

"We have established a democratic government and we will not cede to pressure from anyone. We are a sovereign country," said Roberto Micheletti, who was named as caretaker president by Honduran lawmakers shortly after Zelaya's ouster.

Zelaya, a logging magnate fond of wearing cowboy hats with his suits, has promised to return, but appeared to be waiting for the outcome of the OAS ultimatum. An OAS mission will arrive this week to discuss the ouster, the caretaker government said.

Honduras, an impoverished coffee exporter of around 7 million people, has seen days of protests against Sunday's ouster, but the interim government has rallied supporters onto the streets, underlining divisions over Zelaya's return.

The Honduran Congress approved a decree to crack down on opposition during a nightly curfew imposed after the coup. The decree allows security forces to hold suspects for more than 24 hours without charge and formalizes the prohibition of the right to free association at night.

But Tegucigalpa, the capital city nestled in low-lying hills, has remained mostly calm, with traffic clogging streets and most businesses open during the day, although schools remained closed.

CHAVEZ FACTOR

The army ousted a president who took office in 2006 and who had upset the country's traditional elite with a leftward tilt that many worried would take him down the same path as Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez.

His popularity had dipped to around 30 percent in recent months.

The interim government says it took a legal course in ousting Zelaya -- the Supreme Court said it instructed the army to remove him and Congress voted in the acting president until elections to be held in November.

Opponents of Zelaya believe he was pushing the limits of democracy with his drive to extend the single four-year term of presidents to allow re-election. He faces arrest on a raft of criminal charges if he returns to Honduras.

Several Latin American presidents, including Chavez and his allies in Ecuador and Bolivia, have extended term limits that were often written into constitutions as safeguards after decades of dictatorship in many parts of the region.

Obama's administration is playing a limited, behind-the-scenes role to show support for democracy and in Zelaya's restoration without being accused of meddling -- a historic charge against Washington from Latin America.

Washington, which has put off until next week a decision on whether to cut aid to Honduras, is letting the OAS take a leading role.

"We will wait until the (OAS) secretary-general has finished his diplomatic initiative and reports back on July 6 before we take any further action in relationship to assistance," a senior Obama administration official said.

 

[Statorama]

Obama all for transparency....unless it contradicts one of his talking points

The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic

The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Wherever Jim Hansen is right now -- whatever speech the "censored" NASA scientist is giving -- perhaps he'll find time to mention the plight of Alan Carlin. Though don't count on it.

Mr. Hansen, as everyone in this solar system knows, is the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Starting in 2004, he launched a campaign against the Bush administration, claiming it was censoring his global-warming thoughts and fiddling with the science. It was all a bit of a hoot, given Mr. Hansen was already a world-famous devotee of the theory of man-made global warming, a reputation earned with some 1,400 speeches he'd given, many while working for Mr. Bush. But it gave Democrats a fun talking point, one the Obama team later picked up.

So much so that one of President Barack Obama's first acts was a memo to agencies demanding new transparency in government, and science. The nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lisa Jackson, joined in, exclaiming, "As administrator, I will ensure EPA's efforts to address the environmental crises of today are rooted in three fundamental values: science-based policies and program, adherence to the rule of law, and overwhelming transparency." In case anyone missed the point, Mr. Obama took another shot at his predecessors in April, vowing that "the days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over."

Except, that is, when it comes to Mr. Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency. In March, the Obama EPA prepared to engage the global-warming debate in an astounding new way, by issuing an "endangerment" finding on carbon. It establishes that carbon is a pollutant, and thereby gives the EPA the authority to regulate it -- even if Congress doesn't act.

Around this time, Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. "We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA," the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from "any direct communication" with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." (Emphasis added.)

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: "With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don't want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate." Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

The emails were unearthed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Republican officials are calling for an investigation; House Energy Committee ranking member Joe Barton sent a letter with pointed questions to Mrs. Jackson, which she's yet to answer. The EPA has issued defensive statements, claiming Mr. Carlin wasn't ignored. But there is no getting around that the Obama administration has flouted its own promises of transparency.

The Bush administration's great sin, for the record, was daring to issue reports that laid out the administration's official position on global warming. That the reports did not contain the most doomsday predictions led to howls that the Bush politicals were suppressing and ignoring career scientists.

The Carlin dustup falls into a murkier category. Unlike annual reports, the Obama EPA's endangerment finding is a policy act. As such, EPA is required to make public those agency documents that pertain to the decision, to allow for public comment. Court rulings say rulemaking records must include both "the evidence relied upon and the evidence discarded." In refusing to allow Mr. Carlin's study to be circulated, the agency essentially hid it from the docket.

Unable to defend the EPA's actions, the climate-change crew -- , led by anonymous EPA officials -- is doing what it does best: trashing Mr. Carlin as a "denier." He is, we are told, "only" an economist (he in fact holds a degree in physics from CalTech). It wasn't his "job" to look at this issue (he in fact works in an office tasked with "informing important policy decisions with sound economics and other sciences.") His study was full of sham science. (The majority of it in fact references peer-reviewed studies.) Where's Mr. Hansen and his defense of scientific freedom when you really need him?

Mr. Carlin is instead an explanation for why the science debate is little reported in this country. The professional penalty for offering a contrary view to elites like Al Gore is a smear campaign. The global-warming crowd likes to deride skeptics as the equivalent of the Catholic Church refusing to accept the Copernican theory. The irony is that, today, it is those who dare critique the new religion of human-induced climate change who face the Inquisition.

 

[bueno]

I remember the liberals being all over Bush at the loss of 2 million jobs. We lose 6 million under a liberal president and not a peep.

If we aren't going to blame Bush for 9/11, which happened in September of his first year; are you really going to blame Obama for all of this in June of his first year?

Why not? The loss of jobs started in the first year of the Bush presidency too.

 

[Statorama]

Hey! Obama wants to know what's in your Swiss Bank accounts

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland has vowed to prevent UBS from handing over client information to U.S. authorities, in an attempt to defend bank secrecy, saying a tax case targeting its main bank is souring diplomatic ties.

Wealth management giant UBS is facing a court hearing in Miami next week after refusing to disclose data on 52,000 Americans holders of secret Swiss bank accounts to U.S. tax authorities.

The Swiss Justice Ministry said on Wednesday that Swiss law prevents UBS from handing over client information and the government would seize UBS client data, if necessary, to stop that happening.

The case, which comes amid a global fight against tax cheats supported by the U.S. administration, has damaged the UBS brand and could result in an expensive settlement for the bank at a time when the bank needs to focus on restructuring.

"Switzerland will use its legal authority to ensure that the bank cannot be pressured to transmit the information illegally, including if necessary by issuing an order taking effective control of the data at UBS," the Swiss government said in a response to U.S. authorities filed in Miami on Tuesday.

The tax litigation is also crucial for the future of the multi-billion dollar wealth management industry and is pushing several offshore banks to force clients to come clean.

A court hearing that will lead to a ruling on the UBS data issue is due to start on July 13. Washington has accused UBS of hiding nearly $15 billion in assets in secret accounts.

The Swiss statement came in response to a filing by the U.S. Justice Department last week asking the Miami court to enforce tax compliance with the full weight of U.S. law.

Although Swiss criminal law prohibits banks passing on client information to foreign authorities, UBS and Switzerland have already made concessions on their treasured bank secrecy.

UBS agreed to pay in February $780 million, admitted wrongdoing and disclosed about 250 client names to avert tax fraud criminal charges the Swiss government said threatened the bank's survival.

And faced with the threat of possible sanctions from the G20, Switzerland -- along with other tax havens -- vowed in March to redraft its tax treaties with the United States and other countries and cooperate more on tax evasion.

"INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT"

Switzerland said in its latest court filing it hoped it would not have to take the "extraordinary action" of issuing an order to seize the UBS client data.

"The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) now inappropriately seeks to provoke international conflict through this civil proceeding," the statement read.

In its brief last week, the Justice Department said that UBS had already acknowledged that its bankers committed "very serious crimes on U.S. soil" and had therefore subjected the bank to the full jurisdiction of U.S. law. "Swiss banking secrecy is not an impenetrable wall," it said.

But Berne said the fact that UBS had released some names in settling the criminal case and admitted wrongdoing did not undermine the legitimacy of Swiss banking secrecy as a whole.

Although the court hearing is due next week, the Swiss government has not ruled out the possibility of UBS and Washington agreeing another out-of-court settlement.

Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz has repeatedly said there is still room for a deal and Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that it expected UBS to pay a price as the bank had made mistakes.

Swiss media have said UBS may have to pay 3-5 billion Swiss francs ($2.76-$4.6 billion). The bank raised 3.8 billion francs of capital late in June and will report earnings on August 4.

"As the whole story is about money and as UBS has already admitted its fault, there can be only one solution: the Swiss bank will have to pay a fine or a compensation of an amount corresponding to taxes that are still due to the U.S. government" said Nicolas Michellod, senior analyst at Celent.

UBS shares fell 1.7 percent at 12.8 francs at 0849 GMT against a 1.2 percent drop in the European banking index.

 

[tommyboy]

honeymoon is over for this guy. His ratings are plummeting

 

[Statorama]

Small businesses in the crosshairs of Obamacare

Small Business Faces Big Bite

House Health Bill Penalizes All but Tiniest Employers for Not Providing Insurance

By JANET ADAMY and LAURA MECKLER

Associated Press

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, from left, stands with House Democratic leaders Steny Hoyer, Pete Stark, Henry Waxman, Charles Rangel, and John Dingell to announce health-care legislation on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled sweeping health-care legislation that would hit all but the smallest businesses with a penalty equal to 8% of payroll if they fail to provide health insurance to workers.

The House bill, which also would impose new taxes on the wealthy estimated to bring in more than $544 billion over a decade, came as lawmakers in the Senate raced against a self-imposed deadline of this week to introduce a bill in time for action this summer.

Senators face a tougher battle because they are striving for a bipartisan bill. Key senators are weighing a combination of several more-modest fund-raising provisions, including some new fees on health-care industries.

Under the House measure, employers with payrolls exceeding $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay the 8% penalty. Employers with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 a year would pay a smaller penalty, and those less than $250,000 would be exempt. Certain small firms would get tax credits to help buy coverage.

The relatively low thresholds for penalties triggered the sharpest criticism yet from employer groups, who said the burden on small business is too high and doesn't do enough to help them expand insurance coverage.

More

Sen. Grassley Is Key to Health Deal Democrats' Discord Hinders Bill Opinion: The Small-Business Surtax Health Blog: Middle Class Could Feel Pinch Health Blog: CBO: Plan Would Enroll Less Than 5% of Americans "This bill costs too much, it covers too few and it has way too much government involvement," said Michelle Dimarob, a lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Business, the main trade group for small firms. "Small business doesn't want any of those things."

According to 2006 data from the federation, businesses with between five and nine workers, representing about one million employers, had an average payroll of around $375,000 a year. A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only about half of firms with three to nine workers offered health benefits in 2008.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the measure on Tuesday, praising it as a historic step toward insuring all Americans that has eluded lawmakers for decades. "This bill is a starting point and a path to success to lower costs to consumers and businesses," the California Democrat said.

The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday calculated the cost of the House's plan to expand insurance coverage at $1.04 trillion over 10 years, and predicted the measure would eventually lead 97% of legal American residents to have insurance. That's in line with President Barack Obama's desired budget for a health overhaul and lawmakers' pledges for expanding coverage.

The estimate doesn't factor in the plan to pay for the bill, including the new tax on wealthy Americans, or certain changes to Medicare and Medicaid, all of which could affect the final price tag.

The House bill would place new taxes on the wealthiest people to help expand insurance coverage to the nation's 46 million uninsured people. The legislation calls for a 5.4% surtax on those with annual gross incomes exceeding $1 million.

Households with annual income between $500,000 a year and $1 million would be hit with a 1.5% surtax, and those earning between $350,000 and $500,000 would face a 1% surtax. Those rates could eventually increase to 3% and 2%, respectively, if the government doesn't achieve certain health-cost savings.

The 1,018-page initiative contains several components pushed by liberal Democrats that were long expected to be part of House legislation, but which face considerable opposition in the Senate. Most notably, the House bill creates a new public health-insurance plan aimed at individuals and small businesses that otherwise can't get affordable coverage.

The House measure would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to individuals who are sick, while also requiring most Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty equal to about 2.5% of their gross income. It would provide families earning up to $88,000 a year with subsidies to help them buy coverage. And it would expand health-insurance coverage through the Medicaid federal-state insurance program for the poor.

The Senate legislation is also expected to include mandates on insurers to provide coverage and individuals to carry it, although the details may differ. The bigger differences will come on the financing side, where many senators are cautious about introducing major new taxes on the wealthy to pay for health care.

The White House is pushing for action before the August recess in both houses of Congress to give lawmakers time to reconcile their two versions, pass that compromise through the House and the Senate and send Mr. Obama a final bill by autumn. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee could approve its health overhaul bill as soon as Wednesday.

That will get merged with a bill in the Senate Finance Committee, where lawmakers are trying to craft a bipartisan measure. Chairman Max Baucus on Tuesday was pitching his colleagues on a plan to finance the bill through a combination of more-modest tax increases. He is trying to fill a hole of about $320 billion over 10 years, after Democrats objected to a provision to tax upper-end employee health benefits.

The fresh package included a new fee on pharmaceuticals and other health-care industries, and stiffer corporate-reporting measures aimed at collecting a greater share of corporate taxes owed each year, two Senate aides said.

Under the first proposal, health industries including drug makers and insurers would be charged an assessment, with individual companies' fees based on their market share. It's not clear how large the total assessment would be.

The proposal also seeks to raise $75 billion to $100 billion over 10 years by giving states an incentive to issue bonds that would help offset the expanded federal share of Medicaid.

"The goal here is a bunch of smaller, less controversial items that can add up," one official said.

The package may still include a modified version of the plan to tax high-end employer-provided health insurance, though on a smaller scale, aides said.

Mr. Baucus spent much of the day meeting one-on-one with members of his committee, and he put on an optimistic face. "We're going to pass very significant health reform this year," the Montana Democrat said.

But the pre-recess deadline appeared in danger as Republicans expressed concern that the process is moving too quickly.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key Republican whom Mr. Baucus is trying to win over, said Tuesday that the legislation is far too complex to rush and that she saw little chance of moving a bill through the Senate before the August break.

"I frankly couldn't imagine at this point bringing it to the floor and completing our deliberations...before the August recess," the Maine senator said. She said "arbitrary, artificial time frames really are not realistic given the magnitude of the task we are assigned to do."

In addition to health care, the White House also hopes for action on energy and financial-sector regulation, both of which would consume time this fall.

At a White House meeting with top Democratic leaders on Monday, Mr. Obama pushed Mr. Baucus to produce legislation by Thursday.

Senators are now talking openly of keeping the chamber in session an extra week, though some say that is simply a tactic to discourage delay by senators who have plans for vacations, congressional trips and hometown activities.

A further complication is that if it looks as if the Senate can't or won't act this summer, many House Democrats are likely to hesitate about voting on a contentious issue -- including raising taxes -- for something that might never become law.

 

[Statorama]

Another Obama appointee that they didn't bother to Vet

The White House auto czar, who abruptly announced this week that he was leaving the administration, could face legal action in New York over his former company's dealings with the state pension fund.

The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo could press for a legal settlement with Steven Rattner regarding potential civil charges in a wide-ranging pay-to-play investigation.

It was unclear whether the investigation was connected to Rattner's decision to leave Washington.

The Treasury Department said Rattner was leaving to return to his family and private life upon the emergence of Chrysler and General Motors from bankruptcy.

A Treasury official told FOXNews.com in an e-mail that Rattner's decision to leave Washington was all his own, and that the department had intended to reduce the size of the auto task force after Chrysler and GM emerged from bankruptcy.

But Rattner, during his tenure with the task force, had been connected with the ongoing probe in New York.

Cuomo and the Securities and Exchange Commission have in the course of the investigation charged a state official and a political consultant with extracting millions of dollars in kickbacks from investment firms trying to raise money from the state's big public pension fund.

The Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm Rattner led before joining the Obama administration, paid more than $1 million to one of the people indicted in the case, New York political consultant Hank Morris.

A person familiar with the investigation said that criminal charges were unlikely but that Rattner or Quadrangle could reach civil settlements like those Cuomo has reached recently with other companies that made similar payments. The person wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the pending investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

One source familiar with the investigation confirmed to FOXNews.com that Cuomo had sought documents from Quadrangle Group, though it's unclear when the most recent requests were made.

"Obviously he's been a player" in the probe, the source said of Rattner.

Brian Kolb, Republican leader in the New York State Assembly, said rumors are swirling in Albany that Rattner's departure is somehow linked to the investigation. He said he thought it is strange for Rattner to leave Washington so soon after taking the position.

"It's pretty fair to assume that that's not going to be a three-month job," he said of Rattner's charge to revive the auto industry. "I would ... have one eyebrow raised as to what's really going on here."

Rattner also has been scrutinized over a business deal that appeared to have been designed to curry favor with pension fund officials.

In early 2005, a film company owned by Quadrangle agreed to distribute a low-budget movie called "Chooch," produced by the brother of the pension fund's chief investment officer. Shortly after the film deal was inked, the pension fund agreed to invest $100 million with Quadrangle, according to an April SEC complaint.

Two weeks ago, the Pacific Corporate Group agreed to pay $2 million to resolve its role in the probe. Riverstone Holdings said it would pay $30 million. The Carlyle Group, one of the nation's largest private equity funds, agreed to pay $20 million in May.

Each of those companies also agreed to implement reforms aimed at reducing the potential for influence peddling, including adopting rules banning campaign contributions to elected officials with roles in deciding how public pension funds invest their money.

Morris was indicted in March. He denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.

 

[CrossEyed]

honeymoon is over for this guy. His ratings are plummeting

Probably why he seems to be in such a hurry to pass every piece of legislation he can slam through congress.

 

[Chadstroma]

honeymoon is over for this guy. His ratings are plummeting

Probably why he seems to be in such a hurry to pass every piece of legislation he can slam through congress.

Not only that but he also knows that if the public has time to look at this crap before the votes are done they will put massive pressure on their Representatives and Senators to kill them. He is already having major problem with the 'Blue Dog' Democrats who are basically revolting because they fear for their seats in the upcoming elections. His biggest goal right now is to jam the health care bill through before it gets ripped apart and the average American can wake up and realize that we do not live in Utopia.

 

[Statorama]

ObamaPrompter shatters from overuse