Your opinion on the job that President Obama is doing so far (2 Viewers)

[timschochet]

7. Obama has been forced to change his positions on a few issues due to politics, and then, like most politicians, pretended that his new position was consistent all along. This is typical Washington, but I don't think it makes him out to be a liar.10. I've seen no sign of a lack of ethics.

Analysis: Obama went too far in critiqueBY FACTCHECK.ORGPresident Barack Obama misrepresented the House Republicans' budget plan at times and exaggerated its impact on U.S. residents during an April 13 speech on deficit reduction.- Obama claimed the Republicans' "Path to Prosperity" plan would cause "up to 50 million Americans "¦ to lose their health insurance." But that worst-case figure is based in part on speculation and assumptions.- He said the GOP plan would replace Medicare with "a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry." That's an exaggeration. Nothing would change for those 55 and older. Those younger would get federal subsidies to buy private insurance from a Medicare exchange set up by the government.- He said "poor children," "children with autism" and "kids with disabilities" would be left "to fend for themselves." That, too, is an exaggeration. The GOP says states would have "freedom and flexibility to tailor a Medicaid program that fits the needs of their unique populations." It doesn't bar states from covering those children.- He repeated a deceptive talking point that the new health care law will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion. That's the Democrats' own estimate over a 20-year period. The Congressional Budget Office pegged the deficit savings at $210 billion over 10 years and warned that estimates beyond a decade are "more and more uncertain."- He falsely claimed that making the Bush tax cuts permanent would give away "$1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire." That figure — which is actually $807 billion over 10 years — refers to tax cuts for individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000, not just millionaires and billionaires.- He said the tax burden on the wealthy is the lowest it has been in 50 years. But the most recent nonpartisan congressional analysis showed that the average federal tax rate for high-income taxpayers was lower in 1986.

You and I may have a different definition of ethical behavior. Almost all presidents and high level politicians engage in over the top rhetoric. They have speechwriters who feed them this stuff, and some of it always turns out to be inconsistent. Unethical would be lying under oath, like Clinton, or authorizing the use of hush money, like Nixon. Unethical means crooked in my book.

 

[Statorama]

If this is a decisive issue for you, then you're probably not going to support him.

My decisive issue is his immense suckitude. (as read by Norm MacDonald)

 

[timschochet]

If this is a decisive issue for you, then you're probably not going to support him.

My decisive issue is his immense suckitude. (as read by Norm MacDonald)

We're going around in circles here. If I asked you to list the reasons you regard Obama in this manner, you'd probably come up with a list much like BoneYardDog's (though your list, Stat, might be slightly more thoughtful) which I've already responded to. I am not in love with Obama, but it amazes me that you guys are so persistent in your belief that he is one of the worst presidents ever. He's just OK, mediocre.

 

[Phase of the Game]

If this is a decisive issue for you, then you're probably not going to support him.

My decisive issue is his immense suckitude. (as read by Norm MacDonald)

We're going around in circles here. If I asked you to list the reasons you regard Obama in this manner, you'd probably come up with a list much like BoneYardDog's (though your list, Stat, might be slightly more thoughtful) which I've already responded to. I am not in love with Obama, but it amazes me that you guys are so persistent in your belief that he is one of the worst presidents ever. He's just OK, mediocre.

His presidency is a massive and it will only get worse as more and more details come out on Obamacare.

 

[Statorama]

Obama White House Releases Nowruz Message, Muslim Ramadan Message, Muslim Hajj Message, Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr Message… Skips Easter

President Obama failed to release a statement or a proclamation recognizing the national observance of Easter Sunday, Christianity's most sacred holiday.

By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.

The White House also failed to release a statement marking Good Friday. However, they did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day. Likewise, the president's weekend address mentioned neither Good Friday or Easter.

 

[Sarnoff]

Obama White House Releases Nowruz Message, Muslim Ramadan Message, Muslim Hajj Message, Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr Message… Skips Easter

President Obama failed to release a statement or a proclamation recognizing the national observance of Easter Sunday, Christianity's most sacred holiday.

By comparison, the White House has released statements recognizing the observance of major Muslim holidays and released statements in 2010 on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.

The White House also failed to release a statement marking Good Friday. However, they did release an eight-paragraph statement heralding Earth Day. Likewise, the president's weekend address mentioned neither Good Friday or Easter.

It says "separation of church and state", not "separation of mosque and state".

 

[Fensalk]

If this is a decisive issue for you, then you're probably not going to support him.

My decisive issue is his immense suckitude. (as read by Norm MacDonald)

We're going around in circles here. If I asked you to list the reasons you regard Obama in this manner, you'd probably come up with a list much like BoneYardDog's (though your list, Stat, might be slightly more thoughtful) which I've already responded to. I am not in love with Obama, but it amazes me that you guys are so persistent in your belief that he is one of the worst presidents ever. He's just OK, mediocre.

How would you define a mediocre presidency?

 

[StrikeS2k]

10. I've seen no sign of a lack of ethics.

Tim, Wouldn't you consider being held in contempt of court and being strongly rebuked by that court as a lack of ethics?

 

[timschochet]

10. I've seen no sign of a lack of ethics.

Tim, Wouldn't you consider being held in contempt of court and being strongly rebuked by that court as a lack of ethics?

You need to be more specific. In general, yes. There are certain historical instances when this does not apply.

 

[StrikeS2k]

10. I've seen no sign of a lack of ethics.

Tim, Wouldn't you consider being held in contempt of court and being strongly rebuked by that court as a lack of ethics?

You need to be more specific. In general, yes. There are certain historical instances when this does not apply.

He defied an injunction placed on him by a judge. Considering his legal background, don't you consider it unethical to blatantly defy a judge's order? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-03/u-s-administration-in-contempt-over-gulf-drill-ban-judge-rules.htmlhttp://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/03/federal-judge-holds-obama-administration-in-contempt-over-drilling-permitorium/

 

[timschochet]

10. I've seen no sign of a lack of ethics.

Tim,Wouldn't you consider being held in contempt of court and being strongly rebuked by that court as a lack of ethics?

You need to be more specific. In general, yes. There are certain historical instances when this does not apply.

He defied an injunction placed on him by a judge. Considering his legal background, don't you consider it unethical to blatantly defy a judge's order? http://www.bloomberg...udge-rules.html

http://hotair.com/ar...ng-permitorium/

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

 

[StrikeS2k]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

 

[BoneYardDog]

Ex-Labor Board Chairman: Union-Backed Case Against Boeing 'Unprecedented'The former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board told FoxNews.com that a board attorney's bid to stop Boeing from opening a production line at a non-union site in South Carolina is "unprecedented" and could have serious implications for companies looking to expand. South Carolina Republican lawmakers were similarly outraged over the complaint. Sen. Jim DeMint called it a "political favor" for the unions who supported President Obama's 2008 campaign. Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed to try to cut off funding for the "wild goose chase." "If successful, the NLRB complaint would allow unions to hold a virtual 'veto' over business decisions," he said in a statement.

Hey Tim this covers:Back room deal to his friends...Enemy to business...Totally partisan...Craps on people/states/businesses who disagree with him...Unethical...Union hack...

 

[Dr. Awesome]

If this is a decisive issue for you, then you're probably not going to support him.

My decisive issue is his immense suckitude. (as read by Norm MacDonald)

We're going around in circles here. If I asked you to list the reasons you regard Obama in this manner, you'd probably come up with a list much like BoneYardDog's (though your list, Stat, might be slightly more thoughtful) which I've already responded to. I am not in love with Obama, but it amazes me that you guys are so persistent in your belief that he is one of the worst presidents ever. He's just OK, mediocre.

I'll go along with this if we're simply comparing him to his immediate predecessor. But if you go much further I think Obama is certainly closer to the bottom than the top. Though I'm interested in debating this.

 

[Jewell]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

 

[timschochet]

Ex-Labor Board Chairman: Union-Backed Case Against Boeing 'Unprecedented'The former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board told FoxNews.com that a board attorney's bid to stop Boeing from opening a production line at a non-union site in South Carolina is "unprecedented" and could have serious implications for companies looking to expand. South Carolina Republican lawmakers were similarly outraged over the complaint. Sen. Jim DeMint called it a "political favor" for the unions who supported President Obama's 2008 campaign. Sen. Lindsey Graham vowed to try to cut off funding for the "wild goose chase." "If successful, the NLRB complaint would allow unions to hold a virtual 'veto' over business decisions," he said in a statement.

Hey Tim this covers:Back room deal to his friends...Enemy to business...Totally partisan...Craps on people/states/businesses who disagree with him...Unethical...Union hack...

IF you accept Jim DeMint's interpretation of these events, which apparently you do, then yes, it covers most of it (although I still don't see the unethical part.) But I'm not convinced that this is the correct interpretation, and I'm still not sure what Obama's level of involvement is in this affair.

 

[timschochet]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

 

[bueno]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Buck stops at the top/

 

[timschochet]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Buck stops at the top/

Is it unethical behavior or not?

 

[bueno]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Buck stops at the top/

Is it unethical behavior or not?

All I am saying is that a leader is responsible for the actions of those he leads. If those minions are acting unethically and he chooses to condone those actions, even by silence, he is accountable for those actions.

 

[timschochet]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Buck stops at the top/

Is it unethical behavior or not?

All I am saying is that a leader is responsible for the actions of those he leads. If those minions are acting unethically and he chooses to condone those actions, even by silence, he is accountable for those actions.

I don't disagree. Now please answer the question. Obama, like Bush before him (and I'm betting Clinton before him, thought I'm not sure) chose to ignore environmentalist concerns and judges' orders with regard to drilling in the gulf. Is this unethical?

 

[StrikeS2k]

I don't disagree. Now please answer the question. Obama, like Bush before him (and I'm betting Clinton before him, thought I'm not sure) chose to ignore environmentalist concerns and judges' orders with regard to drilling in the gulf. Is this unethical?

Wait right there. Did those predecessors get held in contempt of court? It's a yes or no question Tim.

 

[timschochet]

I don't disagree. Now please answer the question. Obama, like Bush before him (and I'm betting Clinton before him, thought I'm not sure) chose to ignore environmentalist concerns and judges' orders with regard to drilling in the gulf. Is this unethical?

Wait right there. Did those predecessors get held in contempt of court? It's a yes or no question Tim.

I have no idea. I know the same environmentalists tried to stop it. I don't know how far they got. Obviously, to you, the contempt of court is the relevant issue, not what the contempt was for. I disagree.

 

[Jewell]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Tim, I didn't mean it as a cut-down to you. I meant it as a rule that applies to all of us. In so many of these debates we're presented with the same facts but reach different conclusions because we filter those facts through our own personal definitions. You could just as easily say that Strike or I insist on our definitions to be paramount. That's what I meant by " It is what it is" because sometimes we're simply not going to agree because we're looking at the same facts from a different perspective.With all that being said, Strike and I are right.

 

[Fensalk]

Some hedge Fund managers have switched to the GOP after backing Obama big in 2008.

Spoiler

Hedge-fund managers made a big bet on Barack Obama and other Democrats in 2008. Now, with the 2012 contest gearing up, some prominent fund managers have turned their backs on the party and are actively supporting Republicans.

Daniel Loeb, founder of Third Point LLC, was one of the biggest Obama fund-raisers in 2008, rounding up $200,000 for him, according to campaign-finance records. In the decade prior, Mr. Loeb and his wife donated $250,000 to Democrats and less than $10,000 to Republicans.

But since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Mr. Loeb has given $468,000 to Republican candidates and the GOP, and just $8,000 to Democrats. Hedge-fund kings have feelings, too, and the president appears to have hurt them.

"I am sure, if we are really nice and stay quiet, everything will be alright and the president will become more centrist and that all his tough talk is just words," Mr. Loeb wrote in an email about four months ago expressing frustration with the president's posture toward Wall Street. "I mean, he really loves us and when he beats us, he doesn't mean it." The email, sent to eight friends, was widely circulated on Wall Street.

Mr. Loeb is part of a shift in political allegiance within the world of hedge funds that also includes such big names as Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors and Kenneth Griffin's Citadel Investment Group. Managers and employees of hedge funds directed a majority of their contributions to the GOP in the 2009-2010 election season, a pattern not seen since 1996, when the industry was much smaller.

Managers of hedge funds—private investment partnerships that cater to institutions and wealthy people—are reacting to what some criticize as Mr. Obama's populist attacks on Wall Street, as well as to Democrat-led efforts to raise their tax bills. They had hoped to be protected from such a tax move by their relationships with prominent Democratic members of Congress. "Hedge funds bankrolled the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and the very people they helped put in power turned around and screwed them," said Sam Geduldig, a former Republican congressional staffer who is a Wall Street lobbyist.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, Hari Sevugan, said Mr. Obama "campaigned on and took action to reform the industry because he knew it was the right thing to do...which is why he enjoyed broad support in 2008 and continues to do so today."

The shift toward Republicans is by no means universal. "I'm still a huge supporter" of Mr. Obama and planning to raise money for him, said Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group. He said one reason some of his peers are moving away from Mr. Obama is that they "disagree with his philosophy regarding the deficit," but "the president...is going to try to reduce the deficit." Mr. Lasry added: "When you really break it down, he has actually done a pretty good job."

Wall Street ranks alongside the legal profession and Hollywood as a plank in almost any presidential candidate's fund-raising. After lawyers, the investment sector was the largest source of donations for Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign among industry sectors tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. And hedge-fund money is the fastest-growing segment of contributions from that industry, more than doubling every four years. Investors are pouring money into hedge funds again, after souring on them during the financial crisis.

Mr. Obama blew away the field in presidential fund-raising in 2008, setting a record by collecting $750 million in contributions, with most of the donations small ones. Some political strategists speculate he could top $1 billion for his re-election bid.

The defection by some hedge-fund managers is among forces that could make that lofty figure hard to attain. Mr. Obama has also disheartened some labor unions, environmentalists and liberal activists by not moving as aggressively as they would like on their priorities. For the 2012 presidential race, it is too early to gauge with any precision how he or potential GOP candidates are doing in fund-raising.

Overall in the 2008 congressional and presidential elections, Democrats outdrew Republicans, $1.9 billion to $1.3 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Democrats received the biggest share of donations from hedge-fund managers for most of the past two decades. From 1990 through 2008, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, fund managers and their employees contributed about $40 million to candidates for Congress and the presidency. About two-thirds went to Democrats.

But 53% went to Republicans in the 2010 election cycle, when hedge-fund managers' and employees' donations totaled $11 million. GOP strategists credit a core group of fund managers for helping Republicans win control of the House, make inroads in the Senate and drive Mr. Obama toward the political center.

A half-dozen fund managers donated a total of $6 million to the Republican Governors Association in the weeks before the 2010 election and spent millions more to finance a blitz of ads for Republicans running for Congress.

The shift started near the end of the 2008 campaign, when Mr. Obama began blaming hedge funds for some of the country's economic problems.

In April 2009, when talks about saving Chrysler through a bankruptcy filing bogged down, the president faulted bond-holding hedge funds for the delay. "They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none." Mr. Obama said. "I don't stand with them."

That amounted to "bullying," one prominent fund manager, Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, wrote on his personal web page.

In the past, Mr. Asness had donated to Republicans, while employees of his fund gave chiefly to Democrats. But in the 2010 midterm campaign, Mr. Asness ramped up his Republican giving, while his employees all but stopped their donating to Democrats. Combined, he and the employees contributed $550,000 to Republicans and only about $3,000 to Democrats. Mr. Asness, like most of the fund managers, declined to comment.

Hedge funds' biggest complaint involved a tax bill. Shortly after Mr. Obama's inauguration, he and some congressional Democrats were pushing a plan to block managers of hedge funds and private-equity funds from paying a low 15% capital-gains tax rate on part of their income.

"No longer should we allow investment managers to have a better tax rate than teachers or doctors or firefighters," said a leading advocate of the change, Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, during Senate debate.

Fund managers largely were willing to accept such a change; most of their share of fund profits didn't qualify for treatment as long-term capital gains anyway, because they traded so rapidly. But they drew the line at another proposed change.

The tax bill's writers worried that hedge-fund managers could avoid the highest tax rates by simply leaving their income in the fund, collecting it only when they eventually sold the fund itself. At that point, it clearly would qualify for the capital-gains rate, as profit on a sale of a long-held business. So, the tax bill's writers added a provision saying any profit from the sale of a hedge fund, a private-equity firm or other investment partnership would be taxed at the higher rates that apply to ordinary income.

Fund managers despised that idea. "If you founded a hedge fund, when you sold it you were treated worse than if you owned a peep-show business," said John Raffaelli, a Democratic fund-raiser and lobbyist for the hedge-fund industry.

Senate Democrats to whom fund managers had ties were hesitant to block the tax initiative, because it meshed with voter anti-Wall Street sentiment. Also, it could also mean as much as $2 billion of annual revenue.

The tax initiative ultimately failed when a broader measure that it was part of didn't pass, and now it is essentially dead because of GOP control of the House. Before it failed, the tax measure won support from New York Democratic Sen. Charles Mr. Schumer, following an amendment he made in it.

Mr. Schumer, who declined to comment, has remained a big recipient of hedge-fund contributions despite his vote, raising $500,000 from fund managers and their employees in the 2010 election cycle.

But the senator got a taste of hedge funds' frustrations with Democrats in February 2009, during a phone conversation with SAC Capital's Mr. Cohen. "I can't support the Democrats," Mr. Cohen said, according to a person familiar with the discussion. "There is no way I can support what they are doing."

Mr. Cohen had previously been a big Democratic supporter, regularly giving the maximum allowable to Democratic legislators in his home state of Connecticut. In 2008, he, his wife and SAC Capital employees donated more than $500,000 to Democrats, triple what they gave Republicans.

Last August, Mr. Cohen invited a small group of fund managers to a strategy session in his 32,000-square-foot Greenwich home. The gathering included Republican stalwarts such as Paul Singer of Elliott Management and Dan Senor of Rosemont Capital, but also some more recent Republican donors such as Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates. The group decided to direct contributions to GOP campaign coffers and to pro-Republican groups that could raise and spend unlimited amounts.

Campaign reports show Mr. Cohen contributed $1.5 million in 2010 to one such group, the Republican Governors Association. The gifts put him among the top four individual donors to the association in a decade, ahead of mega-Republican donor David Koch of Koch Industries. Mr. Cohen contributed to only one Democrat for the 2010 midterm elections, giving $2,400 to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Mr. Cohen's political shift was driven in part by his concern about increases in government spending and deficits, said a person close to him.

Mr. Kovner of Caxton Associates hadn't dabbled very much in politics before the August meeting. In 2008, he gave $4,600 to two Republican candidates. After the meeting, he donated $615,000 to the GOP, including $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association. Mr. Kovner, along with most others at the meeting, declined to comment.

John Paulson and employees of his Paulson & Co., famed for a lucrative bet against the housing market and mortgage bonds before their collapse, had given about equally to the two parties in 2008. But in 2010, he and his employees gave three times as much to the GOP as to Democrats. Mr. Paulson himself gave about $410,000 to Republican campaign causes.

Citadel's Mr. Griffin and his wife, Anne Dias Griffin, who runs her own hedge fund, also had split their donations between the parties in 2008, but in 2010 they donated $1.8 million to Republicans and just $2,400 to Democrats.

A shift was also evident at Renaissance Technologies LLC. In 2008, its manager, Robert Mercer, and employees donated much more heavily to Democrats than to Republicans—$620,000 versus $95,000. In 2010, they gave $527,000 for Democrats but $782,000 to Republicans.

With the 2012 money race under way, Democrats are reaching out to mend fences. Mr. Schumer has held a series of dinners and chats with hedge-fund managers. Mr. Obama traveled to New York in late March for an event with fund-raisers from Wall Street and the fund industry.

Still, about 6,600 donations to the Democratic National Committee in March appear to include only a handful from hedge-fund people—fewer than from veterinarians or librarians.

Democrats say Mr. Obama is making moves to appeal to the fund industry and has time to win it back. "Whatever the numbers show…at the margins there has been a material shift in support for the president," said Orin Kramer, general partner of hedge fund Boston Provident and an Obama supporter.

—Scott Greenberg contributed to this article.

 

[StrikeS2k]

I don't disagree. Now please answer the question. Obama, like Bush before him (and I'm betting Clinton before him, thought I'm not sure) chose to ignore environmentalist concerns and judges' orders with regard to drilling in the gulf. Is this unethical?

Wait right there. Did those predecessors get held in contempt of court? It's a yes or no question Tim.

I have no idea. I know the same environmentalists tried to stop it. I don't know how far they got. Obviously, to you, the contempt of court is the relevant issue, not what the contempt was for. I disagree.

Yes Tim, the contempt of court citation matters to me. And unless the previous administrations were also held in contempt your comparison fails badly. It's one thing to make up your own rules as you go along. It's another to ignore a legally binding judgment and be rebuked as strongly as this administration was in the contempt ruling. It shows an utter disregard for the rule of law. And it's dishonest for you to act like it was just some underling acting without any direction from the upper levels of Obama administration itself.

 

[timschochet]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Tim, I didn't mean it as a cut-down to you. I meant it as a rule that applies to all of us. In so many of these debates we're presented with the same facts but reach different conclusions because we filter those facts through our own personal definitions. You could just as easily say that Strike or I insist on our definitions to be paramount. That's what I meant by " It is what it is" because sometimes we're simply not going to agree because we're looking at the same facts from a different perspective.With all that being said, Strike and I are right.

I get your point, but in this instance I think Strike is carrying the notion of "unethical behavior" to absurd extremes. So I'm asking again, do you agree with him on THIS issue, that Obama behaved unethically?

 

[StrikeS2k]

I get your point, but in this instance I think Strike is carrying the notion of "unethical behavior" to absurd extremes. So I'm asking again, do you agree with him on THIS issue, that Obama behaved unethically?

It's an absurd extreme to expect the President to follow a binding court order? If Al Gore thought the way you did he'd have been President.

 

[timschochet]

I get your point, but in this instance I think Strike is carrying the notion of "unethical behavior" to absurd extremes. So I'm asking again, do you agree with him on THIS issue, that Obama behaved unethically?

It's an absurd extreme to expect the President to follow a binding court order? If Al Gore thought the way you did he'd have been President.

I already know what you think about it. I'd like to hear what Jewell and Bueno think.

 

[urbanhack]

Some hedge Fund managers have switched to the GOP after backing Obama big in 2008.

Spoiler

Hedge-fund managers made a big bet on Barack Obama and other Democrats in 2008. Now, with the 2012 contest gearing up, some prominent fund managers have turned their backs on the party and are actively supporting Republicans.

Daniel Loeb, founder of Third Point LLC, was one of the biggest Obama fund-raisers in 2008, rounding up $200,000 for him, according to campaign-finance records. In the decade prior, Mr. Loeb and his wife donated $250,000 to Democrats and less than $10,000 to Republicans.

But since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Mr. Loeb has given $468,000 to Republican candidates and the GOP, and just $8,000 to Democrats. Hedge-fund kings have feelings, too, and the president appears to have hurt them.

"I am sure, if we are really nice and stay quiet, everything will be alright and the president will become more centrist and that all his tough talk is just words," Mr. Loeb wrote in an email about four months ago expressing frustration with the president's posture toward Wall Street. "I mean, he really loves us and when he beats us, he doesn't mean it." The email, sent to eight friends, was widely circulated on Wall Street.

Mr. Loeb is part of a shift in political allegiance within the world of hedge funds that also includes such big names as Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors and Kenneth Griffin's Citadel Investment Group. Managers and employees of hedge funds directed a majority of their contributions to the GOP in the 2009-2010 election season, a pattern not seen since 1996, when the industry was much smaller.

Managers of hedge funds—private investment partnerships that cater to institutions and wealthy people—are reacting to what some criticize as Mr. Obama's populist attacks on Wall Street, as well as to Democrat-led efforts to raise their tax bills. They had hoped to be protected from such a tax move by their relationships with prominent Democratic members of Congress. "Hedge funds bankrolled the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and the very people they helped put in power turned around and screwed them," said Sam Geduldig, a former Republican congressional staffer who is a Wall Street lobbyist.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, Hari Sevugan, said Mr. Obama "campaigned on and took action to reform the industry because he knew it was the right thing to do...which is why he enjoyed broad support in 2008 and continues to do so today."

The shift toward Republicans is by no means universal. "I'm still a huge supporter" of Mr. Obama and planning to raise money for him, said Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group. He said one reason some of his peers are moving away from Mr. Obama is that they "disagree with his philosophy regarding the deficit," but "the president...is going to try to reduce the deficit." Mr. Lasry added: "When you really break it down, he has actually done a pretty good job."

Wall Street ranks alongside the legal profession and Hollywood as a plank in almost any presidential candidate's fund-raising. After lawyers, the investment sector was the largest source of donations for Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign among industry sectors tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. And hedge-fund money is the fastest-growing segment of contributions from that industry, more than doubling every four years. Investors are pouring money into hedge funds again, after souring on them during the financial crisis.

Mr. Obama blew away the field in presidential fund-raising in 2008, setting a record by collecting $750 million in contributions, with most of the donations small ones. Some political strategists speculate he could top $1 billion for his re-election bid.

The defection by some hedge-fund managers is among forces that could make that lofty figure hard to attain. Mr. Obama has also disheartened some labor unions, environmentalists and liberal activists by not moving as aggressively as they would like on their priorities. For the 2012 presidential race, it is too early to gauge with any precision how he or potential GOP candidates are doing in fund-raising.

Overall in the 2008 congressional and presidential elections, Democrats outdrew Republicans, $1.9 billion to $1.3 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Democrats received the biggest share of donations from hedge-fund managers for most of the past two decades. From 1990 through 2008, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, fund managers and their employees contributed about $40 million to candidates for Congress and the presidency. About two-thirds went to Democrats.

But 53% went to Republicans in the 2010 election cycle, when hedge-fund managers' and employees' donations totaled $11 million. GOP strategists credit a core group of fund managers for helping Republicans win control of the House, make inroads in the Senate and drive Mr. Obama toward the political center.

A half-dozen fund managers donated a total of $6 million to the Republican Governors Association in the weeks before the 2010 election and spent millions more to finance a blitz of ads for Republicans running for Congress.

The shift started near the end of the 2008 campaign, when Mr. Obama began blaming hedge funds for some of the country's economic problems.

In April 2009, when talks about saving Chrysler through a bankruptcy filing bogged down, the president faulted bond-holding hedge funds for the delay. "They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none." Mr. Obama said. "I don't stand with them."

That amounted to "bullying," one prominent fund manager, Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management, wrote on his personal web page.

In the past, Mr. Asness had donated to Republicans, while employees of his fund gave chiefly to Democrats. But in the 2010 midterm campaign, Mr. Asness ramped up his Republican giving, while his employees all but stopped their donating to Democrats. Combined, he and the employees contributed $550,000 to Republicans and only about $3,000 to Democrats. Mr. Asness, like most of the fund managers, declined to comment.

Hedge funds' biggest complaint involved a tax bill. Shortly after Mr. Obama's inauguration, he and some congressional Democrats were pushing a plan to block managers of hedge funds and private-equity funds from paying a low 15% capital-gains tax rate on part of their income.

"No longer should we allow investment managers to have a better tax rate than teachers or doctors or firefighters," said a leading advocate of the change, Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, during Senate debate.

Fund managers largely were willing to accept such a change; most of their share of fund profits didn't qualify for treatment as long-term capital gains anyway, because they traded so rapidly. But they drew the line at another proposed change.

The tax bill's writers worried that hedge-fund managers could avoid the highest tax rates by simply leaving their income in the fund, collecting it only when they eventually sold the fund itself. At that point, it clearly would qualify for the capital-gains rate, as profit on a sale of a long-held business. So, the tax bill's writers added a provision saying any profit from the sale of a hedge fund, a private-equity firm or other investment partnership would be taxed at the higher rates that apply to ordinary income.

Fund managers despised that idea. "If you founded a hedge fund, when you sold it you were treated worse than if you owned a peep-show business," said John Raffaelli, a Democratic fund-raiser and lobbyist for the hedge-fund industry.

Senate Democrats to whom fund managers had ties were hesitant to block the tax initiative, because it meshed with voter anti-Wall Street sentiment. Also, it could also mean as much as $2 billion of annual revenue.

The tax initiative ultimately failed when a broader measure that it was part of didn't pass, and now it is essentially dead because of GOP control of the House. Before it failed, the tax measure won support from New York Democratic Sen. Charles Mr. Schumer, following an amendment he made in it.

Mr. Schumer, who declined to comment, has remained a big recipient of hedge-fund contributions despite his vote, raising $500,000 from fund managers and their employees in the 2010 election cycle.

But the senator got a taste of hedge funds' frustrations with Democrats in February 2009, during a phone conversation with SAC Capital's Mr. Cohen. "I can't support the Democrats," Mr. Cohen said, according to a person familiar with the discussion. "There is no way I can support what they are doing."

Mr. Cohen had previously been a big Democratic supporter, regularly giving the maximum allowable to Democratic legislators in his home state of Connecticut. In 2008, he, his wife and SAC Capital employees donated more than $500,000 to Democrats, triple what they gave Republicans.

Last August, Mr. Cohen invited a small group of fund managers to a strategy session in his 32,000-square-foot Greenwich home. The gathering included Republican stalwarts such as Paul Singer of Elliott Management and Dan Senor of Rosemont Capital, but also some more recent Republican donors such as Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates. The group decided to direct contributions to GOP campaign coffers and to pro-Republican groups that could raise and spend unlimited amounts.

Campaign reports show Mr. Cohen contributed $1.5 million in 2010 to one such group, the Republican Governors Association. The gifts put him among the top four individual donors to the association in a decade, ahead of mega-Republican donor David Koch of Koch Industries. Mr. Cohen contributed to only one Democrat for the 2010 midterm elections, giving $2,400 to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Mr. Cohen's political shift was driven in part by his concern about increases in government spending and deficits, said a person close to him.

Mr. Kovner of Caxton Associates hadn't dabbled very much in politics before the August meeting. In 2008, he gave $4,600 to two Republican candidates. After the meeting, he donated $615,000 to the GOP, including $500,000 to the Republican Governors Association. Mr. Kovner, along with most others at the meeting, declined to comment.

John Paulson and employees of his Paulson & Co., famed for a lucrative bet against the housing market and mortgage bonds before their collapse, had given about equally to the two parties in 2008. But in 2010, he and his employees gave three times as much to the GOP as to Democrats. Mr. Paulson himself gave about $410,000 to Republican campaign causes.

Citadel's Mr. Griffin and his wife, Anne Dias Griffin, who runs her own hedge fund, also had split their donations between the parties in 2008, but in 2010 they donated $1.8 million to Republicans and just $2,400 to Democrats.

A shift was also evident at Renaissance Technologies LLC. In 2008, its manager, Robert Mercer, and employees donated much more heavily to Democrats than to Republicans—$620,000 versus $95,000. In 2010, they gave $527,000 for Democrats but $782,000 to Republicans.

With the 2012 money race under way, Democrats are reaching out to mend fences. Mr. Schumer has held a series of dinners and chats with hedge-fund managers. Mr. Obama traveled to New York in late March for an event with fund-raisers from Wall Street and the fund industry.

Still, about 6,600 donations to the Democratic National Committee in March appear to include only a handful from hedge-fund people—fewer than from veterinarians or librarians.

Democrats say Mr. Obama is making moves to appeal to the fund industry and has time to win it back. "Whatever the numbers show…at the margins there has been a material shift in support for the president," said Orin Kramer, general partner of hedge fund Boston Provident and an Obama supporter.

—Scott Greenberg contributed to this article.

Yes....let's feel sorry for raising their taxes.

 

[tommyboy]

this seems like a silly semantics spat. Obama is the president, his admin is ignoring a court order for what most certainly is a political reason, therefore he and his administration are acting unethically. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the ruling, when a judge makes a ruling, the rule of law applies and in this country we agree to be governed by it. When we choose not to, we are acting unethically at best.

 

[timschochet]

this seems like a silly semantics spat. Obama is the president, his admin is ignoring a court order for what most certainly is a political reason, therefore he and his administration are acting unethically. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the ruling, when a judge makes a ruling, the rule of law applies and in this country we agree to be governed by it. When we choose not to, we are acting unethically at best.

Even semantically, it really is a stretch to consider this unethical. Let's take another example: the United States signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and considers it a solemn treaty enforced by United States law. Several aspects of our base at Guantanamo is in direct violation of this treaty, including the holding of prisoners for lengthy periods without trial, the use of harsh interrogation techniques, etc. Yet both Bush and Obama have violated these very clear laws. Does that make them personally unethical? Some would argue so, but I doubt you would Tommyboy, and I would agree with you. When you can a president unethical you should be referring to some real charge- selling the Lincoln Bedroom, or lying under oath, or receiving a vicuna coat, etc. This was a political policy decision, and not a matter of ethics.

 

[BoneYardDog]

WASHINGTON -- The economy slowed sharply in the first three months of the year as high gas prices cut into consumer spending, bad weather delayed construction projects and the federal government slashed defense spending by the most in six years.The government says the economy grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter. That was weaker than the 3.1 percent growth rate for the October-December quarter and the worst showing since last spring when the European debt crisis slowed growth to a 1.7 percent pace.More people applied for unemployment benefits. More people requested unemployment benefits last week, the second increase in 3 weeks.

Great job, how many people are better off now then they were 2 years ago???

 

[Statorama]

"We don't have time for such silliness"

- President Obama, prior to flying to Chicago for an appearence on the Oprah Winfrey show

 

[Philo Beddoe]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

 

[timschochet]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

 

[Philo Beddoe]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

What does that have to do with him flying to go do Oprah?

 

[timschochet]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

What does that have to do with him flying to go do Oprah?

You tell me. You're the one who made the analogy.

 

[Road Warriors]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

Calling out your opposition claiming we have more serious issues to work on, then going to do a national television campaign stop sorta undermines this administrations seriousness about working on those real issues. Unless the only real issue for Obama is getting re-elected so we can have another 4 years of blame and spend and getting no closer to real solutions for our nation.

 

[timschochet]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

Calling out your opposition claiming we have more serious issues to work on, then going to do a national television campaign stop sorta undermines this administrations seriousness about working on those real issues. Unless the only real issue for Obama is getting re-elected so we can have another 4 years of blame and spend and getting no closer to real solutions for our nation.

I disagree. Why is he going on the show? In order to sell his ideas to the American public. Why is this necessary? Because if Obama can affect poll numbers then it strengthens him in his negotiations coming up with Republicans over the budget. That's why every public appearance by Obama is a very serious issue. Also, Obama was right to call out those who have shamefully manipulated the birther issue to the point where 40% of Republicans accept the theory that he was not born in the USA. Those are alarming numbers.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

Calling out your opposition claiming we have more serious issues to work on, then going to do a national television campaign stop sorta undermines this administrations seriousness about working on those real issues. Unless the only real issue for Obama is getting re-elected so we can have another 4 years of blame and spend and getting no closer to real solutions for our nation.

I disagree. Why is he going on the show? In order to sell his ideas to the American public. Why is this necessary? Because if Obama can affect poll numbers then it strengthens him in his negotiations coming up with Republicans over the budget. That's why every public appearance by Obama is a very serious issue. Also, Obama was right to call out those who have shamefully manipulated the birther issue to the point where 40% of Republicans accept the theory that he was not born in the USA. Those are alarming numbers.

Come on Barack, you can rise to a higher level:"We're not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other. We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers."

 

[Road Warriors]

Obama "we do not have time for this kind of silliness" then flys to Chicago and goes on Oprah. Guy is a clown.

The only clowns are the ones who believe the Birther movement craziness is in any way comparable to a president appearing on a national television show.

Calling out your opposition claiming we have more serious issues to work on, then going to do a national television campaign stop sorta undermines this administrations seriousness about working on those real issues. Unless the only real issue for Obama is getting re-elected so we can have another 4 years of blame and spend and getting no closer to real solutions for our nation.

I disagree. Why is he going on the show? In order to sell his ideas to the American public. Why is this necessary? Because if Obama can affect poll numbers then it strengthens him in his negotiations coming up with Republicans over the budget. That's why every public appearance by Obama is a very serious issue. Also, Obama was right to call out those who have shamefully manipulated the birther issue to the point where 40% of Republicans accept the theory that he was not born in the USA. Those are alarming numbers.

I agree the birther 40% numbers are scary, but I see Obama in campaign mode already. He and the Democrat leadership are no more serious on trying to fix our unsustainable fiscal model ( tax the rich won't fix it ) than the Republicans are (push social safety nets to private & the states won't fix it either ). He's using this platform to garner votes, not fix a budget. Serious solutions will have to include slashing spending across all the major budget items ( SS, Healthcare, Defense ) AND increasing taxes across the entire tax base. Solutions that target programs that "your side" doesn't like, or increase taxes on a segment of the population that won't vote your way anyway are not real solutions, but attempts to use policy to enhance your chances to win the next election.Until we get some leadership in Washington that is more interested in leading, governing, and working for the betterment of America than they are in winning their next election, we're pretty much screwed.

 

[Fensalk]

A know the right wants to compare him to Carter, but it would be ironic if Obama and Bernanke finally got around to hiking rates to stop rising oil prices right at the end of Obama's term. It would be just like Carter and Volcker hiking rates at the end of Carter's term to stop inflation. Carter tries to take credit, when it should have been done before everything got out of control.

Its like we're watching a replay.

 

[Fensalk]

A new poll reveals some terrible numbers. Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy by a whopping 57-40 margin. 57% of Americans think the economy will get worse (and Americans don't judge that by GDP growth, they judge that by gas prices I bet), up from 39% in January. 71% say we are still in recession (again, Americans probably judge that by gas prices, not GDP growth).

Spoiler

Poll: Obama is losing public's confidence on economy

By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Public disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy reached a new high in mid-April, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll, as gasoline prices neared $4 a gallon and Washington lawmakers fought a bitter battle over the federal budget.

Some 57 percent of registered voters said they disapproved of Obama's economic management, while only 40 percent approved. That's the lowest score of his presidency.

"These numbers spell political trouble," said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, which conducted the survey. "To get re-elected with a 57 percent disapproval rating would be a very tall order."

Meanwhile, public pessimism is growing: Fifty-seven percent of U.S. adults said they thought the worst was yet to come for the U.S economy, up sharply from 39 percent in January. And 71 percent said the nation was still in a recession, even though the slump, which began in December 2007, officially ended in June 2009.

The survey asked 1,084 registered voters about Obama on April 10-14. The error margin is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

"Gasoline prices were taking off, and while people weren't blaming Obama or Congress for that, it certainly put people in a sour mood," Miringoff said.

Obama gave a major speech April 13 in which he laid out his economic and budget agenda in general terms. But his speech didn't change many voters' attitudes. Before the address, 58 percent disapproved of his handling of the economy; after the speech, the negative number dropped to 56 percent. Approval was 40 percent before the address, 41 percent after.

Political analysts generally regard economic conditions as a predictor of upcoming elections. Troubling signs abound. The nation's unemployment rate last month was 8.8 percent, down 1 percentage point from November but still high. The Consumer Price Index, which measures the prices of goods and services, climbed 0.5 percent last month, as gasoline prices rose for the ninth straight month.

Obama could take solace from one finding: Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said the current economic conditions were mostly something the president had inherited, while 30 percent said they were mostly the result of his policies.

Miringoff called that data "a silver lining," but added, "It's hard to paint a rosy picture" of the public's attitude toward Obama on the economy.

 

[Phil Elliott]

A know the right wants to compare him to Carter, but it would be ironic if Obama and Bernanke finally got around to hiking rates to stop rising oil prices right at the end of Obama's term. It would be just like Carter and Volcker hiking rates at the end of Carter's term to stop inflation. Carter tries to take credit, when it should have been done before everything got out of control. Its like we're watching a replay.

There is no comparison to Carter. Carter was so much better...but Obama has reset the bar so low.

 

[Statorama]

Obama administration officials blasted for ignorning Operation Gun Walker subpoenas

Chairman Issa Chastises ATF for Refusal to Comply with Subpoena

"If you do not comply with the subpoena, the Committee will be forced to commence contempt proceedings."

WASHINGTON. D.C. – Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today, in a letter to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Acting Director Kenneth E. Melson, criticized the Director for failing to produce any documents in response to a subpoena issued March 31. The subpoena was issued after ATF and Department of Justice officials failed to cooperate in good faith with the Committee's investigation.

"The Department's internal policy to withhold documents from what it labels pending criminal investigations may not deprive Congress from obtaining those same documents if they are pertinent to a congressional investigation – particularly in a matter involving allegations that reckless and inappropriate decisions by top Justice Department officials may have contributed to the deaths of both U.S. and Mexican citizens," Chairman Issa wrote in citing Supreme Court precedents and previous Congressional investigations. "Let me be clear ... we are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice – specifically, of allegations that the reckless and inappropriate decisions of Department officials have created a serious public safety hazard. We are asking for documents that relate to decisions such officials made. Congress is legally entitled to all of these documents."

Issa noted that the Committee's request for documents has been pending since March 16, 2011 and a request from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley has been pending since January. While the Department of Justice has not produced any documents, Issa's letter to Melson included several documents obtained elsewhere by the Committee indicating the Justice Department knew the public danger the operation created. The role of top Justice Department officials in approving the operation remains top concern for investigators.

"Efforts by the Department of Justice and ATF to stonewall the Committee in its investigation by erroneously, but matter-of-factly, citing an internal department policy as a preventative measure for denying access to documents have only enhanced suspicions that such officials have played a role in reckless decisions that have put lives at risk. The Committee continues to pursue this matter vigorously, in part, because concerned individuals have indicated they do not have confidence in the Department's ability to review the actions of its own top officials."

Issa noted that the Justice Department's claimed concerns about sharing particular documents are undermined by their unwillingness to take steps to engage the committee in a serious conversation.

"Even if a legal basis did exist for withholding documents, the first step in evaluating this argument and the basis for a meaningful conversation between the Committee and the Department of Justice would be the production of a log of documents responsive to the subpoena with a specific explanation as to why you cannot produce each document," Issa wrote in criticizing the Department's disingenuous reasons for failing to cooperate. "The Department has failed to provide any such log."

Media reports have raised questions about the handling of operations involving gun trafficking into Mexico – specifically the allegation that ATF has had a policy of permitting – and even encouraging – the movement of guns into Mexico by straw purchasers. This practice may have contributed to the deaths of hundreds on both sides of the border, including federal law enforcement agents.

 

[Jewell]

Harry Alford, President & CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce shares his opinion of the man he voted for...

"He wants to destroy us [Chamber], and for that I'm going to have to go to war with him."

Harry doesn't hold back. At all. If you don't like Obama, then you'll like this (

)And for those who like Obama but don't like Clarence Thomas, Harry squeaks in a shot.

 

[bueno]

Absolutely not. What he did is a political decision by his administration. ( The judge's order may also have been a political decision, I have no idea.) As I described earlier, a lack of ethics involves unethical behavior- lying in court, having dealings with criminals, money laundering, etc. There were persistent rumors that Obama, prior to becoming a United States senators, was involved in an unethical way with a rather sleazy Chicago developer who is now in prison. These rumors were never proven. If they were proven, then I would regard Obama as unethical. But the stuff your raising has nothing to do with ethics, as I define them.

Oh, right. I forgot. Everything is always contingent upon Timmy's definitions. Dictionaries or standards of a given profession be damned!!!!

Timmy and I have different definitions of ethics, lying, and racism. Even when we agree on the facts, we disagree on what those facts may mean. It is what it is.

Is it really a good posting, Jewell? Strike brought up a judge's decision that the Obama administration, not Obama himself, would be held in contempt because they chose to go ahead with more drilling in the gulf that the environmentalists were trying to halt. Do you really believe this proves Obama is unethical?

Buck stops at the top/

Is it unethical behavior or not?

All I am saying is that a leader is responsible for the actions of those he leads. If those minions are acting unethically and he chooses to condone those actions, even by silence, he is accountable for those actions.

I don't disagree. Now please answer the question. Obama, like Bush before him (and I'm betting Clinton before him, thought I'm not sure) chose to ignore environmentalist concerns and judges' orders with regard to drilling in the gulf. Is this unethical?

No. There are always people who will oppose something.

 

[bueno]

this seems like a silly semantics spat. Obama is the president, his admin is ignoring a court order for what most certainly is a political reason, therefore he and his administration are acting unethically. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the ruling, when a judge makes a ruling, the rule of law applies and in this country we agree to be governed by it. When we choose not to, we are acting unethically at best.

Even semantically, it really is a stretch to consider this unethical. Let's take another example: the United States signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and considers it a solemn treaty enforced by United States law. Several aspects of our base at Guantanamo is in direct violation of this treaty, including the holding of prisoners for lengthy periods without trial, the use of harsh interrogation techniques, etc. Yet both Bush and Obama have violated these very clear laws. Does that make them personally unethical? Some would argue so, but I doubt you would Tommyboy, and I would agree with you. When you can a president unethical you should be referring to some real charge- selling the Lincoln Bedroom, or lying under oath, or receiving a vicuna coat, etc. This was a political policy decision, and not a matter of ethics.

Did the Senate ratify that treaty?