This guy is amazing...first of all he and his party STILL control both the House AND the Senate and he's out there blaming Republicans for everything....he's saying the Republicans are out of touch with the American People...he better start looking in the mirror!!!!!! He's the one that totally out of touch....and why is he in Racine Wis. when he ought to be in the Gulf where good politicians like Bobby Jindal is trying to get something done despite Obama's governmental Red Tape....
The American People are not stupid enough to buy the crap that Obama is spewing!
Obama takes on election-year fears over big debt
By JULIE PACE, RACINE, Wis. –
Sensitive to election-year resentment over big government, President Barack Obama declared Wednesday he intends to get "our
debt and our deficits under control." With fears alive of a double-dip recession, Obama warned that he won't slash spending at the expense of the economic rebound.
"We got it moving again," Obama said of the economy to his town hall audience in this Midwestern city, where
unemployment tops 14 percent. "We now have to, in a gradual way, reduce spending ... but do so in a way that doesn't hurt people. And that is a challenge."
Politically, Obama's
challenge is even broader. He is trying to make the case to the nation that the $862 billion stimulus plan prevented disaster and is fueling job growth even while millions are still out of work. And he is doing it at a time when Republicans are pounding him for running up a long-term bill for taxpayers, the same frustration that helped give rise to the Tea Party movement and that has made the budget deficit a bigger worry for voters across the spectrum.
The dilemma is also playing out globally, as world leaders try to balance pressures to cut their debt without eroding any jolt that came from new spending.
Seizing on a political opportunity, Obama used his latest getaway from Washington to lash out at Republicans as out of touch with the daily problems of Americans. His agenda was to sharpen the contrast with the
opposition party as midterm elections loom and economic anxiety still runs high.
The president jumped all over for two recent comments by Republican lawmakers that Democrats are trying to turn into a political liability for the
GOP: Rep. Joe Barton's apology to BP for the $20 billion compensation fund the White House pressured the company to set up after the Gulf oil spill, and House Minority Leader John Boehner's recent comment that the financial regulation bill Obama supports amounts to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon."
"He can't be that out of touch with the struggles of American families," Obama said of Boehner. "If he is, then he has to come here to Racine and ask people what they think."
Boehner shot back in a statement: "The president should be focused on solving the problems of the
American people — stopping the leaking oil and cleaning up the Gulf, scrapping his job-killing agenda, repealing and replacing ObamaCare — instead of my choice of metaphors."
Obama's comments about debt came amid a national sense of bailout fatigue, with his own economic leadership in question.
"How do we get
government spending under control? That's a legitimate question," Obama said. "And whether you're a Democrat, an independent, or a Republican, all of us should be worried about the fact that we have been running the credit card ... Somebody's going to have to pay that back."
He promised that the matter would be a priority for him over the next couple of years, with help from a commission studying how to reduce costly safety-net programs. Still, the president defended as essential both the unprecedented stimulus spending and the massive aid given to big banks and auto companies.
Speaking to a friendly audience in a state he won in 2008, Obama made the case for a government that plays a role in the lives of its people. And in a sharp critique of his opponents, he said it was a hands-off vision favored by many
Republicans that led the country into an economic mess in the first place.
"Their prescription for every
challenge is pretty much the same — and I don't think I'm exaggerating here: basically cut taxes for the wealthy, cut rules for corporations and cut working folks loose to fend for themselves," he said.
Obama's critique of the
GOP underscored a reality four months out from the midterm elections: While the economy is no longer teetering on the edge of a recession, there are still concerns that the fragile recovery could spiral downward.
A string of disappointing economic numbers, capped off by a dismal report on consumer confidence this week, have contributed to a slide in the markets. The
unemployment rate is expected to hover around 10 percent through the end of the year, and many economists expect Friday's employment report to show that employers cut jobs in June, reversing five straight months of growth.
Obama chided Republicans for blocking the extension of
unemployment benefits and opposing a Wall Street reform bill making its way through Congress, policies he said would bring more certainty to the lives of Americans and to the markets.
From his audience, fielded questions about help for struggling homeowners, support for the military, college education costs and more.
The president seemed to enjoy the moment. And earlier, on his way into town, Obama found a different slice of happiness. At a pastry shop.
He made a surprise detour to O&H Danish Bakery, purveyor of a delicacy called a kringle — a large round flat pastry with a hole in the middle.
Obama walked in with his jacket off and sleeves rolled up and shook hands with the dozen patrons in the store. He sampled a pecan kringle, proclaimed it outstanding and added: "It makes you happy."
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Oil spill visits get partisan - This arguement is stupid, but if I were the Republicans I would pay for the trip myself and take a ton of media
This is ridiculous partisan bickering...with all the money that Pelosi and Democrats waste flying around to Copenhagen, Europe and other useless destinations our politicians should be able to see the great damage being done to the Gulf thanks to Obama and the Democrats lack of leadership!.....If I were the republicans I would pay for the trip myself and take a ton of media with me to document the damage in all it's glory and make it a front page issue once again...with Obama's recent actions to ignore this spill the public needs to know what's happening!
Oil spill visits get partisan - Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com
Oil spill visits get partisan - Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com
The Kagan Deception | These Hearings have become a Farce
These hearings have become a farce....the nominee answers nothing and when there is a response there's great question if it is the truth....my remedy is to have the nominee hooked up to a lie detector as they are asked the questions.
The Kagan Deception | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
The Kagan Deception | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Largest skimmer in the world must be deemed ‘effective’ by the federal government before it’s allowed to help with oil clean-up|
Another example of incompetent Obama's leadership in this oil spill debacle!
Largest skimmer in the world must be deemed ‘effective’ by the federal government before it’s allowed to help with oil clean-up | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Largest skimmer in the world must be deemed ‘effective’ by the federal government before it’s allowed to help with oil clean-up | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
OBAMA ACTION AFTER DAY 70 THAT SHOULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE AFTER DAY 3!
AFTER DAY 70!!!!!! WHAT THE HELL HAS OBAMA BEEN DOING????? AND WHY ONLY ACCEPT HELP FROM 12 COUNTRIES WHEN 30 OFFERED....AND NOW TO ACCEPT THE HELP AFTER HURRICANE ALEX HAS STIRRED UP THE GULF AND PUSHED OIL INTO THE WETLANDS....OBAMA SHOULD BE HELD PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MESS....HE SHOULD BE PROSECUTED!
US accepts international assistance in dealing with massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
EmailPrint..On Tuesday June 29, 2010, 6:43 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.
The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.
More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.
US accepts international assistance in dealing with massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
EmailPrint..On Tuesday June 29, 2010, 6:43 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.
The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.
More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.
Obama's Lack of Leadership on the Oil Spill - and now he's trying to Ignore it!
Obama's Ignoring the Oil Spill...Hoping it goes away....It won't...he's said he's in charge, but he's not doing anything!....Here's what he needs to do to start to solve the problem...as you can see it's a long list and it shows how incompetent he is....
Obama's Oil Spill To-Do List
The oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico gets worse by the day. Oil spews from the broken well, further polluting our water and shores. The clean-up efforts drag on with bureaucratic interference, making matters worse. And what is the Obama administration doing? It continues to push for unrelated responses that will have a disastrous effect on our economy, especially the economy of the Gulf states most affected.
In fact, President Obama summoned a bipartisan group of senators to the White House on Tuesday to discuss his climate change legislation. When Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander suggested that any such energy meeting should include a focus on the oil spill and BP, Obama responded: "that's just your talking point" and refused to discuss the crisis.
Unfortunately, the American people are not hearing any of this. Day after day, blind allegiance to the president causes his supporters on the left to simply say the government is doing all that it can. The national media, prone to attention deficit disorder when a president they support is in the White House, have already moved on to a myriad of other subjects, offering only sporadic updates on the continuing crisis.
When the president answered questions following the G20 conference, not one reporter asked him about the situation in the Gulf. Not one question. When attention is paid, it is focused on BP, which is only half the story — the other half being government incompetence or an ideological rigidity that prevents commonsense solutions.
The Heritage Foundation has offered a great deal of research and analysis related to the current crisis. It can be found indexed here. Starting today, we will also highlight the top actions the federal government must take immediately to assist the citizens of the Gulf as they cope with this tragedy. As the government responds or acts on these actions, we will directly update this post online to reflect the news and add new actions as we deem appropriate.
Please let us know in the online comments section any other deficiencies we should be monitoring. Until this crisis is resolved, you will be able to find this post, as well as future updates, under our Foundry Features labeled: Oil Spill To-Do List. Without further delay, here are the first ten actions President Obama can take immediately to help solve the crisis in the Gulf.
1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go at it alone. The major stumbling block is a protectionist piece of legislation called the Jones Act, which requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. But, in an emergency, this law can be temporarily waived, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff did after Katrina. Each day European and Asian allies are prevented from helping us speed up the cleanup is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die. For more information on this, click here.
2. Accept International Assistance: At least thirty countries and international organizations have offered equipment and experts so far. According to reports this week, the White House has finally decided to accept help from twelve of these nations. The Obama administration should make clear why they are refusing the other eighteen-plus offers. In a statement, the State Department said it is still working out the particulars of the assistance it has accepted. This should be done swiftly as months have already been wasted.
Take Sweden, for example. According to Heritage expert James Carafano: "After offering assistance shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Sweden received a request for information about their specialized assets from the State Department on May 7. Swedish officials answered the inquiry the same day, saying that some assets, such as booms, could be sent within days and that it would take a couple of weeks to send ships. There are three brand new Swedish Coast Guard vessels built for dealing with a major oil spill cleanup. Each has a capacity to collect nearly 50 tons of oil per hour from the surface of the sea and can hold 1,000 tons of spilled oil in their tanks. But according to the State Department's recently released chart on international offers of assistance, the Swedish equipment and ships are still 'under consideration.' So months later, the booms sit unused and brand new Swedish ships still sit idle in port, thousands of miles from the Gulf. The delay in accepting offers of assistance is unacceptable." For more information, click here or here.
3. Lift the Moratorium: The Obama administration's over-expansive ban on offshore energy development is killing jobs when they are needed most. A panel of engineering experts told The New Orleans Times-Picayune that they only supported a six-month ban on new drilling in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. Those same experts were consulted by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar before he issued his May 27 report recommending a six-month moratorium on all ongoing drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. A letter from these experts reads: "A blanket moratorium is not the answer. It will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill. We do not believe punishing the innocent is the right thing to do."
And just how many innocent jobs is Obama's oil ban killing? An earlier Times-Picayune report estimated the moratorium could cost Louisiana 7,590 jobs and $2.97 billion in revenue directly related to the oil industry. For more information on this, click here.
4. Release the S.S. A-Whale: The S.S. A-Whale skimmer is a converted oil tanker capable of cleaning 500,000 barrels of oil a day from the Gulf waters. Currently, the largest skimmer being used in the clean-up efforts can handle 4,000 barrels a day, and the entire fleet our government has authorized for BP has only gathered 600,000 barrels, total in the 70 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The ship embarked from Norfolk, VA, this week toward the Gulf, hoping to get federal approval to begin assisting the clean-up, but is facing bureaucratic resistance.
As a foreign-flagged ship, the S.S. A-Whale needs a waiver from the Jones Act, but even outside that three-mile limitation, the U.S. Coast Guard and the EPA have to approve its operation due to the nature of its operation, which separates the oil from the water and then releases water back into the Gulf, with a minor amount of oil residue. The government should not place perfection over the need for speed, especially facing the threat of an active hurricane season. For more information on this, click here.
5. Remove State and Local Roadblocks: Local governments are not getting the assistance they need to help in the cleanup. For example, nearly two months ago, officials from Escambia County, Fla., requested permission from the Mobile Unified Command Center to use a sand skimmer, a device pulled behind a tractor that removes oil and tar from the top three feet of sand, to help clean up Pensacola’s beaches. County officials still haven't heard anything back. Santa Rosa Island Authority Buck Lee explains why: "Escambia County sends a request to the Mobile, Ala., Unified Command Center. Then, it’s reviewed by BP, the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard. If they don't like it, they don’t tell us anything."
State and local governments know their geography, people, economic impacts and needs far better than the federal government does. Contrary to popular belief, the federal government has actually been playing a bigger and bigger role in running natural disaster responses. And as Heritage fellow Matt Mayer has documented, the results have gotten worse, not better. Local governments should be given the tools they need to aid in the disaster relief. For more information on this, click here.
6. Allow Sand Berm Dredging: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recently prevented the state of Louisiana from dredging to build protective sand berms. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser immediately sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the work continue. He said, "Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil. Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil." For more information on this, click here.
7. Waive or Suspend EPA Regulations: Because more water than oil is collected in skimming operations (85% to 90% is water according to Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen), operators need to discharge the filtered water back into the Gulf so they can continue to collect oil. The discharged water is vastly cleaner than when it was skimmed, but not sufficiently pure according to normal EPA regulations. If the water has to be kept in the vessel and taken back to shore for purification, it vastly multiples the resources and time needed, requiring cleanup ships to make extra round trips, transporting seven times as much water as the oil they collect. We already have insufficient cleanup ships (as the Coast Guard officially determined); they need to be cleaning up oil, not transporting water. For more information, click here.
8. Temporarily Loosen Coast Guard Inspections: In early June, sixteen barges that were vacuuming oil out of the Gulf were ordered to halt work. The Coast Guard had the clean-up vessels sit idle as they were inspected for fire extinguishers and life vests. Maritime safety is clearly a priority, but speed is of the essence in the Gulf waters. The U.S. Coast Guard should either temporarily loosen its inspection procedures or implement a process that allows inspections to occur as the ships operate. For more information, click here.
9. Stop Coast Guard Budget Cuts: Now is not the time to be cutting Coast Guard capabilities, but that is exactly what President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are doing. Rather than rebuilding and modernizing the Coast Guard as is necessary, they are cutting back assets needed to respond to catastrophic disasters. In particular, the National Strike Force, specifically organized to respond to oil spills and other hazardous materials disasters, is being cut. Overall, President Obama has told the Coast Guard to shed nearly 1,000 personnel, five cutters, and several helicopters and aircraft. Congress and the Administration should double the U.S. Coast Guard's active and reserve end strength over the next decade and significantly accelerate Coast Guard modernization, but for the time being, they should halt all budgetary cuts. For more information, click here.
10. Halt Climate Change Legislation: President Obama has placed his focus to the oil spill on oil demand rather than oil in our water. Regardless of political views, now is not the time to be taking advantage of this crisis to further an unrelated piece of legislation that will kill jobs and, in the President’s own words, cause energy prices to "skyrocket." Less than 5% of our nation's electricity needs are met by petroleum. Pushing solar and wind alternatives is in no way related to the disaster in the Gulf. It's time for President Obama to focus on the direct actions he can take in the Gulf rather than the indirect harm he can cause in Congress. As Heritage expert David Kreutzer opines: "Fix the leak first, and then we’ll talk." A crisis should not be a terrible thing to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said, but a problem to be solved. For more information, click here.
Obama's Oil Spill To-Do List
The oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico gets worse by the day. Oil spews from the broken well, further polluting our water and shores. The clean-up efforts drag on with bureaucratic interference, making matters worse. And what is the Obama administration doing? It continues to push for unrelated responses that will have a disastrous effect on our economy, especially the economy of the Gulf states most affected.
In fact, President Obama summoned a bipartisan group of senators to the White House on Tuesday to discuss his climate change legislation. When Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander suggested that any such energy meeting should include a focus on the oil spill and BP, Obama responded: "that's just your talking point" and refused to discuss the crisis.
Unfortunately, the American people are not hearing any of this. Day after day, blind allegiance to the president causes his supporters on the left to simply say the government is doing all that it can. The national media, prone to attention deficit disorder when a president they support is in the White House, have already moved on to a myriad of other subjects, offering only sporadic updates on the continuing crisis.
When the president answered questions following the G20 conference, not one reporter asked him about the situation in the Gulf. Not one question. When attention is paid, it is focused on BP, which is only half the story — the other half being government incompetence or an ideological rigidity that prevents commonsense solutions.
The Heritage Foundation has offered a great deal of research and analysis related to the current crisis. It can be found indexed here. Starting today, we will also highlight the top actions the federal government must take immediately to assist the citizens of the Gulf as they cope with this tragedy. As the government responds or acts on these actions, we will directly update this post online to reflect the news and add new actions as we deem appropriate.
Please let us know in the online comments section any other deficiencies we should be monitoring. Until this crisis is resolved, you will be able to find this post, as well as future updates, under our Foundry Features labeled: Oil Spill To-Do List. Without further delay, here are the first ten actions President Obama can take immediately to help solve the crisis in the Gulf.
1. Waive the Jones Act: According to one Dutch newspaper, European firms could complete the oil spill cleanup by themselves in just four months, and three months if they work with the United States, which is much faster than the estimated nine months it would take the Obama administration to go at it alone. The major stumbling block is a protectionist piece of legislation called the Jones Act, which requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flagged ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens. But, in an emergency, this law can be temporarily waived, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff did after Katrina. Each day European and Asian allies are prevented from helping us speed up the cleanup is another day that Gulf fishing and tourism jobs die. For more information on this, click here.
2. Accept International Assistance: At least thirty countries and international organizations have offered equipment and experts so far. According to reports this week, the White House has finally decided to accept help from twelve of these nations. The Obama administration should make clear why they are refusing the other eighteen-plus offers. In a statement, the State Department said it is still working out the particulars of the assistance it has accepted. This should be done swiftly as months have already been wasted.
Take Sweden, for example. According to Heritage expert James Carafano: "After offering assistance shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Sweden received a request for information about their specialized assets from the State Department on May 7. Swedish officials answered the inquiry the same day, saying that some assets, such as booms, could be sent within days and that it would take a couple of weeks to send ships. There are three brand new Swedish Coast Guard vessels built for dealing with a major oil spill cleanup. Each has a capacity to collect nearly 50 tons of oil per hour from the surface of the sea and can hold 1,000 tons of spilled oil in their tanks. But according to the State Department's recently released chart on international offers of assistance, the Swedish equipment and ships are still 'under consideration.' So months later, the booms sit unused and brand new Swedish ships still sit idle in port, thousands of miles from the Gulf. The delay in accepting offers of assistance is unacceptable." For more information, click here or here.
3. Lift the Moratorium: The Obama administration's over-expansive ban on offshore energy development is killing jobs when they are needed most. A panel of engineering experts told The New Orleans Times-Picayune that they only supported a six-month ban on new drilling in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. Those same experts were consulted by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar before he issued his May 27 report recommending a six-month moratorium on all ongoing drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet. A letter from these experts reads: "A blanket moratorium is not the answer. It will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill. We do not believe punishing the innocent is the right thing to do."
And just how many innocent jobs is Obama's oil ban killing? An earlier Times-Picayune report estimated the moratorium could cost Louisiana 7,590 jobs and $2.97 billion in revenue directly related to the oil industry. For more information on this, click here.
4. Release the S.S. A-Whale: The S.S. A-Whale skimmer is a converted oil tanker capable of cleaning 500,000 barrels of oil a day from the Gulf waters. Currently, the largest skimmer being used in the clean-up efforts can handle 4,000 barrels a day, and the entire fleet our government has authorized for BP has only gathered 600,000 barrels, total in the 70 days since the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The ship embarked from Norfolk, VA, this week toward the Gulf, hoping to get federal approval to begin assisting the clean-up, but is facing bureaucratic resistance.
As a foreign-flagged ship, the S.S. A-Whale needs a waiver from the Jones Act, but even outside that three-mile limitation, the U.S. Coast Guard and the EPA have to approve its operation due to the nature of its operation, which separates the oil from the water and then releases water back into the Gulf, with a minor amount of oil residue. The government should not place perfection over the need for speed, especially facing the threat of an active hurricane season. For more information on this, click here.
5. Remove State and Local Roadblocks: Local governments are not getting the assistance they need to help in the cleanup. For example, nearly two months ago, officials from Escambia County, Fla., requested permission from the Mobile Unified Command Center to use a sand skimmer, a device pulled behind a tractor that removes oil and tar from the top three feet of sand, to help clean up Pensacola’s beaches. County officials still haven't heard anything back. Santa Rosa Island Authority Buck Lee explains why: "Escambia County sends a request to the Mobile, Ala., Unified Command Center. Then, it’s reviewed by BP, the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard. If they don't like it, they don’t tell us anything."
State and local governments know their geography, people, economic impacts and needs far better than the federal government does. Contrary to popular belief, the federal government has actually been playing a bigger and bigger role in running natural disaster responses. And as Heritage fellow Matt Mayer has documented, the results have gotten worse, not better. Local governments should be given the tools they need to aid in the disaster relief. For more information on this, click here.
6. Allow Sand Berm Dredging: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recently prevented the state of Louisiana from dredging to build protective sand berms. Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser immediately sent a letter to President Obama requesting that the work continue. He said, "Once again, our government resource agencies, which are intended to protect us, are now leaving us vulnerable to the destruction of our coastline and marshes by the impending oil. Furthermore, with the threat of hurricanes or tropical storms, we are being put at an increased risk for devastation to our area from the intrusion of oil." For more information on this, click here.
7. Waive or Suspend EPA Regulations: Because more water than oil is collected in skimming operations (85% to 90% is water according to Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen), operators need to discharge the filtered water back into the Gulf so they can continue to collect oil. The discharged water is vastly cleaner than when it was skimmed, but not sufficiently pure according to normal EPA regulations. If the water has to be kept in the vessel and taken back to shore for purification, it vastly multiples the resources and time needed, requiring cleanup ships to make extra round trips, transporting seven times as much water as the oil they collect. We already have insufficient cleanup ships (as the Coast Guard officially determined); they need to be cleaning up oil, not transporting water. For more information, click here.
8. Temporarily Loosen Coast Guard Inspections: In early June, sixteen barges that were vacuuming oil out of the Gulf were ordered to halt work. The Coast Guard had the clean-up vessels sit idle as they were inspected for fire extinguishers and life vests. Maritime safety is clearly a priority, but speed is of the essence in the Gulf waters. The U.S. Coast Guard should either temporarily loosen its inspection procedures or implement a process that allows inspections to occur as the ships operate. For more information, click here.
9. Stop Coast Guard Budget Cuts: Now is not the time to be cutting Coast Guard capabilities, but that is exactly what President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are doing. Rather than rebuilding and modernizing the Coast Guard as is necessary, they are cutting back assets needed to respond to catastrophic disasters. In particular, the National Strike Force, specifically organized to respond to oil spills and other hazardous materials disasters, is being cut. Overall, President Obama has told the Coast Guard to shed nearly 1,000 personnel, five cutters, and several helicopters and aircraft. Congress and the Administration should double the U.S. Coast Guard's active and reserve end strength over the next decade and significantly accelerate Coast Guard modernization, but for the time being, they should halt all budgetary cuts. For more information, click here.
10. Halt Climate Change Legislation: President Obama has placed his focus to the oil spill on oil demand rather than oil in our water. Regardless of political views, now is not the time to be taking advantage of this crisis to further an unrelated piece of legislation that will kill jobs and, in the President’s own words, cause energy prices to "skyrocket." Less than 5% of our nation's electricity needs are met by petroleum. Pushing solar and wind alternatives is in no way related to the disaster in the Gulf. It's time for President Obama to focus on the direct actions he can take in the Gulf rather than the indirect harm he can cause in Congress. As Heritage expert David Kreutzer opines: "Fix the leak first, and then we’ll talk." A crisis should not be a terrible thing to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said, but a problem to be solved. For more information, click here.
More Obama-nomics....they keep on spending!
Here's another Democratic attempt to drive up wasteful spending to protect one of their special interest, the unions.....Here they are adding Billions of spending to a bill that has war spending in it just to try to ram it through...The Republicans need to say NO!
Dems Add Teacher Money in Bid to Pass Afghanistan War Funding Bill
Published June 30, 2010
| Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats, who are trying to pass a long-stalled war funding bill this week, have attached $10 billion to help local school districts avoid teacher layoffs when schools reopen.
The approximately $70 billion measure is anchored by President Barack Obama's $30 billion request for the troop surge in Afghanistan and contains money for disaster aid accounts, foreign aid and disability benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The bill's release late Tuesday night was the surest signal yet that House leaders are committed to passing it this week, despite great resistance among many Democratic lawmakers and deepening anxiety over the Afghanistan war effort among Obama allies such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The Senate passed an almost $60 billion version of the bill last month. Successful action by the House would send the measure into negotiations aimed at producing a final measure next month for Obama's signature.
The difficulty in passing the bill in the House is magnified by disagreement between Republicans supportive of the war -- who insist the measure be "clean" of unrelated spending -- and Democrats who want funding for the unpopular war to carry unrelated party priorities. Republicans are threatening to withhold support for the overall package if Democratic add-ons are included.
Democrats such as Appropriations Committee David Obey of Wisconsin, who's deeply skeptical of the Afghanistan effort, are insisting the measure carry billions of dollars in funding to help revenue-starved school boards avoid teacher layoffs. A $23 billion, debt-financed plan has been scrapped over deficit concerns, but has been replaced with a $10 billion "education jobs fund" financed by multiple cuts from prior spending bills, including last year's stimulus bill.
There's also more than $500 million in new money to hire more border patrol agents and pay for other security initiatives along the U.S.-Mexico border -- though $200 million in previously appropriated money for a border fence, popular with Republicans, would be rescinded.
And there's $18 billion in new Energy Department loan guarantees, to be evenly split between nuclear and renewable energy projects.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been agitating for the war money, requested in February, but the real deadline for Congress isn't until the August recess.
Part of the delay has been over finding offsetting budget cuts to finance the teacher jobs initiative. The sometimes combative Obey has been wrestling with the White House budget office over the cuts.
The package unveiled Tuesday includes unspent defense funds, as well as money cut from community development and rural Internet projects.
Dems Add Teacher Money in Bid to Pass Afghanistan War Funding Bill
Published June 30, 2010
| Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats, who are trying to pass a long-stalled war funding bill this week, have attached $10 billion to help local school districts avoid teacher layoffs when schools reopen.
The approximately $70 billion measure is anchored by President Barack Obama's $30 billion request for the troop surge in Afghanistan and contains money for disaster aid accounts, foreign aid and disability benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The bill's release late Tuesday night was the surest signal yet that House leaders are committed to passing it this week, despite great resistance among many Democratic lawmakers and deepening anxiety over the Afghanistan war effort among Obama allies such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The Senate passed an almost $60 billion version of the bill last month. Successful action by the House would send the measure into negotiations aimed at producing a final measure next month for Obama's signature.
The difficulty in passing the bill in the House is magnified by disagreement between Republicans supportive of the war -- who insist the measure be "clean" of unrelated spending -- and Democrats who want funding for the unpopular war to carry unrelated party priorities. Republicans are threatening to withhold support for the overall package if Democratic add-ons are included.
Democrats such as Appropriations Committee David Obey of Wisconsin, who's deeply skeptical of the Afghanistan effort, are insisting the measure carry billions of dollars in funding to help revenue-starved school boards avoid teacher layoffs. A $23 billion, debt-financed plan has been scrapped over deficit concerns, but has been replaced with a $10 billion "education jobs fund" financed by multiple cuts from prior spending bills, including last year's stimulus bill.
There's also more than $500 million in new money to hire more border patrol agents and pay for other security initiatives along the U.S.-Mexico border -- though $200 million in previously appropriated money for a border fence, popular with Republicans, would be rescinded.
And there's $18 billion in new Energy Department loan guarantees, to be evenly split between nuclear and renewable energy projects.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been agitating for the war money, requested in February, but the real deadline for Congress isn't until the August recess.
Part of the delay has been over finding offsetting budget cuts to finance the teacher jobs initiative. The sometimes combative Obey has been wrestling with the White House budget office over the cuts.
The package unveiled Tuesday includes unspent defense funds, as well as money cut from community development and rural Internet projects.
Obama-nomics....Obama and the Democrats JUST DON'T GET IT....they keep spending and spending and spending!
Obama and his liberal/progressive administration just don't get it...they keep spending money even though the American People are screaming STOP!.....They keep burdening bills with more wasteful spending trying to sneak through pet spending projects that help their special interests...ie unions. The American People need to reject these Democrats starting this November at the polls. It's the ONLY way to stop this diasterous path to fiscal ruin.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
OBAMA....A PATHETIC LEADER!
After 70 DAYS...OBAMA FINALLY ACCEPTS INTERNATIONAL HELP WITH THE OIL SPILL...NOW THAT MOST OF THE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE......WHAT A LEADER!!!!! WHAT A PRESIDENT!!!!! THIS GUY IS AN IDIOT!!!!! AND IF YOU HAVE NOTICED HE IS TRYING TO RUN AWAY FROM THIS CRISIS AS FAST AS HE CAN....BUT HE'S IN CHARGE!
US accepts international assistance in dealing with massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.
The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.
More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.
US accepts international assistance in dealing with massive oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations in dealing with the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The State Department said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. is working out the particulars of the help that's been accepted.
The identities of all 12 countries and international organizations were not immediately announced. One country was cited in the State Department statement -- Japan, which is providing two high-speed skimmers and fire containment boom.
More than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill. The State Department hasn't indicated why some offers have been accepted and others have not.
This is Precisely why we need Term Limits....Rep Stark's arrogant response to the need for border security!
This is exactly why we need term limits.... Democratic Congressman from Ca. could give a rat's Ass about border security and simply mocks a constituent that asks him a question. This guy needs to be put of office this November we he comes up for reelection...After 37 years in the House if this is all the more concerned HE is....He needs to GO!...Folks with this kind of attitude do NOT need to in Congress!
The Bad Financial Reform Bill
From the Heritage Foundation...a good analysis of the Dodd/Frank financial regulation bill is so BAD!....but what would you expect from Chis Dodd and Barney Frank!....let's hope the Republicans stand together to get this defeated!
The Dodd-Frank Assault on Economic Recovery
Following the release of the 2,000-page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill last Friday, fixed-income portfolio manager Christine McConnell told Businessweek: "Clarity is good. [Once financial institutions] understand the rules of the road they'll be able to accommodate their business models." There is only one problem: passage of the Dodd-Frank bill doesn't provide any clarity. In fact, it does the exact opposite. The New York Times explains: "The bill, completed early Friday and expected to come up for a final vote this week, is basically a 2,000-page missive to federal agencies, instructing regulators to address subjects ranging from derivatives trading to document retention. But it is notably short on specifics, giving regulators significant power to determine its impact."
In other words, this law is going to be continually rewritten by federal bureaucrats for years to come. And the continued uncertainty it will create is just the beginning of its faults:
Permanent Bailout Authority: The Dodd-Frank bill creates an "orderly liquidation" process by which regulators are empowered to seize financial institutions that they believe are in danger of failing and liquidate them. While the lack of a broadly accepted process for closing down large financial institutions helped lead to the massive bailouts of 2008 and 2009, this liquidation process is problematic. Federal regulators are granted broad powers to seize private firms they feel are in danger of default, and these powers are subject to insufficient judicial review. Such governmental discretion to seize private property is constitutionally troubling.
Trusting the Same Regulators that Failed Last Time: The legislation establishes a new 10-member Financial Stability Oversight Council composed of regulators that would be responsible for monitoring and addressing system-wide risks to the financial system. This council would also have nearly unlimited powers to draft financial firms into the regulatory system and even force them to sell off or close pieces of themselves. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to detect systemic risk before a crisis has occurred, and the council would serve mainly as a group to blame for failing at an almost impossible task. On the other hand, its huge powers are much more likely to destabilize the financial system by stifling innovative products while failing to detect dangers posed by existing ones.
Brand New Innovation Killing Regulators: The bill also creates a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection with broad powers to regulate the financial products and services that can be offered to consumers. The new agency would nominally be part of the Federal Reserve System, but it would have extraordinary autonomy. This autonomy would impede the efforts of existing regulators to ensure the safety and soundness of financial firms, as rules imposed by the new agency would conflict with that goal. For many consumers, this would make credit more expensive and harder to get.
Micromanaging the Market: The conference committee also added a form of the "Volcker rule" which would largely prohibit any bank or other institution with FDIC-insured deposits from undertaking proprietary trading or from owning or sponsoring hedge funds or private equity funds. While the legislation does reject the near-total ban on such investments, the difference between legitimate and traditional activities and those the Volcker rule seeks to ban would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Attempting to do so would require an intrusive, expensive regulatory compliance system that by its nature would micromanage day-to-day activities.
Fannie and Freddie Forever: Despite much rhetoric about ending bailouts, the bill does nothing to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the largest recipients of federal bailout money. These two government-sponsored enterprises, now in federal receivership, helped fuel the housing bubble. When it popped, taxpayers found themselves on the hook for some $150 billion in bailout money. The failure to address their future is a serious error and shows just how hollow are claims that this agreement will prevent future crises.
These are just some of the major flaws in a bill that is just one House and Senate vote away from President Barack Obama's desk (a fuller list can be found here). But final passage is not as sure today as it looked Friday. The passing of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) leaves the majority one vote short of the 60 needed to move for a final vote. In addition, the insertion of an estimated $20 billion in new taxes has Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) reconsidering his original vote in favor of the measure. Scott released a statement explaining: "My fear is that these costs would be passed onto consumers in the form of higher bank, ATM and credit card fees and put a strain on lending at the worst possible time for our economy. I’ve said repeatedly that I cannot support any bill that raises taxes."
Explaining that the Dodd-Frank bill would force banks to either take on more risk to recoup earnings diminished by reform or behave too conservatively in order to avoid losses, financial analyst Chris Mutascio summarized the ultimate effect of the legislation: "Pick your poison—neither tastes good to us and we believe neither is particularly good for the economy and job growth."
The Dodd-Frank Assault on Economic Recovery
Following the release of the 2,000-page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill last Friday, fixed-income portfolio manager Christine McConnell told Businessweek: "Clarity is good. [Once financial institutions] understand the rules of the road they'll be able to accommodate their business models." There is only one problem: passage of the Dodd-Frank bill doesn't provide any clarity. In fact, it does the exact opposite. The New York Times explains: "The bill, completed early Friday and expected to come up for a final vote this week, is basically a 2,000-page missive to federal agencies, instructing regulators to address subjects ranging from derivatives trading to document retention. But it is notably short on specifics, giving regulators significant power to determine its impact."
In other words, this law is going to be continually rewritten by federal bureaucrats for years to come. And the continued uncertainty it will create is just the beginning of its faults:
Permanent Bailout Authority: The Dodd-Frank bill creates an "orderly liquidation" process by which regulators are empowered to seize financial institutions that they believe are in danger of failing and liquidate them. While the lack of a broadly accepted process for closing down large financial institutions helped lead to the massive bailouts of 2008 and 2009, this liquidation process is problematic. Federal regulators are granted broad powers to seize private firms they feel are in danger of default, and these powers are subject to insufficient judicial review. Such governmental discretion to seize private property is constitutionally troubling.
Trusting the Same Regulators that Failed Last Time: The legislation establishes a new 10-member Financial Stability Oversight Council composed of regulators that would be responsible for monitoring and addressing system-wide risks to the financial system. This council would also have nearly unlimited powers to draft financial firms into the regulatory system and even force them to sell off or close pieces of themselves. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to detect systemic risk before a crisis has occurred, and the council would serve mainly as a group to blame for failing at an almost impossible task. On the other hand, its huge powers are much more likely to destabilize the financial system by stifling innovative products while failing to detect dangers posed by existing ones.
Brand New Innovation Killing Regulators: The bill also creates a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection with broad powers to regulate the financial products and services that can be offered to consumers. The new agency would nominally be part of the Federal Reserve System, but it would have extraordinary autonomy. This autonomy would impede the efforts of existing regulators to ensure the safety and soundness of financial firms, as rules imposed by the new agency would conflict with that goal. For many consumers, this would make credit more expensive and harder to get.
Micromanaging the Market: The conference committee also added a form of the "Volcker rule" which would largely prohibit any bank or other institution with FDIC-insured deposits from undertaking proprietary trading or from owning or sponsoring hedge funds or private equity funds. While the legislation does reject the near-total ban on such investments, the difference between legitimate and traditional activities and those the Volcker rule seeks to ban would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Attempting to do so would require an intrusive, expensive regulatory compliance system that by its nature would micromanage day-to-day activities.
Fannie and Freddie Forever: Despite much rhetoric about ending bailouts, the bill does nothing to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the largest recipients of federal bailout money. These two government-sponsored enterprises, now in federal receivership, helped fuel the housing bubble. When it popped, taxpayers found themselves on the hook for some $150 billion in bailout money. The failure to address their future is a serious error and shows just how hollow are claims that this agreement will prevent future crises.
These are just some of the major flaws in a bill that is just one House and Senate vote away from President Barack Obama's desk (a fuller list can be found here). But final passage is not as sure today as it looked Friday. The passing of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) leaves the majority one vote short of the 60 needed to move for a final vote. In addition, the insertion of an estimated $20 billion in new taxes has Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) reconsidering his original vote in favor of the measure. Scott released a statement explaining: "My fear is that these costs would be passed onto consumers in the form of higher bank, ATM and credit card fees and put a strain on lending at the worst possible time for our economy. I’ve said repeatedly that I cannot support any bill that raises taxes."
Explaining that the Dodd-Frank bill would force banks to either take on more risk to recoup earnings diminished by reform or behave too conservatively in order to avoid losses, financial analyst Chris Mutascio summarized the ultimate effect of the legislation: "Pick your poison—neither tastes good to us and we believe neither is particularly good for the economy and job growth."
Obama will NEVER address spending cuts...all he's going to do is raise Taxes!
Obama isn't interested in cutting spending UNLESS he cuts Defense Spending....all he wants to do is to raise taxes so he can keep on spending to get his progressive/socialist agenda in place.
Your President Obama again flirting with the enemy!thes
Must be embarassing for Obama to be working hard to gain the favor of Russia when they are simply spying on us and taking advantage of us....If we only had a BRIGHT President!
U.S. Espionage Claims Recall Cold War `Spy Mania,' Russia Says
By Lucian Kim and Ilya Arkhipov - Jun 29, 2010
The U.S. Justice Department’s claims that it broke up a Russian spy ring are “regrettable” and reminiscent of the Cold War at a time when relations are improving, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
“Such actions are completely unfounded and serve unseemly goals,” the ministry said today on its website. The allegations are “in the spirit of cold war spy mania,” according to the statement.
Ten alleged members of a “long-term, deep-cover” Russian spy ring have been arrested on the U.S. East Coast, the Justice Department said yesterday. The suspects, who are accused of seeking to infiltrate U.S. policy-making circles, face charges including conspiring to act as illegal Russian agents and to commit money laundering.
The arrests were announced less than a week after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Washington as a part of a “reset” in relations the U.S. initiated last year. President Barack Obama has made a nuclear arms control treaty, which still requires Senate ratification, the centerpiece of improved ties.
While the spy scandal won’t necessarily affect the Obama administration’s position on Russia, it could push some senators to vote against the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairsmagazine.
“If this becomes the reason for the non-ratification of the new START treaty, it will seriously damage the reset,” Lukyanov said. Since arms control is linked to other issues, failure to ratify the accord may also affect missile defense talks and cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program, he said.
U.S. Hawks
Russia will probably wait before reacting with a reciprocal move because the situation is unclear and tit-for-tat actions would only confirm the validity of the charges, Lukyanov said.
The timing of the Justice Department’s announcement shows that there are “hawks” in the U.S. security services opposed to better relations, said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“There is no way to stop the reset as long as Obama is in power,” Malashenko said. “But a scandal like this is meant to show Americans that Russians are untrustworthy and that confrontation continues.”
U.S. Espionage Claims Recall Cold War `Spy Mania,' Russia Says
By Lucian Kim and Ilya Arkhipov - Jun 29, 2010
The U.S. Justice Department’s claims that it broke up a Russian spy ring are “regrettable” and reminiscent of the Cold War at a time when relations are improving, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
“Such actions are completely unfounded and serve unseemly goals,” the ministry said today on its website. The allegations are “in the spirit of cold war spy mania,” according to the statement.
Ten alleged members of a “long-term, deep-cover” Russian spy ring have been arrested on the U.S. East Coast, the Justice Department said yesterday. The suspects, who are accused of seeking to infiltrate U.S. policy-making circles, face charges including conspiring to act as illegal Russian agents and to commit money laundering.
The arrests were announced less than a week after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Washington as a part of a “reset” in relations the U.S. initiated last year. President Barack Obama has made a nuclear arms control treaty, which still requires Senate ratification, the centerpiece of improved ties.
While the spy scandal won’t necessarily affect the Obama administration’s position on Russia, it could push some senators to vote against the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairsmagazine.
“If this becomes the reason for the non-ratification of the new START treaty, it will seriously damage the reset,” Lukyanov said. Since arms control is linked to other issues, failure to ratify the accord may also affect missile defense talks and cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program, he said.
U.S. Hawks
Russia will probably wait before reacting with a reciprocal move because the situation is unclear and tit-for-tat actions would only confirm the validity of the charges, Lukyanov said.
The timing of the Justice Department’s announcement shows that there are “hawks” in the U.S. security services opposed to better relations, said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“There is no way to stop the reset as long as Obama is in power,” Malashenko said. “But a scandal like this is meant to show Americans that Russians are untrustworthy and that confrontation continues.”
Obama....How do you feel about your buddy Medvedev NOW?
I wonder how Obama feels about his cozy relationship with Medvedev and the Russians now????? He's given them so many concessions....I guess he thought they just wouldn't act in this way.....He doesn't even realize he's being played by Russia...and all the while he turns his back on Israel....what a poor President!
The Spy Next Door: Tri-Staters Charged as Russian Agents
Straight out of B-movie, alleged spies used invisible ink, coded talk, feds say
By TOM HAYS and PETE YOST
Updated 7:38 AM EDT, Tue, Jun 29, 2010
Behind the scenes, they were known as "illegals" — short for illegal Russian agents — and were believed to have fake back stories known as "legends."
U.S. authorities say they sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend into American society as the couple next door. Aside from fake identities, authorities say, they used Cold War spycraft — invisible ink, coded radio transmissions, encrypted data — to avoid detection. (See pictures of president Obama traveling to Russia.)
On Monday in federal court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz called the allegations "the tip of the iceberg" of a conspiracy of Russia's intelligence service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information.
Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction. Two criminal complaints outlining the charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.
Nine of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison upon conviction.
The FBI said it intercepted a message from SVR's headquarters, Moscow Center, to two of the 10 defendants describing their main mission as "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US." Intercepted messages showed they were asked to learn about a wide range of topics, including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, Congress and the political parties, prosecutors said.
"The FBI did an extraordinary job in this investigation," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: short-range wireless communications between laptop computers — a modern supplement for the old-style dead drop in a remote area, high-speed burst radio transmission or the hollowed-out nickels used by captured Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in the 1950s to conceal and deliver microfilm.
On Saturday, an undercover FBI agent in New York and another in Washington, both posing as Russian agents, met with two of the defendants, Anna Chapman at a New York restaurant and Mikhail Semenko on a Washington street corner blocks from the White House, prosecutors said. The FBI undercover agents gave each an espionage-related delivery to make. Court papers indicated Semenko made the delivery as instructed but apparently Chapman didn't.
Another defendant was a reporter and editor for a prominent Spanish-language newspaper videotaped by the FBI contacting a Russian official in 2000 in Latin America, prosecutors said.
The timing of the arrests was notable given the efforts by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev to reset U.S.-Russia relations. The two leaders met last week at the White House after Medvedev visited high-tech firms in California's Silicon Valley, and both attended the G-8 and G-20 meetings over the weekend in Canada.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said it was studying U.S. statements about the arrests. Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov said the information given by U.S. authorities looked "contradictory," but he wouldn't comment further.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, asked at a press conference in Jerusalem about the spy case, said he hadn't received "explanations on what this is about."
"I'm waiting for these explanations," he said through an interpreter. "What I can say now is that the timing of this announcement was most elegant."
Intelligence on Obama's foreign policy, particularly toward Russia, appears to have been a top priority for the Russian agents, prosecutors said.
In spring 2009, court documents say, conspirators Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who lived in New Jersey, were asked for information about Obama's impending trip to Russia that summer, the U.S. negotiating position on the START arms reduction treaty, Afghanistan and the approach Washington would take in dealing with Iran's suspect nuclear program. They also were asked to send background on U.S. officials traveling with Obama or involved in foreign policy, the documents say.
"Try to outline their views and most important Obama's goals (sic) which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to 'lure' (Russia) into cooperation in US interests," Moscow asked, according to the documents.
Moscow wanted reports that "should reflect approaches and ideas of" four sub-Cabinet U.S. foreign policy officials, they say.
One intercepted message said Cynthia Murphy "had several work-related personal meetings with" a man the court papers describe as a prominent New York-based financier active in politics.
In response, Moscow Center described the man as a very interesting target and urged the defendants to "try to build up little by little relations. ... Maybe he can provide" Murphy "with remarks re US foreign policy, 'roumors' about White house internal 'kitchen,' invite her to venues (to major political party HQ in NYC, for instance. ... In short, consider carefully all options in regard" to the financier.
The Murphys lived as husband and wife in suburban New Jersey, first Hoboken, then Montclair, with Richard Murphy carrying a fake birth certificate saying he was born in Philadelphia, authorities said.
The papers allege the defendants' spying has been going on for years.
One defendant in Massachusetts made contact in 2004 with an unidentified man who worked at a U.S. government research facility.
"He works on issues of strategic planning related to nuclear weapon development," the defendant's intelligence report said.
The defendant "had conversations with him about research programs on small yield high penetration nuclear warheads recently authorized by US Congress (nuclear 'bunker-buster' warheads)," according to the report.
One message back to Moscow from the defendants focused on turnover at the top level of the CIA and the 2008 U.S. presidential election, prosecutors said. The information was described as having been received in private conversation with, among others, a former legislative counsel for Congress. The court papers deleted the name of the counsel.
In the papers, FBI agents said the defendants communicated with Russian agents using mobile wireless transmissions between laptop computers, which has not previously been described in espionage cases brought in the U.S.: They established a short-range wireless network between laptop computers of the agents and sent encrypted messages between the computers while they were close to each other.
Aside from the Murphys, three other defendants also appeared in federal court in Manhattan — Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro, who were arrested at their Yonkers, N.Y., residence, and Chapman, arrested in Manhattan on Sunday.
The Murphys, Lazaro, Pelaez and Chapman were held without bail. The defendants answered "Yes" when asked if they understood the charges. None entered a plea. Another hearing was set for Thursday.
Pelaez is a Peruvian-born reporter and editor and worked for several years for El Diario/La Prensa, one of the country's best-known Spanish-language newspapers. She is best known for her opinion columns, which often criticize the U.S. government.
In January 2000, Pelaez was videotaped meeting with a Russian government official at a public park in the South American nation, where she received a bag from the official, according to one complaint.
Pelaez was born in Cusco, southeast of Lima, and worked as a journalist for the defunct daily La Prensa de Lima and later for a television station, where she gained notoriety among local journalists. On Dec 8, 1984, Pelaez, who worked for Frecuencia Latina, was kidnapped for a day and interviewed a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The interview wasn't broadcast on television, but the following year it appeared in Marka, a newspaper with leftist leanings.
Lazaro and Pelaez discussed plans to pass covert messages with invisible ink to Russian officials during another trip Pelaez took to South America, a complaint said.
The complaint alleges authorities overheard an unguarded Lazaro once saying in his home, "We moved to Siberia ... as soon as the war started."
Waldo Mariscal, Pelaez' son, said his mother was innocent.
"This is a farce. We don't know the other people," he said, referring to the others who have been accused.
Robert Krakow, an attorney for Lazaro, said after the court hearing that his client was innocent and that the information in the complaint "had no value".
An attorney for Chapman, Robert Baum, argued the allegations were exaggerated and his client deserved bail.
"This is not a case that raises issues of security of the United States," he said.
Prosecutors countered that Chapman was a flight risk, calling her a highly trained "Russian agent" who is "a practiced deceiver."
Two other defendants, Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, were arrested at their Arlington, Va., residence. Also arrested at an Arlington residence was Semenko.
Zottoli, Mills and Semenko appeared before U.S. Magistrate Theresa Buchanan early Monday afternoon in Alexandria, Va., the U.S. attorney's office said. The hearing was closed because the case had not yet been unsealed in New York. The three did not have attorneys at the hearing, U.S. attorney spokesman Peter Carr said.
In Arlington, where Zottoli and Mills lived in an apartment, next-door neighbor Celest Allred said her guess had been that "they were Russian, because they had Russian accents."
Two defendants known as Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley were arrested at their Cambridge, Mass., residence Sunday. They appeared briefly in Boston federal court Monday. A detention hearing was set for Thursday.
A message left after business hours with Heathfield's public defender, Catherine Byrne, was not immediately returned. A telephone number for Foley's attorney could not be found.
An 11th defendant, a man accused of delivering money to the agents, remains at large.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York First Published: Jun 28, 2010 3:04 PM EDT
The Spy Next Door: Tri-Staters Charged as Russian Agents
Straight out of B-movie, alleged spies used invisible ink, coded talk, feds say
By TOM HAYS and PETE YOST
Updated 7:38 AM EDT, Tue, Jun 29, 2010
Behind the scenes, they were known as "illegals" — short for illegal Russian agents — and were believed to have fake back stories known as "legends."
U.S. authorities say they sometimes worked in pairs and pretended to be married so they could blend into American society as the couple next door. Aside from fake identities, authorities say, they used Cold War spycraft — invisible ink, coded radio transmissions, encrypted data — to avoid detection. (See pictures of president Obama traveling to Russia.)
On Monday in federal court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz called the allegations "the tip of the iceberg" of a conspiracy of Russia's intelligence service, the SVR, to collect inside U.S. information.
Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the U.S. attorney general, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison upon conviction. Two criminal complaints outlining the charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.
Nine of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison upon conviction.
The FBI said it intercepted a message from SVR's headquarters, Moscow Center, to two of the 10 defendants describing their main mission as "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US." Intercepted messages showed they were asked to learn about a wide range of topics, including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, Congress and the political parties, prosecutors said.
"The FBI did an extraordinary job in this investigation," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: short-range wireless communications between laptop computers — a modern supplement for the old-style dead drop in a remote area, high-speed burst radio transmission or the hollowed-out nickels used by captured Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in the 1950s to conceal and deliver microfilm.
On Saturday, an undercover FBI agent in New York and another in Washington, both posing as Russian agents, met with two of the defendants, Anna Chapman at a New York restaurant and Mikhail Semenko on a Washington street corner blocks from the White House, prosecutors said. The FBI undercover agents gave each an espionage-related delivery to make. Court papers indicated Semenko made the delivery as instructed but apparently Chapman didn't.
Another defendant was a reporter and editor for a prominent Spanish-language newspaper videotaped by the FBI contacting a Russian official in 2000 in Latin America, prosecutors said.
The timing of the arrests was notable given the efforts by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev to reset U.S.-Russia relations. The two leaders met last week at the White House after Medvedev visited high-tech firms in California's Silicon Valley, and both attended the G-8 and G-20 meetings over the weekend in Canada.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said it was studying U.S. statements about the arrests. Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov said the information given by U.S. authorities looked "contradictory," but he wouldn't comment further.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, asked at a press conference in Jerusalem about the spy case, said he hadn't received "explanations on what this is about."
"I'm waiting for these explanations," he said through an interpreter. "What I can say now is that the timing of this announcement was most elegant."
Intelligence on Obama's foreign policy, particularly toward Russia, appears to have been a top priority for the Russian agents, prosecutors said.
In spring 2009, court documents say, conspirators Richard and Cynthia Murphy, who lived in New Jersey, were asked for information about Obama's impending trip to Russia that summer, the U.S. negotiating position on the START arms reduction treaty, Afghanistan and the approach Washington would take in dealing with Iran's suspect nuclear program. They also were asked to send background on U.S. officials traveling with Obama or involved in foreign policy, the documents say.
"Try to outline their views and most important Obama's goals (sic) which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to 'lure' (Russia) into cooperation in US interests," Moscow asked, according to the documents.
Moscow wanted reports that "should reflect approaches and ideas of" four sub-Cabinet U.S. foreign policy officials, they say.
One intercepted message said Cynthia Murphy "had several work-related personal meetings with" a man the court papers describe as a prominent New York-based financier active in politics.
In response, Moscow Center described the man as a very interesting target and urged the defendants to "try to build up little by little relations. ... Maybe he can provide" Murphy "with remarks re US foreign policy, 'roumors' about White house internal 'kitchen,' invite her to venues (to major political party HQ in NYC, for instance. ... In short, consider carefully all options in regard" to the financier.
The Murphys lived as husband and wife in suburban New Jersey, first Hoboken, then Montclair, with Richard Murphy carrying a fake birth certificate saying he was born in Philadelphia, authorities said.
The papers allege the defendants' spying has been going on for years.
One defendant in Massachusetts made contact in 2004 with an unidentified man who worked at a U.S. government research facility.
"He works on issues of strategic planning related to nuclear weapon development," the defendant's intelligence report said.
The defendant "had conversations with him about research programs on small yield high penetration nuclear warheads recently authorized by US Congress (nuclear 'bunker-buster' warheads)," according to the report.
One message back to Moscow from the defendants focused on turnover at the top level of the CIA and the 2008 U.S. presidential election, prosecutors said. The information was described as having been received in private conversation with, among others, a former legislative counsel for Congress. The court papers deleted the name of the counsel.
In the papers, FBI agents said the defendants communicated with Russian agents using mobile wireless transmissions between laptop computers, which has not previously been described in espionage cases brought in the U.S.: They established a short-range wireless network between laptop computers of the agents and sent encrypted messages between the computers while they were close to each other.
Aside from the Murphys, three other defendants also appeared in federal court in Manhattan — Vicky Pelaez and Juan Lazaro, who were arrested at their Yonkers, N.Y., residence, and Chapman, arrested in Manhattan on Sunday.
The Murphys, Lazaro, Pelaez and Chapman were held without bail. The defendants answered "Yes" when asked if they understood the charges. None entered a plea. Another hearing was set for Thursday.
Pelaez is a Peruvian-born reporter and editor and worked for several years for El Diario/La Prensa, one of the country's best-known Spanish-language newspapers. She is best known for her opinion columns, which often criticize the U.S. government.
In January 2000, Pelaez was videotaped meeting with a Russian government official at a public park in the South American nation, where she received a bag from the official, according to one complaint.
Pelaez was born in Cusco, southeast of Lima, and worked as a journalist for the defunct daily La Prensa de Lima and later for a television station, where she gained notoriety among local journalists. On Dec 8, 1984, Pelaez, who worked for Frecuencia Latina, was kidnapped for a day and interviewed a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The interview wasn't broadcast on television, but the following year it appeared in Marka, a newspaper with leftist leanings.
Lazaro and Pelaez discussed plans to pass covert messages with invisible ink to Russian officials during another trip Pelaez took to South America, a complaint said.
The complaint alleges authorities overheard an unguarded Lazaro once saying in his home, "We moved to Siberia ... as soon as the war started."
Waldo Mariscal, Pelaez' son, said his mother was innocent.
"This is a farce. We don't know the other people," he said, referring to the others who have been accused.
Robert Krakow, an attorney for Lazaro, said after the court hearing that his client was innocent and that the information in the complaint "had no value".
An attorney for Chapman, Robert Baum, argued the allegations were exaggerated and his client deserved bail.
"This is not a case that raises issues of security of the United States," he said.
Prosecutors countered that Chapman was a flight risk, calling her a highly trained "Russian agent" who is "a practiced deceiver."
Two other defendants, Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills, were arrested at their Arlington, Va., residence. Also arrested at an Arlington residence was Semenko.
Zottoli, Mills and Semenko appeared before U.S. Magistrate Theresa Buchanan early Monday afternoon in Alexandria, Va., the U.S. attorney's office said. The hearing was closed because the case had not yet been unsealed in New York. The three did not have attorneys at the hearing, U.S. attorney spokesman Peter Carr said.
In Arlington, where Zottoli and Mills lived in an apartment, next-door neighbor Celest Allred said her guess had been that "they were Russian, because they had Russian accents."
Two defendants known as Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley were arrested at their Cambridge, Mass., residence Sunday. They appeared briefly in Boston federal court Monday. A detention hearing was set for Thursday.
A message left after business hours with Heathfield's public defender, Catherine Byrne, was not immediately returned. A telephone number for Foley's attorney could not be found.
An 11th defendant, a man accused of delivering money to the agents, remains at large.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York First Published: Jun 28, 2010 3:04 PM EDT
No Wonder No One Watches MSNBC
Rachael Maddow....what an Idiot...another liberal that talks BEFORE she knows what she's talking about....let's see Obama does that, Holder does that, Big Sis does that...maybe it's a Democrat/liberal/socialist quality! Another statement about our State-Run media.....no wonder NO ONE WATCHES MSNBC!
State-Run Media....IT"S NOT FAIR AND BALANCED!
Here's a Huge statement about the objectivity and fairness of the current State-Run print and broadcast media!....Fair and Balanced IT IS NOT!
Obama on Immigration...a day late and two dollars short AGAIN
Your President Obama....a day late and two dollars short...what else is new....This is a pitifull response to the illegal immigration problem on the border and it is evident that Obama doesn't care...he's said until he gets his amnesty he's not going to try to seal the border so he can use it as a bargaining chip....that means he is personally responsible for the all the crime, drugs, murders and rapes that are taking place as a result of HIS inaction....What a terrible President and Administration.
Governors Criticize Obama's Border Security Plan
Published June 28, 2010
June 12: Mexicans are seen damaging the U.S. border fence, during a protest on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
PHOENIX -- The Texas and Arizona governors criticized the Obama administration's border security plans Monday, saying not enough National Guard troops are being deployed to their states.
"What we heard wasn't anything what we hoped to hear," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer told reporters after a 90-minute briefing by federal officials sent by President Obama.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican like Brewer, said the deployment to his state was "insufficient to meet the needs of securing the Texas-Mexico border."
A White House statement said plans to deploy 1,200 additional National Guard soldiers along the U.S.-Mexico border would "complement the unprecedented resources and additional efforts already devoted by this administration to securing the Southwest border."
Arizona would get 524 National Guard troops, Texas would get 250, California 224 and New Mexico 72, officials said. Another 130 would be at a national liaison office.
Brewer has said the deployment should total 6,000, including 3,000 in Arizona, the state with the most illegal border crossings. Perry asked in January 2009 for 1,000 National Guard troops to help with border security in Texas alone.
The White House statement said the extra Guard troops would be used to provide intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support as well as backup to counternarcotics enforcement until more civilian officers are trained and stationed at the border.
The federal officials briefed Brewer, her senior aides and several state agency heads after an hourslong meeting in Tucson earlier Monday with Attorney General Terry Goddard, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and dozens of local law enforcement officials. Goddard and Giffords are Democrats.
The federal team was led by John Brennan, a national security adviser whom Goddard said has the job of evaluating "the whole picture."
"He never said this is all," Goddard said. "He said this is what we're going to do right now."
The meeting with Brewer resulted from her June 3 visit to the White House, where she and Obama discussed border security and immigration. Brewer asked for specifics on plans for Arizona.
The president previously announced plans to send 1,200 troops to the border, and he asked Congress for $600 million to pay for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, 160 new federal immigration officers and two unmanned aircraft. The figure includes $500 million in new spending and $100 million of redirected spending.
Brewer said after the June 3 meeting that Obama gave assurances that the majority of the 1,200 troops would go to Arizona. She sought them to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers across the border, and she reacted to Obama's initial announcement by saying 1,200 wouldn't be enough. She also urged Obama to send National Guard helicopters and surveillance drones to the border.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, whose county abuts on the border, called the federal effort "long overdue."
"We've never had the attention, and we've never had the response or resources along the border that we have had recently," Estrada said after the Tucson meeting. "And once we have the right match, the right combination, I think we'll be able to claim some victories. It's not going to stop, the border will never be sealed. It will be safer, maybe more secure, but it will always be active."
The meetings follow months of heated debate over illegal immigration sparked by the passage of a new Arizona law in April. The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally.
The meetings were held as Arizona officials awaited word on a widely anticipated federal legal challenge to the measure. Obama has called the law "misguided." Brewer has called its enactment necessary due to federal inaction on border enforcement.
Goddard said the federal officials clammed up when asked during the Tucson meeting about a possible challenge. Brewer said the subject didn't come up during the Phoenix meeting.
Governors Criticize Obama's Border Security Plan
Published June 28, 2010
June 12: Mexicans are seen damaging the U.S. border fence, during a protest on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
PHOENIX -- The Texas and Arizona governors criticized the Obama administration's border security plans Monday, saying not enough National Guard troops are being deployed to their states.
"What we heard wasn't anything what we hoped to hear," Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer told reporters after a 90-minute briefing by federal officials sent by President Obama.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican like Brewer, said the deployment to his state was "insufficient to meet the needs of securing the Texas-Mexico border."
A White House statement said plans to deploy 1,200 additional National Guard soldiers along the U.S.-Mexico border would "complement the unprecedented resources and additional efforts already devoted by this administration to securing the Southwest border."
Arizona would get 524 National Guard troops, Texas would get 250, California 224 and New Mexico 72, officials said. Another 130 would be at a national liaison office.
Brewer has said the deployment should total 6,000, including 3,000 in Arizona, the state with the most illegal border crossings. Perry asked in January 2009 for 1,000 National Guard troops to help with border security in Texas alone.
The White House statement said the extra Guard troops would be used to provide intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support as well as backup to counternarcotics enforcement until more civilian officers are trained and stationed at the border.
The federal officials briefed Brewer, her senior aides and several state agency heads after an hourslong meeting in Tucson earlier Monday with Attorney General Terry Goddard, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and dozens of local law enforcement officials. Goddard and Giffords are Democrats.
The federal team was led by John Brennan, a national security adviser whom Goddard said has the job of evaluating "the whole picture."
"He never said this is all," Goddard said. "He said this is what we're going to do right now."
The meeting with Brewer resulted from her June 3 visit to the White House, where she and Obama discussed border security and immigration. Brewer asked for specifics on plans for Arizona.
The president previously announced plans to send 1,200 troops to the border, and he asked Congress for $600 million to pay for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, 160 new federal immigration officers and two unmanned aircraft. The figure includes $500 million in new spending and $100 million of redirected spending.
Brewer said after the June 3 meeting that Obama gave assurances that the majority of the 1,200 troops would go to Arizona. She sought them to help stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers across the border, and she reacted to Obama's initial announcement by saying 1,200 wouldn't be enough. She also urged Obama to send National Guard helicopters and surveillance drones to the border.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, whose county abuts on the border, called the federal effort "long overdue."
"We've never had the attention, and we've never had the response or resources along the border that we have had recently," Estrada said after the Tucson meeting. "And once we have the right match, the right combination, I think we'll be able to claim some victories. It's not going to stop, the border will never be sealed. It will be safer, maybe more secure, but it will always be active."
The meetings follow months of heated debate over illegal immigration sparked by the passage of a new Arizona law in April. The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally.
The meetings were held as Arizona officials awaited word on a widely anticipated federal legal challenge to the measure. Obama has called the law "misguided." Brewer has called its enactment necessary due to federal inaction on border enforcement.
Goddard said the federal officials clammed up when asked during the Tucson meeting about a possible challenge. Brewer said the subject didn't come up during the Phoenix meeting.
Obama back as a Community Organizer and a Sh_t Stirrer....very Presidential
Here's your President back in his Community Organizer's role....talking up his "amnesty" approach to immigration with his special interests.....activists and his beloved labor unions.....just what we want and need more labor unions in this nation when today we can't compete because of them. Wouldn't you think your president would be presidental and not be trying to just stir up a commotion, but rather try to actually solve A problem? His socialist/entitlement bent is very, very dangerous.
Obama Looks to Activists to Rally Support for Immigration Policy Overhaul
Published June 28, 2010
| Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- President Obama is enlisting activists and labor leaders in a push for comprehensive immigration legislation that will showcase Republican opposition and include a speech by the president.
The strategy was discussed during a meeting Monday by a range of prominent labor leaders and activist groups. Participants said Obama reiterated his support for immigration legislation but noted the political realities that have stalled it in Congress.
Latino leaders say they will work in coming months to pressure Republicans to give way and support an immigration bill -- and make opponents pay at the ballot box if they don't.
"We're going to make absolutely crystal clear who's at fault here," said Eliseo Medina, a leader of the Service Employees International Union.
Prospects for passage of comprehensive immigration legislation look bleak this election year, and even many Democrats are wary of wading into the hot-button issue. But Obama, who pledged as a candidate to make immigration reform a top priority during his first year in office, faces pressure from the Hispanic community to act -- or at least to try.
That's only intensified in the wake of Arizona's passage of a controversial law that requires police officers to question a person's immigration status if there's reason to suspect the person is in the country illegally. Obama has spoken out against the law and asked the Justice Department to examine its legality. Activists anticipate that the Justice Department will sue to overturn the law, but in Monday's meeting Obama said that decision would be left up to the department, and he didn't give a timeline, participants said.
Also Monday, high-ranking federal officials visited Arizona to brief the governor and others on Obama's recently announced plans to send National Guard troops to the border. The National Guard decision dismayed some activists, who said there were complaints in the meeting with Obama about the administration's emphasis on enforcement. But after talking with administration officials Monday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, denounced the National Guard deployment as inadequate -- illustrating the divide facing Obama over immigration.
The White House said Obama would deliver a speech soon on "the importance of passing comprehensive immigration reform" but didn't give more details.
Given the difficulties of achieving a comprehensive bill, participants in the White House meeting said there was also discussion of attempting to pass smaller pieces of legislation -- such as a bill focused on agricultural workers, or one that would help illegal immigrant youths attend college.
Obama is to meet Tuesday with Hispanic members of Congress.
Obama Looks to Activists to Rally Support for Immigration Policy Overhaul
Published June 28, 2010
| Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- President Obama is enlisting activists and labor leaders in a push for comprehensive immigration legislation that will showcase Republican opposition and include a speech by the president.
The strategy was discussed during a meeting Monday by a range of prominent labor leaders and activist groups. Participants said Obama reiterated his support for immigration legislation but noted the political realities that have stalled it in Congress.
Latino leaders say they will work in coming months to pressure Republicans to give way and support an immigration bill -- and make opponents pay at the ballot box if they don't.
"We're going to make absolutely crystal clear who's at fault here," said Eliseo Medina, a leader of the Service Employees International Union.
Prospects for passage of comprehensive immigration legislation look bleak this election year, and even many Democrats are wary of wading into the hot-button issue. But Obama, who pledged as a candidate to make immigration reform a top priority during his first year in office, faces pressure from the Hispanic community to act -- or at least to try.
That's only intensified in the wake of Arizona's passage of a controversial law that requires police officers to question a person's immigration status if there's reason to suspect the person is in the country illegally. Obama has spoken out against the law and asked the Justice Department to examine its legality. Activists anticipate that the Justice Department will sue to overturn the law, but in Monday's meeting Obama said that decision would be left up to the department, and he didn't give a timeline, participants said.
Also Monday, high-ranking federal officials visited Arizona to brief the governor and others on Obama's recently announced plans to send National Guard troops to the border. The National Guard decision dismayed some activists, who said there were complaints in the meeting with Obama about the administration's emphasis on enforcement. But after talking with administration officials Monday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, denounced the National Guard deployment as inadequate -- illustrating the divide facing Obama over immigration.
The White House said Obama would deliver a speech soon on "the importance of passing comprehensive immigration reform" but didn't give more details.
Given the difficulties of achieving a comprehensive bill, participants in the White House meeting said there was also discussion of attempting to pass smaller pieces of legislation -- such as a bill focused on agricultural workers, or one that would help illegal immigrant youths attend college.
Obama is to meet Tuesday with Hispanic members of Congress.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sen. Robert Byrd not only was a KKK member but led his local Klan chapter | When we remember him we need to remember the complete Byrd
The State-Run Media doesn't always tell the whole story....and in the case of Robert Byrd's passing they are down playing some his most colorful background...excuse the pun......This was not background of a man many of us would look up to....The article below tells the part of his life and background that the State-Run media will not tell you....
Sen. Robert Byrd not only was a KKK member but led his local Klan chapter | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Sen. Robert Byrd not only was a KKK member but led his local Klan chapter | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Super skimmer stops in Virginia while waiting for clearance to work in Gulf | I thought Obama said he was there to cut the red tape????
Another example of how this President is NOT helping get this spill cleaned up....I thought he was supposed to be the one to cut the red tape....I thought he was in charge....by the way where is he?????? he hasn't talked about the spill for days......
Super skimmer stops in Virginia while waiting for clearance to work in Gulf | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Super skimmer stops in Virginia while waiting for clearance to work in Gulf | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Biden causes GE CEO to collapse during speech!
I couldn't stand listening to Biden either....even thought this was a dramatic way to end his speech! Bumbling Biden did it again!
Bill Clinton say "Blow up the Well"
I certainly DO NOT agree with Bill Clinton about Obama's leadership or empathy over the oil spill, but his comments about blowing up the well is interesting. He also comments that Obama is finally accepting help from foreign nations to stop the leak and clean up the spill. From his comments it's evident that he feels those actions were late.
The Bad Financial Reform Bill
More assessment from the WSJ on this Financial Reform Bill....It's really bad law!
Triumph of the Regulators
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill doubles down on the same system that failed
President Obama hailed the financial bill that House-Senate negotiators finally vouchsafed at 5:40 a.m. Friday, and no wonder. The bill represents the triumph of the very regulators and Congressmen who did so much to foment the financial panic, giving them vast new discretion over every corner of American financial markets.
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling.
The Federal Reserve, which promoted the housing mania and failed utterly in its core mission of monitoring Citigroup, will now have more power to regulate more financial institutions and more ability to dictate the allocation of credit.
And the SEC, which created the credit-ratings oligopoly and missed Bernie Madoff, will get new powers to decide how easy it should be for union pension funds to get their candidates on corporate proxy ballots.
Oh, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren't touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter.
In other words, our Washington rulers have taken 2,000 or so pages to double and triple down on the old system that failed.
Perhaps the most striking irony is that even in 2,000 pages Congress isn't precisely defining new bank powers. That task will be left to the regulators in the coming weeks and months, a reality that some in the media are finally figuring out. They are now reporting, with notable alarm, that this means bank lobbyists will be able to influence those rules behind the scenes. What did reporters think would happen in a system built not around clear parameters of what institutions can and cannot do, but instead entirely on regulator discretion?
Take the Volcker Rule, which proscribes banks that accept insured deposits from engaging in the riskiest kinds of trading. This makes sense in theory but the rule's execution will depend on how regulators define and enforce it. It's hardly reassuring when the Davis Polk & Wardwell law firm has to write a seven-page memo, as it did on Friday, explaining how this rule-making will proceed. The Volcker Rule may work in restraining excessive risk-taking. Or it may merely drive that risk-taking into other institutions that will attract the best and brightest drawn to the higher profits such trading can gain.
Consider as well the doctrine of "too big to fail," which FDIC Chair Sheila Bair says this bill will end. It is true that, thanks mainly to Ms. Bair and Alabama Republican Richard Shelby, Dodd-Frank puts more constraints on bailouts than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wanted.
But the Fed (with the consent of the Treasury Secretary) can still use its emergency lending authority to rescue a firm as long as it also provides loans to similar institutions at the same time. The bill also gives access to the Fed discount window to the new clearinghouses that are supposed to handle most derivatives trades. So the same exchanges that are supposed to reduce the riskiness of derivatives trades will know the feds will bail them out if they get into trouble.
Meanwhile, the FDIC Chairman will be free to choose which creditors to rescue and which to punish when a company goes into "resolution," even discriminating among creditors who bought the same bond issue. Expect union pension funds to fare better than other creditors when the feds roll up a bank in the future.
In the same way, Congress also added a last-minute, dead-of-night $19 billion tax on some financial institutions to pay for the implementation of these vast new regulatory powers. Who will pay this tax? Whoever the council of regulators decides should pay. The tax can hit any financial firm with more than $50 billion in assets (excluding banks that have deposit insurance, and Fannie and Freddie or any government-sponsored enterprise) and hedge funds that manage more than $10 billion.
This will take $19 billion out of financial firms that supply capital to growing companies, and it will punish precisely the firms that have attracted the most capital because of their better-than-average performance. This is only one of many new ways that Dodd-Frank will reduce the supply and raise the cost of credit across the economy. Think of how last year's limits on credit card fees have already reduced the supply of consumer credit and are leading to the end of free checking for all but wealthy bank customers.
We could go on, but perhaps the best summary is to hail Dodd-Frank as the crowning achievement of the Obama "reform" method. In the name of responding to a crisis, the bill greatly increases the power of politicians and regulators without addressing the real causes of that crisis. It makes credit more expensive and punishes business without reducing the chances of a future panic or bailouts.
The only certain result is that when the next mania and panic arrive, and they will, Congress and the regulators will claim they were all someone else's fault.
Triumph of the Regulators
The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill doubles down on the same system that failed
President Obama hailed the financial bill that House-Senate negotiators finally vouchsafed at 5:40 a.m. Friday, and no wonder. The bill represents the triumph of the very regulators and Congressmen who did so much to foment the financial panic, giving them vast new discretion over every corner of American financial markets.
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, those Fannie Mae cheerleaders, played the largest role in writing the bill. Congressman Paul Kanjorski even offered a motion to memorialize it as the Dodd-Frank Act. It's as if Tony Hayward of BP were allowed to write new rules on deep water drilling.
The Federal Reserve, which promoted the housing mania and failed utterly in its core mission of monitoring Citigroup, will now have more power to regulate more financial institutions and more ability to dictate the allocation of credit.
And the SEC, which created the credit-ratings oligopoly and missed Bernie Madoff, will get new powers to decide how easy it should be for union pension funds to get their candidates on corporate proxy ballots.
Oh, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? They aren't touched at all, even as they continue to lose billions of taxpayer dollars each quarter.
In other words, our Washington rulers have taken 2,000 or so pages to double and triple down on the old system that failed.
Perhaps the most striking irony is that even in 2,000 pages Congress isn't precisely defining new bank powers. That task will be left to the regulators in the coming weeks and months, a reality that some in the media are finally figuring out. They are now reporting, with notable alarm, that this means bank lobbyists will be able to influence those rules behind the scenes. What did reporters think would happen in a system built not around clear parameters of what institutions can and cannot do, but instead entirely on regulator discretion?
Take the Volcker Rule, which proscribes banks that accept insured deposits from engaging in the riskiest kinds of trading. This makes sense in theory but the rule's execution will depend on how regulators define and enforce it. It's hardly reassuring when the Davis Polk & Wardwell law firm has to write a seven-page memo, as it did on Friday, explaining how this rule-making will proceed. The Volcker Rule may work in restraining excessive risk-taking. Or it may merely drive that risk-taking into other institutions that will attract the best and brightest drawn to the higher profits such trading can gain.
Consider as well the doctrine of "too big to fail," which FDIC Chair Sheila Bair says this bill will end. It is true that, thanks mainly to Ms. Bair and Alabama Republican Richard Shelby, Dodd-Frank puts more constraints on bailouts than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wanted.
But the Fed (with the consent of the Treasury Secretary) can still use its emergency lending authority to rescue a firm as long as it also provides loans to similar institutions at the same time. The bill also gives access to the Fed discount window to the new clearinghouses that are supposed to handle most derivatives trades. So the same exchanges that are supposed to reduce the riskiness of derivatives trades will know the feds will bail them out if they get into trouble.
Meanwhile, the FDIC Chairman will be free to choose which creditors to rescue and which to punish when a company goes into "resolution," even discriminating among creditors who bought the same bond issue. Expect union pension funds to fare better than other creditors when the feds roll up a bank in the future.
In the same way, Congress also added a last-minute, dead-of-night $19 billion tax on some financial institutions to pay for the implementation of these vast new regulatory powers. Who will pay this tax? Whoever the council of regulators decides should pay. The tax can hit any financial firm with more than $50 billion in assets (excluding banks that have deposit insurance, and Fannie and Freddie or any government-sponsored enterprise) and hedge funds that manage more than $10 billion.
This will take $19 billion out of financial firms that supply capital to growing companies, and it will punish precisely the firms that have attracted the most capital because of their better-than-average performance. This is only one of many new ways that Dodd-Frank will reduce the supply and raise the cost of credit across the economy. Think of how last year's limits on credit card fees have already reduced the supply of consumer credit and are leading to the end of free checking for all but wealthy bank customers.
We could go on, but perhaps the best summary is to hail Dodd-Frank as the crowning achievement of the Obama "reform" method. In the name of responding to a crisis, the bill greatly increases the power of politicians and regulators without addressing the real causes of that crisis. It makes credit more expensive and punishes business without reducing the chances of a future panic or bailouts.
The only certain result is that when the next mania and panic arrive, and they will, Congress and the regulators will claim they were all someone else's fault.
The BAD Financial Reform Bill
A good assessment of why this financial reform legislation is NOT A GOOD BILL...and when you consider it was put together by BUMBLING BARNEY FRANK and CORRUPT CHRIS DODD it's no wonder it's not good....leaving Fannie and Freddie out of this is inexcusable....they played a HUGE part in causing the financial mess in the first place....but because they are all about big government, the Democrats have excluded them....
Monday, June 28, 2010
Next Up, Financial Reform
Posted by: Michele Bachmann at 9:11 AM
The next big piece of legislation that Congress will consider this summer deals with reforming our Financial Regulatory system. Similar to the health care bill passed three months ago, this final bill negotiated between the House and the Senate is 2,000 pages of bureaucracy in which the people who wrote it don't even know what's in it. In fact, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the man most responsible for crafting this piece of legislation had this gem to say about the bill:
“‘No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.’”
If you want to be serious about financial regulatory reform, you've got to be willing to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two entities who were the driving force behind our economic downturn these past couple of years. Sadly, Democrats went so far as to reject a series of amendments offered by Republicans to put an end to, or even limit, taxpayer-funded bailouts, including those for government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Republican Study Committee has compiled a very informative summary highlighting the shortcomings of this legislative monstrosity:
* Winners and Losers – Instead of using and enhancing existing legal structures like the bankruptcy process, the bill gives the same regulators, who failed to see the current crisis forming, broad new powers to takeover and break up private companies. The Executive Branch would have every opportunity to abuse these powers to pick winners and losers for political reasons.
* Taxpayer Bailouts – Taxpayers will pay the costs of these takeovers upfront out of the Treasury. This taxpayer bailout is supposed to be paid back later by other financial firms, but the costs could quite conceivably rise to trillions of dollars – making repayment out of the question.
* Consumer Restrictions – The bill creates a new agency with jurisdiction over all sorts of financial products offered by banks and non-banks (i.e. Sears or your local mechanic): credit cards, installment plans, mortgages, other loans, check cashing services, etc. In an effort to “protect” consumers from their own decisions, Democrats will make credit more inaccessible for families and entrepreneurs across the country.
* Higher Consumer Costs – To offset the cost of the bill, Democrats are levying a $19 billion so-called “bank tax.” Of course, banks won’t actually pay these costs in the long-run – their customers will pay in the form of higher rates and fees. So say goodbye to your free checking account.
* Hoarding Capital – While banks need to keep their reserves at responsible levels, the stringent new leverage restrictions – chosen by politicians – will leave even credit-worthy consumers struggling to get a loan.
* Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Who? Despite their intimate involvement in the financial meltdown and their perpetual taxpayer bailout ($145 billion and counting), the bill neglects to make much-needed reforms to these failed and insolvent entities.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Next Up, Financial Reform
Posted by: Michele Bachmann at 9:11 AM
The next big piece of legislation that Congress will consider this summer deals with reforming our Financial Regulatory system. Similar to the health care bill passed three months ago, this final bill negotiated between the House and the Senate is 2,000 pages of bureaucracy in which the people who wrote it don't even know what's in it. In fact, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the man most responsible for crafting this piece of legislation had this gem to say about the bill:
“‘No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.’”
If you want to be serious about financial regulatory reform, you've got to be willing to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two entities who were the driving force behind our economic downturn these past couple of years. Sadly, Democrats went so far as to reject a series of amendments offered by Republicans to put an end to, or even limit, taxpayer-funded bailouts, including those for government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Republican Study Committee has compiled a very informative summary highlighting the shortcomings of this legislative monstrosity:
* Winners and Losers – Instead of using and enhancing existing legal structures like the bankruptcy process, the bill gives the same regulators, who failed to see the current crisis forming, broad new powers to takeover and break up private companies. The Executive Branch would have every opportunity to abuse these powers to pick winners and losers for political reasons.
* Taxpayer Bailouts – Taxpayers will pay the costs of these takeovers upfront out of the Treasury. This taxpayer bailout is supposed to be paid back later by other financial firms, but the costs could quite conceivably rise to trillions of dollars – making repayment out of the question.
* Consumer Restrictions – The bill creates a new agency with jurisdiction over all sorts of financial products offered by banks and non-banks (i.e. Sears or your local mechanic): credit cards, installment plans, mortgages, other loans, check cashing services, etc. In an effort to “protect” consumers from their own decisions, Democrats will make credit more inaccessible for families and entrepreneurs across the country.
* Higher Consumer Costs – To offset the cost of the bill, Democrats are levying a $19 billion so-called “bank tax.” Of course, banks won’t actually pay these costs in the long-run – their customers will pay in the form of higher rates and fees. So say goodbye to your free checking account.
* Hoarding Capital – While banks need to keep their reserves at responsible levels, the stringent new leverage restrictions – chosen by politicians – will leave even credit-worthy consumers struggling to get a loan.
* Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – Who? Despite their intimate involvement in the financial meltdown and their perpetual taxpayer bailout ($145 billion and counting), the bill neglects to make much-needed reforms to these failed and insolvent entities.
We need to be careful of how Tolerant we Are as a Nation!
We need to be careful of how tolerant we are....with Obama's leaning toward Muslims it appears that we are becoming more and more tolerant of Mosques being built everywhere...even in the shadow of the twin towers....But Obama's reluctance to define our enemy in the war of terror as extreme islam it's very possible that we are casually overlooking the development of terror within the United States....I understand freedom of religion, but it has to be tempered by the desire of extreme Muslims to destroy America....Here's an example of a facility in Boston that seems to be stirring the pot..and seems to be in the pocket of the Governor of Massachusetts, a close friend of Obama.
Will Kagen be as forthcoming as her writings indicate she should be????
From the Heritage Foundation....It will be interesting if Kagen is as honest and forthright as her writings indicate she should be in these upcoming proceedings. OR will she dodge issues and evade her true beliefs simply to get confirmed. I hope the Republicans put her through her paces and really challenge her! With her total lack of experience and questionable background it will be interesting to see what happens.
Will Elena Kagan Defend the Rule of Law?
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its hearing today on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is no stranger to the confirmation process; in fact, she devoted one of her few academic writings entirely to the subject, writing:
The Senate's consideration of a nominee, and particularly the Senate's confirmation hearings, ought to focus on substantive issues; the Senate ought to view the hearings as an opportunity to gain knowledge and promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct.
Kagan's law review article specifically criticized recent confirmation hearings as "a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis." Instead, Kagan advocated that senators insist "on seeing how theory works in practice by evoking a nominee's comments on particular issues - involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth - that the Court regularly faces." Kagan even suggested that nominees with thin records (and Kagan's record can definitely be considered "thin," since she has no judicial experience, few academic writings, and virtually no litigation experience prior to her current post as Solicitor General), should face a heavier burden when answering senators' questions. So what "substantive issues" should senators press Kagan on to see how her "theory works in practice"?
The First Amendment: As Solicitor General, Kagan asserted before the Supreme Court that government could ban political pamphlets. The core of the First Amendment is the protection of political speech. So not only does such a position therefore violate common sense, but its logic could be used to ban Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or other landmark political treatises, particularly if their authors were so foolish as to publish them through a non-profit corporation. Does Kagan believe that the First Amendment permits the government to ban pamphlets and books?
The Second Amendment: As a law clerk, Elena Kagan recommended that the Supreme Court not even hear a claim that the District of Columbia's complete ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment — a claim that recently succeeded at the Court. The sole reasoning that she provided for denying the claim: "I'm not sympathetic." Kagan was also intimately involved in gun-control policies in the Clinton White House, working to reclassify certain hunting rifles as assault weapons and to ban their importation. In Kagan's notes obtained from the Clinton Library, she even lumped the National Rifle Association together with the KKK as "bad guy org[anization]s." Does Kagan stand by her recommendation to reject access to the Supreme Court to someone denied his or her Second Amendment rights by a complete ban on handguns? Considering that she has argued that the government can ban political pamphlets, does she also believe that the Constitution permits the government to ban all guns, as well?
Social Issues vs. National Security: As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan restricted military recruiters' access to campus. Kagan's actions, which were based upon a court of appeals decision that did not even apply to Harvard, violated the Solomon Amendment. It was only after the Department of Defense threatened to cut off Harvard's funding that Kagan granted military recruiters customary access to campus. What legal authority did Kagan have to disregard the Solomon Amendment and restrict the access of military recruiters to campus? Does Kagan think it was appropriate to limit the ability of the military to recruit on campus at a time when the United States is fighting two wars?
Foreign Law vs. the U.S. Constitution: In a letter to Senator Arlen Specter (D–PA) during her Solicitor General confirmation hearings, Kagan wrote, "There are some circumstances in which it may be proper for judges to consider foreign law sources in ruling on constitutional questions," such as the Eighth Amendment. This position seems consistent with Kagan's approach as dean of Harvard Law School, where she led the effort to change the first-year curricula to mandate the study of international law while maintaining constitutional law as an elective course. This practice of looking at foreign law to change U.S. law raises grave questions about U.S. sovereignty and is frequently used selectively by justices who cite to practices that favor their desired outcomes. As a justice, would Kagan cite to foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution?
When President Barack Obama outlined his criteria for appointing a replacement for retiring-Justice David Souter, he said he would seek: "someone who understands justice and isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book, it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives ... I view that quality of empathy of understanding and identifying what people's hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes." Kagan has similarly written that it is the Supreme Court's mission to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged." At a time when this White House has shown an utter contempt for the rule of law in favor of their own political allies (e.g. Chrysler bailout, oil drilling moratorium, BP shakedown, etc.) it is now more important than ever that senators ensure Kagan is capable of putting aside her personal preferences, applying the law as it is written, and dispensing justice without regard to the parties before her.
Side Note: Robert Alt, Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today regarding Kagan's nomination hearing. For more information, visit OrderInTheCourt.org.
Will Elena Kagan Defend the Rule of Law?
The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its hearing today on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is no stranger to the confirmation process; in fact, she devoted one of her few academic writings entirely to the subject, writing:
The Senate's consideration of a nominee, and particularly the Senate's confirmation hearings, ought to focus on substantive issues; the Senate ought to view the hearings as an opportunity to gain knowledge and promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct.
Kagan's law review article specifically criticized recent confirmation hearings as "a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis." Instead, Kagan advocated that senators insist "on seeing how theory works in practice by evoking a nominee's comments on particular issues - involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth - that the Court regularly faces." Kagan even suggested that nominees with thin records (and Kagan's record can definitely be considered "thin," since she has no judicial experience, few academic writings, and virtually no litigation experience prior to her current post as Solicitor General), should face a heavier burden when answering senators' questions. So what "substantive issues" should senators press Kagan on to see how her "theory works in practice"?
The First Amendment: As Solicitor General, Kagan asserted before the Supreme Court that government could ban political pamphlets. The core of the First Amendment is the protection of political speech. So not only does such a position therefore violate common sense, but its logic could be used to ban Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or other landmark political treatises, particularly if their authors were so foolish as to publish them through a non-profit corporation. Does Kagan believe that the First Amendment permits the government to ban pamphlets and books?
The Second Amendment: As a law clerk, Elena Kagan recommended that the Supreme Court not even hear a claim that the District of Columbia's complete ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment — a claim that recently succeeded at the Court. The sole reasoning that she provided for denying the claim: "I'm not sympathetic." Kagan was also intimately involved in gun-control policies in the Clinton White House, working to reclassify certain hunting rifles as assault weapons and to ban their importation. In Kagan's notes obtained from the Clinton Library, she even lumped the National Rifle Association together with the KKK as "bad guy org[anization]s." Does Kagan stand by her recommendation to reject access to the Supreme Court to someone denied his or her Second Amendment rights by a complete ban on handguns? Considering that she has argued that the government can ban political pamphlets, does she also believe that the Constitution permits the government to ban all guns, as well?
Social Issues vs. National Security: As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan restricted military recruiters' access to campus. Kagan's actions, which were based upon a court of appeals decision that did not even apply to Harvard, violated the Solomon Amendment. It was only after the Department of Defense threatened to cut off Harvard's funding that Kagan granted military recruiters customary access to campus. What legal authority did Kagan have to disregard the Solomon Amendment and restrict the access of military recruiters to campus? Does Kagan think it was appropriate to limit the ability of the military to recruit on campus at a time when the United States is fighting two wars?
Foreign Law vs. the U.S. Constitution: In a letter to Senator Arlen Specter (D–PA) during her Solicitor General confirmation hearings, Kagan wrote, "There are some circumstances in which it may be proper for judges to consider foreign law sources in ruling on constitutional questions," such as the Eighth Amendment. This position seems consistent with Kagan's approach as dean of Harvard Law School, where she led the effort to change the first-year curricula to mandate the study of international law while maintaining constitutional law as an elective course. This practice of looking at foreign law to change U.S. law raises grave questions about U.S. sovereignty and is frequently used selectively by justices who cite to practices that favor their desired outcomes. As a justice, would Kagan cite to foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution?
When President Barack Obama outlined his criteria for appointing a replacement for retiring-Justice David Souter, he said he would seek: "someone who understands justice and isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book, it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives ... I view that quality of empathy of understanding and identifying what people's hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes." Kagan has similarly written that it is the Supreme Court's mission to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged." At a time when this White House has shown an utter contempt for the rule of law in favor of their own political allies (e.g. Chrysler bailout, oil drilling moratorium, BP shakedown, etc.) it is now more important than ever that senators ensure Kagan is capable of putting aside her personal preferences, applying the law as it is written, and dispensing justice without regard to the parties before her.
Side Note: Robert Alt, Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today regarding Kagan's nomination hearing. For more information, visit OrderInTheCourt.org.
Obama's race-rant Rev. rages on - And you wonder why Obama is like he is....he's a clone of his rev.
And we wonder why Obama is like he is...this is the culture he chose to associate with and endorse, despite all the times he denied it.....he was just lying as usual!
Obama's race-rant Rev. rages on - NYPOST.com
Obama's race-rant Rev. rages on - NYPOST.com
Local fishermen watch as clueless out-of-staters take on cleanup duties | More of Obama's "leadership" of the oil spill
Here's another example of Obama's sterling leadership in the oil spill disaster...he is clueless and certainly totally uninvolved...he hasn't mentioned it in days (it's obvious he's trying hard to distance himself from this even though he's still "in charge").....and this week he's sending Bumbling Biden down there. I am certain he will straighten things out. I cannot wait to see what he says down there...it's certain to be another of his Bumbling comments....maybe we'll get lucky and it will be another blurting of profanity. This Administration is a joke....
Local fishermen watch as clueless out-of-staters take on cleanup duties | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Local fishermen watch as clueless out-of-staters take on cleanup duties | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Obama’s good week comes in midst of troubling long-term indicators | Not much of a "good week" in my mind
If this is a good week, what is a bad week????? His commander of the war in Afghanistan and his team made the President and his team look like idiots in their comments to the press which most likely are shared by more military brass in the war zone....Obama met with russia while he continues to snub Israel....and he attends a G20 conference where he wants to continue his reckless spending and rest of the civilized world now understands that they have to cut their deficits and get un addicted to their welfare state entitlements....we're zigging and the rest of the world is zagging!...We continue to be led in the wrong direction....and this was a "good week"??????
Obama’s good week comes in midst of troubling long-term indicators | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Obama’s good week comes in midst of troubling long-term indicators | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment
Read through the lines here...Obama's lying AGAIN!
Read through the lines here....this means more taxes to pay for his out of control spending and if there are cuts they will be where we don't want them...in areas like defense spending....he will NOT abandon his socialist/welfare state approach to government. Mark my words it will mean that those of us that actually contribute dollars to the federal government will pay more while those that partake of the welfare state entitlements will get more!....We know this president lies and he is lying now....... remember he was the one that said "job would be priority #1" in his state of the union address and we haven't heard about jobs since. It seems Western Europe has gotten the message that their welfare states have change, but Obama is clueless....We have Got to elect conservatives in November and change the control in the House and Senate so we can finally at least neutralize Obama until we can vote him out in 2012!
Obama says he's serious about tackling deficits
Caren Bohan
TORONTO
Sun Jun 27, 2010 11:18pm EDTTORONTO (Reuters) -
President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would follow through on a pledge to rein in soaring U.S. budget deficits and said that would involve presenting Americans with "some very difficult choices" next year.
Obama also said that he believed a review of the "messy and unfair" U.S. tax code should be considered as part of a plan to deal with long-term budget problems.
"I'm serious about it," Obama said when asked at a news conference at the Group of 20 summit in Canada if he believed he could meet his deficit reduction goals.
The G20 summit was dominated by a debate among the G20 leaders about how quickly to shift from a focus on economic stimulus toward deficit reduction.
The United States has warned against withdrawing stimulus too quickly, saying the world economy remains fragile but U.S. officials have also said it is important to keep in mind the need for fiscal prudence.
Obama has proposed freezing spending on an array of domestic programs for the next three years and has named a special commission to recommend ways to curb spiraling debt and deficits. The panel is to report back by December 1. Obama will review the recommendations and decide how to go forward sometime early next year.
"I'm doing it because I said I was going to do it," Obama said. "People should learn that lesson about me, because next year, when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I'm calling their bluff."
Amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, the U.S. budget deficit hit $1.4 trillion last year. It is projected to come in at about $1.6 trillion this year.
Obama has said the deficits are a legacy of the Bush administration, but Republicans have tried to cast Obama as a big spender and have attacked last year's $862 economic stimulus package.
Republicans hope to use the issue to put Obama's Democrats on the defensive ahead of the November congressional elections.
Despite the political wrangling over deficits, Obama said he has been hearing both from Democrats and Republicans that "there's been a serious conversation" about budget deficits and the need to address them.
Obama said structural budget problems were looming as the aging of the U.S. population pushes up spending for health and retirement programs.
"Even if we had not gone through this financial crisis, we'd still have to be dealing with these long-term deficit problems," Obama said.
He listed the tax code as another structural problem.
"We've got to look at a tax system that is messy and unfair in a whole range of ways," Obama said
Obama says he's serious about tackling deficits
Caren Bohan
TORONTO
Sun Jun 27, 2010 11:18pm EDTTORONTO (Reuters) -
President Barack Obama said on Sunday he would follow through on a pledge to rein in soaring U.S. budget deficits and said that would involve presenting Americans with "some very difficult choices" next year.
Obama also said that he believed a review of the "messy and unfair" U.S. tax code should be considered as part of a plan to deal with long-term budget problems.
"I'm serious about it," Obama said when asked at a news conference at the Group of 20 summit in Canada if he believed he could meet his deficit reduction goals.
The G20 summit was dominated by a debate among the G20 leaders about how quickly to shift from a focus on economic stimulus toward deficit reduction.
The United States has warned against withdrawing stimulus too quickly, saying the world economy remains fragile but U.S. officials have also said it is important to keep in mind the need for fiscal prudence.
Obama has proposed freezing spending on an array of domestic programs for the next three years and has named a special commission to recommend ways to curb spiraling debt and deficits. The panel is to report back by December 1. Obama will review the recommendations and decide how to go forward sometime early next year.
"I'm doing it because I said I was going to do it," Obama said. "People should learn that lesson about me, because next year, when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I'm calling their bluff."
Amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, the U.S. budget deficit hit $1.4 trillion last year. It is projected to come in at about $1.6 trillion this year.
Obama has said the deficits are a legacy of the Bush administration, but Republicans have tried to cast Obama as a big spender and have attacked last year's $862 economic stimulus package.
Republicans hope to use the issue to put Obama's Democrats on the defensive ahead of the November congressional elections.
Despite the political wrangling over deficits, Obama said he has been hearing both from Democrats and Republicans that "there's been a serious conversation" about budget deficits and the need to address them.
Obama said structural budget problems were looming as the aging of the U.S. population pushes up spending for health and retirement programs.
"Even if we had not gone through this financial crisis, we'd still have to be dealing with these long-term deficit problems," Obama said.
He listed the tax code as another structural problem.
"We've got to look at a tax system that is messy and unfair in a whole range of ways," Obama said
Important Message about the state of America today with Obama...
This needs to become the mantra of every person elected to Congress this coming November....Obama's vision of making more and more people dependent on the Government is bad for America! The greatness of America has always been the ability for folks to work their way out of poverty and achieve great things, but today Obama's philosophy is just the opposite. But keeping people in poverty and on the roles of the Government Welfare systems is unsustainable and is UNAMERICAN!
Halting the Explosive Growth of Welfare Entitlements
Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.
This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out of poverty, versus those that do nothing but grow federal bureaucracies.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous "War on Poverty" in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state.
Just the opposite has occurred. Today, we spend 13 times more on welfare than in 1965 (even after adjusting for inflation), and the welfare state has made the problem of poverty worse by undermining the very fundamentals that decrease dependence: stable families and a strong work ethic. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is at an historic high of 40 percent and means-tested welfare has grown faster than any other sector of government.
Furthermore, since the 1960s, the United States has spent $15.9 trillion on welfare. Despite the current state of the nation's debt, President Barack Obama plans to spend $10.3 trillion more over the next 10 years.
The welfare reforms of 1996 attempted to tame this beast by putting in place reforms that would make welfare programs do what they should: move people out of poverty. It did this by restructuring one of the more than 70 welfare programs. What had been the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) – a cash-assistance program – became the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Instead of simply receiving a check from the government each month, recipients were now required to be involved in work or a work preparation activity for 20 to 30 hours a week in order to receive aid. These reforms were dramatically successful. State welfare agencies became job placement offices, and recipients moved from a cycle of poverty into job seeking and employment. The number of families in poverty dropped by 2.8 million and the child poverty rate dropped significantly.
Instead of adding $2.5 billion to the welfare state, which will only increase the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, the federal government should make fundamental changes that would decrease dependence and subsequently ease the burden on the nation's ever-growing deficit. Reforms, such as those that took place in 1996, along with others, must be put in place if the United States ever hopes to get back on a track of financial stability.
These reforms should be based on the following principles:
1. Slowing the growth of the welfare state. After the recession ends, Congress should roll back welfare spending to pre-recession levels and then cap it at the rate of inflation.
2. Promoting personal responsibility and work. Similar to the TANF reforms, other large programs such as Food Stamps and housing assistance should include work requirements.
3. Providing a portion of welfare assistance as loans rather than as grants. Government assistance can incentivize behaviors that lead to increased dependence. To reduce this risk, some welfare assistance should switch from grants to loans that must be partially repaid.
4. Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities. The decreasing rate of marriage is the greatest cause of child poverty. Today, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the United States is at an historic high. Marriage penalties, present in many current welfare programs, should be reduced or removed, and information on the importance of marriage should be provided in low-income communities.
5. Limit low-skill immigration. A significant portion (15 percent) of welfare spending goes to homes headed by lower skill immigrants with a high school degree or less. The government should limit immigration to those individuals who will be net fiscal contributors, meaning they will pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Also, the government should not provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as doing so would instantly add millions of people to the welfare roles.
Throwing more money at the ever-growing behemoth that has become the U.S. welfare system will do nothing to improve the wellbeing of our nation’s poor. Instead, it will lead to increased dependence and unsustainable national spending. Congress must implement policies that attack the roots of poverty, instead of promoting it with more handouts. This is the only way the United States will produce self-reliant individuals and stable families: the greatest weapons against poverty.
Halting the Explosive Growth of Welfare Entitlements
Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.
This is obviously the wrong approach. Instead of throwing more money at the ever-expanding and fiscally unsustainable welfare state, Congress should implement practices that work to move people out of poverty, versus those that do nothing but grow federal bureaucracies.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous "War on Poverty" in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state.
Just the opposite has occurred. Today, we spend 13 times more on welfare than in 1965 (even after adjusting for inflation), and the welfare state has made the problem of poverty worse by undermining the very fundamentals that decrease dependence: stable families and a strong work ethic. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is at an historic high of 40 percent and means-tested welfare has grown faster than any other sector of government.
Furthermore, since the 1960s, the United States has spent $15.9 trillion on welfare. Despite the current state of the nation's debt, President Barack Obama plans to spend $10.3 trillion more over the next 10 years.
The welfare reforms of 1996 attempted to tame this beast by putting in place reforms that would make welfare programs do what they should: move people out of poverty. It did this by restructuring one of the more than 70 welfare programs. What had been the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) – a cash-assistance program – became the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Instead of simply receiving a check from the government each month, recipients were now required to be involved in work or a work preparation activity for 20 to 30 hours a week in order to receive aid. These reforms were dramatically successful. State welfare agencies became job placement offices, and recipients moved from a cycle of poverty into job seeking and employment. The number of families in poverty dropped by 2.8 million and the child poverty rate dropped significantly.
Instead of adding $2.5 billion to the welfare state, which will only increase the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, the federal government should make fundamental changes that would decrease dependence and subsequently ease the burden on the nation's ever-growing deficit. Reforms, such as those that took place in 1996, along with others, must be put in place if the United States ever hopes to get back on a track of financial stability.
These reforms should be based on the following principles:
1. Slowing the growth of the welfare state. After the recession ends, Congress should roll back welfare spending to pre-recession levels and then cap it at the rate of inflation.
2. Promoting personal responsibility and work. Similar to the TANF reforms, other large programs such as Food Stamps and housing assistance should include work requirements.
3. Providing a portion of welfare assistance as loans rather than as grants. Government assistance can incentivize behaviors that lead to increased dependence. To reduce this risk, some welfare assistance should switch from grants to loans that must be partially repaid.
4. Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities. The decreasing rate of marriage is the greatest cause of child poverty. Today, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the United States is at an historic high. Marriage penalties, present in many current welfare programs, should be reduced or removed, and information on the importance of marriage should be provided in low-income communities.
5. Limit low-skill immigration. A significant portion (15 percent) of welfare spending goes to homes headed by lower skill immigrants with a high school degree or less. The government should limit immigration to those individuals who will be net fiscal contributors, meaning they will pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Also, the government should not provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as doing so would instantly add millions of people to the welfare roles.
Throwing more money at the ever-growing behemoth that has become the U.S. welfare system will do nothing to improve the wellbeing of our nation’s poor. Instead, it will lead to increased dependence and unsustainable national spending. Congress must implement policies that attack the roots of poverty, instead of promoting it with more handouts. This is the only way the United States will produce self-reliant individuals and stable families: the greatest weapons against poverty.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Obama's rift with Israel...but he is Muslim!
Another example of Obama's incompetence...when he campaigned he was pegged as anti Jewish, but he denied that...guess he lied again...he is now snubbing his nose at our closest ally in the middle east...what a shame, but then again he's a Muslim! All the jews in American need to abandon this president and contribute and support conservatives to we can fix this horrendous relationship and get control of the middle east back again!
A senior Israeli diplomat has warned that the Jewish state's relationship with the United States has suffered a "tectonic rift".
By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Published: 2:42PM BST 27 Jun 2010
Barack Obama and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office Photo: Getty The sobering assessment comes a week before Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, meets President Barack Obama at the White House.
There had been hope the two could lay to rest a row that erupted between the two allies in March but the new comments have raised fears of long-term damage.
Sources said Mr Oren told the meeting: "There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs. [Instead] relations are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."
Mr Oren's privately-voiced pessimism stands in stark contrast to public declarations in both Jerusalem and Washington that differences between the two states amount to nothing more than "disagreements" between allies.
The ambassador told the Jerusalem Post newspaper last week that US-Israel ties were stronger than many observers believed.
Unlike his previous encounter with Mr Obama in March, when he was given a stern dressing-down and denied permission to hold a joint press conference, Mr Netanyahu's visit to the White House next Tuesday is likely to be cloaked in civility.
The Israeli prime minister is being promised photo opportunities with his host in the White House Rose Garden and perhaps even an invitation to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.
But the show of unity is being seen as a sop to members of Mr Obama's party who afraid of angering Jewish American voters ahead of November's midterm elections than as a sign of genuine rapprochement.
Israeli officials have been quoted as saying that they expect a sterner private reception for their prime minister, who is yet to be fully forgiven for the perceived humiliation of Joe Biden, the US vice president, during a visit to Israel in March.
Mr Biden had come to Holy Land to launch indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. But negotiations collapsed before they started after Mr Netanyahu's government announced plans to expand a Jewish settlement in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.
According to Mr Oren, attempts to gain leverage over President Obama through some of his "pro-Israel" aides – believed to be a reference to Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief-of-staff, and Dennis Ross, a senior State Department official – had failed.
Instead Mr Obama had shown determination to take personal charge of the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process and is understood to hold Mr Netanyahu at least partly responsible for the lack of progress.
"It's a one man show," Mr Oren reportedly told his colleagues.
During the briefing, Mr Oren insisted that Mr Emanuel, despite some doubts in Israel, remained a friend of the Jewish state.
On a recent visit to Israel for his son's bar mitzvah, Mr Emanuel, who is Jewish, telephoned him in tears because of the warm reception he had received from ordinary Israelis during a jog in Tel Aviv, Mr Oren said.
Mr Oren denied the comments attributed to him during the briefing. It is the second time pessimistic comments made by the ambassador during private briefings have been made in the past four months.
A senior Israeli diplomat has warned that the Jewish state's relationship with the United States has suffered a "tectonic rift".
By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Published: 2:42PM BST 27 Jun 2010
Barack Obama and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office Photo: Getty The sobering assessment comes a week before Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, meets President Barack Obama at the White House.
There had been hope the two could lay to rest a row that erupted between the two allies in March but the new comments have raised fears of long-term damage.
Sources said Mr Oren told the meeting: "There is no crisis in Israel-US relations because in a crisis there are ups and downs. [Instead] relations are in a state of tectonic rift in which continents are drifting apart."
Mr Oren's privately-voiced pessimism stands in stark contrast to public declarations in both Jerusalem and Washington that differences between the two states amount to nothing more than "disagreements" between allies.
The ambassador told the Jerusalem Post newspaper last week that US-Israel ties were stronger than many observers believed.
Unlike his previous encounter with Mr Obama in March, when he was given a stern dressing-down and denied permission to hold a joint press conference, Mr Netanyahu's visit to the White House next Tuesday is likely to be cloaked in civility.
The Israeli prime minister is being promised photo opportunities with his host in the White House Rose Garden and perhaps even an invitation to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.
But the show of unity is being seen as a sop to members of Mr Obama's party who afraid of angering Jewish American voters ahead of November's midterm elections than as a sign of genuine rapprochement.
Israeli officials have been quoted as saying that they expect a sterner private reception for their prime minister, who is yet to be fully forgiven for the perceived humiliation of Joe Biden, the US vice president, during a visit to Israel in March.
Mr Biden had come to Holy Land to launch indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian leadership. But negotiations collapsed before they started after Mr Netanyahu's government announced plans to expand a Jewish settlement in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.
According to Mr Oren, attempts to gain leverage over President Obama through some of his "pro-Israel" aides – believed to be a reference to Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief-of-staff, and Dennis Ross, a senior State Department official – had failed.
Instead Mr Obama had shown determination to take personal charge of the faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process and is understood to hold Mr Netanyahu at least partly responsible for the lack of progress.
"It's a one man show," Mr Oren reportedly told his colleagues.
During the briefing, Mr Oren insisted that Mr Emanuel, despite some doubts in Israel, remained a friend of the Jewish state.
On a recent visit to Israel for his son's bar mitzvah, Mr Emanuel, who is Jewish, telephoned him in tears because of the warm reception he had received from ordinary Israelis during a jog in Tel Aviv, Mr Oren said.
Mr Oren denied the comments attributed to him during the briefing. It is the second time pessimistic comments made by the ambassador during private briefings have been made in the past four months.
Pelosi breaks from form and loses patience with Senate - More Lies from Pelosi
This women is beyond belief!!!! She is blaming Republicans when the Democrats have all the power in the Congress and a substantial number of Democrats are voting against this spending bill!....and what happened to PayGo...the bill she begged to get passed and was passed...now it's just ignored. This woman needs to get voted out of office....IF she represented by part of the world, I would be totally embarassed to have her represent me!
Pelosi breaks from form and loses patience with Senate - TheHill.com#comments#comments#comments
Pelosi breaks from form and loses patience with Senate - TheHill.com#comments#comments#comments
Here's the Biden Video from Wisconsin...What an Egotistical Jerk
Here's the Biden video and his latest blunder....wouldn't take reporter's questions so I guess he's not very proud of the Obama administration accomplishments or you know he would have wanted to "crow" about them...maybe it's because Wisconsin has lost 73,000 jobs since the stimulus?????
Theater of the absurd - Obama has made his own BED....Now he has to sleep in it...
Here's a Politico article that implies the Administration is a victim of host of odd occurances...I would say that Obama has caused many of these...he's been slow to react many times, he's been more focused on pushing his socialist agenda against the will of the American People, he's been wrong on a host of major decisions that have not worked, but have only made conditions worse, he's pushed the nation into huge deficits with promises that they would fix everything and they haven't come close ,and he's failed to accept any responsbility for ANYTHING since he took office by blaming the previous administration for everything!...everyone that's had any job of responsibility knows that is a fatal mistake if you want to establish competence and respect! The McCrystal issue was in my mind brought about by Obama by not managing this war properly....He is over his head and he is incompetent for the job...and he will pay dearly for that this November when he loses control of the House and Senate and he will ultimately be a one term President for his blunders!....
Theater of the absurd - Mike Allen and Glenn Thrush - POLITICO.com
Theater of the absurd - Mike Allen and Glenn Thrush - POLITICO.com
Biden again embarasses himself....I can't wait to see what he says on the Gulf Coast this week!!
This guy cannot open his mouth without making blunders....and he ALWAYS blames Bush even though he's been in congress (and sees himself as a congressional leader) since the invention of dirt!
Biden Calls Custard Shop Manager a 'Smartass' After Taxes Comment
Published June 27, 2010
| FOXNews.com
Vice President Biden is shown speaking with the manager of Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Milwaukee, Wis. (WISN)
Vice President Biden called the manager of a custard shop outside of Milwaukee, Wis., a "smartass" after the man asked him to lower taxes.
Biden made the comment after the Kopp’s Frozen Custard shop manager told him that his dessert would be on the house if he lowered taxes.
"What do we owe you?" Biden is heard saying in footage captured by WISN-TV.
"Don’t worry, it’s on us," the manager replied. "Lower our taxes and we’ll call it [the custard] even."
"Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time?" Biden said a few minutes later.
Biden had walked in to Kopp’s mistakenly asking for ice cream instead of custard.
The manager said later in an interview with WISN that he thought Biden didn’t seem happy initially about the taxes comment, but that the vice president later whispered that he was just kidding.
Biden was in Wisconsin to hit the campaign trail with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold. Just days earlier, the vice president told a crowd of Feingold’s supporters gathered at a fund-raising event that "there’s no possibility to restore the 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
He then added that he and the current administration "inherited a god-awful mess."
After he wraps up his time with Feingold, Biden will visit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday to survey the damage caused by the BP oil spill.
Biden Calls Custard Shop Manager a 'Smartass' After Taxes Comment
Published June 27, 2010
| FOXNews.com
Vice President Biden is shown speaking with the manager of Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Milwaukee, Wis. (WISN)
Vice President Biden called the manager of a custard shop outside of Milwaukee, Wis., a "smartass" after the man asked him to lower taxes.
Biden made the comment after the Kopp’s Frozen Custard shop manager told him that his dessert would be on the house if he lowered taxes.
"What do we owe you?" Biden is heard saying in footage captured by WISN-TV.
"Don’t worry, it’s on us," the manager replied. "Lower our taxes and we’ll call it [the custard] even."
"Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time?" Biden said a few minutes later.
Biden had walked in to Kopp’s mistakenly asking for ice cream instead of custard.
The manager said later in an interview with WISN that he thought Biden didn’t seem happy initially about the taxes comment, but that the vice president later whispered that he was just kidding.
Biden was in Wisconsin to hit the campaign trail with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold. Just days earlier, the vice president told a crowd of Feingold’s supporters gathered at a fund-raising event that "there’s no possibility to restore the 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
He then added that he and the current administration "inherited a god-awful mess."
After he wraps up his time with Feingold, Biden will visit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday to survey the damage caused by the BP oil spill.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Obama's Ties to Communism.....
"Manchurian President " Reviewed
Buy this book!!!!!!!!!! New Zeal is extensively referenced.
From Noisy Room.net
A review of “THE MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT”
Barack Obama’s ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists
By; Aaron Klein, with Brenda J. Elliott
Reviewed by: FERN SIDMAN
American journalist, author and radio host, Aaron Klein, along with historian and researcher, Brenda J. Elliott blow the lid off the dome of silence surrounding the Obama administration as they boldly unmask the nation’s 44th president in their latest chilling monograph entitled. “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists” (WND Books – May 2010). Providing close to 900 footnotes and countless pages of documentation they reveal surreptitious ties to radical leftists of all stripes. If the title of this book sounds at all familiar, it is a takeoff on the 1959 political thriller novel by Robert Condon called “The Manchurian Candidate” in which the son of a prominent US political family has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist party.
While Klein does not infer that President Obama is part of a Communist sleeper cell, he does present an exhaustive investigation into President Obama’s background and his radical ties to pivotal figures in the Communist movement, both inside the White House and out who also happen to be major players in crafting legislation, including the economic stimulus package. This weighty tome weaves a complex spider’s web of a narrative that is replete with a plethora of names and organizations of radical leftists, hitherto unknown by the public who helped shape Obama’s ideology and career.
Starting with Obama’s childhood affiliation as a Sunday school attendee at the First Unitarian in Honolulu, a radical activist church that not only served as sanctuary for draft dodgers in the 1960s and 70s but had strong links to the even more radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Klein embellishes on the movement that gave birth to the underground terrorist offshoot called the Weathermen. It was through this organization that Obama liaison Bill Ayers achieved fame as a Pentagon bomber-conspirator and a notorious leftist student agitator. Ayers summed up the Weathermen ideology which he referred to as “an American Red Army” by saying, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”
Klein informs us that Obama worked directly with Ayers in Chicago back in 1988, after Ayers resurfaced from his underground status amid multiple criminal charges related to his extremist activities. The charges were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. The two were introduced by Gerald “Jerry” Kellman, a Marxist acolyte of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, and thus, a professional association was forged as Obama served with the Ayers’ run community advocacy coalition called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABC. When Obama launched his political career in 1995, the venue for his first fundraiser was the Chicago apartment of Bill Ayers and the two served alongside each other from 1995 to 2000 on a $100 million education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge or CAC.
Says Klein, “To underscore Ayers’ radical mentality in 1995, while he worked closely with Obama, the unrepentant terrorist gave an interview in that year for author Ron Chepesiuk’s book Sixties Radicals, in which Ayers stated, “I’m a radical, leftist, small ‘c’ communist.”
Following the guidelines of Alinsky-like tactics of working within the system to overthrow the capitalist structure of American government, Klein speaks of Obama’s direct links to the CAC’s role in “disbursing money through various far-left community organizers, such as ACORN.” Such Socialist led organizations and unions like Project VOTE!, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the AFL-CIO (the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), AFSCME (American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees) and the Apollo Alliance are also directly linked to ACORN and Obama cronies with “questionable” ties. Quoting from a 2001 book by Jarol B. Manheim, “The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation,” Klein says that “by 1986, ACORN had forged institutional ties with AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils in at least 30 cities” and that ACORN’s “People’s Platform” included such radical reformist objectives as “free medical care, a public defender system, the elimination of the state income tax for low income people and higher welfare benefits.”
Obama’s associations with the Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and black political extremists are also revealed in nuanced detail, as Klein reveals that Obama attended the million man march organized by Nation of Islam leader and rabid Jew hater, Louis Farrakhan. For over 20 years Obama attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Farrakhan gave guest lectures at the behest of anti-American extremist preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Klein also uncovers the fact that the Nation of Islam was on Obama’s payroll in the early days of his political career and that his senior advisor, David Axelrod also maintained ties to radical Islam through his association as a board member of St. Sabena’s Church in Chicago which served as a haven for black nationalists of the Nation of Islam variety.
The backgrounds of other key Obama advisors and “Czars” such as Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, Andy Stern, Cass Sunstein and John Holdren are also carefully scrutinized by Klein as well as their political leanings and the influence they wield in this current administration. Ghastly epiphanies proliferate, as Klein documents the fact that Communist Party member, Frank Marshall Davis who would become a mentor to the young Barack Obama in Hawaii worked closely with Vernon Jarrett, Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law in at least three communist dominated organizations in Chicago in the late 1940s. Former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, who resigned his post in September of 2009, was forced out of his job by allegations of association with a Marxist group during the 1990s. Having been arrested several times during the 90s for political activism, Jones was quoted in a November 2005 interview with the East Bay Express as saying that while in jail, “”I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’”
“The Manchurian President” also exposes how Obama’s health-care policy, masked by moderate populist rhetoric, was pushed along and partially crafted by extremists. Some of them reveal in their own words that their principal aim is to achieve corporate socialist goals and a vast increase in government powers.
Klein was recently quoted on FOX news as saying, “It is clear that Barack Obama has ties to an anti-American fringe nexus that was instrumental in building his political career from the beginning all the way through now.” He adds that, “I believe this work is crucial to Americans from across the political spectrum, including mainstream Democrats who should be alarmed that their party has been hijacked by an extreme-left bent on permanently changing the party to fits its radical agenda.”
This meticulously documented piece of outstanding investigative research is a must read for all good citizens of this great country who are concerned with the future of our cherished freedoms and values.
Buy this book!!!!!!!!!! New Zeal is extensively referenced.
From Noisy Room.net
A review of “THE MANCHURIAN PRESIDENT”
Barack Obama’s ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists
By; Aaron Klein, with Brenda J. Elliott
Reviewed by: FERN SIDMAN
American journalist, author and radio host, Aaron Klein, along with historian and researcher, Brenda J. Elliott blow the lid off the dome of silence surrounding the Obama administration as they boldly unmask the nation’s 44th president in their latest chilling monograph entitled. “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists” (WND Books – May 2010). Providing close to 900 footnotes and countless pages of documentation they reveal surreptitious ties to radical leftists of all stripes. If the title of this book sounds at all familiar, it is a takeoff on the 1959 political thriller novel by Robert Condon called “The Manchurian Candidate” in which the son of a prominent US political family has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist party.
While Klein does not infer that President Obama is part of a Communist sleeper cell, he does present an exhaustive investigation into President Obama’s background and his radical ties to pivotal figures in the Communist movement, both inside the White House and out who also happen to be major players in crafting legislation, including the economic stimulus package. This weighty tome weaves a complex spider’s web of a narrative that is replete with a plethora of names and organizations of radical leftists, hitherto unknown by the public who helped shape Obama’s ideology and career.
Starting with Obama’s childhood affiliation as a Sunday school attendee at the First Unitarian in Honolulu, a radical activist church that not only served as sanctuary for draft dodgers in the 1960s and 70s but had strong links to the even more radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Klein embellishes on the movement that gave birth to the underground terrorist offshoot called the Weathermen. It was through this organization that Obama liaison Bill Ayers achieved fame as a Pentagon bomber-conspirator and a notorious leftist student agitator. Ayers summed up the Weathermen ideology which he referred to as “an American Red Army” by saying, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”
Klein informs us that Obama worked directly with Ayers in Chicago back in 1988, after Ayers resurfaced from his underground status amid multiple criminal charges related to his extremist activities. The charges were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. The two were introduced by Gerald “Jerry” Kellman, a Marxist acolyte of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, and thus, a professional association was forged as Obama served with the Ayers’ run community advocacy coalition called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABC. When Obama launched his political career in 1995, the venue for his first fundraiser was the Chicago apartment of Bill Ayers and the two served alongside each other from 1995 to 2000 on a $100 million education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge or CAC.
Says Klein, “To underscore Ayers’ radical mentality in 1995, while he worked closely with Obama, the unrepentant terrorist gave an interview in that year for author Ron Chepesiuk’s book Sixties Radicals, in which Ayers stated, “I’m a radical, leftist, small ‘c’ communist.”
Following the guidelines of Alinsky-like tactics of working within the system to overthrow the capitalist structure of American government, Klein speaks of Obama’s direct links to the CAC’s role in “disbursing money through various far-left community organizers, such as ACORN.” Such Socialist led organizations and unions like Project VOTE!, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the AFL-CIO (the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), AFSCME (American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees) and the Apollo Alliance are also directly linked to ACORN and Obama cronies with “questionable” ties. Quoting from a 2001 book by Jarol B. Manheim, “The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation,” Klein says that “by 1986, ACORN had forged institutional ties with AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils in at least 30 cities” and that ACORN’s “People’s Platform” included such radical reformist objectives as “free medical care, a public defender system, the elimination of the state income tax for low income people and higher welfare benefits.”
Obama’s associations with the Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and black political extremists are also revealed in nuanced detail, as Klein reveals that Obama attended the million man march organized by Nation of Islam leader and rabid Jew hater, Louis Farrakhan. For over 20 years Obama attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Farrakhan gave guest lectures at the behest of anti-American extremist preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Klein also uncovers the fact that the Nation of Islam was on Obama’s payroll in the early days of his political career and that his senior advisor, David Axelrod also maintained ties to radical Islam through his association as a board member of St. Sabena’s Church in Chicago which served as a haven for black nationalists of the Nation of Islam variety.
The backgrounds of other key Obama advisors and “Czars” such as Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, Andy Stern, Cass Sunstein and John Holdren are also carefully scrutinized by Klein as well as their political leanings and the influence they wield in this current administration. Ghastly epiphanies proliferate, as Klein documents the fact that Communist Party member, Frank Marshall Davis who would become a mentor to the young Barack Obama in Hawaii worked closely with Vernon Jarrett, Valerie Jarrett’s father-in-law in at least three communist dominated organizations in Chicago in the late 1940s. Former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, who resigned his post in September of 2009, was forced out of his job by allegations of association with a Marxist group during the 1990s. Having been arrested several times during the 90s for political activism, Jones was quoted in a November 2005 interview with the East Bay Express as saying that while in jail, “”I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’”
“The Manchurian President” also exposes how Obama’s health-care policy, masked by moderate populist rhetoric, was pushed along and partially crafted by extremists. Some of them reveal in their own words that their principal aim is to achieve corporate socialist goals and a vast increase in government powers.
Klein was recently quoted on FOX news as saying, “It is clear that Barack Obama has ties to an anti-American fringe nexus that was instrumental in building his political career from the beginning all the way through now.” He adds that, “I believe this work is crucial to Americans from across the political spectrum, including mainstream Democrats who should be alarmed that their party has been hijacked by an extreme-left bent on permanently changing the party to fits its radical agenda.”
This meticulously documented piece of outstanding investigative research is a must read for all good citizens of this great country who are concerned with the future of our cherished freedoms and values.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)