The Obama administration has proved a failure in resolving the massive BP oil spill disaster, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tells Newsmax.TV.
In an exclusive interview, Gingrich blames BP for the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, but he says the evidence clearly shows the administration has been ineffective in its response as the oil has threatened the region’s wildlife and tourism industries.
That doesn’t surprise Gingrich, whose new best-seller, “To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine,” chronicles problems he sees evolving during Obama’s presidency.
Obama’s policies pose a “mortal threat” to America’s way of life and the preservation of the Founding Fathers’ vision for America, the former speaker tells Newsmax.TV. His strategies threaten America’s founding values as much as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did, Gingrich says.
“There are two different problems,” Gingrich says. “The first is how you cap the well to keep the oil from coming out, and the other problem is how do you gather up the oil to get it out of the water before it reaches the shore?
“The Obama administration has so far failed on both of those counts, and we have evidence that foreign governments were prepared to give substantial support and either found no response or a very slow response from the Obama administration.”
Story continues below. The president and his administration have resorted to Chicago-style machine tactics that seek to impose power from above on the American people instead of earning it from the bottom up, Gingrich says.
“If you watched Obama get $787 billion of stimulus money with no elected official having read the bill, even the Chicago City Council would have thought that was a pretty good machine-like moment,” Gingrich says. “If you watch them ignore every poll for four months, ignore every town-hall meeting, ignore the loss of Senator Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts on the very issue of healthcare, and then impose Obamacare on the country — that’s the behavior of a machine.”
Gingrich labels the machine “socialist” because, he says, the president’s policies involve more government, more bureaucracy, more power in Washington, and giving more power to politicians.
If this trend continues, Gingrich says, the country will “have replaced Lincoln’s description of America as a ‘land of the people, by the people, for the people’ with a new policy of government of the special interests, by the bureaucrats, and for the politicians.
“If you look at Sacramento, California; Albany, New York, that’s the model of the future if the left wins, so I do think it is a fairly accurate statement to say this is a mortal threat to the historic America, which emphasized personal liberty and personal freedom and the rule of law.”
Secularizing America is essential for the left because socialism will be possible only with the suppression of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation “we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights,” Gingrich says.
This “means no judge, no bureaucrat, no politician can take away your God-given rights,” Gingrich says. “Unless you secularize this country, you can’t take away from the American people the rights that God gave them, and so there is an inherent tension between a creator-endowed model and a socialist model.”
Regarding immigration reform, Gingrich says the Democrats see it as a way to overcome the electoral advantage held by taxpayers and immigrants who have assimilated into America.
“People come to America with the hope of making a better living for their family,” Gingrich says. “Most people who come to America don’t want us to become the country that they left.
“They came here because we are different . . . The most passionate people are first-generation immigrants who understand why America is so unique and so remarkable, and you desperately do not want us to slide into the corruption, the machine politics, the politician-defined world of people like Hugo Chavez, or Fidel Castro, or many Third World dictatorships.”
Also in the wide-ranging interview, Gingrich says:
Republicans will be able to repeal Obamacare if they win back Congress in this year’s midterm elections and elect a GOP president in 2012. He will wait until early next year to decide his own presidential ambitions. The Environmental Protection Agency should be replaced with a decentralized system that gives more power at the state and local levels and encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. The Social Security system should be replaced with one that gives younger people their own accounts, which would allow them to save two and a half to three times more money than the traditional system. Elena Kagan lacks the experience and credentials necessary to serve on the Supreme Court because her two previous appearances before the court, in the Citizens United case and her effort to ban the ROTC at Harvard, were major defeats and she lacks judicial experience. Republicans in the Senate should block the so-called Disclose Act, which would reverse the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
snip-it; WASHINGTON (AP) -- Here's an idea, Uncle Sam: Stop writing checks to dead people.
The government sent benefit checks to 20,000 departed Americans over three years, totaling more than $180 million -- a remarkable number that provoked the Obama administration to create a government-wide "do not pay" list as part of its brainstorming for ways to save taxpayer money.
Once the database is up and running, agencies will have to search it before sending out payments. A pre-check check, so to speak.
"We're making sure that payments no longer go to the deceased -- it sounds ridiculous even to say it," acknowledged Vice President Joe Biden in describing the database.
Also planned for inclusion: contractors who've fallen behind in their payments or, even worse, landed in jail, and companies that have been suspended or otherwise deemed ineligible for government work.
"This stuff seems obvious on its face," Biden acknowledged. "The voters will go, 'My God, isn't that happening already?'"
In fact, the Social Security Administration does have what it calls a "Death Master File." But some other agencies don't routinely check it before issuing benefits. Ditto with the General Services Administration, which has an "Excluded Parties List System" for ineligible contractors.
An order signed by President Barack Obama on Friday would centralize the information from numerous sources.
The figures on payments to the deceased come courtesy of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which also says checks went to 14,000 convicted felons, both in jail and still on the lam. The three-year total there: $230 million.
With the federal debt mounting and red ink worries spreading in Europe, Obama is under increasing political pressure to cut spending sharply. Recently, he told federal agencies to come up with ways of trimming 5 percent from their budgets next year, and of saving billions in federal building costs.
Another cost-cutting measure announced Friday was an online fraud detection program for Medicare and Medicaid. OMB said those programs made $65 billion in erroneous payments last year.
The software, developed by officials charged with scrutinizing Obama's stimulus plan, was demonstrated for reporters by OMB Director Peter Orszag. A slide show portrayed auditors using it to discover that a number of contractors and subcontractors scheduled for payment by the government were in fact located in a single home. Plus, a satellite photo showed the home had a pool and a boat. "Suspicious," Orszag said.
The White House reckons improper payments of all kinds -- from outright fraud to checks to inmates to simply mistyped pay stubs -- totaled $110 billion in 2009.
Rep. Michele Bachmann tells Newsmax that the federal response to the BP oil spill has been “miserable” and President Obama is “most certainly” interested in taking over effective control of the oil industry.
The Minnesota Republican also says the tea party movement is the “energy” in America today — and insists that Obama will be a one-term president. Bachmann was first elected in 2006, and is a member of the Committee on Financial Services.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, she says she is concerned that the Obama administration will “politicize” the distribution of funds that BP has placed in an escrow account for Americans who suffer damages from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“BP has made a good decision by admitting their guilt and I think it is important that they pay for every claim that is legitimate,” Rep. Bachmann says.
“But I’m concerned about politicizing the fund and want to make sure this fund isn’t used for special interests that would be of the president’s choosing.
“We already had a system set up for claims that BP could have gone into and claimants could have gone to, but the president has bypassed that and set up a new system that is run by the administration as opposed to the court system.
“This will be a very costly cleanup. There are people whose lives are ruined because of this oil spill. They legitimately need to be paid quickly and completely. But at the same time, because we’ve seen so much in the last 18 months of the federal government getting involved in private industry, I want to make sure it’s legitimate claims that are being paid to real people by BP, and I’m concerned about the administration’s impact on all of this.”
Bachmann was asked, given previous government involvement in the car industry, banks and other private enterprises, if Obama is interested in taking over the oil industry.
“Most certainly, because of the cap-and-trade bill,” she declares.
“The bill will effectively, in Minnesota for my constituents, mean a doubling of our energy bills. When the federal government calls all the shots, whether it’s an equity interest in the business or whether it’s through control, the federal government effectively runs that company.
“So I am very very concerned about the federal government — not [about] regulating for safety sake, that’s a good thing — but when they regulate to the point of effectively owning the business. That’s going too far.”
Bachmann has filed a full-scale repeal of Obama’s healthcare reform bill, which has been posted on her website michelebachmann.com, and visitors to the site can sign a petition expressing support for the bill.
“We can do this,” she says about repeal.
“I firmly believe that if we as conservatives take control this fall, which is only four and a half months away and it’s very likely this could happen, we could defund Obamacare after the election.
“And I absolutely believe President Obama is a one-term president. Then we need to elect a very strong constitutional conservative who will be bold and who will run on repealing Obamacare, and then we can repeal it in February of 2013 and actually address the cost issues, which are the real focus of Americans’ concerns.”
To understand the importance of repeal, Bachmann explains, “all we have to do is see how the federal government has miserably failed in capping this hole in the Gulf region. See how miserable the government’s response has been on this disaster, then consider that these are the people who’ll now be in charge of our healthcare.”
Bachmann, a tea party favorite, says about the movement: “We see the liberal media and also the far-left-wing Democrats dissing tea party adherents, because they know this is the energy in American right now.
“People have absolutely rejected the Obama-Pelosi agenda, and that’s really what the tea party is all about.”
Regarding financial reform legislation now under consideration, Bachmann tells Newsmax: “Unfortunately the bill that is coming through will make bailouts perpetual.
“And here’s the kicker: Now the bailouts would only be in the president’s hands. [The administration could] give a bailout to whoever is politically connected and they would bypass Congress. That’s how bad this bill is.”
Bachmann also says Obama has already reneged on his campaign promise that no couple making less than $250,000 a year will pay a dime more in federal taxes.
“And there will be a major tax increase in January 1 of 2011 when new taxes go into effect for many people, including people making under $250,000,” she adds.
“Because many people are invested in their pension plans, their mutual funds, and those mutual funds will have an increase in taxes on those dividend payments.”
Less than half of middle class Americans now believe that President Barack Obama is doing a good job, according to a new Gallup Poll.
Among those earning from $24,000 to $59,988 a year, just 46 percent say they approve of the job Obama is doing, down from 51 percent in May and 66 percent in the week of his inauguration.
Among Americans earning $60,000 to $89,988 a year, 44 percent approve of his job performance, down from 51 percent in May and 69 percent during inauguration week.
The only income bracket in which a majority still approves of Obama’s job performance is those earning less than $24,000 a year — and only 52 percent of them approve.
Overall, 46 percent of Americans told Gallup they approve of Obama’s job performance during the week of June 7-13, tying for the worst week of his presidency.
A video made by a team member at Grassfire's ResistNet has exposed Obama's real amnesty agenda. It's so damaging that the Obama team has already issued a denial.
Here's what happened.
An Arizona ResistNet team member went to a town hall meeting with Arizona Sen. John Kyl and captured on video Kyl's discussion of his closed-door meeting with President Obama.
In that meeting, according to Kyl, Obama admitted that the Left is using the open borders crisis as leverage to force conservatives to support amnesty. Here's what Kyl said:
"I met with the President in the Oval Office, just the two of us". The President said, 'The problem is - if we secure the border, then you-all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.' In other words, they are holding it hostage."
This video has made national news, been featured by Rush Limbaugh and is so damaging that the White House has already issued a denial. But in typical Obama fashion, even the denial linked border security to "comprehensive" reform (i.e. amnesty).
Sen. Kyl is standing by his account, which confirms that the current crisis of illegal immigration and the attacks against Arizona are all part of the amnesty agenda.
Obama and the Left want a border crisis as leverage to force the nation to the amnesty bargaining table! + + Three key actions
Action #1 -- Watch the video and then fax Congress supporting Arizona's reasonable immigration laws.
We now know that within the next month the Obama team will file a lawsuit to stop Arizona's law. That means the political pressure against Arizona is only going to increase.
Go here to fax your Congressmen and other key leaders right now supporting the Arizona law.
Action #2 -- Ask your friends to sign the Arizona petition
ResistNet's National Director just delivered over 125,000 petitions to the original sponsor of SB1070. But this battle is just beginning. Please forward this link to your friends and encourage them to join you in signing the petition supporting Arizona's reasonable immigration law:
This video was made by a ResistNet team member who decided to get involved in taking back our country. Just by showing up at a town hall meeting and posting a video on YouTube this team member has directly impacted the national debate!
We have many stories just like this of Grassfire team members who have utilized ResistNet to get more engaged and have an even greater impact.
If you haven't joined the ResistNet citizen action community, go here to find out more:
Kyl: Obama Uses Border Insecurity to Push Immigration Plan Monday, 21 Jun 2010 01:53 PM Article Font Size
The Obama administration is using the increasing insecurity of the Mexican border to push through its own agenda on immigration, according to Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl.
In a video clip posted on YouTube showing the senator speaking to a local Tea Party crowd on Friday, Kyl aid the president told him during a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office that he was concerned he wouldn't win GOP support on immigration legislation if he took care of border security first.
Story continues below.
"The problem is, he said, if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform," Kyl said, as the crowd in the room gasped loudly. "In other words, they're holding it hostage."
The White House denied the claim on Monday.
"The president didn't say that and Senator Kyl knows it," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a written statement. "There are more resources dedicated toward border security today than ever before, but, as the president has made clear, truly securing the border will require a comprehensive solution to our broken immigration system."
But the Number 2 Senate Republican is sticking to his story. Kyl spokesman Ryan Patmintra said, "There were two people in that meeting, and Dan Pfieffer was not one of them." He said Pfeiffer's call for comprehensive immigration legislation "only confirms" Kyl's story.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 06-22-2010).]
Armey: Obama, Democrats Using Spill Crisis to Push Cap-and-Trade Agenda Sunday, 20 Jun 2010 06:23 PM By: John Rossomando
President Obama’s vow to help Gulf states recover from the catastrophic BP oil spill rings hollow because he failed to take decisive action early, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey tells Newsmax.TV.
The president also is using the 2-month-old crisis to advance his political agenda, says Armey, who now chairs the FreedomWorks organization and is a tea party movement leader.
Obama and his administration acted incompetently after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people, and sank two days later, Armey says.
Asked during a Newsmax.TV interview whether the administration can handle the burgeoning environmental crisis and economic devastation, Armey responds: “Given the way this administration has responded to this catastrophe as it has developed, [the question] is can you trust them at all? They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Story continues below.
He faults other branches of government as well, saying that, “with respect to the White House, with respect to the Senate leadership today, and with respect to the House leadership today, there are real competency issues.” Obama’s Oval Office speech about the oil spill Tuesday night had more to do with political damage control, in light of his sagging popularity, than offering solutions, Armey says.
The former majority leader sees a political agenda springing from the crisis, in Obama’s renewed push for cap and trade.
“This is certainly the most current and certainly won’t be the last demonstration of what I call ‘Armey’s axiom’ that every politician uses every crisis as a new biggest reason why he has to do what he was wanting to do anyway,” Armey says. “The fact of the matter is cap and trade is bad legislation. It’s bad for the economy. It’s unnecessary, and it’s probably not beneficial for the environment or the atmosphere.
“It is probably just an ideological bow to the environmental extremists that costs jobs in America.”
Regarding Obama’s initial response, the president could have accepted help from several nations that offered it simply by waiving the 1920 Jones Act, which bars foreign vessels and crews from operating in American territorial waters, Armey says.
Ships from those nations could have helped contain the spill, he says.
“It’s a little shocking to me that a president that has such a multinational orientation as this president didn’t immediately see the benefits of waiving the Jones Act and allowing all of these resources to come in,” Armey says. “So in light of his failure to do that and to welcome resources, I found myself left a little cold by what he presented as his resolve and commitment” during his Oval Office speech.
“I found it to be just a bit hollow and to have a hollow ring to it,” Armey says.
Another issue is that many liberals try to ignore the close ties many oil companies such as BP have had with Democrats in cutting deals, Armey says.
On another political topic, the former majority leader extolled the strength of the tea party heading into the fall elections as a cultural shift toward restoring the nation’s founding values of small government and constitutional limitations.
“We are especially taking the message to the Republicans that we want you to act like us,” Armey says.
Politicians such as U.S. Senate candidates Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio in Florida, and gubernatorial hopeful Nikki Haley in South Carolina represent a repudiation of big-government ideas and demonstrate the tea party’s power, Armey says.
“Mike Lee is very likely going to be coming out as the Republican nominee for the Senate,” Armey says. “That’s a big change from [Senator Bob] Bennett . . . who voted for TARP and many other big-government programs.”
Armey sees a similar contrast between Rubio and Gov. Charlie Crist, who dropped out of the GOP primary and opted to run for the Senate seat as an independent after his numbers tanked against Rubio.
Senate candidates such as Nevada’s Sharron Angle and Kentucky’s Rand Paul can win in the fall by maintaining an “awesome respect” for America and its values of limited government and the free-market system, says Armey, who provides information on candidates he backs in the “Taking America Back” section of the FreedomWorks website.
“All the tea party activists and the grass-roots activists around the country are saying is, ‘We want you to love the country as we love America and the American heritage as we love it,’” Armey says. “If you do that then we’ll vote for you.”
Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment.
Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure.
Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.
The results show "a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. "The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats."
Mr. McInturff said voters' feelings, typically set by June in any election year, are being hardened by frustration over the economy and the oil spill. "It would take an enormous and seismic event to change the drift of these powerful forces before November," he said.
Mr. McInturff added that any "little, faint signs" in the spring that voters were adopting a more optimistic outlook have now been "squished by feelings from this oil spill."
For Democrats, the results underscore the potential for major losses in November. Both parties have been forced to contend with an anti-establishment wave this year. But Republicans, through strong fund raising and candidate recruitment, have put enough seats in play in the House and Senate to give the GOP a realistic shot at winning control of both chambers.
Support for Mr. Obama and his party is declining among centrist, independent voters. But, more ominous for the president, some in his base also are souring, with 17% of Democrats disapproving of Mr. Obama's job performance, the highest level of his presidency.
Approval for Mr. Obama has dropped among Hispanics, too, along with small-town residents, white women and seniors. African-Americans remain the firmest part of Mr. Obama's base, with 91% approving of his job performance.
In winning the presidency, Mr. Obama conveyed an image of remaining steady and focused during the banking crisis and economic downturn. Now, amid the oil spill and a weak economic recovery, Americans are taking a dimmer view of his personal qualities and leadership style.
Some 30% in the poll said they "do not really relate'' to Mr. Obama. Only 8% said that at the beginning of his presidency. Fewer than half give him positive marks when asked if he is "honest and straightforward.'' And 49% rate him positively when asked if he has "strong leadership qualities,'' down from 70% when Mr. Obama took office and a drop of 8 points since January.
Just 40% rate him positively on his "ability to handle a crisis," an 11-point drop since January. Half disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats.
"As a Democrat and as a woman, I am disappointed in him," said poll respondent Melissa Riner, a 42-year-old law clerk from Mesa, Ariz. Referring to the oil spill, Ms. Riner added, "I don't think he's handling it. He doesn't seem to be doing anything. He just talks."
James Ciarmataro, a 23-year-old stay-at-home dad from Macomb, Mich., said it was difficult to relate to Mr. Obama, because the president is "eating steak dinners at the White House and playing golf" while the country is suffering.
An exclusive Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has bad news for President Obama and congressmen of all political stripes. WSJ's Peter Wallsten says the political climate will make for a brutal midterm election.
An independent, Mr. Ciarmataro said he would vote in November for "whoever seems the newest, and doesn't seem to have any ties to anybody else."
Tina Becker, a 47-year-old homemaker and registered Democrat from Wauseon, Ohio, who identifies herself as an independent, said she still strongly supports Mr. Obama. "But it might have made him look better if he communicated more about how things were progressing," she said.
In the survey, 45% said they wanted to see a Republican-controlled Congress after November, compared to 43% who wanted Democratic control. But even more telling is the excitement gap between the core voters of each party.
Just 44% of Obama voters—those who voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 or told pollsters they intended to—now express high interest in the midterm elections. That's a 38-point drop from this stage in the 2008 campaign.
By contrast, 71% of voters who supported Republican John McCain in 2008 expressed high interest in this year's elections, slightly higher than their interest level at this stage in that campaign.
The gap helps explain why the Democratic National Committee is spending $50 million on a campaign to try to lure Obama voters back to the polls this year.
Nearly two-thirds in the survey said they wanted more regulation of oil companies. Majorities also favor more regulation of Wall Street firms, health insurers and "big corporations."
While a majority still favors greater offshore drilling, support has slipped considerably over the past month as the Gulf oil spill has grown worse—from 60% in May to 53% now.
Sixty-three percent support legislation to reduce carbon emissions and increase the use of alternative and renewable energy sources, even if it means an increase in energy costs.
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly is warning that if President Barack Obama ever bypasses Congress and uses his pardon power to make millions of illegal aliens citizens, he could face serious calls for his impeachment.
“If President Obama were to sign an executive order giving illegal aliens amnesty, his career would be over and an impeachment movement would explode,” O'Reilly said Friday night on his “Talking Points” segment during his top-rated Fox show.
At the same time, O'Reilly said he did not believe reports that the Obama administration would grant such a blanket amnesty.
Fox News, however, reported this week: “The Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status on a mass basis to illegal immigrants, a former Bush administration official who spoke with at least three people involved in those talks told FoxNews.com.”
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that at least 10.8 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States.
During his 2008 campaign, Obama promised pro-immigration and Hispanic groups that he would make an amnesty program a top priority. But such a plan has taken a back seat in favor of other Obama legislative initiatives, including healthcare and financial regulation reform.
With congressional elections fast approaching, both the legislative calendar and the climate for new immigration legislation appears to offer immigration legislation a slim chance of passing this year.
Republicans, led by Arizona Sen. John McCain, have been angered that Obama has done little to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, and have made that a prerequisite condition before any discussion of immigration reform can take place.
Reports that the Obama administration is weighing ways to circumvent Congress have Republicans worried. On Monday, eight Republican senators sent the president a letter saying they are concerned that he will grant unilateral amnesty to America's illegal immigrant population if his efforts to overhaul current U.S. policy fails in Congress.
The letter called on Obama to abandon any attempt to "unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States. Such a move would further erode the American public's confidence in the federal government and its commitment to securing the borders and enforcing the laws already on the books."
The eight senators who signed the letter were Charles Grassley of Iowa, Orrin Hatch of Utah, David Vitter of Louisiana, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Thad Cochran of Mississippi.
GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa told Fox News that the White House has solicited opinions from experts on possible avenues for granting "amnesty for a large number of people."
A former Bush administration official also told Fox News that talks on the subject have been held by Obama officials who are "studying legal ways to legalize people without having to go through any congressional debate about it."
Republicans believe that Obama is anxious to grant citizenship to millions of illegals so he can add millions of new Democratic voters to the electoral rolls, ensuring his re-election in 2012 and tipping the national balance of power in favor of Democratic candidates for the foreseeable future.
O’Reilly also criticized the Obama administration for its lax treatment of the illegal alien issue, noting that Obama had appointed Harold Hurrt to be the liaison between the federal government and states over the increasingly contentious issue of illegal immigration.
Hurrt is the former police chief of Houston and Phoenix, and O'Reilly says he is “outwardly sympathetic to illegal aliens. As [police] chief, he refused to enforce federal immigration law. Now Hurrt is a federal immigration official? Come on, that's insane.”
Hurrt's appointment “proves that the president is extremely left on the immigration issue,” O'Reilly said.
Our company health care insurance contract is up for renewal.
The cost is going up. The coverage is going down. And now the portion of the premium the company pays will be reported as income which we'll now get to pay taxes on, a $900-1500 hit depending on your situation.
Right now most businesses are about as nervous as a dog crapping a rope with knots. By the middle of September if it doesn't look like the voters will make this guy powerless, it is going to be a BAD October.
Right now most businesses are about as nervous as a dog crapping a rope with knots. By the middle of September if it doesn't look like the voters will make this guy powerless, it is going to be a BAD October.
If the voters are able to change the Democratic majority, or at least water it down, speculation is they'll pass every bit of horrible legislation through during the "lame duck" period between the election and the swearing in of the new members in January.
If the voters are able to change the Democratic majority, or at least water it down, speculation is they'll pass every bit of horrible legislation through during the "lame duck" period between the election and the swearing in of the new members in January.
I have noted that before on here. Our only hope is the blue dogs refuse to partake in this once they realize BO is dead wood. Bet he won't be invited to one town hall unless the audiance is hand picked. The ones that survive the election will be worried about their political future if the voters give them the indication they have woken up and are paying attention.
President Obama is finally uniting the left and the right -- in joint opposition to his administration's chronic sabotage of transparency and public disclosure rules. It won't be long before liberals disillusioned by Dear Leader's reveal-as-we-say-not-as-we-conceal policies link arms with me and join in on my two-year-old chant: Obama lied, transparency died.
Watchdog groups and Republicans on Capitol Hill want an investigation into hundreds of White House meetings with corporate lobbyists at DC coffee houses. K Street influence peddlers told The New York Times last week that they've met routinely with Team Obama officials over the past 18 months to discuss policy matters -- at Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, even on a side lawn -- with the express purpose of circumventing the public's right to know.
The Coffee House Ruse comes on top of the latest confession of White House non-disclosure from ex-Big Labor heavy Patrick Gaspard, Obama's chief domestic policy adviser, who failed to report a $40,000 pension payment from his old employer, the Service Employees International Union in New York. If they keep this up, sunlight-avoiding Obama officials will soon be cast as the next Twilight vampires.
"Lobbyists say some White House officials will agree to an initial meeting with a lobbyist and his client at the White House," the Times' once-zealous champions of Obama reported, "but then plan follow-up sessions at a site not subject to the visitors' log." Said one financial lobbyist who has met more than a half-dozen times off-campus with White House officials: "I'll call and say, 'I want to talk to you about X,' and they'll say, 'Sure, let's talk at Starbucks.'"
You see: When Obama promised to "change the way Washington works," what he really meant was changing where the usual Beltway backroom wheelers and dealers do their business. And when he talked about changing the "culture" in the nation's capitol, what he really meant was just changing titles.
In addition to carving out the Coffee House loophole and using personal e-mail accounts to communicate with the influence industry, White House officials have been advising lobbyists looking for administration jobs to de-register -- shedding their K Street status -- to get around Obama's vaunted lobbyist hiring ban. With more than 40 ex-lobbyists working in the administration, Obama's no-lobbyists executive order already has more holes in it than a moth-eaten crocheted sweater.
The self-puffery of the double-talker-in-chief on disclosure ethics is inversely proportional to the amount of real transparency he has delivered. In January, irked by criticism of private healthcare meetings with Big Labor cronies at the Oval Office, Obama lectured Americans that "it is important to know that the promises we made about increased transparency we've executed here in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." His legal counsel trumpeted the release of more than 25,000 White House visitor logs (many incomplete, vague and useless) as "a milestone in the president's commitment to change Washington. The president believes that this and our many other transparency initiatives promote accountability and keep American democracy vital." While Obama's cabinet engaged in the same old precedented meetings with lobbyists, his propagandists patted themselves on the back for providing unprecedented access:
"We are excited about the visitor records policy not only because we are breaking new ground for this administration but also because we are establishing a new standard for all future administrations. We know of no comparable initiative in the history of the White House."
Puff, puff, puff. The Obama administration's incomparable hype and hypocrisy have at last proved too much for good-government liberals. Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has asked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate and hold hearings on the Coffee House loophole. CREW head Melanie Sloan lambasted the Democratic White House: "This is what all the administration's anti-lobbyist rhetoric gets you -- less transparency. Rather than being open and clear about who is influencing White House policy, the White House is trying to hide who it's really talking to. Even worse, the public is being suckered with lofty rhetoric about the evils of the same lobbyists White House officials are meeting with."
Now that citizen activists are staking out DC caffeine hot spots, the White House/special-interest trysts may soon be headed to Washington street corner hot dog stands and taquerias. Keep your eyes and ears open. The next cap-and-tax exemption or stimulus slush fund may be hammered out in a public restroom stall or on a Metro subway seat next to you. On the upside, coffee-gate is rousing slow-learning Americans from their Obama-as-Messiah stupor. The best part of waking up is reality in your cup
Perhaps launching a pre-emptive strike before yet another dismal jobs report comes out Friday, President Obama blasted Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, proclaiming himself "stunned" at how "out of touch" the Ohio Republican is.
But Republicans charged Obama was distorting Boehner's comments to distract voters from a troubled economy.
“The president was in a city with 14 percent unemployment and he talked about ants, rather than jobs?" Rep. Boehner answered in an e-mail to Newsmax Wednesday afternoon. "How out of touch can you get?”
The sharp exchange had its origins in remarks Boehner made to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review regarding financial reforms purportedly intended to avoid another economic meltdown. Boehner criticized the proposals as overly burdensome to business.
"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," Boehner told the newspaper. "There are faults in our regulatory system, some in terms of transparency, most as a result of ineffective enforcement by the bureaucracy who have no idea what these financial products look like today. That could've been fixed, but that's not what we have here."
The president took those remarks to mean Boehner was suggesting the financial crisis had the significance of an ant.
"That's right," Obama told his audience in Racine, Wis. Boehner "compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their life savings.
"Well," Obama continued, "if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant . . . These Americans don't believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it's what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again."
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel's statement in response: "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 the House Republican Leader's choice of metaphors. It's clear Boehner was not minimizing the crisis America faced — he was pointing out that Washington Democrats have produced a bill that will actually kill more jobs and make the situation worse."
The administration clearly wanted the confrontation to receive wide media attention. It released an advance copy to the media of the president's remarks about the congressman.
Conservatives and some pundits alleged that the president is looking for ways to distract voters from the nation's ongoing problems with the economy that his policies have not yet been able to fix.
"Time after time since the start of the recession, Obama has used the crisis to expand the size and power of government — even when doing so would not only fail to solve the problem, but would worsen it," Fox News commentator and best-selling author Dick Morris told Newsmax.
"The power grab in the financial regulatory bill is a perfect example. It was this disjuncture between a problem that could be solved with specific legislation, and the nationalizing of an entire industry, that Boehner was addressing.
"But Obama seized on a word to convey an impression that Boehner does not appreciate the gravity of the problem, a charge Obama knows to be erroneous," Morris said.
There are increasing indications the president is facing growing problems both economically and politically. The jobless figures for June are expected to reflect the loss of about 525,000 temporary workers who were employed from March to May to help gather 2010 Census data. Unemployment in Racine, where the president spoke, has doubled since he came into office.
Recent polls show public confidence in the president's ability to manage the economy is slipping. So is the Dow Jones average, which has dropped more than 5 percent in the past five days. It lost 96.28 points Wednesday. The Congressional Budget Office delivered more bad news, projecting the national debt will grow to 62 percent of the nation's economic output by year's end.
Allan H. Meltzer, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who serves on Boehner's informal cabinet of economic advisers, told Newsmax: "I think Representative Boehner understands that we've had a serious recession. And I think the important part of that exchange is the president still hasn't learned the most important part of being president: You have to get along with a lot of different people. You need to get people to cooperate with you, and you don't do that by calling them names."
Asked to evaluate the impact of the nearly $1 trillion spent to stimulate the economy, Meltzer was blunt: "Hasn't worked. The economy is better than it was in January 2009, when [Obama] took office. But the unemployment rate isn't."
Meltzer, author of a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "Why Obamanomics Has Failed," told Newsmax that there are two reasons why the president's economic policies haven't spurred job growth.
"His stimulus program was much more aimed at redistributing income than in creating wealth," Meltzer says. "And the second reason is, he creates enormous uncertainty about the future, and uncertainty is the enemy of growth, of jobs, of employment."
Meltzer, author of "A History of the Federal Reserve," tells Newsmax that business leaders currently are facing unknowns on every side: They aren't sure what new taxes may take effect, they have questions about the cost of providing health insurance to their employees, they're worried over the prospect of carbon taxes, and they find it difficult to anticipate how a thicket of new federal will affect their businesses.
Such uncertainty, Meltzer says, makes CEOs skittish about hiring new employees.
University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry J. Sabato tells Newsmax that there is plenty of political gamesmanship occurring on both sides of the aisle as the midterms draw closer.
"If Republicans gain 39 seats," Sabato says, "Boehner will be speaker. Since the Republicans are making the current Speaker a prominent target, maybe the Democrats want to elevate the possibly future Speaker to target status.
"The White House believes the Republicans are making a mistake in not backing the financial reform bill," the political analyst says, "and they are trying to position the GOP as pro-big business, pro-bank, pro-Wall Street, and pro-BP. It's a classic Democratic populist campaign against the 'big boys.'
"When you look at the landscape, this is one of the only issues the Democrats can use to make hay," Sabato adds. "The bad economy, high unemployment, the Gulf disaster, soaring debt, and other problems are dominating the headlines, and setting up GOP gains for November."
"There are increasing indications the president is facing growing problems both economically and politically. The jobless figures for June are expected to reflect the loss of about 525,000 temporary workers who were employed from March to May to help gather 2010 Census data. Unemployment in Racine, where the president spoke, has doubled since he came into office."
Ahhh. Too bad that Obama could not have a continual census. Then he can praise how his party has helped the American people have jobs. For being such a nice guy president, (no caps) he has an awful lot to say about others.
"That's right," Obama told his audience in Racine, Wis. Boehner "compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their life savings.
"Well," Obama continued, "if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant . . . These Americans don't believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it's what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again."
The last paragraph actually gives me a little nuclear headache! My comments after this were all angry. So, I just pasted the paragraph, and am now going to build my 1950's bomb shelter.
"There are increasing indications the president is facing growing problems both economically and politically. The jobless figures for June are expected to reflect the loss of about 525,000 temporary workers who were employed from March to May to help gather 2010 Census data. Unemployment in Racine, where the president spoke, has doubled since he came into office."
Ahhh. Too bad that Obama could not have a continual census. Then he can praise how his party has helped the American people have jobs. For being such a nice guy president, (no caps) he has an awful lot to say about others.
"That's right," Obama told his audience in Racine, Wis. Boehner "compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their life savings.
"Well," Obama continued, "if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant . . . These Americans don't believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it's what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again."
The last paragraph actually gives me a little nuclear headache! My comments after this were all angry. So, I just pasted the paragraph, and am now going to build my 1950's bomb shelter.
I guess Obama thinks people are stupid enough to believe that's what Boehner meant. Oh, that's right! He's one of the "smart kids", the ones that are so much smarter than the rest of us!
President Barack Obama’s zeal to give illegal immigrants amnesty is holding the nation’s border security hostage to his political agenda, says GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe.
As Obama called on Congress to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in a speech Thursday afternoon, Inhofe told Newsmax in an exclusive interview that the president clearly is using border security as a bargaining chip to obtain amnesty for millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States.
That was the same charge made by Inhofe’s friend and colleague, Arizona GOP Sen. John Kyl, who stirred controversy last week when he revealed a discussion in which Obama told him that taking action to secure the Mexican border “would remove the incentive for comprehensive immigration reform.” The White House has denied Kyl’s allegation.
Inhofe told Newsmax that he has total faith in Kyl’s assertion because he “has never told a lie” in the almost 25 years he has known him.
Consequently, he places more confidence in Kyl’s credibility than that of the White House.
Story continues below. Rumors in Congress suggest Obama will stop at nothing to achieve his goal of allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country, Inhofe said. The administration reportedly plans to use an executive order to circumvent Congress and block the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.
Inhofe predicts the president will use his power to stop or delay the deportation of illegals to select a block of deportees — anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 at a time — and prevent them from being sent home.
“This is just a way for them to accomplish their agenda in this way to allow them to do what they have failed to accomplish in the legislature,” Inhofe says. ”It’s kind of the same they did unsuccessfully on the global warming and cap and trade.
“They tried to do it with the EPA and the Clean Air Act; they are trying to take everything over by the executive [branch].”
In his speech Thursday at American University in Washington, Obama seemed to suggest that border security isn’t that important in passing immigration reform. In fact, he raised doubts that the border could be secured at all.
America's borders are "just too vast" for the immigration problem to be solved with fences and border patrols alone, Obama said. He also slammed Arizona’s popular immigration law, which empowers police to arrest illegal aliens and has found majority support in polls across the country.
Obama took Republicans to task, in particular 11 GOP senators who supported recent efforts to improve the immigration system. He did not name any in particular but told his largely supportive audience at American University that those lawmakers had succumbed to the "pressures of partisanship and election-year politics."
In response, Kyl, one of the 11 Republican senators Obama alluded to, said he had a good reason for his position this time around.
"My constituents have said do everything you can to secure the border first," Kyl told Fox News Channel. "It's our job to secure the border, whether or not we end up passing so-called comprehensive immigration reform."
Regarding cap and trade, meanwhile, Inhofe tells Newsmax that he remains confident it is dead in the Senate and likely would be defeated even if the Democrats try bringing it up in a modified form during the lame-duck session following the midterms.
Nonetheless, Obama plans to do everything he can to get a carbon-emissions tax passed. He recently met with moderate-to-liberal GOP senators such as Olympia Snowe of Maine, seeking their backing for a restriction on CO2 emissions.
“Well, they can call it anything they want, but cap and trade is cap and trade,” says Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. “And these guys all know now that. Even the more mushy Republicans who used to be hard for me to deal with all realize that cap and trade is the largest tax increase in the history of America.”
Democrats reportedly intend to pass some sort of “benign” sounding energy legislation before the August recess, put it into conference with Waxman-Markey — the House cap-and-trade bill — and pass it after the midterms. Inhofe tells Newsmax.TV the senators who vote for this legislation will likely be defeated.
“It doesn’t matter what they put the tax on, ultimately it’s the people … who are going to pay,” Inhofe says. “The costs are going to be huge.”
Were cap and trade to pass, it could cost anywhere from $100 billion to $300 billion, depending on the estimate, and the Obama administration believes it could cost each household $1,761 a year.
“The whole reason for cap and trade is to masquerade how much it would cost the people,” Inhofe says, regarding why the Democrats do not pass a simple carbon tax instead of cap and trade.
Even though Senate passage is unlikely, liberals such as John Kerry and Joe Lieberman keep pushing cap and trade to ingratiate themselves with the “far-left environmental extremists” and get them to contribute to their campaigns, Inhofe tells Newsmax.TV.
The senator likewise dismisses Lieberman’s claim to have found additional senators to support cap and trade because he believes the Senate’s moderates likely would not vote for it due to its likely economic harm.
On Afghanistan, Inhofe says “there is no greater hero than David Petraeus” to win that war, and victory hinges around his ability to pull off the same strategy he enacted in Iraq.
“I think we have the right person in there doing it, and if David Petraeus can’t pull off a successful surge, no one can,” he says. “David Petraeus is not going to do his job unless he has the unfettered authority through the White House to get it done, and I think the problem McChrystal had was he had all of these appointees … who were really disrupting.
The National Rifle Association came out today in opposition to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, calling her a threat to firearms freedom and saying they will carefully watch her votes for her confirmation in an election year.
"This vote matters and will be a part of future candidate evaluations," the NRA says.
Excerpts from an NRA statement, as reported by MSNBC, follow:
"In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she refused to declare support for the Second Amendment, saying only that the matter was "settled law."
"This was eerily similar to the scripted testimony of Justice Sonia Sotomayor last year, prior to her confirmation to the Court. When pressed on the Second Amendment then, Sotomayor also referred to the issue as "settled law."
"But in the recently decided case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Sotomayor ignored the "settled law" of the Heller decision and signed a dissenting opinion that declared, "I can find nothing in the Second Amendment's text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as 'fundamental' insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes."
"It has become obvious that "settled law" is the scripted code of an anti-gun nominee's confirmation effort. The NRA is not fooled. No member of the U.S. Senate should be either.
"With no judicial record, only Kagan's political career can be reviewed. And this provides no reason to trust her with Americans' firearms freedom.
"Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility to the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.
"As a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan said she was "not sympathetic" to a challenge to Washington, DC's ban on firearms. As a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, a colleague described her as "immersed" in Clinton's aggressive assaults on the Second Amendment. She was involved in Clinton's scheme to ban more than 50 types of commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms - an effort described as "…taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns."
"As U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan chose not to file a brief last year in the landmark McDonald case, thus taking the position that incorporating the Second Amendment and applying it to the states was of no interest to the Obama Administration or the federal government.
"These are not the positions of a person who supports the Second Amendment and, in fact, represent a clear and present danger to the right to keep and bear arms."
Charlie Cook is one of the best Democratic pollsters around, and a sharp analyst to boot. After running the latest numbers, Cook spared no words in giving the bad news to Democrats about the November mid terms:
Imagine sitting in Washington's Verizon Center, listening blissfully to Carole King and James Taylor, thanks to a fast-thinking friend who managed to score four floor seats. For 50-somethings, it's a nice place to be. Then, as the concert is winding down, four pages of poll tables of a just-released survey pop up in your BlackBerry. They are jaw-dropping numbers, not inconsistent with what you had been thinking -- if anything more a confirmation of it. But the dramatic nature of the numbers brings the real world of politics crashing through what had been a most mellow evening.
The numbers were from the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted June 17-21 among 1,000 adults by pollsters Peter Hart (a Democrat) and Bill McInturff (a Republican). Among the registered voters in the survey, Republicans led by 2 points on the generic congressional ballot test, 45 percent to 43 percent. This may not sound like a lot, given that Democrats now hold 59 percent of House seats. When this same poll was taken in June 2008, however, Democrats led by 19 points, 52 percent to 33 percent.
That drop-off should be enough to sober Democrats up, but the next set of data was even more chilling. First, keep in mind that all registered voters don't vote even in presidential years, and that in midterm elections the turnout is about one-third less. In an attempt to ascertain who really is most likely to vote, pollsters asked registered voters, on a scale of 1 to 10, how interested they were in the November elections. Those who said either 9 or 10 added up to just over half of the registered voters, coming in at 51 percent.
And the largest group most interested in the 2010 election? Former John McCain voters from 2008. What this is telling Cook and other pollsters who have measured this is that a tidal wave of massive proportions may be building just 4 months out from the election and that it is set to smash the Democratic majority in the House and potentially wash away the Democrat's advantage in the senate:
The NBC/WSJ survey, when combined with a previously released NPR study of likely voters in 70 competitive House districts by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger, point to an outcome for Democrats that is as serious as a heart attack. Make no mistake about it: There is a wave out there, and for Democrats, the House is, at best, teetering on the edge.
Cook is telling Democrats to hit the panic button. It won't help. The GOP will go as far as their own efforts will take them. The table is set for a feast. Can the Republicans deliver the beef?
President Obama appears set on a collision course with the conservative-leaning Supreme Court over the constitutionality of his administration's transformative legislative agenda, legal scholars say.
Partisan battles over the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan, combined with the administration's proposals to change established policy dramatically in fields ranging from healthcare to financial regulation to energy and immigration, make it likely that Obama and the court's conservative majority increasingly will be at loggerheads, these experts say.
"I was struck by the coordinated attacks on the Supreme Court by liberals on the Judiciary Committee," Tom Fitton, president of the conservative Judicial Watch organization, tells Newsmax. "I cannot recall any similar, sustained attacks on the high court in all my years in Washington. It is likely discomforting to all the Supreme Court justices. Obama and his liberal allies are trying to politicize the Supreme Court in a way not seen since FDR's attempt to pack it with extra appointees."
One thing appears certain: Supreme Court Justice John Roberts isn't likely to back down to Obama. Roberts reportedly still is angry over President Obama's decision to use the State of the Union address to scold the justices for their Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which rejected limitations on corporate and nonprofit electioneering.
When Obama said during the State of the Union address that the ruling would "open the floodgates" to donations by foreign companies and other special interests to influence U.S. elections, Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "Not true."
Politifact, the independent fact-checking organization, agreed with Alito. It rated the president's statement "barely true," calling it an exaggeration. In their majority opinion, the justices specifically stated that their decision would not overturn the longstanding prohibition in 2 U.S.C. 441e(b)(3) against any foreign-based organization "directly or indirectly" spending money to influence the outcome of any U.S. election.
The president's decision to use his bully pulpit to frame the ruling's political impact incorrectly may have caused lasting damage to his relationship with the judiciary. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that "Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. is still angered by what he saw as a highly partisan insult to the independent judiciary."
Simon Lazarus, counsel for the National Senior Citizens Law Center, told the Times that the Citizens United ruling came as a "real shock" to the administration, which "saw this new activist thrust among the conservatives as a direct threat to their legislative agenda."
Ever since Obama's State of the Union remarks, Democrats and the White House have moved aggressively to legislate a way around the Citizens United ruling. The Disclose Act legislation that the House recently passed, which conservative critics say is a thinly veiled attempt to regulate corporate First Amendment speech so heavily that it becomes impractical, is unlikely to enhance the court's rapport with the administration.
That the battle lines have been drawn is clear. During the Kagan confirmation hearings, for example, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., warned of "the danger of judicial activism," in reference to "the recent behavior of the court, particularly the five Republican appointees who've steered it so hard to the right."
Curt Levey, executive director of The Committee for Justice, a conservative organization that has expressed serious doubts about Kagan's ability to put the law above politics, tells Newsmax that allegations of judicial activism by conservatives are purely political.
"Democratic senators’ charges of activism by the Roberts Court were remarkably free of any legal rationale and amounted to little more than complaining about outcomes they don’t like — that is, decisions that don’t show favoritism for the 'little guy.' Now that judicial activism has gotten a well-earned bad name, such that Democrats can no longer openly defend it, they are reduced to saying 'you do it too,' as we saw at the Kagan hearings."
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that a number of legal scholars now consider a clash between the expansive pro-government plans of the Obama administration and the Roberts court to be inevitable.
On healthcare, for example, GOP leaders in 20 states have filed suit to block the imposition of federal legislation that appears to give short shrift to the states' role in providing healthcare.
"Presidents with active agendas for change almost always encounter resistance in the courts," Stanford University law professor Michael W. McConnell, a former appellate court judge, told the Times. "It happened to [Franklin D.] Roosevelt and it happened to Reagan. It will likely happen to Obama too."
The Obama administration has already run into a brick wall in various court venues regarding its policies. Its setbacks, beyond the Citizens United case, include:
The administration's six-month moratorium on offshore drilling was blocked by a federal judge who wrote that "the plaintiffs have established a likelihood of showing that the administration acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the moratorium." When the administration tried to get a stay of that judge's order, that pleading also was rejected. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down by a 5-4 margin the ban on guns in Washington, D.C. As solicitor general, Kagan had argued that the D.C. gun ban should continue. In June, by another 5-4 vote, the court expanded the protections in Heller to residents of all states, striking down a gun ban in Chicago as a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The administration is soon expected to go to court to try to block the Arizona law that aims to enforce the federal prohibitions on illegal immigration. There has been speculation the delay in the administration's lawsuit stems from its uncertainty over how to attack a law that is largely patterned after existing regulations that the federal government has declined to enforce. In part, the impending clash as the administration pushes its agenda forward appears to reflect the nation's growing partisan divide.
In last week's confirmation hearings, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, pushed Kagan to identify any area of economic activity that the federal government, under the U.S. Constitution, is not permitted to regulate. Kagan declined, saying, "I wouldn't try to."
"It is not surprising that Kagan was reluctant to provide an example of an economic activity that Congress can’t regulate under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause," Levey tells Newsmax. "To some degree, this reflects the sorry state of Commerce Clause jurisprudence, in which the Supreme Court has refused to enforce any meaningful limits on Congress’s enumerated powers.
"But Kagan also had something more specific in mind," Levey says. "She was clearly trying to keep her options open for stretching the Commerce Clause wide enough to allow her to uphold Obamacare’s individual insurance mandate."
Do I want Obama to fail? No, but his agenda cannot succeed. Supporters of our President often ascribe motives to his ideological opponents. For example, when a Senator describes the political impact of a government takeover of health care as “his Waterloo,” the remark is taken as a partisan response to score a political victory, rather than a reaction to advocating a failed system (government medicine). The truth is, the failure of President Obama is not about mere R’s and D’s; any political victory would be a pyrrhic one if the failed policy leads to the overall destruction of the country. The opposition to Obama is about his promotion of weakness in the area of foreign policy, the advancing of socialistic policy and his overall incompetence. President Obama and the American left do not understand the following:
· When people are elected, their nature does not change; they are just as fallen before as they are after taking the oath of office.
· Countries that are ruled by brutal dictatorships don’t care about mutual respect, they only care about maintaining their power and growing their empires.
· No matter how charismatic and dolled up a President is, he simply cannot take policies that violate the fundamental laws of basic economics and make them successful. The only thing he can do is distract people by highlighting where government is subsidizing while ignoring the bigger picture.
The sad truth is community organizers and union heads are never about the big picture; they don’t evaluate, solve or create; they distort, balkanize and inevitably destroy all in the name protecting their group. The President, any president, must realize the following:
· National security is not based on your popularity with the world.
· The government has no business in making sure everyone has health insurance.
· Income is not distributed; first it has to be earned, and the US Government has no role in redistribution.
If a President actually reads the Constitution, he would realize these truths. So, back to my original thought: I don’t want our President to fail, I just realize that it is impossible for him succeed with his agenda. I would encourage him to read his job description outlined in Article 2 of the constitution and then take a good look at history (American and World). Perhaps then he would recognize that he should not endeavor to remake America, he should restore it by adhering to the principles of its founding.
A former White House policy advisor is accusing President Obama of what he calls "playing" the American public.
Peter Ferrara, director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), has written an article in The American Spectator, claiming Barack Obama does not give Americans credit for understanding the true nature of his policy agenda.
"He engages in rhetoric, which can be described as 'calculated deception,'" Ferrara observes. "Or basically, he's playing us."
The former policy advisor recalls stump speeches like one Obama gave in Nevada: "He goes out to Las Vegas and gives this speech, and he says, 'You know, when we were trying to pass the healthcare reform bill, everybody talked about all these scary results that were going to come out of the health bill. And now look; we passed it three, four months ago, and where are all these scary results they were talking about?'"
Ferrara points out that healthcare reform legislation will not go into effect until 2014, and since the effects of those changes will not be recognized for several years, he wonders, "Just how stupid does [Obama] think we are."
He further adds that manipulation is a problematic leadership trait Obama uses to get his way. "So once again, this was another shameful manipulation of the American people in what needs to be called 'calculated deception,' or basically, he's playing you because he thinks that you're too stupid to pay attention," Ferrara concludes.
The IPI budget policy and entitlement director goes on to call the president's recent domestic travels "Obama's Socialism Victory Tour" for Democratic candidates this fall.
President Obama's standing with American voters is so low that the latest Quinnipiac University poll indicates Obama would lose an election to "an unnamed Republican" -- meaning any GOP opponent -- by 39 to 36 percent.
The poll shows Obama's job approval hitting a new low, 44 percent approval to 48 percent disapproval. That is the president's worst net score ever, according to Quinnipiac.
The most drastic news for the president politically: His approval with the critical independent voters is dismal.
By a stunning 52 percent to 38 percent, independent voters disapprove of Obama. And by 37 to 27 percent, independents say they would vote for a Republican contender in 2012.
Overall, by a 48 percent to 40 percent margin, American voters say that President Obama does not deserve to be reelected in 2012.
While the Obama administration has time to turn around its low approval ratings before its next election, the poll is likely to sound alarm bells on Capitol Hill where many members of Congress will be up for reelection in November. Midterm elections tend to be a referendum on the party in power.
Voters apparently have a "pox on both their houses" mentality when it comes to Congress, giving both Republican and Democratic members very low marks. But that may be little consolation to Democrats on the ballot in November, because respondents said by a 43 to 38 percent margin that they would vote for a generic Republican over a generic Democrat for Congress.
The Quinnipiac survey of 2,181 registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percent, the university says.
The overall impression left by the poll is that voters are disenchanted with the reforms that President Obama stated he would enact if he were elected president. He gets strong negative ratings for his handling of the economy, foreign policy, and the Gulf Oil spill.
"It was a year ago, during the summer of 2009, that America's love affair with President Barack Obama began to wane," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "In July of 2009, the president had a 57 to 33 percent approval rating.
"Today, his support among Democrats remains strong, but the disillusionment among independent voters, who dropped from 52 to 37 percent approval to 52 to 38 percent disapproval in the last 12 months, is what leads to his weakness overall when voters start thinking about 2012," Brown says.
More bad news for Democrats on the campaign trail: Obama's coat-tails are remarkably short this year. Only 12 percent of voters say they are more likely to support candidates for whom Obama campaigns, compared to 16 percent for candidates supported by Sarah Palin.
There are some redeeming glimmers for the administration in the survey: By a 42 to 32 margin, American voters continue to believe Obama has been a better president than George W. Bush.
That is remarkably similar to the 43 to 30 margin recorded in January 2010, which could imply Bush fatigue with voters is a lingering phenomenon.
Also, the poll shows support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low, with 48 percent of Americans saying the war was the right thing to do, and 43 percent saying America should not be fighting there.
Signs accumulate that the President is becoming political kryptonite for Democrat candidates.
August 9th huh? Let me check my calendar. Oh darn the luck Mr. President, I'm going to be making a campaign stop at the Johnson County Fair. My schedule is really packed right now, but maybe we can do lunch in...say...mid November.
There is something funny going on in Texas. Only last year Bill White paid for an ad featuring a picture of himself and Barack Obama trumpeting the slogan "The Dream, The Hope, The Change." This year the Democrat candidate for governor is looking to distance himself from an increasingly unpopular president.
The Dallas Morning News quotes White who said "I was in the oil and gas business when he was a community organizer." The gubernatorial hopeful added.
"There are some people, including me, who believe that the president is spending a lot more money than we're taking in, is spending too much money in Washington," White said in an interview.
"I don't believe in borrowing so much money. When I served as the chief operating officer of a federal department, I cut the budget. And now you see the budgets of other Cabinet departments go up."
Having witnessed the defeat of fellow Democrats who accepted Mr. Obama's assistance during their campaigns, White has turned tail and run from the president's toxic embrace. Rather than attend fundraisers on August 9th in Houston and Austin with Mr. Obama, Bill White will be shaking hands and spinning tales of fiscal responsibility at the Johnson County Fair.
In explaining his decision not to attend the upcoming fundraisers with the president White said "I don't appear with a lot of people who come through the state of Texas." In doing some fact checking, I found a number of people who are willing to testify under oath that during recent trips to Texas the Democrat candidate for governor did not in fact appear with them at any time.
* Jason Allardyce and Tony Allen-Mills * From: The Australian * July 26, 2010 12:00AM
THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.
The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.
Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted.
The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future "frank and open communications" with other governments.
In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the US wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime.
The note added: "Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
Mr LeBaron added that freeing the bomber and making him live in Scotland "would mitigate a number of the strong concerns we have expressed with regard to Megrahi's release".
The US administration lobbied the Scottish government more strongly against sending Megrahi home, under a prisoner transfer agreement signed by the British and Libyan governments, in a deal now known to have been linked to a pound stg. 550 million oil contract for BP.
It claimed this would flout a decade-old agreement between Britain and the US that anyone convicted of the bombing would serve their sentence in a Scottish prison. Megrahi was released by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill on the grounds that he had three months to live, making his sentence effectively spent.
The US Senate foreign relations committee launched a probe after The Sunday Times revealed this month that Megrahi's doctors thought he could live for another decade.
A source close to the Senate inquiry said: "The (LeBaron) letter is embarrassing for the US because it shows they were much less opposed to compassionate release than prisoner transfer."
Last week, a succession of British politicians - including Mr MacAskill, Mr Salmond and former justice secretary Jack Straw - delivered a diplomatic snub to the senators by refusing to fly across the Atlantic to answer questions at the Senate's hearing on Thursday (US time) about their role in Megrahi's release.
Despite the controversy over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and Megrahi's release, it emerged over the weekend that BP is planning deep-water drilling off Libya.
And BP boss Tony Hayward is poised to quit this week when the company announces its half-year results, London's Sunday Telegraph reported.
Posted on Monday, July 26, 2010 6:44:59 AM by SJackson
Last week, Barack Obama said that his administration had been “surprised, disappointed and angry” in August 2009 when the British government freed the Islamic jihadist Abdelbeset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, who murdered 270 people by bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. But Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said Sunday that while Obama’s expression of surprise, disappointment and anger was “a fair description of the American Government’s position,” as “they didn’t want al-Megrahi to be released,” nevertheless, “if he was to be released, they thought it was far preferable for compassionate release as opposed to the prisoner transfer agreement.”
In other words, the Obama administration, while ostensibly opposing any arrangement for al-Megrahi’s release, nonetheless favored releasing him over transferring him from a Scottish prison to a Libyan one. In a letter to Salmond written a week before al-Megrahi was released, Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, wrote that “if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose.” U.S. officials tried, but failed to keep LeBaron’s letter secret.
Why they opposed further prison time for al-Megrahi remains unexplained. At the time of his release, al-Megrahi, 58, had only served eight years for 270 counts of murder, but he was reported to be terminally ill with prostate cancer. Professor Karol Sikora, dean of medicine at Buckingham University and medical director of CancerPartnersUK, examined him and gave him three months to live. Al-Megrahi returned to his native Libya, where he was given a hero’s welcome, and has been in excellent health ever since.
Sikora later revealed that he gave his dire assessment of al-Megrahi’s condition under pressure from British officials, and that he knew al-Megrahi was not dying:
There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years … But it’s very unusual. It was clear that three months was what they were aiming for. Three months was the critical point. On the balance of probabilities, I felt I could sort of justify [that]….It is embarrassing that he’s gone on for so long.
It is embarrassing for more than just Sikora. In September 2009, the British Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, admitted that al-Megrahi’s release had been tied to an oil deal with Libya – a manifest and shameful betrayal of the people al-Megrahi murdered in his jihad attack.
And so the key question that should be posed to Barack Obama today is why he believed that “compassionate” release was preferable for this remorseless mass murderer than time in a Libyan jail. And if his administration approved of al-Megrahi’s “compassionate” release, or at least had green-lighted it as a possibility before it occurred, why were U.S. officials “surprised, disappointed and angry” when it actually happened? Were any quid pro quos involved, either from Libya, whose strongman Muammar Gaddafi has lavishly praised Obama, or from Great Britain?
Obama should also be asked, if the White House press corps were not so anxious to further the President’s agenda, why this monster deserved any kind of compassion whatsoever, even if the reports about his terminal cancer had been true. Why should Abdelbeset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, of all people, not die in prison for his pitiless crime of blowing an airplane out of the sky four days before Christmas and killing everyone on board? Isn’t even the contemplation of “compassionate release” for such a man a miscarriage of justice for those who were killed, and an indication of a moral myopia staggering in its severity on the part of British authorities and Obama?
Given Obama’s oft-repeated desire to establish relations with the Islamic world on the basis of a “mutual respect” that remains ever-elusive from the Islamic side, as shown in the new book I have written with Pamela Geller, The Post-American Presidency, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he directed U.S. officials to approve of al-Megrahi’s “compassionate release” as yet another gesture of good will toward the Islamic world. Yet these gestures of good will remain unreciprocated. Al-Megrahi is free, his crime unpunished. Will anyone ask Barack Obama why?
[This message has been edited by texasfiero (edited 07-26-2010).]
For being such a nice guy president, (no caps) he has an awful lot to say about others. 
