• $8 billion on "renewable energy" projects, which have a low or negative return
This is actually the one thing I was looking forward to. If it's one thing I wanted....and both candidates were promising something....it is renewable energy. Getting ourselves weened off of foreign oil will be a long road and $8 billion will doubtedly get us started down that path, but at least it's something. Unfortunately that money will probably go towards studying their options and arguing what will be the best route to take and where, then nothing will get done. I'd like to see more windmills and other forms of natural energy, but one nuclear power plant can power much more than the windmills could ever hope to. And our lack of willingness to drill for new oil doesn't help the matter either. So 20 years down the road, we will most likely still be purchasing oil from the nations of OPEC.
[This message has been edited by FierceGT (edited 02-25-2009).]
Even if we could get the OK for new nuclear power plants, they take almost a decade to build and pass safety inspections, before they actually get the go ahead to make power. Obama would be out of office before this became a reality.
WASHINGTON – The administration insists it isn't so, but some private economists are wondering if the Obama administration has brought "Rosy Scenario" back to town.
In unveiling his budget, President Barack Obama pledged to bring "honesty and fairness" back to the budget process by getting rid of the gimmicks past administrations had used to hide the real costs of government programs and proposed tax cuts.
But many economists who examined the economic assumptions that undergird the spending plan believe that Obama may have resorted to one of the oldest gimmicks around — relying on overly optimistic economic assumptions to make it look like you are dealing with soaring budget deficits when in reality you are only closing the gap on paper.
"They used to joke during the Reagan years that the highest-ranking woman in the administration was Rosy Scenario," said Nariman Behravesh, the chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a major private forecasting firm.
Rosy may be back in town, said Behravesh, who called the Obama administration's forecasts "way too optimistic."
For its part, the administration insisted that it hadn't cooked the books to show greater growth, and thus more tax revenues, in coming years. But the administration forecast is far higher than the projections for growth in the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, of many private analysts.
On Friday the government said the economy shrunk by a staggering 6.2 percent in the final quarter of last year, much faster than its earlier GDP estimates. And with layoffs piling up and spending drying up, economists expect rough months ahead.
GDP plays the biggest role in determining the accuracy of deficit forecasts because weaker-than-expected growth swells government payments for such things as unemployment benefits and food stamps and reduces tax receipts.
In its budget, the administration predicted that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will shrink by 1.2 percent this year but will grow by a solid 3.2 percent in 2010. That growth would be followed by even stronger increases of 4 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012 and 4.2 percent in 2013.
By contrast, the consensus of forecasters surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators in February predicted that the GDP will fall by a larger 1.9 percent this year and then increase at weaker rates of 2.1 percent in 2010, 2.9 percent in 2011 and 2012 and 2.8 percent in 2013.
Many private analysts believe that the current recession and rebound will be more U-shaped than V-shaped.
"When a country is griped by a financial crisis, the ensuing downturn often lasts much longer than normal," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University. "I think this downturn is gong to last longer and the rebound will be fairly anemic."
Christina Romer, the head of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, defended the administration's stronger GDP forecast, contending that in previous severe recessions, the pattern often showed a stronger rebound once the downturn was over. She cited the Great Depression as one such episode when the economy rebounded by strong rates after years of sizable declines.
Romer also suggested that many private forecasters may not be adequately taking account of the size of the government support that has been put forward, including the recently passed $787 billion economic stimulus bill.
"If there is ever a time when we think policy is going to contribute ... now is the time," she told reporters at a budget briefing on Thursday.
But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, said he believed the extent of the downturn will be more severe than the administration's forecast for this year and that this will prompt even larger policy responses on the part of the government, including increased help for homeowners facing foreclosure and another stimulus from Congress a year from now.
The administration's budget projects that the downturn will result in a 13.4 percent drop in government receipts this year, one of the contributing factors to the administration's forecast that the deficit will hit an all-time high of $1.75 trillion.
For 2010, when the administration is forecasting the deficit will decline to $1.17 trillion, the administration is forecasting that the rebounding economy will boost revenues by 8.9 percent. Based on the stronger growth, the administration is forecasting steadily declining deficits in coming years with the deficit dropping to $912 billion in 2011, $581 billion in 2012 and $533 billion in 2013.
giving us an extra $50 a month doesn’t help when you raise taxes on everything else and then add a universal tax like cap in trade.. there is no increased spending.. It just marginally offsets the increase in everything else.. at most you can show an increase in actual dollars being spent.. but not an actual increase in spending.. in fact you’ll probably see a decrease in spending since people will just watch their money even closer.
The Chosen One's plan is for crap. Pelosi and Reid are hell bent on destroying the economy in the name of being "Progressive" . I don't understand why we would want to adopt the failed ideas of Europe even as they themselves try and reverse decades of Socalist policies that have crippled their economies.
Even if we could get the OK for new nuclear power plants, they take almost a decade to build and pass safety inspections, before they actually get the go ahead to make power. Obama would be out of office before this became a reality.
Something I found:
"Let me see here… a U.S. President serves a term of four years and they can be re-elected just once.
4 + 4 = 8
That’s the rule according to the Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) of the United States Constitution, at least, which sets a term limit for the President of the United States.
Maybe Obama hopes he can change that silly rule, or even more alarming is the prospect that he is not aware of the 22nd Amendment.
I would suggest that Obama take one of his 300 foreign policy advisors and assign them to helping him brush up on the Constitution."
Good old Joe. I think Jay Leno said it best, "Doesn't he kinda remind you of the uncle at the family Christmas party whose had too much to drink"?
BTW,
DJIA Closed today 7,062.93 Who want to bet it drops below 7000 on Monday
? Boy, talk about crashing Air Force One right into the NY Stock Exchange Building, and watching it go up in flames. It is crumbling just like the Twin Towers in slow motion.
[This message has been edited by partfiero (edited 02-27-2009).]
? Boy, talk about crashing Air Force One right into the NY Stock Exchange Building, and watching it go up in flames. It is crumbling just like the Twin Towers in slow motion.
Well, the liberals got what they wanted...a federal government almost exclusively run by liberals. Now we conservatives can sit back and watch the place go up in flames. Too bad...it was a really nice country.
This seems as good a place as any to post this. Not directly Obama-related except the need for government to stop trying to make a painless recovery...
Belt-tightening is required by all, including government.
By PETER SCHIFF
As recession fears cause the nation to embrace greater state control of the economy and unimaginable federal deficits, one searches in vain for debate worthy of the moment. Where there should be an historic clash of ideas, there is only blind resignation and an amorphous queasiness that we are simply sweeping the slouching beast under the rug.
With faith in the free markets now taking a back seat to fear and expediency, nearly the entire political spectrum agrees that the federal government must spend whatever amount is necessary to stabilize the housing market, bail out financial firms, liquefy the credit markets, create jobs and make the recession as shallow and brief as possible. The few who maintain free-market views have been largely marginalized.
Taking the theories of economist John Maynard Keynes as gospel, our most highly respected contemporary economists imagine a complex world in which economics at the personal, corporate and municipal levels are governed by laws far different from those in effect at the national level.
Individuals, companies or cities with heavy debt and shrinking revenues instinctively know that they must reduce spending, tighten their belts, pay down debt and live within their means. But it is axiomatic in Keynesianism that national governments can create and sustain economic activity by injecting printed money into the financial system. In their view, absent the stimuli of the New Deal and World War II, the Depression would never have ended.
On a gut level, we have a hard time with this concept. There is a vague sense of smoke and mirrors, of something being magically created out of nothing. But economics, we are told, is complicated.
It would be irresponsible in the extreme for an individual to forestall a personal recession by taking out newer, bigger loans when the old loans can't be repaid. However, this is precisely what we are planning on a national level.
I believe these ideas hold sway largely because they promise happy, pain-free solutions. They are the economic equivalent of miracle weight-loss programs that require no dieting or exercise. The theories permit economists to claim mystic wisdom, governments to pretend that they have the power to dispel hardship with the whir of a printing press, and voters to believe that they can have recovery without sacrifice.
As a follower of the Austrian School of economics I believe that market forces apply equally to people and nations. The problems we face collectively are no different from those we face individually. Belt tightening is required by all, including government.
Governments cannot create but merely redirect. When the government spends, the money has to come from somewhere. If the government doesn't have a surplus, then it must come from taxes. If taxes don't go up, then it must come from increased borrowing. If lenders won't lend, then it must come from the printing press, which is where all these bailouts are headed. But each additional dollar printed diminishes the value those already in circulation. Something cannot be effortlessly created from nothing.
Similarly, any jobs or other economic activity created by public-sector expansion merely comes at the expense of jobs lost in the private sector. And if the government chooses to save inefficient jobs in select private industries, more efficient jobs will be lost in others. As more factors of production come under government control, the more inefficient our entire economy becomes. Inefficiency lowers productivity, stifles competitiveness and lowers living standards.
If we look at government market interventions through this pragmatic lens, what can we expect from the coming avalanche of federal activism?
By borrowing more than it can ever pay back, the government will guarantee higher inflation for years to come, thereby diminishing the value of all that Americans have saved and acquired. For now the inflationary tide is being held back by the countervailing pressures of bursting asset bubbles in real estate and stocks, forced liquidations in commodities, and troubled retailers slashing prices to unload excess inventory. But when the dust settles, trillions of new dollars will remain, chasing a diminished supply of goods. We will be left with 1970s-style stagflation, only with a much sharper contraction and significantly higher inflation.
The good news is that economics is not all that complicated. The bad news is that our economy is broken and there is nothing the government can do to fix it. However, the free market does have a cure: it's called a recession, and it's not fun, easy or quick. But if we put our faith in the power of government to make the pain go away, we will live with the consequences for generations.
Mr. Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets" (Wiley, 2008).
As a spending bill loaded with pork makes its way through Congress, President Obama is getting pushback from members of his own party who are questioning his vow to end wasteful spending.
Obama last week praised the $787 billion stimulus package signed into law, telling the nation, "I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities."
But some in the audience found that hard to swallow. "There was just a roar of laughter -- because there were earmarks," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri.
His own party is laughing at him. I watched the address and heard the laughter and groans. People quickly quieted themselves, but you could tell they reacted to the unexpected remark.
quote
The scoffing continues as the president hammers away at reducing wasteful spending and saving taxpayers money while lawmakers on Capitol Hill load up a spending bill with more than 8,000 earmarks totaling nearly $8 billion.
The legislation in question is a $410 billion omnibus bill that would keep the federal government running through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends in September 2009.
According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that monitors government spending, the bill includes:
# Nearly $1.8 million for pig odor research in Iowa
# $950,000 for a convention center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
# $143,000 for a natural history museum in Las Vegas
# $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii
About 60 percent of the earmarks are from Democrats, and about 40 percent are from Republicans, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
And don't forget....
quote
Democrats blocked amendments by Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, that would have narrowed the spending on earmarks.
"So much for the promise of change."... McCain said Tuesday.
quote
But Democrats speaking out against the pork could just be flexing their muscles, said CNN contributor Roland Martin.
"I would love to see these same Democrats have the courage to actually stand up, look their fellow senators in the eye, Democrats and Republicans, and say, OK, let's get rid of your particular project," he said.
"What often happens in Congress is, they complain in terms of the general ... What I am saying is, call them out. Put it on the table," he said.
Another of Obama's appointments has a problem. Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle’s police chief was nominated to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. His step-son, Jeffery, is in jail in Florida. Guess the charges! http://www.webofdeception.com/noyes.html
Can we hold the crimes of the son against the father?
Its like abstinence only Palin with a preggers teen unmarried daughter.
That is the only reason for posting the piece. The left made all kinds of nasty, unkind noise about her pregnancy and yet this news seems to be unimportant.
The Palin pregnancy was a single incident. Kerlikowske is one in a string of questionable appointments and associations of Barack Obama.
That is the only reason for posting the piece. The left made all kinds of nasty, unkind noise about her pregnancy and yet this news seems to be unimportant.
The Palin pregnancy was a single incident. Kerlikowske is one in a string of questionable appointments and associations of Barack Obama.
Ahhhh I see what you did there.
Just remember that to the liberal media a conservative mother with a pregger daughter is the height of hypocrisy. Nevermind that it isn't even hypocritical. But an animal abusing, drug dealing son of the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for a dem. POTUS is just a victim of the system and misunderstood.
WASHINGTON – "That wasn't me," President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.
It actually was partly him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped the latest in a string of precipitously out-of-balance budgets.
And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.
Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review his progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.
At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone.
His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.
He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.
A look at some of his claims Wednesday:
OBAMA: "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs." — from news conference.
THE FACTS: This assertion is flawed on several levels. For starters, the U.S. has lost more than 1.2 million jobs since Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even if Obama's stimulus bill saved or created as many jobs as he says, that number is dwarfed by the number of recent job losses.
But Obama's number is murky, at best. The White House has not yet announced how it intends to count jobs created by the stimulus bill. Obama's number is based on a job-counting formula that his economists have developed but have not made public. Until that formula is announced — probably in the coming week or so — there's no way to assess its accuracy.
Whatever the formula, economists who study job creation say it will require some creative math. That's because Obama has lumped "jobs saved" in with "jobs created." Even economists for organizations that stand to benefit from the stimulus concede it probably is impossible to estimate saved jobs because that would require calculating a hypothetical: how many people would have lost their jobs without the stimulus.
___
OBAMA: "We must lay a new foundation for growth, a foundation that will strengthen our economy and help us compete in the 21st century. And that's exactly what this budget begins to do. It contains new investments in education that will equip our workers with the right skills and training; new investments in renewable energy that will create millions of jobs and new industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings that will bring down our deficit." — news conference.
THE FACTS: While the budget does set a roadmap for achieving the president's goals, it says nothing about how to pay for his health plan, expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And while the deficit, under the plan, would drop to $523 billion in 2014, it achieves it with unrealistic assumptions, such as projections that spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will amount to only $50 billion a year.
___
OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. ... That wasn't me. Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis, financial crisis, since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you've got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they're big, and they'll make our deficits go up over the next two years." — in Missouri.
THE FACTS:
Congress, under Democratic control in 2007 and 2008, controlled the purse strings that led to the deficit Obama inherited. A Republican president, George W. Bush, had a role, too: He signed the legislation.
Obama supported the emergency bailout package in Bush's final months — a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.
To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending.
The economy has worsened under Obama, though from forces surely in play before he became president, and he can credibly claim to have inherited a grim situation.
Still, his response to the crisis goes well beyond "one-time charges."
He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.
___
OBAMA: "I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the (disease) prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. ... If we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long term." — in Missouri.
THE FACTS: It sounds believable that preventing illness should be cheaper than treating it, and indeed that's the case with steps like preventing smoking and improving diets and exercise. But during the 2008 campaign, when Obama and other presidential candidates were touting a focus on preventive care, the New England Journal of Medicine cautioned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching." It said that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."
And a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."
___
OBAMA: "You could cut (Social Security) benefits. You could raise the tax on everybody so everybody's payroll tax goes up a little bit. Or you can do what I think is probably the best solution, which is you can raise the cap on the payroll tax." — in Missouri.
THE FACTS: Obama's proposal would reduce the Social Security trust fund's deficit by less than half, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
That means he would still have to cut benefits, raise the payroll tax rate, raise the retirement age or some combination to deal with the program's long-term imbalance.
Workers currently pay 6.2 percent and their employers pay an equal rate — for a total of 12.4 percent — on annual wages of up to $106,800, after which no more payroll tax is collected.
Obama wants workers making more than $250,000 to pay payroll tax on their income over that amount. That would still protect workers making under $250,000 from an additional burden. But it would raise much less money than removing the cap completely.
___
OBAMA: "My hope is that working in a bipartisan fashion we are going to be able to get a health care reform bill on my desk before the end of the year that we'll start seeing in the kinds of investments that will make everybody healthier."
THE FACTS: Obama has indeed expressed hope for a health care plan that has support from Democrats and Republicans. But his Democratic allies in Congress have just made that harder. The budget plan written by the Democrats gives them the option of denying Republicans the normal right to block health care with a Senate filibuster. The filibuster tactic requires 60 votes to overcome, making it the GOP's main weapon to ensure a bipartisan outcome. The rules set by the budget mean that majority Democrats could potentially pass health care legislation without any Republican votes, sacrificing bipartisanship to achieve their goals.
Oh, man....you don't think...that Obama will cut his social pork from the federal budget, which will already be funded by the Porkulus bill, and declare a balanced budget...do you???? Are people STUPID enough to fall for that???
Actually I do believe that most of those programs are not funded by the Federal government after the first 2-3 years after that the states that accept money for them have to include them in their budget. So just wait for these programs to reach their end of Federal funding and watch states budget's get thrown even more out of whack than they already are.
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden said Thursday he advised his family to stay off airplanes and subways because of the new swine flu, a remark that forced the vice president's office to backtrack and prompted one airline official to complain about "fear-mongering."
"I would tell members of my family — and I have — that I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC's "Today" show.
Biden, who has a reputation for off-the-cuff remarks, went beyond any precautions recommended by the federal government. In discussing his personal advice to his family, he said simply, "That's me."
Within two hours, Biden's office issued a statement backing off the remarks and suggesting he was talking about travel to Mexico.
"On the 'Today Show' this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week," said spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander. "The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways."
Biden, who has three grown children and five grandchildren, was asked whether he would advise his own family against flying to Mexico on a commercial flight.
"It's not just going to Mexico, if you're in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said on NBC. "That's me. I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends avoiding nonessential travel to Mexico. But it isn't recommending that people avoid other travel because of the swine flu.
American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith declined to comment directly on the vice president's remarks, but said, "To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke bordering on fear mongering."
"The facts of the situation at this stage anyway certainly don't support that," Smith told The Associated Press.
U.S. Travel Association President Roger Dow urged the public to "heed the advice of medical experts" and gently chided the vice president without specifically mentioning him.
"Elected officials must strike a delicate balance of accurately and adequately informing citizens of health concerns without unduly discouraging travel and other important economic activity," Dow said in a statement Thursday.
During his decades as Delaware senator, Biden was a regular on Amtrak, riding the train from Wilmington to Washington.
Asked on NBC's "Today" show whether the U.S. government should close the border with Mexico, Biden said health authorities advise that would be impractical and noted the new flu is already in the U.S. and several other nations.
Instead, Biden said, the focus should be on slowing the spread of the virus through groups of people in close quarters, such as airplanes, malls, stadiums and classrooms.
"Closing the classroom and closing the border are two fundamentally different things," he said.
The CDC recommends basic precautions such as hand-washing, use of alcohol hand gels and monitoring local health advisories when traveling. The government also advises that children with the flu be kept home from school and day care. Biden said he hoped employers would be generous with workers who stayed home to care for a sick child.
Fresh off his release from White House captivity, Vice President Joe Biden wasted no time in getting the gaffes rolling again. Since the media prefers sex jokes about Tea Parties to laughing at Biden's idiotic remarks, we thought an Insider compilation including just a few of the VP's gaffes was necessary. The latest gaffe of course came when Biden appeared on the Today Show and tried his darndest to cripple mass transit in the United States by admitting he urged family members to stay off subways and planes.
Man, when the White House plays hardball, they play it "The Chicago Way" - brass knuckles, groin kicks, and threats to destroy their adversaries.
And when confronted with allegations of their thuggery, instead of claiming their complete innocence, the administration practices another time honored "Chicago Way" custom and sneers "Prove it!"
Jack Tapper of ABC News - a guy who is turning into one of the few bulldog reporters on the White House beat - got this information from an attorney for one of the hedge funds involved in the Chrysler bankruptcy negotiations:
A leading bankruptcy attorney representing hedge funds and money managers told ABC News Saturday that Steve Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's Auto Industry Task Force, threatened one of the firms, an investment bank, that if it continued to oppose the administration's Chrysler bankruptcy plan, the White House would use the White House press corps to destroy its reputation.
The White House said the story was false.
"The charge is completely untrue," said White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, "and there's obviously no evidence to suggest that this happened in any way."
Thomas Lauria, Global Practice Head of the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Group at White & Case, told ABC News that Rattner suggested to an official of the boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners that officials of the Obama White House would embarrass the firm for opposing the Obama administration plan, which President Obama announced Thursday, and which requires creditors to accept roughly 29 cents on the dollar for an estimated $6.8 billion owed by Chrysler.
Lauria first told the story, without naming Rattner, to Frank Beckmann on Detroit's WJR-AM radio.
Perella Weinberg Partners,"was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence," according to the attorney.
It turns out Perella's stake in Chrysler debt was small potatoes compared to big banks like JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Goldman. Do you think that the fact those banks got up to $100 billion in bail out money had anything to do with them embracing the administration's plan for Chrysler?
I think it also significant they sent out a deputy instead of Gibbs to deny the story. The crack about "obviously no evidence to suggest that this happened in any way," is typical "non-denial, denial for a president when they are caught doing something they shouldn't.
No doubt the White House press corps would eagerly do their master's bidding if told to destroy someone or some firm's reputation. At least most of them would. Jack Tapper of ABC just might be one of the last honest reporters in Washington which makes him extremely vulnerable. For the press, there is safety in the pack and Tapper taking on the role of Diogenes might be dealt with the same way that Mayor Daley of Chicago deals with reporters who displease him; the "Freeze-out" or "The Big Freeze." Tapper's sources in the WH, his access to high level administration officials, could disappear. Obama could conveniently forget to call on him at press conferences. Exclusive on camera interviews would be routinely denied.
In short, they might very well prevent Tapper from doing his job. But that's "The Chicago Way" and the White House is now in the hands of people who play that game with thuggish efficiency.
Rasmussen's Daily Tracking Poll paints a different picture than all the headlines last week about how popular Obama is. With today's poll showing only 33% of those polled saying they strongly approved of his job performance while 32% say they strongly disapprove, the result is a new low of only net +1 . The strongly disapprove number has remained fairly stable for two months now while the strongly approve numbers have been on a slow downward drift.
There are still a great many people out there who think Obama is doing ok. Part of this is because many those those who voted for him did not buy into the media hype so their expectations were of the modest sort to begin with. Part of it is because, as someone put it to me just this Wednesday "Obama seems to be learning from his mistakes and that's what counts."
One must be careful too not to assume the waning approval number is the result of disenchantment solely among those from the political right and the middle. Some of what my friend saw as learning from mistakes involved Obama walking back on promises to the political left. When he was running for the presidency, Obama told abortion supporters passing the so called Freedom of Choice Act would be a high priority. Today it's not.
Yesterday's NY Times story that the administration may revive the use of military tribunals has some who supported him during the campaign questioning Obama's commitment to their notion of civil liberties and human rights.
With a recent Pew poll showing support for abortion dropping, and a Rasmussen poll showing a steep drop in the number of likely voters who think America is winning the war on terror, Obama is likely to find it hard to keep both the activists in own party and mainstream America happy. A lot of Democrats did not like it when Bill Clinton moved towards the middle, but they still rallied around him when the Republicans attacked.
Rasmussen's Daily Tracking Poll paints a different picture than all the headlines last week about how popular Obama is. With today's poll showing only 33% of those polled saying they strongly approved of his job performance while 32% say they strongly disapprove, the result is a new low of only net +1 . The strongly disapprove number has remained fairly stable for two months now while the strongly approve numbers have been on a slow downward drift.
There are still a great many people out there who think Obama is doing ok. Part of this is because many those those who voted for him did not buy into the media hype so their expectations were of the modest sort to begin with. Part of it is because, as someone put it to me just this Wednesday "Obama seems to be learning from his mistakes and that's what counts."
One must be careful too not to assume the waning approval number is the result of disenchantment solely among those from the political right and the middle. Some of what my friend saw as learning from mistakes involved Obama walking back on promises to the political left. When he was running for the presidency, Obama told abortion supporters passing the so called Freedom of Choice Act would be a high priority. Today it's not.
Yesterday's NY Times story that the administration may revive the use of military tribunals has some who supported him during the campaign questioning Obama's commitment to their notion of civil liberties and human rights.
With a recent Pew poll showing support for abortion dropping, and a Rasmussen poll showing a steep drop in the number of likely voters who think America is winning the war on terror, Obama is likely to find it hard to keep both the activists in own party and mainstream America happy. A lot of Democrats did not like it when Bill Clinton moved towards the middle, but they still rallied around him when the Republicans attacked.
LOL, Talk about spin and lack of credibility. You have it in spades bear.
The poll, financed by Fox news, ask four questions. Strongly Approve-----------35% Approve -----------21% Disapprove -----------11 % Strongly Disapprove-------32%
To say there is only 3 points difference is laughable, but technically true by weasle wording.
LOL, Talk about spin and lack of credibility. You have it in spades bear.
The poll, financed by Fox news, ask four questions. Strongly Approve-----------35% Approve -----------21% Disapprove -----------11 % Strongly Disapprove-------32%
To say there is only 3 points difference is laughable, but technically true by weasle wording.
The poll was done by Rasmussen. Prove it was finanaced by Fox News, as if that means anything anyway (to anyone other than someone like you).
Note the overall 56% approval 43 % disapproval on your own link. Rasmussen always low balls the Democratic party. You are being dishonest to leave out the middle two choices. A one point difference is a disconnect from reality. But you are a republican so this is typical.
Gallup Daily is more accurate and were near "dead on" in the election. They show 68% approval 26% disapproval.
Note the overall 56% approval 43 % disapproval on your own link. Rasmussen always low balls the Democratic party. You are being dishonest to leave out the middle two choices. A one point difference is a disconnect from reality. But you are a republican so this is typical.
Gallup Daily is more accurate and were near "dead on" in the election. They show 68% approval 26% disapproval.
Thomas Lauria, Global Practice Head of the Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Group at White & Case, told ABC News that Rattner suggested to an official of the boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners that officials of the Obama White House would embarrass the firm for opposing the Obama administration plan, which President Obama announced Thursday, and which requires creditors to accept roughly 29 cents on the dollar for an estimated $6.8 billion owed by Chrysler.
Lauria first told the story, without naming Rattner, to Frank Beckmann on Detroit's WJR-AM radio.
Perella Weinberg Partners,"was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence," according to the attorney.
I thought you have proof. You'd think a person like you would at least be able to back up their own claims. Maybe you simply don't believe it enough to stand behind it. Can't say I really expected much from you. Just think if you had to actually prove something. The horror.
"As a media company, we make our money by selling advertising, title sponsorships, subscriptions, and content. One thing we don’t sell is polls. Because we value our independence and credibility, Rasmussen Reports cannot be hired to conduct a poll for anyone. For our reports, we decide the questions to ask based upon the needs and interests of our audience. If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls. "
[This message has been edited by Phranc (edited 05-03-2009).]
Are people STUPID enough to fall for that???
