Read the original here.
APNewsBreak: Arctic scientist under investigation
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.
Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.
The federal agency where he works told him he's being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear.
The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, filed a complaint on his behalf Thursday with the agency, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Investigators have not yet told Monnett of the specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, the watchdog group's executive director.
A BOEMRE spokeswoman, Melissa Schwartz, said there was an "ongoing internal investigation" but declined to get into specifics.
Whatever the outcome, the investigation comes at a time when climate change activists and those who are skeptical about global warming are battling over the credibility of scientists' work.
Members of both sides, however, said that it was too early to make any pronouncements about the case, particularly since the agency has not yet released the details of the allegations against him.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the case reinforces the group's position that people should be more skeptical about the work of climate change scientists.
Even if every scientist is objective, "what we're being asked to do is turn our economy around and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on the basis of" climate change claims, he said.
Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she's not alarmed by the handling of the case so far.
Grifo said the allegations made in the complaint filed by Ruch's group are premature and said people should wait to see what, if anything, comes of the inspector general's investigation.
Beyond the climate change debate, the investigation also focuses attention on an Obama administration policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.
The complaint seeks Monnett's reinstatement and a public apology from the agency and inspector general, whose office is conducting the probe.
The group's filing also seeks to have the investigation dropped or to have the charges specified and the matter carried out quickly and fairly, as the Obama policy states.
BOEMRE, which oversees leasing and development of offshore drilling, was created last year in the reorganization of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which oversaw offshore drilling.
The MMS was abolished after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The agency was accused of being too close to oil and gas industry interests. A congressional report last year found MMS Alaska was vulnerable to lawsuits and allegations of scientific misconduct.
The agency announced steps to improve.
On July 18, BOEMRE told the longtime Anchorage-based Monnett that he was being put on leave, pending the investigation, according to the complaint. BOEMRE has barred Monnett from speaking to reporters, Ruch said.
Monnett could not immediately be reached Thursday.
His wife, Lisa Rotterman, a fellow scientist who worked with Monnett for years, including at BOEMRE's predecessor agency, said the case did not come out of the blue.
Rotterman said Monnett had come under fire in the past within the agency for speaking the truth about what the science showed. She said the 2006 article wasn't framed in the context of climate change but was relevant to the topic.
She feared what happened to Monnett would send a "chilling message" at the agency just as important oil and gas development decisions in the Arctic will soon be made.
"I don't believe the timing is coincidental," she said.
Rotterman said Monnett's work included identifying questions that needed to be answered to inform the environmental analyses the agency must conduct before issuing drilling permits.
"This is a time when sowing doubt in the public's mind about whether those findings can be trusted or not, that makes people think, I don't know what to believe," she said.
Monnett coordinated much of BOEMRE's research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, had duties that included managing about $50 million worth of studies, according to the complaint.
Schwartz, based in Washington, D.C., said other agency scientists would manage the studies in his absence.
According to documents provided by Ruch's group, which sat in on investigators' interviews with Monnett, the questioning focused on observations that he and researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004.
At the time, they were conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, and saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. There were other witnesses, according to Ruch, and low-resolution photos show floating white blobs.
Monnett and Gleason detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology. In the peer-reviewed article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of the bears floating dead and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances.
Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds. They also added that the findings "suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
The article and presentations drew national attention and helped make the polar bear a symbol for the global warming movement. Former vice president and climate change activist Al Gore mentioned the animal in his Oscar-winning global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
The complaint said agency officials harassed Gleason and Monnett, and that they received negative comments after the journal article. Gleason took another Interior Department job; he didn't respond to an email and a BOEMRE spokeswoman said he wouldn't be available for comment.
In May 2008, the bear was classified as a threatened species, the first with its survival at risk due to global warming.
According to a transcript, provided by Ruch's group, Ruch asked investigator Eric May, during questioning of Monnett in February, for specifics about the allegations. May replied: "well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations."
Monnett said that alleging scientific misconduct "suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don't see any indication of that in what you're asking me about."
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Umm...can they do this?
I don't know what's worse, that this has never happened before and now is, or that I'm not sure they can make this guarantee, but they are. Read the original here.
Obama To Banks: We're Not Defaulting
While officials from the Obama Administration raised their rhetoric over the weekend about the possibility of a debt default if the debt ceiling isn't raised, they privately have been telling top executives at major U.S. banks that such an event won’t happen, FOX Business has learned.
In a series of phone calls, administration officials have told bankers that the administration will not allow a default to happen even if the debt cap isn't raised by the August 2 date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will run out of money to pay all its bills, including obligations to bond holders. Geithner made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows saying a default is imminent if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and President Obama issued a similar warning during a Friday press conference after budget negotiations with House Republicans broke down.
While the negotiations to craft a budget remain at an impasse, Republicans and Democrats on Monday began crafting their own plans to cut spending that could lead to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. It's unclear if a broad agreement can be reached any time soon, but even if a deal is struck, a complicating issue for lawmakers and the administration is the possibility of a downgrade to the US debt rating, which would cut the triple-A rating on the nation's debt to a lower level.
Major ratings firms -- namely Standard & Poor's and Moody's -- have said even if the country raises the debt ceiling and doesn't default, there's a strong likelihood that the triple-A bond rating will be cut to double-A unless a budget can be crafted that results in $4 trillion in savings, the result of the massive debt load the country has accumulated in recent years. The nation's outstanding debt is more than $14 trillion.
A senior banking official told FOX Business that administration officials have provided guidance to them that even though a default is off the table, a downgrade "is a real possibility for no other reason than S&P and Moody's have to cover (themselves) since they've been speaking out on the debt cap so much."
This guidance is a big reason why Wall Street has largely dismissed the possibility of default, and though the markets have been jittery amid the talk of default, they haven't imploded as would be the case, many economists fear, if the nation missed a payment on its debt.
The banking official said the administration understands that if there were to be a default, it would likely spark another financial crisis.
"They also know they can pay the debt with cash on hand," this official told FOX Business. The Treasury collects around $2 trillion in tax revenues, and is scheduled to pay out $200 billion in interest to bond holders. In order to meet its obligations to contractors, social security recipients and others, the administration would have to raise another $1 trillion either through cuts, higher tax revenues, the issuance of debt or a combination of all three.
Congressional Republicans believe that the Administration is raising the possibility of a default as a way to ramp up pressure on Republicans to agree to a budget deal that includes tax increases, which they oppose.
A Treasury spokesman said that "when we exhaust our borrowing authority, as we will on August 2nd, there is no way to guarantee that we will be able to pay all of our bills. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false."
Even without a default, banks expect some market turbulence if the triple-A sovereign-debt rating is cut, sources tell FOX Business. While bank officials do not believe there will be a “catastrophic” effect to a downgrade, that’s not to say there won’t be negative ripple effects, notably to bond deals and derivatives priced off triple-A-rated Treasurys.
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/07/25/obama-to-banks-were-not-defaulting/#ixzz1TJJBFoUq
Obama To Banks: We're Not Defaulting
While officials from the Obama Administration raised their rhetoric over the weekend about the possibility of a debt default if the debt ceiling isn't raised, they privately have been telling top executives at major U.S. banks that such an event won’t happen, FOX Business has learned.
In a series of phone calls, administration officials have told bankers that the administration will not allow a default to happen even if the debt cap isn't raised by the August 2 date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner says the government will run out of money to pay all its bills, including obligations to bond holders. Geithner made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows saying a default is imminent if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and President Obama issued a similar warning during a Friday press conference after budget negotiations with House Republicans broke down.
While the negotiations to craft a budget remain at an impasse, Republicans and Democrats on Monday began crafting their own plans to cut spending that could lead to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. It's unclear if a broad agreement can be reached any time soon, but even if a deal is struck, a complicating issue for lawmakers and the administration is the possibility of a downgrade to the US debt rating, which would cut the triple-A rating on the nation's debt to a lower level.
Major ratings firms -- namely Standard & Poor's and Moody's -- have said even if the country raises the debt ceiling and doesn't default, there's a strong likelihood that the triple-A bond rating will be cut to double-A unless a budget can be crafted that results in $4 trillion in savings, the result of the massive debt load the country has accumulated in recent years. The nation's outstanding debt is more than $14 trillion.
A senior banking official told FOX Business that administration officials have provided guidance to them that even though a default is off the table, a downgrade "is a real possibility for no other reason than S&P and Moody's have to cover (themselves) since they've been speaking out on the debt cap so much."
This guidance is a big reason why Wall Street has largely dismissed the possibility of default, and though the markets have been jittery amid the talk of default, they haven't imploded as would be the case, many economists fear, if the nation missed a payment on its debt.
The banking official said the administration understands that if there were to be a default, it would likely spark another financial crisis.
"They also know they can pay the debt with cash on hand," this official told FOX Business. The Treasury collects around $2 trillion in tax revenues, and is scheduled to pay out $200 billion in interest to bond holders. In order to meet its obligations to contractors, social security recipients and others, the administration would have to raise another $1 trillion either through cuts, higher tax revenues, the issuance of debt or a combination of all three.
Congressional Republicans believe that the Administration is raising the possibility of a default as a way to ramp up pressure on Republicans to agree to a budget deal that includes tax increases, which they oppose.
A Treasury spokesman said that "when we exhaust our borrowing authority, as we will on August 2nd, there is no way to guarantee that we will be able to pay all of our bills. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false."
Even without a default, banks expect some market turbulence if the triple-A sovereign-debt rating is cut, sources tell FOX Business. While bank officials do not believe there will be a “catastrophic” effect to a downgrade, that’s not to say there won’t be negative ripple effects, notably to bond deals and derivatives priced off triple-A-rated Treasurys.
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/07/25/obama-to-banks-were-not-defaulting/#ixzz1TJJBFoUq
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Debt Crisis Talks update...no real update
Read the original here.
Obama Kills Bipartisan Deal, Then Reid Resorts To Smoke And Mirrors - Right Turn
Jennifer Rubin - Washington Post
As I reported earlier, the president rejected a bipartisan congressional deal that would have calmed the markets, resolved the debt-ceiling crisis and restored faith in Washington politicians. President Obama was having none of it, demonstrating once and for all that the problem is NOT the House Republicans, but the election-obsessed White House.
So then the parties begin to devise separate congressional plans. The Post reports, “Senate Democrats are preparing to introduce legislation that would avert a national default on Aug. 2 and achieve $2.7 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade without raising taxes.”
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is devising a sham that will never pass muster in the House. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: “It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings.” A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.”
We shouldn’t be too harsh on Reid. HE DID reach a bipartisan deal with the House. But the president squashed it. (Note to Congress: Next time don’t ask, just pass it and leave town.) Now we are back to gamesmanship.
It is extremely telling, however, that Reid’s plan contains NO tax hike. As I suspected, Obama doesn’t have enough support even in his own party (and particularly from Senate Democrats facing reelection) to pass the massive tax increases that he and his liberal base demand. And yet Obama at the last minute in negotiations with the speaker of the House last week threw in $400 billion in more taxes. There could only have been one purpose for that, since the Senate is as tax-hike-averse as the House: to create a crisis. We have finally found the president’s strong suit.
More on this topic in PostOpinions
Obama Kills Bipartisan Deal, Then Reid Resorts To Smoke And Mirrors - Right Turn
Jennifer Rubin - Washington Post
As I reported earlier, the president rejected a bipartisan congressional deal that would have calmed the markets, resolved the debt-ceiling crisis and restored faith in Washington politicians. President Obama was having none of it, demonstrating once and for all that the problem is NOT the House Republicans, but the election-obsessed White House.
So then the parties begin to devise separate congressional plans. The Post reports, “Senate Democrats are preparing to introduce legislation that would avert a national default on Aug. 2 and achieve $2.7 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade without raising taxes.”
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is devising a sham that will never pass muster in the House. A Capitol Hill source with knowledge of the plan tells me: “It includes $1.2 trillion in OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] savings . . . which was assumed anyway, $1.2 trillion (over $1.1 trillion less than [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor identified in the Biden talks) and $300 billion in interest savings.” A Senate aide says dryly that Reid “has about a trillion in ‘savings’ from ending the war in Iraq that’s already going to end.” And a disgusted House adviser bluntly tells me that Reid’s plan “isn’t real.”
We shouldn’t be too harsh on Reid. HE DID reach a bipartisan deal with the House. But the president squashed it. (Note to Congress: Next time don’t ask, just pass it and leave town.) Now we are back to gamesmanship.
It is extremely telling, however, that Reid’s plan contains NO tax hike. As I suspected, Obama doesn’t have enough support even in his own party (and particularly from Senate Democrats facing reelection) to pass the massive tax increases that he and his liberal base demand. And yet Obama at the last minute in negotiations with the speaker of the House last week threw in $400 billion in more taxes. There could only have been one purpose for that, since the Senate is as tax-hike-averse as the House: to create a crisis. We have finally found the president’s strong suit.
More on this topic in PostOpinions
Democratic Rep: Debt Crisis Has Been ‘Manufactured By House Republicans’
Question 1. Do Democrats just say whatever they want and see what sticks in the media? Question 2. How'd spending that $800,000,000,000 work out?
Read the original here.
Democratic Rep: Debt Crisis Has Been ‘Manufactured By House Republicans’
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) released a statement Monday saying the “debt crisis” has been “manufactured by House Republicans” who are “attempting to advance an extremist agenda.”
“The current, so-called ‘debt crisis’ has been completely manufactured by House Republicans attempting to advance an extremist agenda. This should be a simple vote to allow the US Treasury to fund all of the programs and obligations of the entire federal government that are already in the law,” said Rep. Lee in a statement handed out to reporters before a Democratic press conference on jobs at the Capitol.
Rep. Lee has called for Congress to increase the debt limit with no strings attached like spending cuts.
“Enough is enough,” she said. “We should immediately pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling so that we can work on the real crisis in this country – the jobs crisis.”Congressional leaders are currently working on a deal to increase the debt limit – currently at $14.3 trillion – by the Aug. 2 deadline
Democratic Rep: Debt Crisis Has Been ‘Manufactured By House Republicans’
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) released a statement Monday saying the “debt crisis” has been “manufactured by House Republicans” who are “attempting to advance an extremist agenda.”
“The current, so-called ‘debt crisis’ has been completely manufactured by House Republicans attempting to advance an extremist agenda. This should be a simple vote to allow the US Treasury to fund all of the programs and obligations of the entire federal government that are already in the law,” said Rep. Lee in a statement handed out to reporters before a Democratic press conference on jobs at the Capitol.
Rep. Lee has called for Congress to increase the debt limit with no strings attached like spending cuts.
“Enough is enough,” she said. “We should immediately pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling so that we can work on the real crisis in this country – the jobs crisis.”Congressional leaders are currently working on a deal to increase the debt limit – currently at $14.3 trillion – by the Aug. 2 deadline
Sen. Sanders: "I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."
Read the original here.
New Polls Confirm Obama's Democratic Base Crumbles
LA Times Blog
With all of the spotlights on the high-stakes debt maneuverings by President Obama and Speaker John Boehner the last few days, few people noticed what Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders said:
"I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."
This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election. Yes, yes, this is just a crusty old New England independent for now, albeit one who caucuses loyally with Harry Reid's Democratic posse.
But while most of the media focuses on Republican Boehner and the tea party pressures on him to raise the debt limit not one Liberty dime, Sanders' mumblings are a useful reminder that hidden in the shadows of this left-handed presidency are militant progressives like Sanders who don't want to cut one Liberty dime of non-Pentagon spending.
Closely read the transcript of Obama's Monday statement on the debt talks stalemate. The full transcript is right here. And the full transcript of Boehner's response is right here.
An Unbalanced Approach to a Balanced Approach
Using political forensics, notice any clues, perhaps telltale code words that reveal to whom he was really addressing his Monday message? Clearly, it wasn't congressional Republicans -- or Democrats, for that matter.
The nation's top talker uttered 4,526 words in those remarks. He said "balanced approach" seven times, three times in a single paragraph.
That's the giveaway. Obviously, David Plouffe and the incumbent's strategists have been polling phrases for use in this ongoing debt duel, which is more about 2012 now than 2011. "Balanced approach" is no sweet talk for old Bernie or tea sippers on the other side.
Obama is running for the center already, aiming for the independents who played such a crucial role in his victorious coalition in 2008. They were the first to start abandoning the good ship Obama back in 2009 when all the ex-state senator could do was talk about healthcare, when jobs and the economy were the peoples' priority.
Democrats lost the New Jersey and Virginia governor's offices largely as a result of that and Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts. And then came last November's midterms when voters chose the approach of that historic pack of House-bound Republicans.
Republicans have their own poll problems in some areas. But even without an identified GOP presidential alternative, we've had a plethora of recent polls showing Obama's fading job approval, especially on the economy.
Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama's liberal base is starting to crumble. Among the nuggets:
Despite those hundreds of billions of blown stimulus dollars and almost as many upturn promises from Joe Biden, 82% of Americans still say their job market is struggling. Ninety percent rate the economy negatively, including half who give it the worst rating of "poor."
Are You Better Off Today Than Jan. 20, 2009?
A slim 15% claim to be "getting ahead financially," half what it was in 2006. Fully 27% say they're falling behind financially. That's up 6 points since February.
A significant majority (54%) says they've been forced to change their lifestyle significantly as a result of the economic times -- and 60% of them are angry, up from 44%.
To be sure, 30 months after he returned to home cooking, George W. Bush still gets majority blame for the economy.
But here's the breaking news for wishful Democrats: George W. Bush isn't running for anything but exercise.
"More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base," the Post reports.
Strong support among liberal Democrats for Obama's jobs record has plummeted 22 points from 53% down below a third. African Americans who believe the president's measures helped the economy have plunged from 77% to barely half.
Obama's overall job approval on the economy has slid below 40% for the first time, with 57% disapproving. And strong disapprovers outnumber approvers by better than two-to-one.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or click this:@latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle. Use the ReTweet buttons above to share any item with family and friends.
New Polls Confirm Obama's Democratic Base Crumbles
LA Times Blog
With all of the spotlights on the high-stakes debt maneuverings by President Obama and Speaker John Boehner the last few days, few people noticed what Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders said:
"I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition."
This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election. Yes, yes, this is just a crusty old New England independent for now, albeit one who caucuses loyally with Harry Reid's Democratic posse.
But while most of the media focuses on Republican Boehner and the tea party pressures on him to raise the debt limit not one Liberty dime, Sanders' mumblings are a useful reminder that hidden in the shadows of this left-handed presidency are militant progressives like Sanders who don't want to cut one Liberty dime of non-Pentagon spending.
Closely read the transcript of Obama's Monday statement on the debt talks stalemate. The full transcript is right here. And the full transcript of Boehner's response is right here.
An Unbalanced Approach to a Balanced Approach
Using political forensics, notice any clues, perhaps telltale code words that reveal to whom he was really addressing his Monday message? Clearly, it wasn't congressional Republicans -- or Democrats, for that matter.
The nation's top talker uttered 4,526 words in those remarks. He said "balanced approach" seven times, three times in a single paragraph.
That's the giveaway. Obviously, David Plouffe and the incumbent's strategists have been polling phrases for use in this ongoing debt duel, which is more about 2012 now than 2011. "Balanced approach" is no sweet talk for old Bernie or tea sippers on the other side.
Obama is running for the center already, aiming for the independents who played such a crucial role in his victorious coalition in 2008. They were the first to start abandoning the good ship Obama back in 2009 when all the ex-state senator could do was talk about healthcare, when jobs and the economy were the peoples' priority.
Democrats lost the New Jersey and Virginia governor's offices largely as a result of that and Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts. And then came last November's midterms when voters chose the approach of that historic pack of House-bound Republicans.
Republicans have their own poll problems in some areas. But even without an identified GOP presidential alternative, we've had a plethora of recent polls showing Obama's fading job approval, especially on the economy.
Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama's liberal base is starting to crumble. Among the nuggets:
Despite those hundreds of billions of blown stimulus dollars and almost as many upturn promises from Joe Biden, 82% of Americans still say their job market is struggling. Ninety percent rate the economy negatively, including half who give it the worst rating of "poor."
Are You Better Off Today Than Jan. 20, 2009?
A slim 15% claim to be "getting ahead financially," half what it was in 2006. Fully 27% say they're falling behind financially. That's up 6 points since February.
A significant majority (54%) says they've been forced to change their lifestyle significantly as a result of the economic times -- and 60% of them are angry, up from 44%.
To be sure, 30 months after he returned to home cooking, George W. Bush still gets majority blame for the economy.
But here's the breaking news for wishful Democrats: George W. Bush isn't running for anything but exercise.
"More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base," the Post reports.
Strong support among liberal Democrats for Obama's jobs record has plummeted 22 points from 53% down below a third. African Americans who believe the president's measures helped the economy have plunged from 77% to barely half.
Obama's overall job approval on the economy has slid below 40% for the first time, with 57% disapproving. And strong disapprovers outnumber approvers by better than two-to-one.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or click this:@latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle. Use the ReTweet buttons above to share any item with family and friends.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Washington Times on POTUS & the Debt Crisis
Read the original here. They get right to the point.
CURL: Is Obama A Pathological Liar?
The Washington Times
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
“Mendacity is a system that we live in.”
- Brick, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”
In the weird world that is Washington, men and women say things daily, hourly, even minutely, that they know deep down are simply not true. Inside the Beltway, we all call those utterances “rhetoric.”
But across the rest of the country, plain ol’ folk call ‘em lies. Bald-faced (even bold-faced) lies. Those folks have a tried-and-true way of determining a lie: If you know what you’re saying is patently false, then it’s a lie. Simple.
And lately, the president has been lying so much that his pants could burst into flames at any moment.
His late-evening news conference Friday was a tour de force of flat-out, unadulterated mendacity — and we’ve gotten a first-hand insider’s view of the president’s long list of lies.
“I wanted to give you an update on the current situation around the debt ceiling,” Mr. Obama said at 6:06 p.m. OK, that wasn’t a lie — but just about everything he said after it was, and he knows it.
“I just got a call about a half-hour ago from Speaker [John A.] Boehner, who indicated that he was going to be walking away from the negotiations,” he said.
Not so: “The White House made offers during the negotiations,” said our insider, a person intimately involved in the negotiations, “and then backtracked on those offers after they got heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill. The White House, and its steadfast refusal to follow through on its rhetoric in terms of cutting spending and addressing entitlements, is the real reason that debt talks broke down.”
Mr. Boehner was more blunt in his own news conference: “The discussions we’ve had with the White House have broken down for two reasons. First, they insisted on raising taxes. … Secondly, they refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform.”
But back to the lying liar and the lies he told Friday. “You had a bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans who are in leadership in the Senate, calling for what effectively was about $2 trillion above the Republican baseline that theyve been working off of. What we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues,” Mr. Obama said.
That, too, was a lie. “The White House had already agreed to a lower revenue number — to be generated through economic growth and a more efficient tax code — and then it tried to change the terms of the deal after taking heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill,” our insider said.
The negotiations just before breakdown called for $800 billion in new “revenues” (henceforth, we’ll call those “taxes”), but after the supposedly bipartisan plan came out — and bowing to the powerful liberal bloc on Capitol Hill — Mr. Obama demanded another $400 billion in new taxes: a 50 percent increase.
Mr. Boehner was blunt: “The White House moved the goalpost. There was an agreement, some additional revenues, until yesterday, when the president demanded $400 billion more, which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.”
But Mr. Obama, with a straight face, continued. “We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.”
The truth: “Actually, the White House was walking back its commitments on entitlement reforms, too. They kept saying they wanted to ‘go big.’ But their actions never matched their rhetoric,” the insider said.
Now, Mr. Boehner and the real leaders in Congress have taken back the process. He’ll write the bill and pass it along to the president, with this directive, which he reportedly said to Mr. Obama’s face in a short White House meeting Saturday: “Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign.”
Watching the one-third-of-a-term-senator-turned-president negotiate brings to mind a child spinning yarns about just how the living room lamp got broken. Now, though, the grown-ups are in charge; the kids have been put to bed. Ten days ago, the president warned the speaker: “Dont call my bluff.”
Well, Mr. Boehner has. He’s holding all the cards — and he’s not bluffing.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at jcurl@washingtontimes.com.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
CURL: Is Obama A Pathological Liar?
The Washington Times
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
“Mendacity is a system that we live in.”
- Brick, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”
In the weird world that is Washington, men and women say things daily, hourly, even minutely, that they know deep down are simply not true. Inside the Beltway, we all call those utterances “rhetoric.”
But across the rest of the country, plain ol’ folk call ‘em lies. Bald-faced (even bold-faced) lies. Those folks have a tried-and-true way of determining a lie: If you know what you’re saying is patently false, then it’s a lie. Simple.
And lately, the president has been lying so much that his pants could burst into flames at any moment.
His late-evening news conference Friday was a tour de force of flat-out, unadulterated mendacity — and we’ve gotten a first-hand insider’s view of the president’s long list of lies.
“I wanted to give you an update on the current situation around the debt ceiling,” Mr. Obama said at 6:06 p.m. OK, that wasn’t a lie — but just about everything he said after it was, and he knows it.
“I just got a call about a half-hour ago from Speaker [John A.] Boehner, who indicated that he was going to be walking away from the negotiations,” he said.
Not so: “The White House made offers during the negotiations,” said our insider, a person intimately involved in the negotiations, “and then backtracked on those offers after they got heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill. The White House, and its steadfast refusal to follow through on its rhetoric in terms of cutting spending and addressing entitlements, is the real reason that debt talks broke down.”
Mr. Boehner was more blunt in his own news conference: “The discussions we’ve had with the White House have broken down for two reasons. First, they insisted on raising taxes. … Secondly, they refused to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform.”
But back to the lying liar and the lies he told Friday. “You had a bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans who are in leadership in the Senate, calling for what effectively was about $2 trillion above the Republican baseline that theyve been working off of. What we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues,” Mr. Obama said.
That, too, was a lie. “The White House had already agreed to a lower revenue number — to be generated through economic growth and a more efficient tax code — and then it tried to change the terms of the deal after taking heat from Democrats on Capitol Hill,” our insider said.
The negotiations just before breakdown called for $800 billion in new “revenues” (henceforth, we’ll call those “taxes”), but after the supposedly bipartisan plan came out — and bowing to the powerful liberal bloc on Capitol Hill — Mr. Obama demanded another $400 billion in new taxes: a 50 percent increase.
Mr. Boehner was blunt: “The White House moved the goalpost. There was an agreement, some additional revenues, until yesterday, when the president demanded $400 billion more, which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.”
But Mr. Obama, with a straight face, continued. “We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.”
The truth: “Actually, the White House was walking back its commitments on entitlement reforms, too. They kept saying they wanted to ‘go big.’ But their actions never matched their rhetoric,” the insider said.
Now, Mr. Boehner and the real leaders in Congress have taken back the process. He’ll write the bill and pass it along to the president, with this directive, which he reportedly said to Mr. Obama’s face in a short White House meeting Saturday: “Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign.”
Watching the one-third-of-a-term-senator-turned-president negotiate brings to mind a child spinning yarns about just how the living room lamp got broken. Now, though, the grown-ups are in charge; the kids have been put to bed. Ten days ago, the president warned the speaker: “Dont call my bluff.”
Well, Mr. Boehner has. He’s holding all the cards — and he’s not bluffing.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at jcurl@washingtontimes.com.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Who is pressing the Debt crisis?
Read the original here.
White House Stokes Debt-Ceiling Crisis - Right Turnby Jennifer Rubin - Washington Post
A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”
If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.
As for the House, why not pass the deal that Sen. Harry Reid agreed to, send it to the Senate and leave town? Enough already.
White House Stokes Debt-Ceiling Crisis - Right Turnby Jennifer Rubin - Washington Post
A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”
If this is accurate the president is playing with fire. By halting a bipartisan deal he imperils the country’s finances and can rightly be accused of putting partisanship above all else. The ONLY reason to reject a short-term, two-step deal embraced by both the House and Senate is to avoid another approval-killing face-off for President Obama before the election. Next to pulling troops out of Afghanistan to fit the election calendar, this is the most irresponsible and shameful move of his presidency.
As for the House, why not pass the deal that Sen. Harry Reid agreed to, send it to the Senate and leave town? Enough already.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Russia declares new Era in Space
Yep...can't really argue with them. Read the original here.
Russia Declares 'Era Of Soyuz' After Shuttle
Moscow on Thursday declared it is now "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the International Space Station.
Far less glamorous than the horizontal-landing winged shuttle, the principle of Russia's Soyuz rocket and capsule system for sending humans into space has changed little since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in orbit in 1961.
But after the successful landing of the US Space Shuttle Atlantis Thursday drew the curtain on the 30-year US space shuttle programme, it is now the only vehicle which can propel astronauts towards the ISS.
"From today, the era of the Soyuz has started in manned space flight, the era of reliability," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said in a statement.
Roskosmos expressed its admiration for the shuttle programme, which it said had delivered payloads to space indispensable for construction of the ISS.
"Mankind acknowledges the role of American space ships in exploring the cosmos," it added.
But Roskosmos also used the occasion to tout the virtues of the Soyuz (Union) spacecraft, which unlike the shuttle lands on Earth vertically with the aid of parachutes after leaving orbit.
It said that there was a simple answer to why the Soyuz was still flying after the shuttles retired -- "reliability and not to mention cost efficiency."
It lashed out at what it said were foreign media descriptions of the Soyuz as old spaceships, saying the design was constantly being modernized.
Russia has this year started using the modernized TMA-M version of the Soyuz, which is lighter and uses a digital rather than analogue computer.
Like NASA, Russia is also looking at a new generation spacecraft but Roskosmos said much time was still needed to prove the craft had the same level of safety as the Soyuz.
It said that astronauts from NASA and other space agencies will now be relying on the Soyuz for human spaceflight until 2016 at the earliest.
The shuttle programme was shadowed by two disasters -- Columbia exploded in 2003 and Challenger was destroyed in 1986 in accidents that killed a total of 14 crew members.
Soyuz has also seen two fatal accidents but both several decades ago under the USSR.
The Soyuz-1 mission in 1967 carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov ended in disaster when the craft crashed to Earth while the three cosmonauts on Soyuz-11 were killed in 1971 when their capsule depressurised in space.
Russia Declares 'Era Of Soyuz' After Shuttle
Moscow on Thursday declared it is now "the era of the Soyuz" after the US shuttle's last flight left the Russian system as the sole means for delivering astronauts to the International Space Station.
Far less glamorous than the horizontal-landing winged shuttle, the principle of Russia's Soyuz rocket and capsule system for sending humans into space has changed little since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in orbit in 1961.
But after the successful landing of the US Space Shuttle Atlantis Thursday drew the curtain on the 30-year US space shuttle programme, it is now the only vehicle which can propel astronauts towards the ISS.
"From today, the era of the Soyuz has started in manned space flight, the era of reliability," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said in a statement.
Roskosmos expressed its admiration for the shuttle programme, which it said had delivered payloads to space indispensable for construction of the ISS.
"Mankind acknowledges the role of American space ships in exploring the cosmos," it added.
But Roskosmos also used the occasion to tout the virtues of the Soyuz (Union) spacecraft, which unlike the shuttle lands on Earth vertically with the aid of parachutes after leaving orbit.
It said that there was a simple answer to why the Soyuz was still flying after the shuttles retired -- "reliability and not to mention cost efficiency."
It lashed out at what it said were foreign media descriptions of the Soyuz as old spaceships, saying the design was constantly being modernized.
Russia has this year started using the modernized TMA-M version of the Soyuz, which is lighter and uses a digital rather than analogue computer.
Like NASA, Russia is also looking at a new generation spacecraft but Roskosmos said much time was still needed to prove the craft had the same level of safety as the Soyuz.
It said that astronauts from NASA and other space agencies will now be relying on the Soyuz for human spaceflight until 2016 at the earliest.
The shuttle programme was shadowed by two disasters -- Columbia exploded in 2003 and Challenger was destroyed in 1986 in accidents that killed a total of 14 crew members.
Soyuz has also seen two fatal accidents but both several decades ago under the USSR.
The Soyuz-1 mission in 1967 carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov ended in disaster when the craft crashed to Earth while the three cosmonauts on Soyuz-11 were killed in 1971 when their capsule depressurised in space.
Space Shuttle Era is over
Now, American kids can only look to Museums, Movies, and Moscow to learn about the exploration of space. Read the original here.
UPDATE 5-Atlantis Has Landed, Ending NASA's Shuttle Era
Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:49pm EDT
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 21 (Reuters) - The space shuttle Atlantis returned from NASA's final shuttle mission on Thursday, ending a 30-year era that opened the space frontier, exposed its dangers and established a toehold for future endeavors beyond Earth.
NASA workers lined the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before dawn to greet Atlantis and its crew after a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station and to mark the conclusion of the shuttle program after 135 flights.
"I saw grown men and grown women crying today, tears of joy to be sure," said shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach. "Human emotions came out on the runway today. You couldn't suppress them."
Sailing through an unusually clear and moonlit night, Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-tonne spaceship high overhead then dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip a few miles (kilometres) from where Atlantis will go on display as a museum piece.
Double sonic booms shattered the silence, the last time residents will hear the distinctive sound of a shuttle coming home. (For full coverage of the shuttle, click [ID:nN1E76I0TV])
Ferguson eased Atlantis onto the runway at 5:57 a.m. EDT (0957 GMT), ending a 5.2 million mile (8.4 million km) journey and closing a key chapter in human space flight.
"Mission complete, Houston," Ferguson radioed to Mission Control.
Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told reporters: "It's been our number one goal the last couple of years to safely fly out the shuttle program and we accomplished that."
Atlantis' landing capped a three-decade program that made spaceflight appear routine, despite two accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two of NASA's five spaceships.
The last accident investigation board recommended the shuttles be retired after construction was finished on the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations. That milestone was reached this year, leaving the orbiting research station as the shuttle program's crowning legacy.
"Its job is done and we got them back and can put them safely in museums and be proud of what they did," said veteran astronaut Stephen Robinson, who was among those on the runway.
Details of a follow-on program are still pending but the objective is to build new spaceships that can travel beyond the station's near-Earth orbit and send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and other destinations in deep space.
END OF U.S. SPACE LEADERSHIP?
Many Americans fear the end of the shuttle program means the United States is relinquishing its leadership in human space flight, after past decades of fierce Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union.
A poll released by CNN on Thursday showed most Americans think their country should play a dominant role in space exploration. [ID:nN1E76K1BN]
The final shuttle crew was just four astronauts -- Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, flight engineer Rex Walheim and mission specialist Sandy Magnus -- rather than the typical six or seven.
It was a precaution in case Atlantis was too damaged to safely attempt the return to Earth. With no more shuttles available for a rescue, NASA's backup plan was to rely on the smaller Russian Soyuz capsules.
"The things that you've done will set us up for exploration of the future," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the "final four" astronauts as they emerged from their ship.
Ferguson thanked the thousands of workers involved in the program over the years and said he hoped "this fantastic vehicle" will inspire a new generation of space explorers.
"Although we got to take the ride, we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on or touched or looked at or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us," Ferguson said.
Thousands more employees gathered with their families to watch the landing on a giant screen at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of Mission Control and NASA's main astronaut training facility. As the shuttle touched down, a cheer went through the crowd outside the center's headquarters building.
But now Atlantis is home, 3,200 of the shuttle program's 5,500 contract workers will lose their jobs on Friday.
Within about a month, the contract workforce that totaled about 16,000 five years ago will tail off to about 1,000 people who will oversee the transfer of Atlantis and sister ships Discovery and Endeavour to museums.
The retirement of the shuttles opens the door for a new commercial space transportation industry. NASA will be relying on U.S. companies to deliver cargo to the station starting next year and to fly its astronauts there by about 2015.
Until space taxis are available, Russia will take on the job of flying crews to the station, at a cost of more than $50 million per person.
The primary goal of Atlantis' flight was to deliver a year's worth of supplies to the station in case NASA's newly hired cargo suppliers, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp (ORB.N), encounter delays preparing their new vehicles for flight. (Additional reporting by Jane Sutton at Cape Canaveral and Chris Baltimore in Houston; Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)
UPDATE 5-Atlantis Has Landed, Ending NASA's Shuttle Era
Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:49pm EDT
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 21 (Reuters) - The space shuttle Atlantis returned from NASA's final shuttle mission on Thursday, ending a 30-year era that opened the space frontier, exposed its dangers and established a toehold for future endeavors beyond Earth.
NASA workers lined the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before dawn to greet Atlantis and its crew after a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station and to mark the conclusion of the shuttle program after 135 flights.
"I saw grown men and grown women crying today, tears of joy to be sure," said shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach. "Human emotions came out on the runway today. You couldn't suppress them."
Sailing through an unusually clear and moonlit night, Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-tonne spaceship high overhead then dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip a few miles (kilometres) from where Atlantis will go on display as a museum piece.
Double sonic booms shattered the silence, the last time residents will hear the distinctive sound of a shuttle coming home. (For full coverage of the shuttle, click [ID:nN1E76I0TV])
Ferguson eased Atlantis onto the runway at 5:57 a.m. EDT (0957 GMT), ending a 5.2 million mile (8.4 million km) journey and closing a key chapter in human space flight.
"Mission complete, Houston," Ferguson radioed to Mission Control.
Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told reporters: "It's been our number one goal the last couple of years to safely fly out the shuttle program and we accomplished that."
Atlantis' landing capped a three-decade program that made spaceflight appear routine, despite two accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two of NASA's five spaceships.
The last accident investigation board recommended the shuttles be retired after construction was finished on the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations. That milestone was reached this year, leaving the orbiting research station as the shuttle program's crowning legacy.
"Its job is done and we got them back and can put them safely in museums and be proud of what they did," said veteran astronaut Stephen Robinson, who was among those on the runway.
Details of a follow-on program are still pending but the objective is to build new spaceships that can travel beyond the station's near-Earth orbit and send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and other destinations in deep space.
END OF U.S. SPACE LEADERSHIP?
Many Americans fear the end of the shuttle program means the United States is relinquishing its leadership in human space flight, after past decades of fierce Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union.
A poll released by CNN on Thursday showed most Americans think their country should play a dominant role in space exploration. [ID:nN1E76K1BN]
The final shuttle crew was just four astronauts -- Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, flight engineer Rex Walheim and mission specialist Sandy Magnus -- rather than the typical six or seven.
It was a precaution in case Atlantis was too damaged to safely attempt the return to Earth. With no more shuttles available for a rescue, NASA's backup plan was to rely on the smaller Russian Soyuz capsules.
"The things that you've done will set us up for exploration of the future," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the "final four" astronauts as they emerged from their ship.
Ferguson thanked the thousands of workers involved in the program over the years and said he hoped "this fantastic vehicle" will inspire a new generation of space explorers.
"Although we got to take the ride, we sure hope that everybody who has ever worked on or touched or looked at or envied or admired a space shuttle was able to take just a little part of the journey with us," Ferguson said.
Thousands more employees gathered with their families to watch the landing on a giant screen at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of Mission Control and NASA's main astronaut training facility. As the shuttle touched down, a cheer went through the crowd outside the center's headquarters building.
But now Atlantis is home, 3,200 of the shuttle program's 5,500 contract workers will lose their jobs on Friday.
Within about a month, the contract workforce that totaled about 16,000 five years ago will tail off to about 1,000 people who will oversee the transfer of Atlantis and sister ships Discovery and Endeavour to museums.
The retirement of the shuttles opens the door for a new commercial space transportation industry. NASA will be relying on U.S. companies to deliver cargo to the station starting next year and to fly its astronauts there by about 2015.
Until space taxis are available, Russia will take on the job of flying crews to the station, at a cost of more than $50 million per person.
The primary goal of Atlantis' flight was to deliver a year's worth of supplies to the station in case NASA's newly hired cargo suppliers, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp (ORB.N), encounter delays preparing their new vehicles for flight. (Additional reporting by Jane Sutton at Cape Canaveral and Chris Baltimore in Houston; Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Why is every rise in jobless claims "unexpected" by economic columnists in the media....
...when no one I know is ever surprised? I doubt I know more about the economy...Read the original here.
Jobless Claims Rise Above Expectations
WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:45am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, pointing to a labor market that is struggling to regain momentum after job growth faltered in the last two months.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000, the Labor Department said.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 410,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 408,000 from the previously reported 405,000.
The claims data covered the survey period for the closely watched nonfarm payrolls count for July. Initial claims dropped 11,000 between the June and July survey periods, suggesting a modest improvement in payrolls after June's paltry 18,000 gain.
A rise in layoffs held back payroll growth in May, according to the department's latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which was released last week. Layoffs were probably behind the downshift in employment growth in June as well.
A government shutdown in Minnesota following a budget impasse resulted in an additional 1,750 state employees filing claims for jobless benefits last week.
Initial claims have now been above the 400,000 mark for 15 straight weeks. That level is usually associated with a stable labor market.
The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, slipped 2,750 to 421,250.
The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid dropped 50,000 to 3.70 million in the week ended July 9.
The number of Americans on emergency unemployment benefits declined 80,133 to 3.15 million in the week ended July 2, the latest week for which data is available.
A total of 7.33 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 159,000 from the prior week. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Jobless Claims Rise Above Expectations
WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:45am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, pointing to a labor market that is struggling to regain momentum after job growth faltered in the last two months.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000, the Labor Department said.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 410,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 408,000 from the previously reported 405,000.
The claims data covered the survey period for the closely watched nonfarm payrolls count for July. Initial claims dropped 11,000 between the June and July survey periods, suggesting a modest improvement in payrolls after June's paltry 18,000 gain.
A rise in layoffs held back payroll growth in May, according to the department's latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which was released last week. Layoffs were probably behind the downshift in employment growth in June as well.
A government shutdown in Minnesota following a budget impasse resulted in an additional 1,750 state employees filing claims for jobless benefits last week.
Initial claims have now been above the 400,000 mark for 15 straight weeks. That level is usually associated with a stable labor market.
The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, slipped 2,750 to 421,250.
The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid dropped 50,000 to 3.70 million in the week ended July 9.
The number of Americans on emergency unemployment benefits declined 80,133 to 3.15 million in the week ended July 2, the latest week for which data is available.
A total of 7.33 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 159,000 from the prior week. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs....not as a Government beauracrat...
Read the original here.
Private Sector Job Creation Ground To A Halt Almost Instantly After Obamacare Passed « Hot Air
A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law.
From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.
As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation — but the change in course is statistically measurable and testing reveals a structural break between April and May of 2010. Moreover, small-business owners have said Obamacare is a deterrent to hiring. Take Scott Womack, the owner of 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, as just one example. Before Obamacare became law, he had development plans in Ohio. Now, he’s worried he won’t be able to carry out his original plans unless Obamacare is repealed. Those restaurants he planned to open would provide jobs not only for his future employees, but also for everyone involved in the construction of the restaurant buildings themselves.
As the Heritage report explains, Obamacare discourages hiring in three important ways:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.
Democrats once touted that Obamacare would create jobs, but the data underscore the reality that that’s not true for the private sector. The only jobs Obamacare created were within the new agencies and layers of bureaucracy the law added to the federal government.
The Heritage report recommends repeal — and comes as a welcome reminder that the health care law can’t be ignored as the president and Congress attempt to address the debt and deficit or as the nation attempts to right the still-struggling economy. Nor can it be ignored in the upcoming presidential election. Likely U.S. voters have said jobs and the economy are their No. 1 issue. That means the repeal of Obamacare should be a top priority, too.
One of the first acts of the new House at the beginning of this year was to pass a repeal bill, but, of course, that bill was blocked in the Senate and definitely didn’t receive the president’s signature. Still, repeal is possible — but it will require the election of a president who will sign a repeal bill in 2012. That puts all the GOP presidential contenders in perspective. Even Mitt Romney, the architect of Obamneycare (Tim Pawlenty’s one pitch-perfect zing), has said he’d support repeal — and, whatever skeptics might say, he’s surely more likely to sign his name to repeal than Obama is. When the GOP does pick its candidate, voters concerned about Obamacare’s impact on jobs and the economy surely can get behind whoever the candidate is.
Otherwise, the country faces more of the same. Another Heritage report out recently showed jobs recovery will take far longer than most expect under any circumstances. According to that report, unemployment wouldn’t return to its natural rate of 5.2 percent until 2014 even if the economy immediately started adding jobs at the rate it did during the tech bubble, which was about 265,000 jobs a month. At a more realistic rate of 176,000 jobs a month, the unemployment rate wouldn’t drop to 5.2 percent until about 2018.
Private Sector Job Creation Ground To A Halt Almost Instantly After Obamacare Passed « Hot Air
A new report out yesterday from The Heritage Foundation shows private sector job creation dropped dramatically almost immediately after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) into law.
From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.
As the report states, correlation cannot prove causation — but the change in course is statistically measurable and testing reveals a structural break between April and May of 2010. Moreover, small-business owners have said Obamacare is a deterrent to hiring. Take Scott Womack, the owner of 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, as just one example. Before Obamacare became law, he had development plans in Ohio. Now, he’s worried he won’t be able to carry out his original plans unless Obamacare is repealed. Those restaurants he planned to open would provide jobs not only for his future employees, but also for everyone involved in the construction of the restaurant buildings themselves.
As the Heritage report explains, Obamacare discourages hiring in three important ways:
Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.
Democrats once touted that Obamacare would create jobs, but the data underscore the reality that that’s not true for the private sector. The only jobs Obamacare created were within the new agencies and layers of bureaucracy the law added to the federal government.
The Heritage report recommends repeal — and comes as a welcome reminder that the health care law can’t be ignored as the president and Congress attempt to address the debt and deficit or as the nation attempts to right the still-struggling economy. Nor can it be ignored in the upcoming presidential election. Likely U.S. voters have said jobs and the economy are their No. 1 issue. That means the repeal of Obamacare should be a top priority, too.
One of the first acts of the new House at the beginning of this year was to pass a repeal bill, but, of course, that bill was blocked in the Senate and definitely didn’t receive the president’s signature. Still, repeal is possible — but it will require the election of a president who will sign a repeal bill in 2012. That puts all the GOP presidential contenders in perspective. Even Mitt Romney, the architect of Obamneycare (Tim Pawlenty’s one pitch-perfect zing), has said he’d support repeal — and, whatever skeptics might say, he’s surely more likely to sign his name to repeal than Obama is. When the GOP does pick its candidate, voters concerned about Obamacare’s impact on jobs and the economy surely can get behind whoever the candidate is.
Otherwise, the country faces more of the same. Another Heritage report out recently showed jobs recovery will take far longer than most expect under any circumstances. According to that report, unemployment wouldn’t return to its natural rate of 5.2 percent until 2014 even if the economy immediately started adding jobs at the rate it did during the tech bubble, which was about 265,000 jobs a month. At a more realistic rate of 176,000 jobs a month, the unemployment rate wouldn’t drop to 5.2 percent until about 2018.
Friday, July 15, 2011
White House vs. Fox News?
Read the original here.
Emails Show White House Targeting Fox News Despite Denial
Foxnews.com
Newly released emails show the Obama administration communication team privately discussed whether to exclude Fox News from interviews in late 2009, despite claims at the time that the White House did not intend to snub the cable news channel.
The emails, obtained and released by watchdog Judicial Watch, pertain to a kerfluffle over whether the administration tried to lock Fox News out of a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, who was then responsible for reviewing compensation of Wall Street executives.
The perceived slight in October 2009 led to a confrontation with the press corps, not just Fox News -- afterward, the administration ultimately granted the interview to Fox News, along with other news outlets. Administration officials at the time rejected any suggestion that they had tried to exclude Fox News in the first place.
But the emails suggest the subject was at least discussed.
"The Obama administration seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel from access to an interview with the 'pay czar,'" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
Fitton told Fox News the White House treatment was "something Hugo Chavez might do but it really has no place in modern-day America."
The emails cover dozens of conversations in late 2009. But in one email dated Oct. 22, 2009, White House media official Dag Vega wrote to Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte saying, "we'd prefer if you skip Fox please."
The guidance was in reference to a discussion about whether to make economic officials available. It's unclear whether they were referring at all to Feinberg -- who was, after a back-and-forth, offered up to Fox News for an interview later in the afternoon.
But administration aides showed frustration as they later saw media reports claiming Treasury tried to exclude Fox News at first. That frustration ended up being directed at Fox News itself.
"brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki wrote in an email that evening, referencing "Special Report" host Bret Baier.
The next morning, as other media coverage of the run-in popped up, Psaki wrote: "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause."
At the time of the dispute over access, the explanation offered by the administration was that there was no "effort to exclude" Fox News, and that the administration initially was only offering interviews to the big three networks. Officials claimed Fox News had not made a request, but that the administration eventually made time for other outlets including Fox News.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in one email, put it this way: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews -- but yesterday, we didn't."
But Fox News, back in 2009, refuted the claim that the cable channel did not request an interview.
Fitton said in a statement that the documents his group obtained show a "pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."
But Michael Clemente, senior vice president of News for Fox News, said times have changed.
"On and off-the-air relations with this administration have come a long way since then, and if that unfortunate incident helped get things on a better track, then it served its purpose," Clemente said.
Asked Thursday about the emails, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he has respect for the reporters at Fox News.
"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News ... and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. That was then, and you know, we obviously deal with Fox News regularly," Carney said.
He joked that nobody ever put fish in the Fox News cubby.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/#ixzz1SC94jnpw
Emails Show White House Targeting Fox News Despite Denial
Foxnews.com
Newly released emails show the Obama administration communication team privately discussed whether to exclude Fox News from interviews in late 2009, despite claims at the time that the White House did not intend to snub the cable news channel.
The emails, obtained and released by watchdog Judicial Watch, pertain to a kerfluffle over whether the administration tried to lock Fox News out of a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, who was then responsible for reviewing compensation of Wall Street executives.
The perceived slight in October 2009 led to a confrontation with the press corps, not just Fox News -- afterward, the administration ultimately granted the interview to Fox News, along with other news outlets. Administration officials at the time rejected any suggestion that they had tried to exclude Fox News in the first place.
But the emails suggest the subject was at least discussed.
"The Obama administration seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel from access to an interview with the 'pay czar,'" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
Fitton told Fox News the White House treatment was "something Hugo Chavez might do but it really has no place in modern-day America."
The emails cover dozens of conversations in late 2009. But in one email dated Oct. 22, 2009, White House media official Dag Vega wrote to Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte saying, "we'd prefer if you skip Fox please."
The guidance was in reference to a discussion about whether to make economic officials available. It's unclear whether they were referring at all to Feinberg -- who was, after a back-and-forth, offered up to Fox News for an interview later in the afternoon.
But administration aides showed frustration as they later saw media reports claiming Treasury tried to exclude Fox News at first. That frustration ended up being directed at Fox News itself.
"brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki wrote in an email that evening, referencing "Special Report" host Bret Baier.
The next morning, as other media coverage of the run-in popped up, Psaki wrote: "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause."
At the time of the dispute over access, the explanation offered by the administration was that there was no "effort to exclude" Fox News, and that the administration initially was only offering interviews to the big three networks. Officials claimed Fox News had not made a request, but that the administration eventually made time for other outlets including Fox News.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in one email, put it this way: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews -- but yesterday, we didn't."
But Fox News, back in 2009, refuted the claim that the cable channel did not request an interview.
Fitton said in a statement that the documents his group obtained show a "pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."
But Michael Clemente, senior vice president of News for Fox News, said times have changed.
"On and off-the-air relations with this administration have come a long way since then, and if that unfortunate incident helped get things on a better track, then it served its purpose," Clemente said.
Asked Thursday about the emails, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he has respect for the reporters at Fox News.
"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News ... and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. That was then, and you know, we obviously deal with Fox News regularly," Carney said.
He joked that nobody ever put fish in the Fox News cubby.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/#ixzz1SC94jnpw
Who's the most patient of all...
Read the original here.
Pelosi's Audacious Claim: Obama Has More Patience Than Biblical Job
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that President Barack Obama has shown a “level of patience” in debt limit negotiations with congressional leaders that does not compare to the biblical figure Job, known as the “Man of Patience.”
“I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Thursday. “He [Job] doesn’t even begin because this president has demonstrated a level of patience, not only during the meetings but as respect, respectful of the suggestions that are made by all parties at the meeting, in his preparation for the meeting, and his coming back to address concerns that are expressed by others.”
Pelosi also said she is “almost too busy” to continue listening to what is going on in the debt limit meetings.
“Day in and day out, the president has respectfully listened, accommodated, engaged in conversation in a very informed way and he is the president of the United States,” she said. “I know he’s busy. I myself am almost too busy to continue listening to some of the things that are going on in that room. So I know he must be very busy. But he has treated everyone there with great dignity. The only thing I hope he doesn’t ask us to do is go to Camp David. That goes beyond the pale. Driving down the street for these meetings is one thing --”
Pelosi went on to describe Camp David as a place where the president should be able to study rather than hold meetings like the current debt limit negotiations.
Cross-posted from CNSNews.com, a sister publication of NewsBusters.org.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nicholas-ballasy/2011/07/14/pelosis-audacious-claim-obama-has-more-patience-biblical-job#ixzz1SC8ubqrf
Pelosi's Audacious Claim: Obama Has More Patience Than Biblical Job
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that President Barack Obama has shown a “level of patience” in debt limit negotiations with congressional leaders that does not compare to the biblical figure Job, known as the “Man of Patience.”
“I want to commend the president – I have never seen – Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience,” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Thursday. “He [Job] doesn’t even begin because this president has demonstrated a level of patience, not only during the meetings but as respect, respectful of the suggestions that are made by all parties at the meeting, in his preparation for the meeting, and his coming back to address concerns that are expressed by others.”
Pelosi also said she is “almost too busy” to continue listening to what is going on in the debt limit meetings.
“Day in and day out, the president has respectfully listened, accommodated, engaged in conversation in a very informed way and he is the president of the United States,” she said. “I know he’s busy. I myself am almost too busy to continue listening to some of the things that are going on in that room. So I know he must be very busy. But he has treated everyone there with great dignity. The only thing I hope he doesn’t ask us to do is go to Camp David. That goes beyond the pale. Driving down the street for these meetings is one thing --”
Pelosi went on to describe Camp David as a place where the president should be able to study rather than hold meetings like the current debt limit negotiations.
Cross-posted from CNSNews.com, a sister publication of NewsBusters.org.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nicholas-ballasy/2011/07/14/pelosis-audacious-claim-obama-has-more-patience-biblical-job#ixzz1SC8ubqrf
Rasmussen Poll shows 55% opposed to any tax hikes
Read the original here.
55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal
As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.
Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.
Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.
Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago.
At the same time, however, 52% believe it would beeven more dangerous to raise the debt ceiling without making significant cuts in government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) take the opposite view and believe a government default would be more dangerous.
(Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are alsoavailable on Twitter or Facebook.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 12-13, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points witha 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted byPulse Opinion Research, LLC.See methodology.
Eighty-five percent (85%) of voters are following the debt ceiling story at least Somewhat Closely. That figure includes 48% who are following it Very Closely. Older voters are following the story more closely than younger voters.
Thirty-eightpercent (38%) believe the president has done a good or an excellent job handling the debt ceiling debate while 41% say he has done a poor job. Predictably, 74% of Democrats give him good or excellent marks while 71% of Republicans say he’s doing a poor job. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 31% give the president good or excellent marks on this topic while 42% say he’s doing a poor job.
Overall, the president’s Job Approval ratings have been remarkably stable for the past year-and-a-half. With only modest exceptions, his totalapproval numbers have stayed in the mid-to-high 40s since the end of 2009.
By a 59% to19% margin, Political Class voters favor a tax hike in the debt ceiling deal. By a 68% to 22% margin, Mainstream voters take the opposite view (for more on the Political Class-Mainstream classification, click here.
Data released earlier shows that most Americans believe tax hikes are bad for the economy and spending cuts are good.
Consumer confidence has fallen to the lowest level in twoyears and most Americans now believe their own personal finances are getting worse.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public.
55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal
As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.
Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.
Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.
Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago.
At the same time, however, 52% believe it would beeven more dangerous to raise the debt ceiling without making significant cuts in government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) take the opposite view and believe a government default would be more dangerous.
(Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are alsoavailable on Twitter or Facebook.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on July 12-13, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points witha 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted byPulse Opinion Research, LLC.See methodology.
Eighty-five percent (85%) of voters are following the debt ceiling story at least Somewhat Closely. That figure includes 48% who are following it Very Closely. Older voters are following the story more closely than younger voters.
Thirty-eightpercent (38%) believe the president has done a good or an excellent job handling the debt ceiling debate while 41% say he has done a poor job. Predictably, 74% of Democrats give him good or excellent marks while 71% of Republicans say he’s doing a poor job. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 31% give the president good or excellent marks on this topic while 42% say he’s doing a poor job.
Overall, the president’s Job Approval ratings have been remarkably stable for the past year-and-a-half. With only modest exceptions, his totalapproval numbers have stayed in the mid-to-high 40s since the end of 2009.
By a 59% to19% margin, Political Class voters favor a tax hike in the debt ceiling deal. By a 68% to 22% margin, Mainstream voters take the opposite view (for more on the Political Class-Mainstream classification, click here.
Data released earlier shows that most Americans believe tax hikes are bad for the economy and spending cuts are good.
Consumer confidence has fallen to the lowest level in twoyears and most Americans now believe their own personal finances are getting worse.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public.
Quote of the Day
President Obama claims that 80% of Americans support tax hikes. Read the original here.
Obama: Public Is 'Sold' On Tax Increases In A Debt-Ceiling Deal
By Sam Youngman and Alicia M. Cohn - 07/15/11 11:54 AM ET
President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.
"The American people are sold," Obama said. "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."
Throughout the press conference, Obama blasted Republicans for ignoring what he said is the will of the American people by rejecting tax increases that would balance out spending cuts in a debt package.
"This is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people," Obama said.
"I hope [Republicans are] not just listening to lobbyists and special interests ... I hope they're listening to the American people as well," Obama said, citing "poll after poll" showing Republican voters, as well as Democrats, believe in taking "a balanced approach" — including both increased revenues and spending cuts in a plan to cut the deficit.
Obama repeated his warning that the country is "running out of time" to avert a financial “Armageddon.”
"We should not even be this close on a deadline," Obama said. "This is something we should have accomplished earlier."
Obama said he is still pushing for a “big” deal to raise the debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline despite the hardening of positions on Capitol Hill.
"I always have hope," Obama said. "Don't you remember my campaign?"
The president signaled he is opposed to the “Cut, Cap and Balance” proposal that House Republicans coalesced around Friday morning, and he challenged the GOP to "be ambitious" in proposing a package to cut the deficit.
"If they show me a serious plan, I'm ready to move, even if it requires some tough sacrifices on my part," Obama said.
Republicans in the House rallied Friday behind an effort to cut spending, cap spending in future years and pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
“We asked the president to lead, we asked him to put forward a plan, not a speech — a real plan — and he hasn’t. We will,” Speaker John Boehner said (R-Ohio) before Obama’s press conference.
The plan would authorize a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling after Congress passes a balanced-budget amendment.
The president said he had not studied the new Republican proposal, but said it “doesn't sound like a serious plan to me."
Obama also shot down the GOP calls for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, saying "we don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs."
As he has done since last week, the president challenged Republicans to pursue the biggest plan possible, seizing an "opportunity to stabilize American's finances" for the next 10, 15 or 20 years.
Noting the acknowledgment by Republican leaders that the debt ceiling has to be raised, Obama said that they should not stop at the "routine" decision to increase the government's borrowing authority.
"I'm glad the congressional leaders want to raise the debt ceiling, but I think the American people expect more," Obama said.
The president has repeatedly called for the negotiators to put politics aside even as the negotiations have increasingly been framed through the lens of the 2012 election.
Obama said he was hopeful that the leaders would step back from trying to please their base constituencies and move on the debt ceiling, reducing the deficit and other economic agenda items.
"You know… whatever Sen. McConnell says about me on the floor of the Senate is not going to be impediment to us getting a deal done," Obama said. "You know, the question is going to be whether at any given moment we're willing to set politics aside at least briefly in order to get something done.
He continued: "Surely we can come up with a compromise to solve those problems. So there will be huge differences between now and November 2012 between the parties. And whoever the Republican nominee is, you know, we're going to have a big, serious debate about what we believe is the right way to guide America forward and to win the future. And I'm confident that I will win that debate.”
"And I think increasingly the American people are going to say to themselves, you know what? If a party or a politician is constantly taking the position, my way or the highway, constantly being locked into, you know, ideologically rigid positions, that you know, we're going to remember at the polls," Obama said.
Obama didn't rule out the fall-back plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a national default.
"It is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can't get anything done, let's at least avert Armageddon," he said. However, Obama said he wanted to address the deeper debt issues.
"I have not seen a credible plan ... that would allow you to get to $2.4 trillion [in savings] without really hurting ordinary folks," he said.
The president said voters are paying attention to "who seems to be trying to get something done” in the high-stakes negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
“It's going to be in the interests of everybody who wants to serve in this town to make sure they are on the right side of that impression,” he said.
This story was updated at 12:50 p.m.
Obama: Public Is 'Sold' On Tax Increases In A Debt-Ceiling Deal
By Sam Youngman and Alicia M. Cohn - 07/15/11 11:54 AM ET
President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.
"The American people are sold," Obama said. "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."
Throughout the press conference, Obama blasted Republicans for ignoring what he said is the will of the American people by rejecting tax increases that would balance out spending cuts in a debt package.
"This is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people," Obama said.
"I hope [Republicans are] not just listening to lobbyists and special interests ... I hope they're listening to the American people as well," Obama said, citing "poll after poll" showing Republican voters, as well as Democrats, believe in taking "a balanced approach" — including both increased revenues and spending cuts in a plan to cut the deficit.
Obama repeated his warning that the country is "running out of time" to avert a financial “Armageddon.”
"We should not even be this close on a deadline," Obama said. "This is something we should have accomplished earlier."
Obama said he is still pushing for a “big” deal to raise the debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline despite the hardening of positions on Capitol Hill.
"I always have hope," Obama said. "Don't you remember my campaign?"
The president signaled he is opposed to the “Cut, Cap and Balance” proposal that House Republicans coalesced around Friday morning, and he challenged the GOP to "be ambitious" in proposing a package to cut the deficit.
"If they show me a serious plan, I'm ready to move, even if it requires some tough sacrifices on my part," Obama said.
Republicans in the House rallied Friday behind an effort to cut spending, cap spending in future years and pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
“We asked the president to lead, we asked him to put forward a plan, not a speech — a real plan — and he hasn’t. We will,” Speaker John Boehner said (R-Ohio) before Obama’s press conference.
The plan would authorize a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling after Congress passes a balanced-budget amendment.
The president said he had not studied the new Republican proposal, but said it “doesn't sound like a serious plan to me."
Obama also shot down the GOP calls for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, saying "we don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs."
As he has done since last week, the president challenged Republicans to pursue the biggest plan possible, seizing an "opportunity to stabilize American's finances" for the next 10, 15 or 20 years.
Noting the acknowledgment by Republican leaders that the debt ceiling has to be raised, Obama said that they should not stop at the "routine" decision to increase the government's borrowing authority.
"I'm glad the congressional leaders want to raise the debt ceiling, but I think the American people expect more," Obama said.
The president has repeatedly called for the negotiators to put politics aside even as the negotiations have increasingly been framed through the lens of the 2012 election.
Obama said he was hopeful that the leaders would step back from trying to please their base constituencies and move on the debt ceiling, reducing the deficit and other economic agenda items.
"You know… whatever Sen. McConnell says about me on the floor of the Senate is not going to be impediment to us getting a deal done," Obama said. "You know, the question is going to be whether at any given moment we're willing to set politics aside at least briefly in order to get something done.
He continued: "Surely we can come up with a compromise to solve those problems. So there will be huge differences between now and November 2012 between the parties. And whoever the Republican nominee is, you know, we're going to have a big, serious debate about what we believe is the right way to guide America forward and to win the future. And I'm confident that I will win that debate.”
"And I think increasingly the American people are going to say to themselves, you know what? If a party or a politician is constantly taking the position, my way or the highway, constantly being locked into, you know, ideologically rigid positions, that you know, we're going to remember at the polls," Obama said.
Obama didn't rule out the fall-back plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a national default.
"It is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can't get anything done, let's at least avert Armageddon," he said. However, Obama said he wanted to address the deeper debt issues.
"I have not seen a credible plan ... that would allow you to get to $2.4 trillion [in savings] without really hurting ordinary folks," he said.
The president said voters are paying attention to "who seems to be trying to get something done” in the high-stakes negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
“It's going to be in the interests of everybody who wants to serve in this town to make sure they are on the right side of that impression,” he said.
This story was updated at 12:50 p.m.
EPA vs. July 4th Fireworks?
Read the original here.
EPA Vs. Fireworks
Posted 07/13/2011 06:48 PM ET
Overregulation: The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again — this time eyeing smog standards so stringent it could actually force cities to choose between July 4th fireworks and hugely expensive new rules.
When the EPA was enacting stricter smog standards in the '90s, critics said some communities would have to sacrifice things like 4th of July fireworks to comply. Then-EPA-head Carol Browner dismissed such talk as "nothing more than scare tactics" from polluters. "They are false," she said in 1977. "They are wrong. They are manipulative."
Tell that to Wichita.
Few would think of this south-central city in Kansas as having a big smog problem. But under current standards it's now one day away from breaching the EPA's standard for ozone, the main ingredient in smog.
That's because the city's 4th of July fireworks pushed its ozone levels over the EPA limit for the third day this year. One more violation and it could find itself forced to produce an EPA-approved smog-cutting plan that would, as the Wichita Eagle reported, "cost taxpayers and businesses millions of dollars."
Now, the EPA is expected to announce later this month if it'll tighten the smog standard even more. Doing so would shove still more cities into the "polluted" category and leave many more with just a fireworks display between them and costly EPA mandates.
And make no mistake: The price tag will be big. The EPA puts the cost at upward of $90 billion a year. But the Manufacturers Alliance says it'll be closer to $1 trillion, and will cost millions of jobs as companies spend increasingly large amounts of money to scrub increasingly small amounts of pollutants out of the air.
All this money, however, will do little, if anything, to improve public health, despite what green groups or the American Lung Association might insist.
Joel Schwartz, co-author of the book "Air Quality in America," notes that "evidence has mounted that ozone at current, historically low levels is causing little or no harm, even in the most polluted areas of the country."
Don't be surprised to find EPA head Lisa Jackson coming down in favor of a stricter smog standard, no matter the cost. President Obama has given her agency free rein to wreak havoc on the economy with a seemingly daily download of expensive new rules and regulations.
If Americans haven't caught on to the harm this out-of-control agency is causing, they might once their own towns start canceling 4th of July fireworks to appease EPA dictates.
EPA Vs. Fireworks
Posted 07/13/2011 06:48 PM ET
Overregulation: The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again — this time eyeing smog standards so stringent it could actually force cities to choose between July 4th fireworks and hugely expensive new rules.
When the EPA was enacting stricter smog standards in the '90s, critics said some communities would have to sacrifice things like 4th of July fireworks to comply. Then-EPA-head Carol Browner dismissed such talk as "nothing more than scare tactics" from polluters. "They are false," she said in 1977. "They are wrong. They are manipulative."
Tell that to Wichita.
Few would think of this south-central city in Kansas as having a big smog problem. But under current standards it's now one day away from breaching the EPA's standard for ozone, the main ingredient in smog.
That's because the city's 4th of July fireworks pushed its ozone levels over the EPA limit for the third day this year. One more violation and it could find itself forced to produce an EPA-approved smog-cutting plan that would, as the Wichita Eagle reported, "cost taxpayers and businesses millions of dollars."
Now, the EPA is expected to announce later this month if it'll tighten the smog standard even more. Doing so would shove still more cities into the "polluted" category and leave many more with just a fireworks display between them and costly EPA mandates.
And make no mistake: The price tag will be big. The EPA puts the cost at upward of $90 billion a year. But the Manufacturers Alliance says it'll be closer to $1 trillion, and will cost millions of jobs as companies spend increasingly large amounts of money to scrub increasingly small amounts of pollutants out of the air.
All this money, however, will do little, if anything, to improve public health, despite what green groups or the American Lung Association might insist.
Joel Schwartz, co-author of the book "Air Quality in America," notes that "evidence has mounted that ozone at current, historically low levels is causing little or no harm, even in the most polluted areas of the country."
Don't be surprised to find EPA head Lisa Jackson coming down in favor of a stricter smog standard, no matter the cost. President Obama has given her agency free rein to wreak havoc on the economy with a seemingly daily download of expensive new rules and regulations.
If Americans haven't caught on to the harm this out-of-control agency is causing, they might once their own towns start canceling 4th of July fireworks to appease EPA dictates.
Michigan Public Schools using Automated calling for Politics?
If this is true, it feels pretty shady...Read the original here.
Michigan Public School Illegally Uses Robocall System Against GOP Governor
Written By : Warner Todd Huston
News has emerged that a Michigan public school illegally used its automatic phone calling system to call the homes of every student to urge parents to join the recall effort against Republican Governor Rick Snyder last month. To imagine that they can illegally use public school facilities for a partisan, left-wing political effort, this is the arrogance of left-wingers in our mis-educational system writ large.
It is certainly illegal for a school to put it’s telephone alert system for partisan political use, but that is what happened nonetheless. Here is what the message said:
This is a message from the Lawrence Public Schools (inaudible) alert system. This is an informational item and not directly associated with the school. Concerned parents interested in cuts to education . . . we’re here to inform you that there is information about the problem. Also, be advised that there is a petition to recall Governor Snyder. If you want, stop by Chuck Moden’s house right by the school June 7th/8th between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. Thank you. Goodbye.
(To hear a recording of the message, click here.)
The school robocall system is supposed to be used to alert students and parents to school closings due to weather and other school business but not to push partisan political efforts.
Lawrence Public Schools Superintendent John Overley told Michgan Capitol Confidential that it wouldn’t happen again. But it shouldn’t have happened at all. According to Robert LaBrant , senior vice president of political affairs and general counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the action by the district violates, “Section 57 of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act.”
LaBrant imagines that any finding of a violation would bring a fine to said persons of up to $20,000.
But all that aside, it is the arrogance of these leftist union hacks to imagine that they have the right to use the tools given them for the education of our kids for partisan political attacks on those they don’t like. It is an outrageous misuse of resources that all citizens, left-wing and conservative, pay for.
Left-wingers, however, feel that government is theirs and theirs alone and they see nothing wrong with violating laws as long as their agenda is furthered. This is yet another example of why government employees should not be allowed to unionize.
Obviously, the health and welfare of the union was more important to this school than the integrity of their education.
Written By : Warner Todd Huston
News has emerged that a Michigan public school illegally used its automatic phone calling system to call the homes of every student to urge parents to join the recall effort against Republican Governor Rick Snyder last month. To imagine that they can illegally use public school facilities for a partisan, left-wing political effort, this is the arrogance of left-wingers in our mis-educational system writ large.
It is certainly illegal for a school to put it’s telephone alert system for partisan political use, but that is what happened nonetheless. Here is what the message said:
This is a message from the Lawrence Public Schools (inaudible) alert system. This is an informational item and not directly associated with the school. Concerned parents interested in cuts to education . . . we’re here to inform you that there is information about the problem. Also, be advised that there is a petition to recall Governor Snyder. If you want, stop by Chuck Moden’s house right by the school June 7th/8th between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. Thank you. Goodbye.
(To hear a recording of the message, click here.)
The school robocall system is supposed to be used to alert students and parents to school closings due to weather and other school business but not to push partisan political efforts.
Lawrence Public Schools Superintendent John Overley told Michgan Capitol Confidential that it wouldn’t happen again. But it shouldn’t have happened at all. According to Robert LaBrant , senior vice president of political affairs and general counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the action by the district violates, “Section 57 of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act.”
LaBrant imagines that any finding of a violation would bring a fine to said persons of up to $20,000.
But all that aside, it is the arrogance of these leftist union hacks to imagine that they have the right to use the tools given them for the education of our kids for partisan political attacks on those they don’t like. It is an outrageous misuse of resources that all citizens, left-wing and conservative, pay for.
Left-wingers, however, feel that government is theirs and theirs alone and they see nothing wrong with violating laws as long as their agenda is furthered. This is yet another example of why government employees should not be allowed to unionize.
Obviously, the health and welfare of the union was more important to this school than the integrity of their education.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
How come I can't just leave meetings I don't like?
Read the original here.
President Obama Abruptly Walks Out Of Talks - Jonathan Allen And Jake Sherman
President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations.
“He shoved back and said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting.Continue Reading
On a day when the Moody’s rating agency warned that American debt could be downgraded, the White House talks blew up amid a new round of sniping between Obama and Cantor, who are fast becoming bitter enemies.
When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.
“Eric, don’t call my bluff,” the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case “to the American people.” He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.
Democratic sources dispute Cantor’s version of Obama’s walk out, but all sides agree that the two had a blow up. The sources described Obama as “impassioned” but said he didn’t exactly storm out of the room.
“Cantor’s account of tonight’s meeting is completely overblown. For someone who knows how to walk out of a meeting, you’d think he’d know it when he saw it,” a Democratic aide said. “Cantor rudely interrupted the president three times to advocate for short-term debt ceiling increases while the president was wrapping the meeting. This is just more juvenile behavior from him and Boehner needs to rein him in, and let the grown-ups get to work.”
On exiting the room, Obama said that “this confirms the totality of what the American people already believe” about Washington, according to a Democratic official familiar with the negotiations, and that officials are “too focused on positioning and political posturing” to make difficult choices.
Cantor insists he never interrupted the president, and was “deferential,” seeking permission to speak.
The latest and sharpest in a series of harsh exchanges between the two leaders heightened concern that markets could crash at any time amid fear of a reduction in the rating on once-ironclad U.S. debt.
Cantor, for his part, delivered the blow-by-blue of his interaction with Obama to a gaggle of Capitol Hill reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby, where lawmakers typically mingle with reporters during votes. It wasn’t through aides — it was Cantor taking on the president, directly.
Cantor accused the president and congressional Democrats of progressively low-balling, over the last several days, the savings that could be achieved from proposals discussed by Vice President Joe Biden’s working group on deficit reduction. Cantor warned that the group has not identified enough cuts to win House passage of a $2.5 trillion debt-limit increase — the size the president says is needed to get through the 2012 election, sources told POLITICO.
Obama told Cantor that he would either have to agree to tax increases or give up on his demand that the debt hike be matched dollar-to-dollar to the cuts — that is, $2.5 trillion in deficit-reduction over 10 years in exchange for a $2.5 trillion hike in the debt ceiling.
He said that the negotiators should return to the White House Thursday to discuss savings from health care programs, budget caps and options for raising revenue.
“Then he said we also ought to get in the mode here, because we’re going to have to decide by Friday which way we’re going,” Cantor said. “He said really we ought to all start to think about things we can do rather than things we can’t.”
That’s when Cantor said he would be willing to abandon his own insistence on having just one vote on the debt ceiling if they could agree to a smaller package of cuts in exchange for a shorter-term hike that would require another increase before the 2012 election.Continue Reading
But Obama said he wouldn’t do the debt-limit increase incrementally and that he would veto a short-term bill.
“That’s when he got very agitated,” Cantor told reporters.
“Obama lit him up. Cantor sat in stunned silence,” said an official in the meeting. “It was incredible. If the public saw Obama he would win in a landslide.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said no progress was made in the Wednesday talks.
“The president is spending a lot of time and effort to get us to an agreement, and it is tough,” Hoyer said.
Cantor said he’s trying to inform the group of what House members will agree to pass.
“I’m trying to represent where the votes are in the House. and we’ve always said the votes in the House are consistent with the principles that the speaker’s laid out that we’ve been operating on,” Cantor said. “It is dollar-for-dollar match, it is the no tax increase and it is this other subject that we are discussing tomorrow the enforcement mechanisms … I understand why he’s frustrated. But again, we’re trying to get this thing done, and that’s why I was a little taken aback.”
Despite the president’s abrupt exit, Democratic officials pointed to signs of progress. Officials on Wednesday for the first time reviewed a series of proposed spending cuts. Obama has offered $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, and the parties have agreed in principle on roughly $1.5 trillion of those, officials said.
The agenda Thursday will focus on revenue — the touchiest subject of all for Republicans — and mandatory health programs.
On Friday, Obama wants an assessment of where the process stands, Democratic officials said. Of significant concern is the calendar, and the ability to get everything done in time to avert a crisis. It was unclear whether a lack of agreement by Friday was any sort of dealbreaker, or what consequences might be attached to that assessment.
“We are not miles apart here,” said one Democratic official familiar with the debt talks. “It’s sitting right in front of them.”
Julie Mason, John Bresnahan and Carrie Budoff Brown contributed to this story.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58937.html#ixzz1S5Mtvjrj
President Obama Abruptly Walks Out Of Talks - Jonathan Allen And Jake Sherman
President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of a stormy debt-limit meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday, a dramatic setback to the already shaky negotiations.
“He shoved back and said ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters in the Capitol after the meeting.Continue Reading
On a day when the Moody’s rating agency warned that American debt could be downgraded, the White House talks blew up amid a new round of sniping between Obama and Cantor, who are fast becoming bitter enemies.
When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.
“Eric, don’t call my bluff,” the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case “to the American people.” He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.
Democratic sources dispute Cantor’s version of Obama’s walk out, but all sides agree that the two had a blow up. The sources described Obama as “impassioned” but said he didn’t exactly storm out of the room.
“Cantor’s account of tonight’s meeting is completely overblown. For someone who knows how to walk out of a meeting, you’d think he’d know it when he saw it,” a Democratic aide said. “Cantor rudely interrupted the president three times to advocate for short-term debt ceiling increases while the president was wrapping the meeting. This is just more juvenile behavior from him and Boehner needs to rein him in, and let the grown-ups get to work.”
On exiting the room, Obama said that “this confirms the totality of what the American people already believe” about Washington, according to a Democratic official familiar with the negotiations, and that officials are “too focused on positioning and political posturing” to make difficult choices.
Cantor insists he never interrupted the president, and was “deferential,” seeking permission to speak.
The latest and sharpest in a series of harsh exchanges between the two leaders heightened concern that markets could crash at any time amid fear of a reduction in the rating on once-ironclad U.S. debt.
Cantor, for his part, delivered the blow-by-blue of his interaction with Obama to a gaggle of Capitol Hill reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby, where lawmakers typically mingle with reporters during votes. It wasn’t through aides — it was Cantor taking on the president, directly.
Cantor accused the president and congressional Democrats of progressively low-balling, over the last several days, the savings that could be achieved from proposals discussed by Vice President Joe Biden’s working group on deficit reduction. Cantor warned that the group has not identified enough cuts to win House passage of a $2.5 trillion debt-limit increase — the size the president says is needed to get through the 2012 election, sources told POLITICO.
Obama told Cantor that he would either have to agree to tax increases or give up on his demand that the debt hike be matched dollar-to-dollar to the cuts — that is, $2.5 trillion in deficit-reduction over 10 years in exchange for a $2.5 trillion hike in the debt ceiling.
He said that the negotiators should return to the White House Thursday to discuss savings from health care programs, budget caps and options for raising revenue.
“Then he said we also ought to get in the mode here, because we’re going to have to decide by Friday which way we’re going,” Cantor said. “He said really we ought to all start to think about things we can do rather than things we can’t.”
That’s when Cantor said he would be willing to abandon his own insistence on having just one vote on the debt ceiling if they could agree to a smaller package of cuts in exchange for a shorter-term hike that would require another increase before the 2012 election.Continue Reading
But Obama said he wouldn’t do the debt-limit increase incrementally and that he would veto a short-term bill.
“That’s when he got very agitated,” Cantor told reporters.
“Obama lit him up. Cantor sat in stunned silence,” said an official in the meeting. “It was incredible. If the public saw Obama he would win in a landslide.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said no progress was made in the Wednesday talks.
“The president is spending a lot of time and effort to get us to an agreement, and it is tough,” Hoyer said.
Cantor said he’s trying to inform the group of what House members will agree to pass.
“I’m trying to represent where the votes are in the House. and we’ve always said the votes in the House are consistent with the principles that the speaker’s laid out that we’ve been operating on,” Cantor said. “It is dollar-for-dollar match, it is the no tax increase and it is this other subject that we are discussing tomorrow the enforcement mechanisms … I understand why he’s frustrated. But again, we’re trying to get this thing done, and that’s why I was a little taken aback.”
Despite the president’s abrupt exit, Democratic officials pointed to signs of progress. Officials on Wednesday for the first time reviewed a series of proposed spending cuts. Obama has offered $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years, and the parties have agreed in principle on roughly $1.5 trillion of those, officials said.
The agenda Thursday will focus on revenue — the touchiest subject of all for Republicans — and mandatory health programs.
On Friday, Obama wants an assessment of where the process stands, Democratic officials said. Of significant concern is the calendar, and the ability to get everything done in time to avert a crisis. It was unclear whether a lack of agreement by Friday was any sort of dealbreaker, or what consequences might be attached to that assessment.
“We are not miles apart here,” said one Democratic official familiar with the debt talks. “It’s sitting right in front of them.”
Julie Mason, John Bresnahan and Carrie Budoff Brown contributed to this story.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58937.html#ixzz1S5Mtvjrj
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
How high up does Gunwalker scandal go?
Read the original here.
Operation Fast And Furious: Designed To Promote Gun Control
by Katie Pavlich
7/13/2011
"Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday [Monday]."
Townhall has obtained the email which states "Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations."
The rule:
“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States. Federal, state and foreign law enforcement agencies have determined that certain types of semi-automatic rifles – greater than .22 caliber and with the ability to accept a detachable magazine – are highly sought after by dangerous drug trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest Border. This new reporting measure -- tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles to the same person within a five-day period -- will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations. These targeted information requests will occur in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico and along the Southwest Border.”
Once again, liberals and the Obama Administration are focused on guns rather than criminals and federal government incomptence. Operation Fast and Furious is looking more and more like a set up from the beginning to push Obama and Holder's radical anti-Second Amendment agenda as they used law abiding gun shop owners to enable government officals to break the law, then turned around and blamed the very same gun shops for illegal gun trafficking, despite those shops being forced by ATF to help ATF agents carry out Operation Fast and Furious, and now, those shops are being punished through new Justice Department gun control measures. Obama and Holder both have long records of being outspoken opponents of gunrights and both support the reinstatement of the "assault" rifle ban, better described as a ban on semi-automatic rifles. From the June issue of Townhall Magazine:
President Obama is calling for "commonsense" gun reforms, but as a man with a long a history of acting to limit Second Amendment rights and advocating gun control who tapped an attorney general with the same ideology -- and possibly the biggest gun trafficking scandal in U.S. history with his name written all over it -- is the president really calling for reforms or more government control?
As an Illinois state senator, Obama endorsed and spoke in support of an outright ban on ownership of all handguns and favored the licensing and registering of gun owners. Before his run for public office in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire expressing his support for a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.
Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley continue their investigation of Operation Fast and Furious and have requested detailed communications records, including emails, memos, briefing papers and handwritten notes from and between senior DOJ officials in two letters sent to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday. Records referring to large firearms trafficking within the Phoenix ATF office have also been requested. This information must be provided by July 18 at noon:
As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officals at the Department of Justice, including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program. Therefore, it is necessary to review commncations between and among these senior officials. As such, please provide all records relating to communications between and among the following individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious:
1) David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General
2) Gary Grindler, Office of the Attorney General and Former Acting Deputy Attorney General
3) James Cole, Deputy Attorney General (editors note: Cole issued the new reporting rules for border state gun shops Monday)
4) Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General
5) Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
6) Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
7) John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
8) Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General
9) Ed Siskel, Former Associate Deputy Attorney General
10) Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General
11) Kevin Carwile, Section Chief, Capital Case Unit
12) Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section
Operation Fast And Furious: Designed To Promote Gun Control
by Katie Pavlich
7/13/2011
"Internal ATF emails seem to suggest that ATF agents were counseled to highlight a link between criminals and certain semi-automatic weapons in order to bolster a case for a rule like the one the DOJ announced yesterday [Monday]."
Townhall has obtained the email which states "Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations."
The rule:
“The international expansion and increased violence of transnational criminal networks pose a significant threat to the United States. Federal, state and foreign law enforcement agencies have determined that certain types of semi-automatic rifles – greater than .22 caliber and with the ability to accept a detachable magazine – are highly sought after by dangerous drug trafficking organizations and frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest Border. This new reporting measure -- tailored to focus only on multiple sales of these types of rifles to the same person within a five-day period -- will improve the ability of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to detect and disrupt the illegal weapons trafficking networks responsible for diverting firearms from lawful commerce to criminals and criminal organizations. These targeted information requests will occur in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to help confront the problem of illegal gun trafficking into Mexico and along the Southwest Border.”
Once again, liberals and the Obama Administration are focused on guns rather than criminals and federal government incomptence. Operation Fast and Furious is looking more and more like a set up from the beginning to push Obama and Holder's radical anti-Second Amendment agenda as they used law abiding gun shop owners to enable government officals to break the law, then turned around and blamed the very same gun shops for illegal gun trafficking, despite those shops being forced by ATF to help ATF agents carry out Operation Fast and Furious, and now, those shops are being punished through new Justice Department gun control measures. Obama and Holder both have long records of being outspoken opponents of gunrights and both support the reinstatement of the "assault" rifle ban, better described as a ban on semi-automatic rifles. From the June issue of Townhall Magazine:
President Obama is calling for "commonsense" gun reforms, but as a man with a long a history of acting to limit Second Amendment rights and advocating gun control who tapped an attorney general with the same ideology -- and possibly the biggest gun trafficking scandal in U.S. history with his name written all over it -- is the president really calling for reforms or more government control?
As an Illinois state senator, Obama endorsed and spoke in support of an outright ban on ownership of all handguns and favored the licensing and registering of gun owners. Before his run for public office in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire expressing his support for a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.
Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley continue their investigation of Operation Fast and Furious and have requested detailed communications records, including emails, memos, briefing papers and handwritten notes from and between senior DOJ officials in two letters sent to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday. Records referring to large firearms trafficking within the Phoenix ATF office have also been requested. This information must be provided by July 18 at noon:
As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officals at the Department of Justice, including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program. Therefore, it is necessary to review commncations between and among these senior officials. As such, please provide all records relating to communications between and among the following individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious:
1) David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General
2) Gary Grindler, Office of the Attorney General and Former Acting Deputy Attorney General
3) James Cole, Deputy Attorney General (editors note: Cole issued the new reporting rules for border state gun shops Monday)
4) Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General
5) Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
6) Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
7) John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
8) Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General
9) Ed Siskel, Former Associate Deputy Attorney General
10) Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General
11) Kevin Carwile, Section Chief, Capital Case Unit
12) Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section
Who wins: TSA or a Mom?
Read the original here. Money parts:
1. “(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police. (TSA officers can't handle a person with a stern voice? I'm so glad that they're so well equipped to handle confrontation)
2. At one point, Abbott tried unsuccessfully to take a video with her cellphone. (I wonder why it was unsuccessful...)
Police charge mother in Nashville airport altercation
Woman refused to let officers screen daughter
5:42 AM, Jul. 13, 2011
1. “(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police. (TSA officers can't handle a person with a stern voice? I'm so glad that they're so well equipped to handle confrontation)
2. At one point, Abbott tried unsuccessfully to take a video with her cellphone. (I wonder why it was unsuccessful...)
Police charge mother in Nashville airport altercation
Woman refused to let officers screen daughter
5:42 AM, Jul. 13, 2011
A 41-year-old Clarksville woman was arrested after Nashville airport authorities say she was belligerent and verbally abusive to security officers, refusing for her daughter to be patted down at a security checkpoint.
Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents Saturday afternoon at Nashville International Airport, saying she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately or have her “crotch grabbed,” a police report states.
After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail. She has been released on bond.
Attempts to reach Abbott on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The report does not list her daughter’s age. The mother and daughter were traveling from Nashville to Baltimore on Southwest Airlines.
“(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
“I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked,” Abbott said, according to the police report.
At one point, Abbott tried unsuccessfully to take a video with her cellphone.
Andrea Fornella Abbott yelled and swore at Transportation Security Administration agents Saturday afternoon at Nashville International Airport, saying she did not want her daughter to be “touched inappropriately or have her “crotch grabbed,” a police report states.
After the woman refused to calm down, airport police said, she was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to jail. She has been released on bond.
Attempts to reach Abbott on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The report does not list her daughter’s age. The mother and daughter were traveling from Nashville to Baltimore on Southwest Airlines.
“(She) told me in a very stearn voice with quite a bit of attitude that they were not going through that X-ray,” Sabrina Birge, an airport security officer, told police.
“No, it’s not an X-ray,” she told Abbott. “It is 10,000 times safer than your cell phone and uses the same type of radio waves as a sonogram.”
“I still don’t want someone to see our bodies naked,” Abbott said, according to the police report.
At one point, Abbott tried unsuccessfully to take a video with her cellphone.
TSA policy revised
The arrest comes on the heels of public outrage over a video showing a pat-down of a 6-year-old girl at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The April video prompted a new policy that took effect last month in which airport security screeners must try to avoid invasive pat-down searches of children.
TSA says it will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, TSA says.
Contact Erin Quinn at 726-5986 or equinn@tennessean.com.
The arrest comes on the heels of public outrage over a video showing a pat-down of a 6-year-old girl at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The April video prompted a new policy that took effect last month in which airport security screeners must try to avoid invasive pat-down searches of children.
TSA says it will instruct screeners how to make repeated attempts to screen young children without invasive pat-downs. The instructions should reduce the number of pat-downs on children, TSA says.
Contact Erin Quinn at 726-5986 or equinn@tennessean.com.
Should ISP's keep your activities on record?
Read the original here.
Police: Internet Providers Must Keep User Logs | Privacy Inc.
Law enforcement representatives are planning to endorse a proposed federal law that would require Internet service providers to store logs about their customers for 18 months, CNET has learned.
The National Sheriffs' Association will say it "strongly supports" mandatory data retention during Tuesday's U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the topic.
Michael Brown, sheriff in Bedford County, Va., and a board member and executive committee member of the National Sheriffs' Association, is planning to argue that a new law is necessary because Internet providers do not store customer records long enough.
"The limited data retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography," according to a copy of Brown's remarks. Any stored logs could, however, be used to prosecute any type of crime.
The association's endorsement comes nearly two months after Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the head of the House Judiciary Committee, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) introduced legislation that would force Internet companies to log data about their customers. It says they must store for "at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account, unless that address is transmitted by radio communication"--language that amounts to a huge and unusual exception for wireless carriers.
In January, the U.S. Department of Justice also called for some sort of legislation in this area, but the White House has not taken a public position and the department has pointedly declined to elaborate on what it wants. No Justice Department representative is scheduled to testify tomorrow. The International Association of Chiefs of Police applauded (PDF) data retention requirements five years ago but did not endorse specific legislation.
Brown declined a request from CNET to discuss his testimony.
The Republican backers of the bill--it was the GOP's first major tech initiative after taking over the House in January--hope Brown's endorsement will provide a welcome boost to their proposal's prospects.
Similar bills have been introduced starting in early 2006, but privacy and civil liberty concerns have kept them from even receiving a floor vote. So has the scope: industry representatives have been wary ever since Justice Department representatives were talking privately about whether social-networking sites should be required to keep track of what Internet address uploaded what photograph.
According to Brown's testimony:
Unmasking child pornographers on the Internet is a painstaking and complex process for law enforcement officers and typically requires assistance from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to accurately identify the perpetrator. However, some ISPs only retain their clients' records for a short period of time. It could be hours. It could be days. It could be weeks. It could be months. And it varies from ISP to ISP. As such, the limited data retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is planning to suggest during tomorrow's hearing that the committee rewrite the measure by eliding the most incendiary sections. In an e-mail Monday afternoon, Rotenberg said he also has concerns that the language ignores reasonable data minimization procedures and doesn't envision how bad a data breach could be.
The definitions in Smith's bill could sweep in coffee shops that offer wired connections to their customers, as well as hotels, universities, schools, and businesses that offer wired network connections, on top of traditional broadband providers.
Smith introduced a broadly similar bill in 2007, without the wireless exemption, calling it a necessary anti-cybercrime measure. "The legislation introduced today will give law enforcement the tools it needs to find and prosecute criminals," he said in a statement at the time.
These concepts are not exactly new. In June 2005, CNET was the first to report that the Justice Department was quietly shopping around the idea, reversing the department's previous position that it had "serious reservations about broad mandatory data retention regimes." Despite support from FBI director Robert Mueller and the Bush Justice Department, however, the proposals languished amid worries about privacy and the cost of compliance.
"Retention" vs. "preservation"
At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud prevention, or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a practice called data preservation.
A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)
In addition, an existing law called the Protect Our Children Act of 2008 requires any Internet provider who "obtains actual knowledge" of possible child pornography transmissions to "make a report of such facts or circumstances." Companies that knowingly fail to comply can be fined up to $150,000 for the first offense and up to $300,000 for each subsequent offense.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20078653-281/police-internet-providers-must-keep-user-logs/#ixzz1RzOLmPvY
Police: Internet Providers Must Keep User Logs | Privacy Inc.
Law enforcement representatives are planning to endorse a proposed federal law that would require Internet service providers to store logs about their customers for 18 months, CNET has learned.
The National Sheriffs' Association will say it "strongly supports" mandatory data retention during Tuesday's U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the topic.
Michael Brown, sheriff in Bedford County, Va., and a board member and executive committee member of the National Sheriffs' Association, is planning to argue that a new law is necessary because Internet providers do not store customer records long enough.
"The limited data retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography," according to a copy of Brown's remarks. Any stored logs could, however, be used to prosecute any type of crime.
The association's endorsement comes nearly two months after Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the head of the House Judiciary Committee, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) introduced legislation that would force Internet companies to log data about their customers. It says they must store for "at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account, unless that address is transmitted by radio communication"--language that amounts to a huge and unusual exception for wireless carriers.
In January, the U.S. Department of Justice also called for some sort of legislation in this area, but the White House has not taken a public position and the department has pointedly declined to elaborate on what it wants. No Justice Department representative is scheduled to testify tomorrow. The International Association of Chiefs of Police applauded (PDF) data retention requirements five years ago but did not endorse specific legislation.
Brown declined a request from CNET to discuss his testimony.
The Republican backers of the bill--it was the GOP's first major tech initiative after taking over the House in January--hope Brown's endorsement will provide a welcome boost to their proposal's prospects.
Similar bills have been introduced starting in early 2006, but privacy and civil liberty concerns have kept them from even receiving a floor vote. So has the scope: industry representatives have been wary ever since Justice Department representatives were talking privately about whether social-networking sites should be required to keep track of what Internet address uploaded what photograph.
According to Brown's testimony:
Unmasking child pornographers on the Internet is a painstaking and complex process for law enforcement officers and typically requires assistance from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to accurately identify the perpetrator. However, some ISPs only retain their clients' records for a short period of time. It could be hours. It could be days. It could be weeks. It could be months. And it varies from ISP to ISP. As such, the limited data retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is planning to suggest during tomorrow's hearing that the committee rewrite the measure by eliding the most incendiary sections. In an e-mail Monday afternoon, Rotenberg said he also has concerns that the language ignores reasonable data minimization procedures and doesn't envision how bad a data breach could be.
The definitions in Smith's bill could sweep in coffee shops that offer wired connections to their customers, as well as hotels, universities, schools, and businesses that offer wired network connections, on top of traditional broadband providers.
Smith introduced a broadly similar bill in 2007, without the wireless exemption, calling it a necessary anti-cybercrime measure. "The legislation introduced today will give law enforcement the tools it needs to find and prosecute criminals," he said in a statement at the time.
These concepts are not exactly new. In June 2005, CNET was the first to report that the Justice Department was quietly shopping around the idea, reversing the department's previous position that it had "serious reservations about broad mandatory data retention regimes." Despite support from FBI director Robert Mueller and the Bush Justice Department, however, the proposals languished amid worries about privacy and the cost of compliance.
"Retention" vs. "preservation"
At the moment, Internet service providers typically discard any log file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud prevention, or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a practice called data preservation.
A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)
In addition, an existing law called the Protect Our Children Act of 2008 requires any Internet provider who "obtains actual knowledge" of possible child pornography transmissions to "make a report of such facts or circumstances." Companies that knowingly fail to comply can be fined up to $150,000 for the first offense and up to $300,000 for each subsequent offense.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20078653-281/police-internet-providers-must-keep-user-logs/#ixzz1RzOLmPvY
Cutting Class fine?
Read the original here.
Concord Could Fine Students For Cutting Class
July 12, 2011 10:16 AM
CONCORD (KCBS) – It could soon cost kids, and parents in Concord upwards of $500 if the teenager continues to cut class.
There’s no question about it, said Mayor Laura Hoffmeister, Concord police have their hands full with truant kids these days.
“Often they’re finding that the kid they return at 11 a.m. is back out at 12:30,” said Hoffmeister.
This prompted school officials to look into a school day curfew ordinance. After a general warning, kids and their parents would be fined $100 after the first offense, $200 after the second, and $500 after the third.
Adults in the area seem to largely support the idea, while teenagers are predictably against the proposal.
Kids who had a legitimate reason to be out of school would not be impacted. The proposal goes to a vote by the entire city council at their meeting Tuesday night.
(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
CONCORD (KCBS) – It could soon cost kids, and parents in Concord upwards of $500 if the teenager continues to cut class.
There’s no question about it, said Mayor Laura Hoffmeister, Concord police have their hands full with truant kids these days.
“Often they’re finding that the kid they return at 11 a.m. is back out at 12:30,” said Hoffmeister.
This prompted school officials to look into a school day curfew ordinance. After a general warning, kids and their parents would be fined $100 after the first offense, $200 after the second, and $500 after the third.
Adults in the area seem to largely support the idea, while teenagers are predictably against the proposal.
Kids who had a legitimate reason to be out of school would not be impacted. The proposal goes to a vote by the entire city council at their meeting Tuesday night.
(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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