Krauthammer on POTUS v. SCOTUS

As always, an interesting read from Charles Krauthammer. Read the original here.

Obama v. SCOTUS

The Washington Post
By Charles Krauthammer

Published: April 5

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

— Barack Obama, on the constitutional challenge to his health-care law, April 2

“Unprecedented”? Judicial review has been the centerpiece of the American constitutional system since Marbury v. Madison in 1803. “Strong majority”? The House has 435 members. In March 2010, Democrats held a 75-seat majority. Obamacare passed by seven votes.

In his next-day walk back, the president implied that he was merely talking about the normal “restraint and deference” the courts owe the legislative branch. This concern would be touching if it weren’t coming from the leader of a party so deeply devoted to the ultimate judicial usurpation — Roe v. Wade, which struck down the abortion laws of 46 states — that fealty to it is the party’s litmus test for service on the Supreme Court.

With Obamacare remaking one-sixth of the economy, it would be unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn legislation so broad and sweeping. On the other hand, it is far more unusual to pass such a fundamentally transformative law on such a narrow, partisan basis.

Obamacare passed the Congress without a single vote from the opposition party — in contradistinction to Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, similarly grand legislation, all of which enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. In the Senate, moreover, Obamacare squeaked by through a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation that was never intended for anything so sweeping. The fundamental deviation from custom and practice is not the legal challenge to Obamacare but the very manner of its enactment.

The president’s preemptive attack on the court was in direct reaction to Obamacare’s three days of oral argument. It was a shock. After years of contemptuously dismissing the very idea of a legal challenge, Democrats suddenly realized there actually is a serious constitutional argument to be made against Obamacare — and they are losing it.

Here were highly sophisticated conservative thinkers — lawyers and justices — making the case for limited government, and liberals weren’t even prepared for the obvious constitutional question: If Congress can force the individual into a private contract by authority of the commerce clause, what can it not force the individual to do? Without a limiting principle, the central premise of our constitutional system — a government of enumerated powers — evaporates. What, then, is the limiting principle?

Liberals were quick to blame the administration’s bumbling solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, for blowing the answer. But Clarence Darrow couldn’t have given it. There is none.

Justice Stephen Breyer tried to rescue the hapless Verrilli by suggesting that by virtue of being born, one enters into the “market for health care.” To which plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Carvin devastatingly replied: If birth means entering the market, Congress is omnipotent, authorized by the commerce clause to regulate “every human activity from cradle to grave.”

Q.E.D.

Having lost the argument, what to do? Bully. The New York Times loftily warned the Supreme Court that it would forfeit its legitimacy if it ruled against Obamacare because with the “five Republican-appointed justices supporting the challenge led by 26 Republican governors, the court will mark itself as driven by politics.”

Really? The administration’s case for the constitutionality of Obamacare was so thoroughly demolished in oral argument that one liberal observer called it “a train wreck.” It is perfectly natural, therefore, that a majority of the court should side with the argument that had so clearly prevailed on its merits. That’s not partisanship. That’s logic. Partisanship is four Democrat-appointed justices giving lock-step support to a law passed by a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president — after the case for its constitutionality had been reduced to rubble.

Democrats are reeling. Obama was so taken aback, he hasn’t even drawn up contingency plans should his cherished reform be struck down. Liberals still cannot grasp what’s happened — the mild revival of constitutionalism in a country they’ve grown so used to ordering about regardless. When asked about Obamacare’s constitutionality, Nancy Pelosi famously replied: “Are you serious?” She was genuinely puzzled.

As was Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.). As Michael Barone notes, when Hare was similarly challenged at a 2010 town hall, he replied: “I don’t worry about the Constitution.” Hare is now retired, having been shortly thereafter defeated for reelection by the more constitutionally attuned owner of an East Moline pizza shop.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Legally, who has the authority to send the US to war?

Here's an exchange in congressional testimony between Sen. Sessions and SecDef Panetta.  I learned in Government class, that only Congress has the authority to declare war.  I know that has gotten muddy with the advent of the military action by Executive Order, but I don't recall anywhere that we have to get permission from the rest of the world in order to do anything.  Am I surprised that apparently, this is the new "precedent" under this administration.  Not so much.  Here's the exchange:


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Do you think you can act without Congress and act, and initiate a no-fly zone in Syria? Without Congressional approval?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Again, our goal would be to uh, to seek international permission and we, and we would come to the Congress and inform  you and determine how best to approach and whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress, I think those are issues we would have to discuss as we decide what to do here.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Well, I'm almost breathless about that.  Because what I heard you say is we're going to seek international approval and then you will come and tell the Congress what we might do.  And we might seek Congressional approval.  


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Well-


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Now, I want to say to you, that's a big dis-, wouldn't you agree? You've served in the congress...


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Yeah-


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Wouldn't you agree? That that's...uh...would be pretty breathtaking to the average americans?  So, would you like to clarify that?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
<Stutter and stammer> You know, I've also served with Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, who have always reserved the right to defend this country if necessary.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
But before you do this, you would seek permission from the international authorities...?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If we're working with an international coalition, and we're working with NATO...we would want to be able to, be able to get appropriate permissions in order to be able to do that. That's something that all of these countries would want to have some legal basis on which to act. 


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
What legal basis are you looking for?  What, what entity?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Well, obviously the UN, if NATO made the decision to go in, that would be one...if we, if we developed an international coalition beyond NATO, then oviously some kind of UN security resolution.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
So you're saying that NATO would give you a legal basis? And an ad-hoc coalition of nations would provide a legal basis?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If we were able to put together a coalition...and we're able to move together, then obviously we would seek whatever legal basis we would need in order to make that justified.  I mean, we can't just pull them all together, in a combat operation, without getting the legal basis in which to act.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Who are you asking for the legal basis from?


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
If it's um, if the UN passed a security resolution as it did in Libya, we would do that, if NATO came together as we did in Bosnia, we would rely on that. So we have options here, if we want to build the kind of international approach to dealing with the situation.


Senator Jeff Sessions (R):
Well, I'm all for having international support, but I'm really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat. I don't believe it's close to being correct.  They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that's required to deploy the United States military is the Congress and the President and the law and the Constitution.


Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta:
Let me, just for the record, be clear again, Senator, so there's no misunderstanding. When it comes to the national defense of this country, the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution, to act to defend this country.  And we will.  If it comes to an operation where we're trying to build a coalition of nations, to work together, to go in and operate as we did in Libya or Bosnia, for that matter Afghanistan, we want to do it with permissions either by NATO or the international community.



Original Video: via Sen. Sessions Youtube:

Chris Dodd, the MPAA, and the US Congress

...aka the shining example of corrupted, crony capitalism. I love capitalism. I despise crony capitalism. Chris Dodd bailed out of Congress when it became clear that his shady dealings with Countrywide and other mortgage companies would come back to bite him. And the MPAA gave him 7 figures a year to keep in touch with DC. Read the original here.

MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren't Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought
from the sickening dept

Reinforcing the fact that Chris Dodd really does not get what's happening, and showing just how disgustingly corrupt the MPAA relationship is with politicians, Chris Dodd went on Fox News toexplicitly threaten politicians who accept MPAA campaign donations that they'd better pass Hollywood's favorite legislation... or else:

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

This certainly follows what many people assumed was happening, and fits with the anonymous comments from studio execs that they will stop contributing to Obama, but to be so blatant about this kind of corruption and money-for-laws politics in the face of an extremely angry public is a really, really, really tone deaf response from Dodd.

It shows, yet again, that he just doesn't get it. People were protesting not just because of the content of these bills, but because of the corrupt process of big industries like Dodd's "buying" politicians and "buying" laws. To then come out and make that threat explicit isn't a way to fix things or win back the public. It's just going to get them more upset, and to recognize just how corrupt this process is. If Dodd, as he said in yesterday's NY Times, really wanted to turn things around and come to a more reasonable result, this is exactly how not to do it. It shows, yet again, a DC-insider's mindset. He used Fox News to try to "send a message" to politicians. But the internet already sent a much louder message... and, even worse for Dodd, he bizarrely sent his message in a way that everyone who's already fed up with this kind of corruption can see it too. It really makes you wonder what he's thinking and how someone so incompetent at this could keep his job.

The MPAA doesn't need a DC insider explicitly demanding the right to buy laws and buy politicians. The MPAA needs a reformer, one who helps guide Hollywood into the opportunities of a new market place. The MPAA needs someone who actually understands the internet, and helps lead the studios forward. That's apparently not Chris Dodd.

Public Knowledge issued a fantastic statement that not only highlights the ridiculousness of Dodd's threats, but also the hypocrisy of the Hollywood studios on this issue:

Public Knowledge welcomes constructive dialog with people from all affected sectors about issues surrounding copyright, the state of the movie industry and related concerns. Cybersecurity experts, Internet engineers, venture capitalists, artists, entrepreneurs, human rights advocates, law professors, consumers and public-interest organizations, among others should be included. They were shut out of the process for these bills.

We suggest that in the meantime, if the MPAA is truly concerned about the jobs of truck drivers and others in the industry, then it can bring its overseas filming back to the U.S. and create more jobs. It could stop holding states hostage for millions of dollars in subsidies that strained state budgets can’t afford while pushing special-interest bills through state legislatures. While that happens, discussions could take place.

MPAA Head Chris Dodd on Online Censorship Bill: China's the Model

Here's another reason to dislike Chris Dodd. First he got involved in the housing market, now he works for the MPAA. Here's their strategy from his own words. Read the original here.

MPAA Head Chris Dodd on Online Censorship Bill: China's the Model
5:31 PM, DEC 12, 2011 • BY DANIEL HALPER

Jen Rubin makes the case today that the anti-piracy bills pending in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), are likely unconstitutional. The bills essentially call for censorship of online speech in such a way, and with so little recourse for those accused of "infringing" on intellectual property rights, that the bills will likely not survive the scrutiny of the courts even if they do survive in Congress. But if Congress does pass these laws, it will be a testament to the enormous power and influence of two Democratic special interest groups—the Hollywood lobby, comprised of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and the trial lawyers.

If you're wondering why lawyers and Hollywood folks would get behind legislation to censor the Internet, you only need to listen to former Senator Chris Dodd, now the head of the MPAA, who last week explained to Variety that the lobby is only asking for the same kind of power to censor the Internet as the government has in the People's Republic of China:

"When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn't do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites."

Indeed, that is precisely the kind of abuse of power we are already seeing from the collaboration between Hollywood and the government on this issue. Last week a tech website reported on a website seizure by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the behest of the Recording Industry:

The US government has effectively admitted that it totally screwed up and falsely seized & censored a non-infringing domain of a popular blog, having falsely claimed that it was taking part in criminal copyright infringement. Then, after trying to hide behind a totally secretive court process with absolutely no due process whatsoever (in fact, not even serving papers on the lawyer for the site or providing timely notifications -- or providing any documents at all), for over a year, the government has finally realized it couldn't hide any more and has given up, and returned the domain name to its original owner. If you ever wanted to understand why ICE's domain seizures violate the law -- and why SOPA and PROTECT IP are almost certainly unconstitutional -- look no further than what happened in this case.

Even in China they are calling it the “Great Firewall of America.” At least the Chinese are enjoying the irony of the U.S. government moving toward a legal regime that would give it carte blanche to seize and take down websites on the basis of "infringement." Tech Dirt, the site that reported on the above domain seizure, quotes one Chinese blogger on Sina Weibo subversively commenting on the progress of SOPA and PIPA in Congress:

It looks like that we can finally export our technology and value to the Americans. We’re strong, advanced, and absolutely right!

Internet piracy bill: A free speech ‘kill switch’

Read the original here.

Internet piracy bill: A free speech ‘kill switch’
By Bill Wilson, Americans for Limited Government -12/12/11 10:14 AM ET

What began as an attempt to restrain foreign piracy on the Internet has morphed into a domestic “kill switch” on First Amendment freedom in the fastest-growing corner of the marketplace of ideas.

Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers – a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.Under the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) the federal government – which is prohibited constitutionally from abridging free speech or depriving its citizens of their property without due process – would engage in both practices on an unprecedented scale. And in establishing the precursor to a taxpayer-funded “thought police,” it would dramatically curtail technology investment and innovation – wreaking havoc on our economy.

Consider this: Under the proposed legislation all that’s required for government to shutdown a specific website is the mere accusation that the site unlawfully featured copyrighted content. Such an accusation need not be proven – or even accompanied by probable cause. All that an accuser (or competitor) needs to do in order to obtain injunctive relief is point the finger at a website.

Additionally, SOPA would grant regulators the ability to choke off revenue to the owners of these newly classified “rogue” websites by accusing their online advertisers and payment providers as co-conspirators in the alleged “piracy.” Again, no finding of fact would be required – the mere allegation of impropriety is all that’s needed to cut the website’s purse strings.

Who’s vulnerable to this legislation?

“Any website that features user-generated content or that enables cloud-based data storage could end up in its crosshairs,” writes David Sohn, senior policy council at the Center on Democracy and Technology. “(Internet Service Providers) would face new and open-ended obligations to monitor and police user behavior. Payment processors and ad networks would be required to cut off business with any website that rights-holders allege hasn’t done enough to police infringement.”

The Center’s president and CEO, Leslie Harris, points a bleak picture of the impact SOPA and its companion legislation in the U.S. Senate would have on the world wide web, arguing that the legislation would “(jeopardize) the continued development of powerful new forums for free expression and political dissent.”

“If these bills pass, there will be major collateral damage to Internet innovation, online free expression, the inner workings of Internet security, and user privacy,” Harris writes.

Google’s public policy director Bob Boorstin takes it one step further, arguing that the bills “would put the U.S. government in the very position we criticize repressive regimes for doing – all in the name of copyright.”

The proliferation of free expression on the Internet has spawned a vibrant new marketplace of ideas – toppling the old legacy media construct and ushering in an era of enhanced accountability in which thousands of new voices provide heightened scrutiny of our elected officials.Obviously, silencing those voices and stifling the web’s innovative potential would exact a heavy toll on this new accountability – and on the U.S. economy. In a letter urging their colleagues to oppose SOPA, U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Darrell Issa speak to this very concern.

“Online innovation and commerce were responsible for 15 percent of U.S. GDP growth from 2004 to 2009,” Reps. Lofgren and Issa write. “Before we impose a sprawling new regulatory regime on the Internet, we must carefully consider the risks that it could pose for this vital engine of our economy.”

Safeguarding intellectual property is certainly an important goal. The ability to protect one’s work product is vital to the proper functioning of the free market – and key to preserving its innovative potential. However in enhancing property protections, we cannot permit the government to trample over our right to free speech and due process.

SOPA is the equivalent of curing a headache with a guillotine. It may stop piracy, but it would shut down our economy and unconstitutionally erode our most basic freedoms in the process.

Wilson is president of Americans for Limited Government.

Congress wants to Legislate the internet

Read the original here.

Overkill on Internet piracy

Right Turn by Jennifer Rubin 

Washington Post

Over the weekend, First Amendment impresario Floyd Abrams addressed two controversial Internet piracy bills, the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House version, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). He argued that the bill, designed to stop Internet theft of intellectual property, has been denounced by critics for setting up “ ‘walled gardens patrolled by government censors.’ Or derided as imparting ‘major features’ of ‘China’s Great Firewall’ to America. And accused of being ‘potentially politically repressive.’ ” He contends, “This is not serious criticism. The proposition that efforts to enforce the Copyright Act on the Internet amount to some sort of censorship, let alone Chinese-level censorship, is not merely fanciful. It trivializes the pain inflicted by actual censorship that occurs in repressive states throughout the world. Chinese dissidents do not yearn for freedom in order to download pirated movies.”

I don’t quarrel with his assertion that it is hysterical to regard enforcement of libel and copyright infringement on the Internet as the beginning of a totalitarian state. But he misses the real point of sober-minded critics: The bill is unnecessarily overbroad and a formula for a host of undesirable and unintended consequences.

ABC News reported last month on the overbroad nature of the remedies that would be available:
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, said the bills would overdo it — giving copyright holders and government the power to cut off Web sites unreasonably. They could be shut down, and search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo could be stopped from linking to them.
“The solutions are draconian,” Schmidt said Tuesday at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “There’s a bill that would require ISPs [Internet service providers] to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”

Harvard law professor and Supreme Court advocate Laurence Tribe (whom I don’t always agree with but who takes the Bill of Rights quite seriously and was instrumental in developing the jurisprudence that confirmed the Second Amendment is an individual right) has submitted a memo detailing the multiple ways in which SOPA runs afoul of the First Amendment. For example, “SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site ‘or portion thereof .’ Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.”And likewise: “The notice-and-termination procedure of Section 103(a) runs afoul of the ‘prior restraint’ doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website,merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being ‘dedicated to theft of U.S. property’ — even if no court has actually found any infringement. The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt.”

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have introduced a competing bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (the “Open Act”), which seeks to address legitimate concerns about SOPA/PIPA and focus more specifically on the real problem without knocking down robust, protected speech in an indiscriminate fashion. Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Mozilla, Yahoo!, and Zynga have signed on to support this alternative to SOPA/PIPA.

The Hill recently reported on OPEN: “The draft proposal would instead authorize the International Trade Commission to investigate and issue cease-and-desist orders against foreign websites that provide pirated content or sell counterfeit goods. The ITC would have to find that the site is ‘primarily’ and ‘willfully’ engaged in copyright infringement to issue the order.” Rather than take down entire websites and potentially interfere with perfectly legitimate and protected speech OPEN, would, after a court order, “compel payment providers and online advertising services to cease providing services to the offending website. The approach comports with current copyright law and hews to the ‘follow the money’ approach favored by Google and other tech companies.”

In short, this is not a fight between protectors of copyrights and Internet anarchists. Rather, there is a legitimate policy dispute about how broad and how disruptive government enforcement powers should be when core First Amendment rights are at issue. No doubt the Motion Picture Association of America, headed by disgraced former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, has spread plenty of money around Congress to try to give the government the bluntest, heaviest weapon to fight piracy. But that doesn’t make it good policy. And it sure doesn’t make for constitutional legislation.

Pelosi cares about jobs, right?

Well....union jobs at least.

via Hotair.com, read the original here.
Heck Yeah, The Government Should Shut Down That Scab Plant In South Carolina « Hot Air

Heritage finds a nice catch in this CNBC interview with Nancy Pelosi last week, as Maria Bartiromo queries Barack Obama’s favorite House Speaker on the role of government in business expansion. Should agencies like the NLRB have the authority to shut down private-sector plants simply for not being unionized? Pelosi barely waits for the question to conclude before blurting out her “yes”:


In an interview late last week, House Minority Leaeder Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNBC that Boeing should either unionize its production facilities in South Carolina, or shut them down entirely.

“Do you think it’s right that Boeing has to close down that plant in South Carolina because it’s non union?” asked host Maria Bartiromo. Pelosi’s reply: “Yes.”

The minority leader quickly added that she would rather it simply unionize and stay open. But barring unionization, by Pelosi’s reasoning, it should simply shut down.

Lachlan Markay wonders when Pelosi and the Democrats became so anti-jobs, anti-worker, and … anti-democracy:


Pelosi may or may not know that workers at the South Carolina plant in question voted resoundingly (199-68) to decertify their union two years ago. Government policies that would close the plant for being a non-union shop would simply be punishing those workers for exercising their right to determine union representation for themselves.

Government should have no interest in whether a particular plant is unionized or not, let alone assert authority in this area. Government exists to uniformly enforce the law without bias. Agencies like the NLRB want to use the color of authority to favor unions because they see that as a preferred social-engineering outcome — whether or not workers themselves want union representation or not.

We have come far from the legitimate exercise of government in this and many other areas. It’s time to demand a return of government to its proper boundaries, and perhaps eliminating altogether those agencies that have arrogated to themselves the power to impose their preferred social prescriptions through the abuse of agency authority. That would include the NLRB, the EPA, and a number of other federal entities.

Attorney General Holder is complicit or ignorant?

Read the original here.

So Holder ignored not one, not two, not three, but five memos about Fast and Furious?
POSTED AT 1:25 PM ON OCTOBER 6, 2011 BY TINA KORBE

It was never a comforting thought to think the Attorney General just can’t be bothered to read his weekly briefings, but it was at least plausible to think Eric Holder overlooked one or two memos about the pernicious and fatal Fast and Furious program. But make that five memos and the AG’s incompetence and negligence appear especially gross:

Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today said that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos beginning in July 2010, including four weeks in a row, describing the ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious. The memos were to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

The Attorney General told Issa during a House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, Grassley personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Grassley and Issa said they find it very troubling that Holder actually knew of Operation Fast and Furious much earlier, and in greater detail than he ever let on.

The memos specifically said that the straw buyers were “responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”

As Sen. Chuck Grassley said, given the amount of information Holder had at his disposal, he should have thought to at least ask the question, “Why haven’t we stopped them?”

The president said it well today in his press conference: “I think both Holder and I would have been very unhappy if someone had suggested that guns were allowed to pass through that could have been prevented by the United States of America.”

OK, so someone did suggest to Holder that guns were allowed to walk and Holder either overlooked the tip (as he claims, but for which he has no excuse) or didn’t care. Either way, he proves the president’s supposition wrong. Whether he was ignorant of or indifferent to the memos, the AG’s lack of concern is disturbing.

Did President Bush also let guns slip into Mexico?

What do you think? Read the original here.

SF Chronicle Story Repeats AP 'Fast & Furious' Misinformation

Bush also did it!
Bush also did it!

That is the current talking point desperately being promoted by the Associated Press, and now picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle, to try to explain away the selling of guns to members of the Mexican drug cartel by the Obama administration. The only problem is that the Associated Press left out a key detail as pointed out by Katie Pavlich of Townhall. First the misleading claim by AP:

The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers — the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents in still other cases may have allowed guns to "walk."

And now Pavlich explains how incredibly misleading that AP claim about Bush allowing guns to walk is:

The problem is, the "same tactic" under heavy criticism by the House Oversight Committee was not used under President Bush. Operation Fast and Furious started in Fall 2009 and was an offshoot of the Project Gunrunner program implemented under the Bush Administration. Project Gunrunner started as a pilot program in Laredo, Texas and went national in 2006. Project Gunrunner involved the surveillance of straw purchasers buying weapons, but those purchasers were immediately apprehended before crossing back into Mexico or tranferring arms to dangerous criminals. Shortly after Obama took office, Operation Fast and Furious allowed straw purchasers working for Mexican drug cartels to purchase mass amount of weapons in the United States and then take them back to Mexico in addition to allowing them to be lost at stash houses and tranferred to dangerous cartel members. ATF agents who have testified before Congress about the program said the idea was to "trace" those weapons, but the tracing ended up being a total failure as GPS batteries ran out and thousands of guns were lost in Mexico and only found at final violent crime scenes. Did both operations allow for straw purchasers to buy guns under ATF/DOJ surveillance? Yes, however, the key difference between Operation Fast and Furious under Obama and Project Gunrunner under Bush is that under Obama guns were allowed to go back into Mexico without interdiction or arrests. According to Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, straw purchaser arrests and prosecutions have been way down under this administration, so much so it's almost as if the Obama Justice Department has no interest in prosecuting illegal straw purchasers at all. (A straw purchaser is someone who buys guns illegally for those who cannot buy them. In this case, cartels members can't buy guns, so they hired "straw purchasers" to buy weapons for them).

So what the AP conveniently neglects to mention is that under the Bush administration, the guns were quickly apprehended BEFORE crossing the border. And now that the AP has set up a Fast & Furious excuse to pathetically explain away the Obama administration allowing guns to cross the border, the San Francisco Chronicle has latched onto the same excuse by citing this misinformation promoted by AP as you can see in this article by the Hearst Washington Bureau correspondent, Puneet Kollipara:

Texas GOP Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Tuesday demanded an independent investigation of whether Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress on what he knew about the botched gun-tracking operation known as "Fast and Furious" - and when he found out about it.

Also on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that the George W. Bush administration conducted a program similar to Fast and Furious, in which Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents were instructed to let Mexican drug cartel straw purchasers buy guns in the Phoenix area to follow the trail to higher-ups.

Known as Operation Wide Receiver, the Bush-era operation also let guns be transferred to suspected arms traffickers. Justice Department prosecutors have brought charges against nine people involved in the operation, according to AP; two have pleaded guilty.

And now we await a correction of this misinformation making it seem that the Bush administration also allowed guns to cross the border from both the Associated Press and copycat misinformer Kollipara in 5...4...3...2...

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2011/10/05/sf-chronicle-story-repeats-ap-fast-furious-misinformation#ixzz1ZvEsWgdQ

I'm sure this will be good for the economy...

Yeah, let's have everyone dump their funds and flee banks, that will help stabilize the economy. Read the original here.

Durbin To Bank Of America Customers: ‘Get The Heck Out Of That Bank’
Oct 3, 2011 6:51pm

Holding up a plastic debit card on the Senate floor this afternoon, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had some advice for Bank of America customers angry about the new $5 monthly fee: leave.

“Bank of America customers, vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank,” Durbin said on the Senate floor. “Find yourself a bank or credit union that won’t gouge you for $5 a month and still will give you a debit card that you can use every single day. What Bank of America has done is an outrage.”

Durbin said consumers are rightfully outraged about last week’s announcement.

“It is hard to believe that a bank would impose such a fee on loyal customers who simply are trying to access their own money on deposit at Bank of America,” he said. “Especially when Bank of America for years has been encouraging their customers to use debit cards as much as possible.”

Most basic checking accounts at Bank of America will see a 40 percent jump in monthly costs and the bank says the debit fee will be waived for customers who upgrade to “premium” accounts that require higher minimum balances.

The Dodd-Frank financial law this month lowers “interchange fees” that banks can charge retailers for debit transactions. Fees for retailers will shrink from 44 cents to a cap of 24 cents, which has led some debit card issuers to seek other ways to make up that lost revenue. Some people have blamed Durbin for his amendment, which capped the so-called swipe fees that banks can charge retailers.

“I am honored to be connected with this effort,” Durbin said today. “What we are doing is fair to try to strike some balance in an industry that has shown little or no balance. And one of the worst offenders in this is Bank of America, the largest bank in the United States.”

Meanwhile, the Bank of America homepage was down today for the second consecutive business day, which bank officials attributed to traffic and not hackers or malware.

Who increased the debt?

Read the original here.

Who Increased the Debt?

If you have a bunch of dumbass friends who post ill informed political tripe on their Facebook walls, you've probably seen this making the rounds lately:



This chart came from House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, and has been out since April of this year. Politifact looked in to, and gave the chart its lowest rating of Pants on Fire. One of the more glaring problems with that the debt from the first year of Obama's administration has been shifted to Bush, despite the dates on the chart not reflecting this. (Pelosi has released an updated chart, showing Bush at 86% and Obama at 35%.)

Now, there are some fair arguments that a lot of what happens early on in a president's term is due to the policies of the prior administration. But, the chart didn't do the same thing for other presidents on the chart. And, with Democrats controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, it's hard to blame Bush for the Democrats not acting to undo his mistakes, and in some cases doubling down on his policies.

The chart also looks only at the raw debt numbers, and not debt as a percentage of GDP. According to the Office of Budget Management, debt at percentage of GDP went up by 5.6% under Bush. Under Obama, it has increased 21.9%.

But really, the biggest problem with the chart is that it acts as if the President increases the debt. The real taxer and spender is the Congress.

What drove up spending from 2001-2009? "Bush's Wars," right? But, the vote to go to war in Afghanistan was nearly unanimous, opposed by only 1 Democrat. The vote to go in to Iraq was supported by 40% of Democrats. For both votes, Democrats controlled the Senate, and could have stopped either war.

Remember the bank bailouts? Sure, Bush was in office, but Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate at the time.

The fact of the matter is that the debt belongs to the mainstream of both parties. So, to reflect this, we've created a different, more accurate chart:

Use Debit Cards? Prepare for fees (surprise!)

Read the original here.

Remember the “Durbin Fee” while using your debit cards
POSTED AT 10:45 AM ON OCTOBER 3, 2011 BY ED MORRISSEY
Government imposes new price controls on an industry. Industry raises prices elsewhere to make up for the artificial cap on cost recovery. Government expresses shock, shock at the development. For those of us old enough to remember the 1970s, this seems like deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. For those either too young or too “dim,” as the Washington Examiner puts it, the surprise should be a learning experience, even for a “dim bulb” like Dick Durbin:


During the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, when Democrats controlled Congress, Durbin insisted on including an amendment that had nothing to do with Dodd-Frank’s stated aims of stable banks and consumer protections. The Durbin amendment granted regulators the authority to establish price controls on what banks could charge merchants that accepted their customers’ debit cards as payment. The resulting regulations, which took effect Oct. 1, limit what banks can charge merchants to no more than 24 cents per debit card transaction.

Critics pointed out that banks, facing $6 billion annual losses from this change, would shift the costs of debit cards from merchants to bank customers. Sure enough, Bank of America and several of its largest competitors — including Wells Fargo, PNC, HSBC, SunTrust, TDBank, and Chase — will be imposing various new fees on their customers to make up for Durbin’s folly.

Congress set the cap not because it understands the costs and risks involved in issuing debit cards to consumers, but because they thought they knew better than the competitive market what constituted a “fair” price. Until Congress intervened, retailers paid the costs of the debit cards, which made sense since it made it a lot more convenient for their customers to make purchases. It also all but eliminated the use of checks at retail stores, which greatly reduced the risk that retailers had to make in parting with services or goods. That made debit cards a good deal for retailers, and the reduced risks kept consumers from paying more at the register.

Now, however, Congress has forced banks to shift a good portion of those costs back to the consumers instead. Every bank will have to make that adjustment, since none of them are in business to lose money, and their stockholders expect the best return possible on their investment. But for some reason, Durbin still doesn’t understand how a P&L statement works:


“Bank of America is trying to find new ways to pad their profits by sticking it to its customers,” Durbin said in a petulant statement released this week. This might almost pass the laugh test, if not for the fact that every bank is adjusting to Durbin’s dumb law in nearly the same way. …

Durbin shrugged off such warnings, suggesting that those who disagreed with him were motivated by greed and “on the side of Wall Street banks and credit card companies.” He absurdly claimed that the debit card fee cut would help to prevent banks “up on Wall Street” from causing another financial crisis — a non sequitur so completely disingenuous that it can only be called a lie.

It could also be called gross ignorance, or possibly even both. Price controls distort markets in exactly this manner. Retailers may have griped about the fees, but they could have easily refused to accept debit cards and insisted on checks or cash to conduct their business. Instead of allowing the market to work, government interfered on behalf of one set of stakeholders without having any idea what the obvious and predictable consequences would be. The only people shocked, shockedat the distortion that resulted are indeed great candidates for the Dim Bulbs of the Year.

Rhetoric or Slander?

Hmm...the age of post-racial politics and civility, huh. And I hardly think that exclaiming "You Lie" to a statement that was in fact admitted later to be false, is the same as saying that a political group want to lynch people. Read the original here.

By JAKE SHERMAN | 8/31/11 7:50 AM EDT
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62396.html#ixzz1Wc1QeRAJ

Andre Carson: Tea Party Wants Blacks 'Hanging On A Tree'

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC’s chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me…hanging on a tree.”Continue Reading

Carson's quote, West's response

Carson also said the tea party is stopping change in Congress, likening it to “the effort that we’re seeing of Jim Crow.”

The explosive comments, caught on tape, were uploaded on the internet Tuesday, and Carson’s office stood by the remarks. Jason Tomcsi, Carson’s spokesman, said the comment was “in response to frustration voiced by many in Miami and in his home district in Indianapolis regarding Congress’ inability to bolster the economy.” Tomcsi, in an email, wrote that “the congressman used strong language because the Tea Party agenda jeopardizes our most vulnerable and leaves them without the ability to improve their economic standing.

“The Tea Party is protecting its millionaire and oil company friends while gutting critical services that they know protect the livelihood of African-Americans, as well as Latinos and other disadvantaged minorities,” Tomcsi wrote. “We are talking about child nutrition, job creation, job training, housing assistance, and Head Start, and that is just the beginning. A child without basic nutrition, secure housing, and quality education has no real chance at a meaningful and productive life.”

Carson is hardly the first lawmaker to use heated rhetoric. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled “you lie” as President Barack Obama was addressing Congress. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) yelled “baby killer” at former Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) as abortion was being discussed during the health care debate.

Carson, who represents Indianapolis, is the second Muslim to ever serve in Congress. He has been in office since 2008, and took the seat that was held by his late grandmother — Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.).

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62396.html#ixzz1Wc1aRlES

Who's holding back the Recovery?

Money quote:

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass., Aug 20 (Reuters) - A vacationing U.S. President Barack Obama accused Congress on Saturday of holding back the U.S. economic recovery by blocking "common sense" measures he said would create jobs and help growth.

The President certainly has an opinion, read the original here.

Obama accuses Congress of holding back U.S. recovery
Sat Aug 20, 2011 6:00am EDT
* Construction, trade, payroll tax bills could help -Obama
* Republican governor says Obama has responsibility to act
By Laura MacInnis

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass., Aug 20 (Reuters) - A vacationing U.S. President Barack Obama accused Congress on Saturday of holding back the U.S. economic recovery by blocking "common sense" measures he said would create jobs and help growth.

In remarks recorded on Wednesday on his campaign-style bus tour in Illinois and aired during his holiday in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Obama said the stalled construction, trade and payroll tax bills could give a boost to the economy.

"The only thing preventing us from passing these bills is the refusal by some in Congress to put country ahead of party. That's the problem right now. That's what's holding this country back," the president said in his weekly radio address, which is also transmitted on the Internet.

Wall Street stocks have suffered four weeks of losses because of investor jitters, partly over concerns that the United States may be headed for another recession after barely growing in the first half of 2011.

With the national unemployment rate stuck above 9 percent, Obama's re-election hopes may hinge on his ability to convince voters he is steering the U.S. economy the right way.

He has been criticized for taking off to Martha's Vineyard, a wealthy island retreat near Boston, at at time when some 14 million Americans are out of work. Such breaks are typical for U.S. presidents, and the Obamas also took vacations in Martha's Vineyard in August of 2010 and 2009.

The White House has said the president would spend much of his nine-day absence from Washington working on the job and growth package he will unveil in an early September speech.

In his Saturday remarks, Obama acknowledged the country remained far from full health.

"We're going through a tough time right now. We're coming through a terrible recession," he said. "So we need folks in Washington -- the people whose job it is to deal with the country's problems, the people who you elected to serve -- we need them to put aside their differences to get things done."

Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats control the Senate. A bitter fight between the two parties over deficit-cutting brought the country to the edge of a debt default and sparked a credit ratings downgrade this month.

In the Republicans' weekly address, Ohio Governor John Kasich said it was wrong for the president to stand aside and blame others for the impasse that has also affected legislation related to immigration, energy and other issues.

"Divided government is no excuse for inaction," said Kasich, a former chairman of the House Budget Committee.

"There's just no substitute for leadership from the president of the United States," Kasich said. "It's my hope President Obama will listen to the people and partner with Republicans to get our economy back to creating jobs and producing growth."

The governor also called on conservative Republicans to show more willingness to compromise as required.

"It's just as important that Republicans not be stiff-necked about working across the aisle when important work must be done," he said, suggesting: "It's OK to compromise on policy, as long as you don't compromise on your principles." (Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Credit Downgrade is whose fault?

Read the original here.

Democrats Seek To Pin Credit Downgrade On Tea Party

While continuing to cast doubt on the credibility of Standard & Poor’s, several Democrats on Sunday said there is an even greater culprit in the downgrade of the nation’s credit rating: the tea party.

“I believe this is, without question, the tea party downgrade,” Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, a day that also saw mounting anxieties in world markets over the downgrade among myriad other economic woes worldwide. Some of the world’s top financial ministers issued a joint statement Sunday night committing themselves to preserve the stability of financial markets and their economies.

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Obama, used the exact same phrase in dubbing the credit rating drop the “tea party downgrade,” as Democrats tried to position themselves as reasonable, pragmatic leaders and conservative Republicans as irresponsible ideologues who caused the downgrade by refusing to accept any new taxes.

That’s exactly the kind of blame game that led Standard & Poor’s, one of three key credit-ratings agencies, to strip the U.S. federal government of its AAA status Friday night and reducing it to AA+ for the first time in the nation’s history.

“Congress and the administration are jointly responsible for the conduct of fiscal policy. So, this is not really about either political party,” David Beers, the head of S&P’s government debt-rating unit, said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

In justifying its actions, S&P cited the political gridlock that continues to paralyze Washington. Although Democrats and Republicans eventually came together last week and crafted a compromise bill to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, S&P decided it wasn’t enough to save the nation’s AAA status, a rating still held by France, Sweden and other countries, and businesses such as Coca-Cola Co. and Microsoft Corp.

“Even with the agreement of Congress and the administration this past week … the underlying debt burden of the U.S. government is rising and will continue to do so most likely over the next decade,” Mr. Beers said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, defended the tea party and said that without the movement, trillions of dollars in spending cuts wouldn’t be possible.

“Thank God they’re here,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“This is the first time we’ve ever raised the debt ceiling where we tried to actually reduce spending. That’s a good thing, but we’re woefully short,” he said. “The tea party hasn’t destroyed Washington. Washington was destroyed before the tea party got here. The hope is that the tea party and middle-of-the-road people can find common ground to turn this country around before we become Greece.”

Democrats, who also had harsh words for S&P, said there’s enough blame to go around.

Lawrence H. Summers, former director of Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council, on Sunday called the agency’s track record “terrible.” He referenced S&P’s highly positive ratings for mortgage-backed securities that tanked in 2008, which many blame for the ongoing economic crisis.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, in his first public comments on the credit downgrade, told CNBC that S&P had shown “terrible judgment.”

“They’ve handled themselves very poorly. And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math,” he said.

Democrats weren’t alone in their stinging critiques of S&P. Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Steve Forbes, former Republican presidential candidate and CEO of Forbes Inc., said the downgrade was “outrageous” and “a political move.”

“I’m surprised S&P would play politics. The U.S. government can pay the interest and principal on the bonds,” he added.

S&P also has come under fire for a $2 trillion error in its calculations of projected U.S. debt, which the agency later corrected. Democrats noted that Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, the other two major ratings agencies, haven’t stripped the U.S. of its AAA status.

“They made a $2 trillion mistake. The other ratings agencies did not downgrade the U.S. debt because they did not make that $2 trillion mistake,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

Despite the initial error, S&P’s broader analysis hasn’t changed, Mr. Beers said. The agency also warned of another downgrade if Congress and the administration can’t get a handle on the mounting national debt.

Also speaking on “This Week,” S&P Managing Director John Chambers said there is “at least 1 in 3 chance” that the credit rating could be lowered further in the next six to 24 months.

While Republicans see the threat of another downgrade as evidence that the federal government must reduce spending drastically, some Democrats see the move as justification for tax increases.

“Look, I think this Standard & Poor’s downgrade is a good thing, because I think it underlines the fact that you can’t [tackle the national debt] without raising revenues,” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who ran for president in 2004 and later led the Democratic National Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“The vast majority of the American people want us to raise revenues, particularly on all those gazillionaires that Republicans’ tax cuts mostly benefit,” Mr. Dean said. “So let’s do the right thing. Let’s everybody put something into the pot.”

Mr. Dean also took shots at the tea party, saying the activists’ conduct during the debt ceiling debate proves “they’ve been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it.”

The nation’s best chance to avoid further downgrade may lie with a so-called “supercommittee” to be formed as part of the debt ceiling deal Mr. Obama struck with Republicans last week.

The 12 members of that committee must be named by Aug. 16, and there has been widespread speculation that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, architect of the 2012 Republican budget, will be chosen. But Mr. Ryan on Sunday poured cold water on the notion that the supercommittee will come to the rescue.

“I wouldn’t call it super. … I’m not putting all my stock in this committee,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be what fixes all of our fiscal problems. … Ultimately, I really think you need to change leadership in Washington if you want to fix this problem,” he added.

At best, Mr. Ryan said, the “supercommittee” will identify $1 trillion to $2 trillion in additional cuts, far below the $4 trillion threshold S&P cited as necessary to put the nation back on firmer financial footing.

Mr. Ryan also is an example of how jockeying for partisan advantage affects the nation’s finances.

When he proposed a long-term budget this year, Democrats immediately pounced on the fact that it scaled back Medicare spending in later years. One commercial by the liberal Agenda Project told viewers to “ask Paul Ryan and his friends in Congress” to explain grandmothers in wheelchairs being pushed off cliffs.

On Sunday’s talk shows, Mr. Dean reiterated that Democratic line in the sand, and did so immediately after having said “everybody” needed to sacrifice.

“There’s some things you can’t put into the pot. If Medicare eligibility goes up to 67, you’re going to see people running against Democrats in primaries. You know, we’re not going to penalize old people,” he said.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Congressional Dems push for Internet Sales Tax

Read the original here.

Democrats Turn To Online Sales Tax For New Revenues Following Debt Battle

While the nation was captivated by the debt crisis – and whether tax increases would be part of any deal to reduce federal deficits – a group of Democratic senators and congressmen have rolled out legislation that would raise new revenues by targeting online sales from retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

These lawmakers say that states are losing billions in uncollected state and local sales tax on Internet sales and are touting the support of online retailers like Amazon who say they’re fine with an across-the-board system that would make tax collections simple.

But small businesses say the new legislation is unfair and puts them at a cost disadvantage at a time when they can least afford it.

The bill introduced by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., last week called the Main Street Fairness Act, has drawn support from several Democrats, including Sens. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, Peter Welch of Vermont and Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to face the burden of reporting all of their online purchases. Main Street retailers collect sales taxes on behalf of consumers, why shouldn’t online retailers do the same,” Durbin said in a statement Friday.

Durbin noted that states are expected to lose up to $24 billion in uncollected state and local taxes this year on Internet and catalog sales.

“This bill will level the playing field for local businesses, by ensuring that online retailers collect the same sales taxes that brick-and-mortar retailers already do,” Conyers said. “This will help our state and local governments avoid devastating layoffs and cuts to essential services vital to the well-being of our local communities.”

But several tech groups strongly oppose the bill.

“Congress often says that small businesses are the backbone of the economic recovery, but these new collection costs will break the backs of many small online businesses,” said Steve, DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, a tech trade group.

“It’s a cruel irony to call this job-killing bill the ‘Main Street Fairness Act,’” DelBianco added. “Online sales are about the only way small retailers can survive being steamrolled by the big-box chains who are behind this bill.”

Retailers are only required to collect sales tax in states where they also have a physical presence under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling known as the Quill decision. The high court ruled that a sales tax on out-of-state sellers would be an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce because of the complexity of states’ and municipalities’ sales tax rules.

That means out-of-state retailers can offer their customers a discount online, but consumers have to report the sales tax owed on online purchases on their tax returns.

In response to the Quill decision, 44 states and the District of Columbia are working with local governments and the business community to adopt a sweeping interstate system to simplify their sales tax rules and administrative requirements, called the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. So far, 24 states have changed their laws in compliance with this interstate agreement.

But the Quill decision said Congress would have to authorize such an agreement, which supporters say the bill does.

Amazon.com Inc., the largest online Internet retailer, threw its support behind the bill.

“Amazon.com has long supported a simple, nationwide system of state and local sales tax collection, evenhandedly applied to all sellers, no matter their business model, location, or level of remote sales,” Paul Misener, vice president of Amazon’s global public policy, said in a letter to Durbin that the Illinois senator included in a press release.

“To this end, I am writing to thank you for your bill that would allow states that sufficiently simplify their rules to require collection of sales tax by out-of-state sellers,” he wrote.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents more than 200 retailers, also supports the bill, saying it would end special treatment for online-only retailers and relieve consumers of the tax-reporting requirement.

“For too long, U.S. tax policy has favored online-only retailers over the brick-and-mortar stores that creates the jobs and serves our communities,” said Katherine Lugar, a spokeswoman for the association.

“Government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers by giving a handful of companies a competitive advantage over everyone else,” he said. “It’s time to close this decades-old loophole and level the playing field for all retailers.”

But the Computer and Communications Industry Association opposes the bill, saying that taxing small Internet businesses with the most potential for economic growth is unfair.

“E-commerce has enabled businesses to broaden the scope of their activities beyond traditional geographical limitations,” said Ed Black, president and CEO of CCIA. “Sadly, this bill seeks to re-impose onto e-commerce businesses the very burdens that innovation has enabled them to overcome, and has given them a chance for success.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/03/with-spending-cuts-only-deal-passed-dems-seek-new-revenues-in-online-sales/#ixzz1TzX4UirB

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

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

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.

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.

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