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The World From Berlin: Obama's Euro-Crisis Lecture Is 'Pitiful And Sad' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - NewsREUTERS
Obama slammed the Europeans at an event in Mountain View, California on Monday.
US President Obama has given the Europeans a harsh lecture on the dangers of their ongoing debt crisis. Offended by the unsolicited advice, Europeans have suggested the US get its own house in order first. Obama's remarks were "arrogant" and "absurd" German commentators say on Wednesday.
Europeans are well aware of the seriousness of their ongoing debt crisis. But they don't, it seems, like to receive lectures from other countries -- especially the United States, which is struggling to deal with its own mountain of debt.
On Tuesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble curtly rejected recent American criticism of Europe's approach to solving its debt crisis.
"I don't think Europe's problems are America's only problems," said Schäuble, who has becomeincreasingly sharp-tongued as the euro crisis deepens. "It's always easier to give other people advice."
Schäuble was referring to strongly worded comments made by US President Barack Obama and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in recent days. At an event in California on Monday, Obama warned Europeans that their inaction was "scaring the world." The Europeans, he said, "have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It's now being compounded by what's happening in Greece." He continued: "They're going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world, and they're trying to take responsible actions, but those actions haven't been quite as quick as they need to be."
Distracting From Problems at Home
Those comments came hot on the heels of Geithner's remarks over the weekend. Speaking in Washington Saturday at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Geithner warned that the European debt crisis represents "the most serious risk now confronting the world economy." He said Europeans needed to do more to create a "firewall" against further contagion and talked of the threat of "cascading default" and runs on banks. "Decisions as to how to conclusively address the region's problems cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe," he said.
German observers have reacted angrily to the comments, saying that the US is in no position to criticize other countries, given its own $14-trillion pile of national debt and ongoing wrangling over the country's debt ceiling. Others claim that Obama is just trying to distract attention from the US's problems and point out that the US president was in California to raise funds and voter support ahead of his reelection campaign next year.
But perhaps the Europeans simply don't like a taste of their own medicine. When a US default was looming back in July when Congress was unable to agree on raising the debt ceiling, European commentators were quick to weigh in and give Obama and the US unsolicited advice. "The global economy needs an American agreement," said a French government minister at the time.
On Wednesday, German media commentators slam Obama's criticism of Europe.
The mass-circulation Bild writes:
"Obama's lecture on the euro crisis … is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. … In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is 'scaring the world.' Excuse me?"
"The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt … The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president's scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing."
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"One needs to remember the context within which Obama's scolding of the Europeans took place. It was an event where the president was raising money for the Democrats and where he wanted to explain to voters why the US economy is much worse off than he and his economic experts had believed until recently. Hence his criticism of the EU was simple electioneering."
"The problem, however, is that the US president is absolutely right. For far too long, the Europeans -- including the Germans -- treated the financial crisis as a purely American problem. They have still found no solution for their own debt crisis. Now Europe's problems are having a negative impact on growth and jobs around the world, including in the US. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Europe is threatening Obama's already precarious chances of reelection in 2012. That is something that surely does not leave Obama cold. In that respect, it doesn't help much to point out that, once the Europeans have got their house in order, the financial markets will return their attention to America's debt crisis and its ailing political system. Financially, Europe is currently the most dangerous place in the world."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama's future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat."
"Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis. We Europeans are apparently taking on too little new debt to get out of the crisis. But we are already feeling the wonderful effects of borrowing too much money."
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
"That's not how friends talk to each other. That applies particularly to friends who have themselves failed to get a handle on their own, self-made crisis. Barack Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another … Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing."
"These are suggestions that have already failed to work in the US: Money is supposed to save Europe -- quickly and in the largest quantities possible. US Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner has been trying for more than two-and-a-half years to suffocate his crisis with money. But aside from the lack of success, the collateral damage is immense. It manifests itself in a loss of government credibility, a loss of trust in the currency and the paralysis of any sort of dynamism -- because the crushing debt mountain is robbing the famously optimistic Americans of their confidence."
"The fact that Barack Obama, who is a brilliant thinker, knows full well that things are much more complicated in reality does not help. Indeed, it does the opposite. In the desperate battle for his re-election he'd rather construct myths, such as claiming that the Europeans alone are responsible for the American mess. Not only is this fundamentally wrong, but -- coming as it does from a friend -- it's downright pitiful and sad."
-- Kristen Allen and David Gordon Smith
What is a wrongful birth? Is this malpractice, or overly litigious parents. Read the original here....
Jury Awards West Palm Beach Parents Of Child Born With No Arms, One Leg $4.5 Million
By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 1:06 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011
Posted: 12:28 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH — After nearly nine hours of deliberation over two days, a Palm Beach County jury today awarded a West Palm Beach couple $4.5 million to care for their son who was born with no arms and one leg.
With the heartbreaking image of the small boy etched into their minds, jurors found Palm Beach Gardens obstetrician Dr. Marie Morel, OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches and Perinatal Specialists of the Palm Beaches responsible for not detecting the boy's horrific disabilities before he was born. The amount they awarded is half of the $9 million Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana were seeking for their son, Bryan.
The teary-eyed couple said they were overjoyed by the verdict. "I have no words," Mejia said in her native Spanish. Both agreed the award will make a huge difference in their son's life.
The jury of four men and two women found Morel 85 percent and an ultrasound technician 15 percent negligent for failing to properly read sonograms that would have alerted the couple of their son's disabilities before he was born in October 2008.
Attorney Mark Rosen, who represents Morel and the clinics, said they would appeal.
During a roughly two-week-long trial that ended Wednesday, Mejia and Santana claimed they would have never have brought Bryan into the world had they known about his horrific disabilities. Had Morel and technicians at OB/GYN Specialists of the Palm Beaches and Perinatal Specialists of the Palm Beaches properly administered two ultrasounds and seen he was missing three limbs, the West Palm Beach couple said they would have terminated the pregnancy.
Instead, they went to the hospital in October 2008, believing they would have a healthy son.
"They went from the heights of joyous expectations to the depths of despair," their attorney Robert Bergin told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
While the jury is being asked to award the couple money for their pain, he said they don't want any money for their suffering.
"Ana and Rodolfo Santana know their mental anguish and their emotions are not important," Bergin said. "The only thing that will help make up for their mental anguish is to know Bryan's life plan is fully funded."
The plan, that would cost $9 million, will cover prostheses, wheelchairs, operations, attendants and other needs he will have during his estimated 70-year life, Bergin said. "It will give piece of mind to these people that no matter what happens to them, their son will be all right," said Jason Weisser, who also represents the couple.
Without discounting Bryan's enormous needs, attorneys representing Morel and the ultrasound clinics insisted their clients weren't negligent.
"There is nothing Dr. Morel wants more than for Bryan Santana to have a happy, healthy life," said attorney Mark Rosen. "That doesn't mean they're responsible. Is it fair to blame physicians for acts of nature?"
He argued that the couple rejected amniocentesis, which might have revealed the abnormalities. The couple rejected it because they were told that there was a 1 in 500 chance that removing amniotic fluid for testing would cause a miscarriage.
Mejia testified that a genetic counselor she saw after an ultrasound detected a possibility Bryan would be born with Down's Syndrome told her there was a 99.9 percent chance he wouldn't have the form of mental retardation. Rather than needlessly risk losing the child, she and her husband decided not to have amniocentesis.
In doing so, Rosen said, the couple decided that they would rather give birth to a child that might have a physical or mental disability rather than risk losing it. That, he said, is contrary to their claims that they would have aborted their unborn son.
"No one is happy about what happened to Bryan Santana but Ana Mejia made the decision in 2008," he said.
Weisser countered that the couple was told the risk of Down's Syndrome was slight. While other abnormalities might have been detected by amniocentesis, the prospect of having a child who was missing three limbs was never discussed with the couple.
"There's not one shred of evidence that they were ever told there was an issue with one of his limbs, let along three," he said.
In fact, according to the second ultrasound, all four limbs were intact. "That, ladies and gentleman is impossible," Weisser said. "It didn't happen."
You always wonder why rich people harp that taxes should be raised. Must be nice to afford lawyers who can give you tax avoidance, regardless of the rate. If they really wanted to put their money where their mouth is, cut a check. At least Ben Affleck was honest in why he didn't want to: "I'm not Jesus Christ of the tax code. I can't completely martyr myself." Now, if only they didn't expect everyone else to be. Read the original here at RWN.
Let’s Call It ‘The American Class Warfare Package’
Written By : Kathleen McKinley
So, Obama’s new plan is the old plan. He hasn’t changed his tune since he told Joe The Plumber that we need to “spread the wealth around.”
From the AP:
President Barack Obama called for $1.5 trillion in new taxes Monday, part of a total 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion.
Obama said, “It’s only right we ask everyone to pay their fair share,”
Really? Because 47% of Americans pay NO federal income tax and “the rich” (top 1%) pay about 40% of all income taxes into the federal government. So, who isn’t paying their fair share? To me a flat tax is the only way to go. Everyone should have “skin in the game,” as Obama likes to say, even if it’s a tiny bit. We all need to be a part of the solution to our fiscal mess. This would be the fair way. The rich would pay a great deal more, so the class warfare guys would be happy, and everyone would pay at least a little bit, which would be fair all around.
But Obama wants to make this about class warfare. He seems to be using the third richest man in the country to do it.
Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class.
Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.
You will be hearing the Buffett/Secretary line over and over. Trust me on that. But, as usual, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Greg Makiw, a professor of economics at Harvard, tells the rest of it:
You might wonder how Mr Buffett managed such a low tax rate. Most likely, it arose because corporate dividends and capital gains are taxed at only 15 percent. But the corporate income that funded those returns was already taxed at the corporate level, where the tax rate is 35 percent. Mr Buffett seems to be ignoring the first round of taxation. Is it possible that the world’s most successful has failed to pierce the corporate veil? (If you want to more reliable data on the progressivity of the tax code, see this old post for numbers from the CBO.)
Even more striking to me is a fact that Mr Buffett did not emphasize: how low his taxable income is. His income of $46 million represents a mere 0.1 percent of his reported net worth of over $50 billion. That is not an impressive rate of return!
Why is it so low? I can think of at least four possible ways investors like Mr Buffet can keep their taxable income, as opposed to their true income, low:
They hold stocks that pay minimal dividends.
They avoid realizing capital gains.
They hold some of their portfolios in tax-free municipal bonds.
They give appreciated assets to charity, getting a deduction for the current market value without ever having to realize and pay tax on the capital gain.
Notice that raising tax rates, as Mr Buffett seems to want to do, would not much affect any of these tax avoidance strategies. Even if tax rates were raised substantially, the tax savvy Mr Buffet probably wouldn’t be paying much in taxes as a proportion of his wealth or as a proportion of his true income.
And the last line is the kicker. Even hypocrites like Mr. Buffet use tax avoidance strategies. When Mr. Buffett writes a check for a few billion to the government out his $50 billion out of the goodness of his heart, instead of hiring lawyers to lower that bill, I can’t take him seriously.
The insane thing about all this is that at time we need jobs, all Obama is talking about is raising taxes.
Mitt Romney sent out this statement and it hits the nail on the head:
“President Obama’s plan to raise taxes will have a crushing impact on economic growth. Higher taxes mean fewer jobs – it’s that simple. This is yet another indication that President Obama has no clue how to bring our economy back. I encourage President Obama to look at my detailed economic plan to create long-term growth and prosperity for our nation. The only way to get our economy moving again is to elect a president who understands how to create jobs and rein in spending – that is why I am running.”
Seriously, wtf? A few things. I'm shocked how many people apparently get arrested for defending their home. I was a little surprised by the outcry of support for the man who got killed. Yes, it is sad that someone got killed, but he was forcibly invading a home with a knife. I don't think he brought the knife to butter some bread. I'm just very confused, where if someone breaks into your house and threatens you and/or your family, you're not supposed to defend yourself. Makes me glad there's always Texas. By the way, nice of his friend to bail and leave the other burglar to die on the porch. Read the original here.
Vincent Cooke: Homeowner who killed burglar is released on bail
By Jaya Narain
Last updated at 1:18 PM on 19th September 2011
A wealthy family man was arrested on suspicion of murder yesterday after allegedly stabbing a burglar to death with his own knife has been bailed until mid-October.
Businessman Vincent Cooke, 39, was relaxing when he heard a knock at the front door of his detached home.
When he answered he was confronted by two men, at least one armed with a knife, who allegedly threatened him and tried to force their way into the £350,000 house in the Cheshire stockbroker belt.
With his wife and young son due home any minute, Mr Cooke fought desperately to keep the men out. In the struggle burglar Raymond Jacob, 37, was stabbed with his own knife and fell to the ground fatally injured. The second intruder fled.
Minutes later Mr Cooke’s wife, Karen, 35, and 12-year-old son Anthony arrived and watched in horror as the raider lay dying.
The incident happened in Bramhall, which boasts millionaire footballers, soap stars and TV presenters as residents.
It is the third time in six months that intruders have been stabbed to death by homeowners. The killings come after the Government pledged to bring in legislation which clarified the law on self-defence in England.
Justice Secretary Ken Clarke promised that householders who used ‘whatever force necessary’ on intruders in their homes would not be committing a criminal offence.
Mr Cooke, who runs a same day courier and logistics business, has been bailed today until October 17, Greater Manchester Police said.
He and his wife drive luxury cars, a gold Maserati and a silver Range Rover both with personalised registration plates, and detectives will be investigating whether they were targeted by the raiders for their wealth.
They will also examine whether the two men were known to Mr Cooke or had done business with him.
But sources close to the case were adamant that Mr Cooke is an ‘upstanding family man who was protecting his property and fearful for his family’s safety’.
A police source said last night: ‘At this moment it looks as if Mr Cooke was confronted at the door of his home by two men, at least one of whom was believed to have been armed with a knife. Officers are examining the possibility that the dead man was stabbed with this knife.’
Mr Jacob’s family were too upset to comment but they left floral tributes at the scene referring to him as ‘Ray’ and ‘Uncle Raymondo’.
One read: ‘Love you son, going to miss you more than anything. You mean the world to me. Love you loads, Dad.’
A note from his mother said: ‘To my baby boy who will always be my baby boy. I will miss you but never stop loving you, Mum.’
Another said: ‘To my gorgeous man Raymond. You may be gone but you will always be with me in my heart for ever. Love, your Stephanie.’
Mr Cooke was relaxing at his four-bedroom home at around 7.50pm on Saturday when the two men knocked at his door.
When he opened it, the raiders are understood to have pulled out at least one knife, threatened him and tried to force their way into the house.
A scuffle broke out and Raymond Jacob suffered a serious stab wound.
The second intruder is believed to have jumped into a white van and driven away at speed.
A 33-year-old man was arrested last night on suspicion of aggravated burglary and remains in police custody for questioning.
Neighbour John Griffin, 65, said: ‘Vinnie runs a courier company, he does a lot of importing, I think he goes to China quite a lot.
‘If I came home and found some scally in my house I’d do whatever I could to defend myself and my family. I’m sure Vinnie was doing the same.’
James Hutton, 81, said: ‘He’s just defending his home. If someone came into my home, I’d defend my wife. Your home is your castle.’
Dave Thompson, 43, said: ‘I used to see his wife Karen walking their two labradors down the road, and I’d say hello. It’s a shock, it’s horrible to think that something like this could happen.
‘But I’d have probably done the same thing, you’d be in fear of your own life. People breaking into other people’s homes deserve everything they get.’
Chief Superintendent Tim Forber of Greater Manchester Police said: ‘We believe the dead man was one of two men who were attempting to carry out a burglary at the house.’
He said he could not comment on whether the other raider was injured during the burglary.
The right to defend one’s property against intruders or burglars came to prominence in 1999 when farmer Tony Martin shot dead 16-year-old Fred Barras at his Norfolk home. Barras and accomplice Brendon Fearon had disturbed Martin in the middle of the night. Martin was jailed for life at Norwich Crown Court in April 2000 for murder, but his sentence was reduced by the Appeal Court to five years for manslaughter and he was released in 2003.
Fearon, who was wounded in the leg, was jailed for three years for conspiracy to burgle.
In June this year, Peter Flanagan, 59, escaped charges after he was arrested on suspicion of murder when an intruder was stabbed to death in his house in Salford.
In July, grandfather Cecil Coley, 72, was freed without charges after he stabbed an armed raider to death when a gang smashed their way into his florist’s shop in Old Trafford, Manchester.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038785/Vincent-Cooke-Homeowner-killed-burglar-released-bail.html#ixzz1YPB3jRTX
Read the original here.
Obama's Solyndra scandal reeks of the Chicago Way
Those of us from Chicago know exactly what the Solyndra scandal smells like. And It doesn't smell fresh and green.
Barack Obama's Solyndra Scandal Smells Like It Came From Chicago's City Hall
The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama
. And it's being billed as a Washington story.
But back in Obama's political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls "optics." In fact, it's not just a Washington saga — it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.
The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being "green." But then Solyndra went bankrupt. Americans lost jobs. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill. And members of Congress are now in high dudgeon and making speeches.
Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan. Washington bureaucrats warned the deal was lousy. And White House spokesmen flail desperately, like weakened victims in a cheesy vampire movie.
So forget optics. What about smell? It smells bad, and it's going to smell worse.
Or, did you really believe it when the White House mouthpieces — who are also Chicago City Hall mouthpieces — promised they were bringing a new kind of politics to Washington?
This is not a new kind of politics. It's the old kind. The Chicago kind.
And now the Tribune Washington Bureau has reported that the U.S. Department of Energy employee who helped monitor the Solyndra loan guarantee was one of Obama's top fundraisers.
Fundraising? Contracts? Imagine that.
Steve Spinner was the Obama administration official in charge of handing out billions and billions of tax dollars to "green" energy deals. According to the Tribune story, Spinner the other day invited Obama's national political finance committee to a meeting in Chicago.
The name of the Obama fundraising initiative?
"Technology for Obama."
The idea of the Obama fundraisers getting together, talking "green," and perhaps offering taxpayer loan guarantees to insider businesses in the interest of helping the environment — it all seems rather fresh.
Like a mountain meadow.
Until you realize it's the same old politics, the same kind practiced in Washington and Chicago and anywhere else where appetites are satisfied by politicians. When the government picks winners and losers, who's the loser? Just look in the mirror, hold that thought, and tell me later.
Republicans are hoping to hang this around Obama's political neck, and they're doing a good job of it now because his approval ratings are low and the jobless numbers are abysmal and the Democrats are in full killer-rabbit panic. But there have been Republican national scandals, too, and they're always ridiculously and depressingly similar.
At least in Illinois our scandals are quite ecumenical, with Republicans eager to help Democrats steal whatever they can grab.
In Solyndra, like any proper City Hall political scandal, there are similar archetypes.
There are the guys who count. The guys who bring the cash. They count because they do the counting. They have leverage. They're always there at the fundraisers. And so they're the ones who are allowed to gorge at the public trough.
The bureaucrats are the fulcrum so the guys with the leverage can lift great weight without too much effort. And while they might whine privately among themselves, they don't hold news conferences to blow the whistle.
They keep their mouths shut until the deal is done. If anyone gets caught and the problem becomes public, at least they've got email to cover their behinds. And they're doing a good job covering.
But there's one group that doesn't get their behinds covered.
Instead, their behinds are right out there, suspended foolishly, and waiting to get kicked.
We're the taxpayers — in Illinois we call ourselves chumbolones because we're the ones who stupidly end up covering all the losses. As in the Solyndra mess.
It's the Chicago Way, but instead of a paving or trucking contract, it's a "green" solar panel contract. The company received a $535 million loan.
"The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," according to a Jan. 31 email from an Office of Management and Budget staffer printed in the Washington Post. "If Solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will arguably be worse later than they would be today. … In addition, the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up."
I love the use of "optics." It's one of those bloodless words finding favor these days.
"Optics" suggests bureaucrats might think in terms of symbolism, political hieroglyphs, in grand vistas, rather than in hard numbers, like the $535,000,000 that went poof.
But it's not their money, is it? It's ours.
So this is not about Washington optics after all. The Solyndra scandal is about the Washington smell of things.
Those of us from Chicago know exactly what it smells like. And It doesn't smell fresh and green.
jskass@tribune.com
Read the original here.
Top of the Ticket
POLITICAL COMMENTARY FROM ANDREW MALCOLM
Obama's Urgent Jobs Plan: Right Now, 'Right Now' Means Sometime Next Month Maybe
Everybody remembers the urgency of President Obama's attitude toward the awful jobs situation.
Back in early August, Obama said the jobs situation was so urgent that he was going to give another speech about it -- in a month or so, in September after his vacation on Martha's Vineyard.
And then in September the president announced he would give his major jobs speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7. But he neglected to check with congressional leaders first. And they suggested the 8th. So, since it was their House, the 8th it was.
"Tonight," the president said in the first 34 of his 4,021 words to a national television audience that night, "we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse."
The speech got panned as another political campaign one with Obama announcing, in effect, that....
...since the first stimulus spending plan of $787 billion hadn't really worked, maybe another $447 billion stimulus spending plan would.
This is the kind of thinking that can make sense within Washington. But since "stimulus" has become a laugh line, he didn't use that word anymore.
And, hey, the debt ceiling had been raised to $16 trillion. (Speaking of which the president speaks on the debt this morning in another speech because he's a Real Good Talker.) So why not spend a half-trillion more to look like he's doing something about the terrible jobs situation with 14+ million unemployed?
If Republicans didn't bite, no one would know Obama's Plan B was never going to work anyway. And he could try to blame the GOP next year for failing schools and rusting bridges. This also seems to make sense within Washington these days.
The president was in such a hurry to get this new spending going, everyone remembers, that during that address he said the phrase "right now" seven times. He didn't actually mean right now that night because the NFL season was opening a few minutes after his remarks.
But Obama did want to show how really urgent he said the situation was, even though it had taken him 961 days as president to say them. And even though from Day #1 of the brief Obama Era polls had shown jobs and the economy were the No. 1 priority among voters but he pursued healthcare and financial reforms first. And even though unemployment had been at or above 9% for 26 of the last 28 months.
So, given the president's professed urgency, the next day, Sept. 9, everyone asked where was his jobs legislation?
And, well, it seems the urgent jobs bill hadn't actually been written yet but should be ready in a week or two. When the laughter died, the White House said on second thought the legislation would be ready for a photo op the next Monday.
Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we've just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won't really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet. The Senate has some other more important business to handle. And then there's this month's congressional vacation, which in Washington is called "a recess," like elementary school.
Here's the revealing exchange with a persistent host Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union:"
CROWLEY: When is the bill going to get on the floor?
DURBIN: The bill is on the calendar. Majority leader Reid moved it to the calendar. It is ready and poised. There are a couple other items we may get into this week not on the bill and some related issues that may create jobs. But we're going to move forward on the president's bill. There will be a healthy debate. I hope the Republicans will come to...
CROWLEY: After the recess, so next month? Or when will it actually begin to act on?
DURBIN: I think that's more realistic it would be next month.
So, as of right now, "right now" uttered on Sept. 8 really means sometime at leastone month later.
Good thing the president's own Democratic party controls the Senate. Because, otherwise, there might be some kind of silly, unnecessary delays in deliberating Obama's urgent jobs bill that he says will surely help the nation's unemployed millions if only those Republicans don't connive to slow things down.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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Photos: Associated Press; Pete Souza / White House.
Read the original here.
Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama will propose $1.5 trillion in new taxes as part of a plan to identify more than $3 trillion in long-term deficit reduction and slow the nation's escalating national debt.
Obama's tax plan is aimed predominantly at the wealthy and draws sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.
It comes just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lower deficits. It also comes amid a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support.
The core of the president's plan totals just more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. It combines the new taxes with $580 billion in cuts to mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion from Medicare.
The administration also counts savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The deficit reduction plan represents an economic bookend to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that Obama has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs. He's submitting his deficit fighting plan to a special joint committee of Congress that is charged with recommending deficit reductions of up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
In a defiant note, administration officials made clear Sunday that Obama would veto any Medicare benefit cuts that aren't paired with tax increases on upper-income people.
Officials cast Obama's plan as his vision for deficit reduction, and distinguished it from the negotiations he had with Boehner in July as Obama sought to avoid a government default.
As a result, it includes no changes in Social Security and no increase in the Medicare eligibility age, which the president had been willing to accept this summer.
Moreover, the new tax revenue Obama is seeking is nearly double the $800 billion that Boehner had been willing to consider in July. Republicans were already lining up against the president's tax proposal before they even knew the magnitude of what he intended to recommend.
"Class warfare may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics," GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman, said Sunday in reaction to one Obama tax proposal to impose a minimum tax rate on wealthy filers.
Former President Bill Clinton on Monday dismissed GOP claims that the tax on the wealthy would discourage jobs creation and hamper economic growth.
"Republicans in Washington always say the same thing," Clinton said on NBC's "Today" show. He called their argument an insult to wealthy Americans, including many who don't mind paying more.
Key features of Obama's plan, as described by senior administration officials Sunday evening:
-$1.5 trillion in new revenue, which would include about $800 billion realized over 10 years from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. It also would place limits on deductions for wealthy filers and end certain corporate loopholes and subsidies for oil and gas companies.
-$580 billion in cuts in mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion in Medicare and $72 billion in Medicaid and other health programs. Other mandatory benefit programs include farm subsidies.
-$430 billion in savings from lower interest payment on the national debt.
By adding about $1 trillion in spending cuts already enacted by Congress and counting about $1 trillion in savings from the drawdown of military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, the combined deficit reduction would total more than $4 trillion over 10 years, senior administration officials said.
Republicans have ridiculed the war savings as gimmicky, but House Republicans included them in their budget proposal this year and Boehner had agreed to count them as savings during debt ceiling negotiations with the president this summer.
Obama backed away from proposing sweeping changes to Medicare, following the advice of fellow Democrats that it would only give political cover to a privatization plan supported by House Republicans that turned to be unpopular with older Americans.
Administration officials said 90 percent of the $248 billion in 10-year Medicare cuts would be squeezed from service providers. The plan does shift some additional costs to beneficiaries, but those changes would not start until 2017.
Illustrating Obama's populist pitch on tax revenue, one proposal would set a minimum tax on taxpayers making $1 million or more in income. The measure - Obama is going to call it the "Buffett Rule" for billionaire investor Warren Buffett - is designed to prevent millionaires from taking advantage of lower tax rates on investment earnings than what middle-income taxpayers pay on their wages.
At issue is the difference between a taxpayer's tax bracket and the effective tax rate that taxpayer pays. Millionaires face a 35 percent tax bracket, while middle income filers fall in the 15 or 25 percent bracket. But investment income is taxed at 15 percent and Buffett has complained that he and other wealthy people have been "coddled long enough" and shouldn't be paying a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers.
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Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
The President feels that the answer is "no", in regards to new F-16s. Read the original here.
Obama Agrees To Sell Arms To Taiwan
President Obama has decided to sell a new arms package to Taiwan that will likely include weapons and equipment to upgrade the island’s F-16 jets, according to administration and congressional officials.
Congress will be briefed Friday on the arms package, worth an estimated $4.2 billion, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. A formal announcement is expected soon.
“All we’ve been told is the president has made a decision, and I assume it will be for the F-16 A/B upgrade package,” said a senior congressional aide close to the issue.
The president decided against selling Taiwan 66 advanced F-16 C/D model aircraft, despite several requests from Taipei and Congress, the officials said.
The decision ends nearly two years of debate within the administration andCongress over whether to sell advanced strike aircraft.
The White House declined to comment.
Supporters of the sale say new F-16s, produced by Lockheed Martin, are needed to bolster Taiwan’s defenses against China’s growing air power and to produce jobs for the U.S. aerospace industry.
China, which opposes U.S. arms sales, is expected to react harshly to the upgrade package. China's military cut off exchanges with the Pentagon in 2008 and last year after two arms packages were announced.
The Obama administration has made its policy of seeking closer military ties withChina a high priority, one reason that the president rejected new F-16s in the latest arms sales package, the officials said.
China’s U.S. debt holdings also likely influenced the decision. In February 2010,Chinese military leaders called for punishing the United States for arms sales toTaiwan by calling in some of the $1.1 trillion in China’s Treasury debt holdings.
A senior administration official said the decision not to sell new F-16s is a setback for officials in the administration who are concerned about Taiwan’s declining defenses. The opposition to selling the new jets came mainly from within the State Department, the official said.
The State Department had no immediate comment.
In August, Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, held up the nomination of William Burns to be deputy secretary of state over the jet sale. Mr. Cornyn released the hold after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised that a decision on the next Taiwan arms package would be made by Oct. 1.
In addition, the Pentagon is expected to release a long-delayed study on the air power balance across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. The study is said by officials to show that Taiwan's air force urgently needs modernization.
China has been building up its air forces along the coast opposite Taiwan with more advanced warplanes, including Russian-made Su-27s, Su-30s and Chinese J-10 fighters.
Taiwan's air force is facing serious shortcomings in its fleet, which includes 145 F-16 A/B jets, F-4s, French-made Mirage-2000 jets and domestic fighters.
A congressional assessment supporting the sale of new F-16s stated that “the U.S. government paralysis over sales of these aircraft since 2006 has given China time to develop more advanced capabilities — such as its fifth-generation J-20 — and evaluate capabilities to defeat even more advanced U.S. tactical aircraft such as the F-22, which may be sold to other U.S. allies in the region, such as Japan, in the future.”
According to two U.S. officials close to the arms debate, the White House National Security Council staff, including China military authority Evan Medeiros, worked quietly within the interagency system to influence several assessments on the impact of the F-16 C/D sales that were key to the president’s decision against selling new jets.
One of the assessments argued that the C/D jets were far more capable than earlier F-16s because of their strike capabilities and could be considered as undermining the U.S. pledge to provide only defensive arms to Taiwan.
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are guided by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which calls for the United States to provide defense weaponry to Taiwan and prevent the forcible reunification of the island by China.
Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province. Taiwan has had a government separate from the communist regime in Beijing since Nationalist forces fled to the island in 1949.
Viewing Taiwan as one of its “core interests,” Beijing has not renounced the use of force against the island if Taiwan formally declares independence.
Before the decision on the arms package, 181 House members from both parties wrote to Mr. Obama Aug. 1 urging him to sell the new F-16s. That followed a similar letter from 45 senators in May calling for the new jets.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana also has pressed the administration on the C/D jets.
Mr. Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated in an April 1 letter to the State Department that “Taiwan has legitimate defense needs and its existing capabilities are decaying.”
In a letter sent Wednesday to Mr. Lugar, State Department official David S. Adams stated that “discussions and evaluations of foreign military requests, capabilities and needs are extremely sensitive and in most cases classified.”
“Although we cannot comment publicly on foreign military sales cases until those cases are notified to Congress, we can assure that this administration pays close attention to ensure that Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities remain adequate to its needs, as the Taiwan Relations Act requires,” Mr. Adams said.
Taiwan's air force currently includes 150 F-16 A/Bs and 300 F-4, of which 30 are considered airworthy.
Two other jets, the Taiwan-produced Indigenous Defensive Fighter and French-made Mirage 2000, are said by specialists to be of limited use.
According to a Senate aide, since 2006 Taiwan submitted three letters to the administration requesting new F-16 C/Ds and none was approved or discussed withCongress.
By contrast, from 2006 to 2011, the U.S. government approved $3 billion in sales of C/Ds to Pakistan, along with $650 million in weapons.
“Taiwan has requested the sale of 66 new F-16C/D aircraft, but even if that request is finally approved in 2011, its fighter aircraft force structure will still decline by 65 percent over the next decade, owing the state of the rest of its fleet,” the aide said. “This fact alone demonstrates that new sales will not affect the qualitative and quantitative military balance in Taiwan’s region, particularly as China fields more advanced, fifth-generation stealth fighters such as its J-20 over the next decade.”
Approval of the C/D jets now would ensure that deliveries can begin in 2014.
The aide noted that upgrading the older F-16s will require that up to a third of theTaiwan air force be taken out of service for modernization.
What will be included in the upgrade is not known.
The Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military says that China has 1,680 fighter aircraft, compared with 388 for Taiwan.
© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
So let me get this straight. If you're an Arab or other non-Jew, you have no problem being in Israel. But Palestinian officials are saying that if you're a Jew, you can't be in Palestine? That doesn't seem very fair. Read the original here.
PLO official: Palestinians, Israelis must be totally separatedCommenting on the subject of minority rights in the potential Palestinian state, PLO envoy to the U.S. says past experience shows the two people should be 'totally separated.'By Haaretz
The future independent Palestinian state will not include a Jewish minority, a top Palestinian official told USA Today on Wednesday, adding that it was in the best interest of both peoples to "be separated."
Maen Areikat, PLO Ambassador to the United States, made the comment just as the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, was preparing to offer up Palestinian statehood to a vote in the United Nations General Assembly later this month."After the experience of the last 44 years, of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interest that the two peoples should be separated," Areikat added.
Answering a question about the legal status of a Jewish minority in the future state, Areikat apprently rejected the issue, saying: "I believe, I still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated," adding "I think we can contemplate these issues in the future."
Former U.S. National Security Council official Elliot Abrams responded to the Palestinian official's comment, saying to USA Today that the Palestinian demand was "a despicable form of anti-Semitism," adding: "No civilized country would act this way."
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had been openly opposing the planned Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations, arguing that a unilateral recognition of Palestinian independence would severely injure attempts at a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Obama indicated that Washington did not feel "think that it would actually lead to the outcome that we want, which is a two-state solution."
Last week, the State Department said the U.S. would veto a resolution for Palestinian statehood in the council, but Obama had yet to comment directly on the matter.
"What we've said is that going to the UN is a distraction, does not solve the problem," he said. "This issue is only going to be resolved by Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to something."
Where did this whole belief come from, that any money that I earn is not deserved by me, and that I have, only because the government allows me to have it? It seems to go against the tone of the founding fathers to me and seems rather statist. And why does it appear so prevalent in today's government? Read the original here.
Schakowsky: Americans don't deserve to keep all of their money
Updated 9/14/11 9:51 a.m.
Posted 9/14/11 8:22 a.m.WLS Radio’s John Dempsey Reports
CHICAGO (WLS) - A lot of reaction Wednesday morning to Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's interview with Don Wade and Roma.
Schakowsky said that Americans don't deserve to keep all of their money because we need taxes to support our society.
“I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it and it’s not a question of deserving because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together. And there are many things that we decide to do together like have our national security. Like have police and fire. What about the people that work at the National Institute of Health who are looking for a cure for cancer,” Schakowsky said.
Schakowsky also says one reason the 2009 stimulus bill did not succeed was because it was not large enough.
Schakowsky also admitted there are questions about the Obama administration's connection to the now bankrupt Solyndra solar panel company.
The administration approved nearly $528 million in federal loans to the company, before Solyndra filed for bankruptcy.
Schakowsky sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee Investigations and Oversight Panel, which is holding hearings Wednesday into the matter. She said she and other Democrats want answers.
"You know, it certainly doesn't sound good. The Democrats are not going to shrink from actually, you know, from any kind of full investigation of that. If there is a problem we're certainly going to support the efforts to get to the bottom of this," Schakowsky said.
Schakowsky did say that even though public money was involved, the Solyndra controversy does not compare to the damage the Enron energy scandal inflicted on the U.S. economy.
Also in the interview, Schakowsky talked about the victory of Republican Bob Turner, in the Tuesday special election to replace ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner. Turner, who is Catholic, won in a district that is heavily Democratic and heavily Jewish, defeating an Orthodox Jewish Democrat.
Schakowsky, who is Jewish, denounced former New York Mayor Ed Koch, for getting involved in the race and criticizing President Obama's record on Israel.
"I thought it was really shameful in talking about Barack Obama as not good on Israel. He has provided more security for the state of Israel than any other president," Schakowsky said.
© Content Copyright 2011 WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Why does the Obama administration continue to try and get people to tattle to them when they disagree? Read the original here.
Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,’ becomes laughing stock of conservatives
By Elizabeth Flock
As the 2012 presidential campaign heats up, President Obama’s campaign team has set up a new Web site, AttackWatch.com, to challenge negative statements about the president made by Republican presidential candidates and conservatives.
Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary. The site is designed in bold red and black colors, and uses statements like “support the truth” and “fight the smears.”
The response to the site has been less than stellar.
On Twitter, where the Web site has anaccount to help Obama supporters submit evidence of “attacks” on the president using the hashtag #attackwatch, nearly every tweet about the site — mostly from conservatives — has ridiculed it.
“There's a new Twitter account making President Obama look like a creepy, authoritarian nutjob,” an Arizonan tweeted. “In less than 24 hours, Attack Watch has become the biggest campaign joke in modern history,” a contributor to conservative blog The Right Spherewrote. The contributor linked to the following parody commercial for Attack Watch:
Tommy Christopher of Mediaite noted sarcastically of the site, “Great. Sounds like a terrific content-generating resource for right-wing bloggers, too. Everybody wins!”
While the initiative is reminiscent of a similar online effort launched during the 2008 campaign, called Fight the Smears, the intimidating design and language of the new site seems to be what’s causing a bigger ruckus.
Fight the Smears looked and felt far less scary, quoting Obama at the top of its page in a classic hope-change statement: “What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon — that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge but enemies to demonize.”
Attack Watch, on the other hand, uses the shorter tagline, “Get the Truth. Fight the Smears.”
It’s safe to say that in its 24 hours of existence, Attack Watch has already backfired, becoming a tool for conservatives to use against Obama 2012. A tweet by conservative author Brad Thor summed up the critics’s argument: “Wow, not only are Obama & Co. incredibly thin-skinned, they're paranoid.”
Update, Wednesday, 5:11 p.m.
Obama 2012’s press office just returned an earlier request for comment. According to deputy press secretary Katie Hogan, 100,000 people signed up for the site in the first 24 hours.
“This site is a tool providing our supporters with the facts they need to fight back against lies and distortions about the President’s record,” Hogan said.
Do you love the President? Read the original here.
Obama: If you love me, pass my jobs bill
Sep 14 01:54 PM US/Eastern
US President Barack Obama told fired up supporters Wednesday that if they loved him, they must help pass his jobs bill, injecting more urgency into his push for key legislation.
Obama hit another key 2012 electoral swing state, North Carolina, to hike pressure on Republicans over his $447 billion American Jobs Act which is designed to jolt the economy and ease 9.1 percent unemployment.
One supporter from the raucous crowd shouted to Obama that they loved him, and in a standard response from his 2008 campaign he replied "I love you back" then added a new twist.
"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill," Obama said, repeating the line to more cheers.
Obama's appeal may work with his supportive political base, but will cut little ice with Republicans seeking to exploit his diminished job approval ratings which are at 44 percent in a RealClearPolitics average of recent polls.
The president, on the latest leg of what aides say will be a months-long tour to promote the bill, also complained that some Republicans were against the legislation because they wanted to deprive him of a political victory.
"Give me a win? Give me a break" Obama said, during his pared down stump speech which is peppered with demands that Republicans "pass this bill."
Republicans however are increasingly dismissing the jobs plan as a political stunt, complaining Obama proposes to finance it by reducing itemized deductions for Americans earning over $200,000 a year and closing corporate tax breaks.
They have said that they are interested in some aspects of the bill which is weighted towards payroll tax cuts and includes infrastructure spending, but may pass those pieces separately, not in the whole bill as Obama demands.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Read the original here.
Poverty At Highest Rate In 15 Years, Business And Consumer Confidence Plunging « Hot Air
In his Rose Garden speech yesterday, Barack Obama insisted that his economic policies don’t consist of class warfare — and then insisted that Republicans raise taxes on the wealthy to fund his Porkulus II: Economic Boogaloo plan that he sent to Capitol Hill last night. The tax hikes Obama proposed were so toxic that even a Democrat-controlled Congress refused to consider them in 2009/10 for their biggest agenda item:
“It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past. We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn’t appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said.
The biggest piece of the payment plan would raise about $400 billion by eliminating certain deductions, including on charitable contributions, that can be claimed by wealthy taxpayers. Obama has proposed that in the past — to help pay for his health care overhaul, for example — and it’s been shot down by Republican lawmakers along with some Democrats.
In essence, it’s the same kind of short-term, gimmicky proposal as the first Porkulus bill in February 2009 that did nothing to right the American economy, offered with this White House’s usually trimmings of class warfare against oil companies (whose customers will pay the higher costs of the taxes) and “corporate jet owners,” ie, the rich. In other words, it’s classic Obamanomics — the Cash for Clunkers approach that attempts to preserve and expand central control of the economy, when it’s the central control that’s causing the problems we face now.
So how are Obama’s policies working out? According to the Census Bureau, poverty hit its highest rate in 15 years in 2010:
The national poverty rate in 2010 hit 15.1 percent — the highest level since 1993, according to a report Tuesday from the Census Bureau.
The report also indicated that median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower last year than any year since 1997.
The first full year after Obama’s first Porkulus doesn’t look very good, does it? It seems that Obama loves the poor so much that he’s going out of his way to create more of them. Much of that comes from the lack of job creation in an expanding population, which has left the US economy millions of jobs in the hole since the technical end of the recession in June 2009. Small businesses are the engine of job creation, and according to Bloomberg, they’re not terribly keen on hitting the ignition switch these days:
Confidence among U.S. small businesses dropped to a 13-month low in August as fewer companies projected better economic conditions and improving sales, a private survey found.
The National Federation of Independent Business’s optimism index decreased to 88.1, the weakest reading since July 2010 and the sixth-consecutive decline, from 89.9 in July. The number of small-business owners saying they expected the economy will improve six months from now fell to the lowest level since 1980.
“Hope for improvement in the economy faded even further through the month,” William Dunkelberg, the group’s chief economist, said in a statement accompanying the index report. “With such a dim outlook, owners are not going to do a lot of hiring or expanding.”
Small-business owners have grown less confident that conditions will improve as stagnant job growth weighs on consumer sentiment. Households “uncertain about the future” won’t “engage in the spending that would help lead us out of the recession,” Dunkelberg said.
Funny he should mention that. Yesterday, Reuters released a survey that showed consumers plan to scale back spending during the upcoming Christmas season, which is bad news for retailers:
Most than a quarter of Americans expect to spend less during the holidays this year, a survey showed on Monday in an early sign that retailers will have to try harder to win shoppers in the biggest selling season of the year.
The findings underscore the fragility of the U.S. recovery, since consumer spending accounts for almost 70 percent of the nation’s economy.
About 27 percent of people surveyed by America’s Research Group said they planned to spend less this year, while about 55 percent expects to spend only as much as last year. …
“Retailers better be worried about Christmas,” America’s Research Group President Britt Beemer said in an interview. “If half of Americans believe it is going to be worse before it gets better, they may not be too excited about buying much this Christmas season.”
Today, the CBO released its economic projections for the next two years, and says to expect 9% unemployment through the end of next year:
Incoming data and other developments since early July, as well as the latest Blue Chip consensus forecast, suggest that economic growth for the remainder of this year and next is likely to be weaker than the agency anticipated—with growth in the vicinity of 1½ percent this year and around 2½ percent next year.
With output growing at that modest rate, CBO expects employment to expand very slowly during the rest of this year and next year, leaving the unemployment rate close to 9 percent through the end of 2012. Weakness in the demand for goods and services is the principal restraint on hiring, but structural impediments in the labor market—such as a mismatch between the requirements of existing job openings and the characteristics of job seekers—appear to be hindering hiring as well.
These are the wages of class warfare. Even more basically, these are the entirely predictable outcomes of central economic planning, selective regulation, regulatory ambiguity, and mixed messages on tax rates and fiscal burdens.
Read the original here.
You have a right to record the police
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Special to the Washington Examiner
posted September 4, 2011 at11:30am
All over America, police have been arresting people for taking video or making sound recordings of them, even though such arrests are pretty clearly illegal. Usually, the charges are dropped once the case becomes public, and usually that’s the end of it.
But sometimes things go farther, and in two recent cases, they’ve gone far enough to bite back at the police and prosecutors involved. We need more such biting.
The first case comes from Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago.
Tiawanda Moore had made a sexual harassment complaint against a Chicago patrolman. When she was visited by police Internal Affairs officers who tried to persuade her to drop the charge, she recorded the audio using her Blackberry. Though the audio reflected rather poorly on the Internal Affairs officers, the response of the Chicago state's attorney was to act not against the offending officers, but against Ms. Moore, charging her with “wiretapping.”
After the tape was played, the jury took less than an hour to return a verdict of not guilty. "When we heard that, everyone (on the jury) just shook their head," said one juror interviewed afterward. "If what those two investigators were doing wasn't criminal, we felt it bordered on criminal, and she had the right to record it.”
Illinois law makes it illegal to record conversations with public officials without their permission. If the officials are law enforcement officers, the penalty can be as much as 15 years in prison. It’s hard to see what purpose such a law could serve, except to protect corrupt officials from exposure.
It’s also hard to see why a prosecutor, like Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez, would bring charges against a citizen who recorded police officers who were improperly trying to get her to drop charges against a fellow officer she says groped and propositioned her during a domestic violence call. Perhaps the prosecution was trading favors with the police, or perhaps it was merely incredibly insensitive. Chicago voters should pay heed, either way.
In Massachusetts, meanwhile, the right of citizens to record the police has been upheld by the United States Court of Appeals For The First Circuit in the case of Glik v. Cunniffe. Passerby Simon Glik caught sight of three police officers arresting a young man. Hearing an onlooker shout that the officers were hurting the man, Glik turned on his cellphone and began capturing video. The police officers objected to being recorded, arresting Glik and charging him with violating the state's “wiretap” law by recording them without their consent, seizing his camera and memory chip as evidence.
The U.S. Court of Appeals held that the right to record police officers in public is a “clearly established” part of the First Amendment's protections, and held the officers were thus not entitled to qualified immunity, meaning that they could be sued for their actions. The decision partially rectifies a situation in which for ordinary citizens, ignorance of the law is no excuse, but for police officers and other government officials, it’s an excuse that protects them from being sued.
In these cases, the courts (and juries) stood up for what should be an obvious proposition: Police officers, doing their jobs on the public dime, don’t have any sort of privacy right against the citizens who pay their salaries. Those who feel otherwise -- mostly police officers and those connected with them -- need to rethink the relationship of government to the citizenry, and perhaps reread the Constitution’s prohibition on “titles of nobility.”
In an era when government feels free to record citizens whenever they’re out in public, government officials need to recognize that this recording business works both ways. Want a surveillance society? Be prepared to live in it.
Of course, the efforts to intimidate citizens via prosecutions and arrests are doomed to fail in the long run. Pretty much every cellphone now is a video camera, a still camera, and an audio recorder. There are even smartphone apps specifically designed for recording police encounters and uploading them to the Web so that confiscating the phone doesn’t do any good. Tiny video cameras abound nowadays, including cameras that fit in the frames of sunglasses for added inconspicuousness. And they keep getting smaller and cheaper.
You can’t arrest everyone with a camera, especially when you don’t even know they’ve got a camera. But that’s not really the issue.
Technology may be winning, but the real problem is that America has a class of government workers who believe that they are above citizen scrutiny, and who are prepared to abuse their powers to avoid that scrutiny. The only solution for this is to punish offenders severely enough that others learn their lesson.
Some have proposed a federal civil rights law specifically recognizing the right of citizens to record police, and including severe punishments for police and prosecutors who violate that right. Frankly, it seems like a pretty good idea. Until then, however, we need to educate both police and citizens that photography is not a crime, even when those who wield government power, ostensibly on behalf of the citizenry, would rather not be photographed.
...children? I'm not one for letting your kids be unhealthy, but if social workers are monitoring you at mealtimes, does that constitute the right of the government to take away your children with no visitation? Read the original here.
Parents of seven told: Your children are too fat, so you will never see them again
By JANE SIMPSONLast updated at 9:14 AM on 5th September 2011
Four obese children are on the brink of being permanently removed from their family by social workers after their parents failed to bring their weight under control.
In the first case of its kind, their mother and father now face what they call the ‘unbearable’ likelihood of never seeing them again.
Their three daughters, aged 11, seven and one, and five-year-old son, will either be ‘fostered without contact’ or adopted.
Either way, the family’s only hope of being reunited will be if the children attempt to track down their parents when they become adults.
The couple, who have been married for nearly 20 years and are not being named to protect their children’s identities, were given a ‘draconian’ ultimatum three years ago – as reported at the time by The Mail on Sunday.
Warned that the children must slim or be placed in care, the family spent two years living in a council-funded ‘Big Brother’ house in which they were constantly supervised and the food they ate monitored.
But despite subjecting them to intense scrutiny, social workers did not impose rules on what food the children should eat, and there was apparently little or no improvement.
News of the decision to remove them was broken to the couple, from Dundee, on Tuesday. Critics called it a disgraceful breach of human rights and a chilling example of the power of the State to meddle in family life.
In an emotional interview, the 42-year-old mother said: ‘We might not be the perfect parents, but we love our children with all our hearts. To face a future where we will never see them again is unbearable.
‘They picked on us because of our size to start with and they just haven’t let go, despite the fact we’ve done everything to lose weight and meet their demands. We’re going to fight this to the bitter end. It feels like even prisoners have more human rights than we do.’
The couple have not committed any crime and are not accused of deliberate cruelty or abuse. Their solicitor, Joe Myles, said there was ‘nothing sinister lurking in the background’ and accused social workers of failing to act in the family’s best interests.
‘Dundee social services department appear to have locked horns with this couple and won’t let go,’ he said, adding that the monitoring project caused more problems than it solved. ‘The parents were constantly being accused of bad parenting and made to live under a microscope.
'We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; but nothing we’ve done has ever been enough'
The couple have three older children who are all distraught and angry at the ruling.
Speaking through tears, their 15-year-old daughter said: ‘The social workers should hang their heads in shame. A person’s weight is their own business and only we can do anything about it, not them. My parents are good people and they love us all. The four little ones don’t know what is about to happen to them.’
Social workers became aware of the family in early 2008 after one of the sons accused his father of hitting him on the forehead. In truth, he had fallen and hit his head on a radiator – a fact he later admitted. However, the allegation opened the door to the obesity investigation.
While the couple admit experiencing what their lawyer calls ‘low grade’ parenting problems, which would have merited support, they were aghast when the issue of weight was seized on as a major concern.
A council report at the time said: ‘With the exception of [one of the names], the children are all overweight. Advice has been given regarding diet but there has been no improvement. Appointments with the dietician have been missed.’
At that point their then 12-year-old son weighed 16 stone; his 11-year-old sister weighed 12 stone; and his three-year-old sister weighed four stone. It is not known how much the four younger children weigh now.
The couple were ordered to send their children to dance and football lessons and were given a three-month deadline to bring down their weight. When that failed, the children were placed in foster homes but were allowed to visit their parents.
After the couple objected to this arrangement, the council agreed to move them into a two-bedroom flat in a supported unit run by the Dundee Families Project. They insisted on the couple living with only three of their children at a time.
At meal times, a social worker stood in the room taking notes. Doctors raised concerns that the children put on weight whenever they spent time with their parents, a claim they vehemently denied.
The couple and their children also had to adhere to a strict 11pm curfew. This involved ‘clocking’ in and out by filling in a sheet held by an employee who lived on site.
Although the children’s weight was the major concern, other allegations were included in a report. It showed that social workers were worried when the youngest child was found crawling unsupervised. The parents point out they were never far away and the flat had no stairs.
They also found her ‘attempting to put dangerous objects’ in her mouth. The family say this is natural in toddlers and she was never successful.
To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable. I want other families to know what can happen once social workers become involved. We will fight them to the end to get our beloved children back.
Social workers were further worried when she crawled through the contents of an upturned ashtray – an ‘unfortunate one-off incident’, claim the parents. All the concerns were dismissed by the family’s legal team as ‘low grade’ problems.
It is understood the father crumbled under the strain of being so closely monitored in January this year and moved into a council flat elsewhere in the city.
In the next few months, the mother breached the lunch and dinner meal observations, by her own admission, on ‘several’ occasions while taking the children to see their father.
She personally never broke the 11pm curfew but once allowed her seven-year-old daughter to remain at her father’s flat after she fell asleep. She did not want to disturb her and argued the child had ‘two parents, not one’ and was in ‘good hands’.
These breaches led staff to declare the trial a failure and the mother was asked to leave the unit in April this year. She moved in to her husband’s flat but the children were then handed over to foster parents.
Her solicitor said he planned to use independent experts to prove that the children want to live with their parents and have been damaged by the social workers’ intervention. He added: ‘We may ultimately look towards human rights laws.’
The father, aged 56, said: ‘We have tried very hard to do everything that was asked of us. My wife has cooked healthy foods like home-made spaghetti bolognese and mince and potatoes; we’ve cut out snacks and only ever allowed the kids sweets on a Saturday. But nothing we’ve done has ever been enough.
‘The pressure of living in the family unit would have broken anyone. We were being treated like children and cut off from the outside world. To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable. I want other families to know what can happen once social workers become involved. We will fight them to the end to get our beloved children back.’
It is estimated 26 million British adults will be obese by 2030, with obesity levels running at an all-time high among children. Official statistics show those who are overweight spend 50 per cent more time in hospital, placing extra strain on the NHS.
Tam Fry, honorary chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, said: ‘This is a disgrace. These parents have clearly attempted to comply. They have, if you like, played Dundee City Council’s game and yet they are still losing their children.’
Dundee City Council said: ‘The council always acts in the best interests of children, with their welfare and safety in mind.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033486/Your-children-fat-again.html#ixzz1XH2OwQIX
How's this for stimulus, give me $500,000 and I'll start a business with a bunch of jobs....Where is all of this money going? How's it stimulating, when my company is telling me for the last 3 years, "The economy is so bad we're freezing pay"? Read the original here.
Obama Jobs “Plan”: $300 Billion In Spending
Written By : William Teach
Plan has to be put in quotations, of course, because a) we haven’t actually seen it yet, b) we’ll probably never see it, we’ll just hear about it Thursday night and during press conferences and campaign speeches, a c) we all know it will be the same old tired and failed ideas, per MSNBC: Obama to propose $300 billion to jump-start jobs
The economy weak and the public seething, President Barack Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise with him on jobs — but also assailed his plans in advance of his prime-time speech.
According to people familiar with the White House deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the president’s proposals for 2012 are expected to be a one-year extension of a payroll tax cut for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. Together those two would total about $170 billion.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan was still being finalized and some proposals could still be subject to change.
The White House is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have called for spending of $50 billion, but the White House proposal is expected to be smaller.
None of these ideas worked back when the Democrats passed their $843 billion Stimulus plan. The best it can do is provide some short term jobs. None of these ideas stimulated commerce which led to increased hiring in the private sector. Remember that $7-$13 extra a week you had in your paycheck? Did it get you to buy anything more than an extra meal a week? How about extending jobless benefits? After extension after extension, the unemployment rate is still over 9%. Tax credit to hire the unemployed? Sure, companies that were going to hire anyhow liked it, but, it obviously did not stimulate extra hiring.
Public works? Interestingly, the recession was said to have officially ended in June 2009, but most Stimulus measures kicked in after that. So, we can say that it was the Bush policies that ended the official recession, but the Obama policies made the economy worse.
Politico reports much the same, and also says he wants to offset these “ideas” with tax increases later.
What we can also expect from Obama’s campaign speech to a joint session of Congress will be these brief ideas, along with raising taxes on evil rich people like himself, patent reform, and free trade agreements (has the White House sent them over to Congress yet?). That, and lots of calls for bipartisanship followed by excoriating Republicans.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach
Read the original here.
Sources: Obama Administration To Drop Troop Levels In Iraq To 3,000
The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News.
Senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision, which has already been signed off by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Panetta, touring sites Tuesday in advance of the Sept. 11 10th commemoration, insisted "no decision has been made" on the number of troops to stay in Iraq.
"That obviously will be the subject of negotiations with the Iraqis and as a result of those negotiations. As I said no decision has been made of what the number will be," he said.
Currently, about 45,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq. The generals on the ground had requested a reduced number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year, but there was major pushback about "the cost and the political optics" of keeping that many in Iraq. The military's troop-level request was then reduced to 10,000.
Commanders said they could possibly make that work "in extremis," in other words, meaning they would be pushing it to make that number work security-wise and manpower-wise.
Now, sources confirm that the administration has pushed the Pentagon to cut the number even lower, and commanders are concerned for the safety of the U.S. troops who would remain there.
"We can't secure everybody with only 3,000 on the ground nor can we do what we need to with the Iraqis," one source said. Another source said the actual total could be as high as 5,000 when additional support personnel are included.
A senior military official said by reducing the number of troops to 3,000, the White House has effectively reduced the mission to training only.
"There is almost no room for security operations in that number; it will be almost purely a training mission," this official said. The official added that a very small number of troops within that 3,000 will be dedicated to counter-terrorism efforts, but that's not nearly what Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, wanted.
This shift is seen by various people as a cost-saving measure and a political measure. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that the U.S. has operated responsibly to meet the year-end deadline to remove troops from Iraq, per a 2008 Status of Forces Agreement.
He added that negotiations with the Iraqis will determine the outcome, and while costs are a factor in every decision, the administration makes decisions on what is best for the United States.
The only administration official fighting for at least 10,000 forces to stay in Iraq at the end of the year was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said. But she has lost the battle.
Responding to the news, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has traveled to Iraq many times, said that in all the conversations he has had on force strength, he has "never heard a number as low as 3,000 troops to secure the gains Iraqis have won over the years."
Lieberman said his first question for the administration is whether the number is one Iraqis had requested or if it was chosen according to other criteria.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said reducing the troop presence to 3,000 "would put at risk all the United States has fought for in Iraq."
"The biggest winner of a U.S. decision to move to 3,000 troops in Iraq would the Iranian regime. The ayatollahs would rejoice," he said.
Any of the plans will require Iraqi approval, and on that front, the Pentagon recently secured a commitment from the Iraqis to start negotiations, but they have not agreed to any number.
"Discussions with the Iraqis on our post-2011 strategic relationship are ongoing, and no decisions on troop levels have been made," said Panetta spokesman George Little. "We continue to proceed with troop withdrawals as directed by the president."
On Tuesday, the head of the three-province Kurdish autonomous region in the north of Iraq, warned that if American troops leave sectarian violence might resurface. Massoud Barzani urged the central Iraqi government to sign an agreement with the U.S. to keep forces in the country.
Fox News' Bret Baier contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/06/sources-obama-administration-to-drop-troop-levels-in-iraq-to-3000/#ixzz1XGohwhwt
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