Just a comment Dick. I get such junk in my email traffic. Some of the stuff that gets forwarded is so patently nutty that the conservative cause is discredited.
It is a pleasure to read your thoughtful conservative analyses. There are so many other great writers out there that seem to be ignored. Examples are Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer, George Will and Michael Gerson. I don't know why the conservative bloogers don't forward their thoughtful and factual articles.
That's all,
Keep up the good work!"
My return response : "Thanks I do include Krauthammer and Noonan and occasionally Will, but do not know Gerson that well.
Thanks for your comments. I try to be rational but my utter contempt for Obama does show and distorts my view of him."
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This e mail was sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader. He had this to say: "Subject: Fw: 1 Minute Video ( YOU GOTTA WATCH THIS!!)
No matter what you think of Glen Beck or what party affiliation you are, you need to see this video. Less than one (1) minute
No commentary is provided, just factual information.
And we wonder why OUR government is out of control and we can't take a dump without a regulation!
If you cherish your freedom, watch this and think about the ramifications."
I watched it and it is worth your while because it shows the inanity of federal agency formations and future prospective regulations that will ensue and which Obama enacted in just one year in comparison with FDR's. (See 2 below.)
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A delayed analysis of Miss Fluke's sexual endeavors. Her last name aptly explains her predicament because something is very 'screwy'. (See 3 below.)
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Reza Kahlili maintains: "Iranian agents have successfully infiltrated American think-tanks, universities, and our political system as part of a plot to keep the United States from attacking the Islamic regime as it continues to expand terrorism worldwide and pursue its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The infiltration goal is to mold American opinion and create doubt about the advisability of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities -- all part of a longstanding strategy to pull the strings of America and the West."
Personally, I believe D'Souza is correct when he predicts Obama will do nothing about Iran militarily. Too risky to his re-election strategy.
You decide! (See 4 and 4a below.)
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As I have oft stated, I am not a conspiratorialist but the connection of Ayers to Obama and the latter's denial has never been convincing. Is the issue about to be re-ignited? If so would you now think differently? You decide. (See 5 below.)
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Being yanked around by Hanks and before the November election unemployment will be zero. It is all part of the re-election strategy! That is if you want to believe the lies, distrtions and twisting of facts. You decide.(See 6 and 6a below.)
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Dick
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST FEDS!
Takes stinging power away from Obama's EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency cannot issue a “drive-by” decision that a parcel of land is a protected wetlands and prohibit the owner from using it, and then refuse to hear any challenges to such decisions.
So says the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision today came in the case of the Sackett family of Priest Lake, Idaho. Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a piece of land in a residential subdivision that was about two-thirds of an acre, purchased the appropriate building permits and started work on their dream home.
Then the EPA arrived, ordered them to restore the land to its pristine condition, protect it for years and then go through a ruinously expensive application process to request permission to use their own land.
Further, the EPA, in collusion with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, told the couple they could not even challenge the decision unless they went through that expensive process.
The high court today said the EPA must provide a process through which a challenge to its decision can be addressed in a meaningful way. The law firm working on behalf of the Sacketts called the decision a “precedent-setting victory for the rights of all property owners.”
The EPA previously had threatened the couple with fines of up to $75,000 per day for failing to follow the agency’s intrusive “compliance” plan through which federal officials not only effectively seized control of the land, but also the couple, by demanding their paperwork records and other detailed information.
Damien Schiff, principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation,which represented the couple without charge, had argued the case at the Supreme Court on Jan. 9.
He said the implications of the decision are clear.
“EPA is not above the law,” he said. “That’s the bottom line with today’s ruling. This is a great day for Mike and Chantell Sackett, because it confirms that EPA can’t deny them access to justice. EPA can’t repeal the Sacketts’ fundamental right to their day in court. And for that reason, it is a great day for all Americans, for all property owners, and for the rule of law.”
He continued, “The justices have made it clear that EPA bureaucrats are answerable to the law and the courts just like the rest of us. EPA can’t try to micromanage people and their property – it can’t order property owners to dance like marionettes – while denying them any meaningful right to appeal to the courts. It can’t threaten property owners with financial ruin and not have to justify its threats to a judge. And it can’t issue lazy, drive-by ‘wetlands’ edicts about private property. It will have to put in some honest work and use credible science, because the regulators must be able to justify their wetlands orders in a court of law,” he said.
Schiff said, “Rest assured, while today’s ruling strengthens everyone’s individual rights and property rights, and everyone’s access to justice, it does not weaken legitimate environmental protection one iota. Regulators will simply have to be professional and thorough, not careless and slipshod, when they issue wetlands orders.
“In the case of urgent pollution threats, EPA will still have the power, as it does now, to seek an immediate court injunction. But when there is no emergency, EPA can’t start ordering property owners around – and threatening them with tens of millions of dollars in fines, as with the Sacketts – without first doing some genuine due diligence. EPA will have to be prepared to show a reviewing court that its wetlands regulations are really necessary – not just a power trip.”
Mike Sackett said he and his wife were subjected to “hell” by federal bureaucrats.
“We are very thankful to the Supreme Court for affirming that we have rights, and that the EPA is not a law unto itself and that the EPA is not beyond the control of the courts and the Constitution,” he said. “The EPA used bullying and threats of terrifying fines, and has made our life hell for the past five years. It said we could not go to court and challenge their bogus claim that our small lot had ‘wetlands’ on it. As this nightmare went on, we rubbed our eyes and started to wonder if we were living in some totalitarian country.
“Now, the Supreme Court has come to our rescue, and reminded the EPA – and everyone – that this is still America, and Americans still have rights under the Constitution. We want to thank Pacific Legal Foundation for defending us, without charge! Without Pacific Legal Foundation, this day would have not come, and this court ruling that vindicated the rights of all Americans against bureaucratic bullying, would not have happened.”
The family bought the small parcel in 2005 in an area surrounded by other homes. The EPA’s decision, without hearings or notice, that it was a “wetlands” was accompanied by threats of fines and penalties.
The Sacketts wanted to challenge the EPA’s decision, but the agency refused to hold a hearing, and then the 9th Circuit Court said they had no right to judicial review at that point. The court said the couple would have to pay for a years-long “wetlands” permit process first.
That process could have cost 12 times the value of the land, the legal team working for the Sacketts said.
When the case was argued in January, justices suggested the EPA actions were “outrageous” and “very strange.”
Samuel Alito said that the scenario was one that most homeowners would say “can’t happen in the United States.”
And Elena Kagan said it was a “strange position” for the government to adopt in insisting that the property owner has no right to a hearing on such an order.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. turned the question back on Malcolm Stewart, the government attorney assigned to defend the EPA’s actions.
“What would you do if you received this order?” he asked.
Stewart wouldn’t answer.
Alito also noted it was “very strange” for a system that would require a party to apply for a permit to build on “wetlands” when the fact being challenged was whether the land was “wetlands.”
 Mike and Chantell Sackett |
Justice Antonin Scalia called it the “high-handedness of the agency” when the EPA demanded the couple turn their land into a protected preserve, installing vegetation that wasn’t there before they started their project.
The government did not contest the recitation when Alito summarized what had happened:
You buy property to build a house. You think maybe there is a little drainage problem in part of your lot, so you start to build the house and then you get an order from the EPA which says you have filled in wetlands, so you can’t build your house. Remove the fill. Put in all kinds of plants. and now you have to let us on your premises whenever we want to … you have to turn over to us all sorts of documents, and for every day that you don’t do all this you are accumulating a potential fine of $75,000 and by the way, there is no way you can go to court to challenge our determination that this is a wetlands until such time as we choose to sue you.
Justice Ruth Ginsburg noted that the couple had sought a hearing from the EPA over the controversy, “and the EPA said no.”
Chantell Sackett had described for a congressional hearing recently the shock when they found federal EPA agents on their land, ordering them to stop foundation work, “restore” the land with non-native species, fence it, guard it for several years and then request a permission to continue their home project that in all likelihood would be denied.
“Bullying,” Chantell said.
“That’s what the EPA does. They came into our life, took our property, put us in limbo, told us we can’t do anything with it, and then threatened us with fines,” she said. “They use intimidation and we as American people, my husband and I, are fed up. We’re scared.
“They can’t be allowed to do this,” she continued. “It’s wrong. This is why we are suing the government, the EPA.”
Officials with the EPA repeatedly declined to respond to a WND request for comment. WND was referred to a Justice Department office, which also declined to respond.
The congressional hearing testimony:
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3) Sandra Fluke, a law student at Georgetown University, and recently testified before a Congressional
Committee . She was lamenting that no one would subsidize her birth
control expenses, which she claimed would amount to $3000 during her three
years in law school. After watching Ms. Fluke describe her desperate
situation I set to thinking of ways to help her out of her crisis. First,
of course I had to pass through the grieving period I
experienced after hearing of her inhumane treatment at the hands of the
Georgetown administration and our Government – what cruelty lurks in the
heart of men that they would leave this poor woman to fend for herself when
all she wanted to do was get laid seven times a day (see my analysis below).
Once I recovered from my grief, I set to thinking about ways to help this
poor girl. Being a Physicist, I sat down with my calculator and worked
through some numbers. Ms. Fluke’s expense account for birth control (aka
sexual entertainment) was claimed to be $3000 for three years at law school.
Let’s presume that as an educated woman she wants to be doubly safe and uses
both birth control pills to prevent pregnancy and condoms to prevent STD
(sexually transmitted disease).
Using the Wal-Mart cost for birth control pills of $9 per month, her birth
control pills will cost her $324 for her entire law school career (if you
can call it a career – I can think of other names). This leaves only $2676
for her condoms.
I went to Amazon.com
available for 33 cents each in packages of 60 condoms each. This cost
includes tax and shipping. Since she has $2676 for her 33 cent condoms, she
will be buying 8109 condoms during her law school “career”.
To use her 8109 condoms (remember, $3000 was Ms. Flukes’ own number) she
would have to have sex 7 times a day. This number presumes that she has sex
ten times a day on Sundays when she has more free time.
So, having worked through these numbers, I have some suggestions for Ms.
Fluke to help her work through her crisis:
1. Find dates who are gentlemanly enough to either provide their own
condoms, or at least split the cost with her. Selection criteria is the key
to this one.
2. Spend more time studying. Even seven “quickies” a day will seriously cut
into quality study time. This would not only save money but would improve
her education as well.
Just trying to help out a starving student.
By the way, the average starting salary of new Georgetown Law School
graduates is $160,000 a year, FYI.
Booth R. Myers, PhD
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4)Why Iran Thinks America Won't Attack
By Reza Kahlili
Iranian agents have successfully infiltrated American think-tanks, universities, and our political system as part of a plot to keep the United States from attacking the Islamic regime as it continues to expand terrorism worldwide and pursue its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Iranian leaders first successfully engaged U.S. forces in Iraq at a time when President Bush was in an offensive policy of confronting Islamists after 9/11. The Iranians correctly believed that if America got bogged down in Iraq, it would not want to open another front with Iran before stabilizing Iraq, buying Iran time for nuclear development.
Iran had already infiltrated the Shiite majority in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. At that time, I was working as a CIA spy in the Revolutionary Guards and was reporting their activities to America. When the U.S. went to war against Saddam, the Iranians began a campaign of terror in Iraq that not only crippled America financially by stringing out an unfunded war, but killed many U.S. soldiers.
The same infiltration policy was enforced in Afghanistan with the training and arming of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters against NATO forces.
That strategy kept Iran's rulers out of harm's way, allowed them to pursue their nuclear and missile programs with impunity, and forced America to rethink its involvement in the region. They called their strategy a great victory over the "Great Satan."
The Iranian agents easily became the voice for negotiations and argued against sanctions and war. They successfully attached themselves to antiwar groups, including Occupy Wall Street, and infiltrated the
Sanctions hurt innocent Iranians and not the regime; any act of war will unite Iranians around the very regime they despise; the nuclear issue is a nationalistic issue that the majority of Iranians support and therefore cannot be the center of the West's confrontation with Iran;
Iranian dissidents don't want the West's support because if the West supports them, the regime will label them as Western agents; and
Iran is a rational regime, and negotiations are the only way to resolve the issues.
The strategy sought to buy time to build a formidable military so the West would fear retaliation should it attack the regime, which knew full well that the global economy is dependent on a stable flow of energy out of the Persian Gulf and that any long-term disruption could create havoc for the U.S. and West.
The Islamic regime today has over 1,000 ballistic missiles, many in underground silos spread throughout the country and capable of reaching not only every U.S. military base in the region, but also capitals in Western Europe. Meanwhile, it is working on intercontinental ballistic missiles with the help of China and North Korea.
It also has armed Hezb'allah with 40,000 rockets and missiles and armed Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Syria with missiles, explosives, and conventional weapons. Meanwhile, it has expanded its collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and rebels in Yemen and Bahrain, and extended its reach into Latin America and Africa.
This strategy has bought Iran sufficient time to produce enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs and speed up its enrichment to the 20-percent level at the Natanz and Fordow facilities. That material within weeks could be further enriched to weaponization grade.
Iran's leaders believe that with the current global economic climate, specifically in the United States and Europe, and it being an American election year, the talks of a military option to take out the nuclear facilities amount to a bluff. They believe they hold the key to President Obama's re-election, as any instability in the region and in the price of energy will send America back into a severe recession.
More dangerous is their belief that even a limited conflict with America will help their status as the leader of a worldwide Islamic movement and trigger the downfall of regimes in the region more friendly to the U.S.; help the Syrian regime out of its current crisis; and push the military junta out of power in Egypt, helping solidify control by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Iranian leaders also believe that since Israel would now have to act alone, it will not risk thousands of missiles from many fronts raining down on Tel Aviv and ultimately will also accept a nuclear Iran.
Most of all, they believe that once Iran is nuclear-armed, the West will be checkmated, as the cost of any confrontation at that time would be the destruction of the world.
Therein lies the dilemma for the West: bear the economic and human costs of destroying Iran's nuclear facilities now, or accept a nuclear-armed Iran that is bent on paving the way for the return of the 12th Imam Mahdi and the global dominance of Islam.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book A Time to Betray. He is a senior fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).
4a)French terrorist: I was planning more attacks, with outside funds
By Robert Marquand
How he was nabbed; made sure to make "clarifications" about what he was going to do next
Intensive sleuthing, videotape, a scooter repairman, and apparent good fortune helped French police apprehend a serial killer hours before he said he planned to kill again.
Mohammed Merah, the 24-year-old Algerian who claimed ties to Al Qaeda, found himself under siege in a Toulouse apartment, only hours after phoning a French television news station to give a concise and clear explanation for his decision to kill seven people, including three children, and to reveal that he planned similar operations in cities across France.
France, which was in a state of apprehension over an elusive unidentified killer and on its highest state of alert (scarlet), now has not only had several relatives and friends of Mr. Merah under detention, but also volumes of information and motives about the suspect, now dead. His mother, two brothers, a friend, and a girlfriend are all under police custody.
Merah told TV news station France 24 he was allied with Al Qaeda and upholding the honor of his Islamic faith. He also said the killing of the three paratroopers and four Jewish individuals was "necessary" and that he planned to do similar acts in Toulouse again, as well as Paris, Marseilles, and Lyon, according to Ebba Kalondo, the night editor at France 24 who took the call, made from a phone booth at 1 a.m.
"He wanted to qualify some of the details about the bullet casings," said Ms. Kalondo. He told the editor he would have acted earlier but funding for his attacks — "from inside and outside France" — only recently became available. The funding was for an assortment of weapons and other operational necessities, he said.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told reporters in a press conference today that Merah was identified on March 19, the day of the shooting, by tracking an IP address he used to purchase a scooter from the first victim, a French paratrooper named Imad Ibn-Ziater. But Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Merah's actual whereabouts — a Toulouse apartment less than two miles from the Jewish school he terrorized — were not discovered until yesterday.
Prosecutors painted a picture of a man who had a violent personality and "mental disorders as a minor." Merah moved around, living in several different places, and is "of modest means . . . he can rent by the month and has several places to stay," Mr. Molins said. Video analysis of his actions at the Jewish school two days ago helped police identify him, implying they may have consulted violent offenders lists. Molins said the young man would stay alone in his room for long periods of time and watched grisly martyrdom films.
The police achieved a break in the case when they checked lists of French citizens who visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Merah had done, three times evidently, and investigators cross checked it with lists of young French known to have jihadi sentiments or identified with violent mujahideen actions.
Another major break in the case came when a scooter repairman reported to police that a man entered his shop, asking whether a spray paint job on a scooter would demobilize the scooter tracking system and where the tracker was. The repairman refused to give the latter information and phoned authorities, according to Molins, the prosecutor.
Authorities initially reported that Merah had a cache of explosives in his car but could not confirm this during the press conference. They said they found a car with four weapons, including an Uzi and a pump-action rifle, and that they also tracked down the scooter and helmet used in the attacks.
The prosecutor said Merah "doesn't have the soul of a martyr, but wants to kill and stay alive," although he told France 24 there were only two ways he would stop killing: "prison, where he could hold his head up high," or death.
The prosecutor's general picture of Merah clashed with the tone of the man who called France 24, although French authorities say Merah has confirmed that he had the conversation. Kalondo said that on the phone Merah was calm, "extremely well-spoken ... very polite ... used no strong language ... was unruffled and sure of himself.
"He said he wanted to avenge his brothers and sisters in Palestine" and was angered by the French law banning the wearing of the burqa, the full-length veil worn by some Muslim women, in public.
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5)Revisiting the Guy in Obama's Neighborhood
By Daren Jonescu
The relationship between William Ayers and President Obama is back in the news again. American conservatives are toying with the idea of renewing their quixotic mission of shattering the dream world of the sixty percent of the population that reflexively blocks its ears and sings every time Obama's past is questioned.
Though this mission should not be pursued at the expense of a more concrete challenge to the Obama administration's record and policies, lest we see a repeat of 2008, nevertheless, quixoticism sometimes has the appeal of striking at deeper truths. And even if the majority of the population continues to reject all evidence and common sense, leaving a little time on one's dinner table debate agenda for Obama's cheesecloth-filtered past may nonetheless serve one vital purpose: it sharpens one's focus on the urgent necessity of stopping the left in its tracks immediately.
Let us, then, take a moment to revisit Obama's most famous denial of a formative relationship with Ayers. During a 2008 Democratic primary debate, George Stephanopoulos gingerly asked Barack Obama to explain why his friendship with a terrorist is unimportant.
On this issue -- general theme of patriotism in your relationships, there's a gentleman named William Ayers. He was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s; they bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He's never apologized for that, and in fact on 9/11, he was quoted in the New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are "friendly." Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?
Obama, the noted orator, having undoubtedly been thoroughly prepared by his debate team for this exact question, offered this now-famous response:
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who [sic] I know and who [sic] I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who [sic] I exchange ideas from [sic] on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight years old, somehow reflects [sic] on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George.
The "guy who lives in my neighborhood" locution has, suitably, received a lot of attention. Taken as a whole, however, what is most striking about this answer is its garbled incoherence, its historical manipulation, and its appeal to amoral abstraction.
Notice how the answer hedges its bets, in the manner of the best post-Clinton political obfuscation. The "guy in my neighborhood" line, taken together with the "not somebody [whom] I exchange ideas [with]" plea, is clearly meant to imply that Obama does not know Ayers well enough to be sullied by Ayers' "detestable acts." And yet, Obama takes the trouble to insert that Ayers is "a professor of English from Chicago" whose unsavory activities took place "40 years ago" -- in other words, that he's not some extremist, but a "guy" with a highly respectable, essentially apolitical career, who, a very long time ago, did some bad things. If the point were merely to dismiss charges of a close relationship while simultaneously expressing distaste for the man's past activities, why add remarks designed to undermine the view of Ayers as a disreputable character? Isn't Obama supposed to be defending himself? If so, why is he simultaneously defending Ayers? The likely answer is that he is misrepresenting his relationship with Ayers, and must therefore prepare his escape route, should his lie be found out. He is arguing, in effect, "I barely know him -- but even if I do, he's been a good and respectable citizen for most of my life, so you can't pin anything on me."
Furthermore, recall the odd final phrase in Obama's denial of a significant intellectual tie: "He's not somebody who [sic] I exchange ideas from [sic] on a regular basis." What does "on a regular basis" mean? More to the point, does that phrase not, in fact, serve to invert the meaning of the antecedent claim? That is to say, the qualification that he and Ayers do not exchange ideas "on a regular basis" is a tacit acknowledgment that they have, indeed, "exchanged" ideas.
This indirect, perhaps inadvertent, acknowledgment is further highlighted by our modern Sophocles' grammatical clunker "exchange from" instead of "exchange with." It is tempting in this light to read Obama's mistaken preposition "from" as a Freudian slip. After all, what he really needs to deny in this context is not that he has ever spoken to Ayers (exchanged ideas "with" him), but rather that he has been influenced by Ayers' ideas -- that he has gotten some of his own ideas "from" Ayers. Rummaging through his ill-digested mental notes like a flustered C-student, in search of a way to deny Ayers' influence that will retain plausible deniability in the face of future fact-checkers, Obama clumsily reveals exactly what he wishes to hide -- namely, that he has adopted ideas "from" the Marxist terrorist...just not "on a regular basis."
Also remarkable is Obama's reference to Ayers' "detestable acts" as being from "40 years ago." Stephanopoulos' question explicitly identifies Ayers' terrorist activities as stemming from the 1970s. In fact, the Weather Underground was founded only in 1969 -- 39 years prior to Obama's statement -- and continued carrying out and planning bomb attacks until at least 1977. Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn turned themselves in to police in 1980.
In other words, the entire history of the Weathermen falls inside Obama's "40 years ago" fabrication. And remember that Obama is answering a question that explicitly notes Ayers' unrepentant defiance as of September 2001. The phrase "40 years ago," then, was clearly a pre-fabricated, coached lie designed to reframe Ayers' violent past as occurring "when I was eight years old." Once again, while denying a significant relationship, Obama simultaneously seeks to cleanse Ayers himself, by greatly exaggerating the "English professor's" distance from his Weathermen past. The purpose, again, is to create a suitable back-up argument, in case further details of their personal relationship should come to light. Even if they were closer than Obama claims, surely you can't hold a man responsible for his associate's actions of 40 years ago, can you?
But this chronological manipulation, by conveniently isolating Ayers' bombing activity as the controversial matter, sidesteps the more pertinent question of ideology. As no one is accusing Obama of having participated in a bombing, the central question is not whether Ayers is still a terrorist; the question is whether he is still a Marxist seeking to overthrow the U.S. government. In other words, the question is whether his and Obama's shared projects, board memberships, and "neighborhood" indicate a shared subversive agenda.
Ayers, with reference to his 9/11 New York Times interview, has subsequently denied that when he said "we didn't do enough," he was referring to bombing. Indeed, he claims that by "we" he meant "everyone." Let's take the unrepentant traitor's word for it. He meant that he now understands that a few terrorist bombs are not enough to effect the dissolution of a constitutional republic in favor of a socialist workers' state.
What, then, one might ask, does he now believe would be a more effective means of achieving this end? I think we know.
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6)'The Road We've Traveled' With Obama
Three dismal years are spun into 17 minutes of fact-challenged campaign film.
By KARL ROVE
This month, Barack Obama's re-election campaign released a 17-minute film, "The Road We've Traveled," that previews the Democratic general election narrative. Directed by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim and narrated by actor Tom Hanks, the film explores Mr. Obama's most important decisions.
Viewers are told Mr. Obama deserves re-election for restoring America to prosperity after a recession "as deep as anything . . . since the Great Depression." He accomplished this in part, so the film says, by bailing out the auto companies—deciding not to just "give the car companies" or "the UAW the money" but to force them to "work together" and "modernize the automobile industry." The president, we're told, also confronted "one of the most worrisome problems facing America . . . the cost of health care."
Abroad, Mr. Obama ended the Iraq war and, in the "ultimate test of leadership," Osama bin Laden was killed on his watch. The film heralds Mr. Obama as a leader committed to "tough decisions" and as someone who "would not dwell in blame" in the Oval Office.
Where to begin? Perhaps with the last statement: Mr. Obama has spent three years wallowing in blame. His culprits have ranged from his predecessor, to tsunamis and earthquakes, to ATMs, to Fox News, to yours truly. If you Google "Obama, Blame, Bush" and "Obama, Inherited," you'll get tens of millions of hits.
As for inheriting the worst economy since the Great Depression: Perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten the Carter presidency, which featured double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.
The film is riddled with other inaccuracies and misleading claims. For example, the United Auto Workers may not have gotten "money" in the bailout, but as an unsecured creditor, the union received a 17.5% ownership interest in General Motors and 55% of Chrysler, while the companies' bondholders got hosed.
The film asserts that the auto companies "repaid their loans." But they still owe taxpayers $26.5 billion, and the Treasury Department's latest report to Congress noted that nearly $24 billion of the bailout money is gone forever.
Assistant editorial page editor James Freeman on Jeb Bush's endorsement of Mitt Romney. Plus, how President Obama reckons that he's only responsible for 12% of the deficit and George W. Bush is to blame for 59%.
The film includes Mr. Obama's 2008 claim that the death of his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, from cancer "could have been prevented" if only she "had good, consistent insurance." But earlier this year, a biography of Dunham by Janny Scott, "A Singular Woman," revealed that she had health insurance that covered most all her medical bills, leaving only a few hundred dollars a month in deductibles and uncovered costs. For misleading viewers, the Washington Post fact checker awarded this segment of the film "Three Pinocchios."
The film also offers up numerous straw men. For example, opponents of Mr. Obama's auto industry bailout, we're told, just wanted to "let it go," as if an orderly bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler in the courts rather than by presidential fiat was never an option. It was.
Almost as important as what the film says is what it doesn't. There's not a word about the failure of the president's stimulus to produce the jobs he pledged—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer Americans are working today (132.7 million) than when Mr. Obama was sworn in (133.6 million).
There's nothing about his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term—according to Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt, the administration has piled up more debt in three years and two months ($4.93 trillion) than his predecessor did in eight years ($4.8 trillion).
Nothing is said about the centerpieces of last year's State of the Union—green energy jobs (Solyndra anyone?) and high-speed rail (fizzled). Nada on the president's promises about how ObamaCare would lower premiums and lower the deficit while allowing people to keep their existing coverage (all untrue).
There's nothing about the crumbling situation in Afghanistan, strained relations with allies like Israel, Mr. Obama's unpopularity in the Islamic World, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, multiple missteps with Iran (from failing to protest the stolen Iranian elections in 2009 to the mullahs' unchecked pursuit of nuclear weapons), and Mr. Obama's flip flops on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and providing civilian trials for terrorists.
As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film "that's the call I would have made." For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).
6a)jobless claims fall to four year low
By Lucia Mutikani
The number of Americans claiming new unemployment benefits dropped to a four-year low last week, offering further evidence the jobs market recovery was gaining traction.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000, the lowest level since February 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
The prior week's figure was revised up to 353,000 from the previously reported 351,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 354,000 last week.
The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, declined 1,250 to 355,000.
The claims data covered the survey week for March nonfarm payrolls. Claims dropped 5,000 between the February and March survey periods, suggesting another month of solid job gains.
"That's another indication that the labor market is healing. That's good news for the March payroll report," said Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
"We are looking at net job growth of 200,000, which will be another good month. On the labor front, we have dug a deep hole but we seem to be digging out of it."
Employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls in February, taking the tally for the past three months to 734,000. The unemployment rate currently is at 8.3 percent, having dropped 0.8 percentage point since August.
The Federal Reserve has said it expects the jobless rate to "gradually" decline.
U.S. Treasury debt prices fell on the data and the dollar extended gains against the euro. U.S. stock index futures held their losses as investors worried about slowing growth in China.
A Labor Department official said there was nothing unusual in the state-level data and that only two states - Alaska and Minnesota - had been estimated.
The department next week will introduce new seasonal factors for 2012 and revisions for claims data from 2007 through 2011.
The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid fell 9,000 to 3.35 million in the week ended March 10, the lowest since August 2008.
Despite the improving labor market picture, long-term unemployment remains a major problem and about 43 percent of the 12.8 million out of work Americans in February had been jobless for more than six months.
The number of Americans on emergency unemployment benefits dropped 24,312 to 2.85 million in the week ended March 3, the latest week for which data is available.
A total of 7.28 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 142,499 from the prior week.
(Additional reporting by Richard Leong in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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