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We leave for an extended trip on June 13 so you will be awarded with a reprieve from having to delete these memos.
Have an enjoyable what's left of June and all of July
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Our oldest grandson has just launched his social network project called UNBUCKET. This is his e mail tome: "Just wanted to let you know we launched Unbucket! You can check out the home page at UNBUCKET.COM, and if you'd like I can send you an invite to check it out. Was chosen to present it to 350 people tonight at an event held at UCLA. Will let you know how it goes!"
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Is Harry Reid a dysfunctional Senate Leader or is he the slickest politician in D.C. who knows exactly what he is doing? You Decide. (See 1 and 1a below.)
Also, it now appears we have a president who leaks like a sieve to enhance his image of his being tough. The recent highly classified leaks have even gotten Democrat Senator Feinstein incensed.
OK, we know McCain is a hawk but when Feinstein chimes in about the irresponsible nature of these leaks and the fact that it sends a clear signal to those with whom we need to work they would be fools to do so - boy that is sobering.
The call for a special prosecutor is in order and , no doubt, the administration will do whatever they can to stonewall as AG Holder has been doing regarding the Fast and Furious disaster. Holder should be censured and dismissed but that ain't gonna happen either.
All of this is charged by random Democrats as election year politicking but it transcends politics because it goes to the very reason Congress exists - oversight and calling attention to misdeeds and betrayal.
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Now we have "Ole Bill' Clinton retreating from some of his recent comments which have undercut Obama. 'Ole Bill' has obviously been taken to the woodshed by someone, maybe Obama, and 'Ole Bill' looks contrite. I suspect his mushy explanation suggests more that he knew what he was saying, still believes it and is simply being a good boy. (See 2 below.)
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Is the Democrat card house beginning to crumble? Too early to say but for sure the pressure is mounting, the news is not good and the press and media, in my humble opinion, have begun to prepare for jumping ship and becoming somewhat more credible in order to maintain whatever semblance of integrity they have left. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) Dysfunctional Washington
Last week, Americans received more bad news on the country's economic performance. According to the latest Department of Labor jobs report, the U.S. economy createdB only 69,000 net jobs in May, and the unemployment rate increased to 8.2 percent. To add insult to injury, it was also reported that employers created 49,000 fewer jobs than originally estimated in March and April. Put it all together, and we see that the U.S. economy isB approaching stall speed.
If Washington doesn't act, things could get much worse, not better. That's because of a massive $494 billion tax increase set to hit on January 1, 2013. Known as "Taxmageddon," the tax hike will be the result of the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the termination of other tax policies, and the imposition of new taxes, such as those under Obamacare. Economists say that Taxmageddon will spell further doom for the U.S. economy, and this week, even former President Bill Clinton agreed that Washington should temporarily extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said the House will vote on extending the tax policies before the November election, but President Barack Obama and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have so far ignored the pending crisis. Meanwhile, the economy is in limbo, waiting for Taxmageddon to strike.
On top of a massive tax burden, America is careening toward a European-style spending and debt crisis. Heritage's Alison Fraser explains:
The sad fact is that U.S. federal debt soon will reach economically damaging levels, and spending will be the driver of that explosion. The three major entitlements--Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--will accelerate spending growth in the future due to demographic changes and rising health care costs. In 2012, they comprise approximately 45 percent of total federal spending, or 10 percent of GDP. By 2035, they will reach approximately 16.5 percent of GDP. Left alone, they will devour all tax revenues by 2045, assuming the historical level of taxation.
What's Washington doing about it? Conservative senators and representatives have put forward serious proposals to tackle the debt and spending crises, chief among them being Senator Mike Lee's (R-UT) budget, which mirrors the bold and thorough reforms The Heritage Foundation first proposed in itsB Saving the American DreamB plan. Though the House has passed a budget, the Senate has not passed one in 1,135 days. And as for the president's plan, the Senate voted it down 99 to nothing.
The dysfunction in the U.S. Senate has reached a new low under Majority Leader Reid, who is using tactics to rule with tyranny, restricting senators' rights to participate in debate and offer amendments. Heritage's Brian Darling explains in a new paperhow this has impacted the political process:
Stripping Senators of the right to bring issues up for debate in the form of amendments has dramatically affected the national debate from entitlement reform to gun rights. If Senators are not allowed to offer amendments to bills, those issues are often never debated by the American people. When Members chose to filibuster bills to open legislation to a free amendment process, they are demonized by leadership and left-wing groups.
So while unemployed Americans suffer record joblessness, as families and businesses brace themselves for a massive tax increase, and as the United States heads toward a fiscal meltdown, some in Washington are unable or unwilling to take action to turn the country around. There are good and honorable leaders in our nation's capital who have proposed the kinds of policies needed to set America on the right track, yet there are others who prefer gridlock to action. Sadly, the business-as-usual gridlock in Washington is the mirror opposite of the action taken in places like Wisconsin's state house, and the American people are paying the price
1a)Get Serious About Governing, Democrats
No amount of crying over evil Scott Walker will help governments fix their bleeding balance sheets
By Matt Welch
When politicians and activists warn that this or that election is a stark, Manichean choice between the champions of good and the malefactors of evil, many of us on the sidelines of political tribalism tend to wearily roll our eyes. But what independents tend to underappreciate is that the artificially raised stakes are a main part of the consumer attraction in the first place. It makes politics more meaningful, even fun, when you imagine that you are up against a pure form of rapacious evil.
Wisconsin has been the front line of America's Democrat vs. Republican, blue vs. red rhetorical war for 16 months now, ever since newly elected Republican governor Scott Walker pushed through a budget repair bill that withdrew government from the union dues-collecting business for public employees and removed the collective bargaining power of most government unions, an act that triggered historic public protests. So on the morning after Walker survived a labor-led recall election by a higher margin than he originally won office in 2010, there were plenty on the left grumbling darkly about the Dark Lord rising over our once-free country.
At The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson compared Walker's actions to a "jihad" and suggested (paradoxically) that a post-union labor movement might just resort to rioting. Walker "wins one for the plutocrats," Joan Walsh lamented at Salon, without really explaining how the monocle-wearers could win 38 percent of the union vote.
Such demonization was of a piece with leftish commentary in the run-up to the recall. Esquire's Charles P. Pierce described Walker as a "goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage its Midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin," which would now be subject to "the habits of oligarchy." Even more grossly, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote in The Washington Post that Walker's policies were intended to "cleanse the electorate of people who don’t look, earn or think like him."
It's almost comforting, in such a florid, menacing universe, to wallow in righteous defeat. But I would suggest that if progressives want to change minds and political outcomes, they might try a different strategy: Instead of merely rallying opposition to irredeemable bogeymen, how about providing a concrete, numbers-rich alternative to the brutal budgetary math Walker's union-tweaking policies were designed to address?
It is a fact that the majority of state budgets are in the red, that overall state spending increased by 81 percent from 2002-2007, and that rare-in-the-private-sector defined benefit pensions for government workers (along with post-retirement medical benefits) are a large and growing portion of state and local budgets, even while being chronically underfunded. The situation is terrible now, and will be much worse in the near future. So, progressives: Tell us concretely what you plan to do about this.
The state of California's public-sector pension contributions have increased 304 percent in a decade, up to $2.2 billion of a $91 billion budget, and growing faster by the minute. Pension contributions account for 20 percent and 27 percent, respectively, of the city budgets of San Diego and San Jose, whose citizens have responded by passing initiatives asking government workers to contribute more to their own pension and health care. Cities from California to Rhode Island have initiated bankruptcy over pension costs.
So, progressives: What is the right percentage of a government budget to be spent on public sector pensions? If this requires that cities and states simply need to come up with bigger budgets (through increased taxes) precisely how much bigger would be appropriate? If you don't want to increase overall budgets, what other government services are you willing to cut?
If the past four years of public debate are any indicator, we won't soon see concrete answers to any questions like these. Progressives almost never tell us how big they think the government should be. It is easier to make grand and vague gestures on behalf of working Americans than it is to justify the math of public sector unions negotiating with union-backed politicians to spend the money of non-union taxpayers, which may help explain why Americans are solidly in favor of public employees paying more of their own freight. And in all the hot air spewed about the Wisconsin recall, where were the positive arguments for all the citizen benefits received in the prior run-ups in Badger State spending?
As long as Democrats keep dodging these questions, no amount of plutocrat-baiting will reverse their political fortunes. Governments at all levels are out of money. Progressives are going to have to come up with a better response to that than saying "we were robbed."
Matt Welch is Editor in Chief of Reason, and co-author (with Nick Gillespie) of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, now available in paperback.
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2)Bill Clinton ‘very sorry’ for veering off message on Bush tax cuts
By Laura E. Davis
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Former President Bill Clinton apologized on Thursday for making comments this week that appeared to be at odds with President Barack Obama's position on extending the Bush tax cuts.
"I'm very sorry about what happened," Clinton said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "I thought something had to be done on the 'fiscal cliff' before the election. Apparently nothing has to be done until the first of the year."
He said he stands with Obama on the issue.
Talking to CNBC on Tuesday, Clinton seemed to suggest that he thinks the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, should be temporarily extended. Obama is opposed to the extension, a point his press secretary emphasized to reporters on Wednesday after Republicans seized on Clinton's comments.
"We should not extend—and he will not extend—the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of the American people. It's bad policy, it's bad for the economy, it's bad for our fiscal picture," Jay Carney said aboard Air Force One.
Clinton, who campaigned for his wife, Hillary, when she was competing against Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary battle, defended himself when Blitzer brought up the fact that Clinton's critics are charging that he's undermining Obama's re-election effort with his comments.
"I'm strongly committed to his re-election," Clinton said.
Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News White House correspondent, contributed to the reporting
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3)Jobs, Money, Scott Walker: Is It Time for Democrats to Panic?
Strategists and officeholders say it's way too soon to predict doom for either side.
AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., listens at right as House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Md., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
Democrats are having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad June. But if it’s time to start panicking, most of them haven’t gotten the memo.
Despite a spate of negative news, Democrats nationwide, both publicly and privately, seem remarkably Zen about their party’s prospects in November and unwilling to take out any frustration on their man in the Oval Office just yet. “Is there any anxiety on our side? Yes,” said Jerry Crawford, a longtime Democratic activist in Iowa. “Should the other side be feeling at least as much anxiety? Yes. There’s plenty of concern everywhere for both sides.”
(VIDEO: Obama Ad Blames Congress on Jobs)
The announcement on Thursday that the Republican National Committee and Mitt Romney’s campaign outraised Democrats and the Obama campaign by $15 million came on top of a stinging rebuke in Wisconsin’s recall election, rising unemployment, a churning economic crisis abroad, and increasingly tight polls that appear to show Obama’s reelection prospects dimming.
Many strategists say that despite the perceived intensity of the presidential race--propelled by the deluge of money already being spent and the volume of ads pounding the airwaves--June is too soon to start fretting about general-election voters, particular the sliver of undecideds who will largely determine the election outcome but may not tune in until after Labor Day. They also point to the fact that in various swing regions of the country, the president’s numbers have stayed more or less stable.
Moreover, even if the GOP success in Wisconsin shifted the traditionally blue state to toss-up status, as an Obama campaign video made by manager Jim Messina seemed to acknowledge, they say the president's campaign has a variety of plausible routes to reach the 270 electoral votes required for a second term.
The May jobs report indicating a slowdown in the economic recovery sparked much speculation over whether Obama is doomed. Democrats say that’s premature. “It’s unfortunate that the jobs recovery is not stronger than it is and that’s cause for concern, but hopefully the trend will reverse and we’ll see an improvement in the jobs market--and that remains to be seen,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
Mark Nevins, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic political consultant, said there will be many more ups and downs for both campaigns before Election Day and it’s best not to put too much stock in a single data point. “In general, people feel pretty good about the president’s ability to compete with Mitt Romney’s record, so right now I’m not sensing a lot of anxiety,” he said. “On an x’s and o’s level, there’s always been a roadmap for Democrats and Obama, and I don’t know that the roadmap has changed.”
The sentiment was confirmed in National Journal’s latest Congressional Insiders poll, which asked if after last week’s disappointing jobs numbers, the president is now the underdog against Romney. Both Democratic and Republican Congressional Insiders overwhelmingly answered no, citing the advantages of incumbency and the ephemeral nature of one jobs report.
Democrats are less worried about Obama’s performance than they are about factors out of their control, such as how Republicans will handle crucial upcoming debates on jobs, spending, taxes, and the debt ceiling; the prospect of a global economic slowdown, which they know Obama cannot control and which could easily derail his hopes for a second term; and whether their party can stay competitive with Romney on fundraising front. The alarmism about money by Democrats whose job it is to raise it intensified this week after the GOP released its fundraising report and an avalanche of outside money helped Gov. Scott Walker keep his job in Wisconsin.
Messina warned potential donors that the Wisconsin recall--in which Democrats were outspent more than seven-to-one--was a “terrifying experiment” in the power of money. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, issued a tense statement calling the defeat “a wake-up call” for Democrats that they can’t win without aggressive--and expensive--TV advertising.
(RELATED: Has the Presidential Turning Point Arrived?)
In a neighboring Rust Belt state, Brian Rothenberg, executive director of the liberal group ProgressOhio, didn’t seem spooked. He wasn’t expecting anything less than a tight race in 2012. “We’ve been a bellwether state now every year except 1996. I don’t think either party can take Ohio lightly. You have to do the things within your control--organize and plan and do a good field campaign,” he said. “The pressure and panicky-ness that’s going on in Washington with an extremely tight race—that’s nothing new here in Ohio. That’s just the norm.”
Even in places where the president’s prospects look most endangered, some Democrats see a silver lining. “To me, the important thing is we’re still debating about what [Obama’s] chances are in North Carolina,” said Democratic consultant Gary Pearce, who has worked on campaigns in the state since the mid-1970s. Running Democrats against Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 was “murderous,” he said. Now candidates at all levels are happy to piggyback off the formidable resources the Obama campaign has brought to the state. “They’re all hoping that the president is a tide that lifts all boats,” Pearce said.
With a few high-profile exceptions—including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona congressional candidate Ron Barber, who is running for former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's seat—there hasn’t been a concerted effort on Democrats’ part to divorce themselves from the president or the national party message. Obama leads the polls in a number of swing states, buoyed in some by his decision to bail out the auto industry. “I always say, send the president more, we would love to see him tomorrow and the next day and the next day,” said Chris Redfern, Democratic Party chairman in Ohio, where liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown is in the fight of his political career against up-and-coming conservative star Josh Mandel.
Democrats acknowledge that Obama has a nuanced sell to make to voters discouraged by how long economic misery has persisted. “It’s hard to get people to remember how bad things could’ve gotten—that’s a tough message to send,” said John Wertheim, a former Democratic Party official in New Mexico. Still, he said, there’s also a clear contrast to make with Romney and the GOP vision. Wertheim's outlook, like those of other Democrats: “Cautiously optimistic.”
Dan Friedman and Major Garrett contributed
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