Just some parting images before I leave for Europe, which is a cartoon in itself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Obama and the "Green Zone." No where to go but dialing for dollars among the Hollywood stars and New York Wall Street monied moguls!
Every once in a while he pops in to his DC Office . (See 1 below.)
---
Obama and the private sector. (See 2, 2a and 2b below.)
---
What The Tea Party is all about. (See 3 below.)
---
Last memo before we leave for several extended trips and a few parting thoughts because much campaigning will happen while we are away as well as resolutions involving the fate of the Euro!
First of all, Romney, has now gained some traction and the key is to stay on message and not get over confident.
Second, Romney must select a ticket mate that resonates with voters because it will be his first serious decision the public will have by which to judge him. Romney's selection must be a candidate who is serious in terms of competence, one sans of any type of personal blemish and someone with whom he will be compatible in terms of philosophy.
Third, Romney must outline some basic views that give us insight into his key core beliefs.
Fourth, he must not sugar coat the problems we face if we are to get our train back on track. He should not overreach by making promises. Discussing what he proposes to do by way of serious efforts should suffice. Promises come back to haunt. Anything shy of this, in my opinion, fails to credit voters as being adults and who desire to be treated accordingly. This is what won the vote in Wisconsin.
Finally, Romney should go after Obama by articulating clearly where the president has failed and explain, in simple language, why these are important and significant failures.
While we are away, I also suspect Romney will receive another boost from 'The Supremes' who will probably strike down 'Obamascare' in its entirety because they have the Constitutional basis to do so and doing anything less will boomerang on our nation in an economic sense.
'The Supremes' often make legal rulings, it seems to me, as if they never consider the economic impact of their decisions and consequently, though the law may be right the cost equation is horrendous.
I believe the desegregation decision was both right and long overdue. However, the consequences were bad because busing caused white flight which resulted in cities losing tax revenue. It would have been far better to have instructed states they would have to rectify the wrongs by allocating school funds more equitably, letting people move to better neighborhoods, if they so chose, and observe the consequences for a five year period. What happened was far too many of the burdens were placed upon innocent young people, far too many schools eventually re-segregated and I believe, in the early years after the decision, far too much discord was created,
Fortunately, until Obama came along, I believe race relations were on the upswing, black Americans were making progress in the work force and our nation was better for the progress.
I believe Obama has set back relations and his actions have awakened resentments that maybe smoldered beneath the surface but were on their way to being relegated to the dust bin of history because contact helps allay misplaced fears and prejudices. Basically people are the same, their wants and desires are similar. There are cultural differences and how they may go about achieving their goals may differ but in the end most everyone wants a fair shake and an opportunity.
I also believe affirmative actions overstayed its time and also helped to perpetuate racial discord.
As for the problems in the Middle East,ignoring repeated delays by Iran will only serve to signal to Israel sanctions are likely to fall short of their goal and this could well force Israel's hand. Anyone who misreads Netanyahu's willingness to defend his nation is a fool. Netanyahu may make mistakes in judgement but he will defend his people and he will do whatever he must .
Will the evil wind blow from Syria? (See 6 below.)
In terms of the stock market, as long as Germany is willing to keep funding nations that line up at the Central Euro Bank with outstretched hands a significant impediment to a market rise will have been laid aside until another bump in the road surfaces. Funding Spain's banks will be seen as a positive sign. Of course the monetary spigot can eventually run dry.. (See 4 below.)
---
This is the story of the American entrepreneur and it is similar to the one my own kids can tell regarding Sweet Tammy's. July 1, could be the turning point for them.
Their own sweat, blood, learning and finally a good staff of hard working people is what it has taken. (See 5 below.)
---
Does the October surprise actually come from Syria and Assad. This same source warned about this earlier.
Contained conflicts have a way of developing into wider wars when tolerated and thus it may happen in Syria.(See 6 and 6a below.)
---
Have a great rest of the summer.
---
Dick
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)Mark Steyn: Obama redefines 'Green Zone'
Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee a few days ago – that's 60 years on the throne. Just to put it in perspective, she's been queen since Harry S. Truman was president. At any rate, her jubilee has been a huge success, save for a few churlish republicans in various corners of Her Majesty's realms from London to Toronto to Sydney pointing out how absurd it is for grown citizens to be fawning over a distant head of state who lives in a fabulous, glittering cocoon entirely disconnected from ordinary life.
Which brings us to President Obama.
Last week, the republic's citizen-president passed among his fellow Americans. Where? Cleveland? Dubuque? Presque Isle, Maine? No, Beverly Hills. These days, it's pretty much always Beverly Hills or Manhattan, because that's where the money is. That's the Green Zone, and you losers are outside it. Appearing at an Obama fundraiser at the home of "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and his fiancé David Miller, the president, reasonably enough, had difficulty distinguishing one A-list Hollywood summit from another. "I just came from a wonderful event over at the Wilshire or the Hilton – I'm not sure which," said Obama, "because you go through the kitchens of all these places, and so you never are quite sure where you are."
Ah, the burdens of stardom. The old celebrities-have-to-enter-through-the-kitchen line. The last time I heard that was a couple of decades back in London when someone was commiserating with Sinatra on having to be ushered in through the back. Frank brushed it aside. We were at the Savoy, or maybe the Waldorf. I can't remember, and I came in through the front door. Oddly enough, the Queen enters hotels through the lobby. So do Prince William and his lovely bride. A month ago, they stayed at a pub in Suffolk for a friend's wedding, and came in through the same door as mere mortals. Imagine that!
So far this year, President Obama has been to three times as many fundraisers as President George W. Bush had attended by this point in the 2004 campaign. This is what the New York Post calls his "torrid pace," although judging from those remarks in California he's about as torrid as an overworked gigolo staggering punchily through the last mambo of the evening. According to Brendan J. Doherty's forthcoming book, "The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign," Obama has held more fundraisers than the previous five presidents' re-election campaigns combined.
This is all he does now. But, hey, unlike those inbred monarchies with their dukes and marquesses and whatnot, at least he gets out among the masses. Why, in a typical week, you'll find him at a fundraiser at George Clooney's home in Los Angeles with Barbra Streisand and Salma Hayek. These are people who are in touch with the needs of ordinary Americans because they have played ordinary Americans in several of their movies. And then only four days later the president was in New York for a fundraiser hosted by Ricky Martin, the only man on the planet whose evolution on gayness took longer than Obama's. It's true that moneyed celebrities in, say, Pocatello or Tuscaloosa have not been able to tempt the president to hold a lavish fundraiser in Idaho or Alabama, but he does fly over them once in a while. Why, only a week ago, he was on Air Force One accompanied by Jon Bon Jovi en route to a fundraiser called Barack On Broadway.
Any American can attend an Obama event for a donation of a mere $35,800 – the cost of the fundraiser hosted by Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg, and the one hosted by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and the one hosted by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, and the one hosted by Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, and the one hosted by Crosby, Stills and Nash. $35,800 is a curiously nonround figure. Perhaps the ticket cost is $36,000, but under Obamacare there's a $200 co-pay. Those of us who grew up in hidebound, class-ridden monarchies are familiar with the old proverb that a cat can look at a king. But in America only a cool cat can look at the king.
However, there are some cheap seats available. A year and a half ago, big-money Democrats in Rhode Island paid $7,500 per person for the privilege of having dinner with President Obama at a private home in Providence. He showed up for 20 minutes and then said he couldn't stay for dinner. "I've got to go home to walk the dog and scoop the poop," he told them, because when you've paid seven-and-a half grand for dinner nothing puts you in the mood to eat like a guy talking about canine fecal matter. And, having done the poop gag, the president upped and exited, and left big-shot Dems to pass the evening talking to the guy from across the street. But you've got to admit that's a memorable night out: $7,500 for Dinner With Obama* (*dinner with Obama not included).
And here's an even better deal, for those who, despite the roaring economy, can't afford even $7,500 for non-dinner with Obama: The president of the United States is raffling himself off! For the cost of a $3 nonrefundable online-application processing fee, you and your loved one can have your names put in a large presidential hat from which the FBI background-check team will pluck two to be ushered into the presence of their humble citizen-executive. That's to say, somewhere across the fruited plain, a common-or-garden non-celebrity will win the opportunity to attend an Obama fundraiser at the home of "Sex And The City" star Sarah Jessica Parker, co-hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the British-born inspiration for the movie "The Devil Wears Prada." I wish this were a parody, but I'm not that good. But I'm sure Sarah-Jessica and Anna will treat you just like any other minor celebrity they've accidentally been seated next to due to a hideous faux pas in placement, even if you do dip the wrong end of the arugula in the amuse-bouche.
If you're wondering who Anna Wintour is, boy, what a schlub you are: She's renowned throughout the fashion world for her scary bangs. I'm referring to her hair, not to the last sound Osama bin Laden heard as the bullet headed toward his eye socket on the personal orders of the president, in case you've forgotten. But that's the kind of inside tidbit you'll be getting, as the Commander-in-Chief leaks highly classified national-security details to you over the zebra mussel in a Eurasian-milfoil coulis. For a donation of $35,800, he'll pose with you in a Seal Team Six uniform with one foot on Osama's corpse (played by Harry Reid). For a donation of $46,800, he'll send an unmanned drone to hover amusingly over your sister-in-law's house. For a donation of $77,800, he'll install you as the next president-for-life of Syria (liability waiver required). For a donation of $159,800, he'll take you into Sarah Jessica's guest bedroom and give you the full 007 while Carly Simon sings "Nobody Does It Better."
There are monarchies and republics a-plenty, but there's only one 24/7 celebrity fund-raising presidency. If it's Tuesday, it must be Kim Cattrall, or Hootie and the Blowfish, or Laverne and Shirley, or the ShamWow guy ... .
I wonder if the Queen ever marvels at the transformation of the American presidency since her time with Truman. Ah, well. If you can't stand the klieg-light heat of Obama's celebrity, stay out of the Beverly Wilshire kitchen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Clueless appeal to aid gov’t workers
By John Podhoretz
A startlingly listless President Obama appeared in the White House press room yesterday morning, spoke some dull preliminaries about the European financial crisis — and then slipped and tumbled headfirst into re-election quicksand from which he will find it very difficult to extricate himself.
Now, it is not the case that the president is finished because he said, “The private sector is doing fine” — even though those were the very words he spoke yesterday, the week after a jump in the unemployment rate and a downward revision of the GDP.
It’s just one quote, after all, and a lot can happen in five months. And while it’s inarguably a huge gift to the Romney campaign — one worth approximately three George Clooneys and six Sarah Jessica Parkers — the president’s rival is certainly capable of making blunders that will hand back some of the advantage
No, “The private sector is doing fine” may prove to be the pivotal moment for the 2012 campaign because of what it demonstrates about the president’s ideas as he heads into the fight of his life.
First, the assertion indicates the president has fallen prey to the temptation to believe in macroeconomic generalities that make him feel good, rather than facing the practical realities of life outside the White House bubble.
Obama said there’s been significant private-sector job growth since the start of the year. That is a very arguable proposition; 800,000 new jobs in five months is not an especially impressive figure for anything that deserves to be called a “recovery.”
In any case, the health of the private sector can’t be measured solely or even primarily by job creation. Most people, after all, haven’t gone through the horror of unemployment.
What they have gone through is a period in which they have almost no job mobility, and a period in which their wages haven’t grown much — even as the inflated cost of gas and food has eaten away at what little gain they have enjoyed.
And that doesn’t even get into the discomfiting anxieties that come with working in America in 2012 — the sense that many jobs are tenuous, that maybe your employer can get by with one worker instead of two and that the one who gets laid off will be you.
In part, Obama needs to be able to say, “The private sector is fine,” because a healthy private sector is essential for his plans to increase the size of government — after all, the money to pay for it has to come from somewhere.
Indeed, he said, “The private sector is fine,” to provide what he thought would be a sobering contrast to the condition of the public sector. But this is the point that really shows the tone-deafness behind those five extremely unfortunate words.
Obama’s explanation for the slowdown in economic growth is that the public sector is hurting, and that’s where Washington must step in and act.
“Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes, cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government,” he said. “And so, you know, if Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments.”
The president seriously wants to go before the American people and argue in an election year that the wildly unpopular $860 billion stimulus of 2009 needs to be supplemented this year by more direct federal support of state and local government workers?
I’m trying very hard to think of a way this argument is not politically insane for Obama in his quest to win over independent voters who will make the difference in November.
I’m thinking. Give me a second.
Still thinking. And . . .
I got nothing.
And that may be what Barack Obama has got, too.
2a)The dark side of the moonbats
By Howie Carr
It’s no fun being a moonbat anymore.
You didn’t get invited to Barney Frank’s wedding in Newton. That “Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts” bumper sticker on your Prius has become a magnet for roadway ridicule.
But worst of all is what’s happened to your hero, Barack Hussein Obama. The emperor has no clothes. Mighty Casey has struck out.
Everything was so much simpler when George Bush was president.
Was it a mere four years ago when Barack modestly predicted that just his nomination alone would be the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow?” On Friday — exactly four years and four days after the seas started receding — the modern Moses conceded that housing in the U.S. is “underwater,” and that he hasn’t done squat about it.
But hasn’t he brought down the gas prices to $3.50 a gallon? Only $1.61 more to go and they’ll be back to where they were on Bush’s last day in office.
How can Barack be trailing the vulture capitalist
Mitt Romney in Michigan? Don’t these bitter clingers read The
New York Times [NYT]?
Even Chris Matthews’ leg has stopped tingling.
In 2008, everything was, you’ll pardon the expression, black and white. Predator-drone attacks under Bush — unconstitutional genocidal terrorism. Five times as many Predator-drone attacks under Barack — brilliant strategy by our wartime president.
Whatever happened to anti-war candlelight vigils? You see them on TV about as often as you watch military coffins being unloaded at Dover AFB.
Which is to say, never.
Campaign spending was never an issue in 2008 when Barack was grinding McCain’s moneymen into the dust. Then money was the mother’s milk of politics. Now, this George, er Mitt Romney, is lowering the boom on His Wonderfulness.
A national scandal is what these super-PAC’s are. Somebody call George Soros.
As a loyal moonbat, you’d love to respond to Jim Messina’s endless email money grovels. But the trust funds Pater and Mumsy set up for you just aren’t getting nearly the returns they did in the bad old days when Dick Cheney was unleashing hurricanes to ravage New Orleans.
The economy is “unexpectedly” sliding yet again, as the network anchors always say, but it’s not Barack’s fault. It can’t be. He went to Harvard. It’s all caused by those “headwinds” from Europe, that’s what Jim Cramer blamed it on this week. And before that it was the warm winter, or the Japanese tsunami, and don’t forget the early Easter, or was it the late Easter and, and ... George Bush!
Doesn’t anyone remember Bush’s jobless recovery — when unemployment was 4.5 percent? Now 3 million citizens have vanished from the workforce and unemployment is 8.2 percent. It’s the new normal.
Whatever happened to “9/11 — An Inside Job?” Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan have vanished into the Witness Protection Program. Nancy Pelosi is babbling about ghosts in the White House. Guys in white coats are chasing the vice president with a net as he raves about “crops that don’t depend on soil, water or fertilizer.”
What a drag it is, being a moonbat.
2b)
What do historians really think of Obama?
On the evening of Tuesday, June 30, 2009—just five months into his administration—Barack Obama invited a small group of presidential historians to dine with him in the Family Quarters of the White House. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, personally delivered the invitations with a word of caution: the meeting was to remain private and off the record. As a result, the media missed the chance to report on an important event, for the evening with the historians provided a remarkable sneak preview of why the Obama presidency would shortly go off the rails.
Today, with Mr. Obama in full campaign mode, that event—as well as two more unreported White House dinners with the historians—is worth examining. Together, they shed light on the reason this president is likely to find it much harder than he expects to connect with the public and win reelection to the White House.
At the time of the first dinner, the new president was still enjoying a honeymoon period with the American people; according to Gallup, 63 percent of Americans approved of the job he was doing. Brimming with self-confidence, Mr. Obama had earlier confided to David Axelrod, his chief political strategist: “The weird thing is, I know I can do this job. I like dealing with complicated issues. I’m happy to make decisions.…I think it’s going to be an easier adjustment for me than the campaign. Much easier.”
That the adjustment from campaigner to chief executive would prove harder—much harder—than anticipated had still not dawned on Mr. Obama when he sat down to dine with the historians. He was in an expansive mood as he tucked into his lamb chops and went around the table addressing each historian by name—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Douglas Brinkley, H. W. “Billam” Brands, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack, and Garry Wills.
During the presidential campaign, most of the evening’s dinner guests, like their liberal counterparts in the media, had dropped any pretense at objectivity. For instance, Michael Beschloss ('Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989') described Obama as “probably the smartest guy ever to become president,” which appeared to put Thomas Jefferson in his place.
Judging from Mr. Obama’s questions, one subject was uppermost in his mind: how could he become a “transformational” president and bend the historic trajectory of America’s domestic and foreign policy?
When one of the historians brought up the difficulties that Lyndon Johnson, another wartime president, faced trying to wage a foreign military venture while implementing an ambitious domestic agenda, Mr. Obama grew testy. He implied that he was different, because he could prevail by the force of his personality. He could solve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, put millions of people back to work, redistribute wealth, withdraw from Iraq, and reconcile the United States to a less dominant role in the world.
It was, by any measure, a breathtaking display of grandiosity by a man whose entire political curriculum vitae consisted of seven undistinguished years in the Illinois senate and two mostly absent years in the United States Senate. That evening Mr. Obama revealed the characteristics—arrogance, conceit, egotism, vanity, hubris and, above all, rank amateurism—that would mark his presidency and doom it to frustration and failure.
These characteristics had already set the pattern of his administration. Mr. Obama personally conducted his own foreign policy more than any president since Richard Nixon. He made all the decisions, because he believed that only he truly understood the issues. He spent his evenings writing decision papers on foreign affairs when, instead, he should have delegated that chore to experts and devoted his time to schmoozing members of Congress and convincing them to support his programs. He still loved making speeches to large, adoring crowds, but he complained to foreign leaders on the QT that he had to waste precious hours talking with “Congressmen from Palookaville.”
“Since the beginning of his administration, Obama hasn’t been able to capture the public's imagination and inspire people to follow him. Vision isn't enough in a president.
- Anonymous Historian
The senior people in his administration proved to be just as inexperienced and inept as Mr. Obama when it came to the business of running the government. Members of his inner circle—David Axelrod, campaign manager David Plouffe, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and éminence grise Valerie Jarrett—had proven their mettle in the dark arts of political campaigning, but they had no serious experience in dealing with public-policy issues. If they could be said to have any policy exposure at all it was their ideological enthusiasms for the left.
Over the two-hour dinner, Mr. Obama and the historians discussed several past presidents. It wasn’t clear from Mr. Obama’s responses which of those presidents he identified with. At one point, he seemed to channel the charismatic John F. Kennedy. At another moment, he extolled the virtues of the “transformative” Ronald Reagan. Then again, it was the saintly Lincoln…or the New Deal’s “Happy Warrior,” Franklin Roosevelt….
Mr. Obama told the historians that he had come up with a slogan for his administration. “I’m thinking of calling it ‘A New Foundation,’ ” he said.
Doris Kearns Goodwin suggested that “A New Foundation” might not be the wisest choice for a motto.
“Why not?” the president asked.
“It sounds,” said Goodwin, “like a woman’s girdle.”
In the wake of the shellacking the Democrats took in the midterm elections in 2010, Mr. Obama held a second dinner with the historians, which was devoted to the question of how he could “reconnect with the public.”
A third dinner took place in July 2011, shortly after Mr. Obama and his team botched the budget-deficit negotiations with Congress, and the United States government lost its Triple-A credit rating for the first time in history. It revolved around the theme “the challenge of reelection.”
That fall, I spoke to one of the historians who attended all three of the dinners. We met in a restaurant where we were unlikely to be seen, and our conversation, which lasted for nearly two hours, was conducted under the condition of anonymity.
I wanted to know how this liberal historian, who had once drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, matched the president’s promise with his performance. By this time, most of Mr. Obama’s supporters were puzzled by the sense of disconnect between the sharply focused presidential candidate of 2008 and the dazed and confused president of the past three years. The satirical TV show "The Onion News Network" had broadcast a faux story that the real Barack Obama had been kidnapped just hours after the election and replaced by an imposter.
“There’s no doubt that Obama has turned out to be a major enigma and disappointment,” the historian told me. “He waged such a brilliant campaign, first against Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and then against John McCain in the general election. For a long time, I found it hard to understand why he couldn’t translate his political savvy into effective governance.
“But I think I know the answer now,” he continued. “Since the beginning of his administration, Obama hasn't been able to capture the public's imagination and inspire people to follow him. Vision isn't enough in a president. Great presidents not only have to enunciate their vision; they must lead by example and inspiration. Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the individual. He and Ronald Reagan had the ability to make each American feel that the president cared deeply and personally about them.
“That quality has been lacking in Obama. People don’t feel that he’s on their side. Obama doesn't connect. He doesn't have the answers. The irony is that he was supposed to be such a brilliant orator. But, in fact, he’s turned out to be a failure as a communicator."
If the verdict of this historian is correct, and Barack Obama’s fundamental failure as president is his inability to connect with people, he is in far more serious trouble than most people realize as he seeks a mandate for a second term in office. Or, as this historian put it: “I wouldn’t bet the ranch on his getting reelected.”
"More than that, Obama might not have the place in history he so eagerly covets. Instead of ranking with FDR and Reagan and other giants, it seems more likely that he will be a case-study in presidential failure like Jimmy Carter."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)This Is What the Tea Party Movement Is About
By Mona Charen
Though it hasn't been celebrated as such, Scott Walker's victory in Wisconsin represents the full flowering of the tea party movement. It is also a sign -- among others -- that the Republican Party has recaptured its ideological core.
The tea partyers are often mischaracterized as extreme right-wingers. Thus, proponents of same-sex marriage or unrestricted abortion will invoke "tea party" elements as those most opposed to their efforts. That's off target. Though many in the movement may have conservative social views, those weren't the issues that spurred them to organize, demonstrate and vote.
No, the tea partyers -- judging by their signs, speeches and writings -- were alarmed about irresponsible government spending, bailouts of the undeserving and spiraling debt. The tea partyers are actually the 21st century "goo-goos" -- good government types -- the label that was attached to progressives in the early 20th century. They aren't anarchists, racists (as in the more febrile accusations of their opponents) or culture warriors. They simply want to see government scale back and perform its essential functions fairly, efficiently and honestly.
For some time, Republican office holders were little better than Democrats when it came to spending, accountability and reform. The size of government seemed to grow inexorably under both parties. Some Republicans earned and deserved tea party disdain.
But we are now in an era of true Republican reform. The reformers are Republican governors who, like Scott Walker, have chosen to tackle the bloated budgets and corrupt bargains of state governments. At least a half dozen Republican governors -- Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Chris Christie in New Jersey, Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Susana Martinez in New Mexico, Bob McDonnell in Virginia, and Walker himself -- have taken on the public sector unions frontally.
The word "corrupt" is not too strong for a system that worked like this: Unions worked to elect Democrats. Once elected, Democrats passed laws that permitted states to withhold union dues from state employee paychecks, further enriching and entrenching public sector unions. State governments then signed contracts with the unions giving far more generous pay, work rules (like teacher tenure) and benefits than the average taxpayer receives. Unions thus elected the people who sat across the table from them in contract negotiations. As Victor Gotbaum, a New York City union leader boasted, "We have the ability to elect our own boss." That mutual backscratching has burdened taxpayers with pension and other liabilities mounting into the trillions.
On his first day in office, Chris Christie signed an executive order forbidding public sector unions from making political contributions (corporations were already barred). He then embarked on the grueling, but necessary, battle to require unionized teachers to accept slightly less generous pensions and to make tiny contributions to their own health insurance.
In New Mexico, Susana Martinez has cut spending by $150 million without raising taxes, reduced the state workforce by 5 percent, eliminated duplicative taxes on small businesses, and increased local control of schools by opting out of No Child Left Behind.
Indiana's Mitch Daniels ended collective bargaining for public sector unions early in his tenure. He balanced budgets without raising taxes, earned the state a AAA bond rating for the first time, reduced the number of state workers to the lowest in the nation, improved the business climate, transformed a $700 billion deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus, and earned Indiana the Tax Foundation's "First in the Midwest" award for business climate. Indiana's government is also more efficient: child support collections are up, wait times for child services have been halved, 150 state troopers have been added, and the Healthy Indiana Plan provides health insurance to 50,000 low-income Hoosiers. Among participants, emergency room use has declined. Perhaps the most emblematic of all Indiana's accomplishments is that wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles have been reduced to less than eight minutes.
Both Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and Bob McDonnell in Virginia have pushed for reform of teacher tenure. McDonnell, like the other Republican reform governors, has reduced state spending. Jindal has also passed a balanced budget, ethics reform, tax cuts, and one of the most sweeping school voucher laws in the nation.
Scott Walker is in good company. He and his fellow reform Republicans are the vanguard of a refreshed and confident Republican Party. It's a party that, unlike the Democrats, is confronting the looming threat of government debt. That is what the tea partyers have been demanding. All of the Republican reformers are popular. Who knows -- if this continues, we may even escape bankruptcy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Harvard’s Feldstein: US at 33% Chance of Recession and Fed Can't Help
By Forrest Jones
The chances of the U.S. falling back into recession stand about one-in-three and more stimulus from the Federal Reserve won't do much good either, says Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist and head of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan.
In May, the economy added a net 69,000 jobs, far less than expected, while gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.9 percent in the first quarter, down from a initial estimate of 2.2 percent.
Will the country slide back into a recession?
"You can't rule it out. The economy is weak, weaker than many of the forecasters have been saying. We had less than 2 percent growth in the first quarter and roughly 1.5 percent last year. I think we'll be lucky if we have 2 percent growth in the rest of this year," Feldstein tells Reuters.
"At this point I would say one chance in three, or maybe less than that."
Market talk is abuzz the Federal Reserve will stimulate the economy by purchasing bonds held by banks, a policy tool known as quantitative easing (QE) that floods the economy with liquidity and pushes long-term interest rates down to encourage investment and hiring.
The Fed has rolled out two such measures so far, injecting $2.3 trillion worth of expansionary liquidity into the economy in the process.
The Fed has also shuffled its Treasury holdings in way to better ensure long-term interest rates such as mortgages stay low, a move known dubbed by Wall Street as Operation Twist.
More action by the Fed won't work, Feldstein says.
Rates are already low, the economy brimming with liquidity but demand still remains soft and hiring at bay.
"My sense is that further easing, whether it's QE or Operation Twist, whether it's helpful to the long-term bond market, whether it's helpful to the stock market, it really hasn't done anything for actual economic activity."
Addressing spending and tax reforms will help the economy.
"That's going to require fiscal reforms, and we're not going to see that until after the elections," Feldstein says.
Turning to Europe, the debt crisis there does pose a threat to the United States in that exports to the continent may suffer, especially considering that once red-hot Asian economies are cooling.
"It's significant, because it affects our financial markets and it affects our exports. Exports played an important part in the GDP growth in the beginning of the year, and this will clearly be a drag together with what's happening in China and elsewhere in Asia. That's further reason why the economy will have a hard time getting up to 2 percent GDP growth."
While events abroad are crimping growth at home, so are President Barack Obama's policies marked by increased government spending and regulation, though the president would prefer to cast blame elsewhere.
"It allows the president to say it's not his policies, it's Europe, it's Republicans. But the truth is that the policies of the last three-plus years have not boosted this economy and have discouraged both businesses and potential consumer spenders."
Meanwhile, talk of a coordinated response among the world's top 20 economies, known as the G-20, won't ease the European debt crisis either.
The problem is not uniform, as a recipe for recovery in Greece won't work in Spain or Italy.
"On something like this, when you need different policies for Greece, for Spain, for the United States, that's not something that's going to get worked out in a G-7 or G-20 meeting."
Let Greece exit the eurozone, but do work to keep Spain and Italy in, Feldstein recommends.
A Greek exit will be messy, but after a few years, the country will be better off.
"I think that it will be painful in the short run, but Greece has been going through a very painful process for several years now, with falling GDP and rising unemployment," Feldstein says.
"I think after they go through a couple of years of adjustment, a new drachma, devaluation will drive Greek consumers to spend more at home and spend less on imports and that will start to boost the economy of Greece."
Fed officials will gather at a June 19-20 meeting to discuss monetary policy, though some senior policy officials have already said intervention may be needed.
"I am convinced that scope remains for the FOMC to provide further policy accommodation either through its forward guidance or through additional balance-sheet actions," Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen says in prepared remarks delivered at the Boston Economic Club Dinner.
"There are a number of significant downside risks to the economic outlook, and hence it may well be appropriate to insure against adverse shocks that could push the economy into territory where a self-reinforcing downward spiral of economic weakness would be difficult to arrest," Yellen adds.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)Who Will Stand for Hard Work?
By Dera Enochson
What does it mean to be a business owner today in America? It means you take all the risk, put in all the effort. In return, you get the trophy of supporting all the people able to fill out paperwork, giving them entitlements and endless excuses to destroy their own destiny, along with ours.
My husband and I took a big risk eight years ago. We took all our money and invested in ourselves. We started our own business, and we put 10- to 15-hour days in, seven days a week, in order to make it a success...for eight years...nonstop...with no vacations...or even weekends off. Believe me: plenty of my friends thought this was foolish on our part. We missed out on many opportunities for fun. Why?
Because that is what successful Americans do. They work and work, to create something no one else has created before them. We also employ decent, hardworking people, who pay their taxes and contribute to society. These good people and members of society also function side by side with us as piggy banks for those who choose not to work.
We have seen repeatedly that people will choose unemployment even when handed a perfectly good job. My staff has had the phone conversations with people when we tried to hire them for $20 an hour. Our jobs require simple selling skills that can be honed anywhere and do not require even a high school diploma. We do ask that they dress in proper business attire and speak respectfully and acceptably to clients, but we do not ask for proof of education. We are also willing to train viable candidates for these positions. We have been turned down repeatedly when offering jobs to people who say they have found out that working violates their unemployment checks.
Darn right, it does! And before you decide that the job must be unacceptable for most, let me tell you that it is working in an elegant store with perfectly polite people and customers, with air-conditioning and heat aplenty, along with delicious food items within footsteps. Not exactly as hard as working in a mineshaft, or other truly tough jobs that people do every day.
When will one of our presidential candidates get it right? Stick up for the working people of America. Whether we are rich now, or hoping to become rich, that is America's promise. In our country, you get a fighting chance to be what you want to be. It's a fighting chance, not a handout. Not everyone will achieve his or her dreams. But you have the chance to do it. It requires extra effort.
Like many business owners, I went to public schools for my own education -- the same public education available to anyone in this country. We did nothing that any other ordinary citizen of American is deprived of the opportunity to do. We put in ridiculous hours of hard work. Why then must we support an endless stream of non-workers with the hours of my life we burned away to create a living and something for our children? And of course, when we die, the government gets to take half of all that hard-earned (previously taxed) money again.
We are created equal. When I was young, there were plenty of people who were convinced that I would not do anything significant with my life. It was voiced to me regularly as a young adult. Somehow I didn't believe that -- and that is exactly what the magic of the American spirit is all about.
It is time for a candidate who will show us all the way to succeed. Not cringe and hide from any discussion of wealth and opportunity. Wealth and opportunity are the name of the game, and we all want it! My company genuinely wants to see our employees move on to bigger and better things, either within our company or at another company if they move on. We make sure they have the skills to do that so they can create a better life for themselves.
Plenty of business owners all over the U.S. are doing the same thing. That should be the same attitude we see in our government. Instead, they cringe at any mention of wealth and go back to discussing entitlements. Entitlements are the path to destruction and despair. Let's not pretend any different any longer. We are not different sets of victims, all meant for self-destruction, poverty, and despair without government handouts. We are creating a world of co-dependent people scared to find out how powerful they can be if they only try.
And don't even get me started on presidential vacations. If I can go eight years without one, then they can, too. I understand a weekend or two off when you have a high-tension job. Certainly most of us business owners can't afford that ourselves, but we wouldn't begrudge it of our leader. However, I'd like to see our president treat this job with a little respect. Using up ten year's worth of vacation time while the country crumbles around you isn't inspirational. It smacks of that lack of respect created by the entitlement mentality, too! And I guess I know who is paying for that sense of entitlement...my fellow workers.
We have made this country great. Now stick up for us and our country, and give us someone we can vote for easily because we know he or she is cheering for success for all of us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)-Chemical warfare feared raising its head in the Syrian civil war
Chemical warfare looms over Syria
Tehran pumped out a report Early Sunday June 10 accusing Syrian rebels of arming themselves with chemical weapons originating in Libya and acquiring training in their use from an unknown source in their use. The report sent shudders of alarm through Western capitals and Israel and fears that Tehran and Damascus were preparing the ground for the Assad regime to resort to chemical warfare to finally crush its foes.
Iran claimed, “Any report released on the Syrian Army’s alleged use of the chemical weapons is meant to pave the ground for the terrorists to use these weapons against the people and accuse the Syrian army and government of that crime.”
Three days earlier, on June 7, Syrian rebel sources charged that the Syrian air force planes had dropped poisonous substances over Deraa, Hama and Idlib which knocked people unconscious. This later proved unfounded.
Western military sources watching Syria’s flashpoint areas warn that the fact that both sides of the conflict are now talking openly about chemical warfare attests to their seriously getting ready for this deadly escalation - and the ultimate game-changer. If they indeed go through with it, say sources Washington, European capitals, Riyadh and Jerusalem, US President Barack Obama cannot possibly stick to his refusal to take military steps in Syria and will have to step in with limited force to stop the escalating horror.
In that case, the US would almost certainly be joined by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and possibly other Arab nations.
Official spokesmen in the West, Moscow and the UN are still warning that Syria is on the verge of civil war, refusing to admit that a sectarian war which they failed to avert is already fully fledged – certainly between Sunni Muslims and Assad’s Allawite minority.
The Christians are also involved because some members of that community occupy high-ranking positions in the military command. Defense minister Dawoud Rajiha, who manages government action against the revolt, is a Christian.
The conflict is no longer clear-cut between the Syrian army and the various armed rebel groups. The al Houla massacre in the last week of May was a tragic turning-point: Armed groups of Alawites and Sunnis living in the same neighborhoods are now turning on each other. Their battles go largely unreported. One of the most disastrous episodes of this kind erupted last week between Sunni and Alawite neighbors in Latakia. Many parts of southern, eastern and northern Syria had consequently spiraled out of control of military and security forces. Western and Israeli military sources report that regional commanders and the general staff in Damascus have lost track of the violence plaguing those regions and more massacres on the scale of al-Houla and Al Qubeir are feared.
The rebel Syrian National Council’s choice of a Kurdish exile Abdel Basset Sayda Saturday as its new head is a bad omen: More than a step toward resolving the differences among the various factions and unifying ranks, the appointment brings the Kurdish community, one-fifth of the Syrian population, squarely into the revolt. Syrian Kurds have stayed out of it until now.
A major concern for Jerusalem was sparked by recent comments in Iranian Revolutionary Guards publications. Friday and Saturday, the official IRGC mouthpiece Mashregh quoted a warning by Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazaeri that in the event of any Western or Arab force interfering in Syria, Assad’s allies in the resistance “would ensure that aggressors do not survive the conflict. The Zionist regime and the interests of the enemies of Syria are all within range of resistance fire.”
Saturday night, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined Moscow’s hard line on Syria: “Moscow would support the departure of President Bashar al-Assad, but only if Syrians agreed to it,” he stressed. He ruled out outside force and sanctions against the regime and proposed another international conference.
Moscow has now ranged itself solidly behind Assad and the pyramid that keeps him in power – family, Alawites and the top military echelon. Even if the ruler was himself ousted in a coup by his own army, the general who seized power could count on Russian backing.
Syria endured another day of slaughter Saturday with the numbers of dead in double digits and the Red Cross warning that more than a million Syrians are in dire need of aid. The Syrian tragedy is more intractable than ever.
6a)
| Situation in Syria - Statement by Amb Ron Prosor |
Prosor to UN General Assembly: "No decent human being can stay silent in
the face of what is happening in Syria. The people of Syria are the
deliberate targets of a brutal regime that will commit any crime to cling to
power."
Thank you, Mr. President for convening this important discussion.
Eli Wiesel once said, "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the
oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the
tormented." His words call to us at moments like this.
It doesn't matter where you come from, or what politics you preach, or what
faith you belong to - no decent human being can stay silent in the face of
what is happening in Syria.
The people of Syria are not the indiscriminate victims of a natural
disaster. They are not the tragic fatalities of a famine. They are not the
accidental casualties of war. They are the deliberate targets of a brutal
regime that will commit any crime and cross any line to cling to power.
We hear the words spoken in today's debate, but the appalling images and
stories coming out of Syria are what stick in our minds. This morning I hear
the cries of the infants massacred in Houla. I see the pleading eyes of the
children of Homs, desperate and terrified beyond belief. I try to put myself
into the shoes of the families whose loved ones have disappeared into
Assad's torture chambers - and will never be heard from again.
Today I urge this Assembly to think of each man, woman, and child
slaughtered by the Syrian Government in the past 15 months. It grows larger
month by month, day by day, hour by hour. More than 4,000 have been killed
since the General Assembly last discussed this issue. How many more
innocents must die before the world acts?
The pictures coming out of Syria serve as a moral call to every person and
every nation in the world. Nowhere is that call more clear than here at the
United Nations, which was founded primarily to safeguard the principles of
human rights, dignity and life.
Today, on behalf of the Israeli people and the Jewish people, I say directly
to the Syrian people: we hear your cries. We are horrified by the crimes of
the Assad regime. We extend our hand to you.
Mr. President,
Assad is not the only one with the blood of the Syrian people on his hands.
Iran and Hizbullah sit on his advisory board, offering guidance on how to
butcher the Syrian people more efficiently. They direct an army of
mercenaries that work on his behalf. Today Iranian Revolutionary Guards are
funneling weapons to his troops. Hezbollah operatives are firing at his
people.
Before our eyes we see a trio of brutality. Assad, Ahmadinejad, and
Nasrallah are joined by an extremist and hateful ideology. The future of
this trio of brutality depends on crushing the hopes and dreams of millions
throughout the region. The international community cannot allow them to
continue operating with impunity. The costs of further delay and division
are clear. With each day that passes, the unbearable price for the Syrian
people rises. The trio of brutality must be held to account.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: Bashar al-Assad has no moral
authority to govern. The international community must recognize that the
hourglass of the Assad regime has run out - and seize this as an hour of
action. It is high time for the voices of the victims in Syria to finally
unite the voices of the world against the tyrant of Damascus. Our common
humanity binds us to them. Their fate is in our hands.
Thank you, Mr. President. |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
." (Regnery 2012)