Obama: Corruption, Deception, Dishonesty, Deceit and Promises Broken

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How Green Is Your Lost Job?
IBD Editorials ^ | March 1, 2011 | Staff

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Power: A study of renewable energy in Scotland shows that for every job created in the alternative energy sector, almost four jobs are lost in the rest of the economy. We've seen this movie before.

Not only has the sun set on the British Empire, but the promise of wind apparently is deserting it as well. A new study called "Worth The Candle?" by the consulting firm Verso Economics confirms the experience of Spain and other countries: The creation of "green" jobs destroys other jobs through the diversion of resources and the denial of abundant sources of fossil fuel energy.

The economic candle in the U.K. is being blown out by wind power. The Verso study finds that after the annual diversion of some 330 million British pounds from the rest of the U.K. economy, the result has been the destruction of 3.7 jobs for every "green" job created.

The study concludes that the "policy to promote renewable energy in the U.K. has an opportunity cost of 10,000 direct jobs in 2009-10 and 1,200 jobs in Scotland." So British taxpayers, as is the case here in the U.S., are being forced to subsidize a net loss of jobs in a struggling economy.

"There's a big emphasis in Scotland on the economic opportunity of investing in renewable energy," says study co-author and Verso research director Richard Walsh. "Whatever the environmental merits, we have shown that the case for green jobs just doesn't stack up."


(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

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COLE: Obama’s helping hand hoodwinks homeowners
Government mortgage assistance can be worse than nothing
By Rebel A. Cole
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The Washington Times
6:42 p.m., Tuesday, March 1, 2011


Back in March 2009, the Obama administration unveiled the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, a program for helping delinquent borrowers save their homes from foreclosure - a problem that got worse again in reports released just last week. The goal of HAMP was to “help 3 to 4 million homeowners by 2012.” This phrase should have read “help or hurt” because hurt is exactly what has happened to hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have attempted to use HAMP to save their homes.

How is it possible that a program for providing mortgage modifications could hurt homeowners? To understand this, we need only look at how HAMP has worked - in practice. As reported in its most recent report for December 2010, HAMP has led to 1.47 million “trial modifications” that have resulted in 580,000 “permanent modifications,” but 735,000 “trial modifications [have been] canceled.” The half-million permanent modifications are noteworthy achievements, so long as they don’t result in a high percentage of re-defaults, as has been the case for past modifications.

But what about the almost three-quarter-million borrowers whose trial modifications were canceled? Are they better off or worse off from participating in HAMP? In perhaps hundreds of thousands of cases, the answer is worse - far worse. To understand how that happened, we must go back in time to see how and why these borrowers entered into the program. According to a survey by ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization, almost half of respondents reported that “they were advised, incorrectly, to fall behind on their mortgage in order to qualify for a modification.” In other words, these homeowners were current on their mortgages and only defaulted in order to qualify for HAMP - because you had to be in default before you could get government help. Indeed, the survey respondents reported, they only fell behind on their payments after being advised by their lender, loan servicer or other supposedly reliable third party that it could help their situation. Extrapolating the survey results to the 1.4 million HAMP participants, this situation likely describes the experience of a half-million homeowners: duped into delinquency.

As bad as this sounds, it gets much worse because these borrowers typically were not told all the potential consequences of falling behind on their mortgages. Consider the case of one borrower I know who followed the advice of his servicer to default in order to qualify for a trial modification, as HAMP is only available to delinquent homeowners. This borrower successfully obtained a trial modification that reduced his monthly payment from $2,000 to just $1,200. The trials are supposed to last just three months, but after three months, this borrower was told to continue making the modified payments until a decision could be made on his application for a permanent modification. Eight months passed, with eight timely modified payments made to the servicer, and then the homeowner was notified that the application had been denied because of failure to file required paperwork that had, in fact, been filed but that the servicer had lost repeatedly. ProPublica reports that “losing documents and giving false information” is an almost universal complaint of respondents to its survey.

Worse yet, this homeowner was told that he was responsible not only for the next month’s full mortgage payment of $2,000, but also for the cumulative difference in the trial and full payments for the previous eight months (a total of $6,400), for late fees ($800), for foreclosure fees ($1,900) and for foreclosure attorney fees (1,400), a grand total of $10,500. This borrower, who was never advised of this possible outcome, did not have $10,500 saved up for such a contingency and could not comply. Instead, the servicer initiated foreclosure proceedings, where the situation now stands. Fortunately, this borrower lives in a judicial foreclosure state where the process can take longer. In a statutory foreclosure state like Virginia, the house likely would have been lost already at a sheriff’s sale.

Was this homeowner helped or hurt by HAMP? He was in financial distress but able to make his monthly payment by skimping on everything else. He reached out to HAMP for a lifeline; instead, he received a noose around his financial neck.

How could this situation have been avoided? Clearly, more disclosure would have helped. With the full set of facts regarding potential outcomes, this homeowner and the hundreds of thousands in similar situations never would have defaulted in the first place. Better yet, why don’t regulators require servicers to accept the modified payment as payment in full for the length of the trial-modification period, require servicers to make a binding decision after the three-month trial period and require servicers to forgo late fees and other penalties when a trial modification fails? Or perhaps, as Republican lawmakers have suggested, it is simply time to pull the plug on HAMP and apply the $30 billion that remains allocated for HAMP to other purposes.

Of course, the servicers don’t want to give up these lucrative sources of income, which have turned foreclosure into a profit center at the expense not only of borrowers, but also of the investor-lenders whom the servicers represent. Typically, fees get paid to servicers before principal and interest go to investors. In fact, investors want to change the terms of their contracts with servicers to put their own best interests ahead of the interests of the servicers. However, the trustees who represent most investors are other Wall Street bankers, who thus far have failed to take action against the servicers, who also are Wall Street bankers.

Just last week, the December S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index confirmed that housing has entered into a double-dip recession. December data from LPS Applied Analytics shows that 2.2 million mortgages are in the process of foreclosure; another 2.1 million are seriously delinquent and most likely headed into foreclosure. At the current rate of foreclosure sales, we are looking at three years or more before this inventory works its way through the legal system; as it does so, housing prices will continue to decline, dragged down by the sale of foreclosed properties. Until changes are made to the way delinquent mortgages are serviced in the United States, the housing market will continue to decline, likely dragging our economy into a double-dip recession.

Rebel A. Cole is professor of finance and real estate at DePaul University.

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

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http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/the-minimal-impact-of-the-stimulus/#more-102276

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March 2, 2011, 6:00 am The Minimal Impact of the Stimulus
By CASEY B. MULLIGAN
 Casey B. Mulligan is an economics professor at the University of Chicago.


Last week’s final report on gross domestic product for 2010 provides a fresh opportunity to evaluate the stimulus law passed two years ago. The data and economic reasoning suggest that the effect of government spending on G.D.P. was minimal at best.

As planned, almost all of the tax cuts and public spending increases from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are finished. The Obama administration and its supporters promised that the fiscal stimulus law would create or save more than three million jobs by now. Their stated intention was to provide government spending while the economy was weak, then end the extra spending as the economy recovered.

But instead of adding jobs, employment is now about two million below what it was when the law was passed in February 2009.

Some of us think that the fiscal stimulus made a bad situation worse, and that employment would have grown, or fallen less, if the stimulus law had not been passed. The Obama administration contends that, apart from the stimulus law, the economy was in worse shape than anyone expected, and that the law kept the employment drop to two million, rather than a potential drop of more than five million.

While the increase in the stimulus by design coincided with economic weakness, the stimulus decline did not coincide with economic strength. Unemployment rates remained high, and employment, home prices and the Federal funds rate remained low as stimulus spending was winding down (as this profile of stimulus spending shows; note that we are now in the middle of fiscal year 2011).

If Keynesian stimulus advocates are correct, economic growth should have been sharply reduced when stimulus spending slowed.

I use real G.D.P. results from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to measure actual economic growth through the end of 2010. In order to compare the results with the Keynesian theory, I assume a government spending multiplier of 1.5, as the Obama administration did when it projected the impact of the law.

Such a multiplier means that each additional dollar in government spending adds $1.50 to G.D.P., and each dollar subtracted from government spending subtracts $1.50 from G.D.P.

Because we know that the economy would have been weak in the first few quarters of the stimulus regardless of the law, I do not begin the measurement until the fourth quarter of 2009, when the president’s Council of Economic Advisers declared that the stimulus law had successfully started a slow recovery.

If the advisers were right, economic growth should have increased further when government spending grew still faster in the next couple of quarters, and then grown more slowly as government spending grew more slowly later in 2010.

I have illustrated the Keynesian-multiplier-1.5 as a red line in the chart below, and the actual results as blue squares. The blue square at the end of the red line is the data for the fourth quarter of 2009. If the multiplier of 1.5 held up, all of the data for the subsequent quarters should have appeared on the red line. (The quarters represented by the squares are not in chronological order.)


 Instead, actual G.D.P. growth ended up below the red line and, more important, the quarters with more government spending growth tend to be those with less G.D.P. growth.

Stimulus advocates lament that the stimulus law was too small and was significantly offset by shrinking state and local government spending. But my chart measures total government spending at all levels.

We can see from the chart that real government spending did in fact grow rapidly at times and grow slowly at other times: the actual growth rates range from less than 1 percent per year to more than 7 percent per year.

The red line shows that the range was wide enough to, according to the 1.5 multiplier, make G.D.P. growth rates of almost 9 percent per year (technical note: as drawn, the red line does not have a slope of 1.5 because, in terms of growth rates, the slope is the product of 1.5 and the ratio of government spending to G.D.P.).

A number of Keynesians outside the Obama administration would distinguish government spending on “transfers to individuals” from government spending on goods and services (among other things, government spending on goods and services is automatically counted in G.D.P.; transfers are not).

My chart’s green line shows an alternate Keynesian hypothetical based on a multiplier of 0.75, which might represent a smaller multiplier for transfers.

(Because the Obama administration’s original projection made no distinction between purchases and transfers to individuals – even though it knew that much federal spending would be the latter and some federal grants to state and local governments would allow those governments to make transfers – the 1.5 hypothetical is the appropriate one for evaluating their promises of stimulus results, even it is not appropriate for evaluating other Keynesian theories).

The blue squares showing actual results for our economy do not fit anywhere in the cone formed by the two Keynesian hypotheticals, suggesting that, contrary to the Keynesian promises, the stimulus law did not noticeably increase G.D.P. and might even decrease it.

After all, the stimulus spending penalized success, since its benefits — for example, extending unemployment insurance — were aimed at people and businesses with low incomes, and not at those who were working and/or achieving a certain income level. So it would be no surprise if the result was to keep incomes below what they would have been — as in other cases, a counterproductive result of a well-intentioned program.

Perhaps you think that government spending does its stimulation with a lag, but the Keynesian theories do not fit the lagged data any better. The chart below is the same as the one above except that government spending growth is measured in the quarter prior to the G.D.P. growth.

Again, the data fail to fall in the cone predicted by the 0.75 to 1.5 range of Keynesian multipliers. (Further variations on these charts provide no better results).

[Soul Crusher]

Why the Dollar's Reign Is Near an End
WSJ ^ | 3/1/11 | BARRY EICHENGREEN



For decades the dollar has served as the world's main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here's why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies.

The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth has been. Nor is it the volatility of currency rates, as wild as the markets are these days.

Instead, it's the extent to which the market remains dollar-centric.

But as astonishing as that is, what may be even more astonishing is this: The dollar's reign is coming to an end.

The impact of such a shift will be equally profound, with implications for, among other things, the stability of exchange rates, the stability of financial markets, the ease with which the U.S. will be able to finance budget and current-account deficits, and whether the Fed can follow a policy of benign neglect toward the dollar.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...

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Fearing economic impact, Dem presses Obama to ‘reevaluate’ climate rules
The Hill ^ | 2-28-11 | Ben Geman


Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is urging the White House to re-evaluate greenhouse gas permitting regulations to avoid damaging manufacturers and other industries that are vital to his state and the nationwide economy.

Brown — who faces reelection in 2012 in the battleground Midwest state — wrote to President Obama Monday calling for a review of the “economic repercussions and potential unintended consequences” of regulations the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to phase in this year.


(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...

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The Decline of U.S. Naval Power
Sixty ships were commonly underway in America's seaward approaches in 1998, but today there are only 20. We are abdicating our role on the oceans..

  By MARK HELPRIN

Last week, pirates attacked and executed four Americans in the Indian Ocean. We and the Europeans have endured literally thousands of attacks by the Somali pirates without taking the initiative against their vulnerable boats and bases even once. Such paralysis is but a symptom of a sickness that started some time ago.

The 1968 film, "2001: A Space Odyssey," suggested that in another 30 years commercial flights to the moon, extraterrestrial mining, and interplanetary voyages would be routine. Soon the United States would send multiple missions to the lunar surface, across which astronauts would speed in vehicles. If someone born before Kitty Hawk's first flight would shortly after retirement see men riding around the moon in an automobile, it was reasonable to assume that half again as much time would bring progress at a similarly dazzling rate.

It didn't work out that way. In his 1962 speech at Rice University, perhaps the high-water mark of both the American Century and recorded presidential eloquence, President Kennedy framed the challenge not only of going to the moon but of sustaining American exceptionalism and this country's leading position in the world. He was assassinated a little more than a year later, and in subsequent decades American confidence went south.

Not only have we lost our enthusiasm for the exploration of space, we have retreated on the seas. Up to 30 ships, the largest ever constructed, each capable of carrying 18,000 containers, will soon come off the ways in South Korea. Not only will we neither build, own, nor man them, they won't even call at our ports, which are not large enough to receive them. We are no longer exactly the gem of the ocean. Next in line for gratuitous abdication is our naval position.

Separated by the oceans from sources of raw materials in the Middle East, Africa, Australia and South America, and from markets and manufacture in Europe, East Asia and India, we are in effect an island nation. Because 95% and 90% respectively of U.S. and world foreign trade moves by sea, maritime interdiction is the quickest route to both the strangulation of any given nation and chaos in the international system. First Britain and then the U.S. have been the guarantors of the open oceans. The nature of this task demands a large blue-water fleet that simply cannot be abridged.

View Full Image

Associated Press
 
Forty percent of the world's population lives within range of modern naval gunfire, and more than two-thirds within easy reach of carrier aircraft.
.With the loss of a large number of important bases world-wide, if and when the U.S. projects military power it must do so most of the time from its own territory or the sea. Immune to political cross-currents, economically able to cover multiple areas, hypoallergenic to restive populations, and safe from insurgencies, the fleets are instruments of undeniable utility in support of allies and response to aggression. Forty percent of the world's population lives within range of modern naval gunfire, and more than two-thirds within easy reach of carrier aircraft. Nothing is better or safer than naval power and presence to preserve the often fragile reticence among nations, to protect American interests and those of our allies, and to prevent the wars attendant to imbalances of power and unrestrained adventurism.

And yet the fleet has been made to wither even in time of war. We have the smallest navy in almost a century, declining in the past 50 years to 286 from 1,000 principal combatants. Apologists may cite typical postwar diminutions, but the ongoing 17% reduction from 1998 to the present applies to a navy that unlike its wartime predecessors was not previously built up. These are reductions upon reductions. Nor can there be comfort in the fact that modern ships are more capable, for so are the ships of potential opponents. And even if the capacity of a whole navy could be packed into a small number of super ships, they could be in only a limited number of places at a time, and the loss of just a few of them would be catastrophic.

The overall effect of recent erosions is illustrated by the fact that 60 ships were commonly underway in America's seaward approaches in 1998, but today—despite opportunities for the infiltration of terrorists, the potential of weapons of mass destruction, and the ability of rogue nations to sea-launch intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles—there are only 20.

As China's navy rises and ours declines, not that far in the future the trajectories will cross. Rather than face this, we seduce ourselves with redefinitions such as the vogue concept that we can block with relative ease the straits through which the strategic materials upon which China depends must transit. But in one blink this would move us from the canonical British/American control of the sea to the insurgent model of lesser navies such as Germany's in World Wars I and II and the Soviet Union's in the Cold War. If we cast ourselves as insurgents, China will be driven even faster to construct a navy that can dominate the oceans, a complete reversal of fortune.

The United Sates Navy need not follow the Royal Navy into near oblivion. We have five times the population and almost six times the GDP of the U.K., and unlike Britain we were not exhausted by the great wars and their debt, and we neither depended upon an empire for our sway nor did we lose one.

Despite its necessity, deficit reduction is not the only or even the most important thing. Abdicating our more than half-century stabilizing role on the oceans, neglecting the military balance, and relinquishing a position we are fully capable of holding will bring tectonic realignments among nations—and ultimately more expense, bloodletting, and heartbreak than the most furious deficit hawk is capable of imagining. A technological nation with a GDP of $14 trillion can afford to build a fleet worthy of its past and sufficient to its future. Pity it if it does not.

Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other works, "Winter's Tale" (Harcourt), "A Soldier of the Great War" (Harcourt) and, most recently, "Digital Barbarism" (HarperCollins).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150604576166362512952294.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#articleTabs%3Darticle

[Soul Crusher]

Gulf Oil Spill Could Have Been Stopped 48 days Earlier
 american thinker ^ | 3/3/11 | Bruce Thompson




For 48 days and nights, the Deepwater Horizon well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico, when it could have been shut down. We now know this:

It is very likely that if the top kill had been designed to deliver more than 109 bpm of 16.4 ppg drilling fluid below the BOP stack for a sustained period, the Macondo blowout could have been stopped between May 26-28, 2010. Given that the well was successfully shut-in with the capping stack in July, and that the subsequent bullhead (static) kill was successful, certainly a higher rate top kill would have been successful at that time.

That is the pull quote from a research paper submitted to the President's Oil Spill Commission by Dr. Mayank Tyagi et al. of LSU. The Commission's Chief Counsel's Report 2011 puts the onus on BP for discontinuing the top kill attempt. Dr. Tyagi uses a New York Times illustration as his figure 2, indicating some faith in their reporting. The New York Times reported that Energy Secretary Steven Chu was responsible for stopping the effort against BP's wishes.

His role gradually deepened as he assembled a team of scientists from the Department of Energy laboratories, universities and other government agencies. By late May, his confidence had grown and he was giving orders to BP officials, including his demand to stop the top kill effort even though some BP engineers believed it could still succeed.

"A lot of us said ‘don't start it,' and he was the one who said ‘stop,' " said a BP technician who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "But having done all we had already done, I thought we should have completed the final two operations. He was not keen to listen. BP people said, ‘Let's try these last two steps,' but he said, ‘No, stop.' "

We know from the factual record that the last joint National Incident Command - BP press conference was held on May 27. The next press event by the NIC did not occur until June 1 and BP was not invited. Somebody has some explaining to do!

[Soul Crusher]

Official: Obama, Calderon reach trucking agreement
 AP/WorldMag ^ | Mar 3, 12:26 PM EST | Julie Pace




WASHINGTON (AP) -- An administration official says President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon have reached an agreement on resolving a long-standing dispute over cross-border trucking.

The official says the leaders will announce a clear path to open U.S. highways to Mexican trucks during a joint news conference at the White House Thursday afternoon. Calderon is in Washington for wide-ranging meetings with Obama on everything from border security and immigration.


(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...

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- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News. - http://blog.heritage.org -
 


http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/03/obamas-start-up-america-initiative-stalling-entrepreneurs/print


Obama’s “Start-Up America” Initiative: Stalling Entrepreneurs

Posted By Jim Roberts On March 3, 2011 @ 11:00 am In Enterprise and Free Markets | 1 Comment



 
[1]
 
“Entrepreneurs embody the promise of America: the idea that if you have a good idea and are willing to work hard and see it through, you can succeed in this country. And in fulfilling this promise, entrepreneurs also play a critical role in expanding our economy and creating jobs.” – President Barack Obama, January 31, 2011
 
The recent White House announcement [2] of a new government program to promote entrepreneurship must signify that the Obama Administration finally “gets it” about job creation and economic recovery, right? [3] Certainly free-market conservatives can agree with the President’s inspiring words. But …
 
The problems, as always, emerge in the details of the program. This “coordinated public/private effort” appears to be just another head-fake in the direction of capitalism with the intention of growing more government. Just look at the program’s goals:

 •“Expand access to capital for high-growth startups throughout the country”: An almost perfect definition of the government picking winners and losers and a sure-fire recipe for corruption. To add insult to injury, it turns out there is more than one federal agency in the game. Check out what the Small Business Administration is doing [4] to identify “gazelle” (high-growth/high-impact) firms. The Department of Energy [5] has been at it longer.

 •“Expand entrepreneurship education and mentorship programs that empower more Americans not just to get a job, but to create jobs”: New government spending opportunities here, for sure. The government cannot create jobs (at least not jobs that generate more taxes than they consume).

 •“Strengthen commercialization of the about $148 billion in annual federally-funded research and development, which can generate innovative startups and entirely new industries”: Does “commercialization” mean that the government is trying to use taxpayer funds to take “market share” away from private banks and venture capitalists?

 •“Identify and remove unnecessary barriers to high-growth startups”: Barriers like high taxes and over-regulation? Regulation is undoubtedly a hurdle to business growth and formation, which is an area this Administration could not disagree with more. The health care reform law of 2010 is the clearest example of this lack of understanding. Heritage papers [6] point to the health care law impacting the business sector negatively—beyond the standard 1099 provision.

 •“Expand collaborations between large companies and startups”: Why does the government need to be involved in that?
 
Looks like any funding for “Start-Up America” should be added to Congress’s bucket list of wasteful government programs ripe for pruning. As Heritage experts have reported, only private entrepreneurs, investors, and small businesses can truly “lay the foundation for a lasting economic recovery [7].” Government spending programs that do not increase demand for goods and services but simply redistribute demand within the economy – such as Start-Up America – should be the first to go.
 
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Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.: http://blog.heritage.org

URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/03/obamas-start-up-america-initiative-stalling-entrepreneurs/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Going_out_of_Business090203.jpg

[2] announcement: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/startup-america

[3] right?: http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/03/01/why-a-top-ceo-rejects-pro-business-obama

[4] what the Small Business Administration is doing: http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/webinars/2011/files/SBA-OI-Webinar-Presentation-18-Jan2011.pdf

[5] Department of Energy: http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/39216/future-delaware/reihan-salam

[6] papers: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/09/Obamacare-Impact-on-the-Economy

[7] lay the foundation for a lasting economic recovery: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/12/A-Free-Enterprise-Prescription-Unleashing-Entrepreneurs-to-Create-Jobs

[Soul Crusher]

- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News. - http://blog.heritage.org -
 


Morning Bell: How Obama Is Making Gas Prices Higher



- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News. - http://blog.heritage.org -
 


Morning Bell: How Obama Is Making Gas Prices Higher
Posted By Conn Carroll On March 3, 2011 @ 9:10 am In Energy and Environment | 53 Comments



 
Yesterday, for the first time since September 2008, the price of a barrel of crude oil topped $100 [1] on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But while the recent unrest in the Middle East has had some marginal effect on rising prices, the most significant factor has been increased oil demand worldwide. That is why, long before the recent protests even began, analysts were predicting $4 a gallon by this summer [2] and $5 a gallon by 2012 [3]. Anyone could have predicted that the recovering world economy, coupled with the continued growth of India and China, was going to push oil prices higher. So if an Administration wanted to keep gas prices down, they could have mitigated increased oil demand by increasing domestic oil production. But that is not what the Obama Administration has done. Instead of increasing domestic oil supplies, the Obama Administration has cut them at every opportunity, and Americans are now suffering because of those choices.
 
Back in February, when the protests in Egypt were first unfolding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked what the Administration could do to combat rising world oil prices. Chu responded [4]: “The best way America can protect itself against these incidents is to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, in fact to diversify our supply.” It is now one month later and the Administration has not updated its talking points. Pressed on gas prices yesterday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said [5]: “We are also, as you have seen over the past two-plus years, very focused on the need precisely to develop other energy sources so that we are not as dependent on foreign oil as we have been in the past.” So what are these “other energy sources” the White House has been developing? How does the White House plan to “diversify supply” to reduce gas prices? The answers are corn, wind, sun, and electric cars. And they won’t help a bit.
 
According to Heritage analysts Nick Loris and John Ligon, Obama’s energy policy consists of [6]: increased biofuel production, increased electric vehicle production, and increased renewable power production. These are all terrible public policies. The major source of biomass production, corn-based ethanol, produces less energy per unit volume than gasoline, contributes to food price increases, costs taxpayers $4 billion to produce 2 percent of the total gasoline supply, and has dubious environmental effects. The electric cars the Obama Administration has invested in are prohibitively costly, do not fit the needs of the American consumer, and are also environmentally suspect. The other sources of energy the Obama Administration is subsidizing and promoting—wind and solar—not only make up a minuscule 1 percent of America’s electricity generation but are entirely irrelevant to gasoline supply in the transportation sector.
 
But not only has President Obama failed to diversify our energy supply in any meaningful way; he has actually proactively moved to cut our own domestic energy supplies [7]:

 •First, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah in his first month in office. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, there are 800 billion barrels (a moderate estimate) of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

 •Then last summer, President Obama needlessly instituted not one but two outright drilling bans in the Gulf of Mexico. The Energy Information Administration estimates that President Obama’s offshore drilling ban will cut domestic offshore oil production by 13 percent this year.

 •Last fall, Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, and the Pacific coast will not be developed, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years. At least 19 billion barrels of easily recoverable oil lie off the currently restricted Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
 
•President Obama has also failed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact. Those 10 billion barrels are equivalent to 16 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia at the current rate.
 
“The Obama Administration is repeating the mistakes of President Jimmy Carter’s failed energy policies, which marred his term and stigmatized the 1970s. They are leading us straight into another national energy disaster,” Steve Forbes warned [8] in Politico yesterday. And what would that “energy disaster” cost the American people? According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis [6], an increase in the per-barrel price of imported crude oil by $10 in the first quarter of 2011 and by $20 in the second quarter would reduce gross domestic product by $20 billion, drop potential employment by nearly 100,000 jobs, and increase gasoline prices by 18 cents per gallon in 2011 alone.
 
Yesterday, Carney said that “the president is extremely aware of the impact that a spike in oil prices can have on gasoline prices and therefore on the wallets and pocketbooks of average Americans.” If that is true, and if Energy Secretary Chu really has recanted his belief that Americans ought to be paying $8 a gallon for gas [9], then the President must completely reverse his entire energy policy so far by allowing Americans to develop our own natural resources, issuing permits in a timely manner, and removing regulatory and litigation delays on energy projects [6].
 
Quick Hits:
 •According to a new book, President Obama believes racism is a “key component” of the Tea Party [10] movement.
 •A gunman shouting “Allahu Akbar” [11] opened fire on a bus carrying U.S. airmen in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two.
 •The Ohio state Senate approved legislation that prohibits public-employee unions from bargaining [12] over health benefits and pensions while also eliminating their ability to strike.
 •The Wisconsin state Senate passed a new rule fining any Senator who misses two or more days of session [13] $100 a day.
 •House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI) says [14] that President Obama has failed to produce a plan to shore up Medicare as required by a 2003 Medicare law.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.: http://blog.heritage.org

URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/03/morning-bell-how-obama-is-making-gas-prices-higher/

URLs in this post:

[1] the price of a barrel of crude oil topped $100: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20110302-crude-oil-tops-100-per-barrel-for-first-time-since-2008.ece

[2] $4 a gallon by this summer: http://www.necn.com/12/31/10/Stocks-quietly-finish-mixedOil-prices-ri/landing.html?&blockID=3&apID=75f4dca7c13b4504965409c7a00b1b8f

[3] $5 a gallon by 2012: http://abcnews.go.com/US/oil-executive-gas-prices-soar-2011-2012/story?id=12509267

[4] responded: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20029935-503544.html

[5] said: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/03/what-is-the-white-house-doing-about-oil-prices-todays-qs-for-os-wh-322011.html

[6] consists of: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/03/What-To-Do-About-High-Oil-Prices

[7] proactively moved to cut our own domestic energy supplies: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/07/gas-prices-under-president-obama-in-pictures/

[8] warned: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50417.html

[9] Energy Secretary Chu really has recanted his belief that Americans ought to be paying $8 a gallon for gas: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/04/24/steven-chu-forced-to-recant-belief-in-higher-gas-prices/

[10] President Obama believes racism is a “key component” of the Tea Party: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/03/02/obama-says-race-a-key-component-in-tea-party-protests?PageNr=3

[11] “Allahu Akbar”: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gunman-shouting-allah-akbar-kills-us-airmen-germany/story?id=13037467

[12] prohibits public-employee unions from bargaining: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704005404576176812441615134.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

[13] fining any Senator who misses two or more days of session: http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/117248828.html

[14] says: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50548.html

[Soul Crusher]

Sam Zell absolutely destroys the Obama Admn on EVERYTHING it has done regarding the economy. 

Absolutely speechless. a Dem Senator told him point blank about Obamacare 11th year - 'I'm 80 y/o who cares?"

Great video.   FFFUUUBBBOOOOOO 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232/?video=3000008420&play=1

[Soul Crusher]

John Holdren: White House Malthusian
by Robert Bradley Jr.
March 3, 2011

http://www.masterresource.org/2011/03/holdren-malthusian




If there is one quotation by Obama’s new science advisor that every American should hear, it is this:

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. . . . Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political” (italics added).

- John Holdren, Anne Ehrlich, and Paul Ehrlich, Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (San Francisco; W.H. Freeman and Company, 1973), p. 279.
Holdren’s deep-seated belief of the human “predicament” as a zero-sum game–America must lose for other countries to win–was also stated by him two years before:

“Only one rational path is open to us—simultaneous de-development of the [overdeveloped countries] and semi-development of the underdeveloped countries (UDC’s), in order to approach a decent and ecologically sustainable standard of living for all in between. By de-development we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.”

- John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, “Introduction,” in Holdren and Ehrlich, eds., Global Ecology, 1971, p. 3.

Holdren and the Ehrlichs paid homage to the gloomy worldview of Thomas Robert Malthus, who saw “misery or vice” as the necessary equalizer between growing population and the means of subsistence in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798):

“We find ourselves firmly in the neo-Malthusian camp. We hold this view not because we believe the world to be running out of materials in an absolute sense, but rather because the barriers to continued material growth, in the form of problems of economics, logistics, management, and environmental impact, are so formidable.”

- Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and John Holdren, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1977), p. 954.

Holdren and Paul Ehrlich put their anti-growth philosophy into a mathematical equation, I=PAT, where a negative environmental impact was linked to any combination of population growth, increasing affluence, and improving technology. This “gloomy prognosis” required, according to the three:

“organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government” (1977: p. 5).

Does Dr. Doom still believe all this? He has repeatedly been challenged with some of his past quotations and he has held fast to his exaggerations. Mid-course correction not.
1 comment

1 Ed Reid { 03.03.11 at 6:52 pm } I have commented here previously about the “three-legged stool” of AGW/AGCC/GCD.

Leg 1: zero global carbon emissions;
Leg 2: global veganism (methane reduction, you know);
Leg 3: population controls (exhalation control): and,
Seat: global governance (probably by the same folks who brought us the Iraq “Oil for Palaces, Payloads and Payoffs” program.

I contend that this would arguably be the ugliest piece of “furniture” ever designed by man. Also, the most expensive.

Holdren was (and I believe is still) a “three-legged stool” kind of guy. Apparently so is his master.

Is it any wonder that the AGW believers are so reluctant to lay out the entire plan? Better to rely on the “slippery slope”.

The obvious end condition of income and wealth redistribution is communism (initially with a small “c”). There is a generally accepted name for those who advocate communism, though its use is now extremely politically incorrect. Too bad; so sad.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama Admin. Refuses to Call Attack in Germany an Act of Terrorism, Compares It to Giffords Shooting
Nation.Foxnews ^ | Mar 3, 2011




U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley on whether the murder of two U.S. airmen was a terrorist attack:

"Was the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords a terrorist attack? I mean, you have to look at the evidence and look at the motivation and then you make a judgment," Crowley told the Press.

The suspect in the murder of two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport confessed that he specifically wanted to kill Americans as revenge for the Afghan war, a German investigator said Friday.

Prosecutor Rainer Griesbaum told reporters that 21-year-old Arid Uka from Kosovo said he went to the airport with the intent to shoot “as revenge for the American mission in Afghanistan.”

Griesbaum also said that Uka’s pistol malfunctioned during the attack, preventing further loss of life. After shooting and injuring two more.


(Excerpt) Read more at nation.foxnews.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

 

[Soul Crusher]

U.K. Pulls Plug on United Nations Spending in Opposition of U.S."
FoxNews.com ^ | March 03, 2011 | George Russell



Critics of U.S. spending on the United Nations got a huge boost—and supporters of that spending, especially the Obama Administration, took a body blow—from an unlikely source this week: the British government, long one of the U.N.’s staunchest supporters.

In a sweeping and hard-nosed reorganization of priorities for its $10.6 billion multilateral foreign aid program, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron has pulled the financial plug entirely on four U.N. agencies at the end of next year, put three others judged merely “adequate” on notice that they could face the same fate unless they improve their performance “as a matter of absolute urgency;” and issued pointed criticisms of almost all the rest.

The major exception: UNICEF, the U.N. children’s aid agency, which got a strong endorsement and a funding increase.

The tough actions were revealed as the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has been gearing up an extended critical look at U.N. funding as part of its overall budget austerity plan. The British revelations also came while U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice was on an extended cross-country tour, drumming up grass-roots support for U.N. funding in what is sure to be a protracted battle. Unveiling of the new British priorities undoubtedly will hearten her opponents on Capitol Hill.


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

[Soul Crusher]

THE REVOLVING DOOR: 22 People Who Went From Wall Street To Washington To Wall Street
Katya Wachtel | Mar. 4, 2011, 3:51 PM | 108 | 
A A A   

List of Wall Streeters who have ended up with government jobs and vice versa is long.

Some would argue the incestuous nature and revolving door between Washington and downtown Manhattan is dangerous.

Others are glad to have people in the Capitol making decisions about the economy who have actually been involved in it practically.

The Wall Street-to-Washington-and-back revolving door was swinging at least as long ago as 1934.

And it's still going.

In the last couple of months, the government has found appointees on the Street and banks have pulled new employees from the SEC and the Fed.

To give you a better idea of the swarm of people who have served time on Wall Street and K Street or Pennsylvania Avenue or all three, we rounded up a few of our favorites and the newest converts.


Joseph Kennedy
On Wall Street: President of the Columbia Trust Bank; employee of stock brokerage firm Hayden, Stone & Co; independent investor

For the government: First Chairman of the SEC; Ambassador to Great Britain
Martin Feldstein
For the government: Served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the NBER; chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

On Wall Street: Sat on boards of AIG Financial Products and JPMorgan

Back to the government: Board member of President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Robert Rubin
On Wall Street: Chairman and COO of Goldman Sachs

For the Government: Secretary of Treasury under Bill Clinton

Back on Wall Street: Vice Chairman of Citigroup, Special Limited Partner with Insight Venture Partners
Laura Tyson
On Wall Street: Board director of Stanley Morgan

For the government: Chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. She also served as Director of the National Economic Council.



Hank Paulson
On Wall Street: Goldman Sachs CEO

For the government: Secretary of Treasury under George W. Bush and President Obama
Carlos Gutierrez
For the government: George W. Bush’s Commerce Secretary

On Wall Street:: Vice Chairman of Cit's Institutional Clients Group
Faryar Shirzad
For the government: On the staff of the National Security Council at the White House; special assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs; deputy assistant to the President and deputy national security advisor for International Economic Affairs under George W. Bush

On Wall Street: Vice President and Director of International Public Policy at Goldman Sachs
Larry Summers
For the government: Director of the White House National Economic Council for President Barack Obama, Secretary of the Treasury under Obama

On Wall Street: Paid keynote speaker at banks including Goldman and JP Morgan; will be keynote speaker at annual Alpha Hedge Bermuda Global Hedge Fund Summit; consultant to hedge funds including D.E Shaw.

Read more at the Business Insider >
David Markowitz
For the government: SEC Assistant Regional Director; Staffer on New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's team

On Wall Street: Associate General Counsel and a senior member of the litigation and regulatory proceedings group at Goldman Sachs
Mark Patterson
On Wall Street: Chief Goldman Sachs lobbyist

For the government: Chief of Staff in Obama's Treasury Department.
Lewis Sachs
For the government: Former NY Federal Reserve Advisor (and a longtime friend of Tim Geithner)

On Wall Street: Partner at Mariner Investment Group, a holding group for various hedge funds

Back to the government: Senior Economic Adviser to President Obama


Daniel Zelikow
On Wall Street: Managing Director in the Government Institutions Group within J.P. Morgan's Investment Bank.

For the government: Various senior roles within the U.S. Department of the Treasury under President Clinton, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia, the Americas and Africa; headed task force that oversaw $20 billion emergency financing program for Mexico in 1995 (and is one of Tim Geithner's oldest and dearest friends)

Back on Wall Street: Head of International Public Sector Group at JPMorgan.
Gary Gensler
On Wall Street: Senior Partner and Co-Head of Finance at Goldman Sachs

For the government: Head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Michael Froman
On Wall Street: COO at Citigroup Alternative Investments

For the government: Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs in the Obama Administration
Jacob Lew
For the government: Special Assistant to the President under President Clinton

On Wall Street: COO of Citigroup Alternative Investments

Back to the government: Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget
William Dudley
On Wall Street: Chief Economist, managing director and partner of Goldman Sachs

For the government: President and CEO of the New York Federal Reserve
Peter Orszag
For the government: White House Budget Director

On Wall Street: Vice Chairman of Citi's Investment Bank
Theo Lubke
For the government: Chairman of the New York Fed

On Wall Street: Chief Regulatory Reform officer at Goldman Sachs
Bill Daley
For the government: U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Clinton

On Wall Street: Midwest Chairman at JP Morgan

Back to the government: White House Chief of Staff under President Obama
Neel Kashkari
On Wall Street: Vice President at Goldman Sachs

For the government: Special assistant to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; led the Office of Financial Stability, and helped set up TARP.

Back on Wall Street: Managing Director in charge of new investment initiatives at PIMCO
Alexander Friedman
For the government: Worked in the Department of Defense under Bill Clinton

On Wall Street:  Managed private investment vehicle, Asymmetry LLC; senior advisor to Lazard; Chief Investment Officer at UBS
Mona Sutphen
For the government: Obama’s Deputy Chief of Staff

On Wall Street: She's just been hried to head up macro analysis for the bank at UBS


http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-have-worked-on-wall-street-washington-white-house-2011-3?op=1

[Soul Crusher]

September 22, 2010
Typhoid Barry
By Robin of Berkeley

________________________ _______________________---




There's a fascinating phenomenon in medicine of a "carrier" of a disease. The most famous example is Typhoid Mary.


Mary was a cook in the early 20th century who spread typhoid to over fifty people, although she never contracted the infection herself. There are carriers of a variety of illnesses. For instance, a person can test positive for TB without having suffered from the disease. 


Typhoid Mary is, I think, an apt metaphor for not just carriers of physical disease, but of psychological mayhem. I'm referring to people who wreak havoc without so much as lifting a finger.


The most extreme example is Charles Manson. Manson rots in prison for life, charged with crimes he did not personally commit. Hypnotically, he compelled his young charges to mutilate and massacre.


Jim Jones, the messianic San Francisco preacher and fan of Marx and Hitler, is another example. At People's Temple in Guyana, Jones managed to convince over nine hundred people to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-spiked Kool Aid -- even to feed it to their children. 


Psychological carriers are on a continuum from the most deranged, like Manson and Jones, on down the totem pole. I regard those Columbia University luminaries, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox-Piven, as Typhoid Elitists.


From tony ivory towers, they concocted their theories about overwhelming and crashing the system. While the duo kept out of the fray, they aggravated and agitated urban black youths to riot.


Their manipulation of ghetto kids so outraged a then-young black reporter, Juan Williams, that he wrote an angry treatise for the Washington Post, "If Liberals Need Riots, Let Whites Do It." But that didn't stop Cloward and Piven from continuing to exploit blacks as foot soldiers in their quest for revolution.   


Regarding the enigmatic Obama, there are many theories percolating to understand his modus operandi.  Maybe he's a warrior righting the colonialist wrongs of his father. Or perhaps he's a fiery radical, à la Bill Ayers, raging against the system. Some people conjecture that Obama is a closet Muslim, trying to unleash sharia law on the United States.


While Obama appears to sympathize with all of the above, he doesn't embody
the warrior spirit. A freedom-fighter has fire in his belly; he burns with an inner combustion, even though his cause may be twisted.


Bill Ayers, for instance, got down and dirty by bombing the New York City Police Department, the Capitol, and the Pentagon. Van Jones served time in jail during the Rodney King riots. 


But Obama the warrior? I don't see it. He's a poser and a posturer, a blank screen on which others project their fantasies. Obama does not embrace his father's dreams, nor does he have many of his own.


He's just Barry, an orphan with no country, the perennial outsider. A loner who prefers his own company or the anonymity of crowds. In clinical terms, he may be a "secret schizoid" -- outwardly engaged but, in actuality, uneasy around people.


Obama comforts himself with pleasures -- parties, golf, vacations. He's easily tempted by the allure of wealth and power. Through his affiliation with the slumlord, Tony Rezko, he and Michelle acquired a mansion.


Where was Obama's righteous indignation when black tenants endured rat-infested,  unheated apartments? Where was Obama's towering passion when he cavalierly eliminated the D.C. school voucher program? As for his father, if Obama is ablaze with Barack Sr.'s spirit, why did Junior skip the man's funeral, and why did he allow Dad's family to live in squalor?


Obama is no warrior. He's the middleman, the closer. This country has had a date with destiny since the radical Left began spreading its poison decades ago. Obama is simply the empty suit brought in to close the deal.


Obama doesn't have the fire, or the cojones, as Palin memorably phrased it, to be a revolutionary. He likes his arugula and his fine wine. He will not get his manicured fingers dirty.


Like Cloward and Piven, he's another version of the carrier syndrome, a sort of Typhoid Barry. He gestures with his middle finger about Hillary and whips the crowd into a frenzy. Or he cajoles people to hit back hard, and maniacs beat up conservatives.


Obama sneers that Cambridge cops practice racism, and voilà, attacks against police burgeon. He demonizes the banks, and AIG employees receive death threats.   


Obama doesn't lose his cool. Aside from the occasional passive-aggressive comment (for instance, saying snidely that Rush Limbaugh can play with himself), he's composed. Obama knows his role well. It was conceived and crafted before he was even born.


Unlike Mary, Obama is a carrier not of typhoid, but of something much worse -- the sickness of hatred. He mesmerizes the masses with his magnetic charm. He casts a hypnotic spell over the desperate and forlorn.


They become the warriors. With the snap of the hypnotist's finger, they'll do the dirty work for him. 


A frequent American Thinker contributor, Robin is a licensed psychotherapist and a recovering liberal in Berkeley. You can contact Robin through her blog, robinofberkeley.com. Robin's articles are intended for entertainment and informational purposes.  They are not intended to provide treatment or diagnosis.  Should you need psychological help, please contact a local therapist for assistance.  Information on Cloward and Piven drawn from David Horowitz' seminal book, The Shadow Party.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/typhoid_barry_1.html at March 04, 2011 - 03:55:45 PM CST

[Soul Crusher]

Mexican President Joins Obama in Calling for ‘Comprehensive’ Reform Legalizing Illegal
CNSNews ^ | March 4, 2011 | Fred Lucas



Complete title: Mexican President Joins Obama in Calling for ‘Comprehensive’ Reform Legalizing Illegal Aliens in U.S.


VIDEO 1:39 minutes


(CNSNews.com) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon yesterday joined President Barack Obama in calling for “comprehensive” immigration reform, a term used to describe reform that includes granted legal status to illegal aliens in the United States.


“We have also discussed immigration, an issue on which both countries have responsibilities,” Obama said, standing next to Calderon during a White House joint news conference.


“As I told President Calderón, I remain deeply committed to fixing our broken immigration system with comprehensive reform that continues to secure our borders, enforces our laws--including against businesses that break the law--and requiring accountability from undocumented workers,” Obama said. “And we have to conduct this debate in a way that upholds our values as a nation of both laws and immigrants. So I’m eager to work with Republicans and Democrats to get this reform done, which is vital to the U.S. economy.”


Obama has long supported a “comprehensive immigration reform” that supporters call a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens and opponents call “amnesty.” But such legislation--backed by the immigration lobby and some pro-business organizations--was defeated in Congress during 2005 and 2007, and was deeply unpopular with the public.


Nevertheless, Calderon said he supports Obama’s desire to see such legislation pass.


“President Obama has always recognized, invariably recognized, the contributions of immigrants to the economy and society of the United States, and I recognize and value his clear and determined support for the adoption of a comprehensive migratory reform in this country, as well as his firm commitment to the human and civil rights of communities, regardless of their point of origin,” Calderon said. “I've expressed to him my concern for the proliferation of local initiatives that are against the interests or the rights of immigrant communities.”

[Soul Crusher]

Interior Secretary Says White House Opposes Drilling in Arctic Because It Will Not Lead...
CNSNews ^ | March 4, 2011 | Nicholas Ballasy



Complete title: Interior Secretary Says White House Opposes Drilling in Arctic Because It Will Not Lead to Energy Independence


VIDEO 2:09 minutes


(CNSNews.com) - When asked why the Obama administration opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) given the rising cost of gasoline, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told CNSNews.com that the “drill, baby, drill program” is not going to lead the United States to energy independence.


“We don’t believe that you need to drill everywhere and we don’t believe that the 'drill, baby, drill' program is the way that’s going to get us to the energy independence that we need for America or that will power our economy and that’s why the President has been so clear from day one and we in the Department of Interior have been so clear that what we need to do is need to have a robust energy program that includes a number of different sources of energy and while yes, we are pushing forward with oil and gas development both offshore and onshore which was the subject of much of the hearing today, we’re also moving forward with renewable energy,” he told CNSNews.com after testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee about his Department’s FY2012 budget.


“The President has said we are supporting nuclear, we’re support other clean air energy forms and at the end of the day, this is a place where there is hope that perhaps some of the Republicans in the House would come together and say that we can move forward with energy legislation that moves us into this new energy future.”


Salazar was also asked what the White House is saying about drilling in the Gulf.


“What I say is what the White House would say and that is that we are moving forward with an effort to stand up oil and gas drilling in the deep oceans of the gulf and are doing it in a safe and orderly way and that’s reflected in the budget request that we were defending for the President today,” he said.


________________________ ________________________ ________-


F'ing clueless.

[Soul Crusher]

Led by a Follower: The Danger of a Weak President
Pajamas Media ^ | March 4, 2011 | Chris Salcedo

________________________ ________________________ _________-


Obama defers to the tyrants and the UN, and the world is more dangerous because of it.

 Remember when U.S. presidents were regarded as the “leader of the free world”? They earned that moniker. FDR spoke of a day of infamy and rallied our nation to fight the Nazi threat to global freedom. JFK stood strong in the face of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Ronald Reagan recognized the strength of America and stood up to one of the most deadly totalitarian regimes in human history.

Now we have President Obama.

He’s the one — we were told — who would restore our credibility in capitals around the globe. He was to reassert our moral authority: the nation that stands for basic human rights and the dignity of the individual. We were told that his intellect alone could bring tyrants to heel — Obama infamously expressed a desire to meet with dictators, never minding that such meetings would elevate despotic regimes by offering the prestige of the American presidency.

As has come to pass: emboldened by a weak or non-existent foreign policy, buoyed by the confidence that Obama’s White House is unwilling to act, and inspired by strongmen that openly defy the president’s wishes, thugs of all shapes, sizes, and degrees of brutality are challenging the United States.

Those challenges are met with silence, when condemnation is required. They are greeted with ambivalence, when the world cries for decisiveness. The world begs the U.S. to lead, and the “leader of the free world” is content to go with the flow.

Vice President Joe Biden said Obama would be tested, and he has been tested several times over. Each instance seemed a surprise, a distraction to the president. He appeared bothered that each crisis took him away from his stated goal of remaking America. Unfortunately, the rogue elements of the world were not inclined to give the president time to learn on the job. They, unlike Mr. Obama’s devout followers, were not fainting in the aisles after his inauguration. In fact, the despots felt just the opposite: they were reinvigorated. They smelled blood in the water.

In May of 2009, the dictator of North Korea tested a nuclear weapon that was rumored to have been as powerful as the device used over Hiroshima. The nuclear test was a clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and international agreements. President Obama’s response was less than inspirational: he declared that North Korea’s actions were “directly and recklessly challenging the international community,” and that “such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea’s isolation.” Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the U.N., reinforced the president’s stance, saying Pyongyang will “pay a price for the path that they’re on if they don’t reverse.” To date, nothing of substance has been done, and this lack of American leadership may have emboldened the communist nation. North Korea has since attacked and sunk a South Korean ship, killing 34 people, and the North launched a deadly shelling on South Korea in November 2010. Obama’s White House called for an end to the North’s “belligerent action.”

The weakness projected by President Obama on North Korea is bad enough. But the president’s timidity elsewhere on the world stage has led to far greater consequences and loss of life.

In the summer of 2009, Iranian citizens took to the streets of Tehran to protest “questionable” election results. The bloodshed that followed was horrific. The Iranian theocracy clamped down on freedom seekers with iron-fisted ruthlessness. The Telegraph, hardly conservative, summed up the White House response as “cowardly, lily-livered and wrong.” That was one of the more flattering accounts of the president’s policy toward Iran, or lack thereof.

It’s not like we weren’t warned of Mr. Obama’s predilections towards appeasement. All of his opponents in the 2008 election cycle, including his current secretary of state, warned that Mr. Obama’s desire to “sit down” with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions would lead to disaster. It was Mr. Obama’s naive notion of talking with such a morally bankrupt regime that, many speculated, led to days of terror for the Iranian people with no opposition from the so-called “leader of the free world.”

In the beginning days of the protest, the administration — through VP Biden and Secretary Clinton — conveyed President Obama’s position: “We’re going to withhold comment…. I mean we’re just waiting to see,” Biden said. Clinton declared in a statement: “The United States has refrained from commenting on the election in Iran.”

Is that leadership?

Only after nearly two weeks of criticism from the international community and conservatives at home did President Obama abandon his “engagement” policy with the thugs in Iran and strongly condemn the regime’s actions. Again, Mr. Obama had to be led before standing for American ideals. Yet a few months later Obama made his first speech before the UN General Assembly, where he called for a “new era of engagement with the world” – he was still leaving the door open to rogue regimes.

Obama’s lack of leadership in standing up to tyranny again evidenced itself a little over a year later.

The Middle East has exploded in protests. Countries that have been ruled by strongmen for decades are seeing a popular uprising of epic proportions. And once again the American administration was caught unaware. Once again the Obama administration was caught flat-footed, as Egyptians took to the streets to overthrow dictator and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak. Egypt, being a U.S. ally, must have enabled the Obama administration to come out early and call for Mubarak to step down.

It’s well-documented how this administration treats traditional U.S. allies: the return of the bust of Winston Churchill and the gift of Obama speeches on an iPod for the queen, his treatment of Israel, his lackluster support for South Korea, his policy toward trade with democratic Colombia. All the while, Obama treats tyrants and dictators, self-declared enemies of the U.S., with kid gloves.

What else explains the timidity shown in the face of Libyan uprisings, and murders in the streets? When Obama finally got around to commenting on the hundreds of Libyan citizens dead, he couldn’t even bring himself to mention dictator Muammar Gaddafi by name or call for him to step down. He eventually got around to it after a fresh round of shame from his political opposition. As the situation worsened, nations from around the world evacuated their citizens from Libya. Did President Obama send one of our carrier groups to evacuate and guard our citizens? No, he … charted a ferry. We wouldn’t want to project American power and stability in the region, would we? A move like that might have sent an unmistakable message to Gaddafi and other tyrants in the Middle East that the mass murder of their citizens would not be tolerated by the United States. It might have made other despots think twice before ordering their air forces to fire on protesters if they knew American air power was minutes away. I’m sure the calculus was made in the White House: a carrier group would have negated all the good will America has enjoyed since Mr. Obama’s American apology tour early in his presidency. There has been no show of strength or stability in the Middle East. Instead, Mr. Obama has turned once again to the UN to tame Libya’s mad-dog dictator.

Mr. Obama is a weak president. This isn’t my calculation. It’s the consensus of every thug and dictator around the world. Has there been any evidence to the contrary? The world’s despots seem reasonably assured that the most negative consequence for their mayhem is a severe tongue-lashing. And the world is now a much more dangerous place because of Mr. Obama’s lack of experience, his lack of an American-centered resolve, and his pattern of embracing America’s enemies and alienating our friends.

Instead of leading the world as the head of the nation that stands for freedom and liberty, Mr. Obama abdicates that responsibility to the United Nations. We no longer have the “leader of the free world” in the White House. We have “the follower of the oppressed world.” And as long as he occupies that office, America stands to lose its influence around the globe. It’s an influence that, before Obama, made America a beacon of light for human freedom and dignity. That light is growing ever dimmer, allowing the world’s anti-American tyrants to thrive, and leaving our friends and those yearning to breathe free with no guide out of the increasing darkness.

[Soul Crusher]

President Obama Busts the Budget for Pie-in-the-Sky Amtrak and “Livability” Proposals
Published on March 4, 2011
by Ronald Utt, Ph.D.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/03/Transportation-Spending-Busting-the-Budget-for-Amtrak-and-Livability


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President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012 is an unabashed attempt to grow government and add $1 trillion to the national debt. While a detailed review of the flaws in the President’s budget is beyond the scope of this paper,[1] one of the budget’s more fiscally irresponsible components is the proposal to increase surface “transportation” spending by more than 84 percent (from $58 billion to $107 billion) over FY 2010 spending levels.[2]

To put this in context: The President’s overall spending totals for the same period would rise by 7.9 percent, so transportation spending would rise more than 10 times faster than all programs combined. As proposed by the President, this would be a one-time blast of money. In the next fiscal year (2013), total transportation spending would decline by $30 billion, so the new transportation plan should be seen as a “twofer” for the President, validating his borrow–and-spend policies and lavishing money on supporters before the election. One reason for the explosion in proposed transportation spending is the President’s commitment to create two new programs—Amtrak/high-speed rail (HSR) and Livability—that have strong appeal to unions and environmentalists.

The Alchemy of Fiscal Extravagance

As is apparent from the President’s first two years in office, he and his team believe in a primitive form of Keynesian economics, one of the tenets of which is that government can spend its way to economic prosperity. Despite the revolving collection of euphemisms to define these varied schemes—“stimulus,” “jobs,” and now “investments”—this proposal would fare no better than the first several efforts. Notwithstanding the failure of the first several mega-billion-dollar stimulus plans, the President seems determined to find validation for his views, and taxpayers are expected to finance the search.

The Politics of Fiscal Extravagance

Added to this is the political allure of federal transportation spending that disproportionately benefits members of labor unions and their leaders. All workers on federally supported construction projects must be paid “prevailing” wages in accordance with the Davis–Bacon Act, and these wages are higher than those in the competitive market. Such wages are common to union contracts. A recent Heritage Foundation study found that the Davis–Bacon Act increases the cost of federal construction projects by 9.9 percent and that its repeal would create 155,000 more construction jobs at the same cost to taxpayers.[3]

Davis–Bacon is not the only cost problem. All federally funded transit systems are operated by unionized workers who are paid wages and benefits, and provided costly job protections under Section 13(c) of the Federal Transit Act and other federal statutes, well above those of comparable workers in the private sector, whether unionized or not.

The President’s Amtrak Plan

While the President promises high-speed rail (HSR) service (top speeds of at least 150 mph), most of his projects involve signal and track improvements on privately owned freight rail systems that would provide marginal improvements in the Amtrak service sharing those tracks. As Heritage has noted, the President’s HSR plan is best characterized as an exercise to benefit Amtrak and for-profit freight railroads, which received 55 percent of the so-called HSR rail money included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.[4]

Despite his State of the Union proclamation to spend $56 billion on HSR over five years, the President’s transportation budget offers no such plan. Of the $8 billion of “HSR” money for FY 2012, “$4 billion [$15 billion over six years] fully funds Amtrak’s national network operating, capital, and debt service requirements,” while the other $4 billion [$38 billion over six years] “funds competitive grants for development of core express, regional and feeder corridors, to advance the President’s goal to provide Americans with convenient access to a passenger rail system featuring high-speed rail service.”[5]

The key word here is featuring. What does “convenient access” to something featuring HSR mean? As written, this program could subsidize Washington, D.C.’s deficit-ridden Metro system because it provides “convenient access” to Union Station, where Amtrak’s so-called HSR Acela trains run. If so, spending on real HSR will account for (or feature) a relatively minor amount of the $38 billion that the President proposes.

The President’s Livability Plan

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pressing for an expansive and costly “livability” effort and formally defines livability as “being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car.”[6] In order to achieve the LaHood vision for America, government must nudge/force/coerce people into buses or trolleys and create tighter living arrangements.

The President proposes a total of $7.8 billion in livability spending for FY 2012 and $48.1 billion over the next six years.[7] More than half of these funds would come from shifting money from roads.

Delusional on Arrival

There is little chance that any of this will be enacted. In the weeks and months leading up to the budget’s release, the governors of three states rejected the President’s Amtrak/HSR plans for their states and sent $3.7 billion back to Washington. Reflecting how little confidence the Congress has in the President’s Department of Transportation, the House of Representatives cut a greater percentage from the remaining FY 2011 transportation budget than it cut from any other account.

Nor are Republicans the only opponents of the President’s transportation policy: In the last Congress, the Democrat-controlled Senate and House Appropriations committees rejected his infrastructure bank proposal. Now he is asking for it again, and the price tag is $30 billion over six years. With federal transportation programs becoming little more than political slush funds, perhaps it’s time to turn the program back to the states.

Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[Soul Crusher]

March 04, 2011
The Muslim Brotherhood is officially A-OK for the Obama Administration
Richard Baehr


Professor Barry Rubin argues in his latest article that the Administration's approach to the new Middle East is becoming clearer, and that it represents the worst single strategic blunder in American foreign policy in the Middle East in decades. In essence, the Obama team has decided that it can live with and work with  Islamist regimes  in the Middle East, so long as Al Qaeda is not the group in power.


In other words the Muslim Brotherhood is just fine, if it succeeds in taking power in Egypt and other Arab countries currently in turmoil. Rubin quotes  the new policy as described in a Washington Post article and then offers his reaction:


"The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region."

Get it? Al-Qaeda is bad because it wants to attack U.S. embassies, the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon.

BUT the Muslim Brotherhood is good! Because it merely wants to seize state power, transform Egypt into an Islamist state, rule 90 million people, back Hamas in trying to destroy Israel, overthrow the Palestinian Authority, help Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood overthrow the monarchy, and sponsor terrorism against Americans in the Middle East.

I'm sure you can see the difference. This is the nonsense that the administration has been working toward for two years. It is the doctrine pushed by the president's advisor on terrorism, elements in the CIA, and White House ideologues. The State and Defense departments are probably horrified.

Here's the next paragraph:

"`We shouldn't be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries,'" said a senior administration official....`It's the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam.'"

That first phrase is correct. We shouldn't be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries. Islam has always been present in Egypt and Jordan, Saudi Arabia or post-Saddam Iraq, and even Iran before its revolution and Afghanistan not under the Taliban. But we should be very afraid of Islamism in the politics of these countries. "


     .    .    .   .


For weeks, the Administrations' favorite newspaper, the New York Times has been paving  the way for the new policy with a series of opinion pieces and news stories on the new "moderate" face of the Muslim Brotherhood,  their commitment to non-violence, their discipline and social service role. 


The new policy is in some ways consistent with the docile American attitude towards Iran- where engagement was tried and failed, weak sanctions were applied with enough loopholes to make them like swiss cheese slices, the anti-regime demonstrations were ignored and garnered no support, and military action was never contemplated.  The result- the Administration is now preparing for a nuclear Iran , and all that is left is finding a way to contain Iran's aggressive posture once it becomes a nuclear power.



Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/the_muslim_brotherhood_is_offi.html at March 04, 2011 - 05:30:26 PM CST

[Soul Crusher]

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/mar/04/8/suspect-nuns-traffic-death-had-offenses-handled-in-ar-883902/



Published: March 04, 2011
Updated: March 04, 2011 - 6:21 PM

Home / news / state_regional /

Illegal alien in nun's traffic death had offenses handled inconsistently
By Bill McKelway

A long-awaited report on the deportation status of a Prince William illegal alien whose alcohol-related head-on collision killed a Richmond-based nun shows repeated instances of a failure to report his crimes to Homeland Security as well as a shift in emphasis by the Obama administration in dealing with illegal aliens.
 
Judicial Watch, a public disclosure group, said today that it has a received a copy of the report by the Department of Homeland Security that was kept secret after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had declared her office would thoroughly investigate the Prince William case and make it public.
 
The 35-page report deals with the criminal history and legal status of Carlos Martinelly-Montano, 23, whose Aug. 1 collision in Prince William seriously injured two Benedictine nuns and killed a third, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, all of Richmond.
 
Martinelly-Montano is scheduled to go to trial March 28 on six indictments, including felony murder, maiming resulting from driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter.
 
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the report, which his group sought through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows how this country's patchwork of policies toward illegal immigrants and deportation can "blow up in our faces."
 
He called the report "a clear indictment of Obama's lawless approach to illegal immigration. An innocent person lost her life because local police officers and immigration officials couldn't be bothered to enforce and obey the law."

The report details shifting federal policy regarding what level of crimes should result in deportation. It also tracks at the local level in Northern Virginia court and law enforcement systems that don't uniformly enforce laws or report their outcomes to federal immigration officials.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, said the report "indicates that ICE is, in fact, releasing dangerous criminal illegal aliens instead of deporting them. And in (Martinelly Montano's) case, they issued him a federal employment authorization permit."

(This has been a breaking news update. Check back for more details as they become available. Read more in tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch.)



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the Richmond Times-Dispatch © Copyright 2011 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. A Media General company.

[Soul Crusher]

By John Hayward
 

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to swing by and have a little chin wag about the budgetary implications of ObamaCare. Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) noticed that the rather large sum of $500 billion was dedicated to both sustaining Medicare and funding ObamaCare. When he asked Sebelius which destiny awaited those five hundred billion clams, she replied, "Both."

 
That's right, folks: another part of the ObamaCare fraud involved double-counting half a trillion dollars. Shimkus said he was "shocked" to learn this. "We knew the health care law's actual cost was much greater than originally told to the public," he declared. "And now, the truth is slowly coming out in administration reports and testimony." In other news, Shimkus was equally "shocked" to discover there was gambling going on at Rick's Café.

read the rest of the story at humanevents.com

[Soul Crusher]

Skip to comments.

Obama: No Arming of U.S. Agents in Mexico
FOX ^


Obama: No Arming of U.S. Agents in Mexico

President Obama on Thursday appeared to reject the idea of arming U.S. agents in Mexico, saying after a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon that the two governments will look at other ways to protect American officials in the wake of a fatal shooting last month.

"There are laws in place in Mexico that say that our agents should not be armed," Obama said, describing the U.S. role south of the border as an "advisory" one. "We do not carry out law enforcement activities inside of Mexico."

The president's statement answers speculation about how far the administration would go in reforming safety measures in response to the killing three weeks ago of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico. The shooting death raised questions in the U.S. about Mexico's ability to control violence but U.S. officials earlier wouldn't say whether Obama would press the Mexican leader to allow U.S. agents to be armed.

Coming out of the meeting Thursday afternoon, both presidents stressed that U.S. agents cannot be armed. Obama said he was nevertheless concerned about the safety of agents and that they would examine "procedures and protocols" for how to better protect them.


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


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