This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • The Prince gets huffy: Don’t call my bluff. Enough is enough

    So the perfumed prince of the White House stormed out of a negotiation meeting between him and Congress yesterday, according to a link sent to us by ROS from Politico;

    When Cantor said the two sides were too far apart to get a deal that could pass the House by the Treasury Department’s Aug. 2 deadline — and that he would consider moving a short-term debt-limit increase alongside smaller spending cuts — Obama began to lecture him.

    “Eric, don’t call my bluff,” the president said, warning Cantor that he would take his case “to the American people.” He told Cantor that no other president — not Ronald Reagan, the president said — would sit through such negotiations.

    Of course, the White House denies that Obama “stormed” out of the room. I don’t know what else you could call it. Picked up his marbles and skittered home? From The Hill;

    “The president could not have been more gracious. I have never seen a president spend so much time with the leadership of Congress day in and day out, respectful of their concerns,” Pelosi added.

    meanwhile, the White House Press Office gave the press corps a “time out” and sent them to nappy without their graham crackers and chocolate milk (from Politico);

    “Can I ask you to clarify — there’s no reporters allowed in today’s meeting because reporters misbehaved?” asked another scribe. “Earlier it sounded like you were punishing us.”

    I guess everyone in Washington is getting thin-skinned while their ox is being gored.

  • Dems blame GOP for stalling economy

    The Democrats in Congress are blaming the Republicans for trying to sabotage the economy for political gain according to leftist Talking Point Memo;

    In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, the Senate’s top Democrats argued that Republicans don’t want to pass measures like a temporary payroll tax holiday for employers because they’ll improve President Obama’s re-election chances.

    “Our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work: President Obama,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).

    The harshest denunciation came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the man who crafted the Dems’ new “jobs first” message.

    “We are also open to hiring incentives, perhaps in the form of a payroll tax cut for employers that was floated by the administration…. [T]hat might not be our first choice, that shows how willing we are to work with the Republicans to create jobs. It’s pro-business, it’s a tax cut, and many Republicans have been for it in the past. But now all of a sudden they’re coming out against it,” Schumer said.

    Project much? We all know that the Democrats did their level best to destroy the US economy during 2007 and 2008. They blocked McCain and Bush attempts to rein in Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae to head off the housing bubble.

    Now they say that a payroll tax cut will encourage employers to hire – John Boehner calls it a “gimmick”. I agree – just like releasing a day and a half supply of oil from the strategic oil reserves is a gimmick.

    Short-term duct-tape solutions to complex problems. But then if the Democrats actually solved a problem, they wouldn’t be able to waive it like a bloody shirt during the next election.

  • Right on Cue

    As soon as I read Jonn’s post about the draw down I knew that Rethink Afghanistan would not pass on it.

    NOT GOOD ENOUGH: President to announce withdrawal of fewer than 10 percent of troops from Afghanistan this year. According to various news reports, President Obama plans to withdraw fewer than 10 percent of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this year, despite promises to make this drawdown “significant.”

    So I figured that I would hear something about concern about the troops or the families of those deployed. But what do they open up with?

    Under this plan, the U.S. would continue to charge taxpayers roughly $2 billion per week for this war for years. That’s unacceptable.

    So that is what it comes down to, money. The same theme that it has always been. It cost too much and that all our woes are the results of the conflicts abroad despite evidence suggesting otherwise. But lets move on.

    This war isn’t making us safer, and it’s not worth the human or economic costs.

    Even when they try to sound sympathetic those that are affected in Afghanistan or even Iraq it still comes back to money. The reason why I think that the first two statements are token is because it is the exact same phrase over and over like a planned script. Then they expect people to believe this is real concern since they are more then happy to speak for the fallen who have died since the SEAL mission. Really I mean do you know the views of each and everyone on that list? But hey why need to know that when using them in your articles. I know that if something happened to me and you used my name like that I would be pissed. But don’t worry because you mentioned the “Human Cost” totally means that you “care”.

    Facing a war-weary public, President Barack Obama is expected to call for a major withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan Wednesday night, with roughly 10,000 coming home to the U.S. in less than a year.

    Yea, were are so “War Wary” as a population that the we are shunning anything to do with War in our daily lives. Oh wait were not? Or those tough rationing and products restrictions, oh wait not that ether. Or it must be having to deal with being called up at any time to got to war. No, not that too. So exactly what is the reason that entire country outside the military community is affected? Really I mean how is the conflicts have drastically changed the daily lives of the general community of this country? I can wait.

    We need those troops and those dollars home, now.

    Like is said, all about the money.

    Oh Rethink Afghastan still thinks that those in Command who question or complain about the President should be fired. Unless that they agree with your own view point.

  • Wasserman-Schultz: Obama turned the economy around

    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    In the event that you missed Meet the Press yesterday, you’re probably still laboring under the misconception that the US economy is in the tank. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz claims otherwise;

    REP. SCHULTZ: Because we were able to, under President Obama’s leadership, turn this economy around. When President Obama took office…

    MR. GREGORY: Whoa, whoa, let me just stop you there. Clearly, the economy has not been turned around. I mean, you just saw those numbers.

    REP. SCHULTZ: It, it certainly–it has…

    MR. GREGORY: Americans don’t believe that’s the case.

    REP. SCHULTZ: Well, we, we were–when President Obama took office, the month before he was inaugurated, the economy was bleeding 750,000 jobs a month, David, and we were not headed in the right direction. Now, I know we–and President Obama has said we have a long way to go. We’d like the pace of recovery to, to, to be picked up. But we have definitely begun to turn the economy around. You, you fast-forward two and a half years later now, and the economy has created 2.1 million private sector jobs, a million of those jobs just in the last six months. We’ve had 15 straight months of job growth.

    Wasserman-Schultz should consult the Bureau of Labor Statistics;

    Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+54,000) in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains continued in professional and business services, health care, and mining. Employment levels in other major private-sector industries were little changed, and local government employment continued to decline.

    Gee, I guess that, unlike on the campaign trail, reality doesn’t always match the rhetoric.

  • Fuel prices? Meh!

    ROS reminds us that gas is $4/gallon, and the president reminded us yesterday that “there’s no magic bullet” to fix gas prices. So he’s shooting magic bullets to increase gas prices by flying his entourage to Chicago to appear on Oprah and then on to New York City for a fund raiser;

    Obama was heading home to Chicago on Wednesday to appear on one of the final episodes of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The talk-show host and Obama supporter has announced that she is ending her top-rated TV program on May 25 after a quarter-century on the air.

    Obama’s wife, Michelle, was joining him on Oprah’s couch for the interview, which is scheduled to be televised Monday.

    The president’s day of politicking was continuing later Wednesday in New York with his first fundraising sweep of the city since he announced his re-election bid this month. Three Democratic Party fundraisers were scheduled across midtown Manhattan, including an event at the home of financier and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and a dinner at The Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Obama was not due back at the White House until the wee hours of Thursday.

    I guess when you don’t pay fuel prices, it doesn’t make a bit of difference how much it costs. While I’m trying budget money to drive to DC for the Milblog Conference this weekend.

  • How’s that pump price feel?

    In my travels over the last few weeks, i saw gas at $4.65 near San Francisco, it was over $4 in DC last week and then topped $4 in my rural West Virginia town yesterday. So how’s it feel? Bet I can make it feel worse. The EPA denied air permits to Shell for drilling off of Alaska’s northern coast according to a Fox News article sent to us by ROS;

    Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

    The closest village to where Shell proposed to drill is Kaktovik, Alaska. It is one of the most remote places in the United States. According to the latest census, the population is 245 and nearly all of the residents are Alaska natives. The village, which is 1 square mile, sits right along the shores of the Beaufort Sea, 70 miles away from the proposed off-shore drill site.

    That cost us 27 billion barrels of oil not to mention the pain we already feel at the pump.

    Of course we all know that just the losses suffered by Shell in this failed attempt will be passed along to us consumers.

    In the meantime, the media is slavishly deflecting blame from Obama as discussed by Ace of Spades.

    Ron Futtrell at Big Journalism notices the media’s disconnect with their consumers…or rather the lack thereof.

    Julia Seymour at Newsbusters notices that they blame everyone except Obama;

    Instead of asking whether Obama’s anti-oil policies could be increasing the cost of gas, the networks blamed other factors such as Mideast turmoil or the “money game” played by speculators. Certainly, the turmoil in Libya, Egypt and surrounding nations has increased worries about oil production and can influence the price. But the networks also should have looked for explanations much closer to home, like Obama’s many regulatory actions taken against the oil industry.

    Scott Witlock at Newsbusters watched George Stephanopolis chastise you for your “gripes” and making Obama’s life difficult;

    Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Monday described the country’s “gas gripes” over rising fuel costs, spinning, “Soaring prices lead to new pain for the President as big oil gets ready to report record profits.”

    The former Democratic operative turned journalist tried to put the best face on Barack Obama’s growing problems: “And, Jake, these gas prices are also knocking down President Obama’s poll numbers, which is why he’s out there nearly every day addressing this problem.”

    Addressing the problem IS the problem. Instead of yapping like a constipated Yorky, our president needs to solve the problem and throw open the floodgates of developers and drillers to solve not only the fuel problem, but take a chunk out of the unemployment rate, too.

  • Kristof: Raise America’s Taxes

    Don’t you just want to throttle these lying little f**ks;

    There is no single reason for today’s budget mess, but it’s worth remembering that the last time our budget was in the black was in the Clinton administration. That’s a broad hint that one sensible way to overcome our difficulties would be to revert to tax rates more or less as they were under President Clinton. That single step would solve three-quarters of the deficit for the next five years or so.

    Kudos to Mr. Obama for boldly stating that truth in his speech — even if he did focus only on taxes for the very wealthiest. I also thought he was right to say that we need spending cuts — including in our defense budget.

    Yeah, Clinton balanced the year-over-year budget for two years by cutting the military so badly that when we needed them, during the Bush Administration spending increased dramatically. While the Clinton military actions consisted of firing off a few missiles left over from the Gulf War without replenishing the stocks. Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming towards welfare reform which saved him a pretty penny, too. As I mentioned earlier today, he benefited from Roth conversions in the first few years of that tax shelter that liberals now want to eliminate.

    It’s funny how liberals can only think of raising taxes – even though the Bush tax cuts increased tax revenues. The only waste they can see is in defense spending – even though rebuilding the military is always more costly than maintenance, in money and lives.

    ROS sends us this link from the Wall Street Journal;

    Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which “starts,” he said, “by being honest about what’s causing our deficit.” The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

  • In the Wreckage of an Almost-Shutdown

    Today, a lot of us are taking a slightly ragged breath and relaxing a bit. Last night, around 11PM, a deal was reached that would extend for a week the operations of government as we know it. This is particularly meaningful for all of our servicemembers, many serving in harm’s way, who had already opened up Mypay to reveal a LES with only half the pay anticipated for it. This will allow them to get their midmonth pay.

    Let me stress, for those few who might happen to be unaware, that unlike the rest of the government, when the military isn’t getting paid, the military is still working. People don’t stop trying to kill them just because they’re not getting paid. Instead, it’s just another worry on their mind, preventing them from being fully focused on the dangers surrounding them, because they’re too busy wondering if their family will be able to pay the rent or buy groceries.

    I’d like to take a moment to thank those organizations that went above and beyond in order to make sure servicemembers didn’t have to worry about where their family’s next meal would come from: such as the Navy Federal Credit Union, that promised all servicemember’s mid-month checks would be covered by the institution. I’d also like to thank (and this is rare) the VA (or as Brandon Friedman likes to remind everyone, Veterans Affairs) for putting out a Veterans Guide to the Shutdown, to help address the justified concerns many veterans had about whether their disability checks and education benefits would arrive on the 1st.

    However, what really needs to be addressed is not so pretty: why did it come so close in the first place? A lot of people in both political parties want to blame the other party. But really, both parties are to blame, and both parties gambled way too much with the lives of people who have already given up a lot to serve their country.

    The one bare-minimum standard any governmental body that deals with money has is to pass a budget for the next year. But nobody wanted to pass a budget before the elections, because then they’d have to deal with possible consequences for their votes. And after the elections, when Democrats realized that they were going to be out of power next year, they hurried with pushing through the healthcare reform, instead of worrying about doing their job and passing the budget.

    But the Republicans aren’t off the hook yet. Passing a budget was their job, too, and they chose to focus on ideological battles also. They decided to play a game of brinksmanship to show how tough they were for the next budget fight, ignoring the people it was going to impact. They tried to create a temporary bill that supposedly would fund the Pentagon all year, and the rest of government a week, to save the military, but then again added ideological riders on it.
    Why do we put up with this? People on both sides, why do we act as though our party protects veterans and servicemembers? I think we need to acknowledge that both sides use us for photo ops and for talking points on the halls of Congress, but when it comes down to it, they don’t really care.