Oct/090
Congress Fights Transparency
Congressional Hall
What a joke! What are these guys scared of when posting bills online. Even this won’t help too much but why not allow the American people who are interested in seeing what their government is pushing on them by simply posting the bills online?
And wasn’t this one of Obama’s campaign promises to post bills and agenda’s online before voting on takes place? Why is Obama not out there excoriating these people and letting them know that this is what he wants them to do?
Bringing trancpericy to our federal government is going to take a lot of hard work and spine. These people know that allowing the American public to see what they are doing and what they are voting on will lead to backlash and possibly the end of their terms.
Follow the Jump to read the Source article:
What you don’t know can hurt you:
» House energy and global warming bill, passed June 26, 2009. 1,200 pages. Available online 15 hours before vote.
» $789 billion stimulus bill, passed Feb. 14, 2009. 1,100 pages. Available online 13 hours before debate.
» $700 billion financial sector rescue package, passed Oct. 3, 2008. 169 pages. Available online 29 hours before vote.
» USA Patriot domestic surveillance bill, passed Oct. 23, 2001. Unavailable to the public before debate.
Oct/090
The Battle for Victory
Gen Stanley McChrystal
It’s sad when you see a general who want to do everything he can to win a war and protect his troops, that pleads to the Commander in Chief of the US to allow him the resources to accomplish this, only to be turned down and scorn for presenting his views.
I don’t believe that McCrystal will resign his post. He should and most likely will continue to do the best job that the President will let him do.
My plea would be that if we are not willing to do what it takes to win, then pull our troops out of danger and let the terrorist claim victory. At least this way they are not over there for no reason dyeing.
Hit the Jump to see the Source article:
Sep/090
Nightmare of our Allies:
Nuclear Bomb Explosion
Let me get this straight… First we cut back the defense budget and then we scrap our missile defense shield that protects not just us but our allies around the world. Our justification was that Russia and Iran are not threats and having these defensive measures would be taken as an offensive act. Okay, then intelligence comes out, and Obama acknowledges, that Iran is closer than we thought to have nuclear weapons and has been hiding a development facility. And yet our policy moving forward continues to be downplaying the treat, negotiations and sanctions, and telling Israel they better not do anything. I just don’t understand the mindset.
Follow the jump to see the source articles:
Sep/090
The Tyranny of Health Insurance:
Obama Health Insurance
It all started with a question. If you are going to impose on every American that they must buy Health Insurance, then what is the penalty if they choose not to?
The answer is very disturbing!
A $25,000 fine or up to a year in jail!
Read more:
| September 25, 2009 Categories: Senate http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0909/Ensign_receives_handwritten_confirmation_.html?showall Ensign receives handwritten confirmation This doesn’t happen often enough. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it “Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold.” |
| By Carrie Budoff Brown 11:40 AM |
| September 24, 2009 Categories: Senate Flout the mandate penalty? Face the IRS Americans who fail to pay the penalty for not buying insurance would face legal action from the Internal Revenue Service, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The remarks Thursday from the committee’s chief of staff, Thomas Barthold, seems to further weaken President Barack Obama’s contention last week that the individual mandate penalty, which could go as high as $1,900, is not a tax increase. Under questioning from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Barthold said the IRS would “take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings.” Ensign pursued the line of questioning because he said a lot of Americans don’t believe the Constitution allows the government to mandate the purchase of insurance. “We could be subjecting those very people who conscientiously, because they believe in the U.S. Constitution, we could be subjecting them to fines or the interpretation of a judge, all the way up to imprisonment,” Ensign said. “That seems to me to be a problem.” Ensign’s argument , however, wasn’t persuasive to the committee — which rejected an amendment from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to eliminate the individual mandate. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats to preserve the mandate. |
| By Carrie Budoff Brown 04:04 PM |
Sep/090
Obama For Action Despite Facts:
Obama
Only a week after top scientist make a u-turn on global warming, our president faces major nations of the world to announce what America is doing to combat “man-made climate change”
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 9/22/09 10:28 AM EDT
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27430.html#ixzz0RtI5FCcr
President Barack Obama’s closely watched climate change speech at the United Nations got a mixed reaction Tuesday: Some world leaders saluted his rhetoric, but environmental activists expressed disappointment that he didn’t commit to a timeline to pass cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate.
“After too many years of inaction and denial, there is finally widespread recognition of the urgency of the challenge before us. We know what needs to be done,” Obama told fellow heads of state gathered for a climate change summit called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“The House of Representatives passed an energy and climate bill in June that would finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy for American businesses and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Obama said. “One committee has already acted on this bill in the Senate, and I look forward to engaging with others as we move forward.”
Many diplomats and environmentalists were hoping that Obama would detail his strategy to move House-approved carbon-emissions-trading legislation through the Senate and onto his desk to be signed into law ahead of a key climate change conference this December in Copenhagen. But the president made only a vague pledge to continue pushing for the measure.
“The Obama speech was a missed opportunity,” said Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense Fund. “Leaders want him to lay out a game plan to get a bill through the Senate, to give some timeline, some commitment to do it on a timely basis. … They didn’t get it.”
Environmental activists are particularly concerned that U.S. influence and leadership in the climate issue are dwindling ahead of Copenhagen, with the issue of global warming getting pushed further and further down the presidential agenda by other pressing concerns, such as health care reform, the recession and Afghanistan.
Former Vice President Al Gore gave a warm, but not effusive, reception to Obama’s remarks.
“I thought that he was simply recognizing the reality of the situation that this legislation is still pending,” Gore said at a U.N. press briefing. “I welcome his promise to get personally engaged in the work of the Senate committees.”
Gore said it would be “far better” for the climate change treaty talks set for Copenhagen in December if the U.S. Senate acted by then.
“I would encourage the Senate to take up the climate and energy legislation immediately upon conclusion of the pending health care debate, if not before,” Gore said. “I interpret President Obama’s statement about getting involved in that process to mean that he will urge them to do exactly that.”
Asked about the decision not to set a timeline, White House climate czar Carol Browner said the Senate’s pace was not under Obama’s control. “The Senate is hard at work,” Browner said. “Health care has obviously taken up more time than was originally anticipated. … At the end of the day, [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid does set the schedule for the Senate, and we have to be mindful of that.”
Obama said little about the resistance in the Senate but indicated the recent economic slump has left some lawmakers reluctant to impose emissions changes that could affect a weakened economy.
“We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge,” Obama said. “But I’m here today to say that difficulty is no excuse for complacency. Unease is no excuse for inaction.”
The president insisted his administration has taken a series of important, groundbreaking actions to fight global warming, such as increasing fuel economy standards and directing stimulus funds and tax credits to energy efficiency.
“These steps represent an historic recognition on behalf of the American people and their government,” he said. “We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. We will meet our responsibility to future generations.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27430.html#ixzz0RtICWibT
Sep/091
Santorum may challenge ‘injurious’ Obama
Rick Santorum
September 15, 2009
By Ben Smith 12:59 PM
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0909/Santorum_may_challenge_injurious_Obama.html
Rick Santorum affirmed on an RNC conference call — aimed at attacking Arlen Specter — that he’s considering a run for president in 2012 — because, he said, the Obama presidency is “injurious to America.”
“The dynamic has changed,” Santorum said. “A lot of folks who might not have thought about running against an incumbent president” are now considering it.
He cited Obama’s lower poll numbers and his failure to “transform” and unify the country.
“A lot of people are going to take a look and see wht they can do to try to confront this presidency, which many of us — as you’re seeing from the tea parties and the like — which many of us believe is injurious to America,” Santorum said, saying the 2012 race is “something that I think I would consider.”
Santorum also elaborated on his opposition to the use of reconciliation to pass health care legislation; the parliamentary procedure was used, with his support, in the Bush years to pass the controversial 2003 tax cuts and a range of other measures, including opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Santorum called ANWR drilling “fairly minor” in its impact on the land and on the economy
“You’re talking about drilling holes, as opposed to rejiggering and reconstructing the entire health care system of this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator said.
“A tax bill is by definition a revenue bill – it affects the budget. That’s what reconciliation is for,” he said.
“This is a major policy initiative in an area that goes beyond the federal government’s balance sheets — that to me makes it an abomination.”
He warned that the procedure would turn the bill into a “Rube Goldberg machine.”
UPDATE: A Democrat notes that Santorum didn’t always consider ANWR a minor matter of a few holes: “I believe that ANWR has the potential to play a significant role in reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and I support exploring this area in a safe and environmentally sound way,” he wrote in 2006.
Sep/091
No We Can’t? UK Think Tank Says US Power Is Fading
IISS.org
UK think tank: Barack Obama may have to say ‘no we can’t’ as American power fades
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER Associated Press Writer
LONDON September 15, 2009 (AP)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireStory?id=8577176&page=1
A weakened United States could start retreating from the world stage without help from its allies abroad, an international strategic affairs think tank said Tuesday.
The respected London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said President Barack Obama will increasingly have to turn to others for help dealing with the world’s problems — in part because he has no alternative.
“Domestically Obama may have campaigned on the theme ‘yes we can’; internationally he may increasingly have to argue ‘no we can’t',” the institute said in its annual review of world affairs.
The report said the U.S. struggles against insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan had exposed the limits of the country’s military muscle, while the near-collapse of the world financial markets sapped the economic base on which that muscle relied.
The report also claimed that the U.S. had lost traction in its efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program and bring peace to the Middle East.
“Clearly the U.S. share of ‘global power,’ however measured, is in decline,” the report said.
The head of another respected London think tank, Robin Niblett of Chatham House, said the rise in the relative power of China, India, Russia and the European Union has made it harder for the U.S. to exercise its influence.
“America should apply changes in leadership style, but I wouldn’t overplay the decline because decline is relative,” said Niblett — who was not involved in drawing up Tuesday’s report. “One should not doubt that the U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the world, but it’s difficult to use the power and to use it to influence others.”
In addition to a rise in regional powers, Niblett said the U.S. has long been viewed as being part of the problem rather than the solution on many issues — including climate change, the financial crisis, and the failure of the Middle East peace process.
It’s also carrying the baggage of failed policies and of a failed financial approach,” Niblett said, referring to the Bush administration. “There’s a lot of catching up to be done.”
The IISS report praised Obama, saying that he recognized there was only so much America could do “to impose its views on others.”
After years of often thorny relationships between the U.S. and its allies during Bush’s administration, Obama has talked of the need to work with other nations on such issues as the financial meltdown, climate change and nuclear proliferation.
“These are challenges that no single nation, no matter how powerful, can confront alone,” Obama said in April after attending the G-20 summit in London.
“The United States must lead the way,” he said. “But our best chance to solve these unprecedented problems comes from acting in concert with other nations.”
The think tank’s report said Obama could help restore the United States’ standing by working with other nations to contain emerging threats to its position as the world’s pre-eminent power. Controlling the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea would require help from regional allies, the report said. The same was true of Afghanistan, where the U.S. has had difficulty persuading its NATO partners to follow its lead in boosting the number of troops sent to fight a resurgent Taliban.
“In the next year or two, the greatest demand on U.S. talents and power will be to persuade more to become like minded and adopt greater burdens,” the report said.
Niblett said Obama was moving in the right direction.
“This administration is far more frank about the U.S. interdependence with rest of the world, and that’s a good thing,” Niblett said.
Sep/091
No, Mr. President
Obama on 60 Minutes
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2009
Posted by William Kristol
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#13172
In his 60 Minutes interview to be aired tonight, President Obama apparently says, “I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it….I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right.”
No, Mr. President. It’s not about you. If legislation passes, you don’t own it.
We all own it. Any health care bill will become part of the U.S. Code, not simply an item on the Obama White House web site. We will all feel its effects. We are all responsible for the future of our country. Here the people rule.
Which is why it is wrong to jam through a 1,000+ page legislative act in such a rush that its defenders can’t even give a coherent account of what it will and won’t do, and in order to deal with a situation that the president himself acknowledged Wednesday night is not a crisis (“But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future — and that is the issue of health care.”).
The national debate on health care has just begun. Much of the popular anger of this past summer came from a feeling — a justified one — that if Obama has his way, we, the people, won’t have an opportunity to debate this issue as it deserves. The August recess seemed to be citizens’ one chance to force a reconsideration by their elected representatives before Obama succeeded in rushing the Congress to judgment.
This is a moment of truth for the two political parties.
Will enough Congressional Democrats refuse to be herded like sheep and stampeded like cattle? Will they do what is right, and insist, for the sake of the political health of the country, on an open and measured and deliberative process?
And if there are not enough such Democrats — if the Democratic party simply yields to Barack Obama and his assurance that, hey, he has every incentive to get it right, so everyone else should just get out of the way — if the Democratic Congress jams this legislation down the people’s throat — then the Republican party will have to say: We do not yield. We do not acquiesce. And we will take this issue to the country in 2010 and 2012, with the purpose of repealing this dangerous and damaging legislation.
Sep/091
Summers: Unemployment Will Remain ‘Unacceptably High’ for Years
Obama UnEmployment
September 11, 2009 6:30 PM
In preparation for President Obama’s speech on regulatory reform on Monday — the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Bros. — Dr. Larry Summers, the chair of President Obama’s National Economic Council, today briefed reporters on the state of the economy and the administration’s policies.
“As the president has said and (Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner and I have said many times, these problems were not made in a week or a month or a year; they will not be fixed in a week or a month or a year,” Summers said. “The level of unemployment is unacceptably high and will on all forecasts remain unacceptably high for a number of, for a number of years.”
Summers said that while there has been substantial normalization in the economy, financial conditions in commercial real estate continue to struggle, and “the availability of capital to small businesses remain very tight and credit is in short supply.”
In news that the financial markets will no doubt find interesting, Summers said that the Obama administration officials have no interest in “prematurely withdrawing public support for credit flow” — tax dollars to encourage financial institution loans to citizens and businesses. The former Treasury Secretary for President Bill Clinton argued withdrawing support too quickly would repeat mistakes made by Japan during its fabled “Lost Decade” and the U.S. in 1937 and 1938.
There remains much work to be done, Summers said.
“Any institution too large and interconnected” to break down without causing serious economic hardship to the nation needs to be regulated, he said, adding that the same is true with any market too larger and interconnected to fail, such as derivatives.
“We will not be failsafe until it’s safe for failure,” he said.
Summers argued that it makes no sense for financial sectors to be able to pick which government agency regulates them.
“Stability is not attainable if institutions can choose their regulators,” he said, explaining that the president continues to believe what President Obama outlined in June, that it makes sense for the Federal Reserve to supervise all large, inter-connected financial firms that could pose a systemic risk to the overall system, institutions that would be subject to stricter capital requirements.
Has Wall Street learned its lesson?
Paraphrasing former President Reagan, Summers said his motto is “trust but verify – and regulate.”
He said one of the reasons greater regulation is needed is because the “imprudent put enormous pressure on the prudent” — that bad actors in the financial sector are able to generate wealth by behaving inappropriately which cause “pressure that makes it impossible for the prudent to function properly.”
But some analysts have criticized the administration’s reform proposals as weak and watered down.
“The proposals that they’re considering are very weak,” Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, told ABC News’ Matt Jaffe earlier today. “There’s nothing in the administration’s proposed legislation before Congress to which the industry objects except for the consumer protection agency.”
“The reform process to fix the underlying problems has only just begun,” Peterson said. “It’s not an impossible task. It will take a long time and a lot of effort, but this administration is not focused on that. Hopefully they’ll change their mind soon and we can really get down to business, but in this political cycle it’s not happening.”
The administration’s financial regulatory reform proposals have also taken a back seat to healthcare reform, causing even more doubts about the administration’s – and the Hill’s – drive to change to system.
Summers said that rumors that the administration was seeking to “interfere with Main Street retailers” are untrue. “That argument is to the financial debate what ‘death panels’ is to the debate over health insurance.”
Summers said that the Obama administration was doing everything it could to revitalize the economy, and was doing it well.
“We have moved back from the brink of financial catastrophe,” he said. He argued that never before in history has “as profound an economic crisis been addressed so forcefully and so quickly.”
But the administration would keep working hard, he said “as long as the unemployment rate is in the 9’s” with millions of foreclosures and tens of millions of people with negative equity in their homes.
The President is not just interested in responding to crises, Summers said, but trying to build a more stable foundation, which includes investments in education, energy. This new foundation includes the regulatory reforms the president will discuss on Monday; this last year was “not the first time,” he said that financial crises disrupted millions of American lives, he said, mentioning the 1987 Wall Street crash, the Savings and Loan scandal, the bursting of the internet bubble, and others.
Earlier today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs previewed the president’s speech, which will be delivered shortly after noon in Federal Hall.
Gibbs said that the speech will not introduce new policies.
“We’ve outlined a financial plan and are working with Congress to implement it,” he said. “I think we want to demonstrate again why it’s so important, why we need to move forward and why we can’t wait.”
President Obama has forced on ensuring “that we get our stability right, that businesses have access to stable capital and credit they need. And we’ve seen great progress on that, pulling financial insecurity back from the brink of another recession. The speech on Monday will focus on the need to take the next series of steps on financial regulatory reform to insure that what happened a year ago – there are significant safeguards.”
– jpt
Sep/091
U.S. government nervous about stimulus fraud, scams
ACORN
Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:25pm EDT
[source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1029818020090910 ]
WASHINGTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – As billions of dollars from the economic stimulus plan pour through the U.S. economy, members of Congress, the administration and regulatory agencies are increasingly worried about the risks of fraud.
Earl Devaney told Congress on Thursday the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board he chairs is investigating those who may have misappropriated stimulus money.
His board has “forwarded more than 100 matters to various IGs (inspector generals to ensure heightened scrutiny of specific procurements that board staff has identified as potentially problematic.
“We’ve got about nine cases in various U.S. attorneys offices,” he added. “I know from talking to them that they’re very interested in sending some very loud signals early.”
The Federal Trade Commission, too, has monitored scams where people have misrepresented their connections to the stimulus in order to convince people to hand over money or sensitive financial information.
It has gotten individuals to dismantle websites promising to help people get money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for household bills or, even, “leisure travel,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He described the individuals as con artists and hucksters.
“The commission is committed to using its law enforcement authority aggressively to bring these schemes to a halt, and to continue deploying public alerts and educational materials,” Leibowitz said.
The FTC cannot criminally prosecute scam artists, such as a telemarketing outfit that he said told Americans they were eligible for $25,000 grants and offered to sell them a $59 book on writing grants, the chairman said, but the agency does refer the cases to state attorneys general, he said.
But some legislators questioned if enough was being done.
“These funds must be disbursed quickly,” said Maine Senator Susan Collins, the highest ranking Republican on the committee. “Striking the right balance between speed and caution has been a challenging task.”
Collins said the Justice Department is training more than 10,000 federal, state and local officials to monitor stimulus contracts for collusion and bid-rigging.
The Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, told the panel it is worried the auditing process the federal government requires states to use for stimulus-related programs may not catch misspending.
The “reporting deadline is too late to provide … results in time for the audited entity to take action on deficiencies,” J. Christopher Mihm, the GAO’s managing director of strategic issues, said.
But the Office of Management and Budget’s Deputy Director Robert Nabors, who is monitoring the stimulus dollars for President Barack Obama, said that as of Thursday his office had introduced a process for quicker auditing.
A website where funding recipients post how they have spent money and how many jobs their projects have created is running smoothly, Nabors said. He expects to release a report on how the stimulus has operated on Oct. 10.
That report will differ from the one released on Thursday by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers because it will only use the data in the system and will not rely on economic projections, he said. (Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Kenneth Barry)