Part 16--June, 2010

*6/1/10--The White House and Rep. Joe Sestak have come clean about the bribe used to try and get Sestak to drop his bid against Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary. At least, they believe they have come clean. Both Sestak and Obama now claim that WH chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked former President Bill Clinton to offer Sestak an unpaid position on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board if Sestak would drop his primary challenge against Specter. That’s an awfully convenient narrative that would seem to exonerate Sestak and Obama from any illegal quid-pro-quo. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said the explanation seems fishy because as a congressman, Sestak couldn't have held a position on a presidential commission. Here’s what Issa told Fox News: It's a crime because they've admitted that they offered this position ... So that begs the real question. Do we believe this is a further cover-up because he's—they’re now talking about a job that President Clinton himself should have known Sestak couldn't take...They're now coming up with a non-plausible answer.--TownHall.com

* 6/1/10--Gallup's generic polling shows the number of voters saying that they would vote for Republicans rising three points from last week, while the number saying they will vote for Democrats dropped four points. The 49%-43% lead for the Republicans is the largest that the pollster has ever recorded for the party. Moreover, Democratic enthusiasm for voting this fall fell a point, while enthusiasm among Republicans stayed about fifteen points higher. This indicates an even wider lead for Republicans once Gallup imposes a likely voter screen this fall.--RealClearPolitics.com

* 6/1/10--VIENNA — Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country preparing to produce a nuclear weapon. Two tons of uranium would suffice for two nuclear warheads, although Iran says it does not want weapons and is only pursuing civilian nuclear energy. On enrichment, the report said Iran had now enriched 2,427 kilograms to just over three percent level. That means shipping out 1,200 kilograms (as proposed by the IAEA late in 2009) now would still leave Iran with more than enough material to make a nuclear weapon. That makes the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil unattractive to the U.S and its allies. (AP)

* 6/2/10--Israel is bracing for a second showdown with pro-Palestinian activists who are sending two more boats -- possibly with Turkish naval support -- to challenge the Gaza blockade in the wake of Monday's bloodshed. The ships, holding about 40 protesters including a Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner, were to link up in the eastern Mediterranean and reach the Gaza coast later this week. Israel has vowed to keep its blockade of the Hamas-run territory in force.... Israeli officials expressed concern that Turkey would send warships to accompany the next flotilla to Gaza, The Jerusalem Post reported. But Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an emergency meeting of his defense Cabinet the blockade must be maintained to keep weapons from reaching terrorists. "Opening a naval route to Gaza will present an enormous danger to the security of our citizens," he said.... Israeli officials released more photos showing the cache of weapons found on the ship, including knives and slingshots -- one of which had "Hizbollah" written on it.... Israeli officials said their investigation of the 700 activists in the flotilla showed 100 had ties to jihadist groups, mainly al Qaeda.--NY Post

* 6/2/10--First understand that Gaza is a bastion of support for Hamas terrorism which has launched thousands of missiles into Israel and kidnapped Israel's Gilad Shalit who remains in captivity after four years. Gaza is a place where long-range missiles and explosives are stored to attack Israel at some date in the future. There were six ships loaded with what the Palestinians and Turks insisted were humanitarian aid to people in Gaza suffering from a three-year embargo by Israel. Israel was willing to transport all the humanitarian aid into Gaza after the cargo was inspected at an Israel port to make sure they were not carrying more missiles or weapons of war. This the Turks and their sponsors would not do. This is why fighting broke out that ended in the loss of nine lives when Israeli soldiers had to fight for their lives on board one specific ship that refused to be searched. Israel was absolutely willing for all humanitarian aid to go through to help the people of Gaza. They were not about to allow weapons of war to reach Gaza. It’s this simple: if the “peace activists” truly wanted to get aid to Gaza, Israel made a safe and easy way for them to do that. The fighting broke out when these “activists” attacked Israeli soldiers who were simply trying to inspect the ships and keep their country safe. The U.N. had its usual Israel bashing ceremony following the incident. This is not new nor will it change in the future. This incident is about a democracy, Israel, trying to survive in a world saturated with radical Islamic warriors who want to see Israel pushed into the sea. No one doubts war is coming in the Middle East, and coming soon. We are on the verge of a global crisis of mega proportions. --Pastor John Hagee, JHMinistries

* 6/2/10--In the aftermath of the Gaza flotilla fiasco, the air is thick with nonsense. Chief among the instant myths is that Israel has created a dilemma for President Obama. Actually, it's the other way around. The president's appeasement policies helped to create the incident. Israel took the bait, but the trap was set in Washington. Weakness always begets aggression, and, like clockwork, Obama's repeated signals that he is weakening America's commitment to Israel are emboldening the Jewish state's enemies. From Syria to Iran to Lebanon, from Hezbollah to Hamas and the PLO, the wolves smell blood and are trying to gauge whether they can get close enough for the kill. And whether the United States will stop them. That they even dare hope we won't reflects the danger of Obama's demented decisions. The huge flotilla is the latest example of the open-season mania, with the result that Israel is under international siege -- for defending itself. And, not incidentally, for defending an embargo on Gaza that Washington supports. Obama says he wants the facts of the incident, but let's hope he also wants the truth, even if it is inconvenient to his worldview. The first fact is that the flotilla was not really a humanitarian effort. The compassion claim was a fig leaf for the political aim of busting the 3-year-old maritime blockade, as organizers admitted last week. They knew they would not be allowed to dock in Gaza, but still rejected Israel's offer to unload the goods in Israeli ports and, after inspection, truck them overland. At least a few of the passengers were armed. "We're trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip and tell the world that Israel has no right to starve 1.5 million Palestinians," Greta Berlin, the head of an organization called Free Gaza Movement, said in typical exaggeration to a British newspaper. Her group's boats were turned away before, but they vowed not to be stopped this time. "The previous boats were making a statement -- these boats will be making a real impact," Berlin said four days before the launch. Israel, of course, is not exempt from criticism for what was clearly a bungled effort. Incredibly, given what they knew beforehand about the intent of the activists, its military leaders sent in only a handful of lightly armed commandos who were easy targets as they slid down ropes from helicopters. Yet it's also fair to ask where Obama was while the problem was building. Even if he was too busy with the oil disaster in the Gulf, where was the secretary of state? It was long clear the flotilla had the potential to cause a regional ruckus, but Washington watched it unfold like a spectator. That's strange in and of itself, because the US and Europe supported the blockade to force Hamas from power in Gaza, or force it to recognize Israel and renounce violence. They might have stopped the dangerous flotilla simply by making it clear they would support Israel's right to interdict it. The most troubling fact of shifting allegiances is Turkey's role as sponsor of the convoy. Not so long ago, Israel and Turkey were allies, even conducting joint military exercises....These are the facts, and the truth. For the obvious stakes, they shouldn't present a dilemma for Obama. He should do what any American president would -- protect our friend and ally from the predators who want to devour it.--Michael Goodwin, NY Post

* 6/2/10--The basic facts in this crisis are on Israel's side -- but facts are often irrelevant to world opinion. Israel maintains a blockade of Gaza in an effort to keep Hamas -- the terrorist group that rules there, proudly dedicated to Israel's destruction -- from acquiring fresh arms. The "peace" flotilla refused to allow Israel to control the cargo's delivery -- a principle that would have undone the blockade, allowing an unrestricted flow of guns and missiles to Hamas and the eventual deaths of countless innocent Israelis (Arabs as well as Jews). Yet much of the world prefers to call the would-be blockade-busters "humanitarian activists," and refer to Israel's perfectly legal action as "piracy," "war crimes" and worse. Never mind that what botched the operation, besides bad intelligence, was the Israeli decision to use minimal force. The Israelis should have known better. The Turkish group that organized the Gaza-bound flotilla -- The Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or IHH -- has ties to Islamist terror groups, including al Qaeda. --Benny Avni, NY Post

* 6/3/10--WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans receiving food stamps topped 40 million for the first time in March as the jobless rate hovered near a 26-year high. Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases totaled 40.2 million, up 21 percent from a year earlier and 1.2 percent more than in February, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday on its Web site. Food aid climbed as the unemployment rate stayed at 9.7 percent in March for a third straight month, near levels last seen in 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. --Bloomberg.com

* 6/3/10--In a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee Republican, Robert Bauer, counsel to Obama, implied the president may use executive privilege to hide some memos Elena Kagan wrote when she served in the Clinton White House. “President Obama does not intend to assert executive privilege over any of the documents requested by the Committee,” Bauer writes. “Of course, President Clinton also has an interest in these records, and his representative is reviewing them now,” he adds. The Clinton library has more than 150,000 documents related to Elena Kagan. This is one of the few sources we have to know what Kagan thinks on many issues.--Kaganwatch.com

* 6/4/10--After first stonewalling, the White House yesterday confirmed that it tried to lure Andrew Romanoff out of the Colorado Senate primary with an administration job, to help its preferred candidate, incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. Sound familiar? The Denver Post ran a story on the rumored job offer last September -- but White House spokesman Adam Abrams said then, "Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration." Under the Bill Clinton standard, that's true: There was no formal "offer." But Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina's e-mail outlined in great specificity three government jobs that happened to be open, should Romanoff (who'd previously been denied an administration job) decide not to run. The White House's reasoning is migraine-inducing: It insists it didn't offer a job -- but also that the president has an interest in influencing party primaries. But if the president wasn't offering a job, then what was he doing to prevent a primary contest? He was offering a job. Stop insulting our intelligence. But that's not the worst. To justify the presidential interest in influencing party primaries, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday noted, "We went through a contested primary, and they aren't fun things." Huh? By that logic, Obama should have been pushed out of the 2008 primaries to avoid a contentious fight and give the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, a walk to the nomination. At the outset, she was by far the favored candidate. Does the White House not see the irony in trying to entice two insurgents (Romanoff and Pennsylvania's Joe Sestak) out of challenging the establishment choice? Many Beltway talkers are claiming that the president actually has the "right," as head of the party, to clear the field in primaries. Sorry, the only people with the right to choose a nominee are primary voters. We live in the United States, not some Middle Eastern dictatorship (or, apparently, Chicago)....In the last year, we've seen revolts against backroom deals over health reform (anger that may have been the final straw in electing Sen. Scott Brown). Here in New York, Democrats revolted when the White House tried to pressure Gov. Paterson from running to keep his job. Yes, Paterson later dropped out on his own -- but the Marist poll found 62 percent of voters and 51 percent of Democrats saying the administration should butt out. Indeed, the recent revelations raise the question of just what offers the White House made to clear the way for Andrew Cuomo -- and for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand--Kirsten Powers, NY Post

* 6/4/10--(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.” The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.

* 6/5/10--Before jetting off for Memorial Day recess, the House passed two spending bills that will -- surprise -- increase the deficit. The Wall Street Journal notes that Democrats "approved another $116 billion in new welfare and other spending, raised $82 billion in new taxes on investment and business, and increased the national debt by another $54.7 billion. None of this was offset with spending cuts." The original "jobs bill" was priced at $191 billion -- a bit steep for Democrats facing voters this fall. So the leadership split the bill in two. One to extend welfare spending supposedly paid for by $82 billion in business tax hikes passed with 215 votes. Second came the infamous "doc fix" bill that raised Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, which passed with 245 votes. The bill's $21 billion price tag was lower than originally planned because, instead of extending the fix for four years, the extension is good for only two years.--Patriot Post

* 6/6/10--WASHINGTON — President Obama and his allies, concerned about deep skepticism over his landmark health care overhaul, are orchestrating an elaborate campaign to sell the public on the law, including a new tax-exempt group that will spend millions of dollars on advertising to beat back attacks on the measure and Democrats who voted for it. Americans will see the first evidence of the public relations offensive on Tuesday, when Mr. Obama travels to Wheaton, Md., to conduct a nationally televised question-and-answer session with older citizens to trumpet one of the law’s most popular features: $250 rebate checks to help Medicare beneficiaries pay for prescription drugs. The timing is no accident; the first batch of checks will be mailed on Thursday. But it is only an early hint of what is to come throughout the summer and fall, officials say, as other consumer-friendly provisions — a high-risk pool for hard-to-insure people, a Web site comparing coverage plans, tough new restrictions on insurers — take effect. At each of these “milestone moments,” as the White House calls them, Mr. Obama will weigh in, dipping back into a contentious debate that consumed much of the first year of his presidency. With Republicans campaigning on a theme of “repeal and replace” and casting the law as big government — and some Democrats trying to avoid talking about it — the strategy poses some political risks.--NY Times

* 6/7/10--By more than a 2-to-1 margin, Americans support the pursuit of criminal charges in the nation's worst oil spill, with increasing numbers calling it a major environmental disaster. Eight in 10 criticize the way BP's handled it – and more people give the federal government's response a negative rating than did the response to Hurricane Katrina. A month and a half after the spill began, 69 percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll rate the federal response negatively. That compares with a 62 negative rating for the response to Katrina two weeks after the August 2005 hurricane. --abcnews.com

* 6/7/10--...Obama ignored Palin's experience as governor of Alaska, which was considerably bigger than the Obama campaign. But his point was clear: If you're worried about my lack of my executive experience, look at my campaign. Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will. Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. "At least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response," the New York Times reports, "making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes." For example, it took the Department of Homeland Security more than a week to classify the spill as an event calling for the highest level of federal action. And when state officials in Louisiana tried over and over to win federal permission to build sand barriers to protect fragile coastal wetlands from the oil, they got nowhere. "For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore," the Times reports, "officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach." The bureaucracy wasn't bending to anyone's will. The direction from the top was not clear. And accountability? So far, the only head that has rolled during the Gulf crisis has been that of Minerals Management Service chief Elizabeth Birnbaum. But during a May 27 news conference, Obama admitted he didn't even know whether she had resigned or been fired. "I found out about it this morning, so I don't yet know the circumstances," the president said. "And [Interior Secretary] Ken Salazar's been in testimony on the Hill." Obama's answer revealed that he hadn't fired Birnbaum, and he couldn't reach a member of his Cabinet who was a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue. Given all that, perhaps candidates in future presidential races will think twice before arguing that running their campaign counts as executive experience. A few days before Obama won the White House, Bill Clinton joined him for a late-night rally in Kissimmee, Fla. Clinton, who became president after 12 years as a governor, told the crowd not to worry about Obama's lack of executive background. Given the brilliance of Obama's campaign, Clinton said -- and here the former president uncharacteristically mangled his words a bit -- a President Obama would be "the chief executor of good intentions as president." Chief executor of good intentions? Perhaps that's what Obama is now. But with oil gushing into the Gulf, that's just not good enough.--Byron York, Washington Examiner

* 6/7/10--"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."--Barack Obama, (From RealClearPolitics.com)

* 6/7/10--President Barack Obama is telling high school graduates in Michigan not to make excuses, and to take responsibility for failures as well as successes. In excerpts of remarks to be delivered Monday evening at Kalamazoo Central High School, Obama said that it's easy to blame others when problems arise. "We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV," the president said.--Breitbart.com

FLASHBACKS--('Blame' italics from this blog)
---7/29/08--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday blamed "irresponsible decisions" by the Bush administration and Wall Street for the country's economic woes as government officials said the budget deficit would soar to record heights next year.--Boston.com

---12/18/08--President elect Barack Obama today blamed a lack of "adult supervision" in the financial markets for scandals such as Bernard Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud and has pledged a radical overhaul to introduce smarter, tougher oversight of Wall Street. Appointing several regulatory chiefs, including a new chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission, Obama blamed the Bush administration's laissez-faire economic philosophy for recent mis-steps including Madoff's stunning exposure as a corrupt financier.-Guardian.co.uk

---4/22/09--All went as expected in these travels, not counting certain unforeseen results of that triumphal European tour. The images of that trip, in which Mr. Obama dazzled ecstatic Europeans with citations of the offenses against international goodwill and humanity committed by the nation he leads, (blaming America), are now firmly imprinted on the minds of Americans. That this is so, and that it is not good news for him, is truth of a kind not quite fathomable to this president and his men.--WSJ

---5/21/09--While insisting "we need to focus on the future," President Obama devoted much of his speech on terrorist detainees today to denouncing the policies of President Bush's administration. He faulted everyone in Washington for "pointing fingers at one another," yet pointed his own finger frequently, and critically, at the Bush administration. Obama said America's problems won't be solved "unless we solve them together"--in a divisive and partisan speech certain to alienate Republicans and conservatives.--Weekly Standard

---8/31/09--The White House sought on Monday to pin the blame for the grave state of the war in Afghanistan on the Bush administration, which made Iraq its top military priority. “This was underresourced, underfunded, undermanned and ignored for years,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.--GatewayPundit.com

---10/30/09--..In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up. By my calculation, Obama has already burned through a good 49. Is there anything he hasn't blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad -- everything but swine flu. It's as if Obama's presidency hasn't really started. He's still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to "long years of drift" in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan.--Charles Krauthammer

---2/10/10--President Obama, struggling to staff his administration after a year in office, is blaming Republican efforts to "delay and obstruct" his nominees in the Senate -- and threatening to counteract those tactics with recess appointments.--FoxNews.com

---3/19/10--OBAMA BLAMES THE MEDIA--At a health care rally at George Mason University today, President Obama -- like so many before him -- named the culprit behind (in this case) all the crazy misunderstandings about health care reform. By creating a pointless diversion about how the bill will be passed, he said, the news media does a disservice by not spending more time explaining what's in the bill.--WashingtonExaminer.com

---3/30/10--Obama has spent the first fifteen months of his presidency blaming others for his mistakes -- blame the banks, blame the insurance companies, blame the rich -- so it is not surprising that he is now blaming foreign competition for the continuing loss of jobs at home. All that is needed is to drum up public anger against China in the same way that Democrats singled out insurance companies during the health care debate or Big Oil during cap-and-trade. Target a scapegoat, isolate it, and pile on.--AmericanThinker.com

---4/15/10--(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday put primary blame for last week's deadly West Virginia coal mine disaster on owner Massey Energy and called for better mine oversight nationwide to prevent more accidents.

---5/3/10--WASHINGTON -- Amid complaints his administration moved too slowly in response to a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama rushed to Louisiana yesterday and laid the blame squarely on BP.

--5/19/10--Obama, in yet another speech last Friday, failed to apologize for not having been any better than his predecessors in taking action to protect the border, and blamed Congress - who he had forced into a year long pre-occupation with health care - for failing to enact ‘comprehensive reform.’ He then made another ‘promise’ that if Congress continues to waste its time (pandering to his agenda) ”We will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.”--BloggerNews.net

--5/22/10--Louisiana (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Saturday blamed the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at energy giant BP Plc as he unveiled a commission to investigate the disaster.

---5/26/10--President Barack Obama on Tuesday blamed Republicans for "sitting on the sidelines" and not working across the aisle, even as he asked for "eight or 10" of them to join him on immigration reform. The president, speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco, lashed out at Republican senators just hours after meeting with them on Capitol Hill, a meeting described by some participants as "testy."-TheHill.com

---5/27/10--During a May 27, 2010, press conference, President Barack Obama -- under pressure for the failure to stem the underwater leak -- laid a large portion of the blame on the existing law that governs the permitting process, as well as the regulations to implement that law, which were drawn up by the Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department office that oversees oil and gas leases.-Polifact.com

--6/10/10--President Obama finally blamed Republicans for the BP oil leak. From the Wall Street Journal:

Congressional Republicans, he said, have a “sincere and fundamental belief” that government has “little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. “If you’re a Wall Street banker or insurance company or oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences to everyone else,” Mr. Obama said. Republicans, he said, “gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight.” Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the House Republican whip, replied that blaming Republicans won’t solve the country’s problems.

* 6/8/10--(Reuters) - Under President Barack Obama, the United States no longer provides Israel with automatic support at the United Nations where the Jewish state faces a constant barrage of criticism and condemnation. The subtle but noticeable shift in the U.S. approach to its Middle East ally comes amid what some analysts describe as one of the most serious crises in U.S.-Israeli relations in years. Under Obama, the United States seeks to reclaim its role as an impartial Middle East peace broker which critics say it lost during the previous administration of George W. Bush. "Israel became used to unconditional support of the United States during eight years of the Bush administration," said Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. She said Bush's "extreme position" makes even mild criticism appear dramatic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet.

* 6/8/10--As voters head to the polls Tuesday for a crucial set of primary elections, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds antipathy toward their elected officials rising and anti-incumbent sentiment at an all-time high. The national survey shows that 29 percent of Americans now say they are inclined to support their House representative in November, even lower than in 1994, when voters swept the Democrats out of power in that chamber after 40 years in the majority.--Washington Post

* 6/10/10--The owner of the Empire State Building yesterday rejected pleas from religious and political leaders who begged him not to snub Mother Teresa -- and is still refusing to honor the beloved nun on what would have been her 100th birthday...."[The building] has a specific policy against any other lighting for religious figures or requests by religions and religious organizations...." The building went red and gold last year on the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China; turned blue in 1995 for the rollout of blue M&Ms; and glowed purple, pink and white on April 24, 2008, for the release of Mariah Carey's album, "E = MC2." Even the Ninja Turtles had their night in lights, when the building went green on April 23, 2009, to mark the heroes on the half-shell's 25th anniversary....Despite Malkin's stance that individual religious leaders are barred from Empire State Building lighting honors, history seems to say otherwise. The building's lights have been used to mark the deaths of John Cardinal O'Connor in 2000, with the red and white of his position; Pope John Paul II in 2005, when the tower symbolically went dark; and Martin Luther King with red, black and green. Mother Teresa died in 1997.--NY Post

* 6/10/10--Last week's jobs report tanked the stock market; the president took weeks to assert control of the oil spill that threatens doom on the Gulf Coast -- but at the White House the Gatsby-like parties roll on as if happy days were here again. Just yesterday, President Obama held another fun-filled White House event, a picnic for Congress members, complete with hot dogs, cold beverages and a fire pit. All told, during the last seven weeks of spewing oil and rampant unemployment, he has frolicked and danced through three major White House music parties:

* The black-tie tent bash on the White House South Lawn after the state dinner for Mexico's President Felipe Calderón, which featured singer Beyoncé.

* The Paul McCartney hootenanny -- a night of tributes to the former Beatle, which featured the president himself scooting onto the dance floor to join the Jonas Brothers in the long "la-la-la" closing refrain of "Hey Jude." (Plus, of course, McCartney serenading the first lady with "Michelle.")

* The Ford Theater event -- in which the president, taking a break from "kicking ass" on the oil spill, kicked back and relaxed to the song stylings of one-time "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson, among other B-listers.

It was one thing when the president launched his White House days with a round of Martini Wednesdays, Stevie Wonder concerts, conga-line dancing and Super Bowl parties. That was before the gushing oil and before the employment picture defied the Obama hope-and-change cures. Now it's different. Now the president's fascination with fun and parties in the midst of crisis has not only reinforced a feeling he's out of touch, but has migrated down the chain of command. Last weekend, Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel held a "super soaker" squirt-gun party at the veep's residence. Everybody ran around giggling and shooting squirt guns at each other. Members of the press covering Biden joined in, to their shame. And last Sunday, presidential spokesman Tommy Vietor and Obama speechwriter extraordinaire Jon Favreau, both 29 years old, were spotted at a Georgetown bar, stripped to the waist, playing a game of beer pong with a gang of bare-chested buddies. (This game involves throwing a ping-pong ball into cups of beer -- loser drinks beer, winner drinks beer, everybody drinks beer.) Meanwhile, MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell said on the "Morning Joe" program that she talks to White House staffers who are having nightmares about the oil spill. Evidently, Vietor and Favreau aren't O'Donnell's contacts at the White House. Fine, folks in the White House pressure-cooker need to blow off some steam. But it seems the president and his underlings don't see any need to rein in their love of partying, even though regular Americans are facing catastrophe. Yes, the president looks elegant and cool in his tuxedo, dancing to Jay-Z or the aging "cute Beatle" -- but there are people in the Gulf who can't pay their bills, and millions of the long-term unemployed who are on the outside, looking in on all the fun. Judging by the polls, the grumbling of the outsiders is getting louder. The president may want to consider making good on his promise that all hands are on deck for national disasters, by passing the word that party time is now on hold -- and then leading by example.--John Gibson, FoxNews

* 6/10/10--The UN Security Council passed its fourth round of US-crafted sanctions against Iran yesterday, but Tehran ridiculed the watered-down package of travel and economic restrictions as "worthless" and said they'd have no impact at all on its nuclear program. The passage caps a five-month campaign by American diplomats to convince China and Russia, key trading partners with Iran, not to block the sanctions. The vote was 12-2, with Turkey and Brazil voting against the package. President Obama hailed the final measure as an "unmistakable message about the international community's commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons." But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the sanctions "worthless" and said they belonged "in a trash bin." And Russia said the upshot is that the UN vote rules out "the use of force or the threat of force" against Tehran. The sanctions fall far short of crippling economic punishments or an embargo on Iran's chief money-maker, oil shipments.--NY Post

* 6/11/10--And the winner is . . . Turkey. That's the upshot of President Obama's call for a "new conceptual framework" that would sharply limit Israel's naval blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza -- or end it entirely. This is a major coup for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who facilitated the "peace flotilla" that came to grief in the Mediterranean on May 31 when Israeli commandos boarded its Turkish-flagged lead vessel. Erdogan's payday came Wednesday at the White House, when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was told by President Obama that the Israeli blockade -- heretofore unambiguously supported by Washington -- is now considered "unsustainable." Translation: Erdogan poked the tiger with a stick, and the tiger slunk away -- puddy tat that it is becoming. This is a huge win for Ankara in its nascent efforts to assume a Mideast leader-ship role, a major loss of prestige for Obama (here's hoping he understands that) and a portentous defeat for Israel. After all, the whole point of the three-year-old blockade is to halt the flow of heavy weapons into Gaza. Also on Wednesday, Obama called on Israel to refocus its blockade -- insisting that "there should be some way of focusing narrowly on arms shipments, rather than focusing in a blanket way on stopping everything and then, in a piecemeal way, allowing things into Gaza." That's nonsensical, of course. Hamas and its supporters won't spread out the weapons they're smuggling on deck for easy inspection, or list them on a ship's manifest. This is why the blockade was necessary in the first place -- and why it will be even more necessary as the White House continues to distance itself from Israel. Certainly Obama's figurative bow to Erdogan will hasten the process along.--NY Post Editorial

* 6/11/10--The Senate took up the EPA Resolution of Disapproval introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) this week, but it failed to pass Thursday night, 47-53. Six Democrats voted with Republicans: Evan Bayh (IN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR) and Jay Rockefeller (WV). The resolution would have blocked the EPA from implementing cap-n-tax restrictions by bureaucratic fiat, thus retaining that power for Congress. Under the Congressional Review Act that was part of the "Contract with America," Congress has the authority to veto any "major rule" by a regulatory agency within 60 days of its passage. Murkowski's fellow Alaska senator, Mark Begich, a Democrat, opposed the measure because the EPA's regulations put pressure on the Senate to pass cap-n-tax. "The danger if Murkowski were to become law," said Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), "is that there isn't the immediate incentive to put a price on carbon." The White House, knowing that great power was at stake, threatened to veto the resolution. Earlier this year, Obama's hard-left EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declared carbon dioxide, which is required for all life on earth, a pollutant subject to their regulation. Of course, it did this based on junk science from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The EPA can therefore use its regulatory authority to intrude upon every area of our lives in implementing cap-n-tax restrictions -- all without the vote of our elected representatives, who by defeating this measure abdicated their own constitutional authority. The regulations will go into effect in January.--Patriot Post

* 6/11/10--According to data released last week by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the annual federal deficit is poised to top $1 trillion by June 16. From Oct. 1, 2009, the start of the federal fiscal year, to May 31, 2010, Washington added an astounding $941 billion in new debt, representing an average borrowing rate of $3.9 billion per day. All told, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projects the federal deficit this fiscal year will hit $1.55 trillion -- the highest in dollar terms in U.S. history and more than triple 2008's level. Interestingly, as CNSNews reports, last year's record $1.41 trillion deficit "was supposed to be an historical anomaly" due to the TARP bailout and the $787 billion stimu-less package (frightfully of which only 50 percent has actually been spent). Well, the one-year anomaly has now become a two-year "anomaly." Purportedly to help cut spending, the administration has requested 5 percent cuts in agency budgets. Only not really. The Washington Post notes that "[t]o encourage cooperation" among the agencies, Barack Obama wants to let them keep half the "savings" for, you guessed it, new spending. Kind of like refusing a cupcake and rewarding yourself with an éclair. To quote Thomas Jefferson, "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."--Patriot Post

* 6/11/10--"A split federal appeals panel yesterday upheld a ban on including the Ten Commandments in displays that featured multiple religious and government documents at two southern Kentucky courthouses," the Associated Press reports. "The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled 2-1 in American Civil Liberties Union v. McCreary County that the permanent injunction barring McCreary and Pulaski counties from posting the displays could remain in place." In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such a ban is constitutional if the display has a predominantly religious purpose, but if documents such as the Ten Commandments were part of an educational or historical display, they are permissible. The Court then sent the case back to federal district court in Kentucky for further hearings. Judge Eric Clay wrote, "The fact that Defendants seek to minimize the residue of religious purpose does not mean that Plaintiffs do not suffer continuing irreparable injury so long as the display remains on the walls of the county courthouses." Irreparable injury? Seriously? This latest ruling, of course, comes out of the grossly misunderstood concept of separation of church and state. We expect nothing less from an activist judiciary.--Patriot Post

* 6/11/10--Political correctness is a widely and deeply spread mental illness permeating our culture. Fox News reports on a small publishing company that is putting warning labels on some of its published materials, though this isn't just any published materials. Wilder Publications warns readers of its reprints of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, among others, that "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work." We might remind the folks at Wilder that the Constitution is an operable legal document (despite what the federal government does to it on a regular basis). --Patriot Post

* 6/11/10--Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare. Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans. The "midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013," according to the document. In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law. The 83-page document, a joint project of the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the IRS, examines the effects that ObamaCare's regulations would have on existing, or "grandfathered," employer-based health care plans. Draft copies of the document were reportedly leaked to House Republicans during the week and began circulating Friday morning. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., posted it on his Web site Friday afternoon. "It's been passed around the staffs here on Capitol Hill. Congressman Posey thought it was important enough to share," said spokesman George Cecala. In a statement, Posey said the document showed that the arguments in favor of ObamaCare were a "bait and switch." "The president promised repeatedly that people who like their current plans can keep them, but now the details of their plan actually confirm what many suspected all along, most Americans will lose their current health care plan," Posey said.--Investors.com

* 6/12/10--Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal. In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.--Timesonline.co

* 6/12/10--Last week, it seemed, environmentalists were finally ready to let loose on President Barack Obama over the Gulf oil spill. Actress Q’orianka Kilcher chained herself to the White House fence while her mother slathered the “Pocahontas” star in black paint meant to look like oozing crude. Kilcher’s cause? Not the Gulf spill at all but oil-related abuses of indigenous people in Peru, whose president was visiting Obama that day. As the greatest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history has played out on Obama’s watch, the environmental movement has essentially given him a pass — all but refusing to unleash any vocal criticism against the president even as the public has grown more frustrated by Obama’s performance. --Politico.com

* 6/13/10--"The most important overlooked story of the past few weeks was overlooked because it was not surprising. Also because no one really wants to notice it. ... I speak of the report from the inspector general of the Justice Department, issued in late May, saying the department is not prepared to ensure public safety in the days or weeks after a terrorist attack in which nuclear, biological or chemical weapons are used. The Department of Homeland Security is designated as first federal responder, in a way, in the event of a WMD attack, but every agency in government has a formal, assigned role, and the crucial job of Justice is to manage and coordinate law enforcement and step in if state and local authorities are overwhelmed. So how would Justice do, almost nine years after the attacks of 9/11? Poorly. 'The Department is not prepared to fulfill its role ... to ensure public safety and security in the event of a WMD incident,' says the 61-page report. Justice has yet to assign an entity or individual with clear responsibility for oversight or management of WMD response; it has not catalogued its resources in terms of either personnel or equipment; it does not have written plans or checklists in case of a WMD attack. A deputy assistant attorney general for policy and planning is quoted as saying 'it is not clear' who in the department is responsible for handling WMD response. Workers interviewed said the department's operational response program 'lacks leadership and oversight.' An unidentified Justice Department official was quoted: 'We are totally unprepared.' He added. 'Right now, being totally effective would never happen. Everybody would be winging it.' The inspector general's staff interviewed 36 senior officials involved in the department's emergency response planning and summarized the finding: 'It was clear that no person or entity is managing the overall Department's response activities.' You could almost see them scratching their heads and saying, 'No one's in charge here.' ... We may be witnessing again a failure of imagination, the famous phrase used after 9/11 to capture why the U.S. government was caught so flatfooted and was so stunned that such a terrible thing could occur. They neglected to think of the worst thing that could happen, and so of course they did not plan for it. If agencies within the government now are having a second failure of imagination, it is not forgivable. We're not being asked to imagine a place we've never been, after all, we're only being asked to imagine where we've been, and how it could be worse, and plan for it." --columnist Peggy Noonan

* 6/13/10--As the White House continues to turn the screws on Israel, some in Congress finally are saying, "Stop!" Unfortunately, none is a Democrat. Rep. Pete King, a Long Island Republican, aims to put America squarely on the side of our beleaguered ally. That King sees the need to do it through binding legislation tells you how far President Obama has careened off course. The America Stands with Israel Act is direct and, at five pages, refreshingly concise. Noting that Hamas is a terrorist organization that aims to destroy Israel, the bill would require the US to withdraw from the loony UN Council on Human Rights, which, predictably, condemned Israel after the Gaza flotilla incident. The bill also would prohibit the use of American funds to investigate Israel. About 40 Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, but not a single Democrat has. Given the stakes and clarity, it seems fair to conclude all Dems agree with Obama that Israel is the obstacle to peace, or they are guilty of putting party loyalty ahead of Israel's survival. Either way, they are wrong. "Barack Obama's view of the world is that there is too much belligerency coming from the United States and Israel," King told me. "He looks at the plight of the Palestinians and blames Israel. Not Arafat, not Abbas and not the Arab countries that have let the Palestinians live in squalor for 60 years." One result of that warped view is a White House push for Israel to drop its Gaza embargo. Why stop there? Why not just save time and demand that Israel arm Hamas directly? Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard lawyer, captured the moral imbalance. As quoted by Michael Medved in Commentary magazine, Dershowitz put it this way: "If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace tomorrow. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be genocide tomorrow." Is it possible Obama doesn't understand that? --Michael Goodwin, NY Post

*6/14/10--PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama's job approval rating is 46% for the week ending June 13, with an identical number disapproving. This matches the lowest weekly job approval rating of Obama's presidency, recorded two weeks earlier, and is slightly lower than the 47% from a week ago.--Gallup

* 6/15/10--Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of Obama’s Federal Trade Commission, is at the epicenter of a quiet movement to subsidize news organizations, a first step toward government control of the media. In our book, 2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan, we reported that he had commissioned a study to examine plans for a federal subsidy for news organizations. Among the measures under consideration are special tax treatment, exemption from antitrust laws and changes in copyright laws. Now Leibowitz has begun to pounce. A May 24 working paper on “reinventing” the media proposes that the government impose fees on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to news websites or that it tax consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds raised by these levies would be redistributed to traditional media outlets. While Leibowitz distanced himself from the proposals for the taxes, calling them “a terrible idea,” his comments appear to be related only to the levies proposed in the working paper. Nobody is commenting on the other part of his proposal — a subsidy for news organizations. By now, the Obama MO should be clear to all. As he has done with the banks, AIG and the car companies, he extends his left hand offering subsidies and then proffers his right laden with regulations. Should the government follow through on Leibowitz’s ideas and enact special subsidies and tax breaks for news organizations, it will induce a degree of journalistic dependence on the whims of government not seen since the days when the early presidents bestowed government advertising on favored periodicals. Is it too difficult to imagine that the Democrats might pass laws favoring news organizations, only to question — as former White House communications director Anita Dunn did — whether or not Fox News is a news organization or an “arm of the Republican Party”? We can see a future in which news media are reluctant to be too partisan or opinionated for fear that they would endanger their public subsidy. Once such a subsidy is extended to news organizations, every company in the business must have it. Otherwise, the competitive advantage for the subsidized companies would prove too steep an obstacle to overcome. In all the attention that has been given to the idea of an Internet tax on news aggregation sites and on tech equipment — trial balloons that would obviously be shot down — very little attention has been focused on the expenditure side of the proposal — the subsidy of news organizations. But The Wall Street Journal reported six months ago that Leibowitz had commissioned a study to determine “whether the government should aid struggling news organizations which are suffering from a collapse in advertising revenues as the Internet upends their centuries-old business model.” Among the steps under consideration are changing “the way the industry is regulated, from making news-gathering companies exempt from antitrust laws to granting them special tax treatment to making changes to copyright laws.” These are exactly the kind of subsidies that could and would trigger government oversight and control. The Leibowitz study, and the subsidy proposals that are likely to emerge from it, represent a chilling threat to the First Amendment and to our civil liberties.--Dick Morris, TheHill.com

* 6/16/10--President Obama's Oval Office speech last night focused on the Gulf oil catastrophe, but its true purpose was impossible to miss: shoring up the president's tanking popularity. Some 57 days after the BP oil rig blew -- triggering an underwater oil gusher that's yet to be contained -- a majority of Americans, polls show, think Obama's been too detached from the crisis. Thus, the president is taking a new tack: huffing and puffing. "Tonight, I've returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we're waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens," he said. But unless Obama knows something no one else does, it's not an assault, but a catastrophic accident -- though the term does build on a theme he began Sunday by comparing the spill to 9/11. And that was a grotesquerie: As New Yorkers know best, the attack that day was a premeditated act of war. Equally off-base is his new approach to the spill: demonizing BP beyond reason. "Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness," Obama continued. Really? Under what legal authority? Due process? Rule of law? Never mind any of that. Never mind, in fact, that nobody yet knows what caused the April disaster -- let alone who's to blame. Obama admitted as much last night: "And so I have established a national commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what safety and environmental standards we need to put in place." So where is the fact base from which the administration intends to proceed? Facts, of course, are rarely relevant when Chicago-style "community organizing" is under way. Threats are so much more effective. This isn't to suggest that BP doesn't bear heavy responsibility here. It was a BP operation gone wrong, and it's certainly wise to safeguard funds for when liability ultimately is assessed. But there's a difference between looking after one's legal options and whipping up a mob -- that being the difference between justice and revenge. The securities-rating firm Fitch yesterday dropped BP's credit rating six notches, two above junk, and the company has lost about half its market value since the explosion. Given that the White House is relying on BP to stem the leak and lead the cleanup, driving the company into bankruptcy now doesn't seem like a sound strategy. Unless, again, puffing up presidential popularity is the strategy.--NY Post Editorial

* 6/16/10--Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman (on MSNBC) react to President Obama's Oval Office Address on the oil spill. Here are the highlights of what the trio said: Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days." Matthews compared Obama to Carter. Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said." Matthews: "No direction." Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough." Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling." Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief." Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. "I'll barf if he does it one more time." Matthews: "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk." Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."--RealPolitics.com

* 6/16/10--WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will confront BP Plc on Wednesday with a demand that it set aside billions of dollars to pay damages from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the worst in U.S. history. BP executives, including Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO Tony Hayward and BP U.S. boss Lamar McKay, were seen walking into the West Wing of the White House just before 10 a.m. ET for talks with Obama that were scheduled to last 20 minutes. Looking serious, they barely glanced at photographers and camera crews recording their arrival. It was their first meeting with Obama since the start of the nearly two-month old crisis.

---OFFICIAL SCHEDULE: 75-MINUTE LUNCH WITH BIDEN...(Drudge Report)

* 6/16/10--"In a 'fireside chat' to quell concerns about the Gulf oil disaster, the president announced the appointment of an oil czar. Is more bureaucracy the answer to every problem? ... The president on Tuesday evening proved himself tone-deaf to this popular disenchantment, manifested in his sinking public approval ratings. He double-downed on his status as the federal government's expander in chief by announcing the establishment of an oil czar who will join the nearly 30 other czars running various sectors of the American Leviathan absent public accountability. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs described the newest czar as being 'in charge of a recovery plan, putting a recovery plan together ... when we get past the cleanup and response phase of this disaster.' It kind of begs the question: Why not a cleanup czar in the meantime? First things first. This is quintessential Rahm Think. Before the president was inaugurated, incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, cutthroat even by the Chicago machine standards that spawned him, infamously declared that you should 'never let a serious crisis go to waste.' The Democrats in power used a financial crisis -- of their own making, being the culmination of years of politicized housing policy -- to fulfill every taxpayer-funded fantasy on their wish list. Now the president is using the BP oil gusher crisis to justify yet another new taxpayer-funded agency. ... [M]illions of Americans would like to hear a reporter ask this president, 'Can you solve anything without asking for more government?'" --Investor's Business Daily

* 6/16/10--"This energy bill of goods, as dangled before us by the administration since the 2008 campaign, obscures practical and economic realities. To wit, trucks and cars don't run on sunlight or wind, and coal -- whose cost of generation the U.S. energy department priced at 44 cents per megawatt three years ago -- is our second cheapest form of energy, next to oil and gas, at 25 cents per megawatt. Nuclear power is $1.59. And how much, according to the energy department, is wind power? Oh, $23.37 per megawatt. Solar power? A whopping $24.34. Green jobs, anybody?" --columnist Bill Murchison (from Patriot Post).

* 6/18/10--WASHINGTON -- The British have had their fill of President Obama heaping ridicule and blame on BP. UK newspapers were filled with reports yesterday of Obama "bullying" the London-based company and US officials "escalating the ugly rhetoric" over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They are so peeved with Obama that Daily Telegraph columnist Janet Daley declared "the romance is over" for a British press previously enamored with the US president who promised hope and change. "The British media have decided that it was all a cruel deception: Obama is just one more ranting populist president who will do anything to divert attention from his own failure," she wrote. The Sun described BP as "humiliated" after the company bowed this week to White House demands to put aside $20 billion for compensation claims and forego dividend payments this year. The yanked dividend payments hit particularly hard on the other side of the pond because British pension funds are heavily invested in BP and rely on its dividend income. The Daily Mail warned that yesterday's Capitol Hill grilling of BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward would be "a cross between the Battle of Bunker Hill and a Salem witch trial."--NY Post

* 6/18/10--As a self-proclaimed “citizen of the world,” Pres. Barack Obama should have welcomed rather than spurned international assistance to prevent BP’s underwater oil geyser from wrecking the Gulf Coast. But spurn he did. Obama’s failure to waive the Jones Act still maintains a sea wall that blocks potentially helpful foreign ships from this tear-inducing mess. The 1920 Jones Act requires that vessels operating in American waters be built, owned, and manned by Americans. Some U.S. ship owners love this protectionist measure. So do maritime labor unions. When it comes to confronting unions, Obama rarely crosses that line. On April 20, the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killed eleven oil-rig workers, and began gushing perhaps 60,000 barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico daily. Three days later, the Dutch offered to sail to the rescue on ships bedecked with oil-skimming booms. They also had a plan for erecting protective sand barricades. “The embassy got a nice letter from the administration that said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” Dutch consul general Geert Visser told the Houston Chronicle’s Loren Steffy. “What’s wrong with accepting outside help?” Visser wondered. “If there’s a country that’s experienced with building dikes and managing water, it’s the Netherlands.” Had those Dutch ships departed for the Gulf nearly two months ago, who knows how much oil they already would have absorbed and how many pelicans now would soar rather than soak in soapy water while wildlife experts clean their wings. After initially refusing to name them, the State Department on May 5 declared that Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.N. had offered skimmer boats and other assets and experts to prevent the oil from destroying dolphins, crabs, oysters, and this disaster’s other defenseless victims. Alas, they were turned away. “While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet,” stated a State Department statement, “the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.” Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin translated this into plain English: “The current message to foreign governments is: Thanks but no thanks, we’ve got it covered." Had Obama instead waived the Jones Act via executive order — as did Pres. George W. Bush three days after Hurricane Katrina — that S.O.S. would have summoned a global armada of mercy. Who knows how many fishing, shrimping, and seafood-processing jobs this would have saved? Instead, thousands of Gulf Coast workers will endure a long march from dormant docks to bustling unemployment lines. Even now, Obama could invite the world to send boats to clean the waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and (potentially) the Carolinas and points north, if this mass of oil (so far, roughly equal to 13 Exxon Valdez oil spills) seeps into the Loop Current, swerves around Key West, slips into the Gulf Stream, and slides up the Eastern Seaboard. “If there is the need for any type of waiver, that would obviously be granted,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs promised on June 10. “But, we’ve not had that problem thus far in the Gulf.” Problem? What problem?--Nationalreview.com

* 6/18/10--Some House Democrats are complaining that the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) is cramping their style by conducting intrusive investigations and releasing documents to the public that reflect poorly on House members. The Congressional Black Caucus has gone so far as to introduce a bill to weaken the office's ability to conduct investigations. Again, no word from the Congressional White Caucus, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who touted the creation of the office in 2008 as a way to bring an end to "the culture of corruption," has signaled that she might be fine with watering it down. Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL) may have best encapsulated the sudden loss of favor of the OCE among Democrats: "The cynical among us would assert that the people crying the loudest have the most to hide. Perhaps the OCE is a victim of its own success. If it weren't making a difference, we wouldn't be having this conversation."--Patriot Post Digest

* 6/18/10--"Do you fully support the Obama agenda?" Such was the question posed to Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC) this week by two young men identifying themselves as students. Etheridge proceeded to assault one of the students, which, unfortunately for the congressman, was caught on tape. Predictably, there has been no move toward discipline from fellow House Democrats. While the dinosaurs of television and print media look high and low for phantom Tea Partiers spitting at congressmen or shouting racial epithets, their leftist comrades are denouncing the young videographer instead of the ill-tempered congressman. Etheridge eventually issued an apology for the incident -- well, for having it caught on video anyway -- but he still hasn't answered the original question: Does he fully support the Obama agenda? That's a question for which voters in Etheridge's district deserve an answer, and his GOP opponent, Renee Ellmers, will continue asking for it as that campaign rolls on.--Patriot Post Digest
*6/18/10--COLUMBUS, Ohio - Trumpeting the 10,000th road project funded by his Recovery Act, President Obama borrowed two of three words made famous in March by Vice President Biden. This is a "big....deal," said Mr. Obama, pausing for effect between the two words between which Biden had inserted an expletive in an overheard whisper three months ago....Mr. Obama spoke for just ten minutes and was on the ground in Ohio for just over an hour. And though his appearance was billed as official and not political, he did use his remarks to deliver attaboys to some of the Democratic politicians here including the Governor, who is up for re-election....The trip to Columbus probably cost taxpayers between $500,000 and $1 million. Air Force One alone bills out at $100,000 per hour, and the round trip is nearly two hours. Adding to the cost are military aircraft to carry limos and secret service vehicles, Marine One on standby, Secret Service, local police and other factors. --cbsnews.com

* 6/20/10--Oops, she did it again. Hillary Rodham Clinton opened her mouth and out came a gaffe. It was a Washington gaffe, meaning she accidentally told the truth. In Ecuador, the secretary of state blasted the Arizona immigration law and said in a TV interview that the Justice Department "will be bringing a lawsuit against the act." That was news to Arizona, and feisty Gov. Jan Brewer promptly let Clinton have it. "This is no way to treat the people of Arizona," she said. "To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorian interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous." Indeed it is, and it fits a pattern of pandering to foreign opinion. Recall that Democrats in Congress gave the president of Mexico a standing ovation when he denounced the Arizona law. Even worse, Washington's policy of refusing to enforce immigration laws is forcing state and local governments into contorted and expensive reactions. A Nebraska town wants renters to prove they are in the country legally, and Port Chester, NY, was forced to swallow a goofy voting scheme that makes sense only if the aim is to erase the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. Under the plan, imposed by a federal judge in response to a 2006 Justice Department civil-rights suit, each voter in the board of trustees election got six votes. A voter could give all six votes to one candidate, or divide them among several. The reason: No Latinos had ever been elected to any of the six at-large seats in the suburban town, even though they make up nearly half of the population of 28,000. That's because many of the Latinos are here illegally, so they can't vote. No matter. The cockeyed voting system was put in place to satisfy a claim of discrimination based on their total numbers, as though immigration status has no consequence to election results. The judge's ruling didn't just cover the complicated ballot, written in both Spanish and English. CBS News said the town held 12 educational forums on the election, six in each language, and that voting machines had 114 different levers next to candidate names. It said T-shirts, tote bags and lawn signs about the election were required by the Justice Department and everything, including reminders sent home with students, had to be in both English and Spanish and approved by bureaucrats. Taxpayers were robbed, with the town spending $300,000 on the process and maybe $1 million in legal fees -- all for an election in which 3,000 people voted. The turnout was about 25 percent of registered voters, the same as in previous elections. But cheer up: A Latino candidate won. So it goes in America, circa 2010, where the principle of one-man, one-vote is tossed overboard to rig an election.--Michael Goodwin, NY Post

* 6/21/10--The cap-and-trade bill that the House passed last summer aims to force Americans to reduce those dreaded carbon emissions by 83 percent in less than four decades -- to the same per-capita level as 1867. Yet, even under the Al Gore-approved climate-science models, the bill would do nothing to stop global warming. The bill is 1,000-plus pages of rules, regulations, handouts, subsidies and whatever else House leaders deemed necessary. Not one of the 435 members read the whole monstrosity -- because the leadership dropped 300 new pages on their desks the night before they voted. Yet the central point is clear enough: The bill simply drives up the price of fossil-fuel based energy so high that the nation will have to somehow get along with only 17 percent of the gasoline and fossil-fuel-powered electricity that it uses today. Don't ask how much it will cost. No one really knows, since you can't put a price on something that has yet to be defined....The median guess from the United Nations is that, if we do nothing to change our ways, the average world surface temperature will rise about 5 degrees Fahrenheit this century. (In fact, the trends in recent decades strongly suggest that this is an overestimate -- but let's accept it for the sake of the argument.) Now, if only the United States does change its ways, by adopting something like the House bill, we'd prevent about two-tenths of a degree of that warming, according to the UN's climate calculator. That is, the temperature in 2100 gets reduced to what it would otherwise be in 2096. All pain, no gain. Even if every nation that has "obligations" under the UN's Kyoto Protocol on global warming also adopts and enforces it, it would cut warming a mere 7 percent below the "business as usual" level, an amount probably too small to measure with confidence. Why would such drastic action on the part of America, Europe and Japan do so little to change the world? Because the older industrial nations are fast becoming bit players when it comes to global CO2 emissions. America's been pretty stagnant in the last decade -- while China's have been staggering. In eight years, China's annual totals will be equal to what they emit now plus everything we emit. So if we stopped emitting completely, China completely counters our effort. Add to that a simple fact which no cap-and-trade bill admits: That legislation would push even more of our industry into migrating to China, India and other nations that have no intention of reducing emissions by making energy more expensive. Bottom line: This legislation won't lower global temperatures -- but merely make life more expensive. It'll force you to buy things you don't want, like much more expensive cars, and to use energy sources you'd normally bypass, like ethanol, solar and windmills. All have to be massively subsidized -- with your tax dollars -- to compete with today's mix of coal, gasoline and natural gas.--Patrick J. Michaels, Cato Institute

* 6/21/10--"We live in a Constitutional Republic. The President's job under the Constitution is to enforce the laws made by the elected Congress. His job is not to create new laws and enforce them all by himself. His job is as magistrate under the Constitution, not as Caudillo. He is not the law. He is supposed to enforce what Congress decides. The BP behavior is reminiscent of how, immediately after assuming office, Mr. Obama, with no Congressional authority or administrative allowance, simply made a phone call to fire the head of GM. When I called the White House press office to ask under what law or regulation Mr. Obama was acting, I was told he did not need a law. If the government put a lot of money into GM, it could call the shots at GM, I was told. But under what authority, I asked. 'None needed,' was the final answer. ... The same goes for Mr. Obama's demand that BP pay the lost wages of oil and gas workers suspended from work because of the moratorium on Gulf of Mexico underseas drilling. There simply was no legislation allowing this kind of specific demand. Mr. Obama's demand was in the nature of a threat, more than a Constitutional act. ... [T]o create specific enactments and actions without any authority -- now Mr. Obama's specialty -- is so at odds with the law of the land that it terrifies me. These are not the acts of a teacher on Constitutional law. These are the acts of a big city boss or a third world dictator." --columnist Ben Stein, (Patriot Post Brief)

* 6/22/10--The Obama administration's flagship effort to help people in danger of losing their homes is falling flat. More than a third of the 1.24 million borrowers who have enrolled in the $75 billion mortgage-modification program have dropped out. That's more than the 27 percent who have managed to have their loan payments reduced to help them keep their homes. Last month alone, 150,000 borrowers left the program -- bringing the total to 436,000 who have exited since it began in March 2009. Officials say borrowers will get help in other ways. But analysts fear the majority will still wind up in foreclosure. A major reason so many have fallen out of the program is the Obama administration initially pressured banks to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out....The growing number of people leaving the program could lead to a new wave of foreclosures. Most of those leaving the program were rejected during a trial period lasting at least three months. More than 6,300 dropped out after having their loans modified. ---NY Post

* 6/22/10--WASHINGTON -- President Obama is set to extend family medical-leave benefits to gay and lesbian couples for the first time -- his latest step to expand rights and benefits sought by a key group of supporters. The Labor Department is expected to announce today it is issuing new regulations to let gays and lesbians get benefits under the Clinton-era Family and Medical Leave Act, two officials familiar with the plan said yesterday. The law requires all employers, private and public, to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off for medical leave or to care for a sick relative. --NY Post

* 6/21/10--(Bloomberg) -- As we approach another general election, it will be interesting to see how the economic performance of Democrats is judged. If voters borrow the preferred method of John Kerry and other Democrats from 2004, Barack Obama will be revealed to be among the worst presidents in history. During the 2004 election, Democrats constantly reminded voters that George W. Bush was the first president in decades to oversee a net loss of jobs. The drumbeat was incessant. “This administration is the first since Herbert Hoover's to actually lose jobs on its watch -- 1.8 million jobs,” Kerry said at a campaign stop. His campaign chairman, Jeanne Shaheen, said Bush deserved “the first-ever ‘Herbert Hoover Award’ for having the worst jobs record since the Great Depression.” ....Obama, of course, is just 17 months into his presidency, and more than two years from facing the voters personally. But with a big midterm congressional election upcoming, let’s see how Obama would fare if Kerry-like tactics were used on him. The answer: not well. Whether the measurement is job creation, unemployment or growth of gross domestic product, the economy has been worse under Obama than it was under Bush. First, job creation. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. shed 2.3 million jobs since February 2009, Obama’s first full month in office. Going back to World War II, that is by far the worst record for any president in his first 17 months, outpacing the job destruction experienced in the early Bush years by more than 800,000 jobs. For Obama, there is an even worse way to play the data, which might just become fodder for a political ad: From November 2008, the month he was elected, until now, the economy has shed an astonishing 4.4 million jobs. That’s worse than Hoover. Sure, you can blame the first few months of that period on lame-duck President Bush. But perhaps companies accelerated their shedding of jobs because they were bracing for higher tax rates, increased union power and costly environmental taxes under Obama. Other measurements are only slightly kinder to Obama. The two-percentage-point increase in unemployment rate during his presidency, to 9.7 percent from 7.7 percent, is the third-worst since World War II.... GDP growth under Obama, an abysmal 3 percentage points so far, is the fourth-worst in the postwar period.... But hey, it was Kerry and the Democrats who made job creation the be-all and end-all measurement of a presidency, and by that standard, Obama is dredging a new low. It’s probably a good bet that Democrats who became so enamored of Hoover’s name in 2004 won’t be mentioning it much this year.--Kevin Hassett

* 6/22/10--The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been summoned to the White House to explain biting and unflattering remarks he made to a freelance writer about President Barack Obama and others in the Obama administration. The face-to-face comes as pundits are already calling for McChrystal to resign for insubordination. McChrystal has been instructed to fly from Kabul to Washington today to attend Obama’s regular monthly security team meeting tomorrow at the White House. An administration official says McChrystal was asked to attend in person rather than by secure video teleconference, “where he will have to explain to the Pentagon and the commander in chief his quotes about his colleagues in the piece.” Both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have spoken with McChrystal. Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Mullen, said “the chairman spoke to General McChrystal last night and expressed his deep disappointment with the article and with the comments expressed therein.” McChrystal and his top aides appeared to let their guard down during a series of interviews and visits with Michael Hastings, a freelance writer for the magazine Rolling Stone. The article, titled “The Runaway General,” appears in the magazine later this week. It contains a number of jabs by McChrystal and his staff aimed not only at the President but at Vice President Biden, special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, the ambassador to Afghanistan, and others. McChrystal described his first meeting with Obama as disappointing and said that Obama was unprepared for the meeting. National Security Advisor Jim Jones is described by a McChrystal aide as a “clown” stuck in 1985. Others aides joked about Biden’s last name as sounding like “Bite me” since Biden opposed the surge. McChrystal issued an immediate apology for the profile, advance copies of which were sent to news organizations last night.--Politico.com

* 6/22/10--FREMONT, Neb. (AP) - This small Nebraska meatpacking town has joined Arizona at the center of a national debate about illegal immigration after voters approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants, but an expected court challenge could keep the measure from ever taking effect. The American Civil Liberties Union already has promised to file a lawsuit to block enforcement of the proposal roughly 57 percent of Fremont voters supported Monday.

* 6/23/10--The White House, Democrats and the media have been having a collective cow over Gen. Stanley McChrystal's remarks, as reported in Rolling Stone, expressing disappointment in our commander-in-chief and critical of the president's team's handling of the war in Afghanistan.... Anyone who actually reads the article will wonder what the flap is about. The fact is, the general may have done a great service for us all, including our troops in Afghanistan. What emerges is a portrait of a no-nonsense soldier dedicated to his men and to a tough strategy of counterinsurgency, which demands limiting civilian casualties whenever possible in fighting an enemy who likes to use civilians as a human shield. McChrystal does say it was "painful" waiting for President Obama to make up his mind last year about launching a surge in Afghanistan like the one used in Iraq, and he doesn't convey great respect for Vice President Joe Biden's ideas about how to fight the Taliban. But that's a long way from "Seven Days in May" -- and Biden is no one's commander-in-chief.
Instead, it's unnamed aides, not McChrystal, who are quoted as describing National Security Adviser Jim Jones "a clown," mocking Biden as "Bite Me" and saying McChrystal "was pretty disappointed" when he found that Obama "didn't seem very engaged" in dealing with this seven-year-long war. So why is the White House so furious? Maybe because the story tells so many unwelcome truths. The truth is, in the Senate both Obama and Biden opposed the similar surge in Iraq, and tried to undercut American success there -- and then had the audacity to try to steal credit for our success. The truth is, while American soldiers died, Obama dithered for nearly three months before largely adopting McChrystal's original surge plan -- arbitrarily cutting the number of troops in the surge from the 40,000 McChrystal had said was needed to secure its success to 30,000. The truth is, our forces are hampered by "whatever you do, don't shoot anyone" Rules of Engagement that make fighting the Taliban very difficult, and victory almost impossible. Some point out they are McChrystal's own rules. But when you're working for a president who doesn't see the bad guys as bad guys, who tells a class of West Point graduates he doesn't want soldiers who like "fighting for fighting's sake," and who considers combating climate change as urgent as combating terrorism, it's hard to see what choice he had. And McChrystal's criticism of the White House team won't do anywhere near as much damage to our cause as have Obama's public withdrawal deadlines for both Afghanistan and Iraq -- deadlines that dishearten our allies and encourage al Qaeda and the Taliban to wait us out. That is the real issue which this flap conceals. Right now we have a president who hates being commander-in-chief, with no clear strategy beyond a deep and earnest desire to get the hell out of Afghanistan. Deadlines and troop-withdrawal schedules aren't a plan, they're a substitute for a plan. They also hand the initiative to the enemy. This is what happened in Vietnam....A similar tragedy is about to be played out if we fail in Afghanistan. On Afghanistan and so many other matters, we are waiting for this president to get off the golf course and get into doing his job. Whether or not it forces the general out, if this flap can get Obama focused on his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, Stanley McChrystal will deserve all our thanks. --Arthur Herman, NY Post

---Gen. Stanley McChrystal's MacArthur moment was more than an embarrassment for the White House — it was a reminder of just how badly Barack Obama’s “good war” in Afghanistan is going.--Politico.com

* 6/23/10--Contrary to what the Obama administration would have you believe, the biggest recipients of taxpayer funds during the financial crisis have not been Wall Street banks -- but the toxic twins, mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And the House and Senate are now finalizing legislation to reform the financial sector -- yet the bill will leave the biggest bailout recipients untouched. In fact, Fannie and Freddie are guaranteed to continue siphoning money from American taxpayers. That's right: The Democratic majority in Congress has made no attempt to reform these two entities, which have already cost us $145 billion. Moreover, Congress and the administration have been hiding the true cost of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the American public -- while also using these off-the-books institutions to funnel money into special loan-modification programs that are also unaccounted for in the federal budget. In 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, the government took ownership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, injecting cash to keep them afloat. Since the federal government now owns, manages and supplies the capital for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded last year that their cost to the American people should be accounted for in the federal budget. Unfortunately, President Obama's Office of Management and Budget ruled differently, preferring not to account for the risk these entities pose. Yet that risk is huge. The federal government's explicit commitment to Fannie and Freddie now surpasses $2 trillion. On top of that are $8.1 trillion in Fannie and Freddie securities now outstanding -- obligations that both Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have stated their unwavering commitment to meeting, should Fannie and Freddie need assistance. Foreign banks and governments hold some $1.3 trillion of those securities, so US taxpayers are on the hook for bailing out foreign governments should Fannie and Freddie default. We may end up sending China alone a check for $454 billion. With the taxpayers as the $10 trillion backstop for these government-controlled misfits, there should be a significant drive in Congress to reform them and reduce the risk to the public. Yet the Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have blocked every such effort -- even the most basic attempts at reform, such as legislation I offered to provide for an accurate accounting of Fannie and Freddie. Why have my Democratic colleagues squelched even the most common-sense attempts at transparency? I can only conclude that they feel that they have something to hide -- that they fear that the American people, on discovering the true cost of Fannie and Freddie, will be alarmed; that, when the public sees the risks these entities pose, it will demand reform. And, perhaps, that when the taxpayers discover the Democrats' repeated attempts to stymie reform, they will be furious. These may be genuine, if partisan, concerns the Democrats must face, but not one is a legitimate reason to stall reform of Fannie and Freddie. Every day we wait, the risk to the public and our economy grows. Taxpayers are continually losing money on these failed enterprises; at some point, we must say enough is enough.-- Scott Garrett (R-NJ) is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services and of the Republican Policy Committee.

* 6/23/10--For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter. Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won't do. In a scathing ruling issued yesterday, New Orleans-based Feldman overturned the administration's radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling -- and he singled out Salazar's central role in jury-rigging a federal panel's scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar's head would roll. In Obama's world, he gets immunity....Scientists who served on the committee expressed outrage upon discovering earlier this month that Salazar had -- unilaterally and without warning -- inserted a blanket drilling-ban recommendation into their report. In fact, seven panelists explicitly opposed a blanket ban as "punishing the innocent." ....Salazar lied. And for what purpose? To exploit the Gulf crisis AND appease the eco-extremists. The scientists whose views were misrepresented reportedly received an apology from the evidence-doctoring Salazar, but where are the consequences? Where is the accountability? Yesterday, Salazar said that Michael Bromwich, who'll head the new "Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement" (previously the Minerals Management Service) "will be a key part of our team as we continue to change the way the Department of the Interior does business." Present company exempted, of course.... Salazar, with his boss's blessing, imposed the blanket moratorium without a shred of threat/safety analysis. Of course, Hope and Change have always been exercised with Arbitrary and Capricious power. The White House immediately announced plans to appeal the ruling. But for once, it has run smack into the rule of law and lost. For all the other small people over whom the administration has run roughshod, let's hope it sets a precedent.--Michelle Malkin

* 6/23/10--Barack Obama will on Wednesday make a renewed push to spur the US Senate into action on climate change, saying the BP oil spill underlines the urgency for the country to lessen its dependence on fossil fuels. The US president will host senators from both parties at the White House – including those who have proposed variations on a climate change bill – but analysts are sceptical about whether he can overcome the political impasse on a proposal that is seen as essentially a tax.--ft.com

* 6/23/10--WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of new homes dropped a record 32.7 percent in May to the lowest level in at least four decades as the boost from a popular tax credit faded, adding to worries of a slowing economic recovery. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday single-family home sales tumbled to a 300,000 unit annual rate, the lowest level since the series started in 1963.

* 6/23/10--The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation." Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and "harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S." "In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore," Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. "By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses." Seidenberg's remarks reflect corporate America's growing discontent with Obama.--WashingtonPost.com

* 6/23/10--"There's no doubt Obama would be fully justified in firing his top general [Stanley McChrystal]. But at the same time Obama has committed himself to a rigid timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Changing commanders could complicate that enormously. Right now, because of his own policy decisions, the president has no good choice." --columnist Byron York

--"While McChrystal's comments were highly improper, they will strike many observers as having a ring of truth. Even if the president gives the general the ax, the whole episode is further grist for the developing media narrative of an administration that is incompetent and adrift." --Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

* 6/24/10--WASHINGTON -- Pinned down in Kandahar, President Obama faced a small handful of unpleasant options and dwindling ammunition. Every bad option was sure to invite enemy fire and cause painful casualties. There was no way to escape unharmed. Worst of all, his most reliable and oft-used weapons -- soaring oratory and happy talk -- were rendered absolutely mute in this case due to the seriousness of the situation and the very hard, real consequences at stake.... Sacking McChrystal was by far the hardest route. Some critics had already begun lining up behind the loose-lipped general and are sure to pound Obama for letting bruised egos trump victory in the Afghanistan war effort. Also, getting rid of the general solves one problem while creating another -- even bigger -- problem. Who do you find to replace McChrystal, the very author of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan? Especially at a time when you are trying to begin receding from the craggy mountains of the seemingly hopeless land? Tapping Gen. David Petraeus was an inspired choice and was no small request. Obama basically asked one of the country's most decorated and celebrated warriors to jump on a grenade after already having given so much in that theater. --Charles Hurt, NY Post

* 6/24/10--KABUL (AFP) – The deaths of another four NATO troops in an accident in Afghanistan made June the deadliest single month for US-led foreign forces in nearly nine years of conflict, according to an AFP tally Thursday. The grim landmark followed the sacking of NATO's commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, which was greeted with dismay in Kabul where Afghan officials and foreign diplomats praised his efforts to reshape the war.

* 6/24/10--God is dead? At a top Brooklyn middle school, He is. Just when you thought the separation of church and state was more than an option, like paper or plastic, the matter has been settled at MS 51 in Park Slope. And the lesson falls on the side of atheism. "RELIGION," a sheet from English class, handed out to eighth-graders, is provocatively titled. The typewritten paper presents some 20 quotes that can be described as anti-God, coming from philosophers from Kierkegaard to Schopenhauer. Even a "Yiddish proverb."
"Religion is a disease, but a noble disease," reads the first quote, attributed to Heraclitus. "Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think," reads one by Schopenhauer. Another sheet, titled "GOD," asks kids to ponder whether religion should be treated as poetry -- neither true nor false. Angry parents want to know: What the devil does this have to do with middle-school English? And, aren't these kids too young to learn something more appropriate for a grad-school theological course? "It's not only above their level, obviously. It's inappropriate in a public-school setting," said Ken Whelan, whose daughter brought home the assignment late last year. "We are fighting for the hearts and minds of our children. Against MTV, 'American Idol' and anorexia. We don't need the public-school system to muddy the waters. To plant seeds of doubt." MS 51 is considered an educational oasis, one of the top 10 middle schools to send kids to the city's specialized high schools. But the fuzzy-headed assignment, given by English teacher Rachel Rear, raised red flags with a Department of Education official, who agreed middle school "is a little young for this." "It's problematic," he said. The department had no official comment. Rear did not return calls. But Principal Lenore Berner defended the assignment, part of a philosophy unit within the English course. "We're looking at both sides of debates," Berner said. She added that Whelan had visited the school, along with a nun from his parish, and "we had a really good conversation about it." But Whelan said the teacher "dug in. She was challenging me. She wanted to get into a theological debate." Berner told me that some of the more objectionable material, she "believed," would be removed from the course. That should comfort no one. Once, schools taught kids to read, write and think. Now, educators use personal bias to preach what to think. The list keeps growing. At Manhattan's York Prep, a course pushes the beauty of Islam while ignoring other religions. Child School on Roosevelt Island pushes a gay agenda to boys of 10, expecting them to cross-dress in the school play. And all over New York, kids as young as 4 are required by the state to learn heavy lessons about HIV and AIDS. Enough. "Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience's sake," wrote Pascal. I'm not entirely sure of the meaning of that quote, contained on the handout. But at a time when kids need religion, family and strong schools more than ever, this kind of lesson is best left alone.--Andrea Peyser, NY Post

* 6/24/10--Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights. Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But again a sizable number (17%) of Adults aren't sure which is more important.--Rasmussen Reports

* 6/24/10--Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama's leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation's economy and environment. Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama's tenure. Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years. The results show "a really ugly mood and an unhappy electorate," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. "The voters, I think, are just looking for change, and that means bad news for incumbents and in particular for the Democrats." Mr. McInturff said voters' feelings, typically set by June in any election year, are being hardened by frustration over the economy and the oil spill. "It would take an enormous and seismic event to change the drift of these powerful forces before November," he said. Mr. McInturff added that any "little, faint signs" in the spring that voters were adopting a more optimistic outlook have now been "squished by feelings from this oil spill." For Democrats, the results underscore the potential for major losses in November. Both parties have been forced to contend with an anti-establishment wave this year. But Republicans, through strong fund raising and candidate recruitment, have put enough seats in play in the House and Senate to give the GOP a realistic shot at winning control of both chambers. Support for Mr. Obama and his party is declining among centrist, independent voters. But, more ominous for the president, some in his base also are souring, with 17% of Democrats disapproving of Mr. Obama's job performance, the highest level of his presidency. Approval for Mr. Obama has dropped among Hispanics, too, along with small-town residents, white women and seniors. African-Americans remain the firmest part of Mr. Obama's base, with 91% approving of his job performance. In winning the presidency, Mr. Obama conveyed an image of remaining steady and focused during the banking crisis and economic downturn. Now, amid the oil spill and a weak economic recovery, Americans are taking a dimmer view of his personal qualities and leadership style. Some 30% in the poll said they "do not really relate'' to Mr. Obama. Only 8% said that at the beginning of his presidency. Fewer than half give him positive marks when asked if he is "honest and straightforward.'' And 49% rate him positively when asked if he has "strong leadership qualities,'' down from 70% when Mr. Obama took office and a drop of 8 points since January. Just 40% rate him positively on his "ability to handle a crisis," an 11-point drop since January. Half disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats. "As a Democrat and as a woman, I am disappointed in him," said poll respondent Melissa Riner, a 42-year-old law clerk from Mesa, Ariz. Referring to the oil spill, Ms. Riner added, "I don't think he's handling it. He doesn't seem to be doing anything. He just talks." James Ciarmataro, a 23-year-old stay-at-home dad from Macomb, Mich., said it was difficult to relate to Mr. Obama, because the president is "eating steak dinners at the White House and playing golf" while the country is suffering. An exclusive Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has bad news for President Obama and congressmen of all political stripes. WSJ's Peter Wallsten says the political climate will make for a brutal midterm election. An independent, Mr. Ciarmataro said he would vote in November for "whoever seems the newest, and doesn't seem to have any ties to anybody else." ....In the survey, 45% said they wanted to see a Republican-controlled Congress after November, compared to 43% who wanted Democratic control. But even more telling is the excitement gap between the core voters of each party.Just 44% of Obama voters—those who voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 or told pollsters they intended to—now express high interest in the midterm elections. That's a 38-point drop from this stage in the 2008 campaign. By contrast, 71% of voters who supported Republican John McCain in 2008 expressed high interest in this year's elections, slightly higher than their interest level at this stage in that campaign. The gap helps explain why the Democratic National Committee is spending $50 million on a campaign to try to lure Obama voters back to the polls this year.--wsj.com

* 6/25/10--When U.S. President Barack Obama stepped off his helicopter in Huntsville on Friday, the first thing he said was, “You’ve got a lot of golf courses here, don’t you?” Industry Minister Tony Clement told the National Post in an exclusive interview. “I told him, ‘We would really recommend and love it if you could come back here with Michelle and the kids at some point — we think you’d really love it here,’” Minister Clement said on the sidewalk of Huntsville’s Main Street, in his home riding. “I think I’ve planted a seed in the President’s mind.” Minister Clement said he personally welcomed each of the G8 leaders — with the exception of French President Nicolas Sarkozy — all of whom commented on the natural beauty of the region, which they observed during their airborne travels over cottage country.--Nationalpost.com

* 6/28/10--The Dodd-Frank Act to "reform" Wall Street isn't yet a sure thing, votes-wise. New York's congressional delegation can still do the right thing for the city and state -- and should vote against this bad bill. The measure would bring New York's strongest banks and investment firms down to the level of the weakest, and turn Gotham's premier industry into a collectivist monolith with no incentive to control risk. And, in a move that's guaranteed to push jobs out of New York, the feds want big investment firms, insurers and hedge funds to front $20 billion in two years for a "financial crisis special assessment fund." All this does is give funds time to send assets abroad to escape the fee. The compromises hammered out by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and others don't address their bill's fatal flaws -- starting with the bill's disastrous effort to end taxpayer bailouts. The obvious -- and correct -- way to end Wall Street rescues is to let a failed financial firm go bankrupt. That is, the people who invested in a failed company -- including bondholders, people owed money on derivatives and other lenders -- should take the losses. Instead, Congress would "end" bailouts by directing the feds to rescue the creditors to any failed "too big to fail" financial company. Later, the feds would make the failed firm's competitors pay the cost. --Nicole Gelinas, NY Post

* 6/28/10--The Obama administration is urging the Senate to ratify the US-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- but it won't release the negotiating record for "New START" to senators who've asked for it. Denying the Senate's requests raises all sorts of suspicions about the treaty, which would reduce the US strategic nuclear arsenal by about 30 percent and cut our missile silos, bombers and submarines by nearly 20 percent. Is there is something in the blow-by-blow transcript of the talks with the Russians that the White House doesn't want senators to see? Some fear the administration did some winking and nodding with the Kremlin on missile defense that won't show up in the treaty language. Team Obama says START doesn't limit US missile-defense plans, but the administration's remarkable weakness so far on missile defense is cause for anxiety. President Obama & Co. have cut budgets of many missile-defense programs and put the kibosh early in their tenure on the Bush-era missile-defense system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic, aimed at Iran's nuclear/missile programs. (It's widely believed they deep-sixed the Polish-Czech program as a sop to the Russians in their near-incessant efforts to "reset" relations with the Kremlin.) Then there's the treaty preamble that acknowledges "the link between strategic offensive and strategic defensive armaments." This language, experts say, might limit American missile-defense programs. And, while the administration says the preamble isn't part of the treaty, Moscow said on the day of the treaty signing this spring that it will withdraw from the pact if US missile defense is expanded or improved. Thus, Washington may face the choice of defending us from North Korea and Iran or seeing New START fall apart -- not a choice we should have to make. Others wonder if the bargaining sessions included discussions on arms control in space. The Russians (and Chinese) are seeking to diminish (actually eliminate) US superiority on the Final Frontier. This is not only a matter of satellites and counter-satellite weapons, but missile defense as well -- since space is the best place to base interceptors to defend against incoming ballistic missiles. Interested senators also wonder why the verification procedures in New START are less stringent than the original 1991 START it supersedes. (Especially since the Russians aren't known for their strict adherence to arms-control pacts.) Team Obama claims negotiating records haven't been provided to the Senate before when other treaties were brought before the body for ratification. Not true: The negotiating records for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaties were provided when requested. In both cases, it was the Reagan White House obliging Democratic senators, who had questions about the treaties. President Obama says he plans to pursue additional strategic weapons cuts as he puts the United States on the "road to zero," over time eliminating our arsenal in hopes of creating a nuke-free world. The notion of "no nukes" is problematic, especially looking at proliferation trends (e.g., North Korea, Iran and Syria). And tepid Senate support for New START certainly wouldn't bode well for cuts the president might seek in the future. As a result, it only makes sense that the Senate is given access to the New START negotiating record. Indeed, precedent and good faith demand it. But even more simply: If there's nothing to hide in New START, what's the problem? --Peter Brookes, NY Post

* 6/28/10--The Vanity Fair/60 Minutes poll found that 24 percent of respondents think Obama was born outside the U.S., with six percent saying he was born in Kenya, another two percent choosing Indonesia, and the remainder being unsure of his exact foreign origins.-Thinkprogress.org

* 6/29/10--Two significant pieces of legislation passed the House this week: financial reform and the DISCLOSE Act. Democrats’ plans for finance reform are most worrisome for conservatives, mostly because of the high probability that the measure will pass the Senate, and its monumental overhauls of every corner of the financial market. Most importantly, it includes derivatives regulation that will dictate how and when speculative transactions can be conducted, taking a big bite out of the freedom with which investors put their (or their unknowing clients’) money into risky investments. The deal was brokered in the House at around 6am Friday morning, after an entire night full of legislative pajama partying. President Obama continued the party as he flew to the G8 summit this weekend in Toronto, and touted his newly-minted finance reform package as evidence that the United States is the frontrunner in tackling an inter-continental recession. The bill’s passage represents one more notch for President Obama’s belt, as his team is responsible for pushing the bill through. The Senate has already passed a similar bill; now the two bills are being reconciled, and must go through another round of House and Senate votes. It’s expected to move quickly.
Campaign finance reform, on the other hand, is much less likely to be put on the Senate agenda—there’s simply not enough critical mass for the Democratic caucus to take up the bill, which is fraught with political pitfalls during an election year. DISCLOSE seeks to regulate the amount and method by which various entities can give money to political candidates, including a provision that would require donors to appear in advertisements for up to fifteen seconds of a 30-second spot. This rule would be so prohibitive that even the most well-meaning campaign managers probably wouldn’t be able to, well, manage. Unions and the National Rifle Association have negotiated exclusions for themselves, which allow them to contribute as much as they want without disclosing any of it. Conservatives have been understandably alarmed at the NRA’s love of the Second Amendment, but apparent disregard for the First.--TownHall.com