World
& National News
Florida
Pushes New Immigration Law Tougher Than Arizona's
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has proposed a tough new law
aimed at curbing illegal immigration that he said would go further than
a bill signed into law in Arizona.
“I think this is a law that is overdue in Florida and something that
we’re very proud of today,” McCollum said at a Wednesday morning media
event in Orlando.
"This legislation will provide new enforcement tools for protecting our
citizens and will help our state fight the ongoing problem created by
illegal immigration.
Jobs
picture dims as unemployment claims rise
The employment picture is looking bleaker as applications for jobless
benefits rose last week to the highest level in almost six months.
It's a sign that hiring is weak and employers are still cutting their
staffs.
First-time claims for jobless benefits edged up by 2,000 to a
seasonally adjusted 484,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Analysts had expected a drop. That's the highest total since February.
G.M.
Chief Stepping Down
In a surprising development, GM’s chairman and chief executive, Edward
Whitacre Jr. announced Thursday that he would step down as chief
executive on Sept. 1 and be succeeded by Daniel F. Akerson, a G.M.
board member and a managing director of the Carlyle Group.
Mr. Whitacre will stay on as chairman until year end, when Mr. Akerson
will assume that role as well.
“We’re going to have a smooth, seamless transition here,” Mr. Whitacre
said.
Rangel's
night for ethics amnesia
New York pols show up -
some reluctantly - to congressman's bash
It was the antithesis of Chelsea Clinton's wedding — a glittering
social event on the New York political calendar that many prominent
politicians wished (very privately) they did not have to attend and
hoped (very secretly) would somehow be canceled.
But Charlie Rangel's 80th birthday party and campaign fundraiser in the
Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel went off without a hitch Wednesday
night . . . if you don't count the formal ethics charges filed against
the 20-term Harlem Democratic congressman last month, his rambling and
defiant defense of his conduct on the House floor Tuesday, and the
last-hurrah aura to his re-election campaign. Grabbing a microphone at
the beginning of the evening and abandoning any pretence of stiff
formality despite the lavish setting, Rangel declared, "I've been to a
lot of funerals, but this damn sure ain't no funeral, is it?"
Should
Judge Allow Gay Marriage in California?
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will announce today whether gay
marriages are allowed to resume immediately in California or whether
the state's ban on gay marriage should remain in effect until an
appeals court issues its decision.
Prop 8 Stay: Should the Judge Allow Gay Marriage Immediately in
California?
Walker ruled last week that California's Proposition 8 is
unconstitutional.
"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay
men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license," Walker wrote in his
136-page decision.
Sanctions
helping Tehran, says top dissent
PUNITIVE international sanctions imposed on Iran have strengthened the
government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and helped its post-election
crackdown on the opposition movement, a leading reformist politician
and former presidential candidate says.
More than a year after widespread unrest erupted after Mr Ahmadinejad's
disputed re-election as President last June, Mehdi Karroubi blamed the
US and Britain for adopting counterproductive policies to combat Iran's
suspect nuclear program, describing sanctions as a gift to the regime.
Obama
won't face Dem primary challenge from Kucinich
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs may have criticized attacks from
what he called the "professional left," but presumed
member-in-good-standing Dennis Kucinich said today he won't challenge
President Obama in the 2012 Democratic primaries.
"What we have to do is focus on coming together for the purposes of
getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan," Kucinich told our old pal George
Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
Kucinich, who has run for president twice, joined many liberal
colleagues in criticizing Gibbs' comments in an interview with The
Hill. The Obama spokesman said liberals who compare his boss to
predecessor George W. Bush "ought to be drug tested," and added that
they "wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."
Obama
and Netanyahu: Worlds Apart on Israel
Two photographs adorn the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Together they illuminate a portentous fact: No two leaders of
democracies are less alike — in life experiences, temperaments and
political philosophies — than Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce
nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and
post-nationalist.
One photograph is of Theodor Herzl, born 150 years ago. Dismayed by the
eruption of anti-Semitism in France during the Dreyfus Affair at the
end of the 19th century, Herzl became Zionism's founding father. Long
before the Holocaust, he concluded that Jews could find safety only in
a national homeland.
China's
Army Condemns South Korean-US Sea Drills
China's military on Thursday condemned a second round of U.S.-South
Korean naval drills planned in the Yellow Sea in the coming weeks,
vowing it would respond in kind.
Beijing opposes actions by foreign military ships and planes in waters
near its coast that could "affect China's security interests," the
military's newspaper People's Liberation Army Daily said in an
editorial.
Barack
Obama 'may be prepared to meet Iranian president'
Barack Obama’s national
security adviser, Gen James Jones, has indicated the President may be
prepared to meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if the regime resumed negotiations
over its nuclear programme.
The retired general also indicated that the return of three American
hikers held in Iran for the past year would be an “important gesture”.
Earlier this month, Mr Ahmadinejad requested face-to-face talks with Mr
Obama during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The White
House had appeared to rule out any meeting.
Washington
vs. Paul Ryan
What happens when a
politician is more honest than his critics.
The immune system of the modern body politic is nothing if not
resilient, and this summer all of its antibodies seem to be trained on
heretofore little known Congressman Paul Ryan. That makes this a
particularly instructive moment, because the attacks on the Wisconsin
Republican show how deeply his radical honesty is subverting
Washington's flim-flam—to borrow a phrase.
"The flim-flam man" is what Paul Krugman called Mr. Ryan in a New York
Times column last week that set a spleen-to-substance record even for
him. Amid drive-by attacks on the Congressman's ethics and integrity,
Mr. Krugman savaged Mr. Ryan's "roadmap"—his detailed, long-range
proposal to equalize taxes and the size of government—as "a fraud that
makes no useful contribution to the debate over America's fiscal
future."
This might be dismissed as a familiar primal scream, except it
perfectly echoes the Democratic Party's emerging election strategy.
The
Blame Bush Strategy Won't Work
Polls reveal voters are
receptive to GOP ideas.
To save themselves in the midterm elections, Democrats are counting on
selling two themes: The state of the economy is all George W. Bush's
fault, and Republican policies will take us backwards. President Obama
relished going to Texas this week to blame his predecessor for the
current bad economy.
Nice try, but it won't work. Don't take my word. This is what Mr.
Obama's pollster, Joel Benenson, has found. The Benenson Strategy Group
wasn't exactly quite this blunt in its report for the "Third Way," a
centrist Democratic organization. But its data was.
Grim
Voter Mood Turns Grimmer
Pessimism Rises on
Economy and War; Bad Reviews for Both Democrats and GOP
Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy and the war in
Afghanistan, and are losing faith that Democrats have better solutions
than Republicans, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Underpinning the gloom: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the
economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53%
who felt that way in January.
Disorder
By Geoff
Metcalf
"In
its
narrowest
acceptation,
order
means obedience. A government is said
to preserve order if it succeeds in getting itself obeyed."
--
John
Stuart
Mill
I have tried and failed to give our young hope and change President the
chance to demonstrate by action that those of us who had been critical
of his lack of experience, hypocrisy and duplicity might have been
wrong. The republic needs help and what is right and wrong should
overshadow who is right or wrong.
However, this president seems intent on establishing new standards for
incompetence, failure and even the barest minimal capacity to judge the
climate, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats his actions
(and inaction) precipitate.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that statistically, the
administration might be right more based on pure chance
probability?
Not even! Even the liberal punditry class is wishing Hillary had
prevailed.
Nobel laureate Isidor Issac Rabi once observed, "Most new insights come
only after a superabundant accumulation of facts have removed the
blindness which prevented us from seeing what later comes to be
regarded as obvious." Hell-o?!?!?
Barack Obama is failing epically. Even the brayed about Obamacare
victory (?) has supporters seeking cover. Woodrow Wilson was a
flop as
president largely because he allowed the oligarchy to do what they
wanted to do. And look what it got us…the Federal Reserve Act of 1913,
the 16th Amendment and systemic Big Brotherism.
Jimmy Carter failed without help from the CFR magus…his monumental
failures were largely his own. LBJ failed…but at least was slick enough
to craft his own exit strategy. Richard Nixon was Richard Nixon
and
although he has become a stereotype for all things venial and wrong, he
still gets kudos for statesmanlike props because of China (which yet
may come back to bite us in the bottom).
Barack Obama however, is a horse in another garage…a new standard to
overshadow all previous failures. The Obama failures are not isolated
or focused…no; they are routine, ubiquitous, and the new standards.
The President's job performance has been not just bad but way bad:
foreign policy, domestic initiatives, (no one could have forcast our
first Black president's awful ham handedness in turning minor racial
issues into such a monumental SNAFU) and most importantly, in forging
connections with the American people (for whom he appears to show open
distain)
.
Cicero noted, “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious.
But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is
less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the
traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers
rustling through the alleys, heard in the very halls of government
itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor, he speaks in
accents
familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments,
he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all
men. He
rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night
to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politics so
that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. The
traitor
is the plague.”
The Wall Street Journal said Obama is failing because "he has no
understanding of the American people". Some say he just flat out
doesn’t like the American people he is supposed to serve.
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says Obama is failing because he has
"lost control of his message", and is overexposed. However, the
systemic problem from the jump was the message was form without
substance…it was a catch phrase without a plot. Beyond winning the
election, Obama really had no strategy and no tactics.
Clarice Feldman of American Thinker dared to say what needed to be
said...not just that the emperor has no clothes but, “Obama is failing
because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his
intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of
shame.”
The real villain in the contemporary American tragedy is not really
Barack Obama, or even his liberal socialist masters. Justice Hugo
Black once wrote, "The Press was protected so that it could bare the
secrets the government and inform the people. Only a free and
unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And
paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to
prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people."
However, we now have a press that has epically failed in its
responsibilities “to prevent any part of government from deceiving the
people.”
The main stream media has become a willing and hyper-active
co-conspirator enabling an incompetent dysfunctional administration
that has done (and continues to do) irreparable harm to the republic.