Update: The Times piece quoted here skates too quickly over the questions of how one qualifies for food stamps, and what requirements are imposed on recipients (particularly with regard to work). Put briefly, most food stamp recipients appear to be required to work, but waivers exist, some still receive benefits without working, and (of course) fraud dilutes the requirements. Check out the comment section for | Read More »
No commentary necessary: Former Polish President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Walesa, has spoken out about media reports that the US has scrapped plans to install a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. “Americans have always cared only about their interests, and all other [countries] have been used for their purposes. This is another example,” Mr Walesa told TVN24. “[Poles] need to | Read More »
I was reading Melissa’s and Michelle’s excellent pieces on the campaign by the Left to turn 9/11 into a Day of Service. Their posts got me to wondering why it is that liberals can’t leave 9/11 alone, and why their campaign rankles so. It was then that I realized: the Democrats want to ‘rehab’ 9/11 because for most Americans, 9/11 is all about good and | Read More »
What was it that touched off today’s market rally? According to the UK Telegraph, it was due to analyst Meredith Whitney’s urge to buy Goldman Sachs. Why is Whitney so confident about Goldman Sach’s future performance? Our more bullish outlook on Goldman Sachs shares is deeply rooted in our sustained bearish stance on the U.S. economy and the state of U.S. financials at large. Specifically, | Read More »
When President Obama selected Rahm Emanuel to serve as White House Chief of Staff, most commentators hailed it as a coup. We were told that Rahm was brilliant, and that his love for brass-knuckles politics would prove invaluable in moving the president’s agenda through Congress. As a veteran of the Clinton White House, he would be sure not to repeat the mistakes Clinton made early | Read More »
Fresh on the heels of yesterday’s poll showing that support for Barack Obama is collapsing in America’s leading political bellwether, today we learn that Virginians are souring on the president as well: A new Public Policy Polling survey looking at how likely voters for this fall’s election view Barack Obama finds his approval rating at just 48%, with 46% disapproving. A poll looking at his | Read More »
Largely lost in the wake of Barack Obama’s press conference yesterday is the news that he is apparently still considering another ‘stimulus’ bill to try to get the economy moving again: President Obama said he is “not yet” ready to ask for a second stimulus package even as polls show Americans growing increasingly more skeptical of how effective the president’s first attempt to create jobs | Read More »
This comes as a surprise to no one of course, except for an Obama administration which seems to believe that taxes can stay at more or less current levels despite their extraordinary spending binge. Instead, history suggests that if Washington wants to run historically-high deficits, then much higher taxes inevitably follow: As Blodget says: We don’t know about you, but we’re not excited about the | Read More »
All the important things I learned in life, I learned from my parents. One of my mom’s favorite sayings was ‘self praise stinks.’ Thus if I were to release a transcript of a speech I gave, I wouldn’t punctuate every line with ‘applause’ or ‘laughter’ – or even ‘applause and laughter.’ I guess that’s just one more way in which I am different from Barack | Read More »
With the federal deficit spiraling out of control, with unemployment approaching 10 percent, and with confidence in the Obama economic plan waning, it might be useful to go back and look at what team Obama promised if the porkulus passed:
U.S. exporters are currently trying to figure out how to continue to sell products to Mexico — our third-largest trading partner — notwithstanding tariffs imposed against them because the U.S. has violated NAFTA. It appears that a whole new range of companies may soon face the same problem, since the U.S. has also violated our NAFTA obligations toward our largest trading partner — Canada: International | Read More »
Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of ‘restoring good relations’ with key US partners, but it’s hard to tell from the way he’s governed so far. From evicting the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, to sacrificing East European allies for better relations with Russia and Iran, to starting trade wars with Canada and Mexico, Obama has done nothing but go renege on | Read More »
According to the Hill, Congressional Democrats are planning to run up a trial balloon on comprehensive immigration reform in June, and then take a crack at passing a bill late this year or next: Senate Democrats may be close to 60 votes on a measure that would represent the first step towards immigration reform under President Obama. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors | Read More »
ABC and others report that the Obama administration has invited union representatives to participate in conference calls with state and local officials, which have been held to set guidelines for how ‘stimulus’ money is spent. As first reported in the Los Angeles Times, California officials have said that representatives of the Service Employees International Union were given unprecedented access to an April 15 conference call | Read More »
The Spectator’s Phil Klein alerts us to the release of the Annual Report of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees. The Trustees have found that due to the recession, benefits paid out are overtaking revenues brought in even faster than projected. The trust funds for these programs will be bankrupt sooner than expected but more importantly, the programs will become a serious drain | Read More »
Yesterday we learned that Congress’s most powerful appropriator has decided not to grant President Obama the funds he requested to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo. Today Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey explained why: “I personally favor what the administration’s talking about doing, but so far as we can tell there is yet no concrete program for that,” Obey said ahead of his panel’s | Read More »
Dan Balz looks at the White House’s clumsy handling of the debate over terrorist interrogation. Interestingly, there’s no hint – either from Balz’s piece or from other administration officials – that the President’s change of position was intentional. Read the piece and judge for yourself: The legacy of George W. Bush continued to dog President Obama and his administration yesterday, as Congress divided over creating | Read More »
Colorado is likely to be home to several competitive races in 2010: notably Senator Michael Bennet’s first re-election run, two Democrat-held House seats, and hopefully Governor Ritter’s re-election bid. With that in mind, it’s encouraging to see early signs of disaffection with President Obama: Barack Obama and Mark Udall each won their elections in Colorado last year by pretty solid margins, but Public Policy Polling’s | Read More »
Barack Obama today offered what might be the single most mealy-mouthed, non-committal, responsibility-dodging answer in presidential history, when asked his views on prosecution of those who oversaw terrorist interrogation under the Bush administration: While the Bush-era memos providing legal justifications for enhanced interrogation methods “reflected us losing our moral bearings,” the president said, he also that he did not think it was “appropriate” to prosecute | Read More »
Barack Obama arrives in Mexico for a brief visit today, and my quick perusal of the local press turns up an op-ed he wrote for Mexico City’s El Universal (translation my own): Too often, the United States has not sought or maintained relations with its neighbors. We’ve allowed ourselves to be distracted by other priorities, without realizing that our progress is directly linked to progress | Read More »
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