Story Of Obama

Quote from Yannis:

Sorry R, I wouldn't believe anything this combative liberal bulldog, Media Matters, says...
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They're not "saying" it, they're reporting from other sources.

But, fair enough, I shouldn't believe anything the pandering stick named Ann Coulter says, either.

(I owe you a few of these)

:D :D :D :D :D
 
That's what the other side says, among others... more credible imo.

Private vs. Public Employment
By Nicole Gelinas, contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal

We hear a good deal lately about how state and local governments, thanks to balanced-budget requirements, are slashing the number of workers they have, thus exacerbating the recession recovery.

The bigger problem, though, is that state and local governments do not have the strong private work forces they need to support public employment.

Private employment today is barely what it was in January 2000 — less than eight-tenths higher. We had 110 million workers back then, and we have 111 million today.

Yet the state-government workforce is still 6.5 percent higher than it was back then, and the local government workforce is nearly 8 percent higher, despite cutbacks in the past few years.

Moreover, state and local governments started their recessions later than the rest of us did, adding jobs through late 2008 even as everyone else cut back.

The problem is not that state and local governments are cutting back; that phenomenon is a symptom.

The problem is that the private workforce is not growing sufficiently, either to absorb laid-off government workers or to pay for the ones still working.
 
Ricter: I really don't think that conservatives have all truth and liberals are always wrong... I see them as two different, often opposing philosophies, that's all. As stated before, I'm a conservative-leaning Independent.
 
Quote from Yannis:

That's what the other side says, among others... more credible imo.

Private vs. Public Employment
By Nicole Gelinas, contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal

We hear a good deal lately about how state and local governments, thanks to balanced-budget requirements, are slashing the number of workers they have, thus exacerbating the recession recovery.

The bigger problem, though, is that state and local governments do not have the strong private work forces they need to support public employment.

Private employment today is barely what it was in January 2000 — less than eight-tenths higher. We had 110 million workers back then, and we have 111 million today.

Yet the state-government workforce is still 6.5 percent higher than it was back then, and the local government workforce is nearly 8 percent higher, despite cutbacks in the past few years.

Moreover, state and local governments started their recessions later than the rest of us did, adding jobs through late 2008 even as everyone else cut back.

The problem is not that state and local governments are cutting back; that phenomenon is a symptom.

The problem is that the private workforce is not growing sufficiently, either to absorb laid-off government workers or to pay for the ones still working.
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This is a much better argument. While it has little to do with Obama, and hence this thread, we can discuss it here.

So we need some data. For example, the per capita rate of local and state employment by year. I haven't seen it, this author may well be right.
 
Vulgarians On The Loose!
by:Ann Coulter

A Michigan legislator, Lisa Brown, gave a speech in the statehouse last week that would have made her right at home in a women's studies course at a local community college, but a wacko in a group of actual legislators.

She commented on a pending abortion bill by first announcing that she was Jewish, kept kosher, described her various sets of plates, and then saying that Jewish law makes abortion mandatory to save the life of the mother.

This had absolutely nothing to do with the bill being considered, but it may explain why there are no Jewish Tim Tebows.

Then she said: "I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?"

Her smashing crescendo was: "And finally Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no'!"

It's not clear where Rep. Brown got the idea that the Republican caucus was planning on date-raping her, but I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding. The bill under consideration merely ensured the safety of women having abortions -- and, in a small way, the safety of the fetus, whom the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited legislatures from protecting directly.

Thus, the bill addressed insurance and inspections of abortion clinics, and included a requirement that the abortionist confirm that the woman having the abortion was not being pressured by a third party to do so.

I have not polled all the Republicans in the Michigan statehouse yet, but the ones I've spoken to assure me that Rep. Brown's vagina played a very small role in their deliberations. It's odd that she seems to think she's the object of so much Republican male fantasy.

Why must a certain type of woman always start shouting about her vagina whenever the topic of abortion comes up?

Do what you want with your vagina. Pro-lifers just want to stop babies from being killed. It would be as though a slaveholder complained that Republicans wanted to regulate his anus by abolishing slavery and taking away his right to crap on his slaves.

For making inappropriate remarks during a legislative session, Brown was prohibited from making floor speeches for one day. Being an hysterical drama queen who believes the Michigan Legislature was thinking about her and her vagina, Rep. Brown responded to the sanction by claiming she had been "silenced." A vulgarian gets a one-day penalty, and suddenly she's Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Rep. Brown was not being silenced. She was being admonished for a crazy display of narcissism utterly irrelevant to the bill under discussion. I would never in a million years silence a woman because of her views on abortion, but I'd vote for a month of silence from this self-dramatizing freak.

The media are in full smirk mode, not at Rep. Brown's perversely self-referential speech positing that Republican legislators wanted to date-rape her, but at Republican bluenoses, whom they seem to think are shocked by the word "vagina."

Hey, does anyone else remember way back into the distant past three months ago when liberals were ablaze with indignation because Rush Limbaugh used the "s-word" to describe Sandra Fluke, another drama queen, who was demanding taxpayers pay for her contraception? That word had liberals fainting like Victorian virgins.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, 75 Democrats in Congress called the language used by Limbaugh "sexually charged," "patently offensive," "obscene and indecent," and called on Republican leaders to condemn it. The president of the United States even called Fluke to see if she was OK after having been called ... the "s-word"!

But now, lo these many weeks later, you can't find a liberal female who isn't screaming "vagina." Thousands of beastly women appeared near the Michigan statehouse on Monday -- as well as every show, every hour on MSNBC that night -- to shout "vagina!"

On one of the 800 TV shows Rep. Brown did this week -- which, ironically, were the exact same shows that had featured Fluke describing her trauma at having been called the "s-word" -- MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell gushed about the advances society has made since the days when women did not prattle about their vaginas in public. He said: "It's easy, I think, for some of our audience tonight who are in their 30s or 20s to not be able to even comprehend what that world was like."

Rep. Brown somberly agreed, saying, "We have all, as women, come a long way."

Another guest, Eve Ensler, authoress of "The Vagina Monologues," talked about the magic of thousands of women shouting "vagina" in public: "Many young women came up to thank both of us for giving them voice, for allowing them to be authentic, for allowing them to love their bodies, for allowing them to feel agency over their bodies and their rights, to know that they have choices, that what they decide to do with the reproductive decisions or abortion decisions or whatever they decide is their choice. It's their body."

That is, unless your little body hasn't been born yet, in which case, liberals think it can be torn to shreds and dumped in the garbage -- a point they argue by shouting "vagina" and claiming Republican legislators want to date-rape them.
 
Obama’s Blatant Disregard for the Constitution is Appalling
by Rep. Michele Bachmann

In order to become President, Barack Obama had to swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. But three years later, I am disgusted with the disregard that the President continues to show to our Constitution. Has he forgotten about the separation of executive, judicial and legislative branches found in our founding document? Our founders gave us a system of checks and balances so that one person could never seize more power than was provided in the Constitution.

President Obama’s actions demonstrate that he thinks he’s above the law. When he doesn’t get his way, he creates new policies to his liking.

Under Obamacare, an even playing field doesn’t exist for businesses. And President Obama must have recognized that, because he ordered his Health and Human Services Secretary to provide waivers from the healthcare overhaul. Unions, universities and restaurants in Nancy Pelosi’s district received waivers so that they didn’t have to comply with the law.

Then we have the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Passed in 1996, DOMA is a federal law that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. But earlier this spring, the administration said it will no longer defend the constitutionally of DOMA. So even though this law is on the books – passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton – President Obama just thinks we should ignore it.

Last week Obama threw the Constitution out the window again. Even through Congress disagreed, the President was happy to circumvent the Constitution in order to protect younger illegal immigrants from deportation and hand them work permits. He stands resolute in this position despite the fact that, a year prior, the President said this about immigration: “Some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.” He continued, “That’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”

Today, President Obama invoked executive privilege so Attorney General Eric Holder wouldn’t have to turn over documents on Fast and Furious. That is not what executive privilege was intended for!

Where will the madness end? When will the President stop blatantly disregarding the Constitution?

Sadly, I don’t think this President cares that he is ignoring the laws of our land. Nor, does he plan to curb his agenda. In fact, I expect things to only grow worse under this President. Thanks to an open mic in March, President Obama was caught telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have “more flexibility” in his second term.

The future of our country depends on making sure that the executive head of our nation knows he is subject to our laws and that he is under the Constitution.

Mr. President, I urge you, stop your autocratic reign; drop everything you are doing and read the Constitution. You will be well-served to remember the document that you swore to preserve, protect and defend.
 
No Dream Deal…
by Fred Thompson

For a long time, Friday afternoon has been a favorite time for presidents to release embarrassing or politically harmful information. That way, fewer people hear about it at the time, and by Monday morning other news often drowns it out. Now we can add the abrogation of immigration laws to the list of Friday releases. (Tune in next Friday to see whether the IRS has decided not to require you to pay your taxes. This “never mind” attitude toward the law could become quite popular.)

However, in last Friday’s case, there was no danger that Obama’s target audience would miss the story. Hispanic groups, along with Senate Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, increasingly nervous about the election, had been pressuring Obama for months to circumvent Congress and change immigration policy unilaterally. So President Obama seized the opportunity and declared that people between the ages of 16 and 30 who are here illegally, were brought to the U.S. before the age of 16, are in school or the military, and have not committed a felony would not be deported. (For the first time in American history, not committing a felony gives you privileged status.)

In fact, this group can now apply for work permits.

Obama’s presidential campaign, not known for its subtlety, then immediately sent out a fundraising letter to the Hispanic community.

From a policy standpoint, serious arguments can be made for and against prosecuting people who were brought here by their parents. There are undoubtedly many sympathetic cases, but on the other hand, laws are often passed, at least in part, to deter future actions. Is the president encouraging future parents to break the law, while adding 800,000 new job applicants in a down economy?

These are proper issues for congressional debate. The fact that Congress has not yet passed an immigration bill that suits Obama does not authorize him to circumvent the normal legislative process. Article I of the Constitution makes it clear that Congress makes the laws.

Attention should be given, not just to the policy issue, but also to how President Obama pulled this off. What he did gives us some idea as to how he would govern in a second term, when he would not have to fear the voters again and could concentrate on those to whom he wants to be an historic hero.
By unilaterally changing immigration policy to incorporate most of the DREAM Act, President Obama cut a clever, opportunistic path through the thickets of legality and politics in order to maximize his policy change for supporters, while at the same time minimizing the change for opponents.

Obama acknowledged a year ago that he did not have the legal authority to do this by himself. “I can’t,” he said. “There are laws on the books that I have to enforce.” So one year later, after much political pressure, he does it. Legally, what changed? Incredibly, President Obama’s own people say: Nothing changed.
Most people thought President Obama was putting the new policy in place by executive order, because this is the way new policies within a president’s purview are put into effect. But no president had ever used an executive order to take laws off the books. President Obama’s lawyers had obviously told him he didn’t have the authority to do that by executive order. One would think that our constitutional-law-professor president would have known this.

So, Obama did not use an executive order. He simply directed the Department of Homeland Security to “reprioritize its enforcement policy” to, in effect, put everyone else ahead of the DREAM group when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants. This way he avoids the unprecedented use of an executive order that might even be struck down in court, but achieves his goal of a big splash one week before he makes a speech to a Hispanic group in Florida, a swing state.

Obama representatives acknowledge to his critics that this big deal to the Hispanic community is actually less than meets the eye. They point out that the enforcement provision and the work-permit provision are only a two-year window — they are not permanent. The next president can change them — without even a stroke of the pen, since there is no executive order in place. Meanwhile, though, Obama officials emphasize that people will be processed on a “case-by-case basis.” This is code for: “Everyone familiar with the issue knows that it will take the immigration service, with its tremendous backlog, years to process 800,000 people.”

So the folks Obama will be speaking to in Florida will be getting neither the solution that many of them think they are getting, nor the result that the president strongly implied in his Friday statement.

Hispanic leaders know better, but they will pocket this “victory” and worry about the rest later. Odds are that next week President Obama will be greeted in Orlando as another “Great Emancipator.” The Hispanic voters he’ll be speaking to don’t realize that, with Obama, everything is about getting past the next election.
 
Obama’s Strategy Emerges
By Dick Morris

The battle of Barack Obama is ending in his defeat. A sagging economy, a likely setback on ObamaCare and sliding job approval are foreclosing the possibility that the president can be reelected on his record in office.

So the battle of Mitt Romney is beginning. It is evident to Obama’s people that only through a negative campaign can they hope to win the election. Their strategy in attacking Romney is becoming clear.

It begins with an understanding of the fact that Romney’s major attribute in the minds of the voters and his leading defect are two sides of the same coin. On one side, voters see him as a businessman with vast experience. In a war, they turn to a general. In a deep recession, they turn to a businessman with a record of job creation. But the other side of the coin is that voters feel that Romney is too rich to understand the problems of the average person. They worry that he lives on another planet and doesn’t grasp what is going on in their lives.

Whether or not he can overcome the negative is wrapped up in how people see his tenure at Bain Capital. Does it indicate that Romney is a job creator or a dealmaker? Is he a creature of Wall Street or Main Street? Are his skills at saving businesses, or just at making money from them?

The perception of his Bain career is far more important to the Romney candidacy than his record as governor of Massachusetts or his various flip-flops on issues. Bain goes the core of his key credential, his business experience. Lose it and he loses everything.

If Obama can win the battle of Bain, he can go from there to paint Republican budget-cutting plans as the product of a party whose nominee either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the plight of the average person. He can depict GOP refusal to raise taxes on the rich as a pander to its backers. And then he can take the campaign to the safe haven of all Democrats: Medicare and Social Security.

But if Obama loses the battle of Bain, his attacks on the Republican Party will miss the mark (or miss the Mitt). The House Republicans (as a unit, not as individuals) might be seen as heartless or rigid or dogmatic, but Romney doesn’t sit in the House. Unlike Dole in 1996, he is not responsible for the positions his party takes in Congress. Nor has he ever embraced voucher alternatives to Medicare without also stressing the ongoing availability of the current system into the indefinite future.

Even if Obama scores against the Republican Party as an institution, Romney himself will be seen as an expert who knows his stuff and quietly creates jobs while the politicians fight. If the Republican nominee’s image is deeply rooted in his successes at Bain, he cannot be characterized as a rich guy making deals and raking in millions. Nor can he be vulnerable to Democratic charges of arrogance and ignorance of the problems of Main Street.

Obama opened the battle of Bain with a two-week foray of negative ads depicting a steelworker who had lost his job, pension and, apparently, his hope as well. It was a moving ad that cries out for rebuttal. The Romney campaign must put ads on the screen that show the opposite of the Obama negative — the success stories of Bain and the ways in which Romney’s skill, intellect, dedication and hard work produced some jobs and saved others for average American workers.
 
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