Obama Socialism Will Wreck the Nation
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 1:26 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann Article Font Size
Does President Obama truly believe that he can castigate and condemn Wall Street on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and then secure its cooperation on the other days of the week?
Does he not understand that when he ignites a public furor over AIG bonuses and then incites Congress to pass a punitive tax, he sends shivers down the spines of every other corporate executive who makes a lot of money?
Does he seriously believe that Wall Street investors will not worry that their winnings, should they join the Treasury as partners in risky investments, would be subject to public abuse, publicity, and confiscatory taxation?
Of course he realizes that his rhetoric makes it unlikely that his program will succeed. He obviously gets it that the entire concept of a public-private partnership is impossible amid a climate of waging class warfare, taxing the rich, and heaping contempt on anyone who makes money.
The president is quite bright and certainly understands that you cannot shake hands with your right while you launch a roundhouse with your left.
So why does Obama persist in his aggressive rhetoric? Why does he continue to treat Wall Street as something out of Dante's Inferno?
Because he's just not that into you! He doesn't really care if the public-private partnerships work out.
He sends Geithner out to announce the program because he doesn't want to make it his own. When he announces a stimulus plan or a new spending bill, it's Obama's moment before the teleprompter. But the public-private partnerships he leaves to his Treasury secretary to announce.
The most rational explanation for Obama's puzzling conduct — sabotaging his own program by way of his own rhetoric — is that he truly wants to be forced to nationalize the banks in pursuit of his ultimate goal of a socialist economy.
Obama has to oppose nationalization today in order to achieve it tomorrow.
He has to show the country and the world that he is doing all he can to help the private sector to sort things out with government help. He must ostentatiously invite the hated demons of Wall Street to join him in rescuing the banks in order, later, to say that he did his best to avoid having to take over the banks. Only then will nationalization be an acceptable alternative — when he has run out of other options.
Meanwhile, he makes sure the private sector won't play ball by going after their bonuses, sending an implicit message to the other executives on Wall Street that reads, “stay away.”
Even when he takes over the banks, as he almost inevitably will, he is going to have to dress up the nationalization as a temporary measure forced on him by the economy and the previously unrealized depth of the problem. He will cite the example of Sweden, where the government nationalized the banks only temporarily and returned them to private hands quickly.
You can't be for nationalization. But Obama hopes to accomplish it nonetheless.
Already, in the TARP and TALF programs, we can see how eager he is to use government power to manipulate the once-private sector. Consider the mandates piling up on any financial institution that takes government funds: limits on executive pay, corporate travel and conferences; a strong “buy American” recommendation; and aggressive action to get them to make consumer loans.
Can affirmative action, low-income lending, and diversity outreach be far behind?
If Obama can bring banks and the healthcare industry under government control, we will have de facto socialism. Is this Obama's goal? It is obviously where he is headed.
© 2009 Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Print Page
Friday, March 27, 2009
Ruse: Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial
THIS ARTICLE WILL GIVE YOU INSIGHT TO WHAT/WHY/WHERE/WHEN OF THE FINANCIAL BAILOUT AS REGARDS NON-BANK ENTITIES.
WHAT: A plan where the government would have the authority to seize a non-bank financial institution in the same manner that the government attaches to BANKS.
These banks for the most part are FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) INSURED.
These banks each pay a fee to FDIC to cover the cost of insuring deposits to the maximum of $250,000 per named account. The latest information is that the FDIC is
itself in financial trouble.
WHY: The why is to for stall the recurrence of the failure of the Non-Bank entity
such as AIG, International group of business or associations, comprised of US and foreign banks, brokerage houses (US and international) and insurance companies.
The idea is that by regulation the Treasury Department (with Tim Giethner as its head) would oversee the Non-Bank entities and at a sign of trouble could close or
take over that entity, and having broad powers could in theory renegotiate a way out of trouble , thus saving money (shareholder).
WHERE: The where to this puzzle is that it doesn't matter, Ames Iowa, Socorro New Mexico, what difference does is make, only that the hurt is immediate at the point of rupture. For as soon as it happens in one place it will continue until the rag heads (by now in power) conceed to their communist friends.
WHEN: This is the scary part, who is to say that the entity is in fact in need of a takeover? If the oversight was done by a agency like the real banking auditors
(either the Federal or State Banking Commission and the like body for Credit Unions)
I would not have much concern, however with Giethner (tax cheat) or any crony or pal of the current administration I have no doubts that it could happen at any time. It would be the first road to Socialism ala Obama. Most likely when it is apropos for Obama.
Let me add this question to the mix. Whom do you think is making all of the decisions on what goes into the bailouts, Omama, Pelosi, Reid, or the Congress,
I would guess you are wrong It is Pelosi, Congress, and then that communist Obama.
My Name is Dave Anderson and you may reach me at oad@alaska.net and I would appreciat hearing from you.
This Story
Geithner to Propose Vast Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial System
Proposals to Rein in Financial Firms
The Obama administration's plan, described by several sources, would extend federal regulation for the first time to all trading in financial derivatives and to companies including large hedge funds and major insurers such as American International Group. The administration also will seek to impose uniform standards on all large financial firms, including banks, an unprecedented step that would place significant limits on the scope and risk of their activities.
Most of these initiatives would require legislation.
Geithner plans to make the case for the regulatory reform agenda in testimony before Congress this morning, and he is expected to introduce proposals to regulate the largest financial firms. In coming months, the administration plans to detail its strategy in three other areas: protecting consumers, eliminating flaws in existing regulations and enhancing international coordination.
The testimony will not call for any existing federal agencies to be eliminated or combined, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plan focuses on setting standards first, leaving for later any reshaping of the government's administrative structure.
The nation's financial regulations are largely an accumulation of responses to financial crises. Federal bank regulation was a product of the Civil War. The Federal Reserve was created early in the 20th century to mitigate a long series of monetary crises. The Great Depression delivered deposit insurance and a federally sponsored mortgage market. In the midst of a modern economic upheaval, the Obama administration is pitching the most significant regulatory expansion since that time.
An administration official said the goal is to set new rules of the road to restore faith in the financial system. In essence, the plan is a rebuke of raw capitalism and a reassertion that regulation is critical to the healthy function of financial markets and the steady flow of money to borrowers.
The government also plans to push companies to pay employees based on their long-term performance, curtailing big paydays for short-term victories. Long-simmering anger about Wall Street pay practices erupted last week when the Obama administration disclosed that AIG had paid $165 million in bonuses to employees of its most troubled division, despite losing so much money that the government stepped in with more than $170 billion in emergency aid.
The administration's signature proposal is to vest a single federal agency with the power to police risk across the entire financial system. The agency would regulate the largest financial firms, including hedge funds and insurers not currently subject to federal regulation. It also would monitor financial markets for emergent dangers.
Geithner plans to call for legislation that would define which financial firms are sufficiently large and important to be subjected to this increased regulation. Those firms would be required to hold relatively more capital in their reserves against losses than smaller firms, to demonstrate that they have access to adequate funding to support their operations, and to maintain constantly updated assessments of their exposure to financial risk.
The designated agency would not replace existing regulators but would be granted the power to compel firms to comply with its directives. Geithner's testimony will not identify which agency should hold those powers, but sources familiar with the matter said that the Federal Reserve, widely viewed as the most obvious choice, is the administration's favored candidate.
Geithner and other officials have said in recent weeks that such powers could have kept in check the excesses of AIG and other large financial companies.
Under current law, the government can seize only banks.
The administration yesterday detailed its proposed process, under which the Federal Reserve Board, along with any agency overseeing the troubled company, would recommend the need for a takeover. The Treasury secretary, in consultation with the president, then would authorize the action. The firm would be placed under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The government also would have the power to take intermediate steps to stabilize a firm, such as taking an ownership stake or providing loans.
"Destabilizing dangers can come from financial institutions besides banks, but our current regulatory system provides few ways to deal with these risks," Geithner said yesterday. "Our plan will give the government the tools to limit the risk-taking at firms that could set off cascading damage."
The administration compared the proposed process with the existing system under which banking regulators can take over failed banks and place them under FDIC control.
One important difference is that the decision to seize a bank is made by agencies that have considerable autonomy and are intentionally shielded from the political process. Some legislators have raised concerns about providing such powers to the Treasury secretary, a member of the president's Cabinet.
The cost of bank failures is carried by the industry, which pays assessments to the FDIC. The Treasury said it has not yet determined how to pay for takeovers under the proposed system. Possibilities include dunning taxpayers or collecting fees from all institutions the government considers possible candidates for seizure.
FDIC chairman Sheila C. Bair issued a statement that expressed support for an expansion of her agency's responsibilities.
"Due to the FDIC's extensive experience with resolving failed institutions and the cyclical nature of resolution work, it would make sense on many levels for the FDIC to be given this authority working in close cooperation with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors," Bair said.
The administration also wants to expand oversight of a broad category of unregulated investment firms including hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture capital funds, by requiring larger companies to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Firms also would have to provide financial information to help determine whether they are large enough to warrant additional regulation.
Hedge funds were designed to offer high-risk investment strategies to wealthy investors, but their role quickly grew from one on the fringe of the system to a place near the center. Some government officials have sought increased regulation of the industry since the 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management threatened the stability of the financial system.
Geithner also plans to call for the SEC to impose tougher standards on money-market mutual funds, investment accounts that appeal to investors by aping the features of checking accounts while offering higher interest rates. He will not make specific suggestions.
This Story
Geithner to Propose Vast Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial System
Proposals to Rein in Financial Firms
SEC chairman Mary Schapiro plans to testify today that the SEC supports both proposals.
The administration's broad determination to regulate the totality of the financial markets also includes a plan to regulate the vast trade in derivatives, complex financial instruments that take their value from the performance of some other asset. Derivatives have become a basic tool of the financial markets, but trading in many variants is not regulated. Credit-default swaps, a major category of unregulated derivatives, played a major role in the collapse of AIG.
Geithner plans to call for the entire industry to be placed under strict regulation, including supervision of dealers in derivatives, mandatory use of central clearinghouses to process trades and uniform trading rules to ensure an orderly marketplace.
The Fed already is moving to improve the plumbing of the financial system, including of the derivatives trade. The administration wants to expand and formalize these efforts.
Senior government officials view these highly technical arrangements as critical to the restoration of a healthy financial system.
Staff writer Zachary A. Goldfarb contributed to this report.
WHAT: A plan where the government would have the authority to seize a non-bank financial institution in the same manner that the government attaches to BANKS.
These banks for the most part are FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) INSURED.
These banks each pay a fee to FDIC to cover the cost of insuring deposits to the maximum of $250,000 per named account. The latest information is that the FDIC is
itself in financial trouble.
WHY: The why is to for stall the recurrence of the failure of the Non-Bank entity
such as AIG, International group of business or associations, comprised of US and foreign banks, brokerage houses (US and international) and insurance companies.
The idea is that by regulation the Treasury Department (with Tim Giethner as its head) would oversee the Non-Bank entities and at a sign of trouble could close or
take over that entity, and having broad powers could in theory renegotiate a way out of trouble , thus saving money (shareholder).
WHERE: The where to this puzzle is that it doesn't matter, Ames Iowa, Socorro New Mexico, what difference does is make, only that the hurt is immediate at the point of rupture. For as soon as it happens in one place it will continue until the rag heads (by now in power) conceed to their communist friends.
WHEN: This is the scary part, who is to say that the entity is in fact in need of a takeover? If the oversight was done by a agency like the real banking auditors
(either the Federal or State Banking Commission and the like body for Credit Unions)
I would not have much concern, however with Giethner (tax cheat) or any crony or pal of the current administration I have no doubts that it could happen at any time. It would be the first road to Socialism ala Obama. Most likely when it is apropos for Obama.
Let me add this question to the mix. Whom do you think is making all of the decisions on what goes into the bailouts, Omama, Pelosi, Reid, or the Congress,
I would guess you are wrong It is Pelosi, Congress, and then that communist Obama.
My Name is Dave Anderson and you may reach me at oad@alaska.net and I would appreciat hearing from you.
This Story
Geithner to Propose Vast Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial System
Proposals to Rein in Financial Firms
The Obama administration's plan, described by several sources, would extend federal regulation for the first time to all trading in financial derivatives and to companies including large hedge funds and major insurers such as American International Group. The administration also will seek to impose uniform standards on all large financial firms, including banks, an unprecedented step that would place significant limits on the scope and risk of their activities.
Most of these initiatives would require legislation.
Geithner plans to make the case for the regulatory reform agenda in testimony before Congress this morning, and he is expected to introduce proposals to regulate the largest financial firms. In coming months, the administration plans to detail its strategy in three other areas: protecting consumers, eliminating flaws in existing regulations and enhancing international coordination.
The testimony will not call for any existing federal agencies to be eliminated or combined, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plan focuses on setting standards first, leaving for later any reshaping of the government's administrative structure.
The nation's financial regulations are largely an accumulation of responses to financial crises. Federal bank regulation was a product of the Civil War. The Federal Reserve was created early in the 20th century to mitigate a long series of monetary crises. The Great Depression delivered deposit insurance and a federally sponsored mortgage market. In the midst of a modern economic upheaval, the Obama administration is pitching the most significant regulatory expansion since that time.
An administration official said the goal is to set new rules of the road to restore faith in the financial system. In essence, the plan is a rebuke of raw capitalism and a reassertion that regulation is critical to the healthy function of financial markets and the steady flow of money to borrowers.
The government also plans to push companies to pay employees based on their long-term performance, curtailing big paydays for short-term victories. Long-simmering anger about Wall Street pay practices erupted last week when the Obama administration disclosed that AIG had paid $165 million in bonuses to employees of its most troubled division, despite losing so much money that the government stepped in with more than $170 billion in emergency aid.
The administration's signature proposal is to vest a single federal agency with the power to police risk across the entire financial system. The agency would regulate the largest financial firms, including hedge funds and insurers not currently subject to federal regulation. It also would monitor financial markets for emergent dangers.
Geithner plans to call for legislation that would define which financial firms are sufficiently large and important to be subjected to this increased regulation. Those firms would be required to hold relatively more capital in their reserves against losses than smaller firms, to demonstrate that they have access to adequate funding to support their operations, and to maintain constantly updated assessments of their exposure to financial risk.
The designated agency would not replace existing regulators but would be granted the power to compel firms to comply with its directives. Geithner's testimony will not identify which agency should hold those powers, but sources familiar with the matter said that the Federal Reserve, widely viewed as the most obvious choice, is the administration's favored candidate.
Geithner and other officials have said in recent weeks that such powers could have kept in check the excesses of AIG and other large financial companies.
Under current law, the government can seize only banks.
The administration yesterday detailed its proposed process, under which the Federal Reserve Board, along with any agency overseeing the troubled company, would recommend the need for a takeover. The Treasury secretary, in consultation with the president, then would authorize the action. The firm would be placed under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The government also would have the power to take intermediate steps to stabilize a firm, such as taking an ownership stake or providing loans.
"Destabilizing dangers can come from financial institutions besides banks, but our current regulatory system provides few ways to deal with these risks," Geithner said yesterday. "Our plan will give the government the tools to limit the risk-taking at firms that could set off cascading damage."
The administration compared the proposed process with the existing system under which banking regulators can take over failed banks and place them under FDIC control.
One important difference is that the decision to seize a bank is made by agencies that have considerable autonomy and are intentionally shielded from the political process. Some legislators have raised concerns about providing such powers to the Treasury secretary, a member of the president's Cabinet.
The cost of bank failures is carried by the industry, which pays assessments to the FDIC. The Treasury said it has not yet determined how to pay for takeovers under the proposed system. Possibilities include dunning taxpayers or collecting fees from all institutions the government considers possible candidates for seizure.
FDIC chairman Sheila C. Bair issued a statement that expressed support for an expansion of her agency's responsibilities.
"Due to the FDIC's extensive experience with resolving failed institutions and the cyclical nature of resolution work, it would make sense on many levels for the FDIC to be given this authority working in close cooperation with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors," Bair said.
The administration also wants to expand oversight of a broad category of unregulated investment firms including hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture capital funds, by requiring larger companies to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Firms also would have to provide financial information to help determine whether they are large enough to warrant additional regulation.
Hedge funds were designed to offer high-risk investment strategies to wealthy investors, but their role quickly grew from one on the fringe of the system to a place near the center. Some government officials have sought increased regulation of the industry since the 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management threatened the stability of the financial system.
Geithner also plans to call for the SEC to impose tougher standards on money-market mutual funds, investment accounts that appeal to investors by aping the features of checking accounts while offering higher interest rates. He will not make specific suggestions.
This Story
Geithner to Propose Vast Expansion Of U.S. Oversight of Financial System
Proposals to Rein in Financial Firms
SEC chairman Mary Schapiro plans to testify today that the SEC supports both proposals.
The administration's broad determination to regulate the totality of the financial markets also includes a plan to regulate the vast trade in derivatives, complex financial instruments that take their value from the performance of some other asset. Derivatives have become a basic tool of the financial markets, but trading in many variants is not regulated. Credit-default swaps, a major category of unregulated derivatives, played a major role in the collapse of AIG.
Geithner plans to call for the entire industry to be placed under strict regulation, including supervision of dealers in derivatives, mandatory use of central clearinghouses to process trades and uniform trading rules to ensure an orderly marketplace.
The Fed already is moving to improve the plumbing of the financial system, including of the derivatives trade. The administration wants to expand and formalize these efforts.
Senior government officials view these highly technical arrangements as critical to the restoration of a healthy financial system.
Staff writer Zachary A. Goldfarb contributed to this report.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
OPEN LETTER TO OBAMA
THIS IS FROM ONE OF OUR READERS. I AM WITH GEORGIA.
> > Dear President Obama and Congress,
> >
> > Thank you for helping my neighbors with
> > their mortgage payments. You know the one's down the
> > street who in the good times refinanced their house several
> > times and bought SUVs, ATVs, RVs, a pool, a
> > big screen, two Wave Runners and a Harley. But I
> > was
> > wondering, since I am paying my mortgage and theirs, could
> > you arrange for me to borrow the Harley now and then?
> >
> > Richard Ford
> > Queen Creek AZ
> >
> > P.S.
> > They also need help with their credit
> > cards, when do you want me to start making those payments?
> >
> > P.P.S.
> > I almost forgot - they didn't
> > file their income tax return this year. Should I go ahead
> > and file for them or will you be appointing them to cabinet
> > posts?
> > Dear President Obama and Congress,
> >
> > Thank you for helping my neighbors with
> > their mortgage payments. You know the one's down the
> > street who in the good times refinanced their house several
> > times and bought SUVs, ATVs, RVs, a pool, a
> > big screen, two Wave Runners and a Harley. But I
> > was
> > wondering, since I am paying my mortgage and theirs, could
> > you arrange for me to borrow the Harley now and then?
> >
> > Richard Ford
> > Queen Creek AZ
> >
> > P.S.
> > They also need help with their credit
> > cards, when do you want me to start making those payments?
> >
> > P.P.S.
> > I almost forgot - they didn't
> > file their income tax return this year. Should I go ahead
> > and file for them or will you be appointing them to cabinet
> > posts?
CAIR and Cultural Jihad
THIS ARTICLE IS FILLED WITH THE MOST CURRENT INSIGHT TO CAIR, IT WILL INFORM YOU OF
HOW AND WHY THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS OPERATES WITHIN EYE BALL SIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT. READ ABOUT ITS GOALS.
CAIR and Cultural Jihad
Andrew McCarthy’s excellent commentary below on CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) echoes a point we have been making since the founding of ACT! for America: That as horrific as terrorism is, to focus on that Islamist threat to the exclusion of “cultural” or “stealth” jihad is a monumental mistake.
Too many in our government have not connected, or do not want to connect, the dots between the supremacist ideology of political Islam and the jihadist actions perpetrated against the West in the arenas of government, academia, law, and the media.
This is why the “War on Terror” essentially misstates the “war,” because terror is a means, not an end, in the bigger arsenal of the Islamists. The “end” is the overthrow of Western civilization and the imposition of Islamic shariah law worldwide. And the arsenal to achieve that end includes many other “means,” such as efforts to criminalize public critique of Islam.
One of the topic sessions in our “Citizens in Action” conference is titled “Why the ‘Typical’ Western Approach for Dealing with Radical Islam Will Not Work – and What Does.” We in the West must understand the mindset and worldview of those who wish to destroy our way of life, if we are to devise effective strategies and tactics to combat them.
If you haven’t yet done so, please log on to www.actforamerica.org today and register to attend one of our “Citizens in Action” conferences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Review Online
Andrew C. McCarthy
NR Contributing Editor
March 24, 2009, 4:00 a.m.
CAIR’s Well-Deserved Expulsion
Terrorism is only one expression of jihad — there are others as dangerous.
A week ago, the FBI officially announced that it has cut ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The self-styled civil rights organization is characteristically squawking, but the FBI’s move was patently overdue — so much so that we ought to be asking: Why on earth did the FBI have ties with CAIR in the first place?
While we should applaud the government for finally doing the right thing, we also must seize this moment to consider why this action was necessary, and what it says about the threat we are up against.
That threat is not, essentially, about terrorism. Given the life-and-death stakes involved, it is understandable that government is preoccupied by terrorism (or what Obama’s homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, absurdly calls “man-caused disasters”). But jihadist terror is merely the means to a specific end: the installation of sharia, the Islamic legal code, which Muslim fundamentalists regard as the necessary precondition for the achievement of Islam’s universalist ambitions.
Sharia should be of grave concern to us because it is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution and to our way of life. It rejects several core American propositions: that liberty cannot co-exist with an established state religion, that free people have a right to govern themselves irrespective of any religious code’s dictates, that there should be freedom of conscience (sharia holds that apostasy from Islam is not merely a crime but a capital offense), sexual liberty (homosexuality is also a death-penalty offense), and equal protection under the law (sharia privileges Muslims over non-Muslims and men over women). Sharia, furthermore, is the rationale commonly trotted out by militants to justify the use of force (whether we call it “terrorism” or employ such sophistries as “resistance” or “man-caused disasters”) for resolving policy disputes — under the rationale that policies that do not privilege Islam constitute an attack on Islam and therefore justify jihadist violence.
Incrementally establishing sharia is the central imperative of CAIR and several other organizations to which our government has recklessly been reaching out for years, since long before the 9/11 attacks. In sum, administrations of both parties, and executive branch agencies including the FBI, have taken the position that government’s only legitimate concern is the comparatively tiny cohort of terrorists who construe Islamic scriptures to command mass-murder attacks.
Not only have we averted our eyes from the ideology that motivates jihadism. We have affirmatively anointed as Muslim “moderates” the purveyors of this ideology, who are anything but moderate. Worse, the effect has been to empower anti-American elements at the expense of authentic Muslim moderates and reformers who crave liberty.
CAIR is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian organization founded in 1928 that today boasts divisions throughout the world. The Brotherhood has been operating in the United States since the 1960s in a manner fully consistent with its motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Its website makes no bones about the fact that it seeks “the introduction of the Islamic Shariah as the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society.”
Last year, the government won convictions in a terrorism-financing trial that targeted an ostensible Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation, along with several of its top operatives. CAIR has complained long and loud because prosecutors identified it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Its argument that this was a smear is specious. The issue is not whether the government named CAIR on a list disseminated pretrial; what’s germane is the basis for that listing. The government richly supported its assertion with evidence, and no citizen or organization has a right to expunge that which is proved in the public’s courts.
At trial, the jury was treated to a 1991 Brotherhood memorandum that described the organization’s “work in America” as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” CAIR has been the linchpin of that strategy.
Some history is in order. In 1987, the Brotherhood had established Hamas (or “the Islamic Resistance Movement,” as it describes itself). As its charter professes, Hamas
is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgment, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.
In a memorandum filed in a Texas federal court, prosecutors further elaborated that, through the early 1990s, “the Muslim Brotherhood was controlled by Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood members, and the leader of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood was Mousa Abu Marzook, who in 1989 was selected to be the leader of HAMAS, a position that he held while residing in the United States and controlling the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” To support Hamas, the Brotherhood established a “Palestine Committee” in the United States.
Marzook (deported in 1995, he is currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago) led the Palestine Committee. One of its most important members was Omar Ahmad, who became president of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which Marzook had formed years earlier. In 1993, the Palestine Committee convened a meeting in Philadelphia to plot a strategy for destroying the Oslo Accords’ vision of a two-state solution — Palestine peacefully co-existing with Israel, which Hamas is pledged to destroy. The meeting was secretly surveilled by the FBI, which caught Ahmad conversing with Nihad Awad, the IAP’s public-relations director, about strategies for deceiving Americans about their true intentions.
Less than a year later, Ahmad and Awad formed CAIR. The Holy Land Foundation, which was ultimately shuttered by the government and finally convicted for providing millions of dollars to Hamas, contributed part of the seed money. To serve as CAIR’s communications director, Ahmad and Awad tapped Ibrahim Hooper, another IAP veteran who has publicly acknowledged that his purpose is to establish sharia as the law of the United States.
Since its founding, several CAIR officials have been convicted or deported for terrorism-related activities and for other criminal offenses. CAIR, meanwhile, has sought to undermine national security — and the FBI specifically — at every turn: frequently mounting public-relations campaigns for indicted terror suspects, vigorously opposing the Patriot Act and the surveillance of suspected al-Qaeda communications, and even distributing a “Muslim community safety kit” that discourages cooperation with the FBI.
Despite that sordid record, government officials regarded CAIR as a representative and leader of American Muslims. Our law-enforcement and national-security agencies consulted with it closely and even permitted it to indoctrinate our agents during compulsory “sensitivity training” lectures. Doing so, they raised its profile, facilitated its radical, anti-American agenda, and dispirited our allies in the Muslim community, many of whom are in the United States precisely because they don’t want to live in the totalitarian misery the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites would impose.
The major threat we face today is not what al-Qaeda may do to the grand structures that house our government and our institutions. It is what radical Islam is accomplishing inside those structures. Thankfully, the FBI has shown CAIR the door. But that only begins to address the problem.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACT for America
P.O. Box 12765
Pensacola, FL 32591
www.actforamerica.org
HOW AND WHY THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS OPERATES WITHIN EYE BALL SIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT. READ ABOUT ITS GOALS.
CAIR and Cultural Jihad
Andrew McCarthy’s excellent commentary below on CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) echoes a point we have been making since the founding of ACT! for America: That as horrific as terrorism is, to focus on that Islamist threat to the exclusion of “cultural” or “stealth” jihad is a monumental mistake.
Too many in our government have not connected, or do not want to connect, the dots between the supremacist ideology of political Islam and the jihadist actions perpetrated against the West in the arenas of government, academia, law, and the media.
This is why the “War on Terror” essentially misstates the “war,” because terror is a means, not an end, in the bigger arsenal of the Islamists. The “end” is the overthrow of Western civilization and the imposition of Islamic shariah law worldwide. And the arsenal to achieve that end includes many other “means,” such as efforts to criminalize public critique of Islam.
One of the topic sessions in our “Citizens in Action” conference is titled “Why the ‘Typical’ Western Approach for Dealing with Radical Islam Will Not Work – and What Does.” We in the West must understand the mindset and worldview of those who wish to destroy our way of life, if we are to devise effective strategies and tactics to combat them.
If you haven’t yet done so, please log on to www.actforamerica.org today and register to attend one of our “Citizens in Action” conferences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Review Online
Andrew C. McCarthy
NR Contributing Editor
March 24, 2009, 4:00 a.m.
CAIR’s Well-Deserved Expulsion
Terrorism is only one expression of jihad — there are others as dangerous.
A week ago, the FBI officially announced that it has cut ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The self-styled civil rights organization is characteristically squawking, but the FBI’s move was patently overdue — so much so that we ought to be asking: Why on earth did the FBI have ties with CAIR in the first place?
While we should applaud the government for finally doing the right thing, we also must seize this moment to consider why this action was necessary, and what it says about the threat we are up against.
That threat is not, essentially, about terrorism. Given the life-and-death stakes involved, it is understandable that government is preoccupied by terrorism (or what Obama’s homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, absurdly calls “man-caused disasters”). But jihadist terror is merely the means to a specific end: the installation of sharia, the Islamic legal code, which Muslim fundamentalists regard as the necessary precondition for the achievement of Islam’s universalist ambitions.
Sharia should be of grave concern to us because it is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution and to our way of life. It rejects several core American propositions: that liberty cannot co-exist with an established state religion, that free people have a right to govern themselves irrespective of any religious code’s dictates, that there should be freedom of conscience (sharia holds that apostasy from Islam is not merely a crime but a capital offense), sexual liberty (homosexuality is also a death-penalty offense), and equal protection under the law (sharia privileges Muslims over non-Muslims and men over women). Sharia, furthermore, is the rationale commonly trotted out by militants to justify the use of force (whether we call it “terrorism” or employ such sophistries as “resistance” or “man-caused disasters”) for resolving policy disputes — under the rationale that policies that do not privilege Islam constitute an attack on Islam and therefore justify jihadist violence.
Incrementally establishing sharia is the central imperative of CAIR and several other organizations to which our government has recklessly been reaching out for years, since long before the 9/11 attacks. In sum, administrations of both parties, and executive branch agencies including the FBI, have taken the position that government’s only legitimate concern is the comparatively tiny cohort of terrorists who construe Islamic scriptures to command mass-murder attacks.
Not only have we averted our eyes from the ideology that motivates jihadism. We have affirmatively anointed as Muslim “moderates” the purveyors of this ideology, who are anything but moderate. Worse, the effect has been to empower anti-American elements at the expense of authentic Muslim moderates and reformers who crave liberty.
CAIR is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian organization founded in 1928 that today boasts divisions throughout the world. The Brotherhood has been operating in the United States since the 1960s in a manner fully consistent with its motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Its website makes no bones about the fact that it seeks “the introduction of the Islamic Shariah as the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society.”
Last year, the government won convictions in a terrorism-financing trial that targeted an ostensible Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation, along with several of its top operatives. CAIR has complained long and loud because prosecutors identified it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Its argument that this was a smear is specious. The issue is not whether the government named CAIR on a list disseminated pretrial; what’s germane is the basis for that listing. The government richly supported its assertion with evidence, and no citizen or organization has a right to expunge that which is proved in the public’s courts.
At trial, the jury was treated to a 1991 Brotherhood memorandum that described the organization’s “work in America” as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” CAIR has been the linchpin of that strategy.
Some history is in order. In 1987, the Brotherhood had established Hamas (or “the Islamic Resistance Movement,” as it describes itself). As its charter professes, Hamas
is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgment, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.
In a memorandum filed in a Texas federal court, prosecutors further elaborated that, through the early 1990s, “the Muslim Brotherhood was controlled by Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood members, and the leader of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood was Mousa Abu Marzook, who in 1989 was selected to be the leader of HAMAS, a position that he held while residing in the United States and controlling the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” To support Hamas, the Brotherhood established a “Palestine Committee” in the United States.
Marzook (deported in 1995, he is currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago) led the Palestine Committee. One of its most important members was Omar Ahmad, who became president of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which Marzook had formed years earlier. In 1993, the Palestine Committee convened a meeting in Philadelphia to plot a strategy for destroying the Oslo Accords’ vision of a two-state solution — Palestine peacefully co-existing with Israel, which Hamas is pledged to destroy. The meeting was secretly surveilled by the FBI, which caught Ahmad conversing with Nihad Awad, the IAP’s public-relations director, about strategies for deceiving Americans about their true intentions.
Less than a year later, Ahmad and Awad formed CAIR. The Holy Land Foundation, which was ultimately shuttered by the government and finally convicted for providing millions of dollars to Hamas, contributed part of the seed money. To serve as CAIR’s communications director, Ahmad and Awad tapped Ibrahim Hooper, another IAP veteran who has publicly acknowledged that his purpose is to establish sharia as the law of the United States.
Since its founding, several CAIR officials have been convicted or deported for terrorism-related activities and for other criminal offenses. CAIR, meanwhile, has sought to undermine national security — and the FBI specifically — at every turn: frequently mounting public-relations campaigns for indicted terror suspects, vigorously opposing the Patriot Act and the surveillance of suspected al-Qaeda communications, and even distributing a “Muslim community safety kit” that discourages cooperation with the FBI.
Despite that sordid record, government officials regarded CAIR as a representative and leader of American Muslims. Our law-enforcement and national-security agencies consulted with it closely and even permitted it to indoctrinate our agents during compulsory “sensitivity training” lectures. Doing so, they raised its profile, facilitated its radical, anti-American agenda, and dispirited our allies in the Muslim community, many of whom are in the United States precisely because they don’t want to live in the totalitarian misery the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites would impose.
The major threat we face today is not what al-Qaeda may do to the grand structures that house our government and our institutions. It is what radical Islam is accomplishing inside those structures. Thankfully, the FBI has shown CAIR the door. But that only begins to address the problem.
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ACT for America
P.O. Box 12765
Pensacola, FL 32591
www.actforamerica.org
Borderline Security For The Border
Borderline Security For The Border
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Safety: Terrorists and other criminals crossing into America are at least as threatening as our economic woes. If we can spend a trillion on stimulus, we shouldn't skimp on fixing the border.
In an age of terrorism, America's borders should be (in effect, if not in physical appearance) impenetrable walls. Not a single person should be able to enter U.S. territory without the government knowing exactly who he or she is, and having given express permission for such entry.
Establishing that kind of foolproof system over an area spanning nearly 2,000 miles should have been one of our chief national priorities in the years since 9/11. Instead, both Republican and Democratic politicians wasted opportunities in fear of offending ethnic voting blocs — as they kept those very same voters, and all Americans, less safe than they should expect to be from a terrorist sleeper cell or visiting Latin American drug trafficker.
Earlier this month, the president declared in a meeting with several reporters:
"We've got a very big border with Mexico. And so I'm not interested in militarizing the border."
That shrug of the shoulders will be of little solace to future victims of the violent crimes of thugs and fanatics who shouldn't be here.
Making the border into a border is not "militarizing" it. Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Jan Brewer of Arizona are more than justified in their demands for as many as 1,000 more National Guard troops.
Phoenix, 180 miles into the U.S., now outrageously ranks second in the world for kidnappings, with more than 560 of them in 2007 and the first half of 2008 as drug lords from south of the border use ransoms to help finance their operations.
With much fanfare, the Obama administration this week announced details of its program to fight this crisis and secure the border. At a cost of $700 million, Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano laid out a plan for the U.S. and Mexican governments to destroy Mexico's drug cartels.
It includes giving Mexico five new helicopters to patrol the border and, as described by Attorney General Eric Holder, possibly reviving the assault weapons ban that ended in 2004. (There are disputed claims that the cartels get much of their firepower from the U.S.)
The president would also triple the intelligence operatives working the border, double the border enforcement security task force personnel, increase the 1,000 Drug Enforcement Administration positions in the southwest region by 16, transfer 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives employees to the area, and establish a new FBI intelligence operation focused on Mexico.
He will also reportedly quadruple the number of U.S. border liaison officers working with Mexican law enforcement.
But is this just a wall of bureaucracy that America is building to keep the killers out?
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas expressed support for the increased resources and personnel but worried that "the administration appears to be using border violence as an excuse to reduce interior enforcement of our immigration laws and enact gun restrictions."
Relocating hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to the border might "undercut our national security and immigration enforcement responsibilities," Smith fretted.
What's more, the president is at the same time planning a White House immigration summit before the end of May aimed at finding a way to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently appeared at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus forum on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's workplace raids to track down illegals, raids she has called "un-American." Under Obama, the Department of
Homeland Security recently imposed a "partial moratorium" on immigration enforcement workplace raids.
All the paper pushers in the world sent down to the Rio Grande and Nogales will mean little if we don't have the stomach to let authorities catch those already here in violation of our laws — some of whom most certainly are violent criminals, even terrorists-in-waiting.
A single illegal border crossing can mean the presence of a professional killer walking the streets of an American city, seeking prey. Yet we continue to wait for the Department of Homeland Security to finish the 700-mile fence along our southern border commissioned by law in 2006. In January, Congress' nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reported only 32 miles of new double-layered barrier had been completed.
"Fortress America" may be a much-maligned concept, but walls and barbed-wire fences keep killers inside penitentiaries. They'll keep killers outside America too.
Email To Friend
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Homeland Safety: Terrorists and other criminals crossing into America are at least as threatening as our economic woes. If we can spend a trillion on stimulus, we shouldn't skimp on fixing the border.
In an age of terrorism, America's borders should be (in effect, if not in physical appearance) impenetrable walls. Not a single person should be able to enter U.S. territory without the government knowing exactly who he or she is, and having given express permission for such entry.
Establishing that kind of foolproof system over an area spanning nearly 2,000 miles should have been one of our chief national priorities in the years since 9/11. Instead, both Republican and Democratic politicians wasted opportunities in fear of offending ethnic voting blocs — as they kept those very same voters, and all Americans, less safe than they should expect to be from a terrorist sleeper cell or visiting Latin American drug trafficker.
Earlier this month, the president declared in a meeting with several reporters:
"We've got a very big border with Mexico. And so I'm not interested in militarizing the border."
That shrug of the shoulders will be of little solace to future victims of the violent crimes of thugs and fanatics who shouldn't be here.
Making the border into a border is not "militarizing" it. Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Jan Brewer of Arizona are more than justified in their demands for as many as 1,000 more National Guard troops.
Phoenix, 180 miles into the U.S., now outrageously ranks second in the world for kidnappings, with more than 560 of them in 2007 and the first half of 2008 as drug lords from south of the border use ransoms to help finance their operations.
With much fanfare, the Obama administration this week announced details of its program to fight this crisis and secure the border. At a cost of $700 million, Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano laid out a plan for the U.S. and Mexican governments to destroy Mexico's drug cartels.
It includes giving Mexico five new helicopters to patrol the border and, as described by Attorney General Eric Holder, possibly reviving the assault weapons ban that ended in 2004. (There are disputed claims that the cartels get much of their firepower from the U.S.)
The president would also triple the intelligence operatives working the border, double the border enforcement security task force personnel, increase the 1,000 Drug Enforcement Administration positions in the southwest region by 16, transfer 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives employees to the area, and establish a new FBI intelligence operation focused on Mexico.
He will also reportedly quadruple the number of U.S. border liaison officers working with Mexican law enforcement.
But is this just a wall of bureaucracy that America is building to keep the killers out?
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas expressed support for the increased resources and personnel but worried that "the administration appears to be using border violence as an excuse to reduce interior enforcement of our immigration laws and enact gun restrictions."
Relocating hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to the border might "undercut our national security and immigration enforcement responsibilities," Smith fretted.
What's more, the president is at the same time planning a White House immigration summit before the end of May aimed at finding a way to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently appeared at a Congressional Hispanic Caucus forum on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's workplace raids to track down illegals, raids she has called "un-American." Under Obama, the Department of
Homeland Security recently imposed a "partial moratorium" on immigration enforcement workplace raids.
All the paper pushers in the world sent down to the Rio Grande and Nogales will mean little if we don't have the stomach to let authorities catch those already here in violation of our laws — some of whom most certainly are violent criminals, even terrorists-in-waiting.
A single illegal border crossing can mean the presence of a professional killer walking the streets of an American city, seeking prey. Yet we continue to wait for the Department of Homeland Security to finish the 700-mile fence along our southern border commissioned by law in 2006. In January, Congress' nonpartisan Government Accountability Office reported only 32 miles of new double-layered barrier had been completed.
"Fortress America" may be a much-maligned concept, but walls and barbed-wire fences keep killers inside penitentiaries. They'll keep killers outside America too.
Email To Friend
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Trojan (Tax) Horse
Trojan (Tax) Horse
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Taxes: President Obama creates a special commission to look at tax reform, while Congress looks desperately for new revenues to pay for a vast expansion of government. Get ready for the mother of all tax hikes.
Former Fed chief Paul Volcker will head Obama's six-member tax commission which will be charged with, as Bloomberg.com put it, "closing loopholes, streamlining the law and generating revenue."
The way things look, the government will need the money.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says Obama's proposed budget comes up short on its estimates for spending, revenues and deficits — virtually everything.
Over 10 years, the CBO says, the cumulative deficit will reach $9.3 trillion, $2.3 trillion more than expected in the White House budget. Spending would jump permanently to 23% of GDP — and possibly higher — from 20% last year, a $1.7 trillion gain over that time.
Meanwhile, tax revenues will be reduced by $2.1 trillion over the next decade, in large part because the CBO expects the economy to perform far worse than the White House does.
To put it mildly, Congress is alarmed. So is the president.
They're alarmed because their plans call for a historic increase in the size of government, and they've suddenly realized the money won't be there. Washington's broke. The Democrats want nationalized health care, trillion-dollar bailouts and stimulus plans, thousands of pork-barrel projects, an expansion of the welfare state, carbon taxes and more cash for Social Security and Medicare.
The math is clear. In the next five years alone, Obama's budget adds $5.7 trillion to the U.S. debt. That's $48,000 per household. Put in perspective, servicing that debt each year will cost as much as the annual defense budget by the end of the decade.
Today, the federal government spends about $24,172 per household. That will grow to $32,463 by 2019, after adjusting for inflation — for a real spending gain of 34%. Paying for all this will take money — vast, unprecedented amounts of it. Yet, on the stump last year, Obama promised that 95% of Americans would get a tax cut under him, and that only the very wealthiest would pay more.
So the Volcker-led tax commission starts with its hands tied. It has to find ways to take more taxes from corporations and the rich, without hiking taxes on anyone with less than $250,000 in income.
Which makes us wonder: Is it just a Trojan horse for a massive tax hike on the rich, or for huge tax hikes on all Americans?
Apparently, the White House doesn't realize that taxes on the rich and corporations are ultimately paid by the poor and the middle-class through higher prices, lower incomes and fewer jobs.
Wealthy Americans won't sit still and let their wealth and incomes be stripped from them. They'll find ways to avoid the greedy hand of government picking their pockets.
There's a better way, and we hope the Volcker panel is listening.
From 1953 to 1982, tax rates were at their highest. As Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl recently noted, during that time, the economy was in recession 21% of the time and the stock market rose 5.4% on average. This culminated in the 1970s, when inflation hit 13% and interest rates 19% under Jimmy Carter.
Since the broad-based Reagan cuts in 1982, the economy has been in recession just 10% of the time, inflation has never gone above 5%, interest rates have never been over 12%, and the stock market — even after two record drops — has averaged gains of 7% a year.
Reagan slashed taxes and simplified the code, and revenues and growth soared. That's what works, as dozens of studies prove.
So if they're sincere, Obama's tax reformers have a choice: follow the tax policies of Reagan and thrive, or those of Carter and fail. To us, it's a no-brainer.
Email To Friend
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Taxes: President Obama creates a special commission to look at tax reform, while Congress looks desperately for new revenues to pay for a vast expansion of government. Get ready for the mother of all tax hikes.
Former Fed chief Paul Volcker will head Obama's six-member tax commission which will be charged with, as Bloomberg.com put it, "closing loopholes, streamlining the law and generating revenue."
The way things look, the government will need the money.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says Obama's proposed budget comes up short on its estimates for spending, revenues and deficits — virtually everything.
Over 10 years, the CBO says, the cumulative deficit will reach $9.3 trillion, $2.3 trillion more than expected in the White House budget. Spending would jump permanently to 23% of GDP — and possibly higher — from 20% last year, a $1.7 trillion gain over that time.
Meanwhile, tax revenues will be reduced by $2.1 trillion over the next decade, in large part because the CBO expects the economy to perform far worse than the White House does.
To put it mildly, Congress is alarmed. So is the president.
They're alarmed because their plans call for a historic increase in the size of government, and they've suddenly realized the money won't be there. Washington's broke. The Democrats want nationalized health care, trillion-dollar bailouts and stimulus plans, thousands of pork-barrel projects, an expansion of the welfare state, carbon taxes and more cash for Social Security and Medicare.
The math is clear. In the next five years alone, Obama's budget adds $5.7 trillion to the U.S. debt. That's $48,000 per household. Put in perspective, servicing that debt each year will cost as much as the annual defense budget by the end of the decade.
Today, the federal government spends about $24,172 per household. That will grow to $32,463 by 2019, after adjusting for inflation — for a real spending gain of 34%. Paying for all this will take money — vast, unprecedented amounts of it. Yet, on the stump last year, Obama promised that 95% of Americans would get a tax cut under him, and that only the very wealthiest would pay more.
So the Volcker-led tax commission starts with its hands tied. It has to find ways to take more taxes from corporations and the rich, without hiking taxes on anyone with less than $250,000 in income.
Which makes us wonder: Is it just a Trojan horse for a massive tax hike on the rich, or for huge tax hikes on all Americans?
Apparently, the White House doesn't realize that taxes on the rich and corporations are ultimately paid by the poor and the middle-class through higher prices, lower incomes and fewer jobs.
Wealthy Americans won't sit still and let their wealth and incomes be stripped from them. They'll find ways to avoid the greedy hand of government picking their pockets.
There's a better way, and we hope the Volcker panel is listening.
From 1953 to 1982, tax rates were at their highest. As Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl recently noted, during that time, the economy was in recession 21% of the time and the stock market rose 5.4% on average. This culminated in the 1970s, when inflation hit 13% and interest rates 19% under Jimmy Carter.
Since the broad-based Reagan cuts in 1982, the economy has been in recession just 10% of the time, inflation has never gone above 5%, interest rates have never been over 12%, and the stock market — even after two record drops — has averaged gains of 7% a year.
Reagan slashed taxes and simplified the code, and revenues and growth soared. That's what works, as dozens of studies prove.
So if they're sincere, Obama's tax reformers have a choice: follow the tax policies of Reagan and thrive, or those of Carter and fail. To us, it's a no-brainer.
Email To Friend
Seize Failing Non-Bank Financial Firms
THIS IS THE OUTLINE OF ONE OF THE CRUCIAL STEPS NECESSARY TO TURN A CAPITALIST NATION INTO A SOCIALIST STATE IS THE CONTROL OF THE FINANCIAL SECTOR. WE HAVE JUST SEEN THE BEGINNING BY THE FORCED INFUSION INTO BANKS AND THEN THE TAKEOVER OF THE SAME. NOW THAT SOCIALIST COMMUNIST (NON AMERICAN CITIZEN - NO PROOF OF BIRTH- ) PRESIDENTIAL PRETENDER IS WANTING ADDITION POWER TO SEIZE OTHER FINANCIAL FIRMS
Treasury and Fed Chiefs Want Authority to Seize Failing Non-Bank Financial Firms -- and Impose Rules on Risk
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Matt Cover
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, left, accompanied by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, center, and William Dudley president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 24, 2009, before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on AIG. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Washington (CNSNews.com) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke issued a unified call Tuesday for wide-ranging new federal regulations that would empower the government to seize large non-bank financial institutions in trouble.
The government’s financial czars also want authority to impose market-wide controls on how much risk financial companies assume and how much they pay their executives.
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Geithner said the government lacks the authority to unwind financial giants like American International Group (AIG), which it acquired last year to keep it from going under.
Both said that such authority is necessary to prevent future financial collapses.
“The U.S. government does not have the legal means today to manage an orderly restructuring of a large, complex, non-bank financial institution,” Geithner said.
“To achieve that goal, the administration and Congress have to work together to enact comprehensive regulatory reform and eliminate gaps in supervision. All institutions and markets that could pose systemic risk will be subject to strong oversight, including appropriate constraints on risk-taking.
“Finally, we must create a new resolution authority so that the federal government has the tools it needs to unwind an institution of the size and complexity of AIG.”
Bernanke also cited AIG as the driving force behind the government’s new regulatory zeal, saying that had greater authority existed, the current AIG debacle could have been avoided.
“AIG highlights the urgent need for new resolution procedures,” Bernanke explained. “If a federal agency had had such tools on Sept. 16 (when AIG first received government assistance), they could have been used to put AIG into conservatorship or receivership.
Bernanke also said the AIG situation highlights the need for “strong, effective consolidated supervision” of all “systemically important financial firms” – firms so important to the financial system that they cannot be allowed to fail.
The authority Geithner and Bernanke are seeking is similar to that held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) when it comes to bank failures. Currently, the FDIC insures deposits of $100,000 or less in banks that are in receivership.
The administration is calling for the authority to be expanded to include non-bank financial institutions that the government doesn’t insure.
When the government takes a bank into receivership or conservatorship it has the power to restructure all of its contracts and debt agreements, including loans and other lines of credit. Once it has restructured the bank, the government then sells off the bank’s portfolio to various competitors, who take over the deposits and loans.
The FDIC might -- or might not -- be called on to exercise authority over non-bank institutions.
Geithner, meanwhile, called for market-wide regulations on how companies pay their top employees, saying the issue went beyond the recent flap over bonuses at AIG.
“The issue of executive compensation extends beyond AIG and requires reform of the system of incentives and compensation in the financial sector,” he said.
He added: “(AIG’s) compensation practices encouraged risk-taking and rewarded short-term profits over long-term financial stability.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Geithner and Bernanke that the administration’s new regulations amounted to Soviet-style central economic planning.
“The government is making an historic shift, jettisoning free-market capitalism in favor of centralized government economic planning,” Bachmann charged.
The embattled Treasury secretary defended his proposals, claiming he was simply acting within the intentions of Congress.
“I do not believe that concern is justified,” Geithner responded. “What we are doing is using authority that Congress gave us.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said the whole exercise ultimately accomplished nothing.
“It appears to me that we are doing a kabuki theater in three acts,” Sherman said. “The first act: Washington tells the American people, ‘We understand your anger at Wall Street.’ In the second act, we knit-pick to death any proposal that actually adversely effects Wall Street. In the third act we bestow $1 trillion on Wall Street under very preferable terms.”
Treasury and Fed Chiefs Want Authority to Seize Failing Non-Bank Financial Firms -- and Impose Rules on Risk
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Matt Cover
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, left, accompanied by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, center, and William Dudley president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 24, 2009, before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on AIG. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Washington (CNSNews.com) – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke issued a unified call Tuesday for wide-ranging new federal regulations that would empower the government to seize large non-bank financial institutions in trouble.
The government’s financial czars also want authority to impose market-wide controls on how much risk financial companies assume and how much they pay their executives.
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Geithner said the government lacks the authority to unwind financial giants like American International Group (AIG), which it acquired last year to keep it from going under.
Both said that such authority is necessary to prevent future financial collapses.
“The U.S. government does not have the legal means today to manage an orderly restructuring of a large, complex, non-bank financial institution,” Geithner said.
“To achieve that goal, the administration and Congress have to work together to enact comprehensive regulatory reform and eliminate gaps in supervision. All institutions and markets that could pose systemic risk will be subject to strong oversight, including appropriate constraints on risk-taking.
“Finally, we must create a new resolution authority so that the federal government has the tools it needs to unwind an institution of the size and complexity of AIG.”
Bernanke also cited AIG as the driving force behind the government’s new regulatory zeal, saying that had greater authority existed, the current AIG debacle could have been avoided.
“AIG highlights the urgent need for new resolution procedures,” Bernanke explained. “If a federal agency had had such tools on Sept. 16 (when AIG first received government assistance), they could have been used to put AIG into conservatorship or receivership.
Bernanke also said the AIG situation highlights the need for “strong, effective consolidated supervision” of all “systemically important financial firms” – firms so important to the financial system that they cannot be allowed to fail.
The authority Geithner and Bernanke are seeking is similar to that held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) when it comes to bank failures. Currently, the FDIC insures deposits of $100,000 or less in banks that are in receivership.
The administration is calling for the authority to be expanded to include non-bank financial institutions that the government doesn’t insure.
When the government takes a bank into receivership or conservatorship it has the power to restructure all of its contracts and debt agreements, including loans and other lines of credit. Once it has restructured the bank, the government then sells off the bank’s portfolio to various competitors, who take over the deposits and loans.
The FDIC might -- or might not -- be called on to exercise authority over non-bank institutions.
Geithner, meanwhile, called for market-wide regulations on how companies pay their top employees, saying the issue went beyond the recent flap over bonuses at AIG.
“The issue of executive compensation extends beyond AIG and requires reform of the system of incentives and compensation in the financial sector,” he said.
He added: “(AIG’s) compensation practices encouraged risk-taking and rewarded short-term profits over long-term financial stability.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Geithner and Bernanke that the administration’s new regulations amounted to Soviet-style central economic planning.
“The government is making an historic shift, jettisoning free-market capitalism in favor of centralized government economic planning,” Bachmann charged.
The embattled Treasury secretary defended his proposals, claiming he was simply acting within the intentions of Congress.
“I do not believe that concern is justified,” Geithner responded. “What we are doing is using authority that Congress gave us.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said the whole exercise ultimately accomplished nothing.
“It appears to me that we are doing a kabuki theater in three acts,” Sherman said. “The first act: Washington tells the American people, ‘We understand your anger at Wall Street.’ In the second act, we knit-pick to death any proposal that actually adversely effects Wall Street. In the third act we bestow $1 trillion on Wall Street under very preferable terms.”
‘Invest’ or ‘Investment’ 18 Times
Obama Used ‘Invest’ or ‘Investment’ 18 Times in Press Conference to Describe
Government Deficit Spending
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
President Barack Obama at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Tuesday, March 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)(CNSNews.com) - In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary the first meaning listed for the word “investment” is “the outlay of money usually for income or profit,” and the meaning of the word “invest” is “to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return.”
The idea is that investing money is something private individuals and businesses do on the calculation that they will get back more money than they put into a particular enterprise.
In his prime-time Tuesday press conference, however, President Barack Obama used the words “invest” or “investment” 18 different times to describe the deficit spending he wants the federal government to undertake in pursuit of his budget plan.
When the government engages in deficit spending it has to borrow money—part of it from foreign sources—and then charge future taxpayers to pay the interest on the borrowed money. As long as the government’s loans are not paid off, the taxpayers must continue paying interest on the debt year after year—just as an individual citizen would need to pay interest year after year on a credit card whose principal is never paid down.
The money that goes each year to pay the growing interest on the federal government’s credit card cannot be “invested” by private citizens and businesses to create jobs and grow the economy.
At different points in the press conference, Obama used forms of the words “invest” or “investment” to describe government spending on education, “renewable sources of energy,” health care reform, “health information technologies,” “American’s capacity for ingenuity and innovation,” science, technology and infrastructure. He referred to some of these items repeatedly as targets of the sort of government “investment” he wants to make.
Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis of Obama’s budget proposal, concluding that it would result in an increase in the national debt that is unprecedented in the post-World War II era.
“CBO has also analyzed the policy proposals outlined in the President’s preliminary budget request,” said CBO’s report. “Under those policies, the deficit would total $1.8 trillion (13.1 percent of GDP) in 2009 and $1.4 trillion (9.6 percent of GDP) in 2010. The cumulative deficit over the 2010–2019 projection period would equal $9.3 trillion and would average 5.3 percent of GDP. Debt held by the public would rise from 57 percent of GDP in 2009 to 82 percent of GDP in 2019.”
The CBO analysis of Obama’s budget does not foresee any year in the next decade in which the government would run an actual surplus and thus be able to pay off a penny of the new debt Obama plans to incur. Each year, the national debt will grow as will the presumably permanent annual interest charges to the taxpayers.
Yet, at one point in his press conference—the fourth instance in which he used a form of the term "invest" to describe his borrow-and-spend budget plan—Obama said: “It’s the budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we can save and invest.”
At another point, he argued that if the government did not borrow and spend money on the “investments” he planned to make, then the U.S. economy would not grow and we would still have massive deficits.
“And so what we've said is, let's make the investments that ensure that we meet our growth targets that put us on a pathway to growth as opposed to a situation in which we're not making those investments and we still have trillion-dollar deficits,” he said.
Obama also suggested that if the government did as he planned, it would somehow simultaneously borrow and spend trillions and actually reduce the deficit by “a couple of trillion dollars.”
“And so what we're trying to emphasize is, let's make sure that we're making the investments that we need to grow to meet those growth targets, at the same time we're still reducing the deficit by a couple of trillion dollars,” he said.
This year, according to CBO, Obama will run a $1.845-trillion annual deficit. A decade from now in fiscal 2019, under the Obama plan, according to CBO, the federal government will run a $1.189-trillion annual deficit. At no time in the intervening years, according to CBO, will the annual federal budget deficit ever drop below $658 billion, which is the projected deficit for fiscal 2013.
The largest deficit President Bush ever ran before this year, according to the CBO, was $459 billion in fiscal 2008.
Here are the 18 times Obama used the words “invest” or “investment” to refer to government spending during his March 24 press conference. (The quotes are from the transcript of the press conference that CNN posted on Tuesday night.)
1. We invest in the renewable sources of energy that will lead to new jobs, new businesses and less dependence on foreign oil.
2. We invest in our schools and our teachers, so that our children have the skills they need to compete with any workers in the world.
3. We invest in reform that will bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses and our government.
4. It's with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.
5. We’ve got to make some tough budgetary choices. What we can't do, though, is sacrifice long-term growth, investments that are critical to the future, and that's why my budget focuses on health care, energy, education, the kinds of things that can build a foundation for long-term economic growth, as opposed to the fleeting prosperity that we've seen over the last several years.
6. And what we have to do is invest in those things that will allow the American's capacity for ingenuity and innovation, their ability to take risks, but make sure that those risks are grounded in good products and good services that they believe they can market to the rest of the country, that those models of economic growth are what we're promoting, and that's what I think our budget does.
7. We've got to invest in education, K through 12 and beyond, to upgrade the skills of the American worker so we can compete in--in the international economy.
8. Here's what I do know: If we don't tackle energy, if we don't improve our education system, if we don't drive down the costs of health care, if we're not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won't grow 2.6 percent, we won't grow 2.2 percent. We won't grow.
9 & 10. And so what we've said is, let's make the investments that ensure that we meet our growth targets that put us on a pathway to growth as opposed to a situation in which we're not making those investments and we still have trillion-dollar deficits.
11. And so what we're trying to emphasize is, let's make sure that we're making the investments that we need to grow to meet those growth targets, at the same time we're still reducing the deficit by a couple of trillion dollars, we are cutting out wasteful spending in areas like Medicare, we're changing procurement practices when it comes to the Pentagon budget, we are looking at social service programs and education programs that don't work and eliminate them.
12. But it is going to be an impossible task for us to balance our budget if we're not taking on rising health care costs, and it's going to be an impossible task to balance our budget or even approximate it if we are not boosting our growth rates. And that's why our budget focuses on the investments we need to make that happen.
13. Look, I'm not going to lie to you. It is tough. As I said, that's why the critics tend to criticize, but they don't offer an alternative budget. Because even if we were not doing health care, we were not doing energy, we were not doing education, they'd still have a whole bunch of problems in those out-years, according to CBO projections. The only difference is that we will not have invested in what's necessary to make this economy grow.
14. And so what we've said is, look, let's invest in health information technologies.
15. Let's invest in preventive care.
16. Let's invest in mechanisms that look at who's doing a better job controlling costs while producing good quality outcomes in various states and let's reimburse on the basis of improved quality, as opposed to simply how many procedures you're doing. Let's do a whole host of things, some of which cost money on the front end, but offer the prospect of reducing costs on the back end.
17. Now, the alternative is to stand pat and to simply say, "We are just going to not invest in health care."
18. And that's why the recovery package said, as a first priority, how are we going to save or create 3.5 million jobs? How can we prevent layoffs for teachers and police officers? How can we make sure that we are investing in the infrastructure for the future that can put people back to work right away?
Viewer Comments
The following comments are posted by our readers and are not necessarily the opinions of either CNSNews.com or the story’s author. To be considered for publication, comments must adhere to the Terms of Use for posting to this Web site. Thank you.
Showing 1-7 of 7 Comments Newer to Older Older to Newer Loading...
DissentFromDayOneDOTcom at 06:04 PM - March 25, 2009
We learned in Sales 101 to ALWAYS refer to the expense of the sale as an "investment" to the suck...er...customer. Let's roll.
richb at 05:02 PM - March 25, 2009
Sorry Obama, government spending isn't an investment. It shows how little you know about economics. This is money that will not be invested or spent by the persons that earned it to begin with. This pork will make this recession live longer then it would have.
ontime at 04:34 PM - March 25, 2009
The word investment in the financial world implies return on your money, this imbecile who is challenged in many ways is not quite clear on the concept, he thinks that using taxpayers money is a way of growing the government who produces nothing more than a higher tax rate, that is called a loss and according to the IRS, your investment cannot operate on a continual loss....You know for once I agree with the IRS that it is impractical to keep pouring your money down a rat hole.
traditionusa at 03:28 PM - March 25, 2009
Lies, and not that clever, that are misleading a large swath of the populace that lack common sense. We already pay taxes to provide government services. They are too high as it is. The solution is to stop squandering taxpayer's money on inefficiency and waste, not spend ever more. Then use the taxes you ALREADY GET to do your job. This is a disguised government power grab and successful ploy to RUIN our country. You do not "invest" with debt; rather, debt leads to BANKRUPTCY. Why is it, taxpayers, that you carefully manage (in most cases) your money and look for value in products and services, but happily fling tons of cash at a bloated bureaucracy?
CTC123 at 03:06 PM - March 25, 2009
Consider the Connection to: Wise-use It's not how much we spend, It's how much we save by making wise 'investments'. Please Google Search: CTC123GREEN
NoParty at 03:05 PM - March 25, 2009
Obama knows the value of words, he crafts the thrust of his agenda in more acceptable verbiage. He thinks we are less likely to complain if he says "Invest" rather than "spend". Manipulation isn't a word he will use, but it is what he is doing.
Yeeeech at 02:15 PM - March 25, 2009
The black hole of USA negative equity, just made light years larger ....Obama talked about Bush's 1.3 Trillion dollar deficit, but he will make it TEN times (10X) larger. He is a propogandist and a prevaricator, and he is hell bent on creating the Great Socialist Society. The market reacted to his "Press Conference" and Geithner's comments on global security at 2:07PM 3-25-09 by tanking, again. The world (EU Conference) has rejected his financial programs. China is doing exactly the opposite of the USA...they cut taxes! Business hates his proposals. But this man is so self-involved and so set on pursuing his vision of himself and his "greatness" that he walks rough-shod and suprememly arrogant, practicing bad financial policies,stomping all over the American masses. We are screwed.
Government Deficit Spending
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
President Barack Obama at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Tuesday, March 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)(CNSNews.com) - In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary the first meaning listed for the word “investment” is “the outlay of money usually for income or profit,” and the meaning of the word “invest” is “to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return.”
The idea is that investing money is something private individuals and businesses do on the calculation that they will get back more money than they put into a particular enterprise.
In his prime-time Tuesday press conference, however, President Barack Obama used the words “invest” or “investment” 18 different times to describe the deficit spending he wants the federal government to undertake in pursuit of his budget plan.
When the government engages in deficit spending it has to borrow money—part of it from foreign sources—and then charge future taxpayers to pay the interest on the borrowed money. As long as the government’s loans are not paid off, the taxpayers must continue paying interest on the debt year after year—just as an individual citizen would need to pay interest year after year on a credit card whose principal is never paid down.
The money that goes each year to pay the growing interest on the federal government’s credit card cannot be “invested” by private citizens and businesses to create jobs and grow the economy.
At different points in the press conference, Obama used forms of the words “invest” or “investment” to describe government spending on education, “renewable sources of energy,” health care reform, “health information technologies,” “American’s capacity for ingenuity and innovation,” science, technology and infrastructure. He referred to some of these items repeatedly as targets of the sort of government “investment” he wants to make.
Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis of Obama’s budget proposal, concluding that it would result in an increase in the national debt that is unprecedented in the post-World War II era.
“CBO has also analyzed the policy proposals outlined in the President’s preliminary budget request,” said CBO’s report. “Under those policies, the deficit would total $1.8 trillion (13.1 percent of GDP) in 2009 and $1.4 trillion (9.6 percent of GDP) in 2010. The cumulative deficit over the 2010–2019 projection period would equal $9.3 trillion and would average 5.3 percent of GDP. Debt held by the public would rise from 57 percent of GDP in 2009 to 82 percent of GDP in 2019.”
The CBO analysis of Obama’s budget does not foresee any year in the next decade in which the government would run an actual surplus and thus be able to pay off a penny of the new debt Obama plans to incur. Each year, the national debt will grow as will the presumably permanent annual interest charges to the taxpayers.
Yet, at one point in his press conference—the fourth instance in which he used a form of the term "invest" to describe his borrow-and-spend budget plan—Obama said: “It’s the budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we can save and invest.”
At another point, he argued that if the government did not borrow and spend money on the “investments” he planned to make, then the U.S. economy would not grow and we would still have massive deficits.
“And so what we've said is, let's make the investments that ensure that we meet our growth targets that put us on a pathway to growth as opposed to a situation in which we're not making those investments and we still have trillion-dollar deficits,” he said.
Obama also suggested that if the government did as he planned, it would somehow simultaneously borrow and spend trillions and actually reduce the deficit by “a couple of trillion dollars.”
“And so what we're trying to emphasize is, let's make sure that we're making the investments that we need to grow to meet those growth targets, at the same time we're still reducing the deficit by a couple of trillion dollars,” he said.
This year, according to CBO, Obama will run a $1.845-trillion annual deficit. A decade from now in fiscal 2019, under the Obama plan, according to CBO, the federal government will run a $1.189-trillion annual deficit. At no time in the intervening years, according to CBO, will the annual federal budget deficit ever drop below $658 billion, which is the projected deficit for fiscal 2013.
The largest deficit President Bush ever ran before this year, according to the CBO, was $459 billion in fiscal 2008.
Here are the 18 times Obama used the words “invest” or “investment” to refer to government spending during his March 24 press conference. (The quotes are from the transcript of the press conference that CNN posted on Tuesday night.)
1. We invest in the renewable sources of energy that will lead to new jobs, new businesses and less dependence on foreign oil.
2. We invest in our schools and our teachers, so that our children have the skills they need to compete with any workers in the world.
3. We invest in reform that will bring down the cost of health care for families, businesses and our government.
4. It's with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.
5. We’ve got to make some tough budgetary choices. What we can't do, though, is sacrifice long-term growth, investments that are critical to the future, and that's why my budget focuses on health care, energy, education, the kinds of things that can build a foundation for long-term economic growth, as opposed to the fleeting prosperity that we've seen over the last several years.
6. And what we have to do is invest in those things that will allow the American's capacity for ingenuity and innovation, their ability to take risks, but make sure that those risks are grounded in good products and good services that they believe they can market to the rest of the country, that those models of economic growth are what we're promoting, and that's what I think our budget does.
7. We've got to invest in education, K through 12 and beyond, to upgrade the skills of the American worker so we can compete in--in the international economy.
8. Here's what I do know: If we don't tackle energy, if we don't improve our education system, if we don't drive down the costs of health care, if we're not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won't grow 2.6 percent, we won't grow 2.2 percent. We won't grow.
9 & 10. And so what we've said is, let's make the investments that ensure that we meet our growth targets that put us on a pathway to growth as opposed to a situation in which we're not making those investments and we still have trillion-dollar deficits.
11. And so what we're trying to emphasize is, let's make sure that we're making the investments that we need to grow to meet those growth targets, at the same time we're still reducing the deficit by a couple of trillion dollars, we are cutting out wasteful spending in areas like Medicare, we're changing procurement practices when it comes to the Pentagon budget, we are looking at social service programs and education programs that don't work and eliminate them.
12. But it is going to be an impossible task for us to balance our budget if we're not taking on rising health care costs, and it's going to be an impossible task to balance our budget or even approximate it if we are not boosting our growth rates. And that's why our budget focuses on the investments we need to make that happen.
13. Look, I'm not going to lie to you. It is tough. As I said, that's why the critics tend to criticize, but they don't offer an alternative budget. Because even if we were not doing health care, we were not doing energy, we were not doing education, they'd still have a whole bunch of problems in those out-years, according to CBO projections. The only difference is that we will not have invested in what's necessary to make this economy grow.
14. And so what we've said is, look, let's invest in health information technologies.
15. Let's invest in preventive care.
16. Let's invest in mechanisms that look at who's doing a better job controlling costs while producing good quality outcomes in various states and let's reimburse on the basis of improved quality, as opposed to simply how many procedures you're doing. Let's do a whole host of things, some of which cost money on the front end, but offer the prospect of reducing costs on the back end.
17. Now, the alternative is to stand pat and to simply say, "We are just going to not invest in health care."
18. And that's why the recovery package said, as a first priority, how are we going to save or create 3.5 million jobs? How can we prevent layoffs for teachers and police officers? How can we make sure that we are investing in the infrastructure for the future that can put people back to work right away?
Viewer Comments
The following comments are posted by our readers and are not necessarily the opinions of either CNSNews.com or the story’s author. To be considered for publication, comments must adhere to the Terms of Use for posting to this Web site. Thank you.
Showing 1-7 of 7 Comments Newer to Older Older to Newer Loading...
DissentFromDayOneDOTcom at 06:04 PM - March 25, 2009
We learned in Sales 101 to ALWAYS refer to the expense of the sale as an "investment" to the suck...er...customer. Let's roll.
richb at 05:02 PM - March 25, 2009
Sorry Obama, government spending isn't an investment. It shows how little you know about economics. This is money that will not be invested or spent by the persons that earned it to begin with. This pork will make this recession live longer then it would have.
ontime at 04:34 PM - March 25, 2009
The word investment in the financial world implies return on your money, this imbecile who is challenged in many ways is not quite clear on the concept, he thinks that using taxpayers money is a way of growing the government who produces nothing more than a higher tax rate, that is called a loss and according to the IRS, your investment cannot operate on a continual loss....You know for once I agree with the IRS that it is impractical to keep pouring your money down a rat hole.
traditionusa at 03:28 PM - March 25, 2009
Lies, and not that clever, that are misleading a large swath of the populace that lack common sense. We already pay taxes to provide government services. They are too high as it is. The solution is to stop squandering taxpayer's money on inefficiency and waste, not spend ever more. Then use the taxes you ALREADY GET to do your job. This is a disguised government power grab and successful ploy to RUIN our country. You do not "invest" with debt; rather, debt leads to BANKRUPTCY. Why is it, taxpayers, that you carefully manage (in most cases) your money and look for value in products and services, but happily fling tons of cash at a bloated bureaucracy?
CTC123 at 03:06 PM - March 25, 2009
Consider the Connection to: Wise-use It's not how much we spend, It's how much we save by making wise 'investments'. Please Google Search: CTC123GREEN
NoParty at 03:05 PM - March 25, 2009
Obama knows the value of words, he crafts the thrust of his agenda in more acceptable verbiage. He thinks we are less likely to complain if he says "Invest" rather than "spend". Manipulation isn't a word he will use, but it is what he is doing.
Yeeeech at 02:15 PM - March 25, 2009
The black hole of USA negative equity, just made light years larger ....Obama talked about Bush's 1.3 Trillion dollar deficit, but he will make it TEN times (10X) larger. He is a propogandist and a prevaricator, and he is hell bent on creating the Great Socialist Society. The market reacted to his "Press Conference" and Geithner's comments on global security at 2:07PM 3-25-09 by tanking, again. The world (EU Conference) has rejected his financial programs. China is doing exactly the opposite of the USA...they cut taxes! Business hates his proposals. But this man is so self-involved and so set on pursuing his vision of himself and his "greatness" that he walks rough-shod and suprememly arrogant, practicing bad financial policies,stomping all over the American masses. We are screwed.
Poverty in Our Cities.
THANK JIM HANKINS FOR THIS ENLIGHTING ITEM. SEND US YOUR OPINION OR ARTICLES OF INTEREST. oad@alaska.net
Interesting....... Poverty in Our Cities.
City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level
1. Detroit , MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH 27.0%
5. Miami , FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis , MO 26.8%
7. El Paso , TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1%
10. Newark , NJ 24.2%
U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007
What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?
Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati , OH (3rd)...since 1984;
Cleveland , OH (4th)...since 1989;
Miami , FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis , MO (6th)....since 1949;
El Paso , TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee , WI (8th)...since 1908;
Philadelphia , PA (9th)...since 1952;
Newark , NJ (10th)...since 1907.
Einstein once said, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'
It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats---yet they are still ...................
POOR
"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred... You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln
Interesting....... Poverty in Our Cities.
City, State, % of People Below the Poverty Level
1. Detroit , MI 32.5%
2. Buffalo , NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH 27.0%
5. Miami , FL 26.9%
5. St. Louis , MO 26.8%
7. El Paso , TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1%
10. Newark , NJ 24.2%
U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, August 2007
What do the top ten cities (over 250,000) with the highest poverty rate all have in common?
Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati , OH (3rd)...since 1984;
Cleveland , OH (4th)...since 1989;
Miami , FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis , MO (6th)....since 1949;
El Paso , TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee , WI (8th)...since 1908;
Philadelphia , PA (9th)...since 1952;
Newark , NJ (10th)...since 1907.
Einstein once said, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'
It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats---yet they are still ...................
POOR
"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred... You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan
Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan
Tom Philpott | March 19, 2009
Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan; More Showdowns Loom
President Obama won style points from veterans' service organizations this week even as he was forced, under heavy fire, to withdraw his plan to have the Department of Veterans Affairs bill veterans' health insurance for the cost to VA of treating service-connected medical conditions.
"The issue should never have come up [and] he got a black eye out of it," said David W. Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans Wednesday. "But we came out…very, very pleased that he had recognized the issue, he has listened to us, and he has taken heed of our advice."
More disputes are likely between a White House struggling to impose new restraints on federal spending, and advocates for military members and veterans who have borne the brunt of two long and difficult wars.
When the president's full budget request for 2010 is released in late April, the battleground shifts to Capitol Hill and fights are expected over several personnel issues including future military pay raises. Obama also might follow the lead of his predecessor, and listen to his top military adviser, by seeking higher TRICARE fees for working-age military retirees.
This week, however, the cost-savings target was veterans' insurance. Obama's plan drew stiff bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill and gave Republicans a wedge to try to separate Obama from veterans despite his surprising budget plan to raise overall VA spending next year by 15 percent.
Even comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, poked fun at Obama's insurance idea, suggesting the administration next might want to sell to corporate naming rights for different military medals.
Watch the clip on Military.com.
On Monday, feeling the heat, Obama took the unprecedented step of hosting a White House meeting with leaders of 11 veterans groups who had sent the president a letter Feb. 27, calling his third-party insurance collection plan for service-related conditions "wholly unacceptable."
"I cannot remember -- and I've been doing [veterans' advocacy work] for 35 years -- any sitting president ever inviting us over and sitting down with us to talk about a policy-related issue," Gorman said. "So we were very grateful for that. It showed us a lot."
Obama explained that insurance companies collect premiums for veterans' coverage but get a break when veterans use VA for service-related conditions. He then asked VSO leaders for their views, and got an earful.
"Everybody was opposed to the idea for a lot of reasons," said Gorman. "The fundamental one was that the foreign policy of the United States sent us war. These are the disabilities we've incurred. It's the federal government's moral and legal obligation to take care of them, not Blue Cross and Blue Shield."
Obama indicated he wouldn't go forward without VSO support. But when he and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki left to visit with employees at VA headquarters, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, asked the VSOs to go back and consider ways to reduce VA costs enough to fill a $540 million hole that would be left in the budget if the president pulled his proposal.
The VSO met two days later with Emanuel and told him that they all agreed it was not their job to find savings for the VA.
"He was disappointed," said Gorman, who served as spokesman for the group at that meeting. "But I told him we would be more than happy, in fact, would relish the idea of coming back and talking about issues and ideas before they become a policy, a practice or a recommendation in the budget."
That afternoon, when VSO leaders met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic colleagues, she told them Obama was withdrawing his proposal. The leaders gave the news a standing ovation.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama had wanted to "maximize the resources available for veterans" but deferred to concerns raised by the VSOs that his plan could affect families' access to health care.
Glen Gardner, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the episode showed Obama got bum advice but that he "is willing to sit down and talk about issues. That has to be good for the veteran."
At the Pelosi meeting, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, noted that Obama's budget proposes ending the ban on concurrent receipt for more disabled retirees -- those with fewer than 20 years service. He warned that the cost will make it very difficult to find money for other new programs, or to block TRICARE fee increases if they are proposed in the president's budget.
The administration will seek a 2.9 military pay raise for next January, enough to match wage growth in the private sector. If Congress agrees to the raise, it will end at 10 a string of annual raises set at least a half percent above private sector wage growth. Personnel chiefs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps told a House hearing that 2.9 percent is big enough.
Check out the proposed 2010 pay charts.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Norb Ryan, Jr., president of the Military Officers Association of America, disagrees. He said Monday that the string of bigger raises for the military should continue for five or six more years until a pay gap with the private sector, estimated at 2.9 percent, is fully closed.
"With the 6th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, with uniformed leaders saying we've got another decade of persistent conflict ahead of us, why would you abandon such a successful, responsible, measured way of going after a goal [of pay comparability] and stop on the 20-yard line," Ryan said.
He also warned against TRICARE fee increases, which Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, endorsed in our interview in January.
MOAA and other service associations support legislation that would block the Secretary of Defense from raising TRICARE fees in any year by more than the percentage increase in the January pay raise.
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: militaryupdate.com.
Tom Philpott | March 19, 2009
Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan; More Showdowns Loom
President Obama won style points from veterans' service organizations this week even as he was forced, under heavy fire, to withdraw his plan to have the Department of Veterans Affairs bill veterans' health insurance for the cost to VA of treating service-connected medical conditions.
"The issue should never have come up [and] he got a black eye out of it," said David W. Gorman, executive director of Disabled American Veterans Wednesday. "But we came out…very, very pleased that he had recognized the issue, he has listened to us, and he has taken heed of our advice."
More disputes are likely between a White House struggling to impose new restraints on federal spending, and advocates for military members and veterans who have borne the brunt of two long and difficult wars.
When the president's full budget request for 2010 is released in late April, the battleground shifts to Capitol Hill and fights are expected over several personnel issues including future military pay raises. Obama also might follow the lead of his predecessor, and listen to his top military adviser, by seeking higher TRICARE fees for working-age military retirees.
This week, however, the cost-savings target was veterans' insurance. Obama's plan drew stiff bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill and gave Republicans a wedge to try to separate Obama from veterans despite his surprising budget plan to raise overall VA spending next year by 15 percent.
Even comedian Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, poked fun at Obama's insurance idea, suggesting the administration next might want to sell to corporate naming rights for different military medals.
Watch the clip on Military.com.
On Monday, feeling the heat, Obama took the unprecedented step of hosting a White House meeting with leaders of 11 veterans groups who had sent the president a letter Feb. 27, calling his third-party insurance collection plan for service-related conditions "wholly unacceptable."
"I cannot remember -- and I've been doing [veterans' advocacy work] for 35 years -- any sitting president ever inviting us over and sitting down with us to talk about a policy-related issue," Gorman said. "So we were very grateful for that. It showed us a lot."
Obama explained that insurance companies collect premiums for veterans' coverage but get a break when veterans use VA for service-related conditions. He then asked VSO leaders for their views, and got an earful.
"Everybody was opposed to the idea for a lot of reasons," said Gorman. "The fundamental one was that the foreign policy of the United States sent us war. These are the disabilities we've incurred. It's the federal government's moral and legal obligation to take care of them, not Blue Cross and Blue Shield."
Obama indicated he wouldn't go forward without VSO support. But when he and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki left to visit with employees at VA headquarters, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, asked the VSOs to go back and consider ways to reduce VA costs enough to fill a $540 million hole that would be left in the budget if the president pulled his proposal.
The VSO met two days later with Emanuel and told him that they all agreed it was not their job to find savings for the VA.
"He was disappointed," said Gorman, who served as spokesman for the group at that meeting. "But I told him we would be more than happy, in fact, would relish the idea of coming back and talking about issues and ideas before they become a policy, a practice or a recommendation in the budget."
That afternoon, when VSO leaders met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic colleagues, she told them Obama was withdrawing his proposal. The leaders gave the news a standing ovation.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama had wanted to "maximize the resources available for veterans" but deferred to concerns raised by the VSOs that his plan could affect families' access to health care.
Glen Gardner, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the episode showed Obama got bum advice but that he "is willing to sit down and talk about issues. That has to be good for the veteran."
At the Pelosi meeting, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, noted that Obama's budget proposes ending the ban on concurrent receipt for more disabled retirees -- those with fewer than 20 years service. He warned that the cost will make it very difficult to find money for other new programs, or to block TRICARE fee increases if they are proposed in the president's budget.
The administration will seek a 2.9 military pay raise for next January, enough to match wage growth in the private sector. If Congress agrees to the raise, it will end at 10 a string of annual raises set at least a half percent above private sector wage growth. Personnel chiefs for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps told a House hearing that 2.9 percent is big enough.
Check out the proposed 2010 pay charts.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Norb Ryan, Jr., president of the Military Officers Association of America, disagrees. He said Monday that the string of bigger raises for the military should continue for five or six more years until a pay gap with the private sector, estimated at 2.9 percent, is fully closed.
"With the 6th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, with uniformed leaders saying we've got another decade of persistent conflict ahead of us, why would you abandon such a successful, responsible, measured way of going after a goal [of pay comparability] and stop on the 20-yard line," Ryan said.
He also warned against TRICARE fee increases, which Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, endorsed in our interview in January.
MOAA and other service associations support legislation that would block the Secretary of Defense from raising TRICARE fees in any year by more than the percentage increase in the January pay raise.
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: militaryupdate.com.
Monday, March 23, 2009
EDITORIAL Just a thought or two.
EDITORIAL, Just a thought or two.
I have no idea why the DAILY NEWS would be on my mind, it is strictly a Democrat paper, any way I bought one along with my morning coffee. Now understand I did not to choose a place to start reading, the paper seemed to open to the obituary page.
No notice caught my eye but my inner mind brought a reflection of the similarities of the page of deaths and their causes and to the current condition of my once prosperous and caring country, it is in near death condition and the choice of remedies available and offered as a possible cure are worse than the disease.
There were those whose demise was listed as heart failure or heart attack. Sort of like what the nation is struggling with. The heart of the country, financial entities like Federal Banks, Credit Unions, Brokerage Firms, and Real Estate, falling failing to keep it’s trust with the folks who had invested in them. Failed and that is to say in truth, bankrupt!
This first mess seems to have come by way of the failure of the HEART of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to continue the practice of lending based on credit worthiness and not on the urging of LOW LIFE UNKNOWING SENATOR AND CONGRESSMEN, namely (POS) Sen. DODD and (POS # 2) Congressman FRANK. By throwing away credibility facts many borrowers purchased homes they could not sustain in close times and therefore the two FM’s were stuck with the balance of the loan and often time with the mortgaged property not worth the value of the loan. Remember though, this came because political powers (among them DODDS and FRANK) pressured the lending agencies to relax credit and issue the substandard loans, THEY did it but WE will have to pay.
Another cause of listed death in the obits was stroke. Sort of like what has happened to the Automobile Industry. The stroke of having to pay as much per hour in health benefits as it pays in labor, plus the employee often gets paid often for not working. Now, That’s a deal you can't believe anybody could make!
They never have the part in the obit about "the operation was a success however the patient died" so when this failure came about with the brokerage houses and other real estate entities it was notice that the trauma of fixes was taking over and the patient was subject to last rites.
One brokerage firm buying one failing most often results in the death of both. If not, then WE get to participate by throwing OUR FUTURE into it and THEN fail, IT is a disaster waiting to happen and no one is watching the morgue.
This administration at best is a crying shame that should be done away with and replaced with those that are honest and trustworthy. The DODDS, FRANKS, OBAMAS, DINGLE(DANGLE AND STINK),RANGLE,PELOSI, KERRYS, ETAL, should go away and NEVER EVER be allowed to govern anything but the garage door remote. This bunch is far worse than Carter and the Clintons combined. Exile is too good for them.
Think of it this way, get rid of all these currently in office and put them out on the street and then they will truly be what they are, strabenhure.
I have no idea why the DAILY NEWS would be on my mind, it is strictly a Democrat paper, any way I bought one along with my morning coffee. Now understand I did not to choose a place to start reading, the paper seemed to open to the obituary page.
No notice caught my eye but my inner mind brought a reflection of the similarities of the page of deaths and their causes and to the current condition of my once prosperous and caring country, it is in near death condition and the choice of remedies available and offered as a possible cure are worse than the disease.
There were those whose demise was listed as heart failure or heart attack. Sort of like what the nation is struggling with. The heart of the country, financial entities like Federal Banks, Credit Unions, Brokerage Firms, and Real Estate, falling failing to keep it’s trust with the folks who had invested in them. Failed and that is to say in truth, bankrupt!
This first mess seems to have come by way of the failure of the HEART of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to continue the practice of lending based on credit worthiness and not on the urging of LOW LIFE UNKNOWING SENATOR AND CONGRESSMEN, namely (POS) Sen. DODD and (POS # 2) Congressman FRANK. By throwing away credibility facts many borrowers purchased homes they could not sustain in close times and therefore the two FM’s were stuck with the balance of the loan and often time with the mortgaged property not worth the value of the loan. Remember though, this came because political powers (among them DODDS and FRANK) pressured the lending agencies to relax credit and issue the substandard loans, THEY did it but WE will have to pay.
Another cause of listed death in the obits was stroke. Sort of like what has happened to the Automobile Industry. The stroke of having to pay as much per hour in health benefits as it pays in labor, plus the employee often gets paid often for not working. Now, That’s a deal you can't believe anybody could make!
They never have the part in the obit about "the operation was a success however the patient died" so when this failure came about with the brokerage houses and other real estate entities it was notice that the trauma of fixes was taking over and the patient was subject to last rites.
One brokerage firm buying one failing most often results in the death of both. If not, then WE get to participate by throwing OUR FUTURE into it and THEN fail, IT is a disaster waiting to happen and no one is watching the morgue.
This administration at best is a crying shame that should be done away with and replaced with those that are honest and trustworthy. The DODDS, FRANKS, OBAMAS, DINGLE(DANGLE AND STINK),RANGLE,PELOSI, KERRYS, ETAL, should go away and NEVER EVER be allowed to govern anything but the garage door remote. This bunch is far worse than Carter and the Clintons combined. Exile is too good for them.
Think of it this way, get rid of all these currently in office and put them out on the street and then they will truly be what they are, strabenhure.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Obama, Insensitive wag.
Obama, Insensitive wag.
Appearing on "The Tonight Show," the president told host Jay Leno he'd been practicing at the White House's bowling alley but wasn't happy with his score of 129. The he rolled a gutter ball by quipping: "It was like the Special Olympics or something."
The audience laughed, but the White House quickly recognized the blunder.
On his way back to Washington on Air Force One, Obama called the chairman of the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver, to say he was sorry _ even before the taped program aired late Thursday night.
"He expressed his disappointed and he apologized in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population," Shriver said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America." Obama, Shriver said, wants to have some Special Olympic athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.
Still, Shriver said, "I think it's important to see that words hurt and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seem as humiliating or a put down to people with special needs do cause pain and they do result in stereotypes."
Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters traveling with Obama that the president's offhand remark was not meant to disparage the Special Olympics, only to poke some fun at the commander-in-chief's bowling skills.
"He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world," Burton said.
Despite making fun of his score, the president appears to be getting better the more he visits the White House lanes, which President Truman installed in 1947. During a campaign photo op a year ago at a bowling alley in Altoona, Pa., he rolled only a 37 in seven frames. The clip of the disastrous game was replayed on late night television shows such as Leno's _ one of Obama's few campaign gaffes.
Appearing on "The Tonight Show," the president told host Jay Leno he'd been practicing at the White House's bowling alley but wasn't happy with his score of 129. The he rolled a gutter ball by quipping: "It was like the Special Olympics or something."
The audience laughed, but the White House quickly recognized the blunder.
On his way back to Washington on Air Force One, Obama called the chairman of the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver, to say he was sorry _ even before the taped program aired late Thursday night.
"He expressed his disappointed and he apologized in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population," Shriver said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America." Obama, Shriver said, wants to have some Special Olympic athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.
Still, Shriver said, "I think it's important to see that words hurt and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seem as humiliating or a put down to people with special needs do cause pain and they do result in stereotypes."
Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters traveling with Obama that the president's offhand remark was not meant to disparage the Special Olympics, only to poke some fun at the commander-in-chief's bowling skills.
"He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world," Burton said.
Despite making fun of his score, the president appears to be getting better the more he visits the White House lanes, which President Truman installed in 1947. During a campaign photo op a year ago at a bowling alley in Altoona, Pa., he rolled only a 37 in seven frames. The clip of the disastrous game was replayed on late night television shows such as Leno's _ one of Obama's few campaign gaffes.
CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self
AFTER READING THIS ARTICLE, I AM SURE YOU WILL WONDER THE SAME AS I, "WHO THE HELL IS MINDING THE STORE". NOT BECAUSE OF THE CURRENT USE OF SEXUAL PROUSS TO GATHER INFORMATION BUT IF IT AIM'T RIGHT NOW THEN WHO WAS MINDING THE SHOP BEFORE NOW.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
By Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 20, 2009; Page A01
As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years.
This Story
Latest CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self
His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter.
Six weeks after the allegations came to light, Warren has been formally notified by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta of his impending dismissal, according to U.S. government officials familiar with the case. But the episode -- one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year -- has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior.
The CIA says that these problems involve a tiny fraction of its workforce, and that those found to have breached rules are punished or fired. But former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce -- the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 -- that prides itself on secrecy and deception.
"You have an organization of professional liars," said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency's European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably "some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it's a system that can be taken advantage of."
The allegations against Warren drew an angry blast from the Senate panel that oversees the CIA. "The alleged activities are completely unacceptable," committee leaders Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in a joint statement last month. Feinstein also criticized the CIA for what she said was not promptly informing Congress about the case, given its potential to damage U.S. relations with Algeria.
Repeated attempts in recent weeks to contact Warren through relatives were unsuccessful.
The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA's former No. 3 officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago. Court documents released in recent weeks depict Foggo as bullying the office of the agency's general counsel into giving a job to his mistress, whose subsequent performance reviews were subpar.
Last month, agency officials confirmed the firing of Steve Levan, a 16-year veteran who pleaded guilty to misusing CIA credit cards. Levan, an analyst, worked at the agency's headquarters for the No. 2 official, Stephen R. Kappes. As part of his plea agreement, Levan acknowledged obtaining credit card numbers assigned to undercover operatives and using them to run up bills surpassing $115,000. Much of the money was spent on hotel rooms and gifts for a mistress, according to two agency officials familiar with the case. He is awaiting sentencing this spring.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Levan's attorney, declined to comment on the case. In a pre-sentencing motion filed last week, Nachmanoff said the judge should consider his client's strong record of service for the CIA -- a record the agency had declined to release, he said.
But the most damaging revelations involved Warren, an Arabic speaker and Middle East specialist who was on a rapid ascent after CIA postings in Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. He most recently served as Algiers station chief. But the State Department ordered him home in October after two Algerian nationals alleged that he assaulted them in separate incidents at his apartment.
The women told State Department investigators that Warren assaulted them after giving them drug-laced drinks that made them pass out. State referred the matter to the Justice Department, where an investigation is ongoing. Warren has not been charged.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
While looking into the allegations, U.S. officials discovered in Warren's apartment more than two dozen video recordings that he apparently made of his sexual encounters, according to news accounts and two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation. One of the women behind the rape allegations appears in one of the videos, the officials said.
This Story
Latest CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self
Current and former agency officials say that Warren and Levan were considered competent professionals with stellar work records, qualities that perhaps explain why their alleged misdeeds would have gone undetected.
"The fact of the matter is that the thousands of people who work at CIA are exceptionally dedicated, and cases of impropriety are extremely rare," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. When there are such cases, he said, the CIA "looks into the allegations, follows up on them and cooperates fully with law enforcement authorities."
Several colleagues of Warren's, though, spoke of warning signs that might have alerted the CIA sooner. Some who worked with him over several years said they were particularly concerned about the frequency of Warren's use of strip clubs and other sex-related establishments for recruiting. The former officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not allow them to discuss their CIA work publicly, said they were not surprised by the assault allegations.
As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say. But for Warren, "it was a lifestyle thing," costing the agency thousands of dollars, said one former co-worker who describes himself as a friend. The bills were routinely paid, he said.
"As long as you were doing good work, it was okay," he said.
A John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures -- including the CIA inspector general's office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations -- that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.
"You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn't mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty," Radsan said. "It is a built-in contradiction."
The agency's internal management practices were also called into question last month during court proceedings for Foggo, who served as the top CIA administrator from November 2004 to May 2006.
A lengthy prosecution memo, made public over the objections of Foggo's attorneys, listed a series of ethical alarms that did not prevent his reaching the agency's highest ranks. Two personnel reports in 1989, for example, noted that Foggo "takes a very liberal and self-serving position regarding the interpretation of Agency rules and regulations" and warned that "he is likely to remain a potential threat to security through his poor judgment."
In a court filing last month, Foggo's attorneys said that their client has "committed his life to public service" and that his dedication and skills justified his promotions. They declined to comment further yesterday.
"Foggo was never a truly honest public servant" during his 24 years in the CIA, three prosecutors wrote in their memo to a federal judge in Alexandria shortly before Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison for corrupting the agency's contracts. "He spent years defrauding the country."
When Foggo manipulated agency contracts in 2003 and 2005, his colleagues and subordinates did not act on their suspicions of wrongdoing, the prosecutors said. Instead, they demonstrated a persistent reluctance to challenge authority that seems at odds with the climate of dissent and debate that the agency says it encourages.
After a former colleague of Foggo's who had become his mistress was turned down for a job in the general counsel's office, Foggo, who was the CIA's executive director, called an associate general counsel into his office and "grew increasingly loud in tone and condescending," according to a memo the counsel placed in her files. "[S]peaking in the third person, [Foggo] said, among other things, that when the EXDIR has an interest in a candidate for employment that I had better respect the EXDIR's interest."
The mistress was subsequently hired after an accelerated security check, because her paperwork was tagged "ExDir interest." When her failure to perform required duties provoked her supervisor's complaints, Foggo arranged for the supervisor -- a 20-year veteran who had won many performance awards -- to be ousted and moved to the Defense Department. The supervisor alleged in a court affidavit that her ouster was retaliatory.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
By Joby Warrick and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 20, 2009; Page A01
As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years.
This Story
Latest CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self
His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter.
Six weeks after the allegations came to light, Warren has been formally notified by CIA Director Leon E. Panetta of his impending dismissal, according to U.S. government officials familiar with the case. But the episode -- one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year -- has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior.
The CIA says that these problems involve a tiny fraction of its workforce, and that those found to have breached rules are punished or fired. But former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce -- the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 -- that prides itself on secrecy and deception.
"You have an organization of professional liars," said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency's European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably "some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it's a system that can be taken advantage of."
The allegations against Warren drew an angry blast from the Senate panel that oversees the CIA. "The alleged activities are completely unacceptable," committee leaders Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in a joint statement last month. Feinstein also criticized the CIA for what she said was not promptly informing Congress about the case, given its potential to damage U.S. relations with Algeria.
Repeated attempts in recent weeks to contact Warren through relatives were unsuccessful.
The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA's former No. 3 officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago. Court documents released in recent weeks depict Foggo as bullying the office of the agency's general counsel into giving a job to his mistress, whose subsequent performance reviews were subpar.
Last month, agency officials confirmed the firing of Steve Levan, a 16-year veteran who pleaded guilty to misusing CIA credit cards. Levan, an analyst, worked at the agency's headquarters for the No. 2 official, Stephen R. Kappes. As part of his plea agreement, Levan acknowledged obtaining credit card numbers assigned to undercover operatives and using them to run up bills surpassing $115,000. Much of the money was spent on hotel rooms and gifts for a mistress, according to two agency officials familiar with the case. He is awaiting sentencing this spring.
Michael S. Nachmanoff, Levan's attorney, declined to comment on the case. In a pre-sentencing motion filed last week, Nachmanoff said the judge should consider his client's strong record of service for the CIA -- a record the agency had declined to release, he said.
But the most damaging revelations involved Warren, an Arabic speaker and Middle East specialist who was on a rapid ascent after CIA postings in Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. He most recently served as Algiers station chief. But the State Department ordered him home in October after two Algerian nationals alleged that he assaulted them in separate incidents at his apartment.
The women told State Department investigators that Warren assaulted them after giving them drug-laced drinks that made them pass out. State referred the matter to the Justice Department, where an investigation is ongoing. Warren has not been charged.
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
While looking into the allegations, U.S. officials discovered in Warren's apartment more than two dozen video recordings that he apparently made of his sexual encounters, according to news accounts and two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation. One of the women behind the rape allegations appears in one of the videos, the officials said.
This Story
Latest CIA Scandal Puts Focus on How Agency Polices Self
Current and former agency officials say that Warren and Levan were considered competent professionals with stellar work records, qualities that perhaps explain why their alleged misdeeds would have gone undetected.
"The fact of the matter is that the thousands of people who work at CIA are exceptionally dedicated, and cases of impropriety are extremely rare," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said. When there are such cases, he said, the CIA "looks into the allegations, follows up on them and cooperates fully with law enforcement authorities."
Several colleagues of Warren's, though, spoke of warning signs that might have alerted the CIA sooner. Some who worked with him over several years said they were particularly concerned about the frequency of Warren's use of strip clubs and other sex-related establishments for recruiting. The former officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the agency does not allow them to discuss their CIA work publicly, said they were not surprised by the assault allegations.
As CIA case officers attempt to recruit a foreign spy, they often offer personal inducements, ranging from cash to medical care. In some cases, a potential recruit may be taken to a strip club or even to a prostitute if it is deemed critical to cementing the relationship, longtime officers say. But for Warren, "it was a lifestyle thing," costing the agency thousands of dollars, said one former co-worker who describes himself as a friend. The bills were routinely paid, he said.
"As long as you were doing good work, it was okay," he said.
A John Radsan, a former CIA assistant general counsel, said there are internal guidelines and structures -- including the CIA inspector general's office and a separate review board that oversees clandestine operations -- that are intended to guard against scandal. In reality, he said, it is a self-regulating system with few incentives for reporting bad behavior.
"You want a culture that values innovation and creativity and doesn't mind violating the laws of other countries, but at the same time, you want a culture of compliance and honesty," Radsan said. "It is a built-in contradiction."
The agency's internal management practices were also called into question last month during court proceedings for Foggo, who served as the top CIA administrator from November 2004 to May 2006.
A lengthy prosecution memo, made public over the objections of Foggo's attorneys, listed a series of ethical alarms that did not prevent his reaching the agency's highest ranks. Two personnel reports in 1989, for example, noted that Foggo "takes a very liberal and self-serving position regarding the interpretation of Agency rules and regulations" and warned that "he is likely to remain a potential threat to security through his poor judgment."
In a court filing last month, Foggo's attorneys said that their client has "committed his life to public service" and that his dedication and skills justified his promotions. They declined to comment further yesterday.
"Foggo was never a truly honest public servant" during his 24 years in the CIA, three prosecutors wrote in their memo to a federal judge in Alexandria shortly before Foggo was sentenced to 37 months in prison for corrupting the agency's contracts. "He spent years defrauding the country."
When Foggo manipulated agency contracts in 2003 and 2005, his colleagues and subordinates did not act on their suspicions of wrongdoing, the prosecutors said. Instead, they demonstrated a persistent reluctance to challenge authority that seems at odds with the climate of dissent and debate that the agency says it encourages.
After a former colleague of Foggo's who had become his mistress was turned down for a job in the general counsel's office, Foggo, who was the CIA's executive director, called an associate general counsel into his office and "grew increasingly loud in tone and condescending," according to a memo the counsel placed in her files. "[S]peaking in the third person, [Foggo] said, among other things, that when the EXDIR has an interest in a candidate for employment that I had better respect the EXDIR's interest."
The mistress was subsequently hired after an accelerated security check, because her paperwork was tagged "ExDir interest." When her failure to perform required duties provoked her supervisor's complaints, Foggo arranged for the supervisor -- a 20-year veteran who had won many performance awards -- to be ousted and moved to the Defense Department. The supervisor alleged in a court affidavit that her ouster was retaliatory.
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
'One man with courage makes a majority.'
- Andrew Jackson
'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
'The buck stops here.'
- Harry S. Truman
'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.'
- John F. Kennedy
And for today's Democrats....
'It depends what your definition of 'IS' is?''
- Bill Clinton
'That Obama - I would like to cut his NUTS off.'
- Jesse Jackson
'Those rumors are false ...... I believe in the sanctity of marriage.'
- John Edwards
'I invented the Internet'
- Al Gore
'The next person that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads up their ASS.'
- Joe Biden
' America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh what it was once was...uh, and I say to myself, 'uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh for my children.'
- Barack Obama
'I have campaigned in all 57 states.
- Barack Obama
'You don't need God anymore, you have us democrats.'
- Nancy Pelosi (said back in 2006)
'Paying taxes is voluntary.'
- Sen. Harry Reid
'Bill is the greatest husband and father I know. No one is more faithful, true, and honest than he..'
- Hillary Clinton (said back in 1998)
HOW LUCKY CAN WE BE TO HAVE SUCH BRILLIANT MINDS IN CHARGE OF OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY!!! "IN GOD WE TRUST "
'One man with courage makes a majority.'
- Andrew Jackson
'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.'
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
'The buck stops here.'
- Harry S. Truman
'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.'
- John F. Kennedy
And for today's Democrats....
'It depends what your definition of 'IS' is?''
- Bill Clinton
'That Obama - I would like to cut his NUTS off.'
- Jesse Jackson
'Those rumors are false ...... I believe in the sanctity of marriage.'
- John Edwards
'I invented the Internet'
- Al Gore
'The next person that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads up their ASS.'
- Joe Biden
' America is--is no longer, uh, what it--it, uh, could be, uh what it was once was...uh, and I say to myself, 'uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh for my children.'
- Barack Obama
'I have campaigned in all 57 states.
- Barack Obama
'You don't need God anymore, you have us democrats.'
- Nancy Pelosi (said back in 2006)
'Paying taxes is voluntary.'
- Sen. Harry Reid
'Bill is the greatest husband and father I know. No one is more faithful, true, and honest than he..'
- Hillary Clinton (said back in 1998)
HOW LUCKY CAN WE BE TO HAVE SUCH BRILLIANT MINDS IN CHARGE OF OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY!!! "IN GOD WE TRUST "
Obama Signs Deal for Post-Presidency Book
Obama Signs Deal for Post-Presidency Book
Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:18 AM
President Barack Obama already has a job lined up after his presidency: writing another book.
The best-selling author reached a new book deal a few weeks before his inauguration. A financial disclosure report released this week shows Obama amended his agreement with Crown Publishing Group to deliver a new nonfiction book after he leaves office.
Obama also approved an abridged version of his book, "Dreams From My Father," suitable for middle-school or young adult readers. The publisher is giving him a $500,000 advance for that. Obama didn't say how much his deal for the new nonfiction book might be worth.
Obama received nearly $2.5 million in book royalties last year.
The deal was first reported by The Washington Times.
Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:18 AM
President Barack Obama already has a job lined up after his presidency: writing another book.
The best-selling author reached a new book deal a few weeks before his inauguration. A financial disclosure report released this week shows Obama amended his agreement with Crown Publishing Group to deliver a new nonfiction book after he leaves office.
Obama also approved an abridged version of his book, "Dreams From My Father," suitable for middle-school or young adult readers. The publisher is giving him a $500,000 advance for that. Obama didn't say how much his deal for the new nonfiction book might be worth.
Obama received nearly $2.5 million in book royalties last year.
The deal was first reported by The Washington Times.
Dodd Admits Role in AIG Bonus Scandal
Dodd Admits Role in AIG Bonus Scandal
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:33 PM
WASHINGTON -- For a while, the disappearance of an executive bonus restriction from last month's economic stimulus looked like sleight of hand worthy of a Las Vegas stage. No one could explain how the provision faded into thin air. On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., acknowledged that his staff agreed to dilute the executive pay provision that would have applied retroactively to recipients of federal aid.
Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told CNN that the request came from Obama administration officials whom he did not identify.
The provision was the subject of new attention this week because, had it survived, it would have prevented the American International Group Inc. from granting $165 million in bonuses to employees of its financial products division.
While the House and Senate reconciled their different stimulus bills last month, the Treasury Department expressed concern with a Senate restriction on bonuses, noting that if it applied to existing compensation contracts it could face a legal challenge.
"The alternative was losing, in my view, the entire section on executive excessive compensation," Dodd told CNN. "Given a choice, this is not an uncommon occurrence here, I agreed to a modification in the legislation, reluctantly."
An administration official said Treasury made Dodd's staff aware of the potential for litigation but did not demand that the provision be removed from the final bill. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter in public.
The legislation does include a provision that allows Treasury to examine past compensation payments to determine if they were "contrary to the public interest." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said he was using that provision to determine whether the government could somehow recoup the AIG bonuses.
Over the years, Dodd has been the top recipient of campaign contributions from AIG employees. During 2007-2008, when he ran for president, he received nearly $104,000 from AIG employees and their families, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that monitors money in politics.
In a statement, his office said Dodd only became aware of the AIG bonuses in the past few days. "To suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Sen. Dodd's action is categorically false," Dodd spokeswoman Kate Szostak said.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:33 PM
WASHINGTON -- For a while, the disappearance of an executive bonus restriction from last month's economic stimulus looked like sleight of hand worthy of a Las Vegas stage. No one could explain how the provision faded into thin air. On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., acknowledged that his staff agreed to dilute the executive pay provision that would have applied retroactively to recipients of federal aid.
Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told CNN that the request came from Obama administration officials whom he did not identify.
The provision was the subject of new attention this week because, had it survived, it would have prevented the American International Group Inc. from granting $165 million in bonuses to employees of its financial products division.
While the House and Senate reconciled their different stimulus bills last month, the Treasury Department expressed concern with a Senate restriction on bonuses, noting that if it applied to existing compensation contracts it could face a legal challenge.
"The alternative was losing, in my view, the entire section on executive excessive compensation," Dodd told CNN. "Given a choice, this is not an uncommon occurrence here, I agreed to a modification in the legislation, reluctantly."
An administration official said Treasury made Dodd's staff aware of the potential for litigation but did not demand that the provision be removed from the final bill. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter in public.
The legislation does include a provision that allows Treasury to examine past compensation payments to determine if they were "contrary to the public interest." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said he was using that provision to determine whether the government could somehow recoup the AIG bonuses.
Over the years, Dodd has been the top recipient of campaign contributions from AIG employees. During 2007-2008, when he ran for president, he received nearly $104,000 from AIG employees and their families, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that monitors money in politics.
In a statement, his office said Dodd only became aware of the AIG bonuses in the past few days. "To suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Sen. Dodd's action is categorically false," Dodd spokeswoman Kate Szostak said.
SAY "NO" TO 'Employee Free Choice Act'
What would you say if Congress was about to pass just ONE LAW that would PERMANENTLY force YOU to fund the radical left-wing Obama-Pelosi agenda?
And, what if we told you that the same law would force the rationing of your paycheck to fund such an agenda?
Well, such a proposal exists and is being debated in Congress at this very moment. It is deceptively being called the Employee Free Choice Act - more commonly known as ”Card Check."
If you thought “Card Check” was simply a liberal payoff to Big Labor, think again.
In actuality, “Card Check” represents a greater threat to your freedoms than even the so-called Fairness Doctrine (which would silence Rush and conservative thoughts and opinions on the airwaves)!
If you want to know the details... if you want to know HOW “Card Check” is a threat to YOUR bottom line and your family’s way of life... then READ ON.
If you want to know EXACTLY how “Card Check” WILL FORCE YOU TO FUND THE RADICAL FAR-LEFT OBAMA-PELOSI AGENDA... then READ ON!
But for now, know that it is imperative that we STOP this freedom-crushing, job-killing legislation dead in its tracks. We must STOP it NOW!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
How Will Card Check Force YOU To Fund The Agenda Of The Far-Left?
The Heritage Foundation explains how the system presently works and how “Card Check” will tip the balance.
"For more than 60 years, American workers have decided whether to form a union with a private vote... neither management nor union organizers know how each individual worker voted. The secret ballot lets workers vote their conscience without risking job loss or physical assault for making the 'wrong' choice... . The EFCA would make it easier for union officials to pressure workers. Under the card-check process, union organizers would publicly solicit signatures on union authorization cards... Without secret ballots, union organizers know exactly who has signed union cards and who has not. In the past, union organizers have repeatedly approached and pressured-and, in some cases, threatened-reluctant workers. They have also used pro-union co-workers to solicit signatures, putting peer pressure on 'holdouts' to change their minds."
So what's the big deal?
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains just why such a change is a radical threat to your bottom line:
"Under Card Check, union organizers and their enforcers will be able to go into any small business, hospital or construction site and coerce workers into signing cards. If they get 50 percent plus one, the deal's done, and the workers are forced into a union. And if management and the new union fail to reach a negotiated contract, the federal government will just impose one. Coerced unionization allows for what is effectively a new, unaccountable form of forced taxation. Workers will have a portion of their paycheck going to the union to be spent as the bosses see fit, including political donations to parties and candidates that the workers may not even support." [Emphasis Mine]
Let's put that in more personal terms.
Let's say that union organizers come into YOUR workplace and through coercion or peer-pressure - or even physical intimidation - "convince" a simple majority of your co-workers to form a union.
At that point you only have two choices. You either join the union or face job termination. You can't opt-out!
And once you "join" the union, you are FORCED to pay union dues. Again, you cannot opt-out. You have no choice in the matter, and the union dues will come directly out of each and every paycheck you receive!
Not only will you have no choice but to have those union dues taken out of your paycheck every week, you will have little or no say in how those dues are spent!
How your hard-earned money gets spent will be up to the whims of union bosses. And make no mistake, your hard-earned money – this new-found windfall that the union will ration from your paychecks – will go, in large part, to fund advocacy for the very left-wing causes that you find repugnant.
But that's not all. When the union tells you to strike... you strike... no unemployment benefits... just a meager strike fund that does not even come close to paying the bills...
… during such a strike, you can’t go to work until a union boss tells you it is okay – NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTS!
Perhaps that's why, according to polls cited by Gingrich, "77 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents" oppose doing away with the secret balloting provisions that “Card Check” would ERADICATE!
But it gets worse. If the union bosses and the company management can't reach an agreement about your job, then bureaucrats in the Obama Administration would then FORCE an agreement on both parties.
In other words, government bureaucrats would be empowered to determine all aspects of your job – even down to the compensation you make, regardless of any agreement you and your employer come to.
Heritage again:
"Section 3 of EFCA gives government officials the power to impose contracts on workers and firms. Government bureaucrats would set compensation and make most major business decisions at newly unionized companies. The bureaucrats writing these proposals would have no expertise in the company's operations or business model and would be unaccountable if their decisions drove the company into bankruptcy. Workers would lose all say over working conditions. EFCA would effectively create government-run workplaces."
To put it another way - and let's speak plainly here - if your boss doesn't knuckle-under to union demands, then some Obama appointee will simply step in and FORCE the union demands onto your employer!
That's essentially FASCISM!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
Will Unions Really Coerce You Into Joining The Union?
Heritage has a few things to say on the matter:
"During a card-check campaign at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, union organizers threatened that workers who did not sign union cards would lose their jobs when the union was recognized. In 2002, a long-time organizer for the United Steelworkers felt compelled to quit his job after 'a senior Steelworkers union official asked me to threaten migrant workers by telling them they would be reported to federal immigration officials if they refused to sign check-off cards.'"
And the above is not an isolated incident. Heritage cites yet another example:
"Hotel workers in Los Angeles, for example, had to seek an injunction against union organizers after groups of eight to ten of them harassed employees on their homes' porches late at night. A labor lawyer explained what happened to Trico Marine employees during another card-check drive... . Some employees, when solicited at their homes by union representatives, said, 'No,' to signing a card; yet, they reported repeated, frequent home visits by union representatives continuing to try to secure their signatures, and they complained to the company of this harassment. After 8 visits, one vessel officer in southern Louisiana had an arrest warrant issued against a union organizer.... Employees volunteered that they signed cards just to stop the pressure and harassment."
Of course, overt threats are not always necessary. Union officials are well-versed in psychological tactics that can be employed to deceive your co-workers into signing cards.
Heritage yet again:
"One former union organizer described the process in congressional testimony: They [organizers] are trained to perform a five-part house call strategy that includes: Introductions, Listening, Agitation, Union Solution, and Commitment. The goal of the organizer is to quickly establish a trust relationship with the worker, move from talking about what their job entails to what they would like to change about their job, agitate them by insisting that management won't fix their workplace problems without a union and finally convincing the worker to sign a card…."
"Typically, if a worker signed a card, it had nothing to do with whether a worker was satisfied with the job or felt they were treated fairly by his or her boss.… [I]f someone told me that she was perfectly contented at work, enjoyed her job and liked her boss, I would look around her house and ask questions based on what I noticed: 'wow, I bet on your salary, you'll never be able to get your house remodeled,' or, 'so does the company pay for day care?' These were questions to which I knew the answer and could use to make her feel that she was cheated by her boss. Five minutes earlier she had just told me that she was feeling good about her work situation.
"We rarely showed workers what an actual union contract looked like because we knew that it wouldn't necessarily reflect what a worker would want to see. We were trained to avoid topics such as dues increases, strike histories, etc. and to constantly move the worker back to what the organizer identified as his or her "issues" during the first part of the house call."
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
And Yes, Card Check Is A Job-Killer... 600,000 Jobs (Or More) To Be Precise!
Senator John Thune had this to say:
"Not only does Card Check strip workers of their fundamental rights and allow government bureaucrats to dictate workplace wages and benefits, it will kill jobs as small businesses struggle to meet union demands. With the country in an economic crisis and working families struggling to pay their bills, Congress owes it to the American people to focus on creating jobs and growing the economy rather than paying back liberal special interests. Trading away the right and protection of a private vote in exchange for coercion is simply not the American way."
Thune goes on to say:
"A study recently released by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan LECG Consulting Group, concluded that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs in just the first year after enactment of Card Check (as predicted by union leaders) would lead to an initial loss of 600,000 American jobs."
Gingrich cites the same figure:
"That means that an estimated 600,000 jobs could be lost due to Card Check in the first year alone - and that's on top of the over four million jobs already lost to the flagging economy."
Yet, the Obama Administration - along with extreme liberals in Congress like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - want to fast-track “Card Check.”
They'd love to pass it before you are any the wiser.
It's high time that people learn that the well-being of the American people means nothing to those who want power and the advancement of an extreme left-wing agenda. In fact, to them, it would appear that your misery is just sauce for the goose.
Vice President Joe Biden recently told a group of labor leaders:
"You all brought me to the dance a long time ago, and it's time we start dancing."
The stakes are high. We must move quickly!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
Yours In Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
Center for Individual Freedom
113 S. Columbus St., Suite 310
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838
CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with
the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.
Contributions to CFIF are
not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.
Powered by GrassTopsUSA
And, what if we told you that the same law would force the rationing of your paycheck to fund such an agenda?
Well, such a proposal exists and is being debated in Congress at this very moment. It is deceptively being called the Employee Free Choice Act - more commonly known as ”Card Check."
If you thought “Card Check” was simply a liberal payoff to Big Labor, think again.
In actuality, “Card Check” represents a greater threat to your freedoms than even the so-called Fairness Doctrine (which would silence Rush and conservative thoughts and opinions on the airwaves)!
If you want to know the details... if you want to know HOW “Card Check” is a threat to YOUR bottom line and your family’s way of life... then READ ON.
If you want to know EXACTLY how “Card Check” WILL FORCE YOU TO FUND THE RADICAL FAR-LEFT OBAMA-PELOSI AGENDA... then READ ON!
But for now, know that it is imperative that we STOP this freedom-crushing, job-killing legislation dead in its tracks. We must STOP it NOW!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
How Will Card Check Force YOU To Fund The Agenda Of The Far-Left?
The Heritage Foundation explains how the system presently works and how “Card Check” will tip the balance.
"For more than 60 years, American workers have decided whether to form a union with a private vote... neither management nor union organizers know how each individual worker voted. The secret ballot lets workers vote their conscience without risking job loss or physical assault for making the 'wrong' choice... . The EFCA would make it easier for union officials to pressure workers. Under the card-check process, union organizers would publicly solicit signatures on union authorization cards... Without secret ballots, union organizers know exactly who has signed union cards and who has not. In the past, union organizers have repeatedly approached and pressured-and, in some cases, threatened-reluctant workers. They have also used pro-union co-workers to solicit signatures, putting peer pressure on 'holdouts' to change their minds."
So what's the big deal?
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains just why such a change is a radical threat to your bottom line:
"Under Card Check, union organizers and their enforcers will be able to go into any small business, hospital or construction site and coerce workers into signing cards. If they get 50 percent plus one, the deal's done, and the workers are forced into a union. And if management and the new union fail to reach a negotiated contract, the federal government will just impose one. Coerced unionization allows for what is effectively a new, unaccountable form of forced taxation. Workers will have a portion of their paycheck going to the union to be spent as the bosses see fit, including political donations to parties and candidates that the workers may not even support." [Emphasis Mine]
Let's put that in more personal terms.
Let's say that union organizers come into YOUR workplace and through coercion or peer-pressure - or even physical intimidation - "convince" a simple majority of your co-workers to form a union.
At that point you only have two choices. You either join the union or face job termination. You can't opt-out!
And once you "join" the union, you are FORCED to pay union dues. Again, you cannot opt-out. You have no choice in the matter, and the union dues will come directly out of each and every paycheck you receive!
Not only will you have no choice but to have those union dues taken out of your paycheck every week, you will have little or no say in how those dues are spent!
How your hard-earned money gets spent will be up to the whims of union bosses. And make no mistake, your hard-earned money – this new-found windfall that the union will ration from your paychecks – will go, in large part, to fund advocacy for the very left-wing causes that you find repugnant.
But that's not all. When the union tells you to strike... you strike... no unemployment benefits... just a meager strike fund that does not even come close to paying the bills...
… during such a strike, you can’t go to work until a union boss tells you it is okay – NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTS!
Perhaps that's why, according to polls cited by Gingrich, "77 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents" oppose doing away with the secret balloting provisions that “Card Check” would ERADICATE!
But it gets worse. If the union bosses and the company management can't reach an agreement about your job, then bureaucrats in the Obama Administration would then FORCE an agreement on both parties.
In other words, government bureaucrats would be empowered to determine all aspects of your job – even down to the compensation you make, regardless of any agreement you and your employer come to.
Heritage again:
"Section 3 of EFCA gives government officials the power to impose contracts on workers and firms. Government bureaucrats would set compensation and make most major business decisions at newly unionized companies. The bureaucrats writing these proposals would have no expertise in the company's operations or business model and would be unaccountable if their decisions drove the company into bankruptcy. Workers would lose all say over working conditions. EFCA would effectively create government-run workplaces."
To put it another way - and let's speak plainly here - if your boss doesn't knuckle-under to union demands, then some Obama appointee will simply step in and FORCE the union demands onto your employer!
That's essentially FASCISM!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
Will Unions Really Coerce You Into Joining The Union?
Heritage has a few things to say on the matter:
"During a card-check campaign at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, union organizers threatened that workers who did not sign union cards would lose their jobs when the union was recognized. In 2002, a long-time organizer for the United Steelworkers felt compelled to quit his job after 'a senior Steelworkers union official asked me to threaten migrant workers by telling them they would be reported to federal immigration officials if they refused to sign check-off cards.'"
And the above is not an isolated incident. Heritage cites yet another example:
"Hotel workers in Los Angeles, for example, had to seek an injunction against union organizers after groups of eight to ten of them harassed employees on their homes' porches late at night. A labor lawyer explained what happened to Trico Marine employees during another card-check drive... . Some employees, when solicited at their homes by union representatives, said, 'No,' to signing a card; yet, they reported repeated, frequent home visits by union representatives continuing to try to secure their signatures, and they complained to the company of this harassment. After 8 visits, one vessel officer in southern Louisiana had an arrest warrant issued against a union organizer.... Employees volunteered that they signed cards just to stop the pressure and harassment."
Of course, overt threats are not always necessary. Union officials are well-versed in psychological tactics that can be employed to deceive your co-workers into signing cards.
Heritage yet again:
"One former union organizer described the process in congressional testimony: They [organizers] are trained to perform a five-part house call strategy that includes: Introductions, Listening, Agitation, Union Solution, and Commitment. The goal of the organizer is to quickly establish a trust relationship with the worker, move from talking about what their job entails to what they would like to change about their job, agitate them by insisting that management won't fix their workplace problems without a union and finally convincing the worker to sign a card…."
"Typically, if a worker signed a card, it had nothing to do with whether a worker was satisfied with the job or felt they were treated fairly by his or her boss.… [I]f someone told me that she was perfectly contented at work, enjoyed her job and liked her boss, I would look around her house and ask questions based on what I noticed: 'wow, I bet on your salary, you'll never be able to get your house remodeled,' or, 'so does the company pay for day care?' These were questions to which I knew the answer and could use to make her feel that she was cheated by her boss. Five minutes earlier she had just told me that she was feeling good about her work situation.
"We rarely showed workers what an actual union contract looked like because we knew that it wouldn't necessarily reflect what a worker would want to see. We were trained to avoid topics such as dues increases, strike histories, etc. and to constantly move the worker back to what the organizer identified as his or her "issues" during the first part of the house call."
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
And Yes, Card Check Is A Job-Killer... 600,000 Jobs (Or More) To Be Precise!
Senator John Thune had this to say:
"Not only does Card Check strip workers of their fundamental rights and allow government bureaucrats to dictate workplace wages and benefits, it will kill jobs as small businesses struggle to meet union demands. With the country in an economic crisis and working families struggling to pay their bills, Congress owes it to the American people to focus on creating jobs and growing the economy rather than paying back liberal special interests. Trading away the right and protection of a private vote in exchange for coercion is simply not the American way."
Thune goes on to say:
"A study recently released by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan LECG Consulting Group, concluded that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs in just the first year after enactment of Card Check (as predicted by union leaders) would lead to an initial loss of 600,000 American jobs."
Gingrich cites the same figure:
"That means that an estimated 600,000 jobs could be lost due to Card Check in the first year alone - and that's on top of the over four million jobs already lost to the flagging economy."
Yet, the Obama Administration - along with extreme liberals in Congress like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - want to fast-track “Card Check.”
They'd love to pass it before you are any the wiser.
It's high time that people learn that the well-being of the American people means nothing to those who want power and the advancement of an extreme left-wing agenda. In fact, to them, it would appear that your misery is just sauce for the goose.
Vice President Joe Biden recently told a group of labor leaders:
"You all brought me to the dance a long time ago, and it's time we start dancing."
The stakes are high. We must move quickly!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html
AOL Members May Use This Hyperlink
If the hyperlinks above do not work, copy and paste http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/nocardcheck.html into the address bar of your browser.
Yours In Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
Center for Individual Freedom
113 S. Columbus St., Suite 310
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838
CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with
the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.
Contributions to CFIF are
not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.
Powered by GrassTopsUSA
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