Hello:

I'm not really happy with him.. There's a LOT he could be doing and SHOULD be doing. I'd really like to discuss that. But, instead of THAT conversation, I find that I have to defend him against all the STUPID crap the righty's invent, like birth certificates, and communism..

If you want to talk about his REAL failures, and NOT him being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, post.

excon

Well obviously he was a muslim born someplace else but you never going to know cause the boy has done it well risen through the ranks which is what that place is all about, well some people think so anyway

Hello clete:

Next!

excon

So you watched the speech.


They'll talk about government assistance for the poor, despite the fact that they've already cut early education for vulnerable kids, they've already cut insurance for people who've lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Or they'll bring up Obamacare — this is tried and true — despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery, when there was no Obamacare. That's what we've been fighting for, but with an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball. And I am here to say this needs to stop. This needs to stop.

What's really beginning to disturb me most is he doesn't take any of this stuff seriously. And neither do you. But anyway, instead of us talking about his faulres, how about talking up his successes?

Hello Steve:

What's really beginning to disturb me most is he doesn't take any of this stuff seriously. And neither do you.Couple things..

I wasn't being facetious when I said that if my president is a crook, I want to know about it.. If my government is corrupt, I want to know about it.. But, you're right. I'm not disturbed by unfounded allegations for which there is NO proof.

I AM disturbed about a LACK of a Middle East policy. I AM disturbed about unemployment. I AM disturbed about broken bridges and crumbling infrastructure. I AM disturbed about the widening disparity between the middle class and the rich. I AM disturbed about the power of the banks. I AM disturbed about a congress who wants to SHUT down government instead of make it work.

Finally, I'm disturbed about Obama's INABILITY to get anything through congress. Yes, the Republicans are intransigents. But, I BELIEVE Obama could have broken through. I don't think he knew HOW to do it. Maybe if he had spent more time in the Senate.

But, if you tell me that he didn't kill Bin Laden, and he DID kill our ambassador in Ben Ghazi, I'll holler NEXT to you too.

Excon

with an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals

Here is the emperor May 15

"I've reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog's report, and the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable," he said. "It's inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives. And as I said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you're from -- the fact of the matter is, is that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity. The government generally has to conduct itself in a way that is true to the public trust. That's especially true for the IRS."

Hello tom:

Next!

excon

Granting Holder executive privilege over Fast and Furious, in which people died and are still dying, should piqué your curiosity. Sending out his minions with known false talking points, then standing before the UN two weeks later with those same false talking points, should make you suspicious. The IRS admitting the unlawful targeting of certain groups should pi$$ you off no matter how high it goes. But none of this is evidence of anything that demands answers?

Anyway, you're right, he hasn't had many successes.

See what I mean... I think he is doing all these community organizing speeches about the economy to distract from the fact that he is running an incompetent and corrupt Presidency. I heard his address yesterday ,with all his blame shifting and I said... aint nothing there... NEXT

Hello again, Steve:

But none of this is evidence of anything that demands answers?You're right. It's NOT evidence.. It's right wingers flapping their gums.

Next!

Excon

Granting Holder executive privilege over Fast and Furious, in which people died and are still dying, should pique your curiosity. Sending out his minions with known false talking points, then standing before the UN two weeks later with those same false talking points, should make you suspicious. The IRS admitting the unlawful targeting of certain groups should pi$$ you off no matter how high it goes. But none of this is evidence of anything that demands answers?

Anyway, you're right, he hasn't had many successes.

Speaking of the Holder Justice Dept... he made a speech in Philly yesterday where he basically tells SCOTUS to stuff it .Even though SCOTUS found preclearance for voting changes unconstitutional ;he is planning on forcing Texas and other states to still comply with the provision of the Voting Rights Act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/holder-wants-texas-to-clear-voting-changes-with-the-us.html?_r=0

The emperor is running a rogue regime.

As I said, you aren't taking it seriously. The only reason is it isn't a Republican president.

Hello again, tom:
The emperor is running a rogue regime.Nahhh.. You didn't read the important parts..

Even as Congress considers updates to the Voting Rights Act in light of the court’s ruling, we plan, in the meantime, to fully utilize the law’s remaining sections to subject states to preclearance as necessary. My colleagues and I are determined to use every tool at our disposal to stand against such discrimination wherever it is found.Ain't nothing rogue about enforcing the law. Say goodby to the rush to suppress the vote, I mean voter ID.

When I spoke about Obama not DOING anything, THIS is something he DOING, and it's the RIGHT thing.

Excon

Ain't nothing rogue about enforcing the law.
SCOTUS said preapproval was unconstitutional . Holder is ignoring it . He like the emperor have become laws unto themselves. This isn't the 1st time they've picked and chose which laws they'd enforce.. or not .

Hello again, Steve:

As I said, you aren't taking it seriously. The only reason is it isn't a Republican president.I don't know how many times you want me to say it, but the ONLY reason is there's no PROOF. It's not difficult.

Excon

Hello again, Steve:
I dunno how many times you want me to say it, but the ONLY reason is there's no PROOF. It's not difficult.

excon

I get it, you lefties want to convict a guy who was found innocent at trial and exonerate a president before the investigation is even complete.

The emperor... a legend in his own mind...

"It's interesting, in the run-up to this speech, a lot of reporters say that, well, Mr. President, these are all good ideas, but some of you've said before; some of them sound great, but you can't get those through Congress. Republicans won't agree with you,"
Reporters like Chris Matthews ?
He said Repubics agree with him too but are afraid to say so. What he should tell them is 'hurry up and pass them so you can find out what's in them' .

If you hadn't heard (and you should have because it is the official White House response now), Obama 4.0 called these scandals ex doesn't want to talk about "phony" in his big speech the other day.

One mother disagrees...


Mother of slain Benghazi victim Sean Smith: ‘My son is dead. How could that be phony?’ (http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/25/mother-of-slain-benghazi-victim-sean-smith-my-son-is-dead-how-could-that-be-phony/#ixzz2aAkO6utn)

The mother of a Benghazi victim is furious about the new White House strategy of calling the terrorist attack and many other scandals plaguing the Obama administration “fake” or “phony.”

Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was slain in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack, lashed out on “Your World” on the Fox News Channel about that terminology.

President Obama has never revealed what, if anything, he was doing while workers at the Benghazi embassy were urgently requesting support, nor has the administration explained why no forces were sent to protect the embassy. The administration also denied the attack was a terrorist incident, claiming it was a spontaneous protest against an obscure YouTube trailer for a film that may or may not exist.

“I don’t believe him anymore,” Smith said. “He’s wrong. My son is dead. How could that be phony?”

According to Smith, she has been given no answers about what happened that night. She said the administration told her she “didn’t need to know.”

“When I was there at the ceremony of the welcoming of the caskets, both Obama and Hillary and Biden and all of the other ones, all promised me they would get back to me to tell me what happened,” Smith said. “I begged them. Please, I must know what happened with my son. How come this happened? They all promised me they would get back to me. You know, not one of them, not one of them ever got back to me in any way shape or form — not by a letter, not by anything other than I got a memo stating that I didn’t need to know because I was not part of the immediate family.”

Smith made one last plea to the Obama administration explaining her desire for answers.

“How can I tell you?” Smith added. “I mean, it is wrong. It is not phony. It is not fake. My son is dead, and why is he dead? All I am waiting for even to this day is just someone to get back to me and tell me what happened. Why did Hillary do as she did? Why was there no security there when there was supposed to be? Who was the general that called back the troops when they were going to help?”

It's easy Ms. Smith, what's phony here is the administration, from the top down.

Justice for Sean Smith!! Justice for Ambassador Chris Stevens!! Justice for Glen Doherty!! Justice for Tyrone S. Woods!! No justice No peace!!

It's easy Ms. Smith, what's phony here is the administration, from the top down.
Why weren't these scandals?

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al-Qaida attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of “Bali Bombings.” No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al-Qaida terrorists storm the diplomatic compound killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaida terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name “David Foy.” This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what’s considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar” storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had been married for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

Did the adm try to blame the attack on a Youtube video ? Did the adm try to cover up the circumstances ? Did the administration make the survivors swear to secrecy ? Were those attacks sustained attacks over a 9 hr period where 3 of the dead could've been rescued ? Was an American ambassador targeted and killed ?

That would be a no, no, no, no and another no.

More Obama 4.0...


Uh Ho: Obama Says Vietnamese Dictator Inspired by Founding Fathers (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/26/uh-ho-obama-says-vietnamese-dictator-inspired-by-founding-fathers/#ixzz2aBhsSbFR)

“...we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

-- President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.

All righty then.

Ok, as far as failures goes and something he has the power to do something about is the economy. What I find most confusing is how he talks the talk of raising the middle class but at the same time tightens the noose of government regulation and becomes anti industry to those that could grow our economy. Many middle class workers come from the coal fields yet he seeks to shut them down. It appears that when something is truly successful he wants to knock it down. But if its something he "believes" in then its all hands on deck. He keeps picking failures in his job creation scheme.

Will the economy bounce back. Yeah it will on its own through natural forces. The difference is he can either nurture those forces or choose to inhibit them. If he could just learn to talk to you rather then at you it would be a big help. We need to turn this country around but we can't so long as everything that works is demonic and everything that doesn't is manna from heaven.

More Obama 4.0...


Quote:
Uh Ho: Obama Says Vietnamese Dictator Inspired by Founding Fathers

“... we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

-- President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.

All righty then.

That's what some historic narratives say .It's a bit more complex than that. Ho was a nationalist ;and that is the only similarity between him and the founders. He saw the US as an ally with a common enemy... Japan. The US supplied weapons to Ho's faction and Ho assumed that the quid pro quo would be that the US would back their nationalist movement (Viet Minh)after WWII . Ho moved quickly after the war to consolidate his control of the country . He forced the Emperor Bao Dai to abdicate and he declared the formation of the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Of course he cited the Declaration of Independence in his proclamation. But the government he was setting up was dominated by Communists. He then sought recognition by the Truman Adm.
Truman was faced with the option of either backing Ho and his communist dominated Republic ;or the French colonial claims. The Truman adm at the time was in the beginning phases of creating the 'containment policy' .So Truman backed the French claims.
Ho in the meantime felt betrayed . He could not turn to China for assistance as China was a traditional enemy of Vietnam. So he turned to Moscow instead.
So my take is that in some ways Ho did admire the founders struggle against the colonial Brits. However ,his ideas of liberty did not extend further than that. Communist Vietnam post war turned pretty much into the dystopia that Marxist states fall into.
Recently they have begun to achieve some economic prosperity. But human rights there are what you would expect in a communist state.

Re: Ho comments. If I recall even the source article acknowledges he may be technically correct, but what was he thinking linking Jefferson with a brutal regime? That may play well at Berkeley but I doubt the American public in general think that's the chic thing to say.

Re: the economy. "You didn't build that".

What the emperor was REALLY saying was that Ho had more respect for the founders and the government they set up than the emperor does.

Now it makes sense.

Obama 4.0, just like Obama 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0, is touting his most recent pivot to jobs in Chattanooga, TN today. The home town paper had a message before his arrival...


Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/take-your-jobs-plan-and-shove-it-mr-president-your/?opinionfreepress)

President Obama,

Welcome to Chattanooga, one of hundreds of cities throughout this great nation struggling to succeed in spite of your foolish policies that limit job creation, stifle economic growth and suffocate the entrepreneurial spirit.

Forgive us if you are not greeted with the same level of Southern hospitality that our area usually bestows on its distinguished guests. You see, we understand you are in town to share your umpteenth different job creation plan during your time in office. If it works as well as your other job creation programs, then thanks, but no thanks. We’d prefer you keep it to yourself.

That’s because your jobs creation plans so far have included a ridiculous government spending spree and punitive tax increase on job creators that were passed, as well as a minimum wage increase that, thankfully, was not. Economists — and regular folks with a basic understanding of math — understand that these are three of the most damaging policies imaginable when a country is mired in unemployment and starving for job growth.

Even though 64 percent of Chattanooga respondents said they would rather you hadn’t chosen to visit our fair city, according to a survey on the Times Free Press website, it’s probably good that you’re here. It will give you an opportunity to see the failure of your most comprehensive jobs plan to date, the disastrous stimulus scheme, up close and personal.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 helped fund the Gig to Nowhere project, a $552 million socialist-style experiment in government-owned Internet, cable and phone services orchestrated by EPB — Chattanooga’s government-owned electric monopoly.

• • •

The Gig to Nowhere is a Smart Grid, a high tech local electricity infrastructure intended to improve energy efficiency and reduce power outages. After lobbying for, and receiving, $111.6 million in stimulus money from your administration, EPB decided to build a souped-up version of the Smart Grid with fiber optics rather than more cost-effective wireless technology. This decision was supposed to allow EPB to provide the fastest Internet service in the Western Hemisphere, a gigabit-per-second Internet speed that would send tech companies and web entrepreneurs stampeding to Chattanooga in droves.

In reality, though, the gig, like most of the projects funded by your stimulus plan, has been an absolute bust.

While the Smart Grid will cost taxpayers and local electric customers well over a half-billion dollars when all is said and done, there has been little improvement in the quality of EPB’s electric service. Worse, despite being heavily subsidized, EPB’s government-owned Internet, cable and telephone outfit that competes head-to-head against private companies like AT&T and Comcast is barely staying afloat, often relying on loans from electric service reserve funds to afford its business expenses.

Further, there has been no credible evidence to suggest that EPB can even provide a gig of service consistently and reliably. Any companies hoping to utilize the Gig to Nowhere are quoted monthly billing costs that make the service unfeasible. As a result, Chattanooga has remained a relative ghost town for technological innovation. Almost no economic development whatsoever has resulted from the gig.

• • •

What the gig has brought, however, is that shocking price tag. Because of your unwillingness to balance the budget, Mr. President, the $111.6 million federal handout to subsidize the Gig to Nowhere will actually cost federal taxpayers $158.2 million, due to interest. Once EPB received the stimulus infusion to fund the pork project, the electric monopoly took out a $219.8 bond that will balloon to $391.3 million by the time Chattanoogans are done paying it off.

The bond’s first payment comes due this fall and there remain significant questions about how EPB can manage to pay the debt without hiking electric rates on EPB customers.

Building a Smart Grid to get into a telecom sector already well-served by private companies was a bad idea from the start. But getting government involved in places it doesn’t belong is a hallmark of your administration. As a result, you and your policymakers were happy to fund the Gig to Nowhere.

You claimed that the Smart Grid would create jobs for Chattanooga. But in reality, all it did was push America deeper in debt and lure a local government agency into making a terrible financial decision that will weigh on Chattanoogans like a millstone for decades to come.

So excuse us, Mr. President, for our lack of enthusiasm for your new jobs program. Here in Chattanooga we’re still reeling from your old one.


I love Chattanooga.

Welcome, Mr. President: GOP ads, obstructionism are shameful | timesfreepress.com (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/welcome-mr-president-gop-ads-obstructionism-are-sh/?opiniontimes)


ust when we think Republicans can sink no lower, they surprise us with a deep dive.

They run a misleading ad on TV to welcome President Barack Obama to Chattanooga and Tennessee, and then claim the new jobs at VW and Amazon are here “in spite” of “liberal policies” and are here “thanks to Republican leadership.”

Hardly. But then honesty and accuracy have not been recent Republican virtues.

Tennessee Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, who is a Republican, were key in the successful recruitment of both Volkswagen and Amazon to Chattanooga.

And then there’s also the Gig City infrastructure, as well as Chattanooga’s smart and money-saving streetlights — all largely made possible by Obama’s stimulus package, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Pretty much no Republicans voted for the stimulus, by the way.

Tennessee Democratic Party spokesman Brandon Puttbrese called the GOP effort to rain on Obama’s Chattanooga visit “phony.”

“The real record of [current GOP Gov.] Bill Haslam and the Republican majority is soaring unemployment, falling workers’ wages and multimillion-dollar state contracts for old business partners and well-connected cronies,” he said. “I doubt the millions of Tennesseans who work multiple jobs and still struggle to get by are impressed by this phony attempt to sell Republicans’ failed top-down agenda.”

The reality is simple and indisputable: Getting VW and Amazon here required officials of both parties — all parties — to work together.

A better future for Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and the rest of the country still depends on that, but it’s not happening now. The GOP is in total shutdown mode except to engage in juvenile name-calling and obstructionism.

Now all we hear are pathetically bad reenactments of the worst cat-fight reality shows ever filmed as our politicians send fake postcards and make trumped-up and misleading ads to bash the nation’s leader no matter what the facts really show.

Here's the rest

In the meantime, sequestration is robbing Tennessee:

• $25.5 million in funding has been lost for education — about 340 teachers and aide jobs.

• $2.2 million in environmental funding was lost and is not ensuring clean water and air quality.

• $1.2 million in grants were lost for fish and wildlife protection.

• $681,000 in funding was lost for job search assistance.

• $2.3 million in public health money is gone.

• $1.9 million was cut for Tennessee army base civilian work, forcing 7,000 civilian employees to take furloughs.

• $1 million was lost that once provided meals for seniors.

• Child care for 800 children was lost, and Head Start services for another 1,200 children is gone.

Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina have all faced similar cuts — as have states all across the country.

But the pain and cruelty apparently isn’t over if the GOP’s most rabid talkers have their way. Some Republican lawmakers are threatening a government shutdown unless “Obamacare” is defunded.

Fortunately at least one GOP senator from Tennessee has a better head on his shoulders: Republican Sen. Bob Corker said GOP senators are meeting with White House aides to “deal with our fiscal issues in more intelligent ways than now exist.”

The president is in Chattanooga today to tell us there is hope with compromise and real leadership: Chattanooga proves it, with new jobs and new initiatives that make us attractive to still more new employers.

President Obama is in Chattanooga today because we’re a city that can find ways to compromise and come out ahead.

Sen. Corker knows this. Let’s hope he can prevail on others in Congress to be leaders, not just actors in childish games.

There is no indication that I see on who wrote that column, it could have been anyone. Mine is signed, — The Free Press

Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough | timesfreepress.com (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/take-your-jobs-plan-and-shove-it-mr-president-your/?opinionfreepress)

The sequester, is that still happening? I though we had so little to say about it, it had become a non-event

The sequester, is that still happening? I though we had so little to say about it, it had become a non-event

It is a non-event in spite of the scare monger in chief's bleating.

Well someone doesn't think so, it must be hurting someone

If it was then there would be daily reports by the compliant press. As it is ,the biggest impact has been the White House closed to school tours. Of course that doesn't stop the emperor from hosting celebrity events . He's preparing for his post-Presidency by training to become the next Ryan Seacrest .

the biggest impact has been the White House closed to school tours. Apparently not.

Even conservative republicans can see that no WH tours are the least of their problems. But they still get shouted down by the Squeal and Repeal crowd, who aren't listening to their own neighbors.

We will see who votes to shut down the government when they go home amid the growing number of workers demanding raises. Call them names like you have been doing but those lazy greedy poor people will vote against anyone who ain't working for them.

Go ahead shut the government down and defund Obama Care. I dare you.

Even conservative republicans can see that no WH tours are the least of their problems. But they still get shouted down by the Squeal and Repeal crowd, who aren't listening to their own neighbors.

We will see who votes to shut down the government when they go home amid the growing number of workers demanding raises. Call them names like you have been doing but those lazy greedy poor people will vote against anyone who ain't working for them.

Go ahead shut the government down and defund Obama Care. I dare you.

And when we all become Detroit, what then?

You have already said the country was broke and there ain't no money. Europe said it, Asia said it, and China is saying it. See if Clete has a spare room for you.

And when we all become Detroit, what then?

You mean to say you haven't already been there?

Things are booming in my neck of the woods and not a single Obama recovery sign in town.

Go ahead shut the government down and defund Obama Care. I dare you.
I'm in... and no chicken little... the sky won't fall when the gvt shuts down.

The new EPA chief has spoken (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-new-epa-head-gina-mccarthy-vows-to-act-on-climate-change/2013/07/30/dea868e0-f86b-11e2-8e84-c56731a202fb_story.html)...


The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency told an audience at Harvard Law School on Tuesday that cutting carbon pollution will “feed the economic agenda of this country” and vowed to work with industry leaders on shaping policies aimed at curbing global warming.

“Climate change will not be resolved overnight,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the 310-member audience. “But it will be engaged over the next three years. That I can promise you.”

McCarthy made a full-throated defense of her agency’s right to address greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants, saying that air-quality regulations and environmental cleanup efforts have already produced economic benefits in the United States.

“Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs, please?” she asked, prompting loud applause. “We need to embrace cutting-edge technology as a way to spark business innovation.”

“EPA cannot dictate solutions,” McCarthy said. “We have to engage.”

Might I suggest that "the economic agenda of this country" is in actuality much different than the Obama/progressive economic agenda, which is what she really means. The country is waiting for the government to get out of the way and let the private sector do its thing. We've already had years of a phony recovery, doubling down on the same is not going to magically make the economy explode.

And no, we will not stop talking about how environmental regulations kill jobs. We already know hundreds of workers will be losing their jobs shortly thanks to war on coal Obama isn't waging in his effort to make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket."

And finally, dictating is exactly what the EPA is doing (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/30/study-epa-flexing-muscle-over-states/).

For once I just wish this administration would quit lying to us.

And now you know why the Senate Repubics stalled the nomination. Although everyone suspected that she'd be a carbon tax nut job ;there was no way to find out for sure because she and others in the EPA communicated through unauthorized text and Email addresses.

Hello again, tom:

Although everyone suspected that she'd be a carbon tax nut job ;I don't know.. To me, people who believe that throwing your garbage into the air is just fine and dandy, are the true nut jobs.. But, that's just me.

Excon

Hello again, tom:
I dunno.. To me, people who believe that throwing your garbage into the air is just fine and dandy, are the true nut jobs.. But, that's just me.

excon

As are those who keep repeating that lie.

As are those who keep repeating that lie.

Its no lie if you live next to a power plant, cement factory, or a recycling plant. What's around you?

Its no lie if you live next to a power plant, cement factory, or a recycling plant.

As usual you're confusing the points. Does pollution exist? Yes. Are we pro-pollution? Uh, no.


What's around you?

A belt.

Hello again, tom:
I dunno.. To me, people who believe that throwing your garbage into the air is just fine and dandy, are the true nut jobs.. But, that's just me.

excon

So tell me how driving up the price of energy for the consumer will fix that ? Answer it won't because carbon tax schemes are a scam of the highest order.

So let's do like Zero and pivot to the economy. July's jobs numbers came in, an anemic 162,000 jobs were added and unemployment fell to 7.4%, still a far cry from the 5% team Obama projected (http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/08/wheres-that-5-unemployment-rate-obama-promised-by-now/) by July 2013 thanks to Porkulus.

I'm guessing you lefties are thrilled by those numbers but let's look deeper.

First of all I'm guessing that a large number of Americans are still leaving the labor force so they can't be called unemployed any more. Secondly, 97 percent of the jobs created this year are part time jobs (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/02/198432/most-2013-job-growth-is-in-part.html#.Uf-1YazOBft).


The July government employment report released Friday showed the job market treading water.

And a closer look at one of the two measures the Labor Department uses to gauge employment suggests that part-time work accounted for almost all the job growth that’s been reported over the past six months.

Employers added a weaker-than-expected 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in July, according to the Establishment Data Survey, which relies on reporting by a large sample of businesses.

The unemployment rate is measured by the separate Household Survey, and it fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 7.4 percent, its lowest level since December 2008. That’s due in part to slow growth in the labor force. The jobless rate is based on a sample of self-reporting from ordinary people across the nation, and it’s the Labor Department measure that shows a very troubling trend in hiring.

“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “That is really remarkable.”

Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs.

“That is a really high number for a six-month period,” Hall said. “I’m not sure that has ever happened over six months before.

I think that's an understatement. Thanks to Obamacare we are becoming a nation of part-timers, but I know you'll blame it on heartless, greedy corporations, blah, blah, blah instead of acknowledging it is a consequence of your policies, followed by a demand for more regulations.

I went through this during Reagan, where he touted the volumes of want ads, and Nixon, who like Reagan added government jobs to lower the white color job numbers. They raised taxes and froze costs and all kinds of strategies. Now those were the days of real scandals and shenanigan.

One of the solutions to all this is full participation by an informed electorate. Or Walmart's paying a living wage and opening a garment factory in the US. I know unions, and cheap labor, blah,blah, but you guys insist America dumb down to the third world to compete and that's absolutely NUTS.

Tal, funny how no matter the fact you resort to the same 3 talking points. Lots of Americans have given up looking for work and 97 percent of new jobs created this year are PART TIME. That's a problem, and forcing Walmart to pay your magical "living wage" is not the solution.

That's a problem for the private sector, and the investor class and as you defend the unborn children, I defend the lives they have after birth. But you would never see what the private sector is doing and even Tom has said the capitalist business model is broken.

Supply side economics has been replaced with hoarding. Seems we should be training and hiring more meat and produce inspectors, not less.

Well, your response was not unexpected, see above.

In a few days, the U.S. State Department undoubtedly will reopen all of the 22 U.S. embassies and posts it closed last weekend across North Africa and the Middle East. In response to intercepted al Qaeda communications discussing a potential attack, the Obama administration shuttered the diplomatic missions, most likely to avoid a repeat of the Benghazi disaster of 2012. The move was widely praised on both sides of the political aisle, and indeed, protecting American lives is the primary responsibility of the U.S. government.

Yet amid the hosannas for the supposedly proactive response by the State Department, raising the drawbridges on nearly two dozen U.S. installations abroad sends a rather different message from simple prudence. It is an unmistakable sign of America's shrinking presence both at home and abroad. The message is broad, but simple: Expect less. Less security. Less economic opportunity. Less capable governance. Less hope. After four and a half years, Barack Obama's “yes, we can” has ushered in an age of reduced expectations.
Liberals will undoubtedly pounce on the lines above, claiming they are typical right-wing hyperbole, conflating necessary security measures abroad with dishonest calumny about conditions at home. Conservatives always claim the sky is falling, they complain, making it impossible to solve problems in a collegial, bipartisan way.

Leaving aside such a profoundly one-sided view of the reasonableness of the current crop of Democratic leaders in Congress (or President Obama himself), and even admitting that, yes, conservatives tend to have more skeptical dispositions, I defy anyone on the left to prove that there is some unrecognized swelling sentiment of optimism pervading America today. Instead, there is a growing perception that things are not getting better, and that the future holds more peril than promise. This is the consistent finding in the “right direction-wrong direction” polls posted by Real Clear Politics: Americans think the country is on the wrong track, and by a 32-point margin, according to the latest poll average.

Our collective psyche is neatly summed up by a mid-19th century Japanese phrase: naiyu gaikan, or “troubles within, dangers without.” Popular in the decades before the fall of the 250-year old Tokugawa shogunate, the phrase summed up the feeling of angst and helplessness at a system that was failing both domestically and in foreign affairs.

Millions of Americans feel exactly this way today, with less and less hope for the future. Call it malaise, call it pessimism: It will affect everything from investment to consumption to volunteerism to foreign policy. This is not to claim that America will totally withdraw from the world or collapse in an economic depression, but there is a grave and growing danger that we will settle for a future of reduced opportunity, less fulfillment, and greater dependence on a clearly dysfunctional government to somehow protect us and provide the chances that we once took for granted in a free-market society.

A country of 320 million people is too complex to reduce to generalities or specifics. America's innovative entrepreneurs, financiers, lawyers and lobbyists are doing ever better, as suggested by anecdotal evidence of top-line real estate prices in New York, California, and Washington, D.C. and headlines about bonuses at firms like Goldman Sachs. The stock market, too, has hit record highs in recent months, making it seem like nothing very serious happened way back in 2008. And the jobs are slowly coming back.

But scratch just under the surface and things don't look nearly so rosy. Americans know that $16 trillion of U.S national debt is a figure that will simply never be reduced or eliminated, and that we are a bankrupt country, despite the fact that we can continue to print money to keep ourselves afloat. They see taxes going up, if not always in Washington, usually at the state or local level. No one quite understands how Obamacare will work, but many will see their premiums rise, and fear that the implementation process will ultimately upend their ability to choose their doctors and medical plans. They see a major city like Detroit declare bankruptcy and know that others, and maybe even states like California or Illinois, are likely not far behind.

Blue-collar America is struggling. Median income has stagnated over the past decade, more for the lower class than the better educated. And there's no end in sight: Some economists say the trend may last into the 2020s, putting paid to many hopes for better housing and education, early retirement, or simply having something left over after monthly mortgages and bills. Talk to young people just starting their careers, and their sense of fragility is overpowering.

But those are fears for those who at least have jobs: The broad U-6 underemployment rate in the United States is estimated to be as high as 14 percent, while more than 4 million Americans have been out of work for over six months and 11.5 million are searching for jobs. Just as disquieting is that the total labor force participation rate is at its lowest in post-World War II history; simply put, Americans are giving up looking for work, and a disproportionate number of them are healthy, working-age males, who used to be the backbone of the labor market.

At the same time, the Pew Research Center calculates that a record 21.6 million young adults aged 18 to 31 are living with their parents, due to college debt, lack of work, low wages, housing prices, and the like. Some of that is due to America's marriage rate, which is at its lowest in a century, according to researchers at Bowling Green State University. That, of course, affects the national birth rate, which also hit record lows in 2011 (and continues to drop for those under 25 years of age). Morbidly, America's suicide rate has jumped, rising 30 percent between 1999 and 2010, but especially among men in their 50s.

None of these statistics is evidence of a healthy society.

So how is any of that connected to America's closing of embassies abroad due to terrorist threats? It is the same sense of shrinking horizons. After a dozen years of warfare, and after the president assures us that our wars in the Middle East are over, we have to bar the doors and windows on our diplomatic residences abroad due to region-wide terror threats. Four years of President Obama's diplomatic outreach to the Muslim world results in the murder of our ambassador in Libya and the murder of other diplomats in Afghanistan. Large swaths of the Islamic world continue to hate Americans, even if it is impolite to say so in D.C.

The old adversaries haven't gone away – far from it. China has developed a military that may not be qualitatively superior to America's, but is by far the most modern opponent we've faced since the fall of the Soviet Union. As it rises, China is growing far more assertive in Asia, threatening U.S. allies and partners over territorial disputes, and refusing to help curb North Korea or Iran's nuclear program. And Beijing evidently had little fear that allowing NSA leaker Edward Snowden to escape to Moscow would have repercussions for its relations with Washington.

Smaller threats also fester and grow. Iran has used the past four years to come within spitting distance of building a nuclear bomb, a move that would profoundly destabilize the Middle East. North Korea continues to rattle its sabers without consequence.

And while all of this is happening, the average American understands that the Obama administration and Congress have found common ground on one thing: the need to dramatically slash America's defense budget, cutting Army troops and Marines, floating the smallest Navy since World War I, and temporarily grounding one-third of the Air Force's entire combat air fleet. The coming cuts are so severe, in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over 10 years (on top of another $400 billion of belt-tightening in Obama's first term) that even the editorial board of the Washington Post warned of the dangers in hollowing out America's ability to defend itself or maintain our power abroad.

The American people understand what is happening. They see that the murder of an American ambassador goes unpunished, and that the White House is far more interested in obfuscating what actually happened in Benghazi than in tracking down anyone responsible. They see an America that refuses to stand up to Chinese cyberattacks or industrial espionage. And they know that we are cutting our military capability while our chief rivals are expanding theirs.

No one thinks that we will collapse tomorrow, or that our military will suddenly be at risk of losing a war against Syria. But ask about America's power abroad in a decade, or a generation, and more serious doubt creeps in. Same for the economy. An America whose military commitments aren't credible is not the bulwark of democracy we know. A country in which wages are stagnant for over a decade is not the same economy that drew millions of immigrants to our shores for centuries.

What people feel down deep in their gut is that life for the foreseeable future will be more uncertain, less stable than what they've known. That hard work may not be enough to ensure their family's future. That government is both increasingly dysfunctional but also their only hope. That enemies still lurk over the oceans and that we may not be strong enough to deal with them. It is a vision of a country shrunken in size and pride, and the feeling of helplessness that most individuals feel against huge, impersonal forces that direct their fate.

Barack Obama once proclaimed the “audacity of hope.” How much more audacious must one now be to have hope for a shrunken country in an age of reduced expectations.

Michael Auslin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @michaelauslin.


Opinion: The age of reduced expectations - Michael Auslin - POLITICO.com (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/the-age-of-reduced-expectations-95337.html#ixzz2beXZd2Gz)

That's about what you would expect from gloom and doom conservatives. Why didn't he just ay the world is full of challenges and there is a lot of work to do?

That's about what you would expect from gloom and doom conservatives. Why didn't he just ay the world is full of challenges and there is a lot of work to do?

Because that's nothing more than trite liberal talking point. It means nothing and does nothing.

Because that's nothing more than trite liberal talking point. It means nothing and does nothing.

Same goes for the winger opinion.

Same goes for the winger opinion.

And yet he had you pegged and you posted it anyway...


Liberals will undoubtedly pounce on the lines above, claiming they are typical right-wing hyperbole, conflating necessary security measures abroad with dishonest calumny about conditions at home. Conservatives always claim the sky is falling, they complain, making it impossible to solve problems in a collegial, bipartisan way.

Michael Auslin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @michaelauslin.

He seems to be a product of good liberal institutuions (PBS and Yale!):


Auslin was an Assistant Professor (2000–2006) and then Associate Professor (2006–2007) in the Department of History at Yale University. In addition, he was also the Founding Director of the Project on Japan-U.S. Relations (2004–2007) and a Senior Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies (2006–2007) at Yale.

He was a featured commentator and script consultant in the 2004 PBS series "Japan: Memoirs of a Secret Empire."

As Obama 4.0 headed off to 8 days in Martha's Vineyard at the home of private-equity investment mogul Mitt Rom... David Schulte, his DoJ offered some more of that famous Obama admin transparency in a Friday news dump.

In response to criticism from the left that he had not gone after mortgage fraudsters the administration announced its Mortgage Fraud Working Group was on the job and had successfully nabbed 530 fraudsters.

That was just a wee bit exaggerated (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-11/eric-holder-owes-the-american-people-an-apology.html)...


The Justice Department made a long-overdue disclosure late Friday: Last year when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder boasted about the successes that a high-profile task force racked up pursuing mortgage fraud, the numbers he trumpeted were grossly overstated.

We’re not talking small differences here. Originally the Justice Department said 530 people were charged criminally as part of a year-long initiative by the multi-agency Mortgage Fraud Working Group. It now says the actual figure was 107 — or 80 percent less. Holder originally said the defendants had victimized more than 73,000 American homeowners. That number was revised to 17,185, while estimates of homeowner losses associated with the frauds dropped to $95 million from $1 billion.

They were only off 80 percent or so, and as usual the only reason they came clean is they got caught cooking the books. The article tells of a previous similar stunt by Holder...


What a charade. No wonder the government found it so difficult to bring a meaningful number of accounting-fraud cases against bank executives after the financial crisis. Its own books were cooked.

This was the second time, mind you, that Holder's Justice Department had pulled a stunt like this. In December 2010, Holder held a press conference to tout a supposed sweep by the president’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force called "Operation Broken Trust." (The mortgage-fraud program was part of the same task force.) As with the mortgage-fraud initiative, Broken Trust wasn’t actually a sweep. All the Justice Department did was lump together a bunch of small-fry, penny-ante fraud cases that had nothing to do with one another. Then it held a press gathering.

Operation Broken Trust, got to love the Orwellian touch to that.

Par for the course for the most transparent administration EVER, image is everything. Just throw out some numbers (i.e. jobs "saved or created") and hold a press conference or give a speech touting their awesomeness. Lot of good that does us.

Hello Steve:

Sounds like you want to OCCUPY a bank... Me too.

excon