Quote of the week: “If "hand-to-hand combat" breaks out on Capitol Hill, in short, if the president refuses to moderate his agenda and the Republicans have to constantly fight the president to enact the will of the voters, Mr. Obama is quite mistaken if he thinks he will be at war with a Republican Congress. Oh, no, Mr. Obama will in fact be at war with the American people.” Shelagh Gray
1) Consumer Financial Protection Czar Threatens Banks: “Play nice, and we’ll get along just fine” (headline mine)
Last week President Barack Obama’s most recently minted czar, Special Advisor to the President for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Elizabeth Warren, spoke to 400 bankers at the swanky Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC. Her message, according to The Washington Post: “Behave, play nice, and we’ll get along just fine.” Specifically, Warren promised to take a more “principles-based approach” to regulation, rather than clearly articulating “thou shalt not” rules that banks could rely on. For this Progressive White House, an enlightened expert, like Warren, given broad new powers by an unaccountably vague statute is exactly what the federal government needs to enforce order on our complex modern world. For our Founding Fathers, however, everything about Warren, from the way she attained her new powers to the way she plans to use them, is antithetical to our nation’s First Principles and the United States Constitution.
Look again at Warren’s title. She is not the director of the CFPB nor does she even work for it. For her to actually head the agency, President Obama would have to submit her name to the Senate to meet the Constitution’s “advice and consent” requirement. But President Obama did not want that transparency. Instead he decided to subvert the Constitution by making her his “special advisor” that would lead a team of “about 30 or 40 people at the Department of Treasury” to set up the CFPB. Yale Constitutional law professor Bruce Ackerman described Obama’s Warren chicanery as “another milestone down the path toward an imperial presidency.”
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/10/04/morning-bell-the-obama-experts-vs-the-rule-of-law/
2) Obama promises 'hand to hand combat' if GOP wins
After hearing VP Biden discuss strangling Republicans, Barack Obama promises hand to hand combat if Republicans win big in November. From the Los Angeles Times:
A Republican majority in Congress would mean "hand-to-hand combat" on Capitol Hill for the next two years, threatening policies Democrats have enacted to stabilize the economy, President Obama warned Wednesday.
…Why does Barack Obama so often lapse into imagery of violence when describing opponents? During the campaign he boasted that if his opponents "bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun." Later on, when he began to feel the heat, he talked about the need (for others, apparently) to practice civility in politics and suggested we all tone down the rhetoric.
If only he would apply the same type of emotions when dealing with our enemies. He saves his venom for political opponents of his; not for America's adversaries.
Furthermore, what happened to his 2004 call for an America that was not split into a white America or black America or Latino America. Now, he again makes a blatant appeal focused on identity politics.
Shelagh Gray adds:
Surely my jaw can't drop any further from things this president says and does. Yet somehow, he still manages to deliver what seems to be a daily dose of shock and awe. Should the GOP retake the House and Senate as a result of the November midterms, an article yesterday in the latimes.com quotes our president as saying "...we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill." What? The continuing undignified and un-presidential phraseology aside, the comment is a profound demonstration of Mr. Obama's unwillingness to accept the will of the people. Of course we should expect any president to continue to try to advance his agenda, and this president was elected by a large majority, but if Republicans do indeed retake Congress in the midterms, it will be because the voters ... Republicans, Independents, and probably a few newly-awakened Democrats have decreed it. Thus, the president would be wise to take heed. If "hand-to-hand combat" breaks out on Capitol Hill, in short, if the president refuses to moderate his agenda and the Republicans have to constantly fight the president to enact the will of the voters, Mr. Obama is quite mistaken if he thinks he will be at war with a Republican Congress. Oh, no, Mr. Obama will in fact be at war with the American people (emphasis mine).
See: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/10/obama_promises_hand_to_hand_co.html
3) Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.1% in September
Underemployment, at 18.8%, is up from 18.6% at the end of August
PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 10.1% in September -- up sharply from 9.3% in August and 8.9% in July. Much of this increase came during the second half of the month -- the unemployment rate was 9.4% in mid-September -- and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government's unemployment report on Friday.
See: http://www.gallup.com/poll/143426/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-September.aspx
4) Finance leaders fail to resolve currency dispute
WASHINGTON – Global finance leaders failed Saturday to resolve deep differences that threaten the outbreak of a full-blown currency war.
Various nations are seeking to devalue their currencies as a way to boost exports and jobs during hard economic times. The concern is that such efforts could trigger a repeat of the trade wars that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s as country after country raises projectionist barriers to imported goods.
The International Monetary Fund wrapped up two days of talks with a communique that pledged to "deepen" its work in the area of currency movements, including conducting studies on the issue.
…"A lack of growth accompanied by high unemployment is having consequences," Zoellick told reporters at a news conference concluding the IMF-World Bank meetings. "There is a danger that countries will turn inward and, as a result, international cooperation falters. This could be dangerous."
The communique essentially papered-over sharp differences on currency policies between China and the United States.
The Obama administration, facing November elections where high U.S. unemployment will be a top issue, has been ratcheting up pressure on China to move more quickly to allow its currency to rise in value against the dollar.
American manufacturers contend the Chinese yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent and this has cost millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs by making Chinese goods cheaper in the United States and U.S. products more expensive in China.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101009/ap_on_bi_ge/us_global_finance
5) Obama Added More to National Debt in First 19 Months Than All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan Combined, Says Gov’t Data
(CNSNews.com) - In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.
The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is “debt held by the public,” which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is “intragovernmental” debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for expenses other than Social Security.
At the end of fiscal year 1989, which ended eight months after President Reagan left office, the total federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan had accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That is $335.3 billion less than the $2.5260 trillion that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was inaugurated, and Aug. 20, 2010, the 19-month anniversary of Obama's inauguration.
…In just the last four months (May through August), according to the CBO, the Obama administration has run cumulative deficits of $464 billion, more than the $458 billion deficit the Bush administration ran through the entirety of fiscal 2008.
The CBO predicted this week that the annual budget deficit for fiscal 2010, which ends on the last day of this month, will exceed $1.3 trillion.
The first two fiscal years in which Obama has served will see the two biggest federal deficits as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product since the end of World War II.
See: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/72404
5a) You Can’t Tax the Rich Enough to Close the Deficit
President Obama has driven spending and deficits to historic levels in just two years since taking office. Not content to stop there, his budget for the next 10 years keeps spending at record levels and piles up unprecedented amounts of debt in the process. To partially offset his massive overspending, the President wants to raise taxes on “the rich.” His class warfare plan can take him only so far, however, since the rich don’t earn enough to make up the difference for all the spending he plans.
Obama’s current tax hike plan would raise the top two income tax rates from 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent, respectively. This tax hike will take effect on January 1, 2011, if he has his way and will slow the already badly struggling economy. This will keep unemployed Americans out of work longer and suppress the wages of those fortunate enough to retain their jobs. In fact, the higher tax rates Obama calls for will destroy an average of 800,000 jobs per year by the end of the decade and lower incomes by $720 billion over that same period.
…President Obama has repeatedly expressed a desire to sock it to the rich to cover for his profligacy, so it stands to reason he could stick them with additional tax increases to cover his gargantuan budget shortfalls. The President shows no signs he wants to reduce spending to lower the deficit, so tax hikes remain his most likely prescription. No matter how much he wants to “spread the wealth around,” if he goes the tax-the-rich route, he is in for a rude awakening.
Closing the more than $1 trillion deficit Obama’s spending would produce in 2020 by taxing only the rich would require a top income tax rate of 134 percent. Of course it is impossible to tax more than 100 percent of any taxpayer’s income. More importantly, any rate even approaching such a dangerous level would destroy the economy. Period. So even if it were mathematically possible to tax more income than the rich earn, there would be none of it left for the government to confiscate.
See: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/10/07/you-can’t-tax-the-rich-enough-to-close-the-deficit/
6) Top Scientist Resigns from Post – Admits Global Warming Is a Scam
Top US scientist Hal Lewis resigned this week from his post at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
He admitted global warming climate change was nothing but a scam in his resignation letter.
The Telegraph reported:
The following is a letter to the American Physical Society released to the public by Professor Emiritus of physics Hal Lewis of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Sent: Friday, 08 October 2010 17:19 Hal Lewis
From: Hal Lewis, University of California, Santa Barbara
To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society
6 October 2010
Dear Curt:
When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago).
…For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare (emphasis mine). (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
7) Obama loses the man McChrystal called a clown (the exodus continues…)
President Barack Obama performed one more awkward hello-goodbye ritual at the White House last night when he confirmed that General James Jones, who had been his National Security Advisor since the start of his tenure, was clearing his desk.
It comes a week after Mr Obama lost Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and gives new momentum to an exodus of aides that, while not unusual half-way through a president's term, is coinciding with a perilous time, three weeks from the mid-term congressional elections. Others who have left include the budget director, Peter Orszag, and the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romber.
…The President, who called him a "steady voice", said that the general had always made clear he would serve in Washington for a two-year period only. Yet some had painted him as a weak Security Advisor. And Obama's War, the latest book by the investigative journalist Bob Woodward, included passages that were not kind either to Gen Jones or to his deputy, Tom Donilon, who now replaces him as chief foreign policy adviser to the President.
In Woodward's book Gen Jones is cited complaining about Mr Emanuel and other members of Mr Obama's inner circle, calling them the "water bugs", the "politburo" and the "Mafia". He allegedly threatened to walk out once when he felt he wasn't getting proper access to the Oval Office.
…Gen Jones came into the White House as a four-star Marine General with a stellar military record that included stints as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the US European Command. His contacts with foreign leaders and military chiefs helped seal important foreign policy goals, including calming relations with Russia and a new arms treaty.
But he failed to persuade members of Congress to speed up the closure of Guantanamo Bay and apparently lost the respect of General David McChrystal, who was alleged in a Rolling Stone interview (which cost him his job) to have called Gen Jones "a clown".
…The Obama musical chairs are not over yet. Larry Summers, his top economic advisor, will return to Harvard at the end of the year. David Axelrod is expected to leave early next year to work on Mr Obama's re-election campaign, and Robert Gibbs, the press spokesman, could soon be moving to a different job inside the White House.
8) Nancy Pelosi says food stamps and unemployment insurance will grow US economy
Nancy Pelosi says that food stamps and unemployment insurance will grow the US economy and lift it from the recession that Barack Obama has helped to worsen. Pelosi, that genius and all-around brilliant analyst of the US economy and everything financial, spoke Wednesday in an overly defensive response to Newt Gingrich’s right-on-the-mark salvo against Pelosi and her Democrat Party. In recent comments, Gingrich correctly advised Republicans to make a contrast between Democrats who promote food stamps as their economic policy, and Republicans who actually promote the useful concept called paychecks to grow the prosperity of Americans. Confusingly, Pelosi reacted to Gingrich’s assertion by actually admitting that, yes, Democrats are indeed the party of food stamps (okay, and unemployment for everyone, too)!
9) Iran acknowledges espionage at nuclear facilities
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran acknowledged Saturday that some personnel at the country's nuclear facilities were lured by promises of money to pass secrets to the West but insisted increased security and worker privileges have put a stop to the spying.
The stunning admission by Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi provides the clearest government confirmation that Iran has been fighting espionage at its nuclear facilities.
In recent weeks, Iran has announced the arrest of several nuclear spies and battled a computer worm that it says is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program. And in July, a nuclear scientist who Iran says was kidnapped by U.S. agents returned home in mysterious circumstances, with the U.S. saying he was a willing defector who was offered $5 million by the CIA but then changed his mind.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101009/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear
10) Sharron Angle surge unnerving Nevada Democrats
New polling out of Nevada is unnerving Democrats who fear Republican Sharron Angle’s campaign is surging despite enduring millions of dollars’ worth of TV ad attacks from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
The three most recently released public polls show Angle with a nominal edge, though all have been within the margin of error.
While Reid’s campaign insists there is nothing to be nervous about, one Nevada Democratic strategist said that’s not the vibe behind the scenes.
“Reid’s people are really antsy,” said the strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Reid’s far-reaching political machine tends to come down hard on those who talk out of school. “That’s why their external message has been to try really, really hard to discredit these polls. Angle is building a lot of momentum, and they don’t know how to stop it. This is exactly what happened during the primary.”
See: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43325.html
10a) Election 2010: Nevada Senate
Nevada Senate: Angle (R) Edges Ahead of Reid (D)
Republican challenger Sharron Angle has now moved to a four-point lead over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada’s bare-knuckles U.S. Senate race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Nevada Voters shows Angle hitting the 50% mark for the first time since mid-August, while Reid earns 46% of the vote. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and two percent (2%) more are undecided. (To see question wording, click here.)
This marks the widest gap between the two candidates since late June, but the race remains a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Senate Balance of Power rankings.
Just over a week ago, the race was virtually tied, with Reid at 48% and Angle at 47%. The two have been separated by a gap of three points or less since Reid came charging back in June with a series of blistering attack ads on Angle.
10b) In Hidden Audio, Sharron Angle Reveals Herself to Be — Gulp — Exactly What She Appears To Be
An audiotape has just emerged on the website of the Las Vegas Sun, capturing Sharron Angle, the Tea Party/Republican candidate, in private conversation with a third-party spoiler candidate, Scott Ashjian:
You can listen to the audio here.
Some choice quotes:
The Republicans have lost their standards, they’ve lost their principles…..Really that’s why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me…..They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government…
I believe you (Ashjian) can do some real harm, not to Harry Reid but to me…I’m not sure you can win and I’m not sure I can win if you’re hurting my chance and that’s the part that scares me…
(The Republicans in D.C.) don’t want me back there…because they know I’ll shake this mess up….…..I shook it up in Carson City, they hated me there…41-Angle was not a compliment……..When I go back, there may be five or six of us….maybe Joe Miller (Alaska), Ken Buck (Colorado), Christine O’Donnell (Delaware).
Duh — what’s not to like (emphasis mine)? If this is an attempt by the Sun to counteract its rival’s recent endorsement of Angle — and it is:
I can just hear it now [writes reporter Jon Rawlston]: The woman who calls the majority leader “Let’s Make a Deal Harry Reid” becomes “Let’s Make a Deal Sharron Angle.”
– then it’s likely to backfire, big-time. For the tape shows that Angle is exactly what she says she is. As Ben Smith just noted on Politico:
The recording is worth listening to in full despite its poor quality. It suggests that — at least for the purposes of this conversation with a Tea Party figure — behind the facade of a real grassroots outsider who hates the organized Republican Party is … a real grassroots outsider who hates the organized Republican Party (emphasis mine).
“The Republicans have lost their standard, they’ve lost their principle,” she tells Ashjian. “Really that’s why the machine in the Republican Party is fighting against me…. They have never really gone along with lower taxes and less government regulation.”
In opposing her, local Republicans are “coming out and showing their colors” she said. “That’s kind of good.”
Angle’s words may not have an immediate political impact, but they show what a profound challenge she and a handful of other Senate candidates pose to the Republican leadership, should they win. Angle’s view of herself is clearly of an insurgent, a subversive force within the GOP.
That’s fine with us.
Meanwhile, let’s get this straight once and for all: an undercover audio is now a good thing as far as the MSM is concerned?
Thanks for clarifying the ground rules, fellas.
See: http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/10/04/sharron-angle/
10c) Harry Reid: It is ‘my constitutional duty’ to spend federal money
SPARKS — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has returned to the state for a final campaign push in which he will attempt to persuade Nevadans to return him to office by not only scaring voters away from his opponent but also giving them a list of reasons to support him.
In a subtle shift from his campaign’s recent strategy of almost exclusively negative campaigning against his Republican rival, Sharron Angle, Reid has returned to the argument that the state needs him because of the powerful position he has in Congress.
At a campaign event here Wednesday, Reid paraded local elected officials — Republicans and Democrats — before the assembled media to support his argument that essential federal funding for infrastructure and social programs has flowed to their communities because of his position.
In a jab at Angle, who thinks the federal government should be dramatically scaled back and fulfill only those duties expressly enumerated in the Constitution, Reid argued it is his “constitutional duty” to spend federal money.
Keep it up, Harry Reid. Have you even read the Constitution?
See: http://dailycaller.com/2010/10/07/harry-reid-it-is-my-constitutional-duty-to-spend-federal-money/
11) Classy: Bachmann opponent ad uses bleeped curse word
Tarryl Clark appears to have run out of ideas in her race against Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th CD — and also reached the end of her vocabulary. In an effort to paint Bachmann as disconnected from her constituents, Clark runs through a variety of issues in which Bachmann’s vote actually seems closer to the consensus of the electorate, including on ObamaCare, to which Clark euphemistically refers as “reform.” At the end, though, Clark just skips the euphemisms altogether to use a bleeped-out scatalogical curse word.
…I’m actually being slightly unfair to Al Franken in the subheader. While Franken is known for his short temper and angry outbursts, he managed to control himself while on the campaign trail for the US Senate. And this isn’t a heated, extemporaneous outburst, but a planned campaign strategy.
See: http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/05/classy-bachmann-opponent-spot-uses-bleeped-curse-word/
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