OBAMA: AN INCOMPETENT EXECUTIVE
Contrary to what the Constitution says, the president does not run the executive branch of the federal government. It runs itself. Following Newton’s Laws of Motion, it is “a body in motion that tends to remain in motion in the same direction and at the same speed unless acted upon by an outside force.” The bureaucracy keeps doing what it is programmed to do unless someone intervenes.
And that intervention is the proper job of the president. He has to step in, ask the right questions, get inside and outside advice, and decide how to intervene to move the bureaucracy one way or the other. President Clinton had an excellent sense of how to do this and when to get involved. President Obama does not.
CLINTON CATALYZED GULF OIL DRILLING BOOM
Just as the subprime mortgage crisis had its roots in the Clinton Administration decision to require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to find enough low income borrowers so that half their loans were subprime, the Gulf oil spill also had its roots in misguided policies begun by the Clinton Administration.
In 1995, President Clinton signed the Outer Continental Shelf Deepwater Royalty Relief Act which exempted oil wells drilled deep in the Gulf from the normal royalty payments they would normally have owed the government for their oil. Usually, these payments amount to between 12% and 16% of their revenues, so exemption from this requirement did a great deal to catalyze drilling in deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of the Administration action, deepwater oil production in the Gulf increased rapidly, growing from 42 million barrels annually in 1996 to 348 million in 2004. The latter figure represents about 6% of total United States oil consumption and about 15% of domestic production. Natural gas production from deepwater Gulf drilling increased tenfold during the same period.
WHY WOMEN WON
Ever since the passage of the 19th Amendment permitted women suffrage, feminists have anticipated a sea change in our politics. When the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s cut its vast swath through our consciousness, its leaders felt sure that the time for women power had come.
But the results have always fallen far short of the expectations. While women have gained in influence and risen in rank, they are still only 18% of the House of Representatives and 17% of the Senate. While the gender gap has helped elect Democrats throughout the nation, there has never been the gender revolution predicted by feminists. Until today.
OBAMANOMICS RECESSION
Published on TheHill.com on June 8, 2010
The drop in the stock market (now about 1,000 points on the Dow) is a graphic indication of the stark fact that we are entering the infamous double dip of the recession, long feared and predicted. The economy is not in a V after all (down and then up), but in a W (down, up, down again, and then, finally, up). And the cause of the second dip is not the recession itself, but the cure administered to it by President Obama and the Democratic Congress.
Consider the indications (data provided by the New America Foundation, analysis by Sherle R. Schwanninger and Samuel Sherraden):
· GDP growth has been 2.2 percent, 5.6 percent and 3.2 percent for each of the last three quarters, well below the rebounds typical in past recessions.
AN OIL SPILL IS NOT AN ACT OF GOD
We are not facing an earthquake like that which rocked Haiti or a volcano such as spewed its lava and pollution high above Iceland. This Gulf oil spill is man made and off shore oil drilling is one of the most heavily government regulated activities of commercial capitalism. The rigs are regularly inspected. Drilling is impossible without multiple permits. Each step, each piece of equipment, each procedure must be specifically approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
To blame BP for this spill and the failure to clean it up is, of course, reasonable. It is, of course, their malfeasance which caused the spill and their technological inability which has let it continue to gush.
But we don’t elect the leadership of BP and it is not responsible to us.
DICK MORRIS ENDORSES CARLY FIORINA IN CALIFORNIA
Press Release from Carly For California.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2010
Contact: Amy Thoma; Jessica Hsiang 916-551-1383
YORBA LINDA, CA – Author and political strategist Dick Morris today announced his endorsement of U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.
“It is my pleasure to endorse Carly Fiorina in the Republican Senate primary on June 8. While I have a high regard for Carly’s record and position on issues, my endorsement is based mainly on the fact that I believe she would be the best candidate to achieve victory for Republicans in November over Senator Boxer.
A HEALTH CARE HORROR STORY FROM CANADA
There are howls of outrage coming from the liberal community in Alberta, Canada. It seems that some doctors, desperate to protect their patients from the overcrowded and failing socialized medical system in their country, have set up private clinics to treat them. To circumvent Canadian laws, which prohibit charging for medical care, they have set up private, membership clinics where, for $2,000 a year, patients can access well staffed and equipped clinics and avoid the long waits and compromised care of the public system.
The leading Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, reports that “critics say that the clinics are taking physicians away from the public system making it even harder…to find a family doctor.” David Eggen, executive director of a group that supports the Canadian socialized system, Friends of Medicare, said that it’s already hard to find a family physician in Canada and that clinics like these, springing up in several Canadian cities, could make it even harder.
BOOK REVIEW: WHY ARE JEWS LIBERALS?
A Book Review By DICK MORRIS of Why Are Jews Liberals? By Norman Podhoretz
It is the question that sooner or later baffles every political pundit, consultant, expert, or observer. Why do American Jews persist in their adoration of the Democratic Party? Why, like an abused spouse, do they tolerate Israel-bashing, support for the Palestinians and Democratic softness on terrorism and still return for more? As the richest demographic group in our population, why do they still vote for Obama and donate money to him when he specifically proposes to raise the taxes on those making more than $200,000 per year?
Why do they let liberal politicians embrace the likes of Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and still support them on Election Day?
