May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Friday, May 7
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH May 7, 2010
WH releases list of CEOs who dined with Obama - HERE.
Obama Interviews Diane Wood for SCOTUS: Chicago judge rumored as a potential pick - CLICK HERE.
White House announces grants for health information program - GO HERE.
Elie Wiesel: Tensions between White House & Israel 'Gone'
NewsMax.com
Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said after lunching with President Barack Obama Tuesday that recent tensions between Washington and the Israeli government were "gone."
Wiesel, a staunch supporter of Israel, said he enjoyed a "good kosher lunch" with Obama, who frequently has praised his fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner and joined him at the former Buchenwald Nazi camp in Germany last year.
Last month, Wiesel put his name to a newspaper advertisement criticizing the U.S. administration for pressuring the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Jewish building in annexed East Jerusalem.
"Pressure will not produce a solution," Wiesel wrote in the ad. "Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul."
But asked Tuesday whether the situation has improved, Wiesel told reporters outside the White House that he believes ties between Israel and the Obama administration now are "good."
"There were moments of tension," Wiesel said. "The tension I think is gone." Read article.
Race and Resentment
Thomas Sowell, JWR.com
Recent stories out of both Philadelphia and San Francisco tell of black students beating up Asian American students. This is especially painful for those who expected that the election of Barack Obama would mark the beginning of a post-racial America.
While Obama's winning the majority of the votes in overwhelmingly white states suggests that many Americans are ready to move beyond race, it is painfully clear that others are not.
Those who explain racial antagonisms on some rationalistic basis will have a hard time demonstrating how Asian Americans have made blacks worse off. Certainly none of the historic wrongs done to blacks was done by the small Asian American population who, for most of their history in this country, have not had enough clout to prevent themselves from being discriminated against.
While ugly racial or ethnic conflicts can seldom be explained by rational economic or other self-interest, they have been too common to be just inexplicable oddities-- whether in America or in other countries around the world, and whether today or in centuries past. Read article.
A Manifesto on the "Manifesto"
Dr. Paul Kengor, Townhall.com
I knew the time would come. America’s public schools and ideologically monolithic universities have spawned a generation woefully uninformed in the most elementary facts about free markets, socialism, and communism. Personally, after teaching this material for years, I’m getting an inordinate number of questions about communism in particular, as that word is bandied about like crazy—the result of America’s decisive lurch leftward since the election of November 2008.
There’s so much to say, especially about communism in practice, where the story is unprecedented misery: a death toll of 100-140 million human beings since 1917. That’s twice the combined corpses of WWI and WWII.
But what about communism as a theory?
We constantly hear the claim: Communism in theory is not as bad as communism in practice. If you read Marx, you’ll see that communism promotes sharing, equality, love of man.
In truth, this is arrant nonsense. When I hear it, I know the person has never read Marx’s Communist Manifesto, a plainly awful book, packed with hatred and, frankly, stupidity. But rather than just say this, I thought I’d attempt a public service by laying out key facts on the Communist Manifesto—another teachable moment. So, here we go: Read article.
The next battle in campaign finance reform
CS Monitor.com
Once a Supreme Court ruling has been issued, overturning it can be as hard as the white marble of the justices’ stately building.
It can be done through constitutional amendment, which is slow and arduous. It can be done, perhaps, through another high court ruling, which depends on a new case and the mix of justices hearing it.
The best that can be hoped for is legislation that tries to mitigate the effect of a ruling. That’s what some lawmakers in Congress are attempting with proposed legislation on campaign finance.
This week, members of the House and Senate – mostly Democrats – unveiled legislation dubbed the “Disclose Act.” It attempts to blunt the court’s regrettable decision in January to overturn a previous campaign finance law, thus opening the floodgates of corporate and union spending in elections. Read article.
Nine months later, 'Cash for Clunkers' remains controversial
David Schepp, Daily Finance.com
About nine months have passed since the federal government ended its popular and controversial "cash for clunkers" program. But the jury is still out on how much the incentive helped boost the economy or put more fuel efficient vehicles on the road, according to a report the Government Accountability Office released Thursday.
Titled "Lessons Learned from Cash for Clunkers Program," the report says that 680,000 vehicles were sold or leased during the month-long program which offered consumers a credit of up to $4,500 to trade in older, gas-guzzling vehicles for new, more fuel efficient ones. "Yet some of these sales would have happened anyway," the report says.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that the short-lived program, also known as CARS, was responsible for 88% of the 677,842 vehicles sold, and also found that new vehicles purchased or leased under the program had an average combined fuel economy of 24.9 miles per gallon, compared with 15.7 mpg for those cars and trucks traded in, according to the GAO report. Read article.
Public Mostly Agrees On Nominee Criteria
Ashlie Rodrgiguea, National Journal.com
A new Fox News poll shows Democrats, Republicans and independents generally in agreement on the criteria of characteristics, professional background and ideological affiliations President Obama should consider or not consider when selecting a new justice.
When asked about the nominee being a woman, 77 percent of Democrats, 87 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of independents agreed that it "shouldn't matter." The nominee being "a minority" drew similar results.
About half of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed that the nominee's being an attorney, a judge or a constitutional scholar should be "a factor" -- not the "single most important" factor, nor an unimportant one. There was some disagreement on the question of whether the nominee went to an Ivy League school or a "less elite, everyday American law school": A plurality of Republicans preferred the latter, while a plurality of Democrats and a majority of independents said it made no difference.
Those of all all political affiliations agreed that it would not matter if there were no justices with a "Protestant religious background" (John Paul Stevens was the only remaining Protestant on the court), and all were comfortable with the nominee being a Mormon or a Christian "who takes the Bible literally." Read article.
Healthcare law vastly expands IRS red tape
Hans Bader, Daily Caller.com
“Billions of more documents” will be have to be filled out by small businesses for the IRS so that a “spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of” them to pay for ObamaCare. They will have to spend countless hours to “gather information,” such as about the person they buy a used car from, and the mom-and-pop landlords who lease space to them, even if the small business has to spend more money gathering the information than the IRS will collect in taxes as a result. (The new health care law will raise far more revenue by taking away medical-tax deductions of “15 million very sick people” with “major medical expenses” starting in 2013.)
The health care bill vastly expands the power of the IRS. The Washington Examiner says that “16,500 more IRS agents” will be “needed to enforce Obamacare.” That’s “the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II.”
ObamaCare is also costing major employers who provide health coverage for retirees billions of dollars. “When companies started reporting the write-downs they’d take as a result of the passage of ObamaCare,” congressional Democrats “reacted with outrage at the announcements, and scheduled hearings to demand answers . . . from AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere, and Verizon.” But now, the massive costs of ObamaCare are so obvious and undeniable that even congressional Democrats have “admitted that CEOs who reported billions in losses due to ObamaCare were required to state those losses after all,” and that their “companies acted properly and in accordance with” federal “accounting standards.” Read article.
Health law’s heavy impact
Paul Guppy, Spokesman.com
In the days leading up to the dramatic late-night vote on President Barack Obama’s health plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it …” Now that ObamaCare has passed, it is slowly dawning on people what the new law means for the country and for Washington state.
ObamaCare sweeps away a host of state regulations and permanently alters our state’s insurance market. From now on, the federal government will manage the health care of all Washingtonians. The 2,700-page law contains a complex web of mandates, directives, price controls, tax increases and subsidies.
Federal officials will now decide what kind of insurance people in Washington must have, what medicines will be covered, what treatments are allowed and which are not. Early reports indicate, however, that President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, senior members of Congress and leadership staff are exempt.
The new law falls well short of universal coverage. ObamaCare will leave about 6 percent of Washington residents without coverage. The measure is conservatively expected to cost $2.4 trillion in its first full decade. Thousands of older Washingtonians will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage, and the state’s 120,000 Health Savings Account holders may need to buy new policies or face stiff penalties. Read article.
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The #twittergulag saga continues: @gopfirecracker suspended, others still trapped
May 21, 2012 11:54 PM
#freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker— Dale Holt (@DaleHolt8) May 22, 2012 Come on conservatives! Everyone rallied around @ChrisLoesch when he was suspended! Now its @gopfirecracker so stand up! #freegopfirecracker— Schmoop (@RGSchmoop) May 22, 2012 Hey @twitter and @support – #FreeGOPfirecracker's account has been suspended. Please fix this mishap. Thank you.— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 22, 2012 [...]
Cory Booker tweets #IStandWithObama; Hashtag hijackers flood the zone
May 21, 2012 11:39 PM
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat who defended Bain from the Obama campaign's attacks yesterday morning, has been backpedaling more furiously than a clown on a high wire. Tonight, in an effort to mollify his critics on the Left, he posted four tweets that included the hashtag #IStandWithObama. Conservatives immediately took over the #IStandWithObama hashtag to mock President Obama, and within an hour it became a trending topic.
Cory Booker tries to clear up his position on Bain attacks
May 21, 2012 10:25 PM
Cory Booker continued his quest to run screaming away from the apparently too candid comments he made on Meet the Press on Sunday. Despite attempts earlier today to #FreeCoryBooker from those trying to force him to apologize Booker went on the Rachel Maddow show to do everything he could to walk back what he said. Que the mockery.
Obama's 'When you're president' picture spawns hashtag
May 21, 2012 09:59 PM
"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." -Barack Obama
Cue #WhenYouArePresident
Obama takes anti-Romney rant to Twitter
May 21, 2012 09:49 PM
It started off this morning with a video of a woman named Valerie from Indiana posted by Barack Obama’s official Twitter account. 12 hours, 12 tweets and a failed hashtag later, Obama’s reelection team took the day to tweet ongoing misinformation about Mitt Romney’s record in the private sector, specifically Bain Capital’s work with the [...]
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