Judge uses Obama’s words against him
By Stephen Dinan
-
The Washington Times
In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, arguing that there are other ways to tackle health care short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.
“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of the 78-page ruling Monday.
Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional on Monday, though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.
The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson‘s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but whether it has the power to compel the purchase of insurance.
Judge Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s campaign words from an interview with CNN to show that there are other options that could fall within the Constitution — including then-candidate Obama‘s plan.
During the presidential campaign, one key difference between Mr. Obama and his chief opponent, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was Mrs. Clinton’s plan required all Americans to purchase insurance, and Mr. Obama‘s did not.
In the heat of the primaries in 2008, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted Mr. Obama‘s opposition to an individual mandate could come back to haunt him: “If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.”
Mr. Obama has since defended the constitutionality of the individual mandate, arguing it’s the linchpin of the program to bring in more customers, which is key to expanding the availability and affordability of insurance.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/31/judge-uses-obamas-words-against-him/
Monday, January 31, 2011
Vindication for Bush’s Freedom Agenda- Commentary magazine
Peter Wehner - 01.28.2011 - 11:41 AM
As popular unrest sweeps the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunisia to Yemen to Egypt, it’s worth recalling the words and warning of President George W. Bush – in this case, his November 19, 2003, address at Whitehall Palace in London, where Bush said this:
"We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. …
As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.
Now we’re pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun."
During the course of the Bush presidency, his “freedom agenda” was criticized from several different quarters, including foreign-policy “realists” who believed that the bargain Bush spoke about — tolerating oppression for the sake of “stability” — was worth it.
It wasn’t. The core argument Bush made, which is that America must stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity — the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance — was right. No people on earth long to live in oppression and servitude, as slaves instead of free people, to be kept in chains or experience the lash of the whip.
How this conviction should play itself out in the real world is not self-evident; the success of such a policy depends on the wisdom and prudence of statesmen. Implementing a policy is a good deal harder than proclaiming one. Still, it seems to be that events are vindicating the freedom agenda as a strategy and a moral insight, as even the Obama administration is coming to learn.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/388326
As popular unrest sweeps the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunisia to Yemen to Egypt, it’s worth recalling the words and warning of President George W. Bush – in this case, his November 19, 2003, address at Whitehall Palace in London, where Bush said this:
"We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. …
As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.
Now we’re pursuing a different course, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. We will consistently challenge the enemies of reform and confront the allies of terror. We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the region, and we will meet our responsibilities in Afghanistan and in Iraq by finishing the work of democracy we have begun."
During the course of the Bush presidency, his “freedom agenda” was criticized from several different quarters, including foreign-policy “realists” who believed that the bargain Bush spoke about — tolerating oppression for the sake of “stability” — was worth it.
It wasn’t. The core argument Bush made, which is that America must stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity — the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance — was right. No people on earth long to live in oppression and servitude, as slaves instead of free people, to be kept in chains or experience the lash of the whip.
How this conviction should play itself out in the real world is not self-evident; the success of such a policy depends on the wisdom and prudence of statesmen. Implementing a policy is a good deal harder than proclaiming one. Still, it seems to be that events are vindicating the freedom agenda as a strategy and a moral insight, as even the Obama administration is coming to learn.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/388326
Sunday, January 30, 2011
British Anglicans Preparing Mass Defection to Roman Catholic Church
LONDON -- Hundreds of disillusioned Anglicans were preparing Sunday to defect from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church in time for Lent, Sky News reported.
It follows a campaign by a former Anglican bishop in protest at its stance on the ordination of women and gay clergy.
Father Keith Newton has encouraged Anglicans to join the Ordinariate -- a special branch of Catholicism established by the Pope -- to welcome protestant defectors.
Despite the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglo Catholics have begun leaving following the conversion of three Anglican bishops in mid-January.
The Church of England said that 1,000 of its 13,000 parishes were opposed to the ordination of women.
At St. Barnabas church in Tunbridge Wells, southeastern England, the parish priest said that a majority of his parishioners want to defect -- and he is considering going too.
Father Ed Tomlinson believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.
The priest was told if he and his followers leave they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St. Barnabas.
"The whole thing stinks to high heaven," he said.
"The Archdeacon made it abundantly clear that he does not want to entertain the notion of shared worship space and that he would resist my remaining here in any capacity."
The Ordinariate talks of recruiting members in waves with the first beginning training at Lent and they hope many more will follow.
"A little acorn it may have been at the moment, it could grow into a mighty oak," one local church-goer said.
"Was this the thing that started to undo the reformation?"
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Church-Of-England-Congregations-Being-Torn-Apart-Before-Lent-Over-Roman-Catholic-Ordinariate-Offers/Article/201101415918730?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15918730_Church_Of_England_Congregations_Being_Torn_Apart_Before_Lent_Over_Roman_Catholic_Ordinariate_Offers
It follows a campaign by a former Anglican bishop in protest at its stance on the ordination of women and gay clergy.
Father Keith Newton has encouraged Anglicans to join the Ordinariate -- a special branch of Catholicism established by the Pope -- to welcome protestant defectors.
Despite the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglo Catholics have begun leaving following the conversion of three Anglican bishops in mid-January.
The Church of England said that 1,000 of its 13,000 parishes were opposed to the ordination of women.
At St. Barnabas church in Tunbridge Wells, southeastern England, the parish priest said that a majority of his parishioners want to defect -- and he is considering going too.
Father Ed Tomlinson believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.
The priest was told if he and his followers leave they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St. Barnabas.
"The whole thing stinks to high heaven," he said.
"The Archdeacon made it abundantly clear that he does not want to entertain the notion of shared worship space and that he would resist my remaining here in any capacity."
The Ordinariate talks of recruiting members in waves with the first beginning training at Lent and they hope many more will follow.
"A little acorn it may have been at the moment, it could grow into a mighty oak," one local church-goer said.
"Was this the thing that started to undo the reformation?"
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Church-Of-England-Congregations-Being-Torn-Apart-Before-Lent-Over-Roman-Catholic-Ordinariate-Offers/Article/201101415918730?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15918730_Church_Of_England_Congregations_Being_Torn_Apart_Before_Lent_Over_Roman_Catholic_Ordinariate_Offers
Friday, January 28, 2011
An Unserious Speech Misses the Mark
Peggy Noonan
The audience found it tiresome. Here’s why it was irksome as well.
The Wall Street Journal: January 27, 2011
It is a strange and confounding thing about this White House that the moment you finally think they have their act together—the moment they get in the groove and start to demonstrate that they do have some understanding of our country—they take the very next opportunity to prove anew that they do not have their act together, and are not in the groove. It’s almost magical.
The State of the Union speech was not centrist, as it should have been, but merely mushy, and barely relevant. It wasted a perfectly good analogy—America is in a Sputnik moment—by following it with narrow, redundant and essentially meaningless initiatives. Rhetorically the speech lay there like a lox, as if the document itself knew it was dishonest, felt embarrassed, and wanted to curl up quietly in a corner of the podium and hide. But the president insisted on reading it.
Response in the chamber was so muted as to be almost Xanax-like. Did you see how bored and unengaged they looked? The applause was merely courteous. A senator called the mood on the floor “flat.” This is the first time the press embargo on the speech was broken, by National Journal, which printed the text more than an hour before the president delivered it. Maybe members had already read it and knew what they were about to face.
The president will get a bump from the speech. Presidents always do. It will be called a success. But it will be evanescent. A real moment was missed. If the speech is remembered, it will be as the moment when the president actually slowed—or blocked—his own comeback.
The central elements of the missed opportunity:
• An inability to focus on what is important now. The speech was more than half over before the president got around to the spending crisis. He signaled no interest in making cuts, which suggested that he continues not to comprehend America’s central anxiety about government spending: that it will crush our children, constrict the economy in which they operate, make America poorer, lower its standing in the world, and do in the American dream. Americans are alarmed about this not because they’re cheap and selfish but because they care about the country they will leave behind when they are gone.
President Obama’s answer is to “freeze” a small portion of government spending at current levels for five years. This is a reasonable part of a package, but it’s not a package and it’s not a cut. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who called it “sad,” told a local radio station the savings offered “won’t even pay the interest on the debt we’re about to accumulate” in the next two years. The president was trying to “hoodwink” the American people, Mr. Coburn said: “The federal government is twice the size it was 10 years ago. It’s 27% bigger than it was two years ago.” Cuts, not a freeze, are needed—it’s a matter of “urgency.”
• Unresponsiveness to the political moment. Democrats hold the White House and Senate, Republicans the House, the crisis is real, and the next election is two years away. This is the time for the president to go on the line and demand Republicans do so, too. Instead, nothing. A freeze.
• An attitude that was small bore and off point. America is in a Sputnik moment, the world seems to be jumping ahead of us, our challenge is to make up the distance and emerge victorious. So we’ll change our tax code to make citizens feel less burdened and beset, we’ll rethink what government can and should give, can and should take, we’ll get our fiscal life in order, we’ll save our country. Right?
Nah. We’ll focus on “greater Internet access,” “renewable energy,” “one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” “wind and solar,” “information technology.” “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail.” None of this is terrible, but none of it is an answer. The administration continues to struggle with the concept of priorities. They cannot see where the immediate emergency is. They are like people who’d say, “Martha, the house is on fire and flames are licking down the stairs—let’s discuss what color to repaint the living room after we rebuild!” A better priority might be, “Get the kids out and call the fire department.”
• Unbelievability. The president will limit the cost of government by whipping it into shape and removing redundant agencies. Really? He hasn’t shown much interest in that before. He has shown no general ideological sympathy for the idea of shrinking and streamlining government. He’s going to rationalize government? He wants to “get rid of the loopholes” in our tax code. Really? That’s good, but it was a throwaway line, not a serious argument. And he was talking to 535 representatives and senators who live in the loopholes, who live by campaign contributions from industries and interest groups that pay protection money to not get dinged in the next tax bill.
On education, the president announced we’re lagging behind in our public schools. Who knew? In this age of “Waiting for Superman” and “The Lottery,” every adult in America admits that union rules are the biggest impediment to progress. “Race to the Top” isn’t the answer. We all know this.
As for small things and grace notes, there is often about the president an air of delivering a sincere lecture in which he informs us of things that seem new to him but are old to everyone else. He has a tendency to present banalities as if they were discoveries. “American innovation” is important. As many as “a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school.” We’re falling behind in math and science: “Think about it.”
“I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories. . . . I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans.” But our deterioration isn’t new information, it’s a shared predicate of at least 20 years’ standing, it’s what we all know. When you talk this way, as if the audience is uninformed, they think you are uninformed. Leaders must know what’s in the national information bank.
He too often in making a case puts the focus on himself. George H.W. Bush, always afraid of sounding egotistical, took the I’s out of his speeches. We called his edits “I-ectomies.” Mr. Obama always seems to put the I in. He does “I implants.”
Humor, that leavening, subtle uniter, was insufficiently present. Humor is denigrated by serious people, but serious people often miss the obvious. The president made one humorous reference, to smoked salmon. It emerged as the biggest word in the NPR word cloud of responses. That’s because it was the most memorable thing in the speech. The president made a semi-humorous reference to TSA pat-downs, but his government is in charge of and insists on the invasive new procedures, to which the president has never been and will never be subjected. So it’s not funny coming from him. The audience sort of chuckled, but only because many are brutes who don’t understand that it is an unacceptable violation to have your genital areas patted against your will by strangers.
I actually hate writing this. I wanted to write “A Serious Man Seizes the Center.” But he was not serious and he didn’t seize the center, he went straight for the mush. Maybe at the end of the day he thinks that’s what centrism is.
http://peggynoonan.com/
The audience found it tiresome. Here’s why it was irksome as well.
The Wall Street Journal: January 27, 2011
It is a strange and confounding thing about this White House that the moment you finally think they have their act together—the moment they get in the groove and start to demonstrate that they do have some understanding of our country—they take the very next opportunity to prove anew that they do not have their act together, and are not in the groove. It’s almost magical.
The State of the Union speech was not centrist, as it should have been, but merely mushy, and barely relevant. It wasted a perfectly good analogy—America is in a Sputnik moment—by following it with narrow, redundant and essentially meaningless initiatives. Rhetorically the speech lay there like a lox, as if the document itself knew it was dishonest, felt embarrassed, and wanted to curl up quietly in a corner of the podium and hide. But the president insisted on reading it.
Response in the chamber was so muted as to be almost Xanax-like. Did you see how bored and unengaged they looked? The applause was merely courteous. A senator called the mood on the floor “flat.” This is the first time the press embargo on the speech was broken, by National Journal, which printed the text more than an hour before the president delivered it. Maybe members had already read it and knew what they were about to face.
The president will get a bump from the speech. Presidents always do. It will be called a success. But it will be evanescent. A real moment was missed. If the speech is remembered, it will be as the moment when the president actually slowed—or blocked—his own comeback.
The central elements of the missed opportunity:
• An inability to focus on what is important now. The speech was more than half over before the president got around to the spending crisis. He signaled no interest in making cuts, which suggested that he continues not to comprehend America’s central anxiety about government spending: that it will crush our children, constrict the economy in which they operate, make America poorer, lower its standing in the world, and do in the American dream. Americans are alarmed about this not because they’re cheap and selfish but because they care about the country they will leave behind when they are gone.
President Obama’s answer is to “freeze” a small portion of government spending at current levels for five years. This is a reasonable part of a package, but it’s not a package and it’s not a cut. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who called it “sad,” told a local radio station the savings offered “won’t even pay the interest on the debt we’re about to accumulate” in the next two years. The president was trying to “hoodwink” the American people, Mr. Coburn said: “The federal government is twice the size it was 10 years ago. It’s 27% bigger than it was two years ago.” Cuts, not a freeze, are needed—it’s a matter of “urgency.”
• Unresponsiveness to the political moment. Democrats hold the White House and Senate, Republicans the House, the crisis is real, and the next election is two years away. This is the time for the president to go on the line and demand Republicans do so, too. Instead, nothing. A freeze.
• An attitude that was small bore and off point. America is in a Sputnik moment, the world seems to be jumping ahead of us, our challenge is to make up the distance and emerge victorious. So we’ll change our tax code to make citizens feel less burdened and beset, we’ll rethink what government can and should give, can and should take, we’ll get our fiscal life in order, we’ll save our country. Right?
Nah. We’ll focus on “greater Internet access,” “renewable energy,” “one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” “wind and solar,” “information technology.” “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail.” None of this is terrible, but none of it is an answer. The administration continues to struggle with the concept of priorities. They cannot see where the immediate emergency is. They are like people who’d say, “Martha, the house is on fire and flames are licking down the stairs—let’s discuss what color to repaint the living room after we rebuild!” A better priority might be, “Get the kids out and call the fire department.”
• Unbelievability. The president will limit the cost of government by whipping it into shape and removing redundant agencies. Really? He hasn’t shown much interest in that before. He has shown no general ideological sympathy for the idea of shrinking and streamlining government. He’s going to rationalize government? He wants to “get rid of the loopholes” in our tax code. Really? That’s good, but it was a throwaway line, not a serious argument. And he was talking to 535 representatives and senators who live in the loopholes, who live by campaign contributions from industries and interest groups that pay protection money to not get dinged in the next tax bill.
On education, the president announced we’re lagging behind in our public schools. Who knew? In this age of “Waiting for Superman” and “The Lottery,” every adult in America admits that union rules are the biggest impediment to progress. “Race to the Top” isn’t the answer. We all know this.
As for small things and grace notes, there is often about the president an air of delivering a sincere lecture in which he informs us of things that seem new to him but are old to everyone else. He has a tendency to present banalities as if they were discoveries. “American innovation” is important. As many as “a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school.” We’re falling behind in math and science: “Think about it.”
“I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories. . . . I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans.” But our deterioration isn’t new information, it’s a shared predicate of at least 20 years’ standing, it’s what we all know. When you talk this way, as if the audience is uninformed, they think you are uninformed. Leaders must know what’s in the national information bank.
He too often in making a case puts the focus on himself. George H.W. Bush, always afraid of sounding egotistical, took the I’s out of his speeches. We called his edits “I-ectomies.” Mr. Obama always seems to put the I in. He does “I implants.”
Humor, that leavening, subtle uniter, was insufficiently present. Humor is denigrated by serious people, but serious people often miss the obvious. The president made one humorous reference, to smoked salmon. It emerged as the biggest word in the NPR word cloud of responses. That’s because it was the most memorable thing in the speech. The president made a semi-humorous reference to TSA pat-downs, but his government is in charge of and insists on the invasive new procedures, to which the president has never been and will never be subjected. So it’s not funny coming from him. The audience sort of chuckled, but only because many are brutes who don’t understand that it is an unacceptable violation to have your genital areas patted against your will by strangers.
I actually hate writing this. I wanted to write “A Serious Man Seizes the Center.” But he was not serious and he didn’t seize the center, he went straight for the mush. Maybe at the end of the day he thinks that’s what centrism is.
http://peggynoonan.com/
Controversial Muslim cleric caught being smuggled into U.S. over Mexico border
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:04 PM on 28th January 2011
U.S. border guards got a surprise when they searched a Mexican BMW and found a hardline Muslim cleric - banned from France and Canada - curled up in the boot.
Said Jaziri, who called for the death of a Danish cartoonist that drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed, was being smuggled into California when he was arrested, along with his driver Kenneth Robert Lawler.
The 43-year-old was deported from Canada to his homeland Tunisia in 2007 after it emerged he had lied on his refugee application about having served jail time in France
His fire and brimstone sermons and rabble-rousing antics catapulted him into the public eye during his short tenure as imam at a Montreal mosque.
He branded homosexuality a disease and led protests over cartoonist Kurt Westergaard's illustrations poked fun at Islam and were published in a Danish newspaper in 2006.
He also caused anger when he campaigned for a bigger mosque to accommodate Montreal's burgeoning Muslim population
But after his deportation he complained that he had been physically and mentally tortured during the 13-hour flight repatriating him to Tunisia, a claim Canadian authorities deny.
He was being held as a material witness in the criminal case against Mr Lawler, who has been charged with immigrant smuggling.
Jaziri had allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling cartel $5,000 to take him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a 'safe place anywhere in the U.S.'
According to the court documents, a Mexican guide led Jaziri and a Mexican immigrant over the border fence near Tecate.
They then trekked across the rugged terrain under cover of darkness to a spot popular for drivers who pick up immigrants for smuggling runs into San Diego.
He allegedly told officials he had flown from Africa to Europe, then to Central America and Chetumal, Mexico, on the Mexico-Belize border, where he took a bus to Tijuana.
Lise Garon, a professor of communications at Laval University in Quebec City, told the Los Angeles Times: 'His nickname in Quebec was the controversial imam.
'I think he was deported because people hated his ideas.'
His case drew support from the Muslim community as well as Amnesty International after he claimed he would be tortured if sent back to Tunisia.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351385/Controversial-Muslim-cleric-caught-smuggled-U-S-Mexico-border.html#ixzz1CMAfwiMu
Last updated at 1:04 PM on 28th January 2011
U.S. border guards got a surprise when they searched a Mexican BMW and found a hardline Muslim cleric - banned from France and Canada - curled up in the boot.
Said Jaziri, who called for the death of a Danish cartoonist that drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed, was being smuggled into California when he was arrested, along with his driver Kenneth Robert Lawler.
The 43-year-old was deported from Canada to his homeland Tunisia in 2007 after it emerged he had lied on his refugee application about having served jail time in France
His fire and brimstone sermons and rabble-rousing antics catapulted him into the public eye during his short tenure as imam at a Montreal mosque.
He branded homosexuality a disease and led protests over cartoonist Kurt Westergaard's illustrations poked fun at Islam and were published in a Danish newspaper in 2006.
He also caused anger when he campaigned for a bigger mosque to accommodate Montreal's burgeoning Muslim population
But after his deportation he complained that he had been physically and mentally tortured during the 13-hour flight repatriating him to Tunisia, a claim Canadian authorities deny.
He was being held as a material witness in the criminal case against Mr Lawler, who has been charged with immigrant smuggling.
Jaziri had allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling cartel $5,000 to take him across the border near Tecate, saying he wanted to be taken to a 'safe place anywhere in the U.S.'
According to the court documents, a Mexican guide led Jaziri and a Mexican immigrant over the border fence near Tecate.
They then trekked across the rugged terrain under cover of darkness to a spot popular for drivers who pick up immigrants for smuggling runs into San Diego.
He allegedly told officials he had flown from Africa to Europe, then to Central America and Chetumal, Mexico, on the Mexico-Belize border, where he took a bus to Tijuana.
Lise Garon, a professor of communications at Laval University in Quebec City, told the Los Angeles Times: 'His nickname in Quebec was the controversial imam.
'I think he was deported because people hated his ideas.'
His case drew support from the Muslim community as well as Amnesty International after he claimed he would be tortured if sent back to Tunisia.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351385/Controversial-Muslim-cleric-caught-smuggled-U-S-Mexico-border.html#ixzz1CMAfwiMu
The State of the Union Is... Leaderless
By Ruth Marcus
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The state of the union is ... leaderless.
Sounds harsh, but when it comes to digging America out from what President Obama calls its "mountain of debt," I'm becoming increasingly worried that this assessment is accurate.
The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he's not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
Judge Obama by his own standards. "We have to signal seriousness in this," he told The Washington Post just before the inauguration, "by making sure that some of the hard decisions are made under my watch and not under somebody else's."
So what hard decisions has the president made? On the plus side of the ledger, the president worked to ensure that the costly expansion of health coverage was coupled with potentially cost-saving measures to control Medicare spending. Emphasis on potentially.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he proposed a five-year freeze on discretionary spending, two years longer than his previous offer.
But as the president himself recognized, this kind of nibbling around the edges of the budget is entirely inadequate.
"To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough," he said. "It won't." Except the president then offered nothing else of substance about what else he envisioned -- and would be willing to push for.
Some serious people with unquestioned bona fides on fiscal responsibility grasped at wispy tendrils of seriousness in the president's remarks. He mentioned Social Security! He talked about tax reform! I hope they are right but fear they are deluding themselves.
Examine the president's words, and you see nothing new or specific. It hardly constitutes bravery to call for a bipartisan Social Security fix that doesn't slash benefits. At that level of generality, who would disagree?
The health care law -- if implemented as planned -- is merely a down payment on cost containment. But the president's only specific was to repeat his offer to join with Republicans on medical malpractice reform. This is attacking a mountain with a teaspoon.
Corporate tax reform is a great idea but not a solution to the fiscal problem. The president's opening bid was to fix the corporate tax code without adding to the deficit.
As to the individual income tax system, the president repeated his stale complaint that "we simply can't afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans." No mention of the affordability of the tax cuts for everyone else.
In fact, when the president discussed income taxes, he cited the need to "simplify the individual tax code" without daring to whisper that the real goal needs to be more revenue. "Members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them," Obama said. Joining up is not my definition of leadership.
Administration officials insist that proffering more in the State of the Union would have been self-defeating. Negotiating in public does not work, this argument goes. Do corporate tax reform first and the larger overhaul will come more easily.
This would be more convincing if the president's behind-the-scenes track record were more reassuring. Obama put little muscle behind the legislative effort to create a fiscal commission. Then, having established one by executive order, he did nothing to assure its success, according to sources close to the process. The commission was tantalizingly close to getting the super-majority needed for congressional action -- former Service Employees Union President Andy Stern had promised to be the 14th vote, the sources said -- but the administration did not lift a finger to help by lobbying other Democrats.
On Tuesday, the most Obama could manage to choke out about his own commission was that "I don't agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress."
Into this disturbing vacuum of leadership come Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who have assembled a bipartisan group pushing for tax reform and other deficit reduction this year.
When I spoke with them after the speech, they emphasized two points: that nothing would be accomplished without presidential involvement, and that it would be a mistake to let things slide into the election year or, inevitably, beyond.
"Every one of these painful choices gets harder every day we don't do anything," Warner said.
Wise words. If only we had heard more of that from the president himself.
(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/28/the_state_of_the_union_is_leaderless_108682.html
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The state of the union is ... leaderless.
Sounds harsh, but when it comes to digging America out from what President Obama calls its "mountain of debt," I'm becoming increasingly worried that this assessment is accurate.
The president talks the talk about fiscal responsibility. But the evidence suggests he's not willing to spend the political capital to translate that talk into action.
Judge Obama by his own standards. "We have to signal seriousness in this," he told The Washington Post just before the inauguration, "by making sure that some of the hard decisions are made under my watch and not under somebody else's."
So what hard decisions has the president made? On the plus side of the ledger, the president worked to ensure that the costly expansion of health coverage was coupled with potentially cost-saving measures to control Medicare spending. Emphasis on potentially.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he proposed a five-year freeze on discretionary spending, two years longer than his previous offer.
But as the president himself recognized, this kind of nibbling around the edges of the budget is entirely inadequate.
"To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough," he said. "It won't." Except the president then offered nothing else of substance about what else he envisioned -- and would be willing to push for.
Some serious people with unquestioned bona fides on fiscal responsibility grasped at wispy tendrils of seriousness in the president's remarks. He mentioned Social Security! He talked about tax reform! I hope they are right but fear they are deluding themselves.
Examine the president's words, and you see nothing new or specific. It hardly constitutes bravery to call for a bipartisan Social Security fix that doesn't slash benefits. At that level of generality, who would disagree?
The health care law -- if implemented as planned -- is merely a down payment on cost containment. But the president's only specific was to repeat his offer to join with Republicans on medical malpractice reform. This is attacking a mountain with a teaspoon.
Corporate tax reform is a great idea but not a solution to the fiscal problem. The president's opening bid was to fix the corporate tax code without adding to the deficit.
As to the individual income tax system, the president repeated his stale complaint that "we simply can't afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans." No mention of the affordability of the tax cuts for everyone else.
In fact, when the president discussed income taxes, he cited the need to "simplify the individual tax code" without daring to whisper that the real goal needs to be more revenue. "Members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them," Obama said. Joining up is not my definition of leadership.
Administration officials insist that proffering more in the State of the Union would have been self-defeating. Negotiating in public does not work, this argument goes. Do corporate tax reform first and the larger overhaul will come more easily.
This would be more convincing if the president's behind-the-scenes track record were more reassuring. Obama put little muscle behind the legislative effort to create a fiscal commission. Then, having established one by executive order, he did nothing to assure its success, according to sources close to the process. The commission was tantalizingly close to getting the super-majority needed for congressional action -- former Service Employees Union President Andy Stern had promised to be the 14th vote, the sources said -- but the administration did not lift a finger to help by lobbying other Democrats.
On Tuesday, the most Obama could manage to choke out about his own commission was that "I don't agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress."
Into this disturbing vacuum of leadership come Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner and Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who have assembled a bipartisan group pushing for tax reform and other deficit reduction this year.
When I spoke with them after the speech, they emphasized two points: that nothing would be accomplished without presidential involvement, and that it would be a mistake to let things slide into the election year or, inevitably, beyond.
"Every one of these painful choices gets harder every day we don't do anything," Warner said.
Wise words. If only we had heard more of that from the president himself.
(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/01/28/the_state_of_the_union_is_leaderless_108682.html
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Emanuel asks Illinois Supreme Court for emergency stay
Posted by Kristen Mack, David Heinzmann, Hal Dardick and Dawn Rhodes; Tribune reporters
Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel late today asked the Illinois Supreme Court to prevent Chicago elections officials from printing ballots for the Feb. 22 mayor's election without his name.
Emanuel's legal team also said they will ask the state's highest court on Tuesday to hear their appeal of a decision by an appellate court today to knock him off the ballot on the grounds he doesn't meet residency requirements.
Chicago elections officials said today they have to begin printing the 2 million or so ballots needed for the election as well as preparing electronic voting machines for early voting that begins next Monday.
Emanuel held a news conference before the legal filings to try to reassure voters his campaign to succeed retiring Mayor Richard Daley continues.
"I have no doubt at the end we'll prevail in this effort," Emanuel said at a news conference. “We’ll now go to the next level to get clarity."
“I still own a home here, (I) look forward to moving into it one day, vote from here, pay property taxes here. I do believe the people of the city of Chicago deserve a right to make a decision about who they want to be their next mayor," Emanuel said.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Emanuel does not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Chicago for a year prior to the election. The judges reversed a decision by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had unanimously agreed that Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor.
"We conclude that the candidate neither meets the Municipal Code's requirement that he have 'resided in' Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement," the majority judges wrote. "Accordingly, we disagree with the Board's conclusion that he is eligible to run for the office of Mayor of the City of Chicago. We reverse the circuit court's judgment confirming the Board's decision, set aside the Board's decision and ... order that the candidate's name be excluded (or, if necessary, removed) from the ballot."
The majority opinion was written by Appellate Justice Thomas E. Hoffman and concurred with by Presiding Appellate Justice Shelvin Louise Marie Hall.
Appellate Justice Bertina E. Lampkin wrote a dissenting opinion.
"I disagree with the majority's contrary conclusion that the candidate is not eligible to be on the ballot because that conclusion is based on an analysis of two issues --- establishing residency and a statutory exemption to the residency requirement --- that are not relevant to the resolution of this case."
Emanuel said he meets requirements despite serving as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff.
“Fundamentally, when a president asks you to serve the country as his chief of staff, that counts as part of serving your country," Emanuel said. I have no doubt that in the end we will in the prevail at this effort. As my father always used to say, nothing is ever easy in life. This is just one turn in the road.”
“The Supreme Court has an obligation, not an obligation, to hear the case, to make a decision quickly," said Emanuel, who stumbled over his talking point. "So both not only voters have a clarity they need, but there’s a clarity to the issues we are discussing in front of the voters as it relates to the challenges that we have as a city for our future."
Time is of the essence, however. Early voting starts a week from today on Jan. 31.
Langdon D. Neal, the elections board chairman, issued a statement: "We're going to press with one less candidate for mayor."
During a conference call, elections officials said they would send the ballots to the printer tonight and printing would begin Tuesday.
“We’ve basically hit the go button,” elections spokesman Jim Allen said. “We needed to do this on the 18th, we were waiting for this decision. We going to press now, we have to.”
“A candidate who is removed from the ballots by the court’s has until Feb. 15 to file as a write-in,” Allen said.
"This is all unchartered territory," Allen said.
The appellate court judges heard the case last week. To read the opinion, click here.
Emanuel is the front-running candidate in the race to succeed Mayor Richard Daley. The latest Tribune poll showed Emanuel at 44 percent, more than double his closest rival, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.
The news crashed Emanuel's campaign web site this afternoon.
Opponent Gery Chico told reporters he was very surprised by the ruling and said he has never made Emanuel's residency a campaign issue.
"I believe in ballot access," Chico said outside a fundraiser at a River North restaurant shortly after the ruling. "We will continue vigorously with our campaign, with or without Rahm Emanuel."
Chico sidestepped questions about whether he was happy for the development. "I've said from Day One of this campaign that I haven't paid much attention to who's on or who's off, who's in the race."
When asked whether Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke should recuse herself from the case because of Chico's longstanding ties with her husband, Ald. Ed Burke, Chico shook his head, and said it was not an appropriate question for him to consider. "I'm a candidate for mayor. I don't tell the Illinois Supreme Court what to do," he said.
Opponent Carol Moseley Braun, who was second in the Tribune poll, described the news as a "major milestone" for her campaign.
"Our campaign for mayor has always been about standing with all families in every neighborhood of this great city," Braun said. "Nothing about that has changed with today's appellate decision. . . Today's decision is a major milestone for our campaign, but the decision doesn't make one neighborhood safer, one senior more secure, one child better educated or give one unemployed person a job."
Braun also pitched herself as a candidate who could appeal beyond her African American base to all Chicagoans.
“I am extending a hand of friendship to all the fine Chicagoans who have been supporting Mr. Emanuel and all those who haven’t made up their minds yet,” she said. “We all love this city and want to see it move forward, and I hope that everyone will join us in that effort.”
When asked if she hoped Emanuel’s removal from the ballot would be an opportunity for her to raise more campaign cash, she responded:
“We’ve always had a poor campaign with a rich message. While we hope that it will be less poor, at the same time our message is consistent and the same — that I have the ability to deliver for all the people of Chicago to help move our city in the right direction.”
Opponent Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, issued a statement.
“Those who thought that Rahm Emanuel’s election was a foregone conclusion: Now, the voters are going to really have an opportunity to choose the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” del Valle said.
Hours after the appellate court ruling, Emanuel supporters gathered for brief a rally outside the offices of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, the folks that last month had unanimously confirmed his eligibility to run for mayor.
Donning signs which said "Keep Rahm on the ballot" and "We stand by Rahm," the group chanted that they should have the choice of who to elect as mayor.
"We need to make sure that we don't get a mayor by default," said campaign co-chair Juan Rangel, the head of the United Neighborhood Organization. "We have to make sure that the people get to decide this election."
Opponents say Emanuel doesn't meet the one-year residency requirement because he was in Washington serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
Before today, Emanuel had won rulings by the election board and in Cook County Circuit Court. Today’s ruling seems certain to be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Emanuel, a former North Side congressman, had served Obama in Washington from January 2009 until October.
Posted at 12:35:28 PM in 2011 Chicago election, 2011 Chicago mayor's race
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2011/01/appellate-court-says-emanuel-should-be-removed-from-ballot.html
Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel late today asked the Illinois Supreme Court to prevent Chicago elections officials from printing ballots for the Feb. 22 mayor's election without his name.
Emanuel's legal team also said they will ask the state's highest court on Tuesday to hear their appeal of a decision by an appellate court today to knock him off the ballot on the grounds he doesn't meet residency requirements.
Chicago elections officials said today they have to begin printing the 2 million or so ballots needed for the election as well as preparing electronic voting machines for early voting that begins next Monday.
Emanuel held a news conference before the legal filings to try to reassure voters his campaign to succeed retiring Mayor Richard Daley continues.
"I have no doubt at the end we'll prevail in this effort," Emanuel said at a news conference. “We’ll now go to the next level to get clarity."
“I still own a home here, (I) look forward to moving into it one day, vote from here, pay property taxes here. I do believe the people of the city of Chicago deserve a right to make a decision about who they want to be their next mayor," Emanuel said.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Emanuel does not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Chicago for a year prior to the election. The judges reversed a decision by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had unanimously agreed that Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor.
"We conclude that the candidate neither meets the Municipal Code's requirement that he have 'resided in' Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement," the majority judges wrote. "Accordingly, we disagree with the Board's conclusion that he is eligible to run for the office of Mayor of the City of Chicago. We reverse the circuit court's judgment confirming the Board's decision, set aside the Board's decision and ... order that the candidate's name be excluded (or, if necessary, removed) from the ballot."
The majority opinion was written by Appellate Justice Thomas E. Hoffman and concurred with by Presiding Appellate Justice Shelvin Louise Marie Hall.
Appellate Justice Bertina E. Lampkin wrote a dissenting opinion.
"I disagree with the majority's contrary conclusion that the candidate is not eligible to be on the ballot because that conclusion is based on an analysis of two issues --- establishing residency and a statutory exemption to the residency requirement --- that are not relevant to the resolution of this case."
Emanuel said he meets requirements despite serving as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff.
“Fundamentally, when a president asks you to serve the country as his chief of staff, that counts as part of serving your country," Emanuel said. I have no doubt that in the end we will in the prevail at this effort. As my father always used to say, nothing is ever easy in life. This is just one turn in the road.”
“The Supreme Court has an obligation, not an obligation, to hear the case, to make a decision quickly," said Emanuel, who stumbled over his talking point. "So both not only voters have a clarity they need, but there’s a clarity to the issues we are discussing in front of the voters as it relates to the challenges that we have as a city for our future."
Time is of the essence, however. Early voting starts a week from today on Jan. 31.
Langdon D. Neal, the elections board chairman, issued a statement: "We're going to press with one less candidate for mayor."
During a conference call, elections officials said they would send the ballots to the printer tonight and printing would begin Tuesday.
“We’ve basically hit the go button,” elections spokesman Jim Allen said. “We needed to do this on the 18th, we were waiting for this decision. We going to press now, we have to.”
“A candidate who is removed from the ballots by the court’s has until Feb. 15 to file as a write-in,” Allen said.
"This is all unchartered territory," Allen said.
The appellate court judges heard the case last week. To read the opinion, click here.
Emanuel is the front-running candidate in the race to succeed Mayor Richard Daley. The latest Tribune poll showed Emanuel at 44 percent, more than double his closest rival, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun.
The news crashed Emanuel's campaign web site this afternoon.
Opponent Gery Chico told reporters he was very surprised by the ruling and said he has never made Emanuel's residency a campaign issue.
"I believe in ballot access," Chico said outside a fundraiser at a River North restaurant shortly after the ruling. "We will continue vigorously with our campaign, with or without Rahm Emanuel."
Chico sidestepped questions about whether he was happy for the development. "I've said from Day One of this campaign that I haven't paid much attention to who's on or who's off, who's in the race."
When asked whether Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke should recuse herself from the case because of Chico's longstanding ties with her husband, Ald. Ed Burke, Chico shook his head, and said it was not an appropriate question for him to consider. "I'm a candidate for mayor. I don't tell the Illinois Supreme Court what to do," he said.
Opponent Carol Moseley Braun, who was second in the Tribune poll, described the news as a "major milestone" for her campaign.
"Our campaign for mayor has always been about standing with all families in every neighborhood of this great city," Braun said. "Nothing about that has changed with today's appellate decision. . . Today's decision is a major milestone for our campaign, but the decision doesn't make one neighborhood safer, one senior more secure, one child better educated or give one unemployed person a job."
Braun also pitched herself as a candidate who could appeal beyond her African American base to all Chicagoans.
“I am extending a hand of friendship to all the fine Chicagoans who have been supporting Mr. Emanuel and all those who haven’t made up their minds yet,” she said. “We all love this city and want to see it move forward, and I hope that everyone will join us in that effort.”
When asked if she hoped Emanuel’s removal from the ballot would be an opportunity for her to raise more campaign cash, she responded:
“We’ve always had a poor campaign with a rich message. While we hope that it will be less poor, at the same time our message is consistent and the same — that I have the ability to deliver for all the people of Chicago to help move our city in the right direction.”
Opponent Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, issued a statement.
“Those who thought that Rahm Emanuel’s election was a foregone conclusion: Now, the voters are going to really have an opportunity to choose the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” del Valle said.
Hours after the appellate court ruling, Emanuel supporters gathered for brief a rally outside the offices of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, the folks that last month had unanimously confirmed his eligibility to run for mayor.
Donning signs which said "Keep Rahm on the ballot" and "We stand by Rahm," the group chanted that they should have the choice of who to elect as mayor.
"We need to make sure that we don't get a mayor by default," said campaign co-chair Juan Rangel, the head of the United Neighborhood Organization. "We have to make sure that the people get to decide this election."
Opponents say Emanuel doesn't meet the one-year residency requirement because he was in Washington serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
Before today, Emanuel had won rulings by the election board and in Cook County Circuit Court. Today’s ruling seems certain to be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Emanuel, a former North Side congressman, had served Obama in Washington from January 2009 until October.
Posted at 12:35:28 PM in 2011 Chicago election, 2011 Chicago mayor's race
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2011/01/appellate-court-says-emanuel-should-be-removed-from-ballot.html
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