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The president finds another way to insult Israel and Netanyahu. Elliot Abrams has the story.
If Prime Minister Netanyahu were to ask a fair-minded, balanced, sensible adviser what he could realistically do to win the confidence and approbation of President Obama, the answer would have to be “nothing.”
Two examples prove the point.
1. In May, Netanyahu moved the Likud Party considerably to the center in his speech to the opening of the summer session of the Knesset. In that speech he discussed relations with the Palestinians and called for a “long term IDF presence along the Jordan River,” and said “we agree that we must maintain the settlement blocs.” In other words, he was saying that the Israeli presence along the Jordan would be that of soldiers only, not settlers, and that it would in any event not be permanent; and he was saying that only the settlement blocs, not all settlements no matter how small and isolated, would remain with Israel.
The Obama administration’s reaction to these important statements was, well, nothing. Zero. They did not commend them, or even acknowledge that they were important. They were so certain in their view of Netanyahu as a recalcitrant right-winger that they did not even pay attention to what he was saying. …
Alana Goodman has more in Contentions.
There were some legitimate questions about the veracity of this story last night, but Reuters has apparently confirmed it today. At the G-20 summit meeting earlier this month, a technical error reportedly broadcast a private conversation between President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to a roomful of reporters – including some undiplomatic carping about Benjamin Netanyahu:
“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.
“You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.
Israeli critics of Netanyahu weighed in on the comments in the Jerusalem Post, with Labor MK Daniel Ben-Simon saying that he’s “embarrassed” that Bibi is shown such little respect by allies. But Obama should be the one most embarrassed by this faux pas, which he can expect to be used by Republican presidential candidates to attack his frosty relationship with Israel.
It’s hardly news that Obama and Netanyahu aren’t on friendly terms. But this is one of the more public displays of Obama’s hostility toward the Israeli prime minister, and the latest in a string of diplomatic clashes between the two. Obama’s record provides more than enough evidence that he’s not interested in dealing fairly with Israel, and these comments only add to that. Not only did Obama hand his opponents an easy attack with this, he also came off looking amateurish, unprofessional and catty.
Michael Barone reviews Tuesday’s vote.
The biggest result was Ohio Governor John Kasich’s defeat on Issue 2. Voters cast 61% of their votes (as I write) to repeal Kasich’s law, which had been backed by Republican majorties in the legislature (with some defections). Kasich’s effort is part of a struggle to rein in public employee unions, which use taxpayers’ money (in the form of union dues) to elect pliable politicians who then confer benefits on their members —especially generous health care and pensions—which then result in economy-killing tax rates. It’s a kind of economic death spiral for states and localities where public employee unions are a major political force.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to rein in their powers with a series of ballot propositions in November 2005. The unions spent something like $100 million and defeated him. Unions spent a proportionate amount, more than $30 million it has been reported, in Ohio, a state whose population is about 30% the size of California’s.
There is some consolation here. The same Ohio voters—and the turnout seems to have been just about as high as in November 2010—who voted 61% against Kasich’s public employee union restrictions also voted 66% for Issue 3, which purported to shield Ohioans from any mandate to buy health insurance. This was a clear repudiation of Obamacare, and about half the folks that the unions turned out voted against Obamacare. There were something like 300,000 of them, or almost 10% of the total votes cast, reported as absentee balloters in the big industrial counties (Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Mahoning, Lucas, Montgomery, Franklin, Hamilton) before any other votes were counties.
But the real bragging rights here belong to the public employee unions and the Democrats. …
More from Red State.
Issue 2 in Ohio has failed. Unions poured a gazillion dollars into Ohio and won. Despite having a sense of this outcome for some time it still stings. Believe it or not, a great many felt that these reforms were important steps in bring fiscal and structural sanity to government. The voters clearly did not get that message.
The media is going to try and play this as horse race politics. Governor John Kasich lost and the Democrats won. And obviously, in some important sense – even if only in the fact the story and perspective being conventional wisdom – this is true. Kasich and Republicans passed this legislation and it has been rejected. Fair enough.
But I personally believe there is a simpler explanation. Voters like their local cops, firefighters, nurses and teachers. In many ways, they idealize these type of positions even if they don’t like the state of education or public safety, etc. Thus opponents of reform had a very easy and emotionally effective message: Senate Bill 5 is an attack on the “everyday heroes” who protect our communities. It doesn’t really matter if this was true or not. In a 30 second ad it is easy to say and makes an emotional connection. This is a huge advantage in a statewide ballot issue.
Combine this with the huge financial advantage the opponents had …
And from Mark Steyn.
Big Labor’s victory over John Kasich’s reforms in Ohio is a reminder to conservatives that we’re still a long way from closing the deal. A majority of the citizenry seem to agree that the nation’s mired and that their homes and jobs and futures are sinking with it. But that same majority is not yet sold on transformative rollbacks of government and the public sector. They seem to think that out there somewhere there’s a way to get the good times back that’s more or less pain-free. More fool them – which is to say Obama & Co will have a pretty good shot at fooling them.
Somewhere in either my current book or the previous one (or possibly both), I cite the line Gerald Ford used to use to ingratiate himself with conservatives: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” That may be true, but there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. That’s the problem Mr Papandreou’s ministry has in Athens, and the Kasich administration in Ohio, and many other governments around the western world.
So it’s easy for reformers to get voted in, and easy for their opponents to make sure their reforms get voted down. I’m afraid things are going to get a lot worse before that dynamic shifts.
Joel Kotkin writes on the LA push to fund a stadium.
Over the past decade Los Angeles has steadily declined. It currently has one of the the highest unemployment rates (roughly 12.5%) in the U.S, and there’s little sign of a sustained recovery. The city and county have become a kind of purgatory for all but the most politically connected businesses, while job creation and population growth lag not only the vibrant Texas cities but even aged competitors such as New York.
Rather than address general business conditions, which sorely need fixing, L.A. Mayor Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the other ruling elites have instead focused on revitalizing the city’s urban core, which has done little to boost the region’s overall economy in generations. The most recent example of such foolishness is a $1.5 billion plan to build a football stadium, named Farmers Field, downtown, unanimously approved by the city’s City Council and backed by the city’s “progressive” state delegation.
Like most of the dominant political class, California Senator and former City Council member Alex Padilla cites the sad state of the local economy as justification for approving the plan. But, in reality, it’s hard to find something more profoundly irrelevant than a football stadium.
Indeed years of independent investigations have discovered that urban vanity projects like sports teams and convention centers add little to permanent employment or overall regional economic well-being. …
Football stadiums? How about government efforts to promote Christmas Trees. Yuval Levin has the story.
If, like me, you have been terribly worried about the declining status and image of Christmas trees lately, worry not: the Obama administration is on the case! As Heritage notes this morning:
In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expand existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).
To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.
The administration offered no specific estimate of how many jobs would be created or saved by the Christmas Tree Promotion Board and the new Christmas tree tax, but we can assume the number is very high.
Andrew Malcolm says the tax got scrapped yesterday morning.
… Since the economy is back humming again and unemployment has plummeted, the Obama administration published in the Federal Register Tuesday its intention to charge a new 15 cent tax on cut Christmas trees this year. The Democrats don’t need congressional approval for that baby. The Ag Dept. needn’t wait. Just do it.
So what if eventually some people stop buying American-grown trees and switch to fake ones from China.
But wait! The overnight outrage was quicker than a pajama-clad four-year-old sliding down the stairs on Christmas morning. With the president just off Air Force One from Europe and Pennsylvania and about to head off to Hawaii, the White House was desperate to snuff this guaranteed PR loser.
Scrooge Obama. Tiny Tim Geithner. Ebenezer Biden. The possibilities for fun in this gaffe are endless. …
Michael Graham has a good thought. Maybe not all people should go to college.
… “We should be doing everything we can to put a college education within reach for every American,” President Barack Obama told a group of college students in Denver last week. “College isn’t just one of the best investments you can make in your future. It’s one of the best investments America can make in our future.”
Before we beat this nonsensical notion to death with the latest data, take a second and think about the young people you know. The kid behind the fast-food counter, the geek camped out at Best Buy waiting for the Call of Duty game, the girl popping her gum at the hair salon.
Would it really be the “best investment in America” to spend $100,000 of our money sending each one of them to college?
Because that’s what we’re talking about: your money. Every year Massachusetts taxpayers pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the University of Massachusetts system, subsidizing college costs for all. Add the $36 billion in federal Pell Grants and that giant sucking sound is the money going from your wallet to some kid’s six-year bong party known as “the college experience.”
And what’s the big payoff? Some entitled punk waving a “Debt Is Slavery!” sign outside a shabby tent on Dewey Square. This is America’s “best investment?” …