Click on WORD or PDF for full content
Jennifer Rubin has many good posts. First is on the shrinking president.
The president heads for the campaign trail, but where there is work to be done he’s never seemed so feeble.
“Stung by Americans’ persistent worries about the economy and a capital gripped by controversy and gridlock, President Barack Obama is suffering his lowest job approval numbers in nearly two years, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. . . . Obama will deliver the first of a series of speeches Wednesday aimed at offering his vision for boosting economic growth, even as the new poll found that just 37 percent of the respondents approved of his handling of the economy, while 56 percent disapproved.
Overall, the poll found Obama’s job approval at 41 percent last week, a sharp drop from April’s 50 percent and his worst showing in the poll since 39 percent in September 2011. Forty-eight percent disapproved in the latest poll, up from April’s 46 percent.”
But with the purpose of the speeches not to roll out new solutions but recycle rhetoric, there is no sign the president will address the underlying reality of his second term: He’s run out of policy ideas and political capital. …
Next she comments on his new economy road show.
It is no secret that we have yet to get the robust economy President Obama has been promising since he took office. …
… So what does the president do? He does what he does when things are going poorly: He hits the campaign trail with recycled rhetoric. The Post reports, “President Obama will deliver a series of speeches this week designed to push the economy, and his proposals to ensure its long-term growth, toward the center of the national political debate after months of focus on other issues.”
In the same don’t-think-I’m-responsible-for-anything tone the administration uses to deflect responsibility for most problems, the White House’s communication director pronounced, “The president thinks Washington has largely taken its eye off the ball on the most important issue facing the country.” Washington has, has it?
Maybe Obama’s useless crusade against guns, his prevaricating about the sequestration apocalypse, his European trip to deliver a no-nukes message, his Africa jaunt and his administration’s useless obsession with the “peace process” had something to do with it. …
Reacting to Chuck Hagel’s complaint about the administration’s sequester policy. Jennifer Rubin asks if anyone is in charge.
He appeared Monday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Louisville, Kentucky. After his introductory small talk he got to the nub of the matter:
“Sequestration is an irresponsible process, and it is terribly damaging. I hope that our leaders in Washington will eventually come to policy resolution, a resolution that stops sequestration. But all of us who have the responsibility of leading our Defense Department cannot lead the Department of Defense based on hope, based on “we think,” based on “maybe.” We have to prepare our institution for whatever comes. To that end, these cuts are forcing us to make tough but necessary decisions to prioritize missions and capabilities around our core responsibility, which is the security of our country.”
We already know the White House was the source of the irresponsible process, but that was undertaken before Hagel arrived at the Pentagon. Fine, but why has he not gone to the president to make the case against what his predecessor calls “devastating” cuts? …
Rubin also notes the diminished democrat delight in obamacare.
When it comes to Obamacare, Republicans have the wind at their backs.
“The landmark health-reform law passed in 2010 has never been very popular and always highly partisan, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a group of once loyal Democrats has been steadily turning against Obamacare: Democrats who are ideologically moderate or conservative.
Just after the law was passed in 2010, fully 74 percent of moderate and conservative Democrats supported the federal law making changes to the health-care system. But just 46 percent express support in the new poll, down 11 points in the past year. Liberal Democrats, by contrast, have continued to support the law at very high levels – 78 percent in the latest survey. Among the public at large, 42 percent support and 49 percent oppose the law, retreating from an even split at 47 percent apiece last July.”
This only adds to Republicans’ sense that the momentum is with them, if not for repealing Obamacare entirely then at least disabling it or using it to their advantage in the 2014 elections. …
Daniel Hannan writes in London Telegraph about Detroit. He says you thought Atlas Shrugged was fiction?
Look at this description of Detroit from today’s Observer:
“What isn’t dumped is stolen. Factories and homes have largely been stripped of anything of value, so thieves now target cars’ catalytic converters. Illiteracy runs at around 47%; half the adults in some areas are unemployed. In many neighbourhoods, the only sign of activity is a slow trudge to the liquor store.”
Now have a look at the uncannily prophetic description of Starnesville, a Mid-Western town in Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged. Starnesville had been home to the great Twentieth Century Motor Company, but declined as a result of socialism:
“A few houses still stood within the skeleton of what had once been an industrial town. Everything that could move, had moved away; but some human beings had remained. The empty structures were vertical rubble; they had been eaten, not by time, but by men: boards torn out at random, missing patches of roofs, holes left in gutted cellars. It looked as if blind hands had seized whatever fitted the need of the moment, with no concept of remaining in existence the next morning. …”
John Stossel on the stalled motor city.
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry — the same TV commentator who said Americans need to stop raising kids as if they belong to individual families — had an extraordinary explanation for why the city of Detroit sought to declare bankruptcy last week: not enough government.
“This is what it looks like when government is small enough to drown in your bathtub, and it is not a pretty picture.” She says budget-cutting Republicans threaten to transform all of the U.S. into Detroit.
What? Detroit has been a “model city” for big-government! All Detroit’s mayors since 1962 were Democrats who were eager to micromanage. And spend. Detroit has the only utility tax in Michigan, and its income tax is the third-highest of any big city in America (only Philadelphia and Louisville take more, and they aren’t doing great, either).
Detroit’s automakers got billions in federal bailouts.
The Detroit News revealed that Detroit in 2011 had around twice as many municipal employees per capita as cities with comparable populations. The city water and sewer department employed a “horseshoer” even though it keeps no horses. …
Jonathan Tobin on why the left won’t face the facts of Detroit.
… The wake up call that Detroit is sending Americans is one Krugman and other liberals would like us to ignore because they are confident that the federal leviathan, controlled by Democrats and fed by liberal assumptions, will always be able to squeeze enough cash out of productive citizens to pay for the left’s follies. They won’t face the truth about this because to do so would require Americans to do some hard thinking about a society where virtually everyone has their snouts in the collective trough of big government and thereby is a stakeholder in its survival in its current form. But what Greece showed Europe and what Detroit tells Americans is that sooner or later the well of public funds will run dry if obligations to liberal constituent groups continue to grow unchecked. And when that happens it is exactly the little guys who are hurting in Detroit who will be forced to suffer for Krugman’s ideology.
Nicole Gelinas says Detroit should be a warning to NY City.
What a difference four decades makes. In the mid-’70s, New York City’s threat of bankruptcy was a horror that the state, feds and city ultimately avoided. Last week, Detroit declared bankruptcy because Michigan thought it was the best choice — and Washington stayed silent.
This change should spur New York’s own bondholders, public-sector workers and citizens to take a fresh look at our own financial burdens.
In 1975, Gotham couldn’t pay its bills. It went to Albany for help, and Albany went to Washington. Republican President Gerald Ford hemmed and hawed, but he came through.
Why? Then-Treasury Secretary Bill Simon said default would be “awful.” Fed chief Arthur Burns heard from Europe’s leaders — and relayed to Ford — that bankruptcy was “unthinkable.”
The city got its bailout and repaid its debt (or refinanced it — we still owe $2.1 billion from that era).
Today, there’s no chance Detroit will pay all — or even most — of the $18 billion it owes to bondholders and public-sector retirees. …
The Free Press provides an article that makes a nice segue from the Detroit mess to the humor section. Turns out the Detroit City Council passed a resolution supporting a federal investigation into the possibility there had been a civil rights violation by George Zimmerman. You just can’t make it up. Or as Lily Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up.”
The Detroit City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution calling for a federal investigation to see whether civil rights charges are warranted against George Zimmerman, who was acquitted July 13 of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin.
The resolution, sponsored by Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, sparked a discussion over the need for city leaders and others to focus more on violence in Detroit. …
Late night humor from Andrew Malcolm.
… Leno: President Obama tells school children his favorite food is broccoli. Hey, it’s one thing to lie to voters. But now, kids? C’mon, Mr. President!
Letterman: Edward Snowden still living in the Moscow Airport. Workers there are treating him well. Every night they leave a mint on his neck pillow.
Leno: The Pentagon says China will soon have submarine missiles capable of hitting anywhere in the US. No one will be safe, except people living near a Walmart.
Conan: Eliot Spitzer got the 4,000 signatures he needs to qualify for the New York City comptroller race by hiring people on Craigslist to help him. It was a big challenge, but if there’s one thing Spitzer knows how to do, it’s hire people on Craigslist.