WaPo’s Dana Milbank asked this question in his latest opinion piece while doing his best to romanticize the movement. Milbank centered his story on folk rocker Jackson Browne’s recent attempts to rally a small group of OWS protesters in Washington, D.C.:

He played five political tunes but left out the one most relevant to the protest movement: “Running on Empty.”

Two months ago, there was hope that the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots could be the start of political counterweight to the Tea Party. But that never happened, and any last chance of it ended when New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg closed the encampment in lower Manhattan.

Nationwide, the movement lost its idealistic roots amid reports of accidental deaths, drug overdoses and scattered violence. In Washington over the weekend, 31 demonstrators in McPherson Square, a previously peaceful encampment, were arrested in a standoff with police.

“Scattered violence”? There were rapes, sexual assaults, stabbings and beatings, Dana. Be honest. There have also been many reports of vandalism and damage to local small business in the areas of OWS protests that have dearly cost some of the very people the movement is allegedly supposed to help. Check out news reports that have been filed across the country in smaller papers from Boston, Massachusetts to Portland, Maine to Santa Cruz, California. But sharing that information would further blight a group even as it explains the very reasons why it has not caught fire.

Hot flash, Mr. Milbank: Most people are uncomfortable being associated with violence.

Further, some of the protesters quoted in the news seem unclear about what they wish to accomplish. They only know they want someone else to pay. No matter how angry I am with the excesses of Wall Street, I also know that the dishonest operatives among them could not function without more than a wink and a nod from Washington, so to rail against the “evil rich” is not cutting it for me. I also get offended when wealthy celebrities pretend solidarity with a group they would not allow into their own homes.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan, himself a supporter of the movement, has expressed outrage that as long as Congress, and, I assume, the President, receive financial support from Wall Street, government entities are unlikely to risk cutting off their own source of campaign funds by doing something that benefits the consumer rather than their cushy benefactors. Milbank paints a sad picture of OWS:

In nearby Freedom Plaza, there are fewer tents than there were earlier in fall — and it wasn’t exactly booming then. When Browne, the 63-year-old singer and activist, walked to the microphones, there were all of 125 people to listen to the performance, including a media pack of about 40.

“You are the 99 percent!” Browne, in leather jacket, blue jeans and Salomon athletic shoes, told the modest crowd. “This is what democracy looks like.”

But this is not what a mass movement looks like.

Browne, questioned about the movement’s failure to ignite the masses, responded that people are “very angry” and that OWS would be a force to contend with in the 2012 elections. Then Mr. Browne engaged in a bit of Kool-Aid drinking when he stated:

“How angry people are is not really carried by the mainstream media.”

That is all they have been covering. Well, in a way. They, like Milbank, have done their best to romanticize the nobler intentions of a movement where the encampments, over time, have started to resemble the behavior in Lord of the Flies. I am sure many rank and file citizens have trouble being associated with that as well. Milbank continues:

No doubt people are angry – as well they should be after the high unemployment and low corporate responsibility of the last few years. But for whatever reason, they aren’t taking to the streets to join the demonstrators.

Yeah, Dana. They are angry. Many of us are angry. But we are also angry at an administration in power for three years that has had ample opportunity to “pivot to jobs” and instead has focused on anything but. Lip service is one thing. Action is quite another.

It is unfortunate that owing perhaps to differing political ideologies, the sincere members of both the Tea Party and OWS movements do not realize how much they have in common. This is not about CEOs. It is more about an elitist, protected government class that lives in a millionaire’s bubble and does as it pleases, showing only a vague passing interest to its constituents. Spitting at cops, spraying graffiti or throwing a brick through a local business window is not the way to express righteous outrage at the upper-echelon collusion now taking place. Criminal activity is a top down concern – not bottom up.

I recently wrote about Steve Croft’s 60 Minutes report on Congress’ “legal” insider trading scandal. In his story, Mr. Croft spoke with ex-Congressman Baird about his repeated attempts years ago to pass legislation banning the practice. With deep frustration, Baird shared that he could never get more than six people to co-sponsor such a measure. It died a quick death. Today, more that 120 co-sponsors exist for new legislation banning this outrageous behavior. So yes, knowledge is power. Information in the hands of the many led to appropriate outrage at our elitist Congress and perhaps, finally, action will be taken – but only if our representatives are afraid of losing their jobs.

This past Sunday, Croft also covered the fact that, to date, no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for their part in escalating the Ponzi scheme that led to our near financial collapse. More foot dragging. Keep it up, Mr. Croft. Sharing this information with the American people may finally lead to the pitchfork moment Mr. Milbank is hoping for.

Yet in answer to Mr. Milbank’s question of why the OWS movement is not catching on, the bulk of Americans do not wish to take out their anger on other working stiffs or sully a city or town or country they love by adding to its mess. No matter if I sympathize with the cause or the politics of a particular group, I cannot stand with them if they are choosing to add violence to civil disobedience, or hurting the ability of others to make a living in the process. Just as I could not agree with Sandra Bernhard who threatened gang rape on Sarah Palin if she dared set foot in Manhattan.

Surely, it is possible to take the high road and still get the point across. And if I’m going to march, it will be on Washington, because only where laws are passed — and enforced — will change be made that can result in taxpayers’ respectful treatment.

In the office where I work, there is one guy I consider a friend. Our friendship is based mostly on our shared political leanings and our ability to converse intelligently. We talk about the way things are with the economy, politics, and world events. Most of the time we agree with each other and educate each other. We are both Independents who are slightly left of center. The way he puts it, he’d probably be a JFK Democrat if he had to choose a party. He believes in a strong national defense, a fiscally responsible economy, and a society that helps people help themselves. I pretty much agree. Surprised? If so, you haven’t been paying attention.

Chart at Heritage.org (click image to see full-sized chart).

Putting oneself into the frame of mind of a small business owner or corporate executive, it’s pretty easy to see how this new law would dampen job creation. Perhaps dampen isn’t the word I want.  More like “drown like a gangster in cement boots.”

As the report points out, and Hot Air highlighted:

• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

So a small business owner would be putting his business in real jeopardy by expanding and taking on more employees before he (or anyone!) knows for certain how this new law will impact the economy, and how much it will cost his business to comply.  If the business has a few more than 50 employees, the smart thing to do would seem to be to reduce staffing to under 50 employees to avoid having to meet these new and unknown federal requirements.  And if it’s a large corporation, they really need to know if they will be able to show a profit under this new law.  Seems logical enough to me.  Almost every business I’ve ever been involved with had this weird fixation on turning a profit.  Capitalist pigs every one of them!

How much was job creation affected?  From Hot Air:

From the recession’s low point in January 2009 until April 2010, when Obamacare went into effect, the private sector created about 67,600 jobs a month. After the president signed PPACA into law, that number slowed to a meager 6,400 jobs a month — a more than 90 percent decrease or less than one-tenth the previous rate.

To rephrase in medical terminology, the economy went into cardiac arrest about the time of the election of 2008, stayed on life support until January of 2009, then slowly started to recover in the ICU until June of 2009, when the recession officially ended.  Then it was moved into the general population, although still in “guarded condition.” But when the PPACA was signed into law, it had a relapse.  Since the hospital was afraid of being sued for malpractice, it did its best to hide this backslide by moving it into a private room and not allowing visitors, except for immediate family. You know, standard operating procedure:  conceal, obfuscate, deny.

See, what we’re experiencing now is not a recession.  No, no, no.  It’s a jobless recovery!  Can’t you see the difference?  I know, same here.  Duck=duck.

Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to create jobs, cut federal spending, and make Obama a candidate for Mount Rushmore?  Well, the only jobs it’s likely to create would be gummint jobs in the form of bureaucracy, and as you know, we need a lot more bureaucrats involved in health care.  And we already know it won’t cut federal spending, since we have all those bureaucrats and their unions to support.  I guess saving the government money was a big lie from the get-go.  Shocking, just shocking, to think this administration would lie to us!

So I think Obama can forget about Mount Rushmore, even though he’s had engineers working on that ear thing for four years now.  I don’t expect he’ll show up on any currency either, unless we start issuing a 3-dollar bill as our lowest denomination, kind of like today’s penny.

Anyway, back to my friend and our discussion of this report and related items.  I asked him when he thought jobs started going down the toilet and he said he’d started seeing it in about 2006, a little more in 2007.  And yes, I recall some early talk about trouble brewing and a possible bad recession coming, maybe even a depression.  As my friend called it, “The Perfect Storm” was developing, with isolated problems growing and merging with each other like storm cells often do.

I reminded him that although things had been getting bad for awhile, the economy really took a nosedive during the general election, when John McCain raced back to Washington, and Obama smugly stayed on the campaign trail.  I then relayed to him my theory of our economic tsunami.

I think as early as 2005 it was pretty common knowledge that the next president would be a Democrat, after two terms of a Republican president, just because that’s usually how it works, but it would be especially true after the awful Bush years ruined the Republican brand, as least for 2008.  The many factors that contributed to the collapse – housing glut, too much easy credit, too many bad loans, and all the robber barons fleecing their own companies – were definitely the main causes, but what was the catalyst that made the bottom fall out?  What was that last straw that broke the camel’s back?

I can’t help but wonder if it was the fact that the Democrats had selected a young guy with no history, no accomplishments, and no executive experience to be their nominee, and therefore the next President.

I can almost hear that camel groaning.  Aaaarrrgghh!!

SNAP!

Coincidence?  There’s no way to know for sure.  Too many factors come into play.

But I know what I think.

How about you?

More than 15 million Americans are now classified as jobless….[o]ver the 15 months that the surveys have been conducted, just one-quarter of the workers have found full-time jobs, nearly all of them for less pay and with fewer or no benefits… “The recession has been a cataclysm that will have an enduring effect. It is hard to overstate the dire shape of the unemployed.”

Nearly two-thirds of the unemployed workers who were surveyed have been out of work for a year or more. More than a third have been jobless for two years. With their savings exhausted, many have borrowed money from relatives or friends, sold possessions to make ends meet and decided against medical examinations or treatments they previously would have considered essential.

“We are witnessing the birth of a new class — the involuntarily retired. Many of those over age 50 believe they will not work again at a full-time ‘real’ job commensurate with their education and training.”

Herbert has other reasons to be depressed. While consumer spending was up 5.5% this holiday season, likely out of a desperate need to forget our economic woes, the truth is consumer confidence declined in December and “U.S. Property values decline more than forecast in S&P/Case Shiller Index.”

While Herbert notes the “fundamental disconnect between economic indicators pointing in a positive direction and the experience of millions of American families fighting desperately to fend off destitution,” – as well as hopelessness – he is, as usual, loathe to name the culprits. In his concluding statement, Herbert cannot resist a jab at Republicans:

Not only is this not being addressed, but the self-serving, rightward lurch in Washington is all but guaranteed to make matters worse for working people. The zealots reading the economic tea leaves see brighter days ahead. They can afford to be sanguine. They’re working.

But who is self serving here? It seems there is plenty of blame to go around. The “rightward lurch” just happened. What of the past two years of alleged “leftward lurches” that have not assisted our faltering economy?

Herbert obliquely criticizes the Obama administration for “going along” with continuing the Bush tax policy but since he was such a huge Obama cheerleader in 2008, he cannot bring himself to name the target of his disappointment. In column after column these past two years, he alluded to a president and congress that have paid attention to everything but the jobless situation, yet he still seems all too willing to point to those not in power as the source of the problem.

2008 brought on a period of disillusionment for me that has yet to fade. Many in both parties are increasingly disconnected from their constituents. The shocker is that Democrats, with whom I stood for 30 years, pushed policies in lock step that would have no immediate effect on bettering our economic situation. They rather pursued glory in “landmark legislation” that was passed unread. And will Republicans now in control of the House be any better? I tend to doubt it.

It is clear that Americans will need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps once again, as they are getting little help from their elected representatives. The divide between rich and poor has gotten larger than it was in the 90s and we don’t show any signs of reversing this trend. That the president dares to claim he now has a laser-like focus on the economy is shameless and “self serving” indeed.

While I understand the motives of “data zealots” who tout any positive economic news they can find, thinking it will bring about a change in perception that aids with the consumer confidence they are attempting to create, it is inexcusable to overlook those who are suffering. Further, confidence is more often created by effective and steady leadership; someone offering genuine concern, sensible policies and a willingness to sublimate ego to push legislation for the good of the people, not for the history books.

It is no longer about Democrat vs. Republican, but about citizens vs. corporatists. The employment mindset is increasingly more about “piece work,” and independent contractors with no benefits. We are on the hook as the guarantor to the “too big to fail” bugaboo. The true costs and consequences of Obamacare are each day becoming more apparent. And by the way, pork spending continues on both sides, with the unemployed being used as a political football. Our reactive, manipulative political rhetoric swings the pendulum to the left or right, blaming one side or the other, and leads us to ping pong from one ineffective, insincere group to the next, neglecting the larger point: Neither side is helping us much. They are helping themselves.

Until the pundit class stops running interference for those in power and really “names names” of those ignoring the needs of those left behind, and until the American people are willing to pay attention and vote those names out, no matter who they are, Mr. Herbert will write many more columns offering generic complaints to little effect.

Several weeks ago, Elise Patkotak, a writer for Anchorage Daily News penned an article, Barack’s not the man that Hillary is. She dwells on her buyer’s remorse with Obama and notes that she “can’t see Hillary Clinton being pushed around by Republicans the way Barack Obama is.” Well, no. Hillary would not permit this. But the writer assumes President Obama is in fact being “pushed around.” Ms. Patkotak also states that:

The current financial policy has been in place for more than 10 years and, shocking as this is to most Republicans, it’s not working. Turns out that giving the rich more money does not cause them to invest in America as much as they invest in increasing their own wealth. I view our current fiscal policy requiring tax breaks for the very rich as the Republicans’ financial version of the War on Drugs. No matter how long it continues, no matter how inefficient and costly, no matter how many studies show it is an abject failure, they will cling to it as absolutely necessary for America’s survival.

Obama claims he “negotiated” a tax compromise with the Republicans because it was their top priority. Yet somehow the negotiations did not end up with Democrats — his party, in case he’s forgotten — getting any of their top priorities. That is one weird idea of compromise.

Whether one agrees with the writer’s assessment of past Republican policy, far from Obama being “pushed around,” I long ago came to another conclusion which is more akin to Ms. Patkotak’s final statement that

“Obama would become the most effective Republican in office today.”

Bingo. Mr. Herbert, take note. When discussing those who have been left behind, at some point we must assume the “oversight” of their plight is anything but unintentional.

These progressive champions don’t seem to realize they have delivered the President more grievous insults than the ones they have long sought to protect him from. By framing President Obama as lacking in leadership skills, or being held captive by the opposition party, or too beholden to the far left of his own party, these pundits are telegraphing their belief that he is too soft, not a capable executive, not responsible for his own actions and a victim.

Their reasons for depicting Obama this way are their own, but I suspect it is too horrible for them to contemplate that they were taken in by branding and attractive rhetoric. Mr. Obama is doing precisely what he has done since well before his election – capitulate in the face of challenge. Were the “principles” pundits expected the President to uphold really his or theirs? A candidate must draw a line in the sand via his or her own record, demonstrating a willingness to go down fighting for a cause over the course of years before it can be proven that such principles are any more than projections by optimists wanting to be swept up by “history” and romance.

His State Senate record in Illinois recalled a man who voted “present” 130 times, along with 6 “wrong” or “oops, I hit the wrong button” votes. As a freshman US Senator he missed over 40% of his votes, particularly risky ones. In 2008, he reneged on FISA, was guilty of double dealing on NAFTA, reneged on his written promise to take public financing in his presidential campaign, and surrounded himself with corporatist advisors like Austan Goolsbee who have long favored privatizing Social Security. Contrary to his upstart, new kind of politics image, he receiving more money from Wall Street than any other candidate and was backed by the old guard of the Democratic Party. He praised President Reagan while belittling President Clinton and campaigned down south with Donnie McCurkin, ex-gay man “reformed through prayer. That the Obamas had long lived beyond their own means, receiving help with their house purchase from now convicted felon Tony Rezko and his wife should have given pundits pause.

This list went largely unchecked.

Most important, though the left favored Obama because of his purported anti-war stance, his little known 2002 anti-war speech regarding Iraq involved no vote or political risk yet when in the Senate three years later, he voted twice to continue funding a war he disagreed with.

Reviewing the above facts along with contradictory campaign promises Mr. Obama made in 2008, one has to wonder who these pundits thought they were urging the rest of us to vote for. And why do they complain that he is behaving in an unthinkable or incomprehensible way now? If one logically considers his record and his actions, not just his words, his current behavior was at least somewhat predictable via his past deeds.

President Obama showed himself to be a political opportunist wont to help those who helped him the most. Ergo, special considerations to unions and corporate bailouts by the truckload. This is not to fault Mr. Obama by the way. He presented his best self to the American people. If there were those who chose not to question his contradictions, who would not take advantage of such great good fortune?

The fault and responsibility must be placed squarely on the shoulders of the mainstream media and pundit class who abjectly refused to do their jobs in vetting Mr. Obama as a candidate. Those of us on the ground who saw inconsistencies and voiced our concerns were roundly and viciously insulted.

Further, the current furious flailing and complaints of liberal pundits are as empty and false as their previous accusations of “racism” were toward President Obama’s critics. Come 2012, they will all fall in line behind his candidacy, believing Republicans to be six kinds of evil. This is precisely why our President feels comfortable capitulating on tax rates, or pushing healthcare (without a public option) that is years away from being fully enacted rather than concentrating on putting Americans back to work. As far as President Obama is concerned, the left “has nowhere else to go,” despite Politico posting an article yesterday stating that President Obama was continuing and even growing a number of President Bush’s past policies.

While editorials on Huffington Post, diaries on DailyKos along with other print media are rumbling about a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012, the likelihood of its success is slim. And whether one feels the left’s wish list is right or wrong headed, or “sanctimonious” – as President Obama just called it – is hardly the point. Unless those who are furious now are willing to lose to win, offering more than idle threats, we will have more of the same rhetoric that we have been getting from both parties for years – lip service paid to a cause without effective solutions or legislation to back it up.

Solutions, anyone?

Voters don’t want to be governed from the left, right or center. They want Washington to recognize that Americans want to govern themselves.

The trends he has followed throughout the year starting with the shocking upset that sent Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the Senate last January indicate this is the third administration in row experiencing “rejection of the party in power.” He states “tomorrow Republicans will send more Republicans to Congress than at any time in the past 80 years,” and that Democrats have aimed straight for the iceberg by pushing policies the majority of Americans did not want. That part is obvious. What may not be obvious, particularly to the media still exhibiting denial by covering for this administration, is the following:

…A common theme in all the races is that white, working-class Democrats who tended to vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in 2008 are prepared to vote for Republicans.

Hillary Democrats were informed by Donna Brazile et al in 2008 that our votes were not needed. Virulent Obama supporters denigrated all those who did not worship their magical politician. So much for what the Obama coalition hath wrought. Tomorrow we will find out the price for insulting the vast majority of the electorate that refuses to swallow every nonsensical sound bite like pabulum. Yet Scott Rasmussen delivers a deserved caution to Republicans:

…[N]one of this means that Republicans are winning. The reality is that voters in 2010 are doing the same thing they did in 2006 and 2008: They are voting against the party in power. [snip] That’s never happened before in back-to-back administrations. The Obama administration appears poised to make it three in a row. This reflects a fundamental rejection of both political parties.

More precisely, it is a rejection of a bipartisan political elite that’s lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve. Based on our polling, 51% now see Democrats as the party of big government and nearly as many see Republicans as the party of big business. That leaves no party left to represent the American people.

Voters today want hope and change every bit as much as in 2008. But most have come to recognize that if we have to rely on politicians for the change, there is no hope. At the same time, Americans instinctively understand that if we can unleash the collective wisdom and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, there are no limits to what we can accomplish.

Pundit and “Big Journalism” editor Dana Loesch who spoke on behalf of the Tea Party stated that anyone new being elected this cycle should consider themselves on probation. If they do not uphold Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and the promises they made while campaigning, they too will find themselves “with a target on their backs.” And quickly.

News anchor Brian Williams spoke with Jon Stewart indicating that voters are much more connected to the news than they have been in a long time. In other words, we’re watching.

Polls across the board indicate that Obama has bled independent support. The coalition he built on the backs of big promises and big media salesmanship has evaporated. Another shocking poll is that 47% of Democrats feel that Obama should be challenged for the nomination in 2012. Not a good sign.

Whatever happens in tomorrow’s midterms, the majority of voters are fed up with both parties. Once again we are stuck electing the current “lesser of two evils.” What we don’t want: more elitism, more bad policy masquerading as “too smart for us to understand it.” People have had it with reactionary politics and wedge issues yanking us from one side to another every few years. We need less puppeteers and more people actually willing to plant their feet behind the desk and do their jobs – serving their constituents, not following the herd mentality and worshipping the almighty dollar required to get them re-elected.

Tomorrow will put both parties on notice. Both will be foolish if they don’t heed that warning.

Our government designed HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) with three fatal flaws (features?) for homeowners:

• Bank were not required to participate.
• Banks were paid fees for homeowners entering into the modification process, without ever having to actually achieve permanent modifications.
• Bankruptcy judges were not empowered to modify the mortgage principal, so banks didn’t feel compelled to reduce principal as part of the modification process either.

Whether through incompetency or intent, the result is the same. Our government provided the banks with extra bullets with which to hold homeowners hostage and demand ransoms.

”Foreclosure Mom” explains, in a rap video, how it all goes down with the Bankstas (via Washington Post):

With the mid-term elections five weeks away, it’s desperation time. President Obama scolds voters for “apathy,” and for “not being serious in the first place,” VP Biden tells them to “stop whining,” and Senator John Kerry pronounces voters ill-informed on the issues, i.e. stupid. One has to wonder if that is going to be a successful strategy for getting people to the polls on November 2nd. Well, it may get them to vote, but whether they vote FOR your party or AGIN it is another matter.

President Obama had his best professorial, condescending tone on display these last few days both in his campaign appearances and at the end of his interview with Rolling Stone magazine. As Ben Feller of AP reported in his piece, Obama Now Blaming Democratic Voters for Their Apathy:

Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be “inexcusable” and “irresponsible” for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

“People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up,” Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and “if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.”

Nice.

The president has been telling Democrats to “wake up” and recognize that he and the Democratic-run Congress have delivered on promises, from a new health care law to tougher rules for Wall Street to more aid for college students. Obama wants disenchanted supporters to see that Republican wins in November would undermine the ability of Democrats to get the unfinished business done, from climate change legislation to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

However when Obama had a supermajority in the Senate and House last year he did not repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, though he could have. Whether one agrees with the repeal or not, there is little doubt he could have done what he campaigned on if he had truly wanted to. The vote on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was more political tomfoolery. The Dems waited until now so they could say – See, we tried!

CBS news reported on “a stern, lecturing tone from Obama….”

“The idea that we’ve got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible,” he said in the interview. ”

I find it a tad irritating when a millionaire who throws half million dollar pizza parties on our dime deigns to tells struggling citizens what is irresponsible and inexcusable.

The president said he keeps a checklist of his campaign promises and that he has met, by his account, about 70 percent of them.

However, just checking the “done” box is not enough. Passing legislation is not the same as passing effective legislation. Someone ought to remind Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Biden and Kerry of the same.

And do we need scolding now? The president is pretending that people are apathetic because change has not come quickly enough but perhaps they are apathetic because the type of change they are getting is not what they bargained for – nor is it helping.

Even the opportunistic Arianna Huffington noted in her article, Will Obama Appease Wall Street or Struggling Americans, that Obama is not looking out for Main Street in his choice of a replacement for economic advisor Larry Summers. She writes:

At this late date in the recession and with the midterms shaping up as they are, the president can take in the economic landscape and conclude that what most needs repairing is his administration’s relationship with Wall Street? How about hiring someone who would repair his relationship with the 26 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, and send the message: Help is on the way! After two years of governing a country locked in economic misery, you’d hope that Obama and his economic team would’ve learned that what matters isn’t the economic team’s resume or what “signals are sent” to Wall Street, but the actual state of the actual economy. But apparently not!

Rabbi Michael Lerner penned an opinion piece in the Huffington Post just below Arianna’s where he aptly characterized the reasons for Obama supporter apathy. The President and his team seem to think his supporters are angry and apathetic because they did not get everything on their Christmas list. In his article, Obama and Biden Have No Clue What’s Bothering Their Political Base, Lerner states:

It’s easier to believe that their liberal and progressive base is naïve than to acknowledge that we are not alienated for their failure to pass appropriate legislation, but for their failure to fight for such legislation. …[snip]

It’s one thing to make compromises after you’ve struggled for something you believe in, another to make the compromises without ever trying. Liberals and progressives had already been deeply disillusioned after the Democratic sweep of Congress in 2006, continued to fund the war in Iraq despite overwhelming popular opposition to that war. So when Obama entered the primaries and spent much of his time distinguishing himself from Sen. Clinton on precisely the grounds that he had opposed the war from the beginning, he gave his base the impression that he would be a leader who would challenge the war makers. Similarly, when he challenged the selfishness and materialism that pervaded Wall Street, we felt we had a candidate who would be willing to speak truth to power.

But Rabbi – it was words, just words. Didn’t you know that?

We did.

Just as he reneged on his promise to filibuster on FISA and reneged on his signed statement to take public financing during the campaign, President Obama means what he says – until he doesn’t. How could Rabbi Lerner have chosen Obama over Hillary when he had no record of delivering on his promises? Lerner continues…

Many of us will vote Democratic in November, despite all this. But don’t expect us to be able to rally others when the best we can say is that the Democrats and their national leader are better than the plausible alternatives. That is not a rallying cry likely to produce many votes or move us beyond our deep disappointments.

This is the final nail in the coffin and the most honest assessment of the “apathy” many of us predicted two and half years ago when we wrote about the Obama Change Ring and other cheap novelties…

And many others, feeling humiliated at allowing themselves to have opened to the hope Obama elicited, now find themselves either totally uninterested in politics or wishing to strike back at the Democrats for making fools of those who trusted. Obama and the Democrats remain clueless.

Humiliated. Feeling like fools.

People do not like to be humiliated and then scolded for their trouble. Or as Hillary Clinton pointed out on the campaign trail, “you don’t need a President who looks down at you.”

But then I remember that Biden didn’t have to follow this course and back an inexperienced academic in his bid for the Presidency — and I say, you’ve made your own bed now “lie” in it.

ABC’s Jake Tapper interviewed VP Biden who offered a fabulous example of the “bob and weave.” When Tapper asked Biden how many troops would come home from “America’s longest war” in Afghanistan when we reach President Obama’s July 2011 deadline, Biden first told Jonathan Alter:

“In July of 2011 you’re going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it.”

But now VP Biden is saying it’s not a deadline but a “transition…”

“The military signed on. Petraeus signed on. Everybody signed onto not a deadline, but a transition, a beginning of a transition,” Biden said.

Tapper pressed him – but what did he mean when he said “a whole lot of people” would be “moving out” of Afghanistan?

“What I was responding to was the idea that the president had been outmaneuvered. I was saying make it clear. And so it — it wasn’t so much numbers I meant. It could be as few as a couple thousand troops. It could be more. But there will be a transition,” Biden said.

A few thousand troops, eh? That oughta make everyone happy. But surely when President Obama fired General McChrystal and put General Petraeus in charge of ground operations, any firm timeline went out the window. Outmaneuvered, indeed. How tiresome for Biden et al to pretend that a “transition” is what they planned all along. Let’s go to the videotape!

In discussing the economy and the $787 billion stimulus package, Biden then complained:

“There’s a lot of people at the time argued it was too small,” he said. “A lot of people in our administration…even some Republican economists and some Nobel laureates like Paul Krugman, who continues to argue it was too small.”

He said they needed Republican votes to get it passed and finally found three. Biden also implied the real problem was Republican obstructionism:

But if it wasn’t for the legislative reality, Biden explained, “I think it would have been bigger. I think it would have been bigger. In fact, what we offered was slightly bigger than that. But the truth of the matter is that the recovery package, everybody’s talking about it [like] it’s over. The truth is now, we’re spending more now this summer than we — I’m calling this…the summer of recovery,” the Vice President said.

So let’s follow this logic – Obama/Pelosi proposed legislation they thought they could get through even though they wanted more. But it was those pesky Republicans who wouldn’t give more to them. Never mind the Democratic supermajority they had at the time and the Republicans, with a damaged brand and a minority voice were wandering like nomads in the wilderness.

Biden now says the stimulus should have been bigger to be successful. Yet they withheld half the dough last year, which they could have used to stanch the bleeding and stop the suffering of Americans in 2009. Perhaps they saved a good portion of the “stimulus” package for the “summer of recovery” – the summer of 2010 when Democrats need every vote they can get. Is it cynical of me to assume they held back those funds so they could pump money into the economy in advance of the midterms? Not likely.

Back in February 2009, President Obama sang a different tune. Via Reuters:

“It is the right size, it is the right scope. Broadly speaking it has the right priorities to create jobs that will jump-start our economy and transform it for the 21st century,” Obama said of the more than $800 billion bill at a rally in Elkhart, Indiana.

“I can say with complete confidence that endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will only bring deepening disaster,” Obama said.

Furthermore, Tapper himself had the goods to call Biden out on the carepet for this falsehood. In January of 2009, Tapper had this to say:

“Obama’s team is pitching a plan that will cost between $675 billion and $775 billion, one that creates three million jobs, 80 percent of them in the private sector,” Tapper said. “But they will face skeptics.”

Looks like they got more than what they wanted, not less. Biden has also gone on the record months ago claiming we would be creating several hundred thousand jobs per month going forward – that also has not come to pass.

Tell me, is any government official going to get on TV and make an honest statement. And is any reporter going to have the guts to call them out on their lack of honesty when they don’t?

The SEIU also held California hostage when it was trying to reduce its payouts by bringing in their good buddy, Obama, to tell Ah-nold that he would get NO federal money if he touched the SEIU wages. Must be nice to have friends in high places, right? We are talking a union with only a little over 2 million members. That is some level of influence for so few people relatively speaking (the US has over 307 million people).

There is an even seedier side to SEIU, too. Who can forget this scene when a Tea Party member was assaulted by SEIU members:

That is but the tip of the iceberg. Here is another example of SEIU violence which, ironically, is directed toward people it wants as members:

If you go to YouTube, and do a search on “SEIU violence,” you will get more hits than most people have time to watch.

But as Erik Erickson pointed out at , what SEIU did over the weekend is taking their brand of intimidation to a whole new low. As he noted, had there not been a reporter (Nina Easton) living next door to the target house, chances are good we would not have known about their little weekend in Maryland.

What’s Really Behind SEIU’s Bank of America Protests?

(Photo by Nina Easton)

Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb–literally.

Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that — in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential Service Employees International Union and a Chicago outfit called National Political Action — makes his family fair game.

Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.

So these are the depths to which the SEIU, an incredibly powerful (thanks, Obama) union with very close ties to Barack Obama, has sunk. They went to someone’s HOUSE to protest, terrorizing – yes, terrorizing – a young teenager:

Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.

“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”

When is a protest not a protest?

Now this event would accurately be called a “protest” if it were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are descending on your family, your children, and your home, a more apt description of this assemblage would be “mob.” Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise, and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that arrests might “incite” these trespassers.

Yes, “mob” is the perfect word for what the SEIU members did:

What’s interesting is that SEIU, the nation’s second largest union, craves respectability. Just-retired president Andy Stern is an Obama friend and regular White House visitor. He sits on the President’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission. He hobnobs with those greedy Wall Street CEOs — executives much higher-ranking than my neighbor Baer — at Davos. His union spent $70 million getting Democrats elected in 2008.

In the business community, though, SEIU has a reputation for strong-arm tactics against management, prompting some companies to file suit.

Now those strong-arm tactics, stirred by supposedly free-floating (as opposed to organized) populist rage, have come to the neighborhood curb. Last year it was AIG executives — with protestors met by security guard outside. Now it’s any executive — and they’re on the front stoop. After Baer’s house, the 14 buses left to descend on the nearby residence of Peter Scher, a government relations executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

Targeting homes and families seems to put SEIU in the ranks of (now jailed) radical animal-rights activists and the Kansas anti-gay fundamentalists harassing the grieving parents of a dead 20-year-old soldier at his funeral (the Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the latter). But that’s not a conversation that SEIU officials want to have.

When I asked Stephen Lerner, SEIU’s point-person on Wall Street reform, about these tactics, he accused me of getting “emotional.” Lerner was more comfortable sticking to his talking points: “Millions of people are losing their homes, and they have gone to the banks, which are turning a deaf ear.”

Okay, fine, then why not continue SEIU protests at bank offices and shareholder meetings-as the union has been doing for more than a year? Lerner insists, “People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing.”

Isn’t that just typical? Rather than actually addressing Ms. Easton’s concerns, she is dismissed as being “emotional.” So, let’s add “sexist” to the increasingly long list of things SEIU is, sadly too many of which are negative. But to Lerner’s accusations:

Bank of America officials dispute Lerner’s assertion about the “damage they are doing,” citing the success of workout programs to help distressed homeowners, praise received from community groups, the bank’s support of financial reform legislation, and the little-noticed fact that Bank of America exited the subprime lending business in 2001.

SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call centers — and its critics point out that a great way to worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank’s image through protest. (SEIU officials say their anti-Wall Street campaign has nothing to do with their organizing efforts.) Complicating this picture is the fact that BofA is the union’s lender of choice — and SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans.

Banks: The new punching bag

But SEIU’s intentions, and BofA’s lender record, are ripe subjects to debate in Congress, on air, at shareholder hearings. Not in Greg Baer’s front yard.
Why the media wasn’t invited

Sunday’s onslaught wasn’t designed for mainstream media consumption. There were no reporters from organizations like the Washington Post, no local camera crews who might have aired criticism of this private-home invasion. With the media covering the conservative Tea Party protesters, the behavior of individual activists has drawn withering scrutiny.

Instead, a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union’s leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public.

Of course, HuffPost readers responding to the coverage assumed that Baer was an evil former Bush official. He’s not. A lifelong Democrat, Baer worked for the Clinton Treasury Department, and his wife, Shirley Sagawa, author of the book The American Way to Change and a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, is a prominent national service advocate.

In the 1990s, the Baers’ former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the “politics of personal destruction.” Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we’ve crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.

To say this “politics of personal intimidation” is unacceptable is a gross understatement. But it seems to be the MO of far too many Obama supporters (e.g., New Black Panthers in Philly, intimidation and machinations of caucuses in Texas, and on it goes). Where does it stop with these people?

Going to someone’s house, in 14 buses, no less, on a weekend, with no permit to protest, and a DC police escort to this home in Maryland, terrorizing a 14 year old boy, takes this to a whole new level, or new depth, however you want to spell it. I spell it, “D-E-S-P-I-C-A-B-L-E.”

UPDATE: Now the DC Metro Police claim they contacted Montgomery County Police, and broke away at the border. The Chief said one police officer accidentally crossed over. A Montgomery Police Captain claimed since the SEIU dispersed peacefully from the front STOOP of the house, there were no arrests. Thanks to ~~JustMe~~ for the link to the video of the SEIU members. I will keep an eye out for the video of the two police officers making their claims regarding the Metro PD, and the Montgomery PD. Currently, there is a major contradiction between what Captain Paul Stark is saying, and the statement issued by Cpl Daniel Friz who said there was NO courtesy call that a protest was heading toward Montgomery County, and that the DC police were ON SITE in MD. Someone ain’t telling the truth here. Wonder why??

FINALLY, here are the two police officers giving their side. Bear in mind that AFTER this interview, the underling in Montgomery County contends there were NO phone calls from Metro DC police:

… I have a family member who is as conservative as it gets. We disagree a lot on how much the federal govt should do. But we wholeheartedly agree on this. He said to me last week,

“Until we can get the govt and the corporations out of bed with each other, we can’t even have a national conversation on how much or how little we want the govt to do. Until we end this rigged cronyism, we are ALL f*cked, Left, Right, and Center.”

Crony capitalism was a problem before this administration took power and that problem seems only to be increasing. Special interests, backroom deals, big corporations getting special exemptions — BP comes to mind. The corporate-owned media running interference and soft pedaling or ignoring stories until well past the expiration date of their effectiveness is likewise devastating.

Even Dan Froomkin, nee of the Washington Post, who now writes for Huffington Post, penned an article complaining that President Obama’s new fiscal deficit commission will be holding its meeting out of the public eye — contrary to the “transparency” repeatedly promised by this administration:

Members of President Obama’s deficit commission huddled behind closed doors Wednesday despite pleas from the left and right that they hold all their meetings in public.

The move only heightens suspicion that rather than forging a national consensus on future spending priorities, the commission’s work will consist of backroom dealings in which members of the Washington aristocracy find high-minded excuses for cutting the social safety net.

Bruce Reed, the commission’s executive director, assured the Huffington Post there is nothing sinister about holding working group meetings like today’s in private. But he had no good reason why they shouldn’t be held in public, either.

Froomkin’s article is entitled “Obama’s Fiscal Commission — What’s Going On In There?” if you would like to google and read it in its entirety.

Clearly, both sides are unhappy with this corporate cronyism — and we have seen all too many examples of it over the last ten years.

What’s the solution?

This is an open thread.

Sigh.

Okay, here’s the thing. I love San Francisco. It is a beautiful city. But seriously, how can they keep electing this woman?? Read it and weep:

While pointing out that it is the responsibility of the federal government to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) said Thursday it is cheaper to treat teens for drug use than it is to interdict drugs being smuggled across the border.

CNSNews.com pointed out to the speaker at her weekly press briefing that a recent Justice Department report indicated that one in five U.S. teenagers used drugs last year, and then asked: “Are you committed to sealing the border against the influx of illegal drugs from Mexico and, if so, do you have a target date in mind for getting that done?”

“Well if your question is about drugs, I’m for reducing demand in the United States,” said Pelosi. “That is what our responsibility is on this subject. The RAND Corporation a few years ago did a report that said it would be much less expensive for us to, through prevention first and foremost, but through treatment on demand to reduce demand in our country, is the cheapest way to solve this problem.

“Incarceration is the next cheapest,” Pelosi continued. “It costs seven times more to incarcerate than to have treatment on demand. It costs 15 times more to interdict at the border. And it costs 25 times more with eradication of the cocoa leaf. This is an issue that it is very important to our country because of what it’s doing to our teenagers. That is the problem, what it is doing to our people.”

Yes, treatment is important, but treatment should NOT be the first line of defense in the Drug War, or in sealing our borders. Oh, but wait – perhaps Pelosi is unclear on that concept:

Click HERE for the transcript of this video.

Yep, she is unclear on the concept, especially since she doesn’t know what “seal” means. Here, Nancy, I’ll help you out:

seal or seal up – to close a container or space by covering it with something so that air or other substances cannot get in or out

It’s the getting IN part that is of import here. Understand?

Good grief.

But wait, it gets better, or worse, depending on your perspective: [snip]

According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, “Nineteen percent of youth aged 12 to 17 report past year illicit drug use.” The assessment said that Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are now the predominant supplier of illegal drugs in the United States. “Law enforcement reporting and case initiation data show that Mexican DTOs control most of the wholesale cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution in the United States, as well as much of the marijuana distribution,” said the assessment.

Pelosi did say it was the responsibility of the federal government to control the border, although she did not believe that would prevent illicit drug use by teens in the United States.

“Controlling our border is our responsibility,” she said. “So, whether you’re talking about stopping drugs from coming in or having a well-managed migration policy, we have a responsibility to secure our border. But I don’t know what you meant by ‘seal’ and I think sealing the border doesn’t do a whole lot to reduce demand in the United States. As I travel the country, I know that kids are on meth and they can make it in their bath tub.”

So, if Pelosi is acknowledging that it is the federal government’s JOB to secure the borders, why the hell aren’t they doing it? This is her “logic” why:

To solve the drug problem, she said, requires reducing demand. “Let’s secure our border for every reason that we have responsibility to do so,” she said, “but if it’s talk, if our purpose is to solve that problem, we must reduce demand and the best way to do that is through prevention and through treatment on demand.”

Last week, CNSNews.com similarly asked Rep. Raul Grijalva (D.-Ariz.), who represents a district that covers 300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, if he was committed to sealing the border against the inflow of illegal drugs. Rather than answer the question, Grijalva turned and walked away, eventually shouting back at the reporter that it was “punkish” to ask the question.

It is now considered “punkish” to ask a representative why he is not doing his job? Oh, right – in the Obama World it is. How DARE we expect them to actually do their damn jobs.

If Pelosi is so concerned about cost-saving measures in terms of our borders and drugs, why did she support bailing out the banks, and buying car manufacturers? Perhaps the money spent for those little (cough, cough) endeavors might have been better spent securing – that is SEALING – our borders, dontcha think, Nancy? Nah, I know she doesn’t think so – smoking all that Hopium seems to have addled her brain a bit.

Wow. Oh, yes, the Justice Department. The very one Obama claimed he was going to have look into Arizona’s attempt to secure the borders. That is, their attempt to do what he is not directing the government to do. Then there was his adding insult to injury by poking fun at the state at the Correspondents’ Dinner. Nice. So, Pelosi doesn’t know what “seal” means, and Obama threatens states that are trying to protect their borders. WTH is wrong with these people?

Well, Governor Brewer has a response for these braintrusts (H/T to Larry Johnson for sending me this video):

Any time now, Obama. Stop threatening Arizona, and stop making jokes at their expense. Start providing the security they need to have. That’s your JOB, and a Constitutional mandate to boot. Why Arizona is being treated like a pariah by so many, including the President of the United States, in its attempts to protect its border from invasion, a duty of the federal government, which it has failed MISERABLY to address, is beyond me.

So, Obama – stop demonizing Arizona and start doing your job. Pelosi, learn what the hell “seal the borders” means. I gave you the definition already. You’re welcome. And give these states the help for which they have been asking, Texas and California, too, for that matter. Do your damn job already.

We are at a remarkable moment. We have an open, 2,000-mile border to our south, and the entity with the power to enforce the law and impose safety and order will not do it. Wall Street collapsed, taking Main Street’s money with it, and the government can’t really figure out what to do about it because the government itself was deeply implicated in the crash, and both political parties are full of people whose political careers have been made possible by Wall Street contributions. Meanwhile we pass huge laws, bills so comprehensive, omnibus and transformative that no one knows what’s in them and no one—literally, no one—knows how exactly they will be executed or interpreted. Citizens search for new laws online, pore over them at night, and come away knowing no more than they did before they typed “dot-gov.”

It is not that no one’s in control. Washington is full of people who insist they’re in control and who go to great lengths to display their power. It’s that no one takes responsibility and authority. Washington daily delivers to the people two stark and utterly conflicting messages: “We control everything” and “You’re on your own.”

All this contributes to a deep and growing alienation between the people of America and the government of America in Washington.

None of this happened overnight. It is, most recently, the result of two wars that were supposed to be cakewalks, Katrina, the crash, and the phenomenon of a federal government that seemed less and less competent attempting to do more and more by passing bigger and bigger laws.

Add to this states on the verge of bankruptcy, the looming debt crisis of the federal government, and the likelihood of ever-rising taxes. Shake it all together, and you have the makings of the big alienation. Alienation is often followed by full-blown antagonism, and antagonism by breakage.

Ms. Noonan also states:

The right never trusted the government, but now the middle doesn’t.

If Jane Hamsher is to be believed, many on the left aren’t thrilled either.

Of course, the White House is going to go after Social Security again. It’s the pot of gold at the end of Wall Street’s rainbow, and they desperately want that injection of cash which could keep their giant ponzi scheme from exploding. . . for a little while.

Lucky for them, Obama has successfully dismantled the opposition that kept George Bush from privatizing Social Security at Wall Street’s behest only a few years ago. Did anybody fail to get that message when majority whip Dick Durbin yesterday told “bleeding heart liberals” that they need to be willing to accept cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits for the economic well-being of the nation?

…Just as the choice groups sat on their hands for the Nelson amendment in the health care bill, just like the Sierra Club remains mute in the wake of an oil spill the size of Delaware, there will be nothing more than progressive window-dressing in opposition to cutting Social Security benefits this time around. Any of these groups utter so much as a whimper in response to Durbin’s very alarming statement yesterday? Nada. Zip. Zero.

The idea that the right is more “authoritarian” and top-down than the left is absurd.

Good point, Ms. Hamsher – I don’t much trust what’s coming out of either side.

Ms. Noonan then discusses the much criticized law that Arizona’s passed out of frustration to control its borders:

It is doing this because the federal government won’t, and because Arizonans have a crisis on their hands, areas on the border where criminal behavior flourishes, where there have been kidnappings, murders and gang violence. If the law is abusive, it will be determined quickly enough, in the courts…

But the larger point is that Arizona is moving forward because the government in Washington has completely abdicated its responsibility. For 10 years—at least—through two administrations, Washington deliberately did nothing to ease the crisis on the borders because politicians calculated that an air of mounting crisis would spur mounting support for what Washington thought was appropriate reform—i.e., reform that would help the Democratic and Republican parties.

[snip]

The American president has the power to control America’s borders if he wants to, but George W. Bush and Barack Obama did not and do not want to, and for the same reason, and we all know what it is. The fastest-growing demographic in America is the Hispanic vote, and if either party cracks down on illegal immigration, it risks losing that vote for generations.

But while the Democrats worry about the prospects of the Democrats and the Republicans about the well-being of the Republicans, who worries about America?

No one. Which the American people have noticed, and which adds to the dangerous alienation—actually it’s at the heart of the alienation—of the age.

Both Hamsher and Noonan make clear that we don’t have much by way of allies in the persons of our government officials. It is apparent to anyone half awake that Democrats and Republicans, for the most part, capture an issue in furtherance of their careers and little else. There is a line in the movie “Syriana” –

“We want to give the appearance of doing our due diligence. But we don’t want to do our due diligence.”

Noonan uses the issue of government’s failure to secure the border to the same effect in her piece as Hamsher uses “the giant flaming ball of oil being pushed straight for the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi” that “[m]ight be the worst environmental event in decades” in hers – as examples of government ineffectiveness due as the result of succumbing to interest groups rather than doing what is best for the American people.

For those of us at NoQuarter long shouting in frustration for better leadership than what was being foisted upon us all, it is ironic that Noonan may be the first major pundit to make the following observation:

I asked a campaigner for Hillary Clinton recently where her sturdy, pantsuited supporters had gone. They didn’t seem part of the Obama brigades. “Some of them are at the tea party,” she said.

Though I don’t care for her “sturdy, pantsuit” snark –she notes correctly that we feel we have no place in this new world order of the Democratic party. Perrylogan, one of the commenters to Hamsher’s piece, makes clear why:

The progressive movement died during the primaries, when Obama’s supporters started calling their fellow Democrats racists.

Amen.

In the universe of President Obama, the second “Great Uniter” in a row (George Bush II being the first), we are now more divided against ourselves than ever. It also looks as though many are feeling divided from the very people we have elected to protect our best interests.

Much of this is the result of the politics of demagoguery – served up to control the populace rather than to assist it, to divide us from each other, so we never take the time to notice we have far more in common than we realize.

All this jumble is to say that when two ladies from opposite sides of the aisle express this much anger and frustration, it is time for our politicians to wake up – lest we do figure out how to unite peacefully. Then those elitists Jane, Peggy and we all rage against might be ridden out of town on a rail.

“We’re going to have to make some tough choices” about the deficit and national debt, President Obama said to a crowded gymnasium full of supporters at Indian Hills Community College, after a lengthy riff on how the unsustainable debt would need to be tackled.

This, unlike most of what the president said during the town hall meeting, was met with silence.

“I noticed I didn’t get a lot of clapping about the whole ‘We’re gonna have the hard choices’ thing,” the president ribbed the crowd.

The President is ribbing the crowd? Now that’s what I call “The Audacity of Hope.” Half million dollar pizza parties. The most expensive inauguration in history. After this gentleman spent all of last year more than tripling spending (yes, I know, I know, it was all Bush’s fault) now he wants to tell the American people it is time to make some hard choices?

More frustrating than the endless campaigning and political posturing is the notion that the American people are so bloody stupid, they will not leap to the same conclusions I just did. Further, he tells us this stuff as if he just thought of it. Haven’t the tea partiers, for one, been screaming about these very problems for over a year?

Could it be President Obama is not aware why his audience sat on their hands for his remark about “hard choices?” I cannot prove that the people of Ottumwa, Iowa agree with my assessment but perhaps this might be a reason why he did not receive the adulation he is used to and so craves:

It is offensive to be lectured to about fiscal restraint by a man who has been spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor for the better part of a year and a half, bailing out and covering for reckless companies with reckless management styles that continue to scam the American people, hiding the true cost of the legislation his Congress has been ramming down our throats and promising transparency while delivering the opposite.

The people of Iowa, and the rest of American for that matter, have been practicing plenty of fiscal retraint as they deal with high unemployment, watching their savings dwindle to dangerously low levels amidst an uncertain future with an administration that appears tone deaf as to their problems.

Any President that keeps trying to sell the bill of goods that cap and trade is going to help solve our economic problems instead of finally planting his feet behind the desk to figure out how to put more people back ot work in this country really needs to talk less to the American people – and listen more.

“This will bear on how we think about our federal budget in the future,” [Obama] said. “Everybody dislikes Washington right now, and everybody wants to lower their taxes. Everybody hates waste in government. But at the same time, you know, government does some important things like helping to make sure you’ve got clean drinking water and that your roads aren’t full of potholes.”

Please Mr. President, stop telling me what I hate. I don’t hate taxes. I am more than happy to pay my fair share and do so regularly. I hate when my taxpayerdollars go to bailout out the actions of corrupt actors who are not held to the same rules as I am. I do not hate government. I hate bloated government, local, state and federal, that enjoys no end of perks and bloated salaries and perks. I appreciate the good things that government does, which is why I pay taxes. What I don’t appreciate is the things my tax money is supposed to pay for – like education – gets “borrowed” away and never returned.

Clearly, the President has no idea what I hate which gives me a clear indication of why his policies have nothing to do with the urgent needs of the American people.
Close attention need by paid to the following:

…Earlier in the day, back in Washington, DC, he’d presided over the first meeting of his Debt Commission, which will issue recommendations after the November 2010 elections on ways to reduce the $12.8 trillion national debt.

“I’ve said that it’s important that we not restrict the review or the recommendations that this commission comes up with in any way,” the president said at the meeting. “Everything has to be on the table. …This means that all of you, our friends in the media, will ask me and others once a week or once a day about what we’re willing to rule out or rule in when it comes to the recommendations of the commission. That’s an old Washington game and it’s one that has made it all but impossible in the past for people to sit down and have an honest discussion about putting our country on a more secure fiscal footing. So I want to deliver this message today: We’re not playing that game. I’m not going to say what’s in. I’m not going to say what’s out. I want this commission to be free to do its work.”

Could it be he is not going to give you any details about what is “in it” until after the midterms because if he told you now, all his herd mentality Dems insistently following Pelosi and Reid off a cliff would be voted down this November? Is that why we are not getting a report from the Debt Commision until after that?

In Ottumwa, the president previewed for the crowd that whatever the commission comes up with, “we’re going to have a very tough debate about how to bring down our deficits.”

He continued, “as this debate unfolds, I just want everybody to pay attention to what folks are saying. A lot of times politicians will tell you, ‘I’m going to cut your taxes, I’m going to lower the deficit, I’m going to expand Medicare.’”

Don’t settle for that, the president told the crowd. “Ask every politician when they say they’re going to balance the budget and deal with the deficit: ‘What exactly are you going to cut? What spending are you willing to eliminate? Are you going to eliminate funding for sewers? Are you going to reduce the cost of Medicare? Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Who the hell out here has been getting a free lunch. The free lunch has gone to the folks at Goldman Sachs, Fannie and Freddie, and GM (who claim they paid back their bailouts — however they did it with other TARP money).

A free lunch? Why does President Obama insist upon being condescending? Beyond his pronouncements from on high about “bitter voters,” this reminds me of candidate Obama’s pronouncement about Democrats and abortion during the campaign. As reported by CBS News:

“The mistake pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization . . . has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved,” he said.

Really? Do we not? Telling us what we do and do not like or believe seems to be a pattern.

Reading the other fine print of his statement in Iowa, he wants us to ask other politicians what THEY are going to do – but we cannot ask the President what HE is going to do. “We’re not going to play that game?” All he is doing is playing games, while taxpayers can only look on in frustration and disbelief.

The president said “the way folks talk about it in Washington,” you might think the debt could be solved by reducing waste and abuse, eliminating foreign aid and earmarks. But those are relatively small parts of the budget, he said.

Which “folks” are these, exactly?

“We could eliminate all foreign aid and all earmarks and we’d still have a huge problem, because most of our budget goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and defense spending, about 70 percent of the budget. Everything else we do is only about 30 percent of the budget. So this is going to be a tough bunch of choices that we gotta make here.”

Okay – so here is the bitter pill to swallow – get ready folks. Here come the cuts! So that if you have been paying in to Medicare, as my mother has, for example, in her 50 years in the work force, you can expect less. Presidents like to point toward Social Security’s impending insolvency without mentioning part of the reason it is in trouble is because government keeps borrowing money from it that they do not put back.
Remember his economic advisor Austan Goosbee talked about privatizing Social Security? Do not be surprised if you hear rumbings next year, too – the same rumblings President Bush made several years ago. Now I ask you – would you want the private sector – otherwise known as Wall Street crooks – playing with your dough while you’re busy keeping the roof over your head and don’t have enough time to daily monitor their shenanigans?

“I just want everybody to be prepared” for this debate, which will take place over the next couple years. “Remember when I was running for office, I said I will not just tell you what you want to hear, I would tell you what you needed to hear. And you needed to hear that we’re going to have some hard choices about our deficit.”

Oh, that was my favorite comment of all. I have never heard a bigger pile of horse hooey! And that is saying something. He told everybody what they wanted to hear out on the campaign trail – unicorns and giant popsicles. But little else.

Is there anyone with the courage to stand up and insist that this President start telling the truth? The press has already proven themselves to be, almost uniformly, nothing more than notches on his bedpost, cowed from speaking up for fear of a lack of access, which would mean a loss of their $5 million dollar book deals.

Who is speaking for us?

Thank you. Rant over.

Read how Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s chief economic advisors, tiptoes, avoids and runs away from this idea!!

CORKER: There is no question, and I think that first of all, I plan to offer changes to this resolution authority that say that, if a large entity like this has to go through this resolution where in essence they’re liquidated in an orderly way, I think that everything that the executive team and the board members have earned through this company over the last five years needs to be clawed back. In other words, there needs to be some penalties assessed to the management that have caused the country to have to go through this orderly liquidation process. So absolutely, I will be offering an amendment that deals with that, so that we’re taking back, we’re clawing back all the earnings that management has made out of this firm, if it has to go through orderly liquidation. I think that’s very appropriate, and certainly I’m going to be doing that on the floor if it doesn’t make
it into the base bill.

TAPPER: Austan, can the White House get behind that clawback
provision? Are you being out-populisted by Republicans?

GOOLSBEE: Well, look, in the bill now — the president went to
Cooper Union this last week to revisit the spot where more than two
years ago, he went and said we need to have fundamental reform–

TAPPER: But there is no clawback in this bill?

GOOLSBEE: There is a requirement that they’re all fired. If you
get to that point, all the management is fired–

TAPPER: So they take their $500 million to their home in the Hamptons.

GOOLSBEE: — all the shareholders are wiped out. Well, look, as I say, on any details, we’re open to looking at negotiating the details of how we carry out the president’s principles. But if negotiation — and Senator Corker, to his credit, is not in this camp — but if the negotiators are going to come forward more as a delaying tactic and we’re just going to put in hundreds of amendments and try to keep this going so as to stall, delay and kill reform, that’s not going to happen. This is going to pass.

Um. No. It’s not a delaying tactic. But since we saw in the case of Goldman Sachs that they were betting on the market crashing and profiting by our losses, we need to find some way to put the fear of God into these jerks so that they do not try to profit by playing Ponzi schemes with our dough. Corker’s idea is just one way to make sure we have leglsiation with teeth.

Whether Senator Corker is just doing some populist-type posturing or not, the point is made — if we don’t have accountability in this reform bill and, as Dem. Senator Sherrod Brown discussed earlier, a way to overcome this “too big to fail” debacle, any reform falling short of tackling those two concerns effectively is meaningless.

What do you think would be fitting punishment for irresponsible and dishonest Wall Street sharks? I have a feeling I know the answer!

Usually the Obama administration downplays expectations for job growth, but apparently Vice President Joe Biden didn’t get the memo – or he did, but just blew it off.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time our loquacious VP has done such a thing and come up with his own thoughts on a heated subject:

“Some time in the next couple of months we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month,” Biden said at a fundraiser today in Pittsburgh.

Next month, Biden predicted, the nation’s employers will add between 100,000 to 200,000 jobs to their payrolls.

Um. Could you please tell me where he is getting these numbers? We know the Census created a bunch of temporary jobs but they will evaporate in a few months. On behalf of all my friends, neighbors and local business owners who are struggling or whose businesses have already shut down, I’d love to hear some good news here – but only if it backed up by fact…

The administration’s own forecast projects that the labor market will add about 100,000 jobs a month for the rest of the year, then around 200,000 jobs a month next year, and 250,000 jobs a month in 2012.

Biden noted today that in the past he “got in trouble” for making predictions about job creation, but clearly that did not stop him from delivering his bold new projections.

“We caught a lot of bad breaks on the way down,” Biden said. “We’re going to catch a few good breaks because of good planning on the way up.”

Another phrase I’m not quite sure what to do with… “good planning”? So it was good planning to enact a pork, er, Stimulus Bill when they first got into office and then withhold a large percentage of the money until just before the midterms so they can artificially pump up the economy to get votes? Is that the sort of good planning we are talking about? Strikes me not only as cynical but downright cruel to so many who have lost their jobs and homes.

Please – if you have any news to report — I mean, real news, backed up by real fact, not just spit-balling or spin, that indicates some honest to goodness substantial job hiring is going to happen in the next few months, please share it…

I’m sure Mr. Biden would be happy to know someone agrees with him.