April 7, 2009
Apr 07 04:23 Is President Obama Ignoring the Constitution? Apr 07 04:54 Behind the Morrissey Boulevard Uprising Post Apr 07 06:01 Is There Ever a Right Time? Apr 07 06:44 The DFL's Anti-Accountability Movement Apr 07 08:13 Townhall Meeting Scheduled Apr 07 11:33 A Little Fact-Checking Is In Order
Is President Obama Ignoring the Constitution?
Based on what I'm reading in the G-20's communique , it's apparent that President Obama is ignoring the Constitution. Here's the part that's most troubling:
14. We each agree to ensure our domestic regulatory systems are strong. But we also agree to establish the much greater consistency and systematic cooperation between countries, and the framework of internationally agreed high standards, that a global financial system requires. Strengthened regulation and supervision must promote propriety, integrity and transparency; guard against risk across the financial system; dampen rather than amplify the financial and economic cycle; reduce reliance on inappropriately risky sources of financing; and discourage excessive risk-taking. Regulators and supervisors must protect consumers and investors, support market discipline, avoid adverse impacts on other countries, reduce the scope for regulatory arbitrage, support competition and dynamism, and keep pace with innovation in the marketplace.The Constitution treats ratified treaties between the United States and foreign nations as having the same force as the Constitution because we want the treaty's co-signees to know that we'll live up to treaties. The Constitution does not, however, view communiques in the same light. In fact, communiques aren't ratified. They're simply a written communication that doesn't even have the force of law.
15. To this end we are implementing the Action Plan agreed at our last meeting, as set out in the attached progress report. We have today also issued a Declaration, Strengthening the Financial System. In particular we agree:
- to establish a new Financial Stability Board (FSB) with a strengthened mandate, as a successor to the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), including all G20 countries, FSF members, Spain, and the European Commission;
- that the FSB should collaborate with the IMF to provide early warning of macroeconomic and financial risks and the actions needed to address them;
- to reshape our regulatory systems so that our authorities are able to identify and take account of macro-prudential risks;
- to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets. This will include, for the first time, systemically important hedge funds;
- to endorse and implement the FSF's tough new principles on pay and compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms;
- to take action, once recovery is assured, to improve the quality, quantity, and international consistency of capital in the banking system. In future, regulation must prevent excessive leverage and require buffers of resources to be built up in good times;
- to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information;
- to call on the accounting standard setters to work urgently with supervisors and regulators to improve standards on valuation and provisioning and achieve a single set of high-quality global accounting standards; and
- to extend regulatory oversight and registration to Credit Rating Agencies to ensure they meet the international code of good practice, particularly to prevent unacceptable conflicts of interest.
The only way the things outlined in this communique will have the force of law is if they're in a signed and ratified treaty. The GOP's message should be simple: President Obama has agreed to let unaccountable Central European bankers regulate our financial system because he wants financial institutions subject to draconian regulations.
Republicans should be clear that, contrary to the Democrats' talking points, they're for sensible regulation of this important industry.
What's most bothersome to me is that our president didn't stand up for America while he hobnobbed with Europe's leaders. He seemingly caved on a daily basis. That isn't leadership. That's the definition of weakness through appeasement.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:27 AM
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Behind the Morrissey Boulevard Uprising Post
Yesterday, I sent a humorous email to my friend Ed Morrissey about the turmoils of the Boston Globe and the NYTimes. Ed quickly proceeded to highlight the ill will between the Globe and the Times. In his post , Ed makes a number of important points. The opening paragraph, though, needs to be explained from my perspective. Here's what Ed wrote:
My friend Gary Gross suspects a conspiracy. The Boston Herald reports that the New York Times threat to shutter the Boston Globe has caused a "storm over Morrissey Boulevard," where the Globe's offices are located. Has this blogger managed to undermine a Boston institution, albeit owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Paper of Record?For the record, the only conspiracy I believe in is the VRWC's attempt to assist in the destruction of institutions like the NYTimes. That said, I don't think it'll take much more assistance to topple the NYTimes and send it into bankruptcy.
I'd further add that what little assistance is needed in ushering the NYTimes into the dustbin of history can be provided by my friend Ed Morrissey.
It's from that perspective that I suggest this deal: High profile bloggers like Ed Morrissey and the Powerline trio push high profile newspapers into oblivion while the talented MOBster bloggers push lesser known papers into the dustbin of history.
I'll update this post if I hear from Ed and the Powerline trio.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:54 AM
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Is There Ever a Right Time?
This morning, RCP linked to a column by Gideon Rachman titled " Obama: The Right Man At The Wrong Time ". That isn't a title I can agree with. Mr. Rachman opens his column this way:
And so it was that Barack Hussein Obama visited Europe. In London, he rescued the world economy. In Strasbourg, he healed the Nato alliance. In Prague, he rid the world of nuclear weapons. In Ankara, he reconciled Islam and the west. And on the seventh day, he got back on to Air Force One and disappeared into a cloudless sky.I don't want to be disrespectful but I've never seen proof that President Obama has a commanding substantive presence, though I'll readily admit that he's got a commanding artificial presence.
Was it all a dream? I fear so.
For people living in the real world, President Obama hasn't done much to tell us he'll fight for us or that he's interested in making America prosperous again. He's only proven a willingness to fight for his warped vision of supersized, unsustainable government and his vision of controlling major sectors of the American economy.
Here's the nagging question I haven't answered: Is there EVER a right time for President Obama's policies?
Thus far, I don't think there is.
Here's a more detailed list of rhetorical questions I have for President Obama:
- Is there ever a right time for abandoning allies like Israel?
- Is there ever a right time for reaching out to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and the Taliban?
- Is there ever a right time for reaching out to the biggest state sponsor of terrorism at exactly the time that they're developing nuclear power?
- Is there ever a right time for a president seeking unconstitutional powers over major segments of our economy?
- Is there ever a right time for letting Central European bankers regulate American financial institutions?
- Is there ever a right time for spending money as this unsustainable and this irresponsible a rate?
- Will there ever be a right time for proposing a nuclear weapons-free world?
When I do a word association game for President Obama, the first word that pops into my head is articulate. The next word I think of is artificial. The word that I've never associated with President Obama is gravitas.
I'm glad I put this post together. It was the right time to say what others have been thinking.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 6:06 AM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 07-Apr-09 06:58 AM
The first word that comes to my mind is "naif." The second is "dangerous."
The DFL's Anti-Accountability Movement
Until yesterday, I knew that the DFL wasn't interested in accountability but 'only' had logic to support that. Now I've got proof in the form of legislation that the DFL is actually pushing. Here's the text of Sen. Senjem's official statement on the DFL's attempt to avoid accountability:
"As a former city council member, I will attest that 'Truth in Taxation" hearings provide an invaluable opportunity for a specific meeting dedicated to discussing the budget and to hearing directly from citizens regarding the tax policy of local governments.I wholeheartedly agree with Sen. Senjem. There's never a time when government should be unaccountable to its constituents. I'd bet that the Senate's vote to eliminate the Truth In Taxation provisions isn't appealing to Main Street Minnesotans. I'd bet the proverbial ranch that it's appalling to Main Street Minnesotans.
Ending 'Truth in Taxation' hearings at a time in history when we need more citizens involved with their government and paying more attention to tax policy in Minnesota is simply wrong."
Mitch's post is spot on with this observation:
Why would they do this?Last summer, I said that the DFL was the "No Solutions Party." I'll add that the DFL is now the Anti-Accountability Party, too.
Simple. Much of the DFL's agenda, especially in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, is enacted at the local level. That's one of the reasons that the DFL cried so long and hard about the cuts to Local Government Aid six years ago; it curbed the redistribution of wealth from the parts of the state that work to the parts that have suffered under generations of debilitating DFL hegemony.
If the peasants can't see how the local units are spending the money they get, they can't get upset. If they can't get upset, then there's no reason to upset the DFL's applecart.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 6:44 AM
Comment 1 by walter hanson at 07-Apr-09 07:07 AM
not to mention it's the one time per year that the local tax payers might get mad and complain to those local lawmakers not to do tax increases.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Townhall Meeting Scheduled
This Thursday morning, there will be a townhall meeting will be held in the Friendship Center at Good Shepherd Lutheran Home. According to the Times' article , GSLH is located at 1115 Fourth Ave. N, Sauk Rapids. Scheduled to attend are Rep. Dan Severson, R-Sauk Rapids; Rep. Larry Hosch, DFL-St. Joseph; Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud; Rep. Larry Haws, DFL-St. Cloud and Sen. Michelle Fischbach, R-Paynesville.
If things work out, which I think they will, I'll plan on attending the event and filing a report later that day.
I'm also planning on attending Michele Bachmann's event with special guest Chris Horner later that day. That event is scheduled for the 1:15-2:30 time slot at the Atwood Center on the SCSU campus. I plan on liveblogging that event.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 8:13 AM
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A Little Fact-Checking Is In Order
I knew that I'd have to write a fact-checking post after reading Bing West's op-ed . While I agree with Mr. West's statement that "Murtha smeared the reputation of a generation of Marines." I even agree that "bestowing the navy's highest civilian medal, the Distinguished Public Service Award, upon Rep. John P. Murtha (D., Pa.) last month" was wrong. Here's where I disagree with Mr. West:
In May of 2006, military investigators recommended court-martial trials for seven Marines involved in the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians after a Marine was killed in the violent town of Haditha. Marine generals went to Capitol Hill to alert the key committees about the forthcoming trials and, after being briefed, Representative Murtha held a world-famous press conference.Those two short paragraphs have alot of misstatements of fact in them, which I highlighted in this post .
"They killed innocent civilians in cold blood. They actually went into the houses and killed women and children," Murtha thundered. "But I will not excuse murder. And this is what happened. There's no question in my mind about it."
First, "24 innocent civilians" weren't killed in the Haditha uprising; 16 innocent civilians were killed because 8 identified insurgents used them as human shields. This information is part of the PowerPoint presentation then-Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore put together after the firefight.
Second, Marine generals didn't brief Rep. Murtha prior to his infamous press conference:
Mr. West's article does a good job outlining the atrocities visited upon the Marines by those that theoretically "support the troops, just not the war." Here's one such example:Asked about his sources during a midday briefing on Iraq policy in the Capitol, Murtha confidently replied, "All the information I get, it comes from the commanders, it comes from people who know what they're talking about." Although Murtha said that he had not read any investigative reports by the military on the incident, he stressed, "It's much worse than reported in Time magazine."The Marine Corps later corrected the record :Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, is being sued by one of the accused Marines for libel. He had told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Gen. Michael Hagee had given him the information on which he based his charge that Marines killed innocent civilians.
But a spokesman for the Marine Corps said Hagee briefed Murtha on May 24 about Haditha. Murtha had made comments on the case as early as May 17. On May 17, for example, he said at a news conference, "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
A spokeswoman for Murtha was not immediately available.
Inevitably, the administration was blamed for Haditha. The New York Times editorial page said: "It will not do to focus blame narrowly on the Marine unit suspected of carrying out these killings and ignore the administration officials, from President Bush on down , who made the chances of this sort of disaster so much greater by deliberately blurring the rules governing the conduct of American soldiers in the field."Don't you just have to appreciate the fact that the Paper Of Record waited to find out all the facts before playing judge, jury and executioner? Then again, that's what I expect from people that are more interested in pushing a leftist agenda rather than reporting important news.
As Ed highlights in this post , the NYTimes will go to any length to criticize Republicans. Here's what they wrote about their latest corrupt polling:
Here's their dirty little secret:These sometimes turbulent weeks, marked by new initiatives by Mr. Obama, attacks by Republicans and more than a few missteps by the White House, do not appear to have hurt the president. Americans said they approved of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, foreign policy, Iraq and Afghanistan; fully two-thirds said they approved of his overall job performance.
By contrast, just 31 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of the Republican Party, the lowest in the 25 years the question has been asked in New York Times/CBS News polls.
It's not unusual for the Gray Lady to cook the numbers, either, to make sure their poll shows that support. This is the breakout in their demographics on page 23:A media outlet that's more interested in eliminating key facts in their attempt to skewer an ideological enemy than it's interested in reporting truth isn't far removed from the worst of tabloid journalism. A media outlet that's willing to throw wrongfully accuse genuine American heroes of cold-blooded murder isn't a media outlet of sterling repute.
Democrats - 39%
Republicans - 23%
Independents - 30%
Similarly, an important congressman who'll willingly misrepresent the actions of our military is a reprehensible human being.
In that sense, John Murtha and the NY Times deserve each other.
Posted Tuesday, April 7, 2009 11:37 AM
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