President Barack "I Didn't Do It" Obama - Derek Hunter - [page]

President Barack "I Didn't Do It" Obama - Derek Hunter 

It’s one thing for a politician to “massage” the truth ... it happens all the time. But it’s quite another for one to so brazenly repeat an easily disprovable lie. 

But, as in the case of President Obama and sequestration, when the fear of being caught in a lie is removed because those charged with being “watchdogs” are active participants, brazenly lying carries no more risk than saying “hello.”

Sequester, automatic across-the-board reductions in the rate of increase in government spending – commonly and lazily called “spending cuts” by the media – was the spawn of the Obama administration. You’d never know it to hear him talk about it. During the campaign the president lied repeatedly about the origin of this monster, but he was the Dr. Frankenstein here.

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, in a piece not posted to the Internet until a time generally reserved for incriminating government document dumps (5:59 pm Friday), reminded the world, “The automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors...” 

The president approved the plan put forth by his employees and, in direct contrast to his current rhetoric, agreed to a deal with Republicans that “included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.”

He has since won re-election, which apparently means any agreement made beforehand is not only no longer valid, but never happened. The media, too busy focusing on the important issues facing the country such as complaining about not getting a picture of the president with Tiger Woods, haven’t bothered to point out any of this.

Rather than the tough medicine President Obama created to begin, on a miniscule scale, addressing our ballooning government spending, he treats sequester as a Frankenstein’s monster birthed by Republicans. But, as Woodward reminds us, paternity lies firmly at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 

Review & Outlook: Jack Lew's Golden Parachute -His Citigroup contract paid him a bonus for returning to government. WSJ.com

Review & Outlook: Jack Lew's Golden Parachute - WSJ.com

Americans can sleep soundly knowing that Max Baucus (D., Mont.) isn't in charge of interviewing captured al Qaeda fighters. But the enhanced non-interrogation techniques that the Senate Finance Chairman has been applying to Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew still deserve more attention. This weekend's technique was painful to watch—if you're a taxpayer.

After Mr. Lew repeatedly responded "I do not recall" to key questions about his actions while working at New York University and Citigroup, C -1.67% Mr. Baucus announced Sunday that Mr. Lew had answered the committee's questions "in a thorough and fully transparent manner." Therefore, the committee will vote Tuesday on the nomination.

This is a shame because Mr. Lew is well qualified to explain how the Washington-Wall Street axis of access really operates. And while Mr. Lew's supporters talk about the quantity of paper traded between him and Senate Finance, there are at least two answers that ought to be demanded before Mr. Lew skates to the most powerful job in American finance. They relate to the paychecks he received from his last two employers before returning to government.

We wrote recently about the oddity of New York University paying severance to Mr. Lew in 2006 when he left there voluntarily to work at Citigroup. NYU hasn't explained why it would pay someone for quitting to take a job on Wall Street.

As for the Citi paycheck, the story is how Wall Street has become a get-rich-turnstile for Democratic political operatives. The terms of Mr. Lew's original employment contract with Citi included a bonus guarantee if he left the bank for a "high level position with the United States government or regulatory body."

The Right Way to Combat Gun Violence Target Criminals! | RealClearPolitics

The Right Way to Combat Gun Violence | RealClearPolitics

Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong tree.

Many liberals think the answer to mass shootings and street crime lies in stricter gun regulation: banning "assault weapons," limiting the capacity of magazines or, in their unrestrained moments, adopting ultra-stringent laws like those in Britain or Australia.

Click on Link for entire article!

Joe "In Wonderland"Biden: Americans 'No Longer Worried' About Economy | The Weekly Standard

Biden: Americans 'No Longer Worried' About Economy | The Weekly Standard

In remarks today at the White House, Vice President Joe Biden said that Americans don't have the same economic worries they did when President Barack Obama came into office:

"The are no longer traumatized by what was a traumatizing event, the great collapse of 2008," said Biden. "They are no longer worried, I think, about our economy being overwhelmed either by Europe writ large, the EU, or China somehow swallowing up every bit of innovation that exists in the world. They are no longer, I think, worried about our economy being overwhelmed beyond our shores. But, and I don't think ... there is very little doubt in any circles out there about America's ability to be in position to lead the world in the 21st century. Not only in terms of our foreign policy, our incredible defense establishment, but economically."

HANSON: Obama and his 1 percent - Washington Times

HANSON: Obama and his 1 percent - Washington Times

In his first term President Obama was criticized for trash-talking the 1-percenters while enjoying the aristocracy of Martha’s Vineyard and the nation’s most exclusive golf courses.

Mr. Obama never quite squared his accusations that “millionaires and billionaires” had not paid their fair share with his own obvious enjoyment of the perks of “corporate jet owners,” “fat cat bankers” and Las Vegas junketeers.

Now, that paradox has continued right off the bat in the second term. In the State of the Union, Mr. Obama once more went after “the few,” and “the wealthiest and the most powerful,” whom he blasted as the “well-off and the well-connected” and the “billionaires with high-powered accountants.”

Like clockwork, the president then jetted to West Palm Beach, Fla., for yet another golfing vacation at one of the nation’s priciest courses, replete with lessons from a $1,000-per-hour golf pro to improve the presidential putting.

The rest of the first family jetted off on their own skiing vacation to elite Aspen, Colo., where nobody accepts that at some point they’ve already “made enough money.” Meanwhile, below the stratosphere, unemployment rose to 7.9 percent for January — the 49th consecutive month it has been 7.8 percent or higher. The economy shrank in the last quarter of 2012, gas is back to almost $4 a gallon, and the government continues to borrow almost $4 billion a day.

Today, lots of liberal grandees attack the rich and yet do their best to act and live just like them.

Read more: http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/22/obama-and-his-1-percent/#ixzz2LrlFTmFt
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