 |
| You'll notice it is a LEFT turn |
Our #1 story discusses the unemployment rate and conjectures it is likely to increase soon. #2 looks not simply at the President, but at his entire team. #3 reveals that Obama’s recess appointments have been challenged in the courts. #4 gives you a different look at Mitt Romney. #5 is a good look at why Obama has been the President he’s been and why he shouldn’t be reelected. #6 has been put here in honor of the Denver Broncos going to New England to play in the second round of the playoffs. It looks at the controversy regarding Tebowing and asks if it is a political act?
1. Unemployment Rate May Increase
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent may be partially reversed in coming months.
“I’m a little concerned that the most recent improvement is going to be transitory and it might move up above 8.5 percent,” Evans said in response to audience questions after a speech today in Carmel, Indiana.
Evans said he forecasts that “at the end of the year, we’re not going to be very different from 8.5 percent unemployment….”
This is not anything that should surprise anyone. If things get better the missing 4+ million people in the labor pool will come back in driving the artificially low unemployment rate up.
2. Team Obama and the Voters
Does anyone actually think that the president of the United States is master of every detail related to every department in the executive branch?
The obvious answer is "Of course not." We expect the president, upon assuming office, to hire people who are far more knowledgeable than he or she is in a host of areas. We certainly wouldn't expect the president to have the same level of expertise in medicine as the person he or she selects as the surgeon general, would we?
The question to be answered is then: this year, on November 6, will we be voting for a chief executive, or will we, in fact, be voting for an entire administration?
Logic indicates that, in fact, we will be voting for an entire administration, but unfortunately for us as a nation, we get to see only the public face of that administration, the presidential candidate himself, before that administration goes to work on January 21, 2013.
The dangers inherent in this situation are self-evident in the Obama administration. Ken Salazar as secretary of the interior (or perhaps the "Boot-on-the-Neck" czar would be a more appropriate title), Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security, and, most glaringly, Eric Holder as attorney general have proven that, if we are actually voting to hire an administration when we enter the voting booth, our current system of seeing only the candidate for president has some serious problems.
This essentially forces us to buy a pig in a poke….
Obama’s administration, including his czars, are much further to the left than is the American public.
3. Obama’s recess Appointments Challenged in the Courts
Two pro-business advocacy groups on Friday filed the first legal challenge to President Barack Obama's recent recess appointments, asking a federal judge to find them unconstitutional.
The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Right to Work Foundation argue Obama cannot legally bypass the Senate to appoint three new members of the National Labor Relations Board, an agency that referees labor-management disputes.
The groups made the argument in a motion in federal district court in Washington, D.C., as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the labor board for requiring businesses to put up posters telling workers about their right to form a union….
This story fits well with the one preceding it about how we will be voting for the entire administration in November.
4. Mitt Romney: a work in progress.
He’s under attack for being a hugely successful private-equity banker at Bain Capital. Bain identified distressed companies and found value in them for shareholders, investors and, ultimately, consumers. When things worked right, Romney and his team streamlined firms and injected fresh capital, helping companies thrive.
He took his turnaround skills to the Winter Olympics (and, he argues, to the governor’s mansion in Massachusetts). When the 2002 games were in disarray, he swooped in, cut out all the self-dealing nonsense by consultants and contractors, made the fat cats and moochers pay for their own meals and got things back on track.
It’s an impressive record, but it doesn’t prove he knows how to “create jobs.” Investors and businessmen don’t search out ways to create jobs. They search out ways to create wealth.
The private-equity business came into existence because too many industries had become bloated and lazy by the 1980s, unable to compete with emerging economies around the globe. Most of that bloat is gone. Decades of global competition and the huge productivity gains from the computer and Internet revolutions have seen to that.
Where does bloat keep on a-bloating? I’ll give you one guess.
Contrary to liberal talking points, conservatives don’t oppose government per se. If we did, we wouldn’t glorify the Constitution as much as we do. After all, the one thing the Constitution does is create the federal government.
Conservatives and libertarians think the federal government should only do those things the federal government should do. Other important things — and there are many — should be taken care of by, yes, state and local governments, but also by individuals, families, churches, charities and so on. Government should get back to its core competencies and pass on the savings to the shareholders: the taxpayers.
If you don’t think government is bloated, you simply haven’t been paying attention. Yes, regulations hurt the private sector, but they also hamper the public sector, making it impossible for it to do what it should. The government that built the Pentagon in 16 months would probably need at least that long just to get a meeting with the EPA today….
Jonah Goldberg hits a homerun with this article. Mitt the bloat slayer wants to use his talents where most of the bloat in America is focused these days.
5. Help Wanted: A New President
“Huge organization with serious financial management problems seeks a CEO to make tough decisions in order to avoid bankruptcy.” The federal government should be running this want ad in response to the GAO’s annual audit of federal agency financial statements, released last month. As it has for many years, the GAO concluded that it cannot express an opinion on the statements because of weak internal financial controls and unreliable evidence to support material information.
In other words, the government’s financial reporting is so abysmal no one can tell taxpayers exactly how their money is being spent. That’s aside from the fact that the nation’s current fiscal path is unsustainable.
While the GAO report is not a big surprise and many of the government’s financial problems are systemic, Americans should nonetheless consider what type of leader they want as the CEO of the country’s largest organization. In fact, this decision is directly related to the donnybrook occurring in the Republican presidential primary over Bain Capital. Eventually, voters will determine whether a Washington insider or someone with more private-sector experience than public-sector service will face off against President Obama.
Whoever gets the nod from the GOP will certainly reiterate that Mr. Obama’s resume is totally deficient in private-sector experience. In fact, the president has only “organized” a community, not a corporation. His deficit in running a large operation has caused him to engage in on-the-job training with the nation’s finances, which has resulted in annual deficits of more than $1 trillion, a national debt that has grown to more than $15 trillion and an impending $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. The constant threat of tax increases and the plethora of regulations issued by the administration have created tremendous uncertainty and trepidation for entrepreneurs and investors….
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/13/help-wanted/
6. Is Tebowing a political act?
The NFL is generously stocked with forgiven felons, including millionaire wife beaters and dog killers. So how did a clean-living quarterback with deep commitments to charitable service and miraculous last-minute victories become the most controversial player in the league?
It's easy to see why legions of loyalists lavish love on 24-year-old Tim Tebow, who leads his underdog Denver Broncos in a crucial playoff game against the New England Patriots on Saturday night. Yet other fiercely focused fans feel no hesitation at expressing their contempt and loathing for a remarkable athlete whose behavior on field and off exemplifies the values of hard work, fearlessness and concern for the downtrodden
A popular website called TebowHaters.com serves as a clearinghouse for denunciations, while Jeff Darlington of NFL.com got a big response for a survey on what offended fans most about the Broncos quarterback. An Orlando, Fla., radio station (WJRR) used crude language promoting a public campaign to terminate Mr. Tebow's well-advertised virginity and to break his pledge to save himself for marriage. Bill Maher, acerbic tribune of "Real Time" on HBO, got into the holiday spirit last month by celebrating a Denver loss and tweeting: "Wow. Jesus just f---- #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve!" Novelist and blogger Drew Magary proudly declares on the sports website Deadspin.com: "Not only is it OK to root against Tim Tebow, it's practically your duty as cynical Americans."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577156580920359946.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Perhaps cynical Americans is the proper way to look at the people who hate Tim Tebow for who he is. In an age where “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” was condemned by the left because it meant that soldiers had to live a lie and couldn’t be who they are, it odd to see many of the same people condemning Tebow and calling for him to take it down a notch.
No comments:
Post a Comment