If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
"That cocaine snorting, and what he ate - Fido? Rufus? I think it's funny that the cocktail circuit gives me a hard time for eating elk and moose. Anybody here have a pet moose? There's a difference."
President Obama’s claim that he can refuse to deport 800,000 aliens here in the country illegally illustrates the unprecedented stretching of the Constitution and the rule of law. He is laying claim to presidential power that goes even beyond that claimed by the Bush administration, in which I served. There is a world of difference in refusing to enforce laws that violate the Constitution (Bush) and refusing to enforce laws because of disagreements over policy (Obama).
Imagine the precedent this claim would create. President Romney could lower tax rates simply by saying he will not use enforcement resources to prosecute anyone who refuses to pay capital-gains tax. He could repeal Obamacare simply by refusing to fine or prosecute anyone who violates it.
So what we have here is a president who is refusing to carry out federal law simply because he disagrees with Congress’s policy choices. That is an exercise of executive power that even the most stalwart defenders of an energetic executive — not to mention the Framers — cannot support.
“To half through executive order the deportation of some undocumented immigrants looks like a political calculation to win Hispanic votes,” Gonzales told the crowd at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. Saturday, “and subjects him to criticism that he is violating his oath of office by selectively failing to enforce the law.”
Listening to these voters for over two hours, it was clear that their assessment of the economy is not as bleak as one would suppose, given their disaffection from Obama. They generally agree that the economy is improving, but Obama doesn’t get credit for a recovery that, while slow, is moving in the right direction—the core of his message for a second term. A few cited what they called “little things” Obama has done for the economy, like reining in credit-card companies, but no one could cite major accomplishments that would measure up to the expectations aroused by Obama as a candidate who promised to bring about transformative change.
This Denver group was sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, and Hart’s findings add to a growing chorus of concern among Democrats not directly aligned with the Obama campaign that the president is not connecting with the voters he needs to win. Asked if he was feeling the heat from his allies in the Obama camp, Hart told The Daily Beast, “They know who I am, and that I’m a straight-shooter, and I’m totally in their corner. Sometimes being in their corner means telling them the truth.”
Whether it’s a failure of policy or of communications is debatable, but the sense of disillusionment with Obama’s performance is real. “He set up expectations that began 46 months ago, and they only grew over time,” says Hart. He singled out Jeffrey, a 31-year-old Web designer and home remodeler, as the voter Obama most needs and might not get. Jeffrey voted for Obama last time.
“The whole platform was hope—I don’t feel any more hope today,” he said. Pressed by Hart as to which candidate he was leaning toward, Jeffrey said the tenor of the campaign turned him off, that he felt like he was in the middle of a weird argument between a husband and wife, and all he wanted to do was leave the room. “I don’t even know if I’m going to vote this time,” he said glumly.
On Monday, Ray Dolin of West Virginia grabbed national headlines when he claimed that he was hiking on Highway 2 in Montana — gathering stories for a memoir about how nice people are — when a man in a pickup truck pulled over and then shot him in the arm. What a story! Police even arrested a 52-year-old man under suspicion of assault, but he was cleared after a search of his truck turned up zero evidence. Under more interrogation, Dolin admitted to police on Thursday that he made the story up and he actually shot himself in the arm. Whether he lied to cover for his own foolishness or simply to grab attention we still don't know, but we do know that America is slightly less kind when people try to get other people in trouble for fake shootings. Police say the case in still under investigation, though there may be charges for Dolin in the work
"Almost" getting injured by an old woman who feels threatened is not an excuse to use a taser on an elderly person. She was clearly confused and unable to make decisions. However, she deserved compassion and kindness instead of the treatment she received. I have to say, maybe her assessment of the officers was spot on.St. George Police Chief Anthony L. Britt said that an officer who tased a nude 80-year-old woman was justified because the woman could have hurt police officers and EMS crews with her metal walking cane which she was swinging at officers."We just felt that was the best way to apprehend her and not let her hurt anybody or herself," Britt said on Friday. "There was no other way to get her to come down from where she was at that point."On May 21, a lieutenant with the St. George Police Department contacted emergency dispatch regarding noises he heard near his home. A police officer responded and said he found a nude elderly woman in front of a home on Gavin Street banging her walking cane on the rail of the steps."Officers made contact with her. She was non responsive and quoting scriptures from the Bible," Britt said.Britt says he and another officer arrived shortly after and attempted to talk to the woman. Some time later, a lieutenant with the police department and EMS crews arrived.According to Britt, police and EMS personnel attempted to talk to the woman with negative results. Police say they attempted to get the cane away from the woman which almost got officers injured."She swung the cane several times at different officers as they were trying to approach her," Britt said. "One of the officers that came from behind almost got hit in the head with the cane. At that point, I just told the officers,'She's in a safe position, just go ahead and tase her so we can prevent anybody from getting hurt.'"
After he conducted a focus group of swing voters in Colorado, pollster Peter Hart -- the Democratic half of the NBC/WSJ poll -- had this advice for Team Obama in an interview with NBC News: “Our focus groups show that voters see a lot of glamour and glitz from the Obama administration; they're wondering where the vision, where the valor is going to be.” More from Hart: “[Obama] is missing the mark on the middle class. He needs to get down there. It is not just rallies; he needs to be out there feeling what they are feeling, a lot of pain, a lot of hurt, a lot of uncertainty.” And: “[The public] need a sense of a vision, they need a sense of hope, they need to be able to see that it’s not just the old Obama giving them the charisma and the cool. They need to see substance over style.” We know there are many folks in Obamaland who semi-dismiss the criticism coming from Greenberg/Carville. But the ex-Clinton folks apparently are not alone.
Prior to President Barack Obama’s marathon 54 minute speech in Ohio today, the Obama campaign sent our several statements promising the speech would be a major address framing the campaign going forward. Despite the hype, the speech was mainly a rehash of themes and ideas from the president’s recent stump speeches and his remarks were widely panned as overly long by the political press corps.
"I thought this honestly was one of the least successful speeches I've seen Barack Obama give," Jonathan Alter, the Bloomberg View columnist who is close to the White House, said on MSNBC. He suggested the speech lacked memorable lines and "lost the audience by the end."
Perhaps Obama has only himself to blame. He's dug out of quite a few holes with masterful speeches in the past -- most notably when he was forced to explain the heated rhetoric of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, in April 2008 -- and so now has an extremely high bar to live up to.
But this one probably won't go down in the history books, even if the campaign made clear it considered this a key moment, distributing praise for the speech and the president's approach to the economy from a litany of elected officials across the country.
In an economy headed in the wrong direction, comparison campaigning is necessary but not sufficient. It might not matter much to frustrated voters that we’ve tried the Republican recipe for growth (tax cuts and deregulation) in the 2000s and it failed, or that Romney was 47th out of 50 governors when it came to job creation in his state. The tie -- two failed job creators -- goes to the challenger.
That means Obama must match his focus on the choice with more work on the referendum side -- more affirmative reasons to vote for him. He has begun reminding voters of the American Jobs Act he pushed last fall that would help small business and create a million new jobs, his 2012 State of the Union “Built to Last” long-term investment agenda, and last month’s congressional “To- Do List.” The problem is, they all blur together.
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