Currently viewing the tag: “Believe”
The Federal Reserve chair becomes the latest voice telling the GOP their draconian budget cuts will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Will the tea party-bossed Republicans in Washington listen? Republicans were quick to dismiss reports from Goldman Sachs and Moody’s analysts saying their plans could result in the loss of up to 700,000 jobs […]
The Reid Report
Welcome to the NHL’s Western Conference. Please leave your seat belt buckled until the pilot informs us we have arrived safely in the playoffs. The Hawks began Monday in ninth place, then they beat Minnesota — in regulation; huge, HUGE…
From a fascinating email exchange between Independent science editor Steve Connor and Princeton scholar and climate change skeptic Professor Freeman Dyson:
From: Steve Connor
To: Freeman Dyson
…You have written eloquently about the need for heretics in science who question the accepted dogma. There are a number of notable instances in science where heretics have indeed been proven to be right (Alfred Wegener and continental drift) but many more, less notable examples where they have been shown to be wrong and, in time, will be forgotten (remember Peter Duesberg or Andrew Wakefield?). So it was in the light of your heretical stance on climate science that I’d like to know why we should believe a few lone heretics – albeit eminent ones such as yourself – rather than the vast body of scientists who have a plethora of published work to back up their claims? It’s an important question because it’s about who we, the public, should believe on scientific matters and why?
From: Freeman Dyson
To: Steve Connor
When I was in high-school in England in the 1930s, we learned that continents had been drifting according to the evidence collected by Wegener. It was a great mystery to understand how this happened, but not much doubt that it happened. So it came as a surprise to me later to learn that there had been a consensus against Wegener. If there was a consensus, it was among a small group of experts rather than among the broader public. I think that the situation today with global warming is similar. Among my friends, I do not find much of a consensus. Most of us are sceptical and do not pretend to be experts. My impression is that the experts are deluded because they have been studying the details of climate models for 30 years and they come to believe the models are real. After 30 years they lose the ability to think outside the models. And it is normal for experts in a narrow area to think alike and develop a settled dogma. The dogma is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In astronomy this happens all the time, and it is great fun to see new observations that prove the old dogmas wrong.
Unfortunately things are different in climate science because the arguments have become heavily politicised. To say that the dogmas are wrong has become politically incorrect. As a result, the media generally exaggerate the degree of consensus and also exaggerate the importance of the questions.
From a fascinating email exchange between Independent science editor Steve Connor and Princeton scholar and climate change skeptic Professor Freeman Dyson:
From: Steve Connor
To: Freeman Dyson
…You have written eloquently about the need for heretics in science who question the accepted dogma. There are a number of notable instances in science where heretics have indeed been proven to be right (Alfred Wegener and continental drift) but many more, less notable examples where they have been shown to be wrong and, in time, will be forgotten (remember Peter Duesberg or Andrew Wakefield?). So it was in the light of your heretical stance on climate science that I’d like to know why we should believe a few lone heretics – albeit eminent ones such as yourself – rather than the vast body of scientists who have a plethora of published work to back up their claims? It’s an important question because it’s about who we, the public, should believe on scientific matters and why?
From: Freeman Dyson
To: Steve Connor
When I was in high-school in England in the 1930s, we learned that continents had been drifting according to the evidence collected by Wegener. It was a great mystery to understand how this happened, but not much doubt that it happened. So it came as a surprise to me later to learn that there had been a consensus against Wegener. If there was a consensus, it was among a small group of experts rather than among the broader public. I think that the situation today with global warming is similar. Among my friends, I do not find much of a consensus. Most of us are sceptical and do not pretend to be experts. My impression is that the experts are deluded because they have been studying the details of climate models for 30 years and they come to believe the models are real. After 30 years they lose the ability to think outside the models. And it is normal for experts in a narrow area to think alike and develop a settled dogma. The dogma is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In astronomy this happens all the time, and it is great fun to see new observations that prove the old dogmas wrong.
Unfortunately things are different in climate science because the arguments have become heavily politicised. To say that the dogmas are wrong has become politically incorrect. As a result, the media generally exaggerate the degree of consensus and also exaggerate the importance of the questions.
The global test.
You might think this would be the easiest of easy calls, but when you populate an ostensibly neutral international body with self-interested governments — many of them as ruthless and cretinous as Qaddafi’s — you’re bound to get perverse results. Why would China, say, take a stand for human rights in Libya when it’s cracking […]
They say that now is the time to buy (if they have something to sell). They say two out of three aint bad. They say that “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” but I suspect that this is just a marketing conspiracy created by estate attorneys.
They say that the early bird gets the worm (but my son Max asked “what about the worm?”). They say that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people (which I have disproved for the real estate profession in an analysis of closed sales two years ago). They say that “love don’t pay the rent,” but they might not have visited a (well, you know).
The point is, “they” say a whole lot of things, and as a society we have learned to accept a lot of common expressions and sayings as truths in our lives. For the most part, this is harmless and quaint.
But “they” also have a tendency to travel in packs in the news world. When a reporter is covering an issue that he or she does not understand (or one that does not personally excite them), we see a tendency of these people to just report the half-truth spins of industry lobbyists. And this is where harm does occur.
It is time for a self-policing action by the professionals in the real estate industry. We can no longer be the “they” that is spouting the garbage that causes our collective voice to have little or no creditable value among consumers. If NAR continues to publish half-truths and lies in an effort to stimulate the market, won’t OUR voice eventually carry no weight at all with consumers?
When we report on conditions in the Tallahassee housing market, we do our best to isolate trends and provide an opinion of what it means to the short-term and long-term expectations of homeowners. Just like NAR, my ability to earn a living for my family is based upon the number of homes that my company is able to sell each and every day. I want to sell homes. I have a vested and passionate interest in all of the homes for sale in Tallahassee.
But I also have a vested interest in the Tallahassee community. NAR personnel come, and NAR personnel go, so “they” do not live in the community in which they “serve.” But I do.
I am a bull on real estate. I believe real estate investing will absolutely blow the doors off of any other passive investment for most people. But only if it is done correctly. And only if the investor pays attention and watches market cycles. The frenzy of the boom market 6 years ago was caused by many factors, and “they” were at the heart of it.
Don’t listen to “they,” the advice is toxic. Take in your own readings. Find trusted advisers. Learn to spot trends. And then do the opposite of what “they” are doing. Real estate is not rocket science and it is something that most people have to deal with in their lives anyway … so it is a natural vehicle for smart, safe investment.
Real estate investment, when done correctly, is not flash and it is not exciting. But it certainly can be rewarding. If you think common-sense investing could be the right answer for you, just let me know and I will show you the smartest way to get started.
(Ilya Somin)
The Obama Administration’s decision not to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act has inspired a great deal of criticism from commentators who believe that it is an unwise or illegitimate extension of executive power. The critics include Richard Epstein, Curt Levey, and our own Orin Kerr, among others. John Yoo argues that this is a constitutionally permissible exercise of executive power, but an unwise one that contradicts the Democrats’ position on other executive power issues.
I’m not a fan of either the Obama Administration or some of the legal arguments they have made in support of the claim that DOMA is unconstitutional. But I do think that they made the right call here. If a President genuinely believes that a federal statute is unconstitutional he has a duty not to defend it.
I. The President’s Duty to Defend the Constitution Supersedes His Duty to Uphold Federal Statutes When the Two Conflict.
Let’s start with first principles. The president takes an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution. His duty to uphold the Constitution supersedes his obligation to enforce federal statutes when the two come into conflict. After all, federal statutes are only legitimate in so far as they are constitutional. One of the greatest threats to the Constitution is the enactment and enforcement of unconstitutional laws that exceed the powers of government.
Ever since George Washington, presidents have exercised their own judgment in assessing the constitutionality of federal laws, and have not simply deferred to the courts or to Congress. Each branch of government has an independent responsibility to assess the constitutionality of current and proposed laws. This is not incompatible with the duty of the president or Congress to obey judicial decisions that strike down a statute, since the Constitution gives the courts jurisdiction over all cases arising under it. But if the courts haven’t yet ruled on the issue, nothing prevents the president or Congress from making a considered independent judgment that the statute is nonetheless unconstitutional and acting accordingly.
Thus, if the president genuinely believes that DOMA or any other federal statute is unconstitutional, he has at least a prima facie duty not to defend it in court, and possibly a duty not to take actions to enforce it either, as part of his exercise of prosecutorial discretion (a traditional executive power). Obviously, the president can still choose to defer to Congress or the courts in ambiguous cases where he is not sure whether a statute is constitutional or not. It would have been perfectly legitimate for the Obama Administration to conclude that they are not sure whether DOMA is constitutional, and therefore will defer to the considered judgment of Congress until such time as the Supreme Court definitively decides the issue. But the President apparently has a considered view that the statute really is unconstitutional, and not merely uncertain in its status. If so, his duty to the Constitution requires him take the action that he did.
II. Practical Considerations.
Many of the critics of Obama’s decision cite the danger that allowing presidents to refuse to defend statutes they consider unconstitutional would allow them to negate any laws the administration happens to disagree with, simply by not arguing for them in court. This is a reasonable concern. But I think it is overblown.
The fact that the administration chooses not to defend a federal law doesn’t mean that it won’t have other able defenders. In practice, virtually any significant federal law is likely to be supported by states and/or private parties who have standing to intervene. For example, any of the 45 states that today forbid gay marriage would probably have standing to defend its constitutionality on the grounds that otherwise they might have to extend tax credits and other government benefits to resident couples who have entered into same-sex marriages in other states. If a future Republican administration chooses not to defend the constitutionality of the individual mandate, both state governments who support it and various private parties who benefit from it materially would have standing to intervene. For example, insurance companies support the mandate because it requires people to buy their products and that financial stake in the law is surely sufficient to give them standing.
Indeed, supporters of a challenged law should prefer that its defense be handled by a party that is genuinely committed to it, rather than a hostile Justice Department that is only litigating the case because they believe they can’t get out of it. Ed Whelan, a prominent critic of the Obama Administration’s handling of the DOMA litigation, claims that the “administration has been sabotaging DOMA litigation from the outset” by refusing to make the best possible arguments in the law’s defense. If so, wouldn’t DOMA supporters be better off if the statute’s defense were handled by parties who actually believe in their case and genuinely want to win it?
Past experience supports the conjecture that a president’s unwillingness to defend a federal statute doesn’t necessarily doom it to defeat. This is not the first time that a president refused to defend the constitutionality of a federal law or regulation. In 1989, as Jim Copland points out, the George H.W. Bush administration refused to defend the constitutionality of federal affirmative preferences in the Metro Broadcasting case. In the 1982 Bob Jones case, the Reagan administration refused to defend an IRS policy denying tax exemptions to a university that practiced racial segregation for religious reasons. Significantly, both policies were ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, as other extremely able lawyers were found to defend them. For example, the Bob Jones case was won by prominent Washington, DC lawyer William Coleman.
In recent years, federal courts have gradually relaxed standing rules, making it easier for a variety of parties — especially state governments — to bring lawsuits or intervene in existing ones. Thus, it is highly unlikely that a president’s refusal to defend a statute in court will mean that it won’t find able defenders elsewhere. If there is still a problem, the proper solution is to further loosen restrictive standing requirements, which should be eliminated anyway for reasons I explained here.
UPDATE: I should add that it might also be legitimate for the president to adopt a general policy of deferring to congressional judgment on issues relating to the constitutionality of federal statutes, if he believes that Congress’ judgment on these matters is likely to be systematically superior to that of the executive branch. But I think any such presumption is at best dubious in an era when Congress generally enacts whatever statutes it wants with little or no serious consideration of constitutional constraints on its power.
UPDATE #2: I have changed around some of the wording in this post for the sake of clarity.
My PJ Media piece yesterday wasn’t linked by a single blog (except this one) and yet, it garnered more than 150 comments. My guesstimate would be that 95% were extremely negative — abusive, belittling, and dismissive. I fully expected this, have come to expect it, whenever I write anything for PJM or other conservative websites.
No one likes to be called a paranoid, but frankly, I can’t think of another word that describes the divorce from reality that has been finalized by so many on the internet right. Theirs is a unique world where logic and reason have gone on permanent vacation, and the fantastical has been substituted for rationality.
The question can be rightly asked; why do you do it if it breeds such contempt from readers to point out the error in their thinking? It certainly isn’t advancing my writing career which, despite claims that I am doing it because it garners praise from liberals, or will get me a job with a Beltway conservative publication, has tanked in the last year. I’d like to say I have bravely gone henceforth into the breach carrying the standard of reason on high, but the opposite is true. No one likes to be unpopular, but beyond that, no one takes my writing seriously anymore. This has made me a little gunshy in writing about anything, much less the mortal danger posed to conservatism by the paranoids.
I have also discovered that I am not a very persuasive writer, probably doing more harm than good to my cause by chastising the right for their blinkered view of reality. It is a fact that few like to be told they are wrong, much less crazy wrong. I should probably have recognized this early on and tried another tack, but would that really have mattered? Besides, crazy is as crazy does, to paraphrase Mr. Gump, and any attempt to minimize the distance between what many conservatives believe about Obama and liberals in general and the real world would probably have been met with similar resistance.
When I began to question cotton candy conservatives like Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin, I actually believed that applying a little logic to the irrational things they were saying might convince some on the right to abandon this shallow, unserious flirtation with pop conservatism. The ease with which these charlatans “explain” what Obama and the liberals are up to by ascribing the worst possible motives to them should be a tip off for any rational observer who values reason. Gleaning motives, or intent, from results is backasswards. It beggars belief that any thinking person would fall into this logic trap.
Allow me to explain: The entire basis for “Obama wants to destroy the country,” Cloward-Piven, and even Rules for Radicals as a gameplan for Obama rests on the results of policies enacted by the administration — unemployment, massive debt, government “takeovers,” etc. From there, the paranoids walk their assumptions backwards to a supposition, i.e. Obama wants to destroy the country. “What else could it be but that Obama is evil and deliberately wants to bring America down?” is the question they ask.
Well, you have offered as much evidence that aliens are telling Obama what to do as you have proven that Obama is evil and wants to destroy the country. In short – zero, nada, nil, nothing. Not one shred of evidence that Obama initiated these admittedly idiotic policies except that the results of those policies were bad. No evidence of meetings where Obama and his advisors mapped out the destruction of America. No paper trail that shows that this was the administration’s intent. No tape recordings of Obama or his advisors plotting America’s downfall. No insider tell all book detailing how the president and his men sought to destroy the United States.
How then, can anyone with an ounce of reason or logic draw the ridiculous, paranoid conclusion that because Obama’s policies have resulted in near economic ruin (a dubious supposition given the previous administration’s profligacy and nearly 30 years of continuous deficit spending with an expanding state), that the only possible explanation is that he is evil and trying to destroy us?
The problem for the paranoids is that they start, not with a supposition, but an assumption. By assuming evil intent, the only possible supposition is that Obama is trying to destroy us. But what is easier to believe? Occam’s razor would teach us that beginning with the supposition that Obama is incompetent would lead to the exact same results that the paranoids believe proves Obama is evil! Is it easier, more rational, more reasonable to believe that Obama is a horrible chief executive or a Machiavellian president who has been able to hide the proof of his intent to destroy us – except from the eyes of those chosen few who claim special knowledge not in evidence of the president’s intent?
When looking at Obama through this kind of paranoid prism, all manner of evils can be attributed to him. He doesn’t “love” America. He wants to weaken us so that the Mooooslims can establish Sharia law in America. He is conniving to turn our capitalist economy (such as it is) into a socialist, or even a Marxist one.
Obama’s words are twisted beyond any reasonable definition of intent in order to “convict” him out of his own mouth. The president’s redistributive rhetoric, naive liberal idiocies about America’s role in the world, his juvenile, Keyenesian view of economics, his dangerously expansive view of constitutional principles all point to Obama being a far left liberal, out of his depth, who is seeking to “remake” America into his vision of of what a “socially just” nation should be.
He is not the first American who has had these ideas. He’s just the first president who has been elected to try it. How’s it working out? Not very well and it’s getting worse.
Wrong not evil. A poor leader, not Satan. A misreading of the country, not an extra-constitutional authoritarian. Isn’t it more reasonable to believe the former and not the latter of all of those assumptions?
I am not a psychologist so getting to the bottom of many on the right’s paranoia about Obama and the liberals will have to be explained by someone else. In the meantime, I will continue, as best as I am able, to try and inject logic and reason into the debates of our time, while leaving the witless paranoids to stew in their own conspiratorial muck.
By Neal McCluskey
Not knowing what’s in any given person’s heart, it’s impossible to say this definitively. However, being very familiar with generally self-interested human nature, it is reasonable to be highly dubious.
Dubious about what? That striking…er, “sick” …teachers in Wisconsin, and especially their union reps, have the welfare of children foremost in mind as they skip school to protest possible crimps on union monopolies and calls for teachers to contribute more for their benefits. Yet that is what Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association President Michael Langyel would have us believe, at least if this quote from a Fox News article is accurate:
If people say the only way to solve this budget crisis is to take away from people who are working hard, they are wrong. We believe that we have a right to have a fair wage for our hard work. More importantly, the collective bargaining process allows us to positively impact school policy issues. We are the advocates for our students, and we will maintain our voice in defending our students.
Now I feel a little sick.
There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to get well compensated (though the portrayal of teachers as just trying to get a “fair wage” is a little rich given that on an hourly basis they make more than such professionals as accountants and insurance underwriters). But please, spare us the heroic tripe about this being about “defending” students. Teachers paying relatively little for their benefits, and even worse, allowing unions to maintain a monopoly over teachers — some of whom probably deserve to get paid much more than the union-negotiated rate — is not at all about defending students. It’s about teacher, and especially union, self-interest, pure and simple.
I Believe the Children Are My Mealticket… is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
Iowa wrestler Joel Northrupt forfeited his match against Cassy Herkelman because as he stated it was a matter of his conscience and faith not appropriate for a bot to engage with a girl in this manner. Northrup is a home-schooled sophomore with a 35-4 record this season prior to defaulting in his match. Cassy entered the tournament 20-13 record. What a position to put kids in. Boys are told from birth to never hit a girl, now they are forced to wrestle them and put themselves in an uncomfortable situation. Its the law of unintended consequences of equal opportunity. VIDEO can be seen HERE.
“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy and Megan (Black, the tournament’s other female entrant) and their accomplishments. However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most of the high school sports in Iowa.”
ESPNraises the question, was Northrup more concerned about harming a female or touching one in an inappropriate manner? Good questions. Wrestlers can certainly get into some pretty contorted positions. Many wrestling moves if a highschool kid ever performed on a girl would get him arrested.
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
Stephanopoulos goes Gaga.
Welcome to Non-Sequitur Central, otherwise known as ABC’s Good Morning America. George Stephanopoulos interrupts Michele Bachmann’s argument on tax reform and the economy to ask a pressing question — whether Bachmann believes Barack Obama is a Christian. Bachmann says that it’s not for her to decide and that people should take the President at his […]
 Globe and Mail |
Caption this: Pau Gasol cannot believe it
ESPN by Page 2 AP Photo/Amy Sancetta Use your imagination: What was the Lakers' Pau Gasol so surprised about on Wednesday? At Page 2, we know you're funny, so share your gift. We'll find a great photo, and you provide the caption. … Cavs notes: Scott saw Kobe as rising star Cavs avenge 55 point defeat; beat lakers 104-99 The Cavs Expose The Lakers: LA Needs A Point Guard |
Washington Post |
Cavs hot, LA cold? Believe it
Denver Post No, LeBron James did not suddenly rejoin the Cavaliers. Yes, it was the same team that just last week ended an NBA-record 26-game losing streak. For the Lakers, it was their third consecutive loss, and the humiliation came against the league's worst … Lakers walking the long road to oblivion, or not NBA roundup: Cavaliers hand the Lakers third straight loss Cavs send Lakers to break on slide |
The irrational persistence of the birther myth among President Obama’s political enemies is one of the great puzzles of contemporary politics, and further evidence of just how prevalent the idea has become can be found in a new poll from Public Policy Polling:
Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they’re likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don’t think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure. The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise.
There’s also an interesting, although, perhaps not surprising, divide in candidate support depending on voter’s opinions on the President’s birth:
Among the 49% of GOP primary voters who either think Obama was born in the United States or aren’t sure, Romney’s the first choice to be the 2012 nominee by a good amount, getting 23% to 16% for Mike Huckabee, 11% for Sarah Palin, and 10% for Newt Gingrich. But with the birther majority he’s in a distant fourth place at 11%, with Mike Huckabee at 24%, Sarah Palin at 19%, and Newt Gingrich at 14% all ahead of him. That pushes him into a second place finish overall at 17% with Mike Huckabee again leading the way this month at 20%. Palin’s third with 15%, followed by Gingrich at 12%, Ron Paul at 8%, Mitch Daniels and Tim Pawlenty at 4%, and John Thune at 1%.
There is really a remarkable divide in how the birther and non-birther wings of the GOP view Sarah Palin. With the birthers she is a beloved figure, scoring an 83/12 favorability rating. Non-birthers are almost evenly divided on her with 47% rating her positively and 40% unfavorably.
Considering the fact that every conceivable legal and factual arguments the birthers have made has been thoroughly discredited, and rejected by every Court of law that has had the matter brought before it. one has to wonder why the myth that Barack Obama is not an American citizen continues to persist, and even become more prevalent if this poll is accurate. David Weigel has one theory:
This doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Palin and Gingrich, more than other Republicans, have criticized Obama for policies they trace back to a lack of faith in America and its institutions. (It was Gingrich, remember, who promoted Dinesh D’Souza’s silly “Obama as Kenyan anti-colonialist” theory.) Birtherism, in this instance, is a logical response to the stimuli of 1) conservative opinion leaders saying that Obama’s policies amount to un-American socialism and 2) Republican leaders punting when asked whether Obama was born in the United States.
Additionally, as Michael Medved pointed out yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, the conservative media is filled with the message that President Obama is not only wrong, but that he wants to destroy America:
These attitudes thrive well beyond the blogosphere and the right-wing fringe. On Jan. 7, Sarah Palin spoke briefly on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, saying, “What I believe that Obama is doing right now—he is hell-bent on weakening America.” While acknowledging that “it’s gonna get some people all wee-weed up again,” she repeated and amplified her charge that “what Obama is doing” is “purposefully weakening America—because he understood that debt weakened America, domestically and internationally, and yet now he supports increasing debt.”
The assumption that the president intends to harm or destroy the nation that elected him has become so widespread that the chief advertising pitch for Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” promises to “reveal Obama for who he really is: a man driven by the anti-colonial ideology of his father and the first American president to actually seek to reduce America’s strength, influence and standard of living.”
(…)
On his radio show last July 2, the most influential conservative commentator of them all reaffirmed his frequent charge that the president seeks economic suffering “on purpose.” Rush Limbaugh explained: “I think we face something we’ve never faced before in the country—and that is, we’re now governed by people who do not like the country.” In his view, this hostility to the United States relates to a grudge connected to Mr. Obama’s black identity. “There’s no question that payback is what this administration is all about, presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and doing so happily.”
When they’re exposed to this type of propaganda on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day, it really isn’t all that surprising that people would come to believe it, and, in turn, that they’d come to believe that the President isn’t really an American. It’s insane, there’s no evidence to support it, but it’s a belief system that makes perfect sense to the people who hold it, and that’s usually all that matters.
It was only the other day that House Speaker John Boehner said that it wasn’t his job to counter the rumors about the President:
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Sunday that he believes President Obama was born on U.S. soil and is a Christian, but that it was not his job to challenge people who think otherwise.
“It’s not my job to tell the American people what to think,” Mr. Boehner said on the NBC program Meet the Press. “Our job in Washington is to listen to Americans.”
When pressed by host David Gregory, Mr. Boehner declined to say that those raising doubts about Mr. Obama’s birthplace and religion should stop doing so.
“The American people have the right to think what they want to think. It’s not my job to tell them,” Mr. Boehner reiterated. “I’ve made clear what I believe the facts are.”
Perhaps the truth is that Boehner is unwilling to call out the birthers because he knows that they represent such a large portion of his party’s base. If that’s the case, it’s just sad and pathetic. Any Republican with courage and common sense should be willing to call these people what they are, lunatics.
President Obama suddenly is a friend to business, so says he. No one buys it, including Senator Ron Johnson, the new Republican Senator from Wisconsin.
Senator Johnson came from the business world. He is clearly appalled at the deficits and debt hobbling the American economy. He was also dismayed by the President’s lack of leadership.
This interview seems especially prescient considering the massive budget the President just delivered to Congress and the ridiculous press conference President Obama just gave regarding the deficit-which he doesn’t believe is a short-term problem. So, his solution seems to be to keep on rolling the problem down the line.
The Republicans are united against this folly, says Senator Johnson. Let’s hope.
The big question: Is 2011 different from 1995? If the President is playing a game of chicken (no meaningful cuts, raising taxes) with the Republicans, will Americans side with the Republicans this time or become sympathetic to Obama ala Bill Clinton?
