Can the next Obama Beer Summit be far off?

As I review the administration’s knee-jerk response to the Sherrod incident, I couldnt help but think that we are about due for another beer summit to make everything nice between the NAACP, USDA, and the Tea Party and the Black Panthers and the Governor of Arizona, and the CEO of BP, and the Gov of Louisiana…and

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Obama: killer of jobs

Here are two perspectives:

Obama’s record on job creation:

The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 — a blowout.

The always perceptive Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the feeling of 1932 all over again:

“Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing,” he said.

California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. “It is getting worse every single day,” said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. “We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene.”

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

Obama care in practice: this is how we do it here

Yes he can

The Democratic chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee lambasted the Obama administration over its handling of an incident at a St. Louis VA center in which more than 1,800 veterans were told they may have been exposed to HIV.

“It’s outrageous, one, that this happens, but even worse is this secretive, almost cover-up mode that they go into when something like this happens,” Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) said on CNN Monday.

Obama does science now

.Something this smart has to come from the very top

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his “foremost” mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA’s orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeerathat strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

Now here is some guidance to NASA from Obama that really reveals his genius for science and its role in modern society. It is all becoming so clear:

“When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering,” Bolden said in the interview.

Makes you wish there was a community somewhere that needed organizing

Obama: “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?”:: Bush : “Mission Accomplished”

Image via Wikipedia

The left used the “mission accomplished” phrase as a way to demonstrate the disconnectedness and tin ear of the Bush administration.

Obama unwittingly offered a similar phrase to characterize his own administration’s performance in the Gulf oil spill when he quoted his daughters as saying “Did you plug the hle yet, Daddy?”.

It would surprise me if that phrase did not catch on to perfectly capture the incompetence, disconnectness and the lack of judgment.

Obama took responsibility for the oil spill this morning (finally?  Way to go Brownie?). An unworthy part of me wondered if that meant somebody told him that the top kill was going to work and then there would be a happy coincidence between his “arrival to take charge” and miraculous progress?

Yes, unworthy

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Forked tongue, 2 faces and a ton of debt

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Out of one side of his mouth:

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” Obama said, according to a White House transcript of his appearance Tuesday at a high school in North Nashua, N.H.

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage,” Obama said. “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritize. You make tough choices.”

out of the other side of his mouth: a budget with 1.6T in deficit spending and a proposal to freeze spending at these inflated levels, while simultaneously spending the TARP funds in an unconstitutional manner

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“I am the President: you MUST trust me” Newspeak anyone?

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RealClear Politics highlights an obvious issue; obvious unless you are a journalist or a true believer in government in general or Obama specifically:

Would President Obama and the Democrats‘ legislation allow government to come between citizens and their choice of doctors and insurers? Obama promised it wouldn’t. Republicans said it would, and this was one of the aspects of the legislation that led them to characterize it as a government takeover of health care – the same characterization that Obama chastized the GOP for today.

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more troublesome terrorism news

I was in Detroit this past week and got to experience the nuttiness of the airport security hysteria that was a consequence of the failed terrorist attack.  The hype made my daughter afraid to fly, which really upset me. I came across this link which is even more disturbing as it reveals the much greater security failure that had occurred in the Netherlands.

Our cool and detached President is revealing once more just how right Joe Biden was concerning how he would be tested. failing every critical test.

Democratic doubletalk on budgets

Democratic doubletalk on budget shenanigans associated with the health care reform bill.  You get the government you deserve. I hate the idea of future generations paying for our short attention span and fascination with  reality TV

Who is the political novice?

It is funny to me to see leaks from the administration trying to undercut GEN McChrystal as being naive about how the Washington game is played.  Seriously, is this the mark of an administration that is in charge of itself?  Is it good policy to be undercutting your own field commander?

This administration ahs no clue about what to do. Obama said 6 months ago that he had carefully studied the situation and had a plan. Now, not so much.

There is public support by the CJCS, GEN Petraeus and GEN McChrystal for the McChrystal plan. It is fully in line with current thinking about the conduct of COIN.

There is no political will in the admninistration to face reality, so instead they blather and treat foreign policy as if it were Chicago ward politics.

We just saw how sueful Chicago style politics is on the world stage where no one cares about your life story. So, who are the naive ones?

GEN McChrystal is a very savvy general: as a commander, as a warrior, as a professional.  His experience in Washington is on par or superior to any of the clowns in the current administration and he has been our most lethal general for years as commander of global SOF forces.

He made the speech he made in London as a way to force the administration to act in public on his plan. He is too savvy to be their fall guy. Whatever the decision is made, it will be the administration’s, and it will be pinned firmly to Obama: once he gets done wasting time on trivial issues.