Iranian envoys hoping to get a piece of American pie, or at least a hot dog, will have to wait. The invitations extended last month to Iranian officials to attend Fourth of July celebrations at American embassies have been rescinded, reports The Times’s Mark Landler.
During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner — from the Huffington Post.
The President yesterday denounced the “extent of the fraud” and the “shocking” and “brutal” response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days.
“These elections are an atrocity,” he said. “If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?” The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy.
The President who spoke those words was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy.
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
— Judge Sonia Sotomayor
President Obama has said he wanted justices with “empathy,” although in fairness he has also insisted that knowledge of the law would not disqualify a prospective nominee.
Liberalism . . . has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power. . . .
For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I’m not kidding — there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines.
WASHINGTON — One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.
The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.
This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.
Gee — do you really think so? What was your first clue? The loud noise of nest eggs being crushed all over America every time he opens his mouth?
President of the United States is not a job for a dilettante three years out of the Illinois state senate. Before I was elected president, I served as governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state under George Washington and vice president under John Adams.
The situation could not be more serious. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual while millions of Americans are being put out of work.
A friend works at a wind energy company. I asked him if he was getting his share of the money from our new planned economy. His response: “We are stimulated! There is some good stuff in there for renewable. We may need to open a DC office just to chase the $$.”
As long as we think that we can grow GDP by having an ever-larger proportion of our best citizens working as full-time lobbyists, it would seem that the stimulus bill is working as advertised.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 300 points to end below the 6800 mark for the first time in nearly 12 years, as a broad-based selloff seized the markets, sending shares lower in every sector. The S&P 500 briefly dropped below 700 for the first time since October 1996 before ending just at that level amid across-the-board declines, including drops of more than 6% in basic materials, energy, financial and industrial sectors. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 4%.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama delivered Congress a $3.6 trillion budget blueprint Thursday that hopes to “break from a troubled past” with a sharp shift toward expanded government activism, tax increases on affluent families and businesses, and spending cuts targeted at those he says profited from “an era of profound irresponsibility.”
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The state is sending out hundreds of thousands of $1 checks to the state’s neediest residents. It’s a plan that’s supposed to bring millions of dollars worth of food stamps to the state by March.
When you add printing and postage, it seems like a waste, but the state says the economy has them pulling out all the stops to find money wherever they can.
This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage!
The role of the economist in discussions of public policy seems to me to be to prescribe what should be done in light of what can be done, politics aside, and not to predict what is “politically feasible” and then to recommend it.
— Milton Friedman
Take out the references to economics and public policy and you can probably apply the “what should be done in light of what can be done” approach in your own work. It’s the art of the possible . . .
The situation could not be more serious. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual while millions of Americans are being put out of work. Now is the time for Congress to act.
Bah-loney. The American economy will bounce back as it always has, as surely as day follows night, no matter what anyone does or doesn’t do.
The only urgency in passing a stimulus bill (which doesn’t work, as I’ve explained previously) is so President Obama can take the credit for the recovery when it occurs . . .
We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.
That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.
Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
