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While making positive comments about the most recent five-year-plan developed by the Communist government of the People’s Republic of China, Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats specifically applauded China’s decision to lower taxes because it would spur economic growth.
“What’s really encouraging to me is that there are a lot of groups in China that are reform-minded,” Hormats said while addressing a group of foreign reporters in New York City last week.
“China lowered taxes very recently, which will help increase demand, but it’s also good to boost consumption in China,” said Hormats. “So I think what’s interesting is that—sure, there are issues with China that I’ve mentioned--but I think a lot of the reform procedures that are going on in China are consistent with the kind of things that we think will be good for China and for the global system.”
Meanwhile, in a speech in Vermont on Friday, President Barack Obama argued that it was "basic math" that taxes needed to be increased on wealthy Americans so the government could provide more to the poor.
“But if you’re making more than $1 million a year, you can do a little more,” Obama said. “This is not class envy. This is not class warfare. This is basic math--that’s what this is.
“Look, if somebody like me gets a tax break that they don’t need and that the country can’t afford, then one of two things are going to happen--either it adds to our deficit, or we’re taking something away from somebody else,” said Obama.
“Look, there’s no way of getting around that,” said Obama. “Either folks like me are doing more, or somebody who can’t afford it is getting less. And that’s not right.”
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... in the free agency era...
... as a right-hander...
... in the American league...
... not named Pedro Martinez...
Saturday, Occupiers held a rally for "artists, musicians, writers and activists" midway between downtown LA and Beverly Hills. The website announcing the event promised a keynote speech by Van Jones and hinted at appearances by Hollywood celebrities. Yesterday, Variety reported that Hollywood did turn out:
Edward Norton, Elijah Wood, Marisa Tomei and Jason Alexander turned out for "All in for the 99%," an effort to engage artists and actors in promoting the "99% Spring," a plan to train 100,000 volunteers in nonviolent action, including protests at corporate shareholder meetings. Van Jones, founder of Rebuild the Dream, has been promoting the plans, and addressed the group.
The event was sponsored by Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream, MoveOn.org, and SEIU among others. MoveOn produced a video showing the celebrities who were on hand including Jack Black (as part of Tenacious D) and Moby.
LA Weekly has a few additional photos including Jason Alexander shaking hands with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. There's also a shot of performance artists acting like corpses wrapped in American flags. LA Weekly notes that the event raised money for Van Jones' Rebuild the Dream group.
I just thought it was a scream, because it was so illogical by all ordinary thinking. To think that somebody living in an absolutely stunning duplex on Park Avenue could be having in all these guys who were saying, 'We will take everything away from you if we get the chance,' which is what their program spelled out, was the funniest thing I had ever witnessed.
It's time to stop paying Johnny Depp "stupid money." Celebrities make too much -- and we can do something about it
In the escalating battle between the administration and the judiciary, a federal appeals court apparently is calling the president's bluff -- ordering the Justice Department to answer by Thursday whether the Obama Administration believes that the courts have the right to strike down a federal law, according to a lawyer who was in the courtroom.(italics, ours)
The order, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, appears to be in direct response to the president's comments yesterday about the Supreme Court's review of the health care law. Mr. Obama all but threw down the gauntlet with the justices, saying he was "confident" the Court would not "take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."
Overturning a law of course would not be unprecedented -- since the Supreme Court since 1803 has asserted the power to strike down laws it interprets as unconstitutional. The three-judge appellate court appears to be asking the administration to admit that basic premise -- despite the president's remarks that implied the contrary. The panel ordered the Justice Department to submit a three-page, single-spaced letter by noon Thursday addressing whether the Executive Branch believes courts have such power, the lawyer said.
So today, in his appearance before the Associated Press–the ultimate friendly audience–Obama tried to walk back yesterday’s blunder in response to a softball question:
MR. SINGLETON: Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the Court has done during its entire existence. If the Court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, let me be very specific. We have not seen a Court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce — a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner. Right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre New Deal.
And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.
Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedence out there
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KT beat us to it but consider this a perfect companion piece to NY Times' David Brooks column whining about the San Diego Republican Party's endorsement of Carl DeMaio over Nathan Fletcher.
Here's DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) on the air with KABC AM 790's John Phillips.
Bottom line: if you are a national figure and you are going to opine upon local politics and the realities contained therein, you better have more in your arsenal than platitudes and national-level talking points.
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We don't think she'll be coming back anytime soon.
And in case you missed it: with respect to Brooks' column on San Diego and the alleged radicalization of the Republican Party, here is what we had to say:
Brooks describes Carl DeMaio, who did receive the party endorsement as "the more orthodox conservative". One wonders if Brooks did any research at all regarding DeMaio, the first openly gay city coucil person and the man who has been at the forefront of public employee pension reform, an issue that has resonated greatly with the voters of the city. If this makes DeMaio the more orthodox conservative and which also represents an "enforcing of conformity", then so be it but perhaps Brooks should pause to consider that at 3,000 miles away, he has zero feel for the political ground game here in San Diego before he puts fingers to keyboard to bellyache some more about the extreming of politics in this country.
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Fellow SLOB, W.C. Varones sent us a link to the President's SCOTUS/ObamaCare comments from yesterday as he felt said comments were tremendous fodder for a Sarah Sez segment such was their idiocy. We couldn't agree more, but alas, we ran with a straight blog post as we didn't see the link until it was too late. As a way of thanking W.C., we have published below what he said regarding those comments. Link to post can be found here (to save confusion, our running commentary will be designated by "ed. note:":
Does he think we don't remember what happened? And that we can't check facts on the Internet?
CBS News:
"Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Mr. Obama said in the Rose Garden appearance.
Strong majority? It passed 219-212 after months of backroom deals, bribery, arm-twisting, and lies. That's a strong majority?
Unprecedented? How about the Flag Protection Act of 1989? It passed the House 380-38 and the Senate 91-9. Now that's a strong majority. And then the Supreme Court went ahead and precedented all over it..
Want another precedent? How about McCain-Feingold? That passed 240-189 and then got struck down by a Supreme Court that could read the First Amendment
I'm no Constitutional law professor, and I came up with those two precedents off the top of my head. What the hell are they teaching at Harvard Law?
Being willfully ignorant of historical precedent is bad enough. But Obama's statement indicates he doesn't even understand the basic concept of having a Constitution. His argument would mean that the Supreme Court and the Constitution are completely irrelevant and Congress can always do whatever it wants. If you went to Chicago and Obama was your professor for Constitutional law, you might want to take a refresher course.
President Barack Obama took an opening shot at conservative justices on the Supreme Court on Monday, warning that a rejection of his sweeping healthcare law would be an act of "judicial activism" that Republicans say they abhor.
Obama, a Democrat, had not commented publicly on the Supreme Court's deliberations since it heard arguments for and against the healthcare law last week.
Known as the "Affordable Care Act" or "Obamacare," the measure to expand health insurance for millions of Americans is considered Obama's signature domestic policy achievement.
"And I'd just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law," Obama said.
"Well, this is a good example, and I'm pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step," he said.
The Supreme Court is looking at whether Congress exceeded its power to regulate commerce in U.S. states with that mandate.
"I think the justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care," Obama said.
"So there's not only a economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there's a human element to this. And I hope that's not forgotten in this political debate."
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State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion and expanded the first stretch of track to run from Merced in the Central Valley south to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
The California High Speed Rail Authority's revised business plan, which will be released Monday in Fresno, calls for those dramatic changes as the agency prepares to ask the Legislature to use $2.7 billion in state high-speed rail bonds to start construction by early next year.
The drastic revision, which puts the proposed cost of the system at $68.4 billion instead of the $98.5 billion estimated in November, intends to cool opposition to the project, which has been labeled a "train to nowhere" for its plans to start in the state's rural center, and criticized for its high costs and uncertain funding plan.
For the Bay Area, the new business plan means the authority will pay about half the $1.5 billion cost of electrifying the Caltrain system from San Jose to San Francisco. The long-planned electrification project, which will speed commuter trains and allow high-speed trains to share the tracks, could be completed by 2019. But the business plan's decision to head to Los Angeles first means high-speed trains won't arrive in the Bay Area until 2026 at the earliest.
"On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it's important for him (Putin) to give me space.... This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility."
— Barack Obama to Dmitry Medvedev, open mic, March 26
You don't often hear an American president secretly (he thinks) assuring foreign leaders that concessions are coming their way, but they must wait because he's seeking re-election and he dare not tell his own people.
Not at all, spun a White House aide in major gaffe-control mode. The president was merely explaining that arms control is too complicated to be dealt with in a year in which both Russia and the U.S. hold presidential elections.
Rubbish. First of all, to speak of Russian elections in the same breath as ours is a travesty. Theirs was a rigged, predetermined farce. Putin ruled before. Putin rules after.
Obama spoke of the difficulties of the Russian presidential "transition." What transition? It's a joke. It had no effect on Putin's ability to negotiate anything.
As for the U.S. election, the problem is not that the issue is too complicated but that if people knew Obama's intentions of "flexibly" caving on missile defenses, they might think twice about giving him a second term.
After all, what is Obama doing negotiating on missile defense in the first place? We have no obligation to do so. The ABM Treaty, a relic of the Cold War, died in 2002.
It seems that all the changes being made to this boondoggle are violating the terms of Proposition 1A. Some provisions that can't be met and would violate the law:
Any initial segment has to use high-speed trains. Instead, the rail authority has agreed to run fewer trains at slower speeds on tracks shared with commuter rail systems.
Passengers must be able to board in Los Angeles and arrive in San Francisco without changing trains.
The system is supposed to run without taxpayer subsidies. I can't stop laughing at that requirement.
So last week's Supreme Court arguments over Obamacare weren't exactly a smashing success for the Obama administration. How bad was it? Bad enough that Jeffrey Toobin called the event "a train wreck," Mother Jones called it a "disaster," and constitutional law professor Ann Althouse, amid terrible reviews of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli's performance, wondered if Verrilli had taken a dive, deliberately throwing the argument so that the Obama administration would no longer be tied to the increasingly unpopular health care bill.
But I think that people are being too hard on Verrilli. He may have coughed and stammered a bit, but his real problem wasn't about performance. His real problem was that he was tasked with defending the indefensible.
Today I received a letter from the IRS that my 2007 tax returns are being audited. Less than one month after launching TaxCheatStamps.com.
There's a list of "proposed changes" they want to make to my 2007 return that would require me to pay almost $14,000 in taxes, penalties, and interest. All the "discrepancies" they list are bogus and I have documentation to prove it. I keep meticulous records and always pay every cent I owe to Uncle Sam. We're going to talk to a lawyer ASAP.
There is no doubt in my mind that my family is being politically persecuted for making a mockery of our new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the Obama administration.
Honestly, we're scared. We haven't done anything wrong (and I've got the documents to prove it in storage) but now the IRS is coming after us and they can destroy our lives with a flick of their pen. I don't want to sound like a coward, but I'm so scared I'm literally shaking. We've got a seven-week-old daughter.
I suppose it's a sort of honor to be persecuted like this. I'd really appreciate it if people would blog about this and link to this post. (And a prayer wouldn't hurt.)
As a young labor organizer in Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa worked for the city’s teachers, honing his political skills in the fight for a good contract. The union loved him back, supporting the Democrat’s election to the State Assembly, City Council and, finally, the mayor’s office he occupies today.
But now, Villaraigosa, a rising star in the national Democratic party, has a different view. He calls the teachers union “the one, unwavering roadblock” to improving public education in L.A.
Villaraigosa is one of several Democratic mayors in cities across the country — Chicago, Cleveland, Newark and Boston, among them — who are challenging teachers unions in ways that seemed inconceivable just a decade ago.
Angry lib talking head breaks with channel no one could find.
Fletcher is tall, good-looking, smart, polished (maybe too much so) and moderate. An article in The Sacramento Bee touted him as a rising Republican star, the kind of Republican who could get elected statewide. It didn’t hurt that his wife has worked for George W. Bush and other Republicans.
The next step was obvious: Run for mayor of San Diego. The city has a tradition of electing pragmatic center-right Republicans. Fletcher ran on some conservative ideas — pension reform and fiscal conservatism — and some less conventionally conservative ones — open space, bike paths and environmental policies. He’s also for comprehensive immigration reform.
He was endorsed by Paul Jacobs, the chairman and chief executive of Qualcomm. Both Mitt and Ann Romney, who have a place in San Diego, maxed out to his campaign, giving $500 each.
But as Scott Lewis of voiceofsandiego.org has detailed, the San Diego Republican Party has moved sharply right recently. A group of insurgents have toppled the old city establishment. As Lewis wrote, “The Republican Party has gone through a fantastically effective effort to enforce conformity around its principles.”
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