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Obama Criticism of Arizona Immigration Law Ignores Federal Incompetence
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2010 Comment (39)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama slammed a controversial new immigration law in Arizona, calling it "misguided." According to CNN:
"Our failure to act responsible at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," the president said at a naturalization ceremony for 24 members of the military.
"In fact, I've instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at the federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country."
Not so fast, Mr. President. I’m not saying I support the Arizona legislation, but I have two points to make about his claim that federal legislation is needed and that Arizona’s bill is misguided. First, I covered the 1986 Congressional passage of the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform law. It contained amnesty for illegal immigrants who had been in this country for several years before passage. It also punished employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants. Here we are 24 years later, and federal reform proved completely feckless. So Mr. Obama’s claim that the feds can do better is simply not true.
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Gov. McDonnell Honors Civil War History the Right Way
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2010 Comment (4)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I have given Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell a tough time in this space. But the other day he did a great thing. And I am going to lay the praise on thick.
On Tuesday, McDonnell presided at the dedication ceremonies at the Wagner Farm on the Chancellorsville Battlefield, a Civil War site saved from the developers’ bulldozers by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Civil War Preservation Trust.
The governor has been in hot water lately, for his proclamation honoring the Confederate cause, in which he omitted to mention slavery. I suggested that if McDonnell and other southern politicians want to honor the South’s heritage, they should do it by joining with northerners, and the descendants of slaves everywhere, in preserving the endangered battlefields of the war between the states on the eve of its 150th anniversary.
Turns out, McDonnell was way ahead of me. During the ceremony, the governor signed into law a bill permanently establishing the Virginia Civil War Sites Preservation Fund, which will provide matching grants to organizations like the trust, so that private-public partnerships can buy up threatened land. And McDonnell announced that $300,000 in new grants would be immediately available, to preserve seven small but valuable sites around the Old Dominion. As a stopgap measure, the fund has already helped save 2,000 acres at 24 battlefields.
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Polls Show Americans Embracing Conservatism
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2010 Comment (9)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"By almost every conceivable measure,” reads the latest Pew research poll out this week, “Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.” Calling it a “perfect storm” of conditions that have brought about a widespread distrust of the federal government, Pew points to the bad economy, bitter partisanship, an unhappy mood among voters, and “epic discontent” with Congress and elected officials.
I didn’t need Pew to tell me that fiscal conservatism is becoming more popular than either political party. When I ask folks I meet what their political outlook is, very few say “Republican” or “Democrat.” Almost everyone now starts by saying they’re a fiscal conservative, then places themselves on the spectrum of social issues from conservative to liberal. I have yet to hear anyone say, “Well, I’m a fiscal liberal ...”
That’s because no one outside of the White House and the speaker’s office thinks government spending is the answer--to problems in the healthcare system, to the environment, and to some degree, to the problem of failing schools. Most people want to talk about solutions that work, and innovative ideas bubbling up from neighborhoods, counties and states. There isn’t a problem that isn’t being solved by someone somewhere in America. And you can bet that most people believe that “someone” is not a government bureaucrat.
And while most agree that financial institutions’ excesses need to be reined in--for example, derivatives need more oversight--most voters don’t think the government needs to be involved in the economy as much as President Obama does. There’s been an ongoing debate about the size and scope of government since he took office, and I think the answer is becoming clearer to more and more people.
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Obama, Bush, Clinton, and the Media's Real Golf Bias
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2010 Comment (7)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Was it only last year that George F. Will and other Republican critics were slamming President Obama for being over-exposed? That was then and this is now. The new Republican talking point seems to be that Obama is under-exposed, and plays too much golf.
I am not kidding. Who could make this stuff up?
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New Jersey Gov. Christie Gives Republicans Budget Policy Road Map
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (7)By Brandon Greife, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Ask a random 20-something what they first think of when you say New Jersey and you’re likely to get an unflattering picture of the state. MTV’s Jersey Shore would likely be first on the word-association list, followed by The Sopranos and possibly The Real Housewives. Taking these caricatures as reality, the Garden State appears to be filled with spiky-haired, spray tanned, mafia bosses with over-pampered, drama-queen wives. Unsurprisingly, New Jersey has become the butt of the joke. But recently elected governor Chris Christie is putting the state back on the road to respectability. OK, well maybe he can’t solve their image problem, but he’s certainly getting their fiscal house in order. He’s also providing a key roadmap for 2010 Republican candidates at a time when budget deficits and public debt is on the forefront of voters’ minds.
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White House Must Answer Questions About SEC's Goldman Sachs Suit
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (18)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Obama White House has spent considerable time over the last two days pushing back against the impression it may have colluded with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the timing of a civil fraud lawsuit against Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs.
The suit, which according to press reports has been in the works for more than a year, accuses the investment bank of deliberately misleading investors who participated in a mortgage securities trade that was designed to fail.
To the more cynical minded, the fact that the suit became public at the same time the White House is trying to push a financial regulations bill through Congress is somewhat suspicious. Likewise, as Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers reported Thursday, eyebrows are up over the revelations that Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein had at least four meetings inside the White House at the same time lawyers for his firm and the SEC were in negotiations over the suit. Writes Gordon:
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New Jersey Education Fight Shows Union Pettiness
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (4)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Back in my days as a staffer involved in selling the No Child Left Behind bill to a skeptical Republican caucus, we had to penetrate brick walls of boilerplate—especially the idea that education is the exclusive province of states and local districts.
This is descriptively true. Most education spending is sub-federal, and it will likely remain that way for good. But as an ideal, it shouldn’t be the end of the story. Other nonpartisan ideals—sunlight, empiricism, accountability—are just as important.
One need only look at the New Jersey Education Association’s furious opposition to Gov. Chris Christie’s pay-freeze proposal to see that fears of “nationalization” miss the point when it comes to education. State and local bureaucracies are every bit as entrenched and self-serving locally as they are in Washington. And as George Will wrote in 1991: “[L]ocalism makes less and less sense in a nation of increasing mobility among regions, a nation flunking—as a nation—the international test of competitiveness.”
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Media Bias Exposed: MSM Quiet as Obama Plays More Golf Than Bush
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (20)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I love to play golf, and so far I’ve been too busy to play this spring. (Hopefully, that will change soon.) In the meantime, I’ve had to be content with watching the sport on TV. I was glad Phil Mickelson’s wife was able to make it to the Masters for his win. The next weekend, I watched Brian Davis call a two-stroke penalty on himself on the eighteenth in the final round at the Verizon Heritage tournament, which gave the victory to Jim Furyk. Davis was a total class act about it, and for that matter, so was Furyk. Moments like that are why golf is such a great game for teaching character and sportsmanship to kids, and why an organization like First Tee can make such a difference.
I also noticed lately how much golf the President is playing. I think that’s great--the more he can get out and play, the better. Maybe more kids will take up the sport as a result, and maybe it’ll help get him get some relief from all the stress. I wish Mrs. Obama would play with him and encourage more women to play.
But I’m working on a column right now on how few press conferences the President has held--his last one was in July of 2009--and yet he’s played golf 32 times since being elected, which is more than George W. Bush played during two entire terms in office. In today’s Daily Beast, Mark McKinnon agrees that Obama should play as much golf as he wants. The problem is the media’s double standard when it comes to the coverage of the President’s golf outings: -
Voter Anger Could Doom Democrats in Fall Elections
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (10)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
A new Pew Research Center poll shows anger might be the dominant emotion voters have at the polls this November, and that the party in power may feel massive repercussions as a result. As CNN reports:
According to a Pew Research Center poll released this week, based on polling conducted in March and April, a growing segment of the American public holds intense anti-government views, with those surveyed describing themselves as being angry with the federal government.
The reason? A "perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government--a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials," the report concluded.
You'd have to have crawled up into a cave in order not to have experienced this public anger. Tea Party protests are but one aspect of it. It seems anger emanates from all quarters these days--conservative Republicans upset over federal spending for the poor and on health care reform, a ballooning deficit, and federal handouts that they see as profligate spending. But even liberals are angry: at a president they supported to get the United States out of war--not more deeply involved in Afghanistan--and at a president who pledged to close down Guantanamo.
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Fix the Debt and Pay for Iraq and Afghanistan With a War Tax
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (16)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
We are now almost 10 years into the war that al Qaeda forced upon us. Our young men and women have been asked to fight bravely, on our behalf, and to suffer and die in great number. It is time we did a little something for them, and their generation, and dug into our pockets and paid for this war.
There is a lot of talk these days about the Founders. On television, we see the exploits of the Greatest Generation, saving the world from fascism in World War II. The Civil War generation is in the news as well, as we approach the 150th anniversary ceremonies of that conflict, which ended slavery and saved the Union.
All these generations did more than fight. They also paid their taxes. Indeed, by my reckoning, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other corners of the earth where terrorists plot our deaths, are the first in which Americans have not met their patriotic duty by raising taxes.
