Tell Obama NO to stimulus number 2!
Tell your representatives NO!
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional Republicans tore into the Obama administration over the economic stimulus plan Wednesday, arguing that the White House is mishandling the distribution of the money while overstating the ability of the package to create jobs.
They criticized the White House for referring to the number of "jobs created or saved" by the $787 billion package -- a metric, they claimed, that is impossible to verify.
The White House Office of Management and Budget defended the plan, arguing that every federal dollar spent has, by definition, helped to ease the pain of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The Republican and Democratic leaders traded their arguments during a contentious hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"In selling the stimulus package, the administration promised the American people that [the] legislation would create or save 3.5 million jobs and prevent the U.S. unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California.
"I believe that the discredited Keynesian theory behind the effort is misguided, and I am convinced that it won't work," said Issa, referring to the theories of economist John Maynard Keynes. "Unfortunately, recent economic data has validated my opposition."
The economy has shed 3.4 million jobs over the past six months, according to the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate rose for the ninth straight month in June, climbing to 9.5 percent and hitting a 26-year high.
US News
Thursday, July 9, 2009
WASHINGTON NEWS
Top Obama Aides: Second Stimulus "Might Eventually Be Needed"
Media outlets are reporting that as rising unemployment continues to take a toll on the economy, some top aides to President Obama think a second economic stimulus package may become necessary. The Financial Times reports "senior administration officials think further stimulus might eventually be needed but they do not want to have this fight now. Both the economics and the politics call for postponing a decision to late this year or early in 2010." The New York Times reports, "For the moment, Mr. Obama and his top economic advisers are fending off calls for more action."
The CBS Evening News reported "since the President signed" the stimulus "into law in February, the nation has lost another two million jobs, pushing unemployment to its highest rate in 25 years." CNN's Situation Room reported, "If the question is, is the $787 billion recovery plan making a difference, Republicans in a House hearing today gave a resounding 'no.'" Fox News' Special Report noted that Administration aides said $57 billion of the stimulus funds have been committed, creating 150,000 jobs, or "$380,000 a job."
The Financial Times reports that "while arguments over the benefits of the stimulus continue to rage, Democrats have shown themselves to be divided." The Hill reports Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) "urged House members to consider another stimulus package just for infrastructure projects in order to produce more jobs."
Fox News
Congress Debates Spending Tens of Billions Left in Bank Bailout Fund
The Treasury Department wants to keep the money at its disposal in case the economy gets worse but fiscal conservatives like Sen. Judd Gregg and Rep. Spencer Bachus want the money kept to pay down the national debt.
ABC
As debate grows about a possible second stimulus package for the flagging American economy, at least one legendary investor is giving the idea his guarded approval.
"I think that a second one may well be called for," Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told "Good Morning America" today. But, he added, "you hope it doesn't get watered down in many ways."
Buffett cautioned that a second stimulus package, like the first, won't be "a panacea," because stimulus packages take time to work. He criticized lawmakers' work on the first stimulus package, which contained $787 billion in spending.
"Our first stimulus bill ... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in ... as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents," he said. "It doesn't have really quite the wall that might have been anticipated there."
Showing posts with label Power of Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Power of Barack Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
CDC Swine Flu Report
U.S. Human Cases of H1N1 Flu Infection
(As of May 2, 2009, 11:00 AM ET)
Arizona 4
California 24
Colorado 2
Connecticut 1
Delaware 4
Florida 2
Illinois 3
Indiana 3
Kansas 2
Kentucky* 1
Massachusetts 8
Michigan 2
Minnesota 1
Missouri 1
Nevada 1
New Jersey 7
New York 50
Ohio 1
South Carolina 13
Texas 28 cases and 1 death
Virginia 2
TOTAL (21) 160 cases 1 death
CDC continues to take aggressive action to respond to an expanding outbreak caused by H1N1 (swine flu).
CDC’s response goals are to:
Reduce transmission and illness severity, and
Provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by this emergency.
CDC continues to issue and update interim guidance daily in response to the rapidly evolving situation. This includes guidance on when to close schools and how to care for someone who is sick at home. Supplies from CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) are being sent to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak. In addition, the Federal Government and manufacturers have begun the process of developing a vaccine against this new virus.
Response actions are aggressive, but they may vary across states and communities depending on local circumstances. Communities, businesses, places of worship, schools and individuals can all take action to slow the spread of this outbreak. People who are sick are urged to stay home from work or school and to avoid contact with others, except to seek medical care. This action can avoid spreading illness further.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
(As of May 2, 2009, 11:00 AM ET)
Arizona 4
California 24
Colorado 2
Connecticut 1
Delaware 4
Florida 2
Illinois 3
Indiana 3
Kansas 2
Kentucky* 1
Massachusetts 8
Michigan 2
Minnesota 1
Missouri 1
Nevada 1
New Jersey 7
New York 50
Ohio 1
South Carolina 13
Texas 28 cases and 1 death
Virginia 2
TOTAL (21) 160 cases 1 death
CDC continues to take aggressive action to respond to an expanding outbreak caused by H1N1 (swine flu).
CDC’s response goals are to:
Reduce transmission and illness severity, and
Provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by this emergency.
CDC continues to issue and update interim guidance daily in response to the rapidly evolving situation. This includes guidance on when to close schools and how to care for someone who is sick at home. Supplies from CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) are being sent to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak. In addition, the Federal Government and manufacturers have begun the process of developing a vaccine against this new virus.
Response actions are aggressive, but they may vary across states and communities depending on local circumstances. Communities, businesses, places of worship, schools and individuals can all take action to slow the spread of this outbreak. People who are sick are urged to stay home from work or school and to avoid contact with others, except to seek medical care. This action can avoid spreading illness further.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/
Thursday, November 6, 2008
What is Executive Privilege?
"In the United States government, executive privilege is the power (reserve power) claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain search warrants and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government. The concept of executive privilege is not mentioned explicitly in the United States Constitution, but the Supreme Court of the United States ruled it to be an element of the separation of powers doctrine, and/or derived from the supremacy of executive branch in its own area of Constitutional activity." -- Wikipedia
The Supreme Court confirmed that there is a qualified privilege. "Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "'essential to the justice of the case.'"(418 U.S. at 713-14)...executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns."
"In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents which were relating to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House."
"President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1807...
During the period of 1947-49, several major security cases became known to Congress. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss-Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems...
During the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the "provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people." ... In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.
The Supreme Court addressed 'executive privilege' in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records....the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the President has an "absolute privilege." The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III."
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first President since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a Federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal...
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that "absolutely no one is above the law", Starr said such a privilege "must give way" and evidence "must be turned over" to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation...
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno, the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001...
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. ...
"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches' are likely to be avoided whenever possible. ...
...on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor...
...On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers...
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers...claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee...
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove.
As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."
Source:
Wikipedia.org
The Supreme Court confirmed that there is a qualified privilege. "Once invoked, a presumption of privilege is established, requiring the Prosecutor to make a "sufficient showing" that the "Presidential material" is "'essential to the justice of the case.'"(418 U.S. at 713-14)...executive privilege would most effectively apply when the oversight of the executive would impair that branch's national security concerns."
"In 1796, President George Washington refused to comply with a request by the House of Representatives for documents which were relating to the negotiation of the then-recently adopted Jay Treaty with Great Britain. The Senate alone plays a role in the ratification of treaties, Washington reasoned, and therefore the House had no legitimate claim to the material. Therefore, Washington provided the documents to the Senate but not the House."
"President Thomas Jefferson continued the precedent for this in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason in 1807...
During the period of 1947-49, several major security cases became known to Congress. There followed a series of investigations, culminating in the famous Hiss-Chambers case of 1948. At that point, the Truman Administration issued a sweeping secrecy order blocking congressional efforts from FBI and other executive data on security problems...
During the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954, Eisenhower used the claim of executive privilege to forbid the "provision of any data about internal conversations, meetings, or written communication among staffers, with no exception to topics or people." ... In the end, Eisenhower would invoke the claim 44 times between 1955 and 1960.
The Supreme Court addressed 'executive privilege' in United States v. Nixon, the 1974 case involving the demand by Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski that President Richard Nixon produce the audiotapes of conversations he and his colleagues had in the Oval Office of the White House in connection with criminal charges being brought against members of the Nixon Administration. Nixon invoked the privilege and refused to produce any records....the Supreme Court rejected the notion that the President has an "absolute privilege." The Supreme Court stated: "To read the Article II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of 'a workable government' and gravely impair the role of the courts under Article III."
In 1998, President Bill Clinton became the first President since Nixon to assert executive privilege and lose in court, when a Federal judge ruled that Clinton aides could be called to testify in the Lewinsky scandal...
Later, Clinton exercised a form of negotiated executive privilege when he agreed to testify before the grand jury called by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr only after negotiating the terms under which he would appear. Declaring that "absolutely no one is above the law", Starr said such a privilege "must give way" and evidence "must be turned over" to prosecutors if it is relevant to an investigation...
President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno, the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton's fundraising tactics, in December 2001...
Bush invoked executive privilege "in substance" in refusing to disclose the details of Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives, which was not appealed by the GAO. ...
"The history of liberty is the history of resistance...a history of the limitation of governmental power."--Woodrow Wilson
"Once executive privilege is asserted, coequal branches of the Government are set on a collision course. The Judiciary is forced into the difficult task of balancing the need for information in a judicial proceeding and the Executive’s Article II prerogatives. This inquiry places courts in the awkward position of evaluating the Executive’s claims of confidentiality and autonomy, and pushes to the fore difficult questions of separation of powers and checks and balances. These 'occasion[s] for constitutional confrontation between the two branches' are likely to be avoided whenever possible. ...
...on June 28, 2007, Bush invoked executive privilege in response to congressional subpoenas requesting documents from former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor...
...On July 9, 2007, Bush again invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena requiring the testimonies of Taylor and Miers...
"The land of the free, and the home of the brave." -- Francis Scott Key
On July 13, less than a week after claiming executive privilege for Miers...claimed the privilege once again, this time in relation to documents related to the 2004 death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Fielding claimed certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and would therefore not be turned over to the committee...
On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove.
As of July 17, 2008, Rove is still claiming executive privilege to avoid a congressional subpoena. Rove's lawyer writes that his client is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony."
Source:
Wikipedia.org
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