Message #162885

[Harconen]

Although Obama may have promised 95 per cent of all Americans that only the other 5 per cent would see tax increases if he became president, a Rasmussen poll shows that 39 per cent of likely voters expect their taxes to go up. The same percentage believes that Obama’s policies are hurting, not helping, the economy. [3548]

 

Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) suggests using postal workers to go door-to-door to conduct the census in 2010—rather than wasting taxpayer dollars to hire 750,000 people to count Americans. Chaffetz tells Fox News’ Glenn Beck that there are already “760,000 postal employees who are already charged with going to every home in America. So why would we be going out and getting, engaging ourselves with the likes of ACORN when we already have federal workers who already go to all these homes?” Chaffetz’s idea is so logical that it will get nowhere in Congress—because the postal workers will not inflate the numbers for Obama as will ACORN workers hired by the census. [3557]

Stephen Moore, author and member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, states that much of what the Obama administration is doing will make the economy worse. “All of the policies we’ve put in place since the housing bubble burst and the stock market crashed, I really believe everything we’ve done in Washington has made the crisis worse,” Moore told Moneynews.com. ““Every policy they’ve (Bush and Obama) put in place has made things worse. That includes the bailout packages for the banks, for auto companies and insurance companies.” Moore warns, “Now there’s a lot of talk about raising those tax rates back up… When you’re looking at a situation right now where you have declining asset values and a falling stock market, the idea of raising taxes on stock ownership is very dangerous. We should be cutting tax rates on investments and savings and small business creation, not raising them. I think these are very misguided ideas. If you look around the rest of the world, you see a lot of countries talking about cutting their tax rates, not raising them. It’s very difficult for American industry to compete… when we’re imposing higher tax rates (35 per cent) on our firms than the Europeans and Japanese and Chinese are.” Moore cautions, “I’m really worried that the economy will improve in the summer and fall but will crash again, very much like shoving sugar down the throat of a five-year-old. These policies are very detrimental to the long-term economic health of the country, even though they may provide a short-term stimulus to growth.” [3559]

 

The Obama administration works to throw out a lawsuit filed by 7,600 relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Debra Burlingame, co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America, states, “Physically, President Obama has done what previous presidents have done for a long time, which is bow down (to Saudi leaders).” The lawsuit involves allegations of financial support from Saudi princes or Saudi charities to the terrorists. The families claim they have thousands of pages of documents linking Saudi money with al-Qaeda and the Taliban; attorneys for the Saudis deny any connections. The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on whether the lawsuit can proceed. (Lower courts have ruled that the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976 prevents U.S. citizens from suing other nations. Obama’s Justice Department is siding with the Saudis.) [3563, 3584]

 

On June 24, North Korea’s Central News Agency warns, “If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will… wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all.” North Korea is clearly incapable of doing so, but has the capacity to lob missiles at South Korea and Japan. The statement is likely prompted by a U.S. Navy destroyer shadowing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting weapons in violations of United Nations sanctions. [3568]

 

George Mitchell, Obama’s envoy to the Middle East, again expresses opposition to Israeli settlement expansion in Judea and Samaria, even if it is limited to “natural growth.” Mitchell states that “the number of Jewish births” is the issue. (Obama has the audacity to tell Israel its citizens are having “too many children,” while being afraid to talk tough to Iran while its militia is, according to one witness, “chopping people like meat” and the interrogation of arrested demonstrators is headed by Saaed Mortazavi—known throughout Iran as “the butcher of the press.”) [3569, 3570]

 

Andrew C. McCarthy writes in NationalReview.com, “Why won’t (Obama) condemn the mullahs? Is he daft enough to believe he can charm the regime into abandoning its nuclear ambitions? Does the self-described realist so prize stability that he thinks it’s worth abandoning the cause of freedom—and the best chance in 30 years of dislodging an implacable American enemy?” [3571]

 

After substantial criticism for having invited them in the first place, the White House rescinds its invitations to Iran diplomats from American Embassy July 4 celebrations. Press secretary Robert Gibbs tells reporters, “those invitations will no longer be extended.” [3572, 3594]

 

The Obama administration resumes diplomatic ties with Syria, even though it is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. (Syria has not had a U.S. ambassador since 2005, when it was blamed for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Along with Iran, Syria funds the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hizbullah.) States Obama, “It’s in our interests to have an ambassador in Syria. We’ve been having more and more discussions, and we need to have someone there to engage.” Sensing Obama’s weakness and naiveté, Syrian leaders can now be expected to take a hard line on dissidents, knowing that the Obama administration will barely criticize their actions—if at all. The same is true in other Middle East countries. AtlasShrugs.com’s Pamela Geller reports an Egyptian source as saying, “Any kind of democratic reform in the country (Egypt) for the past 3 years has been rolled back specifically because there is no more pressure coming from Washington anymore,” and “You know what happened to the pressure in Washington. The Democrats won the Congress. There is no more pressure coming from Bush…  So suddenly the Egyptian government is not afraid of the American pressure. They are doing whatever they want to do. They are beating up demonstrators, they are cracking down on activists, they are changing the constitution, and eroding civil liberties once and for all and they are using proxies to take down bloggers.” The source notes that after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria in April (which the U.S. State Department advised against) “there were immediate arrests of Syrian activists. That was the fruit she yielded. Oh, the Americans (Obama’s people) came over and they said they have a different foreign policy and they’re more interested in placating (Syrian president) Bashar’s (Bashar al-Assad) ego. And he went out and got (arrested) everyone he wanted because he knew he had an ally in Washington that wouldn’t pressure him as much.” [1232, 3573, 3598, 3599, 3600]