Obama's Failure - Banks Too Big to Fail, Bigger?

When the credit crisis struck last year, federal regulators pumped tens of billions of dollars into the nation's leading financial institutions because the banks were so big that officials feared their failure would ruin the entire financial system.

Today, the biggest of those banks are even bigger.

The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance. A series of federally arranged mergers safely landed troubled banks on the decks of more stable firms. And it allowed the survivors to emerge from the turmoil with strengthened market positions, giving them even greater control over consumer lending and more potential to profit.

J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street's most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.

A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.

"It is at the top of the list of things that need to be fixed," said Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "It fed the crisis, and it has gotten worse because of the crisis."

Regulators' concerns are twofold: that consumers will wind up with fewer choices for services and that big banks will assume they always have the government's backing if things go wrong. That presumed guarantee means large companies could return to the risky behavior that led to the crisis if they figure federal officials will clean up their mess. - CBS News Story

Obama's War - A big Mess and getting worse

The U.S. military says an American service member has died in a bomb blast in Afghanistan, making August the deadliest month of the eight-year war for U.S. forces.

NATO forces say the service member's vehicle struck a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Friday. A U.S. forces spokeswoman confirmed the nationality but did not provide further details.

The death brings to 45 the number of U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan this month, meaning August has surpassed July as the deadliest of the conflict.

More than 60,000 U.S. troops are now in the country - a record number - to combat rising insurgent violence.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai angrily accused the U.S. of pushing for a runoff in the Afghan presidential election during a heated meeting with the special envoy to the region, officials familiar with the encounter said Friday.

The reported exchange was another sign of strains between the U.S. and Afghan authorities. An Afghan lawmaker accused the U.S. of violating international and Islamic law by firing on a clinic where a wounded Taliban commander had taken refuge. U.S. officials said they attacked only after taking gunfire and determining there were no civilians inside.

The verbal exchange occurred the day after the Aug. 20 vote during a meeting in Kabul between Karzai and U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke, according to two officials who were briefed about the meeting. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

They said Karzai assured Holbrooke that he would accept the election results but bristled when the envoy asked if he would also agree to a runoff if none of the 36 candidates won over 50 per cent, the officials said. - CBS News Story

Obama's Envoy and Afghan President Karzai Have Explosive Engagment

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, recently held an "explosive" meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the country's presidential election, according to several news reports.

At a private lunch held on August 21, one day after the election, Holbrooke reportedly pressed Karzai on widespread state-engineered ballot-rigging alleged by his primary opponent, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Holbrooke is said to have twice proposed holding a second run-off election after he expressed concern over voter fraud allegations. Karzai reacted "very angrily" to the suggestion and the meeting ended shortly after.

According to the BBC, the meeting was described as "explosive" and "a dramatic bust-up."

"It was a difficult meeting and there were some sharp exchanges in it," an unnamed U.S. official with knowledge of the meeting told AFP.

Karzai enjoyed a warm relationship with former President George W. Bush, but relations are believed to have since cooled under President Barack Obama. - FOX News Story

Let me understand this. Obama will go toe to toe with a friend over allegations of election fraud, but in Iran he sat back and said nothing? Hmmmm

ABC / NBC Won't Air Ad Critical of Obama's Health Care Reform

The refusal by ABC and NBC to run a national ad critical of President Obama's health care reform plan is raising questions from the group behind the spot -- particularly in light of ABC's health care special aired in prime time last June and hosted at the White House.

The 33-second ad by the League of American Voters, which features a neurosurgeon who warns that a government-run health care system will lead to the rationing of procedures and medicine, began airing two weeks ago on local affiliates of ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS. On a national level, however, ABC and NBC have refused to run the spot in its present form.

"It's a powerful ad," said Bob Adams, executive director of the League of American Voters, a national nonprofit group with 15,000 members who advocate individual liberty and government accountability. "It tells the truth and it really highlights one of the biggest vulnerabilities and problems with this proposed legislation, which is it rations health care and disproportionately will decimate the quality of health care for seniors."

Adams said the advertisement is running on local network affiliates in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Maine and Pennsylvania. But although CBS has approved the ad for national distribution and talks are ongoing with FOX, NBC has questioned some of the ad's facts while ABC has labeled it "partisan."

"The ABC Television Network has a long-standing policy that we do not sell time for advertising that presents a partisan position on a controversial public issue," spokeswoman Susan Sewell said in a written statement. "Just to be clear, this is a policy for the entire network, not just ABC News." - FOX News Story

Funny how ABC says that it is a policy not to aire ads that are partisan on a controversial issue, yet they had no problem letting the President attempt to sell his very partisan ad in prime time free of charge. Not only did they run his ad, they ran it for free, and they hyped it for days leading up to it.

ABC - All Barack Channel

Obama Health Care Will Cost Jobs

A provision in President Obama's health care reform plan that requires businesses to offer health insurance to their workers or face a federal tax would cost employers at least $49 billion dollars a year, putting 5.2 million employees at risk of unemployment or underemployment, according to a new study.

"Health care reform is not going to be free," said economist Mark Wilson, who authored the study, which was commissioned by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Under the provision, known as the play-or-pay mandate, another 10.2 million employees will face stunted wages and the loss of their benefits as employers try to find ways to fund the mandates.

"Those will be a difficult decision for them to make and they're also going to have to decide to the extent they can raise prices and pass the cost onto consumers," Wilson said.

But supporters of Obama's health reform plan say under the current system, thousands already are losing their health coverage or jobs because of the enormous costs employers are bearing.

"What we need to think about in health reform is how to make the system more efficient, how to make sure the system is protecting jobs, and that's exactly what health reform will do," said Peter Harbage, a health policy analyst with the liberal Center for American Progress.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday that without health reform the entire U.S. economy faces ruin. - FOX News Story

Cheney goes on Attack of Obama CIA Investigation

(CNN) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney is again taking aim at President Obama, issuing a statement Monday suggesting the administration's decision to name a prosecutor to investigate CIA interrogations under President Bush fuels "doubts about this administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security."

"The people involved deserve our gratitude," Cheney said in the statement. "They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions."

The former vice president also said documents released Monday prove enhanced interrogation techniques yieled valuable information that "provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda"

"This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks," Cheney said. "These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002."

"The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States," he added. - CNN News Story

The one certainty in this whole matter is that if there is another attack on the US, Obama will be doomed. He has made this whole matter so political and pitted the American Intelligence Agencies against themselves, that he has no leverage and no one to blame but President Obama himself, PERSONALLY!!!!

This is quite the corner to be painted into. The scariest part is, the very people that are there to make sure that it doesn't happen again, aren't there to protect us anymore. The Administration has made it clear that no matter what rules you are told to operate under, you face investigation, interrogation and prosecution by the next person who is in charge.

Who would want to work under these circumstances. This sure reminds me of a hit TV Series, 24 maybe?

Obama - Wrong President for Fiscal Responsibility

The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House and congressional budget officials projected Tuesday in competing but similar economic forecasts.

Both the White House Office of Management and Budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the budget deficit this year would swell to nearly $1.6 trillion, a record, and far above the then-record 2008 budget deficit of $455 billion.

But while figures released by the White House foresee a cumulative $9 trillion deficit from 2010-2019, $2 trillion more than the administration estimated in May, congressional budget analysts put the 10-year figure at a lower $7.14 trillion.

One reason for the difference: The CBO projection is based on an assumption that all the tax cuts put into place in the administration of former President George W. Bush will expire on schedule by 2011 as dictated by current law. President Barack Obama's budget baseline, however, hews to his proposal to keep the tax cuts in place for families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Beyond the 10-year forecast, the nation will face further challenges posed by rising health care costs and the aging of the population, the CBO said. "The budget remains on an unsustainable path" over the long-term and will require some combination of lower spending and higher tax revenues, it said. - CBS News Story

Obama's CIA Mistake

If the left wing of the left wing of the left wing in American life doesn't control most of the Obama farmstead's best and richest acreage, it could be time for new spectacles -- since things surely look that way.

Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to go after the CIA has all the earmarks of policy designed to make left-wing hearts palpitate. What other purpose could it possibly serve? Not that of national security or common sense.

I have written deliberately "go after the CIA," notwithstanding the demurral of newly appointed special prosecutor John Durham, which concerns the supposedly "preliminary" scope of his investigation into alleged abuses perpetrated by CIA interrogators against terrorism suspects. The range of cases is gratifyingly small when you consider that Holder, following the blood sport instincts of the left, could have gone after higher-ups -- perhaps some of those in the Justice Department who advised President Bush on interrogation policy ( like John Yoo).

Alas, as we know from experience, investigations tend to start small then grow. Was Monica Lewinsky on Ken Starr's radar screen at the start of his inquiry into the Clintons' finances? Things get out of hand. The left of the left of the left hopes no doubt that will be the case with Durham's investigation. You find on that peculiar quarter of the political spectrum a lust to punish former Vice President Cheney himself (if not the president he served). Why rule out a battalion of CIA agents who imagined themselves to be preserving American lives?

Indeed, the Inspector General's Report, which Holder cites as evidence of doing, says various interrogations gleaned "intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world." How dare they warn us? Clap 'em in irons.

Really, is there a brain cell functioning properly in the Obama White House? What are these people thinking? Are they thinking? Yes, maybe. Here's what they might be thinking: The left of the left of the left got us here. They're mad enough at us now. We'll throw them a little investigation, trying to explain it to moderates and conservatives -- and we'll pray it works. Nothing else seems to these days, with the health care semi-debacle as Exhibit A. - RCP Story

Obama - President is Lost

Let's go back to that "teachable moment." It was proclaimed by Barack Obama after he said that police in Cambridge, Mass., had acted "stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates for essentially being black in his own house. It has been a month now, and the one sure thing we have learned in this extended teachable moment is about Obama himself. He can't teach.

This is clear when it comes to two of the major challenges confronting his administration: health care reform and the war in Afghanistan. Both are losing popular support. Increasingly, Americans are becoming convinced that Afghanistan will cost lots of lives and health care reform will cost lots of money -- and both will have paltry payoffs or none at all. Teacher, please explain.

Obama cannot -- or, to be both fair and precise, he has not yet been able to. This is because of an insufficiency I have noted previously -- his distinct coolness, an above-the-fray mien that does not communicate empathy. If you recall, for instance, that teachable moment about Gates, you will remember it was about racial profiling and such. Commentators galore jumped right in and in some cases -- Glenn Beck comes to mind -- proved they were whores for controversy, but Obama himself stayed above the fray. Class was in session but he was not.

Pity. For this teachable moment, Obama might have recalled an incident out of his own past when, perchance, he was racially profiled -- stopped, frisked or something for being a black man, particularly a young black man. He might have recounted an anecdote that offered us all a glimmer of what it is like to wear your skin color -- but not your two Ivy League degrees, book contract, etc. -- on your face so that you feel the opprobrium and suspicion of police officers and the averted glance of trembling white ladies. No. He did nothing of the sort.

So Obama did not teach about the Gates incident and he is not teaching about health insurance. Some of his trouble is procedural -- turning over health care reform to Congress, a parliamentary Okefenokee Swamp in which reform bogs down, finally rots and emits noxious gases. Some of this has to do with the unavoidable complexity of any legislation. But some of it has to do with the inability of the president to simply say what he wants and why that's good for us. The failure here is twofold: the message and the messenger. - RCP Story

Obama's $9-Trillion Dollar Deficit

The Obama administration on Tuesday increased its 10-year budget deficit projection to more than $9 trillion, an increase of about $2 trillion that is blamed on the bleak fiscal picture and the practices of the previous administration.

The mid-year review from the Office of Management and Budget was packed with grim economic forecasts.

The report showed the public debt doubling by 2019 and reaching three-quarters the size of the entire national economy. And Obama economic adviser Christina Romer predicted unemployment could reach 10 percent this year and begin a slow decline next year.

In a glimmer of better-than-expected news, the report projected the 2009 deficit will be $1.58 trillion, which is $262 billion less than officials predicted earlier in the year.

The administration said the figure was reduced in large part because it is providing less aid than expected to Wall Street.

But this year's projected deficit is still three times more than last year's deficit.

Though the Obama administration was at the forefront of a $787 billion economic stimulus package and is pushing passage of a costly health care reform package, the administration said in a summary that the "failure" of past administrations to follow pay-as-you-go rules is causing much of the fiscal mess.

The summary claimed $5 trillion of the long-term deficit is attributable to the Bush administration's "failure" to follow that standard. - FOX News Story

Obama in his typical "don't blame me" attitude blames much of the $9-Trillion growth on Bush.

Well, if he has only been in office 7 Months and his part of that $9-Trillion almost equals the $5-Trillion he is blaming on Bush. So who is the real idiot here? Not to mention the continued deficit spending that he is pushing with the Health Care Reform, Cap and Trade, etc....

Obama's DOJ to Investigate CIA Interrogations

President Barack Obama has long said he wanted to look forward, not backward, when it came to investigating Bush-era interrogation policies – but his good friend, Attorney General

Eric Holder, went ahead anyway Monday.

And it didn’t take long to see just what Obama was worried about.

The immediate reaction to Holder’s announcement suggested the investigation will be politically divisive, drive down Obama’s stock at the CIA and almost certainly re-open an uncomfortable question for the White House: just how far is Obama willing to go to extract information from terror suspects?

Several Democrats cheered Holder’s announcement of a preliminary investigation – then immediately insisted he didn’t go far enough. The chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees kept up their calls for a “truth commission” into Bush-era practices.

Others said veteran federal prosecutor John Durham must have free rein to target any potential wrongdoing, even if it takes him to the most senior levels of the Bush administration.

“I applaud the Attorney General for this first step. But, we must go further,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said. “Seeking out only the low-level actors in a conspiracy to torture detainees will bring neither justice nor restored standing to our nation.”

At the same time, a number of Republican senators warned Holder that Durham’s investigation has the potential to spiral into a witch hunt that could hamstring the CIA.

“History has shown that special prosecutors. . .often take an expansive view of their investigative authority,” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and eight others wrote to Holder. “Despite your assurances that this investigation will be narrow and focused, there is a real risk that today's announcement portends a long, arduous, and unpredictable process for the intelligence community.”

And reaction from the intelligence community was swift, and largely negative. CIA Director Leon Panetta tried to pre-empt the Holder announcement – and the release of CIA investigative report on some of the most egregious abuses – with a statement seeking to bolster morale at Langley. Durham is already investigating the CIA’s destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano echoed some of Obama’s forward-not-back language in pledging to cooperate with the investigation. “The CIA’s primary focus remains, as the American people expect, the present and the future, not the past,” he said. - Politico Story

Obama's Big Plans Greatly Diminished?

Barack Obama’s Big Bang is beginning to backfire, as his plans for rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care are running into stiff resistance, both in Washington and around the country.

The Obama theory was simple, though always freighted with risk: Use a season of economic anxiety to enact sweeping changes the public likely wouldn’t stomach in ordinary times. But the abrupt swing in the public’s mood, from optimism about Obama’s possibility to concern he may be overreaching, has thrown the White House off its strategy and forced the president to curtail his ambitions.

Some Democrats point to a decision in June as the first vivid sign of trouble for Obama. These Democrats say the White House, in retrospect, made a grievous mistake by muscling conservative Democrats in swing districts to vote for a cap-and-trade energy bill that was very unpopular among their constituents.

Many of those members were pounded back home because Democrats passed a bill Republicans successfully portrayed as a big tax increase on consumers. The result: many conservative Democrats were gun-shy about taking any more risky votes — or going out on a limb on health care.

The other result: The prospects for winning final passage of a cap-and-trade bill this year are greatly diminished. And, while most Democrats still predict a health care bill will pass this year, it is likely to be a shadow of what Obama once had planned. - Politico Story

Harry Reid in Trouble in Re-election Bid

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) trails Republican Danny Tarkanian by double digits, according to a new poll released Sunday.

Tarkanian, the former University of Nevada-Las Vegas basketball star and son of the school’s longtime basketball coach, leads Reid 49 percent to 38 percent, with 13 percent undecided.

Prospective challenger Sue Lowden, the state GOP chairwoman, also leads Reid in a head-to-head matchup, 45 percent to 40 percent, with 15 percent undecided.

The poll, conducted Aug. 17 and 18 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, surveyed 400 Nevada registered voters and had a 6-percentage-point margin of error.

Reid’s favorability ratings remained dangerously low, with 37 percent viewing him favorably compared with 50 percent who viewed the four-term senator unfavorably. In July, the same poll showed 34 percent viewed him favorably and 47 percent viewed him unfavorably.

National Republican operatives, who have not been enthusiastic about Tarkanian’s candidacy, recruited Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) for the 2010 Senate race. but Heller declined to run in early August. The poll tested Heller against Reid and reported that Heller held a 50 percent to 40 percent advantage, with 10 percent undecided.

Heller, a two-term congressman, was previously elected to three terms as Nevada secretary of state.

Tarkanian, who currently runs a real estate business, lost a 2004 race for state Senate and a 2006 bid to succeed Heller as secretary of state. He recently won a court victory on defamation charges against his state Senate opponent, who accused him of bad business practices during the campaign. - Politico

Obama Can't Get Approval Numbers Up

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -12 (see trends).

Today’s Approval Index rating reflects a slight improvement from yesterday’s record low of -14. The number who Strongly Approve ticked up a point while the number who Strongly Disapprove has moved down a point. Today is the President’s third straight day with an Approval Index rating in negative double digits. He has never had four straight days with such low ratings. - Rasmussen Reports Poll

Obama Uses Taxpayer Money to Sell his Agenda

The White House hired a private communications company based in Minnesota to distribute mass e-mails, helping to shed light on how some recipients received e-mails in support of President Obama's health care plan without signing up for them, FOX News has learned.

The company, Govdelivery, describes itself as the world's leading provider of government-to-citizen communication solutions and says its e-mail service provides a fully-automated on-demand public communication system.

It is still unknown how much taxpayer money the White House provides to Govdelivery for its services.

Click here to view Govdelivery's Web site.

The revelation comes after the White House acknowledged this week that people were receiving unsolicited e-mails from the administration about health care reform and suggested the problem was with third-party groups that placed the recipients' names on the distribution list.

Republicans quickly pounced on the news.

"This is yet another ominous chapter in the administration's rabid campaign to jam its radical health care scheme onto an unwilling public by any means necessary," Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan said in a statement.

Govdelivery sent hundreds of e-mails from senior adviser David Axelrod asking supporters to help rebut criticism of Obama's health care plan circulating on the Internet. It also sent e-mails highlighting Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo and the announcement of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee.

Several FOX News viewers complained they received these e-mails even though they had never requested any communication from the White House. - FOX News Story

Obama in Power Grab Takes over Interrogation Unit

President Obama has approved the creation of a specialized interrogation unit that would focus on key terror suspects, the White House confirmed Monday.

Deputy Obama press secretary Bill Burton told reporters that even though the new unit will be supervised by the White House, that does not mean the CIA is out of the interrogation business.

Burton, who is stationed in Martha's Vineyard while the first family is on vacation, said the new unit would include "all these different elements under one group," and that it will be situated at the FBI headquarters in Washington.

FOX News had earlier confirmed that the new unit would be created, and that it would report to the White House-based National Security Council.

Though such work typically falls to the CIA, one senior U.S. official told FOX News that the CIA did not want to house the new initiative.

"They're glad to be out of the long-term detention business," the official said.

According to The Washington Post, the new unit would be named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group and would be composed of experts in this field from the law enforcement and intelligence community. Obama was said to have approved creation of the unit late last week.

The unit's structure would depart significantly from such work under the Bush administration, when the CIA had the lead and sometimes exclusive role in questioning Al Qaeda suspects. - FOX News Story

You have to worry when one man thinks that he is the expert at everything. Obama is attempting to put his Administration in the Supervisory role of every aspect of the government and some things that aren't the Government's role.