Long story short: a multi-decade legacy of destabilizing nations south of our borders, coupled with our ridiculous drug policies and stagnant congress, has led to an increasingly dire immigration crisis.
Unless they're brown in which case fuck 'em. I mean, let 'em come in and all until we need to score political points against the other guy, but don't legitimize 'em because then it's harder to get them to work for less than subsistence wages.
That firefighter doesn't seem to care about the burning building behind him. Then again, maybe he actually works for a privatized fire department and the owner of the building hasn't paid them.
That firefighter doesn't seem to care about the burning building behind him. Then again, maybe he actually works for a privatized fire department and the owner of the building hasn't paid them.
While I agree Presidents don't control the economy I thought this was a fine example of really trying to spin good news away from the president :-p
"Why the economy is improving
A number of articles have given credit to President Obama for the economic recovery. Other articles criticize the Republicans for their condemnation of the President’s actions claiming they delayed the recovery. There is yet a third theme that has started to emerge where some Republicans are taking at least partial credit for this recovery. This article will try to prove that all three positions are wrong.
It is hard to argue that things in regard to the economy are much better than when President Obama became president in January 2009. The unemployment rate is almost half what it was, the stock market has more than doubled and gas prices are under $2.00/gallon.
As the old saying goes, “you are entitled to your opinions but not to your facts” so I have used statistics from agencies/organizations whose job it is to be nonpartisan and whose research is considered to be factual to help prove my above points.
In the fall of 2008 the Bush administration warned of a crisis in the economy and shortly thereafter the Troubled Asset Recovery Act (TARP) was passed with upwards of $700B available. However actual monies borrowed were $441B most of which has been repaid.
When Obama was inaugurated 1/20/09 the Dow Jones was at 7949 but statistically the “Great Recession” which started December 2007 was two thirds over. Shortly after his inauguration and during a period when the Democrats controlled the presidency, Senate and House he signed the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which created government expenditures and some loans totally over $800B very little of which have been or ever will be repaid.
Some have stated that the total bailouts including the Federal Reserve maintaining low interest rates, printing more money, etc exceeded $5T! Given some number in the trillions which includes TARP and ARRA I conclude that you can certainly buy your way out of a recession so equal credit or to be fair no credit to either party nor any credit to either party if indeed the Federal Reserve actions were key to the recovery since it is independent.
Two somber notes to the above are that debt under President Obama has grown over $7T and now exceeds $18T and that China just became the largest economy in the world!
Those crediting President Obama for the recovery also point to 57 consecutive months of jobs creation. I am hard pressed to understand how anything the Obama administration did made this possible. However I can think of a lot they did which made this recovery one of the slowest in history which includes the passage of Obamacare which caused many employers to reduce hiring. Further a huge increase in regulations by Obama appointed bureaucrats have hampered business growth as has the Dodd-Frank bill.
Other factors liberal writers use to credit Obama are lower imports and increased exports. No doubt these help increase US jobs but again please tell me what the Obama administration did to help this instead of the world economy, Buy USA efforts and US companies awakening to the global economy being the key factors.
Some are giving the Obama administration credit for reducing the deficit, government jobs and gas prices. In regard to a lower deficit we wound up the fiscal year in September 2014 with a $486B deficit which is still absurd! The credit, if any, goes to Sequestration and increasing taxes paid to the government due to the recovery. Pathetically we still have not addressed the hundreds of billions of wasted federal expenditures. Indeed there are fewer government jobs but that is a result of state and local governments who cannot run a deficit unlike the federal government. Finally reducing gas prices, if they continue through 2015, will add about $750 to the disposable income of an average American family; tell me how the Obama administration helped achieve this.
I could go on but I hope you get the picture that we suffered longer than we should have creating a pent-up demand, our purchase decisions and Federal Reserve actions are the primary reasons the economy is better. Therefore while the Obama administration actions/lack of actions may have unnecessarily delayed the recovery neither the Democrats nor the Republicans deserve credit for the recovery and the recovery is overstated but that’s another article.
From what I am reading low gas prices may be due to the Saudi's (against the wishes of the rest of OPEC?) trying to drive the American oil shale industry out of business.
The federal law thing is kind of ironic because the Obama administration has been arguing that federal immigration law can only be enforced by the feds. If that is true why stop at immigration law? Sounds like the administration has just said that states can not enforce any federal laws.
Drug laws are the side of the coin where states passed laws in opposition to federal law and the feds are not enforcing the laws either. Immigration is the opposite where states tried to pass laws in support of federal immigration laws and feds said only they can do immigration (AZ law went all the way to SCOTUS and had much of it tossed out) law enforcement.
So we have drug laws that neither state nor feds are enforcing and immigration laws that feds will not allow states to enforce. Not a big jump for people to conclude that the federal position is one of states not being able to enforce federal laws. If they can't enforce the laws why even recognize the laws?
I am confused. Senate Republicans have agreed to two bills:
1) clean DHS funding bill. 2) bill to defund Obama's executive action on immigration.
Senate Democrats are saying this is not good enough unless House Republicans agree to also vote/pass (I might have misheard that part) the clean DHS bill.
Maybe I missed something on the radio but... WTF? Even if both bills pass Obama can veto one of them. If the House Republicans never vote on the clean bill then the blame falls squarely on them. What am I missing?
The only thing I can possibly think of, and may not even apply here, is a fear that House Republicans might pull some reconciliation shenanigans to put both bills together before voting on it thereby forcing Obama to veto it and become the guy who gets blamed. Which would be poetic...
If the House doesn't vote on it they get the blame. Where is the downside? Democrats wanted a clean bill and to have the immigration policy action to be separate. This is exactly what they asked for, why are they moving the goalposts?
The republicans tried some pretty shitty back-door tactics to screw over the FCC's Net Neutrality policy, but backed down today when they realized it was a fight they couldn't win.
Also probably that it looked super shitty when the biggest person calling out against it was Darell issa, whose funding roll-call looks like a list of every telecoms company and ISP in the US, along with an anti-net neutrality superpac. And one of their other biggest hitters, FCC board member Ajit Pai came into the job from a long on-and-off career as the Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications.
Comments
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!
No freebies Sarah! Make people pay to hear your blather.
It's a conspiracy, I tell you! This is Obamacare's faultz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111
"Why the economy is improving
A number of articles have given credit to President Obama for the economic recovery. Other articles criticize the Republicans for their condemnation of the President’s actions claiming they delayed the recovery. There is yet a third theme that has started to emerge where some Republicans are taking at least partial credit for this recovery. This article will try to prove that all three positions are wrong.
It is hard to argue that things in regard to the economy are much better than when President Obama became president in January 2009. The unemployment rate is almost half what it was, the stock market has more than doubled and gas prices are under $2.00/gallon.
As the old saying goes, “you are entitled to your opinions but not to your facts” so I have used statistics from agencies/organizations whose job it is to be nonpartisan and whose research is considered to be factual to help prove my above points.
In the fall of 2008 the Bush administration warned of a crisis in the economy and shortly thereafter the Troubled Asset Recovery Act (TARP) was passed with upwards of $700B available. However actual monies borrowed were $441B most of which has been repaid.
When Obama was inaugurated 1/20/09 the Dow Jones was at 7949 but statistically the “Great Recession” which started December 2007 was two thirds over. Shortly after his inauguration and during a period when the Democrats controlled the presidency, Senate and House he signed the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which created government expenditures and some loans totally over $800B very little of which have been or ever will be repaid.
Some have stated that the total bailouts including the Federal Reserve maintaining low interest rates, printing more money, etc exceeded $5T! Given some number in the trillions which includes TARP and ARRA I conclude that you can certainly buy your way out of a recession so equal credit or to be fair no credit to either party nor any credit to either party if indeed the Federal Reserve actions were key to the recovery since it is independent.
Two somber notes to the above are that debt under President Obama has grown over $7T and now exceeds $18T and that China just became the largest economy in the world!
Those crediting President Obama for the recovery also point to 57 consecutive months of jobs creation. I am hard pressed to understand how anything the Obama administration did made this possible. However I can think of a lot they did which made this recovery one of the slowest in history which includes the passage of Obamacare which caused many employers to reduce hiring. Further a huge increase in regulations by Obama appointed bureaucrats have hampered business growth as has the Dodd-Frank bill.
Other factors liberal writers use to credit Obama are lower imports and increased exports. No doubt these help increase US jobs but again please tell me what the Obama administration did to help this instead of the world economy, Buy USA efforts and US companies awakening to the global economy being the key factors.
Some are giving the Obama administration credit for reducing the deficit, government jobs and gas prices. In regard to a lower deficit we wound up the fiscal year in September 2014 with a $486B deficit which is still absurd! The credit, if any, goes to Sequestration and increasing taxes paid to the government due to the recovery. Pathetically we still have not addressed the hundreds of billions of wasted federal expenditures. Indeed there are fewer government jobs but that is a result of state and local governments who cannot run a deficit unlike the federal government. Finally reducing gas prices, if they continue through 2015, will add about $750 to the disposable income of an average American family; tell me how the Obama administration helped achieve this.
I could go on but I hope you get the picture that we suffered longer than we should have creating a pent-up demand, our purchase decisions and Federal Reserve actions are the primary reasons the economy is better. Therefore while the Obama administration actions/lack of actions may have unnecessarily delayed the recovery neither the Democrats nor the Republicans deserve credit for the recovery and the recovery is overstated but that’s another article.
Jeff Brown"
Drug laws are the side of the coin where states passed laws in opposition to federal law and the feds are not enforcing the laws either. Immigration is the opposite where states tried to pass laws in support of federal immigration laws and feds said only they can do immigration (AZ law went all the way to SCOTUS and had much of it tossed out) law enforcement.
So we have drug laws that neither state nor feds are enforcing and immigration laws that feds will not allow states to enforce. Not a big jump for people to conclude that the federal position is one of states not being able to enforce federal laws. If they can't enforce the laws why even recognize the laws?
1) clean DHS funding bill.
2) bill to defund Obama's executive action on immigration.
Senate Democrats are saying this is not good enough unless House Republicans agree to also vote/pass (I might have misheard that part) the clean DHS bill.
Maybe I missed something on the radio but... WTF? Even if both bills pass Obama can veto one of them. If the House Republicans never vote on the clean bill then the blame falls squarely on them. What am I missing?
The only thing I can possibly think of, and may not even apply here, is a fear that House Republicans might pull some reconciliation shenanigans to put both bills together before voting on it thereby forcing Obama to veto it and become the guy who gets blamed. Which would be poetic...
Also probably that it looked super shitty when the biggest person calling out against it was Darell issa, whose funding roll-call looks like a list of every telecoms company and ISP in the US, along with an anti-net neutrality superpac. And one of their other biggest hitters, FCC board member Ajit Pai came into the job from a long on-and-off career as the Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications.