Sunday, May 31, 2015

Amnesty or not to Amnesty. That is the question.

A key part of the Fifth Circuit’s decision to keep the freeze on President Obama’s amnesty programs was the 25-page dissenting opinion written by the panel’s lone Obama appointee. Not only does it point to how the bloc-voting liberal justices of the Supreme Court will ultimately treat the case, it almost wholly focuses on the threshold issue of “prosecutorial discretion”: an executive-branch power that, if expanded to include mass grants of amnesty, would remove the last vestige of authority that Congress and the courts have in preventing immigration anarchy at our nation’s southern border.

The “essential point of disagreement” that Judge Stephen Higginson had with Judge Hanen’s lower-court opinion has to do with the characterization of the president’s amnesty programs. How DAPA and DACA are categorized is crucial for both sides. Obama’s attorneys contend that the programs are mere exercises of “prosecutorial discretion” on the part of the president.

The core case that “forecloses plaintiffs’ arguments” against the administration’s use of DAPA and DACA, wrote Judge Higginson, is Heckler v. Chaney, where the Supreme Court held that “an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce . . . is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion.” Finding that these programs were something bigger than mere decisions not to prosecute, Judge Hanen determined that the Heckler ruling couldn’t apply to the president’s amnesty. Higginson quotes Hanen’s characterization of DACA and DAPA, emphasizing that he called them “announced programs of non-enforcement of the law that contradicts Congress’s statutory goals” and an “abdication of [the government’s] statutory responsibilities.”

The descriptor “announced” is essential here, and Higginson is right to focus on Hanen’s characterization so intently. “Prosecutorial discretion” refers to the priorities prosecutors sometimes must adopt (almost always in the context of criminal prosecutions) given the operational limits they face. The Department of Homeland Security has appropriated this concept, asserting that by being able to prosecute illegal aliens according to its own discretion, rather than the guidelines set forth in our immigration laws, it can save its “limited resources” and better “prioritize” cases that deserve the most attention — e.g., convicted felons, illegal aliens who are threats to national security, and so on.

But such priorities are not usually “announced” by prosecutors. As liberal law professor (and immigration attorney) Peter Margulies writes, the decision to exercise discretion in dealing with wrongdoers necessarily must be done “in the dark,” not out in the open (as in a nationwide memo). To announce such an intention is to create “moral hazard,” the concept most commonly used to describe the unintended consequences of insurance. As Margulies says, “moral hazard arises because individuals who know they will be held harmless for wrongdoing tend to do more of it” (emphasis added). Letting wrongdoers, such as illegal aliens, apply in advance for a “fixed period of forbearance” (deferred action) would lead to more of the bad behavior in question, such as overstaying a visa or crossing the border without appropriate documents.

Take the case of burglary, says Margulies. If a person charged with burglary is young and his theft was small, a judge may favor a plea bargain instead of sentencing him to prison. But “it would be difficult to imagine,” writes Margulies, “prosecutors would solicit applications from known burglars for a ‘burglars’ holiday’ that would guarantee a specific period of immunity.”

The Immigration Nationality Act (INA) is a deterring statute. Since its original enactment in 1952, it has been continually amended to better deter illegal immigration. By announcing an “illegal aliens’ holiday,” the president created the moral hazard of giving a reprieve to illegal aliens, which has the result of suspending the deterring power of the INA. In a word, then, DAPA and DACA are an “abdication,” and Judge Hanen is absolutely right.

Any discretion a president may have had in prosecuting illegal aliens and deferring deportations was taken away by the INA’s IIRIRA (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act) amendments of 1996. Even open-borders pushers like the ACLU agree that the INA as written leads to “mass deportations”: That is the mandate given to DHS. Even Noam Chomsky agrees with this characterization. President Clinton, he says, “militarized” the border in the mid-Nineties in anticipation of the implementation of NAFTA. According to Chomsky, because independent Mexican farmers had no way to compete with subsidized U.S. agribusiness, the “likely consequence would be flight to the United States, joined by those fleeing the countries of Central America.” To say, as Higginson does, that the INA could possibly forgo its deterrence factor and authorize DAPA and DACA takes some serious mental gymnastics.

The Bogus Legal Case for Obama’s Amnesty Any discretion that Congress allows for must have a “limiting principle” that narrowly confines the transfer of authority in question, lest it simply become a runaway power grab. There is no such limitation in DAPA and DACA. Oddly, Judge Higginson inadvertently supports this argument when he claims throughout his dissent that the “Family Fairness” deferred-action program of 1990 provides legal precedent for the president’s amnesty. That program makes DAPA and DACA “neither new nor uncommon,” he says. Higginson, however, fails to discuss the limited applicability of that program.

Family Fairness grew out of the legislative amnesty of 1986, when a small number of the beneficiaries’ dependents (mostly children) were left out because of an oversight. Importantly, those children were able to be sponsored after the beneficiaries became lawful permanent residents. Congress sought to correct this mistake by making provision for this class in the Immigration Act of 1990; in the interim (which lasted several months), members of this class, despite being illegal aliens, had their deportation proceedings stayed. As law professor Josh Blackman says, the program served as a “temporary bridge from one status to another,” with Congress granting the children legal status almost immediately after it was put in place.

When another Obama-appointed judge, Beryl Howell of the D.C. District Court, raised Family Fairness as “precedent” in her dismissal of Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio’s DACA challenge, Margulies said she “failed to acknowledge the distinction between discretion that acted as a bridge to legal status and discretion unmoored to status” (emphasis added). Deferring prosecution for a narrowly defined group of people whose change in status is all but inevitable is the kind of temporary and limited discretion that Congress arguably can give to the president. But deferring prosecution for large groups of people is what makes Obama’s amnesty completely unhinged and a reviewable abdication of duty.

— Ian Smith is an attorney in Washington, D.C., and works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Martin O' Malley Enters the Ring

Running to the left of Hillary. Here is the whole story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/us/politics/martin-omalley-on-the-issues.html?ref=politics

Friday, May 29, 2015

I Find This to be Frightening

If you think videogames are a nerdy pastime for out-of-shape boys gathered around a laptop in their mom’s basement sipping on cola, you are sorely mistaken--competitive gaming, known as electronic sports, or eSports, is a global phenomenon valued in the billions of dollars.

The industry is anchored by what is referred to as multiplayer online battle arena games, like the League of Legends, where one or several players face off in a digital arena. Watching people play professionally has been popular in Asia for years, but is now also gaining steam in the U.S.

In fact, those powering the industry say it’s well on its way to becoming the next major professional sport alongside football and baseball. The biggest tournaments are already filling entire arenas, including New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

“The big events are already bigger than the biggest events in sports,” said Kevin Lin, chief operating officer of Twitch, the world’s largest videogame streaming platform.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Great Society revsited.

Lyndon Johnson was adamant. The Great Society would cure poverty. In a 1964 campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he said this:

So here’s the Great Society. It’s the time — and it’s going to be soon — when nobody in this country is poor. It’s the time — and there’s no point in in waiting — when every boy or girl can have all the education that boy or girl can put to good use. It’s the time when there is a job for everybody who wants to work. It’s the time when every slum is gone from every city in America, and America is beautiful. It’s the time when man gains full domination under God over his own destiny. It’s the time of peace on earth and goodwill among men.

Then there was this from Barack Obama when accepting his presidential nomination in 2008:

I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

Note: There was no blaming of Fox News in that Obama speech.

So here we are 2015 with 45 million collecting food assistance, the poor remain poor only more of them. Millions on medicaid. Millions remain long term unemployed. I won't mention the 11-30 million illegals doing the work Americans could easily do.

How's that working for you kids?

Former Speaker of the House Charged

(Reuters) - Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on Thursday on federal charges including making false statements to the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said

The Illinois Republican, who left office in 2007, was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash in order to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions over $10,000, and lying to the FBI about his withdrawals, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Each count of the two-count indictment carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Hastert, 73, was not immediately available for comment.

According to the indictment, the misconduct involved payments to an unnamed individual who had been a Yorkville, Illinois, resident and had known Hastert for most of the person’s life.

Around 2010, Hastert met with the person several times and discussed past misconduct by Hastert. Eventually, Hastert agreed to pay the person $3.5 million in compensation and to conceal unspecified misconduct, the indictment said.

Shortly afterward, Hastert began making cash payments to the unnamed person, according to the indictment
.
Hastert served as a Republican congressman from suburban Chicago for more than 20 years before resigning from the House in November 2007, having lost the speaker's job when Democrats gained control of the House in the 2006 elections.

Hastert joined the Washington law firm Dickstein Shapiro in 2008 as a senior adviser. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange said on Thursday that Hastert resigned from its board.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Rand Paul Places Blame

In a Morning Joe interview Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blamed Republican hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for ISIS' rise and growth.

"ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS," Paul told host Joe Scarborough. "These hawks also wanted to bomb Assad, which would have made ISIS' job even easier. They've created these people."

The horrifying stupidity continues................

Congress turning a D+ on infrastructure into an F

Refusing to spend money on roads and bridges will cost jobs and prosperity

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the dumb things done in the name of fiscal restraint over the past five years, surely the dumbest was the decision by our government to slash its investments in the future.

We know that the deplorable state of our roads, bridges, ports, airports, schools, hospitals, rail lines, levees, canals, power and communications networks, drinking water and waste systems cries out for more investment in the infrastructure that our economy depends on.

That’s the point President Barack Obama was making on Wednesday, when he stood at New York’s crumbling Tappan Zee Bridge and pleaded for more infrastructure spending.

“We shouldn’t watch the top-rated airports and seaports or the fastest rail lines or fastest Internet networks get built somewhere else,” Obama said. “They need to be built right here in New York, right here in the United States. First-class infrastructure attracts first-class jobs.”
But instead of investing more, we’re doing less. Balancing budgets today has become more important than building the economy of tomorrow.
America earned a D+ on its last infrastructure report card, and our political leaders seem determined to turn that grade into a solid F.
Public investments have dropped precipitously since 2009, and reached a new low in the first three months of 2014, when net investment by federal, state and local governments fell to the lowest level in 65 years, just 0.5% of gross domestic product.

I’m focusing here on net investment, rather than on the more widely reported gross investment figures, which show a robust rebound from recession lows. Why look at net instead of gross? Because we have to pay attention to the wear and tear on our existing infrastructure, which is a much bigger deal that you’d expect: Depreciation of our public infrastructure amounts to $500 billion a year. We need to invest that much just to avoid falling behind.

In the first three months of this year, net investment by the federal government actually turned negative, which means the infrastructure wore out faster than it was being replaced.
And it’s about to get worse. As usual in Washington these days, misguided concerns about the budget are getting in the way of solving problems we all agree must be solved. Everyone agrees that we must spend more on our transportation and other vital public utilities, but lawmakers can’t agree on how it should be paid for.
The Highway Trust Fund is a major source of funding for highway investment, but its finances are in doubt. The White House warns that a disruption in the trust fund could cost 700,000 jobs.
Raising the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents would be an obvious solution (it hasn’t been increased since 1993), but there’s little appetite in Washington for raising any tax, even one that so directly benefits the people who pay it. Instead, we’re hearing talk about new user fees, perhaps via tolls or a new vehicle fee based on miles driven.
For obvious political reasons, stealth taxes are preferred.
Meanwhile, the authorization for transportation investment expires at the end of September, and it’s uncertain what Congress will do. The issue of funding is so contentious that the leaders of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Louisiana Republican David Vitter, have put forth a bill that doesn’t address financing at all, punting that question to the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.

One possible solution that could break the political gridlock is for the private sector to invest in public infrastructure, either as passive investors or as more active participants. There’s even one proposal to allow multinational companies to repatriate some of the cash that’s locked up in overseas tax shelters by investing in public infrastructure bonds, similar to the successful Build America Bonds from the stimulus bill.

These ideas sound appealing, but the devil is in the details. We don’t want to give away the national patrimony.
We won’t be able to invest what we need to until we figure out the financing, but Washington seems to lose its mind whenever the subject of money comes up. That’s short-sighted, because infrastructure pays for itself over time. Unfortunately for America, time is running out.

Every family, every community, and every business needs infrastructure to thrive.

Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure depicts the condition and performance of the nation’s infrastructure in the familiar form of a school report card—assigning letter grades based on the physical condition and needed investments for improvement.
The 2013 Report Card grades show we have a significant backlog of overdue maintenance across our infrastructure systems, a pressing need for modernization, and an immense opportunity to create reliable, long-term funding, but they also show that we can improve the current condition of our nation’s infrastructure — when investments are made and projects move forward, the grades rise.

Infrastructure Grades for 2013

Energy

D+

Schools

Public Parks & Recreation

Estimated 5-Year Investment Needs in Billions of Dollars 2009

Category	5-Year Need (Billions)	Estimated Actual Spending*	American Recover and Reinvestment Act (P.L. III-005)	Five-year Investment Shortfall
Aviation	87	45	1.3	(40.7)
Dams	12.5	5	0.05	(7.45)
Drinking Water and Wastewater	255	140	6.4	(108.6)
Energy	75	34.5	11	(29.5)
Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste	77	32.5	1.1	(43.4)
Inland Waterways	50	25	4.475	(20.5)
Levees	50	1.13	0	(48.87)
Public Parks and Recreation	85	36	0.835	(48.17)
Rail	63	42	9.3	(11.7)
Roads and Bridges Discretionary grants for surface transportation	930	351.5	27.5 1.5	(549.5)
Schools	160	125	0**	(35)
Transit	265	66.5	8.4	(190.1)
	2.122 trillion***	903 billion	71.76 billion	(1.176 trillion)
	Total Need $2.2 trillion

* 5 year spending estimate based on the most recent available
spending at all levels of government and not indexed for inflation
** The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included $53.6 billion
for a State Fiscal Stabilization Fund for education, as of press time,
it was not known how much would be spent on school infrastructure.
*** Not adjusted for inflation
**** Assumes 3% annual inflation

Highway Trust Fund Insolvency: 30 Days and Counting

BY Olivia Wolfertz

May 1, 2015

There has been much discussion on Capitol Hill and throughout the nation about increasing funding for infrastructure. From highways to transit to ports, our nation depends on infrastructure to thrive. Though federal lawmakers are once again looking toward a short-term funding patch for the beleaguered Highway Trust Fund, ASCE continues to advocate for a long-term, sustainable funding solution. There have been several bills proposed by legislators in the past few months. The Update Act and Repatriation bill are two proposals that have garnered considerable media attention. In USA Today, Rep. Paul Ryan lauded the Repatriation bill, aimed at lowering the tax rate on overseas profits earned by U.S. corporations and using the tax revenue for the Highway Trust Fund, as part of a permanent reform going from a worldwide system to a “more internationally competitive exemption system.” ASCE supports these bills to fund surface transportation; however neither proposal has gained significant traction or bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill. According to a recent poll by Mineta Transportation Institute, 71 percent of voters would be willing to pay a dime more than the current 18.4 cents-per-gallon gas tax if the money is spent on “projects to maintain streets, roads and highways.” In contrast to funding patches, raising the federal gas tax would be a stable source of direct funding for transportation infrastructure. While things at the federal level seem to have stalled, in Michigan voters will soon vote on Proposition 1, which would increase the state sales tax by 1 percent to generate around $1.2 billion a year for roads and at least $107 million annually for public transit and passenger rail. These state and federal propositions are steps in the right direction for restoring our nation’s transportation infrastructure. Given the Highway Trust Fund’s impending insolvency, it is more critical than ever that Congress work together to pass legislation to provide a sustainable, long-term funding solution.

Flat Funding is Flat Outrageous

BY Becky Moylan

May 7, 2015

As the deadline to reauthorize the federal surface transportation bill nears, the measure of success for many involved seems to be maintaining the status quo. Last week, leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives began touting “flat funding” as an accomplishment that Congress must work to achieve. But it’s flat out not. Here are some of the things that will happen if Congress simply continues the status quo over the next few years, from ASCE’s economic study on transportation: It will cost each American family’s budget $1,060 every year through at least 2020 America will lose more than 876,000 jobs by 2020 234,000 jobs will force workers to take paycuts in 2020 S. exports will drop by $28 billion in total by 2020 America’s GDP will underperform by $897 billion in total by 2020 Short-changing transportation has a devastating ripple effect on our economy. With so much at stake, increasing our investment into transportation by fixing the Highway Trust Fund is the best choice for all Americans. The benefits of growing the surface transportation program go far beyond protecting those parts of the economy noted above. By increasing investment, we can start modernizing our transportation network so that it’s something Americans can again be proud of. Fewer potholes, less congestion, fewer deficient bridges, fewer off-loaded trains. Safer commutes, more time to spend with your family, better transit options.

A multiyear bill that continues the same amount of funding we’ve had since 2005 through SAFETEA-Lu is the opposite of aspiration. It will not help improve our low Report Card grades for surface transportation, and will do little to strengthen the economy. However, there is a way to not only fill the funding hole of the Highway Trust Fund but also grow the system. By increasing the federal gas tax, we can start investing in the projects America needs to have in place in order to continue to compete globally in the21st century. Every state has dozens of new construction projects that they would like to make a reality if they only had increased investment from all levels of government. Here’s our chance.

To fill the current federal funding gap and grow the federal Highway Trust Fund to address current documented needs, Congress should raise the gas tax by at least 20 cents. This would be the first increase since 1993, and the bump would recoup what has been lost due to inflation and increase funding. For the average driver, it will cost about $187 more a year*. In contrast, right now each motorist is paying $324 a year in additional repairs and operating costs. In addition, Americans spend an average 34 hours a year stuck in traffic, costing the U.S. economy $101 billion in wasted fuel and lost time annually. It’s a savings for your wallet by staying out of the auto mechanic shop. It’s an even bigger savings as it protects that $1,060 mentioned above. There is a lot at stake if we merely continue with the same level of funding of the past 10 years for the next five. It will hurt your personal finances, hurt our already aging transportation system and do little to benefit our economy. Let’s increase our investment so that Congress truly fixes the Trust Fund in a way that allows us to modernize our transportation system.

Democrats root for Ted Cruz to win Republican nomination

He’s our man: Democrats surveyed by the Hill are rooting for Ted Cruz to win the Republican presidential nomination.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Democrats hope for Ted Cruz, but fear Jeb Bush.
The Hill surveyed Democratic lawmakers, former members and strategists, and found they are rooting for Cruz to win the Republican presidential nomination. Jeb Bush, meanwhile, is the 2016 candidate Democrats fear the most. Why Cruz? Democrats think the Texas senator, a conservative firebrand, would alienate independent voters, propel liberals to the polls and give their party the best shot at picking up congressional seats in next year’s election. Bush, meanwhile, would be a tougher opponent since he is a former governor from a political dynasty who can raise hundreds of millions of dollars and appeal more strongly to women and independent voters.

The former Florida governor’s moderate positions on immigration, while unpopular in conservative circles, would also help him with Hispanic voters who could prove crucial in important battleground states such as Florida, Nevada, Virginia and Colorado, the Democrats say.
Bush has not officially entered the contest, but is expected to announce his bid in the coming weeks.
“Unquestionably, without going into names, a more centrist Republican candidate is tougher to campaign against,” said Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.), who’s heading the messaging strategy for House Democrats.
“All the polling shows us that the Republican brand is highly unpopular,” Israel added. “A Republican who’s reflecting that brand all the way on the right is easy to win against. A Republican who plays against the brand is harder to win against.”
Behind Bush, Democrats are also wary of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), two relatively new faces who have nonetheless proven to be effective fundraisers while appealing to conservatives and independents alike.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) characterized both as “formidable opponents,” singling out Rubio as particularly tough “because he has no record” and “can make it up as he goes.”
Democrats, who are licking their wounds after a brutal 2014 election cycle, are hoping to ride the coattails of their most likely nominee — Hillary Clinton — to down-ballot success at the polls in 2016.
But they think their chances also hinge on their ability to draw the sharpest contrast between the two candidates at the top of the ticket. That’s why Bush and Rubio worry Democratic operatives.
The Democrats polled by The Hill — by no means members of the Cruz fan club — are rooting for him in the primary battle.
The overwhelming refrain from the Democrats polled is that the Texas senator’s no-apologies brand of conservatism would provide the contrast that will boost their odds in congressional races.
“I don’t [dispute] that Cruz is a force — he’s demonstrated that — but he’s the force that we’d like to see,” said Rep. John Larson (Conn.), former head of the House Democratic Caucus. “He’s a very talented and capable person, but his path to ascendency is to take them further right than they already are, and in order for them to win, they’ve got to be center-right.”
Doug Thornell, Democratic strategist and managing director at SKDKnickerbocker, echoed that message, arguing that a Cruz nomination “would be a catastrophe for the Republican Party.”
“He would be an anvil around the necks of House and Senate Republicans,” Thornell said. “He’s toxic. People see him as a destructive force who doesn’t want to see Washington work, and would shut the place down.”
The 44-year-old Cruz, the first candidate to jump into the still-growing GOP primary field, has been a quickly rising force in national politics, carving out a conservative niche.
His insistence that an ObamaCare repeal be a part of a government spending package contributed to the 2013 shutdown, and his hard line on issues as diverse as immigration reform and abortion have made him a darling of the Tea Party. But many Republicans are wary of Cruz, saying that he has damaged the GOP brand.
Several political action committees supporting Cruz have raked in tens of millions of dollars already this year. And Cruz’s campaign got a boost last week when four Texas Republicans — Reps. Louie Gohmert, Michael Burgess, John Culberson and John Ratcliffe — endorsed his presidential bid.
Still, establishment Republicans, perhaps acknowledging Cruz’s polarizing nature, have been much more reluctant to get on board. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said he’s looking for a presidential nominee “who can unite our party and not divide it.”
“A lot of us are tired of this division going on,” McCaul said Thursday at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington. “I like more a Reagan-type person who can bring the party together and the country, and not be a polarizing, divisive figure.”
Democrats know that Cruz is not the favorite to win the GOP primary. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Bush at the top, with Cruz tied for fifth.
Still, political strategists say Cruz could do well in the Iowa caucuses and seize momentum. A recent Quinnipiac University poll had Walker leading Iowa, with Cruz in fourth place and Bush in seventh.
A former House Democrat, noting Cruz’s role in fueling the 2013 government shutdown, said the freshman Texas senator would be a godsend for the Democrats.
“He’s polarizing enough that he would really stimulate the Democratic base,” the former lawmaker said on background. “And he’s controversial enough in the Republican Party that it would disquiet the Chamber of Commerce wing and deaden the Republican turnout.”
Not all Democrats agree. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) said he’s concerned that the fellow Texan would energize Republicans in a way that Mitt Romney simply didn’t in 2012. And Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) offered a similar message, arguing that turnout in states like his “is the whole game.”
“In Florida, there’s the blue team, there’s the red team, and everyone knows which team they’re on. It’s that simple. So the only question is: Can you get your people to vote?” Grayson said. “The more effective Republican presidential candidate will be the one who can motivate the base.”
Martin Matishak, Bernie Becker and Peter Schroeder contributed.

Still think that college is a waste...............................

Skills, not wealth, drive U.S. income inequality

Education, especially at an early age, leads to college and higher wages

Howard Gold

As soon as it was published just over a year ago, Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century” became the most influential book on economics since the turn of the millennium.
The dense, nearly 700-page tome, which used decades of data from many countries, spent 22 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and was named the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year. It intensified an already red-hot debate on economic inequality.
The facts are clear: The top 1% of U.S. households takes in more than twice as big a share of income as it did in 1979, while middle-class incomes have stagnated since the mid-1990s. The debate is over what causes this growing divide and what to do about it.
Piketty argued that wealth itself, especially inherited wealth, gives the rich advantages that only increase over time. His now famous equation (r>g) states that return on capital exceeds economic growth, so that capital keeps accumulating, like a perpetual-motion machine, deepening the divide between the wealthy and everyone else. He advocated a progressive global wealth tax to correct the imbalance.

In 2013, college graduates earned 98% more an hour than high-school grads, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

But the U.S. gave him problems. Unlike his native France, he found that “the unprecedented increase in wage inequality explains most of the increase in U.S. income inequality” (Italics added.)
And what drives wage inequality?
“Over the long run, education and technology are the decisive determinants of wage levels,” Piketty conceded. “If inequality is to decrease, … the supply of new skills must increase even more rapidly, especially for the least well-educated.” (I wrote more about this topic here.)
Unfortunately, Piketty’s preoccupation with inheritance caused him to miss much deeper causes: The principal transmission vehicle for income inequality in the developed world, particularly the U.S., is educational wealth, which goes hand in hand with affluence.
The advantage of a college degree has grown considerably over the past three decades, and those who don’t have one have fallen further behind.
In the 2000s, automation and offshoring eliminated 5.7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs that used to provide middle-class incomes to high-school grads.
In their place, people who don’t have college degrees increasingly have taken low-wage or part-time jobs.

In 2013, college graduates earned 98% more an hour than high-school grads, according to the Economic Policy Institute. There’s a steeper wage premium for those who have advanced degrees, particularly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

Getting even to the college level, however, is much more difficult for young people who are not “bathed in cognitive and financial resources” from the very beginning, as the University of Chicago’s Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman put it.
Children who have educated parents have nearly an insurmountable edge in acquiring human capital, the principal currency of an information economy.
Only 20,000 of the 70,000 top-scoring low-income students in the U.S. even bother to apply to top colleges, Richard Sander of UCLA School of Law found.
“Students from the wealthiest families outscored those from the poorest by just shy of 400 points” on Scholastic Aptitude Tests, The Wall Street Journal reported.
And it’s not just test prep; children of educated parents get enrichment programs from music lessons to summer camp from their toddler years on. They go to better schools in safer neighborhoods, have many after-school activities, get tutoring when they need it, and have knowledgeable college-admissions counselors.
So it’s no surprise that Sean Reardon of Stanford found that “the gap between rich and poor children’s math and reading achievement scores is now much larger than it was 50 years ago.”
A famous study by Betty Hart and Todd Risley from the University of Kansas found that “by age 3, a poor child would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family, … so a language deficit is passed down through generations.”

Researchers recently found that children who grow up in families whose annual income was less than $25,000 a year had brain surfaces that were 6% smaller than those of kids whose families earned $150,000 or more.
And unfortunately, concluded James Heckman and University of Chicago colleague Stefano Mosso,
“To our knowledge there is no evidence of full recovery from initial disadvantage.” (Italics added.)
On a more hopeful note, however, Heckman wrote: “High-quality early education can be an equalizing factor.”
Some universal pre-K programs and early-intervention experiments like those in Providence, R.I., have shown promise in narrowing that critical gap.
But now, more than ever, knowledge is power. Passing critical skills from one educated generation to the next confers as sure an advantage in the 21st century as land and titles did in Piketty’s native France in the 19th. By focusing so intently on inherited wealth rather than education as the root of economic inequality, Piketty missed the forest for the trees — and the path to solutions that might really work.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

San Diego is about to get hosed by the Chargers and the NFL

A high-pressure sales tactic means taxpayers will foot most of the bill for a new stadium

Citizens Stadium Advisory Group

Here's what a waste of $1.1 billion looks like.

JasonNotte

Columnist

San Diego, please don’t be as dumb as this Chargers stadium plan is making you look.
Your tax-free stadium is going to end up with public money one way or another.
Years of griping about Qualcomm Stadium from the Spanos family of owners and some screw-turning from the NFL, which refused to award San Diego another Super Bowl until the Chargers updated their 1967-vintage facility, had previously yielded only chuckles from San Diego. A string of mayors and city councils refused to pay a dime of public money toward a new facility while a family with 10 figures of net worth held its hand out.
However, the Spanos clan did the unthinkable and partnered with the Chargers’ AFC West rival Oakland Raiders on a proposed $1.7 billion facility in Carson, Calif., that was approved in April. That’s when San Diego began losing its nerve. Rushed by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s own Los Angeles stadium proposal and pressured by NFL representatives to get an offer on the table, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and his stadium planning committee announced plans for a $1.1 billion stadium that “won’t raise taxes.” San Diego, please read the fine print on this plan.
While the Los Angeles Times pulled out the pom-poms and swiped some choreography from Bring It On for its enthusiastic A-N-N-O-U-N-C-E-M-E-N-T of the new stadium plan, it glossed over the fact that the Chargers and the NFL would be responsible for only $500 million of those costs. Oh, and the Chargers still feel they’re “being asked to contribute far more than other NFL teams have been required to pay when their stadiums were built.” Meanwhile, the project requires $173 million in bonds, $121 million from San Diego, $121 million from San Diego County, an estimated $100 million from ticket surcharges and seat licenses, and the city’s $225 million sale of the Qualcomm Stadium site to a developer.
Though the proposed plan asks the Chargers to pay $1 million per game in rent ($8 million per year, more during playoff years), the “won’t raise taxes” portion of this deal is very much in doubt. Just ask the good people of Indianapolis and Indiana. They forked over 86% of the $720 million cost of the Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium before it opened in 2008 and borrowed money from Goldman Sachs GS, +1.39% for a bond sale to cover the cost and minimize the tax burden. However, as Bloomberg discovered, the group in charge of those bonds just paid Goldman $71 million to get out of that bond deal after an interest-rate-swap scheme went sour. As a result, hotel, restaurant and rental-car taxes that were already being used to pay stadium costs had to be increased.
NFL stadiums have soaked up an average of $250 million in public funding apiece since the mid-1990s. Harvard University urban planning professor Judith Grant Long notes that municipal or state land, lost property taxes from that land, infrastructure and annual maintenance all tack on about 25% to the cost of an NFL facility. The least the NFL can do is offer the public a say in that spending, but the NFL has rammed Los Angeles stadiums through local government without a vote and is squeezing politicians in St. Louis, Oakland and San Diego to avoid a public vote on tax money for stadiums, citing expediency.
There is no way San Diego should let this go down without a vote. Faulconer has promised one for November and a two-thirds vote would be required for approval. The NFL, knowing it doesn’t have the votes for this and that few taxpayers would agree to such a lopsided deal, sent Executive VP Eric Grubman to San Diego to declare the vote “risky.”
Take that risk. It’s your tax money and your city, San Diego. While folks in Seattle know that a public vote doesn’t always mean public money won’t go into a stadium, they also know it’s about the best tool the taxpayer has to negotiate terms. If the fourth estate would rather play cheerleader than look out for your interest, look out for you own and force a vote. If the NFL and the Spanos clan don’t like it, they know where I-5 is. Good luck getting to L.A. before the Rams and Raiders, though.

Hot at the Hillary Store

Hot at the Hillary Store: 'The Everyday Pantsuit Tee'

Hillary Clinton’s newly launched campaign store is hawking the usual assortment of yard signs, tchotchkes and tees, along with a few personal touches.
For $30, Clinton supporters can buy “The Everyday Pantsuit Tee,” a red shirt with a screen-printed suit and Hillary pin on the front. On the back of the shirt: “Pantsuit Up.”

“Pantsuit bottoms not included,” the description says.
The Democratic front-runner’s campaign is also selling a $55 throw pillow, with the phrase “A Woman’s Place is in the White House” stitched on it, along with the ubiquitous campaign logo.
“The perfect touch for any home, whether it’s 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or simply Pennsylvania,” the description reads.
The people modeling the merchandise aren’t professionals; they’re Hillary for America staffers (and one staffer’s baby).
Clinton is not the first presidential candidate to get in on the novelty campaign items. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s campaign is selling a variety of cheeky items, including four products specifically targeting the former secretary of state. For $99.95, Paul backers can buy “Hillary’s Hard Drive,” as well as “Liberty Not Hillary” bumper stickers, T-shirts. Paul, an ophthalmologist by training, is also offering an eye chart featuring the slogan.
Both campaign stores tout that their products are made in the United States.

Amnesty ruling in favor of Texas

Federal appeals court deals blow to President Obama’s amnesty

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Updated: 2:27 p.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2015A federal appeals court upheld an injunction against President Obama’s new deportation in a ruling Tuesday that marks the second major legal setback for an administration that had insisted its actions were legal.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Texas, which had sued to stop the amnesty, on all key points, finding that Mr. Obama’s amnesty likely broke the law governing how big policies are to be written.“The public interest favors maintenance of the injunction,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion.

Mr. Obama had acted in November to try to grant tentative legal status and work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants, saying he was tired of waiting for Congress to act.
The full amnesty had been scheduled to begin last week, while an earlier part had been slated to accept applications on Feb. 18. But just two days before that, Judge Andrew S. Hanen issued his injunction finding that Mr. Obama had broken the law.
Judge Stephen A. Higginson dissented from Tuesday’s ruling, saying he would have left the fight over immigration policy to the White House and Congress, saying Mr. Obama should have broad discretion to decide who gets deported and how he goes about that.

Just Higginson also said the fight was a political battle, not a legal one
“The political nature of this dispute is clear from the names on the briefs: hundreds of mayors, police chiefs, sheriffs, attorneys general, governors, and state legislators—not to mention 185 members of Congress, 15 states and the District of Columbia on the one hand, and 113 members of Congress and 26 states on the other,” he wrote.

Friday, May 22, 2015

20 million down, need another billion to finish it.

When I drive by the new unfinished VA facility in Aurora, I can no help to wonder what they were thinking. There is and was zero chance of building the facility for 328 million. The problem, it needs to be finished. Do we walk away and lose 880 million spent already or dump another billion into the project?

p.s. That doesn't include the equipment and furnishings in the building.

WASHINGTON — With only hours left to seal a deal, the U.S. House on Thursday passed legislation that would keep work going temporarily on a troubled VA hospital in Aurora that has seen its price tag balloon to $1.73 billion.
The measure passed by unanimous consent after less than 15 minutes of floor debate, an anticlimactic end to a flurry of negotiations in the lower chamber.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where supporters are hopeful — although not overconfident — it can pass in a similar fashion before the project hits a critical deadline this weekend.
As of 7 p.m. Eastern, the Senate had yet to agree to the bill.
Under the agreement, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Kiewit-Turner, the prime contractor for the project, would be allowed to spend about $20 million more on the Aurora facility. The extra cash is critical because the VA project is set to hit its spending cap next week — which would stop work at the site.
Congressional sources said the $20 million would be enough to continue work at the Aurora site for about three weeks. That gives lawmakers and the administration a little breathing room to hash out a long-term funding deal.
The two sides have been deadlocked for weeks on how to pay for cost overruns at the hospital campus. The VA has said it needs $830 million to finish it
The bill's rapid-fire passage in the House comes less than 24 hours after congressional leaders predicted the Aurora project was at risk of shutting down.
On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner ripped into the agency in a floor speech — a move Colorado lawmakers saw as a potential deal-killer for the hospital.
His rhetoric had faded some by Thursday morning, however, and Boehner issued a statement late in the day that talked about giving the VA a "chance to get its act together."
"Since VA leaders are clearly not willing to step up, the House is stepping in and allowing the project to go forward in the short-term using resources the VA already has," Boehner said. "Now the VA must lay out a long-term plan for completing the hospital responsibly using existing resources. This is more than fair."
For days, members of Colorado's congressional delegation said the biggest hurdle to getting a short-term deal was opposition among House leadership.
How exactly the delegation got Boehner to go from "no" to "yes" is unclear, although lawmakers and staffers described an all-out effort from local lawmakers.
U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner — a former House member — walked over to the lower chamber Wednesday night to personally lobby the Republican leadership team.
Meanwhile, his Democratic counterpart, Michael Bennet, reached out to the White House, and U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, made a final pitch to Boehner's staff Thursday morning.
Included in that pitch was a letter penned by Kiewit-Turner that warned of the potential cost of a work stoppage. Company executives wrote that a shutdown could add as much as $200 million to the $1.73 billion price tag and push its opening "well into 2018."
Kiewit-Turner estimated it would cost $50 million to $75 million to demobilize and remobilize the site in case of a shutdown. Worse, they wrote, would be the potential loss of subcontractors — an expense that could run as high as $125 million.
"Considering the strength of the current construction market in Denver, if another shutdown occurs, we believe many subcontractors may terminate their subcontracts and instead pursue other projects," noted Scott Cassels, president of Kiewit Infrastructure Group, and Peter J. Davoren, president and CEO of Turner Construction Co.
Work at the site was suspended in December because of a rift between the VA and Kiewit-Turner.
But even if the Senate agrees to the short-term measure, it doesn't mean the drama is over.
As soon as Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess, the clock will start ticking again on the need to find a way to fund the Aurora project to its completion.
Considering the entrenched positions of the VA and Congress — and the often-heated attacks between the sides — there remains the possibility of another short-term punt.
Speaking to that point, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, said he was happy Congress was working to avoid a shutdown, but that he was generally irked at the whole situation.
"I am not pleased it is only a two- to three-week window and that we are only kicking the can down the road at the expense of veterans and construction workers out there," he said.

Yet another double standard or just a plain old hypocrite?

Recent news of the Clintons’ $25 million jackpot in 2014 makes it tough for Hillary to push her core campaign theme with a straight face. Indeed, widespread laughter will greet her efforts to champion “everyday Americans” against those who allegedly make too much money.

“The deck is stacked for those at the top,” Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, not mentioning that her household income puts her in not just the top 1 percent of tax filers but the top 0.1 percent. “There’s something wrong when CEOs make 300 times more than the typical worker,” Clinton told Iowa voters last month.

“In 2013, CEOs of the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index companies received, on average, $11.7 million in total compensation, according to the AFL-CIO’s analysis of available data from 350 companies,” the mega-union reports. “While CEO pay remains in the stratosphere, production and nonsupervisory workers took home only $35,239, on average, in 2013.” The Clintons last year made more than double the earnings of a typical CEO. Even halving their joint income to $12.5 million puts each $800,000 ahead of the AFL-CIO’s average corporate villain.

Assuming a 2,080-hour work year, the AFL-CIO calculates that the average worker earned $16.94 per hour, while the typical CEO made $5,607 every hour. Shocking? The Clintons averaged $12,019 per hour, or $6,009 each.

USA Today also noted that “the Clintons appear to have put their homes in ‘residence trusts,’ a move that could reduce their estate taxes.” Here again, the Clintons seem to be cutting their tax exposure for when they enter that great real-estate scheme in the sky. That is perfectly legal. However, death-tax avoidance muffles the battle cries of someone who rails against the rich.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Republican Debate Pool and March Madness

As the Republican field for 2016 continues to grow — potentially including as many as 18 candidates by the time primary season begins — the obvious logistical difficulties of hosting an 18-candidate debate have become apparent. Even if the final count isn't quite that high, fitting this many people comfortably on the stage (not to mention letting them talk for more than 15 seconds at a time) will be tricky.
While a handful of solutions have been proposed, one particularly intriguing idea is to have a series of one-on-one debates organized like a March Madness bracket.

http://theweek.com/speedreads/556078/best-solution-crowded-gop-debate-pool-march-madnessstyle-bracket

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Call him a ‘socialist,’ but many Americans agree with Bernie Sanders.....Presidential candidate’s message is more powerful than the label

Really Louman a "fringe" candidate.....not so fast

By

DarrellDelamaide

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Is America ready for the “S” word?
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in Congress, is the only candidate so far to challenge Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination for president.
Sanders, who is 73 and has been in Congress nearly a quarter century, describes himself as a “democratic socialist.”

His message that there is too much concentration of wealth in this country at the expense of greater prosperity for all is certain to resonate.

Although Sanders won re-election to the Senate in 2012 with 71% of the vote in his state, it is, to say the least, not politically correct in this country to call yourself any kind of socialist.
John Nichols, a writer for The Nation, titled his 2011 book, “The ‘S’ Word: A Short History of an American Tradition…Socialism,” precisely because, he said, “it is the subject of daily derision, a derision that is at once more intense and more ignorant than at any point in the long history of the United States.”
That is due in no small part to the sharp right turn taken by the Republican Party and the steady stream of right-wing blather on radio and television, where “socialist” is used as shorthand for big government, welfare, high taxes, and any other nefarious policy Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts care to attach to it.
But it is also due to the residue of the long Cold War demonization of communism and the failure of centrally planned economies in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba, and China.
Of course, the Marxism-Leninism of those countries is only one strand of a progressive socialist tradition that also includes social democracy in its various forms, which is still a vital political force in most European countries — most prominently in Scandinavia.

Comfortable in the conviction that the U.S. is the biggest, strongest economy in the world with the highest standard of living, Americans have for decades tended to sneer at these European countries as inferior, bogged down economically by anti-business policies.
But it is slowly dawning on wide portions of the American public — crushed by stagnant wages, robbed of middle-class jobs by competition with low-wage countries, deprived of health care, burdened by student debt and the astronomical costs of a college education — that this supposed superiority of ours is no longer true, if it ever was.

And that’s just the middle class. The rapidly growing pool of families below the poverty line, forced to work two or three jobs at subsistence wages just to scrape by, is also waking up to the fact that the famous “American dream” is no longer theirs.
George Stephanopoulos, the ABC anchor whose career began as an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton in the 1990s, did a little sneering of his own recently when he interviewed Sanders on “This Week.”
“I can hear the Republican attack ad right now,” Stephanopoulos said after Sanders expounded on the benefits of universal health care, a living wage, free higher education, access to child care, guaranteed pensions and other benefits enjoyed in “socialist” countries. “He wants America to look more like Scandinavia.”
Sanders blinked away his astonishment and replied, “That’s right. That’s right. And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality? What’s wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, a higher minimum wage than we do, and they’re stronger on the environment?”
Even many of Sanders’ fans view his run for the presidency as quixotic — at best a chance to introduce some progressive thinking into the political debate and to push Clinton to the left on certain issues.
But a younger generation of American voters — unmarked by the Cold War and the red scare of the McCarthy era — is much more open to the appeal of socialism and its notion of a solidarity that provides a minimum of financial and social security to every citizen.
In a long article this month for American Prospect, Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College, cited a Pew poll finding that young Americans are about equally divided in their attitudes toward socialism and capitalism — with socialism even getting a slight edge.
Some 49% of 18-to-29 year olds had a positive view of socialism, Dreier noted, while 47% had a positive view of capitalism. And only 43% had a negative view of socialism, compared with 47% who were negative on capitalism.
Ultimately, it is the message more than the labels that will catch fire in this campaign. Whether Sanders is labeled a socialist, a democratic socialist, a social democrat, a progressive, a liberal, a populist — or is disparaged by critics as a pinko commie — his message that there is too much concentration of wealth in this country at the expense of greater prosperity for all is certain to resonate.
Citing polls from Pew, Associated Press, Huffington Post and Gallup, Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, said in a blog post last week that this could be Sanders’s moment.
“Sixty percent of Americans agree with him that the ‘economic system unfairly favors the rich,’” Borosage wrote. “Two-thirds of the American public think the rich pay too little in taxes. Two-thirds think CEO pay is too high. Three of four think climate change is a serious or very serious matter.”
In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Sanders says his unusual career in politics should make people wary of underestimating him. The “S” word he has in store for Clinton, the Democrats and the eventual Republican nominee may well be “Surprise!”

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Hillary Faces the Press

Foom Bloomberg News:

For the first time in a month, Hillary Clinton took questions from reporters Tuesday, saying she wants e-mails that are at the heart of a controversy on Capitol Hill released as soon as possible.

"I want them out as soon as they can get out," she said.

The brief session with reporters followed a roundtable in Iowa, where she was asked about another question dogging her campaign: where she stands on the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement. She said she's withholding judgement until she sees the final deal.

Clinton's comments come after 29 days in which she took no questions from the press, a stretch that earned criticism from potential Republican rivals and also the media. Even one Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, urged her to hold a news conference.

Her request for a quick release of the emails, sent from a personal server while she was secretary of state and turned over to the State Department when their existence was revealed, coincided with a federal district court judge ordering the department to move more quickly on their release.

So far, fewer than 300 of some 30,000 emails have been turned over to congressional investigators. The State Department has proposed a review that could take until January. But U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, rejected that on Tuesday afternoon, telling the department to release the emails more quickly, as soon as they are reviewed.

In Iowa, Clinton told reporters that she wants a faster release schedule too, expressing a hope that the agency she once headed will "please move as quickly as they possibly can."

She also addressed questions over the appropriateness of her e-mail exchanges with Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime associate, about Libya while she was secretary of state.

"When you're in the public eye, when you're in an official position, I think you do have to work to make sure you're not caught in a bubble and you only hear from a certain small group of people," she said. "I'm going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are."

Parity

Why is it the Democrats (Rick) scream instead of telling us what you won't do, tell us what you will do. (Rick as you previously stated you would never vote for a non democrat) Why do you care? Just want to hammer away at the opposing party?

Where's the beef? Why don't you ask the same of your own party?

Bama or Hilly could nuc Texas and you would justify their actions. While many of the rights candidates are unacceptable at least the right offer options while the left has Hillary or Hilly or possibly Clinton. The left has many potential candidates (Jim Webb) yet they remain in hiding afraid of the Clinton machine.

"My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." - John F. Kennedy

Perhaps it's time for the people on the left to go back to their past.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Worst Governor in the United States

Florida Governor Rick Scot has shown himself to be totally incompetent, with a state wide popularity of 20 percent or less. Now he has suggested a government shut down since the budget can't be agreed on between the Senate and the House. While the legislators were agonizing over the budget, Scot was attending the grand opening of a Wawa gas station. He sued the Federal Government over a program which had already been canceled. He even lied over his own mother's grave. Read this if you have a strong stomach: http://theweek.com/articles/555354/rick-scott-lied-mothers-grave--blew-hole-gops-antiobamacare-argument

Here's another Repub in the field

Lindsey Graham: ‘I’m running’ because the world is falling apart

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sen. Lindsey Graham is waiting until June 1 to officially announce whether he’s running for president, but made his intentions clear in an interview on Monday morning.
“I’m running because of what you see on television, I’m running because I think the world is falling apart,” said Graham, a South Carolina Republican, on “CBS This Morning.”
Graham, known as a hawk on national security, was asked on the program if he was running because he doesn’t think other Republicans in the 2016 field are sophisticated on foreign policy.
Graham said he’s been more right than wrong on foreign policy and added: “It’s not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that, that makes me want to run. It’s my ability in my own mind to be a good commander-in-chief and to make Washington work.”
He cited “radical Islam” as one issue he wants to tackle.

Graham, a third-term senator, will make an announcement on June 1 in Central, S.C.
Graham would join a crowded field of contenders seeking the GOP nomination, and is a long-shot candidate. In the latest average of polls about the nomination from RealClearPolitics, Graham ties for last place with former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, who has declared her candidacy, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has not. Each gets 1.3% support. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush leads the field with 15.4%.
Analyst Greg Valliere of Potomac Research Group says Graham could win the South Carolina primary, but doesn’t see him going the distance. “He won’t be the GOP nominee, but Graham can keep the party plenty hawkish,” Valliere wrote in a note Monday.

The Republicans’ dumb ‘no bailout’ pledge

Each of these presidents backed bailouts.

PaulBrandus

Columnist

One of the dumber ideas making the rounds of the Republican campaign for president is the “no bailouts” pledge that GOP candidates are being asked to endorse. Along the lines of the “no tax” pledge made famous by Grover Norquist, the self-proclaimed enforcer of electoral pain to any Republican violator, the concept of this latest pledge presumes that bailouts—like taxes—inflict more economic harm than good.
This is debatable, but first two broader points: 1) in times of crisis--economic or otherwise--savvy politicians always keep their options open, and 2) taxpayers elect politicians to protect their interests. Which helps explain why Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (also Democrat Jimmy Carter) backed bailouts of everything from banks, defense contractors, automakers, the housing industry and airlines long before the economic meltdown of a decade ago caused the second President Bush and Barack Obama to bail many of them out again.
Each of these five Republican and two Democratic presidents understood that preventing further economic disruption, including massive job losses, transcended today’s Republican insistence that politicians must adhere to rigid political dogma and do nothing.

Ronald Reagan’s son Michael today acknowledges that his dad—who signed off on multiple tax hikes during his presidency —couldn’t win the Republican nomination today for president. It was the Gipper himself who said, in his first Inaugural address “How can we love our country and not love our countrymen; and loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they’re sick, and provide opportunity to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory?”
Make people equal? Reagan almost sounds like a socialist.
I’ll go back even further in time and say that even Abraham Lincoln might be drummed out of today’s GOP. Abe had the nerve to say that Republicans “are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.”
Can you imagine any Republican daring to echo these words of Lincoln or Reagan today?
Words and dogma aside, Republican inflexibility on bailouts (and taxes) is also obtuse for two economic reasons. First: Why box yourself in policy-wise, when you don’t know what the next crisis will be like, or when it will occur? Few anticipated the subprime crisis of a decade ago, or the terror attacks of 9/11 that hurt the airlines. No one saw the accounting scandals (Worldcom, Enron), the meltdown of Long Term Capital Management in 1998, the 1989 savings and loan crisis, Continental Illinois five years before that, and on and on. They were all different. In the face of such uncertainty, saying ahead of time what you won’t do is just plain dumb. It’s like a surgeon announcing ahead of time that he won’t administer any blood transfusions to a patient who’s bleeding from an accident.
Republicans think the world is binary: Things are either good or bad. In the real world, things are a tad more complex. And if you look at government intervention by past Republican presidents—again, all the way back to Nixon—the results from past bailouts have been better than the current, simplistic thinking implies.
The second reason is this: since the past has shown that it’s impossible to predict when or in what form the next financial crisis will erupt—and there will surely be one—why take one remedy off the table when there are so few others at your disposal?

Here’s the question for Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Walker, et al.: Instead of saying what you won’t do, what will you do? If we had another meltdown and bailouts are out, what’s left? How would you stimulate the economy? Bailouts are out, OK. But we can’t cut rates—the Fed Funds rate has been near zero since December 2008. Stimulus spending? That’s out as well.
This suggests that rather than do what every Republican president of the past 40 years has done—minimize pain to the citizenry (i.e. voters)—they’d let the market take its course, and let the chips fall where they may. The presumption that the Bush bailouts (Fannie/Freddie in August 2008, TARP in October 2008 and the beginning of the auto bailouts in December 2008) or the Obama stimulus (February 2009) made things worse than letting the economy crater is just ivory tower rubbish. It may sound good in a quick soundbite to TV viewers, but in the real world, it’s just plain dumb.
There was one Republican president who, in the face of an economic meltdown, thought that keeping the government largely on the sidelines was the way to go. That stubbornness didn’t work out too well for Herbert Hoover—or the economy. Four years after the stock market crash of October 1929, one in four Americans were out of work, millions list their homes, and living standards plunged.
A little flexibility and willingness to deviate from stubborn dogma might have helped. Instead, Hoover thought it best to let market conditions run their course. The only thing that was run was Hoover himself—out of office the first chance voters got. Much to the chagrin of Republicans, the next five presidential elections would be won by Democrats.
Republicans have already lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Their stubborn, inflexible talk, ignorance of history—including that of prior GOP presidents—could soon make it six out of seven.

The Horrifying stupidity continues..................................