Egregious slip threatens Perry’s race

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

An embarrassing brain freeze during the latest Republican presidential debate on Wednesday raised serious questions about Rick Perry’s chances in the race to win his party’s nomination to challenge U.S. President Barack Obama in 2012, the Washington Post reports. “It is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone,” the Texas governor said, laying out his plan to eliminate a number of U.S. government agencies. “Commerce, Education, and the — what’s the third one there? Let’s see,” Perry added. He was unable to recall the third agency. The governor later described his own performance as “embarrassing” in a later media appearance.

Youtube

The Washington Post

The media hates Obama?

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:44 PM - 14 Comments

The Pew Research Center released a survey of which U.S. candidates have received the most positive and negative coverage during the primary season so far, with Rick Perry and now Herman Cain getting particularly positive coverage and Newt Gingrich getting a particularly tough time. But the big news from the survey is this bit of information, which has people arguing over what exactly “positive” and “negative” means in this context: Continue…

Obama sticks to his jobs plan

By macleans.ca - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments

After seeing his jobs plan blocked in the Senate last week, U.S. president Barack Obama is trying to force feed it to Congress by slicing it into smaller parts. “Maybe they [Congress] just couldn’t understand the whole all at once. So we’re going to break it up into bite-size pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation,” he told a cheering crowd on Monday during a campaign-style tour of North Carolina and Virginia, two key swing states in the 2012 presidential election. This week, for starters, the Obama administration is preparing to push through Congress a measure to give states money to hire teachers, firefighters and police, one of the many proposals contained in the president’s original jobs plan. The strategy is aimed at jumpstarting the faltering economy as much as embarrassing Republicans for repeatedly blocking jobs bills in the run up to next year’s poll.  

Financial Times

Herman Cain is able

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, October 7, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 11 Comments

Danny Wilcox Frazier/Redux

Herman Cain is the rare presidential hopeful with a healthy sense of humour about himself. The former CEO of the Godfather’s Pizza chain recently quipped: “If you vote for me, America, I will deliver.”

Now Cain is becoming less of a punch-line. He has soared from barely registering in the polls to a tie for second place in the Republican race. The 65-year-old African-American businessman from Atlanta has drawn support away from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has ceded his front-runner status back to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

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A seven-point plan? Please. Mine has nine!

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

This week’s debate among Republican candidates for the U.S. presidency was sponsored by Tea Party Express, which sounds like something you’d find next to the Orange Julius but is in fact an umbrella organization for grassroots groups dedicated to the pursuit of low taxes, small government and—to judge from the debate audience—$8 haircuts.

Broadcast on CNN, the debate began with a display of the gravitas we’ve come to expect from American politics—a snazzy video montage in which each candidate was assigned a cute nickname. Michele Bachmann was introduced as The Firebrand. Newt Gingrich? The Big Thinker! One immediately lamented the absence of Sarah Palin, if only to discover which nickname she’d have been given. (The Little Thinker?)

The frontrunner in the Republican field is Rick Perry, who has the look of a man who’s just returned from hoodwinking J.R. Ewing in an oil deal. The Texas governor scored big with his opening line, in which he vowed to “make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.” He should consider hooking up with a specialist in making things inconsequential, such as the person who wrote the final four seasons of Entourage.

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Republicans capture Anthony Wiener’s NY seat

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 12:49 PM - 1 Comment

U.S. Democrats lost a New York stronghold for the first time since the 1920s on Tuesday as a Congressional seat vacated by Anthony Weiner fell to a Republican challenger. Weiner resigned his seat in June after admitting he sent nude pictures of himself to women on Twitter. His district, which includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn, had been been Democratic for nearly 90 years. Republican Bob Turner won the seat over David Weprin, a state assemblyman, in a special election held Tuesday.

Reuters

Rick Perry: number one with a bullet

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 3 Comments

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Barack Obama’s approval ratings of 43 per cent are the lowest of his presidency—as low as George W. Bush’s in his second term. The number of net new jobs the gasping American economy created in August was exactly zero. And on a sunny afternoon in a meticulously manicured suburb of Manchester, N.H., a state that plays a key role in picking presidents, several hundred Republican voters have gathered to hear from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the man who has vaulted to the lead of a raucous race to oust the President. The crowd skews somewhat grey-haired and more than a little country-clubby. Men sport khakis and button-downs, the women tailored dresses and high heels. Tidy white golf carts shuttle guests from their cars to a white tent that has been set up on grounds studded with American flags.

Even among this well-heeled group there is fear about where the country is headed—financially, politically, and even metaphysically. “The country, the people have lost their faith,” says Joyce Gardiner, a 68-year-old retired marketer from Londonderry. “Obama,” she purses her lips, “is inept.” James Shephard, 57, who says he lost his job at a plant that manufactured bomb-disposal equipment, is here to take pictures of the event for a Tea Party group he recently joined. “The vice is squeezing tighter and tighter,” he says. “People say they have to do something before the boat goes over the cliff.”

A murmur of excitement runs through the crowd as the governor arrives. Perry is tanned, square-jawed and sporting the salt-and-pepper mane that gave him the nickname Governor Goodhair. Along with his blue shirt and khakis, he sports some Texas flair: black ostrich leather shoes and a gold-tipped belt bearing a buckle embossed with a large “R.” Perry smiles broadly with a wink here, a thumbs-up there, as a glowing introduction is read out: the son of tenant farmers, Air Force veteran, still married to his high school sweetheart, and governor of the state that created 40 per cent of all the new jobs in America since 2009. “A person of action,” sums up the host. Perry takes the podium with the swagger of a man who has been governor for a decade (he took over when George W. Bush moved to the White House), who has never lost an election (he switched his affiliation from the Democrats to Republicans in the 1980s as they ascended in Texas), and who carries a concealed weapon (the .380 laser-sighted Ruger came in handy last year when, while jogging, he shot and killed a coyote who threatened the family dog.)

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Ad campaign—or slander?

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 11:43 AM - 5 Comments

Bill Clark/Getty Images

What’s the line between a negative political ad and actionable slander? Former U.S. congressman Steve Driehaus is trying to find out. The Ohio Representative, a pro-life Democrat, lost his seat in 2010 due in part to ads in his district attacking his vote for President Obama’s health care plan: the ads called the plan “taxpayer-funded abortion.” Now, Driehaus is suing the independent group that placed the ads, the Susan B. Anthony List, “because I think the truth matters.”

Throughout the controversy over “Obamacare,” many groups argued that the bill would indirectly lead to the funding of abortion, even though Obama issued an executive order ruling out such funding. The Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group, argues that its ads represented a valid interpretation of the law’s effects and were therefore “protected opinion.” But last week, a federal judge ruled that Driehaus has standing to sue the SBA because “the express language” of the health care bill “does not provide for taxpayer-funded abortion. That is a fact, and it is clear on its face.”

If other politicians follow Driehaus’s lead, some fear a chilling effect on independent advocacy groups, which have been amping up their ad spending since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted restraints on political advertising. Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA president, told a reporter she worries that free speech may be imperiled. Driehaus’s attorney Paul De Marco retorted that liars can’t “hide behind the First Amendment.” Whatever the case, if the SBA and similar groups are concerned about possible lawsuits, attack ads may be a little less hostile in 2012—good news for Democrats like Driehaus.

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How politics have come to dominate the debt ceiling debate

By John Parisella - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 4:43 PM - 38 Comments

Even though we have heard countless references and discussions about the risks associated with rising the US debt ceiling, we should not be surprised that there is still no deal as the supposed deadline of August 2 looms. The debate over a compromise solution has become so politicized both sides are now hardening their positions rather than looking for compromises.

The Republicans have staked their positions: no new taxes and massive spending cuts, in particular to entitlement programs. The presence of a vocal and uncompromising Tea Party contingent makes it difficult for the more moderate Speaker of the House, John Boehner, to deliver votes on a compromise deal with Barack Obama. Consequently, the odds of an historic deal between Obama and the Republicans appear very remote. Continue…

Ron Paul to run for president

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 11:53 AM - 0 Comments

Texas Representative Ron Paul will run for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, he announced Friday. Paul, 75, first ran for the presidency as a Libertarian in 1988; this will mark his third attempt. “Time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years. So, I think the time is right,” said Paul, who is known as “Dr. No” on Capitol Hill for bashing runaway spending and government overreach. He is the second Republican to announce his candidacy—former House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced he is running for the 2012 nomination via Twitter on Wednesday.

CBC News

What Ben Bernanke's media rendez-vous really means

By Erica Alini - Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 5:40 PM - 4 Comments

As Econowatch readers probably already know, yesterday marked a historic event in Federal Reserve annals: Ben Bernanke fielded questions from reporters in the first of what will now be regular meet-the-press events to be held four times a year.

The general consensus among the 60-something journalists the Fed managed to fit in the top-floor conference room of its Washington headquarters was that Big Ben managed an impressively unremarkable performance. There were no slips of the tongue, and absolutely no novelties.

Bernanke “mostly retraced familiar ground,” wrote the New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum. He “avoided saying anything yesterday at his first press conference that shocked or confused investors. In other words, economists said, his appearance was a success,” quipped Scott Lanman and Steve Matthews, reporting for Bloomberg. Continue…

A 'historic' deal between Obama and Congress? Hardly.

By John Parisella - Monday, April 11, 2011 at 4:50 PM - 17 Comments

The similarities between sports and politics are almost always most apparent at the end of a battle. The only things missing from last Friday’s celebrations after the budget deal, for instance, were high fives, a Gatorade shower, and champagne. Obama correctly hailed it as good for the country, Harry Reid called it historic, and John Boehner was being described as a near miracle worker by his caucus. True, a government shutdown was averted. But is this really an historic achievement? The voter might very well disagree.

The assembly of the deal was anything but endearing, as partisan considerations held sway for the past 10 days. While the result was acceptable, the process was messy. This does not augur well for the next two battles—the vote on raising the debt ceiling due between the end of May and early July, and the budget battle for 2011-2012. The stakes will be just as high and will only get higher the election draws closer. Continue…

Government shutdown looms as U.S. budget talks enter final minutes

By macleans.ca - Friday, April 8, 2011 at 5:38 PM - 2 Comments

Budget talks in the U.S. enter their final minutes on Friday as a government shutdown deadline approaches, with Democrats and Republicans unable to come to a compromise over federal spending cuts, particularly in the area of women’s health. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that while both sides had agreed to $38-billion in spending cuts, they were unable to come to a consensus on federal funding for abortion. “This has been a moving target but now we’ve come to realize that the moving target is now focused on a bull’s eye on women in America,” said Reid. Republicans, led by House Speaker John Boehner, have been pressured by the conservative Tea Party movement to secure at least $60-billion in spending cuts, but Democrats, who initially accepted only $33-billion in cuts, say the amount demanded by the Republicans would hinder U.S. economic growth. Should talks stall and the government shut down, 800,000 government employees, including U.S. troops, would have their pay suspended. The last government shutdown happened in 1995, when the Republican Congress led by Newt Gingrich, in a dispute with President Bill Clinton, forced a 20-day shutdown.

BBC News

In Egypt and Libya, the U.S. is opting for diplomacy first

By John Parisella - Monday, March 7, 2011 at 9:12 AM - 4 Comments

The coming March 20 will mark the 8th year anniversary of the second Iraq war. While combat operations have been scaled back, the presence of American troops on Iraqi soil is not about to end soon. Listening to the cable news pundits debate how Obama should respond to Tunisia and Egypt—and lately Libya—you would think very little has been learned either there or in Afgghanistan.

The events in Libya are more complicated because of the violent repression, but they show the administration has resisted a march to war. Compare the comments of current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to those of Donald Rumsfeld in the buildup to the war in Iraq, and you will see the U.S. will now exhaust all the diplomatic efforts before ever engaging militarily. And well it should.

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Expect more Wisconsins

By John Parisella - Friday, February 25, 2011 at 7:04 PM - 63 Comments

The battle lines over public sector wages and benefits are being drawn in the state of Wisconsin and there is every indication the outcome will be messy. At issue is how government employees affect public finances. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker not only wishes to tackle this issue, but has gone a step further in wanting to permanently change how the state will conduct collective bargaining in the future.

Unions see this as a full frontal attack on the labour movement. The fact 36 per cent of union members work in the public sector, while only 7 per cent work in the private sector has made this an easy Republican versus Democratic battle about the role and size of government.

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In honour of Presidents Day

By John Parisella - Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 9:32 PM - 12 Comments

Every third monday in February, the U.S. celebrates a national holiday honouring George Washington and his successors as president. The presidency was not originally meant to be the most important elected office in the world. The separation of powers between the exceutive and legislative (Congress) branches made sure that American Revolution would not replace a royal monarch with a civil one. Also, at the time of the founding Constitution, the new nation was far from being the superpower it would become less than 200 years later. Yet, no one today would dispute that the American president, despite the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution, is the most consequential political actor in the world.

Whether it is FDR announcing direct U.S. involvement in WWII after Pearl Harbour, Truman dropping the bomb at Hiroshima to end the war, JFK confronting the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis and deciding to launch the program to put a man on the moon, Nixon going to China, Reagan telling the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall, or Bush choosing to go to war after 9/11, a president’s decisions can go a long way to steer the course of history. As a Canadian living in the United States, I choose to honour this February 21st holiday by highlighting those inspirational presidents who made an impact on me and otherwise made a significant contribution to improve the human condition:

-Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery;
-Franklin D. Roosevelt for social security;
-Lyndon B. Johnson for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, as well as Medicare, Medicaid and the War on Poverty;
- and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton for active, inspiring and productive post-presidencies.

I know there have been many other significant presidencies and they deserve to be highlighted. It is also too early to draw conclusions on the current presidency of Barack Obama (although healthcare reform, if it lasts, and the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will be historic). Fifteen presidents governed a nation that condoned slavery, and women did not have the right to vote until the 28th president. But the rhetoric and vision of Jefferson and Adams, as well as the contributions of Andrew Jackson, have contributed to making Presidents Day a worthwhile celebration.

Tough presidential decisions have been made in the course of history around the world that have improved the lot of many in the world. Overall, the two-party system has produced men (and, hopefully soon, women) of stature, though only few of true greatness out of the 44 who have served.

What is truly inspiring and worth honouring this President’s’ Day is the stability and vibrancy of the world’s most successful democracy, and the importance of role the occupants of the office of the presidency have played in building it. Happy Presidents Day to my American friends.

America's out-of-control spending problem

By Jason Kirby - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 9:11 AM - 63 Comments

Pablo Martinez Monsivias/EPA/Keystone press

Standing before Congress and 43 million TV viewers last week for his state of the union address, President Barack Obama reached half a century into the past to convey the challenges facing his country in the future. “This,” he said, “is our generation’s Sputnik moment.” But if the space race, kicked off by Sputnik’s launch in 1957, was the signature challenge of a generation, it’s the rebuilding of American economic might that is the challenge now. And the enemy isn’t the Soviets, it’s the country’s towering mountain of debt: US$14 trillion and counting.

Whether Obama’s speech writers realized it or not, something else quite remarkable happened in 1957 that, while long forgotten, is far more relevant to the debt debate today. That year America balanced its books for the second year in a row. It would mark the last time the U.S. would post back-to-back budget surpluses. Instead, the U.S. has sunk deeper into debt with every passing year, save two rare exceptions: 1961 and 2001, when the dot-com bubble artificially boosted tax revenue that year.

For half a century America has lived far beyond its means. In the same way overextended households, which recklessly used the equity in their homes as ATM machines, finally collapsed under the weight of their mortgages and triggered the Great Recession, the U.S. has mortgaged its future to pay for wars, lavish health care and social security programs, government employee pensions and ever lower taxes. But many economists believe there’s a limit to how long Washington can go on borrowing before it faces a sovereign debt crisis of its own, plunging markets into chaos and triggering a crisis that will make the Great Recession look like a minor stumble. We’re already seeing several heavily indebted U.S. states like Illinois, California and New Jersey pushed to the brink—New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has talked openly about the state going “bankrupt.”

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Why Ronald Reagan is still relevant

By John Parisella - Saturday, February 5, 2011 at 12:08 PM - 22 Comments

I did not share most of his politics, but I can acknowledge that Ronald Reagan was the most significant U.S. president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He brought conservatism into the mainstream and many of his politics did much to prepare America for the challenges of the next century. The man had his flaws, but he bonded with his people and his memory does not diminish with the years.

To Republicans, he embodies character, vision, and greatness. While he swept to office as the most ideologically driven president in a half-century, he governed in a most pragmatic way. Most notably, his conservative mantra of balanced budgets and reducing the size of government quickly gave way to compromise and incrementalism. By the time he left office, Reagan had never balanced a budget and defence spending grew as never before under his watch.

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Republicans take control of the House

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 4 Comments

Two months after the “shellacking” of the Obama administration by voters in last November’s midterm elections, Rep. John A. Boehner was sworn in as the 61st speaker of the House on Wednesday. Republicans have promised a bold policy agenda, vowing to cut spending, lower taxes, and repeal Obama’s historic health care reform law. Yet despite the significant amount of political clout he commands upon arrival, with an energized Republican base and Obama’s economic policies under fire, Boehner still faces a tough balancing act within his own party. The Tea Party candidates that helped the Republicans take the House in November have vowed to bring radical “grassroots” change to Washington, which could spark conflicts with the GOP establishment. Add the possibility of more legislative gridlock from a Democratically-controlled Senate, and it could prove to be a long time before either party can deliver on the mantra of change in Washington.

New York Times

What to look for in U.S. politics in 2011

By John Parisella - Thursday, December 30, 2010 at 12:34 PM - 20 Comments

What will a New Year in Washington, D.C. bring? In a phrase: more politics than ever.

It is true this year will end on a bipartisan note. But with the arrival in Washington of a contingent of Tea Partiers, watch for a lot of Congressional posturing. Despite their long-standing affinity for each other, Tea Partiers will test the leadership skills and patience of House Speaker John Boehner as the Republicans try to find a viable political platform. Will the GOP stick to an agenda of smaller government which they promised under Reagan and Bush, but failed to deliver? Will they tackle the hard issues of entitlement and defense spending? Can the GOP retain its pro-free trade stance in the face of the Tea Party’s isolationist tendencies?

The Democrats, meanwhile, are still licking their wounds from the mid-terms, and the party’s liberal-progressive wing is still smarting from the deal on the Bush tax cuts. Are they prepared to tackle reforms to the types of social programs that are dear to their liberal-progressive roots? And even though Barack Obama ended on a relatively high note, with polls showing some rebound at the end of the year, can he carry the remainder of his agenda forward with a divided Congress and Republicans eyeing the White House?

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President Obama signs 'Don't ask, don't tell' repeal

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 10:29 AM - 17 Comments

Finally fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise, President Barack Obama signed a landmark law repealing the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the armed services. However, the policy will not end overnight: service chiefs must complete implementation plans before lifting the old law, and they must prove that it won’t damage combat readiness, as critics believe it will. In any case, the signing ceremony was a breakthrough moment for the nation’s gay community, the military and for Obama. The president vowed during his 2008 campaign to repeal the law and faced pressure from liberals who complained he was not acting swiftly enough. “No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie, or look over their shoulder in order to serve the country that they love,” Obama said.

Bloomberg

Raise taxes now, cut them later

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, December 20, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 24 Comments

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Announcing he had reached a deal with the Republicans to extend the tax cuts enacted under his predecessor, President Barack Obama extolled the virtues of compromise.

Yes, he had agreed to hold taxes at current levels, not only for those earning less than $200,000 ($250,000 for couples), as he had previously vowed, but for everyone, as the Republicans had insisted. But in return, he had obtained GOP agreement to extend eligibility for unemployment insurance for another 13 months to those whose benefits would otherwise have run out.

Or in other words, the two sides agreed that, in exchange for taking in less revenue, they would spend more of it. The cost of the agreement: an estimated $900 billion over two years, “to be financed,” as the New York Times reported, “entirely by adding to the national debt.” Amazing what can be done by people of goodwill, provided you leave the people who will actually pay for it all out of the negotiations.

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Former Republican House Majority Leader convicted of money laundering

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 2:10 PM - 0 Comments

Tom DeLay, a former leading figure among Texas Republicans, was convicted on Wednesday of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with a plan to illegally funnel $190,000 in corporate campaign donations to GOP candidates for the Texas Legislature in the 2002 elections. DeLay is now facing between five and 99 years behind bars for the money laundering conviction and two to 20 years for the conspiracy count. DeLay was first elected to Congress in 1984 and quickly rose through the Republican ranks to become U.S. House Majority Leader during the George W. Bush administration. DeLay resigned from the House of Representatives in 2006 after being linked to the notorious Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was then being investigated for influence peddling. DeLay plans to appeal his conviction.

L.A. Times

Election campaigns can produce surprises

By John Parisella - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 2:53 PM - 0 Comments

It is a truism in U.S. politics that, in an election year, once the Labour Day weekend passes, that’s when the real campaign begins. With most primaries done, the polls show a decided advantage for the Republicans, with generic poll numbers giving them a 6-10 point lead. The Democrats are realizing it is now a matter of cutting their losses in order to preserve control of Congress. With less than 60 days left before voters head to the polls, most pundits are predicting the GOP will win the House of Representatives and possibly even the Senate .

The economy continues to be the overriding issue. August numbers have clearly indicated a slowdown in the economic recovery, with unemployment at 9.6% and annual GDP growth stuck below 2%. Housing starts are down and the largest stimulus package in U.S. history has been mostly spent. The Republicans will benefit from the situation, not because of better policies, but rather from America’s bad mood. Some call it anger and point to the Tea Party’s growing influence as proof; others like Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson call it a temper tantrum by voters against the incumbents who happen to be the Democrats. Whatever it is, it is real and it is no fun.

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