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Showing posts with label ObamaAdministration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ObamaAdministration. Show all posts
Is this a real bombshell for Obama to deal with?: "terrorist defender to head of Gitmo policy at Justice"

Is this a real bombshell for Obama to deal with?: "terrorist defender to head of Gitmo policy at Justice"

You really have to wonder how insensitive the Obama administration is to appearances. The media should go nuts over this if it were a Republican doing something remotely similar. From Fox News:

A former Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle on his department's policies is now questioning the promotion of a former defense attorney for an American terrorist to the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department -- specifically charged with crafting U.S. policy on Guantanamo detainees.
J. Christian Adams, once an elections lawyer who accused the Justice Department of racial bias in its decision to not prosecute a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party, said Tony West's promotion from assistant attorney general for the Civil Division to acting associate attorney general is one more step toward letting radicals run the Justice Department.
"The most dangerous thing is that West is overseeing Gitmo policy. It's not that he's just some guy at the Justice Department licking envelopes," Adams told Fox News on Sunday. . . .


This is a gift to the Republicans.
Obama administration regulates what service chaplains can say

Obama administration regulates what service chaplains can say

The Obama administration regulates what Catholics are able to say at their religious services for military. From CNS news:

The message from the archbishop touched off a controversy both in and outside the military when the Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains told the service's senior chaplains that Catholic priests serving as Army chaplains should be told not to read the archbishop's letter from the pulpit.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services has described that move as a violation of the archbishop's First Amendment rights as well as the First Amendment rights of the Catholic chaplains involved and their congregations.

The regulation the archbishop spoke about was finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Jan. 20. It mandates that all health-care plans in the United States cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions. A “religious” employer exemption included in the regulation only applies to organizations that primarily focus on inculcating the tenets of the church in question, primarily employ members of the church, primarily serve members of the church, and is organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code used by actual parishes.

Catholic hospitals, universities and charitable institutions would not be exempt from the regulation, nor would Catholic individuals, business owners, or insurers. . . .


Peter Johnson, Jr. weighs in on whether White House violated Army chaplains' rights
"Obama the most polarizing president ever"

"Obama the most polarizing president ever"

So much for running to unit the country. Now the press concludes that if Obama couldn't get rid of the gap it is probably impossible to erase. From the Washington Post:

President Obama ran — and won — in 2008 on the idea of uniting the country. But each of his first three years in office has marked historic highs in political polarization, with Democrats largely approving of him and Republicans deeply disapproving.

For 2011, Obama’s third year in office, an average of 80 percent of Democrats approved of the job he was doing in Gallup tracking polls, as compared to 12 percent of Republicans who felt the same way. That’s a 68-point partisan gap, the highest for any president’s third year in office — ever. (The previous high was George W. Bush in 2007, when he had a 59 percent difference in job approval ratings.)

In 2010, the partisan gap between how Obama was viewed by Democrats versus Republicans stood at 68 percent; in 2009, it was 65 percent. Both were the highest marks ever for a president’s second and first years in office, respectively.

What do those numbers tell us? Put simply: that the country is hardening along more and more strict partisan lines. . . .
Obama White House refuses to condemn Occupy Wall Street Rioters

Obama White House refuses to condemn Occupy Wall Street Rioters

From Fox News:

QUESTION: Occupy Wall Street protesters are making headlines again as you know over the weekend 400 protesters were arrested in Oakland and now today the national park services is expected to clear out protesters potentially as we speak from a site here in DC.

What is your reaction, is the administration concerned that some of these protesters are taking things too far?

CARNEY: Well, with regards to Oakland that’s obviously a local law enforcement matter. Here in Washington I would refer you for specifics to the U.S. National Park Services and U.S. Park Police and our position has been and continues to be that we need to balance first Amendment concerns, the right to demonstrate, the right to speak freely with public safety concerns and public health concerns and we understand that local law enforcement as well as National Park Service and U.S. Park Police are weighing these considerations when making these decisions and that’s appropriate.

Americans are already facing higher capital gains tax rates?: The question is actually how much higher are they going


Start with the fact that Obamacare will be imposing a 3.8 percentage point increase in capital gains taxes next year. Next comes the question of whether the Bush tax cuts will expire. If they do expire, the base capital gains tax rate goes up to 20%. In addition, there will be another 1.2 percentage points added for high income earners. Altogether, if the Bush tax cuts expire, the total capital gains tax will rise to 25%.
Will Obama be helping public colleges at the expense of private ones?

Will Obama be helping public colleges at the expense of private ones?

The key here is how the government defines colleges as being "too costly." Will it simply be tuition or the amount spent? Obviously public colleges cost much more than they charge. I also hate to think of how the federal government is going to determine quality. The article below also has a discussion about possible price controls. From Bloomberg Businessweek:

Saying “we just can’t keep on subsidizing skyrocketing tuition,” President Barack Obama proposed to have the government, for the first time, link federal aid to a college’s ability to control tuition costs and maintain education quality.

“We are putting colleges on notice -- you can’t assume that you’ll just jack up tuition every single year,” Obama said today at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers every year will go down.”

For institutions that control costs, the administration is proposing to increase campus-based aid to about $10 billion a year, up from $1 billion. The bulk of the money, about $8 billion, would be devoted to Perkins loans for students, with other aid set aside for work-study grants and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants.

Obama said higher education today is “an economic imperative” instead of a luxury. “College is the single most important investment that you can make in your future,” he said.

The administration’s proposal calls for $1 billion to entice states to help keep costs down at public colleges while encouraging an overhaul of state programs that help finance education.

Obama is also proposing $55 million for individual colleges as an inducement to improve education quality. . . .


Apparently, the public colleges are pretty upset all on their own.

Fuzzy math, Illinois State University's president called it. "Political theater of the worst sort," said the University of Washington's head.
President Obama's new plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition or face losing federal dollars is raising alarm among education leaders who worry about the threat of government overreach. Particularly sharp words came from the presidents of public universities; they're already frustrated by increasing state budget cuts.
The reality, said Illinois State's Al Bowman, is that simple changes cannot easily overcome deficits at many public schools. He said he was happy to hear Obama, in a speech Friday at the University of Michigan, urge state-level support of public universities. But, Bowman said, given the decreases in state aid, tying federal support to tuition prices is a product of fuzzy math.
Illinois has lowered public support for higher education by about one-third over the past decade when adjusted for inflation. Illinois State, with 21,000 students, has raised tuition almost 47 percent since 2007, from $6,150 a year for an in-state undergraduate student to $9,030.
"Most people, including the president, assume if universities were simply more efficient they would be able to operate with much smaller state subsidies, and I believe there are certainly efficiency gains that can be realized," Bowman said. "But they pale in comparison to the loss in state support." . . .
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