Isn’t this a problem? Historian Michael Beschloss, at the invitation of White House chief of staff Bill Daley, held a pep talk for President Obama at Fort McNair. Did Daley use “U.S. government resources for what was clearly a campaign event”? Lots of questions, including who paid for the event and whether it is legal to hold a campaign event on Defense Department property.
Isn’t this a problem? “Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.”
Isn’t this a problem (for the president)? “J.P. Morgan is now projecting an unemployment rate of 9.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012; Goldman Sachs is projecting unemployment of 9.25 percent. Both of these estimates are up from the current rate of 9.1 percent. [Thursday], the Office of Management and Budget released its Mid-Session Review, with official estimates at 9 percent unemployment in 2012. . . .The Real Clear Politics average has the President’s approval rating at just 43 percent, with the Gallup tracker at 38 percent, the bottom of the range of polls.. . .To get below 8% by Election Day would require 272,000 jobs per month going forward. This is up again since last month. To reach a more modest 8.5 percent unemployment rate by Election Day 2012 would require the creation of 220,000 jobs on a monthly basis.”
Isn’t this a problem? OMB’s Mid-Session Review, according to the House Budget Committee, “confirms the failure of the Obama Administration’s economic and fiscal policies. According to OMB’s report, the federal budget deficit is estimated to exceed $1.3 trillion this year. The President’s budget priorities call for $45 trillion in government spending over the next decade, with no serious plan to control the explosive growth of debt that stifles job creation today.”
Isn’t this a problem (for the Palestinian Authority and for Obama’s personal prestige)? The results of a U.N. unilateral declaration of statehood for the Palestinians could have severe consequences for the PA. “With the exact ramifications of the Palestinians’ U.N. move still unclear, Israel ‘has not made a decision about any of the arrows in the quiver’, the [unnamed Israeli] official said. Israeli media have speculated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could annex swathes of settlements built on territory captured in a 1967 war.”
Isn’t this a problem? “ ‘The administration still refuses to call our enemy in this war by its proper name: violent Islamist extremism,’ [Sen. Joe] Lieberman said, speaking at a National Press Club event hosted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). ‘To call our enemy violent extremism is so general and vague that it ultimately has no meaning. The other term used sometimes is Al Qaeda and its allies. Now that’s better but it is still too narrow and focuses us on groups as opposed to what I would call an ideology, which is what we’re really fighting.’ ”
Isn’t this a problem? “Iran Trying to Shelter Its Nuclear Fuel Program.” I don’t see how sanctions are “working.”
Isn’t this a problem for Obama? “The fact that both candidates in Anthony Weiner’s old Democratic-leaning district have criticized Obama on Israel offers the Emergency Committee for Israel some fodder. The video is part of a broader campaign the group is in New York City that’s expected to run well into the six figures. There are currently newspaper ads in print in, of course, the Hamptons, showing Obama shaking hands with a beaming Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas; I’m told New Yorkers can keep an eye out for TV and billboards. The tag-line is that Obama’s a ‘uniter, not a divider — except of Jerusalem.’ ”
Isn’t this a problem? “Congress did manage to pass badly designed laws concerning financial markets, consumer protection and medical care. Although regulatory discretion failed leading up to the crisis, Congress nevertheless added to the number and diversity of federal regulations as well as to the discretion of regulators. These laws and the continuing calls for additional regulations and taxes have broadened the uncertainty about the economic environment facing businesses and consumers. This uncertainty decreased the incentives to invest in long-lived producer and consumer goods. Particularly discouraged was the creation of small businesses, which are a major source of new hires.”
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