Financial Reform: The Lawyers and Lobbyists Full Employment Act

Heritage "Washington looks increasingly like a public-works jobs program for lawyers and lobbyists, a profit center for professionals who are in business for themselves.” The Dodd-Frank bill is the perfect extension of Washington as “a public-works jobs program for lawyers and lobbyists.” Instead of encouraging the U.S. economy to invest in engineers, technology and new products, it requires firms to invest in lawyers and lobbyists just to stay alive. It will do nothing to help create new wealth or new net jobs in the economy, but will transfer more wealth to lobbying and law firms in Washington, D.C."

Dodd-Frank may backfire on Democrats. "That's because, like stimulus and health care, Democrats turned the financial regulation bill into a monstrosity. What started as a promise to streamline and modernize the financial system turned into 2,300 pages of new agencies and new powers for the very authorities that fomented the financial crisis. The bill is laden with uncertainty and brimming with costly regulations on small businesses. Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank made it easy for Republicans to pronounce their bill more Obama Big Government—a "Main Street takeover"—and to justify their votes against it." KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

7 Reasons to Be Skeptical About Financial Reform "Democrats will no doubt hail the bill as a major accomplishment before the midterm elections. After all, it is perhaps the most significant piece of progressive financial legislation since the Great Depression. But the Atlantic has also spent considerable time pointing out all the ways financial reform could fail to curb risk appetite, strengthen the most dangerous banks and hurt ultimately taxpayers. Here* are seven reasons to be skeptical about financial reform:"...Derek Thompson is a staff editor at TheAtlantic.com, where he writes about economics, business, and technology.

Business Knows More than Obama "But all business is asking for is some clarity and certainty regarding government intentions, especially on taxes and regulation. Take, for example, the new 2,300-page bank-regulation bill, which spreads 243 new regulatory provisions across ten agencies. No one really knows what’s in this document, or what the unintended consequences will be. Until people figure this out, it could freeze bank lending for years."

All the above shows what happens when we let celebrities and academics choose our president.

The NAACP’s Descent

Mona Charen "The NAACP’s role in fighting racism was a noble one. The organization was the moving force behind anti-lynching laws. Thurgood Marshall, of the Legal Defense Fund, argued and won the case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, marking a new legal era in the United States.
"But the glory days are long gone. In recent decades, the NAACP has transformed itself into just another liberal advocacy group, absurdly dragging “racial justice” into nearly every public-policy argument. In 1994, the NAACP filed suit against the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority claiming that a proposed fare increase would discriminate against minorities. That same year, an NAACP spokesman suggested that raising the retirement age for Social Security could “exacerbate racial divisions” because blacks tend to have shorter life expectancies."
NAACP Hurls False Racism Charge at the Tea-Party Movement “In March, respected members of the Congressional Black Caucus reported that racial epithets were hurled at them as they passed by a Washington, DC health care protest,” the NAACP’s website states. “Civil rights legend John Lewis was called the ‘n-word’ in the incident.”
"Americans still await video footage and/or audiotape that proves these oft-repeated accusations. Reps. Lewis (D., Ga.) and Andre Carson (D., Ind.) were encircled by TV cameras, radio-news gear, cellphone cameras, and other recording devices. To date, none of them has yielded any sound or image of anybody lobbing racial insults. If such comments actually were uttered, the NAACP and its leftist allies would have played them over and over and over to embarrass and humiliate Republicans, conservatives, and the allegedly racist tea-party movement. In fact, no one has claimed conservative activist Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 bounty for any documentary proof that these supposed race bombs ever were tossed at their targets."
NAACP Resolution Calls on Tea Party to Repudiate 'Racist Elements' in Movement "The NAACP was once a vital weapon in the war against segregation and oppression. All that's left is a bigoted and malicious shell that does far more harm than good for people who need a break," he wrote.Fellow St. Louis Tea Party organizer Dana Loesch accused the NAACP of morphing into a political organization.
""They no longer prioritize civil rights," she told Fox News."

Hey NAACP, the Truth Shall Set Us Free "It is my fear that the honorable mission of the NAACP may have lost it’s way, but I am confident that it will find it’s course. In the meantime, unprovoked attacks on your brothers and sisters in the Tea Party will be met with tough love. This is not a game and the collective stakes are high for all Americans."

Obama’s Second Act; If he wins another term, he’ll only get worse.

Charles Krauthammer " In the political marketplace, there’s now a run on Obama shares. The Left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the Right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November, when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House. "I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama."

George W. Bush Book 'Decision Points' out Nov. 9

ABC News "According to Crown Publishers, "Decision Points" will offer "gripping, never-before-heard detail" on such historic events as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the 2000 presidential election along with Bush's decision to quit drinking, his relationship with his family and other personal details."

The Return of the Jeffersonian Vision and the Rejection of Progressivism

Michael Barone "The Progressives explicitly repudiated the Founders’ vision of limited government. They argued that government needed to redistribute property, to take money from one group of citizens to help others, and to regulate economic activity in ways previously considered unconstitutional. The Constitution, they said, was a “horse and buggy” document, suited perhaps to the simpler society of the 18th century, but dangerously out of date in a complex industrial society which could not expect ordinary citizens to make their way without government guidance and assistance. They were acting, they said, in the interests of the people. Their critics said they were acting out of hunger for power.
"I want to advance another thesis: That they actually acted more out of fear than of benevolence. They feared revolution." Emphasis added.

NAACP Looks for Relevance In Wrong Place…Race (Updated)

Herman Cain "Tea Party people are not racist…they are Patriotic Americans who want the greatest country in the world to remain the greatest, by exercising their right to make their voices heard.
"This isn’t about race. This is about results, and the results by this administration are missing in action."

http://townhall.com/cartoons/cartoonist/GlennFoden

Why the Obama Stimulus Failed

Heritage  "...Maybe this new battery plant is worth investing millions of dollars in. Maybe it will eventually turn a profit. But maybe not. The issue is, “Why is this any of the government’s business?” We used to be a capitalist country. We’re supposed to have vibrant capital markets that make these decisions using market principles. Instead we have the Obama administration acting as a venture capital fund picking winners and losers not based on economics, but on political priorities (in this case global warming)."

Respecting the Law

Israel Ortega "A healthy respect for the rule of law argues against a blanket grant of amnesty to the millions living among us who came here illegally. Some are tempted to brush off violations of immigration law, contending they’re not as bad as other crimes. But if we are to survive as a nation of laws, our officials cannot pick and choose which laws they will enforce and which violations they’ll just let slide."

Team Obama Won’t Sue Sanctuary Cities – But Will Sue Arizona For Upholding the Law

Gateway Pundit "The Obama administration said this week that there is no reason to sue so-called sanctuary cities for refusing to cooperate with federal authorities, whereas Arizona’s new immigration law was singled out because it “actively interferes” with enforcement."  Emphasis added.

A Ten-Step Reset Regimen for the President

Victor Davis Hanson "...10) Take a breather on the green agenda. Al Gore imploded, both from revelations about his personal life and the labyrinth of his financial machinations. Climategate discredited academic finger-pointing. Promises about “skyrocketing” power bills don’t go well with a recession. The old “millions of new green jobs” wonkery is a bad joke from a college bull session. Nuclear, natural gas, clean coal, and drilling in ANWR have more resonance than subsidized wind and solar jobs at a million or so in federal subsidies each.

"Will Obama adopt any of my suggestions? No, of course not."

Enough Votes for Reform

Portfolio.com "Democrats say they have pulled together the 60 votes they need in the U.S. Senate to get past filibusters pass a financial reform bill.
"To get over the hump, Democrats need the support of Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Scott Brown of Massachusetts."

The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth

WSJ "President Obama and congressional Democrats are blaming their trillion-dollar budget deficits on the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Letting these tax cuts expire is their answer. Yet the data flatly contradict this "tax cuts caused the deficits" narrative. Consider the three most persistent myths:"...
Via Neal Boortz, who said this about the above article: "This is that incredible WSJ column I played around with yesterday on the air. Read it and the file it away for when your liberal friends pull out this line about the Bush tax cuts causing our financial deficit."