So what motivated the new Chicago gun control ordinance?

Here are a couple of quotes found in a new brief filed in Chicago in response to the new ordinance.

Alderman Mary Ann Smith echoed her fellows on the City Council, vowing to limit gun ownership with new legal restrictions and thanking “everyone who has worked to try and create as restrictive a tool as possible.” In describing the new Ordinance on July 1, 2010, Chicago Corporation Counsel Mara Georges lauded the restrictions and concluded that “[w]e’ve gone farther than anyone else ever has.”

Something from Law.com:

The Chicago City Council on Friday approved what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the nation, but not before lashing out at the Supreme Court ruling they contend makes the city more dangerous because it will put more guns in people's hands.

The new ordinance bans gun shops in Chicago and prohibits gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun. It becomes law in 10 days, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said. . . .

Weird: A lot of women seem obsessed with Facebook

Among the weird findings:

"21 percent of women aged 18 to 34 check Facebook in the middle of the night"

"Apparently, as soon as they are awake and semi-alert, 34 percent of young women go to Facebook before they go to the bathroom."

I guess it would be interesting to know exactly if these women are waking up in the middle of the night to look at Facebook and if so, how often they do it. From the wording, it sounds like it as at least a somewhat regular occurrence, but I am not sure.

Illinois has stopped paying its bills, but is giving out large pay raises to people who work for the governor

Quinn was already behind in the polls, but this news can't help.

So Illinois' answer? Just stop paying the bills and see what happens!!

That's not a joke - that's what they're doing!

Residents across the board in that state are struggling with an uncertain future and dwindling pensions.

That is unless you work for Pat Quinn - the governor is handing out raises to all his employees.

Here are the numbers: the Democrat leader has given 43 salary increases - averaging 11.5% to 35 staffers in the past 15 months, according to the Associated Press.

Ironically, the state's budget director, David Vaught, made out the best--he got a 20% raise or $24,000!

And the deputy budget director -Gladyse Taylor - got a 10.5% bump!

What makes this actually offensive is that in other parts of the state they're not talking about getting raises - they're trying to keep their jobs.

In almost every district of the state - thousands of teachers have lost their jobs and health centers have shut down.

Published reports say the University of Illinois has yet to receive 45% of the money owed to them.

The unemployment rate for the state nears 11% and the state ranks in the top five of states with the most foreclosures. . . .

UPDATE: Now Illinois gives large pay raise to 40,000 state workers.

40,000 Illinois State Workers To Get 14% Payraises
Updated: Wednesday, 07 Jul 2010, 1:10 PM CDT
Published : Tuesday, 06 Jul 2010, 10:23 PM CDT

By Mike Flannery, FOX Chicago News

Springfield, Ill. - More than 40,000 unionized state workers got a pay raise last Thursday, bringing to 7 percent the amount they're gotten since last year. These same state employees are in line for another 7 percent by next July 1, all at a cost of a half-billion tax dollars a year.

It's more than the virtually bankrupt state can afford, and some Republican lawmakers say the raises need to be rolled back.

"I'm outraged," said State Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno. "It's very difficult to buy this rhetoric that, 'We need to borrow, we need increased revenue,' when these kind of poor management decisions are going on." . . .

AFSCME said it's outrageous that Republicans like Radogno have "done nothing to help solve the state's financial problems." The union argues that the state needs to raise taxes. AFSCME's chief negotiator in Illinois, Union International Vice President Henry L. Bayer, responded to Radogno.

"I'm outraged Sen. Radogno and her fellow Republicans have done nothing to help solve the state's financial problem,” Bayer said. " Where would she cut $9 billion? It can't be done with just cuts. We need more revenue." Bayer and other union leaders strongly support tax increases. . . .

I love how the union now attacks the TV station.

"Fox neglected to mention that Illinois has the nation's fewest state employees per capita. Manufactured controversies like this misinform the public and insult the men and women of state government who care for the disabled, aid the unemployed, prevent child abuse, analyze crime-scene evidence, keep our prisons safe, and perform all the other essential services Illinois residents rely on every day," the AFSCME spokesman said.

Quinn's actions now apparently are very difficult to undo. I suppose that the state could decertify the union and then scrap the contract to get the money back.

The contractual raises are now legally locked in. Any roll back could come only with the union's agreement. Bayer has said that would require a vote of the rank and file state workers AFSCME represents. A threat of massive layoffs would be the most likely source of leverage for any future state official wanting to re-open the union contract.

Piece on media coverage of Utah concealed handgun permits

I would definitely have picked a different title for this piece (after all, I give the reporter credit for saying that the Brady Campaign had "asserted" their points). In any case, the piece that I have at BigJournalism is here.

"Drug Lobby" buys campaign ads to support Harry Reid in Nevada

Here is the result of the government picking the winners and losers in health care.

The drug lobby has begun a pro-Reid TV blitz in his home state of Nevada. One ad praises Reid for saving jobs and for understanding that "good jobs with good benefits [mean] a better future." The narrator then instructs viewers to "call Harry Reid today; tell him to keep fighting for Nevada families."
But "Nevada families" didn't pay for the ad. The drug lobby did. . . .
Tauzin was president of the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the largest single-industry lobbying organization in the country. He was also formerly public enemy No. 1 for the Obama campaign, which had held him up as the poster boy for Washington's revolving door and "game playing."
Last July, Tauzin visited the White House twice (and who knows how many meetings he had at nearby coffee shops?) and hashed out a deal on health care. As the Los Angeles Times first reported, Tauzin pledged to support Obamacare if the White House would keep its hands off the government favors the drug industry was already receiving. In addition, Democrats loaded up the bill with plenty more drug company goodies including subsidies, mandates and unprecedented 12-year, government-enforced monopolies on complex drugs.
In the end, PhRMA shaped "reform" as it wanted, and the group ran millions of dollars of ads supporting the bill. Reid passed it. Now PhRMA is doing heavy lifting for Reid, whose approval ratings are in the 30s. . . .

Philly Black Panthers in the voter intimidation case went after Black Republican Poll watcher

Intimidating a poll watcher seems like a serious offense. Poll watchers have a serious mission to prevent vote fraud and stopping a poll watcher from one party could allow fraud to occur.

U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Ashley Taylor told Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly that it was not just white voters who were intimidated by the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia during the 2008 election year. He talks about a black Republican poll watcher who was also harassed by the Black Panthers who were standing in front of a Philadelphia polling station:

"There is a black victim that is often ignored. He was an African-American male, an older gentlemen who lived in the neighborhood in that part of Philadelphia, who was a poll watcher and happened to be a Republican poll watcher, and he was intimidated. He was told by these folks wielding batons not to show his face, and he was terrorized, and we have evidence to that effect. It's the type of evidence that that would have been offered up to the judge in support of the motion had it been allowed to go forward, so this can't be easily marginalized by claiming only white victims are involved. These are African-Americans who decide to participate in our political process and who have identified themselves as Republicans. These are also the type of people who are being ignored."

An updated list of the errors in the IPCC Climate report

The Economist Magazine has a useful discussion here.

FOR everyone else it was the glaciers: for the Dutch it was the flooding. Last January errors in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hit the headlines. The chapter on Asia in the report by the IPCC’s second working group, charged with looking at the impact of climate change and adapting to it, mistakenly claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035. This contradicted some reasonably basic physics, had not been predicted by the glacier specialists in the first working group (which deals with the natural science of past and future climate change) and was unsupported by any evidence. There was a report from the 1990s which said something similar about all the world’s non-polar glaciers, but it gave the date as 2350. Then there was a crucial typo and some shoddy referencing. Nevertheless the IPCC’s chair, Rajendra Pachauri, had lashed out at people bringing the criticism up, accusing them of “voodoo science”. He then had to eat his words, and set up, with Ban Ki-moon, a panel to look into ways the IPCC might be improved. . . .

One should read their entire discussion.

Obama's lawsuit against Az immigration law

A copy of the DOJ suit is available here. Possibly the most amazing thing is that after all of Obama's fear-mongering about racial discrimination, the lawsuit doesn't mention racial discrimination.

Sections 1-6 of S.B. 1070, taken in whole and in part, represent an impermissible effort by Arizona to establish its own immigration policy and to directly regulate the immigration status of aliens. In particular, Sections 1-6 conflict with federal law and foreign policy, disregard federal policies, interfere with federal enforcement priorities in areas committed to the discretion of plaintiff United States, and otherwise impede the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of federal law and foreign policy. . . .

This claimed violation of the Supremacy Clause makes little sense as the Arizona law is not in conflict with the Federal law, it is the same as the federal law.

Section 5 of S.B. 1070 (adding Ariz. Rev. Stat. 13-2929) restricts the interstate movement of aliens in a manner that is prohibited by Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution. . . . Section5ofS.B.1070(addingAriz.Rev.Stat.13-2929)violates the Commerce Clause, and is therefore invalid.

It seems strange to argue that the Commerce Clause protects the illegal movement of illegal aliens across states.

Some background over today's suit by the US Dept of Justice against Arizona's new law dealing with illegal aliens. From the Washington Post in May:

In the legal battle over Arizona's new immigration law, an ironic subtext has emerged: whether a Bush-era legal opinion complicates a potential Obama administration lawsuit against Arizona.

The document, written in 2002 by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that state police officers have "inherent power" to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law. It was issued by Jay S. Bybee, who also helped write controversial memos from the same era that sanctioned harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The author of the Arizona law -- which has drawn strong opposition from top Obama administration officials -- has cited the authority granted in the 2002 memo as a basis for the legislation. The Obama administration has not withdrawn the memo, and some backers of the Arizona law said Monday that because it remains in place, a Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona would be awkward at best.

"The Justice Department's official position as of now is that local law enforcement has the inherent authority to enforce federal immigration law," said Robert Driscoll, a former Justice Department Civil Rights Division official in the George W. Bush administration who represents an Arizona sheriff known for aggressive immigration enforcement. "How can you blame someone for exercising authority that the department says they have?" . . .

See also this discussion at Fox News. See also this piece from the Washington Times.

Kagan's involvement in altering the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' statement on partial birth abortions

Kagan altered the meaning of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' statement on partial birth abortions to get a different outcome from the courts. It is disturbing that she did this, though it is also disturbing that it was so difficult last week for Senator Hatch to get her to admit that the memos in question were hers and this piece, while useful and interesting, neglects to mention that lack of honesty on her part.

Fox News piece that I had last week: A Vote for Kagan Is a Vote to Take Away Your Guns

I should have probably made the piece broader to include here positions against free speech and other issues. The piece has this info:

With those words in mind, alarm bells should have gone off during Elena Kagan’s confirmation testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Here’s what Kagan told Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa):

It has long been thought, starting from the “Miller” case, that the Second Amendment did not protect such a right. . . . Now the Heller decision has marked a very fundamental moment in the court's jurisprudence with respect to the Second Amendment. And as I suggested to Senator Feinstein there is not question going forward that ‘Heller’ is the law, that it is entitled to all the precedent that any decision is entitled to and that is true to the ‘McDonald’ case as well...

There are two big problems with Kagan’s remarks: she inaccurately describes the 1939 "Miller" case and her claims to follow stare decisis are meaningless.

The "Miller" decision said that the Second Amendment protected civilian use of firearms that are used in the military and that a sawed off shotgun wasn't a military weapon. But the court went no farther in explaining the right. There was no discussion of the modern liberal view of a “collective right.” The very short opinion didn’t say if there was an individual right to own military weapons. The issues were never addressed.

However, Kagan’s argument is precisely what Justice Stevens wrote . . . .

Here is the worthless response from the White House:

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that Kagan “made clear during the hearings that Heller and McDonald are the law of the land and therefore that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual, fundamental right to bear arms.” . . .

Pa Right To Bear Arms BUS

Michael Ruoss Sr. is raising money to help educate Pennsylvanians about the Second Amendment. His Pa Right To Bear Arms BUS sounds like a very interesting idea. I hope that people will visit his website and think of helping him out on this project.

Appearing on the Rollye James Show at 10 PM EDT

I will be on the Rollye James Show at 10 PM EDT for an hour tonight. We will be talking about the just released third edition of More Guns, Less Crime.

What some Chicago Police think of Chicago's new gun laws

An interesting discussion of Chicago's new gun laws can be found here.

How not to run anyone's finances, the case of Illinois

The way governments are being run these days is that if they don't have the money, they borrow it. If an individual's income were to fall, you wouldn't borrow to make up the difference, you would cut your spending. The only reason that you would borrow is that if you thought that the drop in income would be more than made up next year to not only let you pay off the amount borrowed but also the interest on the loan. Yet, Illinois has for years been borrowing money to keep spending more than it has. I recently heard that Illinois has the eighth worst government credit rating in the world. There are a lot of third world countries that have a better credit rating. When your credit rating falls any problems that you previously had get a lot worse because your interest rate and your payments go up. From the NY Times:

The governor proposes to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year’s worth of pension payments, a step that would cost about $1 billion in interest. And every major rating agency has downgraded the state; Illinois now pays millions of dollars more to insure its debt than any other state in the nation. . . .

Public colleges and universities occupy a fiscal sickbed all their own. This year they muddled through without $668 million expected from the state; the University of Illinois has yet to receive 45 percent of its state appropriation. Legislators made no pretense of promising to pay this bill soon. Instead they authorized colleges to borrow against the expected state payments.

“The big fear is that next year we’ll be down twice as much,” said Randy Kangas, an associate vice president of the university. “No one knows how to make the cash flow work.” . . .

The state’s last elected governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, is on trial for racketeering and extortion. But in 2003, he persuaded the legislature to let him float $10 billion in 30-year bonds and use the proceeds for two years of pension payments.

That gamble backfired and wound up costing the state many billions of dollars. Illinois reports that it has $62.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, although many experts place that liability tens of billions of dollars higher. . . .

Why Obama is focusing on Immigration

Bill Kristol makes this point:

This is the first major speech he has given on immigration 18 months into his administration.

He promised to introduce legislation in the first year of this two-year congressional session and there is still no legislation and no specifics in this speech. So it is a political speech, not a legislative speech. Nobody expects there to be immigration legislation this year.

The reason for the speech, the Gallup poll did an interesting breakdown. If you look at President Obama's approval rating at the beginning of the year and the end of last month, beginning of June, 2010, among African-American he has been absolutely steady 91 percent approval and 91 percent approval. Among white Americans he's been steady -- 41 percent approval, 41 percent approval.

His drop came last year. Among Hispanic-Americans this year he has dropped from 69 percent approval to 57 percent approval. He promised improvement on immigration. A lot of Hispanic-Americans care an awful lot about that. There was no movement, and he's trying to buck up his support and the Democratic Party's support among Hispanics. . . .

"Democrats push for new Internet sales taxes"

Don't we have enough new taxes coming this next year?

The halcyon days of tax-free Internet shopping will, if Rep. Bill Delahunt gets his way, soon be coming to an abrupt end.
Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a bill on Thursday that would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the option for many Americans to shop over the Internet without paying state sales taxes.
At the moment, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors usually aren't required to pay sales taxes. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan's B&H Photo, for example, won't be required to cough up the sales taxes that they would if shopping at a local mall. . . .

842,000 Americans left the labor force in June

A truly massive number of people left the labor force in June. The unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points in June because even though the number employed fell by 301,000, the number unemployed fell by 350,000 since so many people had left the labor force and where no longer looking for work.

UPDATE: Here is a discussion from The Economist magazine.

THE best that can be said about the June jobs report is that it doesn't signal a return to recession. Total employment fell 125,000, but this was because of an end to some temporary jobs conducting the federal census. Private payrolls rose by 83,000. That's soft, and less than expected, though better than May's revised increase of 33,000.

Unfortunately, the guts of the report aren't much more uplifting. The private work week, after rising to 34.2 hours in May, fell back to 34.1 in June. In terms of the amount of labour being used throughout the economy, that's the same as a drop of 300,000 in payrolls. Average hourly earnings actually fell, by 0.1%. That may fan fears of deflation given the already low readings on inflation. I think that's premature. Hourly earnings have been generally rising, albeit sluggishly, and the June drop could be a one-time move.

Finally, while the unemployment rate did drop, to 9.5%, an 11-month low from 9.7%, it dropped for the wrong reason: a lot of people stopped looking for work. This might be because a Senate impasse led to the expiration of extended unemployment insurance benefits early in June. The number of recipients has been falling by about 200,000 per week since. Some of these people may have stopped looking for work (a requirement to qualify for benefits), and thus are no longer counted as unemployed. Census layoffs may have also played a part.

For what it's worth, the household survey (used to calculate the unemployment rate) showed a much bigger drop in employment, of 301,000, than the payroll survey. The rule of thumb is that when the two differ, go with the payroll survey. . . .

Even Dems don't believe that Obama will keep deficit promise

A new National Journal poll indicates that even most Democrats don't believe that Obama will keep his promise on the deficit.

Q. Do you think that President Obama will fulfill his pledge to cut the budget deficit in half by 2013?

Democrats (39 votes)

Yes 44%
No 49%
Maybe* 8%

* Volunteered.

Republicans (33 votes)

Yes 0%
No 100%

So what will be in the new Chicago Gun Regulations

From CBS2 Chicago.

The ordinance also requires a two-step process to own and register a handgun. It would require both a city firearms permit and a valid Illinois Firearm Owners' registration Identification Card, as well as registration with the Chicago Police Department.

The application fee would $15 for each firearm registered. The annual reporting fee would be $10 per firearm. . .

Other provisions:

• Limit the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibit residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.
• Require residents in homes with children to keep them in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks.
• Require prospective gun owners to take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range. They would have to leave the city for training because Chicago prohibits new gun ranges and limits the use of existing ranges to police officers. Those restrictions were similar to those in an ordinance passed in Washington, D.C., after the high court struck down its ban two years ago.
• Prohibit people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residents convicted of a gun offense would have to register with the police department.
• Calls for the police department to maintain a registry of every handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

Other requirements include:

• It allows for registration of no more than one handgun per month in the home per adult or applicant and generally prohibits the possession of a handgun by any person except in the person’s home.
• It establishes a two-step process to own and register a handgun. First, the applicant must obtain a city firearms permit, which requires having a valid State of Illinois Firearm Owners’ Identification Card, and then the applicant must register the gun with the Chicago Police Department.
• Handgun ownership is prohibited for anyone who has been convicted of any violent crime, has two or more offenses for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and under state law has been convicted of domestic violence.
• It bans assault weapons and provides for mandatory jail time beginning in 2011 for anyone who is caught with one.
• It requires firearms safety training, both in a classroom and on a firing range.
• It bans gun shops.
• It includes severe penalties for violating the ordinance, including hefty fines and jail time.

Banning gun shops seems like a sure challenge. I also assume that only allowing one gun in operation is also a possible challenge.

Pelosi doesn't understand economics

Here is a transcript of part of Pelosi's statement.

This is one of the biggest stimuluses to our economy. Economists will tell you this money is spent quickly. it injects demand into the economy and is job creating. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name. Because again it is money that is needed for families to survive and it is spent. So it has a double benefit. It helps those who have lost their jobs, but it is also a job creator.

Copy of Obama's immigration speech

It is amazing how many false statements Obama can make in one speech. From describing the Arizona immigration law to claiming that his enforcement has reduced the number of illegals, it is really amazing.

Laws like Arizona’s put huge pressures on local law enforcement to enforce rules that ultimately are unenforceable. It puts pressure on already hard-strapped state and local budgets. . . .

I don't know where to start, but this above statement is amazing because it ignores that Arizona is doing what it is doing in part because of the cost of illegals. Why this simple law is unenforceable is very strange. The Obama administration is promising not to take the illegals caught by Arizona and that will make it very costly for the state, but that is the Obama administration's decision.

General Electric President attacks Obama

GE has gotten a lot of subsidies from the Obama administration. So this is a pretty remarkable attack.

Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry. . . .

Former Justice Department Lawyer Accuses Obama administration of improper behavior in Black Panther case

From Fox News:

"I mean we were told, 'Drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party,'" Adams told Fox News, adding that political appointees Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division since 2003, ordered the dismissal.

Asked about the Justice Department's claim that they are career attorneys, not political appointees, Adams said "obviously, that's false."

"Under the vacancy reform act, they were serving in a political capacity," he said. "This is one of the examples of Congress not being told the truth, the American people not being told the truth about this case. It's one of the other examples in this case where the truth simply is becoming another victim of the process."

Adams claimed an unnamed political appointee said if somebody wants to bring these kinds of cases, "that' not going to de done out of the civil rights division."

Adams also accused Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of lying under oath to a federal commission about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the probe.

The Justice Department has defended its move to drop the case, saying it obtained an injunction against one member to keep him away from polling stations while dismissing charges against the others "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law." . . .

Obama administration misled reporters about his involvement in picking the Senator from Illinois

John Fund has this at the WSJ's Political Diary.

In sworn testimony, Illinois SEIU chief Tom Balanoff reveals that just after Mr. Obama was elected president, he sought to have Mr. Blagojevich appoint his close friend Valerie Jarrett to replace him in the Senate. Mr. Balanoff quotes Mr. Obama as saying the night before the 2008 election: "I would much prefer she [serve in the White House] but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those criteria." . . .

it's clear the White House tried to mislead reporters on the president's role. An official report by incoming White House Counsel Greg Craig insisted the President-elect and his team were not involved in efforts to fill his former Senate seat. "Our office had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat. That I'm absolutely certain of. And the -- that is -- that would be a violation of everything that this campaign has been about. And that's not how we do business," Mr. Obama said at the time.

The White House isn't denying the substance of Mr. Balanoff's testimony, but isn't answering any questions about it either. When asked by ABC News this week if Mr. Obama had phoned Mr. Balanoff about his replacement in the Senate, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded: "You're telling me about this testimony; I'm not going to get into commenting on, obviously, an ongoing -- an ongoing trial. And I -- I've -- have not had an opportunity to see that." . . .

Overheated Democrat rhetoric?

Has a senior Republican ever compared Democrats to Nazis? Here is the discussion in the New York Daily News.

Comparing GOP tactics to the fast-striking forces of Nazi Germany, Biden warns in a message sent by the DCCC today: “As things heat up, you can expect House Democrats will be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and tea party disruptions.”

And while the GOP is mounting a blitzkrieg, Democrats are the allies.

“Our Democratic allies in the House need your help, and the President and I hope we can count on you to come to their defense so we can hold onto our Democratic Majority and continue moving American forward in a new direction,” Biden writes in the appeal. . . .

Remember when Pelosi claimed that those opposed to the Obama health care plan were Nazis because she pointed to one sign with a line through a Swastikas.

Why Obamanomics failed

From Allan Meltzer in the WSJ:

The administration's stimulus program has failed. Growth is slow and unemployment remains high. The president, his friends and advisers talk endlessly about the circumstances they inherited as a way of avoiding responsibility for the 18 months for which they are responsible. . . .

Mr. Obama has denied the cost burden on business from his health-care program, but business is aware that it is likely to be large. How large? That's part of the uncertainty that employers face if they hire additional labor.

The president asks for cap and trade. That's more cost and more uncertainty. Who will be forced to pay? What will it do to costs here compared to foreign producers? We should not expect businesses to invest in new, export-led growth when uncertainty about future costs is so large.

Then there is Medicaid, the medical program for those with lower incomes. In the past, states paid about half of the cost, and they are responsible for 20% of the additional cost imposed by the program's expansion. But almost all the states must balance their budgets, and the new Medicaid spending mandated by ObamaCare comes at a time when states face large deficits and even larger unfunded liabilities for pensions. All this only adds to uncertainty about taxes and spending.

Other aspects of the Obama economic program are equally problematic. The auto bailouts ran roughshod over the rule of law. Chrysler bondholders were given short shrift in order to benefit the auto workers union. By weakening the rule of law, the president opened the way to great mischief and increased investors' and producers' uncertainty. That's not the way to get more investment and employment.

Almost daily, Mr. Obama uses his rhetorical skill to castigate businessmen who have the audacity to hope for profitable opportunities. No president since Franklin Roosevelt has taken that route. President Roosevelt slowed recovery in 1938-40 until the war by creating uncertainty about his objectives. It was harmful then, and it's harmful now. . . .

Some critiques of the Dodd-Frank Regulation bill

From John Taylor in the WSJ:

The sheer complexity of the 2,319-page Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is certainly a threat to future economic growth. But if you sift through the many sections and subsections, you find much more than complexity to worry about.

The main problem with the bill is that it is based on a misdiagnosis of the causes of the financial crisis, which is not surprising since the bill was rolled out before the congressionally mandated Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission finished its diagnosis. . . .

Even some liberals are upset: "how the Dodd-Frank bill maintains the status quo"

Dodd-Frank effectively anoints the existing banking elite. The bill makes it likely that they will be the future giants of banking as well. Legislators touted changes that would restrict proprietary trading by banks and force them to spin off their swaps desks into separately capitalized operations. . . .

And a discussion of the lobbying that went on to create this sausage is here.