"Obama extends Extends Mortgage-Free Living For the Unemployed"

Note you only get this subsidy as long as you live in the house. You can't rent it out. This creates the incentive for people to keep living in places that they can't afford. It also makes it costly for people to move to where the jobs are. More of a discussion on this is available here:

The Obama administration is making it easier for out-of-work homeowners to stay in their homes, as it tries to revamp its troubled foreclosure-prevention program.

Starting Aug. 1, the Federal Housing Administration will extend the period for unemployed homeowners to miss mortgage payments to a full year from three or four months. That will allow qualified homeowners to go without making a monthly payment for 12 months before the foreclosure process begins.. . . .

More than 1.6 million troubled homeowners received trial modifications over the past two years. But a majority of the applicants, about 854,000 homeowners, have dropped out of the program entirely. . . .

He acknowledged that the government’s programs to help homeowners were “not enough” and said the administration was “going back to the drawing board.”

Homeowners accepted into the foreclosure assistance program receive interest rates as low as 2 percent for five years. They can repay their loans over a longer period. The median savings for those who remain in the program is about $526 per month.

Those who have their payments delayed must repay them, with interest.

But many homeowners have complained that the program has been a bureaucratic mess. Some have said they were disqualified after banks lost their documents and failed to return their phone calls. Banks have blamed homeowners for failing to submit needed paperwork.

Last month, the Obama administration blamed the three largest U.S. mortgage lenders for the failures of the foreclosure program, saying they hadn’t done enough to help people at risk of losing their homes. . . .

Armed guards on Indian Merchant ships

It would be a lot cheaper if India let sailors be able to use guns. At least by doing this the government recognizes the benefits of self-defense. From The Hindu newspaper:

In view of the piracy attempts on merchant vessels, the Directorate-General of Shipping will soon issue a notification allowing armed security guards on board Indian merchant vessels. “The process is going on. The draft notification will be issued in 3-4 weeks,” Director-General of Shipping S.B. Agnihotri said here on Saturday. He was addressing a meeting to mark the first year celebrations of the ‘Day of Seafarer'. It will be celebrated on June 25 every year.

Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma said: “A policy for deploying armed security guards on Indian flagged ships is being examined by the government.” . . .

Referring to the return of some m.v. Suez crewmembers, who had been taken hostage by Somali pirates, the Minister expressed confidence that the 39 other Indian seafarers, who were still held hostage, would be released soon. “The Government of India is doing discreet work. Piracy is an acute problem. I am sure we will be able to bring back the rest of our seafarers.” The Minister felicitated Sachin Pawase, a crewmember, who returned home on Friday.

Admiral Verma said piracy could be best tackled as a shared security threat and multilateral challenge. The International Maritime Organisation had declared ‘Piracy: Orchestrating the Response' the theme for the World Maritime Day this year.

He said maritime piracy cost the world economy around $ 12 billion each year. . . .

Appearance on Canada's Sun TV "Byline with Brian Lilley"

You watch the interview here.

Romney's back-and-forth on whether Obama has made the economy worse

The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and the LA Times have all given Romney a hard time over is unwillingness to stick to his criticism that Obama made the economy worse. Romney is really making a hash of this for all the Republicans by first saying that Obama made things worse, backing away from that by saying things just haven't improved, then saying Obama made things worse, then backing away, and saying again that Obama has made things worse. He is discrediting the entire argument. He is also only mentioning the regulatory part of the argument, and even then he isn't completely explaining even that point.

In short form, the arguments are several fold:

1) Moving around a trillion dollars in the economy from where you and I and various companies would have spent it to where the Obama has wanted to spend it, has moved not only the money but the jobs that would be associated with that money. People don't instantly move from one set of jobs to another. All this massive churning of jobs has created a lot of chaos. One would also add in here about how the threats of Obama's regulatory policies and taxes have made it so what jobs have been created are overwhelmingly "temporary service sector jobs."

2) The massive new regulations have also created chaos and produced winners and losers. For example, Goldman Sachs liked the financial market regulations because it prevented banks from competing with them in certain operations. This type of change moves jobs around in the economy and also creates unemployment.

3) You could use this opportunity to explain why Obama's policies have depressed housing prices. Having the Obama administration put pressure on mortgage holders to write off parts of their loans makes them very reticent to make new loans. Why would any one want to make a new loan if six months or a year down the road you might have to write off a huge portion of the loan? Without new loans, there will be fewer people who want to buy new homes and that in turn will reduce home prices.

4) This one might be too politically sensitive to discuss, but there is also the issue of the incredibly long unemployment insurance of 95 to 99 weeks. On top of the unemployment insurance has been the government aid for mortgage payments and health insurance. One only gets these payments as long as one in unemployed, making it costly for some of the unemployed to return to work.

So why do we need new trucking safety regulations?

From the WSJ:

The new limits would "completely change what we're able to do," Mr. Tuttle says.

The rules, proposed in December by a Transportation Department agency, would cut the daily driving limit for truck drivers to 10 hours from 11 hours. They would require drivers to be off duty for 34 hours, including two full nights, once they reached their driving limit for the week.

The agency also has proposed shrinking work shifts for truckers, which might include loading or unloading, to 13 hours a day from 14 hours and requiring a 30-minute break after seven straight hours on the road.

Trucking companies would face fines of as much as $11,000 for exceeding the new limits.

Federal regulators say the measures are necessary to prevent highway fatalities caused by truck-driver fatigue, which was cited as a possible cause in the deaths of six people last month when an 18-wheeler plowed into an Amtrak train in Nevada.

According to Transportation Department data, the number of highway fatalities involving trucks has declined over the past decade, hitting a record low of 2,987 in 2009, down from 4,204 in 2007. Over the same period, the number of truck accidents that caused injuries dropped to 51,000 from 72,000. . . .

Those accident numbers don't really give a good picture of what is going on. Not only are there few accidents involving trucks (though it would be better to get an idea of accidents per mile driven), but those few accidents rarely are the fault of commercial truck drivers and even fewer of them result from fatigue. After all, the regulations are motivated to stop fatigue related accidents.

Fewer than 9% of those deaths involve commercial vehicles. More than 80% of those accidents are the fault of the non-commercial driver. Of those death related accidents only 4% of trucks are fatigue related. . . .

Notes on Obama rejecting short-term debt ceiling hike

A copy of Obama's public statement is available here. Obama seems to want to push for a tax increase and a short-term deal would make it much easier to make a deal without a tax increase. Interestingly, even Bill Clinton has advised for a short-term deal based on the what both sides could agree to on spending cuts.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) over the weekend said a short-term “mini” deal could be necessary, and on Tuesday he described a short-term increase to the debt ceiling as “more likely than not.”

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and former President Clinton have also suggested that the White House and Congress consider a short-term hike to the debt ceiling.

House Republicans, however, have pushed back hard against such suggestions.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) office said Tuesday that Cantor “has said repeatedly that he doesn’t think a short-term deal could pass the House.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), appearing on the “Laura Ingraham Show,” also spoke negatively of the idea, arguing that it would take pressure off lawmakers to reduce spending.

“What they want to do is buy as much time as possible until the election with as little damage to big government as possible,” he said, referring to congressional Democrats. “If they can just stall, win in 2012, they can keep us on this path … they just don’t want to take the medicine.” . . . .

FBI and DEA are also implicated along with BATF in "Fast and Furious" Coverup

This problem keeps on spreading. How long can the Obama administration keep stonewalling on this?

The Justice Department is obstructing the congressional investigation of a U.S. law enforcement operation intended to crack down on major weapons traffickers on the Southwest border, according to the embattled leader of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Ken Melson, the acting director of the ATF, lobbed the accusation when he sneaked in for an interview with congressional investigators on July 4, two days ahead of his scheduled interview with the inspector general about the operation known as "Fast and Furious," Fox News has learned.
"If his account is accurate, then ATF leadership appears to have been effectively muzzled while the DOJ sent over false denials and buried its head in the sand," Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Eric Holder. "That approach distorted the truth and obstructed our investigation." . . .
The alleged coverup involves three law enforcement agencies: the ATF, FBI and the DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration. . . .

Obama's broken promise: WH staff averages 8 percent raises this last year

Obama on July 6, 2011: By the way, the people who work in the White House have had their pay frozen since I came in, our high wage folks. So they haven't had a raise in two-and-a-half years, and that is appropriate because a lot of ordinary folks out there haven't either. In fact, they have seen their pay cut in some cases.

With firms projecting a 3 percent increase in base pay for executives, Obama's staff got raises almost three times as much. Apparently at least 12 of the 454 WH employees got raises of at least 40 percent.

The last time we checked in on White House salaries, we found that an astonishing 75% of continuing staffers got raises from 2009 to 2010—a huge number given the fact that, according to compensation experts, most companies had skipped routine raises that year in reaction to the economic crisis that the White House was busy failing to solve. This time around—from 2010 to 2011—the ratio is a little less dramatic. Of the 270 White House staffers who have been there for more than a year, 146—or 54%—received raises. The average salary increase was 8%. If you look at only staffers who got raises, the average increase was twice that.

That's a much bigger raise than the average white-collar worker got. According to a survey conducted last year by the human resources consulting firm Mercer, most firms were projecting a 3% increase in base pay for executives. White House workers did nearly three times as well. Overall, it should be noted, the White House's salary budget contracted slightly, from $38.8 million to $37.1 million, largely because the number of staffers fell. The average salary also dropped from $82,721, or 65% above the median household income, to $81,765—or 65% above the median household income. . . .

Democrats ask Koch Brothers for money

This is amusing, click here for info.

7th Circuit Appeals Court strikes down Chicago ban on gun ranges within the city limits

This major decision says that the 2nd Amendment should be treated like the Freedom of the Press in the 1st Amendment. This is really a major decision. It also clearly says that gun rights are protected outside the home just as they are in the home. A copy of the Court's decision is available here. Regarding Chicago's claim that people could go to gun ranges in other jurisdictions, the court ruled:

It’s hard to imagine anyone suggesting that Chicago may prohibit the exercise of a free‐ speech or religious‐liberty right within its borders on the rationale that those rights may be freely enjoyed in the suburbs. That sort of argument should be no less unimaginable in the Second Amendment context. . . .

the Court quoted at length from the “massively popular 1868 Treatise on Constitutional Limitations” by judge and professor Thomas Cooley: “[T]o bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them . . . ; it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.” 554 U.S. at 616, 617‐18 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 619 (“ ‘No doubt, a citizen who keeps a gun or pistol under judicious precautions, practices in safe places the use of it, and in due time teaches his sons to do the same, exercises his individual right.’” . . .

we can distill this First Amendment doctrine and extrapolate a few general principles to the Second Amendment context. First, a severe burden on the core Second Amendment right of armed self‐defense will require an extremely strong public‐interest justification and a close fit between the government’s means and its end. Second, laws restricting activity lying closer to the margins of the Second Amendment right, laws that merely regulate rather than restrict, and modest burdens on the right may be more easily justified. How much more easily depends on the relative severity of the burden and its proximity to the core of the right. . . .

After the decision, the City of Chicago changed its law, but it is my understanding that it will still have trouble with this new law. From the Peoria Journal Star:

Chicago's City Council has swiftly approved allowing gun ranges to set up shop on the same day a federal court ruled the city can't ban the ranges.

The council approved the Mayor Rahm Emanuel-backed ordinance Wednesday because they anticipated the ruling by the federal appellate court in Chicago would be coming. The court struck down a provision of the city's gun ordinance banning the ranges.

Chicago has long fought to ban gun ownership outright. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the city's handgun ban last year. Then-Mayor Richard Daley pushed through an ordinance that required gun owners to receive firing range training but prohibited ranges in the city. . . .

Thanks to Tony Troglio for this last link.

UPDATE: There is some fallout from this Circuit Court decision.

Capitalizing on its federal appeals court victory Wednesday in Ezell v. City of Chicago, the Second Amendment Foundation today moved for a preliminary injunction against the State of Illinois to prevent further enforcement of that state's prohibitions on firearms carry in public by law-abiding citizens.
The motion was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois in Springfield. Joining SAF in this motion are Illinois Carry and four private citizens, Michael Moore, Charles Hooks, Peggy Fechter and Jon Maier. The underlying case is known as Moore v. Madigan.
Illinois is the only state in the nation with such prohibitions. The state neither allows open carry or concealed carry, which runs afoul of recent U.S. Supreme Court Second Amendment rulings, including last year's landmark ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago, another SAF case. SAF was represented in McDonald and Ezell by attorney Alan Gura, who noted after yesterday's appeals court win – forcing a temporary injunction against the city's ban on gun ranges that the city immediately changed after the decision was announced – that "Even Chicago politicians must respect the people's fundamental civil rights…Gun rights are coming to Chicago. The only question is how much the city's intransigence will cost taxpayers along the way."
"Now that the Seventh Circuit has recognized that the deprivation of the right of armed self-defense is an inherently irreparable injury, it is clear that Illinois' law-abiding gun owners are entitled to a protective injunction," said attorney David Jensen of New York, who, along with Glen Ellyn, IL attorney David Sigale, is representing SAF and the other plaintiffs. . . .

Obama's dishonest claims about regulations

From Obama's press conference last week:

Keep in mind that the business community is always complaining about regulations. When unemployment is at 3 percent and they’re making record profits, they’re going to still complain about regulations because, frankly, they want to be able to do whatever they think is going to maximize their profits.

I’ve got an obligation to make sure that we’re upholding smart regulations that protect our air and protect our water and protect our food. If you’re flying on a plane, you want to make sure that there are some regulations in place to assure safety in air travel, right? So there are some core regulations that we’ve got to maintain. . . .

Obama's claim about doing an unprecedented review of regulations is simply false.

But what I have done — and this is unprecedented, by the way, no administration has done this before — is I’ve said to each agency, don’t just look at current regulations — or don’t just look at future regulations, regulations that we’re proposing, let’s go backwards and look at regulations that are already on the books, and if they don’t make sense, let’s get rid of them. . . .

Even Politifact claims:

Obama claims that his administration is doing something unprecedented -- "no administration has done this before," he said -- by having each agency review existing regulations, with an eye toward eliminating ones that don't make sense. Lots of presidents have done that. We rate Obama's statement Pants On Fire.

Obama was also dishonest in claiming no responsibility for the NLRB decision on Boeing, preventing the company from building a plane in South Carolina. It is an independent board, but it is a board whose majority Obama has appointed. He knew what would happen when he put a majority of union members on it. More from the press conference:

Now, you asked specifically about one decision that was made by the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB, and this relates to Boeing. Essentially, the NLRB made a finding that Boeing had not followed the law in making a decision to move a plant. And it’s an independent agency. It’s going before a judge. So I don’t want to get into the details of the case. I don’t know all the facts. That’s going to be up to a judge to decide.

What I do know is this — that as a general proposition, companies need to have the freedom to relocate. They have to follow the law, but that’s part of our system. And if they’re choosing to relocate here in the United States, that’s a good thing. And what it doesn’t make — what I think defies common sense would be a notion that we would be shutting down a plant or laying off workers because labor and management can’t come to a sensible agreement. . . .

WSJ: "The Year of School Choice"

This WSJ piece is overly optimistic about some of the educational choice changes, but it is still a useful summary. For example, Tennessee removed the limit on charter schools, but it means nothing since none of the state's school districts are even close to the limit and the vast majority have almost no charter schools. The problem is that the teacher unions control the school districts and the districts determine whether there are any charter schools. The law should have instead concentrated on making easier for charter schools to get approved. As it is, the law accomplishes nothing really.

. . . No fewer than 13 states have enacted school choice legislation in 2011, and 28 states have legislation pending. Last month alone, Louisiana enhanced its state income tax break for private school tuition; Ohio tripled the number of students eligible for school vouchers; and North Carolina passed a law letting parents of students with special needs claim a tax credit for expenses related to private school tuition and other educational services.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made headlines this year for taking on government unions. Less well known is that last month he signed a bill that removes the cap of 22,500 on the number of kids who can participate in Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, the nation's oldest voucher program, and creates a new school choice initiative for families in Racine County. "We now have 13 programs new or expanded this year alone" in the state, says Susan Meyers of the Wisconsin-based Foundation for Educational Choice.

School choice proponents may have had their biggest success in Indiana, where Republican Governor Mitch Daniels signed legislation that removes the charter cap, allows all universities to be charter authorizers, and creates a voucher program that enables about half the state's students to attend public or private schools.

Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma have created or expanded tuition tax credit programs. North Carolina and Tennessee eliminated caps on the number of charter schools. Maine passed its first charter law. Colorado created a voucher program in Douglas County that will provide scholarships for private schools. In Utah, lawmakers passed the Statewide Online Education Program, which allows high school students to access course work on the Internet from public or private schools anywhere in the state.

Even in the nation's capital, and thanks largely to House Speaker John Boehner, Congress revived the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program for poor families that the Obama Administration had wanted to kill at the behest of teachers unions. . . .

Bachmann was a Democrat

Michele Bachmann worked on Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign. It must be at least a little hard to demonize someone who used to be a Democrat. It is interesting that Perry was also a Democrat.

she met her husband-to-be while volunteering on Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential campaign . . .

Tiny video cameras on police uniforms save departments lots of money

Besides helping win cases in court, my guess is that the cameras also cause the police officers to behave even better with those they pull over.

One Mississippi police department has only five officers on its force, but nothing gets by them thanks to a small piece of technology recording every traffic stop and legal encounter.
The Walls, Miss., police department is one of a few in the country equipping officers with tiny clip-on video cameras that attach to the front pocket of an officer’s uniform. The cameras are no bigger than a pack of gum and they hold a small memory card, capable of recording hours of evidence.
"I call it my silent partner,” said Walls Police Chief Gary Boisseau. “We're a small department, there's usually one maybe two of us on at a time and it's good to have that extra set of ears -- that extra set of eyes out there.”
Boisseau’s force has been using the cameras for the past year. Since then, he says, the ‘second set of eyes’ has helped in the quick prosecution of court cases.
That translates into saving the town’s employees time and court costs.
"We had a DUI stop several months ago and this person denied everything that happened,” Boisseau said. “After watching that video – [that person] honestly did not know what happened that day because they had so much to drink. They pled guilty before it ever went to court." . . .

"Stimulus" costs $278,000 per government "created or saved" job

And these numbers don't even count the jobs that were lost by the government taking away money from other activities. A copy of government's claims are available here. That is a cost of between $185,000 and $278,000 per job, assuming that someplace between 2.4 and 3.6 million jobs have supposedly been created. About 85 percent of ARRA’s budgetary impact was realized by the end of June 2011.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead. . . .

Back in early 2009, President Obama claimed that the ARRA would create 4.1 million jobs.

S&P: EU & IMF Bailout of Greece will still lead to Default

The last couple of days haven't been good news for the Greek bailout. On Sunday, how bad Greece's numbers are turned out to be even worse than first thought. On Monday, S&P announced that the Greek bailout would still amount to a default.

New figures published by the European Commission make clear just how big Greece’s budgetary hole now is. Over the next three years, the Commission says Greece will need €172bn in financing. But the current bail-out only has another €57bn left – meaning €115bn has to be found.
Greece itself has committed to raising €30bn on its own by privatising government assets. The rest was supposed to be signed off on Sunday. But according to several officials involved in the talks, the decision was held up by an inability to agree enough commitments from private bondholders.
A German-led group of creditor countries, including the Netherlands, wants private bondholders to shoulder a “significant” portion to get support in their national parliaments. Although neither Berlin nor The Hague has given specific figures, both have hinted at anywhere from €20bn to €30bn.
But talks with large holders of Greek debt – French, German and Greek banks – have seen much smaller commitments. A deal with German banks on Thursday netted €3.2bn, while the French-backed plan has raised doubts as to whether it will lower Greece’s debt burden at all.
All four of Greece’s biggest banks have said they will participate, and some executives have suggested they could commit to rolling over as much as €12bn in government debt into new, longer-maturing bonds. But government officials involved in talks with Greek banks anticipate a lower total – closer to €3bn-€4bn. Given the fragility of the Greek banking sector, officials are concerned that any additional commitments could weaken the entire system. . . .

The news on the S&P decision is discussed here.

French and German banks’ plan to roll over their holdings of Greek debt suffered a blow on Monday as Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, said the move would amount to a default.
The proposal to provide up to €30bn ($43.6bn) in financing for Greece had been made conditional on rating agencies not downgrading Greece’s debt. But S&P said on Monday that any rollover would be a “distressed” transaction and thus lead to Greece’s rating being lowered to selective default.
There was no immediate reaction from the Greek finance ministry to the S&P statement. French officials said they were not unduly concerned by the move, which had been anticipated. “It should have no immediate impact on the CDS [credit default swap] markets,” one said.
The German government also had no official comment. But civil servants said they had factored in the eventuality of a so-called ratings event from the beginning.
“The important thing is that we avoid a credit event, with all the resulting negative impact on credit-default swaps which occupied us after the Lehman bankruptcy,” one official said. “If private sector participation does lead to a partial default being called, the biggest problem we’ll face is persuading the ECB to continue to take affected bonds in exchange for providing liquidity to Greek banks.”
But officials also stressed that S&P’s analysis was based on the model for private sector involvement sketched by French banks. “Of course, that’s the basis of what’s likely to come out,” one said. “But we’re still working on all sorts of details and maybe we’ll find ways of even working around the partial-default problem.” . . .

The WSJ had this nice summary.

Standard & Poor's has ruled that a plan by French banks to roll over their exposure to Greek government debt would likely be considered a Greek default. That puts efforts to find a lasting solution to Greece's debt crisis back at square one. Europe's politicians may yet have to compromise and provide a bigger public-sector bailout for Greece. . . .

That puts the euro zone in a bind. Its finance ministers have made clear any new Greek bailout must include significant private-sector funding. But the ECB has repeatedly warned it won't accept defaulted Greek bonds as collateral for its lending operations. It believes this would damage its credibility and encourage further defaults, undermining confidence in the currency. But if the euro zone and ECB stick to their guns, the Greek banking system will collapse. . . .

Democrats continue to refuse to put out a spending plan, their strategy is to attack Republicans for their proposal but to avoid attacks on themselves

In May, I noted how neither Congressional Democrats nor the President have put forward their own budget plan. The AFP had this story on Sunday:

On Friday, two key Senate Republicans pushed Obama to make public his proposals in closed-door talks with Republican leaders and warned that "a last-minute deal, delivered under the threat of panic, will not be acceptable."
"We can surely agree that the American people deserve time to study the decisions their leaders are making on their behalf," Senators Jeff Sessions and Orrin Hatch, ranking members of the Senate Budget and Finance Committees, wrote in a letter to Obama.
Senate Democrats, led by Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, planned to unveil their own budget proposal by mid-week, potentially opening up another front in the war over US borrowing. . . .

Is not a surprise that the Debt ceiling increase discussions have gone nowhere when Democrats won't even put a proposal on the table? Could it be that the Democrats really want the debt ceiling talks to fail? More complaints about Democrats not putting forward a proposal:

Cornyn said on Fox News Sunday that Obama hasn't outlined a firm proposal for spending cuts to accompany an increase in the debt ceiling. The Treasury Department says Congress must raise the limit by Aug. 2.
"What I'm concerned about is the president by not seriously putting a proposal forward but rather just criticizing those who have," Cornyn said. "We are running up against this deadline. And they're going to try to present it as a fait accompli, nobody is going to have time to read it or consider the implications of it and it's going to say you have to pass it or the economy is going down the tubes. That's just irresponsible." . . .

New National Review Online piece: Campaign-Finance Fail

My newest piece this last week starts this way:

In Monday’s 5–4 decision in McComish v. Bennett, the Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s taxpayer funding for political campaigns. Surprisingly, the dissenting opinion by liberals on the Supreme Court conceded that traditional campaign-finance laws have failed. Speaking for the other liberal justices, Elena Kagan wrote:

[Campaign-finance laws] cap campaign contributions; require disclosure of substantial donations; and create an optional public financing program that gives candidates a fixed public subsidy if they refrain from private fundraising. But these measures do not work. . . . Simple disclosure fails to prevent shady dealing. . . . the State remains afflicted with corruption.

This concession is important because, despite the many obvious problems created by campaign-finance regulations, supporters have long justified them as eliminating corruption, or at least the appearance of corruption. . . .

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 on DVD in Fall, Sequel released soon afterwards

For those who thought that Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was a great movie, you will be able to soon own your own copy.

Atlas Shrugged: The Trilogy is still alive. The producers of the Ayn Rand adaptation will bring the first part of their planned series to home-entertainment platforms this fall, courtesy of a deal with 20th Century Fox, and expect to begin production on "Atlas Shrugged: Part 2" in September. They hope to bring the new film to theaters during the 2012 election season.

"Atlas Shrugged: Part 1," the low-budget adaptation of the first third of Rand's dystopian novel, grossed $4.6 million during its five-week theatrical run this spring. After the film drew scathing reviews, producer John Aglialoro said he was reconsidering whether to move forward with two sequels.

Now Aglialoro has resumed those efforts, according to producer Harmon Kaslow, and will devote all revenue from the release of "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1" to financing "Atlas Shrugged: Part 2."

"John has a much clearer perspective," Kaslow told 24 Frames. "He’s always wanted to have a studio level support for the film and I think feels that his effort in producing Part 1 has been validated by having the largest home video distributor in America aboard." . . .

"What we discovered with the film is that it really doesn’t fit squarely into a lot of business models," said Kaslow. "We got incredible grass roots and community level support for the movie, but what we didn’t have was the polished marketing edge that the studios have perfected. Now we get to use their marketing, their fulfillment capacity. We think that makes more sense for us than mortgaging those rights off for a number."

Deals for TV and pay-TV airings are being negotiated, Kaslow said, and the producers have retained a foreign sales agent to secure international theatrical releases. . . .

Obama's class warfare rhetoric on Jet tax breaks as hot air?

Why does President Obama make such a big deal about something that would raise at most $3 billion over 10 years? I say at most because these are based on a static analysis that assumes people won't get fewer jets as the tax rate rises. Yet, Obama makes six mentions of this in his press conference.

President Barack Obama’s proposal to end a tax break for corporate jet owners, a repeated refrain in his news conference yesterday, would achieve less than one-tenth of 1 percent of his target for reducing the federal deficit.
Such a change would put $3 billion into the Treasury over a decade, said two congressional aides familiar with the proposal. Democrats want to require companies that use jets for business purposes to write off the cost over seven years, instead of the five years allowed under current law, said a congressional aide and a White House aide. Airplanes used for charter or commercial flights already must be depreciated over seven years.
Obama mentioned the corporate jet break six times, criticizing Republicans’ unwillingness to include tax increases in legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling. Republicans are pressing for spending cuts in the measure, which must be passed before Aug. 2, when the Treasury Department projects that the U.S. will no longer be able to meet its debt obligations. . . .

Democrats are very happy with the president's rhetoric. From the Hill Newspaper:

Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said that for Obama, the rewards for going populist might outweigh the risks of another brushfire with business. “Democrats are happy,” Simmons, a principal at the Washington-based consulting firm The Raben Group, told The Hill in an interview.
“People may argue with his tone, but I’m sure the president is frustrated,” Simmons continued. “The business community is frankly doing OK. It’s working people in this country who are really catching it. The stock market is up, the auto industry is coming back, but we haven’t seen job growth.” . . .

The issue here is really how short should the period for depreciation be. Jets get five years, and other assets get 7 years. The question should really be what assets depreciate faster than others, and I would guess that Congress was given testimony by experts that jets depreciated relatively fast.

Critics pointed out that Obama used to be in favor of similar credit. “Nine months ago, this president extolled the virtues of shortening depreciation schedules to stimulate jobs,” National Business Aviation Association President Ed Bolen said in a statement. “Now he seems to want to reverse course and push ahead with punitive treatment for general aviation, an industry that creates jobs, helps companies succeed and serves communities all around America.” It’s easy to see why Obama might see an advantage in targeting corporate jets, which conjure images of Wall Street billionaires at a time when the country still suffers from high unemployment. Obama has taken aim at the well heeled in the past, most notoriously when he called Wall Street executives “fat cats” — a statement that still stings in the financial world. . . .

Politics enters the drug approval process

Some politics might have sometimes been in the FDA approval process. A good example of that may have been with breast implants. But now there will be a new clear dimension: did they reject a drug because it really wasn't effective or because the FDA panel just didn't think that the drug was worth its cost? The latest prime example is: Avastin for the treatment of breast cancer. Cost-benefit calculations are always important, but let patients and insurance companies figure this out, not the government. This post by sometimes NY Times writer Jessica Wapner observes that financial considerations might have been involved in the panel's rejection of the drug, but doesn't really address whether the government cost concerns could lead to the rejection of drugs. From Human Events:

In a sign of things to come, members of the Food and Drug Administration’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted Wednesday to reject an appeal of its December 2010 recommendation that the FDA withdraw its sanction of Avastin for treatment of breast cancer.

The day before, in what now seems futile, advocates for the drug rallied at the FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., with signs, chants and a folk singer.

Blocked by a team of Homeland Security police officers in combat uniforms, the nearly 100 pink-shirted protesters massed in front of the entrance to the agency's campus demanding it continue to approve Avastin for metastasized breast cancer. . . .

New Wyoming Concealed Handgun Law Goes Into Effect

The article in the Billings (MT) Gazette is a little strange since it fails to mention that concealed handgun permits are not required to carry a concealed handgun in 99.4 percent of Montana.

A law that allows Wyomingites to carry concealed weapons without permits goes into effect today.
The new law, strongly supported by gun rights advocates, received the overwhelming endorsement of the Legislature last winter.
Wyoming joins Alaska, Arizona and Vermont in allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns without undergoing background checks or firearms training. . . .

Obama administration keeps changing Union election rules hoping to change union vote outcomes

If you can't win the elections, change the rules. But not surprisingly it doesn't seem that Obama cares about playing fair.

The latest example is taking place largely out of sight -- at the National Mediation Board, a little known agency that oversees union elections for railroads and airlines. Late in 2010, flight attendants for the nonunion Delta and its unionized Northwest Airlines (acquired in a 2008 merger) voted thumbs down on joining the Association of Flight Attendants. The board -- where two of the three members are former top union officials -- reacted by investigating Delta for "interference" in the election, prompted by union claims that the company circulated too much literature.
Another vote is likely to follow, even though this was the third time Delta (DAL, Fortune 500) flight attendants had rejected the union. And here's another twist: The union lost that November vote even after the NMB changed the rules -- in place since the 1930s -- to require that only a majority of those who vote, not a majority of the workplace, needs to sign off on unionization.
"They voted under new rules that the unions asked for," Delta CEO Richard Anderson told Fortune via email. "They've done everything asked of them. And because they said no to union representation, their decisions aren't being respected; they're being held hostage." . . .
Changing the rules is a strategy also deployed by the higher-profile National Labor Relations Board, where the President opted for a recess appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker after it became clear his confirmation would be blocked by Republicans (backed by alarmed business groups), along with a handful of Democrats. Last week, NLRB proposed sweeping new rules cutting the amount of time available to employers to make their case prior to a union vote -- an action the Chamber of Commerce rightly denounced as a "another not so cleverly disguised effort to restrict the ability of employers to express their views" during a union campaign. . . .

Los Angeles Times paints what will be a surprising portrait of Palin to her liberal detractors

Sarah Palin emails: Exxon's stalling tactics called 'outrageous'

Sarah Palin emails: Palin stood with Democrats over oil profits tax, pressed GOP

Sarah Palin emails: 'I'm ready to lose it,' Palin said during Troopergate response

Sarah Palin emails: The Alaska archive

Juan Williams on Media Matters' vicious personal attacks on him

One might not always agree with Juan Williams, but he is undeniably a decent guy. To see these types of personal attacks to silence him is indeed "despicable." Juan Williams comments should be read in full, but here is a partial discussion.

Since they began work in 2004, however, the watchdog spirit of the group's founding has turned into an outright assault on its political opponents. That means they delight in attacking anyone with a conservative point of view on radio or TV. In fact, they have now announced they are engaged in a “war” against Fox News Channel and anyone who appears on their airwaves. They have also admitted to engaging in a despicable campaign to dig up dirt on Fox News executives and producers in an attempt to do personal damage to people who are guilty of offering the public political perspectives they find disagreeable.

That means they have targeted me. Yes, I am paid by Fox News to do political analysis. It is also true that on most issues I am left of center – what most on the far right call a liberal. And I go to political battle over ideas and policies by offering my views, hearing other viewpoints and often challenging conservative arguments on Fox.

Yet, apparently as part of their assault on Fox and its employees, Media Matters has targeted me for years for making what they smugly and fatuously call “false claims.” They cheered as I was fired from National Public Radio last October and praised NPR’s management for their courage. Their only complaint was that NPR did not also fire my friend and Fox News colleague Mara Liasson, at the same time. . . .

How Wisconsin's new labor law is saving lots of money

The new Wisconsin labor law is saving school districts lots of money and allowing them to create smaller class sizes at the same time. The savings include: teachers will pay in more for their health insurance and pensions, save money on having competition over health insurance, and new work rules. So much for the Democrat scare stories in Wisconsin.

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers? . . .

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. . . . This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.

The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining. . . .

WH Salaries soaring

Obama administration paying WH staff a lot more than Bush administration.

One-hundred-forty-one people are paid more than a $100,000 per year in the Obama White House, according to the 2011 White House salary report released Friday. Another 201 people on the staff of 454 have compensation ranging from $50,000 to $100,000.
That’s a jump from the final year of President George W. Bush’s administration when 130 people received more than $100,000, and 137 people were paid between $50,000 and $100,000. . . .
In Bush’s 2008 White House salary report, the two lowest-paid of 447 staffers struggled home with $33,400 per year. Another 100 people paid less than $40,000, out of total payroll of $33,193,021. (GOP senator says Obama ‘phoning it in’)
Obama’s White House is more generous with the taxpayer’s money. Not counting three unpaid employees, no one on Obama’s staff is paid less than $40,000. The two lowest-paid staffers take home $41,000.

WH claims "Stimulus" created up to 3.6 million jobs

The Stimulus created 3.6 million jobs? From when the Stimulus was adopted in February 2009 until May 2011, the economy lost 1.8 million jobs. From the beginning of the "recovery" in June 2009 until May 2011, the economy has gained just 550,000 jobs. 495,000 of those 550,000 jobs are "temporary help service" jobs. This administration claims seems like a pretty hard sell to me. As to the trajectory change argument, I have written pieces on how economic forecasters where more optimistic about the economy's prospects in early 2009 than they were afterwards or how things turned out. More on the claim here.

The article here in the Hill incorrectly lists the cost of the Stimulus at $787 billion, while the latest number is actually at $830 billion.

The report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers said the stimulus added 2.3 to 3.2 percent to gross domestic product in the first quarter relative to what it otherwise would have been.

The stimulus package also increased employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by between 2.4 and 3.6 million jobs, the report said. . . .

The report credits the stimulus with positively changing "the trajectory of the economy" starting in the third quarter of 2009 and continuing through the first quarter of 2011.

The latest unemployment insurance filings continued virtually unchanged at 428,000 for the week.