Monday, June 8, 2015

BloggeRhythms

After six years in office, it’s quite apparent that if you took away the errors, mistakes and misjudgments, the Obama administration would have no performance record at all.
 
Today’s major defeat was covered by Jerry Markon @washingtonpost.com/politics, in an article headlined, “Obama administration stops work on immigrant program.”
 
Mr. Markon writes, “A series of legal setbacks have halted the government’s intensive preparations to move forward with President Obama’s executive actions shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, even as community organizations continue a rapid push to get ready for the programs, according to U.S. officials and immigrant advocacy groups.”
 
While the plan itself received significant press coverage, many of the details went either unmentioned or received little mainstream media attention. However, the program’s size and costs were huge. The Department of Homeland Security had plans to hire up to 3,100 new employees, most to be housed in an 11-story building the government has leased for $7.8 million a year in Arlington, Va. The building is now sitting mostly unused, according to DHS employees. 
 
When Obama announced in November that up to 5 million illegal immigrants would be eligible to be shielded from deportation, the program became “One of the signature initiatives of his presidency.” While the Citizenship and Immigration Services projected costs up to $484 million per year, which was to be paid for by the $465 application fees required for each applicant. 
 
But, as most learned people know by now, when it comes to money this administration certainly knows how to spend it. It’s the collection part that they’re not too good at. Just look at the recent performance of the IRS for confirmation.
 
And, as usual a reader added a prescient comment.
 
Skeptic1 wrote: “If Obama gets that trade authority that he's seeking, he can just declare illegal immigrants as duty-free imports and all will be well.”
 
On another "signature initiative" of his presidency, his health care tax, a new Washington Post-ABC survey finds “opinion on the health-care law among the worst in Post-ABC polling; 54 percent oppose, up six percentage points from a year ago. Support ties the record low of 39 percent, which was last hit in April 2012. These results, though, contrast with other recent polls finding softening opposition and support above record low levels.”
 
The Post and ABC have naturally done their best to present displeasure with the tax in its best light. By mentioning other unnamed pollsters who found better results for the POTUS than they did. But, nonetheless, the numbers clearly indicate another signature initiative that the president probably wishes had been signed by someone else. Perhaps “W” Bush.
 
Which brings us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife. This one from Nicholas Ballasy @pjmedia.com, who writes about Ralph Nader’s take on her.
 
Heading his column, “Nader: Hillary Tried to ‘Overcompensate’ for Gender with ‘Shocking’ Militarism,” Mr. Ballasy quotes Nader, as follows:
 
“I think Hillary is not the Hillary of when she was 30 years old. She made peace with the power structure and she is a deep corporatist and a deep militarist. One can almost forgive the corporatism. She moved to New York with Bill because that’s where the power is and Wall Street but her militarism is absolutely shocking.
 
“She almost singlehandedly did the Libyan war. The Defense Department was against it, [Secretary Robert] Gates, and she persuaded the White House that it was an easy topple without knowing that in a tribal society with nothing to replace it you would have a civil war, sectarian killings spilling into Africa, weapons everywhere, Mali, central Africa and she’s being accused of Benghazi – the big thing is the huge amount of geography that has been destabilized because of the Libyan overthrow.”
 
Now, although the opinions came from a natural enemy, Ralph Nader, his two paragraphs accurately encapsulate almost the entire scenario Republican candidates need to disqualify her altogether. Unless, of course, she keeps sinking in the polls and obliterates herself.
 
That’s it for today folks.
 
Adios

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