Obama '60 Minutes' Interview Transcript (9-13-09)

Read the complete transcript. Excerpt below:

KROFT: Do you think you changed some minds? Do you think you picked up some votes this week?

OBAMA: Well, here's a conversation I had with one of my advisors early on in this process: he said, 'I've been in this town a long time. I think this is the year we're gonna get healthcare done. But I guarantee you this will be pronounced dead at least four or five times before we finally get a bill passed.'"

KROFT: You're not getting much support from the Republicans and you've got some problems with people in your own party. Do you have enough votes to get a healthcare bill passed right now?

OBAMA: I believe that we will have enough votes to pass not just any healthcare bill, but a good healthcare bill that helps the American people, reduces costs, actually over the long-term controls our deficit. I'm confident that we've got that. Now, you're right.

So far we haven't gotten much cooperation from Republicans. And I think there're some who see this as a replay of 1993-94. You know, young president comes in, proposes healthcare. It crashes and burns and then the Republicans use that to win back the House in the subsequent election. And I think there are some people who are dusting off that playbook. In terms of the Democratic Party, they all understand we have to make this happen. We're not gonna get a better opportunity to solve our healthcare issues than we have right now. And that's why I'm confident that in the end we will get this done.

KROFT: One of the things that you said when you ran for president was that one of your talents was to be able to get people in a room with divergent opinions who were…yelling and screaming at each other. Get them to sit down and come to an agreement. Have you tried that on healthcare?

OBAMA: Yeah. Well, we tried very early on.

KROFT: Why hasn't it worked?

OBAMA: Well, I think right now, you've got just a political environment where there are those in the Republican Party who think the best thing to do is just to kill reform. That that will be good politics. And then there are some people who sincerely wanna see somethin' done, but have very different views and what I've tried to do is to make sure those in the latter category who don't just wanna kill something but actually wanna get somethin' done, that we are bringing them in and as open to their ideas as possible.

So for example, you know, tort reform. That's not something that historically has been popular in my party. But on Wednesday I specifically said that I think we can work together on a bipartisan basis to do something to reduce defensive medicine. Where doctors are worrying about lawsuits instead of worrying about patient care.

Update:
- Videos of the interview are here.

The Death of Man Who Saved 1 Billion People Ignored by Media

You want to know whats wrong with the world, especially America. Norman Borlaug, is credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation and you probably never heard of him. He died yesterday with very little acknowledgment. Conversely, Ellen DeGeneres, who was named the new judge on American Idol, received far greater press coverage. Is it any wonder that this planet is going to hell-in-a-handbasket:

Norman Borlaug, the father of the "green revolution" who won the Nobel peace prize for his role in combating world hunger, has died at the age of 95, a spokesman for Texas A&M University said today.

Borlaug won the Nobel in 1970 for his contributions to the science of high-yield crop varieties and bringing other agricultural innovations to the developing world. Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine.

Thanks to the revolution, world food production more than doubled between 1960 and 1990. In Pakistan and India, two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled over the period.

"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," the Nobel committee chairman, Aase Lionaes, said in presenting the award to Borlaug.

"We would like his life to be a model for making a difference in the lives of others and to bring about efforts to end human misery for all mankind," his children said in a statement after Borlaug died at his home in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday.

Another Tea Party Lie Exposed: D.C. Protest Crowd Much Smaller

The virulent anti-Obama hate groups got caught in another lie (add it to the birther, deather fabrications). They tried getting away with another one by claiming the size of yesterday's crowds in Washington - according to one account at 2 million! The lie has been exposed:

For the folks who believe Saturday's Washington Mall protest is a harbinger of political change, crowd size obviously matters. Unfortunately, they couldn't get their numbers straight.

Earlier in the day, Senator Jim DeMint, (R-SC) said the New York Times was reporting that only about 500 people had showed up at the Mall. (Go to the 1:17 mark to hear his spiel.) On cue, the crowd lustily booed at the mention of this most elite of East Coast elite media institutions.

Where DeMint read that story remains a mystery. Seconds after hearing his claim, I clicked over to the Times piece by Jeff Zeleny which noted in the headline that "thousands" had turned out for the rally. Here was his lede:

"A sea of protesters filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall on Saturday in the largest rally against President Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government." Sure sounds like more than 500.

But DeMint's exaggeration was just a warm-up. Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the conservative organization behind the event, told the protesters that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people had showed up. At the same time, the U.K.'s Daily Mail put out an estimate of up to 2 million people attending the day's festivities.

At that point, the floodgates of enthusiasm washed through the blogosphere. Predictable cheerleader Michelle Malkin wrote that she heard the turnout was estimated at 2 million. (She wasn't at the event but that didn't stop her from hitting the "publish" button.) By Saturday night, however, ABC printed a story denying it had ever reported the 1 to 1.5 million number. (Malkin later published an acknowledgment that FreedomWorks was in error.)

Here are some other quotes, including right wing sources that belie the ridiculous 1 or 2 million claim:

But here are some other media reports:
– The Wall Street Journal:

Tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on Capitol Hill Saturday, protesting the expansion of government spending and illustrating the network of conservative activists that has emerged in opposition to President Barack Obama’s policies.

…A spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services estimated the crowd at “in excess of 75,000″ people. Local and federal law enforcement authorities don’t provide crowd estimates.

--AFP:

Tens of thousands of people marched from the shadow of the White House to the footsteps of the US Capitol today to protest against President Barack Obama and his “big government” policies.

–Great Britain’s Sky News (Murdoch owned):

Tens of thousands of people have taken part in a protest against Barack Obama’s plans to reform healthcare in the US.

–The AP:

Tens of thousands of protesters fed up with government spending marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, showing their disdain for the president’s health care plan with slogans such as “Obamacare makes me sick” and “I’m not your ATM.”

–BBC:

Tens of thousands of people have marched from the White House to Capitol Hill in Washington to protest against Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms.

–CBC:

U.S. President Barack Obama continued to promote his national health-care plan on Saturday, promising to “get this right,” while tens of thousands of marchers denounced the proposal outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.

There are many more. But if you do a web search you will find that reports mirror what was said on land and broadcast radio yesterday: the rally attracted “tens of thousands.” Other figures are either erroneous or inflated for political reasons.

Pawlenty on ABC This Week: Transcript (9-13-09)

Read the complete transcript for ABC's This Week. Excerpt below:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And let's begin our own debate here in the studio. I'm joined by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services in Kansas. She's joined here in the studio by Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, and Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.

And Governor Pawlenty, let me begin with you, because after the speech on Thursday night, the president says he's going to get this done. After the speech on Thursday night, you suggested perhaps invoking the Tenth Amendment, which reserves powers to the states, if indeed this does pass. What exactly are you saying? There is a movement to actually nullify health care if it passes?

PAWLENTY: Well, George, in the legal sense, I think the courts have addressed these Tenth Amendment issues, but more in the political sense, in the common sense arena, we need to have a clear understanding of what the federal government does well and what should be reserved to the states.

We have essentially Obamacare that's been deployed in two states in major ways. One is in Tennessee. We have a Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, said hey, look, we tried this cost savings as a way to fund a major overhaul of health care; it didn't work. He's in the news this morning saying, you know, don't go down that path.

We have another state, Massachusetts, who tried essentially the same thing. They have the most expensive health care in the country. They have increasing waiting lines, and it's not working.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So just to be clear, are you suggesting that any parts of the plan as the president has laid it out are unconstitutional?

PAWLENTY: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a legal issue. I was raising it as much as a practical matter, that there are some things that the federal government shouldn't do, doesn't do well, and should leave to the states.

[...]STEPHANOPOULOS: Another controversy -- let me bring in -- go on to another subject, another controversy the president brought up the other night was he said that no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.

And this is connected to the public option, Governor Pawlenty, because many supporters of the pro-life movement, anti-abortion activists have said, no, that's not true. That the public option that is being considered so far in the House will actually fund abortions.

PAWLENTY: Well, there's an easy way to resolve this. There's a dispute. So just be clear in the bill. If the president is embracing the idea that public monies and public systems won't be used to fund abortions, then we should say that.

And the pro-life perspective on this has been viewed by both factcheck.org and the AP as having merit. So this is not something that people are just making up. There's legitimate concern about it. But it can and should be clarified.

Summers: Unemployment will "Remain Unacceptably High for a few Years"

The White House's top economist adviser, Larry Summers, made a statement in an interview (read the transcript below) that can only be considered a shocking admission. This administration is acknowledging that they are failing to put the American people back to work again. So what was the stimulus package for? You're telling me that you gave Wall St. almost a $1 trillion in our money and you can't put Americans to work? That's unacceptable:

President Obama’s chief economic adviser has indicated that he expects unemployment to stay at elevated levels for “a few years”. In a candid interview with Nightly Business Report (click on the links for a video or a transcript), National Economic Council Director Larry Summers did not express much hope for a quick drop in unemployment:

After Lehman, the economic discussion was whether recession would turn into depression. Today, the economic discussion is when the recession is going to end, and most experts are looking for significant economic growth in the third and fourth quarters of the year. So I think we’ve come a long way. At the same time, with unemployment well above nine percent, likely to remain unacceptably high for a few years, no one can be satisfied with where we are. We’ve got a great deal of work to do, making sure to do stronger financial regulation. This just can’t happen again. Making sure this expansion is as robust, as firmly grounded as we possibly can.

When asked what further actions the Obama Administration has planned to address the unemployment situation, Mr. Summers added the following comments:

The administration’s economic overall program, the Recovery Act, has operated and functioned more rapidly, I think, than any economic expansion program in memory, but as yet, well under half of the funds under it are dispersed. They’re going to be dispersed going forward–and dispersed at a growing rate.

Essentially, this interview did not deviate greatly from the talking points made by numerous other Obama Administration officials, except for the fact that Mr. Summers seemed more candid regarding an extended period of persistently high unemployment.

Video: Tea Party Thugs Shout Down CNN Reporter

This is another example of the NAZI-style tactics employed by the Right. These people are incapable of behaving rationally. Since they don't have the facts on their side, all they can do is yell and name-call . They are simply mindless mobs being manipulated by sinister forces controlling our country. In particular, the 9-12 rally was organized by Freedom Works Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who is now a lobbyist. I found this video on Hot Air, which thinks shouting mobs are a good thing:

Ayn Rand Organization Denounced Republicans as Socialists in 2008

It was ironic to see the President of the Aynd Rand organization,Yaron Brook, at today's Tea Party rally in Washington. On December 31st 2008, this is what the organization had to say about the Republican Party:

“Republicans routinely criticize the policies of Barack Obama and other Democrats as socialist,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “But their endorsement of Barack Obama’s imminent, trillion-dollar ‘stimulus plan’ shows that they buy into socialist ideas just as much as the Democrats. Indeed, Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s explanation of his party’s approach to a ‘stimulus plan’ would make Leon Trotsky proud: ‘We should have a simple test: Will the . . . trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy . . .?’

“What is socialism, if not the idea that the government should seize citizens’ wealth and control industry in the name of creating jobs and growing the economy? If the government has the political right and economic ability to conduct this ‘simple test’ with a trillion dollars of stimulus, why not just nationalize the whole economy outright, and have McConnell, Obama, and a handful of czars tell us what to do and where to spend our money?

“A party that truly understood what is wrong with socialism would recognize the injustice and impossibility of central planners expropriating and dictating citizens into prosperity. It would recognize that wealth creation and economic prosperity are the result of protecting the rights of productive individuals to plan, produce, and trade on a truly free market--absent the massive government manipulation of interest rates and home-buying that brought about the current disaster. The Republicans have not earned the right to call anyone socialist--except themselves.”

ACORN Prostitute Scandal Exposes the Left

Here's a major scandal that the liberal-left hopes will go away. It won't get the attention it deserves because there does exist a press bias. Certainly the equally scandal-riddled right will try to beat Obama over the head with this one. But the incredibly cynical behavior exhibited here once again demonstrates the arrogance of those in power, along with those who are well-connected in Washington.

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel.

The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O'Keefe, posing as the pimp — tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

CNN Defends Reporting Coast Guard Story

It was stupid of the Coast Guard to hold training exercises on 9-11 without taking measures to prevent the media from drawing the wrong conclusions. But ultimately, the trigger-happy press gets the blame. It is their job to double check a "story" and prevent false alarms reporting. CNN in it's rush to get the story first took the irresponsible step of reporting something as fact when it never happened. This is a major scandal. But the mainstream press doesn't expose the press. They admit some culpability but then try to blame the government, thus making them a co-equal culprit. This incident just shows that we all exist just so the press can get it's story, no matter how they go about it. The Coast Guard will learn from this mistake. The press will not.

CNN has responded to critics of its decision this morning to report that the Coast Guard had fired 10 rounds at a suspicious boat in the Potomac River.

It later became clear that CNN had based the report on a radio transmission of a training exercise, and that no shots had ever been fired.

CNN said in its statement that staffers had been monitoring law enforcement activity when it heard a Coast Guard transmission that a boat had breached a security zone on the Potomac, near the Pentagon.

The network said the staffers contacted a Coast Guard spokeswoman, who "said she was unaware of any activity taking place on the Potomac River."

"After hearing a further radio transmission about 10 rounds being expended, and after reviewing video of rapid movement by Coast Guard vessels as the President's motorcade crossed the Memorial Bridge, CNN reported the story," the network said. "Simultaneously, during a second phone call, the Coast Guard spokeswoman informed us that its National Command Center and other command posts knew nothing about any activity in the area."

CNN went on to say that not reporting the story would have been "irresponsible."

No Cops On The Beat At The SEC

Little by little the American people are learning that the government rather than regulating Wall St., in the years prior to the near collapse of the world economy, was in fact turning a blind eye to their abuses. And rather than holding the profiteers accountable, the government instead came to their rescue. Conclusion: the real culprit was not Madoff, who just used the system, but the people who's job it was to police Wall St.

I'm sure that if Barney Frank's House Committee on Financial Services had extended hearings on the role of regulators before and during the financial meltdown, there would be grave revelations that would underscore the government's fundamental failure to police Wall Street.

What's particularly astonishing about the fine work Inspector General Kotz did is that even Madoff felt he would be found out any minute, despite making it through six pathetically irresolute investigations into his crooked dealings. Where were you when we needed you, Stanley Sporkin, former enforcement director at the SEC? The report lets us know that former SEC Chairmen Christopher Cox, William Donaldson and Arthur Levitt, and top commission staffers including the former director of enforcement were "generally unaware" of the six investigations of Madoff until he was arrested in December 2008. Given Madoff's notoriety in the investment community and the charges he might have been running a massive Ponzi scheme, it's truly distressing for an investor who wants to have faith in the soundness of markets to learn that the top ranks of the SEC were never informed. Shocking!

And it looks like nothing will be changing any time soon:

One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the surprise is not how much has changed in the financial industry, but how little.

Backstopped by huge federal guarantees, the biggest banks have restructured only around the edges. Employment in the industry has fallen just 8 percent since last September. Only a handful of big hedge funds have closed. Pay is already returning to precrash levels, topped by the 30,000 employees of Goldman Sachs, who are on track to earn an average of $700,000 this year. Nor are major pay cuts likely, according to a report last week from J.P. Morgan Securities. Executives at most big banks have kept their jobs. Financial stocks have soared since their winter lows.

Joe Scarborough Exposes Deather Gov. Pawlenty (Transcript, Video 9-11-09)

I found the transcript and video on The Hill's Blog Briefing Room. Joe deserves credit for having the decency to challenge the insanity of the Republicans, even if he is one.

Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe today, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) refused to distance himself from the claim that healthcare reform would lead to "death panels."

Pressed repeatedly by host Joe Scarborough, Pawlenty, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, called death panel concerns "legitimate" and suggested the high cost of care would lead bureaucrats to start deciding who lives and dies.

Here's the exchange. The empasis is mine. (Video of the exchange is below):

SCARBOROUGH: There's nothing in any of these bills that would "pull the plug on granny," is there?

PAWLENTY: ...Here are the facts. You did have in an earlier version of the bill a provision that said the federal government would encourage and incentivize end of life counseling. That concerned people, to have the federal government involved in that. So it's a legitimate question. Even if that is removed, there's concerns that this thing is going to be so expensive they're not going to be able to afford all that's promise, and somebody's going to have to make a decision to cut back, and peple are concerned that if the federal government does that--have them rationing care, that's a real problem. And so those are not irrational concerns based on those facts....

SCARBOROUGH: But but, there are no death panels here, though. Counseling is one thing. Having three people lining up and saying 'granny dies, grandpa lives,' that's quite another. You can't get there from here.

PAWLENTY: Well what happens--Joe, what you call it or label it, but I think the facts are these: if you have a system like the United Kingdom where---

SCARBOROUGH: But we don't. We don't governor. With all due respect, this does not give us a system like the United Kingdom. I'm talking specifically about this bill. How does this bill get us to "death panels?" You don't believe it does, do you?

PAWLENTY: Joe what if it becomes so expensive, and the trajectory of it is even close to what's being predicted 10 years out that they can no longer afford what they promised, and somebody has to scale back care, and the government is now empowered to do that.

And if you look at examples around the world where that takes place, there are concerns about care being cut back by a federal government instituation, and we can have a legitimate discussion about whether that's good or not. I don't think it is.

SCARBOROUGH: Governor, what in this bill, though, let's be specific, what in this bill leads us to that position, gives a bureacrat that power 10 years from now....what in this bill could lead someone to rationally believe that a death panel might emerge in a decade. Based on this legislation.

PAWLENTY: Joe there is nothing in the legislation directly that says that. It's the indirect concerns that i'm trying to articulate that I think are at least worth raising.

Anti-Abortion Activist Gunned Down Outside Michigan High School

There won't much outrage over this shooting. And it won't be plastered all over the media. This article was found predictably on FOXNews. There shouldn't be double standards. Political violence (assuming that's the case here) is political violence. It shouldn't be tolerated especially in a free society.

A well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed Friday morning in front of a Michigan high school, and another man was shot and killed just miles away in what police are investigating as related incidents.

Owosso police chief Michael Compeau said Jim Pouillon, 63, was outside the school Friday morning with a sign when a man drove by and shot him. No one else was injured.

Michigan State Police have taken a suspect into custody, the Flint Journal reported.

The school was placed on immediate lockdown, though no students were hurt or involved in the shooting, Ossowo Hish School officials told the paper.

NY Post Cover Today: Nothing on 9-11 Anniversary

The NY Post which is owned by Rupert Murdoch (who also owns FOXNews) has no mention of the 8th anniversary of September 11th on it's cover. It does have a section entitled, "NFL Bettor's Guide." This is the same rag that compared Obama to a dead monkey.

No Lessons learned

Here we are on the eve of the 8th anniversary of one of the worst disasters in American history. And there is very little talk about whether it could happen again. It is the same kind of complacency that existed prior to September 11th 2001. I had written in July of that year that a "disaster" would happen because we were unprepared. I cited Pearl Harbor as an example. I had no idea what happened would 2 months later.

Now I'm repeating it again, we are headed for another disaster. Could it be another terror attack? I don't know for sure. It could be cyberterror, the total collapse of the economy, a Swine Flu pandemic that leads to the deaths of tens of thousands, or the asassination of President Obama. All I know is we are too indifferent or ignorant to stop it. Or are we?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Poverty at 11-Year High - And Still Rising

And there is no hope in site. Not as long as we produce nothing and continue to import everything. This President means well but doesn't seem to have any economic program for increasing employment. Rather than bailing out Wall St. and auto industry with hundreds of billions in money we do not have, he - and the Congress - should have set out to create a public works program. Especially since the infrastructure in America is crumbling. It was government created jobs that got us out of the Great Depression. A fully employed populous, working under decent wages, will create demand which makes the the economy grow. And a growing economy is that prosperous, not poor:

The poverty rate in the United States hit 13.2 percent last year, according to a study released Thursday - up from 12.5 percent the previous year.

That's an 11-year high, and it means that nearly 40 million Americans were living below the poverty line, the equivalent of a family of four living on about $22,000 or less a year. CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston has more on the stark reality behind the numbers.

[...]The new poverty numbers don't reflect the downturn of 2009, when unemployment has reached almost 10 percent. That means there's worse news to come.

200 Million Children Work Worldwide

We still live in a world that treats children poorly. The solution: education. Like with so many problems, education can solve it. If only governments, including our own, understood this simple concept we wouldn't have this terrible evil going on.

Children are used to produce everything from pornography in Ukraine to fireworks in the Philippines and diamonds in Sierra Leone, the US Department of Labor said in a report.

The report, published on Thursday, lists 122 goods "produced with forced labor, child labor, or both, in 58 countries" from Afghanistan to North Korea to Uzbekistan.

"Agricultural crops comprise the largest category, followed by manufactured goods and mined or quarried goods," said the report, which was mandated by Congress in 2005, when lawmakers passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

Child labor was more common than forced labor, and the goods most often produced by children were cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, rice, and cocoa in agriculture; bricks, garments, carpets, and footwear in manufacturing; and gold and coal in mined or quarried goods.

Strawberries from Argentina, footwear from Bangladesh, gold and silver from Bolivia, and rubber from Cambodia were brought to international markets with the work of child labor.

Myanmar, which is listed in the report as Burma, used child and forced labor to produce 14 products, ranging from jade to teak wood.

In India, children worked on glass bangles, leather goods and soccer balls; in Pakistan, they are used to make carpets.

And in Russia and Ukraine, the Philippines and Thailand, they were used in the production of pornography.

"The International Labor Organization estimates that over 12 million persons worldwide are working in some form of forced labor or bondage and that more than 200 million children are at work, many in hazardous forms of labor," the report said.

Armed man Arrested in Capitol During Obama address

As I keep saying, there is a effort to try and assassinate the President. If the Republicans continue to engage in hate mongering directed against the President will be more attempts on the life of Obama.

U.S. Capitol Police have arrested a Virginia man they say tried to drive into a secure area near the Capitol with a shotgun and rifle in his car as the president gave his health care address to Congress.

Joshua Bowman, 28, of Falls Church, Va., was arrested around 8 p.m. Wednesday and charged with two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. Each carries a possible one-year jail sentence and $1,000 fine.

Bowman's intentions were unclear, said police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, but the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington decided against prosecuting him on more serious charges, said spokesman Benjamin Friedman.

Schneider said Bowman approached a security checkpoint near the Cannon House Office Building in a four-door Honda Civic and told officers he wanted to park.

People who want to drive into the area must have a permit and have their vehicles searched. The timing of the request raised an officer's suspicion, Schneider said, and Bowman consented to a vehicle search.

A shotgun, rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition were found in Bowman's trunk, said Erica Stanley, a spokeswoman for the District of Columbia mayor's office.

Trade Deficit jumps to Highest level in 6 months

This means that America will continue to be a debtor nation much like any third world nation. We produce very little but consumer plenty...of foreign products. And how do we pay for these imported goods, as we have for decades? By putting it on a credit card. Because all the good paying manufacturing jobs have been outsourced. Trade is a component of GDP. Meaning, trade deficits rob our economy. It is also contributes to our foreign debt. That means we have to borrow to pay off the Chinese. Recipe for more disasters. Unfortunately, the last politician to talk about this issue was - Ross Perot. And he ain't running for President anymore.

The U.S. trade deficit shot up in July to the highest level in six months as a surge in shipments of foreign oil and autos pushed imports up by a record amount.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that the trade deficit rose 16.3 percent to $32 billion in July, much larger than the $27.4 billion imbalance that economists had expected. It was the largest imbalance since January and the percentage increase was the biggest in more than a decade.

Imports rose by 4.7 percent, the largest monthly advance on records that go back to 1992, while exports edged up by a smaller 2.2 percent. Both gains provided evidence that the most severe recession since World War II was beginning to lose its grip on the global economy.

That would explain our auto industry is being taken over by foreigners.

General Motors Co. agreed to sell its Opel unit to Magna International Inc., accepting the German government’s preference over a financial investor that the U.S. carmaker had favored.

Magna, Canada’s biggest auto-parts maker, and its Russian partner OAO Sberbank will acquire a 55 percent stake in Opel, Detroit-based GM said in a statement. GM, Magna and Germany resolved disputes over Opel’s access to GM intellectual property and financing issues in the past two weeks, according to a person familiar with negotiations.

Top U.S. Banker: Criticism of Excessive Bonuses "Appropriate"

Now this guy deserves a medal. Why isn't his comments front page news? And why aren't the politicians saying I told you so? Maybe they don't care? Maybe the bailout of Wall St. was a mistake?

A top US banker has said that public anger about excessive bonuses paid out by financial institutions is both "understandable and appropriate".

Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs, also said that payouts guaranteed over a number of years should be banned.

His own firm was recently criticised for setting aside billions of dollars to be paid out in bonuses.

Many blame excessive bonuses for the short-term risk taking that helped bring about the financial crisis.

Mr Blankfein, one of Wall Street's best paid bankers, said "there is little justification for the payment of outsized discretionary compensation when a financial institution lost money for the year".

61 SC House Republicans call on Governor to Resign

This is what politicians in America have to come to. They have little concern for what is right and what is good for America. The honorable thing for Mr.Sanford to do is step down. But love of power and self trump duty and honor. Whether it's the Republicans and Democrats they not only dishonor their parties but have little regard for family. Is it any wonder our society is crumbling when the two parties spend all their time chasing skirts or selling out.

Sixty-one South Carolina House Republicans asked Gov. Mark Sanford to resign Wednesday, questioning his ability to lead the state since his unannounced summertime trip to see a mistress in Argentina and investigations of his state and private travel that followed.

"Your decision to abandon our state for five days, with no defined order of succession and with no known way to contact you, is inexcusable," said a letter from the lawmakers signed by House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham.

At least this guy had the decency to quit. But here's another example of a politician who uses his power to pursue self interest rather than doing what he was elected for.

Mike Duvall's second term as a member of the California Assembly was progressing pretty much like his first — in relative obscurity, with few notable legislative accomplishments.

The Orange County Republican is now a YouTube hit after KCAL-TV aired his racy comments about sexual conquests that were caught by an open microphone in a Capitol hearing room. Several media outlets said the comments referred to Duvall's affairs with a female lobbyist and another woman. He resigned Wednesday.