By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Reports that the auto bailouts will cost taxpayers $25 billion more than previously projected have sparked the predictable political squabbles that attend an election year.
A green-energy auto loan program that has come under sharp scrutiny lately from Republicans got an early boost back in 2008 from Rep. Paul Ryan, records show.
Just when the American economy was looking like a global bright spot, a spate of bad news last week showed that the U.S. also has succumbed to a major slowdown — sending President Obama and his team scrambling to explain Friday's disappointing unemployment numbers.
A former Obama administration official admitted Sunday the president is creating jobs at an "unacceptably low rate."
President Obama's anti-capitalism attacks on Mitt Romney's long career as an investor who bankrolled businesses and created jobs isn't playing well in some Democratic circles.
President Obama is attacking Mitt Romney's job-creation record when he headed a capital investment firm that turned failing companies and startup businesses into success stories.
Mitt Romney returned home Friday to give Michigan voters a glimpse of his plans to get the nation's fiscal house in order and to strengthen the economy, as he worked to court voters in one of the states' that was hit hardest by the economic recession.
Many in the establishment media and, in particular, some of the commentators on MSNBC have referred to members of the tea party and their supporters in Congress who did not vote for the debt ceiling compromise as delusional or worse.
This is Disorientation Week in Washington. From the White House to the Hill, the Democrats are trying (but not trying too hard) to come to terms with a new reality. Attitude-adjustment hour is sometimes no fun at all.
Democrats in Washington have called them terrorists and extortionists, but tea party activists say the name-calling is only proof they are finally having a real impact on the debate over government spending.
The International House of Pancakes has dropped its legal flap against a Missouri church over their shared initials.
The investment banker who helped lead the Obama administration's auto industry overhaul has agreed to pay $10 million to settle influence-peddling allegations in New York.
Misguided foreign policy
The Federal Reserve's policy committee in charge of setting U.S. short-term interest rates meets today in an environment of accelerating turmoil that has been simultaneously afflicting the stock, credit, energy, housing and foreign-exchange markets. If that weren't enough, the Fed will also confront more mundane matters (economic growth and inflation) that are causing the central bank problems independent of the market turmoil. The economy has been growing slower during the past year (1.8 percent) than previously believed, according to recent revisions. Meanwhile, headline consumer-price inflation, which came in at 2.5 percent during 2006, has accelerated to an annualized rate of 5 percent during the first six months of 2007. With the price of oil approaching $80 per barrel, which is nearly $30 above its level early this year, the Fed also needs to worry about the inflationary momentum of soaring energy prices creeping into the non-energy sector.
But this common-sense idea was killed by the White House aides (including then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) Mr. Rattner says, because it would be bad politics and hurt the Detroit real estate market.
"Nobody is happy with the rate of job creation today," Steven Rattner, Mr. Obama's former car czar, said on "Fox News Sunday."
