Obama believes this will show him getting back with the people; riding a bus like common folk. But he’s not campaigning…
Well, not exactly. Who else in this or any other country has ever ridden in a bus which cost more than a million dollars? Many corporate jets cost less!!!
'He not only likes Canadian health care, but he likes Canadian RV's'...
Obama AG Secretary Vilsack
Obama's Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: "Well, obviously, it's putting people to work. Which is why we're going to have some interesting things in the course of the forum this morning. Later this morning, we're going have a press conference with Secretary Mavis and Secretary Chu to announce something that's never happened in this country -- something that we think is exciting in terms of job growth. I should point out, when you talk about the SNAP program or the foot stamp program, you have to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times."
By Vanessa Ho, Seattlepi.comPublished: Aug 16, 2011 at 8:27 AM PDT
Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.
McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
But more than a year later, Seattle's numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative, and not the entry-level pathways once dreamed of for low-income workers. Some people wonder if the original goals are now achievable.
"The jobs haven't surfaced yet," said Michael Woo, director of Got Green, a Seattle community organizing group focused on the environment and social justice.
"It's been a very slow and tedious process. It's almost painful, the number of meetings people have gone to. Those are the people who got jobs. There's been no real investment for the broader public."
Who's got the money'
The buildings that have gotten financing so far include the Washington Athletic Club and a handful of hospitals, a trend that concerns community advocates who worry the program isn't helping lower-income homeowners.
"Who's benefitting from this program right now – it doesn't square with what the aspiration was," said Howard Greenwich, the policy director of Puget Sound Sage, an economic-justice group. He urged the city to revisit its social-equity goals.
"I think what it boils down to is who's got the money."
Organizers and policy experts blame the economy, bureaucracy and bad timing for the program's mediocre results. Called Community Power Works, the program funds low-interest loans and incentives for buildings to do energy-efficient upgrades. They include hospitals, municipal buildings, big commercial structures and homes.
Half the funds are reserved for financing and engaging homeowners in Central and Southeast Seattle, a historically underserved area. Most of the jobs are expected to come from this sector.
But the timing of the award has led to hurdles in enticing homeowners to bite on retrofits. The city had applied for the grant at a time of eco-giddiness, when former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was out-greening all other politicians except for Al Gore. Retrofits glowed with promise to boost the economy, reduce consumer bills and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"A triple win," is how Biden characterized it.
By the time Seattle won the award, homeowners were battered by unemployment and foreclosures. The long-term benefits of energy upgrades lacked the tangible punch of a new countertop. And the high number of unemployed construction workers edged out new weatherization installers for the paltry number of jobs.
"Really, we couldn't have rolled out this program at a worse time," said Greenwich, who had helped write the city's grant proposal.
"The outcomes are very disappointing. I think the city has worked really hard, but no one anticipated just how bad this recession was going to be, and the effect it was going to have on this program."
City feels 'cautiously optimistic'
As of last week, 337 homeowners had applied for the program. Fourteen had gotten a loan, or were in the process of getting one.
"Yes, we're not seeing as many completed retrofits as we wanted to," said Joshua Curtis, the city's manager for Community Power Works. "While everyone would like to see more upgrades, I think we're feeling cautiously optimistic."
He said the residential portion of program didn't launch until April. He said there was a normal summertime lull in work and that he expected things to pick up in the fall. He was confident that the city's marketing campaign and loan partner held promise.
Curtis said there were factors outside the city's control, such as the economy. And he attributed frustration among job-seekers to a "mismatch" in the timing of two federal grants.
Before the city got the $20 million, some local agencies, including Got Green, had received funds in a government push to train workers in weatherization. But the anticipation of landing career-path jobs evaporated as months went by with no work.
"People are frustrated and rightly so," Curtis said. "There's been sort of a lag time when people graduated from those programs."
They include Long Duong, 32, who got a certificate in sealing air leaks and insulating walls after he was laid off from a job handling bags at the airport. But he soon found that other men had more qualifications than him, and he took part-time gigs - installing light bulbs and canvassing doors – while waiting for work.
A year later, he's still looking.
"I haven't given up yet," said Duong, of South Seattle. "Weatherization is another opportunity for me."
Curtis said the money that financed the Washington Athletic Club and hospitals doesn't draw from funds reserved for single-family homeowners. He said the program's standards will ensure that people targeted by the program – low-income workers – will get good jobs. And he said the WAC project will create some new work in September.
"We're not where we want to be, but we have a path forward," he said.
City needs to 'step up its game'
But will the city hit its goals? Curtis was hopeful Seattle would make it by 2013, when the funding ends. Greenwich, of Puget Sound Sage, said the city needs to retrofit 100 to 200 homes a month to create 2,000 jobs. Woo, of Got Green, thinks the city needs to throw more money on incentives.
Greenwich said the energy retrofit market has turned out to be extremely complicated, with required hammering out of job standards, hiring practices, wages and how best to measure energy benefits.
"The city is really going to have to step up its game to get the 2,000 retrofits," Greenwich said.
"But if this would have been easy, it would have been done already."
Seattlepi.com is a media partner of KOMO News.
Poor man, down on his luck…
by Byron York
President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting, Monday, Aug. 15, 2011, at the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, during his three-day economic bus tour. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program "reversed the recession" until recovery was frustrated by events overseas. And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a "debacle."
"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.
"All those things have been headwinds for our economy," Obama said. "Now, those are things that we can't completely control. The question is, how do we manage these challenging times and do the right things when it comes to those things that we can control?"
"The problem," Obama continued, "is that we've got the kind of partisan brinksmanship that is willing to put party ahead of country, that is more interested in seeing their political opponents lose than seeing the country win. Nowhere was that more evident than in this recent debt ceiling debacle."
Except for its updated details, much of the president's speech resembled the stump speeches he gave when campaigning for Democrats before the 2010 midterm elections. But the White House claims this trip is non-political, part of the president's officials duties to discuss economic issues with the public.
For the three-day tour through Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, the Secret Service has rolled out two new buses, costing more than $1 million apiece, to take the president and his aides around the countryside.
Erik Hayden
In Iowa's Ames Straw Poll this weekend, Michele Bachmann bested 2nd place Ron Paul by less than 200 votes. And yet, in the immediate spin cycle at least, pundits talked about Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Bachmann. Paul seemed to be, as his supporters always point out, invisible. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart became the latest to weigh in on the habit of ignoring Paul. After playing a few highlight reels showing anchors going out of their way not to mention the libertarian firebrand, he incredulously asks: "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?"
The three, who have been criticized for pushing on with the border weapons sting even as it came apart, receive new management jobs in Washington.
“I share responsibility for mistakes that were made,” said ATF supervisor William G. McMahon about Operation Fast and Furious. (U.S. Congress / August 14, 2011)
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
August 16, 2011
Reporting from Washington—
The ATF has promoted three key supervisors of a controversial sting operation that allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico.
All three have been heavily criticized for pushing the program forward even as it became apparent that it was out of control. At least 2,000 guns were lost and many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and two at the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.
The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency's headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF's deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency's Phoenix office.
McMahon and Newell have acknowledged making serious mistakes in the program, which was dubbed Operation Fast and Furious.
"I share responsibility for mistakes that were made," McMahon testified to a House committee three weeks ago. "The advantage of hindsight, the benefit of a thorough review of the case, clearly points me to things that I would have done differently."
Three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesmen did not return phone calls Monday asking about the promotions. But several agents said they found the timing of the promotions surprising, given the turmoil at the agency over the failed program.
Aug 13 06:19 PM US/Eastern
By TERRY COLLINS
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute?
The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police.
Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision.
"I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair."
Thursday, August 11, 2011 - Bill Kelly's Truth Squad by William Kelly
Chicago, August 11, 2011 – This week U.S. Senator Dick Durbin held a press conference with members of the mainstream media to talk about the downgrade crisis. But the Senator’s scripted storyline veered off-course when a conservative reporter – me – showed up to ask an embarrassing question. Namely, “Senator, you’ve blamed the tea party…but do you bear any responsibility for this downgrade crisis?”
What, you didn’t hear about this incident in the media? For those of you that need more proof that journalism is dead, read on.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Monday was another beautiful day for a mainstream media cover-up in Chicago. But it would not have been complete without a picnic-basket full of hypocrisy from our very own U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.
You may remember Dick.
He’s the Senator that hysterically compared the treatment of the Gitmo detainees to Nazis, Soviet gulags, and Pol Pot. While calling for an end to “hateful” rhetoric, he’s the one who wrongfully pointed his crooked finger at the Tea Party Movement and Gov. Sarah Palin, blaming them for the Tucson massacre and the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Recently, he’s the one that, hypocritically, accused the Tea Party Republicans of “political extortion” in the debt ceiling debate.
While the markets were tanking – Durbin took some time out to have a press conference and dish to his friends in the Chicago media about the S&P downgrade of our nation’s sterling credit rating.
Given his history, I expected more of the same accusatory rhetoric about the tea party from Durbin. Since the report of the downgrade hit the newswires last Friday, members of Durbin’s party have been in full anti-tea party spin control.
“The fact of the matter is that this is essentially a tea party downgrade,” said former White House advisor David Axelrod on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Sen. John Kerry must have received the same memo. “This is the tea party downgrade,” said Kerry on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
I went to Durbin’s press conference to set the record straight. My objective: some journalistic balance. Not only did Durbin refuse to answer the question but his cronies in the Chicago media went on the attack.
One of those crony journalists was Jim Anderson, news director for the Illinois Radio Network. You can hear him in the background telling Durbin, “He organizes tea party rallies." In media terms, that’s called being fair and impartial. That’s what a real journalist does.
I stood my ground and asked the question a number of times. “You’re not allowed to ask questions during a press conference,” bleated Anderson. “We are going to have you thrown out by the cops,” he said, running interference for Durbin. In addition to doing news for the Illinois Radio Network, Anderson apparently moonlights as an unpaid member of Dick Durbin’s staff.
A special agent was soon dispatched to have me escorted out of the room, where I, as press, had a right to be. At least, that’s what I read, once upon a time, in the U.S. Constitution.
I am an independent social journalist for the Washington Times Communities and contribute to the American Spectator, and Breitbart.com among others. No other blogger, freelance journalist, or other member of the media was asked to show their credentials at this event. In fact, the event was sponsored by City Club of Chicago and was open to media and the public.
This brings us to the eternal question: Who is media and who is not? Who gets to decide? Sen. Dick Durbin? His friends in the Chicago media? Are public officials accountable to the public? Do we have the right to question authority? Or must we just accept what they bestow upon us? Do we have the right to question the media? Or do we have to let the so-called “real” journalists impose their own idea of news? Of truth?
During my exchange with him, Sen. Durbin told (instructed) the media, “You guys aren’t going to cover this are you?” And the media…didn’t.
Is this collusion between a high-ranking member of the Democrat party and the supposedly unbiased mainstream media? Do I sympathize with the gripes of the Tea Party? Yes and yes.
The media and the Democrats accuse the tea party, conservatives, and Republicans in general of being “uncivil.” They compare us to terrorists “strapped with explosives” because we are trying to change Washington; because we want fairness in the media; because we are trying to put an end to corruption, fraud, and the redistribution of wealth that is considered “routine.” To an inside-the-beltway hack, to oppose the status quo - that must truly be “terrifying.”
Of course, I’ve been accused of being uncivil before. I’ve also been threatened by other journalists before. But this isn’t about civility; it’s about control.
The Democrats and their media cronies want to control the news and information. They want to control the political system and its system of punishments and rewards. This system is fundamentally anti-freedom and they – the powers that be - are “OK” with that.
I was held to a different standard because I write for conservative news outlets and Sen. Durbin didn’t like my question. The mainstream media are merely an adjunct to the Obama campaign and the Democrat National Committee. Not one of them reported this incident.
The economic crisis is not helped by a compliant, subservient media that tampers with news to help their candidates and causes. In the abscessed cavity of newsrooms around Chicago, this exchange and the remarks Sen. Durbin made to the media’s microphones exists. In Chicago, NBC, CBS, ABC, the Chicago Sun-Times, and every other news outlet, have shown their true colors. They weren’t red, white, and blue.
And neither are Durbin’s.
Conservative satirist and commentator William J. Kelly is also a contributor to Breitbart.com and edits the Tea Party Reports for the Washington Times Communities. He is a native from Chicago's Southside.
Email questions to him at williamjkellyrebuild@gmail.com.
Find him on Facebook/Williamjpkelly
Read more of Bill Kelly's Truth Squad in The Communities at the Washington Times.
Dem Judge Rules Against Obama's Signature Achievement...
'Unbounded assertion of congressional authority'...
BACHMANN: I TOLD YOU SO...
WH: Ruling 'Will Not Stand'...
It came to light Monday that the thirty elite American troops who were killed when their helicopter was attacked in Afghanistan were lured into a trap by the Taliban.
An Afghan official said, "Now it's confirmed that the helicopter was shot down and it was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander. The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take."
How did the Taliban know? Who tipped off the Taliban? And who supplied the Taliban with the surface-to-air armaments?
I blame the president.
I believe the loose lips of this reckless, incompetent fraud cost this group of elite Navy SEALs their lives. So obsessed was this poseur with taking credit for something that he didn't have the stomach for (and didn't want) that he ensured a U.S. sacrifice of incalculable proportions.
There were Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden, among those who were lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Back in May, Defense Secretary Gates said that releasing information about the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed would threaten the safety of the Navy SEALs who were involved in that operation and their families. They would become targets for jihad terrorists.
So why was this information released? Why did the Obama administration leak and name this SEAL team?
We should not have been told. Obama should have released the pictures of that jihadist monster and moved on. Instead, he gave him a proper Islamic burial and held back on proof for fear on insulting Islam.
Was this payback for Leon Panetta's revelation that the Navy SEALs, not the president, made the decision to kill Osama bin Laden? Who is taking revenge? The ISI?
These are the questions that must be asked and answered by the Obama administration. But do not expect him to do it. I revealed the truth about this socialist internationalist in my book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America. Everything he has done since he has become President has confirmed how right I was about him.
In a characteristic move, Obama has banned the media from the return of the remains of these Navy SEALs to the U.S. Clearly, the visual of a parade of coffins, the images of the worst day in recent U.S. history, would not be an opportune Obama photo-op. Cold-blooded calculation.
And do not expect the press, whose job it is, to get to the truth of this matter. The mainstream media is nothing more than an activist propaganda machine that is actively working against the American people. It is the enemy's number-one arsenal in its war on America.
It is all but surrender, my friends, all but surrender.
The loss of these extraordinary warriors cannot be described. The pain and suffering are beyond mere words. Weep for the loss for the families and for our great and noble country.
This is one of those moments that tears at your heart. Matt Lauer interviewed the extraordinary family of Aaron Vaughn, a Navy SEAL Team Six member. Vaughn was one of the SEALs who was killed by jihadists in the largest single loss of life ever for SEAL Team Six, and the largest loss of life for American forces in a single event since the defensive action began after Islam's declaration of war on the America on September 11, 2001.
It was an incredible interview. What patriots, what strength -- good, fine, and decent people, and to hear them speak of this huge loss was wrenching. Lauer is incapable of conducting an interview where he has no control of the script, but the family didn't hold back in describing how much their son loved G-d, loved our country, and believed that Islamic fundamentalism threatened the survival of our nation and civilization. Vaughn's father spoke of Islamic history and the threat that people remain painfully unaware of. It is rare that the truth breaks through the iron curtain of the media -- and look what it took in this case.
There should be a national day of mourning declared in the honor of these Navy SEALs, to remind all Americans of the devastating toll taken by the war declared on the West by Islamic jihad.
Pray for their families. They gave all.
Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of Stop the Islamization of America (WND Books).
