Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/04/30/obama_amp_reagan_the_numbers_tell_the_story_254653.html
Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Barack Obama George Soros Aung San Suu Kyi
Sunday, May 1, 2011
It's Getting Harder to Bring Home Bacon
Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal
Bobbie Jean Pope, the 81-year-old mother of C. Larry Pope of Newport News, Va., can't afford her bacon."I said, 'Mom, I'll get you some bacon.' And she goes, 'I can't afford y'all's meat anymore! Why is y'all's meat so expensive?' And I said, 'Mom, you ought to understand why it's expensive—it's 'cause our costs are so expensive.'"
Bobbie Jean Pope, the 81-year-old mother of C. Larry Pope of Newport News, Va., can't afford her bacon."I said, 'Mom, I'll get you some bacon.' And she goes, 'I can't afford y'all's meat anymore! Why is y'all's meat so expensive?' And I said, 'Mom, you ought to understand why it's expensive—it's 'cause our costs are so expensive.'"
Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2011/04/30/it039s_getting_harder_to_bring_home_bacon_254642.html
Henry Kissinger Dennis Kucinich Nelson Mandela Paul Martin John McCain
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Queen Elizabeth II Wu Yi Viktor Yushchenko Nancy Pelosi Speaker Pelosi
Potential GOP Candidates Slam Obama in NH
Five potential Republican presidential candidates came to New Hampshire on Friday vowing to take an immediate U-turn on the policies of the Obama administration if elected.
That is, if they ultimately decide to run for president.
Though none of the handful of possible Republican contenders who addressed a group of several hundred conservative activists here, including possible repeat candidate Mitt Romney, have officially said they will vie for the Republican nomination, each tried to appeal to Granite State voters who could help make or break their chances next year.
Romney said the fact that many Americans find themselves in dire economic straights is "simply inexcusable."
President Obama, Romney said, "could have learned better" from New Hampshire, in particular.
"He came to New Hampshire. He saw the mills in Manchester, he saw the buildings, he recognized that there was an economic crisis here," Romney said. "He could have learned that when you dealt with that economic crisis you believed in holding down taxes, keeping regulations low, balancing budgets, keeping government small. And that formula has filled those mill buildings."
"But he didn't look to New Hampshire," Romney added, "instead he looked to Europe."
Joining the former Massachusetts governor in his full-throated critique of the president's economic policies were former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and businessman Herman Cain, all of whom were on hand for a presidential summit sponsored by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.
Friday night's event was one of the first major "cattle calls" in this important early nominating state. Many attendees said they walked into the forum undecided about who they plan to support when their state holds its primary less than a year from now, and walked out without a decision.
Pawlenty, who launched a presidential exploratory committee in March and is an all-but-declared candidate, nearly made an official announcement Friday.
"I see a brighter future for our nation -- that's why I'm running for president," Pawlenty said, quickly clarifying, "considering running for president."
Pawlenty, who has been building up a campaign organization in New Hampshire, fielded a question from the forum's moderator about his shift from supporting a cap-and-trade energy policy to opposing it.
"I changed my position and said it was a mistake, it was stupid and I'm sorry," he said. "I don't try to defend it. Everybody's got a couple of clunkers in their record, that's one of mine."
And the forum was not without its awkward moments for Romney.
At one point he referred to what he called the "Obama Misery Index," telling the crowd, "We're going to hang him with that, so to speak."
He paused for a moment, and added, "metaphorically."
In his remarks, Santorum said it was time for a "drill baby drill" approach to energy policy with Americans facing painfully high gas prices. Bachmann, meanwhile, called for an overhaul of the country's tax system.
"Flat tax or a fair tax," she said, "let's get rid of what we've got and start over."
Cain, the founder of Godfather's Pizza, said he had a simple solution for reducing spending: "Cut, cut, cut."
"I can think of a few agencies in Washington, D.C., that might need to be cut all the way to the bone."
Friday's event was an opening act to a long period of candidate vetting that many Granite State voters seem to take as seriously as a part-time job.
Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=fdada7de5dd2738e2a630fa03b8d008b
John Howard Mike Huckabee Saddam Hussein Hu Jintao Kim Jong Il
The happy couple
Chris Riddell on coalition nuptuals
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2011/may/01/davidcameron-nickclegg
Let's put the local back into local elections
To be fair to Mr Cameron, Labour has been just as bad. Ed Miliband and his campaign team have successfully converted the local elections into a national referendum on Nick Clegg. The political press, structurally centralist and Westminster-based, has cheerfully colluded in this strategy. If this sorry saga has any heroes, it is the Lib Dems: as much as possible, they have avoided matters of national importance. This is mainly because their activists are doing their best to avoid guilt by association. They do not go out of the way to stress the fact that Nick Clegg is their leader. Indeed, judging by some of the party literature, Mr Clegg does not exist at all.
This year?s local elections, in other words, have been notable for a triumph for national over local politics. This is very troubling ? for it flatly contradicts the central idea that has dominated the Coalition ever since its inception. In May 2010, the Coalition Agreement announced that it was ?time for a fundamental shift of power from Westminster to people? and an end to ?top-down government?, an admirable aim that was to be achieved by the ?radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups?.
The assertion that central government has become too large, monolithic and unaccountable lies at the heart of everything that David Cameron believes in. It is the essence of his notorious Big Society experiment. Furthermore, localism is one of the very few subjects on which Lib Dems and Conservatives wholeheartedly agree. So what has gone wrong?
Part of the answer is that it takes a long time to change a political culture. Every since the Second World War, the British people have been educated to look to Westminster and Whitehall as the solution to their problems. The Coalition can hardly be expected to reverse this in less than a year. The Localism Bill, for example, is not yet law. Probably its most important measure is to hold votes in 12 major cities on whether to introduce an elected mayor. These referendums, due to be held in May 2012, could reinvigorate local government. Nor is this all. Michael Gove, for example, is stripping power from Whitehall and local bureaucracies, and restoring it to local people, thanks to his free schools and academies.
Yet progress has been cautious. The Localism Bill, as the academic Simon Lee has subversively noted, also incorporates no fewer than 126 new ministerial powers over local communities. And the crucial problem concerns money. As Douglas Carswell MP and Daniel Hannan MEP showed in their path-breaking treatise The Plan, there can be no local government independence without local fiscal control. Currently, councils raise only 25 per cent or so of the money they spend. In only two European countries ? Ireland and Malta, which scarcely counts as more than a locality itself ? is the proportion lower. With the important financial decisions still being made in Whitehall, it is scarcely surprising that local elections are driven by national concerns.
So far, George Osborne?s Treasury ? which has been at best indifferent and at worst hostile to David Cameron?s Big Society ? has squashed any thought of reform. Treasury ministers say they do not want to create a new poll tax, which is understandable. This week?s elections will make matters worse, thanks to the huge rise in the number of Labour councillors, practically all of whom are against the cuts. Many will argue that giving them extra fiscal powers would be like putting a drunkard in charge of a pub.
The one exception to the general malaise is in Scotland. By far the biggest surprise of the campaign has been the surge in the SNP vote. British politics has scarcely intruded on the Scottish elections; and even his critics must concede that Alex Salmond has proved the kind of high-profile leader that advocates of localism dream of across all of Britain. There are huge problems with the Scottish financial settlement: but one central reason for the success of the new political architecture is that Holyrood possesses significant fiscal independence.
At some point, David Cameron and Nick Clegg must address exactly this point. The Coalition has made very significant steps in the right direction. But until it opens the door to real reform of local taxation, nothing will fundamentally change the power of Whitehall. Local elections will continue to be marred by low turnout and driven by national concerns ? and Cameron and Clegg?s ?radical devolution of power? simply will not happen.
Noam Chomsky Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton Tom DeLay Elizabeth Dole
It's D-Day for the World's Greatest Investor
Joe Nocera, New York Times
Starting at around 9:30 this morning, Warren Buffett will stand on the stage of the cavernous Qwest Center in Omaha and face the music. Three journalists will ask him questions culled from thousands that have been e-mailed by shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s sprawling holding company. The audience will consist of 35,000 of those shareholders who traveled to Omaha to hear him.Buffett describes this event — a k a the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting — as “Woodstock for capitalism.” It’s normally a festive affair, ...
Starting at around 9:30 this morning, Warren Buffett will stand on the stage of the cavernous Qwest Center in Omaha and face the music. Three journalists will ask him questions culled from thousands that have been e-mailed by shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s sprawling holding company. The audience will consist of 35,000 of those shareholders who traveled to Omaha to hear him.Buffett describes this event — a k a the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting — as “Woodstock for capitalism.” It’s normally a festive affair, ...
Newt Gingrich Rudolph Giuliani Al Gore Chuck Hagel Stephen Harper
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