The Obama administration should realize that without at least grudging Jacksonian support, this treaty — or any international treaty for that matter — is DOA in the Senate. So what is an administration to do? Negotiate with the Jacksonians first to get them on board. Then have a couple of people they trust closely involved in the negotiations and pay close attention to their views as negotiations with foreigners proceed.
Count on them to not do that. They don’t want or expect a treaty — they just want the appearance of wanting one to pander to their mushy-minded base. And to many other people, that appearance may be devastating in a year and a half at the polls.
Jeff Foust has an article at today’s issue of The Space Review on the recent meeting to remember the failure on the tenth anniversary, with a lot of discussion of the topics of my book.
The lawsuit filing provides a troubling description of how fraud was used to impose draconian environmental regulations on California enterprises, which is one of the many reasons why California is deemed by CEOs nationwide as the “worst place to do business”.
As he notes, “liberals” only like whistleblowers when they blow the whistle on conservatives.
Late last night, after markets closed for the weekend, following an extended discussion the European finance ministers announced their “bailout” solution for Russian oligarch depositor-haven Cyprus: a €13 billion bailout (Europe’s fifth) with a huge twist: the implementation of what has been the biggest taboo in European bailouts to date – the impairment of depositors, and a fresh, full blown escalation in the status quo’s war against savers everywhere.
This is not going to end well.
[Update late Saturday evening]
Glenn Reynolds has a lot of updates. Monday may be bloody. And Monday starts late Sunday evening on the Left Coast…
I’m always amused by people who are absolutely convinced that Rush Limbaugh is a racist hatemonger, despite the fact that they have never actually listened to him.
According to the Washington Post-ABC News poll, half of independents express a negative opinion of the president’s performance; just 44 percent approve. A majority of Americans give Obama negative marks on handling the economy. And the president has only a four-percentage-point lead over Republicans when it comes to whom the public trusts more to deal with the economy.
This is clearly not where a president who is less than two months into his second term wants to be. But in some respects, it’s not all that surprising. Mr. Obama, while he won his contest with Governor Romney fairly handily, was not a particularly popular president for most of his first term–and the key elements of his agenda are decidedly unpopular.
He didn’t win in November because people voted for him — he managed to scare them into voting against Romney, or not bothering to vote.
for pre-order. I’ll be getting a cover thumbnail up soon, and I’m working with them to straighten out the reviews.