AP – President Barack Obama on Thursday declared that 10 states are free from the No Child Left Behind law, allowing them to scrap some of the most rigorous and unpopular mandates in American education. In exchange, the states are promising higher standards and more creative ways to measure what students are learning.
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Left behind: 10 states fleeing education law
(AP)
Super PAC-men: Obama’s bundlers gone wild! by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2012 The White House didn’t blow a dog whistle for deep-pocketed liberal donors on Monday. No, the administration whipped out a supersized vuvuzela. Blaring message: Let loose the campaign finance-bundling hounds of super PAC war! President Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations before assuming 2012 re-election duties, announced the super PAC super-flip-flop in a mass e-mail to supporters and a blog post published on the left-wing Huffington Post website. In a related conference call to major campaign finance bundlers, Messina encouraged these high-dollar donors to start funding Priorities USA Action. That’s the Democratic super PAC founded by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney. Super PACs and campaigns are barred from coordinating with each other. Nevertheless, Messina said that “senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events.” Of course, they “won’t be soliciting contributions.” Wink-wink, nudge-nudge. This brazen about-face for Team Obama is a goldmine of campaign lies, contortions and epic hypocrisy. Let us count the ways. – A bundle of contradictions. “Bundling” is the rustling up of aggregate contributions from friends, business associates and employees, a practice to circumvent individual donation limits that Obama has long condemned. When he announced his presidential intentions in 2007, candidate Obama decried “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” He indignantly singled out “the best bundlers” who get the “greatest access” to power. Last week, Obama acknowledged raising at least $74 million through his team of big-time bundlers who have been showered with access, tax dollars and plum patronage positions. This elite group of Hollywood celebrities (such as open-borders actress Eva Longoria), political cronies (such as Chicago bagman Louis “The Vacuum” Susman) and politically correct businessmen (such as bankrupt Solyndra investor George Kaiser) now totals a whopping 445 gold-card members. – The roar of the revolving door. In his Monday announcement, Messina bragged about how the White House has enacted “sweeping” reforms to “close the revolving door between government and lobbyists.” In truth, the administration has widened the carousel and removed the brakes. The Obama-cheerleading Fishwrap of Record (The New York Times) itself identified at least 15 bundlers “involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies.” Moreover, “at least 68 of 350 Obama bundlers for the 2012 election or their spouses have served in the administration in some capacity; at least 250 of the bundlers visited the White House, and another 30 have ties to companies that conduct business with federal agencies or hope to do so in the future,” according to a recent iWatch News report. Several first-time 2012 bundlers already have snagged administration posts: – Norma Lee Funger, of Potomac, Md., who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama, was appointed last month to the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. – Glenn S. Gerstell, of Washington, D.C., who bundled the same amount, was appointed to the National Infrastructure Advisory Commission last fall. – Richard Binder, of Bethesda, Md., another $50,000 to $100,000 bundler, was appointed to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health last spring. And note: The most transparent administration ever still refuses to disclose recusal orders involving the nearly 100 lobbyists and ex-lobbyists on its payroll. – Super PAC super-hypocrisy. “Super PACs” are federal political action committees that only make independent expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, candidates. Their birth and growth were fueled indirectly by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling in 2010. The decision overturned severe campaign finance restrictions that essentially criminalized certain forms of political speech. As Chief Justice John Roberts put it during oral arguments: “We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats.” Until this week, the Obama administration vehemently condemned the Citizens United decision and vowed to eschew super PACs. The entities are a “threat to our democracy,” Obama railed two years ago. The ruling would “open the floodgates for special interests,” he warned. And last July, Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt kept talking the anti-super PAC talk. “Neither the president nor his campaign staff or aides will fundraise for super PACs,” he asserted. Now? President Obama and his wife won’t fundraise for the democracy-undermining super PACs. But countless other Cabinet members and advisers, partying with Obama bundlers gone wild, will. In 2007, Obama lambasted rival Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for criticizing independent expenditures while raking in big PAC bucks: “So you can’t say yesterday you don’t believe in them, and today you have three quarters of a million dollars being spent on you. You can’t just talk the talk.” Obama 2012 campaign motto: Empty talk? Yes, we can!
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Super PAC-men: Obama’s bundlers gone wild!
From Mark McKinnon, at Daily Beast, ” Obama’s Super PAC Hypocrisy: Giving Blessing to Priorities USA Action ,” and from Sissy Willis, ” How Obama learned to stop worrying and love the super PAC ” (via Linkmaster Smith ). And at yesterday’s New York Times , ” Obama Yields in Marshaling of ‘Super PAC’ “: WASHINGTON — President Obama is signaling to wealthy Democratic donors that he wants them to start contributing to an outside group supporting his re-election, reversing a long-held position as he confronts a deep financial disadvantage on a vital front in the campaign. Aides said the president had signed off on a plan to dispatch cabinet officials, senior advisers at the White House and top campaign staff members to deliver speeches on behalf of Mr. Obama at fund-raising events for Priorities USA Action, the leading Democratic “super PAC,” whose fund-raising has been dwarfed by Republican groups. The new policy was presented to the campaign’s National Finance Committee in a call Monday evening and announced in an e-mail to supporters. “We’re not going to fight this fight with one hand tied behind our back,” Jim Messina, the manager of Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign, said in an interview. “With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules. Democrats can’t be unilaterally disarmed.” Neither the president, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., nor their wives will attend fund-raising events or solicit donations for the Democratic group. A handful of officials from the administration and the campaign will appear on behalf of Mr. Obama, aides said, but will not directly ask for money. Freakin’ asshats.
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Obama’s Super PAC Hypocrisy
AP – Hammered by Republicans and the Catholic Church, the White House hinted at compromise Tuesday as it struggled to calm an election-year uproar caused by its rule requiring religious schools and hospitals to provide employees with access to free birth control.
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White House hinting compromise on birth control
(AP)
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does not buy White House story on exemption from HHS mandate.
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Bishops say White House ‘exemption’ not entirely true
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — Targeting Iran’s economy, the U.S. ordered tough new penalties Monday to further pinch the country’s financial system and encourage Israel to give sanctions more time before any military action against Iran’s nuclear program. The new, stricter sanctions, authorized in legislation that President Barack Obama signed in December, will be enforced under an order he signed only now. They give U.S. banks new powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the U.S. and Europe. The action against the Central Bank of Iran is more significant for its timing than its immediate effect. It comes as the United States and its allies are arguing that tough sanctions can still persuade Iran to back off what the West contends is a drive to build a nuclear bomb. The U.S. and Europe want to deprive Iran of the oil income it needs to run its government and pay for the nuclear program. But many experts believe Iran will be able to find other buyers outside Europe. The European Union announced last month it would ban the import of Iranian crude oil starting in July. The U.S. doesn’t buy Iranian oil, but last month it placed sanctions on Iran’s banks to make it harder for the nation to sell crude. The U.S., however, has delayed implementing those sanctions for at least six months because it is worried about sending oil prices higher at a time when the world economy is struggling. Iran exports about 3 percent of the world’s oil The faster and more painfully sanctions can be seen to work, the better the case to shelve any plan by Israel to bomb Iran, a pre-emptory move that could ignite a new Mideast war. Taking this initial step against the Central Bank, the first time the U.S. has directly gone after that major institution, is one way the Obama administration can show momentum now. Israel, meanwhile, has been increasingly open about its worry that Iran could be on the brink of a bomb by this summer and that this spring offers the last window to destroy bomb-related facilities. Many Israeli officials believe that sanctions only give time for Iran to move its nuclear program underground, out of reach of Israeli military strikes. White House spokesman Jay Carney denied that Monday’s unexpected announcement of new banking sanctions was a sign of heightened worry about an Israeli attack. “There has been a steady increase in our sanctions activity and this is part of that escalation,” he said. Carney said U.S. sanctions on Iran are already squeezing Iran’s economy and have exacerbated tensions within the Iranian leadership. “There is no question that the impact of the isolation on Iran and the economic sanctions on Iran have caused added turmoil within Iran,” he said. Iran is the world’s third-largest exporter of crude oil, giving its leaders financial resources and leverage to withstand outside pressure. Last year, Iran generated $100 billion in revenue from oil, up from $20 billion a decade ago, according to IHS CERA, an energy consulting firm. If Iranian oil is prevented from getting to market, other suppliers could make up the difference. The U.S. has been pressuring other Middle East and African nations to step up production for sale to Europe. Saudi Arabia has said it could increase production to make up for any lost Iranian crude. Iran’s disputed nuclear program became a global concern more than five years ago, when the extent of the country’s research and uranium enrichment began to be known. Since then a web of international economic and other sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s progress toward a point when it could build one or more nuclear devices. U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran is indeed close to that ability but has not yet decided to go ahead. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and denounces sanctions as aggression. The new U.S. penalties were unexpected now. The sanctions were included as an amendment in the wide-ranging defense bill the president signed in late December, though when and how they were to be levied on Iran was unclear. The White House had previously said it would take months to evaluate the likely effect on the fragile global economy before taking the next large steps, including new penalties on the Central Bank. Now, U.S. institutions are required to seize Iranian state assets they come across, rather than rejecting the transaction involved. The value of Iranian assets affected by the new order was not clear. Iran does almost no direct business with the United States after three decades of enmity, but its money moves through the world financial system and its oil is sold in dollars. In a letter to Congress, Obama said more sanctions were warranted, “particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks.” He cited the hiding of transactions of people or institutions and other loopholes. In an interview Sunday with NBC, Obama said the U.S. has “a very good estimate” of when Iran could complete a nuclear weapon, and he spoke favorably of the effect of sanctions and diplomacy to resolve the impasse. Obama addressed the concern about Israel but suggested there is still time. “I don’t think Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,” Obama said. He did not answer a question about whether Israel has promised to notify the United States before any pre-emptory strike. Republican presidential candidates have accused Obama of being too timid in his dealings with Iran, and while U.S. officials reject that characterization they acknowledge they are stepping cautiously because of fear of upsetting the global economy.
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U.S. Imposes Tougher Sanctions on Iran, But Will it Ease Israeli Fears?
