Day: April 20, 2009

Obama Admin Challenges GOP

Top White House advisers on Sunday challenged Republicans to offer alternatives and not simply criticize administration approaches, as Congress prepared to return from a two-week recess and take up a charged agenda centered on core Obama objectives.

“You have to come constructive,” Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said Sunday, “and when you’re the party of no, when you’re the party of never, when you’re the party of no new ideas, that’s not constructive.”

He urged Republicans, among other things, to provide a plan for energy independence, and flatly predicted that “at the end of this first year of Congress, there will be an energy bill on the president’s desk.” But speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Emanuel he would not predict whether it would encompass the thorny issue of a cap-and-trade plan to contain emissions, which some Republicans consider tantamount to a crippling tax.

Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader and who also appeared on “This Week,” said that Republicans had already offered alternatives to the administration’s economic-stimulus and budget proposals. As to the president’s plans to make health care affordable to more Americans — an issue that may loom over all others — Mr. Boehner said, “We’re working on a plan.”

“We are working on a plan”?  Hopefully it will be a better plan than their budget alternative.  So far their alternatives are just tired recycled BS from the 90’s.  But after 3 months of just saying NO, they still just say NO….that sounds like the only plan they have or will ever have.

What A Difference A Hearing Makes

First, it was the good news from Wells Fargo…they made $1+ billion in profits and then Goldman-Sach’s comes out with their news of a profit of $1.8 billion.  All looks well, eh?

Next, I ask, how much of that profit is the taxpayer’s money that was thrown at them?  Now some of these TARP recipients are trying to quickly pay back the TARP cash and get out from under the governments thumb.  Why?

Is it a coincidence, that after the hearings on bonuses and the consideration of limiting those bonuses on any companies that get TARP funds have anything to do with this sudden rise of success from these failing companies?

Personally, I do not believe in coincidence in government or economics.  These bandits are trying to get from under the government scrutiny and the government is helping them do so….

A Sad Consequence Of War

As many as 13 soldiers are believed to have killed themselves in March, bringing the number of reported soldier suicides this year to 56, officials announced April 10.

None of the March cases under investigation have been confirmed, but about 90 percent of deaths involved in such investigations typically are ruled to be suicides.

As many as 24 suicides were reported in January, but on March 4 officials removed one case because it was determined that the soldier was no longer on active duty when he died. Of the 23 remaining cases, 14 are confirmed suicides; nine are pending a determination.

Eight soldiers killed themselves in February, and the deaths of 10 others were still being investigated. Since the Army initially reported its February numbers, two other deaths also have come under investigation as possible suicides.

In all, 56 confirmed and suspected suicides have been reported across the Army since Jan. 1. Of the 56, 22 are confirmed suicides, 34 are pending.

As many as 143 soldier suicides were reported in 2008, the fourth year in a row the Army has seen an increase in suicides, and leaders have said factors such as the stress of deployments and personal relationships played a role in the deaths.

Of the 143 cases, 128 were enlisted soldiers; 41 were in combat arms military occupational specialties; 85 were married; 134 were men; 110 were white.