Recalling Candidate Obama on Signing Statements:

A quick, further note to co-blogger John Elwood's posts on the Obama administration's use of signing statements. I'm sure someone has mentioned this in the comments somewhere, but over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku has posted up video of then-candidate Obama denouncing the use of signing statements and promising not to use them. "

Hypocrisy" is a strong word, but I'll agree with Julian that it fits in this case; likewise the shrug from President Obama's supporters that heck, all presidents do it. Yes, of course, all presidents do it. Not all presidents do it, however, after promising not to do it. It's not the fact of doing it, it's the fact of breaking the promise, and with the complete confidence that no one of any significance will call you on it, starting with the press. The video is fascinating viewing as an artifact from the media memory hole, and thanks to Julian for putting it up.

 

 Why this didn't get more play, I don't know. This is a huge deal.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/justices-rule-that-states-c...

 In a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4, that States enforcers of consumer protection laws gained power. Anton Scalia wrote the opinion, in which he decided with the liberal side of the court!

 Senator Patrick J. Leahy, celebrated the decision as  “a check against the former Bush administration’s attempt to prohibit state law from protecting consumers.”

 In a statement, New York’s current attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, called the decision “a huge win for consumers across the nation.” In a reference to the nation’s economic crisis, Mr. Cuomo added, “the court has recognized that fair lending and consumer protection — the cornerstones of a sound economy — require the cooperative efforts of both the states and the federal government.”

 Writing for a 5-to-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia concluded that the attorney general had not been engaged in the broad “visitorial powers” reserved by the federal government, in which the government acts like a supervisor with free access to bank records on demand.

 At issue in the case was disproportionally high rates charged to minority borrowers, by CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Eliot Spitzer (one of my heroes) had requested information from the banks on the disparities of loan rates to minorities, and the banks sued claiming they did not have to reveal the information.

 What is most interesting to me is that this law has stood since 1864 and over the years the limits of bank secrecy have been pushed to the max. Secondly, is the banks seem to have been given or  taken on an authority, especially during the Bush years,  a power almost as if they were a nation unto themselves. This is a first step into eroding that power.

 James Tierney called  the case “a stinging defeat for the large banks and federal regulators who have worked for years to stop states from enforcing state consumer protection and antidiscrimination laws.”

 Yeah!!!!

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders …

Politico has the pathetic details...

that should be our biggest worry, not inflation.

 Stop worrying about inflation!

 If the value of your house is going down, and you can shop at Wal-Mart and get stuff cheaper than ever before, to 'live better', if your wages are flat, or possibly falling, it is NOT inflation that people should be worried about right now, it is Deflation!

 Deflation is much more worrisome than inflation.

   Milton Friedman is famous for declaring inflation is always everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Except that he was wrong. Right now with falling prices and wages, the last thing we should be worried about is inflation.

    As prices fall, deflation occurs because folks who have debt, or are considering buy debt,  are waiting for prices to drop. Will you buy your dream house now, or if you wait two months, could you get a better deal?

    The paradox is that deflation is the economies way of seeking inflation, or prosperity. IN other words people become fearful of spending unless prices improve, which indicates that the economy will rebound. LIkewise people are fearful of spending are worried their wages will drop, or stay flat. 

    The downward cycle of deflation is much more difficult to cope with than inflation. You can deal with  inflation by charging more for debt. Deflation was where this country was stuck after the great depression.

   Stop worrying about inflation. That is not the problem we are facing.

the left's outrage over the Sanford affair.  Either he stays on as a badly wounded politician or resigns and goes quietly into the night.  There is no upside to attacking him and screaming "hypocrisy!".  For one, instances of mild* hypocrisy among politicians are extremely common.  Hypocrisy in itself can only really be considered a minor vice.  Attacking a notion simply because its proponent doesn't follow it is an ad hominem tu quoque fallacy.

Also, little in this case speaks to the actual serious business of governing a state.  Dems should just let him hang there.  It's not like the South Carolina governership is an easy, attainable or even desirable prize for many Democrats anyway.

* I say "mild" hypocrisy because while Sanford may belong to the party with the greater tendency to moralize, but he was hardly on a crusade against adultery or cosponsering Huckabee-like "supermarriage" covenants.

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

Gee, no kidding...

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

The Washington Times has the rest .