Obama calls campaign finance ruling ‘devastating’

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he can’t imagine “anything more devastating to the public interest” than the Supreme Court’s decision to ease limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions.

He also suggested in his radio and Internet address Saturday that the ruling could jeopardize his domestic agenda.

In the 5-4 decision Thursday, the high court threw out parts of a 63-year-old law that said companies and unions can be prohibited from using their own money to produce and run campaign ads that urge the election or defeat of particular candidates by name.

“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy,” the president said. “It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way - or to punish those who don’t.”

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Obama calls campaign finance ruling ‘devastating’

This decision was rendered by the Supreme Court on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. You can’t say that Barack Hussein Obama is guilty of making SNAP decisions. It’s taken him 2 full days to react to the ruling by the Supreme Court.

It took him 8 days to even make noise about the Christmas Day terror attempt! But, in all fairness, he was on a much needed vacation in Hawaii and he couldn’t be interrupted. The POTUS does need his rest you know. He did however, interrupt his golf game to make an emergency run to a local hospital when one of his cohorts children suffered a skinned knee or some such. That shows the compassion of THE MAN!

And when Haiti was devastated, Obama sprang into action. He committed troops, supplies and American dollars that we just don’t have to spare or spend. 

It was his people after all, well, more or less. I don’t think Haiti is a Muslim nation, if it were we’d be doing even more than we are now, but for some reason, it seems that Barack Hussein Obama only reacts immediately to that which captures HIS fancy, not necessarily to that which endangers the lives of Americans!

Barack Hussein Obama is either the deepest, most deliberate thinker to ever inhabit to White House or he is a dullard of immense proportions. Personally, I am going with dullard, dense, very slow to react, as some in the firearms business say regarding BAD ammo, “About a 10 second FLASH to BANG delay!”

He also suggested in his radio and Internet address Saturday that the ruling could jeopardize his domestic agenda.

His domestic agenda? HIS domestic agenda? Would that be the domestic agenda that destroys the American economy? Or maybe it’s the agenda where we give up every right we have as a free nation and are forced into a world of socialism, communism, Marxism, or any combination of those failed agendas!

I don’t even begin to claim that I fully understand the nuance of this campaign reform mess. I know it was connected to McCain-Feingold, and I know that the SCOTUS struck it down. That is a good thing. If McCain had a hand in it, well, McCain is just another RINO, a Dem wannabe!

I also know that if Barack Hussein Obama is so all-fired up in the air over it, if he feels that there can’t be “anything more devastating to the public interest”, then this MUST be a good thing that came to pass.

“I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.”

I think what Barack Hussein Obama meant to say was, ‘now the playing field has been leveled’. That’s not a good thing for the Dems I suppose. I mean, if he “can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,”, well, the Dems must be in a tizzy!

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Haiti: Where will all the money go?

WASHINGTON (AP) - How difficult will it be for the United States and other donors to track the millions of dollars in earthquake aid headed to Haiti? U.S. government auditors pulled out of the country years ago after concerns over kidnappings and other crimes scuttled their efforts to monitor Haiti’s spending of $45 million in U.S. aid after storms there killed thousands.

Corruption, theft, violence and other security problems and Haiti’s sheer shortage of fundamentals - reliable roads, telephone and power lines and a sound financial system - will add to the challenges of making sure aid is spent properly as foreign governments and charities try not only to help Haiti recover from this week’s devastating earthquake but to pull itself out of abject poverty.

Past efforts haven’t been easy. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, faced problems on a smaller scale in 2005 and 2006 as auditors tried to review the use of roughly $45 million in aid the U.S. provided after Tropical Storm Jeanne struck Haiti in September 2004, killing more than 2,000 people, injuring more than 2,600 and affecting an estimated 300,000 others.

The inspectors wanted to visit projects funded with the money to measure progress. But after an initial fact-finding trip to Haiti, it was considered too dangerous for them to go back. They could visit only projects deemed safe as destinations. In summer 2005, many employees of the Agency for International Development - which is coordinating the current U.S. response to the earthquake - were temporarily pulled out of Haiti, according to government reports.

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Haiti: Where will all the money go?

I think we all know that the MSM generally tilts to the left and tends to take a bleeding heart stance on most topics. It surprises me that the MSM, especially the Associated Press would run with a story so critical, and truthful, concerning the government of Haiti.

Haiti is one of the poorest places on Earth. Most basic public services are lacking, people typically live on less than $2 a day, nearly half the population is illiterate and the government has a history of instability. The public has little opportunity to be sure that aid to the government is used honestly and well. Nor is following the money easy for donors, including the United States, 700 miles away and one of the country’s biggest helpers.

Give, give, give, and then, give some more. There’s an old saying, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. TEACH a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!’ but I have to wonder, are the people of Haiti willing to LEARN and better themselves or are they simply content to sit back and take charity?

I am not a charity person. I don’t believe in helping those that will NOT help themselves. I am of the belief that you can help a person with a hand UP but a hand-out does nothing to make a lasting and positive solution.

“It has been a challenge, and I think it really is one of the things we have to look at when the country has had such long-standing problems that it seems as though we have made little dent there,” said Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on international organizations, human rights and oversight.

The immediate focus is search and rescue and addressing immediate public health needs. But after that, “I think there’s going to be a number of questions that arise,” Carnahan said.

Russ Carnahan is right on the money, no pun intended. Our efforts haven’t made a dent in the basic life of the Haitians. I doubt it ever will. I also agree that search and rescue are the most immediate issues. The time is rapidly approaching when rescue is a moot point and a waste of time, the efforts will soon turn to recovery of bodies.

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