posted at 8:10 pm on August 11, 2011 by Ed Morrissey printer-friendly
Tonight, the Republican candidates for the presidential nomination — most of them, anyway — square off for a televised debate in Ames, Iowa, from the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University. I will be in the media “spin room,” along with our partner in blogging Tina Korbe and our Townhall brother Guy Benson. The debate starts at 9 pm ET/8 pm local time here in Iowa, and Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier will moderate the event. We’re looking forward to a lively debate, and I’d expect some elbow throwing and sharp barbs between the contenders, along with a few shots at the absent Rick Perry.
Tina, Guy, and I will capture some of the spin in the room after the show, so be sure to stay right here at Hot Air after the debate ….
Update (AP): While we wait, here’s Larry Sabato’s debate preview. Note this passage well:
The tension between Pawlenty and Bachmann will be even more fun to watch. T-Paw is in a corner on this one. If he wouldn’t smack a man last time, can he now do it to a woman — one who Republicans think was already wronged this week by Newsweek’s unattractive cover photo?
Pawlenty’s the only one onstage who can potentially make or break his campaign tonight. Huntsman needs to do well to make a good impression with Republicans who are seeing him for the first time, but Huntsman’s not competing in Ames or in Iowa more broadly. He can afford a mediocre performance. T-Paw can’t, and if he whiffs again when pressed to criticize his opponents to their faces, he’ll be a punchline before the night is out. I sure hope he’s ready if one of the moderators asks who he has in mind in his stump speech when he dumps on nameless “bobbleheads” among his competitors. It’s painfully clear that he means Bachmann, but who knows whether he has the stones to denigrate her when she’s standing right next to him. And if he does, he’d better hit Romney hard too or else he’ll get hammered tomorrow for precisely the reason Sabato gives. Long story short: Pawlenty needs to be throwing chairs tonight. He needs to walk in there in a cape, to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” and be the Macho Man he keeps claiming he is. You’re an old hockey player, Tim, right? Drop the gloves.
posted at 5:29 pm on August 11, 2011 by Allahpundit printer-friendly
An actual quote from today’s remarks: “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.” To which Steve Hayes, irked by the sight of yet another straw man being torched, replies, “Who are they?” The answer, I can only assume, is congressional progressives: They’re the ones who refuse to budge on the ruinous Medicare spending that’s rocketing the country towards fiscal collapse, as doing so would forfeit their party’s big campaign issue next year. But in case The One’s referring to tea-party congressmen (as he surely is), what was amazing about the “don’t raise the ceiling” crowd during the debt debate is that they were prepared to absorb a ferocious backlash against their own party in the name of doing something significant, i.e. Cut Cap and Balance, to solve America’s debt crisis. Time and again they were told that the GOP would bear the brunt of public anger if we didn’t make a deal, but they preferred that outcome to a weak compromise because at least there’d be important reform as a result. I know Democrats cherish their belief that the right acts only out of personal pique, not principle — it’s all part of the delegitimization game — but the caucus really was trying to put country first in that debate. Their means and ends simply differ from Obama’s; the fact that The One interprets that the way he does says more about him than it does about them, but Democrats have been begging him to be “bolder,” especially in attacking the tea party, so presumably they’ll be happy today.
The two key sections in the clip below run from 5:30 to 7:15 and 11:00 to 13:00. The grand absurdity of this critique, of course, is that every move this guy has made in recent memory, from yanking troops out of Afghanistan by next year to offering a budget so timid that it received not a single vote in the Senate to deliberately refusing to offer his own deficit-reduction plan during the debt-ceiling debate, is geared towards maximizing his odds of reelection. (It’s, er, not working.) The very last person who should be lecturing others about putting the country ahead of a campaign is the Perpetual Campaigner. But he can really sell the above-the-fray crap, can’t he? Exit question: Wasn’t putting country over party actually the campaign theme of Obama’s last opponent? Wouldn’t be the first time he’s borrowed a slogan from a Republican.
posted at 4:05 pm on August 11, 2011 by Allahpundit printer-friendly
He all but confirmed it himself in his interview with Halperin, but this is the first hard “yes” to come out of his camp after weeks and weeks and weeks of teasing. It’s newsworthy if only for that reason, although I’m intrigued by the timing of the leak. Why not wait another 48 hours and let him end the suspense himself on Saturday? Are they a tiny bit spooked by Palin’s arrival in Iowa, maybe, and looking to preempt that with solid news about him running? Or is this all about ensuring that his name is mentioned at the debate tonight?
Texas Gov. Rick Perry will make “a definitive announcement that he is in the 2012 race for the presidency Saturday,” aides told Fox News.
The language is significant. For several days the Perry camp has said he would signal his intentions and announce later.
“This is it,” the sources explain. No exploratory committee, no more deliberation.
Speaking of the Halperin interview, Ace is totally right that Perry made a bad mistake in gossiping about the conversation he had with Latvia’s prime minister about Obama. It humiliates a sitting president who, like it or not, is in charge of foreign affairs for another 15 months and it humiliates the Latvian PM by putting him on the spot over what was, almost certainly, supposed to be a confidential chat. I think this is more a case of Perry being absentminded than deliberately setting out to breach that confidence, but he can’t let it happen again.
Via the Daily Caller, here’s Joe Scarborough dumping on him this morning for praying a bit more publicly than he’d like. Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo’s tearing Perry to shreds in Politico for being much softer on amnesty than he’d like. He’s too far right for the centrists and too far towards the center for the right — not a bad place to be for a guy trying to triangulate between Romney and Bachmann. Besides, if he and Romney do end up in a two-man race, does anyone think Mitt will be taken seriously if he tries to beat Perry by becoming some sort of table-pounding border enforcer? C’mon.
Update: More confirmation. He’s in.
Update: At Townhall, Dwayne Horner has more details:
Stories started surfacing earlier this week saying that Perry, the longest serving chief executive in Texas history, would use the conservative gathering to remove all speculation about a run for the White House. Sources revealed to Townhall yesterday that the Governor’s children, Griffin and Sydney, have been told to clear their schedules starting Friday so they could be “with their father at this special time.”…
With the confirmation that Perry will indeed be a candidate, speculation is that a formal announcement is in the works during Labor Day weekend in either Austin or on the Texas A&M campus.
posted at 10:05 am on August 11, 2011 by Ed Morrissey printer-friendly
Texas Governor Rick Perry will upend the Republican presidential primary with his entry this weekend, CNN’s latest national poll shows. He starts off in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney, 17/15, with his nearest competitors at 12%. Perhaps most surprisingly, Michele Bachmann isn’t among them — and her support gets cut almost in half with Perry’s candidacy:
According to a CNN/ORC International poll, 15 percent of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP pick Perry as their first choice for their party’s nomination, just two points behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who’s making his second bid for the White House. Romney’s two point margin over Perry is within the survey’s sampling error.
The poll’s Thursday release comes two days before Perry gives a speech at a major conservative gathering in South Carolina where his staff has indicated he will make his intentions for a presidential run clear. Later in the day Perry travels to New Hampshire to meet with GOP lawmakers, activists, and voters. Perry’s travels Saturday come as the rest of the political spotlight will be shining on Iowa, for a crucial presidential straw poll in Ames. Perry heads to Iowa Sunday to speak at a Republican party gathering, which means he will visit three of the crucial early voting primary and caucus states this weekend.
The survey indicates that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who is making his third bid for the White House, are at 12 percent apiece. While both Giuliani, who ran for the presidency four years ago, and Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, have flirted with bids, neither has taken concrete steps towards launching a campaign.
Three weeks ago, Perry scored 14% but Giuliani, Palin, and Bachmann all scored 13% or 12%. Now Bachmann has dropped to 7%, a fall of five points and the biggest decline in the field for the period. Ron Paul has picked up four points to surpass her and join Giuliani and Palin in a three-way tie for third place.
Bachmann isn’t the only candidate trending downward, but the rest are in the second tier. Herman Cain dropped two points to 4%, while Tim Pawlenty dropped one to come in at 2%. Both of these candidates need breakout performances in Iowa, which was well known before this week. If CNN’s series is not an outlier, Bachmann may need one as well, now that Perry has come closer to tossing his hat in the ring. She has been wowing crowds in Iowa this week in advance of the debate and straw poll, so she is doing all she can on the ground, but that may not be enough — at least not this week.
Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin interviewed Perry this week about his plans:
A highlight from the transcript:
Q: You’ve talked about how all of the social issues are important and this election is going to be about what the voters care most about: economy and jobs. Is it your hope, if you become a candidate, that even voters who disagree with you on social issues will find your record and argument on jobs so compelling that they vote for you even though they did disagree with you?
A: Well, I’m pretty sure there has never been a candidate [where] all the people agree with his or her positions on the issues. And there are single-issue voters, and I understand that. I respect that. I’ve run three times in Texas and I would suggest to you, Texas is somewhat of a microcosm of the rest of the country, particularly in this first decade of the 21st century. We are very, very cosmopolitan, if you will, very urban, but we have our rural areas. We have an incredible diversity of people [who] live in this state. This is not the Texas of my father. It is a very diverse state. Running for the governorship of the state of Texas, I recognized all the diversity of thought. So, what’s the most important thing that’s facing this country? It’s getting this economy back. I am a pro-business governor. I will be a pro-business President if this does, in fact, ensue and I’m blessed to be elected President of the United States—unabashedly [so] because the fact of the matter is, there’s nothing more important than having an environment created by government that allows for the private sector to risk its capital to know that they have a good chance of having a return on the investment. Because at that particular point in time, the men and women who are out of work today can be back employed. They can take care of their family. They can do the things they desire in their lives. And without that strong economy, America can’t be strong militarily. We can’t have, frankly a presence in the world that we need to have. It all goes back to having an economy that people are comfortable with—they can risk their capital and they’ll have a return on the investment. We don’t have that today.
Q: There are people who’ve looked up—even though you’re not yet a candidate—your record and your endorsement of Mayor Giuliani in the last campaign, some of the positions you’ve taken on immigration, etcetera, and they say Rick Perry is not actually as conservative as he says. What do you say to those people?
A: Well, you know, I stand on my record. I thought Mayor Giuliani did a wonderful job of managing a city. He was very strong militarily. He was as strong on crime as any big city Mayor has ever been. He and I were 180 degrees on social issues, but he would put strict constructionists on the Supreme Court, which dealt with those social issues. I happen to be comfortable that I was making the right decisions and that as President, when it comes to those social issues, it’s very important to have that strict constructionist view of who you put on the Supreme Court. Because they’d look at the constitution and say, you know what, that issue dealing with abortion is not in the constitution. We will put it back to the states. Now if the states want to pass an amendment and three quarters of the states want to pass an amendment to make this be a change of our United States constitution, then just follow that process. And I’m a big believer that that’s how our country should work.
Q: So if you got in, would you be the most conservative candidate in the race? Or as conservative as everybody else?
A: Yeah I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But again, we go back to what’s the most important issue here? I mean if somebody wants to go back and find, oh here’s a little spot right here—you know, I was a democrat at one time in my life. I was 25 years old before I think I ever met a person who would admit being a Republican. So the key is, I’ve got a record. And that record, particularly when it comes to the most important issues in this campaign, which is creating the climate of America that gives incentives to job creators to risk their capital and create jobs for our citizens, I will put that up against anybody who’s running and particularly against this President we have today, whose jobs record is abysma
posted at 1:25 pm on August 11, 2011 by Jazz Shaw printer-friendly
It’s an idea so beautiful in its simplicity and so perfectly targeted to cure one of our biggest national headaches that many readers will be slapping their foreheads in one of those, “I could have had a V-8″ moments. The housing market is still in the tank and the government has been forced to foreclose on countless properties which now sit vacant, generating no tax revenue. The nation’s coffers are running dry and we have to tackle our debt problem. But nobody wants to raise taxes. What to do?
Why, you kill two birds with one stone, of course! We’ll let the government go into the property rental business!
The Obama administration may turn thousands of government-owned foreclosures into rental properties to help boost falling home prices.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said Wednesday it is seeking input from investors on how to rent homes owned by government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.
At the end of last month, the government owned roughly 248,000 foreclosed homes, officials said. About 70,000 of those are listed for sale. But officials expect the number of foreclosures to soar in the coming months.
What could possibly go wrong? Over at Pajamas Media, Bryan Preston suspects that even in such an obviously brilliant scheme, there might be a few wrinkles.
[N]ot to put too fine a point on things, renting your home from the government raises all kinds of liberty questions. If they don’t like your politics, can they find a way to evict you? Can they tell you what to do (more than the government already does) in the home you’re renting from Uncle Sam? With a president hitting 51% disapproval, an IRS that’s become notorious for political audits and federal law enforcement agencies known lately more for gunrunning than crime stopping, that’s not an idle question. Would the feds allow renters to own firearms in these government homes? The majority of renters between now and 2012 are likely to be people who don’t like their landlord, but the landlord has, shall we say, serious firepower superiority. There’s a great deal to ponder here.
It’s difficult to imagine what a mess this would wind up being in court, if only on the constitutional authority questions. Preston offers an alternate suggestion of scrapping Fannie and Freddie entirely and spinning off all of those properties at open, public auctions. Granted, that would have a sudden, if short term negative impact on the real estate market, but it could conceivably hasten the process of allowing it to find its natural bottom and begin rebuilding from there in an organic fashion.
But who knows? If we let Washington handle it as proposed, there would probably be all sorts of exemptions and set-asides built into the system and you might wind up renting a mansion for fifty bucks a month. And if the house is built well enough it will provide you with a place to hide when the zombie apocalypse begins.
Australian dollarThe Australian dollar resumed its movement down after the yesterday’s gains as consumer sentiment declined this month, reducing attractiveness of the nation’s currency.
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment index fell 3.5 percent in August from July. This declined followed the drop by 8.3 percent in July. The Aussie (the nickname of the Australian currency) also weakened as the pledge of the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates stable hasn’t reduced pessimism among Forex traders.
AUD/USD retreated from 1.0353 to 1.0343 as of 11:51 GMT after jumping to 1.0414 today. AUD/JPY fell from 79.66 to 79.15, following the advance to 80.34.
If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Australian Dollar, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.
Earlier News About the Australian Dollar:
Australian Dollar Attempts Stop Decline, Fails (2011-08-09)
Eighth Session of Suffering for Aussie (2011-08-08)
AUD Down on Economic Outlook Revision (2011-08-05)
Australian Dollar Continues Its Correction on Weak Retail Sales (2011-08-03)
AUD Surges Against Everything on Higher Inflation Numbers (2011-07-27)
This entry was posted on TopForexNews on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 at 11:51 am and is filed under Australian Dollar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Japanese yenThe Japanese yen jumped against all other most-traded currencies today as traders fled to safety of the yen, fearing the financial problems of the US and Europe.
The Japanese policy makers signaled that they may take steps to curb gains of the currency. In fact, the Bank of Japan already intervened on August 4, but the impact of the move almost waned at present. This situation isn’t unlike the one in Switzerland, where the central bank also fights with appreciation of the nation’s currency and also losing this battle.
USD/JPY fell from 77.74 to 77.04 as of 9:09 GMT today. EUR/JPY went down from 110.23 to 109.74 while it reached the low of 109.09 during the day.
If you have any questions, comments or opinions regarding the Japanese Yen, feel free to post them using the commentary form below.
Earlier News About the Japanese Yen:
Yen Slumps on BoJ Intervention (2011-08-04) Yen Gains on Greece & US Debt Problems (2011-07-28) EU Summit Eases Need for Safety, Yen Drops (2011-07-22) Second Week of Gains for Yen, Will BOJ Intervene? (2011-07-16) Yen Declines as Chinese Economy Grows (2011-07-13)
This entry was posted on TopForexNews on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 9:10 am and is filed under Japanese Yen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
posted at 10:05 am on August 10, 2011 by Ed Morrissey printer-friendly
The current historically-loose monetary policy will continue, according to a Federal Reserve statement last night — for two more years. The Fed normally doesn’t offer projections with such unambiguously lengthy timelines, preferring to keep its options open. These, however, are not normal times — nor do we have normal leadership:
The Federal Reserve announced on Tuesday that it plans to hold the benchmark interest rate at “exceptionally low levels” through at least mid-2013, breaking from the central bank’s usual less precise timelines.
The action — which sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average swinging wildly up and down — signals the Federal Open Market Committee sees the path to economic recovery as longer and slower than anticipated even a few months ago.
With the Fed’s decision, the target interest rate will stay flat at between 0 and 0.25 percent for close to the next two years, if not longer.
This appears to be the Fed’s alternative to another round of quantitative easing, a currency-devaluing exercise that remains the only real tool left in the Fed’s bag these days. So far, the pledge seems to have helped calm global markets, at least for now:
A pledge by the Federal Reserve to keep extremely low interest rates for another couple of years has calmed investors’ jitters, sending stock markets around the world higher Wednesday.
The Fed’s surprise announcement Tuesday that it would likely keep its Fed funds rate at near zero percent through 2013 to help the ailing U.S. economy helped Wall Street surge late in the session — the Dow Jones industrial average rallied 6 percent just in the final hour of trading, one of the biggest turnarounds ever seen.
That continued into the Asian and European trading sessions, although traders remained nervous after the market turmoil of recent weeks, which has sent many global markets officially intobear market territory — falling 20 percent from recent peaks.
This prompts the question, though, of what the Fed does next week or next month if markets get jittery again. A QE3 won’t make investors any happier, and the Fed has nothing else to do now that they have made a two-year commitment on monetary policy. Adding a third year in September or October, for instance, won’t have much impact on investment in the short term.
The rather unprecedented move should have people wondering why the Fed feels it has to commit to a loose-money policy for so long. It was almost certain that they wouldn’t tighten the money supply anyway, not with inflation risks low and the global economy on the cusp of a recession. Any move to a tighter policy would only come after a period of torrid growth in order to hedge against inflation damaging a full recovery, and that’s obviously a long way off.
So why make this policy so explicit in terms of length? To calm markets, to be sure, but a six-month statement would have been just as effective. The only reason to commit to a two-year policy of ultra-loose money is because the Fed doesn’t see any real prospects for economic growth through mid-2013. They see no real need to have the option of tightening the money supply. Economic conditions won’t change enough for the Fed to contemplate a change of policy, or so Ben Bernanke and the Fed board appear to say.
That to me sounds like a vote of no-confidence in the American economy, and in American economic leadership. And, like the S&P downgrade that preceded it, it’s completely understandable, too.
posted at 6:05 pm on August 9, 2011 by Allahpundit printer-friendly
That’s precisely what we need to reach a grand bargain. Hard-left dial tone Patty Murray and a guy who spent the past Sunday muttering in front of TV cameras about a “tea-party downgrade.” Bonus fun fact about Murray via Amanda Carpenter: She’s the head of the DSCC this election cycle, which means there ain’t no way no how no chance she’s signing off on any deal that involves even minor Medicare reform.
Not sure what to make of Baucus, though.
Murray is expected to co-chair the committee, officially named the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, along with a still unnamed House Republican. A spokesman for Reid did not respond to a request for comment.
Reid’s decision to tap Murray will likely be met with scrutiny, as she is also chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2012 election cycle. But she is also a member of leadership, a senior member of the Budget Committee, and a woman on what is likely to be a male-dominated committee.
Baucus is chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee with jurisdiction over many areas, including entitlement programs, that the committee is expected to examine. Kerry, meanwhile, was selected for his stature and Senate tenure.
None of the three were members of the Gang of Six, but Baucus was part of the Biden deficit group that Cantor walked away from over taxes. Could he potentially be the seventh vote for a deal on the Super Committee? He comes from a red state, he’s an institution in the Senate, and he’s not up for reelection until 2014. He’s as insulated from a tough vote as one can be. He’s also, as noted in the quote, chairman of the Finance Committee, so if he blessed a deal, that would give it added credibility in the Senate. And he’s been reasonably good on taxes, so he might side with Republicans on tax reform. The bad news? He duly wet himself over Paul Ryan’s budget and he’s earned some fans at AARP for supporting “doctor fix,” which contributes mightily to Medicare continuously running over budget. He’s probably not signing off on any serious entitlement reform, in other words, although if the GOP can come up with some revenues via tax reform, that might encourage him to join them in a modest first step. He floated that idea himself, in fact, after Biden’s group melted down, proposing new Medicare cuts in return for new revenues. Then again, Baucus was on Obama’s Deficit Commission and ended up voting no on the final plan. Of course, so did Paul Ryan.
I’ll leave you with this thought, in case you’re under the mistaken impression that anything will be accomplished by this process:
Congress may undermine the deal that raised the U.S. debt ceiling by failing to agree on a plan to curb the deficit and then softening the impact of automatic spending cuts that would kick in to achieve the budget targets.
That’s the view of five former directors of the Congressional Budget Office…
While the cuts are supposed to be automatic, Congress can delay or override them if they prove too painful — defense spending would be reduced by 9.1 percent over a decade while non-defense programs would be cut 7.9 percent. That’s what lawmakers did with the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act, the template for the trigger.
Update: Weigel sees a new “the Democrats caved again!” narrative brewing on the left over Baucus. “So the Democrats will have one of their compromisers on the committee. Unless the GOP puts up one of its compromisers — a neo-Gang of Sixer, or someone like Bob Corker — the Baucus move alone means a committee that leans right.”
posted at 12:50 pm on August 5, 2011 by Tina Korbe printer-friendly
Looks like somebody is jealous. Former sitcom star Roseanne Barr, who has never betrayed any political ambition beyond supporting President Barack Obama, now sarcastically says she wants to run for president — and cites former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as her inspiration:
“That’s kind of what got me to thinking that I too should run for president if she can,” Barr told host Jay Leno [last night on "The Tonight Show"]. “I wanted to edge her out because I feel like she’s stealing my act anyway.”
Barr said Palin, who is flirting with a White House bid, was also her motivation for appearing in a reality show. Her Lifetime show “Roseanne’s Nuts,” premiered a few weeks ago and follows the former sitcom star running a Hawaiian nut farm.
Barr, a former supporter of President Barack Obama, claimed she is “totally serious” about a bid and said she will run as a candidate from the Green Tea Party. No taxes, the forgiveness of student loans and all debts and the use of vegetables instead of money will be the cornerstones of her campaign, she said.
Barr must not have gotten the memo that Palin hasn’t yet declared presidential candidacy (and might not at all). Barr also said she assumes all you have to do to be president is “show up and give a speech.” No, Roseanne, that’s what you have to do to be a sitcom star. Obama is Exhibit A: Charisma and eloquence do not a competent president make.
All of which reminds me: Why, in all of his talk of taxing the rich, does Obama never add “Hollywood entertainers” to his oh-so-redundant list of “corporate jet owners, hedge fund managers and oil company executives”? Seems to me they could pitch in more than a few dimes to reduce the debt and deficit.
