News Roundup - Hour 1
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-07-16/news-roundup-hour-1
President Barack Obama meets with Warren Buffett in the Oval Office, July 14, 2010
Official White House photo by Pete Souza via Flickr
The Senate passes the sweeping financial reform law, BP appears to have been able to temporarily cap its gushing well, and the administration claims the stimulus saved or created more than 3.5 million jobs. A panel of journalists joins guest host Susan Page for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
E.J. Dionne Jr.
senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington Post columnist, and author of "Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right" and of "Stand Up Fight Back."
Dayo Olopade
Bernard Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation; political reporter for The Daily Beast.
Matthew Continetti
associate editor of "The Weekly Standard"; he edits the magazine's "Campaign Standard" blog.
News Roundup Video
The Diane Rehm Show (Friday News Roundup): The panelists discuss the NAACP's passage of a resolution earlier this week condemning what it has identified as racist elements within the Tea Party Movement:
Comments
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I'd like the panel to address the shakedown of Goldman Sachs. The company admitted to incomplete marketing materials, not fraud. It seems like saving-face for the SEC cost Goldman plenty.
Why isn't the $787 billion stimulus program improving the economy? Here in Illinois, workers on stimulus-related construction projects are on strike so work on many key projects (new highways and schools, road resurfacing, and others ...) has completely stopped. Apparently they don't need the stimulus enough.
The SEC brought a weak and baseless case against Goldman. Goldman paid the fine to get it out of the way. The SEC took advantage of the political climate and was able to extort money by the threat of continued bad publicity. Proof of all this is that the case was announced on the day financial reform package was announced and settled on the day it was passed. The lawsuit was part of the publicity of Obama's attack on banks.
Mr. Dionne places all the blame on BP for failure to prepare for the oil spill yet shortly before the spill, the President approved broader drilling since science said it would be safe.
I am somewhat confused that the spill totally reversed the Administration's position particularly since they had made their belief in science a change from the Bush administration.
So Matthew C could not answer the question about whether it has been a successful two years. The question was not about whether he agreed with the bills the Obama administration had passed, it was whether it has been successful. Why can't this so-called "sophisticated talking heads" answer the question. Get someone who can do that.
Of course Mary Landrieu and Bobby Jindal think off shore drilling should go on.
The state of Louisiana is NOT paying for the clean up.
As has been reported elsewhere, most of the people looking to BP for help haven't been paying taxes because fishing in LA is a cash based business. (which is an insult to those of us who take cash and report it correctly) So when anyone from LA tells the rest of us we're not doing enough? Ask them for their back taxes (and their new regulations)
They're tax cheats. Why didn't Louisiana do anything about that?
I also think people who thought off shore drilling was an option believed that major businesses like BP would actually have real back up plans for this kind of a disaster. I'm pretty sure they didn't think it would take 87 DAYS for BP to come up with a solution.
And if these drillers are going to other countries, let's see if any of them are going to countries that require real regulation or just cash under the table.
I'm troubled by Matthew Continetti's dishonesty -- seen it before, seeing it again this morning. As EJ Dionne pointed out, Obama did not claim there would never be another bailout. Continetti responds by sliding around the issue. Glib. Not up to DR standard.
Goldman went trolling for suckers from their own client base. Ask the partners how many of them took part of that hedge on the clients' side?
They were wrong.
In reference to Mathew's comment on "Luck" I would just like to say that I believe he has confused the word luck with such words as justice, accountability, determination, progress, innovation, conservation, fairness, equality, diplomacy and the ability this president has shown, over and over again, to make decisions and design legislation by listening to those whose credentials are of some of the highest in America.
Thank you,
Susan
Orlando, FL
After giving that faux answer, please explain how the Supreme Court Luckily gave George Bush his presidency. So I guess that slim margin comment works both ways.
They had clients on both sides and lost money on the portion they retained.
NPR's own website quotes Obama as saying the legislation will put an end to "tax-payer funded bailouts"
The solution to our budget problems is taxing dead people, they won't protest. Just for balance, we should tax the newly living as well.
I don't understand how the NAACP can give the Tea Party such a hard time about racism when they themselves are an organization based upon the idea of "the Advancement of Colored People." Also, where was the NAACP when critics of the Bush Administration were drawing pictures and mass producing pictures of Condoleeza Rice portrayed as a monkey? The way I see it, the NAACP is an organization that stands up for a certain race as long as the people are of a certain political mindset.
How about the NAACP condemning the lauding of the Grand Cyclops and Lavern founder of the KKK Robert Byrd, is not the KKK mor racist than the tea party ever been.?
I disagree somewhat with Matthew Continetti's remark that President Obama has been lucky to have a (liberal) legislature with enough Democrats in it to pass health-care and financial reform etc. It was not really "chance" that led to Democrat victories in 2008...
Take for, example, Jim Webb, a lifelong Republican, who found himself more closely aligned with a Democratic party that questioned the wisdom of going to war in Iraq than with a Republican party that could do nothing but beat the drums.
Or consider all those voters who supported Democratic candidates after the Republicans brought us the greatest recession since WWII, passed budget deficits without consideration to the cost, and bogged us down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as it moved further to the right.
It was not "chance" that made these voters vote for Democrats.
- john