It’s Tuesday, July 31st, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up on the last edition of the month, as the WSJ reports, holding a pair of three, Elizabeth “Sitting Bull”….

Warren Doubles Down

President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” argument against small business and for bigger government was cribbed directly from Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate from Massachusetts who has been making a similar pitch to Bay State voters for months. Yet the two candidates are taking distinctly different approaches when faced with criticism of that position.

President Obama has backtracked quickly, using every opportunity of late to tout his pro-business credentials. The campaign has also unleashed surrogates like senior adviser David Axelrod and deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter to reinforce the about-face. Not so Ms. Warren, whose campaign released a new ad Friday that calls for more of the same Keynesian medicine. “China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure,” she says in the commercial titled “Rebuild,” which includes scenes of dour-looking construction workers. “America? We’re at just 2.4%. We can do better.”

Of course the Harvard academic doesn’t reveal that this money can only come from higher taxes. Nor does she explain why she would spend the money any more wisely than the Pelosi Congress did. Massachusetts voters might also recall the last big infrastructure project that their pols made them pay for: the Big Dig. That road project took years to complete, and the multibillion-dollar cost overruns are still hampering Boston’s ability to finance new projects.

So far, Ms. Warren’s Keynesian pitch isn’t hurting her prospects too badly. The latest MassINC poll puts the Democrat up by two percentage points over incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown, while the Real Clear Politics average shows the two candidates in a dead heat. But in an economy that’s still listing, Ms. Warren’s decision to advocate for more of the same failed policies is, at the very least, a remarkable thing to behold.

Remarkable?  Hardly; particularly in a state which reelected Teddy Kennedy again….and again….and again.  Warren could quote Mao, Lenin and advocate the violent overthrow of the government and 50% of Taxachuttans would still pull the lever marked “(D)”.  As James Taranto is so fond of noting, Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

In a related item we’ll call the Inigo Montoya Memorial “I Don’ Think That Means What You Think It Means” segment,  Paul Rubin writing in the WSJ notes, the finer points of economics may be confusing the Boy Blunder:

‘A Climate That Helps Us Grow’

However the president’s words about business are interpreted, his administration’s policies have been hostile.

President Obama’s riff on small business—”If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen”—has become a major controversy. The Romney campaign has made this quote the subject of several speeches and ads, and there have been rallies all over the country of business people with signs saying that “I did build this business.”

Mr. Obama is now claiming that his words, delivered at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., on July 13, were taken out of context. “Of course Americans build their own businesses,” he said in a campaign ad last week. What he meant was simply that government sets the stage for business creation. In his speech, and again in his campaign ad, the example Mr. Obama pointed to was “roads and bridges.”

The context of the speech indicates the president really did mean that “you didn’t build that.” But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt; let’s assume he merely meant that business is impossible without government institutions that create the infrastructure for the economy to operate. As Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign chief Stephanie Cutter said, in clarifying his original remarks on July 24, “We build our businesses through hard work and initiative, with the public and private sectors working together to create a climate that helps us grow. President Obama knows that.”

But business is certainly not getting “a climate that helps us grow” from the current administration. That administration has instead created a hostile climate through its regulatory policies.

The news media report almost daily about new regulatory burdens. More generally, according to an analysis in March by the Heritage Foundation, “Red Tape Rising,” the Obama administration in its first three years adopted 106 major regulations (those with costs over $100 million), compared with 28 such regulations in the George W. Bush administration. Heritage notes that there are 144 more such major regulations in the pipeline.

Consider a major example of government investment—roads and bridges. A transportation system needs roads, but it also needs gasoline. This administration’s policies—its refusal to allow a private company to build the Keystone XL pipeline, its reduction in permits for offshore drilling and increased EPA regulation of pollutants—retard the production of gasoline. If transportation is an important input from government to creating a favorable climate for business, shouldn’t we be encouraging, not discouraging, gasoline production?

Other inputs needed by business are capital and labor. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed by Mr. Obama and enforced by his appointees, makes raising capital and investing more difficult. Since many regulations needed to implement this law have not even been written, business cannot know how to adapt to them. This increases uncertainty and so reduces incentives for investment.

The increased minimum wage, passed and signed in the early days of the administration, discourages hiring of entry-level workers. ObamaCare has increased uncertainty regarding future labor costs and so hindered business in hiring and expanding. The pro-union decisions by Obama appointees at the National Labor Relations Board do not create a climate to help the economy grow.

There are many other burdens placed on business. Example: The Americans With Disabilities Act is being interpreted by the Justice Department to require all hotel-based swimming pools to provide increased access to disabled persons. This will come at a high cost per pool. Many hotels and motels are small, family-run enterprises. This requirement will either lead to an increase in prices or to a decision not to have pools at all.

Either policy will induce patrons to shift to larger chain motels. Interestingly, the application of this rule has been delayed for existing pools until Jan. 31, 2013, after the election. Families vacationing this summer will not notice the new requirement.

If we accept the plain meaning of Mr. Obama’s speech, it indicates that he does not believe in the importance of entrepreneurs in creating businesses. But if we accept the reinterpretation of his speech in light of his administration’s deeds, it indicates a belief that a hostile regulatory climate poses no danger to economic growth. Either interpretation means that this administration is not good for business.

Meaning neither The Dear Misleader nor his policies are good for America….and furthermore, he meant exactly what he said.

Which brings us to today’s Money Quote, courtesy of the WSJ and Peter Edelman writing in the New York Times:

“We know what we need to do [to end poverty in America]–make the rich pay their fair share of running the country, raise the minimum wage, provide health care and a decent safety net, and the like.“

Oh, is that all?  So tell us again Mr. Edelman, why, if what you’ve stated is true….

….poverty still exists in America today?!?

Moving from halfwits to dimwits….

McCain defends Palin selection following Cheney criticism

Thanks, John; and when someone starts awarding prizes for hopelessly-inept presidential campaigns, you’ll be standing in line between Michael Dukakis and John Kerry.  As we’ve often noted, while we respect McCain’s service to his country, if brains were dynamite, the Senior Senator from Arizona couldn’t blow his nose.  Then again, were her bosom C2, neither could….

….his daughter.

Since we’re on the subject of the developmentally-challenged, The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol weighs in on the latest example of Nancy the Red’s selective recall, courtesy of Bill Meisen:

Pelosi: President Obama’s Been to Israel ‘Over and Over Again’ 

Daniel Halper has called attention to Nancy Pelosi’s remarkable interview with Al Hunt on the topic of Barack Obama and Israel. I’d note one comment in particular: Pelosi’s claim that President Obama “has been there [Israel] over and over again.”

Wow. I’m involved with the Emergency Committee for Israel. We have an ad up in several states calling attention to the fact that President Obama, who’s been quite the world traveler, has never visited Israel as president. Did we make a terrible mistake? Were we unjust to President Obama? Do we have to pull down the ad?

No, no, and no. Contrary to Pelosi’s apparent claim, President Obama hasn’t been to Israel over and over again. He’s never been as president, which is certainly what Pelosi implied. Well, maybe he visited Israel “over and over” before becoming president, and that’s what Pelosi meant to say? No. When he was senator, Obama went on two trips to Israel, once with several other freshmen members of Congress, and then as a presidential candidate. And he’d never been interested enough in Israel to visit as a private citizen. So much for the notion that Obama’s been “over and over again.”

So Pelosi is wrong, and the Emergency Committee is right. But Pelosi’s resort to a whopper to try to reassure pro-Israel voters does suggest how worried Democrats must be about the reaction to Obama’s attempt to create distance between his administration and Israel, as Obama’s Israel policy gets more scrutiny.

With friends like Obama, who needs the Palestinians, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Queda and Iran?!?

Meanwhile, back in the Big Apple, Mayor Bloomberg wants to take another bite out of New Yorkers’ Right to Choose:

NYC mayor wants hospitals to lock up baby formula to encourage breast-feeding

 Ve know vat is best fur you!

 Mayor Bloomberg has demanded that hospitals stop handing out baby formula to persuade more new mothers to breastfeed their babies. The New York City health department will monitor the number of formula bottles being given out and demand a medical reason for each one.

From September 3, 27 out of 40 hospitals in the city have agreed to the terms of the Latch On initiative – which will also see them stop handing out free bags of formula and bottles. Although mothers who want to bottle feed their babies will not be denied formula, it will be kept under lock and key similar to medications. However any mother who requests formula will be given a lecture on why breastfeeding is better by hospital staff.

‘Human breast milk is best for babies and mothers,’ said health commissioner Thomas Farley when the campaign was launched in May. ‘With this initiative the New York City health community is joining together to support mothers who choose to breastfeed.’

However mother-of-two Lynn Sidnam, who formula-fed both her daughters, told the New York Post: ‘If they put pressure on me, I would get annoyed.’ Some hospitals are already operating under the policy. NYU Langone Medical Center has seen breastfeeding rates soar to 68 per cent from 39 per cent.

Medical experts support the Latch On initiative. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their life as it lowers risk of ear, respiratory and gastrointestinal infections and developing asthma. It is also in the health interests of the mother. There has been a link established between breastfeeding and reduced risk of ovarian and breast cancer.

Which means, at least as we understand Liberalspeak, the Right to Choose only applies to killing babies, not how to feed them after they’re born.

And in the Education Section, Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, writing at the WSJ details how….

Teachers Unions Go to Bat for Sexual Predators

The system to review misconduct is rigged so even abusive teachers can stay on the job.

By resisting almost any change aimed at improving our public schools, teachers unions have become a ripe target for reformers across the ideological spectrum. Even Hollywood, famously sympathetic to organized labor, has turned on unions with the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman'” (2010) and a feature film, “Won’t Back Down,” to be released later this year. But perhaps most damaging to the unions’ credibility is their position on sexual misconduct involving teachers and students in New York schools, which is even causing union members to begin to lose faith.

In the last five years in New York City, 97 tenured teachers or school employees have been charged by the Department of Education with sexual misconduct. Among the charges substantiated by the city’s special commissioner of investigation—that is, found to have sufficient merit that an arbitrator’s full examination was justified—in the 2012-12 school year:

• An assistant principal at a Brooklyn high school made explicit sexual remarks to three different girls, including asking one of them if she would perform oral sex on him.

• A teacher in Queens had a sexual relationship with a 13-year old girl and sent her inappropriate messages through email and Facebook.

If this kind of behavior were happening in any adult workplace in America, there would be zero tolerance. Yet our public school children are defenseless.

Here’s why. Under current New York law, an accusation is first vetted by an independent investigator. (In New York City, that’s the special commissioner of investigation; elsewhere in the state, it can be an independent law firm or the local school superintendent.) Then the case goes before an employment arbitrator. The local teachers union and school district together choose the arbitrators, who in turn are paid up to $1,400 per day. And therein lies the problem.

For many arbitrators, their livelihood depends on pleasing the unions (whether the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, or other local unions). And the unions—believing that they are helping the cause of teachers by being weak on sexual predators—prefer suspensions and fines, and not dismissal, for teachers charged with inappropriate sexual conduct. The effects of this policy are mounting.

One example: An arbitrator in 2007 found that teacher Alexis Grullon had victimized young girls with repeated hugging, “incidental though not accidental contact with one student’s breast” and “sexually suggestive remarks.” The teacher had denied all these charges. In the end the arbitrator found him “unrepentant”, yet punished him with only a six-month suspension.

Another example from 2007: Teacher William Scharbach was found to have inappropriately touched and held young boys. “Respondent’s actions at best give the appearance of impropriety and at worst suggest pedophilia,” wrote the arbitrator—before giving the teacher only a reprimand. The teacher didn’t deny the touching but denied that it was inappropriate.

Then there was teacher Steven Ostrin, who in 2010 was found to have asked a young girl to give him a striptease, harassed students by text, and engaged in sexual banter. The arbitrator in his case concluded that since the teacher hadn’t actually solicited sex from students, the charges—all of which the teacher denied—warranted only a suspension.

Future NEA board member.

Michael Loeb, a middle school teacher in the Bronx and UFT member, calls this a “horrible situation,” telling me “if you keep these people in the classroom, you are demeaning our profession.” Parents I spoke with described their tremendous fear about what is happening in the classroom. Maria Elena Rivera says her 14-year-old daughter was stalked by one of her Brooklyn high school teachers (who resigned from his position before the Department of Education decided whether to send the case to arbitration). Today her daughter is in counseling, says Ms. Rivera, and doesn’t trust anyone: “It so messed her up. I can’t protect her.”

Local media have begun to get the word out, yet the stories come and go with trifling consequences or accountability. New York City’s schools chancellor and districts statewide must have the power to fire sexual predators—and the final say cannot be that of an arbitrator with incentives to lessen the punishment.

Fortunately, state Sen. Stephen Saland has proposed legislation in Albany to do just this, removing arbitrators’ final say while still giving teachers due process and the opportunity to appeal terminations in court. But the buck would stop with those officials in charge of our schools and tasked with protecting our kids: the chancellor in New York City, and school districts elsewhere in the state.

Mr. Saland’s initiative has little chance of success without union support—which is hardly assured. “I don’t understand how they think this could be a gray area,” says Natalie Harrington, who teaches English at New Day Academy in the Bronx. “I worry that if the union goes to bat [against] this, it makes it seem like they will do anything to keep anyone in the classroom.”

Michael Loeb still supports his union but says it “treats teachers like interchangeable widgets”—defending all teachers no matter what they have done.

The union has reached a moment of truth. With responsible legislation on the table, the right course of action is obvious. At stake is the safety of kids, the reputation of the unions, and the standing of every good and responsible teacher throughout the state.

Obvious, yes; still, we wouldn’t bet on the unions taking the “right” course, no matter how obvious….’cause they’re just too far “left”.

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, coming soon to a theater near you:

The truth finally sees the light of day.

Magoo