Former Obama Advisor: Our Foreign Policy Is A Mess — Especially In The Middle East

Via Hot Air:  

Despite some successes large and small, Obama’s foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration’s response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we’re searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military’s direction have bought little cooperation and less love.

The Russians want to reset the reset, neither the Chinese nor anyone else can figure out what, if anything, the “pivot to Asia” really means, and Latin America and Africa continue to be mostly ignored, along with global issues such as climate change. Meanwhile, the administration’s expanding drone campaign suggests a counterterrorism strategy that has completely lost its bearings – we no longer seem very clear on who we need to kill or why.

Read the whole thing . . . and then look forward to Monday's foreign policy debate.

The Democrats' GM Fiction

Democrats like to say GM is alive because of Obama, but that bumper sticker slogan grossly oversimplifies things:

Admirers of the GM bailout should bear in mind that it was the Bush administration that first decided to intervene at the firm, offering a bridge loan on the condition that it draw up a deeply revised business plan. President Obama’s unique contribution was effectively to nationalize the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of the UAW. It did this by strong-arming GM’s bondholders into taking haircuts in order to sweeten the pot for the UAW. The Obama administration also creatively construed tax law to relieve GM of tens of billions of dollars in obligations — at the same time that Barack Obama & Co. were caterwauling about the supposed lack of patriotism of firms that used legal means rather than political favoritism to reduce their tax bills.

Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have necessitated considerable federal involvement, too, but with a key difference: The UAW contracts would have been renegotiated, and GM’s executive suites would have been cleaned out, placing the company on a path toward innovation and self-sufficiency rather than permanent life support.

Plus:  More from Stephen Green.

 

Obama's Public Equty Record

Patterico:  Government Motors Costs Taxpayers $35 Billion.

Of course, it would be even worse if Obama friend, Warren Buffett, hadn't invested $256.5 million in the company.

Obamacare: A Model For Crony Capitalism

The Wall Street Journal: 

On Friday House Republicans released more documents that expose the collusion between the health-care industry and the White House that produced ObamaCare, and what a story of crony capitalism it is. If the trove of emails proves anything, it's that the Tea Party isn't angry enough.

Over the last year, the Energy and Commerce Committee has taken Nancy Pelosi's advice to see what's in the Affordable Care Act and how it passed. The White House refused to cooperate beyond printing out old press releases, but a dozen trade groups turned over thousands of emails and other files. A particular focus is the drug lobby, President Obama's most loyal corporate ally in 2009 and 2010.

The business refrain in those days was that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. But it turns out Big Pharma was also serving as head chef, maître d'hotel and dishwasher. Though some parts of the story have been reported before, the emails make clear that ObamaCare might never have passed without the drug companies. Thank you, Pfizer.

Read the whole thing.  Hat tip to Hotair.

New Campaign Ad

The Romney Campaign's latest ad highlights the billions in taxpayer dollars Obama wasted on Solyndra and other companies that subsequently failed. Companies that also happened to be backed by big Democratic donors.

In related news, Obama's Bain attacks continue to backfire, as the Administration struggles to explain the difference between private equity and Obama's public equity model.

The Amateur

Bill Whittle interviews Ed Klein on his latest, "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House."  For those unfamiliar with the book, its title comes from Bill Clinton's assessment of Obama.

Forget Bain

Obama's public-equity record is the real scandal.

Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. 

Click the link for a list representing just some of these Obama public-equity failures.  Then there is this:

. . . fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it’s not the president’s job “to make a lot of money for investors.” Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine.  

Hat tip to Instapundit. 

Government Motors

Mickey Kaus asks: 

Why would GM cut R & D, the source of its future growth, in order to show profits in the short run? Is something happening in, say, November, for which the 26%-government-owned entity might want its balance sheet to look artificially rosy? …. P.S.: Latest sales figures show GM’s market share has declined again. Total sales are flat for the year to date, and you’d have to say the GM arrow is pointing down because Toyota is surging back into the market after a series of setbacks (earthquakes, floods, stuck accelerators).  

The very fact that people are now asking these questions reveals the problem with the auto bailout.
Well, that and the fact that we are set to lose $30 billion from it, despite Obama's past assurance that we would make money on the deal.  At least his union friends got paid off.

Hat tip to Vodkapundit.

Bill Whittle: Merchants of Despair

Who Stands to Benefit from Obama's Contraceptive Mandate?

Big Pharma. That's who.

Forget for a minute the religious question and look at who wins big here: Big Pharma. This mandate is not really about condoms or generic versions of “the pill,” which are available free or cheap in lots of places. This is about brand-name birth control drugs and other devices that some consumers swear off because they are too expensive. The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requires health-insurance companies provide contraceptive coverage for all “FDA approved contraceptive methods.” It does not insist on generics. And it does not offer any cost containment.

What’s more, the mandate prevents health-insurance companies from having copays or deductibles for the benefit. This is the perfect set up for Big Pharma. Since the drugs will be paid for by a third party (insurance companies, who will pass the cost on to employers and the rest of us), the consumer won’t worry about the price. Expensive brand names will no doubt see demand rise. Ask more health-care analysts why the cost of medical services continues to rise so rapidly and near the top of the list is the fact that a third-party payment system won’t contain costs.

Back in 2009, many observers were surprised when Big Pharma came out in favor of President Obama’s health-care reform bill. The industry spent millions running television ads in favor of the law and industry lobbyists pushed hard for it.  One important reason they did so was the promise that with the new law they would have a new market of millions of new customers. The contraceptive mandate is a perfect example.

It’s important to point out that among President Obama’s biggest financial backers are precisely the Big Pharma companies who benefit from the mandate.

What's a little thing like the First Amendment when there are cronies to pay off?   Via Instapundit.

Fair Question

Rand Paul to Barack Obama:  "Do you hate all rich people or just those that aren't campaign contributors?"