Columnist.
The Supreme Court decision on the Arizona immigration law was not the victory for President Obama the White House would have you believe. The Arizona ruling -- which included Chief Justice John Roberts voting with the majority -- was certainly not a Conservative v. Liberal decision. It was based upon what Supreme Court Justices are supposed to do: Look at the law, weigh it against precedents and the Constitution, and decide whether it meets the test of Constitutionality. But, that's not the big thing. The big thing is: If, as expected, the Court knocks down some or all of Obamacare it is going to be very difficult for the President and his political allies to claim the Roberts Court is only interested in partisan politics, not the law. If that were the case, then it would have upheld the Arizona immigration law. That is not to say the Obamas won't wring their hands and whine but I wouldn't look for too much support from Democrats on the Hill save for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Read (D-I-Don't-Run-Again-Until-2016).
The long-awaited decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (which we here, in Your Nation's Capital, refer to as SCOTUS) on Obamacare is due to be handed down this week. Some say Monday. Some say Thursday. Chief Justice, a couple of clerks and the guy who converts the decisions into PDF files probably know which day, but they're not talking. Every organization in Washington -- public, private, business association, union, Left Wing, Right Wing ... you name the type of group, and I guarantee they spent last week and most of this weekend getting ready for the decision. Problem is: You don't know how the Justices will have ruled on the total bill or portions of the bill, so you have to be ready for as many permutations and combinations as possible. The basic unit of currency in these matters is *The Statement* -- the official position of organization is publishing it.
Lots of things for a Friday morning. This week marked the first day of summer in Your Nation's Capital. We had a temps in the high 90's to mark the occasion. A lovely young woman from the office said we missed Spring. I said, "No we didn't. We had Spring in January." I got that kind of look that 65 year-old-man gets from a 20-something woman who is begging the elevator to go faster. As you know all too well, two of my major shortcomings are legal issues and arithmetic. On the legal front, all I know about Presidential claims of Executive Privilege is that they result in screams of "Cover up!" from the opposition party and "Your Guys Did it, Too" from the President's party. Both are correct.
The G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico is, thankfully, over. During the proceedings we watched as President Barack Obama maneuvered himself into a position of being -- if not totally inconsequential -- certain a minor member of the chorus. From Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush American Presidents have held the title "the most powerful man in the world." Sometimes it was altered to "the most powerful man in the *western* world" but, you know what I mean. Barack Obama has not just allowed that label to lapse. He appears to have been happy to toss it aside. This isn't about American exceptionalism. It's about Obaman ordinariness.
A Wall Street Journal story by Robin Sidel looks at a troubling trend in the banking industry. No, not the JPMorgans of the industry losing $2 billion on bad bets, but on small community banks who don't have the word "billion" anywhere on their balance sheets. According to her piece: "A growing number of tiny community banks are deciding it's time to put out the 'for sale' sign ... many executives of these small lenders are frustrated by costly, new regulations." Let's head into the Way Back Machine: In October, 1975 New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy. Sort of like California in the Summer of 2012.
Let's take a quick look at how we're doing in our place among what is poetically, if incorrectly, called "the family of nations." When Senator Barack Obama was campaigning against Hilary Clinton in the 2008 primaries, and later against Senator John McCain in the 2008 general election he, as Mark Lagon wrote in Foreign Policy Journal, "[He] came into office proposing a dramatic shift from George W. Bush's perceived unilateralism, and most of his predecessor's hard-edged counterterrorism tactics and massive deployments in wars abroad." During the primary and general election debates, Obama consistently claimed he would meet with Iranian officials "without pre-conditions."
The holes in the Obama Administration continue to show the greatest inherent problem to the President's re-election: These people are incompetent. At almost every level, in almost every issue the Obama Administration is barely keeping afloat. The recent leaks that Obama himself approves using drones to kill specific targets was first brought light in a New York Times piece: "Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding 'kill list,' poring over terrorist suspects' biographies on what one official calls the macabre 'baseball cards' of an unconventional war." Imagine the apoplexy among the studio hosts on MSNBC if George W. Bush had been found riffling "baseball cards" deciding who should live, who should die and in which order.
Two weeks ago the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped a bomb on the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama when it released data showing only 66,000 jobs had been created in May -- far below estimates -- and that the top-line unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. This past Friday at a press conference, in response to a question about the GOP's contention that it is his Administration's policies that are strangling job growth, President Obama said, "the private sector is doing fine." He went on to explain that the rise in unemployment is largely due to budget difficulties at the state and local government level because mayors and governors are not getting the "kind of support they need from the federal government."
At Pointe-du-Hoc in Normandy with The Lad, Reed, for the annual D-Day commemoration the clouds were roiling, the rain was steady, and the wind was blustery. Just like June 6, 1944 when 270 Rangers were ordered to destroy the German 155 mm heavy gun emplacements atop the cliffs. The craters from bombs and naval bombardment -- some well over 10 feet deep even after 68 years -- were still visible. As were the huge chunks of reinforced concrete that one moment had been a heavily fortified bunker, and the next were a series of giant blocks strewn about like a child's Legos. It was just like it had been. The difference was, we were standing atop the cliffs looking down at the beach, not standing on the pebbled beach staring up the face of the cliffs. We were wearing cameras and light rain gear, not 70+ pounds of soaked equipment.
It is tempting, but not entirely accurate, to say "Obama Loses!" after Democrats suffered another embarrassing defeat last night when the effort to recall Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker failed by the surprisingly wide margin of 55 percent to 44 percent for the Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. An independent got about one percent of the vote. As of this writing, with 76 percent of Wisconsin's precincts reporting, it's over. Walker wins. Much of the Political Punditry Class has been touting this as a preview of the 2012 Presidential election, but now that the Republican won, don't expect to hear too much of that kind of talk. In fact, the ink was barely dry on the headlines when the word went forth that it was actually a good night for Obama because the exit polling showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 51-45.
I am in Normandy for the annual D-Day commemoration on Wednesday. As part of this year's festivities the World War II Foundation, headed by Tim Cook is presenting a statue of Major Dick Winters who was the central character in "Band of Brothers." More about that on Wednesday. As I type this it is 5 AM Monday morning in France. That means it is 11 PM Sunday night on the East Coast of the United States. That is only useful because I am looking at the Asian markets as they open for business after Fridays dreadful jobs numbers. As of this moment both the Japanese and Hong Kong market indices are down two percent. The European markets are set to open lower in that same range which means if the Dow follows suit it will lose nearly 250 more points today and end well below 12,000.
[This is the 11th anniversary of this edition of Mullings which was first written for Memorial Day, 2001 -- four months before 9/11. Our son, Reed, was a member of the team in charge of President George W. Bush's visit to Arlington Memorial Cemetery on that day.]
In another sign that all is not well in Obama-land, the campaign sent its manager, Jim Messina, up to Capitol Hill to reassure Senate Democrats "who," according to Politico.com "have grown increasingly nervous about the race." According to the article, Messina described the "campaign's state-of-the-art ground game aimed at getting voters to the polls and targeting swing voters in battleground states." There is nothing wrong with sending a high-ranking campaign staffer to smooth talk high-ranking office holders during a tight re-election campaign. But, Senate Democrats are staring down the barrel of a very, very close election result themselves and don't want to be dragged down by a fumbling, faltering Obama re-election campaign.
There's a very useful idiom: "The wheels are coming off." That's not a description of the campaign of President Barack Obama. Yet. But if the past two weeks are any indication, it's time for the campaign to check the lug nuts. It started a couple of weeks ago when Vice President Joe Biden forced Obama to join him in endorsing gay marriage. The White House -- through the campaign staff -- tried to pass the word that Biden's statement on a Sunday show was a trial balloon.
President Barack Obama was in Chicago hosting the NATO conference over the weekend trying to negotiate, literally, a pathway through the twin Stan thickets - Paki and Afghani.
After Vice President Joe Biden backed President Barack Obama into a corner on same sex marriage there has been a flurry of activity surrounding the issue, but not much - if any - coming out of House or Senate Republicans.
The investing community is agog at the prospect of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Facebook on Friday. If you're under 103, you probably have a Facebook page. You and about 901 million others.
Let's start with Europe and work our way back.
