Surging U.S. Unemployment Rate Puts Pressure on Obama

By Bob Willis | Bloomberg.com

The jump in the U.S. unemployment rate to the highest level in a quarter century last month suggests the recession is deeper than the Obama administration forecasts and additional measures may be needed to restart growth.

The jobless rate rose to 8.1 percent in February as employers reduced payrolls by 651,000, the Labor Department said yesterday in Washington. Losses have now exceeded 600,000 for three straight months, the first time that’s happened since collection of the data began in 1939.

Unemployment has already reached the average rate the White House projected for the whole year. The administration needs to keep its focus on repairing the banking system and implementing the stimulus rather than get diverted by other goals such as healthcare changes, said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics LLC in New York.

“They should be focused on stabilization” of financial firms “and stimulus — and that should not only be ‘Job one,’ that should be the only job right now,” Ryding said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The question is, is it recession or is it something worse than recession?”

U.S. stocks posted the biggest weekly decline in three months after American International Group Inc. reported a $61.7 billion loss and billionaire investor Warren Buffett said the economy is in “shambles.” …

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Opinion from News Donkey: Obama recently held a White House summit to facilitate progress on the important issue of health care. An underlying pillar of health care is the economy, which is in a state of major distress that is only going to get worse unless Geithner and the US Treasury Department take swift action. However, Geithner is virtually working alone right now. For a nation with the extensive resources of the United States, we really ought to be able to do better than this. Obama may want to hold a summit to facilitate vetting and confirmation for all the Treasury Department positions. It is alarming that of 15 key positions only one has been filled, despite the fact that it has been over four months since the presidential election. One might have thought priority attention would have been given by Obama’s transition team to staffing for the Treasury. Past administrations may not have filled positions for the Treasury any faster, but then they did not face such huge economic challenges either. Health care is an important issue, but the economy is truly an emergency and needs to be more than just a high priority issue along side other issues. Fielding an incomplete team to tackle our huge economic problems is not putting forth our best foot. Washington needs to spend less time worrying about distractions like Rush Limbaugh and instead work non-stop on solving our economic problems.

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Mexican Capo Guzman Behind Drug War Deaths

By Robin Emmott | Reuters

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – One man looms behind the worst violence in a drugs war on Mexico’s U.S. border that is shaking President Felipe Calderon’s government and worrying Washington.

Joaquin Guzman, known as “Shorty” at just 5 feet tall, is Mexico’s most wanted man and set off a wave of killings in the border city of Ciudad Juarez early last year when he tried to muscle in on the territory of a local cartel.

A turf battle between Guzman’s enforcers from the Sinaloa cartel and local Ciudad Juarez drug runners has since killed more than 2,000 people here and forced the government to deploy 7,500 troops and federal police to take control of the city.

Guzman, 51, has avoided capture several times since he escaped from a high security jail in a laundry van in 2001.

Mexican anti-drug officials say he began waging war for Ciudad Juarez when the local cartel tried to charge him taxes for smuggling narcotics through the city into Texas …

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Obama Considers Reaching Out to Taliban

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama said the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and hinted at possible talks with moderate elements of the Taliban.

Highlighting the success of the US strategy of bringing some Sunni Iraqi insurgents to the negotiating table and away from Al-Qaeda, Obama told The New York Times that “there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region.”

The strategy in Iraq had been developed by General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the country.

“If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” Obama said in the interview published in the online edition of the Times.

But Obama warned that Afghanistan was not Iraq, and that reconciliation efforts could face difficulties …

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US Says 12,000 US Troops to Leave Iraq by Sept.

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN | Associated Press

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military announced Sunday that 12,000 American and 4,000 British troops will leave Iraq by September — hours after a suicide bomber struck police and recruits lined up at the entrance of Baghdad’s main academy, killing 32 people.

The blast — the second major attack to hit Iraqis in three days and the deadliest to strike Baghdad in nearly a month — was a bloody reminder of the ability of insurgents to defy security improvements and stage dramatic attacks as the U.S. begins to draw down its forces.

Maj. Gen. David Perkins said the troop withdrawals will reduce U.S. combat power from 14 brigades to 12 along with some supporting units. The U.S. also plans to turn over 74 facilities and areas under its control to the Iraqis by the end of March as part of the drawdown.

President Barack Obama has decided to remove all combat troops by the end of August 2010 with the remaining forces leaving by the end of 2011. The 4,000 British troops due to leave are the last British soldiers in Iraq.

The U.S. withdrawal will be gradual at first, leaving most troops in place for parliamentary elections at the end of this year. There are currently about 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Remaining American forces will be repositioned in coordination with Iraqi authorities to ensure the most dangerous areas of the country are protected, Perkins said …

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Mileage Tax Gaining Speed in Congress

By Rob Hotakainen | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Despite opposition from the White House , a proposal to tax motorists on the number of miles they drive each year is gathering speed on Capitol Hill .

Its popularity is increasing as Congress searches for alternatives to the federal gasoline tax, which isn’t indexed to inflation and hasn’t been raised since 1993.

Supporters say that a mileage tax would be a more reliable source of funding for the upkeep of the nation’s roads and bridges. Many environmentalists endorse it, saying that it would lead to less driving and less pollution.

However, the proposal is raising privacy concerns — particularly if GPS devices were to monitor mileage — and opponents say that the last thing people need is a new tax, particularly in the middle of a recession. Some critics, moreover, fear that it would have a disproportionate impact in states such as California , which has longer-than-average commutes …

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US Military Speeding Help to Mexico: Admiral

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is working to rush assistance to Mexico as it fights violent drug cartels, including equipment to help authorities track the narcotics mafia, the top US military officer said.

“We’re all working very hard to move the capabilities that are desirable to Mexico as quickly as we can,” Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters late Friday from his aircraft after holding talks in Mexico.

“We all have a sense of urgency about this,” he said.

During his meetings with the country’s military leadership, Mullen said he discussed how Washington could help in the battle against the powerful cartels, citing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as a crucial element.

“ISR, that kind of capability is certainly a big part of it,” Mullen said, using a term that can refer to unmanned drones.

He said the emphasis would be on sharing intelligence “but in recognition that there are additional assets that could be brought to bear across the full ISR spectrum.” …

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Obama Justice Dept. Will Defend Yoo

By JOSH GERSTEIN | Politico

The Obama Administration has decided to press on with the Justice Department’s defense of a civil lawsuit brought against John Yoo, a former department lawyer attorney whose controversial legal opinions have been roundly criticized by many members of Obama’s legal team.

At a court hearing Friday morning in San Francisco, government lawyers said that despite the change in administration, there has been no change in Yoo’s government-run legal defense against a suit brought by Jose Padilla, an American citizen who spent more than three years in a Navy brig after being designated as an enemy combatant.

“This administration has made no secret that we disagree with many of the previous administration’s legal policies on national security issues,” a Justice Department spokesman, Matt Miller, said after the court session. “Nevertheless, we generally defend employees or former employees of the department in litigation filed in connection with their official duties.”

As POLITICO first reported, Judge Jeffrey White issued written questions Thursday asking whether the position taken by Yoo’s defense had been “fully vetted” by the Obama administration.

A Justice Department official, who asked not to be named, said the judge was advised that Obama appointees signed off on the legal strategy. “The positions taken in the briefs have been fully vetted within the administration,” the official said …

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75% Believe Constitution Guarantees Right To Own A Gun

Rasmussen Reports

Seventy-five percent (75%) of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just 14% say gun ownership is not a constitutional right. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.

Of those with a gun-owner in the household, 89% say the Constitution guarantees a citizen’s right to own a gun. Sixty-four percent (64%) of those without a gun owner in the home agree.

A whopping 92% of Republicans say the Constitution guarantees their right to own a gun, compared to 64% of Democrats and 71% of adults not affiliated with either of the major political parties.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The amendment is part of the Bill of Rights …

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Both Parties Love Big Government, Just Different Programs

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Strip away the political finger pointing over President Obama’s proposed budget and the fight boils down to a clash of values. Both major parties are really for big government — just big in different places.

Republicans say they’re outraged that Obama would “borrow and spend” his way to a new behemoth government. But they borrowed and spent their way through the ’80s and the current decade. And they love big government — when it’s at the Pentagon .

Democrats from Obama on down insist that they don’t like big government, that they’re just forced into a temporary spending spree by the recession. But Democrats love big government as well, when it’s for social programs such as universal health care.

“The basic difference between Democrats and Republicans in recent decades is which aspect of government spending they prefer,” said Steven Schier , a political scientist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. “With the Republicans, it’s defense. With the Democrats, it’s education, environment, health care etc. That’s been the major difference between the two parties going back to Reagan.”

The numbers tell the tale …

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Biden Forges Old-School Vice Presidency, More Mondale than Cheney

By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s been laying on the praise so thick for his vice president that even a guy as self-deprecating as Joe Biden might wonder if Obama’s messing with him.

“We call him ‘The Sheriff,’” Obama said recently, talking about how he’s asked Biden to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus. “Nobody messes with Joe,” the president said in his first formal address to Congress.

After less than two months in office, Obama also has called on Biden, 66, to act as a foreign-policy emissary, run a middle-class task force, stand in on national network morning shows and round up support for the administration by tapping allies in organized labor and friends from both political parties on Capitol Hill.

Entrusted with far more than funerals and ribbon cuttings, Biden’s responded with deference and gratitude, but hasn’t quite curbed his penchant for stream-of-consciousness monologues and wisecracks that makes Obama uneasy …

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