Day No. 972: President Obama unveils a deficit reduction plan

"We didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction. That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office." --Barack Obama, Aug. 8, 2011.

Barack Obama took office Jan. 20, 2009. That was 972 days ago this morning, almost to the hour when he finally offered his newest full-blown deficit reduction plan. (See full Obama text below.)

Or as he put it, "Good morning, everybody. Please have a seat."

If it's Monday, the campaigning president must be issuing a new plan for something (before another $35,800 per ticket fundraiser in New York City). Last week it was his new Monday stimulus package, which was so urgent it's been delayed, as we discussed right here this morning.

Today, it was how to pay for his new stimulus package plus how to start reducing overspending and paying down the $14,000,000,000,000+ in debt that someone else is responsible for accumulating in recent years.

Here's the Washington Democrat's diagnosis:

During this past decade, profligate spending in Washington, tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires, the cost of two wars and the recession turned a record surplus into a yawning deficit, and that left us with a big pile of IOUs.

Everyone remembers his last deficit reduction plan in April. Back then he was determined "to shrink the deficit as a share of the economy, but not to do so so abruptly with spending cuts that would hamper growth or prevent us from helping small businesses and middle-class families get back on their feet."

Which struck many as suspiciously like not much of a shovel-ready deficit reduction program.

Now that it's autumn, it will surprise only children that the Democrat wants to increase taxes because we aren't paying enough and need more to spend. He also details impressive, large-scale cuts that include $1 trillion that we don't have and he says we won't be spending on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to this line of thinking, our spouse has been informed that we'll be buying a Lamborghini (red) with the cuts we've made in not buying a corporate jet.

"This plan cuts $2 in spending for every dollar in new revenues," the president proclaimed. Reforms to....

America's newest hero, Sgt. Dakota Meyer: How he rescued 36 guys under fire

President Obama awards Medal of Honor to Sgt. Dakota Meyer, as provided by the White House

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please be seated. Thank you, Chaplain Kibben. Good afternoon, everyone. And on behalf of Michelle and myself, welcome to the White House. 

It’s been said that “where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the fight, there is the post of honor.”  Today, we pay tribute to an American who placed himself in the thick of the fight -- again and again and again.  In so doing, he has earned our nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor. And we are extraordinarily proud of Sgt. Dakota Meyer.(Applause.)
    
Today is only the third time during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that a recipient of the Medal of Honor has been able to accept it in person.  And we are honored to be joined by one of the two other recipients -- Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, who is here.  (Scroll to bottom for the story of Sgt. Petry and other Medal of Honor winners.)

I would point out something else -- of all the Medal of Honor recipients in recent decades, Dakota is also one of the youngest. He’s 23 years old. And he performed the extraordinary actions for which he is being recognized today when he was just 21 years old.

Despite all this, I have to say Dakota is one of the most down-to-earth guys that you will ever meet. In fact, when my staff first tried to arrange the phone call so I could tell him that I’d approved this medal, Dakota was at work, at his new civilian job, on a construction site. 

 

He felt he couldn’t take the call right then, because he said, “If I don’t work, I don’t....

 

9/11 a decade later: Most Americans now expect it to happen again

As most Americans pause at least a moment Sunday to remember 9/11/2001 and what they were doing on that deadly day that so fundamentally scarred the national psyche, an overwhelming majority have also told pollsters they think another mass attack will happen again before 9/11/2021.

Americans now believe that Al Qaeda as a global terrorist organization is weaker today, thanks to the extermination in May of Osama bin Laden and the less noticed elimination of hundreds of his associates by various violent means in recent years.

This year 50% of Americans say they believe Al Qaeda is weaker. That's double the percentage who thought that the previous two autumns.

Although, interestingly, a third (32%) still think the disparate terror group has managed to maintain its strength. Understandable. What's your first thought when you see an airliner low over any downtown?

However, according to this weekend's fresh Rasmussen Reports survey, despite all the country's sometimes controversial enhanced security precautions, a substantial majority of Americans (61%) still believe a similar-scale attack is at least somewhat likely to occur on the homeland during the next 10 years.

This includes nearly a third of Americans (29%) who think such a deadly repeat assault is very likely.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos, from top: Sunrise on Sept. 13, 2001, on the U.S. Capitol and the damaged Pentagon; New York City 9/11 smoke plume as seen from the International Space Station, 250 miles altitude. Credits: Luke Frazza / AFP /Getty Images; Frank Culbertson / NASA.

Sunday shows: Giuliani, Rumsfeld, Brennan, McCain

Several of the Sunday mnorning programs have been preempted this week by coverage of the Sept. 11 anniversary memorial services in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt:" Sen. Michael E. Crapo (R-Idaho).

CBS' "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer: New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Donald Rumsfeld and Obama advisor John Brennan.

Fox News Channel "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace: Rumsfeld, Giuliani, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Dianne Feinstein (D-San Francisco) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Brennan, Michael Chertoff, Paul Wolfowitz and Gen. Jack Keane, with Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Dana Priest and Juan Williams.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Giuliani, Sept. 2001).

Relax, America, California's not worried about terrorism

With that awful anniversary of 9/11 arriving soon, the thought of terrorism might well be on the minds of many Americans.

But not to worry, not with sunny California setting the nation's trends.

According to a new Los Angeles Times/USC Dornsife poll, two out of three California voters aren't really concerned about a terror attack at all. So, why should anyone else be?

Californians, who know it's winter somewhere when they see football fans in stocking caps on TV, watched the 9/11 attacks like everyone else. But now, a decade later, fully a third are not at all concerned that they or family will be involved in a terror attack. Only 11% were very concerned, likely transplanted New Yorkers.

Of course, Californians being Californians, they overwhelmingly approve of President Obama's handling of the war on terror, by a 2-1 margin, in fact.

However, when it comes to the decade-long war in Afghanistan, the most visible anti-terror battleground and now the nation's longest military conflict, Californians disapprove of Obama's leadership there, 52% to 41%.

Forty-six percent of voters in the most populous state have somehow convinced themselves that the United States is winning the war on terrorism. Fifteen percent are unsure, but they're probably from Arizona.

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Somehow many media miss James Hoffa's S.O.B. quote, but not Jake Tapper

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse, two carefree California rodents, appear in a parade at Disneyland. Credit: Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP/Getty Images

As big jobs speech looms, 77% say Obama has nation on wrong track

It could be worse.

But not much.

With only 427 days left before Americans pass judgment on Barack Obama's presidency, nearly eight out of 10 of them say in a poll that they believe the country is seriously off on the wrong track.

That 77% is up 17 points just this year. And it's the highest since George W. Bush went back to Texas.

Here's how bad the new ABC News/Washington Post Poll is for Obama: The good news for now is that by only a 2-to-1 margin (34%-17%), respondents say the Democrat's efforts on the economy have done more harm than good.

After all, with recorded unemployment at 9.1%, no new jobs created last month and no outlook for improvement, the number could be 3-to-1. And it may well become that. No wonder Rick Perry entered the Republican race.

It's so bad that Vice President Joe Biden may want to look around for a new top of the ticket in 2012, lest he lose his job and that lucrative rent on the guest house from the Secret Service agents protecting him.

Even less-than-conservative websites like salon.com are publishing anguished articles nowadays such as "What Democrats Can Do About Obama."

The former state senator appeared Monday at a Detroit Labor Council rally.

Introducing the nation's chief executive, Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. appealed for union members to follow Obama's campaign promise to shun harsh partisanship and to reason and work together with political opponents such as the "tea party" to build a better America for everyone.

Well, no, actually Hoffa didn't do that. He said many things about the tea party. But here's the Hoffa action sentence:

"Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong."

Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer said Hoffa's "inexcusable" and "inappropriate and uncivil rhetoric" amount to "a call for violence on peaceful tea party members, which include many Teamster members."

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce asked for White House comment. You will be shocked to learn that presidential spokesmen declined to comment on the union president's call to take out tea party people, presumably not in a social dating sense.

This comes about two weeks after Joe Biden called tea party people "terrorists" and the same day he called them "barbarians" in a Cincinnati labor speech.

The new ABC News poll also revealed that a record 62% of respondents say they disapprove of Obama's work on the economy. In a measure of intensity that analysts called "striking," nearly half the respondents (47%) said they "strongly" disapprove of Obama's performance, while barely 15% strongly approve.

Usually when Obama gets in trouble like this, the Real Good Talker does two things: He schedules a round of fundraisers to hear the paying crowds cheer ("Thank you. Thank you. Be seated.") and he announces a "major speech" to fix things up. Oh, look! He's scheduled a major speech for Thursday night to talk about a jobs plan after 961 days in office.

Since all his other jobs speeches in recent months haven't worked, maybe one more will.

You know, how Obama inherited a huge economic hole and how he knows the recovery is insufficient (or nonexistent, depending on your employment status) and how he really wants Congress to finally get off its collective duff and do something about the problem that he and Joe said was fixed two years ago. Especially those pesky Republicans who didn't control either house back then.

In Detroit Monday, a tieless Obama warned Republicans, who were not numerous in the crowd, that if the GOP didn't accept the new job and spending ideas that he hasn't detailed yet, he is going to take his case to the American people.

Judging by the steady decline in Obama's job approval all summer and his pathetic numbers in this latest poll, Republicans can only hope that the Democrat carries through on that threat.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Upper photo: President Obama at a Labor Day rally in Detroit. Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

Lower photo: Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. at the Labor Day rally. Credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

Listen up! Here's how Obama wants 9/11 observed

You may have thought as a regular American citizen you were capable of marking the upcoming 10th anniversary of the deadly 9/11 attacks in your own quiet, sad way as you and your family choose.

However, in its infinite federal wisdom and one-size-fits-all philosophy, the Obama White House has drafted a set of detailed orders for how it wants the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks observed, both at home and abroad.

We're not kidding.

After weeks of quiet internal planning, two sets of guidelines were dispatched by the Democratic administration, one for American representatives to use abroad and another to all federal agencies at home.

Suggestions for elaborate programs including speeches and other ceremonies to mark the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, were discarded by the administration in favor of low-key appearances by President Obama and a few other officials.

They are to emphasize that the day's observances are "not just about us," an unidentified administration source told the N.Y. Times, which obtained copies of the plans ...

Sarah Palin's four-point plan on Libya

President Obama may still be dining with the elite at fancy island restaurants on Martha's Vineyard, but Sarah Palin is pondering the future of Libya and wisely pushing to wind down American involvement in that latest military entanglement.

Palin may not be in the race for her party's 2012 presidential nomination, but the Republican former governor released her four-point Libya plan late Thursday night to her 3.2 million fans on Facebook. Her first concern is to protect U.S. interests in that troubled land. 

"The fall of a tyrant and sponsor of terrorism is a great day for freedom-loving people around the world," she wrote. But then warned that the path to democracy is incomplete there and "we must make wise choices to ensure that our national interests are protected."

First, Palin said, the Obama White House must avoid celebrating too heartily and recall instead that tribal and sectarian fighting can erupt as it did in previous conflicts, such as in Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq.

Second, Palin said, "history teaches that those with the guns usually prevail when a coalition overthrows a tyrant." And she warned the rebel command is an outgrowth of the Islamic Libya Fighting Group, some of whose commanders have links to Al Qaeda.

Third, Palin writes, "we should not commit U.S. troops or military assets to serve as peacekeepers or perform humanitarian missions or nation-building in Libya. Our military is already over-committed and strained, and a vaguely designed mission can be the first step toward a quagmire."

Finally, Palin said terrorist groups are trying to co-opt the Libyan revolution and the United States must use its intelligence assets to thwart that.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

Keep track of the Obama administration's latest military strikes by following The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or click this: @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle. Use the ReTweet buttons above to share any item with family and friends.

Photo: Sarah Palin makes an appearance on Aug. 12. Credit: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press

Joe Biden update: His GOP 'terrorists' quote reaffirmed

So, did Vice President Joe Biden really liken Republican House "tea party" members to terrorists during the debt deal roughhousing, just as President Obama was publicly professing a desire for political civility?

In a way, it doesn't matter anymore, because the belief that he did has hardened like cement (see the photo above, the protester on the right, all the way out in Iowa).

In an unusual move within the fraternities of Washington journalism, Politico, which broke the original hot story, issued a reaffirmation of the piece Wednesday, apparently in response to another Washington news organization questioning Politico's sources as "dubious."

To refresh your memory, hours after Biden met behind closed doors with unhappy....

Vice president's reference to opponents as 'terrorists' deserves condemnation

Outrage flooding in now even from overseas over former Vice President Dick Cheney likening some opponents of President Bush's policies and administration to "terrorists."

Terrorists? Really? With the 10th anniversary of real terrorism coming next month. Pathetic, even for Repugnicans.

It's the kind of over-the-top rhetorical retribution that only inflames political passions and hard feelings at a highly partisan time in the nation's capitol. You have to expect it from the veteran Washington insider and no-holds-barred Republican enforcer who once worked for an oil industry company.

During a meeting with his party's House caucus earlier this week several members reportedly expressed outrage over parts of the pending debt agreement with opponents, likening the other side to terrorists holding the plan hostage to gain an advantage.

At one point the vice president is said to have acknowledged, "They have acted like terrorists."  Seriously, that guy's been out of office for -- what? -- 30 months now. His party lost. Let it go, Mr. Cheney!

The Democratic team of Barack Obama and Joe Biden arrived in Washington in 2009 sincerely determined to change the city's crony culture, to overcome the harsh partisan tone that had infested the former swamp during the first eight years of this century. How can such gentlemen possibly make progress for America when the response from the GOP side invokes terrorism during what should be a simple policy debate?

Oh, wait. What? Oh, that's right. It was Vice President Joe Biden who said that. And it happened during a caucus of his party's angry Democratic House members, not Republicans.

Well, nevermind then.

Forget we brought it up. No condemnation needed. Biden's not the kind of partisan guy to shoot from the lip. He obviously didn't mean it. Or he was misunderstood. Or caught up in the moment. Could happen to anybody who isn't Republican. If, in fact, Biden even uttered it. Lighten up!

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Emily Riley / Reuters (Cheney and Biden, file).