The Sunday 'Report;' 04/17/2011

What The National Pamphleteers Don't Report:
G-20 nations reach agreement on imbalances
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER and HARRY DUNPHY,
April 16, 2011
WASHINGTON – The world's major nations have put together a new monitoring process that they hope will halt the types of destabilizing economic imbalances that contributed to the worst global downturn since World War II.  Finance officials in the United States and other members of the Group of 20 major economies said the new program will closely follow key measurements of economic health such as government budget and trade deficits, personal savings levels and [....]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110416/ap_on_re_us/us_global_finance

Obama Is Likely to Lose
But Republican unseriousness may be his trump card.
The Wall Street Journal,
April 14, 2011
by Peggy Noonan
    Suppose everything we think we know about the president’s political position is wrong? That’s what I think became clear this week.  You know the conventional wisdom. It is that unemployment ticking down, plus the economy inching back, plus the power of the presidency to affect events, equal a likely Obama victory in 2012. Smart people, especially Republicans, believe this. But how about this for a thought: It’s not true. It’s all wrong. Barack Obama can be taken, and his adversaries haven’t even noticed. In fact, he will likely lose in 2012. Only one thing can save him. More on that further down.
    Let’s start with the immediate and go to the overarching. The president is immersed in another stressed and unsuccessful spring after a series of losing seasons. Internationally, he’s involved in a confused effort that involves bombing Libyan government troops and sometimes their rebel opponents, leaving the latter scattered and scurrying. Responsibility to protect is looking like tendency to deflect. Domestically, the president’s opponents seized the high ground on the great issue of the day, spending and debt, and held it after the president’s speech this week. In last week’s budget duel, the president was outgunned by Republicans in the House and outclassed by Paul Ryan, who offered seriousness and substance as a unique approach to solving our fiscal problems.  In this week’s polls: An Ipsos survey says 69% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, up five points since March. Zogby has only 38% of national respondents saying Mr. Obama deserves re-election, with 55% wanting someone new. Mr. Obama carried Pennsylvania in 2008 by double digits; a poll there this week shows only 42% approving his leadership, with 52% disapproving. Gallup had the president’s support slipping among blacks and Hispanics, with the latter’s numbers dramatic: 73% supported him when he was inaugurated, 54% do now. Support among whites on Inauguration Day was 60%. Now it is 39%.  We’re all so used to reporting the general [....]
http://peggynoonan.com/

Trump/West 2012?
Allen West not closed to idea of being Donald Trump’s VP
By Chris Moody - The Daily Caller
04/15/2011
Florida Congressman and Tea Party favorite Allen West isn’t opposed to the idea of joining possible presidential contender Donald Trump, West told The Daily Caller Thursday.  When pressed repeatedly if he would rule out the possibility of running with Trump, the Republican House freshman did not [....]
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/14/trumpwest-2012-allen-west-not-closed-to-idea-of-being-donald-trumps-vp/

Czar Obama
Obama signing statement: despite law, I can do what I want on czars
By Jonathan Strong - The Daily Caller
April 16, 2011
    In marked contrast to vows as a candidate not to use presidential signing statements as “an end run around Congress,” President Obama released a statement on the just-signed spending bill saying despite the law’s restrictions on “czars,” he will “construe” the law not to interfere with “presidential prerogatives.”  The move is an aggressive power play by Obama to gain an added advantage from the deal struck a week ago between the president, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to narrowly avert government shutdown.  The legislation prohibits government money being spent on four Obama “czars,” newly created positions with far-reaching sway over federal agencies but facing no confirmation vote in the Senate. 
However, some of the czars banned in the bill have [....]
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/15/obama-signing-statement-despite-law-i-can-do-what-i-want-on-czars/

The Parent Trigger:
A Model for Transforming Education
Written By: Joseph L. Bast, Bruno Behrend, Ben Boychuk, and Marc Oestreich
The Heartland Institute
(Policy Briefs--2010)
08/10/2010
    The Parent Trigger is an innovation in education reform recently passed into law in California. Briefly put, if half the parents whose children attend a failing public school sign a petition requesting reform of the school, the school must either shut down, become a charter school, or undergo one of two other types of reform.
    The Parent Trigger concept is the creation of the Los Angeles Parents Union, a group of self-described progressives led by Ben Austin, a Democrat whose previous employers include President Bill Clinton, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, and Hollywood director-turned-political-activist Rob Reiner. Austin was also a consultant to Green Dot Charter Schools, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit charter school chain that has taken over several failed public schools, including the notorious Locke High School in South Los Angeles, near Watts. In March 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) appointed Austin to a four-year term on the state’s 11-member board of education.
    The Parent Trigger passed by just one vote in the California Senate and one vote in the Assembly. Schwarzenegger signed it into law on January 7, 2010 as part of a package of special legislation designed to improve California’s prospects in the first round of the federal Race to the Top grant competition.  While California didn’t make the cut in Race to the Top, the Parent Trigger is currently the law in the Golden State. According to the Web site of the Los Angeles Parents Union (www.parentrevolution.org), five schools currently have petition drives underway to transform their schools. These parents are moving forward on the Parent Trigger absent legal clarity, an indication of the demand for reform. At least one other state – Connecticut – is considering similar legislation. (Connecticut passed a wide-ranging education reform bill in May, but the final compromise legislation did not include a Parent Trigger provision.)
    The Parent Trigger is unique. Unlike most reform proposals based on empowering parents, the Parent Trigger originates from activists on the political left, not from the center-right coalition. This pedigree creates an opportunity for building a successful coalition that can advance reform. Conservatives and libertarians should support the Parent Trigger because it could allow parents to choose charters or even vouchers (in the version described later in this paper); liberals and progressives should support it because it empowers low-income and minority parents to control the reform path their schools follow.
    The Parent Trigger idea is also sufficiently malleable to accommodate different political realities in cities and states across the country. In California and in proposed legislation in Connecticut, regulations would empower school districts to veto efforts by parents, and two of the four options seem tailored to the needs of bureaucracies more than children. More reform-minded states such as Indiana, Michigan, and Minnesota might choose to reject those regulations and replace the weakest reform options with something much stronger, such as vouchers.
    The Parent Trigger has the potential to turbo-charge the transformation of education in every state by bringing grassroots “regime change” to public education. Is the Parent Trigger right for your state? This policy brief explains the promise and possible pitfalls of the Parent Trigger.
Click PDF to read the full report.
> Download full text (pdf)
http://www.heartland.org/
http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/28202.pdf

owe-bama 'Bullshit' Flashback....!!
owe-bama says he will cut federal deficit in half
At outset of summit, says budget will look 10 years into the future  
{*}{*}"We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end," Clown Prince owe-bama said to open the summit. "We are paying the price for these deficits right now."

The Associated Press
**2/23/2009**
WASHINGTON — Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, owe-bama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week. "If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road," the president warned, promising to cut the yearly deficit in half by the end of his four-year term. "We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences." He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that [....]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29346452/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/


Exclusive: Trump to Announce Presidency Decision

Wednesday, 13 Apr 2011
By Ronald Kessler
    Trump plans to say on the NBC show that he will be holding a press conference in the next few days. At that press conference in the Trump Tower in New York, Trump will be announcing whether he will run for the presidency.  Even then, many will snicker that it’s all a publicity stunt. But that defies the facts and common sense.  Of all the people on the planet, Donald Trump is the last person who needs more publicity. And if he is riding a groundswell of support, why would he—or anyone else—decide not to run?  Since writing the first story in January to report that Trump will definitely run, I have been amazed at how much the idea of a Trump presidency is catching on across the political spectrum. As I wrote in my story, Don’t Underestimate Donald Trump for President, he can be outrageous and boastful. But when it comes to a successful run at the presidency, don’t count him out.
    Watching him on TV, you never got a sense until recently that Trump is a conservative. But those who know him best say he has long held hard-core conservative beliefs on fiscal and national security issues. After a recent chat with Trump, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee and an arch conservative, found him “credible.”  “If I run and if I win, this country will be respected again,” Trump promised to wild applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  What motivates Trump is his disgust with President Obama, whom he considers a “disaster.” Instead of using euphemisms to describe terrorists, as the Obama administration has done, “I would go after terrorists like nobody in history,” Trump tells me.
    Hungry for a change from politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouth, people appreciate Donald’s take-no-prisoners solutions to the problems the country faces. They figure that a guy who has amassed a fortune of $2.4 billion can be trusted to handle the economy and foreign affairs.  Unlike other Republican candidates, Donald will have the media on his side. Most important, based on the way he comes across on his TV show, people simply like and admire him.  A Republican operative who is impressed by him asked me whether Trump has any problems.
    “Does he drink?” he asked.  To those who know Donald, that is humorous. As Donald told me this week, he has never had a drink in his life. Then he added with a chuckle, “But I have other problems.”  No doubt those problems, including womanizing between marriages, will come out. But what will also become clear—as depicted recently on “The Oprah Show”—is that he has been a model father to his five kids.  No matter how involved he is in a conference or a negotiation, he always takes their calls.  Every morning, Trump reads the papers with [....]
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/donald-trump-run-president/2011/04/13/id/392790

Will Gov. Jan Brewer sign “birther” bill into law?
The State Column Staff
Friday, April 15, 2011
    Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will face a decision now that a controversial bill requiring presidential candidates to present valid copies of their birth certificates has passed the legislature.   Ms. Brewer, who gained national notoriety after signing the state’s controversial immigration law, will face a decision whether to sign the so-called “birther bill.”  Both the Arizona House and Senate on Thursday passed the legislation requiring U.S. presidential candidates to prove their citizenship in order to get on the state ballot. Ms. Brewer hinted Friday she may veto the legislation.  The bill is the first in the nation to pass the legislative process. A number of states have considered similar proposals, however, none have made it as far at the Arizona legislation. Thirteen other states have considered similar bills this year, according to the Arizona Daily Star.  The bill, as passed, will allow the Arizona secretary of state to require potential presidential candidates to present a birth certificate before placing them on the ballot. The [....]
http://www.thestatecolumn.com/articles/gov-jan-brewer-sign-birther-bill-law/
Until Next Sunday....