Katie Couric Hits The Nail on Head Comes to Wrong Conclusion

Katie Couric is right. Americans know little about economics. But Obama doesn't need to become any more professorial than he already is. Perhaps CBS should start broadcasting economics 101 segments.

But CBS wouldn't do that because it knows that if there is a story about Rush Limbaugh saying another dumb thing, or Sean Hannity getting even more stupid, or Obama's teleprompter or the Octomom struggling, Americans will pay attention but if there is a great explainer on economics, Americans could care little.

But it's not up to Obama to change that. Good grief, he can't do everything. People really do think he walks on water. Besides, for anyone who's paying attention, Obama and his staff have already explained pretty much all there is to know.

I'm not sure it's necessary that we know exactly what a derivative formula is to understand what's happening in the economy, like Katie suggests.

It's up to us to show a little initiative and take it upon ourselves not to be dim witted. Watch the Sunday politics shows or visit Planet Money, which always has good explainers on the economy. Subscribe to an economics podcast.

Obama's Message on Univision's Awards Show

Remarks of President Barack Obama
"Premio Lo Nuestro"
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Washington, DC

AS DELIVERED

Buenas noches (Good evening). I want to thank the millions of you who voted for tonight’s winners, and I also want to thank all of you who voted in that other election back in November – even if it wasn’t for me. With the challenges we face right now, it is absolutely critical that you stay involved and make your voices heard. I want you to know that I will always be listening, and my Administration is working hard so that we can expand opportunity for all Americans and reach that better day. Now I know you tuned in for "Premio Lo Nuestro," so let me get right to it. I don’t know who’ll get married tonight or who’ll get Video of the Year, but I know you’re in for some great performances that celebrate the rich diversity of Latin music, and that’s good news. So enjoy the show, y para los nominados que se preguntan si esta será su noche, les digo, ¡si se puede! (and for all those nominees wondering if tonight is their night, let me just say, ¡yes you can!)

See the video here.

Obama's Afghanistan Pakistan Strategy Announcement Video

2008 was the deadliest year for American soldiers in Afghanistan. Terrorists who planned and supported 9-11 attacks are in the Afghan-Pakistan region scheming, Obama said.

Read the policy here. Objectives:

Achieving our core goal is vital to U.S. national security. It requires, first of all, realistic and achievable objectives. These include:

• Disrupting terrorist networks in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan to degrade any
ability they have to plan and launch international terrorist attacks.

• Promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan that
serves the Afghan people and can eventually function, especially regarding internal
security, with limited international support.

• Developing increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the
counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced U.S. assistance.

• Assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in
Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunity for the people of Pakistan.

• Involving the international community to actively assist in addressing these objectives for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an important leadership role for the UN.

A New Way Forward

Madeleine Albright approves:

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Randall Terry Calls Obama an Agent of Death

It astonishes me that people fighting against abortion are this idiotic. They fail to realize that their ideological--I'm right you're wrong--stance will NEVER change anything. The more righteous they are, the less appealing they are and the more they fail their very own cause.
Randall Terry of Operation Rescue appears to be more in need of mental health counseling as opposed to sane person presenting a legitimate argument.
Only when they step out of their self-righteous box will they actually accomplish something. In the meantime, they'd simply rather be right.
Terry, while slandering Obama, is pretending to be an agent of god. I'll never understand why this brand of  "Christian" doesn't get the irony of that. He's working to try and prevent Obama from speaking at the Notre Dame commencement. You know that's going to be an awesome speech.

Obama Readies For European Trip April 2

Update: See Obama's travel schedule here.

Barack Obama will make his debut as president on the world stage next week with calls for global economies to use government spending to jumpstart growth and work on a reshaping of the chaotic financial system.

The U.S. president's popularity will likely elicit a warm greeting Europeans when he travels to London for the summit of the Group of 20 major economies on April 2. His remedies for fixing the world economy could face a chillier reception.

European leaders have made clear they will not heed the U.S. call for deficit spending and may prod the United States to move further and more quickly to tighten financial rules.

China has talked of a possible alternative to the U.S. dollar's status as a global reserve currency, in a signal of weakening confidence in America's economic leadership. Read more at Reuters

Obama Meets With Bank CEOs on TARP

Jamie Dimon, of JP MorganChase, said Obama asked for everyone to be responsive to needs of the country.

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Horde of bankers: "We're all in this thing together."

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Gibbs Press Briefing March 26

More Loans For Automakers Likely

Republicans Present Budget Lite

Who even knew they presented a budget?

Gibbs said it was more windmills than numbers. "It took me several minutes to read it:"

Here is the republicans' 19 page "Road to Recovery." I feel like I should add a smiley face here. How laughable

Obama to Call For Economic Aid for Afghanistan Region

Obama will outline his plan for the region tomorrow.

NPR: President Obama will outline his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday in an effort to regain the initiative in the faltering Afghan war.

The president is expected to announce that he'll send an additional 4,000 American troops to Afghanistan to act as advisors and trainers for the Afghan security forces. That's in addition to the 17,000 extra troops he has already ordered to be in place this year. The advisors and trainers will help with an effort by American commanders to double the size of the Afghan military by 2011.

The president's plan also is expected to call for hundreds more civilian experts to help build Afghanistan's economy, infrastructure and civil society. The idea there is to combat the Taliban insurgency by showing Afghans that the government can offer them a better life.

Republican respresentative Pete Hoekstra tweets:

Pres outlines revised Afghan/Pak straegy tomorrow.Got briefed in Intell todayThere's nothing easy about this.

From Marc Ambinder:

President Barack Obama's new posture toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be unveiled tomorrow, codifies for the first time Iran's role in regional diplomacy, emphasizes counterterrorism as the primary mission of U.S. policy, and includes a multi-modal surge of civilians and economic aid to both countries.

According to people who have been briefed on the results of the policy review, Obama plans to emphasize results-driven cooperation with both countries. He will endorse a Senate bill, authored by Sens. John Kerry and Richard Lugar, that would condition a significant increase in aid to Pakistan on measurable improvements in Pakistan's internal efforts to combat terrorism. (President Obama and Vice President Biden were cosponsors of the bill in the Senate.)

In seeking to reassure Americans that help to Pakistan is contingent on internal reforms, he plans to stress that Americans will work with those in both countries who demonstratively seek peace and reconciliation. read the rest

Newt Goes Coo Coo

Dictatorship? Come on. GOPers still don't get how out of touch they are.

Obama Doesn't Plan to Legalize Marijuana

No worries on medical marijuana but legalizing marijuana? Nope.

Geithner Gets Warm and Fuzzy

Just kidding. Now watch this:

How the FDIC Takes Over A Bank

This is a really interesting and sad story about how FDIC agents take over a bank in a night.

NPR: On a mid-January night, some 80 agents of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. pull into Vancouver, Wash. Their rental cars are generic, their arrival times staggered. One by one, agents check into a hotel, each quietly offering a pseudonym to the guy at the desk.

They're here to take over the Bank of Clark County, which the FDIC has decided is insolvent. It's the agency's job to insure American bank deposits and to step in when a bank fails. The FDIC tries to keep the planning for its operations top secret, to avoid sparking a panicked run on the bank.

At 9 o'clock on this particular Thursday night, FDIC agents call another bank nearby, Umpqua Bank. They tell executives there that Umpqua has been selected to take over the Bank of Clark County. They order them not to tell anyone. Come to a meeting tomorrow at noon, they say, and we'll fill you in on everything you need to know.

The next day, Ric Carey, an Umpqua vice president, heads into that meeting. "The FDIC had taken a location approximately two miles from the main office of the bank in a hotel under a different name," he says later. "And they've been through quite a few of these. I think one of the gentlemen leading the discussion said, 'You know, I've done over 200 of these over my 25 years, and let me tell you how it's going to work.' " Read the rest or listen here.

Obama's Online Town Hall Video

The best part was the look a teacher gave when Obama asked her if she could identify a bad teacher at her school. Of course she could. It's nice to see people at the White House.
Read about the town hall here.

Judd Gregg Very Very Worried

Judd Gregg says Obama's budget triples the budget and moves us to the left. Boring. In reality republicans aren't needed to pass the budget, thanks to reconciliation, which pushes the budget through with 51 votes, a simple majority.
Gregg admits he has voted for reconciliation issues in the past. Obama might use it for the healthcare and education.

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Run over the republicans! Strong arm the budget!

Cantor Skips Obama for Britney Spears Concert

It's not so much that he skipped Obama's press conference, and it's not so much that he attended a concert, it's that he went to a Britney Spears concert. Not slamming Britney, but that seems a little unseemly, especially when Obama was speaking to the nation. I would've figured entertainers like Britney would be a little too risque for conservatives. 

HP: Rep. Eric Cantor is unimpressed with all the uproar over the revelation that he attended a Britney Spears concert while President Barack Obama convened the second primetime news conference of his presidency.

"I don't know why that's an issue whatsoever," said the House Minority Whip. "There was a concert and I had a political event at that concert. Look, that is why I was there."

From the Takeaway:

John Hockenberry: Politico is making a big deal about the fact that you showed up at the Britney Spears concert on Tuesday night, do you have a comment on that?

Rep. Eric Cantor: I don’t know why that’s an issue whatsoever. There was a concert and I had a political event at that concert. Look, that is why I was there.

John Hockenberry: Don’t feel bad about it. Your daughters would probably be thrilled, if you have daughters.

Rep. Eric Cantor: I think my daughter really was mad that she wasn’t there.

Gibbs Press Briefing March 25

Orszag Says Criticizing is Easy

It's easy to be a critic, says Peter Orszag, budget director. He says he's not expecting a budget from Senate republicans and that Representative Paul Ryan crafted an unimpressive budget, complete with tax breaks for the wealthiest and corporations.

Q Thanks, Peter. I was wondering if you could respond to one of the criticisms that some of the Republicans are putting forth -- forward about your budget, which is that -- you know, they're comparing the situation that President Obama sees himself with the situation that Bill Clinton inherited. And they say, well, when Clinton came into office he made a bunch of tough choices, he raised taxes, and he used that to defray the deficit and build confidence in the markets; whereas Obama makes a bunch of tough choices but uses it to expand the role of government in things like energy and health care. Can you talk about that?

DIRECTOR ORSZAG: Sure. Let me first start with I think it's easy to lob criticisms, but part of governing needs -- or part of the policy process needs to involve putting forward alternatives. I haven't seen on the Senate side an alternative budget and my understanding is there won't be one. So it's kind of -- it seems off to be criticizing without putting forward an alternative.

The alternative that has been put forward by Representative Ryan in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago embodies $3 trillion in tax cuts, including for very high-income individuals and for corporations. It involves -- and let's look at this from a fiscal perspective -- it involves setting up privatization under Social Security and having the federal government bear all the downside risk there. So if that system had been in place over the past few years, the federal government would have incurred massive amounts of liabilities to make individual accounts whole for the stock market declines that have occurred. And it involves an approach to health care in which you're given a check for 80 percent of the cost of health care, which then declines over time, and told to go off and just sort of fend for yourself.

So in terms of an alternative vision, I think -- at least it's my impression, that that is the only thing that's been out there. And I think the flaws in it are pretty clear. And with regards directly to your question, I'd also note that, you know, you had said that in 1993 Bill Clinton proposed tax increases. Well, people are saying we're proposing tax increases now.

We are, in terms of health care, approaching this in a somewhat different way than was the case in the early 1990s. But I don't think it's accurate to say, just pursuant to what we were just discussing with regard to the deficit-neutral health reserve fund, it's not accurate to say it's a massive expansion of government. And in fact, as I noted, it -- the health reform effort will be deficit-neutral.

And then the final point I would make is the point that the President made last night and has made on "60 Minutes" and before that, which is if you've asked corporate leaders over the past decade or two what the key to our long-term productivity is, they would -- they have answered consistently: a more efficient health care system; a more efficient energy base and reduced dependence on foreign oil; and improved education, along with a -- you know, raising national savings, which involves reducing the deficit.

So on our four key principles they're very much in line with what even corporate leaders have been saying for a long time is the key to our future prosperity. And I think that's precisely right. I've said this before. But I reject the notion that the key to future prosperity is the top marginal tax rate. See the whole Q&A here.

Memo to Media: Republicans Want Obama to Fail

Stop quibbling over whether republicans want Obama to fail or his policies to fail. It's the SAME THING!
The more important thing to note, is republicans had their turn and largely blew it. I don't care who was in control of Congress in 2008. The leader of our country for 8 years was a republican, an ardent one at that, spreading the republican way.
Now it's Obama and the democrat's turn to fix what's broke.
Here Sen. Fred Thompson goes into republican overblow: