Blog @ MoreWhat.com

crossposted at:
Maggie’s Notebook
Conservative Thoughts
Screw the UN

More on the Obama Adminisration and troubling trends are in the news. It is not a surprise nor necessarily atypical for a President of one political party to undo that of a former President of another party. The Obama Administration rescinded the Mexico City Policy ban on funding foreign abortions which has a history of reversals with each change in President of the opposing party. He appeared to be reversing policy on Gitmo but the jury is still out on that one. And the liberal fringe is not happy about the new President’s action or inaction on Iraq and Afghanistan or some other matters.

Does it seem odd to you that the President Obama’s first foreign trip was to Canada while his new Secretary of State headed for Indonesia and China and the rest of Asia? It is not unlike an opinion voiced by Rush Limbaugh on news the President does not favor the Fairness Doctrine. El Rushbo suggests we should not be optimistic about the news in that Obama did not say something like he would not sign or would veto such legislation. Alternatively, Limbaugh suggested it as a trait of the new liberal President to not spend political capital when he can get others to do it. That may also explain his trip to Canada. And Hillary is simply trying to add to her lacking resume’ for 2012. But Canada is boycotting Durban II. Hmmm.

That brings us to this issue, Durban II. The US and Israel were the only countries to vote against it in 2001 or beyond. Now that Obama is in office funny how the UN’s agenda on race again takes center stage. In the past there was the suggestion that opponents of Israel would use the opportunity to gain advantage by using international events to portray Israel and/or the US as racist. Given Obama and Holder’s notable quotes on the topic this may be of some concern to the public at large. Another reversal of Bush 43 policy which may also prove to be dangerous.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Op-Ed: Boycott Durban II

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, NY - Feb 18, 2009
The April 2009 Durban II conference promises to top that fiasco, despite the Obama administration’s decision to attempt to influence the process. …

Can the United States fix Durban II?

Reuters - Feb 18, 2009
Israel and Canada have already announced they would boycott “Durban II,” as the conference is being called, and the Bush administration was opposed to the …

Obama officials meet US Jews to explain their Durban II policy

Human Rights Tribune, Switzerland - Feb 18, 2009
Jerusalem fears that the “Durban II” summit, set to be held in Geneva this April, will be used by Arab nations and others as a forum to criticize Israel as …

Barack Obama’s stated policy on trade offers a classic piece of campaign rhetoric in its first bullet point. It is a common practice used by all campaigners to avoid the obvious problem of guaranteeing accomplishment of any proposed plan offered in exchange for your vote. Obama will fight for fair trade. Obama and Biden will fight for fair trade. They claim they will fight for fair trade policy but this of course promises little. It also is rather vague on what that means. They also claim the CAFTA does not live up to labor and environmental standards but no where detail how the agreement fails or what exactly the standards they support are.

The same follows in their second bullet point on NAFTA. If it was oversold to the American people was that not a job done by Democratic President William Jefferson Clinton? And if it is not an acceptable agreement for American workers and Senators Obama and Biden claim they will make it so, where are the details of what is wrong with it and what they will fix? They will work with leaders of Canada and Mexico to make it work? How do they know that whatever they will propose will be accepted by Canada and Mexico? As with the first bullet point, the second offers no answers, specifics or any sort of detail. Only a vague proposal to do something or fix something without explaining what is wrong..

In the final proposal of bullet point two, Obama and Biden at least use another word in place of ‘fight’. They will ‘pressure’ the WTO to right the wrongs on trade agreement enforcement and barriers to US exports. Obama and Biden pressure will cause the WTO and signatory countries to ‘cave’ to the American will. How’s that working for us so far? You can rest assured that if Obama and Biden were given the opportunity to be President and VP they would state they pressured the WTO and fought for fair trade after a miserable failure at both. Thus honoring their campaign pledge to ‘fight’ and ‘pressure.’ But no solution to their proposal would be forthcoming nor would we really know what it was, specifically.

The third bullet point is quite easy to believe coming from the most liberal Senator in Washington and his most experienced liberal colleague. For a man who claims he will punish companies who move jobs overseas he is willing to up the ante to the American taxpayer to fund additional programs for ‘displaced’ workers when his ‘American jobs’ policy fails miserably. Right afterwards in bullet point four Obama/Biden think you have fallen asleep and did not notice this is where they say they will punish those who move jobs overseas. If that would really work they would have little reason for the additional displaced worker funding.

The last bullet point in this series is more of the same. Claim you will reward employers for doing what many of them already do. While it is true that many pension and other benefit arrangements at American companies are on the decline or taken over by government guarantees, many companies offer matching funds to 401k plans and a typical insurance coverage based on what is available today. Whatever Obama and Biden would offer would still not likely help the small business owner who is the life blood of the American worker. The large corporations like GM have been met with hard times most likely do to their bets placed on market decisions but have taken an additional toll by caving to organized labor over many years for unreasonable costs for employee compensation and benefits. It was easier to cave than fight the expensive fight and we are now all paying for it. Obama/Biden want to increase the cost to the taxpayer by funding failures of the past and continue them into the future.

On the one hand the American workforce has seen real wages degrade over time. On the other hand emerging nations like China have placed enormous pressure on business to seek cheaper labor abroad. Making villains out of business and creating victims out of workers may be standard procedure for the Democratic party but it provides little in the way of solutions. Perhaps Obama and Biden should focus a little more on what governments do and how they influence the lives of their citizens with the politics, legislation and policies they so casually initiate while sparring with the political opposition. The rest of us have to deal with the results.

The only promise made here beyond ‘fight’ or ‘pressure’ is ‘extending’ a worker assistance program which is Washington-speak for spending more taxpayer dollars. Something that is not hard to believe from the Dems. While they complain about outrageous spending from the GOP in recent years they have no plans to stop it if they are elected. The small omission by both parties when pledging anything in a campaign is that most of it, especially money, requires agreement with Congress to be accomplished. That is not always a deal breaker but the point is there are limitations on what the President and VP can do without the legislative branch although those limits have been tested during the current Administration as well as in others before this one.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

from the Obama campaign website:

Trade

Obama and Biden believe that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

* Fight for Fair Trade: Obama and Biden will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. They will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama and Biden will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.

* Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama and Biden believe that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. They will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.

* Improve Transition Assistance: To help all workers adapt to a rapidly changing economy, Obama and Biden will update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.

* End Tax Breaks for Companies that Send Jobs Overseas: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that companies should not get billions of dollars in tax deductions for moving their operations overseas. Obama and Biden will also fight to ensure that public contracts are awarded to companies that are committed to American workers.

* Reward Companies that Support American Workers: Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 with Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to reward companies that create good jobs with good benefits for American workers. The legislation would provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America if it has ever been in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

By Paula Wolfson
White House
20 August 2007

U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada conclude their summit talks Tuesday at a Canadian resort. VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson reports they are focusing on economic and security issues.

They are looking for ways to make the North American Free Trade Agreement more efficient by facilitating the flow of goods and services across safe borders.

It is a matter of extreme economic importance. Canada is the United States biggest trading partner, and Mexico is not far behind. Energy exports - primarily oil - are paramount.

Regional experts, such as David Biette, say the stakes are high.

“It is important that we be able to get the things that we need as Americans in our stores and for our businesses easily and without a lot of worry that they are going to get stuck at the border,” said David Biette.

Biette is the Director of the Canada Institute at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. He says the three leaders have to increase border security without creating obstacles to trade.

“It is working together, assessing risk and keeping the bad guys out and keeping good stuff going,” he said. “And that works on the Canada-US border as well as the Mexico-US border. There is a lot of work to do there.”

The White House says no major announcements are expected to emerge from this North America summit. U.S. officials say the goal is to give the three leaders an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to a prosperous and secure hemisphere.

They will do so under the auspices of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, an initiative begun in 2005. Opponents on the left say the whole idea is merely a way to put more money in the pockets of big business, while those on the right fear it would lead to a European Union-style super-government in North America.

Armand Perschard, head of the Mexico program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says they are playing to the fears of people in all three countries.

“I tend to see that there is a nationalistic segment of society in all three countries that tend to be the globo-phobes of the three societies,” said Armand Perschard. “They tend to look at the SPP negatively in a sense because they see the deepening integration of North America as something that would be counter-productive and something that would be an encroachment on the sovereignty of the three nations.”

Thousands of protesters have vowed to disrupt the summit. Three-meter-high fences were erected around the grounds of the luxury resort housing the talks to keep them away.

By VOA News
20 August 2007

U.S. President George Bush meets the leaders of Canada and Mexico at a Canadian resort Monday for a summit to discuss boosting trade and security cooperation.

Mr. Bush will begin the two-day visit to Montebello, Quebec, by holding separate meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The meetings are part of a “Security and Prosperity Partnership” launched by the three countries in 2005.

Canadian officials say Mr. Harper will assert Canada’s claim to part of the Arctic Ocean. The resource-rich waters also are claimed by Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark.

Organizers say Mr. Bush and Mr. Harper also will discuss the war in Afghanistan, where Canada and the United States have troops.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Calderon are expected to focus on immigration and the fight against drug-trafficking.

Canadian police have set up a three-meter high fence around a hotel hosting the summit, where protesters hope to stage demonstrations.

Critics of the summit say the negotiations between the three leaders lack transparency and threaten to undermine the rights of ordinary people.