BEST MENS WATCHES 2011 https://blog.dnevnik.hr/best-mens-watches-2011

Desperate Democrats Launch Campaign to Blame GOP for S&P Downgrade
Sunday, 07 Aug 2011 11:58 AM

By David A. Patten

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are escalating their efforts to pin the responsibility for the dismal economy on Republicans.

Thursday's 512-point slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, exacerbated by Standard & Poor’s downgrading the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ Friday night, increased the likelihood that voters will express their wrath over the bad business climate in November 2012.

House Speaker John Boehner placed the blame for the downgrade squarely at the feet of the Democrats, saying: “This decision by S&P is the latest consequence of the out-of-control spending that has taken place in Washington for decades. The spending binge has resulted in job-destroying economic uncertainty and now threatens to send destructive ripple effects across our credit markets.

“Republicans have listened to the voices of the American people and worked to bring the spending binge to a halt. We are no longer debating how much to spend, but rather how much to cut. Unfortunately, decades of reckless spending cannot be reversed immediately, especially when the Democrats who run Washington remain unwilling to make the tough choices required to put America on solid ground," Boehner said.


Although even S&P said both parties share responsibility, Democrats are intent on persuading voters to take their frustrations out on GOP candidates.

“This is what you do when you’ve got nothing else to do,” comments Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center.

Bozell tells Newsmax that the media have failed to hold the Obama administration accountable for policies that have hurt any economic recovery.

“What else can the left do?" Bozell says. "The left is entirely responsible for this disastrous turn of events in the economy.”

Instead of accepting that responsibility, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is launching a campaign called "Accountability August” that targets 44 House Republicans with negative radio ads in their districts.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired the first salvo Thursday, with a USA Today Op-Ed titled “Unlike GOP, Democrats Will Focus on Jobs.”

Republicans, Pelosi alleged, “have put our economy at risk by threatening a first-ever default on our debt and refusing to propose legislation to create jobs. Instead, they’ve passed bills that would destroy up to 2 million jobs — nearly 10,000 jobs per day. And every time Democrats have brought a jobs initiative to the floor — 10 times so far — Republicans voted ‘no.’”

Obama urged Congress Friday to authorize a tax credit as an incentive to encourage businesses to hire veterans. The measure would provide a $2,400 credit for hiring an unemployed veteran on a short-term basis, and a $9,600 credit to firms that hire a veteran on a long-term basis.

“Both parties share power,” Obama said in a speech delivered at the Washington Naval Yard. “Both parties share responsibility for our progress. Moving our economy and our country forward is not a Democratic or a Republican responsibility, it is not a public or a private responsibility, it is a responsibility of all Americans.”

The speech Friday gave the president another opportunity to pivot to job creation a position himself in a positive light with independent voters, a strategy he employed throughout the debate over raising the debt ceiling.

On Wednesday, Obama appeared to presage Pelosi’s themes, telling reporters that the debt crisis, which he has blamed on House fiscal conservatives, has caused “an unnecessary negative impact on the economy.”

Obama also addressed the recently resolved impasse that temporarily sidelined thousands of FAA workers, calling it “a good example of how undone work here in Washington can have an adverse impact on that economy.”

Obama also mentioned the better-than-expected jobs numbers for July released Friday morning. Non-farm payrolls rose by 117,000 jobs, average hourly earnings grew by 0.4 percent, revisions added 56,000 jobs to the reports issued for May and June, and unemployment dropped from 9.2 to 9.1 percent. That uptick follows a correction on Wall Street that was punctuated by Thursday’s 512-point drop in the Dow.

"This is a fabulous number . . . This month I am totally relieved,” Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi said on CBNC following the July jobs report. “This is a very big number, it's not only the payrolls it's the revisions, it's the unemployment rate, it's the average hourly earnings. We're not out of the woods yet, but this is a good sign that we are going to avoid a recession."

But as investors signaled on Thursday, and S&P underscored Friday, the economy continues to face significant economic headwinds. Globally, governments are trying to get their balance sheets back in order, and the European Union is fighting to contain a debt crisis that in rece

About topic: Lin Xueling interviewed an 82 year-old Datuk Dr. Paddy Bowie who left the United Kingdom and moved to live in Malaysia for the past 45 years. She is currently writing the official biography of Dr. Mahathir Mohamed and has earned reputation as one of the region's leading specialists on Malaysian politics. She is also a mother of a former Miss Malaysia! I watched that conversation telecasted by Channel News Asia via a Sri Lankan TV channel today, the 30th August, and heard she was saying "Politics & Business are incestual in Malaysia."

Following article is to mark the 50th Anniversary of Independence of Malaysia, which falls tomorrow, the 31st August 2007.

Paying the debt of our gratitude

Mr. John Teo, Executive Director of the BIMP- EABC [Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines - East ASEAN Business Council] writes to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Malaysian Independence to The New Straits Times newspaper, Malaysia

A CEREMONY pregnant with meaning and undoubtedly tinged with sadness for many of those involved takes place in 'Kuching' this 31st, on the eve of our 50th Merdeka. [In Malay, "Merdeka" means "Independence" in spirits, thoughts and beliefs. 'Kuching' is the capital of Malaysia's eastern State of Sarawak].

The state’s civilian leadership, the military and police top brass and diplomats from Australia and Britain will gather for a ceremonial wreath-laying in memory of local and Commonwealth men numbering about 500 who fell in the immediate aftermath of the birth of Malaysia.

The ceremony is rare, perhaps only the first such occasion ever organised, made all the more poignant by ‘Kuching’ now lacking even a proper war memorial since the imposing cenotaph in the city’s then Central Padang was demolished and never resurrected, as the ceremonial patch of green metamorphosed into Padang Merdeka [Merdeka Square].

Since the Confrontation was never strictly speaking a war and did not have clear dates signifying its start and end, no dates held special significance for its commemoration. Perhaps this was why no such commemoration seems to have ever taken place before.

That the commemoration even takes place at all now owes a good deal to the efforts of a slight but persistent fellow in the person of retired secretary of the Legislative Assembly, Lim Kian Hock, working through the Sarawak Tourism Federation.

It is a very worthy commemoration, lest our younger generation forget that Malaysia did not start out as a land of milk and honey from Day One.

At the outset, Malaysia began life as a rather weak and vulnerable nation. In the immediate post-colonial era, Third World luminaries such as Indonesia’s President Sukarno loomed large as they strutted the global stage. His designs on the whole of Borneo were easily camouflaged by his seductive "neo-colonial" battle-cry that resonated among newly emerging nations all the way to Africa.

The claim to Sabah initiated by the late Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal has lingered unresolved until today.

Confrontation was particularly problematic because of the nearly 1500km of dense jungle between Sarawak and Sabah and Kalimantan. Moreover, many native inhabitants of Sarawak counted Indonesians across the border as kith and kin. It was just as well that Sukarno probably never intended Confrontation to be a serious military campaign, or it could well have been far more deadly and bloody.

Perhaps this particular commemoration really represented a coming of age for the nation. It shows we are no longer shy to admit that we had helped to defend our young nation then.

The bulk of the men who fell were Australian, British and New Zealand troops. We owe them not so much the oft-hyped abstraction called "freedom" as our distinctive way of life and, as Datuk Paddy Bowie would say, the "highly original political arrangement" we have since evolved in our beloved country.

It is perhaps the same debt that we collectively owe the Americans for the Indo-China campaign. The dreaded "Domino effect" stopped at the Thai border and the Vietnam War gave us precious time to strengthen our political and economic cohesion to take on the festering communist insurgency in our own backyard.

The current Iraq War has tragically undone much of the admiration and goodwill that the West had built up, not so much because we have grown and changed but because the West led by America has since refused to change and recognise that the end of the Cold War, not the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, fundamentally altered world politics.

Malaysia, born of Western goodwill and some sacrifice, has not developed as the West’s mirror image - and just as well. Emerging nations that claim to keep faith with Western-promoted notions and ideals have by and large fallen way short. None can really claim to have truly emerged based on following the Western-laid path.

We are different, and as we celeb

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