ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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What Happen To Obama Bringing America Together

Obama's Road

A new survey shows that Barack Obama is the most polarizing president in the last 60 years. As divisive as he is, the current occupant of the White House has simply exacerbated a trend towards disunity that has been developing for years.

A report released by Gallup on Friday shows that the partisan divide over Mr. Obama continued a record-setting pace for the third year straight. In 2011, the gap between his approval ratings by party was 68 percent, the highest for any third-year president on record. Even the liberal Washington Post headlined its report on the Gallup survey as, “Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.”

The Gallup data show that while Mr. Obama has had the most polarized first three years in office, they also reveal that George W. Bush holds the top three slots for most divisive presidential years ever, occurring 2004-2007. This shows that the partisan antipathy is mutual. This is a recent phenomenon; eight of the top 10 most divided years have occurred from 2004 to the present.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama promised to heal the partisan breach. He said he would be a unifier, that he would reach across party lines, that he would forge consensus. Once he took office, however, armed with a hard-left agenda and backed by a supermajority in Congress, the arrogance of power overwhelmed the better angels of his nature. Those who questioned his policies were labeled extremists, or worse. Dissent was smacked down, Congress rammed through his contentious programs, and Democrats were punished for their conceit with a “shellacking” in the 2010 midterm elections.

Since 2011, bereft of his congressional amen corner, Mr. Obama has grown particularly contemptuous of the system. He has sought ways to expand the powers claimed by the executive and obeys only the laws that suit him. A compliant Justice Department fabricates thin rationales that convince none but those who would affirm anything Mr. Obama did anyway. This has had a particularly destructive impact on the bonds of trust and tradition without which our system cannot function. Some ask: If the president does not abide by the Constitution, why should anyone else?

Yet the problem is much deeper than Mr. Obama, and the decline in political legitimacy goes beyond the executive. Regard for Congress has been on a nosedive for the past 10 years. Members of both political parties give Congress a positive rating in the low teens, and approval from independents is a mere 7 percent. Gallup data for December 2011 showed 86 percent disapproval of Congress, which is a record high. Disapproval ratings for the Supreme Court are near records as well. According to a Gallup report released in September, the general sense of satisfaction over how the country is being governed has dropped from 59 percent in 2003 to a historic low of 19 percent.

These data demonstrate a growing undercurrent of discontent. The division in the country is narrow; there are many on each side. But the gulf is deep, and growing deeper. The question now is: Can any politician or party heal this rift, or has the United States truly become a house divided?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/1/obamas-divided-america/

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Eric Holder said there was no cover-up in 'Fast and Furious

I can lie just as good as my BOSS

Attorney General Eric Holder vigorously denied a “cover-up” by the Justice Department over “Operation Fast and Furious,” telling a House panel investigating the botched gun-running program that he has nothing to hide and suggesting the probe is a “political” effort to embarrass the administration.

“There’s no attempt at any kind of cover-up,” Holder told lawmakers well into a hearing about whether he had been forthright in responding to requests of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Issa threatens contempt proceeding against Holder if Justice fails to comply with Fast and Furious subpoenas Family of murdered Border Patrol agent files $25M claim against ATF GOP report: Justice officials were on top of Fast and Furious

“We’re not going to be hiding behind any kind of privileges or anything,” he said.

The hearing came after Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, his Senate partner in the probe, asserted that top Justice officials are covering up events surrounding the flawed gun-smuggling probe.

Issa made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light.

Republicans also released a report in the hours ahead of the hearing claiming that Justice Department officials “had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged.”

Asked whether his assistants, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler or Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer, head of the department’s Criminal Division, ever authorized gunwalking or the tactics employed in Fast and Furious, Holder responded not to his knowledge.

 

“Not only did I not authorize those tactics, when I found out about them I told the field and everybody in the United States Department of Justice that those tactics had to stop. That they were not acceptable and that gunwalking was to stop. That was what my reaction [was] to my finding out about the use of that technique,” he added.

 

He added that he doesn’t think that the situation warranted the kind of response Republicans were giving after his department provided thousands of documents, and planned to deliver more.

Holder also rejected arguments that his handling of the case had lost him any support for the effort he was putting forth as attorney general.

“I don’t think the American people have lost trust in me. … This has become political, I get that,” he said.

But Holder also said no one has been punished “yet” in the case, despite the fact that lost guns from the operation ended up at the crime scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.

Terry’s family has informed the U.S. government that it has six months to respond to its inquiry into Terry’s death or face a $25 million lawsuit.

In the botched operation, more than 1,400 weapons sold to low-level straw purchasers believed to be supplying Mexican drug gangs and other criminals were lost during tracking by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents. Another 700 firearms connected to suspects in the investigation have been recovered, some from crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including in Nogales, Ariz., where Terry was killed.

Holder said he didn’t learn about Terry’s murder until 24 hours after his death, and at the time did not hear that weapons tied to Fast and Furious were at the scene.

“I didn’t know about Operation Fast and Furious until the beginning parts of 2011 after I received that letter from Senator Grassley, I guess at the end of January and then that was about Operation Gun Runner. I actually learned about the Fast and Furious operation in February of that year.”

Holder told the committee, “I’m not sure exactly how I found out about the term, ‘Fast and Furious.'” He testified repeatedly that he never authorized the controversial tactics employed in the operation.

“There is no attempt at any kind of cover-up,” Holder said. “We have shared huge amounts of information” and will continue to do so, he said.

But Holder said under questioning that he has not disciplined anyone for his role in the controversial operation.

“No I have not as yet — as yet,” Holder said when questioned by Issa on the matter. “There have been personnel changes made at ATF. We obviously have a new U.S. attorney in Arizona. We have made personnel switches at ATF. People have been moved out of positions.”

Holder’s statements on the Justice Department’s role in the operation did not sit well with Republican lawmakers on the committee, who accused the attorney general of intentionally withholding key documents in the case.

“The conclusion that I come to is there are some things in there that’s being hidden that you don’t want us to see,” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. “We have every right under the Constitution to check on what you’re doing… So for you to deny this committee anything like that is just dead wrong and I don’t think you’re going to find any way that you can do it.”

Burton went on to say that 93,000 documents related to the operation are being withheld by the Justice Department even though they’ve been turned over internally to the department’s inspector general, a political appointee, Burton said.

“And you’re saying, well, the separation of powers prohibits you from (delivering them to Congress). That’s baloney. That is just baloney,” Burton said.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also questioned Holder’s having not discussed the case with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“When people know that I’m going to be the subject of these kinds of hearings, you know six times and all that, nobody necessarily wants to get involved in these kinds of things or get dragged into it,” Holder responded.

Issa told Holder the committee will do what is necessary to obtain the information, “If you do not find a legitimate basis to deny us the material we’ve asked for.”

Holder said earlier during testimony that he would release additional materials “to the extent that I can.”

In Holder’s defense, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., claimed the committee has “not obtained one shred of evidence that would contradict your testimony.”

“Not one witness, not one document, not one e-mail, and still some continue to suggest that you did personally authorize gunwalking and the tactics in Operation Fast and Furious.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/02/holder-says-no-one-punished-yet-during-testimony-on-controversial-fast-and/

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When Will the Obama Administration Prosecute Maj. Nidal Hasan's

When Will We Prosecute This Piece of Crap

FORT HOOD, Texas – A military judge on Thursday delayed until June the trial for the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 in a 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood.

Maj. Nidal Hasan’s trial was scheduled to begin in March, but defense attorneys asked military judge Col. Gregory Gross to delay the start date until July to allow more time to comb through 60,000 pages of documents related to the case. They also said they needed extra time to allow an expert to examine their client’s background.

Hasan, 41, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.

The Army major is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 after opening fire on soldiers — many of whom were preparing for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq — at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009.

An investigation revealed that Hasan exchanged e-mails with now deceased al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki before the shootings.

Al Awlaki, a US citizen, was killed in a US drone strike on Sept. 30 last year in Yemen.

Investigators, however, have concluded that Hasan acted alone in the shooting and was not operating under the direction of a terrorist group.

Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by a police officer during the shooting. He remains in jail.

Defense attorneys on Thursday filed a motion to force prosecutors to provide them with notes from meetings with President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and other high-ranking officials discussing the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting.

Hasan’s lawyers want access to the documents to determine if these conversations unlawfully influenced the decision to prosecute Hasan.

Prosecutors opposed the motion, and Gross said he would make a ruling on the issue at a later date.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/fort_hood_shooter_trial_delayed_4AQPfNmxsBz2a0wBqPCjaJ

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Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration Is Great For the Economy

By: Elmer Williams

In the past, people who were not citizens didn’t want everyone to know. Most
immigrants worked diligently on becoming citizens. The tides have turned
because the teachers can see who is and isn’t an American citizen by logging in
on their school websites. They know we are educating other countries’ citizens.
We give these law-breakers free lunch, free health care, and a free education.
I’m thinking about quitting my job since the government is promoting failure
and handouts.

I can’t blame the illegal aliens. I blame all the wimpy politicians and lawmakers
for not having the guts to stop the invasion. And if the police stop someone
who may be illegal, they can’t ask if he or she is a citizen because they may
be sued for being racist. According to the Center for Immigration Studies in
Los Angeles, some ([i]) “ruthless Salvadoran prison gang members have snuck back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, shootings, and drug trafficking.”

I’m not talking about shoplifting and jaywalking. Some of these individuals are
committing violent crimes. And get this: police officers know who they are and
know that their mere presence in the country is a felony, but no officer dares
arrest these felons because there are laws in place, such as the sanctuary
policies, that prevent any officer from reporting immigration violations. Think
how ridiculous that sounds. It’s almost as if the government is trying to get
us all killed.

What makes anyone think terrorists don’t have the idea to cross through Mexico
and try to kill us all? It’s as if the world has gone mad. This wouldn’t make
any sense even to a ten-year-old, so we must ask why the government allows this
to take place. Again, political correctness is one of the problems because
these spineless politicians can’t stand the pressure from the Hispanic
organizations. They don’t have the backbone, courage, or fortitude to stand up
and do the right thing. We give them free healthcare and welfare assistance and
some people say it’s great that we can help the disenfranchised.

I have a question for you: how is it fair for citizens of this country to work
their whole lives, pay taxes, put money into social security, and save in their
401K plans just to see someone who hasn’t followed the laws and paid taxes get
free stuff? How about we take half of all Congress salaries and pensions and
half of the salaries of people who believe this is a great idea and donate them
to the poor and downtrodden to help these lawbreakers? This can be a little
annoying to hardworking taxpayers who are constantly being told that we can’t
afford tax cuts.

They say, “Don’t you have compassion for people? They love their families and want to make a better life for them.” Guess what? They don’t love their families any more than most Americans love theirs. Isn’t it the representatives’ job to protect each American’s right to the pursuit of happiness? They were elected to represent the people of this
country but they do a better job of representing people from other countries. Think
about how much money we’re spending on taking care of people from other counties.

Lynn M. Struter wrote an article on newswithviews.com that details the cost of illegal aliens. The article says ([ii]) we spend “$11 billion to $22 billion on other forms of welfare programs.”  “Another $2.2 billion on food assistance programs such as WIC food stamps and free lunches.” “$2.5 billion a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.” “$12 billion a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally.” “$17 billion a year is spent on education for American-born children of illegal aliens.” And “$3 million is spent a day to incarcerate illegal aliens.”

Struter goes on to discuss the over one million sex crimes per year committed by illegal aliens. Just because some of them want to make a better life for their families, twelve Americans a day die at the hands of illegal immigrants. Some politicians hope that if they legalize these immigrants, they will feel indebted enough to keep voting them into their sacred positions.

George W. Bush thought the guest worker program was a good idea. First of all, the illegal aliens are not guests because a guest is an invited person or party. They are lawbreakers who have not followed the laws of the land, so the guest worker program is a contradiction in itself.

Now that Barack Obama is taking over the country—and I mean literally taking over—he has shoved health-care down our throats and has tried to force us to pay for other people’s children. He wants to start the process of legalizing all the lawbreakers by giving them full citizenship. We don’t have the money to pay for all these wonderful ideas, but who cares as long as we feel good? I have never seen so many people work so hard to try to legitimize people who insist on breaking the law. I’m sorry, but
we are not saving any money on the cheap labor or the jobs that Americans don’t
want to do. Americans on welfare can be taken off food stamps and government assistance and be given these jobs. If we tell them we are going to help them get on their feet while they work, one of the requirements is that they must work. We are going to teach them life skills so they will learn how to fish and not always depend on someone else.

From The Book “Whatever Happen To COMMON SENSE”
By: Elmer Williams

[i] Crime & the Illegal Alien: The Fallout from Crippled Immigration Enforcement. By Heather Mac Donald June 2004 @ Center for Immigration Studies, http://www.cis.org/IllegalAliensCrime

 [ii] Seattle Times Soft on Illegal Alien Criminals- By
Lynn Stuter- April 15, 2008. on NewsWithViews http://www.newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter123.htm

 

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A 16 year old atheist girl wants prayer removed from the wall

What a JACK ASS

Whatever Happen To Common Sense”

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

CRANSTON, R.I. — She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion.

In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

 

“I was amazed,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, which is based in Wisconsin and has given Jessica $13,000 from support and scholarship funds. “We haven’t seen a case like this in a long time, with this level of revilement and ostracism and stigmatizing.”

Written by seventh grader
The prayer, eight feet tall, is papered onto the wall in the Cranston West auditorium, near the stage. It has hung there since 1963, when a seventh grader wrote it as a sort of moral guide and that year’s graduating class presented it as a gift. It was a year after a landmark Supreme Court ruling barring organized prayer in public schools.

“Our Heavenly Father,” the prayer begins, “grant us each day the desire to do our best, to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful.” It goes on for a few more lines before concluding with “Amen.”

For Jessica, who was baptized in the Catholic Church but said she stopped believing in God at age 10, the prayer was an affront. “It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, ‘You don’t belong here,’ ” she said the other night during an interview at a Starbucks here.

Since the ruling, the prayer has been covered with a tarp. The school board has indicated it will announce a decision on an appeal next month.

A friend brought the prayer to Jessica’s attention in 2010, when she was a high school freshman. She said nothing at first, but before long someone else — a parent who remained anonymous — filed a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union.

That led the Cranston school board to hold hearings on whether to remove the prayer, and Jessica spoke at all of them. She also started a Facebook page calling for the prayer’s removal (it now has almost 4,000 members) and began researching Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious freedom.

Last March, at a rancorous meeting that Judge Ronald R. Lagueux of United States District Court in Providence described in his ruling as resembling “a religious revival,” the school board voted 4-3 to keep the prayer. Some members said it was an important piece of the school’s history; others said it reflected secular values they held dear.

The Rhode Island chapter of the A.C.L.U. then asked Jessica if she would serve as a plaintiff in a lawsuit; it was filed the next month.

New England is not the sort of place where battles over the division of church and state tend to crop up. It is the least religious region of the country, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. But Rhode Island is an exception: it is the nation’s most Catholic state, and dust-ups over religion are not infrequent.

Just last month, several hundred people protested at the Statehouse after Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an independent, lighted what he called a “holiday tree.”

In Cranston, the police said they would investigate some of the threatening comments posted on Twitter against Jessica, some of which came from students at the high school. Pat McAssey, a senior who is president of the student council, said the threats were “completely inexcusable” but added that Jessica had upset some of her classmates by mocking religion online.

“Their frustration kind of came from that,” he said.

Many alumni this week said they did not remember the prayer from their high school days but felt an attachment to it nonetheless.

“I am more of a constitutionalist but find myself strangely on the other side of this,” said Donald Fox, a 1985 graduate of Cranston West. “The prayer banner espouses nothing more than those values which we all hope for our children, no matter what school they attend or which religious background they hail from.”

Brittany Lanni, who graduated from Cranston West in 2009, said that no one had ever been forced to recite the prayer and called Jessica “an idiot.”

“If you don’t believe in that,” she said, “take all the money out of your pocket, because every dollar bill says, ‘In God We Trust.’”

Raymond Santilli, whose family owns one of the flower shops that refused to deliver to Jessica, said he declined for safety reasons, knowing the controversy around the case. People from around the world have called to support or attack his decision, which he said he stood by. But of Jessica, he said, “I’ve got a daughter, and I hope my daughter is as strong as she is, O.K.?”

Jessica said she had stopped believing in God when she was in elementary school and her mother fell ill for a time.

“I had always been told that if you pray, God will always be there when you need him,” she said. “And it didn’t happen for me, and I doubted it had happened for anybody else. So yeah, I think that was just like the last step, and after that I just really didn’t believe any of it.”

Does she empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?

“I’ve never been asked this before,” she said. A pause, and then: “It’s almost like making a child get a shot even though they don’t want to. It’s for their own good. I feel like they might see it as a very negative thing right now, but I’m defending their Constitution, too.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46160046/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/#.TyL3dIGZMmF

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Obama Declares more Communism in State of The Union

I want stop until I get all of your money

“The Buffet Rule Is A Joke”

By: BEN FELLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring the American dream under siege,
President Barack Obama delivered a populist challenge Tuesday night to shrink
the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help
jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes. Seeking re-election and
needing results, the president invited Republicans to join him but warned,
“I intend to fight.”

 

In an emphatic State of the Union address, Obama said
ensuring a fair shot for all Americans is “the defining issue of our time.”
He said the economy is finally recovering from a deep and painful recession and
he will fight any effort to return to policies that brought it low.

“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” he
declared.

Obama outlined a vastly different vision for fixing the
country than the one pressed by the Republicans confronting him in Congress and
fighting to take his job in the November election. He pleaded for an active
government that ensures economic fairness for everyone, just as his opponents
demand that the government back off and let the free market rule.

Obama offered steps to help students afford college, a plan
for more struggling homeowners to refinance their homes and tax cuts for
manufacturers. He threw in politically appealing references to accountability,
including warning universities they will lose federal aid if they don’t stop
tuition from soaring.

Standing in front of a divided Congress, with bleak hope
this election year for much of his legislative agenda, Obama spoke with voters
in mind.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking
number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get
by,” Obama said. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a
fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set
of rules.”

A rare wave of unity splashed over the House chamber at the
start. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, survivor of an assassination attempt one year
ago, received sustained applause from her peers and cheers of “Gabby,
Gabby, Gabby.” She blew a kiss to the podium. Obama embraced her.

Lawmakers leapt to their feet when Obama said near the start
of his speech that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, killed by a raid
authorized by the president, will no longer threaten America.

At the core of Obama’s address was the improving but deeply
wounded economy — the matter still driving Americans’ anxiety and the one
likely to determine the next presidency.

“The state of our union is getting stronger,”
Obama said, calibrating his words as millions remain unemployed. Implicit in
his declaration that the American dream is “within our reach” was the
recognition that, after three years of an Obama presidency, the country is not
there yet.

He spoke of restoring basic goals: owning a home, earning
enough to raise a family, putting a little money away for retirement.

“We can do this,” Obama said. “I know we
can.” He said Americans are convinced that “Washington is
broken,” but he also said it wasn’t too late to cooperate on important
matters.

Republicans were not impressed. They applauded infrequently,
though they did cheer when the president quoted “Republican Abraham
Lincoln” as saying: “That government should do for people only what
they cannot do better by themselves — and no more.”

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, offering the formal GOP
response, called Obama’s policies “pro-poverty” and his tactics
divisive.

“No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder
than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by
castigating others,” Daniels said after the president’s address.

In a signature swipe at the nation’s growing income gap,
Obama called for a new minimum tax rate of at least 30 percent on anyone making
over $1 million. Many millionaires — including one of his chief rivals,
Republican Mitt Romney — pay a rate less than that because they get most of
their income from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

“Now you can call this class warfare all you
want,” Obama said, responding to a frequent criticism from the GOP
presidential field. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as
his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

Obama calls this the “Buffett rule,” named for
billionaire Warren Buffett, who has said it’s unfair that his secretary pays a
higher tax rate than he does. Emphasizing the point, Buffett’s secretary,
Debbie Bosanek, attended the address in first lady Michelle Obama’s box.

Obama underlined every proposal with the idea that hard work
and responsibility still count. He was targeting independent voters who helped
seal his election in 2008 and the frustrated masses in a nation pessimistic
about its course.

In a flag-waving defense of American power and influence
abroad, Obama said the U.S. will safeguard its own security “against those
who threaten our citizens, our friends and our interests.” On Iran, he
said that while all options are on the table to prevent Iran from acquiring a
nuclear weapon — an implied threat to use military force — “a peaceful
resolution of this issue is still possible.”

With Congress almost universally held in low regard, Obama
went after an easy target in calling for reforms to keep legislators from
engaging in insider trading and holding them to the same conflict-of-interest
standards as those that apply to the executive branch.

With the foreclosure crisis on ongoing sore spot despite a
number of administration housing initiatives over the past three years, Obama
proposed a new program to allow homeowners with privately held mortgages to
refinance at lower interest rates. Administration officials offered few details
but estimated savings at $3,000 a year for average borrowers.

Obama proposed steps to crack down on fraud in the financial
sector and mortgage industry, with a Financial Crimes Unit to monitor bankers
and financial service professionals, and a separate special unit of federal
prosecutors and state attorneys general to expand investigations into abusive
lending that led to the housing crisis.

At a time of tight federal budgets and heavy national debt,
Obama found a ready source of money to finance his ideas: He proposed to devote
half of the money no longer being spent on the U.S. military in Iraq and
Afghanistan to “do some nation-building right here at home,” to help
create more jobs and increase competitiveness. The other half, he said, would
go to help pay down the national debt.

Obama also offered a defense of regulations that protect the
American consumer — regulations often criticized by Republicans as job-killing
obstacles.

“Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the
rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the
same,” Obama said. “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to
bottom: No bailouts, no handouts and no cop-outs. An America built to last
insists on responsibility from everybody.”

Obama will follow up Tuesday night’s address with a
three-day tour of five states key to his re-election bid. On Wednesday he’ll
visit Iowa and Arizona to promote ideas to boost American manufacturing; on
Thursday in Nevada and Colorado he’ll discuss energy, and in Michigan on Friday
he’ll talk about college affordability, education and training.

Polling shows Americans are divided about Obama’s overall
job performance but unsatisfied with his handling of the economy.

The speech Tuesday night comes just one week before the
Florida Republican primary that could help set the trajectory for the rest of
the race.

Romney, caught up in a tight contest with a resurgent Newt
Gingrich, commented in advance to Obama’s speech.

“Tonight will mark another chapter in the misguided
policies of the last three years — and the failed leadership of one man,”
Romney said from Florida.

http://start.toshiba.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9SFMK4G1%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1018