Rep. Tom Price, Georgia Republican, said Thursday that President Obama flunked in his effort to deliver a State of the Union speech that reconnected with disaffected voters.

“I’d give him an ‘F’ for listening to the concerns of the American people,” Mr. Price said during an interview on The Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” radio show.

Mr. Price also backed comments Wednesday by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, that legislation forcing Americans to buy health insurance, if passed, likely would face a court challenge.

“I think the individual mandate has significant constitutional questions about it,” he said.

Mr. Price, a doctor and member of the Financial Services Committee, said he was “astounded” by the president’s failure to point out that Americans don’t want the health care proposals before the House and Senate.

“Health care is one the most personal — if not the most personal — decisions all Americans must make for themselves and their families,” he said.

Like many Republicans, Mr. Price wants improvements to health care but not through the legislation being proposed by the Democrat-controlled Congress.

“The status quo is unacceptable,” he said.

Mr. Price also said Mr. Obama supports mandated insurance but at the same time says American can keep the insurance they already have.

“The lie of that,” said Mr. Price, who gave the president a passing grade on the presentation of his Wednesday-night speech.

Republicans on the Erie County Legislature use the term “sour grapes” to describe Democratic Legislator Lynn M. Marinelli’s refusal to serve as chairwoman of a key legislative committee.

The Republicans say they will fill any chairmanships if asked by Legislature Chairwoman Barbara Miller-Williams, D-Buffalo.

“Back in October, Lynn Marinelli claimed that ‘fiscal responsibility is of utmost importance to County Legislature Democrats,’ ” Republican Leader John J. Mills of Orchard Park said in a statement.

“So soon after being [re- ]elected, Legislator Marinelli has changed gears and decided the only thing of utmost importance to her is to play petty partisan politics,” he continued.

In selecting this year’s Legislature chairwoman, Mills and the other five lawmakers who make up this year’s Republican caucus threw their collective weight behind Miller-Williams.

Those six, voting with two Democrats, denied Marinelli a fifth year as Legislature chairwoman. Miller-Williams took on the power to hire and fire most of the staff, name committee rosters and collect a $10,000 stipend.

Days ago, when Miller-Williams named Marinelli to lead the important Finance and Management Committee, Marinelli refused.

Marinelli reasoned that Miller- Williams should select one of the eight lawmakers who elevated her. She said the self-described “reform coalition” should not be allowed to select a Legislature chairwoman and then take a back seat on the more difficult matters that arise each year.

“I respect the fact she gained the greatest number of votes to become the leader of the Legislature,” Marinelli said of Miller- Williams. “She can lead it with the members who named her to that position.”

Miller-Williams says she still expects Marinelli to lead the Finance and Management Committee. A legislator should not be allowed to refuse an assignment, she said, and she will not replace Marinelli as head of the committee.

Marinelli, of the Town of Tonawanda, says she will serve as a rank-and-file member of any committee but will not serve as a chairwoman.

The stalemate threatens to slow or at least redirect the flow of business related to county spending. The Finance and Management Committee is the first stop for most budget matters that come before the Legislature. The panel reviews the status of departmental budgets at midyear and examines in detail the county executive’s budget for the following year.

“It is not a power struggle. It is simply a case of sour grapes,” Mills said, adding that members of his minority caucus will lead committees if called upon.

Marinelli said that it was unlike Mills to issue a public statement about her without talking with her first.

“It is nice to know that they are willing to step up and accept responsibility for leadership,” she said of Mills and the Republicans. “I hope the chairwoman takes that into serious consideration.”

Based on Miller-Williams’ past comments, she is not likely to ask a Republican to lead a committee. Miller-Williams says Legislature Democrats still outnumber those from all other parties, 9-6. So tradition holds that Democrats would head the committees.

Two other Democrats who supported Marinelli for chairwoman also refuse to lead committees. They are Majority Leader Maria R. Whyte and Legislator Betty Jean Grant, both of Buffalo.

Two years ago, the Republicans formed a coalition with a handful of Democrats to retain Marinelli as chairwoman of the Legislature. That was at the start of 2008. County Executive Chris Collins initially liked the move but grew tired of Marinelli as the months wore on and wanted her deposed.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The crackdown on US banks announced by President Barack Obama marks a comeback for Paul Volcker, the economic adviser whose ideas forged the battle plan.

Though Volcker a few weeks ago murmured that his opinions were only “one voice,” Obama put him front and center for praise as he announced the plan Thursday, flanked by the former central bank chief.

“I’m proposing a simple and common sense reform, which we’re calling the ‘Volcker Rule’ — after this tall guy behind me,” the president said.

The “Volcker Rule” limits the size and scope of financial institutions and prohibits banks that engage in commercial activities, such as holding customer savings and deposits, from proprietary trading — making investments on their own behalf.

The 82-year-old former Federal Reserve chairman (1979-1987) supported Obama during his Democratic bid for the presidency and subsequently was tapped to head the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, an independent, nonpartisan body created to tackle the worst recession in decades.

But Volcker, who tamed soaring inflation in the 1980s, had pleaded in vain for months for government action to stop commercial banks from engaging in so-called “prop trading.”

In an interview published Friday on a Wall Street Journal blog, Volcker said he was not surprised by the president’s choice.

“We?ve discussed this proposal for a year,” Volcker said, adding that he always believed that Obama was “sympathetic” to his point of view, the online article said.

“He could have fooled us,” the report said.

In October, The New York Times dedicated a lengthy article to his failure to capture Obama’s ear, which inclined toward the White House’s official teams of advisers and particularly listened to his top economic adviser, Larry Summers.

Along with then-Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, whose deputy he was in 1995-1999 before succeeding him, Summers is one of the architects of financial deregulation under former Democratic president Bill Clinton.

That deregulation was capped in 1999 with the congressional repeal of a Depression-era law to accommodate banking giant Citigroup, born of the merger of the bank Citicorp and insurance titan Travelers in the prior year.

Rubin, who advised Obama during his White House campaign, for many years had been a Travelers special advisor and board member.

The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act prohibited commercial banks from underwriting corporate securities, or acting as brokerages.

Volcker is seeking a new version of the law but, until just recently, he had seemed to be a voice in the desert facing countervailing winds from Summers, his former protege, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and other Obama economic counselors.

The New York Times article highlighted that Volcker’s “disagreement with the Obama people on whether to restore some version of Glass-Steagall appears to have contributed to published reports that his influence in the administration is fading and that he is rarely if ever in the small Washington office assigned to him.”

As recently as a few weeks ago, Volcker said in a BusinessWeek interview: “The president has heard my arguments a number of times” but he added: “I am one voice in the conversation, and there are others.”

Ultimately, he told the magazine, “He’s the president. He decides.”

Obama finally listened.

WASHINGTON – A one-two punch of bad news suddenly has Democrats facing an election year with campaign finance rules that favor Republicans and a Senate that can block Democratic initiatives. And President Barack Obama called on the leader of his winning 2008 campaign to help.

Democrats already were bracing for House and Senate losses in November, which typically happens to a president’s party after his first two years in office. But a stunning GOP Senate victory in Massachusetts, and a dramatic Supreme Court ruling on political advertising, have made the horizon look even darker for the party that scored big wins in 2006 and 2008.

The week that marked Obama’s first year in office turned out to be one of the worst in recent Democratic memory.

Now party insiders are trying to figure out why public sentiment turned against them so quickly. David Plouffe, who led Obama’s winning presidential campaign, also will play a larger role in advising the president on strategies for House, Senate and governor’s races as reeling Democrats try to rally in an important election year.

Republican strategist John Feehery says the changing sentiment began some time ago with the summertime attacks on Obama’s health care plan and continued with the GOP’s November takeover of the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia.

“It’s been bad for the Democrats for a while,” Feehery said. “They just haven’t realized it. This is the club over their head that wakes them up.”

The week’s first Democratic setback can be blamed squarely on the party’s poor performance coupled with a stellar campaign by a little-known GOP state senator in Massachusetts. Scott Brown tapped voter anger over high unemployment and unsavory dealmaking in Congress to win the seat long held by liberal leader Edward Kennedy.

Brown’s election will restore the GOP’s ability to use filibusters to block Democratic initiatives in the Senate, where Republicans will hold 41 of the 100 seats. It brought an abrupt halt to Obama’s signature issue, overhauling health care, which now hangs in limbo.

The second blow, which landed Thursday, was beyond the president’s control. The Supreme Court reversed a centurylong trend of limiting the political influence of corporations, which is likely to prompt a flood of campaign money going mostly to Republicans. The 5-4 ruling will let companies use their general treasuries, and not just employees’ limited donations, to produce and air ads for or against federal candidates.

It also applies to labor unions, which typically back Democrats. But union membership and clout have been declining for decades.

Republicans, traditionally friendly with corporate America, hailed the court decision while Democrats attacked it. Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called it “a big win for the First Amendment and a step in the right direction.”

As if the White House needed more bad news, late in the week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faced mounting Senate opposition for a second term despite Obama’s support.

So far, there’s no sign of all-out Democratic panic. Party insiders anticipate about two dozen or so net losses in the House this fall. It might be worse, but few think they could lose the 40 seats that would give Republicans the majority. A GOP takeover of the Senate is even less likely.

And Republicans have their own problems, starting with less campaign money than Democrats have. Opinion polls suggest Americans have more faith in Democrats to make good decisions, and Obama’s personal popularity remains fairly high.

Also, it’s not clear that Republicans can tame and harness the volatile “tea bagger” activists. The fiercely independent conservatives helped Brown win in Massachusetts, but they triggered a damaging right-wing split in a special House race in New York last year.

Still, Brown’s victory Tuesday clearly rattled Democrats.

Their most immediate problem is the stalled health care overhaul. Options include using all their remaining political muscle to pass a Senate measure under rules that bar filibusters, which could require only modest trims to the party’s original proposals. Another option would significantly dilute the initial efforts in hopes of attracting some Republican votes.

The White House and congressional leaders had hoped to settle on a strategy by this weekend. But an accord was thwarted by disagreements among House Democrats, mixed signals from Obama and the issue’s complexity.

“We need to take some time to look at what’s happening here,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Taking no action at all, she said, “is not the right thing.”

In the longer run, Democrats’ chief dilemma may be deciding how to campaign this fall, given that Obama in 2008 advocated every key feature in the health care legislation that now seems unpopular with many Americans. Some party activists say they must do a better job of explaining how the bills would help middle-class people who already have insurance. Others say they paid a high price for a widely criticized benefit for Nebraska, which many people saw as a payoff to secure the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

Many Democratic lawmakers want to resolve the health debate quickly and turn their focus to jobs.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who chairs his party’s House campaign team, did not mention health care in his statement following Brown’s win in Massachusetts. He focused on a favorite target that some colleagues fear is losing its potency: George W. Bush.

In the midterm elections, Van Hollen said, Democrats will resist “the same failed Bush-Cheney policies that brought our economy to the brink of collapse.”

Feehery, the GOP consultant, said Democrats don’t seem to understand the public’s frustration. Obama vowed to end the old politics of backroom dealmaking and favors to special interests, Feehery said, but voters see huge bailouts for banks and automakers, plus the “Cornhusker kickback” to Nelson.

The Democratic-leaning group Third Way looked for a bright spot this week. “We have nearly 11 months to adjust and prepare,” the group said in a memo. In 1994, when a GOP landslide gave Republicans control of Congress, “Democrats didn’t realize the wave was upon them until the August recess.”

Enclosed is a survey on President Obama. Some of the questions are controversial:

http://www.isalient.com/app/index.php?survey_code=f45e4585&login=1

Leroy Brown

Eugene Robinson: To get beyond race, the country needs to face it

Jimmy Carter did us a favor by bringing up the fact that racism is part in some of the opposition to President Obama’s policies, but he’s wrong on the degree it plays.

By Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Writers Group
Saturday, September 19, 2009

Sponsored by ScholarshipGrantsnow.com

Since the liberal arm of the U.S. Episcopal Church passed a resolution in July to bless same-sex unions, particularly in states like Massachusetts that legalize such marriages, so too has, at least, one black congregation within the Massachusetts diocese. On August 30, St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in Cambridge hosted the marriage and blessed the union of its mayor, E. Denise Simmons, and her lifetime partner, Mattie Hayes.

The historic event happened because of the fierce determination of a straight ally to Cambridge’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community — the church’s new Priest-in-Charge, The Reverend Leslie K. Sterling, who is also the first African-American female priest at St. Bart’s. Having just arrived at St. Bart’s in February, Sterling brings a new vision to a church that has served both the African-American and African-Caribbean community for over 100 years.

When I went to meet Sterling to discuss our roles as officiates in the mayor’s nuptials, I asked her if she were ready to jump into in this conflagration that has the Episcopal Church at the brink of schism.

“Some will leave, I know, but those who oppose and stay, at least, we can talk about it in a spirited conversation,” Sterling said.

Cambridge, like many of its residents, revels in its image as a bastion of liberalism. It’s also a city of many firsts, like both E. Denise Simmons and Kenneth Reeves being the first African American openly queer mayors of a major U.S. city.

But underneath Cambridge’s liberal facade is a rampant racism that came to light globally in the racial profiling of Harvard professor Henry “Skip” Louis Gates during his arrest by a white cop this past July. Evident, too, is a toxic homophobia in black congregations of both liberal white denominations and historical black ones, which put several communities under both spiritual and sexual siege. For example, Reeves, who was once a longtime worshipper at the historic African-American St. Paul’s A.M.E in Cambridge, left that church after May 2004, when Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, because the church made it clear it would neither bless same-sex unions nor marry its queer parishioners.

Mayor Simmons, a native Cantabridgian — who presides over a diverse demographic consisting of people from various racial, cultural, economic, and sexual orientations — had only one church she could go to with the hopes of not being turned down.

“I am cognizant of the deeper societal implications of this marriage…[St. Bartholomew] might be the very first mainstream African American church to hold a same-gender wedding,” Simmons told the Cambridge Chronicle.

In preparing her parishioners for their leap of faith, Sterling wrote in a letter to them stating the following:

I am aware of all the Bible verses conservatives cite in opposition to homosexuality, and I am also aware that there is more than one way to look at each one of those verses. If we believe that the Spirit continues to guide the church in the interpretation of scripture, as was done with respect to slavery and the status of women, then we have to consider the possibility that the Spirit is speaking today, as the hearts and minds of so many people at so many levels of Bible scholarship no longer read those verses as a blanket condemnation of same-sex relationships, or as a reason to deny committed, faithful couples a blessing on their marriage.

To be in full compliance with the canons of the Episcopal Church, which would avoid Sterling confronting ecclesiastical probation or being defrocked, the wedding liturgy was divided among three officiates: The Rev. Sterling; Jada D. Simmons, the mayor’s oldest daughter and Justice of the Peace; and me.

I was elated to be a part of this liturgical assembly line helping to make a historic event happened within the church’s ecclesial strictures. Sterling did the invocation, declaration of consent to marry, and blessing of the marriage; Simmons pronounced the marriage; and I did the homily, blessing of rings, and vows.

As the wedding service ended, with Simmons and Hayes walking down the aisle as a married couple, the church clapping, and the choir singing the gospel tune “Oh Happy Day,” I turned to Sterling and asked what she thought about the service.

“I’m feeling the history of the moment and what it must have been when black folks were able to marry.”

Historically, as African Americans, we have always focused on spiritual content of family and not its physical composition.

Hayes spoke to me about the spiritual content of her family when she said, “Of course, to have my marriage and my wedding to be in an historic event is phenomenal. But the bottom line is as wonderful as all that is, I have married the woman I love, Denise Simmons.”

These multiple family structures, which we have had to devise as models of resistance and liberation, have always shown the rest of society what really constitutes family. A grandmother raising her grandchild or a lesbian couple raising their children as in the Simmons-Hayes household that is now legal according to the state and blessed by the church — families both.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama is sending his wife Michelle to Copenhagen next month to urge Olympics organizers to select Chicago to host the 2016 Games.

The White House said Obama informed International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge on Friday he had to stay in the United States to push his campaign for health reform.

But Obama, an enthusiastic supporter of his home town’s campaign to stage the Games, promised to keep working to support the bid with his wife and his senior advisor Valerie Jarrett.

Mrs Obama and Jarrett will join U.S. organizers at the IOC meeting in Copenhagen on October 2, when the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics will be chosen from the four candidate cities — Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

“It is with great pride that I will go to Copenhagen to make the case for the United States to host the 2016 Olympics,” Michelle Obama said in a statement.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Chicago would offer the world a fantastic setting for these historic Games and I hope that the Olympic torch will have the chance to burn brightly in my hometown,” she said.

Mrs Obama was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, not far from the suggested locations for the Games.

The race to host the 2016 Olympics is looming as one of the tightest yet and U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) officials had made no secret of their belief the president could swing the vote their way.

PIVOTAL ROLE

With heads of state playing an increasingly pivotal role in the bidding process, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Spanish King Juan Carlos have already signaled they will go to Copenhagen while Japan’s new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama is expected to be in Denmark to support Tokyo efforts.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was largely credited with helping London secure the 2012 Summer Games while the presence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin was seen as a key reason behind Sochi’s successful bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“I think we all understand how committed the president is to the health care plan,” said Chicago bid chief Pat Ryan. “I think it is going to be well understood around the world, certainly to the IOC membership, that he would love to be there.”

Chicago organizers said they do not believe the U.S. president’s absence will have any negative impact on their bid.

Michelle Obama has charmed crowds in the United States and around the world and her presence will likely offer some of the spark the Chicago 2016 team is hoping for next month. Obama often jokes that his wife is the better politician and speaker.

While details of the First Lady’s visit have yet to be finalized, Ryan said he expected Mrs Obama to arrive in the Danish capital in time to meet IOC members and be part of the bid’s final presentation.

“We are really excited about Michelle Obama coming. The First Lady of this country is a fantastic person, she has a global image that is just tremendous,” said Ryan.

“Since the beginning of the administration she has been focusing on health and sport and youth. She is committed to the young of this country so it all comes together extremely well.

“I’m very impressed with Michelle Obama and always expressed hope she would be coming to Copenhagen.”

Chicago, once considered the front-runner to land the 2016 Games, has stumbled down the homestretch having been dragged into disputes between the IOC and USOC over revenue-sharing and attempts to launch an Olympic television network.

Parents across the nation have expressed concern that President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday to students may have more to do with politics than doing well in school.

In western Nevada County, at least one parent has said he would keep his child at home because of the televised speech.

Local teachers can decide whether they want to broadcast the speech in their classrooms, and children — and their parents — can decide whether they want to watch it, educators said Friday. The 44th president is planning a televised message to students about the importance of education and community service.

Obama’s speech is to be delivered to schools at 9 a.m. PDT on Tuesday. A letter from U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan to school principals notes “the president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning.”

The address will be shown live on C-SPAN and on the White House’s Web site, WhiteHouse.gov.

A handful of teachers at Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley plan to show the program, Principal Marty Mathiesen said. In those classrooms, he wants a healthy discussion, he added.

“It’s important that (teachers) know that they can’t inject their opinions into the debate,” Mathiesen said.

No student who does not want to watch the program will be required to do so, and Mathiesen encouraged those students to come to school; they can do an alternative activity at that time, he added.

Educators are fearful that student absences from school on Tuesday could cost money. They already are pushing for a 1 percent increase in attendance, which could bring an additional $800,000 into area schools strapped by state budget cuts.

“We would encourage parents, if they’re opposed to (the speech), to still send their kids to school,” Nevada Joint Union High School board president Mark Heauser said.

The speech is drawing criticism nationwide from some conservatives questioning why the speech is being broadcast in schools.

Parent Alan Austin plans to keep his child, a junior at NU, home from school on Tuesday.

“You should keep politics and education separate,” Austin said. “Mixing politics and education is inappropriate.

He has the privilege to speak, but I don’t know if it’s the right time for this man to be saying this,” said Austin, a U.S. Army veteran who did not vote in November’s general election.

A local mother expressed concern until she learned the speech was about education; she had heard it would be about health care, she said.

Criticism also abounds in the blogosphere, including at AmericanElephant.com, which bills itself as a blog “hoping Obama will fail so America can succeed.”

One blog post suggested that “without benefit of the doubt, the president doesn’t get to speak to my children unchallenged.”

But at least one prominent local Republican who did not vote for Obama suggested Friday that the commander-in-chief’s political stripe matters little when he is making a statement about education.

“I am not a huge fan of many of Obama’s policies. I didn’t vote for him, but I don’t think hyper-partisanship gets you anywhere,” said Aaron Klein, a member of the Sierra College Board of Trustees.

At least two former presidents, including Ronald Reagan, addressed the nation on the issue, Klein and others noted.

“I hope Obama follows Reagan’s example more often,” Klein said, noting that differing viewpoints frame a healthy debate.

After all, Obama is president, Klein said, and that’s the way the speech should be looked at — as a message on an important issue from the nation’s leader.