A journalist described Hoover as a progressive who “dreams of social justice.” …

Roosevelt thought Hoover's “scientific” approach to business was better than competitive capitalism. The American people were equally enamored. Despite signs of an economic slowdown, especially in housing, voters in 1928 elected the “brainy idealist” president.

For his part, Hoover promised a “triumph over poverty.” When the economy tanked, he increased government spending, cut taxes, bailed out businesses “too big to fail,” and proposed a massive infrastructure bank to employ men in shovel-ready jobs. Contemporaries called this stimulus package “priming the pump.”

Yet unemployment soared, and the GOP lost control of the House of Representatives in 1930. Hoover blamed his woes on the international economic situation and his political opponents. Sound familiar? …

In 1931, Americans recalled how they had felt three years prior. Hoover had seemed so wonderful. He had promised to end poverty. He had seemed so smart. But by 1931, people said he beat them down if they were in business, and his speeches sounded robotic. …
 

We all know Hoover's legacy. It’s starting to look like “deja vu all over again.”

† Dispatch From Bizzaroland: A new Pew Research Center survey finds that Americans are not behind the concept of “leading from behind” and “a record high number of people” believe that President Barack Hussein Obama is not a strong leader (47 percent), can’t get things done (50 percent), isn’t well-informed (33 percent), is not a good communicator (22 percent) and doesn’t stand up for what he believes in (22 percent), The Washington Post reports:

In May, just 37 percent of people said the president wasn’t a strong leader, and 38 percent said he wasn’t able to “get things done.” Three months later, both of those numbers have risen by double digits.

Relatively low numbers of people say Obama isn’t a good communicator and that he’s not well-informed, but even those numbers have reached new highs.

When it comes to his decision-making, an increasing number of people are critical of how he has handled things. While 34 percent of people in April said that he balanced things about right when negotiating with Republicans, just 26 percent say that’s now the case. …

[A]s the country’s economic woes continue, people may begin to question how capable he is as president, and that’s when personal favorability will no longer save him.

One of those who likes Obama personally but thinks that he’s failing as a leader is freshman Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), The Washington Post reports:

"We can be proud of what he's accomplished, [but] the only thing that matters to the American people and to me is what he does ... not what he looks like."

"When you take a look at the last three years of President Obama's performance, one must stop and say, 'If you have an 84 percent increase in domestic spending, and you have 9-plus percent unemployment, can he lead economically?' I would say the answer is no. When you spend $3.5 trillion in stimuluses and bailouts and gimmicks to try to get the economy going and yet you still wind up with 9 percent unemployment – does a president have a plan? I would say no."

† There’s Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And Lip: Republican governors are on the horns of a dilemma: Apply for federal grants to establish state-run health insurance exchanges, or hold out waiting for the Supreme Court or a Republican president to consign ObamaCare to the ash heap of history and risk being forced into an exchange set-up by the feds in January 2013 if their hopes are dashed. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Mississippi this week received $20 million. ... Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter announced he will accept federal money to establish an exchange. Last week, a panel appointed by Georgia's Republican governor, Nathan Deal, gave the green light to an exchange. Those states followed Republican governors in Ohio, North Dakota, Nevada, Indiana and Wisconsin.

But Kansas's Sam Brownback and Oklahoma's Mary Fallin have returned tens of millions of dollars their Democratic predecessors had already received to build state exchanges.

Florida's Rick Scott and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal have said they will not participate, hoping either the Supreme Court or a Republican president will throw the law out before the federal government steps in.

Republican Govs. Rick Perry (TX), Chris Christie (NJ), Terry Branstad (IA), Nikki Haley (SC), Susana Martinez (NM) and Tom Corbett of PA are keeping their plans about seeking an establishment grant close to the vest.

The Washington Times reports that in 17 states – most of them led by Republicans – legislatures have enacted laws or changed their constitutions to exempt their residents from the individual mandate and other ObamaCare provisions:

In November, voters in Arizona and Oklahoma approved constitutional amendments outlawing the individual mandate. Similar amendments are on the November 2012 ballots in Alabama, Florida, Montana and Wyoming. All of the states but Wyoming also include in their amendments language targeting the law's requirement that larger employers offer coverage.

Four states – Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas – have approved interstate "compacts" that would exempt them from the law altogether, in the unlikely event the alliances were approved by a majority in Congress. It's a matter of dispute whether or not the compacts would require a signature from the president to go into effect. …

In New Hampshire, the only Northeastern state to enact legislation against the Affordable Care Act, legislators established an oversight committee whose approval is required for implementing any federal health care legislation. The measure didn't require a signature by Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.

Public opinion seems to mirror the state-based revolt, despite assurances made last year by Joel Benenson, a pollster for Mr. Obama, that growing numbers of voters would support the law once they became familiar with it. In a recent Rasmussen poll, 55 percent supported repeal – the same percentage that supported repeal just after the law was enacted. Opposition to repealing the law has risen slightly since then.

Still, the future of the state laws is doubtful. Legal analysts have sharply divided predictions on how the Supreme Court will rule when one or more of the lower-court cases reaches the high court. The high-stakes decision is expected to be made well before the November 2012 elections.

† Romney: The Sequel: Until Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) entered the presidential race, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) kept the Tea Party at arm’s length. With Perry knocking him out of the top spot in recent polling, Romney is flipping (or is that flopping) his strategy of running as the presumptive Republican nominee, USA Today reports:

Perry's popularity seems to be causing Romney to shift to the right in a way that the surge of conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., did not influence Romney, said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman. …

The campaign had previously planned to skip the event before Perry confirmed he would attend.

Romney's recent willingness to attack Perry, although not by name, shows a noticeable shift in tone for Romney, who had previously kept his barbs aimed at President Obama.

Dancing to the right as fast as he can, Romney is now courting Tea Partiers after keeping them at arms’ length hitherto. He plans to attend a Tea Party Express rally in NH Sunday night and decided to speak at a Republican forum on Monday in Columbia, SC organized by Sen.  Jim DeMint (R-SC) – an event he had planned to skip until he found out Perry would attend. But to some Tea Partiers Romney will be as welcome as a skunk at a garden party, The Boston Globe reports:

A coalition of Tea Party groups is planning to stage a protest event about 30 minutes before Romney is scheduled to speak at the Tea Party Express rally. …

FreedomWorks, a Washington-based group that has been at the forefront of the Tea Party movement, yesterday pulled its staff member off the Tea Party Express bus to protest Romney’s inclusion in Sunday’s event. The bus has been making its way across the country, eventually heading to Florida, where the Tea Party Express and CNN are jointly sponsoring a GOP presidential debate Sept. 12.

“It’s preposterous,’’ said Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks. “Mitt Romney is not and never has been a Tea Partier. He’s just a charlatan. This movement’s been going on since the fall of 2008, and he’s never attended a Tea Party rally. He’s never reached out to the movement before.’’ …

“This is classic Romney,’’ said Andrew Hemingway, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, one of the groups putting together the counterevent. “The guy flip-flops on everything, so all of a sudden he sees an opportunity to get in on some of the energy and present himself like he’s a Tea Party candidate.’’

Hemingway tells The Globe that the Tea Party is at the ABR (Anybody But Romney) stage and is not ready to coalesce around one candidate.

† Global Warming Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory acknowledge that the oceans have stopped rising and that the global sea level this summer is a quarter of an inch lower than last summer thanks to El Niño and La Niña weather cycles over the Pacific Ocean, but climate change “scientists” are not ready to alter – much less repudiate – computer climate models that project global sea levels rising by as much as 2.5 to 6.5 feet by 2100. The Washington Post reports:

“This year the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year,” said Carmen Boening, an oceanographer and climate scientist at the lab, in a statement.

Climate scientist Josh Willis, who also works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warned that this water will eventually return to the ocean, and the long-term trend of rising sea levels will continue. …

The question of how much the ocean could rise due to warming is a topic of intense debate. In the past two decades global sea levels increased at a rate of roughly 0.12 inches a year, compared to 0.07 inches from 1961 to 2003, according to satellite data. A recent tide gauge study of sea levels in Australia and New Zealand, published in the Journal of Coastal Research, provided readings that suggested the rate of ocean rise has declined in the past decade.

Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, noted that recent satellite data shows a slight decline in the rate of sea-level rise, which casts doubt on whether the ocean will expand as some predict by the end of the century.

“I suspect it would have to start rising pretty rapidly in order to fulfill those projections,” Michaels said in an interview.

It’s not just sea levels. Global temperatures have been dropping since 1998. But when Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) called anthropogenic (man-made) global warming a "contrived phony mess that is falling apart of its own weight," soon-to-be erstwhile rival former Gov. Jon Huntsman tweaked him on Twitter: “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." The Stiletto is not qualified to render an opinion on how crazy Huntsman’s belief system is, but she thinks he’s crazy if he thinks parroting Democrat talking points is a winning strategy to get the Republican nomination.

† Let Them Eat Steak!: Part VIII: As if it wasn’t bad enough that President Barack Hussein Obama and the First Lady took separate government aircraft to their Martha's Vineyard jaunt – which also meant separate motorcades from the airport – Michelle Obama, who is described as a “vacation junkie” by an unnamed source, has taken 42 vacation days that cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $10 million in travel related expenses in just the last year, according to The Daily Mail of London. BTW, MO also racked up an extra $63K in travel costs on the family’s Christmas 2010 trip to Hawaii by leaving Washington separately from her husband.

To which, The Stiletto adds:

You better get it while you can.

You better get it while you can.

If you wait too long, it'll all be gone,

And you'll be sorry then.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, SOTU = Stuff Our Taxes Underwrite): When The Stiletto first wrote this post, she called bullsh*t on President Barack Hussein Obama's claim in the State of the Union speech that government "historically" provided funding for cutting edge scientists and inventors. The Stiletto will henceforth use the SOTU meme to explain why Tea Partiers want those claiming we need more tax money flowing to D.C. to STFU. In this latest example, CA-based solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, which “served as a showcase for the Obama administration’s effort to create jobs in clean technology,” has gone belly up leaving U.S. taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans, The Washington Post reports:

The Treasury Department provided Solyndra’s loan, on the assurance of the Energy Department. The terms were reviewed in advance by the White House Office of Management and Budget, and almost all of the $535 million has been disbursed to Solyndra.  …

The Energy Department could seek repayment in court, but receiving more than a nominal amount is unlikely because of the company’s depleted cash and assets. …

Solyndra had repeatedly been highlighted as a model by the Obama administration. [Energy Secretary Steven Chu] attended the groundbreaking of the factory that Solyndra built using the federal loan, and Vice President Biden’s image was beamed to the ceremony through a video feed.

In early 2010, independent auditors questioned whether Solyndra could remain a “going concern.” Obama visited Solyndra’s factory in May 2010.

“The future is here,” Obama said in his appearance, praising plans “to hire a thousand workers.”

A month after Obama’s visit, the company withdrew plans for a public stock offering. A few weeks later, Government Accountability Office auditors announced that the Energy Department had given favorable treatment to some loan-guarantee applicants. A GAO report said the department bypassed required steps for funding awards to five applicants, including Solyndra.

Earlier this year, the Energy Department’s inspector general criticized the agency for not maintaining e-mails discussing how loan-guarantee winners were selected.

GAO auditors, who first uncovered the department’s rush to provide Solyndra a loan without completing required reviews, fear that similar defaults could happen with other loan guarantee projects that weren’t properly vetted.

Given the repeated assurances by company executives and administration officials that the company was financially sound, the sweetheart deal Solyndra got – one of the company’s key investors is an Obama fundraisers – Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee vow to investigate the administration’s loan guarantees to the company under the 2009 federal stimulus plan.

Commenting on the fiasco, Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said in a statement:  “We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed. But we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy.” Another example of Obama’s strategy of “leading from behind” – wasting taxpayer dollars propping up an unsustainable business model,  creating jobs for Chinese workers when failed alternative energy companies move operations overseas and falling further behind China’s lead in the so-called “green economy” instead of investing in proven technologies and abundant energy sources right here in the U.S.

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, Obama’s Family Values: Part V): Zeituni Onyango, President Barack Hussein Obama’s aunt was an immigration fugitive from Kenya who ignored deportation orders, won asylum last year and continues to live on welfare in a South Boston public housing. President Obama’s uncle Obama Onyango – the half-brother of his father and Zeituni Onyango’s brother is an immigration fugitive from Kenya who somehow managed to obtain a valid Social Security number and MA driver's license for at least 19 years – all of which came to light when he was charged with drunken driving after he rolled through a stop sign and made a sharp turn in front of a police cruiser nearly causing a crash involving the cruiser and another car.

Framingham Police Officer Val Krishtal, who pulled him over noticed that Onyango was "slurring as he spoke" and had "obviously red and glassy eyes," he failed a field sobriety test and registered a 0.14 percent blood alcohol level on a Breathalyzer test administered at the police station (the legal limit in MA is 0.08).

When he was being booked at the station, Obama Onyango was told he could make a phone call to arrange for bail and said he’d like to “call the White House.’’ Perhaps his nephew – who was vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard at the time – thinks the police acted stupidly, but Framingham police Lieutenant Ronald Brandolini tells The Boston Globe they brushed off Onyango’s connection to Obama. Meanwhile, his sister told a reported from The Boston Herald, “Why don’t you go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washingon, D.C. and ask your president?” about Onyango’s arrest [emphasis, The Stiletto].

Held on a federal immigration warrant in the Plymouth County House of Correction, Onyango has retained immigration lawyer Margaret Wong, who successfully won asylum for his sister, and plans to fight deportation. White House press secretary Jay Carney tells reporters that his boss will not extend special treatment to Onyango, and that “We expect it to be treated … like any other immigration case.’’ A meaningless statement, when you consider that, as Michelle Malkin points out, “the White House is dispensing deportation waivers like Pez candy en masse.”

Illegal immigration is on voters’ minds this election cycle, and this sordid saga raises a bunch of questions that need looking into: With his driver’s license and Social Security card, did Onyango ever register to vote – and did he vote for his nephew? How many more of Obama’s relatives are living in the U.S. illegally – and is his interest in extending de facto amnesty to “non-criminal” illegals personal rather than being merely politically convenient? Will Onyango also receive asylum on mysterious – if not dubious – grounds?

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, Every Bubble Bursts Eventually): David Weprin is finding out the hard way that disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s seat, which includes parts of Queens and Brooklyn, is not so safe for Democrats that he can sleepwalk his way to victory in the September 13^th special election. (After all, Weprin is no Kennedy and Queens is not MA.) Anyway, “Weprin has turned into a gaffe machine right as voters are tuning in for the final stretch,” Talking Points Memo reports:

The influential New York Daily News savaged Weprin over the weekend after he belly flopped on a simple question from their editors: what is the national debt? With a reported “deer in headlights” look, he twice guessed $4 trillion, about $10 trillion off from the correct answer. As cringe-worthy a moment as it was on its own, its impact is much worse in Weprin’s case: he’s been selling himself as a fiscal Mr. Fix-it, touting his eight years as chair of the City Council’s finance committee as his top qualification.

The next day Weprin dropped out of a debate with [Republican Bob Turner] at the last minute, citing logistical problems caused by the hurricane. But the storm had already passed and the move prompted speculation – fanned by Turner’s camp – that Weprin had dropped out to avoid taking heat for his debt screw-up the day before.

And things were starting to look competitive already: a Siena poll earlier in the month gave Weprin only a modest 46-40 lead.

“It’s just a mess,” one Democratic consultant told TPM. “I still think he’s going to win, but it’s uncomfortably close right now.”

Weprin’s campaign is counting on a combination of union support and negative attacks to even the score in the final weeks.

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Only The Little People Pay Taxes): Manhattan Institute senior fellow Steven Malanga, author of "Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer," notes that with union membership having largely shifted from the private-sector to the public-sector, union leaders have begun “advocating consistently for bigger government and more public spending” as well as “social causes that are sometimes contrary to members' own political leanings” and “vigorously oppose efforts to allow their members more control over how their dues are spent.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on Boston Celtics guard Delonte West, who has applied for a position at Home Depot to ride out the NBA lockout. Job seeker site Vault.com explains:

[T]he NBA Lockout is in full swing with no end in sight and the unrestricted free agent has no opportunity to sign with another team until the contract dispute between players and the league comes to an end. No job means no pay and Mr. West, who seems to have spent his fortunes, needs to find some way to make ends meet.

The situation involving Delonte West seems to be both heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. First, it makes sense that an NBA player who needs money, would take a job that he could quit with relative ease once the season resumes. However, it is admirable to see someone also boast publicly that he is willing to swallow his pride and take a lower paying job to make ends meet. Would someone who lost his/her job as a high powered banker at Bank of America be willing to take a job delivering packages at UPS?

Vault advises those who are about to lose their extended unemployment benefits and who have run through their savings to take a page from West’s book and take a job at McDonald’s, Starbucks, Sears or Pathmark, because “All jobs are important … your accomplishments take a back seat when the mortgage is due and the electricity bill needs to be paid … it can be a learning experience [and] you don’t need to include it in your resume.”