Home foreclosures spiked by 53 percent in June. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reportedly are on the verge of a government bailout. The stock market is plunging. Oil prices are soaring toward another record high.
But don’t worry, Americans. It’s all in your head, according to John McCain’s top economics guru, Phil Gramm, who told Americans to stop whining. Everything’s fine.
Maybe Gramm’s the one who should see a shrink.
It wasn’t surprising but it’s still disgraceful: The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t going to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions before President Bush leaves office, the Washington Post reported. This despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the EPA 15 months ago to decide whether human health and welfare are harmed by greenhouse-gas pollution, and federal climate experts repeatedly have said that urgent action is needed. EPA officials have said that the White House has censored or altered reports showing that global warming is harming human welfare, because it knows that if it admits the truth, it will have to do something about it.
Barack Obama is getting hammered by some liberals for moving toward the center. “Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He’s lurching right when it suits him, and he’s zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash,” columnist Bob Herbert wrote. But columnist Clarence Page defended Obama, saying he is “reaching for what Colin Powell has called the ‘sensible center,’ that big, broad terrain in the political middle where most American voters live.”
Pat Salerno’s recent about-face — accepting Wichita’s offer for the city manager position, signing a contract and then pulling out at the last minute — clearly violates the ethical guidelines of the professional organization to which he belongs, the International City/County Management Association.
According to one of the ICMA tenet guidelines, “Members who accept an appointment to a position should not fail to report for that position,” and “once a bona fide offer of a position has been accepted, that commitment should be honored.”
The ICMA also stresses to applicants, “Don’t say ‘yes’ unless you mean it.”
Simply giving one’s word is seen as a professional commitment, according to Martha Perego, ethics director for the ICMA. (Salerno negotiated and signed a contract.)
The ICMA makes some allowances for extraordinary circumstances in such cases, Perego told The Eagle editorial board, but “it has to be fairly compelling.” She wouldn’t comment specifically on the Salerno case. But she made clear that the ICMA takes its ethics rules seriously; in fact, the organization has a formal hearing process for publicly censuring and even removing members who violate its professional tenets.
This might be one way for Wichita to hold Salerno accountable for his unprofessional conduct. Randy
The following satirical headlines come from borowitzreport.com:
LIBERAL BLOGGERS ACCUSE OBAMA OF TRYING TO WIN ELECTION; Nominee Called Traitor to Democrats’ Losing Tradition
McCAIN PROPOSES TAX HOLIDAY FOR BEER HEIRESSES; Says Brewery Scions Could Lead Economic Revival
Home foreclosures spiked by 53 percent in June. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reportedly are on the verge of a government bailout. The stock market is plunging. Oil prices are soaring toward another record high.
