Tales from the Trail

President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill to strengthen border security, and just to make sure the message got through, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano took the podium at today’s White House media briefing. Immigration has always been a tough political issue, and in an election year no great strides are expected on major reform before the November vote. “It cannot only be done by Democrats. The Republicans need to come to the table,” Napolitano said.

The American consumer is still a cautionary tale. But consumer sentiment appears to have stabilized in August after dropping sharply in July. “Consumers are still cautious, but it is not double-dip material,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. In a separate report, U.S. retail sales rose in July but showed hints of lingering economic softness.

And finally, I tried to find something positive to say about Friday the 13th and realized there’s no need, because it’s still Friday!

Here are our top stories from today…

Obama signs $600 million border security bill

President Barack Obama signed a $600 million bill to beef up security on the border with Mexico, and his aides pressed lawmakers to set aside election-year politics and work toward broader immigration reform.  With illegal immigration seen as a key issue in the November congressional elections, the administration touted the border enforcement plan as laying the groundwork for a revived effort to overhaul the immigration system.  

For more by Matt Spetalnick, click here.

Retail sales tepid but sentiment finds a footing

Retail sales rebounded in July but showed hints of lingering economic softness, as did inflation data showing underlying price pressures stuck at their lowest level since the 1960s. The reports offer the latest evidence that the U.S. economy has slowed considerably in recent months, but were sufficiently firm to dispel, for now, fears of a renewed downturn.

A new round of extremely violent thunderstorms rolled through Washington this morning and brought with it more stormy economic news. The latest hiccup to what President Barack Obama had hoped would be a “recovery summer” was the news that filings for unemployment benefits rose by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000 in the week ended Aug. 7.

Experts had expected a drop in claims and the unwelcome surprise indicated that hiring is still weak and employers may return to cutting staff.

The grim data came two days after the Fed warned that the pace of the recovery had slowed and the trade deficit widened, sending economists back to their drawing boards to revise growth forecasts. China’s economy also showed signs of going off the boil.

Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, is a realist when he says “people are imperfect and we have not seen the last misjudgment.”

So,  in his view, financial regulatory reform is just as necessary as, well, laws aimed at ensuring safe driving.

He cites the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s belief that people being people are probably going to drive fast and recklessly, and so it would be wise to encourage seat-belt use, build crash-proof bumpers, design highways more carefully, arrest people for drunk driving, and establish a system that made accidents less likely to result from human error.

Eric Massa was a little-known freshmen House Democrat only a month ago. Now he’s a political media sensation and a darling of Talk Radio/TV commentators capable of provoking the White House on healthcare reform.

Why the metamorphosis? Massa abruptly resigned from Congress, revealed he had an angry run-in with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel while the two were naked in a congressional gym shower, and now claims he was pushed out of office by the White House to keep him from voting against healthcare reform.

Oh, and he’s come to the conclusion that Emanuel is a “son of the devil’s spawn.”

How’s this for faint praise?

Former Repubican presidential nominee  John McCain talked up Sarah Palin — his 2008 vice presidential partner — on Sunday, saying she had earned an important place in the Republican party.

But he also called the former Alaska governor ”irrelevant.”

Huh?

“I think that Sarah Palin … has earned herself a very big place in the Republican political scene,” McCain said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

“I am entertained every time I see these people attack her and attack her and attack her.  She’s irrelevant, but they continue to attack her.  I am so proud of her and the work that she is doing,” he said.

The White House press corps has a new president.

Reuters White House Correspondent Caren Bohan won the election for president of the White House Correspondents’ Association and will take the mantle in the 2011-2012 term.

Until then, she will serve as the wire-service representative on the WHCA board which represents the White House press corps on matters of access, traveling with the president, and other issues related to covering the White House.

The WHCA also organizes the annual dinner where the president gets a chance to publicly poke fun at the press before an audience of journalists, politicians and Hollywood stars.

WASHINGTON – Ready for the first polls in the 2012 presidential race? 

Neither are we, but the folks at the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion couldn’t resist scaring us anyway. 

 They sent an e-mail on Thursday with the subject line: Marist Poll: Matchups for the 2012 Presidential Election — For Immediate Release. 

 Once opened, however, the message read: “Did you really open this e-mail? Haven’t you had enough? You’ll be hearing from us soon … but not this soon. 

LORETTO,  KENTUCKY  -   Sen.  Hillary Clinton, campaigning in rural Kentucky, on Saturday blasted critics telling her to drop out of the presidential race as America’s advantaged and well-heeled trying to tell the rest of the nation what to think and do.

“All those people on TV who are telling you and everybody else that this race is over and I should just be graceful and say, ‘Oh, it’s over,’” she said in Loretto, Kentucky. “Those are all people who have a job. Those are all people who have health care. Those are all people who can afford to send their kids to college. Those are all people who can pay whatever is charged at the gas pump.

“They’re not the people I’m running to be a champion for,” she said after touring a bourbon distillery. “I’m running to be a champion for all of you and your children and your grandchildren.”

CARY, N.C. – A double standard that treats men and women differently still exists in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton told an audience on Saturday.

The former first lady recalled Hollywood dancing stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the famous saying that Rogers did everything Astaire did but “backwards and in high heels.”

“I do think that there is still something of a double standard,” she said in North Carolina. “I think there is a certain element of that.”