President Obama, the "Blank Screen"

He actually said that about himself in his 2nd book:

Obama Goes From Blank Slate to Empty Suit

In the prologue to the second of his autobiographies, "The Audacity of Hope," Barack Obama said: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."

Stanford University professor Shelby Steele, who, like Mr. Obama, has a black father and a white mother, thinks the key to Mr. Obama's popularity in 2008 was his racial identity.

"Obama's special charisma ... always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas," wrote Mr. Steele.

[...]

Being a "blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views" is a good way to be elected president ... especially when the incumbent is saddled with an unpopular war and the stock market melts down two months before the election. But after two years in office, that blank screen can look more like an empty suit.

"For a man who won office talking about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president," wrote Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus last week. She generally supports him but says "there are a startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action -- unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment. He is, too often, more reactive than inspirational, more cautious than forceful. The dots connect to form an unsettling portrait of a 'Where's Waldo?' presidency." [...]

No surprise there. If you vote for a blank screen, no matter what you project onto it, sooner or later you will be faced with whatever was really there all along.

It fits in with this too:

"Obama’s deep thinking is ultimately bogus"

[...] Time and again, when the impressive thing would be to make a strong and timely decision — and to make a clear case for it — Obama hesitates, vacillates, equivocates, and ends up, as in the matter of gay marriage, making a muddle of things and riling up pretty much everybody; and instead of recognizing this habit as a weakness, Obama himself shows every sign of considering it a virtue, a mark of excellence, that distinguishes him from lesser — which is to say less cognitively inclined — beings.
...
Obama’s deep thinking is ultimately bogus. It’s as if he’s posing for Rodin, elbow on knee, chin on fist — all the while staring in a mirror, pleased by what he sees.

It seems to me that many people gravitated to, and chose Obama, for reasons more emotional than rational. Emotional ideas people projected onto him, rather than observing what was really there. Emotions can be deceptive though, especially if you use them as your only guide.

Emotions, no matter how sincerely felt, that are based on fantasy rather than fact, can get you into lots of trouble. That's why human beings have both emotions and a rational mind; we are meant to use them both. They balance each other. They should be used together.
     

After November, Obama will NOT be like Clinton

Some people think Obama will become more "centrist", like Clinton did when Republicans won big in the middle of his first term. But will he? In this interview, Dinesh D'Souza believes the answer is "no":

Dinesh D’Souza on the Anti-Colonial Business
Explaining President Obama, rereading Dreams from My Father.

Dinesh D’Douza’s new book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, has a reputation that precedes it — in large part due to some advance buzz from Newt Gingrich and a piece in Forbes. Now that the book is on shelves, in a conversation with NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, Dinesh D’Souza seeks to set the record straight about The Roots, and Obama.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: What makes you so sure you know how Obama thinks?

DINESH D’SOUZA: It’s really simple: I figure out how Obama thinks by reading what Obama writes and says. My theory about Obama is really derived from Obama himself. It’s quite silly how people are saying things like, well, Obama didn’t really know his absentee father, so he couldn’t have been influenced by him. Go read his book, starting with the title Dreams from My Father. The whole book is about how Obama shaped his values, personality, and identity in the image of his father. So I took Obama at his word on this and then asked the question, “If Obama took his father’s anti-colonial ideology, how does that help to explain his policies?” Not only does it explain Obama’s foreign and domestic policy, it also explains lots of little details about Obama’s actions that no other theory can explain.

[...]

LOPEZ: Much of your argument could have been made during the presidential campaign — based on Barack Obama’s own writings. Why is it new and important now?

D’SOUZA: My argument is relevant now because if we know what motivates Obama, we have his compass. Not only can we explain what he is doing, but we can also predict what he is going to do in the future. For instance, there is a lot of speculation now about whether Obama will be a centrist after the midterm election, like Bill Clinton became after 1994. My theory says that he won’t because he cannot. Clinton was largely a non-ideological guy. If Obama came by his liberalism in the faculty lounge, then sure, he can see it hasn’t worked and he can modify it. But if Obama got his formative ideas when he was very young, and if they are the result of his traumatic relationship with his father, then they are built into his psyche. He’s not going to change because, to his anti-colonial mindset, meeting the Republicans halfway is a form of sellout. He would be untrue to his principles if he were to cut deals with a group that he considers to be the neocolonial party. [...]

Interesting. In any case, we shall see.

More about Obama's anti-colonial mindset:

LOPEZ: What are some clear examples of how this anti-colonialist mindset can be seen in the presidency of Barack Obama?

D’SOUZA: Ramesh Ponnuru and others say Obama is a conventional liberal. But conventional liberals don’t come out for the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Conventional liberals don’t return the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Conventional liberals don’t block oil drilling in America while subsidizing oil drilling in Brazil. Conventional liberals don’t try to turn the space agency NASA into a Muslim-outreach program.

My anti-colonial theory beautifully explains all these facts. If Obama views America as the neocolonial occupier of Iraq and Afghanistan, then Muslims fighting against America are anti-colonial resisters and deserve a measure of sympathy; no wonder Obama has no problem with releasing the Lockerbie bomber. Obama hates Churchill because Churchill was the prime minister who cracked down on an anti-colonial uprising in Kenya, one in which Obama’s father and grandfather were both arrested. Obama’s oil-drilling double standard is fully understandable when you see that he wants the neocolonial oppressors to have less and the former colonized countries to have more. If Obama sees NASA as a symbol of American power — not only are we the world’s superpower, but now we are trying to colonize space — then we can see why he might want to convert NASA into a symbol of international achievement, not American greatness. So plug in the anti-colonial theory and you can explain the facts; remove it and Obama’s behavior becomes almost impossibly difficult to account for. [...]

Read the whole interview. It goes on to demonstrate how Obama's views toward socialism follow closely in the footsteps of his father. It explains a lot. It also explains why the media has been attacking D'Souza's book so vorciferously, and why some of his critics are trying to discredit him by claiming he's a "birther"; an accusation he dispells in the interview, by pointing out that in his book he clearly states that he believes that Obama was born in Hawaii.

When leftists can't counter the message, they always start lying about the messenger. It's despicable.


Related Link:

The Roots of Obama's Rage
     

“Reinvestment Acts" of Carter, Clinton & Obama

It's the history of the Democrats, and it keeps on repeating itself, and landing us in sh*t street:

Barack Obama, Propaganda, Jimmy Carter, Inflation, High Interest Rates “Reinvestment Act” and The “Misery Index.”

[...] If you look back in history to the Jimmy Carter Administration you will find that during Jimmy Carter’s Reinvestment Act, much the same as Barack Obama’s, we went into years of double digit inflation because the dollar was so devalued (The fed printed a hell of a lot of money to fund the Reinvestment Act). To combat high, runaway inflation the Federal Reserve kept raising interest rates. Now, much to Jimmy Carter’s credit there were 10.5 Million Jobs created under his presidency. However people could not afford to buy anything because the price of merchandise and interest were well beyond the average person. The end result was the economy did not grow thus we had “STAGFLATION.”

Here is an interesting page from the Wall Street Journal:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

Note that during the George W. Bush years there was the lowest unemployment and the the lowest interest rates. One may argue that George W. Bush only created 3 Million jobs. But wait…. almost everyone was working. But as the economy began to collapse because of Bill Clinton’s expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1997, the unemployment number skyrocketed in the last months of George W. Bush’s term. This was not George W. Bush’s fault at all.

Carter: Interest rate, 21%. Inflation, 13.5%. Unemployment, 7%. The so-called “Misery Index,” which Carter used to great effect in his 1976 campaign to win election.

Reagan’s last year: Interest rate, 9%. Inflation, 4.1%. Unemployment, 5.5%.

George W. Bush: Interest rate, 8% down to almost 0%. Inflation, 2.6%. Unemployment, 4.5%. [...]

And it was Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act in 1997 that made all the bad loans, the sub-prime mortgages, that led to the meltdown. And once again, it looks like there is inflation in our future.

We are told that 10 million jobs were created during Jimmy Carter's presidency, but the benefits of that were negated by high inflation, which ran the economy into the ground, ending his presidency with a recession.

Obama has started his Presidency with a recession, and hasn't created any significant number of jobs. He has continually attacked the private sector, increased taxes, created uncertainty in the market place, and added enormously to our already overburdened national debt. When inflation comes, it will be worse than Carter's presidency, because we won't even have the jobs people had back then; it will be high unemployment AND inflation. And if we continue on this path, we may even be facing a U.S. currency collapse.

Think Cloward-Piven strategy. The hard-core Marxists are. I don't claim that everybody in the Obama Administration is a hard-core Marxist; some are just Marxist sympathizers, or useful idiots. But in the end the distinction won't much matter, if the end result is the same.


Also see:

Has US Currency already "collapsed"?

What happens when Tax Cuts Expire in 2011?

# Our true national debt: $130,000,000,000,000.

     

An email from a soldier in Afghanistan

From Neal Boortz: IS THIS ANY WAY TO FIGHT A WAR?

Are you a loyal George Will fan? You should be ... he's brilliant. Will's latest Washington Post column refers to an email he received from a soldier serving in Afghanistan. A real eye-opener.

First .. you DO remember that Obama has pledged to begin withdrawing American troops next Spring, don't you? Well, if you don't remember this .. the Taliban certainly does, and they're just building their strength so that they can move in and regain control of Afghanistan as soon as Obama runs. In the meantime, they'll continue to kill as many American troops as they possibly can.

So ... how are we fighting this war? Here are a few examples from the soldier's email to George Will. ...

"Returning from a mission, his unit took casualties from an improvised explosive device that the unit knew had been placed no more than an hour earlier. "There were villagers laughing at the U.S. casualties" and "two suspicious individuals were seen fleeing the scene and entering a home." U.S. forces "are no longer allowed to search homes without Afghan National Security Forces personnel present." But when his unit asked Afghan police to search the house, the police refused on the grounds that the people in the house "are good people."

"On another mission, some Afghan adults ran off with their children immediately before the NCO's unit came under heavy small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and the unit asked for artillery fire on the enemy position. The response was a question: Where is the nearest civilian structure? "Judging distances," the NCO writes dryly, "can be difficult when bullets and RPGs are flying over your head." When the artillery support was denied because of fear of collateral damage, the unit asked for a "smoke mission" -- like an illumination round; only the canister falls to earth -- "to conceal our movement as we planned to flank and destroy the enemy." This request was granted -- but because of fear of collateral damage, the round was deliberately fired one kilometer off the requested site, making "the smoke mission useless and leaving us to fend for ourselves."

Obama is the Commander in Chief. Do you think there is any way we would have prevailed in World War II if things had been handled this way?

If our soldiers won't be given the support they need, bring them home.
     

He's alive. And where is the "wonderful"?

Obama Porkway: Road Built With Stimulus Money Will Bear President’s Name

[...] Most roads that are constructed are paid for with taxpayer dollars, but the fact that the first new road named after Barack Obama is being funded by his beloved “stimulus” is only appropriate.

If you’re in Orlando looking for this road, it’s just a mile west of the intersection of Hope and Change, and a half-mile east of the corner of Shovel and Ready. Why did local officials decide to name the stimulus road after the president? Because “A Blatant Attempt to Bankrupt America Boulevard” wouldn’t fit on the sign. [...]

Remember when people used to get things named after them, only after they were dead? And only if they had achieved something wonderful?

So far as I know, Obama is still alive. And as for the wonderful, I'm still waiting.
     

Who benefits from the Oil Spill in the Gulf?

Obama Boss George Soros Ready To Profit From Oil Disaster
Follow the link. Count the ways. Connect the dots. Golly.

See more about the collusion between the Obama Administration and BP:

The BP Racket

BO and BP
     

Visiting the troops: Don't fence them in

Ok, these are only two photos, so I don't think one can read a whole lot into them:

Two presidents visit U.S. troops: The styles of Barack Obama and George W. Bush in photos

But in the Obama photo, why are our troops behind a fence, like cattle? Even Obama clearly thinks the fence is in the way. Whose great idea was that?
     

When Obamacare becomes law...

Neal Boortz tells us what we can expect:

GAME OVER ... LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Well, they did it. They rammed it through. Nancy Pelosi knew what she had to do. Keep her members in Washington ... keep them away from angry constituents until they were ready to do her will. The polls clearly showed that the people in this country didn't want it .. but the door has, as Nancy Pelosi says, been "kicked in" and we are well on our way to nationalized medicine ... socialized medicine ... call it what you will, but we're on our way to a society where each and every one of us will be dependent on the government - on politicians and unelected bureaucratic hacks - for our healthcare.

This will be somewhat of a "stream of consciousness" effort ... but here's the way I see this playing out over the coming years.

Taxes, of course, go up immediately. How much in new taxes? Try one trillion dollars. A huge portion of these taxes will hit America's small businesses ... our jobs creation machine. There will be increases in Social Security Taxes and Medicare taxes. There will be new taxes for something called CLASS ... a long term in-home health care program. Then there will be a new 3.8% (What the hell ... call it 4%) tax on investment income. Just what our economy needed at a time when unemployment is rampant ... new taxes on the very sector of our economy that creates jobs.

Businesses will hunker down even more than they have been. Business planning is a long-term affair .. and businessmen will know that in a few years 50 will be the magic number when it comes to government health insurance mandates; and this includes part-time employees. So you will see businesses with just over 50 employees starting to cut back. People will lose their jobs so that the business can stay under the threshold. New business start-ups will alter business plans to make sure that they don't meet or cross that threshold when the mandates kick in.

Younger Americans with health insurance will drop their policies. Sure, they know that they will have to pay a penalty when they file their taxes, but that penalty will be much less than the cost of a health insurance policy ... costs that will be going up. Besides ... because insurance companies can no longer discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, there is absolutely no reason in the world to go out there and buy an insurance policy until you really become ill.

Since health young Americans will be dropping insurance, or staying out of the market if they never had insurance in the first place, the insurance companies will find more and more that their customers are among the unhealthiest of Americans. This means more benefits paid, of course, which will result in higher premiums. What's more, there will no longer be a lifetime cap on benefits. Even a government-educated ObamaSycophant could understand that this, too, will lead to increased premiums. But wait! There's more! Children will be able to stay on their parent's policies until age 26. What does this mean? Increased payouts on their parent's policies. How can you not see where this is all going?

Let's just take a quick look at what happened to Anthem .. a health insurance company in California. Recently Anthem hiked its insurance premiums by ... what? Something like 38 or 40%. You could hear the screaming all the way to Nancy Pelosi's office. But did anyone try to figure out just why Anthem had to increase premiums? Here's your explanation. California brought millions of citizens into its own state version of Medicaid. These millions of people started swarming into hospitals and to doctors for their "free" medical care. Trouble is, California also cut back on payments to health care providers at the same time. The health care providers then shifted their costs over to actual paying customers ... customers insured by Anthem. There go the premiums.

With so many more people added to the insurance rolls - people who are not paying for their policies out of their own pockets - there will be a huge increase in people seeking medical care they don't really need. Just check Boca Raton, Florida and the Medicare recipients down there. Do you remember the investigative report which showed the Boca Medicare crowd treated their weekly doctor's visits as a part of their social life? They didn't necessarily need care, they just wanted to see their friends and the doctor's waiting room was the meeting place. Now that each and every American will have a medical care entitlement, not just the Boca Biddies, you can look for a huge increase in the demand for medical services. And guess what? This huge demand will hit at a time when doctors are deciding to hang it up. They didn't sign on to work for the government, and the passage of ObamaCare is their signal to start making their escape plans.

As the demand for medical services increases exponentially, the money to pay for those services will dry up, even with the increased taxes. The inevitable result, then, will be the rationing of health care. There are no words to adequately describe the base ignorance and stupidity of any American who does not realize that rationing is on the way.

As health insurance premiums rise - as people start clogging doctors offices - as the quality of care gradually declines - there will be more and more cries from the dumb masses for the government to "do something." The political class will be ready to do something all right. Politicians will start telling the dumb masses that the private insurance companies have shown themselves not to be up to the task. They were given the chance, and they blew it. So now it's time for the government option ... its time for the government to offer its own health insurance product.

The new cure-all - the so-called "public option" - will not have any of the constraints placed on it that private insurance companies have to deal with. The government insurance plan will be able to draw from an inexhaustible supply of government grants and bailouts. Instead of raising premiums to cover benefits, the government plan will simply borrow more and more money. Net result: Slowly but surely government competition will force private insurance out of the marketplace. You simply cannot compete with an entity that can lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year without ever having to go into bankruptcy.

Politicians have always known that the government option would work this way. It has never been anything less than a method to be used to destroy the private health insurance marketplace. What's next? The magic Democrat wet dream ... "single payer."

Single payer simply means that one entity will write all the checks. Whether it's for a doctor's visit, a prescription, physical therapy ... whatever, the payments come from one source, and that source is the government. If the government is the only entity that is legally permitted to render payment for health care services ... then that puts the government in complete and absolute control of all healthcare. If you don't think that the person who controls your healthcare controls YOU ... then you've never been really, really sick.

Elections have consequences. Here they are.


Also see: PLEASE ... JUST UNDERSTAND THIS
     

"We can’t allow the law of the jungle to become the new Washington norm"

Health Care Debate: What’s Important?

[...] It troubles me that the Democrat strategies, first of the “nuclear option” and now the “Slaughter Rule”, which seemed so outrageous at first blush, quickly settle down and become part of the normal political landscape. I guess that’s the way it is with outrages: After a while, you just take them in stride.

That’s a problem for us. The anti-democratic tactics of the Democrats are the stuff of Third World strongmen, or maybe Chicago politics. But we can’t allow the law of the jungle to become the new Washington norm.

[...]

By the rules of traditional American lawmaking and politicking, Washington would have listened to the people. Obama’s plans for health care reform would have halted. The work-in-progress would have been considerably amended, or even restarted, to bring the political center on board.

But Obama wasn’t having any of it. Rather than working with the people, he chose instead to throw out the lawmaking rulebook. This was done for the explicit purpose of thwarting the election results. Thus we moved into the previously-illicit territory of “nuclear options” and “Slaughter Rules”. This is without precedent in modern American democracy.

Maybe that’s the way major laws get passed in various undemocratic hellholes. We cluck our tongues at the corrupt systems of such places, and we bask in our smug superiority. But not here, no. It can’t be happening here. [...]

Maynard goes on to say that if this law is passed, in this way, it will change the relationship between Washington and the People, forever. And of course, it will open the door for... what next?

Of course it isn't just Obama who is the problem here. It's the entire Democrat leadership, who believe "The ends justify the means". They want not only to seize absolute power, but also ensure they keep it. By any means possible. If in the process they destroy our current political system, so much the better. They can then replace it with a system that won't limit their powers.

Absolute power, corrupting absolutely. If we let them.


Also see: The Big Lie

     

Democrat Leadership takes advice from Hilter

The Big Lie

Watching Obama spew lie after outrageous lie in support of his agenda, I throw up my hands in frustration.

It’s a complex world and I make no claim to having sole possession of the truth. I may even be wrong. So I’m willing, even anxious, to hear the best arguments of those who differ with me.

But today’s political discourse is pure garbage. It makes no connection to reality whatsoever. Obama says he’s cutting the deficit while he’s raising it. Obama says he’s transparent while he’s making backroom deals. Obama says he’s bringing consensus while he’s ramming his extreme agenda down our throats.

I could go on, but is it even necessary for me to say these obvious things? So let’s ignore politics for a moment and contemplate human psychology.

All politicians and salesmen and anyone else who practices professional or recreational seduction understands the principle of the Big Lie. It’s worth reading the Wiki entry.

Here’s what Adolf Hitler had to say on the subject in “Mein Kampf”. This is interesting, not for its Nazi origin or what it says about Hitler, but for what it says about us:

Read the whole thing. Does the shoe fit? Have the Democrats sunk so low that they're using Hilter's handbook?
     

What happened to "transparency"? Obama's administration far more secretive than Bush's

From Neal Boortz:

TRANSPARENCY ... WHAT TRANSPARENCY?

I want you to take a moment to try and absorb this quote. Read it carefully.

"The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable and the way to hold it accountable is to make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they are being made and whether their interests are being well-served. The directives I am giving my administration today on how to interpret the Freedom of Information Act will do just that. For a long time now, there has been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known ... the mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret doesn't mean you should always use it."

You will not be shocked to learn that this quote is from the Community Organizer, Barack Obama from January of 2009. Why dig this up? Because of this ... a report from the AP found that Barack Obama's administration has failed to live up to this promise and is, in fact, far more secretive than the Bush administration. This is based on the government's track record under the Freedom of Information Act, which is considered the principle measurement of transparent decision-making. It found, "In fiscal year 2009, 17 major governmental agencies refused to release information, claiming legal exemptions, 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50 percent from the previous year, according to a review of requests conducted by The Associated Press.... The AP examined the 2008 and 2009 budget year FOIA reports from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Federal Reserve Board."

So much for that change you could believe in. Ok, consider this next quote. This is from the Community Organizer in November of 2008:

"It's no coincidence that one of the most secretive administrations in our history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to the sunlight. As president I am going to change that."

Based on the AP report above, I wonder how Obama feels about "secretive" administrations now. And speaking of "secretive," how about Obama's behind-closed-doors deals with labor unions? Need a little refresher on how the labor unions got a special kickback in Obamacare legislation?

Okay ... so let's move on to another quote. (This is so much fun) This one is also from the Community Organizer in January of 2009:

"Let me say it as clear as I can: transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of my administration."

Could this current charade over healthcare make that statement any more of a joke? I mean, just last night we had Congressman David Dreier of the House Rules Committee ask that cameras be in place during healthcare meetings in the Rules Committee so that Americans could see these deals being made. Dreier says:

"We've been asking for months for cameras to be installed in the Rules Committee hearing room and now the American people understand why it's so necessary ... With proposals like the Slaughter Solution being embraced by Speaker Pelosi, the American people now understand, the Rules Committee is being used to manipulate the process to avoid accountability and transparency. If the Majority is going to insist on hiding votes on bills behind rules, the least they could do is let the American people watch the action."

Folks, if what the Democrats are doing is considered legal and ethical, then what do they have to hide? Why not let you be the judge? I'll tell you why - because they know that you will disapprove.

Message from the Summit: A bipartisan health care reform agreement can only be achieved when the Republicans sign on to Democrat ideas

That would seem to be the Democrats definition of "bipartisan".

From Neal Boortz:
THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE HEALTHCARE SUMMIT

So yesterday's summit on healthcare was a big snoozer. I'm sorry, it was. For those of you who took the time to watch it, I commend you for being engaged. What was being discussed in that room will affect you life far more than American Idol or Entertainment Tonight. But we did come away from this summit with a clearer understand of a few things. So here we go with a list of things we learned from yesterday's healthcare summit.

* Barack Obama is the president. Got it?

* John McCain is NOT the president (and he may be very bitter about that)

* The GOP was worried that it would look like Obama was "standing up there like God" over them. Well the guy is "sort of a God" .. isn't he?

* Nancy Pelosi says their healthcare bill will create 4 million jobs

* Nancy Pelosi is worried about your health "security"

* The Republicans want to start over. The Democrats don't.

* CBO results can be skewed to support whatever you want them to support

* Obama doesn't appreciate it when Republicans bring the Democrat healthcare bill to a summit on healthcare reform

* Now what?

* Any ideas that the Republicans bring to the health care debate were essentially out of order because they aren't part of the Democrat plan and, thus, aren't really on the discussion agenda.

* A bipartisan health care reform agreement can only be achieved when the Republicans sign on to Democrat ideas.

* I would have loved to hear Lamar Alexander say "Excuse me, Mr. President, but you're the one who called this summit. Did you call us here to listen to you say the same things you've been saying for a year, or did you call us here to listen to and give some consideration to different ideas?"

THE TALK CLOCK

Here's the minute-by-minute talking time count of the health care summit yesterday.

DEMOCRATS (including President Obama) 233 minutes.

REPUBLICANS 110 minutes.

OBAMA solo 119 minutes

Someone out there really loves the sound of his own voice. But then I wasn't at the summit.

WHAT DID THE VOTERS THINK?

For this we go to Frank Luntz.

Watching Luntz this morning discussing the summit with a panel in Philadelphia. The overwhelming majority felt that the Republicans looked better and made better points at the summit. One detractor said the Republicans came with props. Well .. that certainly put the Republicans in their place, didn't it?

Another panel member says that the Democrats were totally condescending to the Republicans.

Here's the amazing part. After the Republicans discussed ideas such as tort reform, selling health insurance across state lines and creating insurance pools, there were still a few members of this panel who stated that the Republicans had no ideas, only objections.

Can we get a big WTF out there?

No ideas? It would seem that some of the Democrats are following the adage that, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it's true.

Just for the record, the actual definition of bipartisan is:

Representing, characterized by, or including members from two parties or factions.

Unless Republican ideas are also included in any healthcare reform legislation, it won't be bipartisan. Duh.
     

Hope and Change, illustrated

Via Rasmussen Reports

This shouldn't make Republicans gloat too much, though. Many of the people who are disapproving of Obama are Democrats who feel their man isn't Left wing or radical enough. That's scary.

H.T. to: Missourah.com

     

Jimmy Carter's term, repeated. With a Vengence.

Are we really about to go through that? Victor Davis Hanson makes a good case for it:

All Falling Down . . .

[...] Why the pessimism? I think there are a few truths that transcend politics and remain eternal. In life as a general rule, debt has to be paid back, and with greater pain and anger than it was to borrow it. Bullies do not respect magnanimity, but tragically interpret it as weakness to be exploited rather than to be admired.

Hoping that something good comes true —like being self-reliant through solar and wind—does not make it true; neglecting the riches at hand to dream about greater riches that do not exist is adolescent. Radical Islam hates the West, not because of what we do or say, but because of who we are: a dynamic, mercurial culture that challenges all the protocols of a traditional, tribal and religiously fundamentalist society.

Diplomacy is a tool to lessen, but not eliminate, tensions—a way to conduct foreign policy, not a foreign policy in and of itself. [...]

He reviews point by point, on every front, the similarities with the Carter years, and why this is likely to be worse. He ends it by saying that he hopes he's wrong. I hope he's wrong too, but... I remember the Carter years. And what I see now, well... read the whole article. And prepare, as best you can.
     

Obama's Nobel. Is anyone really surprised?

Neal sums it up nicely:

PEACE PRIZE?

So ... you want to know what is going on here? I mean, come on! Barack Obama, president for what, nine months now? And he gets the Nobel Peace Prize?

Hopefully you weren't all that surprised.

Let's work through this thing. First - you have to come up with a definition of "peace." There's a Nobel Prize for physics; one for medicine too. In virtually every culture and every country in the world you define "physics" and "medicine" pretty much the same way. Not so for "peace." During the post World-War II the Soviet Union defined "peace' as "an absence of opposition to world Communism." As long as nobody was challenging their communist expansionism they felt we were all at peace. Let some country; The United States for instance, challenge their plans for world domination and ... no more peace.

For me any definition of "peace" must have a component dedicated to freedom. You can, after all, live a life of peace in a jail cell, so long as there isn't someone there to stir things up. You're not free, but peace reigns.

Now ... to Obama and the Peace Prize. I take you back again to that Pew Research poll conducted in Europe last year. Almost 60% of Europeans who responded to the poll wanted America to be less powerful in world affairs. That's not an uncommon sentiment - right up until the time some other country is threatening to kick some international tail.

So ... along comes the Nobel committee. Can we reasonably assume that this committee reflects much of the European attitude? I mean, they're not exactly headquartered in Boise. They look at the nominations before them, and there's PrezBO! Now what has Obama done in the past nine or so months? Why, he's given the Euro-weenies just exactly what they wanted! Now we have a United States with a weaker presence in world affairs! Russia and China are striving for military domination. Obama backs off the American promise of a shield against Iran's missiles for Eastern Europe. Then we have the Arab states reportedly working to replace the dollar as the petroleum trading currency. Today there are suggestions that Obama is just going to declare that the Taliban are too entrenched in Afghanistan for us to possibly prevail there - a prelude to a cut and run. Does any of this sound like a projection of strength? Of course not. America is projecting feel-good, hopey-changey weakness at every turn.

This was a message to Obama. Europe likes your style. You're giving us exactly what we wanted --- what we asked for. You're weakening the United States; for us, the key to peace.

Oh ... and don't forget the slap in the face for George Bush. Bush is in office for eight years. He responds strongly to the attacks from terrorist Muslims. He frees iraq from a ruthless dictator and his rapist sons. He projects American strength .. and Europe hates him for it. So ... the Nobel committee comes along and delivers a slapdown.

For those who define peace as an living free of threats to your natural right to be free ... this just isn't your day, is it?

Well ... at least this will give Newsweek a reason to put Obama on the cover again.

The Peace Prize is funded by European arms manufacturers. Mabye they figure a weak America will be good for their business. No American "peace through strength" to get in their way.


Also see:

"Nobel observers shocked by unexpected choice"
     

Health Care: Fact Checking Obama

From NRO: You Mislead! Fact-checking Obama.

It is a good thing that other congressmen did not follow Rep. Joe Wilson’s lead. If they yelled out every time President Obama said something untrue about health care, they would quickly find themselves growing hoarse.

By our count, the president made more than 20 inaccurate claims in his speech to Congress. We have excluded several comments that are deeply misleading but not outright false. (For example: Obama pledged not to tap the Medicare trust fund to pay for reform. But there is no money in that “trust fund,” anyway, so the pledge is meaningless.) Even so, we may have missed one or more false statements by the president. Our failure to include one of his comments in the following list should not be taken to constitute an endorsement of its accuracy, let alone wisdom. [...]

Follow the link for the details of the 20 inaccurate claims. Isn't accuracy supposed to matter? Shouldn't these things be talked about?

But instead of really debating health care, the Democrats are already starting their predictable response to their critics:

DEMONIZING OPPONENTS OF NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE

When you can't criticize the message, kill the messenger(s).
     

Leah speaks for me. How can we trust people who lie to us about things we know are true?

From Neal Boortz:

LEAH FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE

Something entertaining actually happened on CSPAN. Yes, folks ... I know. But over the weekend a woman by the name of Leah called in to a show called "Washington's Journal." Leah wanted to comment on the media's coverage of these healthcare townhalls. Here's just a taste of what she had to say.

Hi, yeah, I just wanted to clarify a few things about these "manufactured, angered crowds." I've never been politically active in my life. I've never done anything like go to a protest ever. I started going to protests, these Tea Parties back on the Fourth of July, and the reason that you're seeing the numbers grow and swell and become bigger and bigger is not only because of the healthcare legislation, but like you said earlier, all these massive bills, thousands of pages long that are passed with almost no debate, no time for us to see what's in it, in direct contravention of what was promised about transparency and a near era and we're going to know what we're doing in advance. I see, I see politicians admit on TV that they can't read it, that they can't understand it because of its complexity. Lawyers who are writing these bills say they need lawyers to tell them what's in the bill.

Now, when I watch the news people stand here and tell me that I am a member of a hired mob, that I've been called up by the Republican Party, they only wish they could have done something like this. I've never been contacted by any organized group. This is an organic movement, and when people stand there, and lie to me about what I know is going on, how can I trust them when they tell me it's going to save money when the Congressional Budget Office says it isn't? That it's going to cover everybody when the Congressional Budget Office says it isn't? That it's going to let me keep my, my healthcare when common sense tells you that's not what's going to be the end result of this when the government ends up providing all the healthcare which the man who wrote the bill in the beginning says. Go watch it, Jacob Hacker who wrote this says that in time, and President Obama said it, we will all be swallowed up in this government plan.

When people lie to us, we don't trust them when they give us platitudes about what's in the bill.

Yep. And she's got more to say too, listen to the whole thing:



That's what real grass roots sounds like, it's not the root-less Astro-turf the Democrats are manufacturing with Millions from George Soros.

Leah mentions Jacob Hacker. Neal follows up with a post about that:

WHO IS JACOB HACKER?
     

Is Obama doing with Healthcare What Bush tried to do with Social Security?

This article makes an interesting case for it:

Obama's Ambition: Was His Strategy a Mistake?

[...] He knows he must succeed in passing health care, in some form or another. But should he try to do it with token Republican support?

In the ideologically polarized House, Obama can expect virtually no Republican support. The same could happen now in the Senate and many Democrats are prepared to move ahead on that basis. But not all believe that. Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist and a tough partisan in campaigns, said Obama should resist that course.

Devine argued that, given the state of public opinion and the complexity of overhauling the health care system, Obama should press for a package that can attract genuine Republican support, at least in the Senate, by which he means more than two or three votes. As he put it, while voters have become more comfortable supporting Democrats in the last two elections, "There hasn't been a deep ideological conversion to our side."

A new Gallup poll released this week showed the consequences of doing what Obama has done this year. The survey found that two in three independents now believe Obama's proposals call for too much government spending and three in five think that agenda calls for too much government.

Obama has a tough call ahead. Should he press for passage of a health care bill over near-universal Republican opposition, assuming that he and the Democrats will reap a political benefit for accomplishing something that has eluded others? Or should he make bipartisan agreement a top priority in the Senate, even with a scaled-down compromise, to ease concerns about the size of government and the deficit? [...]

Much of the rest of the article makes some interesting comparisons with George Bush's presidency. Bush also started out with a majority of his party in power, and he tried to use that to push through some of this campaign promises like reforming Social Security and our Immigration Policy. He failed because he did not build popular support for his changes first.

In so many ways, Obama seems to be doing the same thing. I can only hope his worst domestic policies get sandbagged before they can be implemented.


Related Link:

How to Make Health-Care Reform Bipartisan
     

Iran: what to expect next?

It's hard to say with any certainty, but George Handlery offers some possibilities:

Duly Noted: From the Rule by Consent to the Rule by Fear

[...] 1. Any reaction to the days past must include Iran. The need is clear. Having witnessed the collapse of several systems, an attraction to follow comparable events develops. Admittedly, in some of its details, the wobbling of Iran’s theocratic dictatorship differs from the writer’s experience. Iran’s system is not supported by the probable intervention of a great power. The security organs of the régime are still obeying orders. Furthermore, a significant segment of the public not only tolerates, but also supports the system. Regardless of the caveats, one can foretell much about the years to come.

A. Iran might be one country but it harbors two societies. Their gears match badly. One of these is rural and pre-industrial. It is mired in an obscurantist traditionalism supported by lacking knowledge. It is also badly educated in areas that determine the modern world. The other society is urban, possesses modern knowledge and skills. Therefore, it can fearlessly connect to the modern world.

B. On the long run, the ruling system is threatened, as it must base its ideology-driven power grab on the weapons-hardware contributions of relative progressives. This means that, the internal enemy’s support is needed to implement the foreign policy the regime’s extremist supporters demand.

C. The political ambitions of the reactionary rulers demand that the contribution to the armaments demanded by their foreign policy and contributed by the modernist group be emphasized. Its will to cooperate will prove to be fickle.

D. The rulers’ ideology makes them not to want to participate in and comprehend the processes that shape our time. Ignoring a suspected process and blocking it at home will still not stop global transformation.

F. The retrograde system, even if, for the sake of utility it decides to enter the modern world, is unfit to survive the consequences of its needed modernization. Ultimate success demands reforms. However, these reforms are not system-compatible. Thus, forces are unleashed that the system cannot accommodate. As in the case of the Soviet Union, to reform the system you need to abolish it.

G. Challenged at home, the clerics will need its hard core constituency’s support. Accordingly, the US attempt to cozy up to them will be resisted.


2. Iran’s rulers, self-deputized to rule in the name of the Almighty, might be able to club down their more moderate opposition. Today the struggle is not yet between freedom and theocratic tyranny. So far, only senseless servitude and the cause of a better dictatorship confront each other. The ruling prophets may disapprove, but the dispute is still about the improvement of the existing system. Characteristically for a pre-revolutionary situation, the leadership is developing fissures. Supporters are mobilized and the masses are appealed to for support. However, as long as the instruments of the power-monopoly (army, police and “party army” thugs) are not yet infiltrated by the doubts that divide the clerical elite, the troglodytes will prevail. This victory will fundamentally change the real agenda of the opposition that will evolve within a decade. The reform’s failure and indications that the system can not be reformed, will create an opposition with a program that is adjusted accordingly. Regardless of the formal terms used in public, the next time the goal will not be reform but revolution. Ultimately, unfolding events will convince a minority as it grows into a majority that clerical rule, whether exercised by bad, good or indifferent mullahs, is unsuited to solve their nation’s problems.[...]

There's more if you want to read it. Good stuff.


There was also this interesting report from a blog, about Amadinejad's speech being interrupted by a power failure, created by a protest launched by twitter users during the speech:

Blackout! The Repression will not be Televised
Ahmadinejad TV speech met by rooftop cries, power blackouts
I couldn't verify the power outage though, in any other media reports.

     

What happens when Inflation returns?

Inflation WILL return once the economy starts to recover, because we will also have massive debt and compounded interest to pay on it. We are facing an unsustainable situation.

Obama sows seeds of demise

[...] Right now, Obama’s ratings must be pleasing to his eye. Voters like him and his wife immensely and approve of his activism in the face of the economic crisis. While polls show big doubts about what he is doing, the overwhelming sense is to let him have his way and pray that it works.

But beneath this superficial support, Obama’s specific policies run afoul of the very deeply felt convictions of American voters. For example, the most recent Rasmussen Poll asked voters if they wanted an economic system of complete free enterprise or preferred more government involvement in managing the economy. By 77-19, they voted against a government role, up seven points from last month.

[...]

For Americans to conclude that they disapprove of their president in the midst of an earth-shaking crisis is very difficult. But as Obama’s daily line moves from “I inherited this mess” to “There are faint signs of light,” the clock starts ticking. If there is no recovery for the next six months — and I don’t think there will be — Obama will inevitably become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And then will come his heavy lifting. He has yet to raise taxes, regiment healthcare or provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. He hasn’t closed down the car companies he now runs and he has not yet forced a 50 percent hike in utility bills with his cap-and-trade legislation. These are all the goodies he has in store for us all.

Obama’s very activism these days arrogates to himself the blame for the success or failure of his policies. Their outcome will determine his outcome, and there is no way it will be positive.

Why?

• You can’t borrow as much as he will need to without raising interest rates that hurt the economy;

• The massive amount of spending will trigger runaway inflation once the economy starts to recover;

• His overhaul of the tax code (still in the planning phases) and his intervention in corporate management will create such business uncertainty that nobody will invest in anything until they see the lay of the land;

• His bank program is designed to help banks, but not to catalyze consumer lending. And his proposal for securitization of consumer loans won’t work and is just what got us into this situation. [...]

I think there are many on the hardcore Left who don't want to see the economy fixed; they would like to see capitalism, our consumer-driven economy, and the system of government that supports it, ruined, so they can replace it with something else.

Pat's been telling me that sounds to much like a conspiracy theory; that in reality they are just dumb Marxists who haven't got a clue what they are doing. That's quite possibly true. But either way, I think it's going to end the same; in a mess. Jimmy Carter Redux. Only this time, with trillions of dollars of debt and interest payments on that debt, which will ultimately mean... what?


Related Links:

The problem with the banks: illiquidity

Advice to the GOP: "Shut up and remain calm"