Tag Archives: Politics

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Listening Tour, It’s Like Voting Present

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President Obama speaks at a town hall-style meeting Monday at Lower Hannah's Bend Park in Cannon Falls, Minnesota

Update 8/19/2011: President Obama hits the campaign trail today in his two new multi-million dollar busses we bought him. The White House “explanation” is that they are on official business, not a political campaign.

Curious thing about President Obama’s campaign kick-off. If his first day on the campaign trail isn’t important enough to cover live, it begs the question “why is that? Ordinarily, the President is on every major TV network and most of cable. Could it be because he is not drawing crowds? Maybe it is because visiting states and localities where unemployment is low, and predominately white, would not set well with the  Congressional Black Caucus? Or both.

The big news of Obama’s new re-election campaign that is not being reported is that he is out of ideas. Not only is he out of ideas, but he is not taking any responsibility for the malaise we are seeing today in this, Jimmy Carter’s “second term.” Instead, he is pointing fingers at Republicans, Congress, the tsunami in Japan, and the so-called ‘Arab Spring.’ The latter of which, you may recall, President Obama tried to claim credit for when Egypt overthrew President Mubarak.

Two and a half years into his administration, the “leader” of the free world does not have a plan for economic recovery that works and said that “there are a lot of good ideas out there and we’re going to listen to them” because he wants to “create jobs.” He must think the Cut, Cap, and Balance bill passed by the House was not a good idea.

What a disappointment President Obama must be to the people who believed he could deliver on his community organizer-style campaign rhetoric. He is voting present with each committee he forms. Nothing has changed where Obama is concerned. Well, except for our longest stretch of a stagnate economy, unemployment is up, no net increase in private sector jobs so far. And did you know that youth unemployment in Washington, D.C. is now over 50 percent? That’s up from 25 percent a few years ago. In fact, minority unemployment everywhere is as bad as it has ever been under President Obama. Sure, I’ll vote for more of that! What?

Media, Politics, War On Terror

Remembering 9/11

Reflecting back on the 9/11 attack is easy for me, because I’ve never forgotten it or the aftermath. The prayers and sympathy for the victims and their families goes without saying.

I remember vividly how that horrific attack galvanized America as one unit focused on helping the victims and, at the same time, finally fighting back at those who had been killing Americans for years.

Our enemy had a good day. Aside from killing innocent Americans, they hurt our economy so badly that it took years to recover.

Feeling eerily uncomfortable with pro-American unity in both political parties, Sen. Ted Kennedy must have felt his party was threatened to minority party status for decades unless he could do something to stop it. Sadly, I remember how America’s unity ended when Sen. Ted Kennedy made the false accusation that the Bush administration believed Saddam Hussein had “planned the 9/11 attack.” I remember how quickly the political Left ate that up, buttressed by a willing media. It was the ‘lion of the senate’ who politicized what was called the ‘war on terror.’ For that strategy alone, Ted Kennedy deserves credit for being the one person most responsible for prolonging the war to a tenth anniversary, and counting. That’s what I remember.

The reason I’ll never forget it goes to survival. Because the people in charge of the war on terror now, all Ted Kennedy acolytes, want to give the enemy our constitutional protections, lowering the bar to a criminal matter. They want to scrap the ‘war on terror’ and the most effective parts of the ‘Patriot Act,’ calling it an ‘overseas contingency operation.’ And we have Ted Kennedy to thank for it.

There’s a saying, “what goes around comes around.” This applies to Sen. Ted Kennedy too. He went from the lion of the senate to a maggot in hell. A small consolation in the fight that continues to this day.

Link: Schneider: Tell us what you remember, why you will never forget

Economy, Florida, Judiciary, Pensacola, Politics, Supreme Court

11th Circuit Court Of Appeals Affirms Judge Vinson, Sort Of

Update 8/13/2011. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled Friday that a provision of the law that requires people to buy health insurance or face an annual penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling affirmed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Florida.

Curiously though, the court also ruled that absent the mandate, the Act can continue. What this means is that three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit pulled a severability clause out of their butt.

In Judge Vinson’s ruling, he concluded . . .

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.” {emphasis added}

The survivability of Obamacare without forced participation is zero. Well with one caveat. For Obamacare to survive without forced participation, the administration would have to speed up the elimination of the private health insurance industry process to before the next election instead of after. I don’t see that happening. So for all practical purposes, the fact that the rest of the Act may stay is moot. The court knows this. They also know that the Act contained no severability clause. That the court found the rest of the Act is constitutional and ignored the non-severability of the Act looks like a political decision with no real consequences. Well, except for the fact that the judges made a political decision here, instead of a legal one. Isn’t that like, not their job?

Let’s hope this gets to the Supreme Court this year. Today’s ruling did nothing to reduce the FUD factor. In fact, it only made it worse. That’s not what an economy struggling to survive needs if it is going to recover.

Markets don’t do well in an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The power grab the Obama administration has perpetrated over various industries and companies is sending only one message to business. Watch out, you could be next.

Link: LegalNewsline | Eleventh Circuit rules against part of ObamaCare.

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Union Fight In Wisconsin Gets Settled Today

Wisconsin goes to the polls today. Six recall elections will be decided. All against Republican state senators who supported Walker’s bill curbing collective bargaining rights for most public union employees.

The sore-loser drive has brought BIG LABOR dollars and rent-a-mobs to try to ultimately repeal the reforms that Governor Scott Walker enacted by harassing their way to regain a Democrat majority again.

Ed Schultz is there, the rent-a-mob is there. Well, about 300 people who sound like a studio audience is there. He claims they are there to fight for the middle class, but they are there to support BIG LABOR. Actually, it is a fight to keep the state from going broke and avoid big layoffs.

You will remember the tough time Walker had in getting the state house to get his reform bill voted on because the Democrat senators fled the state. I don’t see the vote going against what the people in Wisconsin already voted for. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Link: Walker Union Fight Intensifies as Wisconsin’s Recalls Threaten Republicans – Bloomberg.

2012 Election, Economy, Politics, Race Relations

Obama’s Historic Presidency

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Yes historic. And I’m not talking about his race. Everyone got over that the day after the election. (well, except for liberals/progressives) What else is historic for President Obama is that he now has the bragging rights for overseeing the country’s fall into decline while in office.

  • the return of double-dip recession fears
  • an emboldened Tea Party
  • a sinking Dow
  • stagnating employment
  • and the nation’s credit rating downgraded for the first time in 70 years.

That would be the AAA credit rating that President Obama inherited from President Bush. A dubious honor for sure. What makes it worse is that not only was this train wreck of an economy predicted, it was preventable too!

The Obama administration says they’ve done all that can be done to fix the economy. They want to borrow and spend even more money, ostensibly believing that what didn’t work the last time, and the time before that, will work this time. Obama says we just have to sit tight and wait for the economy to improve. Recovering from the worst economy since the Great Depression is a “slow process,” the president said. What he really means is he has done all that he and his advisers know to do. It is not all that can be done.

There was a solution passed by the Republican-led House and tabled by the Democrat-led Senate called Cut, Cap, and Balance. By the way, Standard & Poor’s said that ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance’ was the only plan proposed by either party that would have preserved the AAA credit rating. So no one has the right to act outraged at S&P’s downgrade action. But for political reasons, not economic ones, the President has to pretend like there is nothing else that can be done. Just take it. Eat your peas. Get used to high unemployment, rising interest rates, rising costs everywhere, and a stagnant economy. That’s the change Obama has in mind. Don’t you wish you knew that a couple of years ago, before the election?

Link: Facing Economic Headwinds, Obama Struggles Again to Find an August Storyline

Economy, Media, Politics

Phony Unemployment Numbers

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced a drop in the unemployment rate from 9.2 percent to 9.1 percent.  And that 117,000 jobs were added.

The BLS also noted that there were 38,000 fewer people working in July than in the previous month. So how can it be that the unemployment rate ‘dropped?’

It dropped because the bean counters in Washington have reduced the pool of workers enough to cause the percentage change go in one direction when what is measured is actually going in the opposite direction. The BLS calls this “seasonally adjusted” as modified by the “civilian labor force participation rate.”

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Look what the rate is if Washington used the same method of tracking unemployment that you and I use. Beginning with the active labor force as big as it was when Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate would be 11.7%.

If the unemployment rate goes up but is not reported, did it really happen?

Link: Jobs report shows some ugly truths  |  Bureau of Labor Statistics

Economy, Politics

Geithner Still Pointing Fingers

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Standard & Poor showed “terrible judgment” in lowering the U.S. government’s credit rating.

“They’ve handled themselves very poorly. And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about the basic U.S. fiscal budget math,” Geithner said in his first public comments about the credit rating decision.

“Terrible judgement?” This from a guy who earned the nickname ‘tax cheat Geithner’ for not paying his income taxes. Just like he blamed ‘TurboTax’ for his tax cheating problems, Geithner is blaming Standard & Poor’s poor judgement for lowering the United States’ credit rating for the first time ever to AA+, down from AAA where it has been for nearly a hundred years.

According to Geithner, it’s just because the credit rating company does not understand “U.S. fiscal budget math.”  No doubt they don’t understand the concept of spending your way to prosperity and borrowing your way out of debt. They don’t understand that increasing the national debt by 7 trillion dollars in ten years is a decrease.  What they do see is U.S. doing nothing to attack the public debt or the willingness to stop the deficit spending in the budgets that they have failed to produce. That is what Geithner means by U.S. fiscal budget math.

Some people are calling for Geithner to step down for his mangling of the economy. Even if he did, it would not solve the problem. His boss believes in the same fuzzy math and points fingers at everyone but himself too!

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Politics

Obamanomics Is Expanding

Updated 8/7/2011. Now that all the stimulus money has played its course, look around for signs of success. And also look for President Obama to ask for either another “stimulus” package or a QE3, or both. But that’s beside the point.

The point is the economic genius of our president, media malpractice, and how well the two go together.

Obamanomics began from a “social justice” footing. Simply put, social justice is a statist belief that the government must manage society in a way that guarantees outcome under the pretense of fairness.  I don’t believe that is in the Constitution, but Obama doesn’t preserve, protect, or defend it anyway. He really wants to be America’s new founding father.

He manages society through taxation, taking money from those who have it (regardless of whether they have been born) and give it to those who want it. The fact that the recipients might want to keep the checks coming by voting to keep them in office is just an unintended? consequence.

While Americans that have lost their jobs are in the unemployment line, President Obama is working hard to keep his own. Having been to 37 fundraisers up to this point in time, it is clear where his focus is. Bush and Clinton had 10 and 7 respectively for the same length of time in their first term.

But now, Obamanomics has a new twist. The fact that there is no job creation going on is not because of the president’s policies or his class warfare, wealth envy, or anti-business tendencies. PBS and Obama blame it on businesses for not hiring people. Here is a quote from a short PBS article that took two people to write.

However, it’s been clear for months that President Obama’s ability to enact job-creating policies has been significantly restricted by politics and the business community’s refusal to hire in the face of depressed consumer demand.

Restricted by politics? Not hardly. Obama got all the stimulus and major policies he asked for. Neither PBS nor President Obama and his advisers understand free-market economics. Businesses don’t hire people so that someone will have a job. They hire people when they believe they would lose business if they did not hire. They hire people so that they can make money. Or to put it another way, businesses don’t hire people when business is down and there is no prospect of business getting better any time soon. But in Obamanomics, businesses should hire people so they will have a job.

So this is why taxpayers have to continue to fund PBS?

But wait, there’s more. Remember the first stimulus package? All that shovel ready stuff, rebuilding the nation’s roads and infrastructure. He sold it to the American people on the pretense that that’s what it was going to be used for. And they bought it. Now we know it was nothing more than a slush fund to give to state governments to support the public-sector union wages and pension plans. Knowing full well that that money would come back to the Democratic party in 2010 like it did.

Well guess what? Pretend all that infrastructure rebuilding never happened. Because in reality, it didn’t. That’s why President Obama will be hitting up the American people for more money to ostensibly do the same thing that he asked Americans to pay for a couple years ago. You know, back when unemployment was in the 6-7 percent range.

We also need to give more opportunities to all those construction workers out there who lost their jobs when the housing boom went bust. We could put them to work right now, by giving loans to private companies that want to repair our roads and our bridges and our airports, rebuilding our infrastructure. We have workers who need jobs and a country that needs rebuilding; an infrastructure bank would help us put them together.

The administration is counting on the short memory of the dumb masses and outlets like PBS to dutifully carry their water. Short of admitting they have it all wrong, they are left with no other choice.

Link: With Debt Deal Done, Obama Turns to Re-election Campaign  |  With debt deal done, Obama sees need now for new spending on bridges, roads, unemployment  |  Huffington: Nobody Believes Obama’s Top Priority Is Jobs; It’s Getting Re-Elected  |  I Will Not Rest