As Obama goes and condemns the Republican Presidential candidates for failing to condemn (as it happened) a single or two people booing gay soldiers, people are noting Obama’s failure by his own new standards.
Obama by the Numbers
A devastating look at the Obama Presidency by the numbers. The one that I found most enlightening is the 2008 promise by Obama to bring down healthcare insurance cost by $2500 per year only to have it increase by 19% over the past three years.
Overrated?
FOR A SUCCESS, BARACK OBAMA IS A VERY BAD POLITICIAN, the worst politician to win the presidency by an electoral landslide, to never lose a major election, or to rise to the presidency from a state legislature in little more than four years. HE HAS GONE FROM STERLING CAMPAIGNER TO PUT-UPON LEADER; FROM THE NEW FDR TO THE NEXT JIMMY CARTER; FROM BEING THE ORATOR WHO COULD HOLD MILLIONS SPELLBOUND TO THE MAN WHO MOVES NO ONE AT ALL. The man who promised everything is delivering nothing. Journalists who wept when he won the election now grind their teeth in despair. Maureen Dowd admits he isn’t the one for whom even he had been waiting. The gap between sizzle and steak never seemed so large or alarming, and inquiring minds want to know what went wrong.
Did the prince (assuming he was one) turn into a frog? Did he use all his luck up in winning his office? Did he, once in power, see his governing skills fade away? The answers to these things are no, yes, and no. The record suggests that he was never a prince (merely a fantasy); that his luck went away once his free ride had ended; and that he had few political, that is, governing, skills to begin with, a fact that is now more than clear. In three areas at least, he appears to be lacking. Let us walk back and see what they are.
GOOD POLITICIANS CREATE COALITIONS AND THEN TEND THEM CAREFULLY, draw people in from the opposite party, and make their own party (like Reagan and Roosevelt) both bigger and different than it was before. OBAMA INHERITED A COALITION BY CHANCE AND DISMANTLED IT DURING HIS FIRST YEARS IN OFFICE, HAVING NEVER UNDERSTOOD WHAT IT WAS MADE OF, HOW IT DEVELOPED, HOW FRAGILE IT WAS, AND WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO MAINTAIN…
Obama is an amateur that the press built up as exactly what the country needed. We now know (those of us who voted against him in 08 already knew) that he wasn’t ready to be president and probably never would have been. He was a perpetual back bencher who voted present when the hard issues came forward.
Liberals berate Obama
Most of the nation’s top liberal groups have convened in Washington this week for the Campaign for America’s Future’s annual conference, this year dubbed Take Back the American Dream. A major theme of the gathering is their disappointment in President Obama.
As Robert Borosage, co-director of the campaign and a key organizer of the event, put it in a speech this morning:
“EVERYONE IN THIS CROWD, I’M CERTAIN, HAS HAD THEIR DISAPPOINTMENTS AND THEIR FRUSTRATIONS WITH THIS WHITE HOUSE. From bailing out the big banks without reforming them, to failing to stand strong on jobs, on climate and many other issues to extending a war and now asserting national security prerogatives that simply trample the Constitution. But our challenges are much greater than the shortcomings of this president.
Remember when he came into office, Obama put forth reforms in areas we have to address: Energy, health care, financial reform, the recovery. Now those reforms were too cautious to my mind. THEY WERE PRE-COMPROMISED IF YOU WILL. But despite the crisis, despite the popular mandate, despite Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, he got his head handed to him. And we know why: money politics. THE ENTRENCHED CORPORATE INTERESTS THAT HAVE BEEN RUNNING THIS PLACE WERE ABLE TO BUILD REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTIONISM WITH A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF DEMOCRATS TO DEFEND THEIR PRIVILEGES AND SELF-INTEREST.”
Borosage’s remarks were warmly greeted. Others at the CAF event expressed similar sentiments. Van Jones, the event’s keynote speaker, said that “This has been a tough couple of years. We cannot get up here and lie and say everything has been cool. WE WENT FROM HOPE TO HEARTBREAK IN ABOUT A MINUTE.” …
The left is reeling. They have gone from “hope and change” and looking at being in power for a generation to sharing power on two years later and likely to lose both houses of congress and the Presidency in 2012. Since it can’t be their ideas, they must come up with a villain to blame and we know who that is.
Wall Street Protests: What do they signify?
One of the most amusing things we will be seeing over the next few days will be THE MEDIA’S ATTEMPT TO HIGHLIGHT AND LEGITIMIZE THE “OCCUPY WALL STREET” PROTESTS.
The sudden interest fits the entire “Evil Wall Street” meme from the left’s worldview and Wall Street’s unwillingness to fund the left likely makes a difference in coverage too.
Those factors count but the single most important issue is the need to project power at a time when THE LEFT INFLUENCE IS ALMOST NON-EXISTENT. After two years of the tea party advancing against the wind of the media and the elites trying to take them aback, those same elites hope to provide the breeze to fill their sails.
Like the coffee party and each other attempt to create a tea party alternative THIS IS DOOMED TO FAILURE, FOR SEVERAL REASONS:…
The numbers have grown but so have the “causes.” Everything from the evils of greed to global warming are now being lamented by a small band of protestors. It is pathetic.
Are things about to get bad for China?
Over the past week one of the more hotly debated and market moving topics was THE RESURGENCE OF SPECULATION THAT CHINA MAY BE ON THE VERGE OF A "HARD LANDING." To a large extent this was driven by renewed CONCERNS THAT THE COUNTRY'S DEBT LOAD, ESPECIALLY AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL, WILL BE A SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER HINDRANCE TO GROWTH AND HENCE, CONCERN THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. This was paralleled by concerns that Chinese growth will likely slow down substantially more than previously expected, even as inflation remains stubbornly high. The result: a move wider in Chinese CDS in the past week whose severity was matched only by a similar move around the time of Lehman, when the world was widely seen as ending. Concerns that delusions about decoupling are precisely that (courtesy of 3 out of 4 BRICs printing a contractionary sub-50 ISM also led to the biggest drop in the Hang Seng index since 2001, after it tumbled 22% in Q3 as fears that a Chinese slow down would impact all developing economies with an emphasis on East Asia. Yet if a Hard Landing is all it took to disturb the precarious balance in which China always somehow always ride off into the sunset having rescued the entire world, we wonder what would happen if the market started expressing concerns that a Hard Landing is the optimistic case, and nothing short of a Crash Landing may be the baseline. Because according to the Economist, which informs us of a very TROUBLING DEVELOPMENT OUT OF CHINA IN WHICH FOREIGNERS MAY BE ABOUT TO FACE A NEW ENTITLEMENT FUNDING TAX FOR ALL DOMESTIC WORKERS BEGINNING OCTOBER 15, AND HENCE A SURGE IN OVERALL LABOR COSTS, then a "Crash Landing" may well be in the cards for the world's biggest marginal economy.
In "The Coming Squeeze ", the Economist writes that the "COST OF EXPATRIATE LABOR IN CHINA MAY BE ABOUT TO SOAR." THE REASON - A NEW TAX LEVIED ON FOREIGNERS TO FUND THE PERPETUALLY WEAKEST LINK OF CHINESE SOCIETY: ITS ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. "Officials have now unveiled some detailed rules which seem to require foreigners as of October 15th, to pay into China's public scheme that provides pensions, health care and unemployment benefits. The likely costs of the new measures are unknown. It is possible, but not certain, that foreigners will face stiffer taxes than locals. All that is clear, says KPMG, a tax consultancy, is that the law will squeeze both expats and their employers…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/out-hard-landing-pan-and-crash-fire-are-things-about-get-even-worse-china
We frequently think about China as a superpower, but it is a superpower with a lot of problems. The one child program they instituted has brought about an aging workforce and a need to find ways to pay for their entitlement programs. It appears the way they are looking to do it may kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Britain to Debate Leaving the EU
THE Daily Express crusade for Britain to quit the European Union scored a huge victory yesterday when MPs agreed to hold an historic debate on the issue.
It means Parliament will vote on whether there should be a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU.
And pressure intensified on DAVID CAMERON OVER EUROPE last night when an opinion poll showed that a massive 62 per cent of voters believe the time is right for an EU referendum.
The survey, by pollsters YouGov for the Vote UK Out Of EU Campaign, also FOUND THAT A MAJORITY OF VOTERS (51 PER CENT) WOULD VOTE YES TO BRITAIN CUTTING TIES WITH BRUSSELS FOR GOOD….
There is talk that the EU will revert back to a common market rather than a political entity.
Obama Scandal Update: Fast and Furious
Hardly a week passes now without some revelation about the Obama administration’s complicity in what may yet turn out to be one of the worst and most lethal scandals in American history: Operation Fast and Furious.
In a classic Friday document dump -- a sure sign of an administration with something to hide -- the feds released to congressional investigators a month’s worth of e-mail correspondence in the summer of 2010 between Bill Newell, then head ATF agent in Phoenix, and his friend Kevin O’Reilly, a former White House national-security staffer for North American affairs.
What do you know? AMONG THE E-MAILS WAS A PHOTOGRAPH OF A POWERFUL BARRETT .50-CALIBER RIFLE THAT HAD BEEN ILLEGALLY PURCHASED IN TUCSON AND RECOVERED IN SONORA, MEXICO, RAISING THE POSSIBILITY OF A SECOND “GUNWALKING” PROGRAM, THIS ONE CALLED “WIDE RECEIVER.”
Like Fast and Furious, the ATF-supervised scheme that saw thousands of weapons “walk” across the Mexican border for reasons no one in the Justice Department has yet satisfactorily explained, Wide Receiver was apparently a joint operation that also included the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the IRS and the US Attorney’s office.
IT’S LIKELY THERE HAVE BEEN OTHERS, IN SUCH STATES AS FLORIDA AND INDIANA….
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/furiously_unraveling_f6fpYY4OXSJg62rFIrFiUI#ixzz1Zj03fnhs
This could be the a major US scandal to rival Tea Pot Dome, Watergate, etc. If there are other such programs there will be a lot of explaining to do by Obama Administration officials.
This could be the a major US scandal to rival Tea Pot Dome, Watergate, etc. If there are other such programs there will be a lot of explaining to do by Obama Administration officials.
The Science is Settled: You’re too Stupid to Live
The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, HAS STUDIED THE PROBLEM OF HOW TO DISTRIBUTE ANTIBIOTICS IN THE EVENT OF AN ANTHRAX ATTACK. It’s a big problem, because, as the study confirms, the antibiotics have to be in people’s hands (mouths, really) within 48 hours of an attack. And it may take the government almost that long to realize we’ve been attacked. So, the scientists had a choice between recommending (1) A BIG GOVERNMENT SOLUTION, IN WHICH THE GOVERNMENT STOCKPILES THE ANTIBIOTICS, FLIES THEM TO THE AFFECTED AREA WHEN NEEDED, AND RELIES ON THE NEAR-BANKRUPT POSTAL SERVICE TO GET THEM TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN TIME, OR (2) LETTING PEOPLE HAVE (OR BUY) MEDKIT PACKETS OF ANTIBIOTICS TO STORE AT HOME FOR AN EMERGENCY.
The study was funded by HHS, so you won’t be surprised to discover that the Institute recommended (1) a Big Government solution. THE MAIN REASON IT GIVES IS THAT YOU AND THE REST OF THE PUBLIC ARE JUST TOO BONE STUPID TO BE TRUSTED WITH ANTIBIOTICS. But to spare your feelings, the Institute puts it this way: letting you have antibiotics raises “the potential for inappropriate use in routine settings (e.g., using the antibiotics to treat a cold) and the potential for widespread inappropriate use in response to a distant anthrax attack, a false alarm caused by a nonanthrax white-powder event, or some other public health emergency for which antibiotics are not indicated.”
But, really, “too bone stupid” is pretty much what they meant.
This is the National Academy of Sciences, of course, so they’ve got scientific evidence of our stupidity. Like, for example, THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL GAVE MORE THAN FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE IN ST. LOUIS SPECIAL ANTIBIOTIC MEDKITS TO HOLD FOR AN EMERGENCY. MONTHS LATER, THEY WENT BACK AND COLLECTED THEM. THEY COUNTED THE PEOPLE WHO HAD ENGAGED IN “INAPPROPRIATE USE IN ROUTINE SETTINGS.” AND THEY FOUND, UH, FOUR. NOT FOUR PERCENT, FOUR PEOPLE. That’s one-tenth of one percent, last time I looked.
Apparently we weren’t as dumb as the National Academy of Sciences would like to think, so they declared that this science wasn’t settled, in fact it wasn’t even worth thinking about. Why? Because participants were promised a $25 gift certificate if they completed the study. According to the NATIONAL ACADEMY’S REPORT, THIS PROMISE OF A GIFT CARD SO TANTALIZED THE UNWASHED MASSES THAT THEY PRETENDED TO BE LESS STUPID THAN THE SCIENTISTS KNOW WE REALLY ARE. SO THE STUDY DIDN’T COUNT…
This is pretty much the view of government employees. People are too greedy, too stupid, etc. and only when you become a government employee do you become smart and generous.
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