Monday, March 26, 2012

The Politics gets dialed up

What’s new Today

Story #1relates a rally over the weekend in Washington by the Tea Party to repeal Obamacare.  #2 talks about Obama’s etch-a-sketch moment.  #3 codifies the left’s process they use to try and get what they want.  #4 compares Obama’s new video with one done by the Gipper in 1984.  #5 give us a glimpse of Obama’s planned tactics against Governor Romney.  I hope you like my answer to his charges.  #6 is the first news on hearing about Obamacare in the Supreme Court and my prediction of how is will turn out.  #7 is a good example of how the left views free speech.  And #8 is the strangest political video I’ve seen. 



1.  Rally to Repeal Obamacare

…the Tea Party Patriots did a great job organizing today’s rally in Washington DC. Thousands of people turned out in the rain stayed for the over two hour rally. And after the last speaker Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) led the crowd over to the Supreme Court Building.

Tea Parties have gathered in Washington D.C. for the Rally to Repeal Obamacare. Herman Cain and Jim Hoft were some of the speakers at the rally….


After seeing what the Democrats were planning is great to see the Tea Party out again. 





2.  Obama’s Etch-a-Sketch moment

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

When asked to explain what President Obama meant, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes told ABC News that there is room for the U.S. and Russia to reach an accommodation, but “there is a lot of rhetoric around this issue — there always is — in both countries.


The big difference is that Romney’s etch-a-sketch moment was said by an aide and it meant the Romney would tell people what he plans to do before the election.  Obama’s was said by himself and indicated that he wouldn’t tell the American people what he plans to do before the election. 



3.  Liberal technique to get what they want

…Most of us are rational human beings, able to look at both sides of an issue and make the right choice. So how is it that the libs get remarkably bad policy through congress? Well, if you think about it their MO has changed very little since Woodrow Wilson, and it goes something like this:

  1. Create a victim (blacks, illegal immigrants, college students w/o birth control, Gaia, etc.)

  2. Exaggerate the plight of the victim (Protests, get on friendly media, protests some more, etc.)
  3. Find a villain you can blame the plight of the victim on (Big Oil, big banks, big coal, rich, Koch Brothers, big insurance etc.)
  4. Demagogue the villain (Fat-cat bankers, fat-cat oil execs, fat-cat fill in the blank).
  5. Get your way!
  6. Rinse and repeat


Don't believe me? Let's take the Sandra Fluke nonsense as one example. Nancy Pelosi wants abortions. I truly believe she thinks that killing babies is good policy but let's leave that for another post. Pelosi wants free birth control right? But if she just asks for it rational folks would tell her to take a hike. So what did she do: Check out the bullet points above:

  1. Got a victim? (Poor broke college student who can't afford to have sex) Check!

  2. Exaggerate the issue? ($3,000/year for condoms) Check!
  3. Got a villain? (Big bad insurance companies/Republicans) Check!
  4. Demagogue the villain? (Republicans WAGE WAR ON WOMAN'S HEALTH!) Big time check!
  5. Get your way? Well we'll see...



I thought this was very insightful.  It is the way they do it. 





4.  It’s not “Morning in America” in Obama’s video

President Barack Obama's 17-minute video, "The Road We've Traveled," gives us an idea of how he wants to frame the issues in the fall election.

The first thing you notice about the video is that the atmosphere is dark, wintry, minor key. You see but don't hear the election night crowd in Grant Park, and then the video switches to graphics about the economic meltdown that followed the financial crisis of 2008.

There are gloomy scenes throughout. Obama's economic advisers arrive in a bleak Chicago after a snowstorm. The president is shown in the Oval Office through a window at night.

The visuals are oddly antique for a president who promised hope and change. When narrator Tom Hanks talks of the "middle class," we see downscale neighborhoods with houses built in the 1910s or 1920s. When he talks about economic recovery, we see an early 1950s Ford coming off the assembly line…

For a contrast, look at the 1984 Reagan campaign's "Morning in America" ad. The narrator, ad man Hal Riney, has a soothing voice like Hanks', but his message is vastly more upbeat. America is "prouder and stronger and better," he proclaims, because of the policies of President Reagan.

You see more flags than you do in the Obama video, more smiles, couples at the altar. It looks like springtime and is filled with light.


The grey and dark tones of Obama’s video may be a Freudian slip.  Perhaps he is portraying that it is evening in Obama’s America. So much for Hope and Change, it’s now Excuses and Blame. 





5.  It’s Mitt’s Fault

In an interview with Public Radio International that was released Thursday, Obama attacked his likely GOP opponent in the fall, Mitt Romney, on the subject of healthcare, an area that could be a weakness for the Republican front-runner.

Obama said the law Romney signed as governor of Massachusetts was a model for his federal law, and accused the Republican of “pretending" he came up with a different plan.

"We designed a program that actually previously had support of Republicans — including the person who may end up being the Republican standard-bearer and is now pretending like he came up with something different," Obama said...


This is very weak.  It is the equivalent of a kid explaining why he failed an exam by saying, “I copied from the wrong person.”





6.   SCOTUS starts to hear the arguments on Obamacare

The Supreme Court plunged into debate Monday on the fate of the Obama administration's overhaul of the nation's health care system, starting with pointed questions about a legal issue that could derail the case.

A decision is expected by late June, in the midst of a presidential election campaign in which all of President Obama's Republican challengers oppose the law and promise its repeal if the high court hasn't struck it down in the meantime.

With demonstrators chanting outside, eight of the nine justices fired two dozen questions in less than a half hour Monday morning at Washington attorney Robert Long. He had been appointed by the justices to argue that the case has been brought prematurely because a law bars tax disputes from being heard in the courts before the taxes have been paid.

"Only Justice Clarence Thomas was silent," CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen said. "He hasn't asked a question in six years, and no one expected him to start today."

The prematurity issue is significant because the key part of the law -- the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty on their taxes -- doesn't take effect until 2014, CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford reports.

At issue is whether that penalty is a tax.

One federal appeals court ruled the lawsuits should wait until the law actually takes effect. But even if the Supreme Court agrees, the justices this week will go ahead and hear all the other arguments against the law.

Some of the justices reacted skeptically to the idea that the penalties encapsulated in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were actually a tax.

"What is the parade of horribles?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor, if the court decides that penalties are not a tax and the health care case goes forward? Long suggested it could encourage more challenges to the long-standing system in which the general rule is that taxpayers must pay a disputed tax before they can go to court.

Outside the court building, about 100 supporters of the law walked in a circle holding signs that read, "Protect my healthcare," and chanting, "Care for you, care for me, care for every family." A half-dozen opponents shouted, "We love the Constitution!"…


FYI.  Nothing significant will be known until June.  My prediction is that this objection to the suit loses, the mandate loses, but the court won’t strike down the entire law allowing the election to settle that. 







7.  Leftwing student:  “Free speech to me, but not for thee”

Steven Landsburg, the professor who was denounced by his university for criticizing Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, stuck to his position in an exclusive interview with The College Fix.

“Everyone deserves respect, but some people are not interested in discussing their ideas, or possibly examining a different side,” said Landsburg, a bestselling author and professor of economics at the University of Rochester. “Fluke clearly has no desire to do this.”

Fluke, an advocate for mandatory insurance coverage of birth control, was called a “slut” by Rush Limbaugh. On his blog, The Big Questions, Landsburg wrote: “While Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position… deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered… I expect there are respectable arguments for subsidizing contraception, but Ms. Fluke has made no such argument.”

His opinion sparked controversy at the University of Rochester. Student protesters entered Landsburg’s mid-afternoon lecture and formed a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, between him and the class. Landsburg continued to lecture. The students distributed fliers that read: “We denounce professor Steven Landsburg’s attempt to smear a gender with derogatory terms.”


Can you image how universities would react if right winged students did this to a left wing professor?  I imagine there would be some suspensions and/or probation of those students for disrupting their fellow students’ rights to learn. 

If you would like to read Professor’s Landsburg’s blog, you can here.






8.  A very Strange Video


No wonder small businesses are not reproducing like rabbits right now. 


No comments:

Post a Comment