Story #1 is a speech by Mitt Romney at ASNEC which he nails the Obama Presidency. #2 looks at how the MSM differs in charges by the left vs the right. Calling Obama a socialist is bad, but Obama’s calling Ryan’s plan social Darwinism is endorsed by the NYT. #3 illustrates Obama’s real weakness. #4 looks at the President’s claim to be for “all of the above” in energy. That is a crock. #5 is a funny clip from Jon Stewart. #6 is a new reason to get rid of the DDT ban.
1. Romney zeroes in on Obama
From a speech at the ASNEC:
President Obama’s comments to President Medvedev are deeply troubling. That incident calls his candor into serious question. He does not want to share his real plans before the election, either with the public or with the press. By flexibility, he means that “what the American public doesn't know won't hurt him.” He is intent on hiding. You and I will have to do the seeking...On what other issues will he state his true position only after the election is over? But instead of answering those vital questions, President Obama came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making – and criticized policies no one is proposing. It’s one of his favorite strategies – setting up straw men to distract from his record. And while I understand why the President doesn’t want to run on his record, he can’t run from his record either. As I have said many times before, the President did not cause the economic crisis, but he made it worse. He delayed the recovery, and made it anemic. When he took office, millions of Americans looked to him to turn around the economy and lead us back to full employment. He failed these Americans. The first three rules of any turnaround are focus, focus, and focus ... The President's attention was elsewhere--like a government takeover of healthcare and apologizing for America abroad.
...Through it all, President Obama has failed to even pass a budget. In February, he put forward a proposal that included the largest tax increase in history, and still left our national debt spiraling out of control. The House rejected it unanimously ... Of course, no fiscal challenge is greater than the one we face with entitlements. As the President himself acknowledged three years ago, this is not a problem that we can kick down the road any further. I’d be willing to consider the President’s plan, but he doesn’t have one. That’s right: In over three years, he has failed to enact or even propose a serious plan to solve our entitlement crisis. Instead, he has taken a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it.
A couple of months ago, we saw a fascinating exchange on Capitol Hill that epitomized not only this administration’s inaction on entitlements, but also its appalling lack of leadership. The President’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was testifying before Congress. And Congressman Paul Ryan – who, unlike this President, has had the courage to offer serious solutions to the problems we face – was pressing Geithner on the administration’s failure to lead on entitlement reform. Geithner's response was this: “We are not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.” Take a moment and think about that: We don’t have a solution. All we know is we don’t like yours. It almost makes one long for the days when the President simply led from behind.
...Through it all, President Obama has failed to even pass a budget. In February, he put forward a proposal that included the largest tax increase in history, and still left our national debt spiraling out of control. The House rejected it unanimously ... Of course, no fiscal challenge is greater than the one we face with entitlements. As the President himself acknowledged three years ago, this is not a problem that we can kick down the road any further. I’d be willing to consider the President’s plan, but he doesn’t have one. That’s right: In over three years, he has failed to enact or even propose a serious plan to solve our entitlement crisis. Instead, he has taken a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it.
A couple of months ago, we saw a fascinating exchange on Capitol Hill that epitomized not only this administration’s inaction on entitlements, but also its appalling lack of leadership. The President’s Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was testifying before Congress. And Congressman Paul Ryan – who, unlike this President, has had the courage to offer serious solutions to the problems we face – was pressing Geithner on the administration’s failure to lead on entitlement reform. Geithner's response was this: “We are not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long term problem. What we do know is we don’t like yours.” Take a moment and think about that: We don’t have a solution. All we know is we don’t like yours. It almost makes one long for the days when the President simply led from behind.
Romney nailed it in this speech and in doing so has nailed Barack Obama to the failed policies he has implemented.
2. Socialism vs Social Darwinism
The arbiters of appropriate expression in America get very exercised when conservatives call Barack Obama a “socialist.” They treat the claim in the same way as calling Obama a Muslim, Kenyan, or “the anti-Christ.”
But headlines this week report that President Obama accused the Republicans of “social Darwinism,” and I don’t see anyone exercised about that. A New York Times editorial endorses the attack.
Is “social Darwinist” within some bound of propriety that “socialist” violates? I don’t think so. After all, plenty of people call themselves socialists — not President Obama, to be sure, but estimable figures such as Tony Blair and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Members of the British Labour Party have been known to sing the socialist anthem “The Red Flag” on the floor of Parliament.
But no one calls himself a social Darwinist. Not now, not ever. Not Herbert Spencer. The term is always used to label one’s opponents. In that sense it’s clearly a more abusive term than “socialist,” a term that millions of people have proudly claimed….
It’s just more of the same from the left. Rules for Radicals tells leftists to make your opponents live up to their standards. But the left doesn’t seem to have any standards to live up to. So they can pretty much call their opponents any names and then turn around and tell the same person, “Don’t you dare say that.”
3. Rasmussen and the Undecided Voters
As Mitt Romney assumes the role of presumptive Republican nominee, polls suggest a competitive general election matchup between the former Massachusetts governor and President Obama. Typically, both candidates poll in the mid-40s, while 10 to 12 percent remain uncommitted to either side.
Among these uncommitted voters, Rasmussen Reports polling shows that just 22 percent approve of the way the president is handling his job. Seventy-two percent (72 percent) disapprove. As for intensity, just 2 percent strongly approve, and 40 percent strongly disapprove…
Obama is toast.
4. All of the above? Not really
…Yes, Obama still says he's in favor of an all-of-the-above energy policy, but that hasn't slowed him down in his pursuit of his very-few-of-the-above policy.
Back in 2008, then-Sen. Obama explained that under his energy plan, electricity prices would "necessarily skyrocket."
The explosion in costs wouldn't be a bug of his plan either, but a feature. The idea under so-called cap-and-trade is that if you tax fossil fuels, you will, over time, reduce the use of fossil fuels. It's really basic economics. One wishes the president saw the logic of this proposition when it came to taxing business and investment as well. But that's a topic for a different column.
The president's defenders have long complained that it's unfair to dredge up this old sound bite, particularly in a climate of gas-price outrage, because Republicans -- and a lot of Democrats -- successfully prevented cap-and-trade from ever becoming law.
Absent cap-and-trade, they claim, he is pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy. Coal! Oil! Natural gas! Solar! Wind! And, of course, algae, algae, algae! We're doing it all, Obama says.
Just the other day, Vice President Joe Biden insisted that "our energy policy's the best it's ever been." Why? Because, he said, we're doing "everything," i.e., all of the above, to make energy affordable.
Except that's simply not true. It's not remotely true. A new rule from the Obama administration's EPA will, according to an Associated Press analysis, force 32 mostly coal-fired power plants to shut down and threatens to close 36 others. Moreover, the new "blackout" rule will effectively prevent the creation of any new coal-fired plants in America unless they adopt new technologies that will make it unprofitable to burn coal at all. So there's that…
… But forget coal. What about oil? The president killed the Keystone XL pipeline. After the BP oil spill, his administration overruled its own panel of experts to implement a moratorium on offshore drilling (while suggesting it was the experts' idea). Obama wants to revoke "subsidies" for oil companies, which are in fact the same tax write-offs that any business gets. He takes credit for the increase in oil drilling on U.S. soil but leaves out that drilling on federal and American Indian lands has gone down under his administration. He also forgets to mention that he opposes drilling off the mid-Atlantic coast, the Florida coast, the full Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or in the Rockies…
Obama’s forward looking agenda includes going back to trains, windmills, and growing algae for fuel. Sometimes self-parody seems to be a permanent feature of leftist ideology.
5. Government Scandals
John Stewart skews the GSA and even gives Fox News a “well done.” Of course he was in tears when he said it. This is a fun video to watch.
6. Malaria may be back
Millions of lives are at risk as one of the best drugs used to treat malaria is losing its potency, say experts.
Resistant strains of the deadliest and most common form of the disease have been confirmed on the border of Thailand and Burma.
Tests revealed that the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum has undergone a genetic change making it resistant to artemisinin, one of the world's most popular drug treatments….
It’s time to end the ban on DDT.
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