Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Failure



What’s New Today

Story #1 tells us of Obama’s dismal record.  #2 reviews 10 questionable tactics Obama is using.  #3 explains why Obama is not telling people the truth   #4 and #5 looks at Obama’s defense for the “you didn’t built it,” comment saying that it was taken out of context.  The problem is in context it is even worse.  #6 has Dick Morris looking at Obama’s diving favorability ratings.  #7 is an editorial finding Obama among the worst presidents ever.  #8 Diane Feinstein has come out accusing the White House of being responsible for some of the National Security leaks.  #9 reports on a CBO study that finds the rich haven’t been getting richer while the poor and the middleclass get poorer.  #10 reviews Obamacare and sees how the law of unintended consequences is in full bloom with this disaster. 


Today’s Thoughts

In an effort to make good on President Barack Obama’s commitment to “green energy,” the United States Air Force spent $639,000 on 11,000 gallons of alcohol-to-jet fuel from Gevo Inc., a Colorado biofuels company, at $59 a gallon.  No wonder the deficit is in the trillions.  

"There you go again." (Reagan to Jimmy Carter in a debate)  This is one quote Romney should use in the upcoming presidential debates.

Elton John praised former President George W. Bush and “conservative American politicians” for pledging billions of dollars to “save the lives of Africans with HIV.”

Barack Obama Constitutional scholarWell, Oakland, this is my last political campaign. It is -- no, it’s -- I promise you, I’m term-limited after this.”  That’s true only if he wins which is highly unlikely. 



1.  Obama’s dismal record

…Surprise is the beginning of wisdom, and President Obama and his campaign so far are deeply surprising. His presidency is a basket case, a failure with a capital F, and yet he is neck-and-neck with Romney. The only comparable failure since World War II was Jimmy Carter’s—and Carter, its true, gave Reagan a tough race in 1980. But Carter at least attracted a stiff primary challenge from Edward Kennedy. And voters were scared of Carter’s opponent (the terrifying extremist Ronald Reagan); they might not be inspired by Romney, but they are comfortable with him. Obama’s showing this year is a surprise from many angles.

The utter failure of this president is rank. History’s most expensive plan ever for buying your way out of recession barely propelled the economy uphill, and now, in a squeal and stench of smoking tires, the Obama Special (sweating, straining, roaring, leaking dollars) is slipping back down again. The president’s signature approach to governing is to ram through some wildly-unpopular measure and then take a bow as the audience hoots. He did it with his famous unreform of healthcare, and again with the blocked Keystone pipeline. His attorney general would be a joke if he weren’t so dangerous, but Obama likes him. The president did give up such unpopular ideas as closing Guantanamo, card-check, a criminal trial for KSM in Manhattan à la P.T. Barnum, cap-and-trade–but only because there was no way to push these things through. (Although when Obama can govern by decree instead of by legislation, he is only too happy. Legislation has always struck him as a monumental bore.)

Iran disdainfully snubs him, Russia snubs him, Europe ignores him, the Israelis can’t stand him, the world grows more dangerous by the hour. He did indeed take out Osama, and has moved aggressively to kill terrorists. But any other president would be deemed to have turned these victories into defeats by his tone-deaf campaigns afterward to squeeze out maximum political gain–as if he had killed Osama himself, bare-handed. The cost to US intelligence sources or the dignity of the office matters nothing, evidently, as the Obamiacs mash every last drop of juice out of the pulp. In fact this is a man to whom “cost” seems like a foreign concept, a word he has never learned….


Obama’s presidency is a failure.  The question in this article is what keeps Obama afloat.  As the country’s first African American President, the left as disappointed as they’ve been, have stuck by him.  There was no challenge.  But for the rest, Obama’s dropping like a stone in a lot of polls in the big area, confidence in his ability to handle the economy.  He loses big in November. 



2.  Top 10 Questionable Tactics from the Obama Campaign

The president will say anything to get re-elected and his strategy includes this list of outright falsehoods, distortions, smears and lies.

1. Make wild charges
President Obama’s campaign team’s incessant attacks on Romney’s record at Bain Capital are a textbook example of trying to divert attention by exaggerating and distorting their opponent’s record. With the assistance of the mainstream media, President Obama is trying to make Romney look like the second coming of Simon Legree, with his campaign going so far as to accuse Romney of committing felonies.

2. Lie about opponents
At this stage in the race, desperate Democrats are starting to make things up. At a Democratic fundraiser in Seattle, Vice President Joe Biden tried to slip an outright falsehood past the crowd. Citing efforts in several states to cleanse voter rolls of the dead and felonious, Biden said, “Republicans have changed the law so you get arrested if you do vote.”

3. Play the blame game…


Numbers 1 and 2 are the biggest staple of his campaign.  The truth doesn’t work for Obama since the truth shows nothing but failure.  So he lies


3.  Obama lies because He’s got nothing else

Running far less on his own record than against that of his opponent, President Obama has latched on to Mitt Romney’s career in venture capitalism as a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

These desperate times for Americans have called forth desperate measures from an incumbent weighed down by an 8.2% unemployment rate and the barest flicker of job growth. Say, why not suggest that Romney could even be a felon? Oh, right, an Obama aide did that.

Masterfully and disappointingly, the President’s campaign is branding Romney as a rich (repeat, filthy rich) corporate buccaneer who made a fortune sending jobs overseas and bankrupting companies.
In states where voters are in neither camp solidly — the crucial swing states — Obama is executing a distort-and-destroy media blitz. A primary goal in campaign-speak is to “define” Romney as not just out of touch, but as an agent of fat cats who want to take everything.

Secondarily — never mind the results of his almost four years in office — Obama is trying to frame the campaign as a referendum on a clash between a compassionate there-for-you Democrat and Republican forces that would strip government bare to get theirs.

The rhetoric distills to class warfare and is intended to deflect discussion of how exactly Obama would rev the economy any better in a second term. Follow his logic, and you arrive at the extreme Obama reached in a speech in Virginia, where he described how “wealthy, successful” Americans achieved their standing.
“I’m always struck by people who think, ‘Well, it must be because I was just so smart,’ ” he said. “There are a lot of smart people out there. ‘It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.’ Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”…

Lies, lies and more lies.  The last statement I highlighted is going to be with Obama for the rest of the campaign.
.
4.  The Context Was Worse Than the Quote

Many conservatives didn’t think Mitt Romney was a good spokesman for our movement, but the fact is that right now, he, more than anyone else, is lifting high the banner of free enterprise and American tradition. Democrats have tried to defend “you didn’t build it” by suggesting that Obama’s pronouncement was taken out of context. But on Larry Kudlow’s TV show, Romney made the same point we have made here: the context was worse than the quote. To fully appreciate how bad it was, you have to read or watch the entire speech:..


You can watch the segment here by clicking on the link.


5.  More on Context Being Worse than the Quote
 
Romney at the 2002 Olympics

“You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power,” said Romney, who on Friday will attend the Opening Ceremonies of this year’s Summer Olympics. “For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities. All right! [pumps fist].”

See? Romney once admitted that Olympians attained their athletic prowess with the help of others -- so he's just like Obama!  What a thoroughly imbecilic comparison.  Nobody disagrees that people tend to succeed with the help of others.  Obama just thinks that all private and individual success is attributable to government, and therefore the government has the right to redistribute ever-larger portions of successful people's earnings.  And I must have missed the part of Romney speech when he sneered at elite athletes for believing their achievements to be the result of their own tireless work and God-given talent.  I also missed the passage in which Romney demands that they redistribute their medals.  (Hey, it's only "fair").  The uncomfortable reality for the Left is that Obama revealed his true colors in his Roanoke speech, and Romney isn't going to let him wriggle off the hook.


The left is going nuts about this “out of context” quote.  This means that they are getting hurt by it.  The problem they have is that what Romney is saying is true while much of the charges that Obama is putting forth have been debunked by even left wing media.


6.  Obama favorability rating dives

His personal favorability, once a strong point for Obama, has vanished and is now being replaced by a personal dislike that is dragging him down.

These data, buried deep in the latest NY Times/CBS poll (of registered voters, not likely voters) are both stark and important. In April, Obama had a 42-45 favorable/unfavorable rating, itself a shock given his vastly higher favorable ratings only a few months before. Now, he has a favorable rating of only 36% and an unfavorable rating of 48%.

The NY Times poll showed Romney getting 47% of the vote compared to 46% for Obama (again, this poll is of registered voters, likely voter polls are more pro-Romney). So that means that one-quarter of Obama’s voters do not give him a favorable rating – a danger sign for the president.

What is most notable about this statistic is that it is not due primarily to the bad economy. While the Times poll showed that the percent of voters who feel he is doing a good job in handling the economy has dropped to 36%, Obama’s ratings in this category have been low for some time. The drop in favorability is new.

Rather the cause of his decreased likeability is his negative campaigning, both in person and on the air. He is now no longer the sunny, optimistic, friendly person he portrayed himself as being in 2008. Instead, a nasty, surly, angry image has taken over.

This change is at the heart of Obama’s dilemma. The more he goes negative, the more he hurts himself in the process and undermines the reservoir to good will that has sustained him through tough economic times…

We have over 100 days and Obama campaign is stuck on negative, nasty, and lying about Romney.  These will take their toll and Obama will lose big in November. 

7.  Presidential Busts: Barack Obama

He took office at a time when the U.S. economy was on its worst slide in 75 years, but pushed policies using borrowed money that were more meant to preserve government jobs than broadly help the private sector where the great majority of Americans work, ensuring the jobs crisis continued.
He railed against the heavy spending and big deficits of his predecessor, but blithely backed budgets that had triple the deficits ever seen in American history.

He promised a smart, sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care system, but ended up giving us a Byzantine mess promoted to the public with myths: that offering subsidized care to tens of millions of people would save money; that people would keep their own doctors; that access to care wouldn’t change; and that rationing would never happen.

He promised a more sophisticated approach to the economy than that of his predecessor, but had so little common sense that his health law actually gave businesses a big financial incentive to discontinue providing health insurance to their employees.

He offered hosannas to genius entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs in his prepared remarks, but when speaking off the cuff betrayed his faculty-lounge view of the world, saying of businesspeople, “if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.”

He swore to bring overdue oversight and honest accounting to the corporate world, but made flagrantly dishonest claims about General Motors paying back its government loans that would have triggered a criminal fraud investigation in the private sector.

He promised to set a high new standard for ethics in the White House, but used a baffling claim of executive privilege to shield his embattled attorney general from the repercussions of a cover-up involving the death of a federal law enforcement officer.
 
He denounced his predecessor for permitting harsh interrogation tactics with suspected terrorists, but once in office somehow concluded that a better, more moral approach would just be to use drones to assassinate such suspects without getting any information from them….


A well written piece if you are republican or at least you’ve been awake the last three and one half years.  It not, you are in denial.

8.  Feinstein:  Some leaks coming from the White House

The Democratic leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday that the White House appears to be responsible for some leaks of classified information.

"I think the White House has to understand that some of this is coming from their ranks," Sen. Dianne Feinstein told a World Affairs Council forum.

The California lawmaker said she was certain that President Barack Obama, who receives a daily intelligence briefing, isn't disclosing secret information, but she was uncertain about others at the White House. "I don't believe for a moment that he goes out and talks about it," she said.

Republicans have criticized the disclosures, arguing that members of the Obama administration were intentionally leaking classified material to enhance the president's reputation in an election year. Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two attorneys to lead the investigation into who leaked information about U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and about an al-Qaida plot to place an explosive device aboard a U.S.-bound airliner.

That hasn't satisfied some Republicans who have pressed for a special prosecutor….

What’s been remarkable is how the Democrats have stayed so loyal to this White House despite the overwhelming failure of its policies.  Is this a first crack in that loyalty?

9.  CBO Report on Income Distribution

There has been a lot of class-warfare talk from Barack Obama and his cohorts in the media (and Bane, in The Dark Knight Rises) that either intimates or baldly states that the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, and the gap between them is ever-widening in America.  In addition, talk has been bandied about that the rich pay less taxes than the rest of Americans. But according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), neither of these leftist canards is true.

Between 2007 and 2009, (once the Democrats took over Congress and the recession started) the earnings accrued after taxes by the top 1% of wage earners fell 37%. And even before taxes their earnings fell 36%. Meanwhile, the lowest 20% of earners saw their income grow by 3%, while the middle class dropped a modest 2%. This means that the incomes of the top 1% fell 18 times more than middle class incomes. In 2007, the top 1% earned 16.7 percent of all after-tax income, but by 2009, it had shrunk to 11.5%.
So while the rich saw their fortunes plummet, the poor gained, and the middle class treaded water. So much for an ever-widening gap. And as far as the amount paid in taxes, the top 1% paid an average of 28.9%, while the middle class paid 11%...


I think the left actually believes this hype.  Facts are not their strong suit.


10.Obamacare and the law of unintended consequences
What has also been hardly mentioned about the high court’s decision is its effect on a tax in Obamacare that could have a powerful — and for some, fatal — impact on Americans at any age.
In a recent story (“House Acts to Repeal Medical-Device Tax,” The New York Times, June 8), Robert Pear, whom I’ve found to be the most credible reporter on health care issues, tells of the House voting to repeal a tax on medical technology industries that would amount to $29 billion over the next 10 years. This vote came before the Supreme Court ruling.
“The tax,” Pear wrote, “would apply to manufacturers and importers of devices like pacemakers and stents, defibrillators, artificial hips and knees, surgical tools and X-ray machines.”…
…And with the tax on medical devices in Obamacare unimpeded by the Supreme Court ruling, here’s a current example of a lifesaving medical device that will get hit with a tax increase:
In November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an innovative product called the Sapien Transcatheter Heart Valve, for the treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis. The Sapien valve can be implanted endoscopically, making it a boon for patients who are too sick to endure open-heart surgery” (“FDA Approvals Are a Matter of Life and Death,” The Wall Street Journal, Andrew von Eschenbach and Ralph Hall, June 18).
But because of a longtime outmoded FDA regulatory process, “The Sapien valve has been available in Europe since 2007, saving lives there but not here.”
Now even more Americans will be denied the Sapien valve than before with the excise tax burden on medical devices taking effect in January 2013.
Noted the Times’ Pear: “In anticipation of the tax, some manufacturers (of medical devices) have announced plans to lay off workers or reorganize operations.”
But even before the tax was revealed, there were warnings from health care researchers that U.S. patients were dying unnecessarily because of stark FDA delays. And, according to the Wall Street Journal report: ….



No comments:

Post a Comment