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Posts Tagged ‘obama’

Obama to negotiate with wildfire

Posted by Richard on October 5, 2010

This "Breaking News" parody is really funny because the premise is completely ridiculous, and yet in character. Enjoy!


[YouTube link]

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“You Picked a Fine Time to Lead Us, Barack”

Posted by Richard on September 30, 2010

For your musical entertainment and amusement, here's a pretty clever take-off on the old Kenny Rogers hit, "You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille." It's written and sung by Jonathan McWhite, accompanied by his brother David on guitar. Enjoy!

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Contempt for the people

Posted by Richard on September 29, 2010

Item: Senator Kerry blamed the waning fortunes of Socialist Democrats on clueless, ignorant voters who don't know what's best for them.

Item: Vice President Biden told his supporters to quit whining, suck it up, and work harder. 

Item: President Obama accused Socialist Democrat voters of being lethargic, irresponsible, and not serious. 

And that's just in the last few days.

I'll give the Socialist Democrat leadership this: Their arrogance and disdain for the common people is even-handed, showing no favoritism. They're just as contemptuous of the rabble who support them as they are of the rabble who oppose them.

The Wall Street Journal said these outbursts were from "the Chris Farley school of political motivation."

As their support ebbs and the adulation fades into history, our Socialist Democrat overlords seem less and less capable of hiding their contempt for the citizens subjects they consider themselves ordained to govern rule. Unfortunately for them, they need the support of these ingrates who don't sufficiently appreciate venerate them.

Fortunately for us lovers of liberty and for the country, their increasing arrogance, peevishness, and condescension seem more and more likely to translate into a great big electoral comeuppance. While calling your opponents names can sometimes pay off if it fires up your base, calling your base names seems to me to have no upside.

The Enthusiasm Gap by William Warren, GetLiberty.org

"The Enthusiasm Gap" by William Warren, GetLiberty.org

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Obama the keeper

Posted by Richard on September 28, 2010

Today in Albuquerque, President Obama said he embraced Christianity because it "spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead – being my brothers' and sisters' keeper …"

The problem is that to him the word "keeper" has approximately the same meaning that it has at the zoo. 

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An uhappy anniversary

Posted by Richard on September 23, 2010

The abomination known as Obamacare became law six months ago, and several new Obamacare mandates took effect today. Starting today, health insurance policies must cover "children" to age 26, provide a bunch of new "preventive care" coverage, and have no lifetime limits.Those of us who don't believe in the tooth fairy or free lunches know what that means: insurers' costs are going up, so our premiums are going up. Of course, the government could try forcing them to operate at a loss, but that's not working out too well in Massachusetts

Also, health insurers can no longer refuse to write a policy for a child with a pre-existing condition. Those of us who like to warn about the unintended consequences of attempting to legislate away reality predicted the result: insurers have stopped writing policies for children, period. 

Here are some interesting reads about this unfortunate anniversary: 

ObamaCare Is Six Months Old And The Obama Administration Wants Everyone To Know How Proud It Is

Top 10 Failures of ObamaCare After Six Months  

Democrats guess wrong on health care 

The President is wrong: ObamaCare harms our generation

How Seniors Will Pay for ObamaCare

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Let’s hope they play the Palin card

Posted by Richard on September 20, 2010

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic is urging the Obama administration to "play the Palin card," and Doctor Zero hopes they do. In a brilliant piece cross-posted at his blog and Hot Air, he offered a spot-on analysis of why doing so would be a big mistake for them and good news for the limited government, pro-freedom movement — and for Palin. The piece was linked by both Instapundit and James Taranto, and they both quoted a paragraph that's a truly wonderful rant. But it isn't just all rant.

The entire piece is excellent and quite insightful. I especially liked this:

I hope the White House takes Ambinder’s advice, because it would be suicidal.  His crack about Palin’s “reveling in the culture wars” betrays his ignorance.  He is confused by the details of her biography, and the sincere affection she earns from her admirers.  His Palin Card is drawn from the wrong suit.  She’s the Queen of Diamonds, not the Queen of Hearts.  Her most impressive statements over the last two years have been on matters of economics, policy, and politics.  She has shredded the Administration over health care, the Gulf oil spill, and unrestrained government spending.  She’s endorsed dozens of primary candidates, with something like a 70% success rate.  Her most notable clashes with “culture” have involved asking it to stop making rape jokes about her daughters.

And this (emphasis in original):

There are lots of colorful personalities making news during this election season, but these elections are not about personality.  Describing them as expressions of unreasoning anger against the Democrats underestimates the thoughtfulness and determination of the Tea Party movement.  Voters are not just looking for scapegoats to punish for a lousy economy.  They are preparing to act against the system itself, in a manner without precedent in modern history.  Palin understands this better than any other frontrunner for the 2012 Presidential nomination.  Her presumptive rivals have ties to various aspects of that system, as with Mitt Romney’s precursor to ObamaCare in Massachusetts.  Too many of them treat the repeal of ObamaCare as a sensitive topic, while Palin uses it as a battle cry.

Exactly. Read the whole thing.

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Obamaville

Posted by Richard on September 19, 2010

Paul Shanklin has been creating great musical parodies for almost two decades, many of them featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show. His latest is his best in years. Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure and amusement, here's George W. Bush (or someone like him) singing "Obamaville":


[YouTube link]

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The Obama spending binge in perspective

Posted by Richard on September 14, 2010

Here's a factoid I almost missed, and maybe you did too: In the first 19 months of the Obama presidency, the US government's publicly-held debt increased by more than it did under all presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan (emphasis added):

The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is “debt held by the public,” which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is “intragovernmental” debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for expenses other than Social Security.

At the end of fiscal year 1989, which ended eight months after President Reagan left office, the total federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan had accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That is $335.3 billion less than the $2.5260 trillion that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was inaugurated, and Aug. 20, 2010, the 19-month anniversary of Obama's inauguration.

Lots of change. Not much hope.

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The Pelosi recession

Posted by Richard on August 6, 2010

Every political pundit in the country will admit that presidents get too much credit when the economy is good and too much blame when it's bad. And then they'll promptly forget that. Everyone does it, myself included. For what seems like forever, pundits and politicians on the left and right have been blaming Bush and Obama, respectively, for the current economic mess. Certainly, both deserve blame, but neither deserves as much as he gets.

Bush was never much into fiscal discipline to begin with. And in his final three years — with his popularity sagging, his focus on turning things around in Iraq, and his own party in Congress abandoning whatever commitment to their professed principles they had, shoveling out pork by the ton, and wracked by scandals — he seemed to give up on the domestic front. His efforts to do something about Fanny and Freddie, for instance, were half-hearted at best. Eventually, to his shame, he bought into the neo-Keynesian clamor for stimulus and bailouts. 

Obama, in my opinion, deserves a larger share of blame because he isn't just going along with destructive economic policies, he's the author and chief advocate of them. In the Senate, he was one of those pushing Bush into the destructive decisions made in final two years, and in fact complaining that Bush wasn't spending, stimulating, and bailing enough.

But let's not forget that all spending bills must originate in the House and that Congress is the source of all legislation of any kind. A president can propose and can veto, but that's about it (to his further shame, Bush was unwilling to veto irresponsible spending bills, even when he was still popular and had majorities in Congress). 

So I suggest a little less blaming of Bush or Obama and a little more examination of the historical record. When did things really start falling apart and deficits start ballooning? Why, in 2007 (FY2008). After the Democrats regained control of the House.

Democrats will shout (they always shout) that Bush inherited a balanced budget and turned it into huge deficits. Yes, initially. In the wake of the 2000 dotcom collapse and 9/11 (you do remember 9/11, don't you?). But then, Bush did one great thing domestically: he vigorously fought for lower taxes. And in 2001 and 2003, the Republican Congress cut tax rates significantly. These were across-the-board rate cuts, not the kind of picayune targeted tax credits, picking winners and losers, that we get from the Democrats.

Critics have tried to rewrite history, but the 4 years after the first tax cuts took effect in mid-2002 were a period of remarkable economic growth, rapidly declining deficits, and historically low unemployment. I outlined the facts in July 2006 in a fine fisking, if I do say so myself, of a New York Times editorial. Read the whole thing, but here are some key facts: 

  • Annual GDP growth was 4%, well above the average since WWII.
  • Unemployment declined to 4.6%, well below the average for the preceding four decades.
  • Tax receipts were up by double digits each year, once again proving Arthur Laffer correct — tax rate cuts don't reduce revenue, they stimulate so much growth that revenue increases. (Some of us would argue that that's the dark cloud in the silver lining of tax cuts. 😉 )
  • The deficit declined from 4.5% of GDP ($450 billion) in FY2004 to 1.2% ($160 billion) in FY2007, and was on a glide path that would have balanced the budget by October 2008 (FY2009) had Congress not changed course.

The last time things were going nearly as well was in the years after the Republicans took over the House in 1994, before the "Gingrich revolution" fizzled and (like during the second Bush term) the Republicans lost their way. 

Bush bears responsibility for doing some good things and some bad things, and Obama bears responsibility for doing some bad things and some worse things. But the major responsibility for the fiscal and economic state of the nation always resides in Congress, and particularly in the House.

Things go to hell when the Republicans abandon their core principles and when the Democrats have the power to act on theirs.

If you have to hang a single individual's name on it, this is properly called the Pelosi recession. 

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Join the Obamacare Class Action lawsuit

Posted by Richard on July 31, 2010

Tennessee's attorney general refused to join the lawsuit filed by 22 states against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), a.k.a., Obamacare, a.k.a. the government takeover of health care. So East Tennessean Van Irion, a constitutional attorney admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, decided to file suit himself and invited other Tennesseans to join him in a class action. Soon, people from all over the country were asking to join, and Irion opened up the class to all Americans.

Read about the Obamacare Class Action and, if you like the idea, sign on. Irion is handling the case pro bono and covering the court costs, so it needn't cost you anything. But he does accept voluntary donations, and $10 is suggested. I love the idea (although I acknowledge it's a bit quixotic), because it aims at the heart of the problem: 

The Obamacare Class Action (OCA) is a Federal lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on the basis that Congress does not have the authority under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution to regulate the health care industry and is specifically barred from doing so by the 10th Amendment.

The OCA is unique among the many lawsuits filed against the PPACA. The 22 States that have joined lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of PPACA direct their challenges at the individual mandate to purchase health insurance and the unequal treatment of different groups. While we agree that these aspects of the PPACA are unconstitutional, and we encourage the States challenges, the OCA challenges the PPACA in its entirety.

… The OCA lawsuit seeks to re-establish the original meaning of the enumerated powers and of the 10th Amendment by re-establishing that the Commerce Clause was intended to allow Congress only the authority to prevent one state from creating trade barriers to doing business with another state.

The chances of success in the courts are slim. Nevertheless, I think the case is extremely worthwhile. Irion already has over 25,000 plaintiffs. If that number rises into six figures and the case draws significant public attention, it can be a wonderful educational opportunity.

Van Irion is also a candidate for Congress in Tennessee's heavily Republican 3rd District. He appears to be a long-shot in the crowded Republican primary for the open seat (incumbent Zach Wamp is running for Governor). But I wish this self-described "Constitutionalist" well.

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The Obama Snookigate controversy

Posted by Richard on July 30, 2010

During President Obama's appearance on The View, there was this exchange:

BEHAR: Should Snooki run as mayor of Wasilla?

OBAMA: I got to admit, I don't know who Snooki is. 

But as the Gawker noted, that contradicts history: 

… a mere two months ago he dropped Snooki's name in a White House Press Correspondents Dinner punchline about a health care provision named in honor of the hit MTV show. "It [the provision] reads, 'The following individuals shall be excluded from the indoor tanning tax within this bill: Snooki, JWOWW, The Situation and House minority leader John Boehner.'" So which is it, Obama? Do you know Snooki, or don't you? Clearly, this is the Watergate of our time, and America demands an answer.

We believe there are three explanations for Snooki-gate:

  • 1. He forgot Snooki. (Which is odd, because she's the kind of person who tends to get seared into your mind forever.)
  • 2. He is as ashamed of partaking in television's guiltiest pleasure as you are. His ignorance on The View was feigned.
  • 3. Obama's famously hip speechwriters got ahead of him and dropped a cultural reference he didn't understand for the sake of Beltway chuckles. He recited the joke without getting it, and promptly forgot its context as soon as it was over.

I vote for number 3. I think Obama's great talent lies in delivering a speech from a teleprompter, and I suspect his ability to do that extremely well doesn't really depend on him agreeing with or even understanding the words he's given to speak. 

But I could be wrong. Maybe he knew all about Snooki a couple of months ago, but has simply forgotten her completely in the meantime. 

Yeah, right. 🙂

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“We want to go back to work”

Posted by Richard on July 23, 2010

The Obama administration doesn't want a government of laws, it wants a government of men. And there's no better illustration of that than the ongoing struggle over off-shore drilling in the Gulf. Despite the fact that the administration's own hand-picked experts opposed a moratorium on deep-water drilling and in essence said the administration lied about their recommendations, despite the fact that two separate federal courts have slapped down the administration's moratorium, the administration merely rearranged a few commas in their edict, and the moratorium continues.

And it's not just the deep-water moratorium. By refusing to approve or renew permits and throwing up other regulatory and bureaucratic roadblocks, the Obama administration has also effectively imposed a moratorium on shallow-water operations — a moratorium that no reasonable person thinks makes sense. Because it fits their ideological agenda, and because they never want to let a crisis go to waste, the Obama administration has used the Deepwater Horizon spill to effectively end all energy production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yes, this is the same administration that dithered and delayed for weeks, refusing foreign assistance that could have ameliorated the situation. Ameliorating the situation wasn't their goal. Remaking the American energy economy was their goal. 

On Wednesday, over 11,000 people attended the Rally for Economic Survival in Lafayette, LA. Gov. Bobby Jindal was one of the speakers. Here is a portion of his remarks: 


[YouTube link]

More of Jindal's speech here. As he said, the oil rigs are already starting to leave the Gulf for places like Nigeria and Brazil. In the words of Bruce Springsteen, "these jobs are going, boys, and they ain’t coming back." President Obama isn't stupid or ignorant. These aren't unintended consequences, this is what he wants. 

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Obama nixed stealth fighter for Israel

Posted by Richard on July 14, 2010

The World Tribune reported on Monday that, according to unnamed diplomatic sources, President Obama denied Israel's request to buy F-15E stealth fighters and other weapons systems that had been approved by the Bush administration, but frozen by Obama (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has rejected another Israeli request for advanced combat platforms.

Diplomatic sources said Obama refused a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israeli access to a proposed stealth variant of the F-15E fighter-jet.

Netanyahu, during what was termed a tough and unpleasant session, failed to win Obama's agreement to approve the export of U.S. offensive systems, including combat jets and helicopters produced by Boeing.

The sources termed the 90-minute one-on-one session between Obama and Netanyahu as "tough", with the two men far apart on such issues as a Palestinian state in the West Bank as well as Iran. They said Obama warned Israel against any military strike on Iran and stressed that Washington would resolve Iran's nuclear threat through a mixture of sanctions and diplomacy.  

Oh, yeah — 'cause those sanctions are working so well. And Iran's crazed mullahs and Ahm-a-doin-a-jihad can't possibly resist sweet talk from Obama. 

President Obama also insisted that Israel must unilaterally give up the West Bank territories:

The sources said Obama also urged Netanyahu to accept Palestinian Authority conditions for the resumption of direct negotiations. One of the demands submitted by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was for Israel to agree to a full withdrawal from the West Bank before talks begin.

"There is very heavy pressure on Netanyahu to make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians," the source said.

Disgusting and contemptible.

For many years, Pius XII was called "Hitler's Pope" because he didn't speak out against the Nazis. (His reputation has recently been rehabilitated, thanks to evidence that he helped get as many as 200,000 Jews out of Germany after Kristallnacht.) 

If in the coming years, Tel Aviv gets nuked, the blood of millions of Jews will be on this president's hands. And he will be known as "The Islamofascists' POTUS."

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First woman president

Posted by Richard on July 1, 2010

Remember when Toni Morrison declared that Bill Clinton was our first black president? Well, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker does. And she's now upped the ante and declared Barack Obama our first female president. Really.

If I were Hillary Clinton and saw that column, I'd throw up.

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Turning an accident into a catastrophe

Posted by Richard on June 28, 2010

In a Financial Post column, Lawrence Solomon provided much more detail about the Dutch offers for help in the Gulf oil spill that I posted about ten days ago. It's clear now that the Obama administration has turned an accident into a catastrophe that could have been averted (emphasis added):

Some are attuned to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off. Others are unprepared for risk and even unable to get their priorities straight when risk turns to reality.

The Dutch fall into the first group. Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a major spill, one much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway. “Our system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour,” Weird Koops, the chairman of Spill Response Group Holland, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide, giving each Dutch ship more cleanup capacity than all the ships that the U.S. was then employing in the Gulf to combat the spill.

To protect against the possibility that its equipment wouldn’t capture all the oil gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, the Dutch also offered to prepare for the U.S. a contingency plan to protect Louisiana’s marshlands with sand barriers. One Dutch research institute specializing in deltas, coastal areas and rivers, in fact, developed a strategy to begin building 60-mile-long sand dikes within three weeks.

… The U.S. government responded with “Thanks but no thanks,” remarked Visser, despite BP’s desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer — the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment — unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn’t good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per millionif water isn’t at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it.

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer — but only partly. Because the U.S. didn’t want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels. And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

There's more. Far superior Dutch dredging vessels aren't being permitted to build protective berms. Instead, the Dutch have been asked to train Americans to do the work. The Dutch are perplexed.

To be fair, Solomon noted that the US also turned down Dutch help with the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. "Not invented here" syndrome and an inability to get priorities straight aren't unique to the Obama administration. Although I'd argue that in the wake of this unprecedented accident, they've taken insane environmentalism, protectionism, and loyalty to their labor union base to new heights. Or depths, depending on your perspective. 

(HT: Carpe Diem)

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