Most of us are amused at the recent outing of global warming types, caught cooking the facts. As Doug Giles put it, "... for the power brokers of this hot earth heresy there is just way, way too much money to lose and control to be forfeited for them to concede that their leaders have been lying SOBs." Indeed. Few reasonable folk ever took these thugs seriously anyway (I myself drive an ‘87 Ford 150 Global Warmer and yet sleep well. I’d take a blow torch to the nearest iceberg if I could get at it.)
Alarmists have come and gone over the ages. Anyone past puberty understands this. And most also understand, all but the willfully blind that is, that these types are almost always wrong. Their track record stinks.
For example, Gary Sutton, in a recent edition of Forbes reminds us of a very recent time, conveniently forgotten by the warmers. He recalls that, "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported 'many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age.'"
"Science mag’s prediction of 'A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age,' came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the 'global cooling' in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue"'.
Whoa now! Desperate armadillos then, polar bears on their last ice chunk now.
And so it goes. But since folks forget, the left gets away with this garbage, sort of a rolling cycle of deceit.
Why do they do it? Let us look to the warmers for a clue.
Do the climate thugs really believe this stuff, the politicians, the "scientists" connected at the groin to the gov’t grant machine? Many of their flock do, taking anything the DNC feeds them as gospel. We know several. What about the manipulators themselves, the equivalent of warm-earth prostitutes - Gore (John Stewart pointed out on the Daily Show last week the irony that what Internet Al invented only debunked his global warming bunk.) Reid, the UN, all the rest? Most know better but they don’t really care, not as long as their flock can be trained to serve. Their quite transparent goal in this case - a one-world government.
Indeed, the warming heist is not really about our environment at all (nor the health heist about health). Weather, health issues - simply vessels, vehicles to carry the left’s agenda. Just the perfect fit for more bureaucracy, for more gov’t, the perfect excuse to dumb down a free society, to get between you and your choices.
Robert Craven
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Fun With The Locals
Here in Marin County a news sheet called the Pacific Sun ran a story on a local opera composer, one Ron MacFarland. Seems MacFarland’s last work was based on the Donner Party. Well, Mac Farland shopped his creation to all the likely candidates - the JC College of Marin, the upscale Dominican College, all the elite of education. All he got was rejection. The Sun’s writer Jason Walsh marvels at what happened next. "Oddly enough," he writes (then with regrettable diction continues), "the relatively conservative-leaning students at Chico State were known for their openness to modern opera and after digesting the idea of a Donner Party opus, the university agreed to stage the world premier."
"Oddly enough"?! This is not only profiling, it reflects a profound lack of original scholarship on the part of Walsh. But rare? Not by a long shot.
We have been the target of similar profiling, a friend from the left wondering how in the world we could have such an interest in nature, animals, how we could approach the world in a gentle way, and yet be a conservative? What?
Naive in the case of Walsh? Probably. As to our friend, well......
Let’s return again to Marin County and its San Geronimo Valley, a area simply infested with lefties, and then to its Lagunitas Creek, were there has been a 10- fold decline in the salmon population, past 30 years. Seems the county proposes the creation of a 35 ft no-build zone between the creek and homes nearby with the welfare of one of nature’s most beautiful creatures in mind. The so-called Salmon Enhancement Plan is simply a series of voluntary recommendations for locals to contribute to restore habitat for migrating fish. The locals, most all rabid Democrats and all self-proclaimed environmentalists, will have none of it, fearing it may become law, and prevent them from paving driveways, repairing docks, enlarging their homes, and otherwise seeing to their self interest. They’re outraged!
Phonies? Definitely.
Or again to Marin - an acquaintance, a major lefty who pumps water all summer out of a creek which is home to endangered salmon and steelhead. Now that doesn’t seem a fit to the average guy. But we’re likely missing something. He does it legally (grand fathered) or he would have long ago begun taking his meals through a slot. The individual and creek will remain unnamed in the interest of retaining my health.
Can we catagorize this guy? No, better not, he’s a friend. But it’s clear why he is a card carrying member of the chattering class.
Or again to blatant profiling, and again to San Anselmo; this time to the long-time companion of a well known song writer / performer; he, a one-time member of the Kingston Trio, then on to his own creations. I spent some time this week with Buffy in her garden, reminiscing about the songs and the man - John Stewart. He was a major lefty but a great artist. He worked with Bob Kennedy and was there when he died.. We never judged him; we never profiled him. Not so for the left. Buffy marveled as we walked through her garden, that "even Bob Bennet loved John’s stuff," as if to say, this is an amazing achievement for neanderthals.
All the oddities of behavior noted above, all from the local left, reflect the following: 1) a lack of scholarship, 2) a vulnerability to group-thought and the accompanying lack of original insight, 3) the use of words as ornaments, tokens, and finally 4) a demonstrated vacuity of follow through or commitment to the spoken word, that which most of us associate with our pronouncements or positions.
Robert Craven
"Oddly enough"?! This is not only profiling, it reflects a profound lack of original scholarship on the part of Walsh. But rare? Not by a long shot.
We have been the target of similar profiling, a friend from the left wondering how in the world we could have such an interest in nature, animals, how we could approach the world in a gentle way, and yet be a conservative? What?
Naive in the case of Walsh? Probably. As to our friend, well......
Let’s return again to Marin County and its San Geronimo Valley, a area simply infested with lefties, and then to its Lagunitas Creek, were there has been a 10- fold decline in the salmon population, past 30 years. Seems the county proposes the creation of a 35 ft no-build zone between the creek and homes nearby with the welfare of one of nature’s most beautiful creatures in mind. The so-called Salmon Enhancement Plan is simply a series of voluntary recommendations for locals to contribute to restore habitat for migrating fish. The locals, most all rabid Democrats and all self-proclaimed environmentalists, will have none of it, fearing it may become law, and prevent them from paving driveways, repairing docks, enlarging their homes, and otherwise seeing to their self interest. They’re outraged!
Phonies? Definitely.
Or again to Marin - an acquaintance, a major lefty who pumps water all summer out of a creek which is home to endangered salmon and steelhead. Now that doesn’t seem a fit to the average guy. But we’re likely missing something. He does it legally (grand fathered) or he would have long ago begun taking his meals through a slot. The individual and creek will remain unnamed in the interest of retaining my health.
Can we catagorize this guy? No, better not, he’s a friend. But it’s clear why he is a card carrying member of the chattering class.
Or again to blatant profiling, and again to San Anselmo; this time to the long-time companion of a well known song writer / performer; he, a one-time member of the Kingston Trio, then on to his own creations. I spent some time this week with Buffy in her garden, reminiscing about the songs and the man - John Stewart. He was a major lefty but a great artist. He worked with Bob Kennedy and was there when he died.. We never judged him; we never profiled him. Not so for the left. Buffy marveled as we walked through her garden, that "even Bob Bennet loved John’s stuff," as if to say, this is an amazing achievement for neanderthals.
All the oddities of behavior noted above, all from the local left, reflect the following: 1) a lack of scholarship, 2) a vulnerability to group-thought and the accompanying lack of original insight, 3) the use of words as ornaments, tokens, and finally 4) a demonstrated vacuity of follow through or commitment to the spoken word, that which most of us associate with our pronouncements or positions.
Robert Craven
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Judgement
The stars aligned perfectly for BO. He became president.
The stars are no longer in formation. Beyond grand announcements and slick speeches, he has yet to accomplish anything of substance. Obama has done nothing, past nine months, but disappoint his followers and cheer his critics.
Obama has demonstrated that which we highlighted early on as his critical flaw - a chronic lack of judgement.
For starters, he misjudged his mandate. He is an extremist, an inexperienced far-left ideologue elected 75% on political correctness and 25% on a sour economy. He figured that somehow a country that is just a tad right of center gave him some kind of go-ahead on deficits, spending, nationalized health care, cap-and-trade, voting "present" of Afg., etc. He figured Congress would pass his bills redefining America. He figured he’d stay in campaign mode, berating Bush for all his problems. But while campaigning could center around soaring rhetoric, governing is altogether messier. It involves tough, unpopular choices. It requires doing things rather than talking about them. BO has shown little appetite for this.
Now, BO’s ratings have tanked.
Next, in response, and again demonstrating a lack of judgement, he has resorted to cynicism and slander, a real live sycophant residing squarely in the WH.
In just nine months the phrase "Chicago style" has gone from something old-time that evokes Al Capone or Mayor Daley to something very real, contemporary, and scary — David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and BO. As Kim Strassel noted in the WSJ, "a White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn't, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns against the other side."
BO’s administration tries to strong-arm the opposition, demonize the media, and manipulate government largesse to either penalize or reward recipients on the basis of their degree of support for Obama.
But are we surprised? When a man has spent his entire adult life as a community organizer in the precincts of Chicago, it should hardly be news, as Mark Steyn notes, "that much of his Rolodex is made up of either loons or thugs." The trick is identifying who falls into which category. Anita Dunn, the Communications Director commending Mao Zedong as a role model to graduating high school students, would seem an obvious loon. But the point about Mao, as Charles Krauthammer noted, is that he was the most ruthless imposer of mass conformity in modern history: In Mao's China, everyone wore the same clothes. Steyn continues, "So when Communications Commissar Mao Ze Dunn starts berating Fox News for not getting into the same Maosketeer costumes as the rest of the press corps, you begin to see why the Chairman might appeal to her as a favorite 'political philosopher'". My, my.
And most of the rest are nuts too. There might be one statement like Van Jones’s slander of "white people," or Sonia Sotomayor’s "wise Latina" boast, or Anita Dunn’s lengthy praise of the mass-murdering Mao, but not an entire series of them? At some point, the American public snaps out of it, and sighs, "Whoa now, three more years?"
Finally, he’s tough with his domestic opponents, sure. What a man. But the strange disparity between the heavy-handed community organization at home and the flaccid representation abroad risks making the commander-in-chief look like a weenie — like "President Pantywaist," as Britain’s Daily Telegraph has taken to calling him. Exactly so. Our point all along folks.
This week WH communications director Dunn extolled that the Obama image is intact. "He's who he has always been."
Indeed he is.
Robert Craven
The stars are no longer in formation. Beyond grand announcements and slick speeches, he has yet to accomplish anything of substance. Obama has done nothing, past nine months, but disappoint his followers and cheer his critics.
Obama has demonstrated that which we highlighted early on as his critical flaw - a chronic lack of judgement.
For starters, he misjudged his mandate. He is an extremist, an inexperienced far-left ideologue elected 75% on political correctness and 25% on a sour economy. He figured that somehow a country that is just a tad right of center gave him some kind of go-ahead on deficits, spending, nationalized health care, cap-and-trade, voting "present" of Afg., etc. He figured Congress would pass his bills redefining America. He figured he’d stay in campaign mode, berating Bush for all his problems. But while campaigning could center around soaring rhetoric, governing is altogether messier. It involves tough, unpopular choices. It requires doing things rather than talking about them. BO has shown little appetite for this.
Now, BO’s ratings have tanked.
Next, in response, and again demonstrating a lack of judgement, he has resorted to cynicism and slander, a real live sycophant residing squarely in the WH.
In just nine months the phrase "Chicago style" has gone from something old-time that evokes Al Capone or Mayor Daley to something very real, contemporary, and scary — David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and BO. As Kim Strassel noted in the WSJ, "a White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn't, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns against the other side."
BO’s administration tries to strong-arm the opposition, demonize the media, and manipulate government largesse to either penalize or reward recipients on the basis of their degree of support for Obama.
But are we surprised? When a man has spent his entire adult life as a community organizer in the precincts of Chicago, it should hardly be news, as Mark Steyn notes, "that much of his Rolodex is made up of either loons or thugs." The trick is identifying who falls into which category. Anita Dunn, the Communications Director commending Mao Zedong as a role model to graduating high school students, would seem an obvious loon. But the point about Mao, as Charles Krauthammer noted, is that he was the most ruthless imposer of mass conformity in modern history: In Mao's China, everyone wore the same clothes. Steyn continues, "So when Communications Commissar Mao Ze Dunn starts berating Fox News for not getting into the same Maosketeer costumes as the rest of the press corps, you begin to see why the Chairman might appeal to her as a favorite 'political philosopher'". My, my.
And most of the rest are nuts too. There might be one statement like Van Jones’s slander of "white people," or Sonia Sotomayor’s "wise Latina" boast, or Anita Dunn’s lengthy praise of the mass-murdering Mao, but not an entire series of them? At some point, the American public snaps out of it, and sighs, "Whoa now, three more years?"
Finally, he’s tough with his domestic opponents, sure. What a man. But the strange disparity between the heavy-handed community organization at home and the flaccid representation abroad risks making the commander-in-chief look like a weenie — like "President Pantywaist," as Britain’s Daily Telegraph has taken to calling him. Exactly so. Our point all along folks.
This week WH communications director Dunn extolled that the Obama image is intact. "He's who he has always been."
Indeed he is.
Robert Craven
Thursday, October 22, 2009
There's Nothing There
Obama’s half black; he’s a slick speaker. That delivers in this society. He became a cult figure - coeds swooning in the aisles. Political correctness and a sour economy propelled this guy to the presidency. The swooning coeds voted for him, but so did a lot of very reasonable people. And now? Now they find that they have - right, just another politician. Or worse. Not even that - a void.
We find him almost boring. His presidency represents a distillation of the time-worn ideas of the northeastern liberal aristocracy/media confab - Stalin’s "useful idiots". Obama is nothing more than a cliche’ of all their pathologies.
His speech and demeanor - simply a mask for his lack of substance. Worse, he is petty. Joining for example in the skirmish between race profiler Bates and the law. Or trying to intimidate a news agency. Or just yesterday, telling his money-giver fans that Republicans "just kinda sometimes do what they are told." (Recall Bush ever criticizing Dem’s?)
Some leaders find BO personally engaging, but, they no longer believe what he says. Foreign powers don’t take him seriously. Abroad, there is the same commonsense intuition that most of us have, that something about the president’s talk does not quite seem right. From our neighbor Vic Hansen, "One or two apologies might convey magnanimity; three or more reveal obsequiousness. Apologizing to a cranky neighbor for mowing on a Sunday morning is wise; apologizing to the entire block for an array of past sins does not just ensure ridicule, but could prove downright dangerous."
His performance for example before the UN was an embarrassment. (Our lefty friends would agree with John Bolton's indictment – that this was a post-American speech by a post-American president – but mean it as high praise. Hah!) As one UK observer noted, "He can inspire crowds in Berlin but - sad to say - he also needs to show that he can pack a punch." There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing. He is the subject of jokes and derision back stage, world politics. As well he should be. He sounds good but carries no heft.
Now, even liberal columnists are sounding increasingly skeptical about the individual they once supported. Witness Richard Cohen in the Wash Post, who wrote that Obama, "inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the later, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama." Those who understand the makings of diplomacy understand that the president of the United States needs to show, at least sometimes, that he can inspire fear as well as affection.
Even his strengths have begun to look like weaknesses. His eloquence from a public platform has begun to contrast with his failure to get things done behind the scenes. There is no there there.
BO was greeted like a rock star by the Olympics delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and was a major blow for BO at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance. See what we mean?
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonizing by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after it was set.
This has all added to the growing perception that Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough. It's almost sad to witness the left continue to fish for excuses for behavior which they know in their collective little heart, is not defensible.
Three more years? We are in trouble.
Robert Craven
We find him almost boring. His presidency represents a distillation of the time-worn ideas of the northeastern liberal aristocracy/media confab - Stalin’s "useful idiots". Obama is nothing more than a cliche’ of all their pathologies.
His speech and demeanor - simply a mask for his lack of substance. Worse, he is petty. Joining for example in the skirmish between race profiler Bates and the law. Or trying to intimidate a news agency. Or just yesterday, telling his money-giver fans that Republicans "just kinda sometimes do what they are told." (Recall Bush ever criticizing Dem’s?)
Some leaders find BO personally engaging, but, they no longer believe what he says. Foreign powers don’t take him seriously. Abroad, there is the same commonsense intuition that most of us have, that something about the president’s talk does not quite seem right. From our neighbor Vic Hansen, "One or two apologies might convey magnanimity; three or more reveal obsequiousness. Apologizing to a cranky neighbor for mowing on a Sunday morning is wise; apologizing to the entire block for an array of past sins does not just ensure ridicule, but could prove downright dangerous."
His performance for example before the UN was an embarrassment. (Our lefty friends would agree with John Bolton's indictment – that this was a post-American speech by a post-American president – but mean it as high praise. Hah!) As one UK observer noted, "He can inspire crowds in Berlin but - sad to say - he also needs to show that he can pack a punch." There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing. He is the subject of jokes and derision back stage, world politics. As well he should be. He sounds good but carries no heft.
Now, even liberal columnists are sounding increasingly skeptical about the individual they once supported. Witness Richard Cohen in the Wash Post, who wrote that Obama, "inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the later, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama." Those who understand the makings of diplomacy understand that the president of the United States needs to show, at least sometimes, that he can inspire fear as well as affection.
Even his strengths have begun to look like weaknesses. His eloquence from a public platform has begun to contrast with his failure to get things done behind the scenes. There is no there there.
BO was greeted like a rock star by the Olympics delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and was a major blow for BO at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance. See what we mean?
Meanwhile, America and its allies are being forced to witness a very public agonizing by Mr Obama and his advisers over his Afghan strategy — six months after it was set.
This has all added to the growing perception that Obama’s soaring rhetoric — which captured the imagination during last year’s election — is simply not enough. It's almost sad to witness the left continue to fish for excuses for behavior which they know in their collective little heart, is not defensible.
Three more years? We are in trouble.
Robert Craven
Thursday, September 17, 2009
RACE
Well folks, told you so. (Don’t you hate that?) Recall our earlier comment - The Big Gun - that if things went poorly for the president or other prominent blacks he/they, his handlers, his party, the media, academics and sophisticates everywhere would retreat to race? Presto! Carter and Clinton were just the latest to pull that trick. But right here in Marin (surprise!), in an email from the left we are instructed that the Republican party, "...is being hijacked by small minded racists who are terrified by the concept of a black man calling the shots." Naturally. Who are these racists? And terrified of what? And why from an otherwise reasonable individual, this blatant profiling (the same individual, profiling like no other, marveled that the guy in the ACORN sting was white and the staff fell for it - oh, all pimps are black?)?
Suddenly our society is polarized over race (meaning blacks). Witness the following from one Gerald Ensley, writing for a Tallahassee paper, "So know that when you call Barack Obama a ‘socialist,’ the rest of us are thinking: ‘There goes a racist.’ Because that's what all this is about. There is a segment of the population that simply can't accept a black man was elected president of the United States. So they express their contempt by calling him a socialist because they know they can't say the N-word in public. And they think the rest of us don't know the difference.’" This is laughable; Ensley has the makings of a moron.
We don’t personally know any racists. For folks we know, including blacks, race is incidental. It’s not a big deal. Who cares? That’s true for most Americans, most of whom are sick and tired of this topic, who simply want to get on with key issues in their lives. Quit the whining. We’re all created just about the same, no better nor worse than the other guy. You’re a black, Latino, Indian or white, have a problem? Fine, look within, then get your butt in gear. You’re capable. You think you need special treatment? You think folks are picking on you cause of your color? Come on. Take a look at the color of our president. Get a life.
There is an element however which by its very need to survive must convince a segment of our society that it in fact does need help, that it is handicapped, persecuted and that only this element can provide succor. This element has just kicked its operation into high gear. This element is the Democratic Party. Our view is that Democratic party policy is key to understanding this "problem" of race.
DNC policy is racist. Not of course the in-your-face variety but in a sickly-sweet, obsequious, pandering sort of way. In singling out the black community as one in constant need of protection and dumbed-down standards, as a community which gets a pass on bad behavior for something that happened 150 +/- years ago, the DNC is practicing the most insipid, the most nefarious form of racism imaginable. They are using blacks as pawns. The "problem" is manufactured by the DNC. They lose blacks as a constituency and they’re out of luck. Unfortunately - many blacks fall for it.
Some moderate Democrats see through this nonsense, but adherents from the far left (Marin County for example) simply parrot what’s fed them by a party owned by extremists.
Naturally the left will deny such a thesis, that it is absurd and a lie on its face, that it is the Democrats which have husbanded the black population all along. How dare we? Well, let’s take a look at this good ‘ol party.
The truth can be difficult. The Democratic party’s racism through the 19th century was not abstract at all - slavery was literally part of the platform (The Republican party was formed as the anti-slavery party.). These slavers were up front, not phonies as they are now. One of these was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slaver but also the most brilliant cavalryman of all time. He was a Democrat; he got rich trading slaves; and, he darn near saved it for the South (he would have if Jeff Davis had listened). Then slavery would continue to be part of their platform.
To distinguish Forrest from modern day Democrats - he was honest. Forest has been replaced in the party structure by the likes of Pelosi, Bates, Carville, Rangell, Wright and now - Carter and Clinton. These clowns know that race provides a great backstop in case all else goes wrong - our Big Gun. And these types also know that they enable, and then fetch a good portion of the black population by taking this stand. Thus, in the fine style of J. Jackson, they proceed.
Forrest and Calhoun are gone now, only to have been replaced with race baiters. For them, blacks provide the vehicle. They have a higher purpose. And, they’re disgusting.
Robert Craven
Suddenly our society is polarized over race (meaning blacks). Witness the following from one Gerald Ensley, writing for a Tallahassee paper, "So know that when you call Barack Obama a ‘socialist,’ the rest of us are thinking: ‘There goes a racist.’ Because that's what all this is about. There is a segment of the population that simply can't accept a black man was elected president of the United States. So they express their contempt by calling him a socialist because they know they can't say the N-word in public. And they think the rest of us don't know the difference.’" This is laughable; Ensley has the makings of a moron.
We don’t personally know any racists. For folks we know, including blacks, race is incidental. It’s not a big deal. Who cares? That’s true for most Americans, most of whom are sick and tired of this topic, who simply want to get on with key issues in their lives. Quit the whining. We’re all created just about the same, no better nor worse than the other guy. You’re a black, Latino, Indian or white, have a problem? Fine, look within, then get your butt in gear. You’re capable. You think you need special treatment? You think folks are picking on you cause of your color? Come on. Take a look at the color of our president. Get a life.
There is an element however which by its very need to survive must convince a segment of our society that it in fact does need help, that it is handicapped, persecuted and that only this element can provide succor. This element has just kicked its operation into high gear. This element is the Democratic Party. Our view is that Democratic party policy is key to understanding this "problem" of race.
DNC policy is racist. Not of course the in-your-face variety but in a sickly-sweet, obsequious, pandering sort of way. In singling out the black community as one in constant need of protection and dumbed-down standards, as a community which gets a pass on bad behavior for something that happened 150 +/- years ago, the DNC is practicing the most insipid, the most nefarious form of racism imaginable. They are using blacks as pawns. The "problem" is manufactured by the DNC. They lose blacks as a constituency and they’re out of luck. Unfortunately - many blacks fall for it.
Some moderate Democrats see through this nonsense, but adherents from the far left (Marin County for example) simply parrot what’s fed them by a party owned by extremists.
Naturally the left will deny such a thesis, that it is absurd and a lie on its face, that it is the Democrats which have husbanded the black population all along. How dare we? Well, let’s take a look at this good ‘ol party.
The truth can be difficult. The Democratic party’s racism through the 19th century was not abstract at all - slavery was literally part of the platform (The Republican party was formed as the anti-slavery party.). These slavers were up front, not phonies as they are now. One of these was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slaver but also the most brilliant cavalryman of all time. He was a Democrat; he got rich trading slaves; and, he darn near saved it for the South (he would have if Jeff Davis had listened). Then slavery would continue to be part of their platform.
To distinguish Forrest from modern day Democrats - he was honest. Forest has been replaced in the party structure by the likes of Pelosi, Bates, Carville, Rangell, Wright and now - Carter and Clinton. These clowns know that race provides a great backstop in case all else goes wrong - our Big Gun. And these types also know that they enable, and then fetch a good portion of the black population by taking this stand. Thus, in the fine style of J. Jackson, they proceed.
Forrest and Calhoun are gone now, only to have been replaced with race baiters. For them, blacks provide the vehicle. They have a higher purpose. And, they’re disgusting.
Robert Craven
Monday, September 14, 2009
Swept Away
Many of our acquaintances are Democrats. These friends are hard workers, good citizens, good people, and patriots. As patriots they love their country; they would never entertain a notion of doing her harm.
Nor is there any umbrage directed towards their neighbor. They don’t for example feel an obligation to email their neighbor’s thoughts on health care to the White House. Instead, they believe - to each his own.
To them, color and creed are incidental. They are not racists and cannot imagine any system or party platform based on subjugation of a race or religion. They are not race baiters. They believe, as Lincoln said, that, "You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred."
They accept responsibility for their lives, its errors and successes and expect others to do likewise. They have learned to make tough decisions. They are not victims and do not respect those who pretend to be. They’re honest; they pay their taxes. They are not union thugs, felons or community shake-down artists.
They believe in a strong national defense. They support the US military’s role.
Most believe in personal liberty and initiative. Most understand that, as Lincoln said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich," and that, "You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves." Thus, they do not believe in strong-arming free enterprise to meet quotas set by Washington.
They want control over their prodigy; they love their kids and feel it is their responsibility, not some bureaucrat’s, to parent. Being parents, they have learned to respect life.
What then for goodness sake do they have in common with what has become the Democratic Party!? Are they confused? Are they naive? If not, the only other answer would be that they are phonies. We can reject that. Truth is they are caught in a rip tide, a gentle tugging but something stronger than they are, even though they don’t realize it yet; their fate, unless they are smart enough to call for help, is to be swept away.
Their party was hijacked years ago by the far left. Most with any sense of history whatsoever acknowledge that. Yet there is a disconnect. They are in denial. The present Democratic party machine is arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans - people just like them. They pretend it is their party. This is a fantasy. It is the party of an upper class elite, top heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers who believe in big government solutions to every problem, and, KEY - all of whom know better than the unwashed.
From our own personal experience, it is clear that these middle class Democrats are complacently servile toward this group, toward DNC party authority; they automatically believe, or pretend to believe everything party leaders tell them. That may have worked before when the Democratic president governed from the near center. With an extremist at the helm, they had better know how to swim.
Robert Craven
Nor is there any umbrage directed towards their neighbor. They don’t for example feel an obligation to email their neighbor’s thoughts on health care to the White House. Instead, they believe - to each his own.
To them, color and creed are incidental. They are not racists and cannot imagine any system or party platform based on subjugation of a race or religion. They are not race baiters. They believe, as Lincoln said, that, "You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred."
They accept responsibility for their lives, its errors and successes and expect others to do likewise. They have learned to make tough decisions. They are not victims and do not respect those who pretend to be. They’re honest; they pay their taxes. They are not union thugs, felons or community shake-down artists.
They believe in a strong national defense. They support the US military’s role.
Most believe in personal liberty and initiative. Most understand that, as Lincoln said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich," and that, "You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves." Thus, they do not believe in strong-arming free enterprise to meet quotas set by Washington.
They want control over their prodigy; they love their kids and feel it is their responsibility, not some bureaucrat’s, to parent. Being parents, they have learned to respect life.
What then for goodness sake do they have in common with what has become the Democratic Party!? Are they confused? Are they naive? If not, the only other answer would be that they are phonies. We can reject that. Truth is they are caught in a rip tide, a gentle tugging but something stronger than they are, even though they don’t realize it yet; their fate, unless they are smart enough to call for help, is to be swept away.
Their party was hijacked years ago by the far left. Most with any sense of history whatsoever acknowledge that. Yet there is a disconnect. They are in denial. The present Democratic party machine is arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans - people just like them. They pretend it is their party. This is a fantasy. It is the party of an upper class elite, top heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers who believe in big government solutions to every problem, and, KEY - all of whom know better than the unwashed.
From our own personal experience, it is clear that these middle class Democrats are complacently servile toward this group, toward DNC party authority; they automatically believe, or pretend to believe everything party leaders tell them. That may have worked before when the Democratic president governed from the near center. With an extremist at the helm, they had better know how to swim.
Robert Craven
Monday, September 7, 2009
Vetting and Obama
This young administration has been plagued with vetting problems. (Webster defines vet the verb or vetting as,"to inspect or examine with careful thoroughness.") The latest in a long line, the appointment of the racist and fruitcake Mr. Van Jones certainly failed that criteria. But where resides the most glaring vetting failure of all? In the lap of those who voted for Obama. NOW WAIT. My cousin usually has to edit out these parts but this time, stay with us friends of the left, don’t change pages, hang on for just a sec. You’re up to the challenge. None of us is perfect. You can handle it. No offense intended but you screwed up royally and got us all in a hell of a mess.
Obama’s behavior has been entirely consistent with his past. He is no charlatan in that respect. The problem is that most who voted for him failed to do their homework, or, willfully blind in the voters both, did not care. It is crystal clear now that these types simply made someone of whom they knew very little, into someone else - a fictitious character the press ushered to market with the help of a sour economy and political correctness - a someone they wanted him to be.
It is the duty of every citizen of age to vote responsibly; it is an affront to the Constitution, the XV and XIX Amendments and an insult to the Founders if they do not. But how could any American pull the switch for Obama knowing his surrogate father figure was Frank Marshall Davis, an avowed Communist? How could any American pull the switch for Obama knowing that Obama served as a committed trainer for Community activist and Marxist Saul Alinsky? How could most vote for Obama when they knew he sat for nearly two decades at the feet of the racist "Rev" Wright, an angry anti-American? How could any American vote for Obama knowing his close relationship with 1) convicted domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, or 2) with PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi?
How could anyone not a mobster vote for Obama when they knew he was in league with the Chicago community shake-down machine? And before, he and his wife as one observer put it, were nothing if not quintessential Ivy League "Oppression Studies majors" with (carefully concealed) "attitudes." Is that what they voted for?
How could anyone vote for Obama knowing Obama's voting record in the Senate, and as part of that, knowing he stonewalled intended reform of the twins (Fannie/Freddie) which would have prevented our financial crisis? How could anyone but a socialist vote for Obama when Obama has demonstrated he is a socialist through and through, or as Vic Hansen observes, "When one collates that revelation with Obama's own off-handed ‘spread the wealth’ comment, his 'fair share' sermons, and his 2001 public radio interview thoughts on ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society,’ we begin to see a pattern in which one’s income and wealth do not properly belong to the earner, but are seen as illegitimate and thus legitimately can be redistributed to others."
Did they know? A slim few who voted for Obama did know, did know what they were doing but socialists and anarchists thank goodness are still a rare commodity in these United States. The rest, maybe 85%? They failed to vet, our guess.
Robert Craven
Obama’s behavior has been entirely consistent with his past. He is no charlatan in that respect. The problem is that most who voted for him failed to do their homework, or, willfully blind in the voters both, did not care. It is crystal clear now that these types simply made someone of whom they knew very little, into someone else - a fictitious character the press ushered to market with the help of a sour economy and political correctness - a someone they wanted him to be.
It is the duty of every citizen of age to vote responsibly; it is an affront to the Constitution, the XV and XIX Amendments and an insult to the Founders if they do not. But how could any American pull the switch for Obama knowing his surrogate father figure was Frank Marshall Davis, an avowed Communist? How could any American pull the switch for Obama knowing that Obama served as a committed trainer for Community activist and Marxist Saul Alinsky? How could most vote for Obama when they knew he sat for nearly two decades at the feet of the racist "Rev" Wright, an angry anti-American? How could any American vote for Obama knowing his close relationship with 1) convicted domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, or 2) with PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi?
How could anyone not a mobster vote for Obama when they knew he was in league with the Chicago community shake-down machine? And before, he and his wife as one observer put it, were nothing if not quintessential Ivy League "Oppression Studies majors" with (carefully concealed) "attitudes." Is that what they voted for?
How could anyone vote for Obama knowing Obama's voting record in the Senate, and as part of that, knowing he stonewalled intended reform of the twins (Fannie/Freddie) which would have prevented our financial crisis? How could anyone but a socialist vote for Obama when Obama has demonstrated he is a socialist through and through, or as Vic Hansen observes, "When one collates that revelation with Obama's own off-handed ‘spread the wealth’ comment, his 'fair share' sermons, and his 2001 public radio interview thoughts on ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society,’ we begin to see a pattern in which one’s income and wealth do not properly belong to the earner, but are seen as illegitimate and thus legitimately can be redistributed to others."
Did they know? A slim few who voted for Obama did know, did know what they were doing but socialists and anarchists thank goodness are still a rare commodity in these United States. The rest, maybe 85%? They failed to vet, our guess.
Robert Craven
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Health "Reform" - As The Dust Settles
All but the far left (those who hijacked the Democratic party 35 years ago) are now running from Obama’s beast, many of these claiming they never really were fond of the now-infamous "public option" in the first place. Hah! What we have just witnessed folks, that demonstration from the masses that they don't like being taken - a truly magnificent event. There are many features of BO’s bill voters don’t like but the stealth single payer option was too much. Obama’s effort was such an obvious lie that its perfidy palled after it ceased to be amusing. The American people have done a tremendous job in educating their elected leaders of the fact that they have no desire for government-run health care. The unwashed, bless their hearts, knew BO’s attempted end run would do exactly that. Distilled to the core - THEY DON’T WANT RATIONING.
As the dust settles around this issue we find a changed America, both in the general sense, and the specific. As to the first, from the David Brooks Op-Ed column in the NYT’s : "The public has soured on Obama’s policy proposals. Voters often have only a fuzzy sense of what each individual proposal actually does, but more and more have a growing conviction that if the president is proposing it, it must involve big spending, big government and a fundamental departure from the traditional American approach."
As to the second, more and more Americans simply want an improvement on what they’ve got. Few claim we have a problem with the quality of health care for the simple reason that we don't. They do want better insurance prices and better availability - competition for goodness sake will see to that in a jiffy. There are a legion of observers who have suggested ways that the delivery of insurance can be improved (detailed in earlier blogs). And any fool knows that the first step to better cost control is tort reform, always blocked by the Democrats. Don’t take our word for it. Howard Dean, the former chairman of the DNC and an enthusiastic backer of Obama's health reform initiative, gives us this, "The reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on," Dean said at a town hall meeting in Virginia last week. Too much.
Sure, the Democrats will try another way to get government between you and your body; they can’t help it. This stuff is pre-programmed in them. Some fear they will be successful. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Robert Craven
As the dust settles around this issue we find a changed America, both in the general sense, and the specific. As to the first, from the David Brooks Op-Ed column in the NYT’s : "The public has soured on Obama’s policy proposals. Voters often have only a fuzzy sense of what each individual proposal actually does, but more and more have a growing conviction that if the president is proposing it, it must involve big spending, big government and a fundamental departure from the traditional American approach."
As to the second, more and more Americans simply want an improvement on what they’ve got. Few claim we have a problem with the quality of health care for the simple reason that we don't. They do want better insurance prices and better availability - competition for goodness sake will see to that in a jiffy. There are a legion of observers who have suggested ways that the delivery of insurance can be improved (detailed in earlier blogs). And any fool knows that the first step to better cost control is tort reform, always blocked by the Democrats. Don’t take our word for it. Howard Dean, the former chairman of the DNC and an enthusiastic backer of Obama's health reform initiative, gives us this, "The reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on," Dean said at a town hall meeting in Virginia last week. Too much.
Sure, the Democrats will try another way to get government between you and your body; they can’t help it. This stuff is pre-programmed in them. Some fear they will be successful. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Robert Craven
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Ted revisited
We are reminded that "Ted changed so many lives," and in so doing resurrected himself in the image of an advocate for the little guy; therefore he should be forgiven for that "mishap on the bridge".
An advocate for the little guy? Really? He fought welfare reform for goodness sake. How did that help the little guy? He opposed low-income parents’ choosing effective schools for their kids. That was a real help. He did demand taxpayer funding for abortions. You mean that kind of advocate?
Know what? We don’t care if his supposed concern for the masses was genuine (plenty of those "masses" in Hyannis Port aren’t there?) because where we grew up no one tolerates cowardly acts from men. You cross that line and you’re an outcast. What kind of real male was this guy? He wasn’t. He was an east coast elitist, a gutless wonder, a drunk, effeminate like most of his kind; he had no respect for women and was likely useless in the sack to boot. (The lefty women rave about this guy but no way they would make the trade for this bottom feeder if they had a cowhand in tow, just in from the roundup - a gentleman, genuine, strong and virile, right ladies?) Now the adulation, remiders of all the good this clown's done for Americans, lives he's changed, is crap. The real Ted Kennedy was in plain view that night in 1969 - drunk, felling sorry for himself, looking for cover, while a human being slowly exhausted that oxygen left to her. As Mark Steyn noted recently, "I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo "would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it."
Have the left no limits, no standards of acceptable behavior? I think we all know the answer.
Robert Craven
An advocate for the little guy? Really? He fought welfare reform for goodness sake. How did that help the little guy? He opposed low-income parents’ choosing effective schools for their kids. That was a real help. He did demand taxpayer funding for abortions. You mean that kind of advocate?
Know what? We don’t care if his supposed concern for the masses was genuine (plenty of those "masses" in Hyannis Port aren’t there?) because where we grew up no one tolerates cowardly acts from men. You cross that line and you’re an outcast. What kind of real male was this guy? He wasn’t. He was an east coast elitist, a gutless wonder, a drunk, effeminate like most of his kind; he had no respect for women and was likely useless in the sack to boot. (The lefty women rave about this guy but no way they would make the trade for this bottom feeder if they had a cowhand in tow, just in from the roundup - a gentleman, genuine, strong and virile, right ladies?) Now the adulation, remiders of all the good this clown's done for Americans, lives he's changed, is crap. The real Ted Kennedy was in plain view that night in 1969 - drunk, felling sorry for himself, looking for cover, while a human being slowly exhausted that oxygen left to her. As Mark Steyn noted recently, "I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo "would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it."
Have the left no limits, no standards of acceptable behavior? I think we all know the answer.
Robert Craven
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Ted Kennedy - A Real Man
We’ve been "reminded" by friends on the left that Ted Kennedy redeemed himself after that little mishap on the bridge, done a heck of a lot of good since for the down-and-out and that we should all be proud of this American as he joins most of the rest of his clan in the hereafter. Wherever they are, let’s hope that driving, flying, boating or skiing are outlawed or their companions are in trouble. I can’t even imagine Ted trying his wings out. But then it’s unlikely he’ll be assigned any where he’s going.
Sure, good ‘ol Ted abandoned his girlfriend with a few minutes of oxygen left to her in an air pocket inside a submerged Olds. After partying, and then driving off a bridge (that act itself should have been enough to disqualify the guy from ever holding public office again) this useless male freed himself, leaving 28 yr old Mary Jo Kopechne to suffocate as the air ran out. He rested at the creek’s edge, then walked back to the party house. One of his "associates" took him back to his hotel. Poor devil. When you’re in a hurry to find a alibi, it can be stressful. Sure it can. Then nine hours later and after conferring with political advisers and lawyers, Kennedy called authorities to report the incident. We rarely resort to crude language in this blog but in the case of Kennedy we think the guy is a cowardly so-and-so. There. Feel much better now.
After murdering Kopechne and escaping with a suspended sentence (connections??) Kennedy took a breather, re-emerged and was promptly re-elected. Wonderful country, the good ‘ol USA. She never holds a grudge. (Neither does Harvard - Kennedy was readmitted there after being expelled for cheating.)
What kind of real damage has this guy done since? As the National Review editors put it, "...he mistook power for wisdom, and he very often left things worse than he had found them. He meddled in Northern Ireland to no good end, contributed mightily to the politicization of the federal courts, sought to regulate and restrict political speech, appeased the Soviets, contributed to the American defeat in Vietnam, and attempted to apply the Vietnam template to Iraq. A child of privilege, he worked energetically to deny school-choice scholarships to poor black children in Washington, D.C. His ideas on taxes, immigration, and social welfare were reliably counterproductive."
That about sums it up for this evening folks. What more is there to say when a left wing rag like Time describes Kennedy as a "Palm Beach boozer, lout, and tabloid grotesque." Can’t argue with that.
Robert Craven
Sure, good ‘ol Ted abandoned his girlfriend with a few minutes of oxygen left to her in an air pocket inside a submerged Olds. After partying, and then driving off a bridge (that act itself should have been enough to disqualify the guy from ever holding public office again) this useless male freed himself, leaving 28 yr old Mary Jo Kopechne to suffocate as the air ran out. He rested at the creek’s edge, then walked back to the party house. One of his "associates" took him back to his hotel. Poor devil. When you’re in a hurry to find a alibi, it can be stressful. Sure it can. Then nine hours later and after conferring with political advisers and lawyers, Kennedy called authorities to report the incident. We rarely resort to crude language in this blog but in the case of Kennedy we think the guy is a cowardly so-and-so. There. Feel much better now.
After murdering Kopechne and escaping with a suspended sentence (connections??) Kennedy took a breather, re-emerged and was promptly re-elected. Wonderful country, the good ‘ol USA. She never holds a grudge. (Neither does Harvard - Kennedy was readmitted there after being expelled for cheating.)
What kind of real damage has this guy done since? As the National Review editors put it, "...he mistook power for wisdom, and he very often left things worse than he had found them. He meddled in Northern Ireland to no good end, contributed mightily to the politicization of the federal courts, sought to regulate and restrict political speech, appeased the Soviets, contributed to the American defeat in Vietnam, and attempted to apply the Vietnam template to Iraq. A child of privilege, he worked energetically to deny school-choice scholarships to poor black children in Washington, D.C. His ideas on taxes, immigration, and social welfare were reliably counterproductive."
That about sums it up for this evening folks. What more is there to say when a left wing rag like Time describes Kennedy as a "Palm Beach boozer, lout, and tabloid grotesque." Can’t argue with that.
Robert Craven
Fatal Flaw
Well, the fun’s about over. We’ve exposed this health care scam from the beginning. Obama and the rest of the left-wingers of his party offered up a monster of a bill which none of them read but which BO thought he could ram through in a few weeks - "trust me". Pretty quick, a few citizens called him on it, knowing they were about to be had. Neither he nor any of his cronies could explain or defend their bill, while most of the unwashed knew it was nothing more than an effort to emulate the failed Canadian system.
Want to understand the source of BO’s failings? Then recall our warning of last year - his critical flaw is that he has consistently demonstrated a lack of judgement. It is that simple. Take away the glib talk and slick presentation and you have near emptiness - a lack of preparation, a lack of research, a lack of focus. Couple that with his radical progressivism, and you know you’re in trouble. He does not understand America; he does not understand Americans. He gave the party’s far left the chore of sculpting the so-called stimulus bill. Stupid. He outsourced the health plan to the partisan left-wingers of his party who are key House chairs. Stupid.
Now BO looks to emulate and celebrate Senator Kennedy’s late presence in the effort the resuscitate his failed bill. This is no wonder - Kennedy anointed BO as the Fifth Kennedy Brother during the campaign. This will prove to be only one more mistake. From Michael Beran, a contributing editor of City Journal and author of The Last Patrician: Bobby Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy, "Obama may find it to his credit -- and his country’s – benefit to fix his gaze not on Ted, but on Jack. For in addition to his more superficial graces, President Kennedy possessed a degree of wisdom, which might be defined as grace of judgment. John Kennedy’s sentiments were liberal, but he knew that a wise president must have the country in his bones, must feel, as by instinct, the temper of the people, and must know what they will bear and what they will not. He was annoyed by those who, like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., urged him to be another FDR. Schlesinger, he said, wanted him to act as if it were 1932. But ..... the mood of the people, President Kennedy knew, had changed." For Obama, "At so critical a juncture he needs to emulate, not the intoxicated extravagances of the late senator, but the sober moderation of his older brother....."
Well put Michael.
Robert Craven
Want to understand the source of BO’s failings? Then recall our warning of last year - his critical flaw is that he has consistently demonstrated a lack of judgement. It is that simple. Take away the glib talk and slick presentation and you have near emptiness - a lack of preparation, a lack of research, a lack of focus. Couple that with his radical progressivism, and you know you’re in trouble. He does not understand America; he does not understand Americans. He gave the party’s far left the chore of sculpting the so-called stimulus bill. Stupid. He outsourced the health plan to the partisan left-wingers of his party who are key House chairs. Stupid.
Now BO looks to emulate and celebrate Senator Kennedy’s late presence in the effort the resuscitate his failed bill. This is no wonder - Kennedy anointed BO as the Fifth Kennedy Brother during the campaign. This will prove to be only one more mistake. From Michael Beran, a contributing editor of City Journal and author of The Last Patrician: Bobby Kennedy and the End of American Aristocracy, "Obama may find it to his credit -- and his country’s – benefit to fix his gaze not on Ted, but on Jack. For in addition to his more superficial graces, President Kennedy possessed a degree of wisdom, which might be defined as grace of judgment. John Kennedy’s sentiments were liberal, but he knew that a wise president must have the country in his bones, must feel, as by instinct, the temper of the people, and must know what they will bear and what they will not. He was annoyed by those who, like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., urged him to be another FDR. Schlesinger, he said, wanted him to act as if it were 1932. But ..... the mood of the people, President Kennedy knew, had changed." For Obama, "At so critical a juncture he needs to emulate, not the intoxicated extravagances of the late senator, but the sober moderation of his older brother....."
Well put Michael.
Robert Craven
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Big Gun?
BO’s fatal flaw, transcending even his radical politics - lack of judgement. Presto. He misread his mandate, misjudging the public’s appetite for government control in their lives. Obama and the rest of the far left just can’t believe the masses won’t acquiesce to herding. Witness Representative Eric Massa of NY, a big fan of the nanny state, who admits, "I will vote...against the interests of my district...if I actually believe it will help them." Look up the word "representative" Eric.
But even if he does own a dictionary, it likely won’t help. He and the rest of the anointed actually think they can make better decisions than ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about medical care, child rearing or whatever.
Obama miraculously escaped from his past words, deeds and associations and so figured, heck, they’ll go for just about anything if that didn’t matter. But white guilt has it’s limits and Obama just ran into one. Americans aren’t as stupid as he figured.
As we illustrated in an earlier sketch, since Obama can’t defend his latest attempt to get between people and their decisions, and since the health proposal’s opponents have exposed the facts, he and his cronies have resorted to slander - it’s all about a right-wing conspiracy. Pretty quick he’ll find out that dog don’t hunt and guess what? His handlers will pull out the big gun - Race. If we oppose this guy, we become racists.
First out of the gate - NY gov Paterson, who whines it’s racism because a growing number, Dem’s included, don’t want him to run next year. He claims the next victim will be Obama. What a handy tool huh? As Jonah Goldberg explains, "No one should be surprised. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, liberal Democrats have to accuse their opponents of racism." To most of us, race is incidental; to these clowns it’s primary.
Robert Craven
But even if he does own a dictionary, it likely won’t help. He and the rest of the anointed actually think they can make better decisions than ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about medical care, child rearing or whatever.
Obama miraculously escaped from his past words, deeds and associations and so figured, heck, they’ll go for just about anything if that didn’t matter. But white guilt has it’s limits and Obama just ran into one. Americans aren’t as stupid as he figured.
As we illustrated in an earlier sketch, since Obama can’t defend his latest attempt to get between people and their decisions, and since the health proposal’s opponents have exposed the facts, he and his cronies have resorted to slander - it’s all about a right-wing conspiracy. Pretty quick he’ll find out that dog don’t hunt and guess what? His handlers will pull out the big gun - Race. If we oppose this guy, we become racists.
First out of the gate - NY gov Paterson, who whines it’s racism because a growing number, Dem’s included, don’t want him to run next year. He claims the next victim will be Obama. What a handy tool huh? As Jonah Goldberg explains, "No one should be surprised. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, liberal Democrats have to accuse their opponents of racism." To most of us, race is incidental; to these clowns it’s primary.
Robert Craven
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Scoundrels Seek Refuge
Today BO accused the Republican leadership of a partisan end run. "I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory, maybe we can have a replay of 1993, '94, when Clinton came in, he failed on health care and then we won in the mid-term elections and we got the majority. And I think there are some folks who are taking a page out that playbook," the president said. Well heck, we hadn’t thought of that, but hey.....
This ploy, this partisan attack, played in different forms on the airwaves, in the many pro-Obama health care ads, spotlights to all but the willfully a party caught with their pants down, again.
Opponents of health "reform" resort to specifics - case histories, examples of what rationing could look like, citations to news articles, stubborn facts about the spending involved. Supporters don’t refer at all to the bills involved or explanations rebutting critics’ claims. Just listen to a few and decide for yourself. Instead they focus on politics, as our president just did today. Wonder why? They’re caught and they know it.
Robert Craven
This ploy, this partisan attack, played in different forms on the airwaves, in the many pro-Obama health care ads, spotlights to all but the willfully a party caught with their pants down, again.
Opponents of health "reform" resort to specifics - case histories, examples of what rationing could look like, citations to news articles, stubborn facts about the spending involved. Supporters don’t refer at all to the bills involved or explanations rebutting critics’ claims. Just listen to a few and decide for yourself. Instead they focus on politics, as our president just did today. Wonder why? They’re caught and they know it.
Robert Craven
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Nice Try. Now A Solution.
Mark Schmitt is executive editor of the liberal American Prospect. Schmitt tells us that from the very beginning, "the public option was part of a carefully thought out and deliberately funded effort to put all the pieces in place for health reform before the 2008 election." The left convinced candidate Edwards, who told ‘Meet The Press’ that this would be the key to his program. "The rest is history," says Schmitt. "Following Edwards’ lead, Obama and Clinton picked up on the public option compromise. … It was a real high-wire act — to convince the single-payer advocates, who were the only engaged health care constituency on the left, that they could live with the public option as a kind of stealth single-payer, thus transferring their energy and enthusiasm to this alternative."
Too much. The fact that Schmitt admits that the public option was always "a kind of stealth single-payer" should come as no shock to our lefty friends. (But we’re upset they stole our byline, recent sketch). All of us know that Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein and Paul Kurgman have all been caught on video telling single-payer advocates that the public option is nothing but a stepping stone to the Real McCoy.
Nice Try. Didn’t fly with most Americans did it BO?
Now what? How about fine-tuning that which works?
Reform what we have - the very best health care system in the world. Expensive? Fine, start with the Democrats, who have blocked tort reform without fail. Why? Because of the incestuous relationship between this party and trial lawyers. What fool doesn’t know that? Trial lawyers helped create a medical crisis through malpractice suits that raise costs while driving doctors from their practices. The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers says about 10% of the cost of medical service is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2% is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits; an additional 5% to 9% is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine. Too much. Such an irony that our lefty friends here in Marin whine about health costs.
Availability a problem? Fine, you could fix that by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden. Instead, the fruitcake left thinks it can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. You know - "single payer." Stop regulating insurance companies for goodness sake. Make them compete.
That was easy.
Obama denounced the insurance companies in last Sunday's NYT’s saying: "A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn't known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died." (Well, might have had something to do with the cancer.) Anyway, in a free market such an insurance company couldn't stay in business.
Are we launching a satellite? How tough is this?
Robert Craven
Too much. The fact that Schmitt admits that the public option was always "a kind of stealth single-payer" should come as no shock to our lefty friends. (But we’re upset they stole our byline, recent sketch). All of us know that Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky, Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein and Paul Kurgman have all been caught on video telling single-payer advocates that the public option is nothing but a stepping stone to the Real McCoy.
Nice Try. Didn’t fly with most Americans did it BO?
Now what? How about fine-tuning that which works?
Reform what we have - the very best health care system in the world. Expensive? Fine, start with the Democrats, who have blocked tort reform without fail. Why? Because of the incestuous relationship between this party and trial lawyers. What fool doesn’t know that? Trial lawyers helped create a medical crisis through malpractice suits that raise costs while driving doctors from their practices. The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers says about 10% of the cost of medical service is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2% is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits; an additional 5% to 9% is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine. Too much. Such an irony that our lefty friends here in Marin whine about health costs.
Availability a problem? Fine, you could fix that by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden. Instead, the fruitcake left thinks it can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. You know - "single payer." Stop regulating insurance companies for goodness sake. Make them compete.
That was easy.
Obama denounced the insurance companies in last Sunday's NYT’s saying: "A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn't known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died." (Well, might have had something to do with the cancer.) Anyway, in a free market such an insurance company couldn't stay in business.
Are we launching a satellite? How tough is this?
Robert Craven
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Obama's Lesson In Domestic Politics
BO’s plummeting approval ratings indicate that many of the Americans who voted for this guy have discovered he’s not the package they thought he was.
Very few Americans have much in common with Obama (even less so with his wife - "this is a downright mean country"). OK, but not a deal breaker necessarily. And it is no secret that Obama had zero executive experience. Fine. Not necessarily a deal breaker either. What should have been a deal breaker is the fact that Obama was the single most partisan of any Democratic senator, that he was/is nothing if not a radical progressive (although he camouflaged that in the campaign). What also should have been a deal breaker is his cozy relationship with radical anti-Americans like Wright and Ayers, his history of eliminating his senatorial rivals through leaked divorce records, the fact that he was a cog in the Chicago banking/mortgage shake-down machine, and that along with others he blocked reform at Fannie/Freddie - ground zero. How do these things translate to a qualification? Simply overlooked? Certainly they were trumped in the election by white guilt (and BO’s master leveraging of his preferred half color), a sour economy and a lunatic-like hatred of Bush.
Yet it only took nine months for Americans to say "enough," exercising in fine style the First Amendment. BO got a pass in the election; he did not get a pass on his attempt as president to further nationalize US economic resources in the guise of health reform.
Obama can gain from this experience. He has just been told that he was hired to empower Americans, not government.
Robert Craven
Very few Americans have much in common with Obama (even less so with his wife - "this is a downright mean country"). OK, but not a deal breaker necessarily. And it is no secret that Obama had zero executive experience. Fine. Not necessarily a deal breaker either. What should have been a deal breaker is the fact that Obama was the single most partisan of any Democratic senator, that he was/is nothing if not a radical progressive (although he camouflaged that in the campaign). What also should have been a deal breaker is his cozy relationship with radical anti-Americans like Wright and Ayers, his history of eliminating his senatorial rivals through leaked divorce records, the fact that he was a cog in the Chicago banking/mortgage shake-down machine, and that along with others he blocked reform at Fannie/Freddie - ground zero. How do these things translate to a qualification? Simply overlooked? Certainly they were trumped in the election by white guilt (and BO’s master leveraging of his preferred half color), a sour economy and a lunatic-like hatred of Bush.
Yet it only took nine months for Americans to say "enough," exercising in fine style the First Amendment. BO got a pass in the election; he did not get a pass on his attempt as president to further nationalize US economic resources in the guise of health reform.
Obama can gain from this experience. He has just been told that he was hired to empower Americans, not government.
Robert Craven
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Stealth Operation That Nosedived
Obama’s health plan was a stealth operation that of course failed to make it under the radar. Why? Obama does not understand America; Obama does not understand Americans.
One need only witness the now-fabled town hall meetings. Providing cover, deflection, refuge to the left are the few individuals that resort to shouting - granted, bad behavior. But thank goodness for the Democrats they have that distraction to latch onto - other wise they would be stark naked, holding hands together in the dark.
Wait a minute. What about 99% of the town hall meeting goers? They’re respectful and unlike BO, they’ve begun the read this monster of a bill. And they are naturally upset; that’s called dissent. Hey, didn’t every other Volvo we’ve followed here in fruitcake Marin county carry the bumper sticker - Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism? Yes it did. As Mark Steyn observed recently, that bumper sticker must have expired Jan/20!
Who are these town hall meeting goers? Here’s an example, sourced from the AP: Waiting for Specter’s meeting, Nancy Snyder says she kept quiet when abortion was legalized and prayer in schools was eliminated. Not this time. "They did it for prayer, they did it for abortion, and they're not going to do it for our health care," the 70-year-old nurse from Philipsburg, Pa., said Wednesday as she and her husband Robert, 74, a retired coal miner, waited in a long, snaking line for Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter's town hall meeting. "We're not standing back this time," Snyder said. "I don't want someone else to select and say this is what you can and can't have," Snyder said. "Nobody told us to come," she added. "I float my own boat." "This is all being pushed way too fast. It's just being rammed down our throat," said Bette Jackson, a retiree from State College. "I agree we need health care reform, but I don't want the government taking over."
Why the rush; why the snake oil, the fabrication; why the outright lying? We know the answer, as do our readers. But most Americans aren’t as concerned with BO’s motivation as much as with what it is he is trying to jam down their throats. They caught on to this bill in one heck of a hurry. BO tells them they can keep their doc and can keep their insurance. He thinks he is speaking to morons. What if my doc is not the one appointed by the government medical board for ruling on my access to tests and specialists, they want to know? What if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its gov’t-bankrolled competitor, they ask? Finally, a few of these unwashed have read section 440. Whoa! No one wants gov't agents coming into their home and telling them how to parent - the very signature of the Democratic party - getting between you and your kids.
Sorry BO - not this time.
Robert Craven
One need only witness the now-fabled town hall meetings. Providing cover, deflection, refuge to the left are the few individuals that resort to shouting - granted, bad behavior. But thank goodness for the Democrats they have that distraction to latch onto - other wise they would be stark naked, holding hands together in the dark.
Wait a minute. What about 99% of the town hall meeting goers? They’re respectful and unlike BO, they’ve begun the read this monster of a bill. And they are naturally upset; that’s called dissent. Hey, didn’t every other Volvo we’ve followed here in fruitcake Marin county carry the bumper sticker - Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism? Yes it did. As Mark Steyn observed recently, that bumper sticker must have expired Jan/20!
Who are these town hall meeting goers? Here’s an example, sourced from the AP: Waiting for Specter’s meeting, Nancy Snyder says she kept quiet when abortion was legalized and prayer in schools was eliminated. Not this time. "They did it for prayer, they did it for abortion, and they're not going to do it for our health care," the 70-year-old nurse from Philipsburg, Pa., said Wednesday as she and her husband Robert, 74, a retired coal miner, waited in a long, snaking line for Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter's town hall meeting. "We're not standing back this time," Snyder said. "I don't want someone else to select and say this is what you can and can't have," Snyder said. "Nobody told us to come," she added. "I float my own boat." "This is all being pushed way too fast. It's just being rammed down our throat," said Bette Jackson, a retiree from State College. "I agree we need health care reform, but I don't want the government taking over."
Why the rush; why the snake oil, the fabrication; why the outright lying? We know the answer, as do our readers. But most Americans aren’t as concerned with BO’s motivation as much as with what it is he is trying to jam down their throats. They caught on to this bill in one heck of a hurry. BO tells them they can keep their doc and can keep their insurance. He thinks he is speaking to morons. What if my doc is not the one appointed by the government medical board for ruling on my access to tests and specialists, they want to know? What if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its gov’t-bankrolled competitor, they ask? Finally, a few of these unwashed have read section 440. Whoa! No one wants gov't agents coming into their home and telling them how to parent - the very signature of the Democratic party - getting between you and your kids.
Sorry BO - not this time.
Robert Craven
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
AMERICA
We intend to close the pattern ahead of most other observers. We first highlighted health care in a mid-July sketch. Some comments reside under "US Economy" as the debate has taken us there and back. We have isolated major points of weakness in the administration's bill and instances of less-than-truthful behavior by its proponents. Now these key flaws to BO’s plan are front and center.
We have often considered it a miracle that we have retained a republic, that founder James Wilson’s sense of natural law is still sacrosanct, because fully one third of Americans don’t give a damn, a third are pre-programmed to knock their country, and a third are real patriots - a mirror image of Revolutionary times. How in the world have we survived as a star for others to emulate? We feared we would not, or could not any longer, until that is - THE TOWN HALL MEETINGS! America, when pushed too far, will accept no more. Out of the closet they come. The Germans and Japanese found out the hard way. So will Obama. Americans have smelled the acrid scent of a social state, more, of a fascist state. They have demonstrated they are not stupid. They may not own a Webster’s but they have enough common sense to recognize that when the state attempts to direct their lives they’ve seen that before, and it won’t happen here.
Robert Craven
We have often considered it a miracle that we have retained a republic, that founder James Wilson’s sense of natural law is still sacrosanct, because fully one third of Americans don’t give a damn, a third are pre-programmed to knock their country, and a third are real patriots - a mirror image of Revolutionary times. How in the world have we survived as a star for others to emulate? We feared we would not, or could not any longer, until that is - THE TOWN HALL MEETINGS! America, when pushed too far, will accept no more. Out of the closet they come. The Germans and Japanese found out the hard way. So will Obama. Americans have smelled the acrid scent of a social state, more, of a fascist state. They have demonstrated they are not stupid. They may not own a Webster’s but they have enough common sense to recognize that when the state attempts to direct their lives they’ve seen that before, and it won’t happen here.
Robert Craven
Monday, August 10, 2009
Nancy, Your Nose Is Growing
Pelosi and co-conspirator Steny Hoyer held forth in a USA Today op-ed, telling us from the get go that those who want their concerns heard about health care are, "simply un-American." Hah! From the Heritage Foundation, "Pelosi and Hoyer claim that opponents of Obamacare are disrupting townhalls across the country by ‘drowning out the facts’ about health reform. However, it is not the townhall-attending Americans that don’t have their facts straight. It is Pelosi, Hoyer, and Obama’s allies that are doing violence to the truth."
Pelosi - "The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice." That is false. According to the non-partisan Lewin Group, about 83.4 MM people would lose their current private insurance, or a 48% reduction in the number of people with private coverage.
Pelosi - "Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans." That is false. As we have already highlighted, yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up as much as $460.
Pelosi says her plan will "lower costs". That is false, and has been thoroughly refuted by the CBO.
We heard from Dr Robert Trout this pm, a close friend and keen observer who has taken it on his own (since Obama and co have yet to bother) to take HR3200 apart; below, what he found just at the beginning!
From Trout:
SEC 102 Protecting the Choice to"Keep" Current Coverage.(a) Grandfathered health insurance coverage defined. Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term "grandfathered health insurance coverage" means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Year 1 (eg. Jan 1, 2010) if the following conditions are met: [SO FAR SO GOOD, THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS!!](1) Limitation of "NEW" Enrollment-(A) In General - Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Year 1 (eg., Jan 2, 2010).THIS MEANS YOUR INSURER CAN NO LONGER OFFER POLICIES TO NEW CUSTOMERS AFTER THIS DATE (EG JAN 2, 2010), WHICH MEANS THE INSURER WILL GRADUALLY LOSE INSUREDS UNTIL IT IS FORCED TO CLOSE BUSINESS!!!THUS, OBAMA'S CLAIM THAT "YOU CAN KEEP YOUR INSURANCE PROVIDER" IS TRUE, WITH THE CAVEAT THAT "UNTIL WE PUT THE COMPANY OUT OF BUSINESS IN A FEW YEARS"
Moving On:(2) Limitation on changes in terms or conditions--Subject to paragraph () and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Year 1(eg Dec 31, 2009).THIS MEANS IF YOU OR THE CARRIER MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE POLICY, YOU LOSE THE POLICY AND GO DIRECTLY TO GOVT COVERAGE. FOR EXAMPLE, SUPPOSE YOU WANT TO CHANGE FROM A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE PLAN TO A LOW DEDUCTIBLE PLAN, GO DIRECTLY TO GOVERNMENT INSURANCE!!
CALL/WRITE YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. AXE THEM IF THEY HAVE READ EVEN THE FIRST PAGE OF HR3200, AND WHAT SEC 102 MEANS TO THEM, AND TELL THEM WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU!!!!
Dr. Robert Trout
Robert Craven
Pelosi - "The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice." That is false. According to the non-partisan Lewin Group, about 83.4 MM people would lose their current private insurance, or a 48% reduction in the number of people with private coverage.
Pelosi - "Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans." That is false. As we have already highlighted, yearly premiums for the typical American with private coverage could go up as much as $460.
Pelosi says her plan will "lower costs". That is false, and has been thoroughly refuted by the CBO.
We heard from Dr Robert Trout this pm, a close friend and keen observer who has taken it on his own (since Obama and co have yet to bother) to take HR3200 apart; below, what he found just at the beginning!
From Trout:
SEC 102 Protecting the Choice to"Keep" Current Coverage.(a) Grandfathered health insurance coverage defined. Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term "grandfathered health insurance coverage" means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Year 1 (eg. Jan 1, 2010) if the following conditions are met: [SO FAR SO GOOD, THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS!!](1) Limitation of "NEW" Enrollment-(A) In General - Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Year 1 (eg., Jan 2, 2010).THIS MEANS YOUR INSURER CAN NO LONGER OFFER POLICIES TO NEW CUSTOMERS AFTER THIS DATE (EG JAN 2, 2010), WHICH MEANS THE INSURER WILL GRADUALLY LOSE INSUREDS UNTIL IT IS FORCED TO CLOSE BUSINESS!!!THUS, OBAMA'S CLAIM THAT "YOU CAN KEEP YOUR INSURANCE PROVIDER" IS TRUE, WITH THE CAVEAT THAT "UNTIL WE PUT THE COMPANY OUT OF BUSINESS IN A FEW YEARS"
Moving On:(2) Limitation on changes in terms or conditions--Subject to paragraph () and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Year 1(eg Dec 31, 2009).THIS MEANS IF YOU OR THE CARRIER MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE POLICY, YOU LOSE THE POLICY AND GO DIRECTLY TO GOVT COVERAGE. FOR EXAMPLE, SUPPOSE YOU WANT TO CHANGE FROM A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE PLAN TO A LOW DEDUCTIBLE PLAN, GO DIRECTLY TO GOVERNMENT INSURANCE!!
CALL/WRITE YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. AXE THEM IF THEY HAVE READ EVEN THE FIRST PAGE OF HR3200, AND WHAT SEC 102 MEANS TO THEM, AND TELL THEM WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU!!!!
Dr. Robert Trout
Robert Craven
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Fascism in Washington? Already?
We’re told the word "fascist" has been tossed around a bit lately, particularly in reference to tactics from the Obama administration. Whoa now! We wouldn’t know as we don’t listen to talk radio, or any radio, don’t own a TV and don’t subscribe to any newspapers. We have a few books around, an old pc that rarely works, and that's about it. Fascism in the good ‘ol USA? Come on.
Let’s see. What does the word mean? We do own a dictionary; here is Webster’s definition: "Any program for setting up a centralized, autocratic, national regime with severely nationalistic policies exercising regimentation of industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition."
We looked up the Obama health care plan:http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-07140
Son of a gun. BO’s plan does seem to reek a tad (as does the White House email urging the masses to turn in their neighbor if that neighbor’s view on the plan seems "fishy").
But don’t take it from us. What follows are excerpts from a presentation by David Janda, an MD and recognized expert on preventative health care, as keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner in Washington, July/17.
About BO’s plan, Janda summarizes, "...it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on the Obama care plan as on a pack of cigarettes. Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health. The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care need...."
Janda continues, "The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board. This illustrious Board ‘will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment.’ Translation.....if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer.....dream on if you think you will get treated.....pick out your coffin."
Next, "The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology. This ‘coordinator’ will "monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate." It goes on to say.....’Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties.’ According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure financial fines and possible imprisonment. So according to The ObamaCare Plan....if your doctor saves your life you might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow-up appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former Soviet Union.
Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to ‘Advanced Care Planning.’ After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner. This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, ‘how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care.’ It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the‘enemy’ as people would live longer."
Finally, Janda noted that, "Section 102 has the Orwellian title, ‘Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.’ What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes - e .g., if you lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal."
After Janda finished the presentation, a Congressman asked him how to respond in an interview if asked for the best single word to describe the plan. Janda responded - "Fascist".
Seems a fit but not a surprise. White guilt and a sour economy got us a community organizer for president whose administration’s strong-arm tactics would make ACORN proud.
Robert Craven
Let’s see. What does the word mean? We do own a dictionary; here is Webster’s definition: "Any program for setting up a centralized, autocratic, national regime with severely nationalistic policies exercising regimentation of industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition."
We looked up the Obama health care plan:http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-07140
Son of a gun. BO’s plan does seem to reek a tad (as does the White House email urging the masses to turn in their neighbor if that neighbor’s view on the plan seems "fishy").
But don’t take it from us. What follows are excerpts from a presentation by David Janda, an MD and recognized expert on preventative health care, as keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner in Washington, July/17.
About BO’s plan, Janda summarizes, "...it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on the Obama care plan as on a pack of cigarettes. Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health. The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care need...."
Janda continues, "The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board. This illustrious Board ‘will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment.’ Translation.....if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer.....dream on if you think you will get treated.....pick out your coffin."
Next, "The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology. This ‘coordinator’ will "monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate." It goes on to say.....’Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties.’ According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure financial fines and possible imprisonment. So according to The ObamaCare Plan....if your doctor saves your life you might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow-up appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former Soviet Union.
Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to ‘Advanced Care Planning.’ After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner. This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, ‘how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care.’ It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the‘enemy’ as people would live longer."
Finally, Janda noted that, "Section 102 has the Orwellian title, ‘Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.’ What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes - e .g., if you lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal."
After Janda finished the presentation, a Congressman asked him how to respond in an interview if asked for the best single word to describe the plan. Janda responded - "Fascist".
Seems a fit but not a surprise. White guilt and a sour economy got us a community organizer for president whose administration’s strong-arm tactics would make ACORN proud.
Robert Craven
Saturday, August 8, 2009
How To Offend A Founder
Those familiar with economic history find it difficult to swallow Obama’s agenda. They understand the implications. So would the Founders. So does Obama; he simply hopes the public are slow to catch on.
Background: Obama may appear to the casual observer to be historically challenged, proclaiming for example that during WWII his great-uncle helped liberate Auschwitz, and his grandfather knew troops that liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka. (This is nonsense. The Americans did not free either camp.) Or, in Berlin, stating when referring to his preferred half color that, "I don’t look like...Americans who’ve previously spoken in this.. city," forgetting apparently that both Powell and Rice had preceded him. Fortunately the fate of our country does not hang on these amusing constructions; it does hang on the success or failure of Obama’s assault on the private sector. That’s a tad more serious and that is where most of the left simply follow, lemming like, as Obama and his co-conspirators conveniently ignore economic history in their pretended role as society’s saviors.
Obama hijacked the economic crisis through the so-called stimulus bill. Now he has manufactured a crisis for the purpose of another government grab; this heist will be permanent, a ready-made legacy. What for example if our friends from the left sat down with James Madison in an attempt to justify their president’s health or economic agenda. Judging from everything Madison has ever written, he would no doubt lose his lunch. Madison warned in 1794 against, "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in government." Yet Obama’s crew didn’t even bother to disguise that motivation - "never waste a crisis."
Sure enough, left-leaning administrations here and abroad have over the years levered all kinds of crises. The US Depression is one of the latest such opportunities, the left taking advantage of economic trouble to amass power. And we all understand the "ratchet effect." As problems subside, the enlarged government presence remains.
For those in the "feel good" camp who have never seen an easy way out they didn’t take, perhaps a read of F.A. Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom (Is Paved With Good Intentions) is in order, a book Milton Friedman endorsed as, "..for anyone interested in politics in the broadest and least partisan sense, a book whose central message is timeless." Hayek demonstrates that the left’s trademark of empowering government with increasing economic control will inevitably lead not to a utopia at all but to fascism.
Finally, another Founder reminds us that, "Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." Alexander Hamilton would find Obama a threat to the Republic to which he and others gave birth.
PS Recall that on Monday, 8/3, the White House website asked citizens to send any "fishy" information regarding the health care plan to flag@whitehouse.gov. "Fishy" as in dissenting. That is, turn in your neighbor. Step one. Hamilton was right.
Robert Craven
Background: Obama may appear to the casual observer to be historically challenged, proclaiming for example that during WWII his great-uncle helped liberate Auschwitz, and his grandfather knew troops that liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka. (This is nonsense. The Americans did not free either camp.) Or, in Berlin, stating when referring to his preferred half color that, "I don’t look like...Americans who’ve previously spoken in this.. city," forgetting apparently that both Powell and Rice had preceded him. Fortunately the fate of our country does not hang on these amusing constructions; it does hang on the success or failure of Obama’s assault on the private sector. That’s a tad more serious and that is where most of the left simply follow, lemming like, as Obama and his co-conspirators conveniently ignore economic history in their pretended role as society’s saviors.
Obama hijacked the economic crisis through the so-called stimulus bill. Now he has manufactured a crisis for the purpose of another government grab; this heist will be permanent, a ready-made legacy. What for example if our friends from the left sat down with James Madison in an attempt to justify their president’s health or economic agenda. Judging from everything Madison has ever written, he would no doubt lose his lunch. Madison warned in 1794 against, "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in government." Yet Obama’s crew didn’t even bother to disguise that motivation - "never waste a crisis."
Sure enough, left-leaning administrations here and abroad have over the years levered all kinds of crises. The US Depression is one of the latest such opportunities, the left taking advantage of economic trouble to amass power. And we all understand the "ratchet effect." As problems subside, the enlarged government presence remains.
For those in the "feel good" camp who have never seen an easy way out they didn’t take, perhaps a read of F.A. Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom (Is Paved With Good Intentions) is in order, a book Milton Friedman endorsed as, "..for anyone interested in politics in the broadest and least partisan sense, a book whose central message is timeless." Hayek demonstrates that the left’s trademark of empowering government with increasing economic control will inevitably lead not to a utopia at all but to fascism.
Finally, another Founder reminds us that, "Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." Alexander Hamilton would find Obama a threat to the Republic to which he and others gave birth.
PS Recall that on Monday, 8/3, the White House website asked citizens to send any "fishy" information regarding the health care plan to flag@whitehouse.gov. "Fishy" as in dissenting. That is, turn in your neighbor. Step one. Hamilton was right.
Robert Craven
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Palin Phenomenon
Our friends from the left are driven perfectly mad by the presence of an accomplished and attractive female - Sarah Palin. One, to use his words, "lost it" this week in a discussion with a Palin supporter.
We have already highlighted how Palin has exposed the media - see our sketch of July/13, a must read. Now she has just as unintentionally set a trap for our fruitcake friends. Her looks, voice and jargon trigger a visceral reaction in these types that is so laced with a sense of moral superiority that reality will never cooperate. They are doomed through their excess. To insist as they do that Palin is a blithering idiot is only to seal their coffin.
Our lefty friends forget that it requires brains to manage a family with five kids, live on a limited budget, get elected to local office, fish, hunt, go to sea, cook your own food, navigate in politics with no money, without an influential dad and power-broker husband. And how about the female critics? (Lefties gleefully tell us how their wives "just hate Sarah".) If one were to draw up a list of these types and trace their own lineages, one would discover that they either are married to powerful insiders, dated powerful insiders, or are the daughters of powerful insiders. Whoa ladies, very impressive, very self made.
Robert Craven
We have already highlighted how Palin has exposed the media - see our sketch of July/13, a must read. Now she has just as unintentionally set a trap for our fruitcake friends. Her looks, voice and jargon trigger a visceral reaction in these types that is so laced with a sense of moral superiority that reality will never cooperate. They are doomed through their excess. To insist as they do that Palin is a blithering idiot is only to seal their coffin.
Our lefty friends forget that it requires brains to manage a family with five kids, live on a limited budget, get elected to local office, fish, hunt, go to sea, cook your own food, navigate in politics with no money, without an influential dad and power-broker husband. And how about the female critics? (Lefties gleefully tell us how their wives "just hate Sarah".) If one were to draw up a list of these types and trace their own lineages, one would discover that they either are married to powerful insiders, dated powerful insiders, or are the daughters of powerful insiders. Whoa ladies, very impressive, very self made.
Robert Craven
Monday, July 27, 2009
Good For Business
Business has not been especially peppy in the grievance industry past few months. We have a half black president; a majority of Americans see race as incidental; a majority of blacks no doubt care for their family and community just as much as the next guy, sick of the constant reminders of a racism that they themselves rarely encounter. These conditions are not good for business for Jackson, Sharpton, H.L. "Skip" Gates and the rest who depend on racial conflict for a living. So, if it no longer comes naturally, they will manufacture it. This explains the recent accusation of racial profiling in Cambridge.
Most of us endeavor to stay alive. Post 9/11 the left flew into a tantrum when Muslims were questioned before boarding an airplane. But passengers and crew knew that although all Muslims were not terrorists, all terrorists were indeed Muslims. Naturally the precaution. The chatterers would see the wisdom of this if they were on the wrong plane.
Similarly, it is well known that blacks commit violent crimes in numbers far in excess of their presence in the population. Because of that, and human nature, law enforcement may sometimes error to the side of caution. After all, even Jesse Jackson said that if a black man’s behind him on a dark street, he’s nervous. Yet in the Cambridge situation, the arresting officer (as we all know now) had an exemplary reputation of dealing with the black community. All evidence indicates he acted property. Still, he was accused of profiling by the professor.
Instead, as most Americans realize, the only party guilty of racial profiling was Gates. And the situation was custom made for his industry. Without conflict he would have to transfer; maybe the literature department would fit. But then Gates once compared the lyrics of the rap group 2 Live Crew to the playwright Shakespear. "It’s like Shakespear’s ‘My love is like a red, red rose,’" he noted. Oops. That line was written by the Scottish poet Robbie Burns, about 200 years after Shakespear. Oh well. That won’t work. But then, with Obama's help, he won't need a transfer.
Robert Craven
Most of us endeavor to stay alive. Post 9/11 the left flew into a tantrum when Muslims were questioned before boarding an airplane. But passengers and crew knew that although all Muslims were not terrorists, all terrorists were indeed Muslims. Naturally the precaution. The chatterers would see the wisdom of this if they were on the wrong plane.
Similarly, it is well known that blacks commit violent crimes in numbers far in excess of their presence in the population. Because of that, and human nature, law enforcement may sometimes error to the side of caution. After all, even Jesse Jackson said that if a black man’s behind him on a dark street, he’s nervous. Yet in the Cambridge situation, the arresting officer (as we all know now) had an exemplary reputation of dealing with the black community. All evidence indicates he acted property. Still, he was accused of profiling by the professor.
Instead, as most Americans realize, the only party guilty of racial profiling was Gates. And the situation was custom made for his industry. Without conflict he would have to transfer; maybe the literature department would fit. But then Gates once compared the lyrics of the rap group 2 Live Crew to the playwright Shakespear. "It’s like Shakespear’s ‘My love is like a red, red rose,’" he noted. Oops. That line was written by the Scottish poet Robbie Burns, about 200 years after Shakespear. Oh well. That won’t work. But then, with Obama's help, he won't need a transfer.
Robert Craven
Monday, July 13, 2009
Palin's Gift
Certainly the intellectually honest must now acknowledge the in-bred, pre-programmed liberal bias of the mainstream media. The left can no longer deny the suddenly obvious, and thanks to Sarah Palin. She, without intending to do so, exposed the whole shebang.
Palin as an individual tripped something in the liberal media that spotlighted the rotten core - CNN, NYT’s, AP, ABC, Newsweek, Time. Newsroom reaction to Palin’s candidacy reflected to the average American just why these folk are rapidly going broke.
Media vulnerabilities were especially accentuated in the coverage of Palin. What these "journalists" exhibited in 2008 was epitomized by an eradication of the lines between fact and opinion – and, even more troubling, between reporting and propaganda. Some journalists were content to repeat Democratic party talking points or bloggers' rumors as though they were established fact, interspersing them with ideological commentary. For example, remember Palin’s decision as governor to cut Alaska's special education budget by 62 percent? After receiving emails to that effect, CNN's Soledad O'Brien cited the figure on-air. Oops. Palin actually tripled the state's spending on special needs kids. Recall the one about her membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which favors secession from the union? That made The New York Times, and again, wrong.
The coverage of Palin’s family life took media behavior from reckless to indecent. "A day of stunning Palin disclosures," was how the Associated Press greeted the news that Bristol Palin was pregnant. "A political stunner!" echoed CNN's Campbell Brown. In one 30-minute stretch, CNN reporters and anchors referred to the teen's pregnancy as "a bombshell" four separate times. And of course the Palin pregnancy hoax by Bill Mayer and Vanity Fair. From our favorite liberal, Camille Paglia , "The vicious double standard is pretty obvious. Only the tabloids, for example, ran the photos of a piss-drunk Chelsea Clinton, panties exposed, falling into her car outside London clubs a few years ago. If Chelsea had been the scion of Republican bigwigs, those tacky scenes would have been trumpeted from pillar to post in the U.S. as signals of parental failures or turmoil in clan Clinton."
Perhaps it was the 10/02/08 debate which was most revealing, the night Biden exposed his total lack of a grounding in government and constitutional affairs, the night incidentally that Palin cleaned his clock. No one in the media even saw it, or, chose to report it. Leading up to the debate, such luminaries as John Alter of Newsweek wrote that, "She is a far-right conservative who supported Pat Buchanan over Bush in 2000. She thinks global warming is a hoax and backs the teaching of creationism in public schools." She did not support Buchanan, she questioned whether climate change is man-made (not whether it's occurring) and gave creationists the most minor of rhetorical nods – and never questioned the teaching of evolution in schools. Hah! Too much.
And then the debate. Biden erroneously claimed that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution and asserted wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. When the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden's purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid. For example, he said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons can hit Israel. That is false. Pakistan has no intercontinental missiles. He said we "kicked" Hezbollah out of Lebanon. That is false. The US never "kicked" Hezbollah out of anywhere. Biden criticized Bush for supporting elections of the West Bank and said BO did too because it would legitimize Hamas. He was confused. Fatah controls the West Bank. Biden was thinking of Gaza. With Afghanistan, facts matter he said..."we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spend on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan." "Let me say that again," he said. He did and he was wrong both times. The facts here were that at the time Biden was speaking, the U.S. had spent $172 billion in Afghanistan over the 7 years. The Iraq War consumes between $7 billion and $8 billion every three weeks. What a clown. What a buffoon. Or when dressing down Dick Cheney, who was not present, for supposedly being unfamiliar with the Constitution. "The idea that he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States – that's the executive branch – he works in the executive branch," Biden said. Unfortunately, Article I defines the legislative, not executive, branch.
All of us know that if Palin had said any of this, she would have been laughed out of town. Biden got a pass. How come? As SJ Valley neighbor Vic Hansen role plays the journalists view, "Can’t smart people see that Palin’s naugahyde family is a reification of all this middle-class, mindless consumerism, without style, erudition, nuance and skepticism? How infuriating to sit here in New York and think that a winking tart could ever be elected, when seasoned sophisticates like Joe Biden and cosmopolitan metrosexuals like Barack Obama, who see it all, might not have been."
One intellectually honest, liberal journalist, a chief Washington correspondent for a news service, put it this way, "In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession." Facts matter.. "But they didn't in 2008, not when it came to Joe Biden (our guy) against Sarah Palin (odd outsider). The ladies and gentlemen of the press were more interested in her hair, her glasses, her wardrobe, her accent, her sex life, her kids' sex lives, and her hunting habits than in whether her opponent knew anything about foreign policy, the Constitution of the United States, or the job he was running for."
Thank you Sarah, for the gift of illumination.
Robert Craven
Palin as an individual tripped something in the liberal media that spotlighted the rotten core - CNN, NYT’s, AP, ABC, Newsweek, Time. Newsroom reaction to Palin’s candidacy reflected to the average American just why these folk are rapidly going broke.
Media vulnerabilities were especially accentuated in the coverage of Palin. What these "journalists" exhibited in 2008 was epitomized by an eradication of the lines between fact and opinion – and, even more troubling, between reporting and propaganda. Some journalists were content to repeat Democratic party talking points or bloggers' rumors as though they were established fact, interspersing them with ideological commentary. For example, remember Palin’s decision as governor to cut Alaska's special education budget by 62 percent? After receiving emails to that effect, CNN's Soledad O'Brien cited the figure on-air. Oops. Palin actually tripled the state's spending on special needs kids. Recall the one about her membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which favors secession from the union? That made The New York Times, and again, wrong.
The coverage of Palin’s family life took media behavior from reckless to indecent. "A day of stunning Palin disclosures," was how the Associated Press greeted the news that Bristol Palin was pregnant. "A political stunner!" echoed CNN's Campbell Brown. In one 30-minute stretch, CNN reporters and anchors referred to the teen's pregnancy as "a bombshell" four separate times. And of course the Palin pregnancy hoax by Bill Mayer and Vanity Fair. From our favorite liberal, Camille Paglia , "The vicious double standard is pretty obvious. Only the tabloids, for example, ran the photos of a piss-drunk Chelsea Clinton, panties exposed, falling into her car outside London clubs a few years ago. If Chelsea had been the scion of Republican bigwigs, those tacky scenes would have been trumpeted from pillar to post in the U.S. as signals of parental failures or turmoil in clan Clinton."
Perhaps it was the 10/02/08 debate which was most revealing, the night Biden exposed his total lack of a grounding in government and constitutional affairs, the night incidentally that Palin cleaned his clock. No one in the media even saw it, or, chose to report it. Leading up to the debate, such luminaries as John Alter of Newsweek wrote that, "She is a far-right conservative who supported Pat Buchanan over Bush in 2000. She thinks global warming is a hoax and backs the teaching of creationism in public schools." She did not support Buchanan, she questioned whether climate change is man-made (not whether it's occurring) and gave creationists the most minor of rhetorical nods – and never questioned the teaching of evolution in schools. Hah! Too much.
And then the debate. Biden erroneously claimed that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution and asserted wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. When the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden's purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid. For example, he said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons can hit Israel. That is false. Pakistan has no intercontinental missiles. He said we "kicked" Hezbollah out of Lebanon. That is false. The US never "kicked" Hezbollah out of anywhere. Biden criticized Bush for supporting elections of the West Bank and said BO did too because it would legitimize Hamas. He was confused. Fatah controls the West Bank. Biden was thinking of Gaza. With Afghanistan, facts matter he said..."we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spend on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan." "Let me say that again," he said. He did and he was wrong both times. The facts here were that at the time Biden was speaking, the U.S. had spent $172 billion in Afghanistan over the 7 years. The Iraq War consumes between $7 billion and $8 billion every three weeks. What a clown. What a buffoon. Or when dressing down Dick Cheney, who was not present, for supposedly being unfamiliar with the Constitution. "The idea that he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States – that's the executive branch – he works in the executive branch," Biden said. Unfortunately, Article I defines the legislative, not executive, branch.
All of us know that if Palin had said any of this, she would have been laughed out of town. Biden got a pass. How come? As SJ Valley neighbor Vic Hansen role plays the journalists view, "Can’t smart people see that Palin’s naugahyde family is a reification of all this middle-class, mindless consumerism, without style, erudition, nuance and skepticism? How infuriating to sit here in New York and think that a winking tart could ever be elected, when seasoned sophisticates like Joe Biden and cosmopolitan metrosexuals like Barack Obama, who see it all, might not have been."
One intellectually honest, liberal journalist, a chief Washington correspondent for a news service, put it this way, "In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession." Facts matter.. "But they didn't in 2008, not when it came to Joe Biden (our guy) against Sarah Palin (odd outsider). The ladies and gentlemen of the press were more interested in her hair, her glasses, her wardrobe, her accent, her sex life, her kids' sex lives, and her hunting habits than in whether her opponent knew anything about foreign policy, the Constitution of the United States, or the job he was running for."
Thank you Sarah, for the gift of illumination.
Robert Craven
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Palin - a little fun this Thur am
My, my, my, my, my but our friends from the left are hysterical about all this Palin stuff. They can’t contain themselves, poor things. I tried to talk to my pal at the nursery about plant material, but mid sentence - "I’m sick of that Palin! Did you here her rambling quitting speech? Typical." Ok pal, how about selling me some plants? "No. How could a quitter run for president. I’ll never vote for her!" Ok. Maybe she is just sick of having her kids brutalized by your kind, maybe just a TV show? "I’ll never watch that. Never!. I mean it." OK ok. We know, we know. The Palins are just like those trashy folk who pile out of their Tahoe, in the way at the Safeway just as our pal is parking his Volvo. Sure that’s infuriating. Sure it is.
But really now, shame on Palin for resigning. Of course, just like Dole, and Bill Weld, Fred Thompson and Bill Bradley. And of course - no other than Obama. Shame on BO. The notion of leaving an elected office after only two years. (Of course, BO did it on the public’s dime, ever resourceful.) And then there’s Col. George Washington. He quit the Virginia militia. The IBD editorial board, the best in the business, takes us back: Ed Rollins: "Everyone is shocked by this and everyone assumes there's another story. You just don't quit the Virginia militia," notes Ed. "You certainly don't do this as a steppingstone to anything else. This makes George look terribly inept. I think that's one of the questions that people have about him. Is Washington substantive enough to be a serious candidate for anything else? This just doesn't make sense." Or pundit Maureen Dowd, " Georgy Porgy is one nutty puppy," pundit Maureen Dowd wrote on hearing the news. "George wanted everyone to know that he's not having fun in the Virginia militia and people are being mean to him and he doesn't feel like serving anymore." Other journalists in the 13 Colonies agreed that George Washington was finished as a military leader. It was decided beyond a reasonable doubt that Washington by dropping out of the militia had ended what might have been a promising career.
But really now, shame on Palin for resigning. Of course, just like Dole, and Bill Weld, Fred Thompson and Bill Bradley. And of course - no other than Obama. Shame on BO. The notion of leaving an elected office after only two years. (Of course, BO did it on the public’s dime, ever resourceful.) And then there’s Col. George Washington. He quit the Virginia militia. The IBD editorial board, the best in the business, takes us back: Ed Rollins: "Everyone is shocked by this and everyone assumes there's another story. You just don't quit the Virginia militia," notes Ed. "You certainly don't do this as a steppingstone to anything else. This makes George look terribly inept. I think that's one of the questions that people have about him. Is Washington substantive enough to be a serious candidate for anything else? This just doesn't make sense." Or pundit Maureen Dowd, " Georgy Porgy is one nutty puppy," pundit Maureen Dowd wrote on hearing the news. "George wanted everyone to know that he's not having fun in the Virginia militia and people are being mean to him and he doesn't feel like serving anymore." Other journalists in the 13 Colonies agreed that George Washington was finished as a military leader. It was decided beyond a reasonable doubt that Washington by dropping out of the militia had ended what might have been a promising career.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Ground Zero (And the Willfully Blind)
Outraged over AIG bonus money? Come on. Get a life and get off the couch, turn off the TV and peer below the surface. This AIG business is peanuts. Read on.
The history of politics offers few opportunities for observers to say - "Yes, that was the trigger," or in this case, for the Democrats to say, "Yes, I am afraid we as a party are responsible." Aside from 1) a courageous congressman from Alabama and 2) ex-President Bill Clinton, Democrats have yet come to own their culpability in this mess. There was not, "plenty of blame to go around," as one friend from the left asserted the other day in his attempt at a defense.
It is ironic that the Republicans, saddled by the left with the mantra of "never regulate," tried repeatedly to regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie) and every single time the Democrats blocked the legislation. We highlighted this early on; now it is common knowledge. Naturally from the viewpoint of the left, the sooner forgotten the better. And that we can understand. Witness the viewing below, Democrats in the flesh, cheering for (now disgraced) Raines, assuring Americans the twins are healthy. Two of these blithering idiots - Maxine Waters and Greg Meeks - are enough to stir any self respecting Democrat to wonder. The committee is the Financial Service Committee, or, subcommittees of that body: At the conclusion of the video, Bill Clinton joins us in putting this crisis right at his party’s doorstep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
Throughout the video, one can witness Democratic members of Congress defending 1) the management of the twins and 2) the business practices of the twins. We know now that management cooked the books; we know that the twins dumbed down their underwriting standards and increased their leverage to hazardous levels, levels which several Republican officials (House & Senate) warned would prove disastrous.
I sat before this committee. I can attest that neither side, Rep nor Dem, are well posted in economics. But one need not be an economist to observe the obvious; it was the willfully blind, and the politically correct that put us in this mess. When the only qualification for a mortgage was a good jump shot, one would have thought most would have seen the warning signs. Why just the Republicans?
Robert Craven
The history of politics offers few opportunities for observers to say - "Yes, that was the trigger," or in this case, for the Democrats to say, "Yes, I am afraid we as a party are responsible." Aside from 1) a courageous congressman from Alabama and 2) ex-President Bill Clinton, Democrats have yet come to own their culpability in this mess. There was not, "plenty of blame to go around," as one friend from the left asserted the other day in his attempt at a defense.
It is ironic that the Republicans, saddled by the left with the mantra of "never regulate," tried repeatedly to regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie) and every single time the Democrats blocked the legislation. We highlighted this early on; now it is common knowledge. Naturally from the viewpoint of the left, the sooner forgotten the better. And that we can understand. Witness the viewing below, Democrats in the flesh, cheering for (now disgraced) Raines, assuring Americans the twins are healthy. Two of these blithering idiots - Maxine Waters and Greg Meeks - are enough to stir any self respecting Democrat to wonder. The committee is the Financial Service Committee, or, subcommittees of that body: At the conclusion of the video, Bill Clinton joins us in putting this crisis right at his party’s doorstep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
Throughout the video, one can witness Democratic members of Congress defending 1) the management of the twins and 2) the business practices of the twins. We know now that management cooked the books; we know that the twins dumbed down their underwriting standards and increased their leverage to hazardous levels, levels which several Republican officials (House & Senate) warned would prove disastrous.
I sat before this committee. I can attest that neither side, Rep nor Dem, are well posted in economics. But one need not be an economist to observe the obvious; it was the willfully blind, and the politically correct that put us in this mess. When the only qualification for a mortgage was a good jump shot, one would have thought most would have seen the warning signs. Why just the Republicans?
Robert Craven
Monday, March 23, 2009
OVERVIEW
We have pondered crowd behavior, past few weeks - how it is that the equivalent of a cult figure could end up as president of the United States? But that’s not it either. How did this individual, devoid of accomplishment, end up where he is? Because he’s half black? Because the economy tanked pre-election, implicating McCain’s party? That’s all part of it, yet......
We knew up front that Obama had no job qualifications. But so did his admirers. We knew up front that he demonstrated a lack of judgement in his past associations, with criminals and shake-down artists. But so did his admirers. We knew he was on the take from Fannie Mae, along with Frank, Dodd and Clinton. But so did his admirers. We knew his Ill. / Senate voting record. But so did his admirers.
Perhaps H.L. Mencken has the answer, in his Notes On Democracy (1926): "Public estimation of eminence runs in reverse ratio to its genuineness," writes Mencken, anticipating Obama, "the sort of eminence that the mob esteems most highly is precisely the sort that has least grounding in solid worth and honest accomplishment." Menken’s mob in this case is the Kool-Aid crowd, swooning coeds, the press, the Eastern establishment, the left right here in Marin County.
The masses think this guy is genuine because they "think" with their glands/hormones (female fantasies re Obama - ok, we won’t go there). But so does Obama consider himself the genuine article. It is a matter of relativity. He has always been surrounded by extremely liberal people. His background is one dimensional. What he considers center-of the-road is to most of us - far left. His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid.
Thus, BO stated two weeks ago that he is not in favor of "big government". He means that. To him big government is a pure socialist state, and not even he would go there. Instead he targets something less extreme - the socialist democracies of Europe, which is where he is intent on directing us. It is the essence of the man and his presidency. And he knows he has about a year before the masses wake up. "A good catchword," Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘can obscure analysis for 50 years." As one observer noted, "To pass a vast program changing the relationship of American government to its citizens, Obama only needs to obscure analysis for about a year."
Robert Craven
We knew up front that Obama had no job qualifications. But so did his admirers. We knew up front that he demonstrated a lack of judgement in his past associations, with criminals and shake-down artists. But so did his admirers. We knew he was on the take from Fannie Mae, along with Frank, Dodd and Clinton. But so did his admirers. We knew his Ill. / Senate voting record. But so did his admirers.
Perhaps H.L. Mencken has the answer, in his Notes On Democracy (1926): "Public estimation of eminence runs in reverse ratio to its genuineness," writes Mencken, anticipating Obama, "the sort of eminence that the mob esteems most highly is precisely the sort that has least grounding in solid worth and honest accomplishment." Menken’s mob in this case is the Kool-Aid crowd, swooning coeds, the press, the Eastern establishment, the left right here in Marin County.
The masses think this guy is genuine because they "think" with their glands/hormones (female fantasies re Obama - ok, we won’t go there). But so does Obama consider himself the genuine article. It is a matter of relativity. He has always been surrounded by extremely liberal people. His background is one dimensional. What he considers center-of the-road is to most of us - far left. His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid.
Thus, BO stated two weeks ago that he is not in favor of "big government". He means that. To him big government is a pure socialist state, and not even he would go there. Instead he targets something less extreme - the socialist democracies of Europe, which is where he is intent on directing us. It is the essence of the man and his presidency. And he knows he has about a year before the masses wake up. "A good catchword," Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘can obscure analysis for 50 years." As one observer noted, "To pass a vast program changing the relationship of American government to its citizens, Obama only needs to obscure analysis for about a year."
Robert Craven
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Ground Zero & Barney Frank
Could it be that just a handful of individuals, maybe just one or two are responsible for this crisis, or, if not the scope of destruction, at least the birth of the event? The left tells us that there’s plenty of blame to go around, things are just too complex to isolate a primary cause or a villain.
But of course. Complexity provides shelter. Seeking shelter in this case - the Democratic party, and, Barney Frank specifically.
We isolated ground zero, our Heart of Darkness, very early on - the Democrat’s refusal to reform the twins, with Frank as the paladin in that effort. Now, figuring an offense to be the best defense, Frank of all people is seeking prosecution for those responsible for the meltdown! Hah! Too much! And that was indeed too much for the Investor’s Business Daily which puts a great big fat cross hair on Frank’s backside. From today’s editorial: "From the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie. Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control. He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't needed because there was ‘no federal liability there whatsoever’. In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here?"
Readers know the Bush administration pushed for major reform of the twins, reforms the NYT’s called, " the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago." These were always blocked by the Dem’s, the last in ‘06, with Frank as one of the chief engineers in that effort.
Repeating what we have offered earlier, the IBD says that Frank, "perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration."
What was Frank thinking? We know the twins were a cash cow for him (and Dodd, and Clinton, and Obama). Could that have been it? The IBD guesses that it may have been his boyfriend at Fannie. Maybe that’s it. Whatever the motivation, those of our friends from the left who are a tad unhappy with their 401K need look no further.
Robert Craven
But of course. Complexity provides shelter. Seeking shelter in this case - the Democratic party, and, Barney Frank specifically.
We isolated ground zero, our Heart of Darkness, very early on - the Democrat’s refusal to reform the twins, with Frank as the paladin in that effort. Now, figuring an offense to be the best defense, Frank of all people is seeking prosecution for those responsible for the meltdown! Hah! Too much! And that was indeed too much for the Investor’s Business Daily which puts a great big fat cross hair on Frank’s backside. From today’s editorial: "From the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie. Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control. He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't needed because there was ‘no federal liability there whatsoever’. In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here?"
Readers know the Bush administration pushed for major reform of the twins, reforms the NYT’s called, " the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago." These were always blocked by the Dem’s, the last in ‘06, with Frank as one of the chief engineers in that effort.
Repeating what we have offered earlier, the IBD says that Frank, "perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration."
What was Frank thinking? We know the twins were a cash cow for him (and Dodd, and Clinton, and Obama). Could that have been it? The IBD guesses that it may have been his boyfriend at Fannie. Maybe that’s it. Whatever the motivation, those of our friends from the left who are a tad unhappy with their 401K need look no further.
Robert Craven
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Great Heist
We have outlined the priorities for a recovery in our accompanying economic blog, for the most part reserving judgement when adorning those pages. We are not writing from the cheap seats; we distill events for our readers, then offer a solution. So have many others; it is not a mystery now what needs to be done. But it suddenly dawned on us that we may have been taken in. This calls for a comment in this arena - politics - a response before Obama lays waste to what remains of our social and economic fabric.
Without a viable banking sector the stimulus package and the budget mean nothing. Simply noise. Everybody knows that. You don’t have to be an economist. But the Obama administration has shied away from embracing any bank solution. What? Under this administration, has a single toxic asset actually been seized, separated, sold, or de-toxified? Don’t think so.
We wondered why BO has done nothing to address the bank problem. (So has the equity market which is exactly why it is in the tank.) How silly of us. The recovery is secondary to BO and his pals. The goal - nothing more than to effect a shift in power to politicians and bureaucrats, to in fact weld a lock on American society. Ths crisis then is a gift to the far left. The stimulus package, as the IBD put it, "is nothing more than a down payment on a socialist economy. It raises taxes on the successful, brings back the welfare state....," hands out favors to friends of the Democrats and imposes controls on the free market in ways that just a year ago would have seemed unimaginable.
What is transpiring my friends is in fact the greatest political heist modern man has ever witnessed. When Emanuel laid out his "Rule One": "Never let a crisis go to waste," he was being brutally candid, exposing his and his boss’s agenda in crystal clear fashion, to all who may have been listening. This is a dream come true to this bunch.
It’s all about spending, taxing and - key - the deep insertion of gov’t in our daily lives that goes with it. A pal in the gym intoned the other day, "Hey, that Pelosi sure slapped Obama around, huh?". Well, not quite. That was a set up. As Rich Lowry put it, "By giving Pelosi running room and enduring a few embarrassments, he got what he wanted, which was as much new spending as quickly as the political system could bear." And by cheerleading for the economy the past few days (changing roles from pallbearer the previous week) he hopes to do the same for his budget plan.
Robert Craven
Without a viable banking sector the stimulus package and the budget mean nothing. Simply noise. Everybody knows that. You don’t have to be an economist. But the Obama administration has shied away from embracing any bank solution. What? Under this administration, has a single toxic asset actually been seized, separated, sold, or de-toxified? Don’t think so.
We wondered why BO has done nothing to address the bank problem. (So has the equity market which is exactly why it is in the tank.) How silly of us. The recovery is secondary to BO and his pals. The goal - nothing more than to effect a shift in power to politicians and bureaucrats, to in fact weld a lock on American society. Ths crisis then is a gift to the far left. The stimulus package, as the IBD put it, "is nothing more than a down payment on a socialist economy. It raises taxes on the successful, brings back the welfare state....," hands out favors to friends of the Democrats and imposes controls on the free market in ways that just a year ago would have seemed unimaginable.
What is transpiring my friends is in fact the greatest political heist modern man has ever witnessed. When Emanuel laid out his "Rule One": "Never let a crisis go to waste," he was being brutally candid, exposing his and his boss’s agenda in crystal clear fashion, to all who may have been listening. This is a dream come true to this bunch.
It’s all about spending, taxing and - key - the deep insertion of gov’t in our daily lives that goes with it. A pal in the gym intoned the other day, "Hey, that Pelosi sure slapped Obama around, huh?". Well, not quite. That was a set up. As Rich Lowry put it, "By giving Pelosi running room and enduring a few embarrassments, he got what he wanted, which was as much new spending as quickly as the political system could bear." And by cheerleading for the economy the past few days (changing roles from pallbearer the previous week) he hopes to do the same for his budget plan.
Robert Craven
Thursday, February 26, 2009
In Praise of Obama
There has never been an infant administration so replete with errors, gaffs, misjudgement, so plagued with scandal. We have predicted some of it and documented most of it. Still, we must reserve hope and shed judgement and allot praise when appropriate. Obama’s ag policy gives us a chance to do just that.
In his speech Obama’s farm payments pledge was specific - "In this budget, we will.....end direct payments to large agribusiness that don’t need them." This echoes McCain’s campaign pledge. And Obama didn’t mean agribusiness as in conglomerate, but as in farmer. Still, despite the error, we commend the spirit of this tack, echoing of course earlier comments by Ag Sect Vilsack urging farmers not to rely on direct payments.
From dairymen to grain growers, these guys make welfare queens look like entrepreneurs. Farm-state Congressmen will fight this like the living daylights of course but we can retrieve some hope in Senate Ag Comm chair Harkin’s statement, "I am encouraged that President Obama called for limitations on commodity payments to large agribusinesses." Good luck guys.
Robert Craven
In his speech Obama’s farm payments pledge was specific - "In this budget, we will.....end direct payments to large agribusiness that don’t need them." This echoes McCain’s campaign pledge. And Obama didn’t mean agribusiness as in conglomerate, but as in farmer. Still, despite the error, we commend the spirit of this tack, echoing of course earlier comments by Ag Sect Vilsack urging farmers not to rely on direct payments.
From dairymen to grain growers, these guys make welfare queens look like entrepreneurs. Farm-state Congressmen will fight this like the living daylights of course but we can retrieve some hope in Senate Ag Comm chair Harkin’s statement, "I am encouraged that President Obama called for limitations on commodity payments to large agribusinesses." Good luck guys.
Robert Craven
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The Speech
Obama’s advisers, including Bill Clinton (do you find yourself wishing we had that guy back?) told Obama to lay off the "end of the world" stuff last night, and he did. But key is that he didn’t know any better; he has been spouting that stuff for two weeks; he had to be told. That’s what we mean about judgement - he has none.
How about facts? We repeat the following from the original effort of AP reporters Tom Raum, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Dina Cappiello (a liberal has to really go the distance to gag the AP).
Obama: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."
FACT: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.
Obama: "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
FACT: According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886.
Obama: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."
FACT: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining since.
Obama: We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
FACT: Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.
Obama: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market."
FACT: This slap at the Republicans is false. It was the Bush administration which tried repeatedly to reform, regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie), fearing just the catastrophe that ensued. The key near-criminals here - Frank and Dodd. The twins were a cash cow to these clowns, ranking #1 and #2 on the recipient list. - Obama ranked #5 or #6 as a senator, just behind Clinton.
Obama: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
FACT : First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list.
Obama: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
FACT: The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."
Four years to go? Let’s hope the tabloid folks (and now at least two American soldiers) are right and this guy 1) was born out of the country to a mother too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship or 2) his father was a dual citizen. The framers exclude dual citizens from qualifying as "natural born" - the requirement, Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Robert Craven
How about facts? We repeat the following from the original effort of AP reporters Tom Raum, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Dina Cappiello (a liberal has to really go the distance to gag the AP).
Obama: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."
FACT: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so. The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month it's not likely aid will be denied to homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.
Obama: "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
FACT: According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886.
Obama: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."
FACT: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining since.
Obama: We have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade."
FACT: Obama only has a real say on spending during the four years of his term. He may not be president after that and he certainly won't be 10 years from now.
Obama: "Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market."
FACT: This slap at the Republicans is false. It was the Bush administration which tried repeatedly to reform, regulate the twins (Fannie / Freddie), fearing just the catastrophe that ensued. The key near-criminals here - Frank and Dodd. The twins were a cash cow to these clowns, ranking #1 and #2 on the recipient list. - Obama ranked #5 or #6 as a senator, just behind Clinton.
Obama: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
FACT : First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do because control over spending rests with Congress. Obama's proposals here are a wish list.
Obama: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."
FACT: The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."
Four years to go? Let’s hope the tabloid folks (and now at least two American soldiers) are right and this guy 1) was born out of the country to a mother too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship or 2) his father was a dual citizen. The framers exclude dual citizens from qualifying as "natural born" - the requirement, Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution.
Robert Craven
Saturday, February 21, 2009
30 DAYS
Obama’s demonstrated lack of good judgement past 20 years has resurrected itself the past 30 days, exactly as we warned that it would. His associations with Rezko, ACORN, Wright, Blago, Ayers, Daley, his Senate voting record (against the successful surge / blocking reform of the twins - ground zero) all reflected less-than-sound judgement. Now, anyone who cares about the US must be very worried about what they have witnessed the last 4 weeks.
For example, the Kool-Aid crowd were prepared for soon-to-be-enacted revolutionary ethics. Instead we are witnessing one of the most scandal-plagued incipient administrations of the last half-century. Obama’s Treasury Sect (and nominal head of the IRS) is a tax dodger. Tom Daschle, who lectured all of us on prompt payment of our taxes, is a tax cheat. Reformist cabinet nominees like Bill Richardson and Hilda Solis could not themselves follow the laws they were asked to enforce. The would-be performance czar Nancy Killefer did not perform on her taxes. And then of course there is Burris. Too much.
Obama promised to clean up Washington; he bragged about his new no-lobbyist policies yet he hired insider lobbyists, ignoring his own ethics rules for example to appoint a lobbyist as Dep Sect of Defense! This is good judgement?
Now Obama, who claimed he would end politics as usual, plans to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador to the UK. Sending a crony with zero pertinent experience to a plumb post wreaks of a "banana republic" as one observer put it. What is the difference between this and the "pay to play" scandal in which Blago apparently auctioned off Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. This reflects judgement?
Instead of drawing up his own economic stimulus bill he sub-contracted the job to Pelosi and that bunch and hit the campaign trail (actually, he never left it). That was poor judgement. As our readers know, the final bill is a fraud. Obama will not say "No" to the far left of his party because he is one of them. So instead of having Emanuel keep congressional Democrats in line, he left the bill to the most partisan members of Congress who then convinced the masses that it was irresponsible NOT to waste a boatload of their money.
Obama’s habit of predicting economic doomsday is just plain stupid. As the IBD put it, "Words like ‘catastrophe,’ ‘crisis’ and ‘depression’ are coming from the mouth of the newly elected president, rather than words of hope and optimism."
His housing plan is a flop from the get go. The crafting of that $75 billion bailout for 9 million Americans who face foreclosure, regardless of how they got into financial trouble, is Obama’s answer to the housing crunch. This exercise reflects poor judgement. Americans who have scrupulously kept up with payments now get to subsidize those who have not.
Obama let internal disputes over the question of bank policy result in a disastrous non-announcement of a non-plan. That was poor judgement.
Obama allowed Rahm Emanuel to politicize the Census Bureau, losing as a result the credible Judd Gregg as Commerce secty. That was poor judgement.
As Democrat Vic Hansen lamented recently, "For two years the media and the left transmogrified a bright and talented, though inexperienced Chicago pol into some sort of divine totem in which they could invest all their hopes and seek penance for all their sins. They are now learning ... that scoring points against Bush on the campaign trail and offering soaring platitudes with Rev Wright cadences, were not the same as governing the United States."
Bright and talented maybe, but judgement, common sense? The building blocks aren’t there.
Robert Craven
For example, the Kool-Aid crowd were prepared for soon-to-be-enacted revolutionary ethics. Instead we are witnessing one of the most scandal-plagued incipient administrations of the last half-century. Obama’s Treasury Sect (and nominal head of the IRS) is a tax dodger. Tom Daschle, who lectured all of us on prompt payment of our taxes, is a tax cheat. Reformist cabinet nominees like Bill Richardson and Hilda Solis could not themselves follow the laws they were asked to enforce. The would-be performance czar Nancy Killefer did not perform on her taxes. And then of course there is Burris. Too much.
Obama promised to clean up Washington; he bragged about his new no-lobbyist policies yet he hired insider lobbyists, ignoring his own ethics rules for example to appoint a lobbyist as Dep Sect of Defense! This is good judgement?
Now Obama, who claimed he would end politics as usual, plans to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador to the UK. Sending a crony with zero pertinent experience to a plumb post wreaks of a "banana republic" as one observer put it. What is the difference between this and the "pay to play" scandal in which Blago apparently auctioned off Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder. This reflects judgement?
Instead of drawing up his own economic stimulus bill he sub-contracted the job to Pelosi and that bunch and hit the campaign trail (actually, he never left it). That was poor judgement. As our readers know, the final bill is a fraud. Obama will not say "No" to the far left of his party because he is one of them. So instead of having Emanuel keep congressional Democrats in line, he left the bill to the most partisan members of Congress who then convinced the masses that it was irresponsible NOT to waste a boatload of their money.
Obama’s habit of predicting economic doomsday is just plain stupid. As the IBD put it, "Words like ‘catastrophe,’ ‘crisis’ and ‘depression’ are coming from the mouth of the newly elected president, rather than words of hope and optimism."
His housing plan is a flop from the get go. The crafting of that $75 billion bailout for 9 million Americans who face foreclosure, regardless of how they got into financial trouble, is Obama’s answer to the housing crunch. This exercise reflects poor judgement. Americans who have scrupulously kept up with payments now get to subsidize those who have not.
Obama let internal disputes over the question of bank policy result in a disastrous non-announcement of a non-plan. That was poor judgement.
Obama allowed Rahm Emanuel to politicize the Census Bureau, losing as a result the credible Judd Gregg as Commerce secty. That was poor judgement.
As Democrat Vic Hansen lamented recently, "For two years the media and the left transmogrified a bright and talented, though inexperienced Chicago pol into some sort of divine totem in which they could invest all their hopes and seek penance for all their sins. They are now learning ... that scoring points against Bush on the campaign trail and offering soaring platitudes with Rev Wright cadences, were not the same as governing the United States."
Bright and talented maybe, but judgement, common sense? The building blocks aren’t there.
Robert Craven
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
