Better Days Ahead

Today's Retail Sales activity for Nov broached expectations, thus cooperating nicely with our anchor. Consumers are far less cautious than before. Thank you very much. But this blog’s about National Politics is it not?

OK, let’s veer away from recent data just a tad and look at another key development: The House Committee on Financial Services (before, the House Banking Comm) is about to acquire a new chairman, thanks to Nov/2. We celebrate this event.

Under Barney Frank the committee went awol. As a result the crisis of Q4 ‘08 was birthed.

Frank never understood the workings of Fannie & Freddie. Bush efforts to reform the twins were blocked by Frank (and his Dem counterparts in the Senate, including BO). He and Clinton and Dodd and Obama may not have known that in encouraging the twins to take just a little more risk, then just a little bit more, in the successful effort to garner black votes that they would trigger the crisis but that was the result. That is, Barney politicized the mortgage origination business and for that he should be strung up by his thumbs (or by something, you pick).

KEY: Walt Street lampreys would have been without a host if not for Frank. (McCain would have won the election if he could have articulated this to the masses. He tried once in debate, then gave up the effort.)

We spent a day in front of the House Banking Committee when under Henry Gonzalez (D - Tex). We didn’t share Henry’s politics but admired the man. He was after Greenspan and Greenspan’s Fed for their multiple indiscretions; so were we. Gonzalez understood banking. He was fair. He was also a boxer in his younger years, something a heckler should have remembered. In a restaurant in Texas one day this poor fool called Henry a communist. Henry was in his late 70's at the time. He jumped up and knocked the guy out, TR style.

Somehow Frank and his sleazy far left politics do not fit this mold, even if he has put that male prostitute business behind him. Frank is sharp but so what? He was nothing more than a pseudo community organizer acting as the helmsman of US finance - a misfit. As a pilot on Twain’s Mississippi, he was sure to run aground.

We can expect the new chair, Spencer Bachus (R - Ala) and vice chair Jeb Hensarling (R- Tex) to unsnarl most of Frank’s mistakes, beginning with the Dodd-Frank act, “to correct, replace or repeal job-killing provisions that unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks that did nothing to cause the financial crisis,” as Bachus told the Wash Times.

Then onto the twins.

Robert Craven

Reluctantly an American

Mark Halperin, sr political analyst for TIME laments this week about his one-time idol, Obama. Everybody’s turned against him, Halperin writes, “Liberals believe he is an over-compromising wimp.....the business community considers Obama ignorant... a socialist at worst....The media..now see the president as incompetent and overwhelmed.” Poor Mark. He hopes in desperation that Obama will capture bin Laden, or preside over the fall of Iran; something, anything, “to reintroduce him to the American people and show the strengths he demonstrated as a ...candidate.”

Well, not exactly the “strengths” demonstrated as a candidate, but the lies demonstrated as a candidate. And he cannot be “reintroduced” because he never was one of us. He is only reluctantly an American.

His parents (a habitually drunk, polygamist, socialist father and a hater of America / a libertine, socialist mother and a hater of America), his associations with other America haters, with convicted terrorists, are all formative events.

Few of those who were taken in at the voting booth bothered to look past BO’s half color. If they had, they might have encountered this: From Stanley Kurtz, “The afternoon of April 1, 1983, Barack Obama, then a senior at Columbia University, made his way into the Great Hall of Manhattan’s Cooper Union to attend a ‘Socialist Scholars Conference.’”

“The conference itself was not a secret, but it held a secret, for it was there that a demoralized and frustrated socialist movement largely set aside strategies of nationalization and turned increasingly to local organizing as a way around the Reagan presidency — and its own spotty reputation,” he continues. “In the early 1980s, America’s socialists discovered what Saul Alinsky had always known: ‘Community organizing’ is a euphemism behind which advocates of a radical vision of America could advance their cause without the bothersome label ‘socialist’ drawing adverse attention to their efforts.”

“The 1983 Cooper Union Conference, billed as a tribute to Marx, was precisely when Obama discovered his vocation for community organizing,” notes Kurtz.

A regular American guy? A patriot? How so?

An extremist, a radical as we have warned all along? Looks like it.

Robert Craven

Public Sector Unions, Obama and the Economy

Reasonable folk are amazed at the frolics of the left. Why did so much of the stimulus money go to union projects? Is that why it hasn’t worked? Why to Obama is American business simply an afterthought? Why is BO’s main focus on labor and green issues? Why is BO in battle with the private sector, with free enterprise?

Silly us, we thought the present administration had the interests of the American people and their economy in mind. Apparently not. Some of the most useful insight has come from Dem’s themselves, recently chastised.

John Kotkin of Chapman Univ is one of these, highlighting the above noted flaw. He writes that, “Modern-day liberalism... is often ambivalent about expanding the economy — preferring a mix of redistribution with redirection along green lines. Its base of political shock troops, public-employee unions, appears only tangentially interested in the health of the overall economy.” Well natch. These types can’t compete with free enterprise. Ever see a city street crew at work? Or, what’s orange and sleeps three? A Caltrans truck. Enough said. The private sector is a huge threat to these guys. Think BO is going to get away with seeing to the welfare of the private sector over these clowns?

Kotkin continues, “This contrasts with the far broader support for the familiar form of liberalism forged from the 1930s to the 1990s. Democratic presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton focused largely on basic middle-class concerns — such as expanding economic opportunity, property ownership and growth.” Yes they did, but that party was hijacked.

There’s thought and reflection here to be sure. Key is that the modern left’s priorities are misaligned, never mind the method. BO not only screwed up, he didn’t really care in the first place, or if he did his being in hock to the unions precluded any real solution. For BO to have cut taxes then got out of the way would have alienated his party base, big time. Never waste a crisis. Use it to create a program to stimulate the unions.

Again from Kotkin, “Public sector unions are not just the base of the party -- they're the base of the base. As the 2010 campaign ground on, other supporters and donors, notably Wall Street, had abandoned Democratic candidates. But unions representing teachers and state and local employees have doubled down. The National Education Association, the largest U.S. teachers union, spent more than $3.4 million on ad buys and direct-mail campaigns for the key electioneering period from Sept. 1 to Oct. 14. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees spent $2.1 million in that period. Union members and their families are key to the Democratic ‘ground game’ for Nov. 2.”


May thanks to the left and BO and particularly to his state & local employee union pals for their fine contribution to the better interests of this country.

Robert Craven

Fodder

Most Dems have regained consciousness but still remain dazed, bewildered, deer-in-the-headlights.

Not the far left, not those extremists who until recently controlled the party. They’re guerilla fighters. They’ll sacrifice their own kind for the cause. All of us have just witnessed such an event.

They’re Mac in Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, the communist labor organizer who like Obama’s Rham Emanuel would, “never waste a crisis,” this one the tension in CA agriculture in the 30's. Mac used farm workers, fresh from the Dust Bowl, as tools for his greater “cause.” Jim was one of these and was sacrificed one night in a peach orchard, in an encounter with a shotgun.

There are plenty of Jim’s now; they’re everywhere, those moderate Dem’s just sacrificed by radical operatives. They have been beaten nearly to death, fodder for the party machine.

This time the party went too far, alienating most of its members, just as Mac finally crossed the line, ignoring even human life in the quest for an abstract. And this is exactly why last year we could predict, correctly as it turned out, that Obama (who is the perfect stand-in for McGovern or Martine Aubry) meant the death of the Democratic Party in its then present form.

Robert Craven

Taken

In today’s Wash Post two Dem polsters, Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen write that, “... the president has largely lost the consent of the governed. The midterm elections were effectively a referendum on the Obama presidency. And even if it was not an endorsement of a Republican vision for America, the drubbing the Democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in Obama and his party. The president has almost no credibility left with Republicans and little with independents,” and we might add, little with moderate Democrats. For many of these, it’s more than disappointment; they hate the guy.

These authors conclude that Obama should announce “immediately” that he won’t run in 2012. That way he can make the tough decisions, “standing above politics, seeking to forge consensus.” He could, “make hard decisions about Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan based on what is reasonable and responsible for the United States, without the political constraints of a looming election.”

Won’t happen guys.

These two lament in the article that Obama’s actions have not been consistent with his campaign rhetoric. Caddell, Schoen and the rest, the taken, the willfully blind may have done their own research but they ignored the results if they did.

Obama acted perfectly in character all along, first saying what was needed to get elected, which by the way included making a bargain with guilty whites.

Now he’s acting just as he did as a state and later US senator - partisan, divisive, and oblivious to the real world concerns of most Americans. Our nursery pals and the rest invented a candidate. If Caddell and Schoen think Obama is listening, they repeat that mistake.

This is not about what is best for the country for goodness sake; it is about what is best for Obama. Where in his writings, his partisan voting record, his past associations or even his family background is it that he or his family ever maintained the interests of the United States as a priority? (See our Mischief of Nov/3 for more on that).

Background: To Obama, the United States is an unsavory institution. We noted family earlier because most agree family has formative dimensions. We know that his dad, a perennially drunk polygamist, was a hater of the West because he said so. We know that his mom while in Indonesia prevented BO from associating with other Americans as these were, “not my people.” Correct. Her people were the hate-America types, socialists, Marxists, the same crew BO chose to pal around with in his later years, his adult life. From Janice Shaw: “America’s supposed decline....is for our president — in accordance with all he was taught by his hate-mongering pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright — a matter of the 'chickens coming home to roost.'"

Do Caddell and Schoen really think this guy is going to do what is best for America? Probably not.



Robert Craven

An Education - At Our Expense

Obama laid waste to our economy. He tanked US prestige in the international community. There is no forgiving that.

BO experimented domestically at our expense, aiming to level the meritocracy he regards as offensive.

Next, he ignored fiscal lessons learned long ago. Even Europe looks sober in light of Obama’s recent binge.

Now we see the headline - “Obama To Be Back On Top.” What’s that mean? So now that he’s the last guy on the block to catch on and maybe apes Clinton, we should forgive him? Never. We want his transgressions to plague him every single day of his remaining term and we want him tossed to the dogs come 2012.

So it’s ok for him to waste two years? Water’s wet in the real world. For two years he tried to prove otherwise, the abstract. Now that he may come to agree, we should celebrate?

Are we here simply to provide therapy for BO so that he may prosper? Is all this really just about one guy? Sacrifice the country so that one half-black guy can achieve fame, so that guilty lefties can feel better about themselves?



Obama is without a sense of either history or economics yet was set free by swooning coeds and nursery types to have his way, to mold as he thought fit a country and a people and enterprises with whom in fact he has very little in common. That, compounded by his chronic lack of judgement explains why he so dangerous.

He is naive, even childish, a product of the faculty lounge. For example, from Vic Hansen, “Obama seems to think that making money is a casual enterprise, not nearly so difficult as community organizing, and without the intellectual rigor of academia — as if profits leap out of the head of Zeus.”

Then offshore, following the example set by his father Obama promotes American guilt at every stop; again parroting his father, he’s a paladin for anticolonialism, lecturing the Western powers that they prosper on the backs of others.

And now after seeing their party murdered, most Dems hope BO will abandon his adolescent ways, that is, the ways of the progressive, the looniest of this bunch. We have predicted that won’t happen and why and we darn sure hope we’re right. We don’t want to see BO move to center for goodness sake. We’ve already had to pay a heck of a price. Why pay for his education? We want to see BO and his wife and all of her 22 assistants (who cost us $900M annually) get the boot.

We’re told that we don’t have to respect the individual but always respect the office. This guy’s making that out to be a chore.

Robert Craven

Handicapped - Race and the Economy

The past two years the Democrats have ministered to the US economy pretty much as they practice their race policy, pretty much as they minister to the blacks. Blacks are treated as a population somehow handicapped, disadvantaged, and key - in need of gov’t guidance and support. A few fall for this nonsense; this serves the party purposes quite nicely. (This stealth approach is at variance with earlier Democratic policy. Then, slavery was actually part of the party platform. At least these folk were honest, cretins to be sure but honest.)

Obama and crew predictably treated the US economy in similar fashion, in doctrinaire style - as if it were handicapped. Everything done by the majority past two years is a perfect fit.

First, the economy was visited by a crisis, this the result of Dem malfeasance regarding supervision of the twins, the discharging of prudence in mortgage origination. The purpose - to buy black votes.

Next, a resuscitation was hampered by the same policy the Dem’s apply to race, and with the same result. It amounts to nothing more than an intrusion, a lack of respect for sake of politics. The party has no decency. Set upon by BO and his type, reminded of (manufactured) handicaps, burdened by layer up layer of interference, and layer upon layer of uncertainty, the economy struggles (or did).

Gov’t spending does not create jobs on net, does not and never has reduced unemployment, at best acts as a wash, at worst a retardant. Some of us knew that early on; all but the most willfully blind know it now. Special privileges, quotas and bureaucratic interference in matters of race - the same result. Both sound great but never work. Money thrown at bigger and better public schools in the ghetto for example might as well be destined for the outhouse.

So a recovery has been thwarted by the left. To simply stand aside, lower taxes and hold on - no way, a violation of party identity, and for BO, an erosion of his political base.


Yet BO’s accomplices cannot stand still, even now. The Fed, having no fear of inflation is buying billions of US debt in an attempt to fire the system (the money comes from..... right - out of thin air). This is again simply interference. Still lower real interest rates in the US will deplete the incomes of savers and pensioners but do little to spark growth, not now. We know the Fed so we know this cute little trick will make little difference to a recovery but it will create distortions, $ moves for example, perhaps higher commodity prices, and perhaps stagflation to boot. Such a waste.

Renew the tax cuts, remove employer uncertainty and you have it - vigor. Simple. Yet such a common sense approach is nothing less than an apostasy to those scoundrels who traffic in the fraud that things are just so, so difficult, so complex that only they, the anointed, carry the wisdom and grace to deliver; it is only they who can provide salvation.

These misfits are soon to be gone. This is why we are optimistic for 2011 and beyond.

Robert Craven

My Son-In-Law

My son-in-law arrived tonight, to Savannah, safe and sound; my daughter Kim and granddaughter Reagan were there to meet him - Carter, an Apache pilot, sent to Afg to protect our ground forces, to escort our medivacs, to rain utter destruction upon those hell bent to destroy us.

It’s very simple, but made out by those who quail at confrontation, as does Obama, to be just so, so complex.

There is a so-called “religion” which calls for the re-ordering of the civilized world, at gun-point if necessary. Not just extremists, all of them, the whole shebang - that’s their anchor (and a pedophilic butcher is their prophet). That would be the muslims.

From an inheritance linked to the dark ages these individuals have inconvenienced all of us. For most of us it means a longer wait at the airport; for my son-in-law, a life-and-death struggle every single day, every single mission. He’s seen these misanthropes join funeral processions to obtain cover; he’s seen them force innocents to take bullets that they might be saved.

And how does he return to this Dear Country? With a great disgust for Obama and his ritual of appeasement; with a disgust for the sanitized rules of combat which not only endangered him and his comrades, but profoundly handicap our efforts there.

Robert Craven

Mischief

In Forbes, Dinesh D’Sousa, pres of Kings College, NYC writes of a, “... philandering, inebriated African socialist who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, (who) is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son.” D’Sousa reflects on dad Obama and his campaign against colonialism; the US being the only superpower, that must now mean us and our prospering on the backs of others. And indeed, Obama junior’s actions do seem to fit - the tearing down of American greatness, the obsequious posturing to thugs offshore. D’Sousa continues, “A anticolonialist believes that since the rich have prospered at the expense of others, their wealth doesn't really belong to them; therefore whatever can be extracted from them is automatically just. Recall what Obama Sr. said in his 1965 paper: There is no tax rate too high, and even a 100% rate is justified under certain circumstances.” BO’s tax policy!

Well, likely Dinesh has something. His central point is that at first dad Obama appears a strange choice for the inspirational hero BO repeatedly claims him to be, until one understands that it was dad’s ravings about the cause of anticolonialism that provided the inspiration. It’s certainly not dad’s character or family values, which are down right scary, actually tabloid. This polygamist was a habitual drunk driver who murdered a man in one accident, severed his own legs in another and finally smacked into a tree, thus ending his fine career, which included wife beating. One of BO’s half brothers, also a polygamist and 52, just married a 19 yr old, nearly putting Jerry Lee to shame. We could go on with the fun, but won’t.

So yes, “In the anticolonial view, America is now the rogue elephant that subjugates and tramples the people of the world.” Seems a fit with Obama Jr.

Before encountering the D’Sousa article this pm we had earlier pondered what might be the key giveaway to BO’s real intent, his domestic agenda (taking the flip side of D’Sousa’s piece). We arrived at one single sentence, uttered by Obama Apr/29/10. Most we are sure recall the comment - “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” This statement got a good deal of press early on but it was mostly surface feeding. In fact we believe it is this sentence that telegraphs more about BO’s corrosive intent on American greatness, about his role as he sees it than an other single clue. Dinesh may agree.

These words my friends can only belong to a committed planner. We know from history (and China, India and half of S America from experience) that planned societies fail. They fail because no one single individual can be that smart. And even if he were, he’s human, thus has pals and enemies. Planning fails because planning involves decision making to arbitrarily exclude some and include or reward others. It follows that power over individual freedoms is gathered in the planning office. It always begins in benign form (ex., BO’s health heist) and ends in more execrable form such as communism or fascism. In fact, Hitler began this journey through national health care.

There can be only one final outcome of a planned society - a police state.

From Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom we read that, “In Germany and Italy the Nazis and Fascists did, indeed, not have much to invent. The usages of the new political movements which pervaded all aspects of life had in both countries already been introduced by the socialists. The idea of a political party which embraces all activities of the individual from the cradle to the grave, which claims to guide his views on everything, and which delights in making all problems questions of the party was first put into practice by the socialists.”


We know, we know, “no way in the US,” you say. But in fact there is a way and it is Obama. The statement, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” is chilling in its implications and a perfect fit to behavior described by Hayek. One individual, seemingly ordained by some greater power to decide just when and to where you are to redirect your income stream. That is, he knows and you don’t what is good for you. He will make that decision. This is how this guy thinks folks! Ponder this for a moment. We don’t know for sure if it’s due to his old man’s inspiration but it’s there and it’s poison.

Earlier such a thing has resided in America only in the abstract, in faculty rooms or at the nursery, never operational. It now resides in substantive form in the White House, diluted perhaps by events of Nov/2 but still potent and dangerous.

Robert Craven

WRONG

Josiah Whitney was chief of the CA Geological Survey from 1860 - 1874. Whitney maintained that Yosemite Valley was created by a cataclysmic sinking of the valley floor. John Muir maintained that the valley was carved by glacial action. Whitney derided Muir as an “ignoramus” and a “mere sheepherder.” Whitney's survey reports suppressed evidence of glaciers, and he never abandoned his viewpoint despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whitney was more than stubborn and wrong, he was vindictive and a slanderer.

What we witnessed tonight was a similar refutation of an earlier mistaken view. As was Whitney, how could so many be so obviously wrong for so long? Easy. They were at half traction until two years ago. The nursery types, the far left, were never before held accountable, their dogma never closely examined. Suddenly it gained footage. Next were the repercussions. This is what gagged most Americans, exposing the lie.

Muir first, then most other grounded observers saw the fraud of Whitney’s argument. But to admit to a failed career? Whitney could not summon the courage. Nor can our lefty friends. Instead, as did Whitney they strike out.

Too bad. They will remain for years to come only outliers, ignored, bitter and forgotten.

Robert Craven

An Education, Sort of

Most of us are not economists nor historians. Yet a surface familiarization with both disciplines provided a mighty assist in understanding, in fact in predicting recent events in national politics.

The “dreamers,” the feel-good types ignore both; these who dismiss historical economic precedent and so never bother to consider policy result have just received an education, gratis of Obama.

Given the escape from McGovern there’s been nothing like it, not FDR, not Wilson. Obama-like policy wreaked havoc with the UK post WWII, and then most of Europe; yet lessons learned there went unheaded in America on election day, 2008.

Most one-time Obama supporters have now seen first hand the object of the warnings of von Mises, Friedman, Hayek and others. Obama's threatened their personal liberty; he's hit - and this really counts - their pocket books. With the exception of a few far-left looney tunes the rest will never again pull the trigger for a statist. Well, maybe never-ever but at least not until they or their kids forget, falling prey once again to what seems the easy way out.

For now we are about to fetch a grounding; damage is to be undone, repairs to be made.

Robert Craven

Don't Blame Us

Sen Kerry this morning, “We're in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don't weigh in....” Oh, but of course, another case of insufferable moral superiority. They’re just so wise these types, so given to profound insight - the anointed. What a crock.

Us know-nothings. Right. You mean those of us who knew nothing about the gov’t creating jobs on net, except that it can’t? You mean those of us who knew nothing about a health bill except that it was flawed, and then complained as it was jammed down our throats? You mean those of us who know nothing about business except that it is being hurt by BO’s legislation; you mean those of us who know nothing about the economy, except that a recovery is stalled because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, health care, housing and your outlandish spending, that economy and those businesses, that we nothing about? You mean those business leaders who know nothing at all about business but who without exception condemn your policies?

And by the way John. Us know-nothings also know perfectly well that your problem is not the Tea Party types nor the Republicans; your problem is with your own kind; it is the Democratic rank and file you and BO have ostracized, the thousands of careers you and BO have ended.

Don’t blame us.

Robert Craven

The Fire of a Thousand Suns

What we will witness next Tues is the measure of rage - the fire of a thousand suns -of those who have been taken, those who voted for Obama. Being disappointed is one thing; being made out to be a fool is quite another.

It is true the BO prevaricated just a tad in the primary; almost everything he said was in conflict with his past. The fawning types believed it anyway. Big problem. BO was a run-of-the-mill Chicago politician. Every body knew that, or should have. When he ran for the Ill senate in 1996 he sued to remove opponents from the ballot. In his campaign for the US Senate in 2004, the divorce records of both his primary and general election opponents were mysteriously leaked, Chicago style.

But then we all knew that. And we all knew that in the Senate his voting record was the most partisan of any senator, either side, that there wasn’t a spending bill he didn’t embrace nor an entitlement, nor a union payoff that he didn’t endorse. And we all knew that he blocked every effort to reform the twins - ground zero.

Still, folks pulled the trigger. One was Maureen “Moe” Tucker, former drummer for the Velvet Underground. Peggy Noonan highlighted her experience the other day in the WSJ. "Anyone who thinks I'm crazy about Sarah Palin, Bush, etc., has made quite the presumption. I have voted Democrat all my life, until I started listening to what Obama was promising and started wondering how the hell will this utopian dream be paid for?”

So there you have it. Moe just figured out she’s been had. It was fine to argue lefty politics when in the abstract; once these policies gained traction, became reality, Moe and the rest are hunting for the covers.

The rest of us - simply amused.

Robert Craven

A Lesson From The Rescue

"It was like the Chilean miners, but he, being the man he is, rolled up his sleeves and said 'I am going to get us out of this hole,'" Sen. Reid (D-NV) said in Las Vegas on Sunday, referring to Obama.

Quite the contrary is true. It was not like the Chilean miners; BO in no way is going to get anyone out of any hole. Only profit-driven innovation got the miners out. Obama has buried the US, not saved it, by trying to kill the very same.

Daniel Henninger writes that there was nothing Obama-like about it; it was in fact all about the Center Rock drill bit. “This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive. The Center Rock drill is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.”

Henninger notes that Chile’s health minister never knew that this, nor the rest of the high tech devices which saved these guys, even existed. He continues, “In an open economy, you will never know what is out there on the leading developmental edge of this or that industry. But the reality behind the miracles is the same: Someone innovates something useful, makes money from it, and re-innovates, or someone else trumps their innovation. Most of the time, no one notices. All it does is create jobs, wealth and well-being. But without this system running in the background, without the year-over-year progress embedded in these capitalist innovations, those trapped miners would be dead.”

And yet on the campaign trail just last week BO mocked our “blind faith in the market.” The basic idea said this clueless individual, “is that if we put our blind faith in the market and we let corporations do whatever they want and we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America somehow automatically is going to grow and prosper."

Well, ya, that’s right.

BO and his companion levelers are soon to be shown the door.

Robert Craven

Castor Oil

From the left, specifically from Mark Halperin, political columnist for TIME.com. “... there is a growing perception that Obama's decisions are causing harm — that businesses are being hurt by the Administration's legislation and that economic recovery is stalling because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, health care, deficits, housing, immigration and spending.”

Certainly all of our cousins have know this stuff for months because they are encouraged to take this blog along with their castor oil. Instead of a cure for acne, ring worm, constipation, cerebral palsy and hair loss, our product merely provides a boost for those deficient in matters of history and economics.

And we see from our pal Halperin that the rest are now catching on, including most of BO’s once-fawning supporters. Take your medicine now kiddies.

Obams’s agenda of resuscitation had to fail, by definition. We all know why. ("Only businesses can create jobs via private investment, while economic-stimulus measures will fail to lower unemployment rates," says FedEx CEO and Chairman Frederick Smith.)

And of course the stimulus disaster was compounded by the health heist. Health was merely the vehicle anyway. There are no savings; 60% of Americans oppose the bill. That’s not the point. The point is control.



And so we have it. An extremist party that finally gained traction nearly put the US out of business; it most certainly put itself out of business.


The remedy need not be complex. To repeat, first, stop the damage - November. Next, make repairs - 2011. Finally, restore the Republic - 2012.



Robert Craven

Invention

Key is to close a pattern early, and with as little noise and as few words as possible.

We are pleased with results, past months.

In the case of Obama we predicted early on (Jan/10) that he would tank the Democratic party. That process is now nearing completion.

He’s put the party that JFK and Scoop would never have recognized anyway, out of business.

Extremists in the abstract are one thing. An extremist at the helm is quite another.

Americans will never forgive Obama’s attempt to steam-roll their liberties, that drastic change in life style - the major insertion of government control of their lives, BO’s plans to remake the US using health, education and energy as vehicles - the unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. Don’t try this nonsense.

The final blow was BO’s operative's gestapo tactics in ram rodding the health heist down American throats. That was the give away. That which we had maintained all along suddenly became clear to the masses - health was the vehicle, not the end.

And so most who voted for this guy now understand that they invented their candidate.

They feel betrayed by someone who never existed.

Fools.

Robert Craven

The Unions & Executive Ownership

Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?”
Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “
Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”
Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”
Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”

GM's unions had a price; Obama paid it. Is there something nefarious hereabouts? Does a one-legged goose swim in a circle?

It’s well know that the unions and trial lawyers together own the Dem party. Let’s look at the unions.

Background: Today almost half of union members work for some level of government. Why would any independent, hard working American want to be union? Ninety-two percent of private industry workers don’t. And those that do, including their public sector brethren, are not your father’s labor movement types in hard hats. As Linda Chavez explains, “The labor movement used to be strongly pro-American, pro-defense, and very conservative on social issues. Today's union bosses have more in common with Michael Moore than George Meany.”

The media virtually ignores the corrupt relationship between the unions and the Democratic party, rarely looking at illegal campaign violations. OK, forget the crooks, just the power: For example, the two national teachers’ unions — the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — contributed more than $70 million to campaigns during the 2007–2008 season, with 95 percent of contributions going to Democrats and left-leaning causes. When these types ask the left to jump, they ask, ‘How high?”. (worn phrase)

Specifics: Obama just announced a plan to “Renew and Expand America’s Roads, Railways and Runways.” The plan would add $50 billion more to the nearly $230 billion already allocated in the original trillion-dollar stimulus plan, for infrastructure.

Why the great urgency to pile on more $? Something to do with the midterm elections?

The president says he wants to “put people back to work” through a new “up front investment” in surface transportation, airports, and the air-traffic-control system. But guess what? Not all people, just some people. From Michelle Malkin: “The key is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public-construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for their employees.”

Obama’s “project labor agreement” forces contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, pay inflated wages and benefits and fork over dues-money and pension funding to corrupt labor organizations. These agreements undermine a fair bidding process on projects which locked-out, nonunion laborers fund with their own tax dollars! Too much! (Keep in mind dear readers that in the construction industry, 85% of the workers are non-union by choice.)

The result? Well, Boston’s notorious Big Dig was a union-only construction project thanks to a Massachusetts government-mandated PLA. The original $2.8 billion price tag for the project shot to $22 billion in state and federal taxpayer subsidies thanks in large part to ballooning labor costs. Oh, that.

BO’s connection at the hip to unions costs all of us plenty. It’s a scheme that raises the cost of doing business and bars ten of thousands of skilled, non union workers from securing work.

Oh sure, BO’s concerned with our highways and byways, concerned with America, sure he is.


Robert Craven

The Unforgiven

(We borrow from Eastwood.)

McGovern never got traction, thus he did not disable his entire party. The warm and fuzzy stuff sounds just great until it hits the pocket book, no longer the abstract. This is why BO put the Dems out of business.

The rank and file will not forgive Obama. He made them out to be fools.

At the family picnic in April there was the sense of loss, the sense of, “We’re sunk.” Not so fast we told out dear cousins. But conventional wisdom has it that none of this stuff can be reversed, especially the health plan they lamented. Wrong.

Americans throw some slack from time to time, around the margins; they don’t capitulate wholesale.


Robert Craven

Obama's & McGovern's Fine Work

The last candidate who triggered a similar problem for the Democrats was of course our progressive pal George McGovern; that would be 1972. We recall the convention - a free for all. Nominated for the VP slot besides Eagleton were: Mao, Jerry Rubin, Ben Spock and Archie Bunker. By the time this part was over, it was 3am; thus, McGovern’s prime time acceptance speech was prime time only for Guam.

Just as well. McGovern’s progressive ideas were even loonier than BO’s, shocking even the normally toady media. The Wash Post called McGovern’s welfare state “horrendous,” and a “pernicious extension of the power of the state.” Wow!! Time called McGovern’s proposals a “radical scheme,” and calculated that his proposals for expanded welfare, universal health care and other social programs would break the bank.

McGovern lost every state but two. However, he did not take his entire party over the cliff; many Dem’s remained loyal to the rest of the ticket.

Obama’s work has simply been more thorough.

Naturally BO will continue to blame conservatives and Tea Party types for his problems. Big mistake. His problem is the Democratic rank and file, who as Vic Hansen illustrates, “are now discovering that just as Obama could take them individually to great heights.....so too could he being them down collectively to unprecedented depths.”

These, our deer-in-the-headlights.

We must admit this is fun; in fact it’s exquisite to watch WH staffers (Rahm the latest) who like BO are just soooo wise and soooo sure they were the best and brightest, and soooo contemptuous of the rest of us who needed their guidance and who would surely bend over as they spun the crisis for big government; it’s plain fun to watch these types crawl out the back door.


Robert Craven

Craft-A-President

Nobody likes poor Obama.

The far left, the so-called progressives are upset because BO did not, “speak the truth, tell us and the country what was really happening in the corridors of power and what the constraints were that he was facing,” as Mike Lerner lamented in the SF Chron the other day.

The Dem rank and file are upset because he is about to put them out of business.

Where in the world did these folk, especially the far left get the idea that BO was going to move mountains for them, that he intended to face any "constraints," that he shared their (misguided) idealism? Because he had the most partisan record in the Senate? That wasn’t conviction for goodness sake, but convenience.

BO is a typical Chicago pol who knew how to work the system and lever his being half black, and, he never made a secret of it! Where did anybody get the idea this guy was some kind of visionary, or dreamer? Where did anybody get the idea that this guy was anything but an empty suit? Accomplishments? Were waiting........

The left simply crafted out of BO their perfect likeness of a US president. It’s made up! The nursery crowd, ever fawning, had theirs, and now they’re pissed. Moderates had one and now they’re pissed. Chavez and Castro had one; now they’re really upset. These are all caricatures that never existed!

In the mean time Obama is simply being Obama, thank you very much. By acting in character, Chicago style, and allowing Pelosi and others to force the health heist down the throats of Americans, he sealed his party’s fate.

Robert Craven

Complexity - Protection for the Left

We asked our old friend the other day, why the slow recovery? Steve is an ex- chief economist for a major US bank, now a prof at Berkeley. Did he not consider BO’s legislative threats an impediment to hiring, a retardant? “No, not at all,” he responded. “You see, it’s very complex; that’s only a small part of it....... Just remember, for every complex issue, there is a solution that is neat and simple — and wrong!” Spoken like a true lefty.

The signature of the Dem party is the inability to make tough decisions. Recall your own experiences with that party. True?

Reagan used to say that, “It’s the complicated answer that is easy because it avoids facing the hard moral issues.” Instead, “I say there are simple answers to many of our problems, simple but hard.”

Given the left’s weakness for decision making it is no wonder that they so often resort to complexity for a refuge.

From Steven Hayward’s book we revisit the classical poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” BO and the rest pretend to be in the ownership of great wisdom, all so multi-faceted, so nuanced, so confounded with moral equality and the never ending quest for the level playing field, led of course by the anointed.

They’re fools, knowing so much that isn’t true.

Reagan was successful because he knew one big thing - government is a threat to liberty, “both in its vicious forms such as communism or socialism, but also in its supposedly benign forms, such as bureaucracy,” explains Hayward.

The left are either naive or phony. Class time for both rapidly approaches.

Robert Craven

Self-Delusion

Folks have increasingly drawn parallels between the Carter and Obama administrations, few of these complementary to either.

Let’s take a look for something instructive in all of this.

We noted yesterday in conversation with the Marin left that as disastrous as Carter’s domestic policy was, his foreign policy took the cake (and provided his undoing). Steven Hayward in The Age of Reagan notes that, “Carter came to be regarded as the American Neville Chamberlain, not so much for his appeasement of foreign adversaries but for his..incapacity to perceive and act according to the geopolitical realities of the moment. ....his public rhetoric on foreign questions and his key appointments - rhetoric and personnel being two main pillars of foreign policy - were so deficient that it is understandable that he inspired such a harsh reaction.”

Most of us recall Carter’s missteps (no, we are not referring to his filing a UFO siting with the Air Force, or his clubbing to death a rabbit). But all of us have just been smacked by those of BO.

What is unique to both of these men is this - the co-suffering from a severe case of self-delusion. This is the single key to understanding parallels between these two failed leaders. It is the key to understanding especially, Obama.

We return for a moment to Silent Cal; if he was known for anything, it was honesty, integrity and incorruptibility. From Bob Sobel’s book, Coolidge - An American Enigma, Coolidge “recognized the dangers of self-deception the office could engender.” Quoting Coolidge now from that book, “It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly...assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner of later impairs their judgement. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”

Of course things have played out as Coolidge would have predicted (if he had know the players). The Coolidge rule applies to Chicago pols and Senators just as well as to presidents. This is why we could state with certainty even in the primary that BO’s primary weakness, his Achilles Heel, was a lack of judgement. It was obvious. He had demonstrated that repeatedly and for reasons Coolidge has highlighted. He continues to do so.

So Obama's simply being Obama. We’re not sure how he got elected however. Curious. Can’t find a sole who pulled that trigger. And all those Hope & Change bumper stickers here in Marin County? They seem to have been pilfered.

Robert Craven

Keep It Simple

Democrats’ malfeasance triggered the crisis; BO’s statist agenda has prolonged it. Earlier, the masses didn’t quite get it. Now they do (although BO doesn’t know that).

Now what? Key of course - principle vs pocket book. If you believe as our nursery friends do that government control of free enterprise and a forced re-direction of financial resources by a selected few, is best, then of course you do what they do - vote that way, for the left party line, or we might say, what was the party line.

If instead you are concerned primarily with pocket book issues, then you look to remove the encumbrances major employers claim are responsible for their hoarding of cash, for their refusal to add to their payrolls. Your agent in this task may be the so-called Tea Party types, or perhaps others yet apparent. You really don’t care who or which, just that it is done.

Once that happens the recovery will take form. We all know the steps. First, stop the killing, stop the harm. That is for November. Next, build a stop gap (kill the health heist, reverse stimulus, iron in tax cuts). That is for 2011. Then finally, resurrect the Republic. That is for 2012.

Robert Craven

Mosque Sham

Noise takes up the airwaves, verbiage the printed page. It’s all big business naturally but ninety percent is - no surprise - garbage.

Take the mosque bit. When the soaps are off the air, why not? It’s become tabloid. Big $. What a waste.

Actually, this mosque deal has nothing to do with freedom of religion or tolerance. It’s a matter of decent respect for sensibilities. The authors of 9/11 hyped the same “faith” the proposed mosque celebrates. We all know that. That should be enough. Stop the noise.

Not so fast, just one little problem.

BO’s obsequious posturing to Muslims, his insipid and mindless appeasement of this “religion” is truly repulsive but that is what the slum lord Feisal Abdul Rauf is counting on (oh, you didn’t know he was a slum lord?). And that’s what's given life to this thing.

During a visit to the home place the other day we saw a full page ad in the Fresno Bee, a whole bunch of folk - grocers, salesmen, truck drivers, all together in a big family pic, all smiling and in the type below telling us readers just what great Americans they really are.

The only differentiation between these and their more militant cousins is measured in degrees of aggression. They all go by the same book. (The grocers just don’t have the xxxx’s to shoot us, yet.) That’s the book that calls for a reordering of society, the complete merger of church and state, by force if necessary. With the exception of Turkey, all other Muslim countries are run by the Koran, that is, by the teachings of one Mohammed, a 6th century butcher (who in his spare time enjoyed life as a pedophile).

No problem for Obama. In his official statement on the occasion of Ramadan Obama praised “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings . . . (its) great diversity and racial equality” and “American Muslims’ . . . extraordinary contributions to our country.” This is nonsense. Conrad Black reminds us, “Islam has done nothing to advance justice or any version of progress or tolerance, and Obama, like Condoleezza Rice, is regularly denounced by the official outlets of leading Muslim countries in ethnic slurs that would embarrass Bull Connor and Lester Maddox.”
Too much!

Let’s get Obama to shut up, cut the noise and in so doing get this mosque sham put to bed.


Robert Craven

HIGH NOON

Most of us recall the western classic, “High Noon.” The sheriff (Gary Cooper) is about to leave office just when a gang of toughs ride into town. He could leave but he waits to face the killers. All his friends and all the townspeople who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers because someone had to.

George Bush’s strength and character were reflected in a 20 minute speech of Jan/07 that announced a new initiative designed to win in Iraq. He had no support for that decision, not State, not the Pentagon, not Congress, not the foreign policy establishment, not the Joint Chiefs, not Gen Casey, not Centcom commander Abizaid, not Condy Rice. Yet that day the President wasn’t looking for affirmation. He knew what was right, what had to be done and he did it because someone had to.

This makes this decision a profile in courage. As Charles Krauthammer reminds us, “The surge...effected the most dramatic change in the fortunes of an American war since the summer of 1864.”

A year ago we praised Bush for his decency and his dedication to his country. We re-visit that topic this pm. Those that continue to demonize Bush and in Pavlovian fashion condemn his presidency demonstrate a lack of scholarship, a weak hold on reality. What they do illustrate is a matter of association and party sympathy, not reasoning and examination. They diminish themselves, not Bush, in the process. In trying to belittle him, they merely reveal their own littleness.

Bush kept us al Qaeda-free for 8 years (9, now that Obama has adopted the Bush security apparatus wholesale). Here in Marin the lefties who are protected from dangers, simply conclude that there are no dangers. And of course they were the most hysterical over interception of phone calls, the other efforts to thwart slaughter. Hysterical yes, even though they were the beneficiaries. This second great achievement then is also the number one function of government - to protect its citizens. Nobody on 9/11/01 believed there would not be another such attack on American soil. Thank you Sir.

Finally, when we consider the Bush administration juxtaposed aside that of Obama, it is no wonder so many have come to reconsider the leadership of this fine man, just as they did the administration of Truman, and Truman the man and for similar reasons.

We yearn do we not for the corruption free, honest Bush governance? And we are grateful for the end of nuclear processing in Libya, for Dr. Khan shut down, for Syrians out of Lebanon, for pro-US governments in Europe, good relations with China and India, the miraculous act of strengthening relations with east Asian democracies without upsetting the Chinese, two good Supreme Court judges, unswerving support for Israel, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and finally the universally acclaimed world AID’s initiative.

Yet it is not these but the courage of decision making for which George Bush will be remembered. Equipped with a moral compass he exercised his just and rightful authority in a way that deserves every American’s recognition and respect.

He defiantly did the right thing. That is what distinguishes his presidency.



Robert Craven

Those Pesky Facts

Millions were taken in by Obama. We all suffered. What’s the flip side? Can we gain anything at all from this experience?

Well, we know that on a national level the Dem party organization will move from extreme left, towards, but still far from, center. Fine. That was an easy one to predict.

But what about the average chatterer? One would venture something like this: “Well, sure, these guys won’t pull that trigger again; they’ve seen how Obama even got into their pockets.” Sadly, that’s not likely to happen. Lefties are impervious to lessons, facts, history, never being quite able to associate the burnt thumb with the match.

Take “stimulus.” Some of us knew it was a sham the day it was announced. By definition, it cannot work. For example, unemployment never hit double digits in any of the 12 months following the stock crash of ‘29. Unemployment peaked at 9% two months after the Oct/29 crash, and then headed downward. From Thomas Sowell, “Unemployment was down to 6.3 percent by June 1930, when the first big federal intervention occurred. Within six months, the downward trend in unemployment reversed and hit double digits for the first time in December 1930.” But of course. Where in the heck do the left think the money comes from?

Or how about the deficit “inherited” by BO? Again, facts (and in this case, the Constitution) are pesky critters. It was the Dem’s who controlled both houses before BO became president. President's don't make legislation. The deficit BO inherited was created by the Democrats, including Obama himself who did absolutely nothing to oppose spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders. Oh, that. The problem with Bush is that he did not veto enough of this nonsense.

Or how about regulation? Naturally, if Bush had simply regulated the financial markets we would have been saved, say our nursery pals. He tried to do just that. In 2004 the WH made a hard push to regulate the hazardous practices of Fannie & Freddie. The Dems, led by Frank, Pelosi, Obama and Rangel defeated this effort (guess why?). The result - ground zero.

Even now, the chatterers remain contentedly naive, willfully blind. Their messiah claims that his health plan is a winner. The facts are as follows: 1) Health costs, as reported by BO’s own Ctr for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will go up $1000/yr for a family of 4 in 2019, as a result of this heist. 2) Last week, health insurers asked for premium increases of up to 9% solely because of the health deal. What? 3) Hey! Didn’t BO say that we could all keep our coverage? The administration now admits that 51% of all employees and 66% of workers in small businesses will have their current plan changed in three years as a result of this scam. (Most of the left are still oblivious to the fact that health was only a means, not an end at all, but then that is another topic.)

Robert Craven

Look Ahead

We all know what happened, the why and the how. That’s done. Let’s look ahead.

We have witnessed a tragedy. We ask those who contributed, to inflict no further harm. Primary results seem encouraging, yet lame duck radicals can still do a lot of harm. For these we can only hope they muster some strength of character.

Next, we must repair the damage. To accomplish that we need to reduce uncertainty, that key factor which has retarded a recovery. That is, restore a sense of reason; as Yuval Levin of National Affairs declares, restore some “...predictability where the Democrats’ hyperactive liberalism has created a crushing sense of uncertainty that has kept employers from hiring and investors and consumers from spending.”

Levin means that we need to kill the health legislation (families and businesses unsure of future expenses), that we need to iron in the Bush tax cuts. This is the first step.

Finally, new leaders will sculpt a resurrection. We told our family at the annual picnic in April not to worry. We meant it. One taste of extremism is enough for most Americans. A return to liberty, a regeneration of self respect and optimism as a nation, cannot come too soon.

Robert Craven

Off The Ship

See that guy standing in the middle of what used to be a trailer park after the big one that came out of nowhere? That’s your everyday liberal, deer-in-the-headlights. But it’s a free for all for the politicians; they’re not deer but rodents, rats leaving the ship in droves. Too much.

Most of us knew early on that bo’s agenda was bunk. Perhaps so did many of his fellow politicians, only keeping their fingers crossed. It didn’t work. Witness the mad rush to get as far away from this guy and as fast as their little feet will carry them. Take the health heist. From Kim Strassel in today’s WSJ, discussing the retreat, “Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright's ad explains he voted against ‘massive government health care. South Dakota's Stephanie Herseth Sandlin boasts she voted against the ‘trillion-dollar health-care plan.’

"But the prize," Strassel continues,"goes to former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes vying to get his old job back: Not only is ObamaCare ‘financially devastating,’ it is ‘the greatest failure, modern failure, of political leadership in my lifetime.’”

Hah!! Excuse us, but this is truly entertaining!

And not only the health heist; most of this bunch now realize that the “stimulus” was phony, that cap & trade is an expensive sham, etc. Again from Strassel's article, “‘I voted against Nancy Pelosi's energy tax on Hoosier families,’ explains Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly in an ad, echoed by North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre and Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire. And the yes votes are rushing to argue that all they were really voting for was ‘renewable energy.’”

It was just this last April at the family picnic when so many fine folk there expressed the concern that our country might be changed forever through Obama, that, as best summarized in a WSJ editorial, “Democrats purposely used the recession as a political opening to redistribute income, reverse the free-market reforms of the Reagan era, and put government at the commanding heights of economic decision-making,”and that this might work, that we saw something else. Take heart dear cousins.

We secured an anchor that day. We knew that this country would be alright, that the ship would right itself, that we were not destined to become another Greece, that the far left will remain what they have been past years - abnormalities.

Looks like we were right.

Robert Craven

Deer in the Headlights

Our friends from the left suddenly have that deer-in-the-headlights look. They share a lot of the characteristics of deer now that we think of it, yet as opposed to deer, the chatterers actually sense that they are about to be rolled over. It’s just that most don’t yet know why.

We’ve noted before that Americans will forgive a lot. The unforgivable to Americans however were the gestapo tactics employed by BO to ram through the health heist. The process involved bribes and deceit; bo further endangered US military in Afg by promising an actual withdrawal date in a swap for votes. All of this would gag a maggot; it certainly gagged most of the electorate.

This was the bullet that did in the extremists.

Far lefties wanted a health deal so badly and for so many years that once they actually got traction they lost all sense of caution, all sense of self preservation. It was a frenzy.

This phenomenon is nothing new; it is in fact a common occurrence in the wild. When angling Hat Creek for example we have seen times when otherwise extremely wary native trout shed all sense of caution, all sense of self preservation. This will occur when enough of one variety of fat insect, say a salmon fly, floats overhead. They can't believe their eyes! Pretty quick the rainbow and browns get “keyed in” and there is a free for all. No longer shy of the fish hawk’s shadow, no longer keen to expel a false fly (vs the real thing) these fish commit suicide. In a very real sense they disregard tomorrow for their near term satiation.

This is the far left and health.

So yes, Mother Nature has seen this sort of thing before.

Oh, almost forgot - She’s also put deer on the face of the earth to be stupid.

Robert Craven

Accosted at the Nursery

We were accosted at the nursery today. Surrounded by a staff amply armed with garden tools, we were told that Bush is the cause of all our problems, especially our economic problems and that if we did not sign a statement to that effect, we’d seen our last sunrise.

After a harrowing escape we return to the keyboard.

Where to start? Why not at the beginning - ground zero, our heart of darkness. As we have explained at least two dozen times, the Democrats protected the mortgage twins in an effort to buy black votes. They falsely claim it was Bush’s fault the twins were not reformed. Bush tried. When he said in 2004 that Fanny and Freddy should be reformed or we’d have big trouble, the House blocked any attempt, led by Barney Frank, Pelosi, Waters, Rangel. Surprise. Surprise.

“Well, maybe,” say our nursery pals but how about Wall St? Bush refused to reform this bunch and that’s key to our problem, they pant. (We’ll admit that Wall St types are predators. So what? It’s legal.) Dem’s controlled both houses before BO became president. It was this majority who encouraged financial institutions to package bad loans - Frank and Obama (when senator) and the rest were gung ho because Wall St took the twins out of the garbage they originated.

“OK, maybe so,” say our little chattering buddies, but how about the earlier stuff? What about the deficit BO inherited? From the economist Thomas Sowell, “No president of the United States can create either a budget deficit or a budget surplus. All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives and all taxes are voted into law by Congress. The deficit Obama inherited was created by the congressional Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.”

Oh, that. Facts and names are such an inconvenience.

Sowell continues, “The only direct power that any president has that can affect deficits and surpluses is the power to veto spending bills. President Bush did not veto enough spending bills, but Senator Obama and his fellow Democrats in control of Congress were the ones who passed the spending bills.”

At this point we can just see our lefty friends - eyes averted, shoulders slumped, sorry sights to be sure. They screwed up big time.

Robert Craven

Generosity Time Is About Over

We mused in a Jan/19 sketch that Americas are generous with their leaders. They will forgive simple gaffs - 57 states, the "Austrian" language; they will even forgive outright lies - jobs "saved or created," Muslims inventing both the printing press and the Renaissance, "no more lobbyists in government," guaranteed transparency, Iran in compliance with the UN summit, the lie of airing the healthcare debate on C-SPAN, the phony deadlines on Gitmo, BO’s bribing of senators with taxpayers funds, making a lie of his promises to the contrary. Still, many folk simply looked the other way.

In that same sketch we continued: Americans will not forgive however Obama’s attempt to steam-roll their liberties, that drastic change in life style - the major insertion of government control of their lives, BO’s plans to remake the US using health, education and energy as vehicles - the unprecedented federal intrusion into American industry and commerce. That is something you just do not try on Americans. It will not work.

We predicted that Obama’s election would radically change the nature of the Democratic party.

We all know what happened. An element in control of the national party but never at the helm, gained the helm; the agent was Obama. Its agenda was/is radical. BO’s half color and a sick economy provided the propellent. Now that most Americans who pulled the trigger understand the implications of that foolishness, never again. The party will encounter reality Nov/3.

If the Democratic party intends to survive, it must obviously shed its radical ways. Look for such a change over the near term.

Robert Craven

GIRLY MAN

Where we grew up (cattle ranch) most males are men. We’re strong. We’re virile. We’re capable. We’re not feminized.

How may saw BO toss out the first pitch?

Enough said.

We know some pretty whimpy lefties (most, Eastern transplants). But then we know some pretty masculine lefties too - the nursery guys make the grade. These guys are fit, certainly they’re capable. And yet they continue to maintain that voting for this girly guy was not a mistake. What?

Obama is a gossamer creature - light, sheer, delicate and empty. He and Axelrod and Emanuel could no more see to things physical than walk on water. Turn a bolt, wield a chain saw, drive a tractor, mow the lawn, fix a dishwasher? You kidding? First to rescue a stricken woman and babe under an overturned car? Come on. Intervene with sheer physical strength, thwart a thug? Build something from nothing? Build a business? Build a campfire even? Ride a horse? Chop wood? Backpack the Muir? Handle a car, change the oil, change the tire. Defend their family from physical harm? Punch the bully in the nose when he insulted your sister, or, especially in Obama's case, your country?

America was not made from the likes of Axelrod and Obama. They and their kind have had zero input to the greatest of America. It was made from the likes of Lincoln, Teddy and Reagan, from the likes of Charley Goodnight, Henry Miller and Joshua Craven, my great grand father.

Of course the left responds in Pavlovian fashion - “So what if he can’t do stuff real men do? He doesn't have to. He’s bright.”

How many times must we re-learn this lesson. A high SAT does not hack it, especially when one is suddenly Commander-In-Chief.

As Vic reminds us, “If Bush was a supposed ‘cowboy,’ there at least was never doubt that his first and foremost interest was the U.S, not the ‘international community.’” But now we have a girly man president who is embarrassed about our history and culture (well, not quite embarrassed enough not to enjoy its material bounty) and who crosses his hands over his ??? while the national anthem is played.

Who would you seek out?

From Vic: “Americans would prefer to be in a foxhole with George Bush, who would swagger and announce as decider-in-chief at H-hour, ‘OK, pard, we’re going over the top together on this one.’ They wouldn’t want to be with Obama, who would stutter and give a long-drawn out exegesis why race and class had condemned us to such an unfair predicament, whose only solution is to go into a fetal position and condemn ‘them’ who did this awful thing to us.”

Robert Craven

Fun In The Archives

Save these blogs! Put ‘em in away with your jewels and most treasured documents.

Holy mackerel but we’ve been on a roll.

For example, just happened to land on INCEST this evening, the sketch of 2/12/10. Naturally you all remember it but just in case: We begin (quoting ourselves, offending the Eng dept) “Most of the left try to fathom the destruction of their party, acted out right in front of them. Literary types, the media, legals, academics, the nursery class - all in a state of despair. The far left is wondering why Americans are so stupid; the average Democrat is wondering just why Obama will not move to center.”

“Our readers know the answer and thus have an anchor - elitist types associating only with other elitist types - A CLOSED SYSTEM. It really borders on incest does it not? The result, as is usually the case with incest, is a dumbing down. BO is such a product; he is a run-of-the-mill ideologue who regularly postures as a saint while insisting his opponents are sleazy. He feels he is the chosen one, perched high above the unwashed. To him it’s all about his kind directing the herd. This is all very boring.”

We move in the piece to Noemie Emery, contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, who reveals that BO has misjudged both the times and the country and that in his ignorance, "he has created a nightmare for most in his party..." And this elitist class? "It is full of itself, and values too highly its skill sets, which are entertaining, but not on the optimum level of consequence. This class fooled itself, and much of the country, for which the country will not soon forgive it."

Ah but it’s lovely to witness this demise. Just lovely.

Readers will recall that in an even earlier sketch we predicted the end of the modern Democratic party, that which for 30 years has been controlled on the national level by the far left, those extremists who finally gained traction in the person of BO.

What came along? Consequences. These have sickened most Americans.

Don’t believe us? Better. BO has been nothing less than the agent to the end of his party. You will see that in November.

Robert Craven

Nursery Pals

And then our nursery pals. Their sales are in the tank. Why? Plants can wait. New plants are not a leaky roof or tooth ache. And since BO’s policies have scared the pants off employers, most are upset and won’t hire. No trickle down. No discretionary buying.

That was easy.

No problem. Our nursery pals (hard core lefties) are simply being asked to pay, out of their own pockets, for the social-democracy BO intends for this country. That’s the way they see it because they voted for the guy. They knew exactly who he was. And, they are happy to oblige!

I couldn’t be prouder of these guys.

It gives me the chills sometimes. I know they’ll hold their heads high as they walk the walk - and encounter the Fall sale for example.

Safe in the “right” urban neighborhood, they used to just pontificate in the abstract (about the sort of life they studiously avoided in the concrete). Now they’re getting traction, coming alive!

Talk about role models.

Robert Craven

Blame The Agent?

We’ve expended plenty of venom on BO and his extremist associates, past sketches. (They’ve wasted a heck of lot of $ and tanked the economy in the bargain, for starters.) And yet aren't they really just being themselves? They’re not counterfeits; some aren’t even crooks. They’re who they’ve always been - propeller heads who know perfectly well that only government should control society, that only world planners can achieve equality and that they, the gifted, the anointed are burdened with the task of stewarding the rest of us towards ends that they know are best.

This is all nonsense and most of us know it. Well, maybe 45% of us knew it before the election. Perhaps 65% realize it now, after application.

Problem - a good portion of the population is just lazy, never bothering to inquire; Obama didn’t hide a darn thing. He wore a sandwich poster. Anyone who could read and did so, knew who he was. He for example made no secret of his belief that there is nothing particularly special about America. From our own Vic Hansen: “There were other instances throughout the campaign and first months in office suggesting that for Obama, multiculturalism trumps national unity and moral relativism supersedes cultural confidence. His serial apologies for America, embrace of America-hating Hugo Chávez, and supplication to foreign thugs are consistent with a ‘blame America first’ mentality that may be unremarkable for a political science professor but is toxic for the leader of the greatest nation in history.”

None of this was news. So?

So a whole lot of Americans, in abandoning good scholarship abandoned good citizenship. Now our country is in serious trouble.

The guy is half black. He was a slick speaker. The rest is history.

Just like Clinton, BO woke up election day as surprised as anyone. Why were these guys surprised? They both gave too much credit to the electorate.

So ongoing the serial embarrassments of bo will continue. He is not the real problem however. Some can look in the mirror for that.


Robert Craven

INSIGHT

The far left - that minority of registered Democrats who remain in control of the national party organization are upset that Obama hasn’t done enough.

That larger number of earlier supporters, those moderates and independents who pulled the trigger are upset because, as lefty Maureen Dowd noted, what they see now is an “incoherent president.”

None of the above would be upset if they had only ditched their fawning behavior for scholarship.

Obama is simply being Obama.

To have correctly anticipated reality relating to Obama’s presidency one needed only two tools, both offered in earlier blogs.

All of us knew in the primary that BO lacked experience; all of us knew then that his pals and preferred professors in school were Marxists (because he said so in his book); we all knew he refused to wear a US flag lapel pin, that he stood with hands over his crotch as our Anthem was played; all of us knew of his close friendship with a convicted terrorist; all of us knew that he had the most partisan voting record in the Senate (some healer).This and much more - disregarded by the Kool Aid crowd as a form of forgivable adolescent behavior.

To understand his failure as president we must go beyond this background, subsurface. First, there was / is what some observers call a “disconnect” or “the alien in the WH.” We explained this much earlier - Obama did not / does not understand America or Americans. His is incapable of doing so. He has so far demonstrated that in his presidency. This insight was available to all certainly but because of its subtlety, its retrieval took some work, something beyond TV.

Second, and more glaring, he remains for some odd reason incapable of good judgement; this was clear from his past associations and has been abundantly clear during his presidency. It is a chronic disorder, apparently incurable.

If we are interested in insight, that’s all we need to know. Given the combination of these two ailments, he can only fail as America’s leader.

Robert Craven

Embarrassing

OK, if you are a professional race baiter, a community organizer, union boss, felon or univ “genders study” prof, we can understand the Democrat party registration. Why would anyone else bother? It’s a wonder.

If subjected to scrutiny, how can these types define themselves as patriots? By reverting to the “old party” values, those of Truman and Kennedy? Sorry. No such party or values exist any longer, at least not in the national organization of the party.

Do you even know my good lefty friends anything whatsoever about what your party has become? We doubt it.

American Muslims have been fairly criticized for their lack of zeal in looking to cast out those members who profess violence. Why have not American Democrats been taken to task for their lack of zeal in looking to exile the extremists of their party; that is, the group now in control? Are these folk content, or just embarrassed?

Where do we begin? Embarrassing is it not that so many still look, zombie-like, to blame Bush when Bush is long gone. Did Bush force BO to borrow $3 trillion? Did Bush force BO to nationalize health care? Did Bush force BO to scare the daylights out of every employer with talk of burden after burden - income, FICA, health tax increases, all the rest? Did Bush force BO to protect those responsible for the crash? As Vic Hansen reminds us, Bush did not daily blame Clinton for Clinton’s appeasing of radical Islam, as Bush went about his business of taking on the Taliban and passing the Patriot Act after 9-11.

This applies to our lefty pals in Marin as it does to BO - “Nothing so diminished a president as the trait of scapegoating a predecessor, nothing so erodes his stature as the teen-age habit of blaming someone else for one’s self-inflicted problems,” notes Hansen.

Embarrassing to Democrats is it not that the party with a dark racial past lays blame of racism on that party founded on anti-slavery, when in fact the left craftily lever the black community by convincing the same of a handicap? Embarrassing is it not, the slanderous claim that a protestor called John Lewis the N-word 15 times turns out to be a lie, “but is promoted endlessly by teary-eyed reporters, most of whom cannot count to 15,” as Ann Coulter notes.

Obama plays right along. Two big-time lefties (but both honorable gents, rare) note that, “Obama's divisive approach to governance has weakened us as a people and paralyzed our political culture.” Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, pollsters for Carter and Clinton respectively, continue: “Obama has also cynically divided the country on class lines. He has taken to playing the populist card time and time again. He bashes Wall Street and insurance companies whenever convenient to advance his programs, yet he has been eager to accept campaign contributions and negotiate with these very same banks and corporations behind closed doors in order to advance his political agenda.”

This is embarrassing stuff for any Democrat, even our nursery pals.

Embarrassing is it not that violence resides primarily with the left, the left’s proclivity for the same documented in the form of mountains of arrest records. “Liberal protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention were arrested for smashing police cars, slashing tires, breaking store windows, and for possessing Molotov cocktails, napalm bombs and assorted firearms. (If only they could muster up that kind of fighting spirit on foreign battlefields.) There
were no arrests of conservatives at Democratic conventions,” notes Coulter.

Embarrassing is in not that in the fall of 2008 Obama supporters mace'd elderly volunteers in a McCain campaign office in Galax, Va. In separate attacks, a half-dozen liberals threw Molotov cocktails at McCain signs on families' front yards in and around Portland, Ore. One Obama supporter broke a McCain sign being held by a small middle-aged woman in midtown Manhattan before hitting her in the face with the stick.

Do you party types identify with this stuff?

On a broader scope, embarrassing is it not that most registered Democrats are ignorant of history. Not just a tad unaware. Ignorant. And that they still believe in, or go along with central planning when most of us know it can only lead to dictatorship (because it always has)? As our friend Thomas Sowell notes, “What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even Communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach. As liberals replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries’ economic-growth rates almost invariably increased, often dramatically. In the largest and most recent examples — China and India — people by the millions have risen above these countries’ official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.”

We’re tired and going to bed. It’s endless.

Robert Craven

Disconnect

Many of us ponder the disconnect between the left’s predictions/policy, and reality ahead. The two rarely match; things rarely work out for them but this never presents a problem to these folk. They're not bothered by it. Result is almost irrelevant, it is only rhetoric that counts, noise and emotion. They continue to roll ahead, untethered, children at the dinner table. We all suffer for it.

We worked for a high school in Marin for a bit. That experience provided a major leg up in understanding the left. Talk in the faculty room is completely in the abstract; it is detached from any proven norm; the notion of a historical track record is omitted. It’s all feel good stuff. Historical precedence? Are you kidding? The Founders’ intent? Who are they? Certainly this is Obama’s background (simply at a more elevated level). He’s taken these notions picked up in the lounge and tried to make application. But most working Americans don’t think like this, hence the tanking of his ratings.

Why then do academics think like this? Easy, 1) it feels good and 2 they can get away with it. They live in a cacoon and are almost completely protected from their actions. There are zero repercussions, even when applied in the classroom. In their business their clients are young, pliable and naive - just kids - compliant and agreeable. Unlike most of us these academic types are individuals who are rarely held accountable, thanks party to their powerful unions, partly to the culture at these schools - high school, university, whatever. What do you think it takes to get fired from a teacher’s job? You need a Gatling gun to get that done; taking out the whole Eng dept would do it (taking out the business or math dept, not likely).

So Stalin’s useful idiots continue to roll ahead, oblivious to result. This explains Obama (as a sidelight, it also explains the poisoning of our kids).

Robert Craven

Happy To Help Out

Plenty of folk honestly thought Obama was on to something when it came to health. When we noted that he was up to no good, we were ignored.

Recall when BO told us that if we made under $250M / yr we would not see a tax increase to pay for this thing? He said Sep/9/09 that, “The middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes,” when referring to his health plan.

Guess what? That was a ruse. Even our progressive pals have figured it out. From the Heritage Foundation: “Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin told a meeting of progressive activists last month that, ‘Obama has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this bill. This bill is a tax.’” BO has all kinds of new taxes in mind, but as Heritage continues, “None of these taxes touches the lives of every American as closely as the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. For the first time in American history, Obamacare forces all Americans to purchase a product or face sanction from the Internal Revenue Service. This is clearly a tax, as pointed out by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during a September 20th interview with the President himself.” Thank you George (and nice hair by the way).

But wait. There’s more. Really. See in the act, Title IX, subtitle A - Revenue Offset Provisions, Sec 9002. It seems that starting 2011 your W-2 will be increased by the value of the health ins you are given, even if you are retired. You’re a teacher and a big BO fan? Add $15,000 or $20,000 to your tax bill. Maybe now you’re in a higher bracket. Still like the guy? Sure you do. This is how BO will pay for the tiny fraction in the US who are uninsured, half of whom don’t care. You’re happy to make the sacrifice for these folk.

Robert Craven

Insight - It's free

We don’t own a TV. That’s proved to be an assist over the past few years.

This weekend I happened to view a bit of what is offered by the way of that venue. Where in the world are Ozzie & Harriet, Jack Benny, the Honeymooners, Gun Smoke, Paladin? Replaced by garbage. OK. But where is the news? After a glimpse at CNN it’s easy to understand why this outfit resides in the cellar. Fox is better, but even there a lot of noise, a lot of words, a lot of entertainment. Ok, sure, the $ dictates the menu. But it’s not enough.

So for those of us who may be serious about our citizenship something more is required. Thirty years ago - that meant trips to the library. Now it means the keyboard. It’s all there folks.

Example: Our blogs have been prescient, past years, months. We have predicted public reaction to 1) Obama, 2) health care, 3) “stimulus” and 4) business reaction to this new environment. We don’t have a crystal ball, only a curiosity.

We don’t know any insiders, at least not anymore. But we knew Obama was not one of us before it became the catch phrase in conservative journalism. We knew that Obama was simply a savvy (and gutless) politician disguised as a messiah, that earlier he was a detached academic who believed in abstract notions he'd picked up in the faculty lounge, none of these American and all devoid of pride of ownership.

It’s easy to criticize after the fact. Better to get there early.

Want insight? It’s free.

Robert Craven

Litmus Paper From The Left

We have three friends who vote the lefty line without fail. One is a nurseryman, one is a plastic surgeon and one is a trial lawyer. Our trial lawyer pal is ok, the current recession having little impact on his bottom line. (He goes about his business of defending the “victims” of our society, strafing those who may look to uphold the law.) Our plastic surgeon buddy is hurting, naturally, his business being almost completely discretionary - save the new boobs for a happier time. Our nurseryman pal just reported that his semi-annual sale, well hyped, was mediocre, nothing special. New plants can wait.

All of this is nothing if not litmus paper for the blood swell of our economy. There is none. Why? Look to our - “US Economy - A Snapshot,” or, put two and two together. Is there plenty of blame to go around? No there is not. Every fool who voted Democratic yet finds his business in the tank, knows who’s to blame.

Robert Craven

Open Season On Obama

In The Nation on Thursday, journalist Eric Alterman calls the Obama presidency “a big disappointment” for progressives. Now folks, how this bunch ever acquired the handle “progressives” eludes us. “Retrograde” works. No matter, these far left types are upset with their once-upon-a-time cult figure. Let’s take a look.

We know now that most moderates - those who do not share the progressive agenda - yet who voted for bo, simply failed to hit the books. They took a blind shot, the easy way. It didn’t work out for them or us. Obama remains Obama. But that excuse does not apply to faculty lounge types, phony intellectuals, all the rest of the progressive bunch (who despise moderate Democrats almost as much as they do Republicans). They did indeed do their homework. Obama was the most partisan in the Senate and they knew it. He was half black. He was slick. He palled around with those who instinctively kick the US - a credential for this bunch if there ever was one - and they knew it.

So they should have liked all of that, and they did. But wait! “It’s open season on Obama, whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neoliberal wilderness,”according to progressive blogger Les Leopold. “He was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation and unfair competition. When the economy crashed, he was in the perfect position to limit the unjustified pay levels on Wall Street,” but did nothing to address the progressive agenda, claims Leopold.

What did these types miss? Easy, although they can be idealists (profoundly naive, but idealists anyway) and actually believe in this stuff, BO never was and never did. He is pure Chicago-bred politician, looking out for his own interest and knowing the machine well enough to secure that end. There is no idealist there for goodness sake. He knew how to lever his blackness, and to say what he needed to say. He isn’t going to fight any of their battles now. What fools.

Robert Craven

OVERLOAD

We sat down to highlight the Gulf “clean up” and the implications for those who may still believe that Obama is not just a typical, Chicago-bred pol. Sure he is. He’s what he always was. For example, why has BO refused to do much of anything to clean up? Most of us know the answer - he has higher interests than protecting the Gulf. Labor unions (to which the Dem’s are in hock) and the Jones Act come to mind, so does the offshore drilling conspiracy, this crisis a useful lever to those types.

But no, just as soon as our fingers hit the key board for a little fun Obama decides it's best if NASA handles the free world’s relationship with the Muslims; he wants them - the Muslims - to “feel good” about their past. Oh, well sure, that makes sense. Forget space. NASA-applied group therapy is just what these troglodytes need. Sure it’ll cure ‘em.

But wait, why delve into that one even? In the next 20 minutes or so, BO will deliver yet another classic reflecting 1) his chronic lack of judgement in domestic affairs and 2) his ongoing application of adolescent diplomacy in matters offshore.

Is this fun or what?

Robert Craven

US Economy - A Snapshot

We concluded our last blog as follows: Instead, BO artfully exploited the groundless fears of capitalism and the instinct of many to look to government for a fix. He understands the indolent nature of a good portion of our population, those whose library is stuffed with past issues of People and Newsweek but never an Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Buchanan, Stigler, Hayek or Friedman.

That above of course was taken in the context of bo’s hijacking of the health sector. But the statist agenda so thoroughly woven through Obama’s fabric and that of his kind - never waste a crisis - makes this response all but a sure thing in reaction to today’s key June payroll release. Don’t believe us? Hold on a day or two.

Today's weakness was about as expected; much of the loss was due to known layoffs at the census bureau. No matter. Obama will highlight this report as reason for more stimulus. Anyone who has done a little homework or consulted those who have understands that gov’t plans to spark the economy are at best a wash, at worst a retardant.

Kennedy and Reagan understood just how to recover from a slowdown. All of us know that. So does BO. He is not entirely stupid. His problem - for us - is that he is a fanatic. Thus, a Kennedy or Reagan extraction would offend his elitist, faculty-lounging-propeller-headed buddies whose track record is zip but whose sweet and easy ways never fail to provide an attractant to the chatterers. It’s that easy my friends.

Robert Craven

Have they learned a thing?

Evening sets in; there’s time for reflection out in West Marin. Dinner talk swings from the Pride Parade, to explaining away Biden’s latest gaff, finally to Obama. In their own little hearts can these types see or come to acknowledge a lack of regard for the responsibility that goes with American citizenship; can they acknowledge their lack of zeal to self inform; can they acknowledge their dismissal of American and world history, dismissal even of the message of the Founders themselves as little more than an irritant? For how else could they have voted for Obama?

That is, can they admit they made a major mistake - not publically naturally but perhaps at dinner time - and if they can admit that, can they learn? This is the key to the rest of us. Because if they have not learned we are destined to repeat the cycle. This is the anchor which retards progress in the free world. We ratchet up a little bit at a time, sure; major strides however are ruled out because of the general amnesia of the left.

Many of those who voted for BO are “disappointed.” (There are plenty of bumpers out there minus the H & Change sticker, just a stripe of glue remaining.) But “disappointed” in Obama is disappointment misdirected. It was a failure of scholarship that led to this disaster.

As we have highlighted in detail in past blogs - BO is acting perfectly in character. He’s genuine. He wore a sandwich poster in earlier times; because our lefty friends failed to read it, they are “disappointed.”

Are today’s left unique to world history? Naturally not. A group of faculty lounge types (whom Stalin fondly called his “useful idiots”) fell hook, line and sinker for the utopia of communism. Bounce ahead a few years and witness another group made of the same stuff, taken in by another cult figure this time bent not on a communist but a statist agenda. It’s all the same and always and everywhere goes to the same place - control. Lacking an acquaintance with Hayek, von Misses, Reagan and others most lefties simply cannot believe that Hitler started just like Obama. There was a recession; folks were desperate; they fairly elected this guy; he used health care as his first hook, then gradually took control of the rest with the aid of a compliant media. Genocide is not the point; control is the point and it starts with a lot of people who are too naive or stupid to know better.

Robert Craven

Another $50Bln for the Culprits?

What? BO wants to spend another $50 bln of our $ to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters”? That is exactly what we need, layoffs of teachers and firefighters, and “massively.” It is this bunch in complicity with their unions who are responsible for cratering local gov’t in the first place for goodness sake.

This Obama is one dangerous guy.

Robert Craven

Pride of Ownership

“Hey, all you do is criticize our president. For a change why don’t you help the guy? At least print something constructive,” we’re admonished by the nursery crowd; which is to say, ok, we lefties got all of us into a fix, just as you predicted but we want you to help clean up the mess anyway and guide this guy to his next term.

Are you kidding me? Why should we lay off this guy? The Founders put a system in place that will take care of it over the near term.

We stated flatly last year that BO does not understand 1) Americans or 2) America. Others have come to see this truth. Johan Goldberg tags Obama quite accurately as, “A creature of elite universities with a progressive’s love of technocrats; Obama is most comfortable leading colloquia of perfect-SAT-score propeller heads.”

Indeed, earlier we highlighted a portion on an interview, where BO explained, “I would have loved nothing better than to simply come up with some very elegant, academically approved approach to health care. . . . But that’s not how it works in our democracy. Unfortunately, what we end up having to do is to do a lot of negotiations with a lot of different people.” Oh, these miserable democracies! This clown is at the helm?

Dorothy Rabinowitz calls BO, The Alien in the White House. “A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House...”

Geoff Hunt writes in the American Thinker, wondering why the free fall, why the “deer-in-the-headlights” at the WH. “It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task --- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us, and, whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant, and his notions of how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.”

So no, we’re not being petty, throwing shots from the cheap seats. We have understood all along that there is nothing there.

Obama may be an citizen on paper,yet all but the willfully blind now understand that he has no pride of ownership.

Robert Craven

In Character

Highlighting the other day Obama’s broken campaign promises, his politics-as-usual WH, his string of foreign policy failures, his stealth leveraging of race, his constant whining about how tough he’s got it, our nursery friend responded: “I still like him. I hate Dick Cheney.” (Ask this guy about the weather, his band, the time of day, same answer - “I hate Dick Cheney.” Not the Muslim thugs who would shoot him on sight, not his own Dodd and Frank who triggered the financial crisis, no, only Cheney.) Of course as most of us understand, what’s this have to do with bo’s failures?

Those two sentences, both designed to camouflage, reflect the foundation of retreat for this group. Cheney kept their hind ends safe for 8 years during which time all they did was criticize him for the effort. But since BO has now disappointed even his most ardent supporters, best thing is to pull out the Cheney-foil as cover, even 18 months later. That, and the racist tool are both past their once high altitude of fashion; it’s only the far left who haven’t caught on. And the rest? Chuckling.

And why are they surprised? Why for example does the old lefty Dan Ellsberg respond as follows in appraising his on-time hero, BO - “He's a good politician. He said what he needed to say to get elected, and now he's just taking advantage of the office. ...... his administration caters to the profits of big corporations like BP and Goldman Sachs,"?

Why do these people suffer so? Do they ever read anything but Cosmo and Time? We imagine ‘ol Dan has progressed from that. Then why are he and the rest of the chatterers surprised? BO is acting perfectly in character. He holds forth as if in a fish bowl, unable to comprehend, or not wanting to comprehend the consequences of his radical agenda - a perfect reflection of his radical past.

We have never blamed Obama; we have blamed those who pulled the trigger - for their lack of scholarship.

Robert Craven