Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
MORE GEMS AND THE DNC CHAIR
Even CNN recognizes that she's an utter failure as a spokeswoman.
Note how she tries to differentiate between Romney's restructuring work at Bain and Obama's takeover of the auto industry: "Obama make sure we still had an American auto industry," which is why it's OK he laid people off at GM.
Yet Romney, who saved a number of American companies using the same tactics (as a private equity firm, rather than the government!), is a scumsucking capitalist pig who enjoys ruining people's lives.
RIGHT!
Note how she tries to differentiate between Romney's restructuring work at Bain and Obama's takeover of the auto industry: "Obama make sure we still had an American auto industry," which is why it's OK he laid people off at GM.
Yet Romney, who saved a number of American companies using the same tactics (as a private equity firm, rather than the government!), is a scumsucking capitalist pig who enjoys ruining people's lives.
RIGHT!
PESKY LITTLE FACTS
Obama "thifty spending claim" not quite accurate...
A 9.7 percent increase in 2009, much of which is attributable to Obama.
A 7.8 percent increase in 2010, all attributable to Obama, followed by slower spending growth.
Much of the slower growth reflects the influence of Republicans retaking control of the House and their budget and debt deal last summer with Obama.
All told, government spending now appears to be growing at an annual rate of roughly 3 percent over the 2010 period, rather than the 0.4 percent claimed by Obama and the MarketWatch analysis.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
FROM ANTIQUITY...
At a new dig site inside the beltway, archeologists surmise that this new find must be the skeletal remains of a politician.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
TYPICAL...NEW SOCIALIST FRENCH PRESIDENT IS ACTUALLY MULTI-MILLIONAIRE WITH HOMES ON THE RIVIERA
In typical Liberal fashion the Socialist President of France is another do as I say, not as I do person. Hollande is determined to ravage anyone who is successful in France BECAUSE HE ALREADY MADE HIS MONEY! The hypocrite has three homes on the Riviera valued at more than $2M but wants to raise the top tax bracket to 75% to pay for his socialist policies.
When will they ever learn?
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
SMOKE AND MIRRORS_DON'T LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN_FOLLOW THE LEMMINGS OVER THE CLIFF
Backward...That is the one place Barack Obama DOESN'T WANT YOU TO LOOK. If you look backward you will see that when he took over:
Gas prices were half what they are now.
Unemployment was lower - even with the way Obama is manipulating the numbers.
More people were in the workforce.
Less people were in Poverty.
Less people were on Food Stamps.
More people owned their homes and they were worth more.
Pay was higher and jobs easier to find.
America was over $5T less in debt and had never seen a Trillion dollar yearly deficit.
Yes, Obama doesn't want you looking back at that...
With a dismal record like that,
Even I would be shouting "FORWARD".
Monday, May 7, 2012
Top 10 products Obama will force us to buy
In the unlikely event that the Supreme Court allows ObamaCare’s individual mandate to survive, be prepared for an onslaught of new rules and regulations that force products upon us in order to advance the liberal agenda...
1. Broccoli
Justice Antonin Scalia advanced the prospect of government-mandated broccoli during the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare oral arguments. “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli,” Scalia said. The left has long been obsessed with what we put into our bodies—from transfat and salt, to tobacco and red meat. Be prepared for a Department of Eating Healthily, with Michelle Obama in charge.
2. Chevy Volt
General Motors’ Chevy Volt was doomed to fail as consumers did not exactly flock to the showrooms for the overpriced, underperforming vehicle. Production of the Volt has been suspended and the dream of an electric car is endangered. According to the left, oil is evil, therefore the internal combustion engine must go. So be prepared to plug in your government-mandated electric car in order to save the world from global warming.
3. $5 gallon of gas
With Obama placing a good part of America’s energy resources off-limits for development, the price of gas at the pump continues to rise. The higher the better, in order to wean us from our dependence on oil. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see prices rise under this President, as he essentially promised higher energy costs when he was running for office.
4. Contraceptives
Under ObamaCare, everyone will be paying for contraceptives whether they need them or not. The misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandated that contraception be fully covered by health care exchanges, not even costing the recipient a co-pay. That means you will be subsidizing the sexual activity of your neighbors, co-workers, and prostitutes.
5. Inconvenient Truth movie
The left still wants us all to believe that global warming is imperiling the world and would rather not have us dwell on inconvenient inconsistencies in the theory. What with Climategate e-mails, flat temperatures, and scientists speaking out against global warming alarmism, the left is seeing their pet issue peter out. How better to reignite the cause than to require everyone to watch Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth?
6. MSNBC
The Obama administration has virtually declared war on Fox News, taking issue with its hard-hitting coverage. In the past, liberals have flirted with reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, hoping to silence right-wing critics. If emboldened by an Obama re-election victory, attempts to limit Fox and beam MSNBC into everyone’s home could be in the works.
7. Solar panels
President Obama is trying his hardest develop a viable green-energy industry in the United States, funneling billions of dollars to solar-panel makers. The problem is that there isn’t much of a market for the devices and the companies that the president has chosen haven’t done too well—witness the bankruptcy of Solyndra. Get ready for a new push to install the panels in residences throughout America.
8. Union-label goods
Big Labor has Obama in their pocket, witness the GM bailout that was a sweetheart deal for the United Auto Workers and the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling against Boeing building a plant in South Carolina. Expect more of the same with union-made goods getting a leg up over their non-union rivals.
9. Algae
Here is yet another ill-fated idea meant to put an end to U.S. oil dependence: Algae is the fuel of the future. According to President Obama, pond-scum can be harvested and turned into energy to power America. Soon, everyone will be scrapping the green algae from the bottom of their fish tanks.
10. Hoodies
As the Trayvon Martin shooting reached a boiling point, the civil rights lobby has turned the hoodie into the latest symbol of resistance to white oppression. One might expect the President to try to rise above the fray and seek to heal the nation. Instead, Obama’s re-election campaign sent a Twitter message reminding supporters that they could buy an Obama hoodie. The tweet said, “Let everyone know whose team you’re on for 2012 with today’s merchandise steal: the college-style hooded sweatshirt.”
1. Broccoli
Justice Antonin Scalia advanced the prospect of government-mandated broccoli during the Supreme Court’s ObamaCare oral arguments. “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli,” Scalia said. The left has long been obsessed with what we put into our bodies—from transfat and salt, to tobacco and red meat. Be prepared for a Department of Eating Healthily, with Michelle Obama in charge.
2. Chevy Volt
General Motors’ Chevy Volt was doomed to fail as consumers did not exactly flock to the showrooms for the overpriced, underperforming vehicle. Production of the Volt has been suspended and the dream of an electric car is endangered. According to the left, oil is evil, therefore the internal combustion engine must go. So be prepared to plug in your government-mandated electric car in order to save the world from global warming.
3. $5 gallon of gas
With Obama placing a good part of America’s energy resources off-limits for development, the price of gas at the pump continues to rise. The higher the better, in order to wean us from our dependence on oil. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see prices rise under this President, as he essentially promised higher energy costs when he was running for office.
4. Contraceptives
Under ObamaCare, everyone will be paying for contraceptives whether they need them or not. The misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandated that contraception be fully covered by health care exchanges, not even costing the recipient a co-pay. That means you will be subsidizing the sexual activity of your neighbors, co-workers, and prostitutes.
5. Inconvenient Truth movie
The left still wants us all to believe that global warming is imperiling the world and would rather not have us dwell on inconvenient inconsistencies in the theory. What with Climategate e-mails, flat temperatures, and scientists speaking out against global warming alarmism, the left is seeing their pet issue peter out. How better to reignite the cause than to require everyone to watch Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth?
6. MSNBC
The Obama administration has virtually declared war on Fox News, taking issue with its hard-hitting coverage. In the past, liberals have flirted with reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, hoping to silence right-wing critics. If emboldened by an Obama re-election victory, attempts to limit Fox and beam MSNBC into everyone’s home could be in the works.
7. Solar panels
President Obama is trying his hardest develop a viable green-energy industry in the United States, funneling billions of dollars to solar-panel makers. The problem is that there isn’t much of a market for the devices and the companies that the president has chosen haven’t done too well—witness the bankruptcy of Solyndra. Get ready for a new push to install the panels in residences throughout America.
8. Union-label goods
Big Labor has Obama in their pocket, witness the GM bailout that was a sweetheart deal for the United Auto Workers and the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling against Boeing building a plant in South Carolina. Expect more of the same with union-made goods getting a leg up over their non-union rivals.
9. Algae
Here is yet another ill-fated idea meant to put an end to U.S. oil dependence: Algae is the fuel of the future. According to President Obama, pond-scum can be harvested and turned into energy to power America. Soon, everyone will be scrapping the green algae from the bottom of their fish tanks.
10. Hoodies
As the Trayvon Martin shooting reached a boiling point, the civil rights lobby has turned the hoodie into the latest symbol of resistance to white oppression. One might expect the President to try to rise above the fray and seek to heal the nation. Instead, Obama’s re-election campaign sent a Twitter message reminding supporters that they could buy an Obama hoodie. The tweet said, “Let everyone know whose team you’re on for 2012 with today’s merchandise steal: the college-style hooded sweatshirt.”
STATISM VS CAPITALIZM
As if someone in their right mind needs a refresher...one picture is worth a thousand words.
Communism vs. Capitalism: See the Difference
Communism vs. Capitalism: See the Difference
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
"HOPE AND CHANGE" - fool me once, shame on you!
"FORWARD" - fool me twice, shame on me!
NOTE: Dan Weber and Jeffrey Anderson are available for telephone interviews on this issue. Please contact John Grimaldi at 917-846-8485 or jpgrimaldi@verizon.net to set up a chat.
Obama’s Secret Swindle
from The Weekly Standard – Jeffrey H. Anderson
The most politically brazen feature of Obamacare has always been its looting of Medicare. About half of Obamacare’s costs are to be covered with money taken from an already nearly bankrupt program for seniors. And the most politically perilous aspect of this ploy is Obamacare’s cuts in Medicare Advantage funding, which would cause many seniors to lose their preferred health plans. Under the implementation schedule stipulated in Obamacare, many seniors would either lose their plans, or learn that they are going to lose them, before the election that will likely decide Obamacare’s—and Obama’s—fate.
Anticipating a senior revolt, the administration took action. It ran millions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded TV ads featuring Andy Griffith saying things like, “That new health care law sure sounds good for all of us on Medicare!” It mailed out full-color, taxpayer-funded propaganda brochures singing the same tune. It repeatedly claimed (and continues to claim) that money taken out of Medicare to fund Obamacare would—magically—also stay in Medicare and be used to extend its solvency.
But the administration didn’t stop there. Instead, it launched an $8.35 billion “demonstration project” to postpone the vast majority of Obamacare’s Medicare Advantage cuts until after what Obama likes to call his “last election.” In truth, this isn’t really a demonstration project at all. It’s something closer to the opposite: an attempt to keep Obamacare’s effects from being demonstrated until it’s too late for voters to respond.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified this “demonstration project” as a sham. The GAO highlights the project’s myriad “design shortcomings,” including its excessive focus on 2012, its awarding “most” of its “quality bonuses” to average-performing plans, and its lack of a control group. The GAO, not known for its bluntness, concludes that the secretary of health and human services (HHS) “should cancel” the project and perhaps, sometime in the future, consider “conducting an appropriately designed demonstration.” The GAO also notes that the demonstration “does not . . . conform to the principles of budget neutrality.” The administration is running up the national debt by another $8.35 billion in order to boost Obama’s reelection prospects.
So how much is $8.35 billion, anyway? It’s more than 40 times the $197 million that Obama had raised for his reelection bid as of April 1. It’s more than 90 times the amount that he and Mitt Romney are each eligible to receive in general election matching funds. In health care terms, it’s more than the combined annual profits of the nation’s two largest and most profitable health insurance companies. In other words, $8.35 billion is real money—real taxpayer money.
Moreover, it’s real money that’s quite possibly being spent illegally. After all, a president isn’t generally thought to possess the power to reallocate Americans’ resources to shore up his political vulnerabilities. In defense of its actions, the administration is relying on a 1967 law that says the HHS secretary can spend money without specific congressional approval on “experiments” aimed at improving the execution of current law. Obama’s $8.35 billion allocation, however, isn’t aimed at improving the execution of current law. It’s aimed at delaying the execution of current law and thereby masking the effects of that law until after Obama’s reelection bid. The only “experiment” the administration is conducting is whether it can pull the wool over seniors’ eyes until the election is over.
Even for a president who has appointed numerous “czars” to circumvent the confirmation process, issued “recess” appointments when the Senate wasn’t in recess, and declared that it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to strike down a federal law, such a move is eye-opening. It raises the question: Have other presidents similarly exploited this law to promote their own self–interest? The GAO responds that of the 85 other Medicare demonstration projects conducted in the 17 years since 1995, none has cost even one-seventh as much as Obama’s. In fact, according to the GAO, Obama’s $8.35 billion gambit will cost more than all 85 other Medicare demonstration projectscombined.
As Ben Sasse, HHS’s assistant secretary for planning and evaluation until early 2009 and now the president of Midland University, says, “If a presidential administration can simply make up the authority to make law and give itself the power of the purse to implement its new law—which not only isn’t designed to make existing law work but is actually againstthe purpose of existing law—why do we need a Congress?” Sasse adds, “In scope and intention, this is something completely new, and if it’s allowed to establish precedent, the only limit on what future administrations could spend money on, or how much they could unilaterally spend, would be their own electoral calculations about what they could get away with.”
Obama’s calculation appears to be that he can get away with a lot. But that may be wrong. Obamacare would be unpopular enough if it were simply a 2,700-page affront to Americans’ liberty and their country’s fiscal solvency. However, the overhaul’s reputation has been further sullied by the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid, and the rest of the shady backroom deals the Democrats struck to secure its passage. By now initiating the Senior Swindle, Obama risks tarnishing Obama-care’s reputation even further.
Given the president’s mindset—his singular desire to impose Obamacare coupled with his frequent disregard for legal forms—he presumably felt he had no choice. Seniors wouldn’t just sit quietly while their Medicare Advantage plans went away. You can’t siphon $204 billion (the amount projected by the Congressional Budget Office) out of a popular program in just eight years’ time (and far more in the years to follow), spend it on your unpopular health care overhaul, and have no one notice.
Roughly 12 million seniors have chosen to carry Medicare Advantage. Most like it and want to keep it. They surely don’t want the funding for their plan cut by an average of $17,000 per senior over the rest of this decade, as would happen under Obamacare. They similarly don’t want to see the Medicare chief actuary’s prediction come true: that by 2017, enrollment in Medicare Advantage will decrease by half from what it would have been without Obamacare.
But it’s not just Medicare Advantage beneficiaries who have cause for concern. Under Obamacare, other Medicare enrollees would struggle to find doctors, as (according to the Medicare chief actuary) Medicare reimbursement rates would drop below even Medicaid reimbursement rates by the end of this decade. Also by the end of the decade, the CBO suggests, Obamacare will cause 5 million people to lose their employer-sponsored insurance—almost certainly a lowball estimate. Joel Ario, Obama’s initial head of the Office of Health Insurance Exchanges, said that if Obama-care’s “exchanges work pretty well, then the employer can say, ‘This is a great thing. I can now dump my people into the exchange, and it would be good for them, good for me.’ ” This doesn’t quite have the same reassuring ring as, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” But it does have the benefit of sounding true.
The Senior Swindle provides a further reminder of the unseemliness of Obamacare, a preview of the politicizing of medicine that Obamacare would spawn, and an example of the unprincipled side of our politics. But mostly it offers a testament to the Founders’ wisdom in making our government leaders accountable to the people. The American people have now been living under the looming specter of Obamacare for more than two years. In the fall, they will finally get to issue their verdict on its architect. The bet here is that $8.35 billion in unscrupulously—and perhaps illegally—allocated diversionary funds won’t be enough to keep the citizenry from voting Obama out of office in November and insisting on the repeal of Obamacare in January. In fact, it might serve as a catalyst.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Dan Weber and Jeffrey Anderson are available for telephone interviews on this issue. Please contact John Grimaldi at 917-846-8485 or jpgrimaldi@verizon.net to set up a chat.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
SHEDDING MORE LIGHT ON FEDZILLA
How long before he gets to my name?
 Return to the Article |
May 1, 2012
Obama's Chicago-Style Campaign
By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama has a take-no-prisoners approach when it comes to waging political campaigns. But perhaps he has taken a step too far this time around. Not content to attack his opponent, his campaign is going after his opponent's supporters. Kimberly Strassel, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, gives us one more reason not to vote for Barack Obama: he is a thug who has disgraced the office of the president of the United States by engaging in behavior more befitting of the dictator of a banana republic.
Strassel writes of the Obama's campaign's latest efforts to smear and attack donors to Mitt Romney. She projects what happens when one exercises one's right in a democracy to support a candidate:
Hence, we have the focus on the Koch brothers, who have funded various conservative and libertarian causes (as well as medical research, art and cultural projects, and many other worthy causes) and candidates over the years. Recall that almost two years ago, President Obama singled out one of the groups the Kochs help fund, Americans for Prosperity, for special opprobrium. This was a signal to what some may characterize as the vast left-wing conspiracy to attack the Kochs. TheNew Yorker, supplied with material by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, went to work on the brothers. What was even more scandalous was that White House officials apparently had access to tax returns of the Kochs and their companies and used it as opposition research when meeting with journalists. Has any other president used the IRS for political purposes -- and what type of media backlash ensued then?
An Obama effort to shine the light on political donations is rich with hypocrisy. Barack Obama's own campaign disabled security measures on its donation page in ways that allow people to mask donors' identities and evade limits on how much individuals can donate to candidates. They did the same in 2008 (and one of the revelations was that Palestinians from Gaza were donating to his campaign; those donations were returned when exposed). George Soros and other billionaire sugar-daddies of the left have been funneling money to 527 groups, think-tanks, media outlets, and the like to bend politics in their direction in ways that meet no one's definition of transparency.
These efforts to intimidate donors to Republicans have borne fruit in the past. When it was revealed that Target donated $150,000 to a group that ran ads backing a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota who opposed same-sex marriage but who otherwise had a pro-growth agenda, a boycott effort began that led to Target halting its donations. Similar boycott threats (including ones led by Obama acolyte Van Jones) have dissuaded other companies from donating to such pro-growth groups as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In the latter case, charges of racism have been ginned up to discourage support for the group. The same potent weapon -- the charge of racism -- has also been used to compel financial institutions to make loans to unqualified borrowers; those loans came back to help devastate the American economy.
There was a reason why Barack Obama was so riled up by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which supported the right under the First Amendment of corporations to support political candidates. He and his supporters leveled spurious (and false) claims that foreign money would be used to fund political campaigns in America. Similar charges have been made against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce once that group began running ads questioning Barack Obama's agenda.
Clearly, Barack Obama wants to gut the Citizens United decision by other means. He views politics as a blood sport and believes in clearing the field of candidates so as to leave voters with no other choice but to support him.
Why should we be surprised by this type of thuggish behavior on the part of the president? He all but announced his modus operandi back in 2008 when he warned that his style of campaigning could be summed up by the maxim "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
He had previously shown an inclination to use all methods, foul and fair, to win elections. The man who touts the need to register all potential voters (a policy taken to its extreme by his attorney general) felt free to disqualify a political opponent when he ran for the state senate in 1996 from being on the ballot by challenging signatures on his opponents' nominating petition. Obama's team, at Obama's direction, flooded the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners with complaints about the validity of the signatures on such petitions for every single one of his four challengers. Every single one, including a former political ally, Alice Palmer, was forced off the ballot. As David Jackson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune wrote:
The history of Obama's later run to become a U.S. senator has been obscured, but those familiar with his career see signs that all was not on the up-and-up when it came to his 2004 primary and general campaigns. In the primary, he faced a formidable and well-funded opponent, Blair Hull, who was leading quite strongly in the polls until stories started appearing in the Chicago Tribune that Hull had physically abused his ex-wife. Although the provenance of these allegations was never made public by the Tribune, Obama's campaign strategist at the time (and who has kept his role over the years) was David Axelrod, who not only had spent years working at the paper, but had already known that Hull was vulnerable to such accusations. The exposure occurred right before the primary vote, leaving Hull no time to rebut the allegations and leaving no time for other candidates to emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Obama for the nomination.
In the general election, he faced Jack Ryan, a promising Republican candidate who had made a fortune in investment banking but gave up that career to teach in inner-city schools. Suddenly, the Chicago Tribune started a public campaign that he be forced to unseal and reveal his divorce records. They were sealed to protect his and his ex-wife's young children. Eventually, Jack Ryan was compelled to open them to public inspection. There were embarrassing tales of his sexual fantasies. Ryan was forced to leave the race. The hapless Republicans resorted to bringing in a carpetbagger, television personality Alan Keyes, to run against Obama. The next thing you know, Obama is a United States senator, having never faced a serious foe with a chance of winning.
Even when he was a freshly minted president, Obama could not resist taunting people he perceived to have slighted him. When the University of Arizona decided not to give him an honorary degree (considering it a premature honor), he warned that "[university] President Crow and the board of regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Inappropriate humor, perhaps, but it was revealing nonetheless of an unpleasant aspect of the president's character, especially given the fact that he was vastly expanding the audit staff at the agency. Was he ignorant of Richard Nixon's history of using the IRS as a weapon against his political adversaries or, for that matter, people who just offended him?
There have been other signs that Obama has brought Cook County politics into the already fetid swamp of D.C. politics.
He has routinely insulted and demeaned various groups and people during the last few years -- especially as the campaign seasons (in 2010 and now) have heated up.
He has practiced the politics of personal destruction in a way no other president has done in modern history. As political commentators have noted, he personalizes political differences. This leads him to unload heaps of scorn on those he perceives to be not just political adversaries, but blood enemies. He puts down those who rub him the wrong way (something very easy to do with thin-skinned people) in a very personal and public way (some examples listed in "President Put-Down" and "The Abuser In Chief"). Such behavior not only disgraces the office, but is certainly not conducive to compromise and to working across the aisle on issues important to Americans. Instead, as America has seen with ObamaCare and other actions, President Obama and his allies have resorted to all sorts of trickery to promote their agenda (czars, signing statements, executive orders, regulatory interpretations, and a raft of other items that have raised concerns over their constitutionality). These shady methods are also a betrayal of his promise to end "politics as usual" and to work in a bipartisan way -- promises made on the campaign trail that led many people to vote for him. But all of Obama's promises have an expiration date.
He has compiled and continues to compile an enemies list in a way that is reminiscent of Richard Nixon. Sometimes he likes to personally denounce and insult his "enemies" (Paul Ryan, John McCain). More often he outsources the wet work to others -- and not just his campaign staff.
Is it a coincidence that one of the few magazines Obama praises and says he reads is the New Yorker -- mentioned above? Under the leadership of David Remnick (who wrote a hagiographic biography of Barack Obama), the magazine has turned into an organ of Obama's re-election campaign. The periodical has published many unflattering articles on those considered to be Obama's "enemies." For example, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee was subject to a hit-job article by then-New Yorker political columnist Ryan Lizza because, apparently, he "makes life difficult for Obama." How? Issa has been very busy investigating an administration he considers the most corrupt in history. Hence, he has certainly moved up in the rankings of Obama's enemies. Sheldon Adelson, billionaire political donor to Republicans and a man who has made it quite clear that he wants to see Barack Obama defeated, was also the subject of a scathing article in the New Yorker, and to top it off, that reliable adjunct to the Democratic National Committee joined the "fun" at Adelson's expense, revealing painful personal details of his life that had no possible bearing on his political activities and portrayed him in a very unflattering light.
George Soros-funded groups Media Matters and the Center for American Progress have been useful attack dogs fielded against those who oppose Barack Obama's agenda. Media Matters was recently enriched with additional money from Soros to take on Fox News. The Center for American Progress released a report that cherry-picked the people who were purportedly promoting "Islamophobia" in America. Not only did the "blacklist" include the names of these people, but it also made sure to identify many of them as also supporting Jewish or pro-Israel causes. In other words, this was a target list of "enemies of Islam." It is shameful that officials of this group routinely meet with Obama and other White House officials and that its former head once headed up Barack Obama's transitional team before he became president. The Center's current leader used to work in the Obama White House. This group -- that can fairly be accused of spreading anti-Semitism and inviting attacks on prominent Jews -- should be shunned and not embraced.
The coming months will see a campaign waged by Barack Obama that is a disgrace to the image of the presidency. There will be carpet-bombing attacks against not only Mitt Romney, but also his supporters. They will be considered not "collateral damage," but instead legitimate targets by Obama and company -- because everyone who does not support him is an "enemy." Who defines them as such? Barack Obama, when he told Hispanics that politics is about "rewarding your friendsand punishing your enemies" (italics mine).
The hoi polloi that Barack Obama might characterize as "bitter clingers" are not slighted. The Obama campaign has plans for them, too. The campaign has asked its supporters to send them contact information on people they may know who do not support the president. The campaign would then have a list of people who oppose Barack Obama. What is next? Cameras in the voting booth?
Americans will witness a contest marked by smears, lies, and distortions. There will be more threats issued to those who have the temerity to oppose Barack Obama and support Mitt Romney. The right of Americans to free speech and the other rights given them under our Constitution will be under pressure.
The next two hundred days (like the last thousand) will be a blot on our history.
And one man is to blame.
Strassel writes of the Obama's campaign's latest efforts to smear and attack donors to Mitt Romney. She projects what happens when one exercises one's right in a democracy to support a candidate:
[...] Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money. [...]This is the sinister reason why the Obama campaign has repeatedly called on the Romney campaign to release the names of the latter's big donors. The Obama team needs to win not just by creating and attacking straw men and scapegoats; it needs flesh-and-blood villains as well. The richer the villain, the more tempting the target. The Obama campaign needs to conjure up plutocrats to further stoke the politics of rage that Barack Obama hopes will power him to re-election.
Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.
Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans." [...]
"We don't tolerate presidents or people of high power to do these things," says Theodore Olson, the former U.S. solicitor general. "When you have the power of the presidency -- the power of the IRS, the INS, the Justice Department, the DEA, the SEC -- what you have effectively done is put these guys' names up on 'Wanted' posters in government offices." [...]
He's targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street -- letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts.
Hence, we have the focus on the Koch brothers, who have funded various conservative and libertarian causes (as well as medical research, art and cultural projects, and many other worthy causes) and candidates over the years. Recall that almost two years ago, President Obama singled out one of the groups the Kochs help fund, Americans for Prosperity, for special opprobrium. This was a signal to what some may characterize as the vast left-wing conspiracy to attack the Kochs. TheNew Yorker, supplied with material by the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, went to work on the brothers. What was even more scandalous was that White House officials apparently had access to tax returns of the Kochs and their companies and used it as opposition research when meeting with journalists. Has any other president used the IRS for political purposes -- and what type of media backlash ensued then?
An Obama effort to shine the light on political donations is rich with hypocrisy. Barack Obama's own campaign disabled security measures on its donation page in ways that allow people to mask donors' identities and evade limits on how much individuals can donate to candidates. They did the same in 2008 (and one of the revelations was that Palestinians from Gaza were donating to his campaign; those donations were returned when exposed). George Soros and other billionaire sugar-daddies of the left have been funneling money to 527 groups, think-tanks, media outlets, and the like to bend politics in their direction in ways that meet no one's definition of transparency.
These efforts to intimidate donors to Republicans have borne fruit in the past. When it was revealed that Target donated $150,000 to a group that ran ads backing a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota who opposed same-sex marriage but who otherwise had a pro-growth agenda, a boycott effort began that led to Target halting its donations. Similar boycott threats (including ones led by Obama acolyte Van Jones) have dissuaded other companies from donating to such pro-growth groups as the American Legislative Exchange Council. In the latter case, charges of racism have been ginned up to discourage support for the group. The same potent weapon -- the charge of racism -- has also been used to compel financial institutions to make loans to unqualified borrowers; those loans came back to help devastate the American economy.
There was a reason why Barack Obama was so riled up by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which supported the right under the First Amendment of corporations to support political candidates. He and his supporters leveled spurious (and false) claims that foreign money would be used to fund political campaigns in America. Similar charges have been made against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce once that group began running ads questioning Barack Obama's agenda.
Clearly, Barack Obama wants to gut the Citizens United decision by other means. He views politics as a blood sport and believes in clearing the field of candidates so as to leave voters with no other choice but to support him.
Why should we be surprised by this type of thuggish behavior on the part of the president? He all but announced his modus operandi back in 2008 when he warned that his style of campaigning could be summed up by the maxim "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun."
He had previously shown an inclination to use all methods, foul and fair, to win elections. The man who touts the need to register all potential voters (a policy taken to its extreme by his attorney general) felt free to disqualify a political opponent when he ran for the state senate in 1996 from being on the ballot by challenging signatures on his opponents' nominating petition. Obama's team, at Obama's direction, flooded the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners with complaints about the validity of the signatures on such petitions for every single one of his four challengers. Every single one, including a former political ally, Alice Palmer, was forced off the ballot. As David Jackson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune wrote:
Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.But he was only warming up for more creative steps to win elections.
But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.
A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
The history of Obama's later run to become a U.S. senator has been obscured, but those familiar with his career see signs that all was not on the up-and-up when it came to his 2004 primary and general campaigns. In the primary, he faced a formidable and well-funded opponent, Blair Hull, who was leading quite strongly in the polls until stories started appearing in the Chicago Tribune that Hull had physically abused his ex-wife. Although the provenance of these allegations was never made public by the Tribune, Obama's campaign strategist at the time (and who has kept his role over the years) was David Axelrod, who not only had spent years working at the paper, but had already known that Hull was vulnerable to such accusations. The exposure occurred right before the primary vote, leaving Hull no time to rebut the allegations and leaving no time for other candidates to emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Obama for the nomination.
In the general election, he faced Jack Ryan, a promising Republican candidate who had made a fortune in investment banking but gave up that career to teach in inner-city schools. Suddenly, the Chicago Tribune started a public campaign that he be forced to unseal and reveal his divorce records. They were sealed to protect his and his ex-wife's young children. Eventually, Jack Ryan was compelled to open them to public inspection. There were embarrassing tales of his sexual fantasies. Ryan was forced to leave the race. The hapless Republicans resorted to bringing in a carpetbagger, television personality Alan Keyes, to run against Obama. The next thing you know, Obama is a United States senator, having never faced a serious foe with a chance of winning.
Even when he was a freshly minted president, Obama could not resist taunting people he perceived to have slighted him. When the University of Arizona decided not to give him an honorary degree (considering it a premature honor), he warned that "[university] President Crow and the board of regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Inappropriate humor, perhaps, but it was revealing nonetheless of an unpleasant aspect of the president's character, especially given the fact that he was vastly expanding the audit staff at the agency. Was he ignorant of Richard Nixon's history of using the IRS as a weapon against his political adversaries or, for that matter, people who just offended him?
There have been other signs that Obama has brought Cook County politics into the already fetid swamp of D.C. politics.
He has routinely insulted and demeaned various groups and people during the last few years -- especially as the campaign seasons (in 2010 and now) have heated up.
He has practiced the politics of personal destruction in a way no other president has done in modern history. As political commentators have noted, he personalizes political differences. This leads him to unload heaps of scorn on those he perceives to be not just political adversaries, but blood enemies. He puts down those who rub him the wrong way (something very easy to do with thin-skinned people) in a very personal and public way (some examples listed in "President Put-Down" and "The Abuser In Chief"). Such behavior not only disgraces the office, but is certainly not conducive to compromise and to working across the aisle on issues important to Americans. Instead, as America has seen with ObamaCare and other actions, President Obama and his allies have resorted to all sorts of trickery to promote their agenda (czars, signing statements, executive orders, regulatory interpretations, and a raft of other items that have raised concerns over their constitutionality). These shady methods are also a betrayal of his promise to end "politics as usual" and to work in a bipartisan way -- promises made on the campaign trail that led many people to vote for him. But all of Obama's promises have an expiration date.
He has compiled and continues to compile an enemies list in a way that is reminiscent of Richard Nixon. Sometimes he likes to personally denounce and insult his "enemies" (Paul Ryan, John McCain). More often he outsources the wet work to others -- and not just his campaign staff.
Is it a coincidence that one of the few magazines Obama praises and says he reads is the New Yorker -- mentioned above? Under the leadership of David Remnick (who wrote a hagiographic biography of Barack Obama), the magazine has turned into an organ of Obama's re-election campaign. The periodical has published many unflattering articles on those considered to be Obama's "enemies." For example, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee was subject to a hit-job article by then-New Yorker political columnist Ryan Lizza because, apparently, he "makes life difficult for Obama." How? Issa has been very busy investigating an administration he considers the most corrupt in history. Hence, he has certainly moved up in the rankings of Obama's enemies. Sheldon Adelson, billionaire political donor to Republicans and a man who has made it quite clear that he wants to see Barack Obama defeated, was also the subject of a scathing article in the New Yorker, and to top it off, that reliable adjunct to the Democratic National Committee joined the "fun" at Adelson's expense, revealing painful personal details of his life that had no possible bearing on his political activities and portrayed him in a very unflattering light.
George Soros-funded groups Media Matters and the Center for American Progress have been useful attack dogs fielded against those who oppose Barack Obama's agenda. Media Matters was recently enriched with additional money from Soros to take on Fox News. The Center for American Progress released a report that cherry-picked the people who were purportedly promoting "Islamophobia" in America. Not only did the "blacklist" include the names of these people, but it also made sure to identify many of them as also supporting Jewish or pro-Israel causes. In other words, this was a target list of "enemies of Islam." It is shameful that officials of this group routinely meet with Obama and other White House officials and that its former head once headed up Barack Obama's transitional team before he became president. The Center's current leader used to work in the Obama White House. This group -- that can fairly be accused of spreading anti-Semitism and inviting attacks on prominent Jews -- should be shunned and not embraced.
The coming months will see a campaign waged by Barack Obama that is a disgrace to the image of the presidency. There will be carpet-bombing attacks against not only Mitt Romney, but also his supporters. They will be considered not "collateral damage," but instead legitimate targets by Obama and company -- because everyone who does not support him is an "enemy." Who defines them as such? Barack Obama, when he told Hispanics that politics is about "rewarding your friendsand punishing your enemies" (italics mine).
The hoi polloi that Barack Obama might characterize as "bitter clingers" are not slighted. The Obama campaign has plans for them, too. The campaign has asked its supporters to send them contact information on people they may know who do not support the president. The campaign would then have a list of people who oppose Barack Obama. What is next? Cameras in the voting booth?
Americans will witness a contest marked by smears, lies, and distortions. There will be more threats issued to those who have the temerity to oppose Barack Obama and support Mitt Romney. The right of Americans to free speech and the other rights given them under our Constitution will be under pressure.
The next two hundred days (like the last thousand) will be a blot on our history.
And one man is to blame.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/05/obamas_chicago-style_campaign.html at May 01, 2012 - 10:10:39 AM CDT
The Realization of Osama bin Laden's Dream
In my wildest imagination, I would never have even dreamed of this possibility from our very own administration. This certainly places you and me and our families in a very vulnerable situation.
May 1, 2012
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/05/the_realization_of_osama_bin_ladens_dream.html at May 01, 2012 - 08:35:12 AM CDT
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May 1, 2012
The Realization of Osama bin Laden's Dream
By Tara ServatiusDon't let this week's anniversary of Osama bin Laden's assassination fool you. President Barack Obama may have killed bin Laden, but no one on Earth has done more to help al-Qaeda and the world's radical Islamists achieve their goals in the last year than our president.
Bin Laden's ultimate goal was for radical Islamists to rise up and retake control of the Middle East from largely secular, American-backed leaders. Bin Laden's strategy was to use terror attacks on the West to inspire this.
Just a few years ago, bin Laden probably couldn't have fathomed that it would be an American president who would ultimately accomplish his goal of bringing radical Islamist leaders to power in Middle Eastern countries, or that the same American president would get closer to accomplishing those goals in just three years than bin Laden himself did in his entire multi-decade terror career.
Bin Laden also didn't know he wouldn't be alive to see it because that president, Barack Obama, would preside over his assassination just as radical Islamists were on the brink of bringing the caliphate to life with the American government's help.
Today, a year after bin Laden's death, a sizable chunk of Middle Eastern real estate is either in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded groups or on the brink of falling into their hands. The newly empowered Muslim Brotherhood, which as recently as two years ago was banned from political life in most of the countries it now runs, comes to and goes from the White House with impunity.
This happened thanks to a consistent, persistent strategy by the Obama administration of using American pressure, diplomacy, and firepower, or the lack of it, to ensure that country after country slips from secular rule into Islamist control.
In the beginning, when the people in Washington were pressuring secular leader and long time U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt, the Obama administration would still distance itself from groups like the Brotherhood, assuring the American public that they wouldn't be strong enough to take over Egypt, or that if they did, they wouldn't really be that radical. Today the Brotherhood controls the Egyptian parliament, and an ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader whom the media is selling as moderate stands poised to take the presidency of that country.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is finally beginning to come out of the closet on its real plans for radical Islamists like the Brotherhood -- to put them in power in country after country. Obama administration officials call this strategy "legitimate Islamism."
The theory is that with secular leaders who were former U.S. allies out of the way in Middle Eastern countries, radical Islamists will now have an outlet for their Islamism and won't join al-Qaeda.
Obama administration officials were pretty blunt about this in a recent National Journal interview, explaining that the president came to a "realiz[ation that] he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively 'moderate' Islamist groups emerging as lead political players out of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere."
"It is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists," administration officials told the Journal. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."
Today, the Obama administration no longer hides its goal of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded Islamists to power.
And that's exactly what Obama has been doing. After American and international firepower drove former leader Moammar Gaddafi from power in Libya, the country came to be run by the Transitional National Council, which the Obama administration recognizes as the official government of Libya. It is packed with activists, lawyers, Islamic scholars, and others who have ties to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
In 2007, the LIFG formally joined al-Qaeda, an event so well-documented that even Reuters covered it. Its goals at the time included killing Gaddafi, setting up an Islamic caliphate in Libya, and waging international jihad. With Obama's help, they are well on their way to accomplishing these goals.
The National Transitional Council, which is backed by the Obama administration, has already decreed that the country will be run in accordance with sharia law. The Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are expected to make a strong showing in the next election. And they'll have plenty of dough with which to carry out their plans, since the Obama administration and NATO turned the country's oil fields, which are capable of generating billions of dollars of oil revenue a year, over to them.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration is conducting "peace talks" with the Taliban aimed at bringing them into the government, even as Taliban operatives kill U.S. troops daily on the battlefield. Given the Taliban's obvious inability to win control of the Afghan government for themselves on the battlefield, the Obama administration's determination to hand it to them at the negotiating table is baffling. This would create yet another radical Islamist-dominated Middle Eastern nation -- the exact opposite of what American troops have been fighting and bleeding for in that country for a decade.
In Syria, where the Obama administration is calling for dictator Bashar Assad to step down, the U.S. has left secular forces to fend for themselves and backed an Islamist-dominated group called the Syrian National Council, which has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The list goes on and on, but in country after county, the results are the same. Osama bin Laden's dream, which he thought would take decades to achieve, is coming to life in a single term of Obama's presidency. Bin Laden's Middle Eastern caliphate is rising. Once united in Islam, the caliphate was supposed to turn outward, conquering the rest of the Earth for Allah. No word yet on where Obama stands on that part of the plan. Perhaps we'll have to wait for a second term to find out.
While Americans focus this week on the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden and feel smug about our destruction of al-Qaeda's main cell, they need to understand that with bin Laden's dream already in motion, al-Qaeda is in many ways is an outdated relic whose purpose has already been served.
Follow Tara Servatius on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TaraServatiusOnline and Twitter at @TaraServatius.
Bin Laden's ultimate goal was for radical Islamists to rise up and retake control of the Middle East from largely secular, American-backed leaders. Bin Laden's strategy was to use terror attacks on the West to inspire this.
Just a few years ago, bin Laden probably couldn't have fathomed that it would be an American president who would ultimately accomplish his goal of bringing radical Islamist leaders to power in Middle Eastern countries, or that the same American president would get closer to accomplishing those goals in just three years than bin Laden himself did in his entire multi-decade terror career.
Bin Laden also didn't know he wouldn't be alive to see it because that president, Barack Obama, would preside over his assassination just as radical Islamists were on the brink of bringing the caliphate to life with the American government's help.
Today, a year after bin Laden's death, a sizable chunk of Middle Eastern real estate is either in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded groups or on the brink of falling into their hands. The newly empowered Muslim Brotherhood, which as recently as two years ago was banned from political life in most of the countries it now runs, comes to and goes from the White House with impunity.
This happened thanks to a consistent, persistent strategy by the Obama administration of using American pressure, diplomacy, and firepower, or the lack of it, to ensure that country after country slips from secular rule into Islamist control.
In the beginning, when the people in Washington were pressuring secular leader and long time U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt, the Obama administration would still distance itself from groups like the Brotherhood, assuring the American public that they wouldn't be strong enough to take over Egypt, or that if they did, they wouldn't really be that radical. Today the Brotherhood controls the Egyptian parliament, and an ex-Muslim Brotherhood leader whom the media is selling as moderate stands poised to take the presidency of that country.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is finally beginning to come out of the closet on its real plans for radical Islamists like the Brotherhood -- to put them in power in country after country. Obama administration officials call this strategy "legitimate Islamism."
The theory is that with secular leaders who were former U.S. allies out of the way in Middle Eastern countries, radical Islamists will now have an outlet for their Islamism and won't join al-Qaeda.
Obama administration officials were pretty blunt about this in a recent National Journal interview, explaining that the president came to a "realiz[ation that] he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively 'moderate' Islamist groups emerging as lead political players out of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere."
"It is no longer the case, in other words, that every Islamist is seen as a potential accessory to terrorists," administration officials told the Journal. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism."
Today, the Obama administration no longer hides its goal of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded Islamists to power.
And that's exactly what Obama has been doing. After American and international firepower drove former leader Moammar Gaddafi from power in Libya, the country came to be run by the Transitional National Council, which the Obama administration recognizes as the official government of Libya. It is packed with activists, lawyers, Islamic scholars, and others who have ties to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
In 2007, the LIFG formally joined al-Qaeda, an event so well-documented that even Reuters covered it. Its goals at the time included killing Gaddafi, setting up an Islamic caliphate in Libya, and waging international jihad. With Obama's help, they are well on their way to accomplishing these goals.
The National Transitional Council, which is backed by the Obama administration, has already decreed that the country will be run in accordance with sharia law. The Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are expected to make a strong showing in the next election. And they'll have plenty of dough with which to carry out their plans, since the Obama administration and NATO turned the country's oil fields, which are capable of generating billions of dollars of oil revenue a year, over to them.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration is conducting "peace talks" with the Taliban aimed at bringing them into the government, even as Taliban operatives kill U.S. troops daily on the battlefield. Given the Taliban's obvious inability to win control of the Afghan government for themselves on the battlefield, the Obama administration's determination to hand it to them at the negotiating table is baffling. This would create yet another radical Islamist-dominated Middle Eastern nation -- the exact opposite of what American troops have been fighting and bleeding for in that country for a decade.
In Syria, where the Obama administration is calling for dictator Bashar Assad to step down, the U.S. has left secular forces to fend for themselves and backed an Islamist-dominated group called the Syrian National Council, which has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The list goes on and on, but in country after county, the results are the same. Osama bin Laden's dream, which he thought would take decades to achieve, is coming to life in a single term of Obama's presidency. Bin Laden's Middle Eastern caliphate is rising. Once united in Islam, the caliphate was supposed to turn outward, conquering the rest of the Earth for Allah. No word yet on where Obama stands on that part of the plan. Perhaps we'll have to wait for a second term to find out.
While Americans focus this week on the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden and feel smug about our destruction of al-Qaeda's main cell, they need to understand that with bin Laden's dream already in motion, al-Qaeda is in many ways is an outdated relic whose purpose has already been served.
Follow Tara Servatius on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TaraServatiusOnline and Twitter at @TaraServatius.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/05/the_realization_of_osama_bin_ladens_dream.html at May 01, 2012 - 08:35:12 AM CDT
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Final Vote Results for Roll Call 165
