President Obama has just created a panel to figure out how to get our debt under control.  Even when he makes a decision, such as this one, it is to pass the buck to someone else to do the heavy lifting.  His attempt to overhaul health care turned into the Harry and Nancy Show.  Obama campaigned and gave speeches while Pelosi and Reid shut out the Republicans and created the bill that could not be passed.  Obama is now trying to put lipstick on that pig, by calling for a bipartisan meeting.  But instead of starting over and getting ideas from everyone, they are basically going to pick over the stinking corpse of the bill that the Democrats could not get passed.  It is obvious that the real objective is to either get some Republicans to sign on or to use the meeting as a club to beat the Republicans as the “party of No.”

Stop Me Before I Spend

This president can’t seem to control himself and he finds that he painted himself into a corner.  If he tries to raise taxes on those who make less than $250,000 per year he will be breaking a major campaign promise.  If he stops spending on his own, he will lose the left which is about the only support he has remaining.  So he calls in Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to co-chair a committee charged with making the president a tailor made fig leaf, to allow him to cut spending and raise taxes, while shrugging his shoulders and saying, “I can’t go a gainst the excellent advice of this august commission.”

If he wants to cut spending, he can just cut spending.  He doesn’t need a commission to do so.  How about an across the board spending freeze, except for national defense, until the the economy grows enough to balance the budget and not with gimmicks like increasing discretionary spending now 24% and then saying you will freeze that same spending for the next threee years?  How about freezing government hiring?  How about returning $500 billion in unspent stimulus money and $400 billion in repaid TARP money, plus interest, to the Treasury?  Don’t hold your breath.  That would require someone with executive experience who knows how to make a decision, rather than deliberating, like a legislator.  Sarah Palin comes to mind, as does George Bush (I & II), Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan.  These experienced executives knew how to put together a budget and make decisions.  Chris Christie in New Jersey was just sworn in last month as governor and he immediately identified the problem as too much spending and got to work cutting it back.  All that President Obama seems to know how to do is talk. 

If we start advertising now, we may get enough resumes to review to find a replacement by 2012.

When will our President come to the realization that the government does not have any money save that which is provided by its citizens?  If he understood that, he wouldn’t have said this:

“Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century,” Mr. Obama said at the White House.

Let me posit a translation: we shouldn’t borrow against our children’s future, so we should borrow against our children’s future.  And let me add another pet peeve and that is how the statists have redefined the word “invest”.  What they really mean is spend, but invest sounds so much more grown up.  However, most intelligent people understand invest to mean when you put your money into something with the belief you will get all your money back plus a premium.  You don’t invest in the stock market with the idea you will never see your money again and will subsequently put more money into it next year.  You invest in a house with the idea that you will sell it later for more money.  You don’t invest in a house if you expect it to go down in value.  But our elected representatives would have you believe that pouring money down a rat hole is an investment.

Immature and Irresponsible

Like a child caught standing over his mother’s prized china lying shattered on the floor, President Obama wants us to believe it’s not his fault, no, we are going to have trillion dollar plus deficits for the next ten years because of Bush and the Republicans.  He is one year into his presidency.  This is his budget, not Bush’s.  If he can’t handle the job he should resign and turn it over to, er, Biden?  Check that.  Perhaps he can just go watch television in the White House for the next three years and leave the rest of us alone.  Doing nothing would cause less damage than what he has planned.  He jacked up spending 24% and then “courageously” instituted a freeze on that spending for three years.  Think about it.  If I gave you a 24% raise on Monday and then came back on Friday and said, “Gee, I’m really sorry to have to do this, but times are really tough.  I’m going to have to freeze your new salary for the next three years.  Can you ever forgive me?”  Could you not burst out laughing?

We’re Going to Make Some Tough Decisions…Next Year

We are in a fiscal crisis, but don’t think for a moment you are going to see any tough decisions in an election year, particularly when so many Democrats are in danger of having to find jobs in the real world.  So this year is tough talk.  Next year we get busy!

Democrats or Republicans or maybe the Tea Party movement is going to have to act, sooner rather than later.  Here is how the federal government breaks down:

• Medicare and Medicaid — 33%
• Social Security — 21%
• Interest on the Debt — 8%
• Defense — 20%
• Non-Defense Discretionary — 18%

The first three items continue to grow with no signs of slowing and interest will really take off when the Fed stops the easy money program.  Defense can shrink as Iraq and Afghanistan stabilize, but not a lot as this is still job number one for the federal government.  So do you see the problem?  You can thank Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson for the first ticking time bomb above.  You can thank Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the second ticking time bomb.  You can now thank President Barack Obama for what is becoming the third ticking time bomb and that is without his Health Care, and Cap and Trade.

So how is President Obama going to “solve” this problem?  By tinkering with the last item, Non-Defense Discretionary spending.  But don’t worry, he will also tax those evil rich and make sure they pay their fair share.  But before he goes too far down that path I have a suggestion for him:

1. Listen closely to the Beatles song “Taxman“
2. Ask yourself why the members of the band moved to the United States?

High tax states like New York and California are finding that a significant number of their wealthy citizenry are moving to lower tax states, exacerbating those states’ fiscal problems.  If you look at the percentage of the population that pays the lion’s share of the taxes you will quickly see that if a relatively small percentage of the population, who can afford to live anywhere, actually decide to leave the United States of Tax the Rich, the resulting fiscal problem will be very, very severe. Obama can only poke his tax stick in that cage so long before he gets a nasty reaction.

We’re All Standing On the Third Rail

Social Security has been called the third rail of politics, but the reality is that we are all standing on the third rail trying to keep our balance and if anyone slips and touches the ground, we’re all fried.  We have to suck up the courage to address Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  If we can’t slow the growth of these programs so that they take a smaller amount of the budget pie each year, we are toast.  None of those programs is in the Constitution, but the liberals/progressives created them with empty promises of benefits without costs.  This should have been the first clue:

“Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.”

Ida May Fuller was the first recipient of monthly S.S. checks when she retired in 1940. She lived to be 100.

She almost got paid back in full with her first check. She got 926 times more than what she paid in. That’s a 92,600% return on “investment.” Not bad, huh?

She got back almost everything she paid in with her first check.  Instead of ringing alarm bells all over the country, politicians patted themselves on the back for the great system they created.  We sent Bernie Madoff to jail, why should Congress be exempt?  What Bernie Madoff did was child’s play in comparison.  Where he fell short was that he couldn’t force people to participate through payroll taxes, and he couldn’t print money.  So why is what he did criminal and what Congress is doing not?  He had to get his participants to voluntarily turn over their money.  He promised returns of 40% per year.  Ida may got 92,600% return on her investment.

Burn the Ships

There is the story of a general who landed on a beach to face an formidable enemy.  He ordered that the ships that brought them there be burned.  By doing so, he knew his men would fight ferociously because there was no escape, either they fought to win or they died.  Perhaps we should do the same with Congress and President Obama.  Fix Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid or you join Bernie Madoff in Cell Block “C”, for running a massive Ponzi scheme.  What has kept Congress from fixing this in the past is the fear of not getting reelected.  Let’s raise the stakes so that not getting reelected would pale in comparison to incarceration.  It’s time our elected officials started paying attention to the people and not their perks.  The disaster train is going downhill and picking up speed, headed for a cliff.  It’s time ALL politicians put the country first and fixed this problem that, after all, they created.  It’s fun to give out the goodies, but this is a crisis that cannot be shunned.  It must be dealt with head on.

The Joke is on You

Joe Biden just held a press event to reveal how he was going to help the middle class.  The man who has a hard time reaching into his own pocket for more than $1 a day in charity to give to his fellow man, has no problem reaching into your pocket and give the fruit of your labor to someone else.  It’s a win-win.  It doesn’t cost Joe Biden and it helps him keep getting elected and drawing a salary that you pay for.

Here is what he revealed:

1. Nearly Doubling the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit — in an economy that has over 10% unemployment this administration is focusing on helping those who already have a job and income.  I’m all for tax cuts, but not targeted cuts.  Cut income tax rates and jobs will be created.  I don’t believe this administration knows how to aim anything well enough to hit a target
2. Limiting a student’s federal loan payments to 10 percent of his/her income above a basic living allowance — the administration is concerned about how much debt students leave college with.  Does it have any concern about how much debt they are piling on everyone, not just college graduates?  Biden pointed to the average indebtedness of around $25,000 for college graduates.  The federal debt is about $35,000 for every man, woman and child in America, not just college graduates and this administration shows no signs of stopping it.
3. Creating a system of automatic workplace IRAs — government first got involved in retirement with Social Security.  That system is bankrupt and this administration has no interest in fixing it.  When Republicans floated the idea of taking a portion of the Social Security payroll tax and diverting it to higher return private savings, the Democrats savaged them.  So the Democrat solution is to ignore the bankrupt Social Security system and start telling business what to do.
4. Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings and enacting new safeguards to protect retirement savings — again with Social Security bankrupt, they want to put more tax dollars into retirement.  How different is this than the Republican plan to take what exists and allow it to get better returns than the paltry rate it currently gets within the Social Security system? The difference is that the Republican plan wouldn’t cost anything extra.  The Democrat plan will either increase payroll taxes or increase the deficit.  Surprise!!!
5. Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives –I thought the Democrats had fixed this with “end of life counseling” in their health care plan, coupled with bringing back the Death Tax next year.

Fumbling and Stumbling

The way to create jobs is to let the job creators keep their money to invest in their business and expand.  Small business owners are stuck waiting to learn how much all of Obama’s social re-engineering is going to cost them and until they know that, hiring is the last thing they will do.  The only thing this administration seems to know how to do is bash business and spend money and the more they spend the longer the recover will take.  They are now planning another stimulus plan to follow the last stimulus plan that didn’t work, and the deficit continues to grow and grow and grow.

President Obama wants to create a bipartisan panel to recommend how to reduce the deficit.  He gives the back of his hand to bipartisanship when it comes to workable solutions to real problems, but he loves bipartisanship when it gives him political cover to make unpopular decisions.  All of his supporters love to say that experience doesn’t matter and that President Obama is the smartest guy in the room.  If that is true, he should not be afraid to propose bold spending cuts and shrinking government and be smart enough to explain it to Congress on his own.  If he does so, I am sure many Republicans would support him and vote for it (and almost all Democrats vote against it).  But he wants it both ways, he wants Republicans to yield to tie spending cuts to tax increases and put the package to an up or down vote.  He will then take that on the campaign trail to tell the world how Republicans voted for tax increases.  If you don’t believe me, look to history.  George Herbert Walker Bush, of the “no new taxes” pledge, got Congress to agree with spending cuts in return for a tax increase.  Bill Clinton clubbed him to death, like a baby seal, with that pledge and then enjoyed Bush’s restraint upon Congress on the spending side to generate budget surpluses.  Let President Obama take the lead.  Wasn’t that why he was elected?  Because he was a different kind of leader?  So, lead away.

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  – Presidential Oath of Office,  Constitution of the United States of America, Article II, Section I

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — Constitution of the United States of America, First Amendment.

“This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” Mr. Obama said, adding: “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.” — NY Times, January 25, 2010

Last week in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the Supreme Court struck down a provision in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill that prohibited “electioneering communication”, that is, broadcast ads that name a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary election or within 60 days of a general election.  It is what I and many others dub the “Incumbent Protection Act”, because it tips the scales heavily in favor of incumbents who have the name recognition, and the communication power of their office as an advantage in an election.  In addition, the 30 days or 60 days are when many voters really start paying attention.  Our elected representatives love to talk tough about reform, but that reform typically ends up making it harder to replace them.

Obama Weighs In

As the above quotes demonstrate, President Obama’s job is to uphold the Constitution.  The Constitution protects free speech.  So why is President Obama attacking a Supreme Court ruling that protects Free Speech?  Is that what he is supposed to be doing?  Instead he says it “strikes at democracy itself.”  He doesn’t mention that it also lifts restrictions on the speech of unions that typically favor the positions of his party.  Perhaps that is because with the Obama administration unions have extraordinary access to the White House. From January to July, White House logs show that Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) visited the White House 22 times, more than anyone else in the visitor logs.

If President Obama is truly concerned about the influence of lobbyists, it does no good to drive them out of advertising on TV into personal visits to the White House.  Of course, the president would be selective in who has an audience with him.  If you really want to reduce the number of lobbyists, then reduce the reasons for them to lobby.  If, for example, you want to reduce the lobbying effort of the giant agricultural corporation Archer Daniels Midland, then get the government out of the business of ethanol subsidies, farm subsidies, and shut down the federal Department of Agriculture.   Lobbyists will call on Washington less, if they have less to call about.  Shrinking the federal government will reduce the number of lobbyists and their influence, reduce the deficit, help balance the budget, and make the government more manageable so that we can reduce or eliminate waste and fraud.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens blasted the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision saying that the ruling is not grounded in the writings of the Founding Fathers.  His argument being that certain groups could have their speech curtailed and only individuals had their speech protected.  Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a separate concurring opinion to address Stevens argument.  In part:

“I write separately to address JUSTICE STEVENS’ discussion of “Original Understandings”… This section of [Stevens'] dissent purports to show that today’s decision is not supported by the original understanding of the First Amendment. The dissent attempts this demonstration, however, in splendid isolation from the text of the First Amendment. It never shows why “the freedom of speech” that was the right of Englishmen did not include the freedom to speak in association with other individuals, including association in the corporate form. To be sure, in 1791 (as now) corporations could pursue only the objectives set forth in their charters; but the dissent provides no evidence that their speech in the pursuit of those objectives could be censored….

The [First] Amendment is written in terms of “speech,” not speakers. Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker, from single individuals to partnerships of individuals, to unincorporated associations of individuals, to incorporated associations of individuals–and the dissent offers no evidence about the original meaning of the text to support any such exclusion. We are therefore simply left with the question whether the speech at issue in this case is “speech” covered by the First Amendment. No one says otherwise.” – Antonin Scalia, concurring opinion in “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor voted against free speech.  I always marvel when people who succeed against tough odds attack the very principles of this country that allowed them to succeed.  The Bill of Rights was designed to protect against the tyranny of the majority by defining certain rights of every individual that could not be infringed upon.  It is one reason why people around the world fight to come here for a chance to succeed.  Because they know that these principles will allow them to do so if they have the drive to succeed.

For the second time in two months there has been a terrorist attack or an attempted attack on U.S. soil.  How is this administration responding?  Well, if grandma is planning to visit the family for the next holiday and she has a bladder problem, she had better drive or take the train, because she won’t be allowed to use the bathroom during the last hour of an airplane flight.  Whew!  That was close.  I feel so much better now that we kept grandma from flying.  Don’t you feel safer?

Who’s Minding the Store?

As pointed out in several other posts, Barack Obama was elected with zero executive experience and we hold our breath as he stumbles about trying to learn what an executive is supposed to do.  He put Janet Napolitano in charge of the Homeland Security department, because her home state borders on Mexico, but without any security experience.  This was put on full display when she went on the Sunday talk shows to say the administration response to the terrorist bomber went very well and then goes on the Monday morning news shows to say they failed.  President Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the CIA even though he has no intelligence experience.  Feeling a little uncomfortable?

Planning to Fail

President Obama has taken just about every step he can to dismantle what Bush and Cheney put in place and to discredit how they kept us safe.  Even today, Obama insiders were whispering to the Washington Post that this was all Bush’s fault.  Let’s look at the Obama record:

• Closing Guantanamo — this is one of Obama’s top priorities.  Rather than keep these enemy combatants off shore and in military hands, as any battlefield captives should be held, he is planning to release Yemenis back to Yemen.  Where did the bomber obtain instructions?  That’s right Yemen.
• Curtail Interrogation techniques — calling a technique that has no lasting physical effects on prisoner torture, and requiring that prisoners be asked only name, rank and serial number, this administration cuts off sources of valuable information that can save lives.
• Calling the War on Terror, the Overseas Contingency Operation and changing us from a war footing to a law and order footing.
• Letting the bomber lawyer up — instead of treating the bomber as a foot soldier in the War on Terror he is treated like some delinquent trying to knock over a Seven Eleven.  We should be putting him under intense interrogation to find out everything we can from him on the operation behind him.  Instead we are reading him Miranda rights, getting him a lawyer, putting him in one of the best burn center hospitals in the country, and planning to give him skin grafts.  I guess he’s part of the new health care plan.

Correctness or Political Correctness

Profiling works.  When are we going to stop ignoring this simple fact?  Look at any one of the known terrorist attacks around the world.  When someone gets on line at an airport who fits the profile of a young, male, single, Middle Eastern, African or South Asian, then pull them out of the line and give them a more thorough screening.  Pat them down.  Swab every bag for explosive residue rather than a sampling, open and examine closely everything.  Don’t say we can’t check this one because we have already checked two others and until we check our quota of old men, white grandmas, Asian children, etc. we cannot check another Middle Eastern man because we may hurt their feelings.

If enough of them get their feelings hurt, maybe all the other fair minded and peace loving Muslims around the world will rise up and take back their faith from those who have hijacked it for their own murderous aims.  Until then, we should err on the side of caution and pray that this administration figures out what they are doing to protect us.  If they don’t know what to do they should leave what Bush and Cheney did well enough alone.  It kept us safe for seven years.

With Ahmadinejad and the mullahs taking maximum advantage of Obama’s apology tour, it was time to make a bold statement regarding a second nuclear installation in Iran.  What better place and what better time than at the U.N. Security Council meeting especially with President Obama holding the gavel as the current chairman.  At least that was what French President Nicholas Sarkozy thought, as well British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The problem was that President Obama was basking in the glow of his makeover of America.  Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, after all, told the General Assembly that he no longer smelled the sulfurous odor of El Diablo, President Bush.  It was another Obama global love fest.  Why spoil it by talking about global security in the Security Council of all places?  It would be far better to talk about global security the following day at an economic summit of the G-20.  Don’t you think?

French Fried

Sarkozy apparently had his U.N. speech prepared to take a strong stance against Iran in the Security Council Meeting, but was forced to remove that part of the speech.

President Sarkozy in particular pushed hard. He had been “frustrated” for months about Mr. Obama’s reluctance to confront Iran, a senior French government official told us, and saw an opportunity to change momentum. But the Administration told the French that it didn’t want to “spoil the image of success” for Mr. Obama’s debut at the U.N. and his homily calling for a world without nuclear weapons, according to the Paris daily Le Monde. So the Iran bombshell was pushed back a day to Pittsburgh, where the G-20 were meeting to discuss economic policy. — WSJ, September 29, 2009

Welcome as it is, at the same time somewhat embarrassing that the French are frustrated that the United States isn’t taking a harder line.  President Obama has certainly come full circle from President Bush in just nine months.  As for me, I slept better with an American cowboy in the White House.

When given an opportunity to speak in Pittsburgh, President Sarkozy could hardly contain himself:

“We are right to talk about the future,” Mr. Sarkozy said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. “But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises,” i.e., Iran and North Korea. “We live in the real world, not in a virtual one.” No prize for guessing into which world the Frenchman puts Mr. Obama.

Sarkozy continued,

“I support America’s ‘extended hand.’ But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make decisions.”

Vive la France. I hope we make it to 2012.

Peter Baker writes in the New York Times, “Good Will, But Few Foreign Policy Benefits for Obama,” that

“As much as they may prefer to deal with Mr. Obama instead of his predecessor, George W. Bush, foreign leaders have not gone out of their way to give him what he has sought.”

Well, duh, who didn’t see that coming?  Who doesn’t prefer to negotiate with someone who wants to be your best friend, so that they can clean your clock before you realize what hit you?  I take that back, liberals didn’t see it coming and they never do.  One liberal that I can think of who could see it, is no longer with us, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.  He wrote a book about it referring to the world in it’s title A Dangerous Place.

So what has Obama’s policy of “engagement” gotten us?

• Putin getting Obama to drop missile defenses based in Poland and the Czech Republic for… “a player to be named later” from Putin?
• Ahmadinejad fixes an election in Iran, kills and rapes the opposition, presses on with its intention of getting nuclear weapons and the Obama administration says, “That’s a no, no,” as if chiding a tot.  Ahmadinejad can’t believe his good fortune.  He will play Russia off the U.S. and merrily stall until he has nuclear weapons and the missile technology to deliver them anywhere.
• Chavez is trying to help a dictator abolish democracy in Honduras, and Obama and Clinton try to help him by telling the Honduran people that have to allow their law breaking former president to return to power.
• Chavez is getting buddy-buddy with Ahmadiniejad, so as soon as Iran has nuclear weapons, we may soon see nukes in South America.  JFK went to the brink of nuclear war to keep such weapons out of this Hemisphere.  Does anyone believe Obama would do the same?
• North Korea continues to thumb its nose at the Obama Administration, while it test more missiles until it gets one that can hit Kansas City.
• Europeans dismiss Obama’s calls for more troops in Afganistan
• The Saudi’s dismiss (dispite or because of,  the bowing of Obama to their king) his requests for concessions on Israel
• Israel refuses to stop building settlements on the West Bank
• Obama has marginalized the State Department.  What is Hillary Clinton actually responsible for?  Biden seems to be handling (?) Russia; George Mitchell the Middle East; Holbrooke Afganistan; Dennis Ross for Iran.

Foreign policy could not be more fundamental to the office of the President (Constitution: Article II, Section 2), but today President Obama will appear on five Sunday talk shows to continue to push his health care initiative that 56% of the American people don’t want and the Constitution doesn’t identify as a federal function.  If he doesn’t get back on track with foreign policy it won’t be health care we need but medical triage in the aftermath of another terror attack or war on our soil.

Just what is a czar anyway?  And I am not talking about the Russian royal family.  A czar is essentially a presidential advisor.  Take a moment to think about that.  Why does President Obama need to appoint 32, give or take, czars in his administration?  Could it be that he really, really needs a lot of advising?

In the campaign, the main stream media, somehow diverted the attention away from Obama’s glaring lack of experience as the Presidential candidate and put all their focus on Sarah Palin’s “lack of experience.”  Sarah Palin had more executive experience as a sitting governor and I emphasize executive experience, than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.

But the media tut-tutted, and said “it’s only Alaska,” as for her mayoral experience, “it was a very small town.”  When Obama slipped his teleprompter and tried to claim he was running a very large organization, his campaign, it was laughable.  But don’t worry, he had Joe Biden to lean on.  I feel better.

Presidents and The Experience They Brought With Them

Let’s take a look back at past elected presidents and the executive experience they brought to office:

• George W. Bush — Governor of  Texas
• Bill Clinton — Governor of Arkansas
• George H. W. Bush — Vice President of the United States, Head of the CIA
• Ronald Reagan — Governor of California
• Jimmy Carter — Governor of Georgia
• Richard Nixon — Vice President of the United States
• Lyndon Johnson — Vice President of the United States
• John F. Kennedy — None.  He was a legislator and his inexperience nearly got us annihilated with the Cuban Missle Crisis, following the Bay of Pigs, and an embarrassing showdown with Khrushchev
• Dwight D. Eisenhower — Five star general in command of all Allied Forces in Europe in World War II
• Harry Truman — Vice President of the United States
• Franklin D. Roosevelt — Governor of New York , Secretary of the Navy
• Herbert Hoover — Secretary of Commerce
• Calvin Coolidge — Vice President of the United States, Governor of Massachusetts
• Warren G. Harding — Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
• Woodrow Wilson — Governor of New Jersey, President of Princeton University
• William Howard Taft –  Secretary of War
• Theodore Roosevelt — Vice President of the United States, Governor of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Legislators Versus Executives

So, from the beginning of the 20th Century until the election of Barack Obama, only once has a  president with only legislative experience been elected, John F. Kennedy.  Nikita Khrushchev took advantage of Kennedy’s inexperience in their first summit in Vienna, and then there was the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the attempted overthrow of Castro.  On top of those two building blocks we got the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought us closer than we have ever been to thermonuclear obliteration.

The Eternal Campaign

President Obama is no different.  He has the least experience of any president since 1900.  He effectively was only a United States Senator for two years, as he was busy campaigning for the next two years and resigned his last two years after being elected president.  So what does he do?  He does what he is comfortable doing and what he is good at, campaigning.  He has held more press conferences in six months than his predecessor did in eight years.  Who is running the show while Obama is running around?  Is it Nancy Pelosi?  Rahm Emmanual?  His programs are falling apart.  The stimulus isn’t working and more Americans say that it has hurt the economy rather than helped it (31%-25%) and that the rest of it should be canceled.  His cap and trade plan is opposed by most Americans (56%) who don’t want to pay more in taxes to fight global warming.  His government takeover of our health care is opposed by most Americans (53%-44%) and yet he presses on, figuring that with enough campaigning the American people will be won over.

This may be a long slog, waiting for 2012 and hoping our country does not get destroyed by all the power grabbing characters in Congress, who don’t care a whit about us, only about increasing the powerful control they have over our lives.  We have tothe fight of our lives on our hands preventing the taking of our liberties.

WE SAVED THE ECONOMY!

President Barack Obama announced last night at his press conference that his policies have brought the economy back from the brink of collapse. ( Obama Talks About the Economy).  So I guess it’s Mission Accomplished!  Despite unemployment climbing toward 10% when he promised he could hold it at 8% if we implemented his stimulus package and that it would be 9% if we didn’t.  With only 3/4 of the fiscal year over, we already have a deficit in excess of $1 trillion dollars for the first time in our history.  The House passed a Cap and Trade bill that will, if implemented, add to the cost of everything that uses energy, just don’t call it a tax because only Bill Gates and Warren Buffet will be taxed under the Obama Administration.  On top of that, we absolutely must nationalize health care to cut the cost of health care and increase coverage.  The only problem is that the CBO says it will increase costs and reduce the amount of care.

What’s the Mission

If you are foolish enough to think that Obama’s policies are failing, then you don’t know what the mission is.  The mission is not to fix the economy.  It is not to curb global warming.  It is not to make health care more affordable.  It is to increase the size and scope of government to a point where it can never be rolled back.  Our liberties will be crushed and we will be ruled by a cadre of bureaucrats who will tell us what we can do and when we can do it.  He will form a block of voters that can get him and his fellow Democrats elected in perpetuity, by showering them with government handouts and place punishing taxes on a minority of productive people.  Why do you think he is smiling in the picture?  His mission is proceeding just as planned, thank you very much.  He only hopes that it is too late before you realize what happend to you and your rights.

A Rasmussen poll 68% Say 2nd Stimulus is Likely, makes stark just how committed the statist majority of Congress is to reshaping America in their image and derisively dismissing the will of the people.  68% of those polled say a second stimulus is likely while at the same time 60% of the American people are opposed to a second stimulus while only 27% are in favor.  Let that sink in for a moment before I play it again, 68% of the American people believe that Congress will ram down their throats what only 27% are in favor of.  Is this a government for the people?  By the people?  It sounds more like Iran and their recent presidential “elections”.

In Iran, hundreds of thousands took to the street while their government responded by beating and shooting them.  In America, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in Tea Parties, and thankfully the government hasn’t responded by beating and shooting us, but ignoring the will of the people just the same.

Promises, Promises

President Obama promised open- ness and transparancy in his administration.  During the campaign his website had the following statement:

“Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them,” the campaign website states. “As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”

Well, true to Obama’s form, there is always an escape clause, in this case, “non-emergency.”  So just declare every bill an emergency and the promise remains unbroken.  But what is an emergency?

The stimulus was pitched as an emergency and it was rushed through Congress getting passed on a Friday.  However despite all the urgency, President Obama did not sign it on Friday night, nor Saturday, nor Sunday, nor Monday as it was a holiday, but on Tuesday when a true media event surrounding the signing ceremony could be orchestrated.  So despite the conflict surrounding “hurry up and wait” why couldn’t the American people get a look at the bill during those five days?

So what’s the track record?  The Sunlight Foundation had this to say back in April:

“Of the eleven bills, only one (The DTV Delay Act) could be somewhat considered to have fulfilled the five day pledge. This could only be somewhat considered because it was posted just prior to being presented to the President, which is a slightly minor point.”

Did You Read It?

These massive spending bills (Stimulus, Cap and Trade, Health Care, TARP) are getting passed by Congress and if you ask Democrats or members of the administration if they actually read the bill they either laugh or bristle with indignation.  Carol Browner Thinks It’s Unfair to Say She Hasn’t Read the Energy Bill

So it seems like this Congress and this Administration is resolute in urgently slamming through every government enlarging and power consolidating program that they can in the least amount of time before the next election cycle.  What the American people want is immaterial if the political class can strengthen their grip on the government such that future Congresses and administrations will find it hard to undue.

Furthermore if they can get enough illegals, dead people, homeless, criminals who have lost the right to vote, registered or counted in the census so that they can enlarge their favorite Congressional districts, or fix elections then they can stay in office.  When they lose a close election they know how to immediately dispatch teams of lawyers to invalidate ballots of their opponents and count more of their own that were “missed”.  They perfected this technique in Washington state, and repeated it in Minnesota, where Republicans won both closely contested elections, but Democrats repeatedly demanded recounts until their candidate was ahead and then, with a straight face said, “enough recounts the people deserve to have this resolved.”

Pay Attention People

If more people don’t start paying attention, the greatest country in the history of the world, the United States of America, will become a nostalgic footnote.  Already Communist China is building a more captialistic economy than we have, while we try to move toward the old, failed socialist model.  If we are not more careful, we will wake up some day and wonder how we became more like Venezuela, and feel a little bit………foolish?