Category: Politics

Iran, Egypt, and Israel: Guess Who Obama Funded?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

Friends, I hoped y’all are all prayed up. We’re going to need it.

Yahoo.com has the story:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an annual anti-Israel protest in Tehran on Friday that the Jewish state was a “cancerous tumour” that will soon be excised, drawing Western rebukes.

Washington said Ahmadinejad’s statements were “reprehensible”, while Paris viewed them as “outrageous.”

Ahmadinejad’s diatribe against Israel in his Quds (Jerusalem) Day address was the latest in a long line to have drawn criticism from Western governments.

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumour,” he said.

“The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land…. A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists,” he said.

The diatribe took place amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

The Jewish state has in recent weeks intensified its threats to possibly bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent it having the capability to produce atomic weapons.

Iran, which is suffering under severe Western sanctions, denies its nuclear programme is anything but peaceful. Its military has warned it will destroy Israel if it attacks.

“They (the Israelis) know very well they don’t have the ability” to successfully attack Iran, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“If they make a mistake, our nation’s reaction will lead to the end of the Zionist regime,” he said.

Meanwhile, Obama’s favorite “civic (religious) organization” in the region is showing everyone how cultured they are:

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of newly installed President Mohammed Morsi.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives, “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

Raymond Ibrahim, a fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the crucifixions are the product of who the Middle Eastern media call “partisans.”

“Arabic media call them ‘supporters,’ ‘followers,’ and ‘partisans’ of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ibraham said.

Ibrahim also says the victims can be anyone, including Egyptians and Christians.

“It’s anyone who is resisting the new government,” Ibrahim said. “In this particular case, the people attacked and crucified were secular protesters upset because of Morsi’s hostile campaign against the media, especially of Tawfik Okasha, who was constantly exposing him on his station, until Morsi shut him down.”

Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine, and are required by the Quran. The time and other details about the crucifixions were not readily available.

“Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist” sorts out what this clash of civilizations is all about

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez cited chapter and verse from the Quran to explain that crucifixions are not simply normal for Islam; they’re demanded.

“Crucifixion is a hadd punishment, stipulated in the Quran, Sura 5:33, and therefore an obligatory part of Shariah,” Lopez said. “It’s been a traditional punishment within Islam since the beginning, even though it’s not exclusively Islamic. The Romans used it too.

“So, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood haven’t the option to not include crucifixion within their legal code. It’s obligatory to comply with Shariah. And yes, it’s for shock value also to be sure,” Lopez said.

And, just think, Americans, the Muslim Brotherhood is killing Christians, USING OUR MONEY!

Back on April 7th, Andrew McCarthy reported the following in a article on nationalreview.com:

This week, the Obama administration quietly released $1.5 billion in foreign aid to the new Egyptian government, now dominated by a Brotherhood-led coalition in parliament — soon to be joined by an Ikhwan (i.e., Brotherhood) luminary as president.

It is not easy to find the announcement. With the legacy media having joined the Obama reelection campaign, we must turn for such news to outlets like the Kuwait News Agency. There, we learn that, having dug our nation into a $16 trillion debt hole, President Obama has nevertheless decided to borrow more money from unfriendly powers like China so he can give it to an outfit that views the United States as an enemy to be destroyed.

This pot of gold for Islamic supremacists is the spoils of a Brotherhood charm offensive. Given the organization’s unabashed goals and hostility towards the West, it was U.S. policy, until recently, to avoid formal contacts with the Brotherhood — although agents of the intelligence community and the State Department have long engaged in off-line communications with individual MB members. By contrast, the Obama administration from its first days has embraced the Ikhwan — both the mothership, whose leaders were invited to attend Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo despite its then-status as a banned organization under Egyptian law, and the Brotherhood’s American satellites, which have been invited to advise administration policymakers despite their notorious record of championing violent jihadists and repressive sharia.

Obama has overlooked the MB’s intimate ties to Hamas, which self-identifies as the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch and is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. Administration officials have absurdly portrayed the Brothers as “secular” and “moderate,” although the organization, from its founding in the 1920s, has never retreated an inch from its professed mission to establish Islam’s global hegemony.

Funding our enemies against our allies and the faith of 78% of our population.

Hopefully, the next Administration will have more sense.

Campaign 2012: Racist Allusions and the “N” Word

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

The Democratic and Republican Conventions have not even been held yet, and the Democrats are panicking…Big Time.

Joe Biden only said “chains”. MSNBC Host Toure’ (Who?) invoked the “N” word.

Mediaite.com reports:

On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Cycle the group discussed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney‘s assertion that President Obama should “take [his] campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.” Co-host Touré saw what he believes to be explicit racial connotations beneath what Romney was saying, calling it the “niggerization” of the campaign.

“That really bothered me,” he said. “You notice he said anger twice. He’s really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama, the ‘otherization,’ he’s not like us.”

“I know it’s a heavy thing, I don’t say it lightly, but this is ‘niggerization,’” Touré said to the apparent shock of his co-panelists. “You are not one of us, you are like the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.”

Naturally this led to a battle between Touré and conservative co-host S.E. Cupp. She took particular issue with the fact that Touré admitted that VP Joe Biden‘s “chains” comments were divisive, but is now calling Romney a “racist” for saying the Obama campaign is “angry.”

“Do you see how dishonest that is?” she asked.

Touré denied calling anyone a racist, which prompted Cupp to say, “Certainly you were implying that Mitt Romney and the base will respond to this dog-whistle, racially-charged coding, and hate Obama, the angry black man?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“That’s so irresponsible,” Cupp answered back.

“This is not a revolutionary comment,” Touré later said. “This is a constituency all-white party that rejects the black vote.”

“You have two white guys in Joe Biden and Mitt Romney,” Cupp clarified. “Joe Biden made the overtly racial comment and has a history of making bigoted remarks. Mitt Romney was responding to the comment. Yet he is the one responsible for the whole Republican history of racism in politics?”

“That’s not what Touré is saying,” co-host Krystal Ball interjected. “You’re twisting his words.”

“No, he can speak for himself,” Cupp shot back.

“He’s using the playbook Republicans have been using for decades now,” Touré concluded.

So, who is this young…ummm…genius?…no…that’s not the word…I’ll think of it in a minute.

Touré is the author of four books, including Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now. He is the co-host of MSNBC’s show The Cycle. He is also the host of the Fuse show The Hiphop Shop and On the Record and is a professor at NYU’s Clive Davis School of Recorded Music.

This isn’t the few time that this young man has been…ummm…controversial.

Breitbart.com gives us the lowdown:

During a discussion on the political atmosphere after the Aurora shooting, Toure said he had “hoped” that the whole incident would provoke a “Trayvon Martin situation,” but that in the end it all boiled down to what he felt was the common racist attitude of making sure that “law abiding white people have access to guns” while “black criminals” don’t.

How Toure got from a white shooter with no past run-ins with either law enforcement or mental health professionals and who shot up a mostly white audience to the idea that all people care about afterward is keeping African Americans from observing their Second Amendment rights is anybody’s guess.

Here is what he said in the July 23 show:

We never have this debate until we have a tragedy and then its over emotionalized, its over fraught [sic], you can’t have a substantive debate when everybody’s so sensitive.

Day to day crime, as we’ve talked about, has fallen over the last 20 years so I think the average voter feels less of the fear that would motivate lawmakers to do something. These spectacular mass killings are way up from when our dads were kids — I think there was something like 11 in the 50s and 60s and over 550 in the last part of the lat century a decade ago.

So, those things sort of make us think about these things, but we understand those are outlier crimes, somebody going to shoot up the mall or shoot up the school. I would hope that it would be something like a Trayvon Martin situation that would make people think, ‘Wow. wrongful death, even though it’s a legal gun owner. How do we move forward from this situation?’ But so much of this issue, I think comes down to, ‘Let’s make sure law abiding white people are able to have access to guns and make sure that black criminals are not and that becomes part of the locus of the problem.

And we don’t even want to talk about that sort of racial, black sort of bottom of it all, but that’s definitely part of it.

In his short tenure at MSNBC, Toure has unleashed a torrent of left-wing tropes. Early in July he was all atwitter over Obama mandates hoping to see big daddy government grown immensely. The previous month he asserted that any criticism or interruptions of Obama are based solely on the fact that he’s black. On yet another show he outrageously hinted that the military might have murdered Pat Tillman to silence him from criticizing the Army. On still another episode he tried to ridicule a college student for having the temerity to be a Republican.

Toure doesn’t just keep his rants on MSNBC. In March Toure got into a heated public feud with CNN host Piers Morgan over an interview that Toure didn’t like with accused killer George Zimmerman. Morgan invited the bomb thrower on his show to talk about their feud and eventually Toure proceeded to unleash an epic race-baiting meltdown after which Morgan said, “I like to think of myself as a professional journalist, Touré. I think that you are something else.”

President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight: 

We’re going around the country, talking about, ‘How do we put people back to work? How do we improve our schools? How do we make sure that we’re producing American energy? How do we lower our debt in a responsible way?’ And I don’t think you or anybody who’s been watching the campaign would say that in any way we have tried to divide the country. We’ve always tried to bring the country together.

You don’t have to try to divide the country, Mr. President. You have sycophants like Toure’ to do it for you.

Ohhh…now, I remember the word.

It’s RAACIIIST.

Ahhh…I feel much better, now.

The War Against Christianity: Showdown at the FRC

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Once again, a nutjob with a gun has opened fire on innocent people. Only this time, he was not successful in carrying out his planned killing spree.

Thank God.

A security guard at the Family Research Council’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. is being hailed as a hero after he stopped a gunman posing as an intern, taking a bullet in the arm before wrestling the suspect to the ground.

The gunman entered the lobby of the organization’s Chinatown headquarters around 10:45 and expressed disagreement with the conservative group’s policy positions, Fox News has learned. When the guard, who was not identified, asked him where he was going, he opened fire, according to police.

“The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said. ”He did his job. The person never made it past the front.”

The guard, who was not identified, was shot in the arm and was conscious after the shooting and was in stable condition. The gunman, who also was not identified, was being questioned by the FBI, sources said. Sources said he is in his twenties.

The suspect “made statements regarding their policies, and then opened fire with a gun striking a security guard,” a source told Fox News. WJLA-TV7 reported the suspect was also shot. Sources also said the gunman may have been carrying a bag from Chick-fil-A, the embattled fast-food restaurant whose president came under fire from gay activists after he said he did not agree with same-sex marriage.

Sources told Fox New that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”

Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism, although James McJunkin, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said authorities do not yet know the gunman’s motive.

CBS News sheds some more light on the gunman:

A man suspected of shooting and wounding a security guard in the lobby of a Christian lobbying group had been volunteering at a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

A law enforcement official has identified the suspect arrested in Wednesday’s shooting as Floyd Corkins II of Herndon, Va. Investigators were interviewing his neighbors.

Another official says the shooter made a negative reference about the work of the Family Research Council before opening fire. The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

David Mariner is executive director of The DC Center for the LGBT Community. He says Corkins had been volunteering at the center for about the past 6 months. Mariner describes Corkins as “kind, gentle and unassuming.”

While police have not yet stated what motivated Corkins, a coalition of 25 gay rights groups released a statement through GLAAD condemning the shooting.

“The motivation and circumstances behind today’s tragedy are still unknown, but regardless of what emerges as the reason for this shooting, we utterly reject and condemn such violence. We wish for a swift and complete recovery for the victim of this terrible incident,” the statement read.

Why would anyone want to kill people working at a place that espouses Traditional American Values, which happens to represent the ideology of the overwhelming majority of the American people?

Perhaps, they are spurred on by groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Founded in 1971 by a pair of Alabama lawyers, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) quickly built a reputation as America’s leading “civil rights law firm,” suing Southern institutions resistant to desegregation, publicizing hate crimes, and using the media to denounce the perpetrators of those crimes. At the time of SPLC’s founding, Julian Bond, who currently chairs the NAACP, was named the fledgling group’s first President.

…As part of the Intelligence Project, the SPLC website currently features a map of “Active U.S. Hate Groups.” Deeming racism the the nearly exclusive province of the “radical right,” Intelligence Project reports mostly ignore groups on the left. And although SPLC denounces extremist religious organizations like the Jewish Defense League and Westboro Baptist Church, no mention is made of any extremist Muslim groups. (In 2007, SPLC identified 888 separate “active hate groups” in the United States.)

This “tolerant” organization has written the following description of the FRC:

Family Research Council

Founded: 1983

Location: Washington, D.C.

Ideology: Anti-Gay

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, the FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed the FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

…The Family Research Council (FRC) emerged from a 1980 White House conference on families. James Dobson, founder of the religious right powerhouse Focus on the Family, met and prayed with a group of eight Christian leaders at a Washington hotel, leading ultimately to the creation of the FRC in 1983 under the initial direction of Gerald Regnier (formerly of the Department of Health and Human Services). The group became a division of Focus on the Family in 1988 under Gary Bauer, a religious right leader who would use his post as a launching pad for a failed 2000 run for the presidency. Bauer had been the undersecretary of education and a domestic policy advisor to President Reagan.

Bauer raised the FRC’s profile, increased its effectiveness, and built a national network of “concerned citizens” during the Clinton Administration. But the FRC separated from Focus on the Family in 1992 over concerns that its very political work might threaten Focus’ tax-exempt status; Dobson and two other Focus officials joined the FRC’s newly independent board. As an independent nonprofit, the FRC continued its work in “pro-family” areas, working against abortion and stem cell research, fighting pornography and homosexuality, and promoting “the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.” That work would establish FRC as one of the most powerful of the far right’s advocacy groups.

America has been fighting a culture war for a while now. As traditional families seem to be dwindling, and God is taken out of our schools, our homes, and our American culture, we find that His grace has been replaced by an egocentric vulgarity of spirit in many of our citizens.

More and more, this “Shining City on a Hill”, founded on a Solid Rock…finds itself resting on shifting sands.

Hatred has no Political Ideology.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

Campaign 2012: Chain of Fools

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Just when you thought that he couldn’t say anything more inapproriate or stupid, Herr Gaffemeister, Vice-President Joe Biden, has done it again.

Unchain My Heart…

Realclearpolitics.com has the story:

Vice President Joe Biden told supporters that Republicans would “put y’all back in chains,” during a campaign speech Tuesday in Danville, Va.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the—he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules–unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains. He’s said he’s going to do nothing about stopping the practice of outsourcing…

Per businessweek.com:

The Romney campaign said the remarks show that President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign wants to steer voters away from concerns about the economy.

“Whether it’s accusing Mitt Romney of being a felon, having been responsible for a woman’s tragic death or now wanting to put people in chains, there’s no question that because of the president’s failed record he’s been reduced to a desperate campaign based on division and demonization,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman said in a written statement.

The Obama campaign’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, defended the vice president’s remarks, saying that Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate, and House Speaker John Boehner, both Republicans, “have called for the ‘unshackling’ of the private sector from regulations that protect Americans from risky financial deals and other reckless behavior that crashed our economy.”

And, realclearpolitics.com adds this quote:

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter says the campaign has “no problem” with Vice President Joe Biden’s comment about putting people back in chains.

“I think he probably agrees with Joe Biden’s sentiments,” Cutter said on behalf of President Obama. “He’s using a metaphor to talk about what’s going to happen.”

“I appreciate the faux outrage from the Romney campaign,” Cutter said in reaction to a statement from the campaign. “If you want to talk about the use of words then take a look at Mitt Romney’s stump speech where he basically calls the president un-American.”

“The bottom line is that we have no problem with those comments,” Cutter said.

Uh-huh. Stephanie, precious, the sound you’re hearing as the result of Obama’s failed economic plains? That’s “The Sound of the Men Working on the Chain Gang”.

Remember a couple of weeks ago, the hue and cry from the concerned about a special pair of tennis shoes?

The London Daily Mail reported at the time, that

Adidas has come under fire for creating a pair of trainers with ‘shackles’.

Critics have compared the ‘JS Roundhouse Mids’, to be released in August, to the chains worn by black slaves in the 19th century.

The firm unveiled the trainers on its Facebook page. They feature plastic orange ‘shackles’ attached to the ankles by chains in the same colour.

The shoes have sparked an angry debate online. More than 2,000 Facebook users have commented, with many calling the design ‘offensive’ and ‘ignorant’, saying the firm has ‘sunk to new lows’ with its ‘slavewear’ product.

One, ‘Kay Tee’, said: ‘It’s offensive and inappropriate in many ways… How would a Jewish person feel if they decided to have a shoe with a swastika on it and tried to claim it was OK in the name of fashion?’

Dr Boyce Watkins, writing for Your Black World, said: ‘Shackles. The stuff that our ancestors wore for 400 years while experiencing the most horrific atrocities imaginable.

‘Most of which were never documented in the history books and kept away from you in the educational system, all so you’d be willing to put shackles on your ankles today and not be so sensitive about it.’

The Professor at Syracuse University said he accepted some people would accuse him of overreacting.

But he added: ‘There is always a group of negroes who are more than happy to resubmit themselves to slavery.

‘I’m offended by these shoes as there is nothing funny about the prison industrial complex, which is the most genocidal thing to happen to the black family since slavery itself.’

Others have likened the shoes’ orange ‘bracelets’ to the shackles worn by prisoners across the America, or said the firm is ‘promoting slavery’.

Kay Tee added: ‘Regardless if the company was saying the shoes are so hot you have to chain them to you, or they were capitalising on the whole prison style popularity.

‘But corporate business has a social responsibility above all to consider these perceptions before releasing a product like this.

Adidas has not yet commented.

So…when VP Biden alludes to slavery it’s okey-dokey, but producing a pair of tennis shoes with orange chains on the top of them is egregious?

Sounds like the Libs are singing the same ol’ “Unchained Melody”.

Ryan Vs. Harris-Perry…Freedom Vs. Spreading the Wealth Around

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

This past weekend, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumptive Republican Nominee, Mitt Romney, talked abut the idea of America, and where our rights come from.

Realclearpolitics.com has the quote:

“We look at one another’s success with pride, not resentment, because we know that as more Americans work hard, take risks, succeed, more people will prosper, more communities will benefit. And individual lives will be improved,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said today at the Romney campaign event announcing him as the VP.

“America, America is just more than a place, though. America is an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not from government. That’s right. That’s who we are, that’s how we built this country. That’s who we are. That’s what made us great. That’s what made us great. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes,” Ryan said.

Of course, Liberal heads exploded. Especially, the one belonging to the weekend host on the seldom-watched, Obama boot-licking cable news channel, known as MSNBC.

Realclearpolitics.com has this quote, also:

“The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence,” MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry said on Saturday in reaction to the the Paul Ryan decision. “I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.”

So, who is this “little ray of sunshine and tolerance”?

Per thenation.com:

Melissa Harris-Perry is professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She is author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. She is also a contributor to MSNBC.

Back on Independence Day, the birthday of this blessed land, this “contributor” to the seldom-watched MSNBC, said:

“It’s ours, all of it,” she said. “The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

“Independence Day is more aspirational than actual,” she began her monologue. “We have longed defined the American Dream with commodities, a home of ones own, better education for the kids, family vacation and a car to the vacation in. And if we measure the dream by acquisitions, we’re in trouble. National unemployment remains above 8 percent. Wages have dropped, and the median net worth of American families plummeted by almost 40 percent.”

Harris-Perry noted that “financial security is important, but it’s only an outward manifestation of the American Dream. Freedom itself is both more elusive and more complicated.” She explained that America’s founding wasn’t about profits and loss but that “our founding is an unlikely narrative of young men, so inspired by an age of ideas that they threw off the yoke of colonialism and founded a free nation — men who were embarrassingly imperfect.”

The imperfections she listed: “The land on which they formed this Union was stolen; the hands with which they built this nation were enslaved; the women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class.”

“But all of this is our story,” she continued. “Each of us benefits from the residuals of oppression and each of us is harmed by the realities of inequality. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it: The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

She continued on to explain that her favorite story for this Fourth of July is one of people who are “not technically free.” She described a group of 27 inmates who recently completed their GEDs at the jail on Rikers Island. “Despite being incarcerated, they hold fast to the optimistic belief that education, hard work and second chances are still the stuff of America. And that they have a right to take part in the dream.”

“So on the Fourth of July,” Harris-Perry concluded, “I’m going to think of the Rikers Island graduates, and I’m going to wave a flag without hesitation — not because I’ve forgotten my nation’s many wrongs, but because I remember them. And I am nonetheless proud of my country, not for its perfection, because the alternative is too grim, the alternative is to give up on the dream of the nation founded in the belief, if not yet the practice that all are created, all deserve freedom, and all have the right to pursue happiness. Now, that is a dream worth celebrating — with fireworks.”

Karl Marx, the Father of Communism said,

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

And, he also said

In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

After watching and hearing Ms. (Dr.) Harris-Perry, both quotes seemed strangely appropriate.

Campaign 2012: It was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

When Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) received the Presidential Candidacy from his party in 2008, they had to change the venue, to one befitting The Lightbringer…and, in order to fit his ego.

The London Daily Mail reported at the time:

Finally nominated as the first black candidate for the U.S. presidency, he moved the Democratic Party Convention from the conference hall to an 80,000-seater football stadium for his landmark address.

His challenge was to turn his trademark soaring rhetoric into simple ideas to improve the lives of hard-pressed American families. But the Greek pillars of his backdrop prompted ridicule before he stood up to speak early today.

Well…ol’ Scooter’s drawing a few thousand less than that nowadays…

“At Obama fundraiser in Chicago. Admission only $51, but room is half full,” New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor wrote on Twitter.

The Romney campaign seized on Kantor’s estimate, as spokesman Ryan Williams tweeted, “Thrill is gone.” The Drudge Report also piled on, linking to Kantor’s tweet, which has been reposted by a few hundred others. (Kantor quickly followed up with additional tweets noting that only some tickets to the event cost $51 and that the campaign said the event was sold out.)

But the crowd for the afternoon fundraiser at the Bridgeport Art Center totaled 1,000, an Obama campaign official said – more than the 850-person estimate the campaign offered earlier in the weekend. Tickets for the Gen44 fundraiser, targeted at younger supporters, started at $51, but many were more expensive.

And, to this reporter and several others in the White House press pool, the room seemed plenty full. There was empty space at the back of the large warehouse space during and immediately after the president’s remarks, but the crowd was densely packed to get close to the stage at the front of the room where Obama spoke.

Meanwhile, the new Republican ticket fared a lot better:

The largest crowd of the campaign so far for a Mitt Romney event welcomed home favorite son Rep. Paul Ryan at a massive rally here in the congressman’s district Sunday night, pushing the GOP’s vice presidential nominee to tears as he took the stage, setting off cheers with two simple words:

“Hi mom.”

With that, voice cracking, Ryan showed his Wisconsin credentials to a crowd the Romney campaign hopes will be emblematic of the charismatic congressman’s support in the Badger state, a reliably Democratic enclave the Republican candidate hopes to turn red this fall.

“My veins run with cheese, bratwurst, a little Spotted Cow, Leinie’s, and some Miller,” Ryan said, mentioning two well-known local beers. “I was raised on the Packers, Badgers, Bucks and Brewers. I like to hunt here, I like to fish here, I like to snowmobile here. I even think ice fishing is interesting.”

“I’m a Wisconsinite through and through,” Ryan said to cheers from a crowd which contained many members of Ryan’s extended family, and which the campaign estimated to be more than ten thousand strong, likely the largest turnout ever for a Romney event.

The energy generated by Ryan seemed to inspire the man at the top of ticket, who took on a heckler midway through his own remarks, then turned the moment into an indictment of President Obama’s campaign, who’s tactics have riled Romney in recent weeks.

Obama gives Ryan a double-edged welcome to the race

“You see young man, this group here is respectful of other people’s rights to be heard,” Romney said as the heckler was removed. “And you ought to find yourself a different place to be disruptive, because here we believe in listening to people with dignity and respect.”

“There’s no question but if you follow the campaign of Barack Obama, he’s going to do everything in his power to make this the lowest, meanest negative campaign in history. We’re not going to let that happen,” Romney continued. “This is going to be a campaign about ideas about the future of America. This is a campaign about greatness, about America’s future for your children, for the world. Mr. President take you campaign out of the gutter, let’s talk about the real issues that America faces.”

Romney and Ryan were introduced by two other leading figures in the Republican party nationally, both born and raised here in Wisconsin: RNC Chairman Reince Preibus and Governor Scott Walker, who recently survived a recall election and has become a rallying point for Republicans nationwide.

“Isn’t it great to have a cheesehead on the ballot?” Walker asked the crowd.

On Monday, Ryan will campaign solo for the GOP ticket for the first time, attending the state fair in Iowa, setting up something of a showdown in the Hawkeye state, with President Obama hitting the stump in Western Iowa then as well.

I echo the well-wishes of Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin who wrote on her Facebook Page:

Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. President Obama has declared that this election is about “two fundamentally different visions” for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision. We must now look to this new team, the Romney/Ryan ticket, to provide an alternate vision of an America that is fiscally responsible, strong, and prosperous – an America that understands and is proud of her exceptional place in the world and will respect those who fight to secure that exceptionalism, which includes keeping our promises to our veterans.

I really like what I’ve seen from this new team this past weekend.

Could we be approaching “Morning in America” again?

Paul Ryan…the Much-Needed Spark

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

I remember the first time I really paid attention to Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney.

It was the 2010 Healthcare Summit, when he looked President Barack Hussein Obama in the eye and said this:

Look, we agree on the problem here. And the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff.

Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare, right now, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That’s $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents’ generation, our generation, our kids’ generation. Medicaid’s growing at 21 percent each year. It’s suffocating states’ budgets. It’s adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it.

Now, you’re right to frame the debate on cost and health inflation. And in September, when you spoke to us in the well of the House, you basically said — and I totally agree with this — I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future.

Since the Congressional Budget Office can’t score your bill, because it doesn’t have sufficient detail, but it tracks very similar to the Senate bill, I want to unpack the Senate score a little bit.

And if you take a look at the CBO analysis, analysis from your chief actuary, I think it’s very revealing. This bill does not control costs. This bill does not reduce deficits. Instead, this bill adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.

Now, let me go through why I say that. The majority leader said the bill scores as reducing the deficit $131 billion over the next 10 years. First, a little bit about CBO. I work with them every single day — very good people, great professionals. They do their jobs well. But their job is to score what is placed in front of them. And what has been placed in front of them is a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors. Now, what do I mean when I say that?

Well, first off, the bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending.

Now, what’s the true 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years? That’s $2.3 trillion.

It does couple of other things. It takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that’s really reserved for Social Security. So either we’re double-counting them or we don’t intend on paying those Social Security benefits.

It takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That’s the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.

The Senate Budget Committee chairman said that this is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

Now, when you take a look at the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does — it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.

Now, when you take a look at what this does, is, according to the chief actuary of Medicare, he’s saying as much as 20 percent of Medicare’s providers will either go out of business or will have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries. Millions of seniors who are on — who have chosen Medicare Advantage will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.

You can’t say that you’re using this money to either extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That’s double counting.

And so when you take a look at all of this; when you strip out the double-counting and what I would call these gimmicks, the full 10- year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.

And I think, probably, the most cynical gimmick in this bill is something that we all probably agree on. We don’t think we should cut doctors 21 percent next year. We’ve stopped those cuts from occurring every year for the last seven years.

We all call this, here in Washington, the doc fix. Well, the doc fix, according to your numbers, costs $371 billion. It was in the first iteration of all of these bills, but because it was a big price tag and it made the score look bad, made it look like a deficit, that bill was — that provision was taken out, and it’s been going on in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending. And so when you take a look at all of this, it just doesn’t add up.

And so let’s just — I’ll finish with the cost curve. Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up?

Well, if you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we’re bending it up. He’s claiming that we’re going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.

And so, when you take a look at this, it’s really deeper than the deficits or the budget gimmicks or the actuarial analysis. There really is a difference between us.

And we’ve been talking about how much we agree on different issues, but there really is a difference between us. And it’s basically this. We don’t think the government should be in control of all of this. We want people to be in control. And that, at the end of the day, is the big difference.

Now, we’ve offered lots of ideas all last year, all this year. Because we agree the status quo is unsustainable. It’s got to get fixed. It’s bankrupting families. It’s bankrupting our government. It’s hurting families with pre-existing conditions. We all want to fix this

But we don’t think that this is the answer to the solution. And all of the analysis we get proves that point.

Now, I’ll just simply say this. And I respectfully disagree with the vice president about what the American people are or are not saying or whether we’re qualified to speak on their behalf. So…

(LAUGHTER)

… we are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I’ve got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you’re not listening to them.

So what we simply want to do is start over, work on a clean- sheeted paper, move through these issues, step by step, and fix them, and bring down health care costs and not raise them. And that’s basically the point.

That bravura performance aside, why did Romney pick Ryan?

Robert Costa writes in nationalreview.com that:

“We’re very much inclined in the same direction,” Romney told NRO in March. “We [have spoken] together about my plans on Medicare, for instance, and ultimately the Wyden-Ryan bill is very similar, if not identical, to what I proposed some time ago. We all have ideas about what should be done with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security — and we’re on the same page.”

According to Romney insiders, Romney deeply appreciated Ryan’s willingness to privately share his critique of the campaign during the heated Republican primary, where Romney often struggled to make his case. As he watched from afar, long before he endorsed, Ryan drafted a series of detailed strategy and policy advisories, and discussed them with Romney over the phone. For Romney, those corporate-style memos made a lasting impression — and catapulted Ryan into Romney’s circle, where he has remained since.

Okay. the team is set. Now, let’s see what they can do.

I hope that Ryan can stoke a fire under Romney, as Sarah Palin tried to do to John McCain.

The time for “go along to get along” is over. Mitt needs to get up on his hind legs and fight.

For America’s sake.

Michelle Obama’s Message to Black Americans: It Takes One

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Michelle (ma belle) Obama appeared on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Show yesterday morning to send a new message out to potential Black voters:

BlackAmericaWeb.com reports:

The “It Takes One” program encourages supporters to make a difference in this year’s election, and to “start by taking one action that will help grow our campaign,” Mrs. Obama says. In a three-minute video message to supporters, Mrs. Obama tells supporters that in light of a tighter election than 2008 likely this fall, “in the end, it could all come down to those last few thousand votes in a single state.”

The first lady spoke with the Tom Joyner Morning show today and urged supporters to fight voter suppression and get out and vote.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Tom Joyner: We’re less than a hundred days away from the election.

Mrs. Obama: Yes, indeed.

Tom Joyner: And you have a project you call, “It Takes Ones,” right?

Mrs. Obama: Yes, yes. The idea — really it’s a simple one. This election is going to be closer than the last one. That’s the only guarantee we have. And really what’s going to make the difference are people talking to people. So what I tell folks when I’m out there doing grassroots events, I tell them, multiply yourselves. And really all it will take is just that one person that you register to vote, that one person that you get out to the polls, that one person that you talk to and help them understand what’s at stake.

I want people to be thinking that that one could be the one that puts us over the top. Especially when you think about how an election is broken down over precincts and counties and communities. We’ve seen close elections. It could come down to the last 500 people. So for anyone who doesn’t feel like — the thing I can do won’t make a difference, we’re just trying to change that, because all it will take is one.

And if each of us does our one, and all of us know that one person in our lives, that one knucklehead nephew that’s not registered to vote, that one neighbor that’s not really paying attention, or that one person in your office that’s confused about how Barack’s tax plan will benefit that individual — those are going to be the conversations that make a difference.

And in this election, we’re going to be making a choice about how we want our democracy run. Do we want our President selected by people rolling their sleeves up, knocking on doors, or are we going to hand it over to a couple of people who write big checks? And we’ve invested throughout not just this campaign but throughout Barack’s first term in building organizations on the ground — because it’s not just about choosing the next President, it’s about choosing what the next tax plan is going to be, or whether we actually tackle global warming, or whether or kids can go to school without a mountain of debt.

These are the issues that we’re really talking about. And it extends far beyond who’s in the White House, but who’s in the Congress, who’s in the statehouse, who are our mayors, how are these campaigns funded, do we support that? So we want people focusing on the one thing I can do. And everybody can do one thing, and it will be that one-on-one kind of contact that’s going to get us over the finish line in the end.

So “It Takes One.”

Tom Joyner: I’ve got the perfect mechanism to do this. We have partnered with the NAACP and the National Urban League and the National Action Network, and we have a number that you can simply call and register someone over the phone. It’s 1-866-MY-VOTE-1. You know that one person that’s not a registered voter —

Mrs. Obama: Absolutely.

Tom Joyner: — and they should be — you could dial them the number.

Mrs. Obama: Absolutely.

Tom Joyner: Put it in your contacts — 1-866-MY-VOTE-1. And all that’s done on the phone.

Mrs. Obama: Yes, it’s as easy as that. And that’s the one thing we’ve got to keep emphasizing to people — that voting, registering to vote is a simple thing to do. And we don’t want anybody to be intimidated by the political process. Because essentially — sometimes that’s what keeps people from engaging. They just feel like, I’m going to run into problems, it’s going to be a challenge. But we just have to keep reminding people this is as simple as a phone call. It’s as simple as going to the website. We also have a website called gottavote.org — where people can go online and do the same thing.

So the fact that you, the NAACP, so many organizations are focused on voter registration — again, it is critical because this is our power in the end. And again, it’s not just about this presidential election. It’s about the future of our communities and our families. And that’s the way you make change — in the voting booths.

Tom Joyner: That’s right.

Mrs. Obama: So thank you so much for that initiative.

Sybil Wilkes: Mrs. Obama, we have so much information here, and we have it on BlackAmericaWeb.com, we have it at barackobama.com/one. But there’s so much there — and on Black America Web, and on The Tom Joyner Morning Show — we get it every day. How is it that you keep people engaged or get people engaged? Because 2008 was just such an incredible year, and you saw the groundswell, obviously, of support and people standing in line for hours at a time. How are you keeping them engaged in this one?

Mrs. Obama: We have thousands of offices that — and many of them in the important swing states. And that’s something that we try to explain to people, because some people feel like, well, I don’t feel the campaign, I don’t feel that energy in my place. But the point is, is that swing states are going to play a crucial role strategically in this. So if you go to Ohio or Iowa, Florida, Pennsylvania, where I’m about to go, you will see an organization that has been on the ground for years, and that’s a huge advantage that this campaign has had in the past and will continue to have. Because our opponents haven’t invested anything — or not as much as we have — on that kind of grassroots support. And that’s been going on since Barack was elected.

But we have thousands of organizations. Whenever I’m going to a rally — now, there’s going to be a couple thousand people there. But people in that audience are team leaders who are working every day, making calls and pulling their neighbors in, and we organize a set of events around team leaders. And again, in places like Ohio and Iowa, this process has been on the ground for four years. So we’re not recreating the wheel.

So the swing state focus is really a critical focus because in a presidential election, where you’re counting electoral votes — and we all heard about that in the last election – the swing states strategically make a huge difference. And when you’re dealing with limited amounts of resources — like our campaign is, as compared to the other guy who’s got millions and millions pouring in — we have to be really strategic about where we put our resources.

So that’s why you’re going to feel the campaign in those swing states. Even more so in places like my hometown, like Illinois, or places like California or New York, where our view is we should have that sewed up — and we will, but we don’t take anything for granted. No one should take anything for granted, because we’ve seen how these elections, they can go any way. And if it’s close — we don’t want it to be close, right?

Harry J. Enten, writing for guardian.co.uk opines:

It has been the belief of many in the analyst class, including myself, that Obama would hold on to his African-American base. The great Washington Post polling unit points out that Obama is cruising among them in their polling. His average lead in their polls is 85 percentage points. Pew research gave Obama an 89 percentage point lead in their last poll. NBC/Wall Street Journal pegged the Obama lead at 86 percentage points, while Obama is ahead by 81 points among blacks in the latest Gallup survey. Clearly, Obama is leading by a long way among African Americans.

There is a tremendous difference, however, between leading by “a long way” and repeating his 2008 levels.

You are correct, ol’ chap. More Black Americans had jobs in 2008, than now.

In fact, as of June the Black Unemployment rate was sitting at 14.4%. For black youths aged 16 to 19, the unemployment rate was at an unbelievable 39.3%, up from 36.5% in May.

It’s been a long 4 years.

Like other Americans, their hope is greatly diminished…and they’ve run out of change.

Obama Wants to Spread the Wealth Around…Again

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

If you ever had any doubts that the 44th President of the United States is a narcissistic socialist who believes his own mythology, his pronouncement yesterday should drive those doubts away:

Politico.com has the story:

President Obama, while villifying Mitt Romney for opposing the auto industry bailout, bragged about the success of his decision to provide government assistance and said he now wants to see every manufacturing industry come roaring back.

“I said, I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,” he said. “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.

“I don’t want those jobs taking root in places like China, I want those jobs taking root in places like Pueblo,” Obama told a crowd gathered for a campaign rally at the Palace of Agriculture at the Colorado State Fairgrounds here.

He made the remarks while pushing for the renewal of a tax credit for wind energy manufacturing – something Romney opposes – and for the creation of credits for companies who bring jobs home from overseas, as well as the elimination of loopholes for offshoring.

“Gov. Romney brags about his private sector experience, but it was mostly invested in companies, some of which were called ‘pioneers of outsourcing,’” Obama said. “I don’t want to be a pioneer of outsourcing. I want to insource.”

Back in February, nationalreview.com had an article debunking the myth of Obama’s economic genius concerning how wonderful the auto industry bailout was:

Unfortunately, assertions that “all loans have been repaid to the federal government,” that the bailout “saved more than one million American jobs,” that “U.S. automakers are hiring hundreds of thousands of new workers,” that GM is again the “number-one automaker” — all are based on creative accounting.

The money the government spent adds up quickly: $50 billion in TARP bailout funds, a special exemption waiving payment of $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits, an exemption for all product liability on cars sold before the bailout, $360 million in stimulus funds, and the $7,500 tax credit for those who buy the Chevy Volt. GM’s share of other programs is harder to quantify but includes, for example, some of the $15.2 billion that went to Cash for Clunkers. Those costs are in addition to the billions taken from GM’s bondholders by the Obama administration.

A look at the accounting shows the trouble with contentions that much of the TARP money is getting paid back. The Obama administration compares the $50 billion in direct bailout funds with the price it will eventually be able to get for selling the GM stock it owns. But that assumes that the stock price won’t reflect government subsidies, including GM’s exemption from paying $45 billion in taxes. By the Obama administration’s logic, if the stimulus grants to TARP recipients were simply large enough, all the TARP money could be paid.

Claims that GM paid back its TARP loan are true but misleading. President Obama clearly wants to create the impression that all the money given to the auto companies has been paid back. But the $6.7 billion loan to GM was just a tiny fraction of the money given to it. As TARP special inspector general Neil Barofsky explained, GM used “other TARP money” to pay off the loan.

So what about President Obama’s boast in a White House speech in late April that the bailout “saved probably a million jobs” and that “GM is now the number-one automaker again in the world”?

The “million jobs” contention is quite a stretch. Before filing for bankruptcy in July 2009, GM had 91,000 employees in the United States. You can reach a 400,000 total by assuming that all of GM’s jobs, as well as all the jobs of its parts suppliers and car dealers, would have been lost. Last year, employment in the entire automotive industry in the U.S. (counting Ford, Toyota, and other companies and their suppliers, in addition to GM and Chrysler) was only 717,000.

Obama’s economic advisers told him during an April 2009 meeting that job losses in the auto industry would be only a fraction — 10 to 20 percent — of these claimed numbers, even for the much weaker Chrysler. The advisers reported the obvious: Bankruptcy would not kill all jobs at GM and, even with cutbacks, suppliers would pick up other work. But Obama keeps using numbers that his own advisers told him were wrong.

Even saving 20 percent of 400,000 comes at quite a cost — at least $780,000 per job. How many workers would have been willing to quit working for GM for a $400,000 severance payment?

The “number-one automaker” assertion is no more accurate. Obama’s sales totals include 1.2 million mostly cheap commercial vehicles built by China’s Wuling, a company in which GM owns a small stake, and it excludes sales by vehicle makers in which Volkswagen owns a majority share. Fortune magazine lists GM’s revenue as smaller than Toyota’s and Volkswagen’s.

The only real winners from the GM bailout were unions, which were protected from pay cuts, from losing their right to overtime pay after less than 40 hours a week, and from cuts to their extremely generous benefits. They faced only minor tweaks in their inefficient union work rules.

As for “hundreds of thousands of new workers,” the truth is closer to a tenth of that.

And, he wants to extend this “helping hand” to every industry in America?

Marx would be so proud.

Evidently, Mitt Still Likes Mandates

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

On Tuesday, Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA issued an ad featuring a steelworker, blaming Mitt Romney for his loss of health insurance after Bain Capital closed down the plant he was working at.

Later, his wife suffered and passed away from cancer.

Yesterday, the Romney campaign put both feet in its collective mouth.

Romney Press Secretary Andrea Saul told Fox News that the steelworker would have been fine, if that person had lived in Massachusetts. He would have been covered under the former governor’s health law.

Quoteth this genius:

If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care.There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s economy.

So, who is this young lady, who just inadvertently showed American Conservatives exactly what Mitt Romney thinks of them?

Per p2012.org:

Press Secretary Andrea Saul

(announced March 3, 2011 as communications advisor to Free and Strong America PAC) Press Secretary for Carly Fiorina’s U.S. Senate race in California. Communications director for Gov. Charlie Crist during his recent U.S. Senate run but resigned in April 2010 upon his decision to switch party affiliation. Press secretary to U.S Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) during much of 2009. Director of media affairs for McCain-Palin, responsible for organizing all television, radio and surrogate activity. Director of media affairs at the Republican National Committee, 2007-08. Associate account executive at DCI Group, 2005-07. Graduate of Vanderbilt University, 2004.

An establishment approved Press Secretary for the GOP Establishment Candidate.

Back on 5/10/11, USA Today published an opinion piece by former Massachusetts Governor, and favorite of the GOP Elite, Mitt Romney, Entitled Romney: As first act, out with ObamaCare, it contained the following statement:

If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare.

The needle on my Irony Meter, at the time I wrote that post, pegged so hard it snapped in two.

Back in 2006, Romney was singing a different tune as he signed a massive health-insurance overhaul into law as Governor of Massachusetts. “Romneycare” was packed with subsidies, exchanges, and mandates to extend coverage to the uninsured. Four years later, it became the model for the national nightmare known as Obamacare, the very National Healthcare Law that he now promises to eliminate.

During a New Hampshire Presidential Campaign Debate on Jan. 6, 2008, the following revealing moment transpired:

Debate moderator Charles Gibson of ABC News: “But Gov. Romney’s system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.”

Romney: “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.”

GOP contender Fred Thompson: “I beg your pardon? I didn’t know you were going to admit that. You like mandates.”

Romney: “Oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren’t –“

Thompson: “The ones you come up with. Bingo”

Later, during an April 19, 2010 interview with Newsweek’s Andrew Romano, Governor Romney added the following:

I’d like to clear something up about that federalist argument. During one of the 2008 debates, Charles Gibson said, “You seem to have backed away from mandates on a national basis.” And your response was, “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.” Were you saying that you supported federal mandates then, even though you say you don’t now?

No. We created an incentive for people to get insurance at the state level. Our plan is a state plan. I oppose a federal plan for purposes of federalism. It would be like saying, a father has spanked his son. Do you think that the federal government should be allowed to spank children?

So people are misinterpreting that quote?

I do not favor the federal mandates that are part of Obamacare.

Back in February 2007, you said you hoped the Massachusetts plan would “become a model for the nation.” Would you agree that it has?

I don’t … You’re going to have to get that quote. That’s not exactly accurate, I don’t believe.

I can tell you exactly what it says: “I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.”

It is a model for the states to be able to learn from. During the campaign, I was asked if I was proposing that what I did in Massachusetts I would do for the nation. And the answer was absolutely not. Our plan is a state plan. It is a model for other states—if you will, the nation—it is a model for them to look at what we’ve accomplished and to better it or to create their own plans.

There are obvious similarities between Obamacare and what you did in Massachusetts. Do you acknowledge that what you did in Massachusetts has become a model for nation under Obama, whether you wanted it to or not?

I can’t speak for what the president has done. I don’t know what he looks at. He never gave me a call. Neither he nor any of his colleagues [gave me] a call to ask what worked and did not work, and how would they improve upon it and so forth. If what was done at the state level, they applied at the federal level, they made a mistake. It was not designed for the nation.

Well, Governor, evidently your Press Secretary doesn’t think so.

As a Vice-President of Marketing, I can tell you, a Marketing/PR Professional, like a Press Secretary’s, job is to communicate the information they have been given by their boss.

Perhaps “what we have heah is failure to communicate”.

Perhaps not.

Good luck, Mitt. (And God help us.) Pandora just opened the box.