Obama to Wall Street: It’s Not My Fault!

President Barack Hussein Obama  (mm mmm mmmm) did not have a very good day yesterday, as he appeared at a Wall Street “Townhall” and was actually expected to answer tough questions about his policies after the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s was declared over by his inept administration.

As audience members at the meeting told him that they were fed up with and disappointed in his administration, and one woman said she was “exhausted” from defending him, Obama told them that he understood that they were frustrated.

Obama told the meeting, hosted by CNBC television (managed by one of his closest personal advisers, Jeffrey Immelt):

Even though economists (on his payroll) may say the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work … it is still very real for them.

Obama’s Democrats are scheduled to be swept out of power by an electoral tidal wave in November congressional elections by voters worried by U.S. unemployment, stuck near 10 percent, and by the horrible state of the economy.

The first lady to apporach the audience microphone explained to Obama the way that the cow ate the cabbage:

I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.

A visibly shaken Obama refrained from having a tantrum, and instead argued that the measures he had undertaken since taking office in January 2009 were slowly pulling the country back to health.

Yeah, Scooter.  At this rate, we ought to be there by the year 10, 058.

The leader of the Regime pontificated:

My goal here is not to try to convince you that everything’s where it needs to be — it’s not. That’s why I ran for president. But what I am saying is … that we’re moving in the right direction.

Right direction?  For what?

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of the U.S. business cycle, said on Monday the longest downturn since the Great Depression ended in June 2009.

I did not know that the government allowed drinking on the job.

Reality disagrees.  Recovery has remained largely below the level needed to quickly replace the millions of jobs lost in the recession, and recent economic indicators show marginal growth at best in the past couple of months.

According to Scooter, the deep economic hole that America is in is NOT HIS FAULT.  I’m shocked:

Something that took 10 years to create is going to take a little more time to solve.

Polls are now suggesting that Republicans may well capture the U.S. House of Representatives and have an outside shot at the Senate.

All 435 seats in the House and 37 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs in the Midterms.

With his poll numbers tanking rapidly, Obama’s disillusioned supported warned him that he was losing the communications battle with Republicans and urged him to fight back.

The Kool-aid seemed to be losing its flavor for a small business owner from Pennsylvania:

I need you to help us understand how you can regain the political center, because you’re losing the war of sound bites. You’re losing the media cycles.

According to pollster Cliff Young of market research firm Ipsos, Obama has a very slim chance of changing the narrative about the economy in time for the November election:

It doesn’t matter what he says right now. People have tuned out in some ways because they are not feeling the positive impact in daily life.

Obama told Americans that the $814 billion emergency spending bill in February 2009, known as the Porkulous Bill would boost economic growth. It has failed spectacularly.  Additional spending attempts by Obama  to use fiscal policy (i.e., our tax money) to try to jumpstart the economy have been blocked by Republican lawmakers concerned about the record U.S. budget deficit, predicted to hit $1.47 trillion this year.

The administration wants to spend a further $180 billion over the next 10 years to renew U.S. infrastructure, boost research and encourage corporate investment.

Obama also says that he wants to help consumer spending by making Bush-era tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year permanent, while allowing them to rise on richer Americans. The problem with that is that no American was ever hired by a poor person.  Republicans want the tax cuts extended for everyone.

The majority of the American business community feel that Obama is vilifying them and this sense of outrage is shared on Wall Street, which was dead-set against the political pandering shake-up of financial regulations that became law earlier this year.

One man who runs a hedge fund addressed Obama at the Townhall meeting yesterday:

I represent the Wall Street community.  We have felt like a pinata. Maybe you don’t feel like you’re whacking us with a stick, but we certainly feel like we’ve been whacked with a stick.

This was an understatement.  Hard-working Americans feel like a baseball hit by Albert Pujols, thanks to this president, his inept administration, and his sycophants taking up space in what might possibly be the worst Congress in American history.  November 2nd will be our turn at bat and the American people are going to hit it out of the park.

 

The “Smartest People” are the Sorest Losers

 President Barack Hussein Obama’s  (peace be unto him) political advisers, desperately trying to avoid the Conservative political tidal wave that is scheduled to wipe out the Democratic Party in the Midterm elections, are floating a bunch of half-baked ideas, including national advertisements, in an attempt to cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists.

White House and Congressional Democratic strategists are frantically looking for some way to energize dispirited Democratic voters over the coming six weeks, in hopes of minimizing the party’s losses and keeping control of the House and Senate.  The “smartest people in the room” believe that they see an opportunity for exploitation after a string of Tea Party successes split Republicans in a number of states, culminating last week with developments that scrambled Senate races in Delaware and Alaska.

According to one anonymous Democratic strategist:

We need to get out the message that it’s now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party.

Democrats are a house divided unto themselves. The party’s House and Senate campaign committees don’t want to do anything that calls attention to high unemployment and the drop in Obama’s popularity  Endangered Congressional candidates want to grab any money that is out there for their localized campaigns.

Late Sunday night, White House advisers denied that a national ad campaign was being planned:

Senior Obama Adviser David Axlerod said:

There’s been no discussion of such a thing at the White House or the Democratic National Committee.

The Democrats that want to do it say that a national ad campaign, most likely on cable television, would complement those individual campaigns and give Democrats a chance to redefine the stakes. The afore-mentioned Democratic strategist said voters did not now see much threat to them from a Republican takeover of Congress, even though some Tea Party-backed candidates and other Republicans have taken positions that many (Liberal and RINO) voters consider extreme, like shutting down the government to get their way, privatizing Social Security and Medicare and ending unemployment insurance.

So far, Scooter has largely limited his campaigning to fundraisers and small events. That will change soon as he tries (a last-ditch attempt) to rally the flagging faithful, officials said.

To try to re-capture the messianic allure he had for younger voters who supported him in 2008, Mr. Obama will hold four big campaign-style rallies, the first Sept. 28 at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, with satellite transmission to campuses in other states. The later rallies will be in Ohio, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. He also will send e-mail and record robocalls to spur voters, and conduct a national “town hall” Webcast in October.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said:

These events are about activating the Obama grass roots to help organizationally in terms of volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts.  We’re not going to get all the 2008 Obama voters out. We may not get most of them. But in close races, it can be decisive.

Obama will also step up his efforts to draw contrasts between the parties, in particular by pounding away on his call for extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, except for “millionaires and billionaires.” You know, the people that actually create jobs.  Republicans want the tax cuts extended for people of all income levels, not just incomes below $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families, as the president has proposed.

Republicans strategists remain steadfast in their belief that they will make big gains in November, even as the establishment states their belief that they are unlikely to win the Senate race in Delaware after the victory in the Republican primary there of Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party-backed candidate, over Representative Michael N. Castle, a professional “moderate” Republican, of the the “reach-across-the-aisle” variety.  Also last week, Alaska’s Senate race became convoluted when Senator Lisa Murkowski, who lost the Republican nomination to a Tea Party adherent, Jeff Miller, mounted a write-in candidacy against him, saying:

Alaska is not fair game for outside extremists.

John Weaver, a Republican Party consultant said:

While we may have a handful of nominees out of the mainstream, the American people have come to the conclusion this administration and this Congress are out of the mainstream.

Remember 1994?   Democrats were in power and became similarly confident when Republican primaries yielded candidates that all the “experts” said were too far right for the general election. Yet the tidal wave against Democrats that year was strong enough to carry those newcomers into office and put Republicans in control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

With the exception of Ms. O’Donnell in Delaware, Republican nominees that Democrats like to whine about as extremists, including in Senate races in Nevada, Colorado, Kentucky and even blue-state Connecticut, are even with their Democratic rivals in polls or ahead.

And even as Obama and his minions feverishly scurry about in the confines of the White House situation room, trying to figure out a strategy for the final Midterm campaign push, advisers are having to cope with the expected exit of the chief of staff, Rahm Rahmbo Emanuel, to run for mayor of Chicago. Rahmbo, who as a member of Congress helped engineer the Democratic takeover of the House in 2006, is among his party’s foremost strategists when it comes to Congressional elections.

Peter M. Rouse (who?), one of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers, has assumed additional responsibilities. Rouse, who is intensely private, does not want the high-profile job of chief of staff; instead he is helping Scooter vet names. Leading candidates are said to be Thomas E. Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, and Robert Bauer, the White House counsel.

On top of the concerns about Rahmbo leaving,  the strategy discussions with Congressional Democrats come after 21 months of battles over the legislation that Obama has railroaded through against the wishes of the American people.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining that Obama aides, including  David Axelrod, and Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, do not consult with them enough and are more concerned with positioning Mr. Obama for his 2012 reelection race than with re-electing Democrats now.

Uh oh.  Trouble in paradise.

At the Democratic National Committee, aides already have started work on a database to link the most controversial statements of the Tea Party-backed candidates to possible Republican presidential aspirants.

The database will point out, for example, that Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney are supporting the Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, who once said that victims of rape should make “what was really a lemon situation into lemonade,” and Ms. O’Donnell, who has said that having women in the service academies “cripples the readiness of our defense.”

Mitt? Republicans don’t even know from day-to-day where he stands on the issues.  How can the Dems?

The tactic of linking potential Republican rivals to such statements was already in evidence last week. After Ms. O’Donnell’s victory, a party spokesman told reporters:

The fact that Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin would put their name behind a candidate that believes women who serve our country ‘cripple the readiness of our defense’ make them unfit to be commander-in-chief.

Meanwhile, on Conservative websites, you can read the ramblings of those who claim to be loyal Republicans, savage those Tea Party candidates who dared to win their primaries over their “moderate, establishment” opponents. 

These “‘concerned” individuals are about as helpful to the cause of Conservative victory in the Midterm elections as the Vichy French were to the liberation of France in World War II.

Obama Cries Wolf!

President Barack Hussein Obama pleaded with black voters on Saturday to regain the passion they felt for his unprecedented presidential campaign two years ago and turn out in force this fall to repel Republicans who are ready to “turn back the clock.”

In a Malcolm-esque speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, Chicken Little, errr, I mean Obama, warned that Republicans hoping to seize control of Congress want “to do what’s right politically, instead of what’s right — period.”

The King of the Teleprompter Obama said to cheers from a black-tie audience at the Washington Convention Center:

I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, to go back to your workplaces, to go to the churches, and go to the barbershops and go to the beauty shops. And tell them we’ve got more work to do.  Tell them we can’t wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now.

This fiery piece of rhetoric was an acknowledgment of what pollsters have been warning Democrats for months:   that blacks are among the key Democratic groups who right now seem unlikely to turn out in large numbers in November.

Scooter tried to throw another log on the rhetorical fire:

It’s not surprising given the hardships that we’re seeing across the land that a lot of people may not be feeling very energized, very engaged right now.  A lot of folks may be feeling like politics is something that they get involved with every four years when there’s a presidential election, but they don’t see why they should bother the rest of the time.

But, Obama pleaded for more time, explaining that he’s just begun rolling back a devastating recession that’s come down “with a vengeance” on African-American neighborhoods that were already suffering:

We have to finish the plan you elected me to put in place. (Pretty please?)

In an attempt to force the audience to recall the joy many blacks felt at the election of the first African-American president, and borrowing the words of the late actor and activist Ossie Davis, he declared:

It’s not the man, it’s the plan.

Actually, Scooter, both are pretty weak.

Obama was given several standing ovations in the darkened cavernous Convention Center. Joining the pandered-to crowd: first lady Michelle Obama, dressed in a floor-length burgundy cocktail dress.

But as the hall got quiet, Obama tried a little race-baiting:

Remember, the other side has a plan too. It’s a plan to turn back the clock on every bit of progress we’ve made.

Obama did not have the courage to speak the name of the Republican party, but repeatedly referred to its policies.  However, he did name its House leader, Rep. John Boehner, a favorite target of Scooter and the Democratic Party lately.

Members of “the other side,” Obama said:

…want to take us backward. We want to move America forward.

To Socialism.

With polls showing the Democratic Party facing a wide “enthusiasm gap” with the Republican Party, the kid raised in an Indonesia private school and by his grandparents in Hawaii tried to appear down with the struggle.

What made the civil rights movement possible were foot soldiers like so many of you, sitting down at lunch counters and standing up for freedom. What made it possible for me to be here today are Americans throughout our history making our union more equal, making our union more just, making our union more perfect.  That’s what we need again.

The Black Congressional Caucus has its own problems.  The group is reeling from ethics charges against two leading members, Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of California.  Republicans are currently producing  TV ads spotlighting the cases, even though House trials have been postponed until after the November election.

Obama avoided mentioning either case in his 27-minute speech.

Obama has spent the last week in a concerted outreach to minority supporters, a traditional wellspring of Democratic strength, capped off by the caucus dinner at the Washington Convention Center last night.

The smell of desperation is in the air, isn’t it?

Do you remember back during the campaign when “the smartest people in the room” were promising us that Scooter would be the first post-racial president?

What happened?  Dr. Thomas Sowell, noted Black Economist, and one of the smartest people in America, explains:

Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a “post-racial” era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.

That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially.

Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular things– about campaign finance, about transparency in government, about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first posted on the Internet long enough to be studied– all of which turned to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting elected.

President Obama, apparently, has never learned the lesson taught to the young lad who got a kick out of crying WOLF! over and over again.  Eventually, people will ignore you and you will be devoured by your own game.

A Conversation With Bubba

Why, hello, Mr. President.  It’s good to see you.  Please sit down.  Waitress, a glass of sweet tea and a Hueyburger with cheddar cheese and steak fries for President Clinton, please.  Bubba, welcome back to the Mid-South.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell Hil about you breaking your diet.  It’s been some kind of week, huh?

You always said that you were a man of the people.   So, as a man of the people, I know you can appreciate what’s going on.  Tuesday night, in that little state up north called Delaware, they fired a shot hear around the world.   They elected Christine O’Donnell in the Republican Primary, over a guy that had been a professional politician for 42 years.  You must have chuckled, watching the Republican Establishment freak out over the situation.

But then, I’m sure, just like the rest of your party and the Beltway Insiders, it hit you like the ’94 Elections.  The American people are torqued off.  Ever since your party took control of Congress in 2006, things have been going downhill like a skier on Mt. Everest.  What was supposed to be the most ethical Congress evah, turned out to be The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.  By the way, have you talked to Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters lately?

Anyway, as you well know, some unknown yahoo named Barack (don’t say his middle name) Obama came out of the cesspool known as Chicago Politics to grab the Democratic nomination away from your beloved Hil.  So, you and Hill made a deal with the powers-that-be for her to be his Secretary of State.  Man, whatever do you do with yourself while she’s on those long trips out of the country?  Oh….never mind.

So, in comes this guy, riding on the campaign promise of Hope and Change, and he gets himself elected by fooling 52% of the country into believing he’s a moderate, like you pretended to be after the ’94 Election.

Since his ascension to the throne along with his faithful sidekick, Plugs, he’s been in full-speed Alinsky mode, attempting to turn American into something it was never meant to be:  a full-blown Socialist Utopia.

Not that the Republicans have been blameless in this whole deal.  They started spending like there’s no tomorrow under Dubya and got way too comfy sitting on their reserved barstools at the Beltway Elite Country Club.

When the Regime ascended to the Throne and started implementing their plans for radical change, that stubborn ol’ streak that Americans possess, known as patriotism and individualism, started kicking in.  Y’see, Bubba, we really resented Scooter apologizing for us to our enemies.  You probably need to tell your wife that.  We weren’t very thrilled about that Porkulous bill that he had his buddies at the Apollo Foundation draw up for him, either.  Then, while spending our money to create the largest federal deficit in American history, Plugs said that paying more taxes was patriotic.  Are you kiddin’ me?

So, Americans from all walks of life and every part of the country started getting together and formed something called The Tea Party Movement.  Your buddies in the Main Stream Media and the members of the Beltway Elite Country Club all had a big laugh at that one.

Then, “us peons” started getting into the faces of our elected representatives at Townhall Meetings and the unthinkable happened.  A Tea Party Rally in Washington, D.C. drew what looked to average Americans like a million people, all fed up with the people they elected working for nobody but themselves.

Meanwhile, your buddy Barry was holding hand-picked pep rallies, closed to the public, seemingly oblivious to the wishes of average Americans.  He exhibited an unparalleled tone-deafness that presented itself in a Captain Ahab-like quest to pass a National Healthcare bill that the majority of the American people wanted no part of.  After a 10 minute Christmas Eve Senate vote to approve this unwanted albatross, which followed a House vote of 220-215 on November 7th,  Congress passed Obamacare on March 21st, 2010. 

Americans were left with the image of Speaker Pelosi, with a giant gavel, walking with her fellow Democrats through protesting Americans, grinning like a mule with a mouthful of yellowjackets.

While Beltway politicians have been trying to figure out new ways to spend our money, Americans have been struggling  just trying to pay their monthly bills, Bubba.

We’re being laid off, right and left, and some of us are so down, we’ve just given up on trying to find a job.  Folks are doing whatever they can, including clearing out their attics and getting a booth at the flea market.

Bubba, all the Establishment politicans, pundits, and so-called journalists on either side of the aisle have no right to be surprised by what’s going on.  They’ve severely underestimated the American people.  The pendulum has swung back to Reagan Conservatism for a reason:  it works.  Socialism never has.

All the “smartest people in the room” had better figure this out quickly or they are going to be competing with you for gigs on the Professional Speakers’ Circuit.

By the way, have you heard from Monica lately?

Obama’s Beasts of Burden: Us

Democrat Congresscritters have a big problem:  If they don’t extend the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts, nearly all their constituents back home will be hit with the biggest tax increase in American history.

According to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm, a family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year would get slapped with $2,900 more in taxes in 2011.  The same family making $100,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $4,500.

The folks that actually run businesses and hire Americans face even bigger tax hikes. A family of four making $500,000 a year would pay $10,800 more in taxes. The same family making $1 million a year would get a tax increase of $53,200.

The estimates are based on total household income, including wages, capital gains and qualified dividends. The estimated tax bills take into account typical deductions at each income level.

Democrats have been whining for the last ten years that tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 under former President George W. Bush were nothing but a windfall for the wealthy.  While they did help the wealthy, they also reduced taxes for the working poor, the middle class, and just about everyone in between.

Those tax cuts are gone at the end of this year, just in time for a high-stakes debate leading into the Midterm Elections in November.  If this less-than-competant Congress fails to act, families at every income level will see more taxes being withheld from their paychecks come January.

The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 reduced marginal income tax rates at every level. They also provided a wide range of income tax breaks for education, families with children and married couples.

Taxes on capital gains and dividends were reduced, while the federal estate tax was gradually repealed, even if it was only for this year.

President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) wants to extend  the tax cuts only for individuals making less than $200,000 and joint filers making less than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. That’s income from wages, capital gains and dividends, before standard deductions and exemptions are subtracted.

All you evil wealthy capitalists (except for Mr. Soros, who wants the rest of us to be the Proletariat) MUST be punished, even at the cost of Americans’ livelihoods.

Republicans and a growing number of Democrats in Congress (who actually possess a spine) want to extend all the tax cuts, at least temporarily.

On Thursday, House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said he wants an up-or-down vote on extending all the tax cuts before congressional elections in November.

Boehner said:

Raising taxes on anyone, especially small businesses, is the wrong thing to do in a struggling economy.  On the issue of job killing tax hikes the American people are not going to accept anything less than the vote that they deserve.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., trying to save Democrat seats in the House, refused to commit to vote on any tax proposals before the election. She did, however, pledge to address them by the end of the year.

Pelosi told reporters Thursday:

The only thing I can tell you is that the tax cuts for the middle class will be extended this Congress.

Can you say:  LAME DUCK SESSION?

According to a new Associated Press-GfK Poll, more than half the country backs raising taxes on the richest Americans,  The survey showed that by 54 percent to 44 percent, most people support raising taxes on the highest earners.

39 percent agree with Obama, while 15 percent favor raising taxes on everyone by allowing the cuts to expire at year’s end. Still, 44 percent say the existing tax cuts should remain in place for everyone, including the wealthy.

In contrast, a poll conducted by RasmussenReports.com shows that 51 % of Americans favor extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone.

While Obama’s plan would spare about 97 percent of Americans who actually file tax returns, it would mean huge tax increases for the wealthy.

According to the afore-mentioned analysis by Deloitte Tax, under Obama’s plan, a family of four making $325,000 a year would get a tax increase of $5,400, while the same family making $1 million a year would get a tax increase of $56,300.  A family of four making $5 million a year would get a tax increase of $325,600.

San Fran Nan whines that the nation cannot afford to extend tax cuts for top earners:

I see no justification for going into debt to foreign countries to underwrite and subsidize tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America.

What part of the fact that these are the people who actually start businesses and hire people, don’t you understand, Madame Speaker?  Gimme that gavel.

According to congressional estimates, making all the tax cuts permanent would add about $3.9 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Obama’s plan would cost a little more than $3 trillion over the same period.

So, basically, Scooter and his minions are ignoring the economic growth that lower tax rates have been proven to create (please research a guy named Ronald Reagan), while proclaiming a  savings of 900 billion.

This information is coming from an administration and congress that have run up the biggest national debt in U.S. History. 

Hey, Scooter.  Considering your fiscal irresponsibility, using the defense of saving money in order to burden American taxpayers with the largest tax increase in American History is a bit disingenuous, isn’t it? 

Consultants, Political Pundits, and Weathermen

Yesterday was an interesting day in America.  Across our great nation, the heads of Democratic and Moderate/Beltway Republicans were exploding, like the computer Landru in the old Star Trek episode.

They just could not figure out why Americans in Delaware, New Hampshire, New York, and all over the country are rejecting their philosophy of Washington politics as usual, in favor of old-fashioned American common sense and values.  All those who proclaim themselves to be “the smartest people in the room”  found out yesterday that they actually aren’t.

With the victory of Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party candidate, for the Delaware Senate nomination, the meme by those “in-the-know” that old-fashioned Reagan Conservatism was passe’ got thrown out the window.

Ms O’Donnell’s victory on Tuesday night, boosted by an endorsement from Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, sent shock waves through the Republican establishment, which now finds itself as much under siege as the Obama administration.

Ms O’Donnell defeated Mike Castle by 7 % of the vote.  Castle, who had been in office seemingly forever, had been endorsed by most of the establishment Republicans.

David Frum, noted Canadian commenter, who has been a messenger boy for the Moderate/Beltway Republicans, was inconsolable:

The Republican party is getting dragged further and further to the right and that is good news for people like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.  But for Mitt Romney it spells disaster.

In an ordinary electoral cycle, Mitt would be the favorite for the 2012 Republican nomination, in the dynamic tradition of Bob Dole and John McCain.

But because of the re-birth of Reagan Conservatism in the Republican Party, Mr Romney’s success in pushing through a healthcare reform in Massachusetts that is slightly to the left of “Obamacare” will likely prove fatal to his chances.

On Wednesday, Mitt remained true-to-form and exhibited one of his political talents:  pandering. Despite Beltway insiders, such as Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s former electoral manager, and Charles Krauthammer, the columnist, proclaiming Ms O’Donnell as someone not worthy to carry the Republican banner in Delaware, Mitt donated $5,000 to her campaign and desperately tried to distance himself from her critics in order to ride the crest of the Tidal Wave before it pulls him under.

Ms O’Donnell’s victory was not welcome news for the few Moderate/BeltwayRepublicans  left in Congress, particularly the handful of senators, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, who will be facing re-election in the next two or four years.

Polls still show the Republican Party will take control of the House in November.  Don’t be surprised if they take the Senate, also, despite what all the “experts” say.  The Republican leadership on Capitol Hill will have to learn how to get along with a new intake of lawmakers who have run on a ticket of contempt for the way it does business.

Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said:

Out go the country-club Republicans like Mitt Romney, in come the grass-roots revolutionaries like Sarah Palin.  America just became a lot more ungovernable than it already was.

If you mean unwilling to put up with business as usual, you’re right.

Speaking of business as usual, the Democrats unveiled a new party logo yesterday:

Can you believe that they actually paid somebody for this?

After the events of this last couple of days, I’ve decided that I want to be a Consultant, a Political Pundit, or a Weatherman.  They have the only jobs where you can be wrong the majority of the time and still remain employed.

Sarah Palin caught the mood of Americans with a blunt Tweet:

Lamestream media: Listen/Learn/Don’t underestimate the wisdom of the people. Times, they r a’changin!

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World 2010

Underdog Christine O’Donnell upset 42 year incumbent Rep. Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary tonight,giving the tea party movement a major victory and, according to the professional hand-wringers, giving Democrats an unexpected chance to hold the First State seat.

O’Donnell, making her third run for the Senate in as many elections, received support from several national figures, from the Tea Party Express to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, providing a much welcome boost to a shoestring campaign against the seemingly unbeatable Castle.

O’Donnell proclaimed in her victory speech:

The people of Delaware have spoken.  No more politics as usual.

The O’Donnell victory, considered an extreme long shot as recently as a month ago, is seen by the so-called pundits, professional and otherwise, as a major boost for Democratic hopes of holding the seat once held by Vice President Joe Biden. New Castle County Executive Chris Coons was unchallenged for the Democratic Senate nomination.

Prominent Republican strategist Mike Murphy said:

I’m sad to say the Delaware primary results tonight are straight out of Harry Reid’s dream journal.

Well, Mike, if Castle had opposed the Porkulus Bill and Cap and Trade, he might not have been a loser.

While the Delaware race received the most national attention last night, it was far from the only one being contested as seven states and the District of Columbia voted in the final major primaries of the 2010 election.

In New Hampshire, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte held a narrow lead over attorney Ovide Lamontagne in the battle for the Republican Senate nomination. The winner will take on Rep. Paul Hodes (D) in the race to replace retiring Sen. Judd Gregg (R).

In New York, in a district where they evidently like graft and corruption, Rep. Charlie Rangel crushed his competition in a crowded Democratic primary field in the 15th district while Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D) cruised in a primary challenge from businesswoman Reshma Saujani in the 14th.

Also in New York, tea party favorite Carl Paladino crushed former Rep. Rick Lazio in the fight for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Paladino will be a major underdog this fall against state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is heavily favored in the fall.

I see a pattern forming here.

But, there is little doubt that O’Donnell’s victory is what will dominate the news today.

Scared by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski‘s (R) primary defeat late last month, Castle decided to go extremely negative against O’Donnell in hopes of using his financial advantage to define her in the eyes of likely voters.

However, that effort was evidently too little, too late for Castle whose political career, which began when he was elected to the Delaware state House in 1966, ends in a shocking defeat.

According to Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman and GOP lobbyist:

This shows that conservative energy at the grassroots is at tidal wave levels. It may well cost us the Delaware Senate seat, but the same phenomenon will help Republicans, particularly in House races in November.

State and national Republicans have attacked O’Donnell’s personal finances and public misstatements in order to further Castle’s campaign meme that she is close to unelectable.

National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Rob Jesmer wrote the following in a less-than-pleased statement released after the race was called:

We congratulate Christine O’Donnell for her nomination this evening after a hard-fought primary campaign in Delaware.

According to all the pundits, the Delaware result is also a major blow to Republicans’ hopes of winning back the Senate majority this fall. To do so, the GOP needs a net gain of 10 seats, which, with Delaware now supposedly going to the Democrats, would mean that Republicans need to close to a clean sweep in states like California, Wisconsin and Washington.

The O’Donnell situation reminds me of another true story:  The legendary Groucho Marz and his family were invited to a ritzy country club.  They were at poolside and Groucho was about to go swimming in the pool.  The manager of the snooty country club came up to him and said: 

I’m sorry, sir. Jews are not allowed to swim in our pool. 

Groucho replied, without batting an eye: 

Well, since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go wading up to her waist?

The last few days, I’ve watched in fascination and horror as Conservative posters re-enacted the Civil War on Conservative websites over a Delaware Primary Election.  What they seemingly forgot, was that Tea Party Movement is not tied to a single political party.  It was formed by people wanting less taxes and less government intrusion of their lives.  Since the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag has been adopted by the movement, it seems appropriate that all these winds of change were felt last night in 3 of the original 13 colonies.

There will definitely be a lot of hand-wringing seen today from amateur political strategists.  The truth of the matter is, if these politicians had held to Conservative principles, they would not have lost.  Unfortunately for the career politicians and political pundits, last night, for the voters, principles mattered more than strategy.

The Ground Zero Mosque: By Their Fruits…Part 2

Dr. Faiz Khan is a former board member of  the American Society for Muslim Advancement, along with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, better known as the founders of the Cordoba Intiative, the ones trying to build the Ground Zero Mosque.   

Khan was listed as one of three directors of the American Society for the Advancement of Muslims in its 1997 incorporation papers, when it went by the name of the American Sufi Muslim Association.

He has preached at least twice at the former Burlington Coat Factory building, the site of the proposed mosque.   He is a 9/11 Truther and is a founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, known as MUJCA.  Here is his biography according to their website:

Dr. Faiz Kahn is a Muslim scholar and educator as well as an M.D. with a dual specialty in emergency and internal medicine. He has been living and working in New York City since 1969. A 9/11 first responder, he has been in the forefront of post-9/11 peace and education efforts in New York and elsewhere.  He is well-known as a staunchly outspoken opponent of terror in all its guises, and has participated in two memorial services for the victims of 9/11, as well as the New York group Muslims Against Terrorism. Dr. Khan is the author of “9/11: An Islamic Perspective” published by Belief Net in their selection of essays on religion and 9/11. An Assistant Imam at two New York area mosques, Dr. Kahn has treated subjects related to Islam, politics, and 9/11 at numerous speaking engagements and publications. He also served as assistant producer to the film Becoming Muslim – Submitting to Allah in America.

Here’s is an excerpt from an article he wrote for the website.  This is a “Moderate” Muslim?

Most American Muslims, both lay, and “educated’ had lost their way from the very start.  However, for a few American minds of various religious persuasions, or no religious persuasion – as of September 12th, 2001 onward, the widely displayed “good Muslim – bad Muslim” dialectic just didn’t cut it as an explanation of why the attacks of 9/11 occurred and succeeded.  Their instincts served them correctly. 

The surest sign of intellectual incompetence within the mass of 9/11 discourse is blindly accepting the limits that are constructed in discussing the phenomenon, especially when this blind acceptance occurs in the face of clear and compelling evidence that the limits of discourse must be expanded if some sort of explanation of the attacks of 9/11 is to surface.  In effect, what occurred from September 12th onward was the emergence of a sustained yet unbelievably ludicrous mainstream explanation as to the factors that produced 9/11, followed by this mainstream’s frantic inquiry to “American Islam” asking how could such a thing emerge from ‘the nebulously frightful geographic and ideological Islamic World’ – as if the main cause of the assaults and their success on 9/11 came from this quarter. Naively, yet predictably, the American Muslim scene performed its role by reeling onto the defensive, and sucking the bait. Prominent Muslims busied themselves trying to explain “real Islam”, distracted by and then swallowing the “mainstream thesis.” Most completely neglected the grotesque inconsistencies and outright lies which suggest that the success of the attacks had less to do with “militant Islam” and more to do with the inescapable fact that 9/11 was an inside job.

The ‘9/11 Truth’ thesis categorically rejects the mainstream thesis and asserts that the prime factor for the success of the criminal mission known as 9/11 did not come from the quarter known as ‘militant Islam’ although the phenomenon known as ‘militant Islamic networks’ may have played a partial role, or even a less than  partial role – perhaps the role of patsy and scapegoat.

Moreover, the rise and popularization of so called militant Islamic networks, from these networks’ ideology to actual empowerment, and the linking of this to western corporate driven government covert operations – this relationship is one that needs to be explicitly and loudly proclaimed by Islamic voices.

In an e-mail exchange with The New York Post, Khan claimed that he ended his affiliation with the ASMA in “2002 and 2003,” although there is a record of him speaking at a 2006 ASMA conference in Copenhagen, where his bio listed him as a board member.

When The Post asked Khan who he thought was responsible for 9/11, he initially declined comment, but later said in an e-mail:

I am certain of a few things . . . The towers and WTC 7 could not have collapsed without controlled demolition place from the ‘inside.’

Ray Locker, managing director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said:

For someone who claims he wants the mosque project near Ground Zero to help build bridges and heal the wounds from 9/11, it’s odd that one of Feisal Rauf’s fellow bridge builders is someone who thinks the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people were an ‘inside job’ by the US government.

Khan told a group of 9/11 deniers at a 2006 Chicago summit called “Revealing the Truth/Reclaiming Our Future” that

…the most logical explanation” for 9/11 is that the hijackers were working for corporate America and that the heroin trade creates “billions of dollars” that are laundered by “Citicorp and Procter & Gamble”.

Imam Rauf has refused to comment about the situation.  Now, this is the same guy who was recently sent, using our money, on a Middle Eastern “Goodwill” (fundraising) Tour and is supposedly a “Moderate” Muslim cleric.  Where are the funds for the Ground Zero Mosque going to come from?  And how about all their political support, including that of President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him)? 

Like Lucy Ricardo, they’ve all got lots of ‘splainin’ to do.

The Return of the Useless

Whether we want them to or not, Congress comes back from summer recess this week with Democrats torn between trying to show that they can fix the economic mess they have gotten us into or laying low until after the Midterm Massacre on November 2nd.

It looks like they will fly under the radar.

The Congressional Calender is full as lawmakers begin four weeks of writing and trying to pass bills before leaving sneaking out of town ahead of the Nov. 2 election: Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at year’s end; annual spending bills await action; and President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be unto him) last week unveiled a new brilliant plan to stimulate the economy through tax credits, breaks for business investment and public works projects.

Unfortunately for Scooter, all signs point to the Democrats going into a holding pattern until after the Midterms.

Congressional majority members are come back to Washington after a month of being at home, getting an earful from their constituents.  On top of that, Republicans are dead-set against White House initiatives.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. lamented:

It will be difficult to get a very broad agenda through.

The Democrats will probably try to put off some issues until the lame-duck session after the election.  The problem with that is that Republicans will not cooperate, because they will have regained majority control of the House and, possibly the Senate, also.

The Dems have promised their voters that they’ll act before the end of the year to extend the middle-class tax cuts pushed through by President George W. Bush.  But if they don’t, a family in the $50,000-$75,000 income range would face an extra $1,126 in taxes next year.

Obama and most of the Democrats want the extensions to apply only to individuals with annual incomes of less than $200,000, or joint filers earning less than $250,000. Continuing those tax cuts would add $3.1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. The debt would rise by an additional $700 billion if tax cuts for the richest people are also extended.

But some Democrats, with common sense, say that with the economy in bad shape, the time’s not right to end tax breaks for the wealthy. Republicans, headed by House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio, are demanding a two-year freeze on all tax rates.

Boehner told CBS‘ “Face the Nation” in an interview broadcast Sunday:

If the only option I have is to vote for those at 250 and below, of course I’m going to do that. But I’m going to do everything I can to fight to make sure that we extend the current tax rates for all Americans.

How many of those Liberal Democrats have ever been hired by a poor person?

House Democratic leaders want to wait and see what the Senate does before tackling the tax cut issue.

Congress still has not presented the president any of the 12 annual spending bills it must consider to pay for government programs when the new budget year starts on Oct. 1.  Because Congresscritters are afraid of losing their jobs due to spending increases, they instead will have to vote to keep agencies funded at current levels to avoid a shutdown.

Among others bills that will be put on the back burner are a bill to authorize defense programs for 2011 and a bill requiring greater disclosure of corporate and union spending on campaign ads.

Senate Republicans have opposed the defense bill because the House added a provision to end the don’t ask-don’t tell policy for gays serving in the military. GOP aides said that there would be three weeks or four weeks of debate time  over that bill, if that provision remains in it.

The campaign spending bill was a response to a Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on election ad spending.  Advocates of the measure, mostly Democrats, which requires greater identification of those financing ads, had hoped it could be passed before the November elections.   But in July, the Senate fell three votes short of overcoming a GOP filibuster.

However, Congress will still try to pass some bills before they recess again.

First on the Senate’s agenda, is a bill creating a $30 billion government fund that is supposed to encourage lending to small businesses and provide about $12 billion in small business tax breaks. Democrats should have the votes, and it could pass in the week the Senate returns.

Unfortunately for the Dems, they are going to have to face the House ethics committee trials of two of their most prominent members, Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and Maxine Waters of California, for alleged ethics violations. One or both of those trials could begin before the fall election.

Sho’ ’nuff hate it for them.

The Senate will open a trial today on the impeachment of U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr.   Last March, the House approved four impeachment articles charging the Louisiana judge with taking payoffs and lying under oath.

This will be the first impeachment trial since the one held for former President Bill Clinton in 1999. The Senate acquitted Clinton. If Porteous is found guilty, he would become the eighth federal judge in U.S. history to be impeached and convicted.

Other issues that may or may not be addressed include:

–The Senate is about to passing food safety legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration greater power to order recalls and to increase inspections of food facilities. The House has already passed a similar bill.

–The House could discuss a $4.5 billion Senate-passed Nanny-State child nutrition bill, promoted by first lady Michelle Obama, that would create healthier standards for food served in schools.

–The Senate could act on a rules change, pushed by some of its newer members, to end the custom where a single senator can secretly block a bill or a nomination.  I wouldn’t bet on it, though.

–The Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to vote on a new arms treaty with Russia. A two-thirds vote by the full Senate is needed for ratification. Also possible, although probably a long shot, is consideration of a long-stalled free trade agreement with South Korea.

Hopefully,  America will make it though the rest of this year without this self-aggrandizing, immensely unpopular Congress inflicting further damage to our country.  They are all running scared right now and they have no one to blame but themselves.

A Growing Resentment

Speaking at “hallowed ground” at the Pentagon yesterday, President Barack Obama  (peace be unto him) alluded to the controversy over a mosque — and a Florida pastor’s threat, later rescinded, to burn copies of the Muslim holy book. Obama made it clear that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and called the Al Qaeda attackers “a sorry band of men” who perverted religion.

“We will not give in to their hatred,” Obama said. “As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.”

Excuse me, Mr. President, they sure do seem to be at war with us. 

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, released on September 9th, 49 percent of all Americans say that they have generally unfavorable opinions of Islam, compared with 37 percent who say that they have favorable ones.    This figure is almost 20 % higher than it was, immediately after 9/11/01.

I have a question for you, gentle reader.  How many well-known practitioners/leaders of Islam can you remember speaking out after the horrible events of  September 11th, 2001?

I’m waiting.

Not too many, huh.  If you can remember any at all, you can count them on one hand.  One that remains at the forefront of opposition to radical Islam to this day is Dr. M. Juhdi Jasser.  I’m sure you’ve seen him in his appearances on Fox News as a contributor.  

Do you remember when those 6 Imams behaved suspiciously on an airplane, resulting in their arrest?  After Dr. Jasser spoke out about the incident, he appeared on Mark Levin’s radio show and told him about the Muslim world’s reaction to his speaking out, which included being pulled from a 2007 PBS series which featured an episode titled Islam vs. Islamists:

The producers had seen my work and followed our travails with the moderates here, with what we’re doing against the fundamentalists locally. They came and spent the week with me and looked at all of our activities, the interfaith community, and spent time interviewing some of the imams locally [Arizona] and others… It is sort of a microcosm of what happened. People say, “Where are the moderates, why aren’t they speaking up?”

The movie looks at some of the response and how I’ve been demonized. I’ve been labeled as a false Muslim. I’ve been told that even though I’m proud to raise my kids Muslim and I pray and I fast that really I’m imposing a secular separation of religion and politics in our faith and for me to try to get the imams to stop talking politics in their sermons is to impose something false into our faith…

All I’ve tried to do is open the debate. The important thing this documentary did was to begin the debate and to say that certainly the fundamentalists are able to express what they want in our free speech but they shouldn’t suppress what I have to say. They should allow us to bring this debate into the Muslim community.

For this to get pulled really shows that our government and the mainstream media feel they’re basically tools of the Islamists. They’re going to respond to them and not push the issue and you wonder where the voice of the moderates is. The voice is in the wilderness because nobody [in the media] wants to hear it and nobody is going to give time…

According to the show’s producer, it was pulled on political grounds:

The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide. Key portions of the documentary focus on Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix and his American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a non-profit organization of Muslim Americans who advocate patriotism, constitutional democracy and a separation of church and state.

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank. “I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds,” Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.

I related that moment from 2007 to try to explain what’s happening in this country today.  Yesterday, on the 9th anniversary of the worst attack ever on American soil, the American President was continuing to push a  message of reflection (on our bigotry) and service (atonement) on a day where Americans for the past 9 years have instead chosen to honor and remember those 3,000 innocent people who were murdered by Islamic Terrorists.  It was not a “man-caused disaster”.  It was an act of war.

Y’know, there’s a “moderate” Imam who wants to build a mosque at Ground Zero.  Did he condemn that horrific attack?  Nope.  He was interviewed on 60 Minutes by host Ed Bradley on September 30, 2001.  Here is a partial transcript:

BRADLEY: Are — are — are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.

BRADLEY: OK. You say that we’re an accessory?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: Yes.

BRADLEY: How?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.

This is a “moderate” Muslim?

While I don’t, as a Christian, condone the burning of the Koran or the ripping out of its pages, I do understand where the rage is coming from.  The oppression of the Politically Correct Elite, including those now in positions of power over us, has created a backlash.  In their zeal to forcibly unite a nation created on Judeo-Christian principles with a political ideology masquerading as a religion, Progressives have become responsible for the public demonstrations of dissent that they claimed were so “patriotic” during the Bush administration.  Unfortunately for the “smartest people in the room”, they did not realize how deeply Americans would resent being apologized for to those who view us as infidels.

Perhaps they’ll have a clue after November 2nd, 2010.