Tag: Obama

The most divisive president in U.S. History.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Recall…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

Obama’s minions in the DNC and the Main Street Media are on the verge of seppuku (hari kari) this morning because

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The Good Guys won.  

Republican Scott Walker is still the Governor of Wisconsin.

Walker led Barrett in the official count 53 percent to 46 percent with 99 percent of the 3,424 precincts reporting. Walker’s lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, also was projected to survive her recall election.

The recall effort began when the first-term governor and Republicans in the state legislature rolled back what they considered excesses in the collective bargaining agreements of public-employee unions — an effort to cut Wisconsin’s estimated $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Wisconsin went for President Obama in 2008, but the recall results give Republicans hope that their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, can win there in November.

“Governor Walker has demonstrated over the past year what sound fiscal policies can do to turn an economy around, and I believe that in November voters across the country will demonstrate that they want the same in Washington,” Romney said.

Republicans see Walker’s win as evidence voters across the country want their elected officials to keep government living within its means. They said this paves the way for Romney to become the first Republican candidate to carry Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The outcome Tuesday is also a blow to the labor movement, which poured considerable resources into the failed effort to oust Walker.

Of course, Obama and his Administration were neck-deep in their investment in the Recall attempt, while feverishly attempting to distance themselves publicly.

And now, the ‘Rats appear to be ready to desert Obama’s sinking Ship of State:

“Certainly,” Democratic operative Paul Begala said about Obama owing it to Democrats to come out and support Walker challenger Tom Barrett (D-Wis.). “Of course. And he owed it to Tom Barrett. Barrett is the mayor of Milwaukee. He came out in the primaries, endorsed then-Sen. Obama against Sen. Clinton.”

“He also owes it to himself and to everybody else he’s going to have to deal with. This was a mistake, I have to say. The President should have been out there. I don’t it would have made the difference, okay, let me be clear about that. But, it’s kind of like Thanksgiving at your in-laws. If you go, it doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be fun, but if you don’t go, there is hell to pay. And that’s the situation the president is in,” Begala said.

Ed Schultz of MSNBC reacted to the political massacre in Wisconsin by doing a little “poor loser wish casting” last night:

Ed Schultz, an ardent supporter of unions and the recall of Gov. Scott Walker, reacts to the Wisconsin electorate voting to keep Walker as governor.

“In many respects it’s to be expected, considering how much money was thrown at this race. You know, NBC is calling it for Walker. Okay, I think it’s awful close and there’s a lot of absentee ballots yet that are still out and it’s going to be very, very close down to the wire” MSNBC’s Schultz said.

“Certainly it is not the end and it’s going to be an opportunity for the progressive movement to regroup nationally and understand exactly what they are up against,” a teary-eyed Schultz lamented.

“And this sets the template for the Republicans and tells the right-wing in this country that if they can outfund their opponent they have a real good shot as winning,” Schultz, an enthurasatic supporter of President Barack Obama in 2008 said toward the end of the segment.

Ed Schultz concluded the segment by making a wild assertion. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the MSNBC host said.

“So it’s going to be really a fight for the Democrats here in November, no question about it,” Schultz said.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin put it succintly (and rubbed it in rather well):

“I think that the Democrats there understand that the president’s no-show represents the fact that Obama’s goose is cooked,” former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) said on FOX News shortly after Scott Walker was declared winner of the recall election.

“Jay Carney — I can’t wait to see how he spins all this and ignores it, and President Obama himself. They’re going to really try to distance themselves from this despite the fact that they, leading their lapdogs in the leftist media, made this a front page story for how many months? Months and months,” Palin opined.

The victorious Governor Scott Walker summed his victory up by saying:

Tonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions,” Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) said after he beat a recall attempt.

Walker said that while “bringing our state together will take some time, no doubt about it,” he believes “there is more that unites us than divides us.

Is this overwhelming victory by Gov. Walker and the good people of Wisconsin, a harbinger of what will happen in our country’s National Elections on November 6, 2012?

I pray that it is.

On Wisconsin

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Obama’s main flunky David Axelrod informed reporters on Sunday that an “army of lawyers” will be in the Badger state “to protect” the vote during the recall election.

And, sure enough, Attorney General Eric Holder is sending the troops in:

The Justice Department announced today that it will monitor elections on June 5, 2012, in the following jurisdictions to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes: Alameda, Fresno and Riverside Counties, Calif.; Cibola and Sandoval Counties, N.M.; Shannon County, S.D.; and the city of Milwaukee.

The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the election process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group. In addition, the act requires certain covered jurisdictions to provide language assistance during the election process. Fresno County, Riverside County and the city of Milwaukee are required to provide assistance in Spanish. Cibola, Sandoval and Shannon Counties are required to provide language assistance to Native American voters. Alameda County is required to provide language assistance to Hispanic, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino voters.

Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to send federal observers to jurisdictions that are certified by the attorney general or by a federal court order. Federal observers will be assigned to monitor polling place activities in Shannon County based on the attorney general’s certification and in Alameda, Riverside and Sandoval Counties based on court orders. The observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at polling locations in these jurisdictions, and Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor polling place activities in Fresno County, Cibola County and the city of Milwaukee. Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

Why is today’s Recall Election attracting so much attention?  To answer that question, we need to examine what is going on within the state itself.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Triggered by a backlash against the Republican governor’s move 15 months ago to crimp collective bargaining for the state’s public employees, the recall race has pitted neighbor against neighbor, damaged decades-old friendships, and, in one case, led a woman to drive into her husband when he tried to stop her from voting for Mr. Walker’s opponent in a primary last month.

Wisconsin has long been a purple state with a fluid middle. Its U.S. senators have included both Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, the progressive champion of the early 20th Century, and Joseph McCarthy, the fiery anti-Communist senator of the 1940s and 50s. Four of its past eight governors have been Democrats; four have been Republicans. While Wisconsin has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1988—Barack Obama won in 2008 by 14 percentage points—the 2010 election gave Republicans control of both houses of the state legislature and ushered Mr. Walker into office.

Mr. Walker and his supporters say curbing public union’s collective-bargaining rights is essential to balancing the state budget, lowering property taxes and creating a business-friendly environment. Union members and many Democrats say public-sector unions weren’t the cause of the state’s budget problems and argue that Mr. Walker has used his office to drive an ideological agenda well to the right of what most Wisconsinites want.

Both sides, along with the national political establishment, would see a victory Tuesday as a validation of their position and a harbinger of the public mood heading into November’s presidential election.

This spring, as the recall entered the home stretch, political positions have become so hardened that a Marquette University Law School poll late last month found only one in every 50 likely voters hadn’t decided how to vote. The poll showed Mr. Walker ahead of his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, by seven percentage points, within the margin of error. More than one-third of respondents said they had stopped speaking about politics to someone because of disagreements over the recall.

“I don’t have any of them for friends anymore,” Mr. Ertel said of those with whom he might disagree. “It’s just better to ignore them.”

The race has drawn tens of millions of dollars in political donations—much of it from outside Wisconsin—into a state of just 5.7 million people. Much of it has found its way into negative advertisements. In Sheboygan, a Republican-leaning middle-class city of 50,000 on Lake Michigan roughly halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay, yard signs are ubiquitous and bumper stickers run to the demeaning.

Carol Zoren, a 73-year-old Democrat, sports a bumper sticker on her car that says “Vote Republican Values: Debt, Corruption and Invented War.” A few weeks ago, a man started screaming at her in a parking lot. “He said he was a veteran and he didn’t fight for people like me,” she said. “I told him to buzz off.”

Politicians have tapped into the discord. At a bratfest behind the Sheboygan County Republican headquarters, State Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, told a crowd: “The Democrats will do anything to steal an election; I do believe that.” The comment drew loud applause.

Hence, the ” uninvited oversight” from the Obama White House, while the “Boss”, in true Chicago Politics style, remains as removed from the situation as possible, in order to claim plausible deniability.

Stay tuned.

The Scott Walker Recall Vote: The DNC’s Revenge

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

All America this week will be focused on Wisconsin as Governor Scott Walker faces a Recall Election, engineered by the powers that be in the DNC.

Reuters.com has the story:

Political activists converged on Wisconsin on Sunday to join get-out-the-vote efforts two days before a historic recall election for Republican Governor Scott Walker that is seen as a test for November’s presidential race.

Walker enraged the labor movement last year when he eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public sector unions as part of a push to limit government and slash spending in the politically divided state.

Some observers are calling the June 5 vote the second most important U.S. election of the year.

President Barack Obama easily captured Wisconsin by 14 percentage points in the 2008 election, when he defeated Republican John McCain. Two years later, Republicans in Wisconsin roared back to elect Walker, defeat Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and take over the state legislature.

Mitt Romney, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, has called Walker a “hero,” while Obama has supported Walker’s Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

All over the Midwestern state – known for its dairy farms, factories and the revered Green Bay Packers NFL football team – political professionals and volunteers fanned out to ensure their supporters made it to the polls on Tuesday.

“It’s really about the future of this state,” said Bob Peterson, the president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association as he grilled hamburgers on Saturday for volunteers who will try to boost the anti-Walker vote.

Civil Rights activists Reverend Jesse Jackson from Chicago and Al Sharpton from New York, both aligned with the Democratic Party, will be in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, to try to spur a strong turnout by black voters.

If he is defeated, Walker would become the third state governor recalled from office during his term, after North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier in 1921 and Gray Davis of California in 2003.

Polls show a close race although Walker has held a single-digit lead since the recall date was formally set, and there are almost no undecided voters. The focus is on voter turnout in a state with a history of high voter participation.

Back on 2/20/11, in a post titled “Wisconsin, Obama, and the 10th Admendment”, I reported that:

The truth is, some of the main instigators behind the current protest in Wisconsin over Governor Scott Walker’s proposed budget cuts have been the Democratic Party and their sponsored group named Organizing for America, whose publicity arm operates the  DNC-owned website barackobama.com.

Per David Horowitz’s discoverthenetworks.org:

Organizing for America (OFA) is a project of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The American public first heard about OFA on January 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced that the organization would soon open its doors for business. Two months later, in mid-March, OFA was officially launched.

Basing its operations on the third floor of the DNC’s Capitol Hill headquarters, OFA consists of a vast network of volunteers whose mission is to “let their friends and neighbors know about the President’s plan to invest in America’s future, improve health care and education, create green jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and cut the deficit in half over the next four years.”

A New York Times report describes OFA as “an army of [Obama] supporters talking, sending e-mail and texting to friends and neighbors as they try to mold public opinion.”

From an article titled Fight for our State Workers, written by Mary Hough and posted 2/17/11 on barackobama.com:

UPDATE: For the past two days, thousands of workers have been gathering at the State Capitol in Madison, WI, to defend their rights in the workplace. From nurses to police officers, public sector workers and OFA volunteers have been protesting against proposed legislation to take away workers’ rights to bargain collectively. With a vote on the legislation expected as early as today, volunteers are already gathering at the Capitol this morning. It’s going to be a big day in Madison and you can follow updates throughout the day on the OFA Wisconsin Twitter feed.

Organizing for America is mobilizing on the ground in Wisconsin to defend the rights of public employees from an attempt by the governor to take away their right to organize.

Is Obama’s involvement in the Wisconsin protest a violation of the Tenth Amendment?

According to the Detroit Free Press:

President Barack Obama and his political machine are offering tactical support, eager to repair strained relations with some union leaders upset over his recent overtures to business.

The potent combination has helped fan the huge protests in Wisconsin against a measure that would strip collective bargaining rights from state workers. The alliance also is sending a warning to other states that are considering the same tactic.

…For Obama, stepping into a confrontation with a governor has its risks. The president is in a struggle of his own to tame spending, and siding with unions may cast him as a partisan even as he talks about setting a new tone in Washington.

Ya think, DiNozzo? 

Also, Obama has to keep campaign promises that he made to the Labor Unions.

Therefore, Obama will be standing beside Labor Unions, public and private, as they come together to carry out a $30 million plan to stop anti-labor measures in Wisconsin and 10 other states.

This new Labor “Allied Powers” includes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka working with leaders such as Teamsters president James Hoffa.

Politics make strange bedfellows. The fact is, they haven’t been on speaking terms for years.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, thinks that Obama is helping fuel “Greece-style” protests in the United States.

His political organization is colluding with special interest allies across the country to demagogue reform-minded governors who are making the tough choices that the president is avoiding.

So, who is the real power behind the Scott Walker Recall Election?

…Was there ever any doubt?

Is America’s National Reality Show Almost Over?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Mareen Dowd, Syndicated columnist appearing in the New York times, apparently has lost faith in her “messiah”.

Yesterday, she wrote in her op ed:

…The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading “I Meow for Michelle” for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.

Once glowing, his press is now burning. “To a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear,” John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can’t run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.

In his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how “the best communicator in campaign history” lost his touch.

The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative.

As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation — the stimulus and health care bills — or stanch the flow of false information from the other side.

“The administration lost the communications war with disastrous consequences that played out on Election Day 2010,” Rendell writes, and Obama never got credit for the two pieces of legislation where he reached for greatness.

The president had lofty dreams of playing the great convener and conciliator. But at a fund-raiser in Minneapolis, he admitted he’s just another combatant in a capital full of Hatfields and McCoys. No compromises, just nihilism.

If he wins the election, “the fever may break,” he said. “My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

In his new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” David Maraniss writes that a roommate of the young Obama compared him to Walker Percy’s protagonist in “The Moviegoer”: an observer of his life, one step removed.

On CNBC on Friday, Romney complained that Obama has “been more focused on his perspective of his historic legislative achievements than he has been focused on getting people back to work.”

A president focused on historic achievements? Imagine that. But in his lame way, Romney got at Obama’s problem: The Moviegoer prefers to float above, at a reserve, in grandiose mists.

As Maraniss recounts, Obama said he liked reading Hemingway because of Papa’s “integrity of grasping for those times, those visions, that are ones of true magnificence and profundity.”

Cook told Maraniss that she thought Obama’s desire to “play out a superhero life” was “a very strong archetype in his personality.”

But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama’s caution — ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, “caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me” — has restrained him at times.

In some ways, he’s still finding himself, too absorbed to see what’s not working. But the White House is a very hard place to go on a vision quest, especially with a storm brewing.

In a related story…

Per dailymail.co.uk:

Reality TV shows are making increasing numbers of people convinced that they’re the stars of their own, unwanted television programs.

Psychiatrists are treating more people for so-called ‘Truman Show’ delusions — named after the 1998 movie starring Jim Carrey as a man who spends his entire life unwittingly at the center of a fictional world that’s being broadcast to millions of homes.

The startling cases often afflict successful people who develop paranoid fantasies that they’re being filmed at all times and that the world that’s in front of them isn’t real.

Their friends and loves ones are actors. The news they see on TV is made up to control the way they think. The things that happen to them are merely events staged for the amusement of others.

The result can turn disturbing and even violent.

For the past three and one-half years, Americans have felt like they were living in a reality show, sleep-walking through our lives, incredulous at the sight of our once proud nation, slowly being regulated to third world status.

We have had to endure the painful sight of watching our president, the leader of the free world, bow in reverence to tin horn despots, while alienating our friends and embracing our enemies.

We spent the time mired in a national malaise as our friends and relatives, and at times, ourselves, have lost our jobs, due to an economy that can only be described as horrible, with no signs of improving.

The entire Obama Presidency has seemed surreal at times, as if the entire country were stuck in a nightmare of our own creation, unable to wake up.

Hopefully, on November 6th, 2012, American will wake up and vote.

Obama’s Polish Joke

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Did you hear the one about the insufferable president who refused to apologize for an offensive gaffe?

Yahoo News Canada reports:

The White House on Wednesday shrugged off Polish demands to express more than mere ‘regret’ after President Barack Obama mistakenly referred to a Nazi Holocaust site as a “Polish death camp.”

“We regret the misstatement, but that is what it was,” said Obama spokesman Jay Carney, reiterating that the president “misspoke” during a ceremony awarding the highest US civilian honor to late Holocaust hero Jan Karski.

“He was referring to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland.”

Poland had earlier insisted that Washington must do more than simply express the “regret” offered by another White House spokesman late on Tuesday, hours after Obama’s use of words deemed offensive by Warsaw.

Obama’s verbal slip overshadowed his posthumous award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Karski, a Polish underground officer who provided the Allies with early eyewitness accounts of Nazi genocide against European Jews.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Obama’s words had hurt all Poles and he expected more from Washington than just regret.

“I am convinced that our American friends can today allow themselves a stronger reaction than a simple expression of regret from the White House spokesman — a reaction more inclined to eliminate once and for all these kinds of errors,” Tusk told reporters in Warsaw.

“Today, this is a problem for the reputation of the United States,” the prime minister said.

Members of Poland’s Jewish community — including the country’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich — said in a statement that: “We expect President Barack Obama to personally correct his words.”

Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski said meanwhile he had sent a letter to Obama “counting on (…) cooperation in correcting this unfortunate error” which “I am certain in no way reflects the thoughts or views of our American friend.”

Obama evidently neglected his history studies during that famous Ivy League Education of his:

In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. Although Jews were the primary victims, hundreds of thousands of Roma (Gypsies) and at least 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons were also victims of Nazi genocide.

As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe from 1933 to 1945, millions of other innocent people were persecuted and murdered. More than three million Soviet prisoners of war were killed because of their nationality. Poles, as well as other Slavs, were targeted for slave labor, and as a result, almost two million perished. Homosexuals and others deemed “anti-social” were also persecuted and often murdered. In addition, thousands of political and religious dissidents such as communists, socialists, trade unionists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted for their beliefs and behavior and many of these individuals died as a result of maltreatment.

The concentration camp is most closely associated with the Holocaust and remains an enduring symbol of the Nazi regime. The first camps opened soon after the Nazis took power in January 1933; they continued as a basic part of Nazi rule until May 8, 1945, when the war, and the Nazi regime, ended.

Obama’s remarks were insensitive, at best. The fact is, from 1939 and 1945, almost six million Polish citizens were killed during the Nazi occupation of their country.

More than half of them were Jewish and they, in turn, made up half of the six million European Jews who died during the Holocaust.

Scores were killed in death camps set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, including the most infamous, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Remember Obama’s speech in Strasbourg in April of 2009?

BBC News reported that

Later, President Obama told an audience in Strasbourg that the US and Europe had allowed the alliance to drift in recent years.

He said the US had been “arrogant” and “dismissive” towards its allies, while there was “insidious” anti-Americanism in Europe. He said these attitudes had to change.

“I’ve come to Europe this week to renew our partnership – one in which America listens and learns from our friends and allies. But where our friends and allies bear their share of the burden,” he said.

How can Europe be expected to respect us with a putz like this as the Leader of the Free World?

And, you know what the worst part of this whole “Presidential gaffe” is?

It took place at the Medal of Freedom Awards where Obama was attempting to honor Jan Karski, the late Polish resistance hero who famously tried to warn the world about the atrocities being committed by Nazis against Jews in the ghettos and death camps of Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.

A presidential apology is more than called for.

However, the “Lightbringer” will not be offering one anytime soon.

After all, he’s always the smartest person in the room.

American Leadership in a Dangerous World

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Mitt Romney has issued a warning, concerning keeping our country safe in a dangerous world.

Reuters.com reports:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney chose Veterans Day to proclaim to the American people his conviction that the world is a dangerous place, and the United States must remain its most formidable military power.

“The world is not safe,” Romney told veterans on Memorial Day. He was joined by Senator John McCain, in a speech to honor the veterans of America’s wars.

The United States now has two paths forward, Romney said. He called one “the pathway to Europe,” suggesting Europe had acquiesced to geopolitical threats. “To shrink our military smaller and smaller to pay for our social needs.”

The other path, Romney said, is “to commit to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world.”

Romney, expected to face off against President Barack Obama in November, joined the 2008 Republican presidential nominee in thanking the nation’s veterans.

Romney, who has focused his campaign on the struggling U.S. economy, changed his focus on Monday in his warning about the dangers of the world outside America’s borders, indirectly criticizing Obama’s foreign policies.

“I wish I could tell you that the world is a safe place. It’s not,” Romney said.

Romney ticked off Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia, among other countries, as threats as he transformed his message from economic warnings of the United States becoming like Europe to a military warning that America was becoming weaker.

McCain introduced Romney to the 5,000 people gathered as a “man who I believe is fully qualified to be commander-in-chief.”

“He believes in American exceptionalism,” McCain said. “He believes the 21st Century will also be an American century.”

Quite different from what the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania says about our country, don’t you think?

Well, not according to “The Lightbringer”.

Back on April 12th, foxnews.com reported:

President Obama defended his record on “American exceptionalism” on Monday, saying that his entire career has been a testimony to that core belief.

“It’s worth noting that I first arrived on the national stage with a speech at the Democratic convention that was entirely about American exceptionalism and that my entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism,” Obama said at a press conference alongside Mexican president Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Obama’s comments come days after GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney said Obama “doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do.”

Romney’s absolutely correct.

Thoughout his reign as the Leader of the Far Left, masquerading as a Moderate President of the United States, Obama has shown himself to be out of touch with average American thought.

Let’s review a few examples:

He started out his presidency by giving a speech at the University of Cairo, on June 4th, 2009,  an attempt to reach out to the Muslim World, the same people who danced in the streets when 3,000 Americans were massacred on September 1st, 2001.  He said:

…There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” (Applause.) That is what I will try to do today — to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart

Now part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I’m a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and at the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities — (applause) — it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality. (Applause.)

I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they’ve excelled in our sports arenas, they’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers — Thomas Jefferson — kept in his personal library. (Applause.)

This was only the beginning of a worldwide apology tour, where he made a very public show of apologizing for our country’s transgressions to every two-bit, tinhorn despot around the globe.

Beginning with the passage of Obamacare, by him and his Congressional minions, holding clandestine meetings, both on Christmas, and in the dark of night, Obama has shown the propensity to do whatever he wants to, in order to further his personal agenda, regardless of the wishes of the people whom he is supposed to be serving.

An example of American Exceptionalis?  Hardly.

More like “The Peter Principal”.

 

 

Obama: Choomin’…on a Sunday Afternoon…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

Veteran presidential biographer David Maraniss, whose book about “Bubba” Clinton, First In His Class, is considered the finest recount of the life of young Bubba, now tackles the mysterious young life of the 44th President of the United States in Barack Obama: The Story.

Here are some excerpts: 

A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning “to smoke marijuana.”

…As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.” To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled.

…Along with TA, Barry popularized the concept of “roof hits”: when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.

…When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning “numbing tobacco”) instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,” explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.

…[Choom Gang member] Mark Bendix’s Volkswagen bus, also known as the Choomwagon. … The other members considered Mark Bendix the glue, he was funny, creative, and uninhibited, with a penchant for Marvel Comics. He also had that VW bus and a house with a pool, a bong, and a Nerf basketball, all enticements for them to slip off midday for a few unauthorized hours of recreation…

…Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted “Intercepted!,” and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.

…Choom Gang members often made their way to Aku Ponds at the end of Manoa Stream, where they slipped past the liliko’i vines and the KAPU (keep out) signs, waded into waist-high cool mountain water, stood near the rock where water rushed overhead, and held up a slipper (what flip-flops are called in Hawaii) to create an air pocket canopy. It was a natural high, they said, stoned or not.

He was a long-haired haole hippie who worked at the Mama …Mia Pizza Parlor not far from Punahou and lived in a dilapidated bus in an abandoned warehouse. … According to Topolinski, Ray the dealer was “freakin’ scary.” Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover. But at the time he was useful because of his ability to “score quality weed.”

…In another section of the [senior] yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. … Nestled below [Obama’s] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.” … A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.

…Their favorite hangout was a place they called Pumping Stations, a lush hideaway off an unmarked, roughly paved road partway up Mount Tantalus. They parked single file on the grassy edge, turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and Stevie Wonder, lit up some “sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds” and washed it down with “green bottle beer” (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Becks, and St. Pauli Girl).

…In the Honolulu of Barry’s teenage years marijuana was flourishing up in the hills, out in the countryside, in covert greenhouses everywhere. It was sold and smoked right there in front of your nose; Maui Wowie, Kauai Electric, Puna Bud, Kona Gold, and other local variations of pakololo were readily available.

On November 21, 2011, whitehouse.gov, President Barack Hussein Obama’s official website, reported the following in an article titled Alternatives to the “War on Drugs:” Obama Drug Policy and Reforming the Criminal Justice System:

Compared to their representation among the U.S. population, African Americans are disproportionately incarcerated for drug offenses. These two groups have consistently higher proportions of inmates in state prison who are drug offenders compared to whites – about 50% higher.

Over the past two months, we have met with African American leaders across the country – in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles – to listen to what they had to say. We discussed their concerns and ideas, and we outlined the Obama Administration’s approach to drug policy, presenting our view that it is guided by three indisputable facts: Addiction is a disease that can be treated; people can recover from drug addiction; and new interventions are needed to appropriately address substance abuse and drug-related crime. Simply put: We cannot arrest our way out of our Nation’s drug problem.

Addressing drug addiction as a public health issue will help us break the cycle of drug use, crime, and incarceration. And in keeping with a balanced public health and safety approach, the Obama Administration is taking unprecedented actions to restore balance to how we address our Nation’s drug problem and its disproportionate effects on communities of color.

…According to a recent survey, African American parents now consider youth drug use as the top concern for young people, ranking higher than gun related crimes, school violence, or bullying. We look forward continuing leading the Federal government’s collaborations with the African American community to reducing disparities and ensure that we can prevent drug use before it starts and work together to break the cycle of drug use and crime.

So, the Obama Administration concluded that drug use is a serious problem among black youth?  

They should know.

Detroit: Though I Walk Through the Valley…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Back on March 31, 2008, Rich Lowry wrote the following in an article on townhall.com titled, “Detroit: The City That Liberalism Ruined”:

…Detroit suffers from every possible malady except a plague of locusts, and that’s only because they find urban living uncongenial. The city has a revitalized downtown, but all around it, the city rots. Forbes magazine declared Detroit “America’s Most Miserable City,” on the basis of its unemployment and crime rates, among other things. The unemployment rate of 8.2 percent is the highest of any major urban area in the nation, and its homicide rate is higher than New York’s in the bad old days of the early 1990s.

The city has lost 1 million residents since 1950. It was hit by the decline of the auto industry and white flight, fueled partly by racism. These trends would have rocked the city no matter what. Detroit compounded them with disastrous governance, personified by Mayor Coleman Young, who held office for 20 years beginning in 1974.

His record raises the question why, if it wanted to engage in a nefarious plot to hurt blacks, the federal government would invent the AIDS virus when it could simply emplace mayors like Coleman Young instead. “Imagine a Rev. Jeremiah Wright with real power,” says urban expert Fred Siegel. Coleman taunted suburbanites, accusing them of “pillaging the city,” while his scandal-plagued administration managed the city into the ground.

And then the Liberal “messiah” Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) bailed out the horribly-managed American Automobile Industry, gerously giving them OUR tax money, so that they would not follow the dinosaurs into extinction (and his huge contributions from the Auto Workers Union would keep coming in).

At halftime of the 2011 Superbowl, Clint Eastwood starred in and narrated the following television commercial for Chrysler:

It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half.

It’s halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re going to do to make a comeback. And we’re all scared, because this isn’t a game.

The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.

I’ve seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. And, times when we didn’t understand each other. It seems like we’ve lost our heart at times. When the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead.

But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that’s what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can’t find a way, then we’ll make one.

All that matters now is what’s ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And, how do we win?

Detroit’s showing us it can be done. And, what’s true about them is true about all of us.

This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, it’s halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.

Well, Dirty Harry, Detroit is well into the second half…and they’re waaay behind.

Bloomberg.com has the story:

Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights.

As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.

Other U.S. cities have gone partially dark to save money, among them Colorado Springs; Santa Rosa, California; and Rockford, Illinois. Detroit’s plan goes further: It would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco combined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles (96 square kilometers), according to city planners.

“You have to identify those neighborhoods where you want to concentrate your population,” said Chris Brown, Detroit’s chief operating officer. “We’re not going to light distressed areas like we light other areas.”

Detroit’s dwindling income and property-tax revenue have required residents to endure unreliable buses and strained police services throughout the city. Because streetlights are basic to urban life, deciding what areas to illuminate will reshape the city, said Kirk Cheyfitz, co-founder of a project called Detroit143 — named for the 139 square miles of land, plus water — that publicizes neighborhood issues.

“It touches kids going to school in the dark,” said Cheyfitz, chief executive of Story Worldwide Ltd., a New York marketing company. “It touches midnight Mass at a church. It touches businesses that want to stay open past 9 p.m.”

Bing in 2010 began an independent project called Detroit Works to sort ideas on how to reconfigure the city for residences, businesses, green space and even agriculture, a plan due in August.

Meantime, Brown said, the city will fix broken streetlights in certain places even as it discontinues such services as street and sidewalk repairs in “distressed” areas — those with a high degree of blight and little or no commercial activity.

Bing’s plan requires state legislation to create the lighting authority. Governor Rick Snyder supports the plan, said his senior policy adviser, Valerie Brader.

There’s already experience snuffing out streetlights within Detroit’s borders. Highland Park, a 3-square-mile city encircled by its larger neighbor, removed 1,100 of 1,600 streetlights last year, after piling up a $4 million debt to DTE Energy. The move saves $45,000 a month, said Alejandro Bodipo-Memba, a spokesman for the company.

Only major streets and intersections remain lit in the city of 12,000, once home to Chrysler Group LLC’s namesake car manufacturer and Henry Ford’s first moving assembly line. Mayor DeAndre Windom, 45, said residents at first complained, though few do now. He’s considering grants and private funding to relight darkened streets

Colorado Springs pulled the plug on 9,000 of its 25,600 lights in 2010 to save $1.3 million, said David Krauth, a city traffic engineer. Some were relit as revenue improved, though 3,500 remain dark, saving about $500,000 a year, he said.

In Detroit, some streets have no working lights. Many appear dim or are blocked by trees. And some areas with mostly vacant lots are well-lit.

So, instead of encouraging capitalism, and encouraging its citizens to pull their helmets back on and get back in the game, Detroit is, instead, herding them like sheep through the dark valley that used to the Motor City.

With cities like Detroit and the others being turned into a bunch of non-contenders by the “Democratic Coaching Staff”, it sounds like Team America needs a new quarterback, doesn’t it?

Nascar’s Gone “Green”…Big Whoop.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Obama’s EPA has wormed their way into the most popular sport in America.

However, they are hardly driving in the pole position.

Think peanut vendor.

The Washington Examiner has the story:

President Obama’s eco-friendly EPA inked a green partnership deal with high-octane NASCAR Monday to promote recycling and environmentally-friendly products to the sport’s millions of fans.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, NASCAR will encourage fans to buy “sustainable concessions” at races, expand the use of “safer chemical products,” conserve water, reduce waste, promote recycling, push products approved by the EPA that have a small enviro footprint and encourage suppliers to get an “E3 tuneup” aimed at promoting sustainable manufacturing.

Missing: any talk of greening races or race cars that consume about two million gallons of gas a year and average five miles per gallon.

“Yes, the focus is on suppliers and programs, not green cars,” said an EPA spokesman.

Instead, it’s a first step to get fans and suppliers to think green while favorites like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart lay down some rubber.

“Because NASCAR is followed by millions of passionate fans and many businesses, it can be a powerful platform to raise environmental awareness, drive the adoption of safer products by more Americans, and support the growing green economy,” said Jim Jones, EPA’s acting assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.The agreement “is a great example of NASCAR’s commitment to green innovation and our role as a leader in sustainability,” said Steve Phelps, Chief Marketing Officer of NASCAR.

Probably the furthest sport from the green movement, NASCAR for the past four years has nonetheless pushed an environmentally-friendly agenda in unusual ways. They even have a manager of “green innovation,” Michael Lynch.

In a white paper issued last month, NASCAR reports that they will plant 10 trees every time the green flag is raised, which they claim will capture “100 percent of the emissions produced” in races. They also have largest recycling program in sports and last year starting using E15 fuel.

“This partnership will provide new resources that will allow our industry to create innovative environmental education and awareness platforms while continuing to build on our strong momentum in reducing the environmental impact of our sport,” said NASCAR’s Lynch.

On September 13, 2011, the New York Times asked the question

Is green Nascar an oxymoron? After all, the sport is all about watching gas guzzlers drive at high speeds in circles for hours. Until 2007, race cars used leaded fuel. Tens of thousands of fans still drive to races in recreational vehicles and other gas hogs.

About 225,000 gallons of fluids like used fuels are expected to be recycled at Nascar tracks this year.

But more than any other American sport, Nascar is also a for-profit business, and like many companies these days, it is focused on cutting costs by recycling, conserving and generating its own energy. While the core of the sport remains unchanged, Nascar, its teams, track operators and sponsors are employing an ambitious set of green initiatives that includes collecting used fuel, planting trees to offset carbon emissions, and deploying sheep to keep the infield grass short.

Going green not only saves money that can be spent on drivers and cars, but it has also created new revenue by attracting sponsors to Nascar that want to trumpet their eco-friendliness to the millions of fans who watch races on television and at the track.

Of course, these efforts will not alter the essence of a sport that celebrates fast cars that burn copious amounts of gasoline, a fact that has led many critics to accuse Nascar of greenwashing, or claiming unfairly to be environmentally friendly. But many who work in Nascar say that reducing and recycling are imperative precisely because so much waste is produced, and if money can be saved in the process, all the better.

“The incongruity is part of what makes going green in this sport so impactful,” said Michael Lynch, Nascar’s director of green innovation. “There’s a bias that the sport is not green and therefore the fans aren’t green.”

How true.

In a press release dated November 18, 2008 [Shortly after Obama and his EPA started making life miserable for American Businesses], NASCAR announced

As NASCAR develops an industry-wide initiative to address the environment, the sanctioning body has taken an even bigger step in hiring Dr. Mike Lynch to head up a new Green initiative.

“Mike will be developing and coordinating an industry strategy to ensure we are embracing green as an opportunity for all of us,” said NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France. “He’ll be working with teams, tracks, and our partners to develop and environmental plan that’s right for the sport and all its partners, one that can include and mobilize our fan base in this important issue.”

I believe , as the old story relates, that this is Nascar’s attempt to ensure that the tiger would eat them last.

If they replaced Nascars with Chevy Volts, the Daytona 500 would last a month.

When Idolatry Ends

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

There’s trouble in paradise.

Young Democrats are beginning to revolt against the socialist strategy of President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

ABCnews.go.com has the story:

The Obama campaign is in full damage-control mode one day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker publicly derided Democrats’ assault on presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney over his record at Bain Capital.

Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod today publicly rebuked Booker, a popular and high-profile surrogate for the campaign, saying he was “just wrong.”

“I love Cory Booker. He’s a great mayor. If I were, if my house was on fire, I’d hope he were my next door neighbor,” Axelrod said on MSNBC, referring to Booker’s rescue of a neighbor last month.

“I agree with what he said later. I think this was a legitimate area for discussion,” Axelrod said of Booker’s subsequent comments clarifying the issue.

As for the criticism that the Team Obama’s Bain attack is part of “nauseating” political discourse with which Booker has become “very uncomfortable,” Axelrod said, “on this particular instance he was just wrong.”

Booker is not the only Democrat to question the aggressive, negative portrayal of Romney’s work in private equity. Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said today he agreed with “the substance” of Booker’s comments and “would not have backed out.”

“I agree with him, private equity is not a bad thing. Matter of fact, private equity is a good thing in many, many instances,” the Democrat said in a separate appearance on MSNBC earlier in the day.

Former Obama administration economic adviser Steven Rattner made similar comments last week, calling a new Obama campaign TV ad attacking Romney’s role in the bankruptcy of a Bain-owned steel company “unfair.”

“Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to create profits for its investors,” Rattner said. ”‘It did it superbly well, acting within the rules, acting very responsibly. … This is part of capitalism, this is part of life. I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.”

Republicans have been gleeful with the apparent divide among Democrats over the portrayal of Romney’s Bain days. The Romney campaign produced a web video – “Big Bain Backfire” – highlighting the comments, while the Republican National Committee purchased ads on Twitter to play up the Booker flap.

“President Obama’s attacks on free enterprise have triggered a backlash among many, even among those in his own party,” Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said. “With no record to run on, it is no surprise that the Obama campaign has resorted to misleading attacks that have been disavowed by its own supporters.”

Very true.

However, Amanda, are you guys ready for the Obama Campaign to start attacking Mitt’s Mormonism?

Here is an example from washingtonpost.com:

On the wildflower-studded slopes of the Ozarks, where memories run long and family ties run thick, a little-known and long-ago chapter of history still simmers.

On Sept. 11, 1857, a wagon train from this part of Arkansas met with a gruesome fate in Utah, where most of the travelers were slaughtered by a Mormon militia in an episode known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Hundreds of the victims’ descendants still populate these hills and commemorate the killings, which they have come to call “the first 9/11.”

Many of the locals grew up hearing denunciations of Mormonism from the pulpit on Sundays, and tales of the massacre from older relatives who considered Mormons “evil.”

“There have been Fancher family reunions for 150 years, and the massacre comes up at every one of them,” said Scott Fancher, 58, who traces his lineage back to 26 members of the wagon train, which was known as the Fancher-Baker party. “The more whiskey we drunk, the more resentful we got.”

There aren’t many places in America more likely to be suspicious of Mormonism — and potentially more problematic for Mitt Romney, who is seeking to become the country’s first Mormon president. Not only do many here retain a personal antipathy toward the religion and its followers, but they also tend to be Christian evangelicals, many of whom view Mormonism as a cult.

And yet, there is scant evidence that Romney’s religion is making much difference in how voters here are thinking about the presidential election and whether they are willing to back the former Massachusetts governor.

“I think the situation right now is more anti-Obama than any other situation,” said Dave Hoover, chairman of the Carroll County Republicans.

It is impossible to know how Romney’s faith will play out in the November election. Polls point to a persistent skepticism about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and not just among evangelical Christians. Thirty-five percent of Americans in a Bloomberg News poll in March said they had an unfavorable view of the church, while 29 percent had a favorable view.

But it may not have a major impact on their vote: Eight out of 10 Republicans and Democrats said Romney’s faith was not a major reason to support or oppose him, according to an April Washington Post-ABC News poll. And a recent study by the Brookings Institution found that Romney’s religion may actually increase his support from conservative voters, including white evangelicals.

Indeed, many here say their political values will be more important to their vote than religion or history. A rural and deeply religious community, many cite the cultural issues of abortion and gun rights as foremost on their minds. The weak economy has deepened their dislike of President Obama, who received less than 40 percent of the vote in Arkansas in 2008.

The thing is, the Democrats and their propaganda arm, the Main Stream Media, have cried wolf on behalf of Obama so many times, the American public simply doesn’t believe them anymore….and it looks like members of their own political party are sharing America’s disbelief.

What a shame.   Sho’ ’nuff hate it for ’em.

It is too bad that you can’t see this Cheshire Cat grin I am wearing as I write this.