Our Department of Defense has lost its mind under the leadership of Barack Obama and his Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta. They are systematically wrecking the United States military, and there’s really only one possible reason for that. Now, due to the complaint of a 14yo Muslim student who wanted to be able to wear her Hijab while parading in uniform, the Defense Department is modifying its policies to permit the wearing of the religious headgear. This is an absurd finding by the DoD, and it threatens the entire purpose of the concept of “uniforms.” Of course, the truth is that the DOD has been encouraging this in Afghanistan, making our female soldiers cover up in accordance with Islamic tradition.
For now, this applies only to the Junior Reserve Officers Training Course(JROTC) cadets, but it’s clear where this is headed. It will not be long before we see US service members permitted to wear the hijab also, and this will be the beginning of the end of the United States military as an effective fighting force.
The whole point of a military uniform is to standardize the clothing of service members. The reason for the standardization is not only for utilitarian purposes, but also for the same reason players on a sports team wear the same uniform: Simple recognition. What do you suppose would cause greater confusion for soldiers on a battlefield in, for instance, Afghanistan, than to permit some to wear the hijab? The other function of a uniform is to have a single standard to which the wearers can repair. Think of it as a dress code taken to the ultimate extreme, by which individuality is forbidden except where it serves a purely military purpose, such as insignia of rank.
With such an allowance made for JROTC cadets, it is only a matter of time before this moves into ROTC, the service academies, and ultimately, our war-fighting forces. There can be no way to preserve military discipline and permit this social engineering to continue. In logic, one cancels out the other, so that if this is to be permitted, there will be no way to effectively preserve military discipline over the long run.
When I served in uniform, it was said that the uniform changes the wearer into one more part of the whole, but by permitting the wearing of the hijab, what is effectively accomplished is to destroy the whole. I strongly condemn this action on the part of the DoD, and I will write my representative about it. This nonsensical approach to military uniform regulations must be stopped. When you sign up, you agree to be bound by regulations, and whether you’re a commissioned officer, an enlistee, or a cadet, that’s simply part of the deal. After all, you’re not there to serve your own purposes and agenda, and you’re not there for your own comfort or the spread of your own ideas.
The Obama administration has long been favorable to the destruction of the US military as a fighting organization able to carry out its duties in defense of this nation. This ruling by the DoD merely extends the question: “Why?” I now believe the answer is simple enough to understand: Reduce the US military to a social experiment until none will enlist or apply at its academies, and make of us a neutered nation, unable to defend itself and its interests around the globe.
In my view, that’s precisely what Obama wants, and nothing else will do.
This is a crying shame, and conservatives ought to be weeping, while Tea Party patriots ought to be throwing a fit. John Boehner has managed to lead the House Republicans directly into the jaws of yet another defeat, and in the end, when he surrendered, he did so because losing is all Boehner really knows how to do. The Republicans in Congress capitulated to Barack Obama and Harry Reid again on the matter of the payroll tax cut extension. House Republicans didn’t learn the lesson of 2006, so a mere five years later, they still think they can conduct themselves as candidates throughout their terms, considering only short-run political expedience. The problem with GOP leaders in the House is that each time they go to the mat, but then subsequently cry uncle, they’re harming themselves and the country. This so-called compromise was nothing but a surrender that merely weakens the Republicans, but more importantly, the country.
John Boehner suffers from an inability to lead. He simply doesn’t understand leadership, or he’s not intellectually vigorous enough to exercise it. Either way, he’s a perpetual loser, and we shouldn’t dare hope he will accomplish anything useful during the term of this Congress. Consider him either intellectually or morally incapacitated, and save yourself some trouble fretting over the endless string of defeats House Republicans will suffer because John Boehner doesn’t know how or isn’t willing to lead.
In this context, leadership would have meant sending his members out to have town hall meetings, and to send them forward to every media outlet on which they could find time, and make the case first to their own core of support, and get their buy-in followed by a more active support. Instead, Boehner sat back and waited for it to happen, and he knew it would, but it’s fair to say he helped engineer this defeat. He’s bent upon the notion of trying to restore order within his caucus, and he’s willing to become minority leader to do so.
This latest flap was more than political circus, but that’s how it has been portrayed, and given the surrender of the Republicans, that’s how history will now record it. The truth is that big issues had been at stake, but due to a little bad press, the Republicans wet their collective diaper and ran home. Boehner will offer that this happened because they’re only “one-half of one-third of the government.” The facts suggest otherwise. Did he try to rally the conservative base? Did he seek out support in such ‘friendly media’ where his own declarations haven’t already poisoned those wells? No. He stayed in the back rooms, smoke-filled no longer, and had his head handed to him on a silver platter. He knew it was coming, and indeed, he invited it.
The first thing he did to invite this had been every previous surrender going at least as far back as the debt ceiling vote, when he actually worked on a backroom deal with Reid to undercut the House bill known as “Cut, Cap, & Balance.” From that moment on, Democrats knew they had a patsy who would do anything to avoid a little negative press. In the end, he and his Republican members must now share in the blame for the credit rating downgrade we suffered as a result. Had he instead remained willing to let everything shut down, he might have forestalled the downgrade, because the rating agency might have concluded at least one party had gotten serious about budget control. Politically, he would have taken a hit in the short run, but the truth of the matter is that Democrats would have relented once their base started screaming loudly, or rioting, because they had not gotten their hand-outs on time. There’s no sense making a stand if you’re going to fold at the first sign that somebody’s calling your bluff.
Democrats read Boehner’s moves as clear telegraphing of a bluff, and they called without blinking. Ever since then, the Obama looks at Boehner and thinks: “There’s my b*t*h.” The tears certainly don’t help with that impression. Since that first monumental cave-in, each subsequent instance has been repeated, only more quickly, each time with with less pressure than the last, as conservative and Tea Party members of the caucus are now demoralized. They see things slipping away, much as they did in 2005-2006, and it’s all for lack of effective, committed leadership.
On this basis, I have written a letter I am sending to my own member, and I want from him a pledge to support somebody other than Boehner and his crew for leadership, whether they maintain the majority in 2012 or not. The way things are going with Boehner, you’d better plan on “not.” As it is, due to his vote on the Debt Ceiling matter, I am already eying potential primary challengers for my own Representative. If he’s going to continue to support the sorry leadership of John Boehner, it’s best to get rid of him, too.
Now, for those of you who weren’t paying attention, let me explain what has happened: The House approved a version of the extension much to the liking of the Senate, and it does not include the Keystone XL pipeline provision, meaning tens of thousands of jobs and a fresh conduit for oil will not be had by Americans any time soon. While you must certainly lay the greater portion of blame on the actions of Obama and Reid, the truth is that Boehner shares in this too.
I realize some will say “but, but, he’s right: Without the Senate, what could he do?” The answer is always the same: Stand on principle. Be willing to take the bad press. Be willing. The problem is that this sort of thing makes its own bad press that goes on long after the terms of surrender were signed. You see, when Boehner plays brinksmanship, but then walks away with nothing, it gives ammo to the opposition that this had only been a political game. This is why the Republicans took a beating from Bill Clinton in 1995: They ultimately flinched first in this game of chicken, making it look for all the world as though they had been merely posturing right along.
Instead, had Boehner rallied every member of the House Republican caucus to stand firm, and held out indefinitely, shutting down government, they could have gone to voters saying: We had to be the responsible party, and we had to put our foot down against irresponsible and reckless spending proclivities of the President and the Senate. The people who would have been angry at them would likely have been people other than who had elected them. If they can’t withstand some bad press now, when will it be better? If they will not stand on principle now, when the country is on the verge of a greater depression, if not in it, when will they find the guts to do it?
The answer: Never. John Boehner and his kind are so consumed by holding onto power, and holding onto office, that they cannot dare to risk it all in order to stand for the principles on which they were elected. One begins to wonder if this is because they’re not hip-deep in all of the crony capitalism and insider trading about which we’ve been hearing, because it’s not as though House members have it so good solely on the basis of their salaries and benefits. One quickly begins to wonder if the monetary inducements to hold office aren’t greater in fact than appears on the surface, because I do not think I could trade my principles for the salary they’re paid. No, there must be something more to it, or these are the most morally corruptible people on the planet.
It’s time we hold them to their promises, and the principles they declare while campaigning. For me, that’s going to entail spelling it out for my own representative. I’d suggest you do the same, but what we had better do is say it, and mean it, lest they get the same idea about us as Democrats now have about them and their lack of spine.
Last month, I reported on the story of Michelle Obama being booed and jeered at the NASCAR season finale. Leftists were aghast, and they couldn’t understand why people would criticize the First Lady. In the end, liberals concluded it is merely because the fans of NASCAR are a bunch of inbred red-necks. Thursday, the Washington Post is reporting that Michelle Obama has taken off for Hawaii on a vacation as the President stays behind to “deal with the spending bill.” This should offer clarity to those leftists who wonder about the reason for the reaction to Michelle Obama last month: The First Lady has taken that unofficial title to heart to the extent that she now conducts herself as royalty. The the rigors of her husband’s office shouldn’t interfere with her vacation plans, after all. It’s this arrogance that promotes the kind of reception she had at the NASCAR event in Florida, and it should come as no surprise to any that she might find herself on the receiving end of some booing.
If the First Lady is going to make these sorts of trips ahead of her husband(she did the same thing over the Labor Day weekend break,) I think she needs to pay more for the benefit. In a recent trip to South Africa, she listed her daughters as “senior staff,” ostensibly to cover the billing for expenses. This sort of thing has led the American people to conclude the Obamas are out of touch in every dimension. As I’ve said previously, it’s clear who are the real “bitter clingers.” As the President does everything he can to constrict the production and use of energy by the American people, he and his wife spend jet-fuel like water. I wonder if Air Force One will be burning the same $16/gallon bio-fuel replacement for JP5 they’ve forced the Navy to purchase in order to pay back a political friend. Somehow, I doubt it. Leftists shouldn’t wonder why Michelle was booed. It’s self-evident.
Politico is reporting the results of a Gallup survey in which it was found that 64% of Americans, essentially the same percentage that opposes Obamacare, believe big government represents the biggest threat to the American people, ahead of corporations(26%) and big labor(8%.) Myself, while I find this encouraging, I think the survey should have added a couple of categories. Myself, I’d have thrown “big media” into the mix. That aside, the thing to learn from this survey is that the American people view government as the problem, and they’re right. This is a near-record level of fears about the size of government, and most astonishing is how many Democrats and Independents now see government as a looming threat.
This may be Barack Obama’s biggest vulnerability in 2012. It’s clear that an overwhelming majority of Americans see big government as the problem, and nobody is more thoroughly big-government than President Obama. Looking closely at the numbers, what becomes clear is that the biggest shift has come among Democrats, who usually see big business as the greater threat. In just the last two years, that has shifted markedly, with a plurality of Democrats now judging government the bigger threat.
Nobody is surprised when a majority of Republicans find big government to pose the most imposing threat of the three categories, but it’s astonishing to see that more Democrats now worry about big government than even about big business. You can bet that over at the White House, these numbers are making some folks cringe. It means that this coming election year, a truly conservative message may well be significantly more popular with voters in general, and this holds out some hope that if Republicans can nominate an actual conservative, they may capture the White House in grand fashion.
I think the writing is on the wall. If the Republicans can get their act together, they have a great opportunity in 2012, because all in all, voters have grown sick of Obama, and are worried about the kind of government he is building. This poll merely buttresses that assessment.
As if we hadn’t already known it, one of Obama’s college cohorts has come forward to say that Barack Obama had indeed been a radical, full-bore communist. While none of this may be particularly surprising to those of us who have paid attention to Obama’s development as a presidential candidate going at least as far back as his 2004 Democrat Convention speech, I suspect the average American may not have the slightest idea just how thoroughly radical their President’s credentials really are. This owes to the media that has covered for him, rather than covering him, both in looking at his history and in examining his friends and associations. Having watched this administration in action for nearly three years, more Americans are realizing something is wrong with President Obama’s view of the country, of values, and of the world in which we live. What John Drew offers is a bit of insight into the nature of Barack Obama’s real beliefs and intentions.
Well, consider the words of John Drew, a man whom writer Paul Kengor calls “Obama’s Missing Link.” A contemporary of Obama’s at Occidental College three decades ago, Drew says that he himself was a Marxist at the time — and part of Obama’s inner circle. And what does he reveal?
Obama was an “ardent” “Marxist-Leninist” who “was in 100 percent, total agreement with [his] Marxist professors,” said Drew.In fact, Drew states that while he was a more nuanced Marxist who tried to convince Obama that old-style communist revolution was unrealistic in the West, the future President would have none of it and considered Drew a “reactionary.”
“Reactionary?” That’s typical Marxist lingo, but as some have offered, he was younger then, and of course he might have been a good deal more radical in his youth than as he matured. What is the evidence that this has been the case? After all, among his first round of appointments were a crowd of Marxists and communists that would have made “Uncle Joe” proud. Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren, and Samantha Powers(Sunstein’s wife) come immediately to mind, but there are many more. As Van Jones admitted publicly, you have to “drop the radical pose to achieve the radical ends.”
I’m certain that this bunch of Alinskyite radicals has done precisely that, and Obama most of all. As I explained in examining Obama’s pro-socialism speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, this president believes the left-wing propaganda. One bit of information that has turned up since that speech is that the Weather Underground had its own newspaper back in the 1970s, called Osawatomie. No kidding. If you visit the site where this is detailed, you’ll find that much of the jargon and lingo of Obama’s 2008 campaign and his presidency is repeated here. The point? He’s a true believer, a man committed on principle to destroying the United States as we have known it. The key to understanding this is what Drew actually said about his commitment: He believes an “old-style communist revolution” is a possibility in the US. Consider that statement, and all it implies, and then remember that Bill Ayers was among those who were planning just such a revolution, and as early as the 1970s, were imagining how to kill off the estimated 25 million people who would not peaceably submit.
I submit to you that if it was your intention to have an old-style communist revolution, if you could capture ruling power by any means, you would be able to wreak havoc on any nation, its economy, and its people, and the reason to do so would be to splinter the civil society into warring factions, or to exploit such factions as may already have existed, and magnify them. Any nation is ripe for revolution when its people are sufficiently primed, and dissatisfaction is the best way to prime them. Obama’s policies are surely driving greater dissatisfaction as the prices of food and fuel skyrocket, the value of the dollar plummets, and real unemployment is at greater than 16%, and by some calculations, substantially higher. The nature of statist revolutions requires calamity, catastrophe, and emergencies, under the auspices of which governments extend their control.
When writing his memoirs, Herbert Hoover characterized collectivist revolutionaries’ actions this way:
“Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of “Emergency”. It was a tactic of Lenin, Hitler and Mussolini… The invasion of New Deal Collectivism was introduced by this same Trojan horse.” – Hoover’s Memoirs: The Great Depression 1929-1941
What Hoover identified is the ultimate methodology upon which collectivist demagogues naturally rely: The emergency. Under emergencies, whether actual or fictional, governments rely upon the extraordinary power to suspend liberties and natural rights, and to otherwise violate laws it is ordinarily sworn to uphold. Barack Obama is setting us up for just such an event. What do you suppose is the purpose of the Occupiers? Their role is to make the American people call upon their government for aid. These poor useful idiots, most of them, are too blind to see that they will be the first people sacrificed in the name of such an emergency.
It’s time to face the full horrors of what Obama’s presidency holds in store. Most of us are accustomed to believing that “it couldn’t happen here,” but the truth is that it is happening here. It’s time we put a stop to it, and defeating Obama in 2012 is just the start.
I’ve got news for some of you: It still doesn’t. Of course, things have changed somewhat since this cartoon was first made, two decades before my birth, but since a friend provided me a link to it, I thought you’d like to see it because after all, it’s a classic, and because it should serve as a reminder of what we’re really fighting in this election season. It’s time to concentrate on Dr. Utopia and his snake-oil. I know, it’s difficult to think about such things while we’re caught up in the latest details of candidates’ sex lives, but take a break from that blood-sport. Enjoy!
Isn’t it funny that when this was made, Americans driving 70% of the world’s cars was still seen as a good thing? Yes, I want that country back. On the other hand, I can’t help but think of the current president’s spokesman assuring us “Everything is fine.”
In 1911, Theodore Roosevelt began his second campaign for President. Having retired from the presidency in 1909, Roosevelt tried to capture the the Republican nomination in 1912, because he was angry with President William Taft, who had served under Roosevelt as Secretary of War, and had been Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor. Failing this, he decided instead to run as the candidate of the Progressive Party. That party is more commonly remembered by Americans as the “Bull Moose Party,” because upon surviving an assassination attempt, Roosevelt announced he was “as fit as a Bull Moose.” I prefer to drop that label, and focus instead on what the Progressive Party really was: A National Socialist Party that was subsequently rejected by the American people, but in 1912, resulted in a split in the Republican Party that handed the election to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, a Socialist. It’s useful to understand the political parties of the time in evaluating the 2012 election, because if the past is prologue, what we may be seeing now is merely a global re-run of the worst parts of the 20th century.
A National Health Service to include all existing government medical agencies.
Social insurance, to provide for the elderly, the unemployed, and the disabled
Limited injunctions in strikes
An eight hour workday
A federal securities commission
Farm relief
An inheritance tax
A Constitutional amendment to allow a Federal income tax
These may sound familiar to you because all of them have become law in some form or fashion. These may also sound familiar to you because these were the same ideas on which Woodrow Wilson substantially campaigned. In fact, with the progressives under the flag of the Republican party in Congress, the progressives in both parties succeeded in putting this agenda through, and Wilson was only too happy to oblige. In short, the “Bull Moose” Party consisted of the RINOs of their day. They were the barely disguised fifth column of the main socialist political formation, and they managed to convince enough Americans unaware of their designs to aid them in implementing the first steps in converting our country from a Constitutional republic into a Socialist democracy.
Ask yourself this: How many of the current Republican candidates support the list of measures above? After nearly a century, the answer is: Almost all modern Republicans accept most of the ideas outlined in the platform of the Progressive party of 1912. So what was the difference, in 1912, between the Democrat progressives, and the Republican progressives? The Democrat progressives were the US equivalent of European Communists who came to dominate Russia. The Republican progressives were effectively the same as the National Socialists that would rise to prominence in Germany. They were both brands of statism, as I’ve discussed previously.
Weigh this against our current situation. Today, many conservatives look at Romney, or Gingrich, compare them with Obama and are frequently led to ask: What’s the difference between leftist progressives and so-called “right-wing” progressives? The truth is that just like in 1912, the differences are few, and you will note with some disappointment that Woodrow Wilson was able to implement most of the planks of the socialist platform outlined above because he had the support of a large number of progressive Republicans who were just enough to rule the day together with Democrats in Congress. If this sounds familiar when considering Speaker Boehner, and the rest of the Republican sell-outs in our current House GOP leadership, you’re spot on. The differences between today’s progressive Republicans and 1912′s “Bull Moose” Party are essentially nonexistent. When you realize that certain powerful players financed both the Bull Moose and Republican parties in 1912, not as a political insurance policy as is so common these days, but in order to keep them at odds, and thus effectively keeping them at rough parity, giving the election to Democrats. You can bet that this is what is being done in the US at present.
The progressives have always used their friends in the Republican party to undermine conservatives. This is not a new tactic or practice, and in this sense, Ross Perot was much the same thing, with his runs in ’92 and ’96. Those of you who believe the establishment wing of the Republican party would rather see Barack Obama elected than to let conservatives into power must understand that this would not be the first time such things have happened in electoral process in the United States.
This is done for no other reason than to prevent the rise of a populist conservative in the Republican party. The progressive would win every election if they could, and they do their level best to carry that out, rigging both parties with firmly progressive candidates. That way, while they would prefer the Democrat progressive, the very worst outcome they expect to see is a Republican progressive. You and I are the rabble to be kept in line with appeals to patriotism, faith, and unity.
In 1992, Ross Perot arose to run on behalf of the “volunteers,” who were roughly analogous to the Tea Party today. He was doing so well at one point that he suspended his campaign, which was enough to prevent him from winning, but not enough to allow Bush to win: He still siphoned off enough of the electorate to give Bill Clinton a plurality. It worked so well that in 1996, they brought him back for a second round. Dole was a weak candidate, but Clinton had significant problems, so a little insurance was needed. Once again, Bill Clinton failed to achieve a majority of the popular vote, winning with a plurality instead. While not as stark as in 1992, it was clear that without Perot in the race, there was at least some chance Bob Dole could have won.
You might ask what any of this has to do with Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. My answer to you is that conservatives are being set up again. The progressives aren’t finished, and they intend to win in 2012 irrespective of the Republican Party primaries. Enter Americans Elect. As I’ve explained before, Americans Elect is a group that is seeking to put a candidate on the ballot in all fifty states in 2012. They’ve not yet picked a candidate, who will be picked later on-line, but this candidate will almost certainly seek to appeal to the disaffected Tea Party types. The purpose of that candidacy will not be to win, but to divide the center-right and allow Obama to be re-elected. Their candidate will pose as the modern-day variant of the “Bull Moose” party, and in many ways, it will be. Be prepared for this to play out. Increasingly, you may notice the Americans Elect ads on sites around the Internet.
All of this is contrived. I see no way to overcome the progressives of either party in the 2012 election without some radical new thinking about our remaining choices. Mitt Romney is currently attacking Newt Gingrich as not being conservative. This is roughly akin to a singularity calling the kettle “black.” While Newt certainly has his warts, Willard has more. The conservative base generally recognizes this, which accounts for Gingrich’s meteoric climb since the beginning of Cain’s fall. Conservatives and Tea Party folk are looking for a real conservative, and while they are forced to overlook many flaws in Gingrich to see him as a conservative, they look at Romney and see what has been widely described in conservative circles as “Obama Lite.” No conservative wants to vote for such a prospect, and that they’re willing to turn to Gingrich speaks volumes about their displeasure with Romney.
As this blog has reported, many of these same conservatives and Tea Party patriots would have preferred Sarah Palin to the lot of those still now in the race. The reason for the ups and downs of the primary season thus far is largely due to the fact that conservatives are seeking a single candidate upon which they can all agree. They look around the party, and they notice flawed candidates, and while no candidate is ever perfect, they simply see little to recommend in the ones now offered. The worst part is: They’re right.
If you think conservatives are being set up, I have a suspicion you’re right. Karl Rove is still out there stirring the pot, and whether he’s a Romney guy, or he’s banking on some late entry, he’s not finished either. He represents the same progressive wing of the Republican party, so there’s little doubt but that where Rove is, trouble can’t be far behind.
Beware the “Bull Moose” or any reasonable facsimile thereof. Be sure that a late entry isn’t designed to lead you to slaughter. The progressive wing of the Republican party isn’t a friend to conservatives, never mind Tea Party folk, and while I have no advice to offer you on candidates to support, I nevertheless remain convinced that the progressives of the Republican party would rather assure Obama’s victory than to let an actual conservative win. It now falls to you to decipher who that may be. Progressives favor progressives, and they stick together irrespective of party. The Republican progressive view themselves as the “loyal opposition,” and in this you should recognize with which ideology their loyalties lie. It isn’t free market capitalism. It isn’t conservatism.
Has our economy been so bad, for so long, that it has caused the flow of illegal aliens into the US from Mexico to a trickle? That is the supposition of a Washington Post article, and while they point to other obvious factors such as the new laws in Arizona and Alabama, they find a way to dig a positive out of Obama’s poor job on the economy, while also suggesting this is the time for that “immigration reform” (a.k.a. “amnesty”) that the establishment has been trying to foist on Americans for some time. One of the other things about which they do not conjecture is that under Obama, ICE has been ordered to make fewer arrests via an executive order implementation of some aspects of the “Dream Act.” I find the entire matter to be of questionable merit, in part because the Washington Post has a history of trying to conceal this president’s failures, or find a silver lining to every towering storm-cloud that attends Obama’s performance as president, but also because this administration has failed the American people at every turn.
Naturally, the article documents this as a substantiation of Obama’s success:
The lower number of apprehensions supports the Obama administration’s contention that the border is more secure than ever — that the doubling of Border Patrol agents since 2004, along with hundreds of miles of new fence, cameras, lights, sensors and Predator drones, has helped slow the illegal flow northward.
I have reason to doubt the Obama administration’s efforts as the cause of the reductions claimed in this article, unless we consider the reasoning at which the writers finally arrive on page 2 of the article. There, the Post reveals the biggest driver of the reduction:
“The arrests on the border are moving like the U.S. economic cycle,” said Juan Luis Ordaz, senior economist for the Bancomer Foundation. Ordaz and colleagues say Mexican and U.S. data suggest that the number of Mexican migrants arriving each year in the United States has been cut in half since 2005 — and that poverty rates for Mexican migrants living in the United States have grown to 30 percent from 22 percent in 2007.
Especially hard hit in the economic downturn — and the busting of the real estate bubble — were the home-building and construction industries, which employ an outsize number of illegal workers. “Migration has decreased because employment opportunities in the United States are not good. Fewer migrants have full-time jobs. Hours are reduced. Wages are lower. The amount of money they send home is less,” said German Vega of the College of the North in Tijuana. “And another reason is organized crime.”
So you see, even when Obama fails, he’s a winner, according to the post. It’s small wonder that conservatives and Tea Party folk see the establishment media as a bankrupt source of information. The truth of this article, like most we get from the so-called “mainstream media” is contained on the second page, if its fully reported at all. In any event, this case points out just how bad our economy really remains, despite all the nonsense about “jobless recovery” and the other happy-talk with which the Obama administration has tried to swindle the American people. That illegal immigration may be down for the moment is great, but the cause of it has nothing to do with the allegedly ceaseless efforts of this administration, but instead much more to do with the fact that the economy has yet to recover. I’m certain that my readers will be as impressed by this bit of news as I have been. Simply consider that we could have four more years ofthis…
Ann Barnhardt has run her grain and livestock brokerage for years, but now, she’s “Going Galt.” This reminds me very much of the character “Midas Mulligan” from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and it’s no coincidence that she has chosen this moment to shut down her company. After years of watching the Obama administration and its cronies looting the capital markets, Barnhardt has made the moral decision to shut down operation since in the current environment, she can no longer safeguard her clients’ capital against the predatory tendencies of this administration, and its henchmen in the markets. As I have told you before, this is being done intentionally: Our country is being destroyed by design.
Apparently, Ms. Barnhardt is the first courageous broker to say this flatly, and to make plain that she no longer has confidence in the rule of law since the federal government now makes it up as it goes along. In such an environment, nobody can do business, because every transaction is subject to the whimsical prerogatives of government bureaucrats, and nothing is certain. If contracts have no meaning, because they will not be enforced, and if government can reach back in time to retroactively steal funds, there is no safe market anywhere any longer.
Rather than tell you what Ms. Barnhardt said, I’m going to provide her notice completely:
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST
Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.
The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.
Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.
I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg. There is massive industry-wide exposure to European sovereign junk debt. While other firms may not be as heavily leveraged as Corzine had MFG leveraged, and it is now thought that MFG’s leverage may have been in excess of 100:1, they are still suicidally leveraged and will likely stand massive, unmeetable collateral calls in the coming days and weeks as Europe inevitably collapses. I now suspect that the reason the Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not immediately step in to backstop the MFG implosion was because they knew and know that if they backstopped MFG, they would then be expected to backstop all of the other firms in the system when the failures began to cascade – and there simply isn’t that much money in the entire system. In short, the problem is a SYSTEMIC problem, not merely isolated to one firm.
Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.
And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.
Remember, derivatives contracts are NOT NECESSARY in the commodities markets. The cash commodity itself is the underlying reality and is not dependent on the futures or options markets. Many people seem to have gotten that backwards over the past decades. From Abel the animal husbandman up until the year 1964, there were no cattle futures contracts at all, and no options contracts until 1984, and yet the cash cattle markets got along just fine.
Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.
To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.
As for me, I can only echo the words of David:
“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”
With Best Regards-
Ann Barnhardt
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it: This is a sign of the end of our way of life as we have known it. When diligent people assess the state of the country, the government, and the law, arriving at the conclusion that there is no basis for confidence in any of these, and making the moral choice to cease doing business, you are looking at the end of a civilization. We have known for more than a century that the statists would use our own financial markets, our banks, and our commodity markets against us as the trigger for total collapse, but now that day has arrived. Ms. Barnhardt’s courage in stating the truth should be commended, but her most important points must be understood in the context of a woman who has stopped. She has refused to participate in a market dominated by looting, graft, corruption, and lawlessness, where government does nothing to uphold law, and instead merely makes law on any basis it decides, by dictates.
I am proud of Ms. Barnhardt, and for those who think she has quit, I would say to you that she hasn’t quit. She’s made the moral choice that one cannot deal in a market without laws and without fixed, predictable rules that will hold up in all conditions. Put another way, imagine sitting in at a game of Blackjack, where the dealer makes up the rules, or changes them, without any rhyme or reason except to take more of your money. How long would you remain at such a table? What Ms. Barnhardt has done here is to tell the dealer to shove it. I don’t blame her. She’s my new hero, and I can only hope men and women of courage throughout the market will now join her.
I looked at my calendar, and it’s not April 1st, but it might as well be April 15th. The Tax Man arrives in a red suit, with a twinkle in his eyes, but that isn’t old Saint Nick. It’s Barack Obama, and this absurd man and his merry band of elves over at the Department of Agriculture have cooked up another new board to manage your lives, and help you appreciate Christmas trees by improving their image. This is not a joke. It should be, but it’s not. Yes, Christmas tree producers will now pay a 15% surcharge on all of their tree sales, which they are of course going to pass along to tree buyers. The good news is this will only apply to producers who sell five hundred or more trees per year. Hurrah! More class envy, now among tree producers! Don’t worry, it’s all in keeping with the spirit of the season.
The Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board, the purpose of which is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). It’s all designed to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).
Do you believe this? Other than in the Obama White House, I wasn’t aware there had been a problem with the image of Christmas trees. For most Americans, I believe, the whole notion of the Christmas tree is rather a fun and happy tradition with which most associate things like family gatherings, family togetherness, giving, and sharing. I’m not sure the image of Christmas trees has ever been in question amongst the American people, but this sounds suspiciously like a tax, and or a hand-out to somebody, dressed in the guise of government help to an industry that has been slowly losing business to its artificial competitors. What we really need to know is who in Obama’s cabinet or among his contributors owns a Christmas tree farm somewhere.
This all raises another question: Will they be applying this fee to artificial trees too? It seems not, so it now begs the question: Will this be the basis for a move to extend government power to cover artificial trees too? Surely, that’s outside the purview of the Agriculture Department, since artificial trees are not grown, but manufactured. Will this create an opportunity for the producers of Christmas trees to claim they are being unfairly singled out?
Why do we need such a board? It sounds like just another way to create yet one more government commission or board that will provide jobs for a full-time staff and probably perquisites for members who will be buddies and pals of the Ag Secretary, or political contributors to this President. Will this wind up staffed by members of the Muslim brotherhood? Since this is specifically about “Christmas trees,” can non-Christians serve on the board? Surely, this violates something or other with respect to the much ballyhooed “wall of separation” between Church and state. Surely, this is a form of “respecting an establishment of religion,” a.k.a., Christendom. The other question is: Will they also go after the producers of prayer rugs with a similar fee? Somehow, I doubt it.
Mark my word: No good can possibly come of this. You can read more of the particulars of this ridiculous “fee” here, at the Heritage Foundation Website. Nobody can convince me that this administration doesn’t hate America.
The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”
This is perfect. It’s precisely what you’d expect from this president whose policies have demonstrated an enmity toward Israel, but toward Netanyahu particularly. It’s disgusting. Sarkozy has been a questionable character all along, and now Obama complains that he has to deal with Netanyahu daily. Of course, given the way Netanyahu educated Obama at a joint press conference earlier this year, I suppose I can understand why Obama can’t stand him. Netanyahu schooled Obama, unflinchingly.
The Washington Examiner is reporting on the Obama administration’s rejection of a House Energy and Commerce Committee Subpoena for additional documents related to the Solyndra scandal. Apparently, this president is above the rule of law. Congress is carrying out its duty to investigate why tax-payers were effectively robbed of a half-billion dollars under the auspices of a “green energy” initiative. The Obama administration is keen on hiding this entire fiasco, and now that the committee has looked at all the documents from other federal agencies, they need to look at documents related to the case from the White House, but as the administration’s response makes clear, there will be no further cooperation. Clearly, his lawyers don’t believe they must respond to legitimate subpoenas for documents pursuant to the oversight role of Congress. The lawyer is claiming executive privilege on behalf of Obama because the committee vote was along partisan lines, there is no need to answer it:
I want my fellow Americans to remember this. Essentially, what you should understand is that you don’t need to worry about Obamacare, because it was passed by a party-line vote. You needn’t sweat it. Just ignore it. When the federal revenuers come to collect money from you pursuant to Obamacare, you just go ahead and tell them “Hey, I’m sorry, but that was passed by a party-line vote, so no thanks.” See what that gets you. Enjoy your jail cell.
The most important claim made by the Obama’s attorney, Kathryn Ruemmler, is that the committee’s subpoena was “overbroad” and thus interferes with the confidentiality interests of the executive branch. This, from an administration that continues to make claims about its transparency. The problem is that this letter suggests that the party-line nature of the vote is what makes the subpoena invalid, but my question is: Would the intrusions on the executive privileges of the Obama administration be less if this subpoena had been issued by a unanimous vote of the committee? No. They’d still make the same claim. Don’t be fooled by this partisan-ship claim of the president’s attorney. This is all about hiding the truth.
For his part, Committee Chairman Fred Upton responded to this rejection in scathing language:
“We have been reasonable every step of the way in this investigation, and it is a shame that the Obama Administration and House Democrats continue to put up partisan roadblocks to hide the truth from taxpayers. Solyndra was a jobs program gone bad, and we must learn the lessons of Solyndra as we work to turn our economy around and put folks back to work. Our judicious and methodical work over the last eight months has garnered tens of thousands of pages of documents from DOE and OMB that have proven we are on the right track. Now, we need to know the White House’s role in the Solyndra debacle in order to learn the full truth about why taxpayers now find themselves a half billion dollars in the hole. The White House could have avoided the need for subpoena authorizations if they had simply chosen to cooperate. That would have been the route we preferred, and frankly, it would have been better for the White House to get the information out now, rather than continue to drag this out. Our request for documents is reasonable – we are not demanding the President’s blackberry messages as we are respectful of Executive Privilege. What is the West Wing trying to hide? We owe it to American taxpayers to find out.”
This is setting the stage for a conflict between House Republicans and the Obama administration on an unprecedented scale. As usual, the Obama administration is obfuscating, obstructing, and otherwise attempting to thwart this investigation into the scandal arising from their approval of loan guarantees to the now bankrupt Solyndra, because this would likely reveal the depths of the crony capitalism inherent in the green energy initiative.
So what will Congress do if the Obama administration ultimately tells them to pound sand, as it now seems certain to be the case? I suspect with Speaker Boehner’s tepid leadership, nothing will happen, which is why the Obama administration is responding in this manner. They know that Boehner simply won’t call for an impeachment, in part because Boehner will consider it pointless since the Senate will never take action on it, and in part because Boehner is afraid of controversy, and instead simply wishes to get along.
Enough is enough. It’s time that Congress demands the President and his administration comply with the subpoena. As usual, the response to the subpoena came late Friday after most Americans check out on news. The Obama administration is betting that the House of Representatives is a toothless paper tiger. Sadly, with leaders like Boehner and Cantor, they’re likely to have been right in that assessment. Meanwhile, the American people are taking a beating at the hands of this administration, and its corrupt crony capitalism, which hands out favors to friends and big-money donors while stiffing the American people with the bill.
The FCC is going after ministries which broadcast on television. As Politico reports, since 2006, religious broadcasters had been widely exempted from the closed captioning requirement due to expenses involved, but just in time for the 2012 campaign season, those exemptions that had been issued under a much broader interpretation are now being pulled, and religious broadcasters will be forced to re-apply, demonstrating the excessive expense on a case-by-case basis. I am frequently cynical about such things, but since religious broadcasters tend to be Christians more apt to raise moral issues important to Republicans, I suspect this has more to do with politics than any concern for deaf and hard-of-hearing interest groups said to be behind the regulatory move. This is a move against Christian conservatives under the guise of regulating broadcasting.
There will be little you can do about it, but I expect that the Obama administration will use this to silence some broadcasters they find more likely to rouse voters in a conservative direction via their religious teachings. Bet on it.
It’s possible that I could be wrong, but something about what’s happening in the economy leads me to suspect that despite the rosy prognostications of Government bureaucrats, and the even rosier hopes of some market analysts, I don’t think the improved GDP growth numbers for the third quarter are going to mean much for the long-term health of the economy. For one thing, the government has had to revise every quarter downward as they adjust their numbers to better fit reality. These first numbers are raw at best, and propaganda at worst, and may bear little or no resemblance to what is actually going on. For another thing, I’ve noticed a trend, and I suspect you’re going to notice it too. Fuel prices fell with the ugly end of summer, and they’ve recently begun to tick up anew. I suspect this will tell us the direction of the economy in two months or so, if history is a guide.
As I have discussed at length before, our economic prospects are linked to many things, but few are more important to growth than the price of energy. Through the first half of October, gasoline prices fell at the pump because the economy was doing poorly and producing few new businesses. By mid October, the price decline suddenly reversed and we watched the cost per gallon begin to tick upward again. As I have explained ad nauseum, once the prices tick back past the $3.50/gallon boundary on gasoline, or the $4.00 threshold on diesel, you can expect the temporary increase in growth we saw in the end of the 3rd quarter begin to be choked off.
There is always a lag to these things, but what should have offered you the tip on the economy’s underlying condition was when fuel prices began to decline well before Labor Day weekend. That’s a sign of a struggling economy, all else being equal, and it should have been noted with trepidation. I knew the numbers for August were going to be abysmal long before they eventuated. The price of fuel continued to slip, but some time in the last part of the third quarter, we saw a turnaround in growth. The reason is simple: With the prices of fuel in decline, economic activity increased, consumers had more to spend on other things, and we saw a brief uplift. I suspect that as this little bubble grows, the prices of fuels will follow. As they reach higher, they will begin to suck all of the oxygen out of the economic room, once again. When that happens, well, you know the rest.
At the same time all of this was going on, Texas was seeing record heat and a continuing drought(that persists for most of the state even now.) In that period, Texas began to experience rolling brown-outs, and threats of them, as our once enviable electrical grid could no longer support the demand. We’ve had to shut down a number of coal-fired power plants in Texas due to EPA regulations, and with no new plants to replace them, and more plant closures almost certain in the coming year, the prospects are going to worsen. Barack Obama’s obsession with the elimination of coal-fired plants is going to be the death of Texas, but hey, Texans didn’t elect him anyway, so why should he care? This political aspect aside, Rick Perry has been somewhat successful in getting some companies to relocate here, but they’ll find it difficult to function when they can’t turn the lights on.
At the end of it all, it was her superior understanding of this particular facet of the economy that had made me most hopeful Sarah Palin would run for president in 2012. Most politicians are blissfully ignorant of how thoroughly dependent growth is on energy. They will soon discover it if Obama has his way.
Now comes some very realistic analysis to which you should pay close attention. Despite all the assurances of impending improvement, and the ostensibly good news of last week’s Euro-deal, you should still prepare for all of that to collapse. As Liam Halligan reports in the Telegraph, this deal, this latest round of bail-outs offers not much hope of failure. As he rightly points out, with all of these government bail-outs, the natural signaling in the free-market is short-circuited, which means people take actions based on conditions that are largely ore even entirely artificial. It’s much like Treasury forcing all banks to take TARP money during the crisis of 2008, because they realized that by giving assistance funds to some banks, but not to others, they would be signaling which banks were in trouble. Rather than permit depositors to draw their own conclusions, and make rational choices, what they did was to intentionally obscure which banks were healthy and which were not. This sort of tinkering is part of what got us here from the outset.
Halligan’s basic warning boils down to a suggestion that the prideful Euro-set will not accept, but is nevertheless the best advice he could give them: Let Greece default, openly, and boot them from the Euro. Dump Portugal too, says Halligan, because as he points out, it is “absurd” to think of Portugal as having the same monetary stature as Germany. This is what you get when politicians interfere in the markets: Unbridled chaos and fakery, and this is what we are now experiencing. When the Euro-deal fails, as it almost certainly must, Wall Street and markets around the globe will lose all the value they’ve gained in recent weeks, and then some. Mr. Halligan concludes as follows:
“The eurocrats, of course, lack the guts to trim back monetary union to a more manageable size. Too much face would be lost. So “euroquake” fears, once viewed as outlandish, are gaining pace. Despite Thursday’s deal, and all the reassurances of a “durable solution”, the Italian government on Friday paid 6.06pc for 10-year money, up from just 5.86pc a month ago and a euro-era high. Such borrowing costs are disastrous, given that Rome must roll-over €300bn of its €1,900bn debt in 2012 alone. A default by Italy, the eurozone’s third-biggest economy, and the eighth-largest on earth, would make Lehman look like a picnic.”
“The eurozone must be consolidated. World leaders should similarly force European banks to disclose their losses, we all take the hit and then we move on. Instead, we are served-up, in ever more complex variants, the same “extend and pretend” non-solutions. It gives me no pleasure to write this, but I give this deal two weeks.”
Indeed, what Halligan predicts looks bleak, but as he reminds, it needn’t be the case. Just like in our own domestic policies, this is being done by people who are largely ignorant of the workings of markets and the conditions that drive them. The problem is, they always do what politicians have done since the first elections on record: They kick the can down the road hoping for one more postponement. There w ill come a day that such tactics will offer no further hedge, and I suspect it will be sooner rather than later.
This should make your skin crawl and veins bulge in your forehead. It turns out that the US Department of State spent more than $70K on copies of Barack Obama’s decade-old book, Dreams from My Father for global distribution. As has also been revealed the embassy in Indonesia spent $3800 on copies of The Audacity of Hope for similar purposes. This is an astonishing waste of tax-payer dollars, and honestly, I believe that if the government of the United States needed so many copies of these worthless books for the State Department’s global friendship tour for Barack Obama, they should have asked the wealthy author to provide them as a gift. After all, this is the jerk who thinks we should pay more taxes. Well, Mr. Obama, here was your chance to put your money where your mouth was. He could say: “I gave at the office,” and mean it. I wonder how much he makes from the sale of $70K in retail sales of his books. Minus the cost of publishing them, and the publisher’s cut, if it’s even seven dollars, it’s too damned much.
Honestly, I cannot imagine what goes through the heads of the worthless bureaucrats at the State Department. I’d vote for a candidate who promised to fire 90% of the State Department’s employees. I am tired of this, but this case is astonishing. The sad part is that Obama himself may not have known it, or at least he will have had plausible deniability, but in any case, this must be considered some sort of illegal campaign contribution, mustn’t it? Who knows? The laws are so mangled, nobody could make any sense of it anyway. Predictably, there is then this to accentuate the point in the Washington Time Article:
A review of the expenditures in a federal database did not reveal any examples of State Department purchases of books by former Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The purchases of Mr. Obama’s literary work mostly, but not always, took place in the months after Mr. Obama captured the White House.
Shocker! This is another absurd example of what happens when liberals have any power in government. The cronyism and favor-making begins immediately. I’m not suggesting there have been no crooked conservatives, but to be honest, if they are crooked, they’re not really conservatives anyway. I simply detest the statist mindset. I find this sort of thing to be the evidence of how bankrupt these people really are.
Further evidence has begun to mount on Sunday that the “Arab Spring” is merely the prologue to a Sharia Winter. In Tunisia, where all of this really got started earlier this year, Islamists are poised to sweep the elections. It gets better, as in Libya, their new transitional leader says Sharia will rule the country. If that’s not enough, over in Iran, there are now Occupy Wall Street protests. As I told you yesterday, this entire movement has the look and feel of an Obama/Soros operation. Considering the systematic destruction of our national economy, our global influence, military readiness, and the complete breakdown of our society that is unfolding under Obama, we must wonder what we shall do if these people succeed.
To win, they needed to take down America, and they’re well on their way, and at the top of it all, Barack Obama stands with George Soros’ hand up his backside. In what could only be considered a more modern iteration of the book None Dare Call it Treason, this country is being wiped out, and I think it’s time we say so.
What has been the purpose of all of this coordination between the leftists groups from America participating in the Gaza Flotilla, or in the Tahrir Square revolution? What could be the meaning of poking Israel in the eye with the entire September threat of a move by Palestineans for Statehood? I realize that even three years ago, this kind of talk would have gotten somebody branded a conspiracist, but let’s be honest shall we? I believe coincidences exist, and that correlation isn’t necessarily causation, but this is frankly too much to accept on that basis. We have all known for a long time, those who paid any attention, that America was the last best hope for freedom anywhere on Earth. We are now watching it wrecked. It’s not accidental. There’s a reason the Dodd-Frank financial reform act permits certain facts to be kept secret from the American people.
Ordinary people like me are now turning to me and asking “what shall we do?” As one of my loyal readers comments, it’s like from the movie 300: “What can we do?” I have heard a fair number of oaths muttered under the breath of those who have their own solemn answer to the question, but I suppose I have always wondered at what point the American people simply say: “Enough!” What recourse remains? Your President and his party have spit on this country fearlessly for three years. They’re supporting our enemies both at home and abroad. Will you call Congress and demand he be impeached? What will that accomplish? Would the Senate act? Even if it did, what then? Biden? Do you think that useful idiot would do any better or different?
No, I think you’d better prepare to live as slaves. Your masters will be the Occu-Pests, and your children will struggle the length of their stunted lives in support of them and their Marxist agenda. This way, you risk nothing. Let me be brutally honest with you: Some of you haven’t had the intestinal fortitude to face up to friends and family and congregation and neighbor and even state what it is that is transpiring, for fear of ridicule. I know, because I get the e-mails. I have writers telling me: “I don’t even bother with the kids, they are so busy living their lives and watching garbage on TV that they think Jon Stewart is news.” I have grown people who should be the object of respect and reverence in their communities telling me: “Well, you can’t say that in public because somebody will think you’re nuts.” What courage will we have when it comes down to it if now, when we could speak, we instead cower and say nothing?
On the other side of this, I get e-mails from people who tell me how somebody who loved them re-directed them in their thinking as a result of long, heartfelt and frank discussions about what we now face. One young lady wrote to tell me:
“My dad was always pestering me to follow the news. I have a five-month-old baby and a toddler, and I just don’t have the time. My husband works two jobs, and right now, daycare costs more than any job I could get, so I just stay home with my kids. He sent me a link to your story about “Downgraded America” and I read it. I was really bothered by it, but I didn’t know what to think. My dad, you know, he’s always sending me this scary political stuff. Then I went back and read some of your other stories. I talked with my husband about one because he’s interested in some of this stuff, but he doesn’t have time. He looked at me and said “Yea, that’s what’s happening.” The look on his face was like he was letting me in on a secret that I should have known. I am going to learn more about this, and I’m going to talk with some of my friends. None of them are very political. Neither was I, but I have my babies to think about, and I can’t afford not to know what’s going on….”
Ladies and gentlemen, if we’re to stand any chance at all, we can’t have any more secrets, and we can’t fear to state what is. It’s Sunday. It’s a day to repair for the week ahead. It’s a moment of pause before we re-enter the storm. Use it to good purpose. Prepare the ones you love.
It’s typical of the kind of thing you expect to see in an election year with an ailing economy. President Obama is out on the campaign trail, trying to push what he’s calling a “Jobs Bill” but which is in fact just another re-hash of the failed 2009 Stimulus bill, with some bonus tax increases tacked on. The political heat attached to this bill is significant, and the legislation seemed to take forever to find its way to both chambers of Congress after the President proposed it. For the moment, it appears that the President’s own party in the Senate simply isn’t interested in going along. Among Democrats, it’s running into increasing opposition, and while this goes on, the debt “super-committee” continues to hammer out the details of deficit reduction while Democrats continue to insist on hiking taxes first.
All of this signals a deepening crisis for the president, who is struggling against sliding approval polls and intransigent members of his own party. Increasingly, he’s begun to look very much as a president under siege, and Obama’s lack of executive experience prior to his election in 2008 is beginning to show. More and more, he’s taken on the appearance of a ranting child, making demands of Congress in deference to his own political fortunes while they are left to struggle against an electorate that is increasingly hostile to the president’s plans and policies. Senate Democrats aren’t foolish, and with more than a third of them up for re-election in 2012, there’s an uptick in defections from the Obama Administration’s legislative priorities. In short, they know where their bread is buttered, and in the near term, it’s won’t be by the fellow at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Senate Democrats notice that while they’re stuck in Washington DC wrestling with the President’s unpopular legislative proposals, he’s out on the golf course, or more notably, out on the campaign trail, exhorting the Congress to “pass the bill. Pass this bill. Pass this bill now!” In what can only be a sign of the coming election’s influence on votes in the Senate, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D -Ill, is letting it be known that he does not have the votes for the so-called “jobs bill.” He’s currently blaming the lack of action on the few Democrats from oil-producing states who are therefore opposed to the new taxes on oil producers in this legislation. As ever, when Democrats can’t find the support for a bill among their own members, they begin to immediately evaluate which RINO Republicans are eligible to defect from a party-line stance against new taxes. With Mitch McConnell leading the Senate Republicans, they’ll probably yield at least a few votes for the Democrats.
Still, the hopeful sign in all of this is how difficult Obama is finding the job of pushing through this bad legislation. It’s popular among unionists, government employees, and of course the radical left, but there isn’t any public outcry of measurable volume to support the legislation, and the Democrats are having a hard time ginning it up. Obama is pushing it out on the campaign trail, but he isn’t exactly drawing large and enthusiastic crowds these days, so it’s having a limited effect. It’s becoming evident that Obama is a failed president, and most of the country has essentially given up on him. Now it seems some in his own party are beginning to walk away too, issue by issue, and vote by vote.
Of course, don’t count him out yet. He still possesses all the power and capacity of any president, and his reach is long. You can bet the arm-twisting is beginning in earnest now, as his team decides who will be walked off the plank. As his time begins to run out, Obama is becoming increasingly shrill, but the state of the country may immunize at least a few of them against the calls for party unity. If he fails to get the support among Democrats, expect to hear him ratchet up the pressure on Republicans, trying to drive a few of the weaker-kneed variety into a bit of “bi-partisanship,” which when said by a Democrat to a Republican, means only surrender.
While this entire episode is somewhat disconcerting, we are easily heartened by remembering that such an action has never been undertaken even under the worst circumstances of our Civil War. If ever there had been a President with the plausible excuse to try such a maneuver, it had been Abraham Lincoln, yet while the war raged, he did no such thing. For a US President to even begin contemplating such an unprecedented idea would suggest a level of treachery and treasonous intent well beyond anything we have ever seen in the US. The very idea of suspended elections is anathema to our core principles, when we remember them, and the fact of our sparse historical educations may leave us open to those who would actually consider such things. This brings us to the question of Barack Obama’s temperament and his suitability for the office to which he has been elected.
In the CanadaFreePress article, Juid McLeod offers this on the subject of Obama:
“Now when we have a narcissistic Obama plunging in the polls, a democrat governor in North Carolina is pushing the envelope for suspending elections and covering up a notion she dropped a bombshell by claiming she was only using hyperbole to make a point for a Rotary Club.”
What McLeod offers here is what many of Perdue’s critics have asserted: That the line about suspending elections wasn’t a joke or sarcasm as she’s since claimed, but instead a sort of trial balloon on behalf of the Obama administration. That sort of tactic is not unknown in Washington circles, and to be honest, it might not be only the Democrat establishment that is willing now to contemplate such a tactic. There are many Washington-insider GOP establishment types who would really prefer to avoid a re-election in the coming year if they could because the grass roots conservatives and Tea Party folks are offering challenges across the board. In fact, some now think the move of the Florida primary to an earlier date is a play in the direction of closing off Tea Party-friendly candidates, and to an extent, they may well have a point. While in certain respects, it could play a lesser role at the presidential nomination level, this effectively kills off many of the primary challenges that might otherwise have been offered at the Congressional level. In effect, this whole effort to move up the primary schedule by Republicans may be the play of the establishment in defense against a conservative and Tea Party insurgency, not merely to the White House, but to the rest of the ballot.
“If the election were held tomorrow, Obama would go down in a landslide strikingly more humiliating than the shellacking he and his party got—and never got over—in the midterms.”
I believe this is fairly accurate. We’ve known for some time that the President’s polling numbers have been sliding downhill at an accelerating pace, and pollsters and pundits like Caddell and Schoen urged Obama not to run, while Dick Morris now insists that he will not. (Let’s be careful to remember Morris has been substantially less accurate in predicting the political climate than your uncle’s bum knee in predicting the weather.) It was not only Obama who received the “shellacking,” as an unprecedented number of Republican establishment types also went down to primary defeat. Still, it is true that Obama has looked potentially “land-slideable” for some time. Obama’s like most any other politician in his desire to maintain and extend his power, but how he would manage to suspend elections is difficult to fathom, but perhaps that’s the key. McLeod continues:
“But the 2012 election is more than a year away, and the man who made it all the way to the most powerful office on earth sans identity documents has all the booty, and the absolute power it brings, at his command. This is Obama’s well-stocked position at a time when only suspended elections would guarantee his re-election.”
It remains true that Barack Obama has been willing to carry out policies and strategies for their implementation that no previous presidents have even seriously contemplated. What would it take for Obama to carry out such a coup d’etat against our constitution? Violence? Riots? Certainly, one would think something even more traumatic than a civil war or insurrection, if Lincoln is to be our touchstone, but is it reasonable to expect Obama to restrain himself in any way if it is he who is driving the insurrection? McLeod seems to think otherwise:
“A dangerous new chapter is being written in American history that, if successful, is destined to impact the history of the West. It’s called ‘Re-Election by Suspended Election Revolution’. Patriots who want their grandchildren to grow up in a Marxist-free America should start the counter revolution called the ‘Revolution for an Obama-free America’ and they should start it “like yesterday”.”
It’s quite clear that Obama is unlike previous presidents inasmuch as he is willing to undertake actions that his predecessors would not, for instance, willfully ignoring laws enacted by Congress in refusing to enforce them, in matters of immigration, and frankly on any other matter that suits his administration. We are learning from “Operation Fast and Furious” that there exists a cadre of people within his administration who are willing to sacrifice Americans and Mexicans to create an excuse for the restricting of gun sales, so what would lead anybody to suggest this administration would not go further still in maintaining power? He may even have willing accomplices in the establishment of the GOP, still smarting from their own losses to the Tea Party, and with all this in mind, one can only imagine what sort of “bipartisan concessions” Congress might be willing to accept in the face of some ginned up or real emergency.
As I have said from the beginning, I tend to avoid conspiracy theories, but the problem is that in this case, there’s too much evidence to suggest that the potentiality is there, because the panic is there, so that the intent may be there also. Obama has a well-documented presidential record of driving our economy off a cliff, flouting the law, instigating unrest, and instituting extra-constitutional policies without reference to the rule of law. In short, he’s already taken on the appearance and behaviors of a dictator in many key ways, and it’s really not a giant leap to imagine that he could push the envelope a good deal further in the name of maintaining his power. He’s desperate, and he’s building his army who will be happy to support such an operation. Whether he will actually attempt something of the sort is perhaps a matter of controversy, but he’s clearly demonstrated the audacity and capacity for worse.
One of the things revealed by the ongoing story about Governor Beverly Perdue(D-NC) is that she’s speaking for the core constituency of her party. They are tired of hearing from Tea Party patriots, and frankly anybody else who dares to question their actions, laws, policies, and regulations. It’s symptomatic of the terror the left now feels, and the truth is that while some have attempted to paint her statement about suspending Congressional elections as a joke, most Americans sense of distrust of government and politicians has been heightened to an extent that even if she had been joking, none seem to consider it a laughing matter. More than just the left, however, it’s both of the parties in the form of a permanent political class that shares a basic contempt and disdain for the American people.
What any relatively attentive person should have realized long ago is that many politicians hold we voters in contempt, all the while seeking our support for their re-election campaigns. Governor Perdue is expressing a frightening contempt for the American tradition of self-governance in the most fundamental sense. Without elections, and without politicians being held accountable for their actions, the United States suddenly looks like any other banana republic, magnified and multiplied by our sheer size. The more one listens to this, the less it sounds like a joke:
If you can’t understand the audio, here’s what she said:
“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover.” “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”
The question I receive from comments on this site and from emails is almost always the same: One part outrage, and one part frustration; outraged that an elected official could even consider such a thing, joking or not, but also frustrated with the fact that these entrenched politicians are not easily removed. “What shall we do, Mark?” This is the same question I receive again and again, and it’s as though some people have adopted the idea that we can either do nothing, or we can mount some sort of armed revolt. Let me suggest that until something changes, neither of these is the correct answer. Doing the latter cannot be justified until such time as we run out of all other options. The best option we have is immediately before us: We must engage and become involved. Some will pull an Obama-to-CBC on some of you, but the fact is that I don’t think that would work on you. I think you are open to reason, so let’s consider this carefully, and let me offer you this: The moment they actually suspend an election, then does the question of violence become reasonable.
Otherwise, what we must do is stop waiting for the Internet, single-click solution. You can’t send emails as a proxy for writing letters. Typing a few outraged words isn’t enough. Clicking the “send” button simply won’t suffice. You can’t place phone calls as a substitute for showing-up. You must speak to your elected officials, at their offices in DC and in their districts, and in your statehouses and legislatures, at town hall meetings. Sending them emails is great, but you should take the text, paste it into a file, and snail-mail the contents to them also. Most importantly, you need to talk to your neighbors and show them what these people are trying to do, and show them the sorts of trial balloons they are now floating. If you are sincere in wanting to prevent the sort of tyranny these leftists intend to install, you’re going to need to take every available step in a peaceful form to oppose them. The time for a bunch of posturing is over, and we can’t afford violence, so rather than claim that “there’s nothing we can do,” and in dejected, frustrated impotence, shrug our shoulders and walk away, we still have the freedom to become involved. We should for once begin to make full use of it. We shouldn’t even entertain talk about “ammo box” until you’ve fully utilized the “mail box,” the “soap box,” and the “ballot box.”
It’s time we clear something else up, while we’re at it: There are a few Democrats who are of the old school, who do not believe in this sort of big-government takeover we’re seeing across the board. Remember that while you and they may disagree on many things, there are some Democrats who are every bit as outraged by this as you are, and for precisely the same reasons. At the same time, be careful of those establishment Republicans of the permanent political class who would quietly agree with the sentiments expressed by Perdue, Orszag, and others. What Orszag contends, and Perdue’s alleged “joke” expresses too, is that “gridlock” is obstructing business in Washington. Here’s the answer: Gridlock is the result of the American people deciding to obstruct the big-government reflexes of progressives in both parties. We are demanding gridlock, until such time as we can get the people in power to reverse course and rescue the country, its economy, and its people.
In truth, this is what Obama’s speech to the Congressional Black Caucus was all about: He’s trying to exhort them to oppose you. He’s trying to get them up and out to face off with you. Don’t fall for that sort of confrontation. Violence plays into their hands, but not yours. Instead, focus on what these people are doing, and talk to your neighbors, your family, you church congregations, and get them on the same page. Chances are, they’re already in agreement with you, but our culture has been one in which we’ve been led to remain quiet. The Tea Party is the first harbinger of the sort of people we must become. If you want to defeat the statists, we will do it peacefully, and at the ballot box. From now until then, don’t expect it to get any better.
Even on the local level, these politicians deserve an electoral comeuppance in the form of finding themselves on the sidelines in the future. This is also a great way to develop the next generation of state and national leaders and legislators: At the local level, find people worthy of your support and put them in. City Councils, Mayors, County Commissioners, Judges, School Boards, Sheriffs, and anybody else must be made eligible for replacement if they cross these lines. You mustn’t fear them. You mustn’t permit them to scare you into quiescent, silent submission. The idea in this issue must be to continue to wake up our less-attentive fellow citizens, while simultaneously helping them come to grips with what is going on. There should be no confusion among the people on our side: We must defeat the statists at the ballot box in 2012, and for all the years thereafter, or we will see the country fall. It will happen within our lifetimes, and maybe sooner than that. If you want to preserve your country, it’s going to require you to lead. Politicians who fit within our ethical, moral, and philosophical worldview are great, but we must get them into office to affect any change. That starts by evaluating their records, rather than a reflexive reference to the “D” or the “R” adjacent to their names on our ballots. Don’t fall for the trap that these things are happening only on the state or national level. We’re seeing arrogance among public officials at all levels. Consider this story from Peekskill, NY, where citizens have been prohibited from clapping, and where the public comment section of City meetings have been eliminated, or this one from Quartzite, AZ, where citizens took action to remove their mayor from office, who had attempted to enforce martial law.
These situations are dangerous in their meaning, but the hopeful view is to be derived from Quartzite, AZ. Don’t ask what you can do, when the answer is already in front of us. These politicians, at all levels, are terrified because you’ve discovered the first bits of their game. There is much more yet to be uncovered, perhaps in your own community, or in your own statehouse. They’ve run us into the ground, almost all of them, and it’s time we begin to look at all of them as suspect unless they have a lengthy record of defending liberty and upholding their oaths of office with scrupulous dedication. When a sitting governor in a state in this union proposes that we should suspend elections, there should be no shortage of outrage, but particularly among the people of that state, there should be no ambiguity. Elections are not theirs to suspend, but yours to exercise, and I hopefully look to the people of North Carolina to sit her down at the next opportunity.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not helpless, and we have no need of violence. If you’re reading this, you already possess everything you need to begin your own campaign of opposition, and join with others already in progress. Slowly but surely, the worst thugs and tyrants in our midst have begun to unmask themselves. It’s not a crazy conspiracy theory. It’s not an urban legend. It most certainly isn’t a joke: We now have people who run wide swaths of our governments at all levels who view us as irrelevant, or worse, as the obstacle to their continued power. They will not go away simply because we wish it, or because we dream or hope for it. Instead, we will be the people who pick up their fumbles and run them back for touchdowns at every opportunity. We must educate our friends, family, neighbors and parishioners about the truth of the matter. “Duck and cover” is no longer a viable response. You will need to begin to make some noise, and organize starting in your own communities, and working along to stop this cold.
They’re frightened. They know you’re onto their game, and they’re not quite ready yet, which is why they now float such trial balloons as “jokes.” The Tea Party and you constitute the counter-insurgency upon which they hadn’t planned. You’re outraged? Good! Now that you’re sufficiently motivated, and know where to begin, let us get started and bring along friends.
Ordinarily, when a liberal says something like this, you almost wonder if they’re kidding, before realizing that they’re indeed serious. In an column titled Too Much of a Good Thing, in the New Republic, Peter Orszag, formerly Obama’s OMB Director, actually makes the case that we are hampered by too much democracy. His problem is that our constitutional system (not really a democracy) is too slow to react, and the deliberations and negotiations are simply too cumbersome. In this sense, he tells us, the constitutional impediments to autocratic, dictatorial actions are simply too great. I hate to bring up bombastic notions about historic dictators, but honestly, Orszag is all but begging for it here. In the interests of not debasing this discussion more than his proposition has done on its face, let me simply suggest that Mr. Orszag hasn’t learned the first thing from the history of the last century of human experience.
What he proposes is a system that not only operates in a dictatorial fashion, but automatically without reference to any sort of future restraint by the people. If you think government is overbearing and monstrous now, wait until Mr. Orszag gets his wish. One could almost imagine that Orszag had been joking, and in fact, it would be comforting to believe that, but given that today, another politician of the same philosophical persuasion suggested we suspend elections for two years, in jest of course(?), one may begin to wonder just how serious these people may really have become. I’d be less than responsible if I didn’t tell my readers that I believe that while they may wish to make jokes of these instances, they are completely serious. In Orszag’s case, what his suggestion comes down to is much like the nonsensical, anti-constitutional plan passed through both houses and signed into law by the President on the debt ceiling issue: They want automatic triggers, and more unelected commissions and panels, none of which are provided for as part of the legislative or executive process in the constitution, but which certainly accomplishes their goal of being able to disclaim responsibility when your taxes are raised and your entitlement programs are cut. Not only is this an awful idea, but it must also beg the question: For what purpose do we need the elected politicians if our government is to be placed on perpetual auto-pilot?
You see, what they really fear is the effect you are having for the first time in a generation or more. Suddenly, people have begun to question everything government is doing, and rightfully so. As they question it, they also begin to make demands of their elected representatives, and this is causing serious consternation for those in power: If they don’t begin to produce results for you, they may be out of their jobs, and so as a hedge against this, what they hope to do is put in place a suicide machine of big government that will run on auto-pilot whether you elect to replace them or not. Imagine a world in which no majority you can construct in Congress will have the ability to negate, repeal or otherwise overturn the acts and laws of previous Congresses. This is the actual goal and desire of every statist in either party in Washington DC, and it is also the blunt intention of Governor Perdue’s call for suspending elections, that had been “a joke.”
While there’s nothing funny about the North Carolina governor’s jest, it’s likewise true that Orszag’s proposition is no less dangerous. We mustn’t permit out elected officials to consider for one moment that this is an acceptable solution. We must not allow them to believe that by forming some commission, or some automated calamity of “triggers” that law can be allowed to run the country without reference to the rights or the will of the people. This isn’t merely a bad idea. It’s a demagogue’s attack on our system of law, and it strikes at the very heart of our constitutional principles. Considering what this would produce, based on passed examples alone, it can be concluded that no good can come of it, unless you hold as the good to reduce the people of the country to the status of slaves to the state.
That some governor from North Carolina would even joke about such things is frightening enough, but that a former official in the administration of our current president believes this is a viable solution should cause every reader to shudder at the true meaning: They wish to finally make you completely irrelevant to the governance of this country. They will permit you the illusion of self-governance inasmuch as you will still have elections (maybe,) but those elections will have little meaning in law. When faced with such proposals, it’s time to honestly consider the character of those who now lead our nation, and what else their mindset may yet heap upon us. It has begun to take the form of tyranny, and not one soul should be laughing.
Any time you see Bill Clinton slithering onto a stage, you can assume something sneaky is close at hand. As BusinessInsider is reporting, Clinton is critical of Obama’s Deficit Plan on the basis that it raises taxes during a recession. Now for all his spouting about being a “centrist Democrat,” the truth is that Bill Clinton isn’t really a small government sort of guy, so you may wonder what’s really going on here. As I explained to you that Barack Obama’s Deficit/Debt Plan, which is a hard-left plan going nowhere, but offered as a way to solidify Obama’s hard-left base, you might consider against whom he wishes to defend his re-nomination. The answer is none other than his own Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
What Bill Clinton is doing in this instance is a step in positioning, whereby Hillary will challenge Obama from “the center” which is ground she doesn’t occupy, but in a contested primary, she might be able to claim, knowing that in any general election, the base will come home to her. It’s basically the Democrat version of what Romney is gambling: Capture the more moderate wing of his party, and gamble that the base will support him in the general election.
This is a strategy with which the Clintons are very familiar. It’s how they managed to climb into power the first time around, with a little help from Ross Perot. Slick is simply laying the groundwork for Hillary, who while claiming she will not run, nevertheless seems increasingly likely to jump in given the extreme dissatisfaction among the base of the party. No in truth, the hard-core left of the Democrat party knows Hillary is every bit as socialistic as they are, but what she offers is a fresh chance to fool independents and moderates. Obama is so damaged with the political middle in the country that it may be completely impossible for him to recover.
The Clintons are gambling on a little positioning to place Hillary to the right of Obama, and Bill’s distancing from Obama’s proposed tax increases is a part of laying that groundwork. Be prepared to be told that “Hillary is a centrist.” Don’t believe it, because it’s a thorough lie, but that’s how it will be presented. This is why Hillary has carefully cultivated an image as a hard-working, always on-the-go Secretary of State: She’s trying to establish her foreign policy and executive experience credentials. As the head of the Department of State, she will claim that experience, but the problem will be in demonstrating her effectiveness.
Don’t be surprised when Hillary jumps into the race. She’s already the most popular Democrat in the country. When you begin to combine all of these stories, you see a clear pattern, and it looks increasingly probably that Hillary Clinton will join the race. That will make for a knock-down, drag-out fight as Obama has lost the confidence of many in his party, and in left-wing intelligentsia. The Democrats aren’t so happy or in nearly the lock-step bliss they would like for you to believe.
Apparently, the photo at left isn’t photo-shopped. So says PajamasMedia. All I can wonder is what is wrong with this President.
Really. It’s funny at first, until you think about all it implies. If this photo isn’t a hoax, then the stories about Obama’s intelligence we’ve been hearing for years must be the hoax. Of course, we already suspected as much.
Folks, we’re in much worse trouble than we had already guessed.
Mark, Great Site! I have one question for you. How does getting in good with his base help him win the general election? I can see how it helps him avoid a contested primary as you said, but won’t this hurt him in the general? Jim
That’s a great question, and thinking about it, my earlier post did neglect to explain that aspect, and as I thought about answering Jim’s question, a couple of things more. First, to answer Jim’s question, by itself, it doesn’t. That said, you must win the nomination to win the general, and a primary fight will hurt Obama because he’ll need to go way left to win a serious challenge, and that would happen in a time-frame when moderates and independents will already be watching, and since those voters are already abandoning him, he can’t afford a protracted primary fight. Better to stop it cold now, when most people still aren’t watching. If he kills off a primary challenge by moving way left, he still has plenty of time to move back nearer to center in time for the general election.
Obama’s strategy must also include an uptick in the demagoguery over the differences in income. This is typical leftist Class-Warfare rhetoric with which we’re all very familiar by now. The tactic will be to move nearer the center again, as he did in 2008, and continue to attack “the rich” all while never mentioning that he’s deep into crony-capitalism. He may even try to float some show-trials in the media aimed at some of his corporate cronies while he feigns innocence. We will see a level of demagoguery that will push us to the brink of civil disorder if Obama has his way. It’s really the only way he can win.
So thank you Jim for asking the question. I hope this helps explain what’s going on with Obama’s “Plan.” It’s first a “No Primary Challenger Plan,” to be followed by a “Move slightly to center while playing demagogue against the rich and business re-election plan.”
One of the problems with a cornered irrational is that you never know how they may lash out. Obama is cornered, and his entire philosophy, indeed the whole philosophy of the left, is completely irrational. They will be lashing out.
In a piece that has wider implications for the 2012 election, Democrat strategist James Carville suggests that Democrats should be in utter panic over the drubbing they took in Tuesday’s congressional special election for the 9th District in New York, vacated by Anthony Weiner. This particular election signifies the attitude of the electorate in a big, big way, and what it really demonstrates is the Obama has gotten the Democrats into serious electoral trouble. Carville is sounding an alarm to fellow Democrats, but it may be coming too late.
“People often ask me what advice I would give the White House about various things. Today I was mulling over election results from New York and Nevada while thinking about that very question. What should the White House do now? One word came to mind: Panic.”
Carville goes on to explain several strategies the President might employ if he wishes to save his Presidency, and win a second term, but the problem with his advice is this: The White House has painted itself into an ideological corner from which it cannot easily pivot without abandoning his fellow Democrats who have carried the water for most of his programs to date.
Democrats are quickly realizing the only way Obama wins is to scuttle his fellow Democrats. At the same time, they’re looking around, noticing that in the name of their own self-preservation, they may well need to abandon Obama. It’s a sticky situation, and Carville and others know it, but now it really is beginning to show.
The Democrats are in serious trouble, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that any Republican with executive experience can beat Obama next year.
Some may now wonder if Carville will now be reported to Obama’s AttackWatch.
