Monday, April 30, 2012

The Obama Campaign's New Slogan: Forward

Over at Legal Insurrection, Anne Sorock observes:
Similar to the 2008 concept, “Change,” this one-word slogan captures a vague sense of movement without articulating a strategy, end, or principle. The movement this terms evokes is no more than a different state than we’re currently in, and a positive trajectory. (Similar to the term “progressive?”) . . . . 
The Obama campaign clearly has message-tested the attributes that Americans find positive about him, but . . . the slogan “Forward” indicates that they had trouble finding a unifying message that actually means anything. Thus, he’s left for a second time with a slogan without any meaning. Notice also the change from the 2008 font to the current one, with serif. Perhaps the serif font is an attempt to appear more solid, statesmanlike? Will people buy his marketing this time?
 Others have observed a connection to Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and Vladimir Lenin's publication "Vpered" (the Russian word for "forward"), among others.
Personally, however, my favorite observation comes from the Washington Post's Alexandra Petri, who asks:
What happened?
Was “Reply-All” taken?

Prominent Liberal Arianna Huffington: Obama's Bin Laden Ad "Despicable"

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Obama Has Held More Re-Election Fundraisers Than Last Five Presidents Combined

But, in his defense, he makes a far better campaigner than President.  And even then, he is well off his own 2008 pace for actual dollars raised.

Flashback: Obama Troubled By the Idea of American "Victory."

Back in the summer of 2009, while discussing foreign policy, Barack Obama explained to an interviewer that "victory" wasn't necessarily the goal in Afghanistan.  To that, he added:
I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.
At the time, I found this to be an incredibly troubling statement.  I still do.  Its historical inaccuracy aside (Emperor Hirohito did not sign a surrender), has any other American President ever made such a statement?  And during a time of war no less.  Do we actually have a Commander-in-Chief that is troubled by the idea of American victory?  Is it any wonder that public support for the war in Afghanistan, what Obama used to call the "just war," has eroded when even the President does not wish for victory and cannot lay out our nation's goals?

Barack Obama has, in the last three years, proven time and again that he is ill-equipped to serve as President of the United States.  Still, if we were to somehow put all that aside, I would think that opposing the idea of American victory, even in defeating Japan after Pearl Harbor, should be an automatic disqualification for occupying the role of Commander-in-Chief. 

Saturday, April 28, 2012

The Road We Really Travelled

Perspective: Obama Got Osama, But Lost The Middle East

So observes Professor Jacobson:
We know that bin Laden was located as the result of years of work by intelligence agencies which in substantial part predated Obama. And as we now know, Obama laid the groundwork to blame the military if the raid went wrong.
But put all that aside. Obama got Osama. Fair enough.
But the killing of one person has been against the backdrop of a complete disaster for the United States throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.
North Africa is or is on the way to domination by radical Islamists. We pushed Mubarak out without any transition, and the Muslim Brotherhood and even more extreme Islamists are nearing control. The same is true in Libya and Tunisia.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban are resurgent, waiting out Obama’s timeline for withdrawal. In Iraq, the Iranians have extended their influence and the nation again is dividing along sectarian lines, with the unifying factor (except among the Kurds) being hostility to the U.S.
In Syria, where for once we could have dealt a crushing blow to Iranian influence, we have helped Bashar Assad hang onto power to the extent that both sides hate us.
Our one true ally in the region, Israel, is in its most precarious position in decades, surrounded by massive Iranian-backed missile bases in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
There is almost nowhere in the Middle East that the United State is better off than it was four years ago.
Click through to read the whole thing.  Personally, I don't see anywhere that the good professor misstates or even overstates the situation.  Obama's record abroad is as much a disaster as his record at home.  Any good will has dissipated. But he did get Osama.   

Obama's Enemies List

"Barack Obama attempts to intimidate contributors to Mitt Romney's campaign."

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Another Bad Day In Court For Obama?

It would certainly appear so. Especially when even Justice Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, told the administration their argument "isn't selling very well."  That's probably because the administration's position in opposing the Arizona immigration law is so indefensible   As John Hinderaker put it:

what is going on here is that [the] Obama administration doesn’t want to enforce the immigration laws that Congress has enacted. The essence of its position in the Arizona case is that the federal government has the right to decide not to enforce the law, and if it so decides, then no state has the power, under the Constitution, to do anything that would tend to enforce those federal laws. So if the Obama administration decides that it will gain political advantage by ignoring federal laws against illegal immigration, states like Arizona just have to take the consequences without complaining.
They can't fault the Solicitor General for struggling to make that argument.

Narcissist-in-Chief

Obama believes he is better than everybody at everything.  No, really.

More from Romney's Speech Last Night

On my second listen, I caught this line from Romney's speech regarding his vision for America (link to the entire speech is two entries down):  "I see children even more successful than their parents.  Some successful even beyond their wildest dreams.  And others congratulating them for their achievement.  Not attacking them for it."   Wouldn't that be a refreshing change?  

The New Lost Generation?

In the Obama economy, things continue to look grim for my generation, the millenials (at least that's what we were called before Obama determined to rename us after himself).  The latest reports show more than half of new college graduates are jobless or underemployed.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Mitt Romney's Victory Speech

"It's still about the economy - and we're not stupid."  Let's hope not.

Stimulus Fail

"Heavily Democratic states with lower poverty rates, lower unemployment rates, lower bankruptcy rates, and lower foreclosure rates received most of President Barack Obama's $825 billion Stimulus."

The Obama Adminstration's Top 15 "Achievements"

To counter conservative claims that the Obama administration has failed to achieve anything in three plus years, The Lid has compiled an entire list of notable achievements:
Hat tip to the Astute Bloggers.

Friends of Obama: Van Jones

Barack Obama's former "Green Jobs Czar," 9-11 Truther, and warrior in the "global struggle against the U.S.," Van Jones, calls himself a patriot while explaining that his political opponents just need "to sit down and shut up."

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Secret Service Scandal

Mark Steyn gets a glimpse of the hotel accommodations the secret service agents enjoyed while they “scouted security for the President’s visit” and observes the real scandal:
We have a dependency culture from top to toe. Forty-five million Americans are on food stamps. The “public servants” manning the government that hands out the food stamps are themselves on Vegas hot-tub stamps, beach-resort stamps, Colombian hooker stamps, third-of-a-century retirement stamps . . .
A few more years of this, and it won’t be necessary to go to Cartagena: It’ll be Latin America at home, too.

The Obama Economy

Food stamp spending has more than doubled since 2008

Friday, April 20, 2012

The Obama Effect is Wearing Off

Former Obama supporter, Walter Russell Mead, looks at a new Gallop poll and find that the vaunted "Obama bounce" in foreign views of America:
has lost momentum and in some countries, (in Africa and Latin America and in a number of European countries) has fallen significantly. Overall, confidence in the US fell 13 pionts in three years to 40 percent in Latin America. international community is nearly universally losing confidence in America’s leadership.
Another Gallup poll suggests a way for America to improve its image. For the first time since Obama’s election, America has lost its position as the most respected major power, losing out to Germany, which now enjoys an approval rating of 47 percent to America’s 46. Much of Germany’s surge in popularity is attributable to its strong economic performance during the Euro crisis. Here we see how a balanced budget is more than just smart fiscal policy; it can also be a component of a nation’s soft power. A strong economy and a well-ordered budget are signs of strength, and they often earn the respect of those living under fiscally and economically dysfunctional regimes. America’s soft power could get a boost if other countries believed that our finances were sound.
Unfortunately, they aren’t. Fixing this problem should be the president’s first priority regardless of who wins the next election. Wealth, success and a solid financial foundation have a lot to do with how people regard you.
 Of course, there is no evidence to suggest Obama is willing to do so.

The GSA

Over at the Cato Institute, Roger Pilon looks at the growing GSA scandal and offers this fair assessment:
What?! Government waste, fraud, and abuse?! I’m shocked! Shocked!
This could be a political headache for the Obama administration, but only if Republicans play it right — so Obama probably doesn’t have much to worry about. The basic principle could not be simpler: as Milton Friedman so often put it, no one spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. That applies in spades to government.
Then there is this response:

 Hat tip to Instapundit and Powerline for the links.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Obama Goes to South America to Rip Romney/Republicans on Immigration

I always believed it was inappropriate for Americans to criticize America or their political opponents abroad.  We should keep our internal conflicts internal and leave them at the border, in order to advance America's best interests. 

Maybe I am just old-fashioned, however, because now we even have a president who shows no such restraint.  This weekend in Columbia, in an effort to bolster his support among Latino voters, Obama attacked Republicans and Mitt Romney in particular, saying, among other things, that "his support for Arizona’s tough immigration law is 'very troublesome.'"  I would be curious as to whether another sitting president has ever attacked his American political opponents so publicly while abroad.  I would also be curious as to what Obama might be promising the South American leaders he meets in exchange for their support of his reelection.   

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Why This Election Is So Important

John Hinderaker had an opportunity to see Representative Paul Ryan speak today.  He summarized the themes of Ryan's speech as follows:

1) The United States has a brief time remaining when we can solve our budgetary crisis without drastic measures. Soon, our debt to GDP ratio will inhibit economic growth, the sheer magnitude of the debt will overwhelm efforts to get it under control, and rising interest rates will crush all other budgetary considerations. For now, we have an opportunity to solve the fiscal crisis without, for example, having to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to existing seniors. This is what the House Republican budget seeks to do. But that window is rapidly closing. 
2) Ever-increasing numbers of Americans are becoming dependent on the federal government. Currently around 40% are either “dependent” or “reliant” on federal checks, and 70% of the population takes more out of the federal government in benefits than it pays in taxes. The Democrats seek to accelerate these trends in order to perpetuate their own power (my paraphrase). But those numbers are somewhat misleading, as many are now dependent on government as a result of the current recession. The United States remains, for the time being, a center-right country, and a clear majority continues to favor freedom and opportunity over cradle to grave government control. 
3) For the above reasons, the 2012 election is a pivotal contest in which Americans will likely choose one of two destinies: a return to the commitment to freedom and opportunity that is embodied in the Constitution and in American history, or a decisive turn toward European-style social democracy. 
4) It is important for this election to be one in which the choice facing the voters is framed starkly so that, if the Republicans win, they will have a mandate to do what is necessary to rescue America from financial collapse and return to the opportunity society that was envisioned by the Founders.
 Let's hope that we are up to the challenge..

Obama Declares War on Stay at Home Moms

Obama adviser and SOPA backer, Hillary Rosen, attacks Ann Romney, mother of five, claiming that she has "never worked a day in her life."  Classy.

Instapundit notes that Rosen's main job "has been a paid shill for the record companies’ efforts to take over your computer."  Personally, I have far more respect for stay at home moms.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

It's Time to Galvanize

Dana Loesch, formerly a staunch non-Romney, reminds conservatives why they must now rally around Romney to beat Barack Obama.

The Obama White House Pays Women Considerably Less Than Men.

Obama likes to present himself as a champion a female equality while, absurdly, claiming that Republicans are waging a "war against women."  Nevertheless, "[a]ccording to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000)."

America's Federal Debt Greater than the Entire Eurozone's and U.K.'s Combined Debt.



Super.  Well, at least we have a President prepared to put forth a credible plan to tackle this impending debt crisis . . . oh right.

Why Obama Will Not Be Running On His Record



Hat Tip to The Gateway Pundit.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

It's All But Official - It's Romney

Santorum is out.  He was never my candidate, but I wish all the best to him, his family, and his daughter, Bella.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Voter Fraud Investigation: Young Man Offered to Vote With Holder's Ballot

James O'Keefe's Project Veritas continues.  Breitbart.com reports that O'Keefe:
demonstrates why Holder should stop attacking voter ID laws--by walking into Holder’s voting precinct and showing the world that anyone can obtain Eric Holder’s primary ballot. Literally.
The video shows a young man entering a Washington, DC polling place at 3401 Nebraska Avenue, NW, on primary day of this year--April 3, 2012--and giving Holder’s name and address. The poll worker promptly offers the young man Holder’s ballot to vote.
The young man then suggests that he should show his ID; the poll worker, in compliance with DC law, states: “You don’t need it. It’s all right. As long as you’re in here, you’re on our list, and that’s who you say you are, you’re okay.”

More here on why we need voter ID laws now.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

The Latest Jobs Numbers

Stephen Green takes a look at yesterday's jobs numbers and the news is not good:


The big number, 8.2% unemployment, is down one-tenth of one percent from last month, on 120,000 net new jobs. But 120,000 is only just barely enough to keep up with population growth, because that’s about how many people should enter the labor force each month, every month, the whole year round. But even more people — 164,000 — simply gave up, stopped looking for work, and are no longer any concern of the BLS. The experts had predicted jobs growth of anywhere from 200,000 to 250,000.


ASIDE: We need to net about 1.5 million jobs a year just to stay even with our growing population. We’ve netted about 2.5 million in the almost three years since the Great Recession ended. So we’re almost two million jobs short of nothing more than treading water. Yeah, that’s bad.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Broken Promises: Campaigning To Cut Spending

It's so easy to forget, but:
As a candidate, Obama claimed that one cause of the economic crisis was the large deficits the country was running, and he promised that he would fix things by cutting government spending. During the third presidential debate, just over two weeks before the election, Obama promised to rein in the budget deficit.
When debate moderator Bob Schieffer asked Obama what he was going to do about the deficit, Obama promised to cut it: “But there is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments. Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.”
Or take Obama’s promise in the second presidential debate: “Actually, I’m cutting more than I’m spending so that it will be a net spending cut.” Obama ran to the right of McCain, who Obama claimed was the candidate who was going to increase spending.
So what did we get? Obama racked up the largest inflation-adjusted increases ever in government spending and the largest deficits (even larger than those the U.S. ran in the worst part of World War II), and it is hard to remember that his constant theme during the presidential debates was “net spending cut.”
Having racked up those deficits (and endangering our national defense), some might question Obama's patriotism.

The Obama/Holder DOJ - Racists or Hypocrites?

It seems it would have to be one or the other when one considers that, as Hot Air reports:
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is currently blocking implementation of voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas, claiming such measures are “unnecessary,” discriminatory and would make it harder for minorities to vote.
But if you’re planning to visit Holder’s office in Washington, D.C., you better bring a photo ID. The Department of Justice has two armed guards stationed outside its headquarters to check IDs of anyone who wants to enter — employees and visitors . . . .
“The Obama-Holder Department of Justice has launched an all-out war on voter ID and other measures,” former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said upon launching a new initiative called Protect Your Vote. “Although Holder’s actions are purported to prevent African-Americans from being disenfranchised, in reality they serve as a crass political attempt to ensure his boss gets re-elected this year.”
Liberals have long trotted out false arguments about voter ID laws, claiming they suppress the vote among those individuals who do not have photo identification. But a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding Indiana’s voter ID law revealed there was no such hardship. Opponents of the law were unable to produce a single plaintiff who could plausibly claim inability to get a photo ID. In addition, states with longstanding voter ID laws, such as Georgia and Indiana, have actually experienced an increase in turnout of minority voters.
If requiring voters to show photo ID is discriminatory, what about all of those gun control laws?  What about the fact that the pharmacy requires me to show my license everytime I buy my allergy medicine?

Smart Diplomacy Not Very Neighborly

Investors Business Daily reports:
Obama's neglect of our nearest neighbors and biggest trade partners has created deteriorating relations, a sign of a president who's out of touch with reality. Problems are emerging that aren't being reported.
Fortunately, the Canadian and Mexican press told the real story. Canada's National Post quoted former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson as saying the North American Free Trade Agreement and the three-nation alliance it has fostered since 1994 have been so neglected they're "on life support."
Energy has become a searing rift between the U.S. and Canada and threatens to leave the U.S. without its top energy supplier.
The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Obama the U.S. will have to pay market prices for its Canadian oil after Obama's de facto veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. Canada is preparing to sell its oil to China.
Until now, NAFTA had shielded the U.S. from having to pay global prices for Canadian oil. That's about to change. . . .
Things were even worse, if you read the Mexican press accounts of the meeting.
Excelsior of Mexico City reported that President Felipe Calderon bitterly brought up Operation Fast and Furious, a U.S. government operation that permitted Mexican drug cartels to smuggle thousands of weapons into drug-war-torn Mexico. This blunder has wrought mayhem on Mexico and cost thousands of lives.
The mainstream U.S. press has kept those questions out of the official press conferences, while Obama has feigned ignorance to the Mexicans and hasn't even apologized.
In short, the summit was a diplomatic disaster for the U.S. and its relations with its neighbors north and south.
It should have been the easiest, most no-brainer diplomatic task Obama faces.
Instead, it underscored the Obama administration's indifference to anything more than its own political interests.
It's a shame the American media didn't tell us. Instead we had to learn of it in the foreign press.
 Well, at least Obama still seems to be getting along swimmingly with Russia.
Hat tip to Instapundit.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

What is the difference between Obama and Jesus?

Jesus doesn't think he is Obama.

I saw this on Iowahawk's twitterfeed today.  Made me laugh anyway.

Obama Campaign Continues Practice of Accepting Illegal Donations

Last month, there was some controversy over the Obama SuperPAC's acceptance of a million dollar donation from Bill Maher.  Less attention, however, has been given to the fact that the Obama campaign itself counts Fort Hood shooter Nadal Hisan, Adolf Hitler, Usama Binladen, Joseph Stalin, and Illegal Contributor,  among its donors. 

As Bryan Preston reports, it does so because:
the Obama campaign’s web site lacks the security code field. The  [Republican candidates] require it, and will not accept donations unless the security code and payment information match up.
Obama’s campaign implemented the same lack of verification in 2008, but the mainstream media never called them on it. It appears as though that episode has prompted a repeat in 2012.
This means three things are likely true. One, the Obama campaign disabled the verification system. The verification system is turned on on web sites that accept credit cards, by default. I used to manage the website for the Texas Republican Party, so I know this from personal experience. Someone had to take the action of turning it off on the Obama site. Two, the Obama campaign can accept donations without the identity of the donor being positively verified. Three, not only can people in foreign countries donate to the Obama campaign in violation of federal campaign law, so apparently can identity thieves who have access to stolen credit card numbers. People who do not know that their credit cards have been compromised may not notice small amounts in the $3 dollar donation range that the Obama campaign has been targeting, when such donations show up on their statements.
 It also means that Obama donors can easily circumvent federal limits placed on the amount one can donate to a candidate by simply using different names.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Don't Know Much About History

GayPatriot offers a history lesson for the President:
When President Obama talks about the economy, it seems he derives his information not from historical facts, but instead from Keynesian theory. At a campaign fundraiser in Maine, the politician once billed as post-partisan accused his partisan rivals of “madness”:
“We won’t win the race for new jobs and new businesses and middle-class security if we cling to this same old, worn-out, tired ‘You’re on your own’ economics that the other side is peddling,” Obama said.
“It was tried in the decades before the Great Depression. It didn’t work then. It was tried in the last decade. It didn’t work,” he said. “You know, the idea you would keep on doing the same thing over and over again, even though it’s been proven not to work. That’s a sign of madness.”
Well, the economics that the incumbent derides as “You’re on your own” created more jobs in September 1983 than were created in the past five months, among the best months for job creation since Mr. Obama took office.
In the decade** before the Great Depression, under the policies of Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, the United States enjoyed the “Roaring Twenties,” an era of “sustained economic prosperity.“ It was only when Coolidge’s successor, Herbert Hoover, increased federal spending and ramped up government regulation, that the economy began to collapse, leading to the Great Depression.
Under Hoover and his successor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, federal officials tried various forms of state meddling over and over again, yet none of those policies proved to work. Throughout the 1930s, unemployment remained high. By this president’s logic, wouldn’t it be a sign of madness to adopt economic policies similar to Mr. Roosevelt’s? Or Mr. Hoover’s?
Perhaps someone should show Obama this chart?

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Obamacare Adds $17 Trillion to Nation's Unfunded Liabilities

According to Hot Air: On Thursday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, stated on the Senate floor that not only will ObamaCare cost $2.6 trillion in its first 10 years of full implementation, but that it will add $17 trillion to the nation’s long-term unfunded liabilities.

Unless, of course, the Supreme Court recognizes it is unconstitutional or it is repealed.

It's Official

The United States now has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Even Russia, at 20 percent, and China, at 25 percent, have lower rates than America does. The difference in tax rates means American companies are trying to compete with one hand tied behind their backs.
…High taxes also leave less money for businesses to expand, innovate and create jobs. The prospect of saving millions of dollars in taxes has caused some U.S. businesses to move overseas, taking their jobs with them.
In contrast, researchers at the Heritage Foundation have calculated that if Washington were to cut our corporate rate to 25 percent, the benefits to Americans would be dramatic. After-tax income for a typical family would rise by almost $2,500. The U.S. economy would create 581,000 jobs a year over the next decade.
 If the President were truly serious about jobs, lowering the corporate tax rate would be near the top of his agenda.  After all, it's about fairness.  Isn't it?