President Obama has been in office now for 200 days, and the second hundred days of his administration have been worse than the first. The $787 billion stimulus experiment he rushed through Congress still isn’t creating jobs. The job-killing national energy tax he rushed through the House is threatening families and small businesses with higher energy bills. And now he wants to rush through Congress a $1.6 trillion government-run health care experiment that will make health care more expensive, add to the deficit and cause tens of millions of Americans to lose their current health insurance and doctors. President Obama has done all of this in just 200 days – and there are still 1,260 days left in his term. America can’t take any more of President Obama’s experiments.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 08-21-2009).]
WASHINGTON – A new poll says that Americans, concerned over the future of health care reform and anxious about the growing federal budget deficit, are losing faith in President Barack Obama. The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that less that half of Americans — 49 percent — say they believe the president will make the right decisions for the country. That's down from 60 percent at the 100-day mark of the Obama presidency. The poll published Friday says Obama's overall approval is 57 percent, 12 points lower than it was at its peak in April. Fifty-three percent disapprove of the way he's handling the budget deficit and his approval on health care continues to deteriorate. The national survey was conducted Aug. 13-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
President Barack Obama's popularity has plummeted to a record low, with just 45 percent of voters now approving of his performance, according to the latest Zogby International poll.
Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity.
Those numbers also indicate that Obama clearly is in serious political trouble, Fox News analyst and best-selling author Dick Morris tells Newsmax.
"As soon as Obama dropped below 52 percent . . . he was leaking real voters who had backed him in November," Morris tells Newsmax. "Now that he is down to 45 percent among likely voters . . . he is in deep political trouble."
Of greatest concern to Obama may well be his decline among all-important independent voters. Just 37.5 percent of self-identified independents say they approve of how Obama is handling the presidency. That compares with 59.2 percent of independents who disapprove.
"There is nothing counterintuitive in any of these numbers," pollster John Zogby of Zogby International tells Newsmax. "The president is clearly taken a slide — most especially with independent voters, who play such an important role in any legislation or policy support.
"Interestingly, the president had been making some inroads with groups like investors, and frequent Walmart shoppers . . . both typically conservative," Zogby says. "However, he has slipped considerably with them in this poll."
Zogby adds: "The healthcare plan appears to be consolidating conservative opposition and scaring independent voters."
Pundits pay especially close attention to trends involving swing voters.
Continued evidence of declining popularity there will ratchet up the pressure on congressional blue dogs and other conservative Democrats to go their own way on controversial proposals such as public-option healthcare and energy cap-and-trade, knowing they can't rely on presidential coattails to prop them up with voters.
As expected, Obama continues to score well with Democrats, who give him an 83.9 percent approval rating. But among GOP voters, Obama has flat-lined at a 5.7 percent approval rating — a problem in itself for a president who promised to bring a new, bipartisan spirit to Washington politics.
Obama's decline has been startling. Various polls had his approval rating at well over 60 percent at the 100-day mark of his presidency.
By mid-June, his approval number had dipped to 51 percent. In July, it dropped further to 48 percent of likely voters.
Experts say the failure of the $787 billion stimulus to deliver on Obama's promise of massive jobs creation, the ongoing economic woes, and the increasingly bitter fight over Democrats' determination to push the government-subsidized, public-option healthcare reforms are among the reasons for Obama's rapid descent.
"Clearly, the healthcare reform package is dragging him down," Morris tells Newsmax, "and will drag every Democrat down unless they realize that they cannot afford to alienate the elderly of America by cutting Medicare and rationing medical care."
The Zogby International interactive poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.
I think it's evident that the media either can't or won't hide the incompetence of the administration anymore and the "Emperor has no clothes" scenario is now taking over. Obama has been unmasked as a not very nice guy who doesn't know how to govern, and who practices machine politics on a national scale.
The amazing thing, is that people still want to believe in him. But there's just nothing that people can grasp and hold onto in the man that seems real. Majorities now don't believe him on health care, cap and trade, and the economy.
Zogby's poll is not the most reliable but I think it is safe to say after seeing other polls that Obama's numbers are dropping rapidly and that he is definitely below 50% approval.
David Patten of Newsmax has the story:
Asked whether they approve or disapprove of the president's job performance, just 45.3 percent of likely voters say they approve. That compares with 50.5 percent who disapprove of the job Obama is doing.
The results are a strong indication that contentious national debate over healthcare reform has taken a major toll on the president's popularity...
Of greatest concern to Obama may well be his decline among all-important independent voters. Just 37.5 percent of self-identified independents say they approve of how Obama is handling the presidency. That compares with 59.2 percent of independents who disapprove...
Continued evidence of declining popularity there will ratchet up the pressure on congressional blue dogs and other conservative Democrats to go their own way on controversial proposals such as public-option healthcare and energy cap-and-trade, knowing they can't rely on presidential coattails to prop them up with voters.
I sort of disagree with Zogby's last observation that these numbers are more likely to drive the blue dogs away. The fact is, there is still a chance for an Obama rebound if the economy shows signs of life (or they can spin the news to make it appear that it is), and if he can get some kind of health care reform bill passed. In a big way, all Democrat's fates are tied to Obama's success or failure. Blue Dogs may risk the wrath of some voters in order to get a reform bill passed with some kind of public option/co-op provision just so Obama doesn't go down in flames.
Right now, given liberal opposition to a bill without the public option, and Blue Dog opposition to a bill that has it, I would say the chances are a little worse than 50-50 that we get reform this year. But the world may look a lot different to Blue Dogs once they get back to Washington and find Rahm Emanuel in their face on a daily basis trying to get them to sign off on something - anything - that resembles health care reform.
I'm sure this was all over the nightly news all weekend.
Oh, and China has decided the U.S. isn't a safe investment anymore and has started selling it's holdings of U.S. debt. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8207174.stm "China has said it would like to establish an alternative to the US dollar as the world's favoured currency for foreign exchange reserves,"
Hello Im suprised no one has mentioned the lastest detainee to be released, it just over the top again. The Obama administration reportedly has released a prisoner from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp accused of attacking U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
According to Reuters, the administration released Mohammed Jawad to his home in Afghanistan.
Jawad had been accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 that injured two U.S. soldiers and their interpreter in Kabul. He has returned to his family, according to his lawyer.
Kirk Lippold, former USS Cole commander and fellow at Military Families United, criticized the decision in a statement Monday, calling it part of a "sadly familiar pattern."
"No coherent policy in the war on terror. No comprehensive plan in place to deal with the future of Guantanamo Bay detainees. No accountability for terrorists who harm our brave fighting forces," he said.
Originally posted by normsf: "No coherent policy in the war on terror. No comprehensive plan in place to deal with the future of Guantanamo Bay detainees. No accountability for terrorists who harm our brave fighting forces," he said.
He of all people should know everyone who attacks us isn't a "terrorist."
He of all people should know everyone who attacks us isn't a "terrorist."
Hmmm, I guess we should call them as Bill Mahr did " freedom fighters" Where is the Political Correct line drawn on what to call someone who attacks you?
Releasing a captured combantant back into the theater of engagement will do nothing for the morale of the troops who took them into custody in the first place. Perhaps the troops will second guess to capture rather than just eliminate them once and for all. Which I would think goes against the morals of our sociaty, that we are trying to protect.
[This message has been edited by normsf (edited 08-24-2009).]
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has a way with words:
quote
The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States. The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions. President Obama’s decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security.
hee hee hee. Watching this parade of bullshit fall apart is SOOOO much fun! And they are running out of places to misplace the blame for their failures. If he loses the fawning media, put a fork in him, he's done.
There’s nothing like a summer vacation to rekindle a romance. So maybe a week on Martha’s Vineyard can bring back some of the magic between the Obama administration and the media. Before White House press secretary Robert Gibbs left town, he tried to clarify President Barack Obama’s comment that “everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up.” Gibbs explained to reporters that what the president meant was that they were a bunch of bed wetters who made too much out of the implosion of the White House health care strategy. Gibbs has grown more sardonic and patronizing as the summer wears on and Obama’s poll numbers wilt. The press secretary has lectured reporters on the nature of their jobs — apparently to defend the administration against “misinformation” rather than asking impertinent questions like “How will you pay for it?” When asked recently about the administration’s endless evasions on the public option, Gibbs instead opted to define a monopoly. “If you had one place to eat lunch before you came to the briefing, do you think it would be cheap?” Gibbs demanded of CNN’s Ed Henry. Henry should have asked Gibbs to define monopsony: a market in which one buyer is so large that it can control suppliers and ruin competitors. Henry could then explain he’d rather pay too much for the sandwich he wanted than have to eat at a government chow line opened across the street to encourage “competition.” Gibbs is so crabby because, incredibly, the administration blames the media for the president’s problems. It tried blaming Republicans, but the GOP is too far out of power. When the leader of the free world is complaining about a posting on the former governor of Alaska’s Facebook page, he’s got problems. Team Obama tried blaming special interests, but that was a bust too. The president’s deal with the pharmaceutical industry gets him $150 million worth of ads to boost his plan, whatever it is. The same people who bombard us with ads for products that promise to prevent hardened arteries or encourage hardening elsewhere will soon be selling you Obamacare. “If you experience doubts about the plan lasting more than four hours, seek immediate help from Organizing for America.” Democrats tried blaming the “mobs” of “un-American” protesters and “evil mongers” who were giving raspberries to members of Congress at town halls. That flopped too, leaving the administration to blame the messenger. And one can understand why Gibbs would be a bit shocked by the slightly less accommodating tone of the media. Reporters who traveled with the Obama campaign tell horror stories about the organization — dishonesty, rudeness and abysmal access. But those reporters still served up the glowing coverage. Obama was the hottest news story of their generation. Rather than covering the long-shot freshman senator who would be crushed in February, Obama campaign reporters experienced the reflected glory of being along for a historic journey. There was plenty of motivation to keep that journey going. Conversely, Obama making a hash out of health care provides plenty of good copy for the White House press corps. And because Obama fatigue has set in with the reading and viewing public, skeptical stories match the national mood. Some are still in the tank for Obama. But many liberal reporters think the president is blowing the Left’s big chance. In talking about how everything got so “wee-weed up,” Obama observed that in August of 2008 the media predicted doom because John McCain began to close the gap after picking Sarah Palin. In trying to explain that the president was talking about media incontinence, Gibbs referred to August and September of 2007, when most predicted Hillary Clinton would roll to victory in Iowa. So not only are Obama and his people still reliving the campaign, they’re drawing the wrong lessons from it. At this point in 2007, Obama was coming up in the polls, making Iowa a three-way race with Clinton and John Edwards. Now, the president’s numbers are sinking. And if the trend line in the late summer of 2008 had held, Obama would have lost. It took a tsunami of bad economic news and the McCain campaign’s mishandling of it to put Obama back on top. But there is no opponent here other than public opinion and no finish line other than the end of his term. With only the steady breeze of favorable coverage of a typical Democratic president instead of the gale of positive press that once helped drive Obama to victory, it’s going to be a very long journey.
President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats are again in an uproar over health care. Liberals say they'll blockade any bill that doesn't include a government-run insurance program. And labor says it will sit out the 2010 elections if the president doesn't come across with a stout public plan. Meanwhile, the moderate Democrats who were wooed for weeks by the administration are sidling toward the door, saying that the best thing would be just to start over. Many at the White House no doubt wish they could take that advice. It's been 177 days since Obama made his initial pitch for a health care overhaul to a joint session of Congress. That the president's team is still spending so much time stroking the Democratic base is evidence of how dire the situation is for this young administration. Two decisions on health care have rattled Democrats. First, the president chose to not sell his own plan but instead tried to get Congress to rush something through before lawmakers -- and the public -- fully understood what was in the bill. Second, the administration attempted an ungainly flip-flop on the issue of government-run insurance. Many Democrats think that the stars were aligned for health care but increasingly see the administration as having squandered the moment. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took a beating Tuesday for an outright evasion on whether Obama has changed his position on the public option. Down the hall, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel snarled to the New York Times that the White House is finally done with bipartisanship ... again. Democrats can't be blamed for wondering if these guys know what they're doing. It doesn't help with liberals that Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan, sticking with Wall Street on bailouts, and going slow on social issues. But Democrats are really alarmed because they have lost faith in the political powers of the president and his team. Competency trumps ideology almost every time. Americans would rather have a competent president with whom they disagree on some points than a president who shares all their views but can't get the job done. For George W. Bush, the tipping point of his presidency was August 30, 2005, when the sun rose on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Fair or not, the perception that Bush was not up to the task in New Orleans fractured public confidence in his administration. When the brushfire of sectarian conflict in Iraq burned out of control in early 2006, there was little the president could say to reassure Americans. Having taken the rap for letting 1,800 citizens die in a storm, Bush couldn't regain control of the national narrative in Iraq. As Democrats like Obama hounded and hectored him, voters came to conclude that the president and his party weren't up to the job of running the country. With tremendous discipline and a top-notch team, Bush was eventually able to regroup and build enough support for the troop surge that pulled Iraq back from the brink in 2008. But big deficits, a Wall Street bailout, and the memories of Iraq and Katrina saw Bush leave office with only about a third of Americans in his corner. About half of the country still approves of the job Obama is doing. But as voters lose confidence in Obama's gifts, victories will be harder to come by. The simple answer for breaking the cycle would be to listen to moderate Democrats who say that starting over would be better than a humiliating defeat, or worse, passing a screwed-up bill. But Obama set the stakes for the game when he allowed Emanuel to convince Democrats and the press this spring that failing to pass a bill immediately would be electoral death next year. Once the August deadline was blown and the president started dropping in the polls, Obama had no choice but to keep plunging ahead. Plus, his personality makes it unlikely that he'll admit a mistake of this magnitude. The way Obama brushed off the challenges of both Hillary Clinton and John McCain last year made Democrats believe he had infallible political instincts and was a forceful leader. But what if Obama was lucky in the adversaries he drew and in the timing of the economic collapse? What if Democrats confused serendipity and ego for keen judgment and executive ability? Those questions are the reason for the panic you see on the faces of congressional Democrats.
The Obama administration on Tuesday acknowledged that Obamanomics, the dismal science of spending other people's money as fast as possible, honed with ward bosses and union kingpins on Chicago's South Side, has failed.
They did so, not in so many words and probably without knowing it, while hammering Americans with a devastating and demoralizing one-two blow -- one a sucker punch, the other below the belt.
With the sycophants in the Obama press corps distracted while rubbing elbows with the Obamas and other rich folk on the Vineyard, the O Team threw their sucker punch: officially announcing that the federal budget deficit next year will be nearly 20% more than in their first forecast made just last May, and over the next ten years will be two trillion dollars more than they had predicted.
That's two million million dollars more than Obama had forecast. Just 90 days ago.
Oops.
Even ballpark hunches should be closer than that.
Obama's estimate of the ten-year federal deficit has increased almost 30% from his first quarterly forecast to his second. How much further off will it be in six months? In a year? By the end of his term?
Yet, this is the same genius who is now promising that Obamacare will be revenue neutral, that Medicare won't be raided, and that seniors needn't worry about how end-of-life care under a government imposed plan will be affected by Washington's ability to pay.
The O Team's media wing immediately spun into damage control, with the AP Tuesday quoting Budget Director Peter Orszag's contention that another trillion dollars spent on health care would somehow help balance the budget. "I know there are going to be some who say that this report proves that we can't afford health reform; I think that has it backwards."
The below the belt punch landed shortly afterwards. The U.S. economy, under Obama's stewardship, will contract at 2.8% this year, more than doubling what Obama had predicted in May. The Obamaconomists predict that the recession will end next year, projecting that the economy will grow by 2% in 2010, down nearly 40% from their projection made 90 days ago.
They're beginning to look like the gang that couldn't add straight.
Especially when they make their specious argument, as they did Tuesday, that the economy would be worse off without Obama's porkulus package. Always without evidence. They must use the same Ouija board -- or maybe it's a crystal ball -- that they use to figure out how many jobs Obama has 'saved.'
What makes this such a low blow is that they assume, while the Obamas holiday with the likes of Meg Ryan, Ted Danson, Reese Witherspoon and other celebrities, that we, the hoi polloi, can't figure out that there is evidence which actually disproves their contention.
There is a baseline, of sorts, with which to compare Obamanomics.
Last spring Obama implored other countries to implement their own budget-busting, Obamanomics-style stimulus packages -- a would-be Europorkulus, if you will.
Fortunately for them, these countries didn't listen.
Despite being harder hit, Europe has shown signs of already coming out of the global recession, revising their economic numbers upward, while Team Obama marks U.S. figures downward.
France and Germany actually exited the recession last quarter. The leaders of both nations specifically and publicly rejected Obama's cries for Europorkulus. "It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end," French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said at the time.
Yes, even the French have been more fiscally responsible in dealing with the recession than the Obama administration and the Democrat directorate in Congress.
And even though "Germany, with its heavy exports dependence, has been particularly badly hit by the global recession," its economy, too has turned the corner. Citizens of Germany should be glad that Chancellor Merkel didn't heed the call to resort to Obamanomics.
Dow Jones notes:
"The rebound of Europe's economic engine suggests the region is joining the recovery under way in China and increasingly elsewhere in Asia, exemplified by India's announcement on Wednesday that industrial production in June rose nearly 8 percent from a year earlier...
'We're used to the U.S. leading the way to recovery, but this time we're having to look eastwards to Asia and to a homegrown recovery in Europe,' said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London."
Earlier this year, Callow told UPI, "While the magnitude of stimulus has been much less in Europe's case, the stimulus has been getting much better traction in Europe than in the United States."
Obama's apologists in the media will no doubt note that European economies differ from that of the United States in a number of ways. If so, this leaves them with a horrifying Hobson's choice of their own making. Either:
*Barack Obama showed alarming ignorance of economics when he suggested that other nations adopt his budget-busting stimulus measures despite those differences,
*or Barack Obama showed alarming ignorance of economics in ramming through his budget-busting, economic-recovery-stalling porkulus package here,
*or both.
Either way, Obamanomics has failed. Countries that rejected it have turned the economic corner, even ended the recession, while the U.S. economy continues to contract.
And these people now want to 'fix' the health care system?
(Note: there are several links to supporting news stories in the original article)
"If you want the next four years lookin' like the last eight, then I'm not your candidate. But if you want real change...then I need you. I need you to go out and talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors...I want you to argue with them, get in their faces...you guys are the ones who can make the change." - Candidate Barack Obama to supporters September, 2008
Early last fall, an old friend of mine and long-time volunteer for Republican women's associations, called me from her home in Orlando, Florida. She was quite shaken. She had just returned from what was intended to be a small, quiet McCain support outing, just like the ones she had been dutifully attending for 30 years. The small group of middle-aged homemakers took their little signs to an approved street corner, carried their small American flags and assembled to do their hour's vote-for-our-guy walk before heading off to the nearest coffee shop to divvy up coming-week duties of stuffing envelopes and making phone calls.
But something had changed between the last election and 2008. My friend told of a morning from hell, in which the women were rudely accosted on the street by young male thugs (her word), who called them "c*nts," "whitey whores" and "stupid bitches." These young males got in their faces and jostled them with angry shoves. My friend said that in all the years she had been doing just this simple patriotic activity, she had never had such a frightening experience. It was to be the first of several, which have left her shaken to this day.
Later on into the fall campaign, I spoke with Dr. Lynette Long, a former Hillary supporter compiling data on what she deemed, "Caucus Fraud." She referred me to a set of video testimonials, in which middle-aged women mostly, gave grizzly accounts of the same thuggery employed against them in caucus settings.
The data compiled by Dr. Long, along with the video-recorded testimonials of dozens of caucus-goers, are indeed convincing. According to Dr. Long, in a personal interview, reports from caucus attendees are pretty horrifying at worst, wholly undemocratic at best. Female Clinton supporters reported being called "c*nts" and other sexual epithets, being spat upon by Obama supporters, being threatened physically, and an overall environment of hostility. Not exactly the democratic process to which we are accustomed.
In the end, it was the caucus states, where such strong-arm tactics were employed by Obama supporters, which finally gave Obama the victory. As Dr. Long points out, the only caucus in the entire nominating contest that Obama lost was Nevada. In every other caucus, relying heavily on thug intimidation, Obama prevailed.
So, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the same thug tactics are now being used against MediCoup** resisters at town halls around the Country.
The most shocking thug event, so far, took place early this month in St. Louis. In his own words, Kenneth Gladney, victim of assault, tells what happened:
Well, first, I was there to sell, you know, flags and buttons and stuff that said, "Don't tread on me." And I was setting out there, and I guess something got -- just went through my head. I said I'm just going to give them away and stuff like that. So a pastor's wife walked up to me, and she just took a liking to some of the buttons. So I start showing her some of the buttons and everything. This guy walked up and he said, "Who in the -- who in the blank is selling or giving away this stuff here?" I said, "Sir, this is my merchandise. And would you like a flag or a button or something like that?" And he said, "What kind of 'n' are you to be giving this stuff out."
Yes, they surrounded me. Actually, after the first two guys got me on the ground, they surrounded me and started kicking me in the head and in the back, and the knees and stuff like that. And after it was done, I got up, kind of dazed, looking for my glasses. And the one guy actually was coming at me again, and that's when the police came in and, you know, cordoned off everything and started, you know, started arresting people.
This is change, all right, but I'll be darned if I see a whole lot of hope.
Then, on August 13, outside a townhall in Thousand Oaks, California, three doctors were assaulted when they attempted to speak their minds. The doctors, all wearing scrubs, were locked out of the townhall meeting and began voicing their objections to an orderly crowd, when suddenly they were lunged at by an angry white male. Fortunately for the docs, the man was prevented causing real harm when other men forced him to the ground, whereupon he was promptly arrested.
A videographer at a Tampa, Florida townhall got roughed up by union thugs and had his camera smashed. A local doctor from Douglasville, Georgia was shouted down by his own congressman and accused of not being a constituent, a charge that was later shown to be blatantly false.
A very fishy swastika was painted on the Congressman's office sign the next day.
If any side has been guilty of astroturfing at townhalls, it is Obama supporters. People posing as doctors have turned up at various events, hailing the President's plan, only to be found out later. Vandals smashed windows at the Democratic Party office in Denver early this week. More astroturfing, apparently. As Gateway Pundit has detailed:
The young vandal who smashed windows at the DNC headquarters in Denver on Tuesday worked for a democratic politician, was paid by a SEIU-related front group, and was arrested at the RNC convention last year in St. Paul.
Honestly, I never thought I would live to see the day when a president one-upped Nixon. But this Obama thuggery gets worse by the day and our once-valiant mainstream press just yawns and accuses the innocent.
Even Richard Nixon never, as far as we know, went so far as to orchestrate manufactured news, advise his supporters to "get in their faces" or use taxpayer dollars to promote political causes.
What in the world is this Country coming to?
Our Founders are surely staring aghast from their heavenly abodes. And I'll bet my own proverbial farm that I know which side they're pulling for.
*Many thanks to a volunteer research assistant, who prefers to remain anonymous and to Dr. Lynette Long, who is writing a book based on her Caucus Fraud research.
**MediCoup is a term coined by James Lewis on American Thinker. It's perfect, so I use it often.
At a town hall meeting on health care in June -- before the nationwide outrage over the current legislation -- I asked my congressional representative, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), how she could promise that the public option would merely compete with private insurance, given that she had boasted in April that "a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business." She flatly denied ever having made the statement.
When I replied that her speech was on YouTube for all to see, a man three seats over from me shouted: "Shut up!" Another man across the room yelled, "I want to put them out of business," and several people applauded. "Well," I said, "I have private insurance and so do many people in the district, and we don't want to lose it."
Later, as I left the meeting, a woman followed me. "Do you work for an insurance company?" she demanded. "I bet you own a nursing home." I replied that neither was true, though my mother once worked in nursing homes as a physical therapist.
"Oh, physical therapists are the worst!" she cried. Turning to a companion, she gestured at me and added: "You see? This is what we have to watch out for."
In truth, the only thing Schakowsky and the $200 million campaign to force a health care bill through Congress have to "watch out" for are the voices and the votes of ordinary people. The majority of Americans are turning against this legislation simply by learning about what's in it. That is the reality that is slowly dawning on Congress-but which the most radical Democrats refuse to recognize.
Last week, Schakowsky appeared on "Real Time" with Bill Maher and announced that "millions" of Americans would soon march in favor of the "public option" on health care reform. She went further than repeating her talking points on government-run insurance, and revealed the new Astroturf strategy of HCAN and its well-funded allies: namely, to stack town hall meetings with shills and provocateurs.
As Schakowsky prepares for another town hall meeting August 31, locals have wondered whether she would restrict entry to residents of her district. The rumors were fueled by a New York Times article in which she was asked if she would be checking addresses at the door. She said she would not, which I credited to fair-mindedness until I remembered how many of her own supporters come from outside the area.
Back on August 4, the day after Senator Dick Durbin falsely accused opponents of health care of being paid stooges for the insurance industry, Schakowsky and her colleagues bused in supporters to a health care rally in Chicago. The Chicago Daily Herald even ran photographs of protestors gathering in far suburban Palatine and signing in with organizers as they waited to board a bright yellow bus to the city.
The truth is that Schakowsky has a history of denigrating free speech when she dislikes the message. This past April, Schakowsky referred to the Tea Party protests as "shameful" and "despicable." Contrast that to her attitude just a few years ago, when she led protests against Social Security reform at a private brokerage office that was merely a convenient target for anti-capitalist rage.
And then there was the famous protest Schakowsky led against fellow Democrat Dan Rostenkowski in 1989, when she incited a crowd that chased him down the street and attacked his car. When NPR asked her about the incident, Schakowsky claimed that today's town hall protestors want "to silence the conversation." In fact, the only people determined to silence conversation on health care are Schakoswsky and her radical supporters.
Organizing For America -- the former Obama campaign arm -- has planned a send-off for Schakowsky late this week. It has also issued instructions to its members to "arrive early" at the Schakowsky town hall meeting, the better to confront "Washington insiders, insurance companies, and well-financed special interests who don't go a day without spreading lies and stirring up fear."
That's an insult to the people of our district, whose voices Schakowsky intends to drown out. More than our health care, our very freedom is at stake.
Seems there is more to everyones's favorite Kenyan's plans to give Brazil 10 billion to develop their oil industry. Looks like his liberal buddy Soros is set to profit hugely from the deal.
quote
Oil Online is reporting that the Obama Administration is prepared to loan $10 Billion to Brazil's Pretrobas oil company for production in the Tupi field off the coast of Brazil. The Tupi field is an 800 kilometer by 200 kilometer formation some 4.3 miles below the ocean's surface.
quote
This comes at a remarkably great time for a significant Obama supporter, George Soros, who earlier this year bought a significant stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA valued at some $811 Million.
Seems there is more to everyones's favorite Kenyan's plans to give Brazil 10 billion to develop their oil industry. Looks like his liberal buddy Soros is set to profit hugely from the deal.
This is an email that was sent to me not by Kathy, but by my cousin.
This was sent to me by a friend in Bozeman, MT who was there. Why do we tolerate this?
Hello All, By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on. On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date. On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public. FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$ During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. $$$$$ Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday. Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED. This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for. On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd. The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them.....professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area) Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man. So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest. If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds. We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head. It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!! I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America , more like the USSR !! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!
I guess they don't have an open carry law there. That probably would have stopped some of the shenanigans from the outsiders and drawn more attention to the locals.
I didn't write this but I believe it to be true. It came in an email I received today.
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FOR YOU TO READ-----YOU DECIDE ??
The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775 - they've had 234 years to get it right; it is broke, and even though heavily subsidized, it can't compete with private sector Fed Ex and UPS services.
Social Security was established in 1935 - they've had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - they've had 71 years to get it right; it is broke. Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; it is broke. Together Fannie and Freddie have now led the entire world into the worst economic collapse in 80 years.
The War on Poverty was started in 1964 - they've had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our hard earned money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - they've had 44 years to get it right; they are both broke; and now our government dares to mention them as models for all US health care.
AMTRAK was established in 1970 - they've had 39 years to get it right; last year they bailed it out as it continues to run at a loss!
This year, a trillion dollars was committed in the massive political payoff called the Stimulus Bill of 2009; it shows almost no signs of working; it's been used to increase the size of governments across America, and raise government salaries while the rest of us suffer from economic hardships. It has yet to create more than a few new private sector jobs. Our national debt projections (approaching $10 trillion) have increased 400% in the last six months.
"Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009 - - after 80% of the cars purchased turned out to be produced by foreign companies, and dealers nationwide are buried under bureaucratic paperwork demanded by a government that is not yet paying them what was promised.
So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that each and every "service" shoved down our throats by an over-reaching government turns into disaster, how could any informed American trust our government to run or even set policies for America's health care system - 17% of our economy?
Maybe each of us has a personal responsibility to let others in on this brilliant record before 2010, and then help remove from office those who are voting to destroy capitalism and destroy our grandchildren's future.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretence of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson.
In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School. Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loath them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us-- financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state-- staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
The days of fancy speeches and adoring rallies are over. The American people have been aroused from their infatuation and will now be judging President Obama on the cold hard facts not his rhetorical flourishes.
With President Obama taking some well deserved vacation on Martha's Vineyard, that well known summer playground of the rich and famous, it might be a good time to evaluate the current state of the Obama Phenomenon.
By the time of the November 2008 election the country had became so angry at the failures of the Bush administration and of Republicans in general that John McCain was doomed. Fiscal mismanagement, a crumbling economy, rising unemployment and war seemingly without end, was just too much weight for the old fighter jock McCain to carry.
Republican congressmen, senators and pundits like to lay all the blame for their descent into the minority on George Bush's presidency and John McCain's campaign, conveniently forgetting that their own arrogance, lust for power and spendthrift ways had a lot to do with it.
The American humorist of the 1930s and 40s, Franklin Pierce Adams once said, "Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody." And Barack Obama is no exception.
But that lesson was lost on the Obama folks almost from day one. They did what all politicians and their supporters do after a big victory-- completely misread the mood of the electorate interpreting their victory as a mandate to radically reshape American society. They actually believed in their "Yes We Can" agenda -- and with their amen corner in the mainstream media calling him the greatest leader since FDR who could blame them?
But from where I sit, Barack Obama is a"post turtle." What is a"post turtle" you urbane urbanites and city slickers might ask?
Well one day an old cowboy was out ridin' fence and he saw a turtle balanced on top of a fence post. When he got back to the bunkhouse he told the other fellas that he saw a "post turtle". They all asked, "What the hell is a 'post Turtle'? And he said it was a turtle settin' on top of a post! He then went on to explain that "you know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there and you just wonder what kind of dang fool put him up there to begin with!"
Obama was never really vetted by the adoring media, he has never had his nose bloodied in a real political fight, in the Senate he perfected voting "present" to an art form, he has no real understanding or knowledge of the struggles of his countrymen, and he has had no real hard life experiences that are the hot steel needed to forge and shape leadership qualities.
During the campaign when he made the comments about some Americans"clinging to their guns and their religion" to a crowd of well-heeled San Francisco Democrats, it was almost as if he was giving them an anthropological lecture on the people of the rest of America. What he said demonstrated a total lack of understanding of his fellow citizens, but the way he said it was worse. It was as if he was saying, "You know I just returned from the hinterlands and I would like to tell you about the strange natives and their quaint customs I encountered in my travels." And they wonder why health care is in trouble.
There is also a growing perception about Obama being in over his head and that his inexperience, once seen as a not being a problem by his admirers, has become a problem.
Still, Obama appears to enjoy BEING president--throwing out the first pitch of the baseball season, cracking jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner and having a NASCAR Day at the White House. The more important question is does he really know how to BE president?
Well, over the next few months we are about to find out. His health care plan is in deep trouble, the economy has too much "whoa" and not enough "giddyup," and critical foreign policy questions will need to be answered on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran -- to name just a few.
He is either going to stand up and grab the standard of leadership or he will show that he really is a "post turtle" after all.
The days of fancy speeches and adoring rallies are over. The American people have been aroused from their infatuation and will now be judging him on cold hard facts not his rhetorical flourishes. It's about to get very interesting.
As Obama's hero old Abe Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
And the American people are showing they ain't no fools.
Wonder who that could be......hmmmmm?
