Rhetoric vs. Reality

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?cat=53

Rhetoric vs. Reality: trying out the Obama record

March 9th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain

It is something – the difference between rhetoric and reality - I don’t think Obama, for all the claims of his intelligence, understands. Just because you claim something is true doesn’t make it so (I know, something most of us learned around age 6).

In a speech in Boston – at a fund raiser:

Obama says that America should not be about the “haves and the have-nots.”

Didn’t know that it is, but this is a comfortable and popular theme among the limo liberal crowd, so it isn’t surprising the old horse was trotted out one more time. But let me set the scene for you:

President Obama addressed a group of 152 Democratic donors at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The walls were lined with enormous original oil portraits from the 16th century and guests are seated around about 24 round tables.

Lots of “have nots” in that room weren’t there?

But that isn’t the major point here – just wanted you to understand the context of the next part. To add to the surreal atmosphere he said this:

In welcoming Nancy Pelosi, Obama called her “someone who’s going to go down as one of the greatest Speakers in our history: Nancy Pelosi.”

“When the rubble had cleared, when the dust had settled. This country was going through as touch a time economically, as tough a time financially, as any period since the 1930s,” Obama said..

His administration “had to make a series of quick decisions, and often times unpopular decisions,” Obama said.

In those times, Obama said, there would have been a temptation to “resort to the expedient.”

“That’s why when I say, Nancy is going to go down as one of our finest speakers… I mean what I say,” Obama continued.

“Not only were we able to yank this economy out of the recession,” Obama said.

“Not only were we able to get this economy going again, that in the last 15 months we’ve seen the economy add jobs…but under Nancy’s leadership we were able to achieve historic health care legislation that over the last 15, 20 years will end up benefiting millions of families across the country… we were able to get “don’t ask, don’t’ tell” repealed,” he continued, adding that Congress expand our investments in clean energy, made the largest investments in infrastructure and the largest investments in education in years.

“We didn’t just rescue the economy we put it on the strongest footing for the future,” Obama said.

“And along the way we saved the auto industry and a few other things,” he quipped, to some laughter from the crowd.

Obama went over a kept promise to end combat in Iraq, and reduce the country’s military commitment in Afghanistan.

Where to start?!

Suffice it to say, anyone who could tout Nancy Pelosi as the “greatest Speakers in our history” either has the ideological blinders on so tight they’re cutting off blood flow to the brain or has a rather tenuous grasp on reality. Nancy Pelosi, if anything positive could be said about her, was a compliant means to an end. Someone from the short bus should have been able to push through just about anything they wanted in Nancy Pelosi’s House, given the huge majority Democrats had.

And she was complicit in the biggest expansion of government, not to mention the largest expansion of the public debt, of any Speaker I know.

Great? For America, she was a disaster. And so is the person fawningly praising her.

As for his other claims, well that’s just what they are … claims. He’d like you to believe them because doing so helps his case, but what you see here is a sort of test run of how he plans on spinning his record – something he’s never had to run on before.

Each and every point is either highly debatable or can be refuted outright. I got a kick out of one of the commenters under this story addressing his Iraq claim about ending combat:

If you think Obama stopped combat here, you are stunningly gullible.

Our guys are out on patrol every day and night amid the IEDs and VBIEDs. Our specops forces are operating outside the wire every day and night. The mortars and rockets are hitting our FOBs on a very regular basis. Purple Hearts are still being issued, including two on my FOB in January when a 107mm rocket landed across the street in one of my buddy’s men’s huts.

You live in Fantasyland, but thanks for the laugh.

The last line pretty much sums up the 152 Democrats in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts last night and much of the left right now – sitting there listening to a litany of “accomplishments” that are straight out of Fantasyland.

Doubling the debt, multi-year trillion dollar deficits, expanded government, expanded spending, 9% unemployment and a jobs record that won’t even maintain the status quo. Clueless about foreign policy, no energy policy, Gitmo still open, still in Iraq and little to show but another huge entitlement we can’t afford.

That’s the record he’s compiled. And Nancy helped.

That is the record you need to remember.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?cat=18

What do you do when your government flat out lies to you?

March 11th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain

It’s a rhetorical question for the most part, since it seems to be a daily occurrence anymore. Obviously it is hard to trust any government that does that on a regular basis and with a straight face. But that’s what we’re faced with. The latest example comes from Ken Salazar, head of the Department of the Interior, and as usual, he’s dissembling about oil production.

Kyle Isakower at API’s “Energy Tomorrow” blog, brings us up to date on some of Salazar’s numbers:

Last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Congress that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico "remained at an all-time high, and we expect that it will continue as we bring new production online." He claimed: "In 2009 there were 116 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, in 2010 in February, 120, in February 2011, 126."

Key points: production “remained at an all-time high” last year. And that such a state would continue to exist as “we” bring new production online. Additionally, Salazar claims an increase of 10 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from 2009 to last month.

Not true says Isakower citing Baker Hughes:

Four days before the Deepwater Horizon accident there were 55 rotary rigs actually drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
On May 28, 2010, when the administration announced the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, there were 46 rotary rigs operating in the Gulf.
Last week, 25 rotary rigs were operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
The point of course is oil production comes from working rigs. While there may be more rigs (by 10) in the Gulf, there are less working rigs (by 30) than in 2009.

As Isakower quips:

Claiming an increase in idle rigs in the Gulf as a success story is like claiming the job market is great because a lot of people are unemployed and available to work.

As for the production figures and the claim by Salazar that production remained at “an all time high” is technically true, the next part of his claim is demonstrably false. Isakower explains:

The Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration reports that production in the Gulf of Mexico is in decline, forecasting a decline of 250,000 barrels a day from Gulf production, due partly to the moratorium and restricted permitting. While the annual production figure for 2010 was greater than 2009, EIA’s month-by-month production figures show a peak in May of 2010, and a relatively steady decline since. And EIA Petroleum Engineer Gary Long told trade publication E&E News that the rig count in the Gulf was cut in half after the Deepwater Horizon accident and that it wouldn’t rebound to previous levels until the end of 2011 under the assumption that the permitting process is restored to historical rates. Further, since there is a lag time from the time an exploration permit is approved to the time of actual production, and since no only a handful of permits for new wells have been granted since April of 2010, it is likely that Gulf of Mexico production will continue to be hit hard in 2012 and beyond.

If anyone is monitoring the permitting process as it stands today, they know that the assumption about the process that Long uses isn’t valid (1 permit granted this year that I know of and that just before the hearings at which Salazar spoke). What that then means, as Isakower notes, is production in the Gulf will remain “hard hit” and lower than 2009 until well beyond 2012.

So, here we have a critical need (the production of more oil) that could produce thousands of good paying jobs, would boost a regional economy not to mention provide money for the federal treasury (taxes and royalties) and we have a government official claiming we’re at record levels and will remain there and beyond because “we” have more rigs in the Gulf now than we did 2 years ago.

API is relatively gentle about it saying, [w]e appreciate that when it comes to selling the administration’s energy policy, Secretary Salazar is in a tough position”.

I don’t have to be that diplomatic. Salazar isn’t “selling” anything, he’s spinning nonsense to Congress. There is no cogent or responsible energy policy evident from this administration. Instead, it has declared war on a vital industry that is absolutely critical to our nation’s economy and, using the Deepwater Horizon disaster as an excuse, placed barrier after barrier in front of the industry for almost a year to discourage new drilling operations.

Unfortunately the war has been successful. Drilling rigs have all but abandoned the Gulf to be deployed elsewhere around the world. That is a travesty and an inexcusable outcome of a thoughtless policy pressed for political reasons. Again, the administration spins nonsense to make it sound like they are on board with more oil production while doing everything in their power to block it.

The sad truth is the results of that “policy” will eventually be paid by you, at the pump, as gas prices continue to rise.

Remember that in 2012. It is another part of the record of the Obama administration. And in 2012, Obama has to do something he’s never done before in his political life – actually run on his record.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

The link looks better than the c&p does:

drsanity.blogspot.com/

Dr. Sanity
Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life


Saturday, March 19, 2011

SUICIDE IS PAINLESS

In "The Put-off, Postpone, and Procrastinate Generation" Victor Davis Hanson says that the "therapeutic generation of Americans loves to talk and worry about problems and then assumes that either someone else will solve them or they will go away on their own...."

But the problem with our Federal debt is that it will not disappear over time; in fact, it can only get worse.
The United States needs some Harry Truman-like plain speaking, instead of each administration putting off a national reckoning onto the next. Don't drill for oil and grow food — and the price for both goes up. Spend what you don't have, and later you will have to pay even more back. The generation that ran up the debt and was largely responsible for the Social Security crisis has a responsibility to make things right on its watch.

Such blunt talk is considered political suicide for candidates; in fact, anything less for the rest of us is national suicide.

The dilemma described above is an insoluble one for a politician whose only goal is re-election. Doing what's right in that case runs second to doing what's necessary to keep his job.

And the reality is that the public often wants to have its cake and eat it too--which is why polls are often so contradictory (and meaningless). With a rare amount of consistency, it seems that Americans really really want the debt to be decreased; but they also want taxes to be cut AND they refuse to part with their entitlements and pet projects.

Inconsistent? Certainly. But very human.

The question is why should they behave any differently? For decades, politicians of both parties have promised them the Moon, never telling them the potential cost in the long run. They have been led to believe that they can get "something for nothing" if only they elect candidate X. And, if they can't ignore reality and get something for nothing, it is because of the evil, money-grubbing capitalists whose only goal is to suck them dry.

Who hasn't heard a politician these days, especially from the Democratic Party, insist that the only real fiscal problem is that all those millionaires and billionaires and the rest of those "rich" people need to pay more to society?

The solution is always to "Tax the Rich!" and all will be well again.

But as Kevin Williamson argues, the only problem with that is there just aren't enough rich people to go around:
There are lots of liberal definitions of “rich.” When Pres. Barack Obama talks about the rich, he’s talking about people living in households with income of more than $250,000 or more, the rarefied caviar-shoveling stratum occupied by the likes of second-tier public-broadcasting executives, Boston cops, nurses, and the city manager of Lubbock, Texas (assuming somebody in her household earns the last $25,000 to carry her over the line). Club 250K isn’t all that exclusive, and most of its members aren’t the yachts-and-expensive-mistresses types.

Nonetheless, there aren’t that many of them. In fact, in 2006, the Census Bureau found only 2.2 million households earning more than $250,000. And most of those are closer to the Lubbock city manager than to Carlos Slim, income-wise. To jump from the 50th to the 51st percentile isn’t that tough; jumping from the 96th to the 97th takes a lot of schmundo. It’s lonely at the top.

But say we wanted to balance the budget by jacking up taxes on Club 250K. That’s a problem: The 2012 deficit is forecast to hit $1.1 trillion under Obama’s budget. (Thanks, Mr. President!) Spread that deficit over all the households in Club 250K and you have to jack up their taxes by an average of $500,000. Which you simply can’t do, since a lot of them don’t have $500,000 in income to seize: Most of them are making $250,000 to $450,000 and paying about half in taxes already. You can squeeze that goose all day, but that’s not going to make it push out a golden egg.

But it's the "golden egg" mentality that is driving the liberal mantra. Since liberals don't really understand where wealth comes from, you can watch them getting angrier and angrier when they are presented with facts like the one above. The only economic policy they know is to squeeze that goose. They have never considered that at some point the goose will be completely empty of eggs--and if you keep squeezing, it will certainly expire.

Margaret Thatcher, who was talking about the economic problems in her country in 1976and attributing it to the Labour Party policies, said:

think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments do traditionally make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money.

Thatcher understood, too, that when Labour/Democrats/Liberals/Progressives/Marxists finally do run out of other people's money, they always fall back on the tried and true rationalization that it is simply MORE government spending; MORE taxing the rich; MORE central planning, and MORE control of people's everyday lives that's needed.

They NEVER imagine that the goose will stop laying the golden eggs for them to spen;, nor do they ever imagine that they will ever have to stop living life as a fairy tale and face reality.

Their primary concern is to maintain their power and control over others; and to that end, the political left have discovered that by ramping up the traditional Marxist "class warfare" rhetoric, they can deflect anger that might otherwise be directed towards their profligacy onto the usual convenient scapegoats.

We see the effectiveness of this tactic by merely perusing the posters carried by the Wisconsin union protesters; and also by listening to their leaders blame those who dare to be supportive of fiscal responsibility. The distortion and denial are incredible.

But, as they force, step by excruciating step, their states and finally the country off that fiscal cliff, they won't fully appreciate the suicidal path they are on until that final moment when their fall is broken by hitting the hard, unyielding surface of reality.

Plain speaking may indeed be political suicide; it's much easier to promise everyone what they want instead of showing real leadership and going against the polls; against the protests; and doing what is consistent with reality.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity

[philunderwood]

neoneocon.com/2011/03/23/more-change-stories/

More change stories

Lee Stranahan’s change-story-in-the-making has garnered a certain amount of attention lately around the blogosphere, including a post at Ace’s that has inspired a number of people to write about their own political change. That comments thread caught my eye for obvious reasons, and I hereby offer two of the more interesting tales:

My breakthrough moment? Aimlessly surfing the intarwebz in 2004 or so, and clicked on a link to Townhall.com. Started reading Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and Michelle Malkin and finally hit the Ace O’ Spades jackpot. Mission Accomplished! But really, I previously never considered myself a news junkie or was ever remotely interested in politics or economics. I remember having a token aversion to Regan without knowing why, just because all the other college kids around me did. I spent months pondering the epiphany I had, because I lost some friends and somewhat alienated myself from my family due to my changed viewpoint. But I came to the conclusion that the honesty and internal consistency of conservatism was more than worth it. Time to go punch a hippie….

I remember having my own little epiphany in my 20s when I had been sure for years that Rush Limbaugh was nothing but a ***hole and the conservatives just wanted to bible thump me into submission. You know, like my parents. Then one day I was stuck on a 12 hour road trip with a broken tape player (yeah, no cd, that long ago) and nothing but talk radio. Spun the dial a lot and then came across some guy just GOING OFF on things I wish I had heard someone say for years. The funny part was I assumed it was some local guy, so I kept listening. I was 15 minutes into the show before he identified himself as Rush. So I had this insane “Hey wait a minute, this guy is smart and spot on” moment. I kept listening. And learning. And expanded my sources and got a grip on things.

You don’t know you are spoonfed liberal lies until some fact or logic, well put, breaks through. When it does, it is astonishing. But I can honestly say if I had known it was Rush when I first tuned in I would have turned the dial and missed the moment. I hated him, and had never actually listened to him.

Posted by neo-neocon

[Ritty77]

Seems there are a great many people who go from liberal to conservative as they mature, rather than the other way around. Why is that?

[philunderwood]

As these stories exemplify, an event or events cause them to step from the land of unicorns and moon ponies into reality just long enough to start the transition. Once it starts, there’s no turning back for most people. Often they become much better realists than their fellow libertarians or conservatives.

Most realists don’t venture into the land of unicorns and moon ponies. If they did, they wouldn’t be realists.

[philunderwood]

Obama Speech: Full Of Rhetoric, Bereft Of Logic

By Thomas Sowell

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

You don't just walk up to the local bully and slap him across the face. If you are determined to confront him, then you try to knock the living daylights out of him. Otherwise, you are better off to leave him alone.

Anyone who grew up in my old neighborhood in Harlem could have told you that. But Barack Obama didn't grow up in my old neighborhood. He had a much more genteel upbringing, including a fancy private school, in Hawaii.

Maybe that is why he thinks he can launch military operations against Moammar Qaddafi, while promising not to kill him and promising that no American ground troops will be used.

It is the old liberal illusion that you can measure out force with a teaspoon, not only in military operations micro-managed by civilians in Washington, like the Vietnam war, but also in domestic confrontations when the police are trying to control a rioting mob, and are being restrained by politicians, while the mob is restrained by nobody.

We went that route in the 1960s, and the results were not inspiring, either domestically or internationally.

The old saying, "When you strike at a king, you must kill him," is especially apt when it comes to attacking a widely recognized sponsor of international terrorism like Colonel Qaddafi. To attack him without destroying his regime is just asking for increased terrorism against Americans and America's allies. So is replacing him with insurgents who include other sponsors of terrorism.

President Obama's Monday night speech was long on rhetoric and short on logic. He said: "I believe that this movement of change cannot be turned back, and that we must stand alongside those who believe in the same core principles that have guided us."

Just what would lead him to conclude that this includes the largely unknown forces who are trying to seize power in Libya?

Too often in the past, going all the way back to the days of Woodrow Wilson, we have operated on the assumption that a bad government becomes better after the magic of "change." President Wilson said that we were fighting the First World War to make the way "safe for democracy." But what actually followed was the replacement of autocratic monarchies by totalitarian dictatorships that made previous despots pale by comparison.

The most charitable explanation for President Obama's incoherent policy in Libya-- if incoherence can be called a policy -- is that he suffers from the long-standing blind spot of the left when it comes to the use of force.

A less charitable and more likely explanation is that Obama is treating the war in Libya as he treats all sorts of other things, as actions designed above all to serve his own political interests and ideological visions. Whether it does even that depends on what the situation is like in Libya when the 2012 elections roll around.

As for the national interests of the United States of America, Barack Obama has never shown any great concern about that.

President Obama started alienating our staunchest allies, Britain and Israel, from his earliest days in office, while cozying up to our adversaries such as Russia and China, not to mention the Palestinians, who cheered when they saw on television the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Many people in various parts of the political spectrum are expressing a sense of disappointment with Obama. But I have not felt the least bit disappointed.

Once in office, President Obama has done exactly what his whole history would lead you to expect him to do-- such as cutting the military budget and vastly expanding the welfare state.

He has by-passed the Constitution by appointing power-wielding "czars" who don't have to be confirmed by the Senate like Cabinet members, and now he has by-passed Congress by taking military actions based on authorization by the United Nations and the Arab League.

Those who expected his election to mark a new "post-racial" era may be the most disappointed. He has appointed people with a track record of race resentment promotion and bias, like Attorney General Eric Holder and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Disappointing? No. Disgusting? Yes. The only disappointment is with voters who voted their hopes and ignored his realities.

[Doug Loss]

Mar 24, 2011 17:31:46 GMT -5 Ritty77 said:

Seems there are a great many people who go from liberal to conservative as they mature, rather than the other way around. Why is that?

You answered it yourself, Keith. They mature.

[philunderwood]

www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2011/mar/31/barack-obama-losing-84-billion-big-success/

Kerry Picket
Published on March 31, 2011

Obama has some 'splaining to do about taxpayers' Profitable "investment" in General Motors. It turns out the president is imagining things.

Though Democrats tout the auto bailout as a success, recent reports illustrate the taxpayer cost of the GM auto bailout was substantially larger than the Obama administration and a Congressional Oversight report has owned up to.

"American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM,” President Obama said, according to a piece in USA Today last November. Steven Rattner, former head of the Treasury's auto task force agreed, telling CNN in November: “Recent progress at GM gives reason for optimism that it may be possible for taxpayers to get every penny back.”

In fact, Investor's Business Daily reported that even the White House’s Director of the National Economic Council remarked that the Treasury Department Department had a good chance in "recovering most, if not all, of its investment in" GM.

However, a March 16 Congressional Oversight report, tells a different story. It estimates taxpayers will be out of $25 billion. Additionally, the report points out that “full repayment will not be possible unless the government is able to sell its remaining shares at a far higher price.”

That's only the beginning. Both the White House and the Congressional Oversight report omit the fact that during its bankruptcy, GM got a $45 billion tax break, courtesy of the American people.

GM is driving “away from its U.S.-government-financed restructuring with a final gift in its trunk: a tax break that could be worth as much as $45 billion,” reported The Wall Street Journal last November.

Over one year after the promises President Obama and his administration made about the auto bailout, a February piece on AutoBlog also confirms that GM will also get a $14 billion dollar domestic tax break:

GM will be able to skip its tax tab due to years of massive losses. Companies are typically forgiven a portion of future taxes due to their past losses, but that benefit is typically stripped after an organization goes through bankruptcy.
However, the Obama administration and its allies presently continue to celebrate the success of the auto bailout, regardless of the facts. "I don’t think there’s any doubt that this was a success," said (H/T Detroit News) acting assistant secretary at the Treasury Department Tim Massad, who oversees the TARP program at Treasury, to a House panel on Wednesday.

In Obama's world, success mean taxpayerss only lost as much as $84 billion.

[philunderwood]

Nancy Pelosi's absurd math on senior citizens losing their meals

By Glenn Kessler

www.JewishWorldReview.com |

“In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground 3 million seniors not receiving meals? I don't think so. We've got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don't think the American people want any one of those 6 million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it.”

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), April 4, 2011:

The day before House Republicans unveiled their long-term budget plan, one-time House Speaker Pelosi held an event with the Hunger Fast Coalition to draw attention to the budget cuts envisioned in the fiscal 2011 budget bill that passed the House earlier this year. The White House and the Senate have been engaged in tense discussions with House leaders over a compromise deal in an effort to avoid a government shutdown later this week.

Pelosi’s impassioned plea signifies her discomfort at even the thought of compromise. But several readers wondered about the figures she used. Are 6 million poor seniors really at risk of losing their meals — or even 3 million under the compromise plan being negotiated by President Obama?

The Facts:

The meal programs, which cost about $818 million a year, are managed by the Administration on Aging (AOA), an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services. The House bill would cut $65 million from the approximately $2.4 billion budget of the agency — a figure derived from GOP estimates of the savings in the agency from repealing the health care law — as well as eliminate $6 million in earmarks.

The first problem with Pelosi’s statistic is that, according to the agency’s budget documents, only about 2.6 million seniors receive such meals. That’s even less than what she decried as the mushy middle ground of compromise.

After we pointed out that fact, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said “she means meals for seniors — 6 million meals.” In 2011, the agency is expected to deliver a little over 200 million meals, so that’s a cut of about three percent.

That’s a pretty big “oops.” She referred to “6 million seniors,” “3 million seniors” and “6 million people.” We understand slips of a tongue, but three times in a row, so emphatically, is hard to fathom.

But Hammill tried to defend the number of 6 million, though he acknowledged that “that pot of money I mentioned is not exclusively dedicated to this program.”

According to Hammill, the agency has “informally indicated” to Pelosi’s staff that if they had to cut $71 million in the last seven months of the fiscal year, the two programs where services could be cut quickly to achieve quick savings would be the senior nutrition programs and senior centers. So Pelosi’s staff assumed a $30 million cut from the overall budget for senior meals, or 3.6 percent, resulting in 6 million fewer meals.

Marta Dehmlow, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, says the $65 million figure came from estimates on savings the administration provided regarding a provision of the new health care law that would be administered by the agency. “The Committee did not specify where this cut would come from and also does not know how AOA will spread that cut within their operations,” she said. “The Committee has received no official word on impact.”

A spokeswoman for the Administration on Aging referred a question to the White House budget office, which did not respond to our query. Hammill later acknowledged: “The Obama Administration had not made any determination of how they would implement a $71 million cut at the Administration on Aging if HR 1 was signed into law.”

So, in other words, Pelosi’s staff took a wild guess at where the cuts would fall in the agency.

But there are other problems with Pelosi’s 6 million number.

First, the administration requested the elimination of $6 million in earmarks, so it seems strange for Pelosi to call that a Republican cut. That should not be included, leaving us with $65 million in possible cuts.

Second, in the administration’s 2012 budget request, President Obama identified $150 million in cuts to the agency’s budget. It seems that those already-identified targets would be a more logical place to start looking for trims than meals for senior citizens, most of whom have incomes of less than $20,000.

Finally, the agency’s budget justification notes on page 55 that it has kept spending on senior meals essentially flat from 2010 to 2012, resulting in 36 million fewer meals for senior citizens. That’s six times higher than the figure that Pelosi has decried as an affront to “national values.” The administration’s budget, in fact, has earned the ire of some advocates for hungry seniors. Perhaps 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be a more appropriate place for Pelosi to direct her outrage.

The Pinocchio Test:

In a city with overheated rhetoric, Pelosi’s statement ranks high on this year’s list of bloviated bluster. It’s bad enough that she repeatedly mixed up 6 million meals and 6 million people — and made no effort to correct the record after her statement was reported in the media. But the figure she used appears to have been invented itself, with little basis in fact.

The budget cuts being contemplated by Republican and Democratic lawmakers will result in some painful sacrifices, especially as the end of the fiscal year draws near. Respected analysts such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have identified the potential impact. There was no need for Pelosi to hype the potential pain.

[philunderwood]

[philunderwood]

Obama fails “Leadership 101” – again

April 15th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain

You are President of the United States. All 57 of them. And you have a challenge in front of you. The public is alarmed by the level of government debt and sharply rising deficits. Of course, being a “Constitutional law professor” you know that any action on this must be initiated by the House of Representatives since by law they are charged with the budget and appropriations. But because of a lack of confidence in the leadership of your party, as they held majorities in both chambers of Congress, the House was reclaimed by the opposition party who now enjoys a solid majority there.

So as a leader, you must address the reality of the situation, tone down the partisan rhetoric, make overtures to bipartisan cooperation and attempt to bridge the partisan gap that you and your party have helped create these past two years. Leadership 101.

Instead we got this – POLITICO lays it out for you:

President Barack Obama extended a fiscal olive branch to Republicans on Wednesday.

Then he beat them up with it. Obama’s long-anticipated speech on the deficit at George Washington University was one of the oddest rhetorical hybrids of his presidency — a serious stab at reforming entitlements cloaked in a 2012 campaign speech that was one of the most overtly partisan broadsides he’s ever delivered from a podium with a presidential seal.

I differ with the analysis – it wasn’t a serious stab at anything. No details were present. Just a “framework”, which is Obama’s usual way of laying off responsibility or outsourcing his job to others. His entire first term, to date, has been about grand and nebulous words left to others to flesh out.

But back to the point – as someone, I believe it was Paul Ryan, said, instead of building bridges with his speech, Obama went about poisoning wells.

What he essentially acted like was a Senate back bencher throwing verbal bombs at the opposition. And, of course, if you recall, that’s precisely what he was until he managed to fool enough people into electing him president.

How stupid was it to act as he did this past Wednesday?

But the combative tenor of Obama’s remarks, which included a swipe at his potential 2012 GOP challengers, may have scuttled the stated purpose of the entire enterprise — to start negotiations with Republicans on a workable bipartisan approach to attacking the deficit.

And it didn’t build much goodwill ahead of upcoming fights, especially the looming battle over raising the debt ceiling.

That’s correct – the looming fights have now been made partisan by a president who set the tone. Donald Trump called him the worst president ever (well, unless Donald Trump were to become president that is). I have to agree – and I lived through Jimmy Carter who now seems almost competent in comparison.

Carter at least tried to be a leader. This man makes no attempt at leadership. He’s a hack politician in way over his head and seems to thrive on political one-upsmanship, partisan bickering and playing politics with everything.

Leaders lead. Sounds trite and clichéd, but as was said about porn, you know one when you see one.

I’ve known many leaders in my day, and Mr. Obama is no leader.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

Dr. Sanity
Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life

Thursday, April 14, 2011

FAILURE IS THE MOST DESIRABLE OUTCOME FOR THE LEFT

Victor Davis Hanson writes that "Failure is Very Much an Option":

Lost in the furor over the budget is any discussion of the fact that, after a certain baseline point, redistributive payouts might be making things worse for those on the receiving end. Black middle-class flight from northern big cities, failing public schools like nearby Fresno City College, where yesterday it was announced that 70 percent of students (the majority of them on some sort of federal and state loan support) fail to receive a two-year AA degree — these are just a few indications that increasing reliance on government subsidies does not eliminate, and may well perpetuate, such ills as illiteracy, poverty, and hunger.

Read the whole thing. It's worse than Dr. Hanson writes, though, because failure is actually a really desirable outcome insofar as it can give more opportunities for the progressive left to increase their power and control over others. The ever-expanding culture of victimhood that has been exploited by the progressive left to continually expand its base and increase its political power, has done little or nothing to actually help the victims it routinely identifies and proceeds to infantalize. The only people being "empowered" by this culture are the intellectual elite of the left and their Democratic Party minions.

Indeed, the constant jockeying among these identified victim groups; their competing claims as well as the continued failure of all the politically correct policies developed to cater to them, are evidence of the intellectual, moral and political bankruptcy of leftist ideas. For more than a century, the false promises of socialism and communism have been found to be empty.

But even in failure, the left refuses to give up the failed policies that have brought individuals and nations to utter ruin--they just recycle them, like good little environmentalists. President Obama in his ridiculously vague and partisan oration on budgetary matters yesterday gives us a perfect example of the recycling technique perfected by leftists in denial. This is a man who promised "hope and change"--and now he is the master of the status quo. Paul Ryan, in his response to the President has this to say:

We cannot accept an approach that starts from the premise that ever-higher levels of spending and taxes represent America’s new normal. We have an obligation to fulfill the mission of health and retirement security for current retirees and future generations. We have a historic commitment to limited government and free enterprise. And we have a duty to leave the next generation with a more prosperous nation than the one we inherited. [...]

If you are someone who agrees with the president that we cannot avoid this outcome without resorting to large tax increases, know this: No amount of taxes can keep pace with the amount of money government is projected to spend on health care in the coming years. Medicare and Medicaid are growing twice as fast as the economy — and taxes cannot rise that fast without a devastating impact on jobs and growth.

If you believe that spending on these programs can be controlled by restricting what doctors and hospitals are paid, know this: Medicare is on track to pay doctors less than Medicaid pays, and Medicaid already pays so little that many doctors refuse to see Medicaid patients. These arbitrary cuts not only fail to control costs, they also leave our most vulnerable citizens with fewer health-care choices and reduced access to care.

And if you believe that we must eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these programs, know this: Eliminating inefficient spending is critical, but the only way to do so is to reward providers who deliver high-quality, low-cost health care, while punishing those who don’t. Time and again, the federal government has proved incapable of doing that.

Medicare is projected to go bankrupt in just nine years unless we act to curb the relentlessly rising cost of health care. This cannot be done with across-the-board cuts in Washington. It has to be done by giving seniors the tools to fight back against skyrocketing costs. That’s why our budget saves Medicare by using competition to weed out inefficient providers, improve the quality of health care for seniors and drive costs down. The president’s proposals are aimed more at empowering government than strengthening the free market.

And that last sentence about sums up what's going on here. The very very compassionate left is so wrapped up in feeling good about themselves (note how they routinely emphasize that their opponents want women, children and the elderly to 'suffer'--some have even gone so far as to call it a 'genocide' or insist that Republicans and conservatives 'hate' everyone but wealthy white males. This is as pristine an example of psychological projection as you are likely to witness) that they could care less about the actual outcomes of their policies.

If the economy is worse because of their frenetic spending, they quite naturally believe that spending MORE will make it better--that, and escalating the rhetoric (remember their terrible anguish about the lack of civil discourse and the conservative 'hate' not so long ago??) against those who, in good faith, are trying to deal with reality. Just watch as Paul Ryan--not the specifics of his plan--becomes the lightening rod for the incivility of the progressive left. Success is not the goal; nor do they want the economy to turn around if it is the free market and reducing their profligate ways that will accomplish that end.

They are all about the redistribution of wealth; the creation of entitled victimhood groups who will blindly support them; and the expansion of big government for the sake of holding on to their power over others. Oh yes, all that and posturing.


- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity

drsanity.blogspot.com/

[philunderwood]

Dr. Sanity
Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life


Sunday, April 17, 2011

THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Here is a detailed analysis of President Obama's budget proposals. Go and read it if you want to get beyond the rhetoric to see the man behind the curtain.
Today the President proposed:

1.a negotiating process;
2.deficit and debt targets;
3.a new budget process trigger mechanism;
4.and new spending cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, other entitlements, and defense.
Compared to the budget he proposed in February, he offers no new proposals in non-security discretionary spending (I think), taxes, or Social Security.

Hennesey then goes into detail about each of these issues and concludes:
Here are four broad reactions to the new proposal.

First, this is a short-term budget, not a long-term budget. There are three forces driving our long-run government spending and deficit problem:

1.demographics;
2.unsustainable growth in per capita health spending; and
3.unsustainable promises made by past elected officials, enshrined in entitlement benefit formulas.
The President’s proposal addresses none of these forces. It instead spends most of its effort on everything but those factors. His proposed Medicare and Medicaid savings, while large in aggregate dollars, are quite small relative to the total amount to be spent on those programs, and he lets the largest program in the federal budget (Social Security) grow unchecked. While Bowles and Simpson focused their efforts on the major entitlements and also addressed other spending areas and taxes, the President’s proposal does the reverse, focusing on other mandatory spending, taxes, and defense. That’s a short-term focus.

Second, this proposal “feels” to me like the recently concluded discretionary spending deal. It’s the size of a typical deficit reduction bill that Congress usually does every five or so years. I’m sure the affected interest groups are even now preparing to invade Washington to explain how a 3-5% cut will devastate them. The problem is that our fiscal problems are now so big that they require much larger policy changes.

Third, while framed as a centrist proposal, the substance leans pretty far left. It’s deficit reduction through (triggered) tax increases on the rich, plus defense cuts, plus unspecified other mandatory cuts and process mechanisms that might cut Medicare provider payments. Centrist Democrat proposals do all of these things, but they also reform Social Security and Medicare, usually through a combination of raising the eligibility age, means-testing, and raising taxes.

Fourth, the President’s speech was campaign-like in its characterization of and attacks on the Ryan plan.

Whatever you might argue about the Ryan plan, it is a serious, substantive effort to cut federal spending and get a handle on the enormous debt that the Obama White House has done more than "inherit". Granted that debt and deficit spending was already an issue when Obamessiah came to power; but the fact remains that he has done nothing serious to address it; and on the contrary has added record levels of debt and entitlement spending with complete and utter disregard for the impact that this will have on ordinary Americans and future generations--all the time sounding as if he meant to deal with it, when in fact he doesn't.

He is, quite simply, beggaring America's future, not "winning" it.

And if you combine his frantic efforts to alienate allies and suck up to enemies (I believe he calls this "negotiation" and/or "resetting the button"); with his emphasis on American weakness and impotence; what we arrive at is a studied, deliberate policy to destroy once and for all, American leadership in the world--both in the national economic realm and in international policy realm.

This President is not only the worse American President in history, he is the first President who is deliberately and I believe consciously out to destroy American values and exceptionalism. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mean nothing to this man except as a rhetorical springboard to forward his leftist and basically socialist agenda. I have a hard time imagining he even likes this country and what it has stood for for more than 200 years.

His real agenda can never prosper as long as America exists in the world.

Deliberate and conscious, you say?

There is no other conclusion that can be drawn from his rhetoric and watching his behavior (what he actually does). Hennessey's analysis is one important clue as to what's up.

He knows exactly what he is doing, His goal is to subsume America into an impotent international government; which I suspect he also intends to put himself forward to lead once this country is in ruins.

I dearly hope that the American public begins to really pay attention to the man behind the curtain--because he is all about putting on a magic show to impress and awe the gullible even as he is losing the future of this country.

Mark Steyn asks, "Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you’ve spent it and no longer have one?"

Don't worry, we are on track to not having a future in somewhere between 2-6 years --however long the false wizard of hope and change remains in office.

- Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity

[philunderwood]

Fact Check Org fact checks Obama’s budget speech and is not impressed–factually speaking

April 25th, 2011 | Author: Bruce McQuain

President Obama’s speech on April 13th was used as an opportunity to spread false information about the GOP’s budget plan authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) according to Fact Check.org. Among the deceptive claims were these:

- Obama claimed the Republicans’ "Path to Prosperity" plan would cause "up to 50 million Americans "¦ to lose their health insurance." But that worst-case figure is based in part on speculation and assumptions.

- He said the GOP plan would replace Medicare with "a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry." That’s an exaggeration. Nothing would change for those 55 and older. Those younger would get federal subsidies to buy private insurance from a Medicare exchange set up by the government.

- He said "poor children," "children with autism" and "kids with disabilities" would be left "to fend for themselves." That, too, is an exaggeration. The GOP says states would have "freedom and flexibility to tailor a Medicaid program that fits the needs of their unique populations." It doesn’t bar states from covering those children.

- He repeated a deceptive talking point that the new health care law will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion. That’s the Democrats’ own estimate over a 20-year period. The Congressional Budget Office pegged the deficit savings at $210 billion over 10 years and warned that estimates beyond a decade are "more and more uncertain."

- He falsely claimed that making the Bush tax cuts permanent would give away "$1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire." That figure — which is actually $807 billion over 10 years — refers to tax cuts for individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000, not just millionaires and billionaires.

- He said the tax burden on the wealthy is the lowest it has been in 50 years. But the most recent nonpartisan congressional analysis showed that the average federal tax rate for high-income taxpayers was lower in 1986.

You may say, “hey, those aren’t really that big of a deal – they’re not giant fibs”. Well yeah, they are – and collectively they paint a completely false picture of both the Ryan plan and the Obama plan because the way he presented each was to try to present them in such a way that you bought into the premise his falsehoods painted.

Had he just stuck with the facts, the GOP’s wouldn’t have sounded too bad and his wouldn’t have sounded very good (for instance the claim that ObamaCare will save $1 trillion assumes the “doc cut” will actually be made when there is absolutely no indication it will ever be made).

So he just made stuff up out of thin air or presented it in a highly-partisan way to make it sound much worse than it is.

We should expect better than that from the President of the US shouldn’t we?

And wasn’t he the guy who promised such “hope and change” in DC with his administration? That’s one campaign promise (among many others) that simply will never get the green checkmark in the box beside it. It is a complete and total “no-go”.

~McQ

[philunderwood]

Dr. Sanity
Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life


Thursday, May 12, 2011

WHY I THINK PAUL RYAN WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT PRESIDENT

Here, he takes on Obama, point by point regarding the GOP budget proposal:





And for VP, perhaps someone with foreign policy chops and no BS--perhaps John Bolton?

But then I am rather partial to straight shooters and talkers.

- Diagnosed by pat

[philunderwood]

Well worth linking to.

www.qando.net/?cat=42

[Ritty77]

WHY I THINK PAUL RYAN WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT PRESIDENT

Excellent video, Phil.

I hope Paul Ryan winds up on the GOP ticket. Straight talk, verifiable facts, and actual workable ideas. Imagine him in a Veep debate with Joe Biden. I actually kinda like Joe, but he would get embarrassed.

The KKK Truth video is excellent, too. Both keepers for reference purposes.

---------

Lots of bunnies around my place. Zero frogs seen.

[twinder]

I got your frogs. Driving me nuts at night.

[Ritty77]

May 12, 2011 17:20:27 GMT -5 twinder said:

I got your frogs. Driving me nuts at night.

That's funny.