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Post by philunderwood on Jan 17, 2012 8:23:09 GMT -5
Presidential Nonsense By Walter Williams www.JewishWorldReview.com | Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics." Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of "you're-on-your-own economics." I'm guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — "you're-on-your-own economics" is that it's a system in which people are held responsible for their actions, that they take risks and must live with the results, that people can't force others to pay for their mistakes, and that they can't live at the expense of other people. President Obama's vision was shared by our Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts. They established a communist system. They all farmed together, and whatever they produced was put in a common storehouse. A certain amount of food was rationed to each person regardless of his contribution to the work. Many Pilgrims complained that they were too weak from hunger to do their share of the work. As deeply religious as the Pilgrims were, they took to stealing from one another. Gov. William Bradford, writing his history of the colony in "Of Plymouth Plantation," said, "So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue, the next year also if not some way prevented." In 1623, after much debate, a new system was set up, in which every family was assigned a parcel of land, and whatever they produced belonged to the family. Gov. Bradford then observed, "The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression." After Gov. Bradford's establishment of what Obama calls "you're-on-your-own economics," harvests were so bountiful that Bradford is credited with establishing what we now call Thanksgiving. There are several seemingly immutable, hard-wired characteristics about humans that socialists, liberals and progressives find difficult to deal with and would like to change. People tend to work harder and produce more when they own what they produce. Property is better cared for when it is privately owned. People love to exchange, what Adam Smith called a "propensity to truck (and) barter." To suppress these characteristics requires brute force. President Obama also told the Washington Hilton crowd that "we are not a country that was built on the idea of survival of the fittest." Obama is not by himself, but "survival of the fittest" is one of the greatest misunderstandings of Charles Darwin's pathbreaking work "On the Origin of Species." When Obama and most other people use the expression "survival of the fittest," they suggest that a bunch of people or animals are competing with one another and the strongest, smartest or cleverest survives. That's not what Darwin and evolutionary biologists have in mind. Instead, what they have in mind is that those who survive have characteristics that make them better-equipped to survive and hence reproduce themselves in a particular environment. They are not laying waste to their competitors. Let's try a few survival of the fittest questions. Which companies do you think should survive and expand, those that can meet the changing wants of their customers in a least-cost fashion or those that cannot do so? If the means of communication become cheaper through fax machines, the Internet and telephones, should subsidies be expended to help the U.S. Postal Service survive? Years ago, typing was done on a mechanical typewriter; milk was delivered to doorsteps via horse and wagon; slide rules were used to make calculations. Should any of these products and practices have survived, or was it OK for natural selection to consign them to the dustbin of history? Try cornering the president or his supporters, and ask them whether they believe government should ensure that the unfit survive and rather than "you're-on-your-own economics" there should be "you're-on-somebody-else economics."
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 18, 2012 10:18:33 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=jobs-councilPresident’s Jobs Council: “Drill, drill, drill” Published January 18, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain President Obama’s “Jobs Council”, formed to take the heat out of criticism that he’s not doing enough to foster job growth, has come back with an interim report that can pretty well be distilled into three words: “drill, drill, drill”: President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil-and-gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines. “[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This, of course, is directly at odds with the administration’s attempt to “green up” American by pushing alternate and renewable fuels while engaging in foot-dragging, regulation and bureaucratic red-tape to slow down and sometimes stop the search for (and use of) fossil fuels. You can almost hear the jaws of Steven Chu and Ken Salazar falling open. So what’s a President to do? Well first, argue that what they said isn’t what they said, of course: White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted Tuesday that the jobs council report does not endorse the Keystone pipeline. "Well, first of all, the Jobs Council wasn’t talking about Keystone specifically," Carney said at his daily briefing. "The Jobs Council was talking about the importance of expanding domestic oil and gas production, a goal this president shares and has expounded upon at length, and has taken action as a policy matter to demonstrate his commitment to." Nice double-talk Jay … this President “shares” the goal of expanding domestic oil and gas production about as much as al Qaeda shares a goal for peaceful secular coexistence with the West. His administration talks the talk, but when you look at the action they’ve taken it is hard to find evidence of that “shared” goal. The problem for him, however, is this Jobs Council was his idea and he certainly implied that its existence meant he’d listen to their findings. While he and Carney can weasel-word all they wish about the Keystone Pipeline, it does mean jobs. Just as the shale gas finds in in the Ohio and Pennsylvania area do. But instead we see the usual suspects involved in trying to demonize fracking and stop that process with the tacit approval of the Obama administration. The report notes that the Obama administration has called for new lease sales and said it will consider opening up new areas to drilling. But it says “further expanding and expediting the domestic production of fossil fuels both offshore and onshore (in conjunction with more electric and natural gas vehicles) will reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil and the huge outflow of U.S. dollars this reliance entails.” Beyond oil and gas, the report calls for policies that improve energy efficiency, encourage private investment in energy research and development and expand renewable energy. Note two things. One the Council tries to soften the blow to the administration by attempting to gild their record up to now – an acknowledgement that the administration has “called for new lease sales and said it will consider opening up new areas to drilling”. But again, what actions have they taken to this point to do those two things? Nada. Again, all talk, no action – at least no action that conforms with what the President has supposedly called for. And also note the council calls on policies to “encourage private investment in energy research and development and expand renewable energy”. Why? Because the possibility of another Solyndra would be vastly reduced. Sound advice that will most likely go unheeded. Republicans, as you might imagine, have seized upon this report: House Republicans quickly pounced on the jobs council report Tuesday, noting that the recommendations echo their "all-of-the-above" energy strategy. "The President’s Jobs Council today confirmed what House Republicans have known all along, that American energy production will spur job creation and strengthen our national security," House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a statement. "Unfortunately, it appears President Obama is ignoring his Council’s recommendations, much as he has ignored the views of House Republicans on energy production, economic growth and job creation." More broadly, the jobs report calls for expanded oil-and-gas drilling, as well as “safe and responsible” natural-gas extraction from shale formations. So? So this is going to be a tough one for Obama to ignore, especially as his election campaign gears up. He’s voted present on Keystone by delaying a decision until after the election. But events keep going to spite him – PM Harper of Canada, tired of the delays and nonsense surrounding the pipeline is now wooing China and Obama’s own Jobs Council has now pointed to the common sense solution to creating thousands of jobs – get the government to hell out of the way. Problem? The man just isn’t wired that way. Government is the solution in his world – never the problem, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Let’s see how he handles this. If Carney’s statements are any indication, China will be shipping Canada’s oil sands production west in the next few years unless we manage to get this man back to Chicago in January of next year where he belongs. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 20, 2012 8:45:16 GMT -5
Why do they get rich?' By Rich Lowry www.JewishWorldReview.com | Stephanie Cutter, an adviser to the Obama re-election campaign, wrote a scathing memo the other day about Mitt Romney's experience at Bain Capital, subtitled "Profit at Any Cost." Cutter sounded like a sworn enemy of private equity. Except a few years ago, she was a spokeswoman for J.C. Flowers, a private-equity firm. Why do work for J.C. Flowers when there are so many other worthy ventures needing communications help that don't make insane amounts of money and pay incredibly well? Presumably Cutter wanted to be as well-compensated as possible, by J.C. Flowers and the "several Fortune 500 companies" her communications firm served, according to her bio. This is utterly unremarkable but for the fact that she is part of an Obama team that argues there is something inherently wrong with income inequality. In his signature Osawatomie, Kan., speech, President Barack Obama asserted that rising inequality hampers those at the bottom. If that's so, shouldn't the people around him endeavor to keep from adding to the injustice by making too much money? But none of them goes out and gets poor. Very few of them, it seems, even go out and get middle class. They get rich. Many of them climb right into the 1 percent. Obama economic adviser Alan Krueger gave a speech recently lamenting the shrinking middle class, without mentioning that the reason for its diminishment is that so many people have risen all the way out of the middle. By Krueger's (perverse) standard, major Obama officials have heedlessly contributed to the destruction of the American middle class by earning too much. Consider only the chief of staffs. President Obama's new chief of staff, Jacob Lew, made $1.1 million in one year working for Citigroup. His prior chief of staff, William Daley, made $8.7 million in roughly one year working for JPMorgan Chase. His original chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made $16 million working for an investment firm. Judging by this record, President Obama only feels comfortable entrusting his affairs to men who have earned outrageous paydays. The Obama 1-percenters abound. President Obama's first national economic director, Larry Summers, earned $600,000 as president of Harvard, then went to a hedge fund where he made $5 million in one year, before joining the administration. His first budget director, Peter Orszag, left to make $2 million to $3 million a year at Citigroup. His current national-security adviser, Tom Donilon, got $7 million from his work at Fannie Mae from 2000 to 2003. Certainly Obama's top aides don't have to make millions in finance, but they'd almost have to go out of their way not to get rich. In the aggregate, they are smart, highly educated and hard-working. They tend to marry people with the same characteristics. They have relatively stable families. They have success -- indeed, the 1 percent -- written all over them. They probably would be scandalized to work at a private-sector job paying "only" $50,000, the median household income in the U.S. In a report that has the tone of a revelation about it, The New York Times discovered the 1 percent is a "varied group, one that includes podiatrists and actuaries, executives and entrepreneurs, the self-made and the silver spoon set." By one estimate, the 1 percent starts at households making $380,000 a year. That means in 2005, Michelle Obama alone was almost making enough to hoist the Obama household into the dreaded 1 percent with her $316,962 job at the University of Chicago Hospital. Is it too much to ask that one high-profile Obama official leave government and refuse to make more than $70,000 a year out of solidarity with the middle class and commitment to income equality? Of course it is. Just as the definition of a depression is when someone else loses a job, greed is when someone else makes a lot of money. For anyone hoping to get to the top, the collective message of current and former Obama officials should be clear: Do as they do, not as they say.
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Post by philunderwood on Jan 31, 2012 8:28:43 GMT -5
Obama's Racial Politics By Walter Williams www.JewishWorldReview.com | There's been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama's domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies. Any criticism of Obama pales in comparison with what might be said about the American people who voted him in to the nation's highest office. Obama's presidency represents the first time in our history that a person could have been elected to that office who had long-standing close associations with people who hate our nation. I'm speaking of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 20 years, who preached that blacks should sing not "God Bless America," but "God damn America." Then there's William Ayers, now professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago but formerly a member of the Weather Underground, an anti-U.S. group that bombed the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and other government buildings. Although Ayers was never convicted of any crime, he told a New York Times reporter, in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attack, "I don't regret setting bombs. ... I feel we didn't do enough." Obama has served on a foundation board, appeared on panels, and even held campaign events in Ayers' home, joined by Ayers' former-fugitive wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Bill Ayers' close association with Obama is reflected by his admission that he helped write Obama's memoirs, "Dreams from My Father." Many Americans thought that with Obama's presidency, we were moving to a "post-racial society." Little can be further from the truth. Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, in a National Review (1/18/2012) article titled "Obama's Racial Politics," says that Obama's message about race and his charges of racial bigotry are "usually coded and subtle." Criticizing Republicans, before a Mexican-American audience, Obama said that he ran for office because "America should be a place where you can always make it if you try — a place where every child, no matter what they look like (or) where they come from, should have a chance to succeed." If you don't get it, "no matter what they look like" is code for nonwhite. Hanson says that Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, has "found race a convenient refuge from criticism — most recently accusing his congressional auditors of racism, for their grilling him over government sales of firearms to Mexican cartel hitmen." Obama's racial politics are aided and abetted by a dishonest news media. When Republican candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry referred to "a big black cloud that hangs over America, that debt that is so monstrous," he was dishonestly accused of racism by MSNBC's Ed Schultz, who said, "That black cloud Perry is talking about is President Barack Obama." Schultz omitted the second half of Perry's quote. Chris Matthews referred to Perry's vision of federalism as "Bull Connor with a smile." The media have help from black congressmen in stirring up racial dissent. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said white presidents must be "pushed a great deal more" to address black unemployment than would a black president. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said that argument over the debt ceiling is proof of racial animosity toward Obama. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said that Republicans are trying to deny blacks the vote. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., said the tea party wishes to lynch blacks and hang them from trees. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Perry's job creation in Texas is "one stage away from slavery." All of this places a heavy burden on people who care about our nation. We must ensure that the 2012 elections are the most open and honest elections in U.S. history. Should Obama lose, I wouldn't put it past leftists, progressives, the news media and their race-hustling allies, as well as the president, to fan the fires of hate and dissension by charging that racists somehow stole the election, thereby giving support and excuses for the kind of violence and lawlessness that we've witnessed in flash mobs and Occupy Wall Street riots.
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Post by philunderwood on Feb 16, 2012 8:41:05 GMT -5
Can Obama Win Re-Election by Promising Free Stuff? By Bernard Goldberg www.JewishWorldReview.com | By now we all know that the candidate who four years ago told us he would bring us together has become the president who will run for re-election by trying to drive us apart. The president can't say two words without saying these two words: "Fair share." The rich, we're told, aren't paying their "fair share" and that's not fair. The other day, as he explained why his new budget calls for tax increases on the wealthy, the president said, "We don't begrudge success in America. We do expect everybody to do their fair share, so that everybody has opportunity, not just some." And since everybody on Team Obama got the memo, the president's chief of staff Jack Lew recently said, "In the short term, we need to keep the economy growing. In the long term, we need to get the deficit under control � and we do it in a way that's consistent with American values so that everyone pays a fair share." You will hear those two words over and over again between now and Election Day. That's because Mr. Obama, who promised he would change the tone in Washington and usher in a new post-partisan era, has figured out what we all already know: He can't run on his record, so he'll run trying to convince the middle class that the rich are getting away with murder; that the middle class is struggling because the rich are not; that if those intransigent Republicans in Congress would only go along with his plan to increases taxes on the rich, then happy days would be here again. I suspect that even Mr. Obama, an intelligent man, doesn't believe any of this. He's got to know that if he taxed the rich at 100 percent of their income, it still wouldn't put a dent in the national debt. Besides, if you increase taxes on the wealthy — the people who hire people who aren't rich — we might slip into another recession. But this isn't about economics. It's about politics. Mr. Obama has done the math. He knows that there are a lot more voters in the middle class than in the top one percent. Turn the 99 percent against the one percent and you can win re-election. Hope and change has become divide and conquer. But since Mr. Obama is so concerned about fairness, let's ask him if it's fair that the top one percent of wage earners — the people he's always bashing — pay about 40 percent of all federal income taxes while the bottom 50 percent pay about 2.7 percent. Mr. Obama says he is not waging class warfare against the wealthy in America. He is, of course. His campaign slogan might as well be: " Vote for Me � I'll Give You Free Stuff." This is enticing. Imagine if you pay no federal income taxes and one of the candidates says, "I'll take money from rich people and give it to you to pay your mortgage — even if you were irresponsible and bought a house you couldn't afford. Vote for me, I'll make sure you get unemployment benefits for almost two full years. And, oh yeah, vote for me and I'll make sure you get birth control pills — free of charge. The most important, underreported story in America is the one about who we Americans are becoming. As Bill O'Reilly put it: President Obama is "calculating that the American voter has changed into a person who wants free stuff from the government and is willing to sacrifice some freedoms in order to get the free stuff. And you know what? The President might be right." Unlike a lot of you who think Mr. Obama doesn't stand a chance, I have less faith in the American people than you. A lot less. I'm with H. L. Mencken who supposedly said, "You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Not any of YOU, of course. I'm talking about EVERYONE ELSE. The ones who can be bought with cheap promises. As my pal Bill O'Reilly put it: "Free stuff is a powerful lure. No question about it."
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Post by philunderwood on Feb 20, 2012 10:57:31 GMT -5
Brokest Nation In History Fusses Instead About Sex By Mark Steyn www.JewishWorldReview.com | Have you seen the official White House version of what the New York Times headline writers call "A Responsible Budget"? My favorite bit is Chart 5-1 on Page 58 of their 500-page appendix on "Analytical Perspectives." This is entitled "Publicly Held Debt Under 2013 Budget Policy Projections." It's a straight line going straight up before disappearing off the top right hand corner of the graph in the year 2084 and continuing northeast straight through your eye socket, out the back of your skull and zooming up to rendezvous with Newt's space colony on the moon circa 2100. Just to emphasize, this isn't the doom-laden dystopian fancy of a right-wing apocalyptic loon like me; it's the official Oval Office version of where America's headed. In the New York Times-approved "responsible budget" there is no attempt even to pretend to bend the debt curve into something approaching re-entry with reality. As for us doom-mongers, at the House Budget Committee on Thursday, Chairman Paul Ryan produced another chart, this time from the Congressional Budget Office, with an even steeper straight line showing debt rising to 900 percent of GDP and rocketing off the graph circa 2075. America's Treasury Secretary, Timmy Geithner the TurboTax Kid, thought the chart would have been even more hilarious if they'd run the numbers into the next millennium: "You could have taken it out to 3000 or to 4000" he chortled, to supportive titters from his aides. Has total societal collapse ever been such a nonstop laugh riot? "Yeah, right." replied Ryan. "We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path." The U.S. economy shuts down in 2027? Had you heard about that? It's like the ultimate President's Day Sale: Everything must go – literally! At such a moment, it may seem odd to find the political class embroiled in a bitter argument about the Obama administration's determination to force Catholic institutions (and, indeed, my company and your company, if you're foolish enough still to be in business in the United States) to provide free prophylactics to its employees. The received wisdom among media cynics is that Obama has engaged in an ingenious bit of misdirection by seizing on a pop-culture caricature of Republicans and inviting them to live up to it: Those uptight squares with the hang-ups about fornication have decided to force you to lead the same cheerless sex lives as them. I notice that in their coverage NPR and the evening news shows generally refer to the controversy as being about "contraception," discreetly avoiding mention of sterilization and pharmacological abortion, as if the GOP have finally jumped the shark in order to prevent you jumping anything at all. It may well be that the Democrats succeed in establishing this narrative. But anyone who falls for it is a sap. In fact, these two issues – the Obama condoms-for-clunkers giveaway and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 900 percent by 2075 – are not unconnected. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren – i.e., an upside-down family tree. As I wrote a few weeks ago, "If 100 geezers run up a bazillion dollars' worth of debt, is it likely that 42 youngsters will ever be able to pay it off?" Most analysts know the answer to that question: Greece is demographically insolvent. So it's looking to Germany to continue bankrolling its First World lifestyle. But the Germans are also demographically exhausted: they have the highest proportion of childless women in Europe. One in three fräulein have checked out of the motherhood business entirely. A nation that did without having kids of its own is in no mood to maintain Greece as the ingrate slacker who never moves out of the house. As the European debt crisis staggers on, these two countries loathe each other ever more nakedly: The Greek president brings up his war record against the German bullies, and Athenian commentators warn of the new Fourth Reich. The Germans, for their part, would rather cut the Greeks loose. In a post-prosperity West, social solidarity – i.e., socio-economic fictions such as "Europe" – are the first to disappear. The United States faces a mildly less-daunting arithmetic. Nevertheless, the Baby Boomers did not have enough children to maintain mid-20th century social programs. As a result, the children they did have will end their lives in a poorer, uglier, sicker, more divided and more violent society. How to avert this fate? In 2009 Nancy Pelosi called for free contraceptives as a form of economic stimulus. Ten thousand Americans retire every day, and leave insufficient progeny to pick up the slack. In effect, Nancy has rolled a giant condom over the entire American economy. Testifying before Congress, Timmy Geithner referred only to "demographic challenges" – an oblique allusion to the fact that the U.S. economy is about to be terminally clobbered by $100 trillion of entitlement obligations it can never meet. And, as Chart 5-1 on page 58 of the official Obama budget "Analytical Perspectives" makes plain, your feckless, decadent rulers have no plans to do anything about it. Instead, the Democrats shriek, ooh, Republican prudes who can't get any action want to shut down your sex life! According to CBO projections, by midcentury mere interest payments on the debt will exceed federal revenue. For purposes of comparison, By 1788, Louis XVI's government in France was spending a mere 60 percent of revenue on debt service, and we know how that worked out for His Majesty shortly thereafter. Not to worry, says Barry Antoinette. Let them eat condoms. This is a very curious priority for a dying republic. "Birth control" is accessible, indeed, ubiquitous, and, by comparison with anything from a gallon of gas to basic cable, one of the cheapest expenses in the average budget. Not even Rick Santorum, that notorious scourge of the sexually liberated, wishes to restrain the individual right to contraception. But where is the compelling societal interest in the state prioritizing and subsidizing it? Especially when you're already the Brokest Nation in History. Elsewhere around the developed world, prudent politicians are advocating natalist policies designed to restock their empty maternity wards. A few years ago, announcing tax incentives for three-child families, Peter Costello, formerly Timmy Geithner's counterpart Down Under, put this way: "Have one for Mum, one for Dad, and one for Australia." But in America, an oblivious political class, led by a president who characterizes young motherhood as a "punishment," prefers to offer solutions to problems that don't exist rather than the ones that are all too real. I think this is what they call handing out condoms on the Titanic. Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, distills the current hysteria thus: "It's as if we passed a law requiring mosques to sell bacon and then, when people objected, responded by saying 'What's wrong with bacon? You're trying to ban bacon!!!!'" Americans foolish enough to fall for the Democrats' crude bit of misdirection can hardly complain about their rendezvous with the sharp end of that page 58 budget graph. People are free to buy bacon, and free to buy condoms. But the state has no compelling interest to force either down your throat. The notion that an all-powerful government would distract from its looming bankruptcy by introducing a universal contraceptive mandate would strike most novelists as almost too pat in its symbolism. It's like something out of "Brave New World." Except that it's cowardly, and, like so much else about the sexual revolution, very old and wrinkled.
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Post by Ritty77 on Mar 1, 2012 22:20:49 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 3, 2012 10:25:56 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 15, 2012 9:08:59 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=speculatorsObama is on the problem of high gas prices Published March 15, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain Yes indeed, he’s focused like a laser beam. He has figured out how to proceed. You’ll be seeing relief soon. He’s … setting up a task force to look into speculation?! Er, seems so. Read this: "I think the American people understand that we don’t have a silver bullet when it comes to gas prices. We’ve been talking about this for 30 years. The only way to stabilize gas prices is to reduce our dependency on fore oil and we just put out a report that over the last year or so, we’ve been able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a million barrels. That’s’ significant. In the meantime, cuz I know people are hurting right now and it feels like a tax out of their paychecks, what we’re doing is looking at every single area that can affect gas prices, from bottlenecks that are out there, we’ve set up a task force to look into speculation to make sure people are taking advantage of the situation on the global oil markets," President Obama told WKRC-TV. Line by line: I think the American people understand that we don’t have a silver bullet when it comes to gas prices. We’ve been talking about this for 30 years. I think the American people understand something Barack Obama and the Democrats don’t understand – if we’d have been drilling everywhere for those 30 years instead of flapping our jaws about “silver bullets”, we’d be much better off today, in terms of oil supply and price, than we are now. Oh, by the way, we’ve been talking about alternative energy for 30 years too and look where we are. The only way to stabilize gas prices is to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and we just put out a report that over the last year or so, we’ve been able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a million barrels. Well, two points. One we’re in a deep recession, so oil consumption is down considerably because business and commerce are down significantly. And two, another way to have an effect on oil prices is to what? That’s right, increase supply. That’s’ significant. In the meantime, cuz I know people are hurting right now and it feels like a tax out of their paychecks, what we’re doing is looking at every single area that can affect gas prices, from bottlenecks that are out there, we’ve set up a task force to look into speculation to make sure people are taking advantage of the situation on the global oil markets Translation: I haven’t a clue so I’m setting up a task force which helps me kick the can down the road a bit. And the task force will inevitably find that “speculators” are the problem (a hat tip to Nancy Pelosi for the idea), and I’ll be able to call for Congress to pass a law while I again try to pass the blame off to the 1%. Now that’s leadership. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 21, 2012 9:00:25 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=obamacarePoll: Voters not particularly high on Obama’s performance in 3 key areas Published March 20, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain As I’ve noted any number of times, there are polls which mean nothing (such as polls this far out comparing an incumbent president and GOP nominees) and there are those what present indicators or trends that give one insight into the prevailing mood of voters or the like. The Hill produced one of the latter this past week. Obviously a snapshot of the prevailing mood right now, it is not a poll with which the Obama campaign should be happy. On Obamacare: The poll indicated that 49 percent of likely voters said they expect a court ruling that is unfavorable to the Affordable Care Act, while just 29 percent think it will be upheld and 22 percent aren’t sure. Economy: On economic issues, 62 percent of voters say Obama’s policies will increase the debt, while 25 percent think they will cut it, and by a 48-percent-to-38-percent margin, voters believe those policies will increase joblessness rather than put people back to work. Energy: On energy, 58 percent say Obama’s policies will result in gasoline prices increasing, while just 20 percent expect them to cut prices — and by a 46-percent-to-36-percent margin, voters believe they will cause the United States to become even more dependent on foreign oil. Now as far as I’m concerned, those are the three issues that are likely to (or should) dominate the election once a GOP nominee is decided on. If they’re not, and the GOP allows the Democrats to frame the campaign on issues other than those, they stand a good chance of losing. Regardless of the outcome in the Supreme Court, ObamaCare remains very unpopular with a majority of the population. The economy is one of those issues that is personal. Despite media hype, voters judge the state of the economy on a personal level. The “official unemployment number” can be made to look rosy, but in fact real people who are still unemployed or underemployed know who they are. They are the real number and they’re not going to be happy with the state of the economy. Finally, the energy tap-dance that the administration is doing is obviously failing. Obama is failing miserably passing off the blame about gas prices if 58% are saying his “policies” are the problem. True or not, perception is the rule. Oh, and, frankly, it’s true. See for yourself. When you have consistent polls that say a vast majority of voters are unhappy with a president’s signature piece of legislation, that’s a place you focus your campaign. When you have two important issues – the economy and energy – where significant majorities are down on the incumbent for his policies, you hammer that unmercifully. This poll is an indicator of the issues the GOP should build its campaign around. These points should be pushed relentlessly. Porn, contraception and other wedge issues should be avoided. Sorry, but they’re net losers and true distractions. They let the left frame the discussion and trust me, that’s where they’re going to take it every time. Oh, as an aside, if you’re interested in what a useless poll looks like, check this one out. Justices appointed to lifetime positions are hardly worried about “popularity”. In fact, that’s the primary reason for such appointments. While the poll may indicate public dissatisfaction with some rulings, it may also simply indicate a partisan divide. But for the most part, it is irrelevant. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 24, 2012 8:27:38 GMT -5
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Post by philunderwood on Mar 27, 2012 7:46:39 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=jake-tapperHot mic reveals more than one thinks Published March 26, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain Barack Obama was caught on a hot mic saying to President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia that after his re-election he’d have more “flexibility” to deal with “controversial issues” like missile defense. In essence, he’s not saying what every other President has thought when running for his second term. In the case of Barack Obama, though, it could be worse than we think. Obama is the consummate political animal. That doesn’t mean he’s a particularly good one, but it does mean he weighs every move he makes in terms of the politics of the issue. You can see it throughout his presidency. The most current example is the Keystone XL pipeline. He turned down the cross border part and pleased his environmental constituency, but displeased much of the American public who want more energy resources made available. He then tried to claim credit for the construction of the southern portion of that pipeline that doesn’t need either his permission or his help. If it was his second term, the attempt to claim credit would never have been made. In fact, my guess is he’d have tried to slow that portion of the pipeline too. His Afghanistan “strategy” was to underman the surge (but still surge to satisfy one set of constituents) while at the same time setting a withdrawal date, there by satisfying a different set of constituents. Had that been his second term, no surge would have been made and only the withdrawal date would have been announced. There have also been times when he has said to hell with public opinion and decided he’d push an unpopular agenda item, like ObamaCare, even while the majority of the people made very clear they didn’t want it. The calculation then was quite evident. Do it early in your tenure and by the time reelection rolls around it will be old news. Unfortunately for him, it is now before the Supreme Court as election time draws ever nearer. And then there are the executive departments and agencies, like the EPA and Department of Energy, which have been let loose to implement his radical energy and environmental policies. Just today the EPA got called down by a District Judge for doing something they had no power or authority to do. The point? What you’ve seen during his first term is nothing compared to what you’ll see if he gets a second term. There will be no constraints on him by the need for re-election. Although it may be hard to believe, that has held him back somewhat this term. He has also shown more than a slight propensity to go off on his own if he doesn’t get what he wants from Congress. Given how the Congressional races are shaping up, that seems to be something he’ll probably suffer again during his second term. While that may slow him down a bit, he feels he’ll have enough “flexibility” that he’ll be able to act on his own and through the agencies and departments he owns to push his agenda. If, by some horrendous turn of events he is re-elected and the Democrats somehow wrest full control of Congress from the Republicans again, then the scenario becomes even darker. We can’t afford to take that chance. The hot mic reveals a man biding his time and planning an unrestrained second term in which he’ll pursue his agenda by whatever means are available to him. Hopefully, by this time next year, the only flexibility he’ll be exercising is deciding whether or not he should go golfing, work on planning his library or do both on a beautiful Chicago day. ~McQ
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 4, 2012 7:37:18 GMT -5
www.qando.net/?tag=constitutional-limitsObama’s criticism of SCOTUS hardly “scholarly” Published April 3, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain There are times when even I’m a bit surprised at what manages to work its way out of our President’s mouth. After all, included in what little we do know about the guy is the claim that he was a “Constitutional lawyer”. He even taught that in Chicago to law students, or so we’re told. Yet yesterday, in a press conference with the leaders of Mexico and Canada he was asked about the pending Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare and said: “I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected congress.” I can’t imagine a more supremely arrogant and yet profoundly ignorant statement than that. Of course, at least in my day, most school children would have understood the ignorance of that statement. I’ll illustrate it for you if necessary by adding a bit to his words: “I am confident the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically-elected congress that allows whites to lynch blacks.” Obviously he’d be clamoring for the SCOTUS to overturn a law like that. And he wouldn’t hesitate to condemn the “strong majority of democratically-elected” officials that passed such a law n the first place (and lets pretend this was signed before he assumed office – you know, Bush did it). Strong majorities (in the case of ObamaCare it was 219 to 212) passing anything are irrelevant if what they pass is in conflict with the Constitution – period. In the hypothetical most of us would immediately identify the fact that a) murder and lynching are not within the power of any majority to sanctify and certainly not a power granted in the Constitution and b) it is the job of the Supreme Court to strike down laws that are unconstitutional regardless of how strong the majority voting for it. I can’t imagine a supposed, or at least self-described, Constitutional scholar making such an ignorant statement to begin with … but there it is. He then followed it up with this: “I just remind conservative commentators that for years we have heard the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example and I am pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.” Smartest guy in the room? I’m sorry, but that just doubles down on ignorance. As we’ve discussed (most recently on the podcast) it isn’t the job of the Supreme Court to do the job of Congress. Instead, its job is to determine whether or not what Congress has done is compliant with the limits the Constitution places on it. That’s it. There is nothing which requires the Supreme Court to “fix” laws that Congress has passed. Justice Kennedy alluded to this when he said that the removal of the individual mandate would completely change the law in a way that was clearly not what Congress intended. Thus the “conservative” thing for the court to do would be to strike down the entire law and tell Congress to go back to work. Of course the Democrats and Obama know that if the entire law is struck down, the likelihood of it being “fixed”, given the Republican House, are remote. Thus we hear the usual nonsense about “judicial activism” and the other garbage Obama tossed out above making the rounds on the left. Then there’s the remark about “an unelected group of people”. My goodness Constitutional scholar, they’re “unelected” and appointed for life for a reason. And that reason is to remove politics, as much as possible, from their deliberations and allow them to focus entirely on the law and Constitution. Obviously, it seems, politics haven’t been kept out of the Supreme Court, but for the President to take a juvenile shot like that at the Court while it is in deliberations is fairly outrageous. Bottom line: If those Obama quotes now illustrate “Constitutional scholarship” in this day and age, this Republic is in very deep trouble. ~McQ
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Post by twinder on Apr 4, 2012 19:11:54 GMT -5
I am happy to hear many people speaking about his comments. I am hearing people who usually don't pay much attention to politics, speak about this issue with the healthcare law and SCOTUS. Maybe there is hope for this Country after all.
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 9, 2012 8:11:44 GMT -5
In Obama's constitutional fantasyland, white is black, night is day, winter is summer By Jack Kelly www.JewishWorldReview.com | If the Supreme Court decides his health care law is unconstitutional, it "would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," President Barack Obama said in a press conference April 2. For a former professor of constitutional law, this was a remarkably stupid thing to say. There is no Supreme Court decision more famous than Marbury v. Madison (1803), in which Chief Justice John Marshall asserted the right of judicial review. What's unprecedented is for a president to attack the Supreme Court before it has made its decision, noted Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Obama has a bizarre view of what constitutes a "strong majority," Politifact noted. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress by big margins then, but Obamacare passed the House by only seven votes, and it took a dubious parliamentary maneuver to get it through the Senate. When the president said declaring Obamacare unconstitutional would be "judicial activism," he drew scorn and laughter from across the political spectrum. Liberals -- including Mr. Obama -- are fans of judicial activism. Hypocrisy this blatant usually backfires. Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe would rather hack off a testicle than criticize his former pupil. But even he said the president "obviously misspoke," and should have kept his mouth shut. Few even among the president's harshest critics think he is as ignorant as he sounded. Mr. Obama was trying to rile up "the ignorant population of America who he wants to believe that the court is gonna do something it's never done before," said radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The Supreme Court is likely to throw out his health care law, the comments justices made during oral arguments indicated. Mr. Obama described the justices as "an unelected group of people." Was he trying to intimidate them? If that was the plan, it isn't working. Three irate judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi) ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to tell them in writing whether he thinks courts have the power of judicial review. In response to intense criticism, the president walked back his remarks. But as is his custom, he tried to do so without admitting error. The results were hilarious. "The power of the courts to review the constitutionality of legislation is beyond dispute," the attorney general wrote in his response to the Fifth Circuit panel. But then Eric Holder said: "The president's remarks were fully consistent with the principles described herein." And white is black, night is day, winter is summer. Mr. Obama was misunderstood because, as a former law professor, he speaks in "shorthand," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. "You're standing up there, twisting yourself in knots because he made a mistake and you can't admit it," said Bill Plante of CBS News. "We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce" since Lochner v. New York (1905), Mr. Obama said. He displayed "astounding" ignorance of constitutional law, said James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. In Lochner, the Supreme Court threw out a state labor regulation on the grounds it violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. It had nothing to do with Congress or interstate commerce. Mr. Obama doesn't seem nearly as smart as his friends in journalism told us he was. Nor do we see in his petulance toward the Supreme Court the "superior temperament" about which so many journalists gushed. One of the gushers, columnist Peggy Noonan, thinks now Mr. Obama "increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest." We do see a guy with a big ego, a bad temper, and a thin resume who's afraid we'll find out he's in over his head. Mr. Henninger likened the president to the Wizard of Oz, after Dorothy pulled away the curtain. "Barack Obama, a wizard of another kind, has been trying with fulminations and denunciations to keep anyone from attempting what a law professor might call discovery of what the president actually has done in the past three years," Mr. Henninger said.
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 10, 2012 7:37:28 GMT -5
Where Are All the Moderate Democrats? By Debra J. Saunders www.JewishWorldReview.com | President Barack Obama chastised the media last week. "I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle," the president chided those attending the American Society of Newspaper Editors luncheon. Obama also claimed that he holds positions that 20 or 15 years ago "would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What's changed is the center of the Republican Party." Oh, and Ronald Reagan "could not get through a Republican primary today." Yet many in the media don't ask, Where are the moderate Democrats? ?When the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the individual mandate in Obamacare, court observers expect all four justices appointed by Democrats to back Obama. If any justices depart from their ideology, it will be Justice Anthony Kennedy (appointed by Reagan) and perhaps Chief Justice John Roberts. So how did Obama vote on Roberts after President George W. Bush nominated him to the big bench in 2005? The Senate approved Roberts in a 78-22 vote. Good liberals -- such as Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who no longer serve in the Senate -- were among the 22 Democrats who supported Roberts. Other yes votes -- Nebraska's Ben Nelson and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman -- probably couldn't win and aren't running for re-election. Obama voted no on Roberts. Current Vice President Joe Biden also voted no. In 2006, when the Senate approved Justice Samuel Alito 72-25, Obama and Biden voted against him, too. And the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., voted against Roberts and Alito. Then there's Obama's conceit that his political positions would be considered "squarely centrist" 15 to 20 years ago. Two decades ago, "access" to birth control meant that no law prevented women from getting a prescription for the pill or another contraceptive. "Access" didn't mean what it means to this administration -- no insurance copayments for birth control, even for health plans funded by church-based institutions with deeply held religious objections to birth control. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman and denies federal benefits to same-sex partners. The House passed the bill 342-67; 118 Dems voted yes, and the Senate passed it 85-14. Biden voted yes. It was the centrist position in 1996. In 2008, Obama promised to repeal DOMA if elected. Rather than push for a repeal vote, however, the administration announced last year that the Department of Justice no longer would defend the law against legal challenges. A centrist should support the rule of law, not tempt the courts to topple a law passed by a strong majority in Congress. After moving his party to the far left, Obama expresses outrage that Reagan couldn't win a GOP primary -- even as Republicans seem poised to nominate Mitt Romney over objections from their party's conservative base. He must think that if he keeps calling Republicans radical, the press will repeat his mantra without checking his record.
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 16, 2012 9:16:59 GMT -5
Buying 'Buffett Rule' makes you a fool By Mark Steyn www.JewishWorldReview.com | In the end, free societies get the governments they deserve. So, if the American people wish to choose their chief executive on the basis of the "war on women," the Republican theocrats' confiscation of your contraceptives, or whatever other mangy and emaciated rabbit the Great Magician produces from his threadbare topper, they are free to do so, and they will live with the consequences. This week's bit of ham-handed misdirection was "the Buffett Rule," a not-so-disguised capital-gains tax hike designed to ensure that Warren Buffett pays as much tax as his secretary. If the alleged Sage of Omaha is as exercised about this as his public effusions would suggest, I'd be in favor of repealing the prohibition on Bills of Attainder, and the old boy could sleep easy at night. But instead every other American "millionaire" will be subject to the new rule – because, as President Obama said this week, it "will help us close our deficit." Wow! Who knew it was that easy? A-hem. According to the Congressional Budget Office (the same nonpartisan bean counters who project that on Obama's current spending proposals the entire U.S. economy will cease to exist in 2027) Obama's Buffett Rule will raise – stand well back – $3.2 billion per year. Or what the United States government currently borrows every 17 hours. So in 514 years it will have raised enough additional revenue to pay off the 2011 federal budget deficit. If you want to mark it on your calendar, 514 years is the year 2526. There's a sporting chance Joe Biden will have retired from public life by then, but other than that I'm not making any bets. Let's go back to that presidential sound bite: "It will help us close our deficit." I'm beginning to suspect that the Oval Office teleprompter may be malfunctioning, or that perhaps that NBC News producer who "accidentally" edited George Zimmerman into sounding like a racist has now edited the smartest president of all time into sounding like an idiot. Either way, it appears the last seven words fell off the end of the sentence. What the president meant to say was: "It will help us close our deficit ... for 2011 ... within a mere half-millennium!" [Pause for deafening cheers and standing ovation.] Sometimes societies become too stupid to survive. A nation that takes Barack Obama's current rhetorical flourishes seriously is certainly well advanced along that dismal path. The current federal debt burden works out at about $140,000 per federal taxpayer, and President Obama is proposing to increase both debt and taxes. Are you one of those taxpayers? How much more do you want added to your $140,000 debt burden? As the Great Magician would say, pick a number, any number. Sorry, you're wrong. Whatever you're willing to bear, he's got more lined up for you. Even if you're absolved from federal income tax, you, too, require enough people willing to keep the racket going, and America is already pushing forward into territory the rest of the developed world is steering well clear of. On April Fools' Day, Japan and the United Kingdom both cut their corporate tax rates, leaving the United States even more of an outlier, with the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world: The top rate of federal corporate tax in the US is 35 percent. It's 15 percent in Canada. Which is next door. Well, who cares about corporations? Only out-of-touch dilettante playboys like Mitt Romney who – hmm, let's see what I can produce from the bottom of the top hat – put his dog on the roof of his car as recently as 1984! That's where your gran'ma will be under the Republicans' plan, while your contraceptiveless teenage daughter is giving birth on the hood. "Corporations are people, my friend," said Mitt, in what's generally regarded as a damaging sound bite by all the smart people who think Obama's plan to use the Buffett Rule to "close the deficit" this side of the fourth millennium is a stroke of genius. But Mitt's not wrong. In the end, a corporation doesn't pay tax. The marble atrium of Global MegaCorp's corporate HQ is indifferent to the tax rate; the Articles of Incorporation in the bottom drawer of the chairman's desk couldn't care less. Every dollar of "corporate" tax has to be fished out the pocket of a real flesh-and-blood human being, whether shareholder, employee or customer. And that's the problem. For what Obama's spending, there aren't enough of them, or us, or "the rich" – and there never will be. There is only one Warren Buffett. He is the third-wealthiest person on the planet. The first is a Mexican, and beyond the reach of the U.S. Treasury. Mr. Buffett is worth $44 billion. If he donated the entire lot to the Government of the United States, they would blow through it within four-and-a-half days. OK, so who's the fourth-richest guy? He's French. And the fifth guy's a Spaniard. No. 6 six is Larry Ellison. He's American, but that loser is only worth $36 billion. So he and Buffett between them could keep the United States Government going for a week. The next-richest American is Christy Walton of Wal-Mart, and she's barely a semi-Buffett. So her $25 billion will see you through a couple of days of the second week. There aren't a lot of other semi-Buffetts, but, if you scrounge around, you can rustle up some hemi-demi-semi-Buffetts: If you confiscate the total wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans it comes to $1.5 trillion, which is just a little less than the Obama budget deficit for year. But there are a lot of "millionaires," depending on how you define it. Jerry Brown, California's reborn Gov. Moonbeam, defines his "millionaire's tax" as applying to anybody who earns more than $250,000 a year. "Anybody who makes $250,000 becomes a millionaire very quickly," he explained. "You just need four years." This may be the simplest wealth creation advice since Bob Hope was asked to respond back in 1967 to reports that he was worth half-a-billion dollars. "Anyone can do it," said Hope. "All you have to do is save a million dollars a year for 500 years." It's that easy, folks! Like President Obama says, all you have to do to pay off his 2011 deficit is save $3.2 billion a year for 500 years. He thinks you're stupid. Warren Buffett thinks you're stupid. Maybe you are. But not everyone is. And America's foreign debtors understand that "the Buffett Rule" is just another pathetic sleight of hand en route to the collapse of the U.S. dollar, and of American society shortly thereafter. When he's not talking up his buddy Warren, the Half-Millennium Man has been staggering around demonizing Paul Ryan's plan, which would lead, he says, to the end of the weather service, air traffic control, national parks, law enforcement, and drinkable water. Given what's at stake, you might think then that the president would have an alternative plan. But he has none, save for his proposal to pay off the 2011 federal deficit by the year 2526. The Obama No-Plan plan means the end of everything. That really ought to be the only slogan the Republicans need this fall: What's your plan? And all you hear are crickets chirping. But don't worry, they're federally funded crickets, chirping at a research facility in North Carolina investigating whether there's any correlation between chirping crickets and the inability of America's political institutions to effect meaningful course correction. Hey, relax. The Buffett Rule will pick up the tab.
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Post by philunderwood on Apr 16, 2012 14:58:47 GMT -5
drsanity.blogspot.com/Dr. Sanity Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life Sunday, April 15, 2012 DIVERSIONARY TACTICS In psychological displacement, the focus of psychic attention is shifted from an important element on to another, which is relatively unimportant. Displacement operates in the mind unconsciously and involves emotions, ideas, or wishes being transferred from their original object to a more acceptable substitute. It is most often used to allay anxiety; and can lead to the re-direction of aggressive or hostile impulses to less threatening objects or subjects. Distraction, OTOH, is the divided attention of an individual or group from what currently holds their attention onto a subject of distraction. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention. Distractions can come from both external sources, and internal sources. What the Obama Administration is doing, deliberately and calculatedly, is to distract and divide American's attention onto issues that Obama and his cronies believe will benefit them in the coming election. By doing this, they hope to redirect and displace Americans' anger, frustration, and sense of hopelessness about the economy, jobs, and the precarious state of the world, AWAY from Obama and focus all our psychic energy onto the manufactured class, race and gender crises over which Obama believes he has the upper hand. The abysmal record of the Obama Adminsitration on dealing with the economy and on dealing with our allies and enemies abroad hardly matches up with the promises of "hope and change" that the Obamessiah promised. Even the most devoted of his acolytes have likely begun to suspect that this messiah is a false god; and that his promises are nothing but obvious diversionary tactitcs and attmepts to mislead. But mis-leadership is really all that can be expected from the pretentious and bullying demagogue who is currently our President. - Diagnosed by Dr. Sanity
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Post by Ritty77 on Apr 16, 2012 16:01:07 GMT -5
There's the problem in a nutshell. We elect idiots.
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Post by Ritty77 on Apr 17, 2012 17:00:16 GMT -5
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