Via-Legal Insurrection
4/16/2011
4/15/2011
Bushwacked Barack
Using his predecessor as a foil for his failures might trap the president, as polls show he is beginning to suffer by comparison.
President Obama’s much hyped budget address in front of a George Washington University audience Wednesday has been widely viewed as the first speech of the 2012 presidential election campaign. One could be forgiven for forgetting that Mr. Obama was addressing the nation as a president seeking reelection and not as a first term junior senator from Illinois, as it was the 2008 campaign that the speech recalled.
The president’s favorite bogeyman, President George W. Bush, featured prominently, just as he has for most of President Obama’s major speeches. The class warfare rhetoric was back in full force Wednesday too, as the president argued that all of the country’s financial woes would simply vanish if only those heartless Republicans would agree to rescind the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 — the same tax cuts Obama himself agreed to extend less than six months ago.
If the president and his advisors think that they can win a second term by dragging the same old tired rhetoric and petulant political attacks before the voters again like raw steaks before the pride, they may find the lions less hungry for the offering this time around. Mr. Obama’s one-two punch strategy of tax the rich and bash Bush just doesn’t stand up to the numbers.
According to the most recent IRS data from 2008, the top one percent of income earners paid roughly $390 billion in income taxes on income of approximately $1.6 trillion, for an average effective tax rate of 23%. If the Bush tax cuts were repealed today, and the top tax rate went back up to the Clinton-era 39.6%, it would be reasonable to project that the average effective tax rate for the top income filers would only go up to where it was in 2000, 28%. Under those conditions, the government could only expect an additional $58 billion in tax revenue this year. That’s hardly more than a rounding error in a budget with a deficit of $1.6 trillion.
Even if President Obama argued for a return to the pre-Reagan top tax rate of 70% — which when last seen in 1979 carried an effective tax rate of 37% according to the Tax Policy Center — the government would realize just over $200 billion in additional revenue, or a little more than a tenth of this year’s deficit. Of course, none of this takes into account the consequences of tax hikes, reduced economic activity and correspondingly shrinking incomes for those in the top one percent of tax filers. The real take from increasing taxes at the top rates is likely to be much lower. Despite the rhetoric, President Obama simply can’t balance the budget on the backs of the rich.
The other pillar in Mr. Obama’s apparent reelection strategy, bashing Bush, similarly does not survive closer scrutiny. In 2008, President Bush was a deeply — if unfairly — disliked president. With his approval ratings mired in the low thirties, Bush was shunned even by his own party’s nominating convention. Mr. Obama’s election narrative was as much a referendum on Mr. Bush as a choice between himself and Sen. McCain.
Much has changed. The former president has enjoyed a surge in his approval ratings, as most former presidents do. In Mr. Bush’s case, this has been aided both by his respectful silence on matters of national policy and his openness in interviews conducted during the launch of his highly successful memoir. A recent Gallup poll showed the former president with an approval rating of 47% at the end of last year. While that result places Bush ahead of only Richard Nixon among the former presidents the poll tested, it is a far cry from the 36% approval he held at the end of his presidency and equals Mr. Obama’s approval rating in the most recent Gallup survey.
Worse for Mr. Obama, the voting public’s perception of him when compared to Mr. Bush is not flattering. Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen recently asked likely voters whether Obama had been a better president than Bush. The results were surprising. Just 43% said Mr. Obama had been a better president while 48% favored Mr. Bush. A majority of 56% said that Mr. Obama did not deserve a second term. Mr. Bush’s increasing popularity coupled with Schoen’s results show that the voting public is much less inclined to pay attention to attacks against Mr. Bush this time around. Running another referendum on Bush could end up backfiring on President Obama.
For a man ostensibly focused on winning the future, President Obama spends a disproportionate amount of his time fighting the battles of the past. But the American public is not looking back at what prior presidents did; they are looking toward the current president for leadership and solutions on the big challenges facing the country. As a policy address, President Obama’s budget speech failed miserably to provide either. The numbers show that as a campaign speech, it wasn’t much better.
The Mendacity of Barack Obama
By Steve McCann
While I have always been wary of and have written about his dishonesty, after the speech the president delivered the 13th of April regarding the federal budget, one that was chock full of lies, deceit, and crass fear-mongering, it must be said that Barack Obama is the most dishonest, deceitful, and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed.
That performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call Mr. Obama what he is in the bluntest of terms: a liar and a fraud. That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation, those who oppose his radical agenda only adds to his audacity. It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by the sycophants around him, thus he is who he is and cannot change.
The question becomes is he a compulsive liar or a sociopath? By definition:
A sociopath is typically defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused -- it is done to get one's way). Sociopaths have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others. Sociopaths are often charming and charismatic, but they use their talented social skills in manipulative and self-centered ways.A compulsive liar:
A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit. Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions. Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small. For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right. Compulsive lying is usually developed in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary.
I came to the United States as a survivor of the Second World War. I spent my early years alone on the streets of a totally destroyed city somewhere in central Europe. In order to survive I had to steal food where I could and lie in order to survive. I spent a good part of my life, even after coming to America and being adopted, battling those inbred impulses. It was a never-ending struggle with successes and failures, but I was able to finally defeat those demons.
What I say about Barack Obama I do not do lightly, but because I fear greatly for this country and can, not only from personal experience but in my dealing with others, recognize those failings in a person whose only interest is himself and his inbred radical ideology, which as its lynchpin desires to transform the country into a quasi-totalitarian state by any means possible.
In the United States there is great deference paid to the occupant of the White House. Justifiably so, as that person is not only the chief operating officer of the country but also the head of state representing the nation around the globe. The president's actions and demeanor set the tone for not only the political class but the country as a whole. Over the centuries there have many exceptional but also a few inept men to hold the office of President.
Today so much power is now vested in the Office of President of the United States that honor and integrity must be a hallmark of a president's character. It is not with Barack Obama; he may well be the most dishonest and disingenuous occupant of the Oval Office in history, and will do more damage to the nation than all his predecessors combined.
His failings can no longer be excused by this historical deference or timidity fostered by race, with the euphemisms of spin, obfuscation, fabrication, or politics being used to avoid the truth. Obama is extremely adept at exploiting the celebrity culture that has overwhelmed the society as well as the erosion of the education system that has created a generation or more of citizens unaware of their history, culture as well as historical ethical standards based on Judeo-Christian teaching.
While the future of the country depends on dramatically altering the economic and governing landscape, it cannot do so unless the opposition politicians and average citizens forcefully challenge and respond to the lies and machinations of Barack Obama and his allies without fear of what may be said about them or to them. As for me, I have already experienced far worse than anything that could be said or done to me. My only concern is for the welfare of my fellow citizens and the noblest experiment in the history of mankind: the United States.
4/14/2011
Obama's Dreamland
By Victor Davis Hanson
Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt - a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit, the largest shortfall in American history. Congressional Republicans are now crowing about reducing Obama's red ink by forcing some $38 billion in cuts. Such supposed slashing means America would borrow just $1,562 billion this year rather than the scheduled full $1,600 billion.
The administration expects that someone will have enough money to float us $4 billion to $5 billion a day in loans - either foreigners such as the Chinese, whom we are accustomed to lecturing about their illiberal habits, or our own wealthy, whom President Obama so often chides and threatens with higher taxes. Meanwhile, shrill critics of Congress's modest cuts claim that the elderly, poor, sick, and helpless will be cast adrift if their government dares to trim its massive borrowing by less than 3 percent - or just about 1 percent of this year's projected $3.7 trillion budget.
Obama borrowed more in the month of February alone ($223 billion) than did the spendthrift George W. Bush during the entire 2007 budgetary year ($163 billion). Obama recently asserted that not authorizing a lofty new national-debt ceiling would be partisan recklessness. He should know. In 2006, then-senator Barack Obama voted not to raise the debt ceiling and railed against out-of-control government spending under the Bush administration. But then, the annual deficit was one-fifth of what it is today. Apparently President Obama lives in an alternative universe from the one Senator Obama used to inhabit.
Gas is heading toward $4 a gallon nationwide - and might reach $5 by Labor Day. The world price for a barrel of oil is well over $100 - and climbing. In response, Obama praised Brazil for developing a vast new offshore oilfield and promised that the United States would readily buy the oil it produces.
The Obama administration has made it clear, however, that such messy drilling is for others. So, much of Alaska, the American West, and our coastal waters will remain off limits. The logic is that Americans can borrow to buy oil from foreign nations that are willing to drill in their fragile tundra, offshore seas, and natural preserves. Apparently the White House has not much concern about where we are going to get the cash, or how other nations are going to recover oil offshore more cleanly than we would.
Instead of a detailed plan for developing more sources of natural gas, oil, and coal, including tar sands and oil shale, we still hear infantile chants about "wind, solar, and millions of new green jobs." But solar panels and windmills will not be up to fueling the nation's 250 million passenger cars and trucks any time soon.
The president announced that he would support the Libyan rebels. He pointed to United Nations and Arab League authorizations to establish a no-fly zone and stop Qaddafi from killing his opponents. Helping the rebels win means using force to remove Qaddafi. Yet regime change is a mission that we insist is not our goal and would not be authorized by the international bodies to which we subordinate ourselves.
In truth, the Obama administration intervened without knowing who or what the Libyan rebels were, apparently on the theory that they were close to winning and seemed a far better option than Qaddafi. The first premise proved wrong; the second could be true but is still subject to debate. So we took a breather and quit military operations, hoping the Libyan mess would just go away, in the same way that dictators voluntarily stepped down in Egypt and Tunisia.
The U.S. government is no longer supposed to use hurtful vocabulary like "War on Terror," "Islamic terrorism," or "jihadist." But some unnamed groups are still apparently trying to kill us. Otherwise, why would the White House keep the demonized Guantanamo Bay facility open? And for what purpose, and against whom, are we still employing the once-hated military tribunals, renditions, and preventive detention?
Fantasy apparently seems preferable to reality. In our new dream world, borrowed money need not be paid back. Cars may run on nasty gas, but only if it is produced in faraway places. Mean dictators should flee when told to leave. And radical Muslims are not really trying to kill us.
4/13/2011
Spare us hollow sermons on taxing the very rich
Via-Washington Times
Charles Hurt
President Obama, we have endured your unfledged theories on how to be more popular around the world.
We have survived your whimsical approaches to economic recovery. Save. No, spend! Borrow more!
And your earnest dabbles as physician, public-health expert and hospital administrator have left us bewildered and broke for decades to come.
All this we suffer because, after all, we did elect you president. You beat the other guy.
But on behalf of America and her highest ideals, we make one request as you embark on your latest crusade to raise taxes.
Please, please, please, we beg you, just spare us your hollow sermonizing about how the rich such as yourself need to pay higher taxes.
Rarely do you miss an opportunity to remind us that you are among the "fortunate" wealthy who have a responsibility to give up more of what they have earned so that they can pay for all of the theft and recklessness going on in Washington, including your own cockeyed new schemes.
It is not that you don't have a right to brag about your wealth. God bless you, it is the American way. We are truly thrilled that you are now wealthy.
The problem is how you wield this information.
In your attempt to guilt the wealthy and divide the rich from the less rich, you assault our highest principles.
In the first place, wealthy people already pay the lion's share of taxes. Telling them they are not paying their fair share desecrates the enormous sacrifices they make.
What is most insulting about this shakedown is that you talk about your wealth as if you earned it the way most wealthy people in America do. And we're not talking about Hollywood miscreants or the obscene tycoons who pillaged our treasury - with your permission - as soon as the economy tanked.
We're talking about the inventors, the small-business owners, the great savers all across America.
These are people who worked their hearts out their entire lives. They're dreamers who dumped their fortunes into something they believed in. They took risks - with their own money - and refused to fail.
These are people who worked all day and then stayed up all night studying something until they became the smartest about some arcane but crucial topic. Then they shortened an assembly line or discovered something people needed.
These people are the flesh and backbone of this country. They create jobs with their own money or money others willingly gave them. They create a marketplace that solves real problems.
You, of course, earned your wealth a different way. You earned it by talking. That is what you have done your entire life.
You're talking about your anger and your dad. Talking about race. You're talking all through law school. You're talking about how everybody on the street needs to get organized.
You talk your way into the Illinois Senate, the U.S. Senate and then you talk your way into the White House.
You have never created a single job except with other people's money. And in most cases, that money has been in the form of tax dollars - collected under the threat of a gun and jail time.
There is no shame in this.
Many fine Americans have earned their fortunes talking. Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey come to mind. They inspire many, as do you.
But like you and the government you represent, they are not the true creators who make America so free and so fair. That responsibility falls to the patriots whose ranks you claim to have joined.
They are the greatest of America, and they should be celebrated and rewarded. Not insulted and punished.
4/12/2011
4/10/2011
"Notable Quotes"
J E Dyer