Mass SNAFU

Happy Halloween!

A new low in shameless self-promotion

The photo above, on its surface, conveys a message of support from the commander-in-chief for those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. "On its surface" being the key phrase in that last sentence. When one reads a little into the details of the photo above, it becomes clear that it was nothing more than a staged photo-op. With Obama, it's all about the style and never the substance.

You see, President Obama has had extremely low approval numbers on his performance in Afghanistan, hovering at the moment in the mid 20's, as he has been dithering on sending more troops as reinforcements to hopefully reduce the number of fallen heroes returning home in caskets. In the meantime, what better way to try to get those numbers up than by taking a photo saluting the fallen heroes? 

Obama showed up at Dover Air Force Base the other morning, with his staffers and press pool in tow, and asked the families if some pictures could be taken of the president with the remains of their loved ones. One family agreed. That's staging a photo-op, no matter how you slice it; Obama used the deaths of these brave men and women as a prop. The man has finally reached the gutter in shameless self-promotion.

Say what you want about President Bush but the man always paid his respects to the families in private with dignity and respect – and no cameras – and is one of the many reasons he was so well liked by the military.

This reminds me of the stunt Obama pulled during the campaign, where he skipped out on visiting the wounded soldiers in Germany because of a no-camera policy at the hospital. It was all about Obama then and it still is now.

"Not worth the paper it's printed on..."

That's the description of the Obama administration's report of jobs "saved or created" via the stimulus in the video below.  The interesting point is not that the White House has been fudging the numbers to make the mega-waste of taxpayer money stimulus look good - we've caught on to that long ago - it's the fact that CBS, and Katie freaking Couric, is calling out the White House for this obvious farce on the American public:

Could this be the first hint of a credibility issue with the state-run media for this White House?  If a friend like CBS is calling you out on your incompetence and fabrications, you might have a problem.  We'll see but this could get very interesting.

Calling on all economic freedom fighters…

That's Larry Kudlow's call today in an excellent piece over at RealClearMarkets.com talking about the damage this administration's economic policy is doing to the US economy as a whole. He also offers an alternative plan for economic success, one that has been promoted on this here blog for some time:

Top administration economist Christina Romer delivered a very gloomy forecast to Congress last week. She said unemployment will remain at a "severely elevated level," and that the U.S. jobs market will stay painfully weak next year. She was just being honest. Ms. Romer, who has written about the benefits of permanent tax cuts to stimulate GDP growth, might in fact be sending a shot across the bow to her fellow Obamacons. She even said the Obama stimulus plan will contribute little to economic growth in 2010. From her own work, she knows that big-government spending and temporary tax credits have no economic-growth power.

So why not try something different? Unfashionable as it may be today, why not go back to the supply-side model of lower marginal tax rates for individuals and businesses, large and small? That's the model my late dear friend Jack Kemp successfully espoused to President Reagan more than 30 year ago. It's the incentive model of economic growth. At lower tax rates, where folks keep more of what they earn and invest, greater after-tax rewards spur greater work effort and investment risk. They also boost asset values. This is exactly what the economy needs: a rejuvenated dose of incentives -- permanent incentives.

The point here is that growth and job creation, permanent job creation, are created within the private sector from individuals and not the government. No one on the left seems to understand this even after nine months of failed policy that has done nothing but add to our deficits and increase unemployment. It's gotten to the point that rational people would be perfectly justified to question whether economic destruction is now a goal of our leaders on the left. The only other option would be stupidity.

Let me be clear…abortions will be paid for by you

Remember when President Obama claimed in his speech to Congress that abortions would in no way be funded by the government under the health care reform plan? Well, all that was a misunderstanding – or something:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that "under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions" he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president's own health care plan—which has never been written.

"I don't know if it is a game of semantics or what," Stupak said of Obama's nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.

Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care bill permit federal funds to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions.

The shell game continues: tell them what they want to hear in a way that can be labeled as a misunderstanding at a later date, and just hope no one really picks up on the ruse. So if the left gets their way, those abortions will be on your dime… courtesy of the 2009 Congress and President Obama.

It's the Hopenchange you voted for everyone. Enjoy!

Fair and balanced is kicking butt. Time to rethink the Fox News strategy, guys?

Maybe Rahm Emanuel (above) and the White House should have placed their strategy to attack the Fox News Channel through the same meticulous and time consuming process that their Afghanistan strategy has been going through for the last two months – because their current strategy in attacking FNC has only helped their "enemy":

In the two weeks prior to October 11 -- when White House communications director Anita Dunn appeared on CNN declaring the administration's renewed war against Fox – Fox News Channel programs averaged 1,206,000 total viewers, and 323,000 in the 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research. Between October 12 and October 23, they averaged 1,312,000 and 368,000 among the 25-54 set – increases of 9 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

Yeah, well what about all the "real" news organizations that Emanuel spoke of when attacking FNC? They must be doing pretty well too since they're the only networks without a "perspective" like that of FNC, right? Well, no, not quite:

In every category – total day and prime time, A25-54 demographic and total viewers, October has shaped up to be the worst month of 2009 for both CNN and MSNBC. But when comparing the networks, it looks worse for CNN, which, as reported by the New York Times today, dropped to fourth on cable news, even behind sister network HLN, in prime time demo.

The numbers aren't even close as second place is a very distant second place as FNC almost triples MSNBC in average viewers. FNC, with an occasional inquiry from ABC's Jake Tapper, has been the only network to challenge the administration and report on damaging stories like ACORN and the czar scandals, and the numbers above may reflect the public's desire to see some real journalism and not the fawning "we love Obama" crap that has masqueraded as journalism for the past year.

This entire scenario just shows the hypocrisy of this administration. Obama claimed FNC was more like talk radio than an actual news outlet, yet MSNBC, as opinionated as FNC – if not more with the likes of Olbermann and Maddow, but albeit toward the left – gets a pass and an invite to the White House. Petty and childish whiners is how they come off in all this, all the while FNC is asking to keep the attacks coming as profits soar. Even the moonbats over at the HuffPo think this is crazy.

Memo to the White House: this is no longer local politics. Back off the trvial attacks and start making some decisions that matter. There's been a general in Afghanistan on line one for two months waiting for an answer as soldiers continue to make the ultimate sacrifice. Fox News, and even your golf outings, can wait Mr. President.

Insane spending spree to continue

As the economy continues to head south and in the face of record deficits and national debt, Congress sees no reason to throttle back the cash machine and has increased spending for next year. The Wall Street Journal shed some light on the current state of affairs with our spend-crazy Congress and their complete lack of fiscal responsibility:

The White House disclosed the other day that the fiscal 2009 budget deficit clocked in at $1.4 trillion, amid the usual promises to do something about it. Yet even as budget director Peter Orszag was speaking, House Democrats were moving on a dozen spending bills for fiscal 2010 that total 12.1% in more domestic discretionary increases. […]

More broadly, the White House and the 111th Congress have already enacted or proposed $3.4 trillion of new spending through 2019 for things like the health-care plan, cap and tax, and the children's health bill passed earlier this year. Very little of this has been financed with offsetting spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.

So the same question lingers: how is all this spending going to be paid for? Who's picking up the tab for all of these frolicsome expenditures? The answer is actually pretty straight forward and it's going to be one big broken campaign promise. From the same article:

Democrats must figure that they can get away with this sort of rap because no one will call them on the reality of what they're spending. And they're probably right about a press corps that has ignored the spending boom since Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Meanwhile, the spending machine rolls on, all but guaranteeing monumental future tax increases.

That is not going to sit well with the majority of Americans and will be just one more straw on the brittle camel's back that will be the 2010 mid-term elections.

 

Obama stumps for Deval and ignores “success” of Massachusetts health care program

President Obama was in Massachusetts Friday in an attempt to raise money for the state's fledgling Governor, Deval Patrick. A couple of interesting points on this: first, in the bluest of blue states, they couldn't give the tickets away. Plates were ranging from $500-$6,000 but no one was interested. Second, the number of protesters, the majority from the left, was a sight to behold, especially for a man that just about every one of them would have given their last kidney to, no questions asked, nine months ago.

But the most interesting point, at least in my mind, was the president's lack of mentioning Massachusetts piloting of its very own universal health care program, instead focusing on climate change legislation. Considering that he is in the midst of a tremendous struggle to pass national health care reform, why wouldn't he use the opportunity to praise the state's health care program, which is very similar to the one he is backing?  The reason might be that the Massachusetts program is proof positive that Obama's model doesn't work as advertised:

The president's critics say his reluctance to spotlight the Massachusetts model is real-world evidence that his vision would not work on a national scale. High costs have forced the state to trim benefits for legal immigrants and prompted one safety-net hospital to sue over a $38 million shortfall. […]

"The mistake in the direction Washington is taking is to assume that getting everyone insured will reduce costs," said former governor Mitt Romney (R), who signed the Massachusetts bill into law three years ago. "In fact, it is going to add costs."

Boy, that sounds a lot like the rationing of services and an increase in the monetary burden for the consumer, no? From the same article:

Strapped for cash, the state recently eliminated dental, hospice and skilled nursing care for 30,000 legal immigrants. Cigarette taxes were raised to help pay for the program. Coverage for workers in small businesses has lagged. And private health insurance premiums are expected to increase by about 10 percent next year, according to several estimates.

Well I guess it makes perfect sense why he ignored the state's program; it doesn't accomplish Obama's stated goals of universal coverage and cost reduction and certainly won't help increase support for his plan.  One last point of interest – a quote from one of the protesters in the article in the Boston Herald:

"I voted for him because of his speeches and rhetoric and his promises," said Paul Sousa, the group's [Join the Impact-MA] co-founder. "I thought he'd act on those promises."

Now that's a great example of an uninformed voter – voting a guy in based on his speeches and completely ignoring his track record. Hey, Paul…you voted for a guy who preferred to vote "present" on tough issues and had accomplished nothing prior to running for president. Did you expect any of that to change once he was elected?

Someone missed a memo…

Everyone over at the White House has been deceptively praising the magical powers of the stimulus and informing us to just wait until the whole thing is spent. Then we'll see what the stimulus can really do! Well, one of Obama's economic advisors apparently missed the memo on misleading the American public and appears to be a little closer to reality than the rest of the gang:

A top White House economist says spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus has already had its biggest impact on economic growth and will likely not contribute to significant expansion next year.

And what big "impact" is he referring to you ask? Well let's see…since the stimulus was passed, 49 of 50 states have lost jobs, unemployment has crashed right through White House projections to record levels, and the mostly temporary or government jobs that have been created have only cost us taxpayers around $533,000 per job. With facts like that hanging around, it's going to be very hard to argue that the stimulus has been a success.

I think you'll be seeing the word "former" in that White House economist's title tomorrow - thank you for your sacrifice, sir. Your honesty has been refreshing. Regardless, if the stimulus has already had its "biggest impact on economic growth," and we haven't had ANY economic growth, can't we all just agree that it's been a colossal waste of taxpayer money and stop this thing in its tracks?

Another economic miscalculation by the White House brain trust

If they were off by 6.2 trillion, then they might be embarrassed:

According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus. While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs.

6.2 million? Merely a rounding error with this administration.