Mass SNAFU

June 15, 2010: The day the music died

There are moments in life when you get the sense that something is over.  After 18 months of questionable leadership and head scratching political moves that have pushed this presidency to the precipice of complete failure, I got that sense Tuesday night - the Obama Presidency is over.  It just fell off a cliff.

In his address to the nation on the Gulf oil spill, the president completely missed the boat and confirmed his inability to provide leadership in a time of crisis.  He came across as a liberal academic playing the part of president in some sort of classroom role-play scenario - and not as a leader intent on ceasing the devastation in the Gulf.

At a time when the American people wanted answers, the president offered nothing more than 17 minutes of carefully-crafted political rhetoric that answered nothing.  It’s one thing to do that on the campaign trail - where details are irrelevant to your loyal followers caught up in the moment - quite another during a national catastrophe where the livelihoods of countless Americans are being sucked up in brown goop with no end in sight.  Those people wanted details of how this president was going to solve a disaster and instead, they got talk about alternative energy.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air summed it up like this:

This speech was suited for Day 1 of a catastrophe, not Day 57.  It had no answers at all.  None.  It’s as if Rip van Obama awoke after eight weeks of slumber and had been told just that morning about a massive problem in the Gulf of Mexico.  For a man who has repeatedly claimed to be “fully engaged since Day 1,” and who repeated that claim last night, Obama gave every impression of still being in the spitballing stage of crisis management.

Obama didn’t even offer an original thought for spitballing.  In his short presidency, Obama has had two responses to any issue: appoint a czar or create a commission.  The auto industry got a czar, for instance, and the deficit that Obama’s spending has driven out of sight got a commission.  Last night, Obama wanted people to know he was taking this seriously by appointing a czar and a commission, the latter of which had been announced weeks ago.  That was the sum total of his substantive response last night.  Small wonder Obama chose an Oval Office speech rather than face another press conference.

During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly criticized Obama’s lack of executive experience, but perhaps even Obama’s critics might be surprised to see how badly Obama has performed in this crisis.  He has nothing left to offer; Obama is running on empty.  In the face of a crisis that has unfolded for almost two full months, Obama chose to talk about wind turbines.  A nation waited to see if a leader would emerge from the White House, and instead it got an absent-minded professor desperate to change the subject.

Even Obama’s supporters have begun to see what his critics have long known: Obama is an empty suit.  His sorry performance last night showed just how little he understands his job, the situation, and the expectations of the American people.

To include a shout-out for his political agenda is offensive and shows a complete detachment from the people. To throw out an assemblage of meaningless vernacular with no clarity on how this leak is going to be stopped, proves that a lack of executive experience was actually something to be concerned about during the 2008 campaign.

Mark my words.  This speech will be looked at as a turning point in this presidency - a moment when critics and supporters alike lost all hope for a transformative redirect on the leadership front.   This president has been exposed and the longer this spill drags on – some predict through Christmas – the clearer the unshakeable image of a detached president failing to help the people becomes. 

Unfortunately for President Obama and his Democratic supporters, that mental image is going to stick and will be carried into the voting booths in 2012, resulting in the election of our 45^th president – a Republican.

Catchin’ up after a week in kid purgatory

 

Sorry for the lack of posts this week…been in Disney with the kids and have had limited internet access and limited energy after walking miles in 90 degree heat every day. Every. Single. Day.  Regardless, here’s my recap on the items from last week that caught my attention while walking, and walking:

Mortgage applications drop as interest rates fall

The Home Buyer Tax Credit contributed to increased real estate sales but since its expiration, everything is heading south:

One full week after the tax credit's expiration, mortgage applications fell 9.5 percent; this as mortgage interest rates dropped below 5 percent.

Sure, refis jumped, but that doesn't help us much with the currently bloated inventory of homes on the market.

Another report today from Trulia.com showed home sellers losing that little bit of ground they had recently gained in pricing. The number of properties on the market as of May 1st that saw at least one price cut rose 10 percent.

As I have been saying from the beginning, these “cash for clunkers” incentives have merely moved demand from the future to the present, creating a void down the line.  The natural free market correction has been tampered with and will be delayed as a result.  Government intervention is more often than not filled with unintended consequences, and this is one of them.  

People who bought houses were going to buy them anyway and these incentives simply moved their purchase dates closer than what they would have normally been.  The tax credit didn’t get someone to buy a house who wasn’t planning on it.  It just moved the purchase date up for people who were buying anyway - and made the housing numbers look better for a desperate administration.

The problem however, is these incentives never created demand for home purchases.  That – as we conservatives know – would take people getting employed and making money in order to be in a position to purchase a house. And that my friends seems to be against the Obama administration's agenda and could be a long way off. 

Surprise! Obama, Pelosi & Reid lied about the true cost of ObamaCare! 

From the “No Sh*t!” Department…

They had to keep it under a $Trillion….and they did, albeit it fraudulently:

Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.

The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to about $1 trillion…

Lower health care costs, insurance for everyone, and you can keep your doctor…all bullsh*t you O-Bots!

The president never “pledged” no new taxes; he simply “preferred” them

Remember President Obama’s supposedly inviolable pledge—repeatedly uttered during the 2008 campaign and at countless town meetings since the inauguration—that he would never raise taxes on middle-class citizens who earn $250,000 a year or less?

This morning at a Manhattan breakfast sponsored by Thomson Reuters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag threw that pledge out the window. Instead, he described Obama’s “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge as a “stance” and a “preference” that is subject to study by the president’s newly-formed bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.

Orszag went on to hint about a VAT, or national sales tax.  And don’t forget, that “commission” is an unelected, unregulated entity that has assumed the responsibilities of this President and our Congress in curtailing fiscal insanity with the tainted blessing of Obama.  What could possibly go wrong?

The “fringe element” supports the Arizona immigration law

And by “fringe” we mean 73% of our freaking country!  You can safely push amnesty off the Obama agenda and push Cap and Trade to the forefront.  Someone has to fight those evil oil polluters…that gave millions to Obama and got awards from Obama and...well never mind.

Eric Holder is a partisan idiot when it comes to everything AZ immigration law

In a Department of Justice oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) said to Holder, "I understand that you may file a lawsuit against the law. Seems to me the Administration ought to be enforcing border security and immigration laws and not challenge them, and that the Administration is on the wrong side of the American people."

Poe then asked Holder point blank, "Have you read the Arizona law?"

Holder: “I have not had a chance to, I've glanced at it. I have not read it”

The top attorney in the entire U.S. has not read the law, yet has no problem sh*tting all over it? Yup, that’s our government and we are truly in the best of hands…

AZ Governor calls Obama out:

In launching a Web site aimed at educating the United States on Arizona’s controversial illegal immigration law, Governor Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.) took umbrage with the president’s joke at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

The event is an opportunity for its speakers to make light of politics, and President Barack Obama did so with Arizona’s immigration law:

“We all know what happens in Arizona when you don’t have ID — adios, amigos.”

It was this joke which became the target of Gov. Brewer’s address regarding new steps the state government is taking to promote the law on a national level.

“It’s fair to ask whether he intends to be the Commander-in-Chief or the Comic-in-Chief,” Gov. Brewer said. “Since the president’s joke was so inappropriate, I suppose, if I wanted to join in the comedian game, I could suggest that he should not give up his day job.”

“Unfortunately, though, he isn’t doing very well at that one, either,” she added as her punchline. In the context of the Correspondents’ Dinner, Mr. Obama’s joke may not be seen by some as “so inappropriate.” Gov. Brewer does not see the issue of border security as a joking matter, regardless of context.

Inappropriate? How about dead on? Brewer is addressing a problem on her own that the Feds – from Clinton to Bush to Obama – have ignored, and Americans are paying the price in AZ in terms of crime, death, and host of economic implications.   With millions of potential illegal immigrants not paying into the municipal and state tax systems, financial problems are prevalent.  Just look at California as an example.

And AZ is being demonized for looking out for its economic and societal well-being.  Go figure and Go Arizona!

CAUGHT UP. SOMEWHAT…

30,000 anti-global warming scientists think Al Gore is an idiot

 

Contrary to what Al Gore has been spewing, the science on man-made global warming is far from settled and the number of scientists in opposition to the Goracle’s stance is growing exponentially.  The Canada Free Press has all the details:

Nature Magazine, the academic journal that introduced the world to X-rays, DNA double helix, wave nature of particles, pulsars, and more recently the human genome, is set to publish a paper in June that shows atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for only 5-10% of observed warming on Earth.

As explained by the paper’s author Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, “The climate is warming, yes, but not because of greenhouse gases.”

For the preeminent scientific journal in the world to publish Kauppinen’s work shows conclusively that Al Gore’s much touted “scientific consensus” supporting human-caused global warming is a myth. [...]

In 2009 over 700 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC members, joined with Senator Inhofe in a Senate Minority Report to express their doubts over man-made global warming claims.

In the report U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg was quoted as saying “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”

In the largest effort to date to document global warming dissent in the scientific community, 31,486 Americans with university degrees in science - including 9,029 PhD, 7,157 MS, 2,586 MD and DVM, and 12,714 BS or equivalent - have signed on with the Global Warming Petition Project to state “the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity.”

This is great news for those of us who don’t want to line the pockets of the snake oil salesmen – like Al Gore – who stand to profit handsomely from our tax dollars and higher energy costs via the Left’s global warming intervention known as cap and trade. 

The more scientists that cry foul and the more data that comes out disproving the alarmists rhetoric, the better the chances cap and trade dies on the floor of the Senate and never sees the light of day.

Trust in Washington at lowest level in 50 years

Pew Research released a survey of the American attitude toward the big government Hopenchange quest for social justice we currently find ourselves in and the results were pretty much what one would expect – terrible:

Just 22% say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time, among the lowest measures in half a century. About the same percentage (19%) says they are "basically content" with the federal government, which is largely unchanged from 2006 and 2007, but lower than a decade ago.

Opinions about elected officials are particularly poor. In a follow-up survey in early April, just 25% expressed a favorable opinion of Congress, which was virtually unchanged from March (26%), prior to passage of the health care reform bill. This is the lowest favorable rating for Congress in a quarter century of Pew Research Center surveys. Over the last year, favorable opinions of Congress have declined by half -- from 50% to 25%. […]

Just 22% say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time, among the lowest measures in half a century. About the same percentage (19%) says they are "basically content" with the federal government, which is largely unchanged from 2006 and 2007, but lower than a decade ago.

Opinions about elected officials are particularly poor. In a follow-up survey in early April, just 25% expressed a favorable opinion of Congress, which was virtually unchanged from March (26%), prior to passage of the health care reform bill. This is the lowest favorable rating for Congress in a quarter century of Pew Research Center surveys. Over the last year, favorable opinions of Congress have declined by half -- from 50% to 25%.

Consider this some of the collateral damage from ignoring the electorate and engaging in deceptive practices to pass legislation that no one wanted.  The people are not dumb and this survey suggests that they’re catching on to the shell game.

This is not good news for incumbents who voted in lockstep with the unpopular Democratic agenda and – if this survey is any indication – November may actually be worse for the Left than previously thought.

Jim Cramer is no longer bullish on the economy

Last week, Jim Cramer, the super-hyper host of CNBC's Mad Money and a respected trader with a proven track record (boo ya!), had some interesting things to say about the effects of passing ObamaCare:

…the president will get a second wind. That means the whole agenda -- cap-and-trade, Card Check for easier organizing… and amnesty for immigrants who are currently not citizens -- will quickly come to pass, perhaps even before the election. To pay for these items I see a dramatic increase in ordinary tax rates and perhaps capital gains and dividend tax rates in 2011 either reaching or exceeding those ordinary income rates as this current version of the Democratic Party believes that only rich people own stocks. (That's been a hallmark from Day 1 with this administration.)

Given those hurdles, which include a suicide pact with financial health for small businesses that obviously can't afford health care without risking the capital formation necessary, I think you have to put the double-dip recession back on the table.

Those who have read me here and watch "Mad Money" know that I was out there early thinking that 2010 would not produce a double-dip, despite ample commentary that it would. But if health care reform passes, I am going to revise my thinking -- and you know I think it will -- especially because immigrant amnesty will cause the health care system to be overloaded and our taxes to soar.

Well, it passed. And climate change and amnesty are next on deck.

Unfortunately, with corrupt processes now the norm, expect more of an assault on your liberties - and wallet - with more attempts at big government control over energy and immigration in the coming months.

Dems getting a little worried about the lack of results coming out of Washington

The election year jitters are starting to surface. Over the weekend, some Democratic governors expressed some worry about the president's agenda and failed track record to date, as in "this guy is all over the place, can't accomplish a damn thing, and we're stuck defending this crap!" From Breitbart:

Democratic governors said Sunday they worry about President Barack Obama's track record on fighting Republican political attacks and urged him to better connect with anxious voters. Some allies pleaded for a new election-year strategy focused on the economy.

The Obama agenda has saddled Democratic incumbents with defending very unpopular legislation, including a stimulus package that only 6% of Americans think has been effective. Many believe that health care monopolized Congress over the last year when the focus should have been on jobs. But the White House is basically saying "we focused on the economy last week! It's now time to force health care and cap-and-tax on an unwilling electorate, again!" And that disconnect with the American public has many on the Left worried:

"It's got to be better thought out," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said. "It's got to be more proactive." And, he said, Democrats must hit back just as hard as they are hit by Republicans.

Eight months before the first midterm elections of Obama's presidency, most Americans are frustrated with—even angered by—persistent unemployment and gridlock in Washington. Democrats fear voters will punish the party in power.

The titular head of his party, Obama has watched his own popularity drop over the past year. He will bear at least some responsibility for the outcome in November, and Democrats are looking to him for political fixes.

In interviews at the National Governors Association's weekend meeting, several Democratic governors faulted the White House for losing the communications war against Republicans over what Obama has accomplished in his first year.

"We fought back only sporadically and pretty ineffectively," Rendell said, adding that "right out of the box, we lost the spin war" on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill passed in 2009.

Several Democratic colleagues agreed, and lamented that voters thought Obama focused too much on overhauling the U.S. health care system. Others fretted that Obama may appear to be out of touch with the concerns of Americans.

"I think he's got more work to do on that," said Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend and ally.

Could Deval Patrick giving you accurate advice signify hitting rock bottom? It's got to be close. Anyway, the number one issue of concern with the American people is obviously the economy and the creation of jobs. For some reason this White House is refusing to address that issue, at least in a way that Americans think is effective, and with unemployment expected to hover where it is for months, that spells big trouble for Democrats everywhere.