Thursday, September 17, 2009
Run Against the Record
1) Taxes are increasing
2) Unemployment is increasing
3) Liberal scandals - Rangel, ACORN, firings of Inspectors General
4) Stalled, failing or failed policy initiatives - healthcare, cap and trade leading the way
5) Massive fiscal deficits
6) Increasing trade protectionism and impending trade wars
7) Increased instability in Iraq
8) A growing commitment to Afghanistan, an exceedingly difficult tactical and strategic challenge
9) Iran grows closer to possessing a nuclear weapon while we draw down our troops in neighboring Iraq and end defensive missile programs in Europe.
Um, it harkens back to the late 1970's and Jimmy Carter. This did not end well for the Democratic Party. Just sayin'.
35 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Sep 17, 10:55:00 AM:
Yeah, but we still lack a candidate. That's a powerful advantage for the Dem's.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 10:59:00 AM:
CP ... not sure if you think this falls under #3, but what about these 30-something Czars, or 'Point Men'?
And Anon ... we have time ... better to let the opposition negotiate against themselves than introduce the likely candidate for the machine to try to demonize. If we let the Dems and Obama keep talking, they'll do more to help whoever gets the nod than anything else. This is about capturing the middle/undecided/moderates, and Team O has really screwed up big.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 11:02:00 AM:
It's still a powerful, even decisive, advantage for the Dems. That stays true until we have a candidate.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 11:10:00 AM:
JT thinks you're wrong, but we'll see. Obama is almost into his own budget year, and out of room to blame the evil Chimp and the evil Chimps Dem Congress, glossing over it was a Dem Congress with Obama in it.
I smell an international event coming that exposes just how inept our POTUS and team are, and more pain. If we replicate even part of the 1930 graph of the DOW, and give back this retrace in our 'jobless recovery', he's completely boned. Toss something challenging on that ... a bad hurricane, Soviet aggression, a turn for the worst in Obama's war in the Afghan theatre, you name it ...
He's not ready, and so far he's screwed up big. Leave the bright lights shining on him, and let him have all the attention he deserves. No need to talk about our candidate, only about how profoundly bad what we have is.
Then we just run on 'hope and change' on the collective anger and frustration and betrayal.
Isn't/wasn't that the game plan?
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 11:34:00 AM:
Re 2012: Beating a first-term incumbent President isn't easy. Recall that Reagan vs Carter was a dead heat until the last month of the 1980 election. Obama is still more personally popular than his policies, and may remain so. Many key demographics still hate the Republican party. The Republicans could pick a losing ticket in 2012 out of their own pig-headiness.
Before that, the Republicans need to at least win back the House in 2010 as a first step. If they can't do that, they may be done as a national party. They should run a "national campaign" to vote in enough new Republicans to throw Nancy, Barney, etc out of their committee chairs. They need to find a new Newt as House leader. Is Boehner up to it?
Link, over
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 11:38:00 AM:
I await the inevitable comment on the list by vicki pasadena ca and Mr. Chambers. My money is on vicki's response going off on a tangent totally unrelated to any topic on the list and CC finding it proof positive that a torch-wielding lynch mob is at the White House gates. Reliable as a Swiss watch, those two.
I do agree with posters who suggest the opposition party needs a better candidate than a heavily recycled old war hero 1) with a major scandal in his past 2) who has zero understanding of how wealth is created and 3) who proudly lent his name to a fulsome piece of legislation that managed to be both the most transparent incumbent protection device yet heaved up by Congress and perhaps the single most egregious assault on free speech rights I can recall.
By MAS1916, at
Thu Sep 17, 11:50:00 AM:
Nice list...
And on top of this, the lefties are going to have to fight one another over health care. Baucus did the GOP a huge favor by rolling out his plan yesterday. ( http://www.conservativeblog.thewebinfocenter.com/conservative-blog/the-baucus-health-care-plan-%E2%80%93-launching-the-democrat-vs-democrat-fight )
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Thu Sep 17, 11:56:00 AM:
"Before that, the Republicans need to at least win back the House in 2010 as a first step. If they can't do that, they may be done as a national party."
Pfeh. The Democrats lost ground in 2000 (with the Presidency), 2002, 2004 (with the Presidency again), and still came roaring back in 2006 and 2008. The Republicans are what, 77 seats down in the House? Simply stating that if they don't pull off a total victory then they're done as a party is a bit too much.
Also, a Republican majority in either house of Congress may ensure a second Obama term because he could then blame his governments utter ineffectiveness on Republican opposition and be at least partially correct. Or he might wise up and pull a Bill Clinton triangulation maneuver, and we do not need that.
Best result is a Republic gain in 2010, without majority, in my opinion.
By Georg Felis, at
Thu Sep 17, 12:20:00 PM:
I would minimize these:
6-Protectionism is actually a reaction to internal pressure, done to "protect" a local industry and garner support from the employees.
7-Iraq is one of those "God only knows how this is going to go" things, so I dont see that as anyplace where the actual actions of the Dems and Republicans differ too much.
9-Iran and Nukes really will not have any effect on the election *unless* Iran is dumb enough to actually fire one off. Or double-dumb enough to make their test-shot inside Israel. Or if Israel actually decides to "do something".
The biggie will be 2-Unemployment. Voters, for some reason, credit/blame the President for the economy no matter how much they have to do with it, positive or negative.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 01:39:00 PM:
Anon is right, like I've been saying all along, you people need a viable candidate. Not out there.
Don't anyone say Joe Wilson, he is a Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Whoever that vacuous beauty queen was, 15 minutes of fame dude. No substance. How about Michelle Bachman?
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 03:17:00 PM:
"they may be done as a national party"
There's a lot of justifiable anger in America right now. Obama won becasue of the independent vote, today he'd lose it. Thus, the Republicans should make bigger gains in the House than they did in 1994 -- we're a lot madder about Obama than we were about Clinton. If Republicans don't, it's their own damn fault and an indictment of their effectiveness as a party.
Continuing to be a party out of power is not a winning long-term strategy. It'll only let Obama & Co consolidate their position going into 2012. I agree with Vicki -- the Republicans have no good standard bearer for 2012 right now. The right leaders for the party in 2012 should emerge from a stong 2010 comeback. If not, waiting for Obama & Co to burn the mansion isn't a viable strategy.
Link, over
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 03:18:00 PM:
There is one thing we can count on, as the next election period approaches, and that is that the Dem's will continue to build on their execrable record.
Every new day brings some bad piece of news for the country, and today is a bigger than usual day since it brings several pieces of news. There is of course the race-baiting news from Carter, from Marc Lamont Hill and the Democrat thought leaders in the Congress, and there is the abandonment of our allies in eastern Europe, and there is the barfing reax coming from all sides on the Baucus draft health bill (which probably means it'll pass).
Forgotten in the rush of world destruction from the Democrat party and the Obama administration is the little stuff, like expanding the Community Reinvestment Act. No corruption could be more ill-timed than this little gem, what with the national CRA sponsor ACORN now under investigation in 28 states and exposed as the villainous evil it is on film after film, but who cares, because, you know, they Won. They get to stick their finger in our eyes now.
Wow. Just wow.
By Stephen, at
Thu Sep 17, 04:30:00 PM:
Stunning incompetence. An old saying is 'you cannot fix stupid.'
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 04:51:00 PM:
Just remember that ACORN was nurtured and encouraged by many other administrations, not just Obama. Not all the blame for the ACORN wrongdoings can fall on him and the dems. Some of those tapes were made 4 years ago. Just think of all the purging that could have been done and the wind out of ACORN's sails could have been accomplished if someone had done something sooner. Whistle blowers, my ass. Opportunists, O'Keefe and company. Don't even think for a minute that they are out for the betterment of society.
And, as reprehensible as the stuff in those videos are, I suspect some of the antics were done for the benefit of O'Keefe, having pegged him as a "60 minutes" type reporter from the start.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Sep 17, 05:05:00 PM:
"Some of those tapes were made 4 years ago."
No, they weren't. Not only has this been explained, Hannah Giles, the woman in the videos, is a whopping 20 years old. 4 years ago, she would have been 16. Compare the videos to her pictures which are unambiguously from this year and be amazed.
Maybe she was just a REALLY mature teenager.
"And, as reprehensible as the stuff in those videos are, I suspect some of the antics were done for the benefit of O'Keefe, having pegged him as a "60 minutes" type reporter from the start."
Oh right, they played along to purposefully make themselves look like criminal scum 'for the benefit' of an investigative reporter.
The cognitive dissonance dissonance would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
"Don't even think for a minute that they are out for the betterment of society."
Naturally. Because exposing a government funded criminal organization does nothing to better society.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:10:00 PM:
The proposal to expand CRA is troubling, because it shows that Barney Frank & Co have no shame, no remorse, no sense. But understand that something like 9 in 10 mortgages today are already financed by Fannie/Freddie. The securitization market disappeared, so the Fed is now the only buyer of Fannie/Freddie securitizations. Thus, mortgages in the US are almost wholly run and financed by the federal government. This is a huge development and little noted. If you get a mortgage from a bank, they're most likely just acting as an initial front-end originator for Fannie/Freddie who then sell the securitization to the Federal Reserve which pays for it with printed dollar paper.
If Fannie/Freddie were to stick to what they used to do -- plain vanilla 20% down mortgages -- this might work. But I expect that they'll once again be pressured into "doing more for people", which is an enormous danger. One of the root causes of the financial crisis is that we managed to reduce the average down payment for all mortgages -- not just subprime -- down to 3% circa 2006-2007. This was incredibly stupid. To repeat this mistake is insanity.
We could fall into this trap if the Fed is pressured to buy bad Fannie/Freddie paper. Thus, Obama & Co can already make a lot of bad things happen without need for an expanded CRA statute. Incredibly, the final "wee hour of the morning" version of the Energy Bill would mandate Fannie/Freddie to finance green job home improvement loans ... e.g., windmills and solar panels on the top of apartment buildings in the South Side insalled by ACORN operatives. Once again, I'm not making this up. Just read Van Jones' recent book - The Green Collar Economy.
Link, over
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:15:00 PM:
Link follow-up on ACORN,
I'm not certain, but I thought that ACORN had little pull on the federal level until Obama and was in fact an association of mostly local operations.
That's right Vicki: don't like the message, shoot the messenger.
Understand that ten years ago, Obama could ahve been next door to where these videos were made.
Link, over
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:21:00 PM:
You assume that there will ever again be the opportunity to pick our leaders. As we speak, ACORNers, Black Panthers, union thugs and assorted criminal democrats are already casting ballots in the 2010 election.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:42:00 PM:
"Just remember that ACORN was nurtured and encouraged by many other administrations, not just Obama. Not all the blame for the ACORN wrongdoings can fall on him and the dems."
Oh, don't even. ACORN is a creature of SEIU and the Democrat party (except for McCain). Completely.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:43:00 PM:
This is totally honest, what is the reason for the incorrect date stamp?
Not true about ACORN, they have been actively involved in "voter registration" for at almost a decade and has been taking mucho federal funds for at least that long.
Not shooting the messenger, think that ACORN should be kicked out completely from any government "help". But,please, don't blame it all on Obama.
Convenient target, anger ruling instead of head.
Lets face it, the dude is a taco short of a combo plate.
Not that it makes the video's any less valid.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 05:44:00 PM:
Sometimes, anon, your paranoia is a little ......
By Seamus MagRaith, at
Thu Sep 17, 05:48:00 PM:
You're reading Outliers? Can it, it totally sucked in the typical whiny liberal way.
Gladwell comes from the philosophy that humans are merely fifty cents worth of material, and are solely the product of environment. We are all victims of our environment, boo-hoo-hoo, give me more money ...
Like if we all began programming like Bill Gates at age 13 in 1975 at a University for free, we would all go on to found Fortune 500 companies - as if building Microsoft has anything to do with programming skills!
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Sep 17, 06:04:00 PM:
"This is totally honest, what is the reason for the incorrect date stamp?"
The camera used was apparently manufactured in 2005, and so it resets to that date every time it loses battery power. It simply wasn't reset between the tapings.
"But,please, don't blame it all on Obama."
I'm sure that Obama has nothing to do with the greater corruption within Acorn. No one person could.
But he did work with them extensively, both before and after he went to law school. He paid them $832,000 during his presidential campaign to 'get out the vote,' and many thousands (!) of Acorn registered votes from the 2008 elections have been proven to be fraudulent with investigations or arrests in twenty some-odd states. In essence, Obama paid them for fake votes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html
So no, he's not responsible for the evils of the organization, but he has aided and abetted and profited from them. He's probably not a criminal for it, but man is it damning politically.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 06:10:00 PM:
I forgot, everything the WSJ says is the truth.
Ok, I understand about the camera.
Thanks
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 07:37:00 PM:
From Link,
I assume Vicky that I'm the Anon you think paranoid. If so, I plead guilty ... but it was a learned response.
I first learned of Obama at the beginning of 2008. Before then I'd heard the name, and knew he was running but I knew nothing about him. I actually thought he was Puerto Rican. I assumed Hillary would get the nomination and that the rest of the pack were just auditioning to be her VP male escort, and so didn't pay attention.
My day job puts me on the internet, and I got good at online research. I started digging in June 2008 about Obama and was shocked at what I found. The more I dug the worse it got. I actually corresponded with Evelyn Pringle, who's a leftist freelance journalist -- mostly a corporate gadfly, and very principled. She had done an expose of Obama on her own -- ties to Rezko, etc. etc. -- which got attention on the blogosphere. Despite that everything she wrote was true, Evelyn was threatened with lawsuit and couldn't afford to defend and so stopped reporting on this in March 2008. Evelyn was amazed that MSM didn't pick up on what she'd found freelancing. You can still find her stuff on the internet as others have copied it, but she couldn't add to it. The lawyer that sued her was hired by a London-based Iraqi-born billionaire who's the same guy who wired Rezko $3 million before his trial -- I couldn't make that up if I tried. That wire transfer is what got Rezko's bail revoked.
If you dig into the back story of Obama's 2004 senate run, it's an eye-opener as to what Obama and Axelrod are really about. Dig a little further and you have the Alinsky stuff.
I know what the critical legal studies movement is about -- some of its followers are beyond Trotsky. I didn't take them seriously in law school except as a front for the plaintiff's bar. I wouldn't have dreamed that these shitheads could ever get one of their own elected to anything, anywhere. Obama was almost certainly an acolyte -- but I've never seen any reporting on it.
Neither have I seen any follow-up investigation of Percy Sutton's claims that Obama was groomed and financially supported from the age of 25 by Khalid al-Mansour, a connected black Muslim activist. For those who don't know, Percy Sutton was a Tuskegee Airman who became a power broker in Harlem politics. Obama's camp denied it -- MSM never followed up. Percy was known in NYC as a straight shooter.
I was young at the time -- but during the late 1960s and 1970s in New York City I saw the prequel to this movie -- NYC was a broken disaster by 1975. At one point in my career, I did work with Latin American banks -- and so know how government finance can really fuck things up for the populace .... the Latin countries never got rid of the rich, they just made sure they'd never have a middle class. I've also read history on the Soviets, and almost everything George Orwell wrote.
Take all of this ... put in a blender on frappe ... and you have my paranoid milkshake. Even paranoid's can be right, and so far I haven't been wrong.
Link, over
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Sep 17, 10:17:00 PM:
Hey Link. Ever considered codifying these things and distributing them? Since you've already done most of the legwork already and everything...
By , at
Fri Sep 18, 12:47:00 AM:
Did anyone see Hannity tonight? One of the saddest & most depressing broadcasts i have ever watched. That being said...
...can we also include the starving of americans in the san joaquin valley in this list?
what is going on as we post is a national tragedy on par with Katrina.
seriously. we send billions & millions to f*ked up ACORN, Chavez, Nicaragua, Russia and China yet we are currently STARVING AMERICANS AND PUTTING THEM OUT OF WORK. WE ARE ALSO CREATING DUST BOWL CONDITIONS ON THE MOST PRECIOUS NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE USA.
The Oba-messiah has a beer over a racial blowup HE CREATED and yet he abets the destruction of the economy of fellow Americans and wants to meet NOONE in San Joaquin, who HE HAS HARMED.
WTF is going on here?
Conservatives...hell ANY AMERICANS OUT THERE...PLEASE HELP YOUR FELLOW AMERICANS!!!!
THIS IS IN THE BREADBASKET OF AMERICA!!!!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574384731898375624.html
By , at
Fri Sep 18, 07:30:00 AM:
To Anon at 12:47 am
Was Devin Nunes on Hannity about San Joaquin? I don't usually watch TV news.
I listened in on the voting on the Energy bill while I was working. Nunes really impressed me. I assumed he was Hispanic, but his family line is actually Portuguese which officially doesn't count -- who makes up these rules? He could make an interesting VP pick.
After I heard those hearings, I actually thought Boehner - Nunes could be a winning ticket. They both have fire in the belly, and smarts.
To DawnFire, re collecting my research. Let me think how I can best do it. One overall theme is that Obama couldn't have gotten a US security clearance -- at least not without a lot more digging -- but we went and elected him President so MSM could feel good about themselves.
Link, over
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Fri Sep 18, 02:47:00 PM:
....and he'll be President for 3 more years! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hey, the Republicans sucked for 8 years. It's only fair to let the Democrats get their turn.
By , at
Fri Sep 18, 04:17:00 PM:
Here are the Hannity clips describing the choke hold established by environmental groups over the valley. Sad, yes, but also a complete perversion of the idea of environmental protection.
By , at
Fri Sep 18, 04:30:00 PM:
Here's the scary implication of the overarching theory behind the Obama foreign policy strategy, the "I'm sorry and I won't bother you anymore" theory:
"Obama is creating a strategic void in which no major power will dominate, and every minor power must fend for itself. The outcome is incalculably hard to analyze and terrifying to consider.
Obama doesn't want to betray the United States; he only wants to empower America's enemies."
By , at
Fri Sep 18, 04:57:00 PM:
Obama ignores and insults our allies, while empowering our friends. That's Spengler's basic complaint, and his point is that the administration's "apologize and walk away" policy will lead to making evil tyrants much more mischievous and powerful. The flip side of Spengler's point is that relationships with allies need to be carefully nurtured, not abused.
Even while Obama is arrogantly and stupidly busies himself in alienating our allies, members of his administration are doing their best to make up for the mistakes being made in the White House, and contain the damage. David Petraeus wrote to the people of Great Britain today, for example, and closed with this:
"The challenges in Afghanistan clearly are significant. But the stakes are high. And, while the situation unquestionably is, as General McChrystal has observed, serious, the mission is, as he has affirmed, still doable."
I only hope someone can write a letter to the Polish and Czech peoples, somehow figuring out how to mollify them for yesterday's betrayal.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Sep 18, 11:45:00 PM:
Vicki: Oh ok. You don't like the message, so you attack the messenger. Who can trust the Wall Street Journal anyway? It's dominated by Wall Street!
Fortunately, the Obama campaign talked about their 'mistake' in misrepresenting why they paid ACORN 'more than $800,000.'
Or more specifically, $832,598 according to that other bastion of right-wing propaganda and Jew-money, the FEC.
But then, given what we've seen over the last 8 months, you probably can't trust the Obama campaign about that either. So yeah, he's totally clean. The WSJ was just the invention of a paranoid, racist mind.
By , at
Sun Sep 20, 04:38:00 PM:
You people are absolutely out of your minds. You're having a 'debate' about whether Obama is personally responsable for random ACORN employees giving advice to fake prostitutes this month? Because he once represented them in a lawsuit in 1994? You think, he, what, took time out from running the nation to fly over to their random offices and be like "hey guys, prostitution is awesome, be sure to help prostitutes cheat on their taxes".
?? Sometime recently?
You sound like fools.
And that's all there is. Other than these idiot employees - and you could pull this sting operation against any organization helping poor and frequently crazy people and/or petty criminals in the inner cities - that's the extent of "ACORN's troubled history". Associating the way they get ripped off in registration frauds with this election-stealing horseshit is like calling Wal-Mart corrupt because its employees steal from it.
By , at
Tue Sep 22, 10:25:00 AM:
That last posting was hilarious. Did this person even read the thread, do you think?
On ACORN though, and Obama's responsibility for the organization's extensive misdeeds, it does seem unlikely we can hold him personally responsible for the culture of corruption endemic to their operations around the country. Instead, let's simply agree he was a willing participant! Right alongside most of the national leadership of the Democrat party. There, fool, happy?
