Obama Spending Chart A Complete Distortion Of Reality

May 25, 2012 2 Comments

The Obama campaign has issued a chart, which has been dutifully reported as news by NBC, which has lit up Facebook and Twitter over the past couple days. It purports to show that Federal spending hasn’t increased much under Obama but increased substantially under Bush. It is of course a complete manipulation of numbers. In order to believe the chart, you have to ignore the fact that under Bush Federal spending was just under $7 billion per day and under Obama it has been over $9 billion. But that’s just the beginning of what one has to ignore to believe the Obama chart.

The chart blames Bush for a large increase in fiscal year 2009 spending. Never mind that the Democrats passed a budget which was signed by Obama for fiscal year 2009 in March of that year, two months after Bush left office. You would also have to ignore the fact that Obama largely signed spending measures for 2009 and you would have to ignore the fact that the Stimulus increased spending during fiscal year 2009. Bush of course didn’t sign the Stimulus, Obama did. In fact, Bush’s proposed 2009 budget was half a trillion dollars less than what the Democrat Congress and Obama ended up spending.

Meanwhile Obama’s chart uses a CBO estimate of spending for fiscal year 2009 which shows $20 billion more in spending than was actually spent. Since Obama blames 2009 on Bush, he takes credit for himself for $20 billion that wasn’t spent while blaming Bush for it. That Bush isn’t responsible for fiscal year 2009 is beside the point. But that little trick is never used against Obama, who spent more than CBO estimates in 2010 and 2011 and likely 2012. It’s a cute accounting trick and if you’re in bed with the President like NBC you’ll gladly ignore it.

There is plenty to blame Bush for during his administration. He increased Federal spending from around $2 trillion per year to around $3 trillion per year. (Bush’s proposed 2009 budget was $3.1 trillion, Obama signed a $3.5 trillion budget for that year) Obama has taken a $3 trillion budget and increased it to over $3.6 trillion and has proposed increasing it to $3.8 trillion for fiscal year 2013. We can certainly blame Bush for increasing Federal spending during his years in office. In eight years he increased spending by $1 trillion per year. Feel free to blame him.

But let’s not pretend Obama hasn’t increased the budget substantially. In his first months in office he increased the 2009 budget by $400 billion. He signed a $800 million Stimulus package that spent most of its money in fiscal years 2010 and 2011. Obamacare is costing billions already and they’re just writing regulations right now. In three years in office Obama has increased Federal spending by $600 billion per year and if his 2013 budget passed it will be $800 billion annually in just four years. In short, his spending increases are larger than Bush’s and the only way to mask that is to manipulate the numbers.

In Obama’s world a budget passed by a Democrat Congress and signed by him is Bush’s fault. In Obama’s world it’s Bush’s fault that he spent $140 million of Stimulus money in fiscal year 2009. You have to ignore all of this to believe that Obama didn’t increase spending like Bush did. What Obama is doing is shifting the baseline up so that he can claim he didn’t increase it very much. Except that he’s the one who moved the baseline up in 2009 well beyond what Bush left it at. It’s a complete manipulation and the drones in the mainstream media are just repeating the Obama campaign press release without doing their own investigation.

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Did Romney Really Cost People Jobs At Bain Capital?

May 22, 2012 Leave a comment

There’s nothing worse than being forced to defend a candidate you don’t particularly like. But we’ll do that today in defense of Mitt Romney who has been unfairly attacked by President Obama concerning Bain Capital. Obama has so much as said the campaign is going to be about Bail Capital, presumably Mitt Romney’s time there. Obama is going to point to a number of layoffs, Romney will point to a number of successes. The question though is what is Bain Capital? If you don’t understand what Bain is then you don’t understand the layoffs or successes.

Bain is the business version of a house flipper. People who flip  houses buy dilapidated homes cheaply, renovate them and sell  them for a large profit. Bain does the same thing with businesses. They buy dying companies on the verge of bankruptcy cheaply, they restructure the company, get it profitable again and sell it for a large profit. Sometimes Bain is successful, they were with Staples and Burger King, Other times they aren’t successful and they suffer a loss.

It’s important to keep in mind though that the jobs lost under Bain’s watch likely would have been lost anyway. They weren’t buying successful businesses, they were buying unsuccessful businesses on the verge of closing their doors. It’s absurd to blame Bain Capital or Mitt Romney because some of their investments didn’t work out. If anything, Bain’s involvement pushed off layoffs at some of these companies for a  year or two because again Bain only bought dying companies.

Obama is attacking Romney, just like Newt did during the primaries. It’s an unfounded attack. Romney is responsible for saving or creating thousands of jobs at successful Bain projects. The job losses from unsuccessful Bain projects can hardly be attributed to Romney. Had Bain not purchased those businesses, the jobs would have been lost anyway when the company went bankrupt which they were all on the verge of. It’s unfortunate that people lost their jobs but they were going to lose their jobs anyway. Bain Capital and Mitt Romney tried to save those jobs and turn a profit for themselves and their investors at the same time.

Even some Democrats are annoyed at Obama’s attack on private equity firms. Newark Mayor and Obama supporter Cory Booker called Obama’s attack on Bain “nauseating.” He’s since backed off his comments, in what looks like a forced Gulag confession. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called Obama’s attacks “disappointing.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) defended Romney. It’s also important to note that Obama campaign bundler($200,000+)  Jonathan Lavine is a Bain executive.

Obama’s attacks on Romney and Bain Capital show a hatred of private enterprise. Obama’s perfectly ok with government spending tax money on green investments. He shrugs his shoulders when over 1,000 jobs are lost along with $500+ million in tax money at Solyndra. It’s only when private money is spent trying to turn a profit on dying companies that Obama begins to have problems. He ignores the successes of Bain Capital, the thousands of jobs that were created and the major companies that remain in business today because of Bain. He’s only interested in Bain’s inability to save a handful of jobs at a handful of bankrupt companies.

Bain is another in a long line of smoke and mirrors arguments coming from Obama. He doesn’t want to talk about his performance as President, he doesn’t want to talk about the economy. So he’s creating issues and fudging the truth to boot. A couple weeks ago it was homosexual marriage, now it’s Bain Capital. You would think there’s plenty to attack Romney over policy wise. But to debate policy with Romney is to open Obama up to attack on his failures as President. So to avoid that Obama is attacking Romney’s business. It’s pathetic, it’s shameful and it isn’t even accurate.

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Obamacare Ruling Looms Over Obama, Romney Campaigns

May 21, 2012 2 Comments

It’s no secret that we here at Steven Birn Speaks are poll watchers. These days the Obama-Romney matchup is more or less a statistical tie according to Rasmussen and Gallup. That equates to a Romney victory as generally speaking 80% of undecided voters end up voting against the incumbent. Thus a 45-45 tie in the polls is really a 53-47 Romney lead. Obviously the number of people undecided will shift before election day. But on election day, those who are undecided will mostly shift towards the challenger.

Having said all of that, we cannot forget it’s only May. We have just under six months to go before the election. A lot can change between now and November. In fact, a lot will change and not just on the economy which is presumably the number one issue heading into the election. The big elephant in the room is the Obamacare case at the Supreme Court. How that case is decided will set up the 2012 election, even more so than the economy provided there isn’t a massive downturn. (it’s too late for a massive upswing)

If Obamacare’s individual mandate is ruled constitutional it’s a big feather in the cap of Obama. He can run around the country pointing to Obamacare as his big first term achievement and he can tell the people he should be the one to fully implement it during his second term. It’s a solid argument. But we cannot forget that the polls show that 60% of the country wants Obamacare repealed. In other words, Obama may win the argument on constitutionality but lose because his signature piece of legislation is simply unpopular.

A ruling that the individual mandate is constitutional would certainly fuel Obama and his supporters but it could arguably work up Republicans more than any other issue. Nothing may galvanize Republicans more behind Mitt Romney than the threat of Obamacare being fully implemented by Obama. Romney has pledged to sign the repeal of Obamacare, that pledge alone could propel him into the White House on a wave of anti-Obamacare electoral storm. There isn’t another issue that could cause Republicans to back Romney more than a Constitutional ruling from the court on Obamacare.

If Obamacare’s individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional or the whole thing is ruled unconstitutional it would be a major blow for Obama. His signature piece of legislation will have been ruled unconstitutional. A Constitutional law professor’s signature piece of legislation no less. That’s a serious problem for Obama. But he can recover from it based on his reaction to such a ruling. If he spends his time attacking the Supreme Court, he’ll lose. But if he instead pushes for individual bills enshrining parts of Obamacare into law, particularly the popular portions of it like the pre-existing conditions clause, he could come out victorious.

Romney already appears behind the eight ball concerning what to do without Obamacare. He’s talked about vague free market solutions but he doesn’t seem to have a plan. He really needs come up with a solid alternative to Obamacare, since a Romney Presidency will result in the elimination of Obamacare. In fact, Romney could shift the polls by coming out with a solid, free market plan before the Supreme Court rules on the matter. That said if the individual mandate is ruled constitutional, Romney’s response to the ruling will be just as important as Obama’s.

The Obamacare ruling, due out late next month, will be the opening shot in the 2012 election cycle. There will be plenty to talk about before then as Obama attempts to define Romney from his bully pulpit. But in terms of polls, they aren’t going to matter a whole lot because they will shift substantially after the court rules. They may even shift twice depending on how the candidates respond to the ruling. This decision will determine how the fall narrative goes. This election isn’t just about the economy, it’s also about Obamacare or what will replace Obamacare.

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For 16 Years Obama’s Agent Claims He Was Born In Kenya

May 18, 2012 4 Comments

Breitbart has discovered a 1991 literary agency bio of Barack Obama which claims he was born in Kenya. Obama’s agent claims to have “misidentified” Obama’s birthplace. Yet that same agency was using the same bio until 2007. It simply makes no sense that such a mistake would happen and continue for 16 years without anyone, especially Obama, catching on. Where would Obama’s agent in 1991 get information that he was born in Kenya? Surely they weren’t getting it from the legion of birthers making wild claims about a future president no one had ever heard of at the time. They of course got the information from Obama himself.

Breitbart’s take on this isn’t that the birther people are correct, rather their take is that Obama changes himself and his history to suit his purposes. You’ll recall in 2008 he told a group in Alabama that he was conceived after the Selma march. That he was 4 years old when the march took place wasn’t important, he was trying to convince Democrats to support his nomination. Trying to make a grand racial point in Dreams From My Father, Obama recalls a fight over race with his white girlfriend. The girlfriend says the fight never happened and Obama has since admitted the fight was ”composite” of his former girlfriends. Composite might as well mean lie because the fight never happened. Again, he changes his history to suit his purposes. Obama changed his past in the 2008 debates when he claimed he didn’t launch his state senate campaign in the home of terrorist Bill Ayers. That was untrue but it suited Obama’s purposes at the moment.

What makes this booklet all the more interesting is that two groups of people apparently didn’t find it. Hillary Clinton and the media. Keep in mind, it was Hillary who started the birther craze. Her people looked into Obama’s background and they’re the ones who raised the first questions about it. How could they miss this booklet, which was in print for 16 years? Perhaps Hillary didn’t have enough money to spend on in depth research about Obama though one wonders why her surrogates didn’t spend the money.

The big group that completely missed the boat on this is the mainstream media. It has become abundantly clear that the mainstream press never vetted Obama. In 2008 the media portrayed Obama according to the narrative written by the Obama campaign. They never looked into his past, they never dug around. The best the media did was focus on Rev. Jeremiah Wright but even in that they blindly accepted Obama’s assertion that he must have missed Wright’s controversial sermons. They never looked into his childhood, they never asked why he was sent off to be mentored by communist Marshall Davis. The media surely never asked what effect Davis has had on Obama’s political outlook.

The media never wondered about his family life in Indonesia. We now know he had a transvestite nanny while living there. The media never dug around Obama’s school life, they’ve never wondered how he was able to transfer from Occidental College to Columbia. In 2008 we never heard anything of his former girlfriends, information about them is only trickling out now. The media is completely uninterested in Obama’s cocaine use, which he admitted to in his book. We know next to nothing about his time as a “community organizer” in Chicago. Surely there is information out there about this time but the media hasn’t looked into it at all.

It’s interesting that we know almost nothing about Obama’s past and what we do know has largely come out during his time as President. The media never vetted him, they never dug around. But we do know Mitt Romney might have taken a prank too far nearly 50 years ago. We know all about Romney’s business dealings, the media consistently reports on them. We know George W. Bush’s college grades because the media got them and published them. The media spent an inordinate amount of time trying to dig up information about Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign and she was only running for Vice President. It’s a safe bet that the media didn’t spend half the time digging up information about Obama as they did Palin during 2008.

This is an excellent case of media bias. They spend time digging up dirt on Republican candidates while ignoring the past of Democrat candidates. In 2008 Americans voted for Obama without really knowing who he was. Had the media dug around a little bit and found this pamphlet wherein Obama’s own agent says he was born in Kenya, would he have even been elected? If they really dug around his past and really reported about Marshall Davis mentoring Obama, would he have been elected? There’s all sorts of information out there about Obama now, largely coming from conservative media outlets. But it’s too late now, he’s already President. The media didn’t do their job in 2008. Or in the alternative they did do their job, they didn’t tell the American people the truth about Obama.

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No Member Of Congress Votes For Obama’s Budget

May 17, 2012 2 Comments

Obama’s budget was defeated in the Senate 99-0. This of course means that not a single member of Congress voted for the President’s budget as the House rejected it 414-0 earlier in the year. It’s sort of amazing that Democrats allowed this to happen as it makes the President look like an utter buffoon and dare we say an amateur. Here we have the President of the United States propose a budget and he can’t get anyone in Congress to vote for it, not even his own party. Talk about bush league, even the unions opposed Obama’s budget.

Obama has spent the better part of his Presidency deferring to Congress. You’ll recall the President signed onto Obamacare and the Stimulus. In Obama’s term Congress hasn’t passed a single budget, in fact yesterday Senate Democrats voted against four Republican budgets in addition to Obama’s. Obama hasn’t spent much time fighting for any bill he has proposed. This includes last years jobs bill that Obama gave up on after a month. It also includes this budget, which Obama never seriously pushed. Why he even proposed it is anyone’s guess.

Obama has been a passive President when it comes to Congress. He doesn’t engage Congress unless he absolutely has to. He almost refuses to engage Republicans, you’ll recall he begrudgingly included a few during an Obamacare roundtable. He hated negotiating with Boehner over the debt ceiling hike. He’s done his best to bypass Congress whenever possible, even going so far as to illegally appoint judges via recess appointments even though the Senate was still in Session. Even his little sit down yesterday with a few Congressional leaders and his “to do” list was aloof and distant. Is there any doubt that this will be the last time Obama discusses with Congressional leaders any of his list of to do items?

In short what we see is a President who doesn’t like dealing with Congress and who would much rather rule as a dictator. He doesn’t want to have to deal with the little people in Congress. He’s an arrogant leftist President who would be much happier with the dictatorial powers like Hugo Chavez has. When forced to deal with Congress, it’s begrudging and he’s not particularly pleasant to deal with. As such Republicans aren’t willing to work with him. But if we go back to when Democrats controlled Congress, he didn’t work well with them either. Cap and Trade, immigration reform and another of other leftist bills never got off the ground because Obama never set the agenda and never bothered negotiating with members of his own party.

Obama is going to have a difficult time running on his record this year. That his own budget cannot get a single vote in Congress is pretty damning for any President. It suggests that he cannot work with Congress, it suggests that he’s inept. That’s a major problem for a President trying to be re-elected. The media isn’t making anything of this right now but Romney has been given an argument in the debates later this year. Why would we want to re-elect someone who cannot get anyone to vote for his budget, including his own party?

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Inept Obama Campaign Causing Democrats To Panic

May 16, 2012 4 Comments

Amusements abound over in the Obama campaign. The well oiled machine of 2008 has given way to a machine that had its best days four years ago. The other day Obama claimed that the election would be “tight” because of a name like his. He’s playing the race card and it’s only May. We’ll of course pretend that he didn’t win in the biggest Democrat victory in over a generation with “a name like his.” The notion that racist America cannot handle a name like Obama as President is the sort of middle school argument that should have been dead on election night 2008.

Democrats are beginning to panic over Obama’s campaign. Recent polls haven’t looked great for Obama. He’s been well under 50% in most of them. In a CBS poll Romney had a slight lead (a statistical tie really) over Obama in support from women. The same poll found the overwhelming majority of Americans believe the President was playing pandering politics with his homosexual marriage announcement. Even those who agree with homosexual marriage. Big mean JP Morgan lost $2 billion (the government loses $6 billion daily) which the media is absurdly falling to pieces over. Meanwhile the President says JP Morgan is great and praises its CEO. Obama recently attacked Romney over Bain Capital yet is taking money from a former Bain Capital executive. Inconsistencies abound in Obama’s campaign and Democrats are rightfully nervous.

The Democrats are even panicking over the choice of Charlotte, North Carolina as the Convention site. The North Carolina Democrat Chairman is embroiled in a sex scandal and that isn’t even the biggest problem facing the Convention. It’s underfunded. Unions are being expected to pick up a lot of the tab but they’re apparently outraged that North Carolina is a right to work state and are even more outraged that Charlotte hotel’s aren’t unionized. Most amusing, especially for us non-Democrats, is that the far left is worked up over the fact that Obama’s acceptance speech will be made at Bank of America Stadium. That’s right, they’re worked up over the name of the Stadium.

While all of this is going on ole George Soros is busy sitting down with top Democrats to discuss strategy for the 2012 election. One can only imagine what he has to say. It’s an open secret that Obama’s pathway to victory is to get his base to come to the polls in large numbers. It will be Soros that funds this sort of grassroots effort. Soros funds many left-wing organizations, many of which are actively involved in the sort of community organizing that gets the vote out. Soros has in the past said that he wouldn’t mind a Romney Presidency, probably because Romney is a progressive. You wonder whether Soros will dial back the support for Obama if he thinks the Obama ship is sinking knowing that Romney will still support many of Soros’ progressive policies.

We’re in the middle of a defining period in a Presidential race. This is Obama’s chance to define Romney and so far Obama is failing miserably. The President still has a bully pulpit, many Americans don’t really know who Romney is. Obama can take that pulpit and define Romney in any way that he wants. Calling him a vulture while taking money from a fellow Bain executive and patting the back of JP Morgan’s CEO who just lost $2 billion defines Obama as a pandering political hypocrite more than it defines Romney as vulture.

Obama has had nearly two months to define Romney since the GOP nomination was largely secure and he’s utterly failed. Obama still has another three months or so to define Romney but the longer he waits or the longer he fails to define Romney the worse it will be for his campaign. If Romney has a chance to define himself it will of course be only in the most glowing terms. By being able to define himself, Romney can make himself look good but he’ll also make Obama look inept without even mentioning him. No wonder the Democrats are beginning to panic.

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Obama Losing Media Narrative

May 15, 2012 3 Comments

Obama told graduates of far left Barnard College not to believe the media and its sensational and scandal stories about his administration. The wink and nod of it all is that the leftists graduating all know to believe every positive story in the media about Obama. They know such stories were placed there by the administration and a supportive press. Anything negative is simply not to be believed and is to be attacked. Perhaps even reported to the President’s own website Attack Watch which encourages Americans to report anything negative said about Obama.

It’s been a tough couple months for Obama politically. Lately conservatives have been vetting Obama, albeit 4+ years late. But it isn’t just conservatives, the mainstream press is reporting on several negative stories as well. An Obama supporter allegedly offered to pay Jeremiah Wright to keep quiet during the 2008 campaign, Obama even encouraged Wright to keep quiet and take the money. A college girlfriend alleges Obama was aloof and arrogant. When she told him “I love you” he said “thank you.” This is the same girlfriend who Obama wrote in one of his books whom he had a fight about race relations with outside a theater in New York. She denied the story and Obama later admitted the story was a “composite” girlfriend. In other words not true.

The Obama as homosexual sexual harasser story is back again. Two men who worked with Obama when the President was editor of the Harvard Law Review allege Obama sexually harassed them. A third claims he was sexually harassed in 1991 when Obama worked for the University of Chicago. Not to be out done, Mrs. Obama has gotten into the act with reports out this week that she’s been feuding with Oprah. Apparently the First Lady doesn’t like self made black billionaires, especially ones who have trouble losing weight.

Whether these stories are true or not and whether they’re relevant misses the point. The point is that Obama is losing control of the media narrative about him and he’s worried about it. That’s why he’s telling leftists to ignore the stories. Especially the ones that are probably true, namely the Jeremiah Wright story and the Oprah story. The other two can be denied by the President and no one will care. But it will surprise no one that Obama tried to silence Wright, a man who remains a campaign liability because of his racist, anti-American, anti-Christian sermons which Obama willingly sat through for 20 years. The Oprah story reveals the anti-capitalist nature of President and Mrs. Obama. Even a self made black woman isn’t acceptable for the redistributionist Obama’s.

While the sensational and scandalous Obama stories can be amusing and while it’s even more amusing to watch Obama scramble and attack the media which put him in power it’s better to look at what Obama has directly said and done. We know his record, it doesn’t need repeating. The other day when speaking about the Constitution Obama said “What made this document special was that it made it possible for those who were left out to fight their way back in – a constant forward movement. We look forward, not backward.” In short, Obama reveals he’s a far left progressive as that is the “living” Constitution of the liberal Supreme Court justices who believe abortion is protected by the Constitution and who believe the words don’t really matter.

Obama is losing the media narrative. His campaign and his administration have had two difficult months with bad news and bad weeks causing them to lose focus on their message. Obama cannot afford to lose the media because if he loses the media his disillusioned base won’t come to vote in November. That in the last week the media has focused attention on the sensational, particularly with Wright and Oprah, means that Obama isn’t able to focus his attention on riling his base up. That’s why he’s on the attack. For us conservatives, we would be wise to keep an eye on the sensational stories but we should keep a closer eye on what the President actually does and says.

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War On Women: Left Attacks Ann Romney

May 14, 2012 4 Comments

Ann Romney seems like a perfectly nice lady. She was a stay at home mom who raised five sons. She is largely in the background concerning her husband’s campaign. If Mitt gets elected, Mrs. Romney will be a fine First Lady who like Laura Bush stays in the background while publicly doting on her husband. Like Mrs. Bush, Mrs. Romney is likely to focus her attention on something benign, like literacy, while keeping out of her husband’s way politically. This is a stark contrast to the last two Democrat First Ladies who got in their husband’s way and at times created problems for them.

If one were to listen to Newsweek/Daily Beast writer and MSNBC contributor Michelle Goldberg, Ann Romney is a half a step away from Hitler or Stalin. Goldberg attacked Mrs. Romney on one of MSNBC’s shows, literally bringing up Hitler and Stalin concerning an op-ed Mrs. Romney wrote in USA Today. The opinion piece was little more than a Mother’s Day article about honoring mothers. From that Goldberg determined that Mrs. Romney is practically Hitler and if not Hitler than she’s at least authoritarian and of course by extension so is her husband. Make no mistake, Goldberg is using Ann to attack Mitt. (as though Mitt doesn’t offer plenty of things to attack all on his own)

What Goldberg has done is reveal, yet again, the lefts hatred for stay at home mothers. Ann Romney has a degree from Havard but rather than pursing a paying career she chose to stay at home and raise her sons. It’s a decision millions of families make each year, most of which sacrifice in order to make it happen. The left cannot stand this, it destroys the feminist narrative they’ve been pushing since the 60′s.

There have been snide remarks made by liberals about stay at home moms for years. In 1992 Hillary Clinton created a ruckus when she declared she wasn’t going to stay at home and bake cookies, as though that’s what stay at home mothers spend their day doing. Now that the left is pushing the phony GOP war on women, what we really see is that the left is really projecting their own hatred of women on conservatives. The fact is, the left doesn’t think much of women who stay at home. A woman who chooses to enter the workforce is a leftist hero, a woman who chooses to stay at home and raise her kids has betrayed her sex.

This is Ann Romney’s great sin, she’s betrayed her sex by staying at home. Make no mistake, they view Romney’s degree from Harvard as a complete waste because she didn’t “do” anything with it. The fact though is that Mrs. Romney’s lifetime work is essential work. The family is the most important element in society. Mrs. Romney recognizes this, implicitly the left does as well. The left knows the importance of traditional family, which is why they want to tear it down, redefine it or replace it with the state. Ann Romney not only betrays her sex, she is a threat to other leftist goals as well.

For all the talk of civility in politics from the left after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, they have utterly failed to be civil even to the most benign of Republicans. Ann Romney hasn’t uttered a controversial statement in her entire life. She’s been in the background of Mitt’s Presidential campaign, appearing infrequently and speaking even less. That she is the object of attack from the left, for little reason more than she was a stay at home mom, shows us what the far left is really all about.

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What If Ron Paul Won?

May 11, 2012 2 Comments

Let’s go to Ron Paul fantasy land today. Let’s say Paul steals the GOP nomination with his magical mystery delegate strategy. Let’s further say that Paul upsets Obama and becomes President of the United States. What will a Ron Paul administration look like? Let’s keep in mind if he were to win in 2012 he’ll have a Congress similar to the one in place now as there isn’t a massive slate of libertarian leaning Republicans on the Congressional ballot. So what does Paul do with his administration. I believe two scenarios are likely.

Scenario 1: Paul gets swept into office as the new flavor of the day. The GOP retains the House and wins back the Senate with a slight majority. In his first State of the Union Paul details drastic cuts to the Federal government, sticking to his libertarian principles but going well beyond what most Americans want. He is likely successful at first, getting a couple of bills through Congress during his honeymoon period which drastically cut government and/or taxes.

Once the honeymoon is over cracks will begin to form in Congress. It’s no secret the GOP has a number of fairly liberal Senators, they begin the slide. They stop voting for bills which cut government, meaning nothing Paul wants can pass the Senate. In the House, there are enough liberals and there is a Speaker not really on board with Paul. They work with the Senate to pass budget bills, which Paul then vetoes. This begins to spiral out of control as Washington is in gridlock, the Democrats win the midterm elections in a landslide. Paul never budges and several vetoed bills get overruled by Congress to become law. Congress ultimately controls the entire government and Paul loses to a liberal Democrat like Hilary in 2016.

Scenario 2: Again we’ll assume a Republican Congress for Paul. Only this time instead of rigidly holding the libertarian line, he begins to compromise. He signs bills that include massive expenditures, albeit not as large as Obama or Bush. He signs tax cut bills, but not as big as he would like. He signs one bill after another, all not really what he would like but in the least they’ve been negotiated between the White House and Congress.

The end result of this? The perpetually disgruntled libertarians turn on Ron Paul. He’s called a turncoat, a statist and every nasty name we’ve heard his supporters call other Republicans during this primary. The libertarians will try to run a candidate against him in 2016, likely someone like Justin Amash whose just arrogant enough to run for President at the age of 36. The libertarians will completely turn on Paul and he’ll forever be a heretic to their cause and his name will be met with derision by them. The rest of the country likely won’t have a problem with Paul, they’ll like his modest cuts and he’ll win re-election easily against Hilary in 2016 because his modest cuts will spur economic growth.

Ron Paul isn’t going to win the White House this year. But these two scenarios present us with the fundamental problem Paul or any libertarian would face in the White House. If he’s rigid in his libertarianism, he loses Congress, the country and the White House. He’ll forever damage the libertarian movement, the country won’t elect another one for 50 years at least. If he compromises, his perpetually disgruntled base will turn against him and call him a libertarian heretic even as the rest of the country embraces him. The question for Paul would be what’s more important to him, keeping his base happy or moving the country in the right direction? The answer is the latter, but Paul is just as likely to pick the former. Paul has never compromised in Congress, there’s no reason to think he would as President. In short, his election would be a disaster for the country and for his cause.

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Obama’s Cynical Announcement A Campaign Disaster

May 10, 2012 5 Comments

Obama’s cynical homosexual marriage announcement is a major disaster for his campaign. This decision was made long before Joe Biden’s comments last weekend, so Obama’s hand wasn’t forced in that regard. What he was planning to do is announce this right before the Democrat convention. In short, he thinks this is some sort of game changer that will propel him to re-election. Biden let the cat out of the bag and created such a problem for Obama with the homosexual agenda folks that he had no choice but to make his announcement.

The media is swooning over Obama’s announcement. Robin Roberts is getting chills over Obama again. The AP seems to believe Obama’s position sets a “world precedent.” Dozens of reporters have talked about Obama being on the “right” side of history, including Sheppard Smith of the supposedly conservative Fox News. Never mind of course that never in history has marriage ever been anything other than between a man and a woman. The redefinition of marriage is patently absurd, without precedent and evil to boot. But to listen to the left-wing media you’d think Obama did something terribly courageous.

Not so fast though. Radical left-wing website Gawker attacked Obama’s position. They point out that Obama’s position doesn’t include a demand that state’s allow homosexual marriage, in fact the President goes so far as to say it’s a state’s rights issue. In fact, Obama hasn’t signed a nondiscrimination Executive Order championed by homosexual agenda activists. It seems that Obama’s announcement is nothing more than a cynical attempt to dazzle left-wing homosexuals into thinking he’s actually doing something for them when in fact his announcement changes nothing and doesn’t require the President to actually do anything. Not only that just minutes after his announcement Obama had his hand out asking homosexuals for money. How is this not cynical?

Meanwhile the Washington Post just happens to have a story out today that alleges that in high school Mitt Romney mocked and assaulted a supposedly homosexual student. The kid apparently had long hair like the Beatles, which in 1965 at conservative Cranbrook would have been frowned upon. Romney didn’t like it apparently and allegedly organized a group to cut the hair off this kid. Years later he allegedly announced he was a homosexual, leading the Washington Post to claim Romney attacked a gay kid. Romney doesn’t seem to recall the incident but apologized anyway.

Are we really supposed to care about the high school shenanigans of Mitt Romney? There’s no doubt the Post was holding this story for an opportune moment. The day after Obama does something for his homosexual constituency is the perfect time to label Romney a fag hater in the minds of the liberal media. Interestingly the Post doesn’t care about anything in Obama’s past but they’re certain we’ll care about Romney’s high school nonsense from half a century ago. Romney handled it perfectly, immediately apologizing and laying it out that he was a prankster in school and some pranks went to far. For a Republican this was surprisingly well played.

This has been another terrible week for Obama. Biden let the cat out the bag on homosexual marriage last week, forcing Obama to announce his position long before he had strategically planned. His position is utterly meaningless, which most homosexual activists will recognize in the coming days when they have an opportunity to actually look at what he said rather than react with emotion. Many will make big deal out of the symbolism of it all, others will not be as kind. In North Carolina two out of three blacks voted for the homosexual marriage ban ballot proposal, meaning he’s alienating one of his core constituencies. In short, Obama’s created a lot of trouble for himself and he’s made it more difficult to get re-elected.

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