Words, Just Words

“We’ve got a Washington here every day is Election Day” proclaimed Barack Obama at a grassroots fundraiser for Senator Michael Bennet in Denver. Yes, that’s right, the campaigner in chief -- standing smack dab in the middle of the campaign trail -- was letting the crowd of enthusiastic Obama supporters know of the difficulties of working in a city where “every day is Election Day."

This guy really is President Preposterous, Captain Contradictory, Lord of the Lemmings, the Prince of Projection, the Duke of Double Talk, the leader of the Cult of the Credulous, President Say Anything as Hugh Hewitt has termed him, and then some.

Here is some more of the absurd ranting of the Messiah of Misinformation in this particular sermon:

Look, something you got to understand — for those who don't believe in government, those who don't believe that we have obligations to each other, it's a lot easier task. If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken, if the Senate doesn't get anything done, well, that's consistent with their philosophy. It's a whole lot easier to say no to everything. It's a whole lot easier to blame somebody else. That politics that feeds on peoples' insecurities, especially during tough political times — that's the easiest kind of politics. There's a long, storied history of that kind of politics.

“If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken…,” I wonder if the Republicans had more success with this approach in late August and early September when everybody in Washington “gets all wee-wee’d up.” I will agree though in part. RINO’s do assist in “making things broken.”

“It’s a whole lot easier to blame somebody else.” This is some unbelievable hypocrisy here. The absurdity of this statement given the constant drumbeat of “the last eight years” and “we inherited” is absolutely mind-boggling. Let’s face it, Barack Obama is more at ease with the blame game than ACORN is with teenage prostitution. And to make matters even more interesting, he makes this point at the very same time that he is doing what? You guessed it, blaming somebody.

With this progressive sob-story, Obama is blaming those terribly unfeeling laissez-faire worshipping Republicans for their ability to make progress so difficult, because they have chosen a carefree, selfish, and backwards philosophy that allows them to achieve success by simply “saying no” and “blaming somebody else.”

“…if the Senate doesn't get anything done…” This statement is laughable as this administration has unfortunately gotten a lot done. Byron York points this out in his Washington Examiner blog, and in his piece he quotes Obama as saying at a DNC fundraiser last October: “If we stopped today, this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation."

Of course as York points out “when you hear the president and Democrats in Congress complain about not being able to get anything done, or about Washington being broken, they're talking about one thing: their inability to pass a national health care reform bill.”

“That politics that feeds on peoples' insecurities, especially during tough political times — that's the easiest kind of politics” Come again? Isn’t your chief of staff the guy that said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste?” The hypocrisy here again is absolutely astounding.

He is spot on though in assuming that much of the populace would be feeling a bit insecure right now. Having someone in the White House pushing big government as hard as he has and making statements like these is going to make many Americans a little nervous:

“They cling to guns or religion…,” “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” “when you spread the wealth it’s good for everybody,” “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health-care plan,”“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded,” “it [U.S. Constitution] also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day,”…

“…for those who don't believe in government…” Wait, didn’t you yourself say Mr. President, that “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems?” And didn’t the esteemed congressman from Massachusetts – a member of your party -- Mr. Barney Frank ask us “whoever told [us] to trust the government?” So to the extent that Republicans in Washington and Americans in general don’t “trust the government,” I think you can understand why.

Amazing, isn’t it, the amount of nonsense this man can spout in a very small amount of time.

A few of my other favorites from this particular Obama lecture included his pronouncement that Michael and he “don't have time for that nonsense”; his lament that “We're just accustomed to falsehoods and exaggerations and slash-and-burn politics”; and I especially like his line that “people are fed up because it's not a game. It's not a game.”

What was Joe Biden’s comment about the stimulus? Oh yeah, right, he told Harry Smith “It was designed to have two stages to it,” and “The job creating portions are really loaded at the second half here…” Gee, with an election coming up in November that sounds an awful lot like a “game” to me. But then I’m just one of those backwards thinking free-market types.

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” declared then candidate Obama at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Founders Day Gala back in February of 2008.

Well I would agree with the President there, but not because I’m taking his word for it.

The Party of Hope and Change Set to Bust Out the Big Guns at Blair House

Well now that the line-ups seem to be set for the health care summit, I must say I am beginning to feel a little queazy about things. Beyond the fact that it is their court, they’ve set the format, and they’ve installed their leader as the “moderator,” the side representing hope and change tomorrow is also going to have a pronounced advantage when it comes to Washington experience.

Let’s face it this group of Democrats scheduled to show up at Blair House tomorrow has been through some wars and with politics being a game that tends to reward knowledge, experience, cunning, and guile our side could be in for some tough sledding. Things could get real ugly real fast if our side isn’t at the top of their game from the outset.

With long-time established Washington pols like Dingell, Rangel, Baucus, Dodd, Harkin, Waxman, and Miller all ready to wage rhetorical war, the side representing us simple patriotic conservative Americans is going to have their work cut out for them to be sure.

Believe it or not the twenty one members scheduled to represent team “yes we can” together have over 590 years of experience battling in the political trenches of Washington DC. This is over 28 years of populist and demagogic experience per person. To put this in perspective, this means that the average Democratic lawmaker at the Blair House will have more experience than John McCain, who started his career in Washington way back in 1983. There are actually seven individuals on the Democratic roster that have at least eight more years of experience legislating in Washington than does the Republican senator from Arizona.

And this big government legislative all-star squad that the Democrats are set to assemble across the street from the White House tomorrow doesn’t really have a weak spot either. There isn’t one legislator on their roster that doesn’t have a wealth of inside the beltway experience to draw from. The least experienced members of their team have over 17 years of experience politicking on Capitol Hill. By contrast there are seven Republican lawmakers expected to attend who have less than 10 years of experience in Congress.

It’s actually pretty frightening to think of what could transpire tomorrow when you consider that John Dingell with his 54 years in the House has more congressional experience than these seven Republicans combined. I mean let’s face it legislators like Marsha Blackburn, John Kline, and Eric Cantor are mere political pups in comparison to Capitol Hill fixtures like Dingell, Rangel, Baucus, Dodd, etc.; and Washington newbies like Charles Boustany and Peter Roskam with not even nine years of inside the beltway experience between them are liable to be devoured tomorrow.

With 13 Democratic lawmakers scheduled to attend that each possess more than 25 years of experience pushing legislation on Capitol Hill we are going to just have to hope against hope that our guys can do what they’ve been doing so far, and that is simply hold the line.

Of course we could always hope that John McCain will simply lull them to sleep with stories of successful past efforts working together with those on the other side of the aisle. But more than likely Americans will simply be treated to an awesome display of big government rhetorical firepower by the true party of the establishment. Because when it comes to political con men Barack Obama will have a fine cast of supporting actors assembled.

Hey, nothing says hope and change like a bunch of wily Washington retreads mugging for the camera.

Hmmm, Evan Bayh the Fiscal Conservative

“Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN, has always been somewhat fiscally conservative…,” writes Senior Capitol Hill Producer Trish Turner in her foxnews.com entry “With Bayh the Writing Was on the Wall…”

Somewhat fiscally conservative she says? She is talking about the Democratic senator from Indiana right? Well let’s take a look at Senator Bayh’s record and see if Turner has tagged him correctly.

For starters Bayh has a lifetime rating of 25 with the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (thru 2008). And though this rating does show him to be fiscally conservative as Democrats go (Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold are the only two current Democratic senators with higher lifetime CCAGW ratings) it does not make him anywhere near fiscally conservative. Olympia Snowe is no fiscal conservative, but her lifetime rating of 50 -- though it is the lowest of any current Republican senator -- is twice that of Bayh’s.

The result is much the same if you look at the National Taxpayers Union’s (NTU) congressional ratings. From 1999 when Bayh began serving in the Senate, thru 2008, he has received an average NTU rating of 19. Though he did 5 points better than the average Democratic senator over this period, the average Republican in the Senate bested his score by 55 points. To put Bayh’s score into perspective even further, Arlen Specter received an average NTU rating of 48 over this period.

And it really doesn’t matter what measure you use, either. The results are basically the same.

The Club for Growth has given Bayh scores of 2, 1, 9, and 11 respectively from 2005 to 2008 (Specter – 47, 40, 39, 39), the American Conservative Union gives Bayh a lifetime rating of 21 thru 2008 (Specter - 44), and from Americans for Democratic Action he has received an average score of 85 (with 100 being most liberal) over the course of his Senate career prior to last year (Specter – 41).

So when Evan Bayh says during his retirement announcement that “He has often been a lonely voice for balancing the budget and restraining spending,” you simply just have to laugh. Even if he added “within my party” to this statement it would still be ridiculous. After all this is a person who had a solid liberal record before he voted for massive government programs like Obamacare and the stimulus.

But no worries Senator Bayh, we know what you meant to say. Many of us out here have gotten pretty good at reading between the lines, and we are fully aware of how hideously leftist your party has become.

As for Turner’s mislabeling of the man, she is by no means alone in wrongly characterizing Evan Bayh and other “more moderately statist” Democrats like him as fiscal conservatives, centrists, blue dogs, etc. After all, the Democratic Party and the American media apparatus have a great deal at stake in making sure that the illusion of the Democratic Party as an authentic institution fighting on behalf of the public good is preserved for as long as possible.

Who Says There's No Difference Between Democrats and Republicans?

My piece on Pajamas which makes the case that the two major parties are not the same.

Is Health Care Reform Popular? The Democrats and the Polls Disagree

My piece on Pajamas which analyzes the polling data leading up to the HR3962 vote. It seems that the Democratic representatives acted in a way that was neither democratic nor representative.

Economic Growth Without Wealth Creation

President Obama has announced that he is going to hold a “job summit” next month. Translated, the White House will pump smoke into a room full of mirrors and a not-so-randomly selected group of economic movers and shakers will talk about creating jobs. Honestly, this White House holding a job summit, if it is about creating private sector jobs, is like having Tehran host a human rights summit or Big Bird chair a meeting of the society of those that hate the color yellow.

Where was unemployment when he took office? Where was it when the stimulus was passed? Where is it now? How many net jobs have been lost in the private sector since January, or since the stimulus kicked in even? What steps have really been taken other than shifting money from taxpayers to non-taxpayers?

Well let’s see, some cars have been destroyed. More bureaucracy has been created. More government jobs have been created. Failing companies have been given a bunch of taxpayer dollars. Foreign countries continue to receive taxpayer dollars. Illegal immigrants continue to take taxpayer dollars. Forget give them the wealth. How about less wealth confiscation and more wealth creation (I know, I know, that’s what the movement to a green economy is all about).

In a Politico write up about Obama’s job summit announcement, Mike Allen and Eamon Javers claim that “The problem for Obama is two-fold. There is very little any president can do to force immediate improvements in the economy, even though he’ll get blame if it doesn’t pick up. And now that the stimulus package has been approved, he has very few other tools in his arsenal to give the economy a jolt.”

The only way this statement, which echoes a belief held by many, can possibly make any sense is if one or a combination of the following two things is true:

1) If immediate means now this minute (as in yesterday).
2) If they are only looking for answers amongst an extremely politically constrained group of options.

The whole debate really, about how to improve the economy, whether it is in the short term or the long term, is just comical. There is no big secret to revitalizing the economy and creating jobs. Not at least if that is truly your desire.

But it is not the left’s desire. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the liberal Democrats in this country desire economic growth about as much as someone who refuses to get wet desires to learn how to swim.

In his statement announcing the job summit, the President said that “We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.” He also noted, “It’s important that we don’t make any ill-considered decisions, even with the best of intentions, particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it’s just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we’ve already taken to put America back to work.”

Ah, there’s nothing quite like populist rhetoric served up noncommittally. Throwing in a few qualifiers is always a good idea. The question is what are the qualifiers referring to? When he uses the words responsible and demonstrably and he talks of ill-considered decisions, is he simply saying we have to be careful not to spend more of your money? Or, is he alluding to the fact that he and his fellow Democrats are unwilling to take the effective steps that many, if not the majority of Americans, would like to see our leaders take as our country struggles mightily to keep its head above water?

Some would say the intentions of the Obama administration are to insure that a crisis happens, much less do anything to avert it, and so far there hasn’t been much to point to that would invalidate this argument.

Remember this is an administration that seems to be more interested in Brazilian oil exploration than drilling for oil here.

Given that we are $12 trillion dollars in debt, have all kinds of solvency issues at the state and local levels, have serious currency concerns, have over 15% real unemployment; you’d think maybe we’d want to tap some of that oil -- and natural gas. For that matter, you’d think we’d want to get on with the business of building some nuclear power plants. The French certainly don’t seem to have a problem with them. A few oil refineries wouldn’t hurt either.

There is federal land that could be privatized, a ridiculously overbearing regulatory structure that could be made less antagonistic to business, capital gains taxes that could be cut, a flat tax that could be implemented -- the President and Congress could stop this ridiculous attempt to take over our health care system and burden us further with cap and trade. There is indeed much that can be done. It is not at all a question of can do, it is a matter of will do. And it doesn’t all rest on the shoulders of liberal Democratic politicians. They are simply the head of the liberal snake.

The yoke that has been placed around the neck of the American free-market system by the federal government and the statists that support it is the principal reason we are in this mess to begin with; and Barack Obama’s “we are really trying talk”, even without the qualifiers, isn’t going to change the fact that an institution which cares more about minnows than American farmers, really can’t care very much.

The Volunteer Media

Along with many other Americans I desperately want to be able to help my country at this critical time. But what can one person do? Well one person really can’t do much. However, given the wonders of modern technology a group of people can.

A few weeks ago I realized that there was at least one tangible thing that a group of us could do that just might make a difference. Now it might make no difference at all, but I for one will rest a lot easier knowing that I tried.

A little over a month ago a CBS News/New York Times poll asked the question: “Have the Republicans in Congress clearly explained their plans for health care reform”. Only 14% said yes. Whether or not you trust this poll, that number says a lot.

Though it doesn't say this explicitly, this poll hints strongly at the fact that many Americans don’t realize that there is an alternative to the ridiculous bills that the Democrats in Washington are putting forward. They feel something needs to be done and since they aren’t seeing the alternative these people are telling pollsters they support these bills. There are alternatives though, and for a week or two now (using twitter mainly) I’ve been trying to get one of them out there (http://www.smallbill.org/).

Now for obvious reasons the MSM is not going to spend much time advertising these alternatives. But this does not mean that WE THE PEOPLE can’t inform our neighbors ourselves. Some towns have volunteer fire departments. We MUST be the volunteer media.

All we have to do is simply put it in front of the American people. Through whatever means you can think of – twitter, facebook, whatever. Tweet it to trending topics, etc. The idea here is not to preach to the choir. The idea is to inform America. Let them know there is another way. The MSM won’t do it, so it is up to us.

If you know of some other bill than tweet that, and I’ll be happy to help you. I’ve been tweeting the “small bill” because I like it and haven’t felt the need to look for another. If we could just get say 1,000 people to tweet to popular tags/trending topics every few hours over the weeks ahead we could make a difference. Who knows, even 50 – 100 people tweeting this regularly could help. The key here is persistence.

People have been doing great work tweeting/writing/faxing Congressmen etc., but what these people really care about is polls. We can message them all day, but if the polls don’t move they won’t care. Not to mention the act of informing Americans alone, regardless of what the ultimate result is on Capitol Hill, would be a benefit to the country. And it is totally irrelevant what the opposition thinks of this. We are simply informing people. DOING WHAT THE “JOURNALISTS” SHOULD BE DOING. Americans can decide for themselves. A novel idea, I know.

I really hope we can get these ideas out there. Too many people have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice for this great country, for us not to be able to do something as simple as this.