Making What's Bad For America Sound Good

[mudwhistle]

Well, if you watched the State of the Union address I'm sure your reactions will depend on your politics.

What I saw was somebody attempting to divide us, but I'm sure Democrats loved what he had to say.

Problem is most of what he said was a lie.

How many here actually think the only taxes the rich pay is Capital Gains tax?

Fifteen percent. Remember that. Forget the facts. If you take every tax that the wealthy pay in this country and compare it to what we pay you'll discover that they actually pay not only much more but at a much higher percentage. But Obama is trying to make everyone believe that the only taxes the rich pay is the 15% Capital Gains tax. My, that's so unfair!!!!!

15% sticks in your mind. That's what he's hoping for.

Also, Obama's dangerous policies were twisted into looking good for America when in fact they are extremely bad for us on a very personal level.

Obama says he will punish companies that send jobs overseas. Problem is this is actually a lie because General Electric sent thousands of them overseas to manufacture light bulbs. In February 2009, GE CEO Jeffery Immelt was appointed as a member to the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the president and his administration with advice and counsel in fixing America's economic downturn. Because manufacturing costs in the United States have kept going up many have to close plants in the US and opened them overseas. So Obama is not being honest when he says he wants to keep jobs in America.

Let's not forget that if Obama really wanted to bring jobs back he'd make it more cost effective for them to run their operations here instead of abroad. As it is, what Obama is really talking about is forcing companies to stay here and thus pass the higher costs onto the consumer. But if you are into class-warfare this also plays into your hands as well. He can screw us out of thousands of dollars and still benefit from it by saying all companies that jack up their prices are just 1 percenters taking advantage of us.

Fact is Obama is just taking advantage of us....if not treating us like we're absolute idiots.

 

[mudwhistle]

Did anyone hear anything in his speech that they haven't heard before?

Did anyone here watch it?

 

[mudwhistle]

Apparently not.

 

[mudwhistle]

Once again Obama gives a speech designed for folks that aren't paying attention.

 

[mudwhistle]

January 25, 2012
Obama's State Of The Union: The Hollow Man Speaks
By Rob Miller

Ah, the Hollow Man...

I listen to these things so you don't have to, and I've got a pretty strong stomach - but last night's festivities were truly something else.

A transcript is available here for those of you into self-mortification, but I'll go over the basics.

First off, the speech was obviously very well rehearsed down to the last vocal inflection and raised eyebrow..in fact. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there were theatrical directions emanating from TOTUS tonight. Simply amazing..yet as he spoke, the contradictions between what was coming out of his mouth and what we've seen coming out of this White House are so radically different they underlined one of the qualities I dislike most about this president -the way he arrogantly thinks everyone's stupid except him, and thinks that the usual rule that nothing ever goes away on the internet doesn't apply where he's concerned.

The president started off and ended by invoking what he referred to as 'this generation of heroes' returning from victory in Iraq, and indeed he used the military frequently as an example of how he wants the Republicans in Congress to behave . It was disgusting to hear, considering how Senator Obama and many of his fellow Democrats cheering him on tonight did everything they could to sabotage our troops in the field and their mission during wartime. Yet he had the unmitigated gall to use military teamwork as an example of what he wants to see in Washington!

Our military is legally bound to follow President Obama's orders no matter how nonsensical. Congress is not, especially when their common sense revolts and it was both deeply insulting as well as very revealing of the president to use the comparison, making the expected rhetoric that came later about working together a mockery. As if President Obama made any pretense of that when he and the Democrats controlled Congress!

The president of course mentioned bin-Laden, and regular members of Joshua's Army may recall what I had to say President Obama's chief boast perhaps being a huge error. And his statement about how the Taliban's momentum has been broken was simply a blatant falsehood -- which is exactly why we're desperately negotiating with them and just released one of their leaders with American blood on his hands from Club Gitmo as a 'confidence gesture'.

The president's chief theme, under the slogan 'an economy built to last' is actually pretty simple: eat the rich and punish the corporations to pay for more government spending.

He called for a punishment levy on "big banks" and "big oil companies" and is apparently going to sic Eric Holder on the financial sector to "find out who was responsible for the mortgage collapse." I guarantee you that well connected Democrats like Franklin Raines and Jaimie Gorelick who ran Fannie Mae into the ground and walked away with multi-million dollar bonuses are not going to have to worry on that account.

You see, it wasn't the banks that made the rules that governed the secondary mortgage market..it was Washington, and government entities Fannie and Freddie set the pace by reducing underwriting standards and down payment requirements while demanding that lenders make more loans to the unqualified based on racial bean counting. And the Democrat majority in Congress defended them from any oversight or reigning in while they did it.

The president went on to mention his great achievement of 'saving' the auto industry. Will anyone remind him that he did it by gifting GM to his union political allies, crapping on private equity holders and giving the company special tax breaks at the taxpayer's expense to make them look artificially profitable? Or that he allowed GM to do stock dumping that was against SEC rules?

Or about the outright lies he told the American people about GM and Chrysler being profitable and returning the money used to bail them out, when in reality they were a huge loss?

We also had to listen to the president's blathering about trade. Rather than lower our corporate income tax sufficiently to encourage more companies to do business here, his solution is to put another punishment levy on companies that outsource, which will have the effect of even more companies relocating all but bare bones operations elsewhere. When Canada's corporate rate is less than half of ours, why not ?

It was also unintentionally comical to hear the president make a vague call for tearing down regulations that stifle entrepreneurship in one part of his speech while mentioning at least three or four brand new regulatory bureaucracies he wants to create and calling for cap n' trade and climate change legislation in another.

The president went on to discuss education, and of course his solution is to spend more taxpayer dollars to hire more teachers to pay more union dues to fund the Democrats. For such a pro-education guy, you'd never think he'd be the one to stop poor kids from getting into a decent school right there in DC.

Not to mention the trillion dollar time bomb for America's economy this president enacted by executive order concerning a new student loans entitlement that will eventually create a bubble similar to housing and is guaranteed to raise the cost of college education.

Yes, he really does intend to bankrupt the country. Or he's simply clueless, take your pick.

The president also got in a nice plug for the DREAM Act for illegal aliens that he enacted by executive order after Congress rejected it twice. What was that about working together again?

President Obama made quite a thing about his favoring the creation of domestic energy while believing that those of us listening would forget about his job killing de facto prohibition on offshore drilling, his opposition to drilling in ANWR , his recent fiasco with the Keystone Pipeline and his war on the coal industry. Or about Solyndra and the other green energy scams he doled out to his campaign donors and bundlers. All you have to do is look at what the price at the pump was when he came into office and what it is now, the largest increase in history...and that doesn't even calculate the corresponding rise in the price of food and other goods.

And speaking of Keystone, I had to chuckle at President Obama's solemnly intoning the so-called Buffet Rule as an example of how 'the rich' should behave. Buffet, a nicely placed Obama donor stands to make a tidy sum because the pipeline got cancelled because the oil we buy from Canada will now have to be shipped via Buffet's railroads. At a surcharge, of course. It's good to be the King's friend!

There's plenty more, but a few final bits that stood out.

President Obama talked a bit about his foreign policy. He reverently evoked the Arab Spring he helped along as 'a wave of change', which it is. He failed to mention that the change involves the rebirth of al-Qaeda and some of it's affiliates in these countries and replacing dictators like Khaddaffi who was no threat to us and Mubarak, Ali Abdullah Saleh and Ben Ali who were at least nominal allies and replacing them with hard line Islamists and salafists who are not going to be friends to the West, not to mention the 'men and women; Christians, Muslims, and Jews' whose dignity and freedom he claims to be so concerned about. President Obama committed an an historic error here that will come back to haunt us long after he departs the scene.

The president also mentioned what he described as his 'iron clad commitment to Israel's security' which is news to those of us who have followed the interaction between this president and Israel closely.But hey, it's election time, and there a sucker born every minute.

I also found it particularly nauseating to hear this president talk about how smart he is in hollowing out our military budget and in the next moment talking about jobs and VA benefits for those he described as 'those men and women in uniform who defend our freedom.'

This is the same president who is laying off an estimated 500,000 military personnel, many of them who haven't been in long enough to become vested for a military pension or full medical benefits. They'll simply be tossed into an already toxic job market for their 'reward' so President Obama can have more money for his domestic agenda. And I got a horrible taste in my mouth hearing the same President who tried to take away their VA benefits early in his administration talk about health care for veterans.

You have to wonder at what goes through someone's mind when putting on this kind of a performance. Is it simply a case of 'the show must go on'? Or has he simply been mouthing these lies and untruths for so long that he actually believes them by now?

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who gave the Republican rebuttal did a decent job of responding to the president's little show tonight. But he didn't mention much about a lot of the things I've talked about here, and most of the media certainly won't.

That's the real tragedy. It's one thing to snicker to yourself as you see through a cynical con man going through his act for you, but it' s quite another to keep quiet about it and let the rubes get screwed in the name of 'civility' by the Hollow Men of this world.

They deserve better at your hands. We all do.

Read more: Articles: Obama's State Of The Union: The Hollow Man Speaks

 

[Luddly Neddite]

That's nuthin'

I know some pubs who actually believe that 47% of Americans don't pay taxes.

Sheesh.

 

[Mr. H.]

CBS poll says over 90% questioned actually believe his horseshit.
That's just as frightening.

 

[mudwhistle]

January 25, 2012
Obama Dismantles American Power Abroad
James G. Wiles

Last night, Barack Obama distracted the nation's attention with a rousing, campaign speech dressed up as a State of the Union address. On domestic affairs, the President's Animal Farm-like attempts at saying black is white and night is day were wasted. The true nature of the Archangel Barack's politics and his vision for America have been clear for some time.

As Hugh Hewitt blogged recently, "[t]he country knows." No one's fooled -- except, perhaps, for some of Mr. Obama's own partisans.

But what is the Obama Administration's actual foreign policy?

Well, as with President's "stealth" Marxism, he's not coming clean with his foreign policy either. Last night, in a 7,000-word address, the American President who doesn't like to think of himself as the Leader of the Free World devoted about 1,000 words to sounding like exactly that. His peroration confronted his Republican and conservative critics head-on too.

Here is Mr. Obama, in his own words:

"The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our iron-clad commitment to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two counties in history. We've made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

"Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's not the message we get from leaders around the world, all of whom are eager to work with us. That's not how people feel from Tokyo to Berlin, from Cape Town to Rio, where opinions of America are higher than they've been in years. Yes, the world is changing; no, we can't control every event. But America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs - and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way."

(emphasis added).

Is any of this self-congratulation true?

No. It's empty rhetoric. In fact, it's worse than that: it's false rhetoric. And this Obama Credibility Gap makes the President's disingenuousness particularly dangerous, because under the Constitution, our Chief Executive has much greater power (both as commander-in-chief and as head of state) to act unilaterally to implement his agenda abroad than he does at home.

For a trenchant reality-check on Mr. Obama actual foreign policy in operation, see Michael Ledeen's analysis in PJ Media. It was posted several hours before the President spoke. A distinguished scholar and American foreign policy advisor, Ledeen (although he doesn't use this label) exposes Mr. Obama's foreign policy to be McGovernite to its core.

This should hardly be a revelation. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her future husband, after all, worked for George McGovern in 1972. Yet, like President Obama's own Marxist roots - as chronicled in Stanley Kurtz's Radical-in-Chief, it's a reality which remains largely unreported in the MSM.

That makes Michael Ledeen's short piece essential reading.

Here's what I'd add as factual counter-points to the President's rosy scenario:

(a) the on-going withdrawal of the United States militarily and diplomatically from the Eurasian land-mass, as ordered by Mr. Obama, and his neglect of Europe;



(b) the abandonment by the President of America's traditional ally, Israel, as part of a wider retreat from the Near and Middle East described by Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post in her column this week;



(c) the Obama Administration's talks with the Taliban (while they're killing Americans) and the State Department's dealings, too, with the Islamist forces of the Muslim Brotherhood now coming to power in many countries touched by the so-called Arab Spring;



(d) the President's announced intention to shrink, rather than expand, the U.S. military in the face of a rising China; and



(e) the continued hollowing-out of the economic basis for America's global power through

ruinous deficits, a refusal to promote private-sector job growth, encouragement of a culture

of dependency and actively seeking to prevent our energy independence.

In his SOTU remarks, President Obama denied some of these criticisms directly and obfuscated others. Specifically, the President heralded the Arab Spring, saluted the American military and hailed his precipitate withdrawal of American troops -- contrary to the recommendations of military leaders -- from Iraq. He also criticized China's trade policy.

Saying it doesn't make it so, Mr. President. Are you really asking us: who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes? We already had one Democratic president do that.

As the Roman proverb goes: facta non verba. Deeds not words. And, when it comes to deeds, sir, Michael Ledeen's got your number.

We have a President who is determined to take down his own nation as the world's sole superpower. And that process is already underway, with - as Ledeen pithily lays out - Iran and China's on-going penetration of Latin America. Mr. Obama is not even willing to enforce the 190-year old Monroe Doctrine, barring foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere.

Even Ron Paul isn't prepared to go that far.

Read more: Blog: Obama Dismantles American Power Abroad