No Plans, No Problem!

So, our dear leader warns us that once again, those crazy Republicans want to drive this country into the ground – by stealing money from everyone of us, who are struggling to break even, and then generously give it to people that hardly need it (their filthy rich buddies – the 1%). He neglects to mention that the fact so many of us are struggling to break even may have something to do with his still-failing economic policies – but that is ok, since, as he has promised us for three years now, happy days are just ahead (thanks to him). The GOP just wants to cut and cut, like a mad lumberjack in a forest, not caring what they strike, so long as the ax connects, the president would have us believe. Obama even went so far as to claim Republicans’ mentality as being “…driven by our ideological vision about how government should be” and he went even further, claiming the Republicans were sticking with the same types of economic decisions that drove the country into the Great Depression.

The Senate, having not given the country a budget in the past three years, has not deterred Republicans from trying their hands at writing one in the House, but Paul Ryan’s most recent effort was met with the usual scatterbrained excuses and rhetoric. Obama tells us children will starve and Medicare patients will be without their medicines (never mind his own cutting of $528 billion from the Medicare roles, via Obamacare), and finally, that he is not the extreme progressive that he is painted. Indeed, he even went so far as to invoke the names of two outstanding Republicans to compare himself to – Abraham Lincoln (yes, again) and Ronald Reagan. By talking of the Reagan-era, Obama attempted to point out how far right the GOP has moved, and claims Reagan could not win a primary now. For their parts, Republican leaders took the most natural response: they snickered and asked what Obama’s policies would do to help the country. After stumbling, and realizing how much his words were parsed these days, he sauntered off.

I find it odd, that the man who thought it would be brilliant to sign into law, legislation that no one had read, and who continues to defend his administration’s $535 million boondoggle loan to a solar company that “needed” talking robots, would be criticizing anybody’s plans. The president who has created more debt and higher deficits than any other president in history – wants to criticize others’ efforts to try to fix the mess? On the administration’s face, it has been do-little as a matter of course. When it has actually done anything, it seems to be with negative outcomes, or so completely, horribly wrong, one has to wonder if anyone is awake at the wheel. In Iran, with the promising “Green Revolution”, he did nothing as people were beaten in the streets – now he wants to punish some of the same people with crippling sanctions. The president wanted to help Libyan rebels – but violated the War Powers Act to do so. He wanted to help and support the Egyptian uprising – but he stalled for so long, now it appears the Muslim Brotherhood is licking its lips at a presidential election run. In Syria now, where civilians are being fired on, and bombed by the military? The president decides it is better to let the region solve that problem on its own. Our ally in the region, Israel recently had intelligence on their own allies leaked as well. Former Ambassador John Bolton points his finger at the administration…

Obama’s record is so anemic and is full of massive failures. He cannot kowtow to his base of environmentalists, without having the rest of America howling about oil prices. He cannot stretch the military much further than he already has. And he cannot do anything but tear down others, to even make it seem as though he has accomplished anything (I call that “maximizing by minimizing”). At this point, I would rather have a coin in the Oval Office – after all, you can count on it to make a right decision 1/2 of the time.

"...you can only hide it for so long..."

Is The Fuse Already Lit?

Riots in Greece continue to grow more violent.

As I reflect today, day 3X of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that is quickly become one of the places to be if you are an aspiring socialist/communist/anti-banker/anarchist/free spirit, I find myself coming to a few realizations. Seeing the Greeks, Spaniards, and Italians tangle with riot police, and toss Molotov cocktails, while their government struggles to find some way to pay their un-payable bills, I wonder if we, here in the United States, can expect to see something similar. In Europe (Greece especially), it appears as though trade unions and public sector workers are at the forefront of their riots.

So, what are we to think about the disgruntled and disgusted supporters of the movement? Various unsavory parties have recently endorsed the Occupation – The American Nazi Party and American Communist Party to name two. These movements have lengthy histories of violence and extremist ideologies. This is not to say that the OWSM is in and of itself violent, but if it is any indication of the beliefs held by the majority of the participants, I have not heard many of the participants renounce the endorsement. The usual reaction is to separate quickly those endorsements from the endorsements of others – namely the administration and Congressional leaders, like Nancy Pelosi. It seems whenever there is a negative story that surfaces about OWS supporters, the story is quickly squashed, and the person in question is painted as an outsider, who is unaffiliated with the movement. In my mind, the influx of so many disparate endorsements undermines, rather than helps, legitimate endorsers, while lending a sort of credibility to the others.

What worries me are those “legitimate” endorsements. While people see them as a sort of, “isn’t-that-nice-they-want-to-help” support by Washington, D.C., here is the thing – the movement, while starting out disorganized, and lacking a main message, has recently begun to coalesce into something that sounds more confrontational and more willing to act out in violence. But there is no proof of that, you must thinking. A recent spate of thefts of money, equipment, and other personal items, not to mention the report of a rape in Occupy Cleveland, shows the movement is changing. One convicted felon was picked up and re-arrested for illegal possession of a firearm (a folding-stock rifle) at Occupy Seattle.

Add to that, a presidential administration who has verbally supported OWS, who also has close ties to known leftist terrorists and bombers (Ayres and Dohrn), and a Department of Justice who is both, slow to act (if they act at all) and embroiled in a huge scandal. A former presidential staffer in the administration reminds us to, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” These allied interests, who masquerade as “supporters” have merely found themselves a group of useful idiots, who will allow them to try to advance their positions, while dodging blow-back. It also allows the allied politicians to attach their wants and needs to the movement, while avoiding the low approval that the public may feel for them. And it is not like less-political allies have taken over movements in cities – already, the original Occupy St. Louis movement has been pre-empted, and original organizers threatened.

It feels to me like the movement is increasingly more pre-empted by the day, but it still claims to have no leaders, and to be “organic” and grassroots. It  is one agent provocateur from some sort of confrontation that will accomplish nothing, possibly injure many innocent people, and finally lead to the end of any goodwill or political capital that the early movement may have built. As the protesters become increasingly desperate, they may begin to realize that they must increase their confrontations and confrontational style, and try to create a situation where they will be able to “prove” that those they stand in opposition to (whichever group(s) they may be) are the evil and cold-blooded groups that OWS claims.

Spend It Like You Stole It

The new omnibus jobs-infrastructure bill created and proposed by the president this month, promises to get Americans back to work and rebuild the crumbling infrastructure — all without needing any additional funding! By ending a few tax loopholes here, adding a little bump to certain income tax brackets there, it will pay for itself. Huzzah – the Commander in Chief has single-handedly rebuilt the nation and yet again, saved us from ourselves, just in the nick of time. Of course, the reason this whole measure was necessary in the first place were the filthy rich, who, saved and hid all their money, because they like to see the country struggle and fail (AKA the scary left’s boogeyman-narrative). Even if the millionaires and billionaires the Democrats love to hate, were that warped in their thinking, would you want to give any more money to this government? People like Warren Buffet and Mark Cuban’s protest that they would just love to pay more in taxes. The politicians love to use those investors’ claims to make a point that the government should take more from all of them. At least, that is what the democrats would love America to believe.

Pass this bill - it's all I've got!

Perhaps believing it to be a mesmerizing force, the president’s repeated chant of, “Pass this bill, pass this bill…” during his Congressional address fell on deaf ears, as Congress refused to act and quickly pass an irresponsible and un-read bill, unlike their predecessors. Obama will undoubtedly use this instance when he is on the campaign trail to tell his supporters, “Gee, I really tried guys, but those darned Republicans – they are playing politics and engaging in brinkmanship again…” His politics seem to grow more and more transparent and less realistic, as increasingly, his rhetoric grows more inflammatory and divisive. His track record as a leader and economic steward is already onion-paper thin.

His claims of caring about Americans’ hardships might have once been taken at face value, and given the benefit of the doubt – but when you hear the National Labor Relations Board may prevent thousands of new jobs from an aircraft manufacturing plant in South Carolina, it belies that claim. The union in Washington state would rather risk moving the entire proposed being operation sent to another country, it seems, than to share in the company’s prosperity, domestically. “Workers of the world, unite”, indeed. The current three-member NLRB has been appointed by President Obama, with one member a recess appointment, after being threatened with a filibuster for his Senate hearing (see: Craig Becker).

The president’s claim to care about green energy and renewable resources have fallen by the wayside as well. Having already given a sweetheart loan to a friend who owned a solar panel company in California, whose operation he visited in 2010. The now infamous Solyndra boondoggle cost 1,100 workers their jobs. The employees showed up to work as usual one day, and found the plant closed to them. The company had sought investment from private sources, but were rebuffed when the burn rate of the company was shown to be completely untenable(and I picture the private investors reading Solyndra’s financials, and belly laughing at them). One-half of a billion dollars of taxpayer money is now gone, used for capital expenditures and other miscellaneous costs, at a company that had no chance of success. And this administration still sits on an additional $15 billion that they cannot wait to give away. How is this possible? Press Secretary Jay Carney explains, “That’s the way government works…” Perhaps that is the way your government works, but in the private sector (I like to think of it as “the real world”), where you are responsible for your own money, you also try to minimize losses by skipping investments in a company that is already belly-up.

As much as the last Congress and Democratic supporters harped to Americans about Cheney’s Halliburton ties, and how staffers were too close to business, that they would understand enough about business to prevent the wanton waste of the country’s funds. It seems that they focused on energy companies being an evil, and of providing “obscene profits”. Of course, I wonder if Halliburton was a big Democrat campaign contributor if they would still care as much? As the scandal grows, and more people are implicated in the fiasco, the Democrats’ next election prospects seem as dim as the Solyndra plant they threw so much away on.

The Dreams Of My President

So, the September 7th jobs address to the joint houses of Congress has now been moved to September 8th, and undoubtedly, democrats will howl and moan that Boehner played dirty or did not have the right to rebuff the president.  It is my understanding that for anyone to enter the House chamber and address the body, they must be first invited by the Speaker.  So it seems as though Boehner was well within his rights to tell the president the 7th was a no-go date.  While this address will undoubtedly sound like something new to democrats and presidential supporters, everyone else may hear more of the administration’s continued promises of jobs and economic turn around.  So, far, the administration was been long rhetoric, and short actual physical job creation (I know, I know Obama supporters – he has saved or created millions of jobs).  I am still unsure what a “saved” job actually  looks like, and if either Jay Carney, Joe Biden, or the president himself were pressed to describe one, the silence would be deafening.

Joe Biden asks the Chinese about the one child policy he doesn't understand

I have taken the liberty to prepare a score sheet of sorts, for what I expect to be the main idea(s) of the address, along with the president’s former actions that show it would not be a safe bet to buy into any of his bulls– er, rhetoric.  A few things intrigue me as to why the address is actually necessary at all, and a commentator on FNC said that the president must have something “big” to talk about or reveal, and that is the reason for the joint Congressional address.  I wonder if Joe Biden’s trip to China may have something to do with the need to address the American public, yet again?  Perhaps our Chinese Uncle Moneybags is going to cut off the free-flowing money (finally!)

First possible topic:  High-speed rail?  Remember that issue he was pressing, as some sort of billion-dollar boondoggle that would lift the nation out of recession?  Then, last November, a wave of Republican and Conservative leaning governors won elections, and refused the money earmarked for the rail.  Obama did not seem too pleased by it, but played it as a move by the governors to hurt their own states.  The governors, for their parts, said they did not know of, want to be responsible for, or have anything else to do with the rails’ projected future liabilities.  With Amtrak as a model, who can blame them for rejecting federal, subsidized transportation?  I am sure the Chinese bullet train derailing and killed scores before Biden’s visit did not lend support either.

Not as shovel-ready as we thought...

Next possible topic:  More infrastructure spending?  The first round of spending was sold to the American people as “shovel-ready”, and as a way to better the country – indeed, how could we lose out on this deal?  Well, we seem to have.  The unemployment rate is still north of 9%, and the president himself infamously joked, “Well, I guess the jobs weren’t as shovel-ready as we thought…”  No, Mr. President, they certainly weren’t, but I would be very interested in where all this spending was done, and how it is providing a return on Americans’ investment.

Next possible topic:  The president will stand in front of Congress, and, with a straight face, call for more “new tone and civility”.  This (again) despite people like Congressman Andre Carson claiming at a Black Caucus event, that some Congressional Tea Party members would like to see “you and me” hanged from trees.  The call for civility did not take the first time, and I doubt the president would even bother mentioning it again – so, make this my “outside possibility” topic.

Final possible topic:  The amnesty/Dream Act fiasco that seems to be gaining momentum on the left?  This could certainly be a topic of the address, since the “Fast and Furious” program was directly shown to be a factor in the deaths of two American law enforcement officers in Mexico, and since heads have already begun to roll this week.  What will be the gist?  Who knows – perhaps the president will again claim his support for illegal immigrants, brought to America as children, and try to play that as a blanket amnesty step.  He may just call for the tightening of the borders and thousands of new hires of border guards.  But then, how many votes would that cost him?