Biden's Bluster is No Laughing Matter !

So now we know what Team Obama's comeback plan was following last week's defeat in the Presidential debate. Unleash Joe Biden to interrupt, filibuster, snarl and smirk and otherwise show contempt for Paul Ryan, as Obama obviously did to Romney. By unofficial media counts, ''Buffon'' Biden interrupted the Republican some 85-100 times. Mr Ryan let the bully get away with too much for my liking. No doubt the performance cheered Democrats who needed cheering after last week, but I wonder how well it played with independents or those undecided voters who tuned in and were hoping to learn something.

Mr Biden had his strongest notes on foreign policy. He too glibly rolled past the murders of four Americans at the Benghazi consulate a month ago (mimicking Obama's ''a few bumps along the way'' analogy) while attributing the Administration's false early explanations to ''the intelligence community.''  "We didn't know the attack wasn't over the Muslim video!" Biden exclaimed. I doubt that's what the investigation  will ultimately show. Biden also contradicted evidence given at a congressional hearing the day before revealing that extra protection for the Libyan posts had been requested and U.S. officials refused extra security prior to the Benghazi assault.

During the spirited sit-down battle, Mr Ryan was stronger on domestic issues. Even here, though, the debate devolved into an exchange between Mr Ryan's policy details and Mr Biden's free-association appeals to emotion and class solidarity. However, Biden said deadly serious things about the economy. On housing and equity markets Paul Ryan could have used Biden's seemingly offhand comments to remind the public that the Obama administration is indifferent, at best, to free-market solutions to America's economic woes. It's the political rut of keeping taxing the rich and keep those entitlements coming.  Mitt Romney shouldn't let any similsr chances go to waste at next week's town hall debate.

Free markets are more efficient in fixing their mistakes than Washington is -- ironically, the free-market solution is helping Obama now. People across the U.S. can perceive the worst is over. It follows that with the slightest drop in the unemployment rate of 7.8% they have a bit more confidence, a change in psychology showing up in consumer-spending figures. Romney and Ryan should acknowledge that people feel better and explain why they do; it had nothing to do with the White House.

 The Way I See It....the trends aren't looking good for Team Obama. The latest Rasmussen Reports survey of Likely Florida Voters finds Romney with 51% support to President Obama's 47%.  Also deep trouble in the 11 key swing states; Colorado, Florida, Iowa Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin giving Romney 49% to Obama's 47%. So, Joe Biden may have shaded Paul Ryan in the debate, but he did so by telling a few porkies that might now bite Obama's campaign...Mitt are you listening?

It sure looks like Biden put the blame on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his potential 2016 rival, for the security failings at Benghazi. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney backed up Biden's declaration by saying ''it's a State Department issue.'' Will Hillary now retaliate and protect herself by leaking word that the White House DID TOO know?

Why is Obama in trouble?  Maybe because when times get tough--record deficits, huge numbers of unemployed, American ambassador murdered--he's the kind of guy who decides to stick up for a 2 meter tall yellow multi-millionaire in one of the most embarrassing childish campaign ads ever screened. (See YouTube: Big Bird - Obama for America TV Ad)  Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki, speaking on board Air Force One on the day of the debate; ''There's only one candidate in this race who is going to continue to fight for Big Bird and Elmo, and he's riding on this plane.''

She's right!!! The United States is the first nation in history whose democracy has evolved to the point where its leader is provided with a wide-body transatlantic jet in order to campaign on the vital issue of public funding for sock puppets!  You'd have to laugh...if it wasn't so pathetic.

Blacks Told To Leave Democrat's ''Plantation'' !

Bishop E.W. Jackson, of the Virginia-based Exodus Faith Ministries, recently released a video calling for African-Americans to make a mass exodus from the Democratic Party. Jackson delivered stinging blows to both Democrats and the African-Americans who continue to support them, while decrying what he sees as a ''slavish devotion to the Democratic Party.''  He continued, ''They have insulted us, used us and manipulated us. They have saturated the black community with ridiculous lies. They think we are stupid and that these lies will hold us captive on their 'plantation' while they violate everything we believe as Christians.''

Jackson went into detail in the video, taking aim at the ''unholy alliance'' that he sees between Democrats, faux-civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood. ''This unholy alliance has millions killed millions of black babies.'' he proclaimed. On the morality front, Jackson took issue with the party's internal debate over ''GOD'' being dropped from its platform and explained, Of course, this is consistent with President Obama's tendency to quote the Declaration of Independence as 'we are endowed with certain inalienable rights,' leaving our the word 'Creator.' He also derided the notion that homosexuality should be equated ''with being black" and the push to make same-sex marriage a Democrat initiative.  

This month he'll be sending out an Open Letter to the church communities all across the United States urging them to realize that the Democrat Party is about to become the party of Christian persecution if Obama gets a second term. He says, ''Already they call us bigots and haters for not bowing to political correctness regarding same-sex marriage. They call us Islamophobes because we are concerned about Islamic radicalism and Sharia law. They say we hate women because we fight for the lives of unborn children. They are supporting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt under the guise of the Arab Spring. Ask Israel about the Arab Spring and the attitude of their new neighbor on their border. The long peace is over with Egyptians torturing and murdering Coptic Christians and burning down their churches. These policies of turning a blind eye can be laid on the Democrat Party doorstep.''

The Way I See It....the United States of America is a Judeo-Christian nation based on faith, individual liberty and personal responsibility. The Democrat Party as the intellectual and spiritual carriers of Marxist doctrine believe America must be fundamentally transformed. The most fundamental change they can make is to get God out of the picture. That alone will open the door to a whole host of policies contrary to the Constitution and way of life. Bishop E.W. Jackson wants to awaken Jews and Christians across America to the reality that they are being used by Obama and his party that actually hates everything they stand for.

Think about it. Did you hear one prominent Democrat denounce the Democrat Mayors of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Pittsburgh for threatening the CEO of Chick-Fil-A, Dan Cathy, because of his support for traditional marriage?  The fact is that what these Democrat Mayors did was a clear violation of the spirit and letter of the Constitution. They were seeking to use governmental authority to restrict and punish a man for his sincerely held religious views. That is not the action of elected representitives in a Constitutional Republic. That is the actions of tyrants. Something you can look forward to if Obama and his Marxist minions get four more years of making their own rules.

A Fantasy Election, an Imaginary Man !

Even before his inauguration, Barack Obama was an imaginary man, the creation of his admirers. Think back to the 2008 Time magazine cover depicting him a FDR, the Newsweek cover on which he was shown casting Lincoln's shadow, or the $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him ''for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples'' -- this is 2009, less than a year after he had taken office. It was not that Obama had done nothing to deserve these outsized comparisons and honours -- it was not just that he had done nothing -- it was that he seemed for all the world to be a blank screen on which such hysterical fantasies could too easily be projected, a two-dimensional paper doll just waiting to be dressed in leftist dreams.

The idea was that this hollow identity was his own insidious creation, the result of sealed college records, votes of ''present'' in the Illinois state senate and a supra-partisan persona carefully crafted after a scuttled lifetime of revolutionary ferocity in a Marxist milieu. Obama has disowned the depth of his past associations with such fire-breathing America-haters as Bill Ayers (''A guy who lives in my neighbourhood'') and Jeremiah Wright ("He was never my spiritual mentor'' [see Obama's Un-Holy Trinity posting] with startling unconcern. And such previous Obamas as the race-baiting, black-talking demagogue of a 2007 video recently discovered that is not all apparent in the Oval Office Obama. But I think the real Obama has been more or less plain to see. Norman Podhoretz described him best in a 2011 Wall Street Journal op-ed: ''a typical product of the anti-American academic left, committed to transforming U.S. capitalism into a social-democratic system like Sweden's''

The Obama of the imagination is the media's Obama. It emanates from a journalistic community that no longer in any way fulfills its designated function, that no longer attempts the fair presentation of facts and current events aimed at helping the American electorate make up its mind. These left-wing outlets like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, NBC News, ABC News, and the CBS News have fallen prey to that ideological corruption that sees lies as a kind of virtue, as a noble deception in service to a greater good. Theirs are largely passive lies and lies of omission. The real corruption is revealed in the way Obama scandals like Fast and Furious, Benghazi-gate and repeated breaking of federal campaign laws have been wildly underplayed, while Romney's simple gaffs are blown out of all proportion.

And it is revealed in Obama' blankness, his make-believe greatness, and the suppression, ridicule and dismissal of any evidence that he is not the man this powerful media faction once wanted so badly for him to be. No other modern president could have associated so intimately with lowlifes like Ayers and Wright and the now-imprisoned scumbag Tony Rezko and not had those associations exposed in every detail. No other president could have made the radical remarks he's made -- about wealth distribution, religion and the federal government's alleged ill-treatment of blacks --and not had them headlined all over for weeks. No other could have presided over such a crippled economy and such universal failures at war and in foreign policy and escaped almost without mainstream blame.

The Way I See It....the media's fascination with the colour of his skin and their mindless awe at his windy teleprompted rhetoric, they constructed a man of stature and accomplishment. Now, with the White House at stake, they're waging an ongoing battle against the undeniable evidence that he has never been, in fact, that man. The result in these autumn days has been media coverage of a fantasy election, an election in the news that bears no relation whatsoever to the election as it is. Polls consistently skewed to favour Democrats in percentages beyond any reasonable construct of reality have left Americans virtually ignorant of the state of the race. Orchestrated frenzies over gaffes by Mitt Romney have camouflaged an imploding Obama foreign policy, an Obama economy threatened by a new recession and an Obama campaign filled with vicious personal attacks and lies.

Governor Romney's unprecedented dismantling of the president in their first debate was surprising not only for Romney's warmth and clarity but for Obama's hapless fumbling, bad temper and inarticulate inability to defend his record. They were simply facets of the man as he truly is, unfiltered by the imagination of his shocked media supporters: a man who has succeeded, really, at almost nothing but the winning of elections; a man who cannot distinguish between his ideology and life; a man who does not seem to know how the machinery of the world actually works. Fantasy is a powerful thing, but reality will out. Perhaps by Election Day, the public will have awakened from the media's dream.

Too Many Lies For Too Long !

The fact that so many successful politicians are shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy them and only in the short run. The current outbreaks of riots in Europe show what happens when the truth catches up with both the politicians and the people in the long run.

Among the biggest lies of the welfare states on both sides of Atlantic and Pacific is the notion that the government can supply the people with things they want but cannot afford. Since the government gets its resources from the people, if the people as a whole cannot afford something, neither can the government. There is of course the perennial fallacy that the government can simply raise taxes on ''the rich'' and use that additional revenue to pay for things that most people cannot afford. What is amazing is the implicit assumption that ''the rich'' are all such complete fools that they will do nothing to prevent their money from being taxed away. History shows otherwise.

After the British government raised their income tax on top income earners in 2010, they discovered that they collected less tax revenue than before. Other countries have had similar experiences. Apparently the rich, were investing huge sums of money in tax-exempt securities and in today's globalized world economy, the rich can simply invest their money in countries where tax rate are lower. It's a No-Brainer.....except for politicians in Labor, Liberal (Democrat) and Socialist leaning governments who have Shit-for-Brains! So, if you can't rely on ''the rich'' to pick up the slack, what can you rely on?  Lies!

Nothing is easier for a David Cameron, Barack Obama or Australia's Julia Gillard (see photo) than promising government benefits and generous entitlements that cannot be delivered. The promises that are made are for money to be paid many years from now, (i.e. Social Security, Disability Care, Obamacare, etc) and somebody else will be in power then, left with the job of figuring out what to say and do when the money runs out and the riots start. As the day of reckoning approaches, there are a number of ways of seeming to overcome the crisis.  The government refusing to pay what it costs to get things done. Like cutting what doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients is one obvious example. Or like the Australian labor government instituting a Mining Tax, just as this sector is experiencing a downturn in exports and then cynically have a Carbon Tax and use the excuse to "Save-the-World from global warming.''  And now we read that Biden says Obama wants to raise $1 trillion in taxes on the wealthy, just days after the vice president said the ''middle class has been buried the past four years.''  Will these idiots ever learn?

Of course, Obama realizing that the government is running out of money is printing more. A third stimulus is in the making but that doesn't make the country any richer. It quietly transfers part of the value of existing money from people's savings and income to the government, whose newly printed money is worth just as much as the money that people worked for and saved. Printing more money means inflation -- inflation is a quiet lie, by which a government  can keep its promises on paper, but with money worth much less than when the promises were made.

The Way I See It....eventually, all these long-run problems catch-up with the wonderful-sounding lies that are the lifeblood of welfare state politics. See the states of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal as products of stupid Socialist practices. But, no worries, there will be a lot of those elections between now and then and those who are good at political lies can win a lot of those elections.

Is it so surprising voters with no brain to delve into a government's actions on entitements and their consequences, reading only lame-stream media (whose lies are largely passive and lies of omission) and carrying unrealistic hopes that their selfish needs can be met, will elect politicians who lie about being able to fulfill those hopes? Both Australia and America are heading for a bad case of  the ''European Disease.''

Romney: " Honey, I Shrunk The President ! "

Over 50 million people watched the first of three scheduled Obama vs Romney debates. In Denver last night the visuals were great for Romney and awful for Obama. Obama looked small, tired, defeated after four years of failure...out of ammo. The verdict was unanimous: it was a great night for the forces of good sense.

Through the evening, Romney came across as the competent executive, in command and optimistic. Obama was defeated and deflated, whose ideas have been tried and found wanting. I don't know how the Democrats will try to spin this one, but it just doesn't matter. There was only one credible leader on the stage and it wasn't our failed president.

It's difficult to see how Mitt Romney could have been much better than he was in last night's debate. Romney was crisp, forceful (without being disrespectful or obnoxious), and almost always on point. Most importantly, he was vibrant and even passionate. As for Obama, he paled in comparison. The president's performance was subdued; he was far less inclined to address Romney's points than Romney was to rebut his; and he tended to ramble and repeat himself. Obama was using hackneyed anecdotes about his dead Grandmother and looked lost and bewildered without his teleprompter. He had his head down frequently which gave the impression that he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. One small point among many: Obama doesn't even know how to stand at a podium, as he continually lifted one leg  (girlie fashion). He would be below average as a High School debater.

Popular Wall Street Journal journalist, James Taranto, long ago advanced an observation called the ''Taranto Principle.''  In short, it means that the liberal (socialist) media so coddles liberal politicians that they have no idea how to cope outside the liberal media bubble. Barack Obama has been so totally coddled by the liberal media that he looked absolutely shell-shocked in this debate. Stunned, unhappy, angry, sour and a some points genuinely incoherent. Mitt Romney has had nowhere near that kind of treatment. He had serious opponents in the primaries -- all of how in their own way forced him to confront his ideas in a serious fashion. The Obama media never let up, so the man went through the political equivalent of boot camp. Last night, outside the liberal-bubble -- forced to be alone on a stage with a very serious, very prepared candidate -- Barack Obama was in BIG trouble!

The Way I See It....the reason you get the impression that Romney is ''void of sympathy'' is because you are observing the haughty, disconnected caricature of a Romney that the lame-stream media likes to paint of conservatives. The real Romney is a patriot, a family man with religious morality, a guy with common sense and a business head for getting things done.  This morning, Obama tried to do damage control by claiming that the man on stage was ''not the real Romney.''  I would say, ''On the contrary, Mr Obama, that was the real Mitt Romney. You've been campaigning against the liberal media's distorted portrayal of him, but now you've met the real man.''

The true sign the US is colour blind will come when voters are as ready to sack Barack Obama as they were to choose him. Perhaps this paradox defines this political season. That Obama is African-American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC's excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up, pop-star messiah. I think MSNBC's Chris Matthews didn't feel ''a thrill up his leg'' listening this time to Obama like in 2008. The nation is about to sober-up and admit they made a mistake in choosing him, regardless of colour.

Welcome To Benghazi-Gate !

First Question:   Did Obama's Administration ignore requests for more protection for his diplomats in Libya?

          White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to comment on an assertion by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that requests from diplomats in Libya for added security prior to September 11 (2012) attack on their diplomatic post in Benghazi were denied. Yet earlier, chairman of the committee Rep. Darrell Issa and Rep Jason Chaffetz, the chair of the subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Operations, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asserting that ''multiple US federal government officials have confirmed that prior to the attack, the US mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission however was denied these requests by officials in Washington.''  This was in spite of 13 listed incidents leading up to the attack ranging from I.E.D. and RPG attacks to a ''posting on a pro-Gaddafi Facebook  page'' publicizing early morning runs taken by the late Ambassador Chris Stevens and his security detail.

Second Question:   Was the US warned by its allies of the growing threat in Libya from al-Qaeda?

          The real Smoking-Gun is whether the Obama administration was warned in advance that al-Qaeda was planning an attack. A number of Israeli newspapers have said that Washington was warned as early as September 4th (a week earlier)  that the environment in Benghazi was becoming increasingly hostile and anti-American, while the London Foreign Office took the decision to withdraw all its consular staff from Benghazi two months before the murders. This decision was based on intelligence indicating that al-Qaeda was openly operating in the area following a failed assasination attempt of Sir Dominic Asquith, Britain's ambassador to Libya, in June.

Third Question:   Why did Obama then seek to blame what was clearly a terrorist attack on September 11 on the US consulate in Benghazi on a YouTube film clip?

          It took TWO weeks after the Ambassador and three Marines were murdered in Benghazi that the Obama administration finally conceded it was an act of terrorism. Hillary Clinton admitted that it was part of a broader effort by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.  Yet 10 days ago, US Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice was trotted out on every Sunday talk show to blame the massacre on a mob inflamed by the YouTube video which insulted the Prophet Muhammad. (see previous posting)

          She kept stating; ''This was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. What happened initially was a spontaneous reaction to what just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered and grew increasingly violent. Those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons and that then spun out of control.''  Behind this gross misrepresentation was the need to absolve Obama and his ilk of all responsibility by claiming the atrocity was triggered by events, the video and the Cairo riot over which it had no control.  Rice continued, ''We could not have foreseen this. We could not have prevented this. We had no knowledge it was coming.''

Forth Question:   Why was Obama so quick to blame the Innocence of Muslims video on the violent protest at the US embassy in Cairo when jihadists had threatened an attack in support of jailed terrorist; the Bland Sheikh?

          An Egyptian independent newsweekly, El Fagr, based in Cairo, reported threats to the US embassy that were posted 3 days before the consulate attack with no mention of the video made in the threats. According to El Fagr, jihadi groups in Egypt, including Islamic Jihad and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya, were calling for the release of jihaduis imprisoned in detention centers, including Guantanamo Bay. The groups called for quick release of the deadshit sheikh, Omar Abdul Rahman (the ''Blind Sheikh''). The Islamic group threatened to ''burn the US Embassy in Cairo with those in it and taking hostage those who remain alive, unless the Blind Sheikh is immediately released.'' NOTE: Abdul Rahman is serving a life sentence in a US prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood president has called for he to serve out the remainder of the sentence in Egypt.  Fat chance!

The Way I See It....this has the potential to be Barack Obama's Jimmy Carter moment. Was Obama asleep at the wheel?  Did he then cover up his failures....like he's been trying to do these past 4 years of mismanagement?

Obama's Goose Is Cooked !

President Obama needed a filet mignon in the September employment report. But instead he got a rubber chicken. As voters finalize their elections impressions these weeks before November 6th, a lot of bad news is facing this Chicago incumbent.

Only 96,000 jobs were created last month, only 80,000 in June, way below Wall Street expectations. It's the sixth consecutive monthly disappointment. For a few months last winter, jobs were rising at an average of 225,000 a month. But that has sloped way down to 75,000. The unemployment rate continues at 8.1 % in general (but 15% for Blacks), which is the 44th straight month above 8%. The actual unemployment rate which includes discouraged workers is higher at just under 15%.

In a campaign stop in Ohio, Obama actually said ''we're still heading in the right direction.''  Is he kidding??  As a stagnant gross domestic product drops below 2 %, employment falters, retail sales decline and the ISM index for manufacturing drops below 50 (signaling contraction). No objective observer can deny that the economy is headed in the WRONG direction! With 40 million (yes, 40 million) McMansions lying empty and 46 million Americans on food stamps and real unemployment being closer to 18%...''you've got very big obstacles'' says David Bassanese of the Australian Federal Reserve.

I don't like playing pessimist, but numbers are the numbers. People just don't believe the economy is getting better even as he's printing more money for a third round of Quantitative Easing (QE3). This entails the Fed buying mortgage-backed securities at a rate of $US40 billion a month!  Óbama's gotta change his message. But what change? Taxing rich people won't create jobs.....common sense tells you these people use there extra cash to invest in new and old businesses that opens out more job opportunities. Obama is surrounded by leftist campaign advisers (see recent posts). And it's hard to see them shifting gears to something constructive like backing off the 20-some-odd tax hikes embodied in Obamacare/ He and his ''spread-the-wealth'' cronies are turning America into an Obama-Nation! In other words...Obama's goose may be already cooked.

The Joint Economic Committee (JEC), spearheaded by Rep Kevin Brady, put out a report saying that the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times. That's areal milestone in the post-World War II era. It's 10 out of 10 for both jobs and economic growth. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP has expanded only 6.7% over the 1-quarter recovery since the recession ended. The Reagan recovery at the same stage had increased by 17.6%. The Clinton recovery by 8.7%. Ad for jobs...the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of private-sector jobs has grown by only 4.1% since the cyclical low point. Reagan's record was 10.7%.

So much for Obamanomics. It didn't work. Still isn't working. As the JEC put it, spending stimulus, housing bailouts, auto bailouts (read nationalization) financial bailouts (read $ for friends), cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers and over $16 trillion in deficit spending left the Obama recovery dead last in modern times. In an odd twist, both Obama and his top economist Alan Krueger blame ''problems built up over decades."  Does that mean they blame Clinton, Bush and Reagan?

For nearly 25 years -- during those ''bad old decades'' -- the economy increased 3.3% annually. Unemployment dropped from 11% to 6% to 5% to below 4%. Obama would swoon for numbers like that. But those statistics come from the era when big government was over, when pro-market forces stopped the expansion of the public service and when marginal tax rates were slashed to grow the economy. Now the question is, with Obama's economic Goose cooked, does Mitt Romney have what it takes to win the election and provide a pro-growth economic model that will restore prosperity at home and America's No. 1 position around the world?

The Way I See It....some powerful figures like Rupert Murdoch have taken shots at Romney recently. But I am optimistic. In response to his critics on the day of the bad jobs report, Romney talked about expanding energy resources, approving the Keystone pipeline, cutting taxes and increasing trade with Latin America. He reaffirmed his intention to cut federal spending and eliminate useless programs that are sapping the liquidity out of the economy.

Basically, Romney, with more experience with the reality of running businesses then Obama would ever have, promises a return to free-market, supply-side policies on taxes, trade, regulation and above all spending.  Hopefully he will embrace a sound and stable dollar, as well. I still believe Romney is the most underrated politician in America today (thanks to a obscenely biased media) and he is the most Republican standard-bearer since Ronald Reagan. In other words...he's some real filet mignon.