Monday, July 11, 2011

Obama vs. Obama

The Weekly Standard  "Not long ago, Obama warned that raising taxes in a struggling economy is "the last thing you want to do.""....
"Obama agreed with Ferguson’s premise – raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. “First of all, he’s right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.”"
"Todd reminded Obama that he had promised to raise taxes on “some of the wealthiest” Americans."
http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/economy-2/




Alan Caruba: Casey Anthony, Miss America

Warning Signs "We live in a society where toddlers are dressed provocatively, adorned with adult makeup, and paraded in contests as objects of desire. We have gone from Shirley Temple to JonBenet Ramsey.
"We have gone from a preponderance of traditional two-parent families to a scandal of single-parent “families” and Casey Anthony was just one of many such single mothers. No one knows who the father is. "

SPIN METER: Obama, Dems skirt issue on tax hikes

Boston.com  "Proposals under consideration include raising taxes on small business owners and potentially low- and middle-income families. You won't hear about that from Obama. Instead the president focuses on the very rich, and speaks euphemistically. Here are a few of the phrases the president has used of late to talk about what amounts to raising taxes for some:"...

What is "first-person pronoun density"?

Obama's Narcissism Made Worse in First Year in Office  "Another sign of Obama’s growing malignant narcissism is his lowered Adversity Tolerance Threshold. I compared the number of times he snapped at critics and journalists during the election campaign and after he became President. The frequency of such temper tantrums has increased, though not drastically. Obama is still maintaining thespian self-control when it comes to the media and to his carefully-cultivated public image. Where he doesn’t bother anymore to project benevolence and maturity is with his staff: he is markedly and openly more aggressive and dismissive of his co-workers, underlings, crew, and team, clearly relishing his quasi-sadistic outbursts and their public verbal whipping."  Dr. Sam Vaknin   Dr. Vaknin is the subject of this article in Snopes.com.

Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuehrer  "I was not impressed by Sen. Barack Obama after the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident – a wholesome presidential package. It is so instinctive for most people to want to see blacks succeed. It is as if all humanity is carrying a collective guilt for what the ancestors of blacks endured. However, despite my initial interest in him, I was soon put off, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words."  By Ali Sina
 

"When criticized, Obama's soul can be seen in his eyes."

Response to Embassy Attack Will Be Crucial

Jonathan S. Tobin  "Like his Iranian allies, Assad appears to take a dim view of the Obama administration’s seriousness when it comes to such confrontations. Since Washington has been careful up until this moment to not rile him too much, Assad clearly believes the U.S. will back down in the face of a physical threat to American personnel. The question now for Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is whether they are prepared to answer this provocation in a manner the Syrians will understand. If they do not act now to convince the Syrians to back down, the cost to the West and its friends may be measured in blood rather than broken glass."

Is Simple Attention the Islamists’ Greatest Enemy?

jihadwatch.org
Raymond Ibrahim  "In short, politically active Islamists must walk a fine line, must choose their fights carefully: if they scream bloody murder to silence free speech — scream “racist,” “hater,” “Islamophobe” — they risk bringing unwanted attention that backfires on them; yet if they sit back and do nothing, they risk having more and more people speak up and expose them.
"Either way — whether CAIR or its un-stifled opponents make the noise — the result is the same: Americans, wondering why Islam is always in the spotlight, begin inquiring; some become acquainted with reality, and go on to discuss it with friends and family.
"The cycle of slow but steady awareness that first began when 9/11 got the world’s attention continues."

WSJ: Let’s not forget Obama’s already-imposed new taxes

Hot Air  "Obama keeps saying that he has cut taxes, but the Journal reminds people that Obama has raised taxes, too — and in key ways that impact capital.  The ObamaCare bill will raise taxes in a number of unpleasant ways, all in support of vast new federal spending and regulatory adventurism, with these just a few of the worst:"....
"While Obama wanted Boehner to put higher tax rates on the line for a deal, the President wasn’t willing to part with any of ObamaCare’s new taxes or spending.  The White House did agree to tax reform in exchange for temporarily higher rates, but over the weekend, the Journal smelled a rat — or maybe just paid attention to history:"

The Obamanomony

http://terrellaftermath.com/

"President Obama habitually refers to the failed economic policies of the past. The pace of America’s economic recovery is unacceptable, and it’s being made worse by the Obama Administration’s adherence to a flawed philosophy of relying on government to do the work of the private sector. Obama should be more concerned with the failed economic policies of the present – his own. A new direction is in order."

Obama White House in Sheer Desperation About Economy  " The Obama administration cannot deny the dismal economic data, so they’re trying to make the figures irrelevant. It is akin to someone who wants to break the thermometer because they want to deny the fever.
"It’s a silly and unsustainable game the Obama White House is playing – and a sign of the sheer desperation that is now engulfing it." Peter Wehner in Commentary

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Obama Extends Hand; America’s Enemies Extend Fist

Barry Rubin "There’s a remarkable exchange from a May 2009 presidential press conference that is extraordinarily revealing."
Question: “Aren’t you concerned that your outstretched hand has been interpreted by extremists, especially [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, [Hizballah leader] Nasrallah, [Hamas leader] Meshal, as weakness?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s not clear to me why my outstretched hand would be interpreted as weakness.
Yes, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I have often written that Obama does not accept the most basic principles of international relations. Why should he know any better since he lacks any experience while the advisors he most depends on usually also lack experience? In place of understanding and experience, they have an ideology that so distorts reality as to ensure failure.

http://www.drybonesblog.blogspot.com/


Andrew C. McCarthy:  Iran Is at War with Us
"Senator Graham elaborated that Iran is setting the stage to frame the long-scheduled withdrawal from Iraq as a case of the United States being “driven out,” a cowardly retreat under fire. Nor is this happening solely in Iraq. Iran’s fortification of the Afghan Taliban also continues at a steady clip. It may even be spiking now as the planned drawdown of American forces gets under way. Again, the mullahs are determined to pose as Allah’s avengers, casting the infidels out of Dar al-Islam.
"They are getting plenty of help from the Obama administration. The U.S. withdrawal is being driven by the political calendar, not conditions on the ground. Thus our enemies — and Iran has always been our principal enemy — get to make it look like whatever they want it to look like."

Jet industry furious at Obama

The Daily Caller   "Obama’s comments have cast a pall over the industry, causing many who were considering buying a plane to back away from making a purchase.
"“The industry has suffered terribly in the last two and a half years and it has just started to recover. Most of the signs were starting to look good,” said Fuller. “We are so angry as an industry and we have all come together to try to bring a more fair and balanced description to the debate.”"

Casey Anthony’s bid for fame has been realized

Boston Herald "In letters Anthony wrote to a fellow inmate, she mused about the money she could make once out of jail and plans for what she called a “partial memoir/comedy advice book for those not in the know. It’s a way to settle many rumors and to share my insight about love, life and most important, God.”
"She actually wrote that.
"She also said she dreams of being pregnant again and of adopting a child, “which even sounds weird to me saying it, but there are so many children that deserve to be loved.”"

Obama vs. Boehner

James Pethokoukis  "All very confusing, but the best I can make of it is this: higher taxes now in exchange for a promise of tax cuts later to be “paid for” by reducing tax breaks/deductions/loopholes with perhaps some of that money going toward deficit reduction.
"I can tell you this: Democrats need a lot more tax revenue to make their long-term budget plans works. This is why Obama has not offered a long-term budget plan. The need for massive tax increases would then be clear to all. In private, liberal economists all talk about a need for a value-added tax to raise the additional revenue."

Here the NY Times rips the Republicans:   "The president may have a nebulous approach to unemployment, but he is hardly indifferent to it. His re-election hinges on reducing it. It is hard to understand, though, why Mr. Obama has adopted the language of his opponents in connecting the economy to the debt. To his credit, he talked about the one step that would work — investing* money in rebuilding the country. But the debt-ceiling ideas he is now considering would make that investment much less likely by pulling hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy at precisely the moment when the spending is needed most."

* Jesse Ventura once said when politicians used the word "investments", you better hang on to your wallet. Hat tip to Hot Air for these sources.

Boehner says debt talks scaled back over tax rift  ""Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt-reduction agreement without tax hikes," Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the top Republican in Congress, said in a statement."
"I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure."
http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/
Obama’s deficit reduction Charades – “sounds like” more taxes  "Obama, the single most fiscally irresponsible president in modern history, is positioning himself as the only one who is serious about the debt.
"While I can see the argument that Boehner had to play Obama’s game of Charades, Boehner had no choice but to hold the line on taxes. Hopefully that line will hold during talks today, because what’s old is new: For Obama, the only thing deficit reduction sounds like is more taxes."