"Where Are The Jobs?" is a skewed question

At least, according to Obama. Boehner asked the question of the president in his Twitter Town Hall. But Obama, according to the CNN video on Real Clear Politics, said:

Eventually, I'm sure, the speaker will see the light

Uh huh.

Unlike Obama, she actually does have small donors

Remember how Obama kept saying that most of his campaign contributions came from small donors?

Uh.
Turns out its not true.
Guess who actually is getting small donors? According to AP, Michelle Bachman.

...Bush and Obama depended more on thunderstorms of money — bundles of checks collected by big-money donors, each written for the maximum amount allowed by law. Bachmann's accounts are instead filled with small contributions sent by devoted supporters.

Cool for Michelle. Although that won't quell the liberal belief that she's being sponsored by corporations.

World's Worst Gaffe

I've seen some ridiculous gaffes by Obama, but this one took the cake.

I need to start by introducing you to Medal Of Honor winner, Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. Jared lost his life in Afghanistan. According to the official website:

With complete disregard for his own safety, Staff Sergeant Monti twice attempted to move from behind the cover of the rocks into the face of relentless enemy fire to rescue his fallen comrade. Determined not to leave his Soldier, Staff Sergeant Monti made a third attempt to cross open terrain through intense enemy fire. On this final attempt, he was mortally wounded, sacrificing his own life in an effort to save his fellow Sohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifldier. Staff Sergeant Monti's selfless acts of heroism inspired his patrol to fight off the larger enemy force

The president presented his parents with the Congressional Medal Of Honor, after giving this 14 minute speech on Jared.


It is a moving ceremony, one which I'm fairly certain that the parents will not forget.

Oh...
...but our president did...


While visiting Fort Dunn, the president said:

“First time I saw the 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”

This truly is the worst possible gaffe the president could have committed.
Now granted, he did call the parents to apologize. But this fits under the heading of "imagine if Bush said this...?"
Because if this were any other president, we'd still be talking about this today.

Obama campaign "misleads" in video

ABC News reports that Obama's 2012 campaign is trying to mislead its minions in their latest video. The video is reportedly a compilation of issues that the Republicans talked about in the latest debate. However...

...the video, which Messina calls a “highlight reel” and the DNC titled “What in the world are they talking about?” selectively uses clips from the 2-hour forum suggesting that the candidates were focused on idiotic issues, or battles from the past, when all of the topics the video hammers the Republicans for talking about were ones they were asked about at the forum.

Huh... the DNC is dishonest? When did that happen?
Here's the video, below.



If you want to compare that to what they were actually asked about... watch the CNN video. The debate actually starts 2:15 in:

Paul Krugman predicted 7.3 unemployment with the stimulus

The other day, I found myself in another stupid Facebook debate with someone didn't know their facts.

I should be used to this by now. But it never fails to get to me when someone who leans to the left insists that I'm uninformed while saying something that's provably not true.

This all started when a friend posted a link to a Paul Krugman article.
I called Paul an idiot (my bad) and then stated why he was an idiot: That all of the spending he championed failed to bring down the unemployment rate.

Now I'd reprint the debate verbatim if I could. But as it happens far too often, a friend of my friend kept using insults until the original friend blocked us both from her Facebook account.
So by trying to correct the record with facts, suddenly, I'm the asshole. Even though I wasn't the one calling her other friend names.

I know. I know... I'm losing the point of why I wrote this.
Paul Krugman was for spending shitloads of money through the government. We all agree on this. He believed that it would result in a lower unemployment rate.
It is also true that Krugman was upset that only $787 BILLION dollars was being spent on the stimulus program. Krugman believed this to be small. Which makes sense.
I mean, if you're going to be a Keynesian economist, why wouldn't you believe in spending more money? Ideally, by spending 50 Trillion Dollars, we'd go into a huge economic boom that would never be matched! Right?

My friend's friend insisted that Krugman was right. That the stimulus was too small... which is why it had no effect. He said that Krugman readers would know that Paul predicted that the stimulus bill would fail to reduce the unemployment rate.
But Paul didn't say that.
In fact, Krugman said:

Unemployment is currently about 7 percent, and heading much higher; Obama himself says that absent stimulus it could go into double digits. Suppose that we’re looking at an economy that, absent stimulus, would have an average unemployment rate of 9 percent over the next two years; this plan would cut that to 7.3 percent, which would be a help but could easily be spun by critics as a failure.

Wow. A 7.3% unemployment rate would be spun into a 'failure' of Obama's $787 economic plan. Presuming, of course, that the president didn't have a fawning media that would change his every failure into rainbows and unicorns.

In case you didn't know this (or were arguing with me on Facebook), the nonfarm unemployment rate for April of 2011 was 9.0%.
I created this handy chart to show you what's the stimulus plan results have looked like, vs. the predicted results. Note that the uptick in unemployment in April has not been added.

Calling Osama Obama

A lot was made when a Fox affiliate accidentally put Obama's name in the screen crawl when Osama was killed.
Keep in mind, it was an affiliate.
But more importantly, they were not the only one to do so in the news.

Crack MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnel tweeted:
"Obama shot and killed"

Of course, the left didn't go apeshit over that comment.

A Politifact you may have missed

When someone says a phrase like, "Every scientist agrees" or "All economists will tell you", it grates on my nerves.
Because economists don't agree. If they did, there would be one economic theory and we'd all follow it.
Scientists have a similar problem. The job of a scientist is to challenge conventional wisdom and question knowledge as we understand it.

Naturally, when I heard Obama say:

Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach...

...I laughed.
It presumed a world full of Keynesian economists, economists who believe in government intervention.
Luckily, Politifact debunks this notion:

"...But we do know that Obama is wrong when he says there is "no disagreement that we need action by our government." Clearly, there is disagreement. We rate his statement False."

For the debt limit, before he was against it

ABC news caught up to Obama, and asked him about one of his biggest flip flops since Gitmo.
When asked if it was a mistake to vote against the debt limit as a senator, the president said:

I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a…President. When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, "You know what? We-- we can’t play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States." And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I’m the first one to acknowledge it.

That's a very long winded way of saying that as a senator, he was trying to take political advantage of a situation. But now that he's a president, he has to be an adult.

I'm glad that the president is acknowledging his mistakes. (Even if he is doing that whole "I'm better then most people" thing, while doing it)
What appalls me is that at no point does he recognize how completely craven it was for him to "play politics" with trillions of debt.

"But is he constitutionally qualified to become president?"

I just wanted to remind everyone who first bought up the controversy about a presidential candidates citizenship:

"I would like to see Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as a presidential candidate, but I heard that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. The Constitution requires that a president be a "natural born" citizen of the United States. Is Sen. McCain barred from the presidency? – Steven R. Pruett, Falls Church, Va."

That was in 1998.
The writer wrote to a political beat reporter for the Washington Post named Ken Rubin. Ken answered, in part:

"McCain has an adoring media on his side, and a reputation as someone who will make the difficult choices. What he shouldn't have is any question about his eligibility to be president."

An adoring media on his side. Huh. That sounds familiar.
Anyway, the point is, Barack isn't the first person who's birth has been questioned, as the report points out. (There's more there... I won't belabor it. Read the article.)
The biggest difference is that this adoring media finds race to be the motivator, but when McCain's detractors were questioning his citizenship, everyone understood it to be about:
1) politics
and
2) whether or not he was a citizen

Just thought I'd point that out.

Beck, Obama, and the Anti-Christ

I've been watching a steady stream of misinformation and straight out lies about Glenn Beck lately.
No matter what you think of the man, its not cool to lie about him.

So let's start with the lie. Which, naturally, starts with Media Matters:

Beck failed to ask Hagee about controversial statements, instead asked him if Obama might be the Antichrist

Reading that, one might conclude that Glenn Beck actually thought that it was a valid question to ask Hagee if Obama was the anti-Christ. Right?
That can't POSSIBLY be taken out of context.

I mean, Huffpo carried it too!
And those sounds formed a question that sounded out across the airwaves unto disbelieving ears. That question: "Is Barack Obama the anti-Christ."

We are not making this up. Glenn Beck, serious newsman, needed to find out if Barack Obama was the Devourer of Worlds, Son of Harlots, Bearer of the Mark of the Beast. John Hagee had to be thrilled by the question: somehow, Beck managed to make Hagee look reasonable.

You'll note that on that link, it says 'video not found'.

Huh. I wonder why.

Beck has a video.

You should watch it. It pretty much proves that both Media Matters and Huffpo can. Not. Be Trusted.

2010 Afghanistan Troop casualties great than 2001-2006

From ICasualties:

2001 12
2002 49
2003 48
2004 52
2005 99
2006 98
2007 117
2008 155

Combining the two terms that Bush was in office, the total number of military fatalities in Afghanistan was 630.
From 2001 to 2006, the total was 358.

If you included 2007, that number would be 475. Or 7 more deaths then there currently are in 2010.

Let's put this in perspective:
2009 317
2010 468

During the 7 years of the Bush presidency, 630 of our brave soldiers died in Afghanistan.
During the past two years of the Obama presidency, 785 soldiers died in Afghanistan.

Now don't get me wrong. I want our soldiers fighting these battles. However, why is it that Barack, who complained about the deaths of American soldiers, is being given such a clear free pass on this?

Let me put it another way: What would be the response if a McCain/Palin team lost more soldiers in the first two years of their presidency then Bush did in the previous 7?

MTV shopping for drones. I mean, audience for an Obama Town Hall

Via Politico:

MTV, BET and CMT are casting the audience for town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. 14, 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C.

Seeking—Audience Members: males & females, 18+.

To apply, email townhallaudience@mtvnmix.com and put “Town Hall” in the subject line. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name, phone number, hometown, school attending, your job and what issues, if any, you are interested in or passionate about. Also, provide a recent photo and short description of your political views. Submission deadline: Oct. 14. No pay.

According to Politico's report:

"We’re just trying to get the broadest, most diverse audience possible," she said, denying that either Republicans or ugly people would be screened out.

Whew. If they screened out both Republicans and the ugly people, there wouldn't be any one left.

Obama on The View?

Yup. That's about right.

Debt: Bush v. Obama

I just did some simple research to find out the debt, Bush vs. Obama.

When Bush came into office on 1/20/01, the debt was 5.7 Trillion.
The debt when the democrats took over congress on 1/3/2007 was 8.5 Trillion.

That makes Bush responsible for approximately 2.8 Trillion of debt.

The democratic-run congress then ballooned that debt in only 2 year's time to 10.6 Trillion on January 20th, 2009, the day Barack took over.

Bush & the Republican led congress added 2.8 trillion of debt for the 6 years that they were in power, or approximately 460 billion a year.

Congress spent 2.1 Trillion over two years, or roughly 1.05 Trillion a year with the Democrats in charge and Bush as a lame duck president.

But that's nothing to what happened once Obama took office.
On January 20th of the next year, our debt was 12.3 trillion.
In one year, the Democrat-run congress with Barack at the helm gave us 1.7 Trillion of debt in one year... more then triple what the Republican led congress was racking up under Bush.

SOURCE:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Mort Zuckerman helped write Obama's speech

In one of those "that explains a lot" statements, Mort Zuckerman (US News & World Report Editor in Chief) admitted that he helped write one of President Obama's speeches.

This, in itself, is pretty damning.
More damning still is the yawn it produced in the media that covers the president.

Shouldn't someone in the media be outraged to find out that one of the EIC's of a major news organization was helping write the president's speech? Presumably before his magazine covered it?

Yes, the head of GM was forced out by Obama

There's been a lot of rewriting of history regarding Obama's control of GM. So I thought I'd remind people what happened.

Steve Rattner was a man without any experience in the car industry. According to New York magazine, he worked as a journalist, an investment banker, and then the head of a private equity fund.
His primary qualification for becoming the car czar was that he raised a lot of money for democrats.

This is what New York magazine said of his handling of the task force:

Six months after taking the job, Rattner (who declined to comment for this story) had helped to perform a seeming magic trick, rewriting the understanding between the car companies and the unions while bending the companies’ financiers—his friends and peers—to his will. With what seemed a cool, almost arrogant confidence—his casual dismissal of GM CEO Rick Wagoner reflected this quality—he had played a large role in restructuring the American car industry, accomplishing what few had thought possible a few months earlier, and in record time.

Still not convinced?
This was Politico at the time that it happened:

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

The next time that someone challenges that the administration is in charge of the auto industry, ask them what Steve Rattner's job was.

(Former) statements of Barack on Bin Laden

From a transcript of the second debate between McCain & Barack. October 2008:

...I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn't finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda. So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there. They are now raiding our troops in Afghanistan, destabilizing the situation. They're stronger now than at any time since 2001. And that's why I think it's so important for us to reverse course, because that's the central front on terrorism. They are plotting to kill Americans right now. As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism....And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Uh huh. Please remember that he said that... our biggest national security priority.
He repeated that theme in November 12, of 2008:

President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.

Soooo... what happened?

The president urges patience with Iraq

Every once in a while, I run across something that I need to archive.
Like this article:

In his weekly radio address today, [the president] once again framed the war in Iraq as a battle against al-Qaeda and urged the American people to give his troop surge strategy more time to be successful. The president started off this week by giving listeners a preview of his speech at the American Legion national convention this week.

I thought it was interesting to hear the president urge for more time. Especially considering that at the time the president was asking for more time, Senator Obama was criticizing the war.

You see, this was President Bush, in August of 2007.

To be fair to Obama, I have to quote him at length:

It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I introduced a plan in January that would have already started bringing our troops out of Iraq, with a goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008. If the President continues to veto this plan, then ending this war will be my first priority when I take office.

There is no military solution in Iraq. Only Iraq's leaders can settle the grievances at the heart of Iraq's civil war. We must apply pressure on them to act, and our best leverage is reducing our troop presence. And we must also do the hard and sustained diplomatic work in the region on behalf of peace and stability.

That's not all he said. Please read the complete speech.
Its also important to note that this was not a one time position of the president. A month later, in September 12, 2007, he said:

I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. I introduced a plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now.

My plan for ending the war would turn the page in Iraq by removing our combat troops from Iraq's civil war; by taking a new approach to press for a new accord on reconciliation within Iraq; by talking to all of Iraq's neighbors to press for a compact in the region; and by confronting the human costs of this war.

First, we need to immediately begin the responsible removal of our troops from Iraq's civil war. Our troops have performed brilliantly. They brought Saddam Hussein to justice. They have fought for over four years to give Iraqis a chance for a better future. But they cannot - and should not - bear the responsibility for resolving the grievances at the heart of Iraq's civil war.

It is now July of 2010.
As Barack said, "...I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006."
He basically opposed it until he was in office.
Now I wouldn't blame him if he actually turned around and said, "You know what? President Bush was right to stay in Iraq"
But Barack won't do that. Its not that he isn't smart enough to realize that Bush was right. Clearly, he does. Its either that his ego is too big for him to realize it, or he drowned himself in his own pronouncements that Bush was wrong that he made people believe him. And now, he can't admit it, or Bush looks smarter then he is.

There are a lot of people that I do not want as my leader. The very first category is the one who cannot admit when they were clearly wrong.

Did Barack tell the truth?

When the Blagojevich scandal broke, the White House went into full spin mode about how they were 'investigating' everything, and that they'd let us know right away what they came up with.

Of course, they never found any evidence that the WH did anything wrong. Go figure.
From Time magazine:

This all seemed rather open and shut. Since the press had no information suggesting otherwise, President Obama was allowed to move on from the scandal. But recent testimony in the Blagojevich trial suggests that Craig's report and Obama's effort at transparency failed to tell the entire story.

On Tuesday, an Illinois union leader, Thomas Balanoff, testified that he received a phone call the day before the election from President Obama to discuss Valerie Jarrett and the Senate seat. Balanoff would serve as a go-between, connecting the Obama inner circle to the Blagojevich inner circle.

Remember how there was no one at all, according to the WH, that had any knowledge of any deal? Well, that's if you don't include the president's attempt to get a friend into a senate seat.

This is typical Chicago politics. Which means that its corrupt, for those of you who are not from Chicago.

Beck connects Soros to our current oil crisis

I hate conspiracy theories. But this administration gives me pause. Particularly when I see things like this...