David Limbaugh.com

 

Reading excerpts of President Barack Obama's interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos underscores how tone-deaf and self-absorbed Obama is -- and that his tone-deafness is a function of his self-absorption and rigid ideology.

 

Obama said: "One thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values. And that I do think is a mistake of mine. I think the assumption was, if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or are we making a good, rational decision here ... people will get it."

 

Let's unpack that mouthful. It's all about him; in almost every line, he is bragging or excusing himself. No wonder he can't see any farther than his navel.

 

Note in the opening sentence his umpteenth gratuitous reference to "crises" he inherited; he doesn't use the word "inherited" there, but his meaning is clear.

 

In the next sentence, he pretends to criticize himself (for not speaking directly to the American people) as a backdrop for patting himself on the back for "just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises." Even if he hadn't immediately turned the phony self-deprecation into a boast, we'd know he wasn't sincere because the substance of his statement is flat-out false. Read article.

John B. Judis, The Nation via Worth-Reading.com

 

Bill Clinton didn’t know he was in big trouble until the very eve of the November 1994 election. Barack Obama knows now, barely a year into his presidency. While the party loyalists can blame Martha Coakley’s defeat on her ignorance of Red Sox baseball, it was clearly a message to the president and his party. Yes, a less inept candidate might have beaten Scott Brown, but if Obama and his program had been more popular in Massachusetts, even Coakley could have won--and by ten points or more.

 

There were no network exits polls, only a limited sample by Rasmussen, but some of the polls taken beforehand bear out Obama’s role in Coakley’s defeat. In the final January 17 poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning North Carolina outfit that picked up Brown’s surge early in the month, 20 percent of the respondents who voted for Obama in 2008 said they’d vote for Brown. Among those voters, only 22 percent approved of Obama’s presidency, and only 13 percent backed his health care plan. Read article.

 

Thomas B. Edsall, TNR.com

 

The victory of Scott Brown in the fight for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat shines a light on a trend in American politics that ought to deeply trouble progressives.

 

When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he decisively demonstrated that he was not bound by Democratic orthodoxy. He called for merit pay, expanding charter schools, and firing incompetent teachers. He supported President Bush’s faith-based initiatives providing federal money to religious charities. He endorsed the Supreme Court's decision overturning a handgun ban in the nation’s capital, while faulting the Court’s opposition to the death penalty for child rape.

 

Once in office, however, Obama failed to sustain his carefully calibrated positioning. And then he compounded this failing. White, middle-class voters ceased to think of him as a protector of their interests. There was the bank bailout and his concessions to Wall Street on financial reform. While expanding his political capital on health care reform, he failed to make a dent in unemployment.

 

But of all these political miscalculations (and unfortunate circumstances), his push for health care reform stands above the rest. He simply failed to anticipate the animosity that his proposal to cover the uninsured and to subsidize health care for the poor would generate.

 

The harsh reality is many voters consider the health care bill a multibillion-dollar transfer of taxpayer money to the uninsured, a population disproportionately, although by no means exclusively, made up of the poor, African Americans, Latinos, single parents, and the long-term unemployed. Providing medical care to this population is an explicit goal of the legislation, and a worthy goal, but political suicide in the current environment. Read article.

 

Peggy Noonan, WSJ.com

 

What does the Massachusetts election mean? It means America is in play again. The 2008 election settled nothing, not even for a while. Our national politics are reflecting what appears to be going on geologically, on the bottom of the oceans and beneath the crust of the Earth: the tectonic plates are moving.

 

America never stops moving now.

 

Massachusetts said, "Yes, we want change, but the change we want is not the change that has been delivered by the Democratic administration and the Democratic Congress. So we will turn elsewhere."

 

We are in a postromantic political era. They hire you and fire you, nothing personal. Family connection, personal charm, old traditions, fealty to party, all are nice and have their place, but right now we are immersed in crisis, and we vote on policies that affect our lives.

 

It is not the end of something so much as the beginning of something. Ted Kennedy took his era with him. But what has begun is something new and potentially promising.

 

President Obama carried Massachusetts by 26 points on Nov. 4, 2008. Fifteen months later, on Jan. 19, 2010, the eve of the first anniversary of his inauguration, his party's candidate lost Massachusetts by five points. That's a 31-point shift. Mr. Obama won Virginia by six points in 2008. A year later, on Nov. 2, 2009, his party's candidate for governor lost by 18 points—a 25 point shift. Mr. Obama won New Jersey in 2008 by 16 points. In 2009 his party's incumbent governor lost re-election by four points—a 20-point shift.

 

In each race, the president's party lost independent voters, who in 2008 voted like Democrats and in 2010 voted like Republicans. Read article.

 

The Foundry, Heritage.org

 

From the President who brought you unaccountable, constitutionally-questionable czars comes the latest innovation in pass-the-buck leadership: a White House executive commission designed to solve the behemoth of a spending problem plaguing the federal government. Members of Congress have described the commission as a “nothing burger,” a “fig leaf” and “something that is put in place to kind of cover [President Obama’s] rear end.” Colorful critiques aside, it’s an executive commission tasked with making policy recommendations aimed at reducing the country’s projected $1.4 trillion deficit.

 

News of the commission follows the Senate’s debate this week on the increase of America’s debt limit by a whopping $1.9 trillion, which would raise Congress’ theoretical credit card limit to $14.3 trillion. That’s a legal necessity if the federal government wants to keep borrowing more money. The key word is “wants,” since the only return on the borrowed money is out-of-control discretionary spending and an expansive entitlement system with no responsible fiscal future. Congress must address the entitlements crisis if it wants to honestly address the root cause of our future debt problems.

 

Due to rising costs in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, federal spending will cause the debt to grow to 300% of the economy by 2050. In total, the entitlement programs have promised $45 trillion more in benefits than the country can afford to pay. But hey, we can just raise taxes right? Raising taxes to fund these benefits would require an additional $12,072 per household by 2050 and further thereafter, which would create a tremendous burden on families and future generations. Cutting spending will not be sufficient to pay for the programs, as they will consume the entire federal budget by 2052. Read article.

 

CA Political News.com

 

Bloomberg Hammers Obama, Congress Over Bank Plan -

Mayor Says President's Idea To Limit Size And Investments Will Lead To Big Problems For NYC, Including Layoffs

 

President Barack Obama's demand Thursday that Congress clamp down on the size of banks and their investments got major blowback from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said it could cause layoffs and hurt the city.

 

It's a clash between the president and the mayor. President Obama wants to whittle away at the size of the financial services industry.

 

"The American people will not be served by a financial system that comprises just a few massive firms," the president said.

 

But Mayor Bloomberg said the banks and Wall Street are part of the bedrock of the city's economy, and efforts to slash their business just means less tax revenue for the city, which brings up the dreaded "L" word.

 

"If that's the case then we'll have to lay off people because it will really hurt our industry," Bloomberg said.

 

The mayor was so upset about the move -- and a suggestion that Wall Street bonuses be put in escrow, which means the money wouldn't be spent here, wouldn't help the city economy -- he responded with a proposal of his own for members of Congress. Read article.

 

Randall Hoven, American Thinker.com

 

It is State of the Union time again. Like every president before him, Barack Obama will declare that the state of our union is fundamentally sound, but it needs some tuning up. (In his case, a tune-up costs about $2 trillion and nine czars.) But in my opinion, the state of our union is, to use the word of the day, "unsustainable." That means "dying" in everyday language.

 

Almost a year ago, I wrote of the "real" state of our union.

 

We have less than 10 years to get our mess straightened out. In that time we need to do something drastic with health care, meaning getting its costs under control. We also need to keep a lid on discretionary spending and even cut it. Social Security payroll taxes might need to be raised a bit by 2020, or benefits cut.

 

In short, to avoid financial catastrophes such as government default and bankruptcy that would otherwise come in the 2020-2030 time-frame if not before, President Obama must make some bold moves. And in the opposite direction of his fan base. Read article.

 

 

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