Learning To Set A Positive Agenda

I watched as much of the President Obama visit to the Republican Meeting last week as I could take – and that was very little. He was back to his ‘professor’ mode talking down to his class full of students, all of whom seemed willing to accept that premise. It was too much to take for long.
This week President Obama has issued a challenge to the Republicans to meet him in an open forum on C-Span to discuss their ideas on healthcare. He CLAIMS he will be open-minded to their proposals. Since he issued the challenge it has come to light that it was a ploy. Once of Nancy Pelosi’s aids leaked to the press that the meeting was a distraction while the Democrats went about passing the Senate bill through the House then slipping in a reconciliation bill behind it to give them the healthcare bill they have been looking for all along. Even before that come to light, I have to ask the Republicans a question: Have you lost your freaking minds?
You HAD to know President Obama was coming to the Republican Meeting for a photo op. That was evident from the time… well, from the time he decided to show up. The man arrived with a sycophantic press corps (or ‘corpse’ if you are an Obama-ite – which might actually be more accurate in describing the press’ ability for independent thought) to dutifully praise every word he utters. Republicans then allowed him to control the conversation and he got the sound bytes he went up there to get. Mission accomplished.
That meeting worked out so well for him he decided to extend the ‘openness’ with the Republicans. Now President Obama wants to meet to discuss HIS healthcare bill. The entire country has rejected it, but he wants to push on with the issue and the best way HE feels to do that is to meet with the Republicans and ridicule them for the whole country to see. He has no intention of listening to any of the suggestions the Republicans make. All he has to do is create the ILLUSION that he took them seriously and the press will run back to their little roundtables to discuss how well he ‘handled’ the ‘harsh’ Republicans.
And he wants to do it on C-Span. Uh… did anyone think to ask ‘why?’ When the REAL discussions were going on NO ONE was allowed in but Obama and the DEMOCRAT Congressional leadership. Now he wants to put it on C-Span? Suddenly ‘transparency’ is the issue? The only reason he wants to put it on TV is so he can control the conversation and hold Republicans up to be ridiculed by HIS media again. Why do it? Answer: There’s no reason to do it. The healthcare issue is dead – the American people have spoken in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts as well as all across the country at Tea Parties and Town Hall Meetings and in every poll out there – unless the Republicans allow him to breathe life back into it.
It’s time to move on to finding jobs for the eight million of us who are looking.
Republicans have GOT to wise up. The American people are on YOUR side. It’s not just Republicans, it’s also the Independents who are finding their way home and the Blue Dog Democrats who have had enough. Americans have always been on your side if you had shown any kind of leadership skills and been willing to communicate what you stand for. Or maybe you are just figuring out what that is.
I know you think no one will give you the coverage if you start talking, but that’s because you spend too much time allowing others to control the agenda. The answer is simple. All you have to do is start talking to Fox News and Talk Radio. President Reagan had none of the cable coverage or Talk Radio support we have today, but the American people found a way to get the message out and followed him to landslide victories.
If you start practicing the skills of communicating with Americans and make it a strong Conservative message three things will happen. The majority of American voters will love you, Democrats will be frustrated and start whining attacks making them look weak and the mood of the nation will begin to change to a more positive tone.
The next problem you will have is that the OTHER networks will be screaming because you’re not talking to THEM and giving them time to dissect you. Once YOU own the initiative everyone will want to talk to you.
It’s funny how that works.

The Unemployment Numbers Fiasco Is Really Just Lying

If I did what the Obama Administration did with number manipulation I would be fired. It would be called an ‘integrity problem’ and I would become part of the unemployed faster than you can say ‘security’ – with extremely poor prospects for finding another job. Playing with numbers on the scale the unemployment numbers were manipulated last year to make the White House look better is LYING on a massive scale. Someone should lose their job for this level of LYING.
For leaving out almost a million unemployed – a number that is NOT insignificant – which made the reported numbers look better than they were, heads should have rolled. Someone should be meeting with their boss, answering questions about how it is possible to make such a gross error, the whole time worrying about wetting himself or herself with fear. And the boss who is doing the grilling should be concerned, sweating bullets of their own while trying to get answers because he/she is going to be in on the carpet in a matter of minutes answering to their boss who is going to be repeating the process until someone is in front of the President of the United States answering how this can happen.
Well, that is if we lived in the sane world where accountability is a concept someone in government understood. Let’s face it; no one in Washington has the first idea about holding anyone accountable. The only thing Washington understands is finger pointing, laying blame and rushing to the microphones to put spin on issues.
This recalibration of the unemployment numbers is a perfect example. President Obama should have been in front of the microphones explaining how a screw up of this magnitude could happen and the steps that were going to be put in place to be certain it never happened again. He should also have offered up the names of those fired for this kind of integrity failure and who is going to jail for destroying the trust of the American people. Instead, he was in front of the microphones crowing about bogus unemployment numbers that were based on faulty, manipulated data. Instead of unemployment numbers that reflect the dire state of our economy when taken in their purest unmolested form, President Obama was busy telling anyone who would listen that he was saving us from the Great Depression II. He was crowing about numbers he KNEW were false and manipulated as if they actually were pointing in a direction that was exactly the opposite of where everyone who was listening KNEW they were pointing. The unemployment rate is slowing because we are running out of jobs to cut. We’re down eight million jobs and we are still adding to the number every month. There was a seasonal slowing due to Christmas hiring and there will be an artificial slowing as the Census Bureau puts on people to count heads. The major turnaround that Obama is dislocating his shoulder patting himself on the back over has not materialized. You see, you can play with percentages all day, but the raw data tells the tale – and it is a sad one.
A major part of this equation is that the American press is acting ignorant of the whole situation. Either they are REALLY good actors or they are truly a bunch of clueless dolts. I’m going with the ‘clueless dolts.’ In spite of their high priced educations and ‘old boy networking’ they are not understanding what the average American is getting loud and clear – unemployment is still with us and showing no sign of turning around. It is all over the Internet how the numbers were manipulated and why the results are bogus. It’s not rocket science. And even if it was not, it is easy to figure out. Anyone who understands business or how numbers work understands what happened – and that we are being lied to for political gain. This is a pattern that should have Americans all across the country shuddering in fear – even the press who is studiously trying to ignore the problem. The depths to which Washington is willing to descend just to mislead us is astonishing – and criminal.

President Obama’s State Of The Union Drinking Game

For most of us we’ve heard about as many President Obama speeches as we can take. Four hundred twelve speeches is a little too much of ANY president to take. Since we already know what he is going to say and we can guess what tone he will take after the loss in Massachusetts last week I am proposing a drinking game to keep us interested – at least until we become too wiped out to care. Which is about the only way I can endure another of his speeches.
This is how it works. Choose your favorite alcohol to take as shots and line up the shot glasses. Then all you have to do is listen for the ‘drinking’ words. I’ll guarantee you will be wasted before the midway point of the speech.
The game has three key words – or shot words – to listen for in the speech. The first word is “clear.” It usually comes grouped with “Let me be CLEAR” or “I want to make myself CLEAR.” In any form it comes out it always means the same thing: “I am about to feed you a line of bull” or “I am about to screw you over.” Either way, it is President Obama’s way of ‘butching up’ for the American people so he sounds tough when he delivers whatever he’s about to dump on us.
The second word is “Inherited.” That’s code for “It’s Bush’s fault.” The blame Bush strategy has about worn out with all of us out here in America, but it’s something we can count on hearing in the speech. I can remember NO president that has blamed the previous administration as incessantly as Obama has, and certainly not a year down the road. He took the keys to the White House and the big jets, he needs to grow a set and get on with doing his job. He’s used “inherited” since he got there and we can count on hearing it again in the State of the Union speech. When the going gets tough – Obama whines and blames President Bush.
The third word to look for is “Unprecedented.” This is my personal ‘fingers on the chalkboard’ word every time I hear Obama utter it. There is nothing that has happened in the last year that has been unprecedented except the unprecedented use of the word “unprecedented.” Everything that has happened in his term has happened before and there are answers to solve those problems already available – it’s simply a question of using them.
By the end of the speech you will be BLITZED, so be sure you either have a cab, a designated driver or drink at home. It’s the only way you’ll make it.
And as a little warning, the morning after you’re likely to have a nasty hangover, but it’s much better to wake up with a hangover that will wear off than to have to make it all the way through that speech and have a hangover headache that will REFUSE to go away.
Enjoy the speech!! Cheers!!

The Obama Disapproval Index

We are a year down the road into the Obama Administration and the failures, disillusionments, disgusts and defeats continue to pile up. In spite of relentless rhetoric, soaring speeches and the media pouring on syrupy praise President Obama and his administration have managed to squander overwhelming poll numbers in his favor and make all the wrong moves in spite of historical precedents showing the way out of our economic disaster – which he and his people have managed to make considerably worse than it was when he took the reins. At the same time the Obama Administration seems to be working overtime to find ways to diminish the prestige of the United States.
In the Carter years we were treated to the “Misery Index” to reflect the pain the country was feeling at the failures the Carter Administration inflicted on us. It is about time to roll out our own version of the Misery Index – the Obama Dissatisfaction Index or ODI – to reflect the pain we are feeling now under the Obama Administration. Instead of simply measuring the economic malaise we are in, we need to have a more sweeping index to include his failures on his multiple levels. Though I have no idea how to quantify this index to make it into a rolling number we can track, I think these are some of the areas we need to include in our ODI.

· Economy: The economy has been on the minds of Americans for over eight years now. When the Democrats decided to make the economy into an issue when it was roaring they chose to tell Americans that what we were seeing – what the economic indicators were telling us was a good economy – was not the true picture. Eventually their negativity fulfilled itself, yet they thought it was an easy fix. During the 2008 campaign Americans were promised that if elected Obama would fix the economy. He and his cohorts knew where the economy stood – though they later tried to make us believe it was worse than they were told – yet they promised they had the answers to fix it if only we would elect them. It turns out all they have are a litany of excuses and a lot of whining about what they inherited. This category includes unemployment, the growing deficit, government spending and eventually runaway inflation. The failures of this administration are going to be devastating to the United States if Obama continues as he is.

· National Security: The total lack of understanding of the threat of terrorists against the American people is chilling. The first year of the Obama Administration has been aimed at convincing the American people there is no terror threat against the United States – until there was an attack against us. The White House went so far as to issue a list of words such as ‘terrorist’ which are no longer to be used. That does not solve the problem of terror attacks against the United States as we were shown on Christmas Day. Nor does closing Guantanamo Bay and bringing the inmates to U.S. soil. Then there is the idiotic decision to bring five terrorists to New York to stand trial just blocks from where they destroyed the World Trade Center. Already some of the evidence has been tossed by one of the judges hearing the trial. Every move of this administration appears to place our security in more and more peril.

· International Relations: We were promised ‘a new era’ of international relations in which the United States would be respected. The opposite has been the result of the Obama ‘Apology Tour’ around the world. Our friends and enemies alike now understand that our leader despises his country and will not stand up to protect our allies. Nothing could be more devastating in the international arena. That is perceived as weakness. In his attempt to gain the friendship of such countries as Iran, Venezuela and Cuba Obama has sold out old allies like Israel and after only a year has shown that he is not formidable at all – and has lost the respect of all those he sought to win over. The United States is no longer respected nor is our leader feared in the dens of terror. Our leader is a joke and we are seen as lacking the resolve to finish the job – even by our closest allies.

· Domestic Respect: This should be simply a factor of looking at the nose-diving Obama poll numbers and saying we need to figure out a simple equation to attach to his poll numbers versus where he should be – say against the average presidential approval rating at this point in their administrations. The Obama Administration is lower at this point than any previous president. To get the true measure of the Obama Administration we also have to add his policies and his ability to throw his support to others to get them elected. When he goes out to campaign for candidates he has not been able to push ANY over the goal line. His policies are polling in the thirties and he is 0 for 3 in campaigning. Even though his personal approval is still in the mid-40’s, the policies he is pushing are doing worse.


There are several other areas that could be tracked which would indicate how far out of step Obama and his administration are with the American people, but I find the less complicated a formula the better. The Obama Administration has lost its magic and with it they have lost the approval of the American people – and the world. Now we need to track how far down Obama is taking us and hopefully turn back the tide before he destroys our country.

President Obama’s Transparency

FINALLY we get something that resembles ‘transparency’ out of the Obama Administration. Over the weekend accounts of the minute-by-minute actions of President Obama and his administration were posted for all to see just as he promised. There it was for all of us to see. It was the handling of the Haitian earthquake by President Obama.
From the beginning when President Obama ran to the microphones to tell us what he was going to do for Haiti I felt like we, the American people, were being played by Obama and his people. This is the same President Obama who took months to decide what to do about Afghanistan and DAYS to respond to the Fort Hood attack and the Christmas Day attempted attack on the Northwest flight from Amsterdam. And those turned out to be initially the wrong responses. That’s why I felt the Haitian response was more than a little contrived. Obama was at the microphones in a matter of hours and the response was right down the line – almost like Bush was back. It was way too good to be coming from this group in Washington.
All President Obama had to do was take out the President Bush template for the tsunami in Southeast Asia – including having two former presidents head up the American end of the relief effort – blow the dust off it, add the Haitian name to the file and call up the military. The American military then swung into action and the rest was on autopilot. After that it was just a matter of Obama running around with his sleeves rolled up looking concerned and giving more speeches. THAT part of the plan was pure Obama – the BS Factor.
To me, it felt like Obama’s people already had the plan sitting on the shelf where they put it after Dick Cheney handed it to them, all they were waiting for was a disaster so they could shamelessly trot it out and call it their own. They knew the media was in their corner, so all they had to do was get the ball rolling. They certainly are willing to blame Bush for everything that has happened in the country, but I doubt they will give President Bush the CREDIT he deserves for having the template already set up for them to follow when a disaster hits.
So now that we know the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Washington actually know the meaning of the word ‘transparency,’ can we expect the same level of openness for the legislation they will try to push through Congress this year? Or any other year? How about going back and giving us the minutes from the backroom meetings held on The Hill to push through the healthcare travesty? Or the bribes that had to be paid out to our senators and representatives to get them to go along with the bill their constituents are overwhelmingly against? For some reason, I doubt it.
There are no other instances of moves made by this administration they are proud enough to share with us. It’s that simple. We are looking at a well-scripted stand-alone instance of the ‘transparency’ the American people were promised – and it is a show. Just more broken promises – oh, and out here in the heartland outside the Washington Beltway, we call those LIES.

The American Media Is Trying Too Hard To Make Obama Successful

As American aid starts piling up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the earthquake Tuesday afternoon our media has been falling over themselves trying to compare the Haitian earthquake to Hurricane Katrina and to give President Obama ANY sort of a success – even when it makes no sense – while giving President Bush another raking over the coals. The media and the Obama Administration are politicizing the tragedy when Obama’s numbers are falling quickly into the toilet.
Well… their stories are predictable and – surprise, surprise – wrong. We’re talking about ‘apples and oranges’ as the saying goes. If the media wants to make an apt correlation they would have to compare the Haitian disaster to the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The response to both disasters by the United States looks to be about the same. We are doing in Haiti and did in Southeast Asia what the United States always does. We sent whatever was necessary to help those who were in need. We’ll back up our initial response with money, supplies and support to help rebuild what was destroyed. It’s who we are and it’s what we do.
For the media and the Obama people to make this into their own pat-on-the-back is a travesty. In the midst of all this destruction we have to endure the White House rushing to the cameras to make the Haitian earthquake into a “look at what I did” moment. Maybe Obama should take a page from the Bush playbook and just do his job and let history judge him for what he is doing rather than try to bend the news in every cycle.
If you want a stark difference between Obama and Bush you would have to see the difference in the way the two men approached the situation. Bush did what had to be done focusing on the problem and giving the military the approval to do what they had to do. Obama made the same moves to get the military in to help, but he ran to the media with a ‘look what I did’ approach.
In order for the media comparison to be anywhere NEAR close between New Orleans and Haiti, Haiti would have to be in a Republican state in the U.S. Money would have had to have been sent to Haiti for years to shore up the buildings against earthquakes (the charities that have been doing work in Haiti don’t count in this scenario), but the money would have siphoned off for ‘other projects.’ Once disaster struck the Republican leadership would have to call the Republican governor of Haiti and tell them to hold off federal help because they didn’t want Obama to get any kind of victory – as the Democrat leadership did at the time of Katrina when they called the governor of Louisiana and told her to hold off Bush as long as she could – and she did it. There would have to be total confusion at the local and state level and all the media stories out of Haiti would have to be wrong or distorted so badly no one would know what was going on. Then all of us bloggers would have to run out with stories about how Obama and Biden planted charges under Haiti to cause the catastrophe. And that would be just to put it on an even footing for comparison. The incompetence of the media in New Orleans covering the story added to the panic as much as the incompetence of the Democrat leaders on the ground there at the time.
So, in all fairness – and “fairness” is something the American media lost sight of years ago – the Haitian earthquake has to be compared to the Southeast Asian tsunami if you want to compare apples-to-apples and expect the comparison to make sense. The problem for the media is President Bush did all the right things the right way with the tsunami – setting the template for President Obama to follow now – and they would have nothing to talk about now. They certainly would have no “Katrina Drum” to keep beating over and over – even when the message they are sending is mostly a lie.
But, why let truth get in the way of another “we love Obama” moment for the media. I’ll bet their legs are tingling now…

Americans Are Not Hyphenated

Who do these politicians think they are? How is it they think these attacks on the American people can be apologized away? And how do they NOT see that their political football is making Americans angrier than Washington will ever be able to repair?
Let me try to put this in perspective for politicians and their stenographic media groupies, since they don’t seem to understand what is happening here. Senator Harry Reid was trying to offer a compliment to then Senator Barac Obama – at least that was what he THOUGHT he was doing. It was in that compliment that he was showing his deep-seated racism by insulting Americans who are dark skinned and speak a dialect of English that is NOT Democrat Harry Reid Approved. Reid and those of his ilk are unwilling to take each person on their own merit preferring to sort Americans into stacks that he and other politicians can play to for their votes. By putting Americans in nice neat little stacks they can then dehumanize us and play to each ‘stack’ for their votes.
The formula for this travesty is the same every time one of these politicians blunders into showing us who the REALLY are: A politician makes a racially charged comment followed by the political classes running to the microphones to see who can score the most points for their political party. The offenders apologize and get all the people they know to run out and tell the world what wonderful people they are and that we should forgive the offender. Meanwhile, those trying to shove the comment down the offender’s throat push it until the American people are ready to throw all of them out of office. It’s an old strategy that is played over and over again – and each time it comes up everyone acts like it’s a surprise that the political class is filled with a bunch of racists. Americans are NOT surprised even a little bit.
Here’s a big TIME OUT for both sides in Washington. These are AMERICANS who are being insulted by Washington politicians AGAIN and We The People have had enough. This time we have one political moron insulting Americans, followed by the president adding to the insult by jumping in to forgive the moron politician. Why forgive the moron politician? Because the president NEEDS the moron politician to save his failing agenda. As a result WE AMERICANS are supposed to sweep the whole thing under the rug and let them get back to ‘more important matters.’
I find it interesting and insulting that every time one of these politicians blunders into revealing who he or she really is in the racial arena there are always ‘more important matters’ to deal with than race. I’m sorry, but for a member of the Political Class to insult one or a group of My Fellow Americans I find it OFFENSIVE. At that point it is no longer necessary for them to discuss ANY other matters. You have shown yourself to hate Americans and you need to get out. It’s that simple.
It’s not that they have ‘more important matters,’ but that they are scared to death to touch race as an issue. They’d rather grovel with their weak apologies and use cheap ‘off the rack’ excuses like ‘some of my best friends are…’ and slither away into the shadows until the whole matter is forgotten. What could be more important than finding out which of our politicians are JACKASSES and cutting them from the herd? Pushing through a sorry socialist agenda or a healthcare plan that is going to do nothing to HELP the average American? Why listen to us Americans? Why worry about telling Americans there is a segment of us who are not worthy of consideration – that being darker Americans who speak in some dialect of English that is not a white bread Ivy League snobbish dialect makes some of us less worthy? Let’s face it, that’s exactly what Harry Reid was saying. We have seen this attitude surfacing over the last couple years from him and the people around him. If you are not an Ivy Leaguer who politicians and their media feel are from THEIR mold you are going to be belittled and treated like some sort of pariah.
As Americans we have to continue to strive to get past “hyphenated” American status. That is a form of racism all its own that keeps people from being part of the whole American fabric. Does Harry Reid consider himself an European-American? I’ll bet the thought never crossed his mind. He sees himself as an American. So why does he feel it is right to place any other person who was born in this country into a “hyphenated” status? Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans… and the list goes on and on. Washington continues to attempt to divide Americans into ‘hyphenated’ groups for the politician’s own political gain. They then try to use those divides to push all of us away from each other to control our votes.
Let’s face it, Washington has declined into nothing more than a group of sick rich people who are so far out of touch with the American people they don’t see us as anything more than numbers in columns on polling data for them to move up and down the field. They have lost the ‘flesh and blood’ feel that comes from KNOWING their constituents. Our leaders start playing to each other and their media as soon as they get inside the Washington Beltway losing total touch with the Americans they were elected to represent. Washington’s problem is that Americans are seeing them ‘naked’ for the first time and we now have a very good understanding of who they are and what they are doing. From out here in the cheap seats of America it is the Political Class that is an insult to the American way of life. And they have about nine months to learn that lesson.

Political Lemmings

The level of commitment of the current crop of Democrats is astounding. And it is dangerous for the United States of America. In the face of crashing poll numbers, mounting public opposition, defections and Democrat retirements piling up as seat after seat is falling, even the press is starting to turn against them on all fronts – yet the Democrats continue to do the very things that are getting them into that trouble. Supporting the unpopular healthcare legislation, pushing through tax hike after tax hike while ignoring and insulting the American people – and all with an infuriating arrogance that is making them increasingly unpopular.
For Christmas break the Democrats had a chance to go home, evaluate where they stand heading into the elections of 2010 and adjust their positions. Even chained to the healthcare legislation that is pulling down the party like an oversized anchor NONE of the Democrats listened to their constituents and stood against the bill. Instead, they made the choice to stay with the bill and change their careers. They are following the brain-dead leadership of their party in herd mentality over the cliff like the lemmings they have become. For all their arrogance and talk of being smarter than the average voter, they have thrown independent thought out the window and are stampeding after a cause that is more unpopular than H1N1.
In spite of all indicators that are SCREAMING for the Democrats to change course and run AWAY from the cliff the herd is running TOWARD the cliff with a full head of steam following their leaders over the edge and onto the rocks below. As commendable as it is to be truly committed to a cause, this one is looking more and more like the ‘Breakfast Plate’ analogy. For those of you who have missed story that in your readings, it goes like this: When you look at a breakfast plate of ham and eggs you see ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment.’ The chicken laid the egg and walked away. That is being ‘involved’ with your breakfast. The pig, on the other hand, died to be that slab of ham. THAT is ‘commitment.’ Right now, with this agenda the Democrats are pushing, they are the PIGS.
As much as it seems like a good idea for the Democrats to continue in their self-destructive ways from a Republican standpoint it is a HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE for the American people. WE are the ones who are going to have to deal with the tax hikes, diminished doctors and services, reduced research, long lines, delayed care, Death Panels, mandatory inoculations tracked through government computers, loss of our freedom and, added on top of it, the bureaucracies the healthcare system these incompetents in Congress are going to put on us – 111 of them in the Senate version of the bill. WE are the ones who told them DON’T DO IT, and WE are still the ones who are going to do the suffering.
That level of commitment to their ‘cause’ is dangerous. There are no SERIOUS questions being asked by the Democrats, no SERIOUS oppositions. All they are willing to do is put on a show for the press to get a little ‘pork’ thrown their way and sell out the American people to build a power base.
As lemmings go, the Democrats are filling the bill well. They mindlessly run as a herd following their mindless herd mentality. None of the Democrats question whether or not it’s a good idea – outside of various extortion hits – to run off the cliff or what’s at the bottom, they just follow the herd.
Democrats have been preparing themselves for a hundred years for this moment and no matter what the cost they are going to put their agenda in place. What Republicans have to do is show their own level of commitment – without the mindless lemming approach – when they are in office and turn back the tide of “Progressive” legislation the current lemmings have passed.