Barack Obama

Having recently accused of being Republicans, what a mean spirited and hateful thing to say, we almost paused on this post.

But no, hurl whatever disparaging epithet you will, we will not shrink from our purpose.

Whatever the hell that may be.

Did we mention former professor of constitutional law?

Peggy Noonan in her weekly editorial for the Wall Street Journal, titled Americans Vote for Maturity, gives the back of her hand to America's two political teenagers, the sullen and self absorbed Barack Obama and that perky ditz, Sarah Palin.

Click anywhere on the quote to link up to the entire piece.

A cut above, even by Ms. Noonan's very high standard.

First the President

On to the aftermath of the election. On Wednesday President Obama gave a news conference to share his thoughts. Viewers would have found it disappointing if there had been any viewers. The president is speaking, in effect, to an empty room. From my notes five minutes in: "This wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas." By the end I was certain he will never produce a successful stimulus because he is a human depression.

Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: that he won't even make a good former president.

His detachment is so great, it is even from himself. As he spoke, he seemed to be narrating from a remove. It was like hearing the audiobook of Volume I of his presidential memoirs. "Obama was frustrated. He honestly didn't understand what the country was doing. It was as if they had compulsive hand-washing disorder. In '08 they washed off Bush. Now they're washing off Obama. There he is, swirling down the drain! It's all too dramatic, too polar. The morning after the election it occurred to him: maybe he should take strong action. Maybe he should fire America! They did well in 2008, but since then they've been slipping. They weren't giving him the followership he needed. But that wouldn't work, they'd only complain. He had to keep his cool. His aides kept telling him, 'Show humility.' But they never told him what humility looked like. What was he supposed to do, burst into tears and say hit me? Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility: He found the election 'humbling,' he said."

Then Ms. Palin

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of policical celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I'll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.

The point is not "He was a great man and you are a nincompoop," though that is true. The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world.

Something about the Indy Mac video sure hit a nerve.

We were bombarded with an easy dozen video exposes and presentations on about every political, banking, housing and financial issue out there.

I'll probably will have gone through most of it by the end of the weekend.

So far, my favorite is the two minute vid offered below.

First of all, it's two minutes.

Some of the stuff out there is an hour or more per bite.

Evidently it was done by, for or endorsed by Sean Hannity in some fashion.

I had never seen it before.

Here are two clearly distinct points of view on the "big picture".

Thanks to Kathleen for sending this through.

First of all, apologies to Shannara Johnson and Casey Research who week after week are providing consistently good stuff, as I cut and pasted the entirety of the following article which was published yesterday, July 30, 2010 at Casey's Daily Dispatch along with some other good stuff under the heading, A Rock and a Hard Place.

Secondly, apologies to you, as this one hopefully will take up a little more or your time than I usually shoot for.

As you know, when I find something I like, usually I just grab off a paragraph or two along with the heading and the byline and just link you up to the site itself.

My opinion is that about half of you follow the link.

My hope is that all of you will read this one to the end.

Please do.

Remembering all the while.

Really, it isn't like I ever ask all that much from you ..... you know, the occasional comment ..... maybe ask how I'm doing before you call me a fascist moron.

You know who you are!!!

Something Fishy About RightHaven Suits?

By Shannara Johnson

Cracking down on the blogosphere seems to have become the latest fashion. Since March, lawsuits were filed against at least 88 blogs, message boards, advocacy organizations, and other websites, according to various news reports.

And they’re all coming from the same source: Las Vegas-based RightHaven, a firm that deals with copyright infringement.

Reason.com reports that “RightHaven’s business model involves acquiring the copyrights for specific articles originally published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, then filing lawsuits against website owners who have posted those articles without permission.”

The owners of one of the affected sites called The Armed Citizen, Clayton Cramer and David Burnett, complained to Reason magazine that they never even got a chance to remove the articles in question. “With our e-mail addresses right there on the front page [of our site], all it would have taken is an e-mail asking us to remove or alter the listing so as not to infringe,” said Burnett. “By not contacting any of the websites with a takedown notice beforehand, they’re showing they’re interested in money, not resolution.”

Which Steve Gibson, CEO of RightHaven, readily admits to. “Media companies’ assets are very much their copyrights,” he told Reason. “These companies need to understand and appreciate that those assets have value more than merely the present advertising revenues.”

With many of the targeted sites being blogs, conspiracy message boards, and government-critical websites, however, some of the victims suspect much more sinister motives behind RightHaven’s attacks. The legal trouble, they believe, may be part of a larger operation initiated by the Obama administration to silence independent, critical voices on the Internet.

And browsing the evidence, this contention may be not be all that far-fetched.

Recently, Blogetery.com, a little-known Wordpress platform, was abruptly shut down by its hosting company, BurstNet, taking down about 73,000 blogs. According to CNET, “[the] service was terminated at the request of some law enforcement agency, but [BurstNet] wouldn’t say which one. As for the reason, BurstNet hasn’t made that clear either.”

Rumors have it that the government may have gotten involved as part of anti-piracy operations, but many liberty advocates don’t buy it. And who can blame them, with frustrated sound bites coming from President Obama himself, implying that unsympathetic bloggers may have a part in his inability to connect with the public.

In January, an obscure academic article from 2008 made the rounds in the blogosphere that had been written by Obama’s information czar, Prof. Cass Sunstein.

Here’s an excerpt:

...we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies ... will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.

Why should you be worried about this?

Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com explains it:

Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups."  He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).  This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." 

Sunstein's response to these criticisms is . . . as telling as the proposal itself.  He acknowledges that some "conspiracy theories" previously dismissed as insane and fringe have turned out to be entirely true (his examples:  the CIA really did secretly administer LSD in "mind control" experiments; the DOD really did plot the commission of terrorist acts inside the U.S. with the intent to blame Castro; the Nixon White House really did bug the DNC headquarters).  Given that history, how could it possibly be justified for the U.S. Government to institute covert programs designed to undermine anti-government "conspiracy theories," discredit government critics, and increase faith and trust in government pronouncements?  Because, says Sunstein, such powers are warranted only when wielded by truly well-intentioned government officials who want to spread The Truth and Do Good -- i.e., when used by people like Cass Sunstein and Barack Obama:

Throughout, we assume a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so.

But it's precisely because the Government is so often not "well-motivated" that such powers are so dangerous.  Advocating them on the ground that "we will use them well" is every authoritarian's claim.  More than anything else, this is the toxic mentality that consumes our political culture:  when our side does X, X is Good, because we're Good and are working for Good outcomes.  That was what led hordes of Bush followers to endorse the same large-government surveillance programs they long claimed to oppose, and what leads so many Obama supporters now to justify actions that they spent the last eight years opposing.

FOX’s John Stossel hit the nail on the head, quipping, “That's right. Obama's Regulation Czar is so concerned about citizens thinking the wrong way that he proposed sending government agents to ‘infiltrate’ these groups and manipulate them. This reads like an Onion article: Powerful government official proposes to combat paranoid conspiracy groups that believe the government is out to get them...by proving that they really are out to get them.” 
And the RightHaven case has only fueled the fears – especially since evidence points to potentially close ties between the Obamas and Gibson.

Recently targeted by RightHaven, outraged members of the conspiracy message board godlikeproductions.com (GLP) set out to get to the bottom of the matter, digging in RightHaven CEO Steven A. Gibson’s background.

According to a resume found on the Net, Gibson attended the Chicago-Kent Collage of Law and graduated cum laude in 1990, and, his work history states, “Prior to establishing his own firm, Mr. Gibson was an associate at Sidley Austin LLP,” a Chicago-based law firm.

President Obama’s Wikipedia page, in turn, states that “In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. . . During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.”

Coincidence? GLPers don’t think so, especially considering that Michelle Obama, too, is in the picture. “She met Barack Obama when they were among the few African Americans at their law firm, Sidley Austin . . . and she was assigned to mentor him as a summer associate.” (Wikipedia)

“At the firm,” the Wikipedia page goes on, “she worked on marketing and intellectual property,” the latter being Gibson’s specialty as well.

In other words, it would be reasonable to assume that Barack and Michelle Obama and Steven Gibson have known each other for 20 years and (of course this is conjecture) may even have been, or still be, friends. Making Gibson the perfect henchman, the conspiracists surmise, to carry out Obama’s death sentence on free Internet speech and open dissent.

Tall tales or the beginning of the end for a truly free Internet? We’ll see; but we will keep our eyes open to other warning signs.

 It could work.

Richard Maybury publishes The Early Warning Report and Chaosistan.com

Friends have forwarded the occasional copy or link for a while now.

Membership went on sale recently so I signed up.

As yet, I have no opinion.

The quote below links to the signup page. 

“What Obama and his toadies have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be is fascist.

Fascism is the most simple-minded of all political philosophies, it boils down to just 16 words:

Power holders should do whatever appears necessary, no exceptions, no limits, and no definition of necessary…

We have no way to know what Obama, Bernanke, Geithner or any of the other kingpins will think is necessary, so there is no way to know what they will do to the economy or investment markets.

They are all loose cannons…

Fascism has no plan, it is 100% pragmatic, a fire fighting mentality, not an agenda mentality.

Its only answer to any problem is, more government...

Let me emphasize, the government’s top people are not constrained by ideology…the comment by the Director of National Intelligence, that US officials have the right to kill — without a trial — American citizens they suspect of terrorism.

If these people will do that, they will do anything. They are already across the final line.

This is why I believe that before the Great Monetary Calamity ends, somewhere between three and ten years from now, we will see gold at $10,000, silver at $100 and platinum at $10,000...

Remember, however, that I am not saying the precious metals will rise this much, I’m saying the dollar will fall this much.”

 Richard Maybury, 04-10

The CBS News Blog has been running a poll on President Obama's first year in office.

The poll was published on the CBS news web site January 20 2010 at 2 PM and continues until the time of this posting.

While the following qualifier is attached to the poll,

"This is not a scientific poll.  The results above are for information purposes only, and should not be confused with the results of the scientific polls conducted by CBS News."

This is pretty damning stuff.

It's difficult to see how the guy bounces back from a fall like this.

Click anywhere below to vote if you are of a mind to.

I have no idea how long CBS intends to let the thing run.

The Economy

A:    2.48%

B:    3.31%

C:    5.20%

D:    19.02%

F:    69.99%

A:    4.06%

B:    3.44%

C:    8.24%

D:    23.81%

F:    60.44%

A:    2.73%

B:    2.45%

C:    3.43%

D:    9.52%

F:    81.87%

 

 

Afghanistan

A:    3.99%

B:    14.57%

C:    28.11%

D:    23.23%

F:    30.10%

 

 

Iraq

A:    3.95%

B:    10.11%

C:    27.07%

D:    24.42%

F:    34.45%

 

 

Threat of Terrorism

A:    3.86%

B:    3.96%

C:    8.95%

D:    21.75%

F:    61.47%

 

 

Energy and the Environment

A:    3.29%

B:    4.30%

C:    12.41%

D:    21.80%

F:    58.20%

 

 

Social Issues

A:    3.78%

B:    4.10%

C:    12.70%

D:    21.11%

F:    58.31%

 

Bipartisanship

A:    3.79%

B:    2.55%

C:    4.37%

D:    9.86%

F:    79.44%

 

 

Obama's Overall Job as President

A:    3.09%

B:    3.29%

C:    4.33%

D:    25.73%

F:    63.55%

 

The following are just some of the items within the President's proposed 2011 budget:

Provides a $3 billion increase in K-12 education programs, plus up to $1 billion in additional
funding if Congress successfully completes a fundamental overhaul of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Together, these measures would represent the largest
funding increase for ESEA programs ever requested.

Provides $1.35 billion to expand Race to the Top for school districts as well as States to carry
out systemic reform, and $500 million to continue the Investing in Innovation program to test,
validate, and scales up effective approaches to student learning. 

Increases the number, and improves the distribution of, effective teachers and principals,
by investing $950 million in competitive grants to States and school districts that build
comprehensive systems to recruit, prepare, retain, and reward effective teachers and
principals.

 Provides $429 million, the highest funding level ever, for competitive grants through the
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

Provides $50 million for a new “Healthy Food Financing Initiative” to bring grocery stores and
other healthy food retailers to underserved communities. 

Provides $7.4 billion for the National Science Foundation, an 8 percent increase over the
2010 enacted level, as part of the President’s Plan for Science and Innovation.

Drives the creation of the industries and jobs of the future by doubling funding for
multidisciplinary research targeted at next-generation information and biological technologies.

Provides $19 million in graduate and undergraduate fellowships and scholarships for a joint
initiative with the Department of Energy to inspire tens of thousands of American students to
pursue careers in science, engineering, and entrepreneurship related to clean energy.

Creates a new $766 million, cross-agency sustainability research effort focused on renewable
energy technologies and complex environmental- and climate-system processes.

Increases funding by 14 percent for a new consolidated program aimed at building the
science and technology workforce by recruiting and retaining undergraduate students from
under-represented groups. 

Adds $6 billion to NASA’s budget over five years and draws upon American ingenuity to
enable us to embark on an ambitious 21st Century program of human space exploration.

Provides $3.3 billion total for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds.
This will allow States and Tribes to initiate approximately 800 clean water and 500 drinking
water projects nationally, continuing a major Federal commitment to water infrastructure
investment.

Provides new funding to support the Administration’s commitment to mitigate climate change.

Provides grants for States and Tribes to administer delegated environmental programs at $1.3
billion, the highest level ever.

Builds on the historic past increase in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for
a 20 percent total increase since 2009.

Invests over $8 billion in the Internal Revenue Service’s enforcement and modernization
programs, while continuing to drive innovation and responsiveness in taxpayer services. The
Budget supports significant new revenue-generating initiatives that will target critical areas of
non-compliance, and enhances a multi-year modernization strategy that will deliver a vastly
improved IRS within the next five years. 

Provides $4 billion for a new National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, which will
invest in high-value projects of regional or national significance.

Establishes a new $30 million Federal transit safety program to address critical needs.

Invests in modernizing the air traffic control system by increasing funding for NextGen by
more than 30 percent.

Helps communities to become more livable and sustainable by allocating $527 million for the
Department’s investments as part of the President’s multi-agency Partnership for Sustainable
Communities.

Sustains large-scale, multi-year support for high-speed rail, with $1 billion to fund promising
and transformative projects. 

Increases funding for the President’s Global Health Initiative, including increased efforts to
reduce mortality of mothers and children under five, avoid unintended pregnancies, and work
towards the elimination of some neglected tropical diseases. As part of this effort, the Budget
also expands support for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to prevent new HIV
infections while providing care and treatment to millions of people, and for the President’s
Malaria Initiative to dramatically reduce the prevalence of this disease.

Increases funding for the President’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative to help poor
countries improve the nutritional and income status of millions of people living in extreme
poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015.

Increases aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan to revitalize economic development and confront
the resurgence of the Taliban.

 Stays on track to fully fund Land and Water Conservation Fund programs by 2014 by
providing nearly $620 million to acquire new lands for national parks, forests and refuges,
protect endangered species habitat, and promote outdoor recreation.

There is no nice way to say it.

 

Apologies in advance for being unkind.  But when Frank Rich is starting to get it, the whole world has to be on it.

“If the administration sticks to this trajectory, all bets are off for the political future of a president who rode into office blessed with more high hopes, good will and serious promise than any in modern memory. It’s time for him to stop deluding himself…  

“Obama’s plight has been unchanged for months. Neither in action nor in message is he in front of the anger roiling a country where high unemployment remains unchecked and spiraling foreclosures are demolishing the bedrock American dream of home ownership. The president is no longer seen as a savior but as a captive of the interests who ginned up the mess and still profit, hugely, from it. 

“That’s no place for any politician of any party or ideology to be…It’s a business culture where the rich and well-connected get richer while the employees, shareholders and customers get the shaft. And the conviction that the game is fixed is nonpartisan. If the tea party right and populist left agree on anything, it’s that big bailed-out banks have and will get away with murder while we pay the bill on credit cards — with ever-rising fees. 

“Politically, no other issue counts. In last weekend’s Washington Post/ABC News poll, 42 percent of Americans chose the economy as the country’s most pressing concern. Only 5 percent picked terrorism, and 2 percent Afghanistan… 

“Does health care matter? Not as much as you’d think after this yearlong crusade. In the Post/ABC poll, the issue was second-tier — at 24 percent. Obama has blundered, not by positioning himself too far to the left but by landing nowhere — frittering away his political capital by being too vague, too slow and too deferential to Congress…Ask yourself this: All these months later, do you yet know what the health care plan means for your family’s bottom line, your taxes, your insurance?...  

“…few find this serene Harvard-trained lawyer credible when slinging populist rhetoric at ‘fat-cat’ bankers. His two principal economic policy makers are useless, if not counterproductive, surrogates. Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, was probably fatally compromised from the moment his tax lapses surfaced; now he is stalked by the pileup of unanswered questions about the still-not-transparent machinations at the New York Fed

when he was knee-deep in the A.I.G. bailout. Lawrence Summers, the top administration economic guru, is a symbol of the Clinton-era deregulatory orgy that helped fuel the bubble. The White House clearly knows this duo is a political albatross…  

“…The Obama administration is so overstocked with Goldman Sachs-Robert Rubin alumni and so tainted by its back-room health care deals with pharmaceutical and insurance companies that conservative politicians, Brown included, can masquerade shamelessly as the populist alternative.” – Frank Rich, The New York Times, 01-23-10

OK, OK so he's still missing Freddie, Fannie, Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer et. al.  

But you gotta admit it, he's getting there.