Tag Archives: Obama

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE, GO BIG

36 Senators, more than a third of the entire senatorial body, joined hands on Thursday and held a press conference to send a bipartisan call for serious cuts in the federal budget.

When you develop your expenditure cutting plan “Be bold, be brave, go big”.  These are the words of exhortation given by Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Conrad’s remarks were officially directed to the bipartisan panel charged with presenting a bill by November 3rd cutting 1,500,000,000,000 (1.5T) from the federal budget.  However, Steven Hayward, writing for Power Line, sees the Senators’ pledge as a message intended for Barack Obama.  Hayward calls it Obama’s Last Chance. He may be right.  The President is getting very little support from his party.

OBAMA’S FAVORITE SON

WARREN WINS THE COAT OF MANY COLORS

As folks who speak in the vernacular would say, this photo ‘got to me’.   I met Warren Buffet only once.  It was in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. The occasion was a luncheon at the offices of the New York Society of Securities Analysts where I was a member at the time. Perhaps my reaction is just a personal one due to a sensitivity heightened by the timing, so close to 911.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is the highest award of honor given to a civilian.  It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

Warren Buffet is a man of integrity and good will.  Lenin called such well intended people who supported his reign “useful idiots”.  I find it grating to see our President grant such a high honor to someone best known  as a political advocate for one of the President’s controversial political positions.

I suppose there was no other choice. We do not have a Medal of Useful Idiocy, although a medal for cowardice was actually proposed a couple of years ago. It was to be called the Medal of Courageous Restraint. Click the link to see what we wrote about it. It was a good post.

YJCMTSU  (You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up)

JOBS SPEECH – TRANSCRIPT and COMMENT

The President took no personal responsibility for the failure to stem unemployment.  His remarks were solemn, his tone was that of a lecture.  At times his rage was less than subtle.

In fact, this larger [Republican] notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everyone’s money, let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own – that’s not who we are. That’s not the story of America.

 But the Pinocchio award goes to this paragraph.

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away.  It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation.  Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans – including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for.  Everything.

Got that?  Nothing controversial, everything supported by Republicans, it will be fully paid for and it must be passed immediately.  I say give Congress just half the time to study it that you took to prepare it.  That would take us to early December 2012.  We want to know what’s in this one before we pass it.

Barack knows his history and expressed his appreciation for what Abraham Lincoln did for the nation.

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.  (emphasis ours).

 To Barack, Lincoln’s greatness comes from his infrastructure programs.  Giving freedom to the Black man is not even mentioned.

Our time and space is running out, so we will leave you with these Cliff Notes that cover the rest of the speech.

   loopholes                special interests             pass my bill right now

   crumbling bridges               loopholes             decaying bridges

   tax breaks             affluent Americans          struggling Americans

   fair share                     pass my bill right now                reforms

   oil companies                       lobbyists                      shared sacrifice

UPDATE:
OOPS! We forgot to include a link to the full transcript. Here it is.

RANDOM THOTS AFTER THE SPEECH

Markets plunge after speech
Is it Europe or is it Barack Obama’s speech.  It’s both.  The common denominator is the playing out of socialistic agendas.  Europe was a little farther along Insolvency Road but Obama is propelling us to what may prove to be a photo finish.

BHO is FDR Redux, not Carter II
Minutes after Random Thots published Jobs and Economics a la Barack Obama, Steven Hayward published Obama vs. FDR.  Great minds think alike.  There is little doubt (in great minds, that is) that BHO is repeating FDR’s mistakes. Everyone should read The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. It is the definitive work on FDR.  I would also refer you to my article in American Thinker on the Obama/Roosevelt comparison. (shameless plug).

Turner 50 – Weprin 44   WOW !
If you are not a woman you can never know what it is like to birth a baby.  If you are not from District 9 in Brooklyn you can never know the significance of Turner’s lead over Weprin.  It was about as likely as a Bernie Sanders endorsement of Sarah Palin.  We covered the race initially in Daily News Endorses Turner vs. Weprin. It is understandable why the President’s wife bowed her head and appeared to pray before her husband spoke.

OBAMA’S BIG JOBS LECTURE

SUMMARY – You’ve heard my lecture, Republicans! Now pass my bill!!

It was a terrible speech.  It was better than I expected.

I give myself zip on the prediction there would be nothing but lip service for small business.  Details are sparse but it does appear there is some help for small and medium size companies.  Other good points include some preferential treatment for our veterans and a speech that bore on the greatness of our country, not our faults.  On the latter point, I hope it’s not like a response to that line in a movie where the neglected woman pleads with her lover “Just tell me you love me.  You don’t have to mean it.“

Barack was angry.  Michelle showed signs of stress.  Smiles were few.  There was not a light moment in Obama’s speech.  Michelle’s usual happy face and essence of delight that only a woman can impart was gone. In its place we saw the image of a somber faced wife who closed her eyes and bowed her head as soon as she was seated comfortably.  Michelle knows what is at stake.

Re-retraining is easy to support; so is streamlining the patent process.  Huh? Streamlining the patent process?  How did that get in there?  Oh well, I guess that’s good.

How did I do on the predictions made in It’s Joint Session Day.

He will ask for 300B
He asked for 447 Billion.                    3/4 credit
Not full credit because the number was off by 50%.

It will be about expansion of government               full credit
Points could be deducted for lack of mention of support for the states, but the professor decided that would be nit picking.

Infrastructure Bank             3/4 credit.
Full credit not given because the President didn’t identify his call for a private financing program by name.

Use of the S word (stimulus)            full credit plus a gold star
As prediced, the word was nowhere to be found.  Stimulus as a word is as dead as stimulus was in fact.

Stoking class resentment                   full credit
The only thing he missed was corporate jets

Only lip service for small business               zero credit
Obama’s plan would indeed provide some relief for small and medium size businesses.

So much for fun, now for the critique.  There is so much to say it will have to wait for the next post.

IT’S JOINT SESSION DAY

It’s eight o’clock in the morning on the day of  THE BIG JOBS SPEECH.  My neck is stuck way out.  I am going to predict what The Man is going and not going to say.  When I went to school, anything above 65% was passing.  Let’s see how I do on this one.

According to the advanced billing the raison d’être of the speech is to promote the creation of jobs.  But the speech itself will be about the support and expansion of government, both federal and state.  Obama will call for $300,000,000,000 (300 B) with much of it slated for infrastructure.  Infrastructure is in the government domain.  We heard this plan two years and a few billion dollars ago.  It didn’t work then and it won’t now.  Or as Yogi Berra might say – It didn’t work the first time and you can’t stop it from not working again.

”The definition of an Obama is someone who keeps repeating the same mistake over and over, each time expecting a different result.”      Al Einstein, from Brooklyn

Perhaps the President thinks it will work this time because the shovels have had more time to get ready.  Franklin Roosevelt’s shovels were ready.  He tried the infrastructure approach with his Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camps.  The result — unemployment stood at 15.3% at the end of 1936, four years after he was elected.  It was still 14.6% at the end of his second term, a full eight years in office.

Obama will urge Congress to establish an Infrastructure Bank, a sort of Fannie Mae for bridges and tunnels.

Another passel of dollars out of the 300B will be earmarked for distribution to states to prop up their finances, presumably to all 57 of them.  Favor will be given to those states in the poorest financial conditions because they need it most.  True, they need it most, but some would say they deserve it least.  Their circumstances are the consequence of their own governance.  Bailouts enable the perpetuation of faulty governance by one at the expense of the others.

“Stimulus”?  Obama will not use the word.  It is in the process of being replaced.  Give me a Mulligan on this one.  One or two off-hand references don’t count.

The President will not fail to stoke the fires of class resentment at some point in his talk.

Although medium and small business is the cradle of jobs, no more than lip service will be given to ease the obstacles that lay in the way their growth.

There’s more, but there’s also a deadline.  Let’s see how I do with the predictions given thus far.

JOBS and ECONOMICS a la BARACK OBAMA

Obama’s attempt to set Tuesday as the day for his address to a joint session of Congress was so obviously political that he quickly backed off and agreed to Speaker Boehner’s rejection of that date.  Michael Smerconish, who was filling in as host for the vacationing Chris Matthews, pointed out on the Hardball program that presidents are not empowered to order Congress to meet in joint session so that the president may address them.  A request must be made to Congress, whereupon the common practice of finding a mutually agreed upon date takes place without public involvement.  Once a date is chosen, it is announced publicly.

Smerconish and one of his two guests agreed that Obama’s choice of an open letter to the Speaker to initiate his request was unprecedented. Furthermore, they agreed that Rush Limbaugh was right when he said it was strictly a political move engineered to upstage the GOP Debate.  That was probably the first time the words “Limbaugh was right” were ever uttered on MSNBC.  Never let it be said the President did not fulfill his promise of audacity.

What should we expect to be included in this much vaunted address?  It has been billed as a “Jobs” speech and it will be presented as a stimulus for private sector job creation.  However, we expect the focus will be on jobs for government projects.  Like FDR’s WPA and CCC Camps, they will be boondoggles that improve some roads and bridges but will do little to improve the general economy while sending the nation more deeply in debt.  This is not the time to be replacing perfectly serviceable infrastructure.  If money is spent it should be spent on re-invigorating the free market system where wealth is created, not where old wealth is shuffled about.  These programs did not work for Roosevelt and they will not work for Obama.

A central point in the speech is likely to be a call for the creation of an Infrastructure Bank to fund government construction projects.  This has all the potential of becoming a Fannie Mae for bridges and tunnels.

If we give Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that he really wants what he believes to be best for America, then we must conclude that our nation’s problem is Obama’s socialist roots.  He knows nothing about how free markets work.  He has no business experience whatsoever and sees government as the be-all end-all of everything.  The President knows not and cares not how the wealth to run a nation is created.  A nation may be imbued with wealth in its natural resources and scenic beauty, but it’s only in the private sector that wealth is created.  Government only depletes it.  A portion of that which is created is taken by government to provide essential services and hopefully to maintain the optimum environment where the creative process itself can prosper.

What Obama learned about economics he learned from his mentor and spiritual leader whose message is that it’s white man’s greed that runs a world in need.  Barack was so moved by this message that he cried as he sat in the pew at the conclusion of the sermon and knew then what  his mission in life would be.  This, in Obama’s own words as told in Dreams from My Father.  Even those who see nobleness in that dedication must acknowledge it is merely a mission of taking and giving; it is a mission devoid of creation.

There can be no doubt that Obama wants to bring down unemployment, which means to create jobs.  If he knew how to do it he would have done it.  He has been in office for 2 year and 7 months.  For the first 2 years he had the benefit of an all Democratic Congress who supported every item on his agenda.  The people he wants to help most are hurting the worst.  The man is not stupid, he is just blinded by his ideology and his ideology is in no small way born of his rage.  His heart is in expanding the government sector and not private industry whose profits he sees only as a garden of greed.

Obama is a victim of the image he created for himself with some nurturing from the media.  The slogan of Hope and Change, mixed with the audacity to bring it all about was a promise to fulfill your dreams whatever they may be.  It is not for negligence that hope — for what?, and change — to what?  were never defined.  Definitions are limiting; vagueness is not.  It was left for each person to fill in the blanks with their own personal hopes and desires.  You say voters are not that naïve?  You say voters don’t believe politicians promises?  You may remember the woman who was thrilled at Obama’s victory because it meant he was now going to pay off her mortgage.  That woman had voted.  She voted for the fulfillment of her own personal dream.  Do you suppose she was the only one?

Barack Obama has broken more than promises.  He has broken hearts as well.  He has failed his own people.  All because of his socialist roots.

A TALE OF TWO SPEECHES

President George W. Bush’s speech after the capture of Saddam Hussein:

“The success of yesterday’s mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq . The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers in the hunt for members of the fallen regime, and in their effort to bring hope and freedom to the Iraqi people. Their work continues, and so do the risks. Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them!”

Obama’s speech after the killing of bin Laden:

“And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network. Then, last August, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan . And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and I authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan .”

Two very different speeches, one by a leader giving all the credit to those who did the job, the other by Barack Obama.

THE SOLYNDRA AFFAIR

Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money for one man to contribute to a candidate’s campaign fund.  But it is money well spent if it helps you get half of a billion dollars in stimulus money to develop a company you are promoting.

Solyndra was the poster child for Barack Obama’s Green Energy Stimulus program.  In May of last year the President splashed across the news with great fanfare and with great pride as he told the nation this was his move to save the planet and create brand new jobs.  Now, less than 16 months later, the company is bankrupt and 1,100 workers were suddenly thrown out of work with no advance notice.  Furthermore, It looks like the taxpayers will be out $535,000,000.

Rich Lowry reports

In a visit to Solyndra in May 2010, President Obama called it “a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism.” He all but redefined the traditional statement of Americanness to encompass motherhood, apple pie, and the conversion of sunlight into electricity through cylindrical thin-film solar cells, the specialty of Solyndra.

Obama and Biden were literally invested in Solyndra’s success. The company got a half-billion-dollar federal loan guarantee, the first in a highly vaunted Department of Energy green-jobs program, as part of the stimulus. This was supposed to be the new economic model: government and its favored industries cooperating to lead the country into a green, politically approved recovery.

What can you expect from a business plan to make little solar panels at a cost of $6.29 per energy unit, get a government subsidy to cover half the cost, and then offer the product for sale at $3.24 in a market where the competition is selling it for $1.75?  It gets worse.  Solyndra is backed by one of Obama’s key fundraisers, George Kaiser of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  Rich Lowry says this is Obama’s Enron, Power Line blog likens it to the Keating Savings and Loan political scandal.

From the Washington Post via American Thinker

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee, wrote to the White House, “We have learned from our investigation that White House officials monitored Solyndra’s application, and communicated with DOE and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials. Documents received by the Committee also show that DOE and OMB officials were aware of the White House’s interest in the Solyndra loan guarantee.”

Solyndra’s shuttering has also raised concerns about the status of tens of billions the Obama administration has invested in other renewable-energy companies.

There is one difference between Keating or Enron and Solyndra; the press is not likely to run hard with the Solyndra affair.

WE ARE BACK, AND WE WERE HAD

We were had by the media in the sense it was not a hurricane that hit the Northeast coast.  We were had by the storm because it did so much damage that anyone without an anemometer and pluviometer would certainly think it was a hurricane.  No matter, we don’t sashay with them kind of unsophisticates.  It was just a bad storm.

A very bad storm.  Trees and power lines were brought down by the winds but most of the damage was caused by torrential rains.  A dozen towns in the inland state of Vermont are totally isolated, some normally accessible only by a bridge or two and the bridges are simply gone.

MAIN THOROUGHFARE IN KILLINGTON, VERMONT

Postings will resume in earnest once the cleanup is done.  Right now we are swamped (no fun intended).

One thing is apparent; Obama and Boehner are having a good fight.  Barack was clever enough to try to rain on the Republican’s parade by stealing Sep 8th for his own show.  The Speaker responded with a well worded letter saying essentially – No way, Barack.  So far it looks like a fair fight.  It is a pleasure to see a Republican leader speak truth to power like that.  No discredit to Boehner, but it is the Tea Party that has given some Republicans the guts to forsake their traditional squeamishness.