Obama and the Opposition

I have read many articles as of late bemoaning (or rejoicing) in Obama’s inability to pass legislation.

The standard response from the right is that Obama and Rham Emanuel (specifically brought in as a legislative enforcer) are incompetent and that their policies don’t reflect the real sentiment of the voters. This is true on some level. The health care reform legislation is very unpopular even if some aspects of it appeal to most voters and has turned toxic on the democratic party. America is a also center right nation.

The standard response from the left seems to be the Republicans are the Party of “no” and have banded together to squash Obama. The gravy for this charge seems is either the racially flavored (republicans don’t like black people) or populist (republicans are in the pockets of the corporations). As with the conservative explanation, this one has some, all be it less merit. Republicans have banded together in a fairly uniform block to oppose the president however I don’t believe its for the more nefarious reasons given above. Some of it is standard loyal opposition type stuff and some is ideological. Special interests dominate both parties and I am sure on some specific legislation it does play a factor.

I believe that Obama’s lack of executive experience coupled with the environment his political career was incubated in is more to blame: The Cook County Democratic machine

Ironically enough, this actually attracted some voters to Obama. They believed that experience operating within a big time political machine would some how “toughen” an inexperienced junior senator.

Take Charles Kaiser from the Hillman Foundation:

I always thought the fact that Obama was the product of the Chicago Democratic machine was one of the most appealing parts of his resume–because it made it plausible that this freshman Senator could be strong enough to become an effective president.

What Kaiser doesn’t realize is machine politics is more like a family unit: you may have disagreements and feuds, but at the end of the day everyone has a similar perspective on things and you all have the same agenda. Differences are always tactical and very seldom ideological. The machine runs everything in government and there really is no organized effective political opposition.

You maintain your place in the machine by bribing key demographics with cushy city jobs, nepotism, government contracts and generous concessions to allied unions. They in turn provide political muscle, votes, intimidation campaigns, and share in the machine’s plundering of the taxbase. Machines like this tend to operate in urban areas for reasons of demographics. The average white urbanite is a liberal who will always vote democrat no matter what. Minorities vote democrat because they have been successfully corralled in a different kind of plantation by their new overseers. Combine that with the union vote, government employees, dependants and no effective opposition and it gives you a recipe for perpetual one party domination.

This is the environment Obama acquired his skills as a political operator in. His much ballyhooed “bi-partisanship” consisted of cosponsoring some legislation with Tom Coburn. He has never had to operate in an environment where there was not only political opposition but ideological opposition. And unlike the democratic machine in cook county, the national democratic party has very striking ideological fissures in it. They aint all Nancy Pelosies and Henry Waxmans.

What about his time in the US Senate working with opposition there, surely he learned from his experience there? Not hardly, he was there for what, 6 months before he went into campaign mode?

His lack of experience in dealing with organized opposition explains his ineffectiveness. All his talk of bipartisanship is bullshit because he thought having a large majority in both houses would allow him to Rahm anything he wanted through.

Having operated in a bubble his whole life, Obama now founders when removed from his comfort zone.

The results of the 2010 midterms are going to be really interesting.

"Now watch this drive"

Paging Mike Allen and Michael Moore:

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

CBS' Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related — wrote on his Twitter feed that, "Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24.

Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months."

Yes We Can!

Or Yes We Did?

A revolt is afoot in the nation. The media and the political class might not understand the appeal of the Ron Pauls and Glenn Becks of the world. But even many of those who disagree with Paul and Beck on the specifics understand the draw. Something is resurfacing. Americans are increasingly unafraid to say the word "liberty". Politicians who don't share that trait may want to start updating their résumés.

Obama and Energy

Our Dear Leader’s views on energy are, to be blunt, just a little fucked up. They show many of the hallmarks of anti-growth ideology mixed with incompetence. For example, his FERC (a little known but massively influential federal regulatory agency) nominee Jon Wellinghoff demonstrated this by not understanding a concept as simple as baseload power supply.

Our Dear Leader campaigned on creating "good jobs" especially for the beleaguered blue collar job markets. In order to win swingstate Ohio, Obama promised to secure loan guarantees for a retooling project at the Piketon enrichment plant. A loan guarantee would be a win-win on so many levels: provide good blue and white collar technical jobs, maintain the nation's nuclear capacity and not cost the government a dime if the project worked out (as it was most likely going to).

So what happened to Obama's promise:

The Obama administration's rejection is a turnaround from the stance of candidate Barack Obama, who pledged while campaigning in southern Ohio in August to "work with the Department of Energy to help make loan guarantees available for this (the Piketon enrichment plant) and other advanced-energy programs that reduce carbon emissions and break the tie to high-cost, foreign energy sources."

Overall, the project would have employed 5,700 directly or indirectly in eight states, the company says. In Piketon, more than 600 already are working. A fully operating plant, which USEC wanted to begin operating in 2011, would employ about 400 for years to come.

I know, $2billion is a lot of money but the administration rolled up it sleevs, sharpened its pencils and made an unexpected move to provide $2billion in loan guarantees for offshore oil production .. in fucking Brazil.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

After all, Petrobras has shown itself capability to pull off large scale offshore energy projects in the past haven’t they?

NPR on Wishfull Thinking

With Obama’s poll numbers beginning to fall in line with the popularity of his specific policies and the continuing recession and high unemployment being hung around his administrations neck, the 2010 mid-terms may turn out to be less than kind.

Democrats giddy with possibilities only six months ago now confront a perilous 2010 landscape signaled by troublesome signs of President Barack Obama’s political mortality, the plunging popularity of many governors and rising disquiet among many vulnerable House Democrats.

The issue advantage has shifted as well, with Democrats facing the brunt of criticism about the pace of stimulus package spending, anxiety over rising unemployment rates and widespread uneasiness over the twin pillars of Obama’s legislative agenda: his cap-and-trade approach to climate change and the emerging health care bill.

Leave it NPR to ignore this and hope that the current advantage holds for another 18 months.

And while 15 months is a long way away, what CQ has to say is good news for the Democrats. The "in" party usually suffers losses in the midterm elections -- 2002 (GOP gains) and 1998 (Dem gains) being rare exceptions. Their verdict for 2010: Democrats "appear secure" in the House majority they won in 2006 and added to in '08.

But I suppose no one they know voted for Nixon.

How’s this one going to end ....

Obama releases the “Torture memos” detailing the cruel and hideous pink belly and death by caterpillar and ladybug technique used on the individuals who planned 9/11, but throws the caveat in there that there will be no prosecutions even though these acts were despicable and didn’t accomplish anything.

Hayden and Gates call Obama a jackass for doing this and say that it will make his job much harder

Then Cheney comes out swinging and says why not release them all including all the actionable intelligence we got from them and the attacks they stopped.

Now Obama says “on second thought, I might just be open to prosecuting individuals from the former administration on this”

So, how does this one end? Does Obama back down or does Cheney? Cheney certainly has nothing to lose as Obama has upped the ante by reversing his prior decision, now being “open” to prosecution of former administration officials.

Cleary Obama wasnt prepared for a response like this, or perhaps he was ... after all with 100's of billions flowing out the door at the Treasury, this makes for a nice distraction.

The left is just dying for its pound of flesh but will Obama spend his energy here, especially if Cheney is correct. What does he have to gain aside from throwing some red meat to the left?

My prediction

Option A: there is no release of the documents Cheney wants made public, Obama quietly backs away from his threat, Cheney quiets down and the Left seethes.

Option B: Cheney doesn’t drop it, Obama still wont release them but they get leaked, Obama loks like a schmuck and the left accuses Cheney’s “stay behind army” of running a shadow government and leaking the material.

Beware the Polls

Great comment about the partisan use of polling from the National Review:

There is an effort afoot to marginalize and demoralize people who refuse to hop aboard the Good Ship Obama. Dishonest polling is one of many tools in the Left's arsenal, but it's especially effective because these surveys can actually warp how people perceive the nation's mood. If a conservative were to catch in passing banner headlines proclaiming that 2/3 of the country approves of Obama's job performance and nearly 3/4 find him strong on national security, he may understandably feel isolated and powerless. That's the entire message implicit in these tactics—from the attack Rush strategy to DHS' outrageous "Right-Wing" threat assessment: Pipe down, conservatives. You're isolated, part of a hopelessly tiny minority, and possibly even dangerous. For the good of the country, keep your thoughts to yourselves.

NY Times Rides to The Dear Leader's Rescue (yet again)

Our new political overlords never have to look too far for cover when inconvenient truths raise their ugly heads. Take a look see at the latest from the Times on the Tea Party Protests tomorrow: Hold the Tea: Americans Fine With Taxes.

In news that will be bad for activists hoping to start another American Revolution with a series of protests modeled on the Boston Tea Party, a new Gallup Poll finds that a solid majority of American say the income tax they pay is “fair,” and that slightly more than half classify their own tax burden as either “about right” or “too low.”

Not that the hacks from the Times actually bother to ask anyone involved what their beef is, after all, its much easier to construct a straw man and bash it for a while. As an interesting side note, the percentage of people who think they pay a "fair" amount of incomes taxes is eerily close to the percentage that pays no federal income tax at all.

What the real beef is, or mine at any rate, is not what the marginal tax rates are today, but what they are going to be in 5 or 10 years after the bill for our Dear Leader's "First of the Month economic development plan" comes in.



This is the problem, trillion dollar deficits financed by China for as long as the eye can see.

People are tired of being ignored, and worse they hate being kicked and mocked by assholes like the Time's Robert Mackey.

80’s Liberal Agitprop

Considering that we will be running (damn near) an annual $2Trillion deficit, I am now taking bets on how soon it will be until Ridley Scott produces another commercial like this indicting the Dear Leader.

I am giving 10,000:1, because remember, when someone gives you 10,000:1 odds you take them!

From Hotair.

And Now For a Joke

Since the comedy community has decided to focus their daily two minutes of hate against people like Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and Rick Santelli, POTUS jokes are certainly on the decline.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so Barack Obama Jokes was born.

President Obama took some banking and insurance executives out to dinner and told them, "Order whatever you want to drink, order whatever you want to eat, order some to take home, order some for your neighbors and make sure you all also get some dessert."

One of the executives exclaimed, "Mr. President, that's going to cost a fortune!" Obama replied, "Don't worry about it. We won’t be here when the check comes."

Gun Control in the Name of Good Diplomatic Relations: Why the Numbers Just Aren’t Adding Up

Not to underplay the devastation of the cartels on the rampage in Mexico, because it is bad (so bad that a friend and coworker with family in Michoacán asked how he could buy an AK-47 and smuggle it to his family there), but the violence seen along the border is going to be used as a jumping off point for gun control in the United States by this administration.

A new assault weapons ban, one with teeth this time that will avoid all the mistakes of the 1996 ASB as well as the UN Small Arms Treaty will be passed so that the Dear Leader can profess his willingness to work via multilateral structures to help our international allies.

The Media blitz is already upon us in this regard with the groundwork being laid that not only are we in the US responsible for the demand side for the Cartels products (which to be honest is partially true) but that we are also primarily responsible for the supply side of the firearms.

Enter the hazy and not so clear “statistic” that I am seeing more and more to justify this:

AFP

Mexican and US authorities have traced over 90 percent of the guns used by the cartels to American gun shops and shows, even though US laws forbid foreign nationals from buying fire arms.

USA Today

ATF acting director Michael Sullivan said investigators have traced 90 to 95% of the weapons found in Mexico to the U.S.

Washington Times

The State Department says firearms obtained in the United States account for more than 90 percent of Mexico's drug-related killings.

Everyone’s favorite assholes Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

As much as 90 percent of the assault weapons and other guns used by Mexican drug cartels are coming from the United States, fueling drug-related violence that is believed to have killed more than 7,000 people since January 2008, according to estimates by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials. But the political obstacles to addressing the U.S.-to-Mexico weapons flow are dramatically underscored by Holder's experience in just the last few weeks.

And naturally, what compilation of questionable firearm related statistics and quotes would be complete without a quote from some douchebag democratic politician from San Francisco

"It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers, mayors, kidnap innocent people and do terrible things come from the United States," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said at a hearing Tuesday. "I am appalled that you can buy a 50-caliber sniper weapon anywhere and it's not restricted to a federal firearms dealer - you can just buy it."

But what does this 90% really referring to? As you can see from the highlighted section there seems to be some confusion. Is it more than 90% or less than 90%? Is it 90% of all guns confiscated or 90% of all guns used in the commission of a crime? Is it 90% of all guns used to commit a murder (any murder) or just 90% of all guns used to murder innocent people?

According to the ATF, this 90% figure refers to 7,743 firearms found at crime scenes in 2008 that could be traced were traced to suppliers in the United States. To put this in perspective that means that 8604 guns that were take from crime scenes had identifiable markings that allowed law enforcement to trace their origins. Now, if we are to believe people like the esteemed Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-USSAistan), then only 8604 guns were confiscate in all of Mexico in 2008. Only 8604 guns confiscated in all of Mexico in 2008 ..... anyone else having a hard time swallowing that load of shit? More guns are seized in Chicago every year, and it has 1/40th population of Mexico (with similar firearms laws). Its especially difficult to buy considering that the same people pushing the 90% figure are also pushing the equally ridiculous claim that 2000 guns a day are being smuggled into Mexico from the Untied States, which by my math puts the total for 2008 at 730,000. If we extrapolate these “statistics” a bit further one could surmise that only 1% of all firearms smuggled into Mexico are used by the Cartels in their drug turf wars. Almost seems like the vast majority of American firearms going into Mexico are being used responsibly.

Aren’t statistics fun?

But like all political battlespace preparation, horseshit statistics and “facts” are just one element of the attack. They can also rely on the ignorance of the fifth estate.

For example

Lax gun laws and lax enforcement in the United States have made it easy for Mexican gunrunners to buy and transport everything from AK-47s to Stinger antiaircraft missiles, which then allows the cartels to use these high-powered weapons against rival gangs or against a military attack. More than 90 percent of the thousands of guns confiscated yearly in Mexico have been traced to US origin.

I must have missed the FIM-92's and AT4’s next to that Ruger 10-22 I just bought at Mega Sports. Damn it! Got to look closer next time. And it pretty obvious that Dicky McGee hasn’t bought a gun if he thinks that gun laws are lax, maybe lax by Khmer Rouge standards but pretty tough on an absolute basis.

And another:

Assault weapons made in China and Eastern Europe, resembling the AK-47, have become widely and cheaply available in the U.S. since Congress and the Bush administration refused to extend a ban on such weapons in 2004.

Really? I bought 4 Romanian AK-47’s in 2002 all for less than $1,000 total. How much cheaper and more widely available have they gotten? And clearly the RPG’s, grenades and machine guns that the cartels are now using are common wares at any Wal-Mart since the expiration of the assault weapon ban don’t cha know?

And Lastly

Some weapons seized from drug traffickers, such as grenades, are stolen from the Mexican military. But drug traffickers have little interest in weapons carried by the military, because they are of lower caliber than the semiautomatic weapons from the US, says Martin Gabriel Barron, a researcher at the National Criminal Sciences Institute in Mexico City. The semiautomatics are then often modified to fire like machine guns.

Let me see .... drug traffickers have little interest in Mexican military weapons (whose arsenal is nearly identical to the US military) and instead prefer to buy civilian versions of US military small arms (coincidentally the same kind used by the Mexican military) and then take the time to modify them to “fire like machine guns” .... exactly like the ones from the Mexican military. And although I really should defer to the Christian Science Monitor’s Sara Miller Llana with her master armorer certification from Colt firearms on this one, how exactly does one modify a “semi automatic” to “fire like a machine gun”? I am under the assumption that the replacement of the barrel and extensive modifications to both the upper and lower receiver to not only change the action from semi-automatic to fully automatic but to also take the larger rifle cartridge (as opposed to the smaller assault rifle cartridge) that is the signature of a “machine-gun” would make it easier to just but a machine gun and forgo any modifications. But that’s just me I suppose.

Wow, those Mexican drug cartels sure do like to do things the hard way.

Is suspect, and far be it for me to just make shit up like the “morans” above but many of these “military style weapons” are not coming from the U.S . I suspect they're coming from Central America and Colombia, which have been flooded with weapons over the past 40 years. The Soviets and their client states made over 100 million AK-47’s and shipped millions to Latin and South America. Even when poorly maintained they have long duty lives and can be purchased for as little as $20 in some parts of the world. So tell me why a smuggler would spend $500-1000 at a gun show in Dallas for something he could pick up in Ecuador or Nicaragua for $50?

They wouldn’t, that’s the answer.

Now I am not dismissing the fact that weapons do flow from the US to Mexico and that a number of these do wind up in the hands of the cartels but there has been no case made that American guns are a significant factor in Mexico’s ongoing drug cartel wars. I, like many people, suspect (and with the Holder/Clinton/Obama triumvirate its not a wild suspiction) that this is simply going to be used as an excuse to pass both the UN’s Small Arms Treaty and another Assault Weapons Bill.

So stay vigilant kiddies and keep your powder dry.

Transparency

Then:

End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As president, Barack Obama will restore the American people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be conducted in public.

and now:

Republicans have caught the Democrats in a midnight “stimulus” power play that seeks to cut Republican conferees out of the House-Senate negotiations to resolve a final version of the Obama “stimulus” package. Staff members from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met last night to put together the “stimulus” conference report.

Dont be suprised if the Change.gov webpage disapears.

The Stimulus

Will it pass or will it fail? I don’t know .... it looks like what’s currently in the pipeline seems to be too big a piece of shit for even Susan Collins to vote for.

It is cute to see the left in an all out meltdown throwing tantrum after tantrum because those nasty “obstructionists” are getting in the way of the Obamessiah’s master plan.

Oh well.

Its like I said before, nothing I have seen from either group addresses what’s really wrong with the US economy; namely we consume more than we produce and until that’s dealt with, any fix will be a short term fix. We are in a period that is more of a correction rather than a recession.

Conventional Wisdom

Newsweek has long had a crush on our newly Coronated Dear Leader. Since the early days in his campaign and all the way through the election they turned into an undeclared lobbying agent for the Obama campaign, so I am not surprised that Newsweek's Conventional Wisdom Corner has always had an up arrow for the Dear Leader, but even this week?

Obama
Slams Wall St. bonus babies, relaxes dress code, and revives WH cocktail party. Cool.

His HHS nomineee withdraws and his "chief performance officer" both go down in flames because they are tax cheats, longtime politcal ally (recently thrown under the bus) Blagojevich is impeached, the "bipartisan" stimulus package is passed on a 100% party line vote in the House and lacks enough votes in the senate to pass it, the plan to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan hits a snag as NATO's land supply lines have been halted after an attack on a road in the Khyber Pass and Kyrgyzstan threatens to close a strategic resupply airbase, European leaders throw a tantrum over the Buy American clause in the stimulus bill, Iran launches satellite atop its newest ICBM .. and this is a good week for the administration?

I wonder what would constitute a bad week for Obama ... seriously would he have to get fucked by a uncorn or something?

Obama to MOH Recipients: Fuck You

Well isnt this nice:

According to TSO who was at the “Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball”, this newly sworn-in President for the first time in 56 years blew off the ball (that’s 14 Inaugurations).

Hell of a start Mr President, but then again Beyonce, Jay-Z, Ashton, Demi and all those other real American heros are so much more deserving of your time.

I Pledge

Does this quote actually scare anyone besides me:

I pledge to be a servant to our president

It almost sounds like some kind of cult ... but thats so silly. After all, arent liberals part of the reality based community?

The Pop Culture Presidency

2 years ago no one would have predicted that we would be where we are at today saying: President Barak Obama. Obama ran a fantastic campaign, no doubt about it, but it was his ability to harness, cultivate and manipulate popular culture that gave him the win. With every pop culture megaphone blaring at 11 in everyone’s ear about Obama and his greatness his election was almost guaranteed.

Jay-Z and Maureen Dowd are just two sides of the same pop culture coin, and both were harnessed by the Obama machine.

Pop culture has come to encompass nearly every form of information around us. The nightly news, television shows, movies, music, magazines, the internet, advertizing etcetera and it is decidedly and uniformly hostile to anyone right of center. We do have talk radio but the Generation II Fairness Doctrine will take care of that.

Unfortunately over the past 40 years journalism has fallen into the pop culture net as well. Journalism is no longer done at places like the CNN and the NY Times. If I want to read about what’s going on in energy I go to NEI Nuclear Notes, If I want to know the real story on Iraq I read Michael Yon (or one of the dozens of fine military blogs). Mainstream media has just turned into another channel for the glitterati and literati to let the world know how fucking important they are and how we must be dying to hear them. Sure, I might turn into CNN if I give a fuck about how much it cost Puffy to fill up his Gulfstream V and the Times is pretty good if I want to read a character assassination piece on Cindy McCain, but that’s about it.

Just as pop culture had the ability to propel Obama to a victory, it also had the ability destroy the obstacles that stood in his way.

Remember in late August when McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate? He went from being 8-10 points behind to being competitive in fuckin New Jersey for Christ’s sake! Well naturally the pop culture machine behind Obama couldn’t have that so they sent their pit bulls out and tear he to pieces they did. Tina Fey and Katie Couirc may have been two of the most effective tools in Obama’ arsenal.

And why soviet style agitprop theme in all of Obama’s campaign art? Because its so fucking brilliantly effective and simple! Think about it, the October Revolution and its genocidal progeny was able to control an entire nation of tens of millions for 70 years.

We will probably never have this control over pop culture and whatever inroads we make will take at least a generation.

There are bright spots. The American public has roundly rejected every ham handed anit-war movie that Hollywood has cranked out of the past 6 years.

Andrew Brietbart’s Big Hollywood could turn into something huge in the pop-culture wars and I would make sure to visit it every day, patronize its advertisers, comment on its stories and support it.

Even though the odds are pretty well stacked against us and people are bombarded with this shit 24/7, America remains a fairly conservative country and that gives me a lot of hope as well.

I’m rooting for America, not the coach

I am sure most of you have seen the video with Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and a whole gaggle of ignorant glitterati power sluts pledging to “do what’s best for America now that the our Dear Leader has been ordained”.

If you haven’t seen it, go Google it because I won’t even link to such fucking garbage.

Quite frankly it made me sick, but it illustrates the single biggest difference between us and them and no one put it better than Ed Morrissey

Best of luck, President Obama. My prayers are with you, for support and wisdom as you assume the burden of this office and lead our country. When you fail to provide that leadership or demonstrate wisdom, though, don’t expect me to be silent. I’m rooting for America, not the coach.

We will see how the next few months shake out. Hope for the best and expect the worst is about all I can do.

File This Under "No Shit"

From Howard Kurtz:

Every inauguration is a major media moment, with nonstop television coverage, newspapers churning out special editions and correspondents parachuting in from around the globe. But it is hard to envision this level of intensity if John McCain were taking the oath of office. All the hoopla has left the impression that many in journalism are thrilled by Obama's swearing-in.

Gee, you think?

My Tribute to the Inaguration

Given the historic nature of the Inauguration and in the spirit of this sacred day, I present to you a tribute to our new leader.

And I finaly got it to work from YouTube



Enjoy