Slate: Cruz & Rubio called each other soft on illegals, and they're both wrong

Another day, another commentator gets border control and ILLEGAL immigration wrong.

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio both got immigration facts wrong. 

[C]onservative Hispanic leaders met with Cruz’s campaign chairman on Monday to raise precisely this point with him. They were concerned that he was “perhaps worse” than Trump on immigrationafter Cruz’s campaign expressed to them that he believes in "attrition through enforcement”—the idea that if life is miserable enough for immigrants, this will act as a deterrent to other potential immigrants, thus solving the immigration crisis in one easy, inhumane step. This is also known as Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” immigration position that cost him the Latino vote in 2012, and thus, many argue, the presidency.... 

Cruz and Rubio are the only two Latino candidates on both sides of the race. They are both of Cuban immigrant parents. And neither of them have strayed far from the Republican Party’s hard line against immigration, a fact Latino groups have duly taken note of, calling them “traitors” and “sellouts.” But the truth is that even though Cruz’s claims about Rubio were wrong, and even though Latino groups are angry at them both, Rubio is slightly softer—or as I like to call it, slightly more humane—on immigration. Offering some kind of path to citizenship, however narrow, is something Rubio should be proud of, not trying to hide.

Or, as honest people call that, "ILLEGAL immigration." Something that I understand no other country tolerates as much as the U.S. That needs to change. We export plenty of money, missions and other support to lesser developed countries to be required to foster an underclass of uneducated, non-American, non-English-speaking in this country. We are babysitter, foster parent and guardian of other countries as it is.

So, another self-appointed expert on immigration conflates legally entering the United States with the continuing problem of ILLEGAL immigration. Illegal immigration, as in, entering the United States in a fashion that flouts every law regarding immigration, and continuing to evade legal habits while in the country, such as stealing Social Security numbers and utilizing government clinics and other programs meant for destitute and poor citizens and -- should be -- legal visitors to this country. LEGAL immigration is an ENTIRELY different matter. It's taking the legal route to being in the country.

Here's a few facts that this expert, like too many on every side of the debate, forget to include:
First, it is NOT the fault of the illegal immigrants that they are here; it is the fault of our government and political leaders on both sides. Taking a hard line against illegals as people is crude, but as both Rubio and Cruz accept (just ask them), a hard line against ignoring our own laws by the system itself is an honorable thing to do. We -- U.S. citizens, legal immigrants, descendants of immigrants, or Native American -- cannot blame illegals for their being here. We should not make them a target of our rancor, because that is not going to solve the problem. It is our failure as a nation to enforce our laws that have permitted illegals to remain, and it is through the encouragement of businesses that exploit the very cheap labor many of them provide, and Democrat politicians and bureaucrats who use them to draw Hispanic/Latino voters that are to blame. The illegals are overwhelmingly trying to cheat the system to have some sort of better life. There are the gangsters and the problem of "sanctuary cities" that blindly protect illegals, no matter their criminal tendencies that are nothing I sympathize with.
Second, is this idea -- it seems the Slate writer holds it -- that most illegals would want to be American citizens if given the chance. I don't know who exactly that would be, but I do not think it is the low-wage workers from Guatemala or Mexico. I think you will discover that, for the most part, they just want to work here and earn money for their families (here and in their homeland). Many do not have any interest in becoming Americans. I suggest we figure out if they are interested in citizenship or not. Because it is a false and distracting argument promoted by left-leaning activists and shills for Democratic Party campaigns that all these illegals crossing our southern borders are coming here to become citizens eventually. I think that is only likely among a small percentage of them, and a small percentage of those who overstay their student or work visas. They might want to continue to work here, but they want to be expats, not citizens.


 - jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Obama: 'this kind of mass violence does not happen' in other countries

Obama was once again vacant of actionable, realistic ideas, but big on ideological, statist and big government, nanny state vision for safety, in his comments after the Charleston AME church murders by a lone 21-year-old with a gifted handgun.

"We do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun," Obama said at the White House. "At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency. It is in our power to do something about it."

Other advanced countries rely on us and our stellar economy, military and international influence to keep them safe, strong and bustling right along with us. The idea of individual liberty is lacking in those places as well. So, as usual, the unimaginative POTUS says the wrong thing at the wrong time. He might have said something about mental health, taking responsibility for one's family members, and using SENSE when gifting guns. Instead, he promoted a losing battle against the NRA and responsible gun owners of the US, by batching them in with lone homicidal nut jobs.

If this Root fellow didn't have a gun, he could have built a bomb. Or used a knife. Or STOLEN a gun and used that. Or a baseball bat. Or a bow and arrow. Since the gun was a gift, he might have been exactly the wrong kind of person to be gifted a gun. It is obvious now, but maybe it was not so obvious always.

No matter, blaming guns for violence, and not looking to determinants of violence such as mental problems, is a crass way to address a problem in a free country. Blaming the inherently anti-tyrant amendment to the Constitution for mass murder is not the way to prove you are in favor of liberty. Suggesting that America is failing its people because the government cannot refuse gun ownership to whomever it chooses is NOT American. Obama is a wannabe post-America leader. The America he knows only existing since about his birth date. It appears that he simply does not believe in the Constitution, this being another example of that. He is all about government control, about elites reigning over useful idiots and a weak opposition. Government control is the progressive answer to all problems. Obama is not really a Democrat, he is a statist progressive.

Obama: 'Senseless murders' in church shooting - CNNPolitics.com

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

LEFTIST RACISTS: Herman Cain, America were violated by stereotyping

The lies about criminal behavior of HERMAN CAIN hurt him, and America, in 2011, in the 2012 election cycle. This educated guy, this business leader, this free thinker, this open book, this conservative American, is owed more than an apology (which has yet to be given) from the attention-craving Gloria Allred and the two lying women who made headlines claiming that Cain sexually harassed them (link: http://ow.ly/qF0QX).

Americans are owed better than this lowest of political tactics in the age of social media and in-the-moment news reporting. If leading Democrats had any lack of cynicism among them, they'd have discouraged the effect of these unfounded claims during the campaign. I know some pundits on either side were frustrated by this bad showing, but I heard not a leader among Democrats say a thing against it certainly not the first black in the White House.

This was, in a way, the tale of two black men: the Conservative Black Man and the Liberal Black Man. It allows a comparison of the behavior of media and the supposed spokespeople for black people -- Democrats and black "liberal" pundits. The way they treat Cain, and other non-leftist thinkers such as Ben Carson, Allen West, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, is not compatible with their pandering habits toward blacks and other "special label" groups (minorities of whatever kind) in general. Yet, they give extra room to Barack Obama and ninnies such as former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin (with a federal indictment on corruption charges and soon to be in court for it) and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (convicted to 26 years for his office's bribery practices). Democrats and most of the mainstream media looked the other way in the midst of corruption by these last two fellows, until the story was essentially over.

Ruining the campaign of Herman Cain bolstered the left's authority and dominion over blacks in America. The great majority of our black community, it seems, were fine with it, too. Or, they simply didn't speak out against it. Too many are too happy to resent those who have known success to the extent of cheering even unreasonable attacks on the successful, black or not. Sadly, that's another thing that the rhetoric of the Democrats feeds.

Today's "liberals" (modern American leftists, really, sparsely liberals in any true sense) need some of those who are successful on their side, but can only win elections, as I see it, by pandering to the less-informed unsuccessful with promises of... ease without effort. The rhetoric of Barack Obama, especially during 2008 and since his presidency, have only made this cynical tactic of the Democrats more familiar. Not less. Not less, as Obama pledged the divisiveness would be. (He pledged a lot of things that proved to be nothing, didn't he?)

The minority pandering, low-information voter wholesaling, diversity rejecting (they accept diversity only on their terms, after all), status quo adoring, big government, control-addicted Democrats and their media pledges want to keep minority conservatives down, and that hurts America.

Their habit to passionately reject traditionalist, Constitutionalist, limited government, conservative thinkers, and especially those who think this way who are not old white men, hurt America's ability to get beyond the wrongs of racism and social and economic ruts that plague groups of people, black or not. Democrats claim to be the party of caring. Yet they have been proven to be the party of lies, spying, control, monetary abuse, budgetary disregard, growth in bureaucracy, and intolerance toward individualism.

Democrats and others of such thinking are, intentionally or not, pigeonholing people in certain special groups - race, sexuality, sex, regions, etc. - into easy stereotypes that suit them. In an official way. Everyone deserves the sense of liberty that America was founded upon. That's inconvenient for relativist leftists.

They are convinced it is their duty, as folks such as Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Al Sharpton, prove again and again, to be the spokespeople for these groups, to take from others and give to those groups, to coddle them for the sake of the great statist plan. That's not American. That's utopian. It's absurd. It's anti-American.

Black conservatives have for a long time felt they needed to be quiet because Borg-like neighbors who are long entrenched in the pandering, Democratic race machine would think they were betraying race for their affinity for traditional American ideals. So much misinformation about conservatism persists that it's as if being a conservative was equivalent to being a slave salesman in Africa in the 1700s.

Modern Democrats, this current, bureaucracy-loving, conceited, elitist leadership of theirs, seek a  wholesale plan to buy votes to take more and more liberties away from Americans in the name of helping everyone reach an equal playing field, with welfare politics, driving the poor to their side in a cynical effort to hold power by mob, rather than by principle or love of the citizen and the individual. They love the idea of the state being the leader of society in every way, it seems, not the servant of a free people.

People like Herman Cain certainly get in the way of that.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Very American, Tea Party Republicans

This 2013 shutdown showdown is like a Charles Dickens story, except in this story the thing that represents the controlling, mean old man is the protagonist, not the outnumbered, mocked and chastised orphan

MORE FAKE BLAME: It's almost entirely the Republicans' fault we have political discord and federal economic problems. Oh yeah?
Aside from the helping-nothing partisan bias and rampant mass media affection for sloppy budgeting, the tragically disinterested and ignorant (the nanny state lovers among which the Democrats are fully invested in pandering to), and the feckless "I wanna be on the smooth talkers' side" fanboy-ism among otherwise seemingly healthy population, there's this:

Obama called GW Bush's efforts to lift the debt limit "un-American" in a lengthy lecture about how terrible it is back when he was a senator and our fiscal situation was far less dire -- thanks to the Bush and Obama agendas, however, it is worse.

But Obama has seen to it that it got much more worse, while he and the Democrats had all the cards. In Jacksonville, Fla., recently, as Sunshine State News spelled out, "Obama boasted of 'halving the deficit.' That means every year [of his administration] the government has spent FAR MORE than it took in but now the OVERspending has diminished yet STILL IS MUCH HIGHER than the highest deficit that occurred under [GW Bush]. That's his (OBAMA'S) measure of success?"

Uh, yes it is? 

What else is there to brag about, but backing out of Iraq (leaving a mess: how very hopey changey and caring that was, Mr. President) and killing bin Laden (ooo, no other president would have signed off on that, what a big man)? What else: ObamaCare? That isn't a success and probably won't be, because the very propaganda about it deceives everyone and the nearly all the mass media IGNORES THE GORILLAS PANTING IN THE CORNERS.

One example: the WH and nearly every story I stumbled across does not mention -- and certainly aren't doing it clearly, if they do -- that the deductibles under Obamacare's "low-cost" health coverage plans are ENORMOUS. Like, around $3500 or $6000 per year, to start. So, are we just wanting to have the poor to pretend they have insurance that means something, like the poor were allowed to pretend they could afford to buy a house under a horrendous 1990s federal mortgage program?

The unseemly propaganda machine behind ObamaCare seems to me to be simply a multilayered, purposefully confusing pressure sales effort to badger anyone who's breathing, a citizen, and not insured (or insured and looking) into getting this subsidized insurance. As if those who use ERs for general medical care will no longer do so, just like that, in a matter of years. Problem solved.

Nope. Still going to happen.

We need to change the system, and Obama deserves respect for being idealistic enough to put health care reform out front back in 2008-09. But too much about ObamaCare is just bureaucratic and regulatory carpet-bombing of the medical industries, hurting professionals, certain types of jobs, various providers, small businesses, and even the economy as a whole. Health care is often claimed to be 1/7 to 1/5 of the entire economy.

Yet, Obama and the Democrats REFUSE to consider adjustments to that one-party law -- no Republican voted for ObamaCare. The Democrats are casting outrageous names and phrases against those who have refused to accept no for an answer from the White House, regarding fiscal compromise. That is the White House and Democratic leaders compromising? How so, exactly??!

ObamaCare's estimated costs have risen so fast, and it's tie-in with the growth of the IRS (what's the IRS got to do with health care otherwise, for crying out loud?) is so ominous, that it seems obvious that it is more a government growth plan than a help to citizens. It will mostly build federal and state bureaucracies and burden a chunk of medical industries and not really "save money" for government or industry, or help poor and uninsured people. Why is this OK with people? Lack of awareness? Is it the desire to adore the U.S. President, no matter what? Is it a blind belief it will help the poor?

Don't discard all that is ObamaCare, but work it into something... less pro-government.

But maybe too many Americans are no longer in favor of America. A recent poll showed that the huge majority of people in the U.S. think government is supposed to control the people. Guess what: America was founded on the idea that government isn't supposed to do that. Ever heard of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Look it up if you haven't. Government is supposed to be servant, not master, in America. Kinda the reason why we busted Britain's chops in the 1700s -- too much elitism in government. 

There's no reason to stop piling regulations onto private industry if the public and the industries don't push back. So, who's pushing back?

In the case of ObamaCare, it looks like it's primarily some House Republicans who are treated like the unwanted stepchildren of a miserable dysfunctional home, by the crusty, nanny-state bureaucrats they are acting out against. This 2013 shutdown showdown is like a Charles Dickens story, except in this story the thing that represents the controlling, mean old man is the protagonist, not the outnumbered, mocked and chastised orphan.

Tea Party Republicans are traditionalists, not radicals, not extremists, except by contrast to the sad state of politics in America today. Their views are simple: limited government, less taxes, and fiscal responsibility. In other words, more freedom for the people, not for the government to control the people. That's radical? I would think desiring MORE government would be the extremist leaning in America. 

If there were something big worth celebrating out of the Obama White House, why would the Democrats' top echelon of leaders -- for starters, Obama, Reid and Pelosi -- be tossing around half-arguments, practice in so much schoolyard name-calling and peddle in such outright untruthful propaganda about Obamacare, the shutdown and the fiscal realities of today?

Name-calling, you ask? Yes, name-calling. How about the terms "anarchists" and "extremists", and the phrases "taking hostages" and "gun to the head"? It that meant literally? Of course not. Is it still absurd to use? Yes, it is. Apparently, Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson (of "just die, and die quickly" ObamaCare rhetorical infamy from his first Congressional term) has opened a school for crazy-talk. Or is it Ed Schultz? Maybe Reverend Wright?

If you don't think that these fringe-worthy phrases from the heart of the Democrats are desperation, then you should just return to your previous state of apathy, distraction and unawareness, because you're just not paying attention. How about "Jihad"? A Democratic congressman (who I won't name because I never heard of him before and hope I don't hear of him again) called Tea Party Republican actions to fight stubborn Obama with equal stubbornness a jihad against ObamaCare. At least he said  an intangible not that it was a jihad against people -- the congressman was more civil than Obama, Reid and Pelosi, as a result.

People elected Obama because they wanted change. But it seems they didn't want healthy change, just more of the nanny state, irresponsible spending, un-American (as Obama himself put it years ago) deficit spending that will turn America into the next has-been world power in another generation or two.

Let Obama be the one to blink for a change. Force him to bend for a change. Instead of claiming he's trying to compromise in silly, baseless sound bites, actually have Obama sit at the table to really, truly compromise, in the spirit of Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and other less rabid political dogs. Obama's easily agitated ego won't allow him to do this without a full-force, duck-and-cover excuse to cover him, but that will at least be fun to watch.

Seeing Obama be a tad fiscally conservative will be a lot more fun than seeing the political orphans in the House GOP get beat up and kicked to the street by their less principled party members and Democrats.

Let the insanity continue, and pray that each sides relents a bit so our fiscal mess won't become even worse. Go on, play chicken with the debt limit, use fiscal conservatism to push some of the left's buttons. Let Obama think about being the president under whom America failed to pay its bills, if he so chooses. Because it won't matter who we blame today. He'll be remembered for it. Let the most stubborn one, Obama, be forced to bend to some of what the political minority in the federal government wants. Other, less cynical and shrill presidents have done so. No reason to Obama should win every time in his chosen game of highly cynical political tactics where tax dollars are concerned.

This country was designed the way it was so that a simple majority rule is weakened by the lesser force of minority opinions. That's part of how the Founders assured that a monarchy would never take hold so long as we didn't reject the essence of the Constitution. America is not designed from a true majority rule concept -- which is often, in effect, mob rule -- as partisan Democrats so often insist. This is a checks and balances design with an ear for the minority, no matter who's in charge.

Like it or not, the POLITICAL MINORITY in this country's federal government isn't the black president, but the Republicans. The GOP ought to get the same regard of any minority. Funny how all the liberals' talk of pandering to minorities disappears when it comes to political choices while they are the majority. Suddenly, the minority is petulant, radical, extreme and threatening to the country. 

A small group of Republicans, the Tea Party Republicans, are trying to make the proven self-absorbed, egotistical cynic in the White House blink. If it doesn't actually reach the point of being honestly dangerous to the country (read: legitimately extremist, not bullshit political name-calling extremist), it isn't to destroy the country, it's trying to make a principled, reasonable minority voice heard amidst a din of pro-government misdirection and hysterical rhetoric.

That is very American.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

ObamaCare: best of intentions, awful law, let's make that awfully clear

Patience is a virtue. For government, patients would be a gold mine. 

Via someone I follow on Twitter (and stupidly forgot who it was), I found this essential guide to the health care law.

(Revised Sep 26, 2013) What else do you need to know but how many initial claims about ObamaCare have been proven WRONG? With the best of intentions (or not, if you're totally skeptical about them), Democrats took a terrible approach to reform the United States' health system, in the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. Intentions aren't worth a damn if you ignore everyone affected by a law. The supporters of ACA all but ignored whole groups of people affected by the law, including: independent professionals, medical professionals and other small business owners, and many employees. It's one thing to try and help the needy, or to try and give the poor better health care, but it's another to spit in the face of those who would, effectively, pay for it. It is not good to effectively hurt employees through the resulting cuts in hours. ACA, like other government medical reimbursement plans, ignores the legitimate work of medical professionals, who will do the services, as they would get bargain basement returns from government plans that appear to be not at all interested in reasonable compensation for services rendered. 

ObamaCare is not a bible for a health care cure, it is a bible for centralized medical decision-making, whether by intent or not. Solzhenitsyn wrote of the failures of large-scale centralized health care in the former superpower, the Soviet Union, and while ACA is only a step in the same direction, Obama is on record as supporting a "one-payer" health care system (which means government health care for all). 

The U.S. government started out in the spirit of doing exactly the opposite of what ObamaCare wants. The American Experiment is going in reverse, thanks to ObamaCare (it is in addition to the impacts of Homeland Security measures and other big government expansions of recent years). 

The Democrats appear to have been quite wrong about ObamaCare. Or, cynically, they were intentionally misleading us about what was in it. Yet they are still convinced, or at least trying to convince us, that this gigantic addition to the cost of government and health care is a good thing for the country. How? I don't know. I can't see anything that's good about it any longer. The good intention to fix the system no longer exists in the enforcement. It is not fixing the system, it is making it worse, it seems to me. 

I applauded Obama for bringing health reform to the forefront of national discussion in 2008-09. To broach the subject was laudable, but it was only a start. Yes, the intent to fix health care was noble. But the approach? It was not just bad, but to me it was, and is, disturbing. It is the way Democrats handled it from the beginning, all but cutting out Republicans and others (maybe they included socialists and the Green Party), and the resulting law, that has been calamitous. Three years later it is being trashed by some once-convinced Democrats, leaders of unions and businesses. 

In light of national spending negotiations (Sept. 2013), ObamaCare is being defended, breathlessly, by Obama and some other Democratic politicians and sycophantic pundits, as if it's the only thing that'll assure a decent life for millions. Alternately, they claim that the (pick your cowardly labels given by leftists:) racist, poor-hating, greedy, selfish, angry, ignorant, dumb redneck conservatives are trying to destroy the country by way of refusing to fund ObamaCare. 

Democrats are accusing GOP House of trying to close government, of ruining the country out of political greed, by defunding the Affordable (not) Care Act. The House is not preventing the funding of anything else, really, but yet the supposedly (self-appointed) "more reasonable" White House and Democrats are accusing House Republicans of horrible political maneuverings. The political selfishness seems truly to be driven, hard, from the left. The far left. The few remaining supporters of ObamaCare on the left. 

Meanwhile, even some union leaders, and many employers, rail about how it'll hurt families, because it'll hurt jobs. That, because it will force companies to make cuts to retain their profitability (which doesn't matter to liberals, because many are too dumb to realize that profits should even matter at all to regular Americans). 

The briefly all-controlling Democrats -- in early 2010 having the WH, Senate and House they barely passed ACA -- cannot today force us all to follow their bidding. So, the most power-drunk among the Democrats still turn to absurd, desperate rhetoric defending a tragically, pro-socialist, anti-liberty law that would force most employers and employees and the medical industries into a corner, in the long run. They fight for ACA out of ego, not leadership: it is they who will lose if ACA loses funding, therefore loses its place in government. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, and more, will all be seen, by more people, as failed leaders when it fails. So as Obama said recently, the argument isn't about the American people. He's leaving one of his biggest concerns out of his discussion of the matter, though. Who's name is on the bill, and who is okay with that? Obama. He is desperate to have a legacy, and Obamacare may be his only big domestic "success." The argument from his side is about retaining greater government control over health care, not about saving the middle class, as he claims it is. His goals may seem to be about American people, but if so, it is a very different America where the government rules with a bureaucratic supremacy. Some citizens foolishly support that. But with such a foolishness, the American Experiment is dying. Liberty is fading. The control of government over greater parts of everyone's lives is succeeding. That's not the America that a freedom pursuing populating wants. So I have to conclude that too many Americans have been lulled into believing government is the solution to their problems. Which, of course, is a pathetic fantasy. But when such fantasies are believed, even partially, we see government expanding its control. People are dreaming that government is a caretaker. I am not asleep with that dream, nor are many others. It's a tough effort to wake others to it. Gotta keep at it.

What else do you need to know but how many initial claims have been proven WRONG? There were the best of intentions, but a terrible approach, in ObamaCare. And the promises have been proven to be a lie. I don't see why it should be funded, and I don't see a reason to even recognize the ridiculous language from the chief architects (and posers) behind ObamaCare. They've lost the war of reason, because all their claims are shown to be lies. Don't fund the damned thing!


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

While polls find King's 'Dream' is elusive, so are commonsense attitudes about racism

Check out this quote from a recent Pew Research finding on race in America (under the heading King's Dream Remains an Elusive Goal... ). I make a few points in reaction to it, and the circular problem of misusing racism in today's America: 

Incarceration. Black men were more than six times as likely as white men in 2010 to be incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and local jails, the last year complete data are available. That is an increase from 1960, when black men were five times as likely as whites to be incarcerated.

SIX TIMES as likely?! Some want to call that racism. They are FOOLS of the highest order. Or, sad, piteous, willing victims of narrow-minded suspicions.

The disparity of prison time for whites versus blacks is about as much to do with race bias as someone being overweight has to do with food being advertised on TV. Not to mock actual racism, but those blame, the victimhood, and the paranoia that surrounds so much allegations of racism. That is: one's weight is about them, not food ads.

With criminal incarceration, it is about people being criminals, not some grand scheme to "keep them down." Racism exists, light and hard, but to run to it every time there's a philosophical or physical scuffle is a cycle of failure. That's not to minimize the matter, when facts prove racism had a hand in some event, but unreasonable aspersions ought not to be batched in with actual racist activities. Paranoia and habitual distrust isn't a reliable source for social change.

Committing crime and going to prison is a problem that cannot be solved through blame, racial or otherwise, but through improving one's plight. That's not easy, or simple, when one is steeped in a culture of victimhood, self-pity, misleading heroes, and a habit of blaming others for your problems. Changing the response of those who cry victim when it's not the case is what will change such a disparity as this prison one, not crazed claims of rampant racism in the courts.

Such lashing out is a cycle of failure, whether it is about racism or any other suspicion of being wronged. There is an understandable lingering sense of betrayal, frustration and anger in impoverished or dysfunctional communities, but that does not prove systemic racism.

How can getting jailed for committing a crime be racist, certainly to such an overwhelming degree, without it being proven as more than a mere suspicion? These claims amount to claims of having seen Bigfoot, though. Sometimes there is racial problems, but often, it's something else. You cannot call someone a racist for jailing a black criminal -- unless they let white criminals go SIX TIMES for every black criminal, for the same crime. Is this happening? Where's the exposés on that today?

Are we to all damn our lying eyes with regard to race and racial biases, or racial hypocrisy? I hope we can recover MLK's dream, but it won't be easy while people insist on pointing the finger, like stabbing their sword at imaginary dragons.

Let freedom ring, indeed. And let REASON reign! 

• See the findings and comments by Pew Research:  King's Dream Remains an Elusive Goal 

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Abortion Horror: Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Major News Story

The Atlantic (where I read pieces of an article, linked below), USA Today (commentary, linked below), National Journal, for examples, and much of the conservative media are addressing the story of the Phillie mad doctor who essentially killed babies if they didn't die during late -term abortions. Not only that, he allegedly killed patients getting abortions, too.

While most conservatives are known as against abortion, certainly against abortion as a form of birth control, this story of Dr. Kermit Gosnell has little to do with the eerie media blackout on this horrid tale: this story goes beyond the abortion issue. Far beyond.

Web-only media are reporting this horrific story, too. But while standard-bearers for the common man's news have no problem skewing news against conservatives and skewering conservative views even on pretty lame evidence sometimes, they ignore this story. Why?

What's wrong with "mainstream media"? They are cliquish, posing, sheep. But some folks deep in the media business are noticing and worrying about it.

Conor Friedersdorf wrote a long piece about it, that I stumbled across, for The Atlantic and National Journal. I cannot stand to read the great detail he goes into. It stirs me into an internal rage while skimming what he's presented. But I found the following, well into the long article, and thought it suited sharing because I think it locks in my feelings about this story and the media's failure with it:

Says Kirsten Powers in her USA Today op-ed, "Let me state the obvious. This should be front page news. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, there was non-stop media hysteria. The venerable NBC Nightly News' Brian Williams intoned, 'A firestorm of outrage from women after a crude tirade from Rush Limbaugh,' as he teased a segment on the brouhaha. Yet, accusations of babies having their heads severed -- a major human rights story if there ever was one -- doesn't make the cut."

Well done, non-sheep media folks.

The rest of the half-blind leftist media can try to bring this horrific manner with which to control population and subvert sexual irresponsibility with an awful act of depravity, but they have already proven -- added another sample into the list -- that they are not reporting relevant news, but trying to lead society to a direction that suits them, the liberal, poorly engaged, weakly objective media elite.

Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Major News Story - Yahoo! News

Also see Powers' piece, subtitled "We've forgotten what belongs on Page One."


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Independence is not a thing you can enforce

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY. Note: You cannot enforce liberty. 

The Founding Fathers, in the 1700s, understood the dire risks of pursuing liberty, and did not do so by enforcing some imagined (utopian) equality (see a Spearhead piece on equality), but by carefully separating themselves from an autocratic leader, by realizing and establishing not just a new government, but essentially a new form of government. That's a big deal. I think too many take it for granted, or only give it some general lip service today. The patriots of that age wanted to allow citizens who were law-abiding proceed in their lives, not be pinched at every turn of luck or at every respectable success.

The Founders' decision to leave the tyranny of Britain's King George was the promise of their ruin (Snopes.com), not knowing the outcome. They still took that chance. A calculated risk? Certainly. (What's the biggest risk of your life you've ever taken? Driving a car? Motocross? Bungie jumping? Or serving your country at a time of war? Saving someone from a burning building? Only the last two count.) Thanks to the Founding Fathers and many of their fellow patriots, the USA won its freedom, implausibly, from the most powerful sea and land force on the planet.

Look how far we've come, huh?

We can't say that today our leaders have the same thoughts that the Founders, or any patriots of the 1700s, had. We are a nation spoiled by our comforts, to the least engaged among us. The difference we can make is in recognizing those aspects of our lives that are spoiling us, and living beyond them.

The current Democratic chief in the White House (and by extension, those who surround him or share his ideas) has the notable trait of blaming others -- not a leadership trait. If you search for "Barack Obama blame" online, there are 58 million hits. That is the trait not of a true leader, but of an abuser, or a lowly wheeler-dealer, not a heroic and principled change agent. Of course, some of those are about average people seeing his lack of blame (Economist, unscientific poll), while others point out the irony of his claim and blame paradox (Economist article, June 2012). His rhetorical soundbites and longwinded speech-lectures too commonly amount to lies in the long run. See, just because you think something might be true doesn't excuse you when it is exactly wrong -- that's delusional. That's, apparently, a lot of Obama true believers in a nutshell. For instance, he pledged in 2009 that the ACA, or Obamacare, would help the needy and make costs go down for the middle class. Not happening.

Power grabs of one type or another have been too common since Sept. 11, sadly. Borne of concern for safety, they are obviously affecting freedoms, and it is far worse under Obama and the federal agencies under his umbrella than it had started out with under the equally security-over-liberty minded George Bush. The supposedly forward-thinking White House of 2013 is not an antidote to power over the people, but fully a part of that allegedly well-meaning, but nonetheless overbearing, attitude of enforcing fairness by playing favorites. This current condition is not in any way Americanism, it a whiff of totalitarianism.

In Texas, it seems that we've learned -- if one has no understanding of it for one's own -- that the support of abortion after 20 weeks is a right. Aborting a child after five months is a kind of liberty? For whom?! Unwilling mothers who are too dumb or delusional to decide to give up a child, in the worst way possible, before five months? Nationwide, we've seen the view that registering all legal guns is the only right thing to do, according to our president and those on the overbearing, nanny state, big government side of America. This is so, while letting arms slip into hands of known bands of killers to try and track the guns, and losing track of them (what the hell?!) is good for liberty. As well, while giving deadly arms to rogue activists akin to the Taliban, in this case, the Syrian rebels, is also acceptable. But. not entrusting Americans with their right to bear arms, a central tenet of the idea of liberty envisioned by our Founding Fathers. What liberty is Obama and the left in favor of? That which limits the rights of all in favor of coddling to the favored labels? How un-American have we gotten?

Slavery wasn't abolished by our founders and, out of context, that's shameful to me. In context, I realize that the civil war would have happened on the heels of the revolution, had that move been pushed. Still tragic, but to manage freedom from the King of England was a first step. The Founders were not perfect men. Obama is far from that himself, farther than they. That wrong does not translate well to the idea that the broad freedoms they envisioned in the 1700s were incorrect. Today, how is it that granting, to the government, more power over law-abiding citizens  somehow makes anyone more "free"? I think leaving aside slavery at the outset was a compromise, no matter how regrettable it was. We live in different times, but how dare people suggest that these times also call for a government that nannies us? That isn't liberty, that's comfort to the disinterested and lazy. We shouldn't be regarding independence as something administered by the government. Because it can only be taken from us by a government. We freed the slaves not by limiting their freedom, but by preventing their enslavement. There is a huge difference.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

Elite-led media resents a hero they don't understand: Ben Carson and the real world

Dr. Ben Carson dared to suggest that gay couples deserve to be treated equally, but to stop short of giving that the word "marriage." He mentioned NAMBLA and beastiality in the same sentence as gays, upsetting some folks. He apologized and clarified what he meant. More than once. On televison. But that's not good enough for the bigotos of the left, in this drippy, no-detractors echo chamber pep rally that is most of the mainstream media.

From the article, NBC News on Dr. Ben Carson: 'Blinded by the White', on Breitbart.com:

Carson ... said he was in favor of giving same-sex couples the same rights as married couples, short of marriage. 

NBC News obviously wants to destroy the threat of any independent-thinking black man as quickly as possible. So it should come as no surprise that, by the time Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart filled in for MSNBC's Martin Bashir, Carson's apology was treated as far from sufficient. In short, Capehart and his guests, Toure' and Krystal Ball, treated the apology as a lie.

This is all par for the course at NBC News.

Sadly, so is the chryron pictured above -- "Blinded by the White" --  which was used as the clip of Dr. Carson played during the segment.

NBC News is notorious for using this kind of race-baiting to further its left-wing agenda, including fraud

Indeed.

While it's easy to pass it off as a given that media is left-leaning, that's not enough to indict the media. And it doesn't have to be. 

The leaders of our media are part of the most insular, closed-quarter, often the most highfalutin, parts of this country and the world. If they aren't humble enough to recognize that, and if they don't instill such humility in writers (not opinion writers, journalists!) and demand that they work against their own biases, then these media leaders and their writers are part of the problem. As it happens, these leaders are dragging newbies panting and eager to please, every year, into that same highrise with a limited perspective. Arrogance begets arrogance. 
It encourages an ignorance of the great outside: the real world. The world in which Dr. Ben Carson grew up. 

There's NBC, The Washington Post (often, not decisively), TIME, Huffinton Post (madhouse filled with nut-job leftist commenters, to boot), GQ, CBS, CNN, etc., etc., all seeming to be trying to be the big man on the left. It's a tone deafness of those who live in certain quarters believing they have the answers for the whole. 

And they will treat those who aren't on their side not with curiosity or even cynicism, but snide disregard and putrid insults, like MSNBC treats Dr. Carson.  

They need some humility. 

- jR, aka AirFarceOne

Obama exposed himself as using Benghazi for politics in 2nd debate: 'Please proceed, Governor'

Obama was helped in setting up one of his best put-down speeches of the second debate, thanks to moderator Candy Crowley's chiming in when Obama refused to speak. This portion of a Washington Times Communities blog post by Henry D'Andrea makes the point I hope anyone can agree to, at least silently (liberals and Obamasexuals, maybe not):

"...an audience member asked the president, "We were sitting around talking about Libya, and we were reading and became aware of reports that the State Department refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the attacks that killed four Americans. Who was it that denied enhanced security and why?"

Obama gave a lengthy response which never addressed the question. During his rebuttal Romney said, “I think it’s interesting, the president just said something which is that the day after the attack, he went into the Rose Garden and said that this is was an act of terror?

"It was not a spontaneous demonstration; is that what you’re saying?” 

“Please proceed, governor,” Obama replied. 

Romney looked at him with consternation as the president didn’t say whether he called the Libya attack an act of terrorism on September 12. " 

-----

As we all have heard, moderator Candy Crowley stepped in and muddled things since Romney was trying to outline the facts and Obama refused to chime in as Romney was seeking confirmation. For me this action by the seasoned (thus someone who ought to have known better) CNN host was the most disappointing part of the debate, not considering omissions and a few obvious attempts to demonize Romney. The candidates had their low moments, but this involvement ruined the debate. People will, however, simply make of it what they wish, facts and order of events need not affect them. If they are of a certain stubborn mind to begin with. 

Importantly, you could extend Crowley's offense to Obama as well: He could have easily confirmed the order of things -- or just stuck with the spin, rather than voting present on it at that stage in the debate -- when given the chance by Romney. When Obama said, "Please proceed, Governor," I think it's clear that Obama was counting on a lead-in, from Romney, to what proved to be a prepared, over-the-top campaign cheap shot minutes later. 

Here's how: I believe Obama was hoping Romney was going to take more of a cheap shot at him on the Benghazi affair, or at least talk about it in a way that didn't include requesting a clarification from Obama. The President didn't get the lead-in he might have preferred, since Romney sought clarification from Obama of some of the what-where-when of the Benghazi attack. We heard a request for agreement by Romney, and Obama's "Please proceed, Governor." Yes, please proceed, without my confirming anything, because I have a great diatribe prepared once you're finished setting me up for it. 

Obama was interested in giving one of his prepared gotcha attacks, to take some heat off of himself. Since Obama is well informed about speaking -- much more informed than he is about economics, military matters, security, and the varied threats from Muslim extremists -- he fashioned the debate himself to get to his prepared outrage. It happened to be in part thanks to Crowley's feckless assistance.

Obama gave what I believe was a well-prepared rant about his being insulted by any suggestion that he or his Administration was lackadaisical about the deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three former military men. He used it, it just wasn't as perfectly set-up as it could have been, because Romney wasn't taking a cheap shot. There must have been some slight disappointment about Romney's taking a higher road in the Obama camp.

Watch the Benghazi attack portion from the second debate again, and consider Obama's chess game, holding the complete facts like cherished pieces and moving forward all of his self-protecting rhetorical pieces -- his pawns. Ironically, I should add, because he tried to refute any idea that he was making political hay of Benghazi, when it seems, no matter how he feels about it, that he has been doing exactly that, and in the debate did it once again. 

I think it's a clear effort to make a political game of the Benghazi event, using games to put his own failings on the back burner by trying to suggest his opponent is making it political, not he. 

This intentional, political gaming by Obama with the facts of Benghazi -- and his embarrassing handling of it -- is similar to a child claiming his little sister was at fault for his being grounded for a broken cookie jar because she pointed out to the parents that he had broken the jar. It's childish head games.

Obama had no humility regarding the Benghazi attack and his errors in handling that event while his fundraising trips were not taking a break. Obama was not interested in admitting the facts of his unseemly preference to campaigning over being the president. He went to a fundraiser in Las Vegas and onto TV shows in the attack's immediate aftermath. 

Fact is, Obama was not admitting to a direct challenge to the United States, treating it as an upswelling of a popular demonstration. For many days. He didn't want the Arab Spring to turn so cold. But it did. He's doing clean-up now, attempting to throw his shame on his political foe. How could the president ever be convinced that a shoulder-fired missile might have been part of a popular demonstration? Is there such a thing as a sudden, unplanned militant action? I don't think so. 

Obama is trying to make political hay of the Benghazi deaths. Romney has pointed out what was done wrong, if he is doing anything with this event. Mostly detached, guilt-ridden and fanatical masses are taking Obama's bait to attack Romney unreasonably for Benghazi, when they should be wondering why Obama kept avoiding the use of the word "terror" connected directly to the Benghazi attack.

Obama cares about our embassies and the Americans serving in them, I'd imagine, but he seems to be equally interested in using the event to his political advantage.

I wonder if the folks at that Las Vegas fund-raising event that followed the Benghazi attack felt like Obama cared about them? Or, at least, that he cared about their money? I think they should have felt honored by his desire for campaign cash. 

-----

Read more of the Wash. Times blog: Candy Crowley gets it wrong: Obama never called Benghazi a ‘terror attack’ in Rose Garden speech | http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conscience-conservative/2...
Follow them: @wtcommunities on Twitter

---

- jR @airfarceone on Twitter

Posted via email from Like, Totally Political Dude! - posterous

The Economic Asteroid Plan

The federal government failed to sort out a budget again, many months after the supposed due date, which was OCTOBER 2010. Just a little late now that it is April.

To budget or not to budget, that is the problem, it seems. It is way beyond WHEN.

I am already good and tired of the scare tactics by the leftists. They gave the same emotion-based proclamations over ObamaCare. Not surprisingly, these are the same "leaders" who in recents decades have always insisted on adding more and more government, Now they are insisting it will all be paid for with magic pixie dust or something. To the very brink, these folks had also insisted there was nothing wrong with certain federal financial programs, such as the CRA that allowed loans to the unemployed, and Fannie and Freddie, which were the nonsensical housing debt twins by the time 2008's economic fall happened. 

I'd like to see a real reason, not some emotion-charged twaddle that explains why a tightened budget shouldn't happen. Not just some 5% haircut that hurts education and the poor, but broad pay cuts (to put public employees on par with private!), nonessential program slimmings, defense project trimmings, etc. Barring that, how about a good reason -- emotion and threat-free -- why a shutdown should not happen, from leftists. 

Maybe I have it wrong, perhaps it is better to continue pretending that government is not too large and it is paid for, that the majority of citizens and our futures aren't getting a raw deal by the feds, that poor habits and waste are virtually gone from government, that loopy politicians and interest groups are not bent on further betraying the basic concepts of the republic. 

Yeah, it will aaaaall be OK so long as we keep putting off the tough trim-down. The US seems to be no longer the Eagle, instead the 500-lb man who refuses to see his doctor for a checkup. (You gonna eat that?) How very American and exceptional it is to pretend necessary decisions away! 

We can always hope an asteroid hits the planet and that solves the economic problems for us. Party till the planets bursts! 

jR

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Mike Moore on Assange rape, he and Keith Olbermann put it in quotes

O-blubber-man Suspends His Own Twitter Account

Julian Assange: the Wikileaks leader encourages a military member's crime, flaunts himself as a hero for freedom of speech, when he is more accurately an anarchist or an all-points agitator. And there's this:

Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold [one woman, Miss A,] down in a sexual manner." ... Here are the charges as reported by the UKPA:

The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.

The second charge alleged Assange "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used.

The third charge claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on August 18 "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity". The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on August 17 without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.

Since I cannot watch Olbermann and not shower afterward, via The Blaze, I learned that filmmaker -- and often crass, far left mouthpiece -- Mike Moore was an Assange apologist on Keith's show, for the rape charges. Olbermann was not against the view. He then suspends his own Twitter account due to people twee-ttacking him for agreeing with Moore.

This time Moore, and months earlier it was Whoopie Goldberg soft-talking the underage rape charges against the Polish Holocaust survivor turned director turned pervert turned cowardly runaway.

What's wrong with some allegedly intelligent, logical, rational, and talented lefty loons -- and others? -- excusing the act of rape?! I was getting tired of Goldberg's presence on "The View" long ago, but I've written her off as an unnecessary distraction since her "it's not rape-rape" comment. Clue?! And Moore, never-Moore -- not even on my Netflix cue any more.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/keith-olbermann-suspends-his-own-twitter-account/

- jR

Related articles

• Accusations Vs Assange Are "Rape-Rape"* (oliverwillis.com)
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A reason to be afraid of most Democrats in the House

Heath Shuler. Image via Wikipedia

If you needed a reason to be concered about the mindset of elected Democrats, you only need to look so far. The following suggests, perhaps, that the only way to snap the House Democrats -- the most so-called "liberal" among them, certainly -- out of their view that things are running just fine, thanks to them, is to replace them. At least, to bump out about 3/4 of them in 2012 (or 150 of them).

House Democrats Re-Elect Pelosi as Their Leader (via The Caucus, a NY Times blog)

Officials said that [Nancy] Pelosi defeated Representative Heath Shuler of North Carolina in an internal party vote, 150 to 43. Mr. Shuler acknowledged before the vote that he had no chance to win, but he wanted to give disgruntled Democrats a chance to register their opposition to Ms. Pelosi's leadership anyway.

...

Mr. Shuler, the former college quarterback who won his third term representing North Carolina's 11th District, publicly called on her not to run. After the vote, Mr. Shuler said the vote showed that concerns about Ms. Pelosi's leadership went beyond a few conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats.

"It came out pretty much as we expected," he told reporters, adding that "it wasn't about winning the race, but it was about having a voice within our caucus."

Ms. Pelosi became the first female Speaker after Democrats gained a majority in the House in 2006. She has been a prolific fundraiser, collecting more than $200 million for the party since joining the leadership in the House in 2002. 

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/house-democrats-re-elect-pelosi-as-their-leader/?partner=rss&emc=rss

I guess we'll see by this time next year whether or not it will be as regrettable to have John Boerner as Speaker as it has been a dippy rich chick from the ether of the snobby side of San Francisco.

- jR

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• Shuler, Pelosi relationship: It's complicated (politico.com)

The 'Worst Person in the World' guy is put on hold - msnbc.com

MSNBC Studios - Image via Wikipedia

KEITH OLBERMANN is suspended, indefinitely, for making campaign donations made in the fall: http://bit.ly/bR4A3g

Olbermann acknowledged the donations in a statement to Politico, saying he gave the maximum legal donation of $2,400 to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Tea Party standard-bearer Rand Paul.

Like most news organizations, NBC News, parent of msnbc TV, prohibits political contributions by its journalists without prior approval of the president. (Msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft, also has a policy against its journalists contributing to political campaigns.)

Ha! ... Ha ha! ...  Ahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa! 

Sorry, I'm still laughing at something I read earlier: I read that he is MSNBC's biggest (highest rated) star. Not sure if I'm more stunned by his continued status on MSNBC, or that the network suspended him despite that. I mean, it's not that he never has anything of note to say, but he's such a BABY! Who grew the nerves to act on this? I guess they had to, since Politico already published the facts.

I wonder if this is just a publicity stunt, in essence, and will be for a week? Or just a few days? 

I hope his hair can stand being out of the studio makeup (and hair) chair and fending for itself for a while.

- jR (AirFarceOne on Twitter)

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Vote: Stop raising taxes so we can start raising raises!

On Tuesday, November 2, 2010: VOTE for those who will:

STOP RAISING TAXES - SO WE CAN START RAISING RAISES. 

Or: STOP EXPANDING AMERICAN GOVERNMENT SO PEOPLE CAN AGAIN AIM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM!

Does this make sense? Yes, of course it does, except to those who are convinced that government is the solution to all or most problems. Ronald Reagan famously said: in "today's crisis," government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem. His actual quote has been streamlined to "Government is not the solution, it is the problem."

That quote has been turned, stunningly, on its head by spiteful, poorly educated (on politics and civic history) left-wingers. They even go so far as to suggest that somehow conservatives think the best government would be nearly no government. Or, so little government that the greedy, violent, criminal, depraved, and any ne'er do wells could ultimately be the insane running the asylum. 

Outside of a sense that the crazies are already running society, the turning of those words of Reagan, and the broad sentiment he conveyed, into something flatly "anti-government" is unproductive to the point of being cruel. 

Saying that a small government sentiment is "anti-government" is akin to saying that those who believe in watching what they eat actually would prefer not eating, and that both will allow you to safely get into better shape. It's not just playing with words, it's wacky. Animaniacs kind of wacky.

Vermont has a senator with this bizarre, seemingly all-or-nothing political rhetoric, by the name of Bernie Sanders. And MSNBC has at least one vocal comrade of Sanders, in Ed Schultz. Both are an embarrassment to anyone seeking a rational discussion on the size of government versus the scale of people's opportunities and liberties.

Excellence and progress comes from the private sector, from R&D and science, and from not bureaucrats, pork projects, and wildly imbalanced pension plans for gov't employees. Don't be fooled by pie-in-the-sky promises. The only reason gov't spending and size gets continually larger is because the ones with the purse strings forgot they work for people, not the other way around. Time to change that. 

Government is not the enemy of the people, but only until it proves to be the enemy. It is hurting us, but only some are truly outraged by it, most notably in recent years, the tea party movement. 

It's hard to live on what was not long ago a good income level, and there's no sign of improvement coming. Better to stop the march toward government dominance now than to weep for the extinction of the American Dream later. One by one it is happening, for a variety of reasons, high among them the high cost of living versus honest, usual incomes. Remember when most middle class families could survive on one full-time income? No? It used to be so. 

Now, and always, vote for the goal of smaller government and, thus, greater opportunity. The issues beyond the question of expanding government are indeed important, but they won't be your concern as a citizen if you're struggling to SUPPORT the government rather than CARING FOR yourself, your family, you business, and your community. It is getting harder every year for most people, and not only because of the recession. It's the trend going back decades, sadly.

It is time to stop raising taxes and to start allowing raises -- for those NOT working for Congress or on Wall Street -- to happen. It is through better family earnings that we get improved tax bases, not through larger and larger government. Doesn't that make honest sense to these so-called leaders?! 

Don't wait for their answers, give them yours on November 2. 

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)  

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TIME's Halperin: Obama 'clueless' about what to do now

White House lost in a crowd of trees. Image by HarshLight via Flickr

Everyone seems to be on the bash Obama wagon these days -- the bash the administration wagon, perhaps is more accurate. Is that why so many close and high-up advisers are leaving? Maybe yes, maybe no. The outcome of November 2, 2010, will tell us more. 

From one of TIME's political guys, Mark Halperin:
Why Obama Is Losing the Political War
Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle. 

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2024718,00.html#ixzz124TaOshl 

- jR - aka airfarceone, on Twitter

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Sen. Bernie Sanders says: hands off my beloved Social Security, you vicious, anti-government nuts!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) comments on what he sees as right-wing "hatred" of Soc Sec. Hatred of it is going a bit far, except maybe some far-flung kooks. 

Opinion: We can't allow deep benefit cuts, including a steep rise in the retirement age. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41628.html

Some of it (note: the links within it are mine):

"The White House deficit commission is reportedly considering deep benefit cuts for Social Security, including a steep rise in the retirement age. We cannot let that happen.

"The deficit and our $13 trillion national debt are serious problems that must be addressed. But we can -- and must -- address them without punishing America's workers, senior citizens, the disabled, widows and orphans.

"First, let's be clear: Despite all the right-wing rhetoric, Social Security is not going bankrupt. That's a lie!

"The truth is that the Social Security Trust Fund has run surpluses for the last quarter century. Today's $2.5 trillion cushion is projected to grow to $4 trillion in 2023. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, experts in this area, say Social Security will be able to pay every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary until 2039.

"Got that? In case you don't, let me repeat it. The people who have studied this issue most thoroughly and have no political bias report that Social Security will be able to pay out all benefits to every eligible beneficiary for the next 29 years.

"It is true that by 2039, if nothing is changed, Social Security will be able to pay out only about 80 percent of benefits. That is why it is important that Congress act soon to make sure Social Security is as strong in the future as it is today.

"The hatred of Social Security from the right-wing, anti-government crowd is based on the fact that the government program has been enormously successful in accomplishing its mission. For 75 years, in good times and bad, Social Security has provided financial security for tens of millions of Americans. ..."

(use link above to read the whole piece)


Disliking how Soc Sec's Trust Fund is borrowed from by a greedy government, and the balance of pay-ins versus pay-outs, is what is creating worries, as far as I'm aware. Pretty simple that is more money goes out than goes in, it's going to dry up! I don't recall hearing anyone suggest it was going to run out next year, but in 2039? The estimates have varied. Who said banish it? I think younger people just don't trust government with their retirement account.  

Sanders' crude calling of people "anti-government" leaves out a vital adjective. Anarchists and crooks are anti-government; right wingers who are neither of those are against a BIG, dominating, bossy, liberty-sucking federal government. They are not against government. 


Senator, Tea Party people, as far as I am aware and as far as I am informed, are merely against a massive, costly, too-powerful Big Brother government full of people who twist facts -- such as what they feel about Soc Sec. If that is not clear, senator, then you have a scant excuse for being a representative of any people. 

Senator, by the looks of this rant of yours, you are an agitator and extremist, not your right wing antagonists. Judging from the deviant language you used, in the opinion piece, about those who favor an affordable and liable government over a constantly growing, taxing beast, you're way off-center, to say the least. 


Your comments about Soc Sec history of success -- obvious stuff, isn't it? -- aside, your coloring of the right is juvenile, done with crayons, not informed nore sensible, as with fine art oil paint.

Shame, Vermont, for keeping this wacky man in power. He is way off-color.

- jR

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'Baby' Obama seems to prefer adulation over taking responsibility

Obama and Medvedev - Image via Wikipedia

When I was in fourth grade, what we called blamers -- kids who blamed everything on others, some inanimate object, their dog, or some private event -- were "babies," "sissies," or far more crass names. Some of us adults moved on from blaming others to distract attention from us or to keep ourselves from culpability. And some of us moved on from the juvenile thinking of the fourth grade.

With some amusement, but also in bemusement, I wonder: is President Obama caught in the juvenile fourth grade blame-game? He blames most problems under his responsibility, and his failures, on others. Who didn't know that Obama stepped into office in the midst of lots of problems? I suspect that the Obama camp is trying to get more than docile agreement from fans and liberals out of the blaming rhetoric, but I don't see how they could honestly expect anything but true-believer support. That they do this constant blaming, and that they seem to think it will serve them well, both mystify me. It's childish!

So should we call him "Baby" Barack Obama? I think that's hardly appropriate for the long-term, but for the sake of argument, let's try it on, see how it fits. (It's better than "Sissy" Obama.) The POTUS's, and others', blaming, of former Pres. G.W. Bush and the "failed policies" of the past -- in addition to BP, corporate customers of general aviation, banking CEOs, small town cops, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, conservatives, "tea baggers" (as he referred to Tea Party activists on at least one public occasion) and a host of others -- have increased the divide in the States. The blaming certainly has not reduced the nation's divide. That sourness, a plague on our political discourse, is further enhanced by the echoes from Obama's now-ironic vow to bring us together in a "post-partisan" age. Not at all arrogant, that presumption! (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

G.W. Bush was no champion of careful budgeting or small government, he is not a smooth talker nor the embodiment of a crafty personal narrative like Obama. But "W" had a crisp respect for his office, for people who saw things differently, and for his duties as POTUS and Commander-in-Chief. Not so sure how we fare, on those counts, with Obama.

Beyond the blaming, Obama seems as if he's working up to the point where he is actually being president. Some day. Oh, yeah, there's the speeches and the signing events, the political fundraising, and those arts evenings at the White House (haven't you watched them all on PBS, or been invited?). He is confident, he plays a great president for the cameras, he is a stubborn political presence, but where's the, uh, presidential-ness?

Those of us who willingly follow an historic track in the build to greatness of the United States of America can see what's wrong with Obama's blaming ways. The USA's greatness was affirmed with the victory of WW II and proven by the subsequent holding back of the godless, closed-off, aggressively expansionist, intimidating Soviet tyranny and our dominance as an economic engine. (That greatness has nothing to do with the dark spots, like Native American injustices, slavery, bias against Blacks in the "Old South," putting Japanese citizens in camps during WW II, or other travesties. Informed Americans take ownership of the mistakes, and the greatness, and don't gloat, at least not much. They know how great things are in the U.S., by comparison.)

The U.S.A. is supposed to be a country which is both rationally self-interested and respectfully world-aware. Being world-aware has nothing to do with genuflecting to others (physically, or figuratively through words or actions) while chastising this nation too much. Obama has even turned American-style civility on it's head, at times, with his "Apology Tour" and similar farces. He presumes that America needs a president who tells the world we've made mistakes. Who's in need of hearing that?! The people under the autocratic rule of Iran? Saudi Arabia? The anarchists in France, or Germany? Who needs to know we have made mistakes?! 

The ways of "Baby" Obama are failing America, at this point, in most Americans' opinions, thought only a slim majority of Americans currently agree (as of July 2010). With specific subjects, such as the economy, foreign affairs, etc., the margin grows much broader against him. I believe MORE Americans will see through the fog of Obama idolatry in time. Early November 2010 would be a nice point for people to have turned from fawning to comprehension, but 2012 will do. 

Obama's artful dodging -- of his primary job duties, when it comes down to it -- seems to be serving him just fine, in an ivory tower of power and protection. Or, it seems that he thinks it is serving him well. For someone who is all about telling the world, literally, that "America is arrogant" (look it up), he sure puts a face on that belief for many of us non-Democratic Party people. His arrogance and static confidence is strangely left widely unquestioned, as if it is granted, or as if he's given a pass for it. Is it reverse liberal political pandering, or is it political correctness because he's Black? I don't know, but I don't get it.

His actions tell a story of narcissism: lecturing fellow leaders, even on subjects for which he has no qualified experience, nor practical education, such as business or economics). His self-centered rhetoric is impossible to sit through without shaking my head: Remember when people were counting each time he said "I" in his speeches? His lack of ability to see the very broad reach of the office he holds, on so many occasions, and his clumsy results from selling his commonness to the average citizen, only emphasize his monarch-style overconfidence in his current and future greatness. He seems to think he's running a small community, maybe even a fancy camp site, not an economic, cultural and military giant. And he seems to think stale gestures to regular people make him respected by the even less naive among them, not as some academic with a chip on the shoulder.

We could use a smart, sincere, clever leader right now. We seem to have a lot of smart, clever, self-interested ones in charge, ones who have never run anything but campaigns (and that, only in name and reputation, as their campaigns are run by others who do those things for a living) and know how to spend but not budget other people's money. Obama is leading that amusing pack, as a man who takes his responsibility seriously, so long as he can blame everything on others. But that's not really accepting the role of POTUS, is it?

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
(updated & revised on Jul 22, 2010)

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