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Democrats in Denial About the Downgrade

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It has been said bad news does not get better over time.

I once knew a lady who discovered a lump in her breast, but ignored it until it had metastasized. She finally sought medical help when she reached the point that she could no longer ignore the pain. Initially, denial gave her a brief sense of security, but all the while, the cancer was spreading.

I could not help but notice an odd similarity this week while listening to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-FL, tell MSNBC that Obama and the Democrats have “really begun to turn the economy around.” With the exception of inside the Beltway, Americans are hurting. Cities and towns across this great country bear the scars of recession in one form or another, from abandoned homes to emptied offices and pot-holed roads.

Last week’s stock market nose dive, coupled with anemic unemployment numbers, were symptomatic of a sick economy screaming for a huge dose of old-fashioned American capitalism. Obviously in denial (or worse), the Obama administration did everything in its power to convince Americans that “there is nothing to see here, just move along.” It’s like watching my friend exhibit all the symptoms of cancer and all she wants to talk about is how good she feels.

And now with Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the country’s AAA credit rating, for the first time in United States history, it will be intriguing to see how the administration tries to spin this latest revelation.

Read More at Floyd Reports  By Susan Stamper Brown, Floyd Reports

Video: Barack Obama’s Peevish Voice

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In this LOL Video we see Obama speaking in his most peevish voice. Hollywood couldn’t capture it in greater color.

Bernanke, the Wizard Behind Obama’s Sham Economy

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On July 11, The Center for Vision & Values posted my article decrying the insulting name-calling directed toward Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. The very next day, Bernanke made me question my forbearance by telling Congress that a third round of “quantitative easing,” or “QE3,” could be a near-term option.

Now it’s my turn to call Bernanke a name, but I’ll use a clinical label, not a crude one. He is an inflationist, although he may prefer the label “anti-deflationist.” He so fears a deflationary spiral that he will create however many dollars he believes necessary to avert deflation.

Bernanke’s repeated attempts to patch over the nation’s economic weakness, rottenness, and dead wood with newly created dollars remind me of the “Potemkin village” ruse. The Soviet communists duped foreign visitors into thinking that communism was a viable and prosperous system by steering them to sham factories, stores, villages, etc., which appeared to be productive, bustling, and attractive. In reality, Potemkin villages were like movie sets, built to disguise the widespread poverty and backwardness that characterized life in the “workers’ paradise.”

Official statistics insist that the Great Recession ended two years ago. Yet unemployment is creeping up, record numbers of workers are remaining unemployed for record lengths of time, income is down for small proprietors, and millions of people feel as though the recession never ended.

It is proverbial that statistics lie. One such statistic is the gross domestic product. GDP has risen modestly the last two years, supposedly indicating growth rather than recession. Here is the flaw in GDP: By definition, GDP=C+I+G. In other words, GDP equals the sum of consumer spending, private investment, and government spending. (There is also a problematical addendum of net exports, reflecting the mystical mercantilist notion that a country is richer if foreigners obtain more goods and services than domestic residents do, but let’s omit that here.)

Read More at Floyd Reports By Mark W. Hendrickson, Floyd Reports

Rush Limbaugh- Obama Blames Others For Economy

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Rush reads six pages of headline of Obama blaming everyone else for the economy.

U.S. Credit Downgrade: Another Obama First!

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Three years ago, many well-meaning Americans suspended concerns about Barack Obama’s experience, judgment, and associations in order to vote for an “historic” president. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, they got one — good and hard. Friday night, for the first time in history, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+. The United States earned the top rating the moment such rankings began in 1917 — which means we maintained our AAA rating through the Great Depression, stagflation, malaise, and the 1982 recession. Thirty months of Barack Obama, and it is gone for the first time in history. Change we can believe in!

The retrogression is neither surprising nor is it the only “historic” first The One has perpetrated against the United States. Obama cajoled Congress for weeks that it had to pass a debt ceiling compromise by August 2 to avoid just this occasion. But as Rep. Tom McClintock, R-CA, pointed out, “The purported cuts, even if realized, are far below the $4 trillion deficit reduction that credit rating agencies have warned is necessary to preserve the Triple-A credit rating of the United States government.” S&P used precisely this language in its statement about downgrading the United States, saying the resultant cuts fall “short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.” It faults political gridlock and the lack of “containment” of entitlements. The same administration experts who insisted GOP sellouts on the debt compromise would stave off Friday’s downgrade also insisted passing a stimulus plan would hold unemployment below eight percent.

Even less surprising is the fact that the Obama administration actually believed its rhetoric could stop the inevitable. When Standard & Poor’s began hinting at its actions, anonymous officials began a whisper campaign that the agency’s math was off. Jake Tapper reported Friday evening, “Because of the pushback, the Obama administration is preparing for the downgrade but is not 100% positive it’s going to happen, officials said. And if the downgrade does happen, officials are not sure when it will happen.” S&P downgraded the U.S. hours later. Choosing talk over action has consequences, at home and abroad.

The consequences of his actions are unknown and foreboding. The new credit rating may cause inflated interest rates to trickle down to states and localities, or make all borrowing rates rise.

Economic growth would shrink the importance of the national debt — but such growth is not expected as long as Obama is president. Economists expert growth in debt, and its attendant economic disintegration, in the years to come. Under most estimates, debt would amount to 88 percent of GDP in ten years. S&P warns under its pessimistic scenario, debt will reach 101 percent of GDP in 2021. (AFP news service reported on Wednesday, that U.S. borrowing topped 100 percent of GDP.) Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute for International Economics testified before the House Budget Committee in March that growth begins to slow noticeably once debt crosses the 90 percent threshold. The European Central Bank suggested negative impacts begin at the 70-to-80 percent level. Even the adoption of the debt compromise spooked the stock market, causing a decline for nine out of the past ten sessions, a streak not seen since 1978 when Jimmy Carter was president.

Read More at Floyd Reports By Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Obama’s Approval Hits All-Time Low Among Poor, Says Gallup

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A week that began with President Barack Obama going on national television to pitch his vision for a debt-limit deal in terms that pitted “millionaires and billionaires” against “everyone else,” ended with the president receiving his lowest-ever weekly approval ratings in the Gallup poll from the poorest Americans (those earning less than $2,000 per month) and from one segment of the middle class (those earning between $5,000 and $7,499 per month).

In fact, according to Gallup, Obama enjoys no more approval among the poorest Americans today than he does among the richest—and he enjoys significantly less approval among middle class Americans earning between $5,000 to $7,499 than he does among the richest Americans as measure by the income brackets reported by Gallup (those earning $7,500 per month or more).

Over the last seven weeks, Obama’s approval rating has dropped 11 percentage points among the poorest Americans—and 14 points among middle-class Americans earning between $5,000 and $7,499.

Among the poorest Americans, the president’s approval started at 54 percent in the week of June 13-19 and dropped to a record low of 43 percent last week (July 25-July 31). Over the same period, Obama’s approval dropped from 52 percent to a record low of 38 percent among those middle-class Americans earning between $5,000 and $7,499 per month.

Seven weeks ago, according to Gallup, Obama was doing far better among the poorest Americans and those earning $5,000 to $7,499 per month than he was doing among the wealthiest (those earning more than $7,500), who in the week of June 13-19 gave Obama a 44-percent approval rating.

 Read More at CNS News  By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com

How Obama Will Bankrupt the Auto Industry (and Taxpayers)

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On this lovely, but exceedingly hot, Sunday afternoon, with computer-in-lap, I am enjoying the benefits of wireless Internet technology as I sit in the passenger’s seat of my five-year old SUV purchased from CarMax. My husband and I enjoy road trips just about as much as we enjoy the steamy-hot cups of java that we sip along the way. For the majority of the Bush 43 years, a cup of Starbucks cost more than a gallon of gas, but now both are essentially the same, meaning this road trip will more than likely be the last we can afford to take – until America puts a Republican president back in the Oval Office.

Proponents of President Obama’s new vehicle cafe standards might argue that his policy makes it affordable to get back out on the road in this day of almost $4.00 per gallon of gasoline. While vehicles that sip gasoline like we sip our coffee on road trips sounds enticing, do not be fooled; this sipping will come at a cost quite unaffordable to most Americans.

Consider the $40,000 Chevy Volt that was declared the Motor Trend 2011 Car of the Year for its advanced engineering that allows the car to run as a series hybrid, parallel hybrid, or as an electric vehicle. Sounds nice – until you realize the car’s price tag is higher than the average per capita income of $39,000, and the cost of electricity is on the rise.

General Motors may indeed deserve credit for Volt’s technology, but GM’s partnership with Motor Trend’s publisher, Source Interlink, calls into question if the Volt received the award standing on its own four wheels, or “Government Motors” had a little help from its Uncle Sam – and now must convince taxpayers that our “investment” was worthwhile, as well as set the stage for the next phase of this administration’s back door approach to “Cap and Trade.”

The administration assumes its new cafe standards of 54.4 miles per gallon by 2025 will somehow spur economic growth when auto makers begin to crank up the assembly lines to make automobiles most of us cannot afford. In the first two months of this year, out of 268,308 Chevrolets sold, the Volt accounted for one-fifth of 1 percent, or 602 — indicating that most American’s are not interested in the 4 cylinder sardine can on wheels — even if it is the “car of the future” as described by Obama.

Read More at Floyd Reports  By Susan Stamper Brown, Floyd Reports

Obama: Still the Alinskyite

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Here’s my take on the puzzle of Obama’s leadership style. Obama is still every inch the Alinskyite organizer. He talks about uniting, even as he deliberately polarizes. He moves incrementally toward radical left goals, but never owns up to his ideology. Instead, he tries to work indirectly, by way of the constituencies he seeks to manipulate.

“Leading from behind” is classic Alinskyite strategy. The idea is for the organizer to find out what the people he’s organizing want, give them enough of that to gain authority and control, then slowly and quietly push the group in his ideological direction, all the while making it seem as though the plan is what the people themselves have asked for. Obama used to literally lead from behind, by stage-managing his group’s protests from the back of the room, while the ostensible leaders took charge on stage. That is what Alinskyite organizers do.

Alinskyite organizers are tough when facing down the “enemy” (their word), but subtle, stealthy, and incremental when dealing with the members of their own group. Above all, they are never openly ideological. Everything is portrayed as pragmatism.

The trouble with Obama’s Alinskyite leadership style is that he’s trying to adapt it to the presidency, a role it was never designed for. When he tries classic Alinskyite polarization, he’s treating people he’s supposed to be leading as his enemies. When he tries to bring about leftist results under the guise of a neutral pragmatism, he disappoints his base, which desperately wants him to turn his eloquence to the task of persuading the country of their principles.

Obama is a bad negotiator because Alinskyite’s don’t negotiate, they intentionally polarize. As for their own groups, here they try to placate all factions and hide their own goals. That about describes Obama’s performance on the debt deal, which included a dollop of both of these stances.

Read More at National Review  By Stanley Kurtz, National Review

Boehner Should be a Goner

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Boehner and McCain vied for “Pansy of the Week,” and Boehner won. Despite the polls that revealed overwhelmingly that America wanted no increase in the debt ceiling, Boehner caved like a Hollywood stage chair. As the saying goes, “His ass is grass.”

America deserves a budget that is tighter than a camel’s butt in a sandstorm; however Boehner’s bill essentially doubles the national debt in a decade, thus the Democrats lust for spending is not hampered in the least. The payout to the lien holders, the American taxpayers is over ten years, a deal I dare you to try to cut with the IRS if you owe back taxes.

Any ten year plan for spending by government is a fool’s folly, because America’s back will be broken from the weight of debt long before then. We are clicking off $5B a day in debt service alone, and not even addressing the principal. Why didn’t Boehner just approve America for a reverse mortgage, because that’s what old people do when they don’t plan on leaving the kids and grandkids the house in the will.

Boehner’s deal does not shrink government at all. He had a chance to finally force government to rein in spending, and he dropped the ball. He negotiated with Obama, a guy who is too lazy to scratch his own butt, a guy who hasn’t presented a budget in over eight months. Obama relies on white people to do his work for him, because Obama is incompetent and indolent.

If there were ever a president who needed the credit card cut, as Sheila Jackson implied, “It’s this [black] president.” Obama runs America finances like a hood rat; spending all the money before he even gets his check. Hood rats spend like there’s no tomorrow, because they don’t think about tomorrow.

Read More at The Black Sphere By Kevin Jackson, The Black Sphere

Sarah Palin Defends Tea Party

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Sarah Palin has become one of the most effective defenders of the Tea Party. Last Night on FOXNEWS she took after Democrats that have called them terrorists. Her best line was when she attacked Obama asking: “If We Were Real Domestic Terrorists, Shoot, President Obama Would Be Wanting to Pal Around With Us, Wouldn’t He?” Go Sarah Go.