Thirty Second Video

Vice President Biden blames lack of public approval on lack of public comprehension due to the size and complexity of Obama legislative packages.

As is his wont the Vice President makes an inadvertent admission.  “The people really involved” are the Senators and Congressmen who voted to enact these “gigantic packages.”  We, The People will have to suffer the consequences over many years as we, The President, The Vice President and the Senators and Congressmen who enacted “gigantic packages” learn by living through them what the consequences will be.

Most Americans know that most of the Senators and Congressmen who voted to enact thousand of pages of new law and changes to existing law in the ObamaCare bill, the energy bill, the recently enacted financial regulation bill and the $800 Billion Recovery Act (AKA “stimulus”) did not read them, and could not comprehend them if they did.

These bills are so “gigantic” and complex that it’s simply not possible to even consider all the consequences, even if one read every page.  Consider this one paragraph example from the Stimulus/Recovery Act about Transit Assistance.

To figure out what this means one would have to:

• read section 5302 of title 49, US Code to learn what kinds of grants are authorized, and
• Read section 5307 of Title 49, US Code to learn what types of grants 80% of the money is to be spent on, and
• Read subsections i, l,  and j to see what kinds of grants are prohibited, and
• Read section 5340 to learn how 10% of the funds are to be spent, and
• Read section 5311 to learn how the last 10% of funds are to be spent.

To be careful and thorough a Congressman should look into the historical performance of each of these grant programs to determine if they have been efficient and cost effective in the past.  Conscientious due diligence on just this one-half of one page could take a Senator and his staff a week to complete.

Each of Biden’s “gigantic packages” includes thousands of amendments to other laws and programs.

• Nobody in the Administration or Congress could possibly imagine all the potential consequences, intended, or unintended that could result.
• Nobody could possibly imagine all the ways changes in different, disparate programs could combine with changes in other programs to produce unanticipated consequences in the broader economy.
  

The Bottom Line

The best word to characterize enacting these “gigantic packages” without any way to understand the consequences is:

Negligence.

Such a blatant breach of military protocol by a highly regarded, over-achieving, career military officer is a symptom of serious problems that won’t be solved by the single act of replacing McChrystal.  President Obama was correct that Military officers must respect and submit to civilian control.

However the President, Vice President and high Administration officials also have an obligation.  Their obligation is to do everything in their power to help the military succeed and to avoid allowing petty politics to increase the risks of casualties and mission failure.

One obvious cause of tension was President Obama’s publicly time table for withdrawal, announced to the whole world, including the terrorist enemies in Afghanistan.

On December 1, 2009 Obama announced his Afghanistan, counter-terrorism strategy in a speech at West Point.  Some excerpts from that speech:

The 30,000 additional troops that I’m announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010…so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers…they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans

…these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.

Apparently Obama hoped his leftist, anti-war base would be less angry about a troop surge if he set a date for withdrawal.  Vice President Biden, who opposed sending additional troops, backed up the July, 2011 “transfer out” part with this widely quoted assurance:

In July of 2011, you’re going to see a whole lot of people moving out, bet on it.

On the ground in Afghanistan, the President’s rush to announce a withdrawal date just a few seconds after he disclosed the troop surge was seen as a sign that America lacked resolve and could not be depended upon for the long term. Counterinsurgency strategy depends upon forming relationships with local people who then provide critical intelligence.  But the locals risk violent retaliation from the Taliban and Al Qaeda if they help our troops.  Even if they want us to succeed they are reluctant to risk the lives of their families if they fear America might abandon the fight and leave them defenseless, facing resurgent terrorists.

Establishment commentators say that Obama’s speech was “nuanced” and wasn’t really a firm withdrawal date.  But if you’re a fearful farmer or shop keeper in Afghanistan, putting your children’s lives on the line you need clear, unambiguous language, not nuance.

On Thursday, a reporter asked President Obama about the withdrawal date and he took a step toward modifying his position by contradicting his December announcement.

What we said [last December] was we would put in additional troops to provide the time and the space for the Afghan government to build up its security capabilities…and that beginning next year we would begin a transition phase in which the Afghan government is taking more and more responsibility for its own security.

Here’s what we did not say: we did not say that starting July, 2011 there would be no more troops from the United States…we said we would begin a transition phase…

This was an improvement, but didn’t go far enough.  Obama should give American troops the benefit of a firm, unambiguous commitment to crushing the Taliban and Al Qaeda, no matter how long it takes.  He can both reassure the Afghan people and discourage potential Taliban/Al Qaeda recruits by  pointing to our recent success in Iraq to demonstrate our determination to prevail.

He should stop equivocating and replicate President Bush’s unwavering commitment to victory. When Bush ordered the Iraq surge at the beginning of 2007 he refused to set a time table for withdrawal, even though the entire political-media establishment demanded it.  As a result, our troops in Iraq were able to gain the trust of Iraqi people who then helped them exterminate Al Qaeda in Iraq.

We would be far better off if the world’s dictators, thugs and terrorists became convinced that if America chooses to fight them they will face certain defeat, because we will not give up, no matter how long it takes.  In Iraq, Bush made a good start at convincing them.  Obama can complete the job in Afghanistan if he has the will to succeed.

I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government…I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

Greatest achievements of this administration?  Astounding!

Most of the communication from the Obama White House is deception, targeting people who don’t have the time or interest to dig into every issue and root out the truth.  But this creates a disingenuous category of it’s own.  The truth is that in 2007 and 2008 Then Senator Obama used his office to try to cause the Iraq operation to end in failure.

When the surge strategies that ultimately succeeded were beginning Senator Obama could have seized the opportunity to be an idealistic, visionary leader in the cause of liberty for the Iraqi people, and victory for America.  Instead, he deferred to the defeatist dogma of those in his party who desperately wanted failure in Iraq, to vindicate their position, that “Bush’s war” was an irreversible disaster. In a TV interview Candidate Obama fell back on the simplistic chants of the anti-war Left:

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality — we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

In July, 2007 as the intense combat phase of the surge strategies and initiatives was in full force, and the troops deserved unqualified support from the home front, Senator Obama appeared on The Today Show and said:

My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.

Obama repeatedly tried his best prevent success in Iraq, first by introducing legislation that would have aborted the surge just as it began, and by twice voting to withdraw funds for the Iraq operation, even as US troops were engaged in daily combat.

As for Joe Biden, let’s not forget his idea, to Divide Iraq into three or four countries, one for each ethnic sub-group.  Thankfully our troops were never ordered to facilitate that train wreck.

Is there a word strong enough to properly characterize Biden’s chutzpa in now the success of the Iraq operation for Obama?

Instead, Ms West decided to ask a few relevant questions about Barack Obama’s economic and tax proposals.  As a result of Biden’s embarassment, the Obama Campaign has banned WFTV from any further interviews.

Video of the five minute interview is below.

In a rational world, the media would ban Joe Biden from any more appearances because his answers were either incompetent or just plain lies.

Here are some excerpts

Ms. West asked…

Senator Obama now famously told joe the plumber he wanted to spread his wealth around.  A gallup poll showed 84% prefered government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the US as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth.  Isn’t sen obama’s comment a potentially crushing political blunder?

Senator Biden answered…

Absolutely not.  the only person who spread the wealth around has been george BUSH and John McCain’s tax policy.  They have devastated  the middle class.  We for the first time since the late 1920s one percent of the american people make  over  21%  of all the income in America.

Biden apparently made up these statistics, because they don’t seem to be available from any government or academic database.  The IRS Statistics of Income Division does provide the following figures from 2006 tax returns, the most recent data available:

• Three percent of taxpayers, including more than two million small businesses earned more than $250,000 and will thus be targeted by Obama for tax increases.
• These folks earned 24.9% of all the income and provided 53% of all the income tax revenue collected by the Federal Government.

Ms. West continued…

You may recognize this quote: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  That’s from Karl Marx.  How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around.

Senator Biden first asked if she was joking, and then finally answered…

He is not spreading the wealth around he’s talking about giving the middle class an the opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.

This assertion is absolutely false.  At no time in the past fifty years has the middle class paid less income tax, either as a percentage of their income, or as a percentage of the total, than they are paying today.  That is an absolute fact, that anyone can verify by reviewing IRS statistics.

• In 2006, Seventy Eight Percent of taxpayers earned less than $75,000 and, as a group, provided only 17.6% of all the income tax revenue.
• In 1996 – the middle of the Clinton Administration – the same group paid 22% of all income tax revenue collected.

It’s obvious that Joe Biden simply invented his statistics and that his assertions are false.  Honest TV networks and stations should report these fabrications, and insist that in future interviews Biden cite only valid statistics and make only verifiable assertions.
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First, in an impromptu encounter Obama exposed his Marxist economic worldview by telling “Joe the Plumber” that he believes the hard earned cash of small business owners should be taken from them and turned over to those who have done absolutely nothing to earn it.  Now if that won’t inspire you to put your money at risk and work long, hard hours I don’t know what will.

And now, Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, warns us in no uncertain terms that the world’s dictators, terrorists and thugs view Obama as an untested rookie.  Said Biden, “Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”  “Watch, we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”  “And he’s going to need help . . . to stand with him. Because it’s not going to be apparent initially; it’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.”

I have often commented that Obama is completely untested and possesses no body of work from which one could infer he is ready to be President.  Yet it is amazing to observe the childlike trust of Obama supporters placed in a man who has so little to show for his career effort, despite his fancy academic degrees.

A stint as a “community organizer,” an ineffective executive position at Bill Ayers’ Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and a pedestrian record as a state senator in IL is about all there is.  Oh, and two ghost written, self-serving books.  If I was considering him as a candidate for the CEO position of one of our companies I’d look at his resume and say “you’ve got to be kidding me, this guy is forty-seven years old, and he hasn’t done anything!”

And yet, put the power of the media behind him to provide complete air cover, combined with a natural talent for smooth delivery of lofty scripted remarks – and of course endless populist promises of assorted handouts and goodies if you vote for him – and presto, he’s the one for President!!  It’s a shame Americans can be bought so easily.

Joe Biden’s remarks are interesting because they could not have been clearer.  Our enemies will take the opportunity of his election to “test him” because they don’t know who Obama is.  I wish I’d have thought of that fatal flaw in the Obama candidacy.  Oh, wait, I did, two paragraphs ago.

Isn’t this great – nobody “knows Obama” so for the next six months we all need to crawl into the cellar or worry if our kids are going to be safe at school, until that first “generated crisis” hits as the world starts to test this mystery man from the corrupt, Chicago political machine.

Somehow I don’t think our enemies would decide to “generate” a crisis, a dirty bomb in New York or the local mall, or nuke Israel to test John McCain and find out how he reacts.

And to top it all off, here’s Biden’s ominous warning about Obama’s probable response: “it’s not going to be apparent initially, that we’re right.”

How reassuring.

As a matter of pure political strategy, I can’t imagine that foreign policy – and Senator Obama’s obvious lack of experience – are what the Obama campaign wanted to see in the news two weeks before the election.  More importantly, is an international crisis that threatens American safety and security the price the country must pay to appease that portion of the electorate whose primary Presidential voting criteria is which guy will give them the most free stuff?

So today, just like the disappointed and disillusioned  young Chicagoan who chanced to encounter “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in the midst of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, we implore: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”

But today, like then, the response is, “It’s so kid, it’s so.”

Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden did it again.  Another of his famous gaffs.  But this time we should pay very close attention, because this time it’s not funny.  Speaking to a fund raiser in Seattle Senator Biden said…

“Mark my words, It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Thus, Biden called attention to, but failed to acknowledge the elephant careening around the room.  Barack Obama is “like” John Kennedy in that, Kennedy was also young for the Presidency.  But the similarity ends there.

In his 47 years, Senator Obama has managed to gain almost no experience that would be relevant to the Presidency, the most demanding job in the world.  He has not served in the military.  After only one year as a Senator he began an extended leave of absence to conduct his Presidential campaign.

While much of Obama’s background and experience remains shrouded in a cloud of obfuscation and mystery, it appears that his only executive experience was four years as Chairman of a failed school reform project, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where he passed out over $100 Million in cash grants to so-called “community organizations.”

President Kennedy had been tested in combat during World War II as a PT boat commander, helping to save lives even while suffering from severe injuries when his boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer.  When Kennedy began his run for the Presidency in 1960 he had been a Congressman for four years and a Senator for seven years.

Even with his superior experience Kennedy was unprepared for the “generated crisis” that  Joe Biden referred to.  Kennedy met with Soviet Premier Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit in June 1961, his 5th month in office. Khrushchev conceded nothing and no agreements were reached. In fact, Khrushchev decided to test the young President and threatened to cut off American and West German access to West Berlin, to see how he would react.

Apparently Kennedy’s reaction failed to impress or intimidate Khruschev.  The Summit marked the beginning of a period of aggressive Soviet provocations. Only two months later, the Soviets began construction of the Berlin Wall that divided that city for three decades.  Kennedy’s response was no response.

A year after that, in October, 1962  Soviet soldiers began installing missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba, the beginning of another “generated crisis” that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the very brink of nuclear war. This, in spite of the fact that Khruschev had promised that he would not locate offensive weapons in Cuba and Kennedy had naively believed he would keep his word.

Clearly, John Kennedy, whose record of experience and accomplishments dwarfed Obama’s, utterly failed his first big international test, “generated” by Khruschev.  Yet back in May of this year, when Obama was criticized for boasting that he would meet with foreign dictators “without preconditions,” his is answer was:

“If George Bush and John McCain have a problem with direct diplomacy led by the president of the United States then they can explain why they have a problem with John F. Kennedy because that’s what he did with Khruschev…”

For someone who thinks he’s ready to be President, Obama demonstrated with this reply that he was appallingly ignorant of recent presidential history.

Senator Biden went on to warn his audience

“And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you—not financially to help him—we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially,  that we’re right.”

If John McCain’s writers had tried to script a TV commercial to scare America into voting against Barack Obama, they could not have been more effective!

The media have been working overtime to publish specious allegations and personal attacks against Governor Palin, her daughter, her husband, her Pastor and her local church.

The Chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party Carolyn Fowler, wife of Representative Don Fowler, said today that Governor Palin’s…

…primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.

Barack Obama appeared on the Letterman show to explain, yet again, what he meant by the lipstick on a pig remark.  He said criticism of his remark was just a sign of a “silly season in politics.”  But he can’t seem to shrug off the silliness and focus on the serious.  He told Letterman:

“Keep in mind, technically, had I meant it this way, [Palin] would be the lipstick. The failed policies of John McCain would be the pig, just following the logic of this illogical situation.”

About the time Senator Obama was taping his appearance on the Letterman show Rep. Steve Cohen (Democrat, Tennessee) was holding forth on the floor of the House of Representatives, claiming that Jesus was a community organizer like Obama, while Pontius Pilate the appointed Roman Satrap who believed Jesus was innocent of any crime but sentenced him to death anyway was, like Sarah Palin, “a governor.”  (Video below.)

Earlier, at a rally in New Hampshire, Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Biden, whose media coverage has completely dried up since Sarah Palin emerged opined that he might not have been the best VP candidate for the party.

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America…she’s easily qualified to be vice president and quite frankly, may have been a better pick than me.

Perhaps Biden, who’s been in politics longer than almost anyone, has determined the Obama campaign is sinking.  Perhaps he’d rather not spend the next 55 days campaigning for a lost cause.  Perhaps he’d rather go back to the Senate and his daily pilgrimage on the taxpayer subsidized Amtrak.   Let Hillary go down with the Obama ship.

Four days of slinging slime at Governor Palin culminated in an absurd, media generated rumor, breathlessly divulged by Joshua Green of the Atlantic:

Here in St. Paul, talk of Palin has dominated the Republican convention—even more so than cable news—and by Monday night discussion among Republican operatives and reporters had turned to whether Palin would survive or become the first running mate since Thomas Eagleton in 1972 to leave a major-party ticket…If further revelations prove damaging enough, McCain could decide to replace Palin, or she could choose to withdraw.

(Eagleton was the Democrats’ VP nominee until he withdrew after disclosure that he had been treated for a mental disorder.)

After both conventions the net “bounce” would seem to indicate that if anyone is to withdraw, it should be Barack Obama or Joe Biden!

Once again we note that when the media herd stampedes, the truth gets trampled.

The afterglow of Barack Obama’s Woodstock-lite convention event abruptly dissolved this morning as John McCain swept the Democrats

Obama, the self-proclaimed Prophet-of-Change and Messiah of “new politics,” had picked a conventional, rabid partisan, Senator Biden, a tediously over-exposed Washington fixture, with a history of embarrassing missteps.

Today, John McCain, steped out of his media assigned role of the old candidate of old politics by picking a bright, articulate, energetic woman with executive experience as a Governor.

Governor Palin is the mother of five.  Her fifth child was born just four months ago.  Her oldest son serves in the US Army.

This pick will immediately refocus media attention on the issue of opening the coastal plain at the Northern edge of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for new oil drilling.  Liberty Works explored this question in ANWR, The Inconvenient Truth.

Governor Pallin is a vocal, aggressive proponent of drilling in ANWR, while Senator McCain has taken the opposing side of the pseudo-environmentalist propagandists. McCain even compared ANWR, a bleak, frozen tundra, to the Grand Canyon.  Hopefully, Senator McCain will find a graceful exit from his stubborn, baseless opposition to drilling.

Predictably, the Obama campaign instantly issued a petty attack, calling  Governor Palin a Mayor with no experience, who doesn’t represent “change.”  While her experience is less than most of the people who were on McCain’s list of potential running mates, she certainly has more relevant experience than Barack Obama, who’s only executive exerience was running the corrupt, failed Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

with a convincing argument that he’s

not prepared to run for the Presidency.

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