The scariest advice comes at the first link, from Slate. The article is titled, I kid you not, "How To Pick A Fight With Your Relatives This Thanksgiving." They forgot the modifiers ("moronic, racist relatives") but don't worry, they cover that in the article.
You've prepared all year in Internet comment sections and by yelling at Fox News on the television screen, and now you find yourself face-to-face, in close quarters, with actual Republicans, right across the table. They're not going anywhere, and neither are you. Despite what you’ve heard about avoiding holiday conflict, now is your time to fight...
That's not the sentence I'm referring to, however. It's this one.
Stick to short, sarcastic, tendentious remarks to get things going. "I'm thankful for all that free stuff Obama gave me."
Oh, I'm sure that'll make you the hit of the gathering, lefty. I certainly hope this is written tongue-in-cheek, though based on the many other outlets advising similarly, I suspect it's not. Remember, if Barack Obama didn't walk into Abercrombie and slap two Ben Franklins on the counter for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt then he didn't really give you any "free stuff."
On some level, then, the president plainly agrees with critics of Obamacare, this page included, that the law needs to be rewritten: He and his administration keep rewriting its major components — remember the mandate that sizable employers offer coverage in 2014? — as practicalities and politics demand.
But in this country we don't change bad laws by presidential fiat. We change them by having Congress rewrite them or by starting from scratch. Obama doesn't want to reopen this law for fear that Republicans and some Democrats will substantially rewrite it. But that's what has to happen.
We understand why the president and leaders of his party want to rescue whatever they can of Obamacare. On their watch, official Washington has blown the launch of a new entitlement program ... under the schedule they alone set in early 2010.
What we don't understand is their reluctance to give that failure more than lip service. Many of the Americans who heard their president say Thursday that "we fumbled the rollout of this health care law" would have been pleased to hear him add: So we're admitting it. This law is a bust. We're starting over.
Epic failure of the development and launch of the federal exchange website? Check
Modifications to the stipulations of the law by whim of the executive? (Delaying the employer mandat until after 2014 midterms) Check
Handouts to favored businesses, favored constituencies? Check
Fraudulent statements about the nature of the new law? ("If you like your plan you can keep it. Period.") Check
Fraudulent statements about the nature of the law's financing. (It's a mandate! No, wait, it's a tax!) Check
Fraudulent statements about the cost of the law globally as well as individually? (Remember the mythical $2500 individual savings, and the mythical deficit reduction?) Check
Lies in testimony to Congress from those in charge? Check
The main question at this point is whether this was all intentional. Is this an intentional chaos designed to create a demand for single payer? It wouldn't surprise me in the least. One thing may work against that strategy: failure of the government on this scale should raise serious doubts on that front also.
Just before taking on her position as President Obama's National Security Advisor, current UN Ambassador Susan Rice surfaced to interject her expert opinion regarding yet another international crisis. She called on all of her expertise in international relations, foreign affairs, and national security to tell us that Edward Snowden, the man who told us all that the NSA says all our data are belong to them, has not damaged national security.
She said it's too soon to judge whether there will be any long-term
serious repercussions from the intelligence leaks by the former National
Security Agency contractor who fled to Hong Kong and then Russia after
seizing documents disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs in the
U.S. and overseas, which he has shared with The Guardian and Washington
Post newspapers.
"I don't think the diplomatic consequences, at least as they are foreseeable now, are that significant," she said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called Snowden's leaks a serious
breach that damaged national security. Hagel said Thursday an assessment
of the damage is being done now
We now know exactly why Mr. Obama finds Ms. Rice so valuable. Just like the salesperson in a shady used car dealership, she's willing to make the sale by telling the customer, the "mark," just what the owner wants them to believe.
The Boston Celtics said goodbye to an aging "Big Three" member last year (oddly replacing him with another aging shooter), and this year, with a draft day agreement with the Brooklyn Nets, have said goodbye to the other two. Word is out that the Nets and Celtics have agreed to a huge deal, with Paul Pierce and Keving Garnett headed to Brooklyn, along with said aging shooter (Jason Terry) and 5 players and 3 first round draft picks headed to Beantown.
First off, lets stipulate that Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen weren't getting any younger. KG is 37, and by the end of next season will be 38 and have finished 19 years of 80 game (or more) seasons. Pierce finished 15 years with the Celts this year at age 35, and will be 36 in October. Allen, whose 3 point jumper saved the Heat in Game 6 of the NBA finals, will turn 38 in a few weaks. From that standpoint alone, bagging three first round picks for three players on the downside of dwindling careers is brilliant.
Second, lets further recognize that short of abducting the Thunder's Kevin Durant or the Miami Heat owner deciding to go Charley O.Finley and suddenly selling his top talent (Lebron James) to Boston, these Celtics would not be hoisting a trophy next June.
Finally, lets also recognize that having top draft picks is the only way to get that top talent, the kinds of players who can build and maintain a consistent winner. Finishing at 46-36 and losing in the second round won't give you a high enough draft pick to get the potentially stunning talent needed to do that. Danny Ainge now has 2 first round picks next year (Boston, Brooklyn), 2 in 2015 (Boston, LA Clippers) and 2 in 2016 (Boston, Brooklyn). It doesn't seem that the Clippers and Nets picks will be that high, but theirs should and hey, you never know.
I'm sad to see KG, Ray and Paul go. The basketball they played during their time on the parquet was a beautiful thing. The '07-08 through '09-10 seasons were outstanding, and even '10-11 was great. When they traded for Ray Allen before the '07 draft I got chills. My team just picked up my favorite player. When they picked up Kevin Garnett later that offseason those chills return. My team just picked up my second favorite player. Doc Rivers, already departed to LA to coach the Clippers, made it mesh beautifully. I'll miss KG's intensity. I'll look for him pounding his forehead against the basket padding and tying his drawstring on his shorts before the opening tip, and it won't be there. I'll miss Pierce's cool under pressure, always willing and able to take the big shot in the big moment. And I already missed Allen's reliable and opponent-depressing daggers from the 3 point stripe.
Danny Ainge picked up two 7 footers last night, one of whom can step out from the basket. He re-acquired a couple of guys he should never have let go - Kris Joseph, the better of the two ballers he took from Syracuse last year and Marshon Brooks, a mercurial and talented scorer out of Providence. Brooks was traded in a puzzling draft day deal for Jajuan Johnson of Purdue. Johnson never panned out, and is mired in the NBADL. And he still has Rondo, Jared Sullinger, Brandon Bass, Jeff Green, Terrence Williams. He needs another good point guard for next year, but there's something there to work with.
So it's so long, Big Three. And thanks for the memories, and the champion-caliber play. And thanks for the championship.
From the inimitable Mark Steyn, writing at National Review and discussing the IRS' appetite for doing things that decent, honorable, moral government servants ought to know they shouldn't:
If you don’t instinctively know it’s wrong to stay in $3,500-a-night
hotel rooms at public expense, a revised
conference-accommodations-guidelines manual isn’t going to fix the real
problem.
So we know the IRS is corrupt. What happens then when an
ambitious government understands it can yoke that corruption to its
political needs? What’s striking as the revelations multiply and
metastasize is that at no point does any IRS official appear to have
raised objections. [emphasis mine] If any of them understood that what they were doing
was wrong, they kept it to themselves. When Nixon tried to sic the IRS
on a few powerful political enemies, the IRS told him to take a hike.
When Obama’s courtiers tried to sic the IRS on thousands of ordinary
American citizens, the agency went along, and very enthusiastically.
This is a scale of depravity hitherto unknown to the tax authorities of
the United States, and for that reason alone they should be disarmed and
disbanded — and rebuilt from scratch with far more circumscribed
powers.
I use a phrase in my office, with my employees, and at home, with my children, that applies here, in spades: "When in doubt, do the right thing." As Mr. Steyn rightly points out, it's striking that it took three years for the harassment policies to come to light, that nobody stepped forward sooner. "When in doubt, do the right thing." I rarely expect and less-rarely see such character from politicians. But the government employees of the IRS do not work for politicians, they work, or rather they should work, for all of the American people. All of 'em. And when politicians, for whom re-election and ideological victory are all-consuming, direct you to do things you know are wrong, shouldn't one of these individuals have had the ... well ... the balls to stand up and put a stop to it? Just one stand-up guy, one Gary Cooper? Anyone?
Robert Tracinski writing on the electic car, that preposterous amalgam of fossil fuel snobbery and environmental ignorance foisted on Americans by modern green alchemists who seem to think fuel, in the form of electricity, miraculously appears in your house from the "ether".
Electric cars never really made any sense. They are cloaked in the
sanctimony of the green movement, because they don't use nasty fossil
fuels like gasoline. Instead, they use electricity, which is sent out
through power lines from big power plants, which generate this
electricity—how? Oh yes, by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, and
natural gas. This is known as the "long tailpipe," which goes from the
car charging up in your garage all the way back to the smokestack of a
coal-fired power plant. And don't forget, electric cars also have giant
batteries made from nasty toxic metals like lithium and cobalt, the
manufacture of which frontloads carbon dioxide emissions.
So the electric car was always more an exercise in green
paternalism—it is the future, as selected for us by our betters—than a
serious attempt to solve any real or imagined problem.
And after discussing the Tesla and it's less-than-road-worthiness:
But this misses the biggest point: since when is driving a car supposed
to be so complicated? The whole point of technology is to use the
machine's energy and yes, to burn up natural resources, in order to save human effort.
The machines are supposed to work for us; we don't work for them. This
is especially true of the automobile, which is all about freedom,
independence, going out on the open road and deciding on the spur of the
moment where you want to go—not about filing a flight plan and having
technicians talk you through your trip.
December 21st of 2012 is allegedly the date the world comes to an end, according to Mayan lore. I know, the Mayans came to an end long before this date, but who's counting. The date, however, has already been significant twice for my family and me. In 1988 Pan Am 103 was blown
from the skies by now-convicted Libyan terrorists, falling to earth in
Lockerbie, Scotland and taking with it the lives of 259 people on
board the plane and 11 on the ground. One of those lives on the plane
was my brother, returning from a semester overseas in London during his
time at Syracuse University. Then, in 2005 my father passed away on this date, taken suddenly from our family.
Annually on this date I have been reprinting my first post from
the start of this blog, which I dedicated to my brother. The plane
disappeared from the radar screen, 7:03 PM GMT, the moment when all
those lives, my brother's included, were tragically ended. The post is
timed here at 7:03 PM EST, the time when I arrived home from my
residency training to discover the awful truth. The
irony - or possibly the design? - of the two dying on the same date has
not escaped our notice. This post now contains the original first post,
from September 2004 and the material I wrote about my father when,
after his death, I returned to this blog.
The original first post:
My Reason for Being
There are a lot of ways this weblog could begin. I think the best is
with a brief history and explanation. You see, I lost a wonderful
younger brother in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland. I miss him every day; he would be 38 now. I recall thinking
back then that the attack constituted an act of war. I couldn't believe
that there wasn't the moral clarity and certitude of purpose on the
part of our government to prosecute a war against those who had
attacked us. That lack of moral clarity persisted through the Desert
Storm war, leaving Saddam in power, through the first bombing on the
World Trade Center, through the embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack,
etc., etc., etc. With the devastation of the attack on 9-11 finally, at
long last, all Americans would see that we may not have thought
ourselves at war, but an enemy was at war with us. The same America
that fought World Wars I & II would surely unite to fight against
an enemy that attacked us on our home soil - but I was wrong.
Even
before the first strikes in Afghanistan many, particularly in the
media, were questioning the action, opining that we would find
ourselves in a quagmire. With the attacks in Iraq the same voices were
heard. Now, as Iraq struggles to find a footing for democracy many who
in the 1990's thought Saddam needed to be ousted and, if necessary,
preemptive action taken have changed their mind, simply because it's
not their guy doing the ousting.
President Bush is doing exactly what needs to be done - aggressively
prosecuting the GWOT. The critics note that terrorists are flocking to
Iraq to fight against Iraqi and US soldiers - to which I answer "Good.
Get more of them together, rather than chasing them to the ends of the
earth." To those who think Iraq is not part of the GWOT and that we
should have left Saddam in power I ask, do you really think the world
would be a better place with Saddam still in power?
This is the history that has influenced me. As Senator Zell Miller
said at the beginning of his speech at the Republican National
Convention [link]:
Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller
Family has been born: Four great grandchildren. Along with all the
other members of our close-knit family -- they are my and Shirley's most
precious possessions. And I know that's how you feel about your family
also. Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils
they will face. Like you, I believe that the next four years will
determine what kind of world they will grow up in. And like you, I ask
which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes,
the backbone to best protect my family? The clear answer to that
question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is
more important than my party. There is but one man to whom I am willing
to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.
My family, and in fact all Americans, are too important to me. This
blog will stray onto lesser topics regularly, my passions and interests.
But it will likely always return to this vital effort.
Lastly, I'd like to write briefly about my dad, who passed away eight
days ago, on a professional level. He was a remarkable physician, a
cancer specialist in a way that really no cancer specialists are
anymore. He performed all manner of cancer surgery, soup to nuts,
including the plastic reconstruction of any deformity created. He
guided the radiation therapy and chemotherapy for his patients. He read
their MRIs and CTs himself. He looked at their pathology slides.
This was one-stop shopping cancer care, something that you need six or
seven different doctors to provide now. You might think that each of
those six or seven physicians would be more highly informed in their
particular area to optimize their portion of the care. You would be
wrong. And you'd have to coordinate six or seven different physician
offices to get anything done.
He retired four years ago, and had to be dragged kicking and
screaming from his practice. When he left, he spent the next two years
staying in contact with his patients, and working with each of them to
be sure they had the best follow-up care he could arrange. That's
something you don't see either.
I won't be writing here on a personal level. That's something I did
for his burial two days ago. We miss you, Dad. We all miss you very
much.
I know I haven't been around since the election, and I do have some items of importance I'd like to write about, but I've been exceedingly busy. I'll be returning to the blog intermittently as time allows.
Reuters, apparently completely unfamiliar with both partisan political campaigning and federal responses to natural disasters, thinks the following is "newsworthy:
NJ governor pledges to vote Romney despite praising Obama
NEW YORK (Reuters) -
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his praise for President
Barack Obama after superstorm Sandy, but said he would stick with his
fellow Republicans and vote for Mitt Romney in Tuesday's election.
"I endorsed Mitt Romney 13
months ago because I thought he was the best guy for the job," Christie
said on Sunday during a news conference, reaffirming his support for
the Republican candidate.
But support for Romney
does not mean that he cannot appreciate the "good job" that Obama did
while responding to the historical storm that hit the U.S. Northeast
last week, Christie said. Sandy knocked out power to some 2.4 million
New Jersey residents.
Governor Christie not only endorsed Mitt Romney for president, but has campaigned actively to see Mr. Romney elected. And some journalists clowns at Reuters thinks that a few words of praise for the man ultimately at the head of the response team in a time of state emergency after a nearly unprecedented natural disaster might change Christie's vote? I just turned to my wife and said that this may be the dumbest story I've seen this entire election.
It doesn't do anything for a poll's credibility to be seen as inept once the results roll in. Which made the UNH/WMUR poll for several months fairly inexplicable. I work in a business that brings people from all walks of life into a private room with me, and often topics not related to medicine crop up. With the election looming, politics was number one on that list. The number of people openly espousing a desire for four more years of President Obama was infinitessimally small. Almost everyone who brought the topic up expressed disdain for ObamaCare, disdain for the president, and disgust for the economic policies. (sidenote: I never bring these things up. The patient has to be the one to initiate that kind of conversation. And I never offer my opinion first if they do.)
So what had the state's opinion poll been telling us? Let's look back at results in the Real Clear Politics listing of New Hampshire data from the UNH/WMUR poll over the last 6 months.
April 4-20: Obama 51, Romney 42 - O+9
July 5-15: Obama 49, Romney 45 - O+4
Aug 1-12: Obama 49, Romney 46 - O+3
Sept 4-10: Obama 45, Romney 40 - O+5
Sept 27-30: Obama 54, Romney 39 (!) - O+15
Sept 30-Oct 6: Obama 50, Romney 44 - O+6 (they must have realized the previous poll was junk)
Oct 17-21: Obama 51, Romney 42 (UNH Only) - O+9
That's pretty consistent. On average, the UNH/WMUR and UNH polls have Obama with a 7.3% lead. If you eliminate the one clear outlier, it still would leave Obama with a lead of 6% overall, including the most recent (to this point) polls at Obama at +6% and +9% respectively. And notice that that last poll listed was two weeks after the first debate, so it's not like that produced much movement, unlike other polling organizations.
Ah, but the election's getting close. What's more important, your credibility, or discouraging the opposition voters? For UNH and WMUR, credibility wins out.
Twelve short days after the Oct 21 poll with a nine point Obama lead and now it's tied up in two consecutive polls? That much of a shift in polls hasn't occurred within any other NH poll. For example, at the virtually the same time (10/21-10/23 or therabouts) that UNH/WMUR had it O+9, ARG had it R+2, Rasumussen R+2, and even PPP had it O+1.
A few days ago I told you that Romney will win NH. I stand by that. And now the UNH poll, in order not to be made to look foolish, is finally reflecting what is really going on in the state. My prediction? Tomorrow they'll release another poll showing a Romney lead.
Okay, now I'm really out on a limb here. Below is my electoral map, produced at Real Clear Politics. (You can go here and create your own map. It can't be less likely than mine). Light colors = leaners. Medium colors = likely. Deep colors = solid.
Yeah, I know. Shocking. Way outside the bounds of current expert opinion. Although ... Dick Morris sees a landslide coming, Karl Rove sees a solid Romney victory, and lots of folks find something more than a bit fishy in usually relatively honest polls. A few comments are quite obviously necessary by way of explanation.
Most important, I think, is to realize that Barack Obama's mojo just ain't what it was in 2008. Then he rode a wave of euphoria over hope and change, capitalizing on a horrific economic collapse and several years (at least) of Bush fatigue replete with non-stop bashing by the DPM (Democratic Partisan Media)*. In 2008 the GOP was depressed. They were not enthused by the McCain
candidacy, Obama-mania was raging, and the DPM had successfully
"other-ized" Sarah Palin. The national vote even with that "perfect storm" of opportunity was 53-46, a 6.5 million vote spread out of 124 million votes cast. Democrats and Obama voters came in waves; Republicans stayed home. Obama won independents by 8, 52-44.
But now? He's had three plus years to get things moving economically. He hasn't. He preaches class warfare and re-distribution. He organizes a job council, then doesn't meet with them. He piles up $6 trillion in increased debt. Realizing that's a problem, he creates the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, then ignores the findings. He blocks the Keystone XL pipeline, making Canada sell their oil to China and stomping on more American jobs. He funds through the Department of Energy loan program a steady stream of green boondoggles, costing American taxpayers even more of their hard-earned bread. He rams through a takeover of one-sixth of the economy against the will of the people, and with their freedom and choice in medicine curtailed they predictably do not grow to love the program.
So is it likely that waves of enthusiastic Democratic voters will be flooding the booths come Tuesday? I think not. What about Republicans? Every poll confirms an enthusiasm gap in favor of the GOP. That's a lot different from 2008. Gallup is currently showing a 5 point Romney advantage with likely voters, based in large part on the greater enthusiasm of GOP voters to get to the ballot box. Just about every survey shows Mr. Romney flipping Mr. Obama's advantage with independents, winning them by 8-14 points. Also, Gallup shows men going for Romney by 57-43, a 14 point spread, vs. losing women by 54-46, an 8 point spread.
You'd have to have a boatload more ladies than men voting to make up for that deficit.
So it's 315. Mitt Romney will win Pennsylvania - didn't they elect Pat Toomey just two years ago? He'll win Ohio - barely - but it'll be closer than the national vote because Mr. Obama has been doing all he can to hold that state. He'll win Virginia and Colorado. He'll win Iowa, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. I don't have him getting over the top in Minnesota, Oregon, Michigan or Nevada, but those states will be close. Very close. I have Connecticut and New Jersey close, but I think Sandy will probably keep those with the president, as the representative of federal assistance.
I could be wrong, but Mr. Romney's sizeable advantage with independents should swing the popular vote, the electoral college, and the presidency in his direction. I'm just hoping that each and every state, no matter on which side it falls, is both outside the margin of fraud and outside the margin of litigation. We don't need another Gore-athon like Florida 2000, and we don't need thousands of disappointed conspiracy theorists screaming DIEBOLD!!! at the top of their hyper-partisan lungs because their candidate came up 120,000 votes short. We need a definitve answer on November 7; here's hoping we get that.
Exactly four years ago, on October 30, 2008, The Joust The Facts endorsement for President of the United States reviewed the lack of accomplishment, inexperience, nebulous feel-good gestalt and nefarious associations of then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. It's worth revisiting not only to see what the problems with his candidacy were four years ago, but mainly to see just how obvious those deficiencies were to even a political neophyte like myself. I don't think the Wall Street Journal or NY Times will be calling me looking for their next political columnist. Particularly not the Times. But here's a snippet - see if anything rings true to you, given what we now know.
Sen. Barack Obama has run a very strong campaign, knocking off first
the presumptive nominee when the campaign started, Sen. Hillary Clinton,
and now standing on the doorstep of a general election win over war
hero and Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. Mr. Obama delivers an
elegant speech, professing a politics of "hope" and "change." While
both are nebulous concepts at best they do resonate. "Hope" and
"change" make him look and sound forward-looking and optimistic. But
campaigns do not make the candidate. Rather, the candidate is what he
is, and all of the pomp and window dressing and platitudes and Greek
columns in the world can't change that.
If that is indeed the
case, then what is Sen. Obama? He's only been in the public eye since
2004, when he stepped onto the stage at the Democratic Convention wowing
the audience with his speech on his way to the Senate. The media
hasn't helped us to know more, failing to scrutinize adequately his many
questionable past associations and pronouncements, glossing over some,
excusing some, ignoring some...
We know that Mr. Obama has had quite a few associations with Marxists.
Yes, I used the word. He has espoused redistributionist economics, in
his tax plan where income tax credits can go to those who pay no income
taxes, in his discussion of the civil rights movement in 2001 in the now famous tape, and in his off the cuff explanation to Joe The Plumber.
It is hard to argue that his economic philosophy is not more socialist
than free-market, and even harder to argue that that philosophy will
lead to rising incomes, rising GDP, and more jobs. Having seen
stagflation before, I don't want to see it again. His energy policy is blind to the need for additional drilling and nuclear power, the latter of which is quite 'green', certainly green enough for France.
Let me emphasize that important line:
It is hard to argue that his economic philosophy is not more socialist
than free-market, and even harder to argue that that philosophy will
lead to rising incomes, rising GDP, and more jobs.
Check, check and checkmate. America has seen in Obama's economic stewardship falling incomes, anemic and stagnant GDP growth, and job creation insufficient to bring back the lost jobs from the recession. Some of Mr. Obama's job claims were dependent on a new metric, jobs "created or saved." Here's a convenient video of the deception involved in Mr. Obama's claims of robust job creation, courtesy of Political Math.
And with that record we now have $6 Trillion more in national debt, in just 4 years time. So economically his record has been less than stellar, much as I had anticipated four years ago.
Recall, also, that Mr. Obama's signature achievements in his four years are the 'stimulus,' ObamaCare, killing Osama Bin Laden and saving GM. Let's go in reverse order. "Saving" General Motors meant transferring wealth from bondholders and taxpayers to the company's autoworkers, and the company is still on shaky footing - look at the sales of the Volt, for example. And yes, Bin Laden is dead. The intelligence community found him, Seal Team 6 got the job done, and Mr. Obama gave the operation the thumbs up. Terrorist fighter? Benghazi!
ObamaCare is one of the worst monstrosities foisted upon American citizens imaginable. Nancy Pelosi famously said that we had to pass the bill to know what was in it. Well, now we know, and we don't like it. Bottlenecks, waiting lists, doctor shortages, losing your doctor, paying more for insurance, paying for insurance coverages you don't need or want, loss of freedom, IPAB. The administration knows what medicine you need, and they want you to swallow it and like it. Oh, and there's $716B less for Medicare, by the way.
The 'stimulus' didn't stimulate, and it's not because it was too small. What, we needed $12 trillion in new debt, not just $6 trillion? Private businesses hiring private individuals to grow their businesses is the engine that moves the economic wheels, and with the specters of ObamaCare, fiscal cliffs, exploding debt and blossoming over-regulation, that just isn't happening.
So we can see that Mr. Obama lived up to expectations here at Joust The Facts. He failed. But what about Mitt Romney? Well, he has much more of a record than Mr. Obama did four years ago, having successfully governed Massachusetts, a deeply blue state, as a Republican governor. His RomneyCare is bad, but it pales in comparison to the much more coercive ObamaCare, and it may have been the best he could have done with a legislature that, being 85% Democrat, could pass what it wanted and override his veto. He stepped in and righted the troubled Salt Lake City Olympics from 2000-02. He has been a successful executive.
The economy needs to have politicians stop playing politics with it, and Mr. Romney knows this. Mr. Obama came in and turned his back on Republicans from the start; huge congressional majorities his first two years didn't improve that attitude. Mr. Romney won't be so dismissive. Entitlements need reform. Mr. Obama didn't tackle this necessary task during his first two years with his huge majorities, and he didn't do so with a Republican House. Mr. Romney will.
Mitt Romney knows that businesses need certainty, the ability to see their future and plan for it. Mr. Obama sees business as a large piggy bank that should be required to hire workers and pay higher taxes, or as a way to push an ideologicalagenda in ways that help his bigger donors. Mr. Romney is a capitalist, and conveniently the American economic soul is also capitalist. The debates did Mr. Romney the primary service of exposing his reasonableness to a wider audience. His jump in the polls after the first debate is attributable to the fact that he didn't and doesn't look and sound like the soulless caricature of him touted by the Obama campaign. He looked ... what's the word ... presidential.
And indeed he is. Joust The Facts issues a hearty and hopeful endorsesment of Mitt Romney for president.
Just because I thought you needed a break from the endless stream of ads screeching about how Mitt Romney is going to steal your life savings and give it to Donald Trump and Bill Gates, or rip out your uterus and let his Supreme Court nominees play volleyball with it.
In A Few Good Men Jack Nicholson, as Col. Nathan Jessup famously declared to Lt. Daniel Caffey (played by Tom Cruise), "You can't handle the truth!" The question today is, can the White House? In the second presidential debate Barack Obama declared self-righteously that he had identified the Benghazi terrorist attack an "act of terror" in the Rose Garden speech the next day. That requires very generous inference from the speech. Then spokespeople, representatives and administration officials, including press secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, spent the next 2 weeks identifying a spontaneous demonstration generated by outrage over an obscure internet video trailer as the real source of the problem. Have a look.
(Reuters) -
Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours
after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi,
Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit
for the attack, official emails show.
The emails, obtained by Reuters
from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the
State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that
the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for
the attacks.
The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.
U.S.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in
the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S.
officials ultimately acknowledged was a "terrorist" attack carried out
by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or
sympathizers.
Administration
spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an
unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that
the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim
film.
While officials did mention
the possible involvement of "extremists," they did not lay blame on any
specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates
until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.
At the very least, such emails should have tempered the full-court press that deflected blame to the allegedly offending video. A question I asked earlier is this:
If it is irresponsible to declare this a terrorist attack without definitive evidence that it was, why was it not also irresponsible to absolve terrorists and affix the blame to the video without the same definitive evidence?
I'd also be interested in why such mendacity would be necessary. Perhaps it was thought that it might deflect the questions about lax security. After all, if it was an un-anticipated spontaneous demonstration that ran amok, how could such an event have been anticipated? Perhaps it was because the White House sees insults to Islam as the source of Islamic rage. Which, of course, leads to the incorrect conclusion that according to the administration such rage and killing is understandable if not justifiable whenever insults to Islam occur, and also to the conclusion that the First Amendment in the US Constitution should not protect such speech. Perhaps it's because with Romney winning on the economy, Obama couldn't afford to lose face in foreign policy before November 6. In that event, who would then be playing politics with the loss of American lives?
Ambassador Susan Rice's earnest Tour de Jon Lovitz on five Sunday morning talk shows several days after the attack focused on the video and the word "spontaneous" and made nary a mention of a terrorist attack as the most likely explanation. Yet that appears to be the one that should have been foremost in administration thinking. Spontaneous, indeed.
