Today marks the 101st anniversary of the day of Ronald Reagan’s birth. Happy Birthday, Dutch!
I get a kick out of his nickname, “Dutch”. My dad and all his brothers were given nicknames by a hired hand when they were kids; the eldest brother was “Abie”, next was “Dutch”, dad was “Swede”, and his little brother was “Runt”. They kept those names for the rest of their lives, and most of their closest friends didn’t even know their real names. Dad said the only person who called him by his real name was his own mother.
Reagan’s nickname came a little earlier than did my dad’s and his brothers’;
I’ve known quite a few Dutchmen; don’t really get how being a chubby baby made him look like a Dutchman, but whatever. Just wanting to wish one of my favorite Presidents a happy birthday. You, sir, are missed.
edit: Interesting side note;
That was the Reagan Quote Of The Day on the Ronald Reagan website when this post first went up a year ago. Ironic, especially considering the parallels between the Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter Administrations. The Obama people keep saying we’re coming out of this recession/depression; while this part of the country hasn’t been as badly affected as others, I’m not getting the same warm fuzzies they’re trying to pass along in regard to the economy. Replacing Obama would go a long way toward instilling confidence in a lot of people though.
I was listening to the radio while running errands today, and the news was just breaking that Donald Trump was endorsing Mitt Romney for the RNC Presidential nomination. The news reporter added that if Romney were to get the nomination the The Donald said he wouldn’t run as a third-party candidate…
Lovely; now we have a big-haired celebrity type telling us that if Romney isn’t elected he just might jump in as a third-party spoiler. Trump would have a snowball’s chance in hell of actually winning, but him being in the race would certainly give us a repeat of what Ross Perot did in 1992 and 1996 — the Republican vote would be effectively split, and that would guaran-damn-tee another four years of Barack Obama.
A yet again there is very little to like in the people running for the Republican nod this cycle; of the four left in the race, Romney is the one I like the least. That said, any one of them is certain to do better than the current Oval Office occupant. I fear though that a Romney Administration will be about as successful in advancing conservative policy as that of George W. Bush… Not very.
Whoever gets the nod, here is one post-campaign* promise I’d like to hold President Obama to:
* almost forgot; with him the campaigning never ended.
This is a for-real play in the Barack Obama reelection campaign playbook. Gotta wonder though what exactly is considered an “attack” on the President; anything that puts him in a bad light I guess, which in most cases includes the unvarnished, un-spun truth (ie: not what comes out of the White House Briefing Room, nor what’s regurgitated by the mainstream media.) Looking through the site’s “Attack Files” shows enough spin to make a carousel operator dizzy.
Makes me wonder how many times I’ve might get ratted on. Not that I’m too worried about it, but if I end up with an IRS audit in the next couple of years, I’ll be more than just a little put out. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll break with my usual procedure and not include links to that site. wink wink
edit: I threw this post together in a matter of a few minutes soon after I first heard about AttackWatch.com, and before I had heard any commentary on it. Since then, the disdain for the idea of the website and the website itself has been pretty much universal; even the left hates it. Here’s one snide bit of funny about it; enjoy!
President Obama gave his so-called jobs speech tonight, and as was widely predicted, it’s nothing more than another “stimulus plan” he’s trying to fly under the radar. Sure, there are lots of things in this imaginary bill that he was blathering on about that might actually help, but there are a lot of other things that are just more of the same failed throw-money-at-it solutions that seem to be the only trick up his sleeve.
I didn’t have much chance to listen to the speech live (but have taken the time to read through it since), but one line I did hear really struck a chord with me…
Those of us here tonight can’t solve all our nation’s woes. Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.
Unbelievable. I couldn’t help but think about the chapter in Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged; John Galt, when put on the spot after the looters in government had very nearly destroyed the country, captured him and pressed him into service in order to rescue them, was asked in front of a nationwide audience what they should do next. He simply said, “Get the hell out of my way.”
And that should be Barack Obama’s first step that Washington takes in order to “improve people’s lives”; just get out of the way. It’s blindingly obvious by now that when it comes to the economy (and many other things) he has no clue what he’s doing, that everything he’s tried has not only failed but has made things worse, and he is totally bankrupt of ideas. The best thing he can do is to step aside and allow his first thought in that quoted paragraph take hold; unshackle the businesses of this country and let the the recovery begin.
Monday’s Wall Street Journal opinion article, America Gets Downgraded really hits the nail on the head:
Friday’s downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of U.S. long-term debt… will be the first of many such humiliations if Washington doesn’t change its economic and fiscal policies. Investors and markets & not any single company’s rating & are the ultimate judge of a nation’s creditworthiness. And after their performance in fanning the credit and mortgage-security mania of the last decade, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch should hardly be seen as peerless oracles. Their views are best understood as financial opinions, like newspaper editorials, and they’re only considered more important because U.S. government agencies have required purchasers of securities to use their ratings. … Yet is there anything that S&P said on Friday that everyone else doesn’t already know? S&P essentially declared that on present trend the U.S. debt burden is unsustainable, and that the American political system seems unable to reverse that trend. This is not news. …
Reading that article (not necessarily the quote above) reminded me of something one of my business profs said back in my college days: Nothing is worth more than someone is willing to pay for it. The President can make all the speeches he likes decrying people who made the call on the downgrade of the US credit rating and saying that their opinion doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are solid reasons behind the downgrade. Obama talked a good game during the election, positioning himself as a moderate, but his actions since entering office have business owners & investors on edge; the pervasive uncertainty in the business community is what’s keeping the economy down. I don’t see much hope of things getting better as long as Obama is in charge.
President Obama addressed the nation last night to supposedly bring us up to speed on what’s going on with the debt ceiling stalemate between the Republicans in the House and him & the Democrats. I didn’t see the live broadcast but did catch the video & read the transcript, and was completely disgusted afterward. I started writing a post about it but it was late so I didn’t get very far with it, so decided to quit & go to bed before my blood pressure got out of hand. This morning I found this video from Patriot Post Humor in my inbox this morning; it’s nothing short of perfect.
As tempting as it is to just leave it at that, I need to get a few things off my chest. First off, the impending crisis precipitating this stalemate is the very real threat that, “… our country’s Triple A credit rating would be downgraded…” But he claims, wrongly, that the way to dodge that bullet is to raise the credit ceiling so the country can continue to pay its bills; that’s only a temporary fix to a much deeper problem. The fact that we’ve run out of credit and risk defaulting on bond interest payments is only a symptom that we’rethe government is spending too much. Way, way, way too much. The biggest problem as I see it is that neither of the plans being proffered by the House and the Senate adequately addresses the issue of spending beyond our means, and the proposed cuts won’t be enough to avoid the downgrade in the credit rating. All of the finger pointing and bickering will be for naught, and we’ll still have the “tax increase” resulting from higher interest rates.
He also said that raising the debt limit is something that other Administrations have done in the past, implying that it’s no big deal; what he doesn’t tell us is that the debt ceiling has already been bumped up three times since he entered the White House, by a total of nearly $3 Trillion (whereas previous increases have been much more modest and some only temporary.) And that mousy little bedbug Harry Reid is gaming to raise the limit by another $2.4 Trillion; $5+ Trillion in three years isn’t business as usual, as Mr. Obama would have us believe. Far from it.
He said:
For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.
Really; no kidding? We’re spending more money than we take in? Thank you Professor Obvious. But excuse me, when can you “spend” a tax cut? In case someone at the White House needs to be reminded, the money does not belong to Washington, DC. It wasn’t spent, it wasn’t given away, it was simply not taken from its rightful owners, people who, for the most part, can use that money to do more to improve the economy than our illustrious elected leaders could ever do. And the code words for “It’s Bush’s Fault” are just a little too obvious these days; that excuse is wearing really thin.
He also said:
As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more – on tax cuts for middle-class families; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.
Again with trying to blame Bush. True, Bush was no fiscal conservative and he didn’t do much to help things especially with that bailout fiasco in 2008, but continuing to try & pin the blame for the explosion of the federal debt over the last three years on him is just plain ludicrous. And spending more money that the government doesn’t have at a time like this is like throwing gasoline on a fire. If he and the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are the budget hawks he is trying to make them out to be now, why didn’t they take the opportunity when they didn’t have to worry about the pesky Republican to get the country back in the black? They were too busy ramming their version of Health Care Reform through and spending money like drunken sailors to repay the left-wing special interests. Funny that nobody was much concerned about bipartisanship then, when the Republicans were effectively shut out of the entire process (cue more eyeball rolling.)
And I love his line about the so-called “balanced approach” and “contributions”:
The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a cuts-only approach — an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scales, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about – cuts that place a greater burden on working families.
It’s like a robber thanking the banker for his “contribution”. His definition of a balanced approach means cutting a little here & there and raising taxes as well, although he doesn’t have the courage to call them tax increases. And last I checked, when it comes to income taxes, the top 10% of those “wealthiest Americans” already pay nearly 70% of all federal income taxes. Just how much is their fair share, Mr. President? And the red herring he keeps throwing around about the private jet owners… This from the guy with the grandest of all private jets, and the one which we have the privilege of paying for (cue rolling of eyes.)
Yes, given the situation we’re in, the debt limit does need to be raised, but I’m convinced that it should only be temporary and only accompanied by drastic cuts that put the country on track to balance the budget. And sign me up as a supporter of a Balanced Budget Amendment; that’s one thing that is long overdue. If there’s one thing in Obama’s speech last night that I can agree with is that the fault for the mess du jour lies with both parties and all the politicians. Anything that We The People can do to put a bit in their mouths is a step in the right direction.
I also watched John Boehner’s response to Obama’s speech; the difference between the two men is striking. Boehner comes across as the adult in the room, looking much more like a leader than Obama does on his best day. Ever since the days of the 2008 campaign I’ve said that Barack Obama was not qualified for the job of President, and he’s spent the last two years proving he’s in way over his head. Last night’s speech just reinforced the fact.
The problem with reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling, (President Obama) explained in a long sermon, is that there is this huge wave of Republicans who won control of the House in the last election by promising not to raise any more taxes and to cut the absurd overspending that has driven this town for decades.
He bemoaned — in public — that these Republicans are more concerned about the “next election” rather than doing “what’s right for the country.” In other words, he is saying the honorable thing would be for these Republicans to ignore the expressed wishes of voters, break their campaign promises and raise taxes. Wow.
And then there was last night’s performance by the President where he stormed out of a meeting with Congressional leaders after telling House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, “Don’t call my bluff, Eric!” You’ve just gotta love a poker player dumb enough to broadcast a bluff by telling you it’s a bluff. Obvious bluffer is bluffing, obviously. He can’t even blame that flub on the Teleprompter in Chief.
Or at least you’d think so, listening to the President. He is now on record saying that he can’t guarantee that Social Security checks, veterans’ checks, disability checks, etc… will be able to be sent out on August 3 if Congress can’t resolve its differences over reducing the deficit/raising the country’s debt limit by then. Of course, a statement like that is pure sophistry, scare tactics, and the worst kind of politicking, but also of course, people will believe him.
This kind of crap just pisses me off to no end. And what makes it even worse is that the clown from CBS “News” (I use that term very loosely) didn’t even challenge those lies. It’s like Obama’s staff handed this bozo a list of softball questions and the interviewer is just reading a script.
The fact of the matter is that despite all the doom-doom rhetoric by the President and Tim Geitner, if the debt limit is not increased by August 3, the country will not automatically be in default. The country will not be able to spend more than it takes in, but reaching our debt limit will not suddenly stop all tax receipts. In fact, I will be getting my paycheck tomorrow and again two weeks from tomorrow, and I can guarantee that those checkstubs will show sizable (well, sizable to me anyway) “contributions” to the federal coffers. And millions of other people across the country will see the same thing.
What will happen if the debt limit is not increased and the country is prevented from borrowing more money than we already owe is that the President and Congress will then have to prioritize what gets paid and what does not. So IF those checks don’t go out on August 3 as President Obama has threatened, then guess who bears part of the blame for that… Of course, he’ll say that it’s all the Republicans’ fault.
And in the case of MSNBC’s Mark Halperin was set free — indefinitely — for speaking the truth about President Obama’s press conference performance last Wednesday.
He apologized on the show a few minutes later and said he deeply regretted making the comment. Immediately after the show concluded at 9 a.m., a meeting was convened about the incident, and by 10:30 a.m., the channel said Mr. Halperin had been suspended “indefinitely” from his political analyst position.
Yeah; it probably wasn’t exactly appropriate to call the President a dick on national TV, especially on one of the bigger outfits like MSNBC. But if the shoe fits… After hearing bits of what Obama had to say in that speech, I can’t help but agree with Halperin’s assessment; he did sound like a bit of a dick. I’m no political analyst, but the intent of that speech seemed to be less of a “how can we work together to fix these problems” thing than a “who can I blame because I haven’t accomplished diddly” thing. Pure politics.
The strange thing is his ranting about what “Congress can do, right now” to improve the economy; true enough, Congress could be doing something more (I tend to think that especially with this Congress, the less they do, the better off we all are) but does he really think that insulting the people that he needs to work with is going to make them want to cooperate? I don’t. He chides Congress for not being the leaders they are supposed to be (check the mirror lately, Mr. Obama?) and their upcoming summer recess, saying he’s been in DC the whole time getting things done; but what I’ve seen is him spending time on the golf course, having celebrity parties, making television appearances, flying Air Force One all over the country for Democrat fundraisers (and nearly shutting down entire metropolitan areas in the process.) Is it any wonder that shortly after giving Congress that tongue lashing, Mr. Obama was off to yet another DNC fundraiser? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black… Some leadership.
I seriously doubt he had any thought toward solving any of the problems he complained about; his intent was more likely to make himself look better in the eyes of potential voters, and what better way to do that than beat down somebody else so he looks better in comparison. If this guy, with all he’s done to screw things up and all he’s failed to do to fix anything, actually manages to get himself reelected…
In an interview, a San Diego Assistant Port Director Al Hallor confirmed that nasty stuff has been found coming into the country. I guess this really comes as no surprise; the surprise is that we don’t hear about it more. One day we may get complete disclosure on all of the potential disasters that have been put down because of the diligence of people like Al.
One thing about this story that really makes you wonder is why the major networks haven’t picked up on it. I heard about it on a talk radio show tonight, and the host — no fan of President Obama’s — says it has to do with the mainstream media outlets being in the tank for Obama and not wanting him to look bad. I don’t buy that; the successes of Homeland Security (in spite of Janet Napolitano’s denial about the southern border) ought to be feathers in Obama’s cap. If anything, the silence on the issue is being purposely kept quiet to keep people from freaking out. Like Kay said in Men in Black, “A person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals…”
