Obama's continued failures

Read this for a fair, honest assessment of Obama's first year. It's harsh, fair, and to the point. It is not partisan, just lays out the facts.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/01/the_political_blunders_of_the_1.html

Healthcare payoffs

Nobody ever said the game of politics wasn't full of lies, deceit, and basically doing anything to "get the job done". When Obama ran his 2008 campaign he promised to change the way politics was done in Washington. Regarding the healthcare debate, let's go over a few things that would clearly (even as a liberal supporter) not be included as "change". In fact, I would argue that it is Chicago "machine thug politics" at its worst. Here's a few samples:

• Allowing the payoff of hundreds of millions to Louisiana to pay off skeptical Democrat Senator Mary Landreau. This is known as the "Louisiana Purchase"
• Allowing the payoff of hundreds of millions to Nebraska to pay off skeptical Democrat Ben Nelson. This would allow citizens of Nebraska not to have to pay for Medicare Advantage for the next 10 years. Instead, the rest of the country would pay for it. This is called the "Cornhusker Kickback".
  
• Allowing the "Cadillac Tax" NOT be payed by Union members. Since the unions are one of Obama's (and Democrats) largest supporters, Obama accepted this deal. So those of us who are not union members and have the "Cadillac" insurance plans, have to pay this tax, but Obama's friends do not for I believe 8 or 10 years. NICE!!!
• As mentioned at length in previous posts, Obama PROMISED to put the healthcare debates on CSPAN 8 times during the campaign. Not only has this not happened, but the Democrats have denied the usual committee conference that debates any legislation.
• Obama promised to allow bi-partisan debate, although none of the Republican ideas have been included in the bills. This includes tight restrictions on no federal funds for abortion, the possibility of drugs imported from Canada, being able to get insurance across state lines, tort reform, etc.

Didn't Obama eschew Bush for not getting bipartisan, if not consensus from the majority of the country on any one issue? If you look at ANY of Bush's big bills during his 8 years, he had a good amount of bipartisan support on these issues. This includes both wars (Iraq, Afghanistan), Tax Cuts in 01 and 03, No Child Left Behind, etc. Obama has ZERO support from Republicans and the public now disapproves this on average of 55-39%.

Massachusetts-- Vote Scott Brown

In a special election to fill Senator Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, it was expected to be a ho-hum yawner. This being the Democrat is "supposed" to win every congressional or senate seat without trying. After all, Democrats out-register Republicans by a 37-11 margin. However, there are many more Independents than Democrats in the state. It's a stone-cold fact that all Mass. residents have a negative feeling towards Obama-care. 60% believe costs will go up, while 51% disapprove with Obama-care. Here are several more reasons as to why Brown is leading in three of the last four polls in the state:

• By a three to one margin, Independents are going the Republican Brown's way.
• As mentioned above, the majority are against Obama-care. Coakley has vowed to support; Brown has vowed to oppose.
• Brown is the 41st vote in the Senate, meaning it would stop the ever-unpopular Obama-care.
• Brown has run a great campaign, no matter what your affiliation, and Coakley has run a terrible campaign.

Here are a few doozies from the Coakley campaign to back up the charge that she is running terribly:

• Went to Washington to raise money from Big PhFMA and Washington insiders for her campaign, while Brown stumped in his home state.
• Democrats have placed an ad saying Brown doesn't want to help rape victims in Mass. because he supports the right for pro-life emergency workers to be replaced if an abortion is taking place.
• Called Red Sox hero Curt Schilling a Yankee fan. Umm, is she from this planet?
• When a Coakley staffer pushed down a conservative reporter, she denied seeing it, even though youtube has her staring at the incident.
• Coakley believes Catholics probably shouldn't be working in emergency rooms because of their moral beliefs.
• Coakley misspelled her home state in an attack ad on Brown.. Another oops!!!

All I can say is, down goes Coakley!!! Can't wait for this Tuesday.

Book- Game Change

The new book, Game Change, reports many of the happenings during the lead up to the 2008 presidential election. Two of the things that were said:

Harry Reid (D) Senate Majority Leader: Said Obama had a good chance of winning because he is light skinned, and doesn't have the negro dialect, unless he wants to use it. Now I think the comments do afford an apology, but that they were not necessarily racist comments. What I do have a problem with is how there is a double-standard in our politics when it comes to race. Imagine if Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) said this?? Heads would have rolled, as in McConnell's head..... from the media and blacks around the country. It's hypocrisy 101.

Also, Bill Clinton, trying to sway Ted Kennedy into backing Hillary, said that a few years ago Obama would be fetching coffee for us. Again, stupid comments, inappropriate.

My problem with these two examples-- One, that there is a double standard; and two, that the media doesn't give it it's press time. Case in point, in the 60 Minutes special last night on this new book, both of these stories (probably the biggest stories of the book) were not even mentioned. This, while the McCain advisor v. Palin feud was dissected for about 10 minutes.

So very annoying!!!

Obama lies about having CSPAN debated on HC

Now I know that campaigning for President and actually governing are very different, but Obama is starting to be held accountable for now following through. On 8 separate occasions, Obama said during the campaign that the healthcare debate would be on CSPAN, so the public would know where everybody stands, what concessions are being made, etc.

Now that the public has such little support over Obamacare, there has been ZERO TV coverage. In fact, the Democrats and the administration haven't even allowed it to go to conference for debate. In other words, the Democrat leadership (Durbin, Reid, Emmanuel, Pelosi) are meeting in private rooms, hashing out the final bill.

Also, didn't Obama promise to be a uniter? He has ZERO bipartisan support for this bill. ZERO!! Comparison sake-- On any decent or big bill W. had in the last 8 years, (tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, Iraq War), he had more than 10 Democrat Senators on board for each.

Finally, Obama complained during the campaign that Bush had bills that were voted on, and didn't allow enough time for debate. Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle. Obama is the hypocrite of all hypocrites. As mentioned above, there has been no floor debate on this in the Senate.

One other thing-- Even a few Democrat Senators (Nelson, Landreau) weren't liking this bill. That is until they whored themselves out for special things for their states. For instance, Nelson got Nebraska 100 Million in payments the rest of the country, not Nebraska will have to pay for in Medicare for Cornhusker citizens. It may sound good for his state, but they rejected it. By over 2 to 1, they oppose it, and now Nelson. By the way, Nelson is a dead man walking when his term is due in 2010.

Obama response to underwear bombing

This is getting ridiculous. This administration is totally inept as far as the failed attempted bombing on Christmas day. What we need is strength, resolve, leadership, truthfulness, and accountability after tragedies, or near misses of attack on our country. This is the reason why, love him or hate him, the country responded so well to W. Bush. He was able to show strong resolve, and most importantly, great leadership after 9/11. Here are a few things in which the Obama administration fell way short of what it needed to do:

• Michael Leiter, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, who basically is the man needed for terrorism strikes on our country, decided to stay on the ski slopes for several days after the failed attack.
• John Brennan, Deputy National Security Advisor to Obama- He said there was "no smoking gun" to know of the bombers intentions. Umm, excuse me? How about the bombers own dad saying his son told him that day over the phone this would be his last contact with his dad. to contact This made his dad contact Nigerian intelligence, fearing that his son might be planning a suicide mission in Yemen. The Nigerian officials brought Mutallab directly to the CIA station chief in Abuja Nov. 19. The next day the embassy sent out a thin report to U.S. embassies around the world warning Adbulmutallab may be associating with extremists in Yemen. He also left Amsterdam with no luggage to the US. In addition, he came to the US with his own name. How could this not have been caught??
• Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security Advisor- She said the system "absolutely worked". After getting hammered from the left and right, she offered a mea culpa the next day, although her words were less than convincing.
• The Administration to allow the underwear bomber a US attorney. Absolutely breathtaking. Instead of trying him under the CONSTITUTIONAL Military Tribunal, where we could interrogate him, we allow him a US attorney. Of course at this point of him lawyering up, he stopped talking. And there was evidence that before getting an attorney afforded to him by the Obama Admin, he was singing like a canary, giving up valuable intelligent information.
• Obama- On December 28th, Obama said this was an "isolated event". Sometimes this guy talks out of his ass, think the Harvard Professor friend of Obama getting arrested a few months back and Obama wrongly saying the cops were in the wrong. Anyway, Obama had to backtrack on those words, now that we know it was al-qaeda. This is a damning pattern. He assumes the best out of everyone, which includes the bad guys. This president has to be worse than Jimmy Carter, and that's saying something.
  

2010- The year of the Elephant

After going through a couple very agonizing elections in 2006 and 2008, the Republican party looks to rebound in a big way in the 2010 elections. As history tells us throughout our history, the midterm elections usually are favorable to the party out of party. Being that the Democrats hold the WH, House of Representatives, and Senate, Republicans have history on its side. And when you include a president that has lost a ton of popularity, this adds to the Democrats conundrum.

Many of my earlier posts have described in detail the unpopular state of the larger Democrat bills in 2009. This includes the Healthcare monstrosity, Cap and Trade (currently has stalled in the Senate), and the stimulus package.