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November 6, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Friday, November 6
Hold the Champagne -- Happy Days Aren't Here Again - CLICK HERE.
President Obama: One Year After Winning it All - GO HERE.
In Defense of Health Insurance Agents, and You - SEE HERE.
One Year Later - 'Messiah' president not what we were promised.
Charles Hurt, NY Post.com
So this is the postpartisan politics President Obama promised us.
You have a Democratic president who -- although far from the messiah we were promised -- still remains likable.
Yet his policies -- from his government-run health-insurance scheme to his No Big Company Left Behind platform -- are highly unpopular.
And last night he showed that he is utterly powerless when it comes to getting other Democrats elected.
Take New Jersey, a state Obama carried last year by 15 points. It's reliably Democratic.
Obama went all in, visiting the state three times in which he made five appearances with incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine.
Republicans put up a less-than-stellar candidate, Chris Christie, who ran a mediocre campaign and still managed to win.
Results in Virginia were just as bad.
Obama carried the normally Republican state by 6 points last year. He campaigned there for the Democratic hopeful, and Creigh Deeds aired soaring, urgent campaign commercials featuring the president that were reminiscent of the Obama campaign's own iconic ads.
Yet Deeds was trounced by Republican Bob McDonnell by some 18 points.
Most alarming for Obama were the results in northern Virginia's Louden and Prince William counties.
Obama carried them last year by 10 to 15 points. This year, he ceded them by as much as 20. Read article.
The Obama Revolution Is Over
Matt Gurney, FrontPageMag.com
One year after President Obama swept to power on a promise of “hope” and “change,” American voters got an early chance to pass judgment on his administration. If yesterday’s Republican victories in Democratic strongholds like Virginia and New Jersey are any guide, they don’t like what they see.
While results from around the country were still coming in at press time, the outcome of the race in Virginia is proof positive that the sands have shifted beneath the administration’s feet. Last year, Barack Obama became the first Democrat presidential candidate to win the state since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The Left and their media allies swooned with excitement, and portrayed the 230,000 vote margin of victory as a sure sign that the Republican hold on the state was broken.
Democrats were winning the culture wars in what had once been safely Republican territory, it was claimed. Tomes were written performing autopsies on Virginia’s GOP, examining personal rivalries and acrimony, sloppy communication and a demoralized base as reasons for the surprising defeat. Such was the Democrats’ glee that Virginia Republicans were all but added to the registry of endangered species.
A year later, their demise seems greatly exaggerated. Virginia has gone solidly Republican, with the GOP wining the races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. A reenergized state-level GOP organization will now have a full year to raise funds, mobilize support, and make a hard push to put the state back firmly in the red column in next year’s midterm elections. Read article.
It's Barack Obama's first anniversary - but there's precious little to celebrate.
Simon Heffer, Telegraph.co.uk
A year ago, almost to the minute, I was here in New York, watching television reports of the aftermath of the election of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States of America. I recall the sight of a lachrymose woman from the Midwest, standing outside her run-down house as the sun rose, giving thanks for her deliverance: not from George W Bush, but from the threat of foreclosure. I have no idea whether this poor woman kept the roof over her head; all I know is, if she did, it would have been no thanks to Mr Obama.
On the anniversary of his election, he is busy with unpleasant confrontations with reality. As my colleague Toby Harnden reported so graphically last week, the honeymoon is over. Never in American politics has someone come to power on such a bubble of expectation; never, inevitably, has the pricking of that bubble caused such shock. America may just have come out of recession, but things remain bad. Ten per cent of the workforce is unemployed: here in New York, perhaps the most dynamic and prosperous city on the planet, the figure is even higher.
The rhetoric that bore Mr Obama to office proved equal to electoral success, but not to economic management. Moreover, Mr Obama's most coveted legislative aim, the creation of a sort of national health service, remains elusive. The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper here of serious money, has just savaged the Bill as perhaps the worst inflicted on the American people since the era of Roosevelt. Its projected cost – $1.055 trillion over 10 years – is regarded as madness when America has a level of debt so astronomical that it (just) exceeds, per capita, that of Britain; and few outside a hard core of Obama devotees see it delivering what is needed, where it is needed.
Internationally, the lustre has worn off, too. Read article.
We Still Hold These Truths
The Foundry, Heritage.org
A year ago this week, the American people elected a President who had promised during the campaign that he would: “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families,” expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. Those are all core conservative beliefs. Accordingly, President Barack Obama entered the White House with sky high approval ratings.
But since being sworn into office, President Obama has raised taxes, weakened our defenses, and overseen arguably the largest expansion of government ever. As a result President Obama’s approval ratings have steadily declined, and the American people have only become more conservative. According to Gallup, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven’t changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.
And this is before the more radical elements of the Obama agenda are to be forced on the American people. Both the cap and trade and health care legislation currently moving through Congress will transfer unprecedented power from the private sector to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington. Search the texts of each bill for the phrase “shall” or “may establish.” Every time these phrases appear in these bills, the left in Congress is empowering unelected Obama Czars at the expense of your liberties. And this is not by accident. Read article.
'Nobody Questions That'?
Mark Alexander, Patriot Post.us
Never before has there been more evidence of outright contempt for our Constitution than under the current liberal hegemony presiding over the executive and legislative branches of our federal government.
The protagonist of this Leftist regime is, of course, Barack Hussein Obama, who promised his constituents, "This is our moment, this is our time to turn the page on the policies of the past, to offer a new direction. We are fundamentally transforming the United States of America. And generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was our time" [emphasis added].
Obama proclaimed, "Everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- to lay a new foundation for growth."
In his inaugural speech, Obama declared, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works," signaling his rejection of the old paradigm, which pitted the conservative position, "government is the problem," against the liberal position, "government is the solution."
Thus, by virtue of his election to the presidency nearly one year ago, he believes he has the authority to establish a new paradigm to "fundamentally transform" our nation by creating "a new foundation." Read article.
Denounce, Demonize, Marginalize, Neutralize
Jack Kinsella, BibleProphecyToday.Blogspot.com
"The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time so they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind." - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)
The aim of censorship under the Nazi regime was simple: to reinforce Nazi power and to suppress opposing viewpoints and information. Punishments ranged from banning of presentation and publishing of works at first; then later, deportation, imprisonment and even execution.
Eliminating the opposition always followed the same formula; denounce, demonize, marginalize, and neutralize. Sort of along the lines of the way the Obama administration does it, but not quite as subtle.
A study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of last year's presidential campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News' stories on Obama's Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, were negative.
Is it just me or is anybody else shaking their heads at the cheerful admission that the mainstream media actively suppresses news that doesn't favor the administration unless they are forced to in order to compete with Fox?
I used to think, "it can't happen here." It's already happened. Even as I was watching it all unfold, right before my eyes.
And I still can't quite believe it. Read article.
Government Takeovers: Is Charity Next?
Howard Husock, Townhall.com
When it comes to government’s role in the American economy, we’ve become accustomed to ideas that seemed incredible not long ago—whether public ownership of General Motors or infusions of cash into major banks. But government takeover of private charity? It’s not entirely far-fetched. The stars are aligning for government to capture funds that would otherwise have gone to philanthropy and for government itself to pick charity winners and losers. The result could be a more bureaucratic, less innovative non-profit sector.
Change is happening in three big ways which threaten to combine to increase government influence over both funds and labor.
Little-noticed in the discussion of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill was a proposal floated by an influential group of Democratic Senators (including West Virginia’s John D. Rockefeller IV and Massachusetts’ John Kerry) to quietly raise additional billions in taxes by limiting the value of itemized deductions—such as contributions to charity.
The proposal would hold steady the deductions’ value (at 35 cents on a dollar) even as the top tax rate rises in 2011 to more than 39 percent (as the Bush tax cuts expire). When a similar proposal was advanced early this year by President Obama, the long-time head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Martin Feldstein, estimated it would lead to a $7 billion drop in charitable giving. Such a fall would compound big losses that have already hit charities. Read article.
QUIZ: Who is This Politician? HINT: Not who you think!
Dr. Sam Vaknin, Faith Freedom.org
He was born to a part of the population that was often despised and mocked by the majority.
He was “abandoned” by his parents early on in his life.
He spent his formative years abroad, outside his country.
He never accomplished anything of note before he became the leader of his party (in his late thirties) and the ruler of his country (in his mid-forties).
He published two autobiographical books before he was forty. They both became bestsellers and were promoted by the fawning media. Still, there were gaping holes in his official biography and in his astonishing rise to power. Essentially, he was a secretive and mysterious man.
He was a master of using “new media” and advanced technology in his electoral campaigns. He revolutionized the face of politics. Among his main keywords were: “change” and “hope”. He attracted massive crowds to his rallies.
His party won democratic and fair elections and he assumed the supreme executive office of his country in January the following year. Read article.
Democrats' Policies Based on Dogma, Hopes, Dreams, not Reality
Dennis Prager, Townhall.com
How is one to rationally explain the Democrats' belief that the government taking over another one-sixth of the American economy is a good thing?
The answer is religion.
Given the huge economic failures that the left itself attributes to Medicare and Medicaid and given the economic collapse or near collapse of these systems in other countries, the left's prescriptions can only be explained in one way: The left has made its views a form of religion.
Most individuals on the left are not religious, but virtually all people, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, yearn to believe in dogma, i.e., absolute beliefs that transcend reason. For people on the left in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, belief in the state -- the notion that the state can do a better job at helping people and making a good society -- is one such dogma. This applies especially to educating the young and to health care. Read article.
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