Don’t Forget To Flush Your Oceans Of Tomorrow

Everybody needs to whip out their Clint Eastwood empty chairs again after yesterday’s highly anticipated economics speech by The Insufferable Airhorn at Knox College.

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks considers himself an excellent judge of his own speeches.  “I’m going to talk about where we need to go from here, how we need to put behind us the distractions and the phony debates and nonsense that somehow passes for politics these days, and get back to basics,” Obama said Monday as he addressed Organizing for Action, the non-profit group backing his agenda.

At that meeting he told OFA staff and volunteers, “As we’ve learned, I’ve given some pretty good speeches before. And then things still get stuck here in Washington, which is why I’m going to need your help.”

After nearly five years in the Oval Office, the perpetual campaigner-in-chief attempted to bullshit Americans into believing that he is “making the economy his top priority.”

And by bullshit, I mean this:

“One of America’s greatest writers, Carl Sandburg, was born right here in Galesburg over a century ago.  He saw the railroad bring the world to the prairie, and the prairie send its bounty to the world…he saw something more on the horizon.” 

“I speak of new cities and new people,” he wrote.  “…The past is a bucket of ashes…yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west…there is…only an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows.” 

“America, we have made it through the worst of yesterday’s winds.  And if we find the courage to keep moving forward; if we set our eyes on the horizon, we too will find an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows—for America’s people, and for this great country that we love.”

Jarret Stepman encapsulated this speech beautifully:

“In essence, Obama has twisted the government “of the people, by the people, for the people” into a government that owns you.”

I especially loved Nile Gardiner’s take:

“This was a highly defensive speech, with President Obama in full campaign mode. There were no fresh ideas, just a tired rehash of earlier campaign rhetoric. It was also another love letter to big government, with a clarion call for yet more federal spending on environmental measures, infrastructure, manufacturing, and a laundry list of liberal pet causes. There was not a word about reducing the burden of government regulation, and getting bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs. His speech promised more government spending at a time when America’s national debt is approaching a staggering $17 trillion. He rejected tax cuts, and bashed the rich, at times sounding more like Francois Hollande than the leader of the free world.” 

[SNIP] 

“President Obama’s message will do nothing to reassure a skeptical American public. With unemployment still above 10 percent in 27 major US metropolitan areas, and nearly one in six Americans living on food stamps, the economic record of this administration leaves much to be desired. Today in Illinois, President Obama spoke the language of decline, promising more of the same left-wing policies that have weakened US competitiveness, eroded economic freedom, and have saddled the world’s superpower with historic levels of debt. Americans deserve better than the failed statism that has bankrupted cities like Detroit, and threatens to do the same to the rest of the country.”

Seriously, sorority girls have done the Walk of Shame home from frat parties feeling more satisfied than we feel after this gobbledygook speech.

Don't forget to flush your "ocean of tomorrows."

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 24, 2013

I would like to thank David Burge (Iowahawk) for providing the title of this post.

Here’s A Pen, Sign Your Surrender

I loved that line so much; I pinched it from John Gordon Steele’s piece at Commentary Magazine for the title of this post.

Steele concludes his post with this pearl of wisdom: 

“Obama’s utter disdain for any ideas but his own is going to be the ruin of this president and that ruin might not be that long in coming. Too bad it is the country, along with his place in history, that has to suffer for his hubris.”

Obama’s budget plan is “mainly tax hikes,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters today in Washington. “We’ve got some serious differences,” he said. During a phone call yesterday, Boehner said, he and the president were “frank” about “how far apart we are.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said Obama’s focus on higher tax rates for top earners has made a deal tough to reach.  “The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table the only thing left is varnish,” McConnell said.

When I conceived this Photoshop™, I considered Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol because he loved money more than life itself.  Obama loves money; your money—my money—our children’s’ and our grandchildren’s money.

The second character in the ‘shop is of the bitter, grouchy, cave-dwelling Grinch who had a heart two sizes too small.  He’s there because Obama “seems to think that if all he talks about are taxes, and that’s all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control.”

The third character, Uncle Sam wearing handcuffs, represents a helpless country unable to fend off the significant negative economic, employment, and social consequences of going over the fiscal cliff—the effects of which, in many cases, would mean long-lasting if not permanent damage.

And finally, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks himself, laughing his ass off as he warns Republicans against using the debt ceiling as a bludgeon in this debt battle.  In the spring, when the Chicago Messiah seeks to raise the debt ceiling, we can only hope they refuse to pay him any attention.

Asked About Obama's Failure To Change Washington, Cutter Tries To Change Subject

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Uncle Sam’s Distress Signal

The Unmistakable Odor Of Fear

Everyone in the dextrosphere has blogged about Mitt Romney’s choice of Wisconsin’s native son, Paul Ryan, to be his running mate.

As is my habit, when I got home from work around 11:15PM Friday night, I flipped on the TV to see FNC’s Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron with the breaking news.

I watched with elation at 9:00AM Saturday morning as Jerry Goldsmith’s stirring theme from Air Force One, “The Parachutes”, played in the background to the crowd of more than 2500 gathered at Nauticus, The National Maritime Center on the USS Wisconsin.

In Norfolk, the flag-draped backdrop of the USS Wisconsin set the stage for Romney to introduce Ryan as his vice presidential running mate. 

Given the hour and the patriotic atmosphere, I thought that this might be the “Morning In America” we’ve waited so long for.

Byron York  holds to the belief that, “by choosing Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney is sending a clear signal that he intends to run a more daring and more ideologically vigorous campaign than he has run up to this point.  And in that sense, Romney has now become a gambling man.”

“Although Romney had embraced the Ryan budget plan, he has now embraced its author, too—and in the process moved the issue of entitlement reform and controls on federal spending to the top of the Romney campaign agenda.”

The national debate about entitlements has been egregiously avoided for far too long.  This one’s going to be gargantuan.  It is certainly time for that debate.  With Paul Ryan at Romney’s side, that debate can be won.

Americans are looking for courageous leadership and a willingness to address head-on the unsustainable financial trajectory this nation’s economy is hurtling toward.

In his remarks at Norfolk on Saturday, Ryan reminded us that, “This is the worst economic recovery in 70 years. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for more than three years, the longest run since the Great Depression. We have the largest deficits and the biggest federal government since WWII.”

He added, “Nearly 1 out of 6 Americans are in poverty—the worst rate in a generation.  Whatever the explanations, whatever the excuses, this is a record of failure.”

In Stanley Kurtz’ piece at National Review, he warns that, “Mitt Romney’s selection of the boldly conservative Paul Ryan means that we face an epic presidential contest that will openly turn on fundamental philosophical differences between red and blue America.”

Kurtz sounds the alarm when he points out that, “Although a Romney victory would be taken by conservatives as proof that we are still a center-right nation, the fact is that the mainstream media and our key cultural institutions are now in the hands of an increasingly ambitious Left. The media barely hides its bias now, and they will come at a President Romney with everything they’ve got. The Obama presidency has given the Left a taste of the transformations it might achieve, and defeat will be dismissed as a merely temporary setback."

And finally, this from Gerard Vanderleun, “Our current infestation of American media personalities and American celebrities with Nostalgie pour la defaite rises from decades of beliefs in an America that is best as a "pitiful, helpless Giant;" a kind of "Nostalgie pour la jeunesse perdue"—nostalgia for lost youth. It is literally the only America they know and their entire professional and personal lives, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, from the Hamptons to Beverly Hills are based on this grand assumption.”

“They've had Presidents and Presidential candidates that, commuting to and from these locales, have confirmed it to them. Their coworkers in their jobs confirm it to them. Their significant others, drawn from the same ranks, confirm it to them. The parties they attend, the awards they give and receive, the places they vacation, the books they read and the films they make and see, all confirm it to them over and over again. It is not only the only America they know, it is the only America they can know.”

For months now, I have prayed to Our Creator that He deliver our great nation from this most divisive regime.  Are my prayers being answered with this ticket?

Please read Daniel Greenfield’s article, The Most Divisive Campaign In American History.

Obama Wins The Gold For Worst Economic Recovery Ever

Louis Woodhill, writing for Forbes, contends that if mismanaging an economic recovery were an Olympic event, Old Jug Ears would be standing on the middle platform right now, accepting the gold medal.

Woodhill did not refer to the current occupant of the Oval Office as Old Jug Ears, of course, that’s my pejorative.  Nevertheless, Woodhill continues, “Deep recessions are supposed to be followed by strong recoveries, but under Obama, the worst recession since the 1930s has been followed by the slowest economic recovery in the history of the republic.  In a very real sense, there has been no recovery at all—things are still getting worse.”

Woodhill educates us in his piece by making comparisons in total employment growth, unemployment rate reduction, per capita GDP growth, change in the Real Dow and change in real produced assets with Bush 43, the Bush 41 - Clinton team and Ronald Reagan.

"During the first full year of Obama’s economic recovery (2010), real produced assets actually fell by 1.41%.  This is the biggest drop during the 60 years for which data is available.  It is also the only decline ever observed during an economic recovery."

"We should all be proud that Barack Obama has won the Olympic gold medal in the “Worst First Three Years of Economic Recovery” event, and reward him accordingly in November."

From your lips to God’s ears, Mr. Woodhill.

Photoshop™ Of The Day: Obama Isn’t Working And Neither Is The Horse

Headwinds: One Long Excuse

Via Bloomberg:

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks has talked about them at least seventeen times in the past three years.

That’s how many times the Republican National Committee has recorded the president talking about those headwinds on tape—Obama on a factory floor, Obama in the Rose Garden, Obama in the Oval Office, Obama with Angela Merkel and Obama with a voter at a coffee-counter—“headwinds” again and again and again. 

Forward With Empty Promises

Son Of Stimulus

The Bus Was A Big Mistake

Doug Thompson, publisher and founder of Capitol Hill Blue writes, “President Barack Obama took his act on the road this week, traveling the Midwest in a $2.4 million armored bus in what his handlers claim was an attempt to ‘interact with real people.’”

“Next? He’s headed to Martha’s Vineyard for a vacation amid the rich and famous.”

“So much for mixing with the masses.”

“Crowds for his highly-hyped bus tour were tepid at best. The enthusiasm is gone from his carefully-staged events. So is his stirring rhetoric. The words that now spill from Obama’s mouth like verbal diarrhea are halted, hesitant and devoid of emotion.”

“For Obama, the magic is gone, along with the swagger that characterized his demeanor early in his presidency.  The man who swept into office with such high expectation now appears worn, tired and unsure of himself.”

I couldn’t have described this pitiful footnote to the errand boy sent by grocery clerks’ presidency better if I had tried.  Bravo, Mr. Thompson.  Bravo!



Is The American Dream Withering On The Vine?

At a Chicago fundraiser, on Wednesday, August 3, 2011, the gelding who occupies the Oval Office said, “It’s been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we were inheriting so many challenges, that we’re not even halfway there yet. When I said ‘change we can believe in’ I didn’t say ‘change we can believe in tomorrow.’ Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy.”

That was the day after Congress passed the debt deal forestalling a default.  What loomed in the background was the threat that Standard & Poors was going to downgrade America’s credit rating.  I believe the Administration thought that passage of the bill would prevent the actions of S&P.  That belief was proof of their unparalleled naiveté.

Philip Klein, writing at The Washington Examiner, believes that this president will not escape the blame for America’s credit rating being downgraded.  Klein cited that “Obama was elected president at a time when Americans felt the nation was in decline, and his central job was to restore their faith that our best days were ahead of us, as President Reagan did after the Carter era.  Whether you think he was dealt a poor hand or not, the bottom line is that the sense of decline has only deepened during the Obama presidency, and the first-ever downgrade of U.S. credit, whatever its ultimate financial implications, is yet another symbol of that decline.”

Via Memeorandum, Drew Westen, writing at The New York Times, gives us a glimpse at the inconvenient truth that the Left must now face: “A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in twelve years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted “present” (instead of “yea” or “nay”) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.”

As the presidential election draws ever nearer, it will be damn near impossible for this errand boy sent by grocery clerks to erase the electorate’s memory of his commitment to drive America deeper into debt for a distorted ideology to “fundamentally transform America.”

Cross-posted at The Conservatory.
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