THE OBAMA PLAN

Don't forget to tell this to your grandchildren so they can understand what future costs they must pay.

The Sting

Charles Krauthammer - Apr 17, 2009
Townhall


[You may ask me what this has to do with Israel and the global Islamic threat? Everything. If we do not properly handle our national resources and international standing, we will weaken and possibly lose Israel, emboldening Radical Islamic Jihadist to increase their efforts to move towards world domination. After all, there`s nothing like a big, public success to draw new recruits.]

WASHINGTON -- Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal. John Kennedy gave us the New Frontier. In a major domestic policy address at Georgetown University this week, Barack Obama promised -- eight times -- a "New Foundation." For those too thick to have noticed this proclamation of a new era in American history, the White House Web site helpfully titled its speech excerpts "A New Foundation."

As it happens, Obama is not the first to try this slogan. President Carter peppered his 1979 State of the Union address with five "New Foundations" (and eight more just naked "foundations"). Like most of Carter`s endeavors, this one failed, perhaps because (as I recall it being said at the time) it sounded like the introduction of a new kind of undergarment.

Undaunted, Obama offered his New Foundation speech as the complete, contextual, canonical text for the domestic revolution he aims to enact. It had everything we have come to expect from Obama:

The Whopper: The boast that he had "identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade." It takes audacity to repeat this after it had been so widely exposed as transparently phony. Most of this $2 trillion is conjured up by refraining from spending $180 billion a year for 10 more years of surges in Iraq. Hell, why not make the "deficit reductions" $10 trillion -- the extra $8 trillion coming from refraining from repeating the $787 billion stimulus package annually through 2019.

The Puzzler: He further boasted of his frugality by saying that his budget would reduce domestic discretionary spending as share of GDP to the lowest level ever recorded. Amazing. Squeezing discretionary domestic spending at a time of hugely expanding budgets is merely the baleful residue of out-of-control entitlements and debt service, which will increase astronomically under Obama. To claim these as achievements in fiscal responsibility is testament not to Obama`s frugality but to his brazenness.

The Non Sequitur: "To make sure such a crisis (as we have today) never happens again," Obama proposes his radical health care, energy and education reforms, the central pillars of his social democratic agenda. But Obama`s own words contradict this assertion. Notes The Washington Post: "But as his admirable summation of recent history made clear, these pursuits have little to do with the economic crisis, and they are not the key to economic recovery." Obama rarely fails to repeat this false connection. A crisis -- and the public`s resulting pliability to liberal social engineering -- is a terrible thing to waste.

The Swindle: The Obama administration is spending money like none other in peacetime history. Obama is smart. He knows this is fiscally unsustainable. He has let it be known privately and publicly that he intends to cure the imbalance with entitlement reform.

An excellent strategy. If it takes throwing nearly $1 trillion of "porky" (to quote Sen. Charles Schumer) stimulus spending to soften up a Democratic Congress and make it amenable to real entitlement reform, then fine. Reforming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would save tens of trillions of dollars, and make the current money-from-helicopters spending almost trivial by comparison.

In the New Foundation speech, Obama correctly (again) identifies the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid as the key fiscal problem. But then he claims that Medicaid and Medicare reform is the same as his health care reform, fatuously citing as his authority a one-day meeting of hand-picked interested parties at his "Fiscal Responsibility Summit."

Here`s the problem. The heart of Obama`s health care reform is universality. Covering more people costs more money. That is why Obama`s budget sets aside an extra $634 billion in health care spending, a down payment on an estimated additional spending of $1 trillion. How does the administration curtail the Medicare and Medicaid entitlement by adding yet another (now universal) health care entitlement that its own estimate acknowledges increases costs by about $1 trillion?

Which is why in his March 24 news conference, Obama could not explain how -- when the near-term stimulative spending is over and his ambitious domestic priorities kick in, promising sustained prosperity and deficit reduction -- the deficits at the end of the coming decade are rising, not falling. The Congressional Budget Office has deficits increasing in the last seven years of the decade from an already unsustainable $672 billion annually to $1.2 trillion by 2019.

This is the sand on which the new foundation is constructed. Obama has the magic to make words mean almost anything. Numbers are more resistant to his charms.

Charles Krauthammer is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner, 1984 National Magazine Award winner, and a columnist for The Washington Post since 1985.


OBAMA REVISITED

Tuesday Afternoon Roundup - The Appeasement Caravan Continues Along

Posted: 14 Apr 2009 03:59 PM PDT BY SULTAN

(Due to the final days of Pesach\Passover, this will be the final blog update until Thursday night. No new posts will appear until then and no new comments will be moderated)

We've just concluded the drama of the showdown between the Navy Seals and the Somali pirates, despite that the lead story in the news has somehow been Obama's dog, reminding us that we're living in a country dominated by a media churning out a constant tide of "Beloved Leader" stories regardless of what else is going on in the world. And when the polls on the "Beloved Leader" don't go their way, they just massage the numbers enough so that they can proclaim that Hussein is more popular than ever.

“Mr. Obama's overall approval rating, meanwhile, has hit a new high of 66 percent, up from 64 percent last month. His disapproval rating stands at 24 percent” boasted a press release from either CBS News or the Obama campaign, which is a difference without distinction.

In other words it appears The New York Times and CBS “News” cooked the poll numbers until they produced enough people who agreed with the opinions of their reporters about Obama.

Caddell says: “the original raw sample already showed a partisan difference of 8.5 percent but “when weighting or ‘adjusting’ the numbers the partisan gap went over 16 points. In effect what they did was reduce the Republicans in the sample by 13 percent and increased the number of Democrats by 12 percent. Particularly strange was the number of Independent voters was only changed 2 percent.”

Caddell accuses the Times and CBS of being guilty of either one of two things: “It is either terrible methodology or the Bernie Madoff school of polling. Small demographic adjustments are ordinary, but these extremes are unprecedented.”

Meanwhile the media continues concealing the religion of the pirates... but now and then it slips through. Along with the Islamic value system behind the pirates' actions. And their view of human life. Particularly non-Muslim life.

Sometime Thursday, a desperate Phillips jumped from the lifeboat in an attempt to swim to the USS Bainbridge, only to be hauled back on board after the pirates opened fire. From then on, Phillips was tied up.

One pirate radioed the Navy destroyer and demanded to know how far they were from the sanctuary of Somalia's coast.

"Very far," came the reply from the Bainbridge.

"Thank you," the pirate negotiator responded, according to a U.S. military timeline, his politeness masking menace. "If we cannot [reach the] Somali coast, we will kill the infidel."...

Not the hostage. Not the prisoner. Not even the American. The infidel. Kufar. A man whose life under Islamic law belongs to his captors, who may be seized and held for ransom. Unlike a fellow Muslim.

All the while Obama continues rolling the appeasement caravan through the desert. A close look at his Grand Tour seems to show that his chief priority is not any kind of American agenda, let alone a war on terrorism, heaven forfend, but protecting and promoting Islam.

On the heels of bowing to the Saudi king, pressuring NATO into giving Turkish Generals top positions, forcing the Danish Prime minister to apologize for his country's free speech, playing up to Iran and urging the EU to welcome in the Turkish hordes... Obama just keeps going and going.

In Athens, the topic was what else... but Muslim rights.

The US President Barack Obama asked from Athens to recognize the Muslim minority in Greek Thrace. This is what he said on his 10 minute meeting with the Ecumenical Patriarch Vartolomei in Istanbul. The patriarch asked the US president to open the Theological school in Halki and Barack Obama said that this will happen only if Athens undertakes analogical steps regarding the Muslim minority in Thrace.

According to information from the Greek media, the American President told Vartolomei that just the way that the Theological school in Halki teaches orthodox priests in a Muslim country, Greece needs to have schools, which will teach Muslims and other religions. Barack Obama also supported the Muslim appeal from North Greece to choose their own Mufti and not for it to be given to them.

Now this isn't even simply a question of civil rights. Creating an independent Islamic religious framework in Turkey means giving the Saudis free range to set up their own radical mosques and preachers that will naturally promote Jihad.

That's why European nations including France have been backing away from an independent Islamic infrastructure. Meanwhile Obama is bullying Greece into giving Islamic extremism a foothold in its own country.

Sure Barry Hussein's a Christian. As much as I'm a Buddhist. Had the Islamists picked America's policies, they'd be exactly Obama's policies. And just to pile some more sickles and stars on the cake... the US will be providing UAV's to Lebanon.

The pretext is to strengthen Lebanon's army, but the practical use of such aircraft would not do anything to strengthen the military domestically, but would provide equalization in a third conflict with Israel.

Meanwhile via Boker Tov Boulder, Atlas suggests that US participation in Durban is back on.

This is entirely plausible, as under the table the Obama admin promised Jewish leaders that if they kept their mouths shut on the US rejoining the Islamic charade of a UN Human Rights Council, Durban II would be a no go. Now unsurprisingly they're likely to find out that you can't trust a liar, and that both Durban II and the UNHRC are a go.

Senior U.S. officials in Washington and New York are leaning in favor of participating in the "Durban 2" UN-sponsored anti-racism conference scheduled to take place on April 20 in Geneva, diplomatic sources said on Sunday.

The diplomats, who share a close working relationship with the American delegation to the United Nations, informed leading Jewish officials in New York that Washington has increasingly become convinced of the need to dispatch representatives to the conference.

This is all part of the same card game, dealing from the bottom of the deck, and stringing along Jewish groups hoping for some sign of pity or fair dealing, only to wind up cheated and lied to again and again.

Across the blogsphere, Doug Ross at Director Blue has your FairTax brochures in time for the Tea Party.

At Israpundit, Ted Belman writes that the Punjab is now in play.

Lemon Lime Moon takes on piracy for fun and profit

Debbie Schlussel takes a look at Pat Buchanan's support for yet another Nazi.

Solstice Witch brings word on Operation Rooster

Via Dragon Dirt, Sharpton has picked up the meme I wrote about this week, calling the pirates of Somalia, a "Voluntary Coast Guard".

Via Islamic Danger to Americans, an article at Citizen Warrior asking whether it's time to defang Islam.

And at the Fox Forum blogs, the American Legion responds to the Obama Administration's politicized scapegoating of veterans.

The Struggle for America's Soul - a Nation of Laws or a People of Pop Culture

Posted: 13 Apr 2009 07:53 PM PDT
When Benjamin Franklin was asked at the close of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, "What have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”, the learned gentleman answered both wisely and cynically, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Can we keep it? That's the question at the heart of the great struggle for America's soul. Are we a nation of laws or a people of pop culture?

The 2008 Presidential election saw a race between an American war hero with decades of political experience and a man with virtually no political experience and no talent besides posing for photographs. The larger struggle that took place was between America as a nation of laws and the mass media and the internet distilling everything into digital entertainment. And America lost.

When Tony Blair ushered in the New Britain, the Cool Britain, the one detached from its many centuries of wars and history, in favor of one defined by screaming pop stars and brazen tabloid covers-- he did to England, what Obama's backers would do to America. It was not America that crowned Obama, but the New America, without standards, without laws and with no values beyond bread and circuses.

A republic if you can keep it. Rome couldn't. In the years ahead, it will become finally clear whether there will be a United States of America that derives from the laws and values of over two centuries of history-- or Obama's New America, a conglomeration of design skills, reality tv shows, iPod commercials, magazine covers and celebrity hysteria. Not a nation of laws, not even an empire, but a decaying bewildered collapsing oligarchy, where gawkers hawk merchandise with the great leader's photo, where bribery and graft control everything-- and where the biggest employer is the government and the only other employers worth mentioning are overseas companies.

Call it Putin's America. Call it Obama's America.

The panic, the chaos, the devaluation, the defeatism, the depression and the dumbing down of America all serves a purpose-- to make certain that we can't keep the Republic. To make certain that there isn't even a Republic left to keep.

America, the original Ownership Society, is swiftly becoming the Owned Society. The Ownership Society meant that Americans were one of the few citizenries that actually government themselves, because they owned their country. The Owned Society by contrast rolls everything together into one massive bureaucratic pyramid that owns everything and controls everyone, from cradle to grave.

The way to turn one into the other is through disempowerment and devaluation. And by causing people to forget that they are owners, by promising them that life as slaves will be so much easier for them. Why bother working hard when your new bureaucratic masters promise to take care of you instead? Universal health care, unlimited immigration, universal laws, universal everything. Come for the free chains, stay for the 16 hour ditch digging in the volunteer community corps.

Finally and most of all, a Republic is based on reason. So reason must be shouted down with crude slogans, with emotionalism, with biased narratives and memes... and through recreating language itself into a Newspeak mockery that no longer has any objective meaning.

Promise the impossible, speak in grand terms and wait for the applause. Propose what can reasonably be done and let your proposal be debated. That is the difference between the monarch and the President of a Republic. It takes men and women of reason in an ownership society to conduct business in a Republic. But any mob with any figurehead can march around, shout, wave banners and thrill to the demagougery of an egomaniac with a microphone. That is how most of the world is run.

America has been dumbed down, through the public miseducation system, through multiculturalism, through second language immigration, through racial grievance mongering, through the lowest common denominator of entertainment-- all leading to a society eager to give up its rights and freedoms in exchange for a chance to gather in a mob and cheer hoarsely while they're promised a new Golden Age just around the corner.

The Constitutional Convention was the product of a citizenry willing to work for a Republic. The 2008 Presidential election was the work of shills and salesmen playing to a public that no longer understands any of the values or agendas of 1787. Instead a poverty of the intellect and the spirit holds sway disguised by splashy design schemes and carefully orchestrated marketing programs.

The American Experiment was not built on catering to the rule of an ignorant and greedy mob. It was built on the rights and responsibilities of American citizens as individuals. Mob rule negates the Republic, the Constitution and America itself. As Lincoln himself said, a nation cannot survive half-slave and half-free.

Today America is half-slave and half-free and the balance is tilting toward slavery. The slavery is not quite as dramatic, but it is every bit as real, in the political, moral, economic, intellectual and spiritual sense. The nation is half enslaved to a state of enforced mindlessness and ignorance.

The Civil War came about because America could not survive as a free nation if it was half-slave. A society where rule is in the hands of the citizenry cannot exist as a free nation if it is half slave, given time it will become a slave empire, ruled by a handful over the groans and whimpers of the many. The Free Power that the Union Armies fought for, was to be the power of Free Men in industry and politics... over the power of slavery.

Today we once again face that struggle, to submit to slavery, to a nation of slaves chained to a vast government bureaucracy, lashed by endless media propaganda and driven to cheer their own enslavement. Or to reject slavery and to choose freedom.

The Constitutional Convention was the work of men who would not be slaves, it was the heritage of Patrick Henry's warning of the chains that had been forged by a monarchy for the binding of free men, it was that same Republic which Franklin understood could only be kept by free men.

And so the New America of Obama must fail to swallow and forever destroy the United States of America, a nation ruled by laws, a Constitutional Republic in which rights and freedoms are vested in the individual.