Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Hey, Obamabots?

11 Comments

At what point do you recognize that you’ve been supporting an incompetent ninny?

At another point in Obama’s presidency, such a minor skirmish would not have mattered all that much. But this is, in fact, a key point in Obama’s presidency. As I explain in this week’s issue of TIME magazine, now available online to subscribers, the Obama White House is preparing a major shift in tone and substance in the hopes of reasserting Obama’s leadership abilities heading into the next election. Recent months, of course, have not been kind to Obama’s polls, which have registered roughly 10-point declines in Obama’s reputation for being a “strong leader” and for being “able to get things done.”

You don’t say.

The nation is of course fortunate in that the president with the most leftist agenda in decades, if not in history, is incompetent at implementing it.

[Update a few minutes later]

This seems related somehow:

It’s reported that the new jobs plan that you will unveil next week will, once again, focus in substantial measure on “green job” creation.

What, specifically, are “green jobs” and why do their creation merit more of your attention than other jobs?

Precisely how many “green jobs” have been created in the last two and a half years? At what price per job?

How many “green jobs” need to be created over the next 14 months to fulfill your promise of lowering the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent by November 2012?

What qualifies you, or any other politician, to determine which jobs are worthy of creating?

What evidence do you have that government can create jobs for which there is little or no current market demand?

Why do you believe your government-command approach to job creation will be any more successful than had been that of, say, the Industry Secretariat of the Odessa oblast?

We have a president who knows nothing about business, nothing about economics, nothing about technology, yet deludes himself (and many of his followers) that he’s a genius at all of the above. It’s a devastating combination for the nation.

[Update a while later]

“There is no secret, brilliant strategy. This White House is in a bubble.” Considering the personnel involved, how could there be a brilliant strategy?

[Update a few minuts later]

The Obama-thon continues:

Two years ago this week, President Obama came back from his summer vacation and asked to speak to a joint session of Congress. It was the fifth prime-time sales pitch for ObamaCare in his seven-month-old presidency. ObamaCare eventually passed, but the address did essentially nothing to make the plan more popular. Indeed, it remains unpopular.

Why? Surely the substance of the legislation amounts to its essential flaw. But it’s also worth noting that, measured by effectiveness, President Obama (unlike candidate Obama) simply isn’t a very good speaker. Indeed, with the possible exception of his post-Arizona shooting speech, it’s very difficult to think of a single instance where Obama has delivered a politically successful address on domestic issues during his presidency.

Such statements stun some of his biggest fans — though fewer and fewer these days — because they think he talks the way a president should. It seems they pay little heed to the possibility that they like what they hear because the president tells them what they want to hear, or because their fondness for Obama clouds their judgment. The fact remains that the president is very bad at persuading people who don’t already agree with him.

It’s not 2008 any more.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Blacks Call For Sanctions Against Racist

2 Comments

But no one will care:

Timothy F. Johnson, founder of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, said Wednesday that the civil rights abuses and crimes of the Jim Crow era were carried out mostly in regions controlled by the Democratic Party. He decried Carson’s comments as “outrageous, hateful, and desperate,” adding in a statement: “When some Democrats can’t win a political disagreement, they normally resort to race-baiting, which is in itself racist.”

Deneen Borelli: Carson “absolutely should resign,” Borelli said. “This is very dangerous, the comments that he made.” Deneen Borelli, an African-American tea party speaker and a fellow with Project 21, a network of black conservatives under the auspices The National Center for Public Policy Research, called for Carson to resign.

“This is absolutely outrageous for him to say these kinds of comments, especially considering what position he holds in the Congressional Black Caucus,” she told Newsmax. “This is someone who is supposed to be showing a leadership role, and instead he is inciting racial tension in our country.

It’s who they are. It’s what they do.

Humor, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

The Obama Transcripts

3 Comments

So I was looking at this thread from a few months ago, and realized that I hadn’t replied to a few comments. First, my apologies to Joe Triscari — I did indeed mistake his comment for Matula’s. But I’m amused by the people who thought that they’d uncovered a key clue to the fraud:

Just wondering why the paper looks wrinkled while the typed “content” doesn’t appear to follow any of the irregularities.

…the most damning evidence is something called “topical distortion”. All of those odd shadows in the background are from what appears to be crumpled and then smoothed paper. These small folds where the paper was crumpled should cause distortions in the smooth lines of the fonts but there are none … zero! Not on the big curves, not on the bold blocks and not on the thin lines. No distortions of any kind. This can only mean that the wrinkled paper is an image separate from the text. Probably added in separately on another graphic layer or else printed on the paper as an image along with the text.

Anyone can see this simply by simply zooming in on the image … in IE8+ or FireFox3+ just hold the Ctrl key and then press the equals key (=) a few times to zoom in. Press Ctrl and zero (0) to return to normal. They will also see a lot of “artifacts” (white “glows”) around the letters which also strongly suggest layers were used to create the image.

Full disclosure (and this is the first time I’ve ever commented on the genesis of this document). I generated it in Open Office Writer, printed it out, crumpled it, and scanned it.

So much for “digital forensic analysis.”

[Update a couple minutes later]

In fact, in looking at it more closely, I do in fact see a little distortion of the top of the “T” in “Transcript.” So it’s maybe more a fail of the analyst than such analysis in general.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Here We Go Again

16 Comments

I’ve had people tell me in comments here, “no, no, no, the housing crisis had nothing to do with the government pressuring banks to make dodgy loans.” But they’re still doing it:

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez has argued that bankers who don’t make as many loans to blacks as whites (because they make lending decisions based on traditional lending criteria like credit scores, which tend to be higher among white applicants than black applicants) are engaged in a “form of discrimination and bigotry” as serious as “cross-burning.” Perez has compared bankers to “Klansmen,” and extracted settlements from banks “setting aside prime-rate mortgages for low-income blacks and Hispanics with blemished credit,” treating welfare “as valid income in mortgage applications” and providing “favorable interest rates and down-payment assistance for minority borrowers with weak credit,” notes Investors Business Daily.

This is what happens when every single high-level appointment to the Justice Department is a leftist.

Political Commentary

Boehner’s Polite Response To Obama’s Rudeness

15 Comments

You don’t say:

Usually, the WH will work out a date in private with the Speaker & Majority Leader before going public with a request.

Well, that’s only for those White Houses that aren’t occupied by the Sun King.

Obama’s lucky he’s been offered a joint session at all. There is nothing in the Constitution or law that requires Boehner to give him one. He could have told the president to pound sand, and give an Oval Office address. It’s not like he’s going to say anything new.