Actually, That's 31% Off

    From the Weekly Standard on Monday:

Blowout Sale! '25% OFF Everything in [Obama] Store!' 

Just received this email from President Obama's reelection campaign:

Then today we see this at Powerline:

The Obama administration is set to eliminate a significant portion of Egypt’s $3.2 billion debt to the U.S. According to the Washington Post, the debt-relief package will likely approach $1 billion.

That's 31% off.  I guess Egypt's code is even better than "SUMMERSALE".

Update: By the way, I tried "ARABSPRING".  Didn't work.

Obama 2016: The Movie

    I recently watched Dinesh D'Souza's new documentary, Obama 2016.  I had heard going into it that the film was not a foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy theory attack on the president, but rather a fairly evenhanded, though partisan, exploration of the background and influences of Barack Obama.  Having now seen it, I concur.  D'Souza could have made the 9/11 "conspiracy" look like a Ken Burns documentary if he'd been so inclined - some of the material is quite shocking.  But his sources are widely available and easily verifiable.
    Much of the movie is narrated by Obama himself through the audio version of his book, Dreams From My Father.  The 2008 campaign will go down in history as one of the great abdications of responsibility of not just the press and the Republican party, but of us the American people.  The refusal to read and take seriously Obama's own explication of his world view was inexcusable.  One can reject the idea that a person's upbringing, parents, mentors, associations, friends, professors, religious leaders, and even his writings do not define who he becomes, but to do so is to turn a blind eye to history and relegate the entire genre of biography and autobiography to "entertainment."  If politics is the arena of ideas, then who a politician trained under and what his program of training consisted of is highly relevant.
    Towards the close of the film, D'Souza says: “The first time we didn’t know Barack Obama: now we do.”  Certainly much of what we know now is due to observation of the president while he's been in office.  But D'Souza's film adeptly fills in some of the gaps and provides indispensable context.  Whatever your current view of Barack Obama, I highly recommend it.

Everyone Loves Re-runs

    As President Obama heads toward Charlotte, his latest crowd pleasing taunt of the Republicans is that its convention was a "re-run."

It was a rerun. We’ve seen it before. You might as well have watched it on a black and white TV. (ABC News)

Mr. Obama said Romney "did not offer a a single new idea - just retreads of the same old policies that have been sticking it to the middle class for years." (CBS News) 

"What they offered over those three days was an agenda that was better suited for the last century," said Obama. "It was a rerun. It could have been on Nick At Nite." (NY1)

Republicans were either prescient or simply quick on the draw and may cause the president to regret that choice of words.  Here's a new web ad from the GOP comparing 2008 Obama with 2012 Obama:



As I noted earlier in Defining Moment, Obama's 2008 campaign is a gold mine for Republicans.  And this latest effort certainly struck gold.

"Abortion Care" Trumps "Child Care" at Democratic National Convention [Updated]

    On August 20, just as the Todd Akin "legitimate rape"/abortion story was beginning to break, the Charlotte Observer had a fascinating article which the Daily Caller picked up the next day about the lack of child care at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte.  (As far as I can tell, there were no formal arrangements for childcare at the RNC gathering in Tampa in August either.)   A press release titled "National Organization for Women Denounces Democratic National Convention for Discrimination Against Moms" from four local chapters in Southern California of the National Organization for Women (NOW) ripped into the organizers of the convention.  Gloria Steinem, the godmother of the feminist movement, led off with this astounding statement:

Women are the key to a Democratic victory, and sometimes, children are the key to women. It’s both right and smart for the Democratic Convention to behave as if children exist.

Several other women are quoted in the release as well, suggesting the Democrats have pre-1920s policies in place regarding women and children, and calling on the DNC to make changes to support "true family values."
    While some may find it remarkable that these statements were made in the first place, what might be even more remarkable is where have these statements gone?  The only place I can find the press release I linked to above is at the Online With Zoe blog.  Three of the four chapters of NOW listed on the press release have their own websites, but there is no mention on the issue on any of them (Hollywood, Pacific Shore, and Palm Springs,) nor on NOW's national website.
    What is going on?  Did the Southern California sisterhood not check with the national organization before launching its attack?  Did the national organization feel that a statement such as "It’s both right and smart for the Democratic Convention to behave as if children exist" would look incongruous next to its own August 21 press release calling for "Romney and Ryan to Renounce Republican Party Platform Policy on Abortion Care"? [emphasis mine]  Perhaps this August 22, 2012 headline and story from ABC News is no coincidence:

DNC Set to Feature Sandra Fluke, Pro-Abortion Rights Activists in Charlotte

Democrats today unveiled a list of 10 new activists and politicians – all women – scheduled to speak at the party’s grand gathering in Charlotte, N.C...

Headlining the Democrats’ group is Georgetown Law grad Sandra Fluke...

The old guard will be represented in Charlotte, too, as Nancy Keenan, the president of the country’s longest active abortion-rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice America, has also accepted an invitation to speak.

“As I stand on stage at the convention, I will amplify your pro-choice voices,” Keenan wrote in a blog post today. “I’m proud that the Democratic Party is again reaffirming its commitment to protect women’s reproductive rights through the party platform, and by choosing so many pro-choice speakers for the convention.” 

 As the Todd Akin fiasco drew attention back to the abortion debate, the objections of Gloria Steinem (who is not on the list of speakers at the convention) and her Southern California sisters may have fallen victim to the larger pro-choice cause.  Their little war-on-women by the DNC doesn't rate next to the GOP's War on Women, which more and more appears to be the defining issue for the Democrats upcoming convention.  It remains to be seen if the local NOW groups will try to raise the issue again, or meekly accept their fate under the pro-choice bus.


Update:  I found the press release on the Pacific Shore NOW website.  It was posted on September 4th.   It links to a petition here titled: "Petitioning Democratic Party Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Democratic Party Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Stop Discrimination Against Moms with Young Children at the Convention."  As of Thursday morning, the petition, needing 900 signatures, was still 60 short.

Defining Moment

    Michael Grunwald of Time Magazine noted today that the perennial question of presidential campaigns since 1980 "Are you better off now then you were four years ago?" has reared its head again this time around:

[Obama campaign advisors] really need to find an answer to the question: Are Americans better off than they were four years ago? On “This Week,” David Plouffe repeatedly dodged it before saying “we’ve made a lot of progress.”  David Axelrod also stonewalled on “Fox News Sunday,” saying only that we’re in a “better position” than we’d be under Republican rule. On “Face the Nation,” Obama surrogate Martin O’Malley actually replied: “No, but that’s not the question of this election.”

    Grunwald boldly asserts the Obama campaign should answer the question with a "yes." If the campaign is going to follow this advice, it'd better have its act together more than it did today, and quickly.  Here's how a campaign ad called "Defining Moment" begins, and it's an excellent argument for Mitt Romney and the Republicans:

At this defining moment in our history, the question is not, "are you better off than you were four years ago?"   We all know the answer to that. The real question is will our country be better off four years from now?  How will we lift our economy and restore America's place in the world?

This is a fairly devastating framing of the choice facing the nation this November.  If Barack Obama hasn't delivered in three and a half years, why should the American people trust him with another four?  What will he do differently this time that will actually turn the country around?

    By the way, that campaign ad, "Defining Moment"?   It's a Barack Obama ad from 2008:




Defining moment, indeed.


Note:  I originally posted about this ad back in March.

Does Obama Deserve a Second Term? Ask the White House

    Wow.  Read this from the White House website's autobiography of Bill Clinton [emphasis mine]:

During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history. He was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term. He could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country's history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare rolls. He proposed the first balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus.

    Bill Clinton managed to do what no Democratic president had done in half a century.  Using the same criteria, what do Barack Obama's reelection chances look like?

• Unemployment - The unemployment rate has been above 8% for 42 consecutive months, the longest period of sustained high unemployment since the Great Depression. (Forbes)  The median length of unemployment is now 19.4 weeks — also nearly double from what it was in January 2009. (IBD)
• Inflation - Real inflation rate above 8%; gas prices up 83%. (NY Post)
• Home Ownership - Census reports the national home ownership rate at 65.4% is the lowest in 15 years.  African American home-ownership under Obama has fallen 30 percentage points below white home ownership, the biggest difference in 20 years, and one of the biggest on record. (Forbes)
• Crime – Bright spot!  Despite hard economic times, crime continues to decline. (WSJ)
• Welfare Rolls - An all time record of 47% of Americans are now government dependents receiving some form of government benefits. (Forbes)    Food Stamp rolls increased 46% from January 2009 to June 2012.  Total individuals receiving food stamps as of June 2012 is 46,670,373, largest number ever. (USDA)
• Budget - "For the fourth year in a row, Washington faces a $1 trillion-plus deficit[.]" (Politico)

    I've been arguing since January that President Obama's chances of reelection are virtually nil.  But now I've got the White House backing me up!

Truth Team: How Low Can You Go?

    For an organization that practically buries the bar to begin with, the Obama Truth Team sent out a particularly low and petty tweet about Mitt Romney during the final night of the GOP convention.  It appears to be a direct response to the stories told by various speakers about the compassionate Mitt Romney they had come to know over the years.  If you read between the lines, you can almost hear a sneering, "Oh, yeah?  Well, get this!":

    The link is to a page documenting the fiscal year 2004 budget for the State of Massachusetts when Romney was governor.  In order to find what the Truth Team is referring to, one must find the right link on the page and download a Word file.  Buried among a host of vetoed items totaling $52,571,883 is this:

...provided further, that not less than $99,000 shall be expended on Special Olympics Massachusetts for the purpose of "unified sports"; provided further, that an additional $304,000 shall be expended on a contract with Work, Inc., for enhanced or expanded services to clients; and provided further, that not less than $500,000 shall be expended for Best Buddies Massachusetts

    Indeed, $99,000 for the Special Olympics was among the vetoed items.  Politifact, known for finding Obama claims as "True" if they are wildly misleading yet technically correct, would probably leave it right there.  (If the Romney campaign made a similar claim about Obama, Politifact would generously provide the "implication" of the statement and Romney would be lucky to end up with a "Half True".)
    But let's provide some Politifact-like context: Digging a little deeper, and downloading another Word file, one finds the explanation provided by Governor Romney for his veto:

I am striking language which earmarks funding for programs because it inappropriately imposes Legislative controls on Executive Branch management decisions.

    So rather than targeting the Special Olympics, Romney simply believed that earmarking funds for the Special Olympics and other organizations was an attempt by legislators to make executive branch decisions.  The $99,000 cut this portion of the budget (known in the current Massachusetts budget as 5920-2000-Community Residential Services for the Developmentally Disabled) to a paltry... $448,617,888.  Yes, a little under half a billion dollars.  Something tells me that it's possible the state of Massachusetts might have been able to find some funds for the Special Olympics after all.
    The point of the Truth Team was to belittle Romney and paint him as a heartless jerk who would take money from handicapped kids (particularly ironic given Barack Obama's unfortunate unscripted comments about the Special Olympics in 2009.)  The cut amounted to $99,000, or .02% of the department's budget.  But are there other sources of information about Romney, money, and kids?  How about those tax returns the Democrats keep demanding to see?  A quick look at the 2011 preliminary return that Romney already released shows that in 2011, Romney donated $500,000 to the Tyler Foundation.  Its mission?

Providing financial support to families' of children with epilepsy that are being treated at Children's Hospital Boston and UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center.

     In one year, Romney gave half a million dollars to help support families' of children with epilepsy.  And when I say he "gave", I don't mean he directed the government to do it.  He gave his personal funds for the cause.  Who knows what else those unreleased tax returns might reveal about Romney's undermining of the nanny state by these subversive gifts?  The Obama campaign might want to reconsider its demands.
    And what of the Special Olympics?  I can find no direct connection between Mitt Romney and the Special Olympics, but as has been pointed out, much to the annoyance of Rachel Maddow, the Romneys give heavily to the Mormon church.  And a search for "Special Olympics" at the website of the Mormon church returns 473 hits. (Personally the Mormons and I part ways theologically on a host of issues, but it appears helping the less fortunate is an area in which they excel.)  So maybe Romney made up that $99,000 in taxpayer money some other way, eh?
    As this 2012 campaign has progressed, the Obama campaign has sharpened its personal attacks on Mitt Romney.  The addition of Paul Ryan to the ticket has only exacerbated the situation.  I would like to think that dragging the Special Olympics into the fray will be the low point, but there are still two months left.  What will be the Obama campaign's next maneuver in its game of political limbo?