Does Obama Want to Lose? Yes! ... Alan Caruba

Does Obama Want to Lose? Yes!

By Alan Caruba

It seems like a bizarre notion, but does Barack Obama want to lose the election in November?

I think he does!

One is struck by the way Obama has visibly aged in the job. He may well have grown weary being POTUS.

By any rational standard, one would say he wants a second term, but Obama has always operated in a fantasy world where mere words are supposed to translate into reality. And he has repeatedly talked about being a one-term president.

He is, after all, his own invention; the author of two memoirs of a life that had little achievement to point to other than getting elected first to the Illinois legislature and then to the Senate where he lingered a bare two years before running for president.

I raise the question because Obama seems to be deliberately irritating the very people who are supposed to be his “base”; the hard core liberals, the Hollywood crowd, youth, and unions, among others. His partisanship has put Congress into total gridlock.

When members of the Occupy movement showed up in Washington, D.C., one of them threw a smoke bomb onto the White House lawn. Others who have been camped out in a park there are likely to be tossed out if for no other reason than the place is overrun with rats and has become a public health hazard.

The decision to stop the Keystone pipeline is a deliberate offense to the unions that have contributed millions to his campaign. Why? It pleased the environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. Americans, however, understand the pipeline represented both jobs and oil, two things they deem worth having.

Then there are all the vacations Obama and his family takes. They have one thing in common. They are ostentatiously expensive. Obama or Michelle always seem to be going on vacation or returning from one. The characterization may be unfair, but perception is everything.

Americans are very keen on their military and, of all the government programs Obama could have chosen to trim, he’s had the knives out for the Pentagon since he took office. While a war-weary public was likely pleased when he withdrew troops from Iraq (neither Bush, nor Obama had a choice as the Iraqis made it clear they wanted U.S. troops out), the fact remains that the main news out of Iraq these days are bombings as the Sunni versus Shiite conflict has returned. Afghanistan remains a millstone.

Even in the face of a clear threat, it is unlikely that Obama would respond militarily between now and Election Day. The most likely scenario, however, would be an Israeli decision to strike at Iran before it becomes a full-fledged nuclear threat. It must be said, however, that Obama and other NATO nations have positioned some military assets in the Persian Gulf, but would he pull the trigger? It’s doubtful.

The most obvious problem Obama faces is unemployment. It’s variously set at anywhere from 11% to 20% depending on the part of the nation you’re discussing. It still is far too high everywhere and he gives every impression of being, if not indifferent to it, at least in no hurry to address it. Most certainly none of his programs have reduced it. His alleged “stimulus” was little more than a political slush fund that added billions to the national debt and failed.

Every President is subject to “events” and the likely default of Greece and financial troubles of several European nations are likely to impact the national election as Americans try to sort out what effect it will have here. Obama has already presided over the first downgrade of America’s debt rating and we shall surely be reminded of that in the months ahead.

The other event will be the Supreme Court hearing of the case against Obamacare in March. They may not issue a decision right away or they might issue one just before November 6th.

There are two lines of thought about the forthcoming national election. Past Presidents were relieved to leave office despite its power and prestige. (1) Obama may not like being President and (2) he has concluded that he will be defeated. He gives the impression of not caring about public opinion anymore.

The only people publicly defending him seem to have Attention Deficit Disorder. Either they haven’t paid attention to what a disaster his term has been thus far or they just don’t think it’s his fault.

I think he will go through the motions, but I also think a majority of voters no longer believe a word he says anymore.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

The Gross National Debt:

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Recently I wrote:

“America is at a point in world history when we need a strong leader -- a leader not afraid to assert America’s leadership.  Obama is NOT that person.

I am very afraid there is no one vying for America’s leadership today any stronger as a national or world leader. 

In a recent column, Thomas Sowell said:  “The 2012 Republican primaries may be a rerun of the 2008 primaries, where the various conservative candidates split the conservative vote so many ways that the candidate of the mushy middle got the nomination – and then lost the election.”   I think he pegged it.” (SOURCE)

I have watched intently as the GOP goes all out to lose the 2012 election to Obama and the democrats.  I continue to be puzzled, or as we used to say in the south – “bumfuzzled” – by what MUST be a concerted effort to lose the next election.

Pardon me, if I show my befuddlement … because I just don’t get it.

A sense of “doom” has already set in among the legions of conservative voters in the south. Their sense that the hierarchy of the Republican Party is so completely detached from the reality on the ground (at least here in states of the old south) has been, (they feel) proved absolutely true.

There is a growing sense of “why bother” to go to the polls and vote when the election is already lost to Obama.

Look.  I am no more intelligent that the average guy.  And I have seen the great wave of exhilaration and expectation of victory crash against a shoreline of mediocre candidates that have proved more an embarrassment than anything else.  That great wave has been diminished to a mere ripple in an isolated tide pool.

If you want to know what’s going on in your community – go to the community barbershop.  I did that yesterday.  Turns out, my barber has been taking a very unscientific poll on who his patrons would vote for in the GOP Primary here in North Carolina (currently scheduled for May).  He has been polling since the South Carolina Primary.  The results are interesting and informative.

My barber told me that, to a man, every single patron stated they would vote for Gingrich in May.

My community is heavily Democratic and heavily conservative. 

I pressed to learn who those would-be primary voters thought would win the election in November.  The answer, to a man, was … Obama.

For months now we have warned that if the GOP is counting on conservative voters to vote for the nominee, whomever the nominee turns out to be, then – the GOP is very wrong.  Sure, there will be SOME conservative voters who would cast a vote for, well, anybody, just to vote against Obama. But I am not hearing that sentiment expressed here.

Here’s what I THINK is happening:

Southern voters have concluded that Romney cannot win. Southern voters just don’t like the man.  They are satisfied that Gingrich will not win the nomination, so they feel it is safe to support and vote for Gingrich if for no other reason than Gingrich brings a little fire, fervor, passion, and a little excitement to an otherwise hum-drum campaign that is already a lost cause.

The more debates, the more infighting, the more defecation is tossed into the fan blades, the more damage will be done the eventual republican nominee.  It is already bad enough, but it is sure to get worse.

So, I wonder if it is time to turn our attention to the candidates for the US Senate and House of Representatives and redouble our efforts to claim more governorships for conservatives and stop wasting our time and effort on a predetermined race for the GOP nominee for President.

I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist.  I am a realist.  With me the glass is neither half full nor half empty.  It is simply the wrong size glass.

J. D. Longstreet

The Gross National Debt:

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

Fairness, Fair Share, income inequality, etc

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats would simply drop their façade and admit they have morphed into some sort of American breed of a socialist political party?

In the past few months, even years, my teeth have been set on edge when I have listened to their rhetoric about “fairness,” in this or that, and their use of the words “fair share” to drive a wedge between the American classes, and especially the words, or phrase, “income inequality” which seals the deal.  

When a nation seeks income equality it is assuming socialism as its core philosophy.  Income inequality is the clarion call for redistribution of a nation’s wealth. It is as simple and as basic as that.

In the past two decades I have slowly come to the realization that the dumbing down of Americans is near completion.  It has taken approximately 50 years to realize, but the leftist movement in America successfully infiltrated and gained control of America’s public education system.  Now we have a full generation and most of a second generation who have no clue what America is about.  They don’t have a clue what their freedom cost.  They don’t have a clue that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states as an agent.  They have been taught -- and they believe -- that the people of the states are subservient to the federal government.  They do not understand that the Bill of Rights is a protection for the American people from their federal government.  Those ten amendments restrain the federal government in the interest of the people. 

Most of our young Americans today don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  Don’t believe me?  Ask ‘em!

I have mentioned in previous articles that as a solider in the US military I was trained to meet and combat socialism on the battlefield.  It was rightly recognized as an enemy of freedom.  It was recognized as a form of government that was destined to fail, but before its demise, it would enslave the people of any nation that was so utterly stupid as to even try it.  No nation has yet survived socialism.

Europe is teetering on the edge of complete disaster simply because they have run out of other people’s money with which to pacify their populace after decades of coddling and teaching them to depend on their government for their very existence.

The USSR is now a footnote in history.

Yet, despite the fact that America was nearly crushed under the weight of a mere sampling of socialism, the left persists in their socialist agenda for America.

In 2008, they managed to elect a socialist as President of the United States.  In 2010 the people of the political right in America successfully blunted the socialist left’s endeavor to shove America deeper into socialism.  Conservatives were successful in retaking a majority of the Congress.

Now we have a chance to solidify conservative control of the American government by refusing to reelect the socialist in the White House this November. 

It was clear after the President’s State of the Union address that their next step is to incite a class war in America.  The great-unwashed masses in America must be taught to hate the “patricians” and the “plutocrats” – the very people who financed -- and continue to finance -- America’s success as the greatest nation in the history of mankind. 

The wealthy Americans must be brought low and their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the – ahem – less fortunate among us.  That is what I like to refer to as: BOVINE SCATOLOGY!

Nevertheless, their efforts to incite class warfare has been more successful than most think. It ought to be.  It has been an underground movement for at least nine decades now.  With the left’s capture of the Oval Office the socialist were emboldened to rise to the surface and ram their agenda through the national legislature. 

But the right stopped them in 2010.  That, dear reader, is why we now see the President’s abuse of the power of the Executive Order.  Obama is intent on diluting democratic freedom in America by infusing socialism into every agency and administration under the control of the executive branch of the government.

Americans must retake control of their government in November and free it from the clutches of the socialist elite who have dipped their fangs into America’s bloodstream and are sucking her dry.

America needs a champion who will lead from the front.  A leader who take a stand on the deck of our sinking ship of state, much as the Father of the US Navy, Captain John Paul Jones, when his ship was blown to bits and sinking from enemy fire.  When asked if he was prepared to surrender Jones famously replied:  “I have not yet BEGUN to fight!” Against all odds, Jones won the battle and took the enemy ship.

THAT is the spirit we need, indeed, the spirit it will take to lead America out of the muck and mire of socialism, put her back on course, trim her sails, and stir for the safe harbor of capitalism and freedom.

It is a life or death decision we Americans will make in November -- the life or death of America.

J. D. Longstreet

The Gross National Debt:

Stupid Voters ... Alan Caruba

Stupid Voters

By Alan Caruba
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It’s a comment I hear all the time these days. “The voters are stupid.”

I am not sure that those saying it mean literally that the voters have a low level of intellect or academic achievement, but rather that they mean voters seem prone to making their choices based more on emotion than on a serious examination of the candidate’s qualifications and character.

The best example of this was the 2008 campaign in which a candidate was presented in much the same way companies seek to “brand” their product or service, repeating the same message (Obama’s was hope and change) until it becomes part of the consumers’ decision-making process. It’s why we buy a particular brand of cereal or car. We have come to associate values with it that go beyond the taste or the look.

Barack Obama had served barely two years in the U.S. Senate before he made an unprecedented leap from there to the White House. He was, for all intents and purposes, an unknown quantity with a legislative record—if anyone bothered to check—that was a straight Democratic Party line vote.

In his earlier incarnation as an Illinois legislator, he had voted “present” so many times it was clear he was avoiding taking any position he regarded as politically dangerous; a vote that would come back to haunt him and very few did. The media cooperated in this, avoiding calling attention to anything that might be deemed controversial.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton, whether you liked her or not, was a candidate with a full cart of baggage from her years as the former governor’s and president’s wife, and her years as a U.S. Senator who served, not from Arkansas where she first came to notice, but from New York where liberals thrive. The process of campaigning wore her out and, being the first women to seriously contend to be president, she had even more of a challenge to overcome. Her raw ambition tended to make people afraid of her.

What elected Obama had nothing to do with the slim qualifications he put forth. Few candidates had less to offer. He had never met a payroll. All information regarding his academic records was sealed from view. The press made no effort to ask what passport he had traveled on to Pakistan at one time and did not raise any question about his Social Security number, issued in Connecticut where he had never lived or worked. Famously, he released a “birth certificate” that anyone in Hawaii could attain for the asking, not the “long form” which is deemed credible.

The voters have paid a fearful price for electing Obama; increased unemployment, a huge national debt, a hollowed-out military, billions wasted on “Green” energy, unprotected borders, a Congress in near total gridlock, and a world beyond our shores that perceives an America made weaker by Obama’s three years in office.

I have worked as a public relations counselor for most of my life with earlier years spent as a journalist. I know something about how a product, a service, or an individual is “packaged” to present a positive “image.” What we have all learned since 2008 was that Obama was superbly “packaged” and that the image of an articulate, highly intelligent, well informed candidate was without substance. His inability to speak publicly without a TelePrompter swiftly became a joke.

So, to say that those who voted for him were “stupid” is to misread the new era of politics, one that has more to do with “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” than with the serious selection of the leader of the nation and the free world.

As they say in advertising, voters bought the sizzle, not the steak.

We are seeing this process continue as the Republican candidates vie for votes. The Gingrich “surge” in South Carolina came after he had two successful debates. It is true that Gingrich is a good debater, but the real question is whether he would be a good president. Questions about his character remain.

Gingrich has been comfortable sharing a couch with Nancy Pelosi to advocate the bogus global warming “theory” or taking money from Freddie Mac.. Now he is trying to appear to be a “real” conservative as opposed to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and the quixotic Ron Paul.

While his judgment on issues has been called into question, Romney’s character never has. There has never been a hint of scandal in his life. In terms of policy, he was the Governor of one of the most liberal states and he did support Romneycare there. Politics is rarely pretty and even New Jersey’s fire-breathing Governor, Chris Christie, has taken some extraordinarily liberal positions and made some questionable appointments.

There might have been a time when Gingrich was, indeed, a bona fide conservative, but his long years in Washington, D.C., have taught him that “to get along you have to go along” In the end, even his colleagues in the House, for reasons of policy and personality, could no longer support him as Speaker.

From the days of Bush41 until the 2010 elections the Republican Party looked so much like the Democratic Party, voters had an increasingly hard time telling them apart. The Tea Party movement changed that. They and the “independents” are going to decide the 2012 elections that are currently making history with endless debates.

The debates are proving to be a succession of sound bites and vitriol between the candidates. They increasingly demonstrate how the mainstream media, the debate sponsors, are visibly seeking to influence the outcome of the election and they demonstrate that many voters are easily swayed by matters that have little to do with actual policies and issues.

There has been less and less substance with each debate.

I fear that too many Republican voters are having too many mood swings, relying on a moment or two from the most recent debate than on a serious examination—I repeat myself—of the candidate’s qualifications and character. Romney is carefully scripted and a tad robotic, but Gingrich could become the GOP nominee simply because he is entertaining.

Without doubt, President Obama and the Democrats are enjoying the Republican free-for-all and, without doubt, they have concluded that the voters are stupid.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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 Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

The Gross National Debt:

Obama Regime Continues To Shred US Constitution

Obama Regime Continues To Shred US Constitution

US Senator Unconstitutionally “Detained” by TSA

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

If the US Constitution was still in effect, was still an operational document, was still the law of the land, then the Transportation Security Administration would be in very deep trouble today.  However, as we have all come to know all too well, the constitution is all but totally ignored today, especially under the administration of the Obama Regime.

When Obama was sworn in, the constitution was considered, found to be inconvenient for his socialist agenda, and ignored.

The latest blatant violation of the US Constitution was the much-publicized “detainment” of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky -- while he was enroute to Washington, DC to exercise his duties in the US Senate.  That “detainment” was totally unconstitutional … period. 

You see, Senators and Representatives cannot be arrested for a crime, except for treason, felony, or breach of peace, while meeting in Congress or while traveling to or from a meeting of Congress.

If Senator Paul was detained, then he was arrested.  Consider this: “(v) Arrest is the action by which a person is stopped from his normal activities by virtue of a legal authority or sanction, either by detaining him or by stopping his external accesses.” (SOURCE)

Don’t believe me?

Read it for yourself:

  

Article 1, Section 6 … US Constitution: 

1:  The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.⁶   They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Now, THAT’S the wording from the text of the US Constitution … the law of the land.

I do not particularly agree with that portion of the US law, but it DOESN’T MATTER.  It is THE LAW!  Until such time as there is an amendment to the constitution affecting Article one, Section six to change or remove those few words, it remains the law of the United States.

There has been much bloviating in the press and in the blogosphere since the incident happened.  So I don’t expect my opinion to make much difference, at all.

However, on the outside chance that you might care, allow me, please, to point out, once again, that our government, as it is currently constituted, is NOT following the law of the land.  We have, in my opinion, a rogue government in place in Washington, DC.

The Transportation Security Administration is just another government agency out of control. It is a power hungry bully; full of itself, and -- in the real world -- it does more to restrict freedom of movement in this country than it does to ensure it.

On the TSA’s website they say: “We are 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation's transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely.” (SOURCE)  I dare say the “volk” of the Gestapo, in 1930’s Germany, thought of themselves in much the same manner.

I have been offering commentaries for decades and there has been a common thread running through the millions of words of opinion I have shared.  It is this:  We Americans are voluntarily giving up our freedom.

Have you noticed how we whine and complain when the Congress is tied up in knots and unable to legislate?  We seem to have forgotten that to legislate is to pass laws. 

Every time a law is passed some of us lose a little bit more of our freedom.  Eventually, ALL of us lose small portions of our freedom, until one day, we finally stop and take stock of our current liberties -- and we find we are in deficit.  Our freedom is gone and we are in hock to the government.

It seems to me that pretty much sums up our current situation. 

Freedom, once lost, is almost impossible to reclaim.  Much like an ocean liner,  it takes a very long time to stop a government with the momentum of the US government.

Back in 2010 we sent a new batch of conservatives Senators and Congresspersons to Congress with a clear mission to bring the Congress to a halt and keep it static until the Obama Regime could be ended in November -- and we could gain control of enough of the national legislature to begin the process of returning sanity to our government.

Both the left and right wings of the American political spectrum have reviled them.  Even so, they have done a fair job at slowing the Congress down. 

Somehow, we Americans have lost our love of the freedom and liberty for which our forefathers gave their lives and fortunes. 

Now, if you think I am being overly dramatic here, I ask you to look again at what a government agency did to a US Senator and ask yourself, if they can do that to one of the most powerful men in the country, WHAT can they do to me? 

J. D. Longstreet

The Gross National Debt: