THE OBAMA LEGEND

An article by Victor Davis Hanson.

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, on no evidence, once proclaimed Obama “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” When he thus summed up liberal consensus, was he perhaps referring to academic achievement? Soaring SAT scores? Seminal publications? IQ scores known only to a small Ivy League cloister? Political wizardry?

Who was this Churchillian president so much smarter than the Renaissance man Thomas Jefferson, more astute than a John Adams or James Madison, with more insight than a Lincoln, brighter still than the polymath Teddy Roosevelt, more studious than the bookish Woodrow Wilson, better read than the autodidact Harry Truman?

Consider. Did Obama achieve a B+ average at Columbia? Who knows? (Who will ever know?) But even today’s inflated version of yesteryear’s gentleman Cs would not normally warrant admission to Harvard Law. And once there, did the Law Review editor publish at least one seminal article? Why not?

OBAMA'S FAILED PREDICTIONS

From Forbes: Obama is a terrible economic historian.

From Instapundit (Dec. 13, 2011)

On Feb. 2, 2009, Obama told the “Today Show” that “a year from now I think people are gonna see that we’re starting to make some progress,” and that “if I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

On Feb. 12, 2009, he predicted that his $830 billion stimulus would “ignite spending by businesses and consumers” and unleash “a new wave of innovation, activity and construction … all across America.”

On Feb. 26, 2009, Obama’s first budget projected that by 2011 the economy would be cooking ahead at 4% real GDP growth, with unemployment at 7.1% and falling fast.

On Feb. 7, 2010, he said “we are seeing the corner turn and the economy growing again.”

On June 4, 2010, Obama claimed the “economy is getting stronger by the day” and later that month said the recovery was “well under way.”

SEX AND EVANGELICALS

There does not appear to be much commitment to sexual morality among young evangelicals.

. . .the October 2011 issue of Relevant magazine contains a must-read article for those who see the need for a rather profound cultural course correction. It turns out that 80 percent of unmarried evangelicals (18 to 29) are sexually active. Yes, 80 percent. For all unmarried young adults the total is 88 percent. Oh, and even as 80 percent of young unmarried evangelicals are sexually active, 76 percent of evangelicals still believe sex outside of marriage is wrong. Even worse, 65 percent of women who abort their children identify as Catholic or Protestant Christian — that’s 650,000 Christian abortions per year.

LOS ANGELES SHOOTING

I didn't hear anyone in the media saying this shooter was shouting "Allahu Akbar" while he was shooting.

STUXNET CONSIPIRACY

Ah, the world of espionage! It wasn't the US or Israel that put the stuxnet virus in Iranian nuclear software--it was the Russians. This is a very dark world.

The case for Russia: However, what about the case for Russian development and deployment? The Russians don’t support an Iranian indigenous nuclear capability. Their calculus is that their companies’ profit margins will benefit as long as the Iranians keep Russian scientists and engineers in country, who can oversee Iranian nuclear progress. Using its unique insights, Russia then plays a Byzantine game of delay and diplomacy. Delaying a program on technical grounds can’t go on indefinitely. At the same time, their involvement in the nuclear program is leverage in Russo-American negotiations.

EMPLOYERS: COLLEGE STUDENTS LACK SKILLS

From The Chronicle of Higher Education. The interesting thing to me is that it was not just "technical" skills that were missing. On all hiring criteria included in the survey, such as adaptability and critical thinking, applicants were performing below employers' expectations.

ISRAELI SATIRE

DEFEAT IN IRAQ

From the Weekly Standard.

The U.S. abandonment of Iraq will almost certainly increase the sectarian violence that drove Iraq’s Sunni Arabs to welcome the support of Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters. The seeds of renewed sectarian conflict are already being sown, both by the efforts of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to build his Dawa party into something like a Shiite Baath party, and by indications that Sunni Arab leaders are rapidly losing faith that their participation in Iraq’s government can benefit or even protect their communities. The renewal of sectarian conflict will push both sides back toward the extremes, opening the way for Al Qaeda in Iraq to reestablish itself and for Iranian proxy groups to dig themselves even deeper into Iraq. This time there will be no American forces to resist these developments.

The Shiite-led Iraqi government is banning Sunni parties--this does not look good.

COLLEGE DEGREES LOSING VALUE

From the New York Times.

A general guideline these days is that people are rewarded when they can do things that take trained judgment and skill — things, in other words, that can’t be done by computers or lower-wage workers in other countries.



One of the greatest changes is that a college degree is no longer the guarantor of a middle-class existence.

CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT

Interview of Egyptian Christians by journalist Michael Totten. The concern is what will happen if the Muslim Brotherhood gains power.

If liberal Muslims get what they want, it will be better for us. That’s the dream of the revolution. Your real focus should be on those people. Because if they get their freedom, we will get even more freedom. But if they don’t get freedom, we’re goners.

CLIMATEGATE COLLUSION

From the Daily Mail.

• 5,000 leaked emails reveal scientists deleted
  evidence that cast doubt on claims climate change was man-made


• Experts were under orders from US and UK officials to come up with a 'strong message'


• Critics claim: 'The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering'


• Scientist asks, 'What if they find that climate change is a natural fluctuation? They'll kill us
  all'

LAX STANDARDS AT FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES

From The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This time, the agents attempted to enroll in online programs at 15 for-profit colleges using a home-school diploma or a diploma from a closed high school. Twelve of the colleges accepted them.

The "students" then proceeded to skip class, plagiarize, and submit "substandard" work. Though several ultimately failed their classes, some got credit for shoddy or plagiarized work along the way.

At one college, a student received credit for six plagiarized assignments; at another, a student submitted photos of political figures and celebrities in lieu of an essay, but still earned a passing grade. A third student got full credit on a final project, despite completing only two of the three required components. That same student received full credit for an assignment that had clearly been prepared for another class.

In two cases, instructors confronted students about their repeated plagiarism but took no disciplinary action against them. One student received credit for a response that was copied verbatim from other students' discussion posts.

ROMNEY CAMPAIGN AD

Here is a case of the left Huffington Post exposing a false claim in a Romney campaign ad and challenging the media to call it a "lie."

REZKO SENTENCED

Obama's name is never connected to Rezko, yet he was one of Obama's biggest fund raisers. Would a Republican have been treated the same way? And I am waiting to see how Corzine's MF Global scandal will be covered.

"FOLLOW THE MONEY"

This phrase is used in the movie "All the President's Men"--but it was never used in the book of the same name by Woodward or is there any Watergate evidence that it was ever used. A discussion of how a Hollywood phrase becomes an historical reality and is being quoted by the media as historic fact.

THE EUROPEAN CRISIS

"Five Lessons for America from the European Crisis." An Italian students gives 5 reasons and then the writer of the blog adds: If I was doing this video, I would have added one more message. If nations want a return to fiscal sanity, they need to follow “Mitchell’s Golden Rule,” which simply states that the private sector should grow faster than the government.

WHO IS STUDYING IN COLLEGE?

It is not business and education majors.

SOME DEMS CRITICIZE REMOVAL OF OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTERS

From The Hill. Gives responses from Democrat congressmen to the removal of Occupy Wall Street protesters in NYC. There are some who support Mayor Bloomberg's actions.

OBAMA GAFFES

I just wish the media would report all gaffes made by politicians reasonably equally. Here is one with Obama placing Hawaii in Asia. Does this mean Alaska is in Asia--it is further to the East than Hawaii? Some of the errors made by Perry and Cain are bone-head errors, but Biden and other Democrat gaffes just don't get the same coverage.

WEALTHIEST MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

I was watching a news program the other night which highlighted the richest men in congress and discussed a Republican whose name I forget. Now I find that 7 of the top 10 richest congressmen are Democrats.

THE FAILURE OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

From a physics professor in North Carolina.

Education reform models, like outcome-based education, exacerbate academic problems and lead to mediocrity, a model that resembles a sausage factory with good quality control. Lip service abounds for teaching excellence but none for learning excellence. The failure of K-12 education is finally creeping and crippling our entire university system. Too bad.

THE FAILURE OF BABY BOOMERS

A "boomer backlash" has begun! Walter Russell Mead mentions some significant contributions but then writes:

But at the level of public policy and moral leadership, as a generation we have largely failed. The Boomer Progressive Establishment in particular has been a huge disappointment to itself and to the country. The political class slumbered as the entitlement and pension crisis grew to ominous dimensions. Boomer financial leadership was selfish and shortsighted, by and large. Boomer CEOs accelerated the trend toward unlimited greed among corporate elites, and Boomer members of corporate boards sit by and let it happen. Boomer academics created a profoundly dysfunctional system that systemically shovels resources upward from students and adjuncts to overpaid administrators and professors who by and large have not, to say the least, done an outstanding job of transmitting the cultural heritage of the past to future generations. Boomer Hollywood execs created an amoral morass of sludge — and maybe I’m missing something, but nobody spends a lot of time talking about the towering cultural accomplishments of the world historical art geniuses of the Boomer years. Boomer greens enthusiastically bet their movement on the truly idiotic drive for a global carbon treaty; they are now grieving over their failure to make any measurable progress after decades spent and hundreds of millions of dollars thrown away. On the Boomer watch the American family and the American middle class entered major crises; by the time the Boomers have finished with it the health system will be an unaffordable and dysfunctional tangle — perhaps the most complicated, expensive and poorly designed such system in the history of the world.

EVALUATING REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Drezner analyzes how well the Republican presidential candidates did on the November 12th debate on foreign policy. I liked his comment on Gingrich:

That said, Gingrich's "I'm smarter than everyone else" schtick wears thin fast. I say this as someone who encounters academics on a daily basis. Gingrich gives off the same insufferable mien of academics who think they're much smarter and more knowledgable than they actually are. Grade: B.

OVERTHROWING THE ISLAMIC REGIME IN IRAN

An interesting proposal by the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran who is now living in exile. So far nothing has worked and it has only made the current regime stronger. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr's proposals look quite possible and would seem to avoid some of the problems US policy has faced in places like Libya.

. . .the threat of military intervention and the use of economic sanctions that bring suffering to ordinary Iranians only strengthens the grip of Iran’s mafia regime on its power. Corrupt regimes become stronger by creating the sense of permanent threats.

CHINA MOCKS US POLITICAL MODEL

A sign of American decline and weakness? The US no longer inspires credibility.

Chinese political and business leaders are increasingly triumphant after two decades of rapid economic growth that lifted unprecedented millions of people out of poverty and turned the nation into an economic superpower, saying their success proves its political and economic system is superior to the Western model.

TEA PARTY & OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENTS

A double-standard in how each group is treated by the media.

HISTORY PUT TO SONG

Interesting. Here's the one on Martin Luther.

COMPARING SEX SCANDAL COVERAGE IN MEDIA

From Mickey Kaus (ran for Senate in California Democrat primary in 2010). Democrats get a "pass" on these issues according to him.

RICH GET RICHER UNDER OBAMA

Well, this is interesting. The rich actually got poorer under Dubya's tax policies and have become richer under Obama's policies. So much for Democrat rhetoric. What's more, the biggest increase in income inequality over the past three decades took place when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House.

FERTILITY RATES IN T HE ARAB WORLD

The rates are falling--this is an interesting chart. Israel's fertility rate may actually be higher than that of the Arab countries.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN EGYPTIAN ELECTION

The Muslim Brotherhood is not following through on its promises to run for only 50% of the seats and its candidates do not seem to include any moderate elements.. It looks like they are making every effort to win the next Egyptian election.

THE VIOLENCE OF TEA BAGGERS

From the Daily Kos. If I get a chance I will put up some links on the violence of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. From 2009.

Occupy Wall Street protest disrupts a mass. In Oakland the protestors pelt police. Shoot a cop? Problems at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

RELIGIOUS FAITH IN THE US

An interactive map at USA Today giving the breakdown of various faith commitments in each state.

OBAMA & BUSH, II

I remember when the press was going after George W. Bush for not wanting to say he had made any mistakes in office. Now Obama has essentially said the same thing: . . .even though I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones, . . .

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE SUMMARY

A compilation of postings on the problems facing higher education.

THE LEFT IS TURNING ON OBAMA

A discussion of the strategy of the "Occupy Wall-Street" protestors. Obama's jobs stimulus is in trouble even with Democrats on Capitol Hill.

The left got what it wanted in 2008: a liberal president with a sweeping agenda and big Democratic majorities capable of enacting it. The result has been a great and failed experiment in progressive politics and governance. In due course, one hopes, the left will absorb some lessons--but for now, they seem to be suffering a nervous breakdown.



What's their slogan going to be, "Smash the system--re-elect the president"?

OCCUPY ATLANTA

The protestors won't even let a liberal Democrat congressman speak.

Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

Sounds like the anti-Vietnam protestors of my day.

WHICH POLITICAL PARTY IS MORE ANTI-SCIENCE?

Read the article. A fight has broken out in the blogosphere over whether Team Blue or Team Red is more “anti-science.” Microbiologist Alex Berezow, editor of RealClearScience, struck the first blow in the pages of USA Today. "For every anti-science Republican that exists," he wrote, "there is at least one anti-science Democrat. Neither party has a monopoly on scientific illiteracy."

DONKEY CAUGHT IN A HOLE

I kept wondering if this is where the Democrats are right now as they try to dig out of the economic mess the country is in.

MAPPING THE CENSUS

An interesting interactive map. Put in your zip code and you can find data for the last three censuses on population make-up.

ON AMERICA GOING SOFT

President Obama recently said America was going "soft"--here is a response from Vodkapundit.

A CONSERVATIVE IN CHICAGO

A bit of a pariah at parties.

CHRISTIANS IN POLITICS

An interesting interview with Tim Goeglein (advisor in the Bush White House and an evangelical Christian). He plagiarized in a column he wrote and had to resign. It is a case of ethical failure and how he and President Bush responded to it.

OBAMA'S STIMULUS PLAN, 2011 VERSION

From the Chicago Sun-Times--his numbers just don't make sense. But what caught my attention was the following: . . .the Department of Energy’s program of $40 billion in loan guarantees to promote green energy. Half the money has been spent to create a total of 3,545 direct jobs, according to a Washington Post analysis, That’s $5.6 million per job. But rest assured, the DOE says once the full $40 billion in financing is disbursed, 60,000 jobs will be found — more than $666,000 for each new worker.

2012 ELECTION PREDICTION

Steve Forbes predicts Rick Perry will win the Republican presidential nomination and the election in 2012. I am not so sure. You can say Steve Forbes has a feel for politics in the past given his failed campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in past years.

NEW WAR STRATEGY IN MIDDLE EAST

The Obama administration is finally doing something that I think the Bush administration should have implemented. The use of drone bases: Overall, officials said, the cluster of bases reflects an effort to have wider geographic coverage, greater leverage with countries in the region and backup facilities if individual airstrips are forced to close.

THE TEXAS ECONOMY & RICK PERRY

There has been a debate on whether Texas has done as well economically under Governor Rick Perry as his now budding presidential campaign is touting. This article shows that on the whole Texas has done better than the rest of the US. . .and it comes from a Democrat.

REZA KAHLILI ON IRAN

Reza Kahlili (a pseudonym) became a spy for the CIA following Khomeini's takeover in Iran. He has written a book on his work with the CIA called "Time to Betray." I find it an excellent read which gives a lot of insight into what was happening. I also did some research on him because some believe that his information has been inaccurate or they think he has a political agenda.

Since then he has published articles on what is happening in Iran. The CIA has challenged some of his predictions, but it looks to me that his information and predictions on what is happening in Iran is more accurate than what the CIA or Obama administration's State department is saying about Iran.

Michael Totten has an excellent interview with him. The Shiite regime in Iran is expecting the return of the 12th Imam or Mahdi. This belief plays a role in Iranian foreign policy which I am not sure secularists understand.

US MILITARY RESPONSE TO 9/11

An interesting story about a female pilot who was sent up to take down United Flight 93, but she had no ammunition on the plane. She would have had to ram the United flight with her F-16--in effect she would have been a suicide pilot.

COMMENTS ON OBAMA'S 9/8/11 SPEECH

It doesn't look like it overwhelmed liberals or conservatives.

Mickey Kaus reacts with some good evaluation of the speech style.

AP Factcheck finds some problem with truth-telling.

Andrew Sullivan liked it.

From WAPO columnist Jennifer Rubin. President Obama tonight seemed simultaneously angry and nervous as he rushed through a speech that was transparently not worthy of a joint session of Congress. His great idea: Cobble together a mish-mash of old ideas (infrastructure spending, a payroll tax cut) and pay for it later, by asking the debt commission to come up with additional deficit reductions later, preferably by hiking taxes on the rich. The second half of the speech was a heated campaign rally aimed at a cartoon version of his future opponent.

Ira Stoll. The problem was that Mr. Obama couched all this in a speech so preachy, insistent, and divisive that it makes the whole thing repellant, no matter what the policy merits. "You should pass it right away," he said, repeating "right away" so often he managed to sound like a cross between a truculent child and an impatient parent.

A LIBERAL PRAISES PALIN'S THINKING

From the NYT.

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DEBATE 9/7/2011

Interesting summary of the debate by Michael Barone.

OBAMA & KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS

Presumably (in popular thinking) Obama and his administration's economic policies are based on Keynesian economic theory. It is a legitimate theory, but is obviously not liked by more free-market advocates. But it appears that the administration is not following or advocating what Keynes said to do in an economic downturn.

Keynes was against the very sort of large structural deficits that characterize contemporary federal budgets and policy, believing instead that deficits should be "temporary and self-liquidating." And Keynes believed that any sort of counter-cyclical spending by government should be directed toward increasing private investment, not simply spending current and future tax dollars on public works projects.

If this is true, then the Obama administration is just spending money without theoretical support based on any economic theory.

"OBAMA'S WHOPPER OF A TAX CUT"

The Washington Post is accusing Obama of gross exaggeration and perhaps even misleading the people about the extent of the tax cuts.

Obama’s claim of having passed the “biggest middle-class tax cut in history” is ridiculous. He might have been on more solid ground if he had claimed the “broadest” tax cut, but that doesn’t sound very historic.

CHINA'S GLOBAL INVESTMENTS vs. US ECONOMY

An interesting chart.

And then you look at the net zero job growth for August in the US (the first time this has happened since WW II).

"Though much attention is being paid to ‘zero job growth’ in August, the real news in today’s numbers is that job growth is worse than in recent months, and the nation continues to produce far fewer jobs than needed to meaningfully reduce the unemployment rate," Heidi Shierholz, economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "In fact, in some ways the report was less than zero in that weekly hours fell, as did hourly earnings."

Now the White House is backtracking on the unemployment numbers that its stimulus bills were/are supposed to bring down.

MSNBC

The New York Times recognizes MSNBC's liberal bias.

COSTS OF DOCTOR'S VISIT

The costs a doctor faces when he visits with a patient for 10 minutes.

Michele Bachmann a Racist?

Another example of how comments can be edited to make a candidate say something different than he or she really did. Michele Bachmann did not ask a crowd, "Who likes white people?"

CLIMATE CHANGE

Some questions about the cause of climate change.

The first results from the lab's CLOUD ("Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets") experiment published in Nature today confirm that cosmic rays spur the formation of clouds through ion-induced nucleation. Current thinking posits that half of the Earth's clouds are formed through nucleation. The paper is entitled Role of sulphuric acid, ammonia and galactic cosmic rays in atmospheric aerosol nucleation.

This has significant implications for climate science because water vapour and clouds play a large role in determining global temperatures. Tiny changes in overall cloud cover can result in relatively large temperature changes.

Unsurprisingly, it's a politically sensitive topic, as it provides support for a "heliocentric" rather than "anthropogenic" approach to climate change: the sun plays a large role in modulating the quantity of cosmic rays reaching the upper atmosphere of the Earth.

Presidential Reading Lists

President Obama's summer reading list was published recentyl. When it comes to reading, I am a bit biased, but I think both Dubya's list (and the Stranger by Camus is not on that list) and Clinton were reading more substantial material that dealt with decision-making and policy issues.

NBC EDITING PERRY

Example of what happens on more than on this occasion in my opinion. News-oriented programs should let people speak for themselves. And it can be done by conservatives as well. What is edited out is the big question when the news is on.

JOE WILSON WAS RIGHT

Obama misrepresented government medical care policies for illegal immigrants.

DEMOCRATS DOUBT OBAMA

The London Telegraph has an article on Democrats doubting the wisdom of selecting Obama as a candidate. I think the following comment may have a lot of truth in it: Hillary is just a tougher person.

And Victor Davis Hanson had similar observations: One can continue to appreciate how brilliant was Obama’s selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. It was not just that he diminished her status by outsourcing much of her job to regional and theater czars, or boxed her in with the “reset” diplomacy of the Susan Rice and Samantha Power sort, or even that her appointment suspended Bill Clinton’s lucrative speechmaking abroad, giving up millions in honoraria at the courts of foreign autocrats and strongmen. More clever yet, Obama seems to have anticipated his present bad stretch in polls and wanted no Teddy Kennedy-like distraction. A Senator Clinton right now would be under some pressure to weigh a divisive run for the nomination. But should Obama implode and see his ratings after three years drop to where George Bush’s were after six years — the 32-36% range — she would be under enormous pressure to declare her candidacy. And unlike Kennedy — who was both an inept candidate and had far too many character flaws and past sins—Hillary Clinton remains a skilled politician, with a brilliant political contortionist as her husband and, of course, has been thoroughly vetted and dissected.

WAPO published "Why the Center-Left is Fed up with Obama." Events keep screaming that the president is weak, weak, weak.

The left is beginning to sound like the right in its criticisms of Obama.

From Mickey Kaus: The federal government is still hiring and he questions whether these jobs are actually needed.

Here is the official list of federal job openings. They are still hiring. Sure, big enterprises keep hiring essential employees even in tough times. But these aren’t essential jobs. Many of them seem like the sort of job a private firm, in a financial crisis like the feds are in, would consolidate with another job or leave unfilled. (The first one that jumps out is the “Associate Administrator for Administration” at the Department of Transportation, which pays $119,554 to $179,700. It seems that this person will do administrative work to maintain the layer of bureaucracy that “coordinates” the DOTs research programs. The new hire will also give “advice and assistance in directing, coordinating, controlling” etc. this little fiefdom. You don’t have to be Peter Drucker to realize that this position does not have to exist.)

Part of the problem, of course, is that since it is virtually impossible to fire an actual underperforming federal employee, conscientious administrators have to hire new people (or consultants) to actually do the work the unfireable employees aren’t doing.

GOOD SUMMARY OF DOWNGRADE

From CNBC. Santelli raises issue of a leaderless Washington. "Leaders on vacation!" But a number of different opinions raised.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR BUDGET CRISIS

I thought this was an interesting chart. It is spending on medicare (and medicaid) that would appear to be the major problem that has to be resolved. Social Security spending growth would appear to be manageable. Read the article here.

APPOINTMENT OF MUSLIM JUDGE IN NEW JERSEY

The issue is his commitment to sharia law.

RISING URBAN VIOLENCE

A post on rising random racial violence in cities. I have been watching this rise and haven't seen the media cover it, but someone else has also noted it.

IS THE LEFT AGREEING WITH THE RIGHT ON OBAMA?

I have always enjoyed Mickey Kaus. . .he is a liberal Democrat who thinks outside of the box (of course this may get him kicked out of the Democrat establishment). He recently posted a comment on the left seemingly finally agreeing with the right on all of their criticisms of Obama as a poorly prepared candidate for President. He quotes Bryan York on a Drew Westen column from the Sunday NYT.

Perhaps Obama “is simply not up to the task” of being president. Perhaps the Democrats who were so dazzled by his campaign speeches should have noticed “some disquieting aspects of his biography.” Among those disquieting aspects: “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 12 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.”

PRIVATE JET TAX

I believe in a progressive income tax, but my concern over raising taxes on the rich is that it can put people out of work and not raise as much tax money as expected because unemployment benefits and other cost consequences take place.

In 1991 the Democrat congress raised the yacht tax and it just ended putting people in certain states out-of-work. This is a post from 1991 from a blogger, but a Florida congressman was also concerned.

The workers at Cessna and Lear must be in fear of losing their jobs. And one could wonder why pick on yachts and private jets. . .why not a special tax on any automobile over $20,000 or a special tax if you shop at Nordstrom's vs. Walmart?

IMPACT OF OBAMA & BUSH ON SPENDING

An interesting comparison by Ezra Klein. You can't deny Bush's economic policy had some impact on where we are today. His policies generated the Tea Party and Obama's policies have continued to strengthen that movement.

CATHOLIC TAKE ON OBAMA

From the Vortex.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR McCAIN. . .

I have been following Glenn Reynold's Instapundit blog for a number of years now. I believe he would classify himself as a libertarian so I don't see him as highly partisan, but he does have his views.

He skewers Obama and the liberal Democrats for doing the same things they attacked McCain for in the 2008 election with his "they told me if I voted for McCain. . ." I started to collect the number of times Obama has done what he criticized McCain for possibly doing and have included some samples below (a person can do a search on Instapundit going back to 2009 if one wanted to do a statistical analysis on this subject).

All this is hypothetical because we can't say for sure what McCain would have done.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE A PRESIDENT WHOM ARABS DESPISED MORE THAN BUSH. And they were right! “Of course, world leadership is not a popularity contest, nor should it be. But it should be deeply worrying for the White House when a genocidal tyrant like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now viewed more favorably across many parts of the Middle East than the leader of the free world.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 13, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE BLASTING MISSILES ALL OVER THE PLACE: And they were right! “At least 45 suspected militants were killed by missiles launched by U.S. drone aircraft in Pakistan’s northwest, local intelligence officials said on Tuesday, one of the largest death tolls to date in the controversial air bombing campaign.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE BLASTING MISSILES ALL OVER THE PLACE: And they were right! “At least 45 suspected militants were killed by missiles launched by U.S. drone aircraft in Pakistan’s northwest, local intelligence officials said on Tuesday, one of the largest death tolls to date in the controversial air bombing campaign.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 12, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d be keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely. And they were right! Guess I should voted for that Barack Obama fellow, who promised to have them all out by 2011. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 06, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE HOLDING TERRORISTS WITHOUT TRIAL IN SECRET FACILITIES. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “A Somali man suspected of assisting al Qaeda was held abroad on a U.S. Navy ship for questioning for over two months without being advised of any legal rights, an administration official said.” (Via Gateway Pundit). Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 06, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, GOVERNMENT SPYING WOULD PROCEED UNCHECKED: And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 04, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE TROOPS IN MORE COUNTRIES THAN I COULD COUNT. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! American Boots Hit the Ground in Somalia After Drone Attacks. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jul 02, 2011

UPDATE: Heh: They told me that if I voted for John McCain reporters on Morning Joe would be calling the POTUS a dick on national TV… and they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 30, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE ONGOING WARS ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND FAT-CAT DONORS ENTERTAINED RIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 26, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, DEMOCRATS WOULD BE COMPLAINING ABOUT A WARMONGERING IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! “A House Democrat warned Friday that the U.S. president is becoming an ‘absolute monarch’ on matters related to the authority to start a war.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 24, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WHISTLEBLOWERS WOULD BE SUPPRESSED. And they were right! “Stephen J. Kim, an arms expert who immigrated from South Korea as a child, spent a decade briefing top government officials on the dangers posed by North Korea. Then last August he was charged with violating the Espionage Act — not by aiding some foreign adversary, but by revealing classified information to a Fox News reporter. Mr. Kim’s case is next in line in the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on leaks.” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 19, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D BE WAGING EXPENSIVE WARS AROUND THE GLOBE WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION. And they were right! “Obama’s unauthorized Libyan war costs $9,241,000 a day: Are you getting your money’s worth?” Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 16, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, WE’D SEE LAUGHABLE LEGAL HAIRSPLITTING IN DEFENSE OF UNDECLARED AND UNPOPULAR WARS — AND THEY WERE RIGHT! When Is a War Not a War? When President Obama Says So. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 15, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, we’d be bogged down in unpopular, undeclared foreign wars. And they were right! “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 26% of Likely U.S. Voters feel the United States should continue its military actions in Libya. Forty-two percent (42%) are opposed and 32% are undecided.” Hey, hey, Barack Hussein — how many kids did you kill today? Well, no. We won’t hear that unless they bring back the draft. Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 14, 2011

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, we’d have a President who pursued endless war. And they were right! Posted at by Glenn Reynolds on Jun 13, 2011

FAILURE OF OBAMA'S ECONOMIC POLICIES

From Reuters.

Rather, that the product of all the administration’s stimulating and regulating is an economy that’s in significantly worse competitive and productive shape than when Obama took the oath in January 2009.

BUSH & OBAMA

Changes between the Bush years and now.

MAVs: THE NEW AIRFORCE

Big brother is here! A new form of air warfare, but it could be used for other kinds of surveillance as well.

ISLAM IN GREAT BRITAIN

An undercover video from 2008 in which a British reporter records what was being taught in a mosque. Here is one response that is critical of the report. And another criticism. An imam responds.

THE OBAMAS AND GAY MARRIAGE

Politico says Michelle is not necessarily in favor of gay marriage. And in New York a lot of gays are not happy with her husband for his tepid approval of their position on gay marriage. They do seem to be sending mixed messages on this issue.

US DEBT DENIAL

Well, the BBC is doing a bit of counseling. . .is Washington in denial about the debt implications??? I am with the BBC on this one.

WEINER AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

From the American Thinker. Interesting. . .his wife's brother and sister are members of the Muslim Brotherhood (Sisterhood). His wife is also an important advisor for Hillary Clinton.

ANNIVERSARY OF START OF KOREAN WAR

I thought this was a good summary of the diplomatic issues surrounding the North Korean invasion of the South on June 25, 1950, especially with regard to the role of Stalin.

PALIN'S HISTORICAL STATEMENTS

The media argued Palin was wrong in her interpretation of Paul Revere's ride, but historians back her account up.

INSTRUCTOR ON HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE

An adjunct history professor at a junior college weighs in on the higher education bubble and what he is seeing. I think he covers all of the types of students we often see in higher education.

HAROLD CAMPING & RAPTURE

Here is a post-rapture interview with Harold Camping (I think the comments are most revealing).

Rapture Schadenfreude.

THE RAPTURE

The Rapture is now a musical! What has Harold Camping done.

In an interview on the online program TYT Now, he tells the host, Tina Dupuy, that the rapture will actually begin about 6 p.m. local time, which is to say that it will start on the International Dateline and roll across the planet. By our calculations, that means we should begin hearing reports of devastation and ascensions shortly after midnight EDT tonight. (From Chronicle of Higher Education)

HOW LONG WILL YOU LIVE?

Now they have a test that will tell you how long you will live.

A blood test that can show how fast someone is ageing – and offers the tantalising possibility of estimating how long they have left to live – is to go on sale to the general public in Britain later this year.

PHOTO LAURA BUSH & HASIDIC LEADERS

Former first lady was airbrushed out of a photo with Hasidic leaders. Reminds me of Stalin airbrushing opponents out of pictures.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Conspiracy theories abound throughout history and almost all of them prove to be wrong or unravel. But here are some instances when the conspiracies turned out to be true. But as conspiracy theories go, these are relatively minor because they were resolved rather quickly (historically speaking). But most of these conspiracies used are also pre-internet and email.

And for some people conspiracies are never resolved. I was visiting with someone who is convinced communists are in charge of the Islamic revolution and terrorism. I am not sure any proof would satisfy him. (And by the way Marxism sees a conspiracy by capitalist forces!)

ONLINE GULAG MUSEUM

An online collection of stories and pictures from the Soviet Gulag. Here is the museum link.

GANDHI AND MALCOM X

Two new biographies show the darker side of these cultural "heroes."

ROMAN CATHOLIC ANALYSIS OF OBAMA'S VIEWS OF EASTER

From RealCatholicTV. A theological analysis of Obama's Easter remarks.

ENERGY EFFICIENT LIGHT BULBS

I thought these new bulbs were here to help the environment and make us safer.

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.

CONSERVATIVE SATIRE

Andrew Klavan on Imagination Land.

DEOMOCRATS PROTEST

Dumping trash on Speaker Boehner's yard is the new Democrat form of protest.

MOCK OBAMA AD

Ad for Obama in 2012 prepared by Republicans.

FRENCH VIEW OF MUSLIMS

A right-wing view.

IRAN'S INTERPRETATION OF WORLD EVENTS

A production of the Iranian Islamic regime.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

It does not like the idea of gay marriage in America.

PBS FUNDING

Andrew Klavan's satirical take on PBS. If link doesn't work, do a YouTube search for: "Andrew Klavan: PBS Exposed! Hidden Camera Rocks Sesame Street."

LIBYA

I love this quote from an administration official trying to justify US actions in Libya:

In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. "I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone," Rhodes said. "Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end."

What is "kinetic military action?" And people complained about Bush's Texas English.

And then there is Vice President Biden who wanted Bush impeached if he went to war with Iran without congressional approval. But now he doesn't exactly see Obama's actions in the same light.

From The Daily Show.

ISLAM & DARWINISM

A British Islamic professor is forced to retract his thinking that Islam is compatible with Darwinism.

SELLING CARS THE RELIGIOUS WAY

Buying a new car the spiritual way.

2008 ECONOMIC CRASH

The Washington Times discusses whether outside terrorist groups were behind the financial meltdown of 2008.

MOSQUES

Tax money is being spent to refurbish mosques overseas.

SENATOR TED KENNEDY

Charges that he rented a brothel for an entire night in Chile.

US ECONOMY

By 2050 the United States will have dropped to the 3rd largest economy.

DECLINE OF THE WHITE COLLAR CLASS

A discussion ("Race to the Bottom") of what is happening to the middle class in the declining U.S. economy. Globalization is leading to a drop in the standard of living because of competition with lower wages paid to produce goods in the developing world and China.

Blue collar workers have been getting the shaft since 1973; white collar workers are starting to get the same treatment now. Two of the same forces that drove down blue collar wages are starting to hit professionals: competition from overseas and the use of technology to raise productivity so that fewer workers are needed to do the same amount of work. The US manufacturing sector has actually grown since 1973, producing more even as it has shed workers. There is no reason why the same thing can’t happen to lawyers, middle managers, government bureaucrats and many more white collar workers as computers get smarter and firms start outsourcing professional work overseas.

Tens of millions of Americans aren’t just reading about American decline; they are living American decline.

The educational system is also going to change in ways the unions and the guilds can’t imagine — and will fight to the death. Going forward, students need to be evaluated and credentialed on the basis of what they know, not on the basis of time served.

SOUTH KOREAN PSY-OP

Some South Koreans are conducting a psychological operation against the North. What is interesting is how low-tech it is.

South Korean activists sought to exploit the suffering, firing balloons carrying thousands of leaflets on waterproof pieces of plastic bearing insulting messages about Kim Jong-Il and his three sons. Beneath the headline, “Republic of Fat,” were photos of Kim Jong-Il quaffing a glass of wine and of the puffed-up faces of Kim Jong-Nam and Kim Jong-Un.

“They’re sick because they ate too much,” said the caption. Opposite those were pictures of emaciated children and a young woman whose body was discovered in a field after she starved to death. “This woman is picking clover not for a rabbit but for herself,” the caption says.

CONVICTED FOR CALLING MUHAMMED A PEDOPHILE

In Austria.

NIR ROSEN RESIGNATION

It took joking of Lara Logan's (CBS News Reporter) rape in Cairo to get him fired.

UNITED MUSLIM NATION

From Der Spiegel. This fellow is an evangelist for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Qaradawi advocates establishing a "United Muslim Nations" as a contemporary form of the caliphate and the only alternative to the hegemony of the West. He hates Israel and would love to take up arms himself. In one of his sermons, he asked God "to kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them."

ISLAMIC TERRORISM

A general's view of jihadism.

VIOLENT RHETORIC OF LEFT

Interesting world views.

FT. HOOD SHOOTINGS REPORT

Report out showing failure of supervisors to stop Major Hasan because of political correctness.

Today the Senate Homeland Security Committee released an independent report on the Ft. Hood shootings. The 91 page report is titled A Ticking Time Bomb: Counterterrorism Lessons from the US Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack. The gist of it is that the FBI and Hasan’s superiors had more than enough information to prevent the shootings and likely would have done so if not for political correctness.

CHINA'S CYBER-ESPIONAGE

How much info is being stolen? The consequences could be very serious in 8-10 years in the opinion of the author.

After photos surfaced recently of a prototype Chinese stealth fighter, Pentagon officials acknowledged that they have continually underestimated the pace of Chinese technological advances. Perhaps that’s because China is stealing technology from the West at a blinding pace, through cyber-espionage. And U.S. companies are doing little to stop it.

OBAMA, THE PERSON

An article assessing Obama's personal qualities.

INDEX OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM

The countries of the world are ranked -- the US is 8th in economic freedom. Canada is freer--that is hard for me to understand.

TUSCON SHOOTING

Views of shooter, especially from the left.

EGYPTIAN MUSLIMS PROTECT CHRISTIANS

You don't see many of these reports.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

KNOWLEDGE OF MIDDLE EAST AT UCLA

Don't know how this was edited, but there is a big difference between Hamas and hummus.

AMERICA IN DECLINE

From Foreign Policy. Conclusion: The United States still has formidable strengths. Its economy will eventually recover. Its military has a global presence and a technological edge that no other country can yet match. But America will never again experience the global dominance it enjoyed in the 17 years between the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and the financial crisis of 2008. Those days are over.

OBAMA'S CHRISTIAN RHETORIC

Obama is using Christian terminology now.