Well, this is an interesting analysis (from Dan K. Thomasson in the Detroit News):

The one indispensible ingredient for a successful presidency, particularly when the holder of the job is more than a little inexperienced, is a good staff.

 

More and more it looks like President Barack Obama has been missing that from the start. There have been increasing reports of presidential aides divided over what to do and increasingly frustrated by the president's efforts to court Republicans on the one hand and to abandon some of his more liberal principles on the other.

Oh, so now he tells us that Captain Hope & Change is “more than a little inexperienced.” Somehow I doubt that Mr. Thomasson was pushing that storyline in 2008!

Fairness, however, compels me to concede that Thomasson is not off base with his criticism of Obama’s staff picks. The Chicago cabal that Barry brought with him to the White House certainly hasn’t served him well. But Thomasson’s critique would have been improved if he’d also mentioned the toxic influence of the President’s overweening self-regard, e.g.: “I’m LeBron, baby. I can play on this level. I got some game.”

Sure, his staff deserves a share of the blame. But the Messiah’s zeppelin-sized ego—a thin skin enclosing a large volume of explosive gas—makes Obama his own worst enemy.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:34 AM EDT

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If you still doubt that the President of the United States is a shameless, blatant, bare-faced liar, consider this.

Contrary to Barry’s intimation that “the rich” are dodging taxes while the “middle class” shoulders the nation’s tax burden, the fact is that the top 0.1% of income earners coughs up more federal income tax than the bottom 80%—about $1 of every $6 paid in federal income tax comes from that 0.1% of the taxpaying citizenry. Meanwhile, the 20% of taxpayers who constitute the core of the middle class, with an average income of about $45,000, pay $1 of every $25 of federal income tax.

Overall, America’s top 20%—those earning more than $102,000—pay 89% of all federal income taxes. And even if you factor in the payroll tax, the top 0.1% still pay more than the bottom 40%. In percentage terms, the average tax rate for the top 0.1% is about 31%—compared with a 12.8% rate for the 20% of taxpayers constituting the core of the middle class.

No matter how you look at it, in fact, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” is pitifully adequate to characterize the scale of Obama’s lies. It’s more as if his trousers have undergone a spontaneous fusion reaction.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:24 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 22 September 2011 8:26 AM EDT

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That Barack Obama and his henchmen are lying through their teeth about US tax policy doesn’t bother me very much. It betrays confusion and panic, which is all to the good from the perspective of those of us who believe that the Obama Administration has been an unmitigated disaster for America. Still, a lie this egregious needs to be called out.

The President would have you believe that “the rich” are not paying their “fair share” of taxes. This is not only a lie—it’s a bare-faced lie. Here are the facts, courtesy of the Associated Press:

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

 

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.

 

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.

 

>snip<

 

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

So, how, precisely, is the tax system not fair? It’s steeply progressive, that’s for sure. But instead of answering the question, Barry blathers about Warren Buffet and his administrative assistant. Why? Because he thinks that you and I are stupid.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:19 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 21 September 2011 9:23 AM EDT

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One of the more obnoxious conceits of the Left is its pretense that highly compensated public-sector employees are in fact downtrodden proletarians. Considering the princely salaries and gold-plated benefits that many civil servants enjoy, this trope is frankly contemptuous in its reversal of reality. The truth is the pay, benefits, working conditions and job security of public employees are significantly better than those of many private-sector workers—who, as the crowning insult, are heavily taxed to support this arrangement.

For a long time the public-employee unions were able to get away with this scam by attacking every attempt at reform as an assault on the “rights of working people.” Who knew that public-school teachers in Wisconsin have an inalienable right to collective bargaining?  I sure couldn’t find it anywhere in the Constitution. But that was the claim and unfortunately many people accepted it. But the tide may finally be turning:

New Poll: Voters Prefer Cutting Public Sector Compensation, Against Raising Taxes

Better late than never!

Now this doesn’t mean that people support putting the screws to public employees. But it does mean, I think, that long-running progressive trope equating civil servants with working-class stiffs has run its course.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:01 AM EDT

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There's lots of happy talk about China’s brilliant future from its fans in the West—useful idiots like Tom Friedman. If he and people like him are to be believed, China is destined to displace America as the global hyperpower. It’s simply a matter of time.

We’ve been here before, of course. In the Twenties and Thirties, progressive people swooned over Bolshevik economic planning. In the Thirties and Forties, there were those who admired the fascist model of economic organization. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, it was said that Japanese state capitalism was far superior to the messy, inefficient American version.

In part, this durable love affair with economic planning is symptomatic of progressives’ distaste for America. But mostly, I think, it reflects the authoritarianism of the progressive personality. Al Gore is a prize specimen of the type. For all his bluster about facts and science, the Goricle is nothing more than an ideologue with an agenda (“saving the planet” via government management of the global economy), an enemies list (“climate change deniers”) and the instincts of a bully.

Considering the sheer frivolity of Gore’s climate crusade, the respect paid to him by progressive elites is a comedic masterpiece. Gore’s claim that he and people like them possess sufficient information, expertise and wisdom to green whole economies and fine-tune the global climate is beyond ridiculous. Compared with this fantasy of control, The Wizard of Oz is a sober exercise in realism. But of course, climate control is not really the point. Power is the point—the power to limit people’s choices and control their lives via a panoply of environmental regulations.

No wonder that progressives like Tom Friedman admire and envy the power of the Chinese Communist Party. Solar panels! High-speed rail! One child per family! And all of it accomplished by administrative fiat, with no taint of untidy democratic procedures that hobble American governance. And when Obama muses about “going around Congress,” every progressive heart flutters.

Once, long ago, progressives admired Benito Mussolini—he made the trains run on time. Now they’re in love with the apparatchiks of Communist China—they make the trains run fast. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Posted by tmg110 at 8:45 AM EDT

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Politicians who decide not to run for reelection—or who resign in the wake of some scandal—often explain their decision by saying that they want to spend more time with their families. So does that mean that ambitious politicians, eager to jump into the political wars, are looking for an excuse to spend less time with their families? That might possibly explain Bill Clinton's great hunger for office…

Posted by tmg110 at 8:27 PM EDT

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I agree with Michele Bachmann that the Texas Governor Rick Perry’s HPV vaccination program ought not to have been quasi-mandatory, e.g. requiring parents to opt out rather than asking them to opt in. (The program, which was instituted by executive order, was later overturned by the Texas state legislature.) She may even have been right when she charged that it was an example of “crony capitalism.” (Perry’s chief of staff at the time wa s a former drug company lobbyist.) But that wasn’t all Bachmann said. By intimating that the HPV vaccine can cause brain damage—a claim that has no scientific support whatever—Michele Bachmann crossed the line.

Back when Robert Kennedy Jr.’s name was being mentioned as a candidate to lead the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama Administration, I was horrified. Among Kennedy’s many outrages against science and common sense is his role in the anti-vaccine movement. By influencing gullible parents to forego vaccinations for their children, these latter-day Luddites are doing incalcuable harm. Now here’s Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate, for heaven’s sake, spreading the same kind of lie in an attempt to damage an opponent.

With this false and irresponsible charge about the HPV vaccine, and by her refusal to back off from it, Michele Bachmann has shown herself to be unfit for the presidency. She’ll certainly never get the vote of this polio survivor, who contracted the disease at the age of six—just months before the Salk vaccine was introduced.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:51 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 18 September 2011 1:10 PM EDT

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…run in circles, scream and shout! That’s James Carville’s advice to Barack Obama. “What should the White House do now?” the CNN contributor and former Clinton aide asks rhetorically. “One word came to mind: Panic.”

To be fair, Carville doesn’t leave it there. He elaborates at some length, insisting that Obama must “fire somebody,” “indict people,” “make a case like a Democrat” and “hold fast to an explanation.” In other words: “Behead some scapegoats and go negative. It’s your only hope, Mr. President.” Also sprach the Ragin’ Cajun.

Personally I think it’s a bit late for such damage control, though I have no objection to a purge of the Obama Administration. Perhaps Carville himself could be persuaded to serve as Comrade Barry’s Yagoda/Yezhov/Beria. I’m sure he has a list.

Perhaps you share my skepticism concerning the efficacy of Carville’s recommendation. Even so, it would probably be an improvement over Obama’s current stumblebum strategy. But it does embody a fatal flaw by requiring Mr. Wonderful to admit that he’s made a number of mistakes. Now I ask you—how likely is that?

Sorry, Jimbo.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:00 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 16 September 2011 9:05 AM EDT

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Ah, Debbie! The Chair of the Democratic National Committee, the hilarious Debbie Wasserman Schultz, batted another one out of the park yesterday with this comment on the outcome of the special congressional election in New York: "[T]here is a large number of people who went to the polls tonight who didn't support the president to begin with and don't support Democrats—and it's nothing more than that."

In 2008, Obama beat John McCain in NY-9 by a 55-44% margin.

Oh.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:30 AM EDT

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Here’s one good reason to be in favor of the Keystone Pipeline (designed to transport bitumen produced from oil sands in Alberta, Canada, to US Gulf Coast refineries). Daryl Hannah’s against it. Now that’s what I call a gold seal of approval!

Posted by tmg110 at 8:26 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 15 September 2011 8:28 AM EDT

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