Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category
November 14th, 2011 | 
Author: Early Jobs Projections Could Haunt Obama in 2012 – NYTimes.com
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com11/4/11
Friday's tepid jobs report brings a fresh reminder of the stubborn difficulty President Obama and his team face in overcoming the argument that his administration has failed to address unemployment.
Droves Of Democrats Balking On Obama 2012 | Politicons
politicons.net11/14/11
Radioactive Obama… Politico has a piece highlighting the droves of Democrats that are refusing to back Obama in 2012. …
Just one year from the 2012 election and President Obama is in an extremely perilous political situation.
The poor economy he inherited hasn’t recovered and has most likely worsened.
Published unemployment is stuck above 9% with real unemployment being around 18.5%
Long-term unemployment is at record post-war levels.
The housing sector, where most people’s personal wealth was and is concentrated, remains mired in deep recession.
The scandals surrounding Republican-led investigations into Solyndra and Operation Fast and Furious are deepening.
Obama Had Overwhelming Majorities In Both Houses Of Congress
Although the President had overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress in his first two years, he has only two major legislative achievements to his credit:
The stimulus bill.
And Obamacare.
The stimulus bill is generally perceived as having been worse than a total failure, because it’s perceived as having been motivated more by politics than economics, and because much of the $800 billion was directed towards public service union members and liberal causes; i.e. "green energy", rather than real economic recovery.
Obamacare also remains deeply unpopular with the general public and is headed for the Supreme Court, which could well find its key provision unconstitutional next summer, just as the election gets into high gear.
The Economy And America’s Status
Budget deficits soared during the Obama years, with three trillion-dollar-plus deficits in a row.
And this has caused the national debt to swell to a level that, relative to GDP, has not been seen since the end of World War II and for the first time ever, the United States lost its AAA credit rating, which was a deep embarrassment for the country and also the administration.
Obama’s Ratings
So it shouldn’t be surprising that under these circumstances, that the President’s approval ratings have been in sharp decline, with some of his key supporting groups, including the youth and Hispanic voters to a greater or less degree abandoning him.
Obama’s Re-electability
No recent President was re-elected with unemployment above 7.8%, and that was in 1984, when unemployment was falling rapidly as a major economic boom accelerated.
So What Happened?
How did a man who three years ago won a higher percentage of both the popular and electoral vote than any Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson’s landslide almost fifty years ago find himself fighting such uphill odds to keep the White House?
The answer to that seems to lie in the somewhat exceptional circumstances that existed during the 2008 election, and Barack Obama’s personality which fitted the times.
In 2008, the American electorate was thoroughly tired of both the Bush administration and the Republican Party, which had lost its majority in Congress in 2006 for the first time in twelve years.
The Republican field of presidential candidates in 2008 was a weak one, with the eventual winner, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, widely perceived as being too old for the job.
So Obama, who was only forty seven years old, seemed in contrast, like a breath of fresh air.
He seemed personable, articulate (nobody had yet focused on his TelePrompTer) and he was the first ever bi-racial candidate for a major-party nomination with any serious chance of winning.
His biggest opposition was Sen. Hillary Clinton, the first woman candidate who also had a serious chance of winning, but she was already well known to the American people, having been First Lady for eight years; and she carried a lot of baggage from her husband’s administration.
Obama, in contrast, was a blank slate and to some extent still is because of the main stream media which is still protecting him.
Obama Hid His Tracks
Obama only served a little over three years in the US Senate, where his record was thin, and he mostly voted "present” rather than take a stand on issues.
Which we can now see was because he didn’t want evidence that could later be used against him.
How Obama Won
The Obama campaign used his lack of Washington experience to the fullest, much like Herman Cain is using his now.
They cultivated an image of a new kind of president, one who would cut through the old Washington merry-go-round of partisan bickering and special-interest pandering.
He would be post-partisan, a President who would throw the special-interest moneychangers out of the temple of the nation’s capital.
Obama’s biggest advantage in the 2008 election however, was that the mainstream media, failed to reveal any of his major negatives, such as having been and active member of the New Party (communist) and promoted all of his seeming positives; simply because it so desperately wanted to see an extreme left-wing, bi-racial candidate elected.
So What Happened To Candidate Obama’s Promises?
Running for President and being President, are two entirely separate matters however, and once in the White House a new Obama emerged, one who was quite different from the post-partisan, special-interest-bashing one.
What metamorphosed, was a hyper-liberal ideologue who attended to his special interests, such as labor unions, as assiduously as any other Washington politician had ever done before.
And what’s more, an arrogance and a rigidity that had not been seen in the candidate before, became increasingly evident, and expressed itself in such things as his State of the Union speech in January 2010, wherein he publicly criticized the Supreme Court, many of whose members were sitting in front of him for one of its decisions, which was totally unprecedented behavior.
Soon Gone Was The Bi-Partisanship
"I won the election”, he bluntly told Rep. Paul Ryan when the latter tried to negotiate regarding Obamacare, and it resulted in his two major pieces of legislation passing with almost no Republican votes in either house.
The Tea Party
What happened next was a groundswell of opposition to the Obama administration’s big spending ways which quickly became known as the Tea Party, and it’s something that Obama naively or arrogantly ignored for too long.
Obama Vainly Ignored The Clear Writing On The Wall
Republican candidates did extremely well in the off-year elections of 2009, winning the governorships in both New Jersey and Virginia with control-the-spending campaigns, and even greater evidence of voters’ dissatisfaction was when Scott Brown, who was a little known Republican, won the special election to fill the Senate seat of Democratic icon Ted Kennedy in deep-blue Massachusetts in January, 2010.
Obama Has Been Slow To Learn
Obama simply made a few token political adjustments, and in November, 2010, a tidal wave election gave decisive control of the House back to the Republicans and added seven Senate seats to their column, with Republicans also winning races for governor and state legislative seats across the width and breadth of the country.
Obama did admit that he had taken a shellacking, but he seems no more willing to change his ways than before because his latest plan to stimulate the economy is little different than his first one, and it has no chance of being enacted.
Can Obama Win Reelection?
Unlikely unless:
The economy turns around.
The Republicans nominate another weak candidate, which is possible.
The Supreme Court upholds Obamacare, or avoids making a decision before the election.
Obama’s biggest problem however seems to be that he’s totally egocentric and believes that his way is the only right way.
It’s highly unlikely that he’ll change, and increasingly likely that he’ll be a one term president, which is something that he said that he’d prefer.
"I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president".
And if that comes to be, then he’ll be able to say that he was right about that too!
Posted in 'bad bank', 2012, administration, bailout, banking system, congress, crisis, deficits, economy, environment, financial system, government, Hilary Clinton, job losses, jobless benefits, jobless rate, jobs, layoffs, Lobbying, paper trail, politics, polls, president, presidential elections, property values, recession, Senate, stimulus package, transparency, Unemployed, Unemployment, unemployment rate, US banking, US banks, US economy, Washington, welfare, White House | 
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The Lesser of Two Evils, or What Life After Obama Might Be Like …
2 Responses to The Lesser of Two Evils, or What Life After Obama Might Be Like. John H Short on September 19, 2011 at 6:09 AM. I will not vote for President Empty Suit again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice …
Publish Date: 09/18/2011 20:29
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/18/the-lesser-of-two-evils-or-what-life-after-obama-might-be-like/
Obama's ineligibility: Prepare to defend America – Political insurgency
The mainstream media are now starting ever so slowly to criticize Obama, not because they have suddenly discovered that there is an empty suit sitting in the Oval Office, but because they are desperately trying to regain some …
Publish Date: 09/18/2011 12:55
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40426
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
The Obama Administration (T.S. Eliot)
Obama’s Response To The Ongoing Crisis?
Our president is going on vacation.
He’s waiting until September to make a speech.
He’s coming back with another stimulus plan.
Even though he’s already admitted that there weren’t those shovel-ready jobs, he’s going to announce plans for roads and construction projects again.
He acknowledges that employers are struggling but he’s proposing another temporary payroll tax cut.
His big news is that they’ll be an even grander deal on the debt with huge new tax hikes!
Why September?
“I think the reason he’s taking the time to wait for his next speech on the economy is that he frankly doesn’t know what to do. I mean, he hasn’t spent his life in the private sector. He doesn’t understand that jobs come and go and he’s looking for help". – Mitt Romney
Campaign Rhetoric?
Certainly in part, but in this case Romney has aptly articulated President Obama’s problem because Obama is clearly in over his head.
The economy is worsening, his approval rating is in free-fall and now the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) is poised to demand something impossible i.e. create jobs for blacks only.
What’s Being Considered By The Hollow Men?
Tax cuts for companies that hire workers.
New spending for roads and construction.
Other measures that would target the long-term unemployed such as providing mortgage relief for struggling homeowners, that could come through executive action.
Making the case that short-term spending can lead to long-term savings.
The Merits Of Short Term Spending?
White House allies, many of whom have pushed Obama in recent weeks to focus on job creation, said Wednesday that the president faces a stiff political test in explaining to voters the merits of short-term spending and long-term reduction of the federal deficit.
And of course it would be "a stiff political test" because it already didn’t work and voters inherently understand that promises of cuts down the road coupled with immediate spending sprees are precisely how we got into this situation.
A senior Republican Senate aide dismissed the president’s approach as,
"The same as always. Investments in union-friendly projects now, promises of austerity later".
And Speaker of the House John Boehner (R- Ohio) put out a statement yesterday pointing out the contrast between the Republican plans to spur private-sector growth and the president’s focus on government spending and borrowing:
“To get our economy moving, what the American people need from the President is leadership and serious solutions that reflect a true change in his approach to our economy and the role of government. We welcome him to our ongoing efforts to help create jobs, and look forward to seeing a detailed plan next month. It is my hope the President will offer specific proposals that depart from his previous policies and allow us to find common ground and work together to put Americans back to work. In the meantime, Republicans will continue to advance solutions that will reduce economic uncertainty and create a better environment for private-sector job creation".
Will Obama Be A One Term President?
Obama is trapped by his base, and by his own ideology that demands an endless cycle of spending, borrowing and taxing and it would now seem that the Congressional Black Caucus is about to put a final nail in his coffin.
Blacks make up around 12.6% of Americas population and right now around 86% percent of them still approve of the president’s performance.
Obama’s popularity is hovering around 40% right now, so just imagine what will happen if he loses much of the Black vote and most likely much of the Latino one too.
