Category Archives: Politics

by Barry Kelly | September 18, 2012 · 3:43 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 20

POINT OF NO RETURN

When your candidate loses the election, there is a period when you hope the guy you didn’t vote for surprises you and is successful. Each of us has our own POINT OF NO RETURN when you realize this isn’t going to work and you try to get the ship of state turned around or at least reduce the speed. I had several indicators the voyage was not going well. They were more than bumps in the road. OBAMACARE was the first. It wasn’t the attempt to fix health care. I realized the system was broken and needed fixed but not the way it ended up being done. No debate, discussion, openness to amendments, and total obscurity when we were promised transparency. The third person in the succession list for the Presidency said, “You have to pass it to see what’s in it.” That was the beginning.

Then we had the world apology tour to put our past uniqueness and power for the good into perspective for the world. Followed by the unwarranted snubbing of old allies like the United Kingdom and Israel and new ones like Poland. What kind of a President would make it one of his first acts in office to send back the bust of Churchill, a revered hero of the West?

The foreign tour was followed by the unprecedented growth and use of the power of the Executive Office, the attempt to close Gitmo, put previously cleared CIA officers under investigation for the use of torture, i.e. water boarding and other harsh interrogation techniques that saved hundreds maybe thousands of American lives. With the worst Attorney General in my lifetime turned loose to impose his unique style of law and order we had Fast and Furious, the de facto granting of citizenship rights to the underpants bomber, the push to try the moslem thugs responsible for 9/11 in New York City. Finally THE ATTORNEY GENERAL was held IN CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS for the first time in our history. THE ATTACK ON CAPITALISM AND THE FREE MARKET SYSTEM were followed with the loading of the previously non-partisan National Labor Relations Board with Union supporters that tried to stop Boeing from building planes in Charleston, South Carolina, because the state was a Right to Work state.

This President does not like meetings where records are kept and many people witness the proceedings. As a senator, he was the chairman of the Afghanistan Committee that never held a meeting. To get around his own Cabinet he appointed thirty plus czars who do not need Senate confirmation and cannot be summoned to Congress to reply to questions or give testimony. They also do not meet as group. Written records of the President’s inter action with his secret “cabinet” will not be available to historians. Perhaps the most notorious of the czars was Van Jones, the Green Czar and a self-avowed Communist and a signer of the Truther Petition (a document that claims the U.S. Government was involved in a 9/11 cover-up and complicit in the attack in order to establish an excuse for the Iraq and Afghan wars). Valerie Jarrett was probably responsible for putting Jones in the President’s inner circle. After quietly leaving the White House, Van Jones showed up as one of the leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

There were other strong indicators such as: Failure to get even one Democrat to vote for his budget submissions; announcement for troop withdrawal dates in Iraq and Afghanistan; the total lack of a plan to reduce the deficit; and the new mission for NASA (help Muslim states to feel proud of their contributions to science and math). But the big one for me was the President’s open mike mistake when he was talking in low confidential tones to Dmitry Medvedev. President Obama asked Medvedev to tell Putin that he (Obama) would have more flexibility after his re-election. Medvedev answered he would pass on the message. That an American President would pass such a message to a man that is no friend of the United States is the worst transgression I have ever personally heard of in my life in government. That was my Point of No Return. Do you have one?

http://www.factsandfictions.com author of the Jack Brandon thriller novels

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS #19

LETTER TO FAMILY & FRIENDS

I was asked recently to comment on the use of lies, flip flopping, and spin in the presidential campaign. Politicians from both parties and their surrogates are and have been guilty of all these methods of distortion. I will concentrate on those of the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party in this blog because I believe the distortions here are more dangerous to our nation than those of their opponents and are more outside the normal use of truth twisting. I am aware of my own bias in favor of centrist policies and hope I will not offend my many Democrat friends, present or past. I’m going to present the case in bullet form without paragraphs of evidence.

*President Obama is often mistakenly accused of lying when he simply failed to reach one of his goals: Unemployment under 8 percent and cut the deficit in half in his first term if he was given more than 800 billion of stimulus to spend. Those are not lies; they are simply failures of management and leadership.

* Obamacare will be deficit neutral. No one now believes that will happen. Lie? Probably not. But the denial of movement of 700 plus billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare is much closer to the definition of a lie. Many would say that is just slight-of-hand budgeting and more in line with spinning the truth. It seems clear this transfer happened but the faithful will say it was all going to a medical fund for the American people. The choice is yours.

* Repeated charges that the Republican Party is waging a war on women is a hard stretch to fit under political spin. Did Secretary Sebelius of HHS anticipate the firestorm that followed her decree that the Catholic Church had to pay for contraceptives for women who worked in all Catholic hospitals, clinics, and schools? The issue was and is, simply: Could the president force the Catholic Church to pay for something that is against their religious beliefs? To me this is clearly an example of the Big Lie strategy. Speakers at the DNC expanded on the extent of the “war on women” to fears of losing their right to vote or exercise of their right to decide on having an abortion. Maybe they were reading too much into the Republican Party platform. Platforms of both parties, no longer, if ever, follow principles. They are used to give radical and fringe elements evidence of their influence in return for their support.

Keynesian Economics

* If only Congress, especially the House, would pass the president’s Jobs Bill or bills, millions of jobs would be created. Lie or an example of the vast difference between Progressive and Republican financial theories? I think this is not the president or his surrogates lying. This issue is a philosophical chasm that divides conservative from progressive. The Keynesian theory, in simple form is that government spending or pump priming can grow the economy and bring an economic system from recession to a growth mode. It can add jobs in the public sector and in infrastructure improvements as long as the taxpayers continue to pay the costs. It does not create wealth or long-term growth. Only the private sector by expanding the supply of goods and services to sell in the free market can create wealth and improve the gross national product.

Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Secretary of Treasury and financial guru, remarked after several years of trying Keynesian economics that it just doesn’t work. Contrary to folklore, the unemployment rate late into President Roosevelt’s tenure was more than 12 percent. Many communists and socialist nations have tried to develop growth and national wealth through varying forms of Keynesian schemes. All failed. Yet it remains a mantra of the far left, while to Progressives supply side economics is still the enemy of growth, even though its record shows a very high rate of success. While it is true that the House and the Senate have not passed the president’s jobs plan nor any of his budgets, their failure is due more to their lack of fiscal reality than to partisan politics. Not one Democrat voted for any of the president’s budgets. (This is an example of political spinning and differing beliefs and not lying.)

* Political spinning is also the answer to conflicts about the amount of jobs created, when, by whom, and at what cost. The whole rationale of how the unemployment rate is computed gives wide latitude to different claims. Progressive ads and political claims are often not lying, just avoiding the unpleasant facts in favor of partisan sound bites. And every time a politician, from either party, changes his or her mind in the face of new information or an internal conviction, their new position should not be called flip-flopping. Maybe it was the right thing to do.

Rather than labeling opposition statements as lies, wouldn’t it be better to shed light on the truth, even the relative truth?

http://www.factsandfictions.com The author of the Jack Brandon thriller series.

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Filed under Conservative views, Intelligence & Politics, political solutions, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as Catholic Church, contraceptives, DNC, FDR, flip flopping, Gross National Product, keynesian, Obama, pump priming, Sebellius

by Barry Kelly | September 1, 2012 · 9:55 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS #17

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WHERE IS OBAMA COMING FROM AND WHERE IS HE GOING?

Those are two questions Americans have been asking themselves for nearly four years. He has written a book about that journey. Pundits have written articles, both in favor of the president and in opposition. The main-stream media, which we have counted on in the past to uncover the guiding principles and the experiences that have shaped the principles of our leaders, has been silent. It would be unseemly to dig deeply into the background of the first man with minority credentials to inhabit the White House. It was enough that he fought the Clinton machine and beat an inept McCain candidacy. The only good thing to come out of that debacle was governor Sarah Palin. Any conservative who questioned Obama’s birth, associations, education, and beliefs flirted with being branded a racist. I was personally proud of my country for electing a black man to the presidency, even though I had serious doubts about his capacity for the job. No nation embracing racist values could have elected Obama.

There are numerous problems in America Obama could have tackled. The inner city mess, failure of American K-12 education system that serves the union better than the children, jobs and job training, free trade agreements, supporting people struggling for freedom everywhere, stamping out the last vestiges of discrimination, and uniting our people. No, instead he set about gaining control of the means of production, righting America’s nearly nonexistent colonialist history, and seeking forgiveness from foreign nations for the actions of American power and influence. Where did that all come from?

We should have known some hidden demon was driving this man when one of his first acts in the White House was sending a bust of Churchill back to Great Britain. He was picking up the anti-colonist battle his grandfather and father fought in Kenya against British colonialism. He was mentored for many of his formative years by known communists and Islamists dedicated to the destruction of the “colonial empires of the west.”

This man is not evil. He is just marching to a different drum. The only one he can hear. He is not cruel or bad, just misguided. We can not change the beat of this ancient anti-colonist drum. He looks cool, but he’s living in the past. He’s trying to follow a path that is now faint and overgrown. One the nation does not want.

Go see the Documentary 2016. It is a good piece of scholarship. Well produced and very helpful in understanding a president who is mired in an anti-colonial past.

http://www.factsandfictions.com Author of the Jack Brandon Thriller Series

Eight Decades of Insights – 15

YOU MUST PAY ATTENTION WHEN THE OPPOSITION DEVOUTLY BELIEVES THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.

My last blog emphasized the need to focus on the big picture and not on shifting issues. The president and his whole administration know the goal is to get re-elected: “Nothing else matters. Say anything. Do anything. Never mind the law. Sort that out later. When we win, we will own the courts. Use the full power of the executive office where it is needed. Increase subsidies, extend payments, fight voter ID, sue states, block investigations, try to deny late voting to veterans, leak if it helps build short-term credibility.” These are things the administration is willing to do. And don’t expect a serious effort by the administration to find and punish the leaker.

I have seen real leak investigations. When the president is angry about leaks, the leaker is found and sometimes exposed. These leaks are so spectacular that only a few people could have provided the information to the NYT. The FBI and a counter-intelligence team could find the leaker in two weeks if allowed to do what they know how to do. Mandatory polygraphs of less than twenty people to start. But remember: The end justifies the means. Failing to get four more years is the only thing to fear.

These are smart people. Take immigration. President Obama showed the brilliance of his campaign when he bypassed Congress and issued the essence of the Dream Act by executive order. Senator Marco Rubio lost his unique platform and the Republican Party its chance to make serious inroads into the Hispanic community and to win Florida big.

The Obama brain trust has at least one more ace up its sleeve. They must now be talking about cutting some baggage. Does anyone believe that the vice president is a net gain for the campaign? He is a gaffe a speech and standing beside the president on the platform he looks and acts like he has been or never was politician. Can he debate Ryan? I think not. So, think about it, should this end justifiy the means and should ‘followers of Saul Alinsky’ even think twice about throwing the VP under the first bus?

No! Watch the convention when a tearful VP tells the convention that the campaign and the responsibilities of another four years is just more than he can do. It isn’t fair to the president or the American people and the highly respected financial genius replacing him will help the party and the nation, thereby challenging Ryan’s contribution to the Republican ticket.

That is my prediction. It will happen unless the Obama brain trust believes it can win with Joe. In that case, the Romney/Ryan ticket must have made some catastrophic blunder or blunders.

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Filed under Conservative views, Intelligence & Politics, political solutions, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as Alinsky, Biden, brain trust, courts, current-events, FBI, leaks, Obama, politics, Romney, Rubio, Ryan, VP

by Barry Kelly | August 11, 2012 · 6:02 pm

Eight Decades of Insights – 14

VOTE THE ISSUES, BUT NOT REALLY

It seems to me that voters in past elections could mull over the issues and decide which candidate supported issues important to them. It was then easy to go to the polls and vote for their choice. Not now. The rules have changed, but no one told you. You are being bombarded with issue-ladened ads extolling one candidate or the other, as if this election is about issues. It is not. Maybe the Republican candidate is still playing by the old rules. If he keeps that belief and keeps reacting to shifting changes in President Obama’s campaign, he will surely lose. It is not about issues for the Progressives. It is about getting elected and keeping power to continue the transformation of America.

If you are a person focussed on the ISSUES, you must be dizzy by now with all the shifts and changes of the Progressives (read Left Wing Democratic Party). Talk about: “I was for it, before I was against it, now I’m for it again but my opponents have taken my words out of context.” The same confusion is true of numbers. Does anyone believe that more taxes from the 1% of the richest of our people can make up, even marginally, the gap between spending and revenue? Only steady growth can provide the revenue needed.

Don’t think the hard core of the Democratic Party is dumb or uncoordinated. They are not. David Axelrod and team are extremely smart and street wise. They believe elections are not won by issues. Elections are won by winning a majority of voters in a few swing states. You do this not by fighting over issues, but by destroying the opposing candidate and making promises to the electorate that cannot be kept. Truth doesn’t matter. Perception does. The Big Lie or Lies told over and over in various forums can and has worked.

Yes, the rules have changed. No, no one told you. Studying what the president said when he was a candidate himself, or when he was a senator or when he was in Akron or some other place using Air Force One and all the trappings of the president to conduct political fundraisers doesn’t matter. He will say and do what is necessary to get elected. Don’t ever forget that the Progressive mantra is that the end does justify the means. Progressives are not worried about morality, truth, or even consistency.

Don’t pay attention to issues and political ads. Think instead what it will mean to America for more of the same under President Obama or for a change in direction by a more traditional politician who doesn’t believe in “transforming” America. Lean back and imagine what four more years of transformation could do. Forget the Progressive fog of bewildering issues and slandering attacks. In our history we have seen what a divided America can mean. Don’t let it happen again. Vote the big picture and change the rules back, so we can debate over real issues to improve our country. And may the good Democrats recapture their party.

God bless our Warriors and our Olympic athletes. They are wonderful.