-
RSS Subscribe
-
Blood for Votes (and other musings)
Obama claims that he doesn’t want to nationalize U.S. businesses, but as I see it, Obama has been in office a little over 4 months and he has turned our legal system upside down and stole the property that belongs to the “secured” and senior lenders to GM and Chrysler in order to essentially “give” those companies to the unions, his largest political financial supporters which are junior and unsecured. Nice payback payoff ……what is it they say; “elections have consequences.” This is more adept than the Russian Revolution of 1917. Remember the misery this brought Russia and others for nearly a century following that little experiment?
To the surprise of the executives in the car industry and dealers, he has dictated the closing of many car dealers nationally without a mechanism to insure that the survivors are not Political Favorites of Obama while many “successful and profitable” dealers are being closed outside of the parameters set up by the auto industry for continued existence. The only significant justification that you can deduce from this is that they are (as most in fact were) Republican supporters. He fired the head of GM and replaced him with an “Obama friendly” retired communications executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., who claimed on the day of the announcement that he “doesn’t know anything about cars.” Go figure.
Now he is running the banks and deciding how much their executives can earn. He has even hired a salary “czar” to establish their pay grade. He likes this idea so much that he is looking into expanding this to other industries. Steve Ballmer, CEO and co-founder with Bill Gates of Microsoft has been a supporter of Obama but stated that they will move Microsoft “offshore” if Obama continues down this punitive path of taxes and making companies non-competitive in foreign markets. While attacking US corporations that do business overseas and receive tax benefits for it and wealthy taxpayers not paying enough tax, he himself (according to his published personal taxes for 2008) almost exclusively invested those millions of book royalties U.S. Tax Exempt offshore companies and tax exempt bonds….check it out yourself.
We passed a $800 Billion pork laden program under the guise of “emergency stimulus” to save us from the “Bush economy” [see my link HERE on Obama and the “Community Reinvestment Act” that I posted this past October revealing the real cause of the financial meltdown] and used this urgency as the cover to violate his own campaign promise of posting legislation for 48 hours on the White House website so all could see its contents. He called it his “new transparency.” Instead he delivered the 1,000 page bill to the Republicans for first review at 11 PM with a final vote scheduled on it the following morning at 9 AM. Is this the transparency he promised? The only thing transparent is that we were played for fools.
The way we know that this bill has nothing to do with “emergency stimulus” (even as it was designed and written) is the fact that 2/3rds of it wouldn’t be spent until 2010 and 2011 with most of that being in 2011. But it couldn’t wait another 48 hours on the website for proper disclosure. After it was shot gunned through Congress, Obama took a vacation and didn’t even sign it till mid (the following) week. Heck, not even the rank and file Democrats had a chance to read it. But this has all turned out even worse than that because they have only spent 5% of it to date, but you probably recall that part of its sales pitch was that we had plenty of “shovel ready” projects ready to go to effect an immediate stimulus……….not so. The economy is now beginning to recover without much Federal Stimulus money and even though it will likely be a protracted recovery, maybe we should revisit this spending and cancel it and save our children and grandchildren much grief.
He further emphasized the urgent need of the “stimulus” package in order to avoid the unemployment rate from going over 9% this year. Well, that strategy worked and that ill designed “stimulus” package did pass and almost exclusively by Democrats but the unemployment rate already hit 9.4% last month. Now just yesterday he has fired the Inspector General who investigated some suspicious illegal activities of a crony of his own.
Every despot in the world is testing Obama and they are learning that they can get away with anything and they include not only Iran and Venezuela but N. Korea as well. N. Korea tested nuclear bombs and missiles in contravention of US and UN warnings and yesterday the UN passed a resolution permitting UN member countries to “interdict” N. Korean vessels suspected of caring weapons. Obama stated yesterday that he intends to challenge such vehicles on the open seas, but wouldn’t use force to board them………… Do you see what I see here? He has essentially neutralized even the weak action of the UN and stated IN ADVANCE that we wouldn’t actually stop them. What kind of leadership is this? Do you think N. Korea will be inclined to cooperate with the “spirit” of the UN action since we have notified them that we won’t enforce it?
He has been on a world wide tour apologizing for the “misdeeds” of America without mention the countries we saved, the poor people we have fed, etc. and he has even unilaterally stated to the nations of the world that the United States is NOT a Christian nation. Ok, I can live with that maybe if he let it go at that, but then he goes onto Moslem soil and states that the United States is one of the largest Moslem nations. Truth is, even by those metrics we are not. We would be far down that list. You may have noticed that he managed to exempt his own culpability from all these woes that America has brought on the world.
Obama and his party are doing everything to release real terrorist that we have captured while simultaneously strategizing to prosecute real Americans that protected us from them. Now Pelozi wants to release photos that even she agrees with U.S. Generals will cost American’s lives. People don’t understand why she would do that, but it is an easy assessment. She is playing to the political left in San Francisco that is demanding this. She has placed her reelection and position ahead of Soldiers lives. The Deomcrats once (often) said “Blood for Oil” as they criticized Republicans. I think this is much more clearly Blood for Votes. (You can’t come up with any other analysis of it.)
What is the cost of all this…………..? Essentially every economist (eliminating those with a White House connection) feel that the Obama program will bankrupt the country and leave our children with an insurmountable debt at a time they will already be going broke over the existing Social Security and Medicare problems. Obama said last week “you ain’t seen nothin yet.” With Cap & Trade and Cap & Tax he will permanently make the US non-competitive with the rest of the world so we can be seen as “politically correct” in solving a problem (global warming) that either doesn’t exist or is not caused by people. The primary Charlatan and Elmer Gantry of our era is Al Gore. He has already made $100 million propagating his junk science that he won’t debate with opposing scientists and he is on the threshold of making Billions by becoming the primary “broker” of carbon offset credits. Understand this is a Ponzi scheme that moves around the production of carbon but doesn’t reduce a single pound of emissions. Did I tell you that C02 is NOT a toxic substance and is necessary in the photosynthesis process? You breathe C02 in and out with every breath. If you didn’t you’d be dead.
Let me conclude and say I smell that Obama is on the threshold of betraying the Israelis in a fundamentally existential fashion and he is headed in the direction of being the biggest elected disaster in the history of the country………..stay tuned.
comments
6 Responses to “Blood for Votes (and other musings)”
Leave a Reply
Good summary, Steve. There are so many egregious actions of Obama that it is hard to pick on to focus on. Maybe that is his strategy: Keep cranking out nonsense and new scandals so people can’t fixate on one.
Hi Neil, Thanks for stopping by. I really think Obama is casting caution to the wind, realizing time is short to stage a silent revolution of our Capitalist/Free Enterprise system. I don’t think his re-election is even the primary item on the agenda. He is disregarding so much of even his own advisors opinions, it is clear to me he is working an agenda to restructure America into a socialist/welfare structure. Since he doesn’t understand why America was successful, he can’t comprehend what damage he is doing. Funny, he isn’t the first to try his approach to government, but he seems to have a tin ear as to what havoc and damage those that did caused……….even (and mostly) to his preferred constituents. ………….steve
Hi Steve,
Great post. It definitely lays out how “hope and change” has quickly evolved into “hood and winked”.
I find the part about the Inspector General being sacked for doing his job absolutely appalling.
Hey Bryan, hope all is well up there in OH. I like that “hope and change” into “hood and winked.” It flows real good…………steve
I third the motion - good synopsis! I’m asking some obama…supporters I know to read it. It’s quick and brings up some good points. Wonder if any of them actually will?
Glad to hear from you and thanks for the referrals, I’ll be watching my stats to see if some of your people might show up. Obama really has me freaked out. I was amazed to hear that Obama may be as freaked as me. I understand that the thought of deficits are causing him to lose sleep, just like me. Since we are both losing sleep over it, I wish I had the power he has to resolve the problem………..via spending. …………….steve
dont mean to play devils advocate, but here goes.
this and others blogs like it are serving the same purpose that left leaning blogs did during the bush years. one difference i prefer with nsl is sticking to data rather than inuendo.
myself, i am inclined to believe that now is the perfect time for the republicans (or fiscal conservatives like myself) to return to conservatism in all our resources while being mindful of not behaving like petulant children. the mainstream media conservatives are the petulant children i am talking about, not steve or people i only know here who comment.
i am sure if m2 is reading he will be the only one agree with me when i say that the nation voted and just because people dont like the result does not mean they should do what the other side did for the previous 8 years.
Matt……….if you go back and read some earlier posts throughout the past 2 years, M2 was suggesting every bad thing about Bush from motive thru competence and dishonesty. Though he may have been less vitriolic (usually) he was more sarcastic than others on the left, but equally as disdainful of Bush………..
i know this will sound foreign to others, but i have noticed a wealth of opportunities dialoging with people i disagree with over national issues. part of my strategy has been to listen and wait for the conversation to provide an opportunity to explain my position, rather than beat people over the head with facts data and political discourse. it takes time and effort, for both parties involved, but i can say that the liberals i know respect it more than the eventual shouting match that politics can bring.
as for the biggest election disaster, i think carter gets that award. to me obama will be to republicans what bush was to democrats.
I must disagree with you here (if my supposition of what Obama intends to do is correct, which I believe is correct because he has so stated it himself). If he succeeds in putting us 10 Trillion into debt, raise marginal tax rates to cover everything he has verbally commissioned them for, destroy our medical system (in my opinion) by implementing the type of plan he has outlined, pass cap and trade, sacrifice Israel, nationalize additional of US industry, continue to exercise his office to accommodate political cronies like he did with GM & Chrysler and dismantle our national security and intelligence gathering he will make Carter look like a choir boy and I know you understand enough about economics alone to know exactly what I mean. ……
i want to leave with one comment that i told a christian friend who is a far right republican. “if you believed that God wanted Bush for 8 years, your same logic would dictate that now God wants Obama for the next four”. his silence spoke volumes to the fact that we cant selectively choose when to apply our beliefs because sometimes we dont get the desired outcome.
I’m not sure who your friend is, but i think it is incorrect to suggest that God wants either Bush, Obama or any other per se. Therefore his opinion or silence proves nothing and is anecdotal. I know that the Bible says that God empowers all rulers, but I don’t think that is the same as saying “who” or “what political philosophy” he prefers. If it did and you looked at various rulers throughout the world over the millennium it would sure make God inherently contradictory. I would be more inclined to believe that in regards to God, apart from politics of God, he is more inclined to allow us to choose who we would like and collectively commit national suicide together if we so insist. Remember God gave man freedom of choice, otherwise he would most likely make it so all would choose him, but we don’t and will suffer consequences accordingly. I believe same choice is operative in every other option in life including Presidential elections.
Hi Steve,
And that’s what you get for waiting so long between posts - a novel
A good novel, but I’m still thinking you’d feel better if you vented more often. Dang, I know my head would pop within a month if I didn’t bitch about this stuff every day or two.
Not that any of it will do any good. Another month or three and we’ll be so mired in socialism that only a large amount of bloodletting will straighten things out, and I don’t think we the people have the collective will for that any more.
the Grit
Hi Grit, Yeah, I’ve had a few topics that I have been wanting to post on, but my lack of speed to the typewriter left me trying to remember just what they were. However, I am hoping my next post is on Obama’s personal tax return for 2008. There has been universally no analysis of this in the mainstream media. I mean nothing. One publication (CBS web site I think, not sure) said that there was nothing surprising or notable in his return. That is the kind of ignorant comment I have come to expect from the mainstream media that neither know anything about our tax structure nor Obama’s personal experience with the same.
For now just let me say that I took the opportunity to review his 2008 return. When I mentioned this to some liberal friends, before I could conclude with my observation and analysis they would jump in and say that they didn’t what to hear about how little he gave to Charities relative to his income. I of course had to laugh, because I couldn’t care less what he gave to charity, although I’d say that the “charities” he did give to were a stretch of the concept “charity” in my personal opinion.
What I did find is that this man ran for President for a year often shouting that American Corporations are investing overseas and exporting American jobs and that the “wealthy” aren’t paying their fair share of the taxes in this country. Would it surprise you if I told you that in 2008, the first year that Obama made any substantial money in excess of his salary (i.e. book sales), he finally had to make “investment” decision with the proceeds of the multi-millions in book sales receipts. Well this decision was overwhelmingly to invest in “foreign companies” and U.S. tax exempt bonds. All exempt from U.S. taxes.
My conclusion here is that he became one of the biggest offenders of what he ran against throughout 2008, making those investment decisions as he was simultaneously running for President and complaining about the same with Republicans. In short he was personally investing in the export of American jobs as he put it and made a personal decision to invest in bonds that would pay interest that he could legally avoid the payment of US taxes on. In all, the amount of Obama’s investment income that escaped U.S. Taxes was in the general vicinity of $180,000……and that’s the rest of the story. ……..steve
Hi Steve,
Really, if you don’t want your head to explode, you need to come to terms with the facts that the biggest liberals are also the cheapest and most money hungry. Come on, they don’t put in all that effort to take from the Evil Rich and give to the poor just to wind up broke! Robbin Hood took his cut, didn’t he? And, if I remember correctly, he didn’t pay taxes on it! So why should the modern champions of the people, like Obama? Get with the program man, and accept the new reality!
the Grit
P.S. And just for a bit of mental exercise, try and dream up a political scenario in which the earnings of Hollywood actors would be excessively taxed or regulated by our current Government.
Grit….It is interesting you should ask (in your P.S.) to drum a scenario in which the government would “get” the Hollywood crowd relative to taxes. I say this because I have already given some thought to this and came up with the following scenario. Actually this scenario has two tracks. One being absolutely certain and the other being what I believe will happen.
First lets look at what we know from the Presidential campaign. As you know that the maximum income tax rate for “high earners” (i.e. evil filthy rich) is 35%. Obama ran against McCain claiming that he would increase taxes on the “rich” by simply rolling back the Bush tax increase. This takes it to 39%. Today he floated the idea of adding another “bracket” to finance his “health care” plan. To do this the first trial balloon is 2% (look for this to expand as they “refine” their health numbers). As stated at this time, however, we are up to 41% for the “successful” Hollywood crowd at this point.
Of course actors are “self-employed” individuals which means they have to pay their full Social Security and Medicare tax contribution. Right now that combined amount is 15.3%. This isn’t as bad as it may sound, because only the “Medicare” portion is taxed on their “full” income. This portion is 2.9%. This means that the projected Federal Rate plus Medicare for the Hollywood crowd would no go to 43.9%. I have ignored the Social Security portion of this rate because though it is 12.4% it is limited to only the first $106,800 of income. That is nothing for Barbara Striesand, Oprah Winfrey, Sean Penn or Rosie O’Donnell because the total Social Security Tax is only $13,243.20. One thing for sure, and you can write it down that you first heard it from me is that Obama during his tenure will “fix” the Social Security System by doing to it what they did with the Medicare System when they pretended they fixed that, which is to remove the cap. It is a lock stock certain fact that Obama will do or attempt to do this. This means that all those millions earned by the Hollywood elite will be added to the 43.9% (or more) income tax rate, bring the combined maximum tax on “high earners” to 56.3%.
Of course this 56.3% burden is before California Income Taxes which is 10.3%. This will bring the new combined Federal & State Income Taxes plus Social Security & Medicare to a combined 66.6% of ALL their income (of course this is before the 8.25% State Sales Tax Rate). That means that if they actually wanted to spend all their “after tax income” (i.e. 33.4% of total income they would pay another 2.75% on top of the 56.3% bring the new combined tax burden to 59.05% after they actually spent their income, but wait. They still can’t spend all their “after tax” income if they own Real Estate because they must first pay their Real Estate Tax and I am sure that isn’t cheap for the Hollywood crowd.
What my attention to political discussion by the left over the past 24 years tells me is that the left will see that regular Federal tax maximum rate of 41.0% as being too low since before the Kemp-Roth tax bill under that evil Reagan it was 50% for “earned income” (more for investment income on its way to 70%). So due to the needs of the country in needing to finance the financial disaster recovery (stimulus spending), National Health Care, Carbon Credit tax to subsidize the “poor,” and General Democratic Party vote buying. I am betting that they will take the rate to that 50% number, from which you can add 15.3% FICA and Medicare, Plus California State tax of 10.3 and now you have really cut into the “Hollywood Rich” with an effective rate of 75.6% before State Sales Tax of 8.25% and Real Estate Taxes. Whoopie Goldberg recently complained on the View that his taxes better not cut too far into her income. She has no idea………………steve