Some Counter Points to Bill Clinton's Convention Speech.

The transcript of Bill Clinton's convention speech is now published, and I respond to some of its major points.

We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."Clinton describes a false and simplistic alternative from which to choose. Clinton gives no specifics, so it is hard to respond to the charge, but it is safe to say that Republicans do not oppose social programs created and run by the individual states, as it is in their constitutional purview to do so. We do oppose the federal fovernment from exceeding its Constitutional authority, imposing its will on the states in such matters as medical care.

Who's right? Well since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million!
It is a fallacy to say that jobs are created by the federal government.  The government can, however, enhance the conditions under which business can flourish, where jobs are created through increased prosperity.  If the above statistics are correct, how many of those 28 Republican years were presided over by a Democrat run congress?  How many of the 24 Democrat years had a Republican majority in Congress? Clinton doesn't say.  What other economic factors were in play during the 52 years, which are even more important than who was president.  The president's ability to effect prosperity is limited by the amount of congressional support that he enjoys.  Clinton's statistics (if true) prove little or nothing.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate President Obama and the Democrats. 

Clinton may accurately describe his own attitude, but not of Democrats in general.  During the Bush years (and even now), the Democrat rank and file expressed deep hatred for Republicans, expressing a desire for their assassination or death by other means.  Just this week various Democrats have compared Republicans to Nazis.  When it comes to partisan hatred, the Democrats exceed all comers.

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation.

Not true.  In deliberating laws governing health care, Obama did not consider or allow a single Republican proposal on the problem.  He has sought to use administrative procedures to bypass the will of Congress.  Obama is the prisoner of a rigid leftist ideology that makes him uncooperative in discussing alternatives to his vision.

the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said two years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work, but to put President Obama out of work.

Putting Obama out of work is synonymous with "putting Americans back to work."  A president who believes the American founding was badly flawed, believes in keeping energy costs as high as possible, and in crippling business with high taxes and regulation, is himself a major detriment to greater employment.

I like the argument for President Obama's re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a floor under the crash, began the long hard road to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Obama contributed to damaging the economy by supporting the subprime mortgage fiasco that caused the meltdown in the first place.  He did not put a floor under the crash, and his incurring substantial new debt will inhibit, not advance, the recovery.  What foundation did Obama lay for a "modern, well-balanced economy"?  Clinton doesn't say, because his statement is nothing but a glittering generality, pie-in-the-sky, big promises like those Obama made when he ran for office in 2008 -- and subsequently failed to keep.

Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty thousand, Romney, zero.

The auto industry has suffered severe economic disadvantage due to the high pay and benefits extorted by the Democrat-supported auto workers union.  GM finally became insolvent due to Democrat policies and the aftermath of the Democrat constructed meltdown.  Now that the federal government owns General Motors, how many of those new jobs are really government jobs in disguise, i.e. paid for by taxpayers?  Mitt Romney, on the other hand, created thousands of real jobs in the private sector through his activities in Bain Capital.  

President Obama's "all of the above" energy plan is helping too – the boom in oil and gas production combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a near 20 year low and natural gas production to an all time high. Renewable energy production has also doubled.

Barack Obama has publicly stated that he favors an increase in gas prices, and his now abandoned plan to create a carbon swapping scheme would, by his own words, "cause energy prices to skyrocket."  He has opposed new oil exploration in ANWR, vetoed the Keystone pipeline that would have added thousands of real jobs to the economy and helped to lower energy costs.  If oil imports are at a 20 year low, no doubt the decreased economic activity is a factor in that.  When it comes to energy independence, the Democratic Party is a hindrance, not a help, in achieving that goal.

Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the President for allegedly robbing Medicare of 716 billion dollars. Here's what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None. What the President did was save money by cutting unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that weren't making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug program, and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. It's now solvent until 2024. So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it.

No cuts in benefits only means that the program will continue operating in the red, thus hastening the day when it becomes insolvent.  Obama took the 716 billion "savings" to fund Obamacare, not Medicare.  To say that this makes Medicare more solvent and stronger is a bald-faced lie.

Space and patience prohibits me from dissecting more of Clinton's long-winded speech, but it is safe to say that it was spin and propaganda, and not to be taken seriously as an objective description of the economy and the issues.

Slick Willy's Speech to the Democrat Convention

I listened to Bill Clinton's speech to the DNC, and it was very well delivered.  The man is a master speaker, whatever else you may say about him.  I have no doubt that his speech will fire up the base and return many disillusioned Democrats to the fold.  His speech will almost certainly give Obama some positive bounce in the polls.

Clinton was less than honest, but you have to expect that.  His assertion that Republicans "left Obama a huge mess, and now they want to fire him for not finishing the clean-up and put them back in" was very slick.  What he didn't say was that it was his administration that is most guilty for the melt-down, as it was his administration that began suing mortgage companies and banks to force them to make bad mortgage loans, leading to the bubble and the resulting crash.  Nor did he mention that Barack Obama contributed directly to the meltdown by suing Citibank in Chicago to force them to make bad loans to blacks in that city, the great majority of which have now gone bust.

His derisive comments about Romney not allowing "fact checkers" to influence his campaign was another slick piece of legerdemain.  The "fact-checkers" have been widely shown to be partisan propagandists whose "facts" are not facts at all, but merely partisan spin.

If Bill has relegated us to four more years of economic stagnation, it will be yet another accomplishment in his dubious resume.

We will need to analyze his speech in the week ahead and do a little fact-checking of our own.

Listening to the Losers at the Democratic National Convention

I'm listening to the various losers and unknowns give speeches at the DNC.  Lots of lies and distortions.  Still not feeling threatened by screeds.

Bill Clinton's planned speech text has been released, and he will say this:

"The most important question is, what kind of country do you want to live in? If you want a you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility -- a we're-all-in-this-together society -- you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

This statement is partially correct.  "You're on your own" really means "you get to keep what you earn and not be compelled to pay for other people's health care, living costs and birth control."  The term "winner-take-all" is complete B.S., and illustrates the Democrat's erroneous view that for every winner there must also be a loser.  But in our economic system, there can be many winners.  If someone gets rich through his own efforts, that does not stop someone else from doing the very same thing.  It is not a zero sum game; wealth does not magically appear like manna from heaven, it is produced by entrepreneurs.  Wealth only becomes scarce when government begins to seize it, because confiscation eliminates the motivation for producing it.

Do I want the kind of country where we are more free from governmental intrusion into the private sector?  Hell yes.

The second sentence is closer to the truth.  "Shared prosperity" means wealth redistribution, the theft of the pay from those who earn it to buy the votes of those who do not.  "We're all in this together," I suppose, means "we all share the wealth, even when we didn't produce any of it."  However, in a larger sense, we are indeed "all in this together."   When the economy is heavily damaged by social engineering schemes, like the subprime mortgage fiasco, we all suffer.  We must work to keep our freedoms, our opportunities and our prosperity.  Barack Obama's presidency has had a deleterious effect on all three.

Right now there is an older woman speaking about how we need to "share, share, share, that we are our brother's keeper, blah blah blah."  Translation:  shut the hell up Republicans and hand over your wallets.

Signs Point to a Coming Democrat Defeat in November

Four years ago I stated that my intuition is often accurate, and that it was telling me that Obama would win the 2008 presidential election.  It came to me in a flash and was very strong, as if an accomplished fact had been revealed to me.  On October 3rd, 2008, I wrote:

My intuition is often very accurate. This morning when I woke up, I had a strong feeling of certitude that we Republicans are going to lose this [2008] election and that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. It wasn’t a panicky feeling or a worried feeling or a feeling of fear, it was a calm realization, an inner knowing. It told me in a quiet but clear voice that the election is lost. The inner voice presented it to me as a done deal.

Today my intuition is not as clear as it was then, but it is somewhat positive and hopeful.  My feeling is that Obama will lose the 2012 election.

The signs are continuously pointing to an Obama defeat in November this year.  Stacy McCain and Alli Akbar are onsite at the DNC in Charlotte, and report that the crowds are smaller, the media filing center smaller, the vendors fewer, compared to the GOP Convention last week.  Obama has moved his great speech on Thursday from a huge stadium of 73,778 seats to an indoor auditorium of only 20,200 seats.  Ostensibly the reason is because of the fear of lightning, but weather reports show good weather for Thursday.  The obvious reason is because Obama simply cannot draw the same huge crowds that he drew in 2008.

Registered Republicans are at an all time high and seem very motivated to get out the vote.  Democrats, on the other hand, seem lackluster and unenthusiastic.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are raising much more money than Obama is, and Obama has resorted to various tricks to increase campaign contributions.  In 2008, the Obama campaign was afloat in cash; now he is asking for donations as low as $3, and for married couples to ask for donations for him rather than accept presents from those attending the weddings.  The lack of financial support from the left indicates dissatisfaction and disillusion with Barack Obama.

The polls show a dead heat, but I don't trust the polls.  They showed Bush behind right up to the election in 2004, where he won by a strong margin.  Also, now that Mitt's the official Republican candidate, he can begin spending his huge war chest on anti-Obama and pro-Romney political ads.

Then there is the Democrat Convention itself.  I watched it last night and found the arguments so weak that I didn't feel upset, challenged or fearful.  Mostly I just felt bored.  Even Michelle Obama's supposedly sizzling speech left me cold.  She loves her husband; he cares so much about everything and everybody; he's the new Gandhi.  Yawn.

Effective New Republican Ad: "We've Heard It All Before" (Video)

Same old B.S. Vote for him and get the same old result: continuing poverty.
 

It Wasn't Bush That Caused the Melt Down: It Was Democrats Forcing Banks to Make Bad Mortgage Loans

The Daily Caller today has an article on a theme I have discussed several times:  the melt down of the financial sector and the resulting recession was caused by the subprime mortgage fiasco.  The subprime mortgage fiasco was a project of the Democrats.  Beginning with the Clinton Administration, the Dems began  suing mortgage companies and banks for "racist" red-lining:  not giving mortgage loans to minorities in proportion to the latter's percentage of the population.

The so-called "red-lining" wasn't racist or personal.  Banks generally loan money to people based on their credit rating, their income and their ability to repay.  Down payments on mortgage loans are usually required so that the borrower has something to lose if he defaults on the loan.

All of these safeguards were dispensed with by the Democrats, but they assured the banks and mortgage companies there was no reason to worry:  FHA would cover the loans, and as everyone knows, real estate prices always go up.  The easy loans would allow minorities to participate in gains from real estate appreciation.  However, once subprime mortgages were made available to minorities, they were made available to everyone else as well.

To make a long story short, the easy mortgage money caused real estate prices to rise substantially and artificially, creating a "bubble."  When the bubble burst, home values plummeted and thousands of subprime borrowers simply walked away from their mortgage, which now exceeded the market value of the home.  Banks were stuck with loan collateral that was worth less than the outstanding principal.  Banks, mortgage companies and other financial institutions, including pension plans that had invested in mortgage loans, went bust.  Banks failed by the thousands.  The shockwave through the economy resulted in credit drying up overnight and many non-financial businesses failed as a result.

And the Democrats did it.  Not Bush, who months before the crash warned of the bubble and the need to reign in FHA's easy credit, who held committee hearings on the subject with key Democrats.  The Democrats would have none of it, arguing that real estate would always go up, so no problem.

This week I was disgusted to hear Barack Obama's lying words that it was Republican policies that "caused the problem in the first place, and got us to where we are now" (I am paraphrasing from memory).  No, it was Democrat policies that got us here.

Now the Daily Caller has done some research, and learned that Barack Obama was one of those responsible for creating "the mess that got us to where we are in the first place."  As a plaintiff's attorney in Illinois, he sued Citibank to force them to make risky loans to minorities in Chicago.  The Caller states:

President Barack Obama was a pioneering contributor to the national subprime real estate bubble, and roughly half of the 186 African-American clients in his landmark 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices.

When the bubble burst, Citibank suffered substantially from the bad loans Obama had forced them to make.

As few as 19 of those 186 clients still own homes with clean credit ratings, following a decade in which Obama and other progressives pushed banks to provide mortgages to poor African Americans.

It pains me to hear people blame Bush for a problem he didn't cause and tried to avoid, and then argue that we should elect or reelect the actual culprits, the Democrats and Barack Obama, who indeed are guilty of the policies that "caused the problem in the first place and got us to where we are now."

Read the Daily Caller article With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago’s African-Americans

Also see:  Subprime Housing Bubble:  Obama "Vampire" Socialism Built It.

A Chair For Obama (Photoshop)

Now there's a chair Obama can fill....

Obama Rejects the "Empty Chair" Metaphor (Photoshop)

Barack Obama has rejected Clint Eastwood's metaphor of the empty chair.  Obama was quite clear that the chair isn't empty, and indeed, Obama's chair is taken.  He released the photo below of him sitting in the Oval Office chair to prove it.

Obama responds:  "Does this chair look empty to you?  I rest my case!"

Ellen Barken: Hollywood Has-Been's Hair-Brained Hatefulness (Photoshop)

I've been hearing a lot about has-been Hollywood actress Ellen Barken lately.  When an aging Hollywood actress has nothing to do (because she has no roles), how does she fill her time?  By getting drunk and constantly tweeting profanity, hatred and ignorance.

Barking Barken's most recent regurgitations:

• She “loves everybody” except “u right wing f–kin morons“ and that Jon Lovitz needs to ”shut the f–k up.”

• Assorted profanity-laced drunken delirium -- see it here.


• On August 27, 2012, she created a controversy on Twitter when she sent out a re-tweet of a message someone sent saying they hoped Hurricane Isaac would hit the Republican convention and “wash every pro-life, anti-education, anti-woman, xenophobic, gay-bashing, racist SOB right into the ocean.” 


• On September 1, 2012, Barken claimed that Clint Eastwood had made a "death threat" against Barack Obama during his satirical skit at the Republican Convention.

According to Wikipedia, Ellen Barken once desired to study Ancient History...and now she is ancient history.  How ironic.

Look Who Parks Their Cash at "Evil" Bain Capital

Deroy Murdock has a great article today in the New York Post, showing the many unions and pension funds and universities who have invested their cash with Bain Capital.  We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars of investments here.

There is no greater testimony to the success of Bain Capital and the effectiveness of Romney's leadership than this:  where do even left-leaning, liberal institutions park their cash?  Yep, Bain Capital.

Murdock notes:

Bain’s private-equity executives have enriched dozens of organizations and millions of individuals in the Democratic base — including some who scream most loudly for President Obama’s re-election.

Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y?

Read it all here.