If you have to choose one of the current candidates, who would you pick?
Monday Morning Open Thread
Have at it everyone.
Michelle Obama’s Target Run Was Staged? You’re Kidding Me?
I’m sure most of you by now saw the photos of Michelle Obama shopping at Target… I hope you won’t be too shocked to find out there’s now proof the photo op was staged.
Another staged moment in the lives of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama just had to get out to Target to do a little shopping last week. But, before the shopping run the White House tipped off AP photographer Charles Dharapak so that he would be at the store to memorialize the moment.
Michelle’s communication director has previously said that it is a common occurrence for her go out to run an errand. Sure, we really believed that one. It’s so common in fact that they have to alert AP photographers every time she finds it politically convenient to mingle with the real folks.
So, What’s Next?
As you are all now aware, Mark is taking a leave of absence from blogging for a while, and I have been more of a silent partner with Blogs for Victory for a year or so now… okay, maybe longer.
First, let me assure you that Blogs for Victory is not dissolving. But, yes, changes are coming. These changes will be good, I believe, because as my absence has probably suggested, I’ve recently determined that I have new priorities (personal and professional) that have prevented me from blogging the way I used to.
In the past three years, I have moved out of my home state, got a new job, gotten married, bought a house, etc. etc. In between that stuff I have dissolved other, smaller blog projects that I no longer had time for, and also started other projects that have been rather successful. It’s painfully obvious that had Mark not kept things going here, Blogs for Victory probably would have withered away. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and I’m not going to let that happen.
I was told this was the closing of a chapter, to relish in some of the glory this blog, and your the readers and commenters who have made this a reality. So here I go:
Many of you have been with us since Blogs For Victory was Blogs For Bush, my first national political blog that became one of the most successful political blogs in the country back in 2004, and took me places I’d never expected. I was at the 2004 Republican National Convention as one of the first credentialed bloggers. I was invited to Capitol Hill on more than one occasion for various blogger conferences, and even had a few meetings with the staff of high ranking Republican members of Congress, as well as Karl Rove and well known political pundits. It’s also worth noting that while my wife never read my blogs before we met, it’s safe to say we’d have never met had it not been for my political blogging. Also, Mark and I have both been on national television, and have a book deal. On the local level, I started political blogs in Massachusetts and Upstate New York that saw similar successes with media exposure and recognition from local political leaders. It has been a tremendous ride, but my time in the driver’s seat has come to an end.
I accept that fact that when it comes to political blogging, be it on the national stage or local, my fifteen minutes of fame are up. No regrets. I did what I had to do when it needed to be done. I can just be thankful that what I did made an impact. But, other, non-political projects are starting to take precedence, and the management of a national political blog is becoming harder for me to handle as I pursue these other projects. Amongst other things, I’d like to take a stab at writing fiction, and hope to start writing a novel in the near future. Who knows where that will go, but it’s something I want to try, and I recognize that now is the time. I believe that I need to make my own success, not wait for success to find me. I think I have a good track record so far, and I look forward to this new challenge.
So, you’re probably asking what this all means. Well, I’m not leaving this community behind. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve spoken with my friend Ali Akbar about all of this. Ali and I go way back. You may have tuned in to our once popular online radio show, The American Resolve. I am pleased to tell you that one of Ali’s companies, Pundit Syndication, will be acquiring Blogs For Victory in the near future. What does this mean? It means Blogs for Victory is about to get faster, better, and bigger. Over the next month, you’ll notice major changes in content and branding. I will be staying on, of course, as editor-in-chief emeritus, and working with Ali as he transforms Blogs for Victory into what I always hoped it could be.
So, rumors of the end of Blogs for Victory are grossly exaggerated. We still have a mission and a purpose, so stay with me as we take the next step.
There Is No GOP Savior
Back in 2008, I saw many fellow conservative bloggers jump on the Fred Thompson bandwagon. It was a phenomenon I could never understand. It seemed like out of nowhere Fred Thompson was elevated to the position of GOP Savior. Many thought he was the only true Reagan-esque candidate that could enter the field. Hogwash, I thought. The day he formally entered the race I said his best days of the campaign were behind him.
I was right.
Here we are, four years later, and once again the GOP finds itself looking for a messiah. The current candidate-du-jour is Chris Christie, who was being talked up as a potential candidate practically seconds after his gubernatorial victory in New Jersey was confirmed.
Again, I say hogwash.
If Christie jumped in the race today, within a week 75% of Republican voters would write him off as a RINO. I’ve seen every candidate so far in the race attacked for not being conservative enough. That is just sad.
Republicans, I hate to say, are stuck on Reagan, constantly looking for someone who they believe emulates him perfectly. Reagan may be a conservative icon, but if we looked at his record as a whole, there are plenty of things there that wouldn’t fit in the conservative label.
Reagan’s legacy has strangely survived in perfect condition in a way that other Republican presidents’ haven’t. Perhaps it’s understandable. Before Reagan there was Carter. Need I say more? George H.W. Bush was fairly popular president until he broke his promise about not raising taxes. That more than anything defines his legacy.
Today, many Republicans have disowned President George W. Bush. “He wasn’t a real conservative,” they say, and so on. They say this despite the fact that he won reelection in 2004, which an incredible amount of positive support. Yet, many naysayers point to things done in his first term as examples of his lack of conservative bonafides: No Child Left Behind, The Patriot Act, even the Iraq War.
Another great example of conservative canonization that fizzled out is Senator Scott Brown. Anyone who actually knew his record as a state senator knew he was not a pure conservative, but the Tea Party organized for him, and helped mobilize a tremendous victory for him. Now, the Tea Party acts betrayed because of a few votes that didn’t meet their standards.
Seriously, let’s stop pretending the GOP has a savior.
Let’s look at Obama now. You don’t get more extreme than him when it comes to a left-winger. But, you cannot ignore the fact that the left is not entirely pleased with him because he hasn’t managed to completely redistribute the country’s wealth, or allow for the creation of drive-thru abortion clinics or whatever nonsense the left champions any given day.
In the end, politicians have records and realities to answer to. Voters often see the former without considering the latter. Even the most conservative of politicians has to work with the opposition to get things done. If we treat every compromise as a black mark on a candidate’s record than we might as well let Obama run the country for another four years.
It’s time for Republican voters to remember that we are all on the same team here. If we can’t put aside petty policy differences in favor of an overall ideological shift back to the right in 2012 then we deserve to lose.
Is obAMATEUR a liar or just bad at math?
obAMATEUR has been caught in a lie yet again. A liar is a person who knowingly says false statements if they know those statements to be untrue at the time they utter them. This brings us to some usual class warfare screen from the obAMATEUR. Was it ignorance (he has an adequate supply, after all) or was he lying.
On multiple occasions, the obAMATEUR has stated that he should not be paying a lower effective tax rate than a teacher. Here’s just one specific example (among several): At a recent town hall meeting in Mountain View, California, the obAMATEUR said, “Somebody who’s making $50,000 a year as a teacher shouldn’t be paying a higher effective tax rate than somebody like myself.”
That’s a pretty bold claim on the part of the obAMATEUR. FactCheck.org did the math, and you don’t have to guess at what they found … obAMATEUR’s claim that he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher earning $50,000 a year is FALSE (not surprisingly). Here are the details from FactCheck.org.
A single taxpayer with $50,000 of income would have paid 11.9% in federal income taxes for 2010, while the Obamas paid more than twice that rate — 25.3% (and higher rates than that in 2009 and 2008). And if the $50,000-a-year teacher were in Obama’s tax situation — supporting a spouse and two children — he or she would have paid no federal income taxes at all.
The outcome is the same whether we count payroll taxes or not, and even if we look at what the $50,000 earner will pay on 2011 income. Whatever the assumption, the rates Obama paid were higher — and usually much higher.
The obAMATEUR has made it crystal clear that his 2012 reelection campaign is going to be based on the exploitation of wealth envy. He has and will continue to resort to flat-out lying in order to pander to the dumb-masses (liberal drones to you slow witted leftists) who don’t know any better. The obAMATEUR is creating his own reality – a reality where the rich don’t pay their “fair share” and he pays taxes at a lower rate than middle-class Americans (A reality where many liberal simple-minded drones reside – some of them post here). None of his statments are true, yet he will continue to push these ideas until people actually believe that they are true.
Me personally, I will go with liar. These statements are untrue, he knows them to be untrue, and he knows them to be untrue at the moment he makes them. That makes him a liar.
The obAMATEUR’s own campaign team has acknowledged this strategy of focusing on wealth envy, because he has zero accomplishments when it comes to the economy (and most other aspects of his presidency). His advisors say, “He needs to shift the focus from his stewardship of the economy to the stark choice confronting voters about the nation’s political leadership.” Yep, he can’t run on “FOUR MORE YEARS” or “ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN WHEN I WAS ELECTED?” So now jobs are no longer the focus for the obAMATEUR. I guess he got tired of “not resting” until he fixed the economy and created the jobs he promised. Screw jobs, because the obAMATEUR knows that he doesn’t know how to solve that problem.
Instead, let’s focus on his leadership (in reality the lack thereof). An obAMATEUR campaign advisor says, “Most Americans are very concerned about the future and the direction we’re going to take.” I don’t see how the obAMATEUR administration thinks that this is going to work in their favor considering the latest Rasmussen polls show that just 17% of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction.
So what direction does the obAMATEUR want to take this country? Toward a redistributive society where the government seizes money from the Haves and gives it to the Have-Nots; toward a society where political leaders, not the private sector, decide where new economic growth will and will not be, and where new jobs will be created and where they will be eliminated. The LATimes reports, “Obama is tapping into resentment over the growing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.” They say this “helps the president forge an emotional connection with his base, especially minorities and working-class voters who have been falling behind.”
Does this re-election strategy inspire you to work hard or risk your savings to start the business of your dreams? If the obAMATEUR manages to pull this off based on a re-election campaign of wealth envy, then the achievers in this country better bend over and grab their ankles.
Ethics Was Not A Favorite Subject of Obama’s
It’s certainly not a favorite today either.
President Barack Obama told an audience of high school students in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday that he was “not always the very best student” and that ethics “would not have made it on the list” of his favorite subjects.
“I was not always the very best student that I could be when I was in high school, and certainly not when I was in middle school,” Obama said, speaking at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School.
He ought to release his school records so we can see just how bad a student he was.
Obamacare and 2012
An interesting perspective from the Washington Examiner‘s Stephen Smith about Obamacare’s pending SCOTUS ruling on Obamacare.
It may sound counterintuitive, but here’s betting that President Obama wouldn’t be at all upset if the high court rules that his health plan is unconstitutional.
By urging an expedited review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the president knows that the politics cuts his way. If the court strikes down the plan, then Obama won’t have to defend it in the fall campaign, robbing the Republicans of one of their two lines of attack, the other being the moribund economy. He could rally his base by arguing that he had pushed through a great “progressive” reform only to be foiled by the conservative-leaning Supreme Court. People, like markets, hate uncertainty, and the presumed swing vote by Justice Kennedy could settle the issue.
If Obama wins the judicial appeal, it will still be a win for him along the lines of today’s conventional thinking. He will be able to argue that the Administration always knew Obamacare was constitutional, and the expedited review will muffle the issue in the general-election campaign.
Here’s my thoughts.
First of all, should Obamacare be ruled unconstitutional, as it most likely will be, that’s a pretty big defeat for Obama. When your signature achievement is declared unconstitutional by the highest court in the country, that’s hardly a rallying point for voters to support, especially the coveted moderate vote. It’s hard to find victory out of a defeat like that. And even if a defeat energized his base, it won’t energize moderates.
Second, the biggest issue of the election will be the economy. Obamacare may be an issue in 2012, but regardless of a SCOTUS ruling or lack of one, Obama will be judged primarily on his failure to fix economy… or more accurately his success in making it worse.
Your thoughts?
A Three Dollar Dinner With Obama?
So, apparently it only costs $3.00 to have dinner with Obama.
I don’t think it’s worth it. I mean, sure it’s cheaper than a gallon of gas, really, I don’t even think I could be paid to break bread with Obama.
Of course maybe it be worth it for the chance to heckle him. But I’d think of something better than calling Obama the Antichrist, that might inflate his ego even more.
Nah, I’ll use the money for gas.
Blogging Hiatus
Ladies and gentlemen, I must announce at this time that I am going on a blogging hiatus. I do appreciate all of you here on Blogs for Victory – and especially those who go all the way back to Blogs for Bush. But it has just become impossible for me to blog at the rate that I have been (its got to be more than two entries per day, on average, for each day of the last 8 years). It has been taking too much time away from my other responsibilities, especially to my wife.
So, this will be my last entry for a while – at least 6 months. If I do come back to blogging, it will only be to make weekly or maybe bi-weekly entries. I hope that you can all forgive me for leaving you so suddenly and with such little warning, but it is just the way it has to be, for now. As an aside, if any of you have wished to write for a blog, this would be a good time to contact Matt…I don’t know what his firm plans are, but he may wish to keep this blog going and as both he and I found out over the years, that takes a lot of doing.
God bless you all and good luck and I do hope to see you in the blogosphere in the future.
Sincerely,
Mark Edward Noonan
Blogs For Victory 
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