Did Obama Ever Imagine the Tea Party Movement?

A like minded cyber friend asked this question yesterday and I thought it was something we may have never asked ourselves and, yet, for such a simple question it is incredibly key. I do not think he did. I do not think he planned for them, anticipated them, understands them, gets them, knows how to react to them or has a plan to counteract them. Obama has never faced true conservative opposition before. It does not exist in Chicago. Other warring members of the corrupt Democrat machine? Sure, and he knows how to deal with them.

For a man with maybe slightly higher than average intellect and questionable psychological stability, does he have the stuff to face serious or principled opposition? How will he handle the presumptive scenario of sharing power with a tea party influenced senate or house? He came to power in a state with no real Republican presence, let alone a conservative or principled presence. Remember this is a guy who won his senate seat when his primary opponents were all disqualified for one reason or another.

He tells the story now of having gone door to door meeting the folks and getting his message out. Not so much. He was successful in challenging enough signatures on his opponents petitions to have them disqualified. Including the incumbent, Alice Palmer. Essentially he ran unopposed.

From what we have seen this far, this is not a man who makes compromises. Beyond the Alinksy inspired rhetoric and packaging there exists not much else. I doubt he ever imagined more than a small amount of polite hemming and hawing from the "extreme" right wing that he could easily marginalize and paint as voices from extremists.

His bag of tricks are like pebbles to the kevlar vest of the Tea Party Movement. In fact, they have begun to actually strengthen the movement as they are now proving to work against him. His silk tongued vocabulary and a narcissistic ability manipulate had always outwitted those around him in his circles of the politically correct vacuum of academia and in the snake pit of Chicago politics he was used as a tool by others more cunning and ambitious then he. He simply had to modify the shtick to the new circumstances. If one study his history you'll find that the pattern is essentially the same. All pomp, no circumstance.

He is utterly ill-equipped to hash out an effective strategy for the Tea Party Movement. It is why one day he is populist Obama, the next he is lashing out at Fox News, freezing spending and the next he is on vacation or not heard from for a few days. We have watched him richochet from thing to thing, searching for a strategy and hoping if he throws enough crap against the wall something will stick. With his limited patience and experience, he gives none of it enough time to see if it will work.

Watching his speeches in the last few days, his tone seems more erratic and certainly more paranoid. He keeps making references to unnamed "theys". "They'll say this, they'll say that about Obama". What is November going to look like if the mid-term results come out as unfavorably as they many predict?

It is interesting to note, there are precedents in history for this sort of unravelling. In the mid 1960s Soviet Union, after Khrushchev's policies eroded his popularity, he was put on a little "working vacation". Even in our own history, one have to only look back so far as the 1970s to reference a time when the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, took on more and more responsibility as the Nixon lost power, sometimes actually omitting Nixon from policy meetings. It is also widely believed that Kissinger, raised the nation to DEFCON 3 without first getting President Nixon's approval, on the evening the Soviets threatened to send troops to th region.

Realizing the situation is fluid and anything can change, he could prove me wrong and turn this thing around. However if we continue on the trajectory that we are on and the American people still reject Obama's cure all potion of Marxist medicine, all bets are off.

Thank You Massachusetts! Thank You Real America!

'It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well- informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." —Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, January 8, 1789.

Let's revel in this moment, bask in the warm glow of the sun that is the significance of this election before returning to the battlefield. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts since 1972. Thank you obama. I said, as early as September, obama may turn out to be our biggest asset. ( and my prediction holds true.

Actually, a Republican has not held this seat for much longer than even that.

This particular seat has been filled by Democrats since 1953 when JFK was first elected to fill it. When he left to become president, he was succeeded by Benjamin A. Smith, Democrat, who filled the seat from December 27, 1960 – November 6, 1962 until Teddy was elected in 1962. Teddy held the seat continuously from then until he died, at which time he was temporarily replaced by Democrat Paul Kirk.

The obama administration has officially ended a 57 year reign by Democrats in Massachusetts.

Why Barack Won't Moderate

Despite this slap upside the head, I believe we will continue in this direction with the Obama administration. he won't take this as a cue to moderate, to reread the pulse of the nation or to rethink the country and his agenda. He is the agenda.

To change course and moderate, obama would need to demonstrate a trait that he has thus far shown us he is completely devoid of, humility. Or, at bare minimum, he'd have to be able to fake it really well ala Bill Clinton. He shows little aptitude for that sort of ego hampering expediency that Bill Clinton excelled at.

Also, he is a true believer, something of a purist. This is a guy who did not go to great effort to hide who he was. The American people went to great effort to believe he was something different. He has been very open since his first fundraiser in Bill Ayers living room, he wants to "build coalitions of power to bring about redistributive change." These are his words.

Question is, now hobbling on one leg and limping along, how much fight does barack obama have in him? After watching him for twelve long months, I dare say, not much. Ofcourse a lot depends on the people surrounding him but from this vantage obama is an achiever when the achieving is made easy for him.

Ten Year Old Kid Throws Obama Off His Game

Here is Obama at a rally Sunday to bolster support for floundering Massachusetts candidate Martha Coakley. And he was not looking too confidence inspiring or presidential. I do not know if it was that the kid threw off his teleprompter timing or if he was that visibly "deer in the headlights" having to face confrontation but he was clearly off his game. That is the game of demonizing insurance companies, the entire finance industry, pharmaceutical companies, coal companies, Tea Party enthusiasts, townhallers, plumbers and truckers. Whew, the list is getting long.

Even more delicious is the idea that obama could not even fill the venue. That is right. The magic man, a few days before an election of such importance, could not fill a 3000 seat auditorium. Reports are that it was somewhere between half to 3/4 full. Meanwhile the Scott Brown rally in Worchester was filled to capacity of 3000 people with another thousand waiting outside. Even more telling, prominent and even left wing media voices are beginning to show cracks in their unwavering support. It is getting too hard to cover for the failure that he is.

Regardless of the outcome in Massachusetts tomorrow, the Democratic regime have got to be scared witless over this wave of voter backlash. They must know that if this can happen in the bluest of blue states, very few are safe. Lacking in any previous management or leadership experience, one wonders how a narcissist like Obama will deal with a major defeat. Judging for this youtube, not very well.

A Somewhat Close to Anarcho Capitalism Success Story

Ivorian tax-free rebel city flourishes

...Soroland may not be a breakaway zone, but for seven years the inhabitants of this zone have got used to living without government taxes, customs charges and even water and electricity bills...

I have to admit I have a growing curiosity about the ideas of anarcho-capitalism and it's feasibility. Perhaps it grows out of my growing discontent with the state, any state. The idea of anarchy used to bring me images of malcontented youths throwing rocks through Starbuck's windows. Typically, those are socialist anarchists and they do constitute the largest block of anarchist thought.

Anarcho Capitalism is defined as an individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services are provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through compulsory taxation, and money is privately produced in an open market. Because personal and economic activities are regulated by the natural laws of the market through private law rather than through politics, victimless crimes, and crimes against the state are rendered moot.[1]

My interest in AC began after learning more of Taoist thought in ancient China. The Taoists advocated pure freedom from the state, no interference by the state in economy or society. The Taosists were found by a contemporary of Confucius, Lao Tzu. Similarly to the Randian objectivist philosophy, Lao Tzu taught that it was the individual and his happiness was the integral component of a workable and healthy society. He had a healthy distrust of centralized governments and rightfully so as he lived in a time of turbulence, violence and abusive state power.

He was especially critical of the war making ability of the state. " "The people hunger because theft superiors consume an excess in taxation" and, "where armies have been stationed, thorns and brambles grow. After a great war, harsh years of famine are sure to follow."

His basic tenet is familiar to libertarians. Keep government simple and inactive. The antithesis to what we are witnessing in the United States and most of the world today.

It would certainly take a seismic shift in thinking, one perhaps brought about by calamity. Argentina shows a prime example of the state dissolving into anarchy. Areas of Mexico, the favelas in Brazil, many other countries are in the terminal phase of statism. It too idealistic to hope that in the face of government failures we will see more people running from government, instead of running to it for solutions? The example above, coming from Africa of all places, gives one a glimmer of hope.

Double Billing

Obama is said to be making the announcement tomorrow that he plans to charge fees to the "fat cats" in the financial firms to the tune of 120 billion dollars. It is being packaged as a tool aimed at recovering tax dollars from government-rescued financial institutions. In reality, the taxpayer paid for the bailout once and will pay for it a second time when the banks pass those fees on to you.

Businesses do not pay taxes. Banks are businesses. They are tax collectors. Everyone who uses a bank will be paying this. If you are rich, you'll be paying. If you are poor, ditto. Add in onto to all the other hidden taxes and fees you pay.

Obama will five another prime time speech telling us how he really nailed those fat cats in the banks. The financial illiterates among us will think Obama is looking out for them in the misguided belief that Obama is finally giving it to those greedy bankers with their outrageous bonuses. The "I buy a new cell phone and spend $200 a month on lattes" simpletons won’t even notice the new and creative ways that the banks will recoup the revenue: overdraft penalties, ATM charges, etc. And who exactly will that squeeze the most? Clue: It won't be the guy with a couple of homes and a driver.

From just a glance it would just appear that Obama is economically clueless and I am sure he is. At closer scrutiny, his administration knows what they are doing and where these fees will come from. He has a promise to live up to. "If you make less than $250,000 I promise you will not see a tax increase"

He didn't raise your taxes. He stuck it to those greedy bankers. He is just sticking it to greedy Big Pharma. Just sticking it to those evil wall Street Executives or however the villain of the month is. This is how he gets to tax the middle and lower class, by proxy.

Cocaine in the Whitehouse

ha! If you haven't seen this already, I bet that title got you. I know it got me when I woke this morning to see the chatter on the right wing sites. It was that same feeling I got when I was in eighth grade and I saw the box under the Christmas tree that was just the perfect size of the fashionably trendy Aigner purse that was all the rage that year. Oh please, let it be so.

More than likely too good to be true.

What it is is a dig (or dugged) "scoop" linking to a page that shows an iphone image of what appears to be cut lines of cocaine and the GPS coordinates tracking the image to (dun, da,da, dun...) the Whitehouse. Link

But, wow, what great political theater. Is the stupid party finally getting smart and ruthless? Ofcourse, I would love to live in Mayberry and play by the Mayberry rules but a tiger is a tiger. And if getting down into the gutter with the Democrats is what it takes to beat them back, by all means...let me put on my shit kickers.

Before we feel guilty let us remember the constant lies and distortions from the Democrats for eight years. Remember the time President Bush choked on the pretzel because he had fallen off the wagon and was drinking like a first year frat boy all with his hands on the nuclear trigger? I can not recall how many different versions of the Bush has fallen off the sobriety wagon we had to endure.

It isn't all too unbelievable. Low approval numbers, plummeting economy and just generally in over his head. He has admitted cocaine use in his past. Maybe the story goes, he's reverted back to old habits under the stress. Before you know it, it gets a life of it's own. Kinda like half the population who thinks Sarah Palin said "I can see Russia from my house" because they heard it so many times. In the words of Hank Rearden, "people will repeat it because they've heard other people say it".

We can not say for sure who is responsible for this internet posting, true or false. They left no text, no message and no disclaimer. All we were left with was suggestion. Sometimes suggestion is enough. Problem is, his hard core supporters, would only find him more endearing if this posting were found to be true.

It's Starting to Look A Lot Like...Able Danger

You will probably have to dig that one out of the vault and dust it off. In short order the pieces will come together for you.
In 1999, the Pentagon established an intelligence unit called Able Danger, assigned to seek out and identify al-Qaeda cells and members for U.S. Special Operations Command. This group reportedly used data mining from open sources.

Approximately August or September 2000, Able Danger identified an al-Qaeda cell in Brooklyn. An intelligence official and Rep. Curt Weldon claim that the AD unit identified Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and included a photo of Atta.

Able Danger analysts recommended the information be passed on to the FBI so that the cell could be rounded up. Accounts various new sources at the time indicated that Pentagon lawyers decided that anyone holding a green card (as it was believed the cell members did) had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. Thus, the information Able Danger had gathered could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded. This was keeping with “the wall” philosophy and policy established in 1995 by Assistant Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, in which intelligence and law enforcement were directed to go beyond what the law requires to keep intelligence-gathering and criminal law enforcement separated.

More than a decade of lackluster response to Islamic terrorist attacks on American interests. Bill Clinton, of the same mindset, treated those attacks as criminal activities, rather than terrorist actions. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The result-September 11th.

Fast forward eight or so years to December 25th, 2009. I can not say for certain what walls were dismantled and have subsequently have been rebuilt by this change in administration from one who clearly understood the terror threat to a healthy degree to one that is completely clueless and clearly negligent. I can only make assumptions from what my lying eyes are telling me. We went from eight years of being attack-free and back to complacent to where we are now. Something has gone awry.

As a result, when I hear Obama state essentially that this was same breakdown in intelligence that caused 9/11 and that President Bush had eight years to fix it and didn’t, my sensibilities get just a little offended. Nearly a decade without another attack is quite an achievement. One that can not be belittled, stolen or rewritten.

One year into the Obama administration and it safe to predict national security will be it's demise. The only question that really remains are what form the final push will take and how many of us it takes down with them. Obama has and continues to embolden our enemies and continues down a very perilous path. He seems clueless as to what the logical results will be.