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Obama’s poll numbers aren’t moving down you say? Well that’s not really true (either).

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 24, 2013  •2 Comments
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How could it be that Barack Obama’s poll numbers have held steady through these latest three massive Obama scandals  –  IRS tyranny-gate, Obama’s Benghazi-gate, and the First Amendment Demolishing/AP/Fox News investigating-gate?

Well maybe they haven’t really. This may be but another bit of a narrative-construction, and lies through omission of facts from the Obama-luvin’ mainstream media; and possibly also a self-induced avoidance of fact-facing amongst the Obama-luvin’ Obama-goofball-003fan club.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen finally gives us some expert insight:

The Political Ground Is Shifting Under the President

A Commentary By Scott Rasmussen
Friday May 24, 2013

So, why hasn’t it hurt the president’s overall job approval? Some believe it has. The theory is that with a recovering Scott Rasmusseneconomy, his ratings should be higher. Another possibility is that the president’s base may have doubts, but they are still sticking by their man.

It also may be that the doubts are popping up in other ways. For example, at Rasmussen Reports we regularly ask voters which party they trust to deal with a range of issues including government ethics and corruption. Before the scandals broke, Democrats had an 8-point advantage on this particular issue. But there has been a 10-point swing, and the GOP now has a 2-point edge.

Among unaffiliated voters, Republicans enjoy a 23-point advantage on the ethics front. Before the controversies, it was a toss-up.

The last week has seen serious slippage in the president’s numbers when it comes to national security. From the moment Obama took office, he has always received better ratings on national security matters than he did on the economy. However, just 39 percent of voters now give him good or excellent marks in this area. That’s down 7 points from a week ago and the lowest ratings he’s had on national security since Osama bin Laden was killed two years ago.

There is obviously no way of knowing where things will lead. At this point, however, it’s fair to say that the controversies have had an impact, and the political environment is shifting against the president. …

News of his numbers “remaining stable” is all over the media. It is what Obama and his media need to convey in light of the scandals. His popularity is more important to them than the important discussion of the scandals themselves. So generally, aside from not seriously looking into the allegations of Obama-administration corruption, they don’t look beyond the surface of the polls. But let’s continue to do just that!

Another take goes like this, from Jim Geraghty‘s Morning Jolt newsletter of yesterday:

Nat_Review_Morning_JoltA Delayed Reaction to Obama Scandals, or No Reaction at All?

Will the scandals hurt President Obama’s approval rating? National Journal‘s Michael Catalini looks at polling history and suggests we may see a delayed reaction within a few months:

A CNN/ORC poll showed that 53 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s doing. That is about where he stood in April, when the same poll found he had a 51 percent approval rating. A Gallup poll showed 49 percent approved of the job he’s doing, and a Washington Post /ABC survey had his approval rating at 51 percent, nearly the same as his 50 percent rating in April…

The break-in at the Watergate occurred in June 1972, five months before Nixon rode to a landslide reelection, but the scandal did not damage his approval ratings until after two aides were convicted of conspiracy in January 1973. Between January and August, his approval rating dropped from 67 percent to 31 percent after the resignation of his top staffers, attorney general and deputy attorney general…

Ronald Reagan’s approval rating dipped from 63 percent in October of 1986 to 47 percent in December 1986, a month after Reagan organized the special commission to investigate whether arms were traded for hostages as part of the Iran-Contra affair.

…

It is worth noting that if it is resignations or firings of top officials that lead to poll numbers tanking, the head of the IRS division in question, Lois “I plead the 5th” Lerner, has just been fired, after refusing to resign. And that’s gotta leave a mark, even if a latent one.

Lois Learner pleads the 5th (J.Scott Applewhite-AP Photo)

Lois Learner pleads the 5th (J.Scott Applewhite-AP Photo)

And now, it has also been discovered that Obama’s general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, as well as his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, were among the Obama officials who were aware of the IRS matter as early as late last month, even though Obama stood before the media and claimed to have had no knowledge of anything  –  until as recently as last week or maybe the week before, at which point he only “found out about it in the news.” That is at once risible and disgraceful, which is now becoming an Obama habit. (But at least it proves once and for all that like most Americans, he DOES rely on Fox News Channel for his news, since Fox News Channel is about the only news source which is talking about Obama’s many scandals, in any detail).

Even Obama’s Washington Post division would seem to agree that there is a latency built-in to Obama’s so-called “steady” polls numbers these days, as written in this article by Jon Cohen and Dan Balz:

… Obama’s job-performance numbers have changed little over the past couple of months, but the stability of those ratings come with an obvious caveat. Information continues to emerge about the administration’s role in the IRS case, as well as new details about the Benghazi attack and the circumstances under which the Justice Department acted to secure records from the AP.

News on any of these fronts may shift how and whether Americans assess political culpability. With congressional hearings continuing, the administration faces a potentially lengthy testing period. So, too, does Congress.

The IRS scandal

One underlying sentiment revealed in the poll may have broad implications: People are now far more apt to see the federal government as threatening, rather than protecting, the rights of average Americans. …

Moreover, other polling reveals the opposite of the “Obama’s holding steady” meme. Fox News Channel’s latest poll asks a huge number of questions, and most answers point negative for Obama in the near to medium term. One very important number, which will once again rise up and join these latest scandals, once it takes even more hold of America in the coming weeks and months, relates to the Obamacare scandal (courtesy Guy Benson’s column at Townhall.com):

#22. Do you think it would be better to leave the new health care law in place, or would it be better to go back to the health care system that was in place in 2009?

Better to keep law: 34 percent
Better to go back to previous system: 56 percent

On other words, there’s lots more Obama poll-damaging scandal and truth on the horizon.

The overarching fact is that the Obama media division (New York Times, all network news shows, MSNBC, Washington Post, and nearly all other news media, as well as Hollyweird and academiaweird, have all been helping build the progressive narrative wherein it’s practically self-evident, and no explanation or questioning is needed Creepy Obama Orb(except to question the motives of the messenger), that their leader, Barack Obama, is beyond reproach in any matter that comes before him.

As we know by now, if you do question him or his leadership, you are a racist.

And they have all been actively aiding and abetting him with his pathological blame-shifting and projection and his war against American unity. He and they take turns and blame (a) Bush (b) “millionaires and billionaires” (c) gun violence (d) Rush Limbaugh (e) Fox News Channel (f) Republicans (g) bitter clingers to one’s guns and Bibles (h) Tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes (i) rogue IRS employees (j) “congress” (k) “partisans” (l) “sideshows” (m) corporations (n) capitalism and anything conservative, and manifestly, (o) anyone not named Barack Obama.

That in itself is a scandal yet to be discussed by anybody other than the non-obsessed, conservative-tolerant media, whose numbers and strength are undoubtedly rising.

 

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 24, 2013 •2 Comments
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MSNBC in ratings dumper as left-wing viewers ape Obama’s pretense of not knowing nuttin’

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 21, 2013  •2 Comments
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How are cable news channels doing these days during all these huge Obama-gate scandals? There’s at least got to be some good news in that segment of the economy right?

At least you’d think so. But MSNBC is failing just when there’s so much news to talk about, MSNBC logoso much to question government about and to then reveal what’s been discovered, and to report as truths to their audience who are thirsting for real knowledge and facts, and to fully inform them so they can make wise or wiser decisions next time they get the chance (i.e. 2014 and 2016), etc.

Then again, I started out talking about news channels, then went to MSNBC. This is incongruous. The left-wing news and Obama/MoveOn.org talking-points parrot, MSNBC, is flopping like a dieing fish on a dock, having just been caught. Only in this case, we think we’ve caught them and their world of lies. (I know  –  holy mixed metaphor, Batman!)

Ironically, “The_More_You_Know_NBC-logoThe more you know,” as the NBC public service announcement slogan used to go, helps us here. The more you know what MSNBC actually is, and what’s really going on here, the smarter you will be.

Before we discuss this and the facts (I know  –  that’s racist!!!), here’s part of the article which got me “all ginned-up” as Barack Obama likes to call conservatives who are about to reveal truths about him:

Deadline_Hollywood_logo(200px)
Obama Scandals Bring MSNBC 7-Year Low While Fox News Rises

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Monday May 20, 2013 @ 4:44pm PDT

The scandals of the Obama administration seem to be hurting not just the White House but MSNBC as well, while Fox News Channel has just scored its second-best week of the year. After double-digit gains during last year’s presidential election, May 13-17 saw the progressive-aligned “Lean Forward” news network hit new lows as the IRS scandal erupted and revelations that the Justice Department secretly obtained AP records became public. With 350,000 viewers on average and 94,000 in the adults 25-54 demo, MSNBC had its least-watched and lowest-rated total-day results of the year last week. That was also the lowest total-day demo result the network has had since the week of June 26-July 2, 2006, when MSNBC pulled in just 83,000 viewers among adults 25-54, according to Nielsen data.

Related: Fox News Tops 2012 Cable News Network Ratings; MSNBC Up

For MSNBC, last week’s total day results were down 17% in viewers and 22% among the demo from the comparable Fox_News_Channel_logoMay 14 to May 18 week of last year. In primetime, the numbers were even worse as a steady decline from the beginning of the year continued. The network had 570,000 total viewers and 159,000 in the demo from 8-11 PM from May 13 to May 17, 2013. That’s the lowest-rated week of the year so far for MSNBC in terms of viewers and the third-lowest of 2013 in the demo. The week of May 6-12 was worst in the demo with 148,000 viewers when the network had 604,000 viewers on average. These latest results come as the news network’s recently launched and struggling All In With Chris Hayes hit a new viewership los of 396,000 and its second-lowest demo audience of just 88,000 on May 14. It also comes on the heels of MSNBC falling in April ratings from its second place ranking of the year before. …

When a news channel has become nothing but a water-carrying camel to a left-wing government which dictates to it the news and talking points to be parroted, and the news is about a government which stinks with corruption, well, the news channel flounders just like the dictating presidency itself. (Yessir, again with the mixed metaphor-a-palooza.)

And when the president sets up a pretense of not knowing nuttin’ about nuttin’, we are seeing how his media wing is acting likewise, barely reporting on any of the scandals. The audience will have to go elsewhere.

We know they  –  MSNBC at least  –  know plenty. So this omission of particular news stories in their reportage is strange behavior for a “news” organization which used to use the slogan “the more you know.” Apparently the less you know, the better for them, given their choice to be Obama camels.

The fish rots from the head down.

I take no joy in the failure of… oh I can’t even pretend. Let’s be honest. I’m thrilled that once again,the mindset of the common progressive is once again on display in all its failuretude.

We’ve seen how President Obama has pretended (you can go ahead and read this as “lied”) about “not knowing” or of his having “just found out” (from “the newspapers”!) about the latest in his growing record of failures and scandals. If head_in_sandyou haven’t seen, then read today’s daily email from Jim Geraghty of National Review for an info top-up. For example:

…Obama didn’t know the IRS was targeting conservatives until he read it in the papers. He didn’t know about “Fast and Furious” until he read it in the papers, too. He has “complete confidence” in Holder, and didn’t know about the decision to collect the phone records of reporters.  He didn’t know about the investigation into CIA director David Petraeus’s affair.  He told Letterman during the election he didn’t know what the national debt was. He didn’t know about the AIG bonuses in the TARP legislation. He said he didn’t know how bad the economic crisis was when he took office.

That “empty chair” metaphor from the Republican convention was so out of line, huh? …

In MSNBC’s perfidy and failure we see what happens when the Barack hits the fan. It and its fanboys have buried their heads in the sand to establish some sort of plausible deniability, just like their Barack Obama. All avoid culpability by simply “not knowing.” Or so they thought.

But some (OK, me) have also suggested that with, say, the IRS scandal (that’s Obama scandal number 57D for you who are playing the home version), the IRS may well have not been explicitly “instructed” by Obama or his administration to invoke tyranny upon the conservative and tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status before the last election. It may just be that the Obamatrons have simply become even more useful idiots. They are now fully awash in his culture of anti-conservative political partisanship and division, and, taking after him, are reflexively against anybody who opposes his left-wing manifesto of “fundamentally transforming America.” The theory goes that they honestly thought and think they were and are still doing the right thing. Obama’s claim to fame was, after all, his “community organizer” skills. So he has succeeded in this sphere.

Like me, Jonah Goldberg and several others (’cause like I’m in that same group, intellectually, don’tchaknow) also assert this theory.

… Throughout his presidency, Obama has set a very clear tone.

He’s made it clear that people who disagree with him are fevered, illegitimate, weird, creepy, dangerous, stupid, confused, ignorant or some other adjective you might assign to a revamped version of the seven dwarves. He’s explained that he doesn’t mind “cleaning up after” after Republicans but he doesn’t want to hear “a lot of talking” from them….

I’ve often said that liberals in the media are so liberal they don’t even know how liberal they are. Commentary.com’s Jonathan S. Tobin would also seem to agree.

… Add this all together and what you get is a picture of an agency that has so thoroughly absorbed the views of its political masters that it doesn’t even recognize when it has crossed the line into illegal activity. …

You’d think Obama could be taken at his word when he says he is “outraged” and “angry”. But here’s what he and his henchmen are really thinking: Eureka! It’s working!

The more you know.

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 21, 2013 •2 Comments
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Jay Carney, covering for Barack Obama, emerges from Obama orgasmatron

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 15, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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I’ve joked about the liberal mainstream media enjoying “Obamagasms” since the day he started campaigning before his first term. But the look on Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney’s face at today press conference, presumably taking place immediately after meeting with Obama and together discussing the planned spin du jour or lies du jour, reminded me of Woody Allen playing Miles Monroe in Sleeper, as Obama_OrbMiles emerged from the orgasmatron (not to be confused with the creepy Obama “Orb” as seen at right).

Jay_Carney_as_Sleeper_eminating_from_orgasmatron

Maybe Carney was trying to goad the media into remembering the delights they used to enjoy as they experienced self-induced Obamagasms for these past several years. Ah, good times, huh, comrades? he seemed to be thinking.

Maybe Carney should have included that Miles Monroe photo in his idiotic photo montage which he displayed with a monologue this morning, as he tried his hardest to joke (yes, make jokes, in light of some of the most damning scandals in modern U.S. history) about the latest scandals heatedly discussed (as in denied) at yesterday’s Obama-gate spinapalooza. It was an embarrassing bit of theater  –  an effort at mocking the seriousness with which some media are taking the latest scandals involving corruption and distinct notes of tyranny, from within the Obamagasmatron.

Jay_Carney_May_15_2013_fails_at_humor

Carney’s attempt at humor in light of the fate of the United States of America as a democracy instead of a tyranny dropped like a brick, to no laughter that I could hear, by the way.

I’m pretty sure Carney and Obama enjoyed a smoke afterwards.

 



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Obama House of Lies

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 13, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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Obama-goofball-003JUST THIS WEEK:

New IRS lies.

Benghazi lies.

Lies about spying on journalists working for AP.

LIES BUILT ON A FOUNDATION OF LIES:

Lies from Obama about his not being being partisan, about gay marriage, about winning the war on terror, about closing Gitmo, about raising taxes, about Obamacare, about racism, about uniting America, about a phony Republican “war on women,” about “the rich” not paying their “fair share,” and so much more.

Yeah, YOU DID build that, Barack Obama and supporters.

What a disgrace.



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Citizens advancing on Obamamania media positions on the American front

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
May 3, 2013  •1 Comment
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I get a palpable sense that it’s not just me and the usual Republican or conservative or at least right-thinking punditry and luminaries like the esteemed Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, whose column this week is entitled “Obama: The fall”, and author and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who are sensing a change in tide. Noonan Tweeted yesterday,

In their most recent columns, they both point to Obama’s fall from grace and any hope of a positive legacy. More on that in a bit.

There’s so much more gong on out there. And it’s not just the fortunes of President Obama (falling) about which people  –  even uncommitted or non-partisan people  –  are taking notice of, and fighting with words and sundry postings in Twitter accounts or blogs. It’s the Obamamania media, a large part Obama-goofball-001of which is stuck on stupid and refuses to acknowledge they are getting caught in their own left-wing, progressive-politics-advocating biases and lies, which people are fighting back against. And that will fertilize the liberal mainstream media’s already seeded downfall.

Good, I say.

I find more and more citizens and an increasing number of well-equipped citizen journalists are looking askance at Team Progressive and their tactics  –  the deception, the division into classes or BS percentages (“we are the __%!”) , the projection, the obfuscation, what the media chooses to report and how, and what they choose NOT to report and why. The outright lies told by President Obama, and his pathological habit of engaging in some of the most malodorous, partisan politics and destructive politics of division: it’s starting to grate on the American people.

It’s particularly this odious partisanship  –  this seemingly endless attack-oriented campaigning  –  where he engages in hateful partisanship and then, sometimes the very next day, risibly blames and bashes his opponents of acting exactly as he, and only he, has been. He’s supposed to be the unifier. He’s the opposite. He’s supposed to fix just these problems. He’s making things worse. On purpose!

Both he and more generally the Democrats, liberals, mainstream media, academia, the trusty old Obama-loving liberal Hollywood, and the many professional left-wing advocacy industry lobbyists like the race-baiting industry and the feminist industry and the abortion industry, are more and more getting caught and called-out for their corruption of lies, hypocrisy, political advocacy, coverups, and whitewashes. Caught and called-out by plain folks.

And I love it. We are the 53%!

Here’s an excellent caught-on-tape video example of a citizen who happened to be there while another one of those useful idiot news reporters (from NBC) is caught red-handed purposely (or at the very least, through her willful ignorance) failing to report the whole story  –  which we should view in juxtaposition to how she or any of the mainstream media might have reported on a nice, peaceful tea party rally. This happened at the recent May Day mayhem in Manhattan, which almost nobody in the media (except possibly in Seattle where there were also outrageous anti-capitalist and violent left-wing riots) bothered to cover  — on account of it being another left-wing riot of left-wing mobs, instead of it being conservatives (which, if it were, they’d be sure to point out with a six-part series of news reports).

Let’s watch: (http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/03/wnbc-reporter-ida-siegal-doesnt-know-what-the-hammer-sickle-symbol-represents/)

These reporters  –  these investigating journalism sleuths –  are the same people who went to the ends of the earth to find the one “extreme” placard at any tea party rally that said anything other than “good afternoon, cuppa tea?” And when they couldn’t find one, they just made it up. This recent left-wing-caused May Day violence is something like you never, ever, see conservatives or the tea party engaging in. No, not at those always peaceful and generally upbeat and mostly family-oriented tea party rallies, no, not ever.

Other recent examples of the left’s glib treachery abound  –  and as usual, it’s the right-thinking blogosphere, and Fox News Channel, and very few others (CNN’s Jake Tapper and the liberal Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers being two of the few notable exceptions) who are pointing out the corruption.

The Kermit Gosnell abortion/murder trial and its lack of coverage is a news story which is only slowly becoming a story  –  ironically one now dominated more by mea culpas from the mainstream media for its failure to report on it  –  and only after being embarrassed by conservative Tweeters and bloggers and of course Fox News Channel, The Daily Caller, Weekly Standard, Twitchy.com, and similar truth-tellers, including the indispensable DrudgeReport.com.

The coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings, in which the media tried its very hardest to be just like the Obama administration vis-à-vis Benghazi (you’ll remember they tried to lie to you and blame it on some benign YouTube video), and particularly at the left-wing joke of a news network MSNBC which tried as best they could to once again blame “right-wingers,” made for pure comedy gold. But it provided another excellent example of another phony narrative  –  which only a few years ago, the media might have gotten away with. Instead of facing up to the more obvious notion of the bombing being a terrorist attack and the result of radical Islamic jihadists, they were forced, rather quickly, and more quickly than they would have liked by this new and growing army of newly vigilant citizens, to actually acknowledge the truth. You know, sort of like what journalists are supposed to do.

The truth helps ruin the phony Obama narrative that Islamic terrorism and Islamic jihadism are but a thing of the past, what with Obama’s brave slaying of Usama bin Laden, and his doctrine of Islamist appeasement, and his downgrading of American power, and of course that “hope and change” thing.

Now, we have an excellent example of the continued unraveling of potentially the biggest of them all  –  the Obama (aided and abetted by his adoring, corrupt media) coverup of what we  –  and they, as we now know  –  knew was always a terrorist attack  –  possibly al Qaeda-linked  –  on the embassy in Benghazi Libya. The excellent reporting by Stephen Hayes at the conservative Weekly Standard about newly discovered proof of an Obama administration coverup, makes this a must-read for anyone interested in history, and truth, and honesty in government, instead of lies and Obama-style power politics. I and most of the right-thinking blogosphere have been shouting “coverup” since just after that horrific Benghazi attack happened and the Obamatons started blaming a YouTube video in place of the truth, and it’s finally getting more attention now. But again, only because the severity of the facts are being exposed, and the fact that the facts simply can’t be willfully ignored any more, because of the likes of “us”.

Back to those columns by Krauthammer, and Noonan: They both write this week of the failure of Obama. So much more can be said, and so much more will be. But I already know I will always look back on these years not just as the predictable years of the failed Barack Obama regime, but more specifically at how the mainstream media  –  and make no mistake it’s his media  –  was finally so caught up in its lies and perfidy and its left-wing or so-called “progressive” advocacy, that the regular people of the world started catching up  –  and ending it.

It’s not just Obama who failed, as Krauthammer and Noonan have written  –  it’s the media. And the people are winning.

 



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Who’s BS-ing whom? Hint: Obama is BS-ing. You. Again.

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
March 5, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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Regarding President Obama and his recent attempts to project (again) and blame Republicans for trying to freak out Americans with dire warnings of a sequester-related cataclysmic apocalypse after he was the one who explicitly tried to freak out America by warning of a coming cataclysmic apocalypse (i.e., Obama lied)…

Jim Geraghty of the National Review, in his daily briefing, emailed this summary of Republican compromises already given. You can use this to further enbitchen your “I’ll believe anything Obama and his mainstream media division tell me” liberal friends when they make the phony Obamatron claim (i.e. Obama lie) that Republicans won’t compromise and are just “looking out for the rich.”

(Klein is Ezra Klein, writing at Washington Post)

There’s a fairly key point that Klein keeps glossing over: Republicans feel they just made a concession on tax hikes — gobs and gobs of them, in fact:

Tax increases the fiscal cliff deal allowed:

1. Payroll Tax: increase in the Social Security portion of the payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for workers. This hits all Americans earning a paycheck—not just the “wealthy.” For example, The Wall Street Journal calculated that the “typical U.S. family earning $50,000 a year” will lose “an annual income boost of $1,000.”

2. Top marginal tax rate: increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

3. Phase out of personal exemptions for adjusted gross income (AGI) over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

4. Phase down of itemized deductions for AGI over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

5. Tax rates on investment: increase in the rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

6. Death tax: increase in the rate (on estates larger than $5 million) from 35 percent to 40 percent.

7. Taxes on business investment: expiration of full expensing—the immediate deduction of capital purchases by businesses.

Obamacare tax increases that took effect:

8. Another investment tax increase: 3.8 percent surtax on investment income for taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles).

9. Another payroll tax hike: 0.9 percent increase in the Hospital Insurance portion of the payroll tax for incomes over $250,000 ($200,000 for single filers).

10. Medical device tax: 2.3 percent excise tax paid by medical device manufacturers and importers on all their sales.

11. Reducing the income tax deduction for individuals’ medical expenses.

12. Elimination of the corporate income tax deduction for expenses related to theMedicare Part D subsidy.

13. Limitation of the corporate income tax deduction for compensation that health insurance companies pay to their executives.

Some Republicans feel you should go, I don’t know, at least a couple of months between tax increases.

But let’s back up a bit to that just looking out for “the rich” meme: This idiotic construct, trademarked by lying liberals and the entire progressive left, Democrats and their mainstream media division alike, about Republicans just wanting to protect “the rich” is, as I’ve written before, impossible to take seriously, if you’re trying to be even a little bit intellectually honest.

Take the political pragmatism of such a principle as a starting point. Some polls indicate that Americans would be just fine with raising taxes on the rich. This is mainly because of yet another progressive-created problem, which is that about 45% of Americans (the lower-income half) now don’t even pay income taxes, so why wouldn’t they be “for” raising taxes and getting more “free” goodies in return?

And why would Republicans adopt a stance so brazenly against popular opinion? They want to win elections, don’t they?

Secondly, how on earth do liberals explain that roughly half the country  –  mostly not rich  –  support and vote for Republicans, despite this (mythical) notion that Republicans don’t even look out for them, but rather just the top 1%.

In truth, and in both cases, Republicans and their supporters are looking out not for the rich, but rather for what’s right, what’s fair, and what’s best for America. They know that taxing “the rich” (which as we’ve found out is a moving target) is nothing but Pablum for the masses. They know that you could take 100% of “the rich’s” income away from them, and it would do virtually nothing to solve the debt and deficit problem, whatsoever. They know that profligate, progressive politicians and governments and their spending is the problem.

There are any number of additional details one can add to the relative propriety of the Republicans’ current stance. For example, raising taxes  –  especially on job-producers  –  especially during a time of economic recession, is demonstrably stupid economics and policy.

Also, they know that a lack of “revenue” or taxation isn’t the problem with America, at least insofar as tax rates on upper income earners, it’s the big nanny-state government spending, as per Europe’s problems. And for that matter, it’s the problem in most American households as well. And in that latter case, the solution isn’t to demand more income from your boss, or to borrow money from the Chinese people, it’s to adjust one’s spending.

So possibly, Republicans adopted this principle of halting the incessant raising of taxes on anybody and demanding a whack of spending cuts instead, because it’s what’s right, and it shows leadership to sometimes take unpopular stands, when it’s so clearly what’s right. But Obama isn’t about what’s right, he’s about what’s left. He’s about politics. He’s about what’s expedient. So he’ll BS his way through it to get it. It’s what greasy unprincipled politicians do. Alas, there are just enough useful idiots to achieve his dreams.

Which reminds me of the idiot comic and actor Chris Rock. and what he said recently, which was: “[The] president of the United States is our boss, but he is also… you know, the president and the first lady are kinda like the mom and the dad of the country. And when your dad says something you listen, and when you don’t it will usually bite you on the ass later on. So, I’m here to support the president.”

Oh dear.

Chris_Rock, idiot; surrounded by pop idiot stars

Chris Rock, idiot; surrounded by pop idiot stars as he proclaims Barack Obama is our boss, and Barack and Michelle Obama are our mom and dad. This is what Obama’s BS-ing creates — perfect useful idiots like this.

Not to legitimize by further commenting on it, in fact quite the opposite, but I think Chris Rock is, at best, confused as to who is behaving like a good mom and dad, and who is behaving like a greasy, lying politician  –  one who is willing to do or say anything to garner favor and “likes” on his political Facebook page. Rock’s analogy is an absolutely wrong-headed, contra-American, anti-constitutional, truly asinine, and a wildly juvenile comparison of Barack and Michelle Obama to our mom and dad (and “our boss”?!  — see Kurt Schlichter’s take on that doozy).

As I remember it, we learned in life to respect our mom and dad not because they gave us everything we wanted for free, but because they did not. They used their wisdom and experience and they judiciously gave us what was best for us, even if we hated it. We did not have to like them for it and in fact we hated them for it right though our teen years, and our parents knew it, but they carried on regardless. At some point, and sometimes contemporaneously, we knew our parents were right, even though it hurt us on some level at the time. That’s what good moms and dads do. They certainly never grabbed $50 out of our sister’s purse simply on the basis that she had it, and gave it to us so we could buy candy on the basis that me and my brother wanted stuff and didn’t have $50.

I mention this Chris Rock lunacy to mock him and his sycophancy. He is an actor who, if I didn’t know better, was simply doing an amazing rendition of the perfect useful idiot. And it’s people like Chris Rock and those pop celebrities who surrounded him on a stage as he made those remarks, whom Obama seems to have so affected  –  people who buy the Obama BS so wholly  –  who make me worry.

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
March 5, 2013 •Leave a Comment
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Oh the humanity! Emails from the oh so earnest and organic Obama’s “Organizing For Action”

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
February 28, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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“Brace yourself.” So begins the shocking, dour, and now daily admonition from Barack Obama’s  now even more alarmist “Obama For America,” um, community organization (now re-branded as a tax-exempt “Organizing for Action,” to take advantage of millions in donations from the wealthiest people in the world and in return, provide them with the ear of his regime. Read this excellent WSJ piece about that).

Messina

“Messina”

This latest OMG!!! FREAK OUT!!! email (and plea for my money) is from the guy who names himself “Messina.” This “Messina” is actually Jim Messina, a close, top personal Obama aid and campaign worker (yes I know, it’s February, after the election), trying to sound cool, I guess.

It struck me as familiar to the missive from the Obama talking pointers at Washington’s Total Freak Out Central, or WTFOC, a day earlier.

“Prepare yourself.”  That’s how yesterday’s email  –  this one from Stephanie Cutter (who dubs herself “Stephanie”) began hers.

Tomorrow I expect something along the lines of “Achtung!”

Stephanie_Cutter

“Stephanie”

“Stephanie” went on informing me that Friday is the “final deadline for congressional Republicans to stop disastrous automatic spending cuts (known as the “sequester”) that will hurt everyday Americans — including you.”

Freaking ominous. Nay it’s “disastrous.”

“Messina” told me today that “if Republicans don’t act by tomorrow, we’re going to be hit by a series of devastating, automatic budget cuts called the sequester.”

OMG. It’s “devastating.”

Yesterday Stephie went with this line: “These budget cuts will take a sledgehammer to the budget…”

Messina prefers “It’s a sledgehammer to the budget,” and adds “our economy, and millions of Americans across the country.”

Stephanie on explaining why Republicans don’t want to raise taxes again: as if you didn’t know by now, it is because of the evil that is otherwise known as success to those of us in the sane, un-envious set.  “Because to do so, they’d have to close tax loopholes for millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, vacation homes, and private jet owners. I’m not kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Messina” went with “So far, congressional Republicans are refusing to compromise — all because they don’t want to close tax loopholes for millionaires, billionaires, vacation homes, and corporate jets. Seriously.”

“Seriously.”

Except “Messina” (a) forgot “oil companies,” and changed up “private jet owners” with “corporate jet owners” and (b) is not to be taken seriously. At all.

And, as they both went on, if Republicans in congress don’t act (to the exclusion of Democrats and moreover, the president Obama  –  apparently having finally acknowledged that Obama is inept  –  so weak, and so, lame as to not even be capable of leadership in this regard –  something about which we agree wholeheartedly), then there are “consequences.” So says “Stephanie.”

“Messina” is more emphatic: “This has very real consequences.” Ooh. “Very real”!

They both list the identical (mostly false or at best, intellectually entirely dishonest) consequences. Obama_and_his_staged_ployAs usual, they deploy the “Washington Monument” appeal to the idiot. All of the “consequences” amazingly involve only old people, children, first responders, teachers, and women. I understand Obama will attempt a takeover of the puppy industry so that moving forward, they can also suggest that “puppies are in danger  –  real danger  –  because of Republicans and millionaires and billionaires and corporate/private jet owners, and possibly oil companies.”

Alas, I think the whole Obama gang are Charlatans. I’m serious.

Braced and prepared,
Johannesen. I’m not kidding. Seriously.

P.S. I own no corporate or even private jet, I’m not a billionaire, and I’m not an oil company.

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
February 28, 2013 •Leave a Comment
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Sequester was Obama’s idea, not that it matters, except he lies about it

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
February 22, 2013  •Leave a Comment
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Jonah Goldberg, in today’s column, headlined Blame Game Rages on Over Looming Sequester

…The GOP will probably lose the public relations battle over the sequester, because that’s the Republicans’ job in the age of Obama. A U.S. ambassador is murdered in a terrorist attack the administration ineptly responded to — and blamed on a video — but the only real story is that Republicans are so crazy, they want to know what happened. The president nominates a middle-brow pol to run the Defense Department, one who must recant all of his well-known views in order to get the job, Obama_mid_lieand the story is how irrational the GOP is for caring. If the White House dispatched a drone to circle Boehner’s home, the front-page story in The New York Times would be on the speaker’s troubling paranoia…

And (spoiler alert – concluding paragraph)

…The federal government has grown inexorably for decades. Our president casts himself a Solomonic manager, and yet he is saying that absent a few extra pennies on every dollar there’s no way he can maintain government’s core functions? A manager in any other field of human endeavor would be fired on the spot for making such an argument. But in Washington this passes for leadership.

This all reminds me of an anecdote I’ve alluded to before: let’s say the weatherman predicts a high temperature of 80 degrees, but it only reaches 78 degrees. In Obama and Democratic Party-land, that means the temperature is MINUS TWO. Or to parlay it into Obamanomic terms, a “cut” of two has been accomplished under his ingenious leadership! And then the left and their media division use that as an example of how “brilliant” Obama is, providing us with yet more inculpative evidence as to the existential obtuseness of the left in general.

As usual, you can also glean such wisdom from the comments to news articles or opinion columns. This is the first comment:

Here’s the scenario:

I spent $100 on iTunes downloads this past year.
I plan to spend $108 next year on iTunes downloads.
My wife tells me I can only spend $106 dollars on iTunes downloads next year.

President Obama is now going to tell the world what a horrible shrew my wife is for requiring me to spend two dollars less than I had originally planned.

THAT’s what the sequestration debate is all about.

Democrats are evil and are cynically demagoguing the issue. Republicans are afraid of the false accusation that THEY are evil so, if they follow true to form, they will capitulate to the demagoguery of the Democrats.

What I said.

The Crossroads GPS group has the big bucks to produce snazzy videos, like this one which is good as far as it goes, but which I hasten to add sort of misses the point, inasmuch as it hits on who’s idea “sequester”  was more than the fact that the “cuts” in spending are not cuts, missing the opportunity to point out yet another Obama lie. And it misses that the cuts are relatively miniscule in any case, which puts a lie to Obama’s grand campaign-style lie tour currently underway at massive taxpayer expense which the Chinese taxpayer who lent America the money to pay for it hope to get back someday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZMNfP_HCUA

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
February 22, 2013 •Leave a Comment
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Obama and the Dems bank on the idioterati, then write checks on their account. And their kids’ accounts.

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 30, 2012  •1 Comment
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Obama, just today, was on the campaign trail. Never mind that you thought the campaign was over. I’ve told you before: Obama can’t do anything a president is elected to do  –  he can’t reach across the aisle, can’t inspire positive action, can’t negotiate, can’t bring disparate sides together, can’t make deals, can’t unite Americans as a whole; in a word he can’t lead, whatsoever. He can only campaign. Campaigning is the only thing Obama has ever been successful at.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that instead of being in Washington working hard to “community organize” that community, and hammering out a deal, and getting both parties together to fix his terrible economy, he hit the campaign trail and proceeded to spew more partisan politics and more of his specious claims.

It’s pure, crass, partisan politics. And nothing more.

Obama on campaign trail, post-election (with his teleprompter industrial complex of course)

Obama on campaign trail, post-election (with his teleprompter industrial complex of course).

Republicans, he risibly claimed today (and I quote directly), want to “hold the middle class hostage just because they don’t want tax rates for ‘the rich’ to go up.”

Well now that’s just a lie, isn’t it Mr. Obama?

Republicans don’t want tax rates to go up on “the rich” or anybody  –  anybody  –  because (a) it’s terrible policy for America, since raising taxes on “the rich” means those very people who hire other people and create jobs will do less of that, at the very time we need more of that; (b) it’s occurring at the very time in his terrible economy when raising taxes on anybody, as even he acknowledges, is exactly the wrong thing to do for a variety of other good reasons; and (c) because raising tax rates on “the rich” will not help lower the deficit or debt one iota. It would only pay for government for about eight days. And because (d) raising taxes does not necessarily raise revenue anyway  –  in fact when rates are cut, revenue has historically shown to actually rise, not fall.

So Mr. Obama yeah, it’s actually “just” those reasons, and even more.

Obama hung all this on the mantel of a “balanced approach.” Which he also said again today. “Americans voted for balance,” he crowed. OK, where’s the other end of this balanced picture then? Well apparently it’s found only in a vague promise that sometime next year, he’ll magically manage to deploy his awesome “community organizer” skills and get the parties together, and get them to agree on a whole bunch of historically massive spending cuts… after first raising spending some more, and putting up some more “stimulus” cash.

What an insult to intelligent people.

Republicans have already said, as a result of losing the presidential election, that they’d be willing to put the $800 BILLION Obama asked for in the campaign in extra revenue on the table. But as all smart people know, and even Obama knows, the real problem with the economy isn’t that tax rates are too low, it’s that growing government spending is now completely out of control. Fixing that is really the only thing that will fix the economy, near term and long term. Obama only promises more spending and more “stimulus.”

But it’s no wonder Obama finds his snake oil to be such an easy sell out there on the old campaign trail. The top 1% of income earners pay 40% of all the income taxes in America. The top 10% pay 70% of all the taxes. The bottom 46% of America’s income earners pay exactly no federal income taxes at all. Why do you think so many people are A-OK with raising federal income taxes on “the rich,” and expanding federal government services and increasing entitlements for themselves, and giving themselves more “free” stuff “from the government,” when it’s everybody except them who will pay for it?

Using someone else’s money to pay for government services and entitlements is always going to get an approving nod from the idioterati. And that’s what Obama and Democrats and liberals and socialists  –  progressives writ large  –  bank on.

But of course it’s pure economic stupidity. It’s logical fallacy on its face. The scientifically and historically proven problem (see Europe) with this idiotic idea is that soon, you run up government spending on social programs and entitlements and deficits and debt so much, and tax the successful, upper income earners so much, that you run out of other people’s money. Then what? Well we’ve already seen the start of that in Obama’s America. First Obama campaigned  in 2012 on getting an extra $800 BILLION in extra revenue from “the rich.” But now that he’s won the election, he’s already demanding $1.6 TRILLION instead. Then it’s like this: suddenly “the rich” is anyone making over $150,000 rather than the original $250,000. Then it’s $50,000. Then it’s everybody. And then it’s no spending cuts whatsoever, but rather even more “free” government entitlements and programs, and more of that infamous “stimulus.”

That’s “just” why Republicans don’t want to cave on their principled stand. They want to address the real problem right now. Spending. And tax reform. For everybody. Not give up their only bargaining chip on some lame promise of talks over tea and biscuits, next year sometime.

And by the way, remember when what we’re all trying to uphold now for at least the middle class, those Bush tax cuts, were what Democrats were so against back when they were introduced  –  which they constantly and derisively called “the Bush tax cuts for the rich”  –  setting up that class war and pretending that they weren’t actually across-the-board tax cuts? We used to always have to point out how liberals and Democrats were flat-out lying, and that the Bush tax cuts were actually tax cuts for everybody  — not just “the rich.” Now, suddenly, Obama and the leftists all acknowledge the importance of those once phantom middle-class Bush tax cuts, and use all of their political might to protect them and even wield them as an all-important weapon to save the economy! What shear hypocrisy and utter dishonesty. And really, how embarrassing for them, you’d think.

Obama has got it all backward. If he really honestly wanted to set America free and get America moving again instead of just scoring political points, he should agree to keep the tax rates  –  the Bush tax cuts  –  in place for all Americans, not just the middle class, right now. And immediately address the real problems  –  spending and tax reform. That will effectively end the “fiscal cliff” problem and set America on the right course again.

Then “next year” sometime, on his own time, he can go ahead and invest some of his political capital and try to raise taxes only on “the rich,” as he seems so bent on doing, for nothing more than his own political reasons. Go into the mid-term elections with that promise, and with no promised spending cuts having been accomplished. Good luck with that.

Obama is the only one who is prepared to hold America hostage, and it’s for pure, crass, nonsensical left-wing political reasons.

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Joel Johannesen
November 30, 2012 •1 Comment
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Benghazi cover-up Obama’s Watergate?

By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Salim Mansur
November 18, 2012  •Leave a Comment
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Forty years ago U.S. President Richard Nixon was re-elected with a lopsided 520 electoral college votes over his Democratic opponent, Sen. George McGovern. It was a huge mandate for the president in a country divided over the war in Vietnam.

But there was a cloud over Nixon’s win. A petty burglary at the Democratic National Committee offices located in the Watergate complex in June 1972 ahead of the November election was traced to the campaign committee for the re-election of the president. This turned into the Watergate scandal, and it eventually raised questions regarding what and when Nixon knew about the burglary and about the White House effort to cover up the scandal.

The liberal elite disliked Nixon for his role in accusing Alger Hiss — a senior official in the Democratic administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — as a Soviet spy during the 1948 Congressional hearings into un-American activities by individuals and organizations. The Watergate story was pursued with vengeance by the liberal media, and the role of the fourth estate for speaking truth to power was enshrined in the popular myth when Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, ahead of the House voting to impeach him with likely conviction to follow in the Senate.

More than eight weeks since four Americans, including Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador, died in Benghazi, Libya, the same liberal media that brought Nixon down remains protective of President Obama instead of pursuing leads to uncover facts surrounding what might well be “Benghazi-gate.”

As many Americans grope to understand the grisly details of events in Benghazi, they have been given the salacious spectacle of their most decorated general in recent years and director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David Petraeus, resign three days after the election.

The four-star general, once mocked by Democratic activists as “Petraeus, Betray-us,” fell on the proverbial sword to save what was left of his honour following revelations of an affair he had with a married woman, or was simply dismissed by President Obama.

The “Petraeus affair” in Obama’s Washington is a distraction, while the administration has engaged in a cover-up of the Benghazi story with an adroitness that makes the Watergate cover-up look to be in comparison an amateur performance.

Petraeus is the one man who knows what happened and what Benghazi means, and how Americans killed there by Islamist terrorists explodes the administration’s narrative that a third-rate video insulting Mohammed practically nobody had seen ignited the mayhem culminating in loss of life.

What occurred in Benghazi blows apart President Obama’s preferred view of his administration’s success in the Middle East. His claim is al-Qaida has been eliminated, while the facts leading up to Benghazi are al-Qaida has reorganized and has exploited the so-called “Arab Spring” to advance Islamism across the region.

Americans eventually will learn the truth about Benghazi, and its cover-up by the Obama administration to get past the election. For this to occur, however, Petraeus will require speaking truthfully to the Congress as he struggles to salvage whatever remains of his broken reputation.

In the meantime, Americans and outsiders might gain insight into the inner workings of the Obama White House in reading again Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.

 



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• By (links to archive) • Twitter link or Web site: Salim Mansur
November 18, 2012 •Leave a Comment
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