A reminder of why we need to get rid of Obama

Here's part of a new article by George Will that makes sense to me:

Energetic in body but indolent in mind, Barack Obama in his frenetic campaigning for a second term is promising to replicate his first term, although simply apologizing would be appropriate. His long campaign’s bilious tone — scurrilities about Mitt Romney as a monster of, at best, callous indifference; adolescent japes about “Romnesia” — is discordant coming from someone who has favorably compared his achievements to those of “any president” since Lincoln, with the “possible” exceptions of Lincoln, LBJ and FDR. Obama’s oceanic self-esteem — no deficit there — may explain why he seems to smolder with resentment that he must actually ask for a second term . . .

Much of the Democratic Party’s vast reservoir of condescension is currently focused on women, who are urged not to trouble their pretty little heads about actual problems but instead to worry that, 52 years after birth control pills went on the market and 47 years after access to contraception became a constitutional right, reproductive freedom is at risk. This insult may explain the shift of women toward Romney.

Obama and transparency

Remember when Obama promised his would be the most transparent administration in history? This declaration, one of so many that have failed to materialize, is a joke. Consider Fast and Furious . . . Today it's Benghazi. Another reason to vote this man out next week.

The President's attacks on Catholics and the Constitution

The election is drawing near, so I need to add much more to my review of Hugh Hewitt's book The Brief Against Obama. So much to cover, so little time. Let me see if I can combine a couple of points in this one blog.

First, there is the President's attack on Catholics. On January 20, 2012, the President approved a sweeping regulation from the Department of Health and Human Services requiring all employers except for a very narrow category limited essentially to actual houses of worship to provide "morning after" pills, sterilization, and birth control to all employees. This was a direct attack on the Roman Catholic church and on the "Free Exercise" clause of the Constitution. A Philadelphia Archbishop wrote, "No similarly aggressive attack on religious freedom in our country has occurred in recent memory."

Then there is Obama's attack on traditional marriage. As a candidate, he said marriage was the union between a man and a woman and that he considered it a sacred union because he was a Christian. He consistently maintained the rights of states to decide this question – in favor of civil unions – for themselves. However, on February 23, 2011, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder announced the President's decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act. So, we have a candidate for President who said in 2008 that he did not support gay marriage, but then unilaterally withdrew the federal government's opposition to same-sex marriage less than three years later despite no change in law, and no Supreme Court or federal circuit court review. It always had been the well-established policy of the Justice Department to defend a federal statute unless no reasonable argument was made in its defense. But Obama and Holder nullified a valid law by executive decree without the benefit of judicial review.

Again, we need a President who will uphold the law, rather than subverting it. Be sure to see some of my past blogs for other reasons to make this a one-term President.

Obama, the DOJ, and a terrible decision

Here we go again, another reason we must vote Obama out of the White House this November. I'm going through chapters in Hugh Hewitt's The Brief Against Obama. This time, let's review the "Fast and Furious" debacle and cover-up.

The Obama administration in the fall of 2009 approved selling guns to Mexican drug cartels in the hope of tracing those guns to the big dealers of weapons and drugs. It all went terribly wrong when a year later U. S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in Arizona by suspected drug-smuggling operatives with two weapons that were part of this operation. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), as well as the Department of Justice, had long ago lost control of the weapons they had shopped to the cartels. In many cases, the end result appears to have been the arming of violent drug cartels south of the border.

Questions arose regarding why this was sanctioned and encouraged. However, answers have not been forthcoming from the Obama Department of Justice. The senior leadership over at ATF preferred to cooperate with a congressional inquiry, but they reported that Justice Department officials directed them not to respond. The result was that the Department of Justice, under Eric Holder, send over false denials and buried its head in the sand. The result was an obstructed investigation. In addition to not answering letters, DOJ didn't comply with congressional subpoenas. Holder's department not only stonewalled requests for information but appeared to influence the testimonies given to congressional inquiries.

Attorney General Holder didn't come off well in this disaster. When asked about the operation on May 3, 2011, he said he wasn't sure of the exact day he first heard of the operation but said it was "probably over the last few weeks." He also could not say who authorized the operation. Since then, Department of Justice memos have been released about Operation Fast and Furious that are addressed to Holder dated as early as July 2010. Either he has a terrible memory or he was lying. Neither is a great option.

The sales of Fast and Furious weapons coincided with an upswing of Mexican drug violence. Many of those who died in Mexico were killed with weapons supplied through this poorly thought out operation. This is President Obama's Department of Justice, so the buck stops with him. Just one more reason he has to go in November.

Obama and Dodd-Frank

I want to cover additional criticisms of President Obama in Hugh Hewitt's powerful book called The Brief Against Obama. This time, let's look at one of the least-reported fiascoes of the Obama years – the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill.

This law was touted as the most far-reaching financial reform since the Great Depression. What's a bit odd about this reform is its authors, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Frank was in charge of the overhaul of American banking while Dodd was busy trying to remain a few steps ahead of the investigators poking into the sweetheart deals he got from his friend, former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Neither Frank nor Dodd ever explained their consistent protection of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the years when the Bush administration urged reform. They ignored concerns about the time bomb of subprime lending excess, which eventually blew up the American markets.

Here's the incredible part. Instead of confessing their role when the bomb went off, these perpetrators brazenly pointed their fingers at Wall Street and proposed an incredibly complex reform law. Unfortunately, this law still leaves Fannie and Freddie untouched despite promises from the White House. Instead, the bill codified "too-big-to-fail" by allowing the government to guarantee important banks, created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (headed by a single regulator and given sweeping, unchecked authority), and imposed hundreds of new regulations which make compliance very costly for small community banks.

How does Obama fit into all this? To this day he touts Dodd-Frank as an achievement of his administration. He has consistently blocked efforts to change or reform Dodd-Frank during his term. As a result, the complicated rules have created a short supply of credit. So, we have another reason to vote Obama out next month.

Obama's real record on fossil fuels

Another in a long list of problems I have with the current administration is its handling of energy production. So I was happy to read a piece by The Wall Street Journal that critiqued Obama’s remarks on energy in the second debate with Romney.

Remember how the President boasted of his investment in fossil fuels, invoking oil drilling, the natural gas fracking boom, and even coal production? That was so contrary to his actual policies, which over the past four years have ignored traditional sources of energy. Instead, he subsidized dozens of companies with little commercial potential but that were often owned by his green allies. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency went on a regulatory binge like nothing in modern U.S. history against traditional carbon-based sources of energy, coal in particular. There’s the reality behind all his grand pronouncements in the debate.

The true story came out in Romney’s rebuttal and in statistics compiled by the U. S. Energy Information Agency, a government outfit. Romney pointed out that the Administration has not in practice promoted the production of U.S. energy resources on federal lands and waters, in fact the opposite. In the last four years, Obama cut permits and licenses on federal land and federal waters in half. As support for Romney's charges, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) compiles energy statistics and notes the following: Production on government land of oil is down 14% and production of gas is down 9%. This organization also reports that total fossil fuel production in public areas—oil, gas and coal—has plunged to a nine-year low, to 18.6 quadrillion BTUs from 21.2 quadrillion in 2003. So much for the rosy picture Obama would like to paint.

It is true that overall domestic energy production is up, thanks largely to the shale boom in states like Pennsylvania and North Dakota. But Obama's trying to take credit for something he had nothing to do with, given that this surge is taking place on private property and the EPA is searching for an excuse to supplant state regulation and slow down drilling.

The biggest joke is Obama's declaration in the debate that he backs more coal production. A little history here is helpful.  In 2008 Mr. Obama declared that he wanted electricity rates for so-called dirty fuels to "necessarily skyrocket" and "if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can—it's just that it will bankrupt them."

So after four years, what does our coal industry look like under Obama? For the first time, coal is in decline, with production falling 6.5% since 2008, according to the EIA. The major reason is a surge of EPA air and water rules.

The EIA expects 8.5% of the coal-fired fleet to retire by 2016, and 17% by 2020, and those are very conservative estimates. Coal has fallen to 32% of U.S. net electric generation, according to preliminary EIA data for 2012. This share stood at about 48% when Mr. Obama took office. Even some regulators within the Administration oppose the EPA's draconian measures, fearing blackouts and other reliability issues as plants are retired despite many remaining useful years. Amid mine closings and layoffs, the United Mine Workers of America declined to endorse Mr. Obama this year, though the union did in 2008.

And then there's the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, which Mr. Obama personally rejected amid a furious green lobbying campaign. His debate answer to that fact was to assert that "we've built enough pipeline to wrap around the entire Earth once," whatever that means. Talk about an answer that wasn't an answer.

So, once again, please consider ending the Obama administration in November so we can go back to a sane energy policy. Sure, we need to work on new sources of energy, but it makes no sense to turn our back on current sources that are readily available.

Obama and unemployment

I have been going through Hugh Hewitt's book The Brief Against Obama. So far I have covered some of Obama's domestic policy failures – Obamacare, the failed stimulus, the huge spending and borrowing binge, the depressed housing market. This time I want to focus on Hewitt's discussion of unemployment in America.

Bill Clinton bequeathed a low unemployment rate to George W. Bush. After the attack on America, the unemployment rate rose to 6% by 2003. Bush worked to drop the rate under 5% in 2007, but the panic in the fall of 2008 brought the jobless rate sharply higher.

This panic left our economy in a recession, so there was negative growth and a large unemployment leap to over 9% in 2009. However, the standard business cycle brought a recovery back to the country in 2010, but there the good news ended.

The recovery stalled. By 2011 the U.S. economy fell to near zero growth in some quarters, and confidence among US consumers plunged. Simply put, there was no recovery summer in 2010. So when Obama tells us today that things are looking up after a terrible economy that he inherited in 2009, be aware this is not true. The American economy recovered, and then slumped again – all on President Obama's watch. His policies have reversed the road to recovery.

Hmmm . . .  Isn't this the President who promised to cut the jobless rate in half, as well as the deficit? Instead, for over 40 months the jobless rate remained over 8%. Something like 23 million people are without a job. Many have quit looking, or otherwise the jobless rate would be much higher. When Obama took over, the jobless rate was 7.3%, yet it is higher than that today. Fewer people are working than when he took control in early 2009.

Obviously the President needs to establish steps for long-term growth so that unemployment drops. What he needs to encourage business growth are permanent cuts in corporate and individual tax rates along with a massive deregulation of businesses that act as job creators. However these solutions are not likely to happen with Obama in office since they run against his deeply ingrained big government/big spending ideology and his distrust of business. Again, we have been given a reason to vote him out of office.

Obama and the housing mess

Let me get back to a book by Hugh Hewitt called The Brief Against Obama. This is a powerful indictment against the President for so many failures. Hewitt’s next chapter has to do with the collapse of housing under his watch.

Here are some statistics to get the big picture. In 2006 around 24 million homes were built in the U.S. By 2011 that number had declined to 4 million, a huge drop. Hewitt says the loss of each home built comes to 219 jobs that could have been held by workers. In addition, foreclosures, as we all know, have skyrocketed since 2006. Then there’s the loss of home value. The average price of a new home was just over $300,000 in 2006, but that had slumped to $267,000 by 2011. Many people owe more on their homes than what they are valued at.

What did Obama do to help this situation? He launched a lot of initiatives to help individual homeowners, but none to help the housing market. But that’s no surprise. Coming from a background as a community organizer, he focused on individuals as part of a political organization built on misery and resentment.

This is just one more reason to return Obama to the private sector this November. There are plenty more reasons that I’d like to explore in the next couple of weeks.

Is the recent report on unemployment good news for Obama?

The news is in that the Democrats have been waiting for . . .The jobless rate fell in September to 7.8% from 8.1%. Wild celebrations are planned by the Obama folk. But here's the real news--the job market is still terrible. So let's see the entire picture of jobs today.

First, a little history. Democrats are celebrating the decline in the jobless rate, which only shows how their standards have changed since President Obama entered the White House. In 2004, they were lambasting George W. Bush for a September jobless rate that was 5.4%. 

How many new jobs were created last month? A paltry 114,000. Job growth for 2012 has averaged 146,000 a month, which is down from 153,000 in 2011.  So where's this recovery?

The reality is that more than three years into this weakest of economic recoveries, 12.1 million Americans are still out of work—nearly 23 million by the broader definition that includes those who have stopped looking or can't find full time work—and the labor participation rate is still down to 1981 levels at 63.6%. Seems like little cause for celebration. 

Here are more discouraging statistics, compliments of The Wall Street Journal. Manufacturing employment fell again (down 38,000 in the last two months), further dampening one of the few bright spots in this recovery. A still abysmal 40.1% of the unemployed in America have been jobless for six months or more. Such a job market is anemic by any historic measure for this stage in an expansion and reflects continuing slow GDP growth in the 1%-2% range. 

Then there are those who work, but they can only find part-time jobs. The number of part-time workers for economic reasons grew to 8.6 million in September from 7.7 million in March. It's tough to pay the mortgage, energy, medical and grocery bills with a 20-hour-a-week job. The job market has been bad for so long that people are settling for any paycheck they can get. 

Campaigning on Friday, Mr. Obama touted the latest jobs report and repeated his refrain that the economy has created five million jobs during this recovery. Here's the catch. While the numbers are correct, in a normal recovery we would have nearly twice that number, and the economy is still about 4.5 million jobs short of where it was in 2007. In the big picture we have fewer people working than when he took office.

He also didn't mention that those jobs aren't paying all that well because real median household income is down $3,040 since the recession ended in June 2009. So, the economy is growing but real incomes are still falling. Mr. Obama claims to be a helper of the middle class, but he's presided over the worst economy for average workers since Jimmy Carter. 

By the way, does anyone else see an amazing set of similarities between Carter and Obama (I know this wasn't the topic). They both came in as outsiders, they oversaw a downward economy, they were surprised in their first debate by their opponent's ability,  . . .

Mr. Obama is promising four more years of the same policies he's pursued in his first term, except that this time he says he really will raise taxes immediately in 2013. Anyone who wants the same job creation should vote for him.

Facts about ObamaCare than can change minds

Please read this carefully and share with your friends. I found this on a Wall Street Journal web page. It explains that a group called Independent Women's Voice shared the following little-known facts with 24,000 independent voters in  households spread over four states. These independents found the information so compelling that a large number indicated strong support  for Romney. See what you think.

• Americans know that ObamaCare requires insurance companies to allow families to keep adult children up to age 26 on their parents' policy. They are less likely to know that the provision increased the average family premium—even for families that didn't add adult dependents—by $150-$450 in 2011.

• The average family's health-insurance premiums are already up $1,300.

• Young workers who buy their own insurance will see a 19%-30% increase in premiums as a result of ObamaCare.

• Remember the 700,000 people whom the Congressional Budget Office predicted would make use of ObamaCare's federal high-risk program? Just 78,000 people have enrolled. As a result, each person in the program costs taxpayers millions of allocated dollars. Americans, when they hear this, know instinctively that there must be a better way to address the problem.

• ObamaCare was sold as the solution to covering the 47 million uninsured in America, but 10 years after the law is implemented, 30 million Americans will still be uninsured. What problem, exactly, is ObamaCare solving again?

• Americans are also generally familiar with Medicaid's problems, among them the refusal by many doctors to accept Medicaid patients. What most people don't know is that approximately 10 million of those who gain insurance under ObamaCare will just be dumped into the already cash-strapped Medicaid system.

Wow, this is powerful. Please spread the word. If you want more information, check the website HealthReformQuestions.com.

Obama's spending binge

Then there’s Obama’s spending in general . . . another reason not to vote for him, according to The Brief Against Obama by Hugh Hewitt. His main point is that Obama and the Dems have gone on a spending and borrowing binge.

Here are some numbers. Under Bush, these were the deficits during his White House days: 2001 (no deficit), 2002 ($158 billion), 2003 ($377 billion), 2004 ($412 billion), 2005 ($318 billion), 2006 ($248 billion), 2007 ($161 billion), 2008 ($459 billion). Now, I’m not going to say this was a stellar record. Definitely not. But take a look at Obama’s deficits: 2009 ($1.4 trillion), 2010 ($1.3 trillion), 2011 ($1.3 trillion).

So under Bush’s eight years, we accumulated a deficit of a little over $2 trillion. Obama managed to pass that in just his first two years. If interest rates grow at all, this will cost our government an even more astronomical sum.

Of course, we are hearing that Obama inherited a terrible economy. But he promised he could tame it without the crushing deficits he ended up creating. We got the same argument when it came to the stimulus and unemployment—all would be well if we just let the President spend his way out of the problems. But it didn’t work out that way. Things have not gotten better under this administration. Why should we re-elect someone with such poor powers of forecasting economics?

Obama and the useless stimulus

Another blog on the disasters of the Obama Presidency, thanks to Hugh Hewitt’s book The Brief Against Obama. This time we’ll consider his failed stimulus program.

It was Obama’s first priority when he was sworn in. The cost was estimated at $767 billion, but (surprise!) it rose to $862 billion before it died. Where’s the money come from? Was it just lying around? Oh no . . . it was borrowed. Over the last three years the interest cost alone has been over $80 billion with no end in sight.

What was the purpose of the stimulus? It was going to deliver millions of jobs, remember? But the reality was this—nothing was “shovel ready,” nothing lasting was built, no lasting jobs were created, nothing helped slow our country’s downward economic spiral.

In a cynical attempt to throw the blame upon the G.O.P., Obama proposed Stimulus 2.0 that could not and would not be passed even through a Democratic-controlled Senate. It was sold as a magic pill that would have cured all problems if only the mean G.O.P. would get on board.

Obamacare--another reason to vote out our current President

I covered some of Obama’s failings in foreign affairs last time as I reviewed a book by Hugh Hewitt—The Brief Against Obama. I want to turn to domestic issues now. Let’s start with the biggie—Obamacare.

The big picture, according to Hewitt, is that Obamacare is ruining employment and health care at the same time. It will push our country to an era of scarcity and rationing in health care, huge government bureaucracies, and unresponsive hospitals and clinics.

Notice how it got started. It was passed over the loud protests of the American people. Now a few earlier laws have also been passed this way, but they soon won over the public. Not so in this case. Obamacare remains hugely unpopular. Just wait until the costs start kicking in.

Other problems abound in this bill. It was passed on a straight part-line basis in a disgusting manner. All sorts of sweetheart deals had to be arranged with various senators. Remember the Cornhusker kickback? In addition, many see this law as unconstitutional despite the Supreme Court decision. It was passed on false premises with impossible-to-keep claims. In addition, employers are dropping hundreds of thousands from coverage because it’s cheaper under the law to take a federal fine than to insure their employees. Add to this the fact that it opens an assault on every Catholic institution by requiring them to pay for sterilization and the “morning after” pill.

Probably the worst thing about Obamacare is its rationing powers. Beginning this year, fifteen unelected bureaucrats will actually be the ones who decide the health-care futures of all Americans. It’s a pure and simple rationing board.

The promise made by Obama was so encouraging. If we liked our doctors, we could keep them, and if we liked our insurance, we could keep it. But the reality is different. Already hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost either the doctors or the health insurance they had and wanted to keep. Just another reason Obama has to go this November.  

The Brief Against Obama

I want to start a series on the Obama presidency, based on The Brief Against Obama, a wonderful book by Hugh Hewitt, a lawyer who clearly lays out the failures of the last four years.

He starts with a reminder of the famous promises Obama made as a candidate. Of course, the biggest was the “Hope and Change” theme. He said the seas would cease their rise. He promised to revive our economy and keep the unemployment below 8 percent. How have these worked out? Easy answer, right?

Hewitt says there are key arguments against Obama. Obamacare was a disaster (and still hated by many Americans), unemployment is far too high, the 2009 stimulus was a total failure, our foreign policy is in shambles, and he has abused the powers of the presidency. Each of these is huge, but Hewitt manages to clarify them in short, punchy chapters.

Let’s start with the foreign mess we now have, thanks to Obama. He snubbed our friends (think of his disgraceful treatment of Israel’s Netanyahu), ignored the Iranian resistance movement, waited for months before calling for Syria’s leader to depart, led from behind in Libya, cut and ran from Iraq, bowed to the Saudi king/Japanese emperor/Chinese president, tried to “reset” relations with the Russians only to be surprised at that country’s nasty behavior (shades of Jimmy Carter), ignored the brutalities and aggressive actions of North Korea, allowed hard-line Islamic fundamentalists to take over in several Arab countries. Each of these deserves a separate essay, but time is short. Obama’s overall problem has been his idea that the United States will gain in world opinion if we look weak, if we appear ashamed of our past policies, if we seem hesitant to defend our values. The result is what anyone would expect—aggressors of the world no longer fear us and are quite willing to go on the offensive against us and our allies.

More next time as we look at domestic failures of Obama. Oh so many of them . . .

General Motors and Obama

The Democrats and President Obama are touting the success of General Motors, saying that they brought it back from the dead. Is this true?

A little background is useful here. The Bush administration decided to intervene at the firm, offering a bridge loan on the condition that it draw up a deeply revised business plan. But it was President Obama who really shook things up by nationalizing the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of the UAW. Gee, who would have thought . . . The Dems would want to protect unions over the interests of the public at large?

How did Obama’s people do this? It forced GM’s bondholders into losing a bundle in order to sweeten the pot for the UAW, unlike what would have happened if Mitt Romney had been in charge. Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have involved the federal government too, but with a key difference: The UAW contracts would have been renegotiated, and GM’s executive suites would have been cleaned out, placing the company on a path toward innovation and self-sufficiency rather than permanent life support. So, here we go again—Obama has set up another group dependent on the government.

But wait, the Dems say. We saved tons of jobs by doing this. Isn’t that good? Well, they base this claim on the assumption that if GM and Chrysler had gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings, the entire enterprise of automobile manufacturing in the United States would have collapsed — not only at GM and Chrysler but at Ford and foreign transplants such as Toyota and Honda. Does that seem realistic? Nope. Not only that, the Democrats’ argument goes, but practically every parts maker, supplier, warehousing agency, and services firm dedicated to the car industry would have collapsed, too. From what I’ve read, it’s unlikely that even GM or Chrysler would have stopped production during bankruptcy: The assembly lines would have continued rolling, interest and debt payments would have been cut, and — here’s the problem for Democrats — union contracts would have been renegotiated. Far from having saved 1.5 million jobs, it is not clear that the GM bailout saved any — only that it preserved the UAW’s unsustainable arrangement.

So how’s it turned out for GM? The company has added only about 4,500 workers, a number not even close to offsetting the 63,000 workers that its dealerships had to let go when the terms of the bailout unilaterally shut them down. GM shares have lost half their value since January 2011. And while the passing of the Great Recession has meant growing sales for all automakers, GM is seriously lagging behind its competitors: Its sales are up 10 percent, a fraction of the increases at Kia, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Porsche. With its sales weak, its share price crashing, and its business model still a mess, some analysts already are predicting that GM will return to bankruptcy — but not until after the election. I guess Obama can resurrect the company once again. This would all be funny except American jobs are on the line, and the American taxpayer is on the hook since we own 60% of the company.

This is the bottom line:  it is not worthwhile to save jobs at enterprises that cannot compete on their own merits. So long as the federal government is massively subsidizing the operation, a job at GM is a welfare program, something the Dems really like. More dependency.

The GM bailout was a bad deal for GM’s creditors, for U.S. taxpayers, and, in the long run, for the U.S. automobile industry and our overall national competitiveness. This is just one example of what we have to look forward to if Obama is reelected.