by Art Lindsey III

President Obama declared Wednesday night on ABC News that without healthcare reform the federal government would go bankrupt.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee: the people who are watching tonight, your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you. Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “And the federal government will go bankrupt.”

Well, I’ve got news for the president and everybody else out there who hasn’t been paying attention:

The federal government is bankrupt. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have to keep mortgaging our future to China and amassing a debt which has ballooned to an amount in the double-digit trillions. When you couple that with the printing rampage we’ve been on, how is it that anybody can say we will run out of money when we obviously already have? The motto of our government seems to be “Spend all you want, we’ll make more”.

Frankly, this has become a rather tiresome ruse. The idea that government knows anything about making or keeping businesses competitive is laughable. There isn’t a business on the planet that can compete with the federal government when it comes to resources.

Notice that “resources” is the key. No one is talking about quality, here. Everyone knows that the government is an inefficient, bumbling mess, no matter who is in charge, and it clearly doesn’t have to turn a profit. That alone makes it an unstoppable juggernaut. Businesses must turn a profit to survive. If they don’t, they go away. (Well, they used to before all the bailout junk started, but you get the idea.) The government seemly operates above all concepts of economics and logic, so in reality, President Obama’s argument is nothing short of a joke.

This whole discussion is rife with myths. Yes, there is a lot of money tied up in the medical insurance industry. But the truth is that people always look at the wrong number. While the large, zero-laden numbers look good at the end of the day, they don’t really mean anything. The number that everybody seems to ignore when they decide to demonize a particular business is that of the profit margin.

Now, in case you don’t know, the profit margin or the medical insurance industry is about two percent. Knowing that, there is no way an unbiased observer of the situation could accuse the medical insurance industry of being anti-competitive. A two percent profit margin would just be barely keeping one’s head above water.

If the federal government was so into competition in business why doesn’t it do more to relieve the financial burdens on businesses, like slashing our inflated corporate tax, and/or eliminating the capital gains tax? Furthermore, in the case of health care, why can’t our health policies be made portable, and why Americans buy a policy in any state that they choose? This would drastically expand every company’s potential client pool, and because of that, logic dictates that prices will come down. This is a basic component of our market economy. However, it has become quite clear that our government has no interest in that.

Isn’t it interesting how the Obama administration constantly touts job creation, yet it is hell-bent on interfering with an industry which makes up about one-sixth of our economy? Health care insurance providers will be unable to compete with a bureaucratic monolith that can continually give itself a blank check with which to operate. The private companies will fail, which will put many people out of work. Wait a minute. What about all that ‘job creation’ that Obama is so good at? Perhaps the only ones that really count in his mind are handful of prison guard jobs that will be created when he moves the Gitmo detainees to Illinois. Who knows at this point?

Continuing on, when you put a lot of people out of work, a domino-effect begins. They have to file for unemployment, which is funded by taxpayers. However, that’s just a tiny part of it. The real damage begins when the reality of this program begins to take hold. Providing quality, universal healthcare for a nation of over 300 million people is a financial impossibility, especially when you factor in our government’s penchant for waste. The tax burden required to feed the beast will balloon out of control, and the end result will be that corporations and workers will be so badly shackled by the government that the drive to produce will be lost. If such a thing ever happens, its game over, people. Welcome to the collapse of the United States of America.

All of that aside, the true answer to this manufactured “crisis” is personal responsibility. The fact is that most of the uninsured could obtain a health insurance policy at a reasonable price if they wanted to. Quality policies are available at prices less than $100 a month, and can be shopped for and purchased online as we speak. While it is true that the American health industry could be streamlined, the government certainly has no clue how to do it. Furthermore, the true hindrance in the situation isn’t the providers. It’s the Americans who are too irresponsible to take care of themselves.

Until that changes, nothing good will happen.

by Art Lindsey III

On her Christmas in Washington special on ABC last night, Oprah Winfrey asked President Obama to grade himself.

“Good, solid B-plus,” the president said.

Explaining, he said, “we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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“We stabilized the economy, and prevented possibilities of a Great Depression or a significant financial meltdown. The economy is growing again.”

“We are on our way out of Iraq. I think we’ve got the best possible plan for Afghanistan.

“We have reset our image around the world.”
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Well, who here feels better now? I know I certainly do
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President Obama’s fondness for referring to himself is well documented, but this is one of his most stunning displays of arrogance yet. The proper answer to this question is, “That is not for me to decide. That is up to the American people.

This is why we don’t grade ourselves in school. (At Least not yet, but who knows. It may not be far down the road. First, teachers aren’t allowed to use red pens, so it seems logical that “self-assessment” may soon follow.) According to a New Rasmussen poll, Obama’s approval rating has dipped to 44 percent, and it should be noted that this is one of the fastest drops in US presidential history.

Now, I don’t know about any of you, but when I went to school, if I saw a “44” on my paper, that meant I got a big, fat “F”. In fact, I had to get a “90” to even get a “B”.

How can a man who approved a $787 billion spending bill (which for all intents and purposes has failed) sit idly by as congress is about to approve nearly another $2 trillion in spending? Seeing that the only “successes” that his administration can seem to tout is that “we didn’t lose as many jobs this month as last month”, shows that he lacks basic math skills. Such a claim is not an indication off success in a sane world. Logic would dictate that at some point, the job loss numbers would have to decrease simply because we are running out of jobs to lose. Somebody has to work. If nobody worked, society would collapse.

So, if by “stabilizing the economy” he means holding the unemployment numbers at a nice bouncy, round number like 10 percent, then yes, he is doing an outstanding job. If by “resetting our image” he means bowing and scraping to every would leader he can get a photo-op with, he’s earned a spot on the Dean’s List.

President Obama is so disengaged from reality that he either doesn’t hear what comes out of his own mouth or worse yet, the multiple failures he has presided over or instigated are perceived as achievements in eyes, regardless of what the data may suggest.
He has turned America into a poorly controlled science fair project, and the media that he has a “teacher’s pet” relationship with is giving him a passing grade.

One could argue that this is akin to cheating, and in the end, cheaters always get caught, don’t they?

Two uninvited guests inexplicably “crashed” President Barack Obama’s first state dinner on Wednesday night, and the incident has left many scratching their heads as to how this could have happened.

The couple, Michaela and Tareq Salahi, who are reportedly auditioning for a Washington D.C. based reality show were able to gain access to the party when protocol was not maintained at the Secret service checkpoint.

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At this point, it is easy to imagine the sheer volume of comedy this will produce for late night television hosts, and conservative pundits such as this one. The “we were a second away from Joe Biden being the leader of the free world” jokes are too numerous to even fathom. And yes, the First family’s penchant for partying is well documented. We can go on and on about the stream of protocol blunders ranging from DVD’s and iPods, to bowing indiscriminately and buzzing New York City in Air Force One. While those incidents are certainly perceived as bad by a good portion of the public, in most cases the most damage that is done is that the president and his country gets a bit of a red face, and somebody gets fired because of said incident’s possible impact on future electoral maps.

This, however, is much more serious than any of that.

No matter which side of the political ideological spectrum we fall on, the President of the United States is in fact the most powerful man in the world. Whomever holds that office, whether you had a stake in electing the person or not, and political policies notwithstanding, the president should be protected at all costs.

It goes without saying that the Salahi’s should be brought up on federal charges, and the Secret Service agents responsible for this “mishap” should be immediately investigated and fired.

These are serious times we live in. We are engaged in two wars which we must win, while we are also trying to somehow prevent a madman from wiping a tiny nation known as Israel from the face of the earth. These things are no laughing matter. Western civilization itself could hang in the balance.

Every day, there is at least one story in the news that will make any engaged American question their safety, yet our government and its supposedly unlimited resources fell flat on its face when it came to ensuring the safety of the one man who I many ways holds the keys to ours.

One couldn’t even classify this as unacceptable. This is downright frightening. It’s one thing to have to endure lapses in judgment that occasionally make the Obama administration look like its perpetually getting “pantsed” on the playground, but what if a future lapse in judgment, (by whichever department commits it) ends in something much more tragic and leaves a lasting scar on the American psyche?

Apparently, nobody’s thinking about that. Somebody should.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama stated that he will not make a decision on Afghan troop levels until after the Thanksgiving holiday. This development came at the end of President Obama’s eight-day Asia tour, where he took time to stop at Osan Air Force Base in South Korea. While there, he remarked to 1,500 troops, “You guys make a pretty good photo op.”

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That says a lot, doesn’t it? Upon examination, photo-ops certainly seem to be President Obama’s main concern. If you will recall, just a few weeks ago, Obama visited Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as some of our fallen servicemen were brought home to rest. For reasons unbeknownst to many, the president thought it would be appropriate to allow cameras at the event. Most families were made uneasy by this, and in fact, only one family allowed cameras to follow their proceedings.

Because of that, his visit came off as self-serving, especially when contrasted with former President George W. Bush’s visit to Fort Hood, where he insisted that no press be permitted.

The underlying point of all this, is that President Obama only seems interested in our armed servicemen and women when he can use them as a prop to get his picture taken or to get himself on television.

It has been weeks since General Stanley McChrystal requested an additional 40,000 troops for the effort in Afghanistan, and in the process making it emphatically clear that this was indeed necessary, claiming that the effort was not sustainable with current resources. On top of that, General McChrystal was only able to secure a 25-minute meeting to make the request in the first place.

Something is desperately wrong here.

Does anybody remember the campaign, where Obama insisted that Afghanistan was a top priority? The war we should be most focused on, if you will? What happened to that?

The answer to that is simple. It was nothing more than a campaign promise. It has become quite clear that our Commander-in-Chief clearly has no interest in our effort there, and by extension, it shows exactly what he actually thinks of our troops, which is, not much.

You have to pay attention to what Obama is saying here, and the words that he uses. He is saying he will not make a decision until after Thanksgiving. He’s not saying he won’t commit more troops until after then. This is nothing short of him saying “Yeah, I’m going to continue to put this off until at least after turkey is served.”

Brave sons and daughters dying over there on a daily basis, and our president is content to dither and play games with American lives and American security. This is clearly a tactic he is using in an effort to placate his left wing base, military advisors and cost to America be damned.

This man has already made his decision, and deep down we all know what it is. He may finally be forced at some point to send additional resources at some point, but he clearly has no real interest in doing so.

The only future Barack Obama is interested in is his own.

President Obama recently bowed to Emperor Akihito in Japan. At this point, one might wonder exactly who is advising Barack Obama, if any one at all. If you will recall, this is the latest in what seems to be a string of inappropriate greetings in international settings by our Commander-in-Chief.

So far to date, Barack Obama has bowed to Saudi King Abdullah, given an exaggerated nod to Queen Elizabeth II, and there has been speculation as to whether or not he has offered a similar gesture to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

This is troublesome, and embarrassing. Common sense would indicate that it would more than likely be difficult for international leaders to take our president seriously if he is constantly subordinating himself to them. Perception goes a long way on the international stage, and at this juncture, an honest observer of the situation would be hard pressed to find an incident where Obama has projected himself as leader of the free world when he travels abroad, let alone an equal.

For those who would argue that President Obama is trying to “make amends” for some of America’s supposed arrogance of the past, it should be made known that bowing to other leaders is not a traditional form of greeting, particularly in the case of Emperor Akihito. The Emperor is most commonly greeted with a simple handshake.

So, with that in mind, it could be fair to say that what is going on here goes far beyond supposed protocol. This appears to be another whistle-stop in the “Obama Apologizes for America tour”. It doesn’t seem that he has given up on his concept of being a “citizen of the world”, and it looks like he intends to remain in a never ending campaign to be personally adored until the end of his term in office.

Americans thought they had elected a leader. It doesn’t look like that happened. Instead, they got a teenage girl who just transferred to a new school and is desperate to do anything to fit in with the cool kids. However, unlike high school, when President Obama ends up getting stuffed in a locker, America will be the one who feels the pain and humiliation.

The world is now peaceful, with all terror and strife put to rest. The environment is healed and the globe is just the right temperature. All Muslims are now moderate and embracing their Infidel neighbors. Our boys are coming home from their wars, embraced and accepted by their peers for the sacrifice they’ve made. Zionists have been put in their place, under heel, where they belong. Cheney can’t walk. Heavy drinking no longer causes hangovers and all farts now smell like marshmallows.

Well, it’s been a good ride. The devil and I can take the next four years off, I guess.

What’s that you say? It’s still the same shitty world we had yesterday? Really? How is that possible?? I was promised change, dammit, and I want it NOW!

Aw, shit. Looks like I better keep paying for my hosting for a few more years, huh?

Oh well. Great conversation happening in the comments here. Come join us.

Sometimes it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. For at least seven of the last eight years of the Bush administration, I have admonished my political foes for their treatment of the President. I have said many times over that even if you don’t like the man, you should respect the office. Not to the point of slavishly agreeing with everything (Bush and I broke up over Dubai Ports and his wearing of Crocs), but enough that if you were American you didn’t come across as say French.

Well, may I ask someone to pass the salt? Because now I must swallow my own words, and they taste very bitter to me. Now I must respect the office of a man I have no respect for. I will do it, because I have said others should. Ugh.

So without further ado: Good luck, President Obama. Do what’s right for the country. You are judged by the company you keep, so choose wisely.

Side dish of irony: Yesterday was a holiday in the US: Martin Luther King Day. A day to honor the birth of a dead civil rights leader. Today is the inauguration of the culmination of his efforts: most people don’t have today off. What a waste.

Wow. Considering that I am currently deep in the Heartland of America, hanging with some really amazing people, I find this really offensive.

As election time approaches in America, Barack Obama’s historic candidacy holds much of the world in thrall. Yet there’s one significant sector of the US voting public that has so far proved resistant to the Democratic candidate’s charms. The great American redneck – that rifle-toting, Bible-thumping, truck-loving caricature devoted to beer and motor sports – has already tripped up Obama once, and he may do it again before November’s presidential poll.

Joe has a great deal to say about rednecks, God and guns, and the way that Democratic idols like Obama have failed to connect with what he calls “the white ghetto of the working poor”…

…A few more people arrive, and most of them seem to have stepped from the pages of Bageant’s book. One man is wearing a stars-and-stripes bandanna and has tattooed biceps wider than my thighs. His neck really is bright red from the sun. Someone else sports camouflage deer-hunting overalls. There are several Harley-Davidson T-shirts straining over barrel-shaped bellies. Yet the crowd is embarrassingly sparse, and McCoy, who is in his eighties, hobbles around looking glum. Joe and I talk to his daughter, Judy, and she confirms what we suspect: McCoy is charging an extra $5-a-head entrance fee towards his bandstand fund, which, with the soaring price of petrol, is keeping the redneck hordes away…

…“A lot of it is their own fault,” Tom says. “They couldn’t wait for their new car, their new house, and if you asked them how they would pay for it, they’d say, ‘We’ll get lots of overtime.’ But now there’s no more overtime and they can’t afford the repayments and they’ve lost their credit, their cars and a lot of them are losing their homes.”

Most, if not all, of the “rednecks” I have met have actually been rather wealthy. Yes, they like guns and some enjoy motor sports. They’re Christian. They work hard for the money they have, instead of inheriting it like a Kennedy. They enjoy their life and their land and they love their country. Does that make them white trash?

It’s pretty much guaranteed already that anyone sucking off the public teat is going to vote Democrat anyway. Anyone who can’t hold a job will do likewise. So I’m willing to bet Obama already has the trailer park crowd sewn up. But to refer to “rednecks” in such a way as to disdain how they got those necks - by working hard in the great outdoors of this beautiful country - is pretty insulting.

Swiped from SondraK

It’s bunk. I’ve been thinking about it a bit in the last week, and I can’t come up with a valid reason for Obama to show his birth certificate publicly. Some are saying they worry he was actually born in Kenya, negating his run for office. Ok, well, leave that to those in charge of swearing him in. Surely someone in a position of authority has seen it.

Others say, “Well, what if it lists him as a Muslim??” My answer? If it does, then he’d better not show it. The fact that he’s been a practicing Christian for over 20 years at least means he would be marked for death as a Muslim apostate.

There are many legitimate reasons not to vote for Barak (no middle name) Obama. Not seeing his birth certificate is not one of them.

Even if it’s true, we know that truth is no defense in Canada. And there are some things we just don’t talk about. Things like the general whereabouts of babby-daddies.

Yes, ladies and gents, Barak (no middle name) Obama said something intelligent the other day. But only because he’s less likely to get tarred and feathered for saying it than you or I would be.

Barack Obama’s blunt call to absent black fathers in the United States — “any fool can have a child” — needs to be heard in Canada. From comedian Bill Cosby to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, from academics to grassroots groups, the cri de coeur about disappearing fathers is hardly controversial any more in black communities in the U.S. But in Canada, silence prevails.

Everything Mr. Obama said applies in Canada. “It’s the courage to raise the child that makes you a father,” he said in a Father’s Day speech in a black church in Chicago’s South Side. “Too many fathers are MIA, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

This was not a case of a liberal playing the conservative card of “personal responsibility” to broaden his appeal. This was a politician speaking from personal conviction as a child whose [black] father left when he was 2 and played little direct role in his life.

He knows from which he speaks, and he is one of the lucky ones. His [white, racist] grandmother must have whupped him good, to help him get through school and make something of himself.

But what of our own disaffected youth? We continue to employ hordes of social workers, to no avail. We build enough basketball courts so that every gangbanger can actually have his own, yet that’s obviously a failing policy. When are we going to have the nerve to stand up to the black community and say “Hey, stop being a slut, because he’s not going to take care of you and your baby!” or even “If you get her knocked up, we will give you a court order mandating you reside with and support her and the child for at least 5 years, as a sentence for your stupidity.” Instead we just keep our moths shut while the young men kill each other, and the even younger women keep getting pregnant, starting the cycle all over again.

When Bill Cosby said the same thing a few years ago, he was denounce, called “Oreo”, and even smeared by a trumped-up sexual assault claim to ruin his credibility. Louis Farakkhan doesn’t actually have any credibility, so there was none to strip him of. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for Obama. He seems to be pretty respected in black circles - but will his words change that?

IMAO clears up a few factual inaccuracies regarding Senator Barak (no middle name) Obama.

LIE: The only thing Barack Obama loves more than America is jihad.
TRUTH: Barack Obama loves many things more than America.

LIE: Michelle Obama hates whitey.
TRUTH: Michelle Obama hates the Jews.

LIE: You have to be retarded to think Barack Obama is a good candidate for president.
TRUTH: You could also just hate America and wish it ill will.

I strongly suggest that all my American readers go check it out and read the whole thing. It is important that come Election Day, you have all the facts.

From KKK Senator Robert Byrd.

“I believe that Barack Obama is a shining young statesman [you know, for a darkie], who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq [where there are blacks serving alongside whites - which I voted against], and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history,” Byrd said.

Is Byrd dying, and this is his way of doing penance, before he has to answer to an authority much higher than the Grand Wizard? Wow. My gast is truly flabbered, because I never expected Byrd to endorse a black presidential candidate.

I wonder how Obama himself feels about it? I mean, not the Obama that gets up and makes speeches, but the one who goes home to his angry white-hatin’ wife every night. Their conversations must have taken on a truly interesting twist.

I’m sure that the two Ramirez kids who built this site meant well, but the crescent really wouldn’t do Osama Obama many favors. Not to mention “Obama Youth” stirs up some kind of historical connotation, most likely of the kind the Ramirez kids never learned about in school, lest anyone get offended by the term “Holocaust”.

Just sayin’…

H/t: SondraK

That’s punishable by death, you know.

Obama’s grandfather had converted to Islam from Roman Catholicism and taken the name Hussein, Sarah Obama said, but his children had inherited only the name, not the religion. Each person should be able to choose how they worshipped, she said.

“In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents,” she said. She, too, is a Christian.

Just one little problem with this statement.

In April of last year, Sarah Hussein Obama told the New York Times she is a devout Muslim.

Whoa. I’d watch my head over that!