Politick

Hope and Disillusionment in Obama

Springtime for Obama, and Pelosi!  Winter for Palin and Bush ...

Everyone has their personal hopes, all put into the hands of Obama, the vessel of their dreams.  Many of my friends and relatives hope for subsidized healthcare, or maybe free!  My VC friends hope for subsidies for their cleantech deals (they may need something as oil heads towards $40) and special capital gains treatment for small business investments.  They and their private equity brethren are hoping against hope that their carried interest maintains capital gains treatment.   My overseas friends hope for a new friendly face of America.  Maliki hopes to call in his chit for helping Obama win (something I commented on at the time).  Iran's leader hopes Obama will renounce US "war-oriented" policies and express remorse for past dealings with Iran.   Gays marched in SF and LA following the loss of gay marriage in California fully expect Obama to restore it, despite the uncomfortable truth that many Obama supporters voted to overturn it, especially black voters.  And some Obama supporters now expect Obama will pay for their gas and their mortgage! 

Obama's bucket of hope runneth over.  What will spilleth to the floor?

Lighten Up! A Guide to American Bears

Declare Victory in the Cultural War!

Historic election.  I lost a bet with an Australian friend who had watched Rudd win in a similar change election. The electorate shrugged off any negativity and welcomed any implausible proposal because they wanted change.  So with this one.  Rudd has since backtracked on his proposals, essentially adopted the opponent's conservative agenda (wow! says the electorate! great ideas!), made huge blunders like causing a run on the banks, and yet retains record high popularity.  So too with Obama?  We shall see, for if he really pushes his radical agenda, I may have to remove all of these negative posts on him or risk being sent to a re-education camp.  Comrade!

Oz, however, is a happy country at the edge of the Empire.  America is in the center.  Obama will be given no slack. Russia already began testing him, putting up nuclear-capable missiles on NATO's border this morning.  Hmm, the last time they did this was the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the tested Kennedy after he met Khrushchev, who figured him a lightweight. Do they figure Obama to be an empty suit?

Besides Putin, Obama will be tested by Pelosi.  Will he show backbone and veto her more egregious pork economic redistribution?  He will need to, to pull a Rudd. 

How then to turn Obama's win and McCain's defeat into a win-win for all?  By declaring victory in the cultural war, retiring the inordinate focus on the '60s to the dustbin of history, and ending the most divisive aspect of the war: the extension of rights to mean results.  In short, when an African American reaches the highest office, it is time to end affirmative action.  In return, we accept the diversity of this country, and stopping trying to legislate morality.  Victory means color-blind and fully-tolerant.  

Obama's Stealth Socialism

"Socialism" has lost its sting, twenty years after The End of History and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The Millennials who are supposedly so enraptured with Obama have no memory of the inordinate fear of communism and its softer cousin socialism that gripped the world for 140 years, since failed revolutions swept Europe n 1848.  Hence they would have a hard time appreciating why Joe the Plumber and many others are growing concerned over the radical associations of Obama, and why Obama tried so vigorously to "Palinize" a private citizen who dared raise the "S" word.  Let me help by highlighting four elements of Obama's plans that take us way down The Road to Serfdom:

1. Health: Obama's plan will lead to nationalized healthcare
2. Pensions: Obama's plan will lead to nationalized retirement
3. Labor: Obama's plan will destroy American competitiveness
4. Taxes: Obama's plan will make a progressive tax system into a new welfare system

Obama "Natural Born" Case Still Alive, Oddly Enough

An Obama "Ticking Time Bomb" from the fringes is not only still ticking, but getting more attention: is he a Natural Born Citizen?  Summary:  Obama has only posted a birth certification, not a certificate, and it may be a forgery or at least modified.  A suit was filed by a Hillary supporter with evidence Obama was born in Kenya, and it was dismissed for standing, not on the merits - as a mere citizen he may lack it.  Yesterday Hawaii officials confirmed that they have a birth certificate, but refused to release it.  Today we hear that a Vice Presidential candidate from a minor party filed suit - he may have standing.  A hearing in Hawaii is still on, for after the election.  Tick tick tick .. more below the fold 

3 Reasons Why You Should Be More Scared of Obama than Palin

Living on the fault line, surrounded by Moderate Republicans leaning Obama's way, and Hillary Democrats leaning McCain's way, I hear a consistent complaint: okay, we get that both she and Obama are grossly inexperienced, but what concerns us more is her identity with the dreaded Religious Right, as Bush was.  What if she pushes that agenda again?  Besides the simple fact she is the usually-irrelevant VP not the top of the ticket, and that she did not institute those polices while Governor of Alaska, let's consider whether those fears are in any way less than the developing profile of Barack Obama as a radical in moderate clothing. 

Three items should condemn him well beyond any fears of the mere VP:

1. His own words in a newly unearthed interview condemn him as a radical
2. His own policy on union rights condemns him as like the socialists in England
3. His party's trial balloon to nationalize 401(K) savings condemn the unbridled Democrats as dangerous

Obama Nation is Palinizing Joe Plumber

 We know more about Joe the plumber in 24 hours than we have learned about Barack Obama in 24 months.  The most trenchant history of Obama does not show up in the MSM.  The fix is in according to Instapundit:

"Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working."

Joe is not running for anything; the feeding fenzy of the MSM and both Obama and Biden to Palinize him is obscene.  This is already backfiring.  Now the law is moving against Joe.  Is pushing the law to get a dissenter a harbinger of the Obama administration?  In attacking him they attack the American Dream.  Did Obama just blow the election?   

Reading the transcripts of what Joe is saying is instructive as to why he needs to be Palinized.  He wants the American Dream - in this case, owning a plumbing business.  He doesn't believe in taxing the rich and redistributing it - that is "socialism."  He also notes the slippery slope of breaking the tax system into a redistribution scheme: why stop at $250k?  Why not lower it next time to $150k?  He particularly complains of punishing people for their success (and implicitly giving to people who are not trying).  The subtext of what he is saying turns Obama's class-warfare appeal on its head:

Obama:     Take from the rich and give to you

Joe:          Take from people like me and give to people he likes

He has to be destroyed because he is the first to cry out:

"Look!  The Messiah has no clothes!"

But there is much more to this than that.  This whole campaign has been noisy. Why?  Maybe it is the Obama Playbook.

The Polls Are Being Manipulated UPDATED

This Hillary blog is a must read.  The 'it is over' polls the MSM are promoting are manipulated.  They have sample skew as bad as 45% Demo to 20% Repub, when the normal balance is 39% to 35%.  The recent Newsweek poll, for example, had a sample of 40% Demo and only 27% Repub for an 11% Obama lead.  Balancing this by the more traditional split of 40% Demo and 36% Repub results in merely a 4% lead.  The CBS poll with its 14% lead had a 37% Demo 29% Repub spread.  These MSM polls also ask the question in a way that forces undecided to decide, and reduces the reported undecided to a very low percent: Newsweek at 6%, ABC at 2%.  In contrast, the IDB/TIPP poll, which was the most accurate in 2004, has the Obama lead at just 2%. 

UPDATE 10/18: The best analysis I have seen on the wide range of poll results concludes that all polling this year using non-historical models is statistically invalid.  

UPDATE 10/22: More analysis showing the systematic bias in the many of the polls. 

More analysis below the fold.

5 Obama Smoking Guns and Ticking Bombs UPDATED 11/7

There is anger brewing in this country, sparked by the financial meltdown, fueled by the feeling of helplessness to stop it, and stoked by the apparent corruption and back-room dealings of our political and financial leaders.  While the MSM tries to pin this on McCain, he is merely tapping into a deeper social mood swing.  The hatred of Democrat websites hasn't helped, and the most recent incident today was a firebombing of a McCain sign.

This anger will soon swing to the real villains, the MSM, which have utterly failed in their responsibility to act as the fourth branch of government.  While they have been scanning dumpsters in Alaska and Arizona, pilloring Hillary and outing Edwards, and even interviewing the torturer of McCain in Hanoi (whom they report says he just had tough political conversations during the day, and he and John drank tea together at night - this is their hard-nosed reporting!), they have failed to vet Barack Obama, and continue to shield him from scrutiny. 

While Barack tries to run out the clock, a cloud of concern has emerged which might rip this country apart at the last few moments of the campaign.  It will cast as dark a light on American Democracy as the financial meltdown has on Capitalism.  Such will the MSM have wrought.  Read on about the Five Things that are coming out, and worry about the Republic. 

5 Things To Know About Obama's Health Plan UPDATED

I was intrigued when Obama first came up in the 2008 election. A relative was positively in love with him (well, he had been a Dennis Kusinic fan), and extolled the virtues of Obama's healthcare plan. At his insistence, I looked into in detail and published the following analysis before the election.  I can now update it with more recent examples of State healthcare plans that follow many of the attributes of the plans running through Congress. See the end of point (1) below.

Obama's plan is a public-private approach: government mandates, private insurance.   He wants to ensure that anyone get coverage at reasonable rates.  The core of the Obama proposal, from his website, is: "Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status."   He has three primary provisions:

1. Guaranteed Issuance (GI), meaning anyone can get covered even with a pre-existing condition
2. Community Rates (CR), meaning the insurers need to charge the same (for similar coverage) as they charge to the community at large, young or old, healthy or ill.  In effect, these means  the young and healthy subsidize the old and ill.
3. Comprehensive Benefits (CB), so the base policy would cover a wide range of care. 

On paper, the Obama Plan sounds pretty good.  But it has been tested in the real world and failed.  It has a fundamental flaw.  Let's walk through five key issues with his plan.