There is an imposter in the White House. We want to know what happened to President Obama. Has some vast right wing cabal grabbed him from his bed and replaced him with a look-alike?
In something that seems right out of a science fiction movie, President Obama is going forward on his pledge to fund – wait for it – new nuclear power plants!
Holy Batman, Batman!
Something we at O-t-c can applaud about President Obama?
We are big believers in government spending to improve infrastructure (true improvements – not make-work boondoggles). We also believe it is government’s role to go after very long range goals that cannot be handled effectively by corporations that need to show profits for their shareholders quarter after quarter. And we believe that government has a role in underwriting potentially hazardous enterprises, where private insurance would find the risk untenable, and would thus not insure a project.
As long as it it done correctly, as long as there is competitive bidding on pieces of the project by truly competent corporations, and as long as the oversight is managed per science and not political correctness, the funding of nuclear power plants can be an extremely welcome development.
It is not often we have looked forward to offerings by this President. We applaud this move.
- Off-the-cliff.com
P.S. – So far.
An open letter to President Obama…
Mr. President,
We watched you give yet another speech tonight. Of course, this time, it was completely appropriate as it was the State of the Union speech. We haven’t had time to really examine it (transcripts and recordings), but we have some initial impressions.
#1 – You talk a good game; but it only works if people don’t remember 2009. We, at O-t-c, do remember 2009, and we’re hanged if we’re going to let anyone else forget.
#2 – Your calls for bipartisanship ring hollower than a termite infested tree stump. Where were your calls for bipartisanship in 2009? Where was your effort to tell Nancy Pelosi and her demons to tone down the incivility and to bring Republicans and Independents to the table? We watched all year long for such efforts, Mr. President. They never ever happened.
#3 – For the first time in memory, you actually praised America and almost – almost – acknowledged our exceptionalism. Of course, you didn’t use that word. Why is that, Mr. President?
#4 – You said that you deserved some of the setbacks you received. But you didn’t itemize any of them? What setbacks did you deserve, Mr. President. We can think of many, but it would be good to hear it from you directly. What don’t you blame on the previous administration – besides your inability to articulate with sufficient clarity and persuasiveness how abominations like Pelosi’s and Reid’s health care atrocities would actually be good for us.
#5 – The surprise of the night: you actually went against your base and called for opening up nuclear power plants. A few of us had our jaws drop on that one. Ditto with the idea of opening up Federal lands for oil drilling. Of course, talk is cheap. We’ll be watching to see if you deliver.
#6 – Your spending freeze seems like a fraud to us. You said you’ll freeze spending in 2011. That gives you all of 2010 to hike the spending beyond any conceivable limit and then freeze it there.
#7 – During 2009 you said that there were hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and waste to be removed from the health care system. Well – how about going after it, Mr. President. Show us the money! Why do we have to wait for health care deformity before you start enforcing the laws against fraud and doing the work of a good manager and reigning in the wasteful spending?
#8 – There were a few self-deprecating moments in the speech. You almost seemed human. We recommend you do more of that.
#9 – There’s a difference between going after something that’s right and dictating what that something should be. It is your fault that We the People don’t trust the health care deformation efforts. Your fault. You tried to ram it through – without giving anyone time to see what was in it – more than a thousand pages – before the August recess. Remember that? How was that transparent, Mr. President? On what basis were we supposed to trust the process, or you, or Pelosi – especially with you marginalizing and demonizing everyone who opposed you.
You don’t get off the hook, Mr. President, just because you give a mildly friendly speech. You have a lot of work to rebuild trust with we Independents. And if you want any of your legislative agenda to go through, without losing your party in November, you’d better start communicating straight with us and taking what we want into account. (Same for the Republicans.) We are tired of our choices being Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We want pragmatists who share our values. If you can’t manage that, Mr. President, then we recommend that you “get out of the way,” to coin a phrase.
Addendum: One more thought: We think that Nancy Pelosi, again, showed why we so despise her. As narcissistic as the President is, and we believe that he is exactly the person Carlie Simon was singing about with her song, “Your so vain, you probably think this song is about you…” But Pelosi? She makes Obama look like the most comfortable in his own skin; the least self-aggrandizing person in the world. There she was, preening every time the President said that the House had passed a bill. We felt like we were watching a toddler being told that she did a good job using the toilet. “What a good girl you are!” Made us very queasy. Madam Speaker – you really need to get over yourself. You aren’t anything special other than to fellow stupids. Oh – and Biden – the guy was nodding his head more than the bobble-headed versions of himself. It was like his neck was on a loose spring. Come on – you can’t be agreeing with every single word the President says in realtime. You at least should wait till he completes a thought, shouldn’t you? Geez.
- Off-the-cliff.com
We watched with mixed emotions, your speech (yet another speech!) at your town hall meeting last week. We saw you strident, perhaps angry. We saw you defiant. What we didn’t see was that you had learned anything from We the People.
The mixed emotions come because it kind of tugged at us when you said (paraphrasing) that some of the attacks on you stung. That’s perhaps the most human thing we’ve heard you say – ever. It’s using English in a way that Americans around the country understand and get. It’s not professorial. It’s not highbrow, looking over the glasses to talk down to us. It’s just connecting man to man or man to woman.
However, in the next moment, we remembered.
We remembered when you tried to walk it back from your condemnation of the Cambridge Police Department, when you said that you had “miscalibrated” your language. Who talks like that?
But more – we remember that you did condemn the Cambridge Police Department after saying that you didn’t have all the facts. Fast forward to when you tried to stump for Martha Coakley, and you said that you didn’t really know Scott Brown’s record as you then tried to condemn it.
You are very fast to demonize fellow Americans, Mr. President. We can’t think of a single time that George W. Bush did that, despite provocation that makes your hot seat look like an air conditioned cockpit. You are very quick to lash out at us, Mr. President – at anyone who stands in your way. This is why we call you a bully. And you do it with people who are ill equipped to fight back against the force of the Federal Government in general and the Office of the President in particular. This is why we call you a coward.
We strongly suggest that if you want to turn things around on your watch, Mr. President, that you stop with the demonization; stop with the villainizing of entire swaths of Americans. Show the same kind of respect and courtesy that you and your Wicked Witch of the West demand every so often from the rest of us. Start treating people who disagree with you with respect, Mr. President, and just maybe you’ll find it reciprocated.
If you can’t manage that, we happily imagine you feeling irritated, annoyed, ticked off, etc. We wish for you the same consternation that you cause us. We would rather that we could respect an American President, but as in all things, respect is something earned, and you, Sir, have not earned it; not yet; though you still can.
- Off-the-cliff.com
We never thought we’d see the day… but it’s happened. Hell froze over. It’s no longer only in our dreams. And we must be better than the last man on Earth.
We were watching Neil Cavuto on FoxNews just now, and he had a Democrat congressman, who along with another Democrat congressman sent a letter – they didn’t just propose this – they sent a letter to the President, saying that they wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts – and here’s the part that’s the wow factor – including the tax cuts for the rich! Here’s a related story.
Can you believe this? Because we’re wondering what planet this is. Who are you and what have you done with the Democrats you cloned and replaced.
A Democrat on the right side of a fiscal issue! Who could imagine it? Certainly not us.
Well, Mr. President – you’re being shown the way. You want to have a good economy on your watch? You can – just not on the socialist, communist, and Marxist terms you thought you could force on us. You have to FREE the economy, Mr. President. You have to honor liberty. You have to honor BUSINESS because it is BUSINESS that creates jobs.
You’re being led, Mr. President. And one of the traits of a great leader is the ability to own up to mistakes and follow someone else’s lead for a bit – instead of digging the deep hole you dug even deeper.
It’s your call, Mr. President. Now that we have Scott Brown as a monkey wrench in your nascent dictatorship, we are VERY CONFIDENT in the long term prospects for America. We no longer have much fear about being turned into the United Soviet Socialist States of Amerika. Looks like the Founding Fathers anticipated narcissists like you and figured out how to prevent you from doing too much damage.
The only question now is this, Mr. President: which side of history do you want to be on? Do you want to be on the side that sees the American economy tank on your watch – to be quickly fixed by the next Republican President in 2012, or do you want to have a thriving economy that propels you into a second term? Are you an ideological fanatic or a pragmatist.
If you are the fanatic, we’ve already slowed you down – thanks to the amazing folks in Massachusetts (who are patriots first – before they are members of a stupid political party). In November, we will stop you cold as we throw out every Democrat we can, unless they come to the Light Side of the Force.
We applaud any Democrat who has been sobered up or shocked out of the stupor of one-party-rule to see reality for what it is. Now if you will convince the Messiah that socialism is wrong, we’ll be on our way.
- Off-the-cliff.com
America
Failing
Day 366
It seems appropriate that on this first day of Obama’s second year, the stock market (Wall Street) would go into the tank. As of this writing, the DOW is down nearly 200 points, and the other indices are down sharply as well.
And another number is in the pain-zone, too: the number of first time jobless claims is up.
In the meantime, our country sinks into ever-deeper debt as Congress (that’s Pelosi, just in case you want to blame the Republicans) just authorized the borrowing of another 1.9 TRILLION (WITH A T) DOLLARS.
Our glorious Socialist-in-Chief said that he wants to focus like a laser on jobs. Good – but he’d better understand: jobs mean healthy businesses. You can’t go around, any longer, Mr. President, slamming the business class, or do things that create uncertainty in the minds of the business class and expect anything good to come of it jobs-wise. If Brown’s election serves to wake you out of your hallucinations, Mr. President, you should count it as a godsend. (Actually, we don’t believe this to be the case, but it’s a new year – maybe you’ve wised up.)
Here are a few recommendations:
1 – Tell your entire administration: business people are now welcome in your administration. They can come by private jet. They can come in luxurious rail cars. They are welcome in whatever splendor they can muster. Because happy business people will tend to hire (more jobs, Mr. President) more than unhappy business people. Simple fact. Give it some thought.
2 – Tell the unions to which you’ve been beholden to go to hell. Much of the unemployment mess is because of their intrusion, with your intense help, Mr. President – into the alteration of how business can be done in this country. Tell the unions that the secret ballot will be maintained; that it is a major pillar of democracy, and that the unions have proposed an unamerican idea with their “card check” effort.
3 – Look for ways to make the tax code simpler and more favorable to businesses, Mr. President. Use the bully pulpit to tell Congress that we need a law that gives significant tax breaks to large, Fortune 500 companies (Wall Street) when they open a store or factory inside the United States and keep it open for 4 years. Reduce the tax burden on employers for every new full-time employee that they hire for more than a year. This obviously needs some thinking through, but the overall idea would serve as a great incentive for businesses to be motivated in a positive way by the tax code instead of looking for ways to bail this country and set up shop in Taiwan.
4 – Create REAL public works project, Mr. President. No more funding of small-time research in obscure labs or unimportant (in the jobs context) studies. The American people need bang for our buck. Repairing many of the sagging bridges we have in this country could employ huge numbers of people, and the ripple effects into the private sector would be enormous. That you didn’t do this already indicates that you haven’t been serious about jobs at all. Maybe now you are. This would be a big boost – and it would improve our infra-structure, which would boost safety on roads, etc.
5 – No more global warming crap. Climategate and the flood of new evidence about shenanigans by the Left has got to make any sober person say that climate change is not an emergency. Maybe we need to change how we engage in planetary stewardship. That is perhaps worth looking into. But it is not the emergency that has been hoaxed upon the American people. No more cap-and-trade. No more “green jobs” as a solution for reducing unemployment quickly. We need big-hits NOW, not three years from now when some magical, mythical “factor” will leverage green jobs into full employment.
6 – Jumpstart NASA private-sector technology transfer programs. The bang for the buck that Americans have received from NASA’s operations have been tremendous. You wouldn’t have your Blackberry, Mr. President, were it not for NASA. There would be no iPhone. There would be no broadband internet. There would be far fewer advanced materials. This is one agency that the Federal Government could bring back in a huge way, to the benefit of all Americans.
7 – Get rid of the cost drivers to health care. Tort reform would be a huge lift for the economy. So too would forbidding states from limiting competition among insurers within their borders. This could all be done under the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution. It wouldn’t raise taxes, but it would free up money.
In fact – #7 could be used as a template, Mr. President. Look for ways to free up money in the private sector without raising taxes. No more taxes. In fact, start reducing taxes.
You said you were going to go through every line in the budget and get rid of the things that made no sense. Well? It’s time, Mr. President. Stop spending the people’s money on stupid stuff.
One more: #8 – Get rid of the socialists and communists you’ve hired as czars. Enough is enough. No more Van Joneses or Anita Dunnses. These people are blights on the Constitution, Mr. President. They are the antithesis of what this country needs in terms of bringing back the private sector to a robust pink of health.
Finally, Mr. President: stop blaming George W. Bush and his administration. Assuming anyone still believes it, it doesn’t matter anymore. This is on YOUR WATCH now, Mr. President. You’ve had a year and your policies have dramatically altered the political landscape. The buck stops with you; stop trying to pass it off with sleight of hand to George W. Bush.
You said you got the message, Mr. President. We’re waiting to see just what message you think you received.
- Off-the-cliff.com