Post Turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the squeeze gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.

Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his role as our president. The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle''.

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, what a 'post turtle' was.

The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain.

"You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just Wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with."

Comment: Just about right!

Children as Props

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Comment: Obama image screen snip from Drudge

Doctor: "Do you have a gun in your home?"

List: Obama’s 23 Executive Actions on Gun Violence.
Excerpt:

# 16, Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

Response: "None of your business"

Serious negotiators don't taunt.

Noonan: There's No 'I' in 'Kumbaya' - Obama doesn't seem to have it in him to make a deal.
Excerpt:

He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn't resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come.

He did not unveil, argue for or put on the table the outlines of a grand bargain. That is, he put no force behind solutions to the actual crisis facing our country, which is the hemorrhagic spending that threatens our future. Progress there—even just a little—would have heartened almost everyone. The president won on tax hikes, but that was an emotional, symbolic and ideological victory, not a substantive one. The higher rates will do almost nothing to ease the debt or deficits.

He didn't try to exercise dominance over his party. This is a largely forgotten part of past presidential negotiations: You not only have to bring in the idiots on the other side, you have to corral and control your own idiots.

He didn't deepen any relationships or begin any potential alliances with Republicans, who still, actually, hold the House. The old animosity was aggravated. Some Republicans were mildly hopeful a second term might moderate those presidential attitudes that didn't quite work the first time, such as holding himself aloof from the position and predicaments of those who oppose him, while betraying an air of disdain for their arguments. He is not quick to assume good faith. Some thought his election victory might liberate him, make his approach more expansive. That didn't happen.

The president didn't allow his victory to go unsullied. Right up to the end he taunted the Republicans in Congress: They have a problem saying yes to him, normal folks try to sit down and work it out, not everyone gets everything they want. But he got what he wanted, as surely he knew he would, and Republicans got almost nothing they wanted, which was also in the cards. At Mr. Obama's campfire, he gets to sing "Kumbaya" solo while others nod to the beat.

Serious men don't taunt. And they don't farm the job of negotiating out to the vice president because no one can get anything done with the president. Some Republican said, "He couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag." But—isn't this clear by now?—not negotiating is his way of negotiating. And it kind of worked. So expect more.

Comment: Obama may think he beat Boehner and the Congressional Republicans but he proved himself petty and and disingenuous. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me

Obama's "I", "me", "my" problem

Today We Are Gathered … To Hear More About Me
Excerpts:

Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served in Congress for half a century representing Obama’s birth state of Hawaii.

... Obama acknowledges that as a young person he was unaware of politics, and thus Inouye. But then something important happened that made young Obama pay attention to the first man to be elected to Congress from Hawaii after it joined the union. When Obama was 11 years old he went on vacation with his family, and those paying their respects to Inouye got to hear a long description of this amazing trip, from Seattle to Kansas, from Disneyland to Yellowstone. They heard of the young Obama’s happiness whenever the motel had a pool or an ice machine. And finally, as the people must have been twitching in the pews wondering where this was all going, we get back to the late senator.

It turns out the Watergate hearings were taking place at that time, too, and Obama’s mother watched them in their various hotel rooms. It surprised young Obama to see that a man of Japanese descent was a senator. Little did most people know that the most important thing to come out of the Watergate hearings was that Obama, with his mixed-race background, saw in Inouye a hint of “what might be possible in my own life.” That Obama in some way may have been inspired to a political career by a man who overcame prejudice and later became Obama’s colleague is a fine point to make. But it is an incidental one to the life being celebrated.

Comment: More from American Thinker. AND Obama Uses Funeral Service to Talk About Himself

President Barack Obama used the funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye to talk about himself. In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word "my" 21 times, "me" 12 times, and "I" 30 times.

Comment: I frankly cannot listen to him. I can read one of his speeches but I cannot watch / listen to him deliver one. I see in him, manipulation and self-absorption. Image source. (I've seen preachers do his too by the way. Thankfully not at my church)

Donate!

Team Obama still raising money--off Sandy Hook shootings
Excerpt:

Obama critic and blogger Jeryl Bier wrote, "Not one, but two buttons - two opportunities to donate to the Obama campaign. Not to the Red Cross, or to a memorial fund for the children and adults killed in Newtown. How hard would it have been to shift the focus, disable the buttons, for just one email, just one blog post? But the show must go on."

Comment: I received the email as well (below) ... screen shoots. Why waste a national tragedy when it can be exploited for political and financial gain! Screen shot from here

Libyan misadventure - What hath Obama Wrought?

Obama's New Libya - November 23, 2011
Excerpt:

In a chilling possible foretaste of what awaits Libya, the flag used by Al Qaeda has been flown by the leaders of the revolution there backed by Obama. On November 2, 2011, an article was published in the Daily Mail with the title "Flying Proudly Over the Birthplace of Libya's Revolution, the Flag of Al Qaeda". The pictures accompanying the article show on the roof of a building two flags, one a black flag emblazoned with the moon and Arabic script reading "There is no God but Allah". This black flag, the acknowledged banner of members of Al Qaeda, is pictured flying next to the Libyan national flag on the top of the courthouse in Benghazi. The Libyan National Transitional Council denies that they are responsible for the presence of the Al Qaeda flag, and the length of time it appears is in question, but the photographs clearly show that above the building where the forces in rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi centered their first media and governing activities flies the flag of Al Qaeda. While not widely reported in the press, this event highlights the unpredictable nature of the new government of Libya and the risk taken by President Obama when he actively supported the rebel forces in their attacks on the government of Gaddafi.

Officials say embassy attack in Libya was coordinated Excerpts:

Sources have said they believe it was a planned operation and have pointed out several developments that seem to support the possibility. The incident does not appear to be a random mob scene, but rather an opportunity that militants seized, sources say. The attackers used a rocket-propelled grenade, a weapon not traditionally carried by protesters, but commonly used by terrorists. The attack is believed to have come in two waves. The first wave got inside of the compound, and a second wave penetrated a secure room inside the building. This fact raises questions about how the attackers knew the location of the rooms inside, sources say. On Sept. 11, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri put out a video eulogizing Abu Yahya al-Libi, an Islamist terrorist and high-ranking al-Qaida member, who was killed in a drone attack in June. Sources have said they believe the Libyan incident might have been revenge for the death of al-Libi.

Comments:  Images from: Screen grab from Drudge, Daily Mail article, and screen grab from WTOP. Obama does not understand the agenda of the Islamists!

Barry disses Bush for job creation of only 310,000 jobs

If every unemployed person would vote for Romney we could solve this thing!

No gift for you!

The Obama event registry

HT: Obama Asks People Getting Married To Forgo Gifts, Ask Their Guests To Donate To His Campaign Instead…

"Maybe the copy key got stuck on the presidential speechwriter's keyboard."

  Danish TV Host Mocks Obama for His Rhetoric

Hot air

Click for larger image.

'Sock it to Me' - slamming all Dividend investors!

Obama's Dividend Assault - A plan to triple the tax rate would hurt all shareholders

Excerpts:

Mr. Obama is proposing to raise the dividend tax rate to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6% that will kick in next year. Add in the planned phase-out of deductions and exemptions, and the rate hits 41%. Then add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, and the new dividend tax rate in 2013 would be 44.8%—nearly three times today's 15% rate.

Keep in mind that dividends are paid to shareholders only after the corporation pays taxes on its profits. So assuming a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on corporate earnings passed through as dividends would be 64.1%.

... shareholders of all incomes will share the pain. Here's why. Historical experience indicates that corporate dividend payouts are highly sensitive to the dividend tax. 

... Who would get hurt? IRS data show that retirees and near-retirees who depend on dividend income would be hit especially hard. Almost three of four dividend payments go to those over the age of 55, and more than half go to those older than 65, according to IRS data.

But all American shareholders would lose. Higher dividend and capital gains taxes make stocks less valuable. A share of stock is worth the discounted present value of the future earnings stream after taxes. Stock prices would fall over time to adjust to the new after-tax rate of return. And if investors become convinced later this year that dividend and capital gains taxes are going way up on January 1, some investors are likely to sell shares ahead of paying these higher rates.

The question is how this helps anyone. According to the Investment Company Institute, about 51% of adults own stock directly or through mutual funds, which is more than 100 million shareholders. Tens of millions more own stocks through pension funds. Why would the White House endorse a policy that will make these households poorer? Seldom has there been a clearer example of a policy that is supposed to soak the rich but will drench almost all American families.

Comment: To continue with Laugh In theme ... if Obama is re-elected ... "you bet your bippy"

Obama's GIANT EGO

What CBS left on the cutting room floor in Obama '60 Minutes' interview

Excerpt:

KROFT: Tell me, what do you consider your major accomplishments? If this is your last speech. What have you accomplished?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we're not done yet. I've got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we're gonna start lowering health care costs and you're never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we've got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we've expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America's respect around the world.

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it.

Comment: Commentator's view (which I share): "But to be so egotistical to compare yourself to Abe Lincoln is to take flight from reality. CBS probably realized this which is why they strategically cut the remarks from their final edit of the interview"

Will Blacks hold Obama accountable for his policies?

Vote For Obama Because He's Black

Excerpt:

Some of his strongest, high-profile supporters in the black community are now saying that Obama's race, alone, should be enough for black voters to vote for his re-election.

Krissah Thompson of The Washington Post reports that on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show," which has an estimated 8 million radio listeners, Joyner, who is black, said, "Stick together, black people." The show reaches one in four African-American adults.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who also has a radio show and a gig on MSNBC, admonished blacks who have been critical of the president, "I'm not telling you to shut up. I'm telling you: Don't make some of us have to speak up."

...

In the same week the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was dedicated in Washington, Joyner and Sharpton are saying that Barack Obama should be judged not on the content of his character and policies, but rather on the color of his skin. How sad. How racist.


If a black president cannot be held accountable for his policies and must receive the votes of African-Americans solely because of his race, then all of the marching for equal rights has been for nothing. The question ought to be this: are African-Americans, indeed, are all Americans, better off than they were when Barack Obama took office? By any objective standard, the answer must be "no." How do black people expect their circumstances to improve if Obama is elected for another four years? If they conclude they will not, why not vote for someone who can create the conditions under which more of them might get a job, for example? Black unemployment is 16.7 percent, the highest it's been in 27 years.

Comment: To answer the question: "Will Blacks hold Obama accountable for his policies?" ... I doubt it!

Mr "I'm sorry"

Apologies Not Accepted

Excerpt:

A heretofore secret cable dated Sept. 3, 2009, was recently released by WikiLeaks. Sent to Secretary of State Clinton, it reported Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka telling U.S. Ambassador John Roos that "the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a 'nonstarter.'"


The Japanese feared the apology would be exploited by anti-nuclear groups and those opposed to the defensive alliance between Japan and the U.S.


Whatever Tokyo's motive, Obama's motive was to once again apologize for defending freedom, this time for winning with devastating finality the war Japan started

Comment: I don't have time to develop this but Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortened the war and saved untold thousands of American and Japanese lives. The Harry Truman library has a lot of information about this.

On Obama’s dropping of his g’s and how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

AP Labeled “Racist” For Accurately Transcribing Obama Speech

Excerpt:

During his speech, Obama attempted to fool the black audience into thinking he was one of them and not a paid teleprompter reader for Wall Street by dropping the g’s at the end of his words.

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama lectured the audience. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

However, after the Associated Press accurately transcribed Obama’s dropped g’s, MSNBC aired a debate segment asking whether the decision not to “clean up” Obama’s words was “racist”.

“On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama’s speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did–specifically including the “dropped g’s,” reports Yahoo News.

“Hunter called the AP’s version “inherently racist,” sparring with New Republic contributing editor and noted linguistics expert John McWhorter, who argued the g-less version “is actually the correct one,” noting that the president’s victory in the 2008 election was due, in part, to how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

It goes without saying that Hunter’s claim is completely ridiculous. Obama’s dropping of his g’s was blatantly deliberate. If the AP had “cleaned up” his speech it would have been completely misleading and inaccurate.

Hunter claimed the AP transcriber didn’t “fix” Obama’s grammar because of the color of his skin, while failing to mention the fact that transcripts of George W. Bush’s speeches were routinely transcribed (accurately) by including dropped g’s and other idiosyncratic styles of speech. She then ventured further into the realms of absurdity, claiming the AP writer was using a secret “code” through which to express his racism.

Comment: I hope black votes consider the 27-Year High On Black Unemployment

Black unemployment shot up like a rocket during the month of August, rising from an abysmal 15.9 percent to an even more shocking 16.7 percent. Much of the increase was driven by Black male unemployment, which rose from 17 to 18 percent. Black female unemployment remained steady at 13.4 percent, and Black teen unemployment experienced a dramatic increase from 39.2 percent to an astounding 46.5 percent.

Where the teleprompter meets the road

The grander the stage, the smaller Mr. Obama comes across

Excerpts:

When Mr. Obama entered office, he told us unemployment would not rise over 8% if we passed his stimulus. Now his economic advisers have just told us that unemployment will not fall below the 9% mark through next year. As if to underscore the grim news, the latest jobs report—released in time for Labor Day weekend—shows zero net job growth for August.

The politics requires not only that the president address the economy's dismal jobs performance but that he be seen by the American people to be doing it. And that's where the teleprompter meets the road.

The truth is that there is practically nothing Mr. Obama could do to gin up better jobs numbers before next year's election without massively increasing the deficit—and the Republicans won't let him do that. Even with the word "stimulus" banished from his remarks this week, no one will be fooled by new calls to "invest" in roads and bridges and infrastructure. Or by the expected hodgepodge of other proposals from extending the payroll tax holiday to tax credits for new hires.

...

In music there's a saying about a performance that was "too small for the house." That's becoming true of the president. There was a day when Mr. Obama's taste for the marvelous—a campaign address in Berlin, the faux presidential seal, the Greek columns that surrounded him during his speech accepting the Democratic nomination—all seemed to herald something exciting and historic.

Even inside the Beltway, however, substance ultimately tells. Three years into his presidency, the grander the stage the smaller Mr. Obama comes across.

Comment: My wife (and many others) says - "he never says anything". He used to have style without substance and now even the style is gone! Image source: Obama Uses Teleprompter to speak in 6th Grade Class

Obama: "I will be held accountable"

FLASHBACK: Obama: My Presidency Will Be ‘A One-Term Proposition’ If Economy Doesn't Turn In 3 Years

Excerpt:

“Look, I'm at the start of my administration. One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I've got four years,” Obama told The Today Show’s Matt Lauer on February 1, 2009.

Comment: Hopefully the folk who voted for him are listening

What we've got here is... failure to communicate

The Power of Bad Ideas - What we've got here is far worse than a failure to communicate

Excerpt:

It was late Wednesday afternoon, July 13, in the Cabinet Room in the White House. Budget negotiations between Democrats and Republicans had been going on for months. The president, the vice president and congressional leaders on both sides were meeting again. Late in the meeting, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor asked the president a question. As Mr. Cantor told it this week, he was thinking about how the White House and the Republicans were still far apart on the size of budget cuts. He felt the president and his party were hung up on an insistence on raising taxes. Mr. Cantor asked Mr. Obama if he would drop his stand that the debt ceiling should be raised without dollar-for-dollar cuts. At that point, said Mr. Cantor, the president "turned to me and said, 'Eric, don't call my bluff.' He said, 'I'm going to take this to the American people.'" Then he got up and left.

The president was confident he could go over the heads of the opposition and win the day with his powers of persuasion. On July 25 he made his move, with a prime-time national address.

Boy, did it not work.

It was a speech with a calm surface but a rough undertow. "The wealthiest Americans" and "biggest corporations" should "give up some of their breaks." The "burden" must be "fairly shared." The problem is Republicans, who are "insisting" on an approach that "doesn't ask the wealthiest Americans or the biggest corporations to contribute anything at all." These Republicans ask nothing of "those at the top of the income scale." Their stand would "threaten working families" and enrich the "corporate jet owner," the "oil companies" and "hedge fund managers." But don't worry, "the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all." "Millionaires and billionaires" must "share in the sacrifice." Otherwise the government may not be able to send out Social Security checks.

It was, obviously, an attempt at class warfare. But class warfare is inherently manipulative, and people often sense manipulation and lean away from it. Americans at this point—they've been through the 20th century—don't like attempts to divide them. It turns things sour.

Comment: Cool Hand Luke

Obama on Libya: "a matter of days not weeks" (March 18th)

Comment: That was in March! MONTHS! Billions!