Big Dogs House

SPIN, LIES, LEADERSHIP? AND IGNORANCE (OURS)

Jul 14, 2011 Political

Spin
More misuse of our language (an addition to Fictionary July 10 post). The oft-used word invest. When it is uttered by a politician, you can be sure it has nothing to do with what we typically attribute it to. Their invest is a red herring for a big government program that is (probably) a repeat of an already instituted, failed and wasteful spending program that didn’t work the other times, is now repackaged and renamed for the same negative results from the same dumb premise. (I know, a long description, but oh so true.) Perk up your ears when they say invest; is government investing our money? Au contraire!

Where in our country are housing prices still rising, and where is there no unemployment problem? You guessed it! These staffers are in our world? And, this is the place from which often emanates that all-too-common D.C.-ism: We must invest in our children’s education. Really? Is the American public still falling for that worn out mantra?

News flash! You can’t fix a social problem by throwing money at it. Other countries have more students per classroom and a whole lot less money spent per child and get much better results. Their children are there to learn! Their parents demand it…their culture demands it…their teachers and administrators demand it. We (taxpayers) can feed kids breakfast and lunch and send them to the best school in their vicinity. But, if these same kids go home to an unfit guardian or adults who are terrible character examples, our money that our government spent is wasted. You can’t make life fair for some kids by feeding them, bussing them to a good school and sending them back home to non-parenting. That waste is multiplied when that unproductive, untamed and disrespectful child is an adult on welfare or in prison.

As long as we have no expectations of our children, guess what we get?

Give ’em the two “L’s” — love and limits. Yes, the limits are just as important as the love!

Lies (just two blatant examples)
Your government’s definition of transparent, independent and accountable by Secretary Sebelius, at the 5th bullet point. Do you believe her?

Your government’s Department of Homeland Security and another whopper from Janet Napolitano. Do you believe her? Did you believe her when she said our borders are safer than ever?

Leadership?
The Obama administration and many economists have warned of economic catastrophe if the United States does not raise the amount it is legally allowed to borrow by August 2. The last time we believed scare tactics by the Drama Queens they bailed out the big banks and corporations and then, to add insult to injury, they stimulated our debt and unemployment with our money on a credit card!

Ignorance
Apparently we Americans don’t know much about America. Pitiful! But, then who hasn’t seen those incredible Jay Walking bits? (This video: Your reward for reading this far!) Maybe we got where we are today because we don’t know what, when and how this country became so great. We don’t know our own American History! Maybe we ought to start getting smart, paying attention, and becoming responsible citizens. No point in waiting for or expecting those in charge to change their ways!

My Personal Desire – time to get back to the basics. More reading and learning for me. It really is quite easy today with answers to everything literally and figuratively at my fingertips! What excuse do I have?

If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.
- Aristotle

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
- Winston S. Churchill

A country without a memory is a country of madmen.
- George Santayana

Some historians hold that history is just one damned thing after another.
- Arnold Toynbee

CoolCat

Tags: Commentary, history, housing prices, Jay Walking, leadership, lies, spin

Obama Can Stop Blaming Bush; Its All His Now

May 12, 2009 Political

The Democrats are good at pointing fingers and assigning blame so long as the fingers and blame point away from them. The current economic downturn is a direct result of their liberal policies which ultimately led to the housing market collapse. The easy credit and the lack of rules, all championed by Democrats who were captured on film defending the practices, were the major cause of the problems we have. I also believe that some wealthy people like George Soros manipulated the market just before the election in order to assist Obama and that the manipulation helped us reach the breaking point.

To be sure, there were financial institutions that gamed the Democrat’s rules in order to make money but let us keep in mind that Congress makes the laws and if these greedy people used them to make money then as long as no laws were broken the people are just greedy and not lawbreakers. However, Democrats in Congress were just as greedy with their special loan rates, their political contributions from financial institutions and their friends raping Fannie and Freddie for millions of dollars in salaries while riding those entities into the ground.

There is enough blame to go around.

However, the time to blame George Bush has passed. Bush had little to do with the collapse and his biggest mistake was to push for bailout money. The first six years of his presidency were prosperous. Unemployment was low and the stock market was doing well. Things went south after the Democrats took control of Congress. The last two years of Bush’s presidency were years in which Democrats controlled Congress and the collapse happened under them.

Certainly Bush and the Republicans are not blameless. They spent far too much money and began to act like Democrats. People rejected this and sent many of them home but the reality is, the house of cards fell down under Democratic control and as a result of Democratic policies.

Barack Obama has played the blame game for months. During the campaign he blamed the world’s woes on Bush which one would expect during a campaign. However, Obama has continued to state that he inherited the problems. This is not completely true and those he inherited came from Democrats.

It was one thing to blame Bush in the first 100 days but we are past that now and all of it belongs to Obama. A true leader assumes responsibility and works to develop solutions. Obama continues to point fingers and make false claims that every problem was inherited. He has had enough time and now it all belongs to him.

This will not stop people in his administration from making the false claim that something was inherited and it will not stop them from blaming Bush but they will be lying and misleading because they cannot actually lead.

Every President has inherited things from his predecessor and some of them were good while others were bad. Few ran around blaming the other guy for months on end. Amazingly, they never seem to give credit to the other guy for the good stuff.

We are winning in Iraq so Obama claims that he has changed things and now we are on course. He has never looked at something good and said that he inherited it from Bush. He has never given Bush credit for anything good. No, but he sure blames all the bad on Bush.

Mr. Obama, stop whining, stop crying, and stop pointing fingers and using the tired excuse that you inherited a mess. You have been in office long enough that it all belongs to you. It is yours and the reality is that your policies are causing the problems. Stop crying and start leading if you actually know how to do that.

Wesley Pruden has a great article in The Washington Times which discusses these issues and more. He hits the nail on the head and lays the blame where it belongs.

Remember, out of control spending was bad when Democrats were chiding Republicans for it but now that Obama is outspending all the presidents in history combined, it is good. Deficits were bad until the sainted won was elected and now making it 3 or 4 times larger than the record Bush set (under the Democrats) is supposed to help fix things.

No, it will be bad because Obama does not know what he is doing and his policies will cause a collapse (or a civil war). Obama will blame it all on Bush as will the boot licking Democrats who follow him around.

But they will be wrong. It all belongs to Obama and those of you who do not believe so need to tell us at what point your guy accepts responsibility. As far as I am concerned, as long as he keeps blaming the bad things on Bush then that is how long we get to credit the good things to him.

Come on Obama, man up and take charge.

It belongs to you. You wanted it, you got it so stop trying to blame everyone else and start taking responsibility.

Oops, personal responsibility is something Democrats do not believe in.

Tags: Bush, economy, inherited problems, leadership, lies, Obama

The Contradictions Of Barack Obama

Mar 11, 2009 Political

Barack Obama is a charismatic man who is well spoken and is usually coherent so long as he has a teleprompter from which to read. Obama is a man of contradictions which might be a polite way of saying he is a liar.

Barack Obama pushed through a trillion dollar spending bill that he called a stimulus package. It was so critical it had to be done yesterday. The Congress acted so quickly that none of them read it. Obama then went on holiday and eventually signed it four days later.

Interestingly, after he spent wealth that has not yet been earned, he gave a speech where he said we had to spend money wisely and that there needed to be fiscal restraint. He promised that they would not spend money without a funding source (usually whomever he decides is rich). How contradictory is that? He says they won’t spend money they don’t have after he spends more money than anyone in the history of government and it was money that will not be earned until our grandchildren get jobs.

Today, Obama signed a 450 billion dollar omnibus package which wrapped up all the things Congress did not get to last year. It is the unfinished business for the year. I guess Congress was too busy taking all those days off last year to get this done. In this bill there were about 9000 earmarks. This is money that is wasted by our government. This is money we do not have and it is being spent after Obama said we would not do that.

About 126 million dollars in earmarks going to Massachusetts will be spent on structures honoring the Kennedys. That’s right folks, the US government is spending millions of dollars to stroke the egos in the Kennedy family. This is a blatant waste of money and Barack Obama should have vetoed the bill. He was obligated to do so by his own words. No, not the lie about spending money we don’t have but another, now apparent lie, he told during the campaign.

Barack Obama said that that he would fix the broken earmark process to ensure our money was being spent wisely. Then he allowed Congress to insert 9000 earmarks in a bill and he signed it. He did not keep his word about earmarks which is another one of those pesky contradictions.

I also read that Obama used a signing statement on the bill. That is something he said George Bush abused and all indications were that he would not do that. Guess it is different when you actually have to govern.

Interestingly, Obama and his minions claimed that this bill cleaned up last year’s mess and that things would be different when they submit their first official budget for next fiscal year (begins 1 October 2009).

This is a cowardly way of addressing the issue and it shows that Obama does not possess leadership skills. What better way for him to signal this change thing he talked about then to veto it and tell them to send it back when it had no earmarks? He could have sent a strong message to the American public and to Congress. Instead he allowed Congress to abuse him like a $2.00 hooker.

This man is clueless and he is spending us into a black hole. I never want to hear the Democrats cry about Bush and his spending again. Yes he spent a lot and I wrote about that several times but Obama is on a pace to well exceed Bush and he will do it in a much shorter period.

A community organizer is not a leader. Barack Obama has never been in charge of anything. He has never been a leader. He has never had to be the decision maker.

It shows.

Tags: Congress, contradictions, Democrats, leadership, lies, Obama, Republicans, spending

Another President Who Governs By Polls

Jan 9, 2009 Political

Leadership is the ability to influence people to willingly follow those in charge. A true leader inspires people to do things and to accomplish great deeds. Those who are not leaders just go along to get along. People want to be led. They want someone in charge and they want someone who takes decisions. Well, at least they used to.

Enter Barack Obama. He won the last election by a pretty good margin and he did it by promising that government would take care of every little thing that comes along. Health care, jobs, money if you are poor, it did not matter because Obama and his Democrats would provide it. The people who elected him and who want these things have lost the ability to be independent. They have lost the will to thrive. These are people who feel they are unable to do for themselves so they must rely on government to do it for them.

George Bush, for all his failings, is a man of principle. One can argue about the principles involved but Bush did not use polls to govern. He led this country and he took unpopular stands in order to keep it safe. He will leave with about a 30% approval rating but he is not worried about that because he said that he did not govern by polls, he took decisions he thought were in the best interest of the country. Yes, there is debate as to whether they were in the best interest. Perhaps we can say that Bush was not a great leader because he failed to get people to willingly follow.

Or is that the case? The members of the military, by and large, support him and what we are doing. Perhaps they are not the dumb, uneducated people that John Kerry described but are well informed instead. The people who disapprove of our safety or who blindly follow Barack Obama would be a closer fit to the people John Kerry described, or to paraphrase; If you don’t stay in school and get a good education you become a liberal.

George Bush had high approval ratings and was perceived as doing a good job especially after 9/11. The Democrats and their media wing could not allow this so they tried to systematically destroy the president for political gain. They were successful in 2006 and 2008 but after January 20^th they will hove only themselves to blame.

Barack Obama is not a leader. He has never been in charge of anything and his boldest move in office was to vote “present”. Obama, like Clinton before him, relies on polls. His transition team is now using polls and focus groups to try to ram a stimulus package through Congress. This package will undoubtedly cost over a TRILLION dollars and will prolong the recession and might well drive us into a depression.

Relying on focus groups and polls is not leadership. The military would not be effective if leaders took a poll before every mission. Soldiers follow leaders. Outside the military people will follow a leader.

Unfortunately, in hard times people will also follow charismatic individuals who promise them the world. The people somehow lose focus on being independent and follow the person who says what they want to hear. Jim Jones, a charismatic leader, led hundreds of people who were looking for something better, something better he promised to deliver. He got them to drink poisoned Kool-Aid in a mass suicide. This is where we get the term, “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Many in this country drank the Obama/Democratic/liberal Kool-Aid because the sainted one is a charismatic person who was able to make them believe he has the answers. Have those who consumed that Kool-Aid caused the suicide of this nation?

Obama’s decisions are based on polls which means that he is trying to govern by using popular decisions to get things accomplished. This is a recipe for disaster as Clinton demonstrated. He was not a great president and he brought us the events of 9/11. Clinton diddled while Rome burned.

“Leadership” by poll watching is ineffective and counterproductive. The popular position is not always the correct position and depending upon where polls are taken and who is asked, any preconceived conclusion can be obtained.

Sometimes a true leader must take an unpopular decision. When some serious problem exists, people do not take polls to determine how to handle the issue. However, the sheeple in this nation have decided to put their faith in a Kool-Aid dispensing, charismatic, poll watching, empty suit who could not lead them out of a burning building.

Regardless of what the polls say…

Tags: Bush, charisma, leadership, Obama, polls

Harry Reid; Don’t Know What To Do – Do Nothing

Sep 19, 2008 Political

In midst of all the turmoil on Wall Street when Americans are looking to their elected leaders to finally do something, the Democratically controlled Congress is set to recess and leave the mess for the Fed and the Treasury. The House will adjourn on the 26^th and the Senate a week later and they will not reconvene until after the national election in November where they will diddle around for a few weeks and leave for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They call this the do nothing Congress for a reason.

The Democrats want you to believe that they are fit to lead this country. They want you to believe that they are equipped to handle the problems facing America. In two important items facing us they have the same general plan and that plan is retreat. They want to pull the troops out of Iraq and hand them a defeat (though Obama does not want the Iraqis negotiating for this right now can you say – treason). They also want to retreat from the mess that they caused on Wall Street.

Make no mistake about it, the Democrats are the reason we have this mess. They can call it failed policies of George Bush but that is incorrect. The whole mess was out in place under Bill Clinton. He and his Democrats made it easy for people to get loans regardless of their creditworthiness. Now those people can’t pay their loans. Couple this with the number of Democrats who held positions of power in Fannie and Freddie, people who raped us to the tune of millions, and you have the perfect storm. Throw in a little corporate greed and mix it with Democrats ignoring warnings from Bush and McCain and you end up with the mess we are seeing.

The Democrats are criticizing George Bush, John McCain and the Republican party for this mess but they are doing nothing to fix it. They talk about failed policies but the only thing the Democrats have offered came from Democratic Senator Harry Reid who said; “no one knows what to do.”

This is a supposed leader and he is saying no one knows what to do. Senator, the thing to do was to have tighter control five years ago when George Bush wanted it. Instead, you Democrats played games. To give you the benefit of the doubt though, maybe no one knows quite what to do but I can assure you this, going home is not the proper course of action. I know all you pampered idiots are tired from all the work you have done after returning from your FIVE WEEK VACATION but going home is not acceptable. Real leaders would stay and get this resolved.

Then again, no one ever accused Democrats of being leaders.

No one knows what to do so let’s go home and watch it on the news.

Keep both chambers of Congress in session as long as it takes to get things in order. Anyone who leaves in the midst of this does not deserve your vote.

The Democrats all talk about leadership and how they are ready to lead the country. It would appear that the only thing they will lead is the way out of the Capitol so they can take another vacation.

Losers, losers, losers.

Senator Reid, terrorists just detonated a bomb in [name a major city]; what should we do?

No one knows.

Moron.

Tags: clueless, Harry Reid, leadership, Obama