It’s Monday, September 19th, 2011….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, the WSJ‘s Stephen Moore contrasts fantasy….

….and….

….reality:

The Obama Promise: Then and Now

The president’s own economic words are coming back to haunt him.

Barack Obama now faces perhaps his most politically crippling deficit of all: a credibility deficit. That observation is reflected in the latest Bloomberg poll, which finds that on the heels of his big jobs speech last Thursday night, more than half of Americans (51%) do not believe the president’s claim that this latest $447 billion spend-and-tax-or-borrow scheme will create new jobs.

“As the economy has gotten worse, people have stopped listening to Obama and his speeches are no longer an asset, they’re a liability,” concludes Kellyanne Conway, president of the Polling Company. That is because the gulf between three years of rhetoric and reality is so gigantic.

It is hard to make a persuasive case for a $447 billion economic stimulus plan that looks and sounds so much like the $830 billion plan that Americans were sold two-and-a-half years ago. That first plan didn’t “create or save” the 3.5 million jobs the White House promised, and most Americans don’t agree with Vice President Biden that it worked beyond his “wildest dreams.” Tell that to the 14 million Americans—two million more than when all the spending and borrowing began—who are still out of work, or the tens of millions who do have jobs but have seen their income drop in the last two years.

American voters can’t conceive of how $447 billion of more debt and spending will create jobs when the last three years have already given us $4 trillion of new debt with no jobs. (Oh….and the genius that dreamed up Cash-4-Clunkers is now heading Team Tick-Tock’s Department of Economic Mismanagement.) What is even harder to believe is the president’s assurance that the new American Jobs Act “will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for.” How can this plan be paid for when the first, $830 billion, plan has never been paid for? (And likely won’t be in our lifetime!)

While running for president Mr. Obama promised “pay as you go budgeting,” and in February 2009 during his “fiscal responsibility summit” he sounded like Ronald Reagan when he said that “this is the rule that families across this country follow every single day, and there’s no reason why their government shouldn’t do the same.” But the Obama government isn’t doing the same. It is doing the opposite.

Here’s another Obama promise that sounds like a whopper today. In 2008 he pledged he would “go through our federal budget—page by page, line by line—eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.” That hasn’t happened. (After all, when 6 hours of so many days are spent on the golf course, time does get a little tight!)

In the wake of the lousy economic news, Mr. Obama, who promised a new era of “accountability,” has blamed the ongoing jobs recession on “a run of bad luck.” Who knew there would be a tsunami in Japan, disruptions in the oil supply from the Mideast—when has that ever happened before?—and so many other job-killing events beyond the president’s control?

The green jobs revolution we were expecting to put America back to work is also browning out. A new Department of Energy study finds that between 2007 and 2010, clean-energy subsidies more than doubled. But after billions of taxpayer handouts have been pumped year after year into solar and wind power, these two industries supply 2.4% of America’s electricity.

Mr. Obama says he wants to make America less dependent on foreign oil, but this week he called again for raising taxes on domestic oil and gas production. He said last year that he believes America is “running out of places to drill” even though in the last five years new discoveries of oil and natural gas have occurred in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Dakota, Texas, Montana and Colorado—causing a near doubling in U.S. recoverable reserves.

Mr. Obama said in his speech on Thursday that health-care costs are a major contributor to the debt and need to be reined in. He neglected to mention what voters surely remember, which is that last year Mr. Obama signed a health-care law that adds at least 30 million more Americans to Medicaid—the program Mr. Obama now says is the problem. During the debate over ObamaCare the White House insisted that the fees in the plan for not purchasing health insurance were not a tax. But arguing before the courts on the constitutionality of the law, the White House now says these are taxes. Which is it?

Mr. Obama says he has been one of the most constantly attacked presidents in history and he is probably right about that. (Which has nothing to do with Obama personally, and everything to do with his agenda.) But his attackers in the conservative movement aren’t likely to be his undoing. His most damning persecutors are his own words and promises. The problem for President Obama is that fewer voters are listening to him. There’s no blaming George W. Bush for that.

And as this next item by David Warren, courtesy of David Drucker and the Ottawa Citizen details, when The Obamao’s not wreaking havoc domestically, he’s busily-engaged mucking up the rest of the globe:

The man who could trigger a world war

 

Hint: It’s one….or, more accurately. both….of the guys on the right!

 

 

The greatest threat to the world’s peace, at this moment, comes from a man named Recip Tayyip Erdogan. He is the prime minister of Turkey, at the head of the Justice and Development Party (“AK,” from the Turkish). A former mayor of Istanbul, he was arrested and jailed when he publicly recited Islamist verses (“the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets are our bayonets,” etc.), in defiance of the old secularist, Ataturk constitution, which made it an offence to incite religious and racial fanaticism.

Erdogan’s credentials as an anti-Semite, but also as an anti-Communist, were established from his school days. He came from an observant Muslim family, and while nothing he says can be taken without salt, he claims an illustrious ancestry, of fighters for Turkish and Ottoman causes.

He is an “interesting case” in other respects. His post-secondary education was in economics; he is a very capable technocrat, and under his direction the Turkish economy was rescued. He is a dragon-slayer of inflation, and public deficits; he took dramatic and effective measures to clean up squalor in the Turkish bureaucracy, and as the saying goes, “he made the trains run on time.”

Erdogan is also a “democrat,” who has no reason not to be, because he enjoys tremendous and abiding domestic popularity. The party he founded came to power by a landslide, and has been twice re-elected. (He had a stand-in for prime minister at first, for he was still banned from public office.) There are demographic reasons, too, why Turkish secularism has been overwhelmed by Turkish Islamism. The Muslim faithful have babies; modern secularists don’t.

The “vision” of this politician, which he can articulate charismatically, is to combine efficient, basically free-market economic management, with a puritanized version of the religious ideals of the old Ottoman Caliphate. (Gentle reader may recall that I am allergic to visionary and charismatic politicians, who operate on the body politic like a dangerous drug.)

Erdogan’s vision has turned outward. His strategy has been to seek better economic integration with the West, while making new political alliances with the East – most notably with Iran. He now presents Turkey as the champion of “mainstream” Sunni Islamism, while trying to square the circle with Persian Shia Islamism. This could still come to grief over Syria, where the Turks want Iran’s man, Assad, overthrown, and the Muslim Brotherhood brought into a new Syrian government.

Turkey’s military was the guarantor of pro-western Turkish secularism, under the Ataturk constitution. With characteristic incomprehension of the consequences, western statesmen supported Erdogan’s efforts to establish civilian control over the generals – our old NATO friends. By imprisoning several senior officers on (probably imaginative) charges of plotting a coup, Erdogan was able to induce the entire Turkish senior staff to resign, last month.

They did this because they had run out of allies. Hillary Clinton and company hung the only effective domestic opposition to Erdogan out to dry. Turkey’s powerful, western-equipped military is now entirely Erdogan’s baby, and the country’s secularist constitution is a dead letter. Erdogan, the Islamist, now has absolute power.

It was he who sent the “peace flotilla” to challenge Israel’s right to blockade Gaza (recognized under international law and explicitly by the U.N.). He made the inevitable violent result of that adventure into an anti-Israeli cause célèbre. He has now announced that the next peace flotilla will be accompanied by the Turkish navy.

This will put Israel in the position of either surrendering its right to defend itself, or firing on Turkish naval vessels. There is no way to overstate the gravity of this: Erdogan is manoeuvring to create a casus belli.

He has made himself the effective diplomatic sponsor for the Palestinian declaration of statehood next week – from which much violence will follow. Every Palestinian who dies, trying to kill a Jew, will be hailed as a “martyr,” with compensation and apologies demanded.

He has been playing Egyptian politics, by adding to the rhetorical fuel that propelled an Islamist mob into the Israeli embassy in Cairo last Friday. He is himself in Cairo, this week, on a mission to harness grievances against Israel, in the very fluid circumstances of the “Arab Spring.” For action against this common enemy is the one thing that can unite all disparate Arab factions – potentially under Turkish leadership.

The West is just watching, while Erdogan creates pretexts for another Middle Eastern war: one in which Israel may be pitted not only against the neighbouring states of the old Arab League, but also Turkey, and Iran, and Hamas, and Hezbollah.

This is what is called an “existential threat” to Israel, unfolding in live time. It could leave the West with a choice between defending Israel, and permitting another Holocaust. In other words, we are staring at the trigger for a genuine world war. With Recip Erdogan’s twitching finger on it.

In a related item, the WSJ sagely suggests the proper response to….

The Palestinian Statehood Gambit

The U.S. should respond by cutting funds for the U.N.

Are Palestinians entitled to a state? Before certain readers erupt at the mere suggestion that Palestinians may not be so entitled, we’d note that the Kurds—one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world—don’t have a state. Neither do the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the Uighurs and Tibetans of China, the Basques of Spain, the Chechens of Russia or the Flemish of Belgium. The list of peoples with plausible claims to statehood is as long as the current number of U.N. member states, if not longer.

Yet when the United Nations holds its annual meeting in New York this week, the session will be dominated by the efforts of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to declare statehood. First the PA will apply to the Security Council for full membership in the U.N., which the Obama Administration has promised to veto. Then the General Assembly will hold a vote on whether to give the Palestinians “observer state” status on a par with the Vatican. This is almost certain to pass by a two-thirds, 129-nation majority.

A vote at the U.N. won’t create a Palestinian state and will likely retard the creation of one, perhaps for years. It won’t remove any Israeli settlements from the West Bank and might well give Jerusalem reason to accelerate the pace of construction. It could also lead Israel to take various punitive measures against the Palestinians, including freezing tax transfers worth about $100 million a month. The U.S. Congress might follow by cutting off the $600 million in annual aid to the Palestinians.

Why, then, are the Palestinians intent on winning the sort of symbolic trinket with which their cupboards are already full? The charitable explanation is that they are using the statehood bid as a gambit to get Israel to agree to various demands, including a halt in settlement construction.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas offered a hint of his real ambition when he wrote, in the New York Times in May, that “Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only as a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Criminal Court.”

That means not the usual feckless resolutions at the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, but travel bans and international arrest warrants for Israeli soldiers involved in the “occupation” of a supposedly sovereign state.

In other words, what Palestinians seek out of a U.N. vote isn’t an affirmation of their right to a state, but rather another tool in their perpetual campaign to harass, delegitimize and ultimately destroy Israel. “We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years,” Mr. Abbas said the other day. That’s another way of saying that the “occupation,” in Mr. Abbas’s view, began with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and not with Israel’s takeover of the West Bank and Gaza after a war that threatened Israel’s existence in 1967.

Mr. Abbas may also see the U.N. gambit as a cost-free exercise, since the international community (including Israel and the U.S.) hasn’t exactly been punctilious in holding Palestinians to account for violating their diplomatic or political undertakings. Sooner or later, we will read an op-ed explaining that defunding the PA will only help the radicals of Hamas, and that the only way forward is for Israel to make new concessions to entice the PA back to the very negotiating table they spurned by going to the U.N.

Here is a better course: The Obama Administration, which has wasted six months begging the Palestinians to change course, might instead announce that a declaration of Palestinian statehood in New York would lead to the closure of the Palestinian representative’s office in Washington. Congress could also enact Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s bill to cut funding to the U.N. if it endorses a Palestinian state. This worked wonders the last time the Palestinians sought to have the U.N. declare their state during the George H.W. Bush Administration.

Perhaps it’s also time to rethink the fundamental desirability of a Palestinian state so long as the Palestinians remain more interested in tearing down their neighbor than in building a decent political culture of their own.

And since we’re on the subject of triggers, they’re the subject of today’s Money Quote, as Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck offers his faultless logic as to why Governor Jerry Brown should sign a bill banning the open-carry of unloaded weapons in California:

“We need to limit the number of guns in public, not increase them by wearing them on our hips,” Beck said. “This is not Dodge City…. We are a modern civilized community, and we should work on peaceful solutions to end criminal behavior.”

Spoken like a political bureaucrat far-more interested in protecting the “rights” of illegal immigrants….

http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/03/14/24955/lapd-makes-it-easier-illegal-immigrant-drivers/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/chief-beck-says-arizona-immigration-law-could-cripple-law-enforcement.html

http://www.redstate.com/pzahorecz/2011/03/16/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-fails/

….than tax-paying, law-abiding citizens….or are we the only one detecting a pattern here?!?

Speaking of crime, Townhall.com‘s Katie Pavlich has the latest on events down near our Southern border:

From Fronton, Texas:

U. S. Border Patrol agents seized six assault rifles, one rocket launcher, a grenade launcher, and three packages of what appeared to be C-4 explosives Tuesday near the Rio Grande. Agents patrolling the river near Fronton spotted a black bag in the brush. Inside, agents found the guns, rocket launcher, grenade launcher and explosives, along with a lower receiver for an assault rifle and 20 ammunition magazines.

Too bad the Obama Administration can’t blame law-abiding gun shop ownersin the United States for this one. Why? Because you cannot buy rocket and grenade launchers at their stores. But don’t worry, the border is as secure and as safe as ever:

“Despite a lot of breathless reports that have tagged places like El Paso as dangerous, violent crime in southwest border counties has dropped by a third. El Paso and other cities and towns along this border are consistently among the safest in the nation.” –President Obama May 10, 2011

Yeah….

Meanwhile, as this next item forwarded by George Lawlor reports, another long-time Dimocratic ally continues to lose public support:

48% See No Further Need for Labor Unions, 30% Disagree

 

Half of American Adults (48%) think labor unions have outlasted their usefulness, but there’s a sharp difference of opinion between Republicans and Democrats on the question. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 30% disagree and say that unions have not outlived their role. Twenty-one percent (21%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

These findings are consistent with attitudes found two years ago. At that time, 45% said labor unions actually make America weaker, while 26% believed they make the country stronger and 13% said they have no impact.

Yet while 68% of Republicans and 54% of adults not affiliated with either of the major political parties believe unions have outlived their usefulness, 52% of Democrats still see a need for them. Among working Americans who do not belong to a union, just 13% would like to join a labor union where they work. That’s up slightly from nine percent in March 2009.  Seventy-eight percent (78%) would not like to join a union.

Unions may have, long before our time, served a honest purpose; these days, they’re about as useful as….

And in the “MSM Bias….WHAT Bias?!?” segment, James Taranto confirms what most of us already know to be true:

From CNN.com, here’s an especially amateurish example of media bias:

The Republican Party is split right down the middle between tea party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey.

And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Thursday also highlights the differences in demographics, ideology, and temperament between the two camps. According to the survey, on some issues, the two wings of the GOP are in accord, but tea party activists and supporters do not speak for the entire Republican Party on issues such as the deficit, global warming, evolution, abortion, gay marriage, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, or Social Security. . . .

According to the survey, roughly half (49 percent) of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support the tea party movement or are active members, with roughly half (51 percent) saying that they have no feelings one way or another about the tea party or that they oppose the movement.

See the problem? They’re arbitrarily lumping voters who are neutral about the Tea Party with opponents in order to swell the latter’s numbers. One could just as easily write: “An overwhelming 74% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents either support the Tea Party movement or have no feelings one way or another. Just 26% oppose it.”

Those numbers, we should add, are hypothetical: The “full results” don’t even give the actual breakdown.

And in the Environmental Moment, Bret Baier reports….

Al Gore’s “24-Hours of Reality” climate change program ended Thursday night. The online presentation consisted of one-hour slide shows in 13 languages, highlighting the supposed dangers of man-made climate change and ended with a speech by the former vice president.

However, some are wondering if Gore is actually hurting his own crusade. One Guardian editor compares the slide shows to — quote — “death by power-point” and asks — quote — “Despite all his efforts over the past three decades to raise awareness on this issue, is Gore now a help or a hindrance to the cause he cares so passionately about?” A Huffington Post writer notes — quote — “Not everyone has been a fan of Gore’s approach to these issues, suggesting that he has been too bookish or increasingly, too shrill.”

However, Gore defends his involvement by telling Huffington that when people don’t like the message they often criticize the messenger.

Yeah Al, but these guys….are on your side, and more importantly, believe the bullsh*t you’re shoveling!

In another “green“ related item, today’s “Throwing Good Money After Bad” segment tells how our….

Government Races to Close Billions in Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees

 The Obama administration is in a race against the clock to close by month’s end more than a dozen renewable-energy loan guarantees totaling $9 billion. Of that, just over $3 billion would come directly from the federal government’s coffers.

The administration now has two weeks to finalize the process amid an escalating political battle over a federally backed solar company spiraling into bankruptcy and facing an FBI probe….

….At a House hearing Wednesday, there was bipartisan concern about risking more taxpayer dollars on renewable energy projects that ultimately fail…

….Of the companies seeking to borrow from the Treasury Department, the biggest loan—worth $1.18 billion—would go to SunPower Corporation Systems to build a solar farm in California. Another loan of $737 million would go to SolarReserve to build a solar farm in Nevada.

That’s great….lawmakers are “concerned”; but are they doing anything to stop them?!?

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s this from The Lovely Jenny:

Ahhhh….Notre Dame: the tradition of excellence, both athletic and academic, continues!

And for those with a fondness for literature, here’s a tome destined for insignificance:

Book: Obama White House ‘Has a Real Woman Problem’

 The Obama White House is a “hostile” environment for women even though they occupy many of the senior positions in the West Wing, according to a new book. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind interviewed more than 200 people, including President Obama, for “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and The Education of A President,” which will be released Sept. 20.

Finally, inquiring minds want to know….

Did Hillary Clinton Have Plastic Surgery?

 

If so….she ought to demand a refund!

Magoo