Axis Of Obama

What is emerging out of the black comedy of Barack Obama's weakness and vacillation in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria is the revitalization of what President George W. Bush termed the "axis of evil."

By allowing himself to become what Ann Coulter charitably describes as "President Putin's bitch," Obama has not only taken yet another step in his purposeful overseeing of the decline of the U.S. as a world power, he has brought about a power vacuum that has seen Kim Jong-un restart his nuclear reactors and Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad grab the initiative as they dictate the terms of the ongoing war for the Middle East.

In reducing Obama to lackey status in world affairs and in order to further chastise his bitch for her reference to American exceptionalism, the atheist communist Putin played the God card, referencing the U.S. Declaration of Independence in the process, no less:

I would rather disagree with a case he [Obama] made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy is "what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional." It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Via: American Thinker

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The Gang of Eight’s ‘Can’t Cut It’ Argument

Amnesty would undermine the integrity of the country’s immigration laws and would depress the wages of its lowest-paid native-born workers. . . . The better course of action is to honor America’s proud tradition by continuing to welcome legal immigrants and find ways to punish employers who refuse to obey the law.

One might reasonably assume that these words were plucked from a recent National Review editorial inveighing against the Gang of Eight’s immigration-reform bill. In fact, the passage comes from a New York Times editorial published in February 2000 in response to the AFL-CIO’s call for the legalization of illegal immigrants, as well as the repeal of penalties for employers who hire them.

The union’s proposal was “unfair to unskilled workers already in the United States,” the Times’ editors argued, while noting the obvious benefits for Big Labor (“a huge new pool of unorganized workers”) and Big Business (access to “cheap labor”). It is an argument that many Democrats echoed when opposing President George W. Bush’s push for comprehensive immigration reform in 2006, specifically in regard to the proposed guest-worker program, which would have provided legal entry to more than half a million low-skilled workers.

Via: National Review Online

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Obama Hit By Storm Backlash

Natural disasters usually follow the same political trajectory: First the incumbent experiences a bounce as he tours the impacted area, shows his concern, and pledges help to his beleaguered constituents. But then reality sets in and the shortages, delays, mishaps, deaths, and devastation becomes apparent and people turn against the incumbent.

George W. Bush had his Katrina.

And now Barack Obama has his Sandy.

Last week, Obama asserted a kind of ownership of the storm by touring New Jersey in the now infamous embrace of Republican stalwart Governor Chris Christie. Now that we are all appalled by the lack of food, gas, water, heat, and the basic essentials of life throughout the storm zone, Obama’s government doesn’t look so good anymore.

Why didn’t FEMA stockpile food, water, and gasoline? We had a week’s notice to prepare for Sandy. There was no shortage of time. Did the government not realize that people needed to eat, drink, and drive?

All throughout America, we are asking these questions of our television sets as we watch the evolving story of human misery.

Meanwhile, Obama has resumed the campaign trail, pounding the opposition in the same relentless and partisan style which he used before the storm. When Obama said that voting was “the best revenge,” he threw away whatever presidentiality he displayed in touring storm damage earlier in the week.

As he entered the last week before the Congressional election of 1994, President Clinton returned to the U.S. after having presided over the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. He called me on his return and asked where he should campaign? Which incumbent Democrats should he try to help get re-elected?

Via: Dick Morriss

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Report: British Government Thinks Strike On Iran Would Be Illegal, Denies US Access To Air Bases…

The British attorney general has circulated legal advice to the prime minister’s office, Foreign Office and Defense Ministry warning that a preemptive military strike on Iran could violate international law, the Guardian’s Nick Hopkins reports. The existence of this secret document suggests that the U.K. government believes that Iran does not currently meet the legal threshold for a “clear and present danger” that would merit such an attack.

Though Iran’s illegal uranium enrichment is moving it closer to the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon, U.S. intelligence agencies do not believe that Tehran has affirmatively decided to build a bomb. The British legal memo would seem to underscore this view, as well as raise the question of whether Iran would have to cross that line for a military strike to meet the requirements of international law.

The Guardian also reveals that the U.K. is using this legal document to deny the U.S. assistance in contingency planning for a strike on Iran. The U.S. is reportedly asking for access to British airbases that are strategically located on remote islands.

The bases aside, the apparently staunch U.K. opposition to working with the U.S. on this is striking, particularly after British Prime Minister Tony Blair so closely joined U.S. President George W. Bush in planning and executing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 2003 Iraq invasion became a source of considerable political backlash in the U.K., including a two-year official investigation that culminated in Blair being summoned to a bruising public inquiry.

Via: Washington Post

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NYT: Obama’s Aura of Defeat

In an argument that was echoed and amplified around the liberal twittersphere yesterday, New York’s Jonathan Chait made the case that the Romney campaign has bluffed the press into covering the last two weeks of the campaign as though Obama’s losing. Like George W. Bush in 2000, who famously (and probably foolishly) campaigned in California to lend himself an air of inevitability in the closing days of the campaign, Team Romney’s current brash confidence is designed to persuade the media to overlook the underlying numbers that still point to an advantage for the incumbent. And it’s working, Chait argues: The “widespread perception that Romney is pulling ahead,” he writes, “is Romney’s campaign suckering the press corps with a confidence game.”

I agree with Chait that the numbers still show Obama with a slightly clearer path than Romney to an (excruciatingly narrow) electoral college victory. But if you’re looking for a reason (besides, of course, the national polling showing an ever-so-slight Romney edge) why the media narrative has tilted toward the Republicans over the last week or so, I think the Romney campaign’s guarantee of victory has mattered much less than the Obama campaign’s recent aura of defeat.

Losing campaigns have a certain feel to them: They go negative hard, try out new messaging very late in the game, hype issues that only their core supporters are focused on, and try to turn non-gaffes and minor slip-ups by their opponents into massive, election-turning scandals. Think of John McCain’s desperate hope that elevating Joe the Plumber would change the shape of the 2008 race, and you have the template for how tin-eared and desperate a losing presidential campaign often sounds — and ever since the first debate cost Obama his air of inevitability, he and his surrogates have sounded more like McCain did with Joe the Plumber than like a typical incumbent president on his way to re-election. A winning presidential campaign would not normally be hyping non-issues like Big Bird and “binders full of women” in its quest for a closing argument, or rolling out a new spin on its second-term agenda with just two weeks left in the race, or pushing so many advertising chips into dishonest attacks on its rival’s position on abortion. A winning presidential campaign would typically be talking about the issues that voters cite as most important — jobs, the economy, the deficit — rather than trying to bring up Planned Parenthood and PBS at every opportunity. A winning presidential campaign would not typically have coined the term “Romnesia,” let alone worked it into their candidate’s speeches.
Via: New York Times

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TRR: Romney Has Best Gallup Tracking Poll Numbers Since 1968

Mitt Romney continues to out-poll every winning presidential challenger since 1968.

The latest Gallup daily tracking poll of likely voters has Mr. Romney leading Barack Obama by seven points, 52% to 45%. Mr. Romney’s total is greater than Richard Nixon’s 44% at this point in the race in 1968, Jimmy Carter’s 49% in 1976, Ronald Reagan’s hard to believe 39% in 1980 (Carter was ahead with 45%), George H. W. Bush’s 50% in 1988, and Bill Clinton’s 40% in 1992. In 2000 and 2008 George W. Bush and Barack Obama both tracked at a within-error 51%.

The Gallup numbers have come under criticism from Obama supporters for their supposed inaccuracy, but the oldest established polling organization has done well in predicting the last three elections. In 2000, the final Gallup likely voter poll showed a neck and neck race, 47/45, which turned out to be a 50/50 outcome. In 2004 Gallup had the Bush/Kerry race at 49/47 and the result was 50/48. And in 2008 Gallup's final likely voter poll had Mr. Obama at 53% which was right on the money. Whether Mr. Romney's tracking numbers will hold over the next few weeks remains to be seen but right now he is on a better trajectory than any presidential challenger in the last 40+ years.
Maybe the Justice Department will want to investigate.

Via: Washington Times

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Los Angeles Times Endorses Obama for president

When he was elected president in 2008, Barack Obama was untried and untested. Just four years out of the Illinois state Senate, he had not yet proved himself as either a manager or a leader. He had emerged from relative obscurity as the result of a single convention speech and was voted into office only a few years later on a tidal wave of hope, breezing past several opponents with far more experience and far clearer claims on the job.

Today, Obama is a very different candidate. He has confronted two inherited wars and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. He brought America's misguided adventure in Iraq to an end and arrested the economic downturn (though he did not fully reverse it) with the 2009 fiscal stimulus and a high-risk strategy to save the U.S. automobile industry. He secured passage of a historic healthcare reform law — the most important social legislation since Medicare.

Just as important, Obama brought a certain levelheadedness to the White House that had been in short supply during the previous eight years. While his opponents assailed him as a socialist and a Muslim and repeatedly challenged the location of his birthplace in an effort to call into question his legitimacy as president, he showed himself to be an adult, less an ideologue than a pragmatist, more cautious than cocky. Despite Republicans' persistent obstructionism, he pushed for — and enacted — stronger safeguards against another Wall Street meltdown and abusive financial industry practices. He cut the cost of student loans, persuaded auto manufacturers to take an almost unimaginable leap in fuel efficiency by 2025 and offered a temporary reprieve from deportation to young immigrants brought into the country illegally by their parents. He ended the morally bankrupt "don't ask, don't tell" policy that had institutionalized discrimination against gays in the military.

ENDORSEMENTS: The Times' recommendations for Nov. 6

The nation has been well served by President Obama's steady leadership. He deserves a second term.

His record is by no means perfect. His expansive use of executive power is troubling, as is his continuation of some of the indefensible national security policies of the George W. Bush administration. This page has faulted him for not pushing harder for a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws. Obama swept into office as a transformative figure, but the expectations built up by the long campaign thudded back to earth amid an unexpectedly steep recession and hyperbolic opposition from the right. That the GOP has sought to block his agenda wherever possible is undeniable, but truly great leaders find ways to bring opposing factions together when the times demand it; Obama has not yet been able to do so.

Via: Los Angeles Times

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Romney Outpolling Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama At Same Point In Their Victorious Election Bids…

According to the latest Gallup survey, Mitt Romney is polling 52% of likely voters. At this point in the race he is ahead of:

Where Jimmy Carter was in 1976 (47%)

Where Ronald Reagan was in 1980 (39% -- Carter was six points up)

Where George H.W. Bush was in 1988 (50%)

Where Bill Clinton was in 1992 (40%)

Where George W. Bush was in 2000 (48%)

Where Barack Obama was in 2008 (49%)

Via: Washington Times

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Candy Crowley Let Obama Have Last Word 8 Out Of 11 Times…

What are the odds for getting the last word in a debate with Barack Obama? If the moderator is Obama-sycophant Candy Crowley, the odds are 8 to 3 against you.

That’s what happened to Mitt Romney in the second presidential debate. Of the eleven questions Crowley allowed to be asked, eight times Obama got the last word, while Crowley deigned to give Romney only three.

Not only did Obama receive three more minutes to speak, he was also given the gift of ending the discussion. Here’s how it played out:

1. Employment on graduation: Romney then Obama; followup: Romney then Obama

2. Secretary Chu and Gas Prices: Obama then Romney; followup: Obama then Romney; 2nd followup: Obama

3. Romney’s tax plans, deductions & credits: Romney then Obama then Romney; followup to Obama; 2nd followup to Romney

4. Female wages: Obama then Romney then Obama

5. Romney like Bush: Romney then Obama

6. Not optimistic, expensive prices: Obama then Romney

7. Immigration: Romney then Obama

8. Benghazi: Obama then Romney; followup: Obama then Romney

9. Assault weapons: Obama then Romney; followup: Romney then Obama

10. Outsourcing: Romney then Obama; followup: Romney then Obama

11. Misperception about candidate: Romney then Obama

The only reason the number favors Obama 8 to 3 and not 9 to 2 is that on question 8, Obama made the last speech, but Romney had the floor at the end, when he bantered with Obama.

Not only did Crowley interrupt Romney far more times than Obama, 28 to 9, and treat Romney with great disrespect, she was determined to obstruct him from having the last word. She was in league with Obama from the start.

But in the end, the last word will rest with the American people, and they know a rat when they see one. Or, in this case, two.

Via: Breitbart

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[EXCLUSIVE] 77% likelihood Romney wins popular vote, according to famous U of Colorado study

The University of Colorado (CU) prediction renowned for perfect accuracy will predict a popular-vote win for Mitt Romney later this month, Campus Reform has learned. 

The poll has accurately predicted every presidential election since it was developed in 1980. It is unique in that it employs factors outside of state economic indicators to predict the next president. 

CU Political Science Professor Dr. Michael Berry, who spoke with Campus Reform at length on Tuesday, said there is at least 77 percent chance that Romney will win the popular vote.

Professor Michael Berry from the University of Colorado told Campus Reform in an exclusive interview that there is a 77 percent chance Romney will win the popular vote.

“Our model indicates that Governor Romney has a 77 percent likelihood of winning the popular vote,” said Berry.

That number is significant, not only in its size, but because of the fact that only four presidents since the nation’s founding have won the presidency without capturing the popular vote, the last being George W. Bush in 2000. 

Berry noted his model has never been wrong at predicting the outcome of a presidential election. 

“For the last eight presidential elections, this model has correctly predicted the winner,” he said. 

Berry also acknowledged that while his poll is accurate, however, that his model does not “calculate a specific confidence level for the Electoral College result.”

The study, conducted every four years, is non-political and employs historical data as well as current unemployment numbers and income levels.

In the crucial swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, a recent poll reveals that a majority of voters believe the health of the economy is the most important issue of this election.

Additionally, more than double of the respondents in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll trust Romney over Obama to fix the economic state of our country (63%-29%).

Along with the economy, unemployment adds an element which only increases the probability of the CU prediction. 

“The apparent advantage of being a Democratic candidate and holding the White House disappears when the national unemployment rate hits 5.6 percent,” Berry said. 

Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder adds, “the incumbency advantage enjoyed by President Obama, though statistically significant, is not great enough to offset high rates of unemployment currently experienced in many of the states.”

The Colorado model has had such accuracy over the years, these results have received no criticism from academic peers, according to Berry.

Via: Campus Reform

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Obama launches pre-emptive strike ahead of Romney’s foreign policy speech

LEXINGTON, Va. — President Obama’s re-election campaign on Monday launched a pre-emptive strike ahead of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s planned foreign policy address, arguing that Mr. Romney has failed the the commander-in-chief test on the global stage — in part by staking out positions to the right of former President George W. Bush.

The Obama camp released a new television advertisement and issued a memo on Monday criticizing Mr. Romney’s bumpy overseas trip this summer as well as his response to the assaults on the U.S. diplomatic post in Libya — highlighting how a national security adviser to GOP Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign called Mr. Romney’s stance on Libya the “the worst possible reaction."

Mr. Romney is set to give a broad-scale attack on Mr. Obama’s handling of foreign policy and national security issues in a speech this morning here at the Virginia Military Institute.

In the memo, two former top Obama national security advisers — Michele Flournoy and Colin Kahl — say the former Massachusetts governor’s “latest effort to reboot and re-set the Romney foreign policy” cannot hide the fact that he pushes positions “outside of the mainstream and often to the right of even George W. Bush.”

That, they say, is not surprising because Mr. Romney has surrounded himself with the same ex-Bush advisers who embraced what they called the “with-us-or-against-us approach” that led to “some of the worst foreign policy failures in American history, including the Iraq War.”

The Obama camp also challenged Mr. Romney “to move beyond swagger and slogans” and spell out how exactly his foreign policy approach would differ from the current occupant of the White House.

Via: Washington Times

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