By MacPundit

It is like we are two nations—One is informed, the other ignorant

Your country, our country—the great United States of America—is in deep trouble. We are tottering on the brink of economic collapse while almost thirty Middle Eastern countries are literally on fire—fueled by a deep hatred for America. Yet because there are far too many ignorant Americans among us, almost half of us act like everything is fine. Well, there is nothing fine about the current state of affairs in America. If you don’t know how serious things are, you owe it to all of us to read this article.

An ignorant vote cancels out an informed vote. So please do your country a great service: If you are too lazy or too disinterested to become informed, please do not vote in this election.

But if you really do care about the future of our country, watch this video before you continue. It was made by John Zogby, a highly respected non-partisan pollster, just after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Pay close attention and replay it if you think you missed something important.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8?rel=0]

Let’s review what we just saw and heard.

Remember, this was a typical sampling of the much larger Zogby study.

• They all said that Republicans controlled Congress and they were all wrong. The Democrats controlled Congress.
• Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the Democratically controlled House of Representatives. She was second in line to become president. They did not know who she was.
• Barney Frank was a powerful Congressman who with other Democrats blocked Republican efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two agencies some believe were responsible for the housing market collapse, which led to our financial crisis. They did not know who he was.
• Harry Reid was and still is the Majority Leader of the Democratically controlled Senate. He too helped to block reform at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They did not know who he was.
• They did know who Sarah Palin was. But because of politically biased media coverage and efforts by her Democrat opponents to belittle her, they knew only meaningless, superficial things about her. You can be sure they did not know anything important like the fact that she was the most highly rated governor in America at the time. (At one point Alaskans gave her a 90 percent approval rating.) Later in the interview, they all thought she said she could see Russia from her house, which she never said. She actually said you can see Russia from land in Alaska, which is true.
• When asked which candidate claimed to have campaigned in 57 states, they all named someone except Barack Obama, the one who actually said it. In fact, he said he had already campaigned in 57 states and still had one to go. (You do know that we have only 50 states, right?)
• When asked which candidate won their first election by getting all their opponents kicked off the ballot, once again, they named Palin or McCain but not Obama, the one who actually did it.
• When asked which candidate said their own policies would bankrupt the coal industry and send energy prices sky high, they either claimed to not know or named someone other than Obama, who was the one who said it.

Do you see the problem? We have become an ignorant nation—exactly what our founders worried most about. They predicted that if America failed, it would do so by committing suicide. They had given all the power to the people—to us—and they knew that slick politicians would steal it from us unless we were well informed. Only ignorant people can be manipulated.

Consider these words from our 3rd and 35th presidents

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.
John F. Kennedy

But there is another problem

Even if you want to be informed, you will need to know exactly where to get accurate, honest information. You see, much of our media—where we get our information—is corrupt. They do not give us all the facts. With few exceptions, most of them are liberal Democrats even though 80 percent of Americans are not. It was not always this way. Years ago, it didn’t matter if a news reporter was a Democrat or Republican. They had an ethical code and most of them lived by it. So even if the news was not good for their candidate, they reported it accurately. As a result, our ancestors were actually better informed than we are now. But today, about half of Americans are either uninformed or misinformed. That is why the people in the video were unable to correctly answer even the most basic questions.

In 2008 we really did not know who we were electing

By all fair standards, Barack Obama was the most unqualified presidential candidate ever. We knew less about him than any presidential candidate in history. The truth is, we still don’t know much about him. That is because he and his political machine have worked very hard to keep important information from us, and our corrupt media don’t ask them for it. For example, Barack Obama still refuses to release his school records from high school, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard. Yet, again, the media never asks him about it, even though they pushed hard to get the same records from candidates in the past. (See Obama School Records)

But this time it is different. Now President Obama has a record for us to consider

Now that he has been our president for almost four years we can look at his record and decide whether it is good or bad. But, because we cannot trust the media to inform us honestly, many of you don’t know his real record. In fact, you have been told so many conflicting things that you probably don’t know what to believe anymore. So let’s look at the facts—the real facts—the truth.

He is absolutely responsible for his own record

No matter what he or the media tell you, after almost four years, President Obama is responsible  for his record as president. Regardless of what he inherited—much of which was his and his fellow Democrat’s fault—he is responsible for his own record as president. That is how we do it in America. It is his economy and his foreign policy. So let’s take a look.

• Our National Debt – How much money we have borrowed and now owe to others
  • When Obama took office it was was $10.626 trillion.
  • It is now (September 24, 2012) $16.053 trillion.
  • Our debt has grown by $5.427 trillion in less than four years under Obama. He has added more debt than any president in our history. In fact, he has added more debt than all presidents from George Washington to George H.W. Bush combined.
  • Candidate Obama called President George W. Bush unpatriotic for adding $4 trillion in eight years. But he, Obama, added $4 trillion in two and a half years—less than 1/3 of the time!
  • The National Debt now exceeds 100 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services. This means that if we used everything we produced in our entire nation in a year to pay off our debt, it would not be enough.
  • The federal budget sent to Congress by Mr. Obama, projects the National Debt will continue to rise as far as the eye can see. The budget shows the Debt hitting $17.5 trillion in 2013 and $25.9 trillion in 2022.
  • As our share of the National Debt, every man, woman, and child now owes about $51,000.
  • For the first time in our history, we are leaving our children and grandchildren a burden of debt that will make their lives far more difficult than ours are.
  • This debt problem is deadly serious and if it is not dealt with, it could cause a worldwide financial collapse like the world has never seen. And not only have the Obama policies not slowed the increasing debt problem, the budget he submitted would increase our debt dramatically in the coming years.
• Unemployment – After 42 months, it remains over 8 percent
  • It is the longest period of unemployment over 8 percent since the Great Depression.
  • According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just over 58 percent of the adult population does not have any kind of job at all (full or part time), the lowest figure in 30 years.
  • Obama predicted that his huge Stimulus Bill, which cost the taxpayers almost $1 trillion, would keep unemployment under 8 percent and that it would be about 6 percent by now. It has not been below 8 percent since he took office.
  • Not only has it not gotten better, last month’s job report showed that for every new job created, four people dropped out of the job market because after searching long and hard, they could not find work and they simply gave up.
  • Only 64 percent of adult men have a job of any kind, the lowest figure ever.
  • If we add the workers who can find only part-time work, or the discouraged dropouts who are no longer counted in the statistics, the real national jobless rate is about 15 percent.
  • Millions of Americans who have been out of work for a long time have been forced to use up their savings and are concerned that they won’t be able to cover basic living expenses in retirement.

• Poverty – Under President Obama it is at record levels.
  • 15 percent of our population—more than 46 million Americans are now living in poverty.
  • The poverty rate for children remains more than 20 percent for the third year in a row. More than one-third of black children and Hispanic children live in poverty.
  • The Department of Agriculture reported that Food Stamp usage is at an all-time high. 47 million Americans—about 1 in 5 adults—now depend on Food Stamps to feed themselves and their families. Under Obama policies, 15 million Americans have been added to the Food Stamp program. That is an alarming 49 percent increase since he took office.
• The Middle-Class – It is disappearing.
  • While President Obama continues to tell us he is for the middle-class, since he took office the average American annual household income has dropped by $4,000.

• Foreign Affairs – National Security
  • By any fair measure ” … this president will leave his successor a country that is considerably less secure than it was when he took the oath of office.” Since we do not have room here to adequately review President Obama’s record on foreign affairs and national security, I have included the above link to an extensive Washington Post article, which you can read to learn more. You can tell by the link text that his record is not good.
• Women’s Issues
  • Income Inequality – It is hurting women. While President Obama tells women they should vote for him, under his policies income inequality—as measured by the Gini index—has reached a new record high.
  • Women in the workplace – While he tells women he is on their side, that he respects them, we get a completely different picture from women who work in the Obama White House. (See The Obama War On Women)
• A Divisive President
  • In 2008 candidate Obama told us that he would unite the country. However, those who knew his record were skeptical because he had the most Liberal voting record in the Senate. In fact, he voted 97% of the time with Democrats only.
  • As president, while he said he wanted to work with Republicans he has used every opportunity to criticize them and dishonestly accuse them of being uncooperative. Now, he creates false class warfare issues, which further divides our country. For example, “The Republican War On Women.” “The rich against the poor,” and others that in reality do not exist. The result? Instead of uniting us, he has divided us.

The list is long yet it would take another page or two to adequately review the horrendous state of our economy, overall. I didn’t even mention the price of gas at the pump, which is around $4.00 per gallon. It was $1.83 when President Obama took office, so it has more than doubled. Food, clothing, housing—virtually everything we buy is far more expensive. As a result, the quality of our lives has been measurably diminished and millions of our fellow Americans continue to suffer.

If you are still reading, you deserve to be congratulated—even praised. It means you care about our country and that is what this is all about. But I have left at least one important question unanswered:

Where can we get accurate information about the candidates and the issues?

Well, if you do not have the time to search out and verify every important piece of information—as I did for this article—I suggest you do the next best thing, which is to get your news from the most highly rated news channel on cable television. According to studies done by various independent research organizations, that would be Fox News Channel. Of course if you believe what the left-wing propaganda puts out, your blood pressure may spike at the mere mention of Fox. But if you are really sincere about wanting to be well informed, I suggest you rethink what you have heard and tune in to Fox for at least one entire week.

Here’s why

There are good reasons that Fox gets a much larger share of the cable viewing audience than the others. Their news reporting really is fair and balanced. Notice I said “news reporting.” That’s important because we have to distinguish between news reporting and commentary. For example, one of Fox’s popular programs is Hannity, which is conservative commentary. The host, Sean Hannity, is a registered Conservative and he let’s his audience know that. He does not pretend to be a news reporter or journalist. But for honest, straight news you can’t do any better than Bret Bair or Sheppard Smith. Bret is on from 6 to 7 every weekday evening and Sheppard from 7 to 8. I recommend them highly.

On the other hand, the same independent research organizations have found news outlets like ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN to be, well, rather biased to the left. Of all of them, MSNBC is the most biased—so much so that it is hard to tell at times whether they are a news network or a commercial for the Obama campaign. Enough said.

By MacPundit

Let’s be honest, Liberals are not always rational

If you ask a Conservative what Romney’s plan is for the next four years, he or she might tell you about the Five Point Plan Romney laid out in his acceptance speech and suggest that you can read the details on Romney’s website. However, liberals may give you a completely different response when you ask them a similar question.

For example, ask a Liberal what Obama’s plan is for the next four years. He or she will most likely change the subject to Romney and tell you that Romney has no plan. If you tell him that Romney does have a plan, he will continue talking as though he didn’t hear you—which could be true—and say something like “Obama’s not going to take away a woman’s right to vote, like Romney will.” When you point out that what he just said is not true, he will—you guessed it—continue talking as though he never heard you. Like a programmed talking doll, he may tell you things like Obama is for middle-class working people, which is a populist talking point designed to imply that Romney is against middle-class working people. But, once again, if you tell him that is just one more big liberal lie, he will either keep on talking, or maybe give you a blank stare—you know, the kind you see when someone’s brain has just gone into standby mode.

In any case, he will not tell you what Obama’s plan is for the next four years, because he can’t. Not only does he not know,  but he will probably be very annoyed with you for having asked the question in the first place. He may even act as though you just scuppered him with an unfair, trick question. Now remember, the question was, “What is Obama’s plan?” If you could read his thoughts, you might get this: “I hate it when they ask questions like that! I just know that whatever Obama’s plan is, it’s better than Romney’s—whatever his is.”

Am I generalizing? Yes, but not by much. I have to look far and wide to find a liberal with real knowledge of the players and issues in this campaign. (I just paused to think about that last sentence and at the moment, I cannot think of a single conversation I’ve had recently with a liberal who knew the real facts about either candidate or the most important issues.)

Case in point

Just last week, I was talking to a liberal who began to opine on the class warfare “fairness” thing. He said rich people should pay their fair share. Naturally, I agreed and pointed out that they are, that the wealthiest top 10% already pay 71% of the entire federal income tax bill. I also mentioned that 47% of American wage earners don’t pay any federal income tax at all. Not surprisingly, for a few seconds I saw that familiar, though strange, my-brain-is-on-standby, look in his eyes. Then his girlfriend handed him a laptop and suggested he look it up.

Now before I continue, you need to know that this guy is an intelligent, articulate man who presents himself as being well versed in current political issues. Yet the stats I had just given him were, apparently, as foreign to him as E=mc² would be to an orangutan.

Anyway, he cranked up the laptop and when he appeared to be intently reading something on the screen, I asked what he found. He said, “It says 47% of wage earners do not pay any federal income tax.” It was a revelation but, sadly, not an epiphany because shortly thereafter he told me that George W. Bush lied about Saddam Hussein having WMD. Imagine that! After all these years he was still repeating that raggedy old liberal myth. (See Is Obama More Dishonest Than Nixon, Reagan, And G.W. Bush?)

Millions have been stricken

This very strange behavior among liberals is widespread. Many books have been written on the topic and while it is tempting to dismiss liberals as plain, old-fashioned ignoramuses, the truth is more complex. For example, many—perhaps even most—liberals think of themselves as being more intelligent and knowledgeable than the general population. Yet their behavior belies that assessment. They express a firm belief in Darwinian evolution, yet their resistance to certain types of knowledge implies an inability to grow intellectually. (See Liberal Ignorance – Economics) Also, this oft displayed sense of superiority makes one suspect an overcompensation for a sense of inferiority.

Then there is the mob-think, adoration thing, which was on display once again at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. As the cameras panned the audience, I could not miss the worshipful looks on thousands of adoring faces as their leader, Barack Obama, spoke. It was truly disturbing. Mr. Obama is my thirteenth president and until he arrived, I had never seen this kind of unsettling phenomenon before. If you understand the soul of America, you know that this kind of idolization is not a part of it.

What’s with the initials?

It is an odd thing, really, that Democrats want us to believe they are the party of the people. It is they, not Conservatives, who transform their iconic figures into something akin to movie star status—or more. The Kennedy presidency became “Camelot” even though Jack Kennedy could, arguably, have been called the philanderer-in-chief. I liked the guy, but with the exception of his economic policies, he was not one of our best presidents. And Camelot? Anything but. And what is this thing they have with initials? FDR, JFK, LBJ? I remember some disappointment among Democrats when Kerry was running because JFK was already taken. They even gave Martin Luther King the MLK label even though he was a Republican and Kennedy had him wiretapped. (I bet some of you liberals just learned something in that last sentence you would rather not know.)

Dispelling  some more Liberal myths

Democrats want you to believe that Conservatives and the Republican Party are a bunch of rich guys who only care about themselves. Once again, however, they are either ignorant of the facts or they are being intentionally dishonest. A few years ago, Professor Arthur C. Brooks of Syracuse University did a study on this very subject. He also wrote a book based on the study. Here is a brief summary of his findings:

After exhaustive nonpartisan research into the charitable behavior of liberals and conservatives he found that the average conservative-headed household gives 30% more to charity than the average liberal-headed household. He also learned that among the same households conservatives earn 6% less annually than do liberals. Simply put: Conservatives earn less but give much more money to charity than do liberals. His study also revealed that of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average, George W. Bush won 24 of them in the 2004 presidential election. Yes, 24 of the 25 most charitable states were red states.

Let’s wrap it up.

Most liberals I know will not allow you to engage them in a constructive, informed discussion. Why? Because they can’t. They hate any facts that disturb their mindset. Hence, they are unable to mount a rational argument to support their opinions. They know this. They know if they debate you, you will produce real facts, which they will not be able to refute. They will avoid that any way they can.

On the out chance that a liberal is reading this, I must say that statements like the ones made by Kelly Washington and other Democrats at the Democratic National Convention—statements like, Republicans want to take away a woman’s right to vote. — were simply made up by nasty, small-minded political hacks who obviously don’t give a damn about our country. There is absolutely no basis in truth to support that statement or all the other similar ones made during the DNC. Yet speaker after speaker spit out grossly dishonest remarks over and over again. It was the most disgusting display of dishonesty, ignorance, and dirty politics I have ever witnessed in a major party convention. It also says a lot about the leader of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama. The other speakers simply followed the leader who is, himself, such a prolific liar that fact checkers, literally, have a hard time keeping up with him. (See Documented Obama Lies)

I have said it before: I am uncomfortable every time I connect the “liar” word with my president. But I sincerely believe that because of his ideology and his severe record of deceit and incompetence, our nation is in great danger. I also believe that we may never recover from the consequences of another four year Obama presidency. So I will continue to call it like I see it as my small part in the effort to defeat Barack Obama in November.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

By MacPundit

Actually, we did, including the bridges and roads!

“You didn’t build that.” went around the world at light speed. I know, I know, he was talking about bridges and roads. Okay, I’ll give him that. But he may be sorry I did.

You see, there’s a little problem with Mr. Obama’s explanation—the one some of you doubled down on. Now pay attention. After he extolled the importance of bridges and roads, he said:

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

He said he meant that businesses can’t succeed without the bridges and roads that the government built. So he was telling us the government built the bridges and roads first and the businesses benefited from that.  He said he was talking about the bridges and roads when he said, “You didn’t build that.” So to be absolutely clear, he said the businesses did not build the bridges and roads.

So there. I said I’d give it to him. Are you still with me? Good. Now I have a couple of inconvenient little questions.

1. Where did the government get the money to build the bridges and roads?
2. Who built them?

Do you see the problem with our leader’s explanation? Government does not create wealth. Government has no money until it takes it from the private sector, which, of course, is the only part of our economy that actually does create wealth. The fact is, it creates all the wealth! It also creates all the jobs, feeds all the people, builds all the houses, makes all the clothes—and, yes, it pays for and supplies all the workers to build all the bridges and roads.

How does the private sector do all those things? Well, it is made up of millions of organizations we call “businesses” and these businesses figure out what is needed and then they fill all the needs. They invest their money, their time, their talents, and they hire, train and pay people to do the work. (You did notice that they create jobs?)

Now this is important:

If the businesses did not do all of those things first—before the bridges and roads were built—there would be no money with which to build the bridges and roads.

Are you struggling with this? I realize how difficult it is for some of you to give credit to those awful business people, but unless you’re living in the woods au naturel, those nasty businesses made everything you own. I know, it’s a hard pill to swallow. But it’s true. Go way back in history and you will see small shops in quaint little villages. There were shoemakers and bread makers and furniture makers, and the people walked on and drove their wagons on rutted, bumpy dirt roads. That is, until the villages and towns could get enough money from the businesses and the people who worked for the businesses in order to have proper roads built—and maybe a bridge here and there, too.

Hysteron proteron – Preposterous, absurd, ridiculous

So, you see, our leader has placed the famous cart before the horse. As a Harvard man, he may be familiar with a figure of speech known as hysteron proteron in which the thing that should come second is put first. This sort of misplacement is sometimes referred to as being preposterous, absurd, or ridiculous. Personally, I think any or all of them fit quite nicely.

To summarize: The private sector not only supplies the money to build the bridges and roads, with few exceptions, it also builds the bridges and roads. Typically, the government contracts with private sector companies to do the work. But even when government workers do the work, they are paid with taxpayer money, which has been created in the private sector.

So let’s finish where we began: He was talking about bridges and roads. Okay, I’ll give him that.

It’s Bush’s Fault

Why do President Obama and the Democrats continue to blame “Bush’s failed economic policies” for the financial crisis even though it is not true? Because they can. You see, they know it is a complex subject and they know that the media have so far been unwilling to explain what really happened during Bush’s time in office. They also know that as long as most of the media remain in their camp, they will continue to protect the president. Yet, considering its reach and importance to the 2012 campaign, this may very well be Obama’s biggest lie.

A quick review

1. Did the Bush tax cuts cause the Recession? No, and if Obama really thought so, why does he want to keep most of them?
2. Did financial deregulation under Bush cause the Recession? No. Countless studies failed to find any evidence to support the charge that rule changes by the Bush SEC contributed to the financial crisis.
3. Did the Bush deficits cause the Recession? Obama can’t possibly support that idea. After all, Obama has already added almost $6 trillion to the national debt in just 3

   A note about the recovery before we get into the weeds

   • Obama and his economists predicted that the stimulus would create a recovery rate of 4%+ annual growth. It has averaged a pathetically weak half that, and 2013 promises to be no better.
   • They also predicted unemployment would be under 6%. It has been 8% or higher for 42 straight months. It now stands at 8.3% and shows no signs of moving down.