By MacPundit

Today’s Democratic Party is not the party of JFK

There was a time not too long ago when President John F. Kennedy—JFK—was the Democrat’s King Arthur of Camelot. Like Barack Obama, he was idolized by the party devotees. Like Barack Obama, he knew how to deliver a speech well. But that is where the similarities end. In almost all other respects, these men could not be more different.

By even the most rigid standards John F. Kennedy was a legitimate American war hero, and while Mr. Obama’s lack of military service should not be held against him, JFK was also a self-avowed American patriot. His personal history, his grasp of American History, his love of country, were all apparent and, often, eloquently expressed in his speeches and his writings. Additionally, Kennedy always sought to unite us.

Barack Obama cannot make such claims. After almost six years into his presidency, his words, his actions, and his general behavior and demeanor, continue to cause millions of Americans to question his intentions as well as his belief in American Exceptionalism. By the same ageless standards we and other nations have always used, our current president does not appear to be a patriot. Instead, his motives are all too often, suspect. At the very least, he does not rally or inspire the people to be proud of their American heritage and their citizenship. Studies by many credible, non-partisan organizations have declared him to be one of the most polarizing presidents in US History—if not the most. Of course many of us did not need the studies to know that.

Have Democrats forgotten JFK? Yes, I think they have, conveniently. President Obama as well as other current Democrat leaders are far to the left of President Kennedy. When compared to Obama, Kennedy would be a Republican. Did I just hear an outcry from some of you Democrats? If so, I’ll bet it’s from the far-left radicals who have taken control of the Democratic Party—a party that JFK would not recognize were he here today. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at some things that JFK himself said.

“We must know all the facts and hear all the alternatives and listen to all the criticisms. Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors. For the Bill of Rights is the guardian of our security as well as our liberty.”

JFK welcomed and encouraged diverse views and debate. Obama seems to be forever annoyed by both. It has become a standard practice of his and his administration to denigrate and mock those with opposing views or anyone who criticizes Mr. Obama. Beyond public denigration and mocking, Mr. Obama regularly attempts to suppress media access to his administration. These practices have become so persistent that even left-leaning media outlets are now voicing their disapproval. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen had this to say:

“A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin,” he told [Maureen] Dowd. “They don’t want to believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistle-blowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.”

As to the Bill of Rights, unlike JFK who confirmed and protected it, Obama seems to view it as an impediment to his audacious intention to “… fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Thankfully, the Supreme Court has done its job by at least preventing him from becoming an absolute dictator. The top court has ruled against President Obama, unanimously, 20 times during the five and a half years of his presidency.

His own court appointees ruled against him in many cases, as well as in some non-unanimous decisions.

“I believe in an America where the free enterprise system flourishes for all other systems to see and admire – where no businessman lacks either competition or credit – and where no monopoly, no racketeer, no government bureaucracy can put him out of a business that he built up with his own initiative.”

Kennedy was a strong advocate of the free enterprise system. While he believed in common sense government regulation, he opposed big government overregulation that would put a business owner “… out of a business that he built up with his own initiative.” What did Obama have to say about American business and its entrepreneurs? “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” (See more on that topic here.)

“Every dollar released from taxation that is spared or invested will help create a new job and a new salary.”

That was President Kennedy’s view on taxation and job creation, and his actions mirrored his rhetoric.

What about President Obama? Well on his very long list of broken promises is this rather infamous one:

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Not only did he break that promise, he seems to have more new tax “tricks” up his sleeve than a professional magician has card tricks. Politicians are expert at disguising new taxes and Obama is a master at it. Kennedy’s tax cuts helped to create jobs and grow the economy; Obama’s tax increases and overbearing regulations on business have given us the slowest, weakest, and longest recovery from a recession in seventy years.

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

JFK was an honest man and he saw the world as it was, not as he wished it to be. He once remarked that “I’m an idealist without illusions.” And unlike Obama, he didn’t con us. By now, it is well known by all objective and informed people that Barack Obama is a very dishonest man. The well-documented list of his false statements is rather astonishing as is the list of his broken promises. Call them misstatements if you are in denial, but I encourage you to visit PolitiFact.com as well as other non-partisan sources if you are actually unaware of the extent of Mr. Obama’s dishonesty. Only 22% of the Obama statements rated by PolitiFact are considered to be true. Even when we add the mostly true statements the total is still only 47%.

If you haven’t already, I also recommend that you read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Barack Obama once taught the “Rules” to eager young students and he is a master practitioner of them.

“The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Kennedy said that the rights of man come from the hand of God. He was echoing the words of our founders. Yet Obama clearly believes that they come from the government. Frankly, I find it hard to understand why any free citizen would choose to give their government the power to choose which rights will be given to which citizens. In fact, our founding documents made it quite clear that our rights were bestowed on us at birth and that it was the job of government to make sure they were not taken away from us. Yet Mr. Obama and our liberal Democrat leaders think that they—hence the government—should be the ones to decide who has a right to what.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Need I even begin to comment on that one? The world has become exponentially more dangerous under Barack Obama. His stated foreign policy principle is “Don’t do stupid stuff.” Yet given the state of the world, he has done nothing but stupid stuff. Even Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state, criticized him for this when she said that great nations need organizing principles and that “Don’t do stupid stuff.” is not an organizing principle. She also said that Obama’s failure to support the Syrian rebels led to the rise of ISIS. I rarely agree with Hillary Clinton, but I do this time. However, this is merely the tip of a very large and dangerous foreign-policy iceberg.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Barack Obama’s beliefs and policies are antithetical to virtually everything that John F. Kennedy believed in and promoted. Obama is a hardcore, radical ideologue whose intention is to transform the United States of America into the kind of big government nation that our founders feared most. In little over five years, we have seen a massive transfer of power from the people to the federal government. It is no secret that Mr. Obama and his political machine buy votes through government handouts. As a result, he has successfully transformed America from a society based on individual self-reliance into an entitlement society. Instead of asking what they can do for their country, millions of Americans now ask what their country can do for them. In the process, Mr. Obama has added more debt in less than six years than all previous presidents combined. The results have been catastrophic.

Highly recommended: President Obama Tell All Videos.

By MacPundit

“Slick Willy” Clinton Has Obama’s Back

You lie and I’ll swear to it.

The Bill Clinton DNC speech was exactly what one would expect from Slick Willy. Until the election of Barack Obama, Slick Willy Clinton was perhaps the most dishonest president in U.S. History. But with less than four years in office, Obama has managed to make Clinton look like Honest Abe. Okay, not quite. The point is, Obama holds the title but I wouldn’t trust either one of them with a bowl of my favorite cereal. So who does Obama hire to tell the world that his failed presidency is an illusion, that he is really a great president and deserves to be reelected? – Slick Willy Clinton of course—biggest liar number two! These guys are serial liars. And yes, I would say the same thing if it were true of a Republican. I’ve said it many times, I call them like I see them.

Here’s the deal. At best, Obama’s radical Liberal policies have resulted in the worst and longest “recovery” from a recession since the Great Depression. That is not only a fact, it is being kind. So there was Obama, in deep trouble with the smart voters who actually know his record, the Democratic National Convention was around the corner, and he was desperately searching for a master political illusionist other than himself. He needed someone who could make the audience see success while they looked straight in the face of failure. He needed someone with no conscience who practiced the dark art of deceit as skillfully as he did. It was easy. So easy, I’d bet, that he had the answer before he had a chance to ask the question.

He gave Slick Willy a call and said something like, “Hey Bill, I know I lied a little about you and your wife Hillary during the ’08 campaign, but hey man, politics is a … well you know. Anyway, party comes first. Right? Oh, and I’m sorry I called you a racist, but you of all people know that winning is what it’s all about. Anything else is for the suckers. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Come on man, you’re King Truth Warper! Well, that is until I came along. Anyway, as you might have noticed, I kinda messed up the country a little bit and if that Romney guy gets elected he’ll fix everything and that won’t be good for either one of us. He’ll get elected to a second term and there goes Hillary’s shot at 2016. So what do you say? I’ll give you top billing at the convention. You know how our people are, they believe anything we say. In fact they believe it before we say it. They love you, man. Just go out there and tell everyone how smart I am and how important it is to give me some more time. It’s not for me, it’s for the party and Hillary.”

So Slick Willy did what Slick Willy does best. He stood up there in front of his loyal cult and tried to con the world into believing that Barack Obama was actually a pretty good president. Other than lying about Monica Lewinsky, it must have been his toughest con yet.

But just for the heck of it, let’s peek behind the curtain.

Slick Willy said: “… since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs. So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 (million). (Cheers, applause.)

The inconvenient truth: Over half of the total jobs created under Democrats were from Clinton’s own Presidency. They were produced during an internet dotcom boom that later collapsed. He also failed to mention that Republicans controlled Congress during 6 out of 8 years of his Presidency and that it was the Republicans under the leadership of Newt Gingrich that basically forced Clinton into balancing the budgets and other policies that led to job creation.

Slick Willy said: “It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.”

The inconvenient truth: When Democrats use the word “investment” they are really talking about spending. They just don’t want to tell you what they are actually doing. Even so, the balanced budgets Clinton signed cut the very “investments” he was talking about. Another thing he didn’t mention was that he and the Republicans held spending down to about 18% of GDP, but under Obama it is now over 24% of GDP. That is a huge difference and a real problem for all of us.

Slick Willy said: “One of the main reasons we ought to re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to constructive cooperation.”

The inconvenient truth: WOW! I’m impressed! Even Slick Willy should have had a problem getting that one out. Maybe someone who had been on the planet for about five minutes could believe it, but certainly no one else. Any number of non-partisan studies have shown that Barack Obama is one of our most divisive presidents, ever. Not that anyone would need a study to know that. It’s his way or the highway. Every one of Obama’s major legislative initiatives passed on party lines. And even though he says he always sought Republican input, when he got it, he rejected it. Obamacare was shoved down our throats in one of the most politically corrupt displays of bullying in our history. Cooperation? Anything but. At one point he actually said this, “[Republicans] can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

Slick Willy said: “… the Senate Republican leader said in a remarkable moment of candor two full years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work; it was to put the president out of work.”

The inconvenient truth: This is a classic lie-by-re-writing. He changed the meaning, which was that in order to get Americans back to work, we need to put President Obama out of work. But it gets worse: Obama himself had put many issues ahead of job creation. He spent his first two years jamming Obamacare through Congress while he should have been working to help Americans get back to work.

Slick Willy Said: “[Republicans] want to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place.”

The inconvenient Truth: Like Obama and the Democrats, Clinton just made that one up. They keep saying it because they know it sounds good and that most Americans don’t know the truth. But it is factually untrue. That is why they never back up the statement with examples. Romney’s plan, which is on his website, lists policies that have worked time and again. They worked for Kennedy and Reagan and they would work again now. It is the Liberal Obama policies—the very same ones that are in place right now—that never worked before and are not working now.

Slick Willy said: “They want to cut taxes for high-income Americans, even more than President Bush did.”

The inconvenient truth: First, Romney wants to get rid of many tax loopholes across the board, including those of high-income Americans and he wants to simplify the tax code and lower taxes on everyone.

Second, Democrats have been lying about the Bush tax cuts for years. Allow me to set the record straight: The Bush tax cuts helped virtually all Americans. In fact, to show how dishonest Clinton, Obama, and the Democrats are, think of this: When Bush was president they accused him of giving tax cuts to the wealthy only. They called them “The Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy.” They said they did not help the middle-class at all. But now that Obama is president and the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of the year, Obama says he wants to get rid of the Bush tax cuts for upper-income people and keep the Bush tax cuts for the middle-class. Really? I thought there were no Bush tax cuts for the middle-class. How can you keep something you said was not there? But hey, they lie so often, you can’t really expect them to remember them all.

Slick Willy said: “They want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts.”

The inconvenient truth: I challenge Clinton or Obama to point to any regulations that Romney wants to get rid of that would “… prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts.” Again, Clinton and the others simply make things up that they know will sound good to Americans who don’t have the time to check on everything they say. Furthermore, it was a lack of regulations at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that triggered our financial crisis, and it was the Republicans that tried to get new regulations put in place to prevent a financial crisis. And it was the Democrats that blocked any new regulations. (See Bush Failed Economic Policies and Obama Blames Bush For Our Financial Crisis)

Slick Willy said: “When President Barack Obama took office, the economy was in free fall. It had just shrunk 9 full percent of GDP. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Are we doing better than that today? The answer is yes.”

The inconvenient truth: It would be real nice if Slick Willy had experienced some kind of spiritual epiphany by now, but one can only dream of such things. Here again, he spins the numbers to make them look like something other than what they are. He compares the worst part of the recession to today and asks if we are better off instead of asking how the Obama “recovery” compares to other recoveries. In other words, if we ask if we are doing better now than we were doing when Obama took office, the answer is a resounding NO.

Since January 2009 when Obama took over, unemployment is up, annual household income is down by more than $4000, the price of gas at the pump has more than doubled, food, clothing, etc. are more costly and still rising, the housing market it still in shambles, and Obama has added a frightening $5.4 trillion to the national debt. It is a fact that Obama’s so-called recovery is the worst recovery from a recession 83 years!

(I need a full-time fact-checker to keep up with Slick Willy and the Liar In Chief.)

Slick Willy said: “The president’s energy strategy, which he calls ‘all of the above,’ is helping too. The boom in oil and gas production, combined with greater energy efficiency, has driven oil imports to a near-20- year low and natural gas production to an all-time high. And renewable energy production has doubled.”

The inconvenient truth: Actually, Obama does not even have an “all of the above” energy strategy. It doesn’t exist! Slick Willy did the same sleight-of-hand trick that Obama does so often. (They’re both so darn good at it.)

Here’s how their trick works: First, they tell you there is a “ boom in oil and gas production” so now you have in your mind this wonderful vision of oil and gas flowing out of pipes all over the country. Then they imply that Obama has caused the industry to create new efficiencies, which with all the new oil and gas, have “… driven oil imports to a near-20- year low and natural gas production to an all-time high.” Finally, they tell us that “… renewable energy production has doubled.”

Here’s the problem: While oil production has increased, the increase is far from a “boom.” And then there is this: The increase in production is on private land where Obama can’t stop it. They don’t mention that, nor do they mention that we could actually have a real boom but for the fact that Obama and his regulatory bullies have restricted production on public lands. In other words, the increase in oil and gas production that Obama and Slick Willy brag about is happening in spite of Obama, not because of him. As though that is not bad enough, Obama will not approve the construction of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada, which would increase the flow of friendly foreign oil, decrease our dependency on unfriendly foreign oil, and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the U.S. Finally, Obama by his own admission is literally destroying the U.S. coal industry.

Oh, and about the “… renewable energy production has doubled.” thing? It’s kind of doubled from miniscule to twice miniscule. It not only remains a very small part of our energy production, the Obama renewable energy program is riddled with cronyism and corruption and countless millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered on failed projects that put a lot of money in the pockets of Obama supporters. That is how your president redistributes your money. Think Solyndra.

Slick Willy said: “Even more important, after a decade in which exploding college costs have increased the dropout rate so much that the percentage of our young people with four-year college degrees has gone down so much that we have dropped to 16th in the world in the percentage of young people with college degrees.

So the president’s student loan is more important than ever. Here’s what it does — (cheers, applause) — here’s what it does. You need to tell every voter where you live about this. It lowers the cost of federal student loans. And even more important, it give students the right to repay those loans as a clear, fixed, low percentage of their income for up to 20 years. (Cheers, applause.)

Now what does this mean? What does this mean? Think of it. It means no one will ever have to drop out of college again for fear they can’t repay their debt.”

The inconvenient truth: So first he implies that student loans are hard to get even though they may actually be too easy to get. They are so readily available that many studies claim that this contributes to the sky-rocketing cost of tuition. They say that the Obama policies make it too easy for students to take out ever more and bigger loans, which in turn encourages schools to raise their tuition. The result is that students end up with more debt and less relative value from their degrees. It’s a vicious cycle and one more example of unintended consequences from vote-getting, specious liberal policies.

A Moody’s analysis warned:

[u]nless students limit their debt burdens, choose fields of study that are in demand, and successfully complete their degrees on time, they will find themselves in worse financial positions and unable to earn the projected income that justified taking out their loans in the first place.”

So do you think for a minute that Obama or for that matter, Slick Willy, really care about what happens to these students later? I do not think so. It’s all about power—getting the votes and winning an election. They are demagogues.

That’s enough. I’ll just wrap it up with one last big Slick Willy lie.

Out of all the incredibly dishonest claims made by Slick Willy at the Democratic National Convention, the one that seems to have stuck in the minds of the American people more than all the others was this: “No president could have “magically” fixed the economy in one term”. When I heard those words flow out Slick Willy’s lying mouth, I thought “Oh boy, that’s going to mean a lot to people who don’t know any better.”

So if some of you who thought that might convince you to stick with Obama for another four years, listen to what I have to tell you. Not only could someone else fix the economy in four years, someone did. As Slick Willy would say, “Now listen to me.” Ronald Reagan faced a deep recession left over from Jimmy Carter. It was the worst recession since the Great Depression of the thirties. In many ways it was worse than Obama’s. I remember it very clearly. Interest rates were sky high, people were literally fighting at gas stations because there was a shortage of gasoline, and—thanks to the policies of Jimmy Carter, which are eerily being mirrored by Obama—overall all, the economy was a monumental mess and Carter had lost control of the problems in the Middle East. Sound familiar?

But the policies Reagan implemented were very different than Obama’s—and so were the results. Reagan claimed that fifty years of misguided liberal policies had over burdened the free market with taxes and regulations and that, along with government over spending, it had drained the free market of its natural vitality. (Exactly what Romney is saying now.) Reagan’s plan: Get “the government off the backs of the American people” by cutting taxes, slashing spending, and cutting back on counter productive regulations. Again, does this sound familiar? It should because that is where we are now.

Did Reagan’s plan work?

Real per capita GDP increased by nearly 23% and the stock market more than tripled in value. The Reagan recovery created almost 25 million net new jobs, or about 344,900 jobs per month. His policies ushered in the the longest peacetime period of unbroken economic expansion ever seen in American history. Remember, Mitt Romney is proposing the same kinds of Reagan policies. You know, the ones that work. On the other hand, President Obama is asking us to let him try his policies for another four years. You know, the ones that haven’t worked for him or anyone else who has tried them. So the choice should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention.

Really, this is not complicated

You don’t hire a college professor to fix your plumbing and you don’t hire a neighborhood organizer who has literally never managed or run anything to govern a nation—especially the most powerful and influential nation in the world. You don’t believe the words of the two most dishonest presidents in U.S. history. You just don’t.

Finally, you don’t hang on to ideas about someone that are factually untrue. Barack Obama’s record as president—as compared to all our other presidents—is at the very least one of the worst and is probably the worst. He may also be the most dishonest president in our history. To think otherwise is delusional because all of what I just said is well documented. It’s not personal. It’s not about race or anything other than what is real and true. I have fought against bigotry throughout my entire life. I despise it. So when I write these things I write them with a clear mind and heart. This is about the survival and future of our country.

We are being asked to give up what has made us great.

This is very serious because this is one of the most important elections in history. We are being asked to choose between our traditional form of government and economic system—the one that has made us the most powerful, successful country in world history for a much different big government, nanny-state system, which has been tried without success many times before. Personally, I cannot think of one single sane reason to do that.

More than ever before, we need to be mature and wise when we go into the polling booth to choose who will lead us for the next four years. If you are not taking this seriously or you are not well informed, do yourself and your country a favor and please don’t vote. You see, a dumb vote cancels out a smart vote and we need all the smart votes we can get right now.

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.