President Obama: Distractor-in-Chief

Last week, President Obama issued an executive order that would prevent deportation of illegal immigrants under the age of 30. Not only is this a grasp of unconstitutional power, it is a politically motivated, not a pure policy motivated decision. In the first nearly two years of his presidency, President Obama had a Democratically controlled House and a filabuster proof Senate until early 2010. He had every opportunity to push through immigration reform, but didn't. Now, he has chosen to circumvent Congress and legislate from the executive branch in order to pander to a voting bloc. However, it is more than just pandering; it is distraction, just has been nearly every politically motivated decision he has made. While the economy remains in the toilet, people become distracted by President Obama's newest shiny voting bloc du jour. It has become a pattern--both for the President and those of us who vehemently oppose his policies and approach.

Class warfare has been a part of President Obama's rhetoric throughout his political career. However, it has ramped up as the election has drawn nearer. There was his "Kansas speech" which focused on income inequality and the rich paying their "fair share", but nothing in his speech provided economic empowerment for the middle class he purports to stand with. Instead, he aimed to breed envy by pitting the wealthy against the middle class. Just as in his proposed "Buffet rule", there was nothing that lowered Buffet's secretaries taxes, only ideas that would raise Buffet's taxes, which does extremely little for denting the deficit. While President Obama attempted to divide Americans into classes--a distraction--there was still nothing that would have provided more job opportunities, empowered the middle class by allowing them to keep more of what they earn, nor reduced the deficit. It was yet another political distraction.

Earlier this year, President Obama pounced on a poorly worded comment from Rush Limbaugh to fabricate a political meme of a Republican "war on women" when Republicans advocated for religious freedom for Catholic employers. Instead of focusing on economic empowerment of women by aiming to improve the economy, he again aimed to distract by turning those who supported contraceptive mandates against those who did not.He tried (and failed) to show how his policies would support women through the character of "Julia", who really wasn't economically empowered, but instead was government dependent. Meanwhile, the economy still suffered, and President Obama continued to try to distract using divisive issues.

He has done this with other demographic groups as well.  Obama has flip flopped on his views on gay marriage throughout his political career, yet at a time when 1 in 6 of his big donors are gay and following a mistimed statement by VP Biden, he felt the need to "evolve" yet again.  Again, another attempt to distract from a poor economy and pander to a voting bloc. He continues to push for student loan rate reductions in order to distract from a poor economy and pander to young voters. However, the rate reduction would only reduce monthly payments by an average of  just $7 a month. Also, with a poor economy, what jobs will these graduates have the opportunity to apply for or receive? Again, distraction.

President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half during his first term has instead increased the deficit dramatically. Also, as I noted in a previous post at Breitbart:

Additionally, his $862 billion stimulus package passed in January of 2009, which his administration claimed would prevent unemployment from going over 8%, has left a record of  39 straight months of unemployment over 8% in its wake. Fifty-six percent of likely voters want Obamacare—the President’s signature piece of legislation—repealed. Solyndra? Lightsquared? Both are now bankrupt companies with campaign donor ties to President Obama that received either loads of taxpayer dollars or preferential treatment from the Obama administration. Fast and Furious? A gun walking scheme that has left a border patrol agent dead, more than a thousand guns missing, and the Obama administration culpable.

 All of those issues are just a small sampling of his administration's failures. It isn't any wonder that he wants to distract and pander. He has lost an advantage is those voting blocs he won in 2008. He wants to distract and divide because if the electorate is focused on our differences, then we can't be focused on the poor economy and unethical government that affect us all.  The socially charged issues the President brings up are indeed important, but they are a solely political means to an electoral end for this President. Distraction. With any policy, the policy itself must be the ends, not the means for for political expediency. The economy is bad for both citizens and illegal immigrants,rich or middle class, Catholic and non-Catholic, male and female, recent graduate or non-recent graduate, married or single, gay or straight. Don't buy into the the divisive distraction.

Crossposted here and here.

If This Is a War on Women, Why Do I Feel Like I'm the Grenade?

The Washington Free Beacon reported today that despite President Obama’s “Republicans are waging a war against women” rhetoric the women on his staff are paid less than the men:

Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show. According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000). Calculating the median salary for each gender required some assumptions to be made based on the employee names. When unclear, every effort was taken to determine the appropriate gender.

That difference in annual salary is more than enough to pay for Sandra Fluke’s birth control if she were to go to law school three times (using her math)! This is par for the course for President Obama (pun intended) who paid men more than women when he was in the Senate (Senator McCain did pay women equally), as then Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin noted in a speech in October of 2008 (see the7 minute  mark):

  Following that speech from Governor Palin, the Obama campaign attempted to defend his record:

The Palin campaign cited press reports from last month and Senate records to back its claims on Obama’s pay to Senate staffers. The discrepancy, however, appears be that more top level staffers in Obama’s Senate office are men, and therefore have higher pay. The Obama campaign points to the many senior-level female staffers currently employed on the presidential campaign trial.

Nice try, guys, but why are more top level staffers men? Are women not capable of holding top level positions? The White House hasn’t responded yet to the latest news of their pay disparities, but I would imagine their argument is similar for his presidency.

 The hypocrisy is just as much of a problem as the issue itself as the president points fingers at everyone else while he is doing the same or worse himself. This is what he has done by jetting all over the country while condemning Americans for driving SUVs or while he and Mrs. Obama eat junk food while lecturing citizens about the need to eat healthy. This “war on women” is not an issue of policy, but of politics.  It is an election year after all. The politicization of this issue though demeans women, rather than empowers us on multiple levels.  By promoting this war on women in conjunction the discussion of the forced coverage of birth control, liberals belittle the intelligence of women by assuming we vote with our uterus, rather than our brain. Furthermore, it assumes that we don’t seek the personal economic empowerment needed to pay for our own birth control if our employer’s insurance doesn’t cover it.

 The war on women has in reality turned women into grenades in a partisan battle, and it is divisive. In addition to the class warfare that President Obama has waged throughout his presidency, most recently in his absurd claim that President Reagan would support the Buffett rule which would raise taxes on the very wealthy, he has tried to divide on racial lines and other “identity politics” groups.  Such rhetoric dilutes the liberty of the individual. Margaret Thatcher once said, “ [t]here is no such thing [as society]! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”  When people are divided into groups of society, their identity lies in that group and subsequently so does their liberty, or lack thereof, and they are not free to provide for themselves. Businesses are stymied by overbearing regulation which makes them less free to hire people. Unemployed individuals who could be hired by overregulated business don’t have the freedom and resources to provide for their families. Those with jobs have less financial freedom because of the increased cost of consumer products due to that overregulation, bad energy policy, and poor monetary policy that has devalued the dollar. This all happens when a political war is waged in the foreground, while the president’s economic illiteracy is pushed to the background.

 This war on women (or whoever is the identity politics flavor of the month) has turned women into grenades in a partisan battle, and the political war at large waged by our President has taken individual freedom hostage.

Crossposted here and here.

Projection, Class Warfare, the Left and Governor Palin

A vile, depraved post on Leftist blog regarding Trig Palin's recent birthday was rightfully lambasted throughout the conservative blogosphere yesterday from Gateway Pundit to Big Journalism and beyond (even the liberal Mediaite). Blog postings, in addition to tweets, led to a massive new media effort, #trigscrew, to call advertisers at this Leftist blog to remove their ads. Due to a blast of tweets alerting them to their product being advertised on the Leftist blog, several companies have indeed lifted their advertising. It has revealed the Left for who they are, and it's all the more sweet that the fusion of the free market and social media has made such an impact on the Left's transparent agenda.

The Left claims to be for the proverbial little guy, butobviously not when it is this little guy. They are not only ideologically progressive, they are also projectionists-- attacking conservatives for what they themselves are exhibiting. Actions speak louder than words, so the saying goes, but for many of these projectionists, they only have words. Such is the case here. However, this misplaced projection and false accusations extend beyond the Left-to-Right blogosphere. Politicians on the Left and progressive pundits have accused Governor Palin of being a puppet for big corporation--and have played the class warfare card. Progressives should learn from history (even from across the Pond) about what happens when you play the class warfare card with a strong conservative woman:

In her Madison Tea Party rally speech on Saturday, Governor Palin called out the Left for engaging in "class warfare and fearmongering":

And when Wisconsin’s own Paul Ryan presented a plan for fiscal reform, what was Obama’s response? He demonized the voices of responsibility with class warfare and with fearmongering. And I say personally to our president: Hey, parent to parent, Barack Obama, for shame for you to suggest that the heart of the commonsense conservative movement would do anything to harm our esteemed elders, to harm our children with Down syndrome, to harm those most in need. No, see, in our book, you prioritize appropriately and those who need the help will get the help. The only way we do that is to be wise and prudent and to budget according to the right priorities.

These are the words of a woman whose actions have matched her words. As Governor, Palin budgeted wisely, prudently,and according to the right priorities.Her prudent budgeting has been well documented. She vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars in unneeded spending, rejected stimulus funding that would not be effective in Alaska's climate, and removed duplicated federal/state funding from her budgets. At the same time, Governor Palin's tenure included implementing a Senior Benefits program for low income elders. She also increased funding for students with disabilities in rural schools and increased funding for special needs education. Overall, she increased special needs funding by 175%. The very things that Governor Palin called for are the very things that she has done during her political career. She prioritized and budgeted accordingly.

Meanwhile,the Obama administration's health care "reform" legislation disallows families from using flexible spending accounts (which is the family's own money) for special needs education. He also employs a health care adviser who believes in that health care should be distributed by their "productivity in society" and their "potential to live a complete life". Additionally, President Obama and the liberals in Washington D.C. support spending money that we don't have to fund Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, ignoring the fact Planned Parenthood turned a more than billion profit as a non-profit entity in 2008. Governor Palin, of course, is opposed to such funding stating in part:

We recognize that not only is our country buried under Mt. McKinley-sized debt, but that the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves.

What does this say about our society? The Left uses Trig Palin as a prop for their hatred of Governor Palin, while wrongly accusing Governor Palin of using Trig as a political prop. They try to fear monger and accuse conservatives of destroying entitlement programs, when it is their mindsets that contribute to policies supportive of rationing of care by panels like Independent Payment Advisory Board that affects Medicare reimbursement and treatment. They accuse conservatives of not caring for the elderly and those with special needs, when it's their rhetoric and policies that are uncaring.They are progressive projectionists. I think I'll stick with the ideas and character of the woman not only has her political rhetoric match her policies, but who also had the courage and compassion to do something 90% of mothers in her situation don't do.

Crossposted here, here, and here.