President Negligence

How would the media spin this after a major international (terrorist) incident that more than half the time, the President does not attend his own daily intelligence meetings. We know how they would have reacted in the Bush years. While Bush did attend his daily intelligence meetings  - for eight years - they still went after him for not connecting the dots once bin Laden was accused of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks.

Kudo's to the Washington Post, a big time mainstream newspaper for at least putting this out there. The U.S. is still officially in a war and it would seem that these meetings would be important. Maybe it is ceremonial, but if a situation arises that was discussed - or should have been - at these daily briefings then I would expect the media to hold President Obama to the same standards as they did President Bush. They won't, of course.

Obama has been re-auditioning for a job he already has for the last 2 years. He fund raises, campaigns and plays golf. He isn't even bothering with the act of governing. All of his executive orders have been vote getting plays, and most of them extra-constitutional. The roll-over Congress does nothing to strike back because it would only help Obama with the constituency group he is favoring with his executive decrees. The media would be screaming bloody murder if Bush had done some of these things, and even FOX News drops the indignation when the next new shiny object passes before their camera lens.

It's no secret that I am not a supporter of Barack Obama - I not only find his policies repugnant but it's the "cult of Obama" that sickens me the most. How can anyone look at the state of America and say to themselves we need four more years of that? How can the media be so uncritical?

If there were even the slightest hint of light at the end of the tunnel then I could see it, maybe. But despite 30+ months of job growth and a buoyant stock market and rosy corporate profits 25 million people are out of work or have jobs way below their potential and millions have given up looking all together. The work force has fallen to 1980's levels but our population is massively larger. By any measure this administration is a dismal failure on the economic front for the middle class. And considering the attention he gives to the security of this country we are one incident away from his abject failure on the foreign policy front.



CW

Clinton the Absurd

It is laughable to see ads on my TV with Bill Clinton advocating for the re-election of Barack Obama. His assertion that President Obama's plan for reviving the middle-class is superior to Mitt Romney's is just absurd. The middle-class has suffered more since the inauguration of Obama than ever before. The rich may not "as rich" as they once were, but they'll be fine. The poor have been helped by this President in so far as more "safety net" money has been spent than in any time in the history of the world. The ranks of the poor have swelled precisely because the middle-class is dwindling.

It has been estimated that the middle class has lost 39% of it's wealth since 2008. Median household income has declined by a whopping 7.3% since Obama became President. We have become poorer as a nation faster than any time in memory. The poverty rate is likely to soar from the current 15.1% to as high as 15.7%. Poverty is spreading at record levels across the nation, from underemployed workers and once self sufficient suburban families to the poorest of the poor.

For Bill Clinton to sit there and tell us that Obama has a better plan is ludicrous - where is it!!!

There is no plan to revive the middle-class. If there were why would the administration not have started working on that instead of starting the re-election campaign in Nov 2010 just days after the mid-terms. He has been auditioning for a job he already has instead of doing the damn job.

The structural troubles this country is in will not be solved by kicking the remaining stilts out from under it. The weak dollar policy pursued by Bush and Obama in some mistaken notion that it will (ultimately) help exports is offset by a decline in purchasing power and inflation. The bullshit that inflation is low is just that, bullshit. Tell that to every family who uses a supermarket or fills the tank with gas. You can argue "but an IPad is hundreds of dollars cheaper this year than last" until you're blue in the face, that doesn't fill bellies or gas tanks. Prices for the very basics have skyrocketed at a time when wages and jobs themselves are in decline.

Add super low interest rates held down to help government preserve a modicum of solvency by keeping debt payments lower and you end up ushering just the type of real estate bubble we just lived through. The policies responsible for this mess stretch across party lines and administrations - but Obama's answer has been to triple down. There's nothing new or reformative in his policies.

The 2009 stimulus has been proved to be a exercise in pure cronyism and the result speaks for itself.

Bill Clinton is absurd and he has to know it. Why would he shill for this guy? Is there something going on that we can't comprehend? Even Clinton knows that Romney is anything but radical. Does Clinton want to see the complete destruction of the once powerful middle-class in this country. He must.


CW

Havasu Falls (new painting)

 "Havasu Falls"

20 x 24 acrylic
by Craig Willms
2012

A painting done on commission for an old High School friend as a present for his wife who took the original photo years ago. I really hope she likes it.

Check out more of my paintings here ---> http://www.static-art.blogspot.com/


CW

Incommunicado... sort of

On a vacation of sorts. A long weekend in northern Wisconsin with my son and his buddy. We will eventually go fishing I'm sure, but for now I'm enjoying the fine northern air and trying to unwind. You all have a great weekend too!



CW

The Chicago Miracle, or not

The President is now touting Chicago as a shining example for America. Chicago is in indeed a great town in many respects. Sitting at the crossroads of the east and the west it was always destined to be great. But it is a great city despite the prevailing leadership of the 20th and nascent 21 centuries.

The Daley machine and it's legacy have made Chicago a tough place, a rough and tumble place. It is ruled by the unions in the government sector and business has always adapted by folding that reality into the cost of doing business. Greasing the palms of the union bosses and the "inspectors" to get anything done in a timely manner is legend in this town. Politicos also have to kiss the ring of the union bosses and the Daley machine in order to have a chance of getting elected. Election fraud is expected not just tolerated.

To hold the view 'Chicago Is an Example of What Makes This Country Great' as Obama does is clearly his local pride talking because he can't be serious that the "Chicago Way" is the way the rest of the country should work. In truth Chicago is an example of everything wrong with politics. Win at any cost and ignore legalities and consequences.

As the linked article eludes to: not many of us wants to live with the consequences of Chicago style government. In fact more Chicago residents - 228 - have been killed so far this year in the city than the number of  American troops killed in Afghanistan - 144 - over the same period. The war zone-like statistics are not new. Some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, contrast that to the more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during the same time. Is it a source of pride that Chicago's murder rate is currently quadruple that of New York and double Los Angeles' rate? God, I hope not.

Chicago is a great place to visit, but like California I couldn't live there, by the number of people who flee both places I'm guessing I'm not the only one who feels that way.



CW

Romney/Ryan - good ticket, very good

Couldn't be more pleased that Paul Ryan was picked by Mitt Romney as his running mate. There were many who wanted Ryan to throw his hat in during the primary season - me too - but this should work out well.

The Democrats are not going to pull a Sarah Palin on this guy. He is one - squeaky clean, and two - an intellectual. They won't pull the dunce card, but they will pull the evil card. The budget plans he passed in the House are going to misrepresented as radical - dangerously so. Yes they are radical in the sense that he is actually addressing real problems with real solutions. If left stuck in liberal la la land these structural fiscal problems are going to destroy this country. But the Democrats will continue to demagogue and then prescribe higher taxes as the solution for everything.

Honest people can disagree with specifics, but Ryan and Romney are serious about addressing these huge issues and not just sloganeering. Obama has largely succeeded in getting the country moving in his direction, but it is clearly the wrong direction and the economy is the measure of that (if the economy was actually ever a real concern of his). If we want more poverty and food stamps, slow to no growth and crippling deficits then Obama is your man. If we want a rising tide then it's time for a change of direction.

Romney and Ryan have got to hone their message to a fine point. They have to offer a path away from the Federal government usurping more and more power and responsibility from the middle class. They must convince the middle class that self empowerment (by way of a strong economy and plentiful jobs) is what they want.

More to come on this...



CW

Recession no more...

Maybe I'm the only one tired of the mainstream media telling us economic news through the filter of what it will do for the re-election chances of President Obama. What about what the economic news (the real news) does to the American people. It seems fairly obvious that Obama is a disaster. It's time to let someone else in there who has a pro-growth (for the private sector) agenda. We are on the brink of economic disaster and this administration is either, one clueless or two fomenting it.

Ladies and gentleman this is no recession it is a depression. The only thing preventing a full blown depression is high government spending, and that can't go on forever. The advent of the modern welfare state is preventing the reality of the true economic situation from becoming a stark reality to the masses. Food stamps and food shelves have become the modern soup kitchen.

Consider:
- One in seven people in this country are on food stamps
.
- 48% of food stamp households are working households

- Vacant properties have increased by 43.8 percent nationwide since 2000

- banks are preparing to ramp up their foreclosure efforts again (they have to)

- Under any factual reporting the real unemployment rate should be well over 22%

- When, not if, China quits buying U.S. government debt then the entire house of cards starts tumbling down

 -without some real leadership (ha ha ha) taxes are about to be raised on all of us to the highest levels in U.S. history

 The rose colored glasses of  mainstream reporters in an effort to aid the President's re-election - for reasons that are frankly beyond me - take news like this: 365,000 people applied for unemployment benefits in July, but analysts were forecasting 370,000. Off by 5000 individuals yet reported as “better than expected job numbers”. Contrast the 163,000 new jobs that were added in July and its a net loss. Of course this is being reported as “good news” for Obama’s re-election. The official unemployment rate rose to 8.3 from 8.2 and that is, of course, statistically unimportant.

U.S. corporations are sitting on billions of dollars that could be invested in the economy. Why? They don't know where this administration is going, or they do and they don't like it enough to risk their capital.

I personally have a decent enough job and make a good living by historical comparative standards and yet I am squeezed every month. My bills are being paid but there never seems to be much left over. What of my savings for retirement? I'm just throwing good money after bad - it's going the wrong way!!!

Something has to be done. The first thing has got to be sending Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the unemployment office in November and then let the healing begin.

 That's my 1 cent worth.



CW