Romney Cares About Women, Too - He's Just Not So Hell-Bent on Getting in Their Pants

There is not much dignity coming out of the Obama campaign lately.  There are two conflicting emotions for me when I watch Obama's recent "sex ad".  The first thing I feel is complete embarrassment at this ploy by the President to win over women.  The women I know have a lot more spine than the Obama campaign gives them credit for.  They keep their sex lives and birth control choices to themselves and do not especially care what the government or society thinks of their choices.  Same goes for the gay people I know.  I don't know any women who consider free birth control to be the most pressing issue facing our country right now.  With a $16T debt and $1T deficits, it's not something I support.  It's just another handout to buy some votes.  I laughed when I saw Vladimir Putin ads with the same references to sex and virgins - now I'm disgusted that we've sunk to the same level.

The second emotion I feel upon seeing this ad is a mix of hope and relief.  It's a sign of a floundering campaign for reelection - desperation by a losing candidate to scrape together a few more votes.  I see this ad and am pretty sure that I'm not the only one throwing up in my mouth a little bit.  I'm tired of a President promoting such a dependent society.

While we're on this topic, it's true that Republicans tend to be pro-life.  That doesn't mean that it's part of their legislative agenda, though.  It just means that they personally don't support abortion and don't want to be complicit in it through public financing of it.  Democrats suggesting that a Romney win will somehow result in a ban on a woman's right to make her own personal choice are resorting to scare tactics to get their candidate over the line.  People supporting Romney are fighting for Cut, Cap, and Balance to end the last 12 years of accelerating accumulation of the national debt.  That was the impetus of the Tea Party.  They are simultaneously disgusted with the blatant lies from Obama, particularly surrounding the Benghazi cover-up.  Abortion is not the issue that is compelling people to vote against Obama and is not something that is likely to change under Republican control.

Hurricane Sandy to the Rescue!

I think it's fair to say that nobody is hoping for a direct hit from Hurricane Sandy more than Barack Obama.

Anything to divert the mainstream media from the new developments on Benghazi!  Today's story from Fox News details how three requests for help during the 7-hour firefight in Benghazi were received and turned down - how the Navy SEALs who died even had the location of incoming mortars that eventually killed them identified with a laser target to facilitate an aerial hit.  One was named Tyrone Woods.  He had disobeyed direct orders to stand down and went with several others from a nearby CIA annex in an attempt to rescue the ambassador.  It's becoming clearer by the day that the administration failed to provide adequate security to the Libyan ambassador under threat, turned down three requests for assistance during the actual attack, and then lied to the American people and the world at a U.N. assembly about the attack being the result of a protest provoked by a youtube video posted by an American "misusing" his rights to free speech.  The father of the fallen SEAL says Hillary even told him (over his son's coffin) at Andrews AFB that they would arrest and prosecute the film maker.  Joe Biden asked him, "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"

You'd think CNN and ABC News would find this story newsworthy - I guess it's still just too "political" for them.  Rather than endure more hard-hitting interviews like the one below from 9News in the battleground of Colorado, Obama is hoping to spend next week's news cycle administering aid to Northern Virginia.  In fact, the best outcome for Obama would be disaster declarations from Pennsylvania and Ohio, too!.

Thanks to Kyle Clark at 9News, we now know what Obama's answers to any Romney attacks on the Libya issue would have been in the 3rd debate.  (Watch the first 1:42 of this video)  At this point, the pieces are coming together and the facts are catching up with this administration.

On Libya, Mitt Took the High Road in Debate #3

Well, for those of us hoping for closure on the Libya cover-up, the third debate was very frustrating at first.  But considering all of the people who were turned off by the aggressiveness of the candidates in the second debate, Mitt performed very well last night.  It's only in hindsight that Mitt supporters were convinced that leaving the Libya cover-up alone was the right move.  After the second debate, the full extent of the Benghazi cover-up finally got lots of daylight in the press.  Most likely voters now know about it in detail and those who [somehow] give the President a pass for that cover-up were not going to be swayed by the third debate.  Imagine how much time Obama, Axelrod, and Cutter must have wasted at Camp David last weekend choreographing a response that threaded the needle on that issue.

That was clever of Mitt to mend some fences with the big chunk of folks that were disappointed with the tenor of the second debate.  I must be a little desensitized, because I wasn't that turned off by it; but I do get annoyed with the far right who constantly criticize Mitt for "not having fire in the belly!" and "not taking the gloves off!".  That was a big reason Mitt got so little support in the primary - he wasn't as fiery as Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich.  The people far from the center of both parties don't seem to understand that non-ideological people near the center are more interested in a cognitive decision-making process to prioritize the different issues when choosing a candidate.  This election would not be nearly as close if it were just about the economy or foreign policy and not all of the social issues.  The Democratic Party would have a lot fewer supporters today if so many people weren't driven to them because of political correctness on the social issues.  That's why I like the emergence of the Tea Party - they just focus on fiscal policy and adherence to the Constitution.  To hear people think that as a Republican, Mitt Romney is somehow against women's rights or prejudiced against minorities is so ridiculous.  The majority of Republicans are mostly fed up with Obama because of his reckless spending.  His budgets don't get a single Republican or Democrat vote in Congress!

I liked hearing about Mitt passing "the Martian Test" in yesterday's debate.  The picture below sums it up.  If a Martian had landed on Earth and watched the debate, who would he think was the incumbent and who would he think was the challenger?  Romney has Obama on defense big time.

Final Debate: Time to Seal the Deal

People have had a week to parse through Obama statements on Libya.  I hope that Mitt is able to expose Obama's response in the weeks following the Libya attack for the cover-up it was.  No matter how kooky the California film maker might be, the blame for the ambassador's death should not have been pinned on him and I'm a little uncomfortable that he's still in jail.  Also, why was no backup rushed to Benghazi as soon as the attack happened?  Why was the compound and sensitive information inside it not immediately secured? 

I hope Mitt is able to make Obama explain how executive privilege applies in Fast and Furious.  What direct involvement did the President have in that debacle?

Welfare Spending Over $1T - Biggest 2011 Line Item

I started this blog in July on the heels of Obama's "You didn't build that!" speech.  At the time, I was most alarmed at the growing welfare culture and welfare fraud in our society.  Most recently, I've been distracted with a whole new concern about the Benghazi Attack cover-up.  However, a recent report that the U.S. welfare spending topped $1 trillion in 2011 got my attention.  According to this article, welfare spending, which is up about 32% since 2008 now tops non-war military expenditure, Medicare, and Social Security!  Welfare is now the biggest, and maybe fastest growing, government program.  Obama's got to go.

EBT Card

The CIA Kicks the Last Leg Out From Under the Benghazi Cover Up

The Benghazi Attack cover-up is going to go down as the biggest since Watergate.  Some would argue that a cover up involving the first slain ambassador since 1979 should actually dwarf the college-prank breaking-in of the DNC by the Nixon Republicans.

Obama asserted two defenses for his touting of the youtube video as the impetus for the Beghazi Attack: A) They were straightforward with the American people by conveying the best intelligence as it developed, i.e. the intelligence community initially told them that it was the video.  B) The White House never heard of any security requests by the Libyan diplomats.  Those requests didn't make it out of the State Dept.

Hillary tried to take the fall for the security requests, but no one would have respected Obama as a President if he didn't own up to that himself.  As for the faulty intelligence, today's news of a CIA report within 24 hours of the attack asserting that it was a militant attack and not connected to the video pretty well sinks that claim.  Now it's all but proven that the administration knowingly attributed the attack to the video and not to the obvious explanation of a terrorist attack on 9/11.

So what's the motive of the cover up exactly?  I guess the most obvious is to hide the failure of the Obama foreign policy in the Middle East with respect to killing (and bragging about the killings of) Qaddafi, bin Laden, et al.  That's the most obvious.  The other motive is the one I was on to earlier about Obama wanting to curtail free speech when it comes to anything offensive to Muslims.  While it's perhaps more complicated and far-fetched and not so beneficial with regards to the election, which we have to assume is the primary motivation, a few of the other pieces more easily fit into place: A) It's a good example of a crisis not going to waste.  Fewer people would complain about a ban on anti-Islamic rhetoric if it's in the interest of preventing attacks like this one  B) It would explain Hillary's willingness to participate in spreading the narrative.  Both Obama and Hillary have been fighting for the OIC-sponsored U.N. resolution condemning such offensive expressions, and C) this fits in precisely with Obama's speech to the U.N., "the future must not belong to those who would slander the prophet of Islam..."

Admittedly, neither of those reasons hardly seems worth all the trouble of this month-long cover-up, so maybe there's even something more sinister we haven't imagined yet.  Whatever the reason, it's a blatant cover-up on the heels of Fast and Furious and a miserable economic record and together, these should be more than enough to vote Obama out.  He's clearly screwing with us.

I Hear Obama Won the Debate - But Who Really Wants to Vote for Him?

On style, likability, and a handful of similar metrics, Obama apparently edged out Romney last night in the second of the Presidential debates.  Is this American Idol scoring really going to translate into more votes for him, though??  After all, polls indicate that Romney was way ahead when it came to the economy. Also, Obama made some pretty outrageous claims that must seem far-fetched, even to folks who aren't political junkies:

• For example, Obama says gas was less than $2 when Bush left office because the economy was in a tailspin.  So, gas is now a steady $4 because the economy is blazing?  Really?  Is that why a gallon of milk is $6 and a pound of bacon is $7?  Maybe a lot of things are just getting really expensive even though the economy isn't doing all that great.

• Obama tried to out-drill Romney on energy?  Who's going to believe Obama has anything to do with increased production in N Dakota and Pennsylvania under his watch?  I was happy that Romney gave voice to nuclear energy - everyone seems to dismiss this infinite source of energy that emits no greenhouse gases.  Despite 30 years of almost no new plants being built, nuclear still accounts for 20% of our generated power.  Seems like nuclear waste would be an easier problem to solve than global warming.

• Finally, Libya.  I don't see how anyone could possibly be falling for the Libya cover up

Obama is trying to convince everyone that he told the American people on Day 2 in the Rose Garden that the Benghazi attack was an act of terror and not a spontaneous protest about a dopey youtube video.  No one who reads the transcript of that speech would be convinced.  If so, why would he then go and espouse the deplorability of the youtube video on David Letterman, on Univision, at the U.N., on all the Sunday talk shows via U.N. Ambassador Rice, with Hillary over the caskets at Andrews, in paid apology ads aired in Pakistan, and on and and on and on...  Why would the White House unmistakably declare the video as a source of the problem a week later - not any resentment towards America or anything mean like that.  No - he blamed the video for provoking riots that led to the assassination of the ambassador.  The truth of a viable al Qaeda attacking a vulnerable consulate on 9/11 is too damaging to the President's claim that he killed Osama bin Laden and vanquished al Qaeda.  A really nice article on the Libya cover up is here.

See how convinced Candy Crowley is by Obama's Rose Garden assertion and tell me if Obama won that debate or just got a higher "score".

I think Obama's in for a really devastating night on Monday in the 3rd debate on foreign policy.  Obama has no explanations that will pass the B.S. test when it comes to Libya or Fast and Furious.  

More Unbelievable Economic Data! (Literally)

In about one week, we've seen some remarkable economic data:

• On Friday, Oct. 5th, we got the jobs report showing the first unemployment reading below 8% despite only routine and mediocre job creation.  I won't bore people again on how I think that manipulation was managed.

• Just last Thursday, Oct. 11th, we learned that the number of people filing new unemployment claims fell to 339,000 - the lowest number since 2008!!  Really?  Wow - said all of the economists who expected the number to tick up or remain unchanged from the previous level of 367,000.  Turns out, they left CALIFORNIA out of the calculation!  I heard that when asked why they left CA out, the guy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics said they didn't leave them out.  When pressed about why the CA was not included in the report, the guy said because they didn't get the CA data in time.  California since insists the data were submitted.  Regardless of what happened, the mission was accomplished - the headlines screamed about the lowest level of jobless claims in 4 years.

• The latest development was Friday (Oct 12) when more glorious headlines declared that the consumer sentiment index, while expected to fall slightly, shot up to levels not seen since 2007 before the recession.  

That was truly a remarkable stream of economic data showing a clear, unmistakable turn-around in the economy.  Stocks must have soared!  Actually, they went down overall.  Apparently, after initial spikes, the aggregate of people with money on the line have come to the consensus that these numbers are wrong at best and complete manipulations at worst.  We'll see if Obama declares victory with these numbers in Tuesday's debate.  While they may not describe a bustling economy, they make a better case for Obama than any real metrics can. 

They're Throwing Hillary Under the Bus!

Not only is Obama going to go down for lying to the American people about the circumstances surrounding the Ambassador to Libya's assassination - he's going to take Hillary down with him!  There is a solid paper trail of the State Department turning down requests from diplomats in Libya for additional security ahead of the attack on 9/11.  However, according to the White House, word of the requests never reached Obama or the Vice President.  The buck stops with ... Hillary!  Are the Dems going to allow Obama to pin Libya on Hillary??  She is at the pinnacle of the Democratic Party.  She's a shoo-in to make history as the first female president in 2016.  She could've and should've bumped Obama off of the ticket even in 2012!  Now she's damaged goods, thanks to Obama.  Bill must be pissed!  I don't see him staying out on the campaign trail for long.

Obama and Hillary's Day of Reckoning on Libya

Within a week, it was pretty clear to anyone paying attention that the President was full of B.S. to blame the Libya consulate attack on a youtube video.  The only problem was that you had to read foreign news sources and hear what the Libyan president had to say to work out that the munitions involved in the Libya attack, the precision of the strike on the consulate, and the Sept 11th anniversary all pointed to a well-planned assault to murder our ambassador on sovereign American soil.  Well, they've been forced to come clean after a month of solid lying.

So what in the world is going on when we have a president that has more details about what happened than any of us and then tries to pin the blame for the attack on us and our insensitivity towards Islamists by posting a mean video on youtube that no one had even heard of or seen? Even over the ambassador's body upon its return to Dover AFB with Hillary at his side...

Do you know when that movie was posted?  July 2nd! And we're supposed to believe the White House telling us that two months later, this obscure video sparks riots in Cairo and Libya simultaneously?  So why then were the Cairo protesters chanting "Obama, Obama we are all Osama"?  Could that be because of the 21 times the DNC "spiked the football" about the killing of Osama bin Laden at their convention the week before?  Certainly makes more sense than the youtube video.  I had been curious how the Zero Dark Thirty blockbuster about the killing of Osama would play over in the Middle East seeing how well the youtube video went over.  It was scheduled to come out in October to give the Obama campaign a nice boost, but has been quietly delayed until after the election.

The U.N. has been working on a resolution that Obama supports condemning the stigmatization, stereotyping, and profiling of people based on their religion.  It's an initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and is opposed by most Western democracies.  It urges countries to take effective steps "to address and combat such instances".  If taken seriously, it would stifle free speech and weaken security since profiling even at airport security checkpoints would be more scrutinized than it already is.  Could this be what all the lying is about?  I really don't know.  I just know that this is the stuff Obama was touting in his U.N. speech last month and that he doesn't like to let a crisis go to waste.

It appears, too that the State Department even denied requests for additional security for the ambassador in Libya and overlooked warnings of a deteriorating situation - including a cable on the day of the attack!  Christopher Stevens was worried.  As of today, we have testimony and emails, but we already knew the basics from the diary CNN found in the compound shortly after the attack.  Mind you, it took the FBI about 3 weeks to get there.  Any evidence or sensitive information must've been long gone by then.  In any case, it's increasingly clear to what extent Obama and Hillary both failed to answer the 3 A.M. phone call.

Quick Recap on the Jobs Report Numbers

If you're Barack Obama and the economy is stagnant heading into the election, how do you get the unemployment rate to come down to less then 8%?!

Step 1: Sign an executive order eliminating the work requirement for welfare recipients.  Many welfare recipients will then stop the charade of applying for jobs and other job search activities.  After about 4 weeks, they then come off the unemployment roles and "leave the workforce".  This was extremely evident in the August Jobs Report where only 96,000 jobs were created, but the unemployment rate went from 8.2% to 8.1% because 368,000 people left the workforce.

My post on Step 1 has supporting links

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Step 2: Sign an executive order granting work permission to about one million DREAMers, or illegal aliens who were brought into this country when they were young.  This executive order in mid June had a 60-day fuse.  Sudden legal status of the DREAMers could go a long way to explaining the influx of over 500,000 "new" part-time workers, which reduced the unemployment rate from 8.1% to 7.8%.  Note that the unemployment rate was predicted by economists to go up to 8.2% based on an expectation of 113,000 new jobs created - the actual number was right on at 114,000.

My post on Step 2 has supporting links

So Are These Job Numbers Real or Just a - DREAMers?

A lot of people were surprised and skeptical to see the unemployment rate tick down so sharply to 7.8%.  Prior to the jobs report, economists were predicting that the jobs creation number would be 113,000 and that the unemployment rate would tick up from 8.1% to 8.2%.  The number of jobs created was spot on at 114,000 - so it was very surprising to see the rate off by almost 0.5% from expectations.  The difference came from over 500,000 people getting part-time work outta nowhere.  Maybe people really are getting out there and getting jobs that are available instead of just waiting for jobs they want.  That's great news.  It just comes at an awfully convenient time.

Many of us wearing tin foil hats have been expecting the unemployment rate to artificially come down to under 8.0% just in time for the election.  I've been banking on that happening as a result of Obama's executive order eliminating the job search requirement for welfare recipients, which takes them off of the unemployment roles.  The August jobs report fit that theory very nicely.  That's when only 96,000 jobs were created, but the unemployment rate went down from 8.2 to 8.1% because 368,000 "left the workforce" (some of them going on to SSDI and other long-term welfare programs).  This month's report did not follow that pattern, though.  The labor force reportedly went up by 418,000 this time.  So what gives?

I have one more nefarious theory, but it's admittedly on shakier ground than the last one.  It has to do with Obama's mini Dream Act in the form of an executive order in mid June.  That gave about a million young illegal immigrants the right to work in the country legally and it was said at the time that it would take about 60 days for the executive order to be implemented.  Could that have something to do with this surprise drop in the unemployment rate one month ahead of the election?  Imagine trimming the unemployment roles with the welfare requirement elimination and then stacking the employment numbers with part-time working DREAMers.  You wouldn't have to count the unemployed DREAMers since they haven't been looking.  But even I must admit, this would be pretty over the top if true.  I checked the number of Hispanics in the jobs report and didn't notice a spike...  Maybe the government's reporting them as white Hispanics like they did in the Trayvon Martin case.  Ha.

Whether you're skeptical of the jobs numbers or not, you have to admit that nothing about the current economic environment really explains the biggest jump in the number of employed people in 29 years.  So hiring is on a tear despite the exploding gas prices and the looming financial cliff?  Hmm.  Such a historic jump in employment would be expected to trigger a very good day on Wall Street, no?  They must be a little skeptical, too, because the Dow only went up 35 points (0.26%) and the Nasdaq and S&P were actually down on the day.  It seems like the only thing about the economy getting better is a jobs report number that is key to the President's chances of reelection.

So assuming that this report is an indication of the economy improving, let's hope things pick up steam.  However, no matter how you spin them, the fundamentals behind these jobs numbers remain about as bad as Obama's debate performance and no one's excited with the pace the economy is growing.  Romney is going to stay on the attack with these numbers and win the argument.  The unemployment rate would be closer to 11% if it weren't for so many people that have left the workforce - by design or not.  That's taking the number of employed people now and assuming the same participation rate of the population in the workforce as when Obama took office.  We have to make up that ground, too, to get the GDP back on track and that's a problem that's not going to get fixed by four more years of throwing more food stamps and Obama Phones at it or turning our money into Monopoly money by cranking up the printing presses.

Jobs Report Response Ads Coming in Already:

In Mass, Your Vote Truly Doesn't Count

You thought the national polls were bad - can you believe these Massachusetts polls?  Be thankful that Mass. doesn't have the final say, because in Mass. most people just line up and pull the lever for the Democrats with rare exceptions.  Even in a year as seemingly contentious as this one, there's no need for debate.  In Massachusetts, you have two main populations for the most part: the city dwellers who are recipients of liberal spending and the highly educated suburbanites who know what's best for everyone else.  There are a few folks that get squeezed in the middle, and many of them move to New Hampshire.  NH is sliding into Swing State territory, but they used to be a polar opposite of Mass.  Did you know that State Representatives in NH are paid only $100 per year for their service?!  When the legislature isn't in session, they earn their living like everyone else.

Fortunately, the Republicans have a fighting chance in the district I live in.  These are exceptional times.  John Tierney is the incumbent Dem Representative in Congress whose wife laundered $8M for her brother's illegal overseas gambling ring.  She was convicted, and sentenced to 30 days in jail.  It wasn't enough to bring him down 2 yrs ago, but he's up against Richard Tisei this time around who is a popular, bipartisan, openly gay State Senator.  

In the Senate race, you have Scott Brown, who has the 2nd most bipartisan voting record in Congress (he's was with the GOP 54% of the time) running against Elizabeth Warren.  Warren is like Justice Kagan in the Supreme Court - she was hand picked by the administration and they'll always be able to rely on her vote.  The main difference between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, though, is that Scott Brown posed as a centerfold in Cosmo during his college years.  Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, has been posing her entire career.  She "checked the box" for Affirmative Action falsely claiming Native American lineage, she claimed to be the intellectual founder of Occupy Wall Street while living comfortably in the 1%, and it recently seems that she doesn't even have a license to practice law in Mass even though she represents clients here.  Normal people would get in a lot of trouble for that.  

These races would be slam dunks anywhere else.  Unfortunately, open-minded voters are in the minority here - it's only the race for President that's a slam dunk.