Dictator

Menendez Hypocrisy

The FBI is investigating Senator Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) connections to a scandal involving underage prostitutes, a Florida donor, unreimbursed and undocumented donations, legislative favors, and said donor's tax status.  The Pop Media, especially network news, is uninterested in reporting these allegations.  According to them, it's not newsworthy because there is no hypocrisy involved.  After all Senator Menendez is a Democrat and Democrats don't go around preaching about morals and values.  When a Republican allegedly cheats on his wife, solicits gay sex, or takes illegal donations, that's news because they are always going on about family values and moral standards.  Apparently, Democrats can't possibly be held to account because they espouse no values and set no standards of accountability or behavior.

Well, I call bullshit.  Turns out Bob Menendez is all about protecting "exploited children".  Hmmmm, wouldn't underage prostitutes fall into that category?        

Menendez is a member of the Congressional Missing & Exploited Children's Caucus!!!

Statement Of Purpose

1. To build awareness around the issue of missing and exploited children for the purpose of finding children who are currently missing and to prevent future abductions.

1. To create a voice within Congress on the issue of missing and exploited children and introduce legislation that would strengthen law enforcement, community organizing and school-based efforts to address child abduction.

1. To identify ways to work effectively in our districts to address child abduction. By developing cooperative efforts that involve police departments, educators, and community groups we can heighten awareness of the issue and pool resources for the purpose of solving outstanding cases and preventing future abductions.

Source: Congressional Caucus Web site 01-CMECC0 on Jan 8, 2001

Taxing Logic

Friedman’s Paradox 

Almost every interesting economic proposition shares a confusing characteristic: what’s true for the individual is the opposite of what’s true for the country as a whole. To a consumer buying shoes, it appears as though the price is fixed and the supply is elastic. Consumers can buy as many shoes as they want as long as they are willing to pay the asking price. But to the country as a whole, it is the supply of shoes that is fixed and the price that is elastic depending on demand. This paradox permeates economics.

 -- Milton Friedman - paraphrased from a speech titled “Money and Inflation” , 1980 (herein referred to as "Friedman's Paradox")

Two Pieces

On Nov. 29, 2012 the New York Times ran a piece by Binyamin Applebaum and Robert Gebeloff titled, “Tax Burden for Most Americans Is Lower Than in the 1980’s”. The authors cite New York Times research, which makes the case that taxes are historically low especially on the rich. They calculate rates for various income groups and come up with a top marginal tax rate, at all levels of government (federal, state, and local), of 42.1%, compared to the 1980’s when it was 49%.

A couple of weeks later, On Dec. 12, 2012, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by Edward C. Prescott and Lee E. Ohanian with nearly the opposite title, "Taxes Are Much Higher Than You Think". After studying tax rates, again at all levels of government, Prescott arrived at an average marginal tax rate of 40%, while the authors contend that the perception is that taxes are much lower.

So, the New York Times pegs the top marginal rate at 42.1% and Prescott and Ohanian have the average marginal rate at 40%; not enough of a difference to get too excited about. Yet, the two pieces seem to ascribe opposite perceptions to the public, and seem to promote opposite policy prescriptions. Who’s right?

 
With all due respect to these esteemed authors, neither is right. Here’s why taxes are much higher than most people think, and much higher than even Prescott and Ohanian think. Here’s also why The New York Times piece is wrong about taxes being higher in the 1980’s. 

The True Tax

Keep your eye on one thing and one thing only: how much government is spending, because that’s the true tax ... If you’re not paying for it in the form of explicit taxes, you’re paying for it indirectly in the form of inflation or in the form of borrowing. The thing you should keep your eye on is what government spends, and the real problem is to hold down government spending as a fraction of our income, and if you do that, you can stop worrying about the debt.

--Milton Friedman - from the same "Money & Inflation" speech, 1980 (herein referred to as "The True Tax")

Both studies cited above employ similar methodologies based on individual tax rates. But according to Friedman’s Paradox, what is true for the individual is often the opposite for the country as a whole. Instead of looking at individual rates in every jurisdiction and arriving at an average rate as both sets of authors appear to have done, the better way, the simpler way, the more inclusive way, and the Friedman True Tax way, is to find total government spending and compare that to Total Income. By doing that, we learn what is happening with taxes in the country as a whole, inclusive of all borrowing, printing, business taxes, and indirect taxes.

 
Here are the results when Friedman’s True Tax methodology is applied to 2012: Total government spending at all levels was about $6.2 trillion, and Gross Domestic Product was about $15.8 trillion.* To arrive at Total Income, all government activity was subtracted from GDP as government activity cannot generate income, only the private sector can do that. $15.8t less $6.2t results in Total Income of $9.6 trillion. $6.2t divided by $9.6t yields a True Tax rate of 65%. 

But that doesn’t include money creation/printing by the Fed, which may or may not be considered spending. Since 2008, the Federal Reserve has created two trillion dollars in new money and that money is not included on any ledger of government spending. The Fed claims it isn’t actually spending money when it creates money because it is buying US bonds, which it can later sell. This is the exact same argument Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were making about home mortgages - right before they went under! To settle this, let’s just say inflation has averaged about 5% since we dropped the gold standard in 1971. If we use that conservative figure, and add 5% to 65%, that yields a total True Tax rate of 70%!**

 
That is not the top marginal tax rate for high earners like the New York Times calculated. Nor is it an average marginal rate like Prescott arrives at. That’s the average tax rate on every single dollar of our Total Income. When Friedman’s Paradox is applied to tax rates, the illusion of progressive taxation goes away. Essentially, we are all in one big tax bracket, whether we know it or not. Our individual income tax rates vary, but there are enough taxes buried in everything we buy that it levels-out our average burden, and we all pay roughly $.70. You may think your doctor just got a big tax hike, but his increased tax burden is passed right back to you in the form of higher fees. His hike is your hike, and so it goes, ‘round and ‘round.

The Breakdown

Here’s a rough breakdown of the $.70 tax everyone pays on every dollar of Total Income: $.30 is paid in direct taxes. These are the explicit taxes everyone sees: Income taxes, employee’s portion of payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc. $.25 is buried in the prices of things we buy. These are the stealth taxes: business income taxes, employer’s portion of payroll taxes, property taxes, use taxes, fees, etc. $.10 is deferred onto future generations as borrowings, and $.05 is deferred and/or eaten by inflation due to money creation. ***

 
In 1985, the middle of the decade, we spent $1.5 trillion at all levels of government and reported GDP of $4.2 trillion, resulting in a True Tax rate of 56%.* If we add 5% for inflation, as we did for 2012, that would yield 61%, but the Fed was not printing $.5 trillion a year in 1985!** In either case, taxes today are quite a bit higher than they were in 1985. Certainly not less, as The New York Times piece asserts.

Passing the Buck

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

--Milton Friedman

 
The differences between all these numbers and our perceptions are the result of our political and monetary systems. Politicians at all levels of government and The Federal Reserve are able to hide huge chunks of our True Tax burden from us. All we see is the $.30 in explicit taxes, while the remaining $.40 is buried and/or deferred on others.

 
Are voters stupid? No, but they are human. The main reason voters do not realize they are being taxed $.70 of every dollar of Total Income is that a huge chunk is in the form of stealth, or indirect taxes, which are buried in everyday prices. All the taxes and fees paid by businesses, like payroll taxes, income taxes, property taxes, use taxes, and fees, are built into everyday prices. Take a simple MacDonald’s hamburger: Before that hamburger gets to you, the farmer who grows the corn, the rancher who raises the beef, the farmers who grow the wheat, tomato, lettuce, cucumbers, and eggs, the trucking company, the oil companies, the restaurant owner, the advertising company, and many more, all pay taxes for their payrolls, income, land, fuel, and supplies. Those taxes are passed on to you when you buy that hamburger, but you have no way of measuring their cost!

 
Then there are the deferred taxes. The difference between what governments spend and what they collect in taxes must be acquired either by creating/printing or borrowing money. Creating new money devalues the currency (all other things being equal) and will eventually cause inflation. Excessive inflation is politically dangerous and therefore avoided, except as a last resort. Borrowing is simply deferred taxation, or deferred money creation. Of the two, it is much easier to get away with. Both borrowing and creating money have a deferred negative impact, but an instantaneous positive one. Voters are simply acting like imperfect humans and choosing instant gratification while deferring pain. Unfortunately, they are also taking benefits for themselves in exchange for passing the costs onto future generations.

 
Conclusions and Recommendations

The two big confusions we confront as taxpayers are 1) The level of stealth taxes at all levels of government, and 2) The ability of the federal government to create money and borrow, and then spend it on benefits to buy our votes.

 
1) Stealth taxes are surprisingly the biggest item in the gap between perceptions and reality when it comes to taxes. Voters should insist on the elimination of these hidden taxes. Every tax should be leveled at a voter. Businesses do not vote. We must go back to the idea of “no taxation without representation”. This is a loophole in our political system and has led to a huge economic disconnect. A hidden tax is a license for politicians to do what comes naturally: buy votes. All taxes, to use Milton Friedman’s word, should be made “explicit”. 

2) The Federal Government, due to its role as issuer of the currency, must not be the entity providing safety net and entitlement items. There is an inherent conflict of interest when politicians control the creation and borrowing of money and can lavish benefits on their constituents. State and local governments cannot print and borrow as the feds can. Therefore, they must be the ones handling safety net and benefit items. If states want to increase benefits, they will have to raise revenue. If they want to cut taxes, they will have to cut spending. States must take-over Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security, etc. Voters must insist on this. Moreover, the constitution clearly intended these things to be done by the people and the states, not the federal government.

 
The revolution we desperately need in the US is to get the states and local governments to handle all entitlements and benefits, and get voters to explicitly pay the True Tax. If we did just those two things, we would quickly have a smaller, more efficient, less costly, and more responsive government at all levels. That's logical, right?

*Spending figures are from usgovernmentspending.com, and GDP figures are from BEA . Various pages were used on all sites. 2012 numbers are estimates. All numbers were rounded.

**Inflation figures are from BLS.gov and numbers were rounded.

***Breakdown figures come from usgovernmentspending.com where each revenue line item was subjectively allocated to either direct taxes or indirect taxes. Numbers were rounded.

(This piece has had two major updates since it originally appeared. It was updated 1/21 to correct inaccuracies in the 1985 numbers, and to use Adjusted Gross Income for Total Income. Second, it was updated 1/22 to use GDP less Total Government Spending for Total Income. The difficulty is in finding the best number for Total Income as this is what Friedman intended. The government reports many numbers for Income but all have issues. GDP less Total Gov. appears to be the best number for these purposes because it is free of arbitrary deductions and all government transfers. For comparison purposes, AGI is about $9 trillion for 2012, and using GDP less Total Gov., total income is $9.6 trillion. The language has been updated as well for clarity. Overall, no conclusions have changed with these updates. )

Forward!

As you probably know, come January 1^st 2013, taxes are scheduled to go up on everyone and automatic spending cuts will kick in.  This is the law as proposed and signed by President Barack Obama.  He built this, and we voted for it.  Yet he does not want his fingerprints on a tax hike on the middle class.  Nor does he want his fingerprints on a prolonged recession.  He must go through the motions of negotiating so he can then blame higher taxes and a recession on Republicans.  There is absolutely no reason to believe he cannot do this.  He really has all the cards. 

Hence, Republicans have no cards.  They cannot win no matter what they do.  Yet they too have interests.  Republicans don’t want their fingerprints on anyone’s taxes going up.   Nor do they want automatic cuts that don’t address the real problem of entitlements.  Lastly, they do not want to allow the economic damage that will result from both tax hikes and continued runaway entitlement spending.  I don’t see how they alone can stop any of this.    

  

That’s not to say they won’t reach an agreement and pass something.  They usually do.  It will happen at the very last minute.  Then they will both declare victory and go home.  The press will write about how the Republicans blinked, and how once again Obama outmaneuvered his less capable opponents.  The truth is nothing will actually be solved, and best-case scenario, we will just kick the can down the road once again.  

As a student of economics, I say pass nothing!  Let current law prevail.  Let all the taxes go up.  Let the sequester spending cuts go forward.  What a great experiment in economics we would be conducting!  What a great lesson for future generations!  This is our civic duty as educators and parents.  No more kicking the can down the road.  We’ve done that too long.  All that does is muddy the waters and obscure the causal relationship between our actions and their consequences. 

While we're at it, why not stop borrowing?  Let's just print every dollar we need!  Borrowing is just another way of kicking the can down the road.  That makes sense when  fighting an existential war, but we are borrowing from our kids to pay ourselves entitlements!  How can we justify passing on this debt and inflation to our kids?  Why not take the hit ourselves, today, like men and women of character would?     

We voted for this, now we should be allowed to live in the country we deserve.  Forward, I say!  Forward off the cliff!   

Why Romney Lost

Just what you need, another amateur coroner autopsying Mitt Romney’s rotting political corpse.  But really, could I do any worse than the genius experts on the right who thought he’d be President Elect Romney now?   At least I can back-up the things I’m about to say with things I was saying all along!

It seems most pundits are focusing on groups and identity politics to pinpoint where Romney failed.   Why did Hispanics reject him?  Why were women luke warm?  Why did evangelicals not get fired-up?  To me, that is like analyzing a football game using baseball terminology.   You can’t explain a Republican loss using Democrat terms.  Democrats are the ones who see the electorate as groups. Their strategy is to individually target each group, give them whatever they want, and then pass the costs on to another generation.  It works very well when done right.   Republicans win when they see the electorate as individuals, not groups:  individuals with whom the idea of limited government will resonate when properly presented and contrasted with the unlimited government of the left.   Both sides are very successful when they stick to their respective plans and have likable candidates.  Both sides lose if they try to employ the other’s strategy.

Mitt Romney lost because he did not try to explain to the American people how liberalism and Barack Obama were responsible for our recent tragedies.  He also did not try to explain how conservatism was responsible for our recent successes.  He surrendered unconditionally on these issues.  

The first and biggest surrender was about Bush and the Financial Crisis of 2008.  Mitt Romney’s line throughout the campaign was “Sure, Barack Obama inherited a mess, but he made it worse!”  In other words, the mess was Bush’s fault.  This was an insane surrender in a campaign that seemed to be about the economy.  Perhaps Mitt Romney believed it really was Bush’s fault.  Perhaps he didn’t want to fight the zeitgeist.  Either way it was bad strategy.  And it was wrong on the merits!  Barack Obama did not inherit the financial crisis; he, the Democrat Party, and liberalism created it! 

The fact is, the financial crisis of 2008 was the direct result of a re-distributionist scheme to provide mortgages to anyone regardless of ability to pay.  This began in earnest under Bill Clinton and was nearly reigned-in by responsible conservatives under George W Bush.  Who stopped them?  Among them, a junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama who had spent the last decade advocating for this very scheme, first as a Community Organizer, next as a State Senator, then as a US Senator, and finally as President.  

All the risk from this redistribution was supposed to be assumed by wealthy taxpayers via the Federal Government in the form of government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac).  No government official took more money from these “toxic twins” and at a faster rate than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.  (We may soon hear about the third and fourth government mortgage agencies known as FHA and GNMA, but that’s for another day…)

Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad, the damage spread unintentionally to the private banking and investment sector bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.  Mitt Romney was supposed to be a business expert but he never brought any insight to any of this! 

The second surrender has to do with Osama bin Laden.  It may have been hard to argue that Barack Obama was not responsible for finding Osama bin Laden, after all he was the Commander-In-Chief at the time, but the fact is, Osama bin Laden was located DESPITE Barack Obama, not because of him.  Barack Obama was an impediment to this success!   

It took ten years of hard work to capture high-value terrorists, interrogate them, gather the intelligence, follow the leads, pinpoint bin Laden’s whereabouts, and finally pull off the successful Seal Team Six raid that killed him.  Barack Obama opposed every single aspect of that effort.  Moreover, every tactic, every technique, and every shred of key intelligence originated prior to Obama’s presidency.  Mitt Romney never challenged this hagiography and never explained it to the people!

Barack Obama opposed capturing terrorists at all, and still does.  That’s why anyone suspected of being a terrorist is executed via drone (along with their immediate family if any are near).  Virtually no non-domestic terrorists have been captured since Obama became President.  This has been a disaster from an intelligence standpoint.  Without captured terrorists we never would have gotten the leads that eventually led to Osama bin Laden.   

Obama opposed Guantanamo Bay and military tribunals for terrorists.  This has been a deadly disaster of a policy.  Obama, both as Senator and President, has advocated for the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in order to eventually close the prison and avoid the messy trials.  That’s how the leader of the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate.  Gitmo prisoners were the ones who led us to Osama bin Laden.   

  

Obama opposed interrogating terrorists.  There has been no effective questioning of terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under President Obama.  Without interrogations, bin Laden would still be alive and free today. 

Obama opposed wiretapping terrorists.  As President, he has quietly allowed some wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this.  Without wiretaps, bin Laden’s courier would never have led us to the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was holed-up.

Obama is no friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches.  In fact, up until a month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking legal action against the very interrogators who got the intelligence that led to bin Laden.  Let that sink in:  For almost four years, Barack Obama was legally harassing the very people who were responsible for getting bin Laden.  What’s more, these individuals were denied legal assistance and left to fend for themselves!  

Mitt Romney never called Obama on any of this.  Obama got a free ride with his radical base by opposing every single element of the effort to get bin Laden, and at the same time got to play to the rest of America by taking credit for the success and spiking the football!        

The third surrender has to do with Barack Obama’s character.  This surrender is best exemplified by Mitt Romney’s oft repeated line; “Barack Obama is a nice enough guy, he’s just in over his head!”   Again, this was probably Romney just playing to the polls, which showed Barack Obama as a likable fellow.  But challengers are supposed to challenge!  Challenge conventional wisdom, challenge the media, challenge the pop culture, and challenge the hagiography.  Mitt Romney did none of that. 

Barack Obama is arguably not a “nice guy” and he’s certainly not in over his head.  He has burdened our kids with unprecedented debt and financial obligations that they can never repay.  He has offered no credible plan to reverse any of this.  All he has offered is an all-out war on the reasonable suggestions of others.  How is that nice?  He has championed an explosion in dependency and poverty:  More people are on food stamps, welfare, unemployment, disability, and Medicaid than ever before and the all the money for that explosion is borrowed from our kids.  How is that nice?  Barack Obama is a self-described follower of Saul Alinsky, Karl Marx, and Cloward and Piven. Their strategy is to destroy the existing system of equal-opportunity and replace it with one of equal-outcomes after an economic collapse which they hope to foster.  This has never worked out well anywhere throughout history.  How is that nice?  He has promoted class warfare, race warfare, and union thuggery all in a cynical pursuit of political power.  How is that nice?  Barack Obama has lied about everything from economics to Benghazi and everything in between.  How is that nice?  Mitt Romney never explained!   

Finally, Mitt Romney surrendered his own character.  As Democrats and the Obama operation were slandering him and accusing him of the most egregious offenses including a woman's death, conducting a war on women, committing felonies, cruelty to animals, tax fraud, bankrupting companies, etc., he continued to act as a character witness for Barack Obama!  This was preposterous.  The Romney strategy seemed to be based on the belief that Americans would somehow see what was happening, recognize it as a blatant attempt at character assassination, and reject it out of some high moral principles that they supposedly had.  In what could qualify as the understatement of the year, that was a miscalculation.

It may be that this was not a winnable campaign from the outset.  It’s hard to run against the pop media, pop culture, pop academia, pop music, pop entertainment, and the entire world, which awarded Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize just for showing-up.  Moreover, in a country that has made everyone part of the entitled class and left it up to the unborn to pay for it all, sanity may come only when it must. 

Why Obama Won

(Updated)
Why did Obama win?  Two words, Alinsky and Inception.    

I'm borrowing the term Inception from the 2010 movie by the same name.  In case you haven’t seen the movie, "Inception" refers to the implanting of ideas by entering the subconscious during an induced dream state and then manipulating the dream to get the implanted idea to take hold.    

In the movie, Leo DiCaprio plays the protagonist, Cobb, who explains the power of ideas:

  

Cobb: “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate.”

The elements of Inception are these:

• An idea to implant
• An induced dream state
• A compelling dreamscape
• Active manipulation of the dream
• A strong defense against competing ideas  

The left has either consciously or unconsciously understood this concept for decades and used it to make their ideas resilient, contagious, and impossible to eradicate.  Today, the right has nothing to counter this strategy.    

Here’s how the left has achieved inception success:

•  An idea to implant:  The left's idea is that they will give you whatever you want, work is optional, you will suffer no negative consequences, you will not be held accountable, you will not be judged, and some faceless rich guy will pay for it all!      
• An induced dream state:    With their near monopoly position in entertainment, academia, news media, and pop culture, liberals have unique access to the subconscious.  Whether sitting in a classroom,  in front of a TV, reading a newspaper, or in a theater, the captive subject is in a state of “suspended disbelief” where the critical mind is on standby and open to implanted ideas.   
• A compelling dreamscape:  Free stuff is awesome!   Add in, social security, social justice, equality of outcomes, utopianism, lowered seas, and a healed planet and, voila!   A one-sided presentation of these benefits makes the dream irresistible.  Of course, the costs and the moral hazard are never mentioned in the dream.  Why spoil it?    
• Active manipulation of the dream:  To advance these ideas,  every possible tactic is used, including disinformation, and outright deception.  There are no limits.  As Saul Alinsky, the father of Community Organizing and the left's tactical guru tought in "Rules for Radicals", the ends justify the means.  No tactic is off limits.       
• Finally, a strong defense against competing ideas:  The left works very hard to destroy any competing ideas, regardless of merit.   Polarization, ridicule, and fear-mongering are just some of the tools utilized to make competing ideas toxic. Again from Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":

• “…Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 
• Thus Mitt Romney became a greedy villain who hates women, tortures animals, cheats on his taxes, and is responsible for a woman's death.  Paul Ryan is shown throwing granny off a cliff.     
• “…Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”   
• This is why Comedy Central, Broadway, and Saturday Night Live spent inordinate amounts of time ridiculing Mitt Romney, including even attacking his religion.   

Conservatives have a marked disadvantage when it comes to Inception:  

• The right does not have access to the subconscious.  With the possible exception of a few media outlets, conservatives have almost no active voice in the pop culture, pop academia, or pop media.  Even religious communities, which were traditionally right leaning, are on the wane or have moved left.        
• Even if conservatives had access to the subconscious, they still could not easily make their dream compelling!   Personal responsibility, accountability, and hard work are, well...hard.  Work sucks!  Who wants a job when you can get everything you need without working?  
• Conservatives are programmed to tell the truth.  Of course, nobody’s perfect and conservatives wander plenty.  But high standards, accountability, and veracity are traditionally conservative values.       
• Conservatives are pre-disposed to avoid gratuitously destroying their enemies.  Decorum, manners, honor, and tradition are all conservative concepts.  Liberals have no similar fealty to such antiquated notions of behavior. 

Until conservatives understand the tactics of Alinsky and Inception, they cannot compete.  Mitt Romney had no idea what hit him.  The left successfully destroyed his sterling character and resume.  What did Mitt Romney do in response to being smeared and destroyed?  He smiled, said nice things about Mr. Obama's character, and told Americans he'd find them a job!  

As you can see, this was never a fair fight.  With half the country now paying zero income taxes, and an equally large segment on some kind of government assistance, it is near impossible to see how economic conservatives ever regain power in the US until after the collapse: the very painful economic collapse which we are steadily moving "Forward" towards.  

In the movie "Inception", DiCaprio's character uses a spinning top to remind him whether or not he's dreaming.  If the top spins indefinitely, he's dreaming;  if it stops, he knows he's awake.  I'm gonna find me a top and start carrying it from now on, just to remind me.  

The "I Don't Live in a Swing State" Blues

Barack Obama – Master of Disinformation

Win or lose, Barack Obama has been a master of disinformation.  If you are incredulous at that assertion, you are by definition an accomplice.  Sorry to be so blunt.  

In the interest of time, mine and yours, I’m limiting this to just two issues, one for domestic affairs, and one for international affairs.  Herewith, my case:

Domestic – The crown jewel of Barack Obama’s disinformation campaign has been blaming the 2008 financial crisis on anyone but himself and his fellow redistributionists.  The fact is, the financial crisis was the direct result of a redistributionist scheme to provide mortgages to anyone regardless of ability to pay.  This began in earnest under Bill Clinton and was nearly reigned-in by responsible Republicans under George W Bush.  Who stopped them?  Among them a junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, who had spent the last decade advocating for this very scheme, first as a Community Organizer, next as a State Senator, then as a US Senator, and finally as President.  

All the risk from this redistribution was supposed to be assumed by wealthy taxpayers via the Federal Government in the form of two government agencies initialed FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac).  No government official took more money from these two and at a faster rate than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad, the damage spread unintentionally to the private banking and investment sector, bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.

The disinformation on this has continued during the campaign in the form of compulsive references to Mitt Romney and Republicans wanting to “bring back the very policies which got us into this mess in the first place”.   The level of delusion required to say this and believe this is beyond comprehension.  Then again, that is the goal of any disinformation campaign.   This has been a classic case of the arsonist returning to the fire as a fireman and claiming he’s here to fix the mess started by that other guy, the arsonist. 
     

International – The disinformation campaign on international matters has been extraordinarily successful.  Until Benghazi, that is.  It’s hard to argue that Barack Obama is not responsible for Osama bin Laden’s death, but he’s demonstrably not.  Facts are facts and Obama was the President at the time, hence history will credit him with bin Laden’s death.  But history is full of disinformation. 

It took ten long years to capture high-value terrorists, interrogate them, gather the intelligence, follow the leads, pinpoint bin Laden’s whereabouts, and finally pull off the successful Seal Team Six raid.  Every single aspect of that effort was opposed by Barack Obama and every shred of intelligence which led to bin Laden’s demise originated prior to Obama’s presidency.

·    Obama opposed capturing terrorists at all, and still does.  That’s why anyone suspected of being a terrorist is executed via drone (along with their immediate family if they are nearby).  Virtually no non-domestic terrorists have been captured since Obama became President.  This is a disaster from an intelligence standpoint.  That’s part of the reason al-Qaeda can be openly flying flags in Benghazi, and every single government except ours does the math and gets out.  Not only did we stay, we failed to provide adequate security in the wake of that intelligence vacuum. 

·   Obama opposed Guantanamo Bay and military tribunals for terrorists.  This has been a deadly disaster of a policy.  Obama, both as Senator and President, has advocated for the release of dangerous terrorists from Gitmo in order to eventually close it and avoid the messy trials.  That’s how the leader of the Benghazi attack got released from Gitmo and sent back to Libya while Obama was advocating for these very policies from the Senate.  The pressure to do this came almost exclusively from Obama’s party.  

·   Obama opposed interrogating terrorists.  There has been no effective questioning of terrorists, harsh or otherwise, under Obama.  Again, no new intelligence. 

·   Obama opposed wiretapping terrorists.  (As President, he has quietly allowed some wiretaps, but his rhetoric has always been at odd with this.) 

·   Obama is no friend of the Military or the Intelligence branches.  The military and intelligence services got bin Laden with no support from Obama.  In fact, up until a month ago, the Obama Administration was actively seeking a lawsuit against the interrogators who got the intelligence which led to bin Laden.  Obama was actually suing the very CIA people who were responsible for getting bin Laden!  

These were all the elements that found and eventually got the al-Qaeda leader responsible for murdering thousands on 9/11.  Obama opposed every single element of that effort, yet he has taken credit for all of it.  Again, the arsonist takes credit for putting out the fire.    

I could go on and on citing cases of gross attempts to deceive the public through disinformation from the Obama Administration.  Books will be written.  Some already have.   But my point here is to address the voters before Tuesday Nov, 6th:  you either understand the above by now, or you don’t, and are a willing accomplice.    

The Case Against Obama

Why blog when Bill Whittle so succinctly makes the case against Barack Obama?
http://www.pjtv.com/s/GEYTAMBQ

Along these lines, I made this cartoon 6/11 early in the primary season.  Holds up well:


More to come on this before election day...

Dogonomics