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Confirms my views. The excitement and exuberance is just not there and justifiably so.
Hard to get excited over a fish that has been out of water for three years and has developed a distinct odor.
As for Obama's continued popularity, I submit people are not generally prone to say they do not like a person when interviewed by a stranger. (See 1 below.)
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After Romney's comments in Israel, time to trot out bunker buster talk? (See 2 below.)
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An Obama lieutenant recently stated Romney was not ready to be president as if Obama ever was and even to this day Obama is still not ready. Attacks on Romney by Obama and his surrogates are in full gear. They cannot defend Obama so they must destroy Romney's achievements and credibility.
Second, the same lieutenant cited Romney's comments about the Brits no being prepared as evidence why R was not qualified to be president. As I wrote previously, CEO type truth is refreshing. and I ask you to compare that with Obama's apology for America, bowing to foreign leaders and talking down to achievers etc. Is that leadership.
Sorry, Axelrod, your destroy Romney dog won't hunt. Better try something else to deflect attention from your bosses' pathetic record.
This is what some think of your boss and why they fear his re-election . (See 3 below.)
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Is it white guilt time? (See 4 below.)
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Middle East Update:
This is what we face:
Iran continues to move forward on nuclear development and this week the Senate and House are trying to resolve differences pertaining to closing loop holes in new sanctions against Iran which limits their access to the money flows from their reduced oil sales.
With respect to Syria it is known they are moving some of their WMD north with the possibility they will be placed in an Allawite enclave. It is also known rebels know where Syria's WMD are and the continued fear is they will fall in the hands of radicals.
Secondly, the flow of Syrians both into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are creating increased instability in these countries which are already hard pressed. Particularly is this so with respect to Jordan which already economic pressure from the 400,000 Iraqis who already fled there . In Lebanon increased tension and killings between the various sects is elevating.
Third, Syrian troops have moved into the Golan area and that is causing some angst vis a vis Israel. Meanwhile, Israel is concerned about Taliban leaking into the area.
Finally, stability in Sinai is breaking down and weapons are flowing into that region and the question is whether Egypt's military can stabilize the area and what will its new Muslim Brotherhood leader do should matters deteriorate further and attacks on Israel from Hezballah continue to accelerate.
As a result of spreading regional turmoil and instability, the White House recently dispensed a series of top officials to Jerusalem for discussions.
If you have confidence in Obama's handling of our foreign policy in the Middle East then you have no reason to be concerned and you should continue to keep your head in the sand.. If, however, you are not blinded by Obama's explanations and failed policies then I would venture to say the prospects of war becomes a growing reality.
A weakened America creates world instability and the cost of this instability, which could result in war, would therefore, come at an even higher cost than the cost of remaining strong.
Either Obama was ideologically incapable of understanding this and thus his policies which brought about that which he thought he could contain. Worse, there are those who claim Obama views a weakened America as good for world stability. Either way Obama's re-election will prove a disaster.
The best we can hope for vis a vis Syria is that it will avoid a civil war between the various factions that will take over the country as it disintegrates.
The best we can hope for vis a vis Lebanon is that it will not disintegrate as well and Hezballah will not attack Israel as a way to shift attention.
Next we turn to Jordan and the best we can hope for is that tiny nation does not implode as a consequence of their economic problems caused by the flight of refugees from surrounding countries.
Then the best we can hope for is that Egypt's military will resolve the issues between them and the Muslim Brotherhood, so that radical do not take over Sinai and the peace agreement with Israel is not abrogated.
As for Iran, yes, sanctions are hurting but will the pressure cause their leadership to change?
Only an optimist can conclude all of the above will work in our favor and, as you know, I am not an optimist.
As time passes, Obama is beginning o realize a secure and strong Israel is America's best hope for our interests in the Middle East and his policies which signaled the weakening of that relationship have boomeranged.
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Dick
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1)NBC/WSJ Poll: Hispanic Voters Less Interested in Election
Support for President Barack Obama in the upcoming election is holding steady among Hispanic voters, considered a key demographic in Obama’s re-election effort, a new poll reveals.
But Latinos are growing less enthusiastic about actually casting a ballot on Election Day, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo national poll of Hispanic registered voters.
The survey completed on July 12 shows that 67 percent of respondents would vote for Obama if the election were held today, virtually unchanged from 66 percent on June 12, while 23 percent said they would vote for his GOP challenger Mitt Romney.
“The challenge for the Obama campaign, however, will be turning out these voters, who aren’t as interested in the election as all other Americans are,” Telemundo Media said in a statement.
“Interest among Latinos in the upcoming presidential elections is at 68 percent, 11 percent less than most Americans (79 percent).”
Similarly, the percentage of Hispanics who say they are “more enthusiastic about voting than usual” has dropped from 57 percent on June 12 to 50 percent in the new survey.
The poll results confirm the assertion of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-born Florida Republican, who told Newsmax in November: “The overwhelming Hispanic support is not going to be with Obama this time because they’re not going to be as enthusiastic to go out to vote.”
Other results of the poll:
58 percent now approve of the job Obama is doing in handling the economy, down from 62 percent in June.
13 percent of respondents said they rate their feelings toward Obama as “very negative,” the highest percentage since he took office.
32 percent of Hispanics said they like Obama personally but disapprove of many of his policies, and another 12 percent don’t like him personally and disapprove of many of his policies.
The percentage of Hispanics who are more optimistic about the direction of the economy has fallen to 49 percent from 60 percent in June.
Somewhat surprisingly, only a bare majority, 51 percent, say Obamacare is a good idea, while 21 percent believe it is a bad idea and 25 percent have no opinion.
Hispanics went 2-to-1 for Obama over John McCain in 2008 and were key in several swing states.
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2)Air Force: Bunker Buster Weapon Ready for Use
The Air Force’s 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb is operational and ready for use if needed, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley revealed.
The Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers that protect chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, according to the Air Force Times.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta earlier this year said the bomb needed more development to be able to take out deep bunkers.
But Donley said on Wednesday: “If it needed to go today, we would be ready to do that. We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities. We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
The precision-guided MOP, which contains more than 5,000 pounds of explosives, was originally designed to take out hardened fortifications in Iran and North Korea.
“Since then, Syria has disintegrated into full civil war, making the U.S. government worried about the Syrian regime’s stockpile of chemical weapons,” according to the Air Force Times.
And the Jerusalem Post observed: “The Western world is increasingly concerned over the potential proliferation of Syria’s chemical weapons to Hezbollah.”
The MOP is reportedly able to penetrate to a depth of about 200 feet. It was developed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and is made by Boeing.
The Post also reported that it is “unclear” how Israel might deploy such a bomb, which won’t fit onto its current fleet of combat aircraft. The U.S. Air Force plans to deploy the 20-foot-long bombs on B-2 bombers, which can carry a far larger payload than Israel’s combat jets.
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3) To:Americans everywhere
By John Porter
3) To:Americans everywhere
By John Porter
I was sitting at my keyboard halfway through my writing a letter to you about howBarack Obama was fulfilling his pledge to "Transform America" by "Changing the fundamentals of America", so that our government would become the plantation, he the owner, and we the slaves, when this article by Steve McCann appeared in my in box. After checking it for accuracy, and finding it so, I put my writing on hold and here present it to you, for I could not say it better.
...Is it already too late?
Obama's Second Term Transformation Plans
The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860.
This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.
The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama's first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of "transforming America " in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.
The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.
During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelming controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama worshipping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.
The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.
For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they "shall" do something and more than 200 times when they "may" take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the "Secretary determines." In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of
310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014.
The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation's financial, banking and investment sectors. The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.
Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.
None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress.
The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages.
It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.
Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago style political tactics.
The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists.
The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.
Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g. the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history.
Holder continues to ignore Congress placing himself above contempt.
In a
second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.
Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.
Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism. Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.
The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.
What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them.
Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships.
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4)What Role Will White Guilt Play in the 2012 Election?
By Lee Cary
The unintended consequence of the white guilt vote for Obama in '08 is in the impact it's had on those most hurt by the president's economic policies: poor urban blacks.
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4)What Role Will White Guilt Play in the 2012 Election?
By Lee Cary
The unintended consequence of the white guilt vote for Obama in '08 is in the impact it's had on those most hurt by the president's economic policies: poor urban blacks.
In his book White Guilt: How Blacks & Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, Shelby Steele called white guilt "perhaps the greatest source of political, social and cultural power in the late twentieth century" (p. 96, Harper Collins, 2006).
[I] know it [white guilt] to be something very specific: the vacuum of moral authority that comes from simply knowing that one's race is associated with racism. Whites (and American institutions) must acknowledge historical racism to show themselves redeemed of it, but once they acknowledge it they lose moral authority over everything having to do with race, equality, social justice, poverty, and so on. They step into a void of vulnerability. The authority they lose transfers to the 'victims' of historical racism and becomes their great power in society. This is why white guilt is quite literally the same thing as black power. (p. 24, italics in original)
We can't measure the level of white guilt in the '08 vote count, but its presence was undeniable. Many of us encountered some expression of it among friends and relatives. For example:
Just before November 2008, I asked a friend whom he supported for President. He said, "Obama." I asked, "Why?" "Because I just think it would be cool to have a black president," he said.
I posited this hypothetical situation: "Okay, let's suppose your only choice is between two candidates absolutely equal in every way -- intelligence, experience, leadership -- equal in all the many and varied qualities that make for an effective president. Their only difference is that one is black, and the other white. And, let's also assume, you're required to vote. For which one do you vote?"
"The black candidate," he answered, quickly.
"So, you're racially biased?" I asked.
"No, of course not," he said.
"Well you must be," I said, "because if they're equal in every way, except skin color, then your only unbiased vote is to flip a coin."
In the '08 election, Barack Obama clearly benefited from the white guilt vote.
As Shelby Steele wrote:
The most striking irony of the age of white guilt is that racism suddenly became valuable to the people who had suffered it. Racism, in the age of racism, had only brought every variety of inhuman treatment, which is why the King generation felt that extinguishing it would bring equality. But in the age of white guilt, racism was also evidence of white wrongdoing and, therefore, evidence of white obligation to blacks. (p. 34)
Good intentions can lead to unintended consequences that are not so good. Such is the legacy of the white guilt vote for Obama in '08.
A booming economy has been likened to a rising tide that lifts all boats. In short, growing prosperity benefits all economic classes.
A falling tide, though, has the most immediate and greatest impact on those boats left stranded high and dry in the shallowest of water. Translation: recessions hit the poorest first, hardest, and longest.
Every week's news brings a new report detailing the climb in the national poverty level, an increased reliance on food stamps, and growing unemployment statistics particularly among urban blacks, as the recession's negative impact on them mounts -- with no end in sight.
When, in 2008, Colin Powell predicted that Obama would be a "transformational figure who could institute generational change," he probably didn't anticipate the generational impact on black communities due to Obama's failed economic policies.
And there lies the rub -- in the unanticipated consequences of casting a vote for president either to allay one's white guilt, or to support a candidate of one's own race -- white or black.
If we've learned anything in the last three years, it's that today, racial bias cuts both ways.
Does anyone think that Powell, who has yet to endorse a candidate for president this time, would have come out so decisively for Obama if Obama had run with the same qualifications but grown up in a Polish neighborhood of Chicago, with a name ending in "ski"?
As the campaign heats up in the next three months, the liberal media -- with a general population that wears its deep-seated feelings of white guilt as a badge of elite intellectualism -- will make circuitous appeals to white guilt by subtly reminding viewers that Governor Romney's religious preference is expressed through an organization where blacks were, in the past, not so welcome.
The "correspondent" will add, as an afterthought, that things have changed since that time, of course. But the subtle appeal to white guilt will have been made.
It's inevitable. They know it's worked in the past, on more than a few.
4a)In Obama Era, Have Race Relations Improved?
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Ask Americans how race relations have changed under their first black president and they are ready with answers.
Ashley Ray, a white woman, hears more people debating racial issues. "I know a lot of people who really thought we were OK as a nation, a culture, and now they understand that we're not," she says.
Karl Douglass, a black man, sees stereotypes easing. "White people deal with me and my family differently," he says.
Jose Lozano, who is Hispanic by way of Puerto Rico, believes prejudice is emerging from the shadows. "Now the racism is coming out," he says.
In the afterglow of Barack Obama's historic victory, most people in the United States believed that race relations would improve. Nearly four years later, has that dream come true? Americans have no shortage of thoughtful opinions, and no consensus.
As the nation moves toward the multiracial future heralded by this son of an African father and white mother, the events of Obama's first term, and what people make of them, help trace the racial arc of his presidency.
Shortly before the 2008 election, 56 percent of Americans surveyed by the Gallup organization said that race relations would improve if Obama were elected. One day after his victory, 70 percent said race relations would improve and only 10 percent predicted they would get worse.
Just weeks after taking office, Obama said, "There was justifiable pride on the part of the country that we had taken a step to move us beyond some of the searing legacies of racial discrimination."
Then he joked, "But that lasted about a day."
Or, rather, three months.
By July 2009, the black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for yelling at a white police officer who questioned whether Gates had broken into his own home. Asked to comment, Obama said he didn't know all the facts, but Gates was a personal friend and the officer had acted "stupidly."
The uproar was immediate. Obama acknowledged afterward, "I could've calibrated those words differently."
Ed Cattaneo, a retired computer training manager from Cape May, N.J., points to that episode as evidence of how Obama has hurt race relations.
"He's made them terrible," says Cattaneo, who is white. He also sees Obama as siding against white people through actions such as his Justice Department's decision to drop voter intimidation charges against New Black Panthers and in a program to turn out the black vote called "African-Americans for Obama."
Larry Sharkey, also white, draws different conclusions from the past four years.
"Attitudes are much better," Sharkey says as he slices raw meat in a Philadelphia butcher shop. He remembers welcoming a black family that moved next door to him 20 years ago in Claymont, Del. A white neighbor advised him not to associate with the new arrivals, warning, "Your property values are going to go down."
That kind of thing would never happen today, Sharkey says.
As Obama dealt with fallout from the Gates affair during the summer of 2009, the tea party coalesced out of opposition to Obama's stimulus and health care proposals. The vast majority of tea partyers were white. A small number of them displayed racist signs or were connected to white supremacist groups, prompting the question: Are Obama's opponents motivated by dislike of the president's policies, his race – or both?
As that debate grew, Obama retreated to the race-neutral stance that has been a hallmark of his career. An October 2009 Gallup poll showed a large drop in racial optimism since the election, with 41 percent of respondents saying that race relations had improved under Obama. Thirty-five percent said there was no change and 22 percent said race relations were worse.
The president has discussed race in occasional speeches to groups such as the National Urban League or the National Council of La Raza, and in interviews with Hispanic and African-American media outlets. But he usually walks a careful line, allowing the nation to get used to the idea of a black president without doing things to make race seem a central aspect of his governance.
"There is a totally different psychological frame of reference that this country has never had," says William Smith, executive director of the National Center for Race Amity at Wheelock College.
He cites evidence of progress from the mindset of children in his programs to new history curriculums in Deep South schools.
"To me, that's a quantum leap," Smith says.
Douglass, a real estate agent from Columbus, Ga., says white people seem less surprised to see him with his wife and daughter in places such as an art museum or a foreign language school.
"I think white people deal with me and my family differently since an African-American man is leader of the free world and a nuclear black family lives in the White House," he says.
But Steven Chen, an Asian-American graduate student in Philadelphia, points to racial rhetoric he has heard directed toward Obama, in person and online, as proof that race relations have deteriorated.
He also has observed a more visible sign of division: fewer Obama T-shirts.
"When he was elected, it was an American thing. People of all races wore them," says Chen. "Today it's a distinctly black phenomenon."
Ray, a graduate school administrator from Chicago, is uncertain whether race relations have remained the same or gotten worse.
It's good that people are talking about race more, she says, "but I know quite a few people who are sick of those discussions and blame him for all of it."
In the summer of 2010, race and politics collided again when Arizona Republicans passed an immigration law that critics said would lead to racial profiling of Hispanics.
Lozano, the police sergeant, remembers that when Obama visited Arizona and met with the governor, who supported the law, she wagged an angry finger in the president's face.
"That was ugly, I've never seen anything like that," says Lozano, who also is vice president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers. "There's no way that would have ever happened to a white president."
By the fall of 2010, Republicans had triumphed in the midterm elections and made history by electing Hispanic and Indian-American governors in New Mexico, South Carolina, and Nevada. Two black Republicans also went to Congress, from South Carolina and Florida.
Less than a year later, an August 2011 Gallup poll showed a further decline in racial optimism: 35 percent said race relations had improved due to Obama's election, 41 percent said no change, and 23 percent said things were worse.
Around this time, some African-American lawmakers and pundits openly complained about the president's refusal to specifically target any programs at high black unemployment. An interviewer from Black Entertainment Television asked Obama why not.
"That's not how America works," Obama replied.
Then came this February's killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is from Peru. Authorities initially declined to charge Zimmerman with a crime, causing a polarizing uproar.
This time, when asked about the case, Obama delivered a carefully calibrated message. He said all the facts were not known, the legal system should take its course – and that "if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon."
The comment was factual, but it still strikes Cattaneo as a coded message to black people that Obama is on their side. "A lot of people I talk to can't understand why a man who's half-white and half-black is so anti-white."
This April, in a poll by the National Journal and the University of Phoenix, 33 percent felt race relations were getting better, 23 percent said they were getting worse, and 42 percent said they were staying about the same.
So where are we now?
Four years after Obama smashed the nation's highest racial barrier, and less than four months before America will decide whether he deserves a second term, the nation is uncertain about the meaning of a black president.
Recently, Obama was asked in a Rolling Stone magazine interview if race relations were any different than when he took office.
"I never bought into the notion," Obama said, "that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a postracial period."
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