Jimmy Carter -- Obama's Guide to a One-Term Presidency

Obama Is Going the Way of Carter

Monday, 02 Aug 2010


President Obama is heading for a one-term presidency like Jimmy Carter’s, Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, tells Newsmax.

Liberal commentators like to cite downturns in support for Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan in their first terms as evidence that Obama could still gain re-election. But Keene points out a number of factors that are different in the case of Obama.

“Reagan came in during a recession, and by 1982, we were still in the middle of that,” Keene says. “We had high unemployment. We had inflation.” But, he says, “Even people who disagreed with Reagan in the polls at that time said that they had confidence in him.”

With Obama, “They don’t like what’s going on,” Keene says. “They think it’s wrong. They’re scared to death. Not scared of the unemployment, which is bad, but they are scared about the future.”

Keene is one of the country’s most astute political observers. The American Conservative Union, with 1 million members, runs the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington and publishes an annual "Rating of Congress," the gold standard for ideological assessments of members of Congress.

What concerns ordinary citizens is “runaway spending and whether the country is changing,” Keene says. “That is very different than just being concerned about the immediate economic environment.”

On top of those concerns, Obama is ideologically driven and will not change course toward a more moderate agenda, as did Clinton.

“He’s a true believer,” Keene says. “He an ideologue, and he’s going to try and get what he can get regardless of public opinion.”

While Obama’s approval ratings remains higher than approval of his policies, that’s because he is personally likeable, and people don’t like to admit to themselves they made a mistake in voting for him, Keene observes. “The last thing to go is approval ratings.”

When they do turn against a president, “It’s irreversible. And that’s what you are seeing among the independents, the real swing voters last time. They are now leaving him in droves.”

At the same time, Obama is losing support within his base and among Democrats in Congress.

“I don’t think that he has friends on the Hill,” Keene says. “He doesn’t get involved in all of that, and he doesn’t really care about them. They are there to pass his junk, and if they have to pay a price for that, that’s their problem, not his. You can understand why a lot of these Democratic House members are really upset saying, Didn’t we just walk the plank for you 16 times, and now you don’t even care.”

Keene says Republicans will regain a majority in the House, possibly by big margins.

“The Senate is a real long shot,” he says. “I would expect the Republicans to win five or six or seven seats, which is not bad.”

In the meantime, Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil disaster and other issues is “leading people to conclude that maybe this guy isn’t up to it,” Keene says. “When that happens, there’s really no way out because even if they like you, they are not going to keep you.”

As a result, Keene says, “Obama is on the verge of being an unelectable president like Jimmy Carter.”

Treason in Space -- Obama's in Orbit

Our president is out to destroy America. How? By giving muslim terrorists the technology they need to attack any nation on the planet.

Did we learn nothing from 9/11? Muslim terrorists, funded by muslim "moderates", attacked the US after working secretly in the mountains of Afghanistan. Since then, America has had a tough time identifying the enemy. Sure, we were quick to identify Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda gang. But they have been working on behalf of hundreds of millions of muslims around the world. On behalf of individuals and on behalf of muslim nations. Secretly. Behind the scenes. One way or another muslims have donated money and support to the al Qaeda cause. They have given money and support to other muslim terrorists and their causes.

The muslims were smart enough to know that when the American military strikes, it strikes against nations. Thus, muslim terrorists rightly figured the US would have a lot of trouble striking back against groups with no legitimate connection to sovereign nations. The strategy is clever in its simplicity.

As muslims saw, as the world saw when we rescued Kuwait in 1991 and invaded Iraq in 2003, US forces can destroy muslim national militaries in days. Thus, muslims learned their most effective tactic is to rely on their old practice of causing death by a thousand cuts. Thus, to avoid annihilation, muslim fighters avoid head-to-head fights.

Apparently President Obama is opposed to the lopsided outcomes of these direct battles, and apparently he wants terrorists to have a new platform for launching their attacks. If death by a thousand cuts works, then death by a hundred cuts is better. Hence, he wants to help them build rockets. He wants to help them build better versions of the small rockets Hamas has used against Israel.

Obama wants the US to inspire muslim children to study science and math. He believes if they can join us in exploring space they will collect huge psychological benefits. If muslims behave in their usual manner -- which includes turning technologies that advance humanity into instruments of terror -- how long will it take for muslim terrorists to acquire missile technology and start firing warheads over long distances?

The announcement that NASA is going to teach muslims how to build missiles must have sent a billion muslims to their prayer mats thanking Allah for his help in their war against the infidels.

NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World

Published July 05, 2010

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Though international diplomacy would seem well outside NASA's orbit, Bolden said in an interview with Al Jazeera that strengthening those ties was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.

"When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.

The NASA administrator was in the Middle East last month marking the one-year anniversary since Obama delivered an address to Muslim nations in Cairo. Bolden spoke in June at the American University in Cairo -- in his interview with Al Jazeera, he described space travel as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part.

"It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," he said. He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese.

However, Bolden denied the suggestion that he was on a diplomatic mission -- in a distinctly non-diplomatic role.

"Not at all. It's not a diplomatic anything," he said.

He said the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own and that no country is going to make it to Mars without international help.

Bolden has faced criticism this year for overseeing the cancellation of the agency's Constellation program, which was building new rockets and spaceships capable of returning astronauts to the moon. Stressing the importance of international cooperation in future missions, Bolden told Al Jazeera that the moon, Mars and asteroids are still planned destinations for NASA.

The Fiction Of Climate Science

It has been said that it is always possible to sell more books and articles about Abraham Lincoln, Diets, and Doom & Gloom. A few decades ago the Doom coming our way was coming as a cold spell. Nuclear Winter. Then there was the Population Bomb. Mathusian arguments predicting shortages due to the overwhelming number of humans consuming declining quantities of vital resources always kicks up the blood pressure and anxiety of millions of Americans. We are still at it. Nothing new under the Sun.

Why the climatologists get it wrong.

Many of you are too young to remember, but in 1975 our government pushed "the coming ice age."

Random House dutifully printed "THE WEATHER CONSPIRACY … coming of the New Ice Age." This may be the only book ever written by 18 authors. All 18 lived just a short sled ride from Washington, D.C. Newsweek fell in line and did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

OK, you say, that's media. But what did our rational scientists say?

In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."

You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed's mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today's scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.

In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.

Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.

Sorry, I noticed.

It's the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.

Al Gore thought he might ride his global warming crusade back toward the White House. If you saw his movie, which opened showing cattle on his farm, you start to understand how shallow this is. The United Nations says that cattle, farting and belching methane, create more global warming than all the SUVs in the world. Even more laughably, Al and his camera crew flew first class for that film, consuming 50% more jet fuel per seat-mile than coach fliers, while his Tennessee mansion sucks as much carbon as 20 average homes.

His PR folks say he's "carbon neutral" due to some trades. I'm unsure of how that works, but, maybe there's a tribe in the Sudan that cannot have a campfire for the next hundred years to cover Al's energy gluttony. I'm just not sophisticated enough to know how that stuff works. But I do understand he flies a private jet when the camera crew is gone.

The fall of Saigon in the '70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science's prediction of "A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age," came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.

That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today's tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.

While scientists march to the drumbeat of grant money, at least trees don't lie. Their growth rings show what's happened no matter which philosophy is in power. Tree rings show a mini ice age in Europe about the time Stradivarius crafted his violins. Chilled Alpine Spruce gave him tighter wood so the instruments sang with a new purity. But England had to give up the wines that the Romans cultivated while our globe cooled, switching from grapes to colder weather grains and learning to take comfort with beer, whisky and ales.

Yet many centuries earlier, during a global warming, Greenland was green. And so it stayed and was settled by Vikings for generations until global cooling came along. Leif Ericsson even made it to Newfoundland. His shallow draft boats, perfect for sailing and rowing up rivers to conquer villages, wouldn't have stood a chance against a baby iceberg.

Those sustained temperature swings, all before the evil economic benefits of oil consumption, suggest there are factors at work besides humans.

Today, as I peck out these words, the weather channel is broadcasting views of a freakish and early snow falling on Dallas. The Iowa state extension service reports that the record corn crop expected this year will have unusually large kernels, thanks to "relatively cool August and September temperatures." And on Jan. 16, 2007, NPR went politically incorrect, briefly, by reporting that "An unusually harsh winter frost, the worst in 20 years, killed much of the California citrus, avocados and flower crops."

To be fair, those reports are short-term swings. But the longer term changes are no more compelling, unless you include the ice ages, and then, perhaps, the panic attempts of the 1970s were right. Is it possible that if we put more CO2 in the air, we'd forestall the next ice age?

I can ask "outrageous" questions like that because I'm not dependent upon government money for my livelihood. From the witch doctors of old to the elected officials today, scaring the bejesus out of the populace maintains their status.

Sadly, the public just learned that our scientific community hid data and censored critics. Maybe the feds should drop this crusade and focus on our health care crisis. They should, of course, ignore the life insurance statistics that show every class of American and both genders are living longer than ever. That's another inconvenient fact.

Nothing Fails like Success

If there is a surer sign a program from Washington is working, I do not know what it is. What is the sign? Sudden death. Summary execution. As we know, whenever a government plan leads to success, something has to be done about.

The Obama administration had wanted consumers to replace the old family car with a new gas-sipping machine. The catalyst was an incentive of up to $4,500. The good news? It worked. The bad news? It worked.

Washington was shocked to see people responding to the offer like it was the Oklahoma Land Rush. As a result of the stampede into dealersips, the Obama administration quickly recognized its mistake and cancelled the program.

However, as the last line of the article states, any deals already in the works will be honored. In other words, over the next few weeks, dealerships across the country will work late back-dating purchase orders.


Government Suspends 'Clunkers' Program

At Current Rate, Giving Out $3,500 Or $4,500 Per Vehicle Would Burn Through $1 Billion Allocated In No Time

NYC Car Dealers: How Could Obama Administration Mess This Up?

"Cash for Clunkers" came to a screeching halt Thursday, after only six days on the road.

In a shocker, the government announced it would suspend the program at midnight because demand was too great.

It may have been the best $1 billion the government has spent so far this year.

Business was humming at Crestmont Toyota/Volkswagen Thursday night as salespeople rushed back to work on news that the government's "Cash for Clunkers" program was being suspended.
It's the deal where you get up to $4,500 for your older low mileage beast if you buy a new car with more efficient fuel consumption.

On Thursday night we learned the program was only good until midnight, all because of a backlog of red tape. So the salespeople were trying to get their deals through the government's Web site.

"People are loving it. It's wonderful. It's a great stimulus package," salesman Andy Beloff said.

But when asked if the government was running the program well, Beloff said, "No. No."

The dealership's lot had roughly 40 clunkers waiting to be shipped to the junkyard. Each one has already been replaced by a brand new lower mileage car. The program only started last Friday. It's a victim of its own success.

But the money may be running out faster than anyone imagined.

With almost 23,000 deals already processed and tens of thousands more in the pipeline, it's possible the $1 billion allocated for the program might have already run out and into the pockets of people like Christie Acosta, who knew a good deal when she saw one.

"I had a 1987 Ford Explorer. We had it for a while and I was ready to get rid of it," Acosta said.

For the economy it's good news, but the government's miscalculation has some a little nervous.

"These are just the deals we have to submit tonight," Crestmont president Bill Strauss said while holding a stack of papers. He said the dealership has over $100,000 on the table.

"If they can't administer a program like this, I'd be a little concerned about my health insurance," car salesman Rob Bojaryn said.

The "Clunkers" program was being administered by the National Highway Safety Administration, which has seemed overwhelmed from the get-go. Some in Congress are expected to push for expansion of the $1 billion budget on Friday.

If you have a "Clunkers" deal in the works, don't worry. The government said Thursday any transactions already made between dealers and consumers will be honored.