The Many Faces of Marxist Barack Obama…..Is Mouth his Only Gift?

An Instance of Liberals’ Preference

For Narrative Over Reality

by John Hinderaker    at  PowerLine:

Barack Obama is fond of saying that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. I complained about his apparent ignorance of Christian theology here, after Obama said:

I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.

I grumbled:

Nor did Jesus ever say that we should be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers; Obama apparently referred to the story of Cain and Abel. 

This is the point I want to make: Biblical precepts are often twisted by liberals to support socialism. Jesus was not a socialist. On the contrary, he explicitly disclaimed any political agenda. And the moral of the story in Genesis is not that we are, or should be, our brothers’ keepers. Rather, the phrase comes from Cain’s answer when God asks him the whereabouts of his brother Abel, whom Cain has just killed. Cain denies any knowledge, and adds the self-exculpatory question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The point of the story is not that Cain was responsible for looking after Abel, like an Old Testament Nancy Pelosi. Cain was condemned not for failing to keep watch over his brother, but for killing him.

Of course, when Obama says that we are our brothers’ keepers, he is speaking metaphorically. He doesn’t mean real brothers, he means people in general. And he doesn’t intend that we should “keep” them personally, but rather that we (some of us, anyway) should pay a lot more in taxes so that others can be kept by the government. Obama’s words represent narrative, not reality.

We conservatives understand the metaphor and rebel against it. At the same time, it is hard to imagine any conservative failing to help a real brother who is in real need. And with our own time and money, not someone else’s. That’s reality, not narrative.

We learned in a remarkable news story, a couple of days ago, that Barack Obama has an actual brother, not a figurative one, who is living in poverty in Africa. His name is George Obama. Barack has met his brother George, but has no ongoing contact with him. George Obama is in trouble: he has a young son who is sick and has been hospitalized, and George, a poor man, has no way to pay the hospital bill.

You would naturally assume that George Obama would reach out to his brother Barack for help. After all, Barack is a multimillionaire; not only that, he is the most powerful man in the world and has often spoken of the importance of being one’s brother’s keeper. So surely Barack would be happy to “keep” his real brother by paying his son’s–Barack’s nephew’s–hospital bill, right?

Wrong. What a silly idea! George Obama exists in the world of reality, not narrative. He is a real brother, not a fictitious “brother” who exists only as an excuse to raise someone else’s taxes. George apparently knew better than to call on his real brother, the President of the United States, in a time of need. So where did he turn? To Dinesh D’Souza.

George met D’Souza when Dinesh was in Africa, working on his blockbuster movie 2016, which is harshly critical of Barack Obama. D’Souza interviewed George Obama, and they spent a day together. Here is how Dinesh tells the story:

A few days ago I received a call from a man I recently met named George. He was a bit flustered, and soon informed me that his young son was sick with a chest condition. He pleaded with me to send him $1,000 to cover the medical bills. Since George was at the hospital I asked him to let me speak to a nurse, and she confirmed that George’s son was indeed ill. So I agreed to send George the money through Western Union. He was profusely grateful. But before I hung up I asked George, “Why are you coming to me?” He said, “I have no one else to ask.” Then he said something that astounded me, “Dinesh, you are like a brother to me.”

Maher Speaks Big Obama Truth: “When It Comes To Fighting, He’s Black”

It is inevitable that even an experienced and very skilled lifetime crook’s mouth  might slip out the TRUTH once in a while.

Thus Spaketh Foul-mouthed Bill Maher regarding his view of Barack Hussein Obama’s fighting techniques:

Maher On Obama: “When It Comes To Fighting, He’s Black”

To review the talk of the shrew,  click below for the video at realclearpolitics:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/18/maher_on_obama_when_it_comes_to_fighting_hes_black.html

More than 21,000 Retired Federal Workers Receive a Lifetime Government pension of $100,000 or more Annually

Some Federal Pensions

Pay Handsome Rewards

August 17, 2012   from the Natinal Center for Policy Analysis:

More than 21,000 retired federal workers receive lifetime government pensions of $100,000 or more per year, according to a USA Today/Gannett analysis.

• Of these, nearly 2,000 have federal pensions that pay $125,000 or more annually, and 151 take home $150,000 or more.
• Six federal retirees get more than $200,000 a year, including a doctor, a dentist and a credit union regulator, plus three retirees whose occupations weren’t listed.
• Some 1.2 percent of federal retirees collect six-figure pensions.
• By comparison, 0.1 percent of military retirees collect as much.
• Comparable private figures aren’t available.

The six-figure pensions spread across a broad swath of the federal workforce: doctors, budget analysts, accountants, public relations specialists and human resource managers. Most do not get Social Security benefits.

• Retired law enforcement is the most common profession receiving $100,000-plus pensions, including 326 Drug Enforcement Administration agents, 237 IRS investigators and 186 FBI agents.
• The Postal Service has 714 retired workers getting six-figure retirements.
• The Social Security Administration has 444.
• A retired Smithsonian zoologist has a $162,000 annual lifetime pension.

Pensions are a growing federal budget burden, rising twice as fast as inflation over the last decade.

• Pension payments cost $70 billion last year, plus $13 billion for retiree health care.
• Taxpayers face a $2 trillion unfunded liability — the amount needed to cover future benefits — for these programs, according to the government’s audited financial statement.

The average federal pension pays $32,824 annually. The average state and local government pension pays $24,373, Census data show. The average military pension is $22,492. ExxonMobil, which has one of the best remaining private pensions, pays an average of $18,250 per retiree, Labor Department filings show.

The federal government has two retirement systems: one for those hired before 1984 and another for those hired after. Under the older system, employees did not participate in Social Security. The older system covers 78 percent of current retirees and accounts for 96 percent of six-figure pensions. All federal retirees receive health benefits.

Source: Dennis Cauchon, “Some Federal Pensions Pay Handsome Rewards,” USA Today, August 15, 2012.

Have you ever lived in a Marxist State…..where Big Government decides Matters?

I have never lived in one.  But I do live in Minnesota.

 Minnesota is ‘progressive’.    Being ‘progressive’ means you are on the way inevitably  to Marxism when only State Committees distribute the candy.  

Here at home,  Its usually elected officials   such as Mark Ritchie, who practices crony corruption as Secretary of State from time to important time to assist fellow  lefties to win  elections  by allowing  State workers loyal to Leftism  collect and ‘control’ ballots of the dead, the absent,  amd the infirmed .    Minnesota Marxists learn their trade at Paul Wellstone Academies, where good hearts  learn whom to hate.

The USSR, if anyone remembers,  was  a Marxist dictatorhip for seven decades and relied on rough tactics and scary verbal skills  far worse than those presently practiced  by Barack Hussein Obama in his frenetic, sick campaign for reelection .   Overseas in that place of  great expanse,   perceived enemies were brutally smeared often as a prelude to a casual disappearance of the victim usually after midnight never to be seen or heard of again.   Truth was a matter of power and opinion.

Liberals at university these days claim there wasn’t much difference between the USSR and the USA.

Obama’s conservative enemies have not yet  literally disappeared.   The New York Times, gays, inner city black racists, and countless  loony feminist fanatics would all be much relieved if he would act on it as soon as possible. 

I have visited the USSR, however and spoke Russian fluently.   On two occasions…..summer 1966, when it was a second rate dictatorship…..(a paradise compared to the Stalinist varieties during the 1930s and 40s,  and in October, 1990, when the “Union”   dictatorship was falling into third rate categories of governing.

Today’s Russia  under Putin is much more akin to what one might expect America to be under one-Party Marxist rule by Barack Hussein Obama to solve problems.   Both world leaders pay no attention  to truth and often law in  whatever transactions they undertake.  

Do you remember Garry Kasparov?   Please read the following from the Wall Street Journal:

When Putin’s Thugs Came for Me

I was dragged away Friday by a group of police—in fact carried away with one on each arm and leg

By Garry Kasparov

Moscow

The only surprise to come out of Friday’s guilty verdict in the trial here of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot was how many people acted surprised. Three young women were sentenced to two years in prison for the prank of singing an anti-Putin “prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Their jailing was the next logical step for Vladimir Putin’s steady crackdown on “acts against the social order,” the Kremlin’s expansive term for any public display of resistance.

In the 100 days since Mr. Putin’s re-election as president, severe new laws against public protest have been passed and the homes of opposition leaders have been raided. These are not the actions of a regime prepared to grant leniency to anyone who offends Mr. Putin’s latest ally, the Orthodox Church and its patriarch.

Police detain author Garry Kasparov during the trial of the female punk band “Pussy Riot” outside a court building in Moscow, August 17, 2012.

Unfortunately, I was not there to hear the judge’s decision, which she took several hours to read. The crowds outside the court building made entry nearly impossible, so I stood in a doorway and took questions from journalists. Suddenly, I was dragged away by a group of police—in fact carried away with one policeman on each arm and leg.

The men refused to tell me why I was being arrested and shoved me into a police van. When I got up to again ask why I had been detained, things turned violent. I was restrained, choked and struck several times by a group of officers before being driven to the police station with dozens of other protesters. After several hours I was released, but not before they told me I was being criminally investigated for assaulting a police officer who claimed I had bitten him.

It would be easy to laugh at such a bizarre charge when there are already so many videos and photos of the police assaulting me. But in a country where you can be imprisoned for two years for singing a song, laughter does not come easily. My bruises will heal long before the members of Pussy Riot are free to see their young children again. In the past, Mr. Putin’s critics and enemies have been jailed on a wide variety of spurious criminal charges, from fraud to terrorism.

But now the masks are off. Unlikely as it may be, the three members of Pussy Riot have become our first true political prisoners.

Such a brazen step should raise alarms, but the leaders of the Free World are clearly capable of sleeping through any wake-up call. If this was all business as usual for the Putin justice system, the same was true for the international reaction. A spokesman for the Obama administration called the sentence “disproportionate,” as if the length of the prison term were the only problem with open repression of political speech. The Russian Constitution is freely available online, but this was a medieval show trial with no connection to the criminal code.

Mr. Putin is not worried about what the Western press says, or about celebrities tweeting their support for Pussy Riot. These are not the constituencies that concern him. Friday, the Russian paper Vedomosti reported that former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann could be put in charge of managing the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As long as bankers and other Western elites eagerly line up to do Mr. Putin’s bidding, the situation in Russia will only get worse.

If officials at the U.S. State Department are as “seriously concerned” about free speech in Russia as they say, I suggest they drop their opposition to the Magnitsky Act pending in the Senate. That legislation would bring financial and travel sanctions against the functionaries who enact the Kremlin’s agenda of repression. Mouthing concern only reinforces the fact that no action will be taken.

Mr. Putin could not care less about winning public-relations battles in the Western press, or about fighting them at all. He and his cronies care only about money and power. Today’s events make it clear that they will fight for those things until Russia’s jails are full.

Mr. Kasparov, a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal, is the leader of the Russian pro-democracy group United Civil Front and chairman of the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation. He resides in Moscow.

Unemployment Goes UP in July

 

USA TODAY

Unemployment rates rise in 44 states in July

By Christopher S. Rugaber, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide.

• David Klepper, AP

Lynn Tipton, front, president of a local union and a worker at the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, protesting layoffs at the department in July 2012, in Cranston,

 

The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in only two states and were unchanged in four.

Unemployment rates rose in nine states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential election. That trend, if it continued, could pose a threat to President Barack Obama‘s re-election bid in less than three months.

• INTERACTIVE: Jobs rebound will be slow

Nationwide, hiring improved in July after three months of tepid job gains. But the national unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3% from 8.2%. Monthly job gains have averaged 150,000 this year. That’s barely enough to accommodate population growth. As a result, the unemployment rate is the same as when the year began.

Still, 31 states gained jobs in July, while 19 lost them. Unemployment rates can rise in a state even when more jobs are created if more people start looking for work. People who are out of work are counted as unemployed only if they’re looking for a job.

In the most closely contested states in the presidential race, unemployment has fallen over the past year. That could help Obama in his contest with GOP candidate Mitt Romney.

State unemployment rates, ranked by change from 2011

State	July 2011	July 2012	Chg.
FLORIDA	10.6%	8.8%	-1.8
MISSISSIPPI	10.9%	9.1%	-1.8
NEVADA	13.8%	12.0%	-1.8
OHIO	8.9%	7.2%	-1.7
D.C.	10.5%	8.9%	-1.6
MICHIGAN	10.6%	9.0%	-1.6
IDAHO	8.9%	7.5%	-1.4
KENTUCKY	9.7%	8.3%	-1.4
MISSOURI	8.6%	7.2%	-1.4
ARIZONA	9.6%	8.3%	-1.3
MASS.	7.4%	6.1%	-1.3
OKLAHOMA	6.2%	4.9%	-1.3
CALIFORNIA	11.9%	10.7%	-1.2
ILLINOIS	10.1%	8.9%	-1.2
N. CAROLINA	10.7%	9.6%	-1.1
INDIANA	9.2%	8.2%	-1.0
TENNESSEE	9.4%	8.4%	-1.0
ALABAMA	9.2%	8.3%	-0.9
ARKANSAS	8.2%	7.3%	-0.9
NEW MEXICO	7.5%	6.6%	-0.9
OREGON	9.6%	8.7%	-0.9
S. CAROLINA	10.5%	9.6%	-0.9
TEXAS	8.1%	7.2%	-0.9
MINNESOTA	6.6%	5.8%	-0.8
UTAH	6.8%	6.0%	-0.8
WASHINGTON	9.3%	8.5%	-0.8
GEORGIA	10.0%	9.3%	-0.7
IOWA	6.0%	5.3%	-0.7
WEST VIRGINIA	8.1%	7.4%	-0.7
DELAWARE	7.4%	6.8%	-0.6
MONTANA	7.0%	6.4%	-0.6
N. DAKOTA	3.6%	3.0%	-0.6
RHODE ISLAND	11.4%	10.8%	-0.6
VERMONT	5.6%	5.0%	-0.6
NEBRASKA	4.5%	4.0%	-0.5
VIRGINIA	6.4%	5.9%	-0.5
CONNECTICUT	8.9%	8.5%	-0.4
HAWAII	6.8%	6.4%	-0.4
KANSAS	6.7%	6.3%	-0.4
WYOMING	6.0%	5.6%	-0.4
WISCONSIN	7.6%	7.3%	-0.3
MARYLAND	7.2%	7.0%	-0.2
PENNSYLVANIA	8.1%	7.9%	-0.2
S. DAKOTA	4.6%	4.4%	-0.2
NEW HAMP.	5.5%	5.4%	-0.1
COLORADO	8.3%	8.3%	0.0
MAINE	7.6%	7.6%	0.0
ALASKA	7.6%	7.7%	0.1
LOUISIANA	7.3%	7.6%	0.3
NEW JERSEY	9.4%	9.8%	0.4
NEW YORK	8.2%	9.1%	0.9
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

But it has started to tick up in recent months. In Nevada, the rate rose to 12% in July from 11.6% the previous month. That’s the highest rate in the nation, though it’s still much lower than a year ago, when it was 13.8%.

And in Michigan, the rate has increased to 9%, from 8.5% two months earlier.

Unemployment also increased in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

The rate was unchanged at 7.2% in Ohio, the only swing state that didn’t suffer an increase. Still, that rate is down sharply from 8.9% a year ago.

Most competitive states have unemployment rates below the national level, so even recent increases may not have a large impact on voter sentiment.

Iowa’s unemployment rate, for example, increased to 5.3%, still the sixth-lowest in the country. New Hampshire’s rose to 5.4% and Virginia’s increased to 5.9%, both far below the national rate.

Only four swing states have higher unemployment rates than the national figure: Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina at 9.6%, and Florida at 8.8%.

Some battleground states reported large job gains that could lead to lower unemployment rates in coming months. Michigan added 21,800 jobs, the second-largest increase in the nation, after California. Michigan’s gains were mostly in manufacturing and government. Virginia reported the third-largest increase, 21,300, mainly in education and health care.

Most other battleground states added small numbers of jobs.

Unemployment rates and total jobs data are derived from two separate surveys and aren’t always consistent each month. But they tend to even out over time.

Many political scientists say voter attitudes may be shaped more by national economic trends than local or statewide changes.

Most Americans probably read or hear more news about the national economy than they do about their local areas, some experts say. And they may not attribute regional economic changes to presidential policies.

Overall, the economy hasn’t been growing fast enough to generate more hiring. It expanded at an annual rate of only 1.5% in the April-June quarter, down from 2% in the first quarter and 4.1% in the final three months of last year.

Krauthammer on more about the Ryan effect

Romney’s present, Ryan’s future

by  Charles Krauthammer    at the Washington Post:

They haven’t had a decisive influence since Lyndon Johnson carried Texas for John Kennedy in 1960. (That and Illinois put Kennedy over the top.) This time, however, the effect could be significant. The Democrats’ Mediscare barrage is already in full swing. Paul Ryan, it seems, is determined to dispossess Grandmother, then toss her over a cliff. If the charge is not successfully countered, good-bye Florida.

Vice-presidential picks are always judged by their effect on the coming election. They rarely have any.

They haven’t had a decisive influence since Lyndon Johnson carried Texas for John Kennedy in 1960. (That and Illinois put Kennedy over the top.) This time, however, the effect could be significant. The Democrats’ Mediscare barrage is already in full swing. Paul Ryan, it seems, is determined to dispossess Grandmother, then toss her over a cliff. If the charge is not successfully countered, good-bye Florida.

Republicans have a twofold answer. First, hammer home that their Medicare plan affects no one over 55, let alone 65. Second, go on offense. Point out that President Obama cuts Medicare by $700 billion to finance Obamacare.

It’s a sweet judo throw: Want to bring up Medicare, supposedly our weakness? Fine. But now you’ve got to debate Obamacare, your weakness — and explain why you are robbing Granny’s health care to pay for your pet project.

If Mitt Romney and Ryan can successfully counterattack Mediscare, the Ryan effect becomes a major plus. Because:

(a) Ryan nationalizes the election and makes it ideological, reprising the 2010 dynamic that delivered a “shellacking” to the Democrats.

(b) If the conversation is about big issues, Obama cannot hide from his dismal economic record and complete failure of vision. In Obama’s own on-camera commercial — “the choice . . . couldn’t be bigger” — what’s his big idea? A 4.6-point increase in the marginal tax rate of 2 percent of the population.

That’s it? That’s his program? For a country with stagnant growth, ruinous debt and structural problems crying out for major entitlement and tax reform? Obama’s “plan” would cut the deficit from $1.20 trillion to $1.12 trillion. It’s a joke.

(c) Image. Ryan, fresh and 42, brings youth, energy and vitality — the very qualities Obama projected in 2008 and has by now depleted. “Hope and change” has become “the other guy killed a steelworker’s wife.” From transcendence to the political gutter in under four years. A new Olympic record.

While Ryan’s effect on 2012 is as yet undetermined — it depends on the success or failure of Mediscare — there is less doubt about the meaning of Ryan’s selection for beyond 2012. He could well become the face of Republicanism for a generation.

There’s a history here. By choosing George H.W. Bush in 1980, Ronald Reagan gave birth to a father-son dynasty that dominated the presidential scene for three decades. The Bush name was on six of seven consecutive national tickets.

When Dwight Eisenhower picked Richard Nixon in 1952, he turned a relatively obscure senator into a dominant national figure for a quarter-century, appearing on the presidential ticket in five of six consecutive elections.

Even losing VP candidates can ascend to party leader and presumptive presidential nominee. Ed Muskie so emerged in 1968, until he melted down in New Hampshire in 1972. Walter Mondale so emerged in 1980 and won the presidential nomination four years later. (The general election was another story.)

Winning is even better. Forty percent of 20th-century presidents were former VPs: Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Bush (41).

Before Aug. 11, Ryan already was the party’s intellectual leader and de facto parliamentary leader — youngest-ever House Budget Committee chairman whose fiscal blueprint has driven congressional debate for two years. Now, however, he is second only to Romney as the party’s undisputed political leader.

And while Romney is the present, Ryan is the future. Romney’s fate will be determined on Nov. 6. Ryan’s presence, assuming he acquits himself well in the campaign, will extend for decades.

Ryan’s importance is enhanced by his identity as a movement conservative. Reagan was the first movement leader in modern times to achieve the presidency. Like him, Ryan represents a new kind of conservatism for his time.

Reagan rejected the moderate accommodationism represented by Gerald Ford, the sitting president Reagan nearly overthrew in 1976. Ryan represents a new constitutional conservatism of limited government and individual opportunity that carried Republicans to victory in 2010, not just as a rejection of Obama’s big-government hyper-liberalism but also as a significant departure from the philosophically undisciplined, idiosyncratically free-spending “compassionate conservatism” of Obama’s Republican predecessor.

Ryan’s role is to make the case for a serious approach to structural problems — a hardheaded, sober-hearted conservatism that puts to shame a reactionary liberalism that, with Greece in our future, offers handouts, bromides and a 4.6 percent increase in tax rates.

If Ryan does it well, win or lose in 2012, he becomes a dominant national force. Mild and moderate Mitt Romney will have shaped the conservative future for years to come.

The cunning of history. Or if you prefer, its sheer capriciousness.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com