Primacy Of The Past

Coulter Of The Day
Why do only tax cuts come with an expiration date? Why not tax increases? (Ann Coulter, 11/28/2012)


The Numbers
Jared Bernstein, who served as chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said the Times analysis highlighted the need to raise taxes on the affluent and cut taxes for the poor. He cautioned that the middle class most likely would need to pay more, too. “When you look at these numbers, you understand why we’re not collecting the revenue we need to support the spending we want,” said Mr. Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. “We’ve really gutted the system.” (NYT, 11/29/2012)

"Complaints aside, most face lower tax burden than in 1980" reads the headline, with its broad implication that Americans have enjoyed something of a tax holiday for the past 30 something years. But the best line for us was Obama proxy Bernstein's admission that the middle class will get socked next, right after "the rich." Exactly as Republicans have told us. We also liked the part about not having enough of the taxpayers' money to "support the spending we want." "We" meaning the Democrat party, of course.   


Details
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal on Thursday to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.

The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, met strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced the goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other social programs to be worked out next year, with no guarantees. (NYT, 11/29/2012)

Tell us again. Who is not being serious in negotiations about the fiscal cliff? (Of course there is special irony in the proposal coming from an acknowledged tax cheat!) Even the Times choked a bit on this nonsense.


Face Off
To the extent the GOP has an elected face, it is that of Speaker John Boehner. And he is precisely the man with whom Mr. Obama should be having friendly lunches. In fact, the meal with Mitt just may be a clever attempt to obscure the fact that the president isn't really meeting with those with whom he's supposed to be thrashing out the fiscal cliff. (Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 11/29/2012)

'...should be having lunch with.' Sometimes a point is so simple and so obvious that it catches us by surprise. Obama runs off to Southeast Asia, lunches with Mitt, probably gets in some serious hoop time, all the while evading his responsibilities. The country's first slacker president. 


In The Army Now
Private Manning is trying to avoid trial in the WikiLeaks case. He argues that he was punished enough when he was locked up alone in a small cell for nearly nine months at the brig in Quantico and had to sleep naked for several nights. (NYT, 11/29/2012)

Traitor Manning also cited as "punishment enough" the loss of access to his Lady Gaga music and not being able to watch Glee. 


Burger And Fries
Jocelyn Horner, 35, a graduate student, said she supported the protesters. “If anybody deserves to unionize, it’s fast-food workers,” she said.

A cashier whose name tag read “Milady” said she chose not to participate in the demonstration.

“At least I have a job,” she said. (NYT, 11/29/2012)

This from an article about a union-led protest of a handful of fast food workers. Who gets it? We vote for Milady over Jocelyn (a 35 year old grad student? She reminds us of Sandra Fluke!)

The Impediment Of Origin

Process Driven
In the process, the most important questions about Benghazi, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed on Sept. 11, have largely gotten lost: Were requests for greater security for diplomats in Libya ignored? Even if Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan has been decimated, what threat is posed by its affiliates and imitators in other countries where they have taken refuge? How can crucial diplomacy be conducted amid the dangerous chaos that has followed the toppling of dictators across the Arab world?

Instead, it is the parsing of the talking points — who wrote them, altered them, recited them on television or tried to explain them — that could decide the fate of a leading candidate for secretary of state, Susan E. Rice, currently the United Nations ambassador. (NYT, 11/28/2012)

The New York Times now piously claims that politicians and media are focused on the wrong aspect of the Benghazi story: the characterizations of the attack by Obama, Rice and Clinton rather than the more important questions of security and the death of four Americans. This from the publication that first ignored and then repeatedly downplayed ALL aspects of the story for weeks on end. Of course the Times is at least partially incorrect. For months, Republicans like Senator John McCain along with Fox News have been consistently and demonstrably asking the questions that the Times now asks. We are happy to have the Times now on board, but - forgive our cynicism - wonder where they were before the election.


Data Driven
Romney was once a world-class management consultant with a legendary appetite for “the data.” His private-equity success was due partly to his knack for identifying and purging inefficiencies from bloated, underperforming enterprises. It’s time, therefore, to set him loose (analytically speaking) on the mother of all domestic challenges: America’s radically inefficient health-care system. (Matt Miller, Washington Post, 11/28/2012)

Funny how - after he has lost the election - Liberals now have such glowing respect for Mitt Romney and his business acumen. The same Mitt Romney who they previously contended had plundered companies, callously fired workers, shipped jobs overseas, killed the spouses of other workers, etc. 


Will Power
With a chip on his shoulder larger than his margin of victory, Barack Obama is approaching his second term by replicating the mistake of his first. Then his overreaching involved health care — expanding the entitlement state at the expense of economic growth. Now he seeks another surge of statism, enlarging the portion of gross domestic product grasped by government and dispensed by politics. The occasion is the misnamed “fiscal cliff,” the proper name for which is: the Democratic Party’s agenda. (George Will, Washington Post, 11/28/2012)

No one alive can write like this.


Own It
Republicans have got to make Obama own the economy. 

They should spend from now until the end of the congressional calendar reading aloud from Thomas Sowell, Richard Epstein, John Lott and Milton Friedman and explaining why Obama's high tax, massive regulation agenda spells doom for the nation. 

Then some Republicans can say: We think this is a bad idea, but Obama won the election and the media are poised to blame us for whatever happens next, so let's give his plan a whirl and see how the country likes it. (Ann Coulter, 11/28/2012)

We are honored. The great Ann Coulter agrees with RedStateVT on prospective Republican strategy. 

Intellectual Curiousity

Skimped
But the very essence of the Wal-Mart system is to employ thousands upon thousands of workers through contractors and subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, who are compelled by Wal-Mart’s market power and its demand for low prices to cut corners and skimp on safety. And because Wal-Mart isn’t the employer of record for these workers, the company can disavow responsibility for their conditions of work.

This system isn’t reserved just for workers in faraway lands: Tens of thousands of American workers labor under similar arrangements. Many are employed at little more than the minimum wage in the massive warehouses in the inland exurbs of Los Angeles, where Wal-Mart’s imports from Asia are trucked from the city’s harbor to be sorted and packaged and put on the trucks and trains that take them to Wal-Mart stores for a thousand miles around. (Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, 11/27/2012)

No one has to work for Wal Mart. No company has to do business with Wal Mart. No one has to shop at Wal Mart. And yet, notwithstanding the horrendous atrocities that Wal Mart purportedly commits on a daily basis, millions work, do business with and shop there. Progressives like Meyerson who demonize Wal Mart have never been to a Wal Mart and seen the masses of poor people who are saving money or the multitude of people who are gratefully working there. 


Clouds Got In The Way
President Obama came to the defense of Susan E. Rice, his embattled ambassador to the United Nations, on Wednesday even as she came under fire from another Republican senator and saw her prospects for becoming secretary of state further clouded. (NYT, 11/28/2012)

There is growing speculation in conservative circles that Obama is using this situation to damage Republicans. How? By supporting Rice in the face of Republican opposition, he actually combines and continues two key elements of his re-election campaign: the "Republican War on Women" and the "Republicans are racist" libel. The perpetual campaign indeed. 

Three Bags Full

What Liberalism Has Wrought
A retired conservative friend does charitable work in the community delivering meals to the elderly and infirmed. He tells us of making a delivery to a recipient who admired his car and asked what brand it was. When told that it was a Lexus, the individual remarked: "It must be nice to have money."  Leaving our friend who donates his time, the wear on his car, along with the cost of the gas to wonder if this is the inevitable result of the endless class warfare waged by Obama and the Democrats. 


No Dispute
There is a dispute about how important the video was in provoking the terrorist assault on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the United States ambassador and three other Americans. Militants interviewed at the scene said they were unaware of the video until a protest in Cairo called it to their attention. But the video without question led to protests across the globe, beginning in Cairo and spreading rapidly in September to Yemen, Morocco, Iran, Tunisia, Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Indonesia and Malaysia. (NYT, 11/25/2012)

It is hysterical watching the New York Times twist itself into a pretzel trying to protect the Obama administration while explaining what is a strait-forward story. 

Here are the Benghazi facts as we know them:
-On the anniversary of 9/11 Al Qaeda-affiliated militants attacked a lightly defended diplomatic post and killed four Americans including the ambassador.
-Obama administration spokespersons including the president himself, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice immediately and aggressively put forward the storyline that the attack was in response to an anti-Muslim video. 
-Skeptics at Fox News and Republicans challenged the Obama administration on this assertion, believing that the administration did not want to admit that it was terrorism when 1) the election was imminent and, 2) the administration had been stating publicly that Al Qaeda was on the run. 
-The Obama administration then began saying that they never denied it was terrorism.

So now we have the Times spinning away. There is a dispute about the role of the video? Actually there is no dispute. The video played no role. The video led to protests? Well maybe it did, but that is only because the Obama administration put the video forward as the cause of the Benghazi attack, thus publicizing it, thus leading to protests. Self-fulfilling. This is dishonest reporting....from the paper that does it best. 



Creative Destruction
Since Sesame Workshop announced last week that the “Sesame Street” puppeteer Kevin Clash had resigned after being accused of sexual relationships with minors, the nonprofit organization has been struggling to determine how to replace one of its main creative forces. (NYT, 11/25/2012)

Mitt Romney was right! We suspect we will be saying that a lot over the next four years.


Scarcity
The issue of closing Guantánamo scarcely came up in the 2012 campaign. But it was good to hear Mr. Obama recommit to his promise near the end of the race. “I still want to close Guantánamo,” he said during an interview on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” in mid-October. “We haven’t been able to get that through Congress.” (NYT, 11/25/2012)

Since when has Obama let Congress stand in his way? The Imperial President should simply issue another of his executive orders if he really wants to close Gitmo.

Public Opinion

Campaign Lowlights (Amended)
We re-post here RedStateVT's compilation of the worst moments from the 2012 campaign. Yes, we ARE over it, but we thought of a couple more and did not want them to go unstated. Dems will forever talk about the 'Willie Horton' ad, notwithstanding that George H.W. Bush had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Likewise, they will cry 'Swift Boat' against the Republicans, notwithstanding that fellow soldiers were deeply offended that Dems were running John Kerry as a war hero. Well, turnaround being fair play.... 


Obama's rebuke to entrepreneurs that they are not responsible for their success. ("You didn't build it.")

The Obama ad that accused Mitt Romney of killing a woman.

Harry Reid's unsubstantiated accusations that Mitt Romney paid no taxes.

The New York Times calling President Obama "seemingly unassailable" on foreign policy.

"Neutral" debate moderator Candy Crowley saving President Obama on Benghazi.

Chris Matthews divining racial taunts in ever utterance by a Romney supporter. ("Chicago!")

Joe Biden telling blacks that Romney was going to "put y'all back in chains."

Joe Biden's vile and despicable behavior during the entire vice-presidential debate.

Everything else that Chris Matthews said.

The pro-Obama ad that depicts a young woman equating voting for Obama with having sex with a cool guy.

The groundbreaking front page Washington Post expose on a possible bullying episode by Mitt Romney some 40+ years ago. (Pulitzer Prize for the Post?)



By The Way
Another list we vow to maintain and expand upon is the one which lists all the things that the media refused to  discuss about first-term Obama. Here's a start.

Closing Gitmo (a major plank of the 2008 campaign)
More golf than Bush
Fewer press conferences than Bush
$4/gallon gas (3x Bush prices)
Fast and Furious
Solyndra
Skipping National Security briefings
Transparency (prospective bills on the internet, etc.)
Growth of deficit
Unemployment rate
Weak GDP growth
Loss of AAA rating
Benghazi


Burdensome
Riding a wave of confidence after his re-election victory, President Obama is eager to collect scalps from the class war he appears to have won. Americans, Obama said in his postelection news conference earlier this month, "want to make sure that middle-class folks aren't bearing the entire burden and sacrifice when it comes to some of these big challenges. They expect that folks at the top are doing their fair share as well." 
....
Although Obama and his fellow Democrats repeatedly call on wealthier Americans to pay their "fair share," they never specify what percentage of the nation's tax burden the wealthy would have to bear. As matters stand, the top 1 percent of American households paid 39 percent of income taxes in 2009, according to the most recent data compiled by the Congressional Budget Office, and the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid 64 percent. (Washington Examiner, 11/22/2012)

As RedStateVT has concluded, the best strategic decision that Republicans can make is to give Obama what he claims he wants; higher taxes on the rich. Here is what will transpire. It will end this mind-numbing obsession of the Democrats, at least temporarily (allowing the media to focus more fully on the Benghazi cover-up...just kidding!). It will have no effect whatsoever on the economy. Obama will then have to call on the middle class to pay their "fair share." Voters will rebel and Dems will be voted out of office. 

Think big picture folks!

Let It Roll

Confirmation
But then, liberals would have us believe that racism explains why a twice-elected black president may have trouble getting America's third black U.N. ambassador confirmed as our third black secretary of state. (Jason L. Riley, WSJ, 11/21/2012)

Nails it! Kudos to Riley. Nothing more needs to be said on the issue of whether criticism of UN ambassador Susan Rice is racially motivated. 


Attraction
Just as compassion for those attracted to the same sex doesn't require redefining marriage, neither does preserving the conjugal view mean blaming them for its erosion. What separated the various goods that conjugal marriage joins—sex, commitment, family life—was a sexual revolution among opposite-sex partners, with harmful rises in extramarital sex and nonmarital childbearing, pornography and easy divorce. (Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, Robert P. George, WSJ, 11/20/2012)

We would love to see an intelligent debate about same sex marriage. The writers above provide an articulation of the case against it.  Too often the argument in favor involves simply angry demands about "rights" and accusations that those against are "homophobes." The quote above also touches on one of RedStateVT's deeply held beliefs: the cultural upheaval during the 1960s had a devastating impact on society. 


Pay Up
President Barack Obama's fundraising advisers have urged the White House to accept corporate donations for his January 2013 inaugural celebration rather than rely exclusively on weary donors who underwrote his $1 billion re-election effort. (WSJ, 11/22/2012)

Prediction: Corporations will provide the funding for Obama and he will promptly promote a battery of new legislation meant to crack down....on corporations. 


Severity
Illinois's pension system is heading for a meltdown and may now be beyond help. That's the forecast from a Chicago business group, which told its members last week that the state's pension crisis "has grown so severe" that it is now "unfixable." (WSJ, 11/22/2012)

Coming soon to your state. The problem can be simply summarized as follows: Democrat politicians promised unsustainable benefits (to be funded by taxpayers) to government unions in return for campaign contributions. 

Boots On The Ground

Vision Quest
At the Republican convention, for example, he (Paul Ryan) called the Obama administration’s economic vision “a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.” (NYT, 11/18/2012)

Wow! We had not heard this line from Paul Ryan. Now we like him even more.


Cloutless
Hamas, badly outgunned on the battlefield, appeared to be trying to exploit its increased political clout with its ideological allies in Egypt’s new Islamist-led government. The group’s leaders, rejecting Israel’s call for an immediate end to the rocket attacks, have instead laid down sweeping demands that would put Hamas in a stronger position than when the conflict began: an end to Israel’s five-year-old embargo of the Gaza Strip, a pledge by Israel not to attack again and multinational guarantees that Israel would abide by its commitments. (NYT, 11/18/2012)

Trying to change the conventional wisdom in warfare, Hamas increases its demands as it loses the military battle. 


Adjustment
Kristina Collins, a chiropractor in McLean, Va., said she and her husband planned to closely monitor the business income from their joint practice to avoid crossing the income threshold for higher taxes outlined by President Obama on earnings above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.

Ms. Collins said she felt torn by being near the cutoff line and disappointed that federal tax policy was providing a disincentive to keep expanding a business she founded in 1998.

“If we’re really close and it’s near the end-year, maybe we’ll just close down for a while and go on vacation,” she said. Some business owners say they are holding off on hiring plans because they expect tax rates to rise.
 ....
Dyke Messinger, chief executive of Power Curbers in Salisbury, N.C., said he would like to fill four slots at his construction equipment company but would only hire three people because he anticipated that his tax bill would rise by $100,000.(NYT, 11/18/2012)

So apparently it turns out that Republicans are right. Tax policy shapes behavior. (We certainly appreciate the New York Times writing about these important issues...now that the election is over.)

Reinforcements

Strike One
What is striking in listening to the Israelis discuss their predicament is how similar the debate sounds to so many previous ones, despite the changed geopolitical circumstances. In most minds here, the changes do not demand a new strategy, simply a redoubled old one. (NYT, 11/16/2012)

Oh those stubborn Israelis! Every time the pesky folks over at Hamas or Hezbollah fire rockets at them, the Israelis do the same old thing. Defend themselves.

Let Them Eat Cake
The snack giant endured $52 million in workers' comp claims in 2011, according to its bankruptcy filing this January. Hostess's 372 collective-bargaining agreements required the company to maintain 80 different health and benefit plans, 40 pension plans and mandated a $31 million increase in wages and health care and other benefits for 2012.

Union work rules usually required cake and bread products to be delivered to a single retail location using two separate trucks. Drivers weren't allowed to load their own vehicles, and the workers who loaded bread weren't allowed to load cake. On most delivery routes, another "pull up" employee moved products from back rooms to shelves. (WSJ, 11/16/2012)

Why do corporations move manufacturing overseas when they can? Why does Wal Mart fight unionization? Now you know.


Out Of Town
President Barack Obama landed in Thailand's capital for a whirlwind Asia trip that begins with this longtime ally and includes a high-profile visit to Myanmar, the first by a sitting U.S. president. (WSJ, 11/18/2012)

Fiscal cliff, Benghazi questions, Middle East rockets......I'm outta here!

Defending The Republic

Our Favorite Moments From The Campaign (Just Kidding!) 

Obama's rebuke to entrepreneurs that they are not responsible for their success. ("You didn't build it.")

The Obama ad that accused Mitt Romney of killing a woman.

Harry Reid's unsubstantiated accusations that Mitt Romney paid no taxes.

The New York Times calling President Obama "seemingly unassailable" on foreign policy.

"Neutral" debate moderator Candy Crowley saving President Obama on Benghazi.

Chris Matthews divining racial taunts in ever utterance by a Romney supporter. ("Chicago!")

Joe Biden telling blacks that Romney was going to "put y'all back in chains."

Joe Biden's vile and despicable behavior during the entire vice-presidential debate. 

Everything else that Chris Matthews said.


Defenseless
Israel has a right to defend itself, but it’s hard to see how Wednesday’s operation could be the most effective way of advancing its long-term interests. It has provoked new waves of condemnation against Israel in Arab countries, including Egypt, whose cooperation is needed to enforce the 1979 peace treaty and support stability in Sinai. (New York Times editorial, 11/14/2012)

The Times affirms that Israel has the right to defend itself......a little bit.


Here is what you would have seen if you watched television last night...
Fox News - extensive coverage of the Benghazi scandal.
MSNBC - stories on Mitt Romney. Some may remember that Mitt Romney was NOT elected president last week. He is still big news though over at MSNBC. When MSNBC did get around to discussing Benghazi, it was to report that white male Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham were being unfair to female African American Susan Rice. We are not making this up. It's all gender and race to Liberals all the time. 


Two Times
For the second time in a week, the Obama administration said on Thursday that it was extending the deadline for states to decide whether they will establish and operate online markets where consumers can shop for health insurance under the new health care law. (NYT, 11/15/2012)

The devil is in the details, of course. One thought that we have had lately is that - given its enormity - the actual implementation of Obamacare just could be its undoing. Watch Democrat governors as they will be the canary in the coalmine on this one.


War On Women
Canadian women in the province of Quebec are doing their best to avoid long wait times for surgeries for deadly cancers, reports the Montreal Gazette. The problem is spread across provincial hospitals and doctors are now “refusing to accept new patients quickly because they can’t treat them.”

“Long surgery wait times for deadly ovarian, cervical and breast cancers in Quebec are three times longer than government benchmarks, leading some desperate patients to shop around for an operating room,” according to the Gazette. (Dailycaller.com, 11/16/2012)

Coming soon to America! (And sooner to Vermont!)


Fools In The Room
“You can tell that at that press conference yesterday — the most stupid, ludicrous, embarrassing questions from the court eunuchs. The idiot from The New York Times asking a question on global warming? Some giggly little schoolgirl from Chicago wetting her knickers, saying she’s watched Obama win every time?” 

“I mean, you’re supposed to be grown men and women,” Steyn continued. “You made fools of yourselves. He gives his first press conference in whatever it is — in one, two, three, twelve years — and you don’t even think about extracting any meaningful information from him.” (Dailycaller.com, 11/16/2012)


The great Mark Steyn. We guess this is the press giving Obama another honeymoon.

Winning The Minority Vote

Like many Republicans I was deeply disappointed with the results of the recent election. I turned to a wise friend for some – any – words of solace. My friend told me the following story:

A few weeks ago, a young Hispanic man and his two employees were finishing some floors for me.  Just before he left, he said of the election, “I hope Obama win.”  I replied, saying, “Politicians are not my heroes.  Entrepreneurs like you are my heroes.  Look at those two guys who are working for you.  They would not have jobs if you had not taken the risk of buying this heavy equipment, paying them even before you finished paying for the equipment, in the hope that you would get enough business to keep paying them. 

You are their hero. 

You are my hero. I’m voting for you by voting for Romney.”

When he sent his invoice in the mail, he included a note, saying, “I’m voting for Romney.”

No doubt over the next year Republican strategists will spend countless hours and money trying to determine how the party can reach out to Hispanics and other minorities.   It is not that difficult.  It can be accomplished with a simple and clear message that honors, not panders to, Hispanics.  It also takes the right spokesperson.  My friend was an ideal person in both regards. An accomplished African-American businessman and small business entrepreneur himself, he instilled in his sons the values of hard work and perseverance and taught them to never view themselves as victims. It worked, as his sons built a highly successful business and realized the American Dream for themselves and their employees.

With a few simple words to a young Hispanic man my friend conveyed the essence of what hard work, economic freedom, and independence really mean and gave him the inspiration to achieve his dreams. And the government did not play a role in this exchange.

RedStateVT

November 2012

Fiddlers Three

Powderfinger
RedStateVT has been keeping its powder dry while Republicans have been debating internally the path forward. Hold fast? Bend? From a strategy standpoint, we have concluded the following. Obama won and he won by promising tax increases. So rather than another six weeks of mind-numbing debates and brinksmanship (enough already!) Republicans would do wise to simply step out of the way. They don't have to vote for tax increases. They can simply vote "present" (much as Obama did throughout his brief Senate career). All the while, they can make it clear that they do not agree. The "wealthy" are not going to perish if their taxes are raised and - as Obama proved in rescinding Clinton's welfare reform - nothing is forever in politics. If taxes go up and the economy roars, then Obama was right, Republicans were wrong and we can all move on. If the economy takes a nosedive, Obama and his party are roadkill, Republicans will be swept into office in 2014 and 2016 and taxes can then be lowered. Call it Republican rope-a-dope.


Avoidance
At an ocher-color preschool along a lane in Stockholm’s Old Town, the teachers avoid the pronouns “him” and “her,” instead calling their 115 toddlers simply “friends.” Masculine and feminine references are taboo, often replaced by the pronoun “hen,” an artificial and genderless word that most Swedes avoid but is popular in some gay and feminist circles. (NYT, 11/13/2012)

Coming soon to America!


Strike Out
Stryker Corporation has announced that it will close its facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs next month. It will also counter the medical device tax in Obamacare by eliminating 5% of their global workforce, an estimated 1,170 positions.

Jon Stryker is heir to the Stryker Corporation, one of the largest medical device and equipment manufacturers in the world. Stryker’s grandfather was the surgeon who invented the mobile hospital bed. The company now sells $8.3 billion worth of hospital beds, artificial joints, medical cameras, and medical software every year. Stryker, a member of the Forbes 400 list, was one of the top five donors to the Obama campaign. Having donated $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, Stryker also gave $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democrat Party. (Breitbart.com, 11/13/2012)

We are sorry for Stryker's employees, but why should we feel bad for Stryker himself? Like Goldman Sachs, he put his money on the Democrats and they screwed him.

No Place To Hide

Convinced
President Obama has been re-elected convincingly. (NYT, 11/12/2012)

Like the old saying goes: History is written by the winner. (Obama = 51%)


Monday Monday
Two weeks. Monday was the 14th day since Hurricane Sandy upended lives on the Eastern Seaboard, the longest two weeks of many people’s lives. Plastic bottles. Warming buses. Charging stations. These are just a few of the signposts in a changed world. Help is coming, the people are told, but some have lost the desire to trust. (NYT, 11/12/2012)

It is Liberal history that George Bush was responsible for Hurricane Katrina. If he did not bring it on with his policies (which he might have) then he certainly botched the recovery effort. Now two weeks after Hurricane Sandy, storm victims are still suffering. So we will paraphrase comedian Chris Rock and state: "Barack Obama does not care about white people."


Pleas
Mr. Jackson's lawyers have been discussing a possible plea with the Justice Department for many weeks, according to several people involved in the case. Mr. Jackson's lawyers had sought assurances the government wouldn't file an indictment before the Nov. 6 election, in which Mr. Jackson easily won another House term. The government refused to make such a promise, but no charges were filed before the election. (WSJ, 11/12/2012)

Yet another story about the possible indictment of Jesse Jackson Jr. What, you hadn't heard?


The Thing
This thing with sex, this American obsession and its concurrent hypocrisy, has gone far enough. We went through a disgraceful attempt at a presidential coup with Bill Clinton, who was accused of lying about sex — imagine! — but survived to become a widely admired elder statesmen. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 11/12/2012)

Liberals like Cohen always think that Americans should be more like the French. Vive l'difference! (And by the way, Dick, Clinton was not just "accused" of lying about sex. He LIED about sex. That he undertook with an employee. Who was his daughter's age. Widely admired, indeed.)

Instruments of Peace

Assured
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama will meet with corporate executives at the White House as he uses the nation’s fiscal problems to start rebuilding relations with business leaders. Though many of them backed Mitt Romney, scores have formed a coalition to push for a budget compromise similar to the one the president seeks. He hopes to enlist them to persuade Republicans in Congress to accept higher taxes on the assurance that he can deliver Democrats’ votes for future reductions in fast-growing entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. (NYT, 11/11/2012)

Republicans be warned. The Democrat playbook here (see GHWB) is to publicly wrest concessions from Republicans while privately promising spending cuts.....which never materialize.


Story Time
That story line, stoked by Republicans but shared by some Democrats, holds that Mr. Obama is too passive and deferential to Congress, a legislative naif who does little to nurture personal relationships with potential allies — in short, not a particularly strong leader. (NYT, 11/11/2012)

Too passive? Deferential? A legislative naif? What is going on here?

Answer: With Obama safely re-elected the New York Times can  - ever so slightly -  begin reporting news objectively.


Qualified
Mitt Romney’s careless comment about “the 47 percent” receiving government benefits — implying they’re all deadbeats — squelched any serious discussion in the campaign. Interestingly, his figure is probably low: More than 50 percent of Americans may already receive benefits. Obamacare will raise this, because families with incomes up to four times the federal poverty line ($91,000 in 2011 for a family of four) qualify for insurance subsidies. (Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post, 11/11/2012)

Good piece on entitlement programs. What we don't understand is this: Liberals want ever-increasing and ever more ridiculous benefits (e.g. Sandra Fluke's $10/month birth control) and yet they have to know that there is a breaking point. Where will the money come from? We can tax the rich into submission and gut the military, but even that will not be enough if they want government-run health care, government-funded college tuition, etc. The numbers just do not work. 


Stage Left
Why isn’t soul searching underway on the left? When the personality at the center of the cult leaves the stage in four years, Democrats will own his results without the benefit of his appeal. We can’t know quite what a second Obama term will bring, but if his first term is an indication, there’s little reason to expect his party will be crowing. (Abe Greenwald, Commentarymagazine.com, 11/11/2012)

We look for comfort where we can find it.

"Yea, Dogs Are Round About Me"

Thanks But
Post election, Democrats - who claim to be much concerned about the health of the Republican party (to paraphrase George Will) - have been very generous with advice on what Republicans have to do. The answer? They need to become more like Democrats!



Richly
President Obama said Friday that he would insist that tax increases on affluent Americans be part of any agreement to avoid a year-end fiscal crisis, setting up a possible confrontation with Congressional Republicans who say they will oppose a rise in tax rates for the rich. (NYT, 11/9/2012)

Obama's victory is mere days old and he has already used the phrase "the rich" hundreds of times. Which means we are in for four more years of class warfare. It just gets tiresome after a while, doesn't it?


Remarkable
If that was an olive branch, we'd hate to see the bludgeon. We're referring to President Obama's appearance on Friday in the White House East Room, his first public remarks since his re-election Tuesday. If the President wanted to send a gesture of magnanimity in victory, this wasn't it. Though the campaign is over, the event was staged like a campaign event, complete with a multi-ethnic backdrop for the cameras, a cheering crowd and no media questions. (WSJ, 11/9/2012)

One of Obama's least likable traits is his street-baller tendency to taunt after a victory. His jibe at the decent John McCain during the health care debate is just one memorable example. And now it looks as though he is going to keep the campaign going. Here's a hint, after what happened in 2010 and when almost half of the country voted against you, a little humility will go a long way. We don't expect it from Obama. 


Zero Sum
The television industry loves to claim that all of the sex, violence, and foul-mouthed language they display has zero harmful effects on children. On the other hand, they would never dream of telling their advertisers that their paid messages on TV have no effect. So does the entertainment industry have an impact, or doesn't it? 

The answer is that Tinseltown certainly has an effect, and when that effect is felt in the political arena, the hell with pretending they don't. They openly celebrate. (Brent Bozell, Newsbusters.com, 11/10/2012)

Bozell is great. We would ask the following question of Hollywood Liberals. A man walks into a theater in which a movie is playing which depicts scenes of great violence. He then proceeds to inflict great violence. And the problem is NOT the depictions of violence, but the accessibility of guns?


Briefly
Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus resigned after a probe into whether someone else was using his email led to the discovery that he was having an extramarital affair, according to several people briefed on the matter. (WSJ, 11/9/2012)

Count us as shocked over the Petraeus resignation. We had thought that the whole "resignation after revelation of extramarital affair" dynamic had been changed by Bill Clinton. Maybe the military is one of the last places wherein consequences still exist.


PAC-ed
Liberal Super PACs spent roughly $200 million during the 2012 election cycle on behalf of Democratic President Barack Obama’s reelection effort.  Priorities USA Action alone spent more than $67 million. Super PACs overseen by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Majority PAC) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (House Majority PAC) spent a combined $68 million. (Freebeacon.com, 11/9/2012)

As Liberals feared, big money from Super PACs bought the election. 

Strength Of Character

(Even More) Thoughts
Headlines we never saw: Obama Re-elected, America NOT a racist country after all!

Post election RedStateVT is sharply critical of Republican strategists Dick Morris and Karl Rove for completely botching their election predictions. At the same time, we neglected to mention New York Times columnist Nate Silver who we, among others, excoriated for what we perceived as heavily biased forecasts. Of course he was right and those on our side were wrong. In fairness, Silver deserves his victory lap. 

The Obama Effect (RedStateVT's description of how Wall Street will react to a second Obama term) is now easily within reach. Friday could be the day where the market reaches -500 points. And it would only have taken three trading sessions!


All Over
Overall, he's seen his support drop in 41 states and the District over the past four years, and he emerged the winner Tuesday by one of the narrowest margins in the popular vote. (Washington Examiner, 11/8/2012)

A very Liberal friend of ours (yes, we have many!) sends us a cartoon of President Obama sitting at his desk in front of a giant representation of the word MANDATE. Knowing our obvious pain at the election results, this is as far as he goes in spiking the football, for which we are grateful. But "mandate?" Obama won, Romney lost. We get that. But "mandate?" What rational person could construe a result wherein Obama received 50% of the popular vote, down significantly from 2008, as a mandate? When fully half of the country votes against you? Folks, we cannot have an intelligent discussion about the problems that America faces when you say things like this.


Hallway
They speculate that he will return to the corridors of finance, where his reputation as a savvy chief executive and investor remains unblemished. (NYT, 11/8/2012)

This is how the New York Times now describes Mitt Romney. Yes, the same New York Times that joined Obama and the Democrats in a relentless campaign of maligning Romney's business career. Now they tell us his reputation is unblemished. The Times is a farcical publication.


Opening Night 
A jittery U.S. senator-elect Elizabeth Warren gave one-sentence answers, ducked questions and even passed one on to Gov. Deval Patrick in an awkward first press conference since the election.

Warren spoke for a total of less than four minutes during the 11-minute press conference — the rest was taken up by Patrick and reporters’ questions.

After being asked her first question — how she’d protect defense spending — Warren was silent as she turned to Patrick.

“Defense spending is you,” Patrick prodded Warren.

“Oh, that’s mine,” Warren replied. (BostonHerald.com, 11/8/2012)

Congratulations Massachusetts! Well done!


Page-By-Page
Congressman-elect Joe Kennedy III, the fourth generation of his legendary family in politics, said he’s taking a page or two from his late great-uncle Ted’s playbook to make friends and influence people in a GOP-controlled House: get to know people, and find things you agree on. (BostonHerald.com, 11/8/2012)

Such "playbook" which also includes boozing and womanizing? Congratulations Massachusetts! Well done yet again!


Government Motors
Suzuki’s announcement this week that it will no longer be selling cars in the U.S. makes it the 10th major brand to disappear since the start of the century. Of those, one was a Ford brand, one was a division of Chrysler, and the remaining eight all were either subsidiaries of or close partners with General Motors. (caranddriver.com, 11/8/2012)

One of the crowning achievements of Obama's first term! You remember, when he took billions of dollars of taxpayer money and 'saved' GM. Based on this article, it sounds like Obama made a very wise investment, not. What was it Mitt Romney said to Obama during the debates: "You picked all the losers."

Called To Account

More Post-Election Thoughts
RedStateVT predicted a Romney victory would add 500 points to the DJIA. We did not predict the corollary (an Obama victory would subtracts 500 points) and we should have. We apologize for the oversight. Yesterday's 300 point drop ('the Obama effect') was a healthy down-payment on that.

If President Obama EVER holds another press conference, here is the first question that a reporter should ask him: "Are you proud of the way in which your campaign portrayed Mitt Romney?" This is a fantasy, of course, as the press will not even ask Obama about Benghazi.

Republicans have to do a better job. They allowed Democrats - once again - to portray them as the rich white party. Of course, they did not have to try too hard as a loyal Liberal media made the case for the Dems. The old joke was that young people became Republican after they received their first paycheck and realized how much they paid to the government in taxes. (Given that in the Obama economy most young people are not employed and have not received a paycheck, this perhaps explains why they have not 'turned.') Republicans cannot continue to wait for young people to 'age into' becoming Republicans.  They have to go after them sooner. RedStateVT's pre-election post: Some Thoughts for Young Voters (our most viewed posting of all time!) was an attempt to educate and sway this group.

It is time for new Republican strategists. We like Karl Rove and Dick Morris, but they were wrong and they have not delivered. The party needs new blood to help it figure out how to move forward.

The headwinds against Republicans are enormous. The educational system begins Liberal indoctrination at an early age. The media reinforces the Liberal philosophy on a daily basis. Unions use their enormous power to put money and 'volunteers' behind Liberal politicians and causes who will reward them. These are huge structural barriers for Republicans. 

Some states are just lost, probably forever. If a reasonable guy like Scott Brown cannot defeat Elizabeth Warren - arguably among the most flawed candidates of all time - there is no hope for Massachusetts. This is a state, by the way, where you could run a poodle named Kennedy for office and win. 

Meanwhile
If Mr. Obama got a mandate for anything after a campaign in which he was vague on second-term prescriptions, he can and will claim one for his argument that wealthy Americans like himself and his vanquished Republican rival, Mitt Romney, should pay higher income taxes. (NYT, 11/7/2012)

With Obama safely elected the New York Times is now free to tell the truth: " A CAMPAIGN IN WHICH HE WAS VAGUE ON SECOND-TERM PRESCRIPTIONS..."  Before Tuesday, the Times never said anything close to this about Obama. It was always Romney who was "vague." This is journalistic dishonesty of the highest order!


The president’s victory was decisive... (NYT, 11/7/2012)

Obama got 50% of the popular vote, a smaller percentage than he received in 2008. Yet his victory was "decisive" according to the Obama Times.


WSJ Headline Op-ed Headline (11/7/2012): After Sandy, No One Lined Up For Wind Turbines

A simple, but elegant point. But it doesn't matter. Second term Obama will renew the focus on green energy. 


Sneed has learned U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who handily won re-election Tuesday despite a lengthy stay at Mayo Clinic for depression and bipolar disorder, is in the midst of plea discussions with the feds probing his alleged misuse of campaign funds.  “No one has pled guilty, but plea discussions are ongoing,” said a top Sneed source, who said Jackson is still undergoing treatment at Mayo Clinic.  Sneed is also told Jackson, who returned to Mayo Clinic after undergoing outpatient treatment in the seclusion of his home in Washington, D.C., is not only being investigated for allegedly using campaign funds to decorate his Washington home — but also Sneed hears he may also have used campaign funds to buy a $40,000 Rolex watch as a gift for a female friend. (Michael Sneed, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/7/2012)

From the city that gave us Barack Obama.
(hat-tip to bobcod)

Blue Day

RedStateVT put forth the idea that the election was all about ACCOUNTABILITY and that the president should be defeated based upon his exceedingly poor performance in office. It turns out that accountability did not matter and it did not matter in so many ways. 

Fail to turn the economy around? It did not matter.

7.9% unemployment? It did not matter.

Fail to put forward an agenda for the next four years?  It did not matter.

Run a divisive campaign based entirely on character assassination of a successful businessman? It did not matter.

Have on your ticket a moronic gaffe-factory running mate? It did not matter. 

Green energy deals with supporters that go bankrupt? It did not matter.

$4/gallon gas? It did not matter.

Fast and Furious? It did not matter.

Intelligence leaks? It did not matter.

Benghazi? It did not matter.

Relentlessly biased media coverage? It did not matter.


Republicans can whine about all of these things, but they did not matter. Republicans lost. As much as they despise David Axelrod, he figured out how to win and he won. Now Republicans had better figure out how to turn the tables or they will be a permanent and declining majority. The answer may be found in RedStateVT's very first post in 2009 where we reviewed Mark Steyn's book America Alone. Steyn discusses at length the demographics of Europe where declining birth rates coupled with liberal immigration policies mean that countries like France are becoming less and less French.  The implications include massive social and economic changes. In the U.S. similarly, higher birth rates among Latinos and other minorities are changing the country's demographic make-up in profound ways. The Republican party has got to find a way to convince these voters that the Democrat party is not their natural home. Unfortunately the defeats of Col. Allen West and Mia Love do not help. More Marco Rubios will help.

We do not believe as some on both sides will say that Mitt Romney was a flawed candidate. He is a smart and successful man who would have made an outstanding president. But now that does not matter.

(A special thumbs down to pollster Dick Morris who we generally like and had come to follow closely. Morris predicted a Romney landslide and a Republican takeover of the Senate. He was entirely convincing and buoyed our hopes throughout the campaign. It turns out he was fatally wrong. We will not trust him again and it is hard to see how he will recover.)

RedStateVT Endorses

RedStateVT announces today its highly coveted presidential endorsement. We endorse Mitt Romney.

In our view, there are a plethora of issues that one can examine: the economy, job creation, national defense, Israel, taxes, etc. But in the end it comes down to one: ACCOUNTABILITY. Obama has not been an effective president and has not earned a second term. At the start of his term, Obama specifically chose not to focus on the most pressing issue - the economy. He threw billions at an ill-conceived stimulus which either rewarded his supporters or was squandered. (Obama himself laughed at his own previous promise of 'shovel-ready jobs' showing his disdain for the country.) This allowed him to pivot to healthcare where he rammed through a hugely unpopular healthcare plan. 

The president must be held accountable and he must be defeated. Will it happen? We do not know, simply because one of the single most pernicious attributes of modern Liberalism which has crept into the culture is just the opposite: lack of accountability. Lead a life of crime? Not your fault, it's society that has failed you! Not able to provide for yourself? Not your fault, society will provide for you! Can't pay your mortgage or your debts? Not your fault, you were cheated by dishonest businesses! Have sex with a White House intern young enough to be your daughter? Not a problem, you are now the revered senior statesman of the Democrat party! Strong-arm government agencies to lower lending standards for low income borrowers? Blame the other side when the housing market collapsed! And on and on.

A vote for Romney is a vote for ACCOUNTABILITY.


RedStateVT Predictions:

500 point Dow surge with a Romney election.

After Election Day - no matter who wins - the Liberal media will dig into the Benghazi story and will begin to report on the cold, homeless victims of Hurricane Sandy.

All The Strides

Fault Lines
Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney seem to have an effective partnership on the trail; the younger man has been deferential to a fault since he was tapped for the ticket, modifying long-held positions to conform with Mr. Romney’s. That said, Mr. Ryan has made clear that he would not be relegated only to attending funerals. (NYT, 11/3/2012)

Ryan also added: "I also intend to bring some dignity back to the office of vice-president, what with four years of Biden and all." (OK, we made that up.)


Have Nots
More than 2.5 million utility customers in New York, New Jersey and other states remained without electricity Saturday as utility crews struggled to repair widespread damage to power lines and electrical equipment following superstorm Sandy. (WSJ, 11/3/2012)

Echoes of that thought abounded in places like Red Hook in Brooklyn, Gerritsen Beach in Brooklyn, and New Dorp Beach on Staten Island, where thousands are struggling to rebuild their lives without electricity — and, residents insisted with growing vehemence, sufficient help from leaders — even as the rest of the city powers up and moves on. (NYT, 11/4/2012)

Hurricane Katrina was the fault of George Bush. How do we know this? The Liberal media told us this on a daily basis. Not the hurricane itself, of course, but the incredible logistical challenges of coordinating the rescue and recovery. George Bush's fault. George Bush doesn't care about black people comedian Chris Rock declared.

What does the Liberal media have to say about Hurricane Sandy? Well most have decided that it has given a bounce to President Obama's re-election hopes! This is journalism in America today.


Stat
Just days after most Massachusetts political pundits had declared Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren the victor in Tuesday's election battle with incumbent Republican Senator Scott Brown, a new University of Massachusetts-Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows the two are statistically tied on the eve of the election. (Breitbart.com, 11/4/2012)

OK, we will admit it. We want this one real bad. Warren represents much that is wrong with Liberalism. She is a phony elitist masquerading as a people's champion (see the Kennedys).


Sight Lines
Every middle-class American of every age and circumstance will be constantly in the government's sights. The tendency—already evident at the state level—will be to require generous, subsidized coverage of routine health and "wellness" services involving lifestyle, cosmetics, amenity and child development; of "preventive medicine" such as weight-reduction programs; and of "alternative medicine" such as massage and herbal therapies. At the same time (as already evident under Medicare) the treatment of infrequent but costly catastrophic diseases and conditions will be limited in the name of cost control, and the case-by-case discretion of doctors and other providers will be closely monitored and restricted. (Christopher Demuth, WSJ, 11/4/2012)

Wow! For all the discussions about Obamacare, we had not heard things expressed quite this way. Demuth's insight is devastatingly accurate we think. Obama wants to cover Sandra Fluke's $10 birth control, but will he cover an 80 year old's knee replacement?