Precious Survivals

If Obama Loses
RedStateVT has been wondering what stories the Liberal media will write if Obama loses in November. Here are our thoughts:

Story One: It's the Super PACs!
The Koch brothers bought the election because of the Citizens United ruling decided by a radical right wing Supreme Court. Expect Colonel Bernie Sanders to push this hard.

Story Two: It's all George Bush's Fault!
Bush screwed the economy up SO badly that Obama - try though he might - just could not turn it around. Expect Nancy Pelosi to spin this yarn.

Story Three: It's Racism!
Obama was denied a second term due to the rampant racism that STILL exists in this country. Expect to hear this from senior Obama adviser Al Sharpton.

Story Four: It's His Own Fault
Obama is a flawed politician. He never cultivated relationships within his party and he failed to learn the lessons of Bill Clinton. Who will tell this story?

Convictions
A new book due out in September alleges that Tony Rezko, the convicted felon serving a 10 1/2 year jail term for corruption and who was involved in shady land deals with then-state senator Obama, funneled $25,000 in cash to Obama’s campaign in 2008.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the book Golden: How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and Into Prison" suggests Blagojevich was referring to money given by Rezko to a Chicago official named Bruce Washington. (Breitbart.com, 8/9/2012)

Will the Washington Post write this story? We doubt it, but they did see fit to write a front page epic on how Mitt Romney was alleged to have bullied somebody 50 years ago.  It's hard to be a Republican candidate these days.

Cultural References

Le Vow
President François Hollande is vowing to impose a 75 percent tax on the portion of anyone’s income above a million euros ($1.24 million) a year....A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax proposal, which Parliament plans to take up in September, is ostensibly aimed at bolstering French finances as Europe’s long-running debt crisis intensifies.

But because there are relatively few people in France whose income would incur such a tax — an estimated 7,000 to 30,000 in a country of 65 million — the gains might contribute but a small fraction of the 33 billion euros in new revenue the government wants to raise next year to help balance the budget. (NYT, 8/7/2012)

The wealthy Liberal elite in the U.S. who piously claim that they should pay more in taxes (but likely use every legal measure possible to minimize their taxes), are generally seen to have what is called "screw you" money. The definition is: enough money so that it really does not matter if Obama takes a bit more for redistribution. The key here is "a little more." But what about if Obama decides that he needs 75% like France? Would they threaten to leave the country as the article says some rich French have? Would the wealthy Liberals become..... conservatives? 

Wealthy Liberals are not worried, but they should be. And they should be listening to what Vermont's Colonel Bernie Sanders wants to do with the estate tax. If Liberals realized that a significant portion of their wealth would be confiscated at their death, and not passed on to their children, they just might say "screw you" to someone else.

(Special irony is the New York Times pointing out that even if enacted Hollande's proposed tax would have negligible effect on French finances - the exact point made by Republicans about Obama's "tax the rich" scheme. The Times is unable or unwilling to make the connection. All of which validates Republican philosophy that the answer is not more taxes, it's less spending.)

Reaching Out...Touching You
Stories abound of big donors who stopped giving as much or working as hard because Obama never reached out, either with a Clinton-esque warm bath of attention or Romney-esque weekend love fests and Israeli-style jaunts; of celebrities who gave concerts for his campaigns and never received thank-you notes or even his full attention during the performance; of public servants upset because they knocked themselves out at the president’s request and never got a pat on the back; of V.I.P.’s disappointed to get pictures of themselves with the president with the customary signature withheld; of politicians disaffected by the president’s penchant for not letting members of Congress or local pols stand on stage with him when he’s speaking in their state (they often watch from the audience and sometimes have to lobby just to get a shout-out); of power brokers, local and national, who felt that the president insulted them by never seeking their advice or asking them to come to the White House or ride along in the limo for a schmooze. (Maureen Dowd, NYT, 8/7/2012)

An absolutely stunning admission by Dowd, no friend of any Republican. Dowd echoes and amplifies the brief comment that Chris Matthews let slip several months back which spoke to the same point. Obama is an island unto himself. He is no politician, and seemingly disdains the process. It appears he has few friends in Washington and few even in his own party. 

Settled Pattern

Attribution
The cultural difference between Israel and its Arab neighbors is so striking that you would think it beyond question. But when Mitt Romney attributed the gap between Israel’s economic performance and the Palestinians’ — “Culture makes all the difference,” he said in Israel — the roof came down on him. PC police the world over raised a red card, giving him demerits for having the temerity to notice the obvious. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 8/6/2012)

Liberal opinion writer Cohen echoes RedStateVT's contention - and the contention of others as well - that Romney's comment in Israel on Arab culture was accurate. We wish he had not waited a week to say so.

Prime Time
The Democratic National Convention Committee and Obama for America announced Tuesday that former President Jimmy Carter will be addressing the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte via video cast....Carter left office with a job approval rating of 34 percent.

At first we thought that this was a joke courtesy of the Romney campaign. Jimmy Carter? Will he speak before or after Elizabeth Warren? The Republicans have got to be thanking their lucky stars. Who better to make the case that Obama does not deserve a second term then an idealistically misguided one term Democrat president who presided over a disastrous economy and has - in retirement - become even more of a punch line than when he was in office?

Lawless
The Georgetown law student famously insulted by Rush Limbaugh for backing insurance coverage of birth control will introduce President Obama at an event in Denver on Wednesday, a campaign official confirms to POLITICO. (POLITICO.com, 8/7/2012)

The good news just keeps coming! By all means, bring back recreational sex expert Fluke. It will remind America of her desperate struggle to pay for condoms. 

Ancient Sources

Catch This
The attempt to portray Romney as not catching on and as dropping in the polls is ludicrous.  It is, at best, the product of incompetent polling and, at worst, the result of deliberate media bias.  But Romney is winning and expanding his lead each week.  That's the real story. (DickMorris.com, 8/6/2012)

As RedStateVT has reported. The majority of polls are biased.  A clear example - little reported on - were the polls that showed the Wisconsin recall race as neck-and-neck when, in fact, Walker won it handily.

Fear and Loathing
A rising number of manufacturers are canceling new investments and putting off new hires because they fear paralysis in Washington will force hundreds of billions in tax increases and budget cuts in January, undermining economic growth in the coming months. (NYT, 8/5/2012)

As we recently told a friend, business is sitting on the sidelines waiting for the results of the November elections. The floodgates of hiring and capital spending will open with a Romney victory which brings with it a more favorable regulatory environment and the repeal of Obamacare. Neither of which are discussed in this article.

RedStateVT Advises Romney Campaign On Release Of Tax Returns
Democrats quickly fired back, headed by Reid's Chief of Staff David Krone and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“What Harry Reid said is the fact of what he was told," Krone told Politico. "To turn it around, all their childish rants this weekend about calling Reid a ‘liar’ and all that, it just shows you how scared they are that Harry Reid was telling the truth."

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Pelosi mirrored Krone's certainty.  "Somebody told him," she said. "It is a fact. Whether he did or not can easily be disposed of: Mitt Romney can release his tax returns and show whether he paid taxes." (Huffington Post, 8/6/2012)

RedStateVT has today advised the Romney campaign of the optimal date for the release of the candidate's tax returns. Our advice is that they should be released three years into Romney's first term. After all, this is when Obama finally released his long-awaited birth certificate.

Protocol

The Chickens Is Organizing
“If the thought police come to Armitage Baptist Church, we will meet them at the door, respectfully, unflinchingly, willing to die on this hill holding a copy of the sacred Scriptures in one hand and a copy of the U.S. Constitution in the other.” (Charles Lyons, Pastor of Armitage Baptist Church, Chicago, quoted on Foxnews.com, 7/31/2012)


Last week, so-called YouTube sensation Antoine Dodson made it public that, unlike most in the gay community, he supports Chick-fil-A in the wake of Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy’s radio interview remarks condemning gay marriage...“A lot of people from the gay community was actually telling me not to eat at Chick-fil-A and then you know, I started having these flashback because I started believing like, the gay community — we have went from being bullied to becoming bullies,” he said. (Foxnews.com, 8/5/2012)


Two of our favorite quotes on the chicken controversy. 


Stats
Mitt Romney should win the presidential election this November....And yet, despite all of those factors clearly working against him, Obama is either statistically tied or ahead in key swing-state polling— suggesting that writing his political obituary today is decidedly premature. So, what gives? Call it the political equivalent of the nature vs. nurture debate. (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post, 8/5/2012)


We will use Cillizza's marginally comprehensible column to answer the question: Why is Obama ahead/tied in the polls? The answer is ridiculously simple. The polls are rigged. ('The results of our poll of 25 Democrats and 5 Republicans show President Obama ahead of challenger Mitt Romney by...') Given a press that will endlessly and erroneously report Romney's London comments as a gaffe and fail to challenge Harry Reid on his accusations that Romney has not paid taxes, does any thinking person believe for even one nanosecond that they would not misrepresent and distort polling numbers? 


The Liberal media has proven time and time again that they will do whatever is necessary - whatever it takes - to advance their agenda. Given the diligence of Fox, the Wall Street Journal and the wonderful Brent Bozell, their job is certainly more difficult than it used to be. Which is exactly why they have resorted to using seemingly more objective sources/measures to advance their storyline. But the truth is that they will manipulate the polls and their various 'fact-checkers' in the same manner in which they will tilt a news report. 

Fearful Forfeits

Gaffer
What about the alleged gaffe that dominated reporting from Israel? Romney averred that Israeli and Palestinian economic development might be related to culture. A Palestinian Authority spokesman obligingly jumped forth to accuse Romney of racism, among other thought crimes.


The American media bought it whole, despite the fact that Romney’s assertion was a direct echo of the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report, written by Arab intellectuals and commissioned by the U.N. It unambiguously asserted that “culture and values are the soul of development.” And went on to report how existing cultural norms — “including traditional Arab culture and values” — are among the major impediments to Arab economic progress. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 8/2/2012)


All major media outlets announced that they would be issuing retractions to their earlier contention that Romney committed a gaffe. Just kidding!


Futuristic
When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.


But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.
...
We can solve the challenge of climate change with a gradually rising fee on carbon collected from fossil-fuel companies, with 100 percent of the money rebated to all legal residents on a per capita basis. This would stimulate innovations and create a robust clean-energy economy with millions of new jobs. It is a simple, honest and effective solution. (James E. Hansen, Washington Post, 8/3/2012)


There is a surprising sentiment emerging even in the traditional (Liberal) media. The perception is that climate warming/cooling/chaos theorists are losing the support of the general public. In other words, the 'climate deniers' have gained the upper hand in the debate. This explains the increasing desperation of Hansen, McKibben, Gore and the like. And so their response, of course, is to double down. ('Things are even worse than I thought!')


Reasonable people are concluding that the 'science' they have been told about is far from 'settled.' And with proposals like those of Hansen (more taxes, more magical green energy jobs), public opinion will continue to move against them.


Birthday Boy
President Obama is turning 51 on Saturday, with just three months until Election Day. So he will celebrate in true political fashion: spending “downtime,” as an e-mail invitation put it, at a party at his Chicago home with a bunch of strangers who made campaign donations to be there. (NYT, 8/3/2012)


The month’s jobless rate brings the average for 2012 to 8.2 percent, compared with an average in 2011 of 9 percent, though most of the “improvement” is because of a shrinking labor force, not more hiring. (NYT editorial, 8/3/2012)


Once again RedStateVT has to acknowledge the New York Times for letting just a bit of truth shine through.

Fortify The Faith

Lashes
Mr. Obama himself chose to lash his re-election bid to his tax hike for the rich. His tax hike isn't valuable to him because of the revenue it would raise (which isn't much). It isn't valuable to him because it somehow fits into his green-eyeshade management of the budget (neither he nor his party in Congress have shown much interest in managing the fisc).


His tax hike is only valuable to him because it nominates a villain for the campaign season—the greedy, undeserving, unpatriotic rich. It's valuable because it affords a rhetorical escape route when the subject of unsustainable spending comes up. He can talk about making the rich pay their "fair share," not about the chasm that would persist between spending and revenues, with or without his score-settling tax hike. (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ, 7/31/2012)


Politicians bash other politicians, we expect that. But rarely has a politician gone to such extremes as Obama to denigrate a particular segment of Americans. His contempt for the rich shows in the unscripted moments (You didn't build that!). And yet, he seemingly ignores that a large number of his own supporters are the very same wealthy people (who he has no problem asking for the fruits of their labor to re-elect him). One can only wonder at the mental gymnastics that Obama must engage in to reconcile all of these things.


WSJ Columnists Echo RedStateVT
Team Obama will play the Mormon card at some point too. Count on it. (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ, 7/31/2012)


But actually, what Romney said was not a gaffe in any sense of the word that this column understands. (James Taranto, WSJ, 7/31/2012)


Daddy Day Care
Sweden's paternity-leave benefits, enjoyed by citizens and foreign residents alike, are the most generous in the world—and a debate is under way nationwide over whether to extend them even further. Sweden should require men to take a minimum of three months' leave, instead of the current two months, some politicians argue.


Fathers currently can take off work for as long as 240 days with a government-backed paycheck. Even if a father decides to take a more modest leave than allowed, he must take at least two months before the child is 8 years old to receive the government benefits....The Swedish government will pay 80% of a parent's salary—up to a cap of about $65,000—for 13 months. (WSJ, 7/31/2012)


Right now - as we write this - drafters of the Democrat Party platform are rushing to add this idea....and kicking themselves that they didn't think of it first. 


Why Sweden is not now, and never will be again, a world power. 


Choices
Republican lawmakers will spend much of the week railing against impending cuts to the military that also resulted from the debt-ceiling legislation. Democrats are largely focusing on an effort to renew the Violence Against Women Act, and supporting a provision in the health care law requiring most employers to cover contraception, which takes effect on Wednesday. (NYT, 7/31/2012)


It struck us that nothing so clearly outlines the fundamental political differences in this country as this. Republicans demand a strong military. Democrats demand legislation for ridiculous fringe issues. To wit, apparently absent the Violence Against Women Act it is perfectly legal to assault a women in this country. Otherwise, why do we need a law prohibiting it? Also, the soaring cost of condoms cries out for government intervention.