MADDOG10's Blog

 Written By : Thomas Sowell

Romney and Ryan Turn the Tables on Obama

Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan was supposed to be a problem for the Republicans. So said a chorus of chortling Democrats. So said a gaggle of anonymous seasoned Republican operatives. All of which was echoed gleefully by mainstream media.

The problem, these purveyors of the conventional wisdom all said, was Medicare — to be more specific, the future changes in Medicare set out in the budget resolutions Ryan fashioned as House Budget Committee chairman and persuaded almost all House and Senate Republicans to vote for.

But while Democrats licked their chops at the prospect of scaring old ladies that they’d be sent downhill in wheelchairs, the Medicare issue seems to be working in the other direction.

Romney and Ryan have gone on the offense, noting that while their plan calls for no changes for current Medicare recipients and those over 55, Obamacare, saved from demolition by Chief Justice John Roberts, cuts $716 billion from the politically popular Medicare to pay for Obama’s politically unpopular health care law.

The Romney campaign is putting TV advertising money behind this message, and it will have plenty more to spend — quite possibly more than the Obama forces — once the Romney-Ryan ticket is officially nominated in Tampa, Fla., in 10 days. Team Obama is visibly squirming.

It turns out that Ryan and Romney, who in late 2011 and early 2012 moved quietly but deliberately toward embracing the Ryan agenda, may have outthought their adversaries.

Those last-minute Mediscare-type mailings to seniors, which enabled Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles to narrowly defeat Jeb Bush in the 1994 Florida governor race, don’t work so well anymore when the issue is brought out fully in the light of day.

But Medicare/Mediscare is not the only thing on which the Democrats have underestimated Ryan and the putative presidential nominee who selected him from the high-quality field of potential VP nominees from which he made his pick.

Ryan brings two other things to the Republican ticket that could prove important in the two-month sprint from the Tampa and Charlotte, N.C, conventions to Election Day.

One is foreign policy chops. Romney has less in the way of exposure to serious involvement in foreign and defense policy than any major party nominee since Bill Clinton in 1992 and Romney’s fellow Bay Stater Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Ryan, as a member of the House, theoretically brings a little more. But actually a good bit more, to judge from a little noticed speech he delivered three blocks from the White House to the Alexander Hamilton Society in June 2011.

In that speech, as Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens noted last week, Ryan showed that “he knows how to think.”

“Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course,” said Ryan, whose number-crunching knack clearly appealed to fellow numbers-cruncher Romney.

Defense spending accounted for 39 percent of the federal budget in 1970, said Ryan (who was born that year), but accounts for only 16 percent today. Under current budget pressures, it is at risk of going far lower.

Ryan referenced Princeton scholar Aaron Friedberg’s book “The Weary Titan,” on how Britain ceded world leadership a century ago in the face of economic pressures. He pointed out that while Britain could assume that the United States, with similar values and goals, might take up the burden, we have no similar fallback today.

Ryan acknowledged that our long-term dedication to freedom and democracy must sometimes yield to short-term interests. But that dedication, not occasional accommodations, must be our lodestar.

As Stephens argues, this puts Ryan much more than Barack Obama in line with the examples set by Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and — dangerous to say it — George W. Bush.

Romney takes the same approach on this, and on the other valuable quality Ryan brings to the Republican ticket.

And that is his solid mooring in the lessons of America’s Founding Fathers. “America is an idea,” Ryan said, that “our rights come to us from God and nature,” rights that “belong to every person everywhere.”

This election can be seen as a contest between the Founders’ ideas and those of the Progressives, who saw the Founders as outmoded in an industrial era.

Ryan strengthens Romney in his invocation of the Founders. Obama is stuck with the tinny and outdated debunking of the Progressives. Which rings truer today?

Race to the White House: The American Media’s Lack of Moral Discernment

Many on the GOP side of the aisle have been complaining that Mitt Romney seems to be incapable of hitting back against the constant stream of lies, innuendo, and calumny that Obama and his minions have unleashed thus far in this campaign. Romney’s campaign has been a veritable campaign of milquetoastiness by comparison. Yet the Old Media has the gall to claim that there is too much mud slinging going on by both sides.

This inability of the press to discern the tenor of the two campaigns proves two things clearly. First that the media are ignorant of the concept of morality, certainly, but it also pretty much proves that they are sold out to Obama’s reelection campaign.

Take Politico’s recent piece where they complain that “even the media’s had enough” of the “disgrace” that this race has become.

The race for the White House has grown so toxic that it’s become a top topic among reporters and analysts covering the contest — and some are even calling on President Barack Obama and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney to call a truce.

Politico goes on to repeat carping from such Old Media mavens as Brian Williams of NBC News, former Democrat operative and current NBC/MSNBC correspondent Chuck Todd, CNN’s lefty shill Soledad O’Brien, and others, all of whom claim to be tired of the “ugly” campaign.

This is at least the third time that Politico has carped about the death of the high-minded campaign and every article takes the same track: both sides are at fault.

Well, we are all tired of the “ugliness” in this campaign, for sure. But the problem with these reports is that this ugliness is not coming from both sides. In fact, it has been predominantly from Obama, his super PACS, and his surrogates.

This act of moral equivalence making it out as if Romney was being just as nasty as Obama is proof that the Old Media is attempting to inoculate Obama for the exact sort of nasty, negative campaigning they are pretending to decry.

The fact is, Mitt Romney has run a pretty much, straight down the line, issues-based campaign. Agree or disagree with his political points, he has avoided attacks on Obama’s character and his surrogates have not engaged in a back channel, grudge match the way Obama’s have.

Just think about what Obama has done, as Ben Shapiro notes:

• From Vice President Joe Biden: “They gonna put ya’ll back in chains.”
• From Mitt Romney: “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”
• From Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt: Romney is “unhinged.”
• From Obama: Romney put a dog on the roof of his car.
• From Romney: Biden’s comments on coal, in which he said that coal caused more deaths than terrorism, showed his lack of vision for the country.
• The Obama campaign has called Romney a felon and a murderer.

And this is just a small sampling of the lies and personal attacks that Obama has perpetrated against Romney and now Paul Ryan.

In return, Romney has decried Obama’s tactics, he’s criticized Obama’s campaign attacks, and expressed his desire to keep this race about the issues, but Obama has responded by a continuation of personal attacks, lies, and mud slinging.

Yet, Politico says both sides are doing the same thing.

This, I think, is an ages old left-wing concept, though. It goes right along with the idiotic, left-wing policy of “zero tolerance” we see in schools, that sort of policy where both participants in a fight are punished for the fight — as if fights just spontaneously begin and no one is the instigator. It’s as if the one who isdefending himself is just as guilty as the one that picked the fight in the first place.

And that is what we see here. We see Obama cynically distracting voters with his campaign of mud slinging and lies and when Romney defends himself the Old Media tsk tsks Romney as somehow being just as bad as Obama. And what does this act of moral equivalence do? It lessens Obama’s culpability, makes of him a mere participant with everyone else instead of the instigator. In this way the Old Media makes Obama nearly blameless when in reality he is the most guilty of all.

It’s an act of moral equivalency that is, in the end, no morality at all

Ryan Pledges Romney Administration Will “Put Aside Childish Things”

Hopefully, one of those things will end up being the Obama administration

(Daily Caller) Ryan said that if elected, Mitt Romney would treat Americans like adults.

“We have a very serious choice to make,” Ryan told the crowd. “And what Mitt Romney is offering is to make a decision together.”

Ryan has earned praise as a serious policy wonk willing to tackle the tough issues, and in his speech to the overflowing crowd at a northern Virginia high school, he spoke of issues — like entitlement reform — that tend to be flashpoints used to rile up voters.

Ryan said politicians ought to confront those issues head on, like adults, instead of avoiding them.

“The problem is, too many politicians in Washington, like President Obama, have been more worried and concerned about their next election than they have about the next generation,” Ryan said. “We will not do that.”

He’s exactly right: what happens is politicians tend to pass legislation with thoughts of their next elections in mind. Even on the occasions where the legislation has long term goals and impacts, those are suborned to short term cares. Take the Stimulus: what was the long term goal? Get the economy going. How did it work? It shoveled money to short term projects. It propped up public sector unions and the States for a short time. And, once that money dried up, things went right back to being crummy. It gave people around $40 extra a month. But, it changed withholding rules, meaning that a lot of money was lost from the Social Security trust fund in the long term.

The “green” energy projects were designed for the long term, but with short term thinking. Hence, money was dumped into companies that had little to no chance of succeeding. This kind of spending isn’t just an Obama problem (though he seems to have perfected it), but a government problem. “How can I spend some money to help my re-election?” Doesn’t matter what this does in the long term to the pols.

“When we get elected, we will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. We will not blame other people; we will take responsibility,” Ryan said.

“Remember how President Obama used to say we aren’t the blue states or the red states, we’re the United States of America?” Ryan asked. “Remember when he said to put aside childish things and have an adult conversation? We’re still waiting for that adult conversation.”

This nation, like so many others, has serious fiscal issues that need to be addressed. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security (there are multiple programs, and they aren’t just for seasoned citizens). Long term infrastructure. Energy. Debt. Deficits. Unemployment. It will be interesting to see if a Romney/Ryan administration looks towards dealing with the long term issues, rather than simply pushing legislation that is designed to say “hey, look at what we did, don’t forget to vote!”

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Jobless Rates Rise in Pivotal States

• Article
• Comments (64)

Groundbreaking Firsts by President Obama

All those hateful hard core right wing extremists really should quit trashing poor President Obama.  There can be no doubt that his presidency has been nothing if not historical.

Here is an impressive list of some of his accomplishments:

• First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student then denies he is a foreigner.
• First President to have a Social Security number from a state where he has never lived.
• First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
• First President to violate the War Powers Act.
• First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
• First President to require that all Americans purchase a product from a third party as a condition of citizenship.
• First President to spend a trillion dollars on ‘shovel-ready’ jobs when there was no such thing as ‘shovel-ready’ jobs.
• First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
• First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
• First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
• First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
• First President to tell a CEO of a major corporation (Chrysler) to resign.
• First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.
• First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer and to say that America is no longer a Christian nation.
• First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
• First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
• First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.
• First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
• First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
• First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
• First President to actively try to bankrupt an American industry (coal).
• First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-Corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
• First President to appoint 45 czars to his office.
• First President to surround himself with extremist fringe devotees to the institutionalized “progressive” left’s radical agenda.
• First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 102 to date.
• First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
• First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing to earn it.
• First President to go on multiple global “apology tours” and concurrent “insult our friends” tours.
• First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer.
• First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
• First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
• First President to repeat the Holy Quran & tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.
• First President to tell the military men and women that they should pay for their own private insurance because they “volunteered to go to war and knew the consequences”.
• Then he was the First President to tell the members of the military that THEY were UNPATRIOTIC for balking at the last suggestion.
• First President to side with a foreign nation over one of America’s 50 states (Mexico vs. Arizona).

How is that hopey-changey thing working out for you?

Thanks to Obama’s insistence on remaining a stubborn, inflexible partisan ideologue, this list keeps growing.

THERE IS AN ELECTION COMING IN NOVEMBER…REMEMBER THIS LIST WHEN YOU VOTE!

Posted on August 15, 2012 by John Hawkins

The government wants to control what TV you watch, what light bulbs you have in your house, how big a soda you can buy, and apparently, you can’t even feed poor kids in this country without having some useless government official sticking his nose into it.

Angela Prattis has spent part of the summer distributing meals to hungry children in Pennsylvania, but now, the township has informed her that if she does not obtain a costly “ordinance,” she will be fined $600 each day she distributes food.

(Related: MI Teen Starts Hot Dog Stand to Help Disabled Parents, Shut Down by City Almost Immediately)

 

The Daily Times has more:

“I’m not stopping,” said Angela Prattis, who has been distributing meals she receives from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to about 60 children from a gazebo on her property this summer. “These kids are hungry. I’m not tearing down the community. I’m keeping the children out of harm’s way.”

Prattis, who has lived in the township for about three years, started distributing meals and drinks to underprivileged children at her church, the Church of the Overcomer in Trainer, several years ago. This year, after giving birth to her second child, she began distributing the meals from the gazebo in her yard.

Township Council Chairman Stanley Kester said the township was notified of the distribution via a telephone call from another resident a few weeks ago. He asked the township solicitor, Stephen Polaha, to investigate the matter, and in a response to council two weeks ago, Polaha returned an opinion stating that, in terms of the township’s zoning laws, the distribution “was not permitted without a variance.”

That variance costs about $1,000, according to NBC10.

This works about the same way as a mob shakedown.

“You sure do seem to be doing some good work for those kids. It sure would be a shame if you couldn’t do that anymore. Pay us $1000 in protection money and we’ll make sure you don’t have any problems.”

Too harsh? Well, here’s a question: What does she get for her $1000? Nothing. What do those kids get for the $1000? Nothing. What is the government doing in exchange for the $1000? Nothing. What’s wrong with asking the most basic of questions that every consumer considers before he buys something: What am I getting for my money? Why doesn’t anyone in the government ever seem to feel compelled to answer that question?