MADDOG10's Blog

President Obama recently said,

First of all, I don't put people on food stamps. People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened under my Republican predecessor, not under me. Number three, when you have a disastrous economic crash that results in 8 million people losing their jobs, more people are going to need more support from government.

One major change in food stamp rules -- in the direction of more generosity -- occurred with the 2009 "stimulus" law, which has President Obama's signature, not Bush's.

Another major change in food stamp rules -- in the direction of more generosity -- occurred with the 2008 Farm Bill. We all know that Bush was president in 2008. But what Obama hopes you do not know is that Bush never signed it. Here's wikipedia's narrative:

On May 15, the House and Senate passed the bill, but President Bush issued a veto on May 21. The House voted to overturn the president's veto shortly thereafter, and with the margins by which the bill was passed, a Senate override also occurred; so the Congress overrode the president's veto, passing the bill into law (Public Law 110-234, the Food and Energy Security Act of 2007). However, the veto override was moot, as a 34-page section of the bill was omitted in the version sent to the White House. In effect, the President vetoed a bill Congress never considered. The bill had to be re-passed by Congress.

The House passed the Farm Bill again on May 22, and the Senate shortly thereafter. President Bush again vetoed the measure, but this veto was overridden in both Houses on June 18, so the Farm Bill in its entirety became law.

In summary, Bush vetoed that law twice.

Meanwhile, Obama was a U.S. Senator in 2008. Senator Obama had THREE chances to vote against it, but he never did (he abstained all three times).

Finally, President Obama's Agriculture Department has been remarkably complicit, if not wholeheartedly enthusiastic, with the states', since inauguration day, using the rules from the 2002 and 2008 Farm bills to    soak the U.S. taxpayer.

Some, but very little, of the increase in food stamp spending can be attributed to the recession or any other factor pushing people into poverty. It's all about the program's getting more generous.

Whether expanding the food stamp program is "good" or "bad" is a different matter. President Obama deserves some of the credit or blame for those expansions; President Bush deserves none.


[Technical note. One of the provisions of the 2008 Farm Bill, and of the 2009 stimulus law, was to sharply increase what the USDA calls the "maximum benefit." This provision alone expands eligibility and participation, because the maximum benefit determines the amount of income over which food stamp benefits are fully phased out: a larger maximum means that incomes that would be assigned little or no benefit are suddenly assigned a significant benefit. That's part of the reason why the average income of people receiving food stamps actually INCREASED between 2007 and 2010 (see Table A.27 here). The provision also encourages states to do their part to expand eligibility.
)
Other eligibility related provisions include, but are not limited to, relaxation of the food stamp asset test (2008 Farm bill) and granting states some relief from the requirement that a fraction of their food stamp caseload be employed (2009 stimulus law.]

Sometimes I marvel at President Obama’s apparent lack of an embarrassment  sensor. How can he stand before the American people and deliver speech after  speech making the same tired points and pretending he is delivering the speech  of the century?

Is he truly impervious to feelings of self-consciousness, or is he trying to  play us for fools?

The upshot after Obama’s nearly five years in office is that the economy is  still sluggish. Unemployment and annual deficits remain disturbingly high based  on historical standards; our national debt and unfunded liabilities represent an  existential threat to America; Obamacare hangs like an ominous tornado  playground over the economy and every employer and health-care consumer in the  nation; America is in steady economic and military decline at the hands of a  president who is in denial about it, indifferent to it or intentionally pursuing  it; and the president and his renegade Justice Department and administrative  agencies are riddled with scandals and gleefully flout the Constitution, the  rule of law and the legislative branch.

Yet despite all of this, Obama tells us that everything is great and that  things would be even better if it weren’t for partisan, obstructionist  Republicans. (If the economy is so wonderful, why is Obama hopscotching the  country trying to convince us of what should be self-evident?)

Obama’s refusal to accept responsibility for his policies and his  scapegoating have reached comical proportions. Indeed, his economic adviser  Austan Goolsbee once virtually admitted that Obama should only be associated  with his economic record if and when we begin to see sustained positive  results.

Such is the mentality of ideologues. No amount of failure is proof of their  policies failing. Others must always be blamed.

Obama no longer dazzles us with his smoke and mirrors; he bores us with them,  droning on and on for more than an hour without offering any new ideas to turn  the economy around – because he has none.

Obama is as bereft of new ideas as a ventriloquist’s dummy. He is a prisoner  of his own theological affinity for expansive government as a panacea. His  liberal ethical code tells him that growing government is a moral imperative  that must supersede everything else, even economic growth and prosperity for the  very people to whom liberals claim allegiance.

As long as they are reliably growing government, statists such as Obama will  not be held to account by their fellow liberals for their policy failures and  for spreading misery, because they are doing god’s work, whatever that might  mean to them. If his “stimulus” fails to produce jobs, it doesn’t matter,  because a) his intentions were good, b) Republicans didn’t let him spend even  more, and c) things would have been worse without it – even though the weight of  the evidence and history prove otherwise.

So don’t ever expect Obama’s soul mates in the liberal media to hold him  accountable for his record or to compare it with that of other presidents. If it  is worse, it will not be his fault. His failures will always be because of the  “mess he inherited,” even though no other president has ever enjoyed that absurd  luxury.

But even measured against the situation he inherited, Obama has made sparse  improvements, and in most cases, things have gotten worse, including the  millions who have given up and left the workforce, the millions who have joined  the government dependency rolls, the catastrophic national debt and our woefully  insolvent entitlement programs, which he steadfastly refuses to reform.

For all his hoopla about hope and change, Obama is nothing more than a  gloom-and-doom liberal who doesn’t even aspire to robust economic growth. His  sole focus is not on growing the economic pie but on redistributing what he  believes is a finite one.

That’s why the thrust of Obama’s disgraceful speech was on class envy,  resentment and warfare. He forever castigates producers and the wealthy and  promises a continuation of policies that are antithetical to growth, except for  the growth of government.

As long as Obama is in office and his policies are pursued, America will be  shortchanging itself and suppressing the entrepreneurial spirit and liberty of  the American people, without which America is destined for ongoing  decline.

Mychal  Massie About | Email | Archive 

I heard a defense attorney say that while she believed in the jury process  and felt that they had reached the right decision, “George Zimmerman being found  not guilty does not mean he is innocent.”

The first thing that came to my mind is every client she has should fire her  and that no one should employ her services ever again.  Imagine, your defense  attorney, for which you have paid handsomely, wins your case and then does an  interview where she suggests that even though you were found not guilty it  doesn’t mean you’re innocent.

If the George Zimmerman trial has revealed one thing and one thing only, it  is that many blacks are still mental and emotional slaves on the plantations of  immiseration, victimology, and self-segregation.

They are easily led by emotion, and despite undeniable success in America,  many, if not most, would rather focus on a past (i.e., slavery) that no one  living today can in any way relate to and a period (i.e., Jim Crow) that  Americans of good conscience brought to an end 50 years ago.

Yet there they are protesting mythical and imagined wrongdoings as if white  people and the justice system have a secret code that dictates all blacks be  treated unfairly.  And the media eagerly and strenuously works to inculcate that  viewpoint. 

A half-Kenyan holds the most powerful office in the world.  Blacks are the  political leaders and elected officials in many of the nation’s cities.  There  is no shortage of schools headed by blacks.  Fortune 500 companies are run by  blacks, as are hospitals.  You cannot watch a television show without seeing a  black actor.  From laborer to business owner blacks are represented.

The cries for revenge and insistence that George Zimmerman’s acquittal for  killing Trayvon Martin in self-defense somehow translates into a death threat to  all young black men are beyond irrational to me.  As I wrote in my column “The ugly truth about  Trayvon,” Martin would be alive today had he not made the decision to attack  George Zimmerman.

It is incongruous to me that people choose to exhibit national outrage over  one justifiable incident while they ignore atrocities that said outrage would be  well spent addressing.

Where is the outrage over approximately 1,500 unborn black children being  murdered daily by Planned Parenthood and other abortion mills?  Where is the  outrage over the single-parent homes?  Where is the outrage over the  black-on-black crime rates?  Approxiamtely 8,000 blacks are murdered annually,  and other blacks commit 93 percent of these murders.  In Chicago alone, more  than 200 blacks have been murdered so far this year.  Where is the outrage over  that?  Where is the outrage over illegal aliens Mexicans murdering blacks as  part of their initiation into violent gangs?

Blacks I’ve observed doing on-air interviews, etc. are upset that George Zimmerman was acquitted. But it is not the George Zimmermans who take a person’s life in self-defense whom they should fear – it is the gang-bangers and hoodlums on the streets who are killing one another with reckless abandon because someone wore the wrong color shirt in their neighborhood. Blacks need not fear the George Zimmermans who justifiably protect themselves; blacks need fear having their children playing in front of their residence when a car drives by and sprays bullets at the building.

How in the name of sanity can those that are claiming injustice pursuant to  George Zimmerman sit silent about all of the other atrocities blacks are  inflicting upon themselves?

Have inculcated immiseration, victimology and self-segregation so blinded  blacks that they are unable to see the truth?  Or is it that they are so given  over to antipathy that they refuse to see the truth?

My fellow Americans:

I am your humble servant. You have entrusted me with the tremendous honor and  responsibility to serve you as president. I am not president of black America,  Hispanic America or white America. I am not president of liberal America or  conservative America. I am president of the United States of America. 

We were each created equal by a God of forgiveness. It is now time that we do  as He commands; that we forgive one another as we are forgiven and that we come  together, once and for all, as one America.

With this goal in mind, I ask that every American join me in praying for the  family of Trayvon Martin. No parent should have to bury a child. I also ask that  you join me in prayer for George Zimmerman and his family. This tragedy has  taken an unimaginable toll on both families. Finally, I ask that you join me in  praying for national calm and racial reconciliation.

Today I will share with you certain truths that may be difficult for some to  hear. But truths they remain.

First among these truths: The death of Trayvon Martin was a horrible tragedy. 

But not all tragedies are crimes.

This case should never have gone to trial. Probable cause for charges of  second-degree murder did not exist. Unfortunately, it has become evident that  charges were filed based upon a purely political calculus, rather than upon the  legal merits of the case. This is legal malpractice, and those responsible  should be held accountable.

Before charges were even filed I publicly and inappropriately said: “If I had  a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” This was irresponsible of me. It was a  politically motivated abuse of the presidential bully pulpit. It presumed Mr.  Zimmerman guilty until proven innocent. The implication was racially charged and  cynical. To the extent that I may have contributed to the spurious filing of  charges, I apologize to Florida. I also apologize to George Zimmerman, his  family and the American people.

Nevertheless, the trial did go forward and, after 20 days in court and 16  hours of thoughtful deliberation, a jury of George Zimmerman’s peers ultimately  found him not guilty. Whether or not we agree, this is our criminal justice  system and the system worked as designed.

Justice was served.

Although none of us were there – and few can know for sure – the not guilty  verdict indicates that the jury found, based upon the weight of the evidence,  that this tragic shooting was, in fact, legally justified on self-defense  grounds. This is true whether or not George overreacted by following Trayvon in  the first place. Florida’s “stand-your-ground” law was never even triggered. 

The jury further found, by all accounts, that at some point during their  interaction, Mr. Martin turned, pursued and attacked Mr. Zimmerman without legal  provocation. This decision ultimately cost him his life.

How does this make sense? How could this have justified the shooting?  Although initially unarmed, witness accounts and forensic evidence suggest that  Trayvon punched Mr. Zimmerman, jumped on him and began slamming the back of his  head into the concrete sidewalk while allegedly proclaiming, “You gonna die  tonight, [expletive].” At this point the sidewalk became a deadly weapon.  From  this, any reasonable person could conclude that George Zimmerman feared for his  life and, therefore, took defensive action.

A needless tragedy? Yes.

A crime? No.

Here is another truth: This case is neither now, nor has it ever been about  race. That is, it wasn’t about race until I and others made it so.

There are those who, under the guise of “civil-rights advocacy,” have a  tarnished history of exploiting this and other such tragedies for their own  political and financial purposes. This is race-profiteering. It is shameless,  dishonest and never productive. For the good of our nation, it needs to stop. 

Furthermore, much of the media are likewise to blame. It is clear that, for  whatever reason –ratings, perhaps – many journalists chose to intentionally fan  the flames of racial discord. NBC even went so far as to splice  and edit the recording of Mr. Zimmerman’s 911 call to make him sound racist.  This may well be defamation per se, and NBC should be held to account.

In reality, the overwhelming evidence indicates that Mr. Zimmerman is  anything but racist. He is just as much a “person of color” as am I. He is  Hispanic, not white as the media narrative goes. George is half Hispanic, just  as I am half black. He is no more a “white Hispanic” than am I a “white black.”  This is the theater of the absurd. It’s but another example of the media’s  disingenuous bid to sensationalize this case as a white-vs.-black civil-rights  clash.

It is not.

In reality, George Zimmerman’s past strongly suggests that he is utterly  color blind. He once went to bat for a black homeless man against the police  department he desperately hoped to join. He also has a history of mentoring  black children, has dated black women, has black relatives and is a registered  Democrat who voted for me – the first black president in American history.  Finally, an extensive FBI  investigation determined that Mr. Zimmerman is simply “not a racist.”

I understand that many people are very upset over this verdict. I sympathize  with them. My heart also breaks for Trayvon’s family. Still, we are a nation of  laws, not a nation of mob rule. Make no mistake, threats to George Zimmerman’s  safety and civil rights will not be tolerated and will be investigated and  prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Moreover, I have instructed Attorney General Eric Holder to cease and desist  in all efforts to manufacture federal civil-rights charges against Mr.  Zimmerman. There is simply no case and to pursue one would actually violate Mr.  Zimmerman’s civil rights.

Let’s get back on track. Let’s return to Dr. King’s dream of an America in  which people are “judged by the content of their character,” and not “by the  color of their skin.”

It’s time to move on. It’s time to heal. It’s time to come together as “One  Nation Under God”. 

God bless you.

And God bless America.