MADDOG10's Blog

 Written By : Ann Coulter

My smash best-seller “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America” has just come out in paperback — and not a moment too soon! Democrats always become especially mob-like during presidential election campaigns.

The “root cause” of the Democrats’ wild allegations against Republicans, their fear of change, their slogans and insane metaphors, are all explained by mass psychology, diagnosed more than a century ago by the French psychologist Gustave Le Bon, on whose work much of my own book is based.

Le Bon’s 1896 book, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,” was carefully read by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in order to learn how to incite mobs. Our liberals could have been Le Bon’s study subjects.

With the country drowning in debt and Medicare and Social Security on high-speed bullet trains to bankruptcy, the entire Democratic Party refuses to acknowledge mathematical facts. Instead, they incite the Democratic mob to hate Republicans by accusing them of wanting to kill old people.

According to a 2009 report — before Obama added another $5 trillion to the national debt — Obama’s own treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, stated that in less than 10 years, spending on major entitlement programs, plus interest payments on the national debt, would consume 92 cents of every dollar in federal revenue.

That means no money for an army, a navy, rockets, national parks, food inspectors, air traffic controllers, highways, and so on. Basically, the entire federal budget will be required just to pay for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — and the cost of borrowing money to pay for these programs.

When Social Security was enacted in 1935, the average lifespan was 61.7 years. Today, it’s almost 79 and rising. But liberals believe the age at which people can begin collecting Social Security must never, ever be changed, even to save Social Security itself.

Mobs, according to Le Bon, have a “fetish-like respect” for tradition, except moral traditions because crowds are too impulsive to be moral. That’s why liberals say our Constitution is a “living, breathing” document that sprouts rights to gay marriage and abortion, but the age at which Social Security and Medicare benefits kick in is written in stone.

Le Bon says that it is lucky “for the progress of civilization that the power of crowds only began to exist when the great discoveries of science and industry had already been effected.” If “democracies possessed the power they wield today at the time of the invention of mechanical looms or of the introduction of steam-power and of railways, the realization of these inventions would have been impossible.”

Liberals exhibit this exact group-think fear of science not only toward light bulbs and nuclear power, but also toward medical inventions. Thus, when a majority of the country objected to Obamacare on the grounds that — among many other reasons — a government takeover of health care would destroy medical innovation, liberals stared in blank incomprehension.

They believe every drug, every diagnosis, every therapy, every cure that will ever be invented, has already been invented. Their job is to spread all the existing cures, while demonizing and stymieing pharmaceutical companies that make money by inventing new drugs.

Democrats haven’t the slightest concern about who will formulate new remedies because they are enraged at profit-making and suspicious of scientific advancement.

Apart from cures that will never be invented, liberal elites will be mostly untouched by the rotten medical care to which they are consigning the rest of us. Note how Democrats’ friends, such as government unions, immediately received waivers from Obamacare. Rich or connected liberals, such as George Soros, Warren Buffett, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, will always have access to the best doctors, just as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez do.

It is similar to the way that Democrats, who refuse to pass school choice, always seem to bypass the disastrous public schools for their own children, who end up at Sidwell Friends or St. Albans.

Democrats don’t worry about how bankrupting Social Security and destroying the job market hurts black people, bitter divorcees and young people, because they can always demagogue these one-party Democratic voters simply by repeating that Republicans are racist, hate women and aren’t cool like Obama.

The truth is irrelevant; only slogans and fear-mongering delight mobs.

The rest of us are forced to live in a lawless universe of no new pharmaceuticals, foreign doctors, gay marriage, girl soldiers, a health care system run by the post office, and bankrupt Social Security and Medicare systems, because liberals can’t enjoy their wealth unless other people are living in squalor.

The country will have the economy of Uganda, but Democrats will be in total control.

 Written By : Rachel Marsden

A recent intelligence leak confirms something that regular readers of this column already know: that the Obama administration has officially authorized covert support of local “rebel” groups, through government agencies like the CIA, with the goal of destabilizing and subverting the Bashar al-Assad regime. The interesting consequence is that al-Qaeda is among the groups President Obama’s directive now supports.

Just think about this for a minute. The president of the United States, according to an intelligence leak initially reported by Reuters, has secretly authorized support of an undisclosed nature for armed fighters in a region, including members of the group now synonymous with terrorism against American and Western interests in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Presumably, Obama is leaving it up to those responsible for distributing said “support” to ensure that no arms fall into the hands of any al-Qaeda members. But the reality is that, given the fog of war permeating Syria right now, Obama would have better luck determining which trick-or-treating children arriving at his door on any given Halloween are little hellions undeserving of candy.

Obama reportedly signed the order earlier this year, closer to when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested to the Senate Armed Services Committee that al-Qaeda had taken a discreet approach in Syria, choosing not to draw attention to itself. The Washington Post quoted Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess as saying that there was no “clarion call to outsiders coming in.”

Well, Burgess must not have gotten the memo, because just a few days earlier, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had issued that call, declaring in an eight-minute video: “Wounded Syria is still bleeding day after day, and the butcher (Assad) isn’t deterred and doesn’t stop. However, the resistance of our people in Syria is escalating and growing despite all the pains, sacrifices and blood.”

Obama has now engaged America in a covert war AGAINST a regime trying to wipe out al-Qaeda. If this was at all about fighting global terrorism, Obama would just sit back and do precisely nothing while al-Qaeda spilled into Syria and Assad’s forces wiped them out. Assad is a horrible guy, but is it really worth getting in bed with al-Qaeda to have a hand in his ouster?

If Obama’s order had anything to do with humanitarian intervention to assist the Syrian civilian population, he would be following Canada’s lead in differentiating between genuinely innocent civilians and the undifferentiated mass of rebel fighters — providing strictly humanitarian aid and protection to the former while letting the latter fight it out with Assad.

Russian officials once rebuffed the Islamic extremists of the region when they actively sought Russian cooperation against America in Afghanistan post-9/11. Why couldn’t Obama find the sense to do the same?

It’s because this is about economics and position, nothing else. And for some harebrained reason, Obama sees fit to take a chance on dealing with al-Qaeda in order to make inroads rather than being upfront, honest and authentic with China and Russia over what America really wants out of Assad’s ouster in Syria: economic benefits and favorable geopolitical positioning. Could there possibly be a bigger slap in the face to the leaders of Russia and China than to suggest, via covert yet concrete action, that taking a chance on the group responsible for the most heinous act of terrorism on American soil is preferable to dealing with the leaders of those nations forthrightly and honestly?

Now it’s all too late, and a hangover likely awaits. Russia and China have every right to be offended by Obama trying to play them for fools all while attempting to bring them to the table under false pretenses. Does Obama think Vladimir Putin, a former director of Russian intelligence, doesn’t understand subversive tactics, or that the Chinese don’t understand Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” principle of leveraging chaos? It’s like a friend who’s constantly trying to rope you into some kind of pyramid scheme under the guise of a great business opportunity. At what point do you just get fed up with it all?

Obama could have done things much differently and laid out an economic impetus for action in Syria, bringing the two major opposing geopolitical players in this particular game to the table on an honest footing rather than insulting them in seemingly every way possible. Is there no one in this administration capable of constructing an honest, forthright, respectful diplomatic pitch? Subterfuge and deception should be reserved for those lacking the intelligence, creativity and character to do anything else.

 Written By : Ben Shapiro

Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has utterly unhinged the Obama campaign. Last week they were happily jabbering about Romney’s record at Bain Capital, implying that he had killed a man’s wife, stating that he was a tax cheat and blaming him for outsourcing jobs. This week they’re stuck defending Barack Obama’s $700 billion cuts to Medicare and spending addiction.

That leaves the Democrats with one solution: get ugly.

Joe Biden led off the festivities in Virginia this week, where he informed the population of 49-percent-black Danville that “he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street. They gonna put y’all back in chains.” That last line is a direct transcription — Biden lapsed into a heavy southern accent, clearly making a slavery reference. According to the Obama campaign, then, Romney’s Wall Street plans are the same as placing Americans in chains. If that isn’t insulting to black Americans, nothing will be.

But the Obama campaign wasn’t done. The same day Biden unleashed his inner race-baiter, the Obama campaign’s Julianna Smoot send out a mass email accusing Ryan of “making a pilgrimage” to Las Vegas to “kiss the ring” of Jewish mega donor Sheldon Adelson. This was an obvious attempt to drive a wedge between Ryan and blue-collar Catholics by invoking anti-Semitic imagery; the implication is that Ryan, instead of making a pilgrimage to Rome to kiss the ring of the Pope, was heading to Vegas to kiss the ring of a wealthy Jew. Ryan, the email implied, was a Judas willing to sacrifice religion for money in the Sodom and Gomorrah of Vegas.

This isn’t just nasty campaigning. It’s vile campaigning.

It wasn’t surprising, of course — not after the Obama campaign seemingly worked hand-in-glove with a super PAC to release an ad accusing Romney of murdering Joe Soptic’s wife of cancer after Bain Capital fired Soptic and Soptic lost his health insurance. It wasn’t surprising after the vulgarities that seem to spout daily from the Obama headquarters; their emails suggest that they must win the “<snip>” election and their staffers call Obamacare opponents “mother—ers.” No hope and change to be found here — just vulgarity and racism.

Just because the Obama campaign is running a disgusting campaign doesn’t mean it will hurt them. Negative campaigns remain extraordinarily effective. But it won’t work against the revitalized Romney-Ryan ticket. Ryan is simply too likeable — 50 percent of Americans like him, as opposed to 32 percent who don’t — and he is highly intelligent and scrupulously honest. That means he’ll be tough to categorize with the left’s three favorite anti-conservative insults: stupid (Palin), corrupt (Nixon) and mean (Bush). Ryan isn’t extreme; he’s praised by people like … Barack Obama and Erskine Bowles.

The question that remains for the American public is whether they can be polarized by the divide-and-conquer rhetoric of the Obama campaign. If Obama can’t convince Americans that Romney-Ryan will destroy America, he’ll have to destroy America himself to ensure re-election by separating Americans by race, sexuality and religion. That’s precisely what he’s doing.

Ben Shapiro, 28, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a radio host on KRLA 870 Los Angeles, and Editor-At-Large for Breitbart News. He is the four-time bestselling author of “Primetime Propaganda.”

Watching some of the Sunday shows yesterday and reading the usual suspects online, I was struck by how even knowledgeable liberals still do not understand what Obamacare has done to them. They have a sense that health care is no longer a good issue for them, that it might have cost them the 2010 elections and will hurt in 2012, but they haven’t grasped that Medicare — which for decades has been a trusty battering ram against Republicans in the contest for the votes of seniors and others — is also no longer their issue.

This becomes evident in part when you consider that the arguments the Democrats naturally fall back upon regarding Medicare are just false now. So for instance David Axelrod on CNN’s State of the Union referred to “Congressman Ryan’s idea that we should turn Medicare into a voucher program, shifting thousands of dollars ultimately onto the backs of seniors.” But that’s simply a lie — Ryan’s actual Medicare proposal(which Romney has backed) simply doesn’t shift costs to seniors.

But it’s even more evident when liberals try to confront what they themselves — the supporters of Obamacare — propose to do to Medicare. Thus we find Rachel Maddow like a deer in headlights when Rich Lowry asked her a simple question on Meet the Press  yesterday: “Do you support $700 billion in cuts in Medicare over the next ten years?” Obamacare takes that amount out of the program and spends it on other things, especially its new exchange subsidies. Maddow literally refused to answer the question. At one point she even said she shouldn’t have to answer it because “I’m not running for anything,” even though her occupation, as I understand it, is to express her opinion. And in the end, her defense of the cuts (though she still never said she supported them) was that Paul Ryan’s budget actually keeps them in place, eliminating Obamacare’s spending but not its Medicare cuts.

It’s at least a bit odd for Democrats who say Ryan is the devil to defend President Obama’s raid on Medicare by saying Paul Ryan does the same thing — and what’s more, it’s not true. The Ryan budget puts those $700 billion into the Medicare trust fund, to shore up the program’s future and reduce the deficit, rather than spending the money on yet another new entitlement. And Mitt Romney proposes not to make those Obamacare cuts in the first place — keeping the money in Medicare’s operating budget and so leaving the program simply as it is for today’s seniors and starting his premium-support reform for younger Americans when they retire, beginning a decade from now. Both undo Obama’s raid on Medicare, and both support a plan to save Medicare from bankruptcy in the years ahead.

I don’t think Axelrod and Maddow were just setting out to lie exactly — it’s worse than that. Listening to them, it seemed as if they really hadn’t realized until now the situation they were in. They’re used to a certain order of things on Medicare and have not stopped to grasp what Obamacare has done to them. They assume it must be true that Republicans want to cut benefits and Democrats want to preserve them. But it’s not true, not anymore. You could see that panicked realization slowly rising in Maddow’s eyes as she was pressed.

What she was probably recognizing was this: Obamacare changed everything. In the wake of that law, it is now clearer than it ever could have been before that the market solution is also the best one for seniors — that the conservative approach that would dramatically reduce the deficit is also the one that would avoid any disruptions for current beneficiaries and the one that would save Medicare in the longer run without shifting costs to future beneficiaries. And the Left can’t claim any  of those benefits for its own approach to Medicare.

Even some conservatives haven’t quite realized this, and have been uneasy about criticizing Obama’s Medicare cuts — after all, aren’t we supposed to be for Medicare cuts? But this attitude fails to consider the nature of Obama’s cuts (an arbitrary raid of the system to fund a new unsustainable entitlement) and the nature of the Romney-Ryan alternative (a market solution that would turn recipients into consumers and make Medicare a model of how competition can create efficiency and reduce costs without undermining value or access). There’s a broad consensus in America that the elderly should have access to highly subsidized health coverage. Cutting the cost of the program does not need to mean cutting the level of that coverage — unless, that is, you think central planning is the only way to run the program. The Left apparently does believe that, and now they’ll have to face the consequences.

President Obama has put Democrats in the position of being the party that seeks to cut current seniors’ benefits (especially those in Medicare Advantage) and access to care (thanks to the IPAB) while still allowing the program to collapse in the coming years and so watching the deficit explode and bringing on fiscal disaster. And Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have put the Republicans in the position of being the party that wants to protect current seniors’ benefits and make them available to future seniors while still saving the program from collapse in the coming years and so dramatically reducing the deficit and averting fiscal disaster.

Whether you’re now a senior and concerned about your health coverage, are younger and worry if you’ll have affordable coverage when you retire, or are most concerned about the nation’s fiscal health and economic future, the Democrats offer you a very bad deal on Medicare and the Republicans offer you a good one.

The Democrats still don’t see that, and think that turning to Medicare in the wake of Ryan’s selection will yield great political rewards. Perhaps Romney and Ryan should inform them of how the two parties actually stand on the issue. And they might think about informing some voters as well.

President Obama Has A Bridge to Sell You

By YOGI LOVE on 8.13.12 @ 11:53AM

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure that Romney would make the right choice. I was fearful that his pick for Vice President would revolve around the consideration of a prospect’s cultural identity than their ideas and what they bring to the table for Romney’s Campaign that, sad to say, is less than exciting at times.

I’ll admit, I’m a Paul Ryan supporter. Everybody’s got a niche, an area of expertise that they bring to the marketplace of ideas, and having a focus on reducing debt and forcing fiscal accountability upon government is tremendously appropriate at this low point in our nation’s history. While Ryan may ruffle a few feathers on the moderate side, and may be perceived as being a bit “radical”,  I’ll confess that somebody saying something meaningful with regards to getting us out of the hole we’re in is not radical, it’s sensible and welcomed. He isn’t radical, he’s focused, and he brings an element of excitement to a campaign that may have been dogged by a stink of quasi-moderate leanings.

Apparently, I am not the only one enthusiastic about Romney’s pick. In the three hours after Ryan was named as the Vice Presidential candidate, the Romney Campaign saw a fundraising windfall as the campaign received $1.2 million in donations. If money in politics is speech, then the $1.2 million dollars raised tells me the people are jazzed about this fiscal conservative being on the ticket.

Andrea Saul, the Romney Campaign Press Secretary, tweeted the good news, saying, “HERE FIRST: @MittRomney has raised over $1.2 million since pick of @PaulRyanVP #LessThan4Hours.”

But the fun didn’t stop there, however. Saul tweeted soon after, “Just passed $2 million raised since @MittRomney announced @PaulRyanVP #RomneyRyan2012.”

Let’s hope the fun continues and we see some real momentum for this campaign. While Romney may not have been my first choice for the Republican nod, I’ll admit that the campaign gained some points by including Ryan on the ticket.

 Written By : Josh Bernstein

Today is the first day in the rebirth of America. With the exception of maybe Senator Marco Rubio, no other candidate for vice president has the ability to satisfy the base, energize the Tea Party, and appeal to Independents quite like Congressman Paul Ryan.

If the Democrats and the left underestimate Paul Ryan, they do so at their own peril.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this article, I will heed a warning to Mitt Romney and the Republican Party. If we allow the left to define Paul Ryan through vicious and unscrupulous attacks, then WE do so at our own peril.

If I was running the Romney Campaign the first thing I would do is immediately create multiple ads in which Paul Ryan is speaking to the camera and explaining the upcoming Medicare attacks. I would get out in front of this right now and not wait to respond to the coming attacks. Handicap the left by getting to the voters first. If anyone in the Romney Campaign happens to read this or has contacts within the campaign please get this to them as soon as possible.

Now that Mitt Romney has shown he can be bold; I would take it to the next level. The Romney Campaign should run an introductory ad in all 57 states. Excuse me, 50 states. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. The comeback team should introduce themselves to America in a big way. No voiceovers, no fancy music in the background, just the two of them looking at the camera and laying out in specific and clear details the vision they possess for the country. Most pundits or talking heads would ridicule an idea like this. They would say why would the Romney/Ryan ticket be trying to woo voters in the liberal states of Hawaii, Vermont, Oregon, etc?

The reason is because this time it is different. All Americans are suffering regardless of party. When a Democrat, Independent, or Republican loses his job it hurts just the same. More Americans are stuck in poverty than at any other time.

The Obama administration is a cancer. It is eating away at the very fabric of our nation. It is dissolving our rights, our freedoms, and our sovereignty. Unlike a nuclear bomb that would kill us quickly, the Obama Administration is killing us slowly and deliberately. It is a slow and painful death. A death by a thousand little cuts.

When a sitting president in a horrible economic environment is too busy to meet with his jobs council you know that this economic catastrophe was purposely caused. When a sitting president hasn’t even signed a budget in over 3 years you know this is intentional. When a sitting president guts welfare and removes the work requirement you know he is following the Cloward and Piven strategy. His goal is to overload the financial system by getting as many people as possible under the government dole. The more people Obama has eating out of his hand, the more control he has over Americans lives.

History has shown that when the iron fists of government comes down on its people there are typically only two outcomes. The people fight back, remove it, and cut it off at the wrist; or they embrace it, accept it, and hold and kiss it.

We need to cut it off at the wrist.

Today Mitt Romney just told the American people that he is serious about fixing the economy. Not with his words, but with his actions. Paul Ryan is a smart, articulate policy guy. He comes from middle class roots and understands the severity of the problems we face as a nation. He will be able to articulate complex financial issues to the electorate in a very simplistic way. He has a knack for talking to you, not over you. He will be able to out debate not only Joe Biden, but any left leaning pundit that dare tries to outsmart him.

The heartbeat of the nation has always been what the elitist’s on the left and right disdainfully refer to as fly over country. This is exactly where this election will be won or loss. The left and right coasts are mostly comprised of liberal ideology, Hollywood radicals, and politically correct demagoguery.

We have been programmed by this administration to accept mediocrity in the name of global fairness. We have settled for average when we know we are exceptional. We have been told that our businesses were not built by ourselves but rather by our government. We were told the private sector is doing fine even though unemployment is over 8% for a record 43 straight months.

This horrible experiment with hope and change has been an utter failure. We need to return America back to its greatness. As Reagan used to say we are the shining city on the hill. We are the last beacon for freedom. And we never lead from behind. Obama has emboldened our enemies, abandoned our allies, and bowed down to our adversaries. This President makes Jimmy Carter look competent. That is no easy task.

The Romney/Ryan ticket is a winning combination. They will show the American people what real leadership is. They combine the talent, ability, and desire to make America great once again.

When an Insufferable Blowhard Runs Out of Money This is What it Looks Like

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Let me set the scene for you: Rising oil and gas prices, rising equity prices and falling housing prices. Storm signals start winking on the global economic front after a month of a braggadocious presidential tour telling us all that finally the economy has got it right; that it’s on its way to recovery.

Where have I seen this film before? Oh yeah: February 2010, 2011, 2012.

In his State of the Union address of January 2011 and 2012, Obama was bragging about his economic accomplishments.

“We are poised for progress,” he told Congress in 2011. “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.”

At the start of 2011, the president was an insufferable blowhard, anxious to let us know that he saved the economy. He was even more of a blowhard in December going into 2012.

But after successfully destabilizing the Islamic world by intervening in Libya, Obama, along with loose money policies of the Federal Reserve, created successively higher oil prices as more and more regimes felt pressure from the Islamic Spring and Obama stifled production at home.  And it wasn’t just oil prices, either, that went up. Food prices, gold and silver and other basic material prices were heading up just at a time when the global economy was showing signs of slowing.

Inflation then acted as a brake on economies that were struggling to gain traction.

Then Mr. President Obama- who has always looked disinterested in real policy work- took several long vacations, inspired a sovereign debt crisis in the US and started the class warfare rhetoric that he now clings to bitterly as a substitute for religion and guns and real tax reform.   

Several sovereign debt crises later, the largest economic union in the world, the Eurozone, is on life support, while China deteriorates economically and Japan is listless.

And how did America do in this after all of Obama’s bragging?

Corporate profits are mixed, unemployment is ticking back up, while GDP grows at about 1.5 percent annually. The S&P 500 returned a measly 1.02 percent for 2011, however much Obama was roaring about the stock market in January.

Apparently the president doesn’t get to decide in January what the market will do for the year.

Now Obama knows that. 

Investors, who make economic decisions, not political speeches, didn’t buy the all-is-well mantra and bought very little equity in the stock market in 2011, despite “record profits.”   

This time around, in 2012, as Obama’s economy rises from the dead once again, he’s claiming only to have saved the auto industry on the backs of the taxpayers’ gift of ten and twenty dollars bills that stretches out a billion times.

General Motors, which made “record profits” last year, after getting the largest forgivable loan in the history of mankind- seriously- from the federal government, has announced profits have plunged.

Investors haven’t been buying those “record profits” either, chasing shares down to $20 from an offering of $33 in late 2010. $54 is break even for taxpayers- I guess investors were waiting for higher “record profits” before they are convinced that GM is as valuable as Obama says.

Now Obama has a big problem.

He wants you to believe that the economy is so bad that he needed trillions more to fix it. If that’s true, then all the bragging in the world by him isn’t going to remove the responsibility he has for the mess that he’s created over three years. 

But he also wants you to think that things are improving as well. If that’s true, if unemployment is heading downward, as Obama would want you to believe, then the question becomes: Why does he need trillions more to fix an economy already in recovery?

It’s clear the both-ways president, as usual, wants it both ways. He wants to declaim any responsibility for anything, while taking credit for everything.

He got Bin Laden, he saved GM and he blamed Bush.   

Subtle clues can be seen in places other than the bottom line of the employment report that the economy is fragile and at risk of fracturing.

Let’s for a moment ignore the contortions that socialist economists execute in order to make it appear the best-of-times and the worst-of-times alternately for the benefit of Obama.

Millions of people have left the workforce in the last year, driving labor participation rates to a 30 year low and costing the economy literally hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Consumer sentiment is down markedly, but that’s a lagging indicator of the economy. Confidence will be meaningful only on election-day. Even still, consumer confidence is well below what is considered healthy- for an economy or a president.

Getting the picture?

While GDP was not-so great in the first half, that was a one-off event. It will be a disaster in the second half of the year. And the first quarter of 2013 will be decidedly worse, maybe even 2008-9 type worse.

Already we have seen durable goods orders drop. And quarterly dividend futures point to companies eager to retain cash despite “record profits.”

Now add into that potent mix of economic miasma: 1) an Obama energy policy that has resulted in higher, less stable prices; 2) an Obama foreign policy that has resulted in more hostile and less stable global relationships, and; 3) world wide central bank policies that admits of one conclusion: We are out of money.

We. Are. Out. Of. Money.

So this is what it looks like when an insufferable blow hard runs out of money?

Yes, sir. 

• 
• WAYNE ALLYN ROOT
• 
• 

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

Obama and his infamous strategist David Axelrod understand how to play political hardball, the best it’s ever been played. Team Obama has decided to distract America’s voters by condemning Mitt Romney for not releasing enough years of his tax returns. It’s the perfect cover. Obama knows the best defense is a bold offense. Just keep attacking Mitt and blaming him for secrecy and evasion, while accusing him of having a scandal that doesn’t exist. Then ask followers like Senator Harry Reid to chase the lead. The U.S. Senate Majority Leader appears to now be making up stories out of thin air, about tax returns he knows nothing about. It’s a cynical, brilliant, and vicious strategy. Make Romney defend, so he can’t attack the real Obama scandal.

This is classic Axelrod. Obama has won several elections in his career by slandering his opponents and leaking sealed documents. Not only do these insinuations and leaks ruin the credibility and reputation of Obama’s opponents, they keep them on the defensive and off Obama’s trail of sealed documents.

By attacking Romney’s tax records, Obama’s socialist cabal creates a problem that doesn’t exist. Is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader making up stories out of thin air? You decide. But the reason for this baseless attack is clear- make Romney defend, so not only is he “off message” but it helps the media ignore the real Obama scandal.

My answer for Romney? Call Obama’s bluff.

Romney should call a press conference and issue a challenge in front of the nation. He should agree to release more of his tax returns, only if Obama unseals his college records. Simple and straight-forward. Mitt should ask “What could possibly be so embarrassing in your college records from 29 years ago that you are afraid to let America’s voters see? If it’s THAT bad, maybe it’s something the voters ought to see.” Suddenly the tables are turned. Now Obama is on the defensive.

My bet is that Obama will never unseal his records because they contain information that could destroy his chances for re-election. Once this challenge is made public, my prediction is you’ll never hear about Mitt’s tax returns ever again.

Why are the college records, of a 51-year-old President of the United States, so important to keep secret? I think I know the answer.

If anyone should have questions about Obama’s record at Columbia University, it’s me. We both graduated (according to Obama) Columbia University, Class of ’83. We were both (according to Obama) Pre-Law and Political Science majors. And I thought I knew most everyone at Columbia. I certainly thought I’d heard of all of my fellow Political Science majors. But not Obama (or as he was known then- Barry Soetoro). I never met him. Never saw him. Never even heard of him. And none of the classmates that I knew at Columbia have ever met him, saw him, or heard of him.

But don’t take my word for it. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008  that Fox News randomly called 400 of our Columbia classmates and never found one who had ever met Obama.

Now all of this mystery could be easily and instantly dismissed if Obama released his Columbia transcripts to the media. But even after serving as President for 3 1/2 years he refuses to unseal his college records. Shouldn’t the media be as relentless in pursuit of Obama’s records as Romney’s? Shouldn’t they be digging into Obama’s past–beyond what he has written about himself–with the same boundless enthusiasm as Mitt’s?

The first question I’d ask is, if you had great grades, why would you seal your records? So let’s assume Obama got poor grades. Why not release the records? He’s president of the free world, for gosh sakes. He’s commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. Who’d care about some poor grades from three decades ago, right? So then what’s the problem? Doesn’t that make the media suspicious? Something doesn’t add up.

Secondly, if he had poor grades at Occidental, how did he get admitted to an Ivy League university in the first place? And if his grades at Columbia were awful, how’d he ever get into Harvard Law School? So again those grades must have been great, right? So why spend millions to keep them sealed?

Third, how did Obama pay for all these fancy schools without coming from a wealthy background? If he had student loans or scholarships, would he not have to maintain good grades?

I can only think of one answer that would explain this mystery.

Here’s my gut belief: Obama got a leg up by being admitted to both Occidental and Columbia as a foreign exchange student. He was raised as a young boy in Indonesia. But did his mother ever change him back to a U.S. citizen? When he returned to live with his grandparents in Hawaii or as he neared college-age preparing to apply to schools, did he ever change his citizenship back? I’m betting not.

If you could unseal Obama’s Columbia University records I believe you’d find that:

A)   He rarely ever attended class.

B)   His grades were not those typical of what we understand it takes to get into Harvard Law School.

C)   He attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student.

D)   He paid little for either undergraduate college or Harvard Law School because of foreign aid and scholarships given to a poor foreign students like this kid Barry Soetoro from Indonesia.

If you think I’m “fishing” then prove me wrong. Open up your records Mr. President. What are you afraid of?

If it’s okay for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go on a fishing expedition about Romney’s taxes (even though he knows absolutely nothing about them nor will release his own), then I think I can do the same thing. But as Obama’s Columbia Class of ’83 classmate, at least I have more standing to make educated guesses.

It’s time for Mitt to go on the attack and call Obama’s bluff.

 Written By : Ben Shapiro

President Obama is my president. He’s not illegitimate. He’s not a usurper. He was duly elected by my fellow citizens — and as much as I think he’s a horrible commander-in-chief with anti-American ideals, that’s the choice Americans made in 2008.

But by the same token, President Obama isn’t my president. He isn’t doing anything for me, the typical, faceless American citizen. I’m not a member of a minority group — at least a minority group that counts (being Jewish obviously doesn’t count when it comes to Obama’s giveaway grab bag). I’m not a welfare case, and I’m employed. I’m not a member of a public sector union.

And so I don’t count when it comes to President Obama.

President Obama’s entire re-election campaign — and, thus far, his entire presidency — has been predicated on appealing to various splinter groups within the American population. He isn’t interested in presenting broad policy initiatives that appeal to the vast swath of Americans; in fact, his one major policy initiative, Obamacare, bombed with the American public so badly that the Democrats were unceremoniously thrown from Congress in 2010.

That’s why Obama finds himself on the defensive with regard to his polarizing campaign tactics. In an interview with Black Enterprise magazine, Obama said, “I want all Americans to have opportunity. I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America.” But that’s not what he says on his campaign website, where he breaks down Americans by color, including a subgroup of African-Americans for Obama, where he pushes posters urging blacks to “get his back” — just $35 to show your support!

Obama’s website also offers groups for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Jewish Americans (well, liberal Jewish Americans), Latinos, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenders, people with disabilities, small business owners (all two of them who support Obama), seniors, women, and young Americans, among others.

Obama sees America as a country of differences papered over with the flag; Americans, by contrast, have historically seen America as a country of different folks united by dreams, goals and principles. To Obama, unity is aesthetic, an idea to be photoshopped to the front of a campaign brochure. To Americans, unity is engraved on our coinage.

But that fundamental difference in perspective has yet to manifest itself in this campaign. Americans seem to want to take Obama at his word. They don’t understand that his campaign philosophy of 2008 is worlds apart from his campaign philosophy of 2012. He has failed as a universal president — a president whose rising tide has lifted all boats. His only success must spring from his particularism. He must deconstruct his “all things to all people” persona in order to appeal to any one particular group.

But Obama’s enigmatic persona means that there’s no there there. He hasn’t offered enough to any one group to qualify as a representative member. His answer to Black Enterprise came in response to a question about whether he’s done enough for the black community. And he hasn’t. But he can only campaign as a black candidate or a gay candidate or a Latino candidate or a whatever-he-is-this-week candidate.

And that just won’t fly. Because, to paraphrase a famously unifying politician of the recent past, we’re not black states and white states, gay states and straight states — we’re the United States. Even if our president seems to like us better scattered and disunited.

Ben Shapiro, 28, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a radio host on KRLA 870 Los Angeles, and Editor-At-Large for Breitbart News. He is the four-time bestselling author of “Primetime Propaganda.”