Can Herman Cain Break the Democrats' Hold on the Black Vote

Cain boasts black appeal amidst talk of "brainwashing"

Accusations of black-on-black racism against Republcian Presidential hopeful Herman Cain may only be a matter of time.

In an interview with CNN, Cain suggested that black voters had been "brainwashed" into voting for the Democrats.

"African Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Cain said. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."

There should be little doubt that many Democrats have been quietly worried about the prospect of a Cain nomination, as it would rob them of their ability to accuse their Republican opponent of racism. Right now, it's become their chief political tactic.

They could always resort to accusing Cain of being a black-on-black racist. While such racism does exist, it lacks the instant credulity many grant to accusations of racism against a white candidate.

At best, Cain can hope to merely be accused of having a condescending attitude toward black voters. Some will even attempt to claim Cian has lost any confidence in black voters.

But this is simply not true.

Prior to his CNN comments, Cain speculated that he may be able to claim one-third or more of the black vote if he manages to win the Republican nomination. Without the black vote commandingly coming on side for Obama, Obama's chances of winning reelection in 2012 would narrow considerably.

“The African-American vote, I am confident, based upon black people that run into, black people that used to call my radio show, black people that have signed up on my website to support me. I believe, quite frankly, that my campaign, I will garner a minimum of a third of the black vote in this country and possibly more,” Cain said.

Even the possibility of this must have Democrats running scared. They're already keen to insist that Cain cannot win the Republcian nomination, let alone the Presidency.

Faced with the prospect of losing their grip on the black vote, they'll pull out all the stops to make sure that can never happen.

Republicans Breech Another Democrat Stronghold

Bob Turner wins Anthony Weiner's seat in New York

Start spreading the news.

Although the Democrats felt invincible following the 2008 election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, they have instead become a remarkably frail party. In addition to a defeat at the polls in the 2010 midterm elections, they've also lost their grip on some key stronghold seats.

First, it was Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat, won by Scott Brown after Kennedy's passing. Now Anthony Weiner's former seat in the House of Representatives, claimed by Bob Turner in a special election following Weiner's resignation over a sex scandal.

Turner promptly described his victory as a message to President Barack Obama.

“We’ve been asked by the people of this district to send a message to Washington,” Turner announced. “I hope they hear it loud and clear. We’ve been told this is a referendum. Mr. President, we are on the wrong track. We have had it with an irresponsible fiscal policy which endangers the entire economy.”

If this special election truly was a referendum on Obama's Presidency, it's bad news for him indeed. And it accompanies news every bit as bad.

Obama's job approval rating has sunk to its greatest low, just as his job disapproval rating has reached its highest peak. 55% of Americans disapprove of the job he's been doing. Only 48% think of him as a strong leader.

Now, as Nancy Pelosi looks across the House of Representatives with the arduous task of pushing Obama's agenda forward, she'll be seeing one less Democrat pushing with him and one more Republican pushing back.

All this while Obama tries to figure out how the hell he's going to get reelected in 2012.

The news is in for President Barack Obama. And the news is bad; very bad, indeed.

Barack Obama Playing Chicken With Reality

If the US defaults, Obama will be to blame

At a time when the United States is facing an economic crisis which continually threatens to deepen, one would think President Barack Obama would have better things to do than play chicken.

He doesn't.

The bigger problem is that Obama thinks he's playing chicken with his Republican political adversaries. He isn't. He's actually playing chicken with reality.

As the prospects of a debt default looms, Obama is demanding a permanent increase of the legislated debt ceiling. Republicans are prepared to extend a temporary increase to stave off a default in August, but Obama is unwilling to accept that as a compromise.

On top of demanding a permanent increase to the debt ceiling, Obama also wants to increase taxes.

Never before has the core of Obama's fiscal policies been so clearly on display: borrow, tax, and spend. And if the Republicans refuse to go along with it, precipitate an economic catastrophe and try to avoid the blame.

There is little question that Obama alone is not responsible for the debt the US currently risks default on. Republican and Democrat administrations alike have spent irresponsibly for decades, running up the US public debt.

But Obama is the one in charge right now. He's the one who inherited the responsibility of ensuring the US' finances are mattered responsibly. That puts the onus on him to figure out what eh problems are, and accept the solutions proposed by Congress.

Simply put, the problem is not that Congress won't allow him to borrow as much as he'd like to. The problem is the spending. It doesn't take a master economist to figure out that one cannot solve a debt problem by taking on more debt. Nor can one solve spending problems by milking the economy dry for additional revenue.

It's a basic and fundamental lesson being taught by reality right now: the United States cannot afford to continue spending the way it has been. Nor can it afford to follow the Obamacare path into permanent profilgacy.

What Obama hasn't realzied is that, in this game of chicken, Obama cannot possibly win. If the Republicans refuse to accept his "compromise", the US will default. If the Republicans accept his "compromise", the US will careen into fiscal oblivion.

Barack Obama must stop playing chicken with basic reality immediately, vainly hoping his opponents will blink. If he declines to do so and the US defaults, American citizens should impeach him immediately.

Tim Pawlenty: The No-Decline President

Pawlenty set to take on all comers regarding foreign policy

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Republican Party Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty auditioned a new mode for the primary election: the combative Tim Pawlenty.

In a speech on his foreign policy vision, Pawlenty took no prisoners. He relentlessly pursued the foreign policy missteps of President Barack Obama, and fellow Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and John Huntsman.

“America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment and withdrawal,” he declared. “It does not need a second one.”

Pawlenty excoriated Obama for not being prepared to support the famed "Arab spring" uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya. (Only in the case of Libya did the US offer any significant amount of support.) He scathed Obama for failing to support an Iranian protest against a rigged Presidential election that could have brought a pro-democracy revolution (if that is, indeed, what the Arab Spring is) to the Middle East and Africa.

He teed off on fellow Republicans Paul, Huntsman, and Romney -- especially Romney. For a lack of commitment to the war in Afghanistan. Romney recently declared that the US has no business fighting another country's war of independence, seemingly forgetting that the United States and NATO invaded Afghanistan in a bid to dislodge a government that tolerated the operation of terrorist groups within its borders and eventually replace it with a stable, international-law-abiding, government.

That may not fit in with Ron Paul's "fiscally conservative at any cost" agenda, or Mitt Romney's "say anything to become President" agenda. It's what Pawlenty promised when he launched his bid to be President: the truth.

Pawlenty spoke strongly about the need for a US foreign policy that focuses on bringing democracy, and refuses to spare un-democratic US allies like Saudi Arabis is or Egypt was.

Ron Paul will inevitably confront Pawlenty with questions about how the costs of a strong interventionist will be controlled. He will be absolutely right to do so, and Pawlenty will need good answers.

But there is one thing the GOP can depend on: the Democrats are not having these kinds of debates as they roll toward the 2012 election. If the Republicans choose the right candidate, they can turn these debates into occupancy in the White House, and Tim Pawelenty -- whether he's President or not -- will have been key to it.

Class Warfare: It's Not Just Obama

American left pushing class war buttons hard

To announce an economic program at the University of Chicago is nothing if not making a statement.

In an era in which the failures of Keynesian economics are being paraded for the world to see, announcing an economic program on the historic turf of Hayek is bound to turn some heads.

That alone would have been enough to send Pawlenty's message. But Pawlenty had a serious bone to pick with President Barack Obama, one that is proving to be a defining issue between conservatives and progressives in American politics: simply that Obama seems more interested in playing ideological politics than in solving serious problems.

"President Obama is a champion practitioner of class warfare," Pawlenty declared. "He's spent three years dividing our nation, and fanning the flames of class envy and resentment all across the country to deflect attention from his own failures and the economic hardship they have visited on America."

It's not just Obama who's playing at class warfare in place of actually addressing America's real problems.

Consider Rachel Maddow. Now, it's hard to imagine she could possibly confused about how horrible her show's ratings are when her big "scoop" on Newt Gingrich is that he's on vacation in Grrece.

That, and a credit account at Tiffany's.

Maddow attempts to needle Gingrich over his fiscal conservative positions, essentially questioning why someone fiscally conservative would use credit. She (unshockingly) misses the detail that being fiscally conservative doesn't revolve around whether or not one uses credit, but what one does with that credit.

For example, making purchases on credit and then quickly paying them off is entirely permissable for a fiscal conservative. Continually driving up the credit account, and then conveniently increasing one's own credit limit, is not permissable to anyone with a lick of sense.

No one should be surprised to hear this kind of mendacious tripe from Rachel Maddow. This is, after all, someone who thinks that even the most vacuous drivel is made more compelling as long as it's delivered through a smug grin.

Maddow attempts to justify all of this by appealing to Americans' sense of outrage at hypocrisy. That no actual hypocrisy is actually present doesn't seem to be what Maddow considers a salient detail.

It isn't about "hypocrisy" at all. It's about Maddow pandering to her audience, and stoking the fires of a segment of the American population eager to engage in socially-destructive class warfare.

Barack Obama shouldn't have to carry the "class warrior" distinction all on his own. He's getting plenty of help.

Rest in Peace, Motherfucker

Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan

Reports coming out of Washington, DC indicate that US and Pakistani special forces pulled the trigger on Osama Bin Laden today.

According to Obama, the beginning of the end for Bin Laden was nearly a year ago, when intelligence regarding Bin Laden's hiding place came to light. After a year of careful investigation, surveillance, and close contact with Pakistani counter-terror forces, the time was judged to be right.

Bin Laden's death may offer closure to many of those whose family members were killed on 9/11, but it's pivotally important to remember that this does not render closure on the war on terror.

While Pakistan's involvement in bringing Bin Laden to justice is reassuring in terms of underscoring their commitment to fighting terrorism, there is still much to be done.

The Taliban must still be defeated in Afghanistan. Al Qaida needs to be finished off. Hamas and Hezbollah must be next on the chopping block. Last but not least, terrorist-funding regimes in Libya and Iran must be shuffled off into the good night. (Fortunately, the citizens of each country will do this on their own if provided the proper support and encouragement.)

It's not over. It won't be over until the defeat of the Islamist movement Osama Bin Laden led is remembered as his legacy.

The High Cost of Retreating From Tyranny

There is truly nothing more frightening to the freedom-loving mind than the idea of having your country occupied by an oppressive and hostile force.

In Homefront, Kaos Games teams up with Red Dawn director John Milius to present a "what if?" scenario in which the emergence of a ruthless and competent North Korean leader intersects with a disastrous Iran-Saudi Arabia war (and accompanying oil price shock) combines to lead to the rise of a terrifying new global power: the Greater Korean Federation.

The game presents a chilling -- but historically familiar -- scenario in which North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong-Un reunites with South Korea and begins to annex countries around the Pacific rim, including Japan.

In the face of the rising threat, the United States has long since retreated from the Pacific rim while the western economy collapses. A bird flu endemic claims the lives of six million Americans while the Koreans slowly creep across the Pacific.

Although the threat grows on their very doorstoops, the "future history" of Homefront suggests that China and Russia do absolutely nothing to prevent it. Indeed, perhaps they make some plays of their own, using the growing power of the Greater Korean Federation as cover for their own moves (think a Chinese annexation of Taiwan, possible Russian seizures of Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet Republics).

If this sounds familiar one shouldn't be surprised.

During the 1930s and '40s, Adolph Hitler took advantage of a massive economic upheaval to creep across Europe entirely unopposed until it was nearly too late to stop him. When the allies finally decided to stand up to Hitler it was already too late; France fell quickly.

So humanity already knows the human cost of retreating from tyranny. It led to the costliest war in human history, one that claimed some 16,000,000 lives.

If any such threat really existed in the world today, it has become clear that President Barack Obama would not be equipped to deal with it. Like the fictional United States presented in the fictional Homefront game, Obama has made a habit of abandoning US allies, to the extent that they actually handed British nuclear secrets over to the Russians.

It's that kind of international disloyalty that contributes to the "America alone" scenarios that Milius so frequently presents. It's a rather simple and intuitive idea: when weak leadership renders the United States a liability rather than a reliable ally, its friends may decide to just stay home.

In the face of an enemy like the fictional Korean foe presented in Homefront -- one so indifferent to human rights and the laws of war that they would irradiate the Mississippi River in order to keep US forces divided -- the abandonment of one's allies can come with a steep cost:

It's the high and intolerable cost of retreating from tyranny.

Is Foreign Money Involved in the US Election?

United States Chamber of Commerce accused to accepting foreign funds

Speaking recently in advance of the United States midterm elections, US President Barack Obama is attempting a new tactic to stave off defeat:

He's insisted that the United States Chamber of Commerce is running attack ads funded by foreign money.

"We learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign sources," Obama announced. "Are you going to let special interests from Wall Street and Washington and maybe places beyond our shores come to this state and tell us who our senator should be?"

As it turns out, according to ABC News, there is truth to one of these claims, but not the other. The US Chamber of Commerce does, it seems, accept revenue from foreign companies and foreign affiliates. However, there seems to be no evidence that the US Chamber of Commerce is using those funds to pay for their political campaigning.

The Centre for Responsive Politics doesn't seem convinced by Obama and the Democrats' desperate attack.

"We have no idea if the Chamber or any 501(c) organization as defined by the IRS code, is taking foreign money for the purposes of playing politics," exmplained CRP spokesman Dave Levinthal. "Saying that that foreign money is actually going toward attack ads or any type of messaging in the political realm, you just don't know. It's speculation and nothing more."

For the Obama administration, it seems that the issue of foreign money is a manner to attempt to stir up discontent surrounding the Citizens United decision, which lifted restrictions on third-party election spending in the United States.

"The Chamber is throwing tons of money at these races and they haven't done that before and you can't disaggregate it," explained Dartmouth College Political Scientist Ronald Shaiko. "But the Chamber appears to be meeting the letter of the law in what they're doing. Plus, they've got plenty of money and they really don't need to be bringing in foreign money to be doing what they're doing."

To Shaiko's eye, however, there's little difference between outright electoral interference and the manner of lobbying considered more mundane by American standards.

"For over a decade now we've had the door open to foreign influence in the political process, policy process," Shaiko continues. "If we're equating political influence via lobbying with political influence via elections, I wouldn't want to draw the distinction."

But so far as an attempt to stir up discontent, Shaiko expects that this strategy will fail.

"This isn't going to help the White House win votes by doing this," he concludes. "They're grasping at straws."

Perhaps this is because the Democrats themselves have been accepting foreign money as well.

The Democrats have been found to have accepted $1.02 million from Political Action Committees linked to foreign companies.

"This is not foreign money per-se, but these PACs are certainly populated by people who work for foreign companies," explains Levinthal.

These groups have made their donations public via the Federal Election Commission. Meanwhile, the Democrats are demanding that the US Chamber of Commerce reveal its donor lists to the American public.

"All you have to do to clear up the questions is reveal who your donors are from," insists White House advisor David Axelrod. "It is an insidious, dangerous thing when people can contribute huge sums of money to run negative ads in campaigns and never confess or allow to their participation. It opens the door to all kinds of chicanery."

"Any interest group can write a $10 million check to try to defeat a candidate and no one will ever know exactly what their involvement was," Axelrod concludes.

Of course, one can just as easily defeat a candidate with thousands of small cheques -- foreign- or domestic-sourced -- as with one large one.

There's ample reason to suspect that the Democrats have received a large number of foreign donations and used them to fund their campaigns -- particularly small donations that don't need to be reported to the FEC.

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Iran?

US declines to show at UN for Harper speech, shows up for Ahmadinjad 9/11 fibs

If any evidence were needed to demonstrate precisely how warped US President Barack Obama's priorities really are, it was found today at the United Nations.

With three countries -- Canada, Germany, and Portugal -- vying for a rotating seat on the UN Security Council, one would imagine that someone with a direct stake in whomever occupies that seat would take enough interest to listen to the speeches delivered by each country before the General Assembly.

As a permanent member of the Security council, the United States had such a stake. But where was President Obama while Prime Minister Stephen Harper was delivering his speech?

At lunch, with much of the rest of the General Assembly.

Obama would return for, of all things, a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmaedinejad took his moment in the sun before the US President to peddle 9/11 "truth" theories, which prompted much of the General Assembly to walk out.

“Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad announced.

At which point the US delegation walked out.

One delegation that didn't walk out was the Canadian delegation. Canada had the decency to boycott Ahmadinejad's speech.

If anything underscores the warped priorities of Obama's diplomatic agenda, it's unquestionably this.

The US delegation fails to show up to hear Harper's speech, and instead takes a lunch break that they should have scheduled while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the podium spewing his 9/11 "truth" conspiracy theories.

With friends like Barack Obama, who needs Iran?

Barack Obama's Strategy for November: The Black Vote

Obama begs black caucus for support

When President Barack Obama stormed into the White House in 2008, it was at the head of a movement of hope, and at the front of some of the largest crowds to support a candidate in decades.

Now that Obama has disappointed his followers and done a better job of mobilizing his opposition than the Republican Party ever could have, Obama is looking back to the most crass element that contributed to his 2008 successes:

The politics of race.

Speaking at the Congressional Black Congress dinner, Obama called on members of the caucus to mobilize their constituents in his support.

"I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods and your workplaces, to your churches and barbershops, and beauty shops," Obama announced. "Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can't wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now."

"When I took office, our economy was on the brink of collapse. So, we acted immediately and took some steps to stop our economic free-fall," he continued. "And now, our economy is growing. We're adding private sector jobs, instead of losing them. We're in a different place than we were one year ago."

Obama would like caucus members to believe that his economic problem has been a success. But even as three million job openings were reported on the last day of July, unemployment increased 0.3% in July, and 0.3% again in August.

In other words: economy growing? Not so much. Adding private sector jobs? Not compared to the rate of loss.

Which may be a good time to remember what Obama's election to the office of President was supposed to be about.

"It was about giving every hardworking American a chance to join a growing middle class," he explained. "It was about putting the American dream within reach for all Americans, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from."

Instead, Obama's policies continue to precipitate economic havoc in the United States, as the famed American dream continues to slip beyond the reach of increasing numbers of Americans, including some who once had it firmly within their grasp.

With these sobering realities hovering over his Presidency, Obama has instead opted to flatly appeal for black votes.

There is deep peril in this for the alleged post-racial President. Even as he reaches out for overwhelming level of support from black voters, his support among white voters continues to erode.

In July, only 37% of white men assess Obama's performance positively. Even fewer white women -- 35% -- agreed.

So in so starkly appealing to black voters while his support amongst white voters continues to erode, the post-racial President risks doing something that a post-racial President should never do: divide voters along racial lines.

It isn't as if it's all Obama's fault. After all, ideologically-motivated commentators have taken the rise of the Tea Party as an opportunity to weaponize racism in support of an increasingly radical and civically-destructive agenda.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama is reaching the breaking point. November 2 seems like it's going to be the beginning of the end for Obama. The end cannot come soon enough.

Who Is The Party of No?

As the United States draws closer and closer to the 2010 midterm elections on November 2, it seems that the mission of Republican campaign advertising is to turn the buzzwords of the Democrat campaign against them.

The most recent effort is an ad entitled "Party of No". In it, a clip of President Barack Obama attempting to defend his failure to implement his policies by accusing the Republican Party of being relentlessly contrarian.

"If I said the sky was blue," Obama crows, "they'd say no."

The ad then responds with clips of campaign ads by Obama's fellow Democrats, all of them staking claim to opposition to Obama's agenda.

This is, of course, a simple matter of reality: with the Democrats enjoying a majority in each house of Congress, there really is no one other than themselves to blame for the failure of their President's agenda.

Judging from the campaign advertising sampled, it's clear that many of them are quite comfortable with that.

Rarely has a political party given their opponents the opportunity to counter-brand them with the very reputation they've attempted to foist upon them.

The Democrats can say whatever they want: Obama's agenda has failed because Democrats failed to support it. The Republicans have quite wisely chosen to remind American voters of that very inconvenient detail.

Are the Democrats Experiencing a Deficit of Hope?

The second ad in the Republican Party's "Deficit of Hope" ad campaign, entitled "Crazy" opens to an animated Air Force Once sitting on the tarmac preparing for departure.

"Attention passengers, fellow Democrats, we're just about ready to depart DC and go on my national fundraising tour to your homestates," an animated Barack Obama, dressed as a flight attendant, announces to the passengers. In his hand he holds an itinerary of his destinations, with revised unemployment rates -- all of them climbing -- on a clipboard.

"That's right, I'm coming to your hometowns," Obama announces.

At which point an emergency exit slide bursts forth from the jet, and the Democrats evacuate the plane.

In a television appearing on the bottom right corner of the screen, a series of newsclips are shown in quick succession. Viriginia Governor Tim Kaine is shown declaring Democrats who are distancing themselves from party leadership to be "crazy", while newsclips describe the growing discomfort Democrat politicians are beginning to show with Obama.

For good measure, it even includes former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean's infamous scream from the 2004 Presidential primaries.

The ad presses a worthy question: are the Democrats themselves beginning to experience a deficit of hope? And for how long?

That the Democratic Party themselves adopted Spencer Ackerman's now-famed weaponized racism tactic indicates that they may have lost faith in their ability -- and that of their President -- to win the political debate by legitimate means.

Now that the race card is famously maxed out, the Democrats have been robbed of what they must have expected to be one of their greatest assets under Barack Obama.

With the political climate in the United States increasingly turning against them, it's becoming clear that the Democrats are experiencing a deficit of hope.

Can Obama Overcome the Deficit of Hope?

Wiith the 2010 midterm elections slowly drawing near, the Republicans have decided to turn up the pressure on what may be the Democrats' greatest weakness: President Barack Obama himself.

The Republicans have targetted Obama with a "Deficit of Hope" campaign, designed to turn his own political stylings against him.

"Deficit of Hope" counter-brands Obama less as the man who plucked the heartstrings of America with The Audacity of Hope and his "yes we can" credo and more as the architect of a continually-climbing government deficit.

The ad features a dark, yet triumphant picture of Barack Obama, reaching for the sky while his name is chanted over and over again. Against this triumphal image, text balloons out to reveal the dispiriting direction the United States has followed under Obama's leadership.

9.5% unemployment.

14.6 million unemployed.

2.5 million jobs lost since the stimulus.

40.8 million on food stamps. (Funding for which the Obama administration may raid to pay for one of Michelle Obama's pet projects.)

At this point, the spot's soundtrack takes a stark turn. The chanting of Obama's name is replaced by the sounds of protest, and citizens objecting to Obama's policies.

$13 trillion national debt.

$43,000 average share of the national debt.

$1.47 trillion record deficit.

The ad then, in rapid succession, makes it clear what its creators believe must be stopped: "Bailouts, takeovers, unemployment, foreclosures, tax hikes, debt."

It concludes with a simple message, contrasted to Timothy Geithner's famous "welcome to the recovery" comment quoted at the beginning of the ad:

"Welcome to the Obama economy."

It concludes with an appeal for funds.

The ad has numerous strengths. It plays to the precise issues that will be on the mind of every American voter come November. It will remind Americans that the euphoria of Obama's victory has since been replaced by the rage of protest.

It also has weaknesses. It doesn't really give voters any reason to trust Republicans -- who have had their share of the role in creating the US' current fiscal mess -- will do any better than the Democrats. Moreover, the ballooning text collapses back in on itself so quickly that the viewer often doesn't have any time to read it.

But in terms of setting the tone for their "Deficit of Hope" campaign, rhe Republicans couldn't have hoped for any better.

Whether the ad helps the Republican Party realize their ballot-box hopes won't be seen until November.

Ben Quayle's Fighting Words

Running for the Republican nomination for the House of Representatives in Arizona's third district, Ben Quayle has produced one of the most straight-forward campaign advertisements in recent history.

There's no dark, forboding music. No clever sloganeering. No computer-generated chariactures of his opponents. Just Quayle staring into the camera, explaining why he thinks Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of United States.

There are plenty of people suggesting that if Obama is not the worst President in US history, he is one of the worst. Many consider Obama to be second only to Jimmy Carter in this particular category.

Yet somehow, when Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, makes these comments, it's somehow controversial:



Aside from its simplicity, there's a very standard "taking on Washington" message at play within the ad, as Quayle promises to go to DC and "knock the hell out of it."

This is typically a tactic adopted by someone trying to run as a beltway outsider -- this will be a difficult feat for the son of a former Vice President to accomplish.

But in alluding to "Drug cartels in Mexico", Quayle makes what seems to be a calculated effort to envoke the border security issue without directly referring to either the border itself, or to the closely-tied topic of immigration.

Likewise, in alluding to "tax cartels in Washington", Quayle appeals to support from the Tea Party movement without making any direct appeal.

Quayle quietly brands himself as a sympathetic ally of the Tea Party movement, and quietly counter-brands Barack Obama as a tax-and-not-secure-the-border Democrat.

The bonus value of Quayle's ad is that it will give his detractors opportunities to indulge, and embarrass, themselves:



It may be wise to point out to Catie Lazarus, TJ Miller, Joel Godard and their puppet friend that avoiding issues like this hasn't helped them, or President Obama, one bit.

With Barack Obama's approval ratings continually plummeting, stating that Obama is a poor President -- and the President who refuses to enforce the law is definitely a poor President -- can't help but attract support from voters growing increasingly fed up with Obama and his cabal; particularly in Arizona.

Barack Obama's Greatest Shame

One of the most controversial decisions made to date by the administration of Barack Obama has been a plan to scale back manned space flight -- even musing about cancelling the Constellation Program, which would be key to sending astronauts back to the moon, or possibly even to Mars.

While a great deal can be accomplished through mechanized space flight, nothing perfectly substitutes human presence in scientific endeavours.

Challenger: Go For Launch chronicles another misstep in the history of the US Space program -- the decision to launch the Challenger despite a lingering O-ring program. The results speak for themselves -- Challenger exploded in mid-air, killing all the astronauts on board.

The legacy of those killed on board the Challenger is a noble one -- that of men and women whose lives were cut short while reaching for the kinds of knowledge one can only attain through spaceflight.

The legacy of Barack Obama's administration may well be that of abandoning this noble quest in favour of dubious ideological pseudo-diplomacy.

It will be to Obama's shame if he chooses to cut NASA off at its knees.

Good-bye Mr Obama... It's Time For You to Go

In the 2008 US Presidential election, your not-so-humble scribe backed John McCain -- at least so far as any Canadian had any business endorsing a candidate for any political office in the United States.

But when Barack Obama won the same campaign, this author was not terribly concerned about it. Although McCain had been deemed to be the superior candidate, there seemed to be an awful lot to like about Obama.

Sadly, many of those things never materialized.

Obama's "yes we can" mantra implied the empowerment of citizens over the imposition of state activism. Obama promised a more constructive dialogue on race. Government would be more responsive to the needs of the American people, especially during times of crisis.

These things haven't come to fruition -- there's little evidence that they will.

It isn't Obama's health care reform package -- although it was poorly conceptualized and the to-date execution of that plan has been poor, to phrase it kindly -- that has been the straw that broke the camel's back. Nor was his administration's meagre response to the still-flowing British Petroleum oil spill.

In the end, the final straw for the Obama administration has actually been its corrosive approach to racial issues. Ironically, a more constructive approach to race was one of the more promising prospects of the Obama administration. What has emerged has instead been the polar opposite.

Democrat legislators falsely accuse Tea Party protesters of hurling racial epithets with little or no admonition by the President or by Democratic party brass. A state that passes legislation to enforce federal immigration law replete with a higher standard of jurisprudence than the federal law mandates is declared to be racist, and challenged in court by Obama's Department of Justice.

But the final straw has to be what appears to be political interference in a voter intimidation case.

The case stems from the presence of members of the New Black Panther Party at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2009. Members of the party openly brandished weapons while claiming to be "security".

Captured on video is King Samir Shabazz, who also attained some level of infamy by calling for the killing of white people and, specifically, white children.

Prosecutors for the Department of Justice won the case against the New Black Panther Party. Then an as-yet unknown figure within the US Department of Justice ordered the case dropped before the sentencing stage.

This is apparently the approach of the Obama administration to race and to law and order: when a group of African Americans is captured on video intimidating voters with weapons at an election polling station, the case is dismissed without explanation. And Americans still have yet to hear an explanation.

In an administration cognizant of its legal and constitutional obligations, Barack Obama would be leaning very hard on Attorney General Eric Holder. When more than a year went by without a satisfactory explanation of the decision -- whether made by Holder or by another Department of Justice official -- for the decision failed to materialize, Holder's resignation should have been sought.

It hasn't been. Holder remains Attorney General. In charge of a Department of Justice that is responsible for enforcing the laws of the United States, declines to do so, and then sues the state of Arizona when it passes legislation to do precisely that in the federal government's stead.

Your not-so-humble scribe, not being a citizen of the United States, does not imagine himself to hold any right or privilege to call for the resignation of the President of the United States; a foreign country.

But this author now agrees with a growing legion of American citizens who believe Barack Obama has failed to meet his obligations as the President of the United States, and should depart from that office at the earliest opportunity.

It's unfortunate. Riding a highly-motivated movement of politically active citizens, Barack Obama had the opportunity to combine government action with citizen action to truly better his country.

Instead, he has stood by while his Department of Justice threatens to render his country a nearly lawless state.

It's time for the Obama Presidency to end, as soon as possible. Americans of sound political conscience need to set the stage for a 2012 defeat of Obama -- provided that he doesn't do the honourable thing and resign as President -- by doing what they can to stem Obama's disastrous tide in 2010.

Democrats of sound political conscience need to ensure that Obama faces strong opposition in primaries leading up to the 2012 election. Republicans need to ensure that their candidate is of the highest possible calibre -- and need to put aside internal divisions within their party long enough to give that candidate the best possible opportunity to win the election.

John McCain cannot save the United States now. He's declared he won't run for President.

Who will be President after 2010 is not for this commenter to decide -- American citizens will have to decide that. But Barack Obama cannot continue as President so much as one minute longer than necessary.

Good-bye, Mr Obama. It's time for you to go.

Obama's "New International Order" Swimming Against the Current

US President to depend on corrupted internatnional institutions

Speaking recently at West Point, US President Barack Obama has promised that his administrations's first national security strategy will foster a "new international order" in which international institutions will be used en lieu of American power to solve global problems.

"The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times," Obama announced. "Countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds."

Obama promises this shift as the international system rejects portions of the global left-wing agenda. In particular, the international bank tax will almost certainly be a no-go.

Obama promises a national security strategy that will renounce the Bush doctrine of preemptive war and the will to consider the option of unilateral action. (Not necessarily unilateralism, but unilateralism if necessary.)

Instead, Obama will re-invest faith in international institutions like the United Nations, even despite the numerous and increasing failures of the UN.

"Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system," Obama insisted. "But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation. We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice - so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don't."

Unfortuantely, the kind of soft power foreign policy that Obama has intended his intention to defer to is remarkably inept at applying consequences to countries that fail to meet their responsibilities.

The genocide in Darfur continues unabated. Iran continues to violate human rights, while while disgustingly managing to procure a seat on the UN Commission for the Status of Women. North Korea sinks South Korean warships with what will eventually amount to full impunity. Climate scientists are revealled to have polluted the scientific process -- right down to their prized process of peer review -- to advance a politicized climate change agenda. Poverty in the developing world continues to run rampant despite the expenditure of trillions of dollars to solve the problem.

This is the international system that Obama intends to so thoroughly defer to.

It is a system that has been fundamentally corrupted, and may need to be razed from the top down so that they may be rebuilt from the ground up.

The UN has become an agent of a global statism that has not only lost influence among the G20 countries that it needs in order to advance such an agenda, but lost any semblence of moral authority it could ever lay claim to.

Like so many of the plans on Barack Obama's agenda, his "new international order" desperately needs to go back to the drawing board and consider global realiteis before implimentation.

Labour's Election Strategy: Obama!

Labour Party wants to emulate Obama campaign

Looking ahead to what still seems like defeat at the polls in 2010 -- even if the David Cameron Conservative party has slipped in recent months -- the Labour Party seems to have decided to emulate the Barack Obama campaign.

Fresh off a trip to the United States, Labour Party election coordinator Douglas Alexander is ready to hand the wisdom of the Democrat campaign team down to his own troops.

"They said this is about to peer-to-peer communication – the internet just gives you new ways of having that conversation," Alexander recounted. "What people on the ground said to one another was just as important, if not more important, than what Obama said himself. We could not put a price on it — regular people briefing Obama's message to their neighbours, serving as our ambassadors, block by block, throughout the battleground states."

This means that the Labour Party will have to use communications technology in a way they never have before.

"Historically Labour has used tech­nology as a form of control," Alexander continued. "We would use ­pagers and faxes to send out ­messages telling people what line to take. The key learning from the Obama campaign is to use technology to empower your supporters."

But Labour will have to battle about an impending cynicism in the electorate just as much as against their Tory rivals.

They'll also strive to find new ways to by-pass what Alexander refers to as the "filer point" of British households -- the methods that British families use to keep unwanted messages outside of their home.

"Our judgment is the collapse in trust to the political class means the bar of ­credibility and authenticity is higher than in previous campaigns, so some of the ­traditional methods of communication are just inappropriate."

This clearly places a premium on Labour's message being spread from person to person, as opposed to relying on traditional forms of messaging to get the word out -- not that Obama didn't do this very well.

"Obama also had lots and lots of money. He bought a 15 minute commercial in the Superbowl. He was also a charismatic rock star on which people projected their hopes for the future."

And therein lies the rub for the Labour Party: whatever one may consider him to be, he unequivocally is not a rock star. He's not even close. In fact, GQ Magazine named Brown its worst-dressed man of 2009 (not that such things should carry much import).

Barack Obama was able to become a centralizing force around a broad variety of left-wing policy points -- so much so that he never had to make any concrete promises on many of them in order to excite the devotion of advocates for those policies.

If Obama could be described as a "blank screen", Brown has been described by many as an "empty shell". His lack of vision makes it difficult for many among his target demographic to invest a surplus of faith in him.

He seen as an individual who is as likely to intimidate his staff as to inspire his followers.

If Douglas Alexander and the Labour Party want to run an Obama-styled campaign, they may need to run a Trudeau-esque campaign with the leader in deep recluse.

It's about the only way they're likely to pull off such a feat. It helps that Alexander seems to speak the language.

"Change is a process: future is a destination," Alexander said. "People want a sense of hope, possibility and pride about Britain."

Then again, it doesn't help the Labour campaign if their election coordinator can speak the language if their leader can't.

Hip Hop & Politics: A Battle of Images

As the world looks back on Barack Obama's first year as President of the United States, it's easy to draw the conclusion that he doesn't have much to celebrate.

His health care bill has sparked a controversy that seems to be slowly eating the United States alive. He can barely get carbon cap-and-trade on the agenda. And despite his best attempt at a direct intervention, his party managed to lose the iconic Ted Kennedy's Senate seat when their candidate simply declined to campaign.

Things worth celebrating are few and far between for Obama. Even his Nobel Peace Prize threatened to reduce that noble institution to a complete sham when it dawned on the world that he hadn't yet earned it -- and the months since haven't gotten him much closer.

If Obama has anything to celebrate, however, it's an important moral victory: his Presidency may well re-shape black culture in the United States in a way that many had hoped, but few had dared actually imagine.

In Barack and Curtis: Manhood, Power and Respect, a number of commentators consider Obama's Presidency, and compare it to some of what many consider to be the conventional popular black culture: gangsta rap music.

Obama's Presidency may, to date, have floundered in the face of his own party's impotence. But whereas once upon a time many black youths may have believed the best they could hope for was to be a basketball player or a rapper, many of those youths will now grow up in a time where there has been a black President.

That so many rappers who otherwise would have had little to say about politics -- particularly individuals like Jay-Z and Ludacris -- worked so hard to help Obama become President even seems to suggest that many of those who won't profit from this change are ready to see it happen.

That's a very profound reality.

If many of the black youths growing up in impoverished neighbourhoods ever believed they could grow up to be President one day, those days are today.

Whatever Barack Obama does with his Presidency from this point forth, there is one thing he cannot afford to do: he cannot afford to not deliver on the promises he has made -- not merely to himself, but to an entire culture of people.

The Assassination Card

The left is still playing it

With the scope of dissent against US President Barack Obama continuing to intensify, the political elements that worked so hard to win his election have slowly, over time, awakened to the full extent of the nightmare that is confronting them.

On the domestic front, at least, Obama seems well on his way to becoming every bit as unpopular as George W Bush.

There's an irony in this. Many of those who campaigned on Obama's behalf went to some rather bizarre lengths to pretend that, in defeating Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, that they were actually beating Bush. Now Obama is facing the same domestic political troubles that a political environment as polarized as that of the United States inevitably produces for any leader.

The results haven't been pretty.

To date, the definitive response of Obama's supporters has been to play a series of cards. The most prominent of these has been the race card, in which those opposing Obama have been accused of being racists, regardless of whether or not their words or actions actually justify the charge.

Another has been the "assassination card".

An interesting case in point has been that of Chris Broughton.

Broughton first began to flirt with international fame when he committed the inherently foolish act of showing up to an Arizona Town Hall meeting at which Obama would be speaking with an AR-15 assault rifle. It wasn't this act alone, however, which garnered him infamy.

It was, rather, the efforts of MSNBC's Contessa Brewer to use footage of him to suggest that an assassination attempt on the President may be imminent.

"There are questions about whether this has racial overtones," Brewer insisted. "I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns."

The ironic point was that Broughton is actually African American, and that the footage of him was very selectively edited to obscure this fact. This may have gone entirely undetected if not for the presence of CNN reporters at the same event, who interviewed Broughton.

But the left was unwilling to surrender the assassination card, even under the condition of discredit. So the left-wing machine went back to work, and they discovered that Broughton is a member of Reverend Steven Anderson's congregation.

Anderson will be remembered as the individual who delivered the contemptible "spiritual warfare" sermon in which he prayed for Obama's death.

Some left-wing commentators have claimed that the incident is evidence of how "conservative Christian hate speech" (evidently without considering that "Christian hate speech" is an oxymoron) could incite assassination attempts against the President.

Yet those individuals have clearly chosen to overlook the fact that, regardless of how contemptible Anderson's definitively un-Christian sermon is (and it most certainly is), Anderson also called for Obama to die of natural causes.

"I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday," Anderson later explained. "I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer."

Broughton would later state that he "concurs" with Anderson's words.

Certainly, this confirms that race doesn't form the basis of the hatred Anderson worships.

One may recall that, to Contessa Brewer, race was initially supposed to be at the heart of the alleged assassination plots against Obama. Until it turned out that it wasn't race. Then, it was religion.

All of this without an assassination plot in the first place.

But this, it seems, may all be immaterial. What matters most to many of these activists isn't whether or not such claims are truthful, but whether or not they can use them to help demonize any conservative opposition whatsoever, regardless of whether that comes from extreme conservative elements -- like Reverend Steven Anderson -- or from more moderate conservative elements that are simply alarmed about the direction in which Barack Obama is trying to take their country.

The assassination card, as any rational individual knows, isn't about fear of an assassination. It's about fear of dissent, and about doing anything possible to marginalize it.