Category Archives: Democrats

The Pain In Bain

Business, Capitalism, Critique, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Ethics, Fascism, Free Markets, Hillary Clinton

According to Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, a defense of “Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s former firm,” and “the paragon of capitalist evil,” must be rooted entirely in corrupt self-interest. So there’s not even a smidgen of truth in Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s condemnation of the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain? How about the other two prominent Democrats to defend Romney and his work? (Read on.)

“Booker went on Meet the Press and angered hordes of Democrats when he condemned the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain as ‘nauseating,’ equating the anti-Bain messaging to the GOP’s sleazy use of Jeremiah Wright, and then demanding: ‘stop the attacks on private equity’ (in response to the backlash, Booker then released a hostage-like video recanting his criticisms and pledging his loyalty to President Obama).”

Without explaining the mechanism by which the private equity firm achieved this feat, Greenwald asserts further that the likes of Bain Capital are “destroying the middle class in order to enrich greedy vulture oligarchs.” AND, “We also all know that the Democratic Party is the defender of the middle class and the bold adversary of corporate pillaging.”

Do we?

DITTO Deval Patrick. HuffPo uses the same “reasoning”—“a history of ethically questionable connections to financial firms”—to condemn the Massachusetts governor for his defense of the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney [05/31/2012] … during TV appearances.”

“The Democratic politician was supposed to be serving as a surrogate for President Barack Obama. Patrick, who has a history of ethically questionable connections to financial firms, applauded Boston-based Bain Capital, implicitly criticizing the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney’s record at the private equity firm.”

Patrick is the second Obama surrogate with strong ties to the financial industry to defend Bain, following in the footsteps of Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, who ignited a week of outrage from Democratic Party strategists for describing the Obama campaign’s slams against Romney’s Bain work as “nauseating.”

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE. One other major Democrat has defended Romney and his job record. “This is good work.” “I don’t think we ought to get in a position where we say this is bad work,” said Bill Clinton.

The DC Decoder’s correspondent floats yet another crazy ad hominem: “Bill may be intentionally sabotaging President Obama in order to set Hillary up for a run in 2016,” which, to her credit, she doesn’t quite buy.

Others suggest the former president simply misspoke. But we don’t buy that either.
Here’s the thing: Clinton’s comments weren’t just “off message.” They were a declaration of war on the message. They underscore a fundamental split within the Democratic Party that’s less about Romney’s record at Bain than it is about whether the party as a whole is perceived as a friend or foe of Wall Street and the world of business and high finance.

Worse Than Watergate?

Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats, Ethics, Government, Religion

As has transpired from the interview Fox News’ Sean Hannity conducted with Ed Klein, the author of “The Amateur: Barack Obama In The White House,” Reverend Jeremiah Wright had “told Klein that Erik Whitaker, a long time friend of Obama, sent an email to him asking him [Wright] not to preach until after the November [2008] elections, and that Whitaker, through another member of the Church, offered $150,000 in hush money. [To whom?] Klein told Sean about other bombshells including how Obama apparently begged Wright to attend a secret meeting with him and the lengths to go to trying to keep it a secret.”

The malfunctioning mass media has been less than diligent in exploring and verifying this story. There are no words to describe this dereliction of journalistic duty.

The appropriate parallel?

Dan Rather was right to expose President George W. Bush, who “thanks to his family’s high-level connections, was given preferable treatment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and then ditched his duties entirely.”

The media burying the Klein story is akin to Rather failing to give us the goods on Bush, the no-goodnik. Or worse: imagine that Watergate had been covered-up or covered partially? (Once a writer for the far left HuffPo, Edward Klein’s last post there is dated October 12, 2010.)

The New York Times’ JANET MASLIN dismisses The Amateur, saying that “Mr. Klein has no capacity for explaining specifics.”

Certain evidence [or hearsay cited] was witnessed, says Maslin, by “a toy poodle, and Seamus, a chocolate lab and ‘a few old friends.’” This is a “skimpy, bitter book … more interested in combining anti-Obama bumper-sticker phrases with very energetic branding,” she claims.

I haven’t read the The Amateur. I’m put off by a Sean-Hannity approved author, who’s known for “a string of maudlin books” about the Kennedy family. But let’s see a discussion (and refutation, if need be) of the alleged bribe, especially, in mainstream.

Obama proxies attempting, allegedly, to buy the president’s one-time minister’s silence: Is this not worthy of an honest, media investigation?

The President’s Proboscis Problem

Barack Obama, Bush, Debt, Democrats, Economy

If, like Pinocchio, a politician’s proboscis grew each time he lied, the world would be overtaken by noses flopping about everywhere.

Congressional Budget Office figures, cited by the Wall Street Journal, are finessed. US debt problem is worse than CBO projections.

Still the amount of lying Obama manages is quite impressive:

Obama’s claim that “federal spending since [he] took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years,” is audacious. (And yes, Bush set the example.) It’s “like an alcoholic claiming that his rate of drinking has slowed because he had only 22 beers today and 25 beers yesterday. (WSJ)

Notwithstanding that GDP measures include the Brownian Motion of debt growth, “Prior to Mr. Obama, the U.S. had not spent more than 23.5% of GDP—that was in 1983, amid the Reagan defense buildup—since the end of World War II. Yet Mr. Obama has managed to exceed that four years in a row: 25.2% in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012, up from a range between 18%-21% from 1994-2008.”

Mr. Obama can fairly blame $1 trillion or so of the $5 trillion debt increase of the last four years on Mr. Bush. But what about the other $4 trillion? Debt held by the public now stands at 74.2% of the economy, up from 40.5% at the end of 2008—and rising rapidly.

UPDATE II: Bush Babies ‘Debunk’ Obama ‘Smirk Fests on MSNBC’ (Liars All)

Barack Obama, Bush, Debt, Democrats, Economy

To put it in the most charitable terms, the claim made by the emissaries of the liberal media—“MSNBC , liberal blogs, newspapers and even the Wall Street Journal”—that “Federal spending under Obama [is] at historic lows” is counterintuitive. Surprise, surprise: In charting the evidence for their claims, these sources are lying:

“It turns out,” writes Ann Coulter, in “Figures don’t lie – Democrats do,” that “Rex Nutting, author of the phony Marketwatch chart, attributes all spending during Obama’s entire first year, up to Oct. 1, to President Bush.

That’s not a joke.”

Nutting’s “analysis” is so dishonest, even the New York Times has ignored it. He includes only the $140 billion of stimulus money spent after Oct. 1, 2009, as Obama’s spending. And he’s testy about that, grudgingly admitting that Obama “is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill.”
Nutting acts as if it’s the height of magnanimity to “attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush. …”
On what possible theory would that be Bush’s spending? Hey – we just found out that Obamacare’s going to cost triple the estimate. Let’s blame it on Calvin Coolidge!
But Obama didn’t come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush. This included a $410 billion spending bill Bush had refused to sign before he left office. Obama signed it on March 10, 2009. Bush had been chopping brush in Texas for two months at that point. Marketwatch’s Nutting says that’s Bush’s spending.

Of course, Ann Coulter is still a Bush baby. The factual information she offers in “Figures don’t lie – Democrats do” notwithstanding, Coulter is making the standard excuses for Genghis B., who set the pace for Obama.

She ignores that the two presidents, Bush and Obama, coexist on “a continuum of criminality.”

The correct, cynical tone about Obama-Bush comparisons was taken in, dare I say, “Obama And Bush: Partners In Government Giganticism“?

Moocher Obama has pulled ahead of Looter Bush with respect to deficits and debt. The Bush budget for 2009 was a trivial $3 trillion, while Obama’s 2010 budget was a respectable $3.5 trillion. According to “Bankrupting America,” “Bush doubled the debt to almost $6 trillion and Obama’s plans would leave us with an IOU of an additional $8.5 trillion by 2020.”
C’mon. Six trillion; 8 trillion: the act of racking up such financial liabilities exists on a continuum of criminality ? it does not constitute a difference in kind (or in “core values”).

UPDATE I: LIARS ALL. There is structural lying in all government accounting (via Lou Dobbs).

UPDATE II: TORTURED DATA. “Federal spending has risen at its lowest pace” under his administration, claims BHO. “Torture data enough and it’ll confess,” quipped Stephen Moore, of the Wall Street Journal, to Fox Business’ Gerri Willis.