Quote of the day

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." - Thomas Paine

An update to my April 18th post: the President's nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, is a former employee of...GOLDMAN SACHS!

Hagiography

I am reading The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. The book is fascinating in that it is wholly revealing of Barack Obama's character. Many will find some of the revelations surprising considering that the author, David Remnick, is the editor of The New Yorker and clearly a dyed in the wool liberal. For example, Chapters 10 and 11 repeatedly talk about, in the words of many people who were close to Obama, that he is an absolute chameleon or, more appropriately, a manufactured politician. From Salim Muwakkil: “His ambitions were well disguised…One reason that he was so knowledgeable about the arcana of black politics is that he studied it and he crafted himself. He doesn’t share the traditional ancestral narrative. That’s not part of his being. One of the reasons he is so attractive to a lot of people is that he doesn’t have this sense of cultural grievance. He never had that sense of a family being socialized to subservience. He has an ease of interaction with whites that a lot of African-Americans don’t have. He had to learn that cultural repertoire of African-Americans. The notion that you are socialized in an environment that insisted that you aren’t inferior, that you spend much of your energy proving that you aren’t inferior, that kind of double consciousness – he didn’t have to deal with that. He has Malcolm’s capacity for self-creation. That’s what Barack did. He made himself, like a kind of existential hero. He picked this out and that out, and he created himself." I find these comments to be creepy, if not fairly alarming. A person who "creates himself" for the sake of politics is not trustworthy. Yet, Remnick apparently sees nothing wrong with that because he quotes one person after another who express that same theme: Terry Link - “One thing Barack has is the ability to adapt." Bobby Rush - "He’s been adapting all his life. He had the discipline to accomplish it and the foresight to see what his vision of himself required, you know? Barack’s calculating in almost every decision in terms of how he wanted to project himself."

David Kupelian wrote an article in 2008 about how Obama was "The Manchurian Candidate:" http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=79411. Kupelian describes the character from the book and movie as follows: "In the classic 1962 movie thriller "The Manchurian Candidate," a man was programmed by communist handlers, and then emerged into the public arena as a hero, with a largely manufactured history, large parts of which were either obscured or changed. Then he was planted into a position of great influence, having been programmed to usher in tremendous change at the appointed time." He then ties this into Obama. Strangely, Remnick, a leftist writer of a leftist magazine, quotes people that say the same thing: Bobby Rush - “The forces that created him were the same forces that were always coming after me…But Barack was backed by that same liberal elite cadre or cabal that came out of Hyde Park. These folks, they didn’t like me. I wasn’t upper crust. I came from the streets of Chicago. I’m not Harvard or Ivy League, although I’ve got two master’s degrees. I’ll never be accepted a member of the elite…And Barack was the antithesis of a street person. I saw this as racist. They wanted someone with a better pedigree.” Later, Rush is quoted as saying: “My whole effort was to make sure that people knew that Barack Obama was being used as a tool of the white liberals. Now, these people later on also helped launch him as a candidate to the U.S. Senate and as President. You cannot deny Obama’s brilliance, his disciplined approach. He is a very political guy, very calculating.”

Why would the liberal press, Remnick included, who have had a slathering lovefest with the President ever since he spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and who have, invariably, refused to report anything remotely damaging to this administration or critical of its policies, suddenly roll out these ostensibly negative quotes about their guy? I think the answer lies in the attitude of liberal elitism. Remnick and other liberals do not see the assumption of an alter-ego to get yourself elected as being something negative. First, liberals care little about character. Two, they care quite a bit about intentions. If Obama assumed a persona or public identity in order to get elected and work miracles (in their eyes), then that is acceptable because what he accomplishes will be for the collective good and, therefore, his intentions are noble. Thirdly, his skillful self-creation shows how intelligent he is and that is the sine qua non for all of liberaldom.

GOLDMAN SACHS IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

I previously promised to post about Goldman Sachs' connections with the Obama administration and I have not been able to return to the topic. However, in light of the SEC's recent proclamation that it will pursue fraud charges against Goldman Sachs, there is no better time than now. Let me preface my comments by stating that the SEC's investigation of Goldman Sachs will be an absolute farce. The Obama Administration is so inextricably intertwined with Goldman Sachs that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. should be renamed the Gold House. GS donated almost $1m to Obama’s presidential campaign, more than any other contributor except Cal-Berkley. (By the way, Citigroup added $701K and JPMorganChase another $695K). In December 2008, a New York Times editorial questioned the motivation of then New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner’s decision to let Lehman Brothers fail (GS's other competitors: Merrill Lynch & BearStearns similarly did not receive bailouts). Two days later, Geithner advocated for the bailout of AIG and its counterparties. As a result of the bailout, AIG was able to pay many of its creditors and trade partners, including a cool $6 billion to GS. In September 2008, Geithner had a meeting to discuss the AIG bailout, and GS CEO Lloyd Blankfein was the only Wall Street leader at the meeting. At the time, GS was AIG’s largest trading partner. During the campaign, Obama attended a private GS dinner and when it came time to name a running mate, Obama turned to GS Board Member James Johnson for help. Johnson was forced to vacate the post as a result.

Former Goldman Sachs' employees fill a number of high-level cabinet and departmental posts or otherwise have close connections to GS. Mark Patterson, a former GS lobbyist and former VP of Gov’t Relations, is Tim Geithner’s chief of staff. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was paid $3.9 million in 2008 by a Washington law firm whose major clients include GS. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, received $135,000 last year for a speech he made to GS executives. Other high level financial positions held in the Obama administration by former Goldman Sachs executives are Neel Kashkari, heading the TARP bailout; Gary Gensler, top executive at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Michael Paese, Rep. Barney Frank’s top aide, who is the chair of the House Financial Services Committee; former GS Vice Chairman Robert Hormats is the State Department's undersecretary for economic, energy and agricultural affairs; Dianna Farrell, Deputy Director, National Economic Council, is a former GS Financial Analyst; Stephen Friedman, Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, is a former GS Board Member (Chairman, 1990-94; Director, 2005-2009); Philip Murphy, Ambassador to Germany, was the former head of Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt; and John Thain, Advisor to Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner, was GS President and Chief Operating Officer (1999-2003). But here's the kicker: the Obama administration created a new position at the SEC: COO of the SEC enforcement division. With whom did they fill the post? None other than Adam Storch, former VP of Goldman Sachs’ Business Intelligence Group. So the guy who is in charge of enforcing any potential penalties against Goldman Sachs is a former GS guy. You just can't make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, GS’s stock is up 77% this year. GS will pay a total of more than $22 billion in salaries and bonuses to its 29,400 employees. Average compensation will hit $772,857, an all-time record. In 2006, before the financial crisis, the company paid out $661,490 per employee. Oh, how it pays to be in bed with the big O...

Books to read

I am reading a fantastic book by Thomas Sowell called A Conflict of Visions. The book advances a theory about two opposing ways of looking at the world - the constrained and the unconstrained - and posits that each vision forms the basis of the differences in political ideologies that continue to this date. Sowell is so smart he will make your head hurt - but his use of practical applications and direct quotes from major contributors to the respective visions make this book a joy to read.

New thread: Circumventing the Constitution and undermining the democratic process and our republican form of government

I am starting a new thread that will address the attempts by Congress and the Obama Administration to circumvent and undermine the Constitution and our generally-accepted political processes. The most recent of these is the use of the recess option to approve the appointment of 15 candidates whose appointments had been held up by the Republicans. The appointees are for a number of agencies and departments including the National Labor Relations Board, the EEOC, and the Treasury Department. They all have fabulous resumes, for the most part, but who knows what their "real" backgrounds are (which I define as those actions, positions on the issues, etc. for which they have consistently advocated or taken in the past that define who the candidates really are) since the White House does a ridiculously poor job of vetting its potential appointees or, alternatively, purposefully ignores their radical connections and tax reporting faux pases. I guess we will have to wait until Glenn Beck exposes them. Regardless, getting appointees passed through while Congress is on recess, while technically legal and, I am sure, something other Presidents have done in the past, is still cheating, It is still doing something without following the standard accepted practices. It is still pulling a fast one. There are still ulterior motives. For example, there is a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the decision of the NLRB while it is not fully staffed (i.e. have all of its Board members). Now, that Obama has approved his own nominees, does that now make the case of the entity challenging the NLRB's decision moot? Regardless, Congress will be back in session after the Easter break - isn't that soon enough? What else does the Administration need to accomplish in the middle of the night when no one is standing watch?

You expect this type of arrogance from the President, but from Bob Gibbs?

We have come to expect the President's condescending attitude towards anyone who opposes his freight train to socialism (remember the "get out of the way and let me clean up the mess" speech?) and his gloating, smug smile anytime he gets his way. But, to have Press Secretary Robert Gibbs - that Alabama country bumpkin who has to be the worst liar on the planet - throw sarcastic barbs takes the cake. From politico.com: “Understanding that what [Republicans] got out of the health care thing was virtually nothing, I think they may think twice on financial reform. There’s certainly ample evidence that their 'strategery' needs a little reform.” Hey, Opie - did you forget that your boss took over a year to get healthcare passed with clear majorities in the House and the Senate (at least, until Scott Brown was elected) and had to resort to reconciliation, the Louisiana Purchase, Cornhusker Kickback, Florida Gator Aid, the Stupak Executive Order, using water to drought-stricken counties in California as a bargaining chip, and who knows how much arm-twisting, with all of the major media outlets in his back pocket and after repeatedly lying to the American people? So let's not get too cocky, shall we?

The Return

After a hiatus of almost 4 months, it is time to get back to work. You can only blog so much and, during this period of time, I have been actively blogging on a local site. It was fun while it lasted, but, lately, it has become increasingly dissatisfying. Few people are willing to put effort into the blogs and the whole thing has slowly digressed into a bunch of name-calling. It is time to move on and moving on means devoting my attention to my blog. Freedom of speech is under attack. There are many out there that would like nothing more than to take away my right - and the right of anyone in the opposition - to express their thoughts freely on the Internet. I will exercise that freedom until my dying breath.