The Statist State of the Union Lecture Tonight!

One thousand days without a budget, $4 trillion of new debt and counting, 100 rounds of golf, lavish vacations, axing thousands of jobs with the Keystone XL Pipeline in the hopes that it will secure his, and this president wants to lecture us on shared sacrifice and living within our means? No thanks.

Which is why I'll be at the movies. The Academy (elite snobs, really, but who can resist?) announced their ten nominees for Best Picture today and I've only seen two of them. Truthfully, I think Rango should have been up for more than just Best Animated Feature, in which case I could say I've seen three. Either way, you're likely to get a truer version of reality out of Hollywood than Hollywood's Favorite Orator. Besides, the president's lecture, er, speech, will be posted online and you can probably find the entire text on twitter to read during the previews.Why put yourself through the agony of the agitprop, the rehearsed standing Os for "O", and the gushing commentary from tingly-leg types trying to sell four more years of faux recovery? Heck, that could be a new Democratic slogan... Faux More Years! Faux More Years!

Screw the sanctimony. Do yourself a favor and go see a flick! The Left can't complain, because as much as they love Obama, they love it even more when you go to their movies. However, if having a dishonest narcissist whisper sweet nothings in your ear is your cup of tea, and you already divorced Newt, well, by all means don't miss the Statist State of the Union tonight at 8 pm. As one astute blog commenter put it, what's twinkles for "you lie"?

Republicans Can Gain from Skipping Obama's Healthcare Summit

To summit or not to summit? That is the question that Republicans have been wrestling with regarding the president's bipartisan meeting on healthcare. I'm not sure Republicans can say no to the meeting without losing some political traction among independents, at least in the short-term. But should they say yes, rest assured that the debate will have all the staged theatrics of a WWE match with Obama playing the role of Vince McMahon.

I, for one, don't think the president cares whether GOP leaders accept his invitation or not. It's an astute political move that will be painted as a win for him either way. If Republicans decline, Obama (with the help of the liberal press) will deride them as an obstructionist party unwilling to work with Democrats, or a party of no ideas. Then again, they've been saying that all year and it hasn't seemed to hurt the GOP. If Republicans do attend, the president will pretend to listen in front of the cameras, then persuade Pelosi to reconcile with the Senate's bill while claiming Republican measures were carefully considered. Or he will return to the back room deals under the auspices of the same false claims, but with added political clout. 

An even greater obstacle might be Obama's role as the "moderator" of the debate. You might as well hire game-fixer Tim Donaghy to officiate this year's NBA Finals. By playing referee, the president gets to come off as a reasonable centrist even though he has a huge political stake in the outcome and we know which side he favors. Pretending to vote present, as Obama did in the Illinois state senate a record 130 times, doesn't work when you've already revealed your support for the most radical version of single-payer healthcare and campaigned on the promise of a public option. Still, that's not going to stop him from trying.

Republicans and moderates alike should keep in mind that Obama is not holding this summit to seek solutions, especially those outside of his ideology (i.e. free market solutions). Nor does the summit present an opportunity for the smartest ideas to prevail. What Obama seeks is cover for the arrogance, hostility, and contempt he has shown his critics up to this point. The summit is a charade to make a predetermined verdict seem plausible, that handing more power over to the State is the best way to "fix" healthcare, and that it has been thoroughly discussed and debated by all sides. For the president, the words "summit" and "submit" are almost interchangeable. We are supposed to summit to submit to his way of thinking.

To be fair, Republicans seem to sense this trap. That is why they offered a counter proposal with preconditions, including the promise to throw out the current bills and start over from scratch. These conditions obviously will not be met, so now what?

Here's an idea. Since health care reform is a manufactured crisis of the Left and not even close to a top priority for American voters right now, the GOP should decline Obama's invitation to instead focus on job growth, deficits, and reducing government spending. It's time to stop playing defense and start playing offense. Put the pressure on Democrats to cut back big government and to fix the troubled entitlement programs we already have before adding a new one to our overburdened debt. Make any health care reform discussions contingent on fixing these problems first. All but the far left base of the Democratic Party will appreciate such an initiative.

Actually, Republicans could invite the president to their own summit on fiscal responsibility. After all, the facts are on their side, a $160 billion deficit the last year they controlled Congress vs. a $1.5 trillion deficit after just three years of Democratic rule. They can talk about all the obscene spending Obama has added since taking office and highlight the fact that he is one of those politicians that "talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk." Make him stake his presidency on this, and ask him how he plans to deal with the record deficit without raising taxes. It will make it that much easier to label him a tax-and-spend liberal come next election.

Obama Makes JW's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" List

No surprise here. The president has brought the Chicago Way to Washington, with less transparency and more closed door meetings and secret deals than ever before. It's been a long, sad year of passing bad legislation by buying senators' and representatives' votes. On top of that, you have the Fauxbama attacking and demonizing private companies and investors, not to mention the watchdog media and conservative critics, while working to line the pockets of his Democratic firends and allies. The One has spent us into oblivion, growing corrupt government agencies while the private sector and small businesses suffer. He finished the year by vacationing in an expensive Hawaiian villa while 1 in 6 Americans is out of work.

Here's what Judicial Watch had to say about President Obama's "change":

President Obama boldly proclaimed that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade "artists" to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of "czars" in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control -- through fiat and threats -- large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: “The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.”

Nine of the ten spots were occupied by Democrats, including Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd (D-Conn). But if you think Judical Watch is a partisan attack machine, think again. Last year 4 Republicans made the list.

Lost hope yet?

Tyrant-Lite's Temper Tantrum to the Nation

President Obama took the stage Wednesday night to address Congress without introducing any new substantial proposals to his health care reforms. In what was a highly partisan and theatrical speech, the president scowled at Republicans, quivered his lip, and unleashed verbal threats at those who dared slow down or oppose his plans. He promised to “call out those who use fear tactics or misrepresent his plan for political purposes.” It was an impressive performance, only because such self-righteousness and just under-the-surface anger are rarely displayed by an American president speaking to the entire nation.

And they said John McCain didn't have the temperament to be president?

What do you say to a political figure who speaks half-truths and then says if you question him you're using scare tactics? Even the Associated Press was correcting his "facts" just hours after the speech.

FACT CHECKING THE PRES: MATH DOESN'T BACK UP OBAMA'S FIGURES

President Obama had a whole month to listen to the nation at town hall meetings, to view signed petitions and gauge the mood of the country, to meet with leaders in the House and Senate who held opposing views, whether Republican or Democrat, and to find places of agreement and pass legislation that would increase competition and cut health care costs immediately. Oddly enough, he hasn't met with Republicans since April, instead preferring to demonize them.

Second Verse, Same as the First!

This president has an agenda and if he can't persuade America to support it, he will simply find a way to force it down our throats. There is no middle ground. Contrast this with President Bush, who came together with Ted Kennedy to pass education reform in his first year of office. Those weren’t two moderates meeting over some meaningless exercise in political posturing. They were a staunch conservative and liberal Democrat working together to see reform all the way through the legislative process.

President Obama, meanwhile, who advertised himself as post-partisan during the campaign, can't even find room to compromise with the most moderate Republicans, and many conservative Democrats have also balked at his costly overhauls.

The same president who sent his own paid community organizers and protesters out into the street to get in the faces of ordinary Americans protesting for the first time, the same president who has used the bully pulpit to make ad hominem attacks against his political opponents, the same president who encourages his surrogates to attack private citizens for speaking their minds, and who's closest advisor, Valerie Jarrett, praised Keith Olbermann for doing the dirty work of this administration, this man is going to lecture us on the proper level of discourse? Give me a break.

Have you realized, Mr. President, how much your strong-arm tactics have divided this nation? You have made the presidency not about the honor of the highest office in the land in the freest nation on earth, not about democracy or free enterprise, not about the great history of this country, but instead about you. You have spent more time in your speeches lauding your own achievements and personal biography than you have the story of America.

How about we stop talking about you, and start talking about ways to fix this economy? If you haven’t noticed, times are tough. Americans are being laid off in record numbers. Businesses are closing that have been in families for generations.

I know you claim to be bipartisan, but I have yet to see you accept an idea or consider a proposal by anyone not on the far Left. With all due respect, you seem all too often to pay lip service to unifying the country, but then turn around and play partisan idealogue the minute the teleprompter shuts down and the cameras turn off. Instead of finding common ground, respecting the Constitution, and listening to the American people, you keep trying to persuade us that your way is the right way. If we disagree, we are called racist, hateful, unpatriotic, and unproductive liars. That’s not pragmatism. That’s demagoguery.

It’s not our fault that the health care bill is 1016 pages and hasn't been read by some members of Congress. It’s not our fault that the language it’s written in is confusing, that representatives who support it have to call a hotline to get answers about how it works, and that it brings up more questions than it answers. It’s not our fault that sections of it raise alarms about our Constitutionally protected liberties and rights to privacy, or that many experts have fears it could, in the wrong hands, be used for malicious purposes. It’s not our fault that you have not been specific and that you have waivered about what you want in the reforms from one day to the next.

Fortunately, despite the messiness of the process, we are engaged as citizens. That is good for democracy, not bad. There’s no reason reform of this magnitude, reform that affects almost one-fifth of the American economy, reform that involves the way the sick and the disabled receive care, and reform that affects end-of-life decisions for the weakest among us needs to be passed quickly in the middle of the night. You know, the way your Communist green jobs "czar" left office.

The last time you asked us to act quickly and limit debate, you signed into law the American Recovery Act, a bill that spent almost a trillion dollars to save jobs and revitalize the economy. Six months later, that bill is a failure based on the criteria it was set out to correct. Unemployment is nearly 10%, our deficit is the worst in American history, we are still mired in a painful recession, and the economy has not been stimulated.

The health care reforms you are proposing cost at least twice as much as the stimulus bill and are predicted to increase according to the nonpartisan CBO. They will add substantially to our deficit. They will change the relationship between government and the individual and the way patients are treated for generations. We can’t afford to make the same mistakes we made on the stimulus bill. There is too much at stake. Slow down, fire your partisan advisors, and start listening to the people.

Believe it or not, it's not about you. It's about the American people.