Democrats blame Rasmussen for their falling poll numbers instead of taking the blame themselves
Don’t blame the messenger, isn’t that how the old saying goes? That is exactly what some Democrats are doing when it comes to Barack Obama’s falling poll numbers. Democrats are now on the offensive against Rasmussen polls because they do not like the results of his polls.
This has become typical in the Obama administration, we saw high ranking administration officials attacking Fox News because they did not like the coverage that they were receiving on Fox News. We saw supporters of Barack Obama form “truth squads” during the presidential campaign to fight off and attack those television and radio stations that ran ads that were anti-Obama, and we saw the Obama campaign deny reporters from what they considered conservative news outlets from boarding his plane.
Everybody is supposed to be on the good ship Obama and if you are in the media and you are critical of the president you had better have your head on a swivel for you are a target. But as the word gets worse for the Obama administration and as more and more people turn away from the president, those that support the president are trying to delegitimize one of the organizations that is delivering the bad news.
They just can’t believe the president can be losing popularity, so they have to turn their focus on the polls and not the real problem– that people do not like what the president is doing, all the polls show this, not just Rasmussen.
Rasmussen polls have been the most accurate over the last few years and there is good reason for it– Rasmussen polls only likely voters while other polls poll whoever picks up the phone. This leads to a better understanding of how the voting public feels. Who gives a damn what people feel on anything political who can’t even be bothered to vote? Their opinions on politics mean nothing if they are not going to go to the voting booth to express their opinions when and where it counts the most.
Rasmussen’s critics are claiming that the policy to survey only voters gives an unfair result:
But critics note that the practice of screening for only those voters regarded as most likely to head to the polls potentially weeds out younger and minority voters — who would be more likely to favor Democrats than Republicans
Again, if these younger and minority voters are not likely to go to the voting booth, and they admit as much while taking the survey, than who gives a damn what their opinion is? And why should their opinion be used to form policy? If they cared so much about the issues they would vote. And if they voted, Rasmussen would include them in the poll.
This is another attempt by Barack Obama supporters to deflect the attention away from where it should lie– on the president’s job approval rating. Instead of trying to figure out what they are doing wrong, they shift the blame and try to figure out what the pollsters are doing wrong. In this case the only thing that the pollster is doing wrong is coming up with a result that they do not agree with.
Politics is for big boys and girls and if this administration can’t handle a little adversity maybe it is time to get out of the game. When you make decisions, some people are going to support the decisions, while others are not. That is the way it goes, yet this administration doesn’t seem to want to admit that many people do not like the direction Barack Obama is taking the country.
I hope that this trend continues and that Barack Obama and the Democrats do not take these polls seriously. I hope that he continues to shoot the messenger, because it is the message that this administration is sending that the American people are rejecting, and we will give him all the proof that he needs in just eleven short months. That is when the reality of these polls will finally set in.
Mayo Clinic in Arizona to stop accepting Medicare patients
In what could be another blow to Barack Obama’s healthcare reform bill, it was recently announced that the Mayo Clinic will no longer accept Medicare patients at a primary care clinic in Arizona. Medicare patients at the facility will have to pay cash if they want services. The reason– doctors can no longer afford to accept these patients, they lost $120 million on medicare patients last year alone . It is thought that other family practitioners will follow suit eventually.
The senate version of the bill includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts, this can not bode well for a program that is already almost bankrupt– as we can see by the Mayo Clinic’s decision to stop treating some Medicare patients.
The states (other than Nebraska) would be forced to pick up the additional costs of this already troubled program if they want to keep it intact. There are many problems with this bill and this decision by the Mayo Clinic just highlights one of the problems.
Mayo’s decision may herald similar moves by other Phoenix- area doctors who cite inadequate Medicare fees as a reason to curtail treatment of the elderly
That sounds a little bit like healthcare rationing to me. And it is only just beginning.
Ben Nelson asks South Carolina attorney general not to challenge the constitutionality of his healthcare kickback
Senator Ben Nelson has sent a letter to the South Carolina Attorney General in which he asked him to “call off the dogs.” This is in response to the report that Henry McMaster is leading a charge by 13 attorneys general to challenge the constitutionality of the kickback that would exempt Nebraska from the increase in the cost of Medicare.
Ben Nelson’s defense of this kickback is basically that he didn’t ask for it, it was just given to him by Harry Reid. Even so, that does not make it any less palatable to the rest of the states, which will be required to fork over the money that Nebraska will be exempted from paying.
The reason that Ben Nelson is giving for asking the South Carolina attorney general to drop the challenge is that eventually all of the states will be given the same exemption.
“Senator Nelson said it would be ‘fixed’ by extending the Cornhusker Kickback (100% federal payment) on Medicaid to every state.”
Forgive me for not quite understanding this. If all of the states are eventually exempted from paying the increase in Medicare costs, how the hell is the bill going to reduce the costs of healthcare to the American people? How is this not going to add to the federal deficit? Who is going to pay for this? And what is Ben Nelson so afraid of that he does not want the constitutionality of his kickback challenged?
13 Attorneys General will file a constitutionality lawsuit against the healthcare reform bill
According to this article, 13 attorneys general have written a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid stating that they will file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare reform bill.
I think that the focus of this lawsuit is on the wrong clause in the healthcare reform bill; the attorneys general claim that they will challenge the constitutionality of Ben Nelson’s $100 million kickback that ensures Nebraska will never have to pay any increased costs in Medicare. If the Nebraska provision is dropped they will not go forward with their challenge.
The article never states what clause in the constitution they are going to base their case on but as far as I can tell it would probably be based on the part of Article 1 Section 8 which reads,” all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” The attorneys general would argue that Nebraska’s exemption from increased Medicare taxes would be a violation of the “uniform” clause in the constitution.
Again, this is just a guess, maybe they have something else in mind. I don’t think that there will be much of a case here, is what Ben Nelson secured for his state that much different from the other pork barrel projects that go into all bills? I don’t think so.
I think that the attorneys general should focus their attention on the healthcare mandates. That would be a better argument in my opinion. Even if they do win the case based on this issue, the rest of the healthcare reform bill will remain intact, including the mandates.
Perhaps this lawsuit would just be an opening salvo, if this challenge fails perhaps more challenges will follow, with the mandates being next on the list.
At least I hope so.
Flight 253 aftermath: Two of the plotters were former GITMO detainees released by Bush
In spite of the president’s claim that the terrorist attacker on Flight 253 was an “isolated extremist,” it is becoming more clear that this simply is not true; Al-Qaeda has taken responsibility for planning the failed attack, a man helped Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab get on the plane without a passport, Yemen claims they have three hundred more militants ready to go, and now we are learning that two former GITMO detainees— released by President Bush– were involved in planning the Christmas day attack.
The most incredulous part of this story about two of the planners being former GITMO detainees who were released, is the reason why they were released; they were not released because they are innocent– nobody being held at GITMO is innocent, they were picked up on the battlefield fighting against America– they were released so that they could enter a rehabilitation center. You read that right. They were sent to Saudi Arabia to attend a Jihad rehabilitation center where they were given paint and crayons. Isn’t that nice!
Apparently drawing pictures of dead Americans just didn’t do it for these two, they need the real thing. The rehabilitation didn’t stick.
President Bush had a liberal side to him– spending, growing government, amnesty, no child left behind, the Medicare drug expansion– but this takes the cake.
This is where we have come as a nation? In the interest of sounding like a “compassionate conservative” he allowed two known terrorists to enter a rehabilitation center because after all, everyone deserves a second chance, right? He put the image of being compassionate above the actual protection of America in this case.
Couple this with the fact that we did not allow our military to enter the Afghanistan and Iraq wars at the full of their might. If the military was allowed to fight to the utmost of their capability these wars would have been over years ago.
But President Bush tried to fight a limited politically correct war and we see where this has gotten us. In the interest of being compassionate, President Bush has hamstrung the ability of the military– and this will continue, probably worse, with Barack Obama as commander-in-chief– one has to wonder how effective the military will ever be again unless these restrictive policies are reversed.
We have seen the effects of political correctness in the military ranks recently. Just look at Fort Hood as an example of what happens when political correctness goes awry. Higher ups in the military saw all of the warning signs with Hasan and in the interest of being politically correct– and with the fear of being labeled racists– the not only did not heed the warnings, the promoted Hasan through the ranks.
This is more of the same when it comes to these GITMO detainees. Instead of being locked away securely in GITMO where they belonged, they were released into rehabilitation where they were able to scam the system and return to their Jihad planning. This is a disgrace and in this regard it falls solely on Bush and his administration.
But it does not end with President Bush– nor does it vindicate Barack Obama or his administration’s failings or Janet Napolitano for her ineptness that she did not see the need to put Abdul Mutallab on the no-fly list despite the warnings,– as I wrote here, Barack Obama was considering releasing 100 more GITMO detainees into rehab centers. In that post I asked, “What’s the worst that could happen? Do you really want to find out?” Well, it looks like we just found out.
There is plenty of blame to go around but Barack Obama should use this as a “teachable moment”– a term that his administration loves to use– because as we have just seen, these people cannot be rehabilitated. Barack Obama is in the process of closing down GITMO, bringing these terrorists to the United States, granting them rights, and putting them on trial in civilian courts and not in military tribunals as if they were criminals and not terrorists.
If this episode teaches us one thing, it is the fact that GITMO should remain open and these people should never again see the light of day. The only way that terrorists can be rehabilitated is to watch them dance at the end of a rope. That is the only way to ensure that they will never return to Jihad again.
Flight 253 aftermath: Chris Dodd amendment cut airport security funding by $4.5 million
The president called the attempted Flight 253 terror attack a “systematic failure” and he is exactly right, he also promised to hold those responsible accountable for their action. (or inactions)
We are now learning that Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, offered an amendment to a bill that slashed funding to airport security by $4.5 million. The money that was destined to be spent “for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems,” was instead sent to one of Chris Dodd’s favorite constituency groups.
With the trillions of dollars that this administration has spent, I find it odd that $4.5 million had to be stripped out of a bill in order for Chris Dodd to pay off his constituency group. What is $4.5 million when you are spending trillions? $4.5 million isn’t even a drop in the bucket to this administration, yet Chris Dodd had the appropriations removed from the bill.
It is interesting to see what spending the Democrats in congress find unneccessary. This is just another example of Democrats not taking national security and terrorism seriously enough.
For the second time in two days, Barack Obama addressed the American people about the thwarted terror attack on Flight 253. After remaining silent for three days while his administration tried to find the best way to spin the attacks, Barack Obama managed to take seven minutes out of his vacation to mention the Christmas day attack.
Today he took a few more minutes out of his busy vacation schedule to address the American people again…sort of. He released a pre-recorded audio message in which he called the “systematic failings” unacceptable and promised to hold those who are responsible for the failings accountable. While I am glad to hear that someone will be held accountable, I find it odd that the president didn’t address the nation live in front of reporters.
This is the act of a man who does not want to be held accountable himself. Barack Obama should have faced the reporters and answered questions about the attack. If he truly believed in accountability that is what he would have done. But Barack Obama did what he did best, he gave a prepared speech without fear of reproach.
We have seen what happens to Barack Obama when he does not have the teleprompter in front of him and he was not willing to take that chance on this issue. Americans want their president to be a leader in time of crisis and if Barack Obama was a leader, he would have stood up in front of reporters and answered their questions. But he didn’t do that– he is not a leader.
He wants to hold someone else accountable but he is afraid to be held accountable himself.
Flight 253 aftermath: Does Barack Obama take terrorism seriously?
When the president finally addressed the American people on the failed terrorist attack on Flight 253, the visual was as striking as the delay in his reaction was confounding. After three days of pondering the proper way to address the American people– if he thought about it at all– on the terror attack, the president finally found seven minutes to get away from his hectic vacation itinerary to talk to the American people.
As Barack Obama remained silent, his Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, made a complete ass of herself and while her remarks led many to believe that the people in this administration don’t really take the issue of terrorism seriously, the president was golfing, going to the gym, and swimming. What is that old adage? It is better to remain silent and let everyone think that you are a fool than to open up your mouth and prove it. That seems to be the philosophy that Barack Obama employed on this issue; the problem is that when you are golfing while many Americans are facing extreme travel difficulties over Christmas because of a terrorist attack on your soil, and you are out golfing, remaining silent proves that you are indeed not taking the issue of terrorism seriously. Once he opened his mouth, he proved it. Perhaps if Barack Obama had to travel in the same manner that the American people have to he wouldn’t be so casual about the issue.
And speaking of casual, back to the striking visual that I alluded to at the beginning; I find it odd that the president would hold his seven minute press conference without even bothering to throw on a tie to look a little more professional. I really think that this administration doesn’t take this issue seriously and the fact that he was so casual in his time of response and in his dress when he finally responded is problematic. If he doesn’t take the issue seriously enough to take more than seven minutes out of his vacation to address the people, I am sure that those who would do this country harm certainly don’t think that he is serious enough about the issue to give them second thoughts about trying to carry out further attacks.
Barack Obama just doesn’t seem to take this issue or this incident very seriously at all. He is too casual and appears too clueless on the issue. Americans needed a leader in this time of crisis– and make no mistake, this was a crisis– but the president provided no leadership. Instead he gave off the air of a person who felt inconvenienced that this would happen while he was trying to enjoy himself.
After affording the American people seven minutes of his vacation time to casually address the people, he was so distraught by the attempted attack that he quickly resumed his vacation by heading to the gym for a workout. Meanwhile the incompetent people that he appointed to watch over the American people and keep us safe returned to the jobs that they have already failed at performing adequately.
When Janet Napolitano addressed the issue of the failed terror attack on Flight 253 she said that it was proof that “the system worked.” As if that ludicrous and asinine statement wasn’t enough, she later went on to say the following:
This was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year,” Napolitano said. “And he was stopped before any damage could be done. I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have
Once the incident occurred? That’s the problem, you are supposed to prevent the incident from occurring in the first place. This man should never have been allowed on a plane bound for the United States in the first place. The only reasons that this incident was stopped before any “damage could be done” is because of the actions of the passengers on board the plane coupled with the failure of the fuse.
Today Janet Napolitano must have realized how stupid and inaccurate her astounding statement sounded and she reversed herself by admitting that the system failed miserably. I find it interesting that in the immediate aftermath of an attempted terrorist attack, the first thing that Janet Napolitano felt compelled to do was to enter spin mode to protect herself and the Obama administration’s policies. Only after it became obvious, even to her, that the American people were not buying the line of bullshit she was handing down did she come out an admit what everybody already knew– that this was a failure in Homeland Security.
I am glad that she finally realized it was useless to try to pretend that there was nothing wrong in the system that allowed this man to enter the United States, but that does not change the fact that the man was allowed to enter the United States. If it was not for a faulty fuse, we would be looking at an attack that left 300 Americans dead and just because Mutallab failed in his plan it does not mean that nobody needs to be held accountable for the miserable failure in the system. Janet Napolitano, being in charge of the organization that is suppoed to keep America’s homeland safe, needs to be held accountable. She failed miserably and she needs to resign.
Janet Napolitano refuses to even use the word “terrorism”, preferring the term “man caused disaster”, and she refuses to use the term “war on terror”, preferring the term “overseas contingency operation.” She does this because she believes that those terms, used under the Bush administration, is fear mongering, and she wants to prove that this is a kinder, gentler administration.
Her kinder, gentler Homeland Security Department nearly got 300 Americans killed. Al-Qaeda is emboldened because the do not see America as a kinder, gentler nation; they see America as a weaker nation, they see a nation that is not willing to confront her enemies, they see a nation who is not even willing to name her enemies for fear of offending them, and it is becoming evident that they plan on feeding on our weakness.
Janet Napolitano on the Flight 253 terror attack: “The system worked”
When Janet Napolitano was asked about the attempted terrorist attack aboard Northwest Flight 253 being thwarted she responded,”the system worked.”
What!? Really!? The system worked? I guess the system under this administration and Homeland Security must be for a terrorist to be allowed to board a plane with a bomb and let the passengers diffuse the situation, because that is exactly what happened in this situation.
There was no marshal on board this plane and if it weren’t for a malfunction in the fusing mechanism, this bomb would have exploded and killed everyone on board. The terrorist may have still been able to set off the bomb if it weren’t for the quick actions of the heroes that were on board this plane. So don’t sit there and tell America that the system worked, the system failed and America was very lucky that the second terror attack on Barack Obama’s watch was a failure, unlike the first.
When asked how the would be terrorist was allowed to board a plane with liquid explosives she responded,”We’re asking the same questions.” That’s nice, but this attempted attack should have been foiled before the terrorist was ever allowed to board the plane.
For Janet Napolitano to go on CNN and tell the country that the fact that the passengers thwarted a terrorist attack that the system almost allowed to take place, is proof that the system works is nothing more than bullshit. There is no other way to put it, it is BULLSHIT!
While the system dictates that we cannot profile people in airport lines, and while old men in wheelchairs and young children must be screened, a terrorist was able to walk straight onto the plane with a bomb. The system is fatally flawed and we would have seen proof of that fact on Flight 253 if it weren’t for the passengers.
America's Watchtower 