America's own emptyheaded "Gran Lider"

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are each referred to as a "Gran Lider" (Big Leader) but have led their countries to economic and human disasters

A Dog in the Manger Presidency

Obama transparently fails as a leader in several remarkable ways. First, he lacks leadership ability by any traditional criteria. Second, the leadership that he has imparted has roundly failed by objective consensus. Third, he attacks the genuine acts of leadership by others as if they were a krypton stake ready to be plunged into his abdomen. Obama has the crafty and evasive character of a natural-born fraud. The fake is always the enemy of the real, and will battle to destroy the actual—regardless of the costs to others.

Attacks Upon True Leadership:

An instance of Dog in the Manger assault occurred when the US Coast Guard stopped Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal from running barges with water vacuums sucking up oil. This was another in a list of shutdowns Obama threw at Jindal. He also stopped him from erecting barrier islands to sop up the oil, which supposedly must be vetted for “environmental impact.” (analogy: testing a hangman’s noose to make sure it doesn’t cause excessive rope-burn). Here is a classic example of Barack “Manger Dog” Obama stymieing a real leader from doing something proactive, clever and effective to help his state.

Other examples include Barack refusing aid from thirteen European nations within days after the Gulf oil leak. For instance, the Dutch offered four skimmers that could have taken 20,000 gallons of oil out of the water a day. And the British offered chemical oil dispersant, which Obama refused on the spot. The UK Times reported on this: “Top officials in the British Cabinet offered assistance to help clean up the oil spill a few days after the explosion. The Obama Administration turned them down because they did not have the correct paperwork.” These types of reports sicken the spirit and make clear that Obama not only refused to lead, but even blockaded the help from others.

Obama has an inability to accept any help that would make him look weak, derivative, or not the source of all earthly good. What possible reason could Barack have for refusing assistance other than personal vanity or the aggrandizement of power?

In fact, Foreign Policy magazine had this to say about the foreign offers to help the US:

"Late Wednesday evening, the State Department emailed reporters identifying the 13 entities that had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.

“These offers include experts in various aspects of oil spill impacts, research and technical expertise, booms, chemical oil dispersants, oil pumps, skimmers, and wildlife treatment,” the email read.

“While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future.”

Failed Leadership Instances

There are several different species of failed leadership. One type is to direct followers into an undertaking that is ill-advised or doomed. The second type is leadership that seems to bring the followers into a successful course but which later collapses. An obvious example is when Obama smugly gave fellow Democrat candidates his blessing and campaigned for them, only to watch them fail in their races, as happened to Jon Corzine, Creigh Deeds, and Martha Coakley.

On a deeper level, one can argue that all of Obama’s completed tasks are failures on a timed-release schedule. For example, his near-trillion-dollar Stimulus bill is already reckoned an utter failure for what it was designed to do—creating quality, longterm jobs. And as these funds go down the toilet with all the interest payments as well, so do many wonderful options which this massive amount of cash could have been spent upon. For a trillion dollars, we could have funded: half the Obamacare costs for a decade; a national high-speed rail; wind farms across America; a slashing of income tax for a year to reboot the economy; a rebuilt NASA; etc etc etc

Obamacare will be an open ulcerated sore on the American economy for all its years until it is (hopefully) repealed. Studies have already come out revealing half US employees will shortly be on Obamacare, that the costs will be much higher than the WH advertised, and that the negative unintended consequences will be massive. Likewise, Obama’s unnerving habit of proposing spending to answer all problems—even the growing deficit, is producing toxic fruit, to say the least.

In foreign policy, Obama’s instinctual and frankly bizarre habit of bowing to alien potentates, apologizing to despots, and giving aid and comfort to enemies while punishing our allies enrages US patriots. In general, the combination of Obama’s trite rhetoric in concert with a toothless response to bad players has opened the floodgates on evil deeds. But imagine how our situation might be different today, for example, if Obama had merely supported the Iranian election uprising, instead of pretending this spontaneous mass demand for real democracy was lawlessness. We might not be trying to sanction Iran for their nuclear weapons program today! Talk about feckless.

An Incipient Failure of Leadership Ability

If one is a socialist or Marxist, who then are your role models? Much like a photo-negative of normally successful people, Marxism dotes upon failures, ne’er-do-wells and hopeless rebels. Such misfits are heroes, and such people collapse when placed upon the greatest pinnacles of success, like a presidency. It should surprise no one the socialist idea of leadership is merely contained to speechifying and making insulting and critical comments about those whom the tyrant despises.

Lenin’s absurd statement: “Any cook should be able to run the country,” shows the utter contempt that Marxists have for the nuances of democracy and capitalism. Does Obama share this absurdly condescending opinion of Western leadership? The shattering lack of real world knowledge, training, or responsibility for the consequences of decisions the “leader” makes is a recurring theme in communist dictators who believed they will recreate humanity itself upon their own image.

Conclusion

In terms of a natural ability to inspire and direct—could Barack Obama even lead Mama Cass to a Burger King? Obama is reminiscent of the lead character in the movie The Ladykillers—the pretentious Prof. Goldthwait Higgins Dorr, PhD., played by Tom Hanks. The Professor assembles a group of criminal misfits to rob a riverboat casino, but fails spectacularly. Here, Obama is the pompous professor full of ridiculous verbosity, while the criminal gang boasts David Axelgrease, Rahm “Beau” Emanuel, and other dishonest buffoons. At least in the movie, each gets the comeuppance he richly deserves.

More here

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Debbie Schlussel on Fathers' day

Today, Father’s Day, I visited my late father’s grave. Even though he is no longer here, I am one of the lucky ones. My father was ever present in my life throughout his. And even though he is gone, his influence on me lives on. (Read my eulogy and tribute to him. He was an amazing and unique person.)

My father loved me and my siblings, he cared, and he taught us right and wrong. My father instilled in us the importance of patriotism and love for America. He taught us the courage of our convictions and the importance of being a good dad. Even though he was a medical doctor, he was not wealthy. He sacrificed making a lot of money to be ever involved in our lives. Woven into his great sense of humor and occasional pranks he played on us, my dad taught us to be proud Jews and never take crap from anyone.

I once had a boss who told me, “principle is expensive,” and discouraged me from having any. But it fell on deaf ears. My father taught us that principle was the most valuable commodity, the most worthy treasure we could possess. As kids, he took us to protests he organized–for example, when the Detroit Jewish community invited anti-Semite and Israel-hater James Zogby to the Jewish Book Fair to promote his hateful book. Later on, my Dad helped me spy on Islamic charities and organizations in town and tips he gave to federal law enforcement led to raids, arrests, and shut-downs of funding, including the freezing of bank accounts that funded HAMAS terrorist attacks through the Holy Land Foundation.

My father always told me about how, as an Army doctor in induction centers during Vietnam, he was offered money by various parents to rule their kids ineligible. But he never took these bribes. He was drafted and served and was ready to serve on the front lines. He felt everyone should serve America and do their duty when called. My father made sure we knew the story when his friend, Dr. Isaac Poltinnikov, an eye doctor, was fired from his job by the Soviet Union, for the “crime” of trying to emigrate from Soviet anti-Semitism and persecution to a life in Israel. Since Soviet parasitism laws forbade donations to the doctor, my father made up elaborate problems of the eye and sent them to Dr. Poltinnikov for his fictional consultations, so that Dr. Poltinnikov would survive. But he also showed us the tragedy, when Dr. Poltinnikov finally succeeded in leaving for Israel, without his wife and daughter, who respectively starved to death and committed suicide, because they could no longer take the KGB spying and oppression.

And there are so many such things my father showed me, taught me, instilled in me–many of them outlined in the eulogy and tribute I gave to my father at his funeral and on this site.

But, like I said, I am one of the lucky ones. Sadly, most people will never have a father like my dad. Even sadder, today, at least fifty percent of American kids will grow up without a father at home. Who needs Bin Laden and Islamic terrorism when we are destroying our country from within, creating so many future problems by bringing kids into this world without fathers?

And, then, there are the kids who don’t know their father truly cared. They don’t know because he’s been vilified by mom, or he just isn’t present and they aren’t told the real reason why. Such is the plot of one of my favorite movies, “Departures (Okuribito).” And such was the reality for Ray M. Wong. Wong’s Must-Read “In Death, Assumptions About Dad Melt Away”, from Friday’s USA Today, will bring tears to your eyes. Even though, unlike his, my dad was always in my life, it brought tears to mine...

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Congress destroys free checking by blocking overdraft fees: "Banks can afford to offer free checking accounts with no minimum balance, to responsible people, only because they can charge overdraft fees to irresponsible people. But Congress has now prohibited many overdraft fees, which will result in many banks eliminating free checking, and also require responsible people to subsidize irresponsible people. … The elimination of free checking thanks to Congress’s unwise restrictions on overdraft fees will harm low-income people by driving them back to check-cashing stores that charge them money to cash every check.”

Decision to take over Fannie, Freddie getting costly: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords. For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the final bill could reach $389 billion.”

Colombia: Ex-defense chief wins presidential runoff: "A former defense minister from a powerful political clan who oversaw a major weakening of leftist rebels won Colombia’s presidency Sunday, routing an eccentric outsider in a runoff. The victory for Juan Manuel Santos, a 58-year-old economist and three-time government minister, was a ringing endorsement of outgoing conservative President Alvaro Uribe, whose U.S.-backed security policies he helped craft and promised to continue.”

Justice and BP: "It is very probable that BP and its associated firms will be found guilty of malpractice and assessed major fines and punishment. However, this hasn’t yet happened so it’s premature to punish BP at this point. Nor is it the role of the President of the U.S. to act as prosecutor, judge and jury in this case or any other. Where is due process in all of what he and Congress have been doing lately? Or has an anti-British or anti-business attitude wiped out the need for justice? Urging or imploring — even attempting to persuade — BP to set up the $20 billion fund could be a good idea but treating this as demanded by justice is utterly misguided. There should be no compromise of principle even in the heat of anger and the grips of outrage and sorrow. It is imperative to wait until the verdict is in.”

Barack Obama’s square box: "When John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane crashed into Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1999 some observers said he had gotten himself into a “square box,” meaning that he had run into the limits of his experience and his imagination. Barack Obama is in a square box, and observers are now beginning to talk about his inevitable crash.”

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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