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Obama Demagoguery Supplemented by a Touch of Cruelty
Real Clear Politics ^ | 2-27-13 | Peter Whener

Posted on 02/28/2013 5:54:27 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin

In the Great Sequestration Debate, here’s what we know: (a) The president has paternity of an idea he now characterizes as a brutal and senseless assault on America. (b) The president and his then-chief of staff, Jack Lew, misled the public about their role in giving birth to the sequester idea. (c) House Republicans have twice passed legislation to avoid the sequester cuts with carefully targeted ones, but Senate Democrats refused to act. (d) Mr. 0bama has brushed off a Republican plan to give him flexibility to allocate the $85 billion in spending cuts, which makes no sense if the president wants to replace reckless cuts with responsible ones.

Whatever one thinks about the merits of cutting $85 billion out of an almost $3.6 trillion budget, the effort to portray the cuts as ushering in days of tribulation, distress and anguish, of trouble and ruin, of darkness and gloom is–how to put this?–insane.

If the sequester cuts go into effect, domestic agencies would have to cut 5 percent from their budgets after having received a 17-percent increase during the president’s first term (not counting the more than a quarter-of-a-trillion stimulus bonus). And our budget this fiscal year would still be larger (by some $15 billion) than it was in the last fiscal year.

But what makes this particular episode somewhat different than past ones is that Mr. 0bama has supplemented his demagoguery with a touch of cruelty. That is, he has made it clear that he wants to inflict as much harm as possible on Americans in order to make the cuts live up to the hype. The president’s greatest fear is that the sequester cuts will kick in and life will go on. So he’s threatening to pass over wasteful programs in order to target more essential ones.

Emily Holubowich–a Washington health-care lobbyist who leads a coalition of 3,000 nonprofit groups fighting the cuts–gave away the game in her comments to the Washington Post. “The good news is, the world doesn’t end March 2. The bad news is, the world doesn’t end March 2,” Ms. Holubowich said. “The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens. And Republicans say: See, that wasn’t so bad” (h/t Charles Krauthammer).

So we have the president determined to administer as much pain as he can on Americans even as he excoriates Republicans for their “meat-cleaver approach” that will “eviscerate” key programs.

It is really quite remarkable, this concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm. And to think that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Barack 0bama promised to put an end to cynicism. Instead he has added massively to it. The harm he is doing to our political culture is very nearly incalculable.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: obamapunishesusa; sequester; sequestration
Good Morning! Preachin' to the choir, I know, but I thought this was well-written and spot-on.
1 posted on 02/28/2013 5:54:32 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Perhaps it takes a second go-around with a maroon like this in order to get the 53% to care again and get off their sofas. The bum class did, realizing one day off a sofa meant getting to spend the next 4 years back on it at everybody else’s expense, not counting fraud. A hypothetical fair (or universally mandatory) plebiscite last November, WOULD have yielded a President Mitt Romney by this point, no wonderful shakes to be sure, but it would have been hard for Mitt to match Barack in sheer cynical game playing. What do they call this sort of stuff anyhow. Passive aggressive? Maneuvering the other guy into disaster and then pretending you can’t do a blessed thing about it?


2 posted on 02/28/2013 6:01:00 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
"...Mr. 0bama has supplemented his demagoguery with a touch
of cruelty. That is, he has made it clear that he wants to inflict
as much harm as possible on Americans in order to make the
cuts live up to the hype."


3 posted on 02/28/2013 6:07:16 AM PST by LibFreeUSA
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To: LibFreeUSA

Vengeful, vicious little soul ain’t he.

Well, permitting such things is one way how God seeks to jar a numb, uncaring people back to their senses. “Good” people who did not do what they could have, must share part of the responsibility for this. Boards like this, as nice as they are, can be a trap for such people. They can absorb much of their well intended energy in yacking. Yacktivism is beat out by activism every single time, all else being equal.


4 posted on 02/28/2013 6:16:16 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
It is really quite remarkable, this concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm. And to think that a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Barack 0bama promised to put an end to cynicism. Instead he has added massively to it. The harm he is doing to our political culture is very nearly incalculable.

It is incalculable. Thanks to our founders, we have a template to rebuild it.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

5 posted on 02/28/2013 6:32:43 AM PST by PGalt
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I tell you that this man more than willing to bring down America in order to pin the blame on others, and he has an all too willing ideological class of Americans to go along with that. Americans that are truly traitors to their own country!


6 posted on 02/28/2013 9:04:59 AM PST by LibFreeUSA
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Simple question -

How many know that House sent the bill TWICE to Senate to avoid sequestration, only to have Reid ignore them? And how many know Boehner&Co “made a fuss” about it?

There is your problem.

7 posted on 02/28/2013 9:19:41 AM PST by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

This was great: Emily Holubowich–a Washington health-care lobbyist who leads a coalition of 3,000 nonprofit groups fighting the cuts–gave away the game in her comments to the Washington Post. “The good news is, the world doesn’t end March 2. The bad news is, the world doesn’t end March 2,” Ms. Holubowich said. “The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens. And Republicans say: See, that wasn’t so bad” (h/t Charles Krauthammer).

Below is a personal report re the tragedy of the SBS in wino country and from gene pool contacts across the nation:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2992494/posts?page=46#46

“I just woke up, Did we survive ?”

BOL! The same here. We were out carousing last night, actually going to good high school play.

This morning I noticed:

Our home was still standing and our neighbors’s homes.

Our fishwrap had been delivered apparently without the delivery lady being shot, stabbed, raped, mugged or suffering a car jacking.

Some kids were walking by to their shool, and others were being NasCared by their mothers.

Our water, sewer, electicity, natural gas, cable tv, internet and phone systems were still working.

My trophy wife and her gene pool like to talk in the early morning. She uses our landline and her cell. Everyone in her gene pool was still safe and alive. She texted our grandkids, and they were on their way to schools which where still open. Their NasCar driver, our DIL, said the traffic lights worked in traffic to and from the school. She and the kids had no problem. When, she got home her, I phone worked.

Our adult sons drove trucks or rode their bikes to their real work places with zero problems and everything is working including them and their work staff.

My wife said the local tv stations which make a cat in a tree a major story, had no disasters to show. PS: The local tv stations went to see/hear the magical Oreo. He looked hungover as he tried to blame the evil republicans for the horrible impact of the Seq bs.

Obviously the Seq bs has not really impacted us.


8 posted on 03/01/2013 9:14:02 AM PST by Grampa Dave (Tagline space for rent to pay for some of my extra taxes the next 4 years!)
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