The President Is A Chronic Pathological Liar

Last night’s debate was a hard debate to watch.  Let’s face it, the President is a hard person to watch speak.  On a performance basis, the President did a lot better than he did in the first debate.  He was animated, aggressive, and on the attack.  All of the establishment pundits were surprised he was as aggressive as he was in a townhall-style debate.  It’s not all that surprising when you realize all he has is to be aggressive, and to attack Governor Mitt Romney.  What made it hard to watch was the flat out lies and misrepresentations that President Barack Obama used for his talking points.  How he can lie with such a straight face, and so often, proves to me that he has a medical condition of chronic pathological lying.  He can’t help himself.

President Obama didn’t stop at lying and misrepresenting Gov. Romney’s plans for America.  In his more aggressive and spirited debate performance, President Obama still never answered the questions and offered his own plans.  He still doesn’t have an agenda for the next four years.  The President also makes promises that were never intended to be the responsibility of the federal government.  He promises to hire 100,000 more teachers, but never explains how’s going to grow the economy so that we’ll have the money to be able to hire more teachers.

Governor Romney has the harder job than President Obama in this campaign.  President Obama can make lofty promises because in his Keynesian economic philosophy he can just spend and borrow more money to pay for his promises.  Governor Romney knows economics and money.  He knows that spending and borrowing to pay for things is not sustainable.  Therefore, Governor Romney has to get into the boring policy weeds of explaining policy, and hope the people don’t fall asleep.

President Obama’s solution to fixing the economy is to “invest” in solar and wind and other alternative energy sources.  Insert failed and bankrupted companies like Solyndra and A123, and then multiple those “investments” and multiple our debt and deficits by trillions.  What President Obama refuses, or just doesn’t care, to acknowledge is that the government does not make “investments.”  It spends and borrows money, and puts America deeper and deeper into debt.

He didn’t hit anything out of the park, but Governor Romney did maintain his momentum after last night’s debate.  His best moment and argument was when he recited President Obama’s economic failings of the last four years, listing fact after fact.  Governor Romney’s weakest moments were when he didn’t really explain why his plans would work better than President Obama’s, and on foreign policy questions regarding Libya.  It’s clear Governor Romney is at his best when he talks economics.

Yes, President Obama had a better night last night because he was more spirited and more aggressive in attacking Governor Romney.  However, he was still the vague-arrogant-pathological-liar that Americans have come to know.

20/20 hindsight is everything, but Governor Romney missed some big opportunities to put President Obama on the hot seat.  He should’ve brought up President Obama’s failed energy “investments.”  He also should’ve brought up the recent Libya hearings that showed that the Obama Administration failed to provide the necessary security in Benghazi when State Department testimony revealed that they denied requests for more security.  Governor Romney should’ve also focused on asking the President why it took his Administration over two weeks to get the Libya story correct if the President wasn’t hiding anything.

If we’re talking about content and substance.  Governor Romney clearing won last night’s debate because he talked about his real plans, and had the truth and facts on his side.  However, if we’re talking about performance, then it was a tie.  Governor Romney’s performance was about as well as he did in the first debate, so he didn’t hurt his momentum.  President Obama’s greatly improved performance helped him keep Governor Romney from expanding his lead.

Governor Romney will have a chance to sharpen his foreign policy plans and talking points for the third and final debate.  His foreign policy team should be giving him daily briefings on foreign policy and national security issues, as well as work with is speech writing team to sharpen and focus his foreign policy message to be more coherent and clear.

Taking Responsibility for the Failures at Benghazi

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took responsibility for the failures in Benghazi.  Why now?  For weeks, the Administration and the State Department hammered at the story that the anti-Islamic video was the cause of attacks and the murders.  When it was obvious that the attack was a pre-planned terrorist attack, they were forced to admit it.  Their new narrative then became that it was the intelligence community and the State Department’s fault.  Barack Obama is just the President and Commander-in-Chief; therefore, he’s obviously is too busy to be responsible for failures of his own Administration.  It’s someone else’s fault or failure.

Mrs. Clinton has taken the responsibility for the failures from Peru.  Even while she was in a foreign land taking the blame, the Administration still played the blame game by blaming the failures on “confusion” on what was the actual cause of the terrorist attack.  Who cares who’s to blame.  Figure out what happened and if someone was in the wrong, then punish him or her if necessary, but fix the problems so that it doesn’t happen again.  Real leaders don’t try to change the story by blaming others, they figure out what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Why didn’t Mrs. Clinton call up President Obama the morning of September 12, 2012 to brief the President of the United States of America on the situation at the US Consulate in Benghazi?  That would have cleared up any confusion.  Regardless of what caused the attack, there was an attack that killed four Americans including our Ambassador.  The President needs to immediately be briefed on the situation telling him everything the State Department knows.  President Obama should then stay in constant communication with the State Department and the military regarding the situation in Benghazi.  That big failure caused a multitude of failures by the Obama Administration in Libya.

What did President Obama do though?  He went to the United Nations and rambled on about how a dumb video caused the terrorist attack in Benghazi.  The Obama Administration doesn’t seem to have really thought through the story his Administration had decided to push.  Do they think the American people are stupid?

Now that we know that the Obama Administration did know the Benghazi attack was a terrorist attack connected to an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group.  I think the attack shot a hole in the Obama Administration’s narrative that President Obama killed the leader of Al-Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, and by extension put an end to Al-Qaeda’s reign of terror.

In short, President Obama was supposedly the savior.  President Bush got us into two wars and couldn’t stop Al-Qaeda, but President Obama was able to kill Usama and stop Al-Qaeda in his first term.  Therefore, the Obama Administration decided to cover-up what they knew about Al-Qaeda in the Benghazi attack, so that they could hopefully maintain the narrative that President Obama did more to stop the 9/11 terrorist masterminds than did his predecessor.

President Obama is a very shrewd and calculating Marxist.  He will do everything in his power to be able to continue his Marxist agenda.  If there is anything that could jeopardize his mission, then I believe he will throw anyone under the bus just to achieve his Marxist agenda of destroying America’s leadership in the world.  I wonder how Mrs. Clinton feels about being President Obama latest person to be thrown under the bus.

A Vice Presidential Debate of Personalities

The Vice Presidential debate was clearly a debate between the personalities of Vice President Joe Biden, and Congressman Paul Ryan.  They both came well prepared with their campaign’s talking points, and presented their campaign arguments well.  Their talking points were substantive to a point, but their personalities overshadowed the content of the debate.  We can thank Vice President Biden for his shear arrogance and smirking for making the debate about personalities rather than ideas.

Mr. Biden was the arrogant bastard in the room.  President Bush’s 2004 debates and the 2008 debates are the only debates I’ve really watched (I was too young before 2004).  Compared to those debates, Mr. Biden was the most disrespectful of not only Mr. Ryan, but also the presidential debate process.

If you’re an ardent Obama supporter and a committed leftist, then Mr. Biden probably succeeded in energizing the Obama campaign’s base.  However, he didn’t say anything in his responses, and he continued Obama’s lies about the Romney-Ryan plans.  Mr. Biden’s shear arrogance turned independents off Mr. Obama.  In the long run, the rudeness that Mr. Biden displayed at Thursday night’s debate did the Obama campaign a disservice and might have cost Mr. Obama his re-election.

Mr. Ryan was the respected gentleman leader at the table.  I would have liked to see Mr. Ryan explain economic freedom and Conservative political philosophy better and more forcefully, but he did talk to the American people as adults in a respectful way.  Mr. Ryan did not have a knockout victory because he too didn’t say much of anything that could excite the American people to support the Romney-Ryan vision.

Paul Ryan was the winner of the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night.  The polls that have come out afterwards seem to show a Romney-Ryan VP debate bounce.  There wasn’t much of a bounce to be a huge campaign success for Romney-Ryan, but enough of one to show that Mr. Ryan won the debate.  However, Mr. Ryan didn’t win because of anything that he said in the debate.  He won because Mr. Biden was the arrogant bastard.  The American people want to be treated like adults and be given real plans that address our nation’s real problems.  When a candidate is rude and arrogant, then the American people are going to stop listening to you and move towards your opponent.

Tomorrow is the second presidential debate.  It’s format is going to be a townhall-style format where some Americans will get to ask President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney questions directly.  Both candidates need to be able to connect with the audience and by extension the larger American audience.  Angrily attacking each other will definitely hurt their campaigns.

Based on what President Obama said in their first debate it’ll be clear that all it has is to continue to lie about the Romney-Ryan vision and hope the American people will eventually believe it to be true.  He can’t run on his failed record or he’ll most definitely lose his re-election chances.  Governor Romney needs to continue to be bold, respectful, and he needs not to let President Obama get away with lying about the Romney-Ryan vision for America.

The American people deserve presidential candidates that are bold in how they will solve America’s problems.  We don’t need politicians who will sugar coat our nation’s problems and offer up timid policies that won’t change a thing.  We are looking for serious leaders and serious problem-solvers.  The American people also want candidates and leaders to be respectful of each other even though they will disagree on policy directions.  We have seen too many politicians lie about their opponent’s positions just because they want to remain in power; therefore, Governor Romney shouldn’t allow President Obama continue to lie about the Romney-Ryan vision for America.

Big Bird, PBS, and Big Spending Keynesians

Those of us who come from the Austrian school of economic thought want to cut federal government spending and balance the budget wherever we need to cut.  We believe that there are limited Constitutional roles for the federal government that we except spending money on, but we believe in cutting and eliminating spending on programs that were never the federal government’s responsibility.  The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is one of those programs where the federal government should not be involved in.

Last night, LeVar Burton was on Bill O’Reilly’s “O’Reilly Factor” making the case that those of us who want to cut funding to PBS don’t get the broader problem, which is the education of the next generation.  Let me be very clearly, I like Mr. Burton.  I grew up watching Reading Rainbow, and reruns of Star Trek.  He seems like one of the nicest people, but he’s the one who doesn’t get it.

Let me try to put it as plainly as possible so that Mr. Burton might be able to understand the real problem.  WE’RE BROKE!  We don’t have the money to spend on programs like PBS.  We don’t even have 10 dollars to spend on PBS.  We’re borrowing money to spend money.  How is that sustainable?

All you Keynesians who say the federal funding that PBS receives are a drop in the bucket compared to our largest deficit problems.  That may be true, but every little bit that we can cut matters.  Except for big entitlement programs that are funded on autopilot, and not through the normal budgetary process, most of the federal government’s spending when looked at individually is a drop in the bucket.  However, if we look at all of the spending as a whole, then it adds up to a significant cost to the taxpayer.

Mr. Burton is correct to draw attention to educating the next generation.  My question is why isn’t he and others like him collaborating to do it themselves?  Why aren’t parents stepping up?  Why do they need the federal government to take on the responsibility of what used to be the responsibility of the parents?  The Founding Fathers formed a Constitutional Republic that would be limited to the defense and protection of the rights to life, liberty, and property foreign and domestic.  Education is not one of those responsibilities.

The best solution that improves education in America, and keeps federal government spending limited to its Constitutional responsibilities is school choice.  School choice puts education back into the hands of state and local authorities, and parents because people closest to an issue are generally best suited to address problems.  School choice also allows the federal government to focus on balancing the federal budget, eliminating unnecessary and unconstitutional responsibilities, and focusing on a limited list of duties like protecting and defending America.

When we have a stagnating economy, trillion dollar deficits per year, and a 16 trillion dollar national debt that exceeds our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), there should only be two priorities of the federal government.  Our leaders should first be focused on getting America working again by replacing the current tax code, and streamlining and eliminating unnecessary burdensome business regulations.  Their other priority should be paying off our debt, balancing the federal budget, and eliminating unconstitutional programs and agencies.  When will America be the land of opportunity and freedom again?

What Paul Ryan Needs to Do

Today is the vice presidential debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden.  Considering that the Vice President isn’t the leader of the free world, this debate isn’t as important as the presidential debates.  However, they can help the candidates explain how each ticket would handle the issues if elected.  It’s a way to tie the ticket to one vision.  The GOP establishment is probably quaking in their boots about how well Mr. Ryan will do because of how opposed they were to Mitt Romney choosing Paul Ryan to be his running mate.

The mainstream media would probably love it for the man who would supposedly have the experience (Joe Biden) to wipe the floor with Mr. Ryan in this debate.  Now that there are polls showing that Romney-Ryan have taken the lead, tonight is Obama-Biden’s chance to jump-start their campaign.  For the Romney-Ryan campaign, this vice presidential debate is important because it will tell the American people that a Romney-Ryan Administration will continue to offer bold solutions to this nation’s real problems.

The first obvious thing Mr. Ryan has to do is look Presidential and come across as someone who would be ready to assume the duties of President if something were to happen to Mr. Romney.  If America elects a new President, will we be electing a Presidential ticket?  Of all that Mr. Ryan has to do in tonight’s debate, I think appearing that he would be ready to become President will be the hard part because this is his first national campaign and first national debate.  Don’t get me wrong, he will shine in this debate and will probably come across as more Presidential than Mr. Romney.

Mr. Ryan will also need to continue to make the election a clear choice between an opportunity vision for America and a dependent-on-the-government vision for America.  Mr. Ryan won’t have trouble making this distinction.  He has always been very good at talking directly to the American people and making the moral case for big reforms.  Paul Ryan is the 21^st century’s Jack Kemp.

He needs to talk directly to the American people when he’s making the moral case for new leadership and bold reforms for America.  If he “attacks” Obama-Biden, he needs to do it forcefully and looking at Biden.  However, he needs to not come across as angry, or the content of the “attacks” won’t be heard.  Mr. Romney was able to get under Mr. Obama’s skin in their first debate, Mr. Ryan needs to do the same with Mr. Biden.  The Romney-Ryan vision for America needs to be the main topic of the debate because people already know Obama-Biden is a failure.

Make this debate be a conversation between the candidates, not about the moderator.  After the questions are asked, Mr. Ryan needs to pretend there is no moderator.  Tonight there is only himself, Mr. Biden, and the American people watching.

Above all else, Mr. Ryan needs to show he has a command of the facts in tonight’s vice presidential debate.  The establishment hates bold Conservative candidates.  Mr. Ryan needs to prove to the establishment that bold Conservative leadership wins elections.  The Vice Presidential debate should be a continuation of passionately distinguishing the Romney-Ryan vision from the Obama-Biden vision, and getting under Obama-Biden’s skin to force Mr. Biden to appear angry.

The Vice Presidential debate is Mr. Ryan’s chance to make the moral case for real reform verses more big government.  Mr. Romney distinguished the two visions in his first debate with Mr. Obama, which has set up Mr. Ryan to make the moral case for the Romney-Ryan vision of opportunity and freedom.  Mr. Ryan needs to be his bold self in this debate and the election will be decided in Romney-Ryan’s favor tonight.  My prediction is that if Paul Ryan can win this Vice Presidential Debate, Romney-Ryan will win the election come November 6.

America Needs to Replace the Current Tax Code, Not Reform It

High taxation under the current system is a problem that stifles economic and job growth in the private sector.  However, just cutting taxes does not solve the fundamental problem.  The real problem is a 73,608-page broken tax system.  The real solution is to replace the current tax system with a completely new system that collects taxes differently, more efficiently, more fair and transparent, and is revenue neutral.  The two best tax replacement solutions that have been developed are Herman Cain’s 999 Plan, and the FairTax Plan.

Herman Cain’s 999 Plan tackles America’s fundamental tax problem: a broken tax code.  The 999 Plan eliminates all forms of taxation under the current system and replaces it with three visible flat tax rates.  A 9 percent flat corporate tax, a 9 percent flat individual tax, and a 9 percent flat retail sales tax.

The 999 Plan also eliminates the capital gains tax, the repatriated profits tax, and the payroll tax.  It will also eliminates all deductions and special interest loopholes.  The 999 Plan is accompanied with a monetary policy that strengthens the U.S. Dollar.

The FairTax Plan eliminates all forms of taxation on income and payroll at the federal level.  It also eliminates taxes on alternative minimum, self-employment, estate, corporate, personal, social security and Medicare, gift, and capital gains.  The FairTax replaces all that it eliminates with one flat retail sales tax at 23 percent on new goods and services with no exemptions to keep the special interests from tinkering with the tax code.  A FairTax system also does not tax you on the basic necessities.

America is yearning for real solutions that solve the real problems.  Herman Cain’s candidacy and 999 Plan was generating enthusiasm because Mr. Cain understood that America wanted leaders who would offer real solutions.  Regardless of what the political and media elite would have us believe, the Tea Party is successful with moving the debate towards solutions because they draw attention to the real problems that America faces.

Lower taxes with a new tax system is the real solution that America needs to generate the economic growth, productivity, and job creation that our country needs.  Reduced spending and a smaller government footprint in our lives will sustain our new economic and tax system under the 999 Plan or the FairTax.

Mitt Romney moves in the right direction with his tax plan because he lowers taxes on all Americans.  However, his plan doesn’t do away with the current tax system, he just tweaks the current system with lower tax rates.  That doesn’t address the real problem.  Barack Obama would let the Bush Tax Cuts expire if it were truly up to him, add new taxes through his new healthcare entitlement, and put government spending on autopilot at full speed.

Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama both would be smart to endorse either Herman Cain’s 999 Plan or the FairTax if they truly want to fix America’s real economic problems.  America’s problems aren’t a Republican or Democrat issue.  It’s an American issue.  Americans should unite around the real solutions that transfer power from Washington back to the people.  Individual economic opportunity, not collective socialism, will get America working again.  Tax replacement with the 999 Plan or the FairTax is the first step to restoring America’s prosperity.

Big and Astonishing News Happened Over the Weekend

Hugo Chavez won his re-election bid for the Venezuelan Presidency.  Is anyone surprised that Chavez won?  He is a socialist dictator that has been controlling more and more of Venezuela’s media.  Of course, he’s also going to move to control the electoral process.  Evil people in power tend not to want to give up their power.  “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a good axiom to remember when dealing with evil dictators and big government.  The real question is if we’re going to try to help countries to either choose freedom, or choose democracy, which countries do we help?

President George W. Bush’s two main countries that his Administration focused on were Afghanistan and Iraq.  Going into Iraq and Afghanistan started out to be battlegrounds in the larger war on terror.  They eventually became projects in helping Iraqi’s and Afghani’s build democracies with free and fair elections.  Our problem in those countries were that we thought they could build new free governments in a year or two, when it took us 13 years to get our Constitutional Republic under the current Constitution.

President Barack Obama chooses countries like Libya and Egypt supposedly to spread democracy for “humanitarian reasons.”  The problem President Obama has created for himself in those countries is that he has supported known Islamic fascist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, as if they’re going to spread freedom for those people.  The Muslim Brotherhood is going to be just as dictatorial as Qaddafi.  They might even be more radically Islamic than Qaddafi.

President Obama seems to be all too eager to go into other countries for “humanitarian reasons” like Egypt and Libya, but won’t help the people in Iran during the green movement or the people in Venezuela against Chavez.  However, Mubarak and Qaddafi, as evil as they were, President Bush’s Administration was able to convince them to help us fight terrorism in the Middle East.

Two of the biggest enemies of President Bush’s Administration were Venezuelan President Chavez and the Iranian President, but it’s the opposition in those two countries President Obama just so happens to seemingly ignore.  Moreover, it’s Mubarak and Qaddafi, who started helping Bush fight terrorism, that President Obama decided to oppose.  Where are President Obama’s true priorities in foreign policy?  It seems to be the exact opposite of President Bush’s policies.

America is the greatest country on earth and we are the only country with the moral integrity to hold the torch of liberty and lead the fight for liberty all around the world.  The increasingly shrinking world and the increasing number of evil leaders in some countries that have desires to destroy other nations is the cause that America must stay involved in the world.  We cannot afford to isolate ourselves.  However, we are an independent and sovereign nation.  We should still prudently base our foreign policy on our own American interests before we get directly involved in some foreign crises.  We should focus on promoting the ideas and principles of freedom, rather than specific forms of government.

International relations are a complex chess game that America is playing for the cause of freedom and liberty.  We don’t just have one enemy in the Middle East.  We have a enemy in the Asia-Pacific region known as China.  Russia threatens our Eastern European allies and us.  Iran is our primary Middle Eastern enemy that could reach all the way down Africa as well.  We also have a Communist enemy in Venezuela by the name of Hugo Chavez in the South American region.  If America isn’t careful, our enemies are going to realize that there isn’t much difference between Communism and Islamic Fascism.  The only difference is that one is secular and the other is religious.  America is the only country right now that is in the position to show strength and clarity in our resolve for peace and freedom against the forces of Secular Communism and Islamic Fascism.