Reflections From a Murky Pond

A sign reading “Welcome to Obamaville, Colorado’s Fastest Growing Community” appeared at a homeless tent city in Colorado Springs this week, but you probably didn’t know that since the Mainstream Media (MSM) didn’t choose to report it.

Welcome to Obamaville, Colorado’s Fastest Growing Community

By contrast, when word got out in March of a tent city in Sacramento, California, news media couldn’t get enough of the story and very quickly named it and others like it “Bushvilles.”

With the exception of Fox News – no great champions of journalism themselves, though better than the rest if you ignore Beck, Hannity, and O’Reilly – the MSM is too tied up in sucking up to President Obama to report the news. There is no question that this is the case. The only question that remains is what are Americans to do about it?

What, hopefully brutal and final, solution can Americans find for the MSM Question?

Just about everyone knows that President Obama was, back in the 1980’s, one of the myrmidons of the criminal organization, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and that they in turn later used any and all methods at their disposal to ensure his installation as a US Senator and then President.

It should not be a shock to anyone that President Obama would continue to support ACORN.

However, serving chocolate ACORN cookies at the December7, 2009, White House Christmas party might have been going a bit too far given the level of partisan controversy surrounding whether or not to protect America from ACORN by curtailing their use of American’s tax dollars to further their evil pursuits.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Doesn’t Find ACORN Cookie Very Sweet

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who has been leading America’s defense against ACORN, was certainly less than totally pleased by being served a chocolate ACORN cookie and a White House function. The Congressman didn’t expect to “see such stark symbolism” being shown at that sort of event.

Whose Crumby Idea Was It?

😆 The pun is very much intended. But with a bit more seriousness, who is to blame for the Cookie Monster? Who chose to either show solidarity with ACORN or didn’t recognize that a cookie in the shape of an acorn would taken as a sign of such solidarity? Is Obama to blame?

If one is to blame President Barack Obama for the ACORN cookie, one would have to believe that the President of the United States got personally involved in choosing the pastries and confections served at the 2009 White House Christmas party. Since President Obama is more than a little busy accepting farcical foreign awards and maintaining his 2012 Presidential campaign, I find the idea that he personally chose or approved the party’s cookie selection doubtful in the extreme.

No; if one is looking to blame an Obama for the ACORN cookie, one must look not to the President but to the distaff, First Lady Michelle Obama.  Assuming the Michelle Obama is fulfilling the core duties of the First Lady, she would have been the Obama would have been likely to have chosen or approved the oddly controversial cookie.

The position of the First Lady is not an elected one, carries no official duties, and receives no salary. Nonetheless, first ladies have held a highly visible position in US government. The role of the first lady has evolved over the centuries. She is, first and foremost, the hostess of the White House. She organizes and attends official ceremonies and functions of state either along with, or in place of, the President.

— Wikipedia
Role of the First Lady

Would the First Lady, Michelle Obama deliberately choose or approve of such a “stark symbolism” of continued support for her husband’s old cronies? It probable that she would. ACORN’s racial demographic and racist agenda match up closer to Michelle Obama’s public statements than they do Barack Obama’s. However, would isn’t did and I find it rather doubtful, with the size of the current First Lady’s retinue, that Michelle Obama got that personally involved in planning the function.

Of course then we’d have to ask if there was a racist  message contained in the fact that it was a chocolate cookie. That sounds like a rough and largely pointless road to plow to me.

Most likely the ACORN cookie is actually just an acorn cookie and was chosen – I’m guessing among other shapes and types offered – by some White House baker who has as much political agenda and/or savvy as one might expect such a person to have, i.e.,  little to none.

It’s A Fucking Cookie!

Is it plausible that someone within President Obama’s administration used a chocolate cookie shaped like a stylized acorn as a “coded message” or “dog-whistle” for their continued support of the criminal organization, ACORN? Certainly it’s plausible; Obama himself, along with his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs and his Senior Advisor for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, Valerie Jarrett are all very well-schooled in such techniques and tactics.

Indeed, it’s possible that this was even more subtle than a case of “dog-whistle” politics. The chocolate ACORN cookie could have been an attempt at psychological engineering and manipulation by providing Senators and Congressmen a positive sensory experience involving the ACORN logo during the current controversy surrounding the group.

Both scenarios are respectively plausible and possible – but does anyone who is not oversensitized to the issue of ACORN really believe either of these ideas is what actually happened?

For Cernunnos’ sake! We’ve created “Beergate” and now we’ve found a “Cookie Monster.” Keep your hands off my baked goods, you damned, dirty politicians!.

In an long and rancorous interview with Slate the Heirophant of Global Warming, Al Gore, was less than pleased to be asked about the Medieval Warm Period and the Climate Research Unit’s (CRU)  falsification of data to hide or refute its existence.

I haven’t read those e-mails in detail, but the larger point is that there are cyclical changes in the climate and they are fairly well-understood, and all of them are included in the scientific consensus. When you look at what has happened over the last few decades the natural fluctuations point in the opposite direction of what has actually occurred. When they run the models and plug in the man-made pollution, the correspondence is exact. Beyond that, the scale of natural fluctuations has now been far exceeded by the impact of man-made global warming.

And again, we’re putting 90 million tons of it into the air today and we’ll put a little more of that up there tomorrow. The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God’s sakes. It’s not some mystery. One hundred and fifty years ago this year, John Tyndall discovered CO2 traps heat, and that was the same year the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania. The oil industry has outpaced the building of a public consensus of the implications of climate science.

But the basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!—physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn’t trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it? The scientists have long held that the evidence in their considered word is “unequivocal,” which has been endorsed by every national academy of science in every major country in the entire world.

— Al Gore
Slate interview, December 8, 2009

Mr. Gore does have one thing right – the basic facts are incontrovertible. Sadly for him and his cultists, however, those incontrovertible facts do not support his wild claims.

The fact in question is that there is conflicting evidence on the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. While nobody with any grounding in science would dispute John Tyndall’s basic findings, the levels of CO2 necessary to cause Global Warming are still quite in doubt due to the paleo record.

The Ordovician Ice Age

The Ordovician ice age happened 450 million years ago, and lasted a “mere” 300 – 500 thousand years (0.3 – 0.5 million years) but was apparent very bitter. It is generally credited with causing the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, the third largest of the five major extinction events in Earth’s history in terms of percentage of genera that died off and second largest in the overall loss of life.

Yet, according to Al Gore and his cultists, the Warmists, the Ordovician ice age and resulting mass extinction should not have happened since it was “scientifically impossible.” This is because during the Late Ordovician period, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are believed to have been 8 – 20 times (3120 – 7800 ppm) what we have now (390 ppm). Yet, for some reason or reasons,  the Earth went into a devastating ice age.

To this date scientists have not even a beginning of a consensus as to how the Ordovician ice age happened or what caused it.

What In The Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?

Mr. Gore demands to know, “what in the hell do they think is causing it?”

The answer is of course – assuming that we should in the light of the shoddy work, fraud, and academic corruption even begin to trust the data saying that it is happening in the first place – that we don’t know and neither do you and your cultists!

Maybe someone should try to objectively find out instead of taking actions based upon agenda-driven fraud and blind faith.

Over the last year – especially during the 2008 Presidential Elections – I’ve gotten weary of analyzing, normalizing, and aggregating disparate opinion polls in order to derive some semblance of accurate numbers. Fortunately none of us has to do that anymore on a regular basis. Pollster.com, by The National Journal, actually aggregates the results of all the major polls and surveys and presents them in a combined view that includes composite results and individual poll results.

I’ve decided to – in the wake of the recent flurry of articles about President Obama’s historical low approval rating – to start with that. Below is the aggregated national approval rating for President Obama. It’s an embedded flash application and so should reflect the most current polls and ratings at any given time.

President Obama’s Overall Approval Rating

President Obama’s Aggregated Overall Approval Rating

To provide a better break-down of the support for- and approval of President Obama I’ve also included three (3) separate limited polls: one showing Democrat approval of President Obama, one showing Republican approval of President Obama, and one showing Independent approval of President Obama.

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Democrats

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Democrats

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Republicans

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Republicans

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Independents

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Independents

I hope everyone finds these aggregated poll results of President Obama’s approval rating useful. I believe that they show a better picture of the real situation than any one poll would do.

To me it seems inevitable that Obama’s tenure as President will be seen as a failure. There’s still some chance that he’ll be reelected in 2012, but, should that come to pass, it will be more due to a possible lack of viable GOP candidate than any great support for President Obama.

Frankly I think that just about anyone who got elected as POTUS in 2008 was going to end up being seen as a failure. America has troubles for which there are no perfect or pain-free solutions.

What’s both somewhat odd and also very scary for America’s future is that it is not the Right, the Conservatives, who will ensure that President Obama is considered a failure; it’s the Left, the Liberals and the “Progressives” that will ensure such fate comes to pass.

I’ve noticed this trend, but this one singular post by a random blogger, july7nyc, in response to this screed at HuffPo summed up the situation perfectly and eloquently.

I admit, I got caught up in the hype. I believed, hoped. And I voted. He’s a great speaker- I’ll give him that. I expected Obama to come in blazing- even Bush didn’t seem to have a problem getting his agenda passed.

I never anticipated the resistance from other Democrats! His lack of leadership on health care has infuriated me. Why he didn’t meet with all the Dems and pointedly say, “Look, here is what we’re going to do with health care. You are going to back it up and vote for it and we are going to pass it and if you have a problem, you suck it up because you were elected to represent the people and the people want health care reform. If you give me a problem, I will make your life very difficult, but if we do this, you will reap the benefits.”

There should not have been this lengthy, drawn-out time for “debate” and town halls and letting the Republicans lie and mislead and sour positive reform. The fact that even if this pathetic excuse for a health care bill passes, it is so watered down and worthless, it can only make things worse, further demonstrates what can happen when you allow the very industry you’re trying to reform, have center stage.

I am changing to Independent and I don’t even know what that fully means, but I do know I cannot align myself with a party of failures any longer.

It seems that many – july7nyc was just the one whose post resonated the most –  on the Left feel the same way as President Obama’s Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison, Valerie Jarrett, made it clear how she felt when Obama was first elected President.

However, given the daunting challenges that we face, it’s important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.

— Valerie Jarrett
November 9th Meet The Press Interview

“Take power and rule” seems to be what many Liberals wanted Obama to do. Despite their very vocal and strident hatred of President Bush’s supposedly autocratic manner and his “Imperial Presidency,” the Liberals sound like they both wanted and expected President Obama to behave in exactly the same manner – only with an agenda that the Left favored.

The Left wanted and expected President Obama to truly lead his Liberals in Congress to enact a punitive regime and ram the Liberal agenda down America’s throats, irrespective of the fact that it is not the POTUS’ place to lead Congress. Bipartisanship, except possibly President Obama’s “interestingly” realpolitik definition of it, was not to be tolerated.

But President Obama is failing them. For good or ill his preference for rhetoric over action and the softer forms of coercion over direct exercise of power is as prevalent in his domestic policy as it is in his foreign policy. Obama is just unwilling to be the leader that the Liberals wanted and thought that they were getting.

More and more I’m sure that they will make him pay heavily and painfully for his great sin of disappointing them. That, more than anything from the Right, is why Obama will fail.