Apparently there is nothing pressing on the European Union these days (no major financial crisis on the horizon, no dangerous threat from terrorists) since they have decided it is time to outlaw children having fun. If you want to see how big-government is an enormous waste of time and money, look no farther than the party pEUpers in Brussels:

The EU toy safety directive, agreed and implemented by Government, states that balloons must not be blown up by unsupervised children under the age of eight, in case they accidentally swallow them and choke.

…

Whistle blowers, that scroll out into a a long coloured paper tongue when sounded – a party favourite at family Christmas meals – are now classed as unsafe for all children under 14.

This is now illegal in Europe:

Amazingly in Europe, their kids and parents are so inept they’ve had to resort to outlawing fun in order to save them from themselves. The scariest part of this is, just as these little tykes are getting a license to blow a party horn, they are less than 2 years away from learning to drive.

The Horror!

What’s next – banning food (the number one source of choking incidents world wide)?

The era of big government HAS TO BE OVER. Or else we are all doomed to have busy-body bureaucrats constantly invading our lives and making sure we do as we are told. It seems 1984 was just a tad late in arriving to chain the human race into its gilded cage.  Or better yet, as Pink Floyd so rightfully queried:

Did you exchange, the walk on part in a war, for a lead role in a cage?

Update: This is disturbing – we apparently have a leader who as turned inward into isolation (and one must consider, depression):

The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist.

…

If the reports are accurate, and I believe they are, they paint a picture of an isolated man trapped in a collapsing presidency. While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports help explain his odd public remarks.

Again, not surprising given how in over his head the man is. Where this leads is really uncharted waters. When a leader collapses like this, the sharks begin to swarm. We may actually need to change leaders earlier than January 2013. – end update.

Apparently my years’ old predictions about the implosion of the Obama and the Democrats are starting to come true. I have made this prediction so many times I have no interest in even trying to find all the instances where our current President stumbled and bumbled his way into the dustbin of history faster even than Jimmy Carter. All incidents point to the same basic core problems Barack Obama had since he began running for the office of POTUS:

• He has no real-world experience at leading or succeeding beyond being a good reciter of tele-prompted political babble. Without some legitimate experience base from industry, medicine, science, the military, or even a political executive job he was/is completely unprepared to lead the greatest nation humankind has ever produced.
• He is a naive lefty who sees the world in a Cartoon-Land prism that simplifies the complexity of life to the level of the absurd. Which means he cannot grasp the real world as it is
• He has no experience in DC politics, which is why he was run over by even farther left ideologues from socialist liberals to socialists unions. Hold hands in DC know how to use the bureaucracy to control neophytes – as has been sadly demonstrated to the hilt with this latest bunch of administration newbies.
• He is isolated inside an echo chamber of sycophants who somehow never alerted the man to the political hole he was digging.

It all started with the failed liberal plan for government, trickle-down, stimulus. A truly naive and ignorant way to waste trillions of dollars and destroy the career opportunities of tens of millions of Americans. Then the lefties went on to destroy our health care system by establishing a Rube Goldberg solution that has bent the cost curve for health care sky high, and set the stage for the Death Panels to come in and now ration what used to be available health care to a very large majority of Americans. Recently he tried to claim all that wasteful spending had to be continued – as if anyone wants more of the same of this economic hell we have been existing in since he came to office. From the 2011 budget to the debt ceiling debate, the man cannot understand why the country is going bankrupt with all his foolish and wasted spending. For him, there never can be enough Solyndra’s wasting money and time in fruitless green fantasy.

His stumbles and missteps will be legendary. So there is no surprise at some of the poll numbers now coming out (and solidifying):

A majority of Americans now oppose giving President Obama a second term, reflecting the country’s continued weak economic performance, according to the latest IBD/TIPP survey released Monday.

By 51%-41%, respondents in October picked “someone new deserves a chance” over Obama “deserves to be re-elected.” Among independents, it was 54%-36%. Back in September, the readings were 50%-44% and 53%-38%, respectively.

54-36 among independents is stunning.

Basic math is brutal here. In 2012, even if the Dems were able to energize their base (and there is little chance of that) and the conservatives sat home in a pouting funk (like 2008, which also has little chance of happening), the independents alone would cause a landslide defeat.

But the reality is the Dems are dispirited, the GOP sees a once in a life time opportunity and the independents have moved en masse in one direction. We could be looking at a election debacle in 2012 that even makes Reagan’s 1984 election landslide look small. Reagan won the popular vote by 59-41 back then. Obama could easily lose by a larger margin the way he is going.

Our young and inexperienced President is now the lamest of ducks. His credibility is shot. His positions have hardened to the far left of the American voter. And he thinks no one is catching onto his little disinformation campaign (heck, even the AP is stunned by his incoherence).

The left is throwing a petulant temper tantrum at Wall Street, which is turning into another incoherent freak show. It did not work in Wisconsin, so I have no clue what double digit IQ genius conceived taking the “Liberal Wailing Show” on the road. But is is adding more weight to finding a mature, experienced leader than salvaging the inexperienced one we are now saddled with.

I think if the nation can just suspend all left wing nonsense that passed in 2009-2010 we could weather the wait to November 2012. It will not be getting better until experienced adult supervision takes over.

And right now that new supervision looks to be in the form of a highly successful African-American Businessman named ‘Cain’.

Tags: Herman Cain, Lame Duck, Obama

It took me a while to sort out my thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve truly reflects my generation, which is why I think so many of us techno-geeks who began our careers when the internet and world wide web were still being conceived feel his passing fairly strongly. But there is also this hesitancy to prop him on a pedestal above all the others.

All of us techno-geeks were embarking on our own unique lives as Reagan was being sworn into office. The personal computer was about to break on the scene, followed by the internet, cell phones, etc. Jobs and Wosniak were like many others (Gates for example) who tooled away in a garage, blazing a non-conformists path around big business (at the time most represented by rigid and slow Big Blue (IBM)). If you want to see why small business is the engine of America’s economy, realize Apple and Microsoft – two of the largest companies in the world with an immense world-wide presence – were only a couple of people throwing stuff together on their own in the early 1980’s. They had shunned big business.

Jobs and Gates are the most recognized of a generation of techno-geeks – some of us still blazing our own paths outside mega-corporate America. They did not achieve their pinnacles of fame in isolation. There are literally millions of people who made these wondrous companies successful. There were all the folks who invented object oriented programming and the concept of SW frameworks – ways to provide standardized solutions to all sorts of details working behind the screens of our ubiquitous communication devices.

Much of what we enjoy today from iTunes to video-on-demand to touch screens was envisioned in the 1980’s. The problem was always bandwidth. After decades of communications companies burying fiber, raising RF towers and launching massive telecommunications satellites the iPad, iPod and iPhone now have the infrastructure behind them to wow us. Without all this bandwidth, Jobs’ vision was never going to arrive.

So Steve Jobs was just one of millions who led this country and humanity to a whole new level of existence. As one of the leaders of that movement I applaud him and bid him a fond farewell. Yet I cannot put him much above all the rest of us who also played major roles (if not anonymous ones) in moving humanity to this new world of instant communication and banter.

We recently became close friends with an older gentlemen and his inspiring wife. He came of age at the dawn of the aviation age. He was born into a lower middle class family but went on to run a multimillion dollar company. Being around planes and flying his own is a major part of who he is.

He and his wife  once communicated their concern about how freely and quickly information flowed in the internet (especially wrong and/or bad information). They rightfully wondered if we as a species could handle it, or would it be used by a few for evil and to imprison us all.

I had a different take, being one whose life was intertwined with the dawn of the internet generation. I saw a progression spanning all of human history. A path towards something most people probably did not expect.

First ships – and then planes for our friends’ time – made the world small enough to visit if you had the time and money. It also led to the transmission of ideas and basic tenants – like democracy. The spread of democratic enlightenment happened because humanity could interact across distances. Along with the migration of people came the migration of humanity’s destiny. From the silk road of China to the transatlantic flights, humanity slowly coalesced around  basic truths. Along the way we fought pockets of socialistic and fascist darkness. But freedom of the individual to explore life and guide us into the future- like Jobs did – still remains a foundation of human existence. At least in America. As I see it, those like my father who fought the dark forces in World War II set the stage for  people like Jobs to do their thing.

What Jobs and Gates and the rest of us brought humanity in the internet age was something amazing. Now humanity’s individual souls are linked nearly instantaneously in a global mesh of binary thought and debate. The 24 hour news cycle is our collective synapses firing on input and producing initial and then lasting conclusions. The true legacy of Jobs is the fact he made very complicated technology accessible and useful to the most non-tech savvy amongst us. We are all tapped into the matrix.

Humanity has been rewired. We now have innumerable strong individuals who connect, interact and create pockets of consensus at a speed never before seen. The global human psyche is still trying to sort all this out. There is still a lot of pendulum swinging going on as we adjust to this new existence. But it will settle down and it will be the first step in an amazing new future. We are the world now.

If light is the force that breaks the chains of oppression, then the internet, with all its various forms of taps into that global conscience, is the laser of freedom. Since the internet the old news media monopolies and DC power trippers have lost control on how the masses deal with today’s issues. They no longer can guide voters with well placed spin and propaganda. They must deal with a much more aware and informed society. They rightfully feel buffeted and in complete reactionary mode.

No small group can control the ebb and flow of the human discussion on the internet. It is like a rampaging ocean with eddies, currents and storms brewing. Like a sailor of old, the true leaders find the stronger, more stable currents, avoid the stormy waters, follow the stars and bring us into a safe port of stability. Jobs was a very key element in this new future, and that is what he should be remembered for. Because he not only had the vision (many of us did), he kept it during tough times and finally, after a lifetime, saw it bear fruit.

To Steve Jobs, one of the true visionaries who led us all at the dawn of the internet age to where we are now.

Tags: Apple, Internet, Microsoft, Steve Jobs

A lot of people thought I may have jumped the gun in declaring President Obama a one term wonder after the debacle that was the debt limit debate, but it was not that hard a call. When the man who won on being the post-partisan hope for change failed for the umpteenth time to really lead as a non-partisan, it became clear Obama’s time was over. Poll numbers out today from many quarters confirm again Obama is heading towards a 2012 defeat.

From Rasmussen, we get the ‘anyone but Obama” result which is a death knell:

Election 2012: Generic Republican 47%, Obama 41%

There are few poll indicators that spell doom. This is one of them, where the incumbent is polling below 45%. That is almost guaranteed to result in a big loss at the election booth.

Even worse, when there is clear and firm resistance to a candidate above the 40% mark:

The “anyone but Obama” crowd is getting larger and more strident in its opinions, while the president’s base is growing less and less strongly supportive of how he is doing his job.

…

Forty-three percent of independents — a group the president spent the better part of the last year courting — strongly disapprove of the job he is doing.

…

To that point: 43 percent of self-identified Democrats said they “strongly” approve of the job Obama is doing, while 74 percent of Republicans strongly disapprove.

“Strongly Disapprove” means lost, not coming back. Gallup has had Obama under water with ‘adults’ for weeks now, many times peaking over 50%. When that transitions to ‘likely voters’ it will be clear President Obama’s days are numbered now.

No wonder. Big Government liberalism has failed. Miserably. The Democrats represent that failure. And Obama is the leader of that failure.

I just keep marveling at how much deeper the Democrats and Liberal Left keep digging their hole with the American voters.

First they screw up the mortgage market by lowering standards for loans, that in turn led to mountains of useless loan paper, which then collapsed the financial markets. This caused home values to tank, wiping out the life savings of tens of millions of Americans. A master stroke of incompetence.

Then the Democrats in 2009-2011 (the budget years they controlled) squandered over $5 trillion in NEW debt with their impotent Keynesian economic fantasy about government trickle down stimulus. A massive debt now owed by those same families who have lost all their life savings, many of which who also lost their jobs as the ripples from the massive liberal social-engineering SNAFU that was the mortgage debacle spread out to the rest of the economy.

The end result is seniors having to go back to work, and taking jobs from the young workers entering the work force. Now we have a new generation in crisis as their careers are put on hold by another master stroke of liberal incompetence. When Obamacare finishes destroying our health care system, we will have three master strokes, and the Dems should be out of office.

But wait, there’s more. Not only did the left fail to create or save jobs, they actually have destroyed many. Obama canceled one of America’s most productive innovation engines out there. In fact, the exploration of space has been one of humankind’s most productive engines of innovation and modern comforts. From computers to modern weather warnings to medicine to uncounted other modern marvels, NASA has made our collective lives immensely better since its inception in the 1960’s. I dare the Departments of Energy and Education to even compare.

But now it is gone:

“We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future,” Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, warned lawmakers at a recent hearing.

The end of the space shuttle era has left America’s human spaceflight program in an “embarrassing” state, Armstrong said, arguing that NASA needs a stronger vision for the future and should focus on returning humans to the Moon and to the International Space Station.

With the US space shuttle program now mothballed after its last flight in July, the United States is forced to depend on Russia’s Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts to the orbiting research laboratory until at least 2015.

Obama canceled the Constellation program that aimed to return humans to the Moon by 2020 and called on NASA to instead focus on new, deep-space capabilities to carry people to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars by 2030.

Let’s be clear here. What Obama did was cancel tens of thousands of existing, world premiere engineering jobs  and replace them with paper studies that can be performed by about 20-40 people sitting around day dreaming, since nothing has to be done for  decade or more.

Neil Armstrong is a true American Hero, braving a completely hostile and unknown environment in a time when we our computers had a fraction of the brain power of a dumb cell phone. He is not a President Zero (as in zero jobs created). More lives hurt. And this has been repeated all through government as naive zealots where given a chance to sandbox.

The irony here is incredible. Just look at the left-wing nut jobs protesting (by the dozens) the fact some people succeed (those who work hard and don’t rely on others for handouts). Now the left has become the party of the petulant loser, it is going to fall like  rock in terms of respect and credibility with all those dedicated, hard working and self sufficient Americans. You know – 70% of the population.

Juxtapose left-wing anarchists calling for the FURTHER demise of the American dream and vision with Harry Reid’s insane priorities in the US Senate. Is it all about jobs, like the left-wing protestors try to claim while they march on Wall Street?

Of course not, it’s about using government to confiscate wealth from successful people:

Senate Republicans tried to make Democrats hold a quick vote on President Obama’s jobs-stimulus bill Tuesday, but were blocked by Senate Majority Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is sponsoring Mr. Obama’s bill but who said other matters take priority.

Yeah. lining your cronies pockets with loans the tax payer has to repay when you screw up (in other words, free money) like we see with Solyndra is always going to come before silly ‘ol jobs.

The left is completely coming apart. They are incoherent and a vicious (when you call for anyone holding more than a certain amount of money to be beheaded, you need to seek therapy). And they keep digging in deeper with Main Street America, who are the ones who always foot the bill for crooked and incompetent politicians in DC.

This is not lost on anyone outside the echo chamber of DC.

As the end of Hope & Change looms upon the electoral horizon, and as it begins to dawn on the liberal malcontents who now control the Democrat party that their days in ascension are numbered, the left has a few more immature temper tantrums to go through as they march to defeat in 2012.

Take for instance the latest nonsense babbled by Roseanne Barr regarding the financially successful in our country:

“I do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty.

“I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn’t help, then being beheaded,” Barr said with a straight face.

How quaint. Apparently her hideous, simpleton persona is not just skin deep. She is more like a Nazi drooling at the idea of rounding up the rich, incarcerating them in concentration camps and killing those who do not bow down to her ugliness. I am sadly old enough to remember that the primary crime against the Jews in the holocaust was the fact they were making money while most Germans suffered after World War I. Clearly Roseanne has found her inner Goebbels.

So to be rich and successful in America is now a crime punishable by death? Please, get this moron a microphone and a prime time show on MSNBC.

Contrast this nonsense with the left’s comments about cop-killers being sentenced to death. First there was Mumia Abu-Jamal, darling of the lefty insane. Then there was Troy Davis and the ugly response from a now rabid left, barely maintaining self control.

Apparently killing America’s financially successful is OK, but executing cop-killers is not. By most normal measurements, this is borderline insane.

Even Harry Reid, who sees his days as Leader coming to an end, as gone mad. He wants to tax America before we even contemplate any jobs programs. After 2 years of rampant overspending and mountains of debt, the liberal solution is NOT to keep spending in line with what we can afford, but to further bankrupt and already burdened economy. That will clearly extend the economic pain even longer. All to fund more Solyndra’s and keep crony liberals cash fat.

From the protest at Wall Street, to the denial of the corruption now consuming the the Obama administration, the left is being consumed by its unique combination of arrogance and ignorance. Like trapped animals they want to rampage and lash out as they realize they messed up and the majority of people are rejecting their nonsense. This is their plan to win election in 2012.

It is about as intelligent and well thought out as all their other crazy schemes.

There is  huge gap between tolerating bizarre – and succumbing to bizarre. The left has been tolerated and listened to and given a chance. They blew it. So they now need to step down (with some humility for screwing up so badly, but let’s not hold our breathe) and let others give it their best shot. But that inner petulant and vicious child that haunts them is now  diverting them from any hope of a mature response to the changed political climate. The more they lash out, the longer their sentence will be in the political wilderness. But they don’t care – they are upset!

It will be generations before the stories of how the liberal left destroyed successful and growing modern economies, and then went on a rampage when people tried to fix the damage. Like all lessons, this one will be learned and held close for decades to come.

Update: Mark Steyn begins to illustrate the new image of the liberal left:

To a fool such as your average talk-radio host, His Majesty [President Obama] appears to be a man of minimal accomplishments other than self-promotion marinated in a radical faculty-lounge view of the world and the role of government. But, to a wise man such as your average presidential historian or New York Times columnist, he is the smartest guy ever to become president.

As Steyn points out, the outcome of an Obama administration was never in doubt:

You handed a multitrillion-dollar economy to a community organizer and you’re surprised that it led to more taxes, more bureaucracy, more regulation, more barnacles on an already rusting hulk?

But now that we know better we will not repeat the mistake. Full me once, shame on you. Full me twice, then shame on me.

Did an American president just assassinate a US Citizen without any due process, without any court case or verdict of guilty?

While the death of a blood thirsty Islamo Fascist is on par with the death of a blood thirsty Nazi who slaughtered innocent Jews in a concentration camp, the fact is Nazi mass murderers still received due process – even during the war.

Not so for American citizen, turned rabid Islamist cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki:

The US-born radical Islamist cleric and suspected al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed in Yemen, the country’s defence ministry reported.

Unnamed US administration officials confirmed the reports.

Awlaki, of Yemeni descent, has been on the run in Yemen since December 2007.

The US had named him a “specially designated global terrorist” for his alleged role in a number of attacks and US President Barack Obama is said to have personally ordered his killing.

al–Awlaki was a key player in the Ft. Hood Massacre, 9-11 and other failed attacks in the US. But what we never got with this thug was a trial and a guilty verdict.  And that is where this administration went way beyond the rule of law – especially when compared to the reserve shown by President Bush, the other post 9-11 president.

President Bush learned that stupid bureaucrat rules (not laws, just rules) had drifted so far towards clear cut easy (which means bureaucrats don’t have to make hard calls, they have simpleton check-off lists to cover their arses) that legitimate threats identified and tracked from outside this country could not be followed when terrorists entered into this country. When Bush discovered this to be true, he did something about it.

It was not the fantasized snooping paranoid liberals moaned about for years while Congresses and Courts passed and authorized Bush’s changes. What Bush said was if anyone was detected communicating with KNOWN terrorists, then law enforcement could be alerted and assess the risk of that person. It was under court review and monitoring, and only 2-3 people in Justice had the authority to allow it to happen. They also had to show just cause in the FISA court as well.

Obama and Holder decided this was too much, and put back a lot of those barriers when they came to office – which is why we ended with The Ft Hood massacre and nearly successful Christmas Day Bomber.

But now contrast the left’s over reaction to making sure people in contact with known and monitored terrorists are assessed for their risk to America and Americans, and this assassination of a US Citizen who – as far as we know – was never tried in a court of law. The same court of law this administration wants to bring GITMO detainees to for their day in court. Apparently al-Awlaki’s constitutional rights were unceremoniously removed by this president.

I will never shed a tear for al-Awlaki, but I will note that this may be (and hopefully is) the first time a US President has suspended the constitution and assassinated a US Citizen who was still presumed innocent. And that disturbs me. Even under Bush’s surveillance changes, he himself could never order the suspension of rights. And all the way through the burden of proof was on the administration, and the end result of surveillance was court, not a pine box.

We are on a deadly and steep slippery slope.

Update: The rare instance where AJStrata and uber-liberal Glenn Greewald agree.

Tags: al-Awlaki, assassinate, Obama, War On Terror, Yemen

Competent: Having sufficient skill [1], knowledge [2], ability [3] or qualifications [4]

The concept of being competent (versus incompetent) has been lost on career politicians and bureaucrats. To them competence is optional (or maybe even coincidental). All that matters is power – i.e., how many people do your bidding, how much money are you controlling (note I did not say managing well). In the bloated federal bureaucracy power is all consuming, results mean nothing. Therefore a measure of a person is not their competence (as seen in the quality of their results and measure of success). It is simply how much power they get to mess around with.

Just look at the man-made Global Warming nonsense, for example:

He [Lord Turner] was quite good on the uncertainties in the science, going through the a series of scientific steps emphasising that we knew little about this one, this one was very unclear, there were huge uncertainties in this area and so on. He went on to describe how, based on this uncertain science, he and his colleagues had formulated a global plan for reducing greenhouse gases. This struck me as a little foolish, not to say rather hubristic.

And this is from a warming alarmist! It does not matter how shaky or uncertain the actual data is – all that counts is somehow green messiahs get their hands on as much power as possible.

However, while the concept of competence is all but forgotten in DC, the federal bureaucracy, the UN and all other halls of governing gone mad – it is still the standard measuring stick everywhere else. If you take your car to the shop for repairs, and the repairs fail, you don’t go back for more poor service. If you go to a doctor to get healed and instead become sicker, you don’t continue to go back for more poor treatments. If you buy food and it is rotten and foul, you don’t keep shopping at the rot shop.

No, once a product or service is deemed defective all trust is gone and people no longer look to that brand for anything else. Nothing.

And so, after the liberals in DC failed to fix the economy with their stimulus bill, while Obamacare raises the price of health care many times above wage increases, while government programs continue to fail at all levels, America has decided the government is no longer competent.

Proof 1:

Seventy-seven percent [77%] of people questioned say they trust the federal government only some of the time, and an additional eight percent [8%] volunteer that they never trust the government to do what’s right. [Total 85%]

Proof 2:

President Obama faces head winds from independents, an important voting bloc for re-election in 2012. Many of them think well of him personally [74%], but they are disenchanted. They don’t like his policies [64%], and they see him as inexperienced.

Proof 3:

A majority (57%) of Americans believe the federal government today has too much power.

Half of Americans say there is too much government regulation of business and industry, by one percentage point the highest in Gallup’s history of asking this question, dating to 1993.

There is a sea change in politics crystallizing in the electorate. One in opposition to big-government and government based solutions. It is no wonder that Democrats are now playing with the idea of suspending democracy, because they cannot face the fact their approach to society is being rejected by the masses in ever growing numbers. But that is the way of all failures – they are never intentional, and there are always die hard types who slip into deep denial and never accept their failure.

The party of big government is seriously on the wrong side of history, primarily because they failed miserably on so many fronts I cannot think of a single real, measurable success the left has had in over  decade. The numbers of poor have not been lowered, the number on food stamps has increased, the number unemployed has increased, the number of foreclosures and shuttered business is still rising.

They have increased their fundraising levels, and in 2008 held the most seats of power. But that did nothing for America, and Americans know it.

Tags: 2012 Election, Economy, Independents, Obamacare, Unemployment

One thing Obama and the Democrats cannot blame on President Bush is the cost and quality of health care. There may be confusion on who brought about the economic implosion (accept amongst those of us who know it was the loosening of mortgage requirements by liberals which collapsed the loan reselling). But there is no doubt whose name is now attached to health care.

President Obama.

And even though health care costs are more dynamic than any government program can control, President Obama and the Democrats made promises to America when they crammed their socialist nonsense down our throats against our wishes. As many have noted, the spark that ignited the voter backlash against the left that we have seen since the fall of 2009 was Obamacare.

As with the Democrats’ Keynesian nonsense with the stimulus bill and its promises of a better economy, Obamacare’s promise of lowered health care has turned out to be another false hope no one can believe in anymore:

The cost of health insurance has surged in the US this year, according to a survey of employers, dealing a blow to claims by the Obama administration that healthcare legislation introduced last year would curb costs.Insurance premiums for family health benefits in 2011 jumped 9 per cent from a year ago to $15,073, according to a study released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That represented a sharp acceleration from 2010, when premiums rose by a modest 3 per cent, and easily outpaced a 2 per cent rise in wages.

Wages have shrunk during the prolonged recession, but Obamacare has increased costs so much that the net result is much, much worse for families. If a 3% rise in 2010 outpaced earnings, then the current 9% rise is killing America’s family budgets. Is it any wonder?

First off, Obamacare expands coverage to those who cannot afford it – which means everyone else pays more to fill the gap. Then, Obamacare adds lots of procedures as standard, making it impossible to tailor plans to meet budgets. A myriad of new regulations are adding significant paperwork overhead and, finally, taxes were levied on elements of the health care and medical market to raise money.

What fools did not think adding people, eliminating tailored and slimmed down plans, adding taxes and adding regulatory overhead was going to reduce costs! Come on people – stop day dreaming.

And this is all with massive waivers in place for a few thousand companies representing tens of thousands of employees. Waivers set to end soon.

Obamacare’s costs are not something Dems can spin or point blame away from. Along with everything else going on, Obama’s naive reliance on foolish liberal fantasies about big-government solutions has produced his current political situation.

What this means is right now, based on the data of a respected Democratic pollster, Democrats would — if the election were held today — suffer a wipeout that makes what happened to them in 2010 look like a walk in the park. And things are likely to get worse, not better, as the months roll on.

He was so smitten by liberal policies that it never dawned on him that if they all failed – which they have – he and the left would be marked as failure in perpetuity.

Tags: 2012 elections, Costs, Obamacare

The news media is either way too lazy, way too gullible, way too partisan – or all of the above.

The news out today is that all the bogus scare mongering about an inevitable government shutdown because Dems could not find offsetting cuts to cover FEMA’s disaster relief needs turns out to be all BS. We just got a big ‘never mind’, without even an apology or heads rolling for the false alarm:

After weeks of political brinkmanship in Congress, the threat of a partial government shutdown appeared to ease Monday with the disclosure that money to aid victims of natural disasters may last through the end of the budget year after all.

Good lord. How deep is the incompetence in government these days. I have seen the quality of management and execution completely deteriorate in some areas of my federal contracting world, but it seems what I thought were isolated screw ups were actually warning signs of a disastrous cancer spreading throughout the federal bureaucracy.

If the news media was actually doing its job investigating instead of simply being a repeater of political propaganda and spin, they would be questioning how the US Senate HAD NO DAMN CLUE how much money FEMA had on hand!

The revised estimate suggested there would be no interruption in assistance in areas battered by disasters such as Hurricane Irene and last summer’s tornados in Joplin, Mo., …

Was this a lie from the administration to fool the political rubes into hating the evil GOP penny pinchers?

Dems have to understand why America is rejecting their high drama incompetence. We are so fed up with them trying to be the world’s savior when they are truly and really not up to the job. But then to go out and create emergencies out of thin air (when there is plenty of money being wasted in the government every damn day to probably feed the world)?

I have a better plan – close EPA, the Department of Education and the Department of Energy and there is your disaster relief money. It will be a double savings. Disaster relief will flow to those in need AND the economic disasters that emanate from these organizations will be averted.

Message to GOP – stop being so cautious, and start investigating these lies.