Obama, freed from the shackles of having to run for re-election, and with the memory of the 2010 midterm elections receding into the background, is ready to go full stream ahead with the path of progressivism.
by Charles Krauthammer
The media herd is stunned to discover that Barack Obama is a man of the left. After 699 teleprompted presidential speeches, the commentariat was apparently still oblivious. Until Monday’s inaugural address, that is.
Where has everyone been these four years? The only surprise is that Obama chose his second inaugural, generally an occasion for “malice toward none” ecumenism, to unveil so uncompromising a left-liberal manifesto.
But the substance was no surprise. After all, Obama had unveiled his transformational agenda in his first address to Congress, four years ago (Feb. 24, 2009). [.......]
Nor was it mere talk. Obama went on to essentially nationalize health care, 18 percent of the U.S. economy — after passing an $833 billion stimulus that precipitated an unprecedented expansion of government spending. By the White House’s own reckoning, Washington now spends 24 percent of GDP, fully one-fifth higher than the postwar norm of 20 percent.
Obama’s ambitions were derailed by the 2010 midterm shellacking that cost him the House. But now that he’s won again, the revolution is back, as announced in Monday’s inaugural address.
It was a paean to big government. At its heart was Obama’s pledge to (1) defend unyieldingly the 20th-century welfare state and (2) expand it unrelentingly for the 21st.
The first part of that agenda — clinging zealously to the increasingly obsolete structures of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — is the very definition of reactionary liberalism. Social Security was created when life expectancy was 62. Medicare was created when modern medical technology was in its infancy. Today’s radically different demographics and technology have rendered these programs, as structured, unsustainable. Everyone knows that, unless reformed, they will swallow up the rest of the budget.
As for the second part — enlargement — Obama had already begun that in his first term with Obamacare. Monday’s inaugural address reinstated yet another grand Obama project — healing the planet. It promised a state-created green-energy sector, massively subsidized (even as the state’s regulatory apparatus systematically squeezes fossil fuels, killing coal today, shale gas tomorrow).
The playbook is well known. As Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus once explained, environmentalism is the successor to failed socialism as justification for all-pervasive rule by a politburo of experts. Only now, it acts in the name of not the proletariat but the planet.
Monday’s address also served to disabuse the fantasists of any Obama interest in fiscal reform or debt reduction. This speech was spectacularly devoid of any acknowledgment of the central threat to the postindustrial democracies (as already seen in Europe) — the crisis of an increasingly insolvent entitlement state.
On the contrary. Obama is the apostle of the ever-expanding state. His speech was an ode to the collectivity. [......]
For Obama, nothing lies between citizen and state. It is a desert, within which the isolated citizen finds protection only in the shadow of Leviathan. Put another way, this speech is the perfect homily for the marriage of Julia — the Obama campaign’s atomized citizen, coddled from cradle to grave — and the state.
In the eye of history, Obama’s second inaugural is a direct response to Ronald Reagan’s first. On Jan. 20, 1981, Reagan had proclaimed: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” And then succeeded in bending the national consensus to his ideology — as confirmed 15 years later when the next Democratic president declared “The era of big government is over.” So said Bill Clinton, who then proceeded to abolish welfare.
[.......]
Obama said in 2008 that Reagan “changed the trajectory of America” in a way that Clinton did not. He meant that Reagan had transformed the political zeitgeist, while Clinton accepted and thus validated the new Reaganite norm.
Not Obama. His mission is to redeem and resurrect the 50-year pre-Reagan liberal ascendancy. Accordingly, his second inaugural address, ideologically unapologetic and aggressive, is his historical marker, his self-proclamation as the Reagan of the left. If he succeeds in these next four years, he will have earned the title.
Read the rest – Obama unbound
Tags: Charles Krauthammer
Obama’s a hard core liberal -- now that’s shocking news!
This is what happens when you have a One Party state. The Democrats have an iron grip and believe in winning at all costs. The GOP is torn between a paraplegic Establishment and a stubborn Base.
This is what the American voting public both Left and Right public wants, they can’t complain about this.
It’s the cycle of politics and will probably auto correct once Democrats overreach and the GOP Establishment grows a spine and the GOP Base gets tired of losing. Till then, we are a Dictatorship!
Speranza wrote:
He can be, he does not have serious opposition. See my #2.
If he succeeds over the next four years, America is doomed. Entitlements will devour the budget (if we pass budgets anymore), and we can’t continue borrowing a trillion dollars a year indefinately.
This is bad.
GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss to retire from Congress
This is Georgia, so hopefully the GOP can get a winnable candidate. But seeing recent results, they probably will blow it by having some Establishment loser like Tommy Thompson or some loon like Todd Akins.
O/T message for admins:
Y’all need to update your blogroll.
Gates of Vienna is now at http://gatesofvienna.net.
I think you have some other links on the list that are no longer active.
Rodan wrote:
The GOP (as Lincoln once referred to General Rosecrans as being) is confused and stunned, like a duck hit on the head.
That statement is truth itself. This is such an ethereal concept
that charlatans can manipulate it.
First it’s global warming. but if we have record cold temperatures.
then it’s Climate Change.
Either way, it’s your fault.
The onus should be on them to prove it, but they don’t have to.
They are in power.
Vaclav Havel is one of the great men left in Europe.
Rodan wrote:
The will run some yahoo a-hole. Watch them push for Herman 9-9-9 Cain.
@ Speranza:
I don’t take the GOP serious. They complain about Obama’s spending, but still justify Bush’s increase of the debt from 5 to 10 trillion.
To me politics has become just like sports. Root for your team, yeah!!!!!! You team is perfect and does nothing wrong, yeah!!!!!!!!!!!
This last election and the aftermath opened my eyes to many things and now I’m just cynical about politics right now. Derek Jeter now a Global Warming expert? Give me a break! I’m awaiting David Ortiz to discuss tax reform!
@ Speranza:
I will not be shocked. I laugh at all this now. It’s like a dark comedy. The sad part is the country suffers. Historians years from now will look back at this era and wonder, what the hell was wrong with people.
We have cult like figure as President, an opposition that is dysfunctional and Athletes who are now science experts. This is just crazy!
@ Rodan:
Actually I have heard some unsubstantiated talk that this may be slotted for Allen West.
unclassifiable wrote:
I hope so, he would be a perfect fit for Georgia. He’s not an Establishment Eunuch nor some Akins style loon. He’s a true American hero!
@ Rodan:
I think there may be some substantiation (either way) first of February.
Hopefully we can turn this elephant away from the cliff.
what is a govt official?…whoever they are, they can carry guns when I can’t…more us vs them BS
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/feinstein-gun-control-bill-exempt-government-officials_697732.html
unclassifiable wrote:
I have heard that too.
@ Speranza:
He can win in Georgia.
@ heysoos:
No shocker, they are the Feudal elite.
Rodan wrote:
yeah, I’m pretty burned out on the gun grab…bring it on
unclassifiable wrote:
West in the recent past has made it very clear that he is not going to leave Florida for any reason. Florida is where his wife wants to live, his kids are in school, and that’s all there is to it…
Obama’s plans have been telegraphed. It is rather clear that the political desks of the 4 broadcasts networks less Fox have been in on a plan to destroy the Republican Party majority in the House and reduce it’s presence in the Senate so that Obama will have two years to pass 1. Amnesty and open borders legislation, 2. Cap and Trade, likely under a different name, as well as legislation to truncate if not eliminate the petrochemical industry in America,3. Gut The Second Amendment and 4. institutionalize voter fraud.
This could be a big wrench in Obama’s plans to transform America:
DEVELOPING: Obama recess appointments unconstitutional, court
Obama is pure 100% scumbag.
feds quietly sticking their face into state’s business…seems innoculous..what the hell is National Blueway?…it’s a land grab, a way to control fresh water
http://washingtonexaminer.com/ron-arnold-turning-americas-water-into-big-greens-elite-empire/article/2519600#.UQK-Smf0_C1
@ Da_Beerfreak:
The question is will he follow the court’s ruling?
Rodan wrote:
This is going to get real interesting. Obama can ignore it, but what is more relevant are companies can now ignore the bad rulings of Obama’s bogus NLRB.
@ pat:
They will have a one Party state.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Somehow I don’t think that will happen.
From Gov. Bobby Jindal.
ht -- PJM
Read the rest.
@ heysoos:
This is the only winning issue the GOP has left.
@ Rodan:
That’s a good question. How much authority do the Courts really have. New York State and Chicago are completely ignoring Heller and McDonald on gun control. If the Supreme Court can be ignored there, it can be ignored elsewhere.
@ Bumr50:
He’s right, but the GOP Establishment and Base will not pay him any attention. These proposals to improve the GOP are going nowhere. The Party is stuck in its ways.
PS -- Any yinzers living in or around the Motherland that are thinking of going out and about should wait a while.
Crappy road conditions + overbraking morons = unsafe conditions.
Iron Fist wrote:
Yup, How many Divisions do the courts have? That is how Obama is thinking.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
And the Unions are going to throw a bloody fit when they figure out just how this ruling really screws them over. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of thugs. Their screams will be music to my ears.
BO a war criminal?…UN wants to investigate..HA!
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/01/201312411432248495.html
@ heysoos:
Hmm, they’re apparently under the impression he’s an American.
heysoos wrote:
The Useless Nations are just jealous of the fact that the U.S. can do “pushbutton” assassinations and they can’t…
MacDuff w
That’s just silly, everybody knows that he was born
in a manger in Bethlehem.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
@ MacDuff:
@ heysoos:
I am awaiting Derek Jeter’s all important opinion!
RIX wrote:
Learn something new every day around here.
I didn’t know there was a Bethlehem in Kenya too…
RIX wrote:
Every time I seem him on TV, I say to myself “Holy Begeezus!”
@ Bumr50:
Yeah, We are having an ice storm here. I am stuck in the house, I’m on a laptop that doesn’t work, and I really want to get out of the house. There’s black ice on the roads, though. It is a miserable situation.
@ lobo91:
Here is who is really behind OFA.
@ MacDuff:
he is the almighty god-king!
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Yeah, I think that it’s about 50 miles North of Nairobi.
@ Iron Fist:
You have your cats for comfort!
Rodan wrote:
Jeters a good guy, just over his head on this one….he’s from Kalamazoo and my niece met him when he visited his high school up there…his parents are both very highly regarded educators and Derek was always very popular…in elementary school he’s where a Yankee jersey and tell his mates he was going to play shortstop for the Yankees someday…as to the climate change thing, I don’t this he’s trying to BS anyone, it’s just what he thinks is important
MacDuff wrote:
When the Obama prays , it is peer review.
@ Iron Fist:
It just took me an hour and a half to go 15 miles on a four-lane highway.
Other drivers are worse than the weather.
Apparently, physics is yet another area in which we’re undereducating our kids…
@ heysoos:
I met him several times actually. Both when I lived in NY and Tampa. I think Jeter is just being used by Pepsi so they can have a spokesman and they can look cool talking about AGW.
RIX wrote:
Good one!
@ heysoos:
@ Rodan:
He always struck me as a good guy, but he really should STFU about stuff he knows nothing about.
@ MacDuff:
I think Pepsi is putting him up to it.
Mitt Romney is a loser and needs to go away.
He ran a horrible campaign and underestimated Obama.
@ Rodan:
I’m driving my wife nuts, but we are still having an ice storm. I’m going to be stuck in the house all day. It is quite miserable. It could be worse, of course. We have power. It is better than going out an playing bumper cars on the roads.
Pennsylvanians need to rally behind this legislation.
What sparked the new legislation?
@ Iron Fist:
Yeah its not worth risking your life out there. But hey, according to Derek Jeter, that Icestorm is caused by Global Warming!
Rodan wrote:
probably so…he’s about as squeeky clean as it gets
@ Da_Beerfreak:
Sorry for the late reply.
And sorry to hear that but it is totally understandable.
I kind of wished he would move to Texas and run.
We got a bevy of Congressmen (and Congresswomen) that could stand replacement with a fine patriot IMHO.
unclassifiable wrote:
I heard that with West it’s a family issue. After moving his family all over the place when he was active service his Wife chose Florida to settle down in and let their Kids finish school.
Objectivist street art spotted in Obama County, Brooklyn.
@ Da_Beerfreak:
@ Iron Fist:
The Supreme Court would have to rely on Congress to curtail the Excutive Branch through fiscal shutdown and impeachment.
This of course is disturbing since so many slobbering Congressional synchophants (Democrats) seem perfectly willing to abdicate their responsibilities.
unclassifiable wrote:
At the moment it’s little more then another strike against Obama’s Reign of Error that he will ignore as long as Congress keeps letting him walk.
@ unclassifiable:
And that’s the problem. The Court can make ts decisions, but if the Executive chooses to ignore them and Congress can’t or won’t act, the Executive is, if fact, in a dictatorial position. I am very much afraid that that is where we are.
Gawd, I laughed until I had tears coming down my face and thought I was going to puke!
@ Iron Fist:
Yup, Obama is a dictator. One day the tables will be turned.
Iron Fist wrote:
That’s why I keep saying that it has to be the States that have to intervene to stop an out of control Central Government.
Only the States working together have the power needed to restore the Federal Republic and force the Fools in DC Town to follow the Constitution.
Don’t expect any help from the Blue States; they’ve already sold their souls for the “free stuff”.
@ Urban Infidel:
I have that scheduled for 6 PM tonight.
New Thread.
MacDuff wrote:
SO funny. The Beyawnce part is the best!
I’d almost take that Barry over the real one.
Rodan wrote:
oOH! gRREAT!
@ unclassifiable:
Well, that’s how it would work if we still had a Constitution.
Since the Fed has started printing imaginary money, and Obama considers the debt ceiling a suggestion, I don’t see how they can actually do so.