The Hemingway Report

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Thank you Barry... but we knew it all along

Gay Marriage
He voted for it, before he voted against it, but now he's for it.

Another gift from the president. First it was Joe (The Gaffe) Biden and now the Messiah. Now where do you suppose most Americans are going to stand on this issue? NC just banned same sex marriage the same state holding the DNC. That makes 30 states against it. You just have to wonder about the timing of this announcement. I would like to have been a fly on the wall during the Obama-Biden conversation.

Out of control debt, Keystone, Solyndra, suing states for enforcing illegal immigration policy, Obamacare, etc, and now this. Ya gotta love this guy. Thanks Barry.

Obama Says Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Legal

(aka The Death Nail... so the NYT's had to spin it)

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday ended nearly two years of "evolving" on the issue of same-sex marriage by publicly endorsing it in a television interview, taking a definitive stand on one of the most contentious and politically charged social issues of the day.

"At a certain point, I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," Mr. Obama told ABC News in an interview that came after the president faced mounting pressure to clarify his position.

In an election that is all but certain to turn on the slowly recovering economy and its persistently high jobless rate, Mr. Obama's stand nonetheless injects a volatile social issue into the campaign debate and puts him at even sharper odds with his presumptive Republican rival, Mitt Romney, who opposes same-sex marriage and favors an amendment to the United States Constitution to forbid it.

Public support for same-sex marriage is growing at a pace that surprises even professional pollsters as older generations of voters who tend to be strongly opposed are supplanted by younger ones who are just as strongly in favor. Same-sex couples are featured in some of the most popular shows on television, without controversy.

Yet time after time, when the issue is put to voters in states, they have chosen to ban unions between people of the same gender or to defeat measures that would legalize same-sex unions. Just Tuesday, North Carolinians voted overwhelmingly to add a ban to their state constitution, and Republican leaders in the Colorado House blocked a vote on legislation to allow civil unions; North Carolina and Colorado are considered swing states in presidential politics.

Nationwide, according to the pollster Andrew Kohut of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, a plurality of swing voters favors same-sex marriage, 47 percent to 39 percent, and outside the South the margin widens to a majority of 53 percent in favor and 35 percent opposed; in the South, a plurality of 48 percent opposes same-sex marriage. Swing voters generally do not have strong opinions on the subject, Mr. Kohut said, though in the South 30 percent of swing voters say they are strongly opposed.

Supporters of same-sex marriage were quick to praise the president's decision to speak out.

"President Obama's words today will be celebrated by generations to come," said Chad Griffin, the incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group. "For the millions of young gay and lesbian Americans across this nation, President Obama's words provide genuine hope that they will be the first generation to grow up with the freedom to fully pursue the American dream. Marriage — the promise of love, companionship, and family — is basic to the pursuit of that dream."

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, called the president's statement "a watershed moment in American history" that would aid efforts to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York said, "No American president has ever supported a major expansion of civil rights that has not ultimately been adopted by the American people, and I have no doubt that this will be no exception."

Some supporters saw the president's announcement in more political terms.

"For thousands of supporters who donated, canvassed and phone-banked to help elect Barack Obama in 2008, this is a powerful reminder of why we felt so passionately about this president in the first place," said Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, a liberal interest group.

"I'm almost in tears," said Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. Mr. Clemons, who is gay and was married in California in 2008, said the announcement would ignite progressives at a time when there was some ambivalence on the Democratic left as to how forcefully to support Mr. Obama's re-election bid.

Mr. Clemons compared that ambivalence to that of evangelicals on the Republican right toward Mr. Romney. But now, in one single step, Mr. Obama, at least, has erased any ambivalence his base might feel toward his candidacy, Mr. Clemons said.

Mr. Obama's comments came in an interview with ABC News's Robin Roberts that was arranged by the White House, knowing that Ms. Roberts is a popular correspondent, well-known especially among female viewers as a cancer survivor and among African-Americans, a group in which there is widespread opposition to same-sex marriage.

The interview was intended to be wide-ranging, but it inadvertently became the outlet for Mr. Obama's long-awaited evolution on same-sex marriage in a week that began with the remarks of his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., all but embracing same-sex marriage in an expansive answer to a question on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Mr. Biden's well-publicized comments increased the pressure on Mr. Obama to take a stand, with his press secretary, Jay Carney, pummeled with questions from White House reporters. Newspaper editorials, columnists and bloggers assailed the president's ambivalence, demanding clarity before the election. On Tuesday, Mr. Carney signaled that Mr. Obama would soon address the matter.

But the timing was forced on the president in other ways.

Meaning Obama cares about one thing and that's Obama.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama is to attend a fund-raiser in Los Angeles at the home of the actor George Clooney, which is expected to raise about $12 million, much of it from Hollywood people active in the gay-rights cause. On Monday, Mr. Obama is scheduled to speak at a campaign fund-raiser and reception of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Leadership Council in New York City, where the special guest is Ricky Martin, the singer who is gay. On June 6 Mr. Obama is scheduled to return to Los Angeles to speak at a gala benefiting the gay, bisexual and transgender community, with tickets costing up to $25,000. And this summer, Democrats will begin meeting to draft the party's platform for the national convention that will nominate Mr. Obama in September, and some gay-rights activists are pushing to include language endorsing same-sex marriage. The president and his advisers in the White House and at the campaign headquarters in Chicago knew Mr. Obama would repeatedly have to parry questions and criticisms on the issue. That prospect, several Democrats said, suggested that the greater political risk for Mr. Obama was not in coming out for same-sex unions but in appearing to be politically calculating, especially given that most supporters believe he personally has favored same-sex unions.

"He's been on this evolution since November 2010, and it's been getting kind of awkward," said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign. "The word evolution signifies change that has an ending at some point."

This should insure he "evolves" himself right out of the WH.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Coming to our shores soon

France's new president Socialist Francois Hollande said his new tax rate (75%) would target those earning more than 1 million euros per year and apply not just to work income but also on capital gains. Immediate polls show that the idea is supported by nearly two-thirds of the (we want something for nothing) public.

So if you make a million a year you're going to give the government $750,000!

Look for the wealthy to be leaving France in droves.

We also have a Socialist president the public thinks is Robin Hood. Stealing from one to give to another calling it "fair share" is nothing more then Socialism. The problem is magnified when supported by nearly half of the (we want something for nothing) public which is the direction we are headed.

Margaret Thatcher's comment which has been used so often it's almost a cliché, "The problem with Socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people's money." was never more clearly evident then it is now.

Lets face it, Obama and Hollande are both Socialist's. But only one admits it.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Obama's opening salvo: Hope, change and fear

This post originally appeared on Slate.

Then surprisingly CBS!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57428711-503544/obamas-opening-salvo-hope-change-and-fear/

Something new. Not everyone is an Obamunist. Take notice of the red "Not Barack" posters.

Barack Obama once wanted to "Win the Future." Now he's just hoping to get there. "Forward" is the new message of his re-election campaign, which he outlined Saturday in the first two official speeches of his 2012 presidential campaign. While his message still contains the old slogan's optimism of a brighter tomorrow, the force of the president's new argument is not so much that Americans could achieve greatness but that they must lock arms to keep Mitt Romney from dragging the country back to a dark past. Hope and change are still alive, said the president, referring to his 2008 election themes. But this time fear is also his running mate.

The president spoke in Ohio and Virginia, two battleground states. Though the day was billed as Obama's first official campaign day, it was really just the day that he dropped the last veil. The president, of course, has been campaigning for some time now. He's been in Ohio and Virginia a lot. For months, his domestic travel has rarely taken him outside of a battleground state. The issues he focuses on are aimed at key voting blocs. He's held regular meetings with his campaign strategists in the White House. The surest sign that he's been campaigning has been the regular denials from administration officials that the president was engaged in campaigning.

What made Saturday notable, however, is that the president referred more directly to his opponent than he has before. Romney is now real, and Obama started right away to build the case for why the former governor is uniquely qualified to screw things up. The short version: He has a defect born of party and experience.

His first task was to tie Romney to the unpopular House Republicans. "Now after a long and spirited primary, Republicans in Congress have found a nominee who will rubber stamp this agenda if he gets a chance."

Then Obama turned to Romney the person. He praised him as a patriot and family man--right before he described him as constitutionally incapable of understanding the national moment. Obama, who often has been characterized as too lawyerly and professorial, said Romney was too obtuse to understand regular people and their struggles. Romney had drawn the wrong lessons from being governor and running a "large financial firm." (Expect Obama to make many references to his "financial firm"; Romney prefers "business," a more benign word that brings to mind a chain of restaurants or a manufacturer instead of money manipulators.)

The president recounted how a woman from Iowa (swing state!) shared a story of her struggles and Romney responded by talking about productivity. The problem is not productivity, said Obama, but that as hard as people are working their wages aren't going up. "Governor Romney doesn't seem to get that." (Romney had other reactions to suffering Iowa female voters.)

Both candidates are in a race to show that the other is out of touch. This was Obama's opening gambit. He would like it if the rest of the campaign is simply a competition between which of the two men can empathize in public with voters. Obama isn't great at it, but Romney is worse. "Corporations aren't people," said Obama, rebutting a line Romney argued during the Republican primary, "people are people."

The bulk of the speech outlined the stakes as we've heard the president outline them before. This election is a choice he pointed out repeatedly, between his vision of government that helps people achieve their dreams and Republicans who want lower taxes and less regulation that he says will make the water dirtier, rob students of a chance to get an education, and ignore displaced workers who want a chance to retrain for new jobs. "This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class," said Obama.

The president outlined a host of issues that affected women--from contraception to abortion--that were under threat. To show just how much he wants to goose his lead with this important voting bloc, he made a rare reference to his daughters. "I want women to control their own health choices just like I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as your sons! We are not turning back the clock! We are moving forward!"

The president made several references to his blockbuster 2008 campaign arguing that hope and change were still alive. But the rhetorical sleights of hand highlighted just how tough things will be for him. He tried to reframe the choice as Romney has presented it. The election is not a question of whether people are better off, he said, but whether they will be better off. (Alas, in 2008 the president said "the real question is will this country be better off four years from now.") At other times today, his attempt to argue that the country is on the path to success and can't afford to turn back set him up for some awkward sound-bites. Acknowledging that the progress he wants to continue hasn't been enough, the president asked the audience "Are we satisfied?" The crowd roared "No!" If Mitt Romney doesn't ask the exact same question of his audiences from now until Election Day his advisers should lose their licenses.

Obama was at pains to beat back negative images that have attached to him over his first term. He repeatedly affirmed that he supported business and free enterprise and echoed his inaugural address' insistence that risk-taking in business was crucial to national prosperity. He repeatedly asserted that America was the greatest nation on earth since Republicans seem to think this is in doubt.

The president concluded his remarks sounding a theme that Bill Clinton made famous in New Hampshire in 1992 when he pledged, "I'll never forget who gave me a second chance, and I'll be there for you until the last dog dies." Today, Obama said: "I am asking you to believe in me," reminding voters that he once promised that he "would wake up every single day fighting for you as hard as I know how. I have kept that promise." It was a brief look back on a day otherwise all about moving forward.