It’s Thursday, July 26th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, as Conn Carroll’s Morning Examiner notes….

Obama says he didn’t say what he said

 

“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” – President Obama, July 13, 2012, Roanoke, Virginia.

The above quote is 100 percent accurate. You can even go to the White House’s own website, click on Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia, and it will appear, clear as day in black and white.

And that fact is a mortal threat to Obama’s reelection effort.

How else to explain the Obama campaign’s full court press attempting to deny he ever made the quote this week. First, in Oakland, California, Obama complained that, “Governor Romney … knowingly twisting my words around to suggest that I don’t value small businesses.” Then, Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter released a two-and-a-half minute video claiming Romney “blatantly twists President Obama’s words on small business owners and entrepreneurs.” And finally, Obama is launching a 30-second ad that will air in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, in which he claims, “Those ads taking my words about small business out of context, they are flat out wrong.”

“What I said was that we need to stand behind them as America always has,” Obama says directly into the camera. Really? Is that what Obama said? Here is more context from Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech pulled directly from the White House website:

“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”

Is this Obama’s idea of “standing behind” small business owners? By belittling their intelligence and hard work?

Obama’s “you didn’t build that” quote is resonating with voters because it is such a cogent crystallization of what Democrats have been arguing for over 80 years. As The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler noted, President Roosevelt told Congress in 1935: “People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which Government itself contributes. Therefore, the duty rests upon the Government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”

Roosevelt, Obama, and the Democrats believe that businesses succeed when the federal government takes a more active role in education, infrastructure, health care, retirement, etc. etc. Romney, Reagan, and Republicans believe the opposite: that businesses succeed better when many if not all of these functions are best left to states and the private sector.

The extent to which small business owners “built that” is a key point in this debate. And Romney is right to start the conversation there.

It’s like the Most Interesting Man in the World says:

Jonathan Goldsmith is far more believable in his role than this huckster is….

….in his!

But as long as Romney’s exposing The Obamao’s literally innumerable lies, why not highlight, as Gordon Crovitz details in the WSJ, his baseless claim about the government inventing the internet?

Who Really Invented the Internet?

Contrary to legend, it wasn’t the federal government, and the Internet had nothing to do with maintaining communications during a war.

 

 Here, NOT….

here!

A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.”

It’s an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.

For many technologists, the idea of the Internet traces to Vannevar Bush, the presidential science adviser during World War II who oversaw the development of radar and the Manhattan Project. In a 1946 article in The Atlantic titled “As We May Think,” Bush defined an ambitious peacetime goal for technologists: Build what he called a “memex” through which “wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.”

That fired imaginations, and by the 1960s technologists were trying to connect separate physical communications networks into one global network—a “world-wide web.” The federal government was involved, modestly, via the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Its goal was not maintaining communications during a nuclear attack, and it didn’t build the Internet. Robert Taylor, who ran the ARPA program in the 1960s, sent an email to fellow technologists in 2004 setting the record straight: “The creation of the Arpanet was not motivated by considerations of war. The Arpanet was not an Internet. An Internet is a connection between two or more computer networks.”

If the government didn’t invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet’s backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks. But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks. Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto) and the graphical user interface that still drives computer usage today.

According to a book about Xerox PARC, “Dealers of Lightning” (by Michael Hiltzik), its top researchers realized they couldn’t wait for the government to connect different networks, so would have to do it themselves. “We have a more immediate problem than they do,” Robert Metcalfe told his colleague John Shoch in 1973. “We have more networks than they do.” Mr. Shoch later recalled that ARPA staffers “were working under government funding and university contracts. They had contract administrators . . . and all that slow, lugubrious behavior to contend with.”

So having created the Internet, why didn’t Xerox become the biggest company in the world? The answer explains the disconnect between a government-led view of business and how innovation actually happens.

Executives at Xerox headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., were focused on selling copiers. From their standpoint, the Ethernet was important only so that people in an office could link computers to share a copier. Then, in 1979, Steve Jobs negotiated an agreement whereby Xerox’s venture-capital division invested $1 million in Apple, with the requirement that Jobs get a full briefing on all the Xerox PARC innovations. “They just had no idea what they had,” Jobs later said, after launching hugely profitable Apple computers using concepts developed by Xerox.

Xerox’s copier business was lucrative for decades, but the company eventually had years of losses during the digital revolution. Xerox managers can console themselves that it’s rare for a company to make the transition from one technology era to another.

As for the government’s role, the Internet was fully privatized in 1995, when a remaining piece of the network run by the National Science Foundation was closed—just as the commercial Web began to boom. Blogger Brian Carnell wrote in 1999: “The Internet, in fact, reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government. Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished. . . . In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia.”

It’s important to understand the history of the Internet because it’s too often wrongly cited to justify big government. It’s also important to recognize that building great technology businesses requires both innovation and the skills to bring innovations to market. As the contrast between Xerox and Apple shows, few business leaders succeed in this challenge. Those who do—not the government—deserve the credit for making it happen.

And since we’re on the subject of what earned The Dear Misleader his name, here’s today’s Money Quote, courtesy of Joel Gerhke and Beltway Confidential: The Obamao lauding his inauspicious economic record after dismissing the demonstrably successful Conservative alternative:

“Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan — and it worked. That’s the difference. That’s the choice in this election.  That’s why I’m running for a second term.”

Yeah….

Dr. Evil says the Titanic‘s maiden voyage enjoyed more success than any of Tick-Tock’s economic initiatives.

In a related item, the WSJ relates another reason why the candidates offer America a definite and decided choice:

A Tale of Two Worlds

Romney offers a contrasting vision to the Obama record abroad.

 

The presidential campaign continues to clarify differences in economic philosophy, and this week brings a timely and useful contrast on national security and foreign policy.

Before embarking on an overseas tour, Mitt Romney appeared before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, a day after President Obama. Both men invoked Henry Luce to declare their determination to see the 21st become another “great American century.” The concordant notes ended there.

The Republican candidate offered a vision made to contrast with the four-year Obama record. Billed as Mr. Romney’s hallmark statement on foreign policy, the speech offers a worthy template for a new Administration.

Mr. Romney started off with an unacknowledged nod to Reagan’s dictum that “a healthy American economy . . . underwrites American power.” The point may seem obvious but gets scant attention in debates over the U.S. role in the world. Absent a strong recovery and sustained growth, America can’t afford to stay a superpower for long.

In the years of the Obama economic doldrums, as in Europe for decades, defense budgets have been squeezed by spiking welfare spending and growing deficits. Mr. Obama’s preference for “leading from behind” is a logical consequence of his failure to rekindle America’s commercial dynamism.

This Administration cut deeper into defense than any other federal department. Mr. Romney echoed Pentagon chief Leon Panetta (Who’s just mouthing the words.) by calling the reductions “radical.” As the Republican challenger pointed out, America won’t be able to project force in a “dangerous, destructive, chaotic” world without a strong Navy. If budget sequestration goes through by year’s end and forces a total of a trillion dollars in defense cuts over the next decade, the U.S. will be left with the smallest fleet since 1916.

Mr. Obama’s version of leadership was to place the burden on Congress to avert the sequestration catastrophe. In his own VFW speech, he threw in a demand for Republicans to sign off on his tax hike as part of any budget deal this year to save defense. This Commander in Chief finds a way to make even national security a political bargaining chip.

Mr. Romney marked out a substantive difference on Iran. He declared that Iran’s regime surrendered any right to enrich uranium by lying for years about its atomic bomb plans. Going back to the second George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. and Europe have tried to strike a deal with the mullahs to let them enrich “peacefully.” The Romney approach is the safer one with this regime. The Republican candidate added that he’d end the Obama practice of carving out exceptions to sanctions on Iran.

Mr. Romney was right to score President Obama for ordering a premature pullout from Afghanistan this summer to satisfy his left-wing base in time for the election. But the Governor left the details of his own Afghan policy vague, opening himself up to Vice President Joe Biden’s counterpunch that “it is hard to know where he stands.”

He also might have fleshed out a clearer position on the worsening conflict in Syria and the broader Middle East, beyond his stalwart defense of Israel and other allies in the region. This may indeed be a play for Jewish votes, but it could be a useful opening to challenge Mr. Obama’s claims that America’s alliances “have never been stronger.”

As the President promised in his Inaugural Address, the U.S. extended a hand to the Russians, Iranians and North Koreans, and told steadfast friends to get into line behind this engagement. This policy flopped in each case, and whether in Central Europe, Israel or Saudi Arabia, allies have come to trust America less. This is one reason Israel may strike Iran. It doesn’t believe in U.S. promises to stop an Iranian nuke.

With little to show for its main foreign policy initiatives, the Obama campaign will play to war fatigue. The public may be tired of conflict, but Americans still expect a President to lead the world and shape it. The Obama policy of disengagement abroad is merely storing up trouble that a President Romney would have to address immediately.

To appreciate the genuine contrast of foreign-policy visions on offer this fall, try to imagine President Obama speaking the following lines: “There are values, causes and nations that depend on American strength, on the clarity of our purpose, and on the reliability of our commitments. There is work in this world that only America and our allies can do, hostile powers that only we can deter, and challenges that only we can overcome.”

We’ve had disagreements with Mr. Romney, but this week he presented a strong case for more forceful foreign-policy leadership and the means to handle the global troubles that he would inherit as President.

And let’s not forget THIS foreign policy gem:

Speaking of national security, it’s the subject of today’s “What A Difference A Day Makes” segment, courtesy of Diane Feinstein, who’s apparently far more interested in abusing the rights of law-abiding gun owners than preserving what’s left of America’s military secrets.  This was Tuesday,….

….and this was less than 24 later:

Senate Intelligence Committee head backtracks on leak claim

 

The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that she shouldn’t have speculated about the White House’s responsibility for national security leaks because she didn’t know the source of the unauthorized disclosures. Just hours after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seized on her comments to criticize President Barack Obama, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., issued a statement offering her regrets about her observation while insisting that she was confident the president did not disclose classified information.

“I am disappointed by the statements made by Mr. Romney today regarding a question I was asked yesterday at the World Affairs Council,” Feinstein said. “I was asked whether the White House might be responsible for recent national security leaks. I stated that I did not believe the president leaked classified information. I shouldn’t have speculated beyond that because the fact of the matter is I don’t know the source of the leaks.”

At a forum on Monday, Feinstein had said that the White House has to understand that the disclosure of classified information is coming from its ranks. She said she didn’t believe the president had leaked information.

Seeing as Feinstein’s 80 years old, one might assume senility’s setting in; but that’s NOT what Feinstein said, and it’s definitely NOT what she meant.

For more on the old and feebleminded, here’s the latest from Kimberly Strassel in the WSJ:

Reid (Hearts) Jaczko

 

Gregory Jaczko may be gone from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but he’s clearly not forgotten—at least not by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Politico recently reported that Mr. Reid’s leadership PAC, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, is planning to write a $10,000 check to help Mr. Jaczko pay the legal fees he built up doing Mr. Reid’s bidding as chairman of the NRC. Mr. Jaczko unceremoniously resigned in May, after months of allegations that he was running roughshod over the other four commissioners at the agency, as well as bullying female staffers.

None of this behavior seemed to faze Mr. Reid, who was far more interested in making sure Mr. Jaczko continue to do the work the Senate leader has sent him to the NRC to do. Mr. Jaczko once worked for Mr. Reid, and it was the senator who in 2004 took hostage dozens of Bush nominees, refusing to confirm them unless Mr. Jaczko was named to the NRC. Mr. Jaczko’s job, once installed, was to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository that was planned for Mr. Reid’s home state of Nevada.

Mr. Jaczko did so with alacrity, his job made that much easier when a newly elected Barack Obama elevated him to the chairmanship of the agency in 2009. Yet in the process of carrying out his Reid-Obama orders to strangle industry progress, Mr. Jaczko managed to alienate his colleagues and create a climate of intimidation at the agency. By last December, all four of his fellow commissioners—Republicans and Democrats alike—openly criticized Mr. Jaczko at a House hearing. An NRC inspector general report released in June (which Mr. Jaczko knew was coming when he announced his resignation), found he had given testimony to Congress that was “inconsistent” with other facts, and that numerous staff had reported on his intimidating management.

The accusations against Mr. Jaczko were great enough that he hired legal defense while still at the agency, and those are the bills that Mr. Reid’s leadership PAC will help pay. Another former Reid staffer, Karen Wayland, has set up a legal defense fund to also raise money for the Jaczko defense costs. So, Mr. Jaczko takes off the gloves to do Mr. Reid’s dirty work at the NRC, and Mr. Reid subsequently helps pay for Mr. Jaczko’s legal fallout. It’s no wonder Americans are cynical about Washington.

Which is why Reid always brings to mind the immortal words Harriet Van Johnson:

Then there’s the latest installment of Thomas Sowell’s….

Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

 

Even squirrels know enough to store nuts, so that they will have something to eat when food gets scarce. But the welfare state has spawned a whole class of people who spend everything they get when times are good, and look to others to provide for their food and other basic needs when times turn bad.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution prescribes “equal protection of the laws” to all Americans. But what does that mean, if the President of the United States can arbitrarily grant waivers, so that A, B and C have to obey the laws but X, Y and Z do not — as with both ObamaCare and the immigration laws?

Two reports came out in the same week. One was from the Pentagon, saying that, in just a few years, Iran will be able to produce not only a nuclear bomb but a missile capable of carrying it to the United States. The other report said that the American Olympic team has uniforms made in China. This latter report received far more attention, both in Congress and in the media.

People who lament gridlock in Washington, and express the pious hope that Democrats and Republicans would put aside their partisan conflicts, and cooperate to help the economy recover, implicitly assume that what the economy needs is more meddling by politicians, which is what brought on economic disaster in the first place. (Skeptics can read “The Housing Boom and Bust.”)

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as “racists.” (No, kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who profit politically and personally.)

One of the arguments for Medicare is that the elderly don’t want to be a burden to their children. Apparently it is all right to be a burden to other people’s children, who are paying taxes.

Those who talk as if more people going to college is automatically a Good Thing seldom show much interest in what actually goes on at college — including far less time spent by students studying than in the past, and a proliferation of courses promoting a sense of grievance, entitlement or advanced navel-gazing and breast-beating.

One of the most dangerous trends of our times is making the truth socially unacceptable, or even illegal, with “hate speech” laws. It is supposed to be terrible, for example, to call an illegal alien an “illegal alien” or to call an Islamic terrorist an “Islamic terrorist.” When the media refer to “undocumented” workers or to violence committed by “militants,” who is kidding whom — and why?

After the charismatic — and disastrous — Woodrow Wilson presidency, the voters did not elect another president in the next decade who could be considered the least bit charismatic. Let us hope that history repeats itself.

For more than two centuries, the U.S. military never had a public celebration of anybody’s sex life — until the recent “gay pride” event under the Obama administration. Here, as elsewhere, the gay political agenda is not equality but privilege. (And at the cost of national security.)

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Then he proceeded to generate fear among businesses for years on end, with both his anti-business rhetoric and his anti-business policies. Barack Obama is repeating the same approach and getting the same results — namely, an agonizingly slow economic recovery, as investors hang on to their money, instead of risking it in a hostile political environment.

If we wake up some morning and find some American cities in radioactive ruins, courtesy of a nuclear Iran, nobody is going to care whether the president who lets this happen is the first black president or the last WASP president. But, in the meantime, many people will keep on voting for symbolism, as if an election is a popularity contest, like choosing a college’s Homecoming Queen or Parade Marshal.

There seems to be something “liberating” about ignorance — especially when you don’t even know enough to realize how little you know. Thus an administration loaded with people who have never run any business is gung-ho to tell businesses what to do, as well as gung-ho to tell the medical profession what to do, lenders whom to lend to, and the military how to fight wars.

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s these four biting bits of satire from Bill Meisen:

Finally, another sign the Apocalypse is upon us:

Hotel replaces bible with ’50 Shades of Grey’

 

A hotel in England has replaced in-room bibles with the erotic bestseller “50 Shades of Grey.” Instead of the standard Gideon bible, the owner of Damson Dene opted for the steamy novel known for its explicit sexual content because he thought it was the hospitable thing to do.

“Because everybody is reading ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ we thought it would be a hospitable thing to do, to have this available for our guests, especially if some of them were a little bit shy about buying it because of its reputation,” hotel owner Jonathan Denby told NBC News. The hotel said it discretely stashes the bestseller in the bedside table for guests to discover –the place one reserved for the bible.

Denby  told NBC he found religious books a “wholly inappropriate” choice for private bedrooms in England’s modern, secular society. Ironically, Denby bought the Damson Dene Hotel, located in England’s Lake District, from a Methodist group 10 years ago, according to NBC News.

If everyone’s already reading it, why would they want to read it again; or is the hotel trying to increase its income from the porn movies?!?

Magoo