Creeping Through Cyberspace

 

By William L. Garvin

An audiologist was discussing hearing aids with a new patient.  “I have good news and bad news,” he said.  “The good news is I can help you hear better; the bad news is I can help you hear better.”  That seems very similar to the internet and cyberspace.  The good news is you can find lots of information; the bad news is you can find lots of information.  Most of the information is straightforward and much of it is useful but it ranges from the innocuous to the disconcerting to the terrifying.

Some of it is politically sardonic.  One wag posted “I don’t understand how the Constitution is a ‘living document’ that protects phone calls, emails, and text messages, yet the Second Amendment only applies to muskets.”  Another noted that “The media obsesses over Romney at seventeen and Bush at twenty-five but declares Hillary and Benghazi at sixty-five to be ‘old news.’”  Another poster declared that “Having government watch your health care is like having Michael Vick watch your dog!”  Maybe that’s why Moody’s downgraded the entire health care sector from “stable” to “negative” because of Obamacare.

It’s interesting to note that New York, one of the bluest of Democrat states, is attempting to attract new business in order to cope with their 7% unemployment.  Surprisingly, the centerpiece of their ad campaign is to reduce/eliminate taxes for start-up companies.  It’s estimated that “The Tonight Show” will save $20 million in taxes by moving from Los Angeles to New York.  This reduction of taxes (along with reductions in spending!) sure sounds like a conservative principle. 

It’s disconcerting to follow the $85 billion taxpayer bailout of General Motors.  When the Treasury Department sold off the last of the GM shares, taxpayers lost from $10.5 to $20 billion on their investment.  If you want to rub salt in the economic wounds, check out the video of Dan Akerson, the GM CEO in 2011, on YouTube.  He clearly outlines the plan to shrink U.S. operations and expand China operations.  He points out that seven of ten GM vehicles are already made outside the U.S.  Now they have eleven joint ventures, eleven assembly plants, and 2,700 dealerships planned for China.  Their research and development and state of the art technology is now being jointly shared with a communist country.  If that’s not unsettling enough, how about the Cadillac Division sponsoring a film celebrating the birth of the Chinese Communist Party, complete with the hammer and sickle!

All that pales compared to an article in “Slate” by William Saletan.  He was commenting on an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics by two “philosophers” named Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.  It has been noted that there is no theory so bizarre that you cannot find an intellectual to defend it.  This seems to be the perfect case on point.  Most human beings would condemn killing newborn babies but Giubilini and Minerva write that:  “We propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus…rather than to that of a child.  Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.  Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.”

Last year, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist named Alisa LaPolt Snow answered a question before the Florida legislature as to what would happen if a baby was born alive as a result of a botched abortion.  Her answer was that “any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”  To all these people, a living baby is not a person and it is perfectly acceptable to kill them.  If there is any doubt as to this conclusion, Giubilini and Minerva conclude: “Although fetuses and newborns are not persons, they are potential persons because they can develop, thanks to their own biological mechanisms, those properties which will make them ‘persons’ in the sense of ‘subjects of a moral right to life’ that is the point at which they will be able to make aims and appreciate their own life.”

If social, psychological, or economic costs are grounds for abortion, they are then acceptable grounds for infanticide.  Would they then advocate euthanasia for the elderly, the infirm, or the terminally ill?  Some things you just don’t want to know, but you must…even if it’s terrifying.

 

Laws, Lies, Leeway and Lunacy

By William L. Garvin

 

Is there any doubt that the Affordable Care Act is nothing but bait and switch, a pig in a poke, an absolute sham sold under false pretenses, and a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by “progressives” with malice of forethought?  “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.”  Wrong.  “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan, period.”  Wrong.  “The Affordable Care Act will create four million jobs, four hundred thousand immediately.”  Wrong.  “Obamacare will dramatically improve Medicare.”  Wrong.  “I will not sign a bill that adds one dime to the federal debt.”  Wrong.  “The average family will have their insurance premiums reduced by $2,500 per year.”  Wrong.  The Democrats unilaterally passed this law and as we finally get to read and find out what’s in it, the news gets worse and worse.

 

Even if you think that government is capable of and is responsible for planning, implementing, and controlling your health care, you must have the same mounting concerns that the majority of your fellow Americans do.  There is no denying that the rollout of Obamacare has been an unmitigated failure.  Dems can do their best to rationalize the absurdly expensive, absurdly malfunctioning, absurdly complicated website as a “glitch” or a “bump in the road,” but there is no putting lipstick on this pig.  Predictably that is what happens when the nanny state formulates a “one size fits all” plan that the private insurance companies must offer which must include unnecessary and unwanted benefits that everyone is forced to purchase or be “taxed” for their noncompliance.  We have already seen over six million plans cancelled and no one knows how many more notices are still to come.  Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office says that after all is said and done, there will still be thirty million Americans who are uninsured.  After all the angst, after all the disruption, after all the turmoil and hardship, Obamacare does not solve the problem of the uninsured and does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of health care or the availability of health care.  Adding political insult to injury, Democrat political puppets now redefine your loss of personal freedom as “liberating”!  It is now somehow laudable in liberal la la land to work less in order to reduce your income so you too can receive a government subsidy!  Pray tell what happens when the worker bees morph into dependent parasites and the symbiotic relationship collapses?

 

If this government-centric future is not frightening enough, delve further into the insidious nature of the law itself.  Charles Kesler, a Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College singles out the Independent Payment Advisory Board, aka “death panel” in the Act.  The IPAB is fifteen people appointed by the President.  They are to recommend “efficiencies” regarding Medicare.  Typically, such efficiencies are accomplished by rationing or reducing payments to doctors and hospitals to the point that no one will perform them.  According to Professor Kesler’s analysis, “Unless both houses of Congress overrule IPAB by passing their own equal or greater cuts to Medicare, IPAB’s proposals automatically become law.”  Here’s where the perfidy ensues.  According to the Act, no resolution to repeal the IPAB can be made before January 1, 2017, or after February 1, 2017, nor can it take effect until 2020!  In effect, the IPAB is exempt from the Constitution for the next six years except for a single month!  What sort of Machiavellian intent is behind this machination?  Skeptical minds may conclude that the entire charade is merely a stepping stone to single-payer, government run health care as advocated by the President, the Vice-President, the Senate Majority Leader, and the Minority House Leader, all Democrats.

 

Also keep in mind that Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses they incur selling policies on the Obamacare exchanges through 2016. This “absorption of costs” (don’t ever call it a bailout!) is meant to hide the full scope of the economic failure of Obamacare until after the next presidential election.  That’s also the reason the President “with his phone and his pen” delayed the mandate to provide Obamacare-compliant insurance for some employers.  With a stroke of his presidential pen, he changed established law from “will”, “shall”, and “must” to “may”, “might”, and “maybe.”  Welcome to the “fundamental transformation” of America.  It’s good to be king!

 

 

 

 

Deliberate or Dysfunctional?

By William L. Garvin

During the presidential campaign, Candidate Obama was continually lauded for his new age prowess via his Blackberry while Candidate McCain was derided as a techno-troglodyte.  There was considerable ballyhoo relating to encrypting the Obamaphone as he was continually multi-tasking, perpetually wired and virtually on top of everything.  His campaign was praised in the highest terms for its sophisticated use of technology and supreme organization in gathering funds and voters.  Then there is his presidency.

Typical of many multi-taskers, there is very little multi-finishing.  For someone who is reputedly so technologically advanced, President Obama seems to get most of his information from the “same news reports you watch.”  How can someone who is so on top of things know nothing about “Fast and Furious,” know nothing about IRS targeting political opponents, know nothing about NSA spying, and know nothing about DOJ seizing AP and Fox reporter correspondence?  Furthermore, how could someone who was so directly involved that you would have thought he personally pulled the triggers on the Somali pirates and personally led the charge up the stairs to kill Bin Laden know so little about Benghazi?  Despite Candy Crowley’s erroneous lifeline in the 2012 debate, he never called Benghazi a terrorist attack until long after his “provocative video” cover story was exposed for the blatant lie that it was and is.

What is even more astounding is the absolute technological incompetence displayed throughout the Democrat rollout of Obamacare.  After more than three years of advance planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, the Democrats could not even build a functioning website.  What is wrong with this picture?  How could such aforementioned technological brilliance and organizational genius deteriorate into such an abysmal and unmitigated disaster?  Is this the final nail in the progressive belief that government can do everything and compelling evidence that big government has bitten off more than it can chew or could there be another explanation?

A socialist professor at Columbia University (President Obama’s alma mater) named Richard Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven (also a socialist professor) developed the Cloward-Piven strategy.  Inspired by Saul Alinsky, these left-wing, radical champions of the poor deliberately sought (Cloward died in 2001) and seek the destruction of capitalism by class warfare in physical terms.  Not satisfied with gradual evolution, they prefer violent revolution.  The overarching principle in their strategy is to overload the entitlement system by adding so many people to the roles that our economic system collapses.  Anarchy, chaos and violence will be the inevitable result.  If you need a visual picture, think of Greece in combination with a Mad Max film…Detroit on a national scale. 

As far back as 1966, Cloward and Piven wrote:  “It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor.  If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.”  In blunter terms, Cloward stated that poor people will only advance when “the rest of society is afraid of them.”  Cloward and Piven were instrumental in developing ACORN.  Cloward and Piven were standing behind President Clinton when he signed the “Motor Voter” act into law.  President Obama was a community organizer who practiced Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” tactics.  As a young lawyer, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit to implement the motor-voter law in Illinois.  President Obama has stated:  “I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”   President Obama has also promised to “fundamentally transform” America.  The question is, into what? 

Does the president envision some sort of socialist utopia?  Does he think that the Democratic Socialists, brandishing their shibboleths of social justice, economic justice, income inequality, and redistributive justice will step to the fore and bring about a “fair” New World Order?  Does he think this political-economic theory which has a one hundred percent failure rate elsewhere will somehow miraculously work here?  If so, maybe the failure of the trillion dollar stimulus makes sense.  If so, maybe his trillion dollar deficit years make sense.  If so, maybe a $17.3 trillion dollar national debt makes sense.  If so, maybe record numbers of people on food stamps and millions more too dispirited to even look for work makes sense.  In that perspective, the disastrous Obamacare policy and implementation makes sense.  It is not clear whether or not President Obama’s administration is consciously employing the Cloward-Piven strategies.  But if they were to do so, it’s crystal clear that they would only have to make minor adjustments to their current practices.

A Question of Priorities and Perspectives

By William L. Garvin

Very few of the really important things in life are urgent; that’s why it is so easy to procrastinate on them.  In contemporary culture, very few important things have precedence over the immediate.  So, for the record, I have very little interest in Justin Bieber’s infantile foolishness, the Richard Sherman-Michael Crabtree testosterone fueled feud or Sarah Silverman’s blasphemous, pathetic attempts at comedy.  Furthermore, I have even less interest in all things Kardashian.

 

However, it is with a deepening sense of foreboding that I watch the obsessive fury of forces that seek to concoct a direct connection between Chris Christie and a traffic jam but simultaneously ignore President Obama’s promise to reward his friends and punish his enemies.  Only conservatives and Obama “enemies” are guilty until proven innocent.  Liberals blissfully ignore Tim Geithner’s not-so-veiled threat to Standard and Poor’s after they downgraded the country because of a national debt that paled in comparison to today’s burden.  Naturally, they also ignore DOJ’s lawsuit against S&P and the lack of action against other credit rating agencies with similar records.  It’s “Crime” to speak out against The One and “Punishment” by any means possible.

 

Remember when President Obama was “outraged” about the IRS targeting and punishing of conservative groups that were applying for 501(c) 3 status?  How has that turned out?  First, they had to exhaustively cull agency records to identify a couple of liberal groups that had been treated the same despicable way as hundreds of conservative groups.  And it continues.  “Friends of Abe,” which is probably the only conservative group in Hollywood has been jumping through IRS hoops for two years and is still waiting approval.  The IRS has not interviewed any of the 41 victim groups represented by the American Center for Law and Justice but has already indicated that there will be no criminal charges.  Of course, now that Eric Holder has pulled out an Obama donor from the Civil Rights Division to “investigate,” I’m sure justice will prevail.  Adding insult to injury, Democrats like Chuck Schumer are calling for increased targeting of the Tea Party and new regulations are being developed to “legalize” this administration’s political purge of all opposition.  Liberals will tolerate anything but dissent; just ask Governor Cuomo!  On another front, President Obama is again attempting to blame his failures on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.  What’s the matter…did you forget your George Bush punching bag?

 

There seems to be an interesting pattern of interviewing or not interviewing witnesses to wrongdoing by this administration.  One would think that the survivors at Benghazi would be among the first witnesses to testify.  They weren’t.  One would think that the Accountability Review Board would interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  They didn’t.  One would think that the Congressional committee charged with oversight and chaired by Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein would interview Hillary.  They didn’t.  When the report concluded that the attack was preventable, media should have asked Hillary why she didn’t answer the 3 a.m. phone call.  They didn’t.  As for the president being curiously missing in action during this attack, the mainstream media has made no substantive inquiry.  Nor will they.

 

The Obama administration and mass media (redundant?) will attack en masse to destroy any opposing candidate or viewpoint whether it was Hillary Clinton or is Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz.  Now of course, the media allegiance is shifting from the “First Black President” to the “First Woman President” and Operation Planet Hillary is already in full swing.  With the New York Times leading the charge, her history is being reconstructed, buffed up and glossed over.  Expect to hear a continual drumbeat about forty years of exceptional service but little discussion of tangible accomplishment.  Don’t expect them to question any contradictions or omissions.  Expect the full monty of whitewashing a la Wendy Davis.  You remember her, don’t you?  She’s the Abortion Barbie who wants to be the Governor of Texas.  She fabricated a biography out of thin cloth that quickly wore thin and is full of holes, yet is still hailed as a feminist icon. 

Believe it or not, all that is still small potatoes.  What is truly frightening is the one major campaign promise that President Obama is keeping.  He is indeed fundamentally transforming the United States of America.  And the future disintegration is becoming truly frightening!

 

Brave New (Media) World

By William L. Garvin

"Pusillanimous, pompous, patronizing, two-faced, forked tongue, hypocritical, double standard, subservient, sycophantic, boot licking, progressive propaganda puppet, pathetic, and predictable"  (Adjectives suitable for contemporary mass media)

Well, well, well.  The Snow White media has been awakened from its somnambulant state by Prince Charming.  The investigative Phoenix has arisen from its ashes.  The Frankenstein monster has been charged into raging life.  And to think all it took was a couple of polls showing that Chris Christie had an electoral edge over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.  A new governor is now being Palin-ized by the media.

As soon as Sarah Palin's dynamic acceptance speech gave John McCain a boost in the polls, the journOlist cabal (both formal and informal) sprang into action.  Ethics complaint after ethics complaint ad nausea was filed.  None were ever founded but the compliant media dutifully reported she was "under investigation."  Media also failed to report that she had to fund her defenses out of her private funds per Alaska law in effect at the time.  The journOlist media members actively conspired to spin every possible negative her way.  The media dispatched an army of reporters to review her emails.  No smoking gun was ever uncovered but that was seldom mentioned.  It didn't fit the progressive agenda of conservative thought destruction.  Her every utterance was scrutinized, distorted, and magnified.  Hollywood jumped into the smear campaign with both feet and received honors for their complicity.  Palin's  book was "fact checked" by a platoon of nitpickers but  President Obama's books have yet to be placed under a similar microscope.  You see, no one would be allowed to challenge "The One."  No one will be allowed to challenge the heir apparent.  The media has decided.

So here you go, Governor Christie.  You are now the eye of the media hurricane or the center of the media feeding frenzy, whichever metaphor you choose to employ.  Note the ubiquitous media mantra:  "If he was not involved (eye roll) and did not even know (uptalk) what was going on, as he CLAIMS (raised eyebrows)…."   You are a Republican and you are guilty until proven innocent…and that will never happen.  No matter what you do, no matter how promptly you act, no matter what evidence you produce or the lack of evidence on the media's part, you are the loser.

One pundit speculated and postulated that given Christie's image as a problem solver, why wasn't he on top of this and taking care of the problem?  Has any pundit ever asked the President where he was for the eight hours Benghazi was under attack?  Why hasn't a single one of the known terrorists been arrested?  Why were documents related to "Fast and Furious" given executive immunity?  Why didn't he know about the IRS abuse?  Why hasn't anyone been fired?
 
Others media mavens have noted the "mean spirited" nature of the bridge closing but did they show similar concern about the "mean spirited" closing of the open air war memorials?  Did they show similar concern about the "mean spirited" cancellation of White House tours?  Of course not.  It is gratifying to see the media trying to hone their rediscovered investigative chops, but it only serves to highlight their selective and partisan outrage.

In the meantime, al Qaeda flags are flying over Fallujah.  Iraq is in chaos and Afghanistan is pursuing the same road to disintegration.  Syria is still in turmoil and Americans are still in prison in Iran, North Korea and Cuba.  Sanctions against Iran are buried in Harry Reid's senate coffin.  Ninety-two million Americans can't find a job and Obamacare continues to implode.  But don't you worry about it, America.  "We The Media" are right on top of Bridgegate!  Oh yes, as to the Obama donor appointed to investigate the IRS abuse of his political opponents, that's just another "phony scandal." 

We're on to the real thing…why our commute from New Jersey to New York has been impacted!  As for Christie taking responsibility for the debacle and then firing two of the perpetrators, that's not enough.  That's never enough.  If he issues a written confession, commits hara-kiri in prime time and gives me an exclusive, that will still not be enough.  But, if he changes his party affiliation and becomes Hillary's vice presidential running mate, there might be a ray of hope for salvation!  Until then, we'll keep deciding what you should know, when you should know it, how you should vote, and who should be elected.  Trust us because we're smarter than you.

Red Lines, Deadlines, Bylines and Storylines

By William L. Garvin 

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”         John Adams

 

 

As the New Year begins, some things change and some things remain the same.  After the Obama administration’s political rush to exit Iraq, the al Qaeda forces have now recaptured Fallujah.  All the assistance, blood and treasure expended to provide Iraq with the keys to democracy seems to have been in vain.  Also, the democrat refrain from the president and his supporters that “al Qaeda is on its heels” has proven to be patently false.  Simultaneously, civilian and military casualties, which were front page news, accompanied by running fatality totals, during the Bush administration, no longer pique media interest.

There is a similar lack of media interest with Syria now that the numerous “red lines” have become a fading memory.  Apparently, the “Assad must go” mantra is no longer a best seller.  Apparently, all the world-threatening chemical weapons have been destroyed or minimized.  Apparently, all the refugee camps are no longer teeming with fearful families.   Apparently, once again, the Arab Spring is blooming magnificently.  Apparently, according to the once esteemed New York Times, the Benghazi murders REALLY were caused by a video!  If there were ever any doubt, the “Gray Lady” has now fully evolved into the “Bearded Lady,” just another propaganda freak in the media circus.

Given the lack of accountability at the highest levels of government, it is not surprising that the lack of accountability in media circles is not only accommodated but duplicated and exacerbated.  In the “look, a shiny object!” manic movement from deadline to deadline, there is little desire to follow through, thoroughly investigate, or expose failures in the progressive schematic.  More time will be devoted to the latest celebrity entering rehab than to matters that shape the future of this country.

This journalistic malfeasance ranges from the insignificant to the monumental.  For instance, in 1999, Al Gore said that all the polar ice caps would have been melted by 2014.  Well, here we are and irony of ironies.  A group of global warming scientists were trapped in ice at the Antarctic along with rescue ships!  The polar vortex is breaking cold records across the United States and airports are nearly “polar-ized’ and paralyzed.  What do you have to say about global warming now, Al?  Don’t worry; be happy; count your money…the media won’t ask.

On a larger scale of non-accountability, the media “bromance” with the President is typified by Chris Mathews of NBC.  “I look at Obama as a perfect American. I don't mean politically. We can disagree left and right on him. You can argue about the drones. Argue about the fiscal policy, all that stuff. But as a citizen. The guy went to school, he never broke a law. He did everything right.” gushed Mathews.  No need to remember his admitted use of marijuana and other drugs.  No need to pay attention to his continual changes via executive order to the “settled law” of Obamacare.  Why expect responsible journalism when Newsweek shows Obama with a halo on its cover and Barbara Walters admits “We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next messiah” and Mathews continues to feels tingles up his leg?

But the long knives will come out to eviscerate any conservative who speaks up.  When Sarah Palin spoke about the rising national debt and resultant obligations to China, she said "When that note comes due -- and this isn't racist…but it's going to be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to be beholden to a foreign master. Because there is no plan coming out of Washington, D.C. to stop the incurrence of debt."  Naturally the PC police began bleating their racist rant.  Take note:  slave, slavery, enslavement, slavish and other derivatives may not be used in metaphors, similes, or allegories by white people!  And just ask David Howard (and others) what happens if you ever use “niggardly” in regard to budgetary matters.  (Pssst…it means “stingy”!)

Another reason liberals love to mock Palin is because she appears on Fox News, the ultimate sin.  However, no one on Fox ever wore tampon earrings.  No one on Fox ever said your children did not belong to their parents.  No one on Fox ever said someone should defecate in anyone’s mouth.  No one on Fox ever said a heart should be torn out and kicked around like a football then stuffed back in.  No one on Fox ever mocked a white family for adopting a black child.  All of this occurred on MSNBC, the leading Democrat media wing.  Don’t even bother hoping for change.

A reply to recent misinformed letter writer

Dear Editor,

 

Mark Twain once noted that people who don't read newspapers are ill informed; people who read newspapers are misinformed.  It is hard to believe that Mr. Guzenda could put so much misinformation into such a short space in his LTE.  For openers, he quotes an International Monetary Fund figure as the basis for the Social Security cost of living adjustment.  SSA uses the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for COLA determinations.

 

He criticizes Reagan's "trickle-down" economics but ignores the fact that income inequality in 2012 under Obama is the worst since 1917.  A UC Berkeley study shows that the top 10% earned twelve times what those in the bottom 10% earned.

 

He blames the Tea Party for the government shutdown but it was Harry Reid who refused to consider the Republican/Tea Party proposal to delay Obamacare for a year.  Of course, the President is now (unconstitutionally) implementing delay after delay by executive order.  Maybe Reid should have listened given the train wreck that was predicted has now come true.

 

And how does he manage to blame the Republicans for the sequester when the idea originated in the White House and was signed into law by the President?  If President had carried out the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission (which he appointed), the entire fiasco would have been avoided.  Of course, the record shows he chose to ignore them.

 

Another curious contradiction in Mr. Guzenda's narrative is the job creation myth.  The labor participation rate is now down to 63.2%, which is the lowest it has been since 1978!

 

However, the biggest whopper, excuse me, "factually untrue" statement is that every Republican president has left behind a deficit and every Democrat president has left behind a surplus.  I'll minimize the boring numerical facts by listing the increase in national debt by recent presidential terms.  Reagan's first term was a $656 billion increase and his second term was a $1.036 trillion increase.  George H.W. Bush's only term showed a $1.587 trillion increase.  Bill Clinton's first term showed a $1.122 trillion increase and with a Republican House, only a $418 billion increase in his second term.  George W. Bush oversaw a $1.885 trillion increase in his first term and a $3.014 trillion in his second.  Barack Obama called this "unpatriotic" and a "failure of leadership."  However, in his first term alone, the debt increased $5.806 trillion.  He is the only president to ever have a trillion dollar annual deficit and he managed four in a row!  When he took office, the debt was $10.6 trillion.  Now it is $17.3 trillion with a bullet to twenty!

 

One should be very careful to stand on solid ground before accusing others of spreading misleading claims!

 

Sincerely,

Bill Garvin