Obama is the inside man shuffling the peas.

Let me explain.  After you think about it,  I am confident you will agree.  First, let’s summarize what a shell game is.  A lot of people may believe that a shell game is gambling but in fact it is not.  It is a confidence game which perpetuates fraud.  I think you will clearly see that this is again exactly what Obama is doing to the American public; using a confidence game to perpetuate a lie, if not another fraud on the public.  A shell game is called a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off.  A shell game is where a small round object (normally called a “pea”) is place under one of three shells, or the like.  The play is initiated by the inside man shuffling the pea from under one shell to the next.  At the end of the shuffle, the mark is asked to make his bet.  The mark is told that if he guesses correctly, he will double back the amount of his bet.  If the mark is wrong, he looses his bet.  In the hands of a skilled inside man, it is impossible to win because the game is based upon the slight of hand.  The operator can make the pea appear under anyone of the three shells and does so after the mark places his bet and points to one of the shells.  Typically, for the con to work, a dumb-mark has to be attracted to the game.  The operator will provide a setting of which it appears that several people are “gambling”—some are winning, some are loosing.  Most if not all of these players are part of the con and called “shills.”  Their job is to assist in the con.  Get the picture.  Obama has several shills working the game for him.

In the context of Obama politics, much presented by the preening operator is a shell game and most particularly, the President’s Afghanistan play.  Let me try and lay it out.  It is difficult because of the slight of hand in Obama’s rhetoric.  Going back to July of 2008, Candidate Obama appeared on CBS Face the Nation.  There he referred to the situation in Afghanistan as “precarious and urgent.”  While on that CBS program Obama also said that he had been advocating for more than a year an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan of at least two, maybe three brigades (15,000 troops).  The shuffle is on. . . Obama also was quoted as saying, “he has made Afghanistan a key focus of his foreign policy, and that he he would make it the central front in the “war on terror” if elected. Keep you eye on the pea.

After the election, in November, 2008 Obama spoke with at least 15 world leaders in the first three days of being elected, however, it was two weeks following before Obama spoke with the President of Afghanistan Karzai.1  The pea is moving around.  Of course during the conversation with Kazari, Obama promised more “assistance” to Afghanistan.  After all, the situtation in Afghanistan has been precarious and urgent for more than a year.  Several times Obama has said to the citizens that the war in Afghanistan had been getting worse.  I am mindful that he referred to the situation as urgent more than 18 months ago.

Everyone is aware of the “several months” of deliberations that Obama engaged in to determine the perfect Afghan strategy.  Quite frankly, honest and objective observers are usually convinced, such as I am, that these past several months of deliberations (one year since the election) were just Obama shuffling the shells not quite sure what to do.  If this is how our President and Commander in Chief responds to a precarious and urgent matter, I scared for all my family living in the U.S. as to how Obama will shuffle shells in the face of other urgent security matters.  We can discuss the shell game Obama is playing with the American people on Iran and health-care later.

After these many months of arduous deliberations, Obama finally announced “his” strategy for “winning the war in Afghanistan on Dec 1, 2009.  His solution, send more troops.  Brilliant.  I like the way Presidents and military people refer to sending troops overseas–they use the word, “deploy.”  Obama’s solution to win the war is for the most part to deploy 30,000 more troops and to carry out a mission much like the U.S. did during the surge in Iraq.  Okay, let’s assume that this brilliant strategy that Obama has laid out more than a year and half after he called the situation urgent, is the correct strategy to “win the war.”  By the way, no one in the media appears to want to ask Obama, “What took so long?”  Probably because the answer would be more Obama pea shuffling meaningless rhetoric.  Obama’s speech could have been two short sentences, i.e. honest and without his self-adoration and self-serving remarks.  ”I am sending more troops to Afghanistan.  I should have issued the orders months ago.”  End of speech.

Keep your eye on the pea!

In the speech Obama made at West Point wherein he unvieled his long awaited strategy for finishing the job against terrorists, Obama advised the world that these 30,000 additional troops would begin deploying as soon as possible–in January 2010.  Obviously, we can not send more troops before January 2010; after all, it is Christmas month–no one wants to fight a war just before Christmas.  So, beginning sometime in January, more troops will be deployed.  What Obama does to the American people and the citizens of our NATO allies is to deliberately mislead them by failing to talk about how long it will take to get these additional troops deployed who are urgently needed.  Hey America, the Obama hand is apparently quicker than your eyes!  In his West Point speech, Obama promised the citizens that we would ” . .begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011!” (emphasis added).  The illusion was presented to the citizens that the troops would be deployed in January 2010 and would be coming home in July 2011 (basically an 18 month execution of the Obama strategy to win the war in Afghanistan).  Obama obviously takes the citizens as being complete fools, if not idiots.  In summary, you might say it took Obama one year of intense deliberations to come up with a strategy to win the war in 18 months or less.  Wow, Obama is super-dawg.  The actual illusion of the shuffling of the pea under one of the shells is even worse than you think.  Recently, the second-ranking general in Afghanistan, Lt. General David Rodriguez, made the not so popular statement recently that it might take up to 11 months or longer to deploy the additional 30,000 troops.   Quoting here an article published at WCCO2, “Military officials had already been hinting broadly in recent weeks that the escalation might take longer, but Rodriguez’ comments indicated that the notion of a six-month rapid escalation was not realistic and that reality is now setting in.” Assuming Lt. General Rodriguez might know what he is talking about, then Obama is promising the citizens that winning the war will take one year or less after the additional troops arrive.  As you might expect, the statement by Rodriguez is not consistent with what the White House said earlier this month.   At Riehl World View, you can read where White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs said the troop build up will be accelerated. We’re going to get in there quickly and transfer responsibility for security to the Afghans quickly.   Obviously, during the months of deliberations Obama was surely informed as to how long it would take to get 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, he just failed to mention it to the citizens.  Which shell is the pea under?

Congress; a Shill or a Mark?

Last night I heard on the radio that Congress is not necessarily supportive of deploying more troops—well, at least for paying for them!  What? Are you kidding me?  There is no question whatsoever that in every shell game Obama is simultaneously playing–and there are many–we know that the number one shill in the bunch is Nancy Pelosi.  Notwithstanding that fact, I am stunned to learn that she just recently said:

It will be up to Obama to convince members of Congress to approve the money he needs to send extra troops to Afghanistan. Members of Congress will have to base their votes on their “consciences and constituents, . . .”3

In effect the Democratic leader of the House is telling Obama he is on his own with selling his plan to Congress to send more troops to Afghanistan!  Does he have congressional support or not?  You must have congressional support to fund the troops!  Never mind which shell is the pea under, there’s not even a pea on the table!  Doesn’t this blow your mind?  During these months of deliberations, Obama failed to gather the support of the House leadership in support of deploying more troops to Afghanistan, uh?  Unbelievable.  I can only conclude that Congress must be, at least in part, a mark in shell game along with the American public.  Even if this was not bad enough for Obama, a democrat representative from Ohio, Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he will be proposing a resolution in Congress in early January to pull all troops out of Afghanistan!  Obama would probably have more success with some of his foreign policy if his own party did not control both the House and Senate.  The country is no longer teetering on the precipice of total leadership failure–it is already there.

New Political Hard-Ball Begins.

Did you seen this “Wanted Poster” referencing Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue?  Outrageous.  A liberal activist group, called Velvet Revolution (cute eh?) has put a de facto bounty of $200,000 on Tom Donohue.  The offer is real and it seeks to flush out any criminal wrong doing in Donohue’s past.  The headline at Fox News is “Liberal Group Puts Bounty on Head of Chamber of Commerce CEO.” The story advises us that the mouth piece for Velvet Revolution is an attorney (surprise!) named Kevin Zeese.  According to Fox News, the group originally offered a mere $100,000 but recently increased the reward to its current amount thanks to a group of large donors.  There are several aspects of this that are disturbing.   This new example of political hardball serves as the impetus for me to start writing posts again after many months vacation.  Thank you for coming by.

Velvet Revolution is the term given to  a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989 when the Communist government was overthrown.  My inference is that this group, Velvet Revolution believes that the U.S. Government is akin to the Communist Party and is looking for a non-violent overthrow of something. . . the Government?  In any event, the idea is, if Velvet Revolution can act as a clearing house for any potential skeleton in Donohue’s closet then the leads will be forward to the Justice Department or the like.  The wording on the wanted poster itself indicates that the skeleton in the closet must be large enough to rise to the level of a criminal conviction in order for a reward to be paid.  Zeese calls the national Chamber of Commerce a right-wing extremist group that is primarily a mouth piece for corporate America.  One might describe Kevin Zeese as a left-wing zealot.  Earlier this year Zeese stated in an article he wrote that he was one of eight people arrested for disrupting Congress.  Of course he has his own agenda thus his involvement, if not outright leadership in Velvet.  However, that is not the point here.

The point is that this represents a new open level of hostility between domestic people and groups with different agendas.  It could very well explode into an atomic bomb of direct financial nastiness while giving fundraising a new 21st century meaning.  If it hasn’t jumped out at you yet, let me explain.  When people or groups look to personally disparage others with viewpoints different than their own, it obviously generates all kinds of heat.  Here we have a group with an agenda that has decided to solicit allegations of criminal wrongdoing from the general public because apparently the group has been unsuccessful in finding any on its own.  Where will this slippery slope bottom out?  I see this opening the door for other groups to counter-attack.  Perhaps Donohue might sit as one of the board of directors of an organization that now wishes to solicit information of criminal wrongdoing on Kevin Reese.  Does the charge of “disrupting Congress” rise to a sufficient level so as to properly disparage Zeese?  You decide.
The organizations themselves do not have to pay the reward money from their own coffers, they just has to do private fundraising from the “public” and there you go, reward money sitting in some attorney’s trust account.  On a positive note this may create a few jobs.   Someone has to sit at the computers receiving emails or answering the hot-line telephones thus fielding the leads.  In response to being asked about leads coming in regarding Donohue, Zeese said, Velvet has received a “handful of leads.”  What else is he going to say?

Political Bounty is out in the open.

Something else that concerns me about the fact that political bounty is now out in the open is that it will encourage more invasion of privacy.  Reporters routinely “vet” political candidates which is a nice way of saying they’re also looking for dirt on the candidates.  I doubt reporters receive rewards from organizations for their successes–at least not above the table.  Political opponents obviously search for dirt on one another for the purpose of disparagement but not likely for financial bounty purposes.  This process of offering money for information of criminal wrongdoing by persons of influence will likely escalate.  If so, then just a bit further down the slope will be the reward for information leading to the conviction of criminal wrongdoing of politicians as I have opined here.  Is that a good or bad thing?  Where will it stop?  No doubt the political process in the United States is already a shameless disgrace however, I say the polarization of political agendas is definitely Going Rouge. Can you imagine the reward amount a liberal organization will try to raise to attempt to obtain information on Sarah Palin?  I predict that if Governor Palin is a presidential nominee in 2012, the reward will be in the millions!  Lots of jobs created though i.e. people will be needed to answer that hot-line.   Once this gets going, it will spread like a pandemic to state and local politics.

Anyway, the organization supporting Donohue might offer $300,000 for information leading to the conviction of someone say, for example, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid. Next thing you know, we have some other group or organization looking for information leading to a criminal conviction on say, Michael Steele, the leader of the Republican National Committee. Suppose you wanted an organization to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction of any criminal wrongdoing by a politician opposing your candidate in the local city counsel election?  Is that good for the people, or is it bad?  It would not stop there either.

My other concern is that the offering a financial reward will expand beyond the concept of information leading to a conviction of a criminal act.  I am unable to think of anything of substance that would stop people or groups from using this same process for information leading to the disparagement of someone, i.e., where’s the dirt?  Talk about going rouge!  I can envision it now–ABC liberal left-wing organization offers $50,000 for any credible dirt on the right-wing conservative candidate in a state representative’s election race.  In today’s economy, there would be many people out there scouring for dirt on the candidate notwithstanding their political views.

I see this reward thing as bad news.  What do you think?  Post a comment or email me.