Letter of Recommendation for Barack Obama

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To Whom It May Concern:

Although it seems like Mr. Barack Obama has worked as my president for much longer than seven years, I am thrilled to hear that he is pursuing a new position. You will be very lucky if you can get him to work for you.

As a voter, citizen and taxpayer, I have been in a position to directly oversee Barack’s professional development and in short, I can’t recommend him highly enough. I’m confident you’ll be as shocked by his skill set as I am. As for his leadership qualities, where does one begin? It is difficult to put into words exactly why you should put your trust in Mr. Obama but suffice it to say you will be startled at the quality of his work. By the time he concludes his employment with us I believe there won’t be a man, woman or child in America who isn’t greatly indebted.

Before joining our team, Mr. Obama was a senator from Illinois, a state so bankrupt that it can’t even afford to pay its lottery winners. In his role as President of the United States, Mr. Obama reported directly to me, the American citizen. His signature accomplishment during his tenure was signing into law the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” for short. (I’ve attached a pdf. Nowadays, of course, one has time read it in its entirety while in your doctor’s waiting room).

Before Mr. Obama, the formerly part-time position of President had been held predominantly by individuals who strove first and foremost to demonstrate basic competency at the job. Some were more successful than others, of course, but all understood – or thought they understood – the job’s limitations. Executing the nation’s laws is, as you know, not particularly glamorous. Previous hires had mostly adopted a modest approach to the job, which seemed fitting given that it requires, among other things, pretending to take Lindsey Graham seriously.

Mr. Obama’s is very certain of his goals and very dedicated to achieving them. If anything, Mr. Obama was at times too eager to complete tasks successfully and quickly, which ultimately serves as proof of his dedicated ambition to succeed and excel. He made it very clear from day one his intention to fundamentally change things around here. At this, he succeeded. In fact, many of us hardly recognize the place anymore!

In his capacity as president, Mr. Obama was a valuable asset to Democrats as he personally contributed greatly to the expansion and promotion of its greatest asset, the government. And thanks to historically low interest rates, a reluctance to increase taxes and cheap loans from China, government is now cheaper than ever. Need I say more?

If you have any questions or require further information about Mr. Obama, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please.

Sincerely,

David Deeble, Concerned Citizen

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The Climate Circus Comes To Paris

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(Note: this was originally published at Ricochet.com).

Paris – I miss the days when the circus rolled into town on a sleepy train in the middle of the night rather on luxury private planes and chartered jets in the middle of the day. But then again, this is no ordinary circus, kids. It’s the Climate Circus! Where the folly of group action plays out before our eyes in such exotic locals as Marrakech, Lima and Doha. And this week, Paris. Only a few weeks after Islamist terror attacks killed 130 people in the heart of the city. As John Kerry might say, what more evidence do you need to believe that climate change has already begun?

The United Nations Climate Conference is where where expectations come to be lowered and grand schemes come to die. The fairy tale always begins on a note of optimism – ideally some kind of “grand bargain” on climate – only to settle for a vague statement calling to offset the conference’s carbon footprint “around 2050.”

There is good news on the climate front: ISIS recently announced its plan to cut its greenhouse emissions to pre-750 A.D. levels, and I believe them. Concerned entrepreneurs like Elon Husk have called for Toyota drivers worldwide to pay reparations for their recent historic environmental sinning, unwitting though they were. And North Korea continues to drastically cut it’s greenhouse gasses for some reason we can’t talk about. But mainly things don’t look good on the climate front: winters remain very cold and summers very hot because capitalism.

President Obama called ISIS’s proposal a “climate posturing” and a “jayvee solution to a varsity problem,” adding that global warming poses too great a threat to allow America to lead from behind. He also reiterated his complaint that Republican critics of his foreign policy are merely “popping” off, which is funny because popping off is the essence of his ISIS strategy.

The pointless enviro-drama that is the UNCC reminds me of Circus Soleil: too big a budget, over-produced and utterly pretentious. California Democrats are, as usual, on the leading edge in the fight against climate change – or any kind of change, for that matter. Governor Jerry Brown has called for more research and development on lunar energy for crying out loud: you can take “Moonbeam” out of a man’s name but you can’t remove him from the gravitational pull of environmentalism.

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American Kook: Lyndon LaRouche

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(This post original appeared as a column at Ricochet.com).

The most prolific non-comedian presidential candidate in U.S. history, Lyndon LaRouche first came to my attention during the 1992 election when his campaign took out a tv ad describing him as “the only man (then-President) George Bush feared enough to put in prison”. Manuel Noriega, like so many facts of life anathema to LaRouche’s fevered mind, was also sitting in a federal prison at the time.

More than 30 years and three election cycles later, my German wife and I were visiting San Francisco when we strolled past a couple of political activists standing next to a sandwich board depicting President Obama with a Hitler mustache – a depiction which my wife pointed out would be illegal in her native Germany. Lest her innocence of American politics cause her to confuse these LaRouche followers with fellow Tea Party nutters, I told her what I knew about the American kook named Lyndon LaRouche.

As a politician, Larouche was one-tool player who nonetheless appeared to to be in the big leagues from time to time. His skill set consisted almost entirely of identifying an emotionally charged issue, conducting in-depth research then proposing an oversimplified solution, usually involving a restructuring of the economy or national security apparatus. His pathological certitude found expression in the breadth of policy positions expected of a presidential candidate, from healthcare to fiscal and foreign policy.

A member of the Socialist Workers party from 1949 – 1964 and the U.S. Labor Party from 1973 – 1979, LaRouche finally settling on the Democratic Party in 1979, where he sought the nomination in seven of his eight presidential campaigns. His conspiracy theories, the follower-on-follower violence, his unshakeable faith in the stupidity or evil intentions of those who opposed him – all these and more made LaRouche seem like a politician after L. Ron Hubbard’s heart.

Like the same song but in a different key, LaRouche’s also had the ability to place any world event into a larger context, giving it greater apparent meaning in the facile manner favored by conspiracy theorists and Marxists. A real go-getter, by the early 1970’s he was publishing now-forgotten magazines such as New Solidarity and teaching at never-remembered entities like New York City’s Free School. LaRouche’s up-and-at-‘em initiative was not mitigated in the least by his Marxist beliefs.

By the 1970’s, of course, 1960’s ideology were in full swing. Name a 70’s-era brand of then-vibrant American Marxism and LaRouche either joined it, founded it or oversaw violence against it: the Socialist Workers Party, the Revolutionary Tendency, Students for a Democratic Society and, most importantly for his own career, the National Caucus of Labor Committees, or NCLC.

None of this would be interesting were it not for LaRouche’s uncanny ability to gain access to officials at the highest levels of government. How did he do it? In 1971, LaRouche founded an intelligence network which published information in magazines articles and papers sent to him from his followers in hotbeds of Marxism like Stockholm and West (not a typo) Berlin. This enabled him to gain access to government officials under press cover. These publications had modernist names aimed at setting hard-leftists’ hearts aflutter, such as New Solidarity, Fusion Magazine and 21st Century Science and Technology (note that the titles invoke the more-committed-to-science-than-you of today’s widely-popular I F***ing Love Science‘s Facebook page.

Bobby Ray Inman, the CIA’s deputy director in 1981 and 1982, said LaRouche visited him offering information about the West German Green Party; a CIA spokesman said LaRouche met Deputy Director John McMahon in 1983 to discuss one of Larouche’s trips overseas. An aide to William Clark said when Larouche’s associates discussed technology or economics, they made good sense and seemed to be qualified (thus removing any doubts about the aides qualifications as a government official).

The 2016 presidential candidate who seems most to share LaRouche’s love of ideas over people – though not, of course, his reflexive paranoia and violent tactics – is Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, who ended his hapless campaign on November 2. Unlike LaRouche, who published policy papers on everything under the sun, Lessig’s campaign raised more than one million dollars promising to protect Americans from engaging in what he deems excessive political speech or, in his words, “fighting systemic corruption in Washington”. (Lessig dislikes the term “campaign finance reform.”)

Lessig would have required much more than one million dollars to conspire with Congress and in an end-around the First Amendment to the Constitution, in which its authors invoked a rare (for them) absolute in writing “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom speech…” Italics mine, not Lessig’s.

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Vapor Madness

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(Note: This article originally appeared at Ricochet.com).

In the bad old days, Big Tobacco would have used all the means at its disposal to thwart a new technology that threatened to disrupt the market for inhalable nicotine. But instead of using its relationship with (and leverage over) regulators to throw obstacles into the path of its early-worm competitors, Big Tobacco has read the writing on the wall and begun to supply the demand for e-cigarettes and vaporizers.

One should expect a politically-connected colossus like R.J. Reynolds to arrive late to the e-cigarette game. But R.J. is downright nimble compared to a Ticonderoga-class bureaucracy like the California Department Of Public Health, which recently kicked-off a campaign to confuse low-information consumers (principally Millenials, liberals, and the poor). A website promoted by the state is called, tellingly, StillBlowingSmoke.org.

The first thing that strikes visitors to the site are the sepia-toned photographs of young people’s heads enveloped in clouds of vapor so beautiful as to tempt non-smokers to take up vaping as a hobby. With the light touch one associates with public health campaigns, the site explains the tradeoffs between smoking and vaping with the sober evenhandedness of the movie Reefer Madness. One link contains the headline “Particles And Your Body: A Hate Story” (for those not familiar with government lingo, hate is never justified). Beneath that, we read:

See why those fine and ultrafine particles in e-cig aerosol are just tiny balls of evil to your measly human form.

I guess you could say the e-cig industry comprises an evil empire.

One-third of the site, with a predictability that surpasses mere tedium, criticizes Big Tobacco’s for its desire to make inroads into the growing e-cigarette market rather than doing what the government expects: kowtow to regulators and fund its crummy schools. Much is made of Big Tobacco’s “unclear motives.” Speaking of unclear motives, is it possible that the California Department of Public Health has a some of its own? According to Americans for Tax Reform:

In targeting an effective smoking cessation device – vapor products – it is clear that the California Department of Public Health wants to maintain cigarette sales as an important funding source for their big spending priorities. By discouraging vaping, the state may recoup potential revenue losses that occur when a smoker transitions from unhealthy cigarette use to products proven to be 99% less harmful, but not taxed as much.

In short, Big Government’s interest in maintaining a robust supply of new cigarette smokers is every bit as mercenary as Big Tobacco’s.

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