Openly Socialist Hollande And Obama Share SAME Major Policies – So Obama Isn’t A Socialist WHY, Exactly???

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – Karl Marx

I have frequently on this very blog demanded liberals to explain in detail just how exactly Barack Obama isn’t for the same thing (i.e., the major economic element of communism).  But let’s start with the French and get to Obama later.

Planet France is a place where fools have pretty much run things ever since 1789.  Two words that define France today are “socialism” and “surrender.”

Who did Planet France just elect?  And just what is this particular cheese-eating socialist surrender-monkey saying he’s going to do?

Hollande defeats Sarkozy in French presidency vote
Updated 04:05 p.m., Sunday, May 6, 2012

PARIS (AP) — Socialist Francois Hollande defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on Sunday to become France’s next president, heralding a change in how Europe tackles its debt crisis and how France flexes its military and diplomatic muscle around the world.

Exuberant, diverse crowds filled the Place de la Bastille, the iconic plaza of the French Revolution, to fete Hollande’s victory, waving French, European and labor union flags and climbing the column that rises at its center. Leftists are overjoyed to have one of their own in power for the first time since Socialist Francois Mitterrand was president from 1981 to 1995.

“Austerity can no longer be inevitable!” Hollande declared in his victory speech Sunday night after a surprising campaign that saw him transform from an unremarkable, mild figure to an increasingly statesmanlike one.

Sarkozy is the latest victim of a wave of voter anger at government spending cuts around Europe that have tossed out governments and leaders over the past couple of years.

In Greece, a parliamentary vote Sunday is seen as critical to the country’s prospects for pulling out of a deep financial crisis felt in world markets. A state election in Germany and local elections in Italy were seen as tests of support for the national government’s policies.

Hollande promised help for France’s downtrodden after years under the Sarkozy, a man many voters saw as too friendly with the rich and blamed for economic troubles.

Hollande said European partners should be relieved and not frightened by his presidency.

“I am proud to have been capable of giving people hope again,” Hollande told huge crowds of supporters in his electoral fiefdom of Tulle in central France. “We will succeed!”

Hollande inherits an economy that’s a driver of the European Union but is deep in debt. He wants more government stimulus, and more government spending in general, despite concerns in the markets that France needs to urgently trim its huge debt.

Sarkozy conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, saying he had called Hollande to wish him “good luck” as the country’s new leader.

Sarkozy, widely disliked for budget cuts and his handling of the economy during recent crises, said he did his best to win a second term, despite widespread anger at his handling of the economy.

“I bear responsibility … for the defeat,” he said. “I committed myself totally, fully, but I didn’t succeed in convincing a majority of French. … I didn’t succeed in making the values we share win.”

With 75 percent of the vote counted, official results showed Hollande with 51.1 percent of the vote compared with Sarkozy’s 48.9 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The CSA, TNS-Sofres and Ipsos polling agencies all predicted a Hollande win as well.

Hollande has virtually no foreign policy experience but he will face his first tests right after his inauguration, which must happen no later than May 16.

Among his first trips will be to the United States later this month for summits of NATO — where he will announce he is pulling French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year — and the Group of Eight leading world economies.

Hollande’s first challenge will be dealing with Germany: He wants to re-negotiate a hard-won European treaty on budget cuts that Germany’s Angela Merkel and Sarkozy had championed. He promises to make his first foreign trip to Berlin to work on a relationship that has been at the heart of Europe’s postwar unity.

Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, congratulated Hollande on Sunday night and said both countries will keep on cooperating closely in driving the European Union’s policies and be “a stabilizing factor and a motor for the European Union.”

At home, Hollande intends to modify one of Sarkozy’s key reforms, over the retirement age, to allow some people to retire at 60 instead of 62. He also plans to increase spending in a range of sectors and wants to ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy. He favors legalizing euthanasia and gay marriage.

Sarkozy supporters call those proposals misguided.

“We’re going to call France the new Greece,” said Laetitia Barone, 19. “Hollande is now very dangerous.”

Sarkozy had said he would quit politics if he lost, but was vague about his plans Sunday night.

“You can count on me to defend these ideas, convictions,” he said, “but my place cannot be the same.”

His political allies turned their attention to parliamentary elections next month.

People of all ages and different ethnicities celebrated Hollande’s victory at the Bastille. Ghylaine Lambrecht, 60, who celebrated the 1981 victory of Mitterrand at the Bastille, was among them.

“I’m so happy. We had to put up with Sarko for 10 years,” she said referring to Sarkozy’s time as interior and finance minister and five years as president. “In the last few years the rich have been getting richer. Now long live France, an open democratic France.”

“It’s magic!” said Violaine Chenais, 19. “I think Francois Hollande is not perfect, but it’s clear France thinks its time to give the left a chance. This means real hope for France. We’re going to celebrate with drink and hopefully some dancing.”

Planet France is a place where liberalism lives forever.  Planet France is a place where foolishness is wisdom, where night is day and where evil is good.

The markets already plunged on the fear that Hollande could win; now he’s won.  And the finance markets aren’t happy with “we will spend other people’s money until there is no more of other people’s money left to spend” policies:

Euro falls to three and a half year low amid market jitters at French and Greek elections
The Euro hit a three and a half year low against the pound as financial markets reacted to the election of Francois Hollande as France’s first Socialist president for 17 years and the new threat to a eurozone break-up posed by the post-election turmoil in Greece.
By Roland Gribben, Henry Samuel and Bruno Waterfield
11:24AM BST 07 May 2012

The Paris stock exchange CAC 40 index dropped 1.52pc in early trading with investors nervous about the growing pressure for a eurozone economic policy switch from austerity to growth, reflected in the French and Greek election results and President Hollande’s priorities.
 
The euro fell heavily across the board on Monday. Traders said the euro’s losses, which saw it hit a three-month low against the dollar, its lowest in 3 and a half years against the British pound and a 2 and half month trough versus the yen, were likely to be extended in coming days.
 
Stocks in Italy fell 2.2pc, the main Madrid index slipped 1.76pc while a 2.02pc drop in the DAX index of leading German shares was blamed on a local election setback for Chancellor Angela Merkel.
 
Political stalemate in Greece after the failure of any party to gain a majority saw shares on the Athens market slump 7.6pc.
 
The strength of the opposition to the Greek bail-out programme has raised fresh questions about continued eurozone membership.

Alexis Tsipras leader of the Syriza party, a coalition of the radical left which emerged as the second biggest after winning 16pc of the Greek vote, immediately drew the battle lines declaring: “The people of Europe can no longer be reconciled with the bailouts of barbarism.”
 
The euro fell its lowest level for almost four months to $1.2954 before showing signs of a rally to $1.301 while the interest rate on France’s benchmark ten year bonds rose.
 
Traders said there was no panic but the rising yield is increasing concerns about a run on French debt and a threat to the French deficit reduction programme. A widening in the spread between French and German bonds was seen as a ‘flight to safety.’
 
Germany’s 10-year yield fell to as low as 1.552pc, the second record in consecutive trading days.
 
Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said President Hollande’s victory would have no immediate effect on its French rating.
 
The agency infuriated former President Sarkozy when it stripped France of its top triple-A rating in January.
 
A number of analysts felt markets had already taken account of a Hollande victory while others argued that a combination of the French and Greek results would increase pressure on eurozone debt.
 
World stock markets hit as France votes for first Socialist president in 20 years and Greece chooses a parliament with a majority of MPs from anti-bailout parties.

Some say that the market has already taken a Hollande win – i.e. a win for socialism, a win for liberalism, into account.  These are pretty much saying that Hollande will govern far more pragmatically than his liberal rhetoric suggests.  They’re saying that the world financial markets will prevent true socialism from emerging in France, and that Hollande will have to face reality given that he’s simply boxed-in by simple reality.   But even those people are saying, “We are quite pessimistic about the euro area in the short-term. We think that the GDP contraction will amplify in the second quarter. So, things will get worse in the coming weeks.”

I think that’s hogwash.  I think that Hollande will now believe he’s got a mandate to export his brand of socialist-liberal belief in unicorns and fairy dust to Germany and to the world financial markets.  His win was by about the same margin that Obama won by, interestingly, and both Obama and Democrats sure as hell thought THEY had a mandate which they foolishly exploited until the voters gave them a historic ass-kicking in 2010.  I also think that Hollande’s “Our way out of our massive debt is for our government to pretend we’re not in debt and quadruple down on our reckless, insane spending” mantra is the way to ruin.  And that ruin will surely ensue.  And, lastly, I think that the Eurozone’s complete and utter collapse is all but guaranteed now.

I said “quadruple down on our reckless, insane spending” in honor of our own socialist fool: Barack Hussein Obama.  Because Obama has spent FOUR TIMES AS MUCH AS BUSH DID:

“Austerity can no longer be inevitable!”

Our socialist fools in the Democrat Party in America are as determined to ignore reality as the sociliast fools on Planet France.

Compare and contrast openly socialist Hollande’s major policies to Obama’s: both want huge government stimulus programs; both oppose any constraints on government spending; both demand that we tax the rich; and both want a special tax on banks.  That’s because Barack Obama is a damn SOCIALIST!!!

The French election previews the U.S. November election contest between incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney in the following four ways:

1). Both Obama and Hollande offer almost identical leftist platforms (details on this below).

2) The bland challengers (Hollande and Romney) ignite electoral passions less than their more colorful opponents (playboy Sarkozy with his celebrity wife and Obama, the first black president).

3) The sorry state of the economy gives both challengers a hefty leg-up.

4) The French and American elections are foreshadowed by electoral disasters for the incumbent party in off-year races in 2010 and 2011. In both, the incumbent party lost long-held majorities in one house of Congress or parliament.

Read more…

And it’s no surprise that America under Obama is looking more and more like Europe and having the same long-term problems that Europe has had:

EDITORIAL: Obama’s euro-style unemployment
Welfare-state mentality fosters permanent joblessness
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Tuesday, June 14, 2011

It’s no secret that President Obama wants America to look more like Europe. He desires expanded powers for labor unions, higher gas prices for commuters and a diminished role on the world stage. So far, he’s been effective in fostering the conditions for European-style unemployment on these shores. […]

As we speak the unemployment rate just went down.  Why?  Because 115,000 jobs were created – nowhere near enough to even keep pace with population growth, mind you – and 342,000 gave up trying to find a job in complete despair.  We live in our own version of planet France when nobody could have a job and our president could boast of a 0% unemployment rate.

George Will pointed out a couple of facts as to just how terrible Obama is managing our economy this week on ABC’s “This Week”:

JAKE TAPPER: George, the president kicked off his campaign yesterday. Thoughts?

WILL: He kicked it off a day after we saw the emblematic achievement of the Obama administration, which is to make a decline in the unemployment rate bad news. It ticked down from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent because 342,000 of Americans succumbed to discouragement with the Obama economy and left the economy.
 
Male participation rate in the economy today is lower than it has been at any time since we began keeping this statistic in 1948. Indeed, if the workforce participation rate were the same today as it was when Mr. Obama was inaugurated, the real unemployment rate would be measured at about 11 percent. That’s no record to run on.

Barry Hussein has been a jobs holocaust.

Bay Buchannon later made a statement about the planet France-like FOOLS who were instrumental to Obama’s 2008 victory: college students.

People who are graduating from college, 53 percent, do not get jobs when they graduate. We are going to lose that whole generation because, you know, when the jobs do come back, they’re going to hire college graduates just coming out.

Those idiot socialist fools deserve to suffer; it’s too dang bad the rest of the nation has to suffer along with them because of their vote for Obama four years ago.

I point out how simply godawful Obama has been for America.  Two years ago, due to Obama’s wildly failed policies, the labor participation rate measuring how many working-age Americans are actually WORKING was at a 25-year low.  Last year that participation rate had decreased to a 27-year low.  This year it decreased to a 31-year low.  Millions and millions of jobs have simply been vaporized under Obama and there is no sign that they will be coming back.

If you vote for Obama’s version of planet France, I can guarantee you that that rate measuring how many working-age Americans have any chance whatsoever of getting a job will continue to plunge.

P.S. The funniest damn thing of all is what I read after I got through writing this article but before I published it: that Obama is advising Hollande NOT to raise taxes and increase spending for the sake of the European economy.  WHILE OBAMA HIMSELF IS CAMPAIGNING ON DOING THE VERY THINGS HE’S TELLING HIS FELLOW SOCIALIST NOT TO DO.

Rush Limbaugh Predicted LeBron James Would Sign With Miami Because He’s Not An Idiot Liberal

Here’s Rush Limbaugh on July 1 predicting LeBron James would sign with Miami and explaining why he would do so:

RUSH: If things are on schedule, representatives of the New York Knicks are meeting with LeBron James who today becomes a free agent in the National Basketball Association.  Now, many of you are saying, “Oh, come on, Rush, stick to the issues.  Football’s bad enough, golf’s even worse, now, we gotta talk NBA?”  No, we’re not talking NBA.  The New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets both want LeBron James.  The Cleveland Cavaliers want him to stay in Cleveland, of course.  Here’s the decision LeBron James has to make, and let’s just use his current contract.  His contract just expired, was five years, $96 million.  If LeBron James had earned that money in New York he would have had to pay an additional $12.34 million in state and city income taxes than, say, if he played in Miami or for the Dallas Mavericks or wherever there is no state income tax.  So here you have these poor schlubs that run Madison Square Garden that own the Knicks and they’re going to try to persuade LeBron James to move to New York to play for the Knicks and they gotta tell him, “By the way, you’re going to pay about 12 to 15, maybe $20 million more in taxes in New York than you would if you –” they won’t tell him but his agent will.

Now, I have a question for all of you do-gooders out there, what should LeBron James do?  Should LeBron James decide to play for the Knicks and pay the additional taxes to show his compassion and to show he’s willing to give something back, which is what we demand of our athletes, or should he not sign with the New York Knicks or the Nets, sign with the Miami Heat and pocket and use the additional money for his own economic stimulus? What would you do if you were LeBron James and somebody was going to offer you in excess — remember, his old deal is $96 million over five years.  Let’s just make it up.  Let’s say somebody’s going to pay him $140 million over five years.  I don’t know what it’s going to be, but let’s say that new number is gonna — and, you know, taxes are going up next year, federal taxes going up, New York taxes are going up, if he goes to play for the Lakers, it’s the same kind of situation. I don’t think the Lakers are in the running, but regardless, what would you do?

Now, I’m going to make a prediction. (interruption) What, Snerdley, what, what?  Yeah, okay.  Snerdley says you are making my prediction come true even before I make it.  Snerdley said, “Well, there’s more to New York than just the taxes. New York versus Miami?  Come on.  Yeah, I’ve made that call, and where am I?”  In fact, for a guy like LeBron Miami is more — I mean you got South Beach down there, you got Dwyane Wade down there playing for the Heat.  Here’s my point.  A lot of you are probably saying, “I would go to the team that I really wanted to play for regardless the extra taxes because even at $140 million, even if I have to pay an additional 15 or $20 million, look at what I will have left over.”  I know a lot of people will say that.  Until you earn it, and then you will totally change your mind about it.  But my question to you is, is LeBron James, if he chooses to play for the Miami Heat or the Mavericks, I don’t know if they’re in the running — let’s say if he chooses a team with no state income tax, and saves 12 to $20 million dollars a year in taxes, is he being smart, is he being selfish, is he not being a good citizen?  What is he?

You want to keep LeBron James or, say, that company that hires lots of workers, or those rich people whose property taxes benefit the community?  LOWER TAXES.

Smart people avoid high taxes.  They leave those for STUPID people to pay.

That’s something Democrats will just never get.  They foolishly keep thinking that raising taxes won’t change people’s behavior.  And they keep thinking wrong.

If you want less of something, tax it.

Unfortunately, the state of Ohio decided it wanted less LeBron James.

By the same measure, Democrats want fewer businesses, fewer jobs, less economic growth, and less productivity.  It’s as simple as that.

There’s another entirely unrelated political nexus here, with LeBron James and Barack Obama sharing a common arrogance that sounds good but means nothing.

First, LeBron, whose rather recent remark (during the NBA playoffs) sounds pretty pathetic in light of last night’s news that he’s abandoning Cleveland:

BOSTON — LeBron James is bowed and bruised but not beaten. Asked why the Cavaliers fans should still believe, King James said yesterday after practice, “Because they got me.”

If I were a Cavalier fan I’d be pissed at “King” James.  Arrogantly talk crap.  Then lose.  Then walk away.

Now Barack:

Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., fears that these midterm elections are going to go the way of the 1994 midterms, when Democrats lost control of the House after a failed health care reform effort.

But, Berry told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the White House does not share his concerns.

“They just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”

Ah, yes, another bogus promise for idiot liberals to believe.

I don’t see things going any better for Democrats with their arrogant “messiah” than they just went for the Cleveland Cavaliers with their arrogant “king.”

ObamaCare Already Rearing Its VERY Ugly Head

You’ve got to be amazed at the Democrats’ arrogance, incompetence, and ignorance.

They are apparently having their version of Casablanca’s Captain Renault moment: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Only, in this Democrat-retelling, Captain Renault instead says, “Gambling?  There’s no gambling going on here!  It’s just gaming, not GAMBLING!  Why, it’s nothing more than two parties engaging in a predictive enterprise, in which the accurate prediction is rewarded in a monetary transaction.  But gambling?  You’re a violent racist to call that ‘gambling’!!!

Oh, my goodness.  I think you just spat on me!  It’s just the kind of thing you haters who attack us as “gamblers” would do!”

MARCH 27, 2010
The ObamaCare Writedowns
The corporate damage rolls in, and Democrats are shocked!

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, “In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them.” In a Thursday interview on CNBC, Mr. Locke said “for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible.”

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

As Joe Biden might put it, this is a big, er, deal for shareholders and the economy. The consulting firm Towers Watson estimates that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion, unless corporations cut retiree drug benefits when their labor contracts let them.

Meanwhile, John DiStaso of the New Hampshire Union Leader reported this week that ObamaCare could cost the Granite State’s major ski resorts as much as $1 million in fines, because they hire large numbers of seasonal workers without offering health benefits. “The choices are pretty clear, either increase prices or cut costs, which could mean hiring fewer workers next winter,” he wrote.

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

The Democrats passed their totally partisan bill (the only bipartisanship was in the “Hell no!” vote, with 34 Democrats joining every single Republican).

The New York Times reported that Obama’s core promise was his pledge that he would transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars, move beyond the divisive politics of Washington, and build a new governing majority that brought Democrats, independents and Republicans together.  And now we know that his fundamental, core promise was just a total lie, a massive lie of the devil.  Not only did he not try to become a unifying figure, as he cynically and deceitfully promised, but he became the most polarizing president in the history of the nation.  And that broken promise is now erupting into open rage like we have never seen in this country.

Obama is trying to demonize Republicans for the anger, but HE WAS THE ONE WHO PROMISED TO BE A TRANSCENDENT FIGURE.  HE WAS THE ONE WHO LIED.

Democrats have obfuscated every fact with spin and lies, and every single truth teller they could not bribe or intimidate they have tried to destroy.

Democrats can pass a pile of stinking lies on a 100% partisan ideological vote, but what they can’t do is make that pile of stinking lies that comprise ObamaCare actually work.  The Democrats health care law is already an open disaster, and it will continue to grow into a bigger and bigger disaster no matter how many congressional kangaroo courts they hold to demonize businesses who reported that their costs will skyrocket under this evil bill.

Obama said if you liked your health care you could keep it.  ABC was reporting that that promise was questionable back in July of last year.  Now it is a proven lie.  It was just another whopping lie of the devil all along.  Businesses are taking hits in the millions and even in the billions of dollars.  And one of them after another is going to start dumping their retirees into Medicare as the cost of offering private insurance plans soar under ObamaCare.

Obama’s reckeless spending is simply staggering.  The CBO is reporting that it is a gigantic $1.2 TRILLION more than Obama said it would be.  And they are reporting the terrifying news that the federal debt will soar to 90% of Gross Domestic Product.

Business costs are soaring.  AT & T will take a billion dollar hit because of ObamaCare.

As bad as that is in dollars, the bigger hit may well be the one taken by Caterpillar, because it shows the abject hypocrisy and fraud of ObamaCare.  Last year Obama said that “you can measure America’s bottom line by looking at Caterpillar’s bottom line.” And now that same Caterpillar is taking a $100 million hit due to ObamaCare.  Now that same Caterpillar is saying, “From our point of view, a tax increase like this cannot come at a worse time.”

That means fewer jobs for Americans.  A LOT fewer jobs.  And no denials by our Democrat version of Captain Renault can change that with his sputtering denials.

And there are other hidden provisions that are starting to leap out of this bill that Democrats passed, but apparently never bothered to read.

Now we’re finding that Americans are going to take a hit as high as $2,000 under another dark tunnel provision in ObamaCare.

“The damage is coming sooner than expected.”

That’s the nutshell summary of ObamaCare.