It’s a routine event to be excoriated by your enemies - you laugh it off and consider the source.  When harsh criticism comes from your friends, however, it should be a wake up call to reassess positions.

Barrick Obama’s wake up call came when Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts recently let loose some very harsh criticism on Obama’s job performance and “weird political philosophy”.  Steve Wynn is a giant business presence in Las Vegas and has built and run a large number of casinos including the Wynn, Encore, Golden Nugget and Treasure Island.  Wynn’s business skills and determination have resulted in creating thousands of jobs and wealth.  Wynn knows business and he knows how to create jobs.  He is exactly the type of man who should be consulted for his advice on guiding the country out of depression levels of unemployment.

Unfortunately, the president spends most of his time demonizing wealthy businessmen for a litany of transgressions including not paying enough taxes.  The White House’s disdain for free enterprise has not escaped the notice of the country’s job creators.  In a conference call to investors, Steve Wynn lamented that businesses are being demoralized and paralyzed due to socialistic government policies.

Wynn said  that the “Obama administration is the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I could prove it…I could spend the next three hours giving you examples of all of us in this marketplace that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right, and a President that keeps using that word redistribution.”

Wynn also mentioned that he is a Democrat and a friend of Harry Reid, but “I am telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. Until he is gone, everybody is going to be sitting on [his] thumbs”.

Wynn also said that Obama is “responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and [the need] to do something to businesses that don’t invest, that are holding too much money. You know, we haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody is afraid of the government and there is no need soft-pedaling it. It is the truth. It is the truth.”

And right on cue, Obama today confirmed Wynn’s worst fears.  Although unemployment has been at crisis levels in this country for three years, Obama has ignored the problem other than occasional lip service to the issue.   In an announcement proclaiming a new push for job creation today, the President came up woefully short on ideas.  The “new job initiatives” announced involve extending unemployment benefits and the social security tax cut, proving Wynn’s contention that Obama, as a socialist, does not understand or embrace free enterprise.  More social benefits merely transfers wealth from workers to non workers.  These initiatives would be underwritten with borrowed money, deepening the debt crisis.  Wynn is correct - until Obama is gone from office, the nation’s economic woes are certain to worsen.

It’s time for a change.

After signing into law legislation that increased the national debt by a massive $2.4 trillion, the President said he wants to solve other issues including tax cuts for the middle class and extended unemployment benefits.  No mention was made of focusing on job creation but the President said he understood what the voters really wanted.  President Obama said “They want us to solve problems.” - Barrack Obama 2011

How would Ronald Reagan respond to the profound crises that the Country faces today?  Does the massive power grab by the government and crippling levels of debt, taxes and regulation have any connection to an unemployment rate of almost 20%?  Are small business owners, the engine of job creation in America, being killed by the government?

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.” - Ronald Reagan 1981

“I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. Very simply, they want to be left alone in peace and safety to take care of the family by earning an honest dollar and putting away some savings.” - Ronald Reagan 1976

It’s time for new tactics and new leadership.   Socialism does not work as we can observe by looking at two of the biggest national financial disasters in history - Cuba and Venezuela.  The command and control economic policies of these two countries have condemned their entire populations to a life of grinding poverty and hopelessness.

The Two Stupidest Men On Earth

Here’s the Wall Street Journal’s score card on the performance of Obama after 923 days, in alphabetical order.

A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.

B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.

C is for China’s military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.

D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.

E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.

F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA’s signed by the current president: zero.

G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America’s future if we don’t reform our entitlement state.

H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can’t believe I’m writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.

I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.

J is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.

K is for Karzai, Hamid, Afghanistan’s feckless leader. Still, the Obama administration probably did itself no favors by publicly dumping on the man, leading him to seek new best friends in Tehran.

L is for Laden, Osama bin. The president’s greatest triumph, which will forever put him one notch—if only one notch—above Jimmy Carter.

M is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels.

N is for NATO, once a pillar of Western security, which Mr. Obama is in the process of destroying through his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his refusal to give NATO the push it needs to win in Libya.

O is for ObamaCare, which goes far to explain B, D, J as well as the Greek part of G.

P is for Pyongyang, whose ruler the administration is once again attempting to engage in the six-party talks. This is after the Kim regime welcomed Mr. Obama’s plea for a nuclear-free world by testing a nuclear bomb, torpedoing a South Korean ship, shelling a South Korean village, and unveiling a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility.

Q is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller’s low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978.

R is for the reset with Russia, the principal result of which is an arms-control treaty that brings us to parity in strategic nuclear weapons, leaves us behind in the tactical category, and ill-equips us for the challenge of a proliferating world.

S is for shovel-ready. Enough said.

T is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for “millionaires and billionaires”—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.

U is for Iran’s uranium enrichment. When Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend his hand to the mullahs, Iran had enriched 1,000 kilos of uranium. Today they have produced more than 4,000 kilos.

V is for Venezuela, a country whose extensive subterranean links to Iran the administration has consistently downplayed.

W is for the Dubya, whose presidency now looks like a model of spending restraint.

X is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like. X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.

Y is for Yes, We Can! Unfortunately, it’s also for Yemen.

Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

The latest poll results from the Washington Post prove that the ruling elite do not represent the views of the average American.  An overwhelming two thirds of voters decisively reject the notion that Ground Zero, the site of America’s greastest mass murder, is the appropriate site to build a Muslim monument.   In addition, half of all Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Islam.   Why do so many of the ruling elite miss the common sense element and vehemently support the Mosque?

Washington Post - Two-thirds of those polled object to the prospective Cordoba House complex near the site of the former twin towers, including a slim majority who express strongly negative views.

-49 percent of all Americans say they have generally unfavorable opinions of Islam

-Nearly a third of all Americans see mainstream Islam as encouraging violence

Americans recognize that it is simply not right to build a Muslim mosque next to a site that is still an open wound for many Americans.    If the builders of the proposed mosque possessed simple human decency or respect for 3,000 murder victims, the mosque project would have never been proposed.  The mosque project is an act of outrageous provocation and Americans should push back.

America’s outrage should be equally directed at both the mosque builders and the politicians who support the mosque under the banner of “religious freedom”.  A huge majority of Americans already believe that the government does not have the consent of the governed and this is a prime example for feeling that way. 

It’s a big country - pick another place!

More On This Topic:  Sacrilege at Ground Zero - Washington Post

Location matters. Especially this location. Ground Zero is the site of the greatest mass murder in American history — perpetrated by Muslims of a particular Islamist orthodoxy in whose cause they died and in whose name they killed.

America is a free country where you can build whatever you want — but not anywhere. That’s why we have zoning laws. No liquor store near a school, no strip malls where they offend local sensibilities, and, if your house doesn’t meet community architectural codes, you cannot build at all.

These restrictions are for reasons of aesthetics. Others are for more profound reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz — and no mosque at Ground Zero.

Build it anywhere but there.

Rasmussen Reports, one of the most respected and accurate polling organizations in the country, now provides proof of what many of us have long known - the vast majority of Americans do not believe that the federal government has the consent of the governed.

The notion that governments derive their only just authority from the consent of the governed is a foundational principle of the American experiment.

However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 23% of voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-two percent (62%) say it does not, and 15% are not sure.

In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that the American people are “united in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt and that neither major political party has the answers.” He adds that “the gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and the politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century.”

The book earned positive reviews from Larry Sabato, Pat Caddell, Bill Kristol, Joe Trippi and others. In Search of Self-Governance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.

The growing disconnect between mainstream America and the ruling political elite has been discussed on this site numerous times and now we have the polling numbers to prove it.  Despite the polls, Washington carries on with business as usual, apparently oblivious to the concerns, beliefs and values of their constituents.  Additional polls reinforce the basic disconnect between mainstream voters and the ruling elite.

Data released yesterday finds that 68% of voters believe the Political Class doesn’t care what most Americans think.

Over the past couple of years, most Americans have opposed many initiatives of the Political Class including the bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Additionally, most voters still favor repeal of the national health care plan and overwhelmingly disagree with the Justice Department’s decision to challenge Arizona’s new immigration law in court.

Fifty-five percent (55%) don’t even think most members of Congress pay all the taxes they owe.

Voters are evenly divided over the notion that a group of people randomly selected from the phone book could do a better job than the current Congress.

One reason for skepticism about the Political Class is that 70% believe Big Government and Big Business are on the same team working together against the rest of us.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Scott Rasmussen, founder of Rasmussen Reports further expounded on the serious rift between the governed and the ruling elite.

“Americans don’t want to be governed from the left or the right,” Scott Rasmussen tells the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conference of 1,500 conservative and moderate legislators. “They want, like the Founding Fathers, to largely govern themselves with Washington in a supporting—but not dominant—role. The tea party movement is today’s updated expression of that sentiment.”

A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree with the mainstream view on Mr. Rasmussen’s three questions. “The major division in this country is no longer between parties but between political elites and the people,” Mr. Rasmussen says. His recent polls show huge gaps between the two groups. While 67% of the political class believes the U.S. is moving in the right direction, a full 84% of mainstream voters believe the nation is moving in the wrong one.

The fact that 67% of the ruling political elite believe we are moving in the right direction despite the totally opposite belief by those they rule over should be a cause of great concern regarding the future political stability of the country.  The ruling elite will continue to enforce their “enlightened view” upon an unwilling populace until they are voted out of office.  Since Democrats and Republicans both seem to be largely woven out of the same cloth, the question of whether any fundamental change will occur remains open.

Baseball great, 48 year old Roger Clemens, faces the equivalent of a death sentence with the threat of a 30 year prison term after being indicted for making false statements, obstruction and felony perjury.   The indictment follows an inquiry into Mr. Clemen’s alleged use of steroids, during which Mr. Clemens flatly denied ever using steroids or human growth hormone.

Federal prosecutors, miffed by Mr. Clemens audacity to make allegedly “false statements under oath”, announced the indictment today and seem prepared to vigorously prosecute Mr. Clemens.  US Attorney Ronald Machen, said in a statement that “The Department of Justice takes referrals from congressional committees very seriously”.

Mr. Clemens continues to maintain his innocence, stating on Twitter that, “I never took HGH or steroids.  And I did not lie to Congress. I look forward to challenging the government’s accusations, and hope people will keep an open mind until trial. I appreciate all the support I have been getting. I am happy to finally have my day in court.”

The ironic part of this human tragedy is that Roger Clemens was man enough to state his innocence, forgoing his Fifth Amendment rights and agreeing to testify before Congress.  According to sports writer Jeff Passan,

Clemens wasn’t in trouble when baseball released George Mitchell’s report on steroid use. Sure, it disintegrated the purity of everything he spent 24 seasons building, but Clemens was no felon. Just a guy who chose the wrong drug dealer. Only when he went on the warpath to prove his innocence did Clemens tiptoe near a law that people in power are interested in prosecuting.

The indictment, 19 pages long and rich with information, highlights 15 utterances the government deemed false leading to an obstruction of justice charge. Testimony regarding steroids, HGH and vitamin B12 comprise three false statement charges and two more perjury charges, each of which could carry five years prison time.

On page 10 is the statement most horrifying to Clemens, the rubbing alcohol in his gaping wound: “The Committee did not issue CLEMENS a subpoena, and CLEMENS was under no obligation to testify. CLEMENS retained his right under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to refuse to answer any questions that might tend to incriminate him.”

He could’ve taken the Mark McGwire tack, treating the Fifth like his best friend. He could’ve done what so many other accused steroid users did: not say a thing and let the allegations fade into the ether, a black mark, sure, but not one that torpedoes a life. He could’ve done what his friend Andy Pettitte did: admit use, apologize for it and move on.

There remains the possibility, of course, that Clemens never did use steroids,…

Still, it’s harrowing to see another all-time great baseball player, steroids or not, paraded in front of the country as an example that thou best not trifle with the feds.

Does the country really want to see Roger Clemens put in jail, made an example of, by over zealous prosecutors seeking to exhibit the Federal Government’s stern authority over its citizens?  Readers of this column are already aware of the fact that the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any country on earth -see How The US Justice System Turns Jaywalkers Into Violent Criminals.

The United States currently has in prison 762 people per 100,000.   The incarceration rate in France is 96 people per 100,000.   Is the United States a land full of criminals or do we have a justice system run amok??  People lie everyday, including those who lead our country.   Doesn’t the Justice Department have better things to do?