Tag Archives: Democratic Party

Reading Between The Lines

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One of the recent ideas to come out of the White House is that Republicans want to impeach President Obama. Admittedly, Sarah Palin has made that statement, but the silence from other Republicans is deafening. There’s a reason for that.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article with a picture that tells us everything we want to know about impeaching President Obama.

This is the picture:

ImpeachmentEmail06

Impeachment talk makes great fundraising. It also distracts people from the domestic and foreign failures of President Obama. The biggest mistake the Republicans could make right now would be to attempt to impeach President Obama. Impeachment is probably the only way the Democrat party can be competitive in the mid-term elections.

Even Uninformed Voters Won’t Believe These Statements

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Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon posted a video showing Democrat’s recent statements about the security of our southern border. The video is also found at YouTube.

The fact that Washington is not effectively handling the border crisis is bad enough, but do they have to insult our intelligence in the process?

Misleading The Public For Political Gain

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President Obama’s ratings are falling through the floor, and the Democrat needs a rallying cry to avoid being thrashed in November. They think they have it–free birth control (and abortion drugs).

NJ.com is reporting today that 35 Democratic senators in Congress have sponsored a bill they call “Not My Boss’s Business Act.” The obvious question here is, “If it’s not my boss’s business, why does he have to pay for it?” However, the real bit of information that the people screaming about the Hobby Lobby decision have overlooked is the fact that Hobby Lobby refused to pay for only four out of twenty forms of contraception. The company has funded, and will continue to fund the other sixteen.

An article posted at the Daily Caller about the move to undo the Hobby Lobby decision yesterday concludes:

In other words, while most Americans, except those with religious or moral objections, will happily share in the costs of a poor women’s birth control, few would see any reason to pay for contraceptives for Senators Murray, Boxer, or the vast majority of American women. Paying for their own birth control will neither deny them access nor violate their rights. You might say it is an outrage to contend otherwise.

 

 

A Multi-Faceted Approach To Censorship

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a group, Mayday PAC, headed by Lawrence Lessig, supposedly formed to ‘take the money out of politics.’ While I admire their noble objective, sometimes it pays to look at the past actions of people supporting a point of view.

Last week Mayday PAC raised $5 million to elect politicians who will pledge to reduce the influence of money in the American political process. That sounds as if they are doing exactly what they are opposing.

The article gives us some basic facts about the group and its objectives:

Lessig pitched wealthy donors in the tech community last week on the utility of restricting corporate political speech, saying their political agenda would be much easier to advance if opposing forces were restricted from influencing the political process.

“We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable companies’ money in the political system,” he told TechCrunch. “If NN is your issue, then this is why you should see that politic$ is your issue too.”

…Lessig has been explicit about the ideological nature of his campaign finance reform position. Liberal political ideas would prevail, he insists, but for the ability of their detractors to spend money opposing those ideas.

Lessig took a similar tack with respect to climate energy policy. Environmentalists, Lessig said in 2012, spent “hundreds of millions of dollars … to get global warming legislation, and they got nothing.”

“If money didn’t buy results in Washington,” he said, environmentalists would have been able to achieve their goals by injecting substantially less money into the political process.

The article explains some of the ties between Lessig and Democrat organizations and operatives. The bottom line here is simple–most Democrats who are campaigning to ‘take the money out of politics’ do not include union money in that statement. The anger is there because with the Citizens United decision, the playing field of big money has been leveled–generally speaking corporations donate to Republicans and unions donate to Democrats. It used to be that all the big money in politics went to Democrats and came from unions.  A website called Open Secrets tracks campaign donations. Just for the record, there is still more money going to Democrats than Republicans.

When you read the article at the Free Beacon, you discover that the reason for wanting to ‘take the money out of politics’ is to censor the opposing viewpoint. That is not what American is or should be about. The push to ‘take the money out of politics’ is more dangerous than any amount of money in politics. Censorship under any name is wrong and has no place in America.

Voter Fraud In The Very Early Stages Of The 2008 Election

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On Thursday, Fox News posted a story about voter fraud during the primary election season in Indiana. Four Democrats have been charged with forging the presidential primary petitions needed to get candidates on the ballot.

The article reports:

Among those charged is the former long-time chairman of the St. Joseph County Democratic Party, Butch Morgan, who allegedly ordered the forgeries. He was forced to resign when the allegations were first made public last October, even though his lawyer, Shaw Friedman, told Fox News at the time that Morgan did not do anything wrong.

The St. Joseph County Board of Voter Registration‘s Democratic board member, Pam Brunette, Board of Voter Registration worker Beverly Shelton and Democratic volunteer and former board worker Dustin Blythe also face charges.

According to affidavits, St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office worker Lucas Burkett told investigators that he was part of the plan that started in January 2008 “to forge signatures on presidential candidate petitions instead of collecting actual signatures from citizens.”

I have no doubt that campaign workers for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards could have collected enough signatures to put their candidates on the ballot. Why then did they find it necessary to forge the signatures? I have worked on election campaigns. Gathering signatures is time-intensive, but it is a necessary part of the process. I might also add that when campaign workers are gathering signatures, they have a chance to hand out information on their candidates and encourage voters to support their candidates. This fraud actually represents a missed opportunity.

What inspired these Democrats to think they could avoid the process? I am more concerned with the thinking behind the actions than the actual actions. To me, this illustrates that these people have no respect for the electoral process in their state and in America. It is my hope that the people who forged these petitions will not only go to jail, but that they will be denied voting privileges for the rest of their lives. They obviously do not respect the voting process.

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A Surprise Victory For Republicans

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Guy Benson at Hot Air posted an article today on the special election held in Arkansas on Tuesday. The election took place in Craighead County, which has not been represented by a Republican in the state senate since reconstruction. John Cooper, the Republican candidate, won the election with 57.21 percent of the vote.

On Sunday, the Daily Kos reported:

The Democratic nominee is Steve Rockwell, a businessman and political science professor at Arkansas State University. The Republican nominee is John Cooper, a retired businessman and former candidate for the State House of Representatives.

…On the politics side of things, this election is huge. Craighead County is a key area of the state for both Mark Pryor and Mike Ross to win (they need to get at minimum 49% of the vote in this county to win the state) If Rockwell can’t put up a decent showing, Democrats are going to have some serious issues going into 2014.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

So here we had a contested race in a traditionally Democratic area, the outcome of which held significant implications for Mark Pryor’s re-election bid.  An Obamacare-related controversy drove the campaign. Oh, and according to an email blast from the NRSC, the Republican candidate was outgunned on the spending front by a three-to-one margin.

There is hope.

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It Really Is About Priorities

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I have spent some time in the past week ranting about the cuts to the military pensions included in the budget deal. Every day the news about the deal seems to get a little worse. Today is no exception.

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line yesterday about another aspect of the budget compromise the Senate will be voting on in the next day or so.

The article explains one aspect of the budget negotiations in the Senate:

Harry Reid runs the Senate with an autocratic hand. One of his favorite tricks is called “filling the tree.” Reid will offer a series of amendments to legislation that “fill the tree,” making it impossible for any Republican amendments to be offered. In this way, Reid prevents Republicans from having any input into legislation and spares Democrats from having to vote against popular Republican initiatives.

Today, Reid filled the amendment tree on the Ryan-Murray budget to foreclose further amendments. Sessions wanted to propose an amendment to the spending bill that would delete the veterans’ benefit cuts and replace them by closing a loophole that allows illegal immigrants to suck billions of dollars out of the treasury.

So what is this loophole and how much does it cost? There is something called the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). I have written about the ACTC before–rightwinggranny.com and rightwinggranny.com.  A person does not need to have a social security number or pay income taxes in order to receive money under this program. This program is known to be a source of income for people who are in America illegally.

The article reports:

According to a 2011 report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, millions of people without valid Social Security numbers received a total of $4.2 billion in ACTC in 2010 – up from $924 million in 2005. The IRS is expected to issue some $7.4 billion in ACTC payouts this year.

The article concludes:

In order to allow his amendment to be heard, Sessions offered a tabling amendment to get rid of the filled amendment tree. That would have cleared the way for his amendment to be voted on, but the Democrats closed ranks on behalf of illegal immigrants and defeated Sessions’ motion on a nearly straight party line vote. The only Democrat to vote for the motion was Kay Hagan, who is up for re-election next year and evidently didn’t want to have to explain a “no” vote to her constituents.

Prioritizing illegal aliens over military veterans: that tells you all you need to know about the Democratic Party.

It is time to replace every current Congressmen who voted to defeat Jeff Sessions‘ motion. It is a disgrace that Congress would give money to people who are in America illegally before they would honor the promise America made to its soldiers when those soldiers enlisted.

 

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Some Good Advice From A Senior Democrat

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On Thursday, The Atlantic posted an article written by Ted Van Dyk, a Democrat campaign strategist who once worked for Hubert Humphrey. The article examines what the current Democrat party needs to do to maintain its power in the 2016 election. He is obviously not happy with the direction his party is currently taking.

He points out that the Barack Obama that is President today is very different than the Barack Obama that campaigned in 2008. (Actually, I disagree with that statement–Barack Obama has not changed–he has just behaved the way a community organizer would behave. Barack Obama had no administrative experience. Some Americans understood that–many Americans ignored that fact.)

Mr. Van Dyk notes:

Before 2008, Obama looked like a liberal of moderate temperament. He had the bad luck to take office at a time of financial and economic crises overshadowing everything else. He has said since that he underestimated at the time the depth of the crises. That no doubt led him, before growth and stability had been restored, to undertake in 2009 a remake of the entire health sector. Both his stimulus package and healthcare proposal were mainly designed by House Democratic leaders and the interest groups that supported his 2008 campaign. There was no serious attempt, in formulating either program, to draw Republicans into participation, as LBJ had done in 1965. Provisions allowing the sale of health-insurance products across state lines, and providing for meaningful tort reform, could have done that without forfeiting Democratic support. Trial lawyers would have objected but not jeopardized the bill’s passage.

This is spin. The depth of the crisis had nothing to do with ObamaCare. ObamaCare was the result of lack of leadership on the part of the President–he didn’t write it, and I doubt that he has read it–he simply let the old Democrat guard in Congress put together their dream package for special interests–that is why there are so many Democrat supporters excluded from many of the regulations, e.g. union plans that are grandfathered in.

Mr. Van Dyk further notes:

Obama’s 2012 reelection is little comfort for Democrats. His total vote was smaller than in 2008, and it did not constitute a mandate for any particular agenda. It instead depended on two things: first, an unprecedentedly skillful identification and mobilization of key Obama voter groups that had grown in importance over the previous four years; and second, highly effective scare campaigns designed to convince those groups that Mitt Romney and Republicans were heartless plutocrats, servants of wealth, and enemies of women, Latinos, African Americans, and the middle class.

Demonizing his opponent worked for President Obama. The Republicans, hopefully, have learned from that experience and will not let it happen again. The demonization began during the Republican primaries and was not answered by the Republicans at the time. By the time the charges were answered, the moment had passed and the conversation had moved on. The foundation for some of the demonization of Mitt Romney began with the question by George Stephanopoulos to Mitt Romney on birth control. That was not a ridiculous question–it paved the way for the charges that the Republicans were waging a ‘war on women.’

Mr. Van Dyk concludes:

Wedge politics and tailored political messaging can bring a campaign or even a presidency short-term success. But, for the longer run, most Americans feel they are in it together and badly want bipartisan action to keep the economy stable and growing, to keep the country safe here and abroad, and to keep American society open and fair. Americans want from Democrats what Obama promised in his 2008 campaign. Financial and economic crises diverted him, he opted for partisanship with his first-term initiatives, and the resulting gridlock leaves Democrats with three years to consider their future path.

By 2016, this veteran hopes, party leaders will conclude that the big things should be tackled first and that, because of their difficulty, they must be addressed on a bipartisan basis. May they also conclude that there is more to gain by uniting all Americans than by treating them separately as political subgroups.

I agree that bipartisanship is the solution, but I am not sure it is possible. Washington has become a snake pit of one-upmanship rather than a place where people actually work together to solve America’s problems. I suspect the only solution to that situation is to remove anyone from office who has been there for more than one term.

 

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Does Anyone Believe Anything President Obama Says?

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We are at a sad point in America. American presidents have always been accused of stretching the truth beyond belief, but with President Obama and ObamaCare we have reached a level of boldface lies that I believe is unique.

On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted a story listing President Obama’s latest lies about ObamaCare.  Just as truth is one of the first casualties of war, it is also one of the first casualties of upcoming elections. Many Democrat congressmen will be running for reelection next year and are genuinely worried about the impact of ObamaCare on their campaigns. Thus we have creative facts about ObamaCare flowing from the White House.

The article reports:

In late November, for example, Obama complained that “instead of rooting for failure, or refighting old battles, Republicans in Congress need to work with us to improve those things about the Affordable Care Act that aren’t working as well as they should.”

Obama’s attempt to escape responsibility for the failure of his signature domestic achievement isn’t surprising. But in this case, he’s falsifying the record.

The list of positive changes to ObamaCare passed by Republicans and Democrats and signed by the President includes the repeal of a tax reporting scheme requiring business to list all payments exceeding $600 a year to any vendor (that amount is so small it could include buying flowers for the office staff on Administrative Assistant‘s Day). The Republicans also removed a long-term care provision that was unworkable and another provision involving a “free-choice voucher” program. Generally speaking, the Republicans are not the problem–ObamaCare is. However, look for more attempted blame shifting during the coming year.

The article reminds us of the cost of ObamaCare and how the President is claiming that it will reduce the cost of healthcare:

…the rate of growth in national health spending has slowed in recent years. It was just 3.9% in 2009, 2010 and 2011. And employer premium growth had been on the downtrend.

But these have nothing to do with ObamaCare. The latest report from the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the official scorekeeper of health spending — says the spending growth slowdown is “unrelated to the (Affordable Care Act).”

It also reports that ObamaCare will add to national spending over the next decade. Other reports have pinned much of the slowdown on the recession and Obama’s lousy recovery that followed it. Plus, ObamaCare is now pushing premiums up.

As Charles Blahous, a former trustee for Social Security and Medicare, puts it, Obama’s latest cost-cutting claims “are just as groundless as the ones that misled so many Americans to believe they would be able to keep their previous coverage.”

At this point in time, the only way to fight these lies is with the ballot box. Americans need to vote against anyone who supports ObamaCare. That is the only way we will get rid of this horrendous program.

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The Idea Behind The Idea

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This is an article about ObamaCare. It is based on two articles–one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical article was posted today at National Review. It was written by Andrew McCarthy. The practical article was posted at Power Line on Thursday. It was written by Paul Mirengoff and illustrates how Andrew McCarthy’s theory looks in the real world.

Andrew McCarthy describes ObamaCare as follows:

It is a Fabian plan to move an unwilling nation, rooted in free enterprise, into Washington-controlled, fully socialized medicine. As its tentacles spread over time, the scheme (a) pushes all Americans into government markets (a metastasizing blend of Medicare, Medicaid, and “exchanges” run by state and federal agencies); (b) dictates the content of the “private” insurance product; (c) sets the price; (d) micromanages the patient access, business practices, and fees of doctors; and (e) rations medical care. Concurrently, the scheme purposely sows a financing crisis into the system, designed to explode after Leviathan has so enveloped health care, and so decimated the private medical sector, that a British- or Canadian-style “free” system — formerly unthinkable for the United States — becomes the inexorable solution.

Andrew McCarthy reminds us of President Obama’s statement to a 2007 SEIU health-care forum.  The President stated, “There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years or 20 years out.” The transition he is referring to is the transition out of employee-based health into a government one-payer system. It was assumed that the individual healthcare insurance market could be phased out much more quickly. We are seeing that already in the number of individual health insurance policies that are being cancelled every day due to ObamaCare. This brings me to the article showing how ObamaCare works in practical terms.

Paul Mirengoff reports:

Covered California, that state’s insurance exchange, has rejected President Obama’s request that people be allowed to remain in non-compliant health insurance plans for another year. This decision is highly significant because California has experienced by far the most insurance policy cancellations of any state, reportedly around 900,000 of them.

Eliana Johnson points out that a number of Blue States — New York, Minnesota, Washington, and Rhode Island — have previously said no to Obama’s fix. So far, less liberal states — e.g., Florida, Tennesse, Alabama, and South Carolina — seem more receptive to the president.

The irony is only superficial. Blue State leaders are saying no because, as liberals, they dislike private plans and, more importantly, want to offer no escape from Obamacare for the young and the healthy whose participation in exchanges is needed to subsidize the middle-aged and the sick.

President Obama’s healthcare fix is political theater. It provides cover for him and (in his mind) for other Democrats. ObamaCare has cost the Democrat party dearly in the polls, and there is an election next year. There is one school of thought that says that because President Obama is in his second term he is more interested in changing America than being popular, but there is a problem with that. President Obama needs a cooperative Congress to keep ObamaCare in place. If the American people decide to vote out of office those politicians who supported ObamaCare, it is very possible that the next Congress could throw the entire program out and start over (we can only hope). So there is a fine line to be walked between changing ObamaCare enough to make it palatable to the American public without sacrificing the goal of eventual reaching a single-payer system and winning the next election. Get out the popcorn–this is going to be fun to watch!

 

 

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Is There Any Part Of This Plan That Will Improve Healthcare?

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My husband and I are in the process of moving, which is why posts have been rather erratic lately. In the process of getting everything done, I had a chance to listen to Rush Limbaugh today. He made some very interesting points about ObamaCare. In his comments, Rush Limbaugh mentioned a Forbes article written by Steven Hayward predicting that even if the ObamaCare website is repaired, ObamaCare will be repealed before the 2014 election.

The article states:

Senate Democrats endangered for re-election will lead the charge for repeal perhaps as soon as January, after they get an earful over the Christmas break.  They’ll call it “reform,” and clothe it in calls for delaying the individual mandate and allowing people and businesses to keep their existing health insurance policies.  But it is probably too late to go back in many cases.  With the political damage guaranteed to continue, the momentum toward repeal will be unstoppable.  Democrats will not want to face the voters next November with the albatross of Obamacare.

Rush Limbaugh pointed out some basic facts about this “reform.” He pointed out that if healthy people do not sign up for ObamaCare and pay the higher premiums, there will be no way to pay for healthcare for sick people and the whole system will collapse. The Democrats will probably attempt to solve the problem by offering subsidies to middle class families. America cannot afford to do that–we are already running unsustainable deficits, but the Democrats won’t care about that–they simply will be looking for a way to be re-elected.

Meanwhile, the Western Center for Journalism reported the following:

Lisa Martinson called customer service after she forgot her password. That’s when she was told that three different people were given the password to her account, her address, and her Social Security number. Then she was told it would take up to five days to get her personal information offline.
Please follow the link to the article to watch a short video of her story.
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Holding Elected Officials Accountable

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Yesterday’s Denver Post reported that two Colorado state senators have been recalled after the voters objected to their stand on gun rights. Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron are the first Colorado state lawmakers to be recalled.

The article reports:

“Coloradans … sent a clear message that politicians who blatantly ignore their constituents will be held accountable,” said Dustin Zvonek, state director of Americans for Prosperity. “Perhaps this will serve as a lesson that one-party rule in Denver doesn’t give the majority license to take things to extremes or run roughshod over the values and rights of Coloradans who just happen, for the moment, to be in the minority.”

“Tonight is a victory for the people of the state of Colorado, who have been subject to the overreach of a Democrat agenda on guns, taxes and accountability to the people,” said Tim Knight, Founder of the Basic Freedom Defense Fund and the “father” of the recalls. “Since day one, they said it couldn’t be done. Tonight, this is a victory for the people of Colorado, and we share this victory with them.”

Democrats control the Senate, the House and the governor’s office. Even with Morse and Giron leaving, Democrats retain a one-seat majority in the Senate.

All Americans need to learn from this. Hold your elected officials accountable. If they do not represent you, vote them out of office.

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Some Insight As To What Is Happening With The Immigration Debate

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It does not take a genius to figure out that our current immigration system does not work. That is not the question. The question is, “What do we need to do to fix it?” One school of thought seems to make everyone here already legal to some extent and then close the borders at our leisure. The other extreme is to kick everyone who is here illegally out and then sort out the mess that follows. Neither approach will actually work.

It was hoped that the ‘gang of eight’ in the House of Representatives would help find a compromise position that most of us could agree on. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.

On Thursday, Breitbart.com reported that Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) has left the House of Representatives version of the ‘gang of eight’ because of a change in the previously discussed bill. Initially, the House group had decided that illegal immigrants should have to pay for their own health care, but as the talks continued, Democrats insisted that illegal aliens have access to government health care.

The article reports:

“I have tremendous respect for the members of the bipartisan group who have been working with me to fix our broken immigration system,” Labrador said in a statement. “But after today’s meeting, the framework of the bill has changed in a way that I can no longer support. Like most Americans, I believe that health care is first and foremost a personal responsibility. While I will no longer be part of the bipartisan ‘Group of Eight’ House negotiators, I will not abandon my efforts to modernize our broken immigration system by securing our borders and creating a workable guest worker program. I remain hopeful that the House can pass a bill around these principles and I will keep fighting to make it happen.”

The article also reports that Senator Marco Rubio is also looking for a graceful exit from the Senate ‘gang of eight.’ Politically, I think the best outcome of this debate for the President is for nothing to get passed. In looking at what the Democrat party is insisting in including and excluding in the legislation, I suspect that President Obama may get his wish. If nothing is passed, expect to see immigration as a campaign issue in 2014, with Democrats complaining that the Republicans are causing gridlock. Understand that the Democrats are making sure that there are enough ‘poison pills’ in their immigration proposals to prevent them from being passed. It is truly a shame that we have become so political that very few Congressmen are actually considering the well being of the country.

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The Problem With Playing Politics With A Tragedy

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In the current world of the Internet, it would behoove politicians to look into past statements regarding a tragedy before making total fools of themselves.

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted a story about comments made by Rhode Island’s Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse after the tornado outbreak in Oklahoma. Senator Whitehouse spent 15 minutes chastising GOP senators for denying the theory of anthropogenic global warming. The implication being, of course, that the tornadoes were the result of global warming and that if the Republicans would just acknowledge global warming, the tornadoes wouldn’t have happened. Right. He somehow forgot to mention that tornadoes in the middle of the country in the spring are more common that hurricanes on the east coast in the summer. But it gets better.

A blogger named Steven Goddard posted the following Newsweek article from April 1975:

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This is the link to the entire article.

The Senator does not need to play politics with this tragedy. What he does need to do is to figure out a way to get aid to the people affected by creating a bill that will help them that does not include tons of pork-barrel spending. I strongly suggest that he devote his time to crafting that bill rather than citing science that has already been proven to be faulty.

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Another Twist In The Benghazi Saga

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Obviously there are some prominent members of the Democrat party who would like to be the party’s nominee for President in 2016. Hillary Clinton has been, up to this point, the seemingly favored candidate. Other people who might want to run would be Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, who served in the Senate until 2012, Andrew Cuomo, currently the governor of New York, and John Kerry, who has been there before. You have to wonder how the scandal surrounding Benghazi is impacting their actions and decisions.

On Friday, CNS News reported that John Kerry, currently Secretary of State, has stated the following regarding Benghazi, “I am absolutely determined that this issue will be answered, will be put to bed, and if there’s any culpability in any area that is appropriate to be handled in some way with some discipline, it will be appropriately handled. …The State Department will leave no stone unturned.”

John Kerry has dealt with the Clintons (and the Obamas) before. Both families are known for their ruthlessness in dealing with anyone who gets in the way of what they are trying to accomplish. Remember the Clintons and the White House Travel Office and Barack Obama somehow getting the sealed divorce records of his Congressional opponent released.

I don’t see how any intelligent person can believe that Hillary Clinton was simply an innocent bystander on the night that Benghazi was attacked and in the events that unfolded afterward. It will be interesting to watch the actions of the other possible Democrat contenders for the 2016 Presidential nominee as this scandal unfolds.

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Is The Goal To Solve Problems Or To Punish The Rich?

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The Hill posted an article today about the budget proposal expected to come from President Obama in the near future. One aspect of the budget will be to limit how much ‘the rich’ will be able to keep in their individual retirement accounts.

The Obama Administration says that this proposal will add ‘fairness’ to the tax code. The provision is expected to raise $9 billion in ten years. At this point, I would like to point out that the current budget deficit is approximately $16 trillion dollars, and the projected annual deficit for 2013 will probably be in the neighborhood of $1 trillion dollars.

Let’s look at this concept of ‘fairness’ for a moment. How is it fair to continue to take money away from people who earn it and give it to people who don’t? How is it fair to punish someone who has worked hard and been successful for their efforts and success? Who has decided that we need ‘fairness?’ In 2009, the top 1% of earners paid 36.73 percent of the taxes (according to the National Taxpayers Union). How is that fair?

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Bad Optics Don’t Matter If The Press Is On Your Side

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It’s very easy when the Democrats do something outrageous to say, “What if a Republican had done that?” The obvious answer is that if a Republican had done it, the articles would have been on the news all day and night and on the front page of all major newspapers in the country. It is unfortunate, but the press is no longer doing its job of keeping Americans informed–instead it has taken the position of cheerleaders for President Obama and the Democrat party.

Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about President Obama’s priorities in dealing with the sequester budget cuts.The President has taken some pricey vacations lately. Contrast this with President Bush who simply headed for his ranch in Texas when he could. The problem is not the pricey vacations–it is the fact that the pricey vacations are happening at a time when school children on spring break cannot visit the White House due to sequestration budget cuts. It is a matter of priorities. The message I believe the White House is sending is that sequestration will impact American school children who want to see the White House, but my family will go first class anywhere we want regardless of the cost. Has the mainstream media bothered to mention these priorities. President Obama is President and his family is the First Family–not the Royal Family.

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Why Massachusetts Needs Two Political Parties

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A one-party political system does not work, regardless of which political party it is. As Dr. Benjamin Carson stated in his address at the National Prayer Breakfast, “But, why is that eagle able to fly, high, forward? Because it has two wings: a left wing and a right wing. Enough said.”

Anyway. The Boston Herald is reporting today that the glitch in the Massachusetts welfare department has cost the Massachusetts taxpayers $3.4 million in overtime.

The article reports:

More than 900 employees in the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) — mostly caseworkers — shared in the $3.4 million OT bonanza between November 2010 and May 2011, the department acknowledged after a Herald public records request.

DTA authorized the wages — an average of roughly $3,500 each — so staff could address a backlog of 30,000 clients whose eligibility had to be recertified after the agency overpaid food-stamp clients by $27 million in federal money.

I suppose we should be grateful that at least the overpaid food-stamp clients were paid with federal money. Federal money–are these the same people who keep telling us they can’t cut spending?

The article also reports:

The welfare department has been undergoing a shake-up since ex-Commissioner Daniel Curley was forced to resign on Jan 31, after a devastating inspector general’s report claiming another $25 million in taxpayer money is going to welfare recipients who aren’t eligible.

One of the people who has been on top of this from the start is state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton). Her response to this mess was, “The governor recently called this leakage — I would call this an avalanche. This is an astronomical number to pay out in overtime for outright mismanagement.”

Hopefully she will continue to hold the Massachusetts government responsible for their total mismanagement of taxpayer money.

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Should The Federal Government Have Limits On Its Borrowing Or Spending?

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This article has two sources–The Western Center for Journalism and CNS News. Both sources report that the Democrats want to repeal the debt ceiling that limits the amount of money that the government can borrow.

The Western Center for Journalism reports:

House Democrats are pushing legislation to repeal the federal debt ceiling, saying the borrowing limit has no practical purpose and has come to be used for political maneuvering that can have devastating economic repercussions.

New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler said the debt ceiling is arbitrary, doesn’t affect the deficit and has become a Republican means to “blackmail” the country to advance the GOP’s political agenda.

CNS News reports:

Nadler, [Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)],along with fellow House Democrats Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), held a press conference to introduce a bill that would repeal the debt ceiling entirely.

Nadler, taking questions for the group, said the debt ceiling should be taken “off the table” in any negotiations over federal spending, and he refused to say if Democrats should offer any bill that would solve either problem.

“Basically what we’re saying is that the debt ceiling should be taken off the table. There’s plenty to fight about, unfortunately, the levels of taxation, the levels of spending – there are real disagreements on that. You need both houses and the president to agree on that.”

Has anyone bothered to put this in the context of your personal finances? If you were thousands of dollars in debt, with no prospect of paying back what you owe, how would the bank react if you went to them and asked that they raise your debt ceiling? As American citizens, we are not able to continue to spend more than we earn, why are we willing to let the government do this?

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Running For Senator In Nebraska

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We all remember the ‘cornhusker kickback’ from the debate on Obamacare and the fact that it resulted in Senator Ben Nelson deciding not to run for re-election. The Democrats chose Bob Kerrey to run for the Senate seat that Ben Nelson occupied.

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted a story about Bob Kerrey and some of the positions he has taken in his campaign for the Senate.

The article reports some recent statements:

Democratic Senate candidate Bob Kerrey said Thursday that he hates the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act and that his own businesses might drop employee insurance and pay the federal fine for doing so if the mandate goes into effect in 2014.

 Kerrey said wealthy Americans pay their fair share in taxes. And he said President Barack Obama made a big mistake by not following the recommendations of his own bipartisan budget deficit commission.

That doesn’t sound as if he is in agreement with the Obama campaign.

The article quotes additional comments:

“I hate the employer mandate,” Kerrey said. “I think it’s going to have a counterproductive impact. We don’t have any (insured employee) that costs us less than $7,000 (a year), and the fine’s $2,000. We’ll dump ’em off. We won’t call it dumping, we’ll say … ‘Go get it from the exchange.’”

He said the employer mandate “will accelerate an already breaking-down employer-based system.” That portion of the law should be repealed, he said.

What Bob Kerrey is saying makes sense. Why is it that other Democrats cannot recognize the logic in his statements? If Obamacare stands, we will see the private healthcare industry in America destroyed and the quality of healthcare in America decrease very quickly.

As I have said before, please note that the nastiest parts of Obamacare go into effect after the election this year. We will begin to see the impact in the increased taxes we will all face in January 2013 and other negative things will take effect within the year.

We need to repeal (and replace) Obamacare.

 

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Preparing For The Coming (???) Attack On Paul Ryan

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Actually the attack on Paul Ryan has already begun, but here’s some ammunition for present and future attacks.

Ed Morrissey posted an article at HotAir today about Erskine Bowles‘ comments on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. As you remember, Erskine Bowles was the co-chair of Barack Obama’s deficit committee (the one that President Obama appointed and then totally ignored the conclusions of). Erskine Bowles is a Democrat budget wonk and a presidential adviser. His committee made serious recommendations about the deficit that were not even seriously discussed by President Obama.

HotAir posted what Erskine Bowles said about Paul Ryan’s budget plan:

“Have any of you met Paul Ryan? We should get him to come to the university. I’m telling you this guy is amazing, uh. I always thought that I was OK with arithmetic, but this guy can run circles around me. And, he is honest. He is straightforward. He is sincere.

And, the budget that he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, serious budget and it cut the budget deficit by $4 trillion…just like we did.

The President came out with his own plan and the President came out, as you will remember, with a budget and I don’t think anyone took that budget very seriously. Um, the Senate voted against it 97 to nothing. He, therefore, after a lot of pressure from folks like me, he came out with a new budget framework and, in the new budget framework, he cut the budget deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. And, to be candid, this $4 trillion cut was very heavily back-end loaded. So, if you looked at it on a 10 year basis and compared apples-to-apples, it was about a $2.5 trillion cut.”

Erskine Bowles did not come out in support of Paul Ryan’s budget, but his statement shows an obvious respect for the budget (and for Paul Ryan). At some point we have to stop accusing people of pushing granny over a cliff and actually start looking at where we are and what we need to do to avoid going over the cliff ourselves. I believe Paul Ryan would be a wonderful person to lead that discussion.

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With Friends Like These…

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One of the things that we all need to remember (not necessarily happily) about the November election is that on November 7, 2012, the 2016 presidential campaign begins. Obviously, one of the major players in that campaign on the Democrat side will be Hillary Clinton. Hillary has kept her head down during the past three years and behaved very well. Predictably, her husband has not.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted a story today about some of President Clinton‘s recent statements. President Clinton remarked that Mitt Romney had a ‘sterling’ record when he ran Bain Capital. President Obama has used attacks on Bain Capital and Mitt Romney’s record there as a major part of his campaign. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton was not the only Democrat who felt the attacks were not helpful.

Mr. Morrissey explains the problems with the attacks:

While Obama attacked Romney for normal private-equity management, he’s been trying to raise money hand over fist from the same industry.  In fact, a Bain executive, Jonathan Lavine, is one of Obama’s major bundlers and was with the company (and Romney was not) when GS Industries shut down the steel plant, a decision used to slam Romney in an Obama campaign ad.

I am not sure the average voter is aware of the hypocrisy here, but at suspect at some point the Romney camp will point it out.

The article rightly concludes:

However, it’s also just as true that Clinton waited for quite a while to defend Romney’s business record, and his advice in this case — to find another line of attack — is probably a lot smarter than Simon’s advice to keep beating a very dead horse.

Expect to see a lot more of Bill Clinton in the next four years.

 

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Not-So-Transparent Transparency

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The Washington Examiner posted an article yesterday about the White House’s attempt to spin the “working wives vs non-working wives” dust-up. It seems that when President Obama took office, in a move toward historic transparency, he opened up the White House visitor logs to the public. That really is nice–I think Americans have a right to know who their President is talking to. However, there seems to be a slight snag in the process.

The article reports some dodging and weaving by Press Secretary Jay Carney:

“The point I was making yesterday is that often when we get inquiries about the visitor list, the WAVES list, just based on names, it turns out that people with common names appear  . . .  sometimes there are other people with the same names,” Carney told reporters today. “So all I was simply saying is that at that point, we had no way of verifying that this was one person.”

Carney was explaining why he responded, “I know three, personally, women named Hilary Rosen. So I’m not sure that those represent the person we’re talking about necessarily,” when he was asked about Rosen’s many trips to the White House. (Obama was exposed to embarrassment when Rosen, a Democratic strategist and familiar figure in the White House, said that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.”)

The article then asks, “If the White House visitor logs can’t be used for “verifying” the identity of White House visitors, are the logs “still providing the American people with an unprecedented amount of information about their government” as promised?” That is a very good question. 

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This Is Just Getting More Complicated

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As I have previously stated, I have no idea what to make of this. There seem to be some valid questions about President Obama’s eligibility to be President. On Monday wnd.com reported that in addition to the court case in George about putting the President on the ballot (see rightwinggranny.com), there are other states taking a closer look at how they qualify candidates for elections.

The article reports:

Whatever the outcome in Georgia, the issue is gaining traction in other states, too, including Alabama, Tennessee, Arizona, New Hampshire, and even Illinois, Obama’s home political base.

There, in a complaint recently filed by Stephen F. Boulton of McCarthy Duffy LLP and Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation, their client is asking for a change in state law to allow the vetting of political candidates.

Whatever happens in Georgia, Americans have the right to be fully confident that a candidate on the ballot has been checked to make sure he meets the qualifications for the office he is seeking.

The article points out:

The newest round of court actions do not try to have a judge determine Obama is not qualified for the Oval Office and remove him from it, they simply challenge his eligibility for the 2012 election.

Many of the cases cite Minor v. Happersett, a U.S. Supreme Court opinion from 1875 that said a “natural born citizen” would be a person whose parents both were citizens.

“This complaint does not request any injunction against any state or federal government official. Instead this complaint asserts that the private entity, Defendant Democratic Party, intends to act negligently or fraudulently in a manner that will cause irreparable harm to the plaintiffs, to the states, and to the citizens of the United States,” said one of the filings.

It continued, “Because Mr. Obama has admitted that his father was not a U.S. citizen, and because this fact has been confirmed by the U.S. State Department, any reasonable person with knowledge of these facts would doubt Mr. Obama’s constitutional qualifications. Therefore, any representation by the Democratic Party certifying said qualifications would be negligent, absent further evidence verifying Mr. Obama’s natural-born status.

“Plaintiffs further request an injunction prohibiting the Democratic Party from making any representation to any state official asserting, implying, or assuming that Mr. Obama is qualified to hold the office of president, absent a showing by the party sufficient to prove that said representation is not negligent.”

Van Irion, lead counsel for Liberty Legal Foundation, also is working on several of the issues, and has brought the question in court in Arizona.

The question is out there. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, have you read about this in the mainstream media?

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There Seems To Be A Slight Difference Of Opinion On This

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The Washington Times reported yesterday that the Senate voted Tuesday to give the U.S. military first crack at holding al Qaeda operatives, even if they are captured in the U.S. and are American citizens, and also reaffirmed the policy of indefinite detention.

A website called Democracy.now reports:

A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military’s “battlefield” to anywhere in the world, even within the United States.

This is the link to the actual text of the bill at Thomas.gov. What the bill does, contrary to the panic expressed in Democracy.now, is allow the military to deal with terrorists in military courts rather than civilian courts. Terrorists have no right to be tried in American criminal courts with all the benefits of American citizens, regardless of where they are captured–they are not criminals, they are terrorists.

If you think this is a new thing, please review the case of the Nazi saboteurs who came ashore on Long Island in 1942 (at fbi.gov). Like it or not, we are at war. We have been at war since 1979, when Iran and its radical Muslim leaders declared war on us. We ignore the fact that we are at war at our own peril.

Please note that the vote of this bill was bipartisan. The article at the Washington Times reports: 

Tuesday’s 61-37 vote to buck Mr. Obama and grant the military dibs exposed a deep rift within the Democratic Party. Sixteen Democrats and one independent who caucuses with them defied the veto threat and joined 44 Republicans.

This bill protects the safety of Americans. If you doubt that, please follow the link to Thomas.gov and read the bill or the summary.

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