Tag Archives: Obama

The People vs. The Establishment

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The internet is abuzz this morning with interpretations and hand wringing over Eric Cantor‘s defeat in the Virginia primary.

The Washington Examiner reports:

One House Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Cantor’s loss was a “big win” for President Obama because it could empower the more hardline elements in the GOP and damage the effort on the part of some Republicans to broaden the party’s appeal to cross ethnic and gender lines. Cantor lost to college professor Dave Brat, who campaigned as an anti-immigration reform candidate and affiliated with activists and talk radio hosts who identify with the Tea Party.

I don’t see this as a win for President Obama–I see it as a win for people who are disgusted with ‘business as usual’ in Washington. Since when do we call people who believe in the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment radicals? I think our founding fathers would turn over in their graves if they saw what has happened to the nation they birthed.

Elections are the way Americans can express their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with their leaders. I think the Americans in Eric Cantor’s district just made their opinion very clear.

The Obama Administration Is Working Hard To Redistribute What Hard-Working People Have Earned

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The Daily Signal (a website of the Heritage Foundation) posted a story today about President Obama’s latest memorandum. The memorandum bypasses Congress and expands an existing federal loan option available to undergrad and graduate students.

The article reports:

For those working in public service or the government, any remaining debt is forgiven after 10 years. An estimated 5 million more borrowers will become eligible under the new plan. Before today, only those who took out loans after 2007 were entitled to “Pay as You Earn” benefits.

To finance the program, Obama proposed closing “tax loopholes” for the wealthy, or what he called “millionaires.”

“This should be a no-brainer,” he said today at the White House. “It would be scandalous if we allowed those kinds of tax loopholes for the very, very fortunate to survive while students are having trouble just getting started in their lives.”

The chart below was found as a result of a google search:

The fact that students are going in debt for their education has a number of causes. Since the 1990’s, college tuition has increased exponentially. Some of the degrees students are graduating with have little or no value in the workplace. Parents of students have not been encouraged to send their children to community colleges for their first two years of school in order to keep the costs reasonable. The students have no sense of the amount of money they are borrowing, and the colleges have no reason to control their expenses. As long as the government subsidizes the loans and forgives them, there is no reason for anyone involved to act responsibly. That is what happens when wealth is redistributed–the rich do not work as hard, and the people receiving the money do not learn responsibility–they learn a sense of entitlement.

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Energy Policy From Someone Who Doesn’t Understand Economics

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Just for the record–I do not support dirty air or dirty water. I simply believe that extreme environmental policy does little to help the environment and a lot to damage the economy. Considering the fact that the American Gross Domestic Product went down in the first quarter of this year, now is not the time to take any action that will have a negative impact on the American economy. Evidently our President does not share that belief.

On Wednesday the Los Angeles Times reported that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce is warning that President Obama’s proposed environmental policies could cost the economy tens of billions of dollars in lost investment and millions of jobs.

The article reports:

Although the size of the proposed reduction has yet to be announced, the chamber’s report estimated that such a rule could result in an average annual drop of $51 billion in economic output and 224,000 fewer jobs every year through 2030, with the Southeast feeling the biggest pinch.

The chamber said the numbers were based on modeling from the economic research firm IHS, using assumptions that the regulation would set a 42% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels — an aggressive percentage that is close to a target previously cited by President Obama.

Today the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel posted an article on the impact of the environmental policies announced by President Obama.

Here is a list of some of the consequences:

For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released a study showing that the rule will cost consumers in our region $3.3 billion per year in higher electricity prices.

Another study done by NERA Economic Consultants predicted the rule will cost consumers between $13 billion and $17 billion per year. Yet another study released by the Heritage Foundation predicts the rule will cost a family of four $1,200 per year by 2023.

The article also points out the questionable impact of these changes on the environment:

The rule is expected to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the U.S. by 970 million tons by 2030. Although that sounds like a lot, it is essentially meaningless in the global scale of things.

While the EPA has us busy destroying jobs and our economy in the name of global warming orthodoxy, the rest of the world will increase carbon emissions by 4.7 billion tons over the same time period.

For those keeping score, that means other countries will collectively increase carbon emissions by 6 tons for every ton reduced by Americans under the EPA rule. So much for saving the planet.

The EPA’s new global warming rule is a lose-lose proposition for energy consumers and workers. It represents the worst kind of regulation in that it has enormous and painful costs and essentially no benefit.

We really need an administration that considers the impact of its actions on the average American. This legislation is not good for everyday Americans working hard to support their families.

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This Was A Really Bad Trade

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Yesterday the Weekly Standard reported that President Obama made a trade with the Taliban to allow Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to return to America. The deal was to return Sgt. Bergdahl in exchange for five members of the Taliban held at Guantanamo. There is a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye.

The Washington Post posted a story yesterday that included the following paragraph:

Top Republicans on the Senate and House armed services committees went so far as to accuse President Obama of having broken the law, which requires the administration to notify Congress before any transfers from Guantanamo are carried out.

Today Andrew McCarthy posted the following at National Review Online:

In return, thanks to the president’s negotiations with the terrorists, we receive U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl—who, according to several of his fellow soldiers, walked off his post in 2009 before being captured by the Taliban. (For more on this, see Greg Pollowitz’ spost at The Feed.) This was shortly after Sgt. Bergdah lreportedly emailed his parents that “The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at”; that he was “ashamed to even be an American”; and that “The horror that is America is disgusting.”

Sgt. Bergdahl’s father, Robert, was by Mr. Obama’s side during Saturday’s Rose Garden press conference, at which the president announced Sgt. Bergdahl’s return but carefully avoiding mention of the jihadi-windfall the Taliban received in exchange. Mr. Bergdahl is an antiwar activist campaigning for the release of all jihadists detained at Guantanamo Bay. His Twitter account, @bobbergdahl, has apparently now deleted a tweet from four days ago, in which he said, in echoes of Islamic supremacist rhetoric, “@ABalkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!”

Andrew McCarthy at the National Review describes the Taliban prisoners released:

At the Weekly Standard, Tom Joscelyn profiles the five Taliban commanders Obama has released. They include Mullah Mohammed Fazi, perhaps the Taliban’s senior warrior (its “army chief of staff”) and longtime al Qaeda ally; Mullah Norullah Noori, a senior military commander who fought side-by-side with al Qaeda; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a senior Taliban intelligence official who helped train al Qaeda and fought with it against U.S. forces after 9/11; Khairullah Khairkhwa, a Taliban governor and al Qaeda trainer who brokered an alliance with Iran to collaborate against American-led forces; and Mohammed Nabi, who worked with the Haqqani network and al Qaeda to coordinate attacks against American and Coalition forces.

The title of Andrew McCarthy’s article at the National Review Online is “Obama Replenishes the Taliban … Or ‘How Wars End in the 21st Century’”

Another title would be “How An American President Shows Total Disregard For The Lives Of American Soldiers.” I really don’t want to see the country go through an impeachment trial, but this is an impeachable offense.

 

 

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Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic

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USA Today is reporting today that President Obama has accepted the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Fox News is reporting today that the President has also accepted the resignation of Jay Carney as White House press secretary.

USA Today reports:

Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson will take temporary charge of the department, Obama said, adding that he will nominate a new permanent secretary soon.

Obama began what he called a “serious conversation” with Shinseki Friday just hours after the VA secretary apologized to all veterans and the nation for scandal involving the systemic delay of health care to veterans.

While accepting Shinseki’s resignation, Obama went out of his way to praise the retired four-star general.

“He is a very good man,” Obama said. “He’s been an outstanding soldier. He’s a good person who’s done exemplary work.”

Secretary Shinseki is an outstanding soldier, but he obviously did not have the management skills to solve the problem at the VA. It is questionable if any person alive has those management skills. I suspect Mitt Romney does, but obviously, his talents will not be tapped.

Fox News reports:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is stepping down, ending a lengthy term in what is considered one of Washington’s toughest jobs. 

Carney has served as President Obama’s lead spokesman since 2011. The president interrupted Carney’s daily press briefing to announce his departure, calling him one of his “closest friends” and a trusted adviser. 

Noting Carney’s background as a reporter, Obama said: “I actually think he will miss hanging out with all of you.”

Jay Carney used to be a reporter. I wish him well in future endeavors, but I have to admit that I will never again believe anything he reports.

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Learning The Economic Lessons Of History

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Yesterday George Will posted an article at National Review Online about the sluggish economic recovery under President Obama. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the unemployment rate was approximately 7.5%. By January 1, 1983, the unemployment rate had risen to 10.4%. By January 1, 1988, the unemployment rate was 5.70%. Presidential economic policies do impact the economy.

The article reminds us:

Ronald Reagan lightened the weight of government as measured by taxation and regulation. Obama has done the opposite. According to the annual “snapshot of the federal regulatory state” compiled by Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, four of the five largest yearly totals of pages in the Federal Register — the record of regulations — have occurred during the Obama administration. The CEI’s delightfully cheeky “unconstitutionality index,” measuring Congress’s excessive delegation of its lawmaking policy, was 51 in 2013. This means Congress passed 72 laws but unelected bureaucrats issued 3,659 regulations.

One of the things that is slowing down the recovery in our consumer-drive economy is the amount of student loan debt. Student loan debt is currently the fastest growing debt–larger than credit-card or auto-loan debt. Another factor is the retirement of the baby boomers.

The article further reports:

In April, the number of persons under 25 in the workforce declined by 484,000. Unsurprisingly, almost one in three (31 percent) persons 18 to 34 are living with their parents, including 25 percent who have jobs.

These are not positive numbers.

The article concludes:

There is, however, something new under the sun. The Pew Research Center reports that Americans 25 to 32 — “Millennials” — constitute the first age cohort since World War II with higher unemployment or a greater portion living in poverty than their parents at this age. But today’s Millennials have the consolation of having the president they wanted.

At some point the Millennials may realize that elections have consequences and that they have voted themselves out of jobs.

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Political Thuggery Aimed At Louisiana

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National Review Online posted an article today about the treatment of Governor Jindal and the people of Louisiana by the Obama Administration. There have been a number of incidents in recent years that form a pattern of political vindictiveness against the state and its governor.

The article reminds us of the beginning of the problem:

First, though, consider the litany of Obama’s abusive treatment of Louisiana; the Bayou State is surely the jurisdiction most victimized by the Obamite combination of wrath and pettiness. It began early, after Jindal’s (poorly received) 2009 State of the Union response, which represented the first major high-profile critique of Obama’s gauzy new administration. Clearly, Jindal got under Obama’s skin.

President Obama and his administration are known for taking measures to get even with the real or imagined enemies.

The article further reports:

Just two months later, the Obama team was notoriously slow to respond to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Among a host of mistakes documented by a national commission on the disaster were clearly politicized decisions on numerous fronts, including on the allocation of oil-containing booms. Worse (and despite some media fact-check reports to the contrary), the Obama bureaucracy kept obstacles in place that blocked specialized foreign skimmers from helping to contain the spill — in part, it seems, to placate American unions.

The article continues, citing examples of the Obama Administration’s blocking the school voucher program Governor Jindal had proposed to help Louisiana’s failing schools, blocking the Keystone Pipeline, which would help Louisiana’s economy, and refusing to provide fairly routine Stafford Act relief to Louisiana’s storm victims after Hurricane Isaac in 2012. However, the latest example of this harassment is simply unconscionable.

Governor Jindal has been working to reform Louisiana’s system of ‘charity hospitals’ for years. In 2012 the federal government cut the percentage of some federal matching funds. Governor Jindal responded to that by setting up a system that leased the hospitals to private managers.

The article reports the results of that decision:

In less than a year, the hospitals opened more beds for the mentally ill and in emergency rooms, provided more advanced technology for cancer screening and other care, and began improving services across the board. Already the Jindal reforms were providing proof of his (and other conservatives’) longstanding contention that state innovation could do far more to deliver better care, more efficiently, than a centrally regulated federal behemoth can.

The Obama Administration’s response? Try to shut that system down. Please read the article for further details.

The article concludes:

The message from Obamaville goes out: Cross us, and anybody in your orbit, even low-income medical patients, will suffer.

The good news for Louisiana is that the state has a good chance, on appeal, eventually to win approval of its hospital leases. For the rest of the country, this year and in 2016, the appeal for relief must come through the ballot box.

This should be a wake-up call to American voters. It’s not a presidential election–it’s a mid-term election, but we need to elect people who will check the power of the Executive Branch of government. If we don’t, we will have tyranny.

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Losing Our Foundation As A Country

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John Adams had some very definite ideas as to what it would take to preserve America in the future. He believed that there was more to America than simply writing a Constitution for a representative republic.

John Adams stated:

“…because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, • would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (from beliefnet.com)

Unfortunately, many of our current leaders do not agree with that philosophy. Yesterday Breitbart.com posted an article about a recent comment from Secretary of State John Kerry:

This is a time here in Africa where there are a number of different cross-currents of modernity that are coming together to make things even more challenging. Some people believe that people ought to be able to only do what they say they ought to do, or to believe what they say they ought to believe, or live by their interpretation of something that was written down a thousand plus, two thousand years ago. That’s not the way I think most people want to live.

According to the article, President Obama made a similar statement circa 2008:

Democracy demands that the religiously-motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values.

Religion-specific values were exactly what John Adams felt were needed to preserve America. It’s time for both of these men to go back and read the writings of the people who founded America. They have not idea what the founders of this country were about.

 

 

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The Talking Points Are Becoming Obvious

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A serious investigation into the events surrounding the attack on Benghazi and the cover-up that followed is necessary. However, a serious investigation at this point in time is exactly what the Democrats do not want. Actually if the Democrats had been smart, they would have gotten all of the negative information out as soon as the 2012 election was over. It would have been old news by now. Unfortunately, the negatives are coming out now–in the midst of the mid-term elections and in time to influence the 2016 presidential elections. So what should the Democrats do? Actually, what they should do is not part of the equation, what they will do to provide damage control is becoming obvious.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about the appearances on the Sunday shows by the damage control team. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was on Fox News Sunday suggesting that the Democrats would boycott the House’s proposed select committee on Benghazi.

The article quotes Congressman Schiff:

Establishing a select committee to investigate the State Department’s handling of the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya is a “colossal waste of time,” according to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).

“We’ve had four bipartisan investigations already,” Schiff said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that the Republican plans to create the committee are politically motivated.

Schiff also said that Democratic leaders should not appoint anyone to the committee. “I don’t think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate,” he said. “I think it’s just a tremendous red herring and a waste of taxpayer resources.”

Translated loosely that means ‘we don’t want anyone to uncover any more damaging emails, so we are going to do everything we can to continue to cover up whatever went on concerning the attack on Benghazi.’

The question is whether or not the American public and the mainstream news media are going to let the investigation into Benghazi die.

The article points out:

Can the Democrats possibly get away with the claim that there is no Benghazi scandal, even though four Americans were killed, including an ambassador, and we already know that 1) the Obama administration ignored repeated calls for improved security in Benghazi, 2) the administration made no attempt to rescue the besieged Americans, over a period of seven or eight hours, and 3) the administration’s attempted cover-up–al Qaeda is on the run, this was just a bunch of film critics who got out of hand–has already been exposed? One wouldn’t think so. And, by the way, we still don’t know what (if anything) either President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton did with regard to the terrorist attack on the evening of September 11, 2012. Did they participate? Did they give any orders, and if so, what were they? Were Obama and Clinton even awake? We don’t know.

I am very tired of hearing about Benghazi, but I am even more tired or being lied to and told stories that I know are false.  I want to know why we chose not to rescue the Ambassador. I want to know why the lies were told about the video. And I want to know who made the decision not to send help that night. At that point I will be willing to consider the matter closed.

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Something To Think About As The Benghazi Story Unfolds

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Breitbart.com posted an article today questioning what the role of the media will be as the new revelations about the 2011 attack on Benghazi emerge. The article reminds us that the Obama Administration has tried to ignore questions about Benghazi by complaining that it is an ‘old story.’ Well, the reason it is an old story is that it has taken almost two years to even see the Obama Administration documents related to the attack. As those documents become public, the story becomes more interesting and the claim that it is an old story becomes less effective.

The article reports:

That’s what makes me think the story has legs, perhaps in a way it hasn’t since October 2012.  Everyone knows what this is: the White House caught red-handed lying about the death of four Americans, with documentation to prove it.  And it makes the media look ridiculous for uncritically parroting those lies in order to get Obama re-elected.  Some of them did it out of blind partisan loyalty, but others just convinced themselves the Obama version of the story had to be true, through a mixture of ideology and their general warm feelings toward him. 

…The media has a lot of tough questions about itself to answer, as these new email revelations blow the Benghazi story into the stratosphere.  I don’t think they’re going to heed Obama’s “ignore this one more time and save me” cry this time.  More of them are going to begin feeling the sense of anger and betrayal Tapper talked about with Hugh Hewitt.  Others might even retain some rudimentary capacity for shame.

It is interesting to note that so far, the only person who has done jail time for Benghazi is the innocent man who made the unrelated video. It would be nice to see that situation change.

 

 

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About That Three A.M. Phone Call

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Tommy Vietor was interviewed on Fox New’s Special Report tonight. It was very obvious that he was attempting damage control after the recent revelations about Benghazi. I posted a copy of the memo that has rejuvenated the questions about the attack in Benghazi in 2011 yesterday (rightwinggranny.com).

There are a few videos on YouTube with excerpts of the interview, but this is a section that is somewhat amazing:

I am sorry that a political campaign was more important that the life of an ambassador and the lives of there other Americans. I truly believe that the reason they were not helped was that the Obama Administration was trying to avoid the political fallout of a military action in Libya in the midst of a Presidential campaign. Remember, President Obama was partly responsible for destabilizing Libya in the first place and was trying to give the impression that the country was under control of rational people. Having to send in troops would have blown that illusion. The other part of this story that is hard to understand is why the President chose to head off to a fundraiser the next morning. He acted as if the incident in Libya was not his responsibility and he did not have to hang around to see what needed to be done. The cover-up is horrible, but the total lack of responsibility on the part of the President is even worse.

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The Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again

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Yesterday Byron York posted an article in the Washington Examiner about the coming increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors. The minimum wage for federal contractors will go from $7.25 and hour to $10.10 an hour. This will include fast food workers, laundry workers, and other low paying jobs on military bases. So what are the consequences?

The article reports:

In late March, the publication Military Times reported that three McDonald’s fast-food restaurants, plus one other lesser-known food outlet, will soon close at Navy bases, while other national-name chains have “asked to be released from their Army and Air Force Exchange Service contracts to operate fast-food restaurants at two other installations.”

…The administration is making it very expensive to do business on military bases, and not just because of the minimum wage. Under federal contracting law, some businesses operating on military installations must also pay their workers something called a health and welfare payment, which last year was $2.56 an hour but which the administration has now raised to $3.81 an hour.

In the past, fast-food employers did not have to pay the health and welfare payment, but last fall the Obama Labor Department ruled that they must. So add $3.81 per hour, per employee to the employers’ cost. And then add Obama’s $2.85 an hour increase in the minimum wage. Together, employers are looking at paying $6.66 more per hour, per employee. That’s a back-breaking burden. (Just for good measure, the administration also demanded such employers provide paid holidays and vacation time.)

These are the actions of an administration that does not understand or value our military and does not understand basic economic principles. The Obama Administration has already begun to make changes in the way the military exchanges are run that will change the savings our military get on food and clothing (see rightwinggranny.com). We need to elect leaders who value our military and take care of them.

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Forgetting Our Past Promises To Israel

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Evidently the Middle East peace process has unraveled. Yesterday Commentary Magazine posted an article reminding us of some of the promises made in the past.

The article points out:

As it happens, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of one of the more important items of history the Brzezinski group ignored: the April 14, 2004 letter from President George W. Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Abrams recounts how the letter went through “many drafts, as words, phrases, and paragraphs came in and out,” ending with a “headline” that was clear: “There would be no return to 1967 and Israel could keep the major settlement blocks.” In her  own memoir, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recounted spending three hours on the letter with Sharon the night before it was issued, and described the agreement to apply a “Google Earth test” for settlements: no new ones, no expanding the boundaries of them, but allowing building within existing settlements, since that would not reduce the land available for a Palestinian state.

When John Kerry was running for President, he went on the record supporting that agreement.

The Obama Administration has taken a slightly different view:

The Obama administration, when it took office in 2009, repeatedly refused to answer whether it was bound by the Bush letter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied there were any “enforceable” understandings with Israel. The day before Palestinian President Abbas met with President Obama, Clinton told the press Obama had been “very clear” with Prime Minister Netanyahu that he “wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions”–and that this had been “communicated very clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others.” The same day, Abbas told the Washington Post he would do nothing but watch the Obama administration pressure Netanyahu. The administration eventually got a ten-month construction freeze, which both Clinton and Obama envoy George Mitchell called “unprecedented.” It produced nothing from the Palestinians other than a demand in the tenth month that it be continued.

The article explains the specifics of why the negotiations fell apart:

The peace process went “poof” not because of 700 units in Jerusalem, but because–for the third time in three years–the Palestinians violated the foundational agreement of the process, which obligates them not to take “any step” outside bilateral negotiations to change the status of the disputed territories. For the third time, the Palestinians went to the UN; for the third time, there was no American response; for the third time, there was no penalty for the violation; and on April 8, there was not even an honest assessment of the situation by the secretary of state.

Unfortunately the Obama Administration has unilaterally undone many past agreements made with our allies. This has resulted in many of our allies wondering if they can trust agreements made with America. President Obama has considerably lowered America’s standing in the world.

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About That Presidential Victory Lap Last Week

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Today’s U.K. Daily Mail posted an article posted a story about President Obama’s statement on Tuesday that “The debate over repealing this law is over. The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.” The basis for this statement was the President’s claim that 7.1 million Americans have signed up for ObamaCare. Well, that may or may not be the case.

The article reports:

But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.

Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7.1 million – have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.

Others were already insured, including millions who lost coverage when their existing policies were suddenly cancelled because they didn’t meet Obamacare’s strict minimum requirements.

Still, he claimed that ‘millions of people who have health insurance would not have it’ without his insurance law.’

‘The goal we’ve set for ourselves – that no American should go without the health care they need … is achievable,’ Obama declared.

There is a lot of information in the Rand Study that makes the accuracy of the President’s statements very questionable. The deadline to enroll in ObamaCare has been extended and now depends on someone simply saying that they tried to enroll, with no verification.

We may or may not be stuck with ObamaCare, but frankly I would be very suspicious of any numbers regarding ObamaCare released by the White House.

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Ignoring The Obvious Threat

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Mona Charen posted an article at National Review Online today about President Obama’s understanding of the national security threats to America. While speaking at a Nuclear Security Summit, President Obama stated, “I continue to be much more concerned, when it comes to our security, with the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan.”

The article reports:

The president was speaking at a meeting of the Nuclear Security Summit, a conclave of nations who agree to certain worthy actions such as converting their reactors from the use of highly enriched uranium to newer versions using low-enriched uranium, beefing up security at nuclear facilities, improving radiation detection at air and sea ports, and so forth. Fifty-seven nations and entities (the EU and U.N. included) participate in this process. But the Islamic Republic of Iran is not on the list.

The article reminds us that the most likely way for terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon would be from Iran.

The article states:

While we are clinking glasses with Iran in negotiations in Vienna, the U.S. State Department continues to list Iran as a state sponsor of terror. In 2012, Iran participated in planned terror attacks in India, Thailand, Georgia, and Kenya. It provided aid and training to the Taliban, Shiite groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and continues to cooperate in various ways with al-Qaeda. The president should curl up some evening with the State Department’s country reports. They’re not beclouded by wishful thinking.

President Obama has made numerous attempts to make friends with Iran. Iran has used these attempts to have sanctions lifted and continue its nuclear program. The sanctions that were in place were seriously hurting the Iranian economy. Unless the economy improved, it was going to be difficult for the current mullahs to stay in power–they needed the sanctions lifted. Had the sanctions stayed in place, there might have been a chance for a regime change in Iran. Now that the sanctions have been lifted, that opportunity has passed.

The article concludes:

If Obama does lose sleep worrying about nuclear terrorism, he should drop his naïve parlay with Iran. He may fondly envision a new cordiality between old foes. That’s not what they see.

Naivete is not an attractive trait in an American President.

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Small Business Pay The ObamaCare Tax A Year Early

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There was a dust-up on the internet this week when Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report tweeted, “Just paid the Obamacare penalty for not ‘getting covered’… I’M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX.” The reaction from the media was immediate–“He lied.” The mainstream media immediately informed him that the ObamaCare penalty was not in effect until next year, so he could not possibly be telling the truth. Well, not so fast. Depending on how they are organized, many small business pay estimated income taxes during the year prior to actually filing–Matt Drudge has already paid the ObamaCare penalty.

So why is that important? Small business are the job creators in the American economy. The chart below is from the Small Business Administration:

sba2The ObamaCare penalty is already negatively impacting small business. This will in turn impact job creation, slowing down whatever economic recovery is actually taking place.

The bottom line here is simple. ObamaCare is bad for the economy. It is also bad for healthcare. It is time for the Republicans to come out with an alternative plan, publicize that plan, and get rid of national healthcare once and for all. It also needs to be understood that for whatever reason the media is not going to let ObamaCare go down easily. They (and the government under President Obama) are going to attack anyone who speaks out about the negative consequences of ObamaCare. Let the battle begin.

The source for this story is Breitbart.com.

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When What Goes Around Comes Around

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Last year the Senate Democrats voted to change their rules (when Republicans discussed this, it was called the nuclear option) and allow the President’s nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority vote rather than the 60-vote threshold previously required to end the debate and actually vote. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but didn’t quite work out as planned.

Today’s Washington Examiner posted a story about the possible unintended consequences of exercising the nuclear option.

The article reports:

But Democrats overlooked a fatal flaw in the strategy: In a tough election year when Obama’s approval ratings are low, Democrats in tough races could defect on key nominees.

In March, that has already happened with two of the president’s choices for influential administration posts.

Earlier this month, several Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting down Debo Adegbile, Obama’s choice to head the Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division.

Conservatives aggressively opposed Adegbile’s nomination because of his legal work in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer.

Eight Democrats ended up voting against confirmation — with Reid initially voting in favor and then switching his vote to no, to allow him to bring up the nomination again.

This did not go as planned. The next nominee to run into a problem was Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, a Harvard and Yale-educated former emergency room doctor, nominated for surgeon general. Conservative Democrats opposed the nomination because of Dr. Murthy’s stand on gun control (which he considers a health issue).

So it now makes no sense to blame the Republicans for blocking nominees (although the Democrats will probably continue to do that regardless of the facts). The fact that the Democrat Congressional support of President Obama is no longer reliable is due to two factors–President Obama’s approval ratings are in the 30’s and this is an election year. As more Americans wake up to the disaster that is President Obama’s Presidency, more Democrats will begin to distance themselves from the President and make decisions based on their own future well being. Get out the popcorn, it is going to be an interesting year.

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The Price Of Governing As A Leftist In A Center-Right Country

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Despite what you may hear in the media, politically America is a center-right country. Generally speaking, as Americans we lean toward the middle. The middle has moved slightly to the left, but it is still more conservative than liberal. When America elects a President who moves farther left than the country, interesting things happen. The latest event in this saga was the special election in Florida’s 13th Congressional District.

Commentary Magazine posted an article about the election on Friday. The article stated:

It’s a district Ms. Sink carried in her unsuccessful race for governor against Rick Scott, a district that Barack Obama carried in his two elections, and a district that demographically now favors Democrats. In addition, Ms. Sink raised more money and ran a better campaign than Jolly. Even Bill Clinton lent his efforts to her campaign. And yet she lost.

…The American people, having lived with the Obama presidency for more than five years, have come to the conclusion–later, I think, than they should have–that he is incompetent, weak, and untrustworthy. And that judgment is directed not just at Mr. Obama; it is implicating his entire party.

Barack Obama produced a health-care proposal that was a liberal dream for a half-century. It is a bitter irony for him, and a predictable result for many of us, that having achieved it, it may well set back the cause of liberalism for years to come.

Bill Clinton has the same problem at one point in his presidency. Democrat candidates did not want to campaign with him. Now candidates prefer campaigning with former President Clinton to campaigning with current President Obama.

I am not ready to declare that the Republicans will sweep the 2014 mid-terms, but I do believe that unless they shoot themselves in the foot, the Republicans will do well in 2014. Meanwhile, ObamaCare has illustrated the fact that although some liberal ideas may sound good on paper, that does not mean that they are good ideas that will workd well.

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Where Does Your Tax Money Go

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Investor’s Business Daily posted an article showing some of the details of President Obama’s proposed budget.

The article includes the following chart:

This chart illustrates the fact that 70% of all the money the federal government spends will be in the form of direct payments to individuals.

The article reports:

In effect, the government has become primarily a massive money-transfer machine, taking $2.6 trillion from some and handing it back out to others. These government transfers now account for 15% of GDP, another all-time high. In 1991, direct payments accounted for less than half the budget and 10% of GDP.

…Where do these checks go? The biggest chunk, 38.6%, goes to pay health bills, either through Medicare, Medicaid or ObamaCare. A third goes out in the form of Social Security checks. Only 21% goes toward poverty programs — or “income security” as it’s labeled in the budget — and a mere 5% ends up in the hands of veterans.

The fact that so much of the federal spending is going toward direct payments makes it very difficult to cut the budget. Rather than cut these payments, the government is forced to cut programs it is actually constitutionally required to fund, such as defense.

The bottom line here is simple. We need to elect fiscal conservatives to Congress. We have reached the point where Democrats and establishment Republicans are no longer fighting over cutting spending–they are simply fighting over who will control the out-of-control spending. It is time for a change. It is also time to understand that Democrats and establishment Republicans will be working against that change.

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The Cost Of Poliltical Partisanship

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One of the problems in America right now is politicians who value their political party more than they value their country. As a result of that values system, statements from the other party that should be heeded are mocked and ignored. We saw this principle in action with Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential campaign and with Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign.

Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday reminding us of the events in 2008:

Palin said then:

After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama‘s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.

Levin (conservative talk radio host Mark Levin) said her comment was “dismissed as a very strange comment by the eggheads in and out of Washington.” And Levin mocked those who derided Palin for not thinking that “Russia’s our friend… they would never go into Ukraine.” As Breitbart News reported, Blake Hounshell, who was then at Foreign Policy magazine and is now at Politico, wrote that Palin’s comments were “strange.”

Her comments may have been “strange,” but they were obviously 100 percent accurate.

Breitbart further reminds us:

Because she was running on the Republican ticket, Sarah Palin’s comments were ignored and mocked. No one on the Democrat side of things was willing to listen to her.

When Mitt Romney ran against President Obama, something very similar happened. Steven Hayward at Power Line posted the story yesterday (along with the video):

John (John Hinderaker at Power Line) noted before how the Obama campaign attacked Mitt Romney in 2012 for saying Russia was our most important adversary, but it’s also worth taking in Obama mocking Romney in their third debate, saying that “the 1980s want their foreign policy back.”  That’s actually starting to sound pretty good.

I don’t know what difference it would have made if Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney had been listened to, but I can’t help but think that we would have been able to react in some way had we been prepared for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One analyst I was listening to this morning felt that if America does not do something to help the Ukrainians, Russia will turn its sights to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The world is getting very complicated, and we have a President who is so convinced he knows everything that he is not paying attention to what is going on around him. Putin is playing chess and President Obama is playing checkers. President Obama needs to listen to people on both sides of the aisle–it might avoid some serious mistakes.

 

 

 

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Flawed Logic Coming From The White House

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Today’s Washington Examiner is quoting President Obama as stating that the stimulus “actually worked, despite what everybody claimed.”

The article reports:

Speaking from the Union Depot in St. Paul, Minn., the president cited the station, which had been refurbished and improved thanks to TIGER grants from the stimulus, as an example of successful spending to improve infrastructure and create jobs.

I am glad that Union Depot was refurbished, but I do have a basic problem with the President’s logic.

Yesterday the Heritage Foundation posted an article examining the actual impact of the 2009 stimulus package. The article explains the flawed logic in the claims that the stimulus package of 2009 actually improved the American economy.

The article at Heritage Foundation reports:

cbostimulus1cbostimulus2

President Obama is now stating that since the first stimulus was a success, we should have another one.

The article at the Washington Examiner states:

The president said his own forthcoming budget proposal would request over $300 billion in new infrastructure spending.

“While Congress decides what it’s going to do, I’m going to do what I can to create more good jobs,” Obama added.

The president warned that if Congress failed to pass transportation funding by the end of the summer, projects across the country would grind to a halt, costing workers their jobs.

The American workforce as a percentage of American workers is at an all time low. Unemployment has dropped because people who are no longer seeking employment are not counted in the statistics. Our true unemployment number is probably above 9 percent. I think the policies of President Obama have cost enough Americans their jobs despite his claims to the contrary. I hope Congress will stand up to the President and demand at least some degree of fiscal responsibility.

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Pictures vs. Words

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article quoting a leak to the Washington Post on President Obama’s proposed budget. The Washington Post reported: “With 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to era of austerity:”

It has always been my belief that a picture is worth a thousand words. From Yahoo.com:

federalspending

Where is the austerity?

However, there is more to the problem.

John Hinderaker reminds us:

But wait! Democrats and Republicans agreed on discretionary spending levels that supposedly were binding for a decade to come in the Budget Control Act, which included the sequester. Just a few months ago, the Ryan-Murray compromise modified the sequester and increased discretionary spending. That bipartisan agreement was supposed to put spending debates to rest for at least the next couple of years. Now, apparently, the Obama administration intends to throw all prior agreements into the trash can, and demand still higher spending.

This illustrates a point that I have made over and over: all budget agreements that purport to achieve savings over a long period of time, usually a decade, are a farce. The savings always come in the “out years,” but the out years never arrive. Once you get past the current fiscal year, budget agreements are not worth the paper they are printed on. For Republicans to agree to more spending today in exchange for hypothetical cuts in later years is folly–those cuts will never come.

Leadership in both political parties do not desire to cut federal spending. Their debate is only over which party will control the massive spending. That is why it is imperative that we change the establishment leadership of the Republican party. The Republicans used to be the party of small government, there is hope that they can be again. The Democrats have always supported big government. The only solution to this problem is new leadership in the Republican party.

 

 

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This Does Need To Be Looked Into

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Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article about the recent indictment of author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. There is some real question as to whether or not Mr. D’Souza is under indictment because of his open criticism of President Obama and President Obama’s policies. Senators Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee have written a letter to FBI director James Comey asking questions about the indictment.

This is a copy of the letter:

These are questions that need to be answered. The Obama Administration has shown a very uneven hand in its administration of justice. The New Black Panthers were never prosecuted for voter intimidation, and the only person who was ever arrested in relation to Benghazi was the filmmaker who had nothing to do with the incident. This Justice Department has not upheld its duty of administrating justice equally.

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I Might Be A Member Of The Flat Earth Society

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I might be a member of the flat earth society. I don”t believe the earth is flat, but I don’t believe that global warming is caused by man either. So Secretary of State John Kerry compares me to a member of the flat earth society. Well, let’s see how John Kerry’s data on man-made global warming stacks up with reality.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about what the scientific models have predicted about global warming and what has actually happened.

This is the chart:

wsj-temps-lg2

As you can see, the truth has simply not kept up with the scientific predictions.

The Wall Street Journal posted an article yesterday that stated:

“Consensus” science that ignores reality can have tragic consequences if cures are ignored or promising research is abandoned. The climate-change consensus is not endangering lives, but the way it imperils economic growth and warps government policy making has made the future considerably bleaker. The recent Obama administration announcement that it would not provide aid for fossil-fuel energy in developing countries, thereby consigning millions of people to energy poverty, is all too reminiscent of the Sick and Health Board denying fresh fruit to dying British sailors.

Before we take actions that negatively impact the economy of the entire world, we really do need to make sure that the science we are using to justify the actions is valid.

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Blaming Others For A Crisis You Caused Yourself

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I have written about the Central Valley in California before. In September 2010, I posted the following vacation picture (rightwinggranny.com):

IMG_2957.JPG

This picture was taken driving through the Central Valley of California. In case you can’t read the sign, it says, “Stop the Congress Created Dust Bowl.”

This is what is really going on in the Central Valley of California:

A letter to the editor at the Herald and News in July 2009 stated:

“Thousands of people have also become unemployed or lost the ability to farm, which adversely affects both local and national economies.

“In addition to the California drought, there has been court-ordered protection of a 2-inch smelt fish that has stopped the pumping of water from the delta that is necessary for agriculture in central California. If it is listed as an endangered species, it’s likely that California agriculture, which supplies a third of the nation’s food supply, will be permanently changed.”

The water was cut off to protect the delta smelt, a small fish that was getting caught in the pumps. California is currently having a drought, but the drought has been exacerbated by the water shutoff.

Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air yesterday stating that President Obama during his visit to the Central Valley blamed the drought on global warming.

This is a YouTube video of the President’s statement:

The article at Hot Air quotes Investor’s Business Daily on the history of the Central Valley drought:

The one thing that will mitigate droughts in California — a permanent feature of the state — is to restore the water flow from California’s water-heavy north to farmers in the central and south. That’s just what House Bill 3964, which passed by a 229-191 vote last week, does.

But Obama’s plan is not to get that worthy bill through the Senate (where Democrats are holding it up) but to shovel pork to environmental activists and their victims, insultingly offering out-of-work farmers a “summer meal plan” in his package.

“We are not interested in welfare; we want water,” Nunes told IBD this week. He and his fellow legislator Valadao are both farmers who represent the worst-hit regions of the Central Valley in Congress and can only look at the president’s approach with disbelief.

“He’s not addressing the situation,” Valadao told us.

“They want to blame the drought for the lack of water, but they wasted water for the past five years,” said Nunes.

The two explain that California’s system of aqueducts and storage tanks was designed long ago to take advantage of rain and mountain runoff from wet years and store it for use in dry years. But it’s now inactive — by design. “California’s forefathers built a system (of aqueducts and storage facilities) designed to withstand five years of drought,” said Nunes.

“We have infrastructure dating from the 1960s for transporting water, but by the 1990s the policies had changed,” said Valadao.

Environmental special interests managed to dismantle the system by diverting water meant for farms to pet projects, such as saving delta smelt, a baitfish. That move forced the flushing of 3 million acre-feet of water originally slated for the Central Valley into the ocean over the past five years.

If California would stop flushing millions of gallons of water into the ocean and give it to the farmers, the Central Valley would not be a dustbowl. It is truly a shame that President Obama chooses to use the hardship of the farmers as a political platform rather than solving the problem. This drought is not caused by global warming or climate change–it is caused by Washington politicians!

 

 

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