There are many bad sections and power grabs in the Obama “Jobs Bill”. We will be elaborating on them soon, but in general it does six things that will affect most people.
1 – Obama wants to continue the payroll tax rates which shows no evidence of creating a single job. It has a small impact on disposable income but it also further endangers Social Security.
2 – Extend unemployment benefits.
3 – Obama wants almost half a trillion dollars in new deficit spending to pay for more green jobs stimulus money that has not created long-term jobs; much of which was spent on cronies and Solyndra like boondoggles.
At the same time Obama wants to:
1 – Eliminate the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction
2 – Eliminate Charitable Interest Deductions
3 – Eliminate the partial deduction for state and local taxes.
These three changes to our current tax code would be devastating to charities, the housing market and the economy. It would also, interestingly enough, devastate States ran by progressive Democrats as they have the highest state and local taxes. States ran by Republicans would be a much better deal. Obama’s “Jobs Bill” would make Canada an even better deal as their version of the TEA Party is rewriting Canada’s tax code to a pro growth, jobs friendly policy. This is why even most Democrats are not pushing the bill.
News outlets are turning the primary into American Idol by trying these tricks to set up conflict, 30 second answers etc. Newt was right to chastise those Fox News reporters for this.
Are the issues of the day worth more than a 30-60 second soundbite?
Some of my conservative friends are being manipulated by the “American Idoling” of the presentation, and that only serves to get Obama re-elected.
You have two choices. Stop “reacting” and start thinking OR you can be played like a Stradivarius by every leftist propagandist who knows how to pluck your conservative heartstrings.
Your heart is in the right place, but in the age of Saul Alinsky that is no longer good enough.
Now that candidates will be seeking Donald Trump’s endorsement it is good to take a second look at his positions – Editor
While I do not agree with Trump on every issue, he does make some points which should be addressed in the upcoming election.
Free trade is OK as long as the enforcement is not one sided against us as it usually is, and if we don’t have a government that passes so many corrupt regulations that choke the economy and taxes businesses to the point where they flee. Trump is right that we cannot have endless consumption without production. Trump is right that ObamaCare is causing the price of health care to skyrocket.
Trump is right about START. Trump is also right that we should not be defending wealthy countries without them at least contributing to that defense.
Trump needs to understand what happens if you have a war and leave a power vacuum.
Those who understand politics and corruption know what this means. This gives political appointees time to destroy documents, colluded to “get stories straight” and time to plan prior restraint and/or retaliation against those trying to gain information. This is the administration that promised unprecedented transparency. … If Bush had done this….
WASHINGTON – A House committee has asked the Homeland Security Department to provide documents about an agency policy that required political appointees to review many Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a letter obtained Sunday by The Associated Press.
The letter to Homeland Security was sent late Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It represents an early move by House Republicans who have vowed to launch numerous probes of President Barack Obama’s administration, ranging from its implementation of the new health care law to rules curbing air pollution to spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Associated Press reported in July that for at least a year, Homeland Security had sidetracked hundreds of requests for federal records to top political advisers to the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano. The political appointees wanted information about those requesting the materials, and in some cases the release of documents considered politically sensitive was delayed, according to numerous e-mails that were obtained by the AP.
The Freedom of Information Act is supposed to ensure the quick public release of requested government documents without political consideration. Obama has said his administration would emphasize openness in providing requested federal records.
According to Issa’s letter, Homeland Security’s chief privacy officer and FOIA official told committee staff in September that political appointees were simply made aware of “significant and potentially controversial requests.”
Mary Ellen Callahan told them that political appointees reviewed the agency’s FOIA response letters for grammatical and other errors and did not edit or delay their release, the letter states. She also told the committee that Homeland Security abandoned the practice in response to the AP’s article, according to Issa’s letter. [WHAT!!. LOL – Political appointees are not going to have grammar nearly as good as a secretary/PR pro in a federal department. This reasoning is laughable. apparently the practice was not abandoned as the administration indicated – Editor]
On Sunday, Oversight panel spokesman Frederick Hill said Issa sent the letter “because the committee has received documents that raise questions about the veracity of DHS officials” on the matter. He did not elaborate.
Issa asked the agency to provide the documents by Jan. 29.
Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last summer, officials said fewer than 500 requests were vetted by political officials. The department received about 103,000 requests for information in a recent 12-month period.
The agency’s directive said political appointees wanted to see FOIA requests for “awareness purposes,” regardless of who had filed them. The AP reported that the agency’s career employees were told to provide political appointees with information about who requested documents, where they lived, whether they were reporters and where they worked. [This is disturbing because what we have seen from the NYT, Washington Post, CBS,NBC.ABC,CNN.MSNBC is that in unison, within minutes of the shooting in Arizona these elite media outlets immediately using the same spin blamed Sarah Palin and other conservatives. Several of these same outlets talking heads chastised Sarah Palin for not speaking out, and when they did they in unison said that she was injecting herself into the news. This reminds me of the 2000 election when G.W. Bush picked Dick Cheney for VP the news in unison said that Cheney was picked because he had “gravitas” (implying that Bush had none). Why have a state-run media when the so-called legit media is willing to act as the PR arm of the Democratic leadership? A reporter is looking into something he shouldn’t, so the administration leans on said reporter’s bosses and bye-bye FOIA. – Editor]
According to the directive, political aides were to review requests related to Obama policy priorities, or anything related to controversial or sensitive subjects. Requests from journalists, lawmakers and activist groups were to also to be examined.
Under a new policy last summer, documents are given to agency political advisers three days before they are released, but they can be distributed without those officials’ approval.
Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue that could help close the federal deficit is being lost as a result of President Obama’s anti-drilling agenda.
Production in the Gulf of Mexico — which normally accounts for about 30 percent of all U.S. production — is expected to drop this year by 220,000 barrels per day, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
With oil currently at $90 a barrel and the royalty rate at 18.75 percent, that equals $3.7 million in lost revenue each day.
If the agency projections hold over the course of the year, the federal government would lose more than $1.35 billion from Gulf royalty payments this year.
The number grows even larger when coupled with a lack of Gulf lease sales and fewer rental payments. Those three components — royalties, leases and rent — make up a sizeable amount of government revenue.
The looming shortfall is raising red flags on Capitol Hill. Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium and the subsequent slowdown in permitting, first called attention to it in September.
“It’s not only about job loss along the Gulf Coast — the federal government is losing revenue as a result of the administration’s misguided moratorium,” Vitter explained.
“I’ve been attacking the moratorium from multiple angles and will continue to do so until drilling can fully resume.”
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled a Gulf lease sale last October. He postponed another in the central Gulf of Mexico, originally scheduled for March, until 2012. One planned for October 2011 in the western Gulf also could be delayed until 2012. That would make 2011 the first year since 1965 that the federal government has failed to hold a lease sale in the Gulf.
Bonus bids from lease sales averaged about $1 billion in 2009 and 2010, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE).
The lack of lease sales ultimately means the government will collect less in rent payments by lease holders. Offshore rents currently generate more than $200 million per year.
“Over the years, offshore production royalties have provided billions of dollars to the U.S. government,” saidNational Ocean Industries Association President Randall Luthi, former director of the Minerals Management Service, which predated BOEMRE. “Now, at a time when Congress is looking to maximize efficiency without raising taxes, there sits millions of dollars per day uncollected,” he said.
The Obama administration has dismissed the financial impact. The revenue loss would be “negligible,” Rebecca Blank, under secretary for economic affairs at the Department of Commerce, told a Senate committee in the fall.
“It is difficult to speculate now on the specific impact the moratorium would have over the five- or 10-year budget window, but one would expect the impact on the deficit to be negligible,” Blank wrote to the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship in September.
“Revenues may be higher or they may be lower depending on future years’ oil prices and the time profile of production,” Blank said.
Energy experts said the administration’s policies are certain to have long-term consequences for the industry.
“You continually need new discoveries and new production coming online to replace what’s being depleted,” said Andy Radford, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute. “These wells taper off over time — the ones that are producing now — so without a continual flow of new discoveries and new production, the number will continue to decrease.”
A report from the economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight estimated that federal, state and local taxes related to the Gulf, combined with royalty payments, totaled $19 billion in 2009.
Royalties, bonus and rent payments made up more than $6 billion of that number. That pot of money could go a long way toward deficit reduction. And that’s from the Gulf alone.
Significant additional revenues would be generated if the federal government opened access to exploration and production in areas currently closed to development such as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, portions of the Rocky Mountains, ANWR, and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
A recent study conducted by Wood Mackenzie for the American Petroleum Institute estimated that increased access to those areas would bring $150 billion into federal coffers by 2025.
Why leave so much money uncollected, especially in a time of rising deficits?
1 – Who is a big investor in Brazilian oil? George Soros, who is likely the single largest contributor to far left causes.
2 – Like many leftist academics Obama believes that America’s wealth needs to be redistributed around the world. So as long as we buy foreign energy that is our money leaving the country.
3 – Energy companies usually tend to favor Republicans when it comes to donations. An exception to that is British Petroleum which is 45% the former Amoco.
Energy Policy: While leaving U.S. oil and jobs in the ground, our itinerant president tells a South American neighbor that we’ll help it develop its offshore resources so we can one day import its oil. WHAT?!?
With Japan staggered by a natural disaster and a nuclear crisis, cruise missiles launched against Libya in our third Middle East conflict and a majority of U.S. senators complaining about a lack of leadership on the budget, President Obama decided it would be a good time to schmooze with Brazilians.
His “What, me worry?” presidency has given both Americans and our allies plenty to worry about. But in the process of making nice with Brazil, Obama made a mind-boggling announcement that should make even his most loyal supporter cringe:
We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it.
We have noted this double standard before, particularly when — at a time when the president was railing against tax incentives for U.S. oil companies — we supported the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s plan to lend $2 billion to Brazil’s state-run Petrobras with the promise of more to follow.
Now, with a seven-year offshore drilling ban in effect off of both coasts, on Alaska’s continental shelf and in much of the Gulf of Mexico — and a de facto moratorium covering the rest — Obama tells the Brazilians:
“We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”
Obama wants to develop Brazilian offshore oil to help the Brazilian economy create jobs for Brazilian workers while Americans are left unemployed in the face of skyrocketing energy prices by an administration that despises fossil fuels as a threat to the environment and wants to increase our dependency on foreign oil.
Obama said he chose Brazil to kick off his first-ever visit to South America in recognition of that country’s ascendancy. He has also highlighted one of the reasons for America’s decline — an energy policy that through the creation of an artificial shortage of fossil fuels makes prices “necessarily skyrocket” to foster his green energy agenda.
In an op-ed in USA Today explaining his trip, Obama opined: “Brazil holds recently discovered oil reserves that could be far larger than ours. And as we seek to increase secure-energy supplies, we look forward to developing a strategic energy partnership.”
This is an administration that does not act in good faith.
UPDATE I – Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Confirms: Democrat Energy Policy is To Push For Less Energy and More Deficit Spending.
Democrat energy policy: Less drilling, more deficit spending. Pinheads like Debbie Schultz have said that there would be “no immediate” new oil if we started drilling today is cute, but they have been saying that for 20 years. Now if we started more drilling back then, or even five years ago it would be an entirely different story. By the way Obama’s illegal drilling ban has already cost many thousands of jobs.
If I start digging a well, it will not immediately result in more water, so lets all have massive thirst. If you start your car, it will not immediately result in you being at work, so lets ban cars and have trains….
Someone is voting for these idiots.
NOTE – If Sarah Palin had uttered the shear nonsense that Schultz puts out on a regular basis it would be the headline almost every other night on the news.
Schultz has been making these kind of orbital statements for a long time. I think it is time for Rush Limbaugh to start giving her a little of what the Democrats need right now:
Solar and Wind are very expensive, harder to transmit, and inconsistent. Solar is so expensive that solar panels plants in the United States are closing and the work is going to China. China builds a coal plant every week.
All of this money going to these subsidies cannot be used for other things. Mandates on electric companies to get more energy from wind and solar are next to impossible to meet so those companies are fined, which forces energy companies to pass those fines to their customers, which helps to send more jobs overseas.
Reason TV asks, if all of these green energy mandates are going to make all of these 21st century jobs, how come in California that has totally backfired. The reasons above explain why and they are reasons that are explained in any first year macroeconomics class.
If you want to see lower energy costs and business to start coming back home there is only one solution. Throw out Democrats en mass. We have trillions in natural gas, oil and other resources that are off limits that we could use to help pay off the national debt and rebuild the economy. We also need a government that costs less than $2 trillion a year instead of the nearly $4 trillion it costs now.
The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast.
Offshore oil production makes economic sense. It creates jobs and helps fulfill America’s vast energy needs. It contributes to the gross domestic product and does not increase the trade deficit. Higher oil supply helps keep a lid on rising prices, and greater American production gives the United States more influence over the global market.
Drilling is also wildly popular with the public. A Pew Research Center poll from February showed 63 percent support for offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Americans understand the fundamental points: The oil is there, and we need it. If we don’t drill it out, we have to buy it from other countries. Last year, the U.S. government even helped Brazil underwrite offshore drilling in the Tupi oil field near Rio de Janeiro. The current price of oil makes drilling economically feasible, so why not let the private sector go ahead and get our oil?
The Obama administration, however, views energy policy through green eyeshades. Every aspect of its approach to energy is subordinated to radical environmental concerns. This unprecedented lack of balance is placing offshore oil resources off-limits. The O Force would prefer the country shift its energy production to alternative sources, such as nuclear, solar and wind power. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that, in the long run, assuming technology can catch up to demand. But we have not yet reached the green utopia, we won’t get there anytime soon, and America needs more oil now.
You need to watch only a few minutes of cable news analysis to realize just how ludicrous our national energy policies have become. As escalating tensions and chaos unfold in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern nations, one energy analyst suggested that if Libyan oil supplies were to fail, the United States would rely on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs. If that statement alone doesn’t put U.S. leaders on red alert, the looming national energy crisis may soon become reality.
The Obama administration is repeating the mistakes of President Jimmy Carter’s failed energy policies, which marred his term and stigmatized the 1970s. They are leading us straight into another national energy disaster.
Key members of the Obama administration believe this friction abroad underscores the need to move away from oil and gas entirely and shift to boutique forms of alternative energy. Their lack of political will to drill for oil and gas compromises our national security and jeopardizes economic recovery.
It skirts the colossal elephant in the room: Oil and natural gas produced here in the United States are likely to still account for at least 57 percent of domestic energy consumption by 2035. Not to mention that energy production here can relieve the U.S. from the dangerous grip of foreign petro dictators.
Unfortunately, this administration’s Department of the Interior, with the most anti-oil-and-gas record in U.S. history, is sabotaging any real chance of avoiding the pending energy crisis because of its continued hold on deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.
When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar heads before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, Americans — particularly the 9.2 million directly or indirectly working in the oil and gas industry — would be ill served if the question isn’t asked: Are the thousands, and counting, of out-of-work Americans in the Gulf region and beyond a worthwhile consequence of your department’s freeze?
I disagree with Rand Paul on some foreign policy issues, but this day my hat is off to him. It must have felt SO good to tell one of these looters what we all are thinking.
Oh and if you do not know exactly what I mean by a looter please do not make yourself look silly by trying to guess.
My family had to buy one of these new, expensive “super energy saver” washers with no agitator and uses very little water and energy which is being pushed by the government. The washer is a disappointment. I always have to use the extra rinse feature and with heavy clothes I sometimes have to wash them twice.
Trump is right about the message Obama sends with his hubris and indifference. Trump is also correct about the overseas oil cartel. Who will get his endorsement?
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
Or this:
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
In the Democratic primary campaign of 2008, candidate Barack Obama scored points because he, unlike many Democrats, had opposed the Iraq War from the start. Though a state senator at the time of the 2002 congressional vote authorizing military action, Obama had delivered a speech to an anti-war rally in Chicago.
He said, “I don’t oppose all wars … What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”
Regarding the justifications for war with Iraq, state Sen. Obama was unpersuaded: “I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity … But … Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors …”
As American forces join the war against Moammar Gadhafi, the nation is entitled to an explanation. How is the case for war against Gadhafi smarter (remember, Obama is only against “dumb” wars) or less “ideological” or more prudent than that for war against Saddam Hussein?
Certainly, with an army of only 50,000, Gadhafi represents far less of a threat to his neighbors or to us than did Saddam, who commanded an army estimated at 350,000. As for humanitarian concerns, what Gadhafi is doing to the rebels in Libya is exactly what Saddam did to his domestic enemies, but on a reduced scale. As Obama himself said, Saddam was “a ruthless man … who butchers his own people to secure his power.” Yet that didn’t justify a war, state Sen. Obama told us.
Sen. Obama did not believe that Saddam posed a danger to the United States or to his neighbors — though he had attacked or invaded three of his neighbors: Iran, Kuwait, and Israel. Yet Gadhafi has hardly ranged beyond his own borders.
Democrats called 1.5% cuts “draconian” and that is after tripling deficit spending in 2008 over 2007 levels. The yearly deficit in 2010 level was over and 6.5 times the 2007 level.
The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are at a “tipping point,” a Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday.
“If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent, the question is when,” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said in a question and answer session after delivering a speech at the University of Frankfurt. “The short-term negotiations are very important, I look at this as a tipping point.”
Editor’s Note – This was a post from just a few months ago and is a little reminder that the “Occupy” protest going on in New York right now was planned in a galaxy not so far away by the same usual suspects.
UPDATE – ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Organizer Is Marketing Analyst Whose LinkedIn Lists Work For Investment Bankers – LINK
Occupy Wall Street ‘Stands In Solidarity’ With Obama Front Group Funded by the Wealthy Financiers and Bankers They are Protesting – LINK
[Editor’s Note – and if these partially misguided protesters get their way the Democrats will pass a tax increase law that will not benefit the students, it will benefit the super rich because, as is the case with all of these “soak the rich” efforts, they either chase wealth out of the country and/or exceptions for those who are politically connected get included in the tax code and it will not be the GE’s and Google’s who pay, it will be the small and medium-sized competition who will get soaked.]
Steve Lerner SEIU
UPDATE –Steven Lerner, the man in the video overtly plotting a new economic crisis, has visited the White House four times as well as the Treasury Department.
CAUGHT ON TAPE: Former SEIU Official Reveals Secret Plan To Destroy JP Morgan, Crash The Stock Market, And Redistribute Wealth In America
A former official of one of the country’s most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to “destabilize” the country.
The plan is designed to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street’s grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.
The former SEIU official, Stephen Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.
UPDATE I – Glenn Beck: This is a clear case of economic terrorism – LINK.
UPDATE II – SEIU sued under RICO statute (Via The Blaze):
Cockroaches, bugs, mold, and flies. These are just some of the props and rumors allegedly employed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) against the American unit of French catering company Sodexo. And the company’s had enough.
Fed up with tactics that include intimidation, extortion, and yes, sabotage that apparently includes plastic cockroaches, Sodexo filed a lawsuit against the SEIU last week under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
“We work constructively with unions every day but the SEIU has crossed the line by breaking the law,” Robert Stern, general counsel for Sodexo USA, said in a statement. “We will not tolerate the SEIU’s tactics any longer.”
SEIU has been fighting to represent 80,000 hourly Sodexo employees, which is above and beyond the 180,000 hourly employees who are already union members. The union regularly stages protests against the company to make its point, like this one last fall on the campus of George Mason University. The video alleges SEIU bused in protesters, who can be heard chanting, among other things, “As long as it takes, whatever it takes, we’ll be in your face!”
Sodexo’s complaint, filed in federal court in Alexandria, VA, alleges acts of SEIU blackmail, vandalism, trespass, harassment, and lobbying law violations designed to steer business away from, and harm, the company.
And just what exactly might those acts look like? Sodexo gives the details:
The complaint alleges that the SEIU, in face to face meetings, threatened Sodexo USA’s executives that it would harm Sodexo USA’s business unless they gave in to the union, and then carried out its threats through egregious behavior, including:
throwing plastic roaches onto food being served by Sodexo USA at a high profile event;
scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies;
lying to interfere with Sodexo USA business and sneaking into elementary schools to avoid security;
violating lobbying laws to steer business away from Sodexo USA, even at the risk of costing Sodexo USA employees their jobs; and
harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing.
The complaint, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, seeks an injunction against the SEIU and its locals and executives, as well as monetary damages to be determined by the court.
UPDATE III – Member of Congress to Attorney General Eric Holder – LINK.
From time to time we all run into someone with the “union” mentality; meaning that someone believes the conspiracy theories put out by the neo-Marxist union leadership in their news letters. Rarely do I run into someone, even a union member, who truly believes those conspiracy theories and takes them to heart with near total abandon.
Recently I ran into such a person who went on an emotional tirade almost yelling that “All Republicans oppose Obama because they are racist and I don’t care what anybody has to say or show me I have seen it too many times” (obviously from all of the other times in our history when we had Saul Alinsky inspired black presidents) . I was a bit astonished by this because rarely will someone just up and declare that he has a “don’t confuse me with the facts” attitude and be proud of it. At that point I realized that any rational discussion with this person was futile and I let them complete their rant, said “take care now” and left.
Aside from getting such a person to agree to a strictly formal Lincoln-Douglass structured conversation any attempt at rationality with said person is hopeless.
I could have said a few things such as:
Oh I see the Republicans (not to mention almost all independents) opposed ObamaCare for the same reason they opposed HillaryCare, because Hillary is black.
Or:
If only Joe Biden would have been the one proposing “BidenCare”, cap & trade energy taxes, tanking our domestic oil and coal production to drive up energy prices, an EPA that is out of control, abuses of power with ‘Chicago Style’ financing and kick backs with Obama’s other chosen energy buddies (like Solyndra) every Republican and Independent would have supported it overwhelmingly…. or not.
Or:
All of those who voted for Obama in 2008 and have turned against his policies now and or voted for the GOP in 2010 are somehow ‘racists after the fact’. And all of those Jewish Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 only to vote against his candidate in the recent New York special House election, as a protest vote against Obama, weren’t racist then, but they are today.
Or:
For a racist my family which includes Jews, Blacks, and Asians, finds me to be as warm and accepting as anyone (so do my homosexual friends. I supported GoProud at CPAC).
Of course such inconvenient facts would have just enraged the man even further beyond his current hostility. There will always be people who are totally demoralized by conspiracy theories, envy, class warfare emotionalism, etc. Any rational discussion with such a person is futile. It is best to just let them rant because most normal people are easily smart enough to see it for what it is.
If Herman Cain becomes president (who I would be thrilled to vote for over Obama) perhaps my default response to anyone who has even the slightest critique about President Cain will be a reactionary charge of racism. Herman Cain (who by the way is a Black American with “slave blood” as they say) just won the Southern CPAC Straw Poll in Florida which is the second largest conservative event in the country.
More truth than the demoralized can handle – LINK.
CBS News Online: ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010 – LINK
ABC News Online: Fast and Furious: GOP Says Eric Holder is ‘Either Incompetent’ or ‘Misleading Congress’ – LINK
Fox News: House Republicans Request Special Counsel to Probe Holder on ‘Fast and Furious’ – LINK
Weekly Standard: CBS News Reporter Says White House Screamed, Swore at Her Over Fast and Furious – LINK
Investors Business Daily: Cash for Cartels – LINK – See more below.
CBS News Silences Fast and Furious Reporter – LINK
Arizona Sheriffs Association: Attorney General Holder Lied Under Oath. Special Prosecutor Needed – LINK
Video: Allen West asks for Eric Holder’s resignation – LINK
Obama: We’re working on gun control “under the radar” – LINK
***** Original Story*****
Bill Newell, the former Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Phoenix Field Office has said over and over again under oath, that at no point didn’t ATF allow guns to be trafficked into Mexico.
This map along with the other documents released today prove otherwise and now over 200 people are dead as a result. Remember this was all an effort to create an excuse to pass more sweeping gun control laws. Any administration capable of this is capable of anything.
WASHINGTON – Late Friday, the White House turned over new documents in the Congressional investigation into the ATF “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal.
The documents show extensive communications between then-ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office Bill Newell – who led Fast and Furious – and then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly. Emails indicate the two also spoke on the phone. Such detailed, direct communications between a local ATF manager in Phoenix and a White House national security staffer has raised interest among Congressional investigators looking into Fast and Furious. Newell has said he and O’Reilly are long time friends.
ATF agents say that in Fast and Furious, their agency allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons to be sold to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels. At least two of the guns turned up at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December.
The email exchanges span a little over a month last summer. They discuss ATF’s gun trafficking efforts along the border including the controversial Fast and Furious case, though not by name. The emails to and from O’Reilly indicate more than just a passing interest in the Phoenix office’s gun trafficking cases. They do not mention specific tactics such as “letting guns walk.”
A lawyer for the White House wrote Congressional investigators: “none of the communications between ATF and the White House revealed the investigative law enforcement tactics at issue in your inquiry, let alone any decision to allow guns to ‘walk.'”
Among the documents produced: an email in which ATF’s Newell sent the White House’s O’Reilly an “arrow chart reflecting the ultimate destination of firearms we intercepted and/or where the guns ended up.” The chart shows arrows leading from Arizona to destinations all over Mexico.
In response, O’Reilly wrote on Sept. 3, 2010 “The arrow chart is really interesting – and – no surprise – implies at least that different (Drug Trafficking Organizations) in Mexico have very different and geographically distinct networks in the US for acquiring guns. Did last year’s TX effort develop a similar graphic?”
The White House counsel who produced the documents stated that some records were not included because of “significant confidentiality interests.”
Also included are email photographs including images of a .50 caliber rifle (left) that Newell tells O’Reilly “was purchased in Tucson, Arizona (part of another OCDTF case).” OCDTF is a joint task force that operates under the Department of Justice and includes the US Attorneys, ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE and IRS. Fast and Furious was an OCDTF case.
An administration source would not describe the Tucson OCDTF case. However, CBS News has learned that ATF’s Phoenix office led an operation out of Tucson called “Wide Receiver.” Sources claim ATF allowed guns to “walk” in that operation, much like Fast and Furious.
Congressional investigators for Republicans Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) have asked to interview O’Reilly by September 30. But the Administration informed them that O’Reilly is on assignment for the State Department in Iraq and unavailable. [How convenient]
UPDATE II – Cash for Cartels
Investors Business Daily:
The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it.
We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved.
According to documents obtained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), agent John Dodson was ordered to buy semiautomatic Draco pistols and was provided a letter by ATF group supervisor David Voth authorizing FFLs (federal firearms licensees) to sell Dodson the guns without filling out the required form.
A copy of the letter obtained by David Codrea of the Gun Rights Examiner tells dealers to “accept this letter in lieu of completing an ATF Form 4473 for the purchase of four (4) CAI, Model Draco, 7.62X39 mm pistols, by Special Agent John Dodson” to be used “in the furtherance of the performance of his official duties.”
Scribbled on the letter is this note: “Picked up guns 6/10/10. Paid cash.”
According to Fox News, Dodson then sold the guns to known illegal buyers who took them to a stash house. Voth disapproved Dodson’s request for 24-hour surveillance and ordered the surveillance team to return to the office.
Dodson stayed behind, against orders. A week later, when a vehicle showed up to transfer the weapons to their ultimate destination, he called for an interdiction team to move in, seize the weapons and arrest the traffickers. Voth refused, and the guns disappeared without surveillance.
Flashback March 2011. Amazing how the elite media lets us forget about these litthe scandals isn’t it?
Michelle Malkin
This has been going on repeatedly in this administration. To see the complete story and back ground, be sure to check out this great piece by Michelle Malkin.
Your tax dollars at work…
The EPA is now paying the American Lung Association to attack Republicans:
[Editor’s Note – This is a billboard just a few miles north of where I live attacking Fred Upton. In a crazy ruling by the court, they handed the EPA the power to regulate CO2 as if it were a pollutant. The Constitution says that all lawmaking power rests with the Congress. It is with this “authority” under color of law (fake law) that Obama has instructed the EPA to create a Cap & Trade scheme against the will of Congress and the American people. This is profoundly and expressly unconstitutional and a complete violation of Separation of Powers.
So the Republicans are moving to take this power away. This billboard is Obama’s response. The dishonest narrative is “Republicans want to poison the air and kill this child “. CO2 is what we breath out and what trees and plants breath in, without it we would all starve. Almost any economic activity creates some CO2 so this is an “excuse” to regulate anything and everything by using unelected bureaucrats and ignoring Congress altogether.
This is abuse of power on its face, Democrats know this but just don’t care, and some Republicans are afraid of being accused of wanting to poison the girl on the billboard. The only way to put an end to this is to vote for bold conservative candidates overwhelmingly.]
The ALA put up four billboards like this one near Rep. Fred Upton’s office in Michigan. Upton is the House Energy and Commerce Chairman. (PlowShareGroup)
The Environmental Protection Agency is paying the American Lung Association to run attack ads against Republican members of Congress.
“The American Lung Association has targeted House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton for his efforts to stop U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions by placing billboards within sight of his district offices linking climate change with increased childhood asthma,” reports E&E News PM.
But as we reported last week in “EPA owns the American Lung Association,” the EPA has paid the American Lung Association over $20 million in the last ten years, and has paid the ALA many more millions in a symbiotic relationship going back to at least 1990.
The EPA-ALA relationship works something like this: EPA pays the ALA and, in return, the ALA agitates for more stringent EPA air quality regulation, including by lawsuit. Now it’s billboards.
In addition to defunding National Public Radio, the House GOP should look at the EPA’s funding of American Lung Association.
Remember when Dick Cheney met with those oil guys in the Energy Task Force before they proposed legislation to drill that would have moved us closer to independence and lower gas prices. The left created all of these conspiracy theories about the meeting, demanded transcripts etc etc.
Well now the shoe is on the other foot and the left and the elite media are like this:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.
Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama’s health insurance expansion.
Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.
It’s one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall’s elections.
So far, they’ve been unable to repeal the landmark legislation they dismiss as “Obamacare.” GOP efforts to deny administration agencies the money to carry out the law are running into unintended consequences, not to mention the sheer difficulty of tracking those dollars. Now it looks like oversight isn’t going to be easy either.
“We are both concerned and disappointed by your response,” the committee chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., wrote back to Bauer. “The American public deserves the information we have requested. The secret meetings conducted by (White House officials) are a perfect example of why transparency in government is so important.”
This is the most transparent White House in history as Obama promised so many times in the campaign.
Flashback March 2011. Remember Obama’s Deficit Commission??? The elite media dropped it like a hot potato.
UPDATE – Worlds largest bond fund dumps U.S. Treasuries – LINK.
Great interview. All credit to Erskine Bowles, who used to be one of the nastier partisan Democrat hired guns. He has almost completely adopted a near Steve Forbes like tax agenda, because that is the best way to raise government revenue. Bowles even makes the case that Democrats need to get real on spending cuts and that Republicans aren’t pushing hard enough. I am in awe. Bowles has even says that unions have over reached. I am sure Bowles is feeling the heat from his former colleagues. I never thought I would see myself typing these words; Erskine Bowles has earned my respect. My hat is off to his courage.
Bowles even uses the same analogy IUSB Vision [My old college blog – Editor] does almost verbatim from the link. The deficit in February was $232 billion (yes that is for a single month), which is substantially higher than the entire yearly deficit the last year the Republicans had fiscal control (2007).
Remember that debt increase deal? Just remember come election time to remember the following…
As far as the budget deal we thought we have a few comments.
1 – We were never in danger of a default. The government brings in almost 200 billion a month in tax dollars which is more than enough to service the debt. Anyone who said that the August 2nd date would result in default is just lying straight up. Judging by how the elite media has been repeating this it furthers my personal observation that journalists are lazy and are, as a collective, the most uninformed people I have ever encountered.
2 – These polls that you here about in the news saying that the people want “republicans to compromise” are polls like the CBS News poll that had a sample which included only 25% Republicans, so the sample was rigged. Notice how the Democrats are not asked to compromise in the press? When the people were stone against Obama Care by a 60% margin where was the press pounding the polls than? Where was the compromise when the Democrats would not allow the GOP into the room and would only see the bill a few hours before a vote?
3 – “Reagan increased the debt limit”… Reagan did not have a House controlled by his own party. During that time we had the 24/7 nuclear triangle operating at the pinnacle of the Cold War and a government shut down at such a time would have undermined our efforts to posture and beat the Soviets.
4 – “We need to raise taxes on the rich”. First of all we have been “raising taxes on the rich” for decades now so why is it that John Kerry paid 12.34% on $5,072,000 worth of income? The dirty little secret is that the tax rate that the Democrats are talking about is the wage earner rate which is paid by high-end wage earners such as doctors and engineers, but it is also the rate paid by most small businesses that have employees. Most of the income that the “rich” bring is defined by the tax code as “unearned income”, so you could raise this tax rate to the moon and the multimillionaires and billionaires will laugh as it will not be they who pay it. For more details on why this is follow this LINK.
Using static models as the CBO likes to use the Democrats proposed tax increase would pay for all of 10 days of deficit spending. Of course since people do not operate in a static universe the result would be an impact on job creators and even less revenue growth to the government. Can anyone name a mainstream economic theorist who said to raise taxes during what appears to be a double dip recession?
4 – As far as spending cuts in the “deal”, we must remember base line budgeting. If we froze spending at current levels Washington would consider that to be a $9.5 trillion dollar “cut”, so all we are talking about here is a small reduction in the typical increases in spending. As far as spending cuts are concerned this is not a serious plan as spending under this deal will continue to skyrocket. Democrats and some leftist journalists are calling these “draconian cuts” and are simply engaging in the most dishonest demagoguery imaginable.
5 – But here is the rub, when we lose our AAA credit rating, which now appears unavoidable as both Moodys and S&P have said that neither the Boehner plan nor the Reid plan are serious about getting spending under control, it will cost us more than $100 billion a year in interest alone; when that is factored in there are no reductions even in the increases in spending. It gets worse. When you add the damage to the economy that loss of AAA will bring it makes all of this worse.
The loss of AAA will impact most unsecured credit, it will impact the value of the dollar (inflation), it will impact those who use short-term credit such as farmers who use seasonal loans and import/export businesses. It is going to damage the economy in such a way that most people will feel it. We did not lose AAA even during the great depression. The “deal” which passed is also easy to demagogue because the left will say that this deal IS the “Boehner Plan” (which is largely isn’t any more do to an almost total cave on spending cuts) and HIS plan caused us to lose AAA.
[Note: The first plans that were introduced by the Tea Party/GOP were much more serious and had a real chance of preventing the loss of AAA. While this is indeed a failure of government, is there any doubt that the Democratic Party is intent on blowing up our credit rating? The first proposals from the House had a chance of preserving AAA and the media/Democrats had a conniption fit calling called it extreme. Think about this folks, preserving AAA is now an extreme position according to much of the elite media and a political party. The Constitution does have limits and the GOP cannot run the government from the House. This is why elections matter.]
6 – The deal also includes a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment to send it to the states. If this amendment resolution passes the Democrat controlled Senate and gets to the states it will be a great tool to begin to get this spending problem under control. If it looks like it will pass the Senate I expect the Democrat leadership will pull some stunt prevent the vote or prevent its passage. Government has a structural institutional incentive to spend more and more, so the only way to curb that is to make a structural change. Aside from a vote on this Amendment, which I will stress has not happened yet, this was not a tough deal or a Herculean compromise by any stretch.
This is a must see exchange between Marco Rubio and John Kerry on the debt limit debate. Be sure to watch every second as this is invaluable.
Kerry will think twice before trying to posture Marco Rubio again. Notice also, even though Rubio did not join the TEA Party Caucus he defends their position, which is to offer a plan that fixes the problem. Rubio uses a most interesting analogy to show why this is so important.
UPDATE – The latest version of the deal includes $2.1 Trillion in cuts over 10 years with half planned now and the other half planned by a “budget cut committee later”. Keep in mind that cuts in “Washington Speak” are not cuts, but rather a decrease in the increase in spending. So instead of a planned increase in spending over 10 years of $9.5 Trillion they will plan to increase spending by $7.4 trillion. The president gets his debt increase limit extended to well passed the campaign, deficit spending shoots up, no entitlement reform, no plan to balance the budget over the next eight years. There are some actual small cuts in discretionary spending, but entitlement spending that is on autopilot. Of course even this is a fraction of the increase in discretionary spending that has gone up since 2008.
Remember when we said that the Democrats are pushing for a government shut down, which is why they keep moving the goal posts in trying to boost deficit spending? Well here is the proof. It is called acting in bad faith folks.
How could anyone who wants fiscal responsibility ever vote for any of these people again. You heard me. If you take exception to that comment please try to justify what we have just seen in the comments below.
UPDATE: Rand Paul: What Schumer is doing to the country is extreme
Michelle Bachmann responds as well:
Mike Pence: If the Democrats want a shutdown so bad, do it and see what happens…
Boehner/Bachmann: Democrats rooting for a shutdown
Its true too. Every time the Republicans make a compromise the Democrats move the goal post. First it was move spending back to 2008 levels; then it was cut by $100 billion; then it was $61 billion’ then it was, 10.5 or 33 billion dollars depending on what Democrat you were talking to. How anyone, and I mean anyone who tells you that they are for fiscal responsibility and want to vote Democrat in 2012 is either duped or just lying to you.
An analysis of the propaganda campaign to get Al-Jazeera carried by more cable and satellite systems reveals an interesting fact. The terrorist TV channel is already available through something called MHz Networks. And it turns out that the MHz Networks is supported by the American taxpayers at the federal and state levels.
MHz Networks is a division of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting and receives over $2 million a year from federal and state governments. In this case, because Commonwealth is based in Virginia, the culprit is the state of Virginia. However, Governor Robert F. McDonnell has proposed eliminating state funding of public broadcasting by cutting $2 million in fiscal 2012 and $2 million in fiscal 2013. Even if state legislators go along with this proposal, that still leaves the federal subsidies for Commonwealth and MHz Networks.
According to figures supplied by Joseph H. Koch, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, $1.4 million of that $2 million came from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is funded by Congress. The CPB distributes taxpayer money to public broadcasting stations and entities.
Since Al-Jazeera is totally owned, run, and paid for by the Emir of Qatar, officially known as “His Highness,” this means that American tax dollars are paying for foreign propaganda in the U.S.
Not only that, but American taxpayers are being fleeced on behalf of an Arab dictator with billions of oil dollars. The Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is number 8 on the Forbes list of the “richest royals,” with an estimated net worth of $2.4 billion. His channel has been labeled “the greatest Arab media organization” by the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spawned various terrorist organizations and is now poised to take power in Egypt and perhaps other countries.
Obama ally Google paid 2.4% federal tax earlier and threw gala events for Democrats while President Obama blasted the Chamber of Commerce as greedy for not wanting small businesses to pay a 39.9% tax.
General Electric paid no American taxes in 2010, the New York Times reports:
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
That may be hard to fathom for the millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for G.E. The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
G.E.’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is considered Barack Obama’s favorite businessman and serves as the head of the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Fred Barnes wrote about Immelt here.
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 