Obama Dog and Pony Show

The Obama Dog-and-Pony Show over healthcare "bi-partisanship" was a joke. Note that Obama did not attempt to rebut Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) (h/t IBD)


• "This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have."

• "The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion."

• "The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits."

• "The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets."

• "The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program."

• "The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries."

• "Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy."

Barack Hussein Obama, in his zeal to get something passed with his name on it, no matter how disastrous it is, really doesn't care what damage he does. He cares about looking good, not about hurting Americans. That's part of his personality disorder that has been the topic of so many other blogs that it doesn't need to be repeated here.

The Consent of the Governed

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, 

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Lest we forget those men who gathered together in Philadelphia so long ago who sent a message to the King.

Let's work diligently to keep that government that we have trimmed within the boundaries circumscribed by the Constitution. Those do not include a government that owns a huge automobile company, wants to swallow 20% of the economy in the form of healthcare, owns insurance companies and banks and seeks to control the lives of all Americans from cradle to grave. The same government that has botched Social Security, Medicare and can't balance it's budget -- even in the best of times -- is not the government we want to have invested in every facet of our daily life.

Obama - Funny

Comedy impression of Barack Hussein Obama. For your entertainment value.

Obama - Corrupt (The Chicago Response)

Abuse of power, flagrant disregard for law, rules, precedent and the Constitution have been the hallmark of the Barack Hussein Obama Administration over the past year. It extends to the Democrats in the US Senate as well. The White House has threatened to ram through radical health reform by abusing the budget reconciliation process. That would mean a new chapter on corruption for the history books. For you history buffs who have read about the Tea Pot Dome Scandal of the Harding Administration or the Watergate Scandal of the Nixon Administration - they're nothing in comparison.

The president and the Democratic Congress have decided to spend America into oblivion. But nothing in the 1974 budget act, or the amendments made to it since, can be construed as applying to the thousands of pages of legislation to revamp one-sixth of the economy.

In response, House Minority Leader John Boehner said the president had "crippled the credibility" of the health "summit" planned for Thursday "by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected."

The 'reconciliation process' (1974 Budget Act) is the "Chicago Response" to the will of the American People, who don't want the draconian, horribly expensive, impossibly damaging Health Care Bill. It brings to memory the SEIU thugs beating up patriotic Americans at town hall meetings. It brings to mind  thuggery we've seen in Chicago Politics for the past century. 

There is no possibility of bipartisanship when the "Chicago Response" or "Chicago Rules" are the method chosen by the Administration to attempt to resurrect a healthcare bill that the American people DO NOT WANT.

The American people want healthcare reform. 

(1) Portability

(2) Deal with pre-existing conditions

(3) Open the markets to all insurance companies

(4) Tort Reform

They don't want the two thousand page bill that gives preferences to one state over another (based on their votes for Democratic candidates), they don't want the "public option" and they don't want to impart the same callous standard of care administered presently by the Veteran's Administration to be dumped on the American public.

The Tea Party

Republican (sorta) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a statement on ABC News this morning regarding the Tea Party Movement.

SCHWARZENEGGER: "They're the party of no, and at the same time, I think that there are a lot of people that are disenchanted and dissatisfied and they're angry and this is why you have the Tea Party and all of those things. The Tea Party is not going to go anywhere. I think the Tea Party is all about just an expression of anger and dissatisfaction and I see it in California when people come up to me and says, you know I'm angry that you guys don't get along in Sacramento. I'm angry that they're not getting along in Washington. I'm angry that nothing gets done. I'm angry that I'm unemployed. I'm angry that people are losing homes. I'm angry that businesses are losing their businesses and all of those kind of things. And the economy is down."

Gov. Schwarzenegger listens to his wife, a Kennedy (niece of the dead one whose seat went to Scott Brown, a Republican). And he doesn't understand that the Tea Party Movement is not about general anger toward Barack Hussein Obama or his foolish utopian socialist agenda. It is about a fundamental difference of opinion over how the Nation should be managed. It's a fundamental difference of opinion over how tax money should and should not be used. It's a fundamental difference of opinion over the level of responsiveness we require in our elected representatives (who rarely seem to LISTEN). It's a fundamental difference of opinion over the role of government and the emergence of a dangerous "nanny state" that threatens to topple the house of cards.

Politicians in Washington don't get it. We don't want a tax/spend liberal agenda because it's destroying the country. I'm not sure there how many Republicans get it. Most of them seem to be caught in the same state of delusion that California's governor is in. And in November, they're going to sit around wondering what happened and they'll go on the talk shows equally as clueless as they are today.

Kryptonite to Liberals

I listened to a news station other than Fox this morning and a liberal goofball talking head asked a question to a conservative person in a point-counter-point format. He asked, "Do you Teabaggers want to return to the days of Ronald Reagan?" The way he posed the question, it sounded as if he thought that would be a bad thing. I blurted out the obvious response, "YES" that's precisely what we would like to see happen.

As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reduced business regulation, controlling inflation, reducing growth in government spending, and spurring economic growth through tax cuts. 

He took a hard line against labor unions, and had no fear of ordering both covert operations by the CIA and overt military responses where called for. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", he supported anti-Communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals.

The contrast between Ronald Reagan and Barack Hussein Obama couldn't be more stark. With Obama, we have a craven, apologetic worm of a man who even the Europeans repudiated as weak and lacking credibility in all respects whose idea of job creation is increased taxation to fund FEDERAL employment.

Obama is the darling of the American communists (not Russians or Chinese who consider him a joke) where Ronald Reagan was their enemy. Obama is the pet of the liberals where Reagan and his record of success and popularity is the opposite. Ronald Reagan was Kryptonite to the Liberal Movement.

Yes, we need another Reagan. And we need that person NOW.

President's Home State near Collapse

(Source: illinoisisbroke.com)

Everybody knows that liberal California leads the nation in unemployment, liberal freaky politicians such as Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi and that fully 33% of all Americans who are on welfare live in California, which lavishes the most generous package in the nation on the chronic, hardcore unemployed.

However, it seems that Illinois, land of Barack Hussein Obama, is locked in the same death spiral that gripped California. The website cited above explained the source of their woes: "Illinois spends $3 for every $2 it takes in and has been ignoring its unpaid bills for years." This sounds just like the Plan that Barack Hussein Obama took to Washington for the entire country. Would anyone be shocked if I disclosed that Illinois has a Democratic Governor (Quinn) and two Democratic Senators (Durbin and Burris) and that  the state has been run by the DEMOCRATIC MACHINE for decades?

The solution for Illinois, California and for America is for government to SPEND LESS!  The printing press notwithstanding, we can not spend more as a nation than we take in. It doesn't matter how many people cry and whine. It doesn't matter how many people you yearn to have dependent on the government tit so they'll vote for you.

Obama wants to remake America after the glorious vision he bestowed on Illinios...

Buy RECOVERY BONDS!

Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings by Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara
(repost)

You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.

BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."

In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.

They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.

This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."

Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds, "What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."

This proposal follows hearings held last fall by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., of the Ways and Means Committee focusing on "redirecting (IRA and 401k) tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute," as reported by InvestmentNews.com.

The hearings examined a proposal from professor Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for Social Research in New York to give all workers "a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government" in return for requiring workers "to invest 5% of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration."

The Obama Message

Does anyone remember Vice President Joe (Slow Joe) Biden crowing that unemployment would never peak over 8% last year?

I do. I'm living in one of the most heavily impacted areas of the recession, Riverside County, California -- the unemployment rate is near 14%, not counting small business people, consultants, independent contractors and all those other categories of people who are not counted in the stats. Best case nationwide it's 10% unemployment.

The "stimulus bill", a thinly disguised pork barrel hand out program designed to pay back the political hacks and parasites that helped propel Barack Hussein Obama into office, passed a year ago today. The total cost of the Bill was over $800 billion.

Money well spent?

Maybe it depends who you ask. But most Americans don't work in multi-billion dollar companies. They work in small businesses, they all pay their taxes and they provided goods and services as they were able to manage it.

Everybody wants something for nothing. Barack Hussein Obama has made a high art of reading/lying from his teleprompter to desperate people who want to believe what he's peddling. I can't help but feel for them. However when they voted Obama, they backed a looser.

CIA and the Secret War

Buy the book at AMAZON.COM (Click here).

WHITE POWDER: A Novel of the CIA and the Secret War in Laos is now available for purchase. I appreciate any patronage you are able to offer to a struggling author.

I know you'll find the book to be an authentic view of a period in history. It's raw at times, but it reflects men and women who found themselves caught up in a war that has no peer in recent history for its 'unique' Nature.

Time for Motivation

It's Sunday. Time to get motivated for combat (I speak of course of the Super Bowl)!

Palin on no need for Apologies

The Republicans can lead, follow or get out of the way. As a party, they have been pushing for more or less the same things that the Democrats have. Republican=Democrat Lite.

It makes absolutely no sense for us to follow them unless they declare themselves as Constitutionalists. Sarah Palin discussed that and more tonight.

We have a SONG!

It's too late to Apologize



Worth watching and listening to (twice). Democrats and Rinos need to pay particular attention to the message. It's too late to apologize. Elections are coming and the places for you at the table no longer fit your girth or insatiable appetite for graft.


Half-way across the globe,
And we're standing on new ground
Screaming 'cross the waves
You can't hear a sound
There's no fair trials, no trade, no liberties
No tea!
We've colonized America. We won't stand for tyranny!
O king:

And its too late to apologize.
Its too late!
I said its too late to apologize
Its too late!

We've paid your foolish tax, read the acts
And they just wont do.
We want to make it clear, we believe this much is true:
All men were created with certain

Unalienable rights!
Among these are life-liberty, and the pursuit
Of happiness!

Its too late to apologize!
Its too late!
I said Its too late to apologize!
Its too late!

Its too late to apologize!
Its too late!
I said its too late apologize!
Its too late!

I said its too late to apologize! Yeah!
Its too late!
I said its too late to apologize, yeah!

Half-way across the globe
And we're standing on new ground

Note: Music and video based on "Apologize" by One Republic, featuring Timbaland (2007)

Girl Buried Alive

LINK: GIRL BURIED ALIVE

Apparently it's dangerous to be a girl in Turkey - particularly if you like to talk to boys. Again the "Religion of Peace" reminds us of grizzly consequences for people who step out of line.

A 16-year-old girl was buried alive by relatives in southeastern Turkey in a gruesome honor killing carried out because she reportedly befriended boys, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

Acting on a tip, police discovered the body of the girl, identified only as M.M., in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a 2-meter-deep hole dug under a chicken pen outside her house in Kahta, a town in the southeastern province of Adıyaman, the news agency reported.

The body was found in December, around 40 days after M.M. went missing. She is being identified by her initials because she was under the age of 18. Her father and grandfather are suspected in the murder.

A subsequent postmortem examination revealed that M.M. had a significant amount of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she was buried alive and conscious, forensic experts told the news agency. “The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl – who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood – was alive and fully conscious when she was buried,” one anonymous expert said.

The girl’s father and grandfather have been formally arrested and jailed pending trial over her killing, according to the agency. The father is reported to have said in his testimony that the family was unhappy that M.M. had male friends.

The girl was reported as missing and no clues about her disappearance were found for 40 days. Her mother was arrested along with the father, Ayhan, and grandfather, Memi, but later released. The two men were sent to prison by a local court and did not speak in the court.

Police had found the body of the girl using an anonymous tip saying that M.M. had been killed based on a decision by a family council and buried under the chicken pen, daily Milliyet reported. The family has nine children, including the girl, and was reported to have told neighbors that she was missing. The girl had made a complaint to police about her grandfather two months before she went missing, saying that he beat her because she talked to boys.

Family councils consist of family elders; honor killings are usually decided by such groups.

The Bodies Pile Up (Mexico SitRep)

The official numbers are in. The first month of the new year ended with 904 drug-related murders in Mexico, which makes January 2010 the deadliest month since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. The last week of the month was characterized by an abnormally high number of beheadings, which took place throughout the country. Nine Mexican soldiers were beheaded in Guerrero State alone. The second and third most violent days during Calderon’s term in office also occurred in January 2010, with 52 drug-related deaths on the first day of the month and 46 drug-related deaths on Jan. 29. At least that's the official count.

The unofficial count runs much higher since only bodies that the government counts are listed in the official death tallies. Corpses that are buried in unmarked graves aren't listed and nobody counts the "missing".

A US Government source, close to the matter, puts the number of dead in the past two years that can be attributed to narco-organized crime at somewhere around 30,000 people, but the sad truth is that nobody really knows. Abductions are VERY common and when people are "picked up" they are usually not dropped off alive. They simply enter the rolls of the missing.

Chihuahua has been the most violent state in Mexico for more than two years, and in January 2010 it accounted for more than one-third of all the official drug-related deaths during the month with 327. The violence in Juarez stems from the ongoing conflict between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels over control of the Juarez Valley trafficking route into the United States. 

Official sources showed that throughout 2009, Sinaloa state did not have more than 100 drug-related deaths in any given month, but that changed in January 2010, with 169 drug-related murders in the state. Previously, the deadliest month in Sinaloa was July 2008, with 139 deaths as a result of the conflict between the newly separated BLO and Sinaloa cartels, which began battling each other for control of marijuana fields and trafficking routes in the state. Unofficial numbers are 3 times higher with this past month as a complete blood bath. One FBI source I spoke with compared it to Baghdad or Beruit in the bad times. Sources on the ground agree with the FBI assessment.

The violence taking place there now can be largely attributed to local gangs backed by both BLO and The Federation (Sinaloa Cartel), which are still battling each other for control of domestic drug markets, mostly in the Culiacan-Navolato metropolitan area. 

With violence continuing to soar, Calderon and Public Security Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna have come under increasing political pressure to reduce the violence to a politically acceptable level. 

This past week, the Mexican Government (augmented by support to a small degree by the US Government) came out ahead in terms of control over some of the narcos. Next week that victory can be easily eclipsed. It's a see-saw battle that has no end in sight.

Union Corruption in Obamacare

From Fox New’s Sunday Roundtable, this is Charles Krauthammer’s take on the profoundly corrupt process behind the health care bill, and the way this process reflects on Obama:

It is a bribe, and that’s why it is so unpopular. Look, it’s not just a question of it depriving the Treasury of revenue. It’s question of equity.

You’ve got two workers, same type of job, same plan, same income, one of whom is a member of a union. And the guy who isn’t [a union member] is going to end up having a tax of 40 percent on his plan, and the other guy is not. And that’s simply incredibly unfair. And obviously, it’s a corrupt bargain.

What’s really hurting the bill here isn’t only the opposition on the substance, the half a trillion in cuts in … Medicare, and half a trillion in taxes. It’s the process.

That deals are [being] made corruptly and so openly is astonishing: the “Louisiana Purchase,” a cool $300 million for the Landrieu vote; the — what happened in Nebraska, this eternal exemption that Nebraska would have on paying for the extra Medicaid cost; and now the unions.

The reason it’s hurting Obama is he ran on the idea that he would change our politics. It would not be driven by special interest. There would not be the secret deals.

And he’s done it with the unions, with the pharmaceutical companies, with the doctors, with the hospitals, all in a way that everybody can see. And that’s why he’s hurting so much in the [personal] polls and on the health care issue itself.

UPDATE: The New York Times is much more sanguine about this whole process. (So sanguine, in fact, that the reader who sent me the link to this article told me that his wife, an Independent Democrat, conceded for the first time that the Times is the Pravda of the Democratic party.) Thus, rather than seeing the union deal as an offensively corrupt piece of horsetrading that buys votes at the expensive of other citizens, the Times assures us that it’s a great piece of statesmanship that will shower government beneficence on all citizens:

(are you ready for the lie)

The agreement treats unionized workers far more favorably than nonunion workers, the price for the support of important Democratic constituencies. But it would preserve the tax’s crucial role in slowing the rise in health care costs for decades to come. (NY Times)

After explaining how it works, the Times assures those being reamed by the tax (as opposed to their tax-free next-door neighbor, the union man), that they are making a worthy sacrifice for the greater good (as opposed to their tax-free next-door neighbor, the union man):

A vast majority of economists agree that the tax would be a valuable cost-control feature. In our largely fee-for-service system, doctors have an economic incentive to provide more services. With insurance covering most of the bill, neither patients nor doctors worry much about costs. Requiring workers to pay more out of pocket would force them and their doctors to think a lot more carefully about whether an expensive test or treatment is really necessary.

There is some risk — nobody knows how large — that higher deductibles and co-payments would discourage some people, especially the chronically ill, from seeking medical care that they need. Congress can avoid this tragic outcome by setting up a monitoring system to detect any emergence of harm and making a midcourse correction to protect the health of any groups that suffer adverse consequences. (NY Times)

Do you feel better now? Congress (fair and uncorruptable) will oversee everything for YOUR sake to make sure that you won't get screwed.

One question for the blog readers - When has Congress genuinely* acted to protect you from anything? The only way they would do this is if THEY, the Congress were subject to the provisions of ObamaCare, and they are not.

*When I say "genuine", I mean that the members of Congress acted without self interest (they weren't bribed or coerced to vote in your interests).

How Stupid Are They?

The Office of Management and Budget dubbed its 2011 plan "A New Era of Responsibility." No, this is not a cynical remark. They really call it that!

"We've got to spend our way out of this recession," declared House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. 

The proposed budget over the next decade would rack up $45.8 trillion in new spending, $9.1 trillion in deficits and more than $2 trillion in higher taxes on Americans. It will double the national debt held by the public to over $18 trillion, while raising taxes on 3.2 million small businesses and upper-income taxpayers — the very people the administration is counting on to pull us out of recession. - (IBD)

Two years of bailouts and "stimulus" have failed us miserably. The new budget tries the same tax-and-spend strategies, despite the loss of 8 million jobs and an ongoing financial crisis.

If you add the disastrous ObamaCare program to the mix, the spending curve is sharper - and guess who gets to pay for it?

Dear readers, the government doesn't earn a cent. It spends very well but you are the earners and it is the spender. 

It doesn't take a genius to look at the numbers and understand that we are embarking on an era of stagnant growth, higher unemployment, lower value to the dollar overseas (for all those goods we import from China and elsewhere) and debt we are absolutely unable to repay.

The only solution is to live within our means (even if it hurts). We must reduce the size of government and slash government spending. Incentivize private industry to promote job growth and reward the sector that creates jobs.

Power, for its Own Sake

Following a staggering loss in Massachusetts recently, the Party of Barack Hussein Obama struck out in interesting and somewhat terrifying ways to retain power. There have been posts CLICK HERE that indicate the Obama Nation is working hard to recruit high school students in Ohio (and perhaps elsewhere) into their own particular cult of politics. 

Maybe it's time to return to the world of 1984 for a moment and read what George Orwell wrote about the utopian socialist view of power - and if you choose to make that leap, to apply it to the world we live in.

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."