FeedBack ( 0) | NRA News' investigative reporter Ginny Simone takes a look at the global gun control goals of the United Nations. By pushing for a binding international treaty aimed at superseding the U.S. Constitution, the United Nations is committed to rendering Americans' Second Amendment rights to own a firearm meaningless. Simone interviews past and current U.N. officials and politicians and examines the debates at the United Nations Small Arms Summit to expose the international anti-gun agenda.
FeedBack ( 0) | By David A. Patten: The abrupt departure of Bill Daley, President Barack Obama’s third White House chief of staff, reflects what pundits say is a highly politicized White House that is focused on only one objective: winning re-election in November.
“It’s now totally a political operation — only politics,” Democratic pollster and Fox News analyst Doug Schoen tells Newsmax. “Everything else, and everyone else, takes second fiddle. Everyone and everything is expendable, when re-election is at stake.”
Obama asked Daley to reconsider when informed of his decision to leave the White House last week. On Monday, Daley informed him he’d made up his mind — and, by some accounts, Obama was stunned. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | Ecofanaticism: SolyndraGate was no isolated case of corrupt government misspending. The U.S. Navy was just forced to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels from an Obama-connected firm at an outrageous $16 per gallon.
The massive Obama stimulus was supposed to generate millions of jobs, but the $535 million loan guarantee it gave to solar panel maker Solyndra on the eve of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy illustrated the fundamental incompetence of Obama's neo-Keynesian economic ideology. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation's Armed Forces at home. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | $45.1 Trillion:
Total Federal Spending Proposed By Obama’s FY2012 Budget Through 2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)
$24.0 Trillion:
Projected Federal Debt In 2021 Due To Obama’s Binge Spending. (OMB, 9/1/11)
$15.1 Trillion:
Current National Debt ($15,073,380,701,589.57). (U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 12/6/11)
$9.1 Trillion:
Amount Obama’s FY2012 Budget Would Add To The Debt Through FY2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)
$6.4 Trillion:
Cumulative Deficits Caused By President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Proposal. (OMB, 9/19/11
)
$5.2 Trillion:
Total Interest Payments On The National Debt Due To Obama’s Proposed Budget, FY2012-2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)
$4.4 Trillion:
Added To The National Debt Since Obama Took Office. (U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 12/6/11)
$2.6 Trillion:
True Cost Of ObamaCare Once Fully Implemented. (Office Of The Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives, Report, 1/6/11)
$1.75 Trillion:
Annual Cost Of Federal Regulations. (Small Business Administration, September 2010)
FeedBack ( 0) | by Seton Motley: This is in fact not a “tax cut” at all – not in the income tax sense of the word. It is a reduction in the payments made to the Social Security program (SSI).
A reduction which – definitively – does nothing to create jobs or “stimulate” the economy.
Because no one in the private sector makes any permanent decision based upon temporary government policy.
If they can’t afford to permanently hire you, a temporary tax cut doesn’t make it any more feasible. A part of why our egregious unemployment problem has persisted under the current, temporarily lower payroll tax rates.
This lack of policy permanence – which has been rampant throughout the Olympic-ly overactive Obama Administration – is a large contributor to the uncertainty that has plagued us and our economy lo these last nearly three years.
Meanwhile, the per person Social Security payment reduction is tiny – about $20 a week. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Russ Jones: J. Christian Adams, an election attorney and contributor to PJ Media, says President Obama's re-election campaign has significant ties to Project Vote, which is an affiliate of ACORN -- one of the most corrupt advocacy organizations in recent memory. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Marybeth Hicks: Call it an occupational hazard but I can't look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, "Who parented these people?" As a culture columnist, I've commented on the social and political ramifications of the "movement" - now known as "OWS" - whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: "Everything for everybody."
Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it's clear there are people with serious designs on "transformational" change in America who are using the protesters like bed springs in a brothel.
Yet it's not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question but rather the fact that I'm the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters' moms clearly have not passed along.
Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters' mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn't, so I will: --FULL ARTCICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Steve Forbes: We already have one. It’s called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a committee of “experts” appointed by the Department of Health & Human Services. This group recently declared that men should not be routinely screened for prostate cancer. The most common test is the PSA, which is part of a blood test. The panel also said no to rectal exams and ultrasounds, claiming that testing does no good, that it doesn’t save lives. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Matt Patterson: Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | The Occupy Wall Street protesters are complaining about everything from corporations to having to repay student loans. Is America the victim of its own success? Have we created a generation of self-entitled cry babies? Is it time to make these people spend three and half days in the woods so that they can appreciate what capitalism has given them? Find out.
FeedBack ( 0) | By Terence B. Jeffrey: (CNSNews.com) - Even among self-identified Democrats enthusiasm for the government to create “green jobs” is very hard to find these days, says a Gallup poll released Friday.
Creating “green jobs” has been a top item on President Barack Obama’s jobs-growth agenda.
Gallup asked more than 1,000 American adults this open-ended question: “In your opinion, what would be the best way to create more jobs in the United States?”
The most popular two answers among Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents were “create more infrastructure work” which was cited by 21 percent, and “keep manufacturing jobs here/stop spending overseas” which was cited by 18 percent.
The most popular two answers among Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents were “keep manufacturing jobs here/stop spending overseas,” which was cited by 21 percent, and “reduce gov’t regulation/involvement,” which was cited by 20 percent.
Overall, according to Gallup, only 2 percent of respondents said creating more “green jobs” was their idea for the best way to create more jobs in America. That was down from 6 percent who gave that answer to Gallup in November 2009. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | Maybe it's a sign of the tumultuous times, but the federal government recently wrapped up its biggest spending year, and its second biggest annual budget deficit, and almost nobody noticed. Is it rude to mention this?
The Congressional Budget Office recently finished tallying the revenue and spending figures for fiscal 2011, which ended September 30, and no wonder no one in Washington is crowing. The political class might have its political pretense blown. This is said to be a new age of fiscal austerity, yet the government had its best year ever, spending a cool $3.6 trillion. That beat the $3.52 trillion posted in 2009, when the feds famously began their attempt to spend America back to prosperity.
What happened to all of those horrifying spending cuts? Good question. CBO says that overall outlays rose 4.2% from 2010 (1.8% adjusted for timing shifts), when spending fell slightly from 2009. Defense spending rose only 1.2% on a calendar-adjusted basis, and Medicaid only 0.9%, but Medicare spending rose 3.9% and interest payments by 16.7%.
The bigger point: Government austerity is a myth.
...
The Obama years have racked up the three largest deficits, both in absolute amounts and as a share of GDP, since Hitler still terrorized Europe. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By JAMES FREEMAN: 'It's as if he doesn't like people," says real-estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman of the president of the United States. Barack Obama doesn't seem to care for individuals, elaborates Mr. Zuckerman, though the president enjoys addressing millions of them on television.
The Boston Properties CEO is trying to understand why Mr. Obama has made little effort to build relationships on Capitol Hill or negotiate a bipartisan economic plan. A longtime supporter of the Democratic Party, Mr. Zuckerman wrote in these pages two months ago that the entire business community was "pleading for some kind of adult supervision" in Washington and "desperate for strong leadership." Writing soon after the historic downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt by Standard & Poor's, he wrote, "I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country." --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Craig Bannister: When he publicly brags about how many jobs his plans to spend our money will create, it makes me wonder if the president knows how to divide one number into another.
It doesn’t take a degree in applied mathematics to expose the absurdity of Pres. Obama’s spending-for-jobs claims – just the ability to do long division…or a calculator. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | Two blacks were elected to congress this cycle, Col West is from southern Florida . He won in a walk.
This new Congressman was an extremely popular commander in Iraq. He was forced to retire because during an intense combat action a few of his men were captured.
At the same time his men captured one of the guys who were with the Iraqis who captured his men. Knowing that time was crucial and his interrogators were not getting anywhere with the prisoner COL West took matters into his own hands. He burst into the room and demanded thru an interpreter that the prisoner tell him where his men were being taken. The prisoner refused so COL West took out his pistol and placed it into the prisoner's crotch and fired. Then the COL told the prisoner that the next shot would not miss. So the prisoner said he would show where the American service members were being taken. The Americans were rescued.
Someone filed a report on incorrect handling of prisoners. COL West was forced to retire.
COL West was just elected in November 2010 to Congress from Florida. During the elections he was part of a panel on how to handle or how to relate to Muslims. You will see his answer here explaining in just over a minute the truth about Islam.
FeedBack ( 0) | By Martin Gould and Ashley Martella: Excerpted from article...
Taxpayers are unlikely ever to see any of the $535 million lost when solar panel firm Solyndra went bust amid accusations of fraud, Rep. Cory Gardner, a member of the House Energy Committee, tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
And Jonathan Silver, who quit on Thursday as head of the agency that approved the loan, is likely to be only the first of many heads to roll as House Republicans widen their investigation into the scandal, Gardner said.
Gardner said taxpayers should be asking the president three questions:
“Why didn’t you do something about it when you knew about it?
"Why did you proceed when you had the warning flags?
"Why did you subordinate the taxpayers’ dollars?"
“That’s what they need to be asking this administration, and we are going to be there with the taxpayers to make sure they get their answers,” he pledged.
Read more on Newsmax.com: Rep. Gardner: Many Unanswered Solyndra Questions
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!
FeedBack ( 0) | by Thomas Brown : Did you read what Dick Durbin, assistant majority leader of the United States Senate, said on the Senate floor Monday? From The Hill:
Bank of America customers, vote with your feet. Get the heck out of that bank. Find yourself a bank or a credit union that won’t gouge you with $5 a month and will still give you a debit card you can use every single day.
What bank of America has done here is an outrage. [W]hen the announced they were charging a $5-a-month fee for use of the debit card, they went overboard. They are overcharging their customers.
So here’s the number-two Democrat in the Senate urging a run on the largest retail bank in the country! What a great idea!
Durbin’s undies are all twisted, of course, because BofA has imposed what people are calling the “Durbin fee”—a $5 per month charge to certain of the bank’s debit card holders—in response to the passage last year of the Durbin Amendment, which limits what banks can charge on debit interchange transactions. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Jason Ivey: Peter Schiff, the president of EuroPacific Capital and sometimes-pundit/author/political-candidate, testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Government Reform and Stimulus Oversight on September 13th. The video of his testimony has become a minor YouTube hit and was featured prominently this week by Breitbart TV.
Schiff’s rat-a-tat-tat criticisms of government intervention and promotion of common sense economics, right out of the Austrian School, is music to the ears of conservative-libertarian types. He was a one-man laissez faire quote machine, with lines like: --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By THOMAS J. DONOHUE: While the jobs plan President Obama proposed last week contains some ideas that American business supports, it falls short. It focuses too much on government spending and temporary tax breaks and too little on the trade, energy, tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms that will jolt our economy and job market back to life. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Paul Kengor: I've only recently come to realize the nature of the hurdle this country faces in trying to turn around a stalled economy and horrendous deficit. Here it is: liberal Democrat politicians have completely convinced huge numbers of their followers that our economic/fiscal mess is the result of two principal demons: 1) "the rich," and 2) the Tea Party. The former, of course, has been a longtime liberal scapegoat; the latter is a new one.
Note that I use the word "followers." That's because I'm hearing from a disturbingly high number of people who apparently buy the Democratic Party line with no question whatsoever. They exhibit a remarkable, frightful willingness to act against their own interests in blind service to partisanship and ideology. It's like a mass self-flagellation. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | Since then, Republicans have pointed to connections between Solyndra and billionaire George Kaiser, an Obama campaign fundraiser. The George Kaiser Family Foundation, a charitable organization based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, holds about 36.7 percent of the company, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Kaiser made 16 visits to the president’s aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By CHUCK GREEN: Barack Obama is setting a record-setting number of records during his first year in office. Largest budget ever. Largest deficit ever. Largest number of broken promises ever. Most self-serving speeches ever. Largest number of agenda-setting failures ever. Fastest dive in popularity ever.
Of course, they don’t see it as self imposed. It’s all George Bush’s fault. George Bush, who doesn’t have a vote in Congress and who no longer occupies the White House, is to blame for it all.
He broke Obama’s promise to put all bills on the White House web site for five days before signing them.
He broke Obama’s promise to have the congressional health care negotiations broadcast live on C-SPAN.
He broke Obama’s promise to end earmarks.
He broke Obama’s promise to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.
He broke Obama’s promise to close the detention center at Guantanamo in the first year.
He broke Obama’s promise to make peace with direct, no pre-condition talks with America’s most hate-filled enemies during his first year in office, ushering in a new era of global cooperation.
He broke Obama’s promise to end the hiring of former lobbyists into high White House jobs.
He broke Obama’s promise to end no-compete contracts with the government.
He broke Obama’s promise to disclose the names of all attendees at closed White House meetings.
He broke Obama’s promise for a new era of bipartisan cooperation in all matters.
He broke Obama’s promise to have chosen a home church to attend Sunday services with his family by Easter of last year.
Yes, it’s all George Bush’s fault. President Obama is nothing more than a puppet in the never-ending, failed Bush administration.
The shutdown marks a high-profile collapse of a company that received more than $1.6 billion in federal and private funding in recent years.
"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed," said Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for the Department of Energy. "But we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy."
President Barack Obama touted Solyndra as a poster child for clean energy after the company received the federal funds. "Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future," Obama said during a 2010 visit to the company's Fremont headquarters.
FeedBack ( 0) | By MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN: The rising impatience with the leadership of President Obama was epitomized on Aug. 8 in the middle of one of the now-habitual Wall Street roller coasters. His speech on the economy was 53 minutes late. What showed on TV screens was an empty White House podium, an image suggestive of the absence of leadership. When the president did speak, the best he could come up with was "We've always been and always will be a triple-A country." The market's response was a Bronx cheer, a drop of another 300 points.
Mr. Obama seems unable to get a firm grip on the toughest issue facing his presidency and the country—the economy. He now asserts he is going to "pivot" to jobs. Now we pivot to jobs? When there are already 25 million Americans who are either unemployed or cannot find full-time work? Does this president not appreciate what is going on? --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Matt Cover: Although the national debt under President Barack Obama has increased $4 trillion since he took office in 2009, as a presidential candidate in 2008 Obama criticized then-President George W. Bush for adding $4 trillion to the national debt, saying it was “unpatriotic” and also “irresponsible” to saddle future generations with such a large national debt.
“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child,” Obama said on July 3, 2008, at a campaign event in Fargo, N.D.
FeedBack ( 0) | By Victor Davis Hanson: Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt – prompting the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade America's multitrillion-dollar debt for the first time in 70 years.
Unemployment is still over 9 percent. Private-sector businesses may have more than $1 trillion in cash, but they will be scared into not hiring or buying as long as they fear a new tax, a new regulation, a new entitlement obligation, a new plant shutdown – or a new harangue.
The gross domestic product is almost static. Every classical Keynesian remedy – massive government borrowing and spending ("stimulus"), near-zero interest rates, public works, expanded federal entitlements – has been tried, failed and is turning a modest recovery into another recession.
Neither the example of the socialist European Union nor that of big-spending blue-state America suggests that massive government spending and entitlements lead to collective prosperity.
In response to this depressing news, President Barack Obama still offers the same predictably stale sermons: George W. Bush did it. The Tea Party fiscal reformers are to blame. Government will fund "millions of green jobs." His political opponents want to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
But imagine if President Obama simply stopped diverting blame and tried something different. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Susan Jones: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says blaming the tea party for America's debt crisis is like blaming the fireman for fires.
"The Tea Party has been fighting for a serious solution that would rescue our finances through immediate spending cuts, spending caps and most importantly, a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution," Paul said in a statement on his Web site. "With the support of the Tea Party, I offered the only solution that could have prevented our downgrade with our Cut, Cap and Balance plan.”
The plan was tabled in the Democrat-controlled Senate. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Richard C. Young: The President Who Engineered The First Ever Downgrade of America’s Credit Rating.
For the first downgrade of America’s credit rating in history, I blame in no special order the complete Obama administration, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and the Fed. The one group in Washington (and S&P knows this well, like the Tea Party or not) that is committed to doing the things S&P wants done is the Tea Party. In 2012, Americans will have a chance to bring in a new management team. America needs a leader with a long-proven record of fiscal responsibility, along with a long and proven record as a job creator. This, of course, is not brain surgery.
FeedBack ( 0) | By John Mason, excerpted from article:
As far as the Obama administration is concerned, in my mind, this “team” has observed the creation of three “camels” on its watch. The first camel was the health care bill. The second was the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. (Link)
The third camel is, of course, the just passed “debt deal”.
The general comment about all three is that at the birth of all three, people were very unhappy with them.
Never can I remember, except maybe under President Jimmy Carter, a President that exhibited less leadership in such important areas. President Obama presented no “plan” to Congress in any of these efforts.
another excerpt...
The only short-term way to avoid this debt deflation from taking place is to create the condition called “hyper-inflation.” --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | The biggest crybaby in America is man-child who also happens to be the president. During his 35 minutes of verbal diarrhea, President Barack Hussein Obama proved he can't handle the pressure of the most important job in the world. This was apparent through his lashing out at anyone that opposes his demented views of increasing the taxes on the wealthy Americans that produce jobs, but also his compulsive lying and fear mongering to scare the living death out of the elderly. The takeaway from the press conference? Obama doesn't believe in compromise; he believes in his way or the highway. And when addressing GOP leadership, the White House nor the Democrats have proposed any debt ceiling plans. As the CBO points out, you can't score a speech. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Terence P. Jeffrey: President Barack Obama said last Friday that the administration and Congress need to cut a deal by Aug. 2 to increase the legal limit on the federal debt “to make sure that America does not default.”
Yet, the actual accounting done by the U.S. Treasury Department shows that federal tax revenues have exceeded interest payments on the federal debt by 20-fold since the Treasury announced on May 16 that the federal government had hit the current legal limit on the national debt. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Susan Jones Members of Congress investigating the ATF's botched gun-tracking operation say it now appears that the Justice Department "obstructed" their attempts to find out what happened. They also expressed deep concern about the possibility that the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency already knew about -- and may even have been working with -- the people who were smuggling weapons to Mexican drug cartels. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Aaron Task: Democrats and Republicans are locked in a death-grip over how to cut the deficit but agree the government must get its financial house in order. So you'd think there'd be bipartisan support to end the $6 billion annual subsidy for corn ethanol, which most experts agree is money poorly spent.
Former Car Czar Steven Rattner calls the corn ethanol subsidy "completely wasteful" and almost entirely about naked politics.
"Almost since Iowa — our biggest corn-producing state — grabbed the lead position in the presidential sweepstakes four decades ago, support for the biofuel has been nearly a prerequisite for politicians seeking the presidency," Rattner writes in a recent NYT op-ed entitled The Great Corn Con. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Wayne Allyn Root: The U.S. economy is crumbling. Businesses are collapsing in record numbers. Jobs have disappeared. Tax revenues are down dramatically. Coincidence?
Everything happening today under Obama resembles the storyline of Ayn Rand’s famous book, Atlas Shrugged, one of the most popular books of all time, selling over 7 million copies. Now, under President Obama, Atlas Shrugged has come to life. Rand prophesized a country dominated by socialists, Marxists and statists, where looters, free loaders and poverty promoters live off the productive class. To rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators, the looter class demonized the wealthy, just as Obama and his socialist cabal are doing in real life today. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Mr. Asness, managing and founding principal of AQR Capital Management: Many commentators blame our continuing economic woes on "uncertainty." They allege that recent and anticipated dramatic policy changes make business planning difficult, and that this is retarding growth and employment. This view is not wrong—but our main problem is not the uncertainty surrounding new policies. It is the policies. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | It was explained to Obama that the permitting process can delay projects for "months to years ... and in many cases even cause projects to be abandoned ... I'm sure that when you implemented the Recovery Act your staff briefed you on many of these challenges." At this point, Obama smiled and interjected, "Shovel-ready was not as ... uh .. shovel-ready as we expected." --FULL ARTICLE WITH VIDEO>>
FeedBack ( 0) | World Bank research report excerpt:
"Reviewing the economic performance—good and bad—of more than 100 countries over the past 30 years, this paper finds new empirical evidence supporting the idea that economic freedom and civil and political liberties are the root causes of why some countries achieve and sustain better economic outcomes. For instance, a one unit change in the initial level of economic freedom between two countries (on a scale of 1 to 10) is associated with an almost 1 percentage point differential in their average long-run economic growth rates. In the case of civil and political liberties, the long-term effect is also positive and significant with a differential of 0.3 percentage point. In addition to the initial conditions, the expansion of freedom conditions over time (economic, civil, and political) also positively influences long-run economic growth. In contrast, no evidence was found that the initial level of entitlement rights or their change over time had any significant effects on long-term per capita income, except for a negative effect in some specifications of the model. These results tend to support earlier findings that beyond core functions of government responsibility—including the protection of liberty itself—the expansion of the state to provide for various entitlements, including so-called economic, social, and cultural rights, may not make people richer in the long run and may even make them poorer." --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Nile Gardiner: Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.
Contrast this with President Obama’s decision to play golf yesterday, Memorial Day, for the 70th time during his 28-month long presidency. For tens of millions of Americans, Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of the huge sacrifices made by servicemen and women on the battlefield. The president did pay his respects in the morning, laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but later in the day traveled to Fort Belvoir to play golf. The story has not been reported so far in a single US newspaper, but was made public by veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler on his blog. Here’s Koffler’s report:--FULL ARTICLE>>
As millions of my fellow Americans, I am outraged, devastated and extremely angry by the democrat’s unbelievable arrogance and disdain for We The People. Despite our screaming “no” from the rooftops, they forced Obamacare down our throats. Please forgive me for using the following crude saying, but it is very appropriate to describe what has happened. “Don’t urinate on me and tell me it’s raining.” Democrats say their mission is to give all Americans health care. The democrats are lying. Signing Obamacare into law against our will and the Constitution is tyranny and step one of their hideous goal of having as many Americans as possible dependent on government, thus controlling our lives and fulfilling Obama’s promise to fundamentally transform America.
I keep asking myself. How did our government move so far from the normal procedures of getting things done? Could a white president have so successfully pulled off shredding the Constitution to further his agenda? I think not. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | by Mychal Massie: At a time when many Americans can barely afford Burger King and a movie, Obama boasts of spending a billion dollars on his re-election campaign. Questioned at a recent appearance about the spiraling fuel costs, Obama said, "Get used to it" – and with an insouciant grin and chortle, he told another person at the event, who complained about the effect high fuel prices were having on his family, to "get a more fuel-efficient car."
The Obamas behave as if they were sharecroppers living in a trailer and hit the Powerball, but instead of getting new tires for their trailer and a new pickup truck, they moved to Washington. And instead of making possum pie, with goats and chickens in the front yard, they"re spending and living large at taxpayer expense – opulent vacations, gala balls, resplendent dinners and exclusive command performances at the White House, grand date nights, golf, basketball, more golf, exclusive resorts and still more golf.
Expensive, ill-fitting and ill-chosen wigs and fashions hardly befit the first lady of the United States. The Obamas have behaved in every way but presidential – which is why it"s so offensive when we hear Obama say, in order "to restore fiscal responsibility, we all need to share in the sacrifice – but we don"t have to sacrifice the America we believe in."
The American people have been sacrificing; it is he and his family who are behaving as if they"ve never had two nickels to rub together – and now, having hit the mother lode, they"re going to spend away their feelings of inadequacy at the taxpayers" expense. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By Fred Lucas: Lawmakers from both parties are calling for a fix to prevent tax cheating companies from getting federal contracts in light of a government investigation that found $24 billion in stimulus act funds went to companies owing $757 million in unpaid taxes.
“Average Americans are likely wondering why we gave such a huge amount of federal money to tax cheats when our national debt is more than $14 trillion,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in a statement. “That $24 billion went to such people looks like we are rewarding people for potentially criminal behavior.”
The report by the Government Accountability Office on money from the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act going to tax delinquent firms did not name any specific companies, but it gave general examples of firms with delinquent taxes receiving tax dollars.
One example was a construction company that owed $700,000 in back taxes getting $1 million in stimulus contracts. In another example, a security firm with $9 million in unpaid taxes got $100,000 in stimulus funds. A technical services company got $100,000 in stimulus funds despite owing $4 million in taxes, was also found to own $4 million in real estate and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in adjusted gross income in a recent tax return.
“At least 3,700 Recovery Act contract and grant recipients—including prime recipients, subrecipients, and vendors—are estimated to owe more than $750 million in known unpaid federal taxes as of September 30, 2009, and received over $24 billion in Recovery Act funds,” Gregory D. Kurtz, director of forensic audits and investigative service for the GAO, told the subcommittee on investigations for Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday. --FULL ARTICLE
FeedBack ( 0) | By Karoun Demirjian: Nevada got a partial waiver from the health care law - a significant development that Democrats are dismissing as par for the course and Republicans are claiming as a political victory.
The Health and Human Services Department announced late Friday that Nevada had secured a statewide waiver from certain implementation requirements of the Obama administration’s health care law, because forcing them through, the department found, "may lead to the destabilization of the individual market." --FULL ARTICLE>>
For the above item:
Posted: 17 May 2011 Nearly 20 percent of new Obamacare waivers are gourmet restaurants, nightclubs, fancy hotels in Nancy Pelosi’s district
FeedBack ( 0) | By Matthew Boyle: Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.
That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved.
Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers.
Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.
For instance, Boboquivari’s restaurant in Pelosi’s district in San Francisco got a waiver from Obamacare. Boboquivari’s advertises $59 porterhouse steaks, $39 filet mignons and $35 crab dinners.
Then, there’s Café des Amis, which describes its eating experience as “a timeless Parisian style brasserie” which is “located on one of San Francisco’s premier shopping and strolling boulevards, Union Street,” according to the restaurant’s Web site.
“Bacchus Management Group, in partnership with Perry Butler, is bringing you that same warm, inviting feeling, with a distinctive San Francisco spin,” the Web site reads. Somehow, though, the San Francisco upper class eatery earned itself a waiver from Obamacare because it apparently cost them too much to meet the law’s first year requirements.
The reason the Obama administration says it has given out waivers is to exempt certain companies or policyholders from “annual limit requirements.” The applications for the waivers are “reviewed on a case by case basis by department officials who look at a series of factors including whether or not a premium increase is large or if a significant number of enrollees would lose access to their current plan because the coverage would not be offered in the absence of a waiver.” The waivers don’t allow a company to permanently refrain from implementing Obamacare’s stipulations, but companies can reapply for waivers annually through 2014.
Café Mason, a diner near San Francisco’s Union Square, got a waiver too. When The Daily Caller asked the manager about the waiver and how the president’s new sweeping federal health care law was affecting his restaurant, he hung up the phone. The Franciscan Crab restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco got a waiver. Its menu features entrees ranging from about $15 to $60. The Franciscan’s general manager didn’t return TheDC’s requests for comment.
Four-star hotel Campton Place got one too, as did Hotel Nikko San Francisco, which describes itself as “four-diamond luxury in the heart of the city.” Tru Spa, which Allure Magazine rated the “best day spa in San Francisco,” received an Obamacare waiver as well.
Before hanging up on TheDC, Tru Spa’s owner said new government health care regulations, both the federal-level Obamacare and new local laws in Northern California, have “devastated” the business. “It’s been bad for us,” he said, without divulging his name, referring to the new health care restrictions.
But, the spa owner wouldn’t talk about it or the reason his company sought a waiver. He hung up after saying, “I’ve got clients on the other line, good-bye.”
FeedBack ( 0) | By Mark Trumbull: President Obama used his weekly address to announce steps designed to promote greater domestic oil production and reduce the burden of high gas prices on American consumers.
The president directed the Interior Department to conduct annual lease sales for drilling in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, "while respecting sensitive areas." He also called for speedier evaluation of oil and natural-gas projects in the resources in the mid- and south Atlantic region, and said his administration plans to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico. --FULL ARTICLE>>
FeedBack ( 0) | By George F. Will: Last month, Barack Obama was asked by an interviewer from Texas why he is so unpopular there. Obama replied: “Texas has always been a pretty Republican state, for, you know, historic reasons.” Well, yes, “always” — if you believe, as many baby boomers seem to, that the world began when they became more or less sentient. But, for the record:
Texas, one of the 11 states of the Confederacy, was, for historic reasons, part of the solidly Democratic South for almost a century after the Civil War. Deeply Protestant Texas voted for Republican Herbert Hoover against Al Smith, a Catholic New Yorker, for president in 1928, but it did not vote for a Republican presidential candidate again until Dwight Eisenhower carried the state in 1952 and 1956. It did not do so again until it picked Richard Nixon in 1972. Four years later, it embraced Jimmy Carter. Other than during Reconstruction, Texas did not elect a Republican senator until 1961 (John Tower) and did not elect a second one (Phil Gramm) until 1984, and there were not as many as three Texas Republicans in the U.S. House until 1968. Republicans were not a majority of the state’s congressional delegation until 2005.
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Liberals think Medicare and Social Security as they exist are “fundamental” to the nation’s identity. But liberals think the Constitution — which the Framers meant to be fundamental, meaning constituting, law — should be construed as a “living” document, continually evolving to take different meanings under whatever liberals consider new social imperatives.
--FULL ARTICLE>>
Multiple challenges to President Obama’s health care reform are percolating through the federal courts. Soon the Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in on perhaps the most im- portant question of the post–New Deal era: Are there any remaining limits on the breadth and scope of federal power?
Reinforced by decades of Court decisions that have gutted the Framers’ original conception of limited government, the Obama ad- ministration has embraced an unprecedented expansion of centralized control. This paper addresses the Patient Protection and Afford- able Care Act, which includes a mandate that individuals either purchase a government-pre- scribed health insurance policy or pay a penalty.
The Department of Health and Human Ser- vices has asserted three constitutional provi- sions as sources of authority for the mandate— the Taxing Power, the Commerce Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Each of those purported sources is deficient.
First, the penalty for not buying health insur- ance is not a tax. Even if the penalty were a tax, it would fail the constitutional requirements for income, excise, or direct taxes. Second, the power to regulate interstate commerce extends only to economic activities; it does not permit Congress to compel such activities in order to regulate them. Third, the mandate is not necessary; in- deed, it is merely a means to circumvent prob- lems that would not exist if not for PPACA itself. Nor is the mandate proper; it cannot be recon- ciled with the Framers’ original design for a lim- ited federal government of enumerated powers.
An essential aspect of liberty is the freedom not to participate. PPACA’s directive that Amer- icans buy an unwanted product from a private company debases individual liberty. And it’s unconstitutional.
