First reactions

A few quick observations on the Supreme Court decision requiring people to purchase health care, as we attempt to analyze the entire ruling:

1.  Since according to Chief Justice John Roberts this is apparently a "tax" (even though the administration argued repeatedly and vociferously that it wasn't one), President Obama is now guilty of breaking yet another campaign promise, this one to "not raise one dime" the taxes of people making under $250,000:

"The high court's ruling leaves in place 21 tax increases in the health-care law costing more than $675 billion over the next 10 years, according to the House Ways and Means Committee. Of those, 12 tax hikes would affect families earning less than $250,000 per year, the panel said, including a “Cadillac tax” on high-cost insurance plans, a tax on insurance providers, and an excise tax on medical device manufacturers." 

But who's counting?

2.  Be careful of what you wish for, supporters of the President.  One day someone you may not agree with politically will be in the Oval Office, and then what will you do when he or she unilaterally decides to quit enforcing certain of the nation's laws with which they don't agree, and/or requires you to purchase something you don't wish to own or participate in an activity in which you have no interest?  We're sure you won't be so deliriously happy when the dictatorial shoe is on the other foot. 

3. Speaking of delirium, to DNC Executive Director Patrick Gaspard, as well as the liberal "friend" who texted us at 7:45 a.m. this morning to rub our faces in the decision: way to keep it classy, folks. Your maturity level astounds us.

4.  Donations are apparently absolutely pouring in to the RNC and the Romney campaign today.  Romney is certainly not our ideal or even preferred candidate, but our country's status as the freest nation on earth will simply not survive another Obama term.  This November is it.

5.  Yes, health care for all is a noble goal and we certainly don't wish anyone to suffer needlessly.  This way of going about it, though, goes against everything our country supposedly stands for and further erodes individual and state liberties in favor of an all-powerful central government, something the Founders were adamant should not be allowed to happen.  Again, the upcoming election will decide for good one way or another the direction of this country.

Your tax dollars at work

Remember when we were informed by those in power that General Motors (as opposed to the thousands of other businesses in the same dire financial straits at the time) was "too big to fail", which is why those feckless martinets subsequently used our tax dollars (confiscated from us on pain of imprisonment) to acquire 33% of the company?

Well, here's the return on our forced "investment":

"In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP made film titled (translated to English) 'The Birth of a Party' or 'The Great Achievement of Founding the Party' is set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 reported China AutoWeb last September."

We currently drive two Chevrolets.  They are for sure the last GM products we will ever own.

It's all Monopoly money at this point

"President Obama's budget released on Monday proposes to spend $3.73 trillion for 2012. He can't say Bush made him do that. That proposed spending is an undeniable fact that reveals who he is, which he successfully hid from 53% of voters in 2008.

Campaigning in 2008 he promised voters that his plan involved a "net spending cut." That net spending cut translated into $836 billion in increased spending this year from 2008, according to President Obama's own budget documents. That is a federal spending increase of nearly 30% since 2008. Either President Obama does not know what "net spending cut" means in English, or he bamboozled a lot of people in 2008."  (all emphases ours)

Dear Leader made a vow he had no intention of keeping?  Bestill our hearts!

This news is so blatantly bad even reliable Obama lickspittle Andrew Sullivan has jumped the S.S. Hope and Change: 

"To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools."

Future historians will no doubt pinpoint the tipping point for the inevitable economic collapse of the United States as occurring during the current administration, and properly lay the blame at the feet of the man who in his (hopefully) one term will have increased our national debt more than all of his 43 predecessors combined, despite their having to deal with such minor inconveniences as World Wars, Great Depressions, terrorist attacks and other global crises.

Thanks, Mr. President!

"Ruling" by favoritism and fiat

First we had Dear Leader ram his socialized medicine plan (that was supposed to apply equally to everyone) through Congress by using dead-of-the-night trickery, then he turned right around and exempted many of his friends and supporters (most notably Andy Stern and his union thugs at the SEIU, who donated $28 million to his campaign) from the Ponzi scheme's many onerous (and expensive) requirements. 

Next, despite having the entire Obamacare law thrown out as unconstitutional by a federal judge, the Department of Health and Human Services announced its plan to continue implementing the legislation (under some kind of authority as yet unrevealed to us).

Now we find out that the very first project to be exempted from Obama's brand new end-run-around-Congress-imposed EPA mandates on "greenhouse gas" emissions will be a power plant that is purchasing two expensive gas-turbines from G.E., and by extension his good friend (and major campaign supporter and financial donor) Jeffrey Immelt, who is coincidentally Obama's new "jobs czar".

Tim Carney has the details on that one.

And, of course, we would be remiss if we didn't mention that Dear Leader's Department of the Interior has just been hit with a contempt of court citation for blatantly violating the law by continuing to block deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico despite a federal judge's specifically ordering them to not do so. We broke taxpayers now have to pay the legal fees for the oil companies because of that sanction.  Thanks, Mr. President!

Isn't this sort of crass political cronyism and cherry-picking of winners and losers, along with the unilateral imposition of one's political will on the peasants regardless of what the other two branches of government have to say about it, the very hallmarks of a dictatorship?

Hope and change, indeed.  "Change" into an authoritarian regime that the minor despots of the world can only marvel at with envy.

2012 simply can't get here soon enough.  We only hope it's not too late for our republic.

Let them eat cake

"The decision by First Lady Michelle Obama to leave on schedule for her two-week Hawaii vacation and not wait a few days for her delayed husband will probably cost taxpayers more than $63,000 in additional expenses, according to a White House Dossier analysis."

...

"Mrs. Obama’s decision to go without the president forced her to take a separate plane, meaning two flights instead of one were needed to ferry the First Family to their vacation destination. Unless for some reason her plane was headed to Hawaii anyway, her trip involves substantial additional costs."

It's not like our government is trillions of dollars in the hole or anything.

We understand Mrs. Obama's insistence on getting a prompt start to her (10th?  12th?  who's counting?) vacation, though; after all, being First Lady is such hard work.

From the Department of Glaringly Obvious Headlines

"Barack Obama's 2-year pay freeze misleading"

Turns out this much-heralded "freeze" is nothing but a suspension of cost-of-living adjustments (has anyone in a private-sector job gotten one of these lately?).  Scheduled step increases (based on time in the job and not merit) will continue as normal as will bonuses for senior (highly-paid) workers, albeit at 2010 levels, and the COLA hold applies only to some federal employees. 

The most notable exception?  Legislative branch workers.  Gotta keep those Hill drones happy churning out the myriad new laws required to further burden the peasantry.

Only in D.C. can a "freeze" be anything but.

At least major news outlets are finally becoming unafraid to openly dissect Dear Leader's pronouncements to uncover the falsehoods that usually lie within.

The latest shaky house of cards

NPR (?) does its job for once, helpfully pointing out that another one of the Federal government's Ponzi schemes, this time Social Security, is essentially insolvent because Congress has been raiding the surplus for decades to the tune of 2.5 trillion dollars or so. 

What happens when the full brunt of Baby Boomer retirees hits the system is anyone's guess, but most of those guesses aren't predicting good outcomes:

"The federal government owes $2.5 trillion to the Social Security trust funds. And if the government doesn't pay that money, it will default on its debt — something the U.S. has never done in its history."

Since our government is already about $13 trillion in the hole, the odds of actually being able to pay that money back is somewhere between none and zilch. 

If you are, oh, under 40 or so, you'd best not count on Social Security to be there once you hit retirement age.  Plan accordingly.

The British babies threw a tantrum

As many as 50,000 British university students rioted in London yesterday because that utterly bankrupt Nanny state has had the temerity to ask them to pay a higher portion of their college tuition instead of completely mooching off the taxpaying subjects.

Egged on by the usual suspects of anarchy-promoting leftist organizations (isn't it odd how conservative groups never advocate random violence and the destruction of private property?  Maybe because those people actually own something instead of living a pointless life of sponging off the public teat), the students assaulted the headquarters of the conservative Tory party, causing significant damage to the building and several injuries to the riot cops who were attempting to control the mob.

Here's one supposedly educated female Cambridge student's take on the protest:

"The majority is a completely non-violent protest. I’m not really worried about violence against property or objects, smashing buildings is completely fine, it’s a great image of our anger. I’ve got no problem with that at all as long as nobody gets hurt."  (emphasis ours)

Well fine then, ma'am.  But don't complain to the police when someone destroys your house because they are upset with something you've done or said.  After all, it's a "completely fine" message of "anger".

Britain's future.  Aren't they charming?  (AP - from the article)

This is the inevitable result that occurs when people who have been given entitlement upon entitlement for multiple decades get told that the free ride is coming to an end.

Hopefully this episode starkly illustrates to everyone the inevitable result of the road that Dear Leader wishes to take America down, and why we must redouble our efforts to stop our country from one day turning into today's Britain.

"Moonbeam" promises the moon but fails to say how he'll pay for it

California gubernatorial candidate Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown manages to keep a straight face while vowing that there's "enough wealth" to admit all illegal alien students to public universities at in-state tuition rates, even though that dysfunctional state is hopelessly bankrupt due in no small part to policies he implemented the last time he was in charge there:



What an incompetent, pandering boob. 

We're no huge fan of Meg Whitman, mostly due to her irrational banning from eBay of firearm parts (and even accessories) during her tenure as CEO.  At this point anyone has to be better than this tired old liberal retread, however.

If this clip isn't enough to anger the hard-working taxpayers of California enough to deny Brown another chance to screw things there up even more then nothing will.

The poster boy for liberal idiocy

Some of the recent greatest hits from Rep. Phil Hare, D-IL:










We really wish the responsible residents who live in his utterly gerrymandered district overcome that unfortunate handicap and see fit to retire his dictatorial rear end in 26 days. 

America is truly screwed as long as these clowns remain in charge

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, certainly no foe of the Obama Administration, chronicles a truly surreal scene:

"Lunch at the National Press Club on Wednesday caused some serious indigestion.

It wasn't the food; it was the entertainment.  Christina Romer, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, was giving what was billed as her "valedictory" before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last:

She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things.

What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare."

Anybody want dessert?"

These are the people in charge of managing our tottering economy?  No wonder America's financial picture seems to be headed straight for the abyss.

"The valedictory was becoming more of an elegy. At the end of the depressing forum, the moderator read a question submitted by a member of the audience: 'You seem like you'd be a lot of fun at parties. Are you?'"

Unbelievable.  Fiddling while Rome burns, indeed.

What's even worse is that not only is that not only is no one immediately taking over the duties of the cheery yet clueless Romer, Dear Leader doesn't even seem to have anyone waiting in the on-deck circle for this vitally important position:

"The White House said Aug. 9 that a successor to Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, would be named “by September 3rd, when Dr. Romer leaves her post.” That’s today, and no announcement is planned before the holiday. The West Wing has been flummoxed over a replacement. The Chicago crowd likes campaign stalwart Austan Goolsbee, now working under Romer, and no obvious alternative to him emerged. Goolsbee’s good on TV, and they need a communicator. But some aides argue for keeping a woman on the econ. team."

Well, go right ahead and take your sweet time getting your quotas tweaked just right, Mr. Obama.  It's not like we're in an economic crisis or anything.

This is exactly what all that promised "hope and change" nonsense is getting us.  Had enough yet?

An offer American businesses can't refuse, to their detriment

From a member of an email list to which we belong, an unattributed piece that sums up exactly why the current "partnership" with the Federal government is pretty much killing business in this country:

"Looks like it will only be getting worse as the "change" brings new tax laws into effect.

This is why there are no jobs in America

Seriously. This is a real offer. In fact, you really can't turn me down, as you'll come to understand in a moment...

Here's the deal. You're going to start a business or expand the one you've got now. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you're going to do.  I'll partner with you no matter what business you're in - as long as it's legal.

But I can't give you any capital - you have to come up with that on your own. I won't give you any labor - that's definitely up to you. What I will do, however, is demand you follow all sorts of rules about what products and services you can offer, how much (and how often) you pay your employees, and where and when you're allowed to operate your business. That's my role in the affair: to tell you what to do.

Now in return for my rules, I'm going to take roughly half of whatever you make in the business each year. Half seems fair, doesn't it? I think so. Of course, that's half of your profits.

You're also going to have to pay me about 12 percent of whatever you decide to pay your employees because you've got to cover my expenses for promulgating all of the rules about who you can employ, when, where, and how. Come on, you're my partner. It's only "fair."

Now ... after you've put your hard-earned savings at risk to start this business, and after you've worked hard at it for a few decades (paying me my 50 percent or a bit more along the way each year), you might decide you'd like to cash out - to finally live the good life.

Whether or not this is "fair" - some people never can afford to retire - is a different argument. As your partner, I'm happy for you to sell whenever you'd like ... because our agreement says, if you sell, you have to pay me an additional 20 percent of whatever the capitalized value of the business
is at that time.

I know, I know. You put up all the original capital. You took all the risks. You put in all of the labor. That's all true. But I've done my part, too. I've collected 50 percent of the profits each year. And I've always come up with more rules for you to follow each year. Therefore, I deserve another, final 20 percent slice of the business.

Oh ... and one more thing.

Even after you've sold the business and paid all of my fees, I'd recommend buying lots of life insurance. You see, even after you've been retired for years, when you die, you'll have to pay me 50 percent of whatever your estate is worth.

After all, I've got lots of partners and not all of them are as successful as you and your family. We don't think it's "fair" for your kids to have such a big advantage. But if you buy enough life insurance, you can finance this expense for your children.

All in all, if you're a very successful entrepreneur, if you're one of the rare, lucky, and hard-working people who can create a new company, employ lots of people, and satisfy the public, you'll end up paying me more than 75 percent of your income over your life. Thanks so much.

I'm sure you'll think my offer is reasonable and happily partner with me, but it doesn't really matter how you feel about it because if you ever try to stiff me - or cheat me on any of my fees or rules - I'll break down your door in the middle of the night, threaten you and your family with heavy,
automatic weapons, and throw you in jail.

That's how civil society is supposed to work, right? This is America, isn't it?

That's the offer America gives its entrepreneurs. And the idiots in Washington wonder why there are no new jobs."

Nice work, if you can get it

A public employee in Norfolk, Virginia has just been fired after twelve years of not showing up and still getting paid and yet new Community Services Board executive director Maureen Womack, despite admirably canning the "employee" and referring the case to local cops, apparently still doesn't feel like it's any of the local peasants' business exactly who that "worker" was and precisely how much they were being paid to "work": 

"The head of the agency refused to identify the employee but acknowledged in response to inquiries from The Virginian-Pilot that an employee was "on the board's payroll who had not reported to work in years."

Maureen Womack, the agency's executive director, said she fired the employee, informed the board that governs her agency and asked City Attorney Bernard A. Pishko to investigate the matter earlier this summer. Pishko's investigation is nearly complete and will soon be turned over to the Norfolk police, she said.

Womack also refused to divulge the employee's salary."

The Virginian-Pilot presumably wouldn't put up with that sort of blatant stonewalling from a private business which isn't subject to Freedom of Information laws.  So why are they allowing a city agency to do it to them?

What's even worse is the clueless reaction of City Councilman Tommy Smigiel, who is going to make darn tootin' sure he and the rest of the council discuss this case during their upcoming taxpayer-paid vacation:

"He said the council needs to publicly discuss the recent revelations at its retreat next month. 'We need to send a message to the citizens that they can trust us,' he said."

Um, because using a regularly-scheduled meeting in the council chambers to discuss the situation for free would be a bad idea for exactly what reason?

That retreat is sure going to send a message, Mr. Smigiel.  We're just not convinced it's the one you want to convey.

He's flat-out wrong

"I think that there are very few Constitutional limits that would prevent the Federal Government from rules that would affect your private life"

- Representative Fortney "Pete" Stark, D(ictator wannabe)-CA, one of the rudest and most martinet-like members of Congress (Google him.  His fellow Democrats actually denied him his opportunity, earned by seniority, to replace Charlie Rangel as head of the Ways and Means Committee pretty much due to his inability to get along with anyone on Capitol Hill), informing his constituents that he and his fellow conspirators can impose pretty much anything they wish on American citizens (such as requiring them to purchase health insurance they may not need or want for themselves and everyone else), and that there's bupkus those proles can do about it:



Stark is quite mistaken, of course.  The Constitution, via the Tenth Amendment, specifically limits the power of the Feds, to what is specifically granted to them elsewhere in that document, and we sure don't recall seeing anything there about forcing people to buy things.  The brave lady in the audience has it right - that sort of onerous policy is nothing more than naked slavery.

This is precisely the sort of arrogant, elitist attitude that lifers such as ol' Fortney get after enjoying 37+ years of unchecked power.  We think it's long past time that Mr. Stark be returned the ranks of the peasantry from whence he came, as he hasn't deserved the privilege of leading his district for quite some time, if ever.

No class

"Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount on his ferry fare to Fire Island's popular gay haunt, The Pines, last Friday. Frank was turned down by ticket clerks at the dock in Sayville because he didn't have the required Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID. A witness reports, 'Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation.'"

We wouldn't expect any other type of behavior from ol' Sylvester.

 

What a perfect example of the mindset of the imperious and haughty overlords who love to burden the peasantry with ever-more increasing taxes and regulations, yet get completely bent out of shape when they are denied their request to break the rules themselves solely in order to save a measly buck, even though their lavish salaries and many perks are covered by the very serfs who have no choice but to follow the thousands of pages of orders from above because they're not, you know, important.

 

Dig deep, Barney.  We know you've got it somewhere.

Sorry, Charlie

"U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel says he doesn't want "any special breaks" when it comes to charges that he violated ethics rules."

Then why is he at this very moment desperately attempting to "negotiate" some sort of deal with the House leadership that would presumably sweep the many serious criminal accusations levied against him under the tired old rug of  "settled quietly behind closed doors"?

No dice and no deals.  Lay it all out on the table for everyone to see just how criminally corrupt ol' Charlie's been lo these many years.

"The most ethical Congress in history", Ms. Pelosi?  "Transparency", Mr. President?  We're not seeing a whole lot of either in this matter.  And where's the IRS in all of this, by the way?  Any peasant accused of even a small portion of the tax shenanigans Rangel's accused of pulling would be in heap big trouble with that thuggish agency right about now.  Why isn't he?

It's good to be the nobility

Senator John "Lurch" Kerry apparently thinks it's not hypocritical at all to keep imposing more and more taxes on the peasantry while at the same time berthing his 76-foot luxury yacht in a state where he doesn't live in order to avoid paying a six-figure "Taxachusetts" bill on his new toy.

We wonder if he will use it to cruise lazily by the common proles up there who have no choice but to pay their crushing tax burden, all the while exhorting them to "eat cake".

But we're constantly being lecture by the likes of Kerry that it's the Republicans who are the party of the evil rich, not Democrats like him, as he selflessly devotes his existence to "fighting for the little person". 

When he's not out yachting, that is.

November just can't come soon enough for us.

Funny, sad and true, all at the same time

"Most of these people [in the Administration] have never had a real job in their lives. They don't understand a thing about business, and that includes the President," says a senior lobbyist for one of the companies that announced the charge [to compensate for the inevitable rise in health care costs]. "My CEO sat with the President over lunch with two other CEOs, and each of them tried to explain to the President what this [health care] bill would do to our companies and the economy in general. First the President didn't understand what they were talking about. Then he basically told my boss he was lying. Frankly my boss was embarrassed for him; he clearly had not been briefed and didn't know what was in the bill."

This is the inevitable result when an incompetent who is on record in his own autobiography referring to his brief and only stint at a private business as "a spy behind enemy lines" gets to be in charge of an economy that is fueled by such "enemies". 

What irony.

(Boortz link)

A Nanny-state ripoff artist

An unemployed single mother of six with a deadbeat lawyer ex-husband in London, England apparently felt that her three bedroom public housing unit just wasn't big (or swanky) enough to suit her and the products of her fertile womb, so instead of going through the official process of applying for a bigger dwelling with the local council (the minor-league dictators that hold sway over just about every aspect of the subjects' lives in Britain) she just went ahead and rented a private house on her own - for $130,000 (U.S.) a year.  Her new next-door neighbor?  Paul McCartney. 

Incredibly, the Westminster council (with funds confiscated from taxpayers, of course) is actually footing the entire bill for her and her brood to live in this mansion:

"The four-storey house in Maida Vale has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room, large fitted kitchen-diner with French doors on to the landscaped garden and a state-of-the art buzzer entry system.
Astonishingly, it is understood Miss Marjam found the house on the internet through a private letting agency, rather than waiting for Westminster council to give her a vacant property on their books."

That's not the only money this professional leech sucks from the few hard-working taxpayers still left over there:

"She also receives an estimated £15,000 [$23,000] a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14."

Even though she is putatively "destitute" enough to warrant all of these generous benefits, she nonetheless manages to somehow scrape up the money for the luxury items she wishes to purchase in order to complete her new home:

"She does, however, have two large flat-screen televisions and several leather sofas, plus a large amount of children's toys scattered over the wooden floorboards. 

During the week, vans from Argos and other home stores dropped off large purchases."

Insanity.  We imagine that she is also planning to add satellite television and maid service to her cushy new digs as well.

A direct quote right from the lady in question nicely sums up the mentality of the socialist welfare state that England has become:

"Miss Marjam said: 'I moved here at the beginning of the month as I'm entitled to a five-bedroom house.'"  (emphasis mine)

You're not entitled to a darn thing, ma'am, and it's about time someone over there cut you off from the public teat in recognition of that fact.

America is unfortunately headed right down the road to this kind of entitlement mentality as well, should we as a nation be dumb enough to acquiesce and adopt President Obama's many Britain-copycat legislative proposals.

Completely undeserving of our help

Upwards of 10,000 people in Tanzania and Burundi who suffer from albinism are having to flee their homes and hide in fear because much of the rest of the population is intent on chopping them up and selling their body parts to witch doctors for their supposed magical properties.

Why are ordinary Americans being forced by our government to continually send billions of our tax dollars in aid every year to that part of the world, when even the residents of one of the most modern and stable countries in Africa (Tanzania) insist on behaving in such a horrible fashion?

Madness.