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Obama Preparing Another Trojan Horse

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Jake Tapper reports today that in his upcoming State of the Union address, His Transparency intends to focus on on four little words that send the hearts of hard-working Americans soaring:  “middle-class tax cuts”.

Tax cuts are good.  We like tax cuts.  But as with everything that is proposed by these progressive liberal Democrats, Obama is going to roll in another Trojan horse.  Here’s a catch.  First of all, these aren’t direct tax cuts but instead tax-paying Americans will continue to loan money to the federal government with every one of their paychecks and only get that money back at the end of the year.  Then there is the catch that comes in the form of more government intrusion – takeover, if you will – into the lives of those tax-paying Americans.  Here’s the list:

1.      Increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle class families making under $85,000 a year from 20% to 35% of qualifying expenses.  The administration says that almost all eligible families making under $115,000 a year would see a larger credit. Families could claim up to $3,000 in expenses for one child or $6,000 for two children, and the maximum credit for a family with two children making $80,000 a year would increase by $900 from $1,200 to $2,100.  The Obama administration will also provide a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding which it says will help an additional 235,000 children.

2.      Capping student federal loan payments to 10 percent of the student’s income above a basic living allowance. The monthly payment for a single borrower earning $30,000 who owes $20,000 in loans would be $115 a month – as opposed to $228 a month under the standard 10-year repayment plan.

3.      Requiring all employers to give workers an option of automatic workplace direct-deposit IRAs. Currently 78 million working Americans — roughly half the workforce — do not have employer-based retirement plans.  The contributions will be voluntary and matched by the Savers Tax Credit for eligible families. The smallest firms would be exempt.

4.      Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings by expanding and simplifying the Saver’s Credit to match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of contributions by families earning up to $65,000 and providing a partial credit to families earning up to $85,000.

5.      Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives with a $102.5 million Caregiver Initiative adding $52.5 million in funding to Department of Health and Human Services caregiver support programs that provide temporary respite care, counseling, training, and referrals to critical services. The administration says the extra funding will allow nearly 200,000 additional caregivers to be served and 3 million more hours of respite care to be provided. It also adds $50 million to programs that provide transportation help, adult day care, and in-home services, such as aides to help seniors bathe and cook, help which eases the burden for family members and helps seniors stay in their homes.

The first two aren’t so bad.  Sure, they’ll cut down the amount of federal revenue but as is always the case, more money in the hands of the people, not the federal government, improves the economy.

Number four bears scrutiny because this “extra funding” has to come from somewhere and, as usual, who’s going to pay for it isn’t being defined.

But it is number three that is especially troubling.  Not just because it is yet another example of the liberal progressive Democrats telling the American people that they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves, but it is part of a larger plan to have the taxpayer offset the goverment bailouts of Wall Street insurance companies by getting more money into the market if they can’t outright take the funds from 401k plans.

While we’re all for individuals saving for their own retirement instead of relying on Nanny Fed to take care of them in their old age, here’s the rub.  Even when an employer does not offer automatic-workplace direct-deposit for an IRA (a choice that costs them money, by the way, in terms of paying more for the administrative costs to run their business and therefore affects the costs of goods or services as well as salaries they provide), you, as an individual can get up off your butt and go to a bank to set up an IRA on your own and make tax-deductible contributions to it.  Today, you and your employer have personal choice – freedom – as to how you, and you alone, handle your financial affairs.

The objection, then, is to the government mandating behavior.  Legislating morality, if you will.  Taking away the individual’s freedom to choose.  Particularly when it is done with the intention of usurping the results.

So for the astute, it ain’t gonna be much to cheer about.

Who’s Laughing Now?

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It was a big deal in the entertainment world when NBC decided to can Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien.  Personally, I found Conan’s final week hilarious and reminiscent of its good old days with Johnny Carson and “Coco” was very gracious as he said his goodbye.

And why shouldn’t he be?  Under the terms of the separation contract, NBC is paying O’Brien $45 million to not work for the next eight months, and he got them to give another $12 million to his staff of 200.

Not bad for a 7-month stint, eh?

But the one question no one is asking is:  exactly how can NBC possibly afford to pay out all this money?  Well, dear readers, the joke’s on you.  Via the government’s bank bailouts last spring.

I know, I know.  NBC isn’t a bank.

But in the Obamanation, that’s just a little legal technicality when your parent company is GE.

General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks.

At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government.

The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.

As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. The government’s actions have been “powerful and helpful” to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December [2008].

—

Banking companies are regulated by the Federal Reserve and not allowed to engage in commerce, but federal law has allowed a small number of commercial companies to engage in banking under the lighter hand of the Office of Thrift Supervision. GE falls in the latter group because of its ownership of a Utah savings and loan.

Unlike other major lenders participating in the debt guarantee program, including Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, GE has never been subject to the Fed’s stress tests or its rules for limiting risk. Also unlike firms that have received bailout money in the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, GE is not subject to restrictions such as limits on executive compensation.

What was that again about “too big to fail”?

A Stunning Week For American Liberties

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It has been a rather incredible week.  In a real “two fer”, the election of Republican Scott Brown to represent the state of Massachusetts as a United States Senator has sent both the ghost of Ded Ted and the unholy trinity’s health care “reform” back down to the hell hole from which they rose.  And then the Supreme Court, voting on straight progressive vs. conservative ideological lines, struck down most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act as unconstitutional.

All of which finds the left staring bug-eyed and slack-jawed.

As the shock wears off, in their anger at being told that their attempts to create a socialist dictatorship out of the Republic of the United States is now seen clearly for what it is and that the American people want no part of it, the spin begins.  His Transparency, in particular, is being, well, rather more transparent.  And it’s not comforting.  Attempting to capitalize on what is being labeled “populist” anger, he went on the stump this week and has started talking “tough”.  But, frankly, it sounds more like stupid to me.  He told George Stephanopoulos:

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office.   People are angry, and they’re frustrated.  Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”
 
Yo, put on some clothes, there, Emperor.  This time it really is all about you.  Those last “eight years” you continue to casually toss around as your sole reason d’etre now includes the first year of what sensible Americans have been praying is your own lame-duck presidency.  What happened in Massachusetts is, indeed, the sensible reaction of a free people to your lies and your ideology.  We were angry at the growing deficits and intrusions of the federal government in 2008 and we’re angry at the Obama-led Democrats’ neck-break race to socialism that continues to increase them now.
 
But no matter.  Obama got himself all wee-wee’d up and told a crowd in Elyria, Ohio (where unemployment is now at 10.9 percent — up from 10.6 last month):

“Now, we’ve gotten pretty far down the road, but I have to admit, we’ve run into a bit of a buzz saw along the way….”

“…I am not going to watch more people get crushed by costs, or denied the care they need by insurance company bureaucrats, or partisan politics, or special interest power in Washington.”

Astute observers will note that referring to a majority of the citizenry at large as a “buzz saw” when they disagree with him shows again this inexperienced bubble boy hasn’t a clue or, more likely based on other statements, just doesn’t care about the checks and balances foundation of government in this country that secures the power in the hands of the people.  And it is not only my jaded eyes that turn up at the corners from the humor of the blatant hypocrisy contained in his statements.  What we saw, particularly exposed during the month of December, made it quite clear that the Chicago machine of “partisan politics” and the “special interest power in Washington” was gunning at full throttle to create both the House and Senate versions of health care “reform”.  (Corn husk, anyone?)
 
This fighting stance continued as the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision on the upcoming 2010 Congressional mid-term elections quickly began to sink in.
 
 
 
Tip what?  Drown out what?  Certainly Massachusetts just proved the progressive liberal’s need to stifle free speech on behalf of those chosen to be their pet victim de jeur is not only wrong, but unnecessary.  Martha (“Curling Iron”) Coakley flew from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. to attend a fundraiser for her Senate campaign, and both hosts and attendees included lobbyists for “Big Pharma” and the health care industry.  Monies raised were used for negative attack ads against Scott Brown, but we all know what happened next.  It didn’t work.  The American people knew what was at stake and threw their nickels and dimes at Scott Brown; and the good people of Massachusetts, equally tired of Washington’s special interests, raised their collective middle fingers and gave the Democrats and their lobbyists and their unions a loud and clear salute by sending Brown to Washington to kill the health care Senate bill.
 
It may be too difficult a concept for affirmatively-graduated Ivy League progressives, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that freedom of speech is our most powerful means of controlling special interests and bringing hidden agendas to light.  So what if corporations or the unions now no longer need a middle man (in the form of PACs) to donate to a candidate or a cause?  The Supreme Court did not strike down disclosure and therefore any business that decides to spend their profits on campaigns that go against America’s liberties or against Her best interests will soon find their profits gone MIA as the people cast their votes not only at the ballot box but with their dollars.  Those companies who decide to try and hide behind PACs will continue to be outed by an newly-awakened citizenry who is sick and tired of lies, no matter what the source.  Where the agenda of unions goes against America’s sensibilities, they will lose even more members than they have to date.  Frankly, those who would want to pursue campaign reform in light of this ruling would do better to simply put more transparency into the whole process. 
 
But in a free market economy, advertising can be a form of corporate suicide and where campaign financing is concerned the left believes that this a bad thing.  What they can’t accept, because it threatens their power, is that real equality means the freedom to fail as well as the freedom to succeed.  It is not up to the government to selectively and partisanly choose who may speak and when.  At least it is not up to the government in these United States.  It is the kind of activity belongs in despot regimes like Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran.  That the Obama administration and its progressive liberal supporters are already seeing how to write new laws to corral free speech yet again is yet more straightforward evidence they do not accept the Constitution as it was written and sets the stage for the 2010 mid-term elections to be a bloodbath, ending with Democrats picking up their teeth with the stubs of their elbows.
 

Quote Of The Day

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Today’s pithy comment, courtesy of particpants on Ed Morrissey’s blog at HotAir about Ralph Nader announcing that we need to amend the 1st Amendment because of the Supreme Court ruling striking down parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation.

Dear Ralph Nader,
GO TO HELL.

Sincerely, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams

cc:  King George III

Obama’s Waterloo Begins

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Yes, Mary Jo; there really is a Santa Claus.  He may be almost a month late, but he brought one hell of a present to not only the state of Massachusetts, but to all of America:  the “41st vote”, aka newly-elected United States Senator Scott Brown.

‘Tis another shot heard ’round the world.  How serendipitous that it has come from Massachusetts, the birth place of the American Revolution.

Dems Lose – No Matter What

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Today’s special election in Massachusetts is historical, yes, but even though there are still a few hours to go before the polls close today, a loser has emerged and I dare say it’s ranking at the bottom of the political landfill will be a long stay.

Watching how the campaigns are handling the fever-pitch race that is, effectively, a referendum on the Obama administration and the progressive liberal Democrat majority has laid bare one thing:  those liberal progressive Democrats are truly nasty, evil people and the unintended consequences of their actions over the last year is going to keep them in a world of hurt for a very, very long time.  There are endless reports coming in about campaign signs for Martha (“Curling Iron”) Coakley right at the doors of voting precincts (illegal within 150 feet of a precinct in Massachusetts).  There are losers hanging around precincts .  She has union members (from New York’s UFCW Local One, no less) manning one of her offices, kicking out a reporter and calling them a Nazi. 

By 3:45 p.m., the Massachusetts Secretary of State had received two separate reports of voters being given ballots already filled out for them.

 Then the markets closed higher today on hopes of a Scott Brown victory, which is hysterically funny when you remember that among the hosts of Coakley’s D.C. fundraiser last week were Eli Lilly (up 4.4percent at $37.41), Humana (up 7.1 percent at $51.94). 

And while His Transparency “was both surprised and frustrated” with what he apparently sees as needless fuss over Ded Ted’s replacement, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, however inadvertently, actually called it correctly:  “In many ways we’re here because of that upset and anger.”

Coakley Campaign Callers Lying To MA Voters

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No one doubts the depths of ugly deceit of which progressive liberal Democrats are capable, but aside from the high school aspects of it, this latest “trick” from the Coakley campaign takes the cake:

Pro-lifers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Mass Citizens.  The callers say that Mass Citizens is not supporting Scott Brown because of his position on health care!

The truth is that Mass Citizens is suporting Brown because of his position on health care!  

These deceitful calls are coming from 202-461-3441, a Washington, DC number.  The phone company says this is a company called SOOH.  Pro-lifers are not the only victims of this scam.  Our MCFL sleuths have found that this same number is calling people across the state claiming to be different groups with different messages – all anti-Brown!

If you can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit?

Way to go, Martha.  You’re a real class act.

A Democratic Scholar’s Version Of History

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Speaking at a rally for Massachusetts senatorial candidate Martha Coakley last Friday, former president and Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton, said:

“I came here to tell the people of Massachusetts this:  This country’s revolution was born in Massachusetts.  The Revolutionary War was first won here.  The war was over here years before it was finally finished.  It started with the Boston Tea Party, and the right wing Republicans have appropriated that on the premise the tea party was against government.”
 
Clinton added, “What they were against was abuse of power.”

Perhaps distracted by someone in the audience wearing a blue dress, Clinton conveniently forgot that the American Revolution was against GOVERNMENT abuse of power.

But somehow I don’t think the American people, particularly those heading out to vote tomorrow in Massachusetts, have forgotten.

Two Historic Days

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Dr. King’s dream will be fulfilled only by stepping aside and allowing people to pursue their own happiness.  Stupid is not a race or a color, mind you, yet today the federal government would have you believe that whole classes of Americans are, indeed, too stupid to understand the risks they take when they pursue their happiness and must be divided out and protected from the consequences of their poor choices.

That doesn’t sound like liberty to me.

It is a tragedy of historic proportions.  A once great Republic brought to Her knees by deliberate distortions of Her Constitutional democracy now glances behind and, as Aristotle pointed out, sees despotism looming.  There was a reason that the United States government was divided into three parts, good reason that members of the House were elected directly by the people and members of the Senate by the legislature of each state and that reason is to insure that the deliberately-limited, enumerated powers of the federal government would contain it.  The popular election of Senators has loosened their responsibilities to the States and the individual and the results are the same as in all democracies:  a dangerous game of federal regulations in an attempt to legislate a minority’s opinion of what constitutes morality for some “greater good”.

Nothing comes without risk.  Sometimes great risk.  The road to socialism is a bloody one.  Just ask Mussolini, the darling of the earliest progressives like Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, who called Il Duce “the great lawmaker”.  Look to Venezuela, to Cuba, to North Korea and tell me if it is truly possible to pursue your own, unique, individual happiness there.

I think not.

So as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King today, we must also look to Massachusetts.  The birthplace of the American Revolution is now poised to fire yet another historic shot as her special election tomorrow to fill the seat held so long by progressive liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy has become a referendum of sorts.  Not a referendum on the Obama administration, as some would like you to believe (and thereby divide the American people once again), but a referendum on the United States Constitution.  The two leading candidates stand at opposing ends of the American political spectrum:  one a progressive liberal Democrat with the same bloody hands as Kennedy, the other a conservative Republican who believes it is the individual’s right to choose.  To their credit, the people of Massachusetts, liberal as they are, have seen the writing on the wall and rightly read its warnings, and in doing so their local battle has been thrust into the national spotlight.

To observe this battle is to see what has come to be called “the machine” overtly at work for the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley.  Her campaign is defined by flying to Washington, D.C. to curry campaign contributions from lobbyists and having the president speak for her at a campaign rally when poll numbers show her “sure thing” has become anything but, while Republican Scott Brown simply travels across his state talking to the people.  And in doing this he has engaged the support of Americans in all states who not only reject this administration’s hell-bent usurpations of their liberties, but realize that the great expansion of the federal government engineered in the 1930s now means that every Senator’s actions will directly affect them.

Scott Brown has grassroots support, and despite the claims of the Obama 2008 campaign, the likes of which have not been seen as shown by Brown’s endorsement by the police union from which Coakley’s husband retired and the numerous SEIU members who carry her campaign signs only because they are being paid to do so but intend on voting for Brown.  While Coakley was in D.C. to beg for that special interest money to broadcast her negative ads (in which one didn’t even have “Massachusetts” spelled properly), Brown quietly raised a million dollars in a single day through donations made by concerned Americans across the country.

Frankly, it’s stunning to see this.  It means that the Founding Fathers were right, you know.  And that Dr. King knew it.

So today I have a dream.  A dream that tomorrow the good people of Massachusetts will fire one more “shot heard ’round the world”.  A loud, resounding shot for liberty.  For that is truly the finest way to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Quote Of The Day

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Gun Control: 

The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to the police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.