The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Big-Mouth Biden

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Vice-President Joe Biden’s verbal gaffes may be considered par for the course, may often be dismissed as “amusing”, but the man now proves himself to be not only abhorrently ignorant but dangerous.

At the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, Biden decided it was quite all right to use classified security information to amuse his tablemates.   Eleanor Clift, Newsweek’s contributing Washington editor, aka left-wing media gossipmonger, was quick to pass on that Biden decided to talk about the “secret bunker” under the old U.S. Naval Observatory.  The old U.S. Naval Observatory is, of course, the home of the Vice-President.

Ms. Clift is quoted as saying Biden told them, “… a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.  The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.”

This refers, of course, to the days after 9/11.

Since the Vice-President is second in line to the Presidency, it is quite proper that their well-being is secured in times of a national emergency, such as during the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Does Biden not understand that it’s HIS sorry ass that bunker is intended to protect, should the President’s strange and untenable foreign and domestic policies open up the United States to such a horrible thing again? 

If he finds relaying classified security information the only worthwhile means by which to criticize the policies of his predecessors, perhaps the combination should be changed on the bunker’s “elaborate lock”. 

The only problem is that the loss of both Obama and Biden would put Pelosi in charge, since the Speaker of the House is third in line to the Presidency.  And I’m not sure which thought sickens me more – that possible terrorists now have a confirmed target at which to aim, or Pelosi sitting in the Oval Office as President of the United States.

If The Shoe Were On The Other Foot

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What if Sarah Palin had been elected President instead of Barack Obama?   How do you think the media would cover gaffes, breaches of etiquette and protocol, sheer economic stupidity, and blinding egocentricism?

Victor Davis Hanson shares a glimpse of such an alternative reality.

Obama Tells New Yorker To Not Run In 2010 Senate Race

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President Obama’s Chicago-based political training has not only raised eyebrows, but also the hackles of even his lapdog Democrats when it was reported that he personally telephoned New York State Democratic Senator Steve Israel to tell him to stand down on challenging governor-appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in next year’s Senatorial race.

This was done at the behest of Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), in order to “clear the field” for Gillibrand’s run in 2010. 

Does this controversial junior Senator have naked pictures in her desk drawer or does the administration feels she’s the more maleable choice in what is shaping up to be an extremely ugly midterm election cycle?

No matter what, this is uncalled for and completely out of line.  Chicago back-room politics have no business being used anywhere else.  Not only President Obama, but Senators Schumer and Menendez deserve nothing but the boot from Washington for such blatant mockery of our election process.

Obama’s Economic Waffles

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On the breakfast menu this morning:  waffles.

President Obama’s remarks yesterday at a Rio Rancho, New Mexico townhall meeting about credit card reform:

“I just want to make a little commentary about the media here, if you don’t mind.  When Congress included in last year’s budget a whole bunch of earmarks, you remember there was a week worth of stories about how terrible these earmarks were,” the president recounted. “You remember this…a week’s worth of stories: ‘Oh, these earmarks, this is what’s blowing up the deficit, this is terrible,’ blah, blah, blah.  And yet, as I said before, that was less than 1 percent of that entire budget that had been signed.  When we find $17 billion worth of cuts in programs, what do the same folks say?  They say, ‘Oh, that’s nothing.’…That’s not significant.  That’s not important.’

“Well, you can’t have it both ways.  If those earmarks were important, then this money is important, too.”

President Obama’s remarks in March upon signing the pork-filled 2009 Omnibus spending bill (with roughly 9,000 earmarks totaling nearly $8 billion):

“I am signing an imperfect omnibus bill because it is necessary for the ongoing functions of government. But I also view this as a departure point for more far-reaching change.”

President Obama’s remarks during the 3rd presidential debate in Hempstead, New York:

“Now, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks.  That’s one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Earmarks account for 0.5 percent of the total federal budget. There’s no doubt that the system needs reform and there are a lot of screwy things that we end up spending money on, and they need to be eliminated. But it’s not going to solve the problem. ”

President Obama’s remarks about his $3.5 trillion budget proposal:

“The 121 budget cuts we are announcing today will save taxpayers nearly $17 billion next year alone.  And even by Washington standards, that should be considered real money.”

A comment about President Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget proposal by an administration official:

“$17 billion dollars, I think, to anyone’s accounting, is a significant amount of money. Again, that’s in one year alone.” 

It makes sense that Obama keeps the emphasis on the red herring of just what constitutes “significant” and “important”.  Because if people understood what is behind the number, they’d see that all this talk of “change” continues to be nothing more than keeping the country on the same, well-worn and dangerous path we’ve been on for years.

As the Wall Street Journal points out:

The added cost of new programs detailed in Mr. Obama’s budget appendix will swamp the $17 billion of potential savings anticipated from eliminating or cutting back 121 programs, enumerated in a separate document.

The White House on Monday will release a revised deficit projection to take into account technical and economic changes that will almost certainly widen its February forecasts of a record deficit of $1.8 trillion for fiscal 2009, and $1.2 trillion in the fiscal year that begins in October.

Even if the president could eliminate the entire defense budget, along with domestic discretionary programs in 2009, the $1.3 trillion of savings would still leave a $445 billion budget deficit. 

Well, President Obama, if we can’t “have it both ways”, then neither can you.  And, by the way, yes, I DO mind your little ongoing commentaries about the media.  It is your job to uphold the Constitution and it is the media’s job to report on how you do or do not do it.  If you don’t like the fact your progressivism and your lying results in criticism,  you’ve no one to blame but yourself.

Pass the syrup, please.

Unsustainable Unionization

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My personal opinion is that unions have long outlived their usefulness.  Nowhere is it more obvious than in the case of the unionization of government workers.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

A study in 2005 by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated that the average public-sector worker earned 46% more in salary and benefits than comparable private-sector workers. The gap has only continued to grow. For example, state and local worker pay and benefits rose 3.1% in the last year, compared to 1.9% in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

But the real power of the public sector is showing through in this economic crisis. Some five million private-sector workers have lost their jobs in the last year alone, and their unemployment rate is above 9% according to the BLS. By contrast, public-sector employment has grown in virtually every month of the recession, and the jobless rate for government workers is a mere 2.8%. For anyone who thinks such low unemployment numbers are good news, remember that the bulging public sector must be paid for with revenues that most governments don’t currently have.

Must I type really it out loud?  These “public sector” worker are government workers and are paid by our hard-earned tax dollars.  And no matter how dire the straights in which we find ourselves, their unions continue to demand higher pay and more benefits, despite the fact many are already protected by civil service laws.  The net result is higher taxes, of course, as President Obama increases the budgets of unionized agencies, and Labor Secretary Solis tells unionized government workers to push their Congress critters to pass the EFCA:

The way to “put trust and faith” back into a system of employer-employee relations that has for years favored management “is by making sure we pass EFCA,” Solis told some 700 AFSCME leaders and activists. “So when you go home, make sure you call your legislators and you tell them they will be doing the right thing to allow people to associate” by forming a union.

She declared the Obama administration will hire more people in the Labor Department to make sure “all our laws are respected and enforced.”

“So I’m telling you,” Solis added, “there is a new sheriff in town – a sheriff who cares about working-class people, brings respect back into the workplace and allows more people to associate with unions if they want to collectively bargain. I’m talking about EFCA. I’m talking about the opportunities for that bill to pass. And I’m talking about the means for us to strengthen our unions.”

And this, boys and girls, is yet another step down that yellow brick road to fascism.

SEIU President Brags About Power, Unwittingly Bares Corruption

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“We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we’re proud of it.”

I wonder if anyone has ever told Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that pride goeth before a fall?  The Las Vegas Sun recently interviewed Mr. Stern and it’s a fascinating, though decidedly chilling look into “entitlement mentality” and the greed and corruption that inevitably results when power and influence replace original good intent.  With the use of some mighty fine weasel words, Stern makes it clear that the SEIU has paid for their place at the White House table and, because of Obama’s resulting debt to them, will not let anything stand in their way. 

And when you understand that the SEIU is nothing more than the flip-side of ACORN (though with more and more of this coming to light they are going to great pains to try to hide it), this, of course, means the loss of freedom for workers in America, as well as the continuing loss of jobs when business after business is run into the ground by union demands that cannot be met.  (Remember that service workers are far more expendable than those who perform skilled trades.)  But all the while, those at the top of the unions, who have no qualms about skimming union dues for their PAC efforts to gain perceived power and influence, will live fat and happy.

Just like Jimmy Hoffa.

For as Stern notes himself, “It’s been a historical failure of the labor movement, that egos get in the way of what’s best for the membership.”

Now substitute “citizens” for “membership” and “President” for “labor unions”….

GE Sells Out Shareholders To Obama Administration

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Did anyone wonder why GE Capital received $140 billion from the government in order to stay in business even though they are NOT a bank?  Their latest business initiative, “Healthymagination”, is the reason.  With Tom Daschle on board, and working with Intel to ready various “tools”, GE is smugly and firmly positioning itself to help President Obama nationalize health care to the tune of some $75 – $100 billion in contracts to computerize the nation’s health care records.  Among other things.  Because, according to GE CEO Jeff Immelt, we aren’t just experiencing an economic cycle, we’re deliberately doing a “reset”. “People who understand that will prosper in the future, and people who don’t understand that will get left behind.”

Left behind like the old people in England and other countries who can’t afford their country’s nationalized health care.  Left behind like those with certain diseases that just aren’t “cost effective” to treat promptly in England.

From the healthyimaging.com website:

GE also is engaging experts and leaders on policy and programs to create a GE Health Advisory Board, which will include former U.S. Senators Bill Frist and Tom Daschle, as well as Andrew von Escenbach, MD, former commissioner of the FDA.

To increase its focus on consumer-driven healthcare, Immelt mentioned the recent GE partnership with Intel to provide products to remotely monitor the health of seniors and those with chronic conditions. Now, through GE’s media network, the company said it also will focus on healthcare broadcasting, namely:

  • NBC Universal and NBC News will make a commitment to bring health and wellness content to consumers in the form of more than 5,000 televised reports annually on health and wellness and companion online tools.
  • MSNBC will launch a new, daily program dedicated solely to health information, beginning in June. The program will be anchored by NBC News Chief Medical Editor Nancy Snyderman, MD, who will tackle everything from health and wellness tips and medical breakthroughs to examining health policy.
  • The Cleveland Clinic will join with GE and NBC to conduct research that seeks to better understand important factors that move consumers from being aware of a health condition via the media to actually changing their behaviors.

GE will partner with governments and other companies to build a “healthy work site” certification program. Immelt said GE will turn its 175 health centers into wellness clinics and increase the use of employee incentives and decision support for health and prevention, providing personal health records to employees to identify health risks and track behaviors.

Obama validates it in this email sent to his supporters:

 
The White House, Washington
   Good afternoon, You are receiving this email because you signed up at WhiteHouse.gov. My staff and I plan to use these messages as a way to directly communicate about important issues and opportunities, and today I have some encouraging updates about health care reform. The Vice President and I just met with leaders from the House of Representatives and received their commitment to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill by July 31. We also have an unprecedented commitment from health care industry leaders, many of whom opposed health reform in the past. Monday, I met with some of these health care stakeholders, and they pledged to do their part to reduce the health care spending growth rate, saving more than two trillion dollars over the next ten years – around $2,500 for each American family. Then on Tuesday, leaders from some of America’s top companies came to the White House to showcase innovative ways to reduce health care costs by improving the health of their workers. Now the House and Senate are beginning a critical debate that will determine the health of our nation’s economy and its families. This process should be transparent and inclusive and its product must drive down costs, assure quality and affordable health care for everyone, and guarantee all of us a choice of doctors and plans. 

Reforming health care should also involve you. Think of other people who may want to stay up to date on health care reform and other national issues and tell them to join us here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/EmailUpdates 

Health care reform can’t come soon enough. We spend more on health care than any country, but families continue to struggle with skyrocketing premiums and nearly 46 million are without insurance entirely. It is a priority for the American people and a pillar of the new foundation we are seeking to build for our economy.

P.S. If you’d like to get more in-depth information about health reform and how you can participate, be sure to visit http://www.HealthReform.gov.  

We’ll continue to keep you posted about this and other important issues. 

Thank you, 
Barack Obama  

 

  
 
This email was sent to  
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy The White House · 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW · Washington, DC 20500 · 202-456-1111

With its initiatives targeted for completion in 2015, you can bet that GE is putting everything they have to insure a 2nd term for President Obama or another progressive, liberal Democrat in his place, and based on these tactics is going to use every one of its business holdings – including its media arm – to insure their bed-partner…errrr….business partner stays in office and to be the propaganda machine for his fascist wares.

I wonder what the shareholders are going to think when Obama decides they are no longer entitled to their profits?

EPA Fails To Properly Assess Risk Of Greenhouse Gases

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Pushed by the Supreme Court to make a determination whether “greenhouse gases” are dangerous to public health, the EPA recently decided that CO2 is a Very Bad Thing.  You know CO2, that pesky stuff that is part of the circle of life because all us mammals exhale it and then trees and other growing plants inhale it because they need it to survive, and then they exhale oxygen that we in turn inhale because we need it to survive, and so on.

This definition of CO2 as a danger to public health fits in very nicely with President Obama and his administration’s push for cap & trade.  You know cap & trade, that pesky little credit scheme for alleged polluters that Obama “promises” us isn’t a tax but will raise the price of everything from heating and cooling to transportion to goods and even food because manufacturers have to recoup their increased cost of doing business and the only way to do that is to pass on their costs to we, the consumers. 

Well, even though it’s now obvious the change Obama spouts on about on his never-ending campaign trail means only grabbing what’s left of it in our wallets, it seems that some folks in Obama’s administration have taken a look at what will happen if the government steps in to regulate greenhouse gases during this truly manmade “climate change” in the American economy.  And what they see is what many of us have been saying all along.

Cap and trade, not CO2, is the Very Bad Thing.

CBS’s Jake Tapper has reported that an interagency review memo warns the EPA that government regulation is not only a bad move economically, but it also raises the more dangerous question about government regulation.  Here are some of the highlights:

 The finding rests heavily on the precautionary principle, but the amount of acknowledged lack of understanding about basic facts surrounding GHGs seem to stretch the precautionary principle to providing for regulation in the face of unprecedented uncertainty.

Since tropospheric ozone is already regulated under the Clean Air Act, EPA should explain why those regulations are inadequate to protect public health from the ozone impacts of climate change.

The Finding should also acknowledge that EPA has not undertaken a systematic risk analysis or cost-benefit analysis.

 …there is a concern that EPA is making a finding based on

(1) “harm” from substances that have no demonstrated direct health effects, such as respiratory or toxic effects,

(2) available scientific data that purports to conclusively establish the nature and extent of the adverse public health and welfare impacts are almost exclusively from non-EPA sources, and

(3) applying a dramatically expanded precautionary principle.

If EPA goes forward with a finding of endangerment for all 6 GHGs, it could be establishing a relaxed and expansive new standard for endangerment. Subsequently, EPA would be petitioned to find endangerment and regulate many other “pollutants” for the sake of the precautionary principle (e.g., electromagnetic fields, perchlorates, endocrine disruptors, and noise).

Making the decision to regulate CO2 under the CAA for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities.

To the extent that climate change alters our environment, it will create incentives for innovation and adaptation that mitigate the damages from climate change. The document should note this possibility and how it affects the likely impacts of climate change.

…the document would appear more balanced if it also highlighted whether particular regions of the US would benefit, and to what extent these positive impacts would mitigate negative impacts elsewhere in the United States.

…there should be a consideration of the fertilizing effect of CO2, which may overwhelm the negative impact of additional hot days on agricultural yields in some regions of the US.

… it is not clear why they [perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride] are included in the endangerment and “cause or contribute” findings.

 EPA would benefit from making its position explicit in this proposal. Commenters are sure to take this important issue on in some fashion so EPA may as well do what it can to shape the debate and the comments being invited.

 The proposed Finding erroneously suggests that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts an increase in both crop and forest production in the U.S.  Significant increases in production may be possible within North America as a whole, but are unlikely within the U.S. itself.

These are your tax dollars at (shoddy) work, but the administration isn’t listening, of course.  Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) was to meet with his Democrat pals behind closed doors today (there’s more of that promised “transparency” for you)  to discuss his “Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” – because the President would prefer legislation instead of demanding it himself.  The better to claim the resulting economic collapse isn’t his fault, of course.

 

 

White House Forced To Admit Economic Forecast Was Wrong

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Last November White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel opined, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”  And so instead of following the time-tested, crucial first step in crisis management – stop and assess the situation – the Obama administration furiously wrote scripts to pander panic and went into a full-blown feeding frenzy, throwing billions of hard-earned taxpayer money to stimulate, to TARP, and finally to “budget” the country out of the current financial crisis.  A financial crisis, mind you, that was orchestrated by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the Democratic majority in Congress during the Bush administration.

There were some less self-absorbed, cooler heads who pointed out that the economy would recovery quite nicely all by its lonesome, thankyouverymuch, if we did absolutely nothing.  If we let the poorly-run companies fail and the free market prevail, natural law would soon show all the bluster as little more than a blip on history’s radar.

They were right.  (Check out this chart that tells the story much better than words.)

It is being reported today that the much-vaunted economic recovery just ain’t happenin’.  And it ain’t gonna happen at all this year; we’ll be lucky if we see some relief next year.  There are no jobs being created – as promised – just more and more jobs continuing to disappear.  Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, took advantage of the piss-poor forecasts to tell everyone that the real problem isn’t the government spending trillions of dollars it doesn’t have to take over the private sector; no, no, the real problem is all the money the government spends on health care.

So of course the answer is to applaud the President cutting a piddly one-half of one percent from the budget (that’s .05%) and to encourage the insanity of spending an unfathomable amount of money – that we don’t have now and won’t have later – to nationalize health care. 

I keep flashing back to FDR’s same failed “progressive” policies and that it was only WWII that pulled us out of the Great Depression.  And sometimes I fear we are being deliberately set up for another great war.

Works for me if all the Democrats are drafted to the front lines first and our Commander in Chief leads the charge himself, flanked by Pelosi, Reid, and Frank.  But then, that teleprompter would make him such an easy target….

The 3rd Side Of The Story

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As more and more increasingly dangerous infringements on America’s freedoms continue to roll out of Congress like those Easter eggs across the White House lawn, I often want to ask President Obama just who he thinks he is?  Having written 2 autobiographies, however, he’s already given us his version.

But there are always 3 sides to a story.  His side,  the other side, and then the truth.

I’d venture to guess that anyone who has ever wondered about Obama’s legitimacy with regards to being able to hold the office of the Presidency has seen various bits and pieces that question it as they have been raised by a great number of people.  And anyone who has ever wondered about his political views has seen various bits and pieces gathered by a great number of people about his associations with people like Bill Ayers and ties to groups like ACORN.  I recently again came across a piece written by Don Fredrick that is, quite frankly, a stomach-turning timeline of the life of Barck Hussein Obama.  With painstaking precision, Mr. Fredrick presents a picture that is compelling in its sheer volume of damning evidence that the lowest common denominator in America has dropped lower than anyone could have imagined, or that the man elected to be President of the United States is, if not a complete and utter sham, then truly a clear and present danger to everything upon which this country was founded.

You may read it for yourself right here*.  And while it explains the razorblade down which America is now sliding, perhaps you, too, will find yourself asking why, when it would be so easy to put all of the questions to rest, why Barack Hussein Obama and those who surround him would choose to remain silent?  Why doesn’t the media, who loves nothing more than chasing innuendo and creating a juicy scandal, pick up this ball and run with it?  Why are lawyers on retainer around the country to block all access to President Obama’s public records, yet he’s willing to show classified documents to both our friends and our enemies around the world?

There’s an old saying that goes, “He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing.”   Or, in President Obama’s own words, “transparency”.

Some might dare call it honesty.

 

 

 

 

 

* used with written permission, copyright Don Fredrick at www.colony14.net