The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

A Class Act He’s Not

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In the continuing adventures of The 2010 Election Story That Goes Unreported, in the heart of the Rust Belt known as Michigan’s 12th Congressional district, a food bank was recently opened.  A beautiful thing, this; neighbors stepping up and taking on the responsibility to help neighbors in what is the worst district in the nation for loss of income, loss of jobs and loss of home values.

Two of the candidates running for the House seat in this most-battered and beleagured of blue districts recently attended the opening of this small, grassroots charitable effort.  The wealthy incumbent Democrat, Sander Levin, annointed by progressive liberal Nancy Pelosi to be the chair of the House Ways & Means Committee due to his 28-year seniority in the House, took a break from campaigning for his colleagues in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to return to his district and make a brief appearance.

His GOP challenger, small business owner Don Volaric, was there, too.  The same way he has been at the church that opened the food bank on numerous Sunday mornings.  He brought with him boxes of foodstuffs purchased by his wife to help fill the shelves of the sorely-needed pantry.

Sander Levin showed up with only a photographer to record his appearance.

November’s Big Surprise

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According to Forbes, the #1 worst area for jobs is Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Michigan (out of 389 areas). The Detroit News reported this past weekend that Michigan’s unemployment rate remains second-highest in the nation and the Detroit-Warren-Livonia region had the highest unemployment rate at 13.9 percent among the six metropolitan areas the Bureau of Labor Statistics cited.  Now make note that the city of Warren, Michigan, is smack in the middle of Michigan’s 12th Congressional district.

According to common sense, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results each time.

Insanity must be the explanation for why Sander Levin, the latest Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, has been the representative of Michigan’s 12th district for the last 28 years.  For only insanity can explain why someone who has put his district to the top of the loser’s charts by voting  in lockstep with the Democratic party has remained in office.  He’s been Pelosi’s loyal lapdog for the current administration; a guaranteed and delivered vote for bailouts that sent our hard-earned tax money to overseas banks via AIG and gave our auto companies to corrupt union leadership who are getting rich pocketing the spoils.

Sander Levin voted to destroy the health care system in favor of a progressive, government-knows-best ideology that includes making you buy something whether you want to buy it or not.

Sander Levin voted to destroy American manufacturing, sounding the death knell for Michigan, the heart of the Rust Belt, through so-called “cap & trade” that will raise the price of everything from fuel to food.

Then he scuttled out of D.C. with all his Democrat buddies without doing anything to stop the tax hikes scheduled to take effect on January 1st for everyone; do you realize that the lowest income taxpayers will see a 50% increase in their federal income tax rate on their first $8,000 of income? A 50% INCREASE on their first $8,000 of income. And let’s not forget the impact to middle-class business owners who won’t be expanding their businesses (creating jobs) because they’ll have to instead send that money to Washington in the form of higher taxes once they reach the arbitrary and magic number that the Democrats now define as being “rich”.  And “greedy”.  And “racist”.  (Unless, of course, you’re a Democrat politician or one of their lobbying buddies.)

And of course there’s the upcoming estate tax, where money already taxed when earned will be taxed again (sometimes a third time) before it can be given to one’s heirs.

Oh, let’s not forget the looming taxes on unearned income; another mean bite into the fixed income of responsible seniors who worked and saved for a lifetime in order to remain independent by living off the income from their investments. And there’s another sneaky bite from their income (and the income of everyone else) coming if the Democrats have their way:  increased costs to even pay the bills because of fees that will be levied on every single financial transaction; fees that will, of course, be passed onto you, the consumer.

I could go on but I’m sure you get the point.  Every bit of badness cooked up by Congress, every blow to freedom, has been wholeheartedly endorsed by progressive liberal Sander Levin.

Now, despite all of this, Sander Levin apparently feels entitled to his seat in the House of Representatives since he’s unwilling to come face-to-face with his constituents to campaign for their vote or to take the time to debate his challenger during this election, though the polls show this has now become a real race (strangely gone entirely ignored by both the media and the GOP; which means one helluva headline come November 3rd). Instead he’s spending his time campaigning for his colleagues in New York, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania and gives only lip service and the standard Democrat’s response to questions about today’s problems.  Seems he’s hoping no one will remember that he was part of those horrible Congresses who created all the problems in the first place.

What has Sander Levin done by being a guaranteed vote for progressive liberalism? Ask your neighbor who has a house in foreclosure while Sander Levin sells his house in Maryland for almost a million dollars. Ask your friend whose company is going out of business. Ask the Michigan children who are moving out of state because that’s the only place they can find a job. Then ask yourself:  Can you afford any more of this kind of representation in Washington?

I can’t.

It’s time to shake up Michigan the way Massachusetts was shaken up last January.  It’s time to help support the efforts of conservative candidate, small business owner and family man, Don Volaric, to represent Michigan’s 12th district in the House of Representatives. 

It’s time to drive one important nail in the coffin of progressive liberalism.

Terrorist Attacks Aren’t All Bad?

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In July, His Transparency told reporter and writer Bob Woodward, “We can absorb a terrorist attack.”  He goes on to say, “We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger.”

But why would we want to?  Why should we?  Are YOU willing to sacrifice your life or the life of a loved one here on American soil, the way so many did on 9/11, merely in order that one man can continue to succor an ego that has no military experience whatsoever?

This is truly insane.  Personally, I’m sticking with the advice of people like General Petraeus.  And wishing that the Commander in Chief still personally led the troops into battle.  Perhaps then such infantile, self-perceived-elitist stubbornness would not continue to endanger this beloved country.

Unions Use Your Tax Dollars To Lobby For Higher Taxes

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If this weren’t true, it would be funny in a Twilight Zone sort of way.  Instead, it makes an ironically appropriate post for Labor Day.

A mere 7% of American workers belong to a union, but just over half of that 7% (52%) are public-sector union workers.  Meaning, you and I are the ones paying their higher-than-private-sector salaries and benefits.

Out of those taxpayer-funded higher-than-private-sector salaries are paid the public-sector union worker’s dues.  Meaning, you and I are the ones paying the unions to represent them.

And the tax-payer supported unions are using dues to lobby for higher taxes.

Why?  So there is more money available to raise the already higher-than-private-sector salaries of the unionized public workers since growth of government is the only way unions are able to grow their membership these days (and thereby significantly enrich their organizers, all their bashing of “fat cat corporate executives” aside).

Any wonder politicians think the electorate are essentially stupid?

The AP Goes P.C. With Ground-Zero Mosque

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Now that His Transparency has come out in favor of allowing an enormous mosque, ironically to be called “Cordoba House”, to be built a mere two blocks from Ground Zero, the ever-fawning AP is advising its writers that the jig is up and they must be more p.c. in their descriptions of it:

1. We should continue to avoid the phrase “ground zero mosque” or “mosque at ground zero” on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away.

WE WILL CHANGE OUR SLUG ON THIS STORY LATER TODAY from “BC-Ground Zero Mosque” to “BC-NYC Mosque.”

In short headlines, some ways to refer to the project include:

_ mosque 2 blocks from WTC site
_ Muslim (or Islamic) center near WTC site
_ mosque near ground zero
_ mosque near WTC site

It goes on to explain that Muslims have always worshipped in the area and points out that the military chapel “close to the area where hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the [Pentagon], killing 184 people accommodates Muslim worshippers.”

In many respects, it may be said the military had no choice, however, we, the people DO.  And no Muslim with a shred of decency would deny that building a monument to Mecca and naming it after the mosque built to proclaim Islamic victory over Spain is at all a kind or neighborly thing to do.  Not to mention the allegations of funding from unsavory sources that have yet to be put to bed.

In poll after poll, whether commissioned by the left or by the right, a majority of Americans and a majority of New Yorkers don’t want the mosque built so close to Ground Zero.  But like everything else under this administration, the “wisdom” (read:  etiquette) will be trumped by the progressive liberal need to destroy the hands that feed them.

Aided and abetted by the lame-stream media.

What Really Counts

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The Wall Street Journal posted an article about His Transparency’s cross-country “cash dash” to raise campaign money for Democrats this coming week before hitting Martha’s Vineyard for yet another vacation, raising the question of whether it will help or hurt those candidates in November.  The gist of the article is that elections all come down to money and this trip is all about prying it out of the wallets of the rich and famous:

Mr. Obama will travel to Milwaukee Monday to raise money for Mayor Tom Barrett’s Wisconsin gubernatorial bid. That night, he will attend a dinner for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the Los Angeles home of West Wing television producer John Wells, co-hosted by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Barbra Streisand, among others. The entrance fee for the cocktail reception: $2,500 a person.  Add a presidential photo and the title of co-host and the figure jumps to $30,400 a couple.

There is a thinly-veiled attempt by the administration to make it appear to be a business trip (“Sandwiched in between will be a speech on his exports push and a visit to an energy-storage company….”) but the article states what is obvious:  “politics is pre-eminent.”

And so a fool and their money are soon parted.  President Walking Eagle and the Democrats may think big campaign coffers are a means to their nefarious ends of redistributing the weath to those who have not honestly earned it (with a hefty skim off the top for themselves, of course), but on November 2nd all the money in the world isn’t going to change the fact that voters – ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying Americans like you and me – are going to walk into voting booths around the country and cast ballots in favor not of a political party, but in favor of the Founders and the Constitution.  Meaning, all the mean-spirited attack ads on television, all the flyer drops and emails from progressive-pushing outfits like moveon.org will only further inflame the average American’s distaste for the socialism and politicizing and political correctness already crammed down their throats by this administration and Congress and they are going to quietly vote in favor of conservative thinkers and those who haven’t spent half their lives breathing the stale air in Washington. 

Because at the end of the day on November 2nd, it’s not about money.  It is about votes.  Those of us who are hanging on by a thread due to economic and other policies too-long dictated by political cronyism and egos that cause us to pay more and more for ever-larger numbers of government bureaucrats and “entitlements” for self-perceived “victims”, including criminals, may not have money to donate to those candidates who would begin to help us restore our beloved Republic but we can, and I predict that we will, give them our blessing in the form of our votes. 

And that is why His Transparency’s so-called “Midas touch” will fail.  Tea Parties are just the tip of the iceberg that is the silent American majority.  A silent majority who sees as bullying the derision heaped upon those who voice their beliefs in America’s founding ideas and sees as unethical the utter lack of responsibility encouraged by the progressive liberal ideology.  A silent majority who sees the hypocrisy in the federal government suing Arizon over legislating reinforcement of federal law while ignoring the fact that California has the very same law on its own books.  A silent majority who knows you don’t sign a contract (or vote for a bill) unless you know exactly what’s in it.  A silent majority who knows that “illegal” means “criminal” and who believes that, if for no other reason, simple consideration of the unending pain still felt by others would trump even thinking about building a monument of sorts to Islam anywhere near the site where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell at the hands of Islamic jihadists on 9/11. 

America’s silent majority has at long last come to realize that government “of the people” means every individual must be informed and involved and that their most effective weapon is their vote. 

Not the amount of money in some campaign coffer earmarked for a smear ad against one’s political opponent.

Obama Appointee Training Offshore Workers

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This sounds like a wicked bad joke, but unfortunately it’s true.  Your tax dollars are hard at work helping to create jobs.  Overseas.  InformationWeek is reporting that $22 million is being spent by a hand-picked Obama appointee  to train workers in South Asia.

Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labor costs.

Under director Rajiv Shah, the United States Agency for International Development will partner with private outsourcers in Sri Lanka to teach workers there advanced IT skills like Enterprise Java (Java EE) programming, as well as skills in business process outsourcing and call center support. USAID will also help the trainees brush up on their English language proficiency.

“To help fill workforce gaps in BPO and IT, USAID is teaming up with leading BPO and IT/English language training companies to establish professional IT and English skills development training centers,” the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, said in a statement posted Friday on its Web site.

As recently as Monday, Obama, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Atlanta, boasted about his efforts to reduce offshoring. The President said he’s implemented “a plan that’s focused on making our middle class more secure and our country more competitive in the long run — so that the jobs and industries of the future aren’t all going to China and India, but are being created right here in the United States of America.”

Let The Beatings Begin

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The August primaries kick off today with voters in Kansas, Missouri, and bleeding-blue Michigan heading out to the polls to create the election slates for November.  Tomorrow will be a good indicator of just how bloody the next few months will be as turnout numbers are released.

I hope the Democrats have their Depends and binkies within reach.

Remember, if you don’t vote, don’t bitch.

Another Sign Unions Are Now Irrelevant

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“For a lot of our members, it’s really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else,” is the quote of the week here, found in a Wall Street Journal article detailing how unions are hiring non-union people to walk their picket lines for them.

Sure, hire someone else at minimum wage while you protest the use of lower-paid non-union labor at a construction site.  Only a moron would attempt to spin it into anyting more than it is by claiming altruistic motives but spin they do.

Frankly, I call it stupid.  And this kind of lazy greed on the part of union members is why unions, like Democrats, are now past their expiration date and no longer deserve respect.

You Are Now Paying For Someone Else’s Abortion

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Though many of us saw this coming, there was no preparing for the anger and sheer disgust that rises at the blatant hypocrisy of this administration with its latest actions.  President Walking Eagle continues to live up to his name through the auspices of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is reportedly giving Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state.

That means that YOUR tax dollars will now go directly to help fulfill someone else’s choice to abort their unborn child.

That means that for all his disdain towards those who tried so hard to keep the Hyde amendment intact in that farce progressive liberals call health care “reform”, the Executive Order penned to appease some in Congress to vote for turning over the health care industry to bureaucrats in the federal government isn’t worth the paper on which it was printed.

President Obama pledged that under his health care plan “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”

The conservative Family Research Council says the $160 million in taxpayer funds for Pennsylvania is the first known instance of direct federal funding of abortions through the new high-risk insurance pools.
 
The abortion funding for pool participants validates the arguments pro-life groups made throughout the health care debate – that taxpayer dollars will fund abortions, said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the Family Research Council’s political action arm.
 
“For our efforts to remove the bill’s abortion funding, we were called ‘deceivers’ by President Obama and ‘liars’ by his allies. Now we know who the true deceivers and liars really are,’ McClusky said.
 
“This action by the Obama Administration also exposes the worthlessness of President Obama’s Executive Order that supposedly would prevent federal funding of abortion, but which both sides, including Planned Parenthood, agreed was unenforceable.

McClusky noted that the new health care law also includes $12.5 billion for community health centers, and $6 billion for co-ops, both of which can fund abortions.  And some people will use tax credits to help them pay for plans that cover abortion.

And some still wonder why there is such a “backlash” against the majority in Congress and those in this administration.  Their lying can’t be demonstrated any more clearly than with this.