Monthly Archives: March 2014

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Michelle Obama Tells Chinese Students . . .

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama told an audience of college students in the Chinese capital on Saturday that open access to information – especially online – is a universal right.

And you can bet the ranch that the kids in that room are the only people in China that heard that message. A message that will not go outside that room.

But, it does make for a nice vacation for Michelle, her daughters Malia and Sasha, and her mother Marian Robinson.

Link: Michelle Obama tells Chinese students internet freedom’s a universal right

Politics, Race Relations

Is Obama Immune From Impeachment?

It remains to be seen whether articles of impeachment will ever be brought against President Obama. But you see what happens to you, or what you are called, if you opine on the failures of Obama’s policies, and his deceiving the American people to the point of being awarded the “lie of the year,” or his making up laws around the legislative branch, and not enforcing laws enacted by the legislative branch, and for using regulatory agencies of the executive branch to harass and punish political opponents. Basically, for usurping powers not granted to him by the Constitution.

You are labeled a racist by the race hustlers, elected Democrats, and the compliant media. So it is no wonder that President Obama acts as a dictator with the impunity of someone who has been inoculated from impeachment. With immunity essentially granted him by virtue of the color of his skin. Jonathan Turley has another way to describe this immunity. He calls it a “cult of personality.”

What do you think the chances for impeachment would be, if not already done by now, if the President of such a lawless administration were White, from any political party?

Politics, Russia

Putin Playing Marbles With Obama

First, Russian troops enter the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. Then they take the ports, airports, and Ukrainian military bases. While President Obama watches from behind, critics are characterizing the two by saying Putin is playing chess and Obama is playing marbles.

On Putin’s taking of Crimea, President Obama says that’s not what is done in the 21st century (Mr. President. He just did it.), and he is going to impose sanctions on Russia.  Well, not exactly on Russia. But on 7 Russians and 4 Ukrainians known to have played a role in the takeover and the massacre in Kiev. By ostensibly seizing their assets and not allowing them to travel to the United States.

Amused by Obama’s naiveté, President Putin reciprocates and bans Sen. McCain and Rep Boehner from traveling to Russia. And just today, the man who said ‘if you bring a knife to a fight, I’ll bring a gun’ upped the ante and expanded his banned list to 31 people.  President Obama called that placing “additional costs” on Russia. Meanwhile, Putin is placing Russian troops along Ukraine’s border.

Any way you slice this, Crimea is lost to Russia. Actually, that is a loss for Russia but not Putin. The Russian people don’t want and have no use for Crimea. They are the poorest of the poor people in Ukraine, and the Russian people don’t want them just because of that. Putin wants the territory, and Putin gets what he wants. No one is sending in troops to push them out like what Bush did in Kuwait to Saddam Hussein. That just ins’t going to happen.

Besides, two years into his second term is no time to develop a foreign policy on Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Link: Obama expands sanctions on Russians over Crimea annexation

2008 Election, 2012 Election, 2014 Election, Economy, Florida, Immigration, Media, Obamacare, Politics

Jolly (R) Wins FL13, Who Knew?

One Associated Press piece in the local paper titled Fla. House race could be warning for Democrats was all there was in the news media about the republican win in a district that voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. In a contest that was described as a bellwether for the midterm elections in November, where Obamacare was the focus on both sides.

NBC’s Chuck Todd said . . .

Tomorrow’s race in Florida will tell us a lot about the power of the Republican Party’s health-care attacks on Democrats could have in 2014.

Jolly campaigned on a conservative platform; cutting government spending, balanced budgets and repealing Obamacare. Sink tried a new version of offense with Obamacare; mend it, don’t end it. She followed the President’s agenda with a pro-illegal alien agenda, and more government spending. ‘Cutting spending’ and ‘balanced budget’ as an objective never crossed her lips.

Republican David Jolly beat Democrat Alex Sink with 48.5 percent of the vote to Sink’s 46.7 percent. Before the returns were in, Democrats began downplaying the importance of this contest. When the results were final, DNC Chair Debbie Was-a-man Shultz tried explaining away their loss, saying “the GOP fell short of its traditional margin” in a Republican-leaning district (but trending Democrat) packed with older voters.

She’s right about that. And the mainstream media carried her message. Missing in that fact is a little perspective. What she and the news media won’t say is that in all seven of Rep. Young’s elections, he ran unopposed. In this election, Jolly had two challengers. Sink a Democrat, and Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby.

Speaking of traditional margins. Third parties traditionally have given Democrats the win by siphoning off Republican party votes. Ralph Nader and Ross Perot come to mind. But this time, the nearly 5% that Overby got wasn’t enough to hand Sink a win. Also not mentioned was the fact that Jolly’s candidacy was not taken seriously by the establishment Republicans, allowing Jolly to be outspend by Democrats 3 to 1.

On the day before the election, Todd also said this . . .

Conversely, a Jolly win on Tuesday would signal that it’s open hunting season on Democrats — even in places where Obama has been a strength for Democrats in past elections.

It’s also open season on the establishment Republicans if they don’t stand on the principles that got them elected, and if they refuse to understand that running on conservative principles, compared with the status quo of the last 6 years, is how you win elections.

Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics

Obamacare, What Could Go Wrong?

Time for a recap on the success, or lack thereof, of the greatest piece of legislation (if you ask a Democrat) since the New Deal, Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Section 8 Housing combined. Universal health care, said President Obama, is what Americans have wanted. And they wanted it so that the 15 percent of Americans that didn’t have health insurance could then have it. After all, we are a generous and compassionate America. Not only that, but average family policyholders would see a $2,500 decrease in their premiums because everyone would now be insured.

Now, three years since the bill’s enactment, and with less than two weeks to go before the mandatory sign-up period ends, the circus of all legislation, Obamacare, is tumbling down and taking Americans, the economy, with it.

Remember when Big Labor and businesses complained of the cost and burden the ACA would put on them, and were granted delays of implementation through 2014? They couldn’t afford it. That left the individual mandate to fund the program on its own, since big businesses got the delay they wanted. Then Republicans asked for the individual mandate to also be delayed, because people, including Congressional employees who make six figure salaries, couldn’t afford it. They filibustered for the delay and got no where. Now, the administration is doing what Republicans wanted to do last year because, ta daaa, it is creating “hardship” on people. People can not afford to buy it. Now, since the individual mandate has been pushed back two years, until October 2016, the Affordable Care Act has no one mandated to participate. Which means that the Affordable Care Act now has no mandated funding. And what funding it does have, is no where near what it takes (by demographic) to survive, let alone reduce anyone’s premium. What a brilliant plan?

Delaying Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Due to ‘Hardship’ — Caused by Obamacare

It’s getting difficult to take any part of Obamacare seriously.

The Obama administration has altered or delayed it so many times—who can be sure what the law is at this point?

The individual mandate stating that every American has to purchase government-approved health coverage or pay a fine is supposed to kick in on March 31. That’s the deadline to sign up for coverage, supposedly to avoid this year’s penalty.

But Obamacare is never “settled law,” as the president and others have called it, because Health and Human Services (HHS) keeps writing more regulations.

Most recently, the administration extended the “hardship exemption” from the individual mandate for those who had their previous policies canceled because of Obamacare until October 2016.

To qualify, your plan must have been canceled because it wasn’t compliant with Obamacare, and you just have to tell the government you “believe” that other insurance policies are unaffordable.

The exemption means people who meet these criteria are free from the individual mandate. But if they want to buy coverage, they are given the special option to buy a “catastrophic” health insurance plan, which is not eligible for subsidies and typically would be available only to those under age 30.

When the exemption was first announced in December, Heritage experts Alyene Senger and Robert Moffit said this “is not going to simplify anything. Rest assured it is going to create even greater confusion for health insurers trying to sell these products. Also, don’t expect the unhappy consumers who’ve just lost their previous coverage to understand clearly which plan they can pick and be legally qualified to pick it.”

Due to the utter confusion and the underperforming signups on HealthCare.gov, reporters asked HHS this week whether the agency would simply extend the deadline for people to buy coverage. An HHS official responded that, “In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.”

This administration hasn’t let a detail like legal authority stop it from overstepping its bounds multiple times. And as Heritage’s Senger and Moffit put it, “issuing more government rules to correct the consequences of their unworkable government rules is the only thing they seem to know how to do.”

Repealing the ACA would be way better than what we now have. Replacing it with the House version would be better, and, would deliver in the private sector all that the ACA was promised to do in the public sector but can’t.

H/T Amy Payne 

2008 Election, 2012 Election, Economy, Immigration, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Obama’s War On Women, Poor, Hispanics, And Young

For better or worse, a truism of American politics is that voters vote their pocketbooks. Yet according to a new report on median household incomes by Sentier Research, in 2012 millions of American voters apparently cast ballots contrary to their economic self-interest. A testament to the power of a media devoted to their president.

Now for some economic facts

Obama’s economic policies are hurting the people who elected him more than any other demographic.

President Obama was re-elected with 51% of the vote. Five demographic groups were crucial to his victory: young voters, single women, those with only a high-school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics. He cleaned up with 60% of the youth vote, 67% of single women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 64% of those without a high-school diploma, according to exit polls.

Family income decrease from President Obama’s 5 most dedicated demographics since his “recovery” began.

  • -7% single women households, with or without children
  • -9.6% under age 25
  • -10.9% Black heads of households
  • -4.5% Hispanic heads-of-households
  • -8% incomes of workers with a high-school diploma or less fell by about 8% (-6.9% for those with less than a high-school diploma and -9.3% for those with only a high-school diploma).

To put that into dollar terms, in the four years between the time the Obama recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household income fell by just over $4,000, Hispanic households lost $2,000 and female-headed households lost $2,300.

The middle class is getting poorer.  While the minimum wage remained steady, the median family income has fallen every year since Obama’s “recovery” began.

Makes one wonder what it would take for these people to realize that what they are living is not what Obama is saying, but what he is doing? He’s not going to stop campaigning. He can’t. Because if he does, the gullible voters that elected this community organizer president twice might begin to realize that President Obama is more interested in gaining political power than making the economy, and their lives, any better.

Which reminds me of what Rand Paul said in this post . . .

Liberals don’t seem to get the point that if you’re trying something and the objective evidence shows that it’s not working, why not try something different?

Paul indirectly referred to the famous definition of insanity as trying something again and again while expecting a different result.

Link: Stephen Moore: Obama’s Economy Hits His Voters Hardest – WSJ.com.

Economy, Politics, Race Relations

A Liberal Diagnosis

An excerpt from an interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over the weekend. World Net Daily’s Gina Loudon asked “What is wrong with the people who don’t understand why conservatism works, and why liberty is so important?”

Sen. Rand Paul, Gina Loudon at CPAC 2014

The “people” being referred to here is the “fair shot” crowd. The pols who prey on wealth envy and class warfare, who presume that because there is a bottom rung on the socio-economic ladder, that there is something unfair about that. 

Sen. Paul, R-Ky., had the answer to her question.

I tell people it’s the ‘big heart, small brain syndrome.’ Liberals have big hearts, but they’re not using all their brain capacity. I don’t know,” he said. “Liberals don’t seem to get the point that if you’re trying something and the objective evidence shows that it’s not working, why not try something different?”

Paul indirectly referred to the famous definition of insanity as trying something again and again while expecting a different result.

Link: RAND PAUL DIAGNOSES LIBERAL DISORDER

2014 Election, Economy, Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics

Problem Is Median Income, Not Minimum Wage

It ought to be clear by now that nothing President Obama has done to “fix” our economy has worked. And the reason is he has it all wrong. You can’t build the private sector economy when you bleed the strength from it via taxes, over-regulation, and debt. As the government grows, the economy shrinks. And boy has the government grown.

Aside from his propensity to tax and spend, where spending is to favor contributors, labor unions, and favored special interests like environmental wackos and green energy flops, none of which builds the economy, President Obama’s economic engineering is not working because he can’t identify the problem.

The problem is not the minimum wage. That is a political strategy for hooking low information voters and the poor to vote Democratic. And to give Big Labor a raise. Raising the minimum wage will cause people to lose jobs. Just like Obamacare is causing people to lose jobs.  The middle class is getting poorer.  While the minimum wage remained steady, the median family income has fallen every year since Obama’s “recovery” began.

According to the Census report, the high point for median household income in the United States was back in 1999 ($56,080). It almost got back to that level in 2007 ($55,627), but ever since then there has been a steady decline. The following figures come directly from the report, and as you can see, median household income has fallen every single year for the past five years…

2007: $55,627
2008: $53,644
2009: $53,285
2010: $51,892
2011: $51,100
2012: $51,017

Did you know that there are six counties in America where the median income is over twice the national median?  Four of those counties are suburban Washington.

You know where President Obama’s focus is. And it is not on how to raise median family income. That’s where the middle class is. Is this because he doesn’t know how? Or is it because he doesn’t care that his social justice agenda is killing jobs and ruining the economy, especially the middle class? Which one works for you?

2016 Election, Politics

DNC Members Support Hillary Because . . .

Fascinating video at the Democratic Executive Committee Conference in Washington last weekend. The Media Research Center had reporter Dan Joseph there, who asked attendees if they were ready for Hillary Clinton for president. And, what of her accomplishments qualify her for the position. The answers are revealing, if not downright hilarious. No pun intended.

We should know by now that stuff like track record and achievement are no longer even ancillary to the matter of choosing a president. They’re now completely irrelevant. The election of Obama established that, and his re-election cemented it.

H/T Dan Calabrese

Immigration, Obamacare, Politics

Illegals Can Get Coverage Under ACA

illegal_aliens

Joe Wilson was right when he shouted “you lie” to Obama when he said that illegals wouldn’t be covered under obama-stop-deporting-dreamers-apObamacare. Of course everyone knew that. After all, it’s why the Heller Amendment was defeated.

In a virtual town hall meeting hosted by Spanish-language media outlets on Thursday, President Obama wanted Latinos to know that “I’ve got your back.”  And . . .

The main point that I have for everybody watching right now is, you don’t punish me by not signing up for health care. You’re punishing yourself or your family if in fact there’s affordable health care to be had.

Links: