Category Archives: 2012 Election

2012 Election, Economy, Politics, Race Relations

The Poor Tax – Energy, Food, Transportation

The tax hammer has long been the tool of the politician to micro-manage behavior. In order to insulate them of any real accountability, the bean counters in Washington institutionalized the big deception when they took energy and food out of the mix in measuring the cost of living in America. After all, who needs to eat or get anywhere? And while the Obama administration is fine with promoting class warfare, wealth envy, race divisiveness, and Obama’s latest distraction, gender warfare, the people he supposedly champions the most are the ones getting screwed by his no-energy ‘energy policy.’

As a percentage of income, Obama’s economy hits the poor, and poor working people the hardest. The increase ‘taxes’ that the poor must pay to put food on the table, gas in the car, and clothes on their back is way more damaging and sinister than the $40 street money Congress ‘gave’ them by cutting funds from Social Security and senior citizens. It doesn’t make up for their rising heating and electric bills. It does nothing to those homeowners poised to lose their home due to falling home values. No, Obama is just fine with letting the poor squirm before, during, and after his fundamental changing of America.

Food cost has gone up, not only here but everywhere in the world. And the cause has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with the environmental movement and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

Beginning with monetary policy. This is where the ‘hidden tax’ comes in, and it is always first. As the Federal Reserve increases money supply, QE 1 & 2, all that, the value of the dollar decreases. Increasing of our national debt to the point of losing a AAA credit rating (for the first time in history) also puts negative pressure on the value of the dollar. So what cost you a dollar before Quantitative Easing, now cost you $1.20. Suddenly, $100/barrel turns in to $120/barrel because the dollar is worth less. Then comes the push to use foodstuffs in our gas tank, bio-fuels, and killing new drilling and exploration and the Keystone Pipeline. All of these events cause the price of gasoline to rise. None of it puts negative pressure on the price of oil.

Food price spikes due to droughts in grain-producing nations are one thing. And usually temporary. But the permanent variable in food prices is the price of oil. Oil price increases cause a general escalation in the costs of fertilizers, food for the farmer’s livestock, food transportation, fuel for tractors and industrial agriculture.

The root causes are political, not scientific. The deflation of the dollar, the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries, and an equally jaundiced outlook for increasing our domestic oil supply and capacity. These are all pieces in the food cost puzzle.

Everything that is wrong with the economy now is a result of the tried and failed policies of this administration. Whatever miniscule increase in economic activity does happen, happens in spite of Obama’s policies, dictates, and Czars. Not because of them.

We could have a much brighter economic outlook if the Senate would stop sitting on the dozens of bills submitted by the Republican House designed to do just that. Not the least of which is the FairTax. But remember, it is the President that wants to run on a ‘do-nothing’ congress.

That’s what elections are for. Getting the White House doesn’t get you much without also getting control of the Senate and keeping a majority in the House.

Maybe voting for the same guy again and expecting a different result is not a good strategy?

2012 Election, Organized Labor, Politics

Big Labor To Endorse Obama

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As the A.F.L.-C.I.O. prepares to endorse President Obama on Tuesday, labor leaders say they will mount their biggest campaign effort, with far more union members than ever before — at least 400,000, they say — knocking on voters’ doors to counter the well-endowed “super PACs” backing Republicans. Trying to make Barack Obama America’s newest founding father.

Link: Labor Leaders Plan to Apply New Clout in Effort for Obama

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Politics

Playing Politics On The Backs Of Senior Citizens

Time was when the United States was the envy of the world. A country that took care of its own. A super-power that stood for freedom and liberty.

The 2012 elections are coming. President Obama is staking his campaign on divide and conquer the only way he knows, community organizer style. His options are limited, and everyone knows it. He certainly can’t run on his job performance and continuing to blame Bush. Instead, he has to energize his base, his radical anti-military base (which he is and always has been part of) by gutting the military and weakening our national security.  Continue reading Playing Politics On The Backs Of Senior Citizens →

2012 Election, Politics, Venezuela

Capriles To Run Against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez

State governor Henrique Capriles won Venezuela’s first-ever opposition presidential primary Sunday by a wide margin with 62% of the vote. 30 percentage points ahead of Zulia state Gov. Pablo Perez. Venezuela’s election is October 7, 2012.

“He’s going to be the candidate who can get us out of this giant hole we’re stuck in,” said Carmen Gloria Padilla, a 66-year-old telephone company employee who voted for him.

Some of Capriles’ supporters said they think he has a good chance of winning over Venezuelans who otherwise might lean pro-Chavez because he campaigned on issues instead of personal attacks, promising solutions to problems including a 26% inflation rate and one of the highest murder rates in Latin America.

Chavez remains a hero to many of his supporters and ‘maintains a visceral connection’ to a significant segment of the poor in Venezuela. To woo the suffering poor, Chavez is campaigning on increasing government spending on new social programs that offer cash benefits for the poor, public housing, and transportation infrastructure.

Where have I heard this before? The vacuous socialist political Left, otherwise referred to as the Obama administration.

Link: Venezuela’s opposition chooses youthful governor to challenge Chavez in presidential election

2012 Election, Economy, Media, Politics

8.3 Percent, The Fraud Continues

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I suppose we should be mourning the sudden death of 1.2 million Americans. Because last week, the Obama administration’s Bureau of Labor Statistics refused to count them as still unemployed. Which they are, still unemployed. From Obama’s perspective, they may as well be dead.

No doubt, the unemployment percent that the administration puts out leading up to the 2012 election will continue to decrease even though there is no real increase in employment. They will continue to use this shrinking workforce math to make the unemployment percentage go down.

You won’t find the truth in your local newspaper. They have way too much invested in The One now to tell you what the administration is doing with the numbers.

In a December post, when the unemployment rate went from 9 to 8.6, the analysis then is identical to January’s.

From CNBC:

“When the unemployment rate declines, we want to see both employment and participation increase as discouraged workers return to the labor force. Today, we got the former, but not the latter, making the 0.4 percent drop look a bit suspect,” Neil Dutta, US economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told clients. “We would not be surprised to see the unemployment rate give back some of its decline in the coming month(s).”

Well I’m surprised! NOT! As it turned out, there was no give back. They did not factor in the Christmas season layoffs in their report. That might come on Friday when they normally make ‘adjustments’ and most likely won’t get any attention in the media. Let’s wait and see.

This fraud perpetrated by the administration was detailed HERE a couple of months ago.
[scribd id=80451929 key=key-2owa03g6sp1je4asso3w mode=list]

2012 Election, Media, Politics

Not On Virginia Ballot

Only two candidates for Virginia’s Republican primary will be on the March 6 ballot. They are the ones who have done it before, Gov. Romney and Rep. Paul.

Wazzupwidat? If not getting on the Virginia ballot is any measure of the candidates’ leadership, they’re in trouble.

Gingrich is one of five candidates that failed to make the Virginia ballot, but you wouldn’t know that from the AP title:  Gingrich fails to qualify for Va. primary ballot

2012 Election, Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Big Labor Wins Big In Ohio

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The people of Ohio just voted to give labor unions the pin number to their checking account. That is what will happen when the public employee labor unions (teachers, police, fire, state, and municipal) look to the taxpayers for money to bail them out of the union’s unfunded benefits. And when that fails, they will petition Washington to bail them out. That’s when they’ll have your pin number.

With labor-lubricated forces spending more than $30 million to only $9 million spent by the Kasich team, 63% of Ohio voters rejected the same reforms that they enacted earlier this year: banning strikes by all 350,000 state government workers, outlawing collective bargaining among state employees, forcing more meritocratic calculations on pay for state employees, reducing workers’ sick leave and limiting time-off to five days a week, and requiring all public employees to pay 15% of their health care premiums and 10% of their salaries toward pensions.

UPDATE 4:30pm: You might ask, how Ohio voters could have approved this, given that the Obamacare mandate was shot down by a similar margin? All you need to do is to look at the ballot the voters were shown.

Issue 2
Referendum
REFERENDUM ON NEW LAW RELATIVE TO GOVERNMENT UNION CONTRACTS AND OTHER GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS AND POLICIES

A majority yes vote is necessary for Amended Substitute Senate Bill No. 5 to be approved. Amended Substitute Senate Bill No. 5 is a new law relative to government union contracts and other government employment contracts and policies.

A “YES” vote means you approve the law.
A “NO” vote means you reject the law.

YES (To approve the law)
NO (To reject the law)

SHALL THE LAW BE APPROVED?

Who can make any sense of what a vote one way or the other would do? Ohio is a big labor union state. Do you think this ballot was written so vaguely, probably by BIG LABOR, to be deliberately deceptive?

One thing is for sure. The legislature is not done with this issue.

Link: Ballot Language

2012 Election, Pensacola, Politics

Sheriff’s FUNdraiser Was A Blast

Had a blast, literally, at the Blackwater Tactical Range today. Sheriff David Morgan’s “Out-Shoot The Sheriff” fundraiser proved to be all I thought it would be. FUN!

The challenge was to hit 10 steel plates in the least amount of time. I didn’t out-shoot him. In fact, nobody did. So the guy who came closest won the t-shirt.

This is Sheriff (top shot) Morgan hitting 8 out of 10 in 19 seconds.

He said there was going to be a machine gun demonstration, and there was. I didn’t pass up the chance to fire an M60 machine gun, and a Thompson sub-machine gun. Shot a lot of dirt, made a lot of noise. Would have made ‘Tim the toolman’ proud.

And as an added bonus, there was a little explosion demonstration. If you’ve seen the TV show Top Shot, you’ve seen exploding targets. An instructor hit a can containing some explosive material with one shot. Boom!

It was a unique fundraiser for an elected office. One I couldn’t pass up. If you didn’t have a weapon, eye and ear protection of your own, they were provided. There was just as many women shooters there as there were men. A few women shot the machine guns too!

Thanks to our veterans, active duty military, and our Constitution, I could fire one of those without my life having to depend on it like our brave men and women in the military have to do every day of the week in war zones far away from home.

And thanks to Sheriff David Morgan for hosting the event. A great time was had by all.

 

2012 Election, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Beast Writer To Cain – Can’t Wear That

What is it with the Left’s fascination with what conservatives wear? Now The Daily Beast has a columnist of a certain persuasion that has a problem with what Herman Cain is wearing.

First there was Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and who paid for it. Now, Beast writer Robin Givhan, seems to have a new attack on Herman Cain because of what he likes to wear. At least for now, she is not concerned with how much his clothes cost.   For a style and culture writer, she seem to be ignorant of the cultural south, where Mr. Cain grew up.

But in her case, Givhan seems to be shuffling racial cards where Mr. Cain is concerned. What’s next from the Left? Anything to shift the focus off of Obama’s successful policies that are killing free-market capitalism, our economy, and your job.

Link: Herman Cain’s Power Suit

2012 Election, Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

The Time For Bold Tax Reform Has Come

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In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave the government the authority to tax people’s income (up to 100% of it), was sold to the public as only taxing the rich. Sound familiar?

By 1913, 36 States had ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. In October, Congress passed a new income tax law with rates beginning at 1 percent and rising to 7 percent for taxpayers with income in excess of $500,000. Less than 1 percent of the population paid income tax at the time.

Americans Paying Zero Federal Income Tax Grows

There is a growing number of Americans who pay zero federal income tax after taking advantage of deductions and credits.  This, a result of morphing the income tax system into spending programs during the Clinton administration. The number of Americans in this group has increased by 35%. Up from 43.4 million people in the 2006 tax year to 58.6 million in the 2009 tax year.   No doubt due to record unemployment and more wealth-spreading going on.

Prior to The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, tax relief was generally given in the form of lower tax rates or increased deductions or exemptions. But the 1997 Act  launched the modern proliferation of individual tax credits and refundable credits that are in essence spending programs operating through the tax system.

Large Number of Non-Payers Make Tax Reform Difficult

Federal tax reform requires that the base of the federal income tax be widened, so that overall tax rates can be reduced. However, because of the large number of Americans currently paying zero federal income tax, any attempt to broaden the tax base will be a difficult sell for lawmakers. The millions of Americans who have no federal income tax liability will either be indifferent about tax reform or will positively oppose it, as it would require bringing them into the federal tax base.

When more people don’t pay taxes than pay taxes under the current system, why would anyone think that these non-payers would vote for anyone who would make them pay a ‘fair’ share? Similar problems are bankrupting European countries over benefits. Reforms there means taking benefits away.

These findings raise serious questions about the future of the U.S. income tax system, and the possibility of base-broadening tax reform when the majority of the federal tax burden is borne by a shrinking pool of taxpayers.

I got your base-broadening tax reform right here. It’s called the FairTax and it is what ‘Phase 2’ of Herman Cain’s economic plan is all about. It broadens the tax base from 140 million people to every living human being within the borders of the United States. Under the FairTax, the tax base includes our population of 320 million, plus foreign tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens. You can’t get a broader tax base nor a better stimulus for job creation, economic growth, personal economic security and national economic security.