Tag: Democrats

Obama and the Vichy Republicans

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

McCainObamaNews came out yesterday, that President Barack Hussein Obama’s (mm mmm mmmm) popularity had dropped to 41% in the polls. Now, just when Americans are finally waking up to the Manchurian President, he is about to be bailed out…by the “Maverick” and his merry band of Vichy Republicans.

“We have been looking literally for years for someone we can cut deals with, and finally someone has stepped up,” a White House official said. West Wing aides say they now talk with McCain roughly every other day.

McCain, to hear fellow Republicans tell it, has finally found The Two he has needed to make such conversations worth the bother: Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who can actually get things done in the Senate, and Denis McDonough, a White House chief of staff who actually cares what senators say and think and do.

While Obama and party leaders clash endlessly and hopelessly, these three men are showing it is possible to put aside political and personal grievances to get consequential stuff done, even in Washington’s currently twisted state.

They would never say it this way, but more often than not, they do it by going around those party leaders — their bosses — who seem stuck in fights they will never be able to end.

This new alliance has resulted in an immigration bill and a deal to avoid the nuclear option for confirming nominees, and is in preliminary conversations to avert a government shutdown over the budget. It has created trust — tenuous but real — among these three officials (and others) who can deliver results.

The House no doubt will kill most or all of their compromises. But three men from the three power centers talking, much less agreeing, is something this city hasn’t seen in the Obama years.

The return of McCain the Maverick rankles many Republicans, but he can reliably count on seven to 10 GOP senators to back him, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

Isn’t it nice to know that we can always count on good ol’ Maverick and his pet dog, Grahamnesty to stab us in the back, y’all?

But wait, they’re not the only members of the Vichy Republican Brigade…There is their Fearless Leader, Mr. Speaker. But, hey, at least the Libs over at slate.com speak of Cryin’ John in glowing terms…

In an interview on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Boehner said his job was not to dictate to Republican members what legislation they should support but merely to “facilitate” a process where they found their own outcome. He didn’t dare offer an opinion about comprehensive immigration reform because it would interfere. “It’s not about me,” the speaker told Bob Schieffer. “It’s not about what I want. What I’ve committed to, when I became speaker, was to a more open and fair process. And as difficult as this issue is, me taking a hard position for or against some of these issues will make it harder for us to get a bill … If I come out and say, ‘I’m for this’ and ‘I’m for that,’ all I’m doing is making my job harder.”

…Boehner’s constraints are self-imposed. He could make a deal with Democrats to pass immigration reform, and he has done that before on the fiscal cliff deal, the Violence Against Women Act, and Hurricane Sandy relief funding. But those issues were not as volatile in Republican ranks as immigration and did not risk a conservative crack-up. If he cut a deal, would he lose his speakership? There would have to be a viable alternative candidate who wanted to herd the cats. But even if he retained the job, that kind of crack-up would make passing bills, which will require cajoling the same conservatives, that much harder.

There has been a lot of speculation on whether Boehner will stick to the so-called Hastert Rule, allowing no bill to come to the floor unless it can pass with a majority of the majority. He has said he will not break this promise. That may be his heart’s true desire, but we can’t really know right now. Boehner understands that the more Democrats think he needs them for passage of a comprehensive bill, the more they’ll demand from him. So even if Boehner were planning on passing immigration reform with a minority of his party, he will maintain his firm stance on the Hastert Rule until the very last minute.

In the end, the question is not whether John Boehner is a leader. He is—he’s just a leader with modest ambitions. In the study of House speakers, the debate splits along lines familiar to presidential observers. Presidents are either “at liberty … to be as big a man as he can,” as Woodrow Wilson wrote when he was a Princeton political science professor. Or presidents are circumscribed by the political conditions they face, as Wilson discovered when he actually had the job. In congressional studies, the split is over whether a speaker is merely an agent carrying out the will of his conference or whether a powerful speaker can make his own weather.

At a time when the current president is going down in flames, instead of roasting marshmallows over the bonfire, Vichy Republicans are “reaching across the aisle” to help save the Prevaricator-in-Chief.

These RINOs are so consumed by their avarice and quest to be just like their Democratic allies, that they have forgotten why they were elected in the first place. If their constituents had wanted to elect Democrats, they would have pulled the lever marked “DEMOCRAT”.

It’s time for Maverick, Grahamnesty, Cryin’ John, and the rest of the GOP Elite girly-men to put their big boy pants on, and do the job they were elected to do: work for the betterment of this country, not for its destruction at the hands of Barack Hussein Obama. He’s doing fine with that…all by his lonesome.

And, as I’ve said before, if the Vichy Republicans think that the new “Americans” they’re creating will actually vote for them, replacing us worrisome members of the Conservative Base, I have two bridges over the Mississippi River at Memphisa to sell them. 

And, in the spirit of the nickname I’ve given them, and the courage they are showing, I will throw in two French Rifles from World War II….dropped once…never fired.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Greasing the Wheels: Obama Delays ACA Employer Mandate…Until After the Mid-Terms.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamadoctorObamacare, or, as the Liberals refer to it, the Affordable Care Act, is hanging over America like an F5 Tornado about to touch down, leaving a barren landscape, as far as the eye can see.

Mark J. Mazur is the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, in the U.S. Treasury Department. He is responsible for developing, analyzing, and coordinating Treasury’s and the Administration’s agenda, policies, and guidance on tax issues.

Yesterday, Mazur made the following announcement on the Treasury Department’s Blog:

Over the past several months, the Administration has been engaging in a dialogue with businesses – many of which already provide health coverage for their workers – about the new employer and insurer reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively. We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so. We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.

The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.

Here is some additional detail. The ACA includes information reporting (under section 6055) by insurers, self-insuring employers, and other parties that provide health coverage. It also requires information reporting (under section 6056) by certain employers with respect to the health coverage offered to their full-time employees. We expect to publish proposed rules implementing these provisions this summer, after a dialogue with stakeholders – including those responsible employers that already provide their full-time work force with coverage far exceeding the minimum employer shared responsibility requirements – in an effort to minimize the reporting, consistent with effective implementation of the law.

Once these rules have been issued, the Administration will work with employers, insurers, and other reporting entities to strongly encourage them to voluntarily implement this information reporting in 2014, in preparation for the full application of the provisions in 2015. Real-world testing of reporting systems in 2014 will contribute to a smoother transition to full implementation in 2015.

Per a report completed by the Washington Council of Ernst & Young…

  • According to Treasury Notice 2011-36, any employer with 50+ full-time equivalents is considered a large employer. For each calendar month of the preceding calendar year, employers must:

1. Calculate full-time employees (including seasonal): (30+ hrs/wk/month)

2. Full-time equivalents: aggregate number of hours worked by non-full-time employees (including seasonal) ÷ 120

3. Add the number of full-time employees and FTEs calculated in steps (1) and (2) for each of the 12 months in the preceding calendar year.

4. Add the monthly totals and divide by 12. If the average exceeds 50 FTEs, determine whether the seasonal employee exception applies (see below).

5. Seasonal employee exception: If an employer’s workforce exceeds 50 FT employees for 120 days or fewer during a calendar year, and the employees in excess of 50 who were employed during that period of

no more than 120 days (four calendar months, for this purpose only) were seasonal employees, the employer would not be an applicable large employer.

6. If the seasonal exception does not apply, the employer is an applicable large employer for the current calendar year.

  • If a large employer does not offer coverage to their full-time employees and their dependents, employers face a penalty of:

$2,000 x the total number of full-time employees (FTE) if at least one FTE is receiving a premium assistance tax credit

  • If a large employer offers coverage to their full-time employees and their dependents but the coverage is unaffordable to certain employees or does not provide

minimum value, employers face a penalty of:

  • The lesser of $3,000 x the number of FTEs receiving a premium assistance tax credit or $2,000 x the total number of FTEs

We’re talking big money here.

So, what would trump the Federal Government’s well-known penchant for avarice?

Their all-consuming survival instinct.

Obama and the rest of the Democrats know what a train wreck this ironically-named “Affordable Care Act” is going to be.

And, if they dare allow it to unfold on schedule, there will never be another Democrat elected again for decades, even if they bring in millions of replacement voters from Mexico, as they are trying to accomplish with the Senate Gang of 8’s horrendous Amnesty Bill.

Even time.com had to tell the truth about this move:

The so-called individual mandate is unaffected by the rule change. That provision requires the vast majority of Americans to purchase insurance or pay a penalty, with tax credits provided to those who can’t afford coverage.

Republican former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin called the move “deviously brilliant,” by removing a potential electoral impediment from in front of congressional Democrats before the midterms.

“Democrats no longer face the immediate specter of running against the fallout from a heavy regulatory imposition on employers across the land,” Holtz-Eakin wrote. “Explaining away the mandate was going to be a big political lift; having the White House airbrush it from the landscape is way better.”

Uh huh.

So, by delaying this incredible tax burden aimed directly at the heart of our economy…America’s “Large” Employers…the men and women who actually provide us with jobs, the Democrats are hoping that American Capitalists have short memories, and absolutely no foresight.

Just as the Vichy Republicans believe that former illegal aliens will be so grateful for the passage of the Amnesty Bill, that they will actually vote for the GOP, so Democrats believe that America’s Businessmen will ignore the Employer Mandate that’s is hanging directly over their heads, like the blade of a guillotine.

I believe that both political parties are counting their chickeeeens….before they come home…to roost!

 

“Immigration Reform”, Vichy Republicans, and the Conservative Base

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

conservative1What is a Moderate? You see that term being used more and more, lately., exclusively among members of the Republican Party.

I believe that Moderates are wannabe Democrats, who are content to work behind enemy lines. Vichy Republicans, if you will.

They have been working within the Republican Party for the last couple of decades, slowly pushing the party’s ideology further and further to the Left of the Political Spectrum, until now, when the GOP seems to be just a slightly less radical extension of the Party of the Jackass.

The problem is, all of this jackassery is happening within the ranks of the Leadership of the Republican Party, while the base of the GOP remains solidly Conservative.

Think I’m crazy? Consider what is happening in the Senate, as I write this post.

Yesterday, a cloture vote on the Gang of Eight’s “Immigration” Bill passed overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support…even though the vast majority of the American People recognize the bill for the political shenanigans that it is.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a Reagan Conservative, had this to say about this catastrophe of a bill, and the tone-deafness of the politicians on Capitol Hill:

Just like they did for Obamacare, the permanent political class is sugaring this bill with one goody after another to entice certain senators to vote for it. Look no further than page 983 of the bill, which contains a special visa exemption for foreign seafood workers in the 49th state despite huge unemployment numbers in the American workforce. This is obviously a hidden favor designed to buy the votes of Alaska Senators Murkowski and Begich.

And just like Obamacare, this amnesty bill fails on every level of economic sanity and sane reform. It offers no solutions. It will barely slow the flow of illegal immigration, which means we can expect millions and millions of new illegal aliens in coming years. Sort of what happened when we passed amnesty in 1986 without securing our borders first.

According to the CBO, the bill won’t stop illegal immigration, but it will drive down wages for average hardworking Americans. These would be the same blue-collar working class voters of every ethnicity who chose to sit home in 2012 instead of turning out to vote in the swing states we needed to carry in order to stop Barack Obama’s promised “fundamental transformation” of America. I note this just as a helpful reminder to those who believe the hyperventilated new hype claiming that conservatives need to support this bill in order to win future elections. That’s 100% wrong. The crony capitalists in D.C. and their corporatist friends on Wall Street might think this amnesty boondoggle is a great idea, but the average American worker in our middle class who’ll soon see lower wages is the one left out in the cold, along with those hard working immigrants who followed the rules and are working here legally.

Passing this bill with an unsecured border and within a growing welfare state under Barack Obama is economic insanity. Have people already forgotten that our bankrupt government is running up massive unsustainable deficits every year? We can’t afford to pay the piper now, much less the trillions of dollars more in welfare and entitlements for the millions who are here illegally today that will be granted this bill’s benefits. According to the Heritage Foundation, the bill provides only a temporary delay in granting illegal immigrants eligibility for all U.S. welfare and entitlement programs. We’re looking at an explosion of costs in the very near future. There is no way to pay for the added untold millions of new enrollees in these growing government programs. Pass this, Congress, and Obama will have succeeded in fundamentally transforming America.

It’s time our lawmakers remember that we are a sovereign nation of laws. This bill ignores that, and ignores the will of the people. The continued porous border goes against what politicians assured us was in this mountain-high bill, and in typical D.C. style it flies in the face of what many politicians campaigned on. I heard their campaign promises. You heard them, too.

 Indeed.

If Republican Senators like McCain, his pet dog Graham, and their new trained monkey Rubio, are stupid enough to trust their new-found Democratic “friends” and sell this country down the river for the hallucinatory promise of new Mexican Republican Voters,  then I suggest that they wake up and smell what they’re shoveling.

In 2010, as a result of the passage of Obamacare, by the Democrat Majority of both houses, Americans stood up on their hind legs, formed Grass Roots Tea Party Groups, holding rallies featuring Conservatives such as Lt. Col. Allen West, Sarah Palin, and, this before-mentioned Benedict Arnold, Marco Rubio.

The result was a Mid-term Electoral Tsunami, in which Republicans regained control of the House, and made gains in the Senate. 

However, since then, the Republican Establishment has turned their back on the Tea Parties, and the Conservative Base in general, showing their elitism by siding with the Democrats regarding such issues as the Debt Ceiling, Homosexual Marriage and “Immigration Reform”, i.e, AMNESTY.

As Sarah Palin herself wrote the other day,

As the Senate moves to pass amnesty, the only bright spot in this travesty is the rallying revolution we can look forward to. For just as opposition to Obamacare became a rallying cry for the 2010 midterm elections, opposition to this fundamentally transforming amnesty bill will galvanize the grassroots in next year’s elections. And 2014 is just around the corner.

The Republican Establishment had better think about which side their bread is buttered on. If they don’t, I hope they have a trade to fall back on.

The Vichy Republican Establishment has backhanded Conservatives for a long while, now.

It is time for Conservatives to stand up for ourselves and our country once again.

It is time for Payback. And, Payback is a…well…you know.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Power, Perks, and Privilege: Washington Vs. the U.S.A.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

americaneagleflagWhat in the Sam Hill is going on in this country?

We’ve got “leaders”…and I use the world loosely…that seemingly could not care less what the American Citizens who elected them want to happen in our nation.

For example, we have a President of the United States, who won’t allow us inside OUR White House, which we bought and paid for. Meanwhile, he, his crass bigot of a wife, and their kids, as I reported yesterday, are about to go on a trip to Africa, which will cost us, the American Taxpayers, up to 100,000,000 dollars.

Hey, Scooter…while you’re over there…visiting the land of your bir…err…ancestors…say hello to your brother for us. You know…the one who lives in a hut.

Additionally, he and members of Congress…on both sides of the aisle…want to jump in the middle of a Civil War in Syria…on the side of the “noble” rebels.  Some nobility. Those “rebels” are supported by, and support in return, the bloody Muslim Terrorist Organization known as al-Qaeda. Are all of you “Beltway Boys (and girls)” blooming idiots?

There are no “Good Guys” in this scufflin’ match. Why don’t we just sit this one out and let “the last man standing” win?

I thought that we were supposed to have a system of checks and balances in this country.  Between Obama signing Executive Orders and ruling like an emperor on his throne and the spineless Republican Leadership basically giving him carte blanche to do whatever the heck he wants, average citizens, like me, are experiencing a feeling of moral outrage and a feeling of helplessness.

We have elected Senators and Representatives who have seemingly forgotten who pays their salaries and who put them in office.

Look at what is facing us, right now.

These Congresscritters seem to be dead set on betraying the very country that they are supposed to be serving. They want to reward the illegal behavior of millions of “undocumented immigrants’, who sneaked into our sovereign nation, to have the monetary and Social advantages of being an American, without any of the responsibilities.

While claiming an altruistic motive behind their  drive for Amnesty, these Congresscitters’ actual motivation is more self-serving than anything else. They want to create more voters for their political party.

And, that is where the Democrats are playing Sen. Marco Rubio, and the rest of his new-found friends in the GOP Elite for fools.

If the Moderate Republicans believe that any of these illegal aliens are going to vote for them, when they can vote for the Party of Baracky Claus, instead…they’re dumber than Jim Carrey’s Anti-gun Video.

While I’m on a rant…Sen. Rubio is another subject which I would like to address. Did he fall victim to a Space Pod, or what? I remember this guy from the Mid-terms, speaking out about our Constitutional Rights, in front of Tea Party Rallies, with great Conservatives like Sarah Palin and Lt. Col. Allen West.

Now, ol’ Marco spends his days at the G.O.P. Elite Country Club, sipping Apple Martinis with Juan McAmnesty and his pet dog, “Toodie” Graham.

Evidently,

Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely.

Our Founding Fathers were afraid of that. They viewed national service, as just that. A farmer or a merchant would be elected to the Senate or the House, he would spend his term, in the service of his country, and then he would rejoin his follow American Citizens, and allow fresh ideas to be heard.

Not now. Now, Congresscritters make a career out of it, often dying in office, like Frank Lautenberg, who was 89.

Why? Is the reason that they stay past their usefulness in office, because they truly wish to serve their constituencies? I don’t think so.

I believe it’s a combination of Power, Perks, and Privilege.

Why should they leave…if we are dumb enough to keep electing them?

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

What can average Americans, like you and I, do about this?

I mean, it’s become dang near impossible to tell the Republicans from the Democrats. In fact, the Moderate Republican Leadership acts as if they want to be Democrats, bending over so far in “compromise” with the opposition party, that they can see their own hindquarters.

It is almost as if we have become two countries…the tiny area of blue, which we saw in electoral maps, concentrated around the Northeast and the coasts, and the red areas, which basically comprise 90% of America, including the area referred to as “The Heartland”.

Out here in “The Heartland”, the majority of Americans still “bitterly cling” to our Bibles and guns…and try hard to live up to and uphold the Traditional American Values taught to us by our parents and grandparents, in spite of being bombarded daily by an out-of-touch leadership in Washington and their sycophants in the Main Stream Media.

The strength of America lies in its people…not an ever-expanding, nanny state, all-powerful Federal Government.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, 81 years old, was approached by a lady, as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation.

The lady asked him,

Well, Doctor…What have we got? A Republic or a Monarchy?

Dr. Franklin answered,

A Republic, madam. If, you can keep it.

Today, almost 235 years later, we still have a Republic. If, we can keep it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Sarah Palin/FNC: The Arctic Fox Returns!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

palin-newsweekLast January, Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s contract was not renewed by Roger Ailes of Fox News.

Big mistake.

Since then, the number one cable news channel in America has seen their expressive numbers diminish, as, editorially, they began an ideological swing to Left of Center.

So, what do you do, when your ship is traveling off-course? You make a course correction.

In announcing her return to Fox News, Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes said,

I have great confidence in her and am pleased that she will once again add her commentary to our programming. I hope she continues to speak her mind.

Governor Palin will make her triumphant return on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” on Monday. In addition to appearing on the Fox News Channel, Governor Palin will also contribute to Fox Business Network.

It was a smart move.

Sarah connects with those of us in America’s Heartland. She was the bright spot for the Republicans during the Presidential Campaign of 2008, when she almost dragged ol’ Juan McAmnesty’s wrinkled rear across the goal line.

During that campaign, the legend of Sarah Palin began to grow, as stories of her jumping off the campaign buss to run into Walmart to buy Trig some diapers started circulating in Americans’ e-mails. Her leadership ability, along with her homespun honesty and forth-righteousness, are refreshing, causing her to standing apart for the G.O.P. Moderate Elite.

Sarah Palin tells it like it is, as theblaze.com reports

Comedian Bill Maher brought the wrath of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin upon himself when he reportedly referred to her special needs son as “retarded” during a comedy show at the Palms in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Former Las Vegas TV personality Ron Futrell claims he was escorted out of the event after he confronted Maher several times during the show at some point after the tasteless joke about Trig Palin.

“I’ve got a son with special needs,” Futrell told the Review-Journal. “It didn’t surprise me that Maher said it. It surprised me that a lot of people laughed at that joke.”

After learning about Maher’s so-called “joke,” Palin went after Maher on Twitter.

“Hey bully, on behalf of all kids whom you hatefully mock in order to make yourself feel big, I hope one flattens your lily white wimpy a#*,” Palin wrote.

“I’m in your neck of the woods this weekend, little Bill. Care to meet so I can tell you how I really feel?” she added.

Something tells us Maher won’t accept Palin’s invitation.

I enjoy hanging out on the internet chat boards, reading the messages of Liberals and Moderates alike, as their heads explode over the Former Alaskan Governor.

The great thing is, that doesn’t phase her at all.

Back in March, she spoke to the annual CPAC Convention, her speech was wonderful, and sounded like it came straight from the Heartland of America.

At the time, I wrote,

… it struck me, while at lunch with friends, after church on Sunday, just how disconnected the professional politicians, pundits, and prevaricators (but, I repeat myself) up in the Beltway are from all of us average citizens out here in America’s Heartland.

I guess what really triggered this revelation was remembering Sarah Palin’s speech from CPAC’s Saturday Session, in which she spoke just like you or me, having a political discussion with our friends and family. She was bringing up some spot-on political points, when, all of the sudden, she got a mischievous smile on her face and began telling the audience how Todd gave her a wonderful gift the Christmas before last: a gun rack for her ATV. She talked about how cool it was, and then told the crowd that, for this Christmas, she gave Todd a new hunting rifle. She quipped,

Yep, Todd got the rifle and I got the rack.

pailinbiggulp2As the stunned audience quickly broke out in thunderous laughter and applause, Sarah stood there, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, while, at the same time, reaching under the podium to retrieve a 44-ounce Super Big Gulp Diet Coke, which she slowly sipped from, still grinning, then holding it over her head , imitating Lady Liberty holding her torch. The picture of this seminal moment has since gone viral, much to the chagrin of Liberals, on both sides of the political aisle, whose heads have been exploding, like balloons which have blown up beyond their usefulness.

Beltway politicians and Pundits live in a bubble.  They have disassociated themselves from the common people.  The only time the Beltway Elite Republicans seem to pay attention to the wishes of Americans in the Heartland is when we melt the Congressional Phone Lines down and threaten their well-paying jobs. 

That’s why the rise of the Tea Party movement and America’s return to Conservatism, which resulted in the political massacre known as the Midterm Elections, was such a surprise to them.  In their self-imposed isolation, they actually thought that the America people wanted them to continue their deal-making, soul-selling, business-as-usual politics.

That is why voices like Governor Palin’s are needed…to let the stale, stodgy Beltway Dwellers know that they are out-of-touch with Americans in the Heartland…you and me.

Sarah Palin reminds the leeches of us…the people whom they are supposed to be serving.

And, that is why her voice is important.

Welcome back, Sarah. We’ve missed you.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obamacare: The GOP Vs. the Death Panels

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics6 Comments

obamadoctorDo you remember when Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin warned us about the upcoming Death Panels in Obamacare?

She wrote the following on her Facebook Page on August 7, 2009,

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion.

All of “the smartest people in the room” laughed themselves silly, all the while assuring us that Gov. Palin was terribly wrong.

They lied.

The Independent Patient Advisory Board, a part of Obamacare, is set up to be a 15-member panel. Three members are to be chosen by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, with the remaining three chosen by Obama and the executive branch. All of the members then have to be confirmed by the Senate.

The IPAB comes into play if Medicare costs are projected to go beyond economic growth plus an additional percentage point in any given year.

Evidently, San Fran Nan was right. Those idiots had to pass Obamacare so that they could see what was in it.

And now that they’ve seen it, Death Panels are perfectly acceptable, at least according to Anthony Mirhaydari, in an article he wrote for MSMMoney.com, posted on March 20th of this year:

If we’re going to end this slide into the fiscal abyss and stop the intergenerational heist, we need to address both the cost of care and the fact that so much goes to giving a few more days of low-quality life to the terminally ill. These resources could be better spent preparing the way for those just starting in life, while still providing our seniors with a more dignified end.

Bipartisan support does seem to be coalescing around means-testing for Medicare benefits, so that those who can afford it pay more. That’s great, but we also we need to encourage increased use of hospice care while discouraging repeated and outrageously expensive hospitalizations.

Think that’s inhumane? This heartbreaking New Yorker story by surgeon Atul Gawande about the current state of end-of-life care will change your mind.

And consider what you’d do if you had to pay those expenses out of pocket, as so many young families have to. Death is inevitable. Would you impoverish your family in an ultimately unsuccessful fight against it?

We need to celebrate our mortality, appreciate how delicate the balance between life and death is, and understand that a better life and a longer life aren’t necessarily the same thing — especially if it consumes resources desperately needed by the generations to come.

Didn’t I see that scenario in the classic movie “Lifeboat” (1944), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Talullah Bankhead and William Bendix?

In the movie, a chic writer, a stoker and others drift with the U-boat captain who has sunk their ship. Through cruelty and debasement, a deadly survival of the fittest scenario unfolds, until only a few are left to be rescued as the movie ends.

Is this what America is headed for? “A survival of the fittest”?

The Republican Leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives do not want to play that game.

Yesterday, Sen. McConnell and Speaker Boehner sent a letter to President Obama to inform him that they would not be participating in the nominations for the IPAB.

The following is an excerpt from the letter they sent:

In order to allow supporters to claim that the law’s Medicare cuts would be realized in the future, it tasked IPAB with reducing payments to providers or eliminating payments for certain treatments and procedures altogether. These reduced payments will force providers to stop seeing Medicare patients, the same way an increased number of doctors have stopped taking Medicaid patients. This will lead to access problems, waiting lists and denied care for seniors.

The unfortunate result is that decisions which impact America’s seniors will be made in the absence of the democratic process, without the system of checks and balances that would normally apply to important matters of public policy. Yet your recent budget called for expanding IPAB by tasking it with making even larger cuts to Medicare than those called for in the health law, even though the trustees of the Medicare program have told us that IPAB’s provider cuts would be “difficult to achieve in practice,” because of the denied care that seniors would experience.

You know, I had heard the Democratic Party called “The Party of Death” before, due to their heinous adoration of the murder of babies, still in their mothers’ wombs. However, it really hit home for me when they passed the monstrous legislation known as Obamacare.

Now, I am not saying that every single Democrat is a heathen, but why did the majority of them oppose putting references to God in their Party Platform at their 2012 Convention?

And, the cold, calculating rationale of those Liberals like Mirhaydari, just boggles the mind.

I know that it will never happen, but all those whose laughed when Gov. Palin warned us about the Obama Death Panels, owe that lady an apology.

And, Obamacare needs to be repealed…STAT.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Benghazi Hearings: The Media Should Be Ashamed of Themselves

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

benghazigate cartoon 5813While I was at work yesterday, I was also keeping up with the House Oversight Committee Hearings concerning the murder of 4 brave Americans at the Embassy Compound in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012 by Barbaric Muslim Terrorists.

Here in America’s Heartland, the general consensus is that the witnesses who appeared yesterday are brave men in their own right, for coming forth.

The day definitely went to the House Republicans, who asked all the right questions, while their Democrat Colleagues came off looking like a bunch of braying jackasses.

Besides the political chicanery which was revealed yesterday involving Secretary of State Clinton and her lawyer, Ms. Mills, the other big story of the day was the intentional Main Stream Media Blackout of the Hearings themselves…a blatant attempt to keep the American public from learning the truth of that terrible day.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin posted on her Facebook Page yesterday,

Is there any wonder why distrust of arrogant, out-of-touch media is at an all-time high? During today’s Benghazi hearings, the Washington Post actually tweeted: “Who’s tweeting about Benghazi? Rich, middle-aged men and Chick-fil-A lovers.” This would be the same Washington Post that broke the story on Watergate. Now they just mock concerned Americans who want answers to why four brave Americans died, including two distinguished vets. And the Obama administration asks, “What does it matter?”

As I have related in the past, I took some Journalism courses in college, to go along with my major in Radio, TV, and Film.

In a course in Broadcast Journalism, I received the top grade in both classes, which my instructor taught, on an investigative research project. In the middle of the Iranian Hostage crisis, I found out that the Black Radical, Stokely Carmichael, whom the Black Student Association was bringing in to speak, had been brought in two years previously by the Iranian Student Association. That instructor, by the way, was a former CBS News Writer/Producer.

It’s funny, though. I remember this guy cautioning us to remain objective in our reporting.

Ironic, considering CBS News’ blackout of the Hearings, yesterday.

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program:

…here we are months and months later. We have career diplomats choking up, retelling a story that was of no interest to their commander-in-chief, no interest to the secretary of state, who did nothing to help these people. In fact, the next day the commander-in-chief gets up — after being out of touch for five or seven hours, nobody knew where he was — and he jets off to Las Vegas.

These are people that battled terrorists on the battlefield, at our consulate. They got nothing from the guy who put ’em in harm’s way, and now they’re up telling the story. Their testimony, so far, is unfiltered and uninterrupted. It’s powerful, it’s devastating, it’s tragic. Then the Democrats get hold of it after they finish and do their best to discount it, discredit it. But after watching a little bit of this, I understand why some Democrats are worried about this.

If the media picked up on this and actually made this a cause like they did Watergate, it would be a whole different dynamic. I can’t forget Hillary telling those people in that hangar — wherever it was, Dover, Andrews Air Force Base — when the bodies came back, over the flag-draped coffins, “We’ll get the guy who did that video.” She was straight-face lying to them about why their family members died.

“We’ll get the guy in the video.”

We live in an upside-down world, folks. We really do.

…Nobody cares about any of this stuff but us. In fact, we are being called purists and problematic because we care about this because we are being so rigid, we’re making it impossible for people to see that the Republicans are flexible and adaptable and all that. We are making it impossible for the Republicans to ever win. Because we care about this. This is insignificant. This doesn’t matter. Nobody cares about this. Other than the families, other than the witnesses, other than the Republicans on the committee and five or six other people, nobody cares about it. We live in an upside down world. The challenge we all have here, folks, is staying emotionally and physically well in the middle of all this, because we live in a world where nothing makes any sense, and where it appears that everything that was the glue that held this country together is vanishing.

While I believe Rush is right, as he usually is, I also believe that, just like the Gosnell Case, if we average Americans holler loud and long enough, eventually the Main Stream Media will HAVE to cover the story.

The problem is, of course, the Liberals own and operate the Main Stream Media. So, therefore, their attitude toward covering the Hearings is to minimize their importance, just as the rest of their Liberal brethren, in our nation’s capital, are trying to do.

Lt. Col. Allen West, as he is wont to do, summed up the Obama Administration’s deflection and obfuscation of Benghazigate quite nicely,

I’ve been watching the Benghazi hearings and just find it amazing that we even have to have a hearing on something so blatantly clear. This was a terrorist attack that we were told was about a video and we hung Americans out to die. Yet, no one is responsible, just move along, nothing to see here, wasting time. This had nothing to do with funding, it had everything to do with failure….oh, what the heck, let’s all just go to Las Vegas for a fundraiser.

Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the 60s iconic rock band, the Doors, once said,

Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.

In 2013 America, Liberals have control of our Media…and that’s why we have so many Low Information Voters.

The Main Stream Media’s Journalistic Mission is to perpetuate the blissful ignorance of the low information voters in order to protect the Liberal President of the United States.

And, for that chilling fact, which led to yesterday’s blackout of the Benghazi Hearings, they should be truly ashamed.

But, being shameless, hive-mind Liberals, they aren’t.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Shame and Sequestration

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

rush3Yesterday, the Godfather of Conservative Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh, while speaking on the subject of sequestration, said,

Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country. To be watching all of this, to be treated like this, to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it’s being insulted? It just makes me ashamed. Seriously, man. Here we get worked up over $44 billion. That’s the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year. In truth, we’re gonna spend more this year than we spent last year.

We’re just not gonna spend as much as was projected. It’s all baseline budgeting. There is no real cut below a baseline of zero. There just isn’t. Yet here they come, sucking us in, roping us in. Panic here, fear there: Crisis, destruction, no meat inspection, no cops, no teachers, no firefighters, no air traffic control. I’m sorry, my days of getting roped into all this are over. We have the media playing along with all this. The ruling class of both parties play along with all this. It’s insulting. I don’t know how else to describe it.

I’m into my 25th year.

I can’t tell you the number of times this has happened. This hit me yesterday. I’ve said the same things over and over for 25 years. Whether the Clinton presidency or the Obama presidency, whether it’s a Pelosi speakership or Tom Foley (who was speaker when I started), it’s the same stuff. It’s the same threats. It’s the same arguments over and over. Nothing ever changes! We just keep spending more money. We create more dependency, we get more and more irresponsible from one crisis to the next, all of them manufactured.

Except for the real crisis, which nobody ever addresses, and that is: We can’t afford any of this.

What’s happening here, folks, is we are being played for fools and being suckered — suckered into supporting the never-ending expansion of government, the wholesale destruction of the private economy. Everybody who joins in this debate under the premise that Obama puts forth, as well as debating the politics of this nonsense, is just being used to cover up what’s actually going on. Now, what’s going on is no great conspiracy. It’s no mystery. We’re spending much more money than we have.

The government is getting inexorably larger.

It’s less and less efficient at accomplishing anything. We’re creating more and more dependents. We’re robbing people of their dignity and humanity and of their opportunity to realize their dreams as they turn their lives over to the government. It’s like a never-ending cycle. The government makes the private sector smaller. There are fewer job opportunities. There’s less money in the private sector, less opportunity to accrue wealth. Income taxes and others threaten to go higher; they do go higher.

It all adds up to the government growing, the private sector shrinking, freedom being lost ever so slowly, and nobody ever talks about stopping this. Everybody gets sucked into debating the crisis of the moment according to the terms of the moment, without any context and relationship to the past and a knowable future and a relevant perusal of the present. These little debates take place within their own little universe, as though they’re unaffected by things that have happened in the past.

So if  sequestration actually happens, will the world as we know it come to an end? Hardly.

Back in September of 2012, fcw.com posted the following information:

The Obama administration has released its mandated report on how sequestration may be implemented, outlining in a nearly 400-page document detailed plans for cutting federal spending by $1.2 trillion.

The Office of Management and Budget released the report Sept. 14, a week later than the deadline set by the Sequestration Transparency Act. It includes line-by-line detail on more than 1,200 budget accounts, breaking down what is exempt from sequestration and what’s not.

Per the report, sequestration is estimated to result in a 9.4 percent cut in non-exempt defense discretionary funding, and 8.2 percent in non-defense, non-exempt discretionary funding. It would also cut 2 percent to Medicare, 7.6 percent to other non-exempt non-defense mandatory programs, and 10 percent to non-exempt, mandatory defense programs.

In the report and in a conference call with reporters, senior administration officials underscored their opposition to sequestration, which comes from the Budget Control Act of 2011. A “supercommittee” was chosen to hammer out agreed-on cuts, and when it failed to do so near the end of 2011, sequestration became the next step.

The last time America experienced a government shutdown was in 1995, when

…A wily Clinton politically outmaneuvered then-Speaker Newt Gingrich to turn the 20-day shutdown into a bruising PR defeat for the year-old Republican majority.

While Clinton had to eventually sacrifice on substance and put forward a budget that reflected much of what Gingrich and the Republicans wanted, he had set the narrative for his reelection campaign the next year: Clinton the moderate versus the radical Republicans in Congress.

That media narrative, combined with independent Ross Perot siphoning away mostly Republican votes in swing states, helped Clinton capture an 8-point victory in November of 1996.

Just who is responsible for Sequestration?

“The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”

— President Obama, in the third presidential debate, Oct. 22, 2012

The president seems to have a selective memory. Per The Washington Post:

The battle over raising the debt ceiling consumed Washington in the summer of 2011, with Republicans refusing to agree to raise it unless spending was cut by an equivalent amount. Obama pressed but failed to get an agreement on raising revenue as part of the package. Woodward’s book details the efforts to come up with an enforcement mechanism that would make sure the cuts took place — and virtually every mention shows this was a White House gambit.

Here is a short summary of how it went down:

The White House proposed the idea of a compulsory trigger, with Sperling calling it an “automatic sequester,” though initially it was to include tax revenue, not just spending cuts. Boehner was “nervous” about using it as a budget tool.

Once tax increases were off the table, the White House staff came up with a sequestration plan that only had spending cuts and sold Harry Reid on the idea.

This is the third reference to the White House putting together the plan for sequester. Granted, they are using language from a congressional law from a quarter-century earlier, but that seems a thin reed on which to say this came from Congress. In fact, Lew had been a policy advisor to then House Speaker Tip O’Neill from 1979 to 1987, and so was familiar with the law.

Republicans agreed to the White House proposal for a sequester.

Republicans had to work through the night to understand the White House proposal.

Of course, the Republicans eventually caved and agreed to raise the debt ceiling…and, so here we are.

Obama is trying to pull a Clinton. The problem is…he’s not Slick Willie.

He does not have the people skills, or the ruthlessness of a Hillary to back him up.

Additionally, the New Media was not as prevalent back then. 

Knowing the Republican Establishment, they will probably cave at the last minute, once again, on their quest to become Democrat-Lite.

Which would be a pretty stupid move, considering they did not come up with the idea in the first place.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

The Great and Powerful Obama (Pay No Attention to the Marxist Behind the Curtain)

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamamyworkAs I was sitting at my keyboard, waiting for some sort of divine inspiration, as often happens, something struck me (and no, it wasn’t my lovely bride backhanding me to take out the garbage).

Take a look at everything that President Barack Hussein Obama has been pushing since his misbegotten re-election:

1.) Gun Confiscation

2.) Amnesty for Illegal Immigration

3.) Gay Marriage (even in our National Cathedral)

4.) Fighter Jets to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

5.) Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense

6.) John Kerry as Secretary of State

7. ) And last, but not least, raising taxes on EVERYBODY

This is HOPE AND CHANGE?

Obama ascended to the throne of the Regime during a period when our nation was experiencing a period of economic recession, by appealing to the masses by promising that if he was elected, the oceans would rise and fall, the sun would come out tomorrow (Hey, that sounds like a song. Oh…never mind.) and everybody would receive a unicorn in their backyard. (Okay. He didn’t really promise that. But, heck, he promised everything else.)

Obama definitely has a mission. But what is it?

I mean, it’s not as radical as Valdimir Lenin’s was, is it?

Lenin endeavored to gain support by broadcasting slogans such as “Bread, Land, Peace and All Power to the Soviets.” To people suffering from famine, this promise hit the spot. Yet in elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly in late November 1917, only a quarter of voters cast ballots for the Bolsheviks. Lenin overturned the results and sent armed guards to prevent meetings of the democratic assembly. This made it virtually impossible for the Russian people to voice their concerns in a democratic way.

The years from 1917 to 1920 became known as “war communism” due to the methods the Bolsheviks used to push their political agenda. In 1918, the party was renamed the Russian Communist Party. Lenin and his communist cohorts endeavored to put Marx’s tenets of belief into practice. This marked the beginning of the Russian Civil War, which lasted from 1918 until 1922. When the war ended, the Soviet Union formed — also known as the U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union included Russia and 15 bordering states.

Lenin was aware that the upper class wouldn’t willingly give up land or wealth, so he created the New Economic Policy (NEP) to legislate redistributing land — taking it from the nobility and giving it to the poor. Upholding the necessary phases that Marx outlined, Lenin initiated the Red Terror, a threatening fear campaign led by the Bolsheviks. His goal was mass murder, which he accomplished through three main methods.

Man-made famine was Lenin’s most successful tool. He knew that if he could break the peasantry, he’d have full control. Lenin engineered famines by requiring peasants to sell their crops to him at virtually no profit, using the rationale that he needed the crops to support his army. The peasantry was so indignant that they reduced crop production drastically, leading to a full-scale civil war. The exact numbers vary, but tens of millions of people starved and millions died.

Lenin also instituted slave labor camps. Anyone who disagreed with Lenin’s rule was sent to work at one of these camps, where millions more suffered and died

And, he executed his detractors to silence their voices. During the Red Terror, hundreds of thousands of detractors were put to death. Victims included members of the bourgeoisie, White Army prisoners of war, socialists, Czarist sympathizers and innocent civilians.

I know. The guillotines have not been set up…yet. And, citizens have not been sent to Siberian internment camps…yet.

However…

With the support of a once-noble political party that has been taken over by Far Left Radicals, and a once-objective Fourth Estate, which has morphed into a government-backed propaganda arm, flooding television, radio, internet, and print sources with Obama worship, misinformation, and downright lies, about both the Lightbringer’s accomplishments and anyone who dares to oppose him (ask Sarah Palin…and Mitt Romney), that the shear audacity of it all would make Goebbels blush, Obama has been able to begin the process of turning “the shining city on a hill” into a third-world barrio, and the transformation of the Greatest Country in the World into just another Democratic Socialist nation, such as can be found in Europe.

Norman Mattoon Thomas, six-time Socialist candidate for president, said the following in a 1944 speech:

The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation without knowing how it happened … The Democratic Party has adopted our (Socialist) platform.

And…here we are. So, what now? Do we just give up and say, even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come?

Well…while I look forward to the day the trump will sound, in the meanwhile, I am still living in a sacred, God-given country, whose Founders not only believed in The Creator, but, also acknowledged Him in our Founding Documents.

During his radio program on January 18th, Rush Limbaugh made the following statement of guarded optimism:

I have a sense that it’s gonna be okay. I can’t get specific, and I know it flies in the face of reality. I don’t know anymore than that. I’m not a soothsayer, nor am I a seer. I can’t predict the future. But I’m fairly confident — and it’s not because of the second term tradition that happens to every president. Some scandal or something comes along and distracts them and takes down the president. I’m not putting faith in anything like that.

…I just think that it is going to be an event or series of events that reorients people in the way they’re looking at Obama. I do think that’s gonna happen, and it’s not gonna happen because I sit here and tell people who he is and what he’s like. I’ve been doing that for four years, and so have a lot of other people. Now, I’m not saying the four years have been wasted. We’ve built the foundation.

When the event or events happen that bring about this reality that I think is gonna occur, having this foundation, people saying, “Oh, yeah! You know what? Maybe they were right” is gonna happen. “You know, I should have listened to what Limbaugh or somebody else was saying.” Maybe it is a little overreaching, going too far. It’s rooted in a belief that a lot of people — and I don’t know how many and I don’t know if it’s a majority.

But certainly a lot of people voted for Obama having no idea what was really going to happen. Now, that could be blind faith. I try never to tell myself stories. Constantly. I never tell myself feel-good stories. I try to remain grounded in Realville where I’m the mayor every day. But I do believe that a lot of people will see this. We saw the first wave of this, by the way, when the paychecks went out and the take-home pay was smaller because the tax cut on payroll taxes was restored.

There’s gonna be more as Obamacare implements. At some point, all of these economic policies are going to hit. At some point the government, the Federal Reserve or somebody, is gonna run out of tricks to delay what’s coming. What’s coming is gonna eventually happen. Reality will eventually triumph here, and when it does I think it’s what’s gonna constitute this.

I’m not saying sit back and ignore everything else and don’t oppose Obama. I’m saying nothing like that. I don’t want anybody to get nervous here. I’m not gonna do that. I’m not waving the white flag and I’m not surrendering. I think the Republicans are. I think you better get used to the fact there isn’t going to be any serious legislative opposition to Obama for the next year. If there is and I’m pleasantly surprised, cool.

I agree with Maha Rushie. It is rough out there…and going to get rougher. 

However, by the Grace of God, and the indomitable will of the American people, we can turn this around.

Never give up. Never surrender.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Fiscal Cliff: Congress Takes Their Toys and Goes Home

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

demrepAs you’ve know doubt heard by now, even if you’re one of those “‘low information voters” , with your head stuck up your…ummm…I-pod, Congress is at a standstill, regarding negotiations over Obama’s Marxist, Class Warfare-based, ludicrous plan to over-tax Americans who make over $400,000 per year, while offering no spending cuts to reign in his Soviet-styled out-of-control Mega-Government.

So, Congress…both sides, both Houses, have pulled a Cartman:

Sc@#w you, guys. I’m going home!

Per The Washington Times:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to send his chamber home for Christmas and then reconvene on Dec. 27 to try to work through the “fiscal cliff” — even as House Republicans said they’ll keep their troops in town to try to strike a deal.

The moves come as both sides jockey for the upper hand in trying to avoid blame for a possible breakdown in the budget talks to avoid the fiscal cliff. House Republicans are poised to pass a bill Thursday that would prevent spending cuts and most tax increases, and have said they’ll stay here to get a deal done. But there won’t be anyone on the other side of the table — at least not until next week.

“We want to be able to get home for a few days for Christmas, even though we will be back on the Thursday after Christmas,” Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said in opening the Senate’s session.

Senators will be attending a funeral service Friday for the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat and the chamber’s senior lawmaker, who died this week. Many also will attend his funeral services this weekend in Hawaii.

“I honor the legacy of Dan Inouye; I’m going to the memorial service; I’m going to the funeral,” Mr. Reid told reporters later.

Nothing like blaming a dead guy, Dinghy Harry.

Across the Capitol, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said his lawmakers want to stay in town to try to get a deal done and will stay in Washington even if they pass their own “Plan B” approach to stave off tax increases and rewrite the looming $110 billion in spending cuts due in less than two weeks.

“We do not intend to send members home after this vote. We want to stay here. We want to avoid the fiscal cliff from happening,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at a brief press conference. “I think the decision is for the White House and Senate Democrats to come join us so we can avoid the tax hike on the American people and avoid the fiscal cliff.”

But Mr. Reid said the House Republicans should forget about passing their bill and not bother sending the Senate anything, but instead go deal with President Obama.

“We’re here to reach out to our Republicans in the House and tell them, get back and start talking to the president,” Mr. Reid said.

Meanwhile, in the House, and on the other side of the aisle, Reuters reports

With only 11 days left for bickering politicians to prevent automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, U.S. stock futures fell sharply on the news of the rebuke to Boehner.

The Ohio congressman had hoped to demonstrate Republican unity by passing a bill through the House, known as “Plan B,” that would limit income-tax increases to the wealthiest sliver of the population – those earning $1 million and more, a far smaller slice of taxpayers than Obama wants to pay higher taxes.

But Boehner canceled the vote after failing to round up enough support from his party because many conservative Republicans are opposed to tax hikes on even the richest wage-earning Americans.

“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass,” Boehner said in a statement after huddling with other Republican leaders.

The White House pledged to work with Congress to reach a deal as quickly as possible.

“We are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

The bill, had it passed, would have put Republicans on record as supporting a tax increase on those who earn more than $1 million per year, breaking with decades of orthodoxy. It won the blessing of influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, but other conservative groups fiercely opposed it and many rank-and-file members said they would not support it.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning more than $400,000, a much lower threshold.

Unless these spineless, self-serving jellyfish sitting up on Capitol Hill return to work on Thursday, acting like adults, and performing the job they were all elected to do, average Americans are going to get clobbered with the biggest tax hike in American History.

To quote the late Slim Pickens from “Blazing Saddles”, 

What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is a’goin’ on here?

Hold on to something. Here comes another world-famous KJ Rant:

I want Conservative Leadership. I want somebody to stand up on their hind legs and tell Obama the way the cow ate the cabbage. I want someone to actually give a hoot ‘n holler about the average American, not the special interest groups, not the lobbyists, not “the smartest people in the room”…me.

I want an American President and competent American Congress people.

I want a dadblamed budget, first. I want them to be good stewards of MY money. Not their “revenue”. I want someone to stand up and be a MAN…or a WOMAN.

I am so dadgum tired of mealy-mouth squishes and political niceties and expediences, I could spit. Too many Americans are out of work and doing without this Christmas, while the three ring circus performs unabated under the Big Top on Capital Hill.

The American people are tired of cleaning up after the donkeys and the elephants.  

/rant off

Until He Comes,

KJ