Tag: Obama

The most divisive president in U.S. History.

Obama Raises Taxes…on Everybody!

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

monopoly2As I picked up my check last Friday, I did a double-take. My weekly take-home pay was sixteen dollars less than the week before. Our accountant had sent us a warning e-mail earlier in the day, the only “surprise”, really, was the amount Obama took from me.

I guess I should have checked out bloomberg.com, 5 days ago:

The budget deal passed by the U.S. Senate today would raise taxes on 77.1 percent of U.S. households, mostly because of the expiration of a payroll tax cut, according to preliminary estimates from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.

More than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes. Among the households facing higher taxes, the average increase would be $1,635, the policy center said. A 2 percent payroll tax cut, enacted during the economic slowdown, is being allowed to expire as of yesterday.

The heaviest new burdens in 2013, compared with 2012, would fall on top earners, who would face higher rates on income, capital gains, dividends and estates. The top 1 percent of taxpayers, or those with incomes over $506,210, would pay an average of $73,633 more in taxes.

Much of that burden is concentrated at the very top of the income scale.

The top 0.1 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes over about $2.7 million, would pay an average of $443,910 more, reducing their after-tax incomes by 8.4 percent. They would pay 26 percent of the additional taxes imposed by the legislation.

Among households with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million, taxes would go up by an average of $14,812.Top Tax Rate

The bill, being discussed by House members today, would raise the top tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent last year, starting with income over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples.

The top tax rates on capital gains and dividends would go up to 23.8 percent, from 15 percent last year. The new rate includes a 3.8 percent tax from the 2010 health-care law that took effect today.

The Tax Policy Center’s definition of income is a gross measure that includes items such as the employer’s share of payroll taxes, making it larger for many households than the adjusted gross income shown on tax returns.

Joseph Curl, writing for The Washington Times, chronicles the Shock and Awww….!@#t, experienced by Obama voters, who thought that their “dawg” wouldn’t raise their taxes…or sumpin’…

Sometimes, watching a Democrat learn something is wonderful, like seeing the family dog finally sit and stay at your command.

With President Obama back in office and his life-saving “fiscal cliff” bill jammed through Congress, the new year has brought a surprising turn of events for his sycophantic supporters.

“What happened that my Social Security withholding’s in my paycheck just went up?” a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?”

Shocker. Democrats who supported the president’s re-election just had NO idea that his steadfast pledge to raise taxes meant that he was really going to raise taxes. They thought he planned to just hit those filthy “1 percenters,” you know, the ones who earned fortunes through their inventiveness and hard work. They thought the free ride would continue forever.

So this week, as taxes went up for millions of Americans — which Republicans predicted throughout the campaign would happen — it was fun to watch the agoggery of the left.

“I know to expect between $93 and $94 less in my paycheck on the 15th,” wrote the ironically named “RomneyLies.”

“My boyfriend has had a lot of expenses and is feeling squeezed right now, and having his paycheck shrink really didn’t help,” wrote “DemocratToTheEnd.”

…“_Alex™” sounded bummed. “Obama I did not vote for you so you can take away alot of money from my checks.” Christian Dixon seemed crestfallen. “I’m starting to regret voting for Obama.” But “Dave” got his dander up over the tax hike: “Obama is the biggest f***ing liar in the world. Why the f*** did I vote for him”?

Of course, dozens of posters on DemocraticUnderground sought to blame it all (as usual) on President George W. Bush. “Your taxes went up because the leaders need to dig us out of this criminal deficit hole we are in which has been caused because taxes were too low during the Bush years. Everyone has to help by spreading the wealth around a little. Power to the correct people!” posted “Orinoco.”

But in fact, it was Mr. Obama who enacted the “holiday,” and, to be clear, the tax cut that he pushed throughout the campaign — remember? 98 percent of Americans will get a cut under his plan? — was really the extension of the Bush tax suts. Thus, it was Mr. Obama who raised taxes on millions of Americans, not Mr. Bush.

…Hilariously, the tax burden will rise more for someone making $30,000 a year (1.7 percent) than it does for someone earning $500,000 annually (1.3 percent).

A whole new wave of Obama supporters still don’t even know: They’ll get their first 2013 paychecks on the 15th of the month. So when you’re shooting the breeze in the lunchroom with your grumbling co-workers on the 16th, just ask them, “Who’d you vote for in November?” When they say Mr. Obama, just tell them: “Well, you got what you voted for. You did know he was going to raise taxes, right?”

The looks on their faces will be priceless.

The greatest President in my lifetime put it very succintly:

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.

Ronald Reagan

Why is it Liberals always have to learn things the hard way, at the expense of all of us?

Until He comes,

KJ

 

The War Against Christianity: Of Lenin and Hobby Lobby

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics5 Comments

americanchristianflagsYesterday, thousands of Americans either went to, or shopped online at Hobby Lobby, a favorite store of my bride and mine, which has come under attack by the Obama Administration, because the owner, David Green, has taken a faith-based stand against being forced by the Obama administration to pay for drugs for his employees in their health care plan that may cause abortions.  Mr. Green recently stated his views very succinctly in the following letter:

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God‘s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby – and my family – are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that’s a choice no American – and no American business – should have to make.

Sincerely,

David Green, CEO and Founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Now that you’ve heard from a great Christian American, read this excerpt from a paper by the Marxist Leader, Vladimir Lenin, titled “Socialism and Religion”…and shiver:

So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.

If that is so, why do we not declare in our Programme that we are atheists? Why do we not forbid Christians and other believers in God to join our Party?

The answer to this question will serve to explain the very important difference in the way the question of religion is presented by the bourgeois democrats and the Social-Democrats.

Our Programme is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Programme, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism; the publication of the appropriate scientific literature, which the autocratic feudal government has hitherto strictly forbidden and persecuted, must now form one of the fields of our Party work. We shall now probably have to follow the advice Engels once gave to the German Socialists: to translate and widely disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.[1]

But under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.

That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all; nor does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.

Everywhere the reactionary bourgeoisie has concerned itself, and is now beginning to concern itself in Russia, with the fomenting of religious strife—in order thereby to divert the attention of the masses from the really important and fundamental economic and political problems, now being solved in practice by the all-Russian proletariat uniting in revolutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of splitting up the proletarian forces, which today manifests itself mainly in Black-Hundred pogroms, may tomorrow conceive some more subtle forms. We, at any rate, shall oppose it by calmly, consistently and patiently preaching proletarian solidarity and the scientific world-outlook—a preaching alien to any stirring up of secondary differences.

The revolutionary proletariat will succeed in making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.

Is the Obama Administration acting unconstitutionally? You betcha.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – Amendment I, The Constitution of the United States

Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. – 1 Peter 2:16 ESV

Until He Comes,

KJ

Haggling Over Hagel

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

obamahagelPresident Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) has presented his choice for United States Secretary of Defense. And, the consensus, from both sides of the aisle, is that ol’ Scooter is either a) unbelievably arrogant,  b) mad with power, or c) just plain nuts.

I choose, d) all of the above.

The New York Times has the story:

Chuck Hagel appears to have weathered a concerted and vocal campaign to derail his chances for defense secretary, with President Obama likely to nominate him as early as next week, administration and Congressional officials said Friday.

Since Mr. Hagel’s name emerged as a candidate for the Pentagon in early December, conservatives, pro-Israel groups and gay rights organizations have raised objections to his views on Israel and Iran, as well as disparaging comments he made about a gay former diplomat.

Administration officials cautioned that Mr. Obama has not made a final decision or offered Mr. Hagel the job. But people on Capitol Hill who know Mr. Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, have said that all signs were pointing to his selection.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month, Mr. Obama defended Mr. Hagel from the criticism, saying that while he had not decided on a defense secretary, Mr. Hagel was a “patriot” and that nothing in his record would disqualify him for the job.

The president could announce the selection as early as Monday, officials said, after returning from a vacation in Hawaii. That would come days before a visit to Washington by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, during which he and Mr. Obama are expected to discuss options for American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.

Mr. Hagel, should he be named by Mr. Obama, will most likely be comfortable with what Pentagon officials say is a White House desire to draw down the remaining 66,000 troops as quickly as conditions allow.

“One of the reasons we’re in trouble in Afghanistan is because we went well beyond our mission,” Mr. Hagel told Robert Nolan, an editor and television producer, in May 2012 for a PBS series on foreign policy. “And now, 12 years later, we’re not sure what our mission is.”

Critics faulted Mr. Hagel for referring to pro-Israel lobbying groups as the “Jewish lobby,” and said he offered inadequate support for Israel and was soft on Iran. He apologized last month for saying 14 years ago that President Bill Clinton’s nominee for ambassador to Luxembourg, James C. Hormel, was not qualified because he was “openly, aggressively gay.”

Just how bad a choice is Chuck Nagel?  He’s horrible.

In an article published on Christmas Eve in The Weekly Standard, titled, “The Hagel Thesis”, Bill Kristol wrote:

…Anti-Israel propagandists are thrilled. Stephen Walt, junior partner of the better-known Israel-hater John Mearsheimer, writes that if President Obama nominates Hagel, it will be “a smart move.” Why? Because, “unlike almost all of his former colleagues on Capitol Hill, he hasn’t been a complete doormat for the Israel lobby.” Indeed, a Hagel pick would “pay back Benjamin Netanyahu for all the ‘cooperation’ Obama received from him during the first term.” Furthermore, Walt writes approvingly, Hagel is “generally thought to be skeptical about the use of military force against Iran.”

Hagel certainly does have anti-Israel, pro-appeasement-of-Iran bona fides. While still a senator, Hagel said that “a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option.” Hagel, one of only two senators who voted in 2001 against renewing the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, also voted in 2007 against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization and opposed the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act.

Hagel also has a record of consistent hostility to Israel over the last decade. He boasted in 2008 that, unlike his peers, he wasn’t intimidated by “the Jewish lobby.” The next year, he signed a letter urging President Obama to open direct negotiations with Hamas. Later in 2009, he revisited another of his longstanding foreign policy fixations​—​his belief in the good intentions of the Assad regime​—​and told a J Street conference, “I believe there is a real possibility of a shift in Syria’s strategic thinking and policies. .  .  . Syria wants to talk​—​at the highest levels​—​and everything is on the table.”

All of this helps explain why, when Hagel was appointed to an advisory board at the beginning of Obama’s first term, Ira Forman, Obama’s 2008 campaign Jewish outreach director and former head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, acknowledged, “If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we’d have real concerns.”

Well, secretary of defense is a policy role. President Obama should have real concerns about putting him there. Democratic senators should have real concerns about confirming Hagel if President Obama is foolish enough to nominate him. There are, after all, plenty of Obama-supporting potential nominees for secretary of defense who are qualified for the job. Some have already served in the Defense Department in Obama’s first term, like Deputy Secretary Ash Carter and former undersecretary Michelle Flournoy. The Weekly Standard would expect to differ with such nominees on many issues. But they wouldn’t be out on the fringes like Chuck Hagel.

Why is President Obama tempted by the prospect of nominating Hagel? Because Hagel was a Republican senator. The Obama political types think they’d get credit for bipartisanship by appointing Hagel. And they think they would avoid a confirmation fight because Hagel’s former GOP colleagues wouldn’t dare oppose him: senatorial courtesy, party solidarity, and all that.

Whether Hagel is nominated is above all a test for President Obama. Is he serious about having Israel’s back? Is he serious about preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons?

It’s a test as well for pro-Israel, anti-nuclear-Iran Democrats. Will they go along with a major policy role for a man they know shouldn’t be in one?

But a Hagel nomination is also a test for Republicans. Does senatorial clubbiness trump the good of the country? Do former party ties trump the importance of having a sensible and mainstream secretary of defense over the next four years?

NO, Bill…they don’t.

It is very apparent that Obama is rubbing our squishy GOP Establishments’ noses in it, with the nomination of this RINO Extraordinaire. 

It’s a win-win situation for ol’ Scooter. He’s got a Secretary of Defense who is as stupid about Foreign Policy as he is, and, one who shares the same ig’nant “Smart Power!” philosophy: 

Alienate our Allies. Embrace our Enemies.

If Boehner, McConnell, and the rest of the Moderate Republicans do not shout this abomination of a nomination down…quickly, they might as well register as Democrats, and get it over with.

Because, at this point, speaking as a member of the ignored Conservative Base, they are acting as if they have more in common with them than us, anyway.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Background on Boehner Before He Bids Bye-Bye

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

boehnercryingHouse Republicans held what was billed as a procedural meeting yesterday afternoon, a meeting that proved as serene as lions lying around in the afternoon sun on the Serengeti.

Yahoo News reports

The caucus-wide meeting–the first such gathering since Boehner angered many conservatives by supporting a bill that allowed taxes to increase–could have gone much differently given the intense events of the past 48 hours. Boehner, for one, could have addressed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s very public rant against him for not holding a vote to offer federal relief aid to victims of Superstorm Sandy.

Instead, the discussion focused on the amendments, and Boehner did not bring up the fiscal cliff drama, several lawmakers said.

But while members harboring ill feelings toward party leadership remained silent, not all wounds are healed. For instance, unconfirmed rumors prior to the meeting had hinted at a battle to unseat Boehner as speaker. And while most members said they hadn’t heard anything of the sort and the speaker’s office officially denies any such efforts, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who voted against the fiscal cliff deal, did leave the meeting saying he didn’t plan to support Boehner for the position.

“I haven’t made a decision on what to do yet, but as of now, I still haven’t seen the changes I want to see,” Amash told reporters when he left the meeting. “He’s got until tomorrow.”

The body will vote Thursday on Boehner’s future.

Here is some information you may not have known about the Speaker of the House, courtesy of sourcewatch.org

In 1981 Boehner served on the board of trustees of Union Township, Butler County, Ohio. In 1984, he served as president of the township board of trustees.

Boehner served as an Ohio state representative from 1985 to 1990. In 1990, when U.S. Rep. Donald “Buz” Lukens (R-Ohio) was caught in a sex scandal involving a minor, Boehner challenged Lukens in the Republican primary and defeated the incumbent, while also upsetting the district’s former representative, Tom Kindness, who Boehner declared had abandoned his district to become a lobbyist. Boehner went on to victory in the 1990 general election and began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives the 102nd Congress.

He was a member of the Gang of Seven, a group of seven freshmen Republicans who assailed the Democratic leadership with accusations of corruption and arrogance over the misuse of the House Bank. According to a 1992 San Francisco Chronicle article the Gang “set the match to the bank scandal that has now engulfed the House, blackened its leadership and sparked a ‘spontaneous political combustion’ that many analysts say will fuel a record turnover in Congress.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 3/30/02)

Boehner told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “I came as a reformer. But when people in charge don’t want to reform – the only way…is revolution.” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/15/93)

The banking scandal involved 355 members, Democrats and Republicans, writing 8,331 overdrafts to the bank. The Gang pounced on the issue and forced the Democrats into a corner and eventually led to the tidal wave Republican Revolution of 1994.

Boehner came to Congress as one of the most pro-business, anti-government members in 1990. He advocated a flat tax and abolition of whole government agencies including the Department of Education and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Boehner quickly rose to the fourth highest position in the Republican leadership – Republican Conference Chairman – after chairing Newt Gingrich’s 1994 run for the Minority Leader post.

Boehner was on of the principal architects of the Contract With America. He also championed the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act.

When Newt Gingrich resigned his post as Speaker in the wake of the GOPs loss of seats in the 1998 election Boehner’s leadership post was challenged by J.C. Watts, the only black Republican congressman. Boehner lost to Watts 121-93.

In 2001 Boehner was named the Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee where he would oversee numerous agencies that he planned on abolishing in the early 1990s. Boehner worked diligently to pass [[President Bush]]’s No Child Left Behind Act, reaching across the aisle as a conference committee chairman to work with Democrat George Miller (D).

Boehner has also been a strong supporter of school vouchers for private and religious schools and helped to push through the school voucher program for the District of Columbia.

Boehner has repeatedly tried to get a pension reform bill, favored by business leaders, passed by Congress. It has passed the House multiple times, but has consistently failed in the Senate.

Boehner was elected House Majority Leader on February 2, 2006, following Tom DeLay’s departure because of a criminal indictment.

There was brief controversy on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting.[22] However, this turned out to be due to a misunderstanding on whether or not Congressman Luis Fortuño was allowed to vote on leadership.

Boehner campaigned as a reform candidate who could help the House Republicans cleanse and recover from the political damage caused by charges of ethics violations, corruption and money laundering leveled against prominent conservatives such as DeLay and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in spite of his own ties to Abramoff.

He bested fellow candidates Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri and Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona, even though he was considered an underdog candidate to House Majority Whip Blunt. It was the most contested election among House Republicans since 1998. Boehner received 122 votes compared to 109 by Blunt in a run-off vote. Rep. Shadegg dropped out of the race after a loss in the first round of voting and his supporters backed Boehner.

Blunt kept his previous position as Majority Whip, the No. 3 leadership position in the House. Boehner has a strong pro-business reputation but the social conservatives in the GOP are questioning his commitment to their values. According to the Washington Post “From illegal immigration to sanctions on China to an overhaul of the pension system, Boehner, as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, took ardently pro-business positions that were contrary to those of many in his party. Religious conservatives — examining his voting record — see him as a policymaker driven by small-government economic concerns, not theirs….. [He opposes] a tough illegal immigration bill that passed in December [2005] with overwhelming Republican support over Boehner’s opposition. One provision in the bill would mandate that every business verify the legality of every employee through the federal terrorism watch list and a database of Social Security numbers. For the bill’s authors, the measure is central to choking off illegal immigrants’ employment opportunities. To business groups and Boehner, it is unworkable.” Feb 12, 2006

Boehner has since backtracked on his reform platform, stalling on lobbying and ethics reform proposals put forward by Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA). Boehner stated on “Fox New Sunday” that Congress may be overreacting to the current lobbying scandal and voiced his opposition to a proposed congressional travel ban and a ban of earmark projects. The Washington Post writes that Boehner’s ascension to the Majority Leader post “make[s] it less likely that the more far-reaching proposals to restructure lobbying will become law.”  Boehner called the travel ban proposal “childish” in another interview.

Boehner is one of the top recipients of private travel, ranking 7th out of 638 members and former members at American Radio Works Power Trips. His trip totals cost $157,603.85.

After being humiliated by Obama and his Administration during the whole Fiscal Cliff Fiasco, Boehner has told his Republican colleagues that he will have no more one-one-one meetings with President Obama.

A little late now, isn’t it, John?

Perhaps the Republicans will elect a Conservative Speaker of the House, for a change.

And, perhaps Madonna will become a Southern Gospel Music Singer.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Fiscal Cliff: Acquiescense

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamakingIt looks like the Republicans Establishment has given the shaft to Conservatives…again. Last night, they accepted a deal to avoid the Fiscal Cliff, by signing off on legislation that adds $41 of taxes for ever $1 of Spending Cuts.

FoxNews.com has the story:

Congress gave its final approval Tuesday to a bill halting massive tax hikes and delaying a risky round of spending cuts, sending the package to the president’s desk and likely averting for now an economy-stalling fiscal crisis. President Obama said he would sign it.

The 257-167 vote in the House came after a day of high drama on Capitol Hill, during which conservative House lawmakers voiced serious concern about the Senate bill’s lack of spending cuts. Rank-and-file Republicans initially predicted they would tinker with the package, raising the possibility the Senate would abandon it and nothing would get done before the new congressional class is seated Thursday.

But House leaders soon learned they did not have a majority behind any spending-cut plan, and allowed the straight vote. Far more Democrats supported the final bill than Republicans.

The result, once Obama signs it, is that tax hikes that technically kicked in Jan. 1 for most Americans would largely be halted.

Obama, speaking at the White House shortly before midnight, thanked Vice President Biden for his role in negotiating with the Senate a day earlier on the compromise package. The president, as did Republicans on the Hill, cautioned that the bill will precede a broader debate in 2013 about deficit reduction.

“This law is just one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy and broaden opportunity for everybody”, he said.

House Speaker John Boehner said shortly after the vote that Congress must now turn its attention to spending.

“The American people re-elected a Republican majority in the House, and we will use it in 2013 to hold the president accountable for the `balanced’ approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt.”

The bill passed by Congress would nix the 2013 tax increases for families making under $450,000, while letting rates rise for those making above that threshold. It would also extend unemployment insurance for another year, while patching up a host of other expiring provisions and delaying automatic spending cuts for two months. Those cuts, which would hit defense heavily, will instead be offset with a blend of tax increases and other spending cuts.

Americans will still see a 2-point increase this month in their Social Security tax, as Congress did not opt to extend that payroll tax holiday.

Political Pundit Dr. Charles Krauthammer believes that the Democrats mopped the floor with the Republicans.

“Look, there are a lot of conservatives in the Republican caucus in the House who hate the bill for good reason. This is a complete surrender on everything,” he said about the ratio of tax hike to spending cuts.

On Fox’s “Special Report,” Krauthammer offered his prediction on how House Republican leadership will proceed.

”I think what is likely to happen is that the leadership is going to look to get the 218 that it could secure to send the bill back to the Senate with equal number of spending cuts,” he said. “If they don’t get it, (House Speaker John) Boehner will have an open vote, unwhipped, Republicans will vote as they wish. They will probably be enough with all the Democrats to pass this.”

Moderate Republican Pundit Bill Kristol thinks that Congressional Republicans should just take what they’re given and move on.

…Working Americans making less than $400,000 will be shocked when they find that, contrary to promises from both parties, their taxes are in fact going up (the payroll tax). And we will face another cliff when we hit the debt ceiling and the sequester again in two months.

The deal is a sad commentary on our politics today.

On the other hand, the deal is substantively better than going over the cliff and having all income and investment taxes go up, and having the defense sequester hit right away. And politically, Republicans are escaping with a better outcome than they might have expected, and President Obama has gotten relatively little at his moment of greatest strength. In particular, this should do it for new tax revenues, at a number lower than Speaker Boehner originally offered—and it should be pretty easy to have the next debate focus on spending and entitlements.

So, enough House Republicans should vote yes to get the bill passed. And then immediately move on. For Republicans and conservatives need to get serious about what, substantively, they want to stand for over the next few years; about what, practically, they think they can accomplish during Obama’s second term; and about what, politically, their strategy and tactics are for dealing with President Obama and for laying the groundwork for victories in 2014 and 2016. This is the task for the new year, once we get past this dog’s breakfast on New Year’s Day.

And, in the meantime, Skippy, your fellow Moderate Republicans are punishing the small business owners who actually create obs and employ Americans. How in the cotton-pickin’ world, do you Vichy Republicans think that “reaching across the aisle” and going along with this “Tax and Spend Some More” piece of garbage stopgap measure will accomplish anything, except embolden an ego-maniacal president to further tax America into a full-blown Depression?

I’m glad you guys weren’t at Bastogne during World War II. You would have surrendered.

As a member of the ignored Conservative Base, you know what I have to say about your spines of Jello and your acquiescence to the Democrats?

NUTS!

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama Wants to Disarm America (Welcome to the Proletariat.)

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

gun rightsPresident Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) appeared yesterday on NBC (The National Barack Channel) on the program “Meet The Press”. During the program he told Americans, in no uncertain terms, that he’s coming after our guns.

Is this 1917 Russia?

Anyway, here are excerpts of what he said, courtesy of thehill.com:

I’m going to be putting forward a package and I’m going to be putting my full weight behind it. I’m going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again.

…I’ve been very clear that an assault-rifle ban, banning these high capacity clips, background checks, that there are a set of issues that I have historically supported and will continue to support.

…I’d like to get it done in the first year. I will put forward a very specific proposal based on the recommendations that Joe Biden’s task force is putting together as we speak. And so this is not something that I will be putting off.

During the interview, ol’ Scooter  said that he hoped to involve all “stakeholders” in the national debate over gun violence, but he expressed unease with the NRA’s proposal. (I’m shocked.)

…I am not going to prejudge the recommendations that are given to me. I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.

…I think there are a vast majority of responsible gun owners out there who recognize that we can’t have a situation in which somebody with severe psychological problems is able to get the kind of high-capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained and gun down our kids.

Here’s the thing:  Lanza, the Newtown Mass Murderer, attempted to buy guns a week before the shooting and was turned down. The system works.

It not the gun’s fault.  A gun is an inanimate object, incapable of  thought and in capable of pulling its own trigger. It’s the individual pulling the trigger.

Political Pundit, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, reminded us of this, in his op ed piece, published December 20, 2012:

Monsters shall always be with us, but in earlier days they did not roam free. As a psychiatrist in Massachusetts in the 1970s, I committed people — often right out of the emergency room — as a danger to themselves or to others. I never did so lightly, but I labored under none of the crushing bureaucratic and legal constraints that make involuntary commitment infinitely more difficult today.

Why do you think we have so many homeless? Destitution? Poverty has declined since the 1950s. The majority of those sleeping on grates are mentally ill. In the name of civil liberties, we let them die with their rights on.

A tiny percentage of the mentally ill become mass killers. Just about everyone around Tucson shooter Jared Loughner sensed he was mentally ill and dangerous. But in effect, he had to kill before he could be put away — and (forcibly) treated.

Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.

…We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.

…If we’re serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns, everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It’s not hard for President Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?

What did our Founding Fathers have to say about our “Right to Bear Arms”, as found in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution?

“A free people ought to be armed.”

– George Washington

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”

– George Washington

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

– Benjamin Franklin

“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

– Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence … I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy.”

– Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778

“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”

– John Adams

“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”

– George Mason

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.”

– Noah Webster

Mr. President, I understand that you believe yourself smarter than all of the gentlemen I quoted, and, additionally, you believe that our Constitution is a “fluid” document, meant to be revised regularly. However, I would suggest you go do something about the 5o0 murders last year in your hometown of Chicago, a city with strict gun control laws, before you try to take away the guns of law-abiding Americans.

Try to confiscate the criminals’ guns, first. Good luck.

If you do wind up attempting to confiscate law-abiding Americans’ guns….

“There will be resistance” is putting it mildly, Scooter.

The War Against Christianity: Battleground: Hobby Lobby

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics9 Comments

obamadoctorUnless you’ve been living under a rock, like those guys in the Geico commercial, you have heard about the brave stand of Hobby Lobby, the national Arts & Crafts/Retail Chain. The Christian couple who own this very successful company are refusing to comply with the contraception mandate, found in Obamacare.

As of August 1, 2012, under this monstrous state-gun Healthcare Act:

All new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance. Women’s Preventive Services – including: well-woman visits; gestational diabetes screening; human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women age 30 and older; sexually transmitted infection counseling; human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling; FDA-approved contraceptive methods and contraceptive counseling; breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling; and domestic violence screening and counseling – will be covered without cost sharing.

On Jan. 1, Hobby Lobby will face a $1.3 million daily fine if they don’t comply with Obamacare. Todd Starnes reports on FoxNews.com:

“The Green family respects the religious convictions of all Americans, including those who do not agree with them,” the Becket Fund said in a statement. “All they are asking is for the government to give them the same respect by not forcing them to violate their religious beliefs.”

There are now 42 separate lawsuits changing the mandate, the Becket Fund said.

Conservatives praised Hobby Lobby for standing by their convictions.

“God bless this company,” columnist Michelle Malkin told Fox News. “It’s incumbent upon every conservative who believes in freedom of religion and freedom of conscience to support those businesses that are standing up and taking the slings and arrows of this discriminatory administration.”

“This is the most egregious violation of religious liberty that I have ever seen,” wrote columnist Denny Burk. “The first line of the Bill of Rights says this: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Obamacare prohibits the free exercise of the owners of Hobby Lobby. Who’s next?”

Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham said President Obama “must step in to stop this madness.”

“It turns out as many feared, the president’s religious exemption to the contraception mandate is so narrow as to be meaningless,” she said on Fox News. “Unless you employ and serve only those of your same religious faith you don’t receive an exemption. So under that standard, Jesus himself would not qualify. This is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

Abortion supporters hailed Sotomayor’s ruling.

“I hope the government earmarks every cent of that fee money for Planned Parenthood, just to spite these ass****,” wrote one reader on the Jezebel website.

“Anyway, I’m all for Hobby Lobby (and all other organizations that think birth control is totes gross) ignoring the law,” wrote Erin Gloria Ryan in a column titled, “Whore Pill-Hating Hobby Lobby Will Have to Pay a Buttload of Fines for Ignoring Obamacare.”

The website Think Progress said Hobby Lobby is ignoring two points.

“First, that Plan B is not an abortion-inducing drug, as Hobby Lobby claims, and second, that the company may well end up paying more to avoid covering contraception than they would simply providing access,” the website reported. “It also takes a twisted view on the ‘Freedom of Religion’ argument; the company is actually forcing its owner’s religious beliefs on all employees, no matter their personal religious views.”

Ingraham pointed out that in a previous case Sotomayor ruled in favor of a Muslim inmate who was denied Ramadan meals. She held that the meal was subjectively important to the inmate’s practice of Islam.

Malkin called it a selective double standard.

“Religious liberty for some, none for others,” she said.

Per usual, “The Boss” is right.

The First Amendment to the  United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

By attempting to force Christian businesses, hospitals, and schools to observe the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare, the Obama Administration and Congress, by virtue of their passing the bill that fateful night on Capitol Hill, are in violation of the First Amendment.

Regarding the statement by those Liberal Obama sycophants (but, I repeat myself) at the George Soros-funded website, Think Progress, that the owners of Hobby Lobby were trying to “force their religion” on their employees:

Seems to me, that it’s the Obama Administration attempting to force their secular socialist belief system on Hobby Lobby.

As an American Business Owner, they have the right to do business as they seem fit, and , if they are in a “Right to Work” state, they can hire and fire whom they want to as well. It is way beyond the purpose and scope of government to tell Americans how they can practice their faith.

In the Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, written on October 11, 1798, the Second President of these United States laid it out very plainly:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Perhaps their own lack of these virtues is the reason that Obama and his minions do not seem to care that they are ignoring Our Constitution.

…Funny though. These same people who claim to the “the Smartest ones in the romm” are those very same hippies, who, in the 60s and 70s, where whining and screaming to anyone who would listen, that their Constitutional Rights were being violated.

Fiscal Cliff: A Study in Crisis Management

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

chickenlittleThe definition of the term “Crisis Management” is just as it sounds: the ability of a leader to react appropriately to a crisis situation. Regarding America’s looming plunge over the Fiscal Cliff, however,   Political One-Upmanship is ruling the day, as the President Obama and Congress pose for the cameras, and, in less-than-good-faith, negotiate a deal regarding the biggest tax hike in U.S. History.

ABCNews.go.com has the story:

Political brinkmanship appears to have created a last minute chance for the White House and Congress to agree on a plan to avoid sending the country over the fiscal cliff.

President Obama emerged from an Oval Office meeting with Congressional leaders this evening to say “we had a constructive meeting today” and that he was “moderately optimistic” that they could devise a federal budget proposal ahead of a Jan. 1 deadline that would otherwise automatically trigger a wide range of tax increases and spending cuts. Economists fear that such a combination could throw the country back into a recession.

He said Senate Majority Leader Harry, a Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, were trying to quickly fashion a deal.

“Sens. Reid and McConnell are discussing a potential agreement where we can get a bipartisan bill out of the Senate and over to the House in a timely fashion so that we meet the Dec. 31 deadline,” Obama said in a hastily-arranged statement. “But given how things have been working in this town we always have to wait and see to see whether it actually happens.”

Admitting the weekend could ultimately prove fruitless, the president said as a backup plan he had instructed Reid to deliver the Democratic proposal to the Senate floor for a straight up-or-down vote. That would boost taxes for couples making more than $250,000.

“I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as those leaders allow it to actually come to a vote,” Obama said. “If members of the House or the Senate want to vote no, they can, but we should let everybody vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work. If you can get a majority in the House and you can get a majority in the Senate, then we should be able to pass a bill.”

The president lamented that a deal is coming down to the final hours.

“The American people are watching what we do… (their) patience is already thin,” the president said. “It’s deja vu all over again.”

He added later that for Americans the repeated last second efforts to dodge economic crises “is mind boggling to them. It has to stop.”

Translation: You Redneck Congresscritters representing the Bitter Clingers better do it my way or I’ll throw a Hissy Fit!

And, as Grover Norquist reminds us: that ain’t exactly the best solution.

As the “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending cuts draws closer, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist repeated his call on CNBC’s “Closing Bell”for spending cuts instead of tax increases to deal with the country’s fiscal problems.

“If you put tax increases on the table, there’s never any spending restraint,” Norquist said, citing examples where taxes went up under previous administrations but spending continued unfettered.

“All Obama has done for the last four years is clamor for higher taxes to spend more money,” the president of Americans for Tax Reform told CNBC. “The only time we’ve beat him back on spending at all was during the debt-ceiling crisis.”

Norquist said Obama was “willing to save $1 trillion by not occupying Iraq for the next decade. He wanted to count that like not continuing the War of 1812 was his budget cut.”

He added that raising taxes isn’t a compromise because the problem is spending.

He also called on the Senate to pass a budget, which it has failed to do for years. “Then we could compare it to the Republican budget and perhaps we could compromise on how much spending we need to bring down,” Norquist said.

When we get past the cliff, any hike in the debt ceiling should be accompanied by similar cuts in spending, Norquist said.

“[Speaker John] Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell have made clear if the president wants a dollar of debt-ceiling increase, we need to cut spending a dollar. That goes for $1 trillion,” Norquist said. “That kind of spending restraint is exactly the kind of thing we need to do in the future for any debt-ceiling increase —period.”

Just as there are different general Management styles, there are different styles of Crisis Management: altruistic and self-serving.

What Obama and our Congresscritters are attempting to do, is come up with some sort of last-minute whoop-te-do stop-gap measure, in a feverish attempt to stave off the consequences of being bad stewards of our money.

With President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) leading the way.

The whole situation reminds me of a Director, whom I reported to, when I was working as a Media Specialist at one of the country’s largest and most prestigious hospitals. This lady, (an Ed.D.) would wait until the Ninth Hour, as the deadline for a major project for her superiors approached, and then she would turn the office upside-down, in a scene reminiscent of the pie fight scene in the Tony Curtis/Peter Falk Classic, “The Great Race”.

The conference room table would be stacked with all her paperwork, while our two Admins flew wildly around, attempting to organize her mess,  like their hair was on fire and their rear ends were catching.  Meanwhile, my manager would be conspicuously gone from the general vicinity all day, leaving the rest of us at the mercy of the dear lady.

The president, like my former director, seems to be relishing the power he holds during the chaos of these Ninth-Hour Negotiations.

Which just proves the old chestnut:

If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs…then you obviously don’t have a clue as to what is going on.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Romney: A Failure to Communicate

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

romney4Conservatives, such as myself, were presented a raw deal by the GOP in the past election. Their chosen one, Willard Mitt Romney, was no Conservative. He was a Moderate, who, regarding many Social Issues in his past history, took stances to the Left of the Political Spectrum. On top of that, “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, was the Godfather of the State-run Healthcare Monster known as Obamacare.

That was an awful lot of baggage for a Republican candidate to be carrying.

When the Conservative Base raised questions about the GOP Elites’ predetermined candidate, were their concerns met with empathy?

Hardly.

Shut up!

the GOP Establishment and New England Moderate wing explained.

So, dutifully, out of love for our country, Reagan Conservatives held our noses and voted for Mitt Romney…because anyone would be better than the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

…And…he lost.

Why? How could he? Obama was, and is,  an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, card-carrying Communist.

Michael Barone, writing for the Washington Examiner, presents the following theory:

In both elections [2004, 2012], each candidate concentrated on a more or less fixed list of target states, and in both elections the challenger depended heavily on outside groups’ spending that failed to achieve optimal results.

The popular vote margins were similar — 51 to 48 percent for George W. Bush in 2004, 51 to 47 percent for Barack Obama in 2012.

The one enormous difference was turnout. Turnout between the 2000 and 2004 elections rose from 105 million to 122 million, plus 16 percent. Turnout between the 2008 and 2012 elections fell from 131 million to 128 million, minus 2 percent.

Turnout is a measure of organization but also of spontaneous enthusiasm.

In 2004 John Kerry got 16 percent more popular votes than Al Gore had four years before. But he lost because George W. Bush got 23 percent more popular votes than he had four years before.

Kerry voters were motivated more by negative feelings for Bush than by positive feelings for their candidate. They disagreed with Bush’s major policies and disliked him personally. The Texas twang, the swagger, the garbled sentence structure — it was like hearing someone scratch his fingers on a blackboard.

Bush voters were more positively motivated. Political reporters had a hard time picking this up. His job rating was weak, but Bush voters tended to have a lot of warmth for him.

He had carried us through 9/11, he had confronted our enemies directly, he had pushed through with bipartisan support popular domestic measures like his education bill and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

His criticism of his opponents was measured and never personal, and he blamed none of his difficulties on his predecessor (who had blamed none of his on his).

This affection evaporated pretty quickly, in the summer of 2005, with scenes of disorder in the streets of Baghdad and New Orleans. But it was there in 2004 and you can see it in that 23 percent turnout increase.

The 2012 election was different. Barack Obama got 6 percent fewer popular votes than he had gotten in 2008. And Mitt Romney got only 1 percent more popular votes than John McCain had four years before.

In retrospect, it looks like both campaigns fell short of their turnout goals. Yes, examination of election returns and exit polls indicates that the Obama campaign turned out voters where it really needed them.

That enabled him to carry Florida by 1 percent, Ohio by 3 percent, Virginia by 4 percent, and Colorado and Pennsylvania by 5 percent. Without those states he would have gotten only 243 electoral votes and would now be planning his presidential library.

But the conservative bloggers who argued that the Obama campaign’s early voting numbers were below target may have been right. If Mitt Romney had gotten 16 percent more popular votes than his predecessor, as John Kerry did, he would have led Obama by 4 million votes and won the popular vote 51 to 48 percent.

Romney, like Kerry, depended on voters’ distaste for the incumbent; he could not hope to inspire the devotion Bush enjoyed in 2004 and that Obama had from a diminished number in 2008.

But, to continue this counterfactual scenario, if Obama had won 23 percent more popular votes this year than in 2008, he would have beaten Romney by 85 million to 69 million votes and by 54 to 44 percent.

Unfortunately, if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we all would have had a Merry Christmas!

The reality is, Mitt Romney lost. And, now, his son, Tagg Romney, tells us, his Dad never really wanted to be president, in the first place.

Okay, kid. Thanks for telling us…after the election is long over.

I have a couple of questions, then.

1. If he did not want to be president, why did he run?

2. If he did not want to be president, why did he attack the other primary candidates, especially the Conservative Republicans, with a fury reminiscent of Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, rolling around in an African river, as he killed a humongous crocodile with his knife?

Was he put up to this by the GOP Elite, so desperate for an easily-manipulated Washington Insider, that they overlooked Romney’s failures as a candidate in previous elections?

If you will notice, immediately after the man-made disaster, known on November 6th, 2012, the GOP Elite were calling for the direction of the Party to move even farther Left, in order to “be more competitive”.

Sorry, boys. All that backroom cigar smoke has rotted your brains.

The majority of Americans, except for those little blue dots in the urban areas, denoting Democrat voters, on the map showing the election results, remain Conservative.

If you would have presented a Conservative candidate, who could articulate Conservatism and the Party Platform, and thereby, connect with us average Americans, living here in the Heartland, then that Republican would have beaten the Manchurian Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm).

Instead, what we had heah, was, failure to communicate.

Obama’s Presidency: Very Taxing…For All of Us

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamagolf122512I hope you all got what you wanted for Christmas. I, personally, would have liked my sanity back…but, that ain’t happenin’ anytime soon.

The nation’s economy remains in the toilet, while the largest tax hike in American History is only 5 days away.

But, hey…up in DC, the fiddle business is doing great…while Rome burns.

Per Reuters.com:

Though Republicans and Democrats have spent the better part of a year describing a plunge off the cliff as a looming catastrophe, the nation’s capital showed no outward signs of worry, let alone impending calamity.

The White House has set up shop in Hawaii, where President Barack Obama is vacationing.

The Capitol was deserted and the Treasury Department – which would have to do a lot of last-minute number-crunching with or without a deal – was closed.

So were all other federal government offices, with Obama having followed a tradition of declaring the Monday before a Tuesday Christmas a holiday for government employees, notwithstanding the approaching fiscal cliff.

Expectations for some 11th-hour rescue focused largely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, in part because he has performed the role of legislative wizard in previous stalemates.

But McConnell, who is up for re-election in 2014, was shunning the role this year, his spokesman saying that it was now up to the Democrats in the Senate to make the next move.

“We don’t yet know what Senator Reid will bring to the floor. He is not negotiating with us and the president is out of town,” said McConnell’s spokesman, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. “So I just don’t know what they’re going to do over there,” he said.

Two-day-old tweets on leadership websites told the story insofar as it was visible to the public.

House Speaker John Boehner’s referred everyone to McConnell. McConnell’s tweet passed the responsibility along to Obama, saying it was a “moment that calls for presidential leadership.”

eid’s tweet said: “There will be very serious consequences for millions of families if Congress fails to act” on the cliff.

The next session of the Senate is set for Thursday, but the issues presented by across-the-board tax hikes and indiscriminate reductions in government spending, were not on the calendar.

The House has nothing on its schedule for the week, but members have been told they could be called back at 48 hours notice, making a Thursday return a theoretical possibility.

So, just how big is Obama’s proposed Tax Increase?

NationalReview.com reports that

When we look at just nominal dollars, the president’s plan would, unsurprisingly, be much bigger than any tax increase ever, at $189 billion in the fourth year after implementation, topping the Affordable Care Act, which Tempalski calculates will raise $76.8 billion in revenue in its fourth year of implementation. (The CBO doesn’t find that level of revenue until 2020.) The largest increase before this was the 1993 budget act, which raised $66 billion in the most expensive year Tempalski measured, its fourth.

But more meaningfully, the president’s proposal is also the biggest tax increase since 1940 when adjusted for inflation. If you convert the revenue estimates from 2017 into 1992 dollars, the year that the original Treasury paper uses, the president’s plan raises $108 billion. No plan that Tempalski considered raised a higher amount, and it is possibly the highest amount ever. The second-biggest tax increase overall since 1940, after Obama’s, is the Revenue Act of 1942, which raised $73 billion in 1992 dollars. The second-biggest increase since 1968 was the 1993 tax hike, which in its fourth year raised $62 billion.

A final measure of the size of President Obama’s proposed tax increase is the increase as a percentage of total federal receipts. The president’s budget would raise that total by 5.1 percent in 2017 relative to the revenue baseline the document provides. That’s more than all but two increases since 1968: again, the 1982 act, which raised tax revenue by 7.2 percent in its fourth year (and 5.7 percent over its first four years), and the 1968 bill, which raised tax revenue by 6 percent over its first two years. These numbers all pale in comparison with some increases from the 1940s and 50s, six of which increased federal receipts by more than 9 percent. (The Revenue Act of 1942 raised receipts by 71 percent. Remember when we used to do big things, America?)

True, the nominal size of President Obama’s tax increase, like that of the taxes contained in the health-care law, dwarfs anything the U.S. government has ever raised from a tax proposal, though this comparison is almost meaningless. But his ten-year revenue plan is big enough to rank up there on the Mount Rushmore of revenue: It is the third-biggest tax increase as a percentage of GDP since 1968 and, in dollars adjusted for inflation, the biggest since 1940.

Now, doesn’t that just give you the warm fuzzies?

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. – Ronald Reagan

If these idiots, who are supposed to be working for US, not THEMSELVES overtax those who actually provide jobs for Americans, how is that supposed to “get our nation’s economy up and running again”?

Seems to me, all Obama’s plan will do is tax our nation’s economy into another Depression.

…And, maybe that’s what he wants.