Good Morning,
Today is the day the Obamacare decision will come out. It should happen after 10 o’clock eastern time this morning but there is another story – perhaps bigger than Obamacare that warrants our attention. House and Senate Republican leaders are yet again set to expand government, government spending, and engage in Keynesian economic policies they’ve criticized Barack Obama for. RS writes somewhat wisely, they are releasing all this as the Supreme Court releases its Obamacare decision so no one will pay attention. Ironically, as we wait to see if the Supreme Court gives Congress plenary power through the Commerce Clause, Congressional Republicans are feeding the Leviathan on their own. Republicans and Democrats have agreed to a massive increase in federal gluttony with a highway bill. The Republicans decided to drop demands for approving the Keystone XL pipeline and demands that the EPA stop its ridiculous regulations on coal plants that will harm our energy future. In exchange, Democrats will not fund bike paths and highway landscaping. HUH?
In other words, Democrats should not be at all worried about Republican plans for Obamacare should any portion of it be declared unconstitutional later today. The GOP will just get scared and cave – AGAIN!
We’re at $16 billion in debt and as the sun rises this morning we are can be reminded of two things: the Republicans are not serious about paying down the debt (proving yet again both parties are the same) and many outside conservative groups will politely avert their eyes arguing that we must fight Barack Obama, not stop the Republican’s complicity in bankrupting our nation.
So much for credibility in the argument on spending.
RS goes into the reasons why ‘NO’ should be said to the highway and student loan bills:
The Washington Examiner writes about the bipartisan insanity as it raids pensions to spend more. Here’s an EXCERPT:
Today, we are learning about the latest example of bipartisan insanity as we hurry toward the fiscal cliff.
Democrat and Republican leaders are quietly planning to combine a new highway bailout with a student loan bailout. All of this is to be paid for by raising new taxes and raiding private pensions. Adding to this mess, a reauthorization of the federal flood insurance program may be added to this mega-bailout bill, with a new mandate that requires more people to purchase flood insurance even if they live in very low risk areas. HUH?
The potential deal, which will extend the supposedly temporary student loan subsidies for roughly two percent of the population, will likely be paid for by reducing contributions to private pensions. The tradeoff goes like this: Congress lets businesses change the way they calculate funding requirements so that they can put less money into their pension systems, and the money they don’t put into pensions gets taxed and generates $9 billion in new tax revenue.
The difference is, there will be less money available to pay benefits when they come due.
Something ELSE is happening today – the contempt proceedings for Holder aka Fast & Furious. Issa, perhaps, is the ONLY principled representative we have right now. Give this letter a read he wrote to El Presidente –
“Dear Mr. President,
On June 19, 2012, shortly after leaving a meeting in the U.S. Capitol, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote to request that you assert executive privilege with respect to Operation Fast & Furious documents he is withholding from this Committee. The next Day, Deputy Attorney General James Cole notified me in a letter that you had invoked executive privilege. The Committee received both letters minutes before the scheduled start of a vote to recommend that the full House hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with its subpoena.
Courts have consistently held that the assertion of the constitutionally-based executive privilege – the only privilege that ever can justify the withholding of documents from a congressional committee by the Executive Branch – is only applicable with respect to documents and communications that implicate the confidentiality of the President’s decision-making process, defined as those documents and communications to and from the President and his most senior advisors. Even then, it is a qualified privilege that is overcome by a showing of the committee’s need for the documents. The letters from Messrs. Holder and Cole cited no case law to the contrary.
Accordingly, your privilege assertion means one of two things. Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the Attorney General to the Committee, or, you are asserting a Presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation. To date, the White House has steadfastly maintained that it has not had any role in advising the Department with respect to the congressional investigation. The surprising assertion of executive privilege raised the question of whether that still is the case.
Here’s the full letter:
http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/oversight@mail.house_.gov_20120625_230445.pdf
Interestingly enough – its being reported this morning that Several Democrats on Wednesday said they would vote to place Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, giving Republicans an opportunity to tout bipartisan support for the effort against President Obama’s attorney general. At least four Democrats in GOP-leaning districts said they’d side with Republicans and back the contempt measure in the wake of the National Rifle Association’s decision to score the vote. The support comes from Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) – the rest – eh not so much. It’s going to be a very interesting day!
Which brings me to my next thought – Abraham Lincoln once said “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” In truth I share with you I have a very long list of ‘leaders’ I do not like politically on both sides of the aisle. So, taking a clue from one of my favored Presidents, I am asking you to send me your list of leaders you don’t like, would like to see gone and together we will get to know them better. The compelling reason for this is that we must be armed with facts to thwart the left that live among us. We need to know everything there is to know about those that hold or seek office. We must be educated voters and why not start with ‘those we don’t like’. Let’s not waste time with ‘the one’ that tops our list – the self proclaimed king himself – Obama – but let’s get down to those in leadership positions in the US Senate and House and our states Senate/House and go even closer to home in local government offices. Let’s take a hard look at candidates as well. I will jump start our ‘getting to know you better’ campaign on Monday. I await your input but rest assured our reporting will not be sympathetic to the talking points of either side – it will be truth (ya know – the new hate speech) – but we’ll risk it.
Speaking of the left, I received a new fundraising email from Debbie Schultz in which she claimed the GOP wants to ruin America (eye roll) and that Obama is losing in the polls (as he should be – the WSJ reports that he’s down in the last 20 of 24 polls although the new NBC-Marist data shows: MI: Obama 47%, Romney 43%; NC: Obama 46%, Romney 44%; NH: Obama 45%, Romney 45% ). But to make our job a wee bit harder Obama has purchased $5.5 million of air time during the Olympics on NBC networks. I suspect that air time will repeat (if OCare if overturned that is) White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s sentiment that the majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare because of all the ads run against it! Never mind the countless Americans all over the country at Town Hall Meetings who screamed at Obama and the Democrats NOT to pass it and they were totally disregarded. That’s why the Democrats lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2010 Midterm Elections – a massive repudiation. But, like everything else – truth is lost on Washington. Be sure to watch the Must See Videos today – seems even the beloved comedians get the ‘truth’ now:
http://wp.me/P2qIo2-D
Oh – and some more truth – O’s big argument against Romney and his ‘outsourcing jobs’ statement as he campaigned in Mitt Romney’s backyard,
“Gov. Romney’s commitment to outsourcing is not just part of his record, it’s part of his overall economic vision that he and Republicans in Congress want to implement if they win this election,” …crashing & burning this morning. Turns out President Barack Obama’s second-largest fundraiser owns a large stake in America’s number one outsourcer. HUH? Say it isn’t so!
John Rogers, CEO of investment giant Ariel Capital Management, has raised more than $1.5 million for Obama’s reelection campaign. Rogers’s firm also owns a $48.6 million stake in Accenture, the nation’s “best” outsourcer, according to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals.
Rogers is now looking to break new ground in the world of outsourcing, in order to enhance his company’s $21 billion portfolio. In an interview with Forbes, Rogers expressed his desire to blaze the trail from moving call centers and factories overseas to outsourcing “day-to-day activities” including pest control, landscaping, and secretarial functions.
“We’re making a very big bet right now on outsourcing,” he said. “People have generally soured on the idea, and many companies are trading at discounts to their private-market values. But we don’t think that view accurately reflects the powerful secular growth we’re going to see as companies and individuals outsource more of their day-to-day activities.”
http://freebeacon.com/outsourcer-in-chief/
I believe this is one of the Administrations ‘do as I say not as I do’ moves. BUSTED!
Speaking of truth lost – James Carville, one of Bill Clinton’s top political consultants, sent a fundraising email yesterday to solicit fundraising money for Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), saying if Democrats like Slaughter are elected, the Tea Party movement will be over, even though Carville concedes that getting rid of the Tea Party will not be easy. Ahh wishful thinking Mr. Carville.
“These Tea Party Republicans have worn out their welcome. (huh?) But I’m telling you — getting rid of ‘em won’t be easy. They’re not leaving on their own. We’re going to have to boot them out the door like unwanted house guests,” Carville wrote, according to the Observer. “That’s why we’ve got to get behind proud Democrats like Louise Slaughter to make sure we can win a Democratic Majority.”
Breitbart writes: Democrats who are thinking about sending Slaughter money based on this e-mail may want to think twice based on Carville’s track record. Shortly after the 2008 election, Carville authored a book, 40 More Years, in which he argued Democrats would be in the majority for 40 years. Of course, two years after Carville wrote his book, Republicans won historic gains in the 2010 midterm elections. If the past will be prologue, perhaps Republicans should send Slaughter money, since it seems like whenever Carville predicts something, the opposite occurs.
Congressman Lt. Col Allen West appeared on Fox and Friends yesterday morning to discuss what he described as “stealth jihad” within United States institutions. Rattling off examples and historical data, West accused organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood of trying to subvert practically every American institution under the sun, from the military to churches to the United States government. Moreover, West argued, the reality that it was a predominately Muslim threat was being ignored on both sides of the aisle because of political correctness. Or, as West put it, a “Tolerance that will lead to our cultural suicide.”
Cliff Asness’ Cliff Notes To Progressive America
Cliff Asness, head of the quant hedge fund AQR, has been known to be a vocal opponent of various failed governmental policies in the past few years. Yesterday, he shared his “dictionary” of the key terms dominant in Progressive America right now.
Some Useful Definitions to Understand Our Modern Progressive World
Failed Policies of the Past
Definition: Limited government, free markets, personal responsibility, liberty.
We Are All In This Together
Definition: For the love of God who do we tax back to the stone-age to get out of this!?
Social Darwinism
Definition: Essentially a darling concept of the progressive left of the first half of the 20th century (along with eugenics its even more vile cousin). It now is defined as “any attempt by conservatives and libertarians to rein in the unsustainable spending of out of control government.”
Fairness
Definition: A word used to motivate making sure outcomes do not match abilities or effort. Note, pre-1970 it meant roughly the opposite.
Social Justice
Definition: Redistribution based on group affiliation, regardless of anything the actual individuals in question did, or even their specific ancestors did, but instead based on the actions of other individuals in the past who just kind of looked vaguely like those in the relevant groups being discussed now, both victim and oppressor. Also applies to redistribution of any kind, whether based on actual unfairness, or on simply outcomes liberals do not like.
Alternative definition: Unspecific. Just a meaningless phrase that screams “I am liberal and this phrase sounds liberal and nice with just a hint of revolutionary sexiness.”
Antonym: Justice (which, even if it must be applied broadly to address real group-wide wrongs, is always and everywhere an individual notion)
The Phrase “Deny Access to…”
Used in a sentence: “It is unfair to deny access to healthcare to 26 year olds living off their parents.”
Definition: When a person isn’t given something they want for free, and they have not found a way to steal it yet, they have been “denied access” to it. In general it is the “1%” that “denies access.” See “1%” below.
Entitlement
Definition: Something provided by other men and women’s labor that some claim as their right, sometimes claiming to have paid for it during their lifetime, when all forms of modern mathematics and accounting reject that notion.
Rights
Used in a sentence: “I have a right to healthcare.”
Definition: A more extreme form of “entitlement” defined above. Note that modern usage throws out the long tradition of natural rights only of a negative nature, that is, the right not to have something done to you, for rights of a positive nature, that is, the right to certain goods and services, like health care, Apple products, and soy milk. Since, no matter how important these items are, these modern positive rights must still be produced and taken from others, essentially the word “rights” now often stands for a system of slavery and theft.
Main Street
Definition: A place liberals used to ridicule as Mayberry but now pretend to love.
Regular Americans
Definition: People who support me.
Special Interests
Definition: People who support you.
Fat Cat
Definition: Something a politicians calls someone with 3x more money than the median voter who supported the politician in question.
Alternative Definition: Someone the same exact politician hits up for cash.
The 1%
Definition: Those who pay more than 1/3 the total federal income tax and are never thanked for it. More generally, they are responsible for all evil in the world today (unless they work in Hollywood or hi-tech in which case they are “honorary 99%-ers” regardless of income, tax rate, and lifestyle).
Middle-Class
Definition: A focus-group tested better word than “the poor” for progressives to use to advance their statist schemes. Some speeches by progressives now consist of just saying it over and over again in different hypnotic musical tones.
Income Inequality
Definition: What occurs when a free and productive economy includes people with different abilities, work habits, and, of course, luck. Also, one of the main reasons anyone actually works at anything.
A Fair Tax System
Definition: One in which the “rich” (i.e., those making more than the speaker of these words, or those voting for the speaker) pay 50% more than they currently pay, and the speaker and his constituents get to pay 50% less than they currently pay. These figures remain unchanged despite any starting tax rates. If this change pushes the “rich” to over 100% or the non-rich to below 0% more the fairer.
Julia
Definition: The person living the ideal progressive life where no responsibility is taken, no risk is taken, the government perks are endless, you never see who pays for it, and the tyrannical hand of big-brother never makes it into the cartoon narrative.
Synonym: Sheep Antonym: Men
Citizens United
Definition: The ultimate evil Supreme Court decision (narrowly defeating Dred Scott) which expanded free speech, thus allowing those with money to, uh, speak freely.
SCOTUS
Definition: A delicious breakfast treat that goes well with English Breakfast tea and clotted crème. Conservatives prefer theirs in the traditional 9 pack, liberals enjoy up to 15.
Elizabeth Warren
Definition: An “Elizabeth Warren” is any brilliant scholar who both thinks we can fix the U.S. financial system simply by adding another giant bureaucracy with near unlimited power, and who can, by dancing vigorously in a circle, make it rain. Both equally as likely.
The IMF and/or the World Bank
Definition: Nobody knows. See SMERSH and CHAOS for similar definitions.
The European Financial Crisis
Definition: A complex multi-year dance whose sole purpose is to see how much money can be shaken out of the German middle-class.
Universal Health Care
Definition: The system formerly known as single payer.
Single payer Health Care
Definition: The system formerly known as socialized medicine.
Socialized Medicine
Definition: Something Democrats claim they don’t want, as they simply want Universal Health Care.
Nobel Peace Prize
Definition: A prize awarded to the left’s favorite person that year.
Antonym: Any prize having anything to do with actual Peace, or frankly accomplishment of any kind.
Stimulus
Definition: Taking money from current and future Americans to undertake projects that didn’t make sense before, don’t make sense now, will net cost jobs as the stimulus must be paid for privately, but since the job losses will be hidden, and the direct hires put on the evening news, might let those in charge keep their cushy jobs a bit longer.
World War II
Definition: Mainly important as proof that Keynesian stimulus works (side note: also led to defeat of Nazis and Imperial Japan). Since it is the only such “proof” ever, and we all have nuclear weapons now, different options are being considered for future stimuli. Actually, since World War II ending did not crash the economy as Keynesians predicted at the time, frankly we’re rethinking the whole thing.
Cash for Clunkers
Definition: What we came up to replace World War II as stimulus. Many perfectly good cars destroyed, no Nazis defeated.
Quantitative Easing
Definition: The act of printing pieces of paper to purchase other pieces of paper and thinking it matters at all for anything. See “dogs chasing cars” for related examples.
Austerity
Definition: Spending much more than ever before but slightly less than you had once thought you might spend which itself was a completely insane amount to spend.
Synonym: Profligacy
Paul Ryan
Definition: A “Paul Ryan” is a Hollywood monster which kills and devours old people simply by showing them a preliminary reasonable plan to grow spending slower than we currently are, while keeping any obligations already made to the elderly.
Grand Bargain
Definition: An agreement to raise taxes now while tacitly agreeing to waive the corresponding spending cuts later. Usually done in at least a 10:1 ratio as waiving 10x the future cuts is a particularly effective amount of waiving.
Reform
Definition: To make something (e.g., government) bigger, more intrusive, less efficient, and more dictatorial.
Bipartisan
Definition: We found one old sap from the other party dying for one last shot at relevance who will add his name to our highly partisan effort.
Dodd-Frank
Definition: A verb, to “Dodd-Frank” something is to use the perpetrators of a major crime to fix things for next time. Like taking ex-computer hackers and putting them in charge of your security (this example is not perfect as this might actually work). Used in a sentence: “We really Dodd-Franked that financial reform.”
See also “Searching for the real killers.”
Right Wing Extremist
Definition: Someone objecting in any way to left wing extremism.
Conservative
Definition: Moron
Liberal
Definition: A word that when applied to yourself conveys an instant halo of goodness that does not have to be justified with actions, logic, or even the slightest examination of what the policies you support have wrought. Works particularly well for rich hypocrites (Wall Street) and rich morons (Hollywood).
Progressive
Definition: A rebranding of “liberal” post-Dukakis, going back to an older word, that means essentially the same thing, but contains the very positive word “progress” within it, and the always welcome “ive” ending.
Libertarian
Definition: A philosophy held by annoying bastards who happen to be right about nearly everything. Fortunately, due to the frustration that comes with being right about nearly everything, in a world wrong about those same things, there are only 19 of them, and we’re going to find the bastards soon.
The Party of No
Definition: Legislators who are rightly demonized by the press and progressives for being elected to bring down the size of government and then actually trying to do so. Sons of bitches.
Synonyms: Obstructionists, Do-nothing Congress
The Buck Stops There
Definition: Something Barack Obama says about George W. Bush.
Foreign Policy
Definition: A process where the USA makes amends to the rest of the world for being more successful than them, footing many of their bills, and shedding our blood to keep them safer and freer.
Due Process
Definition: Something progressives get misty over when Henry Fonda is being denied it on the silver screen and when in power they deliver at the end of an explosive drone after Judge David Axelrod pronounces the target guilty.
Climate
Definition: A non-linear chaotic system that is a near-perfect example of something that is very very difficult, even using modern methods, to explain or forecast. This in no way takes away from the possible reasonableness of man-made climate change described below. Though, one might note, we get frustrated by weathermen as they can’t forecast the climate today.
Global Warming
Definition: What we now call “climate change”. Global warming was phased out as it also leads to things being too cold, and sometimes being just right. Mama Bear has been replaced with a highly volatile mix of all three bears.
Climate Change
Definition: The fact that over time the climate, uh, changes.
Man-Made Climate Change
Definition: The entirely reasonable idea that seven billion industrialized humans may be affecting the climate.
Krypton Seven Seconds Before Kal-El Was Launched Into Space
Definition: The stage liberals are certain the Earth is at.
Jor-El
Definition: Both a character once played by Marlon Brando and coincidentally the fictional character Al Gore pictures himself as. Nobody listened to Jor-El and look what happened! A fascinating additional coincidence is that when Brando was alive, Marlon and Al alone actually omitted ¼ of the USA’s greenhouse gases.
Infinity
Definition: The amount progressives will spend to combat man-made climate change without any assessment of the costs and benefits of these actions.
The Green Agenda
Definition: The additional use of man-made climate change, even if it’s fully true and it makes economic sense to sacrifice to fight it, to have government and its anointed priests take over much more of our lives. Any questioning of it is absolute proof of evil. Children must be indoctrinated in it in grade school before reading or writing or arithmetic. They must then be sent to spy on and lecture their parents.
Resistance is futile.
Ronald Reagan Definition: Right wing extremist President who kicked people off welfare which progressives said would be a holocaust, radically broadened free trade which progressives say has since killed American manufacturing, and whose administration perpetuated the horrible banking deregulation progressives say brought on the financial crisis.
Bill Clinton
Definition: The guy who actually did those things right above (though Reagan did some other cool
things). Oddly today’s Democrats insist that it’s Republicans who’ve changed and gotten “way more extreme” since the 1990s.
Trickle Down Economics
Definition: A brilliant marketing phrase for denigrating the truth: that a freer economy helps everyone. Not to be confused with “trickle up poverty” a perfect definition of socialism.
Democracy
Definition: An excellent form of government where if you can cobble together 51% of the people, by promising them other people’s stuff, or scaring them that you’ll take away their stuff, you can rule as a dictator. It is decidedly not the form of government originally chosen by the United States of America, which is a constitutional republic with limited government. Thankfully we’ve mostly done away with that nonsense.
Socialism
Definition: A word that is a hate crime if used about an American politician who wants us to be more like Europe. Or, alternatively, a word used by many European politicians to define themselves.
That’s enough for today but don’t forget to watch the videos:
http://wp.me/P2qIo2-D
Keep Talking – Keep Thinking – enjoy your day!
Lisa
Reblogged this on Boudica BPI Weblog and commented:
Read today’s NTKN.
Reblogged this on The Busy Post.