Will The Debt Hamstring Democrat Hopes? Doubtful.
Saturday, October 17th, 2009This dropped yesterday:
The Obama administration has released new deficit numbers, and they are not pretty.
The deficit for Fiscal Year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year.
In addition, future deficits are currently projected to total $9.1 trillion in the coming decade.
Will the reality of massive debt stop Democrats? No. Their answer to debt is to push reality down the road. They have too many big plans they want to pass right now. They know they’ll lose the coming elections, but they hope to get the big programs passed while they can. Let the grown-ups deal with deficit details.
Shocker: Conservatives Not Racist
Friday, October 16th, 2009Gather a bunch of white good-old Georgia boys in a room and ask them questions. Wait how long it takes til they bring up race and blame black people.
It won’t happen. Even if James Carville really, really, really hopes it would happen:
Instead of focusing on these intense ideological divisions, the press and elites continue to look for a racial element that drives these voters’ beliefs – but they need to get over it. Conducted on the heels of Joe Wilson’s incendiary comments at the president’s joint session address, we gave these groups of older, white Republican base voters in Georgia full opportunity to bring race into their discussion – but it did not ever become a central element, and indeed, was almost beside the point.
So, will the media let it go? Doubtful.
Breitbart: NEA Conference Call, Your Tax Dollars, And Artistic Coercion–UPDATED
Monday, September 21st, 2009Here is the explosive tape from the NEA at Brietbart as well as a transcript in full. I’m listening now.
Nick Gillespie, also of Breitbart’s Big Hollywood says:
As Patrick Courrelieche, an L.A.-based arts organizer who participated in the call, reported at Big Hollywood, the people running the call, including the NEA’s director of communications Yosi Sergant and members of the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve, told the assembled crew of “thought leaders” that “we’re going to come at you with some specific asks here” (that’s a direct quote from Buffy Wicks of the Office of Public Engagement).
Chief among the requests from Sergant (who was either “reassigned” from the agency or “reportedly resigned” after denying the full extent of his role in organizing the call) was “to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know… [and] apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities’ utilities and bring them to the table.” Beyond the specific policy issues above, the call organizers stressed the ideologically loaded concept of “service” as the animating principle of the Obama administration and wanted the artists to do whatever they could to promote that. As Wicks put it, “We really view [our efforts] as an onramp to a lifetime of service. We really want service to be incorporated into people’s daily lives.”
Given that the NEA prides itself on being the single largest funding source for the arts in the country, such arm-twisting by agency officials, however masked in fulsome compliments to creators’ genius, is disturbing on its face. It clearly sets a political agenda for the very people who are likely to be applying for, well, NEA and other government grants. Does anyone think that the organizers were fishing around for projects that might complicate the public option for health care?
The National Endowment for the Arts has always been looked upon with skepticism by many a taxpayer. Taxpayer money has been used to fund such notable pieces of artwork such as the cross in urine jar, etc.
But this affront goes one further. Artists are asked directly to create to support the Obama administration’s agenda ends. By definition, artists should be “independent”, right? But the government is asking artists to play along with a certain perspective.
There are problems for both the taxpayer and the artist. What would happen, for example, if an artist didn’t support the president? What if an artist created art that harmed the President’s objectives? Would funding be pulled? Consider some of the things said in the preamble to the call:
“the role that we played in the campaign”
“the president has a clear ‘arts agenda’”
“all on this phone call were selected for a reason”
So artists might feel honored because they like this president, but when or if their opinion changed, this call could be construed as coercion. It IS coercion.
Now, the American taxpayer has an entirely different concern: The Obama administration is using an arm of the government to pay artists with taxpayer money to create, essentially propaganda. Art will be used to promote the taxpayer’s dime to promote a specific Obama policy.
“Valerie Jarrett is one of our fantastic leaders”
“Bolster civic engagement with this effort”
“We want to connect with labor unions, womens groups”
“It’s going to take all of us working together–progressive groups”–this is the United We Serve, a government program director talking–the Corporation for National Service.
This, obviously, is a problem all the way around.
The government is asking artists to focus on these policies: health care, energy and environment (parks), education (Department of Education), and community renewal.
Listen to the whole thing. It’s an abomination. And listen with this thought in mind: Imagine if President Bush’s surrogates engineered a similar phone call. Yeah. There’d be outrage.
Perhaps Andrew Breitbart and friends shouldn’t be surprised when they find the White House staffers making “specific asks” of allegedly independent artists on a conference call organized by the allegedly nonpartisan National Endowment of the Arts. Obama’s appointee to head the endowment, Rocco Landesman, said about 20 days after that conference call, “If the president had wanted a timid NEA, he would have made a different choice.”
No timid NEA. Oh no. The NEA is the new Obama propaganda funder. Thank you, American taxpayer.
UPDATED:
Dan Riehl and the connection between ACORN, NEA, faith based initiatives and Obama.
Podcast: Meghan McCain, Jimmie Carter, Racism, ACORN, And Democrats Taxing The Poor
Thursday, September 17th, 2009What isn’t going wrong in American and the world today?
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
Taxing The Poor And Middle Class
Thursday, September 17th, 2009When you add it up, the Obama Administration is sticking it to the poor and and middle class in a huge way. Consider:
Cigarette taxes are overwhelmingly against the poor and middle class as they’re the ones who smoke.
Now, the government is considering taxing Soda pop. Guess who will be harmed by that tax? There is also this point: Since when is it the government’s blankety-blank business to decide what is and is not good for people? But Democrats love coercion and forcing behavior:
The group’s review of research on the topic, appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, was released on Wednesday, the same day that Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat, made public his health care reform plan, with an estimated cost of $774 billion over 10 years. The Baucus plan would be paid for by an array of taxes and fees on high-end group insurance plans, drug and medical device makers, and other sources, with no mention of any tax on sugary beverages.
The scientific paper found that a beverage tax might not only raise revenue but have significant health effects, lowering consumption of soda and other sweet drinks enough to lead to a small weight loss and reduced health risks among many Americans.
The study cited research on price elasticity for soft drinks that has shown that for every 10 percent rise in price, consumption declines 8 to 10 percent.
The real goal? Tax revenue. Democrats don’t give a rats ass if people die from obesity but they know a fat hog when they see one and they want a piece of that money.
Cap-n-Tax will cost the average American family $1700/year.
Health care under the Baucus plan would cost a family of four $700/month minimum. That’s much more than some pay right now and nearly $9,000 in new taxes. In addition, the Baucus plan has perverse incentives to hurt single people and single parents with children.
Add this all up and the American family could be paying $15,000 more/year than they are now. Remember, the Bush tax cuts are about to be repealed. All in all, average Americans will be burdened.
More than that, this is all during a recession. So that means that less money will be circulated into the economy. The government will control American purse strings. With less money, job creation will come to a halt. Temporary jobs and lower income jobs will be eliminated. Again, the poor, working class and middle class will be affected most. These plans will create more wards of the state.
But of course, this is all common sense. The population is aging, there are fewer workers and more obligations. The only choice is to reduce obligations or increase taxation on producers. The solution, Democrat-style is to always increase taxation.
And the poor and middle class always get screwed first. Always.
About That Bush I Education Speech
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009Byron York points out that the Democrats investigated George HW Bush’s speech. This is delicious:
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”
And as Lorie Byrd pointed out President Obama invoked God. He said “God Bless America” at the end of the speech. Um hello, atheists. That’s just wrong, right? That blending of church and state. It’s almost like church IN school. /sarcasm
Democrats didn’t like using the Presidential platform to reach into the classroom, but now, it’s a-ok.
Pew: Good Grief! 37% Actually Approve Of Congress?
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009The latest Pew research came out today. Democrats should be gnashing their teeth. I’m shocked that the approval of Nancy’s House is as high as it is, but then, again, someone has to consistently vote Democrat. Looks like there ain’t nothing a Dem can do to tick off at least 1/3 of the electorate.
On a more depressing note for Democrats, there’s this:
Independents’ views of Congress shifted more dramatically in recent months than have opinions among Republicans or Democrats. Notably, independent voters who express an unfavorable view of Congress, say they would back the GOP candidate over the Democrat by a whopping 51% to 31% margin, while the smaller proportion of independent voters who have a positive view of Congress say they intend to vote for the Democrat, by 55% to 29%.
You know what this poll tells me? That the notion of an Independent voter is a myth. In the last election, irritated people who normally vote Republican voted for Barack Obama and Democrats generally because they 1) wanted to punish Republicans and 2) actually hoped Obama would bring fiscal restraint and change. Of course, that didn’t happen and these people are swinging back to home.
The minority of Independents who approve of the Democrats are closet Democrats. There are those who like to call themselves Independents because it sounds superior to say so.
Either a person is a statist or an individualist. That is, he either wants the government to step in and fix things or he wants to be left alone to figure it out. Most people of voting age are pretty clear which way they want things to go. They are either a Democrat or a Republican until they change their philosophy.
Of course, the problem for those voting Republican has been that elected Republicans have acted like statists. They have no where to turn.
Van Jones: “Republicans Are A**holes”
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Van Jones plans on getting “uppity”, according to The Hill:
Jones, however, continued his casual rant. “And Barack Obama is not an a**hole. Now, I will say this: I can be an a**hole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity [to get things done].”
President Obama and his minions sure have elevated the tone in Washington. Gateway Pundit has the video. Jim says:
So, what are they talking about anyway?
Barack Obama and the Pelosi-Reid Congress have rammed through every piece of far left legislation they wanted to without a single GOP vote or input.And, since when was the socialist Barack “I Won” Obama bipartisan?
Democrats don’t need to be bipartisan. Democrats don’t want to be bipartisan. They’re just plain partisan.
Dynasty American Style
Monday, August 31st, 2009Glenn Greenwald kvetches about one of the Bush twins getting a TV gig on NBC’s Today show. There are dynasties in America wah! This wouldn’t sound so ironic if his bellyaching didn’t come on the heels of Kennedy’s love fest. Will a Kennedy replace Teddy? The world waits with bated breath. Wait, no they don’t.
They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.
Dynasties and nepotism are counter to the American system. That’s why Hillary Clinton is a fraud. The whole Kennedy family is irritating. Oh, and let’s not forget those who had sex with someone powerful, Sally Quinn, to get where they are now.
Please. Glenn Greenwald is discontented because Bush’s daughter, who has actually accomplished something–being a school teacher–might be called on to report on teaching? At least she’s got a profession. Greenwald’s outrage would matter more if his perspective were more balanced and he named all the Democrats who get special favor.
Look at Hollywood. Look at any profession, really. Kids often end up in a parent’s field–it’s what they know and their parents give them help.
Still, the nepotism thing is bothersome in politics. The Kennedys should lead the way and pronounce that none of the progeny should be allowed in the biz. End the dynasties, Democrats. Lead America by example and produce leaders exclusively by merit.
Why The Democrats Should Call It KennedyCare
Sunday, August 30th, 2009Should Democrats name the health care bill KennedyCare? Why not? A snippet:
It should also be noted that Senator Kennedy, like all fabulously wealthy people, had nothing to gain or lose with this legislation. This law, should it pass, will be for the great unwashed masses subjected to government-run health care because their businesses will save money with the public option. Senators, as the Democrats voted in committee, will still get their own special plan.
Senator Kennedy would not have been beholden to his namesake legislation. He would still have gone to the best hospitals for care — maybe on some Caribbean island at some point as doctors and innovative health care providers look for cheaper, less regulated ways to deliver stellar care. No one likes to be sick and in the hospital now. It would be abominably insulting for a bigwig to be a number in a line in a hallway in a crumbling hospital with an imported doctor, waiting for eight hours to eight days. A rich person can go to prison for that kind of care today. Under KennedyCare, he would get on a private jet and go find the care he’s accustomed to receiving.
Call it KennedyCare. It’s a great idea!
