Come Hell or High Water

indyfromaz|  

The Congress that took the last week of July until Sept 13 off has now left Washington for all-out-war campaigning after working an exhaustive 17 days since late July and won’t be back until after they have had their heads chopped off by the American people.

Poor babies.
They left town without the House passing a budget for the first time since 1974. The 4th time the Senate has done it since 1974.
So the government that started a new fiscal year today with resolutions.
I bet your household budget works the same way. You just fake it. right?
They also left town without dealing with the Tax Increases coming on 1/1/11. They were too chicken. So they split town to save their own asses rather than tell you, your employer, or any potential employers if they were going to get hit with the largest Tax Increase in American History (for real).
Failure to extend the Bush tax cuts will also mean a reinstatement of the marriage penalty that makes some married couples pay higher taxes filing jointly than they would if they were single and filing individual returns. It will mean cutting in half the child tax credit from $1,000 to $500. It will increase tax rates on dividends from a maximum of 15 percent to 39.6 percent, which affects seniors who depend on dividends to supplement their Social Security and pensions. And it will raise the top capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent, stifling business investment.
It will also raise taxes anyone who pays taxes. Regardless of income.

The President repeatedly says he want to raise taxes on the rich as a class warfare tactic, but in all these months has he actually proposed an actual bill for it?
Or was he hoping Pelosi or Reid would do it for him? Be the good Lieutenants and get all the troops in line to set up for the firing squad one more time?
But the fact remains it was all talk and no action. Much like the Congress since the passage of the business buzzsaw killing Financial Reform bill the Democrats have done nothing useful since (not that they did it before to be fair).
And who is to blame for the President not proposing and the Democrats not disposing of this part of the agenda, The Republicans.
The Minority party is at fault for the President not even sending a bill containing his Tax proposals to the House and the House not willing to come up with the bill and vote on it.
It’s all those damn Republicans fault!
HUH??
Now that’s a “transparent” “drain the swamp” “most ethical congress” “responsible”, “post-partisan” government isn’t it?
The real problem was there were enough Democrats  who were willing to join Republicans on an across-the-board extension of the Bush tax cuts that it made the Reid-Pelosi position of raising taxes on some higher earners untenable, so no tax bill moved forward.
But that was the Republicans fault too.


Members of Congress have now returned home to try to save their own jobs, never mind helping the millions of Americans who have lost theirs. “When we come back this fall, the election will be over,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Washington Post. “I hope that it also means that Republicans will finally be able to put the American people ahead of their short-term political interests and ambitions.”
Now that’s responsible government.  and very “post-partisan”.


So it’s time to get your Lame Duck Poisoning Prevention Shot.
The New Roman Empire is being invaded by a hoard of Barbarians are the gate. So it’s time to prep the wells for poisoning and to raze the crops and poison the soil.
What Reid and his counterpart in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are hoping is that Democrats who lose their seats in the election will be willing to pass legislation in a lame duck session that they know the voting public doesn’t support. In Reid’s logic, they will be free to vote their liberal ideology. And it won’t matter because they will have already lost their jobs. But it is precisely this kind of arrogance that has Democrats in such poor shape heading into the mid-term elections. (Linda Chavez)
Some say you have to admire our “rock star” (in his own mind and the media’s) President for sticking to his ideology as he is 200% in campaign mode, 2008 campaign mode, that he doesn’t care about moving to the center. He wants to move even farther LEFT. Hoping to spike turnout amongst those who were fainting in his presence 2 years ago.
Now their fainting from working so hard. But that doesn’t matter. And once again, it’s supposed to be how he says it, not what he says.
Let’s party like it’s 2008!

The perception that he’s The Anointed One is supposed to trump the reality of the last 21 months.
A couple of back-to-back statements by President Obama at a town hall rally in Des Moines, Iowa, tell us all we need to know about his economic philosophy and that we aren’t going to climb out of his recession and begin to slow the growth of the national debt as long as he’s calling the shots.
Voters, he said, tell him to “cut government spending.” But “most spending is for veterans, for education, for defense. … Finding $700 billion is not easy.”
Yet a few minutes earlier, in response to criticism over illegal immigrants getting health care in the United States, he had said, “It is very important that we have compassion as part of our national character.” (How about compassion for future generations of Americans?)
Does anyone see the disconnect here? If Obama believes our national character is deficient unless we expand the welfare state to illegal immigrants, then how could he ever preside over a balanced budget?
His wildly inaccurate statement about where the money is spent is equally revealing. For fiscal year 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and other sources, benefits for veterans constituted about 3.5 percent of the budget; education expenditures were 3 percent; and defense and security totaled about 20 percent.
Even worse than these errors is his defeatist statement that “finding $700 billion is not easy.”
Well, of course it’s not easy if you have no desire to trim the size, functions and intrusiveness of government.
Didn’t he just say again the other day that he is “committed to fiscal responsibility”? Hasn’t he incessantly argued that President George W. Bush is the one who ran up these outlandish deficits?
We all know what a distortion and exercise in scapegoatery that is. President Bush fulfilled his promise to cut the deficit in half by 2006. In fiscal year 2007, the deficit was $161 billion. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
That’s just three years ago, and Obama says it’s nearly impossible to trim much? Even the final Bush year, which Obama continues to blame for all “this mess” and which Obama has used to establish his new deficit base line, was not actually the alleged $1.3 trillion, but closer to $800 billion when TARP repayments are factored in.
Assuming Obama even wants to bring down the deficit, his economic philosophy precludes him from advancing policies likeliest to do it. You cannot make much headway on the deficit in a period of recession, and his policies are leading us toward a double-dip recession.
Indeed, the dirty reality is that Keynesian policy works as a double whammy against fiscal sanity. It involves government’s spending money it doesn’t have, which, by definition, increases the deficit and debt. And it also increases the deficit by smothering the private sector and deterring real economic growth. There is no appreciable “multiplier effect” from monies that are spent by government fiat, as opposed to those spent in response to true market forces, including real consumer demand — as opposed to government  command.

We saw the devastating impact of reckless Keynesian policies during the Great Depression, and we’re witnessing them again today. As long as Obama is married to his redistributionist profligacy, we cannot reduce the deficit. And it’s even worse when you consider that Obama wants to raise taxes on the primary generators of economic growth, small businesses, during a slow economic period.
With his signature audacity, Obama told town hall attendees their taxes haven’t gone up in his administration. Puleeze! Obamacare, anyone — for starters? He also said Republicans haven’t been honest with voters about what needs to be done to revive the economy. “We can’t pretend that there are shortcuts,” he said.
Sorry, but he’s the one being dishonest. The Bush years saw robust economic growth until the last year of Bush’s second term. The policies that led to the subprime collapse, the recession and the skyrocketing deficit in his final year were brought upon mostly by liberal Democrats hellbent on demonstrating their “compassion” for people by insisting on loans to people who couldn’t repay them and cynically resisting President Bush’s efforts to rein in Fannie and Freddie.
President Reagan didn’t continue to blame Jimmy Carter for his malaise-ridden economy during his term. He didn’t implement policies that didn’t work after promising they would and then whine that it would “take 10 years to get out of this mess because it took us 10 years to get into this mess.” He passed tax cuts that launched an unprecedented period of peacetime growth — and not at the expense of federal revenues, as has been falsely alleged.
I don’t expect President Obama to come clean with the American people or to ever accept responsibility for his disastrous policies, much less to voluntarily change course, but it’s gratifying to see that people, including some of his supporters, are finally onto him. (David Limbaugh)

And if you were expecting the Media to do their job, of journalism. Forget it. The Propaganda ministers for Obama are in full damage control, but unlike 2008, people are less inclined to believe their spin.
But it’s all they have and if they say it often enough people will believe their lies.

Gallup: Distrust in Media Hits New High and Three Times as Many See Media as ‘Too Liberal’ Over ‘Too Conservative’

They are too busy kissing up to Rep. Alan Grayson’s so-blatant-it’s-a-supernova misrepresentation attack ad, Obama’a 2008 “glory days” (they actually use that term repeatedly) and the manipulation by the far left of a Maid of California Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman who was an illegal alien (she was fired last year for this by Whitman) and now is being paraded around the media with a prepared speech and lots of crying in the most cynical of acts.

And the Liberal media eats it up and regurgitates it.

So don’t expect anything from them expect spin.

“I’m sad to report today a death of a good friend to all of us…..Journalism, the once esteemed 4th estate of our nation and the protector of our freedoms and a watchdog of our rights has passed away after a long struggle with a crippling and debilitating disease of acute dishonesty aggravated by advanced laziness and the loss of brain function.” — Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2009.

Doubt me?:
Watch ABC’s World News Runs White House Produced Pro-ObamaCare Video as ‘News’: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=hdkUkUQueu

CNN urging liberals to promote the “Amazing Achievements” of the liberals: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=hdkUSUZunz

Matt Lauer (Today Show) urging the President to be more forceful about attacking the Republicans: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=hdkUSUqG6U

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

All aboard the Democrats Unsinkable Ship of Keynesian Economic  State, The Titanic!

And don’t forget to destroy the land behind you.

If they can’t have it, no one can!

Film at 11.

Boo Hoo Economics

Michelle “Antionette” Obama’s husband signed a Union Apparatchiks Bailout bill on Tuesday. It gave $26 Billion to state employees, primarily teachers (4 states of which that don’t even need it because there is no shortage!) and being the political animals in an election year what did they do to “offset” that spending?
They cut Food Stamps.
Or so the bill signed says (wait for the punchline, it’s coming).

Which prompts the liberal Boston Globe to complain:

ON TUESDAY, President Obama signed a $26 billion bill to help state and local governments cover Medicaid payments and avoid having to lay off teachers and other public employees. In what passes for high drama in Washington, the House of Representatives was called back from its summer recess to vote on the package, and the successful outcome was hailed as a major Democratic victory. “We can’t stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe,’’ Obama said. “That doesn’t make sense.’’

No, it doesn’t. But only by the occluded standards of contemporary Washington could this aid package be considered a victory. What began three months ago as a $50 billion emergency spending bill limped to the president’s desk at half that size and was largely paid for — “offset’’ in the clinical terminology of the budget — by cutting $12 billion from the food stamp program. In other words, a measure designed to help one group struggling in the recession came at the expense of another that is even worse off — and growing rapidly.

The number of people receiving food stamps stands at a record 41 million, or one out of every eight Americans. Driven by the downturn, that number has risen every month for the past 18 months. Last year alone, it grew by 20 percent. It’s grown by 50 percent since the recession began.

Then they say : The “good news’’ from an economic standpoint is that food stamps are a terrific vehicle for stimulus, because recipients spend them quickly.

Is that related to Nancy Pelosi’s unemployment comment that benefits are actually “Job creating” and that unemployment benefits “Create jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”

Bad news is Good News and Good News is Good News. Orwell would be proud of them.

But I find this “offset” target very curious. And makes me wonder just how politically motivated it was, as in, they picked something that made it look like they were being “responsible” knowing they’d never really do it.

And it was less than they wanted to begin with, so they were being more “responsible”.

But the truth is, it was in part a Campaign Slush Fund transfer anyhow.

Along with a bailout of his apparatchiks.

It goes like this, they give these Billions to teachers unions and then the teachers unions turn some of that money right back around as PAC contributions to Democrats running for re-elections. So it’s free campaign money.

They have effectively porked their own candidates without actually looking like it.

Now isn’t that just peachy.  

According to the Washington, D.C.-based Labor Union Report, the National Education Association in 2009 “raked in a whopping $355,334,165 in ‘dues and agency fees’ from (mostly) teachers around the country.” It spent close to $11 million more than it took in — $50 million of which union leaders poured into “political activities and lobbying” for exclusively left-wing and Democratic partisan causes and candidates.
Its primary mission? No, not educational excellence. Not “the children.” Political self-preservation.
Last July, the National Education Association’s retiring top lawyer, Bob Chanin, speaking at the NEA’s annual meeting in July, made the union’s true interests transparent: “Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children, and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.
“And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees . . .
“This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary.
“These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.”
Left-wing radical Saul Alinsky taught his education acolytes well. Teacher organizers, he counseled, must commit to a “singleness of purpose.” No, not serving children’s needs, but serving the “ability to build a power base.” If that isn’t the dictionary definition of “special interest,” what is? (Michelle Malkin)

Back to the Boo-Hoo Globe: The justification offered by proponents was that food prices haven’t risen as much as Congress expected them to, and therefore cutting benefits to hungry kids isn’t really so bad, especially since the cuts won’t take effect until 2014.

Ta Da!  there’s the magic bullet!!

So they are cutting food stamps 4 years from now to pay for a Union Stimulus now!

Kinda sounds like Wimpy from The Popeye cartoons, “I will pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today”.

That’s Liberal economics for ya.

Which leads to….

The U.S. government spent itself deeper into the red last month, paying nearly $20 billion in interest on debt and an additional $9.8 billion to help unemployed Americans.

Federal spending eclipsed revenue for the 22nd straight time, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. The $165.04 billion deficit, while a bit smaller than the $169.5 billion shortfall expected by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires, was the second highest for the month on record. The highest was $180.68 billion in July 2009.

The government usually runs a deficit during July, which is the 10th month of the fiscal year. So far in fiscal 2010, the government spent $1.169 trillion more than it made. That figure is about $98 billion lower than during the comparable period a year earlier.

For all of fiscal 2009, the U.S. ran a record $1.42 trillion deficit. Fiscal 2010 might run a little higher—the Obama administration sees $1.47 trillion.

Wednesday’s monthly Treasury statement said U.S. government revenues in July totaled $155.55 billion, compared with $151.48 billion in July 2009.

Spending was higher, totaling $320.59 billion. July 2009 spending amounted to $332.16 billion.

Year-to-date revenues were $1.75 trillion, compared with $1.74 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal 2009. Spending so far in this fiscal year is $2.92 trillion, versus $3.01 trillion in the prior period.

Spending for benefits for the unemployed year to date totaled $121.4 billion; for July, the tab was $9.8 billion, the Treasury statement said.

Years of deficit spending by Washington have led to a mounting national debt. Interest payments so far in fiscal 2010 amount to $185.25 billion; by contrast, corporate taxes collected by the government during the same 10 months were $139.71 billion. Interest payments in July alone were $19.9 billion. (WSJ)

But don’t worry, this was all George W. Bush’s Fault! He made them do it!!  

Then Boston Globe ends with this sobbing whine: But the idea that they’ve won anything overall is hard to sustain. They sacrificed the most effective form of stimulus and capitulated to the Republican idea that deficits matter above all else. Their decision about who should bear the brunt of the offsets, and the silence that greeted it, suggests a moral capitulation as well. It may be a victory. But it’s nothing to brag about.

They have to be dishonest even to themselves in their Insufferable Perceived Moral Superiority and Outrage.

The cuts aren’t until 2014 ya dirtbags! You know, the same year the Health Care Mandate kicks in!   

So they are sobbing about cutting something 4 years from now to pay for pork spending now and they are boo-hooing “it’s so unfair” about it.

Meanwhile the Deficit is climbing towards 15 Billion dollars and they just can’t stop the addiction to spending, especially on their own apparatchiks.

But that’s all George W. Bush’s Fault!

Where’s that Industrial Strength Barf Bag…

The 1995 Prophecy

It’s January 2nd, 1995.

In two days the Republicans will control the Congress for the first time since 1955.
And they will squander it badly.
But it had such promise.
Much like our “Hope and Change” President.
Though, I knew there was no hope with him and the change was to be socialism.
But his spin machine, plus a complicit Media brought us The Anointed One.
But something else happened on January 2nd, 1995 (or thereabouts depending on TV Schedules).
That was the week of syndication for the first half of the Third Season 2-Parter for  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Past Tense”.
I could go on for ages on how, of the modern Star Trek’s, it’s vastly superior but that’s not why this I’m writing about it in my blog.
I just saw this episode again, probably the first time in 15 years.
And it just screamed “OBAMA!!!” loudly. Very loudly.
Excerpt From the Synopsis of Part I:
En route to a symposium in San Francisco, Sisko, Dax and Bashir are lost during transport to Earth from the Defiant. The trio materializes in San Francisco, but in the year 2024. Apprehended by a pair of policemen, Sisko and Bashir are taken to a “Sanctuary District” — a gated area of the city where homeless, mentally ill and unemployed people are locked away from the rest of society.
Separated from the others, Dax is found by a prominent businessman named Chris Brynner, who takes her to his office and helps her obtain the ID card necessary to exist in this society. Dax doesn’t reveal where she comes from, but tells him that her friends are missing. Meanwhile, in the Sanctuary District, Sisko and Bashir are taken to a processing center, where no records of their existence are found. Sisko learns the date and realizes that they have arrived just days before a crucial event in history, the Bell Riots, which occurred in the area of the city where he and Bashir are now confined.
Sisko tells Bashir that residents in the District will take hostages, but a man named Gabriel Bell, after whom the riots were named, will sacrifice his life to save them. Hundreds of innocent people will be killed during the riots, but Sisko and Bashir can do nothing, or this pivotal moment in history, which led to sweeping social reforms, could be altered forever. Later, Sisko and Bashir are given ration cards to obtain meals and sent out to find a place to sleep among the abandoned buildings.
Part II : Sisko joins Webb for the meeting, where they demand that all Sanctuary Districts be closed and the Federal Employment Act reinstated…
It’s 2024 San Francisco, a whole section of the city has been blocked off and wall off, housing anyone who doesn’t have a job. Containing them so they are out of sight and out of mind. And there are 100′s of them across the country.
And all they want is a job.
But because of “tough economic times” there aren’t any so they are put away so that the people on the outside can live it up and forget about them.

Welcome to ObamaLand and the President’s “laser like focus” on Jobs.
You spend nearly $4 Trillion dollars you don’t have because the last guy “bankrupted” the country (according to you even 18 months later) saying if we do it everything will be fine.
Unemployment is still nearly 10%.
The likelihood that the % of unemployed who have given up is around 20% is plausible.
Businesses are not hiring because you and the Congress are openly hostile to business.
You want to wreck the economy of the Gulf  States because of your mad on environmentalist agenda against Big Oil.
You want to crush the Appalachian States because you hate Coal.
You want to crush the Border States because you don’t want to enforce National Security. You want cheap voters.
And you just appointed a socialist to the head of Medicare by recess appointment when Congress wasn’t in session so you could avoid the sticky problems of dealing with it.
And the Taxes in 2011 will crush what’s left of any “recovery”.
And Business knows all this.
You know all this.
But your Agenda is more important.
So how long before these “sanctuaries” are built to avoid dealing with the issue??
They may not be a literal, physical structures as in the episode, but how long?
Or are they already here?
It’s easier for many to just suck at the government’s breast on unemployment (extended for 2 years now) than deal with getting a job, if they can find one.
8 Millions jobs have disappeared. Never to come back, according to the VP.
The only real place job growth is happening is in the government public sector and unions (also mostly government).
So the government gets fat. You don’t.
Everyone was a rich government bureaucrat and no one was poor, at least no one worth talking about (to mutate a line from Douglas Adams).
During the last Immigration “debate” in 2007 the Democrats loudly proclaimed (and some still do) that there were jobs Americans wouldn’t do, so hiring illegal aliens as slave labor was a better idea.
Now in 2010, is that really the case?
Well, if unemployment checks are better than finding a job. Sure, why not sit around on your ass and watch Oprah and collect your “free” money. It sure beats working.
Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Corbett “One of the issues, and I hear it repeatedly – one of the individuals said, ‘I can’t get workers. People don’t want to come back to work while they still have unemployment.’ They’re literally telling him, ‘I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.’ That’s becoming a problem.”
Corbett added, “The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there …  I’ve literally had construction companies tell me, I can’t get people to come back to work until…they say, ‘I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.’”
So you have segregated these people off, and you pay them off to go away and not bother you.
Problem is, you’re already 13 Trillion Dollars in debt and going higher every day and it costs money to pay these people off.
Eventually, you will have to stop.
Then you could have a real mess.
“Cash for Clunkers” raised auto sales until the program ended then they went back down.
House Buying went up with rebates. When the rebates ended, they went back down.
Now what?
You’re still an administration that is very, very hostile towards business.

“Where is the hostility?” John Heilmann, columnist for New York Magazine, asked with incredulity. When Zuckerman responded that the administration deals with businessmen as shady characters trying to rip off the middle class, Heilmann simply called it rhetoric.(MSNBC)

So all that demonizing of businesses, CEO’s, and Wall Street as rip-off artists is what them?

The White House has launched a coordinated campaign to push back against the perception taking hold in corporate America and on Wall Street that President Barack Obama is promoting an anti-business agenda.

The key word is “campaign”. The only mode this administration has.

Obama has been happy to be seen by voters as cracking down on Wall Street but those efforts have had an unintended result: feeding a sense that the president and his party are indifferent or even actively hostile toward big business, whether those businesses are Silicon Valley tech companies, Midwestern manufacturers or Main Street small businesses.
And it is more than just politics: Obama’s aides believe confidence in the general direction of White House policy has an effect on the willingness of corporations to hire, invest and push the economy toward a more solid recovery.(Politico)

So You blame it on your predecessor and get your complaint friends in the media to go along with it, AGAIN.
The reason you don’t have a job is that it’s George W Bush’s Fault.
The fact that he hasn’t been President for 18 months and all your economic promises have imploded is irrelevant.
It worked the last time, so it will work again.
President Obama stumping For Senate Majority Harry Reid this week, in Nevada where the unemployment rate is 14%, the highest in the nation.

When we took office, amid the worst economy since the Great Depression, we needed Harry’s fighting spirit. We had lost nearly three million jobs during the last six months of 2008. Over 750,000 jobs in January of 2009 alone — the consequence of a decade of misguided economic policies; a decade of stagnant wages; a decade of falling incomes.
So our first mission was to break the momentum of the deepest and most vicious recession since the Great Depression. It was to stop the freefall; and to get the economy and jobs growing again.
And digging ourselves out of this mess required making some tough decisions — decisions that weren’t all popular. But Harry was willing to lead those fights because he knew we had to change course; that to do nothing; to simply continue the policies that were in place, would mean an even greater disaster. And to fail to act on some of the great challenges facing our country would mean a lesser future for our children and grandchildren.
As a result of those tough steps, we are in a different place today. Our economy is growing, instead of shrinking. We have gained private sector jobs for each of the past six months, instead of losing them. Almost 600,000 new jobs.

Anyone having a Flashback to 2 years ago??
And those 600,000 jobs- they almost exclusively Government jobs.
“I know we’ve been through tough times, Nevada. And I can’t promise you the difficult days are all behind us. I can’t promise you there won’t be more times to come. But I can promise you this: we are headed in the right direction. We are moving forward. And I am absolutely confident that if we’re willing to keep on moving forward, and if we refuse to turn backward; if we’re willing to show a little of that same fighting spirit Harry Reid has shown throughout his career; then we will make our way through these storms, to brighter days ahead.”
Deja Vu’ all over again.
It’s The 2008 Presidential Campaign: The 2010 Sequel. But it sounds exactly like the original.
At what point does it become counter-productive happy-talk?
This new poll from James Carville’s Democracy Corps firm is bad, bad news for Obama:  When asked if they thought the president was a socialist, 55 percent of likely voters said yes. Only 39 percent said no.
And James Carville is hardly a right wing conspirator.
Obama is pandering to minorities, especially Hispanics. He panders to the Unions.
He panders to his peeps.
Screw everyone else. He just uses platitudes and rhetoric.
A virtual “wall” perhaps?
Isn’t funny how fiction has likely caught up with reality.
The Truth is truly stranger than fiction.

Don't Forget Your Union Label

The Obama administration on (last) Monday released a new regulation setting rules for who can keep their current health insurance plans under the law. The regulation gave special consideration to plans negotiated by unions, quickly drawing criticism from conservatives and others, who argue the rules will put small businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

But the new rule is only one of numerous ways the health-care law boosts unions. And since vast portions of the law remain undefined – until bureaucrats fill in the details – further breaks for organized labor are widely expected.
For the rule regarding whether people can keep their health plans – known as “grandfathering” in bureacratise – the Department of Health and Human Services ruled that for union-negotiated health plans, companies can change insurance providers but keep their essential plan  details intact, or grandfathered. For non-union-negotiated plans, companies can’t change providers – they must stay with their same insurance provider.
Without the ability to choose another company, small businesses would have little leverage to negotiate their rates, probably leading to higher costs, critics say. The alternative is to get a new plan which meets the strict new regulations of the Obama health-care law, which will probably cost more, too.
It also hits at a core pledge President Obama made repeatedly in pushing for the law – that people happy with their current health plans could keep them. In fact, the Obama administration now estimates that as many as 51 percent of businesses (and 66 percent of small businesses) will need new health-care plans by 2013 because of the law.
A second way Obama’s health-care law helps unions is in the so-called “Cadillac” tax that applies to more expensive health-care plans.
For most of America, that tax begins when an employee’s health-care plan costs at least $10,200. After that, the plan will be taxed at 40 percent. For union-negotiated plans, the tax starts at $27,500 instead. Some estimates say this will save union members $60 billion over 10 years.
Organized labor has argued that workers who negotiated better health-care plans in exchange for lower pay could be hurt – plus they negotiated the plans without knowing the tax could hit them later.
A third way the law boosts unions is with a $5 billion subsidy for health insurance for early retirees. The health-care law’s critics note that the vast majority of employers who have early retiree programs are unionized employers, especially in the public sector.
Under the program, HHS will reimburse certain claims between $15,000 and $90,000.
A fourth way the law benefits unions is that it gives union members entry into the health insurance exchange markets earlier than everyone else.
A fifth way the law benefits unions is that certain very large group plans are exempt from many of the regulations in the health-care law. This category of large group plans is not limited to unions – for instance, large employers such as Wal-Mart may be eligible – but it will also benefit key union-negotiated plans.
Because the health-care law is so vast and complicated – and since many of its details are yet to be determined – this list is not exhaustive.
Notably, organized labor, far from pleased with Obama, is instead involved in a bitter feud with the White House.
Recently, labor (and environmentalists and other liberal factions within the Democratic party) threw millions of dollars into a Democratic primary race in Arkansas in their attempt to defeat Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln has posed a key impediment both to the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act as well as a range of environmentalist priorities.
Following Lincoln’s win, a senior White House aide remarked to Politico that the unions had “flushed” $10 million down the toilet in trying to defeat Lincoln. A top labor official responded that unions are not a “arm of the Democratic party.”

The DISCLOSE ACT
Aka, muzzle anyone but Unions.
The untold story is that Democrats assuaged organized labor’s early opposition to the bill by tailoring its provisions to eke out space for unions.
For example, restrictions on companies that received government bailouts during the financial crisis apply to businesses, but not unions: Under the DISCLOSE Act, General Motors can’t tell you who to vote for, but the United Auto Workers union can.
And consider the bill’s laborious record-keeping rules for certain types of donations. Corporations, unions, non-profits and 527 groups will, for the first time, be required to report donors who give more than $600 if they engage in “express” advocacy — urging voters to support one candidate or another by name.
Conveniently, as Republican staff on the House Administration Committee point out, average union dues in 2004 were $377 – below the $600 threshold. Since unions get the vast majority of their funds from member dues, “the new threshold for reporting is likely to have little effect on unions … but a huge effect on associations and advocacy groups,” a GOP summary of the bill says.
Government contractors with contracts of more than $7 million are not permitted to engage in express advocacy. Unions that receive their dues from the taxpayer-funded salaries of public sector employees face no such restriction. Neither do recipients of grants.
The bill includes strict rules on foreign-owned businesses engaging in express advocacy. The rules are so strict, critics fear, they will ensnare American companies with American employees and revenue. For instance, if a foreign entity owns, directly or indirectly, 20 percent or more of a company’s shares, that company isn’t allowed to urge citizens to vote for candidates, even if it’s based in the U.S.
No such restrictions are placed on unions.
The Funny part:
Unions are also subject to the new “stand by your ad” requirements. Under a 2002 campaign spending law, political candidates must state in television and radio advertisements they approved the message of their advertisements. Commonly, this statement reads, for example, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
The DISCLOSE Act takes this idea and runs with it.
A hypothetical television ad would read, “I’m Eli Pariser, the executive director of Moveon.org Political Action and George Soros approves this message.” Soros, in this case, would be a “significant funder” for the ad, or would have given money for the ad to run. Then, Soros would appear on screen himself.
If he were the only funder of the ad, Soros would say, “I’m George Soros. I helped pay for this message, and I approve it.”
If Soros was part of a group that helped fund the ad, he would say, “I’m George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros Fund Management helped pay for this message and Soros Fund Management approves it.”
The longest version of this hypothetical “stand by your ad statement” takes about 15 seconds to read. Many political spots are 15 seconds. For the most common, 30-second spot, the statement would eat up 50 percent of the ad time.
So you could get campaign ads that are longer and cost more and bore people even more, but end up sounding like the drug commercial where the lawyer speak is longer than the commercial was and blows past thinks like “small risk of death has been reported in some cases”.
I didn’t say it was funny, ha ha.
But Obama and the democrats have to protect their peeps in the Unions against those evil corporate goons!

Obama's Crisis Opportunity

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”. Rahm Emanuel , White House Chief of Staff.

Keep this in mind over the next few months leading up to the November elections.
The Democrats know they have a deadline with destiny so it’s super cram down time.
And what better villain that BP and what better opportunity than the Gulf Oil Spill to push through the stalled Cap and Trade 19th Century “Global Climate Change” Energy program.
Alinsky Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.
Although it won’t be his main point, President Obama plans to use his Oval Office address Tuesday night, the first of his presidency, to argue for a comprehensive new energy-climate law that goes beyond “spill bill” provisions designed to rein in the oil industry. A Senate Democratic leadership aide tells Playbook that the administration has told Sens. Kerry and Lieberman, who last month introduced an “American Power Act,” that an energy deal MUST include some serious effort to price carbon as a way to slow climate change. “No traditional ‘energy only’ bill meets their sense of what’s credible as a response to BP, or the president’s own 2008 rhetoric,” the official said.
In an Oval Office interview with POLITICO columnist Roger Simon on Friday, the president said: “[I]n the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, indelibly by 9/11. I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come. And one of the biggest leadership challenges for me going forward is going to be to make sure that we draw the right lessons from this disaster and that we move forward in a bold way in a direction that finally gives us the kind of future-oriented — or the kind of visionary energy policy that we so vitally need and has been absent for so long. … [N]ow is the time for us to start making that transition and investing in a new way of doing business when it comes to energy.”
DNC pollster Joel Benenson — in a series of League of Conversation Voters briefings for top Democrats that began Friday and continue this week — is making the case that SWING VOTERS strongly support an aggressive energy/carbon pollution bill. “Making BP Pay Isn’t Enough,” his briefing says. Joel’s recommended “Messaging Architecture”: 1) “Frame the opposition”: “Big Oil and corporate polluters who have blocked energy reform for decades” and “Politicians protecting the special interests that fund their campaigns.” 2) “Illustrate the costs of our dependence: … $1 billion a day on foreign oil … Oil spill destroying jobs and livelihoods.” 3) “Tap into deeply held values: “Put America back in control of our energy situation: Cut foreign oil spending in half. Invest in energy that’s made in America and creates millions of jobs for Americans.” (Politico)
Should be a hell of a Campaign Speech.
Hell for us, the American people, that is.

And then there’s the EPA.
Obama’s stormtroopers for Global Climate Change.
They have assumed the power over every aspect of your life by declaring CO2 a hazard to human life.
So stop exhaling!
12/7/2009: The Environmental Protection Agency formally declared Monday that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels poses a threat to human health and welfare, a designation that set the federal government on the path toward regulating of emissions from power plants, factories, automobiles and other major sources.
Think about that one for a moment.
Power Plants.
That AC you’re running. Imagine if the plant supplying it was forced to go “green” or had massive new oppressive regulations and the cost of it tripled.
That car you drive. What if it was deemed a “health hazard” because it’s emissions are too high or it’s gas mileage is too low. (And that would be the $8 a gallon gas from Obama’s Energy Bill by the way )
The products still manufactured in factories, forced to go “green” and the costs go through the roof so they either raise their prices, lay people off, or go overseas.
All on the back of totally junk science, but under the pretext of the Oil Spill.
So break out the battery powered fans, your bike, and some candles, you’ll need them.
Oh, and your taxes are going up!
And starting soon the IRS will be in charge of Health Care enforcement of the Mandatory Enrollment.
Don’t worry, be happy.
The Government is here to save you!
The Senate just claimed the title of the world’s most delusional body by refusing to strip unelected EPA bureaucrats of the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This was the day freedom died.
One wonders why we have a Congress at all. The 53 profiles in cowardice that could not get a cap-and-tax bill through the U.S. Senate voted Thursday to let the Environmental Protection Agency keep the unprecedented power Congress did not expressly give it. It is power that the EPA arrogated to itself through regulation to control every aspect of the American economy and our very lives.
This country was born over anger at taxation without representation. Regulation without representation may spark another revolt come November. The Tea Party movement began precisely because of such arrogant disregard for the wishes of the American people. Unlike health care reform, this time the cowardly lions of the Senate couldn’t even do it themselves and ceded their authority to the EPA.
It was only a motion to proceed to consideration of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution (S.J. Res. 26) which, under a forgotten provision of the Contract With America, lets legislators veto a “major rule” by any regulatory agency within 60 days of publication. It needed just 51 votes; it got 47.
All 41 Republicans, including newbie Scott Brown of Massachusetts, voted not to shred the Constitution. The motion attracted, for various reasons, the votes of six Democrats — Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, the departing Evan Bayh and even Jay Rockefeller, who for once chose jobs over ideology.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin accused the Republicans of choosing “political science over the real science,” even after the EPA’s junk science based on the manipulation of data by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been exposed as a manufactured fraud.
The case for climate change has collapsed — a fact recognized, finally, by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who, with Democrat John Kerry and independent Joseph Lieberman, once hoped to work out some kind of compromise legislation with a token nod to domestic energy production.
Last week, Graham told reporters he would vote against the climate bill he helped author. “The science about global warming has changed,” Graham told reporters Wednesday on why he was backing an energy bill by Sen. Dick Lugar. “I think they’ve oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they’ve been alarmist and the science is in question.”
So it’s going to be a long, hot summer.
But at least the government is here to take care of you.
Trust in Big Brother Barack!