No Confidence

Some 11 million to 15 million illegal aliens are now residing in America, most after crossing into America unlawfully. Once a federal law is arbitrarily not enforced, all sorts of bizarre paradoxes arise from that original contradiction. As proof, examine the following illogical policies and contradictions involving illegal immigration.

Take, for example, profiling — the controversial questioning of those who appear likely to be illegal aliens. Apparently, American border guards have developed criteria for profiling those deemed likely to be unlawful aliens. Otherwise, how would they have arrested and deported hundreds of thousands in 2009?
Yet apparently, at some arbitrary point distant from the border, those who cross illegally are not supposed to be asked about their immigration status. OK, but exactly why did procedures so radically change at, say, five, 10, 20, or is it 100 miles from the border? A border patrolman often profiles, but a nearby highway patrolman cannot?
The federal government is suing Arizona for the state’s efforts to enforce the federal immigration law. The lawsuit alleges that Arizona is too zealous both in enforcing immigration law and encroaching on federal jurisdiction.
But wait — for years, several American cities have declared themselves sanctuary cities. City officials have even bragged that they would not allow their municipalities to enforce federal immigration statutes. So why does Washington sue a state that seeks to enhance federal immigration laws and yet ignore cities that blatantly try to erode them?
Something is going very wrong in Mexico to prompt more than half a million of its citizens to cross the border illegally each year. Impoverished Mexican nationals variously cite poor economic conditions back home, government corruption, a lack of social services, and racism.
In other words, it is not just the desirability of America but also the perceived undesirability of Mexico that explains one of largest mass exoduses in modern history.
But why, then, would Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose country’s conditions are forcing out its own citizens, criticize the United States, which is receiving so many of them? And why, for that matter, would many of those illegal immigrants identify, if only symbolically, with the country that made them leave, whether by waving its flag or criticizing the attitudes of the Americans who took them in?
Americans Racist?
And how does Mexico treat the hundreds of thousands of aliens who seek to illegally cross its own southern border with Central America each year? Does Mexico believe in sovereign borders to its south but not to its north?
Is Mexico more or less humane to illegal aliens than the country it so often faults? Why, exactly, does Mexico believe that nearly a million of its own nationals annually have claims on American residency, when Chinese, Indian, European and African would-be immigrants are deemed not to? Is the reason proximity? Past history?
Proponents of open borders have organized May Day rallies, staged boycotts of Arizona, sued in federal and state courts, and sought to portray those who want to enforce existing federal immigration law as racially insensitive.
But about 70% of Americans support securing our borders, and support the Arizona law in particular. Are a clear majority of Americans racist, brainwashed or deluded in believing that their laws should be enforced? And if so, why would immigrants wish to join them?
Poor In Africa
It is considered liberal to support open borders and reactionary to want to close them. But illegal immigration drives down the hourly wages of the working American poor. Tens of thousands of impoverished people abroad, from Africa to Asia, wait patiently to enter America legally, while hundreds of thousands from Latin America do not. How liberal can all that be?
America extends housing, food and education subsidies to illegal aliens in need. But Mexico receives more than $20 billion in American remittances a year — its second-highest source of foreign exchange, and almost all of it from its own nationals living in the United States.
Are Americans then subsidizing the Mexican government by extending social services to aliens, freeing up cash for them to send back home?
These baffling questions are rarely posed, never addressed and often considered politically incorrect. But they will only be asked more frequently in the months ahead.
You see, once a law is not considered quite a law, all sorts of even stranger paradoxes follow.(IBD)

Examiner:  The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council and its affiliated local councils cast a unanimous 259-0 vote of no confidence in ICE Director John Morton and Assistant Director Phyllis Coven, according to Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum.
The National Council members criticized the ICE leadership and claim they created “misguided and reckless initiatives,” and claim ICE managers “abandoned the Agency’s core mission of enforcing United States immigration laws and providing for public safety, and have instead directed their attention to campaigning for policies and programs related to amnesty.”

ICE is misleading the American public with regard to the effectiveness of criminal enforcement programs like the ICE “Secure Communities Program” using it as a selling point to move forward with amnesty related legislation. As officers in the field, we know this program will not improve enforcement or provide for public safety because ICE refuses, for political reasons, to request the additional manpower and resources needed to adequately operate the program.
[...]
The majority of ICE ERO Officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing United States immigration laws outside of the institutional (jail) setting. This has effectively created “amnesty through policy” for anyone illegally in the United States who has not been arrested by another agency for a criminal violation.(American Thinker)

Besides Morton’s and Coven’s low marks, the Obama Administration recently appointed a former police chief, who believes in illegal alien sanctuary city policies, to command the immigration enforcement program that entails federal agents working with local police departments on cases involving illegal aliens.

Morton’s defenders are equally fervent. “We often say we are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. John brings a great deal of sensitivity to both aspects of our identity,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which, like ICE, is part of the Department of Homeland Security. (WP)
This would be the same agency, the USCIS that has been linked extensively to the end-run Amnesty by “deferred action” in the memo released recently.
And doesn’t this person sound like a Pro-Illegal??

Retired Border Agent Harold Beasley said, “I see people in my hometown of Phoenix, Ariz., now demonstrating, carrying signs, saying that I owe them something. I owe them rights. I owe them, you know, welfare. I owe them this and I owe them that.”(CBS)
And they still love to carry Mexican Flags while doing it!

Here’s a Bombshell I found buried in a CBS report:
It’s often said illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes. Hermann does pay taxes, and showed me his returns. He doesn’t have a Social Security number, but the IRS gives undocumented workers a special taxpayer number information that’s not shared with immigration authorities.
So the government IS complicit in Illegal Immigration and not interested in enforcement. Not Really.
They have the same monetary stake as Mexico in making sure no one really ever does anything substantial about illegal immigration.
Willful abandonment for money. Now if that isn’t corruption, what is?

Many immigrants think coming to America is like winning a lottery.(CBS) Notice the word “illegal” is verboten?
As part of the Homeland Security Department’s anti-terrorism mission, the new director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of State and Local Coordination is now Harold Hurtt, an outspoken critic of immigration enforcement on the local level such as Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law.
“As police chief in two different cities with huge illegal alien populations—Phoenix and Houston—Hurtt enforced don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration measures that prevented officers from inquiring about a suspects’ legal status in the U.S.,” according to officials at Judicial Watch, a non-partisan, public-interest group that investigates public corruption.
“We can expect Chief Hurtt to continue to ‘protect’ criminal aliens as part of the Obama Administration’s ‘national security team” that includes other leftists who side with criminal aliens such as Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other Obama appointees,” said former military intelligence officer and NYPD police detective Mike Snopes.
His pro-immigration policies enabled illegal immigrants with extensive criminal histories to murder two police officers and seriously injure another while he was chief in Phoenix and later in Houston. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Hurtt on behalf of the deceased Houston officer’s wife for implementing the sanctuary policies that led to her husband’s murder at the hands of an illegal alien fugitive.
Mexican Rep Leticia Amparano-Gamez, who represents Nogales, asked, ” How can Arizona pass a law like this?” indignantly adding, “There is not one person living in Sonora who does not have a friend or relative working in Arizona. Mexico is not prepared for this, for the tremendous problems it will face as more and more Mexicans working in Arizona and who were sending money to their families return to their home-towns in Sonora without jobs. We are one family, socially and economically.“  She was speaking in Spanish about the social and economic family of Mexico and Arizona.
Nothing personal, but really, Mexico, your  “poor relations”  are not  America’s “family” nor America’s  problem to support. Don’t cry for Arizona, Mexico, take care of your own family. As  “Thomas Paine” has said,  “The greatest compassion you can show for 20 million illegal immigrants is to teach them the rule of law.”
AMEN!

But the government would rather have the latino votes to continue their power , gin up a race war, and the use the  money to hide their own malfeasance!
But We are from the Government and we are here to protect and serve!

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.

Mom, Can I Grow up to Be a Buraucrat

The following chart makes that case. Since the beginning of the recession (roughly January 2008), some 7.9 million jobs were lost in the private sector while 590,000 jobs were gained in the public one.  And since the passage of the stimulus bill (February 2009), over 2.6 million private jobs were lost, but the government workforce grew by 400,000.

Plus, as you know, according to the latest numbers from Bureau of Economic Analysis, the average federal civilian worker now earns double what private-sector workers earn when factoring in wages and benefits ($119,982 vs. $59,909). And the gap is increasing.  According to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, in 2000, the average federal worker earned 66 percent more in total compensation than the average private-sector worker. By 2008, that ratio had risen to 100 percent. That’s serious money.
Peter Orszag, the soon to be leaving OMB director, has  explained the differences in pay by saying that public employees have more diplomas (probably implying that they are smarter) than private employees:

But the truth is that a comparison of federal and private-sector pay, even by occupation, is misleading because the employees hired by the federal government often have higher levels of education than their counterparts in the private sector — even within the same occupations.  When you factor in the education and experience of the federal workforce, there is no statistically significant difference in average pay levels.

Translation: We are better than you.

Edwards, however, shows this is nonsense. He writes:

Some people argue that the federal government has a unique high-end workforce, which deserves to be paid handsomely. But let’s consider some ordinary and mundane offices in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2010, the USDA’s Office of Communications employed 77 people and paid $9 million in wages and benefits. That works out to $117,000 each for these public relations workers, which is close to the overall federal compensation average. Or consider that the 62 employees of the USDA’s Office of Chief Economist earned an average $177,000 each in wages and benefits in 2010. It isn’t just rocket scientists that are earning high federal compensation, it is also workers in many run-of-the-mill bureaucratic jobs.
More importantly, the federal workforce has always had a heavy contingent of skilled professionals such as lawyers. So that is not new, and thus it cannot explain the dramatically faster growth in federal compensation compared to private compensation [...].

Besides, if these diplomas are what gave is the health care reform, the financial bill making its way to Congress and the stimulus, then I would argue that we would be better off if  high-school dropouts to run Congress.
That being said, if bureaucrats have job security, their workforce grows during recession, and they make increasingly more money, being a proud public sector employee should become your little ones’ dream. In this context, wanting to be a fireman or a princess is so yesterday. (Big Government)

So, government apparatchiks (“agent of the apparatus”) are prospering.
Unions get bail outs, exemptions from taxes you’ll be paying, and special deals. Because they are part of the base of the party.
Union Pensions are bankrupting companies and states everywhere. So what. Big Deal.
The Hispanics are being pandered because they are also the base of the party. So Obama’s campaign speech last week on Illegal Immigration was for them, not you.
So if you’re a party appartchik or a wanna-be apparatchik, you’re In like Flint.
But government gets it’s money from taxes.
Only 50% of people even pay taxes.
But hey, if you’re unemployed, the government will pay you to be unemployed and dependent on them.

Persistent unemployment nationwide is threatening to inhibit consumer spending. The latest figures from the government on Friday underscored the depth of the problem, with the economy adding only 83,000 private sector jobs.
There was no relief in sight from Washington, either. Congress left on recess Friday having failed to pass legislation that would have extended unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
On the small-business side, credit concerns are keeping some companies from spending. And on the consumer side, while spending and confidence numbers continue to be weak, personal income has risen for three months straight and savings rates are relatively high. That suggests people now have cash but are just sitting on it.
So they’ll just print more money. Who cares.
It’s not like they want the private sector to create jobs, not really.
Obama has been “focused on jobs” for 18 months now. And you can smell the rotting corpse of neglect and contempt from here.
But “he cares”…


When Obama could have passed comprehensive immigration reform – when he still had 60 Senate Democrats – he didn’t lift a finger to push it. Now that he can’t pass it – it is too late in the year, he doesn’t have 60 votes, and many Democrats will defect – he aggressively pushes it in a national speech.
The opportunism and hypocrisy of his attempt to manipulate America’s Latinos into forgetting his previous inaction is transparent and obvious. Polls show him losing Hispanics due to high and continuing unemployment and losing Congressional seats in the bargain, so Obama has dug up the immigration proposals of former President George W. Bush, dusted them off, and made them his own. He knows it won’t pass. But he hopes that it will reignite Latino enthusiasm for his failing presidency and anger at Republicans for frustrating immigration reform.(Dick Morris)

It was just the latest in cynical political ploys.
Pure Politics. No actual conviction.
So the bottom line is, guess what is likely to be one of  the next great “bubble” to burst.
You got it, Government Apparatchiks and their dependents.
And guess who’s going to bail them out!
Now that’s “Hope and Change” for ya…

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!

Bureaucrats Everywhere!

Sept 2009: President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health insurance and fining them if they don’t would not amount to a backhanded tax increase. “I absolutely reject that notion,” the president said.”for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax” (CBS)

OBAMA (On ABC): My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
The U.S. Justice Department officially responded to a legal challenge against the federal health-care overhaul Wednesday and called on a federal judge to dismiss the case.
Twenty attorneys general, led by Republican Bill McCollum of Florida, filed suit against the federal government immediately after President Obama’s health-care overhaul became law in March. The attorneys generals are questioning the constitutionality of the law, claiming that Congress does not have the power to require that all Americans purchase health insurance.
The federal health-care law requires that all legal U.S. residents be insured or else pay a penalty — beginning in 2014 — that fines individuals $695 annually or up to 2.5% of their income.
In its defense of the law, the Justice Department invoked the Commerce Clause and claimed penalties for Americans without health-care coverage were consistent with the federal government’s powers to regulate interstate commerce and impose taxes.

The Justice Department filing describes the penalty as a tax, stating that the law “imposes a tax on the choice of a method to finance the future costs of one’s health care.”

McCollum responded to the Justice Department filings Thursday, claiming that the government’s response contradicted the comments that President Obama made during the health-care debate earlier this year.
“The Justice Department’s defenses clash directly with comments made by President Obama during the debate on the health care reform bill, including the President’s insistence on national television that the purchase mandate was absolutely not a tax. Yet in its motion to dismiss, the Obama administration defends the individual mandate under Congress’ ‘taxing and spending’ power,” said McCollum in a press statement.
“Nothing in the Justice Department’s motion filed last night changes the States’ view that we will prevail. Instead, the Justice Department’s defenses clash directly with comments made by President Obama during the debate on the health care reform bill, including the President’s insistence on national television that the purchase mandate was absolutely not a tax. Yet in its motion to dismiss, the Obama Administration defends the individual mandate under Congress’ ‘taxing and spending’ power.
“Not only does the U.S. Department of Justice contradict public statements made by the President and Congressional leadership, it demonstrates in its motion to dismiss that it seems to view this lawsuit by the 20 states and NFIB as a significant challenge, signaling this lawsuit may pose more of a threat in its chances for success.
“Our lawsuit challenges the individual mandate that violates the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, the federal government is threatening our state sovereignty with this unprecedented expansion of federal powers and commandeering of state resources. This is not acceptable, and we will pursue this litigation as far as necessary to obtain relief for our citizens and our states.”
The lawsuit was filed on March 23, 2010 with 13 original state plaintiffs and was amended on May 14, 2010 to add seven additional states and the National Federation of Independent Business, as well as two individual plaintiffs.
So the Tax that wasn’t a tax is now officially a Tax.
I wonder how the Mainstream Media/Ministry of Truth will ignore that. (I already know BTW).
************
Sixteen crude-sucking barges are back in the Gulf of Mexico working to clean up oil, but the Coast Guard is defending its decision to ground the vessels because it couldn’t verify whether there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board.
“The Coast Guard is not going to compromise safety … that’s our No. 1 priority,” Coast Guard spokesman Robert Brassel told The Daily Caller.
The decision to ground the ships is under intense scrutiny after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal expressed his deep frustration with the decision Thursday.
“You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil,’” Jindal said to ABC News.
But don’t worry Obama is going to do everything he can to stop the Oil.
But the bureaucrats aren’t though.
Further, the government’s response is clumsy. “The Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the EPA all these different agencies aren’t talking to each other,” Florida’s Okaloosa County commissioner Wayne Harris said.
Anyone seeing National Health Care Administration (aka ObamaCare) in your future?
So why is Obama so slow, it’s 60 days later.
Imagine Bush dithering 60 days after Katrina?
The meltdown would have been apocalyptic. (It already was according to the media back then, but they were “fair” and had no agenda…)
So why doesn’t he do it?
In a word: Unions.
The answer comes in the form of an obscure law called the Jones Act. A throwback to the days of American protectionism, the Jones Act is a piece of 1920s-era legislation that requires ships working in U.S. waters to be built here and crewed by Americans. This is why skimmers from the Persian Gulf, the heavy-duty ships that have proved themselves capable of cleaning up disasters like the one currently facing the Gulf, aren’t employed here doing the vital work for which they’re built. What’s more, it’s why they’re not on their way (which, considering the distance they’d have to cover, is in itself is no small feat).
The president, however, has the power to waive the Jones Act. His predecessor, the one so criticized for his failure to pull out all the stops in responding to Hurricane Katrina, did just that within days of that storm’s devastation. So why hasn’t President Obama taken the same measure?
Therein lies the rub. There is much talk about the political interests that have essentially prevented this administration from acting with common sense time and time again. It’s why many believe competitive market forces won’t be considered as options, even though competition, with little government involvement, would certainly contribute to cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. Are suspicions that foregoing market fixes is directly tied to protection of union jobs and, by extension, political allies? Using foreign technologies manned by foreign crews will, after all, necessarily keep union bosses from cash they so desperately need going into a tough election season.
This is the political cronyism of the worst sort. It is bad enough the president’s economic recovery plan was convoluted and weighted towards payback of labor unions; worse still are the bailouts being directed toward private and public sector union pensions. Now we have an entire region’s ecological and economic existence being held hostage to the president’s pro-Union myopia.
This is inexcusable.
The president needs to facilitate clean-up. He needs to immediately start cutting red tape and getting the federal government out of the way. First and foremost, he needs to immediately waive the Jones Act and get those foreign crews to the Gulf.
Millions of Americans, not just those suffering in the Gulf, are depending on this. Their voices are far more important than the ever-weakening unions constantly nipping at the president’s heels. (Daily Caller)
He’s a prisoner yet again of a very rigid ideology.
And these are the people from the Government who are here to save you, protect you, keep you healthy and make you “green”.
Doesn’t it just fill you will confidence!
I believe it was Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
And if we all strive to be mediocre we can all be at our best!
Rejoice Comrade, The Government has your back (it’s reaching for your wallet!).

Greece-ing The Skids

WASHINGTON (AP) – Your parents were right. Money can’t buy you happiness.
That was the message from the Federal Reserve chairman on Saturday to graduates of the University of South Carolina.

Or was it?

“We all know that getting a better-paying job is one of the main reasons to go to college. … But if you are ever tempted to go into a field or take a job only because the pay is high and for no other reason, be careful!” Ben Bernanke said in his commencement address.
“Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off,” he said.'

Unless you’re a  Liberal that is…
If you’re rich, you’re above it all. But we will demonize only Republicans.
If you’re not, you are told you’re entitled to other people’s money, so don’t worry about it.

But doesn’t this sound a lot like Michelle Obama’s Zanesville speech that got her in so much hot water that she was removed from the campaign trail.
“The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you’re in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids,” she says.
“Barack and I were in that position,” she continues. “The only reason we’re not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books… It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids.” A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”
Collectively, according to the IRS, they made $5 Million Dollars last year.
I guess that wasn’t so evil.
The message, don’t strive so hard to succeed.
Lower your expectations.
Because, we already know we are living so far beyond our means as a government that eventually,  in 10 or 20 years or less you’ll be Greece’d.
So better to lower the expectations now so they can lessen the violence when the fecal matter hits the air circulation device.

In Greece:
They are angry because for years they have been encouraged to live beyond their means, taking advantage of the cheap credit on offer since Greece joined the euro in 2001. Now, the rug is being pulled from under their feet. People who have taken out mortgages to buy homes, loans to purchase cars and credit cards to pay for overpriced basic goods are being asked to meet all these commitments with a much lower income than they had budgeted for.

Fannie and Freddie anyone??
UK Guardian: Saddled with burgeoning public sectors (which help sustain muscular trade unions)– SEIU, UAW, NEA anyone?

This is not what angers Greeks most, though. What you will hear time after time, both at the protests and at workplaces and cafes, is that this crisis confirms the failure of the country’s political system. In other words, that for years politicians have been bleeding the country dry, looking after themselves and their friends and failing to build a robust economy and a country equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.


There is anger at the pervasive, high-level corruption for which no politician is ever punished. People are also furious that no government has ever tackled influence-peddling in the public sector. The Greek branch of Transparency International estimated that Greeks paid almost euro800 million ($1 billion) in bribes last year. This is another drain on household budgets but more importantly it creates a sense of injustice, a sense that to get anything done you have to play by the system’s warped rules.
Sound familiar??
This feeling of unfairness is compounded when tax evasion also goes unpunished.
“Turbo Tax” Geithner anyone? Barney Frank? Charlie Rangel??
Salaried professionals and civil servants have their wages taxed at source but many Greeks do not. And, what they declare often bears no resemblance to what they actually earn. The government believes that tax evasion could be worth up to euro30 billion ($38 billion) a year, or 12 percent of the country’s GDP. Allowing one part of the population to consistently get away without paying while Greece’s public finances are propped up by the same people all the time creates incredible resentment. That’s why you hear many Greeks say they will put up with the austerity measures if the government ensures that everybody pays their fair share. If people believe that the usual suspects, who in many cases are wealthy businessmen, doctors and lawyers, are allowed to get away with it, then the level of anger will go up several notches.

47% of all Americans pay NO TAXES whatsover!
Union workers and civil servant can make more in retirement than on the job.
But we aren’t going down that road…oh no…the Nazi, Racist, Violent Tea Baggers are just wrong.


Some of the measures imposed on Greece by the EU in order to bail them out (BBC):
The plans hope to achieve budget cuts of 30bn euros over three years – with the goal of cutting Greece’s public deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. It currently stands at 13.6%.
PAY CUTS
The government is planning a freeze pay for all public sector workers.
Some pay cuts will also be implemented, and public sector contract workers are set to lose their jobs.
This follows several years of continuous increases in pay, with salaries rising by an average of 30% since 2006.
Annual bonus payments – paid as 13th and 14th month salaries – will also be scrapped for high earners and capped for lower earners.
Other bonuses will be scrapped.
In the private sector, the legal maximum number of people companies can lay off each month will be doubled from 2% of personnel to 4%.

PENSIONS
The reforms seek to prevent early retirement. Currently the average age of retirement in Greece is 61, though it is not uncommon for public sector workers to retire in their 50s.
Under the planned changes, the retirement age, which is currently 65 years for men and 60 years for women, will be linked to average life expectancy.
In addition, the minimum number of years someone will have had to have worked to qualify for a full pension will rise to 40 years from 37.
Pensions will also be reduced so that they reflect a worker’s average working pay rather than their final salary.
TAX REFORM
VAT will be increased to 23% from 21% – just the latest in a series of recent increases.
Indirect taxes – including those on alcohol, fuel and cigarettes – will see a 10% rise.
There will also be a clamp-down on tax evasion – widely regarded as a big problem in Greece – and on untaxed illegal construction.
Tax-evasion alone is estimated to cost the Greek government at least 20bn euros a year.
PRIVATISATION
In the longer-term, the government will look to reduce the reliance of the Greek economy on the public sector, reducing the number of people on the public payroll.
This will require growth in the private sector, and possible privatisation of some industries.

Getting eerily uncomfortable I hope.
See our future if  Obama and The Democrats (and Republicans too) are not stopped.
According to a December report from the BLS, state and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked ($26.24 for wages and $13.60 for benefits) for total employee compensation in September 2009. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour ($19.45 for wages and $8.05 for benefits), see chart above. In other words, government employees make 45% more on average than private sector employees.
According to an analysis by USAToday (thanks to Michael Jahr for the pointer), “The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to an analysis of federal salary data.” For example, the number of federal employees making $100,000 or more has increased by 120,595, from 262,163 employees in December 2007 to 382,758 in June 2009, for a 46% increase. The number of federal workers making $150,000 or more has more than doubled since the recession started, from about 30,000 to more than 66,000 (see chart above).
USA Today also reports that “When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.” That’s a 168,900% increase!!

The Unemployment rate in the public sector is about 3%.
It’s been near 10% for a very long time in the real world.
And do the Democrats look concerned?
Do the Republicans?
Do they?

Josh Barro writes for the Manhattan Institute about the “Two Americas” and the “sharp difference between two classes of employees: those who work in the private sector and those who work for the government. Workers in the public sector have experienced a very different recession from those in the private sector.”
So is this Greece-ing the skids for what the government knows is coming if things don’t change?
I think so.