Security

Ecuador?

Really?
Ecuador?
PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she’s angry over comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the Obama administration will sue the state over its new immigration law.
In a June 8 media interview in Ecuador that began circulating Thursday in the U.S., Clinton said President Barack Obama thinks the federal government should determine immigration policy and that the Justice Department “will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”
Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler on Thursday declined to say whether the department would sue and that “the department continues to review the law.”
The department has been looking at the law for weeks for possible civil rights violations, with an eye toward a possible court challenge.
It’s unclear why Clinton made the comment since it’s not her area. She couldn’t be reached Thursday for comment.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Obama and Clinton have both made it clear that the administration opposes the law.
“I will defer to the Justice Department on the legal steps that are available and where they stand on the review of the law,” Crowley said. “The secretary believes that comprehensive immigration reform is a better course of action.”
Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement that “this is no way to treat the people of Arizona.”
“To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous,” she said. “If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.”
Someone is going to be taken out to the Chicago Woodshed for this one!
Two Weeks ago when Obama was forced to meet with Governor Brewer he said he’d send his people to Arizona to meet with her about the situation and tell her what he planned to do.
No surprise, Nothing happened.
Greta Van Sustern: Joining us by phone is Arizona governor Jan Brewer. Good evening, Governor. And before we get to the question whether or not the president’s kept his word on his two weeks he’ll give you information, tell me, have you heard anything about whether or not the Justice Department has made a decision to sue Arizona over your new statute?
GOV. JAN BREWER, R-ARIZ. (Via telephone): No, we have not! What a disappointment! You know, when you hear from the president of the United States and he gives you a commitment, you would think that they would stand up and stand by their word. It is totally disappointing.
Only if you actually expected something to happen.
I know I didn’t.
Your Government is so good that they have hung signs up in southern Arizona that say for Americans not to tread here because it’s unsafe!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05PjLi7-i9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6-gUGBssZc
So we are from the Government and we are here to keep you safe!
And speaking of the government keeping you safe…

Coast Guard Orders Barges to Stop

So why stop now?
“The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “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.’”
A Coast Guard representative told ABC News today that it shares the same goal as the governor.
“We are all in this together. The enemy is the oil,” said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Dan Lauer.
But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.

Louisiana Governor Couldn’t Overrule Coast Guard

The governor said he didn’t have the authority to overrule the Coast Guard’s decision, though he said he tried to reach the White House to raise his concerns.
“They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible,” he said. But “every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer.”
After Jindal strenuously made his case, the barges finally got the go-ahead today to return to the Gulf and get back to work, after more than 24 hours of sitting idle.(ABC)
He had to wait three weeks while a half dozen bureaucracies go their fingers in pie to study the environmental impact of building berms.
What about the impact of the OIL?!!
Whoops!
And this government is the one you want running Health Care??!!!
God Help us All!
Fifty-nine days into the crisis, it still can be tough to figure out who is in charge in Louisiana, and the problem appears to be the same in other Gulf Coast states.
In Alabama today, Gov. Bob Riley said that he’s had problems with the Coast Guard, too.
Riley, R-Ala., asked the Coast Guard to find ocean booms tall enough to handle strong waves and protect his shoreline.
The Coast Guard went all the way to Bahrain to find it, but when it came time to deploy it?
“It was picked up and moved to Louisiana,” Riley said today.

The governor said the problem is there’s still no single person giving a “yes” or “no.” While the Gulf Coast governors have developed plans with the Coast Guard’s command center in the Gulf, things begin to shift when other agencies start weighing in, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“It’s like this huge committee down there,” Riley said, “and every decision that we try to implement, any one person on that committee has absolute veto power.”(ABC)
But don’t worry, President Obama is on it!
Obama in his Campaign Speech: ” As the clean up continues, we will offer whatever additional resources and assistance our coastal states may need. Now, a mobilization of this speed and magnitude will never be perfect, and new challenges will always arise. I saw and heard evidence of that during this trip. So if something isn’t working, we want to hear about it. If there are problems in the operation, we will fix them.”
Just like he was open to new ideas from Republicans during the Health Care “debate”
Just don’t ask The Coast Guard, NOAA, the EPA, because you’ll have to wait until they get their bureaucratic heads out of their collective asses!
But National Health Care will be great and wonderful, just wait and see!
We are from the government and we are here to keep you safe & protected.
Rejoice!

By Executive Order, Put Down that Twinkie!!

During the Health Care “debate” last year I joked about the government coming for your twinkies and wanting to regulate what you eat, since it would impact their Health Care costs when the government takes over your Health Care under the guise of  “qualified plans”. (i.e. if your plan changes and the government doesn’t like the change it’s no longer “qualified” and thus subject to ObamaCare regulations)

So quick but important diversion on an ObamaCare update:
Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare.
Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans.
The “midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013,” according to the document.
In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.
“It is difficult to predict how plans and employers will behave in the coming years, but if plans make changes that negatively impact consumers, then they will lose their grandfather status.”
So change it, and lose it.
I railed against “qualified plans” for months last year.
Under the new health law, current employer-based health plans will be grandfathered — that is, they will not have to follow many Obama-Care provisions that take effect on Jan. 1, 2014. These include benefit mandates, caps on out-of-pocket expenses and limits on age-based premiums.
But they forfeit that grandfathered status if they make changes to the plans by 2014. If so, firms may have to adopt new plans or drop coverage and pay the penalty.
Under the regulations in the document, a plan is no longer considered to be grandfathered if:
• It eliminates benefits related to diagnosis or treatment of a particular condition.
• It increases the percentage of a cost-sharing requirement (such as co-insurance) above its level as of March 23, 2010.
• It increases the fixed amount of cost-sharing such as deductibles or out-of-pocket limits by a total percentage measured from March 23, 2010, that is more than the sum of medical inflation plus 15 percentage points.
• It increases co-payments from March 23, 2010, by an amount that is the greater of: medical inflation plus 15 percentage points or medical inflation plus $5.
• The employer’s share of the premium decreases more than 5 percentage points below what the share was on March 23, 2010.
“These rules will ensure that up to 69% of employees — and 80% of workers in small business — will lose their current plan within three years,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a physician. “The reality is this: 58% of Americans want ObamaCare repealed because they fear they will lose their health care — and even their jobs — once this law is fully implemented.”(IBD)
Well, it’s not a joke anymore. They are after you.
President Obama has signed an executive order specifying the treatment for all Americans, to be prescribed by government bureaucrats.
Obama’s order appoints members to a new government committee set up by the Democrats’ new health law that will evaluate, make recommendations about and establish rules for everything from how people exercise to whether they smoke to the food they eat and the medicines they use.  And it specifically requires the committee list the priorities for “lifestyle behavior modification” that the government will pursue.
The council is designed to basically implement future policy that ultimately everything will be governed by federal authorities, from food to dietary supplements to vitamins.
The June 10th executive order establishes the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council.
The Food Police.

The council’s membership, including the chiefs of Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, and Homeland Security departments as well as the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Trade Commission.

The executive order requires the council to “provide coordination . . . with respect to prevention, wellness, and health promotion practices, the public health system, and integrative health care in the United States.”
It further must develop a “health-care strategy that incorporates the most effective and achievable means of improving the health status of Americans” and also must “carry out such other activities as are determined appropriate by the president.”
It will “set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States” and “establish specific and measurable actions and timelines to carry out the strategy.”
The council then will have to report to the president on what it has done, what progress has been made and provide a “list of national priorities on health pfomotion and disease prevention to adderss lifestyle behavior modification (including smoking cessation, proper nutrition, appropriate exercise, mental health behavioral health, substance-use disorder, and domestic violence screenings) and the prevention measures.”
Herb Titus, a veteran constitutional expert and lawyer, told WND, “The council is designed to basically implement future policy that ultimately everything will be governed by federal authorities, from food to dietary supplements to vitamins.”
Deborah Stockton, executive director of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, which deals regularly with natural foods such as raw milk, agreed with the Titus analysis.
“They say, ‘We’re going to centralize power and control. We’re going to be in control,’” she told WND. “It’s [going to be] another epic confrontation between those who will and those who won’t.”
Could it be that noncompliance will bring down the wrath of those agencies?
“It’ll be criminalized … if you don’t follow federal guidelines on nutrition, exercise,” he said. “That’s what this is designed to do. Ultimately bring everything under the federal umbrella. The only way they can accomplish that is through force.
“Ultimately that’s where it’s headed,” Titus said. “This is what people have been warning about. Here you have it.”
The executive order requires the council to “provide coordination … with respect to prevention, wellness and health-promotion practices, the public-health system and integrative health care in the United States.”
“Citizen, stop and show your papers and certify under oath you have properly exercised and ingested the proper amount of nutrition today!” scoffed one blogger.
The order also targets most of the products that are promoted as natural supplements or remedies, demanding that all “prevention programs” be based on the “science” guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control, virtually eliminating anything that is not put through the multimillion-dollar tests required of the federal agency.
Think I’m kidding:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-establishing-national-prevention-health-promotion-and-public-health
Then add: H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act (pending in Congress)
This bill would give the FDA greater regulatory powers over the national food supply and food providers with the goal of preventing food-borne illnesses and ensuring food safety. More specifically, it would increase the frequency of FDA inspections of food processing plants, expand the FDA’s traceback capabilities for when outbreaks do occur, give the FDA mandatory recall authority, and require food facilities to have safety plans in place in order to mitigate hazards. Concurrently, the bill would impose annual registration fees of $500 on all facilities holding, processing, or manufacturing food and require that such facilities also engaged in the transport or packing of food maintain pedigrees of the origin and previous distribution history of the food. Farms would not have to register.
Does a “Facility” include your garden or greenhouse?
The fun part I’ve seen so far: Recalls:  H.R. 2749 provides the FDA with recall procedures for food that is deemed to be dangerous.  The basis for this determination would be if the Secretary has “reason to believe” the food poses a health risk.
She “deems” it so. And we all know about Democrats and “deeming”
“I’m sorry citizen that food has been deemed to be a health hazard and you are not allowed to eat it!”
Black Market Salt anyone?
The bill would also require the creation of a national public education program on food safety.  This section additionally mandates that the Department of Health and Human Services conduct food safety research.
After all, you are too dumb to eat healthy to begin with so we have to ‘re-educate’ you.
Quarantine Authority:  The bill would give FDA the authority to restrict the movement of food within a State (quarantine) if there is credible evidence that the food presents an imminent threat of serious adverse health consequences or death.
Can that be “deemed”??
FDA Regulation of Agriculture:  The bill would authorize and direct the FDA to regulate agricultural production practices, effectively telling farmers how to farm.  Fruit and vegetable producers specifically would be subject to regulatory burdens.  Agricultural groups such as the California Farm Bureau have expressed concern over these issues.
General Summary of H.R. 2749 and Farm Bureau’s Chief Concerns
H.R. 2749 would add significant new regulatory burdens for farmers, especially for produce and nut crops.  The bill would establish farming standards and create a traceability system with strict record-keeping requirements.  FDA would have the authority to conduct on-farm inspections as well as quarantine large geographic areas.  Stiff criminal and civil penalties could be imposed for any violation of the act, including record-keeping mistakes.
http://www.montereycountyfarmbureau.org/Issues/HR_2749.htm
Quarantine Authority and Mandatory Recall: The bill’s quarantine authority allows FDA to quarantine a geographic area if there is credible evidence that food poses a health risk.  The provision does not account for economic losses suffered by food producers, processors or distributors in the quarantine area.  Some Members may be concerned that if the FDA ultimately lifts the quarantine for lack of confirmatory evidence, the agency has no obligation, authority or means to indemnify producers for their losses.   Similarly, the bill allows FDA to act on suspicion to require a producer to cease distribution of food.  No consideration is given in the legislation to indemnification for economic damages if the FDA was wrong.After all, the Government will control your Health care. So why no the nutrition that goes along with it.

So that will be your Food, your Health, and your Energy.

Nothing to oppressive.
http://www.gop.gov/bill/111/1/hr2749
Petition: http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php
CBO Report: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:KC3T2Rie_ocJ:www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm%3Findex%3D10478+H.R.+2749:+Food+Safety+Enhancement+Act+of+2009&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjlh3G7CEnBI74BaGpy76CIlAQDXW3brSvgdm4RT50ZGv5T_aUetIZd-GwgirP75PnzVvnmKgJsob6R_qlH5ZCzNj8eIAju6cb4rRAdkeqa5KYWotdp6W0JQC6D9QFahWK1ku8n&sig=AHIEtbS9h81IMhl_JMQ5gs4370vtmCgiJg

We are from the Government and we are here to save you from yourself!

Rejoice Citizen!

How Green(e) is My Politics

Alvin Greene, a 13 year veteran of the military won 59% of the vote in the South Carolina democratic primary for the u.s. senate last week. Greene, despite having spent less than 2 thousand dollars on his campaign handily won the primary.

One would think that the Dems would be excited that a black guy with a very limited budget beat out a white guy with loads of campaign money and could be the first african american senator from the southern US since reconstruction.
But people, including representative James Clyburn (D-SC), House Whip in Congress is demanding an investigation. He and other members of the Democratic party have asked Alvin Greene to pull out of the race.
Some also think he’s a plant by the Republicans.
“Alvin Greene is pretending to be an idiot,” Creighton (of far left Flamethrower website Firedoglake) writes, noting that Greene holds a college degree and worked as an intelligence specialist in the US military. “He is doing it because someone doesn’t want a strong populist democrat like Vic Rawl running against Jim DeMint in South Carolina for his seat in the United States Senate.”
Isn’t politics just fun.
“There were some real shenanigans going on in the South Carolina primary,” Clyburn said on the Bill Press radio show, according to The Hill. “I don’t know if [Greene] was a Republican plant; he was someone’s plant.” Clyburn is particularly suspicious that Greene could come up with the $10,400 needed to register for the race despite being unemployed.

A spokesman for Sen. Jim DeMint, Greene’s opponent in the general election, said the charge that the Democratic nominee is a Republican plant is “ridiculous.”

Whomever the Democrats nominated was not likely to win against the very popular DeMint anyhow.

Super leftist Ezra Klein of the Washington Post though, put it this way: There’s been a lot of talk about what sort of trickery and skullduggery and inanity could’ve produced Alvin Greene’s win in South Carolina. But after reading all of it, I’m coming down on the side of Dave Weigel: Maybe the guy just, you know, won.
So why all the outrage? All the conspiracy theories?
Could it be they want to create a crisis, so they can exploit it?
Get the sleepy, apathetic, South Carolina Democrats whipped up?
They want to know where he got the $10,400 to be put on the ballot.
They are more obsessed with this than the $4 Trillion in worthless spending they’ve already done nationally.
It’s like focusing on 1 tree while the whole forest burns down!
But they miss the fact that 100,000 people voted for this guy. Regardless of whether he was “a plant” and “someone” seeded him the money, he still got the votes.
Oh, right, because this was an open primary it was a Republican hit-job…
When asked by NBC’s David Gregory on Sunday if Greene’s election was legitimate, senior White House adviser David Axelrod said, “It doesn’t appear so to me. It was a mysterious deal.”
Axelrod said: “The whole thing is odd. I don’t really know how to explain it and I don’t think anybody else does either. … How [Greene] won the primary is a big mystery, and until you resolve that I don’t think he can claim to be a strong, credible candidate.”
But they are still stuck with an unemployed, no experience candidate with a pending felony trial.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the perfect Democrat to me.
So what is really the troubling factor here is the Democrats attitude that the guy they put up, a former legislator named Vic Rawl, who spend virtually no money either but had the blessing of the establishment,didn’t win so it must be a trick.
The voting machines were rigged, they say. “Hanging Chads” anyone?
Some want the primary results thrown out.
They didn’t get their man.
That’s the really troubling part.
And these are the same Democrats who will, even after 10 years, go ranting off into left field about how the Republicans stole the election in 2000 from Al Gore.
They didn’t get their man.
Does this sound like a free and fair, democratic election ethic or a party apparatchik put-up job?
The Party wants whom the party wants. And the people are just sheep who are supposed to vote the way the party wants them too and if they don’t it must therefore be FRAUD!
And if the party doesn’t get what it wants it will simply erase it and start over again until you do what the party wants.
Very scary.
But does it sound familiar?
Health Care reform anyone? Bailouts? TARP? Stimulus? Cap and Trade!
The majority of Americans were vehemently against the Health Care bill, but the Democrats wanted their Holy Grail no matter what and they got what they wanted by any means necessary.
And now it’s Energy.
Cap and Trade, which stalled out for lack of support is now re-energized by the Oil Spill.
“The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now,” he said. “I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy – because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.” –President Obama, last night.
Never waste a Crisis!
Overly Expensive, inefficient, but politically correct,Green Tech or Bust.
One problem, the nation, and the world run on Oil.
So they need to make Oil unattractive, both politically and economically.
Enter Cap and Trade.
Mind you, the rest of the world is going to do anything, but take advantage of the weak, stupid Americans.
And 10′s of thousands of good jobs will evaporate.
Earlier this month, the president ordered a six month ban on exploratory deepwater drilling – a move some experts predict will pour salt into the wounds of the already injured region.
The moratorium could lead to massive job losses in Louisiana, which relies on drilling to support its economy, Louisiana State University Economist James Richardson said.
“The moratorium could be more devastating than the leak, because more people are employed by the oil industry than the fishing industry,” he said.
The moratorium could cost the state more than 20,000 jobs by the end of the year, according to the Louisiana Department of Economic Development. The Department estimates for every one employee working on a rig, nine employees onshore are working to support that rig.
“During one of the most challenging economic periods in decades, the last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Broken down by industry, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development estimates fishing and tourism contributes $10 billion to the Louisiana economy, while energy contributes $65 billion.

Following the moratorium, Anadarko Petroleum announced its intention to move three rigs out of the Gulf.

And when the taxes from this debacle cripple the country anyone for 20% unemployment??
The price of gas will skyrocket.
But candidate Obama was only too happy about that previously
January 2008:

“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket . . . because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it . . . Whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that [cost] on to consumers.’’

In the same interview, Obama suggested that his energy policy would require the ruin of the coal industry. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,’’ he told the Chronicle. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.’’

So the Oil Spill is the perfect political opportunity to get what they want because they want it.
The fact that the people are again, against it, is not relevant.
They want what they want.
So the Democrats in South Carolina want to invalidate a valid election because they didn’t get what they wanted. They complain to this day about the 2000 election because they didn’t get what they wanted. And then the Health Care Debate went on for over a year until they bum-rushed it through in the most partisan vote in the history of the country.
Now they want your energy.
Your Car.
Your AC.
Your everything that is manufactured and shipped that will be more costly.
And all the job losses for this?
Like they care.
They want what they want when they want it.
Period.
And no one is going to take their toys away from them!

Set Your TV on Spin!

I’m so glad I will be working hard to pay liberals need to spend and tax tonight instead of having the option to watch Obama’s ‘Kick ass’ spin that should knock the planet off it’s axis.

Not only shouldn’t our global messiah be expected to plug the damn hole — he’s not Superman, people! — but evidently he shouldn’t be expected to find out if there’s any containment boom sitting in a warehouse somewhere {Maine} waiting to be used either. What he’s supposed to do, apparently, is go around reminding people why he’s really not to blame. I’ll say this for him: He’s awfully good at that, at least.
Obama on the spill:“Even though I am President of the United States my powers are not limitless,” Obama said last Friday at Camardelle’s Live Bait and Boiled Seafood, “So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hardworking, smart people in place.”
So that’s why he refused the Dutch offer of oil skimmers 3 days after the incident!
Why people who have technology to deal with the spill are being given a deaf ear.
Because he’s doing everything he can to make it not his fault that he’s not doing enough to convince people he has no blame for being unconcerned, really, about it.
So we get the Campaign Speech tonight. Not leadership.
He’s worried about the politics. And after nearly 2 months, now he wants to “kick ass” because the politics is kicking his ass. That’s why he’s now “engaged”.
The White House is the one that released the video of the above meeting, after all!
It’s a PR stunt. Nothing more.
And tonight is no different.
The bottom line: Oil Week in Washington — complete with CEO testimony, a presidential address to the nation and the release of damaging documents about BP’s safety record — may represent a turning point in the way the public views the domestic oil industry if Waxman and the White House succeed in their efforts. Longtime environmentalists like Waxman see the oil spill crisis as their moment to put the industry on its heels after decades of having its way on Capitol Hill — much like Waxman did with the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
President Barack Obama is expected to challenge lawmakers to complete climate change legislation in his first address from the Oval Office Tuesday night — right after evening newscasts featuring oil company executives defending their businesses and safety standards.
While Markey’s global warming subcommittee is the opening venue, Waxman has ensured that he will be a dominant force in the oil spill investigation and the planned legislative response. Another of Waxman’s panels, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, will bear down on BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday.
Waxman has been assiduously building his case against Big Oil for years, and now he has the documents and the forum to carry on his mission. On Monday, Waxman released a scathing 14-page letter to Hayward that outlined his charge that BP sacrificed safety for profit and cut corners on drilling procedures.
Industry and government sources expect that the other oil company executives — including those from Exxon, Conoco and Chevron — will echo the charge that BP cut corners, further isolating the company at the center of the oil spill. The strategy for these other companies is to help Waxman throw BP down the well in hopes of appeasing him. (Politico)
The Angry Environmentalist Political Gods demand a Sacrifice!
Then they will come after you later.
Everyone is looking forward to President Obama’s speech about the Gulf of Mexico. After all, he promised that he was taking in information from experts throughout the land in order to determine, in his words, “whose ass to kick.”
However it comes across from the presidential lectern on Tuesday night or from the media analysis afterwards, the Gulf of Mexico spin will direct our attention away from a matter that has more of an impact on how the nation is riding along under this administration.
The latest retail numbers came back from May, indicating that they are down over 1%. With the continued unemployment rate hovering around 10% (even after the addition of some 400,000 temporary consensus position with the federal government) and the failure of the private sector to pick up with job creation, the nation’s dizzying focus on President Obama’s butt-kicking ventures with BP pale in comparison with the butt-kicking endeavors his administration should be undertaking to get this economy going. After a massive stimulus package, bank bailouts (started under President Bush), and government interference that included the presidential firing of a corporate CEO, not much is changing for Americans that are growing weary and finding their economic options dwindling without a boom in the economy or a change in Washington this fall.
Through both unplanned (e.g., the BP oil spill) and planned (e.g., the sudden prioritization of health care reform in 2009-2010 to the top of legislative importance) issues, the Obama Administration has continued to remain distracted, failing to keep focus on the top issue that put him into the White House after the 2008 election. Many forget that Senator John McCain was leading the national polls in early September – even with swing states such as Virginia leading towards Mr. Obama – until the economic crisis of 2008 hit America. Health care reform, the wars overseas, and even a shaky set of Sarah Palin interviews could not catapult the Obama Candidacy to comfortable leads in the polls. Each became a cementing factor only after the economic crisis broke public perception and mood Mr. Obama’s way.
Now, President Obama wades through oil slicks in the Gulf and the muck of a stagnant economy that does not show signs of recovery for “Main Street” – the group of Americans he vowed to put before the “Wall Street fat-cats” that, by the way, have received billions and recovered since the initial crisis some 2 years ago. With the choice of reporting on the blotched efforts of an oil corporation whose dereliction of duty is well-documented versus answering to the failures of his administration to improve the lives of everyday Americans economically, the president has chosen the former. It is more believable – and thus easier for the White House – to support President Obama as he details the storyline of the BP spill and the administration’s efforts henceforth than it is to allow President Obama, Robert Gibbs, and others within the administration to continue propagating the myth of a “jobless recovery” with the latest unemployment numbers and retail figures out from May noting otherwise for America’s economy.
The spin from the BP and administration actions around the oil spill in the Gulf may make the nation dizzy, but the more important spin is the one that has been given for some time now: namely, the talk of this continued “economic recovery” in the midst of economic disappointing numbers. That spin should make America sick. What we are finding out is that the more that we follow this supposed butt-kicking ride with the president, the more that everyday Americans are feeling light-headed, queasy, and uncertain of continuing on this downhill ride much longer.(Daily Caller).
The state and local grants in Porkulus acted as a federal bailout package for state bureaucrats, who otherwise may have lost their jobs as state and local governments cut spending in order to balance budgets. The White House sold this as rescues of teachers and first responders, but as a series of local newspapers reported, those jobs were never in jeopardy. The money that got added to those budget items got transferred elsewhere to save less politically sensitive bureaucrats elsewhere, while the Obama administration claimed to have saved millions of jobs through these bailout transfers.
Of course, that only works for a single budget year, and the same structural cost issues that existed over the last year continue today, thanks to the federal bailout. What’s the Obama administration answer for that? Another bailout:

President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year’s huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy’s free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. “We must take these emergency measures,” he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party. …
With the letter, however, Obama makes a direct and unequivocal case for additional “targeted investments,” including state aid and several less-expensive initiatives aimed at assisting small businesses. He specifically calls for passage of the measure that is before the Senate, which would extend unemployment benefits and offer states additional aid, increasing deficits by nearly $80 billion over the next decade.
Obama asks lawmakers to be patient on the deficit, noting that a special commission is at work on a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan.

That’s a laugh. Obama wants people to believe he’s serious about deficit reform, and so he’s proposing making the deficit worse until someone forces him to stop spending. It’s the action of an addict. I can stop spending any time I want. I just don’t want to do it right now.
Besides, the jobs targeted by these bloc-grant bailouts are the exact same ones claimed by the White House last year. When do people in Minnesota get to stop bailing out California bureaucrats? Shouldn’t the states themselves start working on making rational judgments about the size and sustainability of their own governments? If it takes Minnesota money to float California, and Texas money to float Minnesota, then there is no accountability to the citizens of a state at all. It’s a shell game and nothing more.
And this is all money just going down a rathole anyway. The bailout last year didn’t solve the problem, but it did add over a hundred billion dollars to the national debt. Obama now proposes to send $50 billion more in imaginary money after bad imaginary money to, once again, avoid tough economic choices by kicking the can down the road at the expense of future generations. It’s becoming the theme of his presidency, which is profligate irresponsibility combined with an utter lack of strategic comprehensive growth policies.
John Hinderaker agrees, and points out the only real beneficiary of this bailout:

The original “stimulus” bill was all about keeping state and local government spending, and the salaries it supports, sky-high. It doesn’t appear that President Obama has a game plan to help the economy, other than continuing to feed the already-bloated public sector. This is consistent with his apparently complete ignorance of basic principles of economics. Democrats in Congress, however, can see the writing on the wall. It will be interesting to see whether they are willing to brave voter wrath by stimulating the public sector still further.

This is a $50 billion bailout to Big Labor — the SEIU, AFSCME, and the NEA.
But don’t worry, with Teleprompter One’s help, he’ll look “presidential” and he’ll be forceful and The Ministry of Truth will be gushing all over him with more praise that if you could see if physically it would leak more than the Deep Water Horizon.
Meanwhile, nothing will have actually been done.
Unemployment will still be near 10%.
There will be more bailouts of his base.
More government control of everything and everybody.
And more people will struggle when the Democrats pass their Cap & Trade monster.
But at least he’ll look “presidential”.
Just ask the Ministry of Truth.

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!

Contradictions and Conundrums

Remember when Obama said, no more bailouts?
Neither does he.
Not really a surprise though is it.
President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year’s huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy’s free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. “We must take these emergency measures,” he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.
“I think there is spending fatigue,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said recently. “It’s tough in both houses to get votes.”
Democrats, particularly in the House, have voted for politically costly initiatives at Obama’s insistence, most notably health-care and climate change legislation. But faced with an electorate widely viewed as angry and hostile to incumbents, many are increasingly reluctant to take politically unpopular positions.
The House last month stripped Obama’s request for $24 billion in state aid from a bill that would extend emergency benefits for jobless workers. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to restore that funding but with debate in that chamber set to resume this week, he acknowledges that he has yet to assemble the votes for final passage. Obama’s request for $23 billion to avert the layoffs of as many as 300,000 public school teachers has not won support in either chamber.
Gotta protect your union base, and the expense of everyone else.
“He’s calling on Congress to pass a [jobless] bill that will add about $80 billion to the deficit, but then calls for fiscal discipline; he says these measures need to be targeted and temporary, but then calls for extending programs passed in the stimulus more than a year ago,” Stewart said in an e-mail. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
He says to Michigan High Schoolers to be responsible for your actions, then turns around and blames BP for everything.
And we won’t even go into the still rampant virulent disease of Bush Derangement Syndrome!!
Republicans have offered an alternative package that proposes to cover the cost of additional jobless benefits — but not aid to state governments — by cutting federal spending elsewhere. In contrast to the Democratic bill, the GOP measure would reduce deficits by nearly $55 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
But will Democrats listen, hell no. It’s not on The Agenda.
Feeling tapped out after stimulus, ObamaCare and everything else? Senator Bob Casey has one more deal for you. If the Pennsylvania Democrat gets his way, U.S. taxpayers will also pick up the astonishing tab for poorly managed union pension plans.

Mr. Casey is gathering support for his curiously named “Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act,” a bailout for union-run retirement plans. Similar to House legislation from North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy and Ohio Republican Patrick Tiberi, the bill would transfer tens of billions of dollars worth of retiree liabilities to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, i.e., to taxpayers.

At issue are multi-employer pension plans, in which companies across an industry pay into a single pension pool. The plans are predominately run by unions and for years have distinguished themselves by poor management. The Labor Department in 2008 listed 230 multi-employer plans that were either endangered (less than 80% funded), or critical (less than 65% funded), or that had applied to government for funding relief. By 2009 that number had soared to 640.
The financial crash is partly to blame, but even before 2006 only about 6% of multi-employer plans were fully funded, compared to about 31% of single-employer plans. The real problem is that multi-employer plans have become a sort of pension Ponzi scheme.

Unions love multi-employer plans because they let workers keep their retirement benefits even if they switch jobs to another participating company. This encourages lifelong union membership. Unions are less enthusiastic about paying the bills. The negotiating priority of union leaders is to get hefty wage increases and benefits for current workers, leaving the scraps to the pensions of retirees who no longer vote in union elections.
When a company in an industry goes out of business, meanwhile, the remaining firms are still on the hook for all costs of the multi-employer plan. This explains why the trucking industry is backing Mr. Casey’s bill, and why Mr. Casey announced his legislation at a Pennsylvania facility of YRC Worldwide, a Kansas trucking outfit. Someone has to pay for years of the industry agreeing to Teamster demands.

Mr. Casey’s bill would cordon off “orphaned” pensions—those for which an employer has stopped contributing or withdrawn from a multi-employer fund—and put them into a separate account. Surviving companies would pay benefits to these orphans for five years, after which they’d get kicked to the PBGC, which would shoulder the benefits until the last retiree or beneficiary dies. The remaining multi-employer plan would be back in the black, free to start the negative-feedback loop of underpayments and overpromises again.
All of this is a raw deal for union pensioners who worked a lifetime in expectation of certain benefits. The PBGC’s current maximum payment to any plan participant is $12,800 a year. Mr. Casey’s bill raises that to $21,000 year, still only a fraction of existing pension promises.

Not that the PBGC has the cash to pay more. The agency’s deficit was $21 billion as of last September, and it is expected to rise to an estimated $34 billion by 2019. Mr. Casey is claiming his multi-employer-bailout scheme will cost a mere $8 billion, but Moody’s estimated last year that multi-employer plans were $165 billion underfunded.

The tab is likely to be much higher given the moral hazard Mr. Casey would create. As Hudson Institute economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth notes, the bill creates “a vicious circle. Once PGBC took over some plans, other employers would want to declare bankruptcy, unload plans on the PGBC, and reorganize under another name. The incentives to do this would be enormous.”

In 2006 Congress passed the Pension Protection Act to prod companies and unions to shape up their pension plans, whether by lowering benefits, increasing contributions from employers and workers, or even raising retirement ages. The fact that many unions and companies have refused to use these tools does not make their mistake the obligation of U.S. taxpayers. If unions really cared about protecting retirees, they’d ditch defined-benefit plans and adopt 401(k) plans that give workers control over their retirement assets.
Union chiefs prefer the power that comes with managing huge pension investments—even if they’re failing. They are now counting on Mr. Casey to preserve their power by making taxpayers pick up the tab for years of pension mismanagement. With the union priority of “card check” stalled, word is that the Casey bailout is Big Labor’s consolation prize. Taxpayers should let Congress know they don’t want to pay.(WSJ)
Washington Examiner (excerpt):

So union management bleeds one company dry, then makes an unrelated company responsible for picking up their pension obligations. Then they start bleeding them dry. When there’s no one left to bleed dry, they have Democratic senators and House members in their pocket to push this bill on the taxpayer.

Bottom line is that unions are taken care of, while taxpayers are left to shell out billions. Nice racket, huh?
Given the liabilities involved, very few companies are willing to enter multi-employer pension plans voluntarily. They usually have to be forced by unions in negotiations and arbitration. Lawmakers may support a pension plan bailout on the grounds that it’s not fair to employers, but unions knew exactly what they were doing when they forced companies into these plans.
Nobody is pointing out that it was wrong for unions to force companies into these untenable positions to begin with. It’s doubly wrong to make the 93 percent of privately employed Americans who don’t belong to a union — who have to contribute to their own 401(k)s for retirement — pay also for the retirements of the seven percent who have or are greedily bludgeoning their employers out of existence.
But Obama has to take of he peeps. Screw everyone else.
Especially in an election year.
Report from the Treasury Department.  The report to Congress warned that U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015 .
At that point, Treasury reckons, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product would be 102% compared with 93% this year.
But don’t worry, the Government is here to help you!

Crisis Inverted

He’s just so darn presidential. You better know who I’m talking about . . . because if you don’t, I know whose ass to kick.
In a recent interview with NBC’s “Today” show, President Obama said this: “I don’t sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.” Scoot over, Gettysburg Address. There’s a new No. 1 speech in town.
Some have been oddly surprised by the president’s unpresidential approach. Here are a few possible reasons why they’re so shocked:

1. They were asleep when Obama said this in July of 2009 with respect to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr.: “Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts . . . But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly. . . ” (So what if he didn’t have the facts! What’s next, people? Are you going to insist that he read laws before publicly condemning them? You right-wing extremists!)
2. They took their dog for a walk and missed Obama’s commentary in April of 2010 regarding Palin’s critique of his administration’s nuclear policy: “I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues.” (Translation: She’s no match for me. She may have run a state and been Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but did she vote “present” nearly 130 times as a state senator? I think not.)
3. They were busy cooking and didn’t catch Obama saying this to John McCain at the health care summit in February of 2010: “Let me just make this point, John, because we’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.” (Translation: I won. You lost. Nani nani poo poo.)
4. They were enjoying a film at the corner theatre and missed Obama saying this in August of 2009: “ . . . I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.” (In other words, hand over your money and shut the heck up.)
5. They were hanging out at a local café and didn’t hear our president’s complete (and disturbing, in my opinion) mischaracterization of the new Arizona immigration law in April of 2010: “ . . . you can imagine if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona, your great, great grandparents may have been there before Arizona was even a state. But now suddenly if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed . . . ” (Translation: I don’t have to read pertinent documents. I went to Harvard. Enough said.)

If you’ve been paying attention since day one, Obama’s tone with respect to the oil spill shouldn’t be in the least bit shocking. I just wish he wasn’t so busy playing the role of big man on campus. Maybe then he would’ve had time this year to hear the majority of Americans oppose his health care law and/or support Arizona’s immigration law. But hey, with golf and Bush-hating Paul McCartney to fit in, let’s cut him some slack.
As an entertaining side note, Obama was recently asked to respond to comments made by BP CEO Tony Hayward, including “I’d like my life back” and “ . . . everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest.” Hayward’s comments were distasteful at best, but check out what Obama had to say in reply: “He wouldn’t be working for me after any of those statements.” Culture of Corruption author Michelle Malkin must have enjoyed a full-on fit of laughter after that one.
Mr. President, it’s not presidential to make bold public statements based on assumptions, without taking the time to do your research. It’s not presidential to essentially tell a whole bunch of Americans to sit down and shut up. It’s not presidential to condescend to a war hero and long-standing American Senator. And while we’re at it, it’s not any more presidential to repeatedly blast Fox News than it was to have joked during the 2008 presidential campaign that, “I’ll put Mr. Burgess up against Sean Hannity. He’ll tear him up.”
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’d like my president to act like one. Save the ass-kicking for someone else.(Jedediah Bila)

Didn’t he remind you of the nerdy kid trying to sound like the tough kid? Or of that bad actor who says his lines with no conviction whatsover?
Now next week, Obama has “summoned” the CEO of BP to his office for a dressing down so that he can look tough.
Problem is, I’ve seen better acting on Star Trek: Voyager (and anyone who knows me how much I hate that show!).
But the Ministry of  Truth will do their best to create Mr. Bad Ass. Mr Can Do. Mr I’m Involved and I Care.
But, like most things with this President, it will ultimately ring very hollow.
I’m not going to defend BP, but they sure as hell are doing more than this President about it.
I mean, this President has refused help from 13 countries! 13!!
President Obama is impeding clean-up efforts in the Gulf by kowtowing to unions and members of the American maritime industry, critics have charged in recent days. At issue is the president’s refusal to waive the Jones Act, a century-old law that effectively bars foreign-owned ships from moving between U.S. ports, a necessary component of participating in the cleanup effort.
When asked why President Obama hasn’t waived the Jones Act — which President Bush put on hold to facilitate Katrina rescue efforts — White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said a suspension wasn’t necessary.
Not Necessary!!!????!!!!
Well, we wouldn’t want to Obama to annoy they only people left who love him, Unions.
That’s vastly more important than actually do everything you can to solve the problem!
Heaven forbid you make the Unions mad at you!
And then there was the enviromental impact study that the government had to take a month to do to study the effects of putting sand berms in the way of the advancing oil and when all was said and done approve less than  what the Governor of Louisiana asked for because of concerns over the long term impact.
Too little too late.
And these are the guys  you want running Health Care??!!
Yeah, sand berms are far worse for the environment that raw crude oil by the millions  of gallons!!
There was a manufacturer in Maine who makes oil booms. He has a million yards ready to go, but neither BP or Obama will buy them!
There was even a Science guy on FOX last night that showed a poly-blended cloth that if you pour oil and water through it it retains the oil and the water is strained out cleanly.
But no one wants to here from him.
Territorial  Political Testosterone at it’s finest.
So one has to conclude that the only reason Obama cares, or appears to at all, is because  of politics.
That’s it.
He doesn’t actually want to solve the problem.
That does not interest him at all.
But the Crisis, now that’s an opportunity!
Never Waste a Good Crisis. — Rahm Emmanuel
“Don’t be fooled by Obama’s ‘incompetence’,” warns Stu Tarlowe in a provocative post at the American Thinker blog. “If you think the Gulf oil spill spells trouble for Obama, you’re just not looking at as big a picture as he’s looking at, and you just don’t realize how much trouble we’re all in.”
Tarlowe cites the Cloward-Piven Strategy, which was developed by two Columbia University sociology professors as a way to use political and economic chaos to achieve their radical ends. When viewed through this lens, what the rest of the nation views as a political disaster for Obama could be an opportunity instead.
“…If the oil spill in the Gulf manages to destroy the fishing and tourist industries in that region, shut down oil drilling, raise the price of oil and of food all over the country, and bring more and more Americans to a financial breaking point and thus dependent on food stamps and other government programs, Obama and Co. will smile and nod at one another,” Tarlowe predicts.
Obama’s own behavior indicates that Tarlowe may be right. The president reiterated his cap-and-trade case yesterday, amid another pitch for ending tax breaks for Big Oil and giving them to Big Environmentalists Doing Alternative Energy Projects to push America back into the 19th century.
“…The only way the transition to clean energy will ultimately succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed.  And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution,” Obama said during a speech at Carnegie Mellon University.
“The House of Representatives has already passed a comprehensive energy and climate bill, and there is currently a plan in the Senate – a plan that was developed with ideas from Democrats and Republicans – that would achieve the same goal.  And, Pittsburgh, I want you to know, the votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months,” the president added.
If Obama is indeed following the Cloward-Piven game plan, he will use the BP oil spill crisis to his advantage by forcing the passage of the ruinous cap and trade bill through the Senate before the November elections. (washington examiner)
The end justifies the means.
Since Global Warming and Global Climate Change have crashed he needs a new champion cry to get Cap & Trade rammed down your throats!
OIL!!
The Agenda is The Agenda.
And they have to get as much done before November as they can.
Anything that puts a greater strain on government services — and the inability of those services, through incompetence and complex bureaucracy to actually improve things – advances the goals of Cloward-Piven. The more desperate and demoralized the American people become, and the more preoccupied we are with simple survival, the better our new “leaders” like it, and the closer they get to assuming total and complete control of every aspect of our lives.
It explains that even the patently unconstitutional laws and policies implemented by the Obama regime are a deliberate part of the strategy, because in addition to using financial crises to bring about the desired changes in our way of life, it is necessary to render our Constitution impotent and irrelevant. (American Thinker)
So when you are paying $8 for gas and your electric bill triples due to new regulations and taxes under the guise of “dealing with our dependence on fossil fuels”-oil specifically, you’ll be politically incorrect and shouted down as insensitive if you want to drill for our own oil off our own shores.
“Green energy” or Bust!
Because, then he has you, literally, over a barrel.
The implications of this are irrelevant. Because it’s all about the power.
And NOTHING ELSE.
Now, that’s Politics, The Chicago Way.