What Does Paul Ryan Believe In?

I am quite pleased with Governor Mitt Romney's  choice for a running mate. Paul Ryan has already proven his commitment to reducing the size and scope of  government thru his budgets that he was able to get passed in the house.

"The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election. More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline. Against the advice of every Beltway bedwetter, he has put entitlement reform at the center of the public agenda—before it becomes a crisis that requires savage cuts. And he has done so as part of a larger vision that stresses tax reform for faster growth, spending restraint to prevent a Greek-like budget fate, and a Jack Kemp-like belief in opportunity for all. He represents the GOP's new generation of reformers that includes such Governors as Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and New Jersey's Chris Christie. As important, Mr. Ryan can make his case in a reasonable and unthreatening way. He doesn't get mad, or at least he doesn't show it. Like Reagan, he has a basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity. As for Medicare, the Democrats would make Mr. Ryan's budget a target, but then they are already doing it anyway. Mr. Romney has already endorsed a modified version of Mr. Ryan's premium-support Medicare reform, and who better to defend it than the author himself?" 

 

above was quoted from A version of this article appeared August 9, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Why Not Paul Ryan?.

The critics on the left would like to label Paul Ryan as extreme. This is just another one of their feeble attempts at revising history to legitimize their extreme redistributive Socialist unsustainable utopian dream.

The Democrats think it is extreme to cut 6 trillion from the budget over 10 yrs but not radical to add $5 trillion to the debt in 4 years!

The Independents, Conservative Democrats and big Government Republicans are now starting to realize the threat to the Exceptional American Dream from the Leftists. They have been voting against those perpetuating Big Government, Big Labor and Big Business as these three powers are all oppressing the common man.

 Assessing President Obama's Fiscal Record

August 2, 2012

Early in his Administration, President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half. While he clearly did not keep that promise, he has gone on to assert that his budget achieves $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and recently he claimed, “Since I’ve been President, Federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in 60 years.” Many were left wondering how this could be possible with President Obama presiding over unprecedented trillion-dollar deficits for four consecutive years, adding over $5 trillion in new debt since his inauguration, and piling on a slew of new government initiatives including a near-trillion dollar stimulus and a massive new healthcare entitlement. Indeed, a closer look at the evidence shows the President’s claim of spending restraint does not hold up against the facts, and his overall fiscal record doesn’t fare any better.

The President and his allies have offered many excuses for why his fiscal record has been a disappointment. Some of the most prominent are “inheriting a trillion dollar deficit,” experiencing a “deeper recession than anyone anticipated,” and disagreement about who was responsible for actions taken in fiscal 2009 – a transition year when both Presidents Bush and Obama held office.

This paper examines the President’s fiscal record from various perspectives in comparison to his numerous assertions of fiscal responsibility. The analysis addresses both the President’s actual fiscal record and his budget proposals going forward. Additional context is provided by exploring the President’s fiscal record under unified Democratic control of government during 2009-2010 and what happened afterward under divided government with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

As will be made clear throughout, the President’s fiscal record has been a failure regardless of the yardstick chosen to measure it. His assertions to the contrary are misleading at best, and his budget proposals for the future would perpetuate and aggravate an already dangerous fiscal situation.

Key Points:

• Spending surged 18% in 2009 reaching 25% of GDP - the highest since World War II
• Deficits exceeded $1 trillion in each of the four years of the President’s term
• Gross debt has increased over $5 trillion since the President was inaugurated
• Even adjusting for a weak economy and Bush-era policies, President Obama has signed legislation increasing deficits by $1.6 trillion over his term
• Republicans in the 112th Congress have stopped the spending spree and have forced the President to accept over $2.3 trillion in future deficit reduction

Read the full report HERE

Below is an opinion piece pulled from the Wall Street Journal that I think is worth reading.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK Updated August 11, 2012, 9:57 p.m. ET
The Ryan Choice
Romney selects a leader of the GOP's reform wing.

When these columns asked last week "Why Not Paul Ryan?", we had no idea that Mitt Romney would choose the Wisconsin Congressman as his running mate. So much the better if he had already made up his mind. In choosing the 42-year-old, Mr. Romney has embraced the GOP's reform wing and made it more likely that the election debate will be as substantial as America's current problems.

Vice Presidential choices rarely sway electoral outcomes, but they do reveal something about the men who make the choices. As Mr. Romney's first Presidential-level decision, the selection speaks well of his governing potential. He broke free of the stereotype that he is a cautious technocrat by picking Mr. Ryan, a man who has offered reforms that the country needs but are feared by the GOP's consultant class and much of his own party.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Republican Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan

Mr. Romney is signaling that he realizes he needs a mandate if he is elected, which means putting his reform ideas before the American people for a clear endorsement. He is treating the public like grown-ups, in contrast to President Obama's focus on divisive and personal character attacks.

The Ryan choice also suggests that Mr. Romney understands that to defeat Mr. Obama he'll have to do more than highlight the President's economic failures. He must also show Americans that he has a tangible, specific reform agenda that will produce faster growth and rising incomes.

Mr. Ryan is well equipped to help him promote such an agenda. The seven-term Congressman grew up in the GOP's growth wing and supply-side ranks as a protege of Jack Kemp. Far from being a typical House Republican, he was a dissenter from the Tom DeLay do-little Congress in the last decade. He began talking about his reform blueprint in the George W. Bush years when everyone said he was committing political suicide.

The Ryan Selection
Why Not Paul Ryan?
The GOP Budget and America's Future
Ryan's Charge Up Entitlement Hill

Ignored in 2008, his agenda began to look prescient in 2010 as Mr. Obama's policies produced persistently high unemployment, the slowest recovery in decades, and exploding, unsustainable debt. In 2011, Mr. Ryan won the battle inside the House GOP to take on entitlements, including Medicare. The budget showed the courage of Republican reform convictions and helped smoke out Mr. Obama's insincerity on spending cuts and budget reform.

Democrats and media liberals also claim to be thrilled with the choice, boasting that they can now nationalize the election around the Ryan budget. But behind that bluster you can also detect some trepidation. In Mr. Ryan, they face a conservative advocate who knows the facts and philosophy of his arguments. He is well-liked and makes his case with a cheerful sincerity that can't easily be caricatured as extreme. He carries his swing Wisconsin district easily though it often supports Democrats for President.

This may be why, in his meetings with House Republicans, Mr. Obama has always shied away from directly debating Mr. Ryan on health care and spending. He changed the subject or moved on to someone else. The President knows that Mr. Ryan knows more about the budget and taxes than he does, and that the young Republican can argue the issues in equally moral terms.

Democrats will nonetheless roll out their usual attack lines, and the Romney campaign will have to be more prepared for them than they were for the Bain Capital assault. There's no excuse in particular for letting the White House claim that Mr. Ryan would "end Medicare as we know it" because that is demonstrably false.

Late last year, Mr. Ryan joined Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in introducing a version of his reform that explicitly retains Medicare as we know it as a continuing option. The reform difference is that seniors would for the first time also have a choice of government-funded private insurance options. The Wyden-Ryan bet is that the choices resulting from private competition will be both cheaper and better.

This "premium-support" model has a long bipartisan pedigree and was endorsed by Democratic Senators John Breaux and Bob Kerrey as part of Bill Clinton's Medicare commission in 1999. Wyden-Ryan is roughly the version of reform that Mr. Romney endorsed earlier this year.

Our advice is that Mr. Romney go on offense on Medicare. He could hit Mr. Obama with ads in Florida and elsewhere for his $716 billion in Medicare cuts, and his plan to cut even more with an unelected rationing board whose decisions under ObamaCare have no legislative or judicial review. Then finish the ads with a positive pitch for the Romney-Ryan-Wyden reform for more patient and medical choice.
***

In his remarks on Saturday in Norfolk, Mr. Ryan also hit on what is likely to be an emerging Romney theme: leadership that tells Americans the truth. "We will honor you, our fellow citizens, by giving you the right and opportunity to make the choice," he said. "What kind of country do we want to have? What kind of people do we want to be?"

The underlying assumption is that at this moment of declining real incomes and national self-doubt, Americans won't fall for the same old easy demagoguery. They want to hear serious ideas debated seriously. The contrast couldn't be greater with a President who won't run on his record and has offered not a single idea for a second term.

In choosing Mr. Ryan, Mr. Romney is betting that Americans know how much trouble their country is in, and that they will reward the candidate who pays them the compliment of offering solutions that match the magnitude of the problems.

The truth about Obama ending workfare.

This is a must read article from Heritage.org. Please do enjoy it.

Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform

Amy Payne

August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am

(9)

The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful 1996 reform’s work requirements is “categorically false” and “blatantly dishonest.” Even former President Bill Clinton, who signed the reform into law, came out parroting the Obama team’s talking points and saying the charge was “not true.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley first broke the story on July 12 that Obama’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) had rewritten the Clinton-era reform to undo the work requirements, in a move that legal experts Todd Gaziano and Robert Alt determined was patently illegal.
The Administration’s new argument has two parts: denying the Obama Administration’s actions and claiming that Republican governors, including Mitt Romney, tried to do the same thing. In essence, “We did not do what you’re saying, but even if we did, some Republicans did it, too.” Both parts of this argument are easily debunked.
Obama Administration Claim #1: We Didn’t Gut Work Requirements
Ever since the 1996 law passed, Democratic leaders have attempted (unsuccessfully) to repeal welfare’s work standards, blocking reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) and attempting to weaken the requirements. Unable to eliminate “workfare” legislatively, the Obama HHS claimed authority to grant waivers that allow states to get around the work requirements.
Humorously, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now asserts that the Administration abolished the TANF work requirements to increase work.
HHS now claims that states receiving a waiver must “commit that their proposals will move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work compared to the state’s prior performance.” But given the normal turnover rate in welfare programs, the easiest way to increase the number of people moving from “welfare to work” is to increase the number entering welfare in the first place.
Bogus statistical ploys like these were the norm before the 1996 reform. The law curtailed use of sham measures of success and established meaningful standards: Participating in work activities meant actual work activities, not “bed rest” or “reading” or doing one hour of job search per month; reducing welfare dependence meant reducing caseloads. Now those standards are gone.
Obama’s HHS claims authority to overhaul every aspect of the TANF work provisions (contained in section 407), including “definitions of work activities and engagement, specified limitations, verification procedures and the calculation of participation rates.” In other words, the whole work program. Sebelius’s HHS bureaucracy declared the existing TANF law a blank slate on which it can design any policy it chooses.
Obama Administration Claim #2: Even If We Did, the Republicans Tried It, Too
Though the Obama Administration is claiming it is not trying to get around the work requirements, it is also claiming that a group of Republican governors tried to do the same thing in 2005. Clinton also said in his statement yesterday that “the recently announced waiver policy was originally requested” by Republican governors.
Heritage welfare expert Robert Rector addressed this claim back on July 19. As Rector explains:

But [the governors'] letter makes no mention at all of waiving work requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. In fact, the legislation promoted in the letter—the Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) Act—actually would have toughened the federal work standards. It proposed raising the mandatory participation rates imposed on states from 50 percent to 70 percent of the adult TANF caseload and increasing the hours of required work activity.
The governors’ letter actually contradicts the Administration’s main argument: If the law has always permitted HHS to waive the work requirements, then why didn’t the governors just request waivers from then-President George W. Bush? Why would legislation be needed?
Two reasons: First, it has been clear for 15 years that the TANF law did not permit HHS to waive the work requirements. Second, the Republican governors were not seeking to waive the work requirements in the first place.

Obama’s Evolution from Welfare to Work and Back
President Obama had a convenient change of heart regarding welfare reform when it was time to run for President. In 1998, when he was an Illinois state senator, Obama said:

I was not a huge supporter of the federal plan that was signed in 1996. Having said that, I do think that there is a potential political opportunity that arose out of welfare reform. And that is to desegregate the welfare population—meaning the undeserving poor, black folks in cities, from the working poor—deserving, white, rural as well as suburban.

The same year, he reiterated that “the 1996 legislation I did not entirely agree with and probably would have voted against at the federal level.”
But in 2008, when he was running for President, Obama said he had changed his mind about welfare reform: “I was much more concerned 10 years ago when President Clinton initially signed the bill that this could have disastrous results….It had—it worked better than, I think, a lot of people anticipated. And, you know, one of the things that I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to work as a centerpiece of any social policy.”
One of his 2008 campaign ads touted “the Obama record: moved people from welfare to work” and promised that as President, he would “never forget the dignity that comes from work.”
This evolution is unsurprising, considering the vast majority of Americans favor requiring welfare recipients to work.
President Obama has finally accomplished what Democrats have been trying to do for years. He has even gotten President Clinton to turn his back on one of the signature achievements of his Administration to give him political cover—which Clinton was quick to do. In 1996, Clinton had to compromise and allow the tough work requirements to get the legislation passed.
Both Presidents have now revealed their true feelings about welfare—and there’s no denying it.


I always welcome any input on these matters especially from the Leftists. Just keep it civil, factual and truthful and I will not remove it (I know many of you Liberals struggle with a civil, factual and truthful discussion see
Why Liberals Always Resort To Name-Calling?).

The Obama broken promises from his 2008 election campaign

I was thinking about the Obama 2012 election campaign in relation to his 2008 campaign. The contrast is amazing.

He was voted into office on the theme of Hope and Change that has turned into Nope and Chains.

I can understand how some believed the unsustainable, unachievable Progressive (AKA Marxist redistribution) goals promised by Obama and his facilitators. The harsh reality of humankind is that is an unsustainable model has been proved time after time thru out the last 300 years starting with the French Revolution. The closest thing to Utopia is the United States as the founders defined it in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I know that there are flaws and room for improvement in the Exceptional American system but we should proceed carefully and slowly.

NASA

"In August of last year, then-Senator Barack Obama detailed a comprehensive space plan that included $2 billion in new funding to reinvigorate NASA and a promise to make space exploration and science a significantly higher priority if he is elected president. Since then, he has made NASA a low priority, not even bothering to name a director for NASA for several months, and instead of increasing funding by $2 billion, NASA's budget is going to be slashed.This is why I call him the Bizzarro President- whatever he says, you can take to the bank that he is going to do the opposite of what he says. He is a serial liar, a deceitful snake, and an untrustworthy person. His word is meaningless, and his promises worth less."
a quote from a public school teacher

Clean Coal

The Obama campaign added "clean coal" to the energy priorities on its web site this week, days after the president lost several counties in coal-rich West Virginia and criticism from GOP lawmakers.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg hit the Obama administration for his policies on the coal industry.
"President Obama has broken his promise when it comes to pursuing energy independence -- and no politically-expedient website change can hide the fact that President Obama’s energy policies have led to higher prices and destroyed jobs.," she said.

The reality is that he is attacking Oil and Coal producers with his only weapon left excessive regulation thru the EPA.

Obama talked with The Chronicle editorial board Jan. 17 2008 for an interview. In his wide-ranging session with the paper, the Democratic senator from Illinois spoke about his energy plan and an "aggressive" cap-and-trade policy, and spoke about bankrupting the coal industry.

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted," he said. In the same interview, the senator said that "if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it."

Fast and Furious & Transparency

The only thing about transparent thing about the Obama administration, is his hope that the guns let loose in the Fast and Furious operation would result in bloody murders that would then allow him to ban guns from honest American citizens!

The Romney campaign leads off its list of transparency failures with Fast and Furious. It points out how then-Senator Obama attacked President George W. Bush for using executive privilege in 2007, and how Obama is now asserting executive privilege to withhold Fast and Furious documents from Congress.
“President Obama has run one of the least transparent administrations in American history,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement accompanying the release. “Whether hiding lobbyists in coffee shops, cutting back-room deals on Obamacare, or concealing the records of ‘Fast and Furious,’ President Obama’s pledge to be transparent has turned out to be just another broken promise. With no rationale for reelection and no plan to help middle-class Americans, President Obama has resorted to running a campaign of distraction, distortion and dishonesty.”

Below is an article published by Business Insider on Mar. 3, 2012. 

Written by Jaywon Choe and Richa Naik.

9 Campaign Promises That Obama Has Broken

Promise #1 - No Super PACs

The Promise: While running for president in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama, in all his fresh-faced, dark haired enthusiasm, pledges that a vote for him means a vote for a candidate who won’t be swayed by the influence of special interests and Super PACs.

"If you choose change, you will have a nominee who doesn't take a dime from Washington lobbyists and PACs,” Obama said in a campaign speech in Denver, Colorado.

The Reality: Just four years later, faced with another election, now president Obama has second thoughts about those same special interests and Super PACs. He still doesn’t like them, but he’s going to use them, only because everyone else is.

Source: University of California, Santa Barbara
Source: The New York Times

Promise #2 - Closing Gitmo

The Promise: On 60 Minutes in 2008, Obama was asked whether he would take early action on closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and his answer was about as unequivocal as an answer can get:

“Yes. I have said repeatedly that I will close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that.”

The Reality: Well, maybe it wasn’t that unequivocal. On March 7, 2011, the president signed an executive order to resume military trials for Guantanamo detainees and allow detainees to continue to be held in the facility.

Though the president said that he is still committed to closing the detention center, the move was largely seen as a concession.

Source: The Washington Post


Promise #3 - Goodbye Bush Tax Cuts

The Promise: Throughout his campaign, Obama played the not-Bush card a lot. And one thing he promised was ending the Bush-era tax cuts, which gave breaks to some of the richest Americans.

The Reality: Obama agreed to temporarily extend the tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment benefits and reduction of Social Security taxes. With the 2012 election on the horizon, Obama has now stepped up his criticism of the current tax code and is pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Source: whitehouse.gov

Promise #4 - Get Cap-And-Trade Passed

The Promise: “As President, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming — an 80% reduction by 2050,” said Obama in 2007 before the Real Leadership for a Clean Energy Future.

The Reality: Well it’s not quite 2050 just yet, but it looks like cap-and-trade may be dead. After making it's way through the House, the bill died in the Senate after Democrats lost their majority in 2010. Sensing that getting it passed was unlikely, Obama walked back his commitment on the plan. "[Cap-and-trade] was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end."

Source: NPR


Promise #5 - No New Taxes For Families Making Under $250,000

The Promise: In his campaign, Obama pledged that Americans making less than $250,000 would not see "any form of tax increase." Simple as that.

The Reality: But sixteen days into his presidency, Obama signed into law and increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, and with that, all the smokers making less that $250,000 a year saw their taxes go up.

Source: The Daily Caller

Promise #6 - Encourage states to guarantee same-sex couples are treated equally in regards to family and adoption laws

The Promise: In an open letter to the LGBT community, Obama wrote “I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.”

Promise #7 - Send people to the Moon by 2020...and then Mars

The Promise: In Obama’s 2008 campaign material “A Robust and Balanced Program of Space Exploration and Scientific Discovery” Obama said, “He endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.”

The Reality: When Obama released his fiscal year 2011 budget, he said he was offering an alternative direction for space exploration.

"NASA's Constellation program - based largely on existing technologies - was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020,” the report says. “However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA's program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA's attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.”

The NASA space shuttle program officially ended on August 31, 2011. Source: Barack Obama Campaign MaterialSource: whithouse.gov


Promise #8 - Guarantee that employees get at least 7 paid sick days per year

The Promise: During the 2008 campaign, Obama listed on his website his support for a federal guarantee that all employers provide seven paid sick days per year.

The Reality: In the first year of this presidency, Obama expressed support for the Healthy Families Act. However the bill stalled in committee. It is unlikely that this bill, or any version of this bill, will pass anytime soon now that the Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives.

Source: Department of Labor


Promise #9 - Introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill by the end of his first year in office

The Promise: “The American people need us to put an end to the petty partisanship that passes for politics in Washington. And they need us to enact comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. We can’t wait 20 years from now to do it. We can’t wait 10 years from now to do it. We need to do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as president,” Obama said during a speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens in 2008.

The Reality: Obama said immigration reform would be a top priority, but by the end of the first year no comprehensive bill supported by Obama had been introduced in Congress.

In April of 2010 a 26-page immigration reform proposal was released. However he has yet to support a bill in Congress. Source: Associated PressSource: senate.gov

Phony Democratic Talking Points And Their Real Meanings!

 The Leftist agenda being espoused by the Socialists (AKA Communists, Marxists, Liberals or Progressives) is all so predictable and easily dismissed with a few common sense simple facts.

1. We need to raise taxes on the rich and not cut spending.
2. The so called war on women.
3. All who oppose Obama or voter ID are racists.

 

Myth 1 - We need to raise taxes.

 This has been proven repeatedly to not work as every time it has been done any where that it has been tried that when you reach a tipping point revenue actually goes down (see the Laffer curve below)

Even if the government took 100% of everything the "rich" earned, effectively destroying the economy, it wouldn't even fund their out of control spending for 5 months. The only logical choice left is to cut spending and reduce the size of government.

Myth 2 - The so called war on women.

 

What the left and their minions in the main stream media did to Sara Palin and Michelle Bachmann was a real war on women. If anything like that was done to Hillery Clinton or Nancy Palosi by those on the right there would be outrage and calls for immediate dismissals of the perpetrators of that type of hateful rhetoric.


If Julia had a job she could afford her birth control! The BLS data also show that the unemployment rate for women in June was 8.0 percent, up from 7.9 percent in May.  That’s also up from 7.0 percent in January 2009 when Obama became president.  Under President Obama, the number of women living in poverty has skyrocketed. 92 percent of job losses have come among women. Democrats know that today women face really no restrictions getting contraception.
"They know that Republicans aren't going to stop women from getting contraception. They know that nine in 10 employer-based health care plans already cover contraception. Of course the Democrats want to change the subject to a wholly contrived “War on Women” narrative. If there is a war on women, it's on women's pocketbooks and it's being waged by President Obama." Laura Ingraham

Myth 3 - Oppose Obama/Voter ID your racist.

 If one disliked Obama cause he is half black instead of the fact that he is a redistributing Socialist. Then how could those same so called haters on the right then support Condoleezza Rice, General Colin Powell, Lieutenant Colonel Allen West and Hermon Cain as these are all 100% black African American Conservative Patriots.

 

"So sensing the now very real possibility of significant losses of White voters as compared to 2008, Barack Obama is doing all he can to push the numbers of minority voters as high as possible in 2012 – including voters who may very well not be legal citizens – a number that might include hundreds of thousands or even millions of non-citizen votes.  In a close election that could prove the deciding factor between victory and defeat.
As we reported yesterday, there is great irony to be found in the fact that the Obama campaign requires all who attend an Obama campaign speech to  show proof of identification before being granted admission, and yet the Obama administration is aggressively fighting states that wish to require voters to show that same kind of identification before being allowed to vote.
And if Barack Obama runs out of non citizen voters – he can always count on the dead.
That’s the Chicago way…" Ulsterman on June 24, 2012 with 25 Comments in News

 

 Need I say any more. Anyone

RIPOFF OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS BY BLACK ACTIVISTS

This is a great article by John Wallace you must read. I can not beleive how the mainstream media ignores this!

THE PIGFORD vs GLICKMAN CASE: RIPOFF OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS BY BLACK ACTIVISTS
08-01-2010 9:16 pm - John Wallace
Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (the "USDA"), alleging racial discrimination in its allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1983 and 1997. The lawsuit ended with a settlement in which the U.S. government agreed to pay African American farmers $50,000 each if they had attempted to get USDA help but failed.

To date, almost $1 billion has been paid or credited to the farmers under the settlement's consent decree.

CASE HISTORY:

The lawsuit was filed in 1997 by Timothy Pigford, who was joined by 400 additional African American farmer plaintiffs. Dan Glickman, the Secretary of Agriculture, was the nominal defendant. The allegations were that the USDA treated black farmers unfairly when deciding to allocate price support loans, disaster payments, "farm ownership" loans, and operating loans, and that the USDA had completely failed to process subsequent complaints about racial discrimination.[1]

After the lawsuit was filed, Pigford requested blanket mediation to cover what was thought to be about 2,000 farmers who may have been discriminated against, but the U.S. Department of Justice opposed the mediation, saying that each case had to be investigated separately. As the case moved toward trial, the presiding judge certified as a class all black farmers who filed discrimination complaints against the USDA between 1983 and 1997.

The plaintiffs settled with the government in 1999. Under the consent decree, all African American farmers would be paid a "virtually automatic" $50,000 plus granted certain loan forgiveness and tax offsets. This process was called "Track A".[2]

Alternatively, affected farmers could follow the "Track B" process, seeking a larger payment by presenting a greater amount of evidence — the legal standard in this case was to have a preponderance of evidence along with evidence of greater damages.

THE RIPOFF OF THE TAXPAYERS BY BLACK ACTIVISTS:

Originally, claimants were to have filed within 180 days of the consent decree. Late claims were accepted for an additional year afterwards, if they could show extraordinary circumstances that prevented them from filing on time.

Far beyond the anticipated 2,000 affected farmers, 22,505 "Track A" applications were heard and decided upon, of which 13,348 (59%) were approved. $995 million had been disbursed or credited to the "Track A" applicants as of January 2009[update], including $760 million disbursed as $50,000 cash awards.[3] Fewer than 200 farmers opted for the "Track B" process.

HOW COULD THERE BE 86,000 DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS IF THERE WERE ONLY A TOTAL OF 26,785 BLACK FARMERS IN 1977?

Beyond those applications that were heard and decided upon, about 70,000 additional petitions were filed late and were not allowed to proceed. Some have argued that the notice program was defective, and others blamed the farmers' attorneys for "the inadequate notice and overall mismanagement of the settlement agreement." A provision in a 2008 farm bill essentially allowed a re-hearing in civil court for any claimant whose claim had been denied without a decision that had been based on its merits

In other words, the number of total claims filed by Black people claiming to be farmers not only exceeded the original estimate by almost 40 to 50 times, it is close to four times the USDA's estimate of 26,785 total black owned farms in 1977! One reason for this is that the settlement applied to farmers and those who "attempted to farm" and did not receive assistance from the USDA. So Black people who were thinking of going into the farming business, but never did, were also eligible for the $50,000 fraud award, because they might have been discriminated against. It sounds like "Black Repartions" to me. Paying off the latest group of Pigford fraud application cases is said to be a high priority for the Obama administration. CONNECTION TO SHIRLEY SHERROD - USDA Remember the recent case involving a woman by the name of Shirley Sherrod, whose quick dismissal from the Obama administration may have had less to do with her comments on race before the NAACP than her long involvement in the aptly named "Picford" case. In a special article written for the Washington Examiner, Tom Blumer explained that Shirley Sherrod and the group she formed along with family members and others, New Communities. Inc. received the largest single settlement under the Pigford case. Her organization, New Communities, is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and her husband Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit. What makes this even more interesting is that Charles Sherrod, Sherill's husband, appears to be the same Charles Sherrod who was a leader in the radical group Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. The SNCC was the political womb that nurtured the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers before it faded away. In his article, Blumer had some interesting questions about this settlement and about Sherrod's rapid departure from the USDA •Was Ms. Sherrod's USDA appointment an unspoken condition of her organization's settlement? •How much "debt forgiveness" is involved in USDA's settlement with New Communities? •Why were the Sherrods so deserving of a combined $300,000 in "pain and suffering" payments -- amounts that far exceed the average payout thus far to everyone else? ($1.15 billion divided by 16,000 is about $72,000)? •Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money? Here are some other questions to consider: •Did Shirley Sherrod resign so quickly because the circumstances of her hiring and the lawsuit settlement with her organization that preceded it might expose some unpleasant truths about her possible and possibly sanctioned conflicts of interest? •Is USDA worried about the exposure of possible waste, fraud, and abuse in its handling of Pigford? •Did USDA also dispatch Sherrod hastily because her continued presence, even for another day, might have gotten in the way of settling Pigford matters quickly? Here is another area for concern: In her position at the not for profit, "Rural Development Leadership Network," a network of activists and community builder, was Sherrod involved in any way in encouraging people to submit fraudulent claims under Pigford? Did she put Black people who owned rural land in touch with lawyers who would file the paperwork claiming attempts to farm had been prevented by the non cooperation of the local USDA? As many of you may know, there are a multitude of small parcels of non productive rural land all across the south, land unsuitable for mechanized agriculture that was once owned by subsistence farmers, black and white alike. Many of these parcels continue to be owned by family members who moved elsewhere out of sentimental reasons. The property taxes and other carrying costs are cheap and often ancestors are buried there in family plots. A drive on any country road in the South may turn up several carefully maintained postage stamp sized family cemeteries. I wonder how many of the these owners claimed they had farmed, attempted to farm, or thought about farming such acreage to score a fast $50,000 Black Farmer Fraud Award from Uncle Sam? I guess if you are or were a poor White, Asian, Native American or Hispanic farmer, you're just out of luck in collecting your $50,000 fraud award.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Timothy Pigford, et al., v. Dan Glickman, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture, US District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 97-1978 (PLF). Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Judge.
2. "The Pigford Case: USDA Settlement of a Discrimination Suit by Black Farmers", Tadlock Cowan, Congressional Research Service, January 13, 2009. Fetched February 9, 2009 from [1].
3. "The Pigford Case: USDA Settlement of a Discrimination Suit by Black Farmers", p. 5. Tadlock Cowan, Congressional Research Service, January 13, 2009. Fetched February 9, 2009 from [2].

I enjoyed this article and think you will also. Yet more examples of the Media Bias against Conservatives.

Four Stories You Won’t Hear About Obama

May 25, 2012 By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown 

inShare8

Most Americans judge a President based on his promises and his results. They measure the success of the nation in part by the question Ronald Reagan asked voters in 1980. Reagan simply said, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

For Barack Obama, this question is deadly. Obama promised big results, but he has failed to deliver. For example, look at these four promises and his results.

Obama’s 825 billion dollar stimulus failed to keep unemployment below 8 percent as Obama promised. Since President Obama’s stimulus passed, America has lost 1.1 million jobs. If you count people who have become discouraged and are no longer seeking jobs, some economists believe that real unemployment rate is above twenty percent.

Obama called his health care package one of his major accomplishments. He told CBS’ Steve Kroft he was “putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering health care costs.” Yet it has failed to make health insurance more affordable. According to the fact watchdog website FactCheck.org, ObamaCare is actually making health care “less affordable.” Workers paid an average of $132 more for family coverage just this year.

Obama predicted his investments in green energy would create 5 million jobs, but the Wall Street Journal reports: “The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade, America would have five million green jobs, but so far, some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.”

Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half, saying: “And that’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.” Even if every part of Obama’s deficit reduction proposal was enacted, the deficit at the end of his first term would still be $1.33 trillion, more than twice what he promised.

But don’t expect much reporting on his record. Instead, watch as the media focuses on polls. They like to treat most campaigns like a horse race. Don’t be bedazzled by the speeches and rhetoric, just look at the promises and his results. Judge Barack Obama by his own expectations and you will see he has been a failure.

But the news media is almost as desperate to ignore Obama’s record as he is to hide it.

As a result of his dismal record, he has decided to run a campaign of attacks on Mitt Romney in the vain hope that the subject will be changed. The mainstream media will help him change the agenda.

We will hear stories about how Bain Capital, Romney’s old firm, restructured business and cut jobs, and the media will forget to talk about how Obama restructured General Motors and cut jobs.

We will hear stories about how Mitt Romney bullied someone in school nearly 50 years ago, and we won’t hear about Barack Obama doing drugs 25 or 30 years ago.

We will hear stories about how Mitt Romney is controlled by the far right, and we won’t hear a story about Barack Obama’s associates on the far left.

Expect the media to work as hard to re-elect Barack Obama as they did to elect him. But if Romney stays focused on giving America the facts and forcing the media to report accurately, this election is his to lose.

The Obama White house and mainstream media are ignoring obvious statistics!

The Obama White House and Mainstream Media are ignoring obvious statistics!

Mark Levin on his radio show on May 16th brought up these interesting numbers and statistics. The numbers do not lie so the Leftists in the Media are ignoring the UN-ignorable truths. The devastating predictable results that the Marxists moving FORWARD past Capitalism to their Utopian dream being attempted once again via their lame old tired unsustainable  re-distribution Ponzi scheme.

Of course the are repackaging their tired old 300 year old lies with nice new names while demonizing those that resist. Their completely false and trumped up class warfare, race baiting and war against women.

We are turning a sustainable safety net into a Ponzi scheme hammock!

I am sick and tired of the obvious bias and twisting of the truth by the mainstream media and many professors at our tax funded Universities. What is fair about punishing hard work thru excessive taxation then perpetuating poverty by regulating poor entrepreneurs out of business? We need to allow free mobility of the poor to move up the social-economic ladder instead of locking them into the ghetto with the permanent underclass. I am not advocating the wholesale elimination of our social programs but instead a minimal amount as required to help the unfortunate poorest among us survive while having some programs available providing the needed tools for those willing to work hard thus move up the social economic ladder.

Below is a great article I read published on Canada free Press.

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines then employs class envy

Cultural deconstruction: turning a safety net into a hammock

- David Coughlin  Wednesday, September 7, 2011

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The Democrat political strategy is to segment the American people into constituency classes that can be served separately.  Al Gore made a Freudian slip when he admitted while campaigning that “We can build a collective civic space large enough for all our separate identities, that we can be E Pluribus Unum—out of one, many.”

Democrats most often divide Americans along cultural lines (region, race, ethnicity, religion, and personal values), rather than along economic lines. The party then employs class envy as an explicit strategy for righting perceived wrongs and offering a goal of future class equity. This strategy tends to be very divisive, pitting one class vs. another in a zero sum game, never completely satisfying any constituent class.

Political power is ensured by retaining this underclass as a permanent voting bloc that can be exploited for ongoing political support. Unfortunately nurturing a permanent underclass for political purposes has had unintended cultural consequences, which may eventually

The purpose of welfare is to assist individuals in need and ultimately to help welfare recipients out of poverty and make them self-sufficient.  Medicare was originally designed in 1965 as a Great Society health insurance program for all Americans age 65 and older and for the permanent physically disabled, funded by payroll taxes.  Medicaid is the means tested health program created in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty for people with low incomes and resources, jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and managed by the states.  These social insurance programs have expanded well beyond their original intents, and the unintended consequences has been to grow dependence on government support, instead of a return to self sufficiency. After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1935, “Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”  Social Security and Medicare are rapidly approaching bankruptcy, spending more money each year than is collected.  The destructiveness of welfare goes beyond financial affordability and political dependency. 
The more welfare that families receive from government, the less fathers are necessary for their support, undermining the basic building block of society, the family unit.  Lacking the role model of a responsible father, children grow up to believe that dependency is a natural condition of life.  The children of welfare moms are nurtured in a mentality that perpetuates dependency from generation to generation.  The impact of food stamps, Section 8 housing subsidies, Medicaid, and other support programs has been to create a permanent welfare class who, in terms of skills and attitudes, are poorly equipped to return to work.  The U.S. has spent $16 trillion since LBJ launched his “War on Poverty” in 1964, but the percentage of people in “poverty” remains essentially the same.  Despite the fact that illegal aliens do not contribute to the program funding, many states cover them despite explicitly being excluded.  Our culture has eroded so much now that dependence on the government has become an acceptable lifestyle for the permanent underclass, which has transformed our temporary economic “safety net” into a comfortable “hammock” for long term living.
By design Democrats have deconstructed our American culture into a loose confederation of disparate class cultures on the verge of open class warfare.  Democrats have nurtured an underclass politically dependent with a well developed sense of entitlement, which has taught generations that society owes them a living; that government is responsible for raising their children; working is not necessary; and everyone is entitled to the fruits of other people’s labor.  This policy shows a reckless disregard for the consequences of dependency, which will be terrible. 
Welfare-state paternalism has bred and nurtured immoral, undesirable people because government entitlements create one of two attitudes towards society: either ingratitude or resentment.  If they receive what they’re entitled to, there is nothing to be grateful for because you’re entitled to it.  If they haven’t received an entitlement, then they’re resentful because you haven’t received what you feel you are entitled to.  Evidence of this resentment can be seen in the black “flash mobs” attacking randomly in a number of U.S. cities and the U.K. hoodlum riots attacking random businesses.  We should expect to see more of this violence at the Day of Rage starting on September 17th, since it was originally planned for non-violent protests in three cities, but has already expanded to a week of civil disobedience in at least ten cities.
Nothing less than a culture re-construction is needed to recover from the degradation of our western society.  We must resurrect the culture of personal responsibility.  We must re-teach the cause and effect relationship between hard work and achievement.  Relearning the art of parental discipline, and re-establishing the primacy of the moral code upon which western civilization was built are monumental but necessary tasks.  I hope we are not too late because it will take generations to undo the harm done to our culture.  Ultimately the concept of entitlement must be dismantled from the welfare state.
The Democrats have embraced class warfare as their primary political tactic.  The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence has been the creation of a permanent underclass totally dependent on the government for their well-being.  Political power is maintained by retaining this dependence in exchange for political support.  Unless you are an unrepentant Marxist praying for a class uprising, this permanent underclass is condemned to a government subsistence existence and an inability to participate in the American Dream.

Move Over Leftists: Real feminists reject subsidies

I really enjoyed this great article from the Daily caller.

Published: 6:23 PM 05/04/2012

By Emily O'Neill

Freelance Writer

Move Over Leftists: Real feminists reject subsidies

The Obama campaign released a new ad on Thursday that should be offensive to all of the women who have ever fought for social and financial independence. The ad, featuring a character named “Julia” who uses government assistance from childhood to retirement, speaks volumes about the latest generation of left feminists.
While the feminist philosophy was supposed to encourage women to be self-reliant, left feminists now demand that taxpayers finance their lifestyle choices. From food stamps to birth control, these women are fighting to hold on to their government assistance. What ever happened to the feminist movement that encouraged women to be independent?
Left feminists would be up in arms if an ad promoted the idea that women needed men to survive financially. There would be new feminist slogans, bumper stickers, and rallies across the country to encourage women to stand on their own two feet. So, what’s the difference?
There is none. Left feminists are simply replacing men with government, and calling it empowerment.
A feminist who wants taxpayers to pay for her lifestyle is about as socially and financially independent of a woman as one who marries a wealthy man to pay her bills — and at least the man in the latter scenario chooses to support a woman by his own free will. Whether a man financially supports a woman, or a woman financially supports a man, there is typically a voluntary personal relationship. Absent any force or coercion, both parties consent to this arrangement.
By contrast, the government forces citizens to pay for government assistance through taxes. Leveraging the force of government to finance lifestyle choices is not liberating for women; it perpetuates the falsehood that women need assistance in order to pursue their goals. With all of this talk about a so-called Republican “war on women,” isn’t it the left that is betraying women by suggesting that they need government assistance to survive?
Women are not helpless, nor are they entitled. Government assistance limits lifestyle options and causes women to surrender their financial and social freedom. For decades, feminists fought for women’s financial independence; so why do feminists on the left support trading that in for dependence on government programs?

If women on the left support a government subsidizing their lives, it follows that they no longer believe in women’s financial independence. Thus, their feminist label is merely a cover for what they really believe in: special treatment.
A new kind of feminist is emerging, however — an independent woman who doesn’t believe in the entitlement culture, but instead believes in taking responsibility for herself and her actions. These women are the real feminists because they believe in achieving their goals based on their own merit. With that said, women on the left need to realize their hypocrisy and consider the idea that instead of making women prosperous, government hand-outs hold women back.

So what have the Democrats brought us since they have been in power starting in 2006!

My rant today is on the unintended consequences that always result from the actions of the Leftists. Detroit comes to mind as a great example. The left has had complete control of that region since the twenties and look where it has gotten them. Greece, Spain, Ireland are all showing the unsustainable predictable result.

The Democrats ruled the Senate and House of Representatives from 2006 till 2008 then they controlled all three political branches of government (the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives) from 2008 till 2010 when the (Republicans took control of only the house). The Democrats have control of the White House and Congress from 2010 till the present. So with that all being said they own this mess we are currently in. It is time to live within our means, reduce the size and scope of the government.

A simple measure of Government is as percentage of GDP we are currently at 24% we need to reduce this level to no more then 20% of our GDP as this has been a time proven health sustainable maximum level government size.

So what have the Democrats brought us since they have been in power starting in 2006!

1. Obamacare (sure to be a drag on the economy for decades)
2. Spendulus Bills in the trillions (that will be sure to be felt by our grand children)
3. Dodd-Frank bill (sure to raise banking costs and reduce lending of available money)
4. 99 weeks of unemployment insurance (sure to prolong unemployment and put further tax burden on businesses)
5. Quantitative easing 1 and 2 (sure to bring on inflation)
6. 8% plus Unemployment with
7. Record food stamp dependency (why Obama's picture should be on the food stamp)
8. 50% of the population paying no income tax (sure to make it difficult to get voters to make the needed tough decisions that have to be made) 

I have pasted a great article below by John Merline of Investors Daily for your consideration.

Dependency Index Surges 23% Under President Obama

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 02/08/2012 08:02 AM ET

 View Enlarged Image

The American public's dependence on the federal government shot up 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.
The conservative think tank's annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks money spent on housing, health, welfare, education subsidies and other federal programs that were "traditionally provided to needy people by local organizations and families."
The two-year increase under Obama is the biggest two-year jump since Jimmy Carter was president, the data show.
The rise was driven mainly by increases in housing subsidies, an expansion in Medicaid and changes to the welfare system, along with a sharp rise in food stamps, the study found.
"You can't get around the fact that policy decisions made over the past two years, on top of those made over the past several decades, are having a large effect on the pace of growth of the index," said William Beach, who authored the Heritage study.
Government dependence has climbed steadily since 1962, when the index stood at 19. By 1980, the index had risen to 100. It stood at 294 in 2010, the last year for which the data are available. D.C.-based Heritage has produced the index for nine years.
The report also found that spending on "dependence programs" accounts for more than 70% of the federal budget. That, too, is up dramatically. In 1990, for example, the figure stood at 48.5%, and in 1962 just over a quarter of federal spending went to dependence programs.
At the same time, fewer Americans pay income taxes, the report notes. Almost half (49.5%) didn't pay income taxes in 2009, the latest year for which the researchers have data. Back in the late 1960s, only 12% of Americans escaped the income tax burden.
Other findings:
The number of people dependent on the federal government shot up 7.5% in the past two years.
In 2010, for the first time ever, average spending on dependence programs per recipient exceeded the country's per-capita disposable income.
The dependency index has dipped only seven times in the past 49 years, three of which were under President Reagan and two under President Clinton.
Some observers say the rise in dependence under Obama is merely a reflection of the deep and long recession.
But Beach says his team's research shows that economic effects account for only one-fifth of the change in the index.
In addition, the index shot up 8% in 2010, a year when the economy grew by 3%.
Also, in the wake of the 1981-82 recession the dependence index climbed only 6%, then fell the very next year. That early-'80s slump was nearly as long as the so-called Great Recession (16 months vs. 18 months) and saw unemployment rise higher (peaking at 10.8% vs. 10%).
The lingering high jobless rate during the slow economic recovery under Obama could also explain dependency's rise. It's also possible that the growth in federal dependency programs is partly to blame for the ongoing jobs recession, not just the result of it.
As the chart above shows, the time it's taken for employment to reach its pre-recession peak has climbed the past four decades, right along with the growth in federal dependency. The current jobs recession hit a post-World War II record of 48 months in January, with payrolls still 5.6 million below their January 2008 high.
Research seems to validate this connection. Various studies have shown that extending unemployment benefits can keep unemployment rates higher than they would otherwise have been.
Obama's own former economic adviser, Larry Summers, noted in the 1999 Concise Encyclopedia of Economics that "government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment ... by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work."

Why Liberals Always Resort To Name-Calling?

I have noticed a recurring pattern when debating a Leftist. First they tell you what is wrong with your statement with no explanation. Second after you counter their first statement with simple facts they then use a con-man like convoluted overly complex cockamamie solution. Third when you explain that away with simple facts and truth they then predictably start with the name calling!

I found this nicely done article on the Advance Indiana blog where Gary R. Welsh explained it quite well.

 

Why Liberals Always Resort To Name-Calling?

Liberals profess to be tolerant compared to their conservative counterparts. The truth is that liberals are only tolerant of people with whom they agree. Rather than using civil discourse to debate conservative thought, liberals seem to have an inherent tendency to demonize and demean the human value of their political opponents. If you oppose higher taxes and bigger government, it's because you are a greedy, selfish person. If you oppose affirmative action, it's because you are a racist. If you support enforcement of our immigration laws, you are bigot or a rabid dog. Yep, State Rep. Mara Candelaria-Reardon (D-Hammond) called State Sen. Mike Delph (R-Carmel), author of Indiana's immigration enforcement law, a rabid dog.

Hammond Representative Mara Candelaria-Reardon is one of the leading voices of opposition to Delph’s legislation. She says she does not envision him stopping now, particularly with the success of Alabama’s law.

“Mike Delph is like a rabid dog with this issue and I would be shocked if he didn’t go ahead and do it,” Candelaria-Reardon says. “I mean, he seems to be pretty addicted to the limelight pursuing this legislation has continued to create for him.”

Candelaria-Reardon says she does not think a law as harsh as Alabama’s will ever get through the Indiana General Assembly. Delph says the people of Indiana will ultimately have to decide whether tougher immigration reform is something the legislature needs to address.

To be sure, there are legitimate debating points on the issue of whether states should be getting involved in the immigration debate at all since the U.S. Constitution reserves that power and responsibility to the federal government. It's a fair argument to make, however, that the federal government has done a poor job performing its constitutional duty given the tens of millions who have been able to immigrate to the U.S. illegally, and it's also a fair argument to make that state and local budgets are impacted negatively by illegal immigration.

People can disagree on the answer to any problem with which we are confronted without resorting to name-calling, but if you are a liberal, it's much easier to resort to the demonization of your political counterparts than debate the merits of your argument. That's because they understand a majority of Americans don't accept the merits of their arguments. They seek victory by dividing and conquering. Political correctness is their weapon of choice.

This was best exemplified during the recent Indianapolis mayoral election. The Democrats knew their candidate, Melina Kennedy, was losing to Mayor Greg Ballard in the polls. Their answer to defeating him was to seize on his poor choice of words during a debate with Kennedy where he described African-Americans as "a difficult population." By implication, Democrats characterized Ballard's words in a way to define him as a racist. To be sure, there were plenty of legitimate lines of attack Democrats could have raised against Ballard, but nothing stings more than being labeled a racist. The Democrats know Ballard truly isn't a racist, but that's not the point. The objective is to divide and conquer. That's why U.S. Rep. Andre Carson and other liberals have repeatedly labeled Tea Party supporters as racists. If you can't win on the merits of the debate, let the name-calling begin. It takes much less effort to name call than debate the substance of your arguments.

Posted by Gary R. Welsh at 8:46 AM

I always welcome any input on these matters especially from the Leftists. Just keep it civil, factual and truthful and I will not remove it (I know many of you Liberals struggle with a civil, factual and truthful discussion see
Why Liberals Always Resort To Name-Calling?).

Obama’s Arrogant Authoritarianism

This is an is an excellent piece I stumbled upon written by Lachan Markay that I happen to agree with and feel it is a must read, please do enjoy.

- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org -

Morning Bell: Obama’s Arrogant Authoritarianism

Posted By Lachlan Markay On January 10, 2012 @ 10:05 am In Rule of Law | 181 Comments

^[1]
Last week, President Barack Obama took the latest step on his road toward an arrogant, new authoritarianism with four illegal appointments that entirely trampled on the Constitution’s requirements. More troubling still, the President chose to shred the Constitution all in the name of serving his Big Labor agenda while killing jobs in the process.
The President’s actions once again gave voice to his animating view of governing: doing so is much easier when one isn’t constrained by the Constitution and its checks and balances. “We can’t wait,” the President exclaimed after unilaterally appointing Richard Cordray as director of the newly inaugurated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). He also appointed three officials to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), two of whom had been nominated less than a month before.
The policy implications of the President’s appointments? The CFPB will now have unmitigated authority to issue regulation upon regulation, contributing to the already-crippling red tape that is strangling business in America. And the NLRB will have the power to advance the President’s agenda to bolster unions across the country at the expense of job growth in a smarting economy.
For what, exactly, can’t the President wait? Quite simply, constitutional republicanism — the system of checks and balances integral to American government and political freedom. He grew impatient with the delays that inevitably accompany any legislative action an acted outside the Constitution’s mandated process. But the American people should ask, “Is such action really preferable to a deliberative, if slower-moving, constitutional republic?”
The President’s appointments last week, troubling as they are, are but the next steps on the road to a despotic form of governance that has come to characterize his Administration — and all of liberalism in America today — what authors Fred Siegel and Joel Kotkin termed in City Journal this week Obama’s “New Authoritarianism.” ^[2] Frustrated by the unwillingness of the people’s representatives to enact his agenda wholesale, Obama has, from early in his Administration, sought to enact a series of proposals through administrative fiat, not the legislative process:

• The Democrat-controlled Senate rejected his cap-and-trade plan, so Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide ^[3], the compound that sustains vegetative life, as a pollutant so that it could regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
• After Congress defeated his stealth-amnesty immigration proposal, the DREAM Act, the Department of Homeland Security instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ^[4] to “adopt enforcement parameters that bring about the same ends as the DREAM Act,” as Heritage’s Mike Brownfield explained.
• When the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act–explicitly designed to bolster labor unions’ dwindling membership rolls–was defeated by Congress, the NLRB announced a rule ^[5] that would implement “snap elections” for union representation, limiting employers’ abilities to make their case to workers and virtually guaranteeing a higher rate of unionization at the expense of workplace democracy.
• After an innovation-killing Internet regulation proposal failed to make it through Congress, the Federal Communications Commission announced — on Christmas Eve, no less — that it would regulate the Web anyway, despite even a federal court’s ruling ^[6] that it had no authority to do so.
• In its push for national education standards, the Education Department decided ^[7] to tie waivers for the No Child Left Behind law to requirements that states adopt those standards, shutting Congress out of the effort.
• Rather than push Congress to repeal federal laws against marijuana use, the Department of Justice (DOJ) simply decided ^[8] it would no longer enforce those laws.
• DOJ made a similar move with respect to the Defense of Marriage Act: rather than seeking legislative recourse, DOJ announced ^[9] it would stop enforcing the law.

While these efforts are all aimed at circumventing the legislative process, none was so brazen as his four illegal appointments. Last week, Obama went one step further: He violated not just the spirit of the Constitution, which vests in Congress the power to make laws, but the letter of the law as well.
The move is “a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers,” explain ^[10] former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese and Heritage colleague Todd Gaziano, a former attorney in DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, in a Washington Post column. “[N]ever before has a president purported to make a ‘recess’ appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess,” they note. “That is a constitutional abuse of a high order.”
Dr. Matthew Spalding, vice president of American Studies and director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation, explains ^[11] that this “new despotism” — a government where regulations and unilateral actions replace republican governance — runs entirely counter to the Founders’ vision of America:

The greatest political revolution since the American Founding has been the shift of power away from the institutions of constitutional government to an oligarchy of unelected experts. They rule over virtually every aspect of our daily lives, ostensibly in the name of the American people but in actuality by the claimed authority of science, policy expertise, and administrative efficiency.
If this regime becomes the undisputed norm — accepted not only among the intellectual and political elites, but also by the American people, as the defining characteristic of the modern state — it could well mark the end of our great experiment in self-government.

President Obama’s actions are exactly the kind that the Founders feared and sought to guard against. His illegal appointments usurp power from the American people’s duly elected representatives, and the regulations they will promulgate will, undoubtedly, contribute to the unabated growth of the undemocratic administrative state.
Now that the President has crossed the threshold of constitutionality, there really is no telling where he may stop. There is a clear trend here, however, and it leads further and further from the constitutional order. With these illegal appointments, the President has taken to new heights his disdain for the separation of powers. Whether it will stop here depends on Congress — Will lawmakers of both parties reassert the legislature’s constitutional authority and take a stand against Obama’s arrogant new authoritarianism?

Who are the 1 percent?

I myself hope to become a member of the 1%. At one time I was in the bottom 10% and with no help from the Government or a Union worked my way up to the 80%. Even though I am now in the top 80% after paying a total tax burden of well over 50% (includes federal, state, local and hidden taxes like sales tax and corperate taxes added to all my purchases, fuel, phone ect.) I am forced to live modestly.

The problem with the argument from the Leftists is that if you take some wealth away from those in the 1% and redistribute it to the poorest among us that it would make the bottom 10% better. The cold hard fact is that forms of this have been repeatedly tried and all end up with the same result. At best as you remove wealth from the 1% with much of it is wasted by the Government, some does actually get to who it was intended. The wealth is soon squandered requiring even more. The wealth of the 1% becomes less and less to a point when enough is not left to sustain the insatiable appetite of the Marxist redistributive system and it collapses upon itself.

The Rights view of letting a hardworking citizen keep a fair share of the efforts through fair taxation induces more of the same hard work and entrepreneurial spirit thus growing the economy. This proven Capitalist formula has provided more wealth for the poor then any variation of the same old tired Marxist Redistribution based ponzi scheme.

Who are the 1 percent?

Below is an Article by Tami Luhby published in CNN Money on October 29, 2011

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Think it takes a million bucks to make it into the Top 1% of American taxpayers?
Think again. In 2009, it took just $343,927 to join that elite group, according to newly released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service.
Occupy Wall Street protesters have been railing against the Top 1%, trying to raise anger and awareness of the growing economic gap between the rich and everybody else in America.
But just who are these fortunate folks at the top of the income ladder?
Well, there were just under 1.4 million households that qualified for entry. They earned nearly 17% of the nation's income and paid roughly 37% of its income tax.
Collectively, their adjusted gross income was $1.3 trillion. And while $343,927 was the minimum AGI to be included, on average, Top 1-percenters made $960,000.
But the income threshold for this exclusive group changes every year, largely with the performance of the stock market, experts said.
In 2007, when times were good on Wall Street, one needed to have an adjusted gross income of more than $424,000 to get into the highest rank. But the stock market decline in recent years has helped lower that bar back to a level not seen since 2002.
"The further up you go, the wider swings you see," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union. "They have a great deal of wealth sunk into the markets, which can vary quite widely."
While much of the wealthy's income comes from capital gains on investments, bonuses on the job can also give people the needed boost.
Just what jobs are those?
Many workers in the securities industry in New York likely qualify for the Top 1%.
These folks, many of whom work only blocks from where protesters are gathering in Zuccotti Park, made an average salary of just over $311,000 in 2009, according to the state Comptroller's Office. (This figure does not take into account certain income, losses and deductions that make up adjusted gross income.)
A separate study found that financial professionals made up about 14% of the top rank in 2005.
Executives, managers and supervisors working outside of finance accounted for 31%, the largest share, according to an analysis by Jon Bakija of Williams College, Adam Cole of the Treasury Department and Bradley Heim of Indiana University. Medical professionals came in at 15.7%, while lawyers made up 8.4%.
Over time, the Top 1% has claimed a bigger share of the income pie. In 2007, they earned 22.8% of the nation's income, more than double the amount in 1986, according to IRS data. The recession has since brought that slice down to just under 17% for 2009.
While those at the top have seen their incomes soar over time, middle-class incomes have stagnated.
"The higher up the income distribution you go, the more your income rose and the larger the share of total income gains went to your group," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
But as corporate profits and productivity have increased, workers aren't reaping the benefits, said Edward Wolff, a New York University economics professor who specializes in income inequality. That's helping spark the movement, which has spread across the country.
"There is a lot of anger and it's for a very good reason," Wolff said. "If all of the income gain goes to the top, there's not much left to go to the rest of the people."