What is Labor day really about part 2?

With all the Progressives dumping on Obama a thought comes to mind. One must be dubious when reading an admitted Progressives diatribe to explain away another failed Progressive. They are quite good at it cause for the last 300 years their leaders and systems have always failed killing millions in the process. The explanation is always the same that they were not Progressive enough when the real problem is simply that the system rewards failure and punishes success but they cannot admit this cause it is the most important feature of their quasi-religious (with Marx as God) like belief system. In fact just like an extremist religious cult some are willing to kill despite even when exposed to simple obvious truths that are counter to their beliefs! The Labor Day holiday is a good time to revisit the Progressive agenda and how they are constantly revising their own history and attempting to evolve their failed beliefs by reinventing who they really are once you peal away their lies they use to cover up the failures of their own past.

What is Labor day really about part 2?

A revisit of a post I put up two years ago.
I thought Labor day was a good day to contrast the unrealistic Marxist redistributive Socialist utopian dream against the simple well proven truth of American Conservatism.

The first Labor Day was founded by the Central Labor Union in New York city on September 5, 1882.

Leftists wanted May 1st but president Grover Cleveland and Congress opted to choose the date of the original Labor Day parade organized by the CLU, September 5, 1884, rather than May 1, as a national holiday. Thus, the first Monday of September became Labor Day and was officially written into law as a national holiday on June 28, 1894.
" But the last holiday of summer is more than a day off work: It's also one of the most controversial of American holidays, a celebration of the laborers -- and more specifically, the unionized laborers"
a quote from Bruce Watson

So it is obvious that the Left uses Labor Day as another day to promote their Marxist redistributive agenda. The rest of us need to counter this false unsustainable utopian dream that has been proven time and time again to be a complete failure that ends up making many suffer worse then before.

"What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union."
a quote from Janet Daley

"We own this country politicians are employees of ours and when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go!" Clint Eastwood

On the Internet, there is a cry for replacing this year’s Labor Day – as in American workers’ day – with “Empty Chair Day” inspired by Clint Eastwood’s ‘empty chair’ symbolizing the current employment - or should it be said, unemployment - situation in the country.
I feel Labor Day should now be celebrated as Empty Chair Day! Please do join me in celebrating "National Empty Chair Day" on Labor Day!.

Below is another excellent article from
Real Clear Politics

Public Unions & the Socialist Utopia

By Robert Tracinski

The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence.
Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left.

It is a matter of survival for Democrats in an immediate, practical sense. As Michael Barone explains, the government employees' unions are a mechanism for siphoning taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of Democratic politicians.
But there is something deeper here than just favor-selling and vote-buying. There is something that almost amounts to a twisted idealism in the Democrats' crusade. They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable.
Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business.
In short, public employment is an idealized socialist economy in miniature, including its political aspect: the grateful recipients of government largesse provide money and organizational support to re-elect the politicians who shower them with all of these benefits.
Put it all together, and you have the Democrats' version of utopia. In the larger American culture of Tea Parties, bond vigilantes, and rugged individualists, Democrats feel they are constantly on the defensive. But within the little subculture of unionized government employees, all is right with the world, and everything seems to work the way it is supposed to.
This cozy little world has been described as a system that grants special privileges to a few, which is particularly rankling in the current stagnant economy, when private sector workers acutely feel the difference. But I think this misses the point. The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society.
Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works.
And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias.
The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.
In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another.
Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode.
On the national level, it has become clear that the old-age welfare state of Social Security and Medicare is driving the federal government into permanent trillion-dollar deficits and a ruinous debt load. Even President Obama acknowledged, in his State of the Union address, that these programs are the real drivers of runaway debt-just before he refused to consider any changes to them. You see how hard it is for the Democrats to give up on their utopias.
On the state level, public employment promises the full socialist ideal to a small minority-paid for with tax money looted from a larger, productive private economy. But the socialist utopia of public employment has crossed the Thatcher Line: the point at which, as the Iron Lady used to warn, you run out of other people's money.
The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few.
This is why the left is treating any attempt to fundamentally reform the public workers' paradise as an existential crisis. This is why they are reacting with the most extreme measures short of outright insurrection. When Democratic lawmakers flee the state in order to deprive their legislatures of the quorum necessary to vote, they are declaring that they would rather have no legislature than allow voting on any bill that would break the power of the unions.
National Review's Jim Geraghty describes these legislative walk-outs as "small-scale, temporary secessions." The analogy is exact. One hundred and fifty years ago, Southern slaveholders realized that the political balance of the nation had tipped against them, that they could no longer hope to win the political argument for their system. Faced with a federal government in which they were out-voted, they decided that they would rather have no federal government at all. The Democrats' current cause may not be as repugnant-holding human beings as chattel is a unique evil-but it has something of the same character of irrational, belligerent denial. More than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left is still trying to pretend that socialism is plausible as an economic system.
The Democrats are fleeing from a lot more than their jobs as state legislators. They are fleeing from the cold, hard reality of the financial and moral unsustainability of their ideal.

Below is another excellent article from
The failure of unions and socialism
from Braincrave Second Life staff
Mar 02, 2011

Someone once made a comment that he was 100% supportive of a tyrannical, socialist government as long as he was the only citizen of his country (paraphrased). Throughout the world, and especially in America, many are still trying their best to pretend that socialism is a plausible economic system and ideology by attaching it to capitalism. No matter how often socialism has proved to be morally and economically destructive, there continues to be those who desperately want to believe that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a sustainable model.

Currently, there are multiple US states (e.g., Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida) that are attempting to "break" public unions. This struggle appears to be bringing those on the left together. Why are public unions such a particularly big deal for Democrats? Is unionized, public employment representative of the socialist utopia? Given what we are seeing with government's income statement - and specifically the cost of entitlement programs which is primary to liberal ideology - is it hubris to suggest that breaking the public unions would effectively destroy the fundamental premises of the Democratic party and, thus, the party itself? Given that Republicans are just as guilty for supporting collectivism, how destructive could this be to RINOs?

FTA: "The Democratic lawmakers who have gone on the lam in Wisconsin and Indiana-and who knows where else next-are exhibiting a literal fight-or-flight response, the reaction of an animal facing a threat to its very existence. Why? Because it is a threat to their existence. The battle of Wisconsin is about the viability of the Democratic Party, and more: it is about the viability of the basic social ideal of the left... They are fighting, not just to preserve their special privileges, but to preserve a social ideal. Or rather, they are fighting to maintain the illusion that their ideal system is benevolent and sustainable. Unionized public-sector employment is the distilled essence of the left's moral ideal. No one has to worry about making a profit. Generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided to everyone by the government. Comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat. The work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance. And because everyone works for the government, they never have to worry that their employer will go out of business...

The point is that this is how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is their version of a model society. Every political movement needs models. It needs a real-world example to demonstrate how its ideal works and that it works. And there's the rub. The left is running low on utopias. The failure of Communism-and the spectacular success of capitalism, particularly in bringing wealth to what used to be called the "Third World"-deprived the left of one utopia. So they fell back on the European welfare state, smugly assuring Americans that we would be so much better off if we were more like our cousins across the Atlantic. But the Great Recession has triggered a sovereign debt crisis across Europe. It turned out that the continent's welfare states were borrowing money to paper over the fact that they have committed themselves to benefits more generous than they can ever hope to pay for.

In America, the ideological crisis of the left is taking a slightly different form. Here, the left has set up its utopias by carving out, within a wider capitalist culture, little islands where its ideals hold sway. Old age is one of those islands, where everyone has been promised the socialist dreams of a guaranteed income and unlimited free health care. Public employment is another. Now the left is panicking as these experiments in American socialism implode... The current crisis exposes more than just the financial unsustainability of these programs. It exposes their moral unsustainability. It exposes the fact that the generosity of these welfare-state enclaves can only be sustained by forcing everyone else to perform forced labor to pay for the benefits of a privileged few."

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 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

The so called War on Women

Below is an excellent article I found on CNSNews.com please do enjoy

780,000 More Women Unemployed Today Than When Obama Took Office

By Michael W. Chapman

July 6, 2012

 CNSNews.com) – The number of women unemployed in June was 5,785,000, an increase of 780,000 from when Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009 – at that time, the number of unemployed women in the United States was 5,005,000. The number of unemployed is for women ages 16 and older in the civilian work force and is seasonally adjusted, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
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.
The overall unemployment rate (men and women) is 8.2 percent. For women, the unemployment rate has gone up fairly consistently since January 2009, with a few ups and downs, but reaching as high as 9.0 percent in November 2010 and staying in the mid-8 percent range for most of 2009, 2010 and 2011.
The unemployment rate for women in January of this year was 8.3 percent, or 5,997,000 unemployed, an increase of 992,000 since the president was inaugurated.

CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like NPR. CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like PBS. 

CNSNews.com relies on individuals like you to help us report the news the liberal media distort and ignore. Please make a tax-deductible gift to CNSNews.com today. Your continued support will ensure that CNSNews.com is here reporting THE TRUTH, for a long time to come. It's fast, easy and secure.

Obama the post turtle!

Obama The Post Turtle!

You know he didn't get up there by himself, doesn't belong up there, doesn't know what to do while he is up there and you wonder what kind of a dumb ass put him up there?

Why Socialism Failed

This is a great article written by Mark J. Perry posted on the Freeman Blog on June 1995. It is so timeless that it still rings true today.

Why Socialism Failed

by Mark J. Perry • June 1995 • Vol. 45/Issue 6

Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.
A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.
In a capitalist economy, incentives are of the utmost importance. Market prices, the profit-and-loss system of accounting, and private property rights provide an efficient, interrelated system of incentives to guide and direct economic behavior. Capitalism is based on the theory that incentives matter!
Under socialism, incentives either play a minimal role or are ignored totally. A centrally planned economy without market prices or profits, where property is owned by the state, is a system without an effective incentive mechanism to direct economic activity. By failing to emphasize incentives, socialism is a theory inconsistent with human nature and is therefore doomed to fail. Socialism is based on the theory that incentives don’t matter!
In a radio debate several months ago with a Marxist professor from the University of Minnesota, I pointed out the obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. At the time of our debate, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it, I asked him, that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the “evil capitalist empire” when they were only 50 miles from the “workers’ paradise” of Cuba?
The Marxist admitted that many “socialist” countries around the world were failing. However, according to him, the reason for failure is not that socialism is deficient, but that the socialist economies are not practicing “pure” socialism. The perfect version of socialism would work; it is just the imperfect socialism that doesn’t work. Marxists like to compare a theoretically perfect version of socialism with practical, imperfect capitalism which allows them to claim that socialism is superior to capitalism.
If perfection really were an available option, the choice of economic and political systems would be irrelevant. In a world with perfect beings and infinite abundance, any economic or political system–socialism, capitalism, fascism, or communism–would work perfectly.
However, the choice of economic and political institutions is crucial in an imperfect universe with imperfect beings and limited resources. In a world of scarcity it is essential for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available.
The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components.
Prices
The price system in a market economy guides economic activity so flawlessly that most people don’t appreciate its importance. Market prices transmit information about relative scarcity and then efficiently coordinate economic activity. The economic content of prices provides incentives that promote economic efficiency.
For example, when the OPEC cartel restricted the supply of oil in the 1970s, oil prices rose dramatically. The higher prices for oil and gasoline transmitted valuable information to both buyers and sellers. Consumers received a strong, clear message about the scarcity of oil by the higher prices at the pump and were forced to change their behavior dramatically. People reacted to the scarcity by driving less, carpooling more, taking public transportation, and buying smaller cars. Producers reacted to the higher price by increasing their efforts at exploration for more oil. In addition, higher oil prices gave producers an incentive to explore and develop alternative fuel and energy sources.
The information transmitted by higher oil prices provided the appropriate incentive structure to both buyers and sellers. Buyers increased their effort to conserve a now more precious resource and sellers increased their effort to find more of this now scarcer resource.
The only alternative to a market price is a controlled or fixed price which always transmits misleading information about relative scarcity. Inappropriate behavior results from a controlled price because false information has been transmitted by an artificial, non-market price.
Look at what happened during the 1970s when U.S. gas prices were controlled. Long lines developed at service stations all over the country because the price for gasoline was kept artificially low by government fiat. The full impact of scarcity was not accurately conveyed. As Milton Friedman pointed out at the time, we could have eliminated the lines at the pump in one day by allowing the price to rise to clear the market.
From our experience with price controls on gasoline and the long lines at the pump and general inconvenience, we get an insight into what happens under socialism where every price in the economy is controlled. The collapse of socialism is due in part to the chaos and inefficiency that result from artificial prices. The information content of a controlled price is always distorted. This in turn distorts the incentives mechanism of prices under socialism. Administered prices are always either too high or too low, which then creates constant shortages and surpluses. Market prices are the only way to transmit information that will create the incentives to ensure economic efficiency.
Profits and Losses
Socialism also collapsed because of its failure to operate under a competitive, profit-and-loss system of accounting. A profit system is an effective monitoring mechanism which continually evaluates the economic performance of every business enterprise. The firms that are the most efficient and most successful at serving the public interest are rewarded with profits. Firms that operate inefficiently and fail to serve the public interest are penalized with losses.
By rewarding success and penalizing failure, the profit system provides a strong disciplinary mechanism which continually redirects resources away from weak, failing, and inefficient firms toward those firms which are the most efficient and successful at serving the public. A competitive profit system ensures a constant reoptimization of resources and moves the economy toward greater levels of efficiency. Unsuccessful firms cannot escape the strong discipline of the marketplace under a profit/loss system. Competition forces companies to serve the public interest or suffer the consequences.
Under central planning, there is no profit-and-loss system of accounting to accurately measure the success or failure of various programs. Without profits, there is no way to discipline firms that fail to serve the public interest and no way to reward firms that do. There is no efficient way to determine which programs should be expanded and which ones should be contracted or terminated.
Without competition, centrally planned economies do not have an effective incentive structure to coordinate economic activity. Without incentives the results are a spiraling cycle of poverty and misery. Instead of continually reallocating resources towards greater efficiency, socialism falls into a vortex of inefficiency and failure.
Private Property Rights
A third fatal defect of socialism is its blatant disregard for the role of private property rights in creating incentives that foster economic growth and development. The failure of socialism around the world is a “tragedy of commons” on a global scale.
The “tragedy of the commons” refers to the British experience of the sixteenth century when certain grazing lands were communally owned by villages and were made available for public use. The land was quickly overgrazed and eventually became worthless as villagers exploited the communally owned resource.
When assets are publicly owned, there are no incentives in place to encourage wise stewardship. While private property creates incentives for conservation and the responsible use of property, public property encourages irresponsibility and waste. If everyone owns an asset, people act as if no one owns it. And when no one owns it, no one really takes care of it. Public ownership encourages neglect and mismanagement.
Since socialism, by definition, is a system marked by the “common ownership of the means of production,” the failure of socialism is a “tragedy of the commons” on a national scale. Much of the economic stagnation of socialism can be traced to the failure to establish and promote private property rights.
As Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto remarked, you can travel in rural communities around the world and you will hear dogs barking, because even dogs understand property rights. It is only statist governments that have failed to understand property rights. Socialist countries are just now starting to recognize the importance of private property as they privatize assets and property in Eastern Europe.
Incentives Matter
Without the incentives of market prices, profit-and-loss accounting, and well-defined property rights, socialist economies stagnate and wither. The economic atrophy that occurs under socialism is a direct consequence of its neglect of economic incentives.
No bounty of natural resources can ever compensate a country for its lack of an efficient system of incentives. Russia, for example, is one of the world’s wealthiest countries in terms of natural resources; it has some of the world’s largest reserves of oil, natural gas, diamonds, and gold. Its valuable farm land, lakes, rivers, and streams stretch across a land area that encompasses 11 time zones. Yet Russia remains poor. Natural resources are helpful, but the ultimate resources of any country are the unlimited resources of its people–human resources.
By their failure to foster, promote, and nurture the potential of their people through incentive-enhancing institutions, centrally planned economies deprive the human spirit of full development. Socialism fails because it kills and destroys the human spirit–just ask the people leaving Cuba in homemade rafts and boats.
As the former centrally planned economies move toward free markets, capitalism, and democracy, they look to the United States for guidance and support during the transition. With an unparalleled 250-year tradition of open markets and limited government, the United States is uniquely qualified to be the guiding light in the worldwide transition to freedom and liberty.
We have an obligation to continue to provide a framework of free markets and democracy for the global transition to freedom. Our responsibility to the rest of the world is to continue to fight the seductiveness of statism around the world and here at home. The seductive nature of statism continues to tempt and lure us into the Barmecidal illusion that the government can create wealth.
The temptress of socialism is constantly luring us with the offer: “give up a little of your freedom and I will give you a little more security.” As the experience of this century has demonstrated, the bargain is tempting but never pays off. We end up losing both our freedom and our security.
Programs like socialized medicine, welfare, Social Security, and minimum wage laws will continue to entice us because on the surface they appear to be expedient and beneficial. Those programs, like all socialist programs, will fail in the long run regardless of initial appearances. These programs are part of the Big Lie of socialism because they ignore the important role of incentives.
Socialism will remain a constant temptation. We must be vigilant in our fight against socialism not only around the globe but also here in the United States.
The failure of socialism inspired a worldwide renaissance of freedom and liberty. For the first time in the history of the world, the day is coming very soon when a majority of the people in the world will live in free societies or societies rapidly moving toward freedom.
Capitalism will play a major role in the global revival of liberty and prosperity because it nurtures the human spirit, inspires human creativity, and promotes the spirit of enterprise. By providing a powerful system of incentives that promote thrift, hard work, and efficiency, capitalism creates wealth.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism is this: Capitalism works.

---

Article printed from The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty: http://www.thefreemanonline.org
URL to article: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/why-socialism-failed/

Obama administration blocks Texas voter ID law

This is the begining of the Chicago style reelection of Obama. I assume we will see a lot more of this kind of stuf from the Big Guvernment/Big Labor Leftists that are attempting to take this country over. We must be ever vigilent and get the truth out to our fellow Conservatives and educate the Moderates on the fence as to what the Leftists are really up to. Please do enjoy this article by Jeremy Pelofsky.

Obama administration blocks Texas voter ID law

Mon, Mar 12 2012
By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday blocked a new law in Texas requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast a ballot, citing a concern that it could harm Hispanic voters who lacked such documents.

The law, which was approved in May 2011, required voters to show government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's license, military identification card, birth certificate with a photo, current U.S. passport, or concealed handgun permit.

The Justice Department said that data from Texas showed that almost 11 percent of Hispanic voters, or more than 300,000, did not have a driver's license or state-issued identification card, and that plans to mitigate those concerns were incomplete.

"Hispanic registered voters are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic registered voters to lack such identification," Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, head of the department's civil rights division, said in a letter outlining the objection to the Texas director of elections.

Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry criticized the decision, saying he was obligated to ensure the integrity of elections.

"The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane," he said in a statement.

It was the second state voter identification law blocked by the Obama administration, which earlier prevented a strict new law in South Carolina from taking effect. South Carolina then sued in federal court seeking approval of its law.

Under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, certain states like Texas must seek approval from the Justice Department or the federal courts for changes made to state voting laws and boundaries for voting districts.

The Obama administration has already challenged the state's attempt to re-draw congressional districts and that fight is before the courts. Texas in January also sued to get approval for its voter identification law.

Several Republican-governed states, including Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin, have adopted stricter new voter identification laws, arguing they were needed to prevent ballot box fraud. A judge in Wisconsin on Monday issued an injunction against that state's law.

Some civil rights groups have said the new laws threatened to suppress minority voters. Democrats have also said they were aimed at squeezing out university students from the polling booths and seniors who tended to vote for Democrats.

"Photo identification requirements for voters drastically affect the electoral participation of the poor, the elderly, and the transient, which means those who need their government's ear most will be the last to be heard," said Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a Texas state Democratic lawmaker.

The Justice Department said that potential voters in Texas would require two other identification documents to get a certificate allowing them to vote, which could lead to them paying high fees for copies of legal documents such as birth certificates.

Additionally, nearly one-third of the counties in the state do not have offices where potential voters can obtain a driver's license or state identification card and some residents live more than 100 miles away, the Justice Department said.

Efforts to educate voters about the new identification requirements were also incomplete and the state did not submit evidence of voter impersonation not already addressed under existing state laws, the administration said.

"The state has failed to demonstrate why it could not meet its stated goals of ensuring electoral integrity and deterring ineligible voters from voting in a manner that would have voided this retrogressive effect," Perez said.

Republicans said that the Obama administration's decision to oppose Texas' voter identification law smacked of politics ahead of the 2012 congressional and presidential elections.

"Today's decision reeks of politics and appears to be an effort by the Department of Justice to carry water for the President's reelection campaign," said U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

The Texas lawsuit for approval of the voter identification law is: State of Texas v. Holder in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 12-cv-128.

(Editing by Eric Walsh and Paul Simao)

Fast and Furious just another fraud by the left!

Fast and Furious just another fraud by the left!

The Leftists need to disarm the general population in order to complete the transformation and change they have in mind. The utopian socialist vision envisioned by the Left is their end goal. This vision is flawed and has been repeatedly tried again and again over the last three hundred years all ending in the same horrible fashion. Every time they try some first die at the hands of their Socialist comrades as they are murdered for not allowing themselves to be brain washed (AKA reeducated for the cause). Many more always end up starving after the government can not feed us all after the succubus big government leviathan ruins any and all productivity from those that generated the food before the system was fundamentally irreversibly changed.

The general population has to be disarmed before they can implement the final phase of our Progressive Socialist Utopian conversion. The transparent motives of Obama, Eric Holder and their fellow conspirators is so obvious that even a blind man can see it. The guns they coerced upstanding dealers to sell to thugs knowing full well that some would end up getting used in violent crimes that they could then use to further anti gun legislation against honest citizens of this exceptional country.

President Obama took an oath to protect and uphold the US Constitution and the second amendment is a important part of that Constitution. Our founding fathers knew that an important part of our collective freedom was the ability to defend ourselves, friends, family and neighbors with arms.

Below is great article written by Katie Pavlich  that chronicles the coverup and stonewalling by Holder quite well.

Fast and Furious: Holder Says No Attempt of a Coverup at DOJ

Capitol Hill -- After thirteen months of investigation into the Obama Justice Department’s lethal Operation Fast and Furious and Attorney General Eric Holder’s sixth time answering questions from Congress on the topic, we are stuck with stonewalling, non-answers and more calls for gun control.

“This committee has lost its patience to wait longer,” Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa said.

It was a tense scene inside the committee room when Eric Holder arrived for his testimony. Unexpectedly, ATF whistleblower John Dodson, who came forward first to expose details of Fast and Furious, along with Issa approached Holder for a brief conversation before Holder took his seat.


(Attorney Geneeral Eric Holder (left) speaks with ATF Special Agent and whistleblower John Dodson (center) and  House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (right). Photo: House Oversight Committee)

(ATF Special Agent and whistleblower John Dodson watches as Attorney General Eric Holder testifies before the House Oversight Committee. Photo: House Oversight Committee)
“Have you apologized to the whistleblowers who in effect were called liars within your agency who we know were telling the truth?” Indiana Rep. Dan Burton asked Holder.

“No,” Holder responded, saying if whistleblowers wanted to discuss an issue they could “give him a call.”

The reoccurring theme throughout the hearing was stonewalling. "Fortress Holder" graphics were displayed outside of the hearing room and he was continually pressed about why his department refused to cooperative with the Congressional investigation into the program. Out of 80,000 documents relevant to Operation Fast and Furious, the committee has received just 6,000.


“We’ve been down that road before, and we’ve gotten them [documents],” Rep. Burton said referring to Eric Holder stonewalling Congress for information and refusing to submit thousands of requested documents in unredacted form. “I think you’re hiding behind something here that won’t stand up.”

Holder adamantly denied his department was involved in a cover-up.

"There is no attempt of a cover-up, we have shared huge amounts of information,” Holder said.

Burton encouraged Issa to proceed with a contempt citation if stonewalling from Holder’s Justice Department continues to withhold requested information.

In the six times Holder has been questioned about his knowledge of Fast and Furious, he has been presented with emails and memos detailing and discussing the program. Some of those memos were addressed directly to him as early as July 2010. In May 2011, Holder said he had known about Fast and Furious for “a couple of weeks.” Then in November, Holder said he should have said he knew about the program for a couple of months. Today, he said he found out about the program in February 2010, but didn’t know about tactics being used between November 2009 and December 2010 just before Brian Terry was killed. His defense has been that he didn’t see the memos, read the memos or wasn’t told by his staff what was in the memos about the program.

“Mr. Holder, you’re well known in this town for not reading memos,” Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg said.  “What does that say about your leadership and management that you’ve consistently failed to read your memos?”
Holder responded by saying the American people should give him credit for how he has handled the situation, for the “good things” the Justice Department has accomplished during his time as attorney general. He touted the war on terror and his gains in the Justice Department when it comes to the civil rights division. He also said the American people should give him credit for his work on Fast and Furious and called the investigation a “political gotcha' game in an election year.”
When asked whether he would have approved gun walking techniques, Holder said “no,” calling the tactic “stupid” and “dangerous,” yet he hasn’t fired anyone who we know approved of gunwalking techniques.
“You as the Attorney General, or someone does, needs to be held accountable,” Rep. Buerkle said. “How many more border patrol agents would have had to die for you to take responsibility?”

Holder also denied that Fast and Furious was developed as a way to push through new gun control measures, yet mentioned the Obama administration’s full support for the instatement of the assault rifle ban.
"The notion that somehow or other that this was set up to attack Second Amendment rights is not correct," Holder said, but later adding, "This administration has consistently supported the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban."

Tags: Eric Holder , Department of Justice , ATF , Operation Fast and Furious , Obama Justice Department , DOJ , Brian Terry , attorney general eric holder , Holder Justice Department

Katie Pavlich

Katie Pavlich the News Editor at Townhall.com. Follow her on Twitter @katiepavlich.