February 27, 2013

Team Obama tweet moans about mil cuts, when cuts were their idea!

This is astonishing:  The Obozo administration has sent a tweet bemoaning the fact that the tiny proposed reduction in federal spending called the "sequester" will hurt our military.

The reason this is astonishing is that Obama and company were the ones who invented with the plan of automatic "deep" cuts to military spending because they believed that would force the Republicans to agree to whatever federal spending Obama and the Dems wanted.

Frankly, that was actually a pretty clever plan to roll the spineless, useless RINOs.  What's amazing is how brazenly the Obama camp is now moaning about how the cuts will hurt the military--leading the average voter to believe Obozo and company weren't the ones who proposed the automatic cuts from the outset!

This is truly "down the memory hole" behavior:  They know the Lying Media won't rat them out to the public about their breathtaking hypocrisy, so there's no down-side to being hypocrites.

But don't worry, citizen:  merely implying they didn't originate the sequester plan isn't really a lie. And besides, Team Obama would never lie about anything really critical.  Trust us.

February 25, 2013

State mismanagement, part gazillion

Think gross negligence and mismanagement at the state or federal level doesn't really affect you?  Consider this: 

In many states sex offenders and other criminals who have won parole are required to wear GPS devices to deter them from committing more crimes.  But in cash-strapped California the crooks have taken to simply cutting off the locator and doing whatever they want...because they know the state doesn't have enough jail space to arrest them!

Being good, law-abiding folks, you probably think this is just some wacko wingnut crackpot myth spouted by Fox News.  Yeah, you got me: it's from the LA Times.

February 23, 2013

Obama lied again, part gazillion

Last week Obama gave a speech lambasting the awful, terrible, HUGE cuts of a fraction of one percent of fed spending called the sequester.  According to him an absolute disaster awaits if we go through with those cuts.

A rational person would conclude that the sequester was a ghastly plan by his political opponents, the cwafty Wepubwicans.  And in fact Obama himself denied proposing the sequester.  His former chief of staff, now treasury secretary, Jack Lew, confirmed that the idea didn't come from the White House.  Press secretary Jay Carney said the same.

But as Democrat stalwart Bob Woodward found, they lied.  All of 'em.
Obama’s sequester deal-changer
   By Bob Woodward, Wash Post, February 22, 2013

What really happened?

The finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed,” Obama said. “It is something that Congress has proposed.”

The White House chief of staff at the time, Jack Lew, who had been budget director during the negotiations that set up the sequester in 2011, backed up the president two days later.

“There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger,” Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It “was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure.”

The president and Lew had this wrong.  [I found] that the automatic spending cuts [i.e. the sequester] were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate majority leader Harry Reid. They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There were not a lot of other options left.”

A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester. 

This is classic propaganda: Woodward adds this line to shift the blame to Republicans in the reader's mind because Repubs voted for the sequester--which was the poison pill devised by Obama and the Dems to theoretically force the Repubs to accept tax increases without cutting spending by even a dollar.

At the Senate hearing on Lew’s nomination to become Treasury secretary, Sen. Richard Burr asked Lew about the account in my book: “Woodward credits you with originating the plan for sequestration. Was he right or wrong?”

Note how Lew avoids a direct answer, since it would have been an admission that Obama had flat-out lied about the origin of the sequester:

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Lew responded, “and even in his account, it was a little more complicated than that. We were in a negotiation where the failure would have meant the default of the government of the United States.”

“Did you make the suggestion?” Burr asked.

Again Lew avoids a direct answer, instead citing a tactic used in congress almost 30 years earlier:

“Well, what I did was said that with all other options closed, we needed to look for an option where we could agree on how to resolve our differences. And we went back to the 1984 plan that Senator Gramm and Senator  Rudman worked on, and said that that would be a basis for having a consequence that would be so unacceptable to everyone that we would be able to get action.”

In other words, yes.

Then Burr asked about the president’s statement, during the debate, that the Republicans originated [the sequester idea].

Lew, being a good lawyer and a loyal presidential adviser, then shifted to denial mode: “Senator, the demand for an enforcement mechanism was not something that the administration was pushing at that moment.”

That statement was not accurate.

On Tuesday Obama appeared with a group of police officers and firefighters to denounce the sequester as a “meat-cleaver approach” that would jeopardize military readiness and investments in education, energy and readiness. He also said it would cost jobs.  He said the substitute would have to include new revenue through tax reform.

At noon that same day, White House press secretary Jay Carney shifted position and accepted sequester paternity.

“The sequester was something that was discussed,” Carney said. Walking back the earlier statements, he added carefully, “and as has been reported, it was an idea that the White House put forward.”

This was an acknowledgment that the president and Lew had been wrong. 
"...had been wrong" is a huge understatement.  Lew and Obama both knew they were lying about the origin of the sequester idea--it's why Lew refused to give a direct answer to Senator Burr's question.  "Being wrong" implies that they were simply passing on misinformation given them by someone else.  Woodward doesn't want to anger Democrats by being candid.
Why does this matter?

First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any trust between Obama and congressional Republicans.

Second, Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue [translation: higher taxes, but Woodward toes the Dem line by refusing to use those words] in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester.

A senior White House official confirmed this, saying “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”
So there you have it:  Even if Team Obama did propose the sequester, the party line is that it doesn't matter who proposed it because the Repubs *forced* the White House to take that option--because the Republicans "would not do tax increases.”

See?  We tol' ya it was the Repubs' fault!

Ultimately, senate Repub "leader" Mitch McConnell gave Obama what he most wanted--an agreement that the so-called debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection--in exchange for no tax increases.

From the Republican standpoint it was a lousy, stupid deal that may well have let Obama win a second term, by removing a huge chance to focus the nation's attention on the runaway spending of this and all Democrat administrations.

But nothing to see here, citizen.  It doesn't matter.  "What difference could it possibly make?"

February 22, 2013

Obama lies again, implies he opposed Sequester

As unbiased observers may have noticed, Obama's hypocrisy on..well, virtually everything...is staggering.  Case in point:  The automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester."

To understand how Obama is playing American taxpayers for fools you have to review the origins of the proposed so-called spending cuts.  Back in 2011 Obama wanted congress to agree to raise the laughably-misnamed "debt ceiling" so his continued huge deficit spending wouldn't trigger a financial crisis.  But because the GOP had won a majority of House seats in 2010, Obama knew he had to have the votes of at least 30 House Republicans to get a Democrat-written bill passed. 

With Republicans pushing for spending cuts, getting them to vote for a Democrat-friendly bill was looking tough.  Obama's solution was to devise a bill that *looked* like it was aggressively cutting spending.  In theory the Repubs would be almost compelled to vote for it.  Sure enough, they passed it, and Obama signed it into law.

The new law set up one of those famously ineffective congressional committees to try to hammer out a "bipartisan" spending plan.  If they couldn't agree on one, the law provided that a certain dollar amount of cuts would automatically take place--with half of the cuts to come from defense spending.

Amusingly, the bill specified that NO cuts could be made to any "entitlement programs"--which of course now account for the bulk of government spending.

From Obama's and the Dems' standpoint, the "sequester" was the perfect weapon: They were certain the GOP wouldn't want to accept the huge defense cuts in the sequester bill, and would thus be forced to agree with whatever the Dems proposed as an alternative.

Much to the surprise of Obama and the Dems, the GOP held their ground, clearing the way for the automatic spending cuts to take effect on March 1st.

Now, with the automatic cuts scheduled to take effect in a week, Obama is wailing to high heaven that making those cuts would be absolutely, totally disastrous!  Disastrous!  He gave a speech about how the sequester would result in teachers and "first responders" being laid off (those are paid by local governments, not by the feds).  No reporter asked him how federal cuts would affect those positions.

To hear Obozo tell it today, the sequester is a horrible idea--one pushed by eeebil Republicans, designed to hurt the poor.

Except the sequester was his idea.  And here's a transcript of him back in November of 2011 threatening to veto any attempt to ease or roll back the sequester's proposed cuts.

Gosh, what in the world could have changed between then and now to make him switch positions 180 degrees?

Simple:  He sees a chance to demonize the Republicans, by implying that the sequester was their idea and that he always opposed it.  This is designed to increase public support for his policies, since he'd be seen as the defender of the poor.

And of course no one in the lying media will call bullshit on him.

Fortunately the bastards haven't yet gotten brazen enough to make old internet vids and transcripts go away.  But I expect that'll start happening soon enough.

By the way, that link to Obama's threatened veto of attempts to roll back the cuts in 2011 is from a fringe tinfoil-hat outfit...CBS news.

February 18, 2013

Obama ignores the law--repeatedly


The Obama administration has repeatedly, brazenly ignored the law.

After the Republicans won a majority in the House Obama realized he would have trouble getting his legislative goals passed.  Accordingly, he seems to have decided to enact his ideas by Executive Order, regardless of whether they were contrary to the law.

One example: his recess appointments in January 2012 of three members of the National Labor Relations Board and the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously that the NLRB recess appointments were unconstitutional.  The decision, written by Judge David Sentelle, noted that the Constitution speaks of "the recess," not "a recess," and reasoned that it could only be referring to the recess between annual sessions of Congress.

When Harry Reid became Senate majority leader in 2007 he hit on a way to block George Bush from making any recess appointments:  during long recesses of congress Reid began holding pro-forma meetings of the senate every three days, and claimed that the senate was not actually in recess. 

Bush, who like virtually all presidents had made recess appointments before, stopped doing so.  He took the view that since the Constitution says each branch of Congress makes its own rules, if the leader of the senate said the senate was in session, he would abide by that determination.

By contrast, Obama implicitly decided that he would decide whether the Senate was in session.

As Sentelle pointed out, Obama's view would entitle the president to make a recess appointment any time the Senate broke for lunch. "This cannot be the law," Sentelle wrote.

Under Obama's interpretation the Senate's constitutional duty to "advise and consent" to presidential appointments would effectively vanish.

The Framers contemplated that the Congress would take long recesses (as for many years it did) and that it could take months for senators to return to Washington to act on appointments.  It's plausible that the Framers would have considered recess appointments unnecessary in an era of jet travel. It's not plausible that they would have approved of getting rid of the Senate's power to vote on appointments altogether.

Meanwhile, decisions of the NLRB and the CFPB are in legal limbo pending a Supreme Court decision on this case. Hundreds of thousands of people and are affected and millions of dollars are at stake. There is a price for not observing the rule of law.

There are other examples. For several years, the Obama administration has refused to obey a law requiring the president's budget to be submitted on a certain date. As Budget Director, Treasury nominee Jack Lew refused to obey the law requiring him to issue a report in response to the trustees' report on Medicare.

During the 2012 campaign the Pentagon told defense contractors not to inform employees that they may be laid off if the sequester took effect as required by the WARN Act.  They were even told that the government would pay any fines that might be levied on them for not complying with the act's provisions. What law authorizes the government to do that?  The answer, of course, is...nothing.  For the government to pay the fines would be illegal.  Yet the government promised to do just that, and the MSM didn't bat an eye.

Similarly, Health and Human Services has stated that if states refuse to create "health care exchanges" under Obamacare, the federal government can fund and run said health insurance exchanges for the states. But nowhere does the Democrats' hastily-crafted Obamacare legislation contemplate the government doing that.

In spring 2009 we saw the first example of Obama's disdain for the law:  In arranging the Chrysler bankruptcy, administration officials brushed aside the rights of secured creditors in order to pay off the (unsecured) unionized auto workers, in violation of standard bankruptcy law.

In short, Obama picks and chooses the laws he wishes to obey.

In case you're not clear on the concept, the Constitution doesn't give any president--not even Chicago Jesus--the authority to do that.  It is, in fact, an impeachable offense.

February 16, 2013

Federal agency: You can be sued if you don't hire a felon

Say you own security-guard business.  Let's say your state has a law saying convicted felons can't be hired as security guards.  That doesn't seem unreasonable, does it?  I mean, if a security guard is a convicted felon it's not unreasonable to think the chances are higher than average that he might pull an inside job.

Now one of the goofiest, most out-of-control agencies of the gummint--the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission--has issued a ruling that a business can NOT decline to hire a convicted felon.

Roll that around for a minute:  The statist bastards who run the EEOC have never had to meet a payroll, never worried about paying corporate taxes or self-employment tax, never spent a month or two or three trying to get a crucial business permit or license...and yet they have the gall, the *arrogance,* to tell businessmen-- they MUST hire felons?

Sorry, I don't have my rifle with me.  Can you wait a sec while I get it?

The EEOC is the bureau that infamously insisted that each and every business have exactly the same ethnic composition in its hires as the local community--while simultaneously denying that they're instituting quotas (which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional some years ago).

Now the EEOC has essentially lampooned itself, with a ruling from last April that businesses can't decline to hire a convicted felon.

Suppose you had a family business--say something consumer-oriented, like babysitting or interior design or something.  Say your business is booming and you decide you need to hire more staff, and the first guy who applies is a serial killer who beat the rap because all the witnesses mysteriously died before the trial.  According to the EEOC, unless you can show a business reason other than his criminal record for not hiring him, you can be sued if you decide not to hire this guy.

I'll bet you think I'm kidding.

Wish I was.  The EEOC--which is to say, the federal government--sued a Florida trucking company for refusing to hire a man who had multiple arrests and had served 18 months in prison for larceny. The EEOC argued that the only legitimate qualification for the job was the ability to drive a tractor-trailer, and that the company couldn't consider the guy's lawbreaking past.  And this was way back in 1989, before an official, written policy existed on this.

At the same time--of course--U.S. courts have ruled that if a company hires an employee who turns out to be a murderous thug with anger-control problems, the victim of the employee's acts can sue the company for the actions of its employee.  "Knew or should have known..." 

Can you say "no-win situation for employers?"

According to the EEOC the only way a business can decline to hire a felon is if it conducts a comprehensive analysis of the ex-offender's recent history.  This is expensive, time-consuming and almost certainly vulnerable to legal attack.  How far back is "recent"?  I suspect that any employer that tried to use this method to justify a no-hire would be sued by the EEOC--which, of course, has infinite government attorneys to pursue the case, while you obviously have to pay your own legal bills.

Obviously, not all felons are murderers, and I do believe that good people who made a stupid decision years ago may well deserve a second chance to straighten up.  But as a business owner the decision to take that risk should be my call.  I reject the idea that some government bureaucrat can destroy my business (by suing me into poverty)--or threaten to--if I exercise my own judgment and decline to hire a particular person if I get a bad vibe from him or her.

After all, last I heard it was my fucking business, right?  Oh, wait, dat's right:  Under the benevolent rule of King Barrack, my business doesn't really belong to me.  He tells me (and his ignorant, socialist friends loudly agree) that I didn't build it, and that since I use taxpayer-funded roads and such, my business really, properly, belongs to...well, he doesn't say but I'm guessing he thinks it belongs to the government.  Or da people, or...anyone but me.

Every day I'm newly astonished that half of the electorate could possibly have voted for this guy.  Then I listen to a few of the leftist morons on MSNBC or CNN and it makes perfect sense.

For more on the EEOC ruling click here.

February 10, 2013

Pol uses money donated to poor for personal goodies, gets to keep pension

Suppose a Republican politician stole money that people had donated to a fund for the poor.  Think that would make headlines all over the country?

So what happens when a Democrat pol does the same thing?

They're offered a plea-bargain for probation--no conviction, no record.

And get to keep their $83,000-a-year pension.

Example: Former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon.

That's a sweet deal, eh?  Think any of us peasants would get that kind of offer? 

February 09, 2013

Muslim fanatics kill 9 women--world's leftists yawn

Leftists and liberals and Democrats constantly tell us that Islam is "the religion of peace." Well, here's yet another example.

Following is from a loony right-wing blog site:
KANO, Nigeria -- Gunmen suspected of belonging to a radical Islamic sect shot and killed at least nine women who were taking part in a polio vaccination drive in northern Nigeria on Friday.
Roll that around in your mind for a minute:

Nine. Women.

Presumably unarmed.

Giving potentially lifesaving vaccinations to kids. And thanks to western generosity the vaccinations are given at no cost to the parents.

Civilized folks know polio is a bad thing, and that it can be prevented--painlessly--by a drop of liquid on the tongue. But in many Islamic countries such a miracle is viewed as an EEEeevil curse inflicted by da white debbils.

Okay, everyone's entitled to be ignorant.  But you'd think that if local religious wackos objected they'd just refuse to let their own kids be immunized, or maybe refuse to let the immunization team enter a village.

But of course that's not the Islamic way. Gotta shoot the immunization team instead.

Nine. Defenseless. Women.

Way to go, wackos.  No way in hell is Islam a "religion of peace."

And for every western newpaper that gave this story one inch on page A-16:  By effectively ignoring this you're complicit in this abomination.

Congress vs. the pres, part gazillion

Members of the House Judiciary Committee today--from both parties--asked President Obama to let that committee review administration documents giving the legal justification for drone strikes on Americans overseas. The committee asked Obama to direct the Justice Department to provide its members with all legal opinions it used pertaining to the use of drones to kill Americans overseas.

Earlier this week the administration authorized the release of such documents to the House and Senate Intelligence committees, which are authorized to receive classified information, but has yet to provide them to the House Judiciary Committee, which is charged with overseeing the Department of Justice.

They asked that the requested documents be provided to the panel by close of business on Tuesday.

Obama has ignored three previous requests by the House Judiciary Committee to review these memoranda.

If you think this is trivial, murky, inside-baseball stuff, think again: Congress is supposed to oversee the operation of the executive, if only to ensure the president is complying with U.S. law. When Obozo tells congress to piss off, no such oversight is possible.

Yes, I realize Obozo supposedly authorized the release of these memos to the Intel committees, but since the question of targeted assassination of Americans overseas would seem to be at least somewhat related to U.S. law, it's hard to see why they wouldn't send a copy to the Judiciary committee.

Oh, yeah, dat's it: Judiciary isn't pre-cleared to receive sensitive classified info. And we know how fastidious the Obozo brigade is about ensuring that no one leaks classified information, eh?

February 03, 2013

Iceberg ahead. But everything's fine.

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."  --Saul Bellow

No downside to government lawbreaking

Recent events suggest that the media have doubled-down on their support for corruption and lawlessness in government.  Assured that the press will approve any behavior by this administration, Democratic politicians act as if they can now do anything they want.

If the press winked at a $20 trillion debt, why not go for $40 trillion?

Indeed: Why not?  Does anyone believe the press or voters would react any differently to a $40 trillion dollar debt than to $20 trillion?  If not, why should any Dem pol act with even a tiny semblance of fiscal prudence?

If Obama's U.N. ambassador and Secretary of State can get away with the total fabrication that a deadly attack on our consulate was caused by a demonstration against an anti-Muslim video, and not be met by outrage and grilling from the media, then why not call the next blatant terrorist attack "a riot by Tea Partiers," and jail an American citizen as part of the false narrative?

Indeed, why not?

When a Democrat senator and one of his major donors fly on the latter's private jet to a foreign country where the donor arranges sex with minors, it's clearly not a problem if he can go on the five Sunday “news” shows a few days after the story breaks on the internet and not be asked a single question about it. 

Two decades ago the guy would be forced to resign, but today?  If the media winks, why should the Dems pressure the guy to resign, and lose a vital senate vote?

Why indeed?

When Democrats trying to pass Obamacare have to use estimates and scenarios that lack the slightest resemblance to reality, and then a year or two later--when the blatant lie has been revealed--the media simply winks, where's the downside for Democrats to just make up numbers?

When Democrats control the senate, and refuse to comply with valid U.S. law requiring congress to pass a budget every year, and the president refuses to do his Constitutional duty to "see to it that the laws are faithfully enforced," and no one in the media says a remotely critical word, where's the downside?

Indeed, where's the downside to the president or Dems violating ANY law?  "Why not?"

Then you think back and realize this has been going on for four years:  Violating bankruptcy law in giving GM shares to the UAW.  And in arbitrarily closing Chrysler dealerships owned by Republicans during that reorganization.  And "Cash for Clunkers."  And selling guns to Mexican drug cartels in Operation Fast and Furious.

And ordering U.S. Immigration to stop enforcing U.S. law by which illegal aliens were being deported.  And giving those persons permission to stay in the U.S. indefinitely, plus a green card.

And invoking executive privilege to enable Attorney-General Holder to avoid complying with a valid congressional subpoena for documents on Fast and Furious--after Holder had earlier asserted that he hadn't briefed or advised or consulted with Obama about the operation.  Which of course would make the privilege claim invalid.

But why not?  If the media says nothing and 40 percent of the public are "low-information voters" whose main political interest is who will give them the most freebies, where's the downside to an administration breaking any law?

More crucially, once an administration has gotten away with breaking the law this often, with not a word of criticism from the media or the courts, what incentive remains to obey any other law?

Indeed.