Friday, July 05, 2013
THE DEMOCRATS' WAR ON WOMEN: Obamacare Kicking Wives Off Husbands' Health Insurance Plans
Dumped: An unintended consequence of the abomination that is called ObamaCare is the dropping of wives from husbands' employer-provided health care insurance. It's a de facto war on women.
ObamaCare is filled with grinding mandates. One of them requires that children remain covered by their parents' health care plans until they're 26 when their parents' insurance "provides dependent coverage of children."
The government calls this "protecting young adults." But insuring children long past the day they are dependent on their parents exposes companies, which will bear the added costs of paying the inevitable higher premiums. And in some cases, the extra expense could be significant.
So at many companies, something has to go. Quite often, the rational response to rising health insurance costs is to drop spouses, more specifically wives, from insurance plans. Sometimes it's the husbands who must go. But benefits experts have confirmed to MarketWatch that those who are kicked out of plans "tend to be women."
Employers also have a strong incentive to drop spouses because of a "per life" fee that ObamaCare requires from companies that insure their workers. That fee is now $1 or $2 per life. But it will be substantially more — $65 — in 2014.
The trend of dumping spouses will only accelerate when the federal health exchanges are open next year, health care experts told MarketWatch.
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
SURPRISE! Democrats frantically trying to roll back Obamacare before 2014 midterm elections
...the rolling thunder of the approaching ObamaCare train can be heard in the distance. Smart Democrats are beginning to get frantic about the need to suppress the confusion and hide the cost of ObamaCare between now and the 2014 midterm elections. We are just three months away from the October 1st enrollment start date and so far, nothing about the ObamaCare implementation process should be politically encouraging for Democrats. In fact, the more people learn about ObamaCare, the more frightened they become.
Which may explain this report:
The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015... The administration said it would postpone the provision after hearing significant concerns from employers about the challenges of implementing it.
...The Affordable Care Act requires all employers with more than 50 full-time workers provide health insurance or pay steep fines. That policy had raised concerns about companies downsizing their workforce or cutting workers’ hours in order to dodge the new mandate.
Why the delay? Insiders say it has nothing at all to do with you or I, the American citizen. It has to do with the midterm elections:
...the Treasury source said the extra year will give the White House an extra year to persuade health insurers to participate in the exchanges that make up the backbone of the Affordable Care Act.
The revised timetable, the source added, will also push back the final implementation of Obamacare's penalties past the 2014 midterm elections...
Say, aren't Obamacare's timetables the law of the land? Meaning the Obama administration can't lawfully modify them? Uhm, yeah:
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Darrell Issa, a California Republican, piled on Tuesday evening, drawing attention to the GOP's efforts to repeal the Obamacare law in its entirety.
'The House has repeatedly voted to repeal Obamacare because it will not work and is bad public policy,' Issa said in a statement. 'The President has delayed a critical component of the Affordable Care Act because it is absolutely unaffordable for American job creators and workers. It is unclear that he has the authority to do this without Congress.'
'This is another in a string of extra legal actions taken by his Administration to mask the horrible impact his law will have on the economy and health care in the United State...'
If we had an effective opposition party -- you know, the opposite of John Boehner, Karl Rove, and the rest of the RINO dolts -- the IRS would have been completely defunded after its latest scandal. I'm guessing 80 percent of the American public would have been okay with that and it would have prevented the enforcement of Obamacare.
But those deep thoughts are far beyond the GOP establishment wimps who spend more time and energy fighting their conservative base than they do the Marxist Left.
Monday, July 01, 2013
Helpful President Schultz Infographic
The Complete IRS Timeline helps illustrate the, eh, disconnect between the president's story and reality.
Hat tip: BadBlue News and Nice Deb.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
3 Reasons to Oppose the Senate's Amnesty Bill
You can follow Rep. Bridenstine on Twitter at @RepJBridenstine.
Friday, June 28, 2013
ROVE AND BOEHNER JUST SOILED THEMSELVES: Sarah Palin Issues Ultimatum to Feckless GOP Establishment
Please take a look at the [accompanying] article ... to understand how the amnesty bill the Senate passed yesterday is a sad betrayal of working class Americans of every ethnicity who will see their wages lowered and their upward mobility lowered too. And yet we still do not have a secured border. This Senate-approved amnesty bill rewards lawbreakers and won’t solve any problems – as the CBO report notes that millions of more illegal immigrants will continue to flood the U.S. in coming years.
Great job, GOP establishment. You’ve just abandoned the Reagan Democrats with this amnesty bill, and we needed them to “enlarge that tent” of which you so often speak. It’s depressing to consider that the House of Representatives is threatening to pass some version of this nonsensical bill in the coming weeks.
Once again, I’ll point out the obvious to you: it was the loss of working class voters in swing states that cost us the 2012 election, not the Hispanic vote. Legal immigrants respect the rule of law and can see how self-centered a politician must be to fill this amnesty bill with favors, earmarks, and crony capitalists’ pork, and call it good. You disrespect Hispanics with your assumption that they desire ignoring the rule of law.
Folks like me are barely hanging on to our enlistment papers in any political party – and it’s precisely because flip-flopping political actions like amnesty force us to ask how much more bull from both the elephants in the Republican Party and the jackasses in the Democrat Party we have to swallow before these political machines totally abandon the average commonsense hardworking American. Now we turn to watch the House. If they bless this new “bi-partisan” hyper-partisan devastating plan for amnesty, we’ll know that both private political parties have finally turned their backs on us.
It will then be time to show our parties’ hierarchies what we think of being members of either one of these out-of-touch, arrogant, and dysfunctional political machines.
Palin is channeling the anger and rage felt deeply by millions of Americans -- citizens of every race, color, creed and religion -- who are at wit's end. They are disgusted with a massive, unelected leviathan of a federal government that keeps creating new programs when its existing ones are bankrupt. They are disgusted with thousand-page laws that get passed in the dead of night, without being read, without debate, and without any public scrutiny. They are disgusted with representatives of both parties who act more like a nomenklatura -- a ruling class -- than representatives in a republican form of government.
The country is nearing a breaking point. Palin knows it. You and I know it. Millions know it.
What the Republican leadership does next could well set the stage for a political sea change.
Hat tips: The Right Scoop> and BadBlue Uncensored News.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Hugh Hewitt Shreds John Hoeven: "If I were La Raza, I could make sure this fence never gets built"
And read to the end, because I've included Hewitt's interview with Ted Cruz in which he truly gets to the bottom -- and I do mean bottom -- of this abysmal cluster of a miserable bill.
HH: Now Senator... I just wanted to be up front about it. I do not like your amendment at all, because I think it guts the border fence.
JH: No, we actually require a total of 700 miles of border fence, and also 20,000 more border patrol agents, $4.5 billion technology plan on the border that includes sensors, radars, drones, helicopters, planes... in addition to a national, mandatory national E-verify and electronic entry/exit systems at airports and seaports.
HH: But Senator, I want to stay focused just on the fence, if you don’t mind, in our few minutes.
JH: Okay, all right. Yeah.
HH: At Section 5b, it says the Southern Border Fencing Strategy, not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the secretary of Homeland Security shall establish a strategy to be known as the Southern Border Fencing Strategy, to identify where 700 miles of fencing, including double layer fencing, infrastructure and technology, including ports of entry, should be deployed along the southern border.
First question, of those 700 miles, how many miles must be double layered?
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
A Modest Proposal [Updated]
Guess who is being served for dinner?
I modestly propose that the children of baby boomers [BBs] prepare to eat their parents in order to prevent them from becoming a burden on society. Whether our children fry, boil, roast bake or BBQs all us BBs, the end result would be to put a stop to the BBs incredible and wanton accumulation of global government debt that will be passed on to future generations. In the unlikely event you disagree with my proposal let me explain my rationale.
You got some 'splaining' to do!
Dear reader, As Ricky Ricardo often said to everyone's favorite redhead, "Lucy, You got some 'splaining' to do" I feel that the BB generation, like Lucy, is going to find themselves being asked some hard questions by our children and, like Lucy will have some 'splaining' to do avoid being converted into a soufflé or a stew.
You are not the boss of me
My conviction that we, the BBs will find ourselves under harsh lights in the interrogation room [or the kitchen] came to me gradually. As an imperfect father I felt my children should take responsibility and control of our own lives.
Watch what I do and don't do it
When each of my two daughters turned five, the age at which they felt I was no longer 'the boss of them', I acquiesced and left them in charge of our own destiny. The only advice I gave them was to look them in eye, fully aware of my own imperfections and tell them that if they wanted to be successful they should watch what I do and don't do it. Fortunately for them, their mother is a goddess who kept watch over them.
Our children's future will be significantly less than they could wish for
Flash forward twenty years to the present and to a recent family dinner at which my daughters were sharing our hopes and dreams for the future. Careers, goals, buying a house starting a family were all part of the lively conversation. Much to my surprise they asked my opinion on the myriad choices they faced.
Sadly my compulsive study of economic and financial events left me in an awkward position. I naturally wanted to share their excitement and enthusiasm for all the opportunities and experiences that the future can hold. However there are two gifts that we BBs are leaving our children that will likely ensure our children's future is significantly less than they would wish for.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Eric Sevareid’s Law
When we’re searching for solutions to the problem of growing demand exceeding supply, we should never forget Eric Sevareid’s Law. Sevareid was a national journalist, and he observed that:
“The chief source of problems is solutions.”
As an example: the actions of the Congress to encourage domestic production of ethanol from corn were offered as the solution to the problem of impending shortages of automotive fuel that are the result of population growth. Corn is being diverted from the food supply to the fuel supply. As a direct consequence, the price of corn has risen rapidly and this affects the prices of all manner of food items. The higher food costs are the new problem caused by the solution to the problem of the impending shortage of automotive fuel. In the U.S. and abroad, this higher cost of food is a hidden tax on all who eat.
Ronald Reagan, in one of the finest speeches of the last century, put it this way: "For three decades, we've sought to solve [these] problems... and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan."
Hat tip: Lee.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Eight of Top 10 States For Job Growth Share Windmill Farms and GOP Governors, But Mostly GOP Governors
...the RNC needs to do more to showcase its governors and their successes. Here’s one of the things they should be talking about...
According to today’s release by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 31 of the 50 states have experienced significant job growth over the last 12 months.
It might not come as a huge surprise, but states with GOP governors (8 of the top 10) and right-to-work states (7 of the top 10, in bold) dominate the top of the list in terms of job growth over the last 12 months...
...some of the Republican governors of states not on this list are still okay. Gov. John Kasich’s Ohio doesn’t appear above, but in May it had a stronger month than any other state, gaining 32,000, jobs, or about as many as Maryland gained in the last year. Wisconsin’s Scott Walker is looking increasingly safe for re-election thanks to fiscal reforms and strong job creation last month (10,400) helps his cause...
Would that we had these kinds of conservatives in the Senate.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
FACE THE NATION: Sen. Jeff Sessions Eviscerates the Rubio-Schumer-Corker Amnesty Bill
This bill grants amnesty first and a mere promise of enforcement in the future, even with the Corker-Hoeven amendment, all of which has been put in now on a 1,200 page [bill] we’ll vote on Monday afternoon that no one has read… These promises of 20,000 agents won’t take place and are not required until 2021… It [even] has a specific provision that says the Sec. Napolitano does not have to build a fence if she chooses not to… And CBO concludes that the legal immigration will be dramatically increased… Why would any Member of Congress want to vote for a bill, at a time of high unemployment [and] falling wages, to bring in a huge surge of new labor that can only hurt the poorest among us the most?
On The Rush To Vote: This bill grants amnesty first and a mere promise of enforcement in the future, even with the Corker-Hoeven amendment, all of which has been put in now on a 1,200 page [bill] we’ll vote on Monday afternoon that no one has read… I think if people find out that this amendment does not accomplish what the sponsors believe it does, then I think the bill could be back in trouble again... Why would any Member of Congress want to vote for a bill, at a time of high unemployment [and] falling wages, to bring in a huge surge of new labor that can only hurt the poorest among us the most?
No Added Border Security: These promises of 20,000 agents won’t take place and are not required until 2021, no money is being appropriated for that, it's merely an authorization... It [even] has a specific provision that says the Sec. Napolitano does not have to build a fence if she chooses not to. And she has publicly said that she thinks we have enough fencing.
On CBO's Finding That Bill Will Depress Wages: The reason why this amendment was thrown in here at the last minute is because the promises were not fulfilled, and this amendment does not fulfill its promises either, frankly.... We are going to have amnesty first, no enforcement in the future, and we're going to have continued illegality—at least 75% according to the CBO report. And CBO concludes that the legal immigration will be dramatically increased…We're going to have lower wages and higher unemployment according to the CBO analysis of this bill.
This bill is a disaster. If it passes, it guarantees at least three things will happen to the U.S. over the coming decade:
• We will see the arrival of tens of millions of mostly low-skilled workers who will be dependent on the American taxpayer to survive.
• That influx of low-skilled labor will translate to Lower wages for American workers across the board.
• And that surge assures higher levels of unemployment for American workers.
There's a reason the Democrats and Pseudo-Republicans are trying to rush this bill through the Senate. They don't want you to know what's in it.
It's time to take action. Call your Senator and two other Senators now: Say No to Amnesty. And then call them again on Monday.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
TREACHERY AND TREASON: Sleazebag Bob Corker Slips Permanent Amnesty for Illegals Into Rubio-Schumer Bill
Just as public anxiety about the weak border security provisions in the Senate immigration bill was building, GOP Sen. Bob Corker stepped forward with an amendment to "fix" the problem... Breitbart News has learned exclusively that one provision of Corker's amendment will allow workers who stay in the country past their visa will remain on the "path to citizenship."
Even in the future, breaking the law won't stop progress on what VP Joe Biden calls the "unfettered path" to citizenship.
The Corker Amendment ostensibly addresses measures to beef up border security. It, however, is also likely to be the last amendment considered on the immigration bill. As such, it has become a 1,000+ page amendment to supplant the current proposal and provide multiple new provisions. It has become the vehicle for ObamaCare 2.0.
Buried within the text of the Amendment is a seemingly innocuous provision:
(f) APPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN GROUNDS OF INADMISSIBILITY.—In determining an alien’s inadmissibility under this section, section 212(a)(9)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(B)) shall not apply.
What does that mean?
Current law states that those applying for green cards are ineligible if they are either "illegally present" at any point or overstay the terms of their work visa. Such an immigrant, in current law, would have to return to their home country and restart the immigration process...
...The Corker Amendment wipes away that enforcement mechanism... any worker in the country on a legal work visa for 10 years can get a green card, even if they overstay their visa. The Corker Amendment allows immigrants to break the law in the future and still be eligible for citizenship. It absolves prospective behavior, not simply past mistakes.
Prior to the Corker Amendment, the 4.5 million immigrants outside the country on a visa waiting-list were subject to laws restricting their presence in the US. The Gang Senate bill would offer them immediate green cards, as long as they hadn't violated current US Law.
The language in the new Corker Amendment referenced above, however, would remove this restriction. They would become immediately eligible for a green card, even if they lived illegally in this country. The Corker Amendment wipes away any immigration enforcement. It is designed to maximize the number of individuals who qualify for citizenship... The Corker Amendment actually stipulates that, in perpetuity, you can break the law, overstay your visa, and still be eligible for citizenship.
Far from adding border security to this pathetic bill, the Corker Amendment actually makes things worse.
Please call your Senator and two other Senators now and tell them to kill this bill. No permanent Amnesty. No Rubio-Schumer-Obama madness.
Then sign the petition.
This bill must be obliterated.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Crime Pays: And the Rubio-Schumer Amnesty Bill Proves It
It's true: the federal government believes you and I exist to serve the illegal immigrant.
You and I, who pay everyone's freight, are no longer citizens. We are the subjects of a ruling class: a federal leviathan grown so large and centralized and authoritarian and uncontrollable that it no longer operates with the consent of the government. It exists to feed itself. And it would appear that it simply can not be satiated.
Hat tips: @AnitaMonCrief and Mark Levin.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
SOMEONE PINCH ME: I agree with Bernie Sanders
...There are millions of young people who graduate high school and want to go out and start their careers and make some money and move up the ladder. There are others who have dropped out of high school. We cannot turn our backs on those young people. They need jobs as well. If young people — young high school graduates, for example — are unable to find entry-level jobs, how will they ever be able to develop the skills, the experience, and the confidence they need to break into the job market? And if they don't get those skills — if they don't get those jobs and that income — there is a very strong possibility they may end up in antisocial or self-destructive activities...
...At a time when poverty in this country remains at an almost 50-year high, and when unemployment among young people is extremely high, I worry deeply that we are creating a permanent underclass — a large number of people who are poorly educated and who have limited or no job skills. This is an issue we must address and must address now. Either we make a serious effort to find jobs for our young people now or we are going to pay later in terms of increased crime and the cost of incarceration.
Now, why is this issue of youth unemployment relevant to the debate we are having on immigration reform? The answer is obvious to anyone who has read the bill. This immigration reform legislation increases youth unemployment by bringing into this country, through the J-1 program and the H-2B program, hundreds of thousands of low-skilled, entry-level workers who are taking the jobs young Americans need...
...At a time when youth unemployment in this country is over 16 percent and the teen unemployment rate is over 25 percent, many of the jobs that used to be done by young Americans are now being performed by temporary guest workers.
Right now, what we are talking about is hundreds of thousands of foreign workers coming into this country not to do great scientific work, not as great entrepreneurs to start businesses, not as Ph.D. engineers, but as waiters and waitresses, kitchen help, lifeguards, front desk workers at hotels and resorts, ski instructors, cooks, chefs, chambermaids, landscapers, parking lot attendants, cashiers, security guards, and many other entry-level jobs. …
The J-1 program for foreign college students is supposed to be used as a cultural exchange program — a program to bring young people into this country to learn about our customs and to support international cooperation and understanding. That is why it is administered by the State Department. But instead of doing that, this J-1 program has morphed into a low-wage jobs program to allow corporations such as McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Disney World, Hershey's, and many other major resorts around the country to replace American workers with cheap labor from overseas. Each and every year companies from all over this country are hiring more than 100,000 foreign college students in low-wage jobs through the J-1 summer work travel program...
...Unlike other guest worker programs, the J-1 program does not even require businesses to recruit or advertise for American workers. What they can do is pay minimum wage. They don't have to advertise for American workers. And guess what. For the foreign worker, they do not have to pay Social Security tax, they don't have to pay Medicare tax, and they don't have to pay unemployment tax. So, essentially, we are creating a situation where it is absolutely advantageous for an employer to hire a foreign worker rather than an American worker.
I'll reiterate: "Amnesty will destroy America."
Via the all-new BadBlue Report.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Amnesty Will Destroy America [Denninger]
Marco Rubio has repeatedly claimed he "wants more" from the Amnesty Bill now moving through Congress.
Yes, folks, it's an amnesty bill. Let's cut the crap and call it what it is, because only through calling something what it is can we debate it.
"Legalization" of those who are here illegally today is amnesty. I don't care whether it leads to citizenship now or later, the fact of the matter is that it rewards criminal activity by allowing those who stole from Americans and their resources to keep what they stole and remain here in America.
There is no restitution. There is no penalty of consequence. There is nothing except benefit for them and a gigantic magnet pulling even more illegal immigrants to America.
America is a nation of immigrants. I'm the offspring of immigrants and odds are you are too. Unless you're 100% native American, you are a son or daughter of immigrants, directly or a few generations removed. Even if you can trace your heritage to the original colonists, you are the product of immigration.But your parents, grandparents or other ancestors probably came here legally -- unless you're Hispanic. Then the odds are that your parents, grandparents or perhaps even you personally came here illegally.
Everyone wants to talk about "compassion" for the millions who are here already. But that's exactly identical to apologizing for bank robbers after you disarmed the guards and allowed millions of people to rob banks. After the fact you now want "compassion" for those who took the money?
And let's not kid ourselves -- that's exactly what happened. These people have come here, they have consumed our resources, they have suckled at the teat of government. They don't pay taxes and by and large they don't cover their own costs. They have children who go to our schools, get free or reduced-price food that they rest of us pay for, they evade the taxation that pay for those schools, they show up in our hospitals with no money and no medical insurance, they drive on our roads with no insurance and when they wreck and injure or kill us by doing so our insurance bills go up to cover the uninsured motorist -- them.
The correct way to deal with this problem is to demand that every single one of these people either leave or pay back twice what they got. You dropped a kid into our schools for the last five years? The per-pupil cost in your district is $8,000? Cough up $80,000 (twice the $40k cost) as the fine for forcing us to support your child's education through your crime, plus double the cost of any other social benefits you've received, pay all of your back taxes for every penny of under-the-table "wages" you've earned and then go to the back of the line and apply for residency.
Of course none of these folks have $80,000. If they did they wouldn't have come here illegally in the first place.
And that's the problem, in a nutshell. They came here because they could "get" rather than earn. That's theft and fraud and until we call things what they are we cannot make progress.
The Libertarians want to argue that there should be "free movement of human capital." Fine -- I'm good with it when, and only when, there is utterly no means to access any taxpayer service for those who cross borders in this fashion and anyone who tries it is immediately charged and prosecuted for felony grand theft. But not one second before.
The Democrats want to argue that this is about compassion? Fine -- see above. Put a stop the magnet games and handouts and I'm ok with it.
In the early 1900s when millions of people came through Ellis Island there was no welfare system. You either worked hard and earned a living, assimilating into our culture, learning English and strove to become educated or you starved. Yes, there were groups that provided help but it was voluntary; Churches and other groups, most faith-based, did indeed provide help to those who couldn't help themselves and that's fine. But there was no Section 8 housing, no WIC, no Food Stamps and no free medical care.
You worked or you starved.
Now there is such a system and it is not only abused it is why these people come in the first place. Jose the roofer shoots a nail through his foot and you get the bill for that accident because Jose has no medical insurance or money and his "employer" isn't paying workman's comp insurance either because he's working illegally. Then Jose goes home and screws his wife or girlfriend, she gets pregnant and you get the bill for the prenatal care and birth because he has no money and neither does she, and they both access that care under EMTALA when things get ugly.
Try that crap as a US Citizen in Mexico. Go there on "vacation" and try to work. Forget it -- you'll go to jail. Get hurt and want the Mexican hospitals to treat you for free. Forget it -- you'll die. Think I'm kidding? I'm not -- I'm a diver and there are myriad warnings about exactly that risk if I choose not to carry dive insurance for recompression treatment. If I get bent in Cozumel I better either have a policy that will cover it outside the United States that the recompression chamber will accept or the ability to pay in cash before I get treated or I will be left crippled or even be allowed to die in agony -- literally.
This crap must stop and no bill that fails to put a 100% hard stop to it can be supported. What we have now is theft and fraud against the American people and ratifying that will simply bring more theft and fraud. We proved this the last time around when the promise was made to secure the border and stop the infiltration of people coming here for the benefits rather than to provide labor and advance our economy. We were told the flood of illegals would cease; it instead accelerated.
I want a strong, vibrant economy that is open to all who wish to come here and contribute on the same terms as Americans. That means assimilating into America -- becoming Americans. It means an end to groups like "La Raza." If you wish to be an American there is no hyphenation in your identity and there is no subgroup to which you belong -- you choose to speak English because that is the language of the nation, you choose to live under the political and legal system of our country, you integrate into our society and you cut the crap about being "special", "different" or having a right to get a pass on the laws and customs that the rest of us all live under and with. Period.
If your first act was to break the law by setting foot on our soil in an act of furtive evasion of said law and you then accessed our vast resources under the table you must (1) admit your sin and theft of that which did not belong to you, (2) make full penance for every dime of cost you imposed on us at a penalty rate in recognition and admission that what you did was wrong and (3) go stand at the back of the line behind all those who did neither of those things.
Marco Rubio refuses to face this because he's "afraid" of Hispanic reaction, as are others. But he's pandering to the wrong constituency. The people he's pandering to and afraid of are not citizens and cannot vote -- at least not without committing even more felonies. Hispanic people who are here legally and are citizens are broadly (and rightly!)*****ed off that there are millions of others who look like them that (1) damage their relationship with the rest of America by association and (2) are cutting in front of the line of their friends and family members who wish to come to America legally, willfully bearing the costs of citizenship to obtain the benefits.
The Democrats simply want to pander for votes and think they can turn the 20+ million illegals here into a new voting block by finding ways to give those who came here unlawfully the franchise.
That sort of thinking is exactly identical to giving bank robbers a controlling vote on whether bank robbery ought to be illegal.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would discern that such a vote would destroy banking overnight.
The Democrats lack that common sense.
Does anyone on the other side of the aisle possess it?
Karl Denninger writes at Market Ticker.
Monday, June 17, 2013
YO, KARL ROVE: The 1986 Amnesty Bill Turned California Into the Closest Thing America Has to a Third World Country
"What pragmatic assessment leads to thinking that the Simpson-Mazzoli 1986 amnesty program did anything bad? Anything at all?"
Let's see how many bad things came from that 1986 Amnesty. California is America's number one immigration state and the state most impacted by the IRCA (the 1986 Reagan Amnesty).
1. California once had the best public schools in America. Now they compete with Mississippi for the bottom. Sometimes they "win".
2. California once had the most affordable and best middle-class housing in America. Now it ranks at the bottom.
3. California once paid the highest real wages to workers of any state in the union. Now wages (adjusted for the local cost of living) are rock bottom.
4. California once had income inequality somewhat below the national average. Now it's far above the national average.
5. California once offered mobility to its people. Gridlock is now the norm.
6. California was once a place where Americans from every state could go looking for a better life. Now its a chamber of horrors that even illegal aliens flee.
The Los Angeles Times published a great story about how Amnesty and mass immigration wrecked the once great state of California.
U.S. immigrants' stories often are about reinvention and newfound prosperity, about leaving behind poverty and limitations... But that is not Magdaleno's story.
Both Magdaleno and Anzaldo are illegal immigrants, settled for years in an immigrant enclave. Magdaleno has the same number of children as her parents, who were peasant farmers in Mexico. Like her parents, she is living in poverty and struggling to provide for her family.
"It's not sweet," said her 36-year-old sister, Alejandra. "It's very sad. The life for girls back there in Mexico is the same as the one Angela has now. They marry and have children, and that's their lives."
Neither Magdaleno nor her husband speaks English, though she has been in the United States 22 years and he 28. Even her teenage daughters speak mostly Spanish; their English vocabulary is limited."
"As Angela was having children, her siblings were undergoing a transformation of a different kind. They were slowly leaving Los Angeles.
Her sister Alejandra was the first to leave. In Los Angeles, she and her husband were barely able to make ends meet. As in Mexico, "there was little work and it's poorly paid," she said.
Eight years ago, she and her family moved to Kentucky, where a friend said there was more work and were fewer Mexican immigrants bidding down the wages for unskilled jobs.
In Kentucky, Alejandra picked tobacco. The work was hard and she didn't know the language. But soon, life improved. Over the years, she invited her siblings to join her. One sister married a man who managed a Golden Corral, a chain of all-you-can-eat buffets. Soon several Magdaleno siblings were working in Golden Corrals. Their husbands found work installing windows and as farm-labor contractors. They went to night school to learn English because few people in Lexington speak Spanish.
Today, the Magdalenos in Lexington earn more than they did in Los Angeles, in a city where the cost of living is lower. Kentucky is now their promised land, and they talk about California the way they used to talk about Mexico.
"What we weren't able to do in many years in California," Alejandra said, "we've done quickly here.
"We're in a state where there's nothing but Americans. The police control the streets. It's clean, no gangs. California now resembles Mexico -- everyone thinks like in Mexico. California's broken."
If illegal aliens can recognize that mass immigration has "broken" California, it should be possible for you to make the same intellectual leap.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Friday, June 14, 2013
GEE, MARCO: What's in this Amnesty Bill for Us, the American People?
Can John Boehner step away from his bottle of Maker's Mark to tell us? Can John McCain peel himself away from the front of a camera to let us know? Can Karl Rove put the white board down, stop checking his E*Trade account for seven minutes, and explain? Can Paul Ryan take a break from PX-9 for a day and write a white paper explaining how this 1000-page monstrosity -- that, just like Obamacare, not a single person has read -- will benefit we, the people?
• It's not to drive down unemployment, because legalizing millions of mostly low-skilled workers will drive wages down, starting with the lowest wage-earners and rippling upward.
• It's not to improve border security, because they've already informed us they won't enforce the border as a pre-condition to passing the bill -- and they certainly don't enforce border security today.
• It's not to begin addressing the deficit, because illegal aliens are net "takers", on average receiving thousands of dollars more government benefits than they pay into the system.• It's not to reinforce American traditions and values, because there are no enforceable language and education requirements in the bill that prevent the Balkanization of our society.
• It's not to enforce the rule of law or drive down crime, because illegals today can commit multiple misdemeanors and even felonies without fear of deportation or imprisonment.
• It's not to drive down dependency on government, because most illegals in the country today utilize food stamps, free health care, and other benefits subsidized by you and I.
Here's the straight truth: You and I, my friends, are second-class citizens. We pay for this government. We pay for this federal leviathan. We put our blood, sweat and tears into taking care of ourselves, our families, our churches, our charities, and our friends, sending 30, 40, 50, 60 cents of every dollar to the government for the privilege.
Some of us work two, three and even four jobs to send our kids to college. Some of us work 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week to make a better life for ourselves. Some of us risk everything -- everything we possess -- to start a business.
But it is the illegal alien who is noble and virtuous. Not us. The illegal alien.
And Washington doesn't care. There's not a single redeeming aspect of this bill for us. Not one. It won't create jobs, it will destroy jobs. It won't help address the deficit, it will explode the deficit. It won't help national security, it will erode our security. It won't reinforce the use of the English language and teach our history, tradition and values, it will instead encourage multiculturalism and Balkanization. It won't drive down crime, it will encourage lawbreaking. It won't reduce government dependency, it will accelerate that addiction.
What's in this bill for us? Not a thing. This bill is for the ruling class, the Beltway elite, and it is designed to accelerate the fundamental transformation of America into something more malevolent, corrupt and tyrannical. For that is the way of the Statists who today treat us as subjects and not free men and women. These non-representatives do not have our best interests in mind and they are no longer operating with the consent of the governed.
Hat tips: BadBlue News Service and Mark Levin.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
NOT-SO-GREAT SOCIETY: Fatherlessness in America
Sixty percent of kids in Richmond, Virginia, are without a dad in the home, reports First Things First of Greater Richmond... First Things First works to help men become actively involved in their children’s lives in Richmond, Virginia, because, as the group explains, often “it’s the fathers that leave the family.… [W]e have a major father absenteeism issue in Richmond.”
Across the nation, over one-quarter of all children live in single-parent households. Most of these children live with their mothers.
...When children do not have stable relationships with their dads, marked by frequent involvement, they are more susceptible to depression and are more likely to abuse drugs, or demonstrate delinquent behavior.
Children who live in single-parent households are also 82 percent more likely to experience child poverty.
With the unmarried birth rate high among young women with the lowest levels of education, single-mother households now comprise more than half of all families living in poverty. Without the relative financial stability marriage can provide, single parents and their children are at greater risk of government dependence. Of the roughly $1 trillion spent on welfare funding to low-income families with children, almost three-quarters went to single-parent—and often fatherless—households.
When fathers play an active role in the lives of their children, they make a tangible difference. Children whose fathers spent time with them doing day-to-day activities such as homework, eating dinner, or playing sports earned better grades on average than peers who had less access to their fathers.
If you want the true, shocking story behind the Democrats' "War on Poverty" then click here, but make sure you're sitting down first.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
The Merry Band of Chuck Schumer Republicans Keep Pushing the Amnesty Train Down the Tracks
Daniel Horowitz at RedState briefs us on the latest Amnesty news from Capitol Hill:
The Senate just voted 82-15 to proceed with debate on the amnesty/immigration deform bill. Every Democrat voted yes, laying waste to the notion that there are still moderate red state Democrats. 15 Republicans voted to stand with We the People against the La Raza foreign lobby/K Street juke box:
Barrasso, Boozman, Crapo, Cruz, Enzi, Grassley, Inhofe, Kirk, Lee, Risch, Roberts, Scott, Sessions, Shelby, Vitter
McCain, Murkowski, and Coburn were not present for the vote. The former two would have voted for it anyway. [Update: Coburn voted yes on the second procedural motion to proceed.]
The rest of the Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, all voted to proceed with debate, thereby sealing the fate of the bill and ensuring that a phony cosmetic compromise is hatched to pass the bill and pressure the House.
We will hear a lot of statements about the need to proceed with debate in order to “strengthen” the bill. It’s akin to advocating for debate on Obamacare so we can fix the beast. This bill is beyond fixing, and even if there was a way to fix it, Democrats along with McConnell and Cornyn have made it clear that their idea of tweaking the bill is strengthening the enforcement after legalization. Rubio actually plans to offer amendments to place provisions in the bill that he originally claimed were a part of the legislation to begin with (the Zuckerberg ads still tout that original speech).
We will hear the establishment say that the status quo is unacceptable. Yes, the status quo of constant amnesty before enforcement is unacceptable. But just because the status quo is bad doesn’t mean we should make it worse just for the purpose of passing “something.” By that same logic, we should have passed Obamacare because there were problems with our current healthcare system. The status quo of Obama promulgating cap and trade regulations by executive fiat is unacceptable, so we need to pass a compromise cap and trade bill to fix the problem.
Now that we have brought the amnesty-first supporters out of the shadows, we need to call the following members and ask them what part of enforcement first don’t they understand:
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Blunt (R-MO)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Chiesa (R-NJ)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)Coburn (R-OK)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Fischer (R-NE)Flake (R-AZ)
Graham (R-SC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
McConnell (R-KY)Moran (R-KS) Murkowski (R-AK)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Rubio (R-FL)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA))
Wicker (R-MS)Remember, Alexander, McConnell, Cochran, Graham, and Cornyn are up for reelection.
As we noted yesterday, it is quite evident that Democrats have 60 votes to pass any amnesty bill. They are aiming to work with McConnell and Cornyn to insert one or two shiny objects into the bill, so they can bring along another 15-20 Republicans into the fold. This way they will have the GOP share in the blame of another failed amnesty, and place enormous pressure on the House to jump off the cliff instead of following the prudent enforcement-first approach of the House Judiciary Committee - a position supported by the vast majority of the country.
To add insult to injury, we discovered today -- thanks to Judicial Watch -- that the Department of Homeland Security isn't even performing rudimentary background checks on those illegals impacted by the Obama "DREAM Act". You may remember the Obama "DREAM Act"; it was the Executive Action the president engaged in extra-constitutionally because a Democrat Congress wouldn't pass the real DREAM Act. Remember "If Congress doesn't act, I will"?
So instead of sane policies like securing the border, our ruling elites -- with but a few exceptions -- simply pass more laws and regulations that are certain to be ignored by the Executive Branch. Millions of more poverty-stricken, poorly educated, undocumented Democrats will come "out of the shadows" and jump to the front of the line behind the legal immigrants who are trying to follow the process.
I say no more. Nothing passes. Nothing. Not until we have border security. Call and write your nearest Senators using the list above.
Tell them in no uncertain terms: don't pass any Amnesty laws when our current immigration laws are being ignored by a lawless administration.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
21 Mind-Blowing Facts: Rising Government Dependence in America
Government dependence in the United States has reached a level never seen before. 50 years ago, the federal government handed out about 10 cents for every dollar that American workers earned. Now, the federal government hands out about 35 cents for every dollar that American workers earn. Yes, there are always poor people that cannot take care of themselves. We never want to see a single American going hungry or sleeping in the streets. But we are rapidly approaching the point where so many people are jumping on to the “safety net” that it is going to break. If you can believe it, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program, and more than 70 percent of all spending by the federal government goes to “dependence-creating programs”. If we really are “the greatest economy on earth”, then why is the number of people dependent on the government absolutely exploding? Of course the truth is that all of this just shows that we are in the midst of a long-term economic decline that is rapidly accelerating. Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs anymore, and there are a whole lot of people out there that are really suffering.
It is good to want to help all of the people that are hurting, but the reality is that we are spending far more money than we can afford to. We have been borrowing (stealing) more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day to pay for all of this. Our national debt is rapidly approaching 17 trillion dollars, and if future generations get the chance, they will look back and curse us for handing such a mountain of debt down to them.
It is absolutely criminal what we are doing to future generations. But we cannot help ourselves. We are like the 400 pound union executive in New York that takes long naps at his desk every afternoon. We know that what we are doing is not right, but we cannot help ourselves. For much more on the horror of our national debt, please see my previous article entitled “55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know“.
So what should we do? We certainly don’t want millions of Americans to go without food or a place to sleep, and yet the number of Americans that need government assistance just continues to grow. Of course the ultimate solution would be to provide a job for all of those people, but our economy is falling apart. Unless a miracle happens, the U.S. economy will never produce enough jobs ever again. As our economy continues to crumble, dependence on the government is likely going to continue to rise.
The following are 21 facts about rising government dependence in America that will blow your mind…





















