Sunday, September 29, 2013
HELPFUL FLOWCHART: How do I get health care under Obamacare's individual mandate fee tax penalty program?
Crystal clear.
So crystal clear, in fact, that Congress exempted itself from its own draconian, disastrous law.
Media doing yeoman's work for Democrats; issuing shrill cries to try and blame #ObamaReidShutdown on GOP
• The Washington Bezos-Post: "House pushes U.S. to the edge of a shutdown"
• CBS News-Rather: "Risking government shutdown, House GOP seeks Obamacare delay"
• NBC-Sharpton News: "Shutdown nears as House passes funding bill that delays Obamacare"
• MSNBC-Madcow News: "House Republicans embrace government-shutdown plan"
• Al Reuters: "U.S. Republicans reject Senate bid to avoid government shutdown"
• The New York Daily Bloomberg: "House Republicans Increase Likelihood of Government Shutdown"
The House holds the power of the purse. It is their Constitutional duty to pass responsible spending bills.
It is Obama and the Democrats who ignore all Constitutional checks and balances.
They will not negotiate with the House. They won't discuss even a single penny.
What does it say about a president who states quite explicitly that he will negotiate with terrorists, mass-murders and despots -- but not Republicans?
The radical extremists leading the Democrat Party -- men and women who refuse to negotiate -- are responsible for any shutdown that occurs.
Hat tip: The Minority Report.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
30 OR UNDER? Prepare for Epic Price Increases on Health Insurance (In the Unlikely Event You're Employed Full-Time)
Thanks to @DBongino (Dan Bongino) for the image.
Mark Levin responds to Charles Krauthammer: How is it that he missed three separate Reagan Revolutions?
MARK LEVIN: Part of what I was responding to was Tucker Carlson and Charles Krauthammer, you know, having giggles over Cruz being Canadian. Which is what the liberals bring up. Oh, the Canadian Ted Cruz. So, I thought that was pretty low.
KRAUTHAMMER: I stand exposed as the longest mole of liberals and Democrats in the conservative movement in the history of the republic. Alger Hiss is a piker beside me.
LEVIN: That’s all very funny, but my point is this -- Ronald Reagan ran for president of the United States three times and Krauthammer didn’t support him once. Excuse me, ran for president twice, but ran in the Republican primary three times. Ran in the Republican primary three times. I guess technically the last time is four times, but competitively three times. He was elected twice. He was a great conservative, a statesman. And somehow, Krauthammer, who wasn’t a child, was writing speeches or something for Walter Mondale.
Again, I don't have a problem with the fact that people change. That isn't even my point, but to take a shot at Cruz because -- Oh, the Canadian Ted Cruz, as they were giggling the other day. And not only that, they're not the font of all wisdom about the conservative movement. They missed the most important aspect of the conservative movement in modern history -- it was right in front of them and they missed it, which is exactly why they are missing Ted Cruz. They miss it.
Nothing personal, although they made it personal with Cruz. It's nothing personal with me. I'm not attacking them; I'm not attacking him.
I like Charles Krauthammer. I respect Charles Krauthammer.
The problem, however, is that he and so many like him -- George Will, for instance -- live inside a cloistered Beltway cocoon where it would seem they can no longer distinguish right from wrong nor politics from principle.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
MUST-READ NEIL CAVUTO: The President's Fascistic Assault on Fox News for Reporting the Truth Must Stop
This just in. This has just got to stop.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you've talked to someone who said, I don't know, I was watching Fox News and they said it was horrible.
Mr. President, Fox News isn't what's making Americans sick about your healthcare law.
Your healthcare law is.
Welcome, everybody, I'm Neil Cavuto.
And excuse this departure from form. But I think this is just poor form.
So, it's time we set some things straight. Mr. President, we at Fox News are not the problem.
I hate to break it to you, sir. You are. Your words are. Your promises are.
We didn't sell this healthcare law.
Sir, you did. Remember this?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.
Mr. President, tell that to tens of thousands of retirees at IBM and Time Warner and dozens of others, who've been dumped from their coverage and told to find their own coverage.
Fox News didn't break that news to them, Mr. President.
Their companies did.
Fox News didn't push more of those firms to hire part-time workers.
Your healthcare law did.
Fox News didn't incentivize fast food restaurants to scale back their benefits.
Your healthcare law did.
Fox News didn't make doctors want to opt out.
Your healthcare law did.
Fox News didn't make insurance premiums sky rocket.
Your healthcare law did.
Just like Fox News didn't grant hundreds of exemptions to companies that needed them.
You did.
And Fox News didn't delay one key provision after another, including online enrollment for those small business exchanges.
You did.
Just like it wasn't Fox News that said we had to pass this to see what was in this.
You did.
Or was that Nancy Pelosi? Sometimes I'm confused.
But of this I am not.
Fox News didn't re-do basic math.
Sir, you did.
Fox News didn't say you can cover 30 million more Americans and not see a hit in premiums.
You did.
Fox News didn't say you could throw in those with pre-existing conditions and not have to pay for it.
You did.
Fox News didn't all but say you could get something for nothing.
You did.
Fox News didn't come back years later and say, oh yea, we did raise some taxes.
You did.
Here's where you are right about Fox News, however, Mr. President.
We can do math. And did.
You cannot. And did not.
We said it, and proved it.
You didn't. And we're all suffering for it.
Take it from the numbers guy at Fox.
Numbers don't lie.
The number of Americans working part-time and nervous.
The number of retirees days away from being dumped on exchanges and anxious.
The number of company bosses with any news to pass along on those exchanges, but still clueless.
The number of doctors who want out.
The number of congressmen now opting out.
No, Mr. President, none of those numbers lie.
But with all due respect sir, I can only conclude you do know; I know, I know you hate us at Fox.
But please take a look in a mirror, and fast.
You think we're the skunk at your picnic.
But that doesn't mean we're the ones that stink.
Because that smell isn't coming from the folks reporting on your law.
Mr. President, that smell is your law.
Hat tip: TPNN.
Obama Labor Department Refutes Jay Carney: Average Entry-Level Work Week Hits All-Time Low
On the other hand, the Obama administration's own Labor Department has released statistics that illustrate the unfolding economic catastrophe. Jed Graham explains:
Workers in low-wage industries clocked the shortest average workweek on record in July, new Labor Department data show.
The 29 million non-managerial workers in private-sector industries which pay up to about $14.50 per hour, on average, put in a 27.4-hour week, a level previously matched only at the depths of the recession in 2009.
As the recovery began that summer, average weekly hours staged a recovery that erased most of the recession's decline. But the workweek recovery began to reverse in early 2012, and the drop-off has accelerated in 2013 — just as the onset of ObamaCare's employer mandate created new incentives for employers to restrict workers to fewer than 30 hours per week.
...in industries for which ObamaCare's coverage mandates could mean substantial new costs — those in which wages are low and the ranks of the uninsured tend to be high - something is seriously depressing the workweek.
...the average workweek for such firms has fallen to a record low of 27.3 hours from 28.6 hours in March 2010, when ObamaCare became law.
But according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, all of these statistics are just "anecdotes".
Gee, I wonder why the big three networks haven't picked up on this major human interest story? The poorest, most put-upon workers in America are being crushed by Obamacare. Not. News. Repeat: Not. News.
Hat tip: College Fix.
JUST "ANECDOTES": As thousands of firms slash workers and hours, White House continues lying to American people
“The aggregate truth … does not bear out claims that the Affordable Care Act is causing employers to drop employees from insurance,” he told skeptical reporters at the daily White House briefing Thursday.
When one reporter asked him to comment on the news that the Securitas security firm has told 55,000 of its employees to find their own insurance on the taxpayer-subsidized markets, Carney replied, “That’s an anecdote.”
...Throughout the briefing, he fended off questions about the economic impact of Obama’s primary legislative accomplishment.
He dismissed a stream of bad-news announcements as unrepresentative of reality.
“You have anecdotes. … There is no systematic evidence. … That has not been happening across the country in any systematic way,” he insisted.
Carney is a bald-faced liar. Survey after survey after survey by human resources consulting firms prove -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that Obamacare is crushing employment.
According to an April survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 41% of 603 small business owners said they have delayed hiring because of the federal healthcare law. One in five already cut hours, while 20% have reduced payroll.
Mercer, a human resources consulting company, said its own survey found that 12% of all U.S. employers reported plans to reduce workers' hours as a direct result of the Affordable Care Act. The impact was more pronounced in the retail and hospitality industries, with 20% of employers saying they will cut part-time hours.
Coming from the same administration that used the slogan "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" for a solid year, Jay Carney's lies are not unexpected. Though how such an egregious enemy of the American people can live with himself is a question for historians to contemplate.
These are people's lives that the master planners in Washington are playing with and ruining. They are playing dice with people's lives. And no matter how much damage they do, their ideology prevents them from ever admitting they're wrong.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
CNBC offers a reality check for drones, progressives and other miscreants: "prepare for a new American revolution"
...I believe that one of the most important reasons the Fed is determined to keep interest rates low is one that is rarely talked about, and which comprises a dark economic foreboding that should frighten us all.
Let me start with a question: How would you feel if you knew that almost all of the money you pay in personal income tax went to pay just one bill, the interest on the debt? Chances are, you and millions of Americans would find that completely unacceptable and indeed they should.
But that is where we may be heading.
Thanks to the Fed, the interest rate paid on our national debt is at an historic low of 2.4 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Given the U.S.'s huge accumulated deficit, this low interest rate is important to keep debt servicing costs down.
But isn't it fair to ask what the interest cost of our debt would be if interest rates returned to a more normal level? What's a normal level? How about the average interest rate the Treasury paid on U.S. debt over the last 20 years?
That rate is 5.7 percent, not extravagantly high at all by historic standards... [But if] we were to pay an average interest rate on our debt of 5.7 percent, rather than the 2.4 percent we pay today, in 2020 our debt service cost will be about $930 billion.
Now compare that to the amount the Internal Revenue Service collects from us in personal income taxes... In 2012, that amount was $1.1 trillion, meaning that if interest rates went back to a more normal level of, say, 5.7 percent, 85 percent of all personal income taxes collected would go to servicing the debt. No wonder the Fed is worried.
Some economists will also suggest that interest rates may go much higher than 5.7 percent largely as a result of the massive QE exercise of printing money at an unprecedented rate. We just don't know what the effect of all this will be but many economists warn that it can only result in inflation down the road.
As of today, interest rates are rising, and if this is a turning point, it is a major one... Rates in the U.S. peaked in 1980 (remember the 14 percent Treasury bonds?) so if we are at the point of reversing a 33-year downward trend, who wants to predict how this will affect the economy?
One thing is clear: Based on CBO projections, if interest rates just rise to their 20-year average, we will have an untenable, unacceptable interest rate bill whose beneficiaries are China, Japan, and others who own our bonds.
And if Americans find out that the lion's share of their income tax payments are going to service the debt, prepare for a new American revolution.
CNBC.
I'll be damned.
Hat tip: BadBlue Financial News.
SHOCK REPORT: Obamacare punishes both marriage and work with thousands of dollars in a year in penalties
...let’s start with the 60-year-old married couple with no children...
...If they have identical earnings totaling $65,000, which will usually net down to $50,000 or below after all income and payroll taxes, their Obamacare exchange Silver Plan premium next year with the same earnings will be $16,382, or about one-third of what used to be their take-home pay. (And they call it the “Affordable Care Act”?)
What can this couple do? Well, they could decide to earn a few thousand dollars less, which will negate the five-figure premium hit. Encouraging ordinarily willing workers to put in less effort isn’t good in any economy, but especially not this one. But if either spouse’s earnings are unpredictable or hard to precisely track, they could still “mess up” and get socked with a premium they can’t afford.
...Let’s look at the situation of a 40-year-old couple with two children. The spouses’ annual earnings are $70,000 and $23,000, respectively:
The couple’s annual unsubsidized premium while married is $11,547 (OFA’s vaunted “tax credits” disappear at $92,401 for married couples with two children). But if they divorce and shack up while giving custody of both children to the lower-earning spouse, their combined annual premiums, at $4,317, will be over $7,200 lower. That’s over $600 a month. As was the case in the previous example, the savings from divorce will gradually increase every year. Parents will be torn between doing what Western civilization has considered morally right for millennia and their children’s financial well-being as never before.
There may be contrary examples, but in all of my research..., I was unable to find a single instance where staying married led to a lower net healthcare premium compared to divorcing and living together. Clearly, many couples who are considering marriage, especially after several years of seeing formerly married couples regress to cohabiting, will look at Obamacare’s “wedding tax” and say, “Never mind.” The effect on society will be incalculable, and certainly not for the good.
I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard approves.
I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard thinks central planners make better decisions than individuals working in their own self-interest.
I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard enjoys the pitiful cries of unions, insurers, hospitals, health systems, doctors, and small businesses who are shedding jobs, kicking people into part-time jobs, and dumping employees into ill-defined state exchanges.
I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard wants the IRS enforcing the 20,000 pages of law and regulation that make up Obamacare with thousands of new pages added each month.
I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard wants the federal government controlling a massive, super-secure database of every American's most confidential health data.
All of those assumptions must be true, because Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard is President Obama's Leni Riefenstahl.
And just what the hell is a Taegan?
The more we find out what is in this law (now that we passed it, Nancy), the more we can conclude that Obamacare is the work of the devil. It is antithetical not only to America's history and traditions, but also to Western civilization itself.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
SURPRISE! Another Obamacare "glitch" to leave "500,000 children without coverage... cost[ing] some families thousands of dollars"
A "family glitch" in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.
That's unless Congress fixes the problem, which seems unlikely given the House's latest move Friday to strip funding from the Affordable Care Act.
Congress defined "affordable" as 9.5% or less of an employee's household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the "error" was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn't provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.
That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all.
..."The family glitch is definitely a drafting error that Congress made that needs to be fixed," said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. "But that seems unlikely."
Gee, I wonder how Roll Call's Taegan Goddard is going to cover this latest disaster?
Monday, September 23, 2013
I've got a pretty good idea which Republican Senate Progressives are undermining Ted Cruz and Mike Lee
“This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had in Washington,” Wallace said. “As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our guest this week, I got unsolicited research and questions, not from Democrats, but from top Republicans to hammer Cruz. Why are Republicans so angry at Ted Cruz?”
Rove insisted it was because Cruz and fellow Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee decided to devise a strategy to defund Obamacare without consulting Republican leadership.
Rove, as usual, is full of it.
He and the rest of the old bulls don't like anyone else in the spotlight, especially those with whom they disagree.
After the Tea Party and Constitutional conservatives swept the Republicans into power in 2010, what did the House leadership do, Karl? Did they embrace the huge crop of new freshmen, incorporate their concerns into their agenda, and install the best of them into key committee slots?
No. No. And no. John Boehner in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate did everything in their power to intimidate conservatives and put them on a leash. They ignored their concerns and avoided every real fight over spending and the debt ceiling. Even worse, they made sure that not a single conservative was given a key position, in spite of their popularity.
In fact, Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have done everything in their power to disenfranchise conservatives; their mouthpieces including Rove and the RNC suppressed turnout by attacking primary winners like Sharron Angle, Richard Mourdock, and Christine O'Donnell.
What kind of "leadership" attacks members of their own party?
Not only has Rove been a loser since 2006, but he also despises not calling the shots for the GOP. Now, Karl: with your horrific track record, why would anyone with an IQ above that of an amoeba consult you?For two years, you, Boehner and McConnell did nothing -- nothing -- to fight Barack Obama's agenda.
House leadership has done nothing serious to investigate the outrageous scandals plaguing this administration. They refuse to name a Select Investigative Committee on Benghazi; they refuse to demand a Special Prosecutor for IRS-Gate; and heaven knows what they're doing about the illegal wiretaps of reporters or the illicit activities of the NSA.
In 2012, with Rove spending more time and energy attacking conservatives than a horrific Democrat candidate in Barack Obama, he managed to turn off millions of conservatives.
Let me say this in terms even he can understand: Karl Rove lost the election for Mitt Romney.
Rove and other "architects" disenfranchised and demoralized the conservative base.
Karl Rove blew $400 million on losing candidates in 2012, according to Donald Trump. He ignored digital outreach. He ignored and/or pissed off the grassroots. And he's the same man who gave us Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2006 and Barack Obama in 2008, for heaven's sake!
Giving money to Rove is like investing with Bernie Madoff.
And which Republicans are secretly attacking Ted Cruz?
So which Republicans have been feeding Chris Wallace opposition research on Ted Cruz?Conservative stalwarts Mark Levin and Sarah Palin have both called on Chris Wallace to disclose the source of these outrageous attacks.
Gee, it's so hard to figure out:
• McCain Aide: McCain “F–king Hates Cruz”
• Lindsey Graham Knocks Ted Cruz Strategy For Defunding
Not only are the same-sex Senators McCain and Graham big-government neo-Statists, they hate sharing the media spotlight with others.
You guys know "the Oklahoma Drill" in football? That's where a defender has to fight off a blocker and try and stop a rusher in a very contained space, all by himself.
I'd love to see the same drill with McCain and Chuck Schumer on opposite sides fighting one-on-one to get the attention of a cameraman. These lifetime politicians are absolutely useless. If they had to get a job in the private sector, my guess is their highest level of achievement would revolve around the phrase: "Can I super-size that for you, ma'am?"
Karl Rove needs to stop losing elections for Republicans. John Boehner needs to follow Ted Cruz's lead.
We've had enough of these losers. It's time to win, fellas, so get the hell out of the way and let the adults call the shots. Your time is over.
Hat tips: BadBlue News and Mark Levin
Sunday, September 22, 2013
EPA's New Restrictions on Coal Plants to Kill Nearly a Million Jobs
Leave it to the Environmental Protection Agency to come up with regulatory standards so restrictive that the technology to meet them has yet to be commercially tested.
As expected, the EPA on Friday unveiled its revised proposal to cap greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. And as expected, coal-fired power plants will fail to meet the limits without some very expensive technology to capture and store carbon emissions.
“There’s the rub. No commercial, coal-fired plant worldwide has yet to use this technology,” notes a story in USA Today.As the piece points out, there are least two such carbon storage power plants under construction — one in Canada’s Saskatchewan Province, and the other in Mississippi’s Kemper County, scheduled to open in May.
But the coal-fired power industry need only look to Mississippi for a cautionary tale. The $4.7-billion project has been saddled with at least $1 billion in cost overruns, “a stew of legal battles, a revolt by ratepayers and a credit downgrade for the local utility,” according to Bloomberg News story published Thursday.
And, as the story points out, consumers ultimately will foot the bill for the expensive technology in the 582-megawatt plant, the first of its kind to be built on a commercial scale.
“By some measures, it may be one of the most expensive power plants ever built for the watts of energy it will generate,” Bloomberg notes. “The utility got approval to recoup $2.88 billion in costs from ratepayers. In addition, the Department of Energy pledged $270 million, and the company qualified for a federal tax credit of $133 million. The costs of the new lignite mine and carbon dioxide pipelines are additional.”
Coal industry officials earlier this week told Watchdog.org the restrictive limits on CO2 could kill coal, and with it, many of the 800,000 good-paying jobs it supports.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
PROPAGANDA: Obamacare did not repeal the First Amendment
Perhaps the most odious application of Obamacare is one that’s gotten very little attention—until now. It’s the requirement that says all businesses are to notify their employees by Oct. 1 of the existence of Obamacare insurance exchanges.
Moreover, the Obama administration is now using this less-discussed but critical employer mandate to compel business owners to extol the virtues of socialized medicine and wealth redistribution. The word “notify” has been rewritten to mean “promote.” Even employers opposed to Obamacare are being told to peddle the new entitlements they find detestable.
I’ve previously complained that the Hawley Troxell law firm in Boise, which represents Idaho’s Obamacare insurance exchange, wrote this summer that “employers are prohibited from pressuring employees to not seek coverage through an exchange.” Well, employers aren’t prohibited, the law firm later acknowledged; they’re just encouraged not to.
The federal Department of Labor has created its own “model” forms intended to help employers with the mandated notification.
The federal government’s doe-eyed forms say that the exchange — henceforth referred to as a “marketplace” — “is designed to help you find insurance that meets your needs and fits your budget. The Marketplace offers ‘one-stop shopping’ to find and compare private health insurance options.”
This is government-sanctioned propaganda, on a scale that might impress Joseph Goebbels.
The forms also encourage Americans to sign up so they can see if they’re eligible for “a new kind of tax credit that lowers your monthly premium right away.”
Friday, September 20, 2013
GENIUS: Obama FTC Suing Hospitals for Trying to Adhere to Obama HHS Guidelines
I read your blog post about the Sacramento Bee's pro-Obamacare editorial. I don't know if you've seen this, but there's a hospital in Idaho that's trying to merge with other healthcare systems in order to consolidate its care so it could adhere to the cost-saving regulations in Obamacare. But this hospital is now being sued by the FTC, which is arguing that its attempt to merge with these other systems violates anti-trust rules. So you have an Obama agency suing a hospital for merely trying to adhere to an Obama law.
While the nation uneasily prepares for the October 1 deadline for implementation of Obamacare, a potentially fatal rift has materialized in the most unlikely place – inside the Obama Administration itself, demonstrating once again how unready the country is for this law.
...For example, the administration’s Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department are suing to block mergers among many of the nation’s hospitals-- hospitals that are only trying to accommodate the changes the law promises to bring. In short they just want to stay in business under the changed environment of Obamacare... Yet, the Obama FTC is jamming on the brakes to prevent the industry from achieving this critical mass required for hospitals to run efficiently under Obamacare.
Ironically, the FTC is talking about making sure we have enough hospitals to maintain competitiveness, even as the Obamacare design is inevitably leading to fewer hospitals, doctors, pharmacies and labs.
...St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho presents perhaps the best case in point... [W]hen a physicians group in nearby Nampa sought to consolidate with St. Luke’s to afford better care and service to its patients, a nearby hospital sued, claiming that St. Luke’s was “buying up” physician practices in order to hold more patients “captive” to its system.
The Federal Trade Commission was quick to join the lawsuit, buying into the premise that if hospitals and physicians groups were consolidating, they must be colluding to squeeze out the competition, ignoring completely for the moment that Obamacare defines “the market” not the competition.
...It is not just St. Lukes, either. Phoebe Putney Health System in Georgia, ProMedica health system in Ohio, Reading Health System in Pennsylvania, Renown Health in Nevada, are also victims of the FTC - punishing those who are trying to get in front of the situation.
Hospitals and doctors groups that want to survive under the changed conditions of Obamacare must consolidate to keep those costs down. Keeping cost down is, after all, the basic premise that Obama sold the country on when the healthcare pact was passed.
...The alternative is government run hospitals…only.
And that’ll be really competitive, right?
Thought you and your readers would find this interesting. The FTC trial against the hospital starts on Monday.
Karl Rove, the Bernie Madoff of the Republican Establishment, Gets Pimp-Slapped by Tom Delay on Defunding Fight
Look at it only in terms of dollars wasted during a single election cycle. In 2012 alone, Rove torched $400 million on losing candidates, if Donald Trump's estimate is accurate.As if that record wasn't enough, Rove's bizarre attacks on conservative candidates helped suppress the vote. Millions of members of the conservative base, discouraged by a squishy moderate presidential candidate and lack of a coherent attack on a failed president, boycotted the 2012 election.
Now Rove is attacking principled conservatives like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee; these are men who have actually taken a stand to stop the disastrous onset of Obamacare. As October 1st nears, hospitals are shedding jobs, full-time workers are being transitioned to part-time, and those with coverage are losing their coverage. State exchanges aren't ready for prime time, and the entire system is headed for a very ugly collapse.
This isn't a game! This is about right and wrong! This is about preserving the American Republic!
And Rove attacks those who are standing with the American people, claiming the threat of a government shutdown over defunding Obamacare is a losing proposition.
As usual Rove is dead wrong. During the last government shutdown, when a conservative House smacked Bill Clinton around and forced him to balance the budget, Delay was the House Majority Whip. He was there. Rove was not. He knows what transpired. Rove does not.
Interviewed on yesterday's Mark Levin show, Delay patiently explained to listeners -- using small words for Rove and his apparatchik Dana Perino -- the awesome benefits the Republicans accrued by standing up to Bill Clinton.
Levin: Now we're fighting over principle in the House [regarding defunding Obamacare] and your Senator is really one of the bright spots. He's one of the leaders of the Constitutional conservatives and he's under assault and not just by the Left, Tom Delay, not just by the Democrats, but by Republicans! What do you say about that?
Delay: I'm saddened by the Republicans attacking him, he's doing what he thinks is right, frankly, he's doing the right thing. I expect it from the Democrats, I mean the House changed their position, so he's having an impact.
Levin: And you can't win all these fights, can you?
Delay: No, you can't win them all, but you pick the ones you can win. In fact, you gotta fight! You gotta fight!
...Not only is Obamacare worth fighting over, it is a perfect political situation! It's great politics! Americans want Obamacare out of there. And when you can set up a situation where the Continuing Resolution, that funds the federal government, but doesn't fund Obamacare... then the whole issue is on Obamacare, where it needs to be!
Levin: Well, I'm troubled by so-called conservative media, too... it's like they're waging war against the conservatives... they're waging war against the base! That's kind of crazy, don't you think?
Delay: I have to tell you, I've been out there in the real world. And if the Republicans don't energize the base, they're going to have a hard time next year in the elections. Nothing energizes the base like a good fight -- and a good fight for the right reasons.
I've got to tell you, I was with a bunch of people that aren't connected to [DC] when it was reported that the House was moving in a different direction [to defund Obamacare in the Continuing Resolution]... and I've never seen such energy in these people...
Levin: What happened when the federal government shut down in 1995? Who won that?
Delay: It was the most important thing we ever did. I was there, I was the Majority Whip. We had sent the president [Clinton] a Continuing Resolution; we had cut 100 agencies, offices and programs under the Contract With America. And, of course, he didn't like that.
He vetoes the bill and shuts down the government. It was the best thing we ever did.
And we were 21 days fighting, which gave us the opportunity to explain to the American people, to tell our story, and the most important part was we took on the president.
And we used the leverage of the Constitutional power of the purse. And, unfortunately, Bob Dole went down on a Sunday afternoon and opened up the government, but even Clinton admitted that if we'd lasted one more day, he would have caved.
But the point is: we sent a signal to the President. This new majority will take you over the cliff. We're crazy. And the result of that was: for six years, Bill Clinton did not get to sign one major bill he initiated. Everything he signed -- he vetoed welfare reform twice and the balanced budget twice -- but then he took credit for them, but everything he signed was generated by the power of the purse out of the House of Representatives.
And the politics was great! I don't know where they [Rove and company] get that we took it on the chin as Republicans because we stood up and fought. We gained two or three Senate seats in the next election and we only lost a few House seats [retaining a huge majority].
Levin: Yep, we have Republicans [like Rove] rewriting history and it's a stunning thing.
As for Ted Cruz, the distinguished Senator from Texas has offered to debate Rove on his tactics for defunding Obamacare. Suffice it to say that Cruz will hear only crickets because Rove is a complete failure.
Say, @KarlRove - next time you're on @FoxNews please show us on your whiteboard how the @GOP wins without the conservative base. Schmuck.
— Doug Ross (@directorblue) August 1, 2013
Rove is successful at fundraising, but his political track record is one only the '62 Mets could envy.
Rove is the Bernie Madoff of the Republican establishment. Anyone who sends him a single dollar might as well be lighting cigars with the money.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
ABC'S JON KARL: It's the White House that's threatening default, not House Republicans
ABC's Jon Karl: The president's position is: he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling --
Jay Carney: Correct.
ABC's Jon Karl: How is that tenable? The White House is willing to risk default?
Jay Carney: The White House is not -- here's the thing -- Jon --
ABC's Jon Karl: You're saying you won't even negotiate with Republicans on this issue! How is that tenable?
And this exchange simply reinforces the idiocy of the nincompoop class of political commentators: yes, I'm looking at you, David Brooks and you, Colin Powell.
Brooks, of course, is the faux conservative employed by the failing periodical known as the New York Times. Brooks makes a living slamming principled conservatives like Ted Cruz:
[Cruz is] a media-protest person. And a lot of the House Republicans are in the same mode. They’re not normal members of Congress. They’re not legislators. They want to stop things. And so they’re just being — they just want to obstruct.
They just want to obstruct?
Hey, schmuck: we have a president who refuses to negotiate any aspect of the federal budget, even as his own Government Accountability Office, Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Research Service, and the trustees of Medicare and Social Security all warn that the system is collapsing.
That the debts are unsustainable.
That we risk economic collapse.
This is his own government, yet he refuses to negotiate cutting a single penny from the massive waste and fraud in the federal government.
And you dare to attack Ted Cruz?
David Brooks, you're a freaking disgrace. Take a page from men like Jon Karl, who has demonstrated more intellectual honesty in a single sentence than you've shown us in decades.
You are truly a pathetic, disgusting little man.
Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
A single county in the U.S. spends more than $2 billion a year on benefits for illegal aliens
A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday.
Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children.
Approximately $54 million in welfare payments are issued each month, consisting of nearly $20 million in CalWORKs and $34 million in food stamp issuances, according to the data.
An estimated 100,000 children of 60,000 undocumented parents receive aid in Los Angeles County, according to Antonovich, who said this year’s projections — up about $1 million from the nearly $53 million in total benefits issued in July 2012 — underscore the economic impact of the nation’s immigration debate.
“When you add the $550 million for public safety and nearly $500 million for healthcare, the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers exceeds $1.6 billion dollars a year,” Antonovich said in a statement. “These costs do not even include the hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually for education.”
With education added in, it's safe to say that the county is spending upwards of $2 billion a year supporting illegal aliens.
So each taxpaying household in the county is spending $1,200 a year -- $100 each and every month -- supporting illegal aliens. But I'm sure there's nothing else they'd rather spend that money on.
Hat tip: Lee.
Monday, September 16, 2013
41 Percent of Small Businesses Have Frozen Hiring Thanks to Obamacare, Taegan Goddard Hardest Hit
The carnage from the worst legislation in modern history keeps piling up. The latest damage assessment comes from a Gallup poll that shows “Forty-one percent of small businesses surveyed have frozen hiring” because of ObamaCare, while an equally astonishing 19 percent have actually reduced the number of employees in their business specifically as a result of the President’s health care reform. 38 percent said they have pulled back on expansion plans...
...But wait, it gets worse: 24 percent of poll respondents are thinking about dropping insurance coverage for their employees (“If you like your health care plan, you will be able keep your heath care plan. Period. No matter what.” – Barack Obama, July 2009.) And 18 percent report transforming full-time jobs into part-time positions
Say, I've got an idea! Let's pass Amnesty and flood the non-existent job market with zillions of mostly low-skilled, illiterate workers who've never had background checks!
Roll Call's Taegan Goddard -- or "The modern-day Leni Reifenstahl of the Democrat Party", which is the descriptive phrase he prefers, I hear -- could not be reached for comment at press time.
Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
INFOGRAPHIC: As President Obama Presses for More Wealth Redistribution to Spur Non-Existent "Recovery"...
The president has powers to fight income inequality, President Obama argued in an interview broadcast Sunday, adding that Republicans in Congress have hobbled his efforts to do it... acknowledg[ing] that the wealthiest Americans have benefited disproportionately from the economic recovery of recent years. But he was quick to add that much of that trend is due to globalization, technology and, not least, the GOP’s opposition to his economic agenda – all factors he suggested are beyond his control.
Recovery? You mean this recovery (click to explodify):
These Democrats are economic illiterates. If they would simply get out of the way of the private sector, we'd see a real recovery of the sort that President Ronald Reagan touched off. He slashed taxes, cut regulatory requirements, and spurred innovation by unleashing the private sector. The differences between the Reagan recovery and the Obama malaise are stunning.
As for factors "beyond his control", such as a recalcitrant Congress?
President Reagan -- unlike Obama -- did it with an obstreperous, obstinate, free-spending Democrat Congress by appealing to the fundamentally good and hard-working nature of the American people. He went over the heads of Congress.
This is something Obama is unable to do; his legacy of fables, fabrications and fictions haunt him. Most Americans have simply tuned Obama out.
As we close out Obama's fourth annual "Recovery Summer" -- in which we saw virtually no recovery, rampant unemployment, record food-stamp use, record Social Security Disability fraud, record Medicare fraud, record Medicaid fraud -- I can only ask: aren't the American people getting sick of Obama's tiresome rhetoric? His endless clamoring to steal money from his enemies to give to his friends?
When will the American people have had enough of his failures?
Hat tip: BadBlue News
A Boston Cabbie's Rant
You see this? [Taps device on windshield]
This is a Fast-Pass. People can get one for free here, and they still don't. Instead they fumble with cash, tie up traffic.
You know even if I have a one-way fare, drop you off at the airport and come back empty, I still pay five backs. There's an airport fee, a tunnel fee, whatever.
It's like $8.50 if I have a fare. They always get you coming and going in this state.
You shoulda seen a few years ago, the scandal they uncovered with the toll collectors. A lot of the tolls were still paid in cash then.
So they arrested maybe 20 toll collectors. Check this out: they were pocketing hundreds of dollars every hour.
Do the math: everyone of 'em was pocketing hundreds of dollars an hour, $10 thousand or more a day, upwards of $300 thousand a month... $3 million a year. $3 million a year! Each one of 'em.
Guess what, the fix musta been in, 'cause they got charged with misdeameanors. They said, oh, he only stole $30 or 40 bucks. No one ever heard what happened to most of 'em. Probably retired now with a full pension.
Speaking of pensions: you should see what the state troopers are doing here. Let's say you're a state trooper, you pull down $88 grand a year. Your pension is based on your top three earning years, so they'll make sure to get plenty of overtime.
Cops got an easy way to make overtime here. We're the only state in the union that requires every road construction site, no matter how small, got a cop present. Now I see lotsa sites have two cops. Guess what, with two cops, union rules say you gotta have a "site manager", so there's three cops. All that for a piece of road that just got dug up last year and they dig it up again.
I see it over and over again in downtown Boston. They dig up a road, fix something, pave it all up nice and pretty... and six months later they got the same piece of road all dug up again. They say something else broke or they forgot something. Guaranteed there's some kinda scam going on with these guys, there always is here.
Anyhow, back to the state trooper pensions. These guys cram as much OT as they can in before they retire. And they can retire at 52 years old! 52! Can you believe it?
So we have state troopers retiring at age 52 with $180,000-a-year lifetime pensions!
And then they get government jobs and continue working. They got a word for that in the papers here, double-dipping, but no one ever does anything about it. So they're getting $180 grand pensions, maybe an $80 grand salary from another government job, and they get another pension! The things I seen here, you wouldn't believe.
Everything is so corrupt. Something's gotta give.
Right over there [points to overpass]... not too long ago, some lady was drunk driving, drove right off that overpass, stops up traffic for a whole day. Well, they search her purse since she's driving drunk.
She's got, I don't know, four-five EBT cards? You know, the welfare cards.
She's got one card that says "Teresa Gomez", another says "Teresa L. Gomez", another with "T.L. Gomez", and so on. That's not her name, I forgot the real name.
Well, it turns out the state admits there's 24,000 EBT cards with people they can't locate. 24,000! It's costing taxpayers millions in dollars for these welfare scams that people are abusing.
They have stories in the paper about people bringing plastic containers into grocery stores, using 10 or 11 EBT cards, filling up as many containers as they can, shipping the containers of food to their home countries. Maybe Dominican Republic, where they can't get these kinds of cereal or what-not.
Well, the people in the foreign countries sell the stuff and split the money with the person who shipped it here.
All paid for with EBT fraud, WIC fraud, you name it.
I don't see things changing for a while. 9 out of 10 people ain't payin' attention.
Take Mitt Romney, he was a heckuva governor. Every good idea he had to get government working better, the Democrats blocked. Every single one, and he still had a great record. For four years, he never even drew a salary. Not a single dollar.
If a Democrat had served as governor and never taken a salary, the media woulda been blaring that day in and day out.
But with Romney, he's a Mormon. He's this or that. Greedy. Whatever. Mormon or not, I got news for you about the guy in the White House.
He's a Moslem. Look it up, he puts these Moslem Brotherhood guys in all these key positions. Moslem Brotherhood! These are the worst of the worst terrorist types.
I don't believe there's anything like a moderate Moslem. I was here for the Boston Marathon bombing, was right nearby.
There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. Blood on the street with arms and legs blowed off.
I'm a cab driver, believe me, I know Moslems. Most cab drivers around here are Moslems. We gotta wait to use the bathroom so they can wash their feet. They bend backwards to make sure the Moslems got everything they need and the rest of us get treated like dirt.
Never seen a moderate Moslem.
Tell you what, during the Iraq War, if an American chopper got shot down, I'd see these guys high-fiving. They'd be laughing it up, celebrating if Americans got killed. They work here but they hate America, they really do.
Look at that car what got booted.
They torture the working people in this city, they really do.
8am I'm driving around, the working people are all up and going to work.
9am, 9:30am - the freeloaders are sitting on their stoops, drinking and smoking cigarettes, yucking it up, living off the working people.
If you have a car in this city, oh boy, do they torture you. They'll ticket you for no reason, even if you have a parking pass.
They got a meter maid on every corner, it's even worse now with the police contract coming up for negotiation. The last mayor [Menino] left that timebomb waiting. They didn't ever get a contract with the police done over the last three years or so. There's a mayor election in a few weeks and whoever wins has one hell of a problem with that police contract.
Any way, now that the contract is around the corner, they have meter maids everywhere. Everywhere. You park anywhere, it seems like, even legally, and "bam" you got a ticket. The worst thing is, someone else with a car will take the ticket off your windshield, put in on their windshield to protect themselves from getting a ticket!
So now you don't know you got a ticket! Guess what: that happens three times and "bam", you got a boot on your car. Now you're really screwed.
You know what getting a boot off costs? $600 bucks. There's a boot installation fee and a boot removal fee.
And if you got a piece o' crap car: don't even think about abandoning your vehicle. After it's there a while, you get his with a $500 "Abandonment Fee".
There's no way to win around here.
The whole city's corrupt, it's infested with corruption, it's everywhere.
Someday the working people of the city are gonna wake up, because 90 percent of them are asleep right now. But someday they're gonna wake up, they'll have had enough, and then there might be some change.
But right now, this city's headed into the crapper. They say it's a bustling busy city. Well, I've been here for 60 years, and the fraud and corruption keeps getting worse. And at some point, it's gotta end, because there just ain't enough money to keep paying for all of these scams they're running.
Thanks to Cabbie X for the conversation.

























