Someone who was a big star back in the day. So he has mass appeal.
That sounds like Liberal economics doesn’t it? 🙂
Oh, and in case you think this was an original idea…:)
From 2008, ABC News…
So now the Clinton campaign has taken it to the next level, taking it to the airwaves with their patently false twisting of Barack Obama’s words. . (Listen to the ad HERE).
“Listen to Barack Obama last week talking about Republicans,” the announcer says.
“The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years,” Obama says.
“Really?” says the announcer. “Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”
“The Republicans were the party of ideas,” Obama says again.
“Hillary Clinton thinks this election is about replacing disastrous Republican ideas with new ones, like jumpstarting the economy,” says the announcer. “Putting an immediate freeze on foreclosures and mortgages. Cutting taxes for the middle class. and creating millions of new jobs. With the economy in crisis, we need a president with the ideas, the solutions that get America working for all of us. Hillary Clinton. Solutions for America.”
At this point, the Clintons obviously know and don’t care that this is a blatantly false representation of what Obama said, which doesn’t square with the video or transcript of what Obama said.
This has been tirelessly fact-checked by us, the Washington Post, Factcheck.org, Politico, and Politifact.
With unanimity, the charge has been established as false.
And yet the Clintons continue to make it.
Hilarious isn’t it. 🙂 ABC leaping to the defense of their guy, Presidential Hopeful Barack Hussein Obama being attacked by The Once & Future Queen in 2008.
Derek Hunter: As far as years go, 2015 certainly was one of them. The news was not wanting for content, and we columnists were not wanting for material. It was a year of tragedies and triumphs bookended by terrorist attacks in Paris. A reality TV star became the leading candidate of a major political party, “Star Wars” returned, and I got married. Yep, 2015 was quite a year.
I had a health scare that resulted in a pacemaker and a different view on mortality just months after my Dad died.
Not the best of times by far.
Politics:
The Best
Donald Trump. For all his problems, and they are legion, and the bluster, and it is constant, he’s done more than anyone in recent years to get people to pay attention to politics and just how corrupt the media and the Democrats have become. He’s been battering the media since the start, slamming his opponents since and changing how politics is done.
While, I’m still not a full on Trump guy I do like that he makes the Left and the RINOs crazy and just doesn’t give a damn. That really shakes them up.
Trump has been holding a clinic on how to run against Democrats and the media since his announcement. Aside from momentary flashes, none of the rest of the field appears to have learned a thing.
Because they are all stuck in their ways. They can’t see doing it any other way. Especially, Democrats, they have one playbook and they go to it every nanosecond of every day.
Expect all out nuclear war again on the Republicans. No atom will be lest un-nuked, no ethic or moral will not be cr0ssed in the quest for the Coronation of King Barack’s successor Queen Hillary.
The Republican RINOs are just plain lost.
If Trump is the nominee, Democrats may well win, but they will have been so battered and bruised they’d be hard-pressed to govern with any effectiveness. If he isn’t the nominee, whoever is will have learned how to be locked in a box with a rabid spider monkey and survive. The eventual nominee, whoever it ends up being, will be a much more devastating candidate thanks to Trump’s entry into the race.
The Media is still setting up the Coronation of Queen Hillary I like they have for 4 years now. I doubt they are going to change.
But maybe, just maybe, the sleeping stupid will recognize it for what it is.
That,and just maybe, the Republicans will actually run a campaign to WIN this time. Maybe.
The Worst
As awful as she is, Hillary Clinton is not the worst person on the national political stage. Until he leaves office, Barack Obama’s head wears the crown.
In a post-9/11, post-Paris, post-San Bernardino world, the president of the United States managed to go 12 months in which he used the words “radical Islamic terrorism” only to chastise others for saying them.
Well, you’re talking about his friends and mentors, the Muslims. They can’t be evil. That’s like Lule finding out Darth Vader is his Father…. 🙂
The economy continues to falter, our enemies are on the march, and the president has improved his short-game. The Obama presidency is a hilarious joke, but sadly it’s not the funny kind of joke.
But the Democrats continue to self-delude themselves that everything is awesome and we just need to get rid of those naybobs negativity.
One more year…
11 Months+ a few days. Don’t make it any longer than it has to be. Though if Queen Hillary wins we’re all doomed and you might as well close up shop and move to Fiji because it’s over.
Lie Of The Year
The “winner” of this category is obvious, which is why it hasn’t won any of these “awards” from the mainstream media: Hillary Clinton’s ever-evolving claims about classified material on her secret, unsecured email server.
Though I think her saying that the Benghazi families who have been ripping her for years about her You Tube cause of the incident are now lying because she never said it was pretty close.
“What Difference Does it Make?”
Her original statement at her press conference at the UN, was, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” High-stakes divorce settlements are less carefully worded.
Note how she specifically said she didn’t send any classified material, and how there “is” nothing classified on her server. She’d wiped it by then, though not thoroughly, so, in using present tense, she was telling her version of the truth.
After that original statement, Hillary’s story “evolved” at least two more times to she never “sent or received anything marked classified at the time.”
After that lie the media lost interest. Why wouldn’t they? Their candidate is ensnared in an FBI investigation that, were it anyone else, already would have led to an indictment and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees by now.
But we aren’t named Clinton; we haven’t been selling, or at least renting, our positions for sums of money that rival the worth of third-world economies, and a president of her party still controls the prosecutors.
No, we’re civilians, bound by truth, and she’s Hillary, utterly unburdened by such trivialities.
As we wind up 2015, I think we’ve dwelled enough on politics. So a few notes on a couple of other things.
Sports
The year started with a great Super Bowl. What a game! But it will be remembered as the game that gave us Deflategate. Tom Brady won – everything. He continues to live a charmed life, and good for him. Unless you bet against him.
And the Seahawks created a blunder for the ages that will be talked about until Liberals outlaw football altogether sometime later in the Century.
The Super Bowl was the highlight of the year for New England sports fans, but the rest of the world had to suffer until the World Series. After decades of miserable losing, New England (particularly in Boston) started winning. And their fans, both in baseball and football, became even more miserable to be around during a game. And I say that as someone with many friends who fit this description.
But the highlight of the year was the World Series.
The Kansas City Royals are a lot of fun to watch. They scrap and scrape together runs in a way no other team does.
Arizona Cardinals anyone? Anyone?? 🙂
Movies
I love “Star Wars,” saw it three times the weekend it opened. But it doesn’t win for movie of the year with me. There were a lot of great “art house” movies, and I’m sure one with $48 in box office receipts will win the Oscar. But “The Martian” was the most enjoyable movie of 2015. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor. Even if you don’t care for Matt Damon (and I wouldn’t blame you), you’ll enjoy this movie.
I love “Star Wars” but I still think either Jurassic World or Avengers 2. I never saw “The Martian”.
Television
“The Walking Dead” remains TV’s best drama.
DOCTOR WHO! 🙂
The zombie aspect might turn your off, but it’s much more than that. Moreover, it’s a show that generates true suspense, in which no one knows what’s going to happen from week to week and no character, no matter who they are, is safe.
DOCTOR WHO! 🙂
If you’re a comic book nerd, or if you don’t mind super hero movies, might I also suggest checking out “Jessica Jones” on Netflix. It’s a surprisingly good series with humor, action and a great anti-hero. And, unlike “The Walking Dead,” you can binge-watch it over a weekend.
Haven’t got around to it yet. And that shows you how technology has changed so much.
I’m not sad to see 2015 go, though it does seem like it went fast. With 2016 being an election year, it will fly by as well. While I work and play in the first half of this column, life happens in the rest. Hope you had a great 2015, and I hope you have as much fun as possible in 2016.
Here’s to 2016. The Hope of the future of our Country rests on your shoulders.
ObamaCare will force a reduction in American work hours — the equivalent of 2 million jobs over the next decade, Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper said Monday. The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of changes in worker participation because of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “Some people would choose to work fewer hours; others would leave the labor force entirely or remain unemployed for longer than they otherwise would,” the agency said in its latest analysis of the now five-year-old law.
This assessment largely confirms the bombshell February 2014 analysis from the nonpartisan entity, which also projected that Democrats’ $2 trillion healthcare scheme would slow economic growth and slow job creation. Take it away, 2011 Nancy Pelosi:
“Four million jobs will be created by the legislation when it is fully in effect.”
In 2010, she said Obamacare would create 400,000 new jobs “almost immediately.” Last year, the law’s defenders were reduced to arguing that the reduction in worker hours was a positive development, offering Americans more time to spend with their families, and freeing them from “job lock.” CBO’s findings determined that Obamacare disincentivizes work, shifting the burden of subsidizing health coverage for people who choose to work less or leave the workforce altogether onto the backs of middle class taxpayers. Democrats’ frantic “liberation from job lock” spin worked out…about as well as one might have expected. Obamacare’s cheerleaders have been wrong about virtually everything: Their law was not a job creator. Their law has not bent the national health spending “cost curve” down. Their law has not even approached lowering rates across the board. Their law has not made healthcare more affordable. Their law has not secured access to care. Their law has not reduced emergency room visits, or decreased uncompensated care. Their law did not guarantee that satisfied consumers could keep their preferred doctors and plans. And their law has not attracted nearly as many enrollees as they expected, largely due to lack of affordability. Their law has not signed up as many young and healthy consumer as they’d anticipated, raising new fears of an adverse selection spiral.
Gee, How many times have I said that very thing? 🙂
And their law has not become popular post-implementation. Meanwhile, the string of high-profile failures among Obamacare co-ops is inflicting more chaos onto an already-strained system:
Health care providers could get stuck with unpaid bills in a half dozen states where co-op plans have collapsed. That’s because there’s no financial backstop in those states if the failed nonprofit startups backed by Obamacare loans run out of money before paying off all of their medical claims. That messy scenario is already playing out in New York, where the state’s co-op shut down at the end of November after its financial situation proved direr than originally known. The Greater New York Hospital Association estimates the co-op, Health Republic Insurance of New York, owes its members at least $165 million. And the Medical Society of the State of New York found that of more than 900 doctors surveyed, 64 percent reported being owed money by the co-op plan. For most insurers, a state’s guaranty fund – bankrolled by the industry – will cover unpaid medical claims if they become insolvent. But in some states, like New York, that fund doesn’t support plans that are licensed as health maintenance organizations, which is typically how the co-ops were set up. The other five states where providers could end up with unpaid bills if the failed co-ops run out of money: Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon and Utah…Just over half of the 23 co-ops seeded with $2.4 billion in loans have collapsed, with most set to cease operations at the end of this year. That’s left roughly 600,000 individuals scrambling to find new coverage.
On Capitol Hill this week, Republican lawmakers are demanding answers about how the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on state-level Obamacare exchanges that ultimately collapsed, and have since been abandoned. Here’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) grilling acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt about whether or not he agrees with the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recently-announced verdict that zero of the remaining state-level exchanges are “fully operational,” after five years and $1.45 billion in IT spending, courtesy of taxpayers:
Senate Republicans used a budget maneuver called reconciliation to vote to repeal vast swaths of Obamacare last week, approving a bill that would gut the law. Once it passes the House, President Obama is expected to veto the legislation in order to protect his unpopular, harmful law. Hillary Clinton, who invented Obamacare, asserted last week that the law is working.
And The Ministry of Truth assures us that it’s all just a plot by dissidents and Thought Criminals and that they just want poor people to die. 🙂
THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA. They fight for it to very last drop of YOUR blood. 🙂
The Greatest Socialist Baby, ObamaCare, needs a bailout diaper change because it’s overwhelming success in creating “better” and “more” Health Care for everyone has got some ‘wastage’ (aka poop) 🙂
When Obamacare was rammed through Congress without a single Republican vote way back in 2010, conservatives warned that the massive government program would ultimately require bailing out health insurance companies that gladly signed on.
Fast forward five years and it’s that time. Today on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are being pressured by the White House to provide money, or a bailout, to insurance companies losing money due to running government Obamacare exchanges. From The Hill:
Republicans and Democrats are close to agreeing on delaying two major taxes, the “Cadillac tax” on high-benefit plans and the medical device tax.
But those proposals have run into opposition from the White House, which wants language fixing ObamaCare’s so-called risk corridors — a program intended to help insurance companies that take a financial hit by participating in government-run health exchanges.
That program is nearly out of money because of a policy rider sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on a year-end spending bill in 2014 that bars the Department of Health and Human Services from tapping into other accounts to fund it.
Rubio’s role has injected presidential politics into the debate, making it all but impossible for GOP leaders to agree to the White House’s demands.
The talks appeared to hit a wall Monday when Republicans ruled out fixing the risk corridors, which they panned as a “bailout for insurance companies.”
“This is not on the table. Risk corridors is fully off the table,” said a Senate Republican leadership aide.
Despite the disagreement, Republicans are feeling optimistic they can get the healthcare pieces worked out.
Repealing the Cadillac tax, which hits the health plans of union members especially hard, is a priority of Reid’s and many Democrats.
But that was the “soak the rich” component of ObamaCare because only “rich”, well to do, greedy, people had those plans they said.They kneww they were lying but they didn’t care. The Agenda Uber Alles. It was a funding mechanism they used to sell the CBO (and thus con everyone else) on the BS that is ObamaCare.
My Blog Nearly 6 years ago (January 8th, 2010):
Those who think they’ll be exempt from the tax because their health care insurance isn’t one that Obama would define as a “super, gold-plated Cadillac” plan are kidding themselves. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, director of the Congressional Budget Office under George W. Bush, says 95% of Americans who are covered by plans that fit into the Cadillac category make less than $250,000 a year.
Even groups on the left get it. As Jim Kessler, vice president for policy for the progressive Third Way think tank, puts it: “A lot of those folks that have Cadillac plans have Chevy wages.”
Also don’t believe the claim that the tax will be on the insurance companies only. Sure, insurers will write the checks to Washington. But they’ll forward their costs to the customers, adding to a tax burden that’s already too punitive — and going to get worse.
“Passing the tax on to workers would result in an effective tax rate that is even higher than the specified 40%,” Curtis S. Dubay wrote in October in a Heritage Foundation WebMemo. “When the insurance companies embed the cost of the excise tax in premiums, the prices of plans will rise. A higher price means the excise tax would be higher, too.”
This would happen when the tax on a $10,000 individual plan adds $600 (40% of the $1,500 beyond the $8,500 threshold) to the cost, leaving a new premium of $10,600. The new cost will then be subject to the tax, boosting the premium another $840 (40% of the $2,100 over the $8,500 threshold). By now, that $10,000 plan is costing $11,440 a year.
“This cascading effect,” explains Dubay, “could raise the effective rate for the excise tax to 67% according to one estimate — considerably higher than the 40% specified in the bill.”
The problems don’t stop there. The growing premiums will drive many private employers that provide coverage for their workers to downgrade to cheaper insurance plans, which defeats the effort to improve health care.
A Liberal Democrat “soak the rich” scheme that blows up in their face and does the exact opposite. Nah, that never happened before…
See Alternative Minimum Tax 🙂
The good news is, it looks like the Obamacare Cadillac tax will be repealed and insurance companies will have to take the hit they signed up for when they agreed to Obamacare years ago.
I’ll leave you with this, which explains why Democrats and Republicans are on board with repealing the Cadillac Tax.
Want to know how the ACA/Cadillac Tax wipes out your company plan? Just listen to these 3 short radio segments: http://t.co/WEbtQ47Cxs
— Rich Weinstein (@phillyrich1) September 14, 2015
They knew this 6 years ago, but THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA, after all. 🙂
Most Americans don’t know what their insurance plans are worth. They’re happy to let their employers pay the premiums for them and believe that the money isn’t coming out of their pockets.
Very true.
Very Very true.
I heard a woman say, “Well, I just got out of the hospital. It cost $150,000. And I paid nothing. It was wonderful”
She was complaining about a $42 State Mandated charge in her car insurance. Because “I’m poor you know”. “I’m on a fixed income” (aka I relied on Social Security to pay for my glorious retirement).
And now 6 years later with the economy in the crapper because of Liberals they do it EVEN MORE now than they use.
People may not know the value of ANY insurance, but politicians know the value of politics. 🙂
“These are plans,” says the St. Pete newspaper, “that generally have very low co-pays and lots of extras.”
Sound familiar? Then either be prepared to pay more, or be stuck with a brass-plated, Yugo plan that’s more affordable. And while learning to settle for less, don’t forget: This grand reform effort coming out of Washington is supposed to improve our health care.(IBD and my Blog- January 2010).
It’s Bailout time, and you get stuck with Government “improved” Health Care and The Check.
Congrats. It’s a Whopper (from your own Burger KING). 🙂
Now, 25 Republican governors – and one Democrat too – have said they don’t want Syrian refugees in their states, as President Obama recommitted the U.S. to take a portion of this population fleeing from ISIS.
Military age males…unable to vet properly (according to FBI and Intelligence agencies) from the country is the #1 sponsor and producer of terrorists in the world and one of the Paris Terrorists was a “refugee”. I don’t understand the reason for them to be cautious. 🙂
‘It is very important,’ Obama said. ‘That we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.’
Yeah, don’t equate my Agenda with fighting terrorism. 🙂
Oh, and the Leftist yesterday were also going all “Supremacy Clause” on me so you know it’s about the Agenda and The Narrative and not about national security. It’s pure partisan politics.
You will do as your King commands or else!
The problem for Jindal, Abbott and the other governors opposed to admitting refugees, however, is that there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president in this way. As the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.” States do not get to overrule the federal government on matters such as this one.
This power to admit refugees fits within the scheme of “broad discretion exercised by immigration officials” that the Supreme Court recognized in its most recent major immigration case, Arizona v. United States. (Think Progress)
So you KNOW it’s just partisan politics. You might remember this one. It;s where the State of Arizona decided that since the Feds were not enforcing Federal Law, that they would and Obama and Holder slap them down basically saying if the they want to ignore the border they can.
Mind you, the Left also says the refugees and illegal immigration are two different issues, but they combine them anyways when it’s about their politics and their Agenda.
So you know it’s all politics.
‘If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation,’ Cruz said, who criticized the Obama administration for ‘pretend[ing] as if there is no religious aspect to this.’
Could be because he’s partial to Muslims over Christians. 🙂
But i’m just being “Islamophobic”, “heartless” and “aprtisan” right? It’s because Barack is black right? 🙂
And you know the Left is in full manipulation mode when they start quoting The Devil Himself, The Great Satan, George W. Bush…
The Democratic president said he had a lot of disagreement with Bush on policy.
‘But I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam,’ Obama said. ‘And the notion that some of those who’ve taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that – that’s not who we are.’
The president called on Americans to follow Bush’s example. (UK guardian)
So you know it’s an Agenda policy item and nothing else.
You are being manipulated.
European parliamentarians were warned of the “real and genuine threat” of the Islamic State putting 500,000 Islamic extremists in April this year. The British politician, Nigel Farage MEP, warned the EU its immigration policy placed a “direct threat to our civilisation”.
Mr Farage told a meeting of the European Parliament in French city of Strasbourg: “There is a real and genuine threat. When Isis say they want to flood our continent with half a million Islamic extremists, they mean it.
“There is nothing in this document that will stop those people from coming. Indeed I fear we face a direct threat to our civilisation if we allow large numbers of people from that war-torn region into Europe.
“It is ironic that nine days before a British General Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband are not engaged in this debate, and in fact the UK can do nothing. We are impotent, we have surrendered our ability to get involved (with stopping the immigrants).”
Despite Farage’s warning the EU continued to push ahead with its plan to force each EU country to take a percentage of the refugees. This left countries unable to secure their borders, and the Schengen Agreement meant most EU countries have dropped their passport controls. Only the UK and Ireland have a permanent exception from Schengen and are therefore allowed to keep passport controls.
Following news the French would treble their military presence against the Islamic State the UK admitted it had foiled seven major attacks recently. Islamic affairs expert, Alan Mendoza, said: “It is essential that Western nations now rethink their military strategy towards Islamic State. We have fought ?a phoney war to date and it has led to real casualties on European soil.
“We now need to redouble our efforts to expunge this scourge from the territory it holds. In Britain’s case, this will mean committing to military action in Syria, or risk becoming an international also-ran in terms of our influence.”
At tonight’s Mansion House speech in the City of London the Prime Minister, David Cameron, once again justified the British approach to dealing with the Jihadis. He said: “The more we learn about what happened in Paris the more it justifies the approach that we are taking in Britain.
“When you are dealing with radicalized European Muslims, linked to ISIL in Syria and inspired by a poisonous narrative of extremism, you need an approach that covers the full spectrum – military power, counter-terrorism expertise and defeating the poisonous narrative that is the root cause of this evil.”
His speech did not make any pledge to protect the UK from mass immigration, despite the public anger about it. However he had already pledged a ‘shoot to kill’ policy for terrorists in Britain, something that was immediately condemned by the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
A petition demanding to shut the UK border to Syrian refugees has now reached 410,000. It is unlikely to be acted upon. (Townhall)
So do you want to be next? Is the risk of being “islamophobic” higher than the risk of MORE terrorists getting into the country?
Despite overwhelming opposition from the American people and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, it is becoming clearer by the day President Obama is planning to close Guantanamo Bay prison with or without the consent of Congress.
For he is King, and his Agenda is King. So the King gets what the King wants regardless. Who gives a crap about a Constitution when The Agenda is The Agenda.
It’s Good to Be The King!
When asked about the constitutionality of unilaterally closing the prison with an executive order, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest admitted Monday that the legality of such a move isn’t clear, but hinted President Obama will do it anyway.
So what. Obama himself said 22 times that the Executive Order for Amnesty was unconstitutional, but he did it anyways because the Agenda demanded it.
“The focus of our efforts right now is on Congress and there are members of Congress who share this goal [closing GITMO] and who have indicated at least an openness to working with the administration to achieve this goal.
Democrats and RINOs.
That’s the focus of our efforts right now. I’m not aware of any ongoing effort to devise a strategy using only the President’s executive authority to accomplish this goal, but I certainly wouldn’t take that option off the table,” Earnest told reporters Monday.
Either Congress does it for him, or he’ll do it by Executive Fiat.
“There are a wide range of thorny, legal questions that are raised by this ongoing effort to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. I wouldn’t sort of speculate on those right now. These are obviously, in some cases because of the unique nature of this facility, in some cases we’re in uncharted legal waters here but, the President made clear from his first week in office that closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay is a national security priority.”
The national security of The Middle East, not us. Releasing Terrorists is only good for the Terrorists. But when you’re a Muslim to begin with… 🙂
Over the year the White House has slowly released GITMO prisoners in hopes the numbers will become so low, Congress no longer sees the prison as financially viable. Last summer, President Obama traded five top-Taliban commanders for alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.
And that worked out really well. But at least he didn’t trade actual prisoners of war for the Iraq Nuke Deal… 🙂
Later this week, a report detailing how the administration plans to shut down the prison is expected to be released by the Department of Defense. (Townhall)
The Agenda is The Agenda.
The King knows Best. The All-Father of Government has spoken!
Needs to make room for real prisoners , maybe . Conservatives and other such lowlife opposition to The State. 🙂
Hollywood comedy legend David Zucker (“Airplane,” “Scary Movie,” “Naked Gun” films among many others) has written and produced this hilarious spoof on the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal.
Now that the RINOs have emboldened our King AGAIN, he will now turned his Majesty to screwing us even more.
Climate Change, aka fuck your energy bills into the stratosphere and get 0ut your 19th Century Luddite Lovers kits because this one’s going to hurt big time.
Oh, and he wants to sell trade and the country off to the Chinese.
But don’t worry, if the next President is a Republican all this will he Bush’s or his fault when it crashes.
So you’ll eventually get nuked by Iran, killed by ISIS, have to heat your house with Candles, ride a government approved horse and buggy… But at least it will make Progressive Liberals feel good and make RINOs happy they were passive aggressive wimps.
He is the King. How can you tell? He ain’t got shit all over him! (Monty Python).
Buoyed by the success of his nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama is preparing to move aggressively on other long-delayed priorities, including a major climate change summit this winter and his elusive quest to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Yeah, let out more Terrorist to kill us. Maybe they too can be “refugees”. Or even better sue the US for locking them up in the first place!
The National Security Council’s directorate of strategic planning has been quietly building an agenda of action items for the closing year of Obama’s presidency, in a White House that sees its work as far from complete, administration officials say.
He’s far for done in “transforming” America into a 3rd World shit-hole, for it’s own good.
“We have no intention of resting on our laurels,” said one senior administration official. “We have an ambitious foreign policy agenda that we’ll continue to pursue aggressively throughout the remainder of [the] fourth quarter of the administration.”
Read: Screw America, then imperialistic racist dogs that we are! 🙂
Part of that agenda includes striking a calmer post-Iran deal relationship with Israel — including a November visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that officials announced on Friday.
Yeah, the deal is, we will try to keep Iran from nuking you until I’m out of office. Then all bets are off.
Oh, and those people who have been lobbing 1000’s of missiles at you trying to kill everyone of you (Palestinians) are “the good guys”.
Also high on the to-do list: completing a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal to which Congress gave “fast-track” approval in June; bolstering counter-terrorism partnerships in Asia and Africa; and putting U.S.-China relations on a firmer footing, a project that will include a state visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jingping this month.
Sell the country to the Chinese.
As Obama’s presidency draws to a close, he will focus increasingly on the policies his successor will inherit after he’s gone, according to sources familiar with the administration’s thinking.
Whuich will all be the successor fault when they fail miserably. Oh, if its a Republican who dares to reverse any of it The Ministry of Truth will be out in full force to make sure the meek little RINO (The Republican Elite would never allow anything else) knows his place.
“The last 16 months actually can be very important not only for this president’s legacy, but for setting up the next president’s administration,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who is close to Obama foreign policy officials. “No matter what people say in campaigns, you’re most likely to see incremental change from administration to administration.”
That’s why it’s always Bush’s Fault for everything Obama did wrong.
Even as the Iran deal gets implemented in the months ahead, a potentially thorny process that will occupy significant bandwidth in the White House, Obama will shift his focus to climate.
Translation: Screw you personally, next. If the Iran Deal was a little to esoteric for you grasp, wait until your energy costs triple (or worse).
But don’t worry, it will be the fault of those evil Oil & Gas companies, they are so greedy… 🙂
An international climate summit kicks off at the end of November in Paris, where Obama hopes to find agreement on meaningful new limits on carbon gases. The summit is expected to be one focus of Xi’s visit.
The Chinese, the world’s greatest polluters! Did you think he’ll get toug with them while he’s selling the country to them in the trade deal?
Beneath the heady talk of agenda-setting, however, is the grim reality of a global stage where multiple fires burn despite Washington’s efforts to extinguish them.
Hey, because he sets most of them and then blames someone else for them.
Obama could spend much of his final year performing triage on issues like the Islamic State, Syria’s civil war and the conflict in Ukraine.
Which he’s made worse by his own actions. So the clumsy surgeon who chopped off your leg when you had a cold is coming back for more! Rejoice! 🙂
Officials are also braced for possible new crises, including in Afghanistan, as U.S. troops withdraw from a country whose government and security forces remain fragile.
Illegals voting For Hillary, oh, sorry, that’s not a crisis. 🙂
One of Obama’s post-Iran deal projects has already run into trouble as Secretary of State John Kerry has begun new diplomacy to find a political resolution to Syria’s civil war.
Why? You mean the “Assad Must Go” verbal abuse hasn’t worked? I guess we’ll have to step up our rhetoric, maybe hire a speech writer to toughen the language so we sound like a pit bull and act like an angry, yappy, chihuahua.
Russia, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has recently sent military personnel and equipment to the country—a dramatic escalation that has surprised and angered Obama and Kerry and may derail that project.
You mean the Russians, The Syranians and The Iranians are all working together! How can this be, I’m Barack Hussein Obama and I’m the Most Important Man in Human History and you will obey me!
“We continue to believe that there needs to be a political solution to the conflict in Syria, and that support for the Assad regime, particularly in a military way, is unhelpful to achieving that goal,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Talk is cheap. It’s the only time a Liberal is cheap.
And although the White House been working on a new plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, a key promise from Obama’s 2008 campaign, it has been bedeviled by old obstacles, including political resistance to the transfer of detainees from Cuba onto U.S. soil.
Well, since he’s now buddies with Castro, maybe Castro will take them and then they can fly back to the Middle East so they can work on our inevitable death and destruction.
But it will make Obama feel good and give the Progressive Media the warm fuzzies, that’s what is important!
Some Pentagon and intelligence officials remain deeply wary of freeing other detainees cleared for release, and some top officials are skeptical that the camp can be shut down as long as a Republican Congress remains in power.
So we have to destroy them. Simple. 🙂
Other disappointments appear inevitable. Obama is likely to leave office having made little progress on defusing the danger of nuclear-armed North Korea
Yeah, he was too busy giving nukes to Iran.
and on stabilizing a volatile relationship with Pakistan, which U.S. officials believe continues to support Taliban factions that attack and kill Westerners in Afghanistan.
So what? That was Bush’s mess anyhow.
Nor does Russian President Vladimir Putin show any sign of ending Moscow’s support for separatist rebels in Ukraine, despite U.S. and European sanctions intended to coerce him to do so.
Putin is very afraid of Obama… 🙂
Another frustration has been the resilience of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. A year of airstrikes and the return of more than 3,000 U.S. troops to Iraq has failed to dislodge the Sunni Muslim group from major Iraqi cities like Mosul and Ramadi.
You mean just lobbing missles at the problem from a far isn’t working? I’m shocked!
As some hawks call for a deeper U.S. engagement in the fight against ISIS, including by moving American soldiers from rear positions to the front lines of battle, Obama shows no appetite for escalation.
Yeah, that whole “Death to America” thing should be a clue.
That is despite his past vow to defeat the group: “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy,” Obama said in a televised national address almost exactly a year ago, on Sept. 10, 2014.
Blah, Blah, Blah. If ISIS could be killed by boring them to death with Obama rhetoric, then yeah, he might stand a chance.
Katulis said he does not expect Obama to take aggressive new steps in the Middle East, where top officials remain deeply skeptical about their ability to shape events constructively.
After all, they have such a great track record…of absolute and total failure, that is.
“After seven years, you get a sense they understand that the lesson is that things are easier said than done,”Katulis said,
DOH! Really? I’m shocked.
citing two failed efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. “There’s a cautious pragmatism that I think will restrain the administration’s ambitions on the tougher problems.”
Yeah, that whole “Death to Israel”, “Kill All the Jews”, thing kind of gets in the way. After all, it’s all Israel’s fault don’t you know. 🙂
King Obama has decreed that we’ll all be huddling in the dark with our solar powered candle in the future that will cost us $300 a kwh and the liberal media’s playing the same tune all over again.
Killing the coal industry without a viable alternative is a good thing.
We’ll save you money. Just like the $2500 you were going to save with ObamaCare. 🙂
It will save mankind from itself!
You’ll be better off under our yoke of control.
They tried to work with Congress, but they wouldn’t kiss our ass fast enough and hard enough and capitulate to everything and anything we wanted so we’re going to go around them AGAIN. It’s all their fault!
Oh, aren’t we so much smarter and so much more grand and superior. We are so far ahead of the curve that it make you morons look like ants compared to our intelligence.
We are Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius Environmentalists! We’ll re-engineer the world!
CNN, kissing King Obama’s ass so hard they come out his anus…
Obama has full authority to make this move
Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency have 100% of the authority they need to do this. You know who gave them the power? Hippie environmentalists like Richard Nixon and John Robert’s conservative Supreme Court.
Nixon created the EPA. He also signed the Clean Air Act, which gave the executive branch authority to regulate air pollution. And in 2007, the Supreme Court found in Massachusetts vs. EPA that carbon counted as an “air pollutant.” Under that case, Obama has the authority — and perhaps the duty — to act boldly to protect public health.
So blame Nixon for this not us! 🙂
Somewhat ironically, Obama would have preferred to co-create a comprehensive solution with Congress. That’s why he has refrained from using his executive authority until now. That’s why he spent the better part of his first term begging members of Congress to pass climate legislation.
He was a patient dictator and he waited to see if they would kiss his ass and they wouldn’t so he now must be The King and do what he must because it’s what he wants that matters.
And House did pass a comprehensive “cap-and-trade” bill in the summer of 2009. But Republicans sided with well-heeled, pro-pollution donors like the Koch Brothers and blocked all progress in the Senate.
Pro-Pollution? Yes, if you disagree with me my King you want to kill everyone with pollution! Oh, and we had to throw in the boogieman- The Koch Brothers…Boo hiss! 🙂
Shaking off this defeat, the President is simply recognizing his responsibility to act under existing law. So today Obama is using powers granted to the president during the Nixon era and approved for this very purpose by the Supreme Court in the conservative Roberts era.
Love the “conservative” justification for liberal control freak mania.
Fact 2: Obama’s clean energy rules will save Americans money on the energy bills
This plan is going to save everyone money. Right now, your utility bill is going to inefficient, dirty energy. That will change.
Just Like the $2500 you were going to save a year on ObamaCare!
Under the Clean Power Plan, states will have incentives to bring down utility bills while putting up solar panels. It will also encourage energy producers to become more efficient.
More efficient production and cheaper energy sources will add up to saving. The EPA estimates consumers will save $8 per month. Another study finds some Americans will save $14 for month. The White House estimates the average American will save $85 on their utility bill by 2030.
Fact 3: Obama’s plan will help poor and minority communities
Well, of course, the Liberals have to make a race issue out of it. After all, if your against anything they do it must be because you’re a racist and/or hate poor people!!
Suddenly Republicans and polluters are sounding like #BlackLivesMatter activists — full of passion to defend people of color from Obama’s plan. Well, if you are feeling skeptical, you should.
Because all Republicans are racists! 🙂
The clean power plan will massively help minorities and low-income Americans. After all, one in six black kids and one in nine Latino children has asthma. Seventy-eight percent of African-Americans live within 30 miles of a dirty, polluting coal plant. African-Americans are also more likely to live in coastal areas and die during heat waves.
Just like Obamacare helped them… 🙂
In fact, health concerns are already driving a move away from coal. Since 2010, more than 200 coal plants have been shut down or had their retirements announced. Do not blame Obama. Communities most affected by polluted air led those fights.
So what’s the alternative? oh, right that tech isn’t available yet and it costs 3 times as much. But it’s so much better for you!
A grassroots movement, supported by organizations like the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, took the fight to the streets, courthouses, and legislatures. Hard-hit communities like Little Village in Chicago and North Omaha, Nebraska, led the way, organizing campaigns to retire the coal plants in their backyards and chart a course to a healthier, more sustainable future.
Obama’s clean power plan will save both lives and bucks spent on hospital bills. It also opens the door to clean-energy jobs for struggling communities. It rewards states that focus on helping low-income communities.
Low income Community Science PHd’s anyone see a problem with that statement? 🙂
Separately, the Obama budget includes a program, POWER+, to invest in coal workers affected by the transition to cleaner energy.
I get a tingle up my leg! 🙂
On top of it all, the administration recently announced a low-income solar program. This initiative will lower utility bills, raise solar panels, and make solar the most diverse energy sector in America. It will do so through a national partnership between solar companies, housing authorities, rural electric co-ops, and states and cities.
America’s government today limits the amount of mercury and arsenic that polluters can spew into our skies. But right now, carbon polluters can dump as much greenhouse gas as they want. They just pass the high costs along to the rest of us, in the form of dangerous weather, health risks, and higher utility bills.
Wow, that some Kool-Aid you’ve got there! Liberal Holy Water.
But the free ride for dirty energy is coming to an end. The clean power plan is dramatic leap toward a healthier, more prosperous America. If anyone tells you otherwise, help them get their facts straight.
Because they are a moron ton believe anything other than our Leftist propaganda!
This piece was written by the disgraced Obama Czar/Communist Van Jones.
So now cometh the Talking Points, the hateful “moron” comments and “you’re stupid” and that’s just from the Left when you disagree with they Holy mission to safe mankind from itself! 🙂
So buckle up, that power bill is about to skyrocket, but don’t worry, it will all be George W. Bush’s fault!
Did you know that June 15th is the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta, the first document about the Rule of Law and that the King is not above the Law?
“Foul as it is, hell itself is made fouler by the presence of King John,” wrote Matthew Paris in the 1230s.
Someone should tell King Obama that one.
From the 1215 Magna Carta:
(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
+ (39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.
+ (40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. (The British Library)
Just 3 of the points the Rebel Barons (who were self-serving in their own right at the time).
The Magna Carta has survived and even thrived for 800 years because it is the cry on the oppressed upon a government that oppresses them.
Like King George III:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.(The Declaration of Independence)
A most politically incorrect document for the Progressive Left because their solution to everything is to tax the people more and have government control of the people. How Very King-y of them. 🙂
But if you think the Republican Establishment is going to save you, well, just remember the Magna Carta was “forced” on King John by Barons who pissed off at him for taxing them to death and being such a horrible fighter as King- he lost just about everything his ather gained and more (Obama?). He was taking everything from THEM, not the people.
The Republican Establishment is a just a bunch of Rebel Barons, not saviors. Especially with John “Jar Jar” Boehner is in charge.
He taxed the rich and kept it for his ego wars in France. Obama taxes us to death for his own Ego driven agenda.
King John was single-minded, petty, cruel and manipulative and did things for political expediency and thought himself above The Law. Sound familiar?? 🙂
The IDEA of the Magna Carta is what has survived 800 years and it’s the idea of a people free from the absolute rule of their government that needs to be put forth.
That is the trust that needs to be restored.
The people also have to want it, and I’m not sure after a couple of generations of Liberal Progressive “education” and “media” that they are capable of even understanding. But education would still be key.
In an Orwellian way, you can’t miss what you never knew you had in the first place.
Besides, disagreeing with a Liberal is “hate Speech” and you’re a “racist” and a “bigot” if you do. 🙂
King John Died in 1216 (he came to the thrown because he’d locked his chief rival and then in drunken stupor killed him. “Mysterious deaths” were a Medieval euphemism for assassination and murder in reality), most likely of an illness but many, especially his future history allies he’d never meet (usually anti-catholics like Foxes’ Book of Martyrs (1563) where King John was a good just man who stood up against the Church had been done wronged and assassinated by an evil Pope) which is funny because one of his allies was Pope Innocent III who was an enemy of King John until he made the Pope Overlord of all England then he got all the power he wanted and nullified the Magna Carta within 2 1/2 months which started a war!).
The “Peace maker” ends up with even more war. Nobel Peace Prize 1215 for King John!! 🙂
Lost war after war, just like Obama Who unlike Jhn doesnt really want to fight them badly, he’s just too single-minded to care).
Does that make Islam our Overlord, unofficially, since they can do wrong in the eyes of Liberals? or are they just incompetent like King John was in battle but instead of swards the Liberals just appease them and get the people killed in a different way nowadays.
As overlord of the kingdom, and protector of a king who had taken a crusader’s vow, Innocent III had already sent a string of letters to England berating the barons. Now he explained how, ‘by such violence and fear as might affect the most courageous of men’, they had forced John to accept an agreement ‘illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people’. The Pope declared Magna Carta ‘null, and void of all validity for ever’,
Sound like a Liberal to George W. Bush anyone? 🙂
Just goes to show you some politics and strange bedfellows haven’t changed in 800 years. 😦
Because Liberals ARE like elementary school bullies with the intimidation tactics and the name calling and threats.
Raising the stakes in President Obama’s dispute with the Senate over Iran policy, the White House is now “hosting” an online petition accusing Republicans of being traitors. They look foolish in doing so.
But it makes them feel good. Of course, only the hard core would go for it, but that’s not the point. It’s an intimidation tactic.
Let’s see if the non-confrontational RINO’s cave in yet again when they get a wedgie from the school bully.
Schoolyard name-calling should be beneath any White House (but it hasn’t been), but apparently not this one. The petition, which media reports suggest has garnered 200,000 signatories, calls for charging the 47 senators who signed an open letter to Iran as “traitors.”
Traitors to the Progressive Socialist Neville Chamberlain cause, that is.
Benghazi, The IRS Scandal, Fast & Furious, and the host of others are the fault of “someone else” so it doesn’t apply to them. 🙂
More specifically, some on the left want the government to enforce the Logan Act against the Republican senators, dragging from the closet a nearly-forgotten 1798 law that hasn’t been enforced in over 200 years.
Leave it to a Progressive to go digging for it, but they can’t find “illegal” means “illegal” anywhere. Or Islamic Terrorist, even it is written down for them in the ISIS charter, The Hamas Charter and so on.
I wonder if the Progressive worker bee that found this little nugget for his King got a reward?
This goes back to you can’t talk about Obama and his associations with known domestic terrorists in his youth, but you can make up lies about George W Bush during WWII, that’s perfectly acceptable to the Left.
This is the mindset you’re dealing with.
Funny how fast those on the left are to use a law they once decried as an example of the fascist roots of the American founding. And the Logan Act isn’t even about treason but rather dealing with foreign governments without authorization. Not the same thing at all.
As Allahpundit at HotAir.com accurately notes, “One will get you three years in the pen, the other will get you lethal injection.” A big difference.
Regardless, the idea that the Republicans who signed the letter to Iran’s leaders are guilty of treason is, on the face of it, absurd. As Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto noted Thursday, however, the Constitution’s own definition of treason shows how silly this charge is.
The Progressive don’t care. It fits their Narrative so they’ll run with it, distort it, and make it up as they go.
It states: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
Let’s make it plain: The 47 senators do not want Iran’s terrorist-supporting mullahs to get nuclear weapons. In fact, their letter, whether you think it wise or not, sounds more like a warning to Iran than anything else.
Hard to see how that’s “giving them aid and comfort.” Just the opposite, actually.
But The Republicans are Enemies of The State. 🙂
Meanwhile, Obama is doing his best to fan the flames of this bizarre online petition movement, calling the Senate action “close to unprecedented.”
So was Executive Amnesty, but since that was for The Agenda, it was righteously made and defended. You racist! 🙂
This too is absurd. In 2007, then senators Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton appeared at a town hall meeting at which they trashed President Bush and encouraged our withdrawal from Iraq.
Which was just politics of negativism. Obama once said it was “unpatriotic” to have a $9 Trillion Dollar debt, but he’ll ring up at least that much by the time he leaves office. Is he “unpatriotic”? Of course not. Besides, that debt was George W. Bush’s Fault and was necessary for “the middle class” and “poor” people. 🙂
That comes closer to the Constitution’s definition of “treason” than anything the Senate did. There are many other examples. To call a serious political dispute treason is beyond the pale, the kind of thing dictators do.
Must be election season or a distraction again, time for more Class Warfare!
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action.
“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits <HIS AGENDA>middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.
Oh good, the Socialist Senator calling for more taxes from the Socialist President!
“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.
FOR HE IS KING IS HE NOT and like Kings of old he wants more money and he doesn’t care how he gets it he just wants what he wants!
Sanders sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday identifying a number of executive actions he believes the IRS could take, without any input from Congress, that would close loopholes currently used by corporations. In the past, IRS lawyers have been hesitant to use executive actions to raise significant amounts of revenue, but that same calculation has change in other federal agencies since Obama became president.
The King doesn’t need Congress. He doesn’t The Constitution. His power is supreme, for he is King is he not? 🙂
Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.
Those immigration actions, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will raise federal deficits by $8.8 billion over the next ten years.
A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds that 68 percent of Americans think the wealthy don’t pay enough federal taxes, and that 60 percent believe the middle class pays too much — leading media mavens to conclude that voters support President Obama’s proposals to raise investment taxes on the super-rich and spread the wealth around to people who are lower on the economic ladder.
Well, the Ministry of Truth has done a good job with their class warfare rhetoric. Getting the stupid young before they know what’s about to hit them!
It’s no great surprise that middle class voters are feeling overtaxed. This has been a dreadfully slow recovery, and millions in the middle class are treading water at best. Since the recession ended, median family income has fallen by about $1,500 after adjusting for inflation, so the idea of taxing someone else’s paycheck sounds mighty appealing.
Raising tax rates on the rich hurts the economy. It takes money right out from under small and medium-sized business owners, leaving them with less for hiring more workers.
But the idea that the rich aren’t paying any taxes is based on misinformation fed to voters. Politicians and the media have consistently told voters that the wealthiest among us – Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Brady, Taylor Swift – are paying very little income tax compared to the rest of us.
We are told by no less than Barack Obama that these millionaires and billionaires have all the money, but they don’t bear much, if any, of the burden to pay for the schools, the roads, the police, the welfare benefits and the rest of the tasks of government.
Mr. Obama wants to raise the top 1 percent’s income tax payments to level the playing field and enhance tax “fairness.” So it’s time for a reality test. Here are the latest statistics from the IRS for 2011:
Related Image
Expand / Contract
The top 1 percent earned 19 percent of the total income and paid 35 percent of the federal income tax. So one of 100 shouldered 35 percent of the burden. And the average of the five most recently reported years (2007-2011) is closer to 40 percent.
Several years ago, Al Sharpton, said the “top 1 percent in this country pays very much less than 10 percent” of the income tax. Most Americans no doubt believe the same thing. Mr. Sharpton’s reward for inaccuracy? A gig on MSNBC.
The table also shows that the top 10 percent pay two-thirds of the income tax, and the bottom 50 percent —Americans with an income below the median — pay just 3 percent. The federal income tax, according to a recent study by the Tax Foundation, is one of the most progressive tax systems in the world.
Scott Hodge, the Tax Foundation’s president, says: “Almost no other industrialized nation depends on the rich to pay the bills more than the United States.”
What about the super-duper rich — the multimillionaires and billionaires? Warren Buffett has famously said that he pays a smaller share of his income in taxes than his secretary. But when properly accounting for the taxes paid and income earned, the top 0.1 percent paid 16 percent of the income tax. So the top 0.1% paid an aggregate amount more than five times that of half the population. That isn’t enough?
President Obama wants to raise the capital gains and dividend taxes to 28 percent — almost twice what they were when he entered office. He wants an effective inheritance tax rate of over 50 percent. It’s a Robin Hood strategy.
But raising tax rates on the rich is a proven failed policy. History proves that cutting tax rates — not raising them — is a better way to get money out of the rich.
In 1980, when the highest income tax rate was 70 percent, the richest 1 percent paid roughly 19 percent of the income tax.
In 2007, when the top tax rate was 35 percent, the tax share of the richest 1 percent was more than twice that amount.
How did that happen? Raising tax rates on the rich hurts the economy. It takes money right out from under small and medium-sized business owners, leaving them with less for hiring more workers.
The best way to soak the rich is through low tax rates on work and investment, which create a prosperous economy with rising incomes for everyone.
You don’t have to believe me. Listen to John F. Kennedy, who said at the New York Economics Club in 1962 that “it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”
Amen.
Damn, never knew JFK was a radical right wing conservative, poor and middle class hater and supporter of the rich!
Mr. Obama issued a broad call for “a better politics” that began with common principles, and said his agenda isn’t political, pointing out “I have no more campaigns to run.”
Excuse me a moment…
BARF!
Sorry, couldn’t find a barf bag big enough to hold that in.
Being “civil” and “better politics” just means “kiss my ass more” and do as I want, for I am King.
That drew rousing applause from the GOP side of the aisle, which had sat on its hands as Mr. Obama had ticked off partisan proposals he wanted to see, and threatened vetoes of bipartisan bills Republicans are trying to pass.
I didn’t watch it. “Hotel Impossible” was much more entertaining than watch The King spout off about how great he his and how “fair” and wonderful things would be if everyone just did as they were told every second of every day forever more.
Class Warfare.
“fairness”
“Soak the Rich” ( rob from the rich and allegedly give to the poor) Wealth Redistribution.
Illegals are people too. Kiss…Kiss..
Corporate America is Evil.
The Middle Class (that he’s destroying).
Global Warming.
Republicans will just pass “partisan” bills that he will veto.
And “violent extremists” are bad, but they aren’t Islamic (or maybe he’ll just ignore that all together and hope no one notices).
Blah blah blah Blah Agenda Agenda Agenda…
Am I close? 🙂
The applause was too much for Mr. Obama, who punctuated his declaration that his campaigns are over by saying, “I know, because I won both of them.”
Yeah, it helps when the Liberal Media studiously and with great effort hides all the bad stuff under the rug or just flat out lies for you 24/7.
Mr. Obama’s two separate veto threats in his speech this year is tied for the most in any State of the Union going back at least a century. President George W. Bush also issued two veto threats in 2008, and President Clinton issued two in 1996.
But Mr. Obama’s threat may have been the broadest, with one of his threats covering everything from immigration to tweaking Obamacare to revamping the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. (WT)
Basically, if you pass anything that is NOT on MY AGENDA, I will veto it, meaning basically everything for the next 2 years.
I have a mighty Pen to go with my Mighty Ego and thou shalt bow down before your Almighty King!
Stossel:
President Obama sure is consistent. His State of the Union address sounded like his other speeches: What I’ve done is great! America is in a much better position. We’ve created a manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs. More oil is produced at home. I cut deficits in half!
Give me a break. The deficit is lower now not because of any prudence on Obama’s part but merely because the $800 billion stimulus spending blowout didn’t continue. All the president does is increase spending: free community college, free Obamaphones, free birth control, etc. Yes, our annual deficit is lower, but it’s still $488 billion! Our $18 trillion national debt increases by $3 million every minute!
Yes, more oil is produced at home, but that’s in spite of the administration. Oil production is down on public land.
Yes, the manufacturing sector added jobs, but that’s mostly because of cheaper natural gas created by fracking, which Obama’s cronies opposed. Also, America is finally recovering from recession. Obama’s policies probably slowed that recovery.
Does the President delude himself when he takes credit for oil production, lower deficits, etc.? Or does he mislead on purpose? I don’t know.
More recently he bragged, “I created the lowest unemployment rate in years.” He created it? He must know it’s “low” only compared to the 10 percent reached during the recession — and because millions have simply given up looking for work. This recovery is the slowest in 70 years.
If Obama gave the State of the Union address I’d like to hear, he’d say this:
I heard you, voters, in November when you took control of the Senate away from my party. I get it. I overreached. I was arrogant. I imposed Obamacare on a nation that was deeply divided about it. I ruled through executive orders instead of legislation. I threw money at “green” nonsense. I’ll give up the payments to the “green energy” industry if the Republicans stop coddling defense contractors.
I’ve been in government for years now. I know how badly it works. The last thing I should try to do is make it bigger. In fact, with Republicans now in control of Congress, it’s time I worked with them to shrink government. If we shrink it, we might even dig our way out of the debt hole we’re in. Heck, if we just slow the growth of government to 2 percent a year, we’d be in better shape.
But I didn’t even try to accomplish that. I pretended taxing the rich would solve our financial problems. But there aren’t enough rich people to tax. I got drunk on the idea of promising voters “free” stuff such as low down-payment mortgages and guaranteed paid family leave. I told them that all good things come from government. That’s nonsense.
We should put an end to all bailouts. Businesses that screw up should accept the consequences, just like ordinary people who spend recklessly. Main Street should never again be forced to rescue Wall Street.
Instead of expanding government control of health care, we should phase it out. That includes Medicare. I know Medicare is popular, but it is unsustainable. Let current retirees receive their benefits as promised, but younger people should pay for their own health care.
People criticize the economic distortion created by welfare, but Medicare and Social Security are almost as bad. Both redistribute money away from the young and struggling toward those of us who have had decades to invest and save up.
To make these challenges a little easier to deal with, let’s make America richer by abolishing most regulations. They strangle opportunity.
The more I think about it, the more Congress and I could transform America for the better just by getting out of America’s way. The state of our union will be truly strong if the state — by which I mean government — is strictly limited.
But government is a 18 billion ton drug addict with full access to it’s own self-sustaining drug supply. 😦
It’s not secret I have NO faith in the spineless RINO establishment elitist John Boehner who got re-elected as Speaker of The House. The man who can cave into Liberals faster than the speed of light.
Washington DC, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
So what if the Republicans control the Congress if the leadership is not there to do anything productive for The People instead of just there to perpetuate their own power and aggrandize their own selves.
John Boehner is getting revenge.
After he secured his third term as speaker Tuesday afternoon, losing 25 votes on the House floor to some relative-unknown members of the Republican Conference, Boehner moved swiftly to boot two of the insurgents from the influential Rules Committee. That could be just the start of payback for the speaker’s betrayers, who might see subcommittee chairmanships and other perks fall away in the coming months. (Politico)
How Dare They Oppose ME!
FI FI FO FUM I SMELL THE STENCH OF A TEA PARTIER!
IF the Congress passes the legislation necessary to halt the 3rd world socialist slide Obama will stand proudly in their way.
Secure in the knowledge that Jar Jar will blink first every time.
“Me sa ready to compromise” -Jar Jar Boehner
And I have said numerous time before, compromise with a Liberal means you get nothing and they get everything they wanted.
“We don’t need these fringe guys as much as we did anymore,” said a GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We can let them walk on certain bills, and it just won’t matter. That gives us breathing room.”
Those “fringe guys” are the one who got you the Majority in the first place, but that hardly matters to elite establishment. It’s Power for Power sake. Their own little Feifdom and Jar Jar is King, so “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS” anyone who dare Oppose The Lord Jar Jar!
So good ole spineless Johnnie will puff himself up and go up the hill with his pail of water and Obama will dump it on him and he’ll come crying home like the defeated nerd who just got a wedgy from a bully.
Sith Lord Obama: “These are not the budget cuts you are looking for”
The Agenda is The Agenda <<Darth Vader breathing>>!!
I am greatly saddened. Our last best hope has gone.
I felt a great disturbance in the budget, as if Trillions of dollars suddenly cried out in terror and disappeared…
‘We’re going to offer the following deal,’ (We, kimosabi??) he said: ‘If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes – you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation.’
‘You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.’
The fact that you broke the law to get to this point is irrelevant to our Imperial Majesty. The fact that you and a whole lot of other minorities will vote Democrat is the point.
The King has spoken!
Now he wants to watch the angry fire ants (Republicans) run around get all mad at him.
He doesn’t care. “Pass a Bill” he taunts.
So they pass a bill, he vetoes it as “too extreme”.
Wow! no one saw that coming! 🙂
His Royal Highness is about it all. The Most Arrogant Man in The World is Happy.
Now comes that annoying tiny verbiage at the bottom of the commercial that no one can read:
‘This deal does not apply to anyone who has come to this country recently. It does not apply to anyone who might come to America illegally in the future. It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive – only Congress can do that.’
But he doesn’t mean it. You know he doesn’t mean it. His actions show he doesn’t mean it. Load up and head North to The Promised Land!!
‘All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.’
So if you come here illegally after this speech we won’t grant you amnesty (until the next time) but we won’t deport you, so you can stay until the next time.
Orwellian doubletalk.
Come one, Come all. The Democrat Circus is now open for business.
The immigration debate, he (Obama) said, is ‘about who we are as a country, and who we want to be for future generations.’
That would be a third world Socialist Banana Republic run by a succession of “democratically elected” Democrat rulers who can and will do anything they want, when they want, because they want and you can’t stop them, peasant!
Welcome to The DisUnited Sates of Northern Cuba! A Future where the Democrats are unstoppable and can do anything they want.
That’s the future THEY want.
Democracy is messy and they don’t get everything they want. Autocracy is so much simpler. Everyone just does as they are told or else.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
So All Hail King Obama The First!
Or Else!
Anything else is just “extremism” (or “racism”) and you wouldn’t want to be one of THOSE now would you!? 🙂
Today, our wondrous and benevolent King will bestow Amnesty upon a group of his loyal subjects.
The fact that they are ILLEGAL aliens has nothing to do with it.
The fact that he really doesn’t have the power, doesn’t matter either.
It’s a means to an end.
He wants, what he wants, when he wants it and because he he wants it! He is King is he not!! 🙂
The Agenda is The Agenda.
“Well, I think it is important to remind everybody that, as I said I think previously, and I’m not a king,” Obama said on Jan. 31, 2013, in an interview on immigration with Univision. “I’m the head of the executive branch of government. I’m required to follow the law.”
Funny how he has to remind us. No other President has had to “remind us”. 🙂
But then again, no President, even the hated George W Bush or Ronald Reagan (by the Left that is) would have to “remind us”.
Then nearly 2 years later, he does just that. 🙂
But you aren’t suppose to notice or care. The Ministry of Truth has tried to see to that.
He is The King.
How can you tell?
He ain’t got shit all over him!
(Thanks to Monty Python) 🙂
After all that time insisting he had no intentions or powers to change the law, he now insists he does have those powers.
What’s eerie is that Obama says it with such conviction, with the same icy tone that emperors employ in the movies just before they crucify the senators.
Now you may call him king, emperor, master of all he surveys, or one of dozens of terms for absolute ruler, like malik (Morocco) or shah (Persia), wang (China), anax (Macedonia), autokrator (Byzantium) and on and on.
But in Chicago, we have two names for those who impose their rule by force and power.
Boss is one. And Mayor is another.
And in this business of imposing will, Obama isn’t acting as the president of a republic who looks to the Constitution to reign in the impulses and ambitions of imperfect human leaders.
Instead, he’s acting like the Mayor of America, or, lest there be any confusion, the Boss of America.
Boss Obama? Dig it.
It’s the Chicago Way or The Highway….
“Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken,” the president said in a message Wednesday. “Unfortunately, Washington has allowed it to fester far too long.”
Early in his administration, with Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, Obama could have pushed through changes in immigration law.
But he didn’t.
And now, after a stunning and complete defeat in the November midterm elections, in which his policies were repudiated and Democrats lost control of the Senate and more ground in the House, he’s willing to stuff this policy down the nation’s throat?
This is not the time for brinkmanship, not with Putin on the prowl and Iran moving toward nuclear weapons and ISIS lopping off American heads.
I suppose Obama can unleash his biscuit eaters to blame all immigration woes on conservatives. But all the demagoguery can’t change this, and all the race cards in all the race card decks in all of American politics can’t change it.
It is a wrongheaded approach, especially since the president has stated for years that he couldn’t act alone.
Should immigration be “fixed,” as the president now so urgently demands?
Yes. But not by edict of a Boss. It should be hammered out, loudly, vigorously, painfully, but not by executive fiat.
If this were so vitally important, why didn’t he loudly demand that Democratic candidates stand with him on the issue before the November elections? Because he’s no fool.
What’s worrisome is this: Imagine some future president, say someone as far to the right as Obama is to the left, who decides our tax laws are broken.
And what if that future president — someone who wants to shrink government in the name of liberty — issues an order not to collect the income tax?
Then what?
As the son of immigrants, I believe in releasing the drive, passion and dynamism of immigrants, especially those who yearn to be American in spirit, and not merely in benefit.
My father fought the Italians, then the Germans, then the communists and came over on the boat. His first job here was as a dishwasher. He built a small business and educated his sons, and we heard this president tell small business owners, “You didn’t build that.”
Other immigrant families have similar stories of sacrifice. We all fought hard to get here, some from overseas, some from south of the border.
And once here, many of us fought even harder to become Americans, because we didn’t want to be ruled by some boss back home.
What keeps the bosses at bay isn’t the ever-changing whims of politicians.
What keeps them at bay is the adherence to the Constitution, which all presidents swear to “preserve, protect and defend.” (John Kass)
It wasn’t written to protect the boss.
It was written to protect you.
But the Agenda is The Agenda and The Boss/Emperor/King says so.
King Obama The First hear the voice of his vassals, and he doesn’t give a shit what they say:
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jon Karl reported that according to WH officials “the president will move forward with an executive order on immigration reform “no matter how big a shellacking Democrats get tonight” during ABC’s Election coverage on Tuesday.
Karl said “White House officials are saying that you can expect the president to set an aggressive, and defiant tone tomorrow. You’re not going to see any mea culpas, no big firings, no change in direction.”
I AM THE MOST ARROGANT MAN IN THE WORLD!
I AM KING!
YOU WILL DO AS I SAY!
He added “officials tell me the president is prepared to aggressively pursue his agenda using his power of executive authority, where he can’t work with Congress, and the big one is going to be on immigration reform. White House officials tell me that the president will move forward with an executive order on immigration reform no matter how big a shellacking Democrats get tonight.”
FOR I AM KING AND THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA!!
Two-term incumbent Mark Pryor of Arkansas was the first Democrat to fall, defeated by freshman Rep. Tom Cotton. Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado was next, defeated by Rep. Cory Gardner. Sen. Kay Hagan also lost, in North Carolina, to Thom Tillis, the speaker of the state House.
Republicans also picked up seats in Iowa, West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, all states where Democrats retired. They had needed a net gain of six seats to end a Democratic majority in place since 2006.
In the House, with dozens of races uncalled, Republicans had picked up 11 seats that had been in Democratic hands, and given up only one.
A net pickup of 13 would give them more seats in the House than at any time since 1946.
But naturally, the arrogant message from the left is: Said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, ” The message from voters is clear: They want us to work together.”
Yeah, he was the king of bi-partisanship. 🙂
When we Democrats are in control we ALWAYS work with our opponents in a bi-partisan fashion!
This, of course, is the new message, that the Republicans as supposed to work with Democrats. The fact that the Democrats have all but ignored the Republicans for the last 6+ years is irrelevant to arrogant Left.
Now you’re supposed to kiss OUR butt, otherwise we’ll complain about YOUR BY-Partisanship, the very thing we HAVE been doing. 🙂
The GOP also piled up wins in Montana, South Dakota, Arkansas, West Virginia and North Carolina — all seats that had been in Democratic hands — to surpass their magic number of six net gains. With seats still to be decided in Virginia, Alaska and Louisiana — where there will be a runoff in December — the GOP currently has 52 seats in the Senate.
Boy, the Executive Orders are going to be a Blizzard in DC for the next two years as the King ignores Congress and The Liberal Media beat them up for “not being effective” so that they can lay down the Coronation of Queen Hillary The First.
The Daily Kos: Big lesson from today is that Republicans win big when seniors dominate the electorate. I’m sure that’s a winning long-term strategy.
And, of course, those Evil Republicans prevented Democrats from voting because of Voter ID…So they didn’t lose, it was stolen from them!
And this gem from MSNBC:
Still, Republicans have essentially refused to pass major legislative since taking the House in 2010, and, despite McConnell’s promises, the chances of getting anything significant accomplished are now even lower. That means pressing, national issues like immigration, climate change, the growing wage gap and infrastructure upgrades are set to remain on hold.
Instead, Obama will likely have to make frequent use of his veto pen in response to legislation passed by the GOP Congress. Whether that will include a repeal of Obamacare is uncertain, after few Republicans made the law a major campaign issue.
Yeah, the 300+ bills that Harry Reid sat on for years has no bearing on this “gridlock”.
Yeah, they got the message. 🙂
And will be “fair” to the Republican Congress in the run up to the Coronation of Queen Hillary The First! 🙂
Well, now we know why. But is it a surprise. After all, it isn’t an AGENDA item so it must really bore him. Let his minions do the lowly stuff.
A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.
The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.
The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
“I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” said Obama.
Because they were supposed to be doing the Job-That-President-didn’t-wanna-do 🙂 and they failed him, so it must be by default, their fault.
It surely can’t be his fault! Nothing is ever his fault! He’s too smart. He’s too wonderful. To clever to be at fault for anything, especially boring old crap he doesn’t give a shit about that other people where supposed to handle for him in the first place.
He’s King, not Commander-in-Chief, after all! 🙂
According to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, members of the Defense establishment were “flabbergasted” by Obama’s attempt to shift blame.
“Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,” a former senior Pentagon official “who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq” told the Daily Beast.
Bullshit. If you can’t dazzle them with your Wile E Coyote Suuuuper Genius, you baffle them with bullshit, then get the Media to repeat it often enough people forget it was your bullshit.
On Monday, others in the intelligence community similarly blasted Obama and said he’s shown longstanding disinterest in receiving live, in-person PDBs that allow the Commander-in-Chief the chance for critical followup, feedback, questions, and the challenging of flawed intelligence assumptions.
“It’s pretty well-known that the president hasn’t taken in-person intelligence briefings with any regularity since the early days of 2009,” an Obama national security staffer told the Daily Mail on Monday. “He gets them in writing.”
The Obama security staffer said the president’s PDBs have contained detailed threat warnings about the Islamic State dating back to before the 2012 presidential election.
“Unless someone very senior has been shredding the president’s daily briefings and telling him that the dog ate them, highly accurate predictions about ISIL have been showing up in the Oval Office since before the 2012 election,” the Obama security staffer told the Daily Mail.
This is not the first time questions have been raised about Obama’s lack of engagement and interest in receiving in-person daily intelligence briefings. On September 10, 2012, the GAI released a similar report showing that Obama had attended less than half (43.8%) of his daily intelligence briefings up to that point. When Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen mentioned the GAI’s findings in his column, then-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dubbed the findings “hilarious.” The very next day, U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American staff members were murdered in Benghazi. As Breitbart News reported at the time, the White House’s very own presidential calendar revealed Obama had not received his daily intel briefing in the five consecutive days leading up to the Benghazi attacks.
Ultimately, as ABC News reported, the White House did not directly dispute the GAI’s numbers but instead said Obama prefers to read his PDB on his iPad instead of receiving the all-important live, in-person briefings.
Now, with ISIS controlling over 35,000 square miles of territory in its widening caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and with Obama pointing fingers at his own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for the rise of ISIS, the question remains whether a 42% attendance record on daily intelligence briefings is good enough for most Americans. (Breitbart)
But what do I know, I’m just a “hater”, after all. 🙂
The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.
Like that matters to King Fiat…
In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
Like that matters to King Fiat….
To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.
THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA!
“If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,” said Paul Bledsoe, a top climate change official in the Clinton administration who works closely with the Obama White House on international climate change policy.
But the biggest emitter isn’t going to go for it… 🙂 So if you want to cut your head off, they will gladly take it.
Lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill say there is no chance that the currently gridlocked Senate will ratify a climate change treaty in the near future, especially in a political environment where many Republican lawmakers remain skeptical of the established science of human-caused global warming.
You mean because Global Warming Caused by Man is a Farce! Nah, you couldn’t mean that… 🙂
“There’s a strong understanding of the difficulties of the U.S. situation, and a willingness to work with the U.S. to get out of this impasse,” said Laurence Tubiana, the French ambassador for climate change to the United Nations. “There is an implicit understanding that this not require ratification by the Senate.”
American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.
Countries would be legally required to enact domestic climate change policies — but would voluntarily pledge to specific levels of emissions cuts and to channel money to poor countries to help them adapt to climate change. Countries might then be legally obligated to report their progress toward meeting those pledges at meetings held to identify those nations that did not meet their cuts.
“There’s some legal and political magic to this,” said Jake Schmidt, an expert in global climate negotiations with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. “They’re trying to move this as far as possible without having to reach the 67-vote threshold” in the Senate.
The strategy comes as scientists warn that the earth is already experiencing the first signs of human-caused global warming — more severe drought and stronger wildfires, rising sea levels and more devastating storms — and the United Nations heads toward what many say is the body’s last chance to avert more catastrophic results in the coming century.
That’s why we had one of the most severe winters on record! 🙂
At the United Nations General Assembly in New York next month, delegates will gather at a sideline meeting on climate change to try to make progress toward the deal next year in Paris. A December meeting is planned in Lima, Peru, to draft the agreement.
In seeking to go around Congress to push his international climate change agenda, Mr. Obama is echoing his domestic climate strategy. In June, he bypassed Congress and used his executive authority to order a far-reaching regulation forcing American coal-fired power plants to curb their carbon emissions. That regulation, which would not be final until next year, already faces legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed on behalf of a dozen states.
But unilateral action by the world’s largest economy will not be enough to curb the rise of carbon pollution across the globe. That will be possible only if the world’s largest economies, including India and China, agree to enact similar cuts.
The Obama administration’s international climate strategy is likely to infuriate Republican lawmakers who already say the president is abusing his executive authority by pushing through major policies without congressional approval.
“Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration’s tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn’t like — and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don’t agree,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said in a statement.
Like The King cares!
A deal that would not need to be ratified by the United States or any other nation is also drawing fire from the world’s poorest countries. In African and low-lying island nations — places that scientists say are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change — officials fear that any agreement made outside the structure of a traditional United Nations treaty will not bind rich countries to spend billions of dollars to help developing nations deal with the forces of climate change.
Seventeen years later, the Senate obstacle remains. Even though Democrats currently control the chamber, the Senate has been unable to reach agreement to ratify relatively noncontroversial United Nations treaties. In 2012, for example, Republican senators blocked ratification of a United Nations treaty on equal rights for the disabled, even though the treaty was modeled after an American law and had been negotiated by a Republican president, George W. Bush.
This fall, Senate Republicans are poised to pick up more seats, and possibly to retake control of the chamber. Mr. McConnell, who has been one of the fiercest opponents of Mr. Obama’s climate change policy, comes from a coal-heavy state that could be an economic loser in any climate-change protocol that targets coal-fired power plants, the world’s largest source of carbon pollution.
The world’s largest source is CHINA. But they aren’t going for it, so this farce is the just cutting off your head and handing it to them. But it will make all the liberals “feel good” about “doing something” even if it’s the wrong thing. That’s what liberal do.
For I am your Lord and Master! And you will do as I say because I am the Supreme Lord of all that I survey and I am your God!
THE KING’s JUSTICES HAVE SPOKEN AND YOU MUST OBEY!
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that young adult illegal immigrants whom President Obama has given tentative permission to be in the country — so-called “dreamers” — are also entitled to driver’s licenses and ordered Arizona to issue them.
The ruling comes while the government is debating policy about a new wave of illegal immigrant children who are surging across the border in Texas, overwhelming federal authorities’ ability to handle them.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer blasted the court’s ruling, saying it could end up meaning her state would have to grant driver’s licenses to some of those in the latest wave of illegal immigrants if Mr. Obama finds ways to avoid deporting them too.
But immigrant-rights advocates hailed the decision, saying it is a major step in helping the Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents, move toward some sort of normal life in the U.S.
“This is a huge victory for the young immigrants who want nothing more than to make meaningful contributions to communities in their home state of Arizona,” said Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.
THEY ARE NOT “IMMIGRANTS” THEY ARE ILLEGAL ALIENS!
BUT MOSTLY YOU HAVE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEMANDING THAT A STATE DO IT’S BIDDING OR ELSE!
The judges said Congress has given the executive branch “broad discretion” to decide whether illegal immigrants are able to live and work in the U.S., and the judges said Arizona was interfering with that ability.
F*CK THE 10th Amendment! WE ARE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND WE RULE ALL! SUPREME EXECUTIVE POWER!
And my auto Insurance rates will skyrocket when these uninsured drivers start causing more accidents. Not to mention the ID fraud, and other crimes. After all if you have Driver’s License you can apply for just about anything.
“Defendants are unable to identify instances in which the Arizona Department of Transportation has faced liability for issuing licenses to noncitizens not authorized to be present in the United States,” the opinion said.
Well, you can’t see what you don’t want to see in the first place!
THEY CAN EVEN VOTE! (because liberals think proof is “discrimination” so here’s the “proof”).
We’re all F*cked!
The judges said to treat the Dreamers differently violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
BUT THEY AREN’T AMERICAN CITIZENS!
Even though Liberals think they are.
The State is not allowed to do anything the Federal Government disagrees with. You will Obey.
The King’s Court has ruled, peasant!
Tell you what, we’ll just give these ILLEGAL ALIENS more freedom and power to do whatever they want than the actual citizens of this country have, that way we won’t be “raci$t” and everyone will live in Utopia. Oh, and if the Feds say to jump you must reply “how High, your Majesty” or else you’ll be put in the dungeon to be “re-educated”. Sounds like Utopia to me… 🙂
Don’t worry, the Magnanimous King will look after you (and you have no choice, by the way).
“One of the most comprehensive first-person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years….In 1756, he records that ‘a slave named Darby catched eating canes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth.’ This became known as ‘Darby’s Dose,’ a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owners’ savagery and inhumanity….When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.”
— MSNBC host Martin Bashir on November 15, reacting to Sarah Palin’s comparison of excessive debt to slavery. Bashir apologized the following Monday, but MSNBC permitted him to stay on the air that entire week. After an extended Thanksgiving “vacation,” he quit on December 4.
Maybe he’ll go work for Al-Jazeera America… 🙂
“This is the Web site folks, HealthCare.gov. If you go to this Web site, you will find out how easy it is to read, how easy it is to navigate all the information, all the basic questions, and all the direction you need to take to get involved, to get health care. This is a great guide, if I may say, for any of you out there who feel so confused by all of these right-wing commercials that are just permeating through your television screen.”— Host Ed Schultz on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, September 30.
‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep it’
Which will go nicely with: “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
Which is also screamingly false and 2014 will showcase it in your wallet.
And then there’s this old rage, called The Constitution that our King despises because it just gets in the way of his Lordship over his vassals…
Ilya Shapiro outlines President Barack Obama’s “top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.” The list includes everything from the the delay of Obamacare’s “out-of-pocket caps” to political profiling by the IRS.
“Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document,” Shapiro writes in the Dec. 23 op-ed. “And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to ‘fundamentally transform’ the country without congressional acquiescence.”
1. Delay of Obamacare’s out-of-pocket caps. The Labor Department announced in February that it was delaying for a year the part of the healthcare law that limits how much people have to spend on their own insurance. This may have been sensible—insurers and employers need time to comply with rapidly changing regulations—but changing the law requires actual legislation.
2. Delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate. The administration announced via blogpost on the eve of the July 4 holiday that it was delaying the requirement that employers of at least 50 people provide complying insurance or pay a fine. This time it did cite statutory authority, but the cited provisions allow the delay of certain reporting requirements, not of the mandate itself.
3. Delay of Obamacare’s insurance requirements. The famous pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep it” backfired when insurance companies started cancelling millions of plans that didn’t comply with Obamacare’s requirements. President Obama called a press conference last month to proclaim that people could continue buying non-complying plans in 2014—despite Obamacare’s explicit language to the contrary. He then refused to consider a House-passed bill that would’ve made this action legal.
4. Exemption of Congress from Obamacare. A little-known part of Obamacare requires Congressmen and their staff to get insurance through the new healthcare exchanges, rather than a taxpayer-funded program. In the quiet of August, President Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management to interpret the law to maintain the generous congressional benefits.
5. Expansion of the employer mandate penalty through IRS regulation. Obamacare grants tax credits to people whose employers don’t provide coverage if they buy a plan “through an Exchange established by the State”—and then fines employers for each employee receiving such a subsidy. No tax credits are authorized for residents of states where the exchanges are established by the federal government, as an incentive for states to create exchanges themselves. Because so few (16) states did, however, the IRS issued a rule ignoring that plain text and allowed subsidies (and commensurate fines) for plans coming from “a State Exchange, regional Exchange, subsidiary Exchange, and federally-facilitated Exchange.”
6. Political profiling by the IRS. After seeing a rise in the number of applications for tax-exempt status, the IRS in 2010 compiled a “be on the lookout” (“BOLO”) list to identify organizations engaged in political activities. The list included words such as “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” and “Israel”; subjects such as government spending, debt, or taxes; and activities such as criticizing the government, educating about the Constitution, or challenging Obamacare. The targeting continued through May of this year.
7. Outlandish Supreme Court arguments. Between January 2012 and June 2013, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s extreme positions 9 times. The cases ranged from criminal procedure to property rights, religious liberty to immigration, securities regulation to tax law. They had nothing in common other than the government’s view that federal power is virtually unlimited. As a comparison, in the entire Bush and Clinton presidencies, the government suffered 15 and 23 unanimous rulings, respectively.
8. Recess appointments. Last year, President Obama appointed three members of the National Labor Relations Board, as well as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, during what he considered to be a Senate recess. But the Senate was still holding “pro forma” sessions every three days—a technique developed by Sen. Harry Reid to thwart Bush recess appointments. (Meanwhile, the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, provides that authority remains with the Treasury Secretary until a director is “confirmed by the Senate.”) In January, the D.C. Circuit held the NLRB appointments to be unconstitutional, which ruling White House spokesman Jay Carney said only applied to “one court, one case, one company.”
9. Assault on free speech and due process on college campuses. Responding to complaints about the University of Montana’s handling of sexual assault claims, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, in conjunction with the Justice Department, sent the university a letter intended as a national “blueprint” for tackling sexual harassment. The letter urges a crackdown on “unwelcome” speech and requires complaints to be heard in quasi-judicial procedures that deny legal representation, encourage punishment before trial, and convict based on a mere “more likely than not” standard.
10. Mini-DREAM Act. Congress has shamelessly failed to pass any sort of immigration reform, including for the most sympathetic victims of the current non-system, young people who were brought into the country illegally as children. Nonetheless, President Obama, contradicting his own previous statements claiming to lack authority, directed the Department of Homeland Security to issue work and residence permits to the so-called Dreamers. The executive branch undoubtedly has discretion regarding enforcement priorities, but granting de facto green cards goes beyond a decision to defer deportation in certain cases.
It was hard to limit myself to 10 items, of course—Obamacare alone could’ve filled many such lists—but these, in my judgment, represent the chief executive’s biggest dereliction this year of his duty to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution, and to “take care that the law be faithfully executed.”
Alas, things may get worse before they get better. New presidential “counselor” John Podesta’s belief in governance by fiat is no secret; in a 2010 report, he wrote that focusing on executive power “presents a real opportunity for the Obama administration to turn its focus away from a divided Congress and the unappetizing process of making legislative sausage.” (Forbes)
Happy New Year, and don’t forget to bow to your Lord and Master… 🙂
Indyfromaz's Blog: The Thoughts of An Independent Arizonan 