WHAT WILL THE DEMS DO ON MONDAY?

Posted on November 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

Congress re-convenes on Monday Nov 15, 2010; Sen. Reid has retained his seat for 6 more years. But Speaker Pelosi’s control of the gavel and majority support only remains in force for six more weeks. That’s a too short a time to accomplish all the goals left on the agenda. So which one will they pick?

Healthcare is done. Freddie, Fannie and Frank have been saved. Spending the precious allotment of time remaining on old issues like abortion and gun control would be a waste. The big ones still to be done are Card Check (strengthen the labor unions), Carbon Tax (save the environment) and the DREAM Act (save the Party).

Survival being the first instinct of all mankind, the answer is obvious. If Pelosi and Reid see any hope at all for passage of the DREAM Act, that is where they will focus their energies. The provisions of the DREAM Act are designed to increase the population of Hispanic and other immigrant voters and widen the Democratic Party base.

The Heritage Foundation explains how the DREAM Act would provide de-facto amnesty for illegals. The bullet points are:

  • It would reward illegal aliens for violating federal immigration laws by giving them in-state tuition while there are state laws that deny legal aliens on student visas such tuition benefits.
  • It would encourage more illegal immigration by sending the message that the U.S. does not take its immigration laws seriously.
  • It would offer these benefits on taxpayer dollars while out-of-state students struggle to fund their college educations and the economy flounders.
  • It would prohibit the government from deporting anyone who files an application for DREAM Act benefits and would prohibit other agencies (such as the Department of Homeland Security) from receiving the information—essentially giving amnesty to individuals regardless of whether they actually qualify for the act’s protections.
  • It would allow younger illegal immigrants the opportunity, like legal immigrants, to sponsor their immediate family members for a green card. While current law prohibits sponsorship of illegal immigrants living in the U.S., this leaves open the possibility that they could fraudulently, through falsified documents or other means, sponsor their parents who are in the U.S. illegally—creating an even larger amnesty.

Here is a link to the entire Heritage Foundation report. 

If Pelosi and Reid determine that sufficient votes for passage of the DREAM Act cannot be had, we would guess the second choice would be to spend the time attacking the rich and condemning anticipated Republican blockage of Democratic initiatives.

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WASTIN’ AT THE RITZ

Posted on November 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Austerity Committee is meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, AZ. The Ritz was chosen because the room rates don’t run more than $1,299 per night (double occupancy) and breakfast is included.

The official name of the revelers group is the Stimulus Prevention Committee. Spouses will not be accommodated, the steering committee said, due to the cost of transporting them. “We also must think of the image we project” the chairman said. “Besides, hiring entertainment locally is cheaper and more in keeping with modern politics.”

When the panel meets, probably not before noon, those who show up will discuss waste and fraud. Members have been carefully chosen for their expertise in the matters to be discussed.

CORRECTION
It has been brought to our attention that the name of the committee is the Stimulus Waste Prevention Committee, not the Stimulus Prevention Committee. We have also learned it is not a prime committee. It is a sub-prime committee as it is a sub-committee of a committee estabished by a commission appointed by the Congress who created the Stimulus plan.

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THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX

Posted on November 12, 2010 | 1 comment

The UN associated Human Development Index report uses a three factor formula to rate nations according to their performance in… what else, human development. Presumably, being top on the list means your country is doing the most to make a good life for its citizens.

The commission that produces the report made some interesting changes in the criteria this year. One of the criteria that had been used was per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of economic activity per person. This year they announced a shift “from Gross Domestic Product — what a country produces — to Gross National Income, what a country earns [on the basis that income] is a more human alternative”.

In measuring National Income they credit a country as having earned money received as financial aid and remittances back into the country from citizens living abroad. This is not small potatoes for some of the less developed countries. The Atlantic reports that “remittances back to Mexico are larger than Mexico’s income from oil exports. In the Philippines, they are the largest source of foreign exchange.” The effect is the more a country’s citizens leave their homeland for work elsewhere the higher their country rises on the Human Development Index because the money they send home is counted as National Income.

And what about that phrase “what a country earns”? The Index is purported to be a reflection of government. Governments don’t earn money, they levy a tax.

Changes in the other two criteria equally skew the output in favor of the Mexico’s of the world. We’ll save you the angst and leave you with this quote about unintended consequences from William Orme, spokesperson for the report. “The unintended consequences of these new variables was that the United States, which had never been in top ten, entered the top five”.

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Hillary scream

Posted on November 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

 

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HOLDING UP NANCY

Posted on November 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

THE DIVIDER

We said Nancy was done; only the radicals will support her. Well, the radicals are supporting her and there are more of them in the Democratic Party than we would have guessed.

There is a body of opinion that argues it will be good for Republicans in 2012 and that may be true. But it won’t be good for the nation. The next two years are going to be acrimonious enough in any event, and only more so if she is in there stirring the pot (even without her gavel).

Her ardent supporters are actually throwing President Obama under the bus. They are saying the election rout wasn’t Nancy’s fault; Obama did it. Have you noticed, when the Republicans got burned in 2008 they just moped. But now the Democrats got burned this year and the Party is coming unhinged. Not only do they not “get it” about the American people, they don’t “get it” between themselves.

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WHAT WILL OBAMA DO NOW?

Posted on November 9, 2010 | 1 comment

IN BETTER DAYS

Given the setback just experienced by the Democratic Party, political analysts are recalling the 1994 mid-term election and looking at Bill Clinton’s reaction for a clue as to what Obama will do. It is a case of mistaken focus. One must look at Obama to see what Obama will do.

The fundamental differences between Barack Hussein Obama and William Jefferson Clinton are immense. Clinton wanted to be President of the United States. He relished the challenge and reveled in the attention and prestige. Politics is his sport and he wanted to be at the top of his game. His constant polling of public opinion confirmed his agenda was whatever worked to maintain his place in the sun.

The current President’s goals are completely different. Obama wants to reform the world starting with the transformation of America. To Obama, politics is not a sport and not a game. It is a means to an end. He is a sincere and determined true believer driven in part by the will to do good (according to his own concept) and in part by rage. Obama sees America as a deeply flawed nation. Clinton saw America as a fun place to work.

Defeat doesn’t soften rage, it deepens it. For renewal of his vision, the President will reflect on his early experiences and on the teachings of his mentors like “Uncle” Frank (Davis) and Peter Dreier. He will re-visit the teachings of Saul Alinsky for the means to accomplish his goals. The President will re-dedicate himself to the calling he has answered. His goals and determination will remain the same, befitting the status of a true believer. Only the strategy and tactics will change.

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DEMS TO PELOSI – GO, YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH HARM ALREADY

Posted on November 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Defeated Democrats Implore Pelosi to Leave. Read it here.

A reasonable leader would find the grace to take defeat and retire with pride. Pride for what she did? Yes, pride. We abhor her goals and her methods. We detest what she accomplished. But she could have rejected us as we have her and walked into her own world with the knowledge that she did what presidents before her could not. For what we call Obamacare was named after its father but it was Nancy who gave it birth.

Now she fights on after the war has been lost and in her stubbornness turns on those who made her accomplishments possible only months ago. Radicals are unreasonable by nature. Thankfully they tend to be internally divisive as well. The radicals are scattered and only radicals will support her now. Nancy is done.

As far as she is concerned our time for anger is passed. Neither do we have time for pity.There is too much we have to do now that the sun is coming back out.

For instance:

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OBAMA ON REDISTRIBUTION OF PRIVATE WEALTH

Posted on November 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

In this 2001 interview  Barack Obama lamented the fact that the Warren Supreme Court had not seen fit to take property from people who had it and redistribute it to those who  did not. That notion is more Marxist than Socialist. It doesn’t bode well for a presidential candidate to have that sort of view be widely known.

Joe the plumber was instrumental in bringing it to national attention. He hit the nail on the head… ok, that’s a carpenter’s job, but Joe isn’t a union worker so if something needs to be done, and he is there and can do it, he does it. So Joe hit the nail on the head when he said he didn’t want someone elses money. He just wanted a fair chance to earn and keep his own.

But Obama didn’t concur and said instead, it was “time to spread the wealth around”. It was a political gaffe. The statement was not defensible so it was time to destroy the plumber. But the plumber was right.

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CREATION OF WEALTH IS NOT A ZERO SUM GAME

Posted on November 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

An enduring myth in the liberal and progressive mind is the idea that wealth is a zero sum game, that for one person to gain another person must lose. Companion to that belief is the assumption that a rich man’s wealth is an appropriation from the poor. This then becomes the basis for the claim that “social justice” not only justifies but requires taking from the rich and giving to the poor, or “spreading the wealth around”.

Whittle’s use of simple illustrations reduces a difficult concept to something anyone can understand.

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VANITY FAIR

Posted on November 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Today it is November 7, 2010. Vanity Fair has published the following opening comment dated next month. I guess that’s what magazines do.

Wake Up, America!
By Graydon Carter
December 2010

Well, anger certainly continues to be all the rage in the corridors of American politics. … Polls taken prior to the November midterm election indicated that a surprising number of Obama voters said they were going to vote Republican this time and an equally surprising number of McCain supporters said they would be backing Democratic candidates. What that is about, God knows.

Presumably, what Carter meant to say was “only God knows.” Certainly Carter doesn’t. We must not be getting our message across say the Democrats. Little do they realize their problem is just the opposite. Their message is getting across and it’s being resoundingly rejected. It’s people like Graydon Carter that need the hearing aids, not the voters.

And pray tell, if Carter’s’s claim that an equal number of voters in this election switched their vote away from Republicans and to the Democrats, as did the other way around, how does Graydon explain the Republican landslide? He doesn’t.

Obama has taken the same condescending tack. He says it wasn’t what we did; it was that we didn’t explain it well enough for the voters to understand. I take Graydon Carter at his word. He just doesn’t know any better. I can’t be quite as generous with Barack Obama.

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