Obamacare’s Threat of Centralized Control

I don’t like much about Obamacare. But most urgently, I oppose its imposition of anti-American centralized control–in the sense that it is the antithesis of the Founders’ governing philosophy–and hopeless complexity over a huge sector of the American economy, as much about the seizure of raw power as it is about restraining costs.

That’s the NHS model.  No, not in the method of its funding but the flawed presumption that bureaucrats somehow know best, a point made very well in by Theodore Dalyrimple’s interesting article about the NHS, entitled “Universal Mediocrity” (my emphasis):

In obeying directives not because they are right but because they are directives, doctors lose their self-respect, their probity, and their intellectual honesty. Gogolian absurdity can result—with a hint of Kafkaesque menace and Orwellian linguistic dishonesty. When the British government decreed that every patient arriving in the emergency room should be admitted to a hospital ward within four hours if admission was necessary (and that hospitals would face fines if they failed to adhere to the rule), traffic jams of ambulances formed outside one famous hospital, with their patients prevented from entering the emergency rooms until the hospital could comply with the directive. Other hospitals redesignated their corridors as wards so that they could claim that patients on stretchers had been admitted in time. In a centralized system, the setting of targets will encourage organized deception, as well as distortion of effort.
In the United States, after President Obama’s health-care law proposed fining hospitals that readmitted too many patients within 30 days of discharge, editorials in the New England Journal of Medicine pointed out the dangers posed by that rule. They omitted to say that when giant bureaucracies set targets for others to reach, they intend not so much to procure improvement as to impose control.

They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We already see some of that. But more primarily, it is also the enemy of excellence and innovation. Deprofessionalizing medicine into a technocracy–already in its early stages–will not make our doctors and hospitals better, but instead, equalize increasingly mediocre results.

Via: First Things

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[UPDATED] Latest Newsweek Cover: “Hit The Road, Barack: Why We Need A New President”…

Niall Ferguson: Obama’s Gotta Go

Why does Paul Ryan scare the president so much? Because Obama has broken his promises, and it’s clear that the GOP ticket’s path to prosperity is our only hope.

I was a good loser four years ago. “In the grand scheme of history,” I wrote the day after Barack Obama’s election as president, “four decades is not an especially long time. Yet in that brief period America has gone from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the apotheosis of Barack Obama. You would not be human if you failed to acknowledge this as a cause for great rejoicing.”

Despite having been—full disclosure—an adviser to John McCain, I acknowledged his opponent’s remarkable qualities: his soaring oratory, his cool, hard-to-ruffle temperament, and his near faultless campaign organization.

Yet the question confronting the country nearly four years later is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

Via: The Daily Beast

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Obamacare’s 18 New Tax Hikes

Not only did the President and his partners in Congress take $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare, but they also raise taxes by $836.3 billion to pay for it, with $36.3 billion hitting Americans in 2013 alone. Here’s the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation‘s (JCT) updated cost of the Obamacare tax hikes and penalties.

To read about more of Obamacare’s negative effects, click here.

Bloomberg On Illegal Immigration: “Nobody Has Come Across” U.S.-Mexico “Border In A Long Time”…

GOT TALKING POINTS FROM OBAMA

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last week that "nobody" had illegal crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in a "long time."

 Bloomberg also advised that it would be easier for those wishing to illegally immigrate to the United States to simply buy a ticket to fly here and then overstay their visa.

He was speaking in Boston at an Aug. 14 forum on immigration sponsored by the New England Council. He shared the stage for the forum with News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Jerry Seib of The Wall Street Journal, who moderated the event, asked Bloomberg, “... My sister lives in Amarillo, Texas, and they’re very worried about waves coming up north over the border there. What are you going to tell them?”

“Number one nobody has come across the border in a long time,” responded the mayor. “I mean we spend a fortune on technology, and if you want to come to America illegally, don’t waste your time going across the border and through the desert. It’s dangerous. Just get on an airplane, fly here, and overstay your visa. We have absolutely no ability to track who you are and get you back.

“The total number of undocumented in this country has been going down for a long time. How do we solve the problem? We solved the problem by having our economy crater,” he continued. “People don’t come here to put their feet up and collect welfare. They come here to work, and if there’s no jobs, they don’t come here, and if they’re here and they can’t find a job, they go back home, because America is not a very good place to sit around and think the state is going to support you.”

Via: CNSNews

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BOOK: OBAMACARE DESIGNED TO CREATE 21 MILLION UNION JOBS

In an explosive new book revealing the depth of the corrupt dealmaking between unions and the Obama Administration, the insidious plot to use ObamaCare to unionize 21 million healthcare workers in his second term is finally laid completely bare. “Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind” is authored by Mallory Factor, a major power broker who has chaired the Economic Roundtable for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led the 2009 Economic Summit for the U.S. House Republican Conference and Policy Committee, served on the Council on Foreign Relations, and co-founded the Monday Meeting, a nationally-recognized gathering of elected officials, journalists, business leaders and conservative authors.

Factor exposes the unions’ illicit alliance with Barack Obama in no uncertain terms. Only 10% of healthcare workers are presently union members, and the scheme for the unions to take over the healthcare system was being hatched as early as late 2008, when Obama was not even president yet and was forming his transition team. Dennis Rivera of the SEIU, who later became Obama’s point man in putting together the coalition to pass ObamaCare, sent a memo to the Obama transition team pledging the unions’ support for passing healthcare legislation.

This begged the question: why would the unions support ObamaCare when most unions negotiate for the super-expensive “Cadillac” plans for their members? In some cases, unions even directly profit by negotiating for contracts that force states to purchase health insurance for government workers from union affiliated insurance companies. In Wisconsin, for example, buying insurance from a union affiliated provider (WEA Trust) cost the state at least $68 million more than the state’s own health care plan for other government workers.

Via: Breitbart

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US taxpayers bail out California homeowners, as banks fail to pay their share

Contrary to what voters were led to believe, California took the unprecedented step this month to give banks and struggling homeowners up to $100,000 in taxpayer funds to reduce underwater mortgages.

Originally, banks and lenders were supposed to pay 50 percent of the cost of reducing the principal for those whose homes are worth less than their mortgage. But when the banks refused, California took the controversial step of paying the entire amount, up to $100,000.

"We thought, you know, 50-50 was much more attractive and we'd have much more traction with lenders, and it just didn't turn out to work as well as we would have liked," said Diane Richardson, legislative director of the California Housing Finance Agency.

The program, known as the Hardest Hit Housing Market fund, is part of a $7.6 billion federal effort to help underwater homeowners in 18 states. California received $2 billion. But when banks and lenders who service loans refused to write down even a small portion of the negative equity loans, California decided to use the taxpayer money to pay 100 percent of the mortgage reduction.

Richard Green, a professor of real estate at the University of Southern California, said it's not what taxpayers signed up for.

"I think taxpayers would be furious at the idea that everybody gets completely off the hook for this," Green said. "There are people that say, look, I've been a renter all these years, I've been paying my mortgage all these years, why am I bailing out these people who made a bad decision? I think the politics of it are very combustible."

Via: Fox News

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Book: Obama Campaign Marginalizes Ineffective Wasserman Schultz

AP File

The campaign has had difficulties with Debbie Wasserman Schultz since her inception as chair, reports Thrush.

But Wasserman Schultz’s most public scrap with the Obama campaign came after a Free Beacon report on photographs posted on Facebook by one of her aides, according to Thrush:

From the start, Wasserman Schultz grated on Chicago. She insisted the DNC hire a handful of her top congressional aides. While she was a tough and effective cable warrior and a serious fundraiser, she tended to do better on MSNBC and struck too harsh a partisan tone when she crossed over to the Sunday shows, they thought.

By the spring, the simmering tensions briefly boiled into public view. GOP researchers discovered an old post from Wasserman Schultz’s liaison to the Jewish community, Danielle “Dani” Gilbert, in which she joking referred to herself as a “Jewbag.”

Obama’s aides demanded the chairwoman immediate fire Gilbert, people close to the situation told me. But Wasserman Schultz defended the twentysomething staffer, who turned out to be the daughter of a top Democratic donor and Florida power broker, Mark Gilbert. She won the skirmish but lost the war–eventually becoming marginalized. Her fate, to be fair, has been shared by many a party chief in an election year, but by spring some in Obama’s orbit were openly speculating about how much better things might have been under Strickland or Villaraigosa. No sooner had that speculation died down than Wasserman Schultz called Chicago to ask why her national TV appearances, especially on Sunday shows, had dropped off.

Via: Fox News

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THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS KILLING THE INTERNET

Bad policy after bad policy.  Often illegally imposed. As a result, the Tech Sector – 1/6 of our nation’s economy, as big as health care – is hemorrhaging jobs. Tech Layoffs Hit 3-year High in First Half of 2012

And our Internet service would be better, faster and cheaper were it not for this Administration. 

The damage done by taxes and regulations is often unseen.  The money wasted - either sent to government or spent complying with ridiculous over-regulation - could have instead been invested in improving and expanding existing service, nd hiring people to make it all happen.

The worst gig-and-progress-killing Administration Internet power grab of all was the December 2010 illegal imposition of Network Neutrality. Net Neutrality eviscerates private sector investment in the infrastructure necessary to maintain and continue building the World Wide Web – exactly as ObamaCare does to private sector health care. 

Which ultimately leaves us with the government as our sole Internet Service Provider (ISP) – not at all problematic from a performance or free speech perspective. How do we know this?  Because the Godfather of the Media “Reform” Movement – University of Illinois professor and avowed Marxist (please pardon the redundancy) Robert McChesney – says so:

“At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

Having not to the Media Marxists’ satisfaction done enough damage to the wireless Web, in April 2011 the Administration took a second poisonous bite at the apple. 

Via: Breitbart

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Lamestream coverage leans left

By Howie Carr
Sunday, August 19, 2012 - 
+ Recent Articles

The more the campaign goes on, the more desperate the bowtied bumkissers of the lamestream media become in their attempts to save the failed administration of their hero.

The latest example: A hip-hop expert went on MSNBC (where else?) and claimed that using the word “angry” to describe Barack Obama is racist. Then he threw in the n-word for good measure.

Angry used to be popular with this crowd, at least when describing “angry white men” (Republican voters) or “temper tantrums” (GOP victories).

But now “angry” joins an ever-growing list of moonbat-proscribed words and phrases that have been deemed “racist.”

Also, were you aware that we’re in an economic “recovery”? And that Barack has “created” more than 4 million jobs? 

That’s what his cheerleaders report, day after day, with straight faces, even when they glumly add that the newest numbers are “unexpectedly” bad.

When Obama abruptly changes his position on an issue (think gay marriage), he is said to have evolved. When Mitt does the same (say, on abortion), he flip-flops.

Ann Romney wears a $990 shirt in May, and the Washington Post denounces her as out of touch and “indicative of a tone-deaf campaign.” Last month in London Mooch-elle Obama showed off an embroidered jacket that cost $6,800. The verdict? She “wowed ’em” at Buckingham Palace.

Via: Boston Herald

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Team Obama Spends Sunday On Defense

Obama's Countdown To Medicare's Bankruptcy

  

  Via: GOP.com

Republicans and Women's Rights: A Brief Reality Check

The GOP's longstanding "war on women" includes such horrors as giving them the vote.

When the Obama reelection staff began developing its general strategy for duping a majority of the electorate into once again supporting the President, they knew they needed to drive a lot of disenchanted female voters back into the Democrat herd. Thus, they concocted the fictional Republican "war on women." And, knowing that our government education system has long since given up teaching history, Obama's minions had little fear that the public would realize that the GOP's support of women's rights goes back to its founding in 1854. Nor were the President's men worried that Democrat front groups like the National Organization for Women, much less the "news" media, would remind female voters that their very ability to cast a ballot was won for them by the Republicans over the vehement objections of the Democrats.

Most educated Americans vaguely remember that the amendment granting women the right to vote was passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified by the states in 1920. But the number of people who know anything about the forty-year legislative war that preceded that victory is smaller than the audience of MSNBC. That war began in 1878, when a California Republican named A.A. Sargent introduced the 19th Amendment only to see it voted down by a Democrat-controlled Congress. It finally ended four decades later, when the Republicans won landslide victories in the House and the Senate, giving them the power to pass the amendment despite continued opposition from most elected Democrats -- including President Woodrow Wilson, to whom the suffragettes frequently referred as "Kaiser Wilson."

Via" American Spectator

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Once More: Taxes, Obamacare, and the End of the Constitution

Earlier this week, Mike Rappaport  replied  to Mike Paulsen’s  defense  of Chief Justice Robert’s opinion upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate as an exercise of the taxing power. It’s taken me a bit to weigh in because NFIB v. Sebelius continues to grow on me: the more I think about it, the angrier I get. But on a Saturday after a round of golf, I can manage. I think.

Between right-wing originalists called Mike: I believe that the Chief got it almost right; that Mike P.’s defense gets it almost right; and that Mike R.’s objection misses the mark. But the “almosts” matter: they contain all the tragedy and horror of the decision.

To be clear: I have no design to join the conspiracy theorists and “Roberts is a traitor” contingents. Mike Paulsen’s piece contains an eloquent defense of the Chief’s personal and judicial integrity, to which I subscribe wholeheartedly and which will hopefully help to put distance between the grown-ups and the fever swamps. It so happens, though, that honorable people can make mistakes that have very fateful consequences—not on account of a lapse but for respectable and even, and precisely, for honorable reasons. Here goes.

 The Power to Tax. For purposes of deciding whether the payment attached to the “individual responsibility mandate” is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to tax, does it matter that Congress call the payment a “penalty” rather than a “tax”? The answer, Mike Paulsen writes in defense of Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, has to be “no”: the constitutional question isn’t whether Congress was invoking a particular power but whether it had the power.

Via: Liberty Law Blog

Too Funny: Obama Spokeswoman Says Campaign Is Intentionally Limiting Crowd Sizes At Obama And Biden Events…

COLORADO SPRINGS — About 4,200 people of all ages and colors spread across a green at Colorado College on Thursday in this conservative city for a rally with President Obama. Hours earlier, 3,500 supporters did the same in smaller Pueblo, Colo.

Together with two events on Wednesday in Denver and Grand Junction, Colo., an estimated 14,100 people in this battleground state turned out over the past two days to cheer Mr. Obama.

Good crowds, especially compared with the hundreds that typically turn out to see Mitt Romney. But four years ago Mr. Obama often was drawing five-digit throngs, filling arenas’ nosebleed seats and overflow rooms and regularly requiring shutdown orders from the local fire marshals.

Which raises a couple of questions: Where are the crowds now? And what does it mean for the results in November?

“We have plenty of time for big rallies,” a campaign spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said between the rallies on Thursday. “Our focus right now is on exciting our supporters and winning over undecided voters and the smaller and medium-size events are the best venue to accomplish that because the president can closely engage with the crowd.”

Big rallies are expensive, especially given the logistical and security challenges for a president as opposed to a mere United States senator. And Obama campaign operatives, both at the Chicago headquarters and in swing states where Mr. Obama recently has stumped, say the campaign intentionally limits crowds by restricting tickets. The reason is to allow the president to better connect with supporters, aides say.

Pettie Quintana, an employee at the Holiday Inn Express in Pueblo, said on Thursday that she had gone earlier in the week to the state fairgrounds to get a ticket, but the ticket office was closed, its allotment gone.

Via: NYT

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Agenda 21: ‘The Agenda That Wasn’t Really There’

Some day when historians are sifting through the ashes of what was once the Free West trying to determine what happened,  they will discover that freedom was lost through ‘The Agenda That Wasn’t Really There’.

‘The Agenda That Wasn’t Really There’  is the main strategy being used to push through the very real and dangerous Agenda 21 through villages, towns and cities. The inhabitants of some 1,200 cities—600 of them American—do not even know they’ve been hijacked by the UN’s Agenda 21.

Interesting how Agenda 21 was originated by the first ‘Man Who Wasn’t Really There’,  U.N. Poster Boy, Canadian billionaire Maurice Strong.  Obama, incidentally is only the second ‘Man Who Wasn’t Really There’.

The reason Obama stands out while Maurice Strong doesn’t, is that arrogant Obama likes to boast openly about his obsession to Fundamentally Transform America, while Maurice Strong has always played in the dark of the background.

Via: Canada Free Press

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The Impending California Pension Property Tax Earthquake

The most widespread and persistent folktale about California is that some day the entire state will break away from the North American continent and fall off into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.  That day may not be too far off if what is unfolding in the growing number of municipal bankruptcy court cases in California plays out to its logical consequence without massive and politically legitimate pension reform.

As reported by urban economist Steven Malanga, municipal bond insurers may lose out in court in their attempt to get bankrupt California cities to reduce pension costs.  This may lead to more than just bondholders getting wiped out and much higher borrowing rate costs across the state.

If the courts uphold pensions as a constitutional right over bondholders’ rights, municipal workers will be entitled to earn more in pensions and health benefits than cities can currently pay.  About 70 to 80 percent of municipal operating costs are allocated to salaries and benefits.  And the lion’s share of salaries and benefit costs go to police and fire protection.  There is little room for large budget cuts in most municipalities.

Some municipalities with pre-existing pension bonds may be able to refinance them without voter approval and shift the explosion in pension costs into long-term debt. Issuing brand new pension bonds would require voter approval. But such cities would have to have enough extra budget cash flow to handle the added debt.

Via: CA Political Review

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White House holds ‘We Can’t Wait’ funds for almost four years

WOW! WHAT A SURPRISE IN AN ELECTION YEAR

The administration has waited three years and seven months to implement a new “We Can’t Wait” project that redirects unspent appropriations to fund new construction projects.

The wait delayed the spending announcement until 11 weeks prior to the November election.

The announcement is part of the administration’s “We Can’t Wait” effort, which highlights the president’s authority to change spending, law enforcement priorities and regulations, independent of Congress and the courts.

The redirected $473 million includes funds from appropriation laws passed up to 10 years ago, Josh Easton, the White House’ deputy press secretary, announced Aug. 17.

“Instead of seeing these funds sit idle… we’ll use them to put Americans back to work,” he said. “Some of them are nearly 10 years old,” he announced.

However, even though the money is being released, it is unlikely to have any impact on the economy for several months. That’s because federal funds come with many regulatory and paperwork requirements that need to be processed.

Those requirements greatly reduced the economic impact of the $787 billion 2009 stimulus bill.

Via: Daily Caller

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Rasmussen: Voters Say Ryan More Qualified To Be President Than Biden

A new poll shows voters giving Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a slight edge when asked which VP candidate is better qualified to serve as president. 

The new survey from conservative-leaning outlet Rasmussen shows that 42 percent say the House Budget Chairman and Mitt Romney running mate would be more qualified to be commander-in-chief. Forty percent pick Vice President Joe Biden, with 18 percent undecided. 

Ryan’s two-point edge, however, is within the poll’s 3-percent margin of error.

The survey comes after a difficult week for the vice president.

On Tuesday, he told a racially mixed audience at a campaign rally in Virginia that Republican policies toward Wall Street would "put y'all back in chains," a comment that brought swift condemnation from Republicans. 

The Obama campaign defended Biden and said that his remark was taken out of context.

Yet the latest in a series of gaffes from the vice president, led to media speculation that he might be forced off the ticket, despite the Obama administration’s repeated statements that Biden would run with the president in 2012.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Republicans were trying to "distract attention" and said Obama had no intention of getting rid of Biden as his running mate. 

Via: The Hill

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NYT: OBAMACARE 'AMBIGUITY' COULD MAKE HEALTH CARE TOO COSTLY FOR MILLIONS

The New York Times reports that an “ambiguity” in President Obama’s signature health care law may make the Affordable Care Act unaffordable for millions of American workers and their families.

Ironically, the glitch is Clintonesque in nature, over the meaning of the word “affordable.” The definition of the word could have enormous practical repercussions in decisions about who obtains government assistance for health insurance.

Under rules proposed by the Internal Revenue Service, which will carry out some of the primary provisions of Obamacare, some working class families would be unable to afford employer-sponsored family coverage health care benefits and yet would also not qualify for subsidies granted in Obamacare. In other words, these workers and their families will fall between the cracks of the language of the legislation.

For a family whose annual income is $35,000 and who pays $4,130 -- or 12% of income -- for family health care coverage sponsored by an employer, the costs would be considered “affordable” under IRS rules. Under Obamacare, however, employer-sponsored health insurance is considered “unaffordable” if a worker pays a premium of more than 9.5% of the worker’s household income. The IRS argues that this calculation should be based only on the cost of individual coverage for the employee, not coverage for a spouse or children. Thus, the family would not be eligible for government subsidies to buy private health insurance in the states’ exchanges.

Via: Breitbart

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Report: Harry Reid Used Ted Kennedy’s Brain Cancer To Beg For Stimulus Votes…

Michael Grunwald’s “The New New Deal” details the $787 billion stimulus passed in the early days of President Barack Obama’s presidency, and offers the back story of Senate arm-twisting needed to secure the votes.

Among the revelations in Grunwald’s book is an anecdote recalling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s attempt to push three veteran Republicans to vote for the bill — by guilt-tripping them over former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer.

Without vote commitments from the Republicans he had hoped to push his direction, Reid brought Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Thad Chochran of Mississippi and Mike Enzi of Wyoming to his office to appeal for their votes.

“He was basically pleading for our votes,” Grassely said, according to Grunwald. “He said: ‘You all know something needs to be done. The Democrats did TARP for Bush. You’ve got to look past the substance.’”

When his initial plea did not work, Reid reportedly told the three Republicans that he needed their votes so that he would not need to bring Kennedy — at the time battling brain cancer — back to work to end a filibuster.

“He said if you can’t vote with us, we’re going to have to bring Kennedy to the floor, and it really could kill him,” Grassely said. “We looked at each other like: Huh?”

According to Grunwald’s account, Reid then asked if there was a volunteer to vote on Kennedy’s behalf, as there had been precedent for “pairing votes” as a courtesy for ill senators of the opposite party. None of the three took him up on the offer, nor did Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who Reid also attempted to pressure with the Kennedy plea.

Via: Daily Caller

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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/17/book-reid-used-kennedys-brain-cancer-to-beg-for-stimulus-votes/#ixzz23wvElX56

Far-Left Boston Globe Calls On Biden To Apologize For “Chains” Remarks…

When Vice President Joe Biden warned a Virginia rally of hundreds of African Americans that Republican efforts to loosen bank regulations meant “They’re going to put y’all back in chains,” Stephanie Cutter, Team Obama’s deputy campaign manager, said the president would have “no problem with those comments.”

But imagine if Republican Paul Ryan uttered comments like that. Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president would be pilloried for racial insensitivity — and so would Romney. In the fight for civility and substance over pointless hyperbole, Biden may not be the worst offender. But he’s an offender nonetheless, and he should apologize.

Biden has a history of making remarks that would rile up liberals if they were spoken by a conservative politician. Back in 2008, when Biden was running against Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, he had to apologize for saying, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

He once told an Indian American, “You can’t go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” During a January 2012 speech in New Hampshire, he briefly drifted into a foreign accent while imitating a Indian call center worker. At that same rally where he made the “back in chains” crack, Biden also imitated the sign language woman and said, “You’re gonna have trouble translating all this! That poor lady, she’s gonna have tendonitis by the time she finishes this.”

Liberals routinely dismiss Biden’s gaffes as the rhetorical excesses of an overly exuberant speaker — it’s “Joe being Joe.” And there can be something appealing about a politician who throws caution and the script that goes with it to the winds. Yet when conservative speakers get overly exuberant and cross a rhetorical line, they are presumed racist or culturally insensitive, rather than refreshingly free-spirited. One standard should apply.

Via: Boston Globe

Gov. Brown Says Prop 30 Taxes Are All About Schools — Not So

Governor Jerry Brown kicked off his campaign to pass Proposition 30 on August 15, showcasing what Dan Schnur, Director of the USC Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics called “the most expensive ransom note in California political history” – pass the tax increase or the schools get it. The problem is that this tax increase proposal comes with no reforms for school funding, let alone other big-ticket items like pensions, and is likely a band-aid that would lead to more taxes in the future.

The schools are the focus of Brown’s kick-off at a school location but they are not the focus of the funds raised by the initiative.

The schools get no guaranteed new money from Prop 30. That’s not me saying so, that’s a comment from the California School Boards Association quoted in a Sacramento Bee article. “Despite endorsing Brown’s measure, (California School Boards Association) leaders said they ‘want to make it clear to the public that the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools. Instead, it bolsters the General Fund with new revenue.’”

A Wall Street Journal editorial stated that, “The dirty little secret is that the new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers pension fund.”

Note that the School Boards Association pointed out that the new funding “bolsters the General Fund.” The association is not the only observer to recognize that this tax increase is about the General Fund. The Legislative Analyst Office’s report on Prop 30 stated:  “The new tax revenues would be available to fund programs in the state budget.”

Via: CA Political Review

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White House Hasn’t Released Biden Transcripts in Months

No, not his college transcripts . . .

The Los Angeles Times has a story today about Joe Biden’s lack of verbal dexterity:

Most candidates give the same stump speech over and over, putting reporters if not the audience to sleep. But during any Biden speech, there might be a dozen moments to make press handlers cringe, and prompt reporters to turn to each other with amusement and confusion.
Any such moment can be quickly edited down, posted online and relayed to blogs and inboxes — and some will stick, but many more are just ignored or saved for a Biden blooper reel.

Joe Biden’s speeches are apparently so off-message that the White House “press office has not released a complete transcript of any Biden speech, whether campaign or official, in more than two months. Transcripts for all of Obama’s speeches, however, are distributed quickly, as they are for many of the first lady’s events.”

This comes after news broke that Joe Biden’s aides have tried on at least two occasions to edit press pool reports, which are used to inform national reporters. From Politico’s story, “Mission Impossible: Managing Joe Biden”:

But on two occasions during Biden’s Virginia trip, his staff sought to have certain elements in the reports highlighted while reporters drafted them and discussed the contents with the reporters after the summaries had been sent but before they had before sent to the broader media.

Appearing on MSNBC, the author of the piece, Jonathan Martin, said, “The Biden staff is determined to police him and to really save him from himself.”

Via: The National Review

Obama thinking of tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Because nothing is worse in an election season than rising gas prices.

The White House is "dusting off old plans" for a potential release of oil reserves to dampen prices and prevent high energy costs from undermining sanctions against Iran, a source with knowledge of the situation said on Thursday.

U.S. officials will monitor market conditions over the next few weeks, watching whether gasoline prices fall after the September 3 Labor Day holiday, as they historically do, the source said.

It was too early to detail the size of any release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and other international stockpiles if a decision to proceed was taken, the source said.

Oil prices have surged in recent weeks, with Brent crude prices closing in on $120 a barrel, up sharply from below $90 a barrel in June. The United States and other Group of Eight countries studied a potential oil release in the spring but shelved the plans when prices dropped.

As prices rise again, U.S. officials were now collecting information from the market about potential needs and studying futures, production numbers and data on Iranian oil exports.

"The driving force in this is both impact on the economy and impact on the Iran sanctions policy," the source said, noting that Washington did not want rising oil prices to create a windfall for Iran while international sanctions were having an effective impact on its crude exports and revenues.

Via: American Thinker

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