Think Piece: Tax Democrats

RUSH: Folks, what is more dangerous, smoking or living in Baltimore?  No, no, no.  It's a serious question.  Tobacco is taxed.  Why is it taxed?  Tobacco is taxed for a plethora of reasons.  It's taxed to discourage people from using it, because it is said it can lead to an early death.  It can lead to other problems.  It kills.  We also tax tobacco in order to pay for (and in a couple of cases entirely fund) children's health care programs. 

You're aware of that?  The taxes derived from the sale of tobacco, that revenue is used to pay for children's health care programs.  I've always said that smokers deserve a special thanks, despite all the obstacles they face.  I mean, we don't ban the product. We make it available. You can sell it, you can buy it, but you can't use it very many places in America anymore without running the gauntlet. Yet these people continue to buy the product, they continue to use it, and they pay higher and higher prices, just astronomically high prices.

They continue to buy the product, they pay the price, and the taxes go to children's health care programs.  So if tobacco is taxed to discourage from using it because it can lead to an early death and other problems -- and that's the primary reason it's taxed -- let's face it, the prices are designed to dissuade people from using the product.  That would be the primary purpose that nannies in life and the social do-gooders would give you. 

Using that logic, should we not be taxing Democrats?  Their policies, look at Democrat policies.  They ruin families.  Democrat policies spread ignorance in the schools.  Democrat policies make health care unaffordable.  This results in great stress from unemployment and underemployment, and Democrats have created and maintained dangerous cities with horrible crime and death rates. 

It's arguably more dangerous living in Baltimore than it is to smoke cigarettes.  Look at the death rate.  I'm not joking.  It's a way to make a point, and I think it would be a perfect opportunity to say we need to tax registered Democrats the way we tax tobacco, because Democrats are causing illness. Democrats cause strife. Democrat policies are ruining cities. Democrat policies have ruined families.  Just a little think piece.  

Via: Rush Limbaugh

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The Trifecta Of Bad News From The Obama Era

Three fresh headlines in recent days represent the status of the big issues that will shape the 2016 elections:

1. “U.S. economy shrinks in first quarter, raising questions about underlying strength” from The Washington Post.

2. “Exclusive Interview: Ian Bremmer says America is no longer ‘indispensable’” from the Telegraph.

3. “The New Nationwide Crime Wave” from the Wall Street Journal.
4.  A weak, slow or no-growth economy; diminished capacity and lack of resolve on a dangerous and threatening world stage; civil order breaking down as a result of political leadership mismanaging our police forces — these realities are a product of President Obama’s tone and policies, and they reflect his worldview.

In an article in The Post, “Obama’s new patriotism,” Greg Jaffe analyzed “how Obama has used his presidency to redefine ‘American exceptionalism’” in a “new and radical form.” He says that Obama’s six-plus years in office have led him to “a patriotism that embraces the darker moments in American history.” Well, I guess when you don’t take pride in America’s traditional accomplishments and you don’t believe that America’s forceful presence in the world is essential, then you have to shape a narrative that declares the “dark moments” are actually what define us.

Many in the media try to twist the president’s failures into a tortured definition of how America should be or declare that Obama’s non-patriotism is just a new way to show fealty to our country. Liberals seem to be more than willing to declare the president’s failures as victories and herald any outcome as a result of the president’s sophisticated thinking. But the headlines don’t lie, and the growing anxiety about our country’s future is real.

Via: Washington Post

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JOBS DATA: 92,986,000 PEOPLE NOT IN THE WORKFORCE

The month of May saw 92,986,000 people not participating in the workforce, according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals.

May’s total represented slight decline compared to last month’s record, which saw 93,194,000 people outside the workforce.

The BLS defines those not in the labor force as people ages 16 and older who are neither employed nor “made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week.”

The labor force participation rate came in at 62.9 percent, a slight uptick compared to April’s 62.8 percent.

According to the BLS, the civilian labor force itself rose by 397,000, reaching 157,469,000 in May.

Of those participating in the workforce, 148,795,000 had a job and 8,674,000 were unemployed.

The overall unemployment data from the BLS saw payroll employment rise in June by 280,000 and the official jobless rate at 5.5 percent.

Via: Breitbart

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Obama paid late parking tickets Racked up penalties while at Harvard

Barack Obama is no longer a scofflaw, at least in Cambridge and Somerville.

Two weeks before the US senator from Illinois launched his presidential campaign, he paid parking tickets he received while attending Harvard Law School, officials said yesterday.

Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, according to the city's Traffic, Parking & Transportation Department.

Of those tickets, he paid only two while he was a student and paid them late, said Susan Clippinger, the office's director.

In January, about when the Globe began asking local officials about Obama's time at Harvard, including any violations of local laws, someone representing the senator called the parking office to inquire about the decades-old tickets.

On Jan. 26, the remaining $375 in fines and fees were paid by credit card using the city's website, Clippinger said. She said she didn't know who paid them.

"I think it's fabulous he finally paid them," Clippinger said by phone yesterday. "I think others who owe us money should pay us, too."

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, said last night that the senator paid for the tickets out of a personal account.

She would not comment on why it had taken him so long to pay the tickets and fees. "All I can do is confirm that he paid all the tickets and late fees in full," she said.

Clippinger said her records show that Obama received the tickets between Oct. 5, 1988, and Jan. 12, 1990, for violations including parking in a resident-only area, blocking a bus stop, and failing to put money in meters.

He received most of the tickets in fall 1988, in his first year at Harvard Law School, a grueling trial for many of the students. A meter violation then cost only $5; the penalty for not paying promptly tacked on another $15. At times, he received multiple tickets in the same day for exceeding the time limit at a meter.

In total, he incurred $140 in fines and $260 in late fees. In February 1990, he paid two of the tickets, one for $10 and the other for $15.

"He's certainly not our worst ticket scofflaw," Clippinger said. "Unfortunately, it's not that abnormal. It's actually pretty run of the mill."

Obama's payment of the Cambridge tickets was reported yesterday by The Somerville News.

The Globe reported in January that in Somerville, where Obama lived while attending Harvard, the senator still owed the city $73 in excise taxes and $45 in late penalties for parking in a bus stop in 1990 and in a street-sweeping zone in 1991. Both of the tickets had been paid.

Tom Champion, a spokesman for the city of Somerville, said he called Obama's office after receiving a query about the late fees from the Globe in late January.

By the next Monday, Jan. 29, he said, the penalties were paid.

"He had no idea he had outstanding charges," Champion said. "The Globe, by raising the issue, called it to his attention, and then he paid them immediately."

Via: Boston Globe

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Survey: $15 Minimum Wage Could Shutter 1 in 5 NY Fast Food Joints

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BY: Bill McMorris  
June 5, 2015 3:20 pm

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D.) promised minimum wage hikes for fast food New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D.) promised minimum wage hikes for fast food restaurants could shut down one out of every five chain restaurants in the state, according to a new survey.

The Employment Policies Institute, a free market think tank and critic of minimum wage hikes, surveyed nearly 1,000 self-described fast food entrepreneurs about how they would respond to statewide, industry-specific wage hikes. More than 20 percent of respondents said they were “very likely” to go out of business if the state raises the minimum wage for fast food joints to $15, a 70 percent increase from the current $8.75 statewide minimum wage.

Such a hike could spur higher costs for customers and reduced employment opportunities and hours for workers. Business owners responded overwhelmingly that such policies would hurt the very workers that Cuomo and activists claim to want to help.

Only 5 percent of respondents said they were “unlikely” to raise prices to cope with a $15 wage; 70 percent said they were very likely. In order to retain customers and remain competitive, a majority of the owners said they would be forced to cut employee hours or curb hiring.

“Low single-digit profit margins, which are typical for the fast food industry, explain why business owners in the state report considering a series of off-setting measures to adapt to a $15 minimum wage,” the report says.

Cuomo is seeking to increase wages on the fast food industry through a three-member board that is debating a potential $15 wage at chain restaurants. EPI analyst and report author Michael Saltsman attended Friday’s hearing, criticizing both Cuomo’s methods and also the policy.

“Our survey shows that a dramatic minimum wage hike would have the same negative effect in New York that it’s having on the west coast. Employers and employees should hope the wage board can tune out the noise and take a careful look at the consequences,” Saltsman said. “An unelected board hearing where proponents shout down the other side—is this what democracy looks like?”

Via: WFB

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Immigrants do jobs Americans won't do. Except at Disney.

Disney is firing tech employees and replacing them with (legal) foreigners.

[A]bout 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.

But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States.

According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal loopholes, however, in practice, companies do not have to recruit American workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced

As you can see, illegal aliens are not the only problem we face.  But rather than getting into a debate about legal immigration, I want to touch on a different point.

Big business wants amnesty, and the reason it wants amnesty is because it wants a cheap labor force.

Everyone wonders why the Republicans have been so timid about challenging Obama's illegal massive amnesty.  After all, the Republican House and the Republican Senate fully funded Obama's Department of Homeland Security (now named ironically), with no restrictions on their ability to legalize aliens en masse.

Via: American Thinker

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America needs a rebirth of freedom

Your freedom is slipping away as Washington’s power grows. Your freedom is undermined by a more intrusive government, which increasingly dictates how you run your life. The principles of America’s Founding have never been more at risk.

Washington is taking over your health care. Encouraging illegal immigration as a political force to suppress your freedom. Raising your taxes. Enslaving your family by national debt. Coddling dictators and gutting our national defenses. While some “conservatives” may have abandoned principle or compromised needlessly, The Heritage Foundation is confronting the crisis with a bold plan to give America a new birth of freedom.

To meet the crisis, Heritage is launching Reclaim America, a revolutionary campaign—unprecedented by any policy organization—to rapidly restore the constitutional rule of “We the People.”

Reclaim America will use four revolutionary strategies to drastically reduce Washington’s power. We will liberate Americans from big government, dethrone the special interests that hold sway over both parties, and end the chokehold the Left has on America.

Reclaim America’s aim is simple: Change America’s trajectory. Beginning right now.

Via: Heritage.com

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Is the Tide Turning against PC?

Has the contemptible Laura Kipnis Affair incensed the worm into turning? Our own David French certainly hopes so. “Feminists from Jezebel to The Nation have expressed concern about Kipnis’s treatment,” French wrote on Monday, “and Jonathan Chait has discussed her ordeal as part of his recent campaign against PC.” Indeed,” he continues, “there is a growing wave of leftist dissent against campus intolerance.

” The latest froth in the wave comes today, from “Edward Schlosser,” a teacher “at a midsize state school.” “I’m a liberal professor,” Schlosser writes over at the “explainer” website Vox, “and my liberal students terrify me.” Why? Because a considerable number of them have bought hook, line, and sinker into a worldview in which “the feelings of individuals are the primary or even exclusive means through which social issues are understood and discussed,” and, in consequence, any accusations of misconduct that are leveled at academics have become too subjective to be dispassionately analyzed. Chagrined and alarmed by the burgeoning number of inquisitions, Schlosser has been left fretting that were he to be hauled in front of a disciplinary committee, he would likely stand no chance:

Instead of focusing on the rightness or wrongness (or even acceptability) of the materials we reviewed in class, the complaint would center solely on how my teaching affected the student’s emotional state. As I cannot speak to the emotions of my students, I could not mount a defense about the acceptability of my instruction. And if I responded in any way other than apologizing and changing the materials we reviewed in class, professional consequences would likely follow. In March of this year, Schlosser issued a similar lament, albeit in less family-friendly language. “Personally,” he wrote regretfully, “liberal students scare the shit out of me.”

Via: National Review

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In Vermont, Frustrations Mount Over Affordable Care Act

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Just a few years ago, lawmakers in this left-leaning state viewed President Obama’s Affordable Care Act as little more than a pit stop on the road to a far more ambitious goal: single-payer, universal health care for all residents.

Then things unraveled. The online insurance marketplace that Vermont built to enroll people in private coverage under the law had extensive technical failures. The problems soured public and legislative enthusiasm for sweeping health care changes just as Gov. Peter Shumlin needed to build support for his complex single-payer plan. Finally, Mr. Shumlin, a Democrat, shelved the plan in December, citing the high cost to taxpayers. He called the decision “the greatest disappointment of my political life.

”As the United States Supreme Court prepares to rule in a case that could gut a major element of the Affordable Care Act — federal subsidies for low- and middle-income people — Vermont should have little to worry about. Only states that use the federally run insurance marketplace stand to lose subsidies if the court rules against the Obama administration, and Vermont is among the 14 states that fully run their own.

Via: New York Times

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The Tax-Cut Payoff in Carolina

Even with lower rates, tax revenues have increased 6% this year, and the state has a $400 million budget surplus.

Four years ago North Carolina’s unemployment rate was above 10% and the state still bore the effects of its battering in the recession. Many rural towns faced jobless rates of more than 20%. But in 2013 a combination of the biggest tax-rate reductions in the state’s history and a gutsy but controversial unemployment-insurance reform supercharged the state’s economy and has even helped finance budget surpluses.

As Wells Fargo’s Economics Group recently put it: “North Carolina’s economy has shifted into high gear. Hiring has picked up across nearly every industry.”

The tax cut slashed the state’s top personal income-tax rate to 5.75%, near the regional average, from 7.75%, which had been the highest in the South. The corporate tax rate was cut to 5% from 6.9%. The estate tax was eliminated.

Next came the novel tough-love unemployment-insurance reforms. The state became the first in the nation to reject “free” federal payments for extended unemployment benefits and reduce the weeks of benefits to 20 from 26. The maximum weekly dollar amount of payments, $535, which had been among the highest in the nation, was trimmed to a maximum of $350 a week. As a result, tens of thousands of Carolinians left the unemployment rolls.

In an interview at the governor’s mansion, Gov. Pat McCrory tells me that when he took office in January 2013 he looked at the data and knew “we couldn’t stay on the course we were on. We had the highest unemployment benefits and yet at the same time businesses were routinely complaining they couldn’t find workers until benefits ran out. We heard a lot of stories of workers waiting until benefits ran out before going back to work.” In sum, the state was paying people not to work.

While these measures were passing the legislature, the state capital boiled over with rancorous political rallies, called Moral Mondays, designed to block the “cruel” GOP agenda. Rev. William Barber II, one of the protest organizers, lambasted Republicans for making the Tar Heel State a “crucible of extremism and injustice.” The national media piled on with claims that the Republican agenda cut taxes for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.

Via: Wall Street Journal

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EPA declares no ‘widespread’ harm to drinking water from fracking, boosting industry

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• FRACKING SUPPORTERS receive a boost by a new EPA report finding the controversial oil-and-gas extraction process has not caused "widespread" harm to drinking water in the United States.

Fracking supporters were boosted Thursday by a new Environmental Protection Agency report finding the controversial oil-and-gas extraction process has not caused "widespread" harm to drinking water.

The findings were contained in a draft assessment, as part of a report requested by Congress.

The report said the agency "did not find evidence" that any process has "led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States."

The agency did say the controversial drilling technique could affect drinking water if safeguards aren't maintained. It found specific instances where poorly constructed drilling wells and improper wastewater management affected drinking water resources.

But the EPA also reported the number of cases was small compared with the large number of wells that use hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.

For industry and congressional voices who have long argued the health hazards associated with fracking are overblown, the report appeared to be a boon.

"Today's study confirms what we already know. Hydraulic fracturing, when done to industry standards, does not impact drinking water," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement. "States have been effectively regulating hydraulic fracturing for more than 40 years and this study is evidence of that."

Via: Fox News

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EXCLUSIVE: Clinton charity took up to $10 MILLION donation from African church which called homosexuals 'devils'

Hillary Clinton's charity accepted a substantial donation from an anti-gay African church which has likened homosexuals to the Devil, Daily Mail Online can reveal.

The 2016 Presidential candidate took money for her sprawling health nonprofit from the Cameroon Baptist Convention whose official policy is that being gay 'contradicts God's purpose for human sexuality'.

The devout Christian organization has in the past compared being gay to committing incest and human trafficking. Its leaders have also railed against US attempts to promote gay rights in Cameroon.

Despite this, the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board gave between $1million and $10million between 2010 and this year, according to the latest list of donors from the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

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Awkward: Public supporter of same-sex marriage Hillary Clinton's health charity took up to $10 million from a church which says homosexuality should be equated with incest and bestiality

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High-profile: The Rev Godwil Ncham, general secretary of the Cameroon Baptist Convention, kneels to receive flowers during a meeting at a church in the country. His church says of homosexuality that it 'contradicts God's purpose for sexuality'.

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At odds: Sir Elton John, who married his partner David Furnish as soon as it was possible in the UK last year. His AIDS foundation donated to the Clinton charity. He has campaigned on AIDS, meeting Hillary Clinton's White House rival Lindsey Graham in May in Washington D.C. at a Senate sub-committee hearing on the disease

The disclosure will be awkward for Mrs Clinton who has publicly stated that she supports gay marriage.

Some of her wealthy and influential celebrity supporters are gay including Ellen DeGeneres and Elton John, while many others Democrats are strong advocates for gay rights.

And during her election campaign Mrs Clinton will be heavily relying on them to raise her estimated $1 billion war chest.

The latest roster of donors for CHAI lists dozens of individuals and companies who have given up to $25million and over during the last five years.

But the CBC do not appear as in line with the Clintons' views in the same way as the likes of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who are some of the biggest givers.

Although they are broadly in line with some other denominations in their teachings on sexuality, including among others the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, the CBC are certainly very much at odds with the founder of the Elton John AIDS Fund, which is also a donor.

Clinton's campaign commercial featuring same-sex couples

Via: Daily Mail

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‘What Difference Does It Make?’… Hillary Travels to Texas for Elitist Fundraiser – Protest Breaks Out

Hillary Clinton traveled to Texas for a big donor fundraiser on Wednesday night.
A protest broke out…

Best Sign: “I did not have textual relations with that server”

What difference does it make?

Protesters lined the street in Texas to welcome embattled former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Lone Star State.
The Daily Mail reported:

They came in Bentleys, BMWs, Maseratis and Porsches. A handful drove Mercedes-Benzes and Lexuses. At least two luxury Tesla eco-cars made the trip.

Valet attendants parked the cars of the deep-pocketed Democrats for $10 per hour and raced around the neighborhood two hours later as a line of millionaires formed.

The guest of honor, Hillary Clinton, arrived in a black Cadillac for her $2,700-per-plate presidential fundraiser.

As the former secretary of state’s Secret Service escort pulled into the driveway of a $11.4 million home near Dallas on Wednesday night, a group of Republican activists were waiting.

When a nondescript Texan, a 20-something man in a silver pickup truck, drove by and yelled ‘F*** Hillary!,’ a small cheer went up.

Via: Gateway Pundit

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