You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

Surprise…Democrats are still pointing fingers at George W. Bush.  Seems to me that anything that happens in the Gulf is Bush’s fault.  Atlantic Hurricanes, the destruction of black neighborhoods and now add oil rig damage and oil spills.  Suggestion to BP, instead of plugging the well with golf balls perhaps they can plug them into Nancy Pelosi’s big stupid mouth.  Whether there are “cozy relationships” or not it is pure idiocy to think Democrats in DC would have been able to stop the methane bubble that caused the accident.

Attention Americans:  Please help send this embarrassment back into the minority this November!

Pelosi blames Bush administration for BP oil spill.

By: Joel S. Gehrke Jr.
Special to the Examiner
05/29/10 7:38 AM EDT

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blamed the Bush administration for any lack of oversight leading up to the Gulf oil spill. The Obama administration, on the other hand, is blameless.

From Talk Radio News Service:

“Many of the people appointed in the Bush administration are still burrowed in the agencies that are supposed to oversee the [oil] industry,” Pelosi said when asked if Democrats could have prevented or mitigated the crisis by keeping a closer watch on the industry.

Added the Speaker, “the cozy relationships between the Bush administration’s agency leadership and the industry is clear…I’ve heard no complaints from my members about the way the president has handled it,” Pelosi stated.

On Friday, the Washington Examiner requested that Speaker Pelosi’s office release the list of Bush appointees to whom she was referring. We’ll let you know when we hear back.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/pelosi-blames-bush-administration-for-bp-oil-spill-95175304.html#ixzz0pM814HT0

In this Friday, May 14, 2009 picture, Hawaii State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, left, former U.S. Rep. Ed Case, center, both Democrats, and Republican Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou, right, embrace each other after participating in a debate at the KHON2 television studios in Honolulu. (AP)

Hawaii is no longer solid blue.  A small bit of red has invaded the islands.

Republicans scored a midterm election victory Saturday when Honolulu City Councilman Charles Djou won a Democratic-held House seat in Hawaii in the district where President Obama grew up — the latest triumph for the GOP as it looks to take back control of Congress.

Djou’s victory was a blow to Obama and other Democrats who could not rally around a candidate and find away to win a congressional race that should have been a cakewalk. The seat had been held by a Democrat for nearly 20 years and is located in the district where Obama was born and spent most of his childhood.

“This is a momentous day. We have sent a message to the United States Congress. We have sent a message to the national Democrats. We have sent a message to the machine,” Djou said. “The congressional seat is not owned by one political party. This congressional seat is owned by the people.”

Djou received 67,274 votes, or 39.5 percent. He was trailed by state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, a Democrat who received 52,445 votes, or 30.8 percent. The other leading Democrat, former U.S. Rep. Ed Case, received 47,012 votes, or 27.6 percent.

Republicans see the victory as a powerful statement about their momentum heading into November. They already sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts — a place that was once thought to be the most hostile of territories for the GOP. Now Republicans can say they won a congressional seat in the former backyard of the president and in a state that gave Obama 72 percent of the vote two years ago.

Finish reading here.

It seems the TEA Party has made it to Hawaii.  Come November, the Democrats just might be a bit distressed at the outcome, regretful that many listened to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid instead of their CONSTITUENTS!

Today we celebrate, tomorrow it is back to work.

It’s quite clear that the debate is over. It doesn’t matter if the American people don’t want it.  It doesn’t matter what the Republicans brought to the table.  Speaker Pelosi and her Democrats have every intention of trying to ram heath care through, AT YOUR EXPENSE!

Here are the Speaker’s latest remarks:

House Speaker Pelosi says lawmakers aren’t in Washington for job security but ‘to do the job for the American people.’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue’s massive role in this election year.

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.”
“We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress,” she said. “We’re here to do the job for the American people.”

It took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, she said, “and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill.”

Read more

So there you have it.  There is the direction 9% Nancy is taking our country.  Screw the jobs, we aren’t here to create jobs!  Let them eat cake!

If I’m not mistaken, Congress and the Senate are directly to blame for chasing industry out of this country with their high taxes and restrictions. The U.S. corporate tax rate is currently 25.2%, the fifth largest in the developed world.  The average “combined” federal and state corporate tax rate is estimated at 39.3%.  OUCH!  Another example, which I am very familiar with, is the decimation of the US confectionery industry.  This IS a direct result of sugar subsidies by our federal government.

So next time you hear Nancy Pelosi talk about jobs and helping the private sector out, the cat’s out of the bag on this, because “lawmakers aren’t in Washington for job security.”

Hopefully, by the end of this year we can let Nancy Pelosi know a thing or two about how secure her job is!!!

If you are wondering why approval ratings are at 10% for Congress and the president is polling around 48%, take a look at the following videos.  They think we’re stupid, but we are watching and we are listening.

Democrats/Progressives can not be Racist.

Democrats/Progressives are smarter than Joe Six-pack.

Democrats/Progressives understand how violent men can become when unemployed.

Democrats/Progressives understand how the CIA was wrong. Oh, but wait; this isn’t going away!!! Documents have come out recently that PROVE that she was briefed! What is the penalty for lying to the American people???

Democrats/Progressives understand the housing Market. Bubble? What bubble?

Democrats/Progressives understand global temperatures better.  The evidence is overwhelming!

The seas are rising?

I guess The Obama didn’t see this article?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall

Or this one

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article7035243.ece

The $787 billion dollars in wasteful spending was sold to the American public as a jobs creating or saving vehicle. The unemployment rate was supposed to stay under 8% if it was to be passed. At least 3.5 million jobs were supposed to be created or saved. Yet today there is only anecdotal evidence of any jobs being created or saved. In fact, most of the jobs being touted were saved, very few new jobs were created. I know the administration is touting only the gross projected jobs created or saved. My concern however is the number of net jobs created or saved by this wasteful spending. Even if there were concrete jobs created or saved of the magnitude the administration insists, this is but a gross number. The question that needs to be answered is how many jobs were destroyed or lost due the budget busting bill?

The government stole money from the future taxpayers to shove a stimulus package down our throats. In the process they took money out of the private industry and placed it in the hands of a bureaucratic government. The stimulus package was full of gimmicks that cost far more than the revealed price. The cash for clunkers program gave away money to push for more auto sales in the short term. This increase in sales will have lingering effects far into the future and cause inflationary pressures as the economy recovers. The shortage of vehicles caused by the destruction of real property will result in increased prices for the remaining real property. Additionally, beyond the inflationary costs that are sure to come what about the cost of the bureaucrats running the program in the first place. Was the red tape worth the cost? In all likelihood this gimmick will cost much more than the claimed price tag. The return on investment will be far less than any private industry could ever institute and stay in business.

The stimulus package robbed from the private investors. When the government takes money from the private arena and spends it as it sees fit it is future growth that is harmed. Investors will not continually invest when more of their hard earned money is taken from them. There is no reason to invest when the government does it for us. Of course the government is inefficient when it comes to pumping money into the economy. Government spending chokes off private investment and becomes the only way of getting dollars into a failing economy. Research the great depression and one finds that government spending robbed the private sector of much needed cash. Once the public sector became the fuel for the economy there was no exit strategy. With public dollars the 1930’s economy was artificially propped up, when the public dollars evaporated so did the economy. America did not emerge from the great depression because of the great deal, America emerged in spite of the great deal. Only an the second world war pulled the world from the great disaster.

Now the democrats are looking at taking even more money from future generations to cover up their last pork filled non stimulus package. Nancy Pelosi isn’t even willing to call her new gimmick a stimulus. Pelosi has resorted to calling her gimmick a jobs creation bill. Funny, how the last stimulus bill was hailed as a jobs creating bill for funding shovel ready projects but now a specific bill is required to address jobs. Why would an angry public trust the spend thrifts in Congress? This Congress has done nothing but spend our future away and has nothing to show for it. If Nancy wants a jobs bill why not find money that currently exists? The budget outline from the Obama administration set aside huge sums of future cash for a government run health care program and cap global warming junk science, yet we need even more deficit spending to create jobs that were already supposed to have been saved or created. A liberal columnist said last spring that deficit spending is not a bad thing. The reality is that government deficit spending in the short term when the economy is slow can prime the pump of growth. However, perpetual deficit spending is never a wide choice. All one has to do is research the private debt held by individuals. Bankruptcies rarely are the result of a one time deficit spending deal in time of need. Bankruptcies happen because of long term deficit spending where the individual finances crumble under the weight of the debt load. This is what is happening in States like California, it is only a matter of time before the National debt load will crush the American dream.

Welcome to the NEW America where we can take your land AND put you in jail for NOT having Health Care… 

PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail

JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail

Friday, November 06, 2009

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter  makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In response to the JCT letter, Camp said:  “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail.  It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

                                                         - – - – - – - – - -                                                   

 

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

                                                         - – - – - – - – - -    
                                                

“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses.  Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties.  The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.

“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration.  Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates.  Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.

According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

### 

Source: http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583

There is a small pile of chickenscratch notes by my computer keyboard — notes of topics too short to post individually.  So I’ve decided to work through the pile of this-and-that topics and have included some here.

An enlightening trip to the bookstore.

Recently I stopped at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Christiansburg, Virginia, which is very college-towny because it is near to Virginia Tech.  I noticed that every book by or about Barack Obama and Michelle Obama has been remaindered and is available, in quantity, in the sale-book section.  If you wanted to waste fifty bucks, you could get a bookshelf’s worth of Obama tomes.

In the new books section, there were only three copies of Glenn Beck’s “Common Sense” left in a space that must have held three dozen when they were put out.  Then there were two copies.

Checking the New York Times best-seller lists, I found these listings for August 27, 2009:

PAPERBACK NONFICTION:

1. GLENN BECK’S ‘COMMON SENSE’, by Glenn Beck
2. JULIE & JULIA, by Julie Powell
3. MY LIFE IN FRANCE, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
4. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
5. THE FAMILY, by Jeff Sharlet

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. CULTURE OF CORRUPTION, by Michelle Malkin
2. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell
3. LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin
4. IN THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET SERVICE, by Ronald Kessler
5. CATASTROPHE, by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

So the top slot in paperback n-f is held by a libertarian and spots 1, 3, and 5 in hardback n-f are conservatives.  Meanwhile, the Obama books aren’t selling squat.

“What happened to the ‘Ignorant Twit of the Month Award’?”

Earlier this year I had the bright idea of handing out a humorous “ignorant twit of the month”  award to public figures who disgraced themselves with dim-witted public utterances.  The winner in April was Janeane (“You’re All A Bunch Of Racists”) Garofalo and in May was Nancy (Blink-blink, Twitch-twitch) Pelosi.

Then came the problem.  The winner in June would have been Janeane Garofalo, so I skipped a month.  The winner in July would have been Nancy Pelosi, so I skipped another month.  Now, in August, Garofalo is already the hands-down winner with yet another mindless rant about “racists.” (If you’re opposed to nationalized health care, you’re a racist, because the President is black . . . get it?)  The problem is that Pelosi and Garofalo are such ignorant twits that one of them would win every month.

Normally, I could depend on Joe Biden or Harry Reid to step up and get competitive, but Biden has been sent to the movies by the White House and Reid has been keeping his trap shut because he’s plummeting in his home-state opinion polls and running way back in second in Senate race trial heats.  So I’ve decided to let Pelosi and Garofalo duke it out and simply give one of them the Ignorant Twit of the Year Award.

Keith Olbermann shows his jackass

Keith Olbermann is a smooth-talking sycophant who skewers his political targets with a “Worst Person In The World Award.” Like others of his ilk, Olbermann’s viewership has been tanking, which must be putting him in a foul mood.

So the L.A. Times ribbed Olbermann by “mistakenly” putting MTV’s program “Jackass” in Olbermann’s time slot, and then published a “correction” which speculated that viewers might not notice the difference.  Olbermann’s sense of humor is exercised only at the expense of others, of course, and so he blew his stack and did a frothing-at-the-mouth take-down of the L.A. Times. Keith Olbermann Lashes Out Over ‘Jackass’ Mixup.

Finally! Double-finally! The L.A. Times published something I enjoyed reading — and Keith Olbermann did something that made me laugh.

Oh, and check out my home video of Keith: Stop Picking On Keith Olbermann.

Today’s Washington Post:

Obama still cashing in on Bush’s failings

Facing the first real rough patch of his presidency, President Obama and his supporters are once again resorting to a tried-and-true tactic: attacking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  more

Almost 8 months into his presidency and almost 4 years with COMPLETE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL of the Senate and Congress there is still ZERO accountability in our Federal government. Obama, Pelosi and Reid refuse to take pause and look in the mirror.

NEPAConservative says: When will they ever learn?

The Senate, of course, consists of representation per state, not by population.  If you parse the demographics, you can understand why Reid may not be able to get a cap-and-trade bill through. See the Geography of the Vote map published by the New York Times. [I know, but it's free, so suck it in and look.] Assuming that the Congressmen voted as they thought their constituents would vote, there are only about 18 states — 36 Senate seats — which are “safe” venues for a Waxman-Markey carbon tax bill. They are concentrated in the upper northeast, the upper midwest, and the west coast.

While the alignment won’t break down that neatly, the geography does indicate the nature and extent of the problem: there are some 64 Senators from states where, according to the House vote, there is majority sentiment against Waxman-Markey, a/k/a Taxman-Malarkey.

President Obama started lobbying the Senate this morning and environmental heavyweights are planning their campaigns.  Those opposing the carbon tax still have an excellent chance of defeating it this year.

So why did Nancy Pelosi spend so much political capital to get this measure through the House? So far, I am at a loss to comprehend, other than her attitude that “we won the election, we get to make the laws.”

If those numbers are righteous, then why have the Democrats opposed all Republican efforts to set fail-safe points, such as a kickout if gas rises to $5 per gallon? Answer: Waxman and Pelosi are using the phony numbers to get the legislation passed now, the real impact on the public be damned.

Our local Democratic Congressman, Rick Boucher, typifies the problem facing Pelosi and Waxman.  A liberal Democrat with a stellar record of earmarking, Boucher nonetheless represents a constituency in coal-mining country, and he is reportedly at work watering down Waxman-Markey.  Virginian Leads Sensible Climate Change Efforts.

For Democrats in southwestern Virginia, West Virginia, much of Ohio, eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and coal-producing areas in Illinois, Montana, and Wyoming, it would be political suicide to support a carbon tax bill that would fulfill President Obama’s pledge to bankrupt the coal industry. Because of these representatives and the Blue Dog Democrats, Pelosi does not yet have the 218 votes she needs to pass the bill.

There’s still time – - send your Congressman a message TODAY!

TAKE ACTION

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Tool free capital switchboard number are below.

800-828-0498

877-762-8762

List of all congressmen here and their individual phone numbers

http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html

Call your member of Congress now, and urge a vote against the national energy tax, H.R. 2454.

RECOMMENDED LINKS:

Cap and Trade: Picking Winners and Losers By Political Connections

EPA: Cap-and-Trade Bill Could Hurt U.S. Manufacturing, Send Factory Jobs Overseas

Dem mutiny on climate bill grows, says Peterson

Dunce Cap-and-Trade

Study Finds Even Climate ‘Alarmed’ Americans Don’t Want Cap-and-Trade

We can’t wait to see how this boondoggle blows up

On guns and climate, the elites are out of touch