Mr Obama's Intent : Napolitano -Totalitarian or Liar?

Great insight into the workings of our new government's agenda and what it will do to us. America, if Obama is allowed to enact his plan for us, will change our country for decades if not generations.

NAPOLITANO: Is Obama a dupe or a totalitarian, megalomaniacal liar?
Washington Times

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel celebrated the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Berlin in 2008, she could not have imagined that she was blessing the workplace for the largest and most effective gaggle of American spies anywhere outside of the United States.
It seems straight out of a grade-B movie, but it has been happening for the past 11 years: The National Security Agency (NSA) has been using Mrs. Merkel as an instrument to spy on the president of the United States. We now know that the NSA has been listening to and recording her cellphone calls since 2002.

In 2008, when the new embassy opened, the NSA began using more sophisticated techniques that included not only listening, but also following her. Mrs. Merkel uses her cellphone more frequently than her landline, and she uses it to communicate with her husband and family members, the leadership of her political party, and her colleagues and officials in the German government.
She also uses her cellphone to speak with foreign leaders, among whom have been President George W. Bush and President Obama. Thus, the NSA — which Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama have unlawfully and unconstitutionally authorized to obtain and retain digital copies of all telephone conversations, texts and emails of everyone in the United States, as well as those of hundreds of millions of persons in Europe and Latin America — has been listening to the telephone calls of both American presidents whenever they have spoken with the chancellor.

One could understand the NSA’s propensity to listen to the conversations of those foreign leaders who wish us ill. One would expect that the agency would do so. However, the urge to listen to the leadership of our allies serves no discernible intelligence-gathering purpose.

Illustration by Greg Groesch for The Washington Times more >

Rather, it fuels distrust between our nations, and in the case of Mrs. Merkel, exacerbates memories of the all-seeing and all-hearing Stasi, which was the East German version of the KGB that ruled that police state from the end of World War II until it collapsed in 1989. Mrs. Merkel was raised in East Germany, and she has a personal revulsion at the concept of omnipresent state surveillance.
Mr. Obama apparently has no such revulsion. One would think he’s not happy that his own spies have been listening to him. One would expect that he would have known of this.
Not from me, says Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, who disputed claims in the media that he told Mr. Obama of the NSA spying network in Germany last summer. Either the president knew of this and has denied it, or he is invincibly ignorant of the forces he has unleashed on us and on himself.

When Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, was confronted with all of this by her German counterpart, she first told him the White House would deny it. Then she called him to say that the White House could not deny it, but the president would deny that he personally knew of it.
How did we get here? What are the consequences of a president spying on himself? What does this mean for the rest of us?

Neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Obama has had a strong fidelity to the Constitution. They share the views of another odd couple of presidents from opposing political parties, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, in that the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land as it proclaims to be, but rather a guideline that unleashes the president to do all that it does not expressly forbid him to do
In the progressive era 100 years ago, that presidential attitude brought us the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax, Prohibition, World War I, prosecutions for speech critical of the government and the beginnings of official modern government racial segregation.

That same attitude in our era has brought us the Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to write their own search warrants, government borrowing that knows no end — including the $2 trillion Mr. Bush borrowed for the war in Iraq, a country that is now less stable than before Mr. Bush invaded, and the $7 trillion Mr. Obama borrowed to redistribute — and an NSA that monitors all Americans all the time.

In the case of the NSA spying, this came about by the secret orders of Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, animated by that perverse Roosevelt-Wilsonian view of the Constitution and not by a congressional vote after a great national debate.
Just as people change when they know they are being watched, the government changes when it knows no one can watch it. Just as we can never be ourselves when we fear that we may need to justify our most intimate thoughts to an all-knowing government, so, too, the government knows that when we cannot see what it is doing, it can do whatever it wants. It is in the nature of government to expand, not shrink. Thomas Jefferson correctly predicted that 175 years ago.

Spying on yourself, though, is truly asinine and perhaps criminal. You see, the president can officially declassify any secrets he wants, but he cannot — without official declassification — simply reveal them to NSA agents.

One can only imagine what NSA agents learned from listening to Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama as they spoke to Mrs. Merkel and 34 other friendly foreign leaders, as yet unidentified publicly.
Now we know how pervasive this NSA spying is: It not only reaches the Supreme Court, the Pentagon, the CIA, the local police and the cellphones and homes of all Americans, it reaches the Oval Office itself. Yet when the president denies that he knows of this, that denial leads to more questions.

The president claims he can start secret foreign wars using the CIA, secretly kill Americans using drones, and now secretly spy on anyone anywhere using the NSA.
Is the president an unwitting dupe to a secret rats’ nest of uncontrolled government spies and killers? Or is he a megalomaniacal, totalitarian secret micromanager who lies regularly, consistently and systematically about the role of government in our lives?
Which is worse? What do we do about it?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the author of seven books on the U.S. Constitution, including his most recent, “Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom” (Thomas Nelson, 2012).


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/30/napolitano-going-the-stasi-one-better-and-in-ameri/?page=2#ixzz2jK6nqo57
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Energy Dept. Regulation : Ideology Trumps Common Sense

No matter where you turn, there is a federal government department or agency that's ready and willing to screw up your life. This insanity on microwaves is just one of thousands of regulations and demands from people that have no idea what they are doing and worse, they don't care.

Ideology excuses ignorance and bias.

More Nonsense from the Energy Department
Source: David Kreutzer, "The Dollars And Nonsense Of Energy Conservation,"  Washington Times, October 27, 2013.
October 30, 2013

Have you ever gone to the kitchen in the middle of the night without turning on the lights, looked at your microwave's digital clock and said, "Man, that is bright. How much energy does that thing use anyway?" In reality, that clock uses hardly any energy at all - an average of 4.5 watts on the over-the-range models and less for the countertop ones. That minuscule consumption, though, is more than enough to spur an army of regulators - seemingly unimpeded by budgets or common sense - into action, says David Kreutzer, research fellow in energy economics and climate change at the Heritage Foundation, writing for the Washington Times.

In June, the Energy Department issued a regulation titled "Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Standby Mode and Off Mode for Microwave Ovens."
Yet another in a long list of rules to save you from your appliances, this one will help you out of that dime-a-week financial hole your clock is digging every hour of every day. At least, every hour when you aren't using the microwave, because this rule looks only at the microwave's energy consumption when you don't use it.

Let's examine those savings:

• The big money is in the over-the-range category, where the new 2.2-watt standard will deliver life-cycle cost savings of $12.
• Your guardian angels at the Energy Department determined that the average life span of a microwave oven is about 10 years, so you can now contemplate pocketing an additional $1.20 per year to spend on whatever you want - so long as it isn't something like a vacuum fluorescent display for your microwave.

The alternatives to vacuum fluorescent displays are liquid crystal displays, which must be backlit to be readable in dim light, and light-emitting diodes.  The department did note that half of the liquid crystal display models they tested failed completely after less than 10 days in the heat and humidity. However, they simply ignored that little hiccup.

In short, to save customers $1.20 per year, Department of Energy standards push manufacturers toward a technology that can render half of their customers' clocks useless within a week or so - a cost the department totally ignores.
 

ObamaCare Demands A Conformity Nightmre : Progressives Stumble

How could so many thing go work with ObamaCare website that cost nearly a billion dollars, and not have everyone make the connections that this is how ObamaCare itself will operate?

How this all turns out will tell a story of how we save ourselves from a socialist government take over of our country, or willingly accept total government control of our lives. It's up to us to decide.

Obamacare: 'Adverse Selection' Followed by a 'Death Spiral'
Source: Annie Lowrey, "Health Site's Woes Could Dissuade Vital Enrollee: the Young and Healthy," New York Times, October 27, 2013.
October 30, 2013

Sean Jackson, like tens of thousands of other Americans, has had trouble signing up for medical coverage using the HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace despite several attempts. The economists and policy wonks behind the Affordable Care Act worry that the technical problems bedeviling the federal portal could become much more than an inconvenience, says Annie Lowrey, writing for the New York Times.

If applicants like Mr. Jackson decide to put off or give up on buying coverage, rising prices and even a destabilized insurance market could result.  The enrollment of people like Mr. Jackson, who is 32, is vital for the health care law - and, for that matter, the entire health care system - to work.

• Younger people, who tend to have very low anticipated medical costs, are supposed to help pay for the medical costs of older or sicker enrollees.
• Without them, so-called risk pools in Ohio and other states might become too risky, forcing insurers to raise premiums.
• Those higher premiums could dissuade more of the young and healthy from signing up, forcing insurers to raise prices again.

Economists call the process "adverse selection" and warn that in its worst iteration it could lead to a "death spiral" of falling enrollment and climbing prices. Economists and health analysts said the chances of such a spiral were slim in most states because Americans who go without insurance would face penalties, starting next year. But they said that the endemic problems with the Web site posed a serious question about the enrollment balance in many state plans.

Though economists, insurers and health analysts are concerned about the problems with HealthCare.gov, which the Obama administration has promised to fix by Nov. 30, they said it was too early to tell whether the problems would cause an underenrollment of the young and healthy.  Insurers would have a good sense of any problems by next spring, they said.

No statistics are available on how many of them have signed up. States are providing no demographic details on enrollees. And the Obama administration has declined to say how many people have purchased insurance in the 36 states where it runs the exchanges.
 

ObamaCare Not About Health Care : ObamaCare A Policy of Control

Many of us saw this coming back in 2008, but our numbers weren't enough to stop it - too many among us believed Mr Obama would be someone that would save us from our selves and they were right, that is exactly what he is doing. Mr Obama is taking individual freedom from us so he and his socialist government can control our lives and our futures.

Sadly, millions now are more then willing to allow him to do just that. But once dependency and poverty set in as a way of life for those unaware voters, the light of reality will be a hard pill to swallow, but by then it will be too late to make other plans.

Who ever voted, twice, for Mr Obama and the progressive socialist Democrats, will now have to accept the life they willingly voted for, and unfortunately, so will all the rest of us.

The ObamaCare Awakening
Americans are losing their coverage by political design.
The Wall Street Journal

Oct. 29, 2013 7:35 p.m. ET For all of the Affordable Care Act's technical problems, at least one part is working on schedule. The law is systematically dismantling the individual insurance market, as its architects intended from the start.

The millions of Americans who are receiving termination notices because their current coverage does not conform to Health and Human Services Department rules may not realize this is by design. Maybe they trusted President Obama's repeated falsehood that people who liked their health plans could keep them. But Americans should understand that this month's mass cancellation wave has been the President's political goal since 2008. Liberals believe they must destroy the market in order to save it.

Until this month, consumers who weren't insured through their jobs were allowed to buy insurance that provides the best value based on their own needs. One of every 10 private policies is sold through the individual market, covering about 7% of the U.S. population under age 65.

Some states have ruined this market through regulation and price controls, and in others costs can be high. But the individual market works well for millions of people, who can choose from many plans—from Cadillac coverage to cheaper protection against catastrophic illness.

Bloomberg News

The political problem for the White House is that these choices are a threat to ObamaCare. If too many people keep these policies instead of joining the government exchanges, ObamaCare could fail. HHS has thus reviewed the decisions of people in the individual market and found them wanting. HHS believes as a matter of political philosophy that everyone should have the same kind of insurance, and in the name of equity it wrote rules dictating the benefits that all plans must cover and how they must be financed.

 

In most cases these mandates are more comprehensive and thus more expensive than the status quo, but the ObamaCare refugees aren't merely facing higher costs. The plans they want and are willing to pay for have been intentionally outlawed. Ponder that one.

Liberals claim the new insurance should cost more because it's better, at least as defined by liberal paternalism. But the real reason they want policies to cost more is to drive as many people as possible out of this market and into the subsidized ObamaCare exchanges. The exchanges need these customers to finance ObamaCare's balance sheet and stabilize its risk pools. On the exchanges, individuals earning more than $46,000 or a family of four above $94,000 don't qualify for subsidies and must buy overpriced insurance. If these middle-class ObamaCare losers can be forced into the exchanges, they become financiers of the new pay-as-you-go entitlement.

 

The political press corps is reporting this as a shocking discovery, and we suppose it is if you believed Mr. Obama's promises. NBC News even reports as a "scoop" that the White House knew all along that millions would lose their policies. But HHS 's trail of purpose has been there for anyone willing to look. The text of the Affordable Care Act said that none of its language "shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage" that existed as of March 23, 2010 , or the date the law was enacted. But as early as June 2010 HHS published a regulation reinterpreting this "Preservation of Right to Maintain Existing Coverage" to obviate that promise.

Even minor policy changes, such as increasing a copay by as little as $5, means that a plan cannot be renewed without rewriting it to obey all of ObamaCare's regulations. In HHS 's "regulatory impact analysis" published in the Federal Register, the department estimated that between 40% and 67% wouldn't qualify as a permitted plan, and this was the point—to prevent such policies "from being bought and sold as a commodity in commercial transactions." HHS knew that lightly regulated policies might be popular, especially compared to the restricted choices in the exchanges.

Next, HHS applied very prescriptive mandates to all plans, including those sold outside the exchanges. The law's 10 very broad categories of statutory benefits like hospitalization, prescription drugs or maternity care were construed so that 79.6% of current individual plans didn't meet the targets, according to HHS 's own analysis. The rule even put floors under cost-sharing to prevent consumers from paying out of pocket.

HHS wrote that the purpose was to offer merely "a small number of meaningful choices." Letting people make tradeoffs for themselves "would have allowed extremely wide variation across plans in the benefits offered" and "would not have assured consumers that they would have coverage for basic benefits." Forced equity again trumped individual choice.

Hard to believe, but at the time liberals complained that this HHS "essential health benefits" rule wasn't restrictive enough. Pediatric services stop being required at age 19, not 21, and what about speech therapy, medical foods or lactation services?

 

Liberals needn't have worried. Once customers are herded into the exchanges, HHS has the power to further standardize benefits, further limit choices by barring certain insurers from selling through selective contracting, and generally police the insurers to behave like the government franchises they now are.

The state-run exchanges in Vermont and the District of Columbia have already barred individual coverage outside their exchanges.

None of this is an accident. It is the deliberate result of the liberal demand that everyone have essentially the same coverage and that government must dictate what that coverage is and how much it costs. Such political control is the central nervous system of the Affordable Care Act, and it is why so many people can't keep the insurance they like.

 

GOP Establishment Willingly Suffers Progressivism : The Stockholm Syndrome

Good video on the establishment GOP's willingness to accept Mr Obama's new government agenda of progressive socialism. This man believes the GOP suffers from the Stockholm Syndrome. Watch and then decide if what this man is saying makes sense to you.

Believe, if the average American citizen cannot be allowed to function on his own, individual freedom, to make decisions based on information gained by weighing different opinions and facts, without over reaching government interference, then he, and all of us, are destined to be a conquered society.

Who ever thought it would come to this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5ZT7kggur54

Obama's "Civil Defense Corp" A Reality? : Military Generals Purged

Just a reminder for those that have fallen asleep at the wheel, Mr Obama proposed in 2009 a "Civil Defense Corp" that would have all the power of the regular army but be under the direct command of the White House to assist local officials during civil unrest. This force would not be part of the regular army but be completely separate and have all of the same equipment as the regular army.

I wonder why Home Land Security Department ordered a billion rounds of ammunition? Is it to wake up and take notice of what's going on in our government?

Obama aims 'wrecking operation' at military
By F. Michael Maloof and John Griffing
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/obama-aims-wrecking-operation-at-military/#H5C8bpfOjuDJSzzW.99

WASHINGTON – President Obama is aiming a “wrecking operation” at the U.S. military, according to a former Defense Department official who was reacting to a WND report about his dismissal of nine generals and flag officers so far during his second term. And the official was joined by hundreds of commenters who responded to the story with blasts of criticism for the president.

WND reported earlier this week that Obama this year alone has fired some nine generals and flag officers, on top of at least four similar dismissals during his first term. Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, explained right away it looked like a part of Obama’s strategy to reduce U.S. standing worldwide.
“Obama is intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged,” he charged.
Duty personnel seem to back up this concern, suggesting that the firings are meant to send a message to “young officers down through the ranks” not to criticize the president or White House politics.
“They are purging everyone, and if you want to keep your job, just keep your mouth shut,” one source said.

Frank Gaffney, founder and director of the Center for Security Policy and former Undersecretary of Defense for the Reagan Administration, cast his lot in with Vallely. “President Obama is engaged in a wrecking operation on the U.S. military particularly, and under the guise of ‘fundamentally transforming America,’ doing what he can to remake society in his image,” he told WND.
Get “Court Disaster: How the CIA kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack.

Gaffney said he believes Obama may be attempting to install military rule or martial law as part of his plans, saying, “One of the issues that has been raised by colleagues of mine who are serious students of national security policy and practice is that a way of accelerating the transforming of America would be essentially dispensing with our constitutional form of government under the rubric of ‘emergency measures,’ martial law, a military shutdown of our society. “Does the wrecking operation of the military have something to do with that particular purpose?” asked Gaffney.
Gaffney answers his own question by claiming the existence of an ongoing “purge.”

“Increasingly of late, there is effectively a purge going on of people of faith from the U.S. military, a social engineering of the institution of the military between homosexuals and women in combat, the evisceration of the military’s training resources and in some cases, senior leadership. Could you at some point get to a point where that military was willing to enforce martial law against the people of the United States under circumstances less than national emergency? “It’s a conversation we ought to be having,” he said.

“When you look at the assaults on the Constitution Obama is engaged in, when you look at the assaults on the military Obama is engaged in, at least it is a scenario [martial law] that could both explain what he is doing and … what he has in mind,” Gaffney continued. He contends, “The American people don’t want any part of where Obama is taking us, despite the fact they have elected him twice, but I believe that’s mostly because they are not aware of how truly radical and subversive Obama’s agenda is.”

A number of other retired generals told WND they aren’t commenting on the issue, apparently out of caution due to the potential for political retribution by the Obama administration.
Besides, even those who are retired remain linked to the Department of Defense through the pensions, benefits and other ties.

The reluctance to comment extended to the motives behind the handling of these generals’ individual cases, most of whom were dismissed for “personal misbehavior.” “Yes, I have my own personal thoughts on the matter,” one retired general told WND, “but they are most likely just as authoritative as any other citizen.”

Vallely lacks those inhibitions, charging the White House won’t investigate its own officials but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”
“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into Fast and Furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

Vallely served in the Vietnam War and retired in 1993 as deputy Commanding General, Pacific Command. Today, he is chairman of the Military Committee for the Center for Security Policy and is co-author of the book “Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.”
Public comments that followed WND’s report on the firing of the generals and flag officers was anonymous, but pointed none-the-less. “If we don’t impeach Obama SOON, it will be too late for America and Americans,” wrote Geneva Phoenix. “Barry’s just following the communist playbook. Stalin did the same thing when he came to power…,” said Ernie Kaputnik. “Obammy is purging the military. He is doing it for two reasons 1) To help destroy America’s ability to protect itself and so it will have less standing in the world. 2) To advance his I’m-better-than-GOD agenda,” added Old Salty Dog99. “Obama is the cancer within the body of America. It is metastasizing now, and spreading that cancer thru the land…,” wrote Alfred King of Wessex. Other readers compared Obama’s actions to those of Germany’s Adolf Hitler, or the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin.

Three of the nine firings just this year were linked to the controversy surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi, Libya. In one case, U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, who commanded U.S. African Command when the consulate was attacked and four Americans were killed, was highly critical of the decision by the State Department not to send in reinforcements.
Obama has insisted there were no reinforcements in the area that night. But Ham contends reinforcements could have been sent in time, and he said he never was given a stand-down order. However, others contend that he was given the order but defied it. He was immediately relieved of his command and retired.

Another flag officer involved in the Benghazi matter – which remains under congressional investigation – was Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette. He commanded the Carrier Strike Group.
He contends that aircraft could have been sent to Libya in time to help the Americans under fire. He later was removed from his post for alleged profanity and making “racially insensitive comments.”
Army Major Gen. Ralph Baker was the commander of the Joint Task Force-Horn at Camp Lamar in Djibouti, Africa. Baker contended that attack helicopters could have reached the consulate in time on the night of the attack. He was relieved of his command by Ham for allegedly groping a civilian. However, there has been no assault or sexual misconduct charge filed against him with the military Judge Advocates General’s Office.

Six others were removed for a variety of alleged misconduct. They include Army Brig. Gen. Bryan Roberts, who took command of Fort Jackson in 2011; Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant, director of Strategic Planning and Policy for the U.S. Pacific Command; Marine Corps Major Gen. Charles M. M. Gurganus, regional commander in the Southwest and I Marine Expeditionary Force in Afghanistan; Army Lt. Gen. David Holmes Huntoon Jr., as the 58th superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.; Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command; and Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, commander of the 20th Air Force.
John Griffing contributed to this report from Texas.

Doctors Opting Out of ObamaCare : Health Care Crashing

Still more bad news for American citizens at the hands of the progressive socialists Democrats - hundreds of doctors decide to not participate in the Obama nightmare health care program, ObamaCare. What does this mean for the rest of us who pay their own way?

Who voted for this? Twice?

Docs Resisting ObamaCare
Source:  Carl Campanile, "Docs Resisting ObamaCare," New York Post, October 29. 2013.
October 30, 2013

A poll conducted by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44 percent of MDs said they are not participating in the nation's new health-care plan.

• Another 33 percent say they're still not sure whether to become ObamaCare providers.
• Only 23 percent of the 409 physicians queried said they're taking patients who signed up through health exchanges.

"This is so poorly designed that a lot of doctors are afraid to participate," said Dr. Sam Unterricht, president of the 29,000-member organization. "There's a lot of resistance. Doctors don't know what they're going to get paid."

• Three out of four doctors who are participating in the program said they "had to participate" because of existing contractual obligations with an insurer or medical provider, not because they wanted to.
• Only one in four "affirmatively" chose to sign up for the exchanges.
• Nearly eight in 10 - 77 percent - said they had not been given a fee schedule to show much they'll get paid if they sign up.

The survey invited doctors to anonymously share opinions about the new health care law, and many took time out of their busy days to vent.

One physician was so disgusted, he threatened to taken only cash patients going forward. Some physicians said the pressure on insurance carriers to control costs is leading to rationed care. And they worry that stingy payments for medical services offered by insurers could put some doctors out of business and force others into retirement.

"Any doctor who accepts the exchange is just a bad businessman/woman. Pays terrible," argued one doctor. Said another MD, "Can't imagine any doctors would be willing to work for so little money? All doctors should boycott."
Doctors complained they've gotten the shaft for years even before ObamaCare.
Others said they don't have enough information to make an informed choice.
"This is a joke. We are flying blind," said one doctor.
 

Minimum Wage Increases : Income Redistribution (Progressive Socialism)

Just another plan from the progressive socialist Democrats to expand their base of voters. Drive as many people into dependency and poverty as possible. This is given. The people who will be effected the most are those that will be laid off due to this proposal. Their plan is working.

As of this week, there are more people taking federal subsistence then are working to support them. Do you still think this administration is doing the work of the people? Just imagine what the next three and half years of Mr Obama's administration will have on our country given the last five? 

Who Really Employs Minimum Wage Workers?
Source:  Michael Saltsman, "Who Really Employs Minimum-Wage Workers?" Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2013.

October 30, 2013

The only thing standing between minimum wage employees and a generous salary with paid time off is the greed of the large corporations they work for. That's the argument voters in SeaTac, Wash., will consider Nov. 5 when they vote on a referendum to create a $15 minimum wage-more than twice the federal minimum of $7.25.

This corporations-can-afford-it narrative isn't confined to the Pacific Northwest. Earlier this year, groups like Fast Food Forward, backed by the Service Employees International Union, organized walk outs at large restaurants in major cities and presented the same $15 demand, arguing that "it's time for these big fast-food and retail companies to pay up."

It's a clever talking point designed to shift the focus from the size of the wage mandate to the size of the employer. But it doesn't square with the facts.

In March each year, the Census Bureau conducts a special survey of many of the same U.S. households that make up the monthly jobs report. Respondents are asked about the size of the company they work for, and the responses are then sorted into six categories ranging from fewer than 10 employees to 1,000 or more.

In a recent analysis, the Employment Policies Institute used this data to determine the size of a typical minimum-wage employer. Contrary to the rhetoric of organized labor and its allies, the vast majority of people earning the minimum wage aren't working at large corporations with 1,000 or more employees.

• Roughly half the minimum-wage workforce is employed at businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and 40% are at very small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.
• The results are similar even if you follow the left's cue and broaden the analysis from minimum wage employees earning $7.25 an hour to "low-wage" employees earning $10 an hour or less: 46% still work for businesses with 100 or fewer employees.

Some of these businesses are small diners or independent grocery stores; others are franchisees that own a handful of stores affiliated with a recognizable brand.   In either case, the profits and executive pay at the country's largest businesses have nothing to do with the stark economics these small-business owners face: single-digit profit margins, extremely price-sensitive customers, and no room to absorb a substantial increase in the minimum wage without dramatically reducing the cost of service.

Even if the talking point was true, and large corporations were mostly responsible for the country's minimum wage workforce, organized labor's math still wouldn't make sense. Profit margins are determined more by the business model than the size.  According to Deloitte's Restaurant Industry Operations Report, the median profit margin at an independently owned fast-food restaurant is 2.6%-and only about a percentage point more at a corporately-owned location. The corporate locations might have more of a cash reserve than their independent counterparts, but any labor cost increase is also magnified across a larger workforce.
 

ObamaCare's Next Problem (Nightmare) : Informtion Transfer

I wonder just who is in control of our government and what they are trying to do? So far, everything that has been proposed and made into law has failed but there isn't anyone that is responsible for there failures.

"I don't know" seems to be the only thing that make sense in the Obama administration - nobody has any idea what's going on, not on domestic affairs or on foreign affairs. And if all this isn't bad enough, the next election could make all the past failures even worse.

The problem is a majority of the American voting public are asleep, unaware or willingly ignorant.

The Next Headache from ObamaCare
Source: Kyle Cheney, "Medicaid Could be the Next Headache for Obamacare," Politico, October 24, 2013.
October 29, 2013

A new phase of the Obamacare launch is coming, this one involving Medicaid. And it could be déjà vu all over again, says Kyle Cheney, reporting for Politico.

• On Nov. 1, the health law's malfunctioning enrollment system is supposed to send reams of data to states so they can begin placing thousands of people into Medicaid.
• But state officials say that transfer system has barely been tested and could be vulnerable to technical failures like those that have crippled the broader Obamacare sign-up process.

"We're flying blind on what the process is," said Kathleen Nolan, state policy head of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. "There hasn't been the capacity to do a lot of the testing. ... There's a natural concern that with a major load of data to be sent all at once - there is concern that what has been tested may not be able to handle the volume."

Nolan said some people managed to sign up on the flawed HealthCare.gov website only to be told to reach out to their local Medicaid agencies to finalize enrollment. But the local Medicaid offices can't confirm anything because the applications haven't been transferred.
"People are getting a little confused," Nolan said.

Dennis Smith, a conservative health care consultant who has worked on Medicaid for former President George W. Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and The Heritage Foundation, predicted delay, although he doesn't expect a flood of applications.

He said states will be so concerned about the accuracy of the files after all the problems with the federal portal that there will be "a lot of double-checking." He worries that further delay could leave some people without coverage on Jan. 1 because states can take up to 45 days to review applications.

There is a potential workaround. Smith noted that people can also sign up for Medicaid directly through the state. That could ease pressure on the federal enrollment system in the short run, he said.
But aside from that, state Medicaid programs can't do much to prepare for Nov. 1 other than wait for the federal government to hit the "on" switch, said Nolan. There's no Plan B if things go awry.
 

Natural Gas Birngs Prosperity : Critics Fear Success

I think there is definitely a place in the energy gird for all 'renewable' energy sources. But the base line for sources like solar, wind and bio fuels must be considered without tax support as they are now.

The open free market is the only way to establish which energy source will be the best and cheapest for the country. Creating a false narrative for renewables is not in the best interest of the American people who depend on an affordable energy source for their very survival.

Natural Gas Causes Energy Debate
Source: Ken Silverstein, "New Data Shows Carbon Emissions Falling As Shale Gas Debate Is Rising," Forbes, October 23, 2013.
October 29, 2013

By all accounts, the level of carbon dioxide emissions is declining in the United States, namely because of the transition from coal to natural gas used for electric generation as well as the fact that economic output here has suffered since the Great Recession of 2008. The shift from coal to gas is not without its critics, especially those who say that the shale-gas boom is preventing the escalation of much cleaner fuels such as wind, solar and even nuclear energy, says Ken Silverstein in a recent Forbes article.

• The data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicates that carbon-related emissions dropped by 3.8 percent from 2011 to 2012 while gross domestic product increased by 2.8 percent during that time.
• Those releases are at their lowest levels since 1994 and 12 percent less than the 2007 peak, the agency says. It specifically credits the increase in natural-gas fired generation.

But those inexpensive deposits coupled with the relative ease of building new gas plants has come at a price - the foregoing of other fuels. In essence, natural gas has become a default option, which not only jeopardizes portfolio diversity but also potentially squeezes out newer and better technologies. Coal plants have become the primary targets. But nuclear facilities are also prey.
Take coal:

• Southern Company is shedding 15 coal and oil facilities, helping to reduce its coal mix from 70 percent five years ago to 47 percent.

Nuclear energy, meanwhile, is highly sensitive to natural gas prices and has taken some high-profile hits as a result:

• Despite renewing its license two years ago, Entergy Corp. is ditching its Vermont Yankee facility because it has been unable to compete with cheaper gas-fired units.

But the shale gas bonanza is also affecting renewable energy development. A new study released by Stanford University that aggregated the work of 50 experts who used 14 different sets of assumptions concludes such dynamics are not necessarily healthy for the climate.

Embracing technological change is therefore critical. And today's new thing is shale gas, although with continued research and development, other fuels will eventually take its place.
 

Clinton Presidency : Secret Service Insight

From Ronald Kessler's book 'In the President's Secret Service' A look from the inside.

 

*BILL & HILLARY CLINTON

*Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy — he was nice mainly because he wanted everyone to like him, but to him life is just one big game and party. Everyone knows of his sexuality.*

*She is another phony. Her personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. She was another one who felt people were there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton.*

 

States Expand Medicaid With Feds : Partnership of Ignorance & Failure

Why is this so difficult to understand, when states decided to partner with the federal government to expand Medicaid will have signed a death warrant that will surely come as the federal government is broke - there is no money and we are in huge crushing debt?

And when all these state fail, as they surly will, to whom will they turn to pay the bills?

25 States, Unfortunately, Expand Medicaid
Source: Nick Gillespie, "The Great Medicaid Swindle," The Daily Beast, October 24, 2013.
October 29, 2013

In a controversial (and possibly illegal) move, Ohio's Controlling Board voted to expand Medicaid coverage in the state to adults that were not previously eligible by way of accepting billions in federal funds, says Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason.com, writing for the Daily Beast.

That means 25 states, plus the District of Columbia, have now signed on to take part in an aspect of the Affordable Care Act that is both optional and ill-considered. More states are expected to follow suit, even some that, like Ohio, have Republican governors and conservative legislatures.
Like Medicare, Medicaid has for a long time posted year-over-year spending increases.

• Between 2000 and 2011, the average increase was 6.8 percent and total expenditures on the program came to $432 billion in 2011.
• The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that annual increases will average about 6.4 percent until 2021, when the federal government and states will spend $795 billion on the program.

By that time, too, the states will be on the hook for 10 percent of costs for the Medicaid expansion on top of other increases in the program; if past projections of the cost for federal health care programs are any indication, expect the estimates for the cost of the Medicaid expansion-and Obamacare more generally-to be way short.

• Indeed, in 2012 the CBO doubled its cost estimate for the first full decade of Obamacare, from $938 billion to $1.76 trillion.

To be sure, the prospect of a $9 federal match for every $1 of state spending seems like a win-win proposition for states. But the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon notes that given increasing amounts of federal debt and other entitlement spending, "It is wildly unrealistic to assume the federal government will maintain the Medicaid expansion's nine-to-one matching rate."

As Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy reminds us, increases in federal spending to the states don't reduce state-level spending.   Research indicates that for every dollar of federal aid that disappears from state coffers, states raise their future taxes by between 33 cents and 42 cents.

The states that have thus far refused to expand Medicaid are actually thinking more clearly about where taxpayers will be a decade from now.
 

Medical Industry sheds Workers : ObamaCare Bankrupts America

What is this all about? Mr Obama said all is well, all you have to do is believe. I wonder how many in this country still believe anything that Mr Obama says about anything to be true?

Medical Industry Employment Plummets
Source: Kevin D. Williamson, "A Sick Job Market in Health Care," National Review, October 14, 2013.

October 22, 2013

Somebody somewhere has just entered a night school course to qualify for an X-ray technician's job that isn't going to be there, and somebody else is getting a pink slip rather than a bonus this Christmas, says Kevin Williamson, a correspondent for the National Review.
 Recently, hospitals, medical practices and related businesses are shedding jobs:

• Since April, 8,000 medical jobs have been shed, more than in any other sector.
• For the year, there have been more than 41,000 layoffs at health care firms.
• USA Today reports, those are mostly hospital staffing reductions in response to reduced reimbursement rates for Medicare patients under the sequester and cuts for some providers under the Affordable Care Act.
• From 1990 to 2008, the number of jobs in health care grew 63 percent, providing one in four of the jobs created in those years, and, equally important, health care is one of the few sectors that have shown relatively strong growth in inflation-adjusted wages in recent decades.
• Losing that means losing a big piece of the employment picture, not just in total jobs but in real income.

Which puts us in a difficult position: Cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending will have ill effects on the job market, but not cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending will bankrupt the country. This is a textbook case of why you do not want government trying to steer an industry or fixing prices.
 

Progressvie Dems Create Chaos : First Step to 'Single Payer'?

As the saying goes, 'the truth is in the details' - and finding out that when you go to the exchange and find you will get insurance that doesn't fit your life style, and it will cost more the double what you are paying now, leaves a bad taste in your mouth and anger in your heart. You have been lied to!

For some families the change will destroy their lives as the cost is so high they will have to forego any hope of a future. Just survival will be the order of the day.

This is just what Mr Obama and the progressives wanted, chaos - and the only way to fix this mess is to have the federal government take over the entire health care system - 'Single Payer' health care, just what the progressive socialists Democrats have intended all along, it was never about creating a health care system to benefit all people, it was always about total control.

Welcome to the real world - vote Democrat!

How Will You Fare in the ObamaCare Exchanges?
Source: Drew Gonshorowski, "How Will You Fare in the ObamaCare Exchanges?" Heritage Foundation, October 16, 2013.
October 22, 2013

Enrollment in ObamaCare's health insurance exchanges has proven to be a somewhat difficult process amidst technical glitches and delays. Aside from the issues associated with actually purchasing health care, once an individual gets a quote for health insurance on an exchange, is the premium higher or lower than before, asks Drew Gonshorowski, a policy analyst in the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation.

• Gonshorowski research finds that for many states, the insurance on health exchanges will cost more than existing insurance.
• His study illustrates that the general experience for individuals shopping on the exchange is that of increasing premiums from what was available to them prior to implementation of the exchanges.
• Many families and individuals will face this reality as they apply for coverage, and the implications of experiencing sticker shock are important to consider if enough people choose not to sign up for coverage for various reasons.

Gonshorowski uses the Heritage Health Insurance Microsimulation Model (HHIMM), in concordance with insurer data compiled by Mark Farrah and Associates, to create a snapshot of what it looks like to shop for insurance prior to exchange implementation. This data is used to build weighted average premiums within the rating areas, similar to the process described in the most recent release from the Department of Health and Human Services.

• Individuals in most states will end up spending more on the exchanges.
• It is true that in some states, the experience could be the opposite.
• This is because those states already had over-regulated insurance markets that led to sharply higher premiums through adverse selection, as is the case of New York.
• Many states, however, double or nearly triple premiums for young adults.
• Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas and Vermont see some of the largest increases in premiums.

Gonshorowski's findings confirm that younger populations see larger percentage increases in premiums. A state that exhibits this clearly is Vermont, where the increase for 27 year olds is 144 percent and the increase for 50 year olds is still 60 percent, but far less. All states exhibit this relationship.
 

Farm Bill Reform Attacked by Sen Baldwin : Democrats Defend Base Voters

Goodness - here again is the true face of the progressive socialist Democrats for all to see, they will never, ever cut an entitlement program that benefits the base voters of the Democrat party.

 

That the program is totally out of control means nothing to the progressive, it's so easy to defend their position by trotting out the children and other disadvantaged individuals as being attacked by the horrible Republicans no matter how realistic the claims of fraud and waste are in the programs.

 

The progressive Democrats always rely on the media to back them up when they use a very effective tactic of  'it's the seriousness of the charge', to make their point, not the truth that matters.

 

Again, are the citizens that have to pay the bills still willing to buy this from the Democrats after what has gone on for the last 5 years of having the Democrats in control of the government?

 

Surprise: Tammy Baldwin Demagogues on Modest Work Requirements For Food Stamps

By Collin Roth

Published: 5:21 PM October 28, 2013

 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined 38 other Democratic Senators to demagogue modest reforms and cuts made by Republicans in the House to the bloated $921 billion "Farm Bill," of which 80% funds costs connected to food stamps.

 

A statement signed by Sen. Baldwin and other senators reads in part:

 

We are writing to express our support for preventing harmful cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Farm Bill. SNAP is our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. SNAP provides essential nutrition benefits to working families, children, senior citizens, and disabled individuals in every state and town in our country. Every dollar in new SNAP benefits generates up to $1.79 in economic activity, of which approximately 16 cents goes back to the farmers.

 

While we support efforts to improve the integrity of the SNAP program, we encourage conferees to reject all SNAP eligibility changes designed to erect new barriers to participation, preventing millions of seniors, children and families from accessing food assistance.  The eligibility changes also will mean an additional 280,000 children would lose free school meals because children in SNAP households are automatically eligible for school meals. Changes would also increase administrative costs by requiring states to re-determine eligibility for SNAP, even if a household was deemed eligible for other state and/or federal assistance programs.

 

Sounds pretty awful and heartless huh?

 

Now let's look at the reality.

 

The House version of the "Farm Bill" would find the $40 billion in savings by allowing states to enforce work requirements on food stamps, allow for drug testing of food stamp recipients, and would end waivers that allow able-bodied adults without dependent children to receive food stamps indefinitely.

 

Work requirements, drug testing, and an end of indefinite benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents. How heartless.

 

In the last decade, food stamp costs have exploded out of control. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of Americans on the food stamps rolls doubled. Then the rolls doubled again just during President Obama's presidency. 

 

This is textbook liberal politics. When conservatives attempt to reform any welfare program with integrity measures or work requirements, it's just easier to say Republicans are "slashing" funding and someone somewhere is going to suffer because they might have to fulfill a work requirement. Typical.

 

Obama's War On Women : ObamaCare Abuses Women

The question that remains is are women truly stupid enough not to see the mistake they made believing the rhetoric from the progressive socialist Democrats that the Republicans hate women? Also, who would ever believe an entire party would hate more the 50% of the population and still think they have a chance of getting elected? Did women actually believe this? Really? 

Has the tide turned since the truth has become so evident that women are just tools, like everyone else, to be used and abused by the Democrats? Only time will tell.

Obama vs. the Women
By Christopher Chantrill

Conservatives are all shouting delighted fiascos at the pathetic debut of Obamacare. Like the chaps at La Scala we take equal delight in an utter fiasco as in a glorious trionfo.
But I do not feel any lift from the disaster.

It is, after all, ordinary American women that are getting sold down the river by the fundamental transformations of President Obama. This is not right. This is America and we honor our women.
Health care is a girl thing; you can tell that by the "care" in health care, and the debacle of Obamacare hits women right where they live. It can't be funny that all the careful plans of our womenfolk are being dashed to the ground by the transformative folly of our first black president.
President Obama made at least five specific promises about Obamacare, and women live by the promises of the men they trust. But all five promises turned out to be cynical lies. Here they are, courtesy of Christopher J. Conover at the Weekly Standard:

• Deception #1: Universal coverage

• Deception #2: No new taxes on the middle class

• Deception #3: Annual premium savings of $2,500

• Deception #4: No increase in the deficit

• Deception #5: You can keep your plan if you like it

Looking at the promises in the cold light of day it seems obvious why candidate and president Obama had to make them. Without those promises ObamaCare would have died in the womb. That's because, as Conover writes, while Americans are all in favor of "universal health insurance" in the abstract, they just aren't willing to reach into their pockets and pay for it.
In short, pursuit of universal health care was either a fool's errand (from a political standpoint) or would require the wool to be pulled over the eyes of the American public.
In Barack Obama, reformers found a candidate willing and able to rise to the occasion.

In most American politicians there exists tucked away in a secret corner of their hearts a grudging commitment to truth, justice, and the American Way that prevents them from committing the mega-deception that the selling of ObamaCare required. But Barack Obama, leftist and anti-colonialist, was willing to do it, was wanting to do it, was waiting to do it.

The question, of course, is what happens now? Is the sinking of the SS Obamic going to echo down the decades as the political disaster of the century that changed U.S. politics forever? Or will it turn out just to be the "glitch" that our MSM masters want us to believe?
The answer lies in the hearts of the women betrayed by Obama, the women whose carefully considered health-care arrangements have been busted up, the kind of women telling their health-plan cancellation stories in this post at the Matt Walsh Blog. Will they call the wayward president to account for his lies, or will they submit to his patriarchal power as women have done down the ages, from hapless Briseis to the wily Scheherazade to the famous feminist that Jean-Paul Sartre existentially treated like a doormat: Simone de Beauvoir?

Forget about our brave conservative women. Don't worry about the "Julias." It's ordinary middle-class women that I'm wondering about, the non-political women that just want their families to have a good health plan, one that they like and one that they can keep.

So what happens next? Do Republicans learn to message and trot out the sobbing mothers of autistic children that had their premiums tripled and their deductibles doubled? Does it all end up as a Republican Congress in 2014 and a Republican president in 2016?
Maybe. But think back to 2008 and the TARP bailout and the Obamic fundamental transformation: they provoked tens of thousands of women to start the Tea Party. Keli Carender was one of the first right here in Seattle. Now, of course, she's graduated into the semi-establishment Tea Party Patriots.
Suppose that right now, all across the nation, there are Healthcare Moms starting to talk to their friends about their canceled health plans. Suppose by next month they are starting to do something about it. Suppose by next spring they are starting to get active in Republican Party races.

The Republican Party doesn't operate by top-down messaging like the Democratic Party. It gets taken over every decade or so by some bottom-up groundswell. That's because the Republican Party is the party of the People of the Responsible Self. Responsible people don't wait for the ruling class to get around to sending a community organizer down to their neighborhood.

When they get sold down the river responsible people figure it's their job to start paddling and make a difference. Especially the women.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/obama_vs_the_women.html#ixzz2j7A2iwVp
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Education Change by Incentives : Threat of Being Fired!

Just like any reform, all participants have to sign on to make it work. Given the current mental freeze among teachers unions,  union participation will never occur as this would lessen the power and control that the unions have over the school districts and the teachers through the threat of strike.

And the power of control is measured in dollars, and the more dollars the unions can extract, the more power they have to dictate what reform will be implemented, if any.

The good news is Wisconsin has shown that change can be made to happen. Scott Walker made it happen with his Act 10 law that passed and changed everything.

Incentive Structure for Education System
Source: Thomas Dee and James Wyckoff, "Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT," National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2013.
October 28, 2013

Teachers in the United States are compensated largely on the basis of fixed schedules that reward experience and credentials. However, there is a growing interest in whether performance-based incentives based on rigorous teacher evaluations can improve teacher retention and performance, says a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The researchers compare the retention and performance outcomes among low-performing teachers whose ratings placed them near the threshold that implied a strong dismissal threat. They also compare outcomes among high-performing teachers whose rating placed them near a threshold that implied an unusually large financial incentive.

• The results indicate that dismissal threats increased the voluntary attrition of low-performing teachers by 11 percentage points (i.e., more than 50 percent) and improved the performance of teachers who remained.
• They also find evidence that financial incentives further improved the performance of high-performing teachers.

Overall, the evidence presented in the study indicates high-powered incentives linked to multiple indicators of teacher performance can substantially improve the measured performance of the teaching workforce. Nonetheless, implementing such high-stakes teacher-evaluation systems will continue to be fraught with controversy because of the difficult trade-offs they necessarily imply.

Any teacher-evaluation system will make some number of objectionable errors in how teachers are rated and in the corresponding consequences they face.

Policymakers must ultimately weigh these costs against the substantive and long-term educational and economic benefits such systems can create for successive cohorts of students both through avoiding the career-long retention of the lowest-performing teachers and through broad increases in teacher performance.
 

'Common Sense Tax' Reform Proposal : Workable

A good proposal - but like so many other tax reforms, a congress controlled by progressive soicialist that demand more tax revenue to spend on more entitlements will never agree to any reform that lessens the revenue flow into government coffers.

If we have any chance of tax reform it will only come if every last progressive Democrat is voted out of office in 2014 and then in 2016. Other wise the demand for more tax revenue will not only continue but get far worse then is today. A vote against the Democrats is a vote to save the country from economic ruin.

A Tax Reform Plan that Both Parties Can Like
Source: John Goodman and Laurence Kotlikoff, "A Tax Reform Plan that Both Parties Can Like," Fiscal Times," October 20, 2013.
October 22, 2013

America's tax system is unfair, distortionary, wasteful and a user's nightmare. Most important, it's limiting our country's economic potential. But can we have a far simpler tax system that generates at least as much revenue and is more progressive, ask John Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis and a professor of economics at Boston University.

Yes, it's called the Common Sense Tax (CST). It's designed to be revenue neutral and kick start our ailing economy. It features just two taxes.

• One is a payroll tax that taxes all labor earnings at a flat 13 percent rate.
• The other is a personal income tax with a 25 percent tax on household income above $100,000, in the case of married households, and $50,000, in the case of singles.

The CST has no explicit corporate income tax and no explicit estate and gift tax. But the CST income tax base includes imputed corporate profits and gifts and inheritances received.
Why is the Common Sense Tax fairer? Consider payroll taxation.

• Today's FICA tax is highly regressive, taxing wages at 15.3 percent up to $113,700, but then at 2.9 percent for a range, before rising to 3.8 percent.
• True, the FICA tax is divided 50-50 between employers and employees. But economists don't believe this distinction matters, at least in the long run.
• This said, to ensure that middle- and low-wage workers benefit immediately from the reduction in the FICA tax rate, the Common Sense Tax levies its 13 percent payroll tax only on employers.

Consider next the Common Sense Tax's personal income tax. By setting high thresholds for taxable income, the Common Sense Tax would instantly end the income taxation of all households of low or modest means -- about two thirds of American households.
But how can cutting the payroll tax rate and taxing incomes only above high thresholds be revenue neutral?

• First, the change to the payroll tax comes close to breaking even.
• Second, the Common Sense Tax's income tax is comprehensive --it taxes all income above the thresholds no matter how or where it's earned and eliminates all deductions and other tax breaks, with three exceptions (the charitable deduction, the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit).

In addition to being simple, transparent and fair, the Common Sense Tax would improve incentives to work and save, and eliminate an entire army of corporate and personal tax accountants and lawyers.

Most important, the Common Sense Tax would help grow the economy and provide, at long last, the American people with a tax system they understand, respect and deserve.
 

Conservative Poster Child : We Are Serious!

Here is the poster child for the Conservative Tea Party.

Man's Best Friend : What Happened to The Cat?

Okay, take a break from the insanity of ObamaCare and the progressive socialists that are telling us all is well, to enjoy some real good news - dogs truly know how to make your day.

ObamaCare Drives Population to Ruin : Just Dial 1-800-F**KYou

I know how to solve this problem of ObamaCare - vote for more Democrats, they seem to have the answers that millions want to here. Willingly, the millions who are asleep at the wheel stumble over the edge, and while falling into the abyss, wonder if someone will be at the bottom to break their fall.

Dialing 1-800-F**K-YOU
By Stella Paul

I just had the worst dream. I was standing center stage, eager to unveil my fancy new website. I pressed the button; the website crashed, and 7 billion people started laughing at me.
Do you think Obama ever had that dream? Nah, neither do I. Images like that spring from an inborn sense of accountability, a drive to make good on promises and to earn genuine respect. The last time Obama sought to earn genuine respect was when he invented "roof hits" with his pot-smoking Choom Gang.

And ever since those high times in Hawaii, our Stoner Emeritus has trafficked in hustle, fraud, and thuggery, each mysteriously charmed step of the way. So what did Obama hope to achieve with his 2,700-page poison pill of ObamaCare?

Simple. Cast your mind back to that golden age one month ago, before you were forced to spend countless precious hours of your mortal life, trying to log onto a $500-million dysfunctional website.
Twas then that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius summoned the media to proclaim the coming glories of ObamaCare. And, lo, the miracle of "health-care" reform arose through the shimmering mists, as she revealed its national hotline number: 1-800-F**K-YO.
And that, dear readers, is the point of the whole shebang. 16 million of you have lost insurance and don't know how you'll get health care for you and your loved ones? Well, 1-800-F**K-YOU.

Your premiums have doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and you don't see how to put food on the table and pay for insurance? Let's make things perfectly clear: 1-800-F**K-YOU.
Doctors quitting? Hospitals shedding staff? Medical device companies taxed to ruination? The entire insurance business destroyed? Millions of jobs lost or stomped into part-time, to comply with ObamaCare regulations? Hey, fellow Americans, 1-800-F**K-YOU.

Fined for not buying a product that you can't buy, because our website doesn't work? Forced to buy it, and we're not, because we gave ourselves a magic exemption? A hale and hearty 1-800-F**K-YOU. We work for Great and Godly Government, got that? And we're so confident that we can shove this toxic stew down your gullets that here's what we're going to do.
We're not making any deals about defunding or delaying, no matter how catastrophic we know our website will be. Of course not!
Instead, we're shutting down the United States government. We're paying government workers to put up barricades in front of open-air war memorials to keep out 90-year-old war heroes.
We're sending riot police to threaten veterans in wheelchairs to make sure they don't get away with paying respect to their fallen brethren.

We're closing Yellowstone Park and locking up elderly tourists under armed guard. Then we're making them travel 2.5 hours out of the park, forbidding them to stop at private bathrooms along the way. You want us to explain how forcing Japanese tourists to go in their pants will help even one sick child? OK, we'll explain: 1-800-F**K-YOU. That's how.

We're threatening to arrest Catholic priests who celebrate mass on military bases, leaving some of America's bravest without religious services. Why threaten Catholic priests and not Protestant ministers? Because 1-800-F**K-YOU. That's why.

We're forcing senior citizens with walkers and scooters to leave their fully-paid-for homes, and we're demanding that legitimate private charities and businesses close their operations. What statute allows us to arbitrarily evict American citizens from their homes and business? Statute 1-800-F**K-YOU. That statute.

We're blocking access to graveyards and forcing children to take dangerous "white knuckle" rides to school. Want your kids to be safe when they travel? Well, we want ObamaCare "for the children." So 1-800-F**K-YOU.

You think you can brush us off? You think you can stop us? Haven't you figured out we're not playing that kind of game? This whole witches brew of ObamaCare was dreamed up in jail by a Congresswoman's husband, doing time for 16 counts of bank fraud. You think we want it to work?
We've got our hands on every lever of power in the greatest country in the world. We've steamrolled our way to $17 trillion in debt, and now we're spending money to cover up Mount Rushmore to force Americans to buy a product they don't want from a website that doesn't work -- and nobody has arrested us yet or led us away in a net.

Now pick up that phone and start calling.

Stella Paul's new ebook is What I Miss About America: Reflections from the Golden Age of Hope and Change, available at Amazon for just $1.99. Write Stella at Stellapundit@aol.com.