I slightly mentioned it earlier this week, but I haven't talked extensively about Obama's attacks against Romney's tenure at Bain Capital...and I'm not about to start now, as this blatant attack on capitalism is blowing up in his statist face. What I would like to note is Obama's willingness to once again attack private equity, yet revel in public equity...and that's what Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post points out:
Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.
Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions.
After venturing through a lengthy dirty laundry list of public equity failures, including the infamous Solyndra that launched the administration's downward spiral into the monetary abyss of green energy, Thiessen concludes:
All that cronyism and corruption is catching up with the administration. According to Politico, “The Energy Department’s inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations” related to the department’s green-energy programs.
Now the man who made Solyndra a household name says Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital “is what this campaign is going to be about.” Good luck with that, Mr. President. If Obama wants to attack Romney’s alleged private equity failures as chief executive of Bain, he’d better be ready to defend his own massive public equity failures as chief executive of the United States.
Now put all that together, then try to account for this priceless moment, via Politicker:
Though the Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney for his career at Bain Capital, President Obama still accepted $7,500 in campaign contributions from two Bain executives. His campaign press secretary, Ben LaBolt told The Politicker the president has no intention of giving the money back.
Laughable. $7,500 is a drop in the bucket for the Obama campaign, yet Dear Leader can't muster up the strength to even approach practicing what he preaches. How 'bout that liberal integrity? So sincere...so full of it. The real scandal is Obama's public equity record...that's what we, and the media (I know, try not to bust a gut!), should be discussing daily, weekly, monthly, annually.
HAHAhaha!! "Unreal" is right...
TheRightScoop: Obama is now saying that spending has risen at slowest pace during his term than in 60 years. What absolute nonsense. Obama is responsible for roughly 1.5 trillion dollar deficits every year, which is why the debt by the end of this year will have increased 6 TRILLION DOLLARS. Say what you will about Bush’s high spending, but it took eight years for him to amount around 5 trillion in deficits. Obama will about 6 trillion in just four years. Yet he is now blaming Republicans for running up ‘wild debts’ that he has to clean up.
He’s also saying he signed 2 trilion dollars in tax cuts into law. Seriously. There are no lies too big that this president won’t tell because he knows the MSM will let him get away with anything. They will kiss his butt all the way to November no matter what he craps out.
Check out the link for the video excerpt of Obama making this outlandish claim. And to be honest, I feel like I'm in a 'chicken or the egg' moment trying to figure out which came first: the Facebook claim echoing the same rubbish from Obama's mouth or vice versa. Guess it really doesn't matter. Garbage in, garbage out. And PolitiFact (a.k.a. 'PolitiFake', 'PolitiPhony', etc.) has finally discredited itself by accepting & approving of this lie (or rather, lies)...so perhaps there's some good out of this afterall!
Some very good news for the pro-life movement!
Gallup: The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves “pro-life,” one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.
The decline in Americans’ self-identification as “pro-choice” is seen across the three U.S. political groups.
These strides in the face of what WeaselZippers reminds us: "And yet we have the most radical pro-abortion President in history occupying the Oval Office." (National Right to Life reminded us just how radical in an emailer sent out Thursday)
But that's not all...CNSNews, then LifeNews today, pointed out something else...
LifeNews: Yesterday's Gallup poll on abortion had most of the media focus on the fact that the number of Americans declaring themselves “pro-choice” had fallen to a record low. But the poll also offered more good news for the pro-life side — most Americans want most abortions made illegal.
The Gallup survey indicated fifty-nine percent of Americans say abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances. The poll found 39 percent said abortion should be legal only in a few circumstances and 20 percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances, for a total of 59 percent who want all or most abortions illegal.
By contrast, 25 percent said abortion should be legal in all circumstances and 13 percent said it should be legal in most circumstances. That’s a mere 38 percent, less than four in ten Americans, who say all or most abortions should remain legal.
Is conscience finally returning to America? On the aspect of life, it would appear so...and I pray that is the case. But the fight's not over until wrongheaded (and dare I say, evil) legislation is overturned. And if we still consider ourselves a democracy, a 59/38 difference says it's time.
Do you enjoy watching liberals get schooled? How about Hollywood liberals? Or better yet, rich, liberal Hollywood celebrity hypocrites? Ok, yes, I know...we could talk about Obama's attacks on Bain Capital like all the others, but...why? Besides it being a distraction from his own failed record, it's been going on for nearly a week now, and Democrats are slowly realizing what Republicans in the primary process hashed out with similar discussions months ago: private equity is not a bad thing, and attacking it is not a winning formula. Like Rush said this morning, "We may be far-gone, but we ain't that far-gone where a campaign of anti-capitalism wins the White House!" So, why not turn our attention briefly towards a different kind of lesson, while sticking with issues of money, taxes, the rich and irrational liberal philosophy...and we can do all this not via Boston, but by properly diagnosing the dementia-riddled Hollywood elite of the Left Coast. And who better to do that than PJTV's own political humorist & staunch conservative Alfonzo Rachel, who's taken on Will Smith, George Clooney, Cher and Sean Penn over just the past month on all these topics and more! Enjoy...
No, I'm not talking college transcripts and other sealed records...I'm talking about more record-breaking stats that our current administration, including congressional leadership from both sides of the aisle, has procured under the leadership of the One...and they're far from rosy scenarios.
Retirement: It's an Obama World...work 'til you drop
TheNewYorkTimes (via GatewayPundit): The retirement dream seems further away for a lot of baby boomers, and they appear to be responding to that by holding on to their jobs if they can. But that may have worsened the employment prospects for younger workers.
Labor Department figures indicate that the percentage of workers over the traditional retirement age of 65 is at a record high. But, the figures show, job totals fell sharply for men under 55 during the recession and have only started to recover, while the proportion of women ages 25 to 54 with jobs also slid and is close to the lowest level of the last two decades.
For the first time since the government began keeping track of the numbers in 1981 — and probably the first time ever — one in nine American men over the age of 75 was working in April. About one in 20 women over that age have jobs.
College Grads: Spirits high...but salaries won't be
LosAngelesTimes: Newly minted college graduates lucky enough to find a job after leaving school
are in for a shock: They’ll likely be earning less money than they would have a
decade ago.
Since 2000, these young workers have seen inflation-adjusted
wages deteriorate, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute.
Here’s the
math: In 2011, fresh college grads earned an average of $16.81 an hour, or about
$35,000 a year. That’s down 5.4% from 2000. Women fared worse than men. Their
wages declined 8.5% to $15.74 an hour over the same period while those of men
dipped 1.6% to $18.29 an hour.
The decline means real money: roughly a
$2,000 drop in annual earnings, according to EPI.
Households: Drenched by budgetless 'bipartisanship'
CNSNews: The White House and the congressional leaders of both parties in Congress have begun maneuvering this week over the issue of the federal debt and what to do when the government hits the latest statutory limit on that debt--$16.394 trillion—which Congress and the president agreed to when they cut a deal on the debt limit last August.
The federal debt is currently $15.709 trillion, or about $685 billion below the limit.
Since that March 4, 2011 bipartisan continuing resolution, the federal government has been funded by a series of bipartisan deals cut between the White House and congressional leaders.
In the meanwhile, under these bipartisan spending deals, according to official figures published by the U.S. Treasury, the federal debt has climbed from $14,182,627,184,881.03 to $15,708,753,671,767.64.
That is an increase of $1,526,126,486,886.61.
Given that the Census Bureau estimates there are about 117,538,000 households in the United States, the per household increase in the federal debt since Congress enacted its March 4, 2011 bipartisan spending deal has been approximately $12,984.
By the way, with that last one, that nearly $13k is only a part of the average American household debt, which is nearly $118k!
Recovery? This is but a sliver of the record that Obama doesn't want to run on.
The Texas Senate race to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison is an election that's turning out to be a microcosm of what in many ways the Republican primary has been about (or was supposed to be about): choosing a conservative candidate over allowing the establishment to 'pick' their next in line. Now unfortunate for us, it would appear that the battle for conservatives is lost (for now) on the Top Office. However, we cannot afford to allow this same disservice to occur in our Senatorial campaigns. Yet, the establishment (yes, even here in Texas), is hard at work to secure its nominees to the Senate, and once again, work to undermine conservatism by deceivingly placing targets on the backs of conservatives. They tried to do it to secure Lugar's position in Indiana, and failed...they also tried it in Nebraska, and again, failed. Now, they hope to defeat the genuine conservative candidate in the Texas primary...and it's time for Texans to say, "NO MORE!" It's time to reject the Dewhurst lies with all the establishment's blessings and elect the very real, very constitutional, very conservative Ted Cruz.
Allow me to further this message with some wise words from a few guys who actually know Cruz personally. This first name should sound familiar to most Texans, for he is one of the original steering committee members (and continues to be) of the Dallas Tea Party. That man is Ken Emanuelson, and his message is this:
Hardly a day goes by that I don't receive some Dewhurst-inspired hit piece trying to tell me about "the REAL Ted Cruz."
Let me tell y'all something: I know the real Ted Cruz. I’ve known him for years. I was pushing back against the leftist progressives alongside Ted long before most of his current critics ever mustered up the ‘give a damn’ to get out of their easy chairs and join the fight. The critics that weren't around to see any of that, who did little, if any, of the hard work that went on for years holding the line and pushing back against the progressive growth of the leviathan state, don’t have a clue who 'the REAL Ted Cruz' is.
After recollecting how the two first met, Emanuelson continues to remind Texans why a man with the credibility of Ted Cruz should be elected to represent US:
Most Texans are now thoroughly-familiar with the high-profile cases Ted has won before the Supreme Court, fighting the U.N., the World Court and even the President of the United States. What you may not be familiar with is the critical work Ted did as a consumer advocate before joining Greg Abbott's team here in Texas. Why should that matter to you? Well, let’s see. Have you ever...
...closed a mortgage or real estate deal without an attorney?
...used online legal services (e.g. LegalZoom) to prepare a will or other document?
...participated in an online auction (e.g., eBay)?
...saved money by buying generic pharmaceuticals?
...purchased books or retail products online (e.g., via Amazon)?
...enjoyed wine or contact lenses purchased via mail order?
If so, you should thank Ted Cruz. We take for granted that we have the freedom today to do all the things listed above, but it could've turned out very differently if not for the free-market evangelism and activism of advocates like Ted. In the early-2000s, there were active and well-funded moves by big pharma, the lawyer cartels, the medical industry and others to restrict and eliminate consumer choice and prevent free market competition. If not for the hard work of Ted Cruz and his fellow consumer advocates, these special interests might well have gotten their way. Big pharma might well have succeeded in squeezing out generic competition, and bar associations may have prevailed in further expanding their existing cartels and suffocating free markets. Thanks in large part to the work of Ted Cruz, that didn't happen--and we're all better off for it.
Ken's remarks conclude with an important message for not only tea party conservatives, but for all Texans who want to send a fighter to represent our state in the U.S. Senate:
Since the rise of the Tea Party, more Republicans than ever are singing from the same free market hymnal. While we conservatives certainly appreciate the words of support for the right principles, we have every right to question the sincerity of those who only recently joined the choir. In 2012, it’s not particularly uncommon to hear a political candidate say something like this:
"Government in America is an interesting inversion, because for most of the history of mankind, government has been the concerted enemy of freedom. Government has been the most consistent limit upon innovation, upon individual expression. And one of the great miracles, one of the great idea revolutions of the American Framing was to move government out of the way and to unchain that freedom."
That's not some consultant-driven campaign message from 2012. Those are Ted Cruz’ words from 2001. That’s his message today, and that’s been his message all along the way. That’s the REAL Ted Cruz.
Given who he is and what he stands for, it's no surprise that the conservatives who have gotten to know him, including Sarah Palin, Sen. Jim DeMint, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Ron Paul, David Barton, Kelly Shackelford, Tim Lambert, Mark Levin and many others, have come to the same conclusion I have--the Senate conservatives need another fighter in the ranks, and Ted Cruz is the fighter we need.
The second personal friend of Ted Cruz that I want to mention needs no introduction. He is the Great One...
Folks, conservatives, TEXANS, after Hutchison's lackluster performance as the state's senior Senator, let's not repeat the same mistake of towing the party line again and again. Let's send a man to Washington that will work together with Senatorial conservatives in rolling back the wave of statist policies that both sides play a part in advancing, and vigilantly build an alliance that works towards the return of the Liberty, Prosperity and Providence that this great nation was founded on. Texans, it's a time for choosing...so let's choose to send the very REAL Ted Cruz to the United States Senate!
It's been three-and-a-half years...and one of Obama's first promises continues to be exposed for the lie that it was...and still is. Remember all of Obama's sanctimonious rhetoric on how he was the only candidate in the 2008 presidential race that was above it all when it came to lobbyists? Nevermind the lobbyist ties of his fundraising team that we had found out about earlier in that year. Even earlier, in late 2007, he campaigned to fawning crowds that the lobbyists' "days of setting the agenda are over," and that "they have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my White House."The media didn't bother to cut through that bull soon enough, as year after year rolled by, growing this first lie.
Well, now it appears that the Washington Post (undoubtedly, in their attempts to appear 'fair') has alerted us to Obama's unending lobbyist trend, despite all the promises to reduced the influence of lobbyists within his administration.
Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president.
At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.
And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration. The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site.
The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.
Oops. Move along, though...the liberal media fairness machine certainly won't use this info to harm Dear Leader. And as I recalled all the occurences of Obama's deception at the beginning of this post, it's unlikely devotees would even care about this now either. However, it does provide some interesting thoughts about his run for a second term, as the Lonely Conservative asks, "I wonder how many of these lobbyists are also big contributors to Obama’s reelection campaign." And it might provide his presumptive opponent with additional ammunition as well...if he wasn't doing the same thing.
Beyond the controversial Kenyan question and Wright confessions, this should provide a more direct reason to say 'NO' to another Obama term: JOBS!
IBD: Just 16 states have seen job growth since President Obama took office, according to state employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The remaining states have lost a combined 1.4 million jobs since January 2009.
Even 34 months after the recession officially ended in June 2009, there are still 11 states that have fewer people working now than at the start of the recovery.
The recession officially ended? Always have to scoff at that line.
The article goes on to express that while Texas & North Dakota have been the leaders in job growth, places like California have been the biggest bastions of job loss. Umm, just throwing this out there, but...could we be witnessing the differences between conservative policies and contrasting liberal ones? One more cheer for federalism and free markets.
Well, where Romney apparently didn't have the stomach to stand behind an ad campaign that never was, Hannity decided to take us step-by-step with author Ed Klein to explore (or rather 'vet') Obama's actual relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
I don't think any of us who realized how much of a phony Barry is, and was even before his immaculation, are going to be shocked at any of this...but for those who didn't know, here ya go.
I've already expressed that I feel as though I'm a conservative without a party. And I am far from alone in this feeling. Well, looks like top Republicans, from the presumptive presidential nominee to congressional leadership, are pissing off conservatives once more. Surprise. There's too many stories going on simultaneously to write about separately, so I'll just touch on each one of these frustrations.
First, on last night's program, Mark Levin started in on the Republican leadership's decision to, in effect, drop the push for the Keystone XL pipeline. (via theHill)
Republicans are pressing for approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in a final House-Senate transportation bill but appear unlikely to draw a line in the sand that jeopardizes the infrastructure legislation.
Can we say, 'weak'? Then Levin's discussion and focus quickly turned towards Boehner over suggestions that the Republican leadership may be planning to keep so-called 'popular' parts of Obamacare, even if the SCOTUS strikes it down in its entirety! (via Politico)
House Republican leaders are quietly hatching a plan of attack as they await a historic Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law.
If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place — like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say.
...Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) gave the entire House Republican Conference a preview of where the party is heading. His message: “When the court rules, we’ll be ready.”
But Boehner warned that they’ll relegislate the issue in smaller, bite sizes, rather than putting together an unwieldy new health care bill.
“If all or part of the law is struck down, we are not going to repeat the Democrats’ mistakes,” Boehner said, according to several sources present. “We have better ideas on health care — lots of them. We have solutions, of course, for patients with pre-existing conditions and other challenges.”
Anybody remember handing the House over to Boehner and increase Republican membership in the Senate in 2010 to keep ANY of Obamacare? HELL NO! If this is the continued leadership of John Boehner, then he MUST GO as Speaker of the House.
By the way, you might recall that Rush Limbaugh & Michael Steele joined the tea party movement & the Social Security Institute back in '09 to demand that the GOP Senate stops ObamaCare by any means necessary, while Senate Minority Leader McConnell’s strategy was to accommodate Democrats by allowing the chamber to debate and vote on amendments.. And as Daniel Horowitz reminds us yesterday over at RedState, Yes, many Republicans supported Obamacare all along.
Many of us have taken it for granted that all Republicans would work for full repeal of Obamacare. After all, not a single Republican voted for it. However, it is always important to understand the reasons why politicians support or oppose a piece of legislation.
When you listen to many prominent Republicans voicing their disdain for Obamacare, you generally hear the following complaints: it raises taxes, it cuts Medicare, it contains death panels, it is 2,700 pages long – and most notably – the individual mandate.
The problem is that these are all ancillary to the crux of what is so offensive about Obamacare. The overarching concern about Obamacare is that it harnesses the factors that have already driven up the cost of healthcare and health insurance, most prominently, the mandates and subsidies, and multiplies them to the nth degree. The tax increases, Medicare cuts, and individual mandate are merely tools to fund those interventions. Many Republicans never had a problem with them. This is why they were never repulsed by Romneycare, which doesn’t contain tax hikes and Medicare cuts. As for the individual mandate of MassCare, they contend that there is nothing wrong with a state mandate.
Before we inevitably segway to Romney, Horowitz also references the Politico piece, expressing his struggle with determining "whether Republicans lack a full understanding of the free market or whether they simply lack the communication skills and fortitude to articulate free market positions to the public," realizing that it's probably both, and concluding, "We better pray that the Supreme Court rules in our favor on severability and strikes down the entire law."
So, onto Romney...
Well, word came out that a conservative group was readying plans to launch attack ads targeting Obama's long and controversial relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. You can hop over to theBlaze to check out the clips of Wright that were exclusively obtained this morning. But the frustrating-as-Hell part came today when Romney repudiated the PAC's ad strategy. (via Townhall)
“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described. I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity — particularly for those in the middle class of America. And I think what we’ve seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination. I hope that isn’t the course of this campaign. So in regards to that PAC, I repudiate what they’re thinking about … It’s interesting that we’re talking about some Republican PAC that wants to go after the president [on Wright]; I hope people also are looking at what he’s doing, and saying ‘why is he running an attack campaign? Why isn’t he talking about his record?’”
Ok, this is not civil or rising above the fray, folks. It's yet another display of weakness. Where was this Romney during the primary? Where was this civility when he launched the most negative Republican campaign we've seen in modern times against his conservative contenders? So now that he's secured his spot as the nominee, that's it? Talk about an Etch-a-Sketch! This is the kind of crap that conservatives have warned about throughout the primary: Romney, and the Republican Establishment, care more about defeating conservatism than they do about defeating a statist, post-American president. This politically-correct civility won't cut it when it comes to saving the nation from forces that want to 'remake' it. Obama will do ANYTHING to win...but apparently Romney's hands are tied.
Then to top it off, or rather put the whip cream on the side (no cherry), McRINO the Maverick is teaming up with Democrats to craft a campaign finance reform bill (his favorite topic) that will benefit, wait for it...Democrats. (via theHill)
Sen. John McCain is talking with Democrats about a joint effort to require outside groups that have spent millions of dollars on this year’s elections to disclose their donors.
McCain (R-Ariz.), once Congress’s leading champion of campaign finance reform, has kept a low profile on the issue in recent years.
Good-government advocates who worked with McCain in the 1990s and early 2000s had begun to think he’d given up on the issue. But McCain said Tuesday he could join Democrats once again to form a bipartisan coalition, even though it would annoy the Republican leadership.
I doubt it, John. Your other buddy John [Boehner], and many of the rest in leadership positions, have shown us in many cases now that they're all bark and no bite (and many times, not even that, but just going-along and playing it up for the cameras).
The cowardly Establishment is destroying the Republican Party, folks; and with it, the Country. So will you help to relocate these career hacks to private life when it comes to your primaries and elections, or will you continue to help them slide on into the rot? Talk about frustrating.
