Obama Continues To Lie About Earmarks

Hope and change has turned into outright deceit for the Obama administration. First, he had the audacity to claim that the pork laden stimulus bill 'didn't have a single earmark'; now, he is throwing his support behind ANOTHER $410,000,000,000.00 pet project pork-bill that will do nothing but run up the debt and inflation. In his first 100 days Obama has

• Lied about not allow lobbyists into the White House, half of his cabinet are big money lobbyists.
• Lied about the stimulus including tax cuts (oooh 13 dollars a week! THAT will fix things)
• Lied about there being no earmarks in the stimulus.
• More than doubled the deficit
  
• Undone the widely supported welfare reform of 1994
• Caused the stock market to dive every time he has made a speech
• Presided over the worst 2 months the stock market has ever seen

Obama has simply been a colossal failure. He his indecisive, free-money-for-everyone-except-those-who-work-for-it has already almost guaranteed that your children will be worse off than you are. It is a disgrace, and a crying shame that the first African American president would be such a terrible leader that his incompetence would outshine the historic accomplishment.


Source for the 410B in new pork.

Obama Is Lying about Earmarks in the 'Stimulus' Bill

Obama has the gall to claim that there are no earmarks in the stimulus bill. This is an absolute boldfaced lie. So much for the new way of doing business in Washington. Its even more ironic that it is the Associated Press (a 'news' organization that was nearly openly campaigning for Obama in November) who is calling Obama out on his lies.

FACT CHECK: Obama has it both ways on pork

By CALVIN WOODWARD

WASHINGTON (AP) - At least Route 31 is a road to somewhere.

President Barack Obama had it both ways Monday when he promoted his stimulus plan in Indiana. He bragged about getting Congress to produce a package with no pork, yet boasted it will do good things for a Hoosier highway and a downtown overpass, just the kind of local projects lawmakers lard into big spending bills.

Obama's sales pitch on the enormous package he wants Congress to make law has sizzle as well as steak. He's projecting job creation numbers that may be impossible to verify and glossing over some ethical problems that bedeviled his team.

In recent years, the so-called Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska came to symbolize the worst excesses of congressional earmarks, a device that allows a member of Congress to add money for local projects in legislation, practically under the radar.

Nothing so bold, or specific, as that now-discarded bridge project is contained in the stimulus package. That's not to say the package steers clear of waste or parochial interests. Obama played to such interests Monday, speaking at one point as if he'd come to fill potholes.

A look at some of Obama's claims in Elkhart, Ind., in advance of a prime-time news conference called to make his case to the largest possible audience:

OBAMA: "I know that there are a lot of folks out there who've been saying, 'Oh, this is pork, and this is money that's going to be wasted,' and et cetera, et cetera. Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. ... There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill."

THE FACTS: There are no "earmarks," as they are usually defined, inserted by lawmakers in the bill. Still, some of the projects bear the prime characteristics of pork - tailored to benefit specific interests or to have thinly disguised links to local projects.

For example, the latest version contains $2 billion for a clean-coal power plant with specifications matching one in Mattoon, Ill., $10 million for urban canals, $2 billion for manufacturing advanced batteries for hybrid cars, and $255 million for a polar icebreaker and other "priority procurements" by the Coast Guard.

Obama told his Elkhart audience that Indiana will benefit from work on "roads like U.S. 31 here in Indiana that Hoosiers count on." He added: "And I know that a new overpass downtown would make a big difference for businesses and families right here in Elkhart."

U.S. 31 is a north-south highway serving South Bend, 15 miles from Elkhart in the northern part of the state.

OBAMA: "I've appointed hundreds of people, all of whom are outstanding Americans who are doing a great job. There are a couple who had problems before they came into my administration, in terms of their taxes. ... I made a mistake ... I don't want to send the signal that there are two sets of rules."

He added: "Everybody will acknowledge that we have set up the highest standard ever for lobbyists not working in the administration."

THE FACTS: Two of his appointees, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle for secretary of health and human services and Nancy Killefer as his chief compliance officer, dropped out after reports they had not paid a portion of their taxes.

Obama previously acknowledged he "screwed up" in making it seem to Americans that there is one set of tax compliance rules for VIPs and another set for everyone else. Yet his choice for treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, hung in and achieved the post despite having belatedly paid $34,000 to the IRS, an agency Geithner now oversees.

That could leave the perception that there is one set of rules for Geithner and another set for everyone else.

On lobbyists, Obama has in fact established tough new rules barring them from working for his administration. But the ban is not absolute.

William J. Lynn III, tapped to be the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. William Corr, chosen as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services, has lobbied as an anti-tobacco advocate. And Geithner's choice for chief of staff, Mark Patterson, is an ex-lobbyist from Goldman Sachs.

OBAMA: "The plan that we've put forward will save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs over the next two years."

THE FACTS: Job creation projections are uncertain even in stable times, and some of the economists relied on by Obama in making his forecast acknowledge a great deal of uncertainty in their numbers.

Beyond that, it's unlikely the nation will ever know how many jobs are saved as a result of the stimulus. While it's clear when jobs are abolished, there's no economic gauge that tracks job preservation.

Source

Iran Says that Obama's Offer to Talk Shows Weakness

This should come as no surprise to anyone, expert perhaps to Messrs Obama, Reid, and Ms. Pelosi that Iran is seeing Obama's offer to negotiate with them as weakness. Obama apologists will probably approach this as 'Oh well, we tried. Give peace a chance', but the reality of the situation is much more dangerous. Iran's leaders, now emboldened by the perceived weak-kneed foreign policy of the new administration are much more likely to accelerate development of weapons of mass destruction and adopt a more aggressive foreign stance. It is also likely that Israel will not take kindly to this and will put a stop to any shenanigans if Obama is unwilling to, risking a regional war.

Thus, Islamo-fascists in the middle east emboldened by Obama's perceived weakness will seek to capitalize on the opportunity and will make attempts to attack Israel and Western nations. People are probably going to die because the Democrats think that appeasing evil will lead to peace. Sadly history has shown time and time again this is just not true. We can only hope that the number of lives sacrificed at the alter of liberalism will be small.


Iran says Obama's offer to talk shows US failure

US President Barack Obama's offer to talk to Iran shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.

"This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

"Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change," he added.

After nearly three decades of severed ties, Obama said shortly after taking office this month that he is willing to extend a diplomatic hand to Tehran if the Islamic republic is ready to "unclench its fist".

In response, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh tirade against the United States, demanding an apology for its "crimes" against Iran and saying he expected "deep and fundamental" change from Obama.

Iranian politicians frequently refer to the US administration as the "global arrogance", "domineering power" and "Great Satan".

Tensions with the United States have soared over Iran's nuclear drive and Ahmadinejad's vitriolic verbal attacks against Washington's close regional ally Israel.

Former US president George W. Bush refused to hold talks with the Islamic republic -- which he dubbed part of an "axis of evil" -- unless it suspended uranium enrichment, and never took a military option to thwart Tehran's atomic drive off the table.

The new administration of Obama has also refused to rule out any options -- including military strikes -- to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies any plans to build the bomb and insists its nuclear programme is solely aimed at peaceful ends.

Source

Obama's Stealthy Socialist Medicine Trick

Kim Strassel at the Wall Street Journal has an editorial today pointing out that provisions in the so-called stimulus bill is quietly (and without debate) instituting Obama's goal of socialist health care. The provisions, ignored by the main stream news and lost in the blizzard of new spending, are greatly expanding the role of the SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) program. SCHIP was initially designed to help the working poor pay for health insurance for their children. After the Obama treatment, people making up to $65,000.00 a year are going to have YOU pay for their kid's health insurance.

The Democrats learned in the early 1990's that American's do not want European-style socialist health care. They know, however, the power that they will wield over the populace if they can push it through, and are determined to do just that if they have to lie cheat and steal to do it. With the press at best complicit, grassroots activism is the only thing standing between now and the day you wake up to find that your good health (and a large chunk of your money) is in the hands of politicians.


Democratic Stealth Care
With the nation preoccupied by the financial crisis, Democrats have been quietly working to nationalize health care.

By: KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Tom Daschle is still waiting to be confirmed as secretary of health and human services, not that he's in any rush. Democrats are already enacting his and Barack Obama's agenda of government-run health care -- entirely on the QT.

This was the real accomplishment of this week's House vote for the $819 billion "stimulus," and is the overriding theme of Congress's first month. With the nation occupied with the financial crisis, and with that crisis providing cover, Democrats have been passing provision after provision to nationalize health care.

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."

It began one week after the swearing-in, when Nancy Pelosi whipped through a big expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The Schip bill was Democrats' first stab at stealth expansion, unveiled in 2007, though vetoed by George W. Bush.
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Initially designed for children of working-poor families, this new Super-Schip will be double in size, and even kids whose parents make $65,000 a year will be eligible. The program will also now cover pregnant women and automatically enroll their new arrivals. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 2.4 million individuals will drop their private coverage for the public program.

Still, it's the "stimulus" that has proven the real gift horse -- a behemoth that has allowed Democrats to speed up the takeover of health care under cover of an economic crisis. They initially claimed, for instance, the "stimulus" would provide Medicaid money to states struggling to pay existing bills. What in fact it does is dramatically expand the number of Americans who qualify for Medicaid.

Under "stimulus," Medicaid is now on offer not to just poor Americans, but Americans who have lost their jobs. And not just Americans who have lost their jobs, but their spouses and their children. And not Americans who recently lost their jobs, but those who lost jobs, say, early last year. And not just Americans who already lost their jobs, but those who will lose their jobs up to 2011. The federal government is graciously footing the whole bill. The legislation also forbids states to apply income tests in most cases.

House Democrat Henry Waxman was so thrilled by this blowout, it was left to Republicans to remind him that the very banking millionaires he dragged to the Hill last year for a grilling would now qualify for government aid. His response? A GOP proposal to limit subsidies to Americans with incomes under $1 million was accepted during markup, but had disappeared by final passage. In this new health-care nirvana, even the rich are welcome. CBO estimates? An additional 1.2 million on the federal Medicaid dime in 2009.

The "stimulus" also hijacks Cobra, a program that lets the unemployed retain access to their former company health benefits -- usually for about 18 months. The new stimulus permits any former employee over the age of 55 to keep using Cobra right up until they qualify for Medicare at age 65. And here's the kicker: Whereas employees were previously responsible for paying their health premiums while on Cobra, now the feds will pay 65%. CBO estimates? Seven million Americans will have the feds mostly pay their insurance bills in 2009.

The bill even takes a whack at the private market. Under the guise of money for "health technology," the legislation makes the government the national coordinator for electronic health records, able to certify what platforms are acceptable. This is an attempt to squelch a growing private market that is competing to improve transparency and let consumers compare providers and costs. In liberal-world, only government should be publishing (and setting) health-care prices.

Add it up, and Democrats may move 10 million more Americans under the federal health umbrella -- in just four weeks! Good luck ever cutting off that money. Meanwhile, the Democratic majority is gearing up for a Medicare fight, where it may broach plans to lower the eligibility age to 55. Whatever costs accrue, they'll pay for by slashing the private Medicare Advantage option.

Mr. Obama will, of course, offer his health-care reform at some point. But he's clearly happy to get what he can, when he can. Despite talk of entitlement reform, he's voiced no disapproval of this vast new health-care grab. And don't forget he chose Mr. Daschle, who appreciates stealth himself. In his 2008 book outlining his health-care reform, he offers his party two pieces of political advice: Move fast, before there can be a public debate, and write as vague a bill as possible.

Guiding all of this is the left's hope that by the time America wakes up to what's happening, it'll be too late. Democrats might be on to something.

Source

Attack of the Gaffs

So, apparently Mr. Obama tried to walk through a window at the White House this afternoon. How many times do you think you are going to see that on TV? My guess is a few to none. Every time George Bush stumbled it was the lead story on every major network and the lead Saturday Night Live skit.

Here's a link to the story...

Obama is Co-Opting Political Analyists

Politico is reporting that Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is holding daily conference calls with three prominent political analysts who appear regularly as 'independent' commentators for various news outlets' political coverage. The three willing accomplices, James Carville, Paul Begala, and George Stephanopoulos all have regular gigs on main stream news channels. James Carville is a frequent guest on CNN’s Situation Room, Paul Begala also appears regularly on CNN, and George Stephanopoulos is the hose of ABC's "This Week". None of these so-called independent analysts have disclosed the fact that they are receiving their daily talking points directly from the Obama administration.

One would like to think that the mass media would be outraged at this conflict of interest. However, I guess that conflict of interest rules only apply during Republican administrations. It wasn't too long ago that the New York Times got all twitterpaited when it found out that the Pentagon was holding special briefings for media analysts. I guess the moral is, a media that is beholden to the Democrats is no longer on the side of the people. You have to take everything with a grain (or a whole shaker) of salt these days.


Power, politics, gossip on daily call

The conversations don’t begin with hello. They don’t end with goodbye. Most often they pick up with a low, drawling voice uttering something between a sentence and a grunt.

“Wahzgoanawn?”

For those accustomed to hearing James Carville only when he is trying to enunciate more clearly for television, that translates to: "What's going on?"

So begins another morning in what may count as Washington’s longest-running conversation — a street-corner bull session between four old friends who suddenly find themselves standing once more at the busiest intersection of politics and media in Washington.

Carville calls White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel calls ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos.

A bit later, CNN commentator Paul Begala, who is not quite the early bird that his friends are, will complete the circle with a rapid set of calls to all three.

Different versions of this round-robin chatter have been taking place, with few interruptions, every workday for nearly a generation.

“I refer to it as the 17-year-long conference call,” said Emanuel, who starts calling his friends at 6 a.m. “You can tap into it anytime you want.”

Everyone likes to deride the “conventional wisdom.” In fairness, though, the wisdom is not yet conventional at the moment it is hatched.

And in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington’s prevailing political and media interpretation — at least on the Democratic side — is being hatched on these calls.

The process happens not by design but as the byproduct of pre-dawn badinage — a smart-set take on the world that gets amplified by the prominent platforms all of them hold and by the dozens of later calls and lunches and rants that they will carry on with others throughout the day.

In that sense, the morning calls — no single one of which usually lasts more than a few minutes — among this gang of four is the headwaters of at least one major tributary of Washington politics.

Under other circumstances, the morning calls between Emanuel, Carville, Stephanopoulos and Begala — pollster Stan Greenberg is another frequent member of the core group, a kind of “fifth Beatle” — might be a Society of Has-Beens, reliving ancient glories from the Little Rock “War Room.”

It was Emanuel’s ascension into Barack Obama’s inner circle — even as Carville and Begala remained closely linked with the defeated Clinton political machine — that saved the group from irrelevance.

The calls “are about what’s happening, what the implications are of what’s happening and what’s going on,” said Emanuel.

Mary Matalin, who as Carville’s wife has overheard probably thousands of the group’s calls, describes the conversation as more profane, more sports-centric versions of a knitting club.

“They talk like they are girls,” she said. “The conversations start in the middle and they end in the middle, and if they talk at night, they’ll start in the morning with no break in the flow.”

“To me, the first purpose is friendship,” said Matalin, “and the second purpose is information-sharing.”

According to Begala, the expectation of a daily call is so great that Emanuel will sometimes call him and shout impatiently, “I can’t talk right now!” and then hang up.

While the rapid succession of conversations creates the effect of a single conference call, that is not actually the case. Carville described himself as an antediluvian who does not do e-mail or own a BlackBerry and has been on only a few actual conference calls.

But he said he has come to rely on the calls as his daily fixture.

When one of the callers is traveling, he says, his reaction is, “Where’s my coffee, where’s my glasses ... Goddamn, where you been?”

Begala offers the most academic interpretation of the calls and their daily survey of political news.

Emanuel is the most likely to be talking policy, usually some program Democrats can use to score points in the daily partisan brawl with Republicans.

Read the Rest of the Story->

Source

Fight the FOCA

This is a little off the usual topic, but I want to encourage all my readers to write their Senators and Representative to register their opposition to the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act". This act would be a disaster for human rights in the US, and would force organizations with moral objections to perform abortions, prevent the states from enacting any common sense restrictions on abortion (like parental notification requirements when minors seek abortions). This site has more information about the bill and what its effects would be.

This past Sunday, Parishes within the Camden Diocese gave out post cards for parishioners to send to their senators and representative explaining the horrible consequences of the act, and requesting that they vote no on the bill. I took the liberty of typing the letters into Microsoft Word format for anyone interested in writing their congresspersons.

Instructions:

Click on each link and select the 'Open With Microsoft Word' option, fill in your information, the name of your representative or senators, and then mail the letter to the address listed on the letter. Everyone can send 3 letters; one each to the two state senators, and one to your Representative

Senator Letter

Representative Letter