Obama Threatening to Pass Anti-gun Health Care by Cheating

Thursday, February 25, 2010

He’s like a playground bully — on steroids!

According to a recent poll, only 23% of the American people want Congress to pass the anti-gun ObamaCare bill.

And the President’s response to this? He believes Americans are just too stupid to understand what geniuses like him, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are trying to do for us.

So what is Obama’s current plan?

Cheat.

ObamaCare is already the product of fraud, secrecy, bribery, and corruption. But Obama is preparing to ratchet up this corruption to a whole new level.

In 1974, Congress created a special process for balancing the budget. Senators could reduce the deficit with a simple 51 votes in the Senate, rather than getting the 60 needed votes to stop a filibuster. Under the rules, this process — called “reconciliation” — can ONLY be used for balancing the budget.

To repeat, it cannot be used for anything other than reducing the deficit. By contrast, ObamaCare would INCREASE the deficit by at least $500 BILLION.

So what does Obama do (with the help of crooked accountants at the Congressional Budget Office)?

He lies.

He fraudulently pretends the anti-gun ObamaCare legislation would reduce the deficit. And he does this by hiding costs and pretending he’s going to make cuts he never intends to fully implement ($465 billion in Medicare cuts).

And he intends to use this fraud scheme to cram ObamaCare down the throats of the American people against their will.

Americans don’t want the increased taxes and gun control that have been injected into the bill. Remember, Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to claim his legislation fixed the problems that Gun Owners of America had with this legislation.

But in reality, the bill still allows the ATF to troll a health/gun database in order to take away firearms from tens of millions of Americans.

ACTION: Please contact your two senators and your representative. Tell them that using the budget-balancing “reconciliation” process to pass ObamaCare is nothing but cheating.

You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center to send a pre-written message to your legislators.

—- Pre-written letter —-

Dear

ObamaCare is already the product of fraud, secrecy, bribery, and corruption. But Obama is preparing to ratchet up this corruption to a whole new level.

In 1974, Congress created a special process for balancing the budget — with a simple 51 votes in the Senate, rather than the 60 needed to stop a filibuster. Under the rules, this process — called “reconciliation” — can ONLY be used for reducing the deficit.

To repeat, it cannot be used for anything other than reducing the deficit. By contrast, ObamaCare would INCREASE the deficit by at least $500 BILLION.

So what does Obama do (with the help of crooked congressional accountants at the Congressional Budget Office)? He lies. He fraudulently pretends ObamaCare would reduce the deficit. And he does this by hiding costs (the $247 billion “doc fix”) and pretending he’s going to make cuts he never intends to fully implement ($465 billion in Medicare cuts).

This “reconciliation” scheme is nothing more than a fraud on the American people, who, according to every recent poll, oppose ObamaCare by overwhelming majorities.

Understand this: I strongly object to this “cheat scheme.”

« Read the rest of this post HERE! »

Family of Officer Killed in Clinton Motorcade Sues

DALLAS, Texas — The family of a Dallas motorcycle officer who died two years ago while escorting Hillary Rodham Clinton has sued her and the city, alleging that he wasn’t properly trained, that the road was inadequately maintained and that Clinton didn’t give the city enough time to prepare for the motorcade.

The lawsuit filed in state court Monday, the second anniversary of the death of Senior Cpl. Victor Lozada, also faulted the city’s 911 system for a delay in dispatching an ambulance to the scene of the accident on the Houston Street viaduct.

The suit also names as defendants Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Super Seer Corp., the maker of Lozada’s motorcycle helmet.

Frank Librio, spokesman for the city of Dallas, said the city had no comment on the lawsuit. Representatives of the other defendants could not be reached for comment.

Full Story Here:
Family of Officer Killed in Clinton Motorcade Sues

I guess we all have to do what our conscience dictates, in ALL matters, but I seriously have to wonder, what would Victor Lozada have to say about this law suit? I hate to say this, I don’t want to denigrate Sr. Cpl. Victor Lozada or his family in any way, I just hope it is being done in the interest of doing something good and not simply for monetary gain.

“None of this is going to bring back their father and husband,” said David Schiller, attorney for the Lozada family. He said the family filed suit “because they don’t believe that, without taking legal action, many of these things are going to change on their own.”

As this story progresses, I too have to wonder about the actions of the Dallas Police Department and the method of their madness given the conflicting reports found in this next quote.

According to the lawsuit, less than a month before his death, Lozada’s trainer, Senior Cpl. Dale Erves, wrote that he did not think Lozada was ready to ride on duty. A Jan. 25, 2008, daily observation report, signed by Lozada and Erves, states that Lozada had made “so many mistakes” that it scared Erves and that Lozada had failed that phase of training, needing at least two more weeks of training.

Shortly after Lozada’s death, The Dallas Morning News obtained copies of Lozada’s training records, which indicated that he had done well. A daily observation report also dated Jan. 25, 2008, and signed by Erves and Lozada stated that Lozada had passed training.

That sheds and entirely different light on the story, or does it?

On Tuesday, Erves said he had written the report indicating that Lozada had failed as a joke. He said he was shocked that was now being used as part of the lawsuit.

“Victor and I got a laugh out of it,” Erves said. “Victor had improved tremendously, and he was doing very well with his riding ability.”

That’s why we have a judicial system. Someone has to make sense of this matter. I have to say this, you don’t write reports of that nature as a joke. I have to wonder, just how much time did Sr. Cpl. Dale Erves have on his hands? As a training officer, I would think that it wouldn’t be that much. And a phony report is NOT a joke.

« Read the rest of this post HERE! »

Obama’s “Pro-Business” Policies Are Killing the Free Market

Last night President Barack Obama held a behind-closed-door dinner with 17 chief executive officers from major U.S. corporations including Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Verizon Communications’ Ivan Seidenberg, and General Electric’s Jeffrey Immelt. According to Bloomberg, the President made the case to his select guests that his administration is “fundamentally business-friendly.” This comes almost two weeks after the President told BusinessWeek: “[T]he irony is, is that on the left we are perceived as being in the pockets of Big Business. And then on the business side, we are perceived as being anti-business.”

What the President fails to understand is that there is no irony here. It is entirely consistent for big government policies that favor select and politically connected big corporations to hurt the economy as a whole. In fact, almost all well-intentioned government interventions in the market place do exactly that. In a July 2009 interview with BusinessWeek, President Obama spoke of an earlier behind-closed-door meeting he had with top corporate executives:

The last lunch that I had, I guess we had the CEOs of Xerox (XRX), AT&T (T), Honeywell (HON), and Coke (KO). We talked about the fact that, in the 1980s, when everybody was afraid Japan was going to eat our lunch, a lot of companies did a 180 in terms of quality improvement, efficiency, increasing productivity. There was a change in corporate culture that significantly boosted corporate productivity for a long time and helped create the boom of the ’90s. What they pointed out was, there were a couple of sectors that were resistant to that: health care, education, energy, and government.

…

[What we're saying] matches up almost perfectly with what those CEOs were saying: Can we introduce the same sort of productivity in the health-care industry, which we know is going to be a growing sector because of the aging population? Can we use the need to transition our energy economy in such a way that it ends up being a huge engine for economic growth? Can we revamp our education system so that it’s producing the kind of workers we need? … we need to get beyond this notion that somehow government is always just the problem.

But as others have pointed out, the reason the health care, education, and energy sectors all failed to improve quality, efficiency, and productivity in the 80s is because those sectors were, and continue to be, the sectors most dominated by government intervention: our education system is a near total government monopoly; the federal government controls the majority of health care spending in this country, and our environmental laws make new energy development in this country virtually impossible. But President Obama seems completely oblivious to these facts. He is supremely confident that his government “pro-business” interventions will be ahistorically successful. And so he confidently tells BusinessWeek: “You would be hard-pressed to identify a piece of legislation that we have proposed out there that, net, is not good for businesses.”

Never mind that President Obama’s cap and trade proposal would be worth billions to select power companies but cost the U.S. economy as a whole trillions of dollars. Never mind that his health care plan would turn health insurance companies into public-utility like monopolies at tremendous cost to small businesses. Never mind that the President’s big labor-friendly tax hikes would cripple American competitiveness. President Obama’s “pro-business” TARP related actions helped lower the United States rank in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, from “free” to “mostly free.” The President must stop having behind-closed-door meetings with his favorite CEOs and start pursuing an economic agenda that helps everyone.

Full Story Here:
President Obama’s “Pro-Business” Policies Are Killing the Free Market

I am not a financial wizard. I never have claimed to be. My expertise is focused in *other areas*. But I do have friends that ARE financial wizards. They have been involved in the business of finance and so forth for many years and I value their opinions greatly.

I wanted to post this earlier in the day but I sent it to my friends for their perusal and opinion on it’s accuracy before I posted it to the blog. They say the accuracy of this piece is 100 percent on the money!

« Read the rest of this post HERE! »

Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009

Washington, DC

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

2. Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…” The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

3. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.” Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a “federal regulator,” and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: “I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.” Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4. Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. « Read the rest of this post HERE! »