Story here from the Cato Institute. (H/T Health Care BS via ECM)

Excerpt:

Congressional Democrats are using several budget gimmicks to disguise the cost of their health care overhaul, claiming the House and Senate bills would cost only (!) about $1 trillion over 10 years.  Now that critics have begun to correct for those budget gimmicks, supporters of ObamaCare are firing back.

[...]When we correct for both gimmicks, counting both on- and off-budget costs over the first 10 years of implementation, the total cost of ObamaCare reaches — I’m so sorry about this — $6.25 trillion.  That’s not a precise estimate.  It’s just far closer to the truth than President Obama and congressional Democrats want the debate to be.

Read the rest here.

Tolkens book, Lord of the Rings, could soon become a deeply ingrained cultural symbol. The one ring represented power more than anything. It is now in our midst. It is the one ring of socialism. It was partly responsible for the world wars. The politicians insist on having it at our own expense. The public is convinced it can be used for good. We should heed what could be Tolkens warnings about THIS ring of POWER.

I recently read a minor right-wing blogger’s reaction to the election of Barack Obama, our first Black president. The blogger congratulated Obama for his victory and then said something to the effect of “See, America is such a wonderfully free place that even a Black guy can get elected here!”

As a country that stopped herding millions of Jews into gas chambers, Germans are obviously a model of religious tolerance.

A bunch of White guys hammer a Black guy into a bloody pulp. While the Black man lies crumpled in a pool of his own blood, one of the White guys feels a twinge of guilt and decides he’ll call 911 for the Black man before he flees the scene like the other Whites have. While the White man is talking with the 911 operator… a right wing blogger shows up! “Wow,” the blogger marvels “Look at that White man selflessly assisting Black man in trouble! We truly live in a post-racial society!”

Or maybe a bit like Germany bragging that it’s so tolerant of religious minorities that… they no longer send them to concentration camps. Wow! Want a cookie?

or: Brown smartly appeals to younger voters, GOP entrenches for further in-fighting

The gloves have come off for the holidays; the season of pomp and cheer being replaced with an air of accusation and jeering. It seems that the three major candidates are already dealing with crises, the GOP candidates especially seem to still be trying to separate themselves from one another and, by smearing the next guy, trying to make it a vote that consists of just ‘not voting’ for the greater of the evils. Brown has had few PR issues and is now making some smart moves appearing at a fundraiser recently to get out and damage control the ‘recording scandal’ while Whitman and Poizner and both dealing with yet another round of unflattering facts coming out under scrutiny of the platforms and merit badges they point at to show their qualifications. So early in the campaign these candidates are already doing more repairs than improvements to their campaigns as this shapes up to be less of a ‘race to the Governor’s office’ and more of a pushing and shoving match to grab the last slice of pizza at a frat party.

Steve Poizner, third place GOP candidate with essentially no chance of winning even a ‘participant’ trophy at this point, has been cut down in some of his claims that, under his leadership as Insurance Commissioner, the state has seen a reduction to insurance costs to the tune of nearly $2 billion. Analysts at Consumer Watchdog seem to conclude that this figure really is inflated by $800 million since these cuts were set forth by Garamendi, Poizner’s predecessor. The Mercury News goes further to explain that Poizner, in fact, made some changes in May of 2008 to actually make it easier for insurance companies to hike up rates in certain sectors totaling $282 million in price increases. Poizner’s people, of course, defend his actions by saying that necessary changes were made and cite that the decreases of overall cost are factual, and no matter who initiated the changes, Poizner approved them and set them in motion.

Here is where you need to question the facts. There are facts that contradict one another under Poizner’s actual effect in his position. You could argue that he has simply been a custodian of the Garamendi legacy as insurance commissioner while doing little of his own work. It seems that Poizner’s people, as with all other candidates, cite facts, and they are facts, that paint him in a good light. They aren’t all out lies, what is more closely related to the reality of the situation is that the facts have been shaped and are stated as vague enough that you can’t call him a liar or a lame fish because he gets to tote the accomplishments of the office he hold and does not have to state what he has actually done. This creative manipulation of stats and facts shows up again when he beats the drum of cutting department cost by 15% overall and cutting staff by some 200 or so. Those numbers are a bit inflated and it seems that he should not be claiming this as his accomplishment being that the mandate for those cuts came down from legislature and the Governor due to the state deficit. So Poizner really should be claiming that he was able to operate within the constraints of a failing economy in California; he’s a good ‘Yes Man’.

Jerry Brown has faced a similar issue in the ‘recording scandal’ that was never really a scandal per say. Like Poizner’s claims being ambiguously inaccurate but not entirely a lie Brown has faced the same scrutiny in his poorly handled internal investigation of the incident that saw one of his senior aides resign. But Brown has chosen a very clever strategy of finally taking the offensive in fundraising and doing something that is entirely necessary in his campaign, he is reaching out to those that don’t remember ‘Brown’s California’…the young people. In a stroke of genius, in my opinion, the 71 year old Brown spoke at a club on the Sunset Strip to a group of 20, 30, and 40-somethings, called the Generation for Change. This is who he needed to reach out to, those that either were not alive or have no real recollection of what he did as Governor so long ago. This is a group of progressive professionals that may only be able to recall Brown in his ’92 bid for President, which failed, so it is vital that he reach out to this voting base and either change the impression they have of him, or give them an impression at all.

Brown, in ’92, ran on a campaign finance reform idea that he would accept a maximum of only $100 dollars from individuals and organizations; smartly he has abandoned this platform commenting that it is impossible to do this today in a state race and that if Whitman was willing to return the contributions to her campaign and take back the nearly $20 million of her own dollars she has spent then he would agree to a $100 maximum contribution rule for this election…unlikely though. Brown was able to get the group to laugh, he very creatively explained away claims that he changes all the time, “Well, if you are alive and if you are listening and you are growing, you will change, because the world is changing, and if you still were where you were before, you are dead.” He was able to outline the problems we face in California with a deficit, but he spoke to the fact we all seem to forget, that California has a state wealth of $1.6 trillion…it’s not all bad since our deficit is only about 1% of our overall wealth, this can be fixed.

I have to say here that I have a growing respect for the ‘campaigning Brown’. He is making a lot of good decisions thus far in so many different areas. The fact that he let Newsom burn himself out was a savvy decision on his part, to say the least. Brown has also now started to reach out to the younger voters with an air of charisma and has handled the recording scandal very well hushing it down to mere whispers. He is positioning himself with his record as a man of age, a career politician, that has changed with the times and is human in his maturing and changing over the years. It has to be said that he has also done a great job in highlighting issues of the election in a light of optimism and speaking in more constructive and positive terms, also avoiding name calling and negative ads, which can’t be said for his opponents. Brown is on a roll with great poll numbers and alliances with powerful players to get through the primaries unopposed and unscathed. When the debates start is when he may be tested, but by then there will be so much negative press for his opponents that it seems he will have no problem cutting them down as inexperienced opportunists with very negative, short histories in his beloved state.

Now we come to Meg Whitman…wow, this woman is running an insane campaign right now that seems to keep springing leaks that money can’t plug. Most recently she has had to contend with tax returns that only further highlight her inabilities as a recent conservative convert and business woman. Recent tax returns show that a foundation she is a director of contributed $200,000 dollars to the Environmental Defense Agency in the struggling delta of California. This is the same group that, since running for Governor, she has criticized and come out against as an opponent of development and farming jobs. She gave the group she is campaigning against money to support them, odd to say the least. Being that she only recently started voting, and the fact the only more recently she registered republican, in addition to he funding of projects she now opposes shows she is trying to pander to the conservative right to get in to office without regard for what she really believes.

If this weren’t enough two other facts have come out to destroy her claim of being a savvy business woman. I have written before of her poor record of running Ebay in the last few years at the company, nearly ruining Skype, and now there is more facts to support this claim. As with many different foundations in 2008 it took a bit of a hit with the failing markets, but her foundation took it particularly hard, at the rate of nearly 50% loss of equity. This might have something to do, though, with the fact that about 79% of the company’s value was represented in Ebay stock at the start of 2008, by the end the number was closer to 15%. This coincides oddly with her sitting on the board of directors at Ebay until late 2008. at the start of the year stock value was at about $33 a share, when she left they sat at under $15, since she left Ebay entirely they have seen an increase of stock value to nearly $24 a share under the direction of new acting CEO Donahue. A weird coincidence to say the least; though some losses were inevitable in 2008, under her direction in the last few years, during a national crisis, she has not performed well to stop financial blood letting in ventures she participates in. Anyone can succeed in a good times, but we need someone who can succeed during crisis, her record speaks for itself on this front.

Where we find ourselves is at a point when the three big names in the campaign are at very different points of decision. I feel that Meg’s projected $150-million dollar campaign will get her to the general election, but that is simply because her GOP rivals just cannot compete with her name recognition and propaganda team. Brown will skate to the general election with ease and he has yet to officially be in the race. Poizner has some serious soul searching to do as he is not closing the lead Whitman has and has no chance against Brown if he made it to the general election. Poizner should try to save face, dropping out soon, and reload for a position in the state people give a crap about before he jumps in to the Governor’s race. The primaries will embarrass Poizner as Campbell and Whitman enjoy very large leads over him now, and Campbell has done less than anyone!

I think that the opportunistic, flawed politics of the GOP candidates is going to fail, it is not genuine and they will not be able to contend with Brown’s views and record as things like immigration, reform, and a history of service in California come in to play. Poizner and Whitman will lose some of the conservative base with their history and their position on abortion that pandering and flip flopping on other views won’t make up for. The hubris of the rich elitists will not sway the people of California when matched against the life of service Brown has tucked up his sleeve; this is the Achilles Heel that will become apparent as middle american California hits the voting booths.

Need spiritual guidance.  Now it is as close as the telephone booth on the street. 

The Hotline to God. 

See image  at Eat Liver of “Prayer Booth.  Hotline to God.  We support all major brands.” 

See:

• http://eatliver.com/i.php?n=5003

This one quote sums up the way we SHOULD be doing health care reform:

“…do health care the right way — one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.”

The stated reason of the democrats to undertake this massive takeover of the health care system was to “insure the 40 million uninsured.”

That number is misleading and inaccurate, but let’s assume for a moment that there are 40 million people who can’t afford insurance.  Tort reform and competition are the BEST ways to make it affordable, but let’s assume again for the sake of argument that the government needs to step in.

A family of four can get a pretty decent health insurance for about $400 per month.  That’s $4,800 per year for a family of four.  Now let’s assume an even worse case that the cost is $4,800 per person per year.  Multiply that times the 40 million claimed by the democrats to be uninsured and that comes out to $192,000,000,000.  That’s 192 billion dollars.

So if the government simply wrote those 40 million people a check to buy a PRIVATE insurance policy, it would be over 13 times LESS EXPENSIVE than the plan the democrats are pushing, and that’s using the most conservative estimates of the overall costs of $2.5 TRILLION.  Most think it will be much, much higher.

Again, looking at THE ORIGINAL STATED GOAL OF INSURING THE UNINSURED, I have to ask how can we possibly be going down this road and remotely think it’s a good way to go about it?

November 27, 2009

Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right

By Charles Krauthammer

2008 is probably my favorite year in recent memory. I had the pleasure of living with a particularly great roommate in the winter/spring, took an amazing journey to Australia in the summer and learned what it is to be truly filthy for weeks on end, lived in a great apartment in a not-so-great part of JP, met a professor who I now consider to be the embodiment of greatness (and who is probably the reason why I have this blog), witnessed a pretty damn significant economic collapse, and lived through a hugely important election.

I have been politically interested, aware and driven since sometime my freshman year of high school, and I have some pretty strong beliefs and tendencies. (Because I have a conscience, socialism is my thing; but I recognize that it’s probably not smart to get into that here). So, naturally, when the 2008 election season rolled around, I was tuned in.

In January, shortly before the spring semester started, I made a trek with three good friends to New Hampshire to check out the democratic candidates. I was pretty undecided between all three major democrats at the time, though leaning Obama, and figured that odds were that I would cast a vote for whichever democratic candidate was on the ticket come November so I wanted to know more about each of them. Dem-Tour 2008, we called it.

So, we had a full day. We planned to see Clinton speak at a High School in the morning, Obama in some sort of playhouse in the late afternoon, and Edwards at night, all in different cities and towns within the great state. Edwards wound up not showing up (but he sucked anyway), but Clinton and Obama were pretty excellent.

But, simply, Hillary knocked my damn socks off. Behind in the polls and having just lost the Iowa Caucuses, she turned what was supposed to be simply a rally into a question and answer session at the last-minute. She fielded questions from the crowd that were not first filtered by her staff, and she was able to speak brilliantly on her feet. Whatever bitch attitude seems to come off on camera simply is not there in person, and the woman knows how to command a room. Whether or not she was feeding us bullshit, her answers were all clear and well thought out, and I could bring myself to agree with most of what she had to say. If for no other reason than the fact that she can work a room and talk on her feet the way she did, Hillary earned my vote in the hour or two I spent listening to her. She seemed like the person that I wanted on my side, speaking for me. Like she could handle the job. She also has a damn good handshake on her, and eye contact that can slice your soul.

So, while I left that high school gymnasium pretty jazzed on Clinton (and referring to her as my campaign girlfriend), I had an open mind when I saw Obama later on. I was not impressed. He used a stock speech that he had used in the weeks leading up to that night and that he continued to use for months after. It was a small place, and for all we hear about what an amazing speaker he is, he really didn’t hold my attention very well. He seemed disconnected in some way, and perhaps worst of all, his volunteers and interns were ill-informed. My friends and I had asked questions of such people after seeing Clinton, and they were very helpful and informative on the spot. When we asked similar questions (regarding plans for education reform) of Obama’s little helpers, they were stumped and told us we could find more information on his website. Well, thanks, but I didn’t drive through 3 states to hear a speech I’d already heard and be told I could look something up online.

Hillary was a better candidate as far as I am concerned, and she fielded a lot more bullshit for being a woman than Obama ever did for being African American, and everybody turned a blind eye. Shouts and posters that read, “Hillary, make me a sandwich!” were somehow acceptable to everybody, even though a similar poster or shout against Obama (maybe, “Barack, plow my field!”) would have caused absolute outrage. The media and society handled Obama with kid gloves while they dragged Clinton through the mud.

She gave Obama a run for his money, she made history, she highlighted the fact that sexism is still a huge issue in this country (perhaps as much of a problem as racism), she broke ground, she came prepared, she impressed the hell out of me. She showed me that it’s worth being proud to be a woman.

I was nearing the end of an overnight bus ride in Australia, watching the sun rise, when I heard on the radio that Clinton had finally conceded to Obama in the democratic primary. (Yeah, apparently even our primaries make global news). I was disappointed but not surprised, and my life has gone fundamentally unchanged as a result. But, I know that I owe Madam Clinton a great deal in terms of increasing the odds that a woman will one day serve this country from the oval office.

Eight months ago an emergency session of congress met with the sole purpose of addressing the AIG bonus issue. In what can be called a knee jerk reaction, congress passed legislation prohibiting the payment of bonus monies that were part of the companies employment contracts. This action then and now broke the law as it is written in the constitution, at the time little if any press interest was given to this history making moment.

Dateline: 11/28/09 ACORN can receive pending federal payments justice department says. “David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in a memo last month that the ban “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to ACORN or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability.”

Double standard, clearly.  Where the Democratic congress in an effort to save face broke the law and the Constitution to “punish” AIG for its lowly capitalistic ways, they and the Obama administration have been busy behind the scenes developing ways to circumvent the intent of congress and it’s finding, “no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN.”

The clear politicization of the Justice department and payback to Acorn is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashion cronyism states Rep Darrell Issa. What is clear is that depending on needs of the Obama administration their view of law is subjective to the benefit of the continuation of their causes.

ACORN has been shown to be a front and a fraud for numerous scurrilous causes, they have been accused of voter registration fraud, several of it’s founders have been accused of bilking millions of federal dollars, and at the very least based on the consistency of the released tapes by O’Keefe and Giles they at the very least have a serious human resource issue.

Also apparent, the Obama administration could not risk exposing their concern for the attacks on their golden goose ACORN, and what is becoming an obvious pattern for this administration they twist the law to their interpretation and protect what has been shown to be a highly corrupt organization.

To the Obama administration, “truth is what you make it” and will use every latitude in the Constitution to prove that point, this tact reveals that we have high powered attorneys running our country whom are hellbent on using the law to achieve there means. This is nothing new in the political world, what is novel is the ease in which the administration pulls off the blatant favoritism for some, and alienation and attack for others, all with a smile, Chicago style.

ATLAS SHRUGS –Muslim groups shut down free speech at ivy leagues

CONSERVATIVE BLOG NETWORK

DOUG ROSS JOURNAL   Brilliant: White House posts party crasher photos to its Flickr feed

FLOPPING ACES     ObamaCare Cost Will Be Closer To 6 Trillion Dollars

GATEWAY PUNDIT   Figures, Obama’s personal physician friend was a Marxist, Too

ED MORRISSEY    DOJ: Federal agencies must honor ACORN contracts

ALLAHPUNDIT   Finally: Red Eye interviews the “queen of conservative media”

LEGAL INSURRECTION  The greatest Celebrity’s Reality Show

MACSMIND   The MacRanger Show is ON THE AIR

NEWSBUSTERS

NEWREAL  Reality TV invades a clueless Whit House

OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY  Republicans Enjoy Enthusiasm Gap

RIEHL WORLD VIEW   Some Beck fans beginning to jump ship.

SAY ANYTHING BLOG   Al Gore wants economic growth measured in terms of global warming

STOP THE ACLU  Obama admin calls for return to Israel’s 1967 borders

TEL-CHAI NATION

THE SNOOPER REPORT

ANIMAL FARM   No Separation of Church and State

FRUGAL CAFE   Outrageously lavish Dubai lifestyle crashing from debt, hits world markets hard.

GOODTIMEPOLITICS  Colorado Springs:  Obama hedging on promises

LISA IN TEXAS  Gore Climate-Gate Deathstar, Tax and Control

ON MY WATCH   Palin’s Timing and Moves Textbook Perfection

VOTINGFEMALESPEAKS  Sara Palin Envy triggers Socialist head spinning, would ObamaCare cover Exorcisms for Socialists..

SMALL DEAD ANIMALS  I, for one, welcome Europe’s new communist overlords

YIPIEE!

This is the oath of office that Barack Hussein Obama took last January 29th:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Do you think he has lived up to that oath? I don’t! Obama even had the gall to say the Constitution is outdated and needs to be revised. Revised for what; to allow Barack Hussein Obama to be King of the United States? He forgets, that title was held by Garfield Goose!
He talks a good case but he does nothing. He even gets awards for doing absolutely nothing. What awards are those you ask; Well, the Nobel Peace Prize is a great example. He did nothing to get that award. His being the one who would receive the award was decided eight days after he was sworn in as President. The award was for his accomplishments as President of the United States. What accomplishments, maybe getting the White House cleared of any of the Hollywood Liberal hangers on after the Inauguration parties. What could he have done in the first eight days? He didn’t even know where the bathroom was. This man is an embarrassment.
He stated during his campaign the GWB “took his eye of the Ball” numerous times. He said he would go into Afghanistan and clean out Bin Laden and the Taliban no matter what it took. He blasted GWB for his handling of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and now he will not allow the term “War on Terror” to be used. He delays months after General McChrystal requests 40,000 troops in deciding whether or not to send the troops while we waste more lives and more money. He said getting Bin Laden was his number one priority but he has not mentioned Bin Laden more than four times since being elected. Obama has had HIS eyes closed to what is REALLY going on.
I could go on and on but this President, President Barack Hussein Obama, does not know what he is doing, his advisors don’t know what they are doing. All he is looking for is getting social programs passed ie. government controlled healthcare, card check, gay marriage, open abortion, Cap and Trade etc so he will have his so called legacy! If all goes according to Obama’s plan, his real legacy will be the socialization of America along with making America a third rate world power. He is not following the mandate the oath gave him to follow the Constitution, he is making up his own rules as he goes along! He is on his way and he and his crew of yes men must be stopped.
2010 brings mid-term elections and the best way to stop Obama’s plan is to throw out as many Demoocrats and republicans in Congress who vote with his programs and regain control of Congress as we did when Clinton was President and then in 2012 vote Obama out of office and the rest of the Democrats who are ruining this country.

RWD

Republican. Democrat. Libertarian. What do they stand for? Where do I fit? I can’t answer that for you. You have to answer it for yourself. I can direct you to a quiz that will help you determine it. The world’s smallest political quiz at http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html .

I can, however, give you my take on the parties and what they mean to me. My views can be boiled down short enough to fit in this post comfortably and still get the message across. For example, the Republican Party, they stand for big business. The Democrat Party, they stand for big government. The Libertarian Party, they stand for the individual. Is that short and sweet enough for you? Oh, you’d like a little more?

Well, let’s see. The Republican party has traditionally sided with GM, GE and Wal-Mart. They counted on the trickle down theory of economics. In other words the rich get richer and the people get more scraps from the table of big business. It works ok, but in recent years they’ve been trying to follow a more Constitutionally friendly agenda. Without much success, I might add.

Now the Democrat Party is totally different while being exactly the same. Confused? Basically, the Democrat party thinks that government can solve any problem from poverty to quantum physics. They claim to be for the working class while expanding the welfare state. Am I making this clear? No? That’s because they are very contradictory. At least with the Republicans you know how they’re going to screw you. The Democrats try to hide it. But the result is the same, you and I pay more.

The Libertarian party, contrary to popular belief, is the most conservative. They actually believe what the Constitution says. They are for the individual and his rights. They do desire to remove most of the barriers in the way of business as well. However, this can create a kind of “buyer beware” sort of climate. They believe in smaller government, just enough to get the job done.

I personally, am an Independent at this point. But if I had to side somewhere it would definitely be Libertarian.

The Tennessee House Speaker Pro Tempore has announced that Representative Larry Turner of Memphis has died. Turner died Friday morning after a long illness. Turner missed most of the last session of the Tennessee General Assembly because of the illness.  He’d spent twenty-four years in the legislature with hardly any absences before the last term. Turner is known in Tennessee for his legislation dealing with education, predatory lending and helping restore some rights to felons.

Representative Larry Turner Bio:
Office: State House
Current District: 85
Party: Democratic

Education: BS, Memphis State University.

Professional Experience:
Owner, All Star Realty Company
Owner, Larry Turner and Associates Realty Company
United States Air Force.

Political Experience:
Representative, Tennessee State House of Representatives, 1984-present
Deputy Speaker, Tennessee State House of Representatives.

Organizations:
Member, Barton Heights Civic Club
Former President, Foster Care/Adoptions Task Force, Incorporated
Former Member, International Association of Assessing Officers
Former Board Member, Leath Street Day Care Center
Board of Directors, Memphis in May
Former Board Member, Metro Memphis Development Corporation
Former Board Member, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Memphis Branch
Former Assistant Treasurer, National Business League
Former Chairman, Shelby County Delegation
Member, Shelby County Democratic Voters Council
Member, Memphis Roundtable, University of Tennessee
Member, Urban League.

Caucuses/Non-Legislative Committees:
Former President, Foster Care/Adoptions Task Force
Secretary, Democratic Caucus, Tennessee State House of Representatives
Vice Chair, House Calendar & Rules Committee
Former Chair, Shelby County Delegation.
Shelby County Democratic Voters Council

Committees:
Calendar and Rules, Vice Chair
Commerce, Member
Education, Member
Subcommittee on K-12, Member
Subcommittee on Small Business, Member

Mayor-President Kip Holden is full of contradictions.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons I question budgetary issues in the Red Stick.  All one has to do is to pay attention, do a small amount of research and compare the endless trail of contradictions.

On one hand the Mayor’s Office released information indicating the fact that East Baton Rouge Parish income has decreased (according to a recent report in The Advocate).  Income from taxes is on the decrease in EBRP.  So much so, that the finance department is closely watching for potential challenges in city-parish spending for 2010.

Meanwhile, Mayor Holden plans to spend more of our tax dollars to lure new airlines to the Baton Rouge Metro Airport.  The increase in city parish spending would include $200,000 in advertisement and a 100% reduction in terminal rent, landing fees (that means free for the airline) for 2 years with an additional 5 cent reduction in fuel costs.  The expenditure was approved by the EBRP Metro Council on November 25th.

Flash back to 2007.  Mayor Holden cut a deal with Frontier Airlines to the tune of $1,000,000.  The promise was that the Red Stick would enjoy 3,000 indirect and 2,000 direct jobs.  As usual, the employment numbers were inflated and Frontier flew into the sunset one year later with $550,000 of our tax dollars.

Either Mayor Holden has a money tree we are not aware of, or he is banking that our tax income will not continue to drop.  If income drops just a couple more percent, city-parish’s budget will be operating in a deficit.

There is also the theory that Mayor Holden is a tax and spend liberal.  I prescribe to this belief.

Michael Acaldo, CEO of St. Vincent de Paul, indicated they served a record number of Thanksgiving meals to the needy in Baton Rouge. 739 vs 600 in past years, making that an all-time 20-year high.

Holiday Helpers normally serves 1,200 meals annually; however, they served 1,500 needy citizens this year — another record-breaking number of hungry families. 

These are specific indicators of the issues facing families in the Red Stick.  While Mayor Holden tries to convince us that the Red Stick has gone unscathed by the U.S. recession, we now have more evidence to indicate the opposite is true. 

It is so important that voters do their homework.  What we are told and the facts are sometimes drastically different. 

Is there a pending financial crisis for the city-parish, or are the coffers flowing to the point we can increase expenditures by nearly a quarter of a million dollars to lure another airline with no guarantees? 

Are families unscathed, or are they working hard to make ends meet?

Phaedrus said, things are not always as they seem, the first appearance deceives many.  The intelligence of few perceives what has been carefully hidden. 

The truth is important, and all we need to do is to look at the facts vs. political double-talk. 

How you spend someone else’s money speaks volumes.  Holden’s actions continue to prove he is spendthrift with our tax dollars.  While we are having record numbers of hungry families in the Greater Baton Rouge area, Holden is continually seeking out ways to increase spending.

Does Mayor-President Holden have an EBRP money tree?  Only if you have it hidden in your pocketbook.

Until next time,

Red Stick Republican

This is the fifth part of an analysis of the swing state Pennsylvania. It focuses on the traditionally Republican region between the Democratic strongholds in the southeast and southwest.

Pennsyltucky

Outside the Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia metropolis, Pennsylvania is a very different place. Political analysts often label this area “the T,” while others call it Pennsyltucky.

Popular culture mythologizes Pennsyltucky as red-neck capital – a rural region dominated by NASCAR-loving red-necks. Politically, James Carville compared Pennsyltucky to Alabama without the blacks.

In fact, this stereotype is inaccurate on two accounts. Firstly, Pennsyltucky contains far more than so-called rural red-necks; most of its counties are fairly populated (they are far more densely peopled than, say, rural Arkansas). Secondly, many of these supposedly NASCAR-loving red-necks also belong to the local union and vote Democratic on economic issues. The majority may support Republicans, but that majority certainly is below the 88% of Alabama whites that voted for John McCain.

Nevertheless, the “T” does constitute the Republican base in Pennsylvania. Former president George W. Bush pulled 48.42% of the state’s vote in 2004, and he had to get those votes somewhere.

(Note: This statistic, and all the ones mentioned afterwards, come from http://uselectionatlas.org/)

Pennsylvania’s 2006 Senate election provides a geographic illustration of this base. In that election, former Senator Rick Santorum lost by a landslide 17.36% margin; only the reddest counties supported him:

Although they cover a lot of land, not all these counties are rural enclaves of Pennsyltucky (if they were all rural, Senator John Kerry would have won by double-digits in the state). In fact, fast-growing exurbs constitute a substantial source of Republican votes. Located east of the Philadelphia metropolis, these are somewhat wealthy and mostly white. They include Lancaster County (where Bush won 65.80% of the vote) and York County (where he won 63.74%); the former president came out of these two counties with a 121,832 margin, enough to offset Pittsburgh, Erie, and Scranton.

Erie and Scranton both constitute solidly blue areas belonging to “the T.” They give lie to the myth that all Pennsyltucky votes loyally Republican. Like the southwest, Erie and Scranton contain a number of working-class Democrats; unlike the southwest, however, cultural appeals have not swayed these folk into voting Republican.

Indeed, Democrats do respectably in many parts of Pennsyltucky. Here is President Barack Obama’s performance:

Modified NYT Image

Mr. Obama did not just win Erie and Scranton; he took several other counties and ran closely elsewhere. These included Centre County, home to Pennsylvania State University, and Dauphin County, which has a relatively high black population. All the Lehigh Valley – somewhat an extension of Philadelphia’s suburbs – voted for the president. More surprisingly, Obama ran very closely in several rural, lily-white regions of the T; one such county (Elk) even gave the president a 4% margin of victory.

Obama was not the only Democrat to do well in parts of Pennsyltucky. Here is how former president Bill Clinton performed:

Modified NYT Image

Mr. Clinton, of course, was a fellow with immense appeal to so-called “red-necks.” Since his time, much of Pennsyltucky has moved to the right. Yet not all of it is deep-red: while some counties gave Mr. McCain more than 70% of the vote, others – demographically identical – gave him barely more than 50%. These are substantial and curious variations.

While Pennsyltucky as a whole votes strongly Republican, it is wrong to generalize the area. Its most populous regions – the exurbs – constitute a vital part of the Republican coalition, while some rural counties have a fairly weak Republican habit. Finally, a number of places dependent upon industry routinely support Democrats. To stereotype the “T” as a composed solely of Republican-voting red-necks would do injustice to the region’s complexities.

Jerry Brown is the political butterfly of California. From the California Secretary of State to two terms as Governor to Mayor of Oakland to his current job as the state’s Attorney General, he is the definition of career politician. He is also one of the people most responsible for the current state of the state. If you’ve held almost every major office in state government over 35 years either you somewhere along the line earn this responsibility or end up being labeled a hack or both.

Mr. Brown is once again running for Governor at a time when the state is in the midst of its deepest crisis in history. Between the man-made drought in the Valley, our bankrupt finances, the collapse of the economy, and our dysfunctional legislature we need vision and clarity and honesty more than ever before.

Mr. Brown brings a lot of baggage with him, but his recent conduct as AG must be considered as some of his most egregious. In reading his press releases, it is the typical liberal litany of lawsuits against oil companies, banks and corporations. But there’s not a lot of real substance to any of this. Filing lawsuits is not winning them, nor have we seen any great initiatives.

Where there is substance is in his selective application of the law. Recently, one of his aides illegally recorded a conversation between a San Francisco reporter and a justice department official, and then tried to get the reporter fired. Her article on Brown’s questionable influence on the wording of an upcoming ballot initiative that benefited a political donor might be damaging to his hopes in 2010. The aide in question was fired but the questionable quid pro quo was never followed up on. The investigation into the wiretap was also dropped by Brown’s office.

More recently, we have the spectacle of ACORN’s San Diego office  dumping potentially incriminating documents as a private investigator filmed them. The investigator salvaged the documents, which are now under review by Breitbart.com and some of which have been also released to an passionately disinterested press. This is the ACORN office where an employee offered to assist two undercover reporters playing a pimp and prostitute in setting up a 501c charitable foundation to evade taxes. He also offered to assist by importing underage prostitutes from Tijuana.

In Fontana, California, another ACORN employee was caught on camera by the same reporters offering advice on tax evasion as well as suggesting locations for the proposed brothel. As far as I know, California does  have several statutes that would apply.

An employee of ACORN’s  South Central Los Angeles office was filmed offering to do research on international child sex slavery for the reporters and encouraging them in their business plan.

Brown has chosen so far to ignore the problem. Child slavery? Corruption? Conspiracy to evade state income taxes? I thought this is why we have Attorneys General.

Lastly, right in his back yard, Sacramento Mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson has been caught in a coverup. In this case, Johnson’s charter school, St. Hope, took federal grant money and used it inappropriately. Most was paid back, but then it was discovered that he may have had inappropriate contact with young volunteers, who were then paid off for their silence. His fiance’, Michelle Rhee, has been accused of being a “fixer” in the case. Didn’t we used to take cover ups seriously? The Americorps Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, was fired in this case, but the Obama administration chose to shoot the messenger and try to sweep it all under the rug.

Where do we draw the line on improper conduct, Mr. Brown? Illegal wiretapping? child sex slavery and large scale criminal fraud?  Cover ups?

One of the most serious complaints these days is selective enforcement of the law. Unfortunately, it seems to have become a hallmark of Mr. Brown’s tenure as Attorney General. He was able to insert himself into the Anna Nicole Smith case easily enough. Why not actually do the job of an Attorney General?   And knowing all of this, do we really want him as our Governor again?

In honor of the racist bigots posting on several blogs, such as Sue, Black Lion, brygenon over on the Right Side of Life, who call anyone that has anything to say against “their” Obama a racist. I have decided to have a little fun and make the following illustration poking fun at their inabilty to see facts. Mind you that unlike them, I do not revert and call people racists. I for one, standby Alan Keyes and Pastor Mannin, who also question the illegal undocumented alien, Barack Hussein Obama’s eligibility as POTUS.

So here’s to you Sue, Black Lion, and brygenon

The New Zealand Book Council.  “Where books come to life.”

Cool.  

NZ Book Council – Going West

November 18, 2009

Robin’s article is here at American Thinker. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Like for most feminists, it was a no-brainer for me to become a Democrat. Liberal men, not conservatives, were the ones devoted to women’s issues. They marched at my side in support of abortion rights. They were enthusiastic about women succeeding in the workplace.

[...]Then along came Sarah, and the attacks became particularly heinous. And I realized something even more chilling about the Left. Leftists not only sacrifice and disrespect women, but it’s far worse: many are perpetuators.

The Left’s behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.

[...]The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Liberals need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote Democrat.

And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her.

Just like a perpetuator, they dehumanize her by objectifying her body. They undress her with their eyes.

They turn her into a piece of ass.

Liberals do this by calling her a c__t, ogling her legs, demeaning her with names like “slutty flight attendant” and “Trailer Park Barbie,” and exposing her flesh on the cover of Newsweek.

And from Atlantic Magazine’s Andrew Sullivan “Sarah Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.”

Nothing is off-limits, not actress Sandra Bernhard’s wish that Palin be gang-raped or the sexualization of Palin’s daughters.

As every woman knows, leering looks, lurid words, and veiled threats are intended to evoke terror. Sexual violence is a form of terrorism.

Read the whole thing.

Do conservatives oppose women?

Conservatives think that men and women should make good choices and do good things. That is why on this blog hardly a moment goes by without me praising women like Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Jennifer Roback Morse and Trayce Hansen for making good choices and doing good things.

For example, here’s Michele Bachmann speaking out about National Adoption Day.

Adoption is a good thing. Conservatives support the choice to love and nurture vulnerable children. We don’t support the choice to kill an unborn person. Conservatives support good choices, and oppose bad choices.

I couldn’t say it any better, so I just highlighted the salient points.

God Bless

A National Nightmare, Indeed

By David Limbaugh
November 24, 2009

In a Democratic fundraising speech in Iowa over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden told party loyalists that opponents of the Obama administration’s agenda “should be worried about us, for we are their worst nightmare.” Duh.

Finally we can agree on something, Joe. Even the liberal New York Times reports that at the current level of federal spending, the annual interest on the national debt will exceed $700 billion by 2019 — compared with $202 billion this year. Some forecasters predict it will be much higher. This additional half-trillion dollars a year in interest is more than our current combined expenditures on education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Oh, and the Times isn’t even factoring in the cap-and-trade nightmare you and Barack have in store for us, Joe — you know, that urgent legislation to catapult the nation back into Third World status based on hysteria generated by fraudulent science and corrupt zealots and politicians.

Nor is the Times including in its calculations the additional debt that would result from Obamacare.

Joe, when The New York Times is sounding the warnings over the exploding national debt, you and Barack insist not only on not reversing your disastrous course but also on making it worse. How can reasonable people assume anything other than that you are trying to run this nation into the ground financially?

Don’t dare keep telling us your hyper-ambitious spending is a necessary evil required to deliver us from a financial crisis you inherited. Whatever crisis we face is debt-related, purely and simply. Everything else is manageable. Yet you all are deliberately increasing our indebtedness as far as the eye can see, without the slightest pretense of scaling back in this millennium. In fact, you are laboring to establish further entitlements and institutional changes that would generate exponential burdens on our debt and would be enormously difficult for any responsible and financially sane successor to undo, much less reverse.

Adding insult to injury, you are spending this money not to improve (“stimulate”) the economy — which even the most politically and economically illiterate should now realize — but to restructure American society, dismantle our free enterprise system and impose in its place a command-control economy and political system — in which life’s decisions, including over our private health care, are dictated from Washington.

But while you and Barack are hoisting your wrecking ball, could you please spare us the pseudo-sanctimony and transparent populism in telling us that it will take “grit and determination” to outlast the “special interests” on Wall Street and the insurance industry to pass your destructive agenda?

You both know better. When you have to bribe Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., with a larcenous $300 million addition to your Senate bill (I know, you’re pretending it’s just Harry Reid’s bill) that’s specifically earmarked just for her state — at the expense of the rest of the states and the national interest — something smells to high heaven. You could at least have the decency to admit this provision to raise the bill’s cost by increasing Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster” is not even motivated to help Louisiana, but to buy Landrieu’s vote. And you want to talk to us, Joe, about the corruption of special interests?

Special interests, Joe? Is that how you describe 56 percent of the American people, who now oppose Obama’s plan? And that’s without even knowing the half of it. Or maybe you would describe them as dangerous protesters or domestic terrorists?

But, Joe, I do applaud you for your candor in telling your fawning supporters, “I can tell you with absolute certainty: (Barack’s) resolve has never waivered for one instant.”

Bull’s-eye, Joe. You and Barack believe you know better than the American people what is good for them, and you only care what they think to the extent that it makes your job more difficult when they oppose you.

But if you told the truth about your plan — that it would cost dramatically more than you pretend (especially considering that the benefits wouldn’t begin to be paid until 2014 and that taxes would increase almost immediately); that the public option would subsume private care; that the federal government would ration care; that medical choice would be drastically reduced; that you are still trying to secure federal funding for abortion; that you intend to cover currently illegal immigrants; that after all your hype about promoting this bill to achieve universal coverage, millions would remain uninsured and penalized, to boot; that medical quality would be seriously reduced; and that overall costs would increase — your support for the bill would be in the single digits.

So keep chanting it, Joe; you are indeed a national nightmare.

—

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His book “Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party” was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.DavidLimbaugh.com.