Current Events - January 28, 2013

PK'S NOTE: Because the answer is  "no" and "because of the Constitution". There's no compromise there.

Obama Pouts: Republicans Won't Compromise on Gun Control

When you can't win, accuse the other side of being extremists and uncompromising. In his latest effort to blame House Republicans for everything, President Obama is whining about their lack of compromise when it comes to gun control.

President Obama is suggesting that House Republicans on the issue of gun control appear neither willing to work with him nor inclined to listen to the American public on the issue.
“The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies,” the president said in an interview with The New Republic.

Obama must be forgetting all of those Senate Democrats who think his gun control proposals are extreme and will do nothing to prevent another mass shooting.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/01/28/obama-pouts-republicans-wont-compromise-on-gun-control-n1499394 

PK'S NOTE: I LOVE this!

Wait Until You Hear the Clever Way Private Gun Buyers Invaded a Gun Buyback Program in Seattle

 The Seattle Police Department held its first gun buyback event since the 1990s this weekend, offering people gift cards for their firearms. However, dozens of private buyers showed up in an effort to acquire the guns using the so-called gun show loophole, which allows guns to be sold without a background check.

Hundreds of people showed up Saturday morning to give their rifles and shotguns as well as semi-automatic rifles to police in exchange for gift cards worth $100 and $200 respectively, KING 5 reports. The police planned to destroy the guns and use them as rebar in local construction projects.

Meanwhile, a number of private buyers set up a makeshift gun show-style event and offered cold hard cash for guns and even lured customers with donuts.

“I pay cash, I don’t give Amazon gift cards,” one dealer told a gun seller.

“It’s a historical firearm, I would hate to see it get destroyed. I’ll give you $100 cash for it,” another buyer offered a gun owner.

Many held up signs that let gun owners know they would pay cash for unwanted firearms.

“I’d rather see it turned back into the gun community used to promote shooting sports,” one man told KING 5.

Seattle Police Chief John Diaz said he would “prefer” gun owners not sell their guns to private buyers at the gun buyback event.

“Some are looking at this as a money making operation,” he told KPLU-TV. “But I think that is very few of the people. Most people are here in the spirit of wanting to do something because of some of the tragedies that we’ve seen in our country and in our own city.”

 http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/28/private-buyers-invade-seattle-gun-buyback-offer-cash-for-firearms-that-would-otherwise-be-destroyed-by-police/

 PK'S NOTE: Don't EVEN be surprised. He got re-elected so he doesn't need this prop or to pretend anymore.

Obama to Kill Jobs Council

Now that President Obama has been re-elected, the vaunted jobs council is about to meet its demise.


The Obama administration’s original announcement of a jobs council back in 2011 surprised few observers of the partisan political scene; the council was obviously designed as a fig leaf to cover up the administration’s complete lack of direction on economic policy. During its two year existence, that fig leaf council has met just four times formally, and just 18 times informally for “listening and action sessions” – i.e. gobbledygook – in different locations around the country. And while President Obama has suggested that the council is a “work council,” making proposals the administration took seriously, the facts belie those glowing words. Jay Carney even told the press last year that Obama didn’t really care about the jobs council:

There’s no specific reason [he hasn’t met with the jobs council], except the president has obviously got a lot on his plate. But he continues to solicit and receive advice from numerous folks outside the administration about the economy, about ideas that he can act on with Congress or administratively to help the economy grow and help create jobs.

A White House aide tells The Hill today that the jobs council “was only intended” to last for two years. Obama is reportedly irked by the fact that the jobs council has recommended lifting regulations rather than creating new ones. Since the American people obviously did not hold Obama accountable for his economic failures as president, he is now going to focus on other issues: climate change, gun control, abortion, and immigration.

 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/27/Obama-to-kill-jobs-council

Obama EPA kills power plant, 3,900 jobs in Texas

Chase Power, the parent company behind the $3 billion Las Brisas coal power plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, announced yesterday that it was cancelling the project.

“Chase Power … has opted to suspend efforts to further permit the facility and is seeking alternative investors as part of a plan of dissolution for the parent company,” Chase CEO Dave Freysinger told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Freysinger made it very clear who was responsible for the projects death. “The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants,” he said.

The Las Brisas power plant had been part of a larger Las Brisas Energy Center project planned for Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor. Economists had projected that in the first 5 years of construction and operation the project would create as 1,300 direct and 2,600 indirect jobs. Now none of those jobs will exist.

“These costly rules exceeded the bounds of EPA authority, incur tremendous costs, and produce no real benefits related to climate change,” Freysinger commented.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-epa-kills-power-plant-3900-jobs-in-texas/article/2519575#.UQb2ffJkj0f

EPA Email Scandal Is Worse than Originally Thought

President Barack Obama and, for that matter, most of America seem woefully ignorant about a scandal unfolding at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As hard as it is to believe, outgoing Administrator Lisa Jackson actually appears to have had agency personnel create a fictitious employee by the name of “Richard Windsor” so that Jackson could appropriate the Windsor’s email address for her own purposes.
  
We’re not talking about some alias to be used for personal correspondence but a totally false identity in whose name official business was allegedly conducted created specifically to avoid federal record-keeping and disclosure requirements. And none of this would ever have been uncovered were it not for the courage of a still anonymous whistleblower and the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Christopher Horner, an attorney with the legal smarts and experience needed to unravel it all.   

Earlier this week, thanks to Horner’s good work, the EPA was supposed to produce the first installment of some 12,000 secret, previously undisclosed emails. Not because it wanted to but because a federal court order required it to.   

Under the order, the EPA was to provide the first installment of 3,000 e-mails with three additional installments of 3,000 e-mails to follow. Rather than provide the required emails, however, EPA’s cover letter accompanying its production of emails said it “produced more than 2,100 emails received or sent” by Jackson on an official alias e-mail account.   

All fine, well and good – except that not one of those emails was from “Richard Windsor’s” account. Not one. Yet it is certain the account exists because Horner found three Windsor emails using other means. 

Instead the EPA provided such absurdly silly and unresponsive e-mails as the daily news briefs published by the Washington Post, and EPA national news clippings, a pathetic attempt to avoid a contempt citation that came only after a week’s worth of unsuccessful attempts to push the official response date down the road.  
A pattern exists: the EPA creates a fake e-mail account for its administrator to avoid scrutiny; it doesn’t produce any of the fake e-mails even though they are required by law to do so; when specifically required by court order, the EPA seeks endless delays; and, when the delaying tactics prove fruitless, EPA fails to provide either the number or the type of e-mails required.   

To put it simply, the agency is trying to run out the clock, hoping against hope that people will lose interest and move on to something else.  This, in our judgment, must not be allowed to happen. 
 
The point of this scheme was to evade public accountability, to conduct official government business under the table, outside of the public eye. When Congress and others asked for Ms. Jackson’s EPA correspondence and email, the “Richard Windsor” e-mails would fall outside that request and, eventually, be destroyed allowing official EPA business to be conducted secretly. That falls well short of conducting business in the open and in a transparent fashion. It also falls well short of the standards required by federal law.   

If this were merely a matter of an official “alias” – e.g. LJackson@EPA.gov instead of her “official” email name, it would be no big deal. But the “Richard Windsor” identity is not an alias: it is a totally fake persona obviously created to evade record-keeping and disclosure requirements.  It may not seem it on its face, but it an issue so serious that anyone who received a “Richard Windsor” email or corresponded with “Richard Windsor” – knowing it was Lisa Jackson and not reporting it, should at the very least be barred from succeeding her as administrator of the EPA.   

"Despite EPA's 'everyone does it' line -- the lesser-known, somewhat inconsistent subtitle to 'most transparent administration, ever' -- Richard Windsor appears to be the first false identity assumed to hide a senior federal official's public records,” Horner says. “One reason for this might be that it's against the law. The readiness with which we already know other administration officials, including lawyers, accepted the practice suggests Windsor wasn't the only such false identity Obama officials have created to subvert federal record-keeping and disclosure laws."   

Yes, America, this e-mail scandal is worse than originally believed. Far worse. And if “everyone does it” in this Administration as the EPA has claimed, President Obama needs to answer some questions as well.  And the United States Senate, which has slew of presidential nominees to confirm in the next few months, has the obligation to start asking.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/27/EPA-email-Scandal-worse-than-originally-thought?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

PK'S NOTE: Sounds like a fantastic idea.

Japan cuts dole to ensure work pays better than welfare

Japan distinguishes itself from the other economically advanced countries by caring for the principle that people who work should have more stuff than people who go on the welfare rolls. The Kyodo News Service reports:

Welfare benefits will be slashed by ¥74 billion over a three-year period starting from fiscal 2013, after a government panel found that some people are making more on the dole than the average low-income person who is not spends on living costs, it was learned Sunday.
The decision to lower standard benefit payments by 6.5 percent was made by welfare minister Norihisa Tamura and Finance Minister Taro Aso. The reduction will hit in August.

In the United States, a recent study in one state showed that to do better than taking advantage of all the services available to the nonworking, a family would have to earn about $65,000, far higher than the average wage. And in the UK, the mass circulation Sun today features a proud couple disdaining work, and glorying in all the nice stuff tghey have without lifting a finger to work:

A SKIVING couple told last night how they claim £17,680 a year in benefits - and don't even bother looking for work because it would leave them worse off.
Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat.
It is all funded by the taxpayer, yet the couple say they deserve sympathy because they are "trapped".
They even claim they are entitled to their generous handouts because their hard-working parents have been paying tax for years.
The couple, who have a four-month-old daughter Tullulah-Rose, say they can't go out to work as they could not survive on less than their £1,473-a-month benefits.
The pair left school with no qualifications, and say there is no point looking for jobs because they will never be able to earn as much as they get in handouts.
Gina admits: "We could easily get a job but why would we want to work - we would be worse off."
Danny's father, 46, even offered him a job with his bowling alley servicing company - but could not pay him enough.

The Japanese, like the Koreans, the Chinese, and other rising Asian economic powerhouses, still historically remember what real poverty and desperation are. They understand in their gut that survival requires effort, and that breaking this connection can be fatal.  Of course, Japan has had several decades of comparative affluence (if not growth the last 2), so an entitlement culture is growing there. But the East Asian countries rooted in rice agriculture prize hard work, and it shows in their pace of economic development.

The productive part of the American economy understands the virtue of work. But there has been constructed over the past several decades a large subculture of takers, including many who see no particular virtue in work, and nothing wrong with being entitled to the sewat of others' brows. They have been told they are entitled. This is does not work out well in the long run.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/japan_cuts_dole_to_ensure_work_pays_better_than_welfare.html

Kerry's Shocking Revelation

We all "know" that Obama "bravely" worked against Pakistan to capture Osama Bin Laden. Right? Well, not if you listened to the last 90 seconds of John Kerry answering questions from Senator Rand Paul last week:

Said Kerry: "We had intelligence cooperation.; our folks were able to cooperate on the ground in Pakistan. That was one of the ways we were able to get to Osama Bin Laden... I don't think frankly the Pakistanis have gotten credit sufficiently for the fact that they were helpful [in capturing OBL]... It was Pakistan's permissiveness in allowing our people to be there that helped us tie the knots that focused on that, to some degree. Not exclusively obviously [because the radicals would reject it], but to some degree."

I guess to shut up the radicals in Pakistan and to hype Obama's courage at home the story was sold that the U.S. acted unilaterally to take out OBL. This information also explains why the annual aid package continues to be sent to Pakistan despite their "protecting" OBL. They didn't protect him; they only played their cards delicately and safely while Obama and Axelrod were laughing their hats off at the gullible American people.

As for Dr. Shakil Afridi, who is under arrest for helping the United States in the operation, perhaps he helped on his own hand; outside the agreement between the USA-Pakistan intelligence agencies. Or perhaps -- and more cynically -- Pakistani intelligence simply needed a scapegoat they could show to their domestic Islamists.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/kerrys_shocking_revelation.html

Two Good Signs

Last week, which began miserably enough with the defilement of the Bibles of both President Lincoln and Rev. King in support of a political program neither would have tolerated, ended much better than anyone had any right to expect.

As the week wound down, the agenda of our would-be Augustan overlord received two stiff blows from the judiciary. The first was a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that Obama's appointments to the NLRB while claiming that Congress was "in recess" (it wasn't, by any rational measure) were unconstitutional, rendering all actions taken by the Board since that date null and void. The decision throws the Board into chaos, which is exactly where it belongs, since the majority of its members played right along with Obama's stunt with no visible signs of scruples.

The decision was unusually firmly worded, setting rigid conditions for when a recess appointment may be made -- namely, when Congress has adjourned sine die, that is, when it has reached the end of session, and at no other time. Noel Canning goes a long way toward undercutting Obama's Il Ducesque attempts to govern by means of executive decree.

The second case, American Petroleum Institute v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 12-01330 involves that candidate for most-out-of-control government agency (lots of competition there, granted), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA's talented and lovely Lisa Jackson had ordered a number of U.S. refineries, under the threat of heavy fines, to purchase a certain amount of cellulosic biofuels for purposes of blending, despite the fact that this class of synthetic fuel is not commercially available for any amount of money. With that mandate, the administration took a step beyond Orwell. It's as if the IngSoc dictatorship demanded that the masses swear allegiance to Big Brother without telling them the words. The mandate cost refineries nearly $7 million in fines in 2011, an amount predicted to rise to over $8 million for 2012.

The suit, brought by the American Petroleum Institute on behalf of the beleaguered refineries, contended that the EPA had acted beyond its authority. The court agreed, adding that the mandate effectively rewarded biofuel manufacturers for not creating a product, discouraging any efforts to actually initiate production.

The decisions undercut two assumptions that have been taken as Gospel by conservatives since the 2012 election: that Obama is unstoppable, and that there is no force in government that is interested in or capable of trying. Conservatives have forgotten the old adage about the mills of justice. While they may grind slowly, it is given to no man -- not even the One -- to escape them completely. Obama's effort to govern through extraconstitutional decree has suffered two body blows, an outcome that should encourage renewed opposition efforts across the board.

These judicial actions are also symbolic. At what should have been his hour of greatest triumph, with his opponents scattered and the country lying ripe before him, Obama has suffered a pair of pratfalls that everyone but he should have known was coming. Striking as they do to at the very basis of his method of governance, these decisions will cast a chill across the entire spectrum of his "transformative" program. 

Obama has been humiliated by the same American system he was attempting to defy. Separation of powers worked exactly as it was supposed to.

There will be more to come. Avalanches begin with the movement of a single rock. Let this one start here.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/two_good_signs.html

Encounter with a Low-Info Voter

I was engaged in a conversation regarding the future of health care in America when a third person (W) gave her opinion that she was happy with ObamaCare since her son could now get insurance. In New York State the cooperatives will not begin until Oct 1, 2013 for those without any other options. However, her son does not live in New York, where the state has provided Healthy New York insurance to those who qualify. We then had a conversation which I will relate. It demonstrates the severe problem facing our country resulting from the poor educational system we have underwritten for generations: 

I: Why do you like the federal system Obama helped create?

W: My brother could not believe that I voted for Obama. He is a conservative Republican living in California. I am a registered Republican but we needed to do something for those without insurance. After all, Obama cares. What do you expect, I am a social worker and I care and must be liberal.

I: Do you mean that the Republicans don't care?

W: Well I don't know. They supported those greedy people in the health industry.

I: do you think it is greedy to ask for a raise?

W: What?

I: Did you ever get a raise at work?

W: I am not working anymore, since the summer.

I: Do you think it is fair to get a raise?

W: Yes, I deserved a raise when I worked. I was not greedy.

I: Do you think that the hospitals, doctors, nurses and other personnel working in health care are greedy if they get a raise? Do I deserve a raise?

W: Yes, I would say so. But the insurance companies are greedy.

I: When you get a raise, who pays for it?

W: What? I don't know. My boss, I guess.

I: Who is that?

W: My boss.

I: Who did you work for?

W: I worked for the County at the nursing home and before that for a private nursing home.

I: Who do you think paid for your raise?

W: The County.

I: Where do you think they get the money for your raise?

W: I don't know.

I: The taxpayers. That's why the taxes on your home increase. It is why older retired people on fixed incomes can't afford their house and lose it.

W: Oh. But the insurance companies are greedy.

I: Do you think that your insurance is good?

W: I have private insurance and Medicare. I like it but it cost too much and keeps going up.

I: Why do you think that is?

W: Greed on the part of the insurance industry.

I: I know that some people are greedy and make too much, but do you think you should use your insurance when you need it?

W: Yes, that is why I pay for it.

I: Do you think you should be limited from using it too much?

W: No, because it is for those who need it.

I: When you use the insurance more, that increases the utilization rates and increases the cost. The insurance company raises the premium to cover the cost and make a profit. The executives may be paid too much, but then the workers answering the phones are often paid too little. Who should give up their salary? Better, yet, should we bankrupt the insurance company because they charge us more than we want to pay?

W: No, I like my insurance. But the Medicare goes up too much. The Republicans want to cut Medicare.

I: ObamaCare has cuts to Medicare. The cost of health care in America is subsidized by the private insurance and private pay patients since Medicaid and Medicare do not pay the full cost of our system. In addition, many uninsured patients receive care without any payment.

W: Really. You can't get care without insurance.

I: In America you cannot be denied necessary care if you go to an emergency room at the hospital. Accreditation requires that these people get care. The ERs are loaded with people without coverage.

W: Really. I did not know.

I: When you use the medical insurance more, then the cost increases and that means higher premiums. When you do not pay the cost up front, then the utilization rates increase faster, speeding up the insurance premium increases. Insurance companies may not be great, but they pass on the higher costs that we helped create. Add to that the cost of modern high tech medicine and the premiums get higher. Do you want newer technologies?

W: Yes.

I: I guess then you must pay for it. Otherwise, you will have to deny care to people because they are too old or too sick to get better. Obama Care was designed to get us to a single payer system within 10-20 years by destroying the private insurance system which helps pay for Medicare and Medicaid. Eventually we will have a form of Medicaid for everyone.

W: I won't have Medicaid, I have Medicare.

I: Medicare runs a deficit every year, so at some point we won't be able to afford it. When the private insurance system declines, the cost of Medicaid and Medicare will be unaffordable and will not be able to sustain the present health care system. Then your care must be impacted. The government will eventually only be able to afford a form of Medicaid as the costs escalate. Otherwise, they will have to limit Medicare severely. Either way, we will get less care for more money. You will have to wait longer in the waiting room as more people seek care. It takes 10 -15 years to train a physician. We will see more nurses or nurse-practitioners as they cost less to train and are reimbursed at lower rates by insurance companies.

W: Oh.

I: But then I apologize for lecturing to you.

It takes four years of college to train a social worker. A Master's Degree requires another two years. Clearly, most social workers are liberal and have no clue how our health care system is financed. The same can be said of many of our political leaders. They view business people as greedy and uninterested in the public. Of course tax increases are not seen as hurtful to the public by the political left. This is not a rare viewpoint. Equal care may be terrible, but it is fair.

Our high schools have fostered the view that the business sector has little value. They teach that the "robber barons" were finally countered by the brave union workers. It is little wonder that this conversation occurred and that Obama was re-elected. It is time to change our education system and teach honest social studies to young minds. By the time they get to college, it is hopeless. A recently retired and now happy dentist told me that we are part of a noble profession. I wonder whether I will be able to say the same when I retire?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/encounter_with_a_low-info_voter.html