Current Events - February 10, 2013

PJTV: Chris Rock Wants You to Shut Up and Obey the President
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG9FBjUHZAQ

Obama's HS Immigration Speech Cost Taxpayers $520 Per Word

We have a president using taxpayer dollars to make partisan and divisive speeches all over the country. It costs us almost $7M per minute. 

From Palin4America.com:

Just today, President Obama flew from Washington D.C. to Las Vegas to give a speech on immigration reform. Per the Weekly Standard, his trip cost taxpayers a $1.6 million or $182,000 per hour of flight on Air Force One. According to the transcript at the Chicago Sun Times, President Obama’s immigration speech was 3,079 words and applause instances, meaning that President Obama’s speech cost the taxpayers just under $520 per word and applause. Including the instances of applause is being generous to the President, as if those weren’t included, his speech would have cost taxpayers $527 per word.

 The transcript also notes that President Obama’s speech lasted 25 minutes. Using 2012 spending levels as a reference, the federal government spent $170 million during the President’s speech, at a rate of roughly $6.8 million per minute.

http://www.reagancoalition.com/articles/2013/20130204002-obama-immig-cost.html#DZfrXhFbB63JA8pU.99

 Beck: Panetta Testimony Was Cover for Obama
“Now Panetta comes out and says, ‘Oh, well, that’s just from a meeting. We met with him for just a few minutes and we told him and he said, well, you guys handle it.’ I don’t even believe that’s constitutional. Do you? Do you have a ‑‑ I don’t even know if that’s constitutional. ‘You guys handle it.’ He didn’t even ask what assets we have. Nothing. ‘You guys do it.’ And then they left him alone from 5:30 for the rest of the night. And he doesn’t check in.”

“Why would they now make the president look like he wasn’t engaged at all, that he wasn’t a part of this?”
“Remember the president wants to be viewed as a guy who killed Osama Bin Laden. So why would you do that? Why would you make it look like he doesn’t ‑‑ had nothing to do with it?”

“Okay. Here’s why: Because as bad as that is, we’ll play some audio for you here in a minute from Rand Paul. Rand Paul is the first guy that I have heard in the public eye that has said, yes, they were running drugs ‑‑ or guns. I told you that Week 1 when this happened: They’re running guns. Those guns that had just suddenly disappeared and all those weapons of mass destruction, they suddenly disappeared, we were running guns. Later the New York Times reports that, yes, and they found a captain of a ship that was running those guns, and we were part of it.”

“So here’s what happened. This is why this testimony came out yesterday. What is on the horizon about what that ambassador was doing and what our response was is so much worse than the president being involved. So they know that the president is going to get heat and people are going to say, ‘You weren’t involved at all’ So when the real story comes out, he can say, ‘Oh, my gosh.’”

“‘I should have been involved. That’s why they kept me at arm’s‑length. That’s why they told me that they could take care of it and they wanted me out of it. I had nothing to do with this at all.’”

“This is to protect the president from some ‑‑ from another shoe that’s going to fall, and that shoe is going to be bad. And hear me now: This president was involved. He knew. And they are protecting him right now. Do not believe the cover. Because that’s all Panetta’s was yesterday was a coverup, to distance the president from what is going to be exposed in the future.”

http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/02/08/beck-panetta-testimony-was-cover-for-obama/?utm_source=Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-02-08_198663&utm_content=4607856&utm_term=_198663_198671

 

 PK'S NOTE: Everybody makes mistakes, granted, but this isn't the first time she's been wrong on amendments.

Pelosi: "We Avow The First Amendment," "People Have A Right To Have A Gun"

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) confuses the first amendment and the second amendment in an interview with Chris Wallace on FOX News Sunday today.

HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI: I think that you took one piece of it. We're talking about no further sales of assault weapons. What is the justification for an assault weapon? No further sales of those, no further sales of the increased capacity, 30 rounds in a gun. We're re talking about background checks which is very popular, even among gun owners, and, hunters.
We avow the First Amendment. We stand with that and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves in their homes and their jobs, where, and that they -- and the workplace and that they, for recreation and hunting and the rest. So we're not questioning their right to do that. (FOX News Sunday, February 10, 2013)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/02/10/pelosi_confuses_first_amendment_and_second_amendment.html

PK'S NOTE: Agenda anyone? How about honest-to-God stupidity on display?

Too good to check: CNN anchor blames asteroid on global warming

We’ve seen some pretty incredible things blamed on Global Warming over the years, ranging from hurricanes, tornadoes and blizzards to earthquakes and plunging penguin populations. But for your Sunday morning entertainment, one anchor at CNN may have finally set the bar higher than anyone else shall ever manage. Deb Feyerick was caught by the folks at Newsbusters chatting with Bill Nye, “the science guy” and suggesting that an entirely different phenomenon might be pinned on the changing climate.

CNN anchor Deb Feyerick asked Saturday afternoon if an approaching asteroid, which will pass by Earth on February 15, “is an example of, perhaps, global warming?”

Moments earlier, before an ad break, she segued from the Northeast blizzard to a segment with Bill Nye “the science guy,” by pointing to global warming: “Every time we see a storm like this lately, the first question to pop into a lot of people’s minds is whether or not global warming is to blame? I’ll talk to Bill Nye, ‘the science guy,’ about devastating storms and climate change.”

As they come back from the break, she pitches the idea which seems to leave even Bill Nye flummoxed.

Talk about something else that’s falling from the sky and that is an asteroid. What’s coming our way? Is this an effect of, perhaps, of global warming or is this just some meteoric occasion?

I’m not exactly sure what a “meteoric occasion” is or what would qualify as one. At first glance it sounds like some sort of theme party in Manhattan, but then you never really can tell what those folks are up to. Would a flood be either something caused by global warming or a precipitationic occasion? I’m almost afraid to ponder how she might describe frogs falling from the skies. Besides, if Ms. Fayerick had done her homework she would have found that Rachel Maddow already did a thorough investigation and discovered the cause of asteroids… the Tea Party.

In any event, I’ll leave you to have fun with this one.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/02/10/too-good-to-check-cnn-anchor-blames-asteroid-on-global-warming/

PK'S NOTE: I think some people need a reality check. People are losing jobs, unable to pay bills. They're already making higher than the average private sector worker.

Federal employees' union head: Obama pay raise proposal 'simply not enough'

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees says a one-percent increase is "absolutely unconscionable."

The head of the largest federal employee union said Saturday that President Obama's proposal to increase pay for federal employees by 1 percent was "absolutely unconscionable" and "simply not enough."

It is not enough to allow federal employees to make up lost ground from two-plus years of frozen pay. It is not enough to allow workers, most of whom earn very modest salaries ranging from $24,000 to $70,000, to maintain living standards. And it is not enough to send a message with any kind of clarity that the administration values the federal workforce and doesn't believe it should continue to bear an enormously disproportionate share of deficit reduction," David Cox Sr., the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement. 

The White House told labor leaders of the proposed increase in the 2014 fiscal year budget in a phone call late Friday night. That raise would come on top of the half-point pay hike, scheduled to take effect in late March, which has been delayed as part of the "fiscal cliff" deal struck last month.  Federal salaries have been frozen since 2011.

AFGE pledged in its statement to "work with friends in Congress who truly value the federal workforce," a signal that the union will likely lobby liberal members of Congress to oppose the president's budget.

Other union leaders have also voiced concern over the president's proposed pay raise, saying that the minimal increase over three years does little to compensate for the rising cost of living.

“While the president’s proposal for a 1 percent pay increase for federal workers in 2014 is better than a pay freeze, I don’t feel like jumping and shouting for joy,” Carl Goldman, executive director of the AFSCME Council 26 told Government Executive.

“There are a number of unanswered questions concerning the proposal: Will there also be locality pay increases that reflect the higher cost of living in many areas? Will there be a raise in federal employees’ contributions to the health insurance program, which could have the net effect of a pay cut? It is difficult to know exactly how to react until these and similar questions are answered," he said.

Still, other labor groups applauded the president's budget request.

“After all that federal workers have sacrificed the past three years, they have earned a raise,” William R. Dougan, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, told CNN. “I repeat, they have earned a raise. We are pleased to see the president take a bold stance and advocate for this badly-needed pay adjustment."

Despite the president's request for a raise, the likelihood that federal workers see an actual increase is very much in doubt. Congressional Republicans are unlikely to support the president's budget, and voted earlier this year to freeze the salaries of lawmakers and federal employees.

In a statement in January, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) characterized Obama's push for a pay increase as "not necessary to retain talented employees and just wastes taxpayer money.”

“Federal employees have continued to receive promotions and within-grade pay increases over the past few years of the supposed ‘pay freeze,’ and voluntary separations from the federal government are near all-time lows,” he said.

 http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/282089-union-head-complains-obama-pay-raise-proposal-not-enough#ixzz2KWcRXwg5

PK'S NOTE: I need to rename this blog The Insane Times We Live In. Where to begin? Where has this Representative been the past few years with the thousands of people across the country losing jobs because their businesses closed or had to cut back? The USPO has been wasting billions of dollars for decades. A guy we know works for the USPO, being a federal job (and union) they have overly high wages, company paid for jackets, over-staffed shifts, guaranteed hours, etc. But THIS is racist and sexist? These words are so overused, what do they even mean anymore? And apparently white people don't have jobs there. When oh when will get past the color of somebody's skin and just have human beings? And the kicker: "which is my idea" unsurprisingly is to add more bureaucracy to the problem. Un-freakin'- believable. And finally, let those able to retire, retire. The pension is one of the biggest problems, but let's pay out more AND give "incentives."  

Maryland Democrat: Postal Service cutting Saturday delivery racist, sexist

According to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md), the U.S. Postal Service's decision to end Saturday delivery will disproportionally hurt women and minorities, The Hill reported Saturday.

"You're talking about just this reduction … from six days to five days will cut anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 employees. And with regard to Asian, African-Americans, and Hispanics, they comprise about 40 percent of the Postal Service employees," he told MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry on Friday.

"So it's logical to believe if they were to lose that 30,000 jobs, easily 40 percent of them would be African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans," he added. Cummings went on to say that about 40 percent of postal workers are female, asserting that a number of those are single mothers.

"So you have a lot of women, many of whom are single women — head of household, and they depend upon that decent wage, decent working conditions and benefits to take care of their families," he added. "So, yes, it would have a devastating effect in an economy that is already very, very fragile."

Earlier this week, the Postal Service said that it would end Saturday home delivery in an effort to save $2 billion in costs. The Hill says that a Senate bill forestalling the end of Saturday deliveries for at least two years was held up in the House.


The service lost $15.9 billion last year, partly due to a requirement to pay $5.5 billion in health benefits to future retirees. Last August, the Huffington Post said the Postal Service lost $57 million per day in the third quarter of 2012, for a total of $5.2 billion, most of which was due to increased expenses for future retiree health benefits.


"We have simply reached the point that we must conserve cash," said Thurgood Marshall Jr., chairman of the Postal Service's board of governors.


Cummings admitted that some downsizing was needed, but said that "there are all kinds of ways to achieve this without necessarily going through drastic measures."


"Basically, what the Congress needs to do is do a comprehensive bill whereby we have what we call an innovation officer, which is my idea. And that person would keep the Post Office as cutting edge of innovation and bringing in new ways to of making money," he said.


The Maryland Democrat also suggested downsizing the workforce "with compassion."


"Keep in mind we have more than 100,000 people that are right now eligible to retire. And what we have to do now is make sure that they have a decent parachute to land. In other words, to give them some incentive money so they can go ahead and retire, and so that we can right-size the Post Office," he added.

http://www.examiner.com/article/maryland-democrat-postal-service-cutting-saturday-delivery-racist-sexist

Over-furnished and Underfunded

At a time when Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is proposing $1.9 billion in new taxes to help close the commonwealth’s fiscal shortfalls, the state somehow found $8 million to spend on furniture in FY 2012 alone.

You read that right – furniture. Things upon which people and objects sit.

In one instance, the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy spent $16,645 for a set of 78 chairs, citing “safety reasons” – while allowing over half of them to remain unused, gathering dust in storage. The supposedly ‘dangerous’ chairs they were intended to replace were quietly moved to other departments.
At a time when Massachusetts civil servants are struggling to provide essential services and Massachusetts taxpayers are facing burdensome new rates, million-dollar furniture budgets are indicative of a larger problem.

As State Rep. George Peterson puts it, “It all comes down to oversight. Somebody’s not watching where the dollars are going”.

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/wednesday-waste-over-furnished-and-underfunded/#.URfy8Gc0V8E

PK'S NOTE: And they have to create a pseudo-crisis/pseudo-drama of the weather especially if it falls upon the east coast. The nation has become a bunch of panicking wimps/victims who need a nanny-state to take care of them.

Freedom of the Press-Control

While teaching on Aristotle in my ethics class last week, I noted that he was a “teleologist.” A teleologist is simply one who thinks that everything in the world has an essential purpose that makes it the kind of thing that it is. This is what most people held up until the advent of modern science.

An astute student then attempted to tie Aristotle’s analysis into the current debate over the Second Amendment. He observed that those who favor ever more oppressive restrictions on the Second Amendment—the proponents of “gun control”—sound very much like teleologists when it comes to guns. Guns kill, we are told. This is their purpose.

That cars, knives, fists, and many other things other than guns also kill is neither here nor there for Second Amendment deniers. Cars, say, aren’t meant to kill. Guns are.

My student was correct. When it comes to guns, the enemies of the Second Amendment do indeed speak as if they were teleologists. Forget that when it comes to almost everything else, their teleology goes out the window.

But let’s play along and see whether these cafeteria teleologists are willing to follow their reasoning to its logical term.

The purpose of a free press is to safeguard our liberty against corruption. Those who rely upon the First Amendment to peddle their wares in the media can constitutionally justify their existence by alluding to this purpose. Without our media “watchdogs,” we are lead to think, those in power—those in government, particularly—could all too easily trample our liberties under foot.

Freedom of the press, we are told, is the always precarious line separating liberty from tyranny, citizens from subjects or slaves.

If this is so, however, then it is not unreasonable to think that if those in the media are not doing their job, if they are not serving as watchdogs, then maybe they should no longer be permitted to hide behind the First Amendment.

And they are not doing their job.

Journalists and pundits in publishing and broadcasting far too often protect, not the liberties that government office holders are busy away eroding, but the government office holders themselves. In exchange for access to politicians, the tireless champions of the press’s sacred right to freedom of speech reduce themselves to public relations tools for these same politicians.

So, this being the case, we should ask of the First Amendment absolutists in the media: Do they really need their freedom of speech?

If we are in turn accused of wanting to repeal the First Amendment, or at least that part of it that guarantees freedom of the press, we should deny the charge: No one is talking repeal here, we must insist. Rather, we are only talking about “common sense” restrictions or regulations.

Those in the press can maintain their freedom of speech—but only if they really need it. That is, if they are exposing or otherwise challenging those in government—and not acting as their propagandists—then and only then should they be free to continue doing so. However, freedom of the press will not extend to those media figures intent upon serving as apologists for the powerful.

To make sure that we apply the First Amendment in a “common sense” way, those who own and manage media organizations—and possibly those in their employment—will be required to submit their coverage of the events and people of the day every so often to a bi-partisan, independent Congressional commission.

 
If it is established that their networks and publications have taken an insufficiently adversarial stance toward the government, then a penalty will be leveled. This is what will happen the first time around. If it is subsequently discovered that those who are supposed to be pit bulls are actually poodles, then their business will be extinguished.

The First Amendment is not violated here, we can remind our critics. Quite the contrary, in fact, for these “common sense” restrictions will preserve and strengthen it. They will make sure that its purpose is fulfilled.

Somehow, I doubt very much that those who are all too eager to apply these arguments to the Second Amendment will be so eager to accept them when it comes to the First Amendment.

http://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2013/02/10/freedom-of-the-presscontrol-n1507375/page/full/ 

A Perfect Contrast

Contrast can bring clarity. And I do not think that the two warring political ideologies in America have never been personified, juxtaposed, and as clearly defined as the contrast we witnessed at this week's National Prayer Breakfast. 

Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famed director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, was given the unique opportunity to share his beliefs before a distinguished audience, including President Barack Obama. He did not waste the opportunity, and courageously expressed his beliefs with conviction, contrary though they are to those of the president.

Much has been made of Dr. Carson's alternative solution to make healthcare more efficient:

Here's my solution: When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record, and a health savings account to which money can be contributed - pretax -- from the time you're born 'til the time you die. When you die, you pass it on to your family members, so that when you're 85 years old and you got six diseases, you're not trying to spend up everything. You're happy to pass it on and there's nobody talking about death panels.

Number one. And also, for the people who were indigent who don't have any money we can make contributions to their HSA every month because we already have this huge pot of money. Instead of sending it to some huge bureaucracy, let's put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own healthcare.

We must admit -- there is something amazing about this. In two paragraphs, Ben Carson has offered a free market solution to create competition and reduce healthcare costs that is feasible, understandable, and compassionate. (And one that has already been tested -- it is very similar to the system used in Singapore. ) Its relative simplicity alone stands in stark contrast to Obama's healthcare solution pitch, the mechanics of which were so confusing that after two years of explaining it, Democrats entreated Americans to not even try to understand it. Just accept it and see what happens, as Nancy Pelosi suggested.

But to focus on the contrast between their healthcare approaches alone is to miss the deeper contrast on display. That is, the contrast between Dr. Ben Carson and Barack Obama, the ideologies that have driven their life's work, and the results of that work.

Years ago, I remember my mother asking if I had ever heard of Dr. Ben Carson. She explained that he was a pioneer in neurological medicine, and that he had an amazing and inspiring story. She had a copy of Dr. Carson's book, Gifted Hands, and began to read passages that she had selected. I was captivated, committed to reading more about him, and later watched the film of the same title starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. Indeed, his story is one of the most amazing and inspiring I'd ever heard, from his unique upbringing to his design of a groundbreaking procedure in 1987 which successfully separated two cranially conjoined twin babies. His life, his work, is nothing short of miraculous.

Dr. Ben Carson was one of two sons born to Sonya Carson, a single mother who had married Ben's father at thirteen years of age. Ben's father was a bigamist, and after learning of his other family, Sonya resolved to raise her two sons alone. Though in poverty, and though she herself had no formal education beyond third grade, she insisted that her sons devote diligent efforts to their education. She required that the boys read books from the public library each week and write lengthy reports for her (which she would review for them to support their effort, despite being unable to read). She worked hard to support them financially, in staunch determination that she would not be a victim, and neither would her children. In short, the Carson family is a testament to personal perseverance and the success that follows.

One story of Dr. Carson's childhood that particularly stood out to me is an instance where he, an admittedly angry child, attempted to stab his friend in the stomach, only to have the blade of the knife blocked and broken by the other child's belt buckle. This was a moment that shaped his worldview thereafter, and he has expressed a belief that it was divine intervention. And I could not help but agree. Could it be anything but Providence that this good fortune, without which he may have been incarcerated and set on a different path, became the good fortune of the world, allowing Dr. Carson to touch and save so many lives?

Knowing of his background, it came as no surprise when I reviewed the entire speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that nearly everything Ben Carson said was a perfect contradiction of the values expressed by Barack Obama.

Dr. Carson began his speech, even as he shared the stage with the world's most renowned spokesman for political correctness, by decrying political correctness as a "dangerous" concept. He argued that political correctness acts as a "muzzle," keeping people from "discussing important issues while the fabric of their society is being changed," even as the architect of that "change" sat just a few feet to his right.

He related the admirable tale of his mother's unwillingness to be a victim, as he was in the presence of our president who unequivocally demands that women in such circumstances be viewed and treated as such. Dr. Carson told the audience about his revelation that poverty is a "temporary" condition, one which people could personally alter. And he said this in the presence of a man whose political ideology is founded upon the notion that poverty is an institutionally applied condition, and that it is the responsibility of society, not the individual, to alter that condition.

Dr. Carson went on to destroy the notion of the progressive income tax, arguing that "God has given us a system" that would work. He argued that because God requires tithing regardless of outcome:

There must be something inherently fair in proportionality. If you make ten billion dollars, you put in one billion. If you make ten dollars, you put in one. Of course you gotta get rid of the loopholes. [Laughter] But, now some people say, "Well that's not fair, because it doesn't hurt the guy who made ten billion dollars as much as the guy who made ten." Where does it say you have to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot!

Is it possible to say anything more contrary to Barack Obama's insistence on the moral imperative to take disproportionately more from the wealthy to redistribute among the collective?

And this is where the contrast between the two men becomes most apparent. Barack Obama rejects the notion of fairness presented by God, because his devotion to God, if it was ever a driving motivation in his life, has become supplanted by his devotion to the government administration of fairness. That much is abundantly clear. Consider that Dr. Carson carries himself with a pious humility, crediting God and family for giving him the strength of will to succeed. President Obama, whose name would rarely collide with humility in a sentence, insists that the government is responsible for people's success.

The revelation here is not that Barack Obama is a PC thug who intends to transform the fabric of America, or that he makes victims of women rather than empowering them, or that he subscribes to a Marxist's notion of fairness by coercion, or that his healthcare solution is a muddled, hopeless mess sold on Utopian dreams. We already knew all that.

No, the real revelation is that at this year's prayer breakfast, so often only a pious ritual, his exact opposite stood and spoke in sharp contrast to our president. And Dr. Ben Carson owns a legacy as an innovative pioneer of his field and philanthropist whose life and work have personally touched, and even saved, countless others. Barack Obama, on the other hand, despite all his celebrity, owns a legacy that amounts to little more than stirring fear and outrage on the premise that others are not doing enough to help people.

Which ideology has produced the more effective, positive outcome?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/02/a_perfect_contrast.html#ixzz2KWpNJnpp

Also Reads

Against the Ghetto Plantation

"Imagine this man, Frederick Douglass, walking the slums of Chicago or Detroit, and witnessing the desolation of its peoples. In My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass laments that "Slavery does away with fathers, as it does with families." (pg. 51) To beget more wealth, women were raped by their masters who, without remorse, sold their kin. Destruction of the family continues today, and has been expanded to the whole people, regardless of their origins. State overseers reward single women with welfare benefits for every child they bear, so long as no father is in the home. Douglass warned, "Make a man a slave, and you rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability." (Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom: Part I -- Life as a Slave, pg. 149)"

Killer Dorner's Supporters Are Par for the Left's Course

"This is apparent in much of what they do, and the support that murdering fugitive Christopher Dorner is receiving from the left is a good example.  It doesn't matter that Dorner is clearly an unhinged man blaming others for his own failures; it doesn't matter that he shot innocent people; it doesn't matter that the only sin of one of those innocents, Monica Quan, was being the daughter of a man who Dorner thought didn't represent him adequately during an LAPD review process, and that another's only sin was agreeing to become Quan's fiancé.  None of this matters, because Dorner possesses all the qualifications of a leftist zero hero: he's pro-gun control, admires other zeroes such as Barack Obama and Piers Morgan, and is anti-cop."

Getting Past Liberal Bullying: Conservatism Post-2012

'Shapiro is hopeful that conservatives will see that in the past, they have been operating under a false assumption that the status quo is beneficial.  "We need to go into the inner cities as well as to talk to all races, religions, and sexes.  It is emotions that win people; policies do not.  We should be defining our opponent.  We can no longer be the pathetic girl who gets dumped by the guy and sits around the house asking, 'What's wrong with me?'  We need to change from thinking we can have civil dialogue with people who want to destroy us.  We have to stop being and acting like losers.  No wonder people, the younger generation especially, do not want to be a part of our movement.  People are attracted to passion."'